Mr Bailey's Minder

by Debra Oswald

  KARL: Oh—your shoes.

  LEO: Yes! You go and rescue my shoes! Quickly!

  LEO collapses, moaning. KARL goes outside, passing THERESE as she rushes back in.

  THERESE: Are you going?

  KARL: To get his shoes.

  KARL exits.

  THERESE: [to LEO] Oh, look at your head. I’ll get something to clean you up.

  She cleans up LEO’s grazes. He pulls away, ouching like a little kid.

  LEO: Stupid mongrel taxi driver—I gave him the address I wanted to go to but he couldn’t find his arse with both hands. Ow!

  THERESE: Keep still. How did you hurt your head?

  LEO: That fascist bruised my arm with his stinking sausage fingers!

  THERESE: The taxi driver did this to you?

  LEO: His fault.

  THERESE: What did he do?

  LEO: He was so stupid, I had to get out of the cab. That’s why I fell over in the street.

  THERESE: Well, that’s not—

  LEO: Then he kidnapped my shoes!

  KARL enters as LEO pulls away from THERESE’s first aid.

  Ow! Ow! She’s trying to kill me!

  THERESE: It’s antiseptic. Stop being such a baby.

  THERESE chases LEO around the room to tend to his wounds.

  KARL: Look, umm, the cabbie seems pretty keen to get his fare.

  LEO: Don’t let him in my house! He’s a Nazi!

  THERESE: Just because he’s got an accent doesn’t mean—

  LEO: He’s a Nazi!

  KARL: Actually, he’s Hungarian.

  THERESE: Whatever. The point is, he’s not a Nazi.

  KARL: He says he wants the money or he’ll ring the police.

  THERESE: The police?

  LEO: Fascist mongrel. I paid the fare.

  THERESE: How? You don’t have any money.

  KARL: He promised the driver a hundred-dollar tip. Then he tried to pay with this.

  He produces a crumpled leaflet with a signature scrawled on the back and hands it to THERESE.

  It’s just his signature.

  LEO snatches it from her hand and tears it into tiny pieces. He yells out the door:

  LEO: Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler, you mongrel!

  THERESE chases after LEO with band-aids.

  THERESE: Stop it! Come here and let me—

  LEO: Don’t let the Nazi come in here!

  KARL: Don’t worry. He won’t come inside. He’s thinks you’re both crazy people.

  A couple more honks from the taxi outside.

  THERESE: Why doesn’t he piss off?

  KARL: It might be a good idea just to give this guy his money and—

  THERESE: Yeah, yeah, okay.

  She now has LEO on the ground, sitting on him, while she gets band-aids on his cuts.

  Can you look in my purse? It’s in the drawer.

  KARL goes through the purse.

  LEO: What’s he doing? Is he stealing?

  THERESE: No. Stop wriggling.

  LEO: Is he your husband?

  THERESE: No.

  KARL pulls notes out of the purse.

  KARL: There’s forty here.

  THERESE: That should cover it.

  KARL: Well, no. The fare is fifteen plus there’s the upholstery.

  THERESE: Beg yours? Upholstery? Lie down, Leo, and stop doing that!

  KARL: Apparently there’s some blood on his upholstery. He wants fifty dollars.

  THERESE: Fifty bucks!

  KARL: Well, that’s the standard cleaning fee. There’s usually a little sticker on the dash.

  LEO: I never saw his stinking fascist sticker.

  THERESE: [to LEO] Keep still and let me fix you up.

  KARL: Sixty-five in total. Have you got it?

  THERESE: That’s all I’ve got.

  LEO is wailing and slapping THERESE’s hands away. The honking sound gets more insistent.

  Ohhh. Why doesn’t he shut up? Why does he have to be so aggro?

  LEO: You’re hurting me! And what about my shoes? You have to pay the ransom for my shoes!

  THERESE: Shoosh, Leo. I can’t think. [She bellows out the door.] Shut the fuck up, you aggro dick!

  KARL: He did say three minutes or he’d ring the police.

  THERESE releases her hold on LEO who drops to the floor like a rag doll. She grabs the cash from KARL and stomps to the door.

  THERESE: Right. He can take this forty bucks and shove it up his arse.

