MRS WICKSTEED: No. He’s gone to the conference. The open session.
SIR PERCY: What open session? There is no open session today.
MRS WICKSTEED: You’re certain?
SIR PERCY: Of course. I am the President. How else could I be here.
(MRS SWABB enters with a wheeled basket of groceries.)
MRS WICKSTEED: You’ve been quick.
MRS SWABB: I had a following wind.
MRS WICKSTEED: Where is Dr Wicksteed?
MRS SWABB: Dr Wicksteed? He’s on the Pier. (Exits.)
MRS WICKSTEED: I fear the worst.
SIR PERCY: Death?
MRS WICKSTEED: Sex. And if I know him, he’s with a patient.
SIR PERCY: A patient? Indeed! First item on the agenda – get your things on. Second, a visit to the Pier. Come on, buck up. And third, the ruin of a certain general practitioner.
(He lifts the semi-conscious SHANKS, who hangs like a dummy in his arms.)
Take careful note of all you see.
MRS WICKSTEED: I will, I will, and who knows. …
SIR PERCY: Yes?
MRS WICKSTEED: This may be a blessing in disguise.
SHANKS: Disguise.
MRS WICKSTEED: I shall be free;
SHANKS: Free.
MRS WICKSTEED: And together the future will be ours. (Exits.)
SHANKS: Ours.
SIR PERCY: No fear. But revenge, ha ha.
SHANKS: Ha ha.
SIR PERCY: After all these years.
SHANKS: All these years.
SIR PERCY: I think we need a booster.
SHANKS: Booster.
(SIR PERCY exits carrying SHANKS.
Sea sounds.)
WICKSTEED: As the sun went down on that long afternoon, a lean, distinguished figure might have been observed standing all of an hour at the end of the Pier. Several times he made as if to greet solitary ladies as they approached, but each time he fell back, disappointed and alone. (Exits.)
(Enter SIR PERCY.)
MRS SWABB: Ah, I know who this is. I’ll call her down, Mr Shanks. She’s upstairs. Miss Wicksteed, your visitor.
(CONNIE enters, wearing her appliance.)
CONNIE: Well? What do you think of them? Aren’t they wonderful.
SIR PERCY: This must be what they mean by the Permissive Society.
CONNIE: They’ve been held up by the rail strike.
SIR PERCY: Is that what it is? You are Miss Wicksteed, aren’t you?
CONNIE: Yes, why?
SIR PERCY: Her boldness rouses me strangely.
CONNIE: Touch them if you like, they’re very firm. But I suppose you know that. (As SIR PERCY touches her, his trousers fall.) I don’t think you ought to get excited.
SIR PERCY: No?
CONNIE: Tell me, if someone were stroking them would they be able to tell the difference?
SIR PERCY: I don’t follow.
CONNIE: Would they be satisfied?
SIR PERCY: In due course, I hope, yes. Suspenders, Miss Wicksteed, how nice to find someone keeping up with the old ways. Oh God, think of all the years I’ve wasted. This is the sort of woman I’ve been waiting for. Bold, provocative with an ardour equal to mine. Come, let me clasp your urgent young body. Kiss me. Again. You earth maiden, will you marry me?
CONNIE: And I’ve only had them on five minutes! This is what they must mean by the Permissive Society. Could I ask you something?
SIR PERCY: Yes.
CONNIE: Are you supposed to wash them?
SIR PERCY: You mean, you don’t?
CONNIE: No. Not yet.
SIR PERCY: You mad Lawrentian Creature.
CONNIE: I’d thought of brushing them. I’ve got a wire brush that might do.
(SIR PERCY follows her off.)
THROBBING: Ah, a pair of trousers. Oxfam! Zambia will be so grateful.
(Enter and exit CONNIE and SIR PERCY tangoing across the stage.)
But what is this? My bride to be in the arms of another man, and before we’re even married.
(CONNIE and SIR PERCY return, still tangoing, CONNIE leaves SIR PERCY and joins THROBBING at the end of the dance.)
CONNIE: My fiancé.
SIR PERCY: She has fainted. Stand back. I am a doctor.
THROBBING: You don’t look like a doctor to me. You haven’t any trousers on. You look like a cad and a loose fish. Get away, bending over the prostrate body of my fiancée in your underclothes, that is my privilege.
SIR PERCY: Poor fool. She thought she could seduce me.
