Friends in need

No, I'm not on a begging trip!

I was controlling links and realized that I have orphaned this blog!
I suppose it's because I haven't done any writing at all since getting two books (still with some missprints which I really must correct) onto obooko.com. The titles are "A start in Life" (category biography available here:(http://www.obooko.com/obooko_memoir/bookpages/mem0009_start_in_life_jones.php) and a novel (http://www.obooko.com/obooko_general/bookpages/general2/gen0103_friends_for_life_jones.php), then I even managed to upload a drama I wrote yonks ago here:(http://www.obooko.com/obooko_art_media/bookpages/artmed0011_visitors_script_jones.php)
I did think about lulu.com and will probably go back there. I really wanted to see if anyone would even download!
Actually completing these oeuvres was an achievement in itself! My problem is that I'm a bit of a writer, a bit of a painter and a lot of a musician. It all keeps me out of mischief! Or does it? Looking back, I realize that some of my exploits, which inclue 4 one-woman art shows, were really a bit over the top. But sticking firmly to the adage: Nothing ventured. nothing gained, I'm not really planning to change anything.

Now follows a short sketch I wrote for stage presentation simply ages ago, when my neighbour in the block was British and ran a little theatre. We eventually put on a 2 women evening of my sketches and also read T.S. Eliot's "Cats" called "Cats and other creatures". The show was a big success, but I don't think this sketch was played that evening.

This version is the happy one. I'm compiling a whole lot of stuff as a book and I have another version of this sketch which does not have quite such a happy ending! Press Control with the + sign if the print is too small!

FRIENDS IN NEED

by Faith Puleston

  SETTING

       A theatre after the morning rehearsal. Ada and Nora have been cleaning the auditorium and now wander on to ”tidy up” the stage while the actors are having their lunch. The stage set shows a sitting-room, the play is a murder. Props must include a realistic pistol and a waste-paper basket containing a newspaper.

       CHARACTERS

Ada and Nora, two cleaning ladies dressed in flowered overalls and carrying mops and buckets.

       Ada enters through the auditorium with Nora on her heels.

       ADA: Good heavens!  Look at the state of the place. Those actors must live like                    pigs!

       NORA:  Go on, Ada. They only leave it like this because they’ve got us to clean up after them.

       They are both fed up, especially Ada.

       ADA:      While they sit in some fancy rest-i-rant-i, wrapping theirselves round their dinners. As if they didn’t exercise their jaws enough here!

       NORA: And get good money into the bargain. Just imagine...people paying to hear me talk.

       ADA: I wouldn’t. You’d make a fool of yourself, Nora.

       NORA: If they’ve left one of those scripts about, I’ll show you how good I am.

       ADA looks for one, then she spots the newspaper in the waste paper basket.

       ADA: (handing the newspaper to Nora) Try the agony column. Actors can make a drama out of a shopping list, so you should be well away.

       NORA: Agony columns are private. You can’t go blurting them out all over the place.

       ADA: That’s your excuse. You shouldn’t brag, Nora. You’ll get into hot water one of these days, and I don’t mean your mop and bucket, either.

       NORA: Oh, give it here and let’s get it over with.

ADA sits down on one of the stage chairs and lights a cigarette, while NORA looks for a suitable text in the newspaper.

       ADA: Better get on with it. They’ll be back in a jiff.

       NORA: I’m doing my best, Ada. You wouldn’t want me to recite the weather forecast, would you?

ADA feigns indifference and puffs at her cigarette, dropping ash into the pocket of her apron.

       NORA: Hang on.... Just listen to this:

       COURT REPORT....THIS MORNING MRS DOREEN SMITH WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR A YEAR AFTER BEING FOUND GUILTY OF THE MURDER OF HER LATE HUSBAND, MR HERBERT SMITH. IT WAS SAID IN HER DEFENCE THAT SHE HAD HAD TO COPE WITH HIS DRINKING FOR 20 YEARS BUT THE LAST STRAW HAD BEEN WHEN HE STARTED LEAVING HIS FALSE TEETH ON THE KITCHEN TABLE TO BE CLEANED. SHE SAID IN HER DEFENCE THAT SHE DIDN’T MIND BRUSHING HIS SHOES BUT SHE DREW THE LINE AT DENTURES......Well, I never!

       ADA: I’d have done the same as her.

