The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (10 page)

Without looking up at
HARRIS
,
THELMA
speaks
.

THELMA
: It’s electric, dear.

HARRIS
: (
mildly
) I didn’t think it was a flaming torch.

THELMA
: There’s no need to use language. That’s what I always say.
(
She pads on a bit, scanning the floor
.
HARRIS
tries to remove the light bulb but it is apparently still too hot: he blows on his sharply withdrawn fingers, and then continues to blow on the light bulb. After a couple of blows he tests the bulb again and is able to remove it.
This upsets the delicate balance of the counterweight. The shade, relieved of the weight of the bulb, slowly begins to ascend, while the basket of fruit descends accordingly
.
HARRIS
,
however, has anticipated this and the movement is one of only a few inches before he has turned on his chair and removed an apple from the basket. This reverses the effect: the basket ascends, the shade descends. But
HARRIS
has anticipated this also: he takes a bite out of the apple and replaces it. The equilibrium is thus restored
.)
You could have used your handkerchief.

HARRIS
: (
intrigued
) You mean,
semaphore
?
(
But
THELMA
is not listening: she has given up her search, stood up, approached her shoes
—
and stepped on something; it is in fact a lead slug from a .22 calibre pistol. She picks it up with satisfaction and tosses it into a metal wastebin wherein it makes the appropriate sound
.)

THELMA
: A hundred and forty-nine.
(
She hands the iron’s plug up to
HARRIS
and accepts from him the warm bulb
.)

HARRIS
: I never took semaphore as a sophomore, morse the pity.
(
THELMA
looks at him icily but he has his own cool
.)
I used the time in a vain attempt to get the Rockefeller girl to marry me for my sense of humour. Would you pass my hat?
(
THELMA
passes him the bowler hat, which he puts on his head. He then inserts the iron plug into the light socket, deftly removing his hat and hanging it on a banana, thus cancelling out the imbalance threatened by the weight of the plug and its flex
.
THELMA
’
s attention does not stay to be impressed
.)

THELMA
: For some reason, my mind keeps returning to that one-legged footballer we passed in the car … What
position
do you suppose he plays?
(
HARRIS
has got down off the chair and looked critically around
.)

HARRIS
: Bit dark in here.
(
The natural light from the window is indeed somewhat inadequate
,
THELMA
pursues her own thoughts and a path to the light switch, positioned by the door at Stage
L
,
which controls the ceiling light, or, at the moment, the iron
.)

THELMA
: I keep thinking about him. What guts he must have!

HARRIS
: Put the light on.
(
THELMA
independently depresses the light switch, and the red warm-up light on the iron comes on
.
HARRIS
regards it sceptically
.)
Most unsatisfactory.

THELMA
: I mean, what fantastic
pluck
! What real never-say-die
spirit
, you know what I mean? (
Pause
.) Bloody unfair on the rest of the team, mind you—you’d think the decent thing would have been to hang up his boot.
What are you doing now?!
(
For
HARRIS
has gone upstage to the table lamp resting amid the barricade and tried, without result, to turn it on, whereupon he has started to blow violently against the shade. He replies immediately
.)

HARRIS
: Filthy. Hasn’t been dusted for weeks. I could write my name on it. (
He proceeds to do so, in full, remarking the while
:)
It wasn’t a football, it was a turtle.

THELMA
: A turtle?

HARRIS
: Or a large tortoise.

THELMA
:
What?

HARRIS
: He was carrying a tortoise.

THELMA
: You must be blind.

HARRIS
: (
equably
) It was he who was blind. What happened to the bulb?
(
He means the bulb from the table lamp
.
THELMA
however, holds out the warm bulb
.)

THELMA
: Here.

HARRIS
: What did you take the bulb out for?

THELMA
: No, that was the one you put in the bathroom.
This
is the one which——
(
As he takes the bulb from her by the metal end and flips it angrily into the air, catching it by the glass
.)
—you just took out——

HARRIS
: (
shouts
) Not by the metal end! (
Irritably he goes to insert the bulb into the table lamp
.)

THELMA
: And how do you explain the West Bromwich Albion football shirt?

HARRIS
: Pyjamas—he was wearing pyjamas. (
He successfully switches on the lamp, raising the gloom considerably as he gazes moodily around. He continues to speak, characteristically, without punctuation
.) This place is run like a madhouse. What’s that policeman staring at?
(
THELMA
turns to the window, marches up to it and viciously draws the curtains together
.)

THELMA
: Bloody nerve!
(
There is a piercing scream, from
MOTHER
as she jerks her foot away from the heated-up iron. This causes some confusion and cries of pain from
MOTHER
and cries of ‘Mother!’ from
THELMA
,
who snatches up the iron and places it on the wooden chair, the fruit adjusting itself accordingly
,
MOTHER
is now sitting up on the irioning board, facing the audience, her burned foot clutched in her lap, the other hanging down. Her first audible word seems to be a vulgarity; but is not
.)

