T HI E INTERCOM
A Play in Two Parts
MAURICE ROWDON


CHARACTERS
ARTHUR CUTLASS
PEGGY CUTLASS his wife
PAMELA their daughter
NORMAN PILLINGER Pamela's husband
MARTIN FYFFE


SCENE
SRTHUR CUTLASS's home in the north of
England. The house has been fitted
with an intercom apparatus, the controls
of which are concealed in a chest.
This chest is the only feature of thé
set.


ONE
NORMAN PILLINGER, sitting on the
chest.
ANIMAL SQUEAKS AND SQUEALS
are heard OVER. He jumps nervous-
ly, looks at the chest under him.
PAMELA CUTLASS, his wife, appears.
NORMAN:
God above, I thought my rats were loose---
crawling up my trousers!
She gazes at him implacably.
PAMELA:
Weren't we supposed to talk?
NORMAN:
I am, talking! It was like a rat's coetal
cry (still looking at the chest). I lost
my job by the way.
PAMELA:
You were out all night.
NORMAN:
That's why: Tracking down if it was true.
Somebody tipped me off last night.
PAMELA:
Thank God then! -I thought you were with
NORMAN:
How much is there left, for the month?


PAMELA:
An overdraft.
If we had to pay rent
I don't know where we'd we be.
NORMAN:
They're not in are they?
PAMELA:
NORMAN:
Was it her idea, rigging up microphones
all over the place? (Lifting the chest
lid) Did you sec these controls?
A noise, off.
NORMAN:
I can't face them!
PAMELA:
No, leave me to do the dirty work!
NORMAN:
Was it the kids?
PAMELA:
Probably.
NORMAN:
Perhaps that rat'e squeal was the kids
too, I shouldn't stay up all night.
I wish I could be like that Martin Fyffe,
so solid, he looks as if he's wheeling
his shouiders in front of him all the time.
PAMELA:
Oh, stop bringing in Martin Fyffe all the
timel If you admire, be like him.
NORMAN:
A time-server?
PAMELA:
Well, why don't you serve time?
Another squeal, OVER.
NORMAN:
There, you heard it.
PAMELA:
It's the children.
There's a microphone
in the nuraethe nursery.
NORMAN:
She was fired too,, you'l1 be glad to hear.
PAMELA::
Your girlfriend?
NORMAN:
Who else? They gave her a reference, not
me. They admitted I was the most brilliant
chap thoy'a ever had in the place but the
director didn't even shake me by the hand.
(Screaming at her) Well, do something!
Argnor something! Aren't you a normal
wife?


PAMELA (also screaming) - Wife--to you? When you
spend two months screwing a lab assistant?
NORMAN:
I get that a hundred times a day. I told
you before, it's just gone dead on me.
It does on everabody.
After ten years
of marriage.
PAMELA:
It's because you've gone dead, not the
marriage.
NORMAN:
I suppose so.
Quiet again.
PAMELA:
And I have to keep the children alive.
NORMAN:
Yes, becunse I can't.
PAMELA:
But they must have given you a month's
notice---it said that on the contract
surely?
NORMAN:
I never had a contract.
PAMELA:
You told me you signed one!
NORMAN:
Of. course I did---that was propaganda for
your muma It worked too. She coughed
up a washing machine and a trip to Majorca.
(Remembering) That was an awful trip.
PAMELA:
Because we were alone.
NORMAN:
That's right. Do you know, they wouldn't
even give me back my rats? I contributed
a dozen when I took the job. I'm particul-
arly sorry to have lost Murphy and Mrs
Gorsmby Taylor, or Hilda as she sometimes
let me call her. But then I could hardly
bring them home---"urphy has nancer of the
tongue and Hilda's womb is several yards
from her, though technically still her own
of course.
PAMELA:
That's a horrible thing you do every
torture animals for sciencel
'Science devr
NORMAN:
Oh, they're both eating well. Murphy
might even have a new tongue by the end of
the week.


PAMELA:
You're so funng aren't you?
PEGGY CUTLASS calls, off:
Pamela, aré you there? :
NORMAN (jumping up) Oh Christ!
PEGGY CUTLASS enters as he leaves.
PEGGY (to PAMELA) Well, how do you like my new
invention?
PANELA (at the chèst)
This?
PEGGY (opening it) Look, all the rooms are connected
up by intercom. Thése are the controls---
off and relay and receive, and a master-
switch for relay and receive together.
No more shouting from room to room. When
the children can't sleep, or Barry géts
his nasty cough, we hear every sigh.
(As PAMELAstands doubtful) You'll get
used to it in time, like we do to all new
advances. We met such a marvellous man
by the way. He paints pictures that move,
isn't it marvellous? The paint actually
moves before your eyes. No one knows how
he does it. Ho wanted our doorknobs in
the shape of hands so you shook hands with
the door every time you came in, such a
friendly idéa. Arthur's thinking about it.
He has such nice teeth too. And a wife.
PAMELA:
Not that couple who make fake amphoaae?
PEGGY (stopping)
You said you smelt camphor?
PAMELA:
No I-
PEGGY:
It's the feesh paint. It sweats and
bleeds and weeps and dessicates and shrivels
according to the veather-
PAMELA:
What does?
PEGGY:
The picture. We bought it.
PAMELA:
How horrible!
PEGGY:
Must the new always be horrible?
A child cries, OVER.
PAMELA:
It's Barry!


ARTHUR's voice follows this, after
some disconnected noises: Peggz,
are you upstairs?
PEGGY:
It's your father. (At the intercom)
Hullo Arthur? Doesn't it work marvellous-
ly? Come upstairs at once. You've
voken the children.
ARTHUR (Vo) No I haven't. I tripped over a wire.
PEGGY:
You see, he'd never have found me otherwise.
Go down and feed the children. I made a
grapefruit squash for Barry and a grated
apple for---anyway, you'l1 see. Ask
Nancy.
PAMELA:
Nancy's been wearing my bracelet again.
I found it in her room.
PEGGY:
Oh well I'm sure she didn't mean it.
(packing her off) Anyway Pam do be nice
to her, you know how hard they are to get.
PAMELA leabes. The vague noise
of CHILDREN drifts OVER. PEGGY
switches the aparatus off care-
fully
fully.
ARTHUR CUTLASS appears.
ARTHUR:
What's the matter now?
PEGGY:
It couldn't be worse.
ARTHUR:
It never can be! Every time I come in a
room it seems to touch something ghastly.
Well, keep this one away from me-
PEGGY:
Norman--
ARTHUR:
I don't want to hear! And where's all the
furniture gone to?
PEGGY:
Don't you remember anything? We arranged
it all a week ago!
ARTHUR:
I try to forget (sitting on the chest).
PEGGY:
Don't do that!
Stand up!
ARTHUR (springing up) What the hell's the matter?
PEGGY:
The chest. You know you go through every-


ARTHUR:
God knows vhere our guests are going to
sit when Dan Sutton comes over and expects
a big reception. Then there's that picture
dripping all over the place downstairs, I
wouldn't mind if it just moved but it drips.
PEGGY:
It takes time and patience to cut through
the crust of the nineteenth century. We
aren't kings and queens any more so why
should we sit on thrones?
ARTHUR:
Oh do shut up. I'll never forget that
lavatory pan spraying itself with eau de
cologne every time you went. That got a
bit expensive didn't it? And I love the way
the bedroom windows open and close all night
according to the temperature, except that the
thermotstata's gone wrong and they won't close
any more! It cost me seventy-five quid to
fix it last month, now they say they'11 have
to take the windows out for a bit, that'll be
cosy!
PEGGY:
She's been crying her eyes out.
ARTHUR:
Who has?
PEGGY:
Your dagghter.
ARTHUR:
Has he gone off with that other woman again?
PEGGY:
No. He's walked out of his job. I heard
it ovèr the intercom. Probably he let all
the rats loose or something,
ARTHUR:
Let them loose? Good God, what's he going
to get up to next?
PEGGY (showing him) And these hospital accounts have
arrived.
ARTHUR (taking them)
What about it?
PEGGY:
Well, can't you see Gynaecological Depart-
ment written there?
ARTHUR:
What's urong with that?
PEGGY:
It's for Pamela.
She's been going once a
woek. It must be a baby,
I'll get her on
the intercom.
She goes to the chest with pleasure
and lifts the lid, then gets to work
on the controls


on the controls. She buzzes one of
the rooms.
NANCY (vo) Yes mum?
PEGGY:
Don't call me mum and tell my daughter I'd
to speak to her.
NANCY (VO) Your mum wants to speak to you mum. - Here
she is mum!
PEGGY:
Darling your father would like to see you.
PAMELA (VO) I'll be right up.
PEGGY:
Give me Nancy again.
PAMELA (VO) Here she is.
NANCY (vo) Yes mum? -
PEGGY:
If you took my daughter's bracelet to try
on this morning put it back.
NANCY: (VO) I didn't.
PEGGY:
I'm not saying you did. Anyway, put it
back. And I don*tbknow why you have to
call me mum, it isn't the nineteenth century.
I'll talk to Barry.
NANCY (vo) He's on his pot mum o
PEGGY:
Oh, I'm especially glad about that, after the
trouble he had last night.
NANCY (Vo) He's not having trouble now, by the looks of
it. Oh Blimey!
Sounds of farting etc OVER.
PEGGY switches off abruptly.
PAMELA appears.
PEGGY:
So Barry went then?
PAMELA:
Went where?
PEGGY:
Went, went--you know what I mean. I
wish you wouldn't dream so much.
That
tablet worked then.
PAMELA:
Did you give him a tablet?
But he's


running---I
PEGGY:
He can't be, he was blocked-- a
PAMELA:
Ho's running, I tell you, and Norman says
he isn't to have even a mild opium drug,
it only paralysés the intestines, he says
charcoal's nuch better.
PEGGY:
I won't have the children eating any form
of coal and that's that.
She leaves. ARTHUR watches her
exit with a sigh.
ARTHUR:
This is a damned funny box, don't you think
so? I head you and Norman are getting all
the furniture. As I look at it, you're only
two behinds whereas we plus our frequent
guests are at least fifty. And we' 've got
no damned chairs to sit on. When I entered
your mother's little world twenty-eight yoars
PAMELA:
ago I had to accept a lot I thought funny.
But I bet we '11 see sense evon in this box
before very long.
PAMELA:
Perhaps.
ARTHUR:
So why did he do it?
PAMELA:
What?
ARTHUR:
Let his rats loose. Of course they*re not
going to give him a reference if he does
that.
PAMELA:
They just sacked him.
ARTHUR:
For loosing the rats?
PAMELA:
He. didn't lose anything.
ARTHUR:
Loose, loosel
PAMELA:
I told you he was sacked!
ARTHUR:
And I said what for, didn't I?
PAMELA:
I don't know!
ARTHUR:
He did loose his rats, didn't he? I'd
have cleared this bastard out of
house
long ago if it hadn't been for HOFY And
you can follow him tool
And get that inter-


com changed so that we can have a bit of
peace sometimes!
He storms outs At once PEGGY'S
voice OVERTHE INTERCOM: Pamela,
Pamela, has your father gone?
PAMELA (shouting at the box) Find out for yourselft
PEGGY(VO)
Arthur, Arthur!
Don't lose your head!
Do you hear? Go back! Please do!
ARTHUR all but collides with
PAMELA, on his way back as she is
on hér way out.
He gestures to her and makes his
way to the box, lifting the lid as
quietly as possible. He fiddles
with the knobs but finally gives up.
ARTHUR (keeping his voice low) You know what your
mother's like. You'd better tell me every-
thing, for the sake of peace.
PAMELA:
I've told you everything I know.
ARTHUR:
Then I've no more to say.
PAMELA:
But I don't know anything morel
ARTHUR:
What, a man gets sacked for no reason? Do
you think I was born yesterday? You're just
damned obstinate. Anyway, I'm in a hurry.
(Fishing in his pocket) The hospital accounts
came this morning. Here, perhaps you can
clear up this little mystery.
PAMELA:
What little mystery?
ARTHUR:
A hundred and fourteen injections ordered
by your mother, well that's all right, but
hore are two fifteen-guinea consultations
for you. Gynaecological. If there's
anything wrong of that sort you'd better tell
gagr mother.
PAMELA:
I'm having another child.
ARTHUR:
Good God. That's quick work. He's only
just got back--
PAMELA:
I'm three months gone.


