GEOFFREY: No, thanks.
[The door opens. EVA enters]
[GEOFFREY rises and sits again]
EVA: [coming in swiftly and closing the door] Brrr.
RONALD: Ah.
EVA: Forgot to put my coat on. [She puts her coat on]
RONALD: Anything serious?
EVA: No. [Kneeling by the stove to warm herself] She says she wants to come down.
RONALD: Here? Is that wise?
EVA: She says she wants a Christmas drink with us since we’re all here.
RONALD: Oh well. Sort of thing she does. Calls you all the way upstairs to tell you she’s coming all the way downstairs. Your drink there.
EVA: Thanks.
RONALD: And how’s that mad dog of yours? Still chewing up your guests?
GEOFFREY: Er – no …
EVA: No, we had to – give him away.
RONALD: No, really?
EVA: Yes – he got a bit much. He was really getting so expensive to keep. And then these people we know who’ve got a farm – they said they’d have him.
RONALD: Oh, dear. I didn’t know that. That’s a shame.
EVA: Yes, it was an awful decision to make. We just felt – well …
GEOFFREY: You did, you mean.
EVA: Darling, we couldn’t afford to keep him.
RONALD: Well, old Dick Potter will be relieved, anyway. What did he have to have? Three stitches or something, wasn’t it?
EVA: Something like that.
RONALD: Doesn’t seem to have done him any harm, anyway. He should be half-way up some Swiss mountain by now. Hopefully, those two lads of ours are safely roped to him.
EVA: Oh, is that where they’ve gone?
RONALD: Yes. Something I always meant to take them on myself. Anyway, we’ll have to do without old Dick to jolly us up this year, I suppose.
GEOFFREY: That’s a pity.
[The door opens. MARION sweeps in. She wears a negligée. She stands dramatically and flings out her arms]
MARION: Geoff, darling, it’s sweet of you and Eva to come round to see me.
GEOFFREY: [rising] Oh, that’s O.K.
MARION: No, you don’t know how much it means to me. It really is terribly, terribly sweet of you.
GEOFFREY: That’s all right, we were …
MARION: And at Christmas, particularly. Bless you for remembering Christmas. [She collapses into the armchair]
RONALD: Look, Marion, you’re going to freeze to death. For goodness’ sake, put something on, woman.
MARION: I’m all right.
RONALD: Let me get you your coat. You’ve only just got out of bed.
MARION: Darling, I am quite all right. And I am not sitting in my kitchen in a coat. Nobody sits in a kitchen in a coat. Except tradesmen. It’s unheard of. Now, offer me a drink.
RONALD: Look, dear, you know the doctor said very plainly …
MARION: [snapping fiercely] Oh, for the love of God, Ronnie, it’s Christmas. Don’t be such an utter misery. [To the others] He’s Scrooge, you know. He’s Scrooge in person. Have you noticed, he’s turned all the heating off.
[RONALD, dignified, goes to the trolley and pours MARION a drink. GEOFFREY sits by the table]
Oh, it’s heavenly to be up. When you’ve lain in bed for any length of time, on your own, no-one to talk to, with just your thoughts, don’t you find your whole world just begins to crowd in on you. Till it becomes almost unbearable. You just lie there thinking, oh God, it could’ve been so much better if only I’d had the sense to do so and so – you finish up lying there utterly filled with self-loathing.
EVA: I know the feeling.
RONALD: [handing MARION a glass] Here you are, dear.
MARION: Heavens! I can hardly see it. Is there anything in here? No it’s all right. I’ll just sit here and inhale it. [Turning to GEOFFREY and EVA] How are you, anyway?
EVA: Well, as I told you we’re – pretty well –
MARION: I don’t know what it is about Christmas but – I know it’s supposed to be a festive thing and we’re all supposed to be enjoying ourselves – I just find myself remembering all the dreadful things – the dreadful things I’ve said – the dreadful things I’ve done and all those awful hurtful things I didn’t mean – oh God, I didn’t mean them. Forgive me, I didn’t mean them. [She starts to cry]
RONALD: Look, darling do try and jolly up just for a bit, for heaven’s sake.
MARION: [savagely] Jolly up? How the hell can – I – jolly – up?
EVA: Marion, dear …
MARION: Do you know what I saw in the hall just now? In the mirror. My face. My God, I saw my face. It was like seeing my face for the first time.
RONALD: Oh, come on. It’s not a bad face, old sausage.
MARION: How could anything be so cruel? How could anything be so unutterably cruel?
RONALD: [to GEOFFREY] Now, you see, this is a case in point. What am I supposed to do? I mean, something I’ve said has obviously upset her, but you tell me – you tell me.
MARION: [pulling GEOFFREY to her] Geoff – Geoff – Geoff – did you know, Geoff, I used to be a very beautiful woman? I was a very, very beautiful woman. People used to stare at me in the street and say, “My God, what a beautiful, beautiful woman she is.” People used to come from miles and miles just to take my picture …
RONALD: Marion.
