A Voyage Round My Father

by John Mortimer

  BOY. I can’t feel your hand, Bill.

  REIGATE. I can’t see you, Harry.

  BOY. I’m cold …

  REIGATE. I’m afraid we’ll never see England again.

  BOY. What’s the matter with us, Bill?

  REIGATE (beginning to laugh). We’re dead, old fellow. Can’t you understand? We’re both of us – dead!

  They are both overcome with laughter and collapse in hoots and giggles. Their green flashlights go out; and the light is concentrated on the FATHER on the sofa while the MOTHER supervises the two boys clearing away the barbed wire, dressing-up box, etc. During the following speech, they all go off with these things, leaving the FATHER alone on the stage.

  FATHER (laughing). Dead … how killing! (Serious.) You know. I didn’t want to be dead. I never wanted that. When I got married – at Saffron Walden, they were just about to pack me off to France. Bands. Troop ships. Flowers thrown at you … and dead in a fortnight. I didn’t want anything to do with it … And then, the day before we were due to go my old Major drew me aside and he said, ‘You’ve just got married old fellow. No particular sense in being dead!’ He’d found me a post in the Inland Waterways! That’s my advice to you, if they look like giving us war. Get yourself a job in the Inland Waterways …

  The light fades on the FATHER upstage and is concentrated on REIGATE and the BOY as they enter upstage in school uniform, walking side by side. As they start to speak, the FATHER gets up, tapping his way with his stick, leaves the stage.

  REIGATE. Your parents seem to be getting on quite well.

  BOY. They pretend – for me.

  REIGATE. Your mother didn’t seem to drink very much either.

  BOY. Not till the evenings.

  Light increases upstage where JAPHET enters with a portable gramophone which he puts down on a table and puts on a record.

  REIGATE. That was good advice your father gave us – about the Inland Waterways …

  BOY. Yes.

  REIGATE. You know? I’ll tell you something about your father …

  BOY. What?

  REIGATE. He can’t see … He’s blind, isn’t he?

  SON (grown up, to the audience). It was a question our family never asked. Naturally I didn’t answer it.

  Pause. The SON (as a boy) says nothing. JAPHET’s record starts to play ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. The BOY turns sharply away from REIGATE and moves towards JAPHET. JAPHET holds up his arms and he and the BOY silently start to dance together to ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. REIGATE looks after the son, shrugs his shoulders, then crosses the stage and goes.

  JAPHET. Slow, quick, slow. Slow, quick, slow. Chassis! No – chassis! Look! (They dance a few more bars together, awkwardly, at arm’s length.) How’re you going to get through life if you can’t do the slow foxtrot … ? That’s the trouble with education. It never teaches you anything worth knowing. Half the boys here’ve got no idea of tying their ties, let alone tango … Sorry you’re leaving … ?

  BOY. Not altogether …

  The music stops. JAPHET takes off the record, studies it, embarrassed.

  JAPHET. I’m leaving too. Perhaps you heard … ?

  BOY. Yes, sir, I know. Lydia left yesterday. We had to make our own beds this morning.

  JAPHET. Lydia’s left. I’ve resigned. So has the poor old King.

  BOY. Him as well … ?

  JAPHET. He broadcast this afternoon. We heard it on Noah’s radiogram. The King has given up everything for love. I told you we had a lot in common …

  Pause.

  Take my advice. Don’t give up everything for love …

  BOY. No, sir.

  JAPHET. It’s just not on – that’s all. Just simply not on …

  BOY. You coming to Noah’s talk, sir? It’s for all of us leavers.

  JAPHET. The one where he tells you the facts of life … ?

  BOY. I think that’s the one.

  JAPHET. No. I shall stay away. I’ve heard quite enough about them to be going on with …

  The HEADMASTER appears downstage, wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches and smoking a pipe. REIGATE comes in and sits on the floor gazing up at him respectfully. JAPHET, upstage, packs up his gramophone and goes. The BOY moves upstage.

