[Single long high chord on strings]
FIRST VOICE
Now frying-pans spit, kettles and cats purr in the kitchen.
The town smells of seaweed and breakfast all the way down
from Bay View, where Mrs OgmorePritchard, in smock and turban,
big-besomed to engage the dust, picks at her starchless bread
and sips lemon-rind tea, to Bottom Cottage, where Mr Waldo,
in bowler and bib, gobbles his bubble-and-squeak and kippers
and swigs from the saucebottle. Mary Ann Sailors
MARY ANN SAILORS
praises the Lord who made porridge.
FIRST VOICE
Mr Pugh
MR PUGH
remembers ground glass as he juggles his omelet.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Pugh
MRS PUGH
nags the salt-cellar.
FIRST VOICE
w**** Nilly postman
w**** NILLY
downs his last bucket of black brackish tea and rumbles out
bandy to the clucking back where the hens twitch and grieve
for their tea-soaked sops.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs w**** Nilly
MRS w**** NILLY
full of tea to her double-chinned brim broods and bubbles
over her coven of kettles on the hissing hot range always
ready to steam open the mail.
FIRST VOICE
The Reverend Eli Jenkins
REV. ELI JENKINS
finds a rhyme and dips his pen in his cocoa.
FIRST VOICE
Lord Cut-Glass in his ticking kitchen
LORD CUT-GLASS
scampers from clock to clock, a bunch of clock-keys in one
hand, a fish-head in the other.
FIRST VOICE
Captain Cat in his galley
CAPTAIN CAT
blind and fine-fingered savours his sea-fry.
FIRST VOICE
Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen, in their Donkey Street room that is
bedroom, parlour, kitchen, and scullery, sit down to last
night's supper of onions boiled in their overcoats and broth
of spuds and baconrind and leeks and bones.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
See that smudge on the wall by the picture of Auntie Blossom?
That's where you threw the sago.
[Cherry Owen laughs with delight]
MRS CHERRY OWEN
You only missed me by a inch.
CHERRY OWEN
I always miss Auntie Blossom too.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Remember last night? In you reeled, my boy, as drunk as a
deacon with a big wet bucket and a fish-frail full of stout
and you looked at me and you said, 'God has come home!' you
said, and then over the bucket you went, sprawling and
bawling, and the floor was all flagons and eels.
CHERRY OWEN
Was I wounded?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you took off your trousers and you said, 'Does
anybody want a fight!' Oh, you old baboon.
CHERRY OWEN
Give me a kiss.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you sang 'Bread of Heaven,' tenor and bass.
CHERRY OWEN
I always sing 'Bread of Heaven.'
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you did a little dance on the table.
CHERRY OWEN
I did?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Drop dead!
CHERRY OWEN
And then what did I do?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you cried like a baby and said you were a poor drunk
orphan with nowhere to go but the grave.
CHERRY OWEN
And what did I do next, my dear?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you danced on the table all over again and said you
were King Solomon Owen and I was your Mrs Sheba.
CHERRY OWEN (Softy)
And then?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then I got you into bed and you snored all night like
a brewery.
[Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen laugh delightedly together]
FIRST VOICE
From Beynon Butchers in Coronation Street, the smell of
fried liver sidles out with onions on its breath. And listen!
In the dark breakfast-room behind the shop, Mr and Mrs Beynon,
waited upon by their treasure, enjoy, between b***s, their
everymorning hullabaloo, and Mrs Beynon slips the gristly
bits under the tasselled tablecloth to her fat cat.
[Cat purrs]
MRS BEYNON
She likes the liver, Ben.
MR BEYNON
She ought to do, Bess. It's her brother's.
MRS BEYNON (Screaming)
Oh, d'you hear that, Lily?
LILY SMALLS
Yes, mum.
MRS BEYNON
We're eating pusscat.
LILY SMALLS
Yes, mum.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, you cat-butcher!
MR BEYNON
It was doctored, mind.
MRS BEYNON (Hysterical)
What's that got to do with it?
MR BEYNON
Yesterday we had mole.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, Lily, Lily!
MR BEYNON
Monday, otter. Tuesday, shrews.
[Mrs Beynon screams]
LILY SMALLS
Go on, Mrs Beynon. He's the biggest liar in town.