  KARL scoots round to block her exit.

  KARL: Well, y’know, maybe it’d be better if you didn’t go out there. I mean, the taxi guy is pretty aggro—as you pointed out—and… Look, I’ve got the other twenty-five dollars on me. Maybe I should sort things out.

  THERESE: But that bastard can’t bully us into—

  KARL: I’ll go and talk to him. Is that okay?

  THERESE shrugs—okay. She hands KARL the forty dollars and he exits. THERESE watches out the door.

  LEO: Is that man getting my shoes back?

  THERESE: Can’t tell from here.

  LEO stumbles to a chair where he curls up in a ball.

  Oh, Leo, I was packing it for a minute there. Don’t scare me like that again, okay?

  KARL enters with Leo’s shoes and gives them to THERESE.

  Thanks. And—y’know—thanks.

  She hands the shoes to LEO who cradles them like a baby.

  Look, I can’t pay you back the twenty-five bucks right now so—

  KARL: When you can. [He moves to face LEO directly.] G’day. My name’s Karl.

  LEO: [scrutinising him] Karl. Hello, Karl.

  THERESE: That’s nice.

  KARL: Sorry?

  THERESE: People who come here—delivery guys and that—they talk to him like he’s a vegetable. I’m Therese, by the way.

  KARL: Hi, Therese.

  THERESE: Sorry about before. Sorry if I was a bit—

  KARL: No worries.

  THERESE: Listen, Karl, do you have to start ripping out the wall right this minute?

  KARL: Oh, I’m only measuring up today. The wall won’t come down for a month, they said. It goes to the restorer and then to the auction house.

  THERESE: A month. Beaudie.

  KARL: Do you want me to come back another—?

  THERESE: Nah, you’re right. Measure away.

  KARL starts measuring the wall. LEO groans in pain.

  What am I going to do with you, eh? Why did you run off?

  LEO: I wanted to go out. Out.

  THERESE: I’d take you out places except you get drunk and fall over and call taxi drivers Nazis.

  LEO: He was a Nazi.

  THERESE: He wasn’t a Nazi. That’s why we can’t go out. I can’t trust you to behave if you’re pissed.

  LEO: Prison. It’s like prison, Karl. Can you hear how she talks to me?

  THERESE: Leo, I’ll do you a deal. You lay off the grog and I’ll take you on outings.

  LEO: Eh?

  THERESE: We cancel the liquor shop delivery, everything. If you stay sober, we can—

  LEO: Hear how she tricks me, Karl? Torturing me.

  KARL: Sounds like a fair deal to me, Leo.

  LEO: You reckon, Karl? Do you reckon it’s fair?

  KARL: I do.

  THERESE: We can scoot all over the city—wherever you like. We got a deal?

  LEO sulks and mutters.

  Beg yours? Couldn’t hear that.

  LEO: All right. Deal.

  LEO stomps off in a sulk and then escapes out the front door.

  THERESE: Leo!

  THERESE picks up the scotch bottle left by GAVIN and chases after LEO. KARL measures up the wall.

  SCENE THREE

  KARL has taken down the panel with the mural covered in papers and thrown paint. He’s put new cladding in its place and is doing the finishing touches.

  THERESE and LEO come in the front door. LEO is sober, dressed in clothes rather than pyjamas, and is looking better.

  LEO: Karl
! Still at it! [To THERESE] I told you he’d still be here if we got back by three o’clock.

  KARL: So where did you guys end up deciding to go today?

  LEO: Tenpin bowling. A fine sport for mind, body and spirit.

  LEO mimes a bowling action with a flourish.

  THERESE: The mongrel beats me every time. He’s such a lucky dog—he drops the ball and it rolls into perfect position.

  LEO: It’s skill, girlie. Not luck. [He scrutinises the wall.] How many days has Karl been here?

  THERESE: Oh—uh—

  KARL: Four.

  LEO: Are they paying you by the hour?

  KARL: No.

  LEO: Bloody long time for a job like this.

  THERESE: Well, I guess Karl’s very thorough.

  LEO: So! What’s on the agenda for tomorrow? More bowling?

  LEO does his bowling action again.

  KARL: I thought you’d wanna go round the art galleries, Leo.

