Keith Waterhouse - Collected Plays

CHARLES: (Introducing.) Piper and Peck.

ROGER: Of Peck and Piper.

ANGIE: I know. Since we’ve been pointed out to one another I thought I’d come over and say hallo. I hope you don’t mind.

ROGER: (Touching her hair.) Lovely hair.

ANGIE: It needs washing.

Kneeling, she allows ROGER to trickle wine into her mouth from her glass during the following:

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) The details I’ve forgotten from that first meeting, if they were grains of sand, wouldn’t tip a horizontally-balanced egg-timer.

ANGIE: (With wine dribbling down her face.) Mmmmmm! Dribbling! Oh dear, Charlie doesn’t approve!

ROGER: No one ever called Charles Charlie. Ice having formed, he tried his awkward best to break it.

CHARLES: We’re told you’re a freelance factotum. What does that mean exactly?

ANGIE: (With a trilling laugh.) Oh dear, I often ask myself the same question. Whatever it is, I really ought to go and do some more of it. (She scrambles to her feet in a rather gauche manner. About to dash off, she takes an eyebrow pencil from her bag, and grasping ROGER’s wrist, scribbles a telephone number on the back of his hand.) But if you ever want any factotumizing done, that’s my number. Bye!

She hurries away.

CHARLES: (Laconically.) And you’ll never wash it.

ROGER: (Regarding the number on his wrist.) Not until I’ve transferred it to my Filofax… All right, Charles, what are you saying? Tears before bedtime?

CHARLES: Tears after bedtime. But that’s your affair.

CHARLES rises and moves off.

ROGER rises and addresses the absent ANGIE.

ROGER: I made some enquiries about you — I would, wouldn’t I? I found you went to the Corkscrew, our friendly neighbourhood wine bar, well-abbreviated as the Screw. It was never one of my haunts but that evening I went there, despite a command from Judith to be home –

JUDITH: Sober.

ROGER: — in time for supper with her friend — that trained freeloader Gunby J. Gunby, of the Good Living Guide.

GUNBY, who is present at the christening party, bows ironically.

I was entitled to ask myself what I thought I was up to. My love, I had no idea. I once asked you, long after I’d got to know you less, what you’d had in mind yourself.

ANGIE: I don’t know. I never used to think as far ahead as tomorrow in those days. I daren’t think beyond next week even now.

ROGER: The Screw was a sexual inferno, stinking of cheap scent and expensive aftershave, where the flotsam and jetsam of the advertising world danced to the music of their own voices. You were with the bearded young bugger you’d been sitting next to at lunch. Little realizing he was the future subject of an amusing anecdote revolving around his clumsy attempts to grope you under the tablecloth, he was confidently steering you towards the stairs. Your place or his? Quite suddenly I had a yearning to be home in Ealing, and I left, the only man in that place craving the clean taste of Ovaltine. The first time I ever took you to lunch you harked back, as I did, to that day, but neither of us to that evening. You were very funny about the bearded young Etonian, how he had contrived to sit next to you and yow you’d thwarted his under-the-table activities with the deflating remark –

ANGIE: I hadn’t realized you were left-handed.

ROGER: The whole point of the story being that his strenuous advances came to nothing, you didn’t spoil it by confessing that a few hours later they were to come to a good deal. Nor, since you didn’t yet know me, was there any reason why you should. But I did wonder why you bothered to tell it… Wives get it wrong, you know. It’s supposed to be sex alone that draws men like me into situations like this, but it isn’t; it’s the excitement. And it isn’t the excitement of the chase, it’s the excitement, when you feel like a dud battery, of having someone to be excited about…

He returns to:

The christening party.

CHARLES approaches him.

CHARLES: Now that Judith’s out of earshot — did you invite your little friend along as the spectre at the feast, or was it her own idea?

ROGER: She’s doing some factotuming for me.

CHARLES: Oh yes, on teenage marketing trends.

ROGER: Did you see her report?

CHARLES: Yes — in Marketing Week six months ago. I will say she’s copied it out very neatly…

GUNBY approaches with JUDITH, who bears a tray of canapés.

Hallo Gunby. How’s the Good Living Guide?

GUNBY: It’s a living. Roger, I’ve been trying to place your stunning guest.

JUDITH: Probably you met her at your step-daughter’s wedding.

GUNBY: No — she wasn’t invited.

JUDITH: What’s that got to do with it?

JUDITH and CHARLES move away.

GUNBY: (To ROGER.) No, I’ve remembered where I’ve seen her. She dines at the World’s End Brasserie quite a lot with young Ben Cheevers. Do you know it? Brilliant charcuterie.

ROGER: Ben Cheevers?

GUNBY: Complete shit — runs the Chelsea Auction Galleries. Now where’s Judith gone with those delicious vol-au-vents…?

GUNBY moves off. ANGIE, carrying a glass of champagne, meanders out on to the patio, where she finds herself alone with ROGER.

ROGER: Angela, what a lovely surprise.

ANGIE: Surprise or shock? I knew I shouldn’t have come. Shall I go?

ROGER: Of course you shan’t go, you’ve only just arrived.

ANGIE: But quite obviously uninvited. Some of your friends have been looking daggers at me.

ROGER: They’re admiring you or enjoying you, according to sex.

ANGIE: I really shouldn’t have barged in on you like this but I’ve a friend who lives in Richmond which isn’t all that far away, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. I’m sorry.

ROGER: Please stop apologizing. I’m delighted to see you.

ANGIE: I was anxious to know what you thought of my research. On teenage marketing trends.

ROGER: Does it matter so much?

ANGIE: Very much.

ROGER: Our cheque is in the post.

ANGIE: I didn’t mean that.

ROGER: So have you just come from Richmond or are you on your way there?

ANGIE: You mean you want me to go?

ROGER: I mean I want you to stay as long as you like and let me pour you some champagne, Angela.

ANGIE: Angie.

ROGER: Is that what your friends call you?

ANGIE: Only specially selected ones. You’re only allowed to call me Angela when you’re cross with me.

ROGER: Which I’m positively not. In fact on top of your fee I’m arranging to pay you a little bonus.

ANGIE: No, you mustn’t do that.

ROGER: But it was damned hard work, Angela — Angie.

ANGIE: That’s all right. I like doing things for you.

ROGER: Why?

ANGIE: You’re appreciative. A lot of people aren’t, you know.

ROGER: But as it’s the first time you’ve ever worked for me, how could you tell whether I’d be appreciative or not?

ANGIE: Kind eyes.

ROGER notices JUDITH hovering and decides to neutralize the conversation.

ROGER: Champagne?

ANGIE: Just one more glass before I go.

ROGER: If you’re going to Richmond I’m sure someone here could give you a lift.

ANGIE: No, I’m not going to Richmond — my friend’s away.

ROGER: Oh — I thought you were on your way there.

ANGIE: Yes, I would have been, but when I rang her she was out. So I thought I’d drop in anyway.

ROGER: I’m very glad you did.

ANGIE: Also, I wanted you to invite me to lunch one day.

ROGER: Which day?