MRS BEYNON
Don't you dare say that about Mr Beynon.
LILY SMALLS
Everybody knows it, mum.
MRS BEYNON
Mr Beynon never tells a lie. Do you, Ben?
MR BEYNON
No, Bess. And now I am going out after the corgies, with my
little cleaver.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, Lily, Lily!
FIRST VOICE
Up the street, in the Sailors Arms, Sinbad Sailors, grandson
of Mary Ann Sailors, draws a pint in the sunlit bar. The
ship's clock in the bar says half past eleven. Half past
eleven is opening time. The hands of the clock have stayed
still at half past eleven for fifty years. It is always
opening time in the Sailors Arms.
SINBAD
Here's to me, Sinbad.
FIRST VOICE
All over the town, babies and old men are cleaned and put into
their broken prams and wheeled on to the sunlit c***led cobbles
or out into the backyards under the dancing underclothes, and
left. A baby cries.
OLD MAN
I want my pipe and he wants his bottle.
[School bell rings]
FIRST VOICE
Noses are wiped, heads picked, hair combed, paws scrubbed,
ears boxed, and the children shrilled off to school.
SECOND VOICE
Fishermen grumble to their nets. Nogood Boyo goes out in
the dinghy Zanzibar, ships the oars, drifts slowly in the
dab-filled bay, and, lying on his back in the unbaled water,
among crabs' legs and tangled lines, looks up at the
spring sky.
NOGOOD BOYO (Softly, lazily)
I don't know who's up there and I don't care.
FIRST VOICE
He turns his head and looks up at Llaregyb Hill, and sees,
among green lathered trees, the white houses of the strewn
away farms, where farmboys whistle, dogs shout, cows low,
but all too far away for him, or you, to hear. And in the
town, the shops squeak open. Mr Edwards, in b***erfly-collar
and straw-hat at the doorway of Manchester House, measures
with his eye the dawdlers-by for striped flannel shirts and
shrouds and flowery blouses, and bellows to himself in the
darkness behind his eye
MR EDWARDS (Whispers)
I love Miss Price.
FIRST VOICE
Now frying-pans spit, kettles and cats purr in the kitchen.
The town smells of seaweed and breakfast all the way down
from Bay View, where Mrs OgmorePritchard, in smock and turban,
big-besomed to engage the dust, picks at her starchless bread
and sips lemon-rind tea, to Bottom Cottage, where Mr Waldo,
in bowler and bib, gobbles his bubble-and-squeak and kippers
and swigs from the saucebottle. Mary Ann Sailors
MARY ANN SAILORS
praises the Lord who made porridge.
FIRST VOICE
Mr Pugh
MR PUGH
remembers ground glass as he juggles his omelet.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Pugh
MRS PUGH
nags the salt-cellar.
FIRST VOICE
w**** Nilly postman
w**** NILLY
downs his last bucket of black brackish tea and rumbles out
bandy to the clucking back where the hens twitch and grieve
for their tea-soaked sops.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs w**** Nilly
MRS w**** NILLY
full of tea to her double-chinned brim broods and bubbles
over her coven of kettles on the hissing hot range always
ready to steam open the mail.
FIRST VOICE
The Reverend Eli Jenkins
REV. ELI JENKINS
finds a rhyme and dips his pen in his cocoa.
FIRST VOICE
Lord Cut-Glass in his ticking kitchen
LORD CUT-GLASS
scampers from clock to clock, a bunch of clock-keys in one
hand, a fish-head in the other.
FIRST VOICE
Captain Cat in his galley
CAPTAIN CAT
blind and fine-fingered savours his sea-fry.
FIRST VOICE
Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen, in their Donkey Street room that is
bedroom, parlour, kitchen, and scullery, sit down to last
night's supper of onions boiled in their overcoats and broth
of spuds and baconrind and leeks and bones.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
See that smudge on the wall by the picture of Auntie Blossom?
That's where you threw the sago.
[Cherry Owen laughs with delight]
MRS CHERRY OWEN
You only missed me by a inch.
CHERRY OWEN
I always miss Auntie Blossom too.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Remember last night? In you reeled, my boy, as drunk as a
deacon with a big wet bucket and a fish-frail full of stout
and you looked at me and you said, 'God has come home!' you
said, and then over the bucket you went, sprawling and
bawling, and the floor was all flagons and eels.
