EDWIN ASHTON
We're all going to this garden party at the Mackenzies' tomorrow, trying to get a full family attendance...show the flag for Freda.

DAVID ASHTON
Freda doesn't need any flags, Dad.

EDWIN
She does, you know. It's that big house. I think she finds it intimidating. It makes her feel a bit of a poor relation.

DAVID
(annoyed)
Well, you better take Sefton with you, then. Let a bit of that guilt rub off.

EDWIN
That's what Helen said. She's asking him...I'm asking you. Sefton won't go, and we are her family, aren't we?

DAVID
Look, I can't go, Dad. I must go back tonight.

EDWIN
Oh? Change of plans?

DAVID
No. It's just that if I stay any longer, I might forget that there's a war on, that's all. Look, I was in London a couple of days ago, before I came up here. It's all started up again down there, you know. Well, I come back here, and it's all garden parties, divorce, stocks and shares, "What are we going to do when it's all over?"

EDWIN
Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?

DAVID
Ex...?
(angry)
Oh, yes. Well, I'm... I'm prone to it. Didn't you know? It seems I'm also prone to promiscuity, and I'm about to become a guilty party.

EDWIN
Oh, yes?

DAVID
Yes! I spent an instructive hour with a solicitor this afternoon, and in the course of a jolly conversation, he described me as all those things.

EDWIN
Well, you...

(Edwin thinks better of agreeing outright with the allegations.)

EDWIN
Anyway, you know what solicitors are like...and they're all retiring age these days, anyway.

DAVID
Yeah, well, this one wasn't.

EDWIN
What? George Askew?

DAVID
No. Somebody Askew suggested...a grade C-3 weed called Watts. This Mr. Watts sits there, patronising me. He actually disapproved of me. I said to him... I said, "Do you disapprove of me, Mr. Watts?" And he said, "Well, as a...as a matter of fact, I..."
(making a violent fist)
Oh, I... I just walked out of the bloody office!

EDWIN
Do you think that was wise?

DAVID
Wise, Dad?

EDWIN
Well, I suppose there are other solicitors, but, uh...

DAVID
But what?

EDWIN
But you'll probably find, you've got to expect pretty much the same sort of attitude, wherever you go.

DAVID
Oh, you think so! You think that's right, then, do you?

EDWIN
Well, right or wrong...it's true, isn't it?

 

(from "Spread a Little Happiness" by David Weir)