Doctors of Philosophy Read Free Page B

EONORA. You exaggerate. Charlie doesn’t treat you like a chattel. You’ve had a very pleasant life.
    CATHERINE. I shouldn’t have married Charlie. In some ways it was unfair to Charlie. I should have married a stockbroker. I should have married a bank manager, or a butcher or a baker. I had to have my sex, and my child, but I should have married someone who wouldn’t eat up my brain, my mind. I should have married an electrician, a plumber. I should have married a hulking great LORRY DRIVER .
Enter DAPHNE followed by CHARLIE BROWN, hulking great lorry driver.
    D APHNE. Hallo, Mother. I got a lift on a lorry. I’ve asked the driver in for a cup of tea.
    CATHERINE . Oh !
    D APHNE. Let me introduce … what’s your name?
    C HARLIE B. Just call me Charlie, we’re all called Charlie.
    D APHNE. Mother, Leonora, this is Charlie. Where’s Mrs. S.? We want a cup of tea, don’t we, Charlie?
    C HARLIE B. Lot a books you got.
    CATHERINE. Perhaps Charlie would be more comfortable in the kitchen with Mrs. S. She has tea brewing all day long.
    D APHNE. Certainly not. Sit down, Charlie. I’m very grateful to Charlie, he’s saved me a train journey, not to mention the fare, and given me a most amusing morning. Charlie, do tell that story about the professor’s wife you gave a lift to who made a pass at you. I’ll go and get you some of Mrs. S.’s tea. Does anyone else want some?
Exit.
    LEONORA. Not on top of that foul coffee.
    CATHERINE. We shall try to improve our standards in future.
    C HARLIE B. You got a guest house here?
    CATHERINE. More or less.
    C HARLIE B. Lot of books you got. I got a book at home, might interest you. L EONORA. Goodness, the time! I have to be off.
    CATHERINE. Leonora, you’re not leaving?
    LEONORA. I’m only going to the British Museum.
    CATHERINE. What are you doing at the British Museum?
    L EONORA. Research.
DAPHNE comes in with CHARLIE BROWN’s tea.
    D APHNE. Charlie, it’s my mother’s birthday today. Actually it was last week but we decided to hold it today. She doesn’t look her age, does she?
    C HARLIE B. No. ( To CATHERINE) You must a been a nice-looking woman.
    D APHNE. I’ve got a present for you in my case, Mother.
    CATHERINE. What sort of research are you doing, Leonora?
    L EONORA. Assyrian palaeography. I have to be off—
    CATHERINE. But that was my subject. It was my subject.
    LEONORA. You didn’t exhaust it. I’ve been doing this for two years, I’m writing a short book — only a monograph.
    CATHERINE. I don’t see why you can’t stick to Greek. I don’t see why you want to dabble in my subject.
Exit LEONORA.
    I’ll leave you to look after Charlie. I’ve got nothing done this morning. Perhaps Charlie needs to be off, if he’s had his tea.
    C HARLIE B. No, I’m not in any hurry. Plenty time.
MRS. S . comes in.
    MRS. S . You go and unpack your things, Daphne.
    DAPHNE. Thanks for the lift, Charlie, anyhow.
Exit.
    MRS. S . You finished your tea?
    CHARLIE B. Yes thanks.
    MRS. S . Well I better clear away, then. It’s gone twelve — I suppose you want to be off.
    CHARLIE B. No, I’m in no hurry. If it isn’t your own time you might as well relax. Lot a books. Have they read them all?
    MRS. S. They don’t use them for reading, they are educated people, they refer to them. You better get off. The old father might come in and find you.
    CHARLIE B. Oh, I’m used to that. Funny sort of guest house, this.
    MRS. S . ‘This is the home, situated near Regent’s Park, of the celebrated economist, Charles Delfont and his charming wife and daughter who is at present doing a postgraduate course in sociology at Oxford. Mrs. Delfont, before her marriage a scholar in her own right, told Life and Looks that she has found it perfectly easy to reconcile her capacity for intellectualism with the duties of wife and mother. “After all,” she said with a serene smile, “higher education broadens the horizons, and is especially helpful to married relations when one’s husband is also a