Drama Lines
Mary: There. What do you think?
Catherine: You look like dead Mum
(line)
silence
Teresa: Frank...
(walk on)
- What the frick?
silence
- What are you doing?
Mary: We're sorting out Mum's clothes...
pause
Catherine: Do you think we're sick?
- It's taken me 14 hours to get here from Dusseldorf. And I walk in on this. Pan's bloody people.
Mike: I'm Mike. Hi
(shake hands)
(shake hands)
- How do you do. And then I got diverted to East Midlands
Mike: Goodness
(line)
Catherine: Frank, chill out, have some drugs...
(line)
- What is it with this country, it's too hot, it's too cold, there's leaves on the line, it's the wrong sort of snow-
Catherine:
- How long have they been like this?
Catherine: Where's my camera, where's my camera?
Teresa: Oh yes, we've got to have a photo -
- Don't be ridiculous...
Catherine: Frank, you take it....
All: PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO
- OK OK
- Christ they're a handful when they all get together. They just gang up, you'll have to get used to it... all right, all right, pull yourselves together... Where do you want to be...?
(next scene)
Catherine: I just hope he can make the funeral, I mean I hope it's all sorted out so he can get a flight tonight, otherwise well, he won't, will he? Make the funeral.
- Had he ever met your mum?
(straight after line before)
Catherine: He'd talked to her on the phone. Anyway, what's that supposed to mean? God, why does everyone in this house to be so oblique and sneery, why can't anyone say what they mean?
(line)
Teresa: Frank. Bags. Car. Now.
- Catherine stop being so bloody paraniod.
Teresa:
- For Christ's Sake Teresa, I've only just thawed out.
Teresa: She was allergic to lillies of the valley, choose something else...
Mary: She's hardly going to start sneezing at her own funeral, is she?
(grapples with the bags, one splits)
- Oh, for Gods sake!!
Catherine: (big rant)
.... but if that's what you want -
(hides in cupbourd)
- Have you ever thought of laying off the drugs for a while, Catherine?
Mary: It's probably just as well he isn't coming. I mean he wouldn't know anyone and it's a strange country and everything.
Catherine: Yeah. It's probably just as well.
(cup is thrown at me)
(ducking avoiding the cup)
- Jesus Christ??
(after cup incident)
Catherine: (big rant)
...it's not good pretending, it's fucking lonely and I can't bear it.
- She nearly had my bloody head off.
Mike: Sorry, she's just, I mean, pretty miserable and not very stable -
Teresa: Thank you, doctor -
- Teresa...
Teresa: Give me some of that..
(goes to grab bottle of drink)
(line)
Teresa: Salt
- Teresa, don't drink whisky, it makes you crazy you know that..
Teresa:
- Don't drink if it tastes of salt...
Teresa: How dare you walk in here and pontificate?
- Put the bottle down, Teresa
Teresa: I mean this is coming from you, the man who's been two-timing his wife for the past 5 years telling us how to behave...
(line)
Teresa: No, why shouldn't I shout? Everyone else does in this house -
- Teresa, what the hell's this got to do with anything? Stop it.
Teresa:
- I never said you were shouting
Teresa: When are you going to do the decent thing? When are you going to leave your wife and marry my sister?
(line)
Teresa: Well, it's about time someone asked...
- Oh, for Christ's sake, this is none of your business, Teresa...
Teresa:
- But not you and not now, OK?
Teresa: Oh, very convinient
Mary: She's got ME
Teresa: ME my arse
- Teresa, I'm warning you
Teresa: It's not like she's got both her legs in traction. Let me tell you something, Mike.
- I don't think you should be telling anybody anything right at this moment...
Teresa: No. She knows you're having an affair so she thinks if she's ill, you wont leave her.
(line)
Mike: Don't worry about it, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have stuck my oar in...
(line)
- Sorry about this Mike, like you said, it's the grief, you know..
Mike:
- Teresa, come on now, you're talking shite, come and have a lie-down.
Teresa:.... I used to do it with my ex-husband. Sometimes it's all that's left of you. You get ill for a reason. You do it so people won't go.
- Teresa, I beg of you. Remember the last time. Three small gins, that's all. Took her bloody clothes in a car park.
Teresa: You see. We're out mother's daughters. Always take the man's side even when he's a complete pile of crap -
- Teresa, that's enough...
Teresa: He was like a professional mute. And was with someone else for most of the time.
- Right that's it. Come on.
Mary: Nothing happened -
Teresa: Bloody hell, how cna you not notice that someone's eight months pregnant?
(pause)
- Who was eight months pregnant?
Mary: Me
(pause)
Teresa: She was Fourteen.
- Are you serious?
Mary:.... No. I don't suppose you do, you stupid unimaginitive woman.
- You're really excelling yourself today Teresa. Although personally, I think you're timing is a bit off. Much more effective if you had waited till the funeral and shared it to the congregation. You could have done it instead of your crappy poem. You'd have brought the house down.
Teresa: I'm tired of it. Why should she sail through her life getting pat on the back as if she'd never put a foot wrong?
(takes another swig from bottle)
- It just strikes me as being a strange time to reveal it to the world, Teresa. I mean it hardly qualifies as bereavement counsiling...