ARTHUR:
Your husband wasn't here three months ago.
PAMELA:
I knowe
ARTHUR:
Of course hé was here---wasn*t he? I mean,
othervise how could you have--? He was
here, surely?
PAMELA:
ARTHUR:
Oh yès he was, he made a damned fool of him-
self at the New Year's party-
PAMELA:
That was about nine months agoe
ARTHUR:
Good Goal Are you--? You're not saying-?
Is this somebody else's child?
PAMELA:
Yes!
Yes!
And I don't care if it ist
ARTHUR:
Have you told your mother? Now don't cry!
PEGGY (VO) I'm coming straight up!
ARTHUR:
I hope Nancy didn't get all that. Well,
vell, we libe and learn, don't we?
PEGGY appears. €
PEGGY:
When exactly did Norman leave home?
PAMELA:
About January.
PEGGY:
Well, I think it was very foolish of you.
PAMELA:
I knew you'd say thati
PEGGY:
If we can bring it on a month or two, it
might not be noticed. (Making swift cal-
culations) January, February...
ARTHUR (1doking at the chest) Listen, we'd better gét
a special switch on this thing so we can
listen without being heard-
PEGGY (going to the chest and turning the necessary
switch) It's already there. (To PAMELA)
Does he know?
PAMELA:
Who?
PEGGY:
gell Norman of course.
PAMELA:
I expect so. He deals in wombs and things
all day. He hasn't said anything.


PEGGY: -
I don't think even a hard creature liké him
could dény a new-born child, though of course
a child wouldn't have the advantage of being
a rat, from his point of view.
ARTHUR:
Still, I should haté to be Norman just at
this moment, thinking of another man's seed
in his wife's body.
PAMELA:
I wouldn't have done it if-
ARTHUR:
Yes, ho went away, I know. He deserves it.
He jumps guiltily as NORMAN appears
unexpectedly.
NORMAN:
What's wrong? Nancy said there was trouble.
ARTHUR:
There, I said she'd hear.
PEGGY (covering up) Come in, Norman, how do you like
the new chest?
NORMAN:
It wasn't my fault. I suppose she told you.
PAMELA:
He means about the job. (To NORMAN) It's
not about you at all. I'm having a child.
ARTHUR:
Oh God!
Fancg telling him the truth!
NORMAN (to PAMELA) And you tell them first? You're
having my baby and you break the news to
mummy and daddy first!
PAMELA:
It isn't your baby!
ARTHUR:
Oh, not
NORMAN:
Nbat?
PAMELA:
It isn't your baby.
PEGGY:
Oh I'm sure it's all a mistake and the dates
have been mixed up.
NORMAN:
Yes, trust you to want to hide the truthl
ARTHUR:
You can talk about the truthi You haven't
even got a job, you don't even ow the shirt
you sweat int
NORMAN (pointing at PEGGY) What about her--she never
earned a penny--her father made lavatory pans!


PEGGY:
Water-systems, we called them, and it was
my grandfather.
ARTHUR:
Well, as I said to Pamela, you can clear out
of my house as soon as you likel
PEGGY:
He's not léaving this house while my daughter's
pregnant, and that's that!
ARTHUR:
He won't leavé anyway, don't worry about
that. He only left iast time because he
had some money in his pocket.
PEGGY:
You'd better take Norman to seé the new
picture darling.
PAMELA (to NORMAN, who looks as though he might spring
on ARTHUR). Come on. Oh, do come on!
She all but drags NORMAN out.
PEGGY:
Of course it's his. You know how vague
young people are about sleeping together--
try fixing down which cigatette you smoked
whent
ARTHUR:
My only worry is the Fyffes finding out.
PEGGY:
Oh, there aren't scandals nowadays, nobody
cares about this kind of thing!
ARTHUR:
Are you sure? I mean, there must be some
respectability somewhere. And what about
Martin Fyffe's newspapers? They're covered
with scandal. He thrives on it--I mean,
it must be unusual for some people. And
he is our trustee.
PEGGY:
She doesn't show yet.
ARTHUR:
She does to people with eyes. Martin
Fyffe was a doctor once. Anyway, I've got
a meeting-
PEGGY:
Well, don't show anything with your face.
In the meantime I'li see what's true and
what isn't. I think I know my daughter.
She wouldn't sleep with anybody. Anyway,
I watched every one of her movements while
he wasaway. She was with thé Fyffe family
nearly the whole time. Otherwise she hardly
went out.


ARTHUR (lingering on his way out) I meàn I do like
to keep a clean front.
PEGGY:
Sometimes I wake in the night and listen in
case he's moving around the house, that's
really why I had the loudspeakers put in,
I had a nightmare that he was experimenting
with Barry and Rachel---
ARTHUR:
Oh do shut up.
PEGGY:
I think we'd better get him some rate,
install him in the basement or something,
get a laboratory going bécause that's the
only thing he's interested in, it would keep
him at home at least--
ARTHUR:
See you at lunch time (going).
PEGGY (to herself) I get so frightened sometimes.
I knèw something was in the air today...
She leaves slowly.
ARTHUR CUTLASS and MARTIN FYFFE,
both dressed for the office.
FYFFE is sitting on the chest.
They are in a gloomy silence.
ARTHUR:
Shepley Fine Consols went down a couple of
points yesterday too. Néarly had heart
failure when I saw that.
FYFFE:
You*ld make a couple of hundred doing the
transfer alone, crossing two borders, I
reckons Stili, you sleep on it, Arthur.


ARTHUR:
Remember the palmy days of 1945 when you
could treble the stake by travelling your
money from Switzerland to the starving
Rhineland and back to Switzerland again?
I never learned German so fast in all my
life!
FYFFE:
Knov what I bought last week?
ARTHUR:
FYFFE:
A haberdasher's.
ARTHUR:
What the hell for?
FYFFE:
In fact, five of them. I reckon there's
never been a slump yet when women didn't
buy knickers and bras and suspender belts.
That could save my life. Never did like
investments.
ARTHUR:
I've got my brilliant son-in-law to look
after f6 in time of trouble. I could
fetch sixpence a head on his rats. Get
up a second, will you?
FYFFE:
ARTHUR:
Jump up*
FYFFE:
What's the gag? (gete up)
ARTHUR opens the chest and switches
off the relay.
ARTHUR:
Don't like being listened in to.
FYFFE:
Cute gadget, that. But hearing the kids
all over the house isn't my idea of fun.
ARTHUR:
I suppose you know he lost his job.
FYFFE:
Who, Pillinger?
ARTHUR:
Yes. They didn't even give him a reference.
For being a commie.
FYFFE:
Balls. They're all comnies in that lab.
You can't get sàcked for that. This isn't
the United States.
ARTHUR:
I wish to God it was. I get so danned
frustrated in this house. I nean it isn't


as if I don't like him, he's all right, ,
ho's just round the bend, that's all. You
know, I used to envy those American kids
in Vietnam---I'a like to lay my hands on
somebody, that's how I feel sometimes---
guerilla warfare---get rid of a sort of load.
Funny, isn't it? I'm the mildest chap in
the world but what couldn't I do with a
Schmeizer!
FYFFE:
Schmeizer!
That's going back somet Bloody
frightening rate of fire.
(Silence) Mind
the Americans have got commies on the
graint
ARTHUR:
That's better than having them on your -
property.
FYFFE:
Dan Sutton should be flying over in a few
days. Do you know how much hé earns?
Less than eighty thousand dollars a year.
ARTHUR:
What?
FYFFE:
And he sits on a firm worth fifty million
at the least. I take my hat off to him.
I call that réal abstemiousness---eighty
thousand. I bet you wouldn't mind him
for a son-in-law.
ARTHUR:
He's got the whole bloody phargaceutical
industry in the western hemisphere under
his arse, and he don't say a word for him-
self! But this little bastard's on the
yap-yap-yap all day as if he owned the world.
He tried to tell me Baccherine was a
carcinagent.
FYFFE:
What the hell's that?
ARTHUR:
Gives you cancer. I just looked at him.
But don't imagine he gives a damn if you or
I get cancer. He enjoys the idea! He
says it with that little glint in his eye!
I mean, some youngsters are worried about the
state of the world---not himT Heis proud
of it!
FYEFE:
Is that what he does to his rats---gives
them cancer?
ARTHUR:
He transfers wombs. A rat under Pillinger
never knows if its kids are its own, or


evon where its womb isa
IYFFE:
Fascinating, though.
ARTHUR:
Yes but I wish he'd keep his mouth shut.
Ever since he set foot in this house he's
been spewing off about how car fumes over-
develop bones and bring on sterility and how
an H-bomb can go off any minute because we
have two hundred thousand nuclear flights
overhead annually, and how we're going to
get plagues through tinned foodstuffs and
deep freezes, and all kinds of cheerful junk
like that, just to show what a big brain he's
got. He knows I can't stand people talking,
not when they look as if they're never going
to stop, angagy. And every time he sees me
it seems to switch the spew on. I suppose
I've got a listening face. Some people
have. If he was earning eighty thousand
dollars a year it wouldn't be so bad.
FYFFE: :
Suppose you give your promised reception for
Dan Sutton, going to throw your son-in-law
in among ail those guests?
ARTHUR:
Why not?
FYFFE:
Because hets quite capable of taking Dan
Sutton aside and telling him you're impotent
or bankrupt or something!
ARTHUR:
Come off it!
FYFFE:
If Dan Sutton thought for a minute that your
morale was low he might start mistrusting
your judgements, than he'd pull out a few
contracts, which are my bread and butter too.
ARTHUR:
I could pull out my shares, see if he liked
that.
FYFFE:
He wouldn't give a damn. You've got less.
than ten percent of the equity. I'll talk
to Peggy about it. She usually sees your
point of view before you do,
ARTHUR:
What am I supposed to do, then, put a pill
in his tea?
FYFFE:
Find him a job. Get him out of this damned
réséarch stunt, it's too near our line of
business.
ARTHUR:


ARTHUR:
He'd get himself the boot just the same,
or sleep with the female staff.
FYFFE:
Well, I'n not staying here to get dyspepsia--
I've told you the state of your finances and
you'll be eating into your capital soon, my
boy.
ARTHUR:
Just let me show you that throw before you
FYFFE:
All right.
ARTHUR:
Over in two seconds---
He takes hold of FYFFE and does an
overspin ju-jitsu throw. FYTFE
lands
lands expertly on his feet.
FYFFE:
Not bad. I saw a gadget the other day---
walking stick with a slip-knife and a torch
at the end--- Zuk! Like a sword.
ARTHUR:
Heavy, I should think.
FYFFE:
Not a bit.
Transistor torch.
ARTHUR:
We had a scream down at the office the other
day. You know old Charlie Burns, he lives
next door to that nuclear station, well he
comes in the office and says, Look, they've
developed a pocket-size atom bomb, here it
is (takes small object out of his pocket),
unscrew the top, drop that in your neigh-
bour's garden and wait for the bang, and
he goès like this (as if to drop it) and he
had us' all shouting WATCH OUT! Crafty old
bugger, Charles.
FYFFE:
I tell you what, there could have been an
impregnable frontier of H bombs sunk in the
earth all the way from the Baltic down to
the Black Sea, only somebody in Germany
spilled it to the press, so Dan Sutton was
telling me last year. Well, I remember
we had to print it. All the others did
anyway.
ARTHUR:
Be careful, you might get knighted one day
for printing the truth.
FYFFE:
Well, I don't mind telling you the idea's
been motted. I only wish we could carry
swords.