CHERRY OWEN
Was I wounded?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you took off your trousers and you said, 'Does
anybody want a fight!' Oh, you old baboon.
CHERRY OWEN
Give me a kiss.
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you sang 'Bread of Heaven,' tenor and bass.
CHERRY OWEN
I always sing 'Bread of Heaven.'
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then you did a little dance on the table.
CHERRY OWEN
I did?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Drop dead!
CHERRY OWEN
And then what did I do?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you cried like a baby and said you were a poor drunk
orphan with nowhere to go but the grave.
CHERRY OWEN
And what did I do next, my dear?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
Then you danced on the table all over again and said you
were King Solomon Owen and I was your Mrs Sheba.
CHERRY OWEN (Softy)
And then?
MRS CHERRY OWEN
And then I got you into bed and you snored all night like
a brewery.
[Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen laugh delightedly together]
FIRST VOICE
From Beynon Butchers in Coronation Street, the smell of
fried liver sidles out with onions on its breath. And listen!
In the dark breakfast-room behind the shop, Mr and Mrs Beynon,
waited upon by their treasure, enjoy, between b***s, their
everymorning hullabaloo, and Mrs Beynon slips the gristly
bits under the tasselled tablecloth to her fat cat.
[Cat purrs]
MRS BEYNON
She likes the liver, Ben.
MR BEYNON
She ought to do, Bess. It's her brother's.
MRS BEYNON (Screaming)
Oh, d'you hear that, Lily?
LILY SMALLS
Yes, mum.
MRS BEYNON
We're eating pusscat.
LILY SMALLS
Yes, mum.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, you cat-butcher!
MR BEYNON
It was doctored, mind.
MRS BEYNON (Hysterical)
What's that got to do with it?
MR BEYNON
Yesterday we had mole.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, Lily, Lily!
MR BEYNON
Monday, otter. Tuesday, shrews.
[Mrs Beynon screams]
LILY SMALLS
Go on, Mrs Beynon. He's the biggest liar in town.
MRS BEYNON
Don't you dare say that about Mr Beynon.
LILY SMALLS
Everybody knows it, mum.
MRS BEYNON
Mr Beynon never tells a lie. Do you, Ben?
MR BEYNON
No, Bess. And now I am going out after the corgies, with my
little cleaver.
MRS BEYNON
Oh, Lily, Lily!
FIRST VOICE
Up the street, in the Sailors Arms, Sinbad Sailors, grandson
of Mary Ann Sailors, draws a pint in the sunlit bar. The
ship's clock in the bar says half past eleven. Half past
eleven is opening time. The hands of the clock have stayed
still at half past eleven for fifty years. It is always
opening time in the Sailors Arms.
SINBAD
Here's to me, Sinbad.
FIRST VOICE
All over the town, babies and old men are cleaned and put into
their broken prams and wheeled on to the sunlit c***led cobbles
or out into the backyards under the dancing underclothes, and
left. A baby cries.
OLD MAN
I want my pipe and he wants his bottle.
[School bell rings]
FIRST VOICE
Noses are wiped, heads picked, hair combed, paws scrubbed,
ears boxed, and the children shrilled off to school.
SECOND VOICE
Fishermen grumble to their nets. Nogood Boyo goes out in
the dinghy Zanzibar, ships the oars, drifts slowly in the
dab-filled bay, and, lying on his back in the unbaled water,
among crabs' legs and tangled lines, looks up at the
spring sky.
NOGOOD BOYO (Softly, lazily)
I don't know who's up there and I don't care.
FIRST VOICE
He turns his head and looks up at Llaregyb Hill, and sees,
among green lathered trees, the white houses of the strewn
away farms, where farmboys whistle, dogs shout, cows low,
but all too far away for him, or you, to hear. And in the
town, the shops squeak open. Mr Edwards, in b***erfly-collar
and straw-hat at the doorway of Manchester House, measures
with his eye the dawdlers-by for striped flannel shirts and
shrouds and flowery blouses, and bellows to himself in the
darkness behind his eye
MR EDWARDS (Whispers)
I love Miss Price.