A Voyage Round My Father

by John Mortimer

  TONY. In my humble opinion there are very few responsibilities involved in a glass of beer.

  ARTHUR. There are responsibilities in everything, running a school, getting married, living at all. That’s what we’ve got to tell Caroline. She’s got to have faith in something bigger than herself.

  LILY. Caroline’s a woman now. Isn’t that right, Tony? Didn’t you say that?

  TONY. Almost a woman, I should say.

  LILY. Then there are things only a woman can tell her?

  ARTHUR. There are bigger things in life than knitting patterns and … bottling fruit.

  I mean there are things a person can sacrifice himself for. The side. The school. The right comrades, sweating at the oar.

  TONY. There speaks the cox of the West Woolwich rowing club.

  ARTHUR. Will you mock everything Peters?

  TONY. The small man yelling through a paper megaphone while the comrades lug themselves to death at forty from fatty degeneration of the heart.

  ARTHUR. Is nothing to be sacred?

  TONY. There are better ways of getting heart failure.

  ARTHUR. It all comes down to that.

  TONY. Caroline’s young. Every day she should collect some small pleasure, to keep her warm when the years begin to empty out. She should try everything, and not mind making mistakes. When she reaches our age it won’t be her mistakes she’ll regret …

  ARTHUR. What are you telling her?

  TONY. When I remember those girls at Maidenhead, their thumbs up, their faces smiling, doing the Lambeth Walk … It’s not the ones I got away for the weekend I regret. It’s the ones I never had the courage to ask.

  ARTHUR. I was trying to give Caroline something to believe in, and you will everlastingly chip in with your unsavoury reminiscences …

  TONY. Headmaster, are we attempting too much? Suppose we just give her some accurate information. Such as … where Gibraltar is.

  ARTHUR. Gibraltar?

  TONY. Yes. Go on. Tell her.

  ARTHUR. At the bottom of Spain.

  TONY. The bottom?

  ARTHUR. Coming round the corner. Cadiz on the right.

  TONY. You mean the right?

  ARTHUR. The left then. Malaga on the right. Do I mean the left?

  TONY. Headmaster. Are you sure you have any information to transfer?

  ARTHUR. All right Peters. (Getting up.) You’ve managed it. You’ve cast a blight. You’ve had your mockery. You’ve sneered at the most respected club on the river. You’ve spoiled the birthday for me now. I’m not staying. It’s no use beseeching.

  TONY. But Headmaster.

  ARTHUR. You’ve rubbed the bloom off the birthday for me. I’m leaving you two together. Remember – a child is watching.

  He goes out slamming the door to the bedrooms.

  LILY. He’s gone.

  TONY. Yes.

  CAROLINE sighs and sits down in the basket chair.

  TONY. If only he wouldn’t take it as such a personal matter. It’s not my fault where they put Gibraltar. (He picks up the ukelele and tunes it.)

  LILY. Ssh. Caroline’s expecting a song.

  TONY. An old one …

  LILY. That Turk and the extraordinary Russian?

  TONY (singing).

  ‘Oh the sons of the prophet are hardy and bold

  And quite unaccustomed to fear,

  But the greatest by far

  In the courts of the Shah –

  Was Abdul the Bul Bul Emir.’

  LILY. Of course Caroline adores this one …

  TONY. ‘If they wanted a man to encourage the van or shout …’

  LILY (shouts). ‘Atta boy.’

  TONY (singing).

  ‘In the rear

  Without any doubt

  They always sent out …’

  Damn. I almost forgot. I owe the pub for those whiffs. I’m duty bound to slip back.

  LILY. Oh Tony.

  TONY. They were an expensive gesture …

  LILY. Have a look in that box. The egg money …

  TONY finds five shillings in a box on the mantelpiece. Pockets it in triumph.

  LILY. Must you go tonight?

