The Collected Shorter Plays (22 page)

CREAM

Eh?

GORMAN

Your son the judge.

CREAM

He has rheumatism.

GORMAN

Ah rheumatism, rheumatism runs in the blood Mr. Cream.

CREAM

What are you talking about, I never had rheumatism.

GORMAN

When I think of my poor old mother, only sixty and couldn’t move a muscle. [
Roar of engine
.] Rheumatism they never found the remedy for it yet, atom rockets is all they care about, I can thank my lucky stars touch wood. [
Pause
.] Your son yes he’s in the papers the Carton affair, the way he managed that case he can be a proud man, the wife read it again in this morning’s
Lark
.

CREAM

What do you mean the Barton affair.

GORMAN

The Carton affair Mr. Cream, the sex fiend, on the Assizes.

CREAM

That’s not him, he’s not the Assizes my boy isn’t, he’s the County Courts, you mean Judge . . . Judge . . . what’s this his name was in the Barton affair.

GORMAN

Ah I thought it was him.

CREAM

Certainly not I tell you, the County Courts my boy, not the Assizes, the County Courts.

GORMAN

Oh you know the Courts and the Assizes it was always all six of one to me.

CREAM

Ah but there’s a big difference Mr. Gorman, a power of difference, a civil case and a criminal one, quite another how d’you do, what would a civil case be doing in the
Lark
now I ask you.

GORMAN

All that machinery you know I never got the swing of it and now it’s all six of one to me.

CREAM

Were you never in the Courts?

GORMAN

I was once all right when my niece got her divorce that was when was it now thirty years ago yes thirty years, I was greatly put about I can tell you the poor little thing divorced after two years of married life, my sister was never the same after it.

CREAM

Divorce is the curse of society you can take it from me, the curse of society, ask my boy if you don’t believe me.

GORMAN

Ah there I’m with you the curse of society look at what it leads up to, when you think my niece had a little girl as good as never knew her father.

CREAM

Did she get alimony.

GORMAN

She was put out to board and wasted away to a shadow, that’s a nice thing for you.

CREAM

Did the mother get alimony.

GORMAN

Divil the money. [
Pause
.] So that’s your son ladling out the divorces.

CREAM

As a judge he must, as a father it goes to his heart.

GORMAN

Has he children.

CREAM

Well in a way he had one, little Herbert, lived to be four months then passed away, how long is it now, how long is it now.

GORMAN

Ah dear oh dear, Mr. Cream, dear oh dear and did they never have another?
[
Roar of engine
.]

CREAM

Eh?

GORMAN

Other children.

CREAM

Didn’t I tell you, I have my daughters’ children, my two daughters. [
Pause
.] Talking of that your man there Barton the sex boyo isn’t that nice carryings on for you showing himself off like that without a stitch on him to little children might just as well have been ours Gorman, our own little grandchildren.
[
Roar of engine
.]

GORMAN

Mrs. Cream must be a proud woman too to be a grandmother.

CREAM

Mrs. Cream is in her coffin these twenty years Mr. Gorman.

GORMAN

Oh God forgive me what am I talking about, I’m getting you
wouldn’t know what I’d be talking about, that’s right you were saying you were with Miss Daisy.

CREAM

With my daughter Bertha, Mr. Gorman, my daughter Bertha, Mrs. Rupert Moody.

GORMAN

Your daughter Bertha that’s right so she married Moody, gallous garage they have there near the slaughter-house.

CREAM

Not him, his brother the nurseryman.

GORMAN

Grand match, more power to you, have they children?
[
Roar of engine
.]

CREAM

Eh?

GORMAN

Children.

CREAM

Two dotey little boys, little Johnny I mean Hubert and the other, the other.

GORMAN

But tell me your daughter poor soul she was taken then was she. [
Pause
.] That cigarette while we’re at it might try this gentleman. [
Footsteps approach
.] Beg your pardon Sir trouble you for a light. [
Footsteps recede
.] Ah the young are very wrapped up Mr. Cream.

CREAM

Little Hubert and the other, the other, what’s this his name is.
[
Pause
.] And Mrs. Gorman.

GORMAN

Still in it.

CREAM

Ah you’re the lucky jim Gorman, you’re the lucky jim, Mrs. Gorman by gad, fine figure of a woman Mrs. Gorman, fine handsome woman.

GORMAN

Handsome, all right, but you know, age. We have our health thanks be to God touch wood. [
Pause
.] You know what it is Mr. Cream, that’d be the way to pop off chatting away like this of a sunny morning.

CREAM

None of that now Gorman, who’s talking of popping off with the health you have as strong as an ox and a com fortable wife, ah I’d give ten years of mine to have her back do you hear me, living with strangers isn’t the same.

GORMAN

Miss Bertha’s so sweet and good you’re on the pig’s back for God’s sake, on the pig’s back.

