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Speeches from the plays - 3.
from Strasbourg Goose
[Later: Lord Reason is replaced]:
Narrator
Her briefing is brief. Half an hour over breakfast
with Chancellor Serious.
Chancellor Serious
A-later dis morning
you will receive your letters patent.
Emily X
Letters patent?
Chancellor Serious
Is ovvious. Your mace -
Emily X
As in bash 'em?
Chancellor Serious
And your seal -
Emily X
Me and a seal? Bark bark?
Chancellor Serious
Seal of office.
Emily X
O. Why?
Chancellor Serious
Ah I
should'a tell you. Told you. You take charge
of the Court of Tír na nOg.
Emily X
My first
seagoing command!
Chancellor Serious
Here are details of the case.
Narrator
He passes over a thin, exiguous file.
Emily X
But I've no legal training!
Narrator
The famous high-shouldered Serious shrug:
Chancellor Serious
'Oo 'as? You'll be all right. Make it up as you
go along. Make your own rules. You'll soon get -
Emily X
The hang of it? You bet I will.
Chancellor Serious
Investiture
at eleven. Before that, an interview arranged,
Meet The Press, in the person of Leonard
Bevin, a columnist for top people in that
exalted daily, The Spaces. I go fetch him.
Emily X
He who was once my lover. I wonder has he changed much.
What was it we fought over back in those wild sixties?
Does it matter. Yes it does. And I said to him...
Chancellor Serious
A-meester a-Bevin!
Emily X
And I said to him -
say you love me a little.
Leonard Bevin
And he said -
I love you a little.
Emily X
Pig! said she,
and that's how the row started! How are you?
Leonard Bevin
As well I hope as you are. You haven't exactly
stayed the same.
Emily X
On Guard to the last.
Leonard Bevin
Ah but you're incomparable.
Impregnable.
Emily X
How many years is that now?
Leonard Bevin
Let us not count them. Actually it's minutes I have to watch,
they told me no more than ten. Shall we sit?
First allow me to congratulate you -
Emily X
It's a job.
Leonard Bevin
- on your elevation to the ranks of the Imperturbables. About
the case this little French runt is bringing -
well he's Irish technically, if technically's the word -
Emily X
Probably a load of old cobblers - not wishing to...
Leonard Bevin
Not wishing to prejudge the issue. Quite. What
would you most like to achieve during your term of office?
Emily X
Something for women. For years we have endured - suttee,
footbinding, rape, virginity, pornography, and much else.
'Bout time we had a turn.
Leonard Bevin
Would not all these serve
to bolster the case put forward by the plaintiff,
Bert Stump, Monsieur-Camus-to-be as was?
Emily X
Not so. These are specialized instruments
devised by men to keep the women down. They
cannot form part of a general complaint.
Leonard Bevin
Seafaring, mining, war & human sacrifice,
were devised by whom to keep whom down?
Emily X
Not by women anyway. You won't catch me Leonard Bevin...
Leonard Bevin
But in terms of your own argument -
Emily X
You needn't try to pretend it's all my argument -
Leonard Bevin
But it is your argument!
Emily X
That wouldn't entitle you
to use it against me! Don't think you can
straddle ram or bull your way thru here!
Leonard Bevin
Emily my dear - if cow, ewe, or mare will not stand,
stallion cannot straddle, ram tup, nor bull bull!
Emily X
OFFSIDE! Don't take fright - I'm only practising.
Leonard Bevin
Practising what?
Emily X
Being farouche! Making the rules.
How'm I doing - Imperturbable enough?
Leonard Bevin
You're better than imperturbable - you're indescribable.
Emily X
You're very sweet. Go on. Your interview.
Leonard Bevin
O it's all right, I can make it up. It's only
a morale booster for the Angelic Delegation.
Anything you do say will be written up
in the most favourable light. The grilling
was just an old habit.
No but seriously, and off the record -
if there were established grounds for agreeing
that men and women might actually be different
- not just in body but every way -
Emily X
Are you trying to charm me into something?
Leonard Bevin
- would your people have the honesty to admit it?
Emily X
Honesty Leonard Bevin is a patriarchal construct...
Leonard Bevin
Yes but even at that, suppose it was agreed that action,
action and waste that is, were peculiar to the male and that
passivity, currently perceived as demeaning, were seen to be
proper to the female and a more valuable and fulfilling
role?
Emily X
Have you quite finished? Get out of here!
First you make a mess of us, of our sons of our daughters,
and then you try to butter it over with
sociology and codology and guff!
Leonard Bevin
Emily my dear. Imperturbable, remember?
Emily X
Pig! O but you make me wild.
Leonard Bevin
Aha ha.
You'll be fine.
Emily X
Will you be in court?
Leonard Bevin
Probably not. I avoid them when I can.
The Angelic Delegation - they'll be the ones with the haloes -
they're all Imperturbables too. Bye now.
Hope our side wins. Ta ta. Am I forgiven.
Emily X
You are. Be good. Be devious.
Leonard Bevin
This is the life this is!
Emily X
Go on. Scrape yourself out! Bye Lenny…