Being Your Slave Doctors

Hurry.

What?

You're staring!

I like it, staring at you.

It's my new hobby.

THEY LAUGH

KNOCK AT DOOR

Just a minute.

-Mm. Mm, mm, mm!

-What?

I need to answer the door!

I'll get it.

Mellie?

Is that you?

You call this a day off?

What's the point of having a cleaner?

The point is you said you'd play.

HE GRUMBLES I want you to do a spot of cleaning.

I shall be your slave from midday until teatime but until then...

Yes, mistress?

Shakespeare!

-Oh, why?

-Read it, slave boy!

Oh.

"Being your slave, what should I do but tend

"Upon the hours and times of your desire?

"I have no precious time at all to spend,

"Nor services to do, till you require

"Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

"Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you

"Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

"When you have bid your servant once adieu

"Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

"Where you may be, or your affairs suppose

"But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

"Save, where you are how happy you make those

"So true a fool is love that in your will

"Though you do anything, he thinks no ill."

I'm in no mood for your mithering this morning.

I know it's parked badly, I'm only going to be here for a few minutes.

Morning, Dr Carter.

And don't even think of putting one of your "polite notices" on the windscreen.

-I wasn't going to.

-What does it mean, anyway?

They're an attempt at non-confrontational resolution.

Ludicrous. You know everyone is laughing at you?

How d'you know about it?

What? You do realise how ridiculous you look?

I never wanted to wear yellow trousers!

HE SIGHS

"Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there

"Weep our sad bosoms empty."

CAN RATTLES

# Juliet

# The dice was loaded From the start

# And I bet

# That you exploded in my heart. #

Hey, handsome, you need a backing singer?

-You and me babe, how about it?

-Oh!

HE LAUGHS

Slave! Where's my coffee!

Good boy. Is it filter?

No, no, it's from the tap.

-What?

-The cold tap.

You wouldn't dare! You're my slave!

Oh, I dare.

But you're my slave! You're my slave!

Say it, "You're my slave."

I'm your slave.

-But this slave is revolting.

-Aah!

Shhh! You'll wake the baby!

Shhh!

I'll call you later.

Oh, look, there's Rory. Give him a wave.

The floor's only just dry. Can you take your shoes off?

Please?

I'm too tired. I've been up all night.

Take them off for me.

Look at you.

I'm just trying to be a good husband.

Really? How's that working out for you?

Cos to tell you the truth, it's making me feel a bit sick!

Yeah, it is lovely... Now what about the butterfly farm?

-I love the butterfly farm.

-Oh.

What? It's fantastic!

I've taken Chloe loads of times.

We could pop out to Honeybourne, there's a church conversion.

Everybody likes butterflies.

-I don't, I hate them.

-Nobody hates them.

I did the theatre, I liked that. Please don't make me do butterflies.

OK, baby steps.

Look, Harvard House is 14th-century glass

or we could do Holy Trinity Church?

They might be ringing the bells later - church bells -

now you're talking.

Oh, and you say you hate butterflies?

One of my wives collected them, great big ceramic things.

She made me bolt them to the front of the house.

-Can you imagine how embarrassing that was?

-One of them?!

Really embarrassing.

One of them?!

I read about Holy Trinity's bells on the internet.

"The tenor goes beautifully and should not be feared".

Bit like your friend in the shower this morning, hm? Come on.

See, the thing...

..that's evaporated in this house is the testosterone.

Well, that's what I reckon. What d'you think?

OK.

If you don't think anything,

-you won't mind if Mick moves in for a bit.

-Mick?

With the 4x4?

I stayed with him last night but you know all this agriculture stuff doesn't suit me.

Just look at the muck in the hall.

Obviously, me and Mick would be sleeping in our room.

You don't mind, do you?

ME, sleeping with MICK in OUR bed?

Whatever you want.

What I want?

SHOUTS: What I want?!

Don't you make me laugh!

Yeah? What?

Come on. You want to slap me?

Oh, go right ahead, at least that'd be kind of honest.

Oh, no, wait.

You don't do honesty, do you?

Hmm?

Nah. Thought not.

Imelda.

