Poppy + George Page 3

  GEORGE. I’ve jumped over ditches on tandems before now.

  POPPY. You can’t. They’re too heavy.

  GEORGE. Not if you both pedal like the clappers.

  POPPY. Who d’you do it with?

  GEORGE. Only those with nerves as strong as their legs.

  POPPY. Anyone in particular?

  GEORGE. So shall I borrow a tandem?

  POPPY. What’s it got to do with me?

  GEORGE. You’re the one I’m wanting to take out for a ride.

  POPPY. I s’pose I could do with some fresh air.

  GEORGE. So, it’s a cycle in the country, is it?

  POPPY. Is it?

  GEORGE. Well?

  POPPY. Don’t see why not.

  GEORGE. You working this Saturday?

  POPPY. Whole day off.

  GEORGE. Pick you up in the morning?

  POPPY. What’ll we do if it rains?

  GEORGE. Get wet.

  POPPY. I knew you’d say that.

  GEORGE. Fingers crossed, eh?

  POPPY. And toes.

  GEORGE. See you then.

  POPPY. See you.

  GEORGE. Ta-ta for now.

  GEORGE goes.

  POPPY continues to sew.

  SMITH holds up the trousers (full-cut, gathered at the waistband and made from unbleached linen), shakes them out and examines them.

  SMITH (adjusting and pinning). Cossack trousers. The English version. Introduced in 1814 when the Czar came to London for the peace celebrations.

  POPPY. Why must you make everything so accurate?

  SMITH. Why do a thing at all if not perfectly?

  POPPY. But what is the point of copying clothes that no one wears any more for people who pretend to be what they’re not?

  SMITH. Why should anyone want to jump a tandem over a ditch?

  POPPY. Pardon, but that’s my private business.

  SMITH. So it is.

  POPPY. Please don’t think that I don’t respect the very high… well, highest quality of all you make… On my life, I never saw such skill and garments before…

  SMITH. You are not without skill yourself, Poppy.

  POPPY. I’ve had enough practice to get by.

  SMITH. More than that. You have the eye. You have the feel. You have the… shall we say, imaginative passion… to develop true artisty.

  POPPY. What’re you on about?

  SMITH. Apply yourself utterly, devote all your time and attention to developing the expertise and you have it in you to make your mark… if not a very good living… maybe even as a master tailor… as I do.

  POPPY. I could never ever be anywhere near as good as you are.

  SMITH. Let me guide you and you will be become far far better than you think you can be.

  POPPY. You have that much faith in me?

  SMITH. From the moment you described embroidering the dogs on the little boy’s collar.

  POPPY. I did love doing that.

  SMITH. Discipline and devotion is required, of course, for an assistant to become an apprentice.

  POPPY. I’m not afraid of hard work.

  SMITH. Putting in extra hours.

  POPPY. You mean, on my days off?

  SMITH. Starting forthwith.

  POPPY. Forthwith?

  SMITH. Why wait?

  POPPY. Well. Oh my. I’m honoured… Most honoured… but the truth is… sewing and tailoring and fashioning might be your way in the world… but, with the greatest respect, if I’d wanted to end up sewing, I might as well’ve stayed at home. And anyhow, when did you ever see a master tailor wearing a skirt?

  SMITH. In China, India, Arabia…

  POPPY. Women all?

  SMITH. You spoke of a skirt not the manner of person inside it, Poppy.

  POPPY. You know what I mean.

  SMITH. Want to try these on for size?

  POPPY. I’m no Cossack. Not even the English kind. And thank you… but truth be told I want my time off for… well… for myself… and to go out and all…

  SMITH. Are you sure?

  POPPY. And truly, I’m no tailor.

  SMITH. Then tell me, who do you want to be?

  POPPY. You mean, what do I want to do?

  SMITH. If you like.

  POPPY. Well… I want to get more skills to me name, I know that… Make my own way and not be having always to answer to someone else… To be independent like, on my own two feet… comfortable even in my own skin… Not to have to wear a uniform… or even if I could a corset ever again… That’d be nice. And being useful, you know… Making a difference… To study if I felt the urge, even a girl like me. Miss Pembridge said that I had it in me… She said I could become anything I set my mind to… Not sure about anything… but still… something…

  SMITH. I have learned, Poppy, that once you step out of the world that you thought was all-embracing, you realise that you can choose to step into any world you please.

