CLIMAX OF AN UNSTARTED PLAY

ARNULF: We shall be eaten by goats!

KLOTILDA: We shall not, we shall not! I will find a way to save us - I will take in penguins and teach them to yodel!

ARNULF: Now you are grasping at straws, Klotilda! No-one can make a living that way. The competition is something fierce.

KLOTILDA: Well, then I shall go to Ookpik and tell him I accept his offer. What use are my toenails to me anyway? They have brought me nothing but trouble. I will sell them to him gladly, gladly!

ARNULF: You are becoming hysterical!

KLOTILDA: Yes, yes, I know it! I am nothing but a burden to you! If you were a real man you would brick me up alive with a rhinoceros! That is all I want from a man - the strength of character to immure me in the walls with a dangerous beast - but I shall never find a man like that, never! [Weeps.] How I despise you, Arnulf...the walls in this apartment are too thin to contain a rhino, anyway...

ARNULF: You are right. I am a failure. I must pay the ultimate price. Farewell, Klotilda. [Takes out gun and places it to his temple. He pulls the trigger. However, it is a staple gun.] Ouch. You see, I cannot even shoot myself properly. I have merely succeeded in stapling my hat to my head. Now I shall have to wear it always as a mark of my shame.

KLOTILDA: And did it have to be that hat? The one with the moose antlers? This will mean social obloquy! We are ruined, ruined!

ARNULF: We shall be eaten by goats.

KLOTILDA: Unless - if I were to go to the Marquis of Pommes-et-Legumes, the greatest dandy in town - if he could be persuaded to start a fashion of moose-antler hats - yes, yes, I shall go to him, throw myself on his mercy - you know he has always had a soft spot for me -

ARNULF: No, Klotilda, not that! You mean -

KLOTILDA: Yes, my husband, for you I shall make the ultimate sacrifice. I will allow him to smear my earwax on his nostrils, as he has always wanted.

ARNULF: NOOOOOOOO! [Goes to pluck his eyes out but misses and takes his contact lenses out instead] Blind, blind! At least now I will not see what I have brought us to! Now I will hurl myself out of the window. [Misses and hurls himself into the wall.] Ouch.

KLOTILDA: Wait, Arnulf! No! There is still hope. [Aside:] Blind as he is, I shall deceive him into living - Look, Arnulf! A telegram from the Queen! [Shows him a potted plant.] You are to be decorated and showered with money - she has decided to adopt your scheme to put the army on roller-skates - we are saved!

ARNULF: Telegram? I heard no delivery boy.

KLOTILDA: He is wearing slippers. [Urchin voice:] - Strike a light, and so I am guv, for me feet gets awful tired. [Normal voice:] - Here, boy, a tip for your troubles. [Urchin voice:] Thanks, missus, that's right handsome of you, I'll be off now.

ARNULF: Wait! I know that voice! That is my long-lost brother Jimothy!

KLOTILDA [Aside:] Curse my limited vocal range, every voice I try to do comes out as Jimothy. - No, husband, 'tis but a delivery boy. [Urchin voice:] True, guv, so 'elp me.

ARNULF: I would know that voice anywhere! Oh, that you should be reduced to this - come, brother, do not be proud, you shall share our good fortune and all will be reconciled between us. [Goes to embrace Jimothy. Klotilda gives him the potted plant.] But you are so thin!

KLOTILDA: Er...oh no! Blinded with tears of emotion, he has stumbled out of the window! [Chucks potted plant outside with a crash.] Oh well.

ARNULF: Jimothy!!! Oh well. I never liked him anyway. When we were twins together he hogged both my mother's nipples and left me to suck on her boil. To hell with him, we are rich, rich!

KLOTILDA: Yes, yes! Look - they have sent a limousine to take us to our new house! [Leads Arnulf by the hand, makes door-opening noises, going downstairs noises, sits him on the couch, makes car noises.] Brum, brummm! Oh, look, Arnulf, we are here! It is a palace, a palace! It is huge! See how big it is! [Leads him to the exercise treadmill and makes him walk on it for a few minutes.] Boy, this is a hell of a long corridor, isn't it? Oh, oh - here we are - our new rooms - if only you could see them - they are magnificent!

ARNULF: Yes, yes! I seem to see them! I have been here many times - many times - in my dreams! [Pacing ecstatically] Even without you, I know every inch of them - here, here is the bathroom - with the sunken marble tub! [Walks out of the window and plummets to his death.]

KLOTILDA: ARNULF! [Goes to look.] Goats are eating him. How ironic.

[Slowly, she goes around the room turning off all the lights, then sits on a chair downstage left and takes out a yo-yo.]

CURTAIN.

Index
19/1/04