Look at you.

A pox-ridden toad,

no scrap of self-respect,

scraping and cleaning and making me feel sick!

I don't know what to do any more.

You must have a colour-coded microfibre cloth for this one, eh?

Hmm? Red?

For the mess your wife makes?

Tell me what you want me to do.

Not this.

Not this.

BABY GURGLES

You want to know what I want for lunch?

Excuse me?

Do YOU want to know what I want for lunch?

-Oh.

-Ah!

HE LAUGHS

-Spaghetti puttanesca.

-Ah-hah!

-Whore's spaghetti?

-Yes, the one my mother showed you to make, just how I like it.

-Isn't that the one with anchovies?

-Uh-huh.

I don't think we've got any anchovies.

Oh, look, and we haven't got any capers either.

You'll have to think of something else, cos I am not going shopping.

OK, even if you weren't my slave - which you are -

if you loved me, you'd pop to Waitrose.

Of course I love...

If you think I am knocking up your mother's...spaghetti...

then all I can say is...

..lunch will be at half past one.

Ah!

You want to try nibbling the sponge off round the orangey bit.

It's quite nice.

I always knew I wasn't a people person, Mrs Tembe.

But I thought I might have been a Parsons person.

That was the most horrible day of my life.

One of them anyway.

And then Dr Carter tells me they're all laughing at me.

I know they're laughing at me.

Dr Carter has his own troubles at the moment.

You should forgive his ill temper.

Have another Jaffa Cake, put it all behind you.

It ain't going to be any good, Mrs Tembe.

I'd like to turn the other cheek, I really would,

but if I you'd seen the way he looked at me.

We both know that Dr Carter is not normally an aggressive man.

Do we, Mrs Tembe? Do we?

If I turn the other cheek, I reckon he's just going to slap that side of me face.

He deserves another chance.

He enjoyed telling me people laugh at me.

How spiteful's that?

That is hard to defend, but please...

..for me...

..can you make allowances?

I'll try, Mrs Tembe.

-You know what? Make it a triple.

-OK.

Hm, isn't that a nice word?

Tri...ple.

When you're ready.

He's doing me a triple.

Hello, I'm Imelda.

Have we met?

A treble? Allow me.

Same again.

I don't think we've met.

I've been tempted by a couple of church conversions.

Really?

I went after a massive one, a few years back,

just outside of Birmingham.

A fancied it for a garage but there were change of use issues.

It's a bingo hall now.

Oh, I don't think I could cope

with dead bodies being buried in my back garden.

Oh, I could live with that.

They'd go with the skeletons in your cupboard!

One of your ex-wives?

I haven't kept any secrets.

We haven't really had time to get to know each other properly yet.

No, that's true. So tell me.

Well, it's nothing terrible, it's just, I have lived a life, Julia.

Well, yes, of course you have. So tell me about it.

-Only if you promise not to overreact.

-Who, me?

If you promise me that, I'll promise to be completely and utterly candid.

No half-truths, no secrets.

I'll tell you anything and everything you want to know.

OK.

So...how many wives have you had?

I'm not usually the cup of sugar sort of neighbour

-but it is both of our days off.

-It's fine.

I'm pathologically disinclined to go to a supermarket on my day off.

Do you cook much?

No!

You should smartphone it. Imelda likes Nigella's.

Slut or whore?

-What?

-What does the fragrant Nigella call her puttanesca?

Slut's Spaghetti.

Have you got tinned tomatoes?

I am hopeless but I think we've got tinned tomatoes.

Well, you've been a life-saver, thanks so much but Daniel's waiting.

Can I get you anything else?

The number of your cleaner!

I wish our place sparkled like yours!

You're looking at our cleaner.

Ooh, have you got chilli flakes?

He cooks, he cleans, what kind of superman are you?

I hope your wife realises how lucky she is?

I'm no prize.

But...neither's Daniel.

Chilli flakes!

Here.

And who said the new man had packed up his kit

and gone back down the pit?

You should give Daniel some tips.

Rolling boil, right?

Daniel's not a joke.

Well, you should see him in his special rubber gloves.

Plenty of salt in the water?

