Non fiction

Hello Doctor

Scene: A therapist’s office with a couch facing towards the audience 

[Client comes into room, takes of jacket etc – goes to sit on couch while speaking]

Hello Doctor, how are you? [said brightly]

Still struggling with your muteness, I see…or is it a trappist vow of silence this month?
Shall I take that as a no? Or a yes? Or an indication of deep sexual longing, perhaps?

Sorry, where are my manners? Can I tempt you to an exchange of polite competitive banter? No?
Trying to give it up I suppose, very wise, I probably should myself. But then you’re Mr Abstemious, aren’t you? So what are you now, a vegan?
You know, cheese, tea, chocolate, steak, I could give them all up tomorrow but I couldn’t do without leather.
What would happen to my sex life?

[silence]             

Whew, tough room.

[Eases back and gets comfortable on the couch] 

So what do you want to hear? Should I just tell you what you want to hear? No? How about if I tell you what you don’t want to hear? No nobody wants to hear that, do they? What about what sounds like exactly what I can’t bear to say but just happens to be what I know is exactly what you want to hear?

[pauses – comedic expression of thoughtfully parsing that last sentence] 

There probably should have been some whiches in that sentence.

[pause]

‘I’ve come to see you about my problem,’
‘which is?’
‘witches’
‘that’s what I asked you.’

[client coughs]

Perhaps if I just sit in silence and look on disapprovingly with my fingers pressed together?
Oh, no, you seemed to have that covered.
Is there a terribly long training process for your job? No offence.

[pause]

Gosh, it really is rather difficult to know what you want me to do to fill in these agonising silences. Well, I’m assuming you want me to fill them in, perhaps you just want me to shut up.

God knows, I do.

[awkward silence]

But no, you’ll be wanting nothing short of tears, I assume.

[smiles to himself]

I’ve had more demanding audiences.

[he gets comfortable again and becomes more animated]

Well, what else can I say? Talking’s what I do, pretty much always about me, ask my ex-wife, so I should be pretty good at this. Any subject, the most wretched, degrading and technicolour filth, the dirtiest relationship secrets. Name a taboo I can do you five minutes on it. Drugs, religion, politics, I haven’t worked in alien abduction yet but until I’ve first hand experience…unless I have? Do you think that’s what’s wrong with me? Repressed anal probing…..

So talking can’t be the problem can it? Now, I know what you’re going to say there’s talking and there’s talking. Is stand-up just an attempt to elicit the love and validation from an audience that your mother couldn’t give – answer no – are jokes a shield to change the feeling that everyone’s laughing at you into the feeling that they’re laughing because of you – answer maybe – do I just deal with upsetting ideas through the diffusing medium of humour and not deal with them head on….

[pause]

‘knock knock’
‘who’s there?’
‘therapist’
‘therapist who?’
‘therapist men on your doorstep who need to sober up’

No?

Well, no jokes then, ok, just me, naked and…well not naked, obviously, it’s not that kind of therapy, ‘just lie down on ze couch, you may feel a small…’ sorry, I’m actually being quite a big…..aren’t I? Anyway…..ok, sorry I was going to tell you about my muzzer, wasn’t I?

Well, mother was very warm and loving, dad worked at getting drunk, sorry no, dad worked when he couldn’t avoid it. No, sorry, that’s me. No, sorry, can’t be, stand-up isn’t a proper job…still at least I stand up, look at you just sitting there for God knows what an hour, you don’t even have to think of things to say, just sit there listening to me bang on………still, I suppose you’d have to be paid to.

Sorry, so, Dad….he sold his life to the bottle. Well, bottling process, mostly soft drinks….factory manager. I’ve always struggled finding material in that, I think I’ll get it one day….Brother Adam, younger, brown hair…. School, puberty, love, not in that order, not necessarily in any sort of order, complete dis-order if I’m honest…which, as I’m sure you’ll be noting down, I’m not….

[pauses]

Is this real enough? It certainly feels dull enough to be….will I really have to squeeze out some tears before we can all go home?

It seems a lot to ask of me. What are you going to do in return? Juggle? A mime act? A strip show maybe?
But no, you’re not going to do anything.
You’re just going to sit there, like always.