ARTGUR:
You should buy that one you told me about.
FYFFE:
I did. This is it.
(Pointing his stick
at ARTHUR's stomach) If I like to press
a lever under this handle a knife springs
out and slits your tummy up. Hand over
all your money.
ARTHUR:
I did, long ago.
Cries of Arthur! Arthur! from
PEGGY, off.
ARTGUR:
Here it comes.
Stand to.
Sentries out.
PEGGY appears.
PEGGY:
There you are!
I've been calling on the
intercom, ever since we had it fixed up
it doesn't seem to beonn. Oh, Martin,
how nice you're here--do go down and com-
fort Pamela, she likes you so much, and you
used to be a doctor.
FYFFE:
Comfort her?
PEGGY (at the chest, peering in) I thought so, it
should either be on relay or receive and
it*s on neither (adjusting it). We'll
have to call Dr Blore.
ARTHUR:
We call him every day.
PEGGY:
Barry's temperature's up to 101. And
that rat-catcher won*t allow another
injection!
ARTHUR:
Sssh!
You've got it on relay.
PEGGY:
He wants that fat doctor with the ears
that stick out-im
ARTHUR:
A doctor can't help that.
PEGGY:
I'm frightened and something's got to be
done---these injections are' quite harnless,
and he says it widens the arvillories---
ARTHUR:
Tho what?
FYFFE:
She means arteries.
Anyway, I'll go down
and see what I can do.


FYFFE leaves.
PEGGY:
God knows I can't help loving my own
daughtor, and wanting my grandchildren
healthy.
ARTHUR:
Barry*11 get tho injection, don't worry.
Nov just calm down, (às he goes to the
chest) I'm connecting to relay. (To
the interoom)
Is Pamela down there?
NANCY (vo) That you, num?
ARTHUR:
Mum my aunt Fanny, get Pamela!
PAMELA (vo) Yes it's nel
ARTHUR:
Come up here at once.
Sounds of CHILDISH MOANING OVER.
NANCY's VOICE is heard OVER-
Como on duck it's going to bc all
right. Then MARTIN FYFFE saying:
What's the trouble? Touch of
gastric flu?
ARTHUR:
I've half a mind to stop her allowance,
until he comes to heel on these medicai
questions!
PEGGY (as CHILD cries OVER) Lidten!
PAMELA onters.
PAMELA:
Yes?
ARTHUR:
He's got to have that injection!
In fact
he's having it.
PAMELA:
But he's had five in nearly a week!
Norman says the injection actually causes
the flu, it's terriblt dangerous!
ARTHUR:
To hell with Normant
FYFFE (VO) Pamela that's quite untrue, I gave our
little girl half a dozen of these tubes
at various times and she didn't even show
a rough tongue.
PAMELA:
Who's that?
FYFFE (VO.) It's Martin Fyffc.
I'll give it to him
quick, why don't you come down and watch?


He'll be sitting up and laughing in a
couple of minutes.
PEGGY (to PAMELA) You see?
FYFFE (VO) Come on, Pamela, don't be a fool. I
used to be a doctor after all.
PAMELA goes out with a resigned
sigh.
Incoherent NOISES OVER, and FYFFE's
Whero's the syringe?
PEGGY:
Thank God for somebody with sensel
ARTHUR:
I won't have that rat-man in my house
any morel
PEGGY:
Sssh!
ARTEUR (hissing) What the hell did you give him
three hundred rats for?
PEGGY (also hissing) He's on a new discovery---at
least she says sos
ARTHUR:
He's found out they've got tails, I
suppose. And you give him a whole rat
kingdom! He's got the basement crawling
with 'em--I can't go doum and get a bottle
of Burgundy any more-!
Over the intercom there is FYFFE's
Hold him on his tummy!
A moment of silence is followed by
A CHILD'S SCREAM, OVER,
ARTHUR:
For God's sakel
The clumsy bugger's caught
a nerve-e-!
FYFFE's It's all,riths, it's all
right! comes OVER. Then CONBUSED
SHOUTING.
The sound, off, of frantic running
on the stairs.
NORMAN appears out of breath, in
a white laboratory smock spotted
with rodent gore.
NORMAN:
Where is he? Barry! Barry!


PEGGY:
It's only an injéction darling!
ARTHUR:
Caught him on the nerve, poor chap!
NORMAN:
Have you two been at it again? I've told
you not to touch my child haven't I? You've
given him six injections this week, you
could cripple him for life, why did I ever
come to this house (rushing at PEGGY violent-
ly), you bitch!
ARTHUR (trying to ward him off) Look outt
PEGGY's screams join the SHOUTS
OVER.
NANCY (vo) You all right mum?
NORMAN:
He*s got no more bacteria I tell you!
No resistance left--I told you he has to
be pumped with lactobacillus for at least
a month-1
PAMELA appears.
PAMELA:
Norman!
NORMAN:
You let them kill my chilal
PAMELA:
Leave my mother alone! Leave her alone!
FYFFE (vO) Anything wrong up there?
NANCY (VO) Are you all right mum?
ARTHUR (abruptly pulling up the chest lid and switching
off) That damned box!
NORMAN rushes out.
PEGGY:
He put his fingers round my throat!
ARTHUR (to PAMELA) I don(t know how you could have
married such a bloke---(peering into the
chest) are we unplugged?
PEGGY (in tears) IOselected those rats so carefully.
There wasn't a blemish on any one of them.
Well, it's all finished now,
You can
have your bastard child.
PAMELA:
Don't say that!
ARTHUR:
And don't you shout at your mother!


If you insist on having that child you
can get out and find a hospital on your
own money because I'm not going to help
you!
PEGGY:
Don't be silly---of course you arel
ARTHUR (still to PAMELA) I see he does nothing about
bringing the child off---that means he's
got no self-respect! And how are you
going to face Martin Fyffe after this?
and his family?
PEGGY:
He'll drag us right down.
ARTHUR:
And that child's going to grow up knowing
he doesn 't belong. His brother and sister
are going to make that plain.
Children
can be very cruel.
PAMELA (whimpering) All they need is love.
ARTHUR:1
If you hate the idea of an abortion you
can have the child and then give it away.
There's a routine for these things---you
don't even see it--they get first-class
parents---people who need a bonny baby
and can't have one of their own.
PAMELA:
The child's mine.
ARTHUR:
You'll regret it all your life, and I'll
you why, because decent people like Martin
Fyffe and Dan Sutton--
PAMELA:
Oh please stop talking about Martin Fyffel
PEGGY:
They're going to look at you very funny
whenever that child comes into the room,
and you*re not going to love that child
because of it. I know a bit about human
naturel And what about your husband?
Wait until he's my age, you'll begin to
take it out of him liké she takes it out
of me-!
PEGGY:
Arthurl
ARTHUR:
Every time he doesn't buy you a new dress
or his coat stinks of rats you'1l tell him
he*s the father of bastards and how much
better the other guy is---he'll live to
suspect that all his children are bastards,
even Barry and Rachel---!


PAMELA:
No he won't!
ARTHUR:
All right, then, listen: you can have
that child, you can bring him up eB an equal
footing with his brother and sister, you
can even keep that sponging rat-catcher
in the house, if you tell me who the father
PAMELA:
I can't bear any more---I'll be sick!
PAMELA dashes out.
ARTHUR:
All this'll play me into Martin Fyffe's
hands, I know it will--l
PEGGY:
Don't be silly!
ARTHUR:
God knows what I mean myself but I know it.
I try to look on the bright side, always
keep the talk on a certain level---(in a
sudden outbursto do you think I couldn't
see what you were up to twenty-eight years
ago? Did you think he was really and truly
interested in my stocks? or did you only
assume that I thought so?
PEGGY:
Please! (goes to the chest to check that
the interçom it off)
ARTHUR:
You didn*t just deceive me-wand your first
husband---you deceived Martin Fyffe as well.
That's why I like him--I knew it when I
married you---when I had him as best man!
You told him Pamela was minel
PEGGY:
She was!
She was!
MARTIN FYFFE, off: Arthur, are you
there?
They adjust themselves quickly.
PEGGY (CONT.) Is that Martin? We're herel
MARTIN FYFFE appears.
FYFFE:
Thought I'd break the glad news. Dan S
Sutton's in town.
ARTHUR:
Oh, oh.
FYFFE:
Secretary called.
Invited us all to
dinner.
And then a club.
American


ambassador might be there.
PEGGY:
I've nothing to wear, so that's out.
ARTHUR:
What? You've a wall full of gowns, and
forty-nine pairs of evening shoes.
PEGGY:
Not if the ambassador's going to be there.
ARTHUR:
I suppose I'll have to fork out a couple
of hundred quid for something you'l1 never
wear after the first night. But I'll do
it. Because I'm going to give the biggest
reception this house has. ever seen. There
won't be a couple of butlers on hire like
last time but a dozen.
FYFFE:
He's got a cool four million dollars to
get rid of in research grants, believe it
or not. Well, I'm late.
ARTHUR:
Good bye, old chap.
FYFFE goes.
ARTHUR:
Just wait until that réception, I'll show
you what I can do. Just for once I'm
going to try and present a clean front to
the world, a glittering one, because my
front is,clean, it really is!
PEGGY:
Oh please don't go on. You know how it
only eats your nerves away.
ARTHUR:
Nervest
I don't know what they feel like!
All I get is blows, nothing nervous---just
pain, one dull blow aftor the other, some-
times
tines between the eyes, sometimes in the
backside, and that's why I seem lazy in the
evening, because I need a rest (slumping
on to the chest).
PEGGY:
I wish we could be a happy family!
Couldn*t we try? Suppose we made a fuss
of Norman? Itts only frustration on his
part, tarning him into a wild man.
Couldn't we buy him a new dinner jacket?
ARTHUR:
A new one? He hasn't even got an old one!
PEGGY (sitting at his side) And then invite him to
meet Dan? And put everything on a proper
level? Put him on his feet and see if
he stands the full height of a man---couldn't


we do that?
ARTHUR:
Every time I shout I feel a strand going.
Some people get relief that way but it
makes me feel I'm saying goodbye. My
father never. raised his voice. He was
a good man. I'll go to the office.
(Rising) Though I feel more like a good
night's rest.
PEGGY:
Get yourself. some coffee downstairs.
He has gone.
PEGGY lifts the chest lid and
puts the pnterthn antpedag.to relay.
PEGGY:
Are you there Pamela? -
PARELA (vo) Hullo, is that you mummy?
PEGGY:
Yes, come up at once. I'm aloné.
PEGGY carefully puts the intercom
to off and closes the lid of the
chest, then waits.
PAMELA appears.
PEGGY:
Darling, I want you to tell me who the
father is.
PAMELA:
I can't.
PEGGY:
I'll never say a word.
And I'll see
everything's all right for Norman. I
mean, there won't be any fuss about having
it. But you can't expect our cooperation
if you don't give yours.
PAMELA:
I can*t. I really can't!
PEGGY:
Why not?
PAMELA:
It's jast impossible---for everybody!
PEGGY:
Then we know him!
PAMELA:
PEGGY:
It's obvious we do! And I'll find out.
So you may. as vell saye
PAMELA:
I've got to think of the other pèrson too.


PEGGY:
Who?
PAMELA:
The father.
PEGGY:
Panola, tell me who he is. I'm boginning
to guess.
PAMELA:
PEGGY:
Tell me, Pamela.
PAMELA:
Martin Fyffe.
PEGGY:
Martin--? Mar--? Are you mad? It
isn't truel
You couldn't have done!
Pamela! Pamela!
PAMELA:
Yes, it's him!
PEGGY:
But you weren't alone with himt
PAMELA:
I was at their house nearly every day,
you know that!
PEGGY:
You fooll
You fool! Do you know what
you've done? You've ruined your father!
You've ruined him! Arthur! For God's
sake, Arthur!
PEGGY dashes out.
The chest is covered with cloth
of gold.
NORMAN, in a new smoking jacket,
and PAMELA, in a party dress.
The children murmur in their
sleep, OVER.