(swig)
- If you take one more swig of that, your liver will explode.
Mary: You're drunk, I'm not listening to this...
(Mary exits)
Mike: I'll just, er... Excuse me a minute - Mary...
- Do you know something Teresa. You're just embarrasing when you're drunk
Teresa: I've wanted to cry for three days. The Salt taste is gone. Say something Frankie.
I've been awake for 36 hours. Look I'm sorry just put the bottle down, you've had enough. Teresa, during the course of my spectacularly indirect journey here from Dusseldorf, I did a bit of thinking. Two and a half days spent at a health food convention being harrassed by people who do the vitamin therapy according to star signs, it reminded me of what deep down I have know for some time. We sell utter crap.
Teresa: Frankie...
(line)
Teresa: What?
(line)
Teresa: Like What?
- No hang on, let me finish, I know you believe in it, I know you do, but maybe lter when the funeral's out of the way, we could, you know...
Teresa:
- I don't know. Maybe you should run the business and I should go into something else.
Teresa:
- The thing is Teresa, I hate selling things. Or specifically, I hate selling things that people don't want and I don't believe in. I'm not cut out for it.
Catherine: What's going on?
- Nothing's going on, I'm trying to have a conversation with Teresa...
Catherine: Oh God, I'm so depressed.
- Yeah well you know, it's a depressing business. Dying and whatnot.
Catherine: Frankie?
(line)
Catherine: Am I unattractive?
(line)
Catherine: Do you think I'm pretty
(line)
- What?
Catherine:
- I'm sorry?
Catherine:
- Of course you're pretty. Look Catherine. I'm exhausted.
Catherine:...... I am a brilliant cook. So why did he leave me?
(line)
Catherine: What am I going to do?
(line)
Catherine: Xavier
- Jesus Catherine, I don't know. People leave each other. You'll get over it.
Catherine:
- About what?
Catherine:
- Catherine, I have no advice to give you. I mean I could say drink some tea, eat your vegetables, learn to love yourself, but it is all a load of crap.
Mary: I know you're drawn to this room like moths to a flame.....(more lines)
Catherine: I was going anyways..
- I'm worried about her. I'm serious. She needs months in a secure unit, she's completely.. ugh anyways, I'd better go and sort Teresa out.
(exit stage)
(pg.76)
Catherine: Do you know what she has gone and done?
Mary: I dont know and I don't care.
Catherine: I'll kill her...
(line)
Mary: Oh don't mind us, please..
- Look, I'm sorry, I know you're trying to get a bit of peace...
Mary:
- The thing is, Teresa's arranged for your mother to come back, that's all.
Catherine: No, she's coming on foot, what do you think?
Mary: Apart from anything else, where are we going to put her?
(line)
Mary: I'm sleeping in here. I can't sleep next to my dead mother. For Christ's sake.
Mike: We can go to a hotel.
- In here, this is her room.
Mary:
Mike:
- You can have it open or closed, it's up to you.
Teresa: (long line)..... Finito, La Fin.... Frankie?
- What?
(exit stage)
Teresa: Frankie, get the rescue remedy!
(I enter stage)
- she needs a bloody drink.
Teresa: Frank she needs the Rescue Remedy now!
(I exit stage)
(exit stage)
Teresa: They're not vitamin pills...
Mary: There's no cure.
(enter stage)
- Rescue Remedy. Duty-Free vodka. Take your pick.
Mike: Are you all right?
Mary: I'm tired, I didn't sleep.
- I read somewhere the other day that if you eat a whole lettuce before you go to bed, it has pretty much the same effect as a Mogadon.
Teresa: What?
Catherine: The outfit. What do you think?
- Sorry?
Mary: Apart from the fact that you can see your ovaries, it's fine...
(phone rings, I answer)
- Hello?.... Oh Jesus Wept.... And What?.... You've got what?.... I don't believe this.... I mean I suppose if.... Right ok ok, thanks.
(put down phone)
- He says he is on his way. He asked if we have anyone who can give him a hand. Taking the coffin out to the hearse.
Mike: Fine, right, OK, no problem, absolutely.
- I think he said it's hard for him because he has a *plastic hand*. Is my hearing going or what??
Catherine: It's weird she's in this box. I mean, I can't imagine it.
- I don'e this you're supposed to.
Mike: Maybe we could all do with a drink.
(begins to hand out glasses)
Catheirne: I'm all right. I'll be OK. I will.
- ooh, nearly said cheers
....
- so here we are then.
...
- You can get a do-it-yourself coffin now, apparenetly. Made out of cardboard.
(car horn sounds)
Mary: That'll be him
Mike: Right. OK. Shall we, er.... Frank?
(line)
Mike: Keep your back straight...
- God. Right. I'll take this end, shall I?
Mike:
- I'll go backwards, or would you rather?
(still holding coffin)
Catherine: Poor Mum. Even her funeral's a cock-up.
Mike: Pull her round to the right a bit... the right..
- Mind that bit of carpet... whoops nearly... that's it
..
- To me, To me.
(exit stage)
Mary: Got tissues?
Teresa: Yes
(enter stage)
(enter stage)
- Are we set?