Les Dawson's Cissie and Ada Read online

  ADA:

  Well don't think I don't try to economise, Cissie. I mean I haven't been near a butcher's shop for weeks. The last time we saw red meat in this house was when we were watching the racing on the telly and Lester Piggott used the whip. I've tried everything. I even bake the canary's seeds so they're harder for it to crack. Do you know something Cissie, I can't even afford a new piece of sandpaper for the bottom of the canary's cage, and you know how they get.

  CISSIE:

  Well have you tried to budget?

  ADA:

  Yes, I've even had a wallpaper scraper on it but there's just no shifting it, it's stuck solid.

  CISSIE:

  Well we can't have you without gas, that's for sure. (PRODUCES HER PURSE, OPENS IT) So I'll lend you the money. Seventy three pounds wasn't it?

  ADA:

  Oh I couldn't, Cissie.

  CISSIE:

  Don't be so daft, what are friends for. You can let me have it back when you're on your feet. Here you are. (HANDS ADA THE MONEY)

  ADA:

  Bless you, Cissie.

  CISSIE:

  And mind you keep it away from your Bert. Have you got a safe place to keep it, away from his clutching hands?

  ADA:

  Yes. (SHE PICKS UP THE KNICKERS SHE HAS BEEN IRONING AND PUTS THE MONEY IN THEM)

  CISSIE:

  You call that a safe place from Bert?

  ADA:

  It will be when I've put them on.

  ***************

  CHRISTMAS

  ADA'S LIVING ROOM. THE AFTERMATH OF A PARTY. CISSIE AND ADA, WEARING PARTY HATS, ARE TIDYING UP.

  ADA:

  That's the trouble with having a Christmas party isn't it Cissie, all the tidying up after.

  CISSIE:

  What say we take a break then?

  ADA:

  Well just for a few minutes, because I really must find Bert's teeth, he'll be lost without them, the last time he lost them he could only suck rusks until they turned up and there was no living with him.

  THEY SIT DOWN ON THE SETTEE.

  CISSIE:

  Well I must say you did yourself proud tonight Ada, love. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves at any rate. And the food was excellent, I couldn't fault it.

  ADA:

  Thank you, Cissie.

  CISSIE:

  I thought your vol-au-vents really stuck out.

  ADA:

  Yes it's this new bra. It both lifts and separates - after a bit of a struggle.

  CISSIE:

  It's marvellous what technology can do nowadays, isn't it. You know they do say that the modern bra is based on the cantilever.

  ADA:

  I could have done with a tyre lever.

  CISSIE:

  I don't suppose there's any drink left?

  ADA:

  Only that home-made sherry that Bert made.

  CISSIE:

  Ah, the golden nectar of old Jerez.

  ADA:

  No he brewed it in a bucket. Would you like a drop?

  CISSIE:

  Well I wouldn't say no because I've always been partial to a drop of sherry. Such a refined drink I've always thought. Yet at the same time there's something about it that gives it an almost aphrodisiac quality.

  ADA:

  Yes it gives me the wind as well. (SHE GETS THE BOTTLE OF SHERRY) You're lucky, it's nearly empty. It's a wonder there's any left at all what with Bert's relatives. Did you see the drunken louts, they'll drink anything that's in a bottle, one of them finished up on double body deodorants.

  CISSIE:

  Yes, from what I saw of them their manners left a lot to be desired.

  ADA:

  I was ashamed, Cissie. Ashamed. Did you see then round my running buffet? They were like a shoal of piranha fish. Anybody would think they'd never seen food before. And did you see his cousin Mavis going at my home-made mutton pate? She scraped half the willow pattern off the plate, I've got two Japanese lovers now stood in mid-air and no bridge.

  CISSIE:

  Wasn't her first husband that nice Higgins lad?

  ADA:

  Arthur.

  CISSIE:

  That's him. Too good for her, I'm sure. I can't think what he ever saw in her.

  ADA:

  Bert says he only married her because he's a fisherman and he thought she had worms. Shameless hussy she is. I mean I wouldn't have minded if she'd kept her children in check but she just lets them run riot. I could have strangled that little Jason of hers. Did you see what he was trying to do to our cat with that young doctor's outfit?

  CISSIE:

  I hope that the young rapscallion didn't harm it.

