M is for Moon Read online

  'M' is for Moon

  Among Other Things

  A Play for Radio

  Characters

  CONSTANCE

  ALFRED

  Silence—a man grunts and shakes his paper—a woman flips over the pages of a book and sighs.

  NB A married couple, ALFRED and CONSTANCE—middle class, childless, aged 45 and 42.

  CONSTANCE: (Sighs—thinks:) Macbeth . . .

  (Flip)

  Macedonia . . .

  (Flip)

  Machine-gun . . .

  (Flip)

  Magna Carta . . .

  (Flip)

  Measles . . .

  (Flip)

  Molluscs . . . molluscs . . .

  ALFRED: (Grunts—thinks:) '. . . the girl, wearing a red skirt and black sweater, asked the court that her name should not be continued in column five, continued in column five . . .'

  (Shakes paper)

  CONSTANCE: (Thinks:) . . . Invertebrate animal . . . discovered that marine varieties . . .

  (Slams book shut)

  I think enough for tonight—I wish the print wasn't so small . . . Have you seen my pills anywhere?

  ALFRED: Mmmm . . .

  (Thinks:) ' . . . "anything like it in my thirty years on the Bench", he added. "While young louts like you are roaming the streets no girl is safe from . . . " '

  (Impatiently) Oh . . .

  (Turns page)

  CONSTANCE: (Thinks:) February the fifth, March the fifth, April, May, June, July, August . . . six.

  ALFRED: (Thinks:) 'A Smooth-as-Silk Beauty as Fast as they Come!'

  CONSTANCE: (Thinks:) The Friday before last must have been the twenty-seventh, that's right, because the Gilberts came to dinner and that was a Friday because of Mrs Gilbert not eating the meat, and the Encyclopaedia always comes on the twenty-seventh, and it was just when the M to N came when I phoned Alfred at the office about what to give the Gilberts, so it must have been Friday the twenty-seventh. So last Sunday was the twenty-ninth, so today is twenty-nine plus seven makes thirty-six, so it must be the sixth, unless July has thirty-one, in which case it's the seventh, no, the fifth. Thirty days hath April, June, is it? Wait a minute, the Friday before last was the twenty-seventh . . .

  ALFRED: (Thinks:) 'I found her to be a smooth-as-silk beauty with the classic lines of thrust of . . . '

  CONSTANCE: Alfred, is it the fifth or the sixth?

  ALFRED: Mmm?

  (Thinks:) ' . . . surging to sixty mph in nine seconds . . . '

  CONSTANCE: Fifth?

  ALFRED: Fifth what?

  CONSTANCE: What's today?

  ALFRED: Sunday . . .

  (Thinks:) ' . . . the handbrake a touch stiff and I'd like to see an extra ashtray for the passenger but otherwise . . . '

  (Up) Oh for goodness' sake—you know I hate people looking over my shoulder.

  (Turns page)

  CONSTANCE: (Thinks:) August the fifth, nineteen sixty-two.

  (Up) Alfred, in half an hour I'll be exactly forty-two-and-a-half years old. That's a thought, isn't it?

  ALFRED: Mmmm . . .

  (Thinks:) 'Little old grey-haired Mrs Winifred Garters wept last night as . . . '

  CONSTANCE: What time were you born, Alfred?

  ALFRED: What?

  CONSTANCE: I was born just as the clock struck half-past ten at night—what time were you born?

  ALFRED: I can't remember.

  CONSTANCE: Didn't anyone tell you?

  ALFRED: That's what I can't remember.

  (Hall clock chiming ten)

  Oh, what's that?—ten? We haven't had the news today. I think there's one now, isn't there? Turn on the box—hang on, where's the Radio Times?—ah—is this this week's?

  CONSTANCE: Forty-two-and-a-half, and all I've got is a headache.

  ALFRED: Is this the new one? 'August five to twelve'—what's today?

  CONSTANCE: Sunday.

  ALFRED: No-no-no—what's—oh never mind—yes, this is it—News at five-past ten.

  (Turns on TV)

  ‘Dial M for Murder'—oh, that might have been good.

  CONSTANCE: It's an awful thing, you know. When you start worrying about the halves. I mean there's no purpose to make sense of it, is there? Every time it's half-past ten, it's another day older, and all I've done with it is to get up and stay up. Where's it all going?