NORMAN stares at her.
NORMAN:
When I look at your body it's like
looking in the mirror at my own. That's
why I want that child, Pamela.
PAMELA:
You want Fyffe's child? You're an idiot,
pervert!
NORMAN:
I'd approciate the variety of another human
face---a little stranger---when I look at
Barry too I sée my own face--
PAMELA:
Then you hate yourself!
NORMAN:
What's new about that? A bit of Martin
Fyffe might let the air in. I mean it.
The idea excites me.
PAMELA:
Every idea excites you, as long as it's
against the heart.
NORMAN:1
Every new idea excites me. And you like
them old.
ARTHUR enters with a tray of drinks.
ARTHUR:
They're as strong as hell. I want everybody
gay tonight. Your mother's waiting to be
pinned up or something.
PAMELA:
All right.
ARTHUR:
You look terrific.
PAMELA leaves.
NORMAN:
Is she really waiting to be pinned up at
the back or is that your way of getting
Pamela out of the room--?
ARTHUR:
de were going to have a talk weren't we?
NORMAN:
Yes but can't you say it out straight--
'I want to be alone with your husband'?
ARTHUR (handing him a drink firmly)
Tome on, get
that down, and let's make a good evening
of it.
NORMAN (as they touch glasses)
When is he due?
ARTHUR:
Dan Sutton? Any minute.


NORMAN:
Generous of you to let me stay. The
big American docsn't even know you've
got a son-in-law, I bet.
ARTHUR:
Well, you bet wrong. He knows Pam's
married.
NORMAN:
That's different.
ARTHUR:
I wish you were kinder to Peggy. She
was up half the night worrying over this
child.
NORMAN:
Qhich child?
ARTHUR:
The one Pamela's having. We're scared
of the possible outcome Norman. I mean,
everybody's going to know it's not yours.
I mean you can't want people to know you've
been fooled.
NORMAN:
Why not?
ARTHUR:
You may think so now but peoplé are going to-m
well, I won't say laugh at you but---anyway,
that's not the point, but the chap tho gave
her this child, I mean he's always in the
world to tell the story--
NORMAN:
Martin Fyffe? He's not going to breathe
a word, surely?
ARTHUR (almost dropping his glass) Good God, you
know who it is? Good God! And who for
God's sake told you?
AGBMAN:
Pamela of course. She tells me everything.
If she kept anything secret she'd have to
solve it herself and she couldn't do that.
ARTHUR:
And aren't you jealous?
NORMAN:
ARTHUR:
I mean, you're not wild---you don't want
to wring his neck--you don't loathe his
because he's rich and influential and
dirtied your bed?
guts
NORMAN:
He didn't dirty enything. He gave her a
child. And I want the child.
ARTHUR:
You're lying of course.


NORMAN:
Why should I? My attitude is, let's
have everything in the open, let's all
know who's sleeping with whos
ARTHUR:
You surely don't think Martin'd stand
for that, do you?
NORMAN:
All right, then---let's keep quiet about
it: so. we're back where wé started----a
third child, mine. So where's the worry?
ARTHUR:
The worry's him---every time I look at
that child I'll think of Fyffe---oozing
his way into my family---sleeping with my
daughter when ho's nearly twice her age---
the dirty, two-faced slime! And it
doesn't worry you! Good God, where's
your character?
PEGGY:(VO) Arthur, are you shouting?
ARTHUR (agdressing the chest)
If you don't go away
I'll unplug!
PEGGY (VO) I only heard the shouting, it's the
children I'm thinking of.
ARTHUR (turning to NORMAN again)
All I ask is don't
start distressing people tonight. That's
all I really wanted to say. Let's have
a holiday. Just this once.
PEGGY (VO) Arthur?
ARTHUR (again addressing the chest) What is it?
PEGGY (VO) Martin's just arrived.
ARTHUR:
Give hin a drink, I'll be down. (To
Norman) I'd like to spit in his face.
Whenever I go to bed I pull back the
sheets and find it full of worms. All
my life it's been like that. I pull the
sheets back to hopefully and then--
NORMAN:
Learn to live with them. You're going
to for billions and billions of years
anyway.
ARTHUR:
Trust you to put that point of view.
NORMAN:
Every man makes his own worms. In the
last war you did a bunk and found yourself
useful war-work in Washington D.C. and


that's how you met Dan Sutton and
became a rich man. Now all that's
worms.
And you expect to find a clean
bed.
ARTHUR:
You'll talk about my war-time appointment
once too often---I'm going downstairs---
NORMAN:
You looked down your nose at Vichy France
in the last war but you made a Vichy
England---you sold out to the Americans
who werentt interested in the sale any-
ARTHUR:
Listen I--
NORMAN:
Abd look at your guest tonight, the
pharmaceatical giant---
ARTHUR:
I thought you'd want a go at him!
NORMAN:
Ho bolsters up your world, that's why
you love him. Otherwise you'd have to
think up some new ideas. I'll tell you
sonething, you don't want them big on this
side of the Atlantic, it doesn't suit you
any moro---your interests have switched,
it's safer over there---you kept England
static and held the gifted back for
twenty years---!
ARTHUR:
Now shut up!
NORMAN:
I'm one of the results so I know!
ARTHUR:
You! You're good for lab assistants,
getting between their legs, that's what
you're good for!
NORMAN:
MARTIN FYFFE appears.
FYFFE (to NORMAN)
What are you doing? Put your
hands down man!
ARTHUR (also to NORMAN) Get out of my housel
NORMAN:
And leave you with this chap's babies---?
FYFFE:
You want to be kicked out?
PEGGY appears.
PEGGY:
Oh God!


NORMAN:
And thanks for the dinner jacket (taking
it off and throwing it at RRTHUR)!
PEGGY:
I shouldn't have left you all alone!
NORMAN dashes out.
FYFFE:
I'd have screwed his neck off if he'd
gone on!
PEGGY:
Dan Sutton's just arrived!
She follows NORMAN out, taking
the dinnetheadkoner jacket with her.
FYFFE (handing ARTHUR a drink) Drink up. I told
you not to let hin in on tonight, didn't
I? He drinks a lemonade and his liver
runs riot.
ARTHUR:
I'd like to take a fist-full of Blore's
red pills and stuff them down my throat
and say good bye and damn the lot of youi
FYFFE:
Oh shut up.
ARTHUR:
Qell, we're all in it now, including you.
He'li go and shoot his mouth off to Dan
Sutton.
FYFTE:
About what?
ARTHUR:
Oh come on, don't try and look innocent,
it makes gou ugly. Listen, I never
thought you'a pull a dirty trick like
that. I woulân't lay a hand on your
FYFFE:
Suppose she laid a hand on you?
ARTHUR:
You're not telling me---
FYFFE:
That's exactly how it wast
And I knew
she wasn' 't exactly yoursçhmad, exactly
your daughter---if she'd been yours in
blood I'd have laid off, insisted, I'd
have struggled. But I knew she was
Harley Johnson's child.
ARTHUR:
FYFFE:
And I never did care for Harley Johnson.
He's like his supermarkets---all strip
lighting- --show! Pam didn't take after
him, thank God.


ARTHUR:
You seem to know more about mé than I
know myself. I don't know daughters
from wives---children from children's
children---who's they are God alone knows
and I don't care any more. I wish I
could stop caring.
FYFFE:
Listen---you use me to do your dirty
work---I sack your employees for you, I
break their hearts---I keep them on a
string for months on end until they're
cringing. You tear up half this town to
make a car-park, and you use me to argue
the toss with the local council while
your wife is advocating a nice recreation
ground on the same sitel You don't give
a damn who's in the way as long as you get
there. Well, that's all right. I'm the
same. But don't ask for peace. I don't
get it and Igntnot fndllémongh fooàsanoughito ask for
it. I sat up half the night and she called
for more at dawn, and I cried when that
second lot was over.
ARTHUR:
I think you must have a cruel mind to say
that to me---not just forget the whole
thing and say you're a swine and leave it
at that---
FYFFE:
You can't face a thing can you? And
that's the kind of man a woman weaves her
plots around.
I'll tell you something
about women-
ARTHUR:
I wish to God peeple'd stop telling me
things and just get on with the pleasureable
business of living. I mean, it is
pleasureable. A nice drink---there's
Dan Sutton downstairs---we've got dinner
waiting---I don't know... I'vé got a
constitution meant for another age.
FYFFE:
I'd like to have seen you in the age of
Britain's commercial empire, with Victoria
and her German prince setting the pace,
you'd have been a tank of Bhohargnd lechery.
You forget to answer your letters, you
make a decision one minute and fail to
check on it the next---
ARTHUR:
I'll go down and find Dan, he's normal
at least---
FYFFE:
What, Dan Sutton?


ARTHUR (stopping) Oh, don't destroy that illusion
for me, for God's sake.
FYFTE:
Never mind, Arthur, we all love you.
ARTHUR:
I wouldn*t mind if a certain tone could
be kept upt He wants your child by his
own wife, says he likes *the variety'!
Now surely to God that's affectation isn't
FYFFE:
No, because he can't give Pamela what she
wants---he's out to wreck where he can't
build---sha as food as told me, Arthur,
it was pitiful, she-
ARTHUR:
All right, don't go into details.
You
know, I'li never be able to hhink the same
of you again. I used to like you, I
mean I felt safe with you, I thought you
kept a certain kind of skeleton order going
in life, with your family and all that,
I thought you applied a sort of French
intelligence on thèse subjécts and kept
your mistresses away from your hoarth and
home-
FYFFE:
You say that once a year. The fact is
you invent me for your own purposes and
blame me when the picture doesn' 't fit.
You've lost faith in me at least a dozen
times before.
PEGGY appears again.
PEGGY:
Nov I've settled it all, so for goodness
sake don't let's have any more rowsm Arthur.
She told me just now that she distinctly
remembers the two nights she and Norman
were together, she travelled up to see him
hile this girlfriend of his was avay, she
the dates mixed, and you know what he
sot he's always got his nose inside a rat
cagé, he's so busy mixing bredds he thinks
humand beings are the same. She'll have
the child quite normally, so let's hear no
more about it. And it' S Norman's child.
That was all silly hysteria on her part
and the dates are quite clear now: Martin
can be godfather again.
FYFFE (staring at her) What?


PEGGY:
And you must come down and look after
Dan.
PEGGY leaves.
FYFFE:
What was all that?
ARTHUR:
Apparently he's the father after all.
When the girlfriend wasaaway or something.
Anyway, be thankful for small mercies.
Phew! What we go through for nothing!
I suppose I owe you an apology but you're
not going to get it, I need another drink.
We'll see how that rascal Dan is, shall we?
FYFFE stands open-mouthed.
FYFFE:
Yes, well-- Lead the way- You
certainly are a remarkable couple.
ARTHUR:
You know, with Pegey talk doesn't matter
a damn, it's the facts that count.
And
she always ferrets them out. I suppose
that's how she keeps the family going.
FYFFE:
Yes, I suppose it is!
They leave.
The cloth of gold is still there.
NORMAN, with a surgical coat slung
over his dresshis dress clothes, is sitting
on the chest.
OVER THE INTERCOM we hear CHILDREN's
VOICES and the deep, steady tones
of DAN SUTTON.
SUTTON (VO) Well, you*ve got two charming little people
here, Mrs Pillinger.
PAMELA (vO) It's nice of you to say so+
SUTTON (VO) Don't you think it's about time I met the


man responsible for them?
PAMELA (vo) The man-w-responsible?
SUTTON (vo) I mean your husband.
PAMELA (vo) Oh yes, of course, I'll get him-whe
went off somewhero---I didn't know you
hadn't met--I'll call him over the
intercom.
SUTTON (Vo) The what?
PAMELA (vo) The intercom. It's a wondorful idea.
We can hear the children all over the
house-
SUTTON (VO) Is that such a good idea?
PAMELA (vo) My husband's probably down in the
basement with his rats.
SUTTON (vo) His what?
PAMELA (VO) His rats. He's a geneticist.
SUTTON (Vo) A geneticist? Now nobody told me that!
First he produces the two finest brats in
England and now he's a geneticist!
PAMELA (VO) I'll call him!
SUTTON (vo) Well good night children.
THE CHILDREN make suitable good
night noises OVER.
There is
relative silence.
PAMELA is heard, off.
PAMELA (off) Norman!
Are you there, Norman?
NORMAN:
I'm here.
PAMELA (off)
Are you down in the lab Norman?
NORMAN:
I'm HEREI
PAMELA (off)
Well, where's here for God's sake?
PAMELA appears.
PAMELA:
Oh now you
got back in that
bloodstained
have you? Why do
asvoe/t,
you always mess things up? He's asking


to see you--
NORMAN:
You've got quite a flush. Power means
a lot to you doesn't it? It did with
Martin Fyffe I suppose---you thought of
all those provincial newspapers he owns-
PAMELA:
Shut up! You always get me upset.
If only you wouldn't use vords so!
NORMAN:
It's because we're not agreed about
anything that's all. Like Dan Sutton.
I don't want to see him.
PAMELA:
But why not? He was amazed to hear you
vofe a géneticist. I think he wants to
give you a job! Didn't you hear Martin
Fyffe say how he had millions of dollars
to hand out in résearch grants? Well
why shouldn*t you have some of that?
NORMAN:
I saw Dan Sutton downstairs. He bristles
with gold watches and wrist-calendars and
pocket compasses---to give his worms of
ambition a gilt covering--worms are what
he means by soul.
PAMELA (menace)
And what do you mean by soul?
NORMAN:
Worms. But English ones. Not American.
English worms have more tradition behind
them.
PAMELA:
Oh, you're very funny aren't you? You
lové torturnng my hopes don't you? Like
you do those dumb little creatures down-
stairs in the basement! You use their
love and their sorrows for your dirty little
experiments, just like the nazis froze
people half to death and then gypsy women
to sleép with them and wake them back to
life again with love, just to see what
degree centigrade life returned at, and
it's just the same what you do-with them
and with mel If you can watch an animal
suffering every day, and plants tumours in
them, and cut out their wombs, you could
do it to himan, beings too!
NORMAN (gazing at her) You're talking almost
intelligently.
PAMELA:
If people knew what you were really like
they'a put you in kennels with the dogs!