  ADA:

  I wouldn’t know, it's still on the roof with its legs crossed. I mean they've no right giving children presents like that.

  CISSIE:

  My word it isn't like it was in our day, is it. All I ever got in my Christmas stocking was a whip and top and an orange.

  ADA:

  And glad of it.

  CISSIE:

  And our Ralph, even when he was in long trousers he only had a dinky.

  ADA:

  Well they can't all be lucky.

  CISSIE:

  Even so he used to get hours of enjoyment playing with it up in his bedroom.

  ADA:

  Fancy.

  CISSIE:

  Yes he played with it so much that eventually all the paint chipped off it through it banging against the skirting boards.

  ADA:

  What?

  CISSIE:

  And speaking of Christmas presents what did you get for Bert this year?

  ADA:

  Well he asked me for something useful so I got him a bottle-opener.

  CISSIE:

  Well that should certainly be useful, I've never known a man drink so much as your Bert.

  ADA:

  Cissie there's that many beer bottles in our backyard it's put two hundred pounds on the value of the property.

  CISSIE:

  I can believe it. And what did he get you?

  ADA:

  Well I asked him for a pair of leg warmers. Because you know how I suffer with my legs in the cold weather. I just can't seem to keep them warm. They've been the same ever since I had that affair with that assistant manager from Iceland. You wouldn't believe how I suffer, and I've tried everything. The only thing that worked was when I lagged them with two black dustbin bags, but it got Bert too excited. That reminds me, I haven't found his teeth yet.

  CISSIE:

  Well when did he last have them?

  ADA:

  He had them in bed last night, definitely, because I'd just settled under the duvet with the hot water bottle on my rheumatism when he snuggled right up to me, kissed me on the back of the neck and began to bite me.

  CISSIE:

  Bite you?

  ADA:

  All over, Cissie.

  CISSIE:

  Oh I say! How erotic. And did you respond?

  ADA:

  Well you know me Cissie, I can take it or leave it. Nowadays I'd just as soon cuddle up with a Mills and Boon to tell you the truth. But suddenly....I began to feel hot all over.

  CISSIE:

  He'd awaken your desires, had he?

  ADA:

  No he'd bitten through the hot water bottle.

  ***************

  HOLIDAYS

  A TRAVEL AGENCY. CISSIE AND ADA WALK IN. CISSIE NOTICES THAT THERE IS NOBODY AT THE COUNTER SO THEY SIT DOWN TO WAIT.

  CISSIE:

  There doesn't appear to be anyone here, Ada love.

  ADA:

  Perhaps they've gone on their holidays.

  CISSIE:

  Well while we're waiting it will give us the chance to decide where we want to go this year.

  ADA:

  Well anywhere as long as it isn't Greece, I didn't like that Rhodes place last year.

  CISSIE:

  I told you, you sh
ould have gone to Athens, you'd have liked it there, it's lovely, they have an acropolis there.

  ADA:

  They had one in Rhodes, I was never off it.

  CISSIE:

  Oh you're pig ignorant Ada, you really are. The Acropolis is an old ruin!

  ADA:

  Well this one had a crack in it and a loose board.

  CISSIE:

  I quite fancy Italy, myself.

  ADA:

  Me too, a coach tour would be nice.

  CISSIE:

  How about the Dolomites?

  ADA:

  Well if they start to play me up I can always sit on a rubber ring. I quite fancy Blackpool too, to tell you the truth.

  CISSIE:

  Oh I find it so uncouth, Blackpool.

  ADA:

  Yes, nice isn't it. Me and Bert had our honeymoon there, you know. It's the place where I finally became a woman - that first night at the Seaview guest house.

  CISSIE:

  And tell me Ada- girl talk here - when you went on your honeymoon, were you virgo intacta?

  ADA:

  No, just bed and breakfast.

  CISSIE:

  I mean that prior to your honeymoon you and Bert hadn't done it?

  ADA:

  Cissie. I’ve never heard such filthy talk from you. Muck mucky muck muck.

  CISSIE:

  Nonsense Ada, it’s only human nature.

  ADA:

  I suppose so. Can you keep a secret, Cissie? Bert didn't know how to do it.

  CISSIE:

  Really? I must say I find that very hard to believe, knowing your Bert as I do.

