Almost Overheard
Vanbrugh Bar. The bar is almost deserted, except for a young couple. The female member of the duo, EDWINA, is searching through her bag. The male, DAN, looks on, forlorn.
EDWINA: I’m saying you’ve lost it.
DAN: I haven’t been anywhere near your bag.
EDWINA: So it just leapt out of its own accord, did it?
DAN: Well perhaps you put it down somewhere and forgot about it.
She shoots him an icy cold glare.
EDWINA: I’m not stupid, Daniel. Do you think I’m stupid?
DAN: No…
EDWINA: Why aren’t you looking for it?
DAN: I don’t know where to start looking.
EDWINA: You’re useless. This is just like last time when you killed that dog.
DAN: I didn’t kill it. I merely hit it.
EDWINA: You hit it with a car.
DAN: It survived!
EDWINA: Barely.
DAN: It’s got nothing to do with the situation anyway. I didn’t lose the dog, did I?
EDWINA: No, but you were having one of your funny turns, weren’t you?
DAN: What’s that supposed to mean?
EDWINA: When you… you know… do that thing with the stuff…
DAN: That is not a ‘funny turn’. That is me expressing myself, Edwina.
EDWINA: Looks pretty funny to me.
DAN: Oh, you’re a piece of work, aren’t you?
EDWINA: What’s this now?
DAN: I thought you were behind me on this one hundred percent. But no. No, I discover that my trusted cohort, my dearest friend, my significant other thinks that my habitual hobby of self-expression is ‘funny’.
EDWINA: I’ve never been behind you one hundred percent on it. I think it’s sick.
DAN: You’re a bigot.
EDWINA: Bigot? Look, I had my reservations, but I let you borrow my lipstick and, on occasion, my underwear. I didn’t even mind the fact that you spent three hours haphazardly driving around in the dead of night in drag looking for animals to murder.
DAN: It wasn’t murder!
EDWINA: Attempted murder. But this takes the biscuit, Dan, it really does, that you have lost my lip stick.
DAN: You can’t prove I’ve lost it.
EDWINA: I don’t need to, Dan. Either you’re going to buy a replacement tube of lip-oriented make-up or I am going to blackmail you.
DAN: You haven’t got the guts!
EDWINA: You leave me no option, Daniel. My only recourse now is to pay a playwright to concoct a narrative revealing your transvestite-homicidal tendencies and print it in the press.
DAN: What? That’s libel!
EDWINA: Yes. Yes, it is.
