Home, I'm Darling

Laura Wade

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786824103
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

How happily married are the happily married? Home, I'm Darling is a dark comedy about sex, cake and the quest to be the perfect 1950s housewife. Judy has Johnny's slippers waiting for him when he arrives home from work, the kitchen's clean, the rooms are aired...yet this is not the 1950s, but a 21st-century 'arrangement' agreed between the two of them. With clothes, furniture and a (faulty) fridge from the 1950s, Judy and Johnny try to 'live the dream', with specific roles and a perfectly ordered life.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

A 1950s suburban semi: an Ideal Home, immaculately clean. Kitchen, hallway and living room downstairs, bedroom upstairs. The kitchen has classic English Rose units, formica-topped table, lino floor and a large fridge which hums continually.

Early morning on a beautiful spring day. JUDY bustles in the kitchen, putting final touches to the breakfast table (toast in a rack, teapot, butter dish, a boiled egg in an egg cup).

Upstairs, JOHNNY knots his tie in the bedroom mirror.

JUDY goes to the bottom of the stairs.

JUDY: Johnny!

JUDY goes back into the kitchen, then to the bottom of the stairs again.

I’m taking the top off your egg!

JUDY goes back into the kitchen, slices the top off the boiled egg and looks inside.

JOHNNY comes into the kitchen. JUDY kisses him and adjusts his tie.

Have you seen this beautiful day?

JOHNNY: Heavenly.

JUDY: ’Morning, darling.

JOHNNY: ’Morning.

JOHNNY sits down at the table, looking at his egg.

Look at that – perfect.

JUDY butters toast for both of them. JOHNNY settles to eating his breakfast.

JUDY: You’ll enjoy your drive to the office, this lovely sunshine.

JOHNNY: Delicious.

JUDY: You are funny, it’s only toast.

JOHNNY: You make the best toast, it’s perfect. You could get a job at the Ritz just doing the toast in the morning.

JUDY: Then I couldn’t cook your breakfast.

JOHNNY: No, you’re right. Don’t do it, I need you here.

JUDY looks around the room, takes a breath, satisfied.

JUDY: What about a chicken?

JOHNNY: What about a chicken?

JUDY: I grow most of our vegetables, what about a chicken too, for your morning egg? Pottering about, scratching.

JOHNNY: A sheep grazing the lawn, save me getting the mower out.

JUDY: I don’t see why not. A goat, maybe.

JOHNNY: And a cow living in the pantry.

JUDY: Milk on tap.

JOHNNY: The smallest farm in the world, in Welwyn Garden City.

JUDY: One chicken.

JOHNNY: Your Sweet Peas. Pecked to bits.

JUDY: Hmm. Yes. Also the pantry’s quite small.

JOHNNY: It’s the perfect size for the two of us.

JUDY: Not so good for livestock. No, silly idea, forget it.

JOHNNY: You’re always thinking of improvements. I’m a lucky man.

JUDY: Yes you are.

JOHNNY: Particularly when you wake me up the way you did this morning.

JUDY giggles.

JUDY: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tea?

JUDY pours the tea.

JOHNNY: Are you happy, darling?

JUDY: Terribly. Aren’t you?

JOHNNY: Oh yes, appallingly.

JUDY: Appallingly? I like appallingly.

JOHNNY: It’s disgraceful. Shouldn’t be allowed.

I keep thinking we’ll get a letter. ‘Happiness hasn’t come off the ration, you know.’

JUDY: A letter from

JOHNNY: The police? Something about public decency.

JUDY: Like a stiff letter from the bank.

JOHNNY: ‘It has come to our attention, Mr Martin, that you and Mrs Martin are Offensively Happy. We ask that you desist at once. This uxoriousness is quite unacceptable.’

JUDY: Ux

JOHNNY: Uxoriousness. It means a surfeit of spousal affection. It isn’t at all the done thing for a man to be so keen on his own wife.

JUDY: Then you’re an uxor.

JOHNNY: No, I think uxor is wife.

JUDY: Is it?

JOHNNY: I think so. Latin.

JUDY: I’m sure you’re right.

JOHNNY: So you’re the uxor that I’m all uxorious about.

JUDY laughs.

JUDY: You’re cheerful.

JOHNNY: It popped into my head, as I was lying in the bath you ran for me, that I will have nothing to do at...