(In the pub, Philip brings to the table glasses of beer for his father and himself.)

PHILIP ASHTON
Here you are, Dad.

EDWIN ASHTON
Ah, thank you, Son.

PHILIP
Hey, do you know something? This is the first time I've bought you a drink with money I've actually earned myself.

EDWIN
You've found your freedom at last, hey?

PHILIP
(surprised)
Freedom?

EDWIN
Financial independence, then, if you like. It amounts to the same thing.

PHILIP
Well, in a way, I suppose.

EDWIN
(glumly)
In a lot of ways, Son...in a lot of ways.

PHILIP
(staring at his father with concern)
Yeah. I think we better be getting home after this, don’t you?

EDWIN
Home?

PHILIP
Well, we get shot if we don't.

EDWIN
I'm not sure if I haven't got enough of home. I'm not sure if I can face much more of home, Philip.

PHILIP
What's wrong, Dad?

EDWIN
You know what's wrong.

PHILIP
Partly, I suppose, but it's not as bad as all that.

EDWIN
You've been away. You missed a few installments. Do you know what your mother said to me at Christmas? "Don't touch me," she said. "Don't ever touch me again." I've given thirty-odd years of my life to what you call home. What am I supposed to do now, start again? And other things she'd said to me. When I told her she made me feel a failure, "No, no," she said. "You're a good man...a good man." And the way she said it, do you know what it was? Patronage, Philip! It was said with less affection than you'd give to a dog.

PHILIP
Dad, don't ask me to take sides.

EDWIN
I'm not asking you to take sides. I'm just telling you how it's been.

PHILIP
But I've got to take sides when you talk like this.

EDWIN
And you'd rather I'd stayed silent?

PHILIP
No.
(sighing)
I've always looked upon home as a place I'd be happy to be.

EDWIN
And I'm destroying that for you?

PHILIP
Yes, Dad.

EDWIN
Well, I'm sorry.

PHILIP
No. No, if the truth's something else, well, I... I'd rather face up to the facts.

EDWIN
(chuckling with pride)
You've grown up quite a lot, haven't you?

PHILIP
(smiling)
A bit, I suppose. I owe the army that much.

EDWIN
Home isn't just your mother, you know. It's me, too.

PHILIP
Yes, I know.

EDWIN
But that's not quite the same thing, is it?

PHILIP
Not altogether, no.

EDWIN
Well, I understand that.

PHILIP
Yes, I know you do.
(sighing)
Well, nothing's going to be quite the same after this lot anyway, is it?

EDWIN
No. It isn't. I was going to say something else just now. I was going to say, "Never marry out of your class." But perhaps even that won't matter by the time you get there.

(They both laugh.)

 

(from "A Separate Peace" by John Finch)