NORMAN:
Instead, they need me. That's why
they place me higher than politicians
and even industrialists. (Rising)
OK, I'll ask him for a job!
PAMELA:
You couldn't---you'd talk about your
rats and never say a word about the job!
NORMAN (as he leaves) Poor America!
PAMELA:
Why did you say that?
But NORMAN has gone.
PAMELA takes up the drinks-
tray and is about to take it
out when BUEFEnen MARTIN FYFFE comes
in, almost colliding with her.
FYFFE (urgently)
What the hell does he have to
dress like a butcher for? You remember
my offer? (Trying to touch her across
the tray) Panela!
PAMELA:
The answer's no!
FYFFE:
You don't have to alter anything---just---
well, you know the usual enjoyment we
always had, without altering the bargain
you see? I'm like a rock---you need
that---an older man! You can get right
avay from that butcher! You look 9o
pale! From Arthur too---from all this
whining you have to do every day for
pocket-money!
PAMELA (trying to edge away) What's the matter
with you?
FYFFE:
Did you get the fifty quid?
PAMELA:
I found it in my purse!
FYFFE:
I told your father all kinds of crap---
I wanted to cut my tongue out! If he
knew I was in love-!
PAMELA:
So what about the child?
FYFFE:
I told youl---I'll start a damned scandal
if you like and involve my wife and then
take the child---!
PAMELA:
You say 'damned scandal -you know it


makes you angry!
FYFFE:
What's the good of wrecking somebody like
Jean--I mean, you don't have anything
against her! I've got to keep my home
together darling. And this home too!
You've no idea what your mother and father
spendt If I'm wrecked they're wrecked
too, don't you see that? When I turn my
back they get thenselves swindled out of
thousands! She'll sign a cheque for
fifty guid to save herself a galk---then
spend three hours substituting sixty-watt
bulbs for seventy-five because it saves
a penny a day!
PAMELA (with a sigh, trying to walk off) Yes, I've
heard it ali before!
He bars her way.
FYFFE:
Look, I gave you an offer, damn you, a
flat and an income in any town you iike,
and a job--top executive, you could
easily handle it-and you look down your
nosel Pamela, Pamela (trying to embrace
In her struggle the tray falls
and the glasses smash.
PAMELA (breaking free)
Norman!
Norman!
PAMELA runs out.
FYFFE leaves hurriedly in the
opposite direction.
PEGGY comes in
PARTY NOISES and MUSIC OVER.
PEGGY dashes in, chased by ARTHUR.
PEGGY (stopping)
What's that on the floor? (As


ARTHUR grabs hold of her roughly)
There's been an accident!
ARTHUR:
I don't give a damn about accidentst
I want an answer to my question!
PEGGY:
You're hurting mel
You've gone mad!
ARTHUR:
Answer that bloody question!
PEGGY:
I don't know what you're talking about!
ARTHUR:
You went to the States in the Queen Mary,
didn't you, in 1938? That's what you
told Dan Sutton just now, isn*t it?
PEGGY:
You've spoiled my dress. Now will you
let me go? I've got such a headache!
ARTHUR:
Did you go to the States in '38?
PEGGY:
I'll scream---I'll call for Martin Fyffel
ARTHUR:
You bloody slut, you've called for him
enough---that's his child---you swine!
PEGGY:
Arthur!
(Diving for the intercom chest)
Arthur!
They scramble with each other.
He is trying to prevent her
putting it on to relay.
PAMELA dashes in.
PAMELA:
What are you doing? Leave her alone!
ARTHUR:
That's right---you take her part! It's
like you, isn't it? You've got his face,
you bitch, you've got his sort of bunched-
up eyes and his monkey-mouth and his
cabbage ears and his hair that sprouts
like corn-on-the-cob---I used to joke
about it--I used to pull his leg---
called him Mr Maize---it's the same nasty
blonde straggling lying hair---(pulling
PAMELA's hair)!
PAMELA (struggling) Leave my hair alone!
PEGGY:
Arthur!
NANCY (vo) Is everything all right, mum? I'm
afraid you'll wake 'em up!


PEGGY (rushing to the chest) Yes, yes, it's all
right, we're playing a game, now go back
to bed-!
NANACY (Vo) I'm mixing drinks in the kitchen mum -
PEGGY:
Well go on mixing! (Switches out)
Thank God he didn't hear!
ARTHUR:
Who's he? Which of the men--the one
you've been opening your heart to down-
stairs, about a trip to the States in
1938, which you never told me about in
all the twenty-eight years we've been
together, or the one you opened your
legs to, old corn-on-the-cob?
PEGGY:
Don't let him Pamela!
PAMELA:
You pulled my hair!
ARTHUR:
Damn your hair!
PAMELA:
And damn you too!
Iou're not my
father!
ARTHUR:
I know I'm not---I wouldn't want to
be---you're a low, betraying whore and
you're married to a rat-catcher!
PAMELA:
PEGGY:
He's drunk! You can see it!
PAMELA:
Get out! Go on, get out!
ARTHUR:
Get out of my own house? I'll see
you damned first, you breeder of
bastards!
PEGGY (to ARTHUR) Don't you realise she's four
months gone?
PAMELA is about to fall.
ARTHUR:
Oh God!
He manages to catch her and
they
they half lay her on the chest
as best they can.
PEGGY:
Get some brandy!
ARTHUR:
Where is it?


PEGGY:
Well, where do you think---?
She kicks a bottle towards him.
ARTHUR:
No bloody glasses!
He goes out in search of glasses.
PEGGY:
I'll go away!
I've got't the money!
I'll take a degree in philosophy! I've
always wanted tol
PAMELA:
He pulled my hair!
PEGGY:
Oh stopcomppaanangglabout your hairl
It's good for the roots!
ARTHUR returns.
ARTHUR:
Here!
(pouring a glass) - It's Dan
Sutton's glass---I just grabbed it--
he thought it was some kind of spoof!
He offers the glass to PAMELA.
PAMELA:
I don't need it.
ARTHUR:
Come ont
PAMELA:
ARTHUR:
Oh Christ haven't you got a little bit of
magnanimity---wbat an awful familyl---I
mean, what do you think my feelings are?
PAMELA:
I don't want iti
PEGGY:
Drink it and let's have some quiet!
PAMELA drinks.
ARTHUR:
Dan Sutton said 'Sounds like a dance going
on upstairs! I nearly said 'Yes, dance
of death!'
PEGGY:
You started it!
ARTHUR:
Did I? I think you started it in 1938,
on the Queen Mary!
PEGGY:
Oh, for God's sake stop talking about
queens all the time! I don't know what
you're saying!
PAMELA (to ARTHUR) You said about corn-on-the-cob


didn't you? I see what you mean now.
PEGGY:
I wish I did!
PAMELA:
You mean Martin Fyffe, don't you?
ARTHUR:
What I mean is my own business, my own
habpppiness! Sometimes I'm scared to
wake up in the morning, I keep my eyes
closed. Especially with her in the bed.
She doosn't wake up like anybody
she jumps. That's because she dobente
know what the day's going to hold for
her, she doesn't know what debt she's
going to find herself in, for an act
she forgot long ago! She doesn't
remember a thing she does!
PEGGY:
I'm not in debt!
PAMELA (still to ARTHUR) I was born in January 1939.
ARTHUR:
She went on the Queen Mary in April 1938.
PEGGY:
If only I knew what youbwere saying, you
poor devil.
PAMELA:
And what did she do?
ARTHUR:
We weren't married then.
PAMELA:
She was married to my father.
ARTHUR:
He wasn't on the boat.
PAMELA:
Who was, then? Don't say it!
Don't
say it! (throws her brandy in his face)
ARTHUR:
You fool---you could blind me!
I'll
say it!
PAMELA:
Shut up! No, no! Shut up!
ARTHUR:
Of course---good Godl---you know what
you've done now, don't you?---you'vo---I
PAMELA:
Norman!
I want Norman!
Norman!
Norman!
ARTHUR:
Don't scream, for God's sake!
PEGGY:
Pamelal
PAMELA:
Norman!


ARTHUR (to PEGGY) I shouldn't have talked to you
in Martin Fyffe's office in 1939---1939!
NORMAN rushes in, this time
dressed impeccably in dinner
clothes.
NORMAN:
What's the trouble?
PAMELA:
Take me away! Take me avay from these
people!
NORMAN:
What is it?
PEGGY:
Arthur, get mé a drink.
PAMELA:
He pulled my hair.
NORMAN:
What for?
ARTHUR:
Oh, there was a bust-up.
PAMELA:
Take me somewhere else, another house!
NORMAN:
I could hear you from downstairs. So
could Dan Sutton. He thought it was a
dance.
PEGGY:
Get me a drink!
ARTHUR:
Oh, stop saying that!
PEGGY:
Well, get me onel
I'm dying!
PAMELA:
I feel sick.
NORMAN:
You'd better get to bed. Come on.
My God what a family!
NORMAN takes PAMELA out as ARTHUR
kneels to pour a drink for PEGGY.
ARTHUR:
I rémember standing in that office---he
talked about you---always did---in a very
objective way. As if you were potty:
Which I suppose you are. Here (handing
her the drink).
PEGGY:
You know she'll probably lose that child,
after you mauling her about, don't you?
We're leaving, Pamela and I.
I'm going
to study philosophy. I hope you know
that.
ARTHUR:
Wouldn't it be better if she did lose it?
PEGGY:


PEGGY:
I want my grandchild!
ARTHUR:
What a fool you are.
PEGGY:
Is it unnatural to want one's grandchild
then?
ARTHUR:
Put two and two together for Christ sake!
PEGGY:
And I can tell you something else: while
you were chasing me round the house your
scn-in-law was getting in thick with Dan
Suttons Well, I suppose we shall hear
later what the subject was. But if he
ruins your standing over there it's
going to put you back by a fets hundred
thousand, and then you'il need mel My
account's still good!
ARTHUR:
You don*t seem to remembér we've got a
joint account.
PEGGY:
Nothing was signed.
ARTHUR:
You signed it at a party; to ahow off,
and you forgot it at once. Martin Fyffe--
he 's Pamela's father, isn't he? Don't
stare at ne like thate He is, isn't he?
PEGGY:
I think we should sleep separately from
now on.
ARTHUR:
You werc on the Queen Mary with Martin
Fyffe. You went across to the States
together. You told Dan Sutton you were
on the Queen Mary and I happened to remem-
ber that Martin Fyffe was too. I was
nearly his best friend at that time.
PEGGY:
He works so hard for you.
ARTHUR:
He probably pitics mc. In fact I can
see now---8o often, his eyes---the way
they flicker at me--with pity,
seef
Probably! You were gotting a 'aivoreee
at that time, from somebody else...
PEGGY:
I am divorced, yes. I've always been
very frank about that. Harley Johnson
was a good man. But he was no husband.
He was married to his supermarkets.
ARTHUR:
Oh, do shut up.


