A Voyage Round My Father Page #4

back up again

and invaded the school.

Do you feel bad?

About dreaming that, I mean.

I suppose so.

That must have been

what he meant.

L! Wasn't until later

that I realized the headmaster

had been trying to advise us

on a subject my father

often brought up unexpectedly

in the middle of tea.

Sex.

Sex has been greatly overrated

by the poets.

I don't remember having

many mistresses

with thighs like white marble.

Would you like your biscuit now,

dear?

"Could you hurt me, sweet lips,

as I hurt you?"

Men touched them,

and change in a trice

The lilies and languors

of virtue

"To the roses and raptures

of vice."

Where's my bloody biscuit?

I put your biscuit

in your saucer, dear.

"From their lips

have thy lips taken fever?

Is the breath of them hot

in thy hair?"

What did he know of the sharp

uncertainties of love?

Have you ever heard of anything

so revolting...

"ls the breath of them hot

in thy hair?"

[ Chuckles ]

Sex is pretty uphill work

if you ask me.

I don't agree.

Uh, sex has been greatly

overrated by the poets.

I don't happen to agree.

Who's that?

It's the boy.

[ Laughing ]

What ever have you got on?

The boy's been

very quiet lately.

He's wearing my old Liberty

scarf tied as a cravat.

A cravat?

[ Laughs ]

How killing!

I don't think sex has been

overrated exactly.

Like some tea?

Do you take sugar?

I always forget.

No sugar. We've...

We've got new neighbors.

It's the ridiculous

inconvenience of sex.

They never write about that.

New neighbors?

Perhaps we'd better plant

some more poplars.

- Miss Baker and Miss Cox.

- Who?

Two ladies who run

the new bookshop by the station.

Apparently the boy went in

to buy a book,

and they found him simpatico.

He hasn't invited them here,

I hope.

Hasn't encouraged them to

drop in for a glass of sherry.

[ Bell rings 1

Oh, my God.

That's not them, is it?

Well, it might be.

Oh, well, I-l shall...

I shall go to work.

I shall disappear without trace.

Oh.

Oh, my poor boy, you'll miss

the evening foray after earwigs.

Mm?

Oh, dear.

What a pity.

I could have kissed you when

you first came into our shop.

Could you really?

- And actually bought a book!

- [ Laughs ]

Most people come in

for pamphlets...

"A Hundred Things To Do

With Dried Eggs,"

published by the Ministry

of Food.

Is your family out?

Cocktail parties.

[ Chuckles ]

- Would you like a drink?

- Oh, rather.

I'd adore a Pernod.

Bill and I got used to Pernod

in Cassie.

Oh. Who's Bill?

I'm Bill.

She's Daphne.

SON:

I'm afraid we're out of Pernod.

Sherry would be lovely.

We've never actually met

your father.

No. We looked over the gate

one evening and shouted.

He was busy doing something

with a bucket.

Probably the earwigs.

What?

He... He drowns earwigs

every night.

[Clears throat]

Well...

Um, cheerio.

[ Chuckles ]

[ Exhales deeply]

Forgot the bucket, have you?

[Clears throat]

It's, um, quite a small house,

isn't it, really?

I mean, you know, when you

consider the size of the garden.

Haven't those visitors

left yet?!

[ Chuckles ]

Bloody war.

I've been called up.

The Women's Land Army.

They're putting Bill

on the land.

I'll probably ruin the crops.

It's the war, Bill.

We all have to make sacrifices.

Most of our friends

go into the fire service.

They get more time for writing,

between fires.

Your garden might give me

a few ideas...

on, uh, digging for victory.

Oh! Uh...

I mean, you'll probably end up

as a writer, won't you?

[ Chuckles ] For the drowning.

Have you abandoned me totally?!

Coming, darling.

Isn't there an easier way

of getting rid of the earwigs?

Easier way?

Sometimes I think

women don't understand anything.

Did he get rid of his visitors?

- Hmm?

- They went.

Oh, is that you?

[ Chuckles ]

Yes, it's me.

- What are you doing here?

- Helping you.

Consider the persistence

of the earwig.

Each afternoon it feasts itself

upon our dahlia blooms.

Each evening it crawls up

into our flowerpots

and goes to sleep.

We empty the pots

and drown the earwigs,

and the cry is, still they come.

Yes.

Nature is remorseless.

Hm.

I may be a writer.

If we did this for a million

years all over the world,

do you think we'd make

one small dent

in the pattern of evolution?

That we'd produce an earwig

that could swim?

[ Chuckles ]

Do a little law, won't you?

Just to please me.

I've had a lot of fun

out of the law.

SON:
Have you ever been

to the South of France?

Once or twice.

It's all right, except

for the dreadful greasy food

they can't stop boasting about.

Bill and Daphne say

the worst of the war

is they can't get

to the South of France.

Who are they?

The ladies from the bookshop.

Daphne is Miss Cox.

And Bill?

Bill is Miss Baker.

Damned rum!

They practically lived in Cannes

before the war.

They met Cocteau.

Who?

He smoked opium.

[ Sniffs 1

SON:

Have you ever smoked opium?

Certainly not.

Gives you constipation.

Dreadful binding effect.

Ever see any pictures

of that wretched poet Coleridge?

[ Laughs 1

Green about the gills

and a stranger to the lavatory.

Avoid opium.

They may find me a war job.

Why? Is old Bill

on the General Staff?

No, they have a friend

who makes propaganda films

for the government.

He needs an assistant.

At least there's nothing heroic

about it.

Uh, we...

Are we at the bottom

of Windmill Hill?

- Yeah.

- Uh-huh.

Are we going to the top?

Ah.

Yes, certainly.

I mean, you want to see

three counties, don't you?

All right.

See everything.

Everything in nature.

That's the instinct

of the mayfly.

24 hours to live.

Then spend it looking around.

We've got more time.

[ Laughs ]

Don't you believe it.

If they ever say to you,

"Your old father can't have had

much of a life..."

overdrawn at the bank,

bad-tempered,

"and nobody much ever went

to see him,"

"Nonsense!" you say.

"He enjoyed every minute of it."

Did you want to go on now?

Yes.

[ Panting ]

If you consider the embryo

of the liver fluke,

born in sheep's droppings,

searching for a shell

to bore into

so it can live in a snail

until it becomes tadpole-like,

then leaves its host, uh...

only to be eaten up again

by another sheep.

If you consider such

complicated persistence, hmm.

Well, of course,

I've clung on for 65 years.

It's the instinct.

That's all.

The irrepressible instinct.

Well, we're at the top now.

Ah. Ha.

Ah.

There.

You see the three counties?

[ Chuckles ]

Well, uh, be my eyes.

Paint me the picture.

L-I can just see

three counties...

Yeah.

- ...stretched out.

- Mm.

That's all I can see.

A fine prospect, though?

- A fine prospect.

- Yes.

Shall we go home now?

Yeah. Well, uh...

12335?

Um, I-l think it's more.

Oh.

[ Chuckles ]

Ah.

You've painted me the picture.

We've seen a lot today.

We've seen a great deal of the

monstrous persistence of nature.

A.T.S. GIRL:
Jerries being a bit

naughty tonight, then, Hilda?

A.T.S. GIRL 2:

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