LOUISE: I’m sorry, Arthur, but I’ve let you down. In there with your mother I… lacked composure. Somewhat. A bit.

ARTY: Yeah, I heard.

LOUISE: All of it?

ARTY: You can hear everything in this house. She can hear us from in there, can’t you, Mum?

JOJO flinches and pretends not to be listening.

LOUISE: I never, I mean ordinarily I’ve never, I don’t… do that.

ARTY: Everyone loses control once in a bit, don’t they?

LOUISE: I don’t lose control, Arthur. I never lose it.

ARTY: You’re only human.

LOUISE: That’s not what they say at the office.

ARTY: And beautiful.

LOUISE: Arthur, I’m the first woman you’ve seen—apart from your mother—in almost three years. Your standards may have dropped a little and what seems like beautiful… well, is really only average at best after a couple of pints and a detached cornea.

ARTY: I know beautiful when I see it and I see it in you.

LOUISE: Really?

ARTY: Don’t you know that?

LOUISE shakes her head.

If I was different I’d do my best so you’d never feel lonely—not that you are, but in case you were… or anything.

LOUISE: I like being on my own. I’m perfectly content on my own.

ARTY: I know. I just said if you were lonely—

LOUISE: But I’m not.

ARTY: I know.

Beat.

But if you were…

In the life Arty’s living in his head

The world’s a Gershwin musical number

Music plays.

LOUISE: Where is that music coming from?

ARTY: Backlit lithe silhouettes

Cardboard cutouts for a twinkling cityscape

The twinkling lights of the city appear.

LOUISE: What is this?

ARTY: Just a dream.

ARTY takes LOUISE’s hand and leads her into dance.

LOUISE: Arthur, you have the wrong, I mean, I am not this woman I—

ARTY: Crescendo of strings

A trumpet so primal, so dripping with lust and longing the air seems wet with it

And him, Arty

Clicking his fingers

Tapping his tappa-tap shoes

He rips off his clothes to reveal a tuxedo beneath.

In a tight-fitting tux

The kinda fella whose picture all the girls sing to in their bedrooms

The kinda fella who makes a dame like Lulu Jelenic—

LOUISE: Me?

ARTY rips off LOUISE’s clothes to reveal an evening gown beneath.

ARTY: The hottest piece of tail to be found in this city or any other gasp

ARTY nods at LOUISE encouragingly.

LOUISE: Um… how did a gal like me land a fella like you?

ARTY: And he’d be the kinda fella to suck back on a cigarette, cool, exhale sexy, smile and say

Just being you, sugar plum. Just being you.

And then he’d seize her teeny-tiny waist with his big strong man hands and dip her so far back the censors would scream

SIN!

Then he’d lean in