The Laundrette
This is my one and only attempt (to date, at least) to write a short play. It’s interesting to go back and read it now, but it feels a little bit like opening a time capsule. It was written in 1984, which was a very different time, with very different attitudes, particularly when it came to things like sexual orientation and gender identity. It was a very black and white world, back then. While there are many things that I’m nostalgic about, that isn’t one of them. I realize now that some of my friends would do exactly what Simon does here, in switching personal pronouns to hide the fact that they had a same-sex partner.
Just to give some context of what I was up to in 1984. I’d graduated the year before, and was living in Oldham. It was the year before my daughter Hannah was born, and so at the weekends, we’d usually head into Manchester, and hang out nightspots like the Hacienda and Berlin. I was trying to get a literary magazine called ‘Brittle Views’ off the ground. I’d placed a small ad in ‘City Life‘ magazine, looking for writers who needed somewhere to publish their poetry and stories, and was surprised when they just kept running the ad, every single week. I seem to remember putting two editions together, but only the first one was printed and distributed, and then only a handful of copies. I just remember being disheartened with how difficult the distribution part was, and so I put ‘Brittle Views’ on hold, and never picked it back up.
The Laundrette
(or The Laundromat to my American family & friends)
Characters
- ANNIE
An old lady who’s increasingly slipping in and out of dementia. She sits in the launderette every day, just to keep warm, and shares her thoughts and opinions with anyone that will listen. She constantly slips between the present and the past.
- SHELLEY
A housewife that married young and then had two kids in two years. Her husband is playing the field, and she increasingly feels trapped in a loveless relationship. Apart from her kids, talking to people in the launderette are the only conversations she has.
- SIMON
A student who uses the launderette for his studies and to get away from his possessive boyfriend Pete, who he has lived with for the last two years.
ANNIE
And anyway, I says to my Bert, “Bert”, I says. “Bert, we’re going to have to do something about the noise from next door”.
SIMON
Sorry?
SHELLEY
Ignore her, love. She’s off again. She’s always ramblin’, going on about her Bert this and her Bert that. I wouldn’t care, but I know he’s been dead for donkey’s years.
SIMON
Perhaps she’s lonely?
SHELLEY
Perhaps she’s loony, more like! Stupid old cow! She keeps asking me what time the bus is to Ankleys estate. I keep telling her I don’t know – I don’t have the heart to tell her that Ankleys was pulled down 5 years ago to, make way for that new shopping centre.
SIMON
It can’t be much of a life, can it? Her being on her own, I mean… after all those years. It’s bound to hit you hard, isn’t it?
SHELLEY
I wish I was back on my own, for all the good my bloody husband does! Bloody good-for-nothing!
ANNIE
I’m glad my Bert’s not here to hear you talk like that! If there’s one thing he hates is to hear a woman swear. He says it’s not dignified, and I reckon he’s right!
SHELLEY
See, she’s off again! One minute she’s OK, and the next she’s back in 1954 with bloody rationing and gas lights!
SIMON
There was no rationing in 1954
SHELLEY
What?
SIMON
There was no rationing in 1954, it had already finished. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend – it’s just that I studied post-war austerity in Britain for my thesis.
SHELLEY
Proper bloody Albert Einstein, aren’t you?
SIMON
Did you mean it?
SHELLEY
Did I mean what?
SIMON
About your husband? That you sometimes wish you were back on your own, a single woman?
SHELLEY
Sometimes I do. Sometimes, when he’s being a real bastard, I really dowish that I was single again.
SHELLEY
Yet other times, he’ll just do the simplest of things and I just know that I love him and that I’ll stick by him… whatever he does.
SIMON
I know what you mean…
SHELLEY
You married then?
SIMON
No, not exactly…
SHELLEY
I see, you’re just living together, are you? A trial marriage, just to see if you can get on? In my day, we called it “living over the brush”.
ANNIE
My Bert’s sister, Queenie… she lived over the brush. From the day she told him, to the day that he died, he never spoke to her again. I reckon she must have broke his heart. Then again, Bert was never one to show his feelings, not to me anyway.
SHELLEY
Look, I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean to pry. Being stuck in with the kids all day drives me to tears, and so when I get the chance, I just talk and talk.
SIMON
No, you didn’t upset me. I was just thinking… You didn’t upset me at all.
SHELLEY
A trouble shared is a trouble halved, they always say. I’ve always been known as a good listener.
SIMON
No, it’s OK, really. You wouldn’t understand.
SHELLEY
Try me! Very open-minded, I am. I voted Liberal last time, for all the good that did me… bunch of stupid buggers! Just you try me.
SIMON
Well…
SIMON
It’s just that I’m going through a rough patch at the moment. Things seem to be getting on top of me.
SHELLEY
Is it your girlfriend? Is she seeing someone else?
SIMON
No, no, nothing like that! If anything, it’s just the opposite. She just can’t get enough of me!
SHELLEY
So what’s the problem?
SIMON
ME!! She expects some commitment that I’m not prepared to make right now. I just feel that she wants something I can’t give! I feel hemmed in!
SHELLEY
You sound like my husband! He thinks he’s hemmed in. That’s why he’s out playing Jack the Lad every night! It’s a good job you’re not married or got kids. That’s when things really start to get difficult.
SIMON
There’s no chance of that!!
SHELLEY
What do your parents think?
SIMON
Sorry?
SHELLEY
I asked what your parents think of your girlfriend. Does she get their seal of approval?
SIMON
They’ve never met her (Simon is definitely getting uneasy with this line of questioning).
SHELLEY
My parents wish they’d never met Pete.
SHELLEY
My mum warned me off him right from the start. She said he was no good, but no, I knew better! I told her I’d make him change his ways, that was a laugh! Even on our wedding night, he left me all alone while he stood at the bar with his beer-swilling mates! I mean, on our wedding night of all nights!
SIMON
We all have to live with our mistakes, that’s the problem!
SHELLEY
Don’t I know it!
SHELLEY
Still, I reckon being with Pete is better than being on my own. And anyway, I’ve got the kids to consider. For all his faults, Pete’s a good dad to the pair of them, and they’d be heartbroken if anything happened to him.
SIMON
Two years now … seems like a lifetime sometimes.
SHELLEY
It gets like that with me and Pete. Ten years together is a long time. People change, slowly, day by day, till all of a sudden, you notice that you don’t even know each other any more.
ANNIE
Me and Bert had 33 wonderful years together and I don’t regret one single day of it. If only he was still here, ready for the next 33!
ANNIE
I must be off if I’m going to catch that Ankleys bus. I’ve got to get home and get Bert his tea ready. He likes his tea prompt, does my Bert.
SIMON
Well, that’s me finished. I’d better be off… Thanks for the chat. You were right.
SHELLEY
About what?
SIMON
You know, “a trouble shared is a trouble halved”. I won’t go as far as that, but I certainly do feel better.
SHELLEY
So you’re going to try again? Mind if I give you a bit of advice?
SIMON
No, not at all.
SHELLEY
Well, next time you have a row or whatever, just take a second and see if you can see it from their side. It helps, really!
SIMON
Thanks, I’ll do my best to remember that next time.
SIMON
It’s not easy, you know!
SHELLEY
I know, pet, I know! We all have our crosses to bear, and that’s yours.
SIMON
Same time next week?
SHELLEY
Sure. Look after yourself till then.
SIMON
Bye!
SHELLEY
Bye!
SHELLEY
Good luck!
© Robert Ford 1984