  HEADMASTER. You are the leavers! In a month or two you will go on to Great Public Schools, away from this warm cosy little establishment. (The BOY arrives and stands and knocks.) Come in. You’re disturbing everybody. Shut the door, boy. Most terrible draught. (The BOY moves in and sits down next to REIGATE.) Ah now … Before I forget, Mrs Noah and I will be pleased to see you all to tea on Sunday. A trifling matter of anchovy paste sandwiches! Do you hear that, eh Reigate? All come with clean fingernails, no boy to put butter on his hair.

  REIGATE. Please, sir?

  HEADMASTER. Yes, Reigate.

  REIGATE. Why aren’t we to put butter on our hair?

  HEADMASTER. Ah! Good question. I’m glad you asked me that! We had that trouble with the native regiments. They licked down their hair with butter. It went rancid in the hot weather. Unpleasant odour on parade. There’s no law against a drop of water on the comb. Now … What was I going to tell you? Ah! I was warning you about dreams. You’ll have them. Oh, certainly you’ll have them. And in the morning you may feel like saying to yourselves, ‘You rotter! To have a dream like that!’ Well, you can’t help it. That’s all. You simply can’t help them. Not dreams. If you’re awake of course, you can do something about it. You can change into a pair of shorts and go for a run across country. Or you can get into a bath, and turn on the cold tap. You can quite easily do that. Your housemaster will understand. He’ll understand if you should’ve been up to a French lesson, or Matins or some such thing. Simply say, Sir, I had to have a bath, or a run, or whatever it is. Just say to Mr Raffles, or Humphrey Stiggler, or Percy Parr, just say, Mr Parr, or Mr Raffles, dependant on which school you’re at of course, this is what I felt the need to do. He’ll understand perfectly. Another thing! Simply this. When sleeping always lie on the right side. Not on the face, for obvious reasons. Not on the back. Brings on dreams. Not on the left side. Stops the heart. Just the right side … all the time. Now then, to the most serious problems you’re likely to run up against. Friends. You may find that some boy from another class, or a house even, comes up to you and says, ‘Let’s be friends’ or even offers you a slice of cake. That’s a very simple one, a perfectly simple one to deal with. Just say loudly, ‘I’m going straight to tell the housemaster.’ Straight away. No hesitation about it. Remember, the only real drawback to our Great Public School system is unsolicited cake – Have you got that very clear? Go straight and tell the Housemaster.

  BOY and REIGATE get up, stretch and wander off, REIGATE playing with the yo-yo which he gets out of his pocket.

  REIGATE. Do you have dreams?

  BOY. Not very much …

  REIGATE. I once dreamt about fish.

  BOY. What?

  REIGATE. All that fish. You know the fish we had on Sunday nights. That we put down the loo. I dreamt it came swimming back at us. I dreamt it all swam back in shoals, and invaded the school.

  BOY. Did you feel bad? About dreaming that, I mean.

  REIGATE. I suppose so.

  BOY. That must’ve been what he meant.

  They go. Upstage lit, the FATHER and MOTHER are sitting on two garden chairs, beside a tea trolley. An empty chair beside them. Downstage the SON (grown up) speaks to the audience; he is putting on a school blazer and knitting a silk scarf round his neck.

  SON (grown up). It wasn’t until later that I realized the headmaster had been trying to advise us on a subject my father often brought up unexpectedly, in the middle of tea.

  The SON (as a boy) enters upstage, sits in the empty chair beside his FATHER and MOTHER, takes a biscuit, lounges, chewing it as the MOTHER pours tea. Pause, before the FATHER speaks.

  FATHER. Sex! It’s been greatly over-rated by the poets …

  MOTHER. Would you like your biscuit
now, dear? (She puts a biscuit beside him on a plate.)

  FATHER. I never had many mistresses with thighs like white marble. Is the tea pot exhausted?

  MOTHER. I’m putting some more hot water in now.

  The MOTHER continues pouring tea. The meal goes on.

  SON (grown up, to the audience). What did he mean? That he’d had many mistresses without especially marmoreal thighs – or few mistresses of any sort?

  FATHER (suddenly). ‘Change in a trice

  The lilies and languors of virtue

  For the roses and raptures of vice!’

  Where’s my bloody biscuit … ?

  MOTHER. I put it beside you, dear.

  FATHER. ‘From their lips have thy lips taken fever?

  Is the breath of them hot in thy hair … ?’

