GILBERT   Better than what?
Joyce sighs.
Are you not eating your spam?
Mother is on to it like a rat, long before Gilbert reaches it.
Listen, Joyce. Once I’m into these premises on the Parade then it’ll be different. They’ll be rolling up in their cars. We’ll be going out to functions, having steak.

JOYCE   It’s not just steak, Gilbert. Can’t you see? It’s status.

MOTHER   Is there any?

JOYCE   What?

MOTHER   Taties?

JOYCE   It breaks your heart.

INT. MRS FORBES’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Mrs Forbes is half-dressed, bent over a chair, reading a newspaper. Nuttall stands behind her, still in his butcher’s clothes. He is adjusting the wardrobe mirror.

MRS FORBES   Poor Mr Metcalf. I didn’t think he’d go to prison. You didn’t tell me he’d go to prison.

NUTTALL   (taking down her knickers) I don’t care who goes to prison so long as it keeps your lodger off my back.

MRS FORBES   (looking at the paper again) There’s no fun in this for me, Douglas. It’s all one-sided.

NUTTALL   You have a magnificent bum, Doris.

MRS FORBES   I don’t like that word.

NUTTALL   Bottom, then.

MRS FORBES   That either.

NUTTALL   What then?

MRS FORBES   There isn’t a word I do like. My husband never felt the need to refer to it.

NUTTALL   No news?
Mrs Forbes shakes her head and reads an item from the newspaper on the Royal Wedding.

MRS FORBES   ‘… Currants, British Guiana. Demerara sugar, Barbados. Desiccated coconut, Ceylon.’

NUTTALL   What’s this?

MRS FORBES   The Empire. Who’s sent what for the wedding cake.

NUTTALL   Look. Cheek to cheek to cheek.
She looks round. He has his cheek against her bum and is looking in the wardrobe mirror.

MRS FORBES   Oh, Douglas, you are common. Why can’t you just get on with it?

NUTTALL   I wish I had this on the slicer. I could sell it fifteen times over.

MRS FORBES   Be sharp. I’ve Mr Wormold’s dinner to get.
Nuttall leans over Mrs Forbes.

NUTTALL   Doris. When you go in, drop him a hint about Barraclough.

MRS FORBES   I’m fed up doing your dirty work, Douglas.

NUTTALL   Go On.

MRS FORBES   No. No.
Mrs Forbes looks pained and then a slight spasm crosses her face, indicating that Nuttall is getting on with it. She waits with the patience of an animal.

INT. MRS FORBES’S DINING ROOM. NIGHT.

A bare room. Wormold, having just finished his thin chop and two veg, is holding the remains of his chop up to the light when Mrs Forbes comes in with her tray.

WORMOLD   Isn’t that green?

MRS FORBES   (bringing her eye by Wormold’s) Yes. It’s spinach. You had spinach.

WORMOLD   So I did.

MRS FORBES   Did you enjoy it?