WHAT SHALL WE TELL CAROLINE?

JOHN MORTIMER

The play has four characters :an old couple ,Lily and Arthur,their daughter Caroline that is just turning eighteen and Peters.Lily doubts that her husband loves her and appreciates the flattering of Peters,who only flirts with her.

LILY:"I'm a woman,Caroline.And you're going to be one as well.Nothing can stop you. I'm a woman and what does Arthur call me?He calls me Bin.Bin,when my name is Lily.Now does Bin sound like a woman's name to you?You know why he calls me Bin?Because he wants me to be his friend,his assistant, his colleague,his thoroughly good chap.To rough it with him on a walking tour through life.He's said that to me,Caroline.How can I be a good chap.I wasn't born a chap.My sex gets in the way.That's why he gets so angry. Look,Caroline,do you know why he calls me Bin?Because my father did and my uncle did andso did my five brothers who all married soft-hearted tittering girls in fluffy pullovers which came off on them like falling hair and white toe shoes and had pet names for their hot water bottles.These brothers called me Bin .Good old Bin,you can put her on the back  of the motorbike.Bin's narvellous,she can go in the dicky because her hair's always in a tangle and her cheeks are like bricks and the wind can't do her any harm,but Babs or Topsy or Melanie has to sit in front because she's such a fuss pot and so I can change gear to her baby pink and artificial silk and get her angora all tied up in my Harris tweed.If you take Bin out it's for great slopping pints and the other one about the honeymoon couple in the French hotel,and then you can be sick in the hedge on the way because Bin's a good chap.We're women,Caroline.They buy us beer when we long to order protection and flattery and excitement and creme de menthe and little bottles of sparkling wine with silver paper tops and oh,God we long to be kept warm."

"We're women,Caroline.There's supposed to be a mistery about us. We should be sprung on men like a small surprise in the warmth and darkness of the night..."

ARTHUR: "Marriage is different,Peters.It takes place with a woman." "And with a woman as attractive,soft,yielding,feminine as my Bin." "They mustn't ever be hurt." "Women are sensitive creatures,Peters.Lily mustn't be allowed to guess what you've just told me." "She mustn't be hurt.Lily must never be hurt."

"But when I see all that I love about my wife.The way she twists the hair over her ears when the time comes to make out a list.The soft smile she gives when no one's looking.How she shuts in laughter  with the palm of her hand...Then I feel so small and angry.I see myself so powerless,so drawn into her that once I let myself go,all I believe in,all I'm dedicated to would be spent on afternoons of bread and butter and marmalade.Then I shout.I don't know what it is.The terms of endearment I'm meaning to say just come out screaming." "And the agony of being in a room without her.The doubt and the anxiety that she'll be taken from me by the time I get back."