MOTHER
:
Butter!

THELMA
: (
primly
) Now there’s no need to use language——

MOTHER
: Get some butter!

THELMA
:
Butter!
—Get butter, Reginald!
(
HARRIS
rushes out
.
THELMA
grabs the phone
.)
(
Dialling
) Don’t move—whatever you do don’t move—
Hello!—I want an ambulance! (
There is a loud knocking on the door
,
THELMA
drops the phone
—
it falls into the cradle
—
and rushes to the window, shouting
.) Who is it?
(
She draws back the curtains, and the Policeman reappears
.)

HOLMES
: It’s the police!

THELMA
: (
furiously
) I asked for an ambulance!
(
She viciously draws the curtains together and dashes back to pick up the phone
.
HARRIS
rushes in with half a pound of soft butter on a butter dish
.)

HARRIS
: Where do you want it, mother?

MOTHER
: On my foot, you nincompoop.
(
HARRIS
slams the butter up against the sole of
MOTHER’S
undamaged foot.
The confusion ceases at once
,
THELMA
replaces the phone and stands quietly
.
HARRIS
stands up looking slightly crestfallen
.
MOTHER
regards him glacially. There is a silence
.) You married a fool, Thelma.
(
MOTHER
gets down on the floor, on her good, though buttered, foot
.) Has the bathroom light been repaired?

HARRIS
: I put in a new bulb, mother.

MOTHER
: I hope you cleaned your boots, (
MOTHER
hops one-legged across the stage to the door and leaves, not before delivering the following threat
.) I shall be back for my practice. (
Certain things are integrated with the following dialogue. The iron goes back on the ironing board. The fruit adjusts
.
THELMA
irons the white dress shirt while
HARRIS
,
sitting on the wooden
chair, takes off his waders, which have been concealing not only his trousers but his black patent leather shoes
.
HARRIS
crams the waders into the cupboard in the barricade of furniture.
When the shirt has been ironed
,
HARRIS
puts it on, and puts on the bow-tie, and finally the coat. After ironing
,
HARRIS
climbs back on the wooden chair to remove the iron plug and, of course, the bowler hat, which, for want of anywhere else, he puts on his head
,
MOTHER
leaves the room
.)

HARRIS
: Don’t start blaming me. She could have lain on the floor.

THELMA
: Oh yes—very nice—with my back in the state it’s in—you’d rather I bent double.

HARRIS
: You could have squatted over her. It’s not
my
fault that the furniture could not be put to its proper use in its proper place.

THELMA
:
If
you’re referring to the Cricklewood Lyceum——

HARRIS:
I
am
referring to the Cricklewood Lyceum—it was a fiasco——

THELMA
: You know perfectly well that my foot got caught in my hem——

HARRIS
: With your legs?—your feet don’t
reach
your hem.

THELMA
: My legs are insured for £5,000!

HARRIS
: Only against theft. The fact of the matter is, it was a botch from first to last, and that is why we find ourselves having to go through it again at the eleventh hour, half of which has now gone.
We are never going to get away on time!

THELMA
: (
ironing the shirt
) I am being as quick as I can. All I can say is I’ll be glad when it’s all over and things are back to normal. It’s making you short-tempered and argumentative.
You contradict everything I say——

HARRIS
: (
heatedly
)
That
I deny——

THELMA
: I’ve only got to mention that the footballer had a football under his arm and you start insisting it was a tortoise. Why a footballer should play with a tortoise is a question which you don’t seem prepared to face.

HARRIS
: (
calmingly, reasonably
) Look—he was not a footballer. He was just a chap in striped pyjamas. It was a perfectly natural, not to say uninteresting, mistake and it led you to the further and even more boring misapprehension that what
he was carrying was a football—whereas
I
——

THELMA
: Whereas you, accepting as a matter of course a pyjamaclad figure in the street, leap to the natural conclusion that he must be carrying a tortoise.

HARRIS
: The man obviously had his reasons.

THELMA
: You’ve got to admit that a football is more likely.

HARRIS
: More likely?

THELMA
: In the sense that there would be more footballs than tortoises in a built-up area.

HARRIS
: Leaving aside the fact that your premise is far from self-evident, it is more
likely
, by that criterion, that what the fellow had under his arm was a Christmas pudding or a copy of Whitaker’s Almanac, but I happened to see him with my own eyes——

THELMA
: We all saw him——

HARRIS
:—and he was an old man with one leg and a white beard, dressed in pyjamas, hopping along in the rain with a tortoise under his arm and brandishing a white stick to clear a path
through those gifted with sight——

THELMA
: There was no one else on the pavement.

HARRIS
: Since he was blind he could hardly be expected to know that.