PEGGY:
As I
we shouldn't sleep together.
If thacy: how you feel, that I jump awakel
I never knew I jumped!
ARTHUP:
What do you think of me? What am I,
Peggy? Tell me : that. What am I for
you?
PEGGY gazés at him for some time,
seemingstowbying him into focus
slowly, as if he had temporarily
been a stranger to her.
PEGGY:
You're someone I love.
ARTHUR:
Just someone?
PEGGY:
My first husband. You see, the life I
had before, with a man who was no husband,
I'd like to cancel out---I've often told
you that---you've such a stylish waybof
doing things---you're so different from
the other one--l
ARTHUR:
Which othor one?
PEGGY:
Let's-leave the party to look after
itself, like we always used to. Do you
remember, we often did that, in the oid
days, left a party in full swing and locked
the bedroom door?
ARTHUR:
We never did.
PEGGY:
Let them look after themselves, we said.
ARTHUR (with enormous fatigue) Well, it happened
once.
PEGGY:
Shall we?
They leave.
ARTHUR:
Does that lock work, by the way?


T WO
No cloth of gold on the chest.
The tray and broken glass have
been cloared away.
MARTIN FYFFE is waiting impatient-
ly in his outdoor clothes, walk-
ing up and down.
ARTHUR comes in.
ARTHUR:
Have you boen here long?
FYFFE:
Why---anything unusual? I've been
coming at this hour every morning for
the best part of ten years.
ARTHUR:
I thought--
FIFFE:
What the hell's the matter with you?
ARTHUR:
Like a drink?
FYFFE:
At this hour? Stop staring at me like
that for God's sake.
ARTHUR:
Nancy*s gone.
KEEFEET
To hell with Nancy. You've got worse
things to worrg about, believe me.
ARTHUR:
You're not going to frighten me, are you?
I've had enough blows on the back of the
neck---I feel like a rabbit---but I didn't


diel I wish to God I could. What
a ghastly epoch to live in. Do you remem-
ber that feeling we had about a year after
the war was over, that it hadn't been any
use? At first vhen peace came it seemed
like going back to the old world, where
every man's life was his own. Then after
about a year it started dawning on us: the
war hadn't been any use.
FYFFE:
Your son-in-law was with Dan Sutton today.
ARTHUR:
What?
FYFFE:
You're jumpy.
ARTHUR:
What do you mean-w-with him today? He
can't have been! He broke camp again.
Yesterday morning- He disappeared. His
rats are dying of starvation. And Pam's
gone too.
FYFFE:
What?
ARTHUR:
Your turn to be jumpy!
FYFFE:
What about it?
ARTHUR:
Why be jumpy about that?
FYTFE:
Is that what's at the back of your mind all
the time? You can't prove it's my child---
that's only her conjecture--
ARTHUR:
Nothing's at the back of my mind!
FYFFE:
Don't shout. And calm down.
ARTHUR:
You can talk.
You're sweating under the
collar.
FYFFE:
Well, where is she?
ARTHUR:
I don't know!
FYFFE:
You must!
ARTHUR:
She went with Norman.
FYFFE:
Well, why didn't you say so? They went
to town, I suppose. Lunched with Dan
Sutton, probably. He's landed himself
a job in the States.


ARTHUR:
What--my son-in-law?
FYFFE:
He talked to Dan Sutton sixteen to the
dozen the night of the party---but,
listen, if she goes to the States too
there *il be trouble!
ARTHUR:
Who?
FYFFE:
Your daughter.
ARTHUR:
Pamela?
FYFFE:
Well, she is your daughter, isn't she?
am I fed up with this house!
Sodivam getting just like Peggy--
mind*s all over the shopt
ARTHUT:
I've had somé shocks, that's why.
FYFFE:
Well, listen to another one. The Dow
Jones average is down by several points.
There's no buying, Blue Chips are down
by ten percent---next week it might be
twenty. Are you listening?
ARTHUR:
Yes!
Yes!
FYFFE:
Oh, come on, man-this concerns you-
what do you think I'm here for? You
might not have this house next week.
ARTHUR:
Why not?
FYFFE:
Well, where are your assets? They're
not over here, are they? Well, what
happens on Wail Street happens to you!
ARTHUR:
Are mine all right?
FYFFE:
Yours, yours! I'm talking about the
state of the market. Eron the gilt-
edged stuff isn't immune. It'Bothe
Mar.dovtayBsterday by five and three-
quarters, General Electric by three.
We can't sell: we don't want to buy.
Nobody does. So we're stuck. If
you're thinking of pulling out of the
American deal you can't. On the other
hand, will it get worse?
ARTHUR:
He's giving Norman Pillinger a job?
FYFFE:
He saw the chap's a born scientist in the
first five minutes! Why the hell did you
let him loose on that party?


ARTHUR:
Who?
FYFFE:
Pillinger! Pillinger!
ARTHUR:
Why not? Why shouldn't he get a job?
FYFFE (spelling it out) Because he might blow a
gasket one day and leak a lot of stuff
in Sutton's ears---gou know what a
presbyterian he thinks he is--his
dirt's OK but not anybody else'st
Listen Arthur he*ll be over there in
Dan Sutton*s company all day---he '11
know all there is to know about your
affairs and mine!
ARTHUR:
Iou're frightened for yourself.
FYTFE:
It wasn't my fault--I néver thought it
could happen---turned fifty--you don't
fall in love at that age, not a hard
bastard like mel
ARTHUR:
That's none of my business---1
FYFFE:
Yes, you've always kept your hands nice
and clean!
ARTHUR:
I'm in the middle of dirt, always!
FYFFE:
And if ny affairs are nothing to do with
you, your blasted shares are nothing to do
with mel But I'm telling you this---
you'd better kéep that daughter of yours
over here by hook or by crook or I'il
ditch you and no mistake!
ARTHUR:
REEFEE
There, that's what it feels like when
peoplé tell you your whole life's none
of their business! I tell you I'm iin
love with that girlI'm sick with it--
it's got insido my brain--I can't think
of anything else! And by God she's
going to etay over here, with mel
ARTHUR:1
I don't mind being ditched because I
can't fall any further than you've
landed me alreadyl
FYFFE:
I've landed you!
I come here to save
your life and you say that!


ARTHUR:
You know damned well--
FYFFE:
Whatwm-? Say it!
ARTHUR:
I don't know.
FYFFE:
I told you before, I can't help what
happened. It was something I could never
have predicted, or wished for, or thought
the smallest possibility, in a million
ARTHUR:
Yes.
FYFFE:
You -aren't crying?
ARTHUR:
FYFFE:
I know it's rough.
ARTHUR:
Get on about the shares.
FYFFE:
I just came to tell you, you'll have to
sell 'up this house.
ARTHUR:
Sell it up? You must be mad!
FYFFE:
Take it or leave it Arhhur. You know
my advice has always worked out. The
monéy tied up in this house happens to be
all you've got on this side of the water.
And it's producing nothing,Artion've got
to have a source of income, apart from
what's across the water. It might turn
out all right over there, but I don't
like it. Of coursé Sutton's connected
with Defence and all that, but it's a
situation you can*t.predict beyond the
next hour. And I'm thinking of Peggy
too.
ARTHUR:
Without money she'd go off her head.
FYFFE:
And you?
ARTHUR:
Oh of course---I take that for granted.
FYFFE:
Anyway, you've got my advice. You spent
your entire English fortune on this white
elephant and you know what I think about
that. It's more like a factory, except
that it produces no commodities. Of
course it might convert very well into
offices---there's your chance. You've


got about fiftecn bathrooms in this
place, to take care of Peggy's thing
about armpits.
ARTHUR:
Oh shut up.
FYFFE:
Well what else are they for? I've
never seen so many bathrooms in my lifel
ARTHUR:
Ee have a lot of guests.
FYTFE:
But they don't all go to the bathroom
at once!
ARTHUR:
It was her idea---oh for God's sake stop
piling it on!
FYFTE:
Is it truc she gave a thousand quid for
that shit-and-drip canvas downstairs?
ARTHUR:
Oh I suppose.50.
FYFFE:
But you don't know.
ARTHUR:
I'm tired. And everybody's on at me.
I only get peace at the office.
FYFFE:
That real estate lark needs to be financed
too. You'll have to close up if we can'E
give it a blood transfusion pretty quick.
ARTHUR:
All right, I'll sell.
But how can I
Martin?
FYFFE:
Just sell it, man! Hand me the deeds
and I'll see what I can do. Are you
going to live in a bloody quagnire all
your life than, slipping further dadn
every day, with the woman you love leading
the way? Your affairs give me a headache!
FYFFE leaves.
PEGGY appears.
PEGGY:
What wastthat about Norman?
ARTHUR:
For God's sakel---you frightened me out
ny wits! Were you listening on, tho-t-?
RÉUEryYAtS to the chést and peering in)
PDalo, way do I always leave it on relay?
PEGGY:
You had too much breakfast---I saw you eat
three fresh rodls and take the egg meant


for Barry--you know what over-eating
does to you--I listened in because I
thought you might lose the thread.
ARTHUR:
Oh, do. go awaye
PEGGY:
I said it would happen. If you asked him
to the party--
ARTHUR:
It was your ideal
And he is my son-in-law
isn't he?
PEGGY:
Dan Sutton hasn't called us as he usually
does.
ARTHUR:
He has no reason to.
PEGGY:.
He always thanks you for a party, like
clockwork, two days after.
ARTHUR:
He's given my' son-in-law a job. He
probably thinks I'm pleased.
PEGGY:
Well, so you are, But it's the idea of-
I don't know-ma snake weaving itself into
your life, behind your back-
ARTHUR:
Oh, to hell with your snakes! You've had
them on the brain ever since you got that
idiotic lavatory chain shaped like a cobra.
PEGGY:
He could edge us out of the firm-m
ARTHUR:
What, take our shares away? I'd like to
see him!
PEGGY:
He could eat away at our reputation bit by
bit, like a snake devouring something too
big for its gullet but it can't stop.
Martin's afraid too. It isn't sensible
perhaps to be afraid, but strange things
happen in this world---he might become a
very powerful man. Jyst a word to Dan
Sutton at the right moment might persuade
him that you and I are nothing.
ARTHUR:
We're all nothing.
PEGGY:
Don*t say that.
ARTHUR:
You could have kèpt him away from the party
easily enough---you have your methods.
PEGGY:
I have no methods.