MARION: I mean, who’d want my photograph now? Do you want my photograph now? No, of course you don’t. Nobody wants my photograph now. Can anybody think of anyone who’d want a photograph of me now? Please, someone. Someone, please want my photograph.
RONALD: [bellowing] Marion! Nobody wants your damn picture, now shut up.
[A silence. GEOFFREY and EVA are stunned. RONALD removes his eyeshade and adjusts his scarf]
[The first to recover] Now then, what were we saying?
[The doorbell rings]
EVA: [after a pause] Doorbell.
RONALD: Bit late for a doorbell, isn’t it?
[They sit. The doorbell rings again]
EVA: Shall I see who it is?
RONALD: Yes, do. Have a look through the little glass window. If you don’t like the look of them, don’t open the door.
EVA: Right.
[EVA goes into the hall]
RONALD: Can’t think who’d be ringing doorbells at this time of night.
GEOFFREY: Carol singers?
RONALD: Not at this time. Anyway, we don’t get many of them. Marion always asks them in. Insists on filling them up with hot soup and chocolate biscuits as if they were all starving. Had a great row with the chap next door. She made his children as sick as pigs.
[EVA enters. As she does so the doorbell rings. She closes the door behind her]
EVA: I couldn’t be sure but it looks suspiciously like the Hopcrofts. Do you want them in?
RONALD: Oh, good grief, hardly.
GEOFFREY: Heaven forbid.
RONALD: If we sit quiet, they’ll go away.
EVA: Well, there’s the hall light.
RONALD: That doesn’t mean anything. People always leave their hall lights on for burglars. I don’t know why they bother. I mean, there must be very few households who actually choose to spend their evenings sitting in the hall with the rest of the house in darkness.
GEOFFREY: If I know the Hopcrofts, they won’t give up easily. They’ll come round the side.
MARION: Why don’t you just go in the hall and shout “Go away” through the letter-box?
RONALD: Because he happens to have a very large deposit account with my bank.
[The doorbell rings]
EVA: They can smell us.
RONALD: I think we’ll compromise and turn off the lights in here. Just to be on the safe side. [Going to the door] Everybody sit down and sit tight. [By the switch] Ready? Here we go.
[The room plunges into darkness. Just two streams of light – one from the door and one from the window]
Now if we all keep absolutely quiet, there’s no chanc
e of them – ow! [He cannons into EVA who gives a cry] I’m terribly sorry. I do beg your pardon. Was that your …?
EVA: That’s all right.
GEOFFREY: Ssh.
RONALD: I wish I knew where I was.
GEOFFREY: Well, stand still. I think someone’s coming round the side.
EVA: Ssh.
[MARION starts to giggle]
RONALD: Marion. Quiet.
MARION: I’m sorry I’ve just seen the funny side …
GEOFFREY: Ssh.
[SIDNEY and JANE appear at the back door. They wear party hats, are decked with the odd streamer, have had more drinks than they are used to and have a carrier bag full of goodies. They both press their faces against the back door, straining to see in]
MARION: It’s them.
GEOFFREY: Ssh.
[Pause]
RONALD: I say …
EVA: What?
RONALD: I’ve got a nasty feeling I didn’t lock the back door.
MARION: Oh, no …
[GEOFFREY and EVA hide in front of the table. RONALD steps up into a comer by the window. The back door opens slowly]
SIDNEY: Hallo?
JANE: [unwilling to enter] Sidney …
SIDNEY: come on.
JANE: But there’s nobody …
SIDNEY: The door was open, wasn’t it? Of course there’s somebody. They’re probably upstairs.
JANE: But, Sidney, they might …
SIDNEY: Look, would you kindly not argue with me any more tonight, Jane. I haven’t yet forgiven you for that business at the party. How did you manage to drop a whole plate of trifle?
JANE: I didn’t clean it up, Sidney, I didn’t clean it up.
SIDNEY: No. You just stood there with the mess at your feet. For all the world to see.
JANE: Well, what …
SIDNEY: I have told you before. If you drop something like that at a stand-up party, you move away and keep moving. Now come along.
JANE: I can’t see.
SIDNEY: Then wait there and I’ll find the light.
[A pause. SIDNEY crosses the room. GEOFFREY and EVA creep to the sideboard. The light goes on SIDNEY and JANE are by the separate doors. The other four are in various absurd frozen postures obviously caught in the act of trying to find a hiding-place. JANE gives a short squeak of alarm. A long pause]
MARION: [eventually] Boo.
SIDNEY: Good gracious.
RONALD: [as if seeing them for the first time] Ah, hallo there. It’s you.
SIDNEY: Well, you had us fooled. They had us fooled there, didn’t they?