  POPPY. How does that work?

  SMITH. Which world do you wish to enter? In what form?

  He opens his arms, offering every costume in the entire workshop.

  Take your pick.

  POPPY. No matter what goes on top, I am what I am. And my skin’s rough. You’d never make it fine, not even with a million yards of the most precious cloth.

  SMITH. Do you want to be the dummy or the tailor?

  POPPY. How am I a dummy?

  SMITH. Either you are fashioned by what you’re told or think you’re told you can be… or you dare to fashion yourself.

  POPPY. What’s the point in pretending to be a silk purse?

  SMITH. Pretend it and believe it.

  POPPY. Why would I want to?

  SMITH. What if you discovered that you might start to believe it… and not only that… everybody else believes it too?

  SMITH’s theme stirs.

  POPPY. That doesn’t make it true?

  SMITH. Why not?

  The music becomes stronger.

  SMITH raises the Cossack trousers on high to the strains of the music.

  POPPY tentatively starts to turn and allow the music to surge through her.

  SMITH watches, fascinated, something stirring within him too.

  Scene Three

  Mary + Qwerty

  Fragment of Mary waltz.

  TOMMY wears men’s underwear and sits by a tub of water. He washes himself.

  Around him are strewn a variety of women’s outfits emerging from an old suitcase.

  TOMMY (little-girl voice). ‘Where can it be?’

  Buggered if I know.

  ‘But how will I manage without it?’

  Where have you looked?

  ‘Nowhere to be seen.’

  Must be somewhere.

  He scrubs hard.

  Must be. Mustn’t it. Somewhere?

  He goes over each place he has washed a number of times. It is as if he can’t get himself clean.

  POPPY enters. She is wearing a coat and hat and carries a newspaper.

  POPPY. Here again, Mr Johns?

  TOMMY. Me and Bessie’s had one of our barnies, love.

  POPPY. I have to get myself changed.

  TOMMY. Don’t mind me. She doesn’t.

  POPPY. Nothing I can get you?

  TOMMY. Seen a sheep knocking about?

  POPPY. Only the cow at the dairy down the road.

  TOMMY. It’s about so high… fluffy… well, woolly… White… well, yellowing… bleats if you press it in the right place.

  POPPY. Oh… Well, there’s a rug somewhere… I think that’s made of some kind of fleece…

  TOMMY. Not a rug no. It’s a sheep. It’s got legs… well, wheels…

  POPPY. What’s it for?

  TOMMY picks up a stiff piece of rope.

  TOMMY. Attached to this, see?… So it followed… close behind…

  He illustrates walking and turning with a sheep attached on the rope behind him.

  And when I turned… it moved with me… So I couldn’t s
pot it, right?… But everyone else could… See?

  POPPY. Behind you?

  TOMMY. Exactly. Behind me!

  POPPY. Sorry, I don’t think I have seen it.

  TOMMY. She used to go down well… previously… Quite lost track of her… Lost track of all sorts… don’t realise the half of it… Until you go through the old cozzies…

  He holds up a shepherdess outfit.

  You’re not the only one, love, who used to be a Mary.

  POPPY. Well, I’m not any more.

  TOMMY. You are, really…

  POPPY. Nor did I go to school looking like a milkmaid!

  TOMMY. Shepherdess, if you don’t mind…

  POPPY. That neither. Now I really must…

  POPPY gets off her coat and shoes, etc.

  TOMMY. Yep. Get ready. Don’t worry yerself…

  TOMMY finds and takes up his ukulele, adorned with lambs and pastoral illustrations.

  Still, she might need some patching-up and making fresh again… Coz she has to be fresh, does little Mary, don’t you agree?… Hey… (Sniffing at his skin.) You can’t smell anything in here, can you?

  POPPY. Just the usual damp and rot.

  TOMMY. Cloying… like… mud… it smells of to me.

  POPPY. Slum smell. It’s not human.

  TOMMY. All too human, me dear…

  POPPY looks through a rail of dresses, trying to choose.

  Way of the world, way of the good old bad old world.

  POPPY. We can always try to make things better.

  She finds an alluring black-and-gold Chinese dress.