CREAM

It’s not the same you can take it from me, can’t call your soul your own, look at the cigarettes, the lighter.

GORMAN

Miss Bertha so sweet and good.

CREAM

Sweet and good, all right, but dammit if she doesn’t take me for a doddering old drivelling dotard. [
Pause
.] What did I do with those cigarettes?

GORMAN

And tell me your poor dear daughter-in-law what am I saying your daughter-in-law.

CREAM

My daughter-in-law, my daughter-in-law, what about my daughter-in-law.

GORMAN

She had private means, it was said she had private means.

CREAM

Private means ah they were the queer private means, all swallied up in the war every ha’penny do you hear me, all in the bank the private means not as much land as you’d tether a goat. [
Pause
.] Land Gorman there’s no security like land but that woman you might as well have been talking to the bedpost, a mule she was that woman was.

GORMAN

Ah well it’s only human nature, you can’t always pierce into the future.

CREAM

Now now Gorman don’t be telling me, land wouldn’t you live all your life off a bit of land damn it now wouldn’t you any fool knows that unless they take the fantasy to go and build on the moon the way they say, ah that’s all fantasy Gorman you can take it from me all fantasy and delusion, they’ll smart for it one of these days by God they will.

GORMAN

You don’t believe in the moon what they’re experimenting at.

CREAM

My dear Gorman the moon is the moon and cheese is cheese what do they take us for, didn’t it always exist the moon wasn’t it always there as large as life and what did it ever mean only fantasy and delusion Gorman, fantasy and delusion. [
Pause
.] Or is it our forefathers were a lot of old bags maybe now is that on the cards I ask you, Bacon, Wellington, Washington, for them the moon was always in their opinion damn it I ask you you’d think to hear them talk
no one ever bothered his arse with the moon before, make a cat swallow his whiskers they think they’ve discovered the moon as if as if. [
Pause
.] What was I driving at?
[
Roar of engine
.]

GORMAN

So you’re against progress are you.

CREAM

Progress, progress, progress is all very fine and grand, there’s such a thing I grant you, but it’s scientific, progress, scientific, the moon’s not progress, lunacy, lunacy.

GORMAN

Ah there I’m with you progress is scientific and the moon, the moon, that’s the way it is.

CREAM

The wisdom of the ancients that’s the trouble they don’t give a rap or a snap for it any more, and the world going to rack and ruin, wouldn’t it be better now to go back to the old maxims and not be gallivanting off killing one another in China over the moon, ah when I think of my poor father.

GORMAN

Your father that reminds me I knew your father well. [
Roar of engine
.] There was a man for you old Mr. Cream, what he had to say he lashed out with it straight from the shoulder and no humming and hawing, now it comes back to me one year there on the town council my father told me must have been wait now till I see 95, 95 or 6, a short while before he resigned, 95 that’s it the year of the great frost.

CREAM

Ah I beg your pardon, the great frost was 93 I’d just turned ten, 93 Gorman the great frost.
[
Roar of engine
.]

GORMAN

My father used to tell the story how Mr. Cream went hell for leather for the mayor who was he in those days, must have been Overend, yes Overend.

CREAM

Ah there you’re mistaken my dear Gorman, my father went on the council with Overend in 97, January 97.

GORMAN

That may be, that may be, but it must have been 95 or 6 just the same seeing as how my father went off in 96, April 96, there was a set against him and he had to give in his resignation.

CREAM

Well then your father was off when it happened, all I know is
mine went on with Overend in 97 the year Marrable was burnt out.

GORMAN

Ah Marrable it wasn’t five hundred yards from the door five hundred yards Mr. Cream, I can still hear my poor mother saying to us ah poor dear Maria she was saying to me again only last night, January 96 that’s right.

CREAM

97 I tell you, 97, the year my father was voted on.

GORMAN

That may be but just the same the clout he gave Overend that’s right now I have it.

CREAM

The clout was Oscar Bliss the butcher in Pollox Street.

GORMAN

The butcher in Pollox Street, there’s a memory from the dim distant past for you, didn’t he have a daughter do you remember.

CREAM

Helen, Helen Bliss, pretty girl, she’d be my age, 83 saw the light of day.

GORMAN

And Rosie Plumpton bonny Rosie staring up at the lid these thirty years she must be now and Molly Berry and Eva what was her name Eva Hart that’s right Eva Hart didn’t she marry a Crumplin.

CREAM

Her brother, her brother Alfred married Gertie Crumplin great one for the lads she was you remember, Gertie great one for the lads.

GORMAN

Do I remember, Gertie Crumplin great bit of skirt by God, hee hee hee great bit of skirt.

CREAM

You old dog you!
[
Roar of engine
.]

GORMAN

And Nelly Crowther there’s one came to a nasty end.

CREAM

Simon’s daughter that’s right, the parents were greatly to blame you can take it from me.