Staring.

[silence]

Two can play at that game, you know. Oh yes. No problem at all.
Just tell me what you want me to say, give me a bit of rope, I can keep going all day, but if you’re not going to meet me halfway, well, we can just sit….

[silence]

[silence]

Anyway, we pretty much discussed my wife ad infinitum last week, I don’t see what else you’d want to hear from me.
There’s not really anybody else to discuss. It’s not like I actually have any real friends. Work colleagues are mostly just the standard bunch of cretins and parasites.
So that just leaves the family and I think we’ve pretty much covered them; Mum – loving, Dad – bottles, Adam……well, you know, whatever a brother is…..

What else is there?
How about standard interview questions?

[puts on TV interviewer voice and manner]

‘Were you the class clown at school to avoid being bullied?’

[plays himself as interviewee]

No, not really, I’ve always found the standard knuckle dragging estate scum finds the sight of an eleven year old being half drowned in a toilet bowl far more humourously stimulating than any number of Wildeian epigrams. And as for getting attention at home, I doubt a personal appearance by Morecambe and Wise could have distracted my parents from the apparently endless amusements of watching Adam potty train or mispronounce ‘coat’ or dribble spew, or whatever other moments of pure comedy gold I must have missed out on while otherwise engaged in reading or being humiliated at school or trying to having a life.

[pause]

God, sorry. That’s not…I don’t know why that appears to have ticked me off so acutely. That’s not really how I feel. Childhood was pretty good, all things considered.

Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought.
Where were we? More interview questions, do you think?
Ooh, how about ‘When did you first decide to be a comedian?’ that’s always a winner.

[adopts the voice and manner he uses for telling a well rehearsed anecdote]  

Well, I think it must have been the school prize giving day. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a minute that the semi-literate teaching staff at my bog standard comp had recognized my innate talent for entertaining. I was simply being rewarded for my painful shyness with the ritual humiliation of the ‘diligent pupil’ award. I won’t go into the sordid details of the award but, suffice it to say, if you haven’t actually done anything, won any sports cups, or academic prizes, made any friends or won any popularity contests, well…you’re an absolute shoe-in.
So there I was, sick with terror in preparation for the burning embarrassment of being given a wooden spoon award for lack of achievement in front of the massed ranks of pupils and parents….and then the fates intervened.

True to form with most of the gifts life has ever sent my way, my trophy was on the wonk. The fact that the great swollen head of the cup was coming unglued from the stand didn’t become obvious until, with great pomp and ceremony, the headmaster lowered into my hands. As I reached out to take it the cup chose precisely that moment to droop like a dejected sunflower before dropping with a voluble bonk at my feet.

And the crowd erupted.

I’d never heard a noise like it in my life. I felt like some kind of god. The headmaster gave me a look that stopped just shy of homicidal and I forgot about being the great entertainer quick-smart. Of course my first reaction then was to reach down and try to recover the cup to try to balance it back on the stand.
But it wasn’t having any of that.
Over it topples again.
Bonk it went on the floor again.
Up comes that approving wave of laughter again.

And the headmaster’s looking angrier and angrier, while the other award winners are trying to keep a straight face, and the angrier he gets the more laughs I’m getting from all those staring eyes. All that terror just turned into performance.
I pick it up, and down it goes and bonk it goes again, and up and down and bonk and up and down and bonk and bonk again.
A lot of the eighties were taken up with me making all the mileage I could out of bonk jokes, too. Funny how little you change from you’re a kid, isn’t it?

Anyway, that was it really, I was soon hurried off the stage by the furious teaching staff and back into the classroom anonymity of shyness.
But it was too late by then.

I was already set on course for stardom.

[reverts to his normal voice]

That’s how I tell it in an interview, anyway, I’m not so sure it felt that way at the time. It’s hard to remember, isn’t it?
Does anybody really remember their childhood properly? I mean, how well do you remember yours? I mean, can you remember it at all? It’s a difficult thing for me to imagine so… No? I know this isn’t about you but I just wondered.
No? Still? That’s a difficult silence to interpret. Not telling? Don’t remember?