THROBBING: Seduce? Her? I have been engaged to Miss Wicksteed for ten years and she has never so much as laid a finger on me.
SIR PERCY: King Sex is a way ward monarch.
THROBBING: Come on, come on. Stand up and fight. Stand up.
SIR PERCY: I am standing up.
THROBBING: You’ll probably want some handicap on account of your size.
SIR PERCY: What did you say?
THROBBING: I’m bigger than you are.
SIR PERCY: What gives you that idea?
THROBBING: One doesn’t exactly have to be a quantity surveyor. Little squirt.
SIR PERCY: (He lands a blow) LITTLE.
THROBBING: Ooh. Ahh. Look. Can’t we just talk this over? I’ve known quite a lot of small people in my time.
SIR PERCY: Small. Small.
THROBBING: I don’t hold anybody’s size against them. We don’t know how big Shakespeare was, do we? And look at Hitler. Mind you, he’s a bad example. Connie, are you all right?
CONNIE: Yes.
THROBBING: Has this man been interfering with you?
CONNIE: Yes. Yes oh yes. I’m going to marry him.
THROBBING: Him?
SIR PERCY: Why not, sailor?
CONNIE: Yes, why not? He found in me something I never knew was there.
THROBBING: Connie. What are those?
CONNIE: They’re a recent development.
THROBBING: What is his name?
CONNIE: I haven’t asked.
THROBBING: You’re going to marry him and you don’t even know his name?
CONNIE: Yes, I do know his name. His name is curtains billowing wide on a summer night. His name is a special secret rose pressed in an old book. His name is the name of all lovers down the ages who have cried their challenge to the wild night and dared to cast themselves away on the frail bark of love. What is your name, by the way?
SIR PERCY: Sir Percy Shorter.
(CONNIE screams and exits.)
It’s not my fault if I send women mad.
THROBBING: Mad? You? You Mickey Mouse. Why don’t you marry someone your own size? Goodness! It’s time for Evensong.
SIR PERCY: That settles it. You’re a clergyman. Start saying your prayers!
(DENNIS and FELICITY come in with MRS SWABB.)
MRS SWABB: Canon Throbbing, I don’t think you know Miss Rumpers, newly returned from Addis Ababa.
THROBBING: Welcome to our shores.
(SIR PERCY primes his hypodermic.)
FELICITY: What are you doing?
SIR PERCY: The balance of his mind is disturbed. I am about to redress it.
(Exit THROBBING pursued by SIR PERCY.)
FELICITY: How do you think it will happen, then?
DENNIS: I imagine you just sort of fade away really. Don’t lets talk about it.
FELICITY: How tragic. A widow at twenty-two.
DENNIS: I don’t want to think about it any more.
FELICITY: No. I too will be brave. I will be more than brave. I will be plucky. ‘Felicity, his plucky young wife, survives him.’
DENNIS: All the germs will flee before the greatest medicine of them all.
FELICITY: Love?
DENNIS: Sex.
(To the tune of ‘Shuffle off to Buffalo’.)
DENNIS: We’ve been going rather steady.
So it’s time to go to beddy
Turn the lights down low.
FELICITY: Oh, oh, oh.
DENNIS: You kn
ow which way we’re heading
We’re heading for a wedding.
MRS SWABB: Oh no, no, no, no NO?
DENNIS: ‘Some day the stork will pay a visit and leave a little souvenir.
MRS SWABB:
DENNIS: Just a little cute what is it.
FELICITY: We’ll discuss that later, dear.’
DENNIS: You go home and get your knickers
And I’ll race you to the vicar’s
And it’s ends away.
FELICITY: Mm, mm, mm.
DENNIS:
MRS SWABB: Don’t anticipate it
Wait to consummate it
Not every day’s a wedding day.
(DENNIS kisses her passionately.)
DENNIS: You put your tongue in my mouth. Are you supposed to do that?
FELICITY: It’s optional.
DENNIS: This is what they must mean by the Permissive Society. Penelope.
FELICITY: Felicity.
WICKSTEED: Ah! Is this your long walk in the fresh air?
DENNIS: It’s all right.
WICKSTEED: All right? you lay your acned face in Miss Rumpers’ lap (Good afternoon, Miss Rumpers) and you say it’s all right.
DENNIS: She doesn’t mind. It’s mutual.