ARTHUR:
Anyway, we're sunk.
PEGGY:
I can't stand this house sometimes.
ARTHUR:
That's right---you take five years to
build it, put in God knows how many
bathrooms and spend close on a hundred
and fifty thousand quid--l
PEGGY:
I spent fiftyl
ARTHUR:
You don't know what you spent! You think
you spent fifty, you think, think-- that's
all there is in this house, your thoughts.
You try to make your life a safe shell,
and you succeed so miserably. You're
such a frail little creature, and your
frail, frightened little half-thoughts
go round and round the house all day.
You seem so much bigger most of the time,
in your funny shell. But then when we're
together and everybody's gone you hardly
seem there at all, I just get your funny
little thoughts like tickles ail over my
PEGGY:
Don't say that.
ARTHUR:
You're such a frail little sprite.
PEGGY (as if to herself) Hot baths take the top fat
off, that's why.
A desperate silence.
ARTHUR:
You heard what he said about selling the
house?
PEGGY:
Yes.
ARTHUR:
And you've no regrets? You've worked
like a black for five years getting every
damn-fool device in the world---and now
you don't mind if we walk out of all these
sliding doors that jam, and the plateglass
windows that alvays mist over because they're
supposed not to, and the three sets of
lights in every room for reading, talking
and eating, except that they fuse each
othery--have I stood these crises every
day for five years, over light-bulbs and
locks and buttons and wires, for nothing?
Just to keep your frail little mind from
going into a spin, which it wouldn't
come out of, because you're madi


PEGGY:
What?
ARTHUR:
But this is your nirror, the house.
It's mine too, now. Every time I look
it in the face I see me--in the settee
downstairs built not to look like a settee
but a big black leather bath, andtthe
table that comes out of the floor, though
only whon you don't expect it, and the
drinks that pour themselves from the side-
board automatically especially when there
are no glasses ready---it's my own face,
ridiculous and rather puzzled. Did you
hear what he said about the shares?
They might be paper tomorrow.
PEGGY:
We could live in hotels for a bit, on
the money. Rent a house by the sea.
But Pamela*s going to cry her eyes out
when shé knows---she's so' attached to
this house--
PAMELA (VO) Munny, are you in? We've just got
PEGGY (whisper) Answer itt
ARTHUR (whisper)
You!
PEGGY:
Weta better go and sée Martin Fyffé.
She'a only try to stop us!
ARTHUR:
Let's go the back way---sesh!
They tiptoe out.
PAMÉLA (vo) Mummy? Are you upstairs? Mummy!
Silence.
PAMELA (off) Mummy!
PAMELA comes in, with NORMAN
behind her. They are in out-
door clothes.
PAMELA:
I could swear I héard them. And I can
smell her Madame Rochas.
NORMAN (looking round) Funny, it feels empty, as
if they'd sold it. Children not being
here, I suppose.
PAMELA:
Nancy's gone. The cupboard's empty in


her room. I don't know why we had to
come back. It was such a nice hotel.
NORMAN:
I'm not blowing all the money before my
contract's confirmed, that's why.
PAMELA:
There's a safe streak in you, isn't there?
You laugh at your sister for being suburban
and joining a tennis club, but you're the
same underneath.
NORMAN:
About monéy, perhaps.
PAMELA:
That means about everything.
NORMAN:
Since Dan Sutton turned to me and said,
'I'll have your air ticket sent via the
embassy' I feel less---spontaneous. I
used to be scared tho whole time, the tips
of my fingers used to tremble in case @
lost my job or your father threw me out
or gave me a sharp looka
It seems silly
now. I'm safe, and bored.
PAMELA:
I suppose that's why we came back, to get
the scent of battle again.
NORMAN:
You're a different woman, do
know that?
I've been marvelling at you ay1u day. And
you know what makes the difference? You're
married to a man with a job. And it isn't
any job either. By God, I played that
hand welli I don't know what put it into
my head, that night of the party--it was
probably you. I suddenly said to myself,
"Play their game, put yourself on their
lévei, and they'il buy you at their price'.
And that's what they did. In two minutes
I was showing Sutton round the basement,
demonstrating my smog rats and magnetic-
storms cage, he was astonished, I could see
the astonishment explodénglalaverer his
face. A new idea was twitching its way
through him, I followed it quite calmly,
because I was actually putting it there.
The new idea said, *So this is Cutlass's
son-in-law, no wonder he's képt him in
hiding, he was afraid I'd buy him and ship
him off to the States, which is precisely
what I'm going to do'. You see, Pam,
one doesn't struggle to get to the top of
the stairs, one just walks upl Until that
moment I'd beèn sitting below stairs like
a valet. I thought they had a power of


threat over me, so they did have. And
then all of a sudden I walked up the staris,
and there I was! And here I am! And
you're bracing yourself to be my wife,
at the topf of the stairs. But why are
you coning to the States, Pamela?
PAMELA:
Because I can't stand it here.
NORMAN:
Suddenly?
You always loved this house.
PAMELA:
I'd like to get away.
NORMAN:
To a sort of compound? where the wives
sit around intriguing? guards on the
door, almost?
PAMEEA:
That's only your guess.
NORMAN:
Dan Sutton's wife threw herself in the local
river. And you saw his children! They've
got every sort of automatic and dagger and
cap amnunition and instrument of torture
done up in plastic---Scalping tools from
Mexico, with dried blood on them--they
play at disembowelling---gouging out eyes--
théy have ferocious little tanks with red
gleaming eyes that shoot out flames---they
burn their plastic soldiers with them,
and these. soldiers are made specially com-
bustible! Do you want your children to
grow up like that?
MARTIN FHFFE's voice is haned over
the intercom: Pamela, Pamela!
are you in the house? Pamelal
PAMELA (in a whisper)
I can't face himt
NORMAN;
Who is it?
FYFFE (VO) Pam!
Can I see you? Peggy said you
were here. Pam!
NORMAN:
What's the matter?
FYFFE (vO) Pam!
NORMAN:
I'll tidy up the rats.
PAMELA:
Don't leave me!
NORMAN:
For God's sake don't be a hypocritel
It's your lover, woman, do you think I'm


small enough to résent that?
NORMAN throws her off and marches
out.
MARTIN FYFFE appears, out of
breath.
PAMELA:
Please go away!
FYFFE:
I've just seen your parents. Listen---
I'm buying this house---they're selling
PAMELA:
What?
FYFFE:
I'i1 put you back here like a queen--
I know you love this place---yau can
have it alll I'll get Nancy back--
I've got much better maids in mind--
even a housekeeper. You can let out a i
ving if you want to---I'll look after the
rates and taxes-
PAMELA (backing ip) You're madi
FYFFE:
It's never happened to me before--
don't tell anybody for Christ sake, not
even your husband---I'n paying an enormous
sum---they're asking a staggering pricel
PAMELA:
But it's madi they can't sell it to you!
FYFFE:
I've been sweating all the way---talking
to myself---I had to: do it, that's the
madness of it--I only have to pass you
and catch your smell and I go giddy--
I don't care if you never see me while
you're living here---I'll sign it over to
you---I've never done anything so crazy
in my life but don't go away with him!
He's going away. isn't he? He's going to
the States?
PAMELA:
Don't touch mel
FYFFE:
He is, isn't he?
PAMELA:
Yes.
FYFFE:
Don't go with him, Pam, please!
PAMELA:
Koep away! Keep away!


FYFFE:
He's in the house, isn't hes You've
just come back from town--you saw Dan
Sutton-he phoned me and asked me for
a testimonial for Norman---I gave him one--
I said he couldn't have a better man-
Norman's thwarted in this country I said-
Norman' '11 give you the finest work you've
ever seen---because I want him to leave--
I can't stand him any more--I won't have
him near you!
PAMELA:
Go away now--before it's too late---he'll
come---pleasel
FYFFE:
He'll give you a hell of a life out there!
He really willi Hè doesn't know how to
look after a woman. He doesn't even. have
the sex. You told me that yourself!
PAMELA:
Please!
FYFFE:
He'll not be good for the children! You
don't want to go---you know
not with my child inside ngayou (Making her
face him) Tell me why you want to gol
PAMELA:
Because-l
FYFFE:
I've spent a fortune on you, I soioedahold
of those bloody deeds, Itoid them I had
a rich buyer who wanted to remain anonymous!
You can have the child here Pam! You can
put mine with his---they'll be happg---
you can't take my child to the Statest
I'll divorcel 1'11. do whatever you like!
PAMELA:
Don't
see? Don't you see---you're my
Parho-Tou You're my father!" Oh for God's
sake go, go, please! : Let me diel
FYFFE:
Your-w!
PAMELA:
Let me die! Norman, Norman!
PAMELA rushes out.
FYFFE collapses on to the chest.
FYFFE (trying to oall for help)
Pillinger! Pillinger!
NORMAN enters, in his bloodstained
surgical surgical coat again. He tears
open FYFFE's shirt. We still
hear PAMELA calling out, off.


ARTHUR and PEGGY dash in.
ARTHUR:
What happened?
NORMAN:
He fainted.
ARTHUR:
Martin!
FYFFE (looking up at ARTHUR, hardly able to speak)
Ran all the way---broke the news---good
sale---to Pam. Ticker, I suppose.
ARTHUR:
Any pain?
FYFFE:
ARTHUR:
Sight all right?
FYEFE:
Yes.
ARTHUR:
Move your limbs?
FYFFE:
Think soi
PEGGY (to FYFFE)
Why should that interest Pamela?
ARTHUR:
Let's get him to a bed.
ARTHUR helps NORMAN in the work
of carrying FYFFE out.
PEGGY goes to the chest and adjusts
the switches inside.
PEGGY:
Pamela, are you in?
ARTHUR returns.
PEGGY (cont.) That was heart failure.
ARTHUR:
Cock---he fainted, that's all.
I'm looking
for the brandy.
PEGGY:
He's not on our side any more---you realise
that?
ARTHUR (stopping)
What do you mean?
PEGGY:
He doesn't want Pam to go to the States--
and we do.
ARTHUR:
Well? What are you looking so alarmed
about?


PEGGY:1
We've sold this house haven't we?--
there's plenty of money---SO we're free
of him!
ARTHUR:
Who?
PEGGY:
Fyffe! Martin Fyffe! He's hardly our
trustee any more, except for a few govern-
ment bonds. The Arabs say a friend's
worth a thousand enemies if he turns the
wrong wayo That'll make two thousand,
with Norman. And if we're going to buy
more shares in the pharmaceutical business---
ARTHUR:
Who said we are?
PEGGY:
We must!
It's obvious!
We can't have
less of a voice over there than Martin
Fyffe and Norman!
ARTHUR:
Borman hasn't got any shares.
PEGGY:
But he's got Dan Sutton's earl
ARTHUR:
Got his ear? What are you talking about?
PEGGY:
Oh it means he'll always be with him--!
If we put this money ve've got from the
house into the firm we'll have a thirty
persent interest, second only to Dan
Sutton's.
ARTHUR:
You've worked all this out?
PEGGY:
Yes!
ARTHUR:
But we ought to be buying real estate at
a time likè this---instead of which we 've
just sold it! And then the Dow Jones
average is all over the shop---you can 't
rely on the market any more-
PEGGY:
And Dan Sutton might need your help.
ARTHUR:
What as?
PEGGY:
Well, on the board, as a director.
ARTHUR:
But the firm's in the States!
PEGGY:1
Oh don't be silly!
We're going to the
States!
ARTHUR:
What?


PEGGY:
Well suppose Norman took it into his
head to manoeuvre us out of the firm?
Oh don*t keep staring at me in that
idiotic way! Don't you see we've got
to look after ourselves---see to the
future?
ARTHUR:
But Dan Sutton's a friend of mine
PEGGY:
He's given Norman a. job! Is Norman a
friend of yours? And If we'ro going to
be poor we'a better find some work.
Texas is a lovely state---Dan Always
said we should settle there-
ARTHUR:
It's true---he always did...
PEGGY:
Why not phone him tonight?
ARTHUR:
I'll do better than that.
I'll drive to
town and give him lunch, see what he says.
PEGGY:
You still look doubtful.
ARTHUR:
I am. But I can try my hand. It*11 be
a relief not facing Martin Fyffe every day.
But then of course I'll have to face Norman
every day. I wish every face didn't
flash me some ghastly message!
PEGGY:
With a big income he too might change.
ARTHUR:
Yes. And things look more objective in
the States. Even he might look sane.
You get some good ideas.
I have to hand
it to you there.
ARTHUR leaves.
PEGGY:
Give him all the best from me!
ARTHUR (off) Give who?
PEGGY (impatient)
Dan Sutton!


