Looking for Mrs. Peel 5: Truly Graceless Moment

Me and My Aunt Denise

Scene Twelve: Nixon apartment, another day.

SOUND: cooking sound CBS News on the TV

Walter Cronkite: Tens of thousands are expected to March on Washington tomorrow to protest the Vietnam War in what is promised to the the first of many such demonstrations. In a related event, today, a throng of young men descended on the Justice Department to hand in over 1000 draft cards.

Dorothy: Daddy! You’re home! Give me a horse back ride. One two three…(sx slap) Giddyup. I’m Billy Hartak and you’re Northern Dancer.

Granny: Peter, is Place des Arts posh? Are slacks appropriate for the play? I only have… Peter! You’ll hurt your back. She’s much too big to be carried around like that!

Dorothy: Ahhh. (sx plunk of feet on floor) What play?

Peter: grump
Dorothy: I wanna go see Othello

Peter: grump

Dorothy: I do too know lots about Shakespeare

Peter: grump

Dorothy: I don’t care about going to see Jungle Book. That’s for kids. I wanna see Laurence Olivier.

Dorothy vo: A few minutes later I signal my displeasure louder and clearer.
Martha: (distant) Supper in five minutes.

Dorothy: You can’t pass
Granny: What?

Dorothy: This is my bedroom and you can’t come in. Eat in the breakfast nook.

Granny: Why, you mischievous monkey child. Get out of the way

Dorothy: No!

Granny: You spotty faced devil. No one tells me where I can and cannot go.

Dorothy: I do.

Dorothy vo: And there we dance ridiculous in the doorway, the shriveled 72 year old sparrow woman and the stringy 12 year old monkey child, palm against palm, elbows akimbo, faces ablaze with indignation, in an inter-generational showdown, of sorts, a humiliating fandango for me, a truly graceless moment suspended in time and space,for although we’re ludicrously mismatched in height we’re remarkably even in strength. Eventually,my father emerges from the bathroom with a copy of Sports Illustrated conveniently rolled in his fist.(sx toilet flushing)

Peter: HUH??
Dorothy: I need the table. I have to do homework.
Peter: Haa

Granny: Your daughter won’t let me pass.

Peter: HAAA! (sx. Slap of magazine against ass)

Dorothy: Owwww. I AM in my room.
Granny: That girl. That spoiled spidery greasy haired thing. She can never visit me in Malaya. I would lose face in front of my Chinese friends.

Dorothy: I’d lose that face if I were you. You sun-baked bag of wrinkles. (sx thwack)

Marthe: The tomales are ready. Piping hot so take care.
Granny: Insupportable. That ghastly Eurasian girl put her up to it, I wager.

Dorothy vo: Much later that night my father comes to tuck me into my cot.

Dorothy: What’s wrong Daddy? Was the play sad?

Peter: Sniffle

Dorothy: You’re raining on me, Daddy.Don’t cry.

Dorothy vo: Expo ends. The leaves on the Maple trees turn red, yellow and orange and fall in great mouldy heaps in the gutter. Soon, the inevitable first blast of wintry weather.

Scene Thirteen: Nixon Living Room November 1967
SOUND: radio talk show

Announcer: (sx jingle. “Give the family its joys and they’ll all agree. Give them RCA TV.” Donut VO It’s Colour Preview Days at RCA. No money down on new models starting at 329.00 Offer lasts until Dec 15th.)A blizzardy November 19 in Montreal. How will the pound sterling’s dramatic drop affect the Canadian economy.We’ll be talking to two experts..

Dorothy vo: My last real memory of my grandmother mirrors my first.

Dorothy: Mummy, look out the window. Granny is out in the snowstorm in her shoes and socks.

Martha: Yes, she’s taking a taxi to the Liquor Commission. I told her to wait for Daddy. Old people can be so comical, sometimes.

Dorothy: Yes, so comical. She’s ugly and old and says mean things. And she drinks like a fish.

Martha: What did you say? Ma petite bonjour. Don’t ever let me catch you talking like that again, especially about family. Your grandmother is a lady, all my friends say so.

Dorothy: But she sent Daddy away to England at 5 years old to live with strangers who didn’t want him, and he had holes in his trousers and he had to beg “Please more porridge”at school, just like Oliver Twist.And he got locked in a dark cupboard when he was bad.

Martha: I think your father exaggerates sometimes. Memories can be like that. We can’t judge your grandmother’s life. She’s had some very hard times too.

Dorothy: Like what?

Martha: Oh, she had to sit for a long time cross-legged in a small room with lots of men and she wasn’t allowed to talk. During the war.

Dorothy: That happens to Ingrid all the time! At detention after school.

Radio guest: Certainly the American Administration must be concerned. The White House doesn’t want the British to pull out of East of Suez entirely.(fade) I wouldn’t be surprised if some feverish back room negotiations are going on right now.

SOUND: radio being tuned
Announcer 1: 1965: Singapore has been expelled from Malaysia just two years…

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 2: 1963: A new country was born today. Malaysia comprised of The Federation of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. SOUND: radio being tuned

Announcer 3: 1960 The twelve year old Communist Emergency in Malaya has been ended

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 4: 1957. Malayan Independence has been declared.

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 5: 1955: The UK is giving 6,000,000 pounds to The Federation of Malaya to offset the fall in the price of tin and rubber and to underwrite the cost of erecting villages for Chinese squatters

SOUND: radio being tuned
Announcer 6: 1948. A State of Emergency has been declared in The Federation of Malaya as 3 European Planters were murdered by Communist Chinese insurgents yesterday.

SOUND: Radio being tuned
Announcer 7: 1946. A war crimes trial gets underway in Singapore in March, related to atrocities committed by the Japanese Secret Police at a civilian prisoner of war camp located at Changi Beach. Former expatriots are supplying testimony for the prosecution under oath in London this month.

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