  (Bring in finish of ‘Dial M for Murder'—hold it and fade it low)

  (Thinks:) They used to call me Millie . . . my middle name was my favourite till I was—how old was I? 17? Happy Birthday Millie, it used to be . . . Then I went over to Constance, it sounded more grown-up. Seventeen from forty-two. Twenty-five. A quarter of a century, constant Constance . . .

  (Up) If I had a choice, perhaps I'd choose what I'm doing now. I don't care about that. But I want the choice. I don't want the moon, Alfred, all I want is the possibility of an alternative, so that I know I'm doing this because I want to instead of because there's nothing else.

  ALFRED: Sshssh—hang on, Constance, let me hear the News.

  (Bring in opening of tape (if there is one) of the 10.05 pm News—5 August 1962)

  NEWS: The News . . . Marilyn Monroe, the actress, was found dead in her Los Angeles home today..

  (Fade out)

  ALFRED: (Fading in with ‘oh's' used as a sort of dirge—thinks:) Oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . poor Marilyn . . . poor poor thing . . . What have they done? . . . God, poor little thing. . . She must have been so unhappy. Oh Marilyn.

  CONSTANCE: She seemed so full of life, didn't she?

  ALFRED: (Thinks:) Abandoned . . . no love. . . like a child.

  CONSTANCE: Poor thing, it's awful.

  ALFRED: (Thinks:) Marilyn . . . you shouldn't have trusted them, they're all rotten.

  CONSTANCE: Do you suppose she meant it? Oh, wasn't she lovely, I mean a lovely person, she made you feel it. Doesn't it go to show?

  ALFRED: Oh, do shut up.

  CONSTANCE: Alfred!

  ALFRED: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just tired . . . and upset.

  CONSTANCE: It's all right, Alfred.

  ALFRED: Of course she meant it. By God, you've only got to use your imagination. It's such a cold shallow world she was living in. No warmth or understanding—no one understood her, she was friendless.

  CONSTANCE: Do you think so?

  ALFRED: Of course. Hangers-on. People didn't appreciate her. Just using her. A girl like that. It's a crime .

  CONSTANCE: Fate.

  ALFRED: Fate! Don't be absurd!

  CONSTANCE: Please don't shout, Alfred.

  ALFRED: (Wearily) Oh damn them, dammit . . . Oh, let's go to bed. I'm tired.

  CONSTANCE: Yes. I'm worn out—hope I'll be able to sleep.

  ALFRED: I can never stay awake, and you can never get to sleep—what's the matter with you?

  CONSTANCE: I don't know—can't sleep with this headache.

  ALFRED: You know, you read too much, you're always complaining of eye strain and headaches, well it's no wonder.

  CONSTANCE: The print's too small, really.

  (Flip flip flip of pages)

  ALFRED: The Universal Treasury of People, Places and Things: Illustrated. M to N . . . A lot of useless knowledge.

  CONSTANCE: I've got as far as Molluscs, but I'm skipping madly.

  ALFRED: You forget it all anyway.

  CONSTANCE: No I don't, not all of it.

  ALFRED: Well, you forgot about Catholics, didn't you? There must have been something about them under C.

  CONSTANCE: (Unhappy, offensive—defensive, a little desperate) Oh Alfred, please—not now again.

  ALFRED: Catholics! Catholics-don't-eat-meat-on-Fridays. Or under M-Meat, what-Catholics-don't eat-o
n-a-Friday. Or F-Friday, the-day-Catholics-don't-eat-meat-on. Oh my God, you could probably have found it under G-Mrs Gilbert, wife to Alfred's boss Mr Gilbert and a staunch Catholic who does not eat meat on a Friday!

  (Pause.)

  D is for Débâcle—that which occurs when Mrs Gilbert is offered meat by her husband's chief accountant's wife on a Friday!

  CONSTANCE: (Crying) Well, I wouldn't have forgotten if you hadn't been so awful on the phone—I phoned you to ask you what to get for dinner and you wouldn't give me a chance—Alfred—you were—you behaved. . .

  ALFRED: Oh, don't cry—I couldn't talk to you then . . . You had to call up just as Mr Gilbert, Anglican, was hovering round my neck with my monthly report . . . Oh, what does it matter anyway.