  TONY (dramatic voice stifling sobs, tough American accent). I’m only a small guy, not very brave. I guess this is just one of the things that comes to a small guy and well, he’s just got to go through with it if he ever wants to be able to shake his own hand again this side of the Great River. Maybe if I go through with this Lily, hundreds of little guys all over the world are going to be safe to shake their own hands and look themselves in the whites of their eyes. Maybe if I don’t they won’t. Kinda hard to tell. (Looks out of the French window.) It’s just about sun-up time. Guess Arthur Loudon’s boys are sawing off their shot guns ’bout now down there in the alfafa. So long folks. If ma sobers up tell her Goodbye. Let’s hit the trail now. Don’t forget the empties. (He hitches up his trousers, picks up the string bag of empties and lurches out of the French window.)

  LILY is laughing hard. CAROLINE is quite impassive.

  TONY (offstage). Bang, bang, bang.

  LILY. Tony, you’ll kill me.

  TONY (staggering in backwards, his hand on his heart). They killed me too, honey. Tell ma I’m feeling just fine, can’t hardly notice the difference. (Looks religiously upwards.) O.K. Mr Gabriel Archangel. I heard you. I’m a-coming. Maybe take a little time on account of this old webbed foot of mine.

  Limps out of French window.

  LILY. Oh Tony Peters. What should I do without you?

  Pause.

  Caroline, they try to tell you things – but what can they tell you? We’re not men you see, we’re something different. Lots of men don’t realize that. All men except, except Tony.

  CAROLINE still sits impassively. LILY kneels on the floor in front of her.

  LILY. I’m a woman, Caroline. And you’re going to be one as well. Nothing can stop you. I’m a woman and what does Arthur call me? He calls me Bin. Bin, when my name is Lily. Now does Bin sound like a woman’s name to you? You know why he calls me Bin? Because he wants me to be his friend, his assistant, his colleague, his thoroughly good chap. To rough it with him on a walking tour through life. He’s said that to me, Caroline. How can I be a good chap, I wasn’t born a chap. My sex gets in the way. That’s why he gets so angry. (She gets up and moves about the room.) Look Caroline, do you know why he calls me Bin? Because my father did and my uncle did and so did my five brothers who all married soft-hearted tittering girls in fluffy pullovers which came off on them like falling hair and white peep-toe shoes and had pet names for their hot-water bottles. Those brothers called me Bin. Good old Bin, you can put her on the back of the motor bike. Bin’s marvellous, she can go in the dicky because her hair’s always in a tangle and her cheeks are like bricks and the wind can’t do her any harm, but Babs or Topsy or Melanie has to sit in front because she’s such a fusspot and so I can change gear next to her baby pink and artificial silk and get her angora all tied up in my Harris tweed. If you take Bin out it’s for great slopping pints and the other one about the honeymoon couple in the French hotel, and then you can be sick in the hedge on the way because Bin’s a good chap. We’re women Caroline. They buy us beer when we long to order protection and flattery and excitement and crème de menthe and little bottles of sparkling wine with silver paper tops and oh God, we long to be kept warm. Aren’t I right? Isn’t that how we feel? Mothers and daughters and wives … (Kneeling again.) Oh Caroline tell me I’m right. Caroline. Speak to us. What have we done wrong?

  CAROLINE says nothing, but, for the first time, she smiles slowly and puts her hands on her mother’s shoulder. LILY gets up, gets the tray which she has left leaning against the wall and begins to stack the plates.

  LILY. Anyway all my friends got married and there was only Arthur. He was small and violent and believed in everything. Life wasn’t much fun at home, my brothers got married and their wives refused to take on their pets. After the youngest left I was walking out wi
th five Alsatian dogs. Father economized on the wedding. ‘We needn’t hire a car for Bin,’ he said. My brother Tommy took me to the church on the back of his motor bike. My first long dress and I was rushed up to my wedding wearing goggles and waving in the wind like a flag. We’re women, Caroline. There’s supposed to be a mystery about us. We should be sprung on our men like a small surprise in the warmth and darkness of the night – not delivered by a boy on a motor bike like a parcel that’s come undone in the post. It shouldn’t be like that for you Caroline. The day after the marriage I told Arthur I loved him. ‘There are more important things than love,’ he said. ‘What more important things?’ ‘Companionship,’ he said, ‘helping one another. Now we’re dedicated, our lives are dedicated.’ ‘What to?’ I asked him. ‘The boys.’ Can you believe it? Those dreadful children coughing like old sheep upstairs. I was dedicated to them. I went to look at them. They were in striped pyjamas, they looked like little old convicts with cropped heads and matchstick arms and legs. They had hard, sexless voices and the faint, cold smell of lead pencils. And you know what? Arthur said it would make them think of me as more of a sport. He told them to call me Bin. I ask you. Is that a name for a woman?

