HJA 437 Scene 14

For new readers. Read the previous HJA 437 posts starting Feb 5 before reading this.

14.   INT.   THE HORSEFIELD’S BEDROOM.   NIGHT.

GEOFF AND ROSE ARE IN BED. BOTH ARE LYING ON THEIR BACKS, GEOFF READING A CAR MAGAZINE WITH A PICTURE OF A ZEPHYR ZODIAC MARK 3 ON THE FRONT, ROSE CONTEMPLATING THE CEILING.

ROSE:

(RESIGNED TO IT) We never are going to go out in the car, are we.

GEOFF:

(LOOKS HER) What?

ROSE:

I beats me. Why did you buy a car if you never intended to go out in it?

GEOFF:

I intend to go out in it.

ROSE:

When?

GEOFF:

When I’ve got somewhere to go.

ROSE:

And when will that be?

GEOFF:

I don’t know. How am I supposed to know that?

ROSE:

Don’t I have a say in it?

GEOFF:

What?

ROSE:

What about if I want to go somewhere? Don’t I have a say in it?

GEOFF:

Well of course you have a say in it.

ROSE:

Right. We’ll go to Hayfield this Saturday. If I have a say in it.

GEOFF:

Right. (RETURNS TO HIS MAGAZINE)

ROSE:

No we won’t.

GEOFF:

What?

ROSE:

Well you’ll find an excuse, won’t you. Like you did last Sunday when you were going to take me to the Lake District.

GEOFF:

There was a severe weather warning for the Lake District on the radio. Blizzards.

ROSE:

Which only you seems to have heard.

GEOFF:
(IGNORES HER) What’s the point of having severe weather warnings on the radio if people don’t take any notice of them?

ROSE:

They didn’t have any blizzards in the Lake District because I looked in the paper the day after.

GEOFF:

They must have made a mistake. Weather forecasters aren’t perfect. There could have been severe weather, and then where would we have been?

ROSE:

Well not in the Lake District because you’d have heard they were going to have severe weather. Or the Black Death, or an earthquake, or a visit from King Kong or something.

GEOFF:

Now you’re talking daft.

A STRAINED SILENCE FOR A MOMENT.

ROSE:

I’d heard about men who have cars and only take them out of the garage every Sunday to polish and then put them back for a week. I never thought I’d end up married to one.

GEOFF:

You haven’t.

ROSE:

Somebody who’s bought a car just so they can look at it.

GEOFF:

I haven’t bought it just so I can look at it. There’s a certain pride of ownership, I admit, but…

ROSE:

Why did you buy it then? If you never intend to go out in it?

GEOFF:

I intend to go out in it.

ROSE:

You could have fooled me.

GEOFF:

Well I am.

ROSE:

When?

GEOFF:

When I’ve got somewhere to go.

ROSE:

Now we’re back to Miss Hay again.

GEOFF:

What?

ROSE:

Radio programme.

FX:   A LOUD BANGING ON THE FRONT DOOR.


ROSE:

What the…..?

BRIAN: (OOV

ROSE’S POV.  JANET’S HUSBAND BRIAN  IS AT THE DOOR.

ROSE:

Brian?

BRIAN:

It’s Janet, Rose. The baby’s coming!

ROSE:

Have you phoned for an ambulance?

BRIAN:

They can’t come yet. It could be half-an-hour. I don’t think she can wait half-an-hour Rose, she’s in agony.

GEOFF:

What’s the matter?

RESUME ON ROSE.  SHE QUICKLY COMES TO A DECISION. SHE TURNS TO GEOFF.

ROSE:

Get your trousers on.

GEOFF:

What?

ROSE STARTS DRESSING.

ROSE:

Janet’s gone into labour. You’ll have to run her to the hospital.

GEOFF:

In the Zephyr Zodiac?

ROSE:

Yes in the Zephyr Zodiac.

GEOFF:

Can’t she go on the bus?

ROSE:

The bus? The bus stop’s about half a mile away. Anyway it’s too late for the bus.

GEOFF:

No there’s the all-night service. The number ninety four.  Every half…..

ROSE:

(CUTTING IN) She’s in labour Geoff, she could have the baby anytime. She doesn’t want to give birth on a bus.

GEOFF:

And I don’t want her giving birth in the Zephyr Zodiac. There’s the afterbirth….

ROSE:

(CUTTING IN) Fuck the Zephyr Zodiac! You’re running her to the hospital.

GEOFF:

I’ll take her as far as the bus stop.

ROSE:

You are taking her to the hospital!

BRIAN: (OOV)

(CALLS) Rose? Rose are you there?

ROSE:

(CALLS) Coming Brian. (TO GEOFF)

GEOFF HAS STILL MADE NO MOVE TO GET OUT OF BED.

ROSE:

(CONTINUING, TO GEOFF) Come on then, get a move on.

GEOFF:

(GETTING OUT OF BED VERY RELUCTANTLY) Well it hadn’t better be raining.

FADE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published by

Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

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