HOWARD [ upstairs]: Claude! Claude, are you there?
CLAUDIA [ downstairs]: What?
HOWARD: Claude!
CLAUDIA: What is it?
HOWARD: Claude, where are my deck shoes? They’re not in the place they normally are.
CLAUDIA: I’m on the phone.
HOWARD: They’re where?
CLAUDIA: I said I’m on the phone! I’m on the phone to Juliet. [ To Juliet] Sorry.
JULIET: That’s all right.
CLAUDIA: It’s just Howard wanting his deck shoes. You know what it’s like when he starts looking for something. He starts taking everything out of the cupboards. We’re like the regional office, being visited by the chief executive. I feel I’m being audited.
JULIET: Why does he want his deck shoes? Are you going away somewhere?
CLAUDIA: Just Cornwall for the weekend.
JULIET: What, now?
CLAUDIA [ surprised]: Yes.
JULIET: But it’s ten o’clock at night!
CLAUDIA: Is it?
JULIET: Ten past ten.
CLAUDIA: It can’t be! Ten o’clock? That’s ridiculous – the children ought to be in bed!
JULIET: You’re not taking them with you, are you?
CLAUDIA: Of course we are – we can’t put them into kennels, like the dog! They’re doing a weekend sailing course.
JULIET: But you won’t get there until two in the morning! How are you going to get them up to do a sailing course?
[Silence]
CLAUDIA: Well, I suppose they’ll sleep a bit in the car.
[Silence]
JULIET: I ought to let you go, in that case.
CLAUDIA: But I feel I haven’t heard anything about you!
JULIET: Oh well. Another time.
CLAUDIA: Soon, I promise.
JULIET: Bye then.
CLAUDIA: Bye. Howard?
HOWARD: Did you find them?
CLAUDIA: Howard, it’s ten o’clock! It’s far too late to go. The children ought to be in bed!
HOWARD: But I only got back from work at nine, Claude.
CLAUDIA: I thought you were going to come back early so that we could go!
HOWARD: I got back at nine. I came back as soon as I could.
CLAUDIA: Well, you could have told me.
HOWARD: I thought you knew. You usually know what time it is.
CLAUDIA: The children should be asleep. They probably are asleep. Have you checked?
LOTTIE: We’re not asleep.
CLAUDIA: This is ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! You should have heard Juliet on the phone when I said we were setting off tonight. She obviously thought we were completely mad!
HOWARD: Your sister thinks everyone is completely mad, darling. With the notable exception of herself.
CLAUDIA: Don’t be horrible, Howard.
HOWARD: Of course Juliet thinks ten o’clock is late. She’s in bed at ten o’clock. She’s in bed in her wimple, like a nun.
CLAUDIA: She wasn’t in bed. She was talking to me.
LEWIS [ from his room]: She can be in bed and talk to you at the same time. She could even be asleep and talk to you. She might actually have been hypnotised.
CLAUDIA: She obviously thinks it’s me who’s driving everyone into the ground and forgetting I’ve got a family, including a child of six whose growth will be restricted because nobody could be organised enough to put her to bed –
LOTTIE: Sometimes I think I’d like to be a nun.
CLAUDIA: – and I can’t say, look, it isn’t me, can I? I can’t tell her it’s because some people are completely selfish and think only of themselves. It’s a sort of joke [ laughs], a joke, when I could have spent all day in my studio working, all day and all evening too, and still have been in exactly the same position as I am now!
HOWARD: Well, you could have, Claude. That’s a true statement of the position, isn’t it?
CLAUDIA: What is?
HOWARD: That you could have spent the day working, without any loss to the family.
[Silence]
CLAUDIA: Just like you do.
HOWARD: I suppose so. I don’t know. I’m only repeating what you said yourself.
CLAUDIA: You, who come home and find that the beds have miraculously been made and the house tidied, and the food bought and the children picked up from school –
HOWARD: I’m just thinking of you, Claude. Your happiness.
CLAUDIA: – you, who have a slave, an actual slave, an unpaid person whose time you own!
HOWARD: Lucia’s not a slave. We pay her, don’t we? We can pay her more. She can pick up Martha, she can do the shopping –
CLAUDIA: I’m not talking about Lucia. I’m talking about me.
HOWARD: You don’t have to do anything. You can have all day.
CLAUDIA: You can’t pay Lucia to be your wife.
HOWARD: All day, if you want it.
CLAUDIA: It isn’t a day – it’s a hand-me-down, it’s a thing made out of other people’s leftover time. You can’t be creative between nine and five, Monday to Friday except bank holidays!
HOWARD: Can’t you?
CLAUDIA: You don’t understand creativity! You don’t understand what an artist loses by being responsible for other people!
LOTTIE: Are we going?
HOWARD: No!
[Silence]
HOWARD: Look Claude, let’s forget it. Let’s forget the weekend. Let’s stay here.
CLAUDIA: We can’t. You’ve booked the sailing course.
HOWARD: I’ll un-book it.
CLAUDIA: And the children have been looking forward to it. We can’t.
HOWARD: Then I’ll take them. You can stay here. You can have all tomorrow and all the next day on your own.
CLAUDIA: [ Pause] Now I feel like I’m being punished.
HOWARD: But you just said –
CLAUDIA: I feel like you’re saying, all right then, if you want more time we’ll all go off to Cornwall and have fun without you. You can have your time, but only at a cost. Only at the expense of fun.
HOWARD [ bemused]: Then come.
CLAUDIA: All right.
HOWARD: Though perhaps we’d better go in the morning. It’s nearly eleven.
CLAUDIA: But then you’ll miss half the day! There’s no point in going if you miss half the day.
HOWARD: It doesn’t matter all that much.
CLAUDIA: We’re better off going now. There won’t be any traffic.
HOWARD: What about Martha’s growth problem?
CLAUDIA: She can sleep in the car. I’ll put some blankets and pillows in the back.
HOWARD: Oh, Claude, it’s crazy. We won’t get there till two. Wouldn’t you rather just relax and go in the morning?
CLAUDIA: It’s fine. I can’t bear the thought of crawling across England on a Saturday morning with everyone and their grandmother. It’ll be fun, rushing through the night, don’t you think?
HOWARD: Oh, Claude. Oh, darling. I do love you.
[They kiss]
LOTTIE: Are we actually going or aren’t we?
HOWARD/CLAUDIA: Yes!