Probably weren’t taking notes.

It’s interesting that I don’t remember my parents being there, isn’t it?
I don’t know where they were. Probably somewhere applauding Adam for soiling himself, or something equally admirable……

Oh there we are, I can see you’re writing that one down with some excitement. Just look at your little eyes gleaming.
Yes, I know, Adam again, hmm very interesting. I do seem to be mentioning him a lot, don’t I? But is that really relevant I wonder?
I shouldn’t wonder, really, you’re the professional and, besides, I expect you’d tell me I already know.
In which case what the hell are you doing here? Just…just…sitting there and….staring like that.

Is that your method? Don’t think you’re going to get me to break down with a cheap trick like that because you’re not. I’ve had worse things thrown at me than a bit of… staring.

[awkward silence]

Sorry. Not your fault. I’m going off again. I should stick to the subject, shouldn’t I? I’m not scared of talking, if that’s what you think. I’m really…..

[clears his throat]

Ok, so….Adam. What else do you want to know about him? He’s pretty much standard fare as brothers go, really, with all that that entails….ate my sweets, broke my toys, wore my clothes, screwed my wife…

[laughs drily]

Not really, of course.

[beat]

He would never have fitted into my clothes.

Ooh, disapproving look, am I ducking away from the issue again? Naughty old me. I don’t know how you let me get away with it with all the money you’re spending on these sessions, not to get – oh no, wait, that’s me, isn’t it ?

[becomes briefly angry]

This is my money and my time and I don’t have to blub if I don’t want to, ok?

So don’t give me that….look.

[awkward silence]

Anyway, he didn’t really sleep with my wife.

[beat]

He only ever took my good stuff.

[he becomes animated again]

Ooh, ooh, maybe that’s why I married her, so I could have just one thing he couldn’t be bothered to take away. Ooh, and maybe that’s why I’m a stand up comedian, too. If I do something that could get absolutely no respect whatsoever from Mum and Dad I wouldn’t force him to have to become Pope just to outdo me...

Sorry, that’s not true. Scratch that from the record. I’m getting disgustingly self pitying now. None of that’s true, I should just shut up.

[Silence]

I mean, because… I’m good, I really am, I’m really, really on top of things. People love me, all over the country, people, they, they really….I mean, I’m sure they…..no, I know they…..
And I’m making good money, I mean, really good money. Enough to keep the wife in alimony and to throw God knows how much at you for just….doing whatever it is you do.
Which I do appreciate, really, I do. I mean, no offence, honestly, I can’t tell you how much these sessions are…you know…how much they’ve….

I really can’t.

[silent pause] 

[Laughs gently]

Look at you scribbling away to yourself like a school teacher. Nothing really does change much from when you’re a kid, does it? Got your red pen out? Scribble, scribble, scribble. Notes in the margin. All the red ink over your hard sweated out innermost thoughts, your great creative opus covered in little spelling corrections and see me’s.
They really are bastards, aren’t they, teachers? Aren’t they? Bastards, eh? Bastards.

[pause]

Oh, sorry. Am I speaking out of turn? Is that how you see yourself? I mean, do you? Really? Do you? I mean, I don’t want to cause offence if that’s what you think you’re doing.

Do you see yourself as a stern paternalistic teacher? Is that it? Red ink out, correcting everyone’s innermost thoughts? Or maybe some kind of father confessor, absolving my sins by the act of listening? Or maybe you see yourself as one of the critics? Oh yes! That’s much more like it, isn’t it? They get their own special performances, you know. There they are silently scribbling away, red ink all over your innermost thoughts, not a word – not a word as they do it. Scribbling away, scribbling, hatcheting you as they go. There they are at those special performances, just like you, scribbling away, looking at me, judging me, criticising me, hating me - not for a minute looking at themselves. Not for one minute thinking how small and mean and childish they must look. I mean, do you? Do you ever look at yourself? [suddenly raging] Can you even see yourself at all? How you actually come across? Can you see what an ugly bloody petty minded disapproving authority figure you actually are?

Oh, shut up!