JANE: Yes, they had us fooled.
SIDNEY: Playing a game on us, weren’t you?
ALL: Yes.
EVA: Yes, we were playing a game.
SIDNEY: Completely fooled. Walked straight into that. Well, Happy Christmas, all.
ALL: [lamely, variously] Happy Christmas.
SIDNEY: [after a pause] Well.
JANE: Well.
[A pause]
RONALD: Would you like a drink? Now you’re here.
SIDNEY: Oh, thank you.
JANE: Thank you very much.
SIDNEY: Since we’re here.
RONALD: Well. What’ll it be? [He goes to the trolley]
SIDNEY: Sherry, please.
JANE: Yes, a sherry.
SIDNEY: Yes. We’d better stick to sherry.
RONALD: Sherry … [He starts to pour]
SIDNEY: Sorry if we surprised you.
MARION: Quite all right.
SIDNEY: We knew you were here.
RONALD: How?
SIDNEY: We saw the car.
JANE: Saw your car.
RONALD: Oh. Yes.
[A pause. SIDNEY blows a party “blower”]
EVA: Been to a party?
SIDNEY: Yes.
JANE: Yes.
GEOFFREY: You look as if you have.
SIDNEY: Yes. Up at Walter’s place. Walter Harrison.
RONALD: Oh – old Harrison’s.
SIDNEY: Oh of course, you’ll know him, won’t you.
RONALD: Oh, yes.
GEOFFREY: Yes.
SIDNEY: [to GEOFFREY] Oh, yes, of course. Asking you if you know old Harrison. I should think you do know old Harrison. He certainly remembers you. In fact he was saying this evening …
RONALD: Two sherries.
SIDNEY: Oh, thank you.
JANE: Thank you very much.
SIDNEY: Compliments of the season.
JANE: Of the season.
RONALD: Yes. Indeed.
[A pause]
SIDNEY: What a house. Beautiful.
MARION: Oh, do you like it? Thank you.
SIDNEY: No. Old Harrison’s. What a place.
JANE: Lovely.
RONALD: Didn’t know you knew him.
SIDNEY: Well, I won’t pretend. The reason we went was half pleasure and half – well, ’nuff said. Follow me? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
RONALD: Ah.
[A pause]
JANE: It’s a nice kitchen …
MARION: At the Harrisons’?
JANE: No. Here.
MARION: Oh. Glad you approve.
[A pause]
JANE: [very, very quietly] Sidney.
SIDNEY: Eh?
JANE: [mouthing and gesticulating towards the carrier bag] Their presents.
SIDNEY: What’s that? [He looks at his flies]
JANE: [still mouthing and miming] Shall we give them their presents now?
SIDNEY: Yes, yes, of course. That’s why we’ve brought them.
JANE: We brought you a present.
SIDNEY: Just a little seasonal something.
RONALD: Oh.
MARION: Ah.
EVA: Thank you.
JANE: [to EVA] No, I’m afraid we didn’t bring you and your husband anything. We didn’t know you’d be here, you see.
SIDNEY: Sorry about that.
EVA: Oh, never mind.
GEOFFREY: Not to worry.
JANE: We could give them the hm-mm. You know, that we got given this evening.
SIDNEY: The what?
JANE: You know, the hm-mm. That we got in the thing.
SIDNEY: What, that? They don’t want that.
JANE: No, I meant for hm-mm, you know. Hm-mm.
SIDNEY: Well, if you want to. Now, come on. Give Ron and Marion their presents. They’re dying to open them.
RONALD: Rather.
MARION: Thrilling.
JANE: [delving into her carrier and consulting the labels on various parcels] Now this is for Ron. [Reading] To Ron with love from Sidney and Jane.
SIDNEY: [handing Ronald the present] That’s for you.
RONALD: Thank you. [He unwraps it]
JANE: Now then, what’s this?
SIDNEY: Is that Marion’s?
JANE: No, that’s from you and me to Auntie Gloria. [Rummaging again] Here we are. To Marion with love from Sidney and Jane.
SIDNEY: This is for you. [He gives MARION her present]
MARION: Oh, super … [To Ronald] What’ve you got, darling?
RONALD: [gazing at his present mystified] Oh, yes. This is very useful. Thank you very much.
MARION: What on earth is it?
RONALD: Well, it’s – er – [taking a stab at it] – looks like a very nice set of pipe cleaners.
JANE: Oh, no.
SIDNEY: No, those aren’t pipe cleaners.
RONALD: Oh, aren’t they?
SIDNEY: Good gracious, no.
RONALD: Oh, no. Silly of me. Just looked terribly like them for a minute. From a certain angle.
SIDNEY: You should know those. It’s a set of screwdrivers.
JANE: Set of screwdrivers.
SIDNEY: Electrical screwdrivers.
Three Plays Page 9