Scene Three: (a cock crows and a dog barks April asleep on the floor begins to wake, Simon asleep standing up also begins to wake)
April: What's the time?
Simon: Way past dawn. I'll put the milk bottles out.
April: We haven't got any money.
Simon: With all the favours I've been doing people I'll just pray for this little favour and whoever it is that dishes out favours shouldn't turn their back on me now. (Simon puts the milk bottles out) April, the sun's shining through the tree tops it's going to be a beautiful day. Noddy and Sylvania are really moon struck lovers. They have been sitting up all night on Sylvania's porch.
April: I'm hungry. I could eat a horse.
Simon: We haven't got a horse in the house.
April: Let's imagine. We don't need earthly temptations we can let the spirit feed us. I'll begin with two imaginary poached eggs.
Simon: You don't think that a large glass of imaginary orange juice and an imaginary grapefruit is being greedy?
April: Not at all, eat as much as you can swallow, wolf it down. You're not going to get any real food so you might as well make a pig of yourself on this imaginary fare. Here get your teeth into this.
Simon: What is it?
Apri1: A piece of toast with oodles and oodles of marmalade.
Simon: Did you have to imagine marmalade you know I don't like marmalade.
April: I think I'll go and see to my ablutions. Be a dear and while I'm gone clean up all these dirty dishes. The place is an imaginary pig sty. (she goes into the bathroom)
Simon: Life is blissful for us now. We are like one in happiness. A sonorous note plucked from the strings of Orpheus's harp. (suddenly distressed) I hope I've done the right thing I'm no longer absolutely sure. Perhaps I should have used slightly more moderation.
April: (in the bathroom) Arghh
Simon. What's the matter April?
April: (enters) Someone has borrowed the latrine.
Simon: Yes I meant to tell you about that. But took at it this way, It's all for the betterment of mankind.
April: You and your stupid mankind and its stupid glorious future. I'm going to pack my bags and leave. You don't care how low you pull me down into the mud. We haven't even got a latrine and all you can do is lecture about the glorious future of mankind. The future's not much good to us peasants in the here and now who can't even go to the bog. I'm going up to the pub to use their facilities for human convenience. (exits)
Simon: A water closet is just a worldly temptation. (the doorbell rings Simon quietly) Go away. (the doorbell rings Simon opens the door) I've gone out, I'm not home.
Noddy: (outside) When do you expect yourself back then.
Simon: I don't know I didn't say.
Noddy: Maybe I'll come back when you're in then.
Simon: Oh come in, come in. The doors not locked. My house is yours etcetera etcetera as I always used to say.
Noddy: You're looking a bit down at mouth Simon.
Simon. I feel a bit tired of everything, one minute I feel exultant as if I'd won, the next I feel smashed and broken as if I'd lost.
Noddy: Keep your chin up Simon.
Simon: And what do you want this time?
Noddy: A big favour Simon a really big favour. But if you'd rather not I won't bother you further.
Simon: No, no tell me everything.
Noddy: Well it began last night. I moved in with Sylvania but we accidentally locked ourselves out. We came here for help and rang the doorbell but you must have been fast asleep.
Simon: We must have.
Noddy: So Sylvania and I sat out on her front porch all night and talked and we decided to go overseas.
Simon: Why don't you settle for a weekend at Victor Harbor.
Noddy: I've dreamt about going O.S. all my life.
Simon: I prefer Australia, there are so many foreigners overseas.
Noddy: We haven't got anything to match the Eiffel Tower.
Simon: Except the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Noddy: And there's nothing like the Riviera here.
Simon: Besides the Gold Coast.
Noddy: French wines are so good.
Simon: Of course they do make good wine in the Barossa Valley.
Noddy: Ah but we just don't get snow in Australia.
Simon: I suppose you have never heard of Mount Kosciusko?
Noddy: You get a real sense of history over there.
Simon: All those old ruins.
Noddy: The restaurants and the food.
Simon: Our beer's better than theirs.
Noddy: The culture over there.
Simon: We've got the only Sydney Opera House in the world. And there is the Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, Australian Rules Football....
Noddy: You have got to help me. I've never met anyone like Sylvania before. I know it sounds a bit corny but she has opened up my life. She has injected into my arm a shot of adrenalin and now I feel that I could move molehills into mountains. But I'm afraid if I don't get away now I'll get bogged down and I'll never get a chance like this again.
Simon: Is it really important?
Noddy: Simon, what would you be prepared to sacrifice to be in paradise?
Simon: How much do you need?
Noddy: Oh Simon, thank you. I'm drunk I don't know what I'm doing. A forty year old man running away with a twenty year old, isn't it silly? But I'm a new man, nothing matters anymore my wife, my job, they're all nothing.
Simon: I'll give you a cheque for ten thousand dollars. I'll have to sell the house to cover it.
Noddy: That will do, I'll pay you back. Make the cheque out to Sylvania. I'll let myself out, I'm floating. (exits)
Simon: Life seems to weary me. I'm penniless homeless and in debt. I did quite like this house. I won't sell it, I'll let that cheque bounce so high no one will catch it. Why am I always trying to help everybody? There are too many people for just one man. The whole of mankind should join together and help each other. What am I going to say to April? The funs gone out of life, my spirit's dead.
April: (enters) I'm back. The pub's comfort station was indisposed. I had to walk all the way to the petrol station and there was a queue there.
Simon: April, I have some bad news.
April: Of course I didn't mind waiting, after all they were all people like me and they all deserve to use the thunder box. If you have given me one thing Simon it's a love and respect for my fellow man, no matter how disgusting he is.
