***
Scene Three (the patio of Deloris's garden. Albert enters bringing a garden table which he has great difficulty deciding where to place finally he places the table and exits. Deloris enters carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres, she places them on the table then moves it)
Deloris: Darling it was a marvellous idea of mine to have the party out here in my garden, don't you think?
Albert: (enters carrying two garden chairs) Where shall I put these chairs, dear?
Deloris: Oh let me see, put one in front of the birch tree and the other over in front of the camellias, no put it in the shade. (Albert puts the chair down and sits on it) It's blocking the door there, how atrocious of you Albert, move it.
Albert: (moves the chair) Is there anything else you want me to bring out here?
Deloris: The drinks.
Albert: Yes dear. (exits)
Deloris: Do you really think that this dress is becoming a hostess or should I buy a new one just for the occasion? Can you hear me, Albert?
Albert: (enters) Every word dear. (exits)
Deloris: Why don't you let me buy a new dress just this once? You don't think that this is atrociously bad taste, do you?
Albert: (enters) I like it, dear. (exits)
Deloris: In this dress I tried to combine good taste with modern fashion. But fashionable clothing is always such atrociously bad taste.
Albert: (enters) Is my tie alright?
Deloris: No, that tie's atrocious! Yes, that tie is definitely wrong.
Albert: I've only got one other, this one.
(he pulls a tie out from up his sleeve, it is the same as the one he is wearing but it is 12 feet long)
Deloris: No the colour doesn't go. And that suit! Where did you get that from? Take it off! Take everything off! Why I married you I don't know. Look where I am today. I have to struggle just to appear affluent. What are you taking your clothes off for? The guests will be arriving any minute now. I can't begin to comprehend why I married you.
Albert: You were in love with me dear.
Deloris: Surely I had more sense than that.
Albert: Apparently not.
Deloris: When I was a girl I was a rebel. I didn't like being told what to do by anybody and when my parents forbade our relationship they signed the marriage contract for me. My father saw through you but…I'm talking to you!
Albert: Sorry dear. I just had a vision of us eloping thirty years ago. I think I might have been a bit hasty.
Deloris: It's so much stress and strain having these little cocktail parties! I wish I had run away this morning and left you to do everything yourself.
Albert: I could have written a short story about it called 'The Garden Party', about a man whose wife runs away from him and…
Deloris: Not more of your boring juvenalia! Other husbands do boring normal things like dig in the garden. But not you. You scribble. I wouldn't mind if you had a flair for it and people were positively interested in your doodlings but nobody is. At least husbands who dig in the garden are harmless. Harmless Husbands, there's an idea: it could be a new charity of married men who go around and dig up people's gardens for them.
Albert: I'm in the forefront of the avant-garde. You see, to say anything meaningful an artist has to be ahead of his time but when he's ahead of his time no one understands him.
Deloris: The authors I like have been dead a hundred years.
Albert: My problem as an author then is obvious, I should have died sixty years before I was born.
Deloris: You might have been a Tolstoy, you could have written War and Peace or Gone with the Wind or Wind in the Willows or something like that. (there is a knock at the door) Someone's here. Go inside and let them in and bring them out.
Albert: When I've been dead a hundred years do you think people will read my works?
Deloris: You have already been dead forty years and response doesn't seem to be improving.
Albert: Very funny.
(knocking at the front door)
Deloris: Go and answer the door please.
Albert: Yes dear. (he exits and re-enters with Freddy and Clara) Freddy and Clara, dear.
Deloris: So glad you could come.
Freddy: Honoured to be invited Mrs Snobbington.
Clara: I never miss your garden parties Deloris.
Freddy: And how's the legal profession these days Albert? Lost any cases lately?
Albert: Well you know I can't grumble, one or two. It's not easy to lose a case. Especially if the law's on the side of your client. Takes skilled fumbling. It's an art.
Deloris: He has great potential, he could lose every case he has if he only tried.
Albert: I was going to tell Freddy how I lost three cases straight yesterday. I think it's a record. Of course I had a sympathetic judge. If I keep this up I'll be rich again!
Deloris: Would you like something to drink Freddy, Clara?
Freddy: Yes please.
Clara: Freddy's driving but I'll have a brandy and dry thanks.
Freddy: I've just come back from a sixteen day streamlined package tour of Africa. It was half business half pleasure. I was sent to keep my eye open for possible markets for my firm.
Deloris: Africa. How marvellous.
