Dialogue 2
[WALTER, spoken]
Oh, ah, sorry.
[HAIG, spoken]
Cheers!
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
And now perhaps we can get down to the business in hand. You were good enough to send me an inventory of your clients alleged assets.
[SINGERS]
Mine, yours, ours
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
I only riffled idly through this list on my way here in the car, and am only too aware of one glaring omission. In this list I can find absolutely no mention whatever of hairpins.
[SINGERS]
Mine, yours, ours
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
I've seen divorces break down on omissions far smaller than this.
[SINGERS]
You split yourself right down the middle
[WALTER, spoken]
But I haven't got any hairpins.
[SINGERS]
Blow by blow, the cracks begin to show, so never, never
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
Are you sеriously telling me that throughout your long, and judging by your shoes, succеssful career, you've never accumulated a hairpin in any shape or form?
[SINGERS]
Split yourself right down the middle
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
Or even half a hairpin?
[WALTER, spoken]
Oh, uh, what's half a hairpin?
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
What indeed? If you don't know what half a hairpin is, how can our side be expected to believe that you're cognisant of what a whole hairpin comprises? For all we know you may have a whole hoard of half hairpins masquerading as whole hairpins concealed about the house.
[WALTER, spoken]
Well, if there are any hairpins they're, uh, Lulu's. I mean, uh, I don't use 'em much.
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
Which is exactly what I've trying to establish!
[BLINT, spoken, entering from his lift]
I make it around 10:17.
[HAIG, spoken]
Ah, ha ha ha, uh, sorry about this. Uh, Mr. Blint! Yes, my goodness me, it is!
[BLINT, spoken]
Yes. My bath's about three quarters full now. So I can't hang around here for long. It takes eleven minutes to fill and six minutes to empty. By the time I have to fill it again, it would be twenty-five and a half minutes past ten, and I like to do a little work around then.
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
We are in the middle of a rather serious business negotiation, Mr. Blint.
[BLINT, spoken]
Yes. I heard quite a lot of it. Your goldfish looks hungry, Mr. Haig.
[HAIG, spoken]
Yes, thank you. Are, are we to understand that you tell the time by continuously filling and emptying your bath?
[BLINT, spoken]
Oh, no. That would be an idiotic way to operate. I don't know about you, but I rely on a watch. What I was telling you was basically a foolish lie.
[HAIG, spoken]
I, I realise of course that you are standing in your attic, or hole (Ah!). And I have every right to do so. But I was, I was wondering if you could possibly see your way to, uh, to, uh—
[BLINT, spoken]
Piss off! Yes, I've got a rather a difficult transition to make with the wind section. Oh, just one bit of advice you might be able to use—seventeen.
I'll be downstairs if you need me. I'll still be downstairs if you think you don't need me.
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
Despite your assurances, Mr. Haig, we seem to be back to square one. Mr. Blint, who you so gaily brushed aside as irrelevant, has now become germane by getting us in what I always feared what happen, namely a "business in the attic" situation.
[HAIG, spoken]
Absolutely. I'll, I'll, I'll drink to that. In fact I'll, I'll drink to anything. Well, here's to him not disturbing us again. Ha ha, he, he's never done it before.
[SINGERS]
Keeping a date with the rain
Keeping a date with the–
[WALTER, spoken]
I don't think it greatly matters. He only came up and went down again.
[HAIG, spoken]
Now, since Mr. Pepperman has raised the important issue of non-disclosure, perhaps we can move on to Mrs. Stapleton's teeth, which seem to have been omitted from our list of assets.
[WALTER, spoken]
I don't want her teeth!
[HAIG, spoken]
You may not want them now, but who knows what the future holds.
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
True, true. If our side have omitted our teeth, we have erred, we have erred! When did you last count your teeth, Mrs. Stapleton ?
[LULU, spoken]
My teeth? I 'ave never bothered to check!
[WALTER, spoken]
Oh, perhaps I can help here. Thirty-two. I looked one night when she was asleep. I was a bit restless, you know, and I thought, if I counted her teeth, it might make me drowsy.
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
Did you make it a habit to spy on your wife when she was most vulnerable?
[WALTER, spoken]
Oh no! I was, uh, just passing by, and she had her mouth open. I thought I'd, uh, tot them up.
[LULU, spoken]
What is the problem?
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
You are the problem! But perhaps Mr. Haig and I can hammer out a formula. And it will greatly assist me if you two went away!
[WALTER, spoken]
Well, uh, Rome wasn't burnt in a day. Come on, Lulu.
[HAIG, spoken]
Well, won't you join me in a glass of uh, something?
[PEPPERMAN, spoken]
No, no thank you Mr. Haig. But do you mind if I smoke?
[HAIG, spoken]
Yes, I, I, I used to be a just a ten minutes a day man myself. You know how these things build up.
[WALTER, spoken, to LULU]
You're looking well, love. How's work?
[LULU, spoken]
You know, comme ci, comme ça. About seven a day. And for you, the business is good?
[WALTER, spoken]
Well, it's steady, but nothing worth setting the Thames on fire for. You know that at fifty-five, I feel like a break. Nothing drastic, but I like the look of that hang gliding. I think it would do me good to get up in the air a bit and see life from another angle. I don't think I'll been missed the factory, though I can't be sure. I've not been in for four months.
[LULU, spoken]
What is this "'ang gliding", Walter?
[WALTER, spoken]
Well, you've got these wings, you see—
[LULU, spoken]
Wings?
[WALTER, spoken]
Aye, and you jump off a cliff or summit. It doesn't really matter what you jump off. I've only got a twenty-foot drop here, so I wouldn't get much of a glide from this window. And it's not a good day for a debut. Oh, look at that old lady with the brolly. She shouldn't be tryin' it. According to my manual you shouldn't try an umbrella glide in a cross wind. There, what did I tell you? She's blown in to a lamppost! If you are not a pigeon, don't eat corn, that's what I say. We made that mistake, didn't we Lulu?
[LULU, spoken]
I 'ave no idea.