  SON (grown up, to the audience). What did he know of the sharp uncertainties of love?

  The SON (grown up) turns and moves upstage. He taps the BOY on the shoulder and motions him to move. The BOY gets up reluctantly and leaves the stage, chewing his biscuit. The SON (grown up) takes his chair and sits, the MOTHER hands him a cup of tea.

  FATHER (suddenly laughing). ‘Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?’ How perfectly revolting it sounds! Sex is pretty uphill work, if you want my opinion.

  SON. I don’t agree.

  FATHER. What?

  SON. I don’t happen to agree.

  FATHER. Who’s that?

  MOTHER. It’s the boy. (She looks at him, gives a small laugh.)

  Whatever have you got on?

  FATHER. The boy’s been very quiet lately.

  MOTHER. He’s wearing my old scarf from Liberty’s. Tied as a cravat.

  FATHER. A cravat eh? How killing! (Pause.) Is that what it is? Do you have your own thoughts?

  SON. I don’t think sex has been over-rated exactly.

  FATHER. I’ll tell you a story. A lover, a wife and an angry husband …

  MOTHER (calm). Not that one, dear. (To the SON.) You’ll have some tea?

  FATHER. Whyever not?

  MOTHER. It’s not very suitable. (To the SON, vaguely.) Do you like sugar? I always forget.

  SON. No thanks.

  FATHER. The husband returns and discovers all! He summons the lover into the dining room. The wife waits, trembling, terrified, for the sounds of fighting, the smashing of crockery. Silence. She tiptoes down the stairs. There’s the husband and the lover side by side at the table, perfectly contented, drinking light ale. Suddenly she bursts out at both of them – ‘You ungrateful brutes!’ They both listen as the door slams after her. They open another bottle of light ale. ‘Ungrateful brutes!’ That was the expression she used!

  Pause. The SON looks at him.

  SON. Did that really happen?

  FATHER. What?

  SON. Did that ever really happen?

  Pause.

  FATHER. Sex! The whole business has been over-estimated by the poets.

  The SON looks at his watch, gets up, kisses his MOTHER and moves downstage. He takes a cigarette case out of his inside blazer pocket and lights a cigarette with careless expertise. He moves to a downstage corner where, separately and pinkly lit, two women enter smoking through holders. They are MISS COX, small and fluffy, nursing a poodle, and MISS BAKER, in trousers and a beret. Furniture set in their area includes a drawing by Cocteau of a sailor, and a white macaw in a cage. Somewhere a portable radio is softly playing ‘La Vie en Rose’ as MISS BAKER hands pink drinks to MISS COX and the SON.

  Upstage the FATHER and the MOTHER continue to talk.

  FATHER. Where’s the boy?

  MOTHER. Gone out. He’s paying a call.

  FATHER (incredulous). Gone out – as a visitor?

  MOTHER. Yes. To tea. With Miss Baker and Miss Cox.

  FATHER. Who are they?

  MOTHER. They run the new book shop. By the station. Apparently he went in to buy a book and they asked him round to tea – as a visitor. I expect that’s the notion behind his extraordinary cravat.

  FATHER. Not bringing them back here, is he?

  MOTHER. He didn’t say so.

  FATHER. If he does, I shall lie doggo! I shall go to earth, in the West Copse. I shall hide myself … I promise you …

  MOTHER. No, he didn’t say he was bringing them back here …

  FATHER. Well, I shall disappear without a trace if he does.

  He feels for his stick, struggles to his feet. The MOTHER stands up and takes his arm.

  Doesn’t he know? We dread visitors. (Pause.) Poor boy, to have to go out. He’ll miss the evening foray after earwigs.

  The MOTHER and the FATHER walk off together.

  MISS COX. I could’ve kissed you when you came in to our shop.

  SON. Could you really?

  MISS BAKER. And actually bought a book!

  MISS COX. Most people come in for pamphlets. A hundred things to do with dried egg – published by the Ministry of Food …

  The radio stops playing ‘La Vie en Rose’. A BBC ANNOUNCER speaks cheerily.

