ALLARDYCE   (in the back) You’re supposed to declare a change of use.

DR SWABY   Take your foot off my bonnet.
Dr Swaby is closing the window.

GILBERT   You knew. You knew what I wanted it for.

LOCKWOOD   You need planning permission.

ALLARDYCE   You could apply for planning permission.

GILBERT   Who should I apply to?

DR SWABY   Me.
Dr Swaby starts up the car and Gilbert hurriedly snatches his foot off the bonnet as the car suddenly moves off, running over his bicycle as it does so. Gilbert is aghast, and we see Allardyce’s anguished face looking back at him and his shattered bike as the car speeds off. In anger and frustration Gilbert kicks the pile of painter’s rubbish. Paint goes all over his trouser bottoms.

INT. HOTEL TEA LOUNGE. AFTERNOON.

A ladies’ orchestra is playing. In the background we see decorations being put up for the Royal Wedding Dinner. Photographs of the royal couple. Bunting. Flowers. Gilt chairs being carried through. These preparations intrude on Joyce and Mother, who are having tea.

JOYCE   You see this is where I belong, Mother. Get me into a long dress and surround me with sophisticated people, I’d bloom. (Pats the parcel, sitting on Gilbert’s waiting chair.) This is just the beginning.
Mother takes an interest in the parcel and starts to unwrap it. The Hotel Manager takes note. He begins to hover.
Ham, eggs, stuff under the counter. It’ll come, you see.

MOTHER   (seeing the parcel’s contents) It’s a bit of scrag end.
Mother starts to pick at it.

HOTEL MANAGER   Excuse me, madam. Patrons are not permitted to consume their own food on the premises.
Joyce is deeply humiliated. At which point Gilbert staggers in and threads his way through the tables with his pot foot, his paraphernalia and his paint-stained trousers.

JOYCE   Gilbert. Are you deliberately trying to humiliate me?

GILBERT   I’ve got something that will humiliate you more.
The orchestra strikes up, drowning their conversation, but we see Joyce hear Gilbert’s bad news.

JOYCE   This town. These people. They’re going to have to be made to sit up and take notice. They’re going to have to be made to realise who we are. My father had a chain of dry, cleaners. We regularly used to drink wine with the meal, as Mother well knows. Telling us what we can and can’t do. My father wore a carnation in his buttonhole every day of his life. Lend me threepence.
Gilbert gives her a threepenny bit, which she pushes towards the unimpressed waitress as a tip. Joyce leading, they begin to thread their way out.
I want a future that will live up to my past. Only when’s it going to start? That’s what I want to know.

MOTHER   (stopping by a table) These are having cream cakes.

INT. HOTEL LOBBY. DAY.