The cloth of gold is present on
the chest again.
PAMELA is sitting on the chest,
and PEGGY is doing her hair for
her, expertly.
PEGGY:
We have a destiny in the States, that's
what Dan Sutton said. We, can't stay
here grovelling any moré, and paying taxes
for it. We were brought up-wat léast I
was-to expect a little power, and thete
we can have it, we shall have the entire
fourteenth floor of one of the highest
buildings in Dallas to ourselves, instead
of being cooped up here among a lot of
people who give you a nasty glance every
time you take the car out, lust because
it's a little longer than most-
PAMELA (alm ost to herself)
It's twice as long as
most.
PEGGY:
When we arrive we shall go straight to the
showrooms and buy a Buick for the whole
family, one of those where the engine's
as big as a double bed, and we shall do a
tour of the state of Texas, all of us
together, and you'll enjoy it too, because
you'll be in a new vorld, you've never
known it before, so I can tell you, they
don't call it new for nothing. And really
Martin Fyffe gave us all this, younknow.
He always felt we didn't belong here-
he- couldn't bear to sée us--I think these
wére his own words-crouching down. to
get in every doorway, like we do in England.
He wanted to see the doors built to our
size. And in the state of Texas they arel
When he advised us. to sell this house,
it was an act of God, Martin was beyond
himself, like a bearded prophet out of the
Bible, a light seemed to shine out of his
hair, wë rushed to the real estate office,
and he met us there, another céincidence
worked by God-and he told us at once,


'I have a buyer'. And the buyér met
our price. Martin signed on behalf of
this mysterious buyer-whom we still don't
know to this day, that's another Biblical
feature, like the unknown pilgrim who calls
in the night and bestows happiness and is
gone in the morning. I'm sure that's why
déar Martin had a: heart attack, working so
hard for us-m-it was the same day, you
remember, And all that money has made a
new life possible. You can share our
apartment with us, it won't be more than
ten minutes* Buick ride from Norman's
laboratories, or else you can take a little
place of your owne
PAYELA:
We might take a big place. We shall have
the money.
PEGGY:
Not enough for a big placeinn the American
sense, with a pool and a double garage.
By the way, I've looked into the matter of
schools for Barry and Rachel. I suppose
you have too.
PAMELA:
PEGGY:
Dan Sutton has a good friend who's on the
board - of an excellont co-ed school.
Anyway, he'll put their names down in case
you decide it'e the right place for them.
PAMELA (rising) - I must go and help with the rats.
PEGGY:
I hope you won't have that job in the
States.
PAMELA:
He*sso happy. He hardly speaks. He
doesn't come to bed until four in the morning.
PEGGY:
We can hear their squeals all over the
house-
PAMELA:
He bogan to vonder how the saints used to
survive their tortures and diseases in the
early Christian days. And he found it was
because they fasted so much. They hardly
ate a thing. And that means your body
drains easily.
All the toxic juices and
poisons flow away, because the digestive
system doesn't have to work so hard. He
says all diseases come from bad drainage.
And it's true, his rats have begun to look
pure. Their coats are marvellous. The


sick ones have made the most amazing
recoveries.
Half the diseases he inject-
ed with his own hand have healed up.
He administered strychnine yesterday and
it hadn*t the slightest effect--!
PEGGY:
How MARYEBLOUSS
PAMELA:
Even childbirths have been normal.
There tere no fights between the males,
though there was a bit of cannibalism
this morning just before he got down there--
PEGGY:
It sounded like it.
PAMELA:
And Norman doesn't seem to resent me any
more, mummy.
EEGGY:
That's more important than anything. He
can starve all the rats in Christendom as
long as hé takes care of yous He has, an
appointment with Martin, by the way. You
won*t let him forget, will you?
PAMELA:
I'il remind him.
PEGGY:
Three o'clock this afternoon. And please
don't lét him wear that filthy surgical
coat. - (As PAMELA leaves) And do take
a walk, and get some roses in your cheeks.
PAMELA:
Yes!
PAMELA has gone.
PEGGY (calling after her) And you know Nancy came
back this morning?
PAMELA (off) Did she réally?
PEGGY:
Came in like a ray of sunshine!
PEGGY also leaves, by the opposite
side.
MARTINE FYFFE is waiting, again


MARTIN FYFFE is waiting, again
in his outdoor clothes.
He switches the intercom to relay.
FYFFE:
You anywhere in the house, Norman?
NORMAN (vo) On my way up, yes.
FYFFE:
Oh, goode
He carefullysswitches the intercom
off again, and closes the chesto
NORMAN appears---in his soiled
snrgical coat.
NORMAN:
Hullo, are you well again?
FYFFE:
Oh, not so bad. Mustn't overdo it,
that's all,
NORMAN:
The house is sold up thon,
FYFFE:
That*s right.
NORMAN:
You wanted to see 'me?
FYFFE:
I did, yes. Nothing very important.
I expéct you*re all keyed up to go?
NORMAN:
Well I'm more vorking flat out than keyed
up---there's a lot to do-me
FYFTE:
Is it true you're starving your rats?
NORMAN:
Why, was that her story? She thinks I'm
nad, doesn*t she? I know exactly how
her mind works.
FYFFE:
Who's she?
NORMAN:
Peggy.
FYFTE:
She did tell me, yes. But she didn*t
say you were mad.
NORMAN:
Well, I don't think I'm in any danger of


caring. I shan't be asking her advice
on rodent genetics.
FYFFE:
No, I can imagine.
NORMAN:
That wasn't what you wanted to talk to
me about, was it?
FYFFE: -
Good God, no.
NORMAN:
Are you worried about Pamela?
FYFFE (a flinch) No, not Why should I be? No,
I've been talking things over with Dan
Sutton--well, the three of us have been
talicing---Dan, Arthur and mow-no, it's
nothing to do with Pamela. I---i wanted
to fix you up, both of you, hope you
didn't mind.
NORMAN:
I forgot about that-a trust opened for
us both, and a joint account at the bank.
I've been working so hard, I haven't had
time for my usual moral scruples---I
méan, there's no real need to give us a
private income, not now--I shan t be a
rich man but I'11 be getting a terrific
screw, which I suppose is just the time
when people offer private incomes, isn't
it, when you don't need them?
FYFFE:
It isn't payment for anything. I want
to see you both secure. I'm probably a
fool but (watching him) I feel a certain
fatherly concern for you. It might not
be easy over there. People say they've
got a hard time coming, the Americans.
You'll have this little income to make
you feel secure. You*11 be at no man's
mercy.
NORMAN:
Why should I be at anyone's mercy?
FYFFE:
We all are.
NORMAN:
You said about you and Arthur and Dan
Sutton talking things overs What's that
got to do with my research?
FYFFE:
Dan always has a conference with us when
he*sover here---policy discussions.
That's why he came to Arthur*s party, and
how you came to meet him. What I wanted
to say, Norman, is---always go for the


lolly- You might get the nobel prize
one day for cutting up rats---
NORMAN:
I don't cut them up.
FYFFE:
What I mean is, don't start reaching out
in your research. This is difficult to
put into words---but don't go for an idea.
That's why I gave you an income--well,
partly of course to keep you and Pamela
together---but also it's in case you a
start getting interested in the results
of your researches to the point where
they touch somebody else*s department--
I don't know if you're getting me--but
over there you pay heavily for originality.
I know the States like the back of my hand.
They like the originality they can use,
but the rest they kill. Now if you
follow the lolly-go where the best money
is promised, you can't go wrong, even if
it means you leaving Dan Sutton, which is
us---that's OK---you'll survive that way.
But don't wander outside your brief.
Don't start, having attitudes about other
people*s work,. or thy they work, or even
why you work. Because necks over there
get guillotined at an avful rate. To you
it may all seem nice and cosy, because
people are big-hearted and good listeners,
but it's a free-for-all Norman, with no
holds barred. That's why I gave you this
income, so that if you do stick your neck
out you'll have a chance to withdraw it
quick and get back to this country.
NORMAN:
You méan, so that Pamela can come back
to this country.
FYFFE:
I want her happy of course.
But take
it how you like, Norman, the argument's
the sames If you're guillotinod, so
is she.
NORMAN:
But what does all this mean practically?
At your conference, what did you all
agree?
FYFFE:
Well, I know roughly what kind of work
you*il be
after your year's apprent-
iceship, if 14010511 excuse the expression.
NORMAN:
And what work is it?
FYFFE:
It's better that I tell you now, because


if you're going to stick your neck
out you may as well do it before the
job starts.
NORMAN:
Tell me. what work.
FYFFE:
It was : the war-slant of your yeskarches--
I mean, your private researches---which
incidentally Arthur and I always scorned-
NORMAN:
Which war-slant?
FYFFE:
Well, subjecting your rats to smog conditions
and magnetic storms and that sort of thing--
just as you're starving them now--it means
you're out for information about survival
patterns, emergency conditions---this was
how Dan Sutton put it---he wouldn't like me
to be repeating this--you see what I mean,
I'm only trying to show you where you're
going--
NORMAN:
Yes, well, I understend all this long ago.
I naturally assumed it.
FYFFE:
What, you approve?
NORMAN:
I'm not thinking of the moral position.
I work too hard for that.
FYFFE:
But morality was all you talked at one timel
NORMAN:
I think I know the dark world I'm working
for, that's all.
FYFFE:
Be careful, though. Let the lolly be your
mark. Don't ask for freedom. Leave the
job and get another one but don't ask for
anything---
NORMAN (gazing at him) You seem almost concerned
about me.
FYFFE:
That's not far wrong. Look, there's
another thing---I've never said this before
but I think Pam's child should be brought
off. It's a tough operation at this
stage but all in all I think you'll feel
better about it.
NORMAN:
You do? And what about you? Will you
feel better about it? removing your own
child?


FYFFE:
But you're a scientist, man---you can't
say you've got humane objections to--
NORMAN:
I didh't say thate But I'd expect you
to have humane objections, as the father.
I'm not saying you should have but I'd
expect them.
FYFFE:
Yes, - well, I'm thinking of you and Pam--
I mean, I don't want you both resenting
mew--in later years--
NORMAN:
I told you before, I'll treat the child
as one of my own, Children sort of plug
me in-I need thèm. Selfish, I suppose.
FYFFE:
But you*ll see my face---mannerisms--
I mean, as the father, I'd rather it done
away with, and then turn over a new leaf,
and you and Pam be able to see me as . a
friend--or family-
NORMAN:
The fact is, she likes children too.
She likes anybody's children, just as I
FYTFE:
But suppose I get her agreement? What
about that? She's not happy---you know
yourself---she wants to gat iidouf-st--
we must listen to the woman on these
occasions.
NORMAN:
She's just ashamed, that's all. She
wants to be a straight wife now because
I've got a straight job. All women are
success-maniacs, did you know that? And
I want to treanhhberofotie heniafe for its
satisfactions, not its decorum.
FYFFE:
Oh, well, you may change your mind. By
the way, don't breathe a word of what I've
said, I méan about' the war-thing-- --not even
to Arthur- -especially when you' 're on the
other side of the water.
NORMAN:
He'll be at least three thousand miles
away when I'm over there---so how can I?
FYFFE:
How do you nean, three thousand miles
away?
NORMAN:
Well, I'll be there, and he'll be here.
FYFFE:
Listen, you'a better talk to Pamela about


that side of it.
NORMAN:
What side of it?
FYFFE:
Where Arthur'll be and all that.
NORMAN:
What do you moan?
FYFFE:
Listen, I've got to rush. We may not
meet before you leave, I've got a month's
over-work in front of me. Good bye,
Norman, I think you'1l make a hit. If
you ever need holp cable me. I'll even
come by the next plane. Look after Pam.
NORMAN:
Good bye.
FYFFE goes out. NORMAN gazes after
him, wondhtnnguondering.
He goes to the chest and switches
the intercom to relay.
NORMAN:
Pamela! : (No reply) Are you in the
house Pamela?
PAMELA (VO) Yes, where aré you?
NORMAN:
The what-do-you-call-it--the one without
any chairs-the Japanese room-
PAMELA (vo) I'li. be up.
NORMAN waits impatiently, leaving
the intercom at receive.
PAMELA appears.
NORMAN:
What's this Martin Fyffe said about your
father? Issaid ve'd soon be three thousand
miles avay from him and he said well you'd
better talk to Pamela about that.
PAMELA:
I've been hoping they'd change their
minds or lose interest at tho last minute--
NORMAN:
They're going there too!
PAMELA:
Daddy's in charge of one of the research
departments---
NORMAN:
Which department?
PAMELA:
Yourst It's only the business side,
Norman--he won't interfere---we've got