-It's been lovely to chat, thanks so much.

-I'm a joke.

I've got no cleaner,

no respect, no testosterone.

I'm a pox-ridden toad in a sparkly house and I make my wife feel sick.

OK, what's going on?

Imelda wants to move her boyfriend in.

Yeah, right(!)

What? Whoa - your wife has a boyfriend?

She will do it.

What?

Move him in.

I let her do whatever she wants.

Why?

Because I owe her and I'm trying to save our marriage.

What the hell did you do?

Dr Carter?

Mrs Tembe said I ought to have a...

I was 17, she was 19.

I was a virgin.

She told me I'd got her pregnant.

"Knocked her up" was how she put it.

Very nice(!)

Her name was Lesley, her family were debt collectors in Aston.

You didn't mess with the Cribbinses.

So you had to get married?

It was 1964.

But as it goes, I needn't have married Lesley Cribbins after all

because she wasn't pregnant.

She just always got what she wanted and she wanted me.

I was a good-looking chap.

Ooh, if you do say so yourself.

Oh, she soon lost interest, started playing away.

Girlie nights in Northfield turned out to be

chips, half a dozen port 'n' lemons and a jump with a fitter from British Leyland.

So what happened?

She hooked up with a paint shop manager called Malcolm.

They opened a bar in Torremolinos. Probably called it Big Lessie's.

It killed me to think that my wife was...

Well, the way she was.

That I'd married a woman like that.

'A woman does that and she's called a whore.'

Imelda was in love and trusted me and I...

I was a whore.

Why?

Because I could.

I was young and selfish and...

..not bad looking.

Even if you do say so yourself.

And I had a few quid. Liked to splash the cash.

Sounds nice.

Knickers dropped like share prices and I...

I couldn't stop investing.

And you really want me to tell you what I think?

Wait...it gets worse.

So you've had five wives?

And um...

Did you have a dozen kids with all these wifelets?

No, only one.

I thought I was firing blanks until I was 27.

No, 28.

Sarah's 28.

Ah, where does time go?

Yeah.

Just one, my daughter.

Which wife was that?

The third.

What happened to the second?

She was kind of an action replay of the first,

only with a penchant for taxi drivers.

You want me to go on?

I'm a bitch.

Are you, now?

I don't do intellectual.

I just do physical.

No romance.

Interlocking with no introspection.

I think I love it.

< Get a room!

Yes.

Let's.

We can't have children and it's all my fault.

Infertility isn't a matter of blame.

No? What about when you've given your faithful wife chlamydia?

And she has no idea she has it...

for years?

What about when you finally get yourself together

and stop putting her at risk but the damage is already done?

And you're so arrogant that you never say anything?

She's been diagnosed? She's completely infertile?

Barren, will never have kids.

Never be a mother.

Tell me that's not all my fault.

No. It really is.

Don't go!

Tell me what I should do?

You said you'd tell me what you think.

I think you're an unspeakable pig.

Want to park up somewhere a bit more private?

We could go back to my house?

You've got a place? Great.

I need some condoms.

No need. I cannot be pregnant.

I do not need birth control.

We'll pop to a chemist. No offence.

Better safe than sorry.

Or...

..we could see if my husband's got any!

Divorced and horny, eh? Like it.

(I'm not divorced.)

Work away, does he?

Nah, he'll be at home.

Not much of a one for condoms, though.

He's at home and you want us to go back there and...?

OK, OK. We'll use the car.

I don't think so.

People do do it without condoms!

-So Lorna was your third wife and Sarah's mother?

-Yeah.

After her, I didn't have a wife for a while.

Mm, ironing must have mounted up.

She drowned.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

She's the only person I ever really missed in my whole life.

I had Sarah, but...

I don't know, I didn't enjoy being on my own,

so I married Stacey.

She was a friend.

It was a mistake. We're still good mates.

And what about wife number five?

Moira wanted me to go and live in France and build her dream home.

My dream home was Wales.

Clash of dreams.

So what happens, then?

You, uh...

You take out a woman, there's a lull in the conversation and you ask her to marry you?