       NORA: You wouldn’t.

       ADA: Yes, I would. I’ve been trying to pluck up courage to smother George in ‘is drunken sleep for years.

       NORA: You never let on to me about it.

       ADA: Well, you don’t have to know everything, do you?

       NORA: You let me think your George is a paragon of virtue.

       ADA: What’s that?

       NORA: You know, bringing good wages home and keeping out of fights at the pub.

       ADA: Don’t make me laugh. Why d’you think I come here every day?

       And I don’t buy caviar and fur coats with it, either.

       NORA: You told me he’s a policeman...

       ADA: So he was, in his youth. Then he decided the pilferers he was supposed to be nabbing were a darn sight better off than us.

       NORA: They would be, wouldn’t they?

       ADA: So he swapped sides, so to say. Only he was too brainless to stay clear of the law, so now he’s got a jail sentence behind him and a life of bloody idleness in front.

       NORA: Don’t be coarse, Ada.

       ADA: I’ll be as coarse as I feel like.

       NORA: When I was courting Nigel, my dad said he was too posh for the likes of us. He was right. Too posh to work for a living, he is. Military manners and empty pockets, that’s Nigel. He gets easy credit by showing everyone his war wound, and I end up paying off his debts while he plays the big spender to every Tom, Dick, and Harry he meets.

       ADA: You should be ashamed of yourself, Nora. He defended Britain and now you’re insulting ‘im.

       NORA: He got his ”war” wound falling off the big wheel at Southend, and his military manners come from playing the Chocolate Soldier in amateur dramatics. He’s a fraud, Ada. Pity I didn’t find out before I married him.

       ADA: You should have guessed. Why else would he have married you?

       NORA: I was nice-looking in those days.

       ADA: Beauty over brains, you mean?

       NORA: Better to have one of them than neither!

       ADA: Take that back, Nora.

But NORA’s attention is now on the pistol, which is lying within her reach.  She picks it up and turns suddenly to ADA, pointing it at her.  ADA lets out a loud cry.

       NORA: Don’t panic, it’s only a stage prop.

       ADA: You scared the living daylights out of me.

       There is a long pause while they look at each other, forgetting their differences.

       NORA: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

       ADA: I hardly dare.

       NORA: Did you see how quick I am on the draw?

       ADA: Marvellous. Just like at the pictures...

       NORA: What if I could get hold of a real one?

       ADA: Your Nigel shoots foxes, doesn’t he?

       NORA: You can’t creep up behind anyone pointing a two-bore shot-gun.

       ADA: What if I were to tell you that I could get hold of a real pistol?

       NORA: I wouldn’t believe you.

       ADA: Well, listen to this, then. When my ol’ man got put away, he told everyone that he’d lost his police pistol. They even searched the house. But they didn’t look under the lining of the laundry basket. It’s been there ever since.

       NORA: George shot with his own gun.....It’ll be all over the papers.

       ADA: You could make it look like suicide.

       NORA: If I agree to do it. What about Nigel?

       ADA: How about a little shooting accident? You tell him you’ve taken the gun to be cleaned, then we send him a secret message telling him he can hear something to his advantage

       NORA: Where?

       ADA: I’ll ask George. He knows all the best places for meeting people.

       NORA: What if we miss, Ada? What then?

       ADA: We won’t, Nora. We can’t.

       NORA: Why didn’t we think of this before?

       ADA: If I’d known about slimy Nigel, I might have.

       NORA: And you said George works for the queen.

       ADA: He sewed Royal mailbags all the time he was inside. A dab hand he was, too.

       NORA: I wonder how many of us would like to do what we’re planning?

       ADA: With a bit of luck there’ll be two less by next week.

       NORA: Let’s ask around. We could earn a bit of extra cash doing favours for women in need.

       ADA: You are a card, Nora.

       NORA: I could really give my place a good do over, with no one coming back to mess it all up.

       ADA and NORA make for back stage and exit on the last lines.

      

       ADA: And no more beer in the bath....

       NORA: ....or cuckoos on the furniture.

       ADA: Time for cup of tea in the canteen, Nora?

       NORA: Is it two o’clock already? We’ve been working overtime.

       ADA: I’ll keep this job going as a cover for a bit........just in case.

       NORA: Good idea......I can’t wait for that tea......

END