Roland, Hilary.
A silence. They both speak at the same time.
Both I do.
Laughter.
Roland It’s a mess.
You must have felt something.
Hilary I think I was so caught up in –
Roland Yes, what you were –
Hilary Yes.
Roland But you could sense something? I felt as if it was blaring out of loudspeakers. These people are in meltdown.
Hilary I couldn’t tell. Most couples appear to be on the verge of – some kind of dissatisfaction.
Roland Yes, that’s very good. Yes.
Pause.
So after you came to see us – about the kids – I felt we hadn’t told you everything.
Because we were in trouble – and he was reacting to us.
Hilary Josh.
Roland Yes. A kind of rebellion.
Hilary That makes sense.
Roland That’s what he was telling us with Tilly. A kind of ‘fuck you, I’m a man now’.
Between me and his mother it hasn’t been good. I mean that’s tangible. And then when I waded in and said – it’s fine, but do it at Tilly’s house, he walked away from it all – but really I was the one he was rebelling against because it was me telling him.
Hilary But it’s OK now. They’ve sorted it out.
Roland Teenage boys and their fathers. Freud was right. Underneath it all they’d like to eat us and take our women.
Hilary They don’t know how to cook, do they?
Roland You don’t need to cook warm flesh. You just need sturdy teeth and a lack of consideration for others. Most teenagers qualify.
Hilary ‘I only have a short window.’
Roland We made that up. About the window. I said to Bea, people know when you’re lying. They just know instinctively. Did you know?
Hilary No. Roland There goes another theory. Soon I’ll be left with nothing.
Hilary Was there something specific?
Roland I could murder a drink.
Pause.
We, I, felt bad about what happened next. But it was when it was really hitting the rocks. I couldn’t speak to Bea without shouting. I’ve moved out. Now I live with the sofa bed and our old kettle. Everything’s crappy.
Hilary What ‘happened next’?
Roland I said to Bea we should have told you.
Hilary What?
Roland Josh was really upset.
Hilary What about?
Roland He was with another girl and they were at a party.
Hilary Whose party?
Roland They’re always at parties. And Tilly came – as far as I can make out he didn’t know she was going – she didn’t know he was – and then she went up to a bedroom with a guy – and then after that another guy … she was angry with Josh.
Hilary Oh God –
Roland I’ve been wanting to tell you. Josh told Bea. He was gutted.
Roland Over a month ago – right when Bea and I were going through it.
Hilary She never told me.
Roland Well, you can understand that.
Hilary I’m her mother.
Roland I wouldn’t take it personally.
Hilary Why didn’t she tell me?
Roland It’s OK. She’s probably talked about it to her friends. They like their friends better than us. We like them better than our friends. That’s OK. They move in packs. Day and night – every minute they want to be with each other. Can you imagine wanting to spend that much time with other people? I mean a few drinks, lunch, an evening. But every minute of the day? Phoning, eating, sleeping at each other’s houses, they can’t get enough. What happens to us that we grow so un-enamoured of each other? People turn your stomach, don’t they? Their fucking issues and their vanity.
One minute there’s the nappies, the Calpol, their inconvenient sicknesses, reading them the same story till it’s tattooed on the back of your eyelids – though Bea did that mainly – you can’t wait for them to go to sleep at night so you can get in a few glasses of wine – then this redundancy. How does that happen?
Hilary I’m not redundant.
Roland Maybe with girls it’s different.
Soon we won’t be parents. I’ll say ‘my son’ and I’ll be referring to some twenty-eight-year-old lunk who works for a living. That actually gives me a pain.
Hilary We shouldn’t hurry time.
Roland Bea accused me of flirting with you. I told her she was being a maniac.
Hilary Like who would?
Roland I didn’t mean that. I told Bea I was being friendly. I’m a tactile person.
And warm. I’m an actor, for God’s sake, I don’t know how to turn off the charm, that’s how I make a living.
Where’s Mark?
Hilary Scotland, visiting his mother.
Roland Didn’t fancy it?
Hilary I didn’t want to be poisoned. Every jar in the fridge is more than two years old.
She has a hardened immune system. Visitors aren’t so lucky.
Roland That’s what’s in store for us all: mouldering. You have nice skin.
Hilary Clarins. I can’t afford my skin.
Roland Bea had nice skin. It was her personality that stank. Am I genetically divorceable?
Hilary ?
Roland Do you think that sooner or later anyone would have ceased to love me? What am I talking about, ‘love’. ‘Like’ would have been good enough. I would have put up with ‘just tolerate long enough to sit down to dinner with’.
Hilary It doesn’t sound like you’ve been having a very good time.
Roland Did Bea seem a little caustic to you?
Hilary I don’t know. Maybe.
Roland Or just frigid? I was a fucking eunuch in that marriage. Am I repulsive?
Hilary I don’t know. No.
Roland If I did flirt with other women can you blame me? I was literally starving in that department.
Hilary Was she having an affair?
Roland No. Why? Have you heard something?
Hilary No. No.
Roland I used to lie next to her, my whole flesh weeping to be touched. All I got was, ‘You need to take a look at the bathroom grouting.’
Hilary It’s odd what goes through your mind.
Roland She was punishing me for some crime I never committed. Being in a marriage with her. That’s why I’m jealous of Josh.
Hilary Why?
Roland No one gets married at sixteen unless they’re in the movie Deliverance.
Hilary Men have greater survival rates in marriage.
Roland Surviving. Is that what I’ve been doing?
So how’s your marriage?
Hilary It’s fine.
Roland Don’t fucking lie to me.
Hilary I mean obviously we’re not – in the first throes of passion – it’s not like it was.
We tend to lead separate lives. A bit.
Roland Go on.
Hilary I suppose I’d be scared not to be in it.
Roland Thank you.