Why do you keep letting me just….talk like that? How do you keep getting me to do that? How do you that, eh, Dr Mesmer, with your dirty little psychic mind games, what’s the trick? Go on then, Derrin fucking Brown, give me a look, mess about with my head, get all my dirty secrets and darkest fears out of the depths of my psyche and on to tape, I dare you, go on. Jesus! Do you get off on this? No, don’t answer that, I don’t think I’d want to know.

And what kind of filthy minded sicko chooses to become a therapist, anyway?
Oh, wait, no, I can see that clearly enough, a pretty bloody crafty one. Office spaces like this don’t come cheap, do they? And don’t think for a moment I haven’t noticed your delicious little secretary. I know what you’re up to.
I would be.

Up to my fucking armpits. 

[pauses for breath]

Look at me. Ranting to myself like a schizophrenic, paying some kind of psychosexual pervert God knows what an hour to rifle through the recesses of my head.
There’s nothing good in there, you know, I wouldn’t bother.

[Silence]

Still, we’ve been through all this last week. Nothing much more to say.

[Silence]

You’re not going to let this go, are you?

[reclines with an air of defeat]

Yes, so, Adam.

I really don’t know how to explain Adam, you know, how him and me…..
To me, that’s just what a brother is. You can’t really know any different, can you? As a child, that’s what’s presented to you, that’s what you know……
You can’t necessarily see any of the, you know, sort of, well…..unfairness…of it…..

All that sleeping with my wife stuff and the competition and… that’s just schtick, you know, the sort of stuff you say about brothers…. it’s not true in any literal sense… it just…..it sort of describes how we…….

I wish I could think how I could best illustrate…..erm….you know, we do get on, but just in our own, sort of……..you know…..

[silence]

Well…

[silence]   

There is a story…..from when we were little… it always sticks in my head…it….

[clears throat]

And….it seems….silly, now, but…….because things are much more acute, you know, when you’re a kid…it’s not that I’m, you know, anything, particularly…about him, he’s just…you know…..me and him…..well, it’s not as if I expect him to….

[deep breath]

Gosh, I’m making this sound likes it’s still a raw wound and…it isn’t…it really isn’t…

And I’ve probably made childhood sound awful, all that poor me stuff and…well….that’s not how it was…..it just wasn’t….
It really wasn’t

[pause, suddenly  becomes whiny]

It’s just that it was typical of him because he was always, well, not always, but, well, I do always remember… there was this one time and……well, he…..not, really but he….

[awkward silence] 

Well, there was this one party and…..it’s funny because, well, it’s not….it…it’s just that…..well………….red was always my favourite colour…and….. 

[silence, client sighs]

It was my friend’s party and we got…….me and…[sighs]...we got…..party bags and…..

…you know….little……..[gulps]…..toys…[breath]….sweets……and….

[heavy sigh]

A little car…and…..

[gulps]

 there were only two…types of car…and…

[silence]

Adam got a red one……and I got a bl… [silence] …sorry, I….

[silence]

And he….

[sobs]

he wouldn’t swap

[he breaks down uncontrollably] 

[long pause as he bawls helplessly and then tries to recover himself]

[recovers himself but his voice is now low and gravely, bitter and broken with anger]

[he looks hard into the audience]

Well I hope that was honest enough.

You’ve got tears, I’m sure that’s what you wanted, I’m sure that must have achieved something. That’s something to put in the notebook.

I just hope it was real enough for you

[looks away, folds up into a determined silence, finally spent of patter]

[an alarm clock sounds – the end of the session - the client leans back with an expression of ‘thank God for that’ filling his face]

Well that’s us then [getting up] See you next week, I suppose.

I’m looking forward to it already. [moves to the door]

I’ll make appropriate arrangements with your secretary….maybe some entirely inappropriate ones as we-  [makes a stab at restoring a sense of humour by making a camply lascivious expression – it clearly falls flat]

Alright, alright, I know, I’ve been told. I don’t need a second warning. I’ll try my hardest not to make any smart remarks.

[goes to leave the room] 

But I’ll fail.

[Curtain/lights/The End] 

Andrew Tildesley