Simon: Listen April.
April: In fact they not only deserve a turn on the thunder box but they have a God given, inalienable right to a turn on the thunder box.
Simon: You're not listening to me.
April: Did you say something Simon?
Simon. We have to sell this house right away. I gave Noddy a cheque for ten thousand dollars so he could go to Europe with Sylvania. You see he felt like he had been reborn and wants to live once before he gets old. We won't have anywhere to sleep tonight.
April: Where are we going to live? You are lecherous for poverty.
Simon: A house isn't everything, it's only earthly temptation.
April: You're right. It will be invigorating to sleep in the gutter.
Simon: Don't take it so hard. Look at me, I'm as full of life as ever. Oh. I'm worn out what are we going to do? I've been stupid, there is no life of the spirit, no golden age of paradise to come. We ought to possess everything we can get our hands into, onto and around. The more you own the happier you are.
April: Now you know you don't believe that Simon. I'll go next door to Dodd and Nod. They might be able to put us up tonight.
(April exits and the doorbell rings)
Simon: Go away. (doorbell rings) There's nothing more to give away. (the doorbell rings, Simon opens the door) No one lives here anymore the owners have emigrated to Australia.
Sylvania: This is Australia.
Simon: What do you want? I don't want to see any
body go away.
Sylvania: Simon I've got some great news for you, you'll never believe it.
Simon: Good because I don't want to believe anything anymore.
Sylvania: I guess I'll let myself out then.
Simon: What is it?
Sylvania: I'm your long lost daughter.
Simon: If you're trying to get charity from me it won't work anymore one more word about being my daughter and I'll throw you out.
Sylvania: Your first wife's name was Judith and my mother's name was Judith.
Simon: That cuts no ice with me. You're not going to wheedle money out of me that easily.
April: (enters) It's alright Simon. Doddy's making us a cup of tea. She says we can stay in their spare room for as long as we like and look, the milkman left us two pints of milk.
Simon: We can start again and this time I'll not be so eccentric.
April: There's just one thing Simon.
Simon: What's that April?
April: In a couple of weeks when what has happened today is forgotten you mustn't start lecturing me again.
Simon: I have faced the truth. I was too extreme. We should live to be happy today. We need possessions to be happy but we won't chain our lives to them. I have had a true revelation, my eyes have been opened.
April: Simon you are beginning to sound like a sermon again.
Simon: Oh sorry I'm afraid it's difficult for someone who constantly believes he has discovered the truth to keep quiet about it.
April: I don't suppose I really mind.
Simon: Oh I almost forgot. April, Sylvania here says she's my daughter to my first wife. I know she's trying to wheedle something out of me but you can't blame her for trying. Sylvania you can be my daughter if you want,
Sylvania: I am your daughter and I'm not trying to wheedle anything out of you.
April: Sure you are.
Sylvania: The only thing my mother ever told me about my father was that he gave everything away and gave her polemics into the bargain.
April: Simon fits that bill.
Simon: My God I think you are you but wait a minute my daughter's name was Mary you're not you after all.
Sylvania: My middle name's Mary.
Simon: Wrong again my daughter's middle name was Sylvania.
Sylvania: My first name's Sylvania.
Simon: There you are, you can't be my daughter your names are back to front.
Sylvania: On my birth certificate I'm not Sylvania Mary but Mary Sylvania.
April: Check mate.
Simon: You are you, April she is her, welcome home. (he embraces her)
Sylvania: And you're my new mother.
April. I lose a house and gain a daughter. (they embrace)
Simon: And what's this carrying on with a married man?
Sylvania: Don't worry dad we had a quarrel and broke it off. He's gone back to his wife, we were incompatible. You see I wanted to see Asia on three dollars fifty a day for the both of us but he wanted to see Europe on a hundred dollars a day. Ideologically we couldn't come to a consensus we had no shared philosophical fundamentals on which we could build a mutually rewarding dialectic of life.
April: She sounds like an up dated version of you Simon.
Sylvania: Besides he had bad breath.
(the doorbell rings)
Simon: (happy) Come in, come in the door's not looked my house is your house.
(Nodd and Dodd enter.)
Simon. It's Noddy and Doddy come in, come in meet my new daughter Mary.
Doddy: How do you do.
Sylvania: Very well thank you, how do you do.
Doddy: Very well thank you.
Noddy: How do you do.
Doddy: I how do you doed for both of us.
Noddy: Sorry, I brought you something Simon. (he hands Simon the cheque) I don't need all this money to enjoy myself I'm going to Victor Harbor with my wife. (he puts his arm around his wife)
Doddy: Come on everybody the tea's brewing. (everybody troops out leaving Simon and April)
Simon: I feel like a million dollars.
April: We had a happy ending after all.
Simon: It would have been happy all the way through if you hadn't been so worried about keeping up with the Jones's.
April: Me keeping up with the Jones's I like that. What about you giving everything away just to impress the audience with your saintliness.
Simon: I was not trying to impress the audience, but you performed like a two bob watch and it was merely pure vanity not worthy of your inner self.
April: Vanity, you can talk about vanity.
Doddy: (enters) Come on you two the play's over and your cup of tea's getting cold.
April: Come on Simon we're being idiotic.
Simon: Two self centred fools.
April: Speak for yourself.
Simon: What's that remark supposed to mean?
April: Nothing, nothing, I said it tongue in cheek.
Simon: A slip of the tongue indeed, I wasn't born yesterday.