OSBORNE, John

Look back in Anger

…..

JIMMY

Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm. Just another Sunday evening. Perhaps there's a concert on. Ah. Make some more tea. Oh yes. There's a Vaughan Williams. Well, that's something, anyway. Something strong, something simple, something English. I suppose people like me aren't supposed to be very patriotic. Somebody said - what was it - we get our cooking from Paris (that's a laugh), our politics from Moscow, and our morals from Port Said. Something like that anyway. Who was it? Well you wouldn't know anyway. I hate to admit it, but I think I can understand how her Daddy must have felt when he came back from India, after all those years away. The old Edwardian brigade do make their brief little world look pretty tempting. All home-made cakes and croquet, bright ideas, bright uniforms. Always the same picture: high summer, the long days in the sun, slim volumes of verse, crisp linen, the smell of starch. What a romantic picture. Phoney too, of course. It must have rained sometimes. Still, even I regret it sometimes, phoney or not. If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's. I must be getting sentimental. But I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age - unless you're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans. That's a thought, isn't it.

…..


The entertainer

…..
JEAN.

With this new show, you mean. Has he really put money into it?

BILLY.

Put money into it! Don't make me laugh! He hasn't got two halfpennies for a penny. It's all credit. Credit, if you please! How he gets it beats me, after that last business. Still, he could always talk, your dad. And that's about all. Do you know, I spent thousands of pounds on his education. Went to the same school as me. And his brother. Thousands of pounds. He wasn't one of these scholarship people, like you. It was all paid for, every penny. And where's it got 'em! [ He takes a drink .] That Rackliffe. They should close the place. Someone should write to the Council about it. I'm surprised nobody hasn't. There's a lot of gentry here, you know-besides the riff-ralf around here. Retired people. They don't want that kind of thing going on. Are you

all right? You look as though you've been keeping late nights or something. What have you been doing with yourself? Lots of these parties, eh?

JEAN.

No, not really.

…..