The Complete Dramatic Works (51 page)

[
Roar
of
engine.
]

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 slaughterhouse.

CREAM:
Not him, his brother the nursery-man.

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
comfortable
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.

GORMAN:
They reared her well then just the same bled
themselves
white for her so they did, poor Mary used to tell us all we were very close in those
days lived on the same landing you know, poor Mary yes she used to say what a drain
it was having the child boarding out at Saint Theresa’s can you imagine, very classy,
daughters of the gentry Mr Cream, even taught French they were the young ladies.

CREAM:
Isn’t that what I’m telling you, reared her like a princess of the blood they did,
French now I ask you, French.

GORMAN:
Would you blame them Mr Cream, the best of parents, you can’t deny it, education.

CREAM:
French, French, isn’t that what I’m saying.

[
Roar
of
engine.
]

GORMAN:
They denied themselves everything, take the bits out of their mouths they would for
their Nelly.