  (Pages turned)

  M is for Money . . . Universal Treasury all right . . . Two guineas a volume, a guinea per letter of the alphabet. How can you get a guinea's worth out of X? Or Z?

  CONSTANCE: It was a lovely birthday present.

  ALFRED: Well, I'm sorry I haven't got as much money as your rich brother Stanley.

  CONSTANCE: Oh, you know I didn't mean that. But it's lovely to know that every month there's another volume coming. That's the seventh, counting the A to B I got on the actual day. It's O to P this month. Oranges and Orang-utans. I don't know—it's just that the time isn't all a waste, somehow, do you know what I mean?

  ALFRED: What's the capital of Mongolia?

  CONSTANCE: The point isn't to know the capital of Mongolia, Alfred—the point is

  to . . . Alfred, at half-past ten I'll be forty-two-and-a-half years old and it's all slipping by.

  ALFRED: Well, I'm blessed—do you know they haven't even got her in here.

  CONSTANCE: Who?

  ALFRED: 'Monroe Doctrine . . . Monroe, James, President of the United States . . .' Universal ruddy Treasury.

  CONSTANCE: Well, they can't have everything. I remember my first ABC book—everything was so simple then. I thought that each letter only stood for the one word they gave, you know? A is for Apple, B is for Baby, C is for Cat . . . M was for Moon. It was ages before I knew that M was for anything else . . . like Millie . . . She was 36, he said, didn't he?

  ALFRED: Did he? Poor dear . . . What I meant was that it needn't have happened. That's why you can't call it fate.

  CONSTANCE: It's all right, I wasn't thinking.

  ALFRED: It was just that she had no one to recognize her needs, you see. No one to turn to, I mean. No wonder the poor girl got desperate. Those actors—people like that—they've got no humanity, no understanding—self, self, it's such a selfish society. A girl like that, dying with a telephone in her hand— who did she have to call who would have done her any good? No one. Perhaps that's fate.

  CONSTANCE: Yes, I suppose so.

  ALFRED: Well, let's go up. I'll lock up—you have the bathroom first.

  CONSTANCE: I wonder who she was trying to phone, though.

  (Fade out—sound of CONSTANCE getting into bed—or near offer)

  Oooooh, bed. I feel quite worn out.

  ALFRED: You got up too early again.

  CONSTANCE: I couldn't drop off once I woke up. It's getting very tiresome.

  ALFRED: Don't those pills work?

  CONSTANCE: I suppose they must help. I think I'll take an extra one tonight.

  ALFRED: Yes, I should.

  CONSTANCE: Oh—Alfred—I forgot my glass of water. Do you mind, while you're still up.

  ALFRED: Oh, gosh, where is it?

  CONSTANCE: On the wash-stand.

  (Thinks:) Oh God, if I'd been in her place I would have eaten the bloody meat and gone to confession . . . Bitch. . . I shouldn't have phoned Alfred at the office, though.

  ALFRED: Here you are. Got the pills?

  (Clock chiming half past ten—ALFRED getting into bed)

  CONSTANCE: (Thinks:) Half-past ten, August the fifth, nineteen sixty-two. Well—Cheers!

  (Gulps pill and drink)

  Happy anniversary, Millie.

  (Puts glass down)

  ALFRED: Should I turn the light off?

  CONSTANCE: Yes.

  (Click)

  (Thinks:) Maple tree . . . Mozambique . . . Mandragora . . . Marzipan . . . Mother . . .

  Moon . . . Melon . . . Menopause . . . Mongolia . . .

  ALFRED: (Thinks:) Marilyn . . . don't worry, I'm glad you phoned . . . Don't be unhappy, love, tell me all about it and I'm sure I'll think of something . . . Do you feel better already?—Well, it's nice to have someone you know you can count on any time, isn't it? . . . Don't cry, don't cry any more. . . I'll make it all right . . .

  (Up—sigh)

  Poor old thing . . .

  CONSTANCE: Oh, you mustn't worry about me, Alfred, I'll be all right . . .

  (Thinks:) Marshmallow . . . Mickey Mouse . . . Marriage . . . Moravia . . . Mule . . .

  Market . . . Mumps . . .

 

 

  Tom Stoppard, M is for Moon

  (Series: # )

 

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