  LEO does a flamboyant wail and rolls his head around.

  THERESE: No way.

  LEO: Art! Ha! I don’t want to go anywhere near art.

  THERESE: We stick to movies, museums, ferry rides.

  LEO: Movies tomorrow.

  THERESE: Sure. We can have a look at what’s on.

  LEO grabs a newspaper from Therese’s bag and wrestles it to find the movie ads.

  How are your ankles?

  LEO: Still attached to my feet. Don’t fuss.

  THERESE: It’s a long walk up from the ferry.

  LEO: [to KARL] She has a thing about my ankles.

  But his ankles are aching and he sinks into the armchair. THERESE takes Leo’s shoes off while he peers at the newspaper ads.

  THERESE: He still gets this fluid building up in his belly and in his legs. Makes him uncomfortable. Ascites, it’s called. Alcos get it ’cos their liver doesn’t make some enzyme.

  KARL looks at her, surprised.

  I have to know this stuff so I don’t sound like such a dumbo when I talk to the docs. Dunno why I’m boring you with it.

  KARL: I guess because—

  THERESE: Because it’s been my whole life for the last two months and I’ve got no-one else to tell.

  THERESE and KARL realise that LEO has dozed off.

  KARL: I was thinking—when I saw him again at the start of this week—well, he definitely looks better than a month ago—I mean, better since you got him off the grog.

  THERESE: We have good days and bad days. But when he was boozing every day was a bad day.

  KARL: Withdrawing from booze can’t be easy on a person’s body.

  THERESE: Once we got through the vomiting and the shakes, I thought we’d be okay. But now he just goes quiet. I’m not sure what’s going through his mind sometimes.

  KARL: Do you think he could be a bit lonely? I mean, for his old mates.

  THERESE: I phoned up the list of old friends. They all hate his guts. One bloke—you could hear in his voice, the poor guy was still really, like, wounded.

  KARL: What about his family? Don’t they—?

  THERESE: Don’t come near him. Leo reckons they’re all monsters.

  KARL: They might just seem that way to him.

  THERESE: Maybe. Anyway, I reckon he helped make them into monsters. Even if he is famous.

  KARL: I looked up in a book and it reckons Leo Bailey’s one of the greatest living Australian artists. I can’t imagine having an imagination like that. I just see what I see—what’s in front of me, you know. But for a person like Leo, it’s different. Must be incredible to have a brain like that.

  THERESE: Yeah. That’s why people think there’s a different set of rules for a guy like Leo.

  KARL: Is that what you think?

  THERESE: No. I don’t think those—[referring to the paintings]—gave him the right to be a total dickhead all his life. Then again, there’s plenty of destructive bastards out there who aren’t great artists.

  KARL: Reckon.

  THERESE and KARL smile. Then both quickly feel awkward.

  THERESE: Anyway, it’s not my job to worry about all that. It’s my job to look after the poor old bugger he is now. I watch him when he’s asleep sometimes and I say to myself, ‘Therese, he’s this famous big-deal artist and look at him. Look at him.’

  KARL sees THERESE smile affectionately at LEO. KARL moves closer.

  KARL: He’s lucky to have you.

  THERESE: [ducking away from KARL] I’m lucky to have this job. Looking after a scungy old drunk is deadset the best job I’m gonna get.

  She gives an embarrassed laugh. KARL hastily packs up his tools.

  You’re finished up?

  KARL: Yep.

  THERESE: Leo’s gonna miss you. He liked having you round here the last week.

  KARL: Yeah, well, I’ve—

  THERESE: So you got a new job to go on to?

  KARL: Little jobs like this one.

  THERESE: You don’t, like, renovate whole houses or that?

  KARL: Used to. I had a business with another bloke. Business went under.

  THERESE: Not enough work around?

  KARL: We had plenty of work. I didn’t pay enough attention to the books. Left it up to the other bloke.

  THERESE: What—and he mucked it up?

  KARL: Took the money and disappeared. Bali.

  THERESE: Yeah? What an arsehole!

  KARL: He was my best mate since kindy.

  THERESE: Oh. Therese’s big mouth. Sorry. I just meant—

  KARL: Why should you apologise? I guess he probably was an arsehole. Took me a while to figure it out. Still can’t get my head round it.