WICKSTEED: Mutual! HA! It is never mutual. Get off. Get off. Be careful, I implore you, Miss Rumpers. That head is riddled with dandruff. Get out, you lounge lizard. You’re not fit to hold a candle to Miss Rumpers, let alone anything else. My dear young lady, how can you forgive me? In my own house….
FELICITY: Dennis and I….
WICKSTEED: Stop! Stop! Do not couple your name with his. That he should even contemplate touching your fresh, clean, innocent, young body fills me with such shame, such loathing. Filth, filth. Forgive me.
FELICITY: No. Do not touch me.
WICKSTEED: No. How can I approach you? How can I even speak to you? The least thing about you, the spent cartridge of your lipstick, the dry bed of your compact, the fluff in your handbag’s bottom, all the fragrant clutter of your loveliness, I am as dirt and vileness beside it. But….
FELICITY: But?
WICKSTEED: But speaking thus I speak as a man. And as a man I cannot touch you, but as a doctor…
FELICITY: Does that make a difference?
WICKSTEED: Oh yes. As a man I see you as a fresh, lovely, passionate creature. As a doctor, you are to me a machine, an organism, a mere carcass. Feeling does not enter into it. As a doctor I am a eunuch: I touch you … without passion, and without desire.
FELICITY: Yes.
WICKSTEED: Now I touch you as a man.
FELICITY: Yes.
WICKSTEED: Now I touch you as a doctor.
FELICITY: Yes.
WICKSTEED: You see the difference? So have no fears, my dear young lady when in a few moments I shall ask you to remove your clothes in their entirety. Because I shall be as far from desire as is a plumber uncovering a manhole. Off. Off.
(FELICITY goes off.)
How well I understand your fears. Life is such a dirty business these days. Everyone trying to grab what he can. What is the poem….
FELICITY: I don’t know.
WICKSTEED: A young Diana golden haired, Stands dreaming on the verge of strife, Magnificently unprepared. For the long littleness of life. Are you prepared for that, Felicity? The long littleness… sometimes longer, sometimes littler It comes as quite a shock to some girls… others just take it in their stride.
(FELICITY enters in her slip.)
Hello.
(He kisses her.)
Hello ears.
Hello eyes.
Hello nose.
Hello mouth.
Hello fingers.
Hello knees.
Hello Percy.
(SIR PERCY has come in and is watching aghast.)
SIR PERCY: So.
WICKSTEED: I was just giving this young lady an aspirin.
SIR PERCY: In her underclothes?
FELICITY: It’s very hot in here.
WICKSTEED: Don’t worry. I have a diploma in tropical medicine. Felicity, Miss Rumpers, I don’t think you know Sir Percy Shorter.
WICKSTEED: President of the British Medical Association.
SIR PERCY:
SIR PERCY: Is this young lady a patient of yours?
WICKSTEED: The idea that a doctor of my reputation would meddle with a patient is repugnant to me. Leave my ears alone will you dear. And if not a patient, what?
SIR PERCY: You tell me.
WICKSTEED: A friend. Of the family. The whole family. Like you. Strange, because she’s not a bit like you. Come out of there, Miss Rumpers. Nothing in my trousers pocket of any interest to you. Humbugs, you know. She knows I keep them there.
SIR PERCY: You’re old enough to be her father.
WICKSTEED: So are you.
SIR PERCY: She wasn’t tickling my ears.
WICKSTEED: That’s true, Miss Rumpers, why don’t you tickle Percy’s ears. I don’t think she wants to. I’m not surprised.
SIR PERCY: Enough of this. Shall I tell you what I think?
WICKSTEED: No.
FELICITY: Yes.
SIR PERCY: I think this young woman is a patient. That you were abusing your position to interfere with her. That it is a scandal. That you are a blackguard. That it is my duty to bring your little games to the notice of the Medical Disciplinary Committee. That I will do all in my power to have you struck off.
WICKSTEED: No.
SIR PERCY: What have you to say to that?
WICKSTEED: You little pratt.
SIR PERCY: WHO ARE YOU CALLING LITTLE?
(MRS WICKSTEED enters.)
MRS WICKSTEED: Arthur!
WICKSTEED: Muriel!
SIR PERCY: I have just discovered your husband with his tongue down this young lady’s throat.
MRS WICKSTEED: Kissing. Kissing. You slut!
SIR PERCY: I fear kissing was just the tip of the iceberg.