  ANNOUNCER’S VOICE. ‘What do I do if I come across German or Italian broadcasts when tuning my wireless? I say to myself: “Now this blighter wants me to listen to him. Am I going to do what this blighter wants?” ’

  MISS BAKER (switches the radio off). We’ll have to give up that shop.

  SON. Why will you?

  MISS COX. Bill’s going to be called up.

  SON. Who’s Bill?

  MISS BAKER I’m Bill. (She picks up a bit of bread and butter and waves it at MISS COX.) She’s Daphne … (She goes to the macaw’s cage, prods a piece of bread and butter through the cage bars.) … This bloody bird gets half my butter ration …

  MISS COX. They’re putting Bill on the land …

  MISS BAKER. I’ll probably ruin the crops.

  MISS COX. I’ll send you off in the morning darling … with a meat pie and a little bottle of cold tea.

  MISS BAKER. Thank you very much!

  MISS COX. It’s the war, Bill! We all have to make sacrifices. (To SON.) Bill doesn’t much care for this war. We were more keen on the war in Spain.

  MISS BAKER. And in the evenings, I suppose you’ll wash me down in front of the fire. (To the macaw.) Eat up, Miss Garbo!

  MISS COX. Nonsense. They’re not sending you down the mines! (To the SON.) All our friends were awfully keen on the war in Spain; Stephen Spender and all that jolly collection … I expect you’ll go into the Fire Service … ?

  SON. Why?

  MISS COX. All our friends go into the Fire Service.

  MISS BAKER. They get a lot of time for writing, waiting about between fires …

  SON. My father says I should avoid the temptation to do anything heroic …

  Change of light, projection of a darker garden upstage. The MOTHER comes in, leading the FATHER, carrying his camp stool and a bucket. She sits him down in front of a plant with inverted flower pots on a stick around it. Then she leaves him. He begins to feel for the pots and empty them in the bucket.

  MISS COX. We’ve never actually met your father …

  MISS BAKER. We looked over the gate one evening and shouted – but he was busy in the garden doing something.

  SON. Probably the earwigs.

  MISS BAKER. What?

  SON. He drowns the earwigs every night.

  MISS COX. How most extraordinary …

  She gets up and starts putting things back on the tea tray.

  The Fire Service! That’s where you’ll end up. It gives everyone far more time to write.

  MISS BAKER. Is that what you’re going to be then – a writer?

  Pause. Change of light. The light fades on MISS COX and MISS BAKER’S part of the stage, and increases on the FATHER as the SON leaves the two ladies, and walks across to join the FATHER. On his way he collects a camp stool and puts it up and sits beside the FATHER. He starts to help him with the earwig traps, taking off the inverted flower pots and emptying the earwigs that have gone in there for warmth and shel
ter, into the bucket of water to drown miserably. MISS BAKER and MISS COX go.

  FATHER. Is that you?

  SON. Yes, it’s me.

  FATHER. What’re you doing?

  SON. Helping you.

  FATHER. Consider the persistence of the earwig! Each afternoon, it feasts on the dahlia blooms. Each night it crawls into our flower pots to sleep. Each morning, we empty the flower pots and drown the earwig … but still they come! Nature’s remorseless.

  SON. I may be a writer …

  FATHER. If we did this for one million years all over the world, could we make some small dent in the pattern of evolution? Would we produce an earwig that could swim? (Pause.) You’d be better off in the Law …

  SON. I’d like to write …

  FATHER. You’ll have plenty of spare time! My first five years in Chambers, I did nothing but The Times crossword puzzle. Besides which, if you were only a writer, who would you rub shoulders with? (With contempt.) Other writers? You’ll be far better off in the Law.

  SON. I don’t know …

  FATHER. No brilliance is needed in the Law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean fingernails. Another thing, if you were a writer, think of your poor, unfortunate wife …

  SON. What?

  FATHER. She’d have you at home every day! In carpet slippers … Drinking tea and stumped for words! You’d be far better off down the tube each morning, and off to the Law Courts … How many have we bagged today?

  SON (looking down into the bucket). About a hundred.

  FATHER. A moderate bag, I’d say. Merely moderate. You know, the law of husband and wife might seem idiotic at first sight. But when you get to know it, you’ll find it can exercise a vague medieval charm. Learn a little Law, won’t you? Just to please me …