The Passionate Friends Page #2

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Will you go to the country or stay in town?

Stay in town, I think. I'm not sure.

Goodbye.

- Enjoy yourself.

- Goodbye, Howard. Have a good trip.

Thank you. Goodbye, Miss Layton.

The stain is decolourised

with five per cent sulphuric acid

and washed with potash, alum

and methylin blue.

You can see the bacilli and terminal spores

quite clearly. Have a look.

I think I might get away to the country,

Joe, for a few days, after all.

I don't know.

(Laughter) Goodnight, Mary.

Thank you so much.

Goodnight, Bill.

(Rings)

(Rings)

Hello?

Yes.

Who is it, please?

Just a moment.

- Mrs Justin?

- Yes.

- You're wanted on the telephone.

- Who is it?

A Mr Stratton.

Thank you, Joan.

Hello, Steven.

What a surprise.

How are you?

Yes, I'm fine.

It was such a funny thing. I just happened

to see your number in the phone book.

Yes. Yes, wasn't it?

I expect you're terribly

busy, but I wondered if...

When?

Well, yes, I think I am. I'm not sure.

I'm just going to look in my diary.

Yes, that will be fine.

Oh... just a moment.

Saturday...

Yes, that will be wonderful.

(Doorbell rings)

Hello, Mary. Come in.

- Am I late?

- Not a bit.

- The taxi man had trouble finding it.

- It's a bit out of the way.

In there.

- They've changed the name of the street.

- We had to ask a policeman.

What an attractive room!

- Do you like it?

- Mmm.

That's the comfortable chair.

What would you like to drink?

- Whatever you're having.

- Sherry?

Fine.

I didn't think you'd be able to come.

Thought you might be away.

I nearly didn't phone.

I'm glad you did.

Lunch is rather difficult for me

during the week. During term, anyway.

Thank you, Steven.

- Well...

- Lunch is nearly ready. I'll just have a look at it.

- You're cooking the lunch?

- Certainly. I'm a wonderful cook.

- Can't I help?

- Drink your sherry and get comfortable.

You're still a very

unexpected person, Steven.

How do you mean?

Do all university lecturers cook?

Only the biologists.

(Laughs)

Are these all your things?

Yes.

They're well arranged. Did you do it?

Yes.

I never knew you had this photograph of me.

- Oh, that!

- What was so funny, I wonder?

Me, I expect.

- Let me at least carry something.

- No, no. You sit down.

Oh, Steven, it looks wonderful.

Yes, I must say it does look rather good,

doesn't it?

Oh, I've so enjoyed this.

I hope this coffee's going to be all right.

I don't use this thing much.

It looks all right.

Anyway, it smells like coffee.

You still have all your books mixed up, Steven.

Sherlock Holmes got in amongst the Aristotle.

Fancy. There are some books of yours here.

So I've noticed.

- I remember this one.

- Which?

What you're doing with it, I don't know.

You gave it to me for Christmas once.

Black?

Please.

"In the beginning,

God gave to every people a cup of clay..."

"...and from this cup

they drank their life."

Some things take years to understand,

don't they?

It's two sugars, isn't it?

Yes, please.

(Toys with piano)

Do you ever play now, Steven?

Very quietly, and for my

own private satisfaction.

"From the music they love,

you shall know the texture of men's souls."

- Remember that, too?

- Of course.

You wrote that to me in a letter once.

I copied it out of a book of Galsworthy's

to impress you.

I knew that.

Did you?

I liked it all the same.

(Starts playing melody)

(Stops playing)

It's silly, the things

we do when we're young.

Yes.

How we talked about all the things

I was going to do in life.

I was to conquer the world.

Do you remember?

A knight in shining armour.

I really believed I could be.

What were the things I was never to be?

Grey and grubby...

fat... dull...

...and there was something else.

Respectable.

Yes, that was it.

It's getting dark very early, isn't it?

We've had a very long lunch.

You'll see the streetlights coming on

across the park soon.

I ought to be going.

When I came in the other night,

it looked wonderful from here.

There was some coloured floodlighting on the

building - made quite a glow in the sky.

I stood and watched it for a time and began to

think of all sorts of things I've forgotten.

What things?

Things about you.

Until the other night,

I thought I'd forgotten everything.

Now I remember everything.

So do I.

Mary.

MARY:
You see what it was.

We knew each other so well

that suddenly it seemed as if

the intervening years hadn't existed.

When he could get away,

we met for lunch in the week.

But Saturday and Sunday were all ours.

Those were wonderful days.

We'd done this before, years ago,

but as the days went by,

new things began to happen.

Little things.

I'd never really known the pleasure of

walking arm-in-arm with a man before.

Everybody does it.

To me, it was new.

It all seemed so perfectly natural

that I suppose it was easy

not to think of the consequences.

We were happy and...

that seemed to make it all right.

At least, for a time.

I've been thinking.

Yes, I know.

We have to, don't we?

Not just yet.

(Aeroplane engines drone)

The Bank of Rome.

Reichsbank.

Notes on my discussions with Pirana.

Very important, that.

Here are my comments on his real status.

Here's some stuff about our own

Berlin office. I haven't read that.

All right, Miss Layton, that's the lot.

Get it straightened out, please.

- My report is due at the Treasury tomorrow.

- Yes, Mr Justin.

Well, darling, what have you been doing?

Did you go to the country?

No, I thought I'd go down this week

if you still weren't back.

It didn't look as if I

would get away yesterday.

Made any definite plans?

Only for tonight. I'm going to the

theatre with Steven Stratton.

Oh... Have you been seeing anything of him?

No.

More tea?

I haven't finished this yet.

What's the show?

Well, that musical comedy at the Royalty.

First Love, I think it's called.

I would like some more now.

You don't mind me going, do you, Howard?

Of course not.

I have to do that report, anyway.

What a bore for you.

Yes.

- Who else have you been seeing?

- Oh, just the usual people.

Sounds like a bore for you.

Oh, no.

(Jaunty dance music)

After all, it is my responsibility, too.

No. No, Steven, it's...

...it's wrong somehow.

I've got to do this myself.

MAN:
Shall we dance?

- It doesn't seem fair.

WOMAN:
Yes.

- It's fairer to him.

MAN:
Excuse me. I'm so sorry.

It would be terribly humiliating for him

if you were there.

Yes. Yes, I see that.

I'll be all right. Really, I will.

- When will you...

- Another liqueur, sir?

- No, thank you.

- No, thank you. Bring the bill, please.

When will you tell him? Tonight?

I'm not sure. I shall know the

right moment when it comes.

You mustn't worry.

I shall worry all the same.

I know exactly what he'll say.

It's what he said before.

That our love - yours and mine -

wasn't what I wanted, not in my heart.

And that I can never stand, really,

belonging to someone.

I shall belong to you.

Yes. Justin.

Yes. Justin.

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