Clara: Africa's all he's talked about since he got back.
Albert: Of course I don't really write very well, that's because I don't get enough time, I'm too busy with my legal work.
Deloris: Albert, we are talking about Africa.
Albert: I've never been to Africa dear. (there's a knock at the front door)
Deloris: Albert go and answer the door.
Albert: Yes dear. (exits)
Freddy: Africa is the continent of the future.
(Albert enters with Melissa and Stud who are wearing motor bike gear)
Albert: Melissa and her gentleman friend Stud, dear.
Deloris: Oh look who's come, my daughter. You have met Freddy and Clara?
Melissa: Yes.
Deloris: Freddy, Clara, this is Stud, Melissa's friend.
Freddy: Pleased to meet you.
Clara: How do you do.
Stud: Hi.
Freddy: I was in one of those countries in darkest Africa and the local leader, Kong's his name, was having a harvest festival.
Deloris: Would anyone like something to drink?
Freddy: Gin and tonic thanks.
Clara: Brandy and dry please.
Melissa: A dry sherry.
Stud: A beer thanks.
Freddy: Kong's the leader of the new government which has recently seized power and was fighting the old tribal king over who should be presented the new yam. It was all very symbolic. The yam is a symbol of fertility and thus power.
Deloris: Here's your gin and tonic Freddy.
Freddy: Thanks awfully, I'm as dry as the Nullarbor.
Melissa: (aside) And as boring.
Freddy: It was really an important political clash and…
Deloris: Clara, a brandy and dry.
Clara: Thank you.
Freddy: If the King was presented the new yam he would enhance his political position vis a vis Kong and vice versa.
Deloris: A beer for you Stud. I'm sorry it all frothed up. I'm not really much of a hand at pouring beer.
Stud: She's right.
Freddy: Kong of course had the army, the police and the secret police on his side.
Deloris: And what was it you wanted Melissa?
Melissa: A dry sherry.
Deloris: And what about you Albert?
Albert: I'll get myself something.
Freddy: It had always been the tradition for the king to take the new yam each harvest festival.
Melissa: (joking) How interesting! Tell me Freddy, what exactly is a yam? Is it jam that's gone yucky or is it a native word for ham? Or is it something from one of father's silly poems?
Albert: There was a strange old Yam
that got into a peculiar jam
it f
ound that it's trousers
were other people's houses,
and walked around shouting dam!
Deloris: Very funny Albert but we don't want to listen to your scribbling today!
Albert: Your drink Melissa. I'm afraid we have run out of dry sherry.
Freddy: It was a really interesting and explosive situation.
Albert: Have you heard about the white girl who was killed by natives in darkest Africa?
Freddy: Yes, she was a nun stayed behind with the sick. A bad business.
Albert: We bring them civilisation and this is how they repay us!
Freddy: Steady on old chap! You can't expect too much. After all, western civilisation had a few teething troubles.
Melissa: It still has a lot of bad teeth that need extracting.
Albert: But she was a nun and a nurse. There's no such thing as natural justice. I've found that out in the courts. But we have civilised traditions.
Freddy: Murdering that nun when you come to think of it is a pretty immoral…
Melissa: (cutting in) Hundreds of black people die every week in Africa because of white man's politics.
Freddy: The trouble with Africa is…
Melissa: (cutting in) The trouble with Africa is that it is a playing field for international politics.
Albert: That's the Moslems and America, not us.
Melissa: We join in.
Freddy: Yes, well, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
(knock at the front door)
Deloris: Albert, quickly open the front door.
Albert: Yes dear.
Deloris: Smile everyone, our guests of honour are here! And Melissa behave yourself.
(Albert enters with Big Red and Daisy Bell)
Albert: Daisy Bell and Big Red dear.
Deloris: My dear Daisy Bell and Big Red I'm so glad you could come!
Big Red: Think nothing of it! We were just knocking around the neighbourhood so we were happy to pop in.
Freddy: Knocking around! I say, that's a new expression on me! How awfully funny it sounds.
Deloris: It's the new intellectual in-talk Freddy.
Freddy: Oh, I say! I thought I knew all the latest in talk amongst our circle. It must have slipped through my…
Clara: In one ear and out the other.
Freddy: I've got an ear for language you see.
Clara: Do be quiet, Freddy. You'll embarrass us in front of the guests of honour.