MRS WICKSTEED: Of course I’ve known for years our marriage has been a mockery. My body lying there night after night in the wasted moonlight. I know now how the Taj Mahal must feel.
WICKSTEED: Listen. I can explain everything.
MRS WICKSTEED: No. Save it for the decree nisi.
WICKSTEED: Divorce? We can’t get divorced. Think of our son, Trevor.
MRS WICKSTEED: DENNIS.
WICKSTEED: He will be the child of a broken home. He will probably turn to juvenile delinquency.
MRS WICKSTEED: He is too old for juvenile delinquency.
WICKSTEED: Thank God for that.
MRS WICKSTEED: Mention of divorce and avenues open up all round. Think of it, Percy: a hostess, perhaps at one of our leading London hotels, catering for an international clientele, where my knowledge of languages can be put to good use.
WICKSTEED: You have no knowledge of languages.
MRS WICKSTEED: A smile knows no frontiers. Thank goodness I’m not alone.
WICKSTEED: And now, suddenly, at this moment of rejection, she goes knock, knock, knock at the door of my heart, and through a gap in the chintz I see the ghost of an old passion.
SIR PERCY: Come, Muriel, lean on me.
(Enter PURDUE with a ready noosed rope.)
PURDUE: Excuse me, Doctor….
WICKSTEED: I’m sorry, Mr Purdue. It’s my afternoon off. I have lost my career. I have lost my wife. You are all I’ve got left.
FELICITY: Me?
WICKSTEED: Yes. But we can be happy together, you and I.Together we can defy the world. Snap our fingers at public opinion. What do you say, Felicity?
(PURDUE is meanwhile preparing to hang himself.)
DENNIS: Can I help, Mr Purdue?
PURDUE: Nobody can help me.
DENNIS: Oh, don’t say that.
SIR PERCY: I won’t mention my engagement for the moment. She’ll understand, of course. Sensible girl. Never been the clinging type.
PURDUE: I’m going to do it.
MRS WICKSTEED: Come, Percy.
Come into the house of my body. Shelter from the storms of life under the eaves of my breasts.
PURDUE: I am going to do it.
WICKSTEED: What do you say?
FELICITY: Actually, I’m already spoken for.
WICKSTEED: Spoken for? By whom?
FELICITY: Dennis.
WICKSTEED: Dennis? Who’s Dennis?
FELICITY: Your son, Dennis.
WICKSTEED: Leonard! Ο my God!
PURDUE: I’m going to do it. I am really.
MRS WICKSTEED: What are you doing standing on my best chair?
PURDUE: Oh, sorry.
(MRS WICKSTEED removes the chair, leaving PURDUE hanging. DENNIS and FELICITY are clasped in each other’s arms as….)
MRS SWABB: (Announces) Delia, Lady Rumpers.
LADY RUMPERS: Felicity!
CURTAIN
ACT TWO
No time at all has passed.
MRS WICKSTEED: We were just going to have a glass of sherry.
LADY RUMPERS: So I see.
WICKSTEED: You are Felicity’s mother?
LADY RUMPERS: I am.
(LADY RUMPERS looks fixedly at PURDUE who is still swinging.)
WICKSTEED: Take no notice. Some people will do anything for effect.
(He swings PURDUE onto a chair where he stands with his head still in the noose.)
PURDUE: I don’t really want to commit suicide. It’s just a call for help.
LADY RUMPERS: So. I see I got here in the nick of time. Felicity, put that young man’s hand back where it belongs and get some clothes on.
FELICITY: Yes, Mother.
LADY RUMPERS: Who is that depressing youth?
WICKSTEED: My son. He depresses me too.
LADY RUMPERS: Not too depressed to take my daughter’s clothes off.
WICKSTEED: No, you worm.
MRS WICKSTEED: He didn’t.
WICKSTEED: Take no notice of my wife. She is his mother.
LADY RUMPERS: And you are his father..
WICKSTEED: Don’t remind me.
SIR PERCY: Wicksteed did it. He is the culprit.
WICKSTEED: Yes. Yes. I did it. I am his father. I turned him into this, this snivelling, loathsome little lecher. Where did I go wrong, where do we go wrong, we parents, generation after generation?
SIR PERCY: It’s all lies. I can tell you what happened. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.
MRS SWABB: Allow me. This is Delia, Lady Rumpers.
SIR PERCY: Another titled person. What a breath of fresh air. Lady Rumpers, I am a doctor.