  TOMMY. Sorry to break it to you, gal, but good intentions don’t make a jot of difference…

  POPPY. What hope is there for any of us then?

  TOMMY. I’d plump for that frock if I was you. Bet you’d look a sight better than I did as Lily Ping-Pong from old Hong Kong.

  TOMMY plays a fragment of a Chinese theme.

  POPPY reddens and puts back the black-and-gold Chinese dress.

  POPPY. Have you tried looking in the cellar for your sheep?

  TOMMY. That cellar’s a dank and dastardly bottomless pit.

  You’ve not stepped a foot down there, have you?

  She pulls out a more modest but pretty, chiffon, flowery dress.

  POPPY. Smith does sometimes.

  TOMMY. Descend that damned cellar and I’d soon be missing too… like all the lost souls foolhardy enough to venture before.

  POPPY gives her newspaper to TOMMY.

  POPPY. Here’s something to cheer you up.

  TOMMY. The Workers’ Dreadnought. Where’s the artistry in a title like that?

  POPPY. It’s not meant to be entertaining.

  TOMMY. It’s succeeding there.

  POPPY. It’s very informative, you know.

  TOMMY. You northeners don’t still believe in the little people, do ya?

  POPPY. What you on about?

  TOMMY. Written by elfs?

  POPPY. East London Federation of Suffragettes, soft-head.

  TOMMY. Ah so you do still believe in fairies.

  POPPY. You wouldn’t say that if you went to their office.

  TOMMY. Oooh, they have an office, these elfs, do they?

  POPPY. A proper one… hive of activity like you’ve never seen… All these women being seriously industrious… together… And the things they talk about and ask… The things they know.

  TOMMY. Could these elfs tell me where my sheep is then?

  POPPY goes behind a screen and undresses.

  POPPY. And guess what?… Mrs Lloyd introduced me to their leader even… She’s from up north too… Sylvia, she is… A Pankhurst to boot… How’s that!… Looks like you soft southerners need us to come down to give you all a kick up the backside and teach you lot the meaning of progress.

  TOMMY. Road to nowhere.

  POPPY. It’s worth a read.

  TOMMY. How’s it worth a whole ha’penny?

  POPPY. That’s just when it’s fresh off press for them can afford. We’ve been taking the rest round and putting them through people’s doors for nowt.

  TOMMY. Nowt for the ’Nought, eh?

  POPPY. Wouldn’t do you any harm to give it a look over. See how there’s people fighting the good fight, not giving up at all…

  TOMMY. Who said I was giving up?

  POPPY emerges from behind the screen, dress half-done-up.

  POPPY. Are you reading it or pretending?

  POPPY indicates to TOMMY to help her with her dress.

  TOMMY. Excuse me, young lady. I’ll read what I choose… Shame of it!

  POPPY. What’ve you found?

  TOMMY. Our boys… enlisted soldiers, if you please!… Forced to carry on warring… as if enough wasn’t enough… in someone else’s bloody mess.

  He drops the paper and helps with her dress.

  POPPY. Where’s this?

  TOMMY. Against them what’s-it-called…

  POPPY. Bolsheviks, you mean.

  TOMMY. Somewhere in godawful Russia.

  POPPY. That’s no mess, that’s proper revolution, that is.

  TOMMY. Does it never bloody end?

  POPPY. It wouldn’t happen if women ruled the world.

  TOMMY. Who told you that?

  POPPY. Read page four and you’ll find out.

  TOMMY. Some of us have our own pressing matters… notably sheep… to attend to.

  POPPY. We could do with your support, you know… I’ve already been spat on today by one fella.

  POPPY disappears behind the screen again.

  TOMMY starts to put on the shepherdess dress.

  TOMMY. Never any excuse for that sort of behaviour.

  POPPY. I told him to keep his bile in his own belly.

  TOMMY. Did he stop?

  POPPY. He ran off alright.

  TOMMY. Good for you.

  POPPY. Not before cussing at me like the devil and raising a fist.

  TOMMY. Bloody nerve. If I’d’ve been there… I’d have made damn sure that he begged his pardon… and if he didn’t… boof! Goodbye to his rotten teeth… gums… jaw… his whole bloody head till he learns how to use them right!

  POPPY. And how would lowering yourself to his level help anyone?