HE LAUGHS

Something like that. I don't know, I'm getting better.

Look, I've laid my stall out, Julia.

I've told you all about my mistakes and my heartache.

I haven't asked you to marry me yet, have I?

Ooh, wow!

To be flattered or insulted, that is the question.

Look, I want to take time with us, so it lasts.

I've learned how to build things properly.

# Sigh no more No more

-SHE SINGS ALONG:

-# One foot in sea One on shore

# My heart was never pure

# You know me

# You know me... #

OK, this is where we are.

You did a heinous thing,

which no amount of toadying and spring cleaning

is going to put right.

I know, but I don't know what else to do!

I love her.

Then whatever you do, you have to do what's best for Imelda.

That's what I'm trying...

What?! By behaving like some kind of Elizabethan cuckold?

Enslaved to your wife whom you condone

running around like some kind of cheap hooker?

Look at yourself.

Who in their right mind would want to be with you?

When was the last time you looked like the man

Imelda fell in love with?

When was the last time you acted like a man

and not some snivelling dullard?

A long time ago.

So.

You need to be the best that you can be

and see if she still wants you.

And if she doesn't, you need to be man enough to let her go.

Let her start over.

-It might be painful.

-I deserve that.

Yeah, you do!

She's the one who's suffered enough.

She might not want you as you are

but maybe she would like a version of you as you used to be.

Without all the sleeping around.

PHONE BLEEPS

'You have one message in mailbox.'

'Mellie, I want you to come home.

'I want us to sort this out.

'I stuffed up, but I love you and I can't stand this any more.

'I can't bear it if anybody else touches you.

'If you can't love me, I'll go.

'But come home now.

'Please, let me fix this.'

ANSWER MACHINE BLEEPS

RORY SINGS IN SHOWER

'Yes.

'Yes, you fix it.

'You fix it.

'I only ever wanted you.'

I'm coming home, Rory. I've missed you.

Ah, shouldn't you be peeling garlic?

I don't want to play slaves any more.

Why, cos it's your turn to be the slave and you're rubbish?

I just... I don't like it.

-OK, fair enough.

-You are such a pushover!

-Oh!

-Not when it matters, I'm not!

OK, so - park, feed the ducks, bistro, think about getting a dog.

More fun than puttanesca.

I'll be your puttanesca, later.

Ah.

# This is not the end... #

IGNITION CUTS IN AND OUT

# Lived unbruised We are friends... #

VAN BLASTS HORN

# And I'm sorry... #

TRUCK BLASTS HORN

# I'm sorry

# Sigh no more No more... #

ANSWER MACHINE BLEEPS

'Yes.

'Yes, you fix it.

'You fix it.

'I only ever wanted you.

'I'm coming home, Rory. I've missed you.'

ANSWER MACHINE BLEEPS

DOOR BELL RINGS

I am SO going to fix this!

I love you so...

Sorry, I thought you were my wife!

Mr Levin?

Rory Levin?

I'm afraid I've got some very bad news.

Do I get invited in for coffee?

Well, um, I've got Heston staying with me at the moment, so...

Look, Martin, I'm really sorry about how badly I behaved

over that whole honey trap fiasco.

-It doesn't matter about that.

-It does.

It's just that I really needed to be sure.

You can be.

Well, right now I'm not sure about anything.

Look, I'm a prat, not a monster!

-I'm sure we can work this out.

-You have been sure five times.

Let me show you.

Look, we can take this as slowly as we want.

We can talk, we have to keep talking and I promise,

even in the event you don't speak to me for an hour,

I will not go down on a bended knee.

-I'll call you.

-OK, how about no knees?

Never? Look, let's have dinner tonight.

I'll do anything.

Anything you want.

Just tell me what you want me to do.

I'll call you. Thank you.

-What play is it?

-One of Shakespeare's finest - King Lear.

Lucky you, who you taking?

-Well, I was hoping one of you ladies would do me the honour.

-ALL:

-I will!

I thought self-harming was something you did as a kid?

I thought I'd lost you.

She is trying to bribe you with her French Fancies!

What about you and your malted milks?!

Matt! Matt! Call an ambulance!

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