Mr Bailey's Minder

Debra Oswald

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781921429637
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Leo Bailey is one of Australia's greatest living artists, whose genius battles to survive the effects of alcohol, cynicism and self-loathing. His daughter Margo, the only one of Leo's many children prepared to help, finds a willing but surly live-in-minder, the ex-con Therese. Added to the dysfunctional duo is the handyman Karl who has been given the task of removing a valuable mural but who keeps returning with offers of practical friendship. Mr Bailey's Minder is a funny and deeply moving play about friendship, ego, art and the secret longing for a better life.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

Leo Bailey’s house is a fabulous, precarious, ramshackle, brightly-coloured construction. It’s built into the cliff with part of a wall and floor chiselled out of the rock face. The rest of the structure is made up of unlikely materials tacked together—old ferry doors, church windows, car bonnets, packing crates. Most surfaces are spattered with thick gobs of paint. There are many adapted and bowerbirded items, including New Guinea artefacts. A narrow, wonky staircase leads to the upper floor.

There are a couple of large paintings that have had paint thrown all over them, obliterating the original image.

There are empty bottles and plates with half-rotten food strewn around the house.

MARGO ushers THERESE in from the front door. MARGO is in her late thirties, wearing expensive business clothes.

MARGO: Watch your step. Foot’s just as likely to go straight through a rotten board.

THERESE is in her mid twenties, a bit of a scrag, boisterous, defensive, volatile. She carries two cheap sportsbags.

Did the employment agency explain what the job is?

THERESE: Yeah. Well, y’know, they said—

MARGO: I don’t want to waste my time and yours if you’re not serious.

THERESE: Oh no, no, I’m serious. I mean, I want the job, if you want me.

MARGO: You realise you would have to live here full-time?

THERESE: Yep. Yep. Is that the door off a ferry?

MARGO: There’ve been magazine articles about the house if you’re interested. You would have to live here as is. My father won’t have anything changed.

THERESE: Yeah. Whatever.

MARGO: Water runs down the wall when it rains.

THERESE: Is that real rock or fake rock?

MARGO: That wall is the cliff face.

THERESE: Yeah? It’s up so high, eh. View’s incredible. The harbour and all those rich dickheads’ boats tied up out there—

THERESE rouses on herself under her breath, wanting to control her mouth.

MARGO: Have you got a resume? References?

THERESE: Oh, yeah.

MARGO flicks through the papers THERESE hands her.

I’m not a nurse or anything so if you need like an actual nurse, I’m not.

MARGO: My father can’t stand having a nurse in the house. But he needs a live-in carer. We tried having people come in on a daily basis but he was up half the night setting fire to things.

THERESE: Is he mental? Oh—s’pose it sounds rude, asking straight out like that.

MARGO: You need to know if you’ll be the one cleaning up the vomit.

THERESE: Cleaned up bucketloads of vomit in my time.

She laughs. MARGO looks at her.

Oh—I mean—I’ve had a few friends who—well, not so much friends as—I’m just saying I’m not fazed by stuff like vomit.

THERESE curses herself for losing control of her mouth.

MARGO: Leo has alcohol-related dementia. Aggravated by various sub-dural haematomas from falling down various sets of stairs when drunk. Also chronic obstructive airways disease, chronic alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver and ulcers. He’s a wet-brain.

THERESE: Okay… so is he out somewhere right now?

MARGO: He doesn’t leave the house anymore. Except for visits to medical specialists.

[She bellows towards the stairs.] Leo! Come out! Come and meet—!

She looks at the references.

THERESE: Therese.

MARGO: Therese!

No response.

He’s hiding.

THERESE glances nervously at the papers in MARGO’s hands.

THERESE: Look, if you wanna know how come I left the last job, the guy was a total arsehole. Some mongrels’ll never give you a decent go. The guy had it in for me—

MARGO: I’m really not interested—

LEO: [yelling down the stairs] Get out! Get out of my house!

THERESE: Oh—uh—should I—?

MARGO: He’s talking to me, not you.

LEO: I can hear you! I can hear you down there, you lying bitch!

MARGO: [to THERESE] It’s me.

THERESE looks at pictures up high on the wall.

THERESE: He’s a famous artist, right? He did those paintings?

MARGO: Well, they’re the remains of murals. He threw tins of house paint on the parts lower down. Up there, he couldn’t reach.

THERESE: Does he do it anymore?

MARGO: He stopped several years ago. Even back then, he was only doing the odd scribble when he needed cash.

THERESE screws up her face at the pictures, embarrassed.

THERESE: I don’t know what’s supposed to be good or—

MARGO: The man you’d be looking after is a drunk, not an artist. You don’t need to know anything for this job.

THERESE: [indicating the resume] Are you gonna ring the employers on there?

MARGO: Well, I don’t know if I’ll ring any—

THERESE: You’ve gotta ring them. I know that’s how it works. But if you ring that second guy, do...