Deloris: No one's been introduced yet. Everybody, this is Big Red and Daisy Bell. Big Red and Daisy Bell this is my husband Albert, this is Clara Chamberpot and her husband Freddy, this is my daughter Melissa and her gentleman friend Snub.
Melissa: Stud.
Deloris: Snob.
Melissa: Stud.
Deloris: Stodge.
Melissa: Stud.
Deloris: Sod…no, Snot…Scoff…Slodge…Splodge…Spud…Stud!
Big Red: I'm much obliged to be invited. Lovely little roost you've got here.
Deloris: Thank you, would you like a drink Daisy Bell, Big Red?
Daisy Bell: Something strong so I can recover from Big Red's driving.
Big Red: Vodka and orange thanks.
Melissa: This selling of uranium to all comers is a bad business, don't you think Mr Red?
Deloris: Melissa!
Clara: Oh I don't know. Puts Australia on the map as a nation.
Freddy: I'm sure it's only used for peaceful purposes.
Clara: No one's going to drop nuclear bombs on us, Melissa, silly!
Freddy: Of course we're not for the indiscriminate use of nuclear energy. I didn't say that.
Deloris: Yes, I don't think we should let the underdeveloped countries have any, there's no stopping them.
Clara: Civilised countries can handle it. They don't lose their heads. Nations with a sense of humanity and justice are quite safe.
Deloris: Opponents to nuclear energy are just a lot of long haired, vegetarian, dope smokers.
Melissa: What's one bomb more or less after all, if it goes off ha what's the problem?
Clara: The government knows what it's doing.
Deloris: The bombs already exist. I don't think there's anything we can do about it.
Melissa: (satirically) And nuclear bombs aren't harmful, not really, only when they explode. And nuclear power stations are reasonably safe, unless they leak. And there are still plenty of places to dump nuclear waste, at the moment.
Deloris: Here's your vodka Mr Red.
Big Red: Why thank you.
(The party breaks up into small groups and in the following dialogue Deloris, Clara. and Daisy Bell sit together. Big Red sits next to Melissa, Stud stands shyly behind Daisy Bell and Freddy talks to Albert)
Daisy Bell: That's a very nice dress Deloris.
Deloris: Thank you Daisy.
Clara: You have excelled yourself with that dress Deloris, makes me positively look like a peasant.
Deloris: (gaily) Oh it's only an old thing I threw on.
Big Red: Melissa, you were wonderful. You put those humbugs in their place.
Melissa: Thank you.
Deloris: Hors d'oeuvres anybody?
Freddy: I'm starving. (he grabs the lot)
Deloris: Perhaps we will pass the tray around.
Freddy: Yep. (he doesn't)
Big Red: (to Melissa) I like a woman who can speak her mind.
Melissa: You're full of compliments.
Big Red: Love at first sight.
Melissa: Oh, we have hardly met.
Freddy: (to Albert) Written anything lately Albert?
Albert: Well I've got this idea for a historical novel. Its narrated by an Australian female Jewish paraplegic who goes to South Africa on a working holiday and falls in love with a native who's heavily into the anti-apartheid movement. She helps mastermind the destruction of a vital oil link but is caught and surreptitiously executed. My only stumbling block is how can she narrate the novel when she is dead.
Daisy Bell: Red come over here and talk to me.
Big Red: I'll be right with you.
Melissa: Go and talk to her if you like.
Big Red: I want to talk to you.
Melissa: I don't melt like butter under a barrage of compliments.
Deloris: (to Clara) It seems that Big Red has taken a liking to Melissa.
Clara: Good for her.
Deloris: It's a vast improvement on that boring friend of hers, Slug. I suppose it's too early really to talk about marriage.
Clara: If Melissa married into cattle it would be a social step up for your family.
Freddy: (to Albert) Oh Clara and I are happy enough.
Albert: Well to tell you the truth Freddy, I feel like I've been married to Deloris for a hundred years.
Freddy: You'd be lost without her.
Albert: I'm lost with her.
Freddy: God knows sometimes I get pretty annoyed at Clara now and then but without her I'm nothing. (looking at the tray of hors d'oeuvres) Hey someone's eaten all the caviar.
Daisy Bell: (to Stud) What's your name Sexy?
Stud: Er em Stud.
Daisy Bell: That's not your real name?
Stud: (stressing the ands) No. That's what the kids at school called me because I'm big and muscly and don't talk much, and it sort of stuck.
Daisy Bell: You're attached to Melissa are you Stud?