  THERESE: So are you gonna take him to court, or whatever, to get the money?

  KARL: Nah. No point. This kind of work suits me anyway. I’ll get the debts paid off soon and have nothing hanging over me.

  LEO jolts awake, upset.

  THERESE: Leo, hey. It’s okay. Bad dream, eh?

  LEO: Coldness was creeping up from my toes. I was dying, I was dying!

  THERESE: Hang on a sec.

  She makes a show of feeling for a pulse.

  Nup. Definitely not dead.

  She laughs, then notices that LEO is still upset.

  You know what, Leo? I’m going to give you a shave. Hot towels, aftershave, the works. How about that? [She runs around getting the stuff she needs.] A shave cheers him up when he’s upset. Like when that nurse came in last Sunday.

  LEO: Stupid, squawking bloody woman.

  THERESE: You did try to bite a piece out of her ear. [To KARL] The respite nurses upset him and Leo turns ugly on them.

  LEO: I don’t want them in my house.

  THERESE: Don’t get in a tizz. I’m cancelling them. No more Sunday nurses. Just me from now on.

  LEO: Good. And Karl.

  THERESE: Well, no. Karl’s finished up here. He won’t be coming back.

  LEO makes a moan of distress.

  We’re gonna miss Karl, aren’t we?

  KARL: Well, if you ever need someone to fix that bathroom wall…

  THERESE: What, and do Leo out of his cheap thrills seeing me in the nuddy?

  KARL: Yeah, fair enough.

  THERESE: Oh—I wasn’t saying we wouldn’t want you to come back and fix stuff.

  KARL: Yeah. Don’t worry about it—

  THERESE: There’s no money to pay for repairs but.

  KARL: Sure. I understand.

  THERESE: I left messages a coupla times with his daughter, about getting things fixed. No go.

  KARL: I wasn’t pushing you for work. Forget it.

  KARL and THERESE are both silent, knowing they’ve mucked it.

  LEO: Why can’t Karl just visit anyway?

  KARL: Oh… well—I could—uh—

  THERESE: Karl’s too busy to be dropping round to visit us.

  KARL: Oh, y’know, when I’m driving back from a job—

  THERESE: You see? He’s got to drive halfway across Sydney for work. He’s busy. Anyway
he wouldn’t want to visit a complaining old wet-brain and a big-mouth slag.

  KARL: Eh? No—

  THERESE: You see? No. He wouldn’t want to.

  KARL: I guess you don’t really want people turning up here out of the blue. I’ll—uh…

  KARL grabs his gear to go.

  LEO: I do. I like people turning up out of the blue.

  THERESE: Leo does love visitors but you don’t want to be—

  KARL: I get the message. I’ll get out your way.

  THERESE: Oh. Okay.

  KARL: Thanks for everything. [To LEO] You look after Therese.

  LEO: It’s a full-time job.

  THERESE follows KARL towards the door.

  THERESE: Thanks for being friendly to Leo. I’m paid to be nice to him. But you were nice to him for no reason. Some kind of weird bastard, are ya?

  KARL: Guess I must be.

  THERESE: I was only joking. I didn’t mean—

  KARL: Sure. [To LEO] See you round then, eh mate.

  LEO: Round like a rissole.

  THERESE watches KARL go and curses herself under her breath. Then she spins back and grabs the things for the shave.

  THERESE: Let’s get cracking with this.

  LEO: He’s a decent man.

  THERESE: What?

  LEO: Karl. He’s a good man. A bit lost.

  THERESE: I don’t know. I guess so…

  LEO: He notices things. He sees people. You look at his eyes. Except now you can’t look at his eyes because he’s gone forever.

  THERESE drapes towels round LEO’s shoulders, combs his hair back, lathers up his face.

  THERESE: Cheer up, misery-guts. You’re gonna get the full Therese Laurence beauty treatment and after, we’ll see what’s on the telly-box.

  LEO: Am I getting hot towels?

  THERESE: Yeah yeah, don’t start whingeing.

  She starts shaving him. LEO obediently holds still for her.

  Lip.

  LEO tightens his upper lip.