The Complete Talking Heads (21 page)

Authors: Alan Bennett

BOOK: The Complete Talking Heads

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She covers her face with her hands.

And I didn’t. I didn’t. And I wanted him so much. I don’t know … it was just the way I’d been brought up. And he stands there looking down at me …and then he just picks his clothes up and goes next door and after a bit I heard the front door bang.

They look old in photographs compared with what they look now. Only they weren’t. They were lads, same as you. And just as grand.

Pause
.

I saw the yellow thing the boy on the bike brings … his sister fetches it round … telegram. And a vanilla slice for mam. Then later on they had a letter reckoning to be from the King, same as everybody did who’d lost somebody. They keep saying I’ll be getting a telegram soon …for my birthday.’

Francis says, ‘Do you know something Violet? In all that, you never said, “What do you call it?” or “What’s its name?” Not once.You knew all the words.’

‘Only I should have let him, shouldn’t I? I’ve never forgiven myself.’ ‘Well,’ Francis says, ‘how can you know?’ Still holding my hand.

Pause.

Poor lad, he looks right washed out.

FADE.

I thought they’d got pneumonia beat. A big strapping lad like Francis. Devon said it was a blessing, he’d have died anyway. I said, ‘A blessing? A young feller like that?’

And he was such a gentle soul. She was doing my legs, plastering me up with stuff and right hard hands, not a patch on Francis. I said, ‘He’d have made some lass a grand husband.’ She said, ‘It wasn’t lasses; it was lads.’ I said, I knew it was lads. She said, ‘Well I wish you’d told me.’ Right nasty.

Pause.

I didn’t know it was lads but I wasn’t having her telling me. Lads or lasses, he was a love.

Rene’s gone an’ all.

Violet looks towards the empty bed.

Went in the night. They thought I was asleep so they didn’t bother to put the screens round. Saw it all. Putting the white socks on. Bit of giggling. Right as rain when she came to bed. Made me promise to wake her up if her taxi came. Well, it came in the finish. I said to Francis … no, I didn’t.

Pause.

My arm seems to have gone to sleep this morning and this hand.

She looks at her hand.

Now then I’ll have another one of these somewhere.

She locates her other hand, lifts it onto her lap and sits with her hands folded. She sings.

I’ve got sixpence
Jolly jolly sixpence
I’ve got sixpence
To last me all my life
I’ve got twopence to spend
And twopence to lend
And twopence to send home to my wife.

If we sang everything I shouldn’t forget.

All this very broken up with pauses.

Pets is what you want in this place. Else babies. Summat you can … (
She makes a stroking movement
) do this with. Not have to talk to.

Pause.

It’s no game is this.

Pause.

We’re the pets. Fed and cleaned out every day. It’s a kennels is this.

Pause.

Pedigree Chum. Pedigree Chum.

FADE.

Also by Alan Bennett

FICTION
The Clothes They Stood Up In
The Laying On of Hands

PLAYS
Plays One
(Forty Years On, Getting On, Habeas Corpus, Enjoy)
Plays Two
(Kafka’s Dick, The Insurance Man, The Old Country,
An Englishman Abroad, A Question of Attribution)

Office Suite
The Wind in the Willows
The Madness of George III
The Lady in the Van

TELEVISION PLAYS
The Writer in Dialogue
Objects of Affection
(BBC)

SCREENPLAYS
A Private Function
Prick Up Your Ears
The Madness of King George

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
The Lady in the Van
Writing Home

The Cast

Patricia Routledge plays Peggy in A Woman
of
No Importance