  ARTHUR (shouts offstage). What are you doing, Bin?

  LILY (suddenly shouts back). Clearing away. (Then quietly.) That day was so empty. It seemed I’d been born a woman for nothing at all. Yet I couldn’t be a man. Arthur wanted me to play cricket with the boys – can you imagine that Caroline? My legs were still young, and his idea was to see them buckled up in cricketing pads. My soft hands in the gloves of a wicket keeper …

  ARTHUR (offstage shouts). I heard singing. Then the singing stopped. What’s he got round to now?

  LILY. I was a woman and there was no time for me.

  ARTHUR (offstage). Don’t you realize? I went to bed because of the way you all treated me. I can’t get out again. It’d be ridiculous!

  LILY (shouts). I’ll be up in a minute. (Quiet.) Just a succession of days. Saints’ days with no lessons before breakfast. Sundays when the boys hit each other in the evening. Mondays when Arthur loses his temper. Nothing. Like a party when no one’s remembered to send out the invitation … Then Tony came …

  She leaves the dishes stacked on the tray and sits near CAROLINE.

  ARTHUR. Bin! Come here, Bin! Don’t leave me alone.

  LILY. You know Tony can never be serious. Perhaps he’s not very honest. Does he speak the truth all the time? I don’t care. He treats me as if I was born to be a woman. Lily, Lily, all the time and never a nickname. And he’s made Arthur jealous. (Triumphant.) They quarrel over me Caroline. They’ve been fighting over me for years. Imagine that! Good old Bin. She won’t mind going home alone now we’ve met you girls …

  LILY gets up. Turns to the middle of the room.

  But now it’s Lily Loudon and Arthur’s developed jealousy.

  ARTHUR (shouting offstage). Are you going to rob me of my sleep? It’s the semi-finals tomorrow.

  LILY (shouting). What semi-finals?

  ARTHUR (shouting back). Squash. Masters v Boys.

  LILY (contemptuously). Squash! What did Tony say today? ‘Lily,’ always Lily you see, ‘needs no half-light to look perpetually beautiful.’ He said that. A man with all those available telephone numbers.

  ARTHUR (plaintifully off). The boys’ll make a fool of me if I don’t get some sleep.

  LILY. It’ll come to you Caroline. If you’re a woman it’s bound to come. In the middle of the afternoon, perhaps. During cricket practice. You’ll hear a sound in the gravel, someone singing outside the window. You stand quite still holding your breath in case they should go away. And then, when the windows opens … Caroline, I’m telling you. It’s the only thing that matters …

  ARTHUR (shouts). Am I never to see you again?

  LILY. One day he’ll do his insides mischief, shouting like that. Just put the tray in the kitchen would you. We’ll wash up in the morning. I shouldn’t have told you all that. I’ve enjoyed it though, telling myself. Don’t remember it all. Only remember you’re Caroline – make them call you that. Don’t let them call you a funny name.

  ARTHUR (offstage). Bin!

  LILY. Coming Arthur. I’m coming now.

  She looks at CAROLINE and then goes out of the door. CAROLINE sighs, stretches and then gets up and carries the tray out of the room. The stage is empty. CAROLINE comes back and looks round the room. She takes out her powder compact. Standing over by the mantelpiece, powders her nose. She puts out the light. The stage is dark, only the electric fire glowing. She draws the curtains in front of the French window showing a square of grey moonlight. She goes and sits down to wait. She waits. There’s a footstep. She stands, her arms outstretched.

  TONY (offstage, singing).

  ‘… “Do you hold life so dull.

  That you’re seeking to end your career?”

  Vile infidel know

  You have trod on the toe …’

  TONY comes in at the French window. Stumbles in the darkness.

