ROY: He’s broken into the pharmacy again.

DOUG: He’s doped to the eyeballs, he’ll be fine.

CHERRY: [looking at Ruth’s watch] Time for lunch.

ROY: The director has to say it.

CHERRY: I’m hungry.

Pause. They look to LEWIS.

LEWIS: Time for lunch.

CHERRY: Outside, it’s beautiful.

ROY: Coming out for a spot of lunch, Jerry?

LEWIS: Might have a look at the translation of the libretto. I’ll see how good the English is.

ROY: You’re like the best directors, a glutton for work.

ROY leaves singing an aria from Così. Except for the catatonic ZAC, who is still face down on the piano keys and forgotten, LEWIS is alone. He sighs, feeling that the whole project is hopeless.

LEWIS: [to himself] Why can’t I ever say no? Just leave. They’re mad. It’s madness…

But he knows he won’t leave.

He remembers something. He takes a transistor out of his bag and turns it on. It is his friend, NICK, talking about the coming moratorium. LEWIS shakes his head as he listens to NICK and the interviewer.

INTERVIEWER: How many people do you think there will be at the moratorium, Nick?

NICK: Well, Tom, at a rough guess, I’d say twenty thousand.

INTERVIEWER: And for a left-wing person like you, what does it mean?

NICK: It means that these people, even the middle class will be radicalised by seeing how many of us are against them. They’ll know that to be against the Vietnam war is also to be against the old fossilised government we now have. They’ll want the war to end, they’ll want changes in our society, they’ll want to overthrow the establishment.

DOUG enters, overhearing the interview.

INTERVIEWER: By overthrow, you don’t mean like what happened in Paris, in 1968?

NICK: Barricades and bombs? Why not? Australians, especially young Australians of my age, are getting fed up with our society. We want changes and we want them now!

LEWIS: [exasperated] Christ, Nick—!

He turns down the volume.

DOUG: You think it’ll be like that?

LEWIS is surprised to see DOUG, but recovers quickly.

LEWIS: May ’68 in Australia? No.

DOUG: Why not?

LEWIS: The French always believe their own rhetoric, Australians are suspicious of rhetoric.

DOUG: That’s deep. But it would be good, wouldn’t it? Throwing rocks at cops, overturning cars, smashing barricades, burning houses—

LEWIS: [surprised] You followed the events of ’68?

DOUG: A little. Mum always liked things French. Perfume. Cheese. Frogs’ legs. She went up the Eiffel Tower on a Women’s Weekly tour. She thought De Gaulle was as great a President as Churchill. So she was a bit upset when he was nearly overthrown.

LEWIS turns off the radio.

I’m bothering you.

LEWIS: No, I’ve heard it all before. Nick’s a friend. He has only one problem, he likes the sound of his own voice.

DOUG: Close friend?

LEWIS: Lives with me and my girlfriend.

DOUG: You share her?

LEWIS: [offended] No.

DOUG: But you’re not married?

LEWIS: No.

DOUG: You believe in free love and that sort of thing?