Tom Stoppard Plays 1 by Tom Stoppard

Author:Tom Stoppard [Tom Stoppard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571301188
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

WITHENSHAW: Arsenal 3 Newcastle 2. Scorers McTeazle, Chamberlain and Ebury for Arsenal. French and Cocklebury-Smythe, own goal, for Newcastle.

FRENCH: What the hell are you talking about?

WITHENSHAW: Kindly watch your language—you’re not on terraces now, y’know.

MRS. EBURY: And there are ladies present.

FRENCH: All right! Cards on the table! I didn’t want to be the one to bring this up, but I rather expected to learn on arriving here today that one of our number—I exclude Mrs. Ebury of course—had seen fit to resign from this Committee. I refer to the paragraph in today’s Mail about the tête-à-tête at the Côte d’Or.

MRS. EBURY: Cock.

FRENCH: Coq d’Or.

MRS. EBURY: Double cock.

FRENCH: Without either a resignation or alternatively our joint repudiation of the story I don’t see how this Committee can have the confidence of the House.

MRS. EBURY: Ballocks.

FRENCH: That is not an expression which I would have associated with you, Mrs. Ebury.

MRS. EBURY: I don’t need you to tell me my problems.

WITHENSHAW (aside to MADDIE): The Committee deliberated.

FRENCH: I find the Committee’s silence on this point significant.

WITHENSHAW: Well, we all thought it was you.

FRENCH: I left for my constituency on Friday evening and returned this morning. The only meal I’ve had this weekend in a London restaurant was tea on Friday at the Golden Egg in Victoria Street.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: L’Oeuf d’Or?

MCTEAZLE: Were you with a woman?

FRENCH: I was with the Dean of St. Paul’s.

MCTEAZLE: Is she titian-haired?

CHAMBERLAIN: Come off it McTeazle. (Kindly to FRENCH.) French, can anyone corroborate your story?

FRENCH: The Dean of St. Paul’s can.

CHAMBERLAIN: Apart from her.

FRENCH: We had Jumbo Chickenburgers Maryland with pickled eggs and a banana milkshake. The waitress will remember me.

CHAMBERLAIN: Why?

FRENCH: I was sick on her shoes.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Your story smacks of desperation. Even so you have done us the honour of volunteering your account, so let me reciprocate. I was at various times at Crockford’s, Claridges and the Golden Cock, Clock, the Old Clock in Golden Square, not the Coq d’Or.

CHAMBERLAIN: I was at the Crock of Gold, Selfridges and the Green Cockatoo.

MCTEAZLE: I was at the Cockatoo, too, and the Charing Cross, the Open Door, the Golden Ox and the Cuckoo Clock.

WITHENSHAW: I was at the Cross Cook, the Fighting Cocks, the Green Door, the Crooked Grin and the Golden Carriages.

(What is happening is difficult to explain hut probably quite easy to recognize: the four of them have instinctively joined in an obscuration, each for his own defence. By the time the CHAIRMAN speaks they have all begun to send FRENCH up.)

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: I forgot—I was at the Golden Carriages as well as Claridges, and the Odd Sock and the Cocked Hat.

WITHENSHAW: I didn’t see you at the Cocked Hat—I went on to the Cox and Box.

MCTEAZLE: I was at the Cox and Box, and the Cooks Door, the Old Chest, the Dorchester, the Chesty Cook and—er—Luigi’s.

ALL: Luigi’s?

MCTEAZLE: At King’s Cross.

CHAMBERLAIN: I was at King’s Cross; in the Cross Keys and the Coal Hole, the Golden Goose, the Coloured Coat and the Côte d’Azur.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: I was at the Côte d’Azur——

WITHENSHAW: So was I.

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