  ADA:

  May God strike me dead, Cissie. He hadn't got a clue. My mother told me to lie back and think of England. I'd time to think of England, Scotland, Ireland, Algeria.....

  CISSIE:

  Oh you poor dear.

  ADA:

  And I did everything in my power to tempt him, everything in my power Cissie.

  CISSIE:

  Did you wear a sexy night-gown?

  ADA:

  Yes, one I got it from Silky Billy's on the market, off the bargain rail.

  CISSIE:

  Was it see-through?

  ADA:

  Oh yes. Yes you could see my vest and liberty bodice through it as plain as day. Anyway I went to the doctor to see if he could suggest anything and he told me to try taking Bert past the Tower a few times.

  CISSIE:

  Auto suggestion.

  ADA:

  No we drove past in a landau. And I walked him past it several times.

  CISSIE:

  And did he.... rise to the occasion, as it were?

  ADA:

  Well I'll put it this way, I think he must have been looking at the Central Pier, not the tower.

  CISSIE:

  Well I don't know about us going to Blackpool for your holiday I would have thought you would want to steer well clear the place after an experience like that.

  ADA:

  That's why I want to go, I'm hoping he'll leave me alone again.

  CISSIE:

  And where does Bert want to go?

  ADA:

  Well he did once mention that he'd always wanted to return to the place where he spent the war.

  CISSIE:

  What, the glasshouse at Colchester?

  ADA:

  No, I mean before he stole that tank. Normandy.

  CISSIE:

  Now that's not such a bad idea, because my Leonard would like that. He saw action at Normandy, you know. That was where he almost got the VC.

  ADA:

  Well that's the chance you take when you go with foreign women. The hussies!

  CISSIE:

  I think we'll settle for Normandy then. Now how shall we travel there, on the cross-channel ferry or shall we fly?

  ADA:

  Oh the ferry, because it cost us an extra thirty quid the only time me and Bert ever flew.

  CISSIE:

  Thirty pounds? Why was that?

  ADA:

  Well you know that little paper bag they give you?

  CISSIE:

  Yes.

  ADA:

  Well Bert asked the stewardess what it was for. And she told him it was to be sick in.

  CISSIE:

  So why did that cost you another thirty pounds?

  ADA:

  Well he had to drink three bottles of whisky before he felt sick.

  ***************

  SEANCE

  ADA'S LIVING ROOM. CISSIE AND ADA ARE SEATED AT A TABLE. ADA IS LOOKING MORE THAN A LITTLE APPREHENSIVE ABOUT THINGS WHILST CISSIE IS MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE.

  CISSIE:

  So it's your mother you'd like to contact then, is it Ada?

  ADA:

  Yes, if that witch friend of yours ever gets here. She said she'd be here for eight.

  CISSIE:

  Well it's only just turned. And she isn't a witch, she's a medium is Mrs Scattergood, she has occult powers. You ought to think yourself lucky she's agreed to do a seance for you because mediums like Mrs Scattergood are few and far between.

  ADA:

  Sort of medium rare, is she. (LAUGHS. CISSIE GIVES HER A REPROVING LOOK) Sorry Cissie love, it's just that I'm a bit nervous about it.

  CISSIE:

  Well that is understandable I suppose. After all this will be the first time you've ever tried to contact the dead, won't it.

  ADA:

  Apart from when I try to get Bert up for work. Tell me chuck, when you contact the dead....do you hear their voice?

  CISSIE:

  No. No the communication from the astral body comes through the medium, Mrs Scattergood.

  ADA:

  Fancy. How?

  CISSIE:

  Well mostly through her ouija.

  ADA:

  Through her ouija? I don’t like the sound of that.

  CISSIE:

  Well she does pull a face sometimes.

  ADA:

  Perhaps it’s painful?

  CISSIE:

  Then she goes into a trance.

  ADA:

  I'm not surprised, I'd be in more than a trance if an astral body started talking through my ouija.

  CISSIE:

  But sometimes she doesn't bother with the ouija method at all and simply calls up the spirits by asking them if there's anybody there. That's usually followed by an eerie silence.

  ADA:

  I have the same trouble when I ring the gas board. And what else can she do?

  CISSIE:

  Well I believe she's quite expert at levitation.

  ADA:

  We always get the plumber in when ours is blocked, but if she reasonable I'll try her the next time it happens, what’s her number?