WORMOLD   (warming) No.

MRS FORBES   (out of vision) Are you any good at painting?

INT. MRS FORBES’S BEDROOM. EVENING.

Mrs Forbes stands on a table. Wormold has an eyebrow pencil in his hand.

MRS FORBES   I wouldn’t ask anybody to do this, only you’re a professional man and we’ve been through a lot, one way and another.

WORMOLD   Shall I start at the bottom or the top?

MRS FORBES   Oh, it’s perhaps better if you work your way up … Maurice.
Wormold, under some strain, begins to draw the seam up her leg. There is a knock at the door.

WORMOLD   (stopping) There’s somebody at the front door.

MRS FORBES   Take no notice. We’re busy, aren’t we?

EXT. MRS FORBES’S HOUSE. NIGHT.

Nuttall waits at the front door in his finery. He is mystified. A call through the letterbox brings no joy. Giving the house a look, he walks away. Ahead of him, down the street. we see the hotel and the Town’s Best arriving for the dinner.

INT. MRS FORBES’S BEDROOM. EVENING.

Wormold’s pencil passes over the back of her knee. He starts up the back of her thigh.

WORMOLD   I love you, Mrs Forbes.

MRS FORBES   I wondered if you did.

WORMOLD   Will you marry me?

MRS FORBES   Possibly. Only I’m still waiting to hear from Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, we can cross that ‘t’ when we come to it. (Pause.) Mr Wormold.

WORMOLD   What?

MRS FORBES   You’ll have to be less keen on your job.

WORMOLD   (lifting up her skirt slightly) Shall I draw in the stocking tops?

INT. HOTEL FUNCTION ROOM. NIGHT.

The Royal Wedding Dinner. Prominent on the top table is the pig’s head, with an apple in its mouth. Dr and Mrs Swaby, Mr and Mrs Lockwood, Mr and Mrs Allardyce and Inspector Noble are also at the top table. Nuttall has an empty place at his side. In a fairly lowly seating position we find Gilbert and Joyce, and even Mother. Sitting near them are the Sutcliffs. There is a good deal of coming and going behind them.

JOYCE   They would put us right next door to the toilet. What are you doing?

GILBERT   Nothing, nothing.
Joyce thinks she’s seen him take something she’d left on the side of her plate. Mother is still eating, though most people have finished.

JOYCE   Still, toilet or no toilet, we’re in now. In ten years’ time that’ll be us.
Gilbert looks towards the fairly dispiriting collection of notables on the top table. He notices Allardyce turn the pig’s head away. Allardyce looks briefly at Gilbert. Dr Swaby rises.