Keith Waterhouse - Collected Plays

ANGIE, enters wearing her kimono.

ANGIE: (Entering.) No, I never like doing it like that. (She stacks an armful of toilet requisites into her little suitcase.)

During the following she takes the room service menu, picks up the telephone and punches out a number.

ROGER: You came out of the bathroom smelling like the perfume and toiletries department of Selfridges and wearing a kimono unknowingly bequeathed to you by the wife of bloody Ben Cheevers. You took a childish delight in the little grotto of soaps, shampoos, bath foam and other bathroom paraphernalia, and swept the lot into your suitcase. It was a cheap little suitcase and I made up my mind to buy you another one. I was afflicted with a desire to make you happy by giving you things — love, money, presents, new clothes, new friends, a new life if I could… Who are you ringing, kitten?

ANGIE: I don’t think we should waste precious time going out for that late lunch you promised. (Into the phone.) This is room four-o-four. Could we please have smoked salmon sandwiches for two and a bottle of champagne? (As an afterthought.) Each. (She hangs up.)

ROGER: (To ANGIE.) That’s a lovely idea, Angie, but in that case I insist on taking you out to dinner.

ANGIE: But you’re having dinner with Penn’s Shortbread Products.

ROGER: As they say up here, the best-laid schemes gang aft a-gley. I’ll tell Mrs Penn I’ve got to get the night shuttle so I’ve only time for a cocktail.

ANGIE: So where does that leave me?

ROGER: It leaves you being treated to a three-course dinner instead of fending for yourself in a Pizza Hut.

ANGIE: This evening? But I have things to do.

ROGER: What things? You don’t know Edinburgh.

ANGIE: No, but I like wandering about new places.

ROGER: Don’t you want to wander around them with me?

ANGIE: Perhaps, but I want to be on my own sometimes.

ROGER: You’re very often on your own, Angie. Come on — here’s a chance to spend a whole day and night together for a change.

ANGIE: Yes, well, I don’t like my arrangements being upset.

ROGER: But you don’t have arrangements!

ANGIE: I have arrangements with myself.

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) I could have shaken you. I could see you almost visibly deciding whether to go into a sulk or not. (He snatches up the telephone and punches out a number furiously. Into the phone.) Room Service?… This is room — what the hell is our room number, Angie?

ANGIE: (Sulkily.) It’s on the telephone.

ROGER: (Into the phone.) Room four-o-four. Look, I ordered champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches hours ago… Thank you. (He hangs up.) They’re on their way.

ANGIE: (Softening.) Now don’t work yourself up into a tizz.

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) All very well for you to talk — you’d less to lose. Like you I was no stranger to strange beds, but age catches up with you and this was it. You were having an affair, I was having the affair. When it was over, for me it would all be gone. For you, there’d be another along in a minute.

ANGIE: Come on, darling, we’re going to have a lovely time. Promise.

They embrace.

ROGER: Are we going to do this again very soon, Angie?

ANGIE: We haven’t done it the first time round, yet — why wish it away?

They sink on to the bed and begin to make love. There is a furious knocking at the door.

WAITER’s voice: Room service!

ROGER: Fuck!

ANGIE: Let’s!

Blackout.

A champagne bar.

ROGER and ANGIE lurch in, the worse for drink.

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) That should have been the beginning but it wasn’t. You asked me to hurry back to you but you wouldn’t be hurried back to, that was the trouble. Oh, we met as usual, for lunch as usual, but any hope I might have nurtured that I now possessed an open sesame to your flat, and therefore to your bed, was finally dashed one night when Judith was up in Manchester again and I took you to supper. I was emboldened to ask: (To ANGIE.) Why don’t we have coffee at your place?

ANGIE: Oh, do put another record on!

ROGER: Don’t you want us to make love again?

ANGIE: Of course I do, all the time, but you know about the flat situation. I’ve told you and told you.

ROGER: So I’m not just another notch on your bedpost?

ANGIE: You’re being maudlin. Stop it.

ROGER: I’m entitled to be bloody maudlin! You’ve got me jumping through hoops, Angela! Here am I lavishing lunch on you twice a week, pouring champagne down your throat, bringing you presents, phoning you six times a day and for what? Just who the hell do you think you are?

ANGIE: (Rising unsteadily.) I’m going home, Roger.

ROGER: Bugger off, then.

ANGIE: I need some money for a taxi.

ROGER: Bloody walk.

ANGIE: It’s raining.

ROGER: I bought you an umbrella — where its it?

ANGIE: (Tearfully.) I must have left it somewhere… Why are you being so horrible to me, Roger?

ROGER rises hurriedly as she turns away to leave.

ROGER: Hang on, Angie.

ANGIE: I’ve told you — I’m going. I feel sick.

ROGER: I’ll take you home.

ANGIE: I don’t want you to.

ROGER: I’m taking you home, Angie. Whether you let me through the door when we get there is entirely a matter for you.

With ROGER supporting ANGIE, who is now very drunk, they proceed to:

ANGIE’s flat.

It is in darkness as we hear ANGIE and ROGER stumbling in.

ANGIE: You can’t come in, you know. Oh, shit!

ROGER: You’ve dropped your keys.

ANGIE: I know I’ve dropped my keys. I often drop my keys… thank you. Off you go — I did give you a fair warning.

ROGER: At least let me ring for a cab — it’s pissing down.

ANGIE: No, I don’t want you here. (She switches on the light.)

ROGER takes in the bare, bleak surroundings.

So now you know.

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) It was the saddest room I’d ever come across. If I’d come by invitation and had brought you flowers, there wasn’t even a vase to put them in… Where’s your friend Belle?

ANGIE: Gone.

ROGER: Gone where?

ANGIE: Gone. Does it matter where?

ROGER: When did she go, Angie?

ANGIE: You keep asking that!

ROGER: No, I don’t — but now that I have asked, Angie, what’s the answer?

ANGIE: (With a resigned sigh.) You obviously don’t approve of Belle or I would have told you. She’s moved in with a waiter in Soho.

ROGER: Of course she has. So your excuse that you couldn’t bring me back because of Belle no longer holds water. Since when?

ANGIE: You’re grilling me, Roger. Stop grilling me!

ROGER: I have to grill you, just to get a straight answer to a simple question. I didn’t ask why Belle left but quite simply when did she go?

ANGIE: How do I know? I didn’t ask her the date! Why do you go on and on and on about everything? What does it matter? (Still in her coat, she slumps on to the sofa and goes into a drunken stupor during the following.)

ROGER: I go on about everything because it does matter. If everything doesn’t matter to us then nothing matters. Do you comprehend that? Angela? Angela! (He grabs her arms and shakes her roughly.)

ANGIE: (Wrenching herself away angrily.) Stop doing that! Let go of me!

ROGER: I’m asking you a question, Angela!

ANGIE: I’m sick of your stupid questions and sick of you! Leave, will you? Why don’t you go!