Stud: Oh er not really. She just likes going out with me because her mother don't approve.
Daisy Bell: Are you a member of the breed of great bronzed Australian males?
Stud: Not really. Oh my real name's Barry.
Daisy Bell: And mine's Daisy.
Stud: Yeah.
Daisy Bell: Tell me about yourself.
Stud: I'm not really much of a talker. I've already said more tonight than for the last week.
Daisy Bell: After loud mouthed Big Red you're a blessing. Would you like me to get you a drink?
Stud: Beer thanks.
Albert: (jumps up) Everybody, how about I recite a poem?
Deloris: Albert what ideas you have!
Albert: I make up poems all the time it's what I do.
Clara: I suppose it would be very boring living with Deloris?
Deloris: Thank you very much Clara!
Freddy: Oh I say, how frightfully jolly!
Deloris: I forbid it Albert.
Albert: Oh shut up.
Deloris: (taken aback) Would anyone like another drink?
Clara: A brandy and dry.
Freddy: You're not getting stuck into the grog Clara? Please don't embarrass me in front of Deloris and her guests.
Clara: Oh not now Freddy I'm just starting to have a little fun.
Freddy: You drink when you are happy and you drink when you are unhappy.
Clara: A woman's prerogative.
Deloris: Here's your brandy Clara.
Clara: (skulls it) Another please.
Deloris: Albert please no poetry, my party will be in ruins.
Albert: You recite something.
Deloris: I'm getting Clara a drink dear.
Albert: And we don't need a drunken Clara.
Clara: Thank you. (skulls it) Another please.
Albert: I never write poems down on paper I just make them up as I go along.
Daisy Bell: Would you like another beer, Stud?
Stud: Thanks.
Albert: Quiet everybody. Here I go:
I was peeling potatoes and the floor gave way.
Deloris: You never peeled a potato in your life.
Albert: And the floor caved gave way.
Deloris: The floor gave way with the shock of Albert actually doing something.
Albert: Quiet please.
Deloris: Your drink, Clara.
Clara: Thank you. (skulls it) Another please.
Freddy: Haven't you had enough?
Clara: I'll get it myself. (she grabs the brandy bottle and wanders off)
Albert: Quiet! Carrots, onions and cauliflowers sprouted from the paint peelings on the ceiling.
Deloris: The paint on the ceiling's not peeling on our ceiling.
Albert: Poetic license.
Freddy: I didn't know you needed a license to write poetry.
Albert: The milk bottle looked empty, as I swam in the dregs of a strong cup of slopped black tea.
Deloris: (to Clara) You're not tipsy are you? I can get you some black coffee
Clara: No thanks, I don't believe in mixing my drinks.
Albert: A blue talcum powder cotton wool sky, sat upon the ash grey, dusty broken window.
Deloris: My windows are clean.
Albert: On the advertisement page, a newspaper butterfly was dancing a jig and the headlines frothed in darkest Africa, jet black as the ace of spades print, motor car, industry, submarine, torpedoed, bankrupt, oil rig.
Deloris: Anyone for coffee?
Albert: Gulping my tea in the social pages.
Deloris: I think it's going to rain. There's a cloud hanging over my party.
Clara: (drinking from the brandy bottle) Go on Albert.
Albert: Inspector one, two, three, His Royal Highness the King of Siam was never overheard saying. An old dustbin was doing the twist. A soprano floor mop sang piano. The oven danced a polka, the weather today is quite fine.
Deloris: Really Albert this is all so much nonsense.
Freddy: I liked it Albert. It was the most imaginative piece of nonsense I've heard in years, and I've heard a lot of nonsense.
Deloris: I think Clara needs some strong coffee.
Clara: Up the empire.
Albert: How did you like my poem Melissa?
Melissa: It was different. I didn't understand it.
Albert: What's there to understand?
Melissa: Yes true it was…
Big Red: (to Melissa) How'd you like to go for a burn in my Rolls Royce?
Melissa: Fabulous.
(they exit)
Daisy Bell: Big Red's left without me.
Stud: I'll give you a lift on me motor bike.
Daisy Bell: Shall we go?
Stud: Sure.
(they exit)
Deloris: Let's go inside and I'll make some coffee. I'm afraid my party got rained out.
Albert: Nonsense it was just the party for a rainy day.
Deloris: We can clean up tomorrow.
(all exit but Freddy)
Freddy: You know, those hors d'oeuvres were very tasty.
(exit)