  What’s up? Everyone gone to bed?

  CAROLINE makes a slight sound and falls on him, her arms round his neck, her mouth pressed on his. In the square of moonlit French window he is struggling to release his neck from her hands. When he frees himself he dashes to the door and switches on the light.

  TONY. Caroline. What have they been telling you now?

  She moves towards him.

  Whatever it was – you can’t have understood. You must have got it wrong.

  He opens the door behind him. He disappears rapidly through the door. CAROLINE faces the audience. She is not unduly upset. Her hands turn palm outwards, she heaves a small sigh, her eyes turn upwards in mock despair. On her, the Curtain slowly falls.

  Scene Two

  Early evening, the next day. The table is laid with an assortment of tea cups and plates. CAROLINE is alone, reading a letter propped up on the tea pot in front of her. She looks very pleased, as she folds up the letter and puts it in a pocket of her skirt.

  She gets up and goes over to the roll-top desk. In wrestling to get a suitcase from behind it she knocks over the globe.

  ARTHUR (shouting offstage, from the right). What’s that for mercy’s sake?

  CAROLINE brings out the battered suitcase and takes it over to the hearth rug where she opens it and begins to drop in the presents which she has arranged on the mantelpiece.

  (Shouts.) Bin. Is that you?

  CAROLINE drops in the baby crier which screams in the case.

  What are you playing at you imbecile?

  CAROLINE shuts the case. TONY appears outside the French windows and starts to haul down the flag. CAROLINE crosses the room, and, as he comes in, hastily puts her suitcase outside the door that leads to the boys’ department.

  ARTHUR (off). Who is it, burglars? Answer me, Bin.

  TONY (folding up the Union Jack). It may be a silly business but it pleases the headmaster. Caroline. I wanted to talk. Couldn’t we talk? I promise you … I haven’t slept. I believe, I feel sure … we could … both … talk.

  CAROLINE exits through the boys’ door. ARTHUR bursts into the room putting on his coat.

  ARTHUR. I heard you Peters. Make no mistake about that… .

  TONY folds up the Union Jack, puts it on the desk and goes over to the table, sits down and pours himself out a cup of tea. He looks very tired.

  TONY. I’ve never felt it before, Headmaster. It never really took hold of me till now.

  ARTHUR. Not to speak can be just as deceptive as lying, Peters. There’s an awful, deceptive silence about people in this house, a goading, tormenting, blank silence. Every question I shout is like sending a soldier into the dark night of a silent, enemy country.

  TONY. Have a cup of tea?

  ARTHUR. Were you in here with her?

  TONY. They sat in front of me, rows of boys. Usually I feel quite indifferent about them, as if they were rows of strangers sitting opposite me in a train. I merel
y want to avoid conversation with them until the bell rings and we can all get out at the station.

  ARTHUR. What were you two doing, banging about in here? Shall I never know the truth?

  TONY. Sit down and have some tea. All that shouting must leave you parched.

  ARTHUR. How can I spare my voice? Leading this sort of life, I mean.

  He sits down. TONY pours him tea.

  TONY. It’s hard for you, I do appreciate.

  ARTHUR. But you’re the one reason for my shouting …

  TONY. Let me try and explain. There they sat, these children, with the pale look of old age hanging around them – of course they’re much older than us, Headmaster, you do realize that don’t you?

  ARTHUR. Older?

  TONY. And before they are finally taken away, done up in blankets, muffled in scarves, tweed caps balanced on their ancient heads, to institutions, I felt there was something I ought to tell them. Only …

  ARTHUR. Yes?

  TONY. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. But if you don’t tell children anything …

  ARTHUR. Well?

  TONY. They get some extraordinary ideas.

  ARTHUR. What do you mean?

  TONY. I’m not sure if I’m in a position to tell you. All I can say is that I’ve had a shock, a pretty severe shock as it so happens, in the last twenty-four hours. I tell you, I don’t often get a jolt like that these days. Last night, I say this quite frankly, sleep eluded me.

  ARTHUR. Well, of course.

  TONY. What do you mean, ‘Well, of course’?

  ARTHUR. Missing Bin, weren’t you?