  TOMMY. Only trying to defend you, aren’t I!

  POPPY. Take more than a bit of dribble to put me or any of us off.

  TOMMY. Don’t tell me it didn’t cause you any distress all the same.

  POPPY. I’ll get over it.

  TOMMY. Don’t we all, don’t we all.

  POPPY. Thanks for your concern anyhow.

  TOMMY (sings).

  ‘Oh!… Mary loves her little lamb…

  Forever on her tail…

  No matter where our Mary goes…’

  (Speaks.) So where is it now, eh, Mary?

  POPPY. Will you bloody well stop calling me that!

  TOMMY. No cause for cursing, madam.

  POPPY. Promise me you won’t do it again.

  TOMMY. Then tell me where that blessed sheep is!

  POPPY. If it’s gone it’s gone and that’s that.

  POPPY appears from behind the screen, fully dressed now. She seems uncertain, bashful all of a sudden.

  What do you think?

  TOMMY (presenting himself as a shepherdess). What do you think?

  They stare at each other.

  TOMMY starts to improvise a few bars of a romantic waltz.

  Pretty damn pretty.

  POPPY. D’you mean it?

  TOMMY. Never ask anyone if they mean a compliment. Cash in your winnings and count yourself lucky.

  POPPY. But does it suit at least?

  TOMMY (sings).

  Of all that stirs in verdant field…

  Of all… from fertile soil that springs…

  Of all the blooms… that sunshine brings…

  Of all… of all… Ah… Of all that summer offers brightly…

  Of all that flowers daily… nightly…

  POP
PY. Would you want to step out with me looking like this?

  TOMMY. And me a married lady!

  POPPY. Oh I didn’t mean…

  TOMMY (sings).

  Of all that blushes bold and sweetly…

  (Speaks.) Wouldn’t say no.

  POPPY. You really wouldn’t mind… I mean, if you were a bachelor?

  TOMMY. Those were the days.

  POPPY. So I’ll do?

  TOMMY (sings).

  Oh… Poppy…

  (Speaks.) Happy now?

  POPPY. That’s better.

  TOMMY (sings).

  …Ah Poppy, lovely Poppy

  Mmmm you captivating Poppy

  Hum with me, strum with me, come with me

  O’er meadows and streams.

  Oh Poppy, darling Poppy

  Mmmm intoxicating Poppy

  Play with me, sway with me, stay with me

  Girl of my dreams.

  (Speaks.) Are you going barefoot?

  POPPY. Oh, shoes.

  POPPY seeks out some shoes.

  TOMMY. He’s an ace lad is George. True mucker.

  POPPY. Good laugh too… and thoughtful…

  TOMMY. Braver than I am.

  POPPY. Is he?

  TOMMY. I should say.

  POPPY. What’d he do?

  TOMMY. Ah… ya know… Rescued a few… Risked himself.

  POPPY. Did you see it yourself?

  TOMMY. Don’t go telling him I said so.

  POPPY. I’ve tried asking him…

  TOMMY. As you say, a good laugh. What can beat it? That’s what we need, isn’t it, a good old laugh.

  POPPY. Well, I reckon it’s pretty brave of you to go out in front of them mobs you call an audience.

  TOMMY. Pretty isn’t exactly the word I’d choose, luvvie.

  GEORGE walks in. He is wearing his suit and carrying a box.

  GEORGE. And how are my two favourite ladies, this lovely evening?

  POPPY. Oh!

  GEORGE. Ready then?

  POPPY. Give us a tick…

  POPPY flusters around looking for her shoes and hat and gloves, etc.

  GEORGE. Mr Johns, you’re looking very… what’s the word… em…

  TOMMY. Pastoral. The word is pastoral.

  GEORGE. Can’t wait to see this one frolicking in the fields.

  TOMMY. Ha ha ha.

  GEORGE. Nah, I mean it… Not kidding.

  TOMMY. Ah. Alright. Very well. Then there’s nothing else for it… Mary is going to have to go down… Wish me luck.

  TOMMY takes GEORGE’s hand and shakes.

  GEORGE. Where you off to in all your finery?

  TOMMY. On a mission… A very ill-advised mission… If I don’t come back… send out a search party… and if you still don’t find me… make sure that Bessie gets the pink-satin robe.