After October

Rodney Ackland

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781786820549
• eBook ISBN: 9781786820556
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Hampstead, 1936. In a shabby basement flat, aspiring playwright Clive Monkhams dreams of a West End hit and winning Francie's heart. With opening night approaching and finances fast running out, everything rides on the success of the play and, for Clive, the future looks all too glittering…

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

The semi-basement living room of the Monkhams’ flat off Haverstock Hill. Divided in two by partitions, which are now open, the room has been furnished on the hire-purchase system, but, mixed with the cheap, modern furniture are several more solid pieces, relics of a different generation and mode of life. Immediately outside, and at right-angles to the single door leading to the passage, is another door, originally intended as a tradesman’s entrance, but now used as a more convenient means of entering and leaving the flat than the front door upstairs. The farther part of the room is where the family have their meals; the dining-table, strewn at the moment with pages of type-script and manuscript, is serving as a desk for CLIVE MONKHAMS, a young man in his twenties clad in nothing but a towel and a sports-jacket, his feet bare, his hair wet, a damp towel on the floor beside him. With intense but anxious concentration, CLIVE, using two forefingers, is desperately typing against the clock. A large radio is throbbing with a cinema organ playing “War March of the Priests” from “Aida”, the door-bell is ringing, and RHODA MONKHAMS is manipulating a vacuum-cleaner which whistles and growls. She is a middle-aged but still pretty woman dressed in “any old frock” and an apron. She is hot and bothered from housework.

RHODA: Mrs Batley! Mrs Batley! (Attempting to turn off the cleaner.) What’s the matter with the damn machine?

CLIVE has stopped typing and, getting to his feet, now searches frantically amongst the papers on the table.

CLIVE: Where on earth’s it got to? Mother, you haven’t moved my Roget’s Thesaurus? I had it in my hand a minute ago!

A ring at the door.

RHODA: Oh, good heavens!

MRS BATLEY comes in, a defeated little working-class woman approaching sixty, apronless, in drab workaday clothes, with, incongruously, a dingy little “special occasions” floral hat, pinned to her hair with hatpins.

Mrs Batley, it’s the laundry. Answer it, will you? Quick, turn off the wireless! Say I’m out –

MRS BATLEY turns off the wireless and goes to answer the door.

And be careful! Don’t give them time to ask for the bill –

The phone rings.

CLIVE: If it’s bloody old Tidmarsh again, I can’t possibly speak to him!

RHODA makes a move towards the phone.

Don’t answer it! Don’t answer it!

MRS BATLEY: (Accepting a laundry basket.) Ta, thank you, ducks. Mrs Monkhams is out shopping. (Shuts the door in the laundryman’s face.) She’s not in.

As MRS BATLEY starts dragging the laundry basket towards the kitchen.

RHODA: Well, what shall I do? I can’t stand here like a fool-at-a-fair and let it go on ringing.

CLIVE: Say I’m out! Say I’m out! – Say I’ve come in and gone out again!

RHODA: (At the phone.) Hullo… (Then to CLIVE, in a stage-whisper, her hand over the receiver.) It’s all right, it’s the greengrocer… Hullo, is that Mrs Gosling? Um… have you a nice cauliflower for tonight? And er… I’d better have five pounds of potatoes. Yes… that’ll be all for today – (Then, a complete change of tone, her voice low with commiseration.) Yes, I know, Mrs Gosling. Twenty pounds and tenpence. Yes, I know. I’ll let you have something off soon, Mrs Gosling. (Then brightly.) How’s Mr Gosling? … And how did you enjoy my son’s book, Mrs Gosling? … Yes, it is, isn’t it… but where he gets it all from –

CLIVE: Oh, for God’s sake!

RHODA: Oh, dear, he doesn’t like me talking about it… But I’ll tell you what, Mrs Gosling, he may have a play coming on soon, and after it’s opened – (To CLIVE who has jumped up from the table and is trying to wrest the telephone away.) What’s the matter? Don’t do that, dear – Clive, don’t be so rude!

CLIVE: Mother, will you please not discuss my private business with the bloody greengrocer.

He replaces the phone in its usual place.

RHODA: Don’t swear, dear.

MRS BATLEY comes back from the kitchen.

Mrs Batley, would you like to finish off the grate? and I’ll get on with the dusting. Did you hear what it came to, Clive?

CLIVE: Twenty pounds and tenpence. But there’s no need for you to crawl and toady to her like that.

RHODA: I’ve never toadied to anybody in my life!… Poor Mrs Gosling, I don’t know how we’re going to pay her. Let alone the rent.

CLIVE: If I could be allowed the tichiest little modicum of peace to collect my thoughts in, I might be able to finish the article I’m working on, and be paid for it.

Brr brr: the telephone again. CLIVE clutches his head.

CLIVE: God, I shall go mad! Say it’s a wrong number! Say they’ve got the wrong number!

RHODA: (Receiver to ear.) Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number. (Hanging up.) Clive, do put some proper clothes on. I know you like lying in the bath thinking what to put, but you’ll catch a death of cold, lying there till the water’s freezing.

CLIVE: No, I won’t. I keep running hot in.

RHODA: Yes, and running up the gas bill.

CLIVE: We can’t pay it anyway, so –

Brr brr: the phone again.

No, wait a minute! Wait a minute! You can’t go on saying it’s a wrong number.

RHODA: Well, what am I to say? – hurry up, darling, what do you want me to say?

CLIVE, distraught, can’t think of an answer.

Why don’t I simply tell him that you haven...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Half Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Act One
• Act Two