ACT II - SCENE TEN 1/2



Meg, Pippa and Hil are preparing for lunch with Dick and Marge. Hilary is stirring a pot on the stove, Meg is making a salad and Pippa setting the table.

PIPPA: It’s funny us being here, making lunch together. Just like we’d help Mum when she cooked for Dad and his mates. She was always busy cooking something.

HIL: Do you remember those cake sales we used to have at school?

Meg snorts.

MEG: God do I ever! Mountains of lamingtons, piles of melting moments, kilos and kilos of cupcakes.

PIP: We always had the most food out of anyone, and Mum’s always went the quickest. Not sure why they even bothered asking other people to make anything in the end.

MEG: We never really thought about it did we?

HIL: [distractedly] About what?

MEG: All that work she did, all the time. The cake sale. Hot dinner every night. Constantly busy making this or that, or ironing Dad’s shirts, or serving beer on the verandah. We never really ever thanked her for it. Properly, I mean.

Pause.

PIP: Do you think she would have wanted that? I mean, for us to take more notice, to thank her more, that sort of thing?

MEG: I don’t think she would have expected it, necessarily. Everyone was doing it, weren’t they? All those husbands working, fishing and drinking…And all those wives cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids. It was just the way it was back then. Thank Christ this place seems to have moved on in that respect at least.

Pause.

HIL: I still seem to run around like a headless chicken after that lazy boy of mine.

PIP: You work too hard Hil, all day at the sandwich shop and then straight back home to look after Troy. Just like Mum that way.

HIL: Oh thanks a lot.

PIP: What?

HIL: [sarcastically] I do have my own personality outside the comparison with Mum you know. I’d like to think I’ve grown at least a little into my own person

MEG: I think perhaps we could all do with trying a little bit more to be our own person. Not end up like Mum, trapped in that awful stereotype.

PIP: What’s that supposed to mean?

Pause. Meg and Pippa look as if they are gearing up for an argument. They have stopped what they were doing.

MEG: It means exactly what I said…

HIL: [thoughtfully] You think she was trapped? I’m not so sure about that.

Pause. Meg looks as though she is about to say something, then stops. Pippa glances at Hil.

HIL: Anyway. We’d better get on with this food if we expect to eat anytime soon.

The girls pick up their abandoned tasks and continue lunch preparations.

                                      

                                       ACT II – SCENE ELEVEN ½


Meg is sitting on the end of her bed, shuffling through some papers. She gives a sigh, shaking her head as if deep in thought. Edwin enters, carrying two cups of tea.

EDWIN: Thought you might need this.

MEG: Thanks.

She takes the cup of tea from Edwin, and he sits on the bed, a little apart from her.

EDWIN: How are you feeling?

MEG: [snapping] How am I feeling? How do you think I’m feeling, Edwin, after all that? Hmm?

EDWIN: Come on Meg, that’s not fair and you know it.

MEG: Don’t talk to me about fair. How about being ambushed and having no support from your husband? I wouldn’t call that fair, though perhaps the English have a different definition of the term.

Silence. Edwin is clearly stung by Meg’s words.

EDWIN: Well, I-

MEG: Don’t. Just don’t.

Meg sighs. She is exhausted.

MEG: I’m sorry. I just…this is how it’s always been. No talking about anything, no opening up. Not in the Moynihan house, oh no. And then suddenly, one day, everything implodes and I’m left standing alone, wondering why we didn’t just come out with it all sooner.

Pause

I suppose I just expected it to be different. For something to have changed. For us to have changed. I thought the novel - maybe after – that we three would come together again. Say, ‘Maybe we should have talked about that’. But it’s useless. Fucking useless.

She begins to cry, low, quiet sobs.

EDWIN: Oh Meggie, come here.

He takes her tea from her and hugs her to him.

EDWIN: Remember all those stories you told me about when you were a child? About how you and your sisters would fight over everything? ‘We could turn the smallest molehill into the biggest mountain’, if I remember correctly. Well…perhaps this is just a larger molehill. And the one thing those stories had in common was that you always made up, eventually. Remember?

Long pause. Meg pulls away from Edwin, frowning.

MEG: [quietly] I don’t think it’s that simple this time…