The Pursuit of Love (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

1
Coo-ee! Linda!
FRENCH JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
PHONE RINGS
Madame! Monsieur.
If you insist on going
back to the Gare du Nord,
let me drive you there at least.
I think you'll find it quicker
than walking.
Linda!
BABY WHIMPERS
Linda?
BABY CRIES LOUDLY
Shush!
It's a shame.
What's a shame? Hmm?
That you have to go before lunch.
My favourite brasserie
is on the next street.
HER STOMACH RUMBLES
One may as well go for lunch
if it's on the way, I suppose.
Ah! Ah!
Leave it. It was a terrible hat.
BABY CRIES
Shush!
Please stop screaming.
You're embarrassing me!
BABY CRIES
Come here.
What's all that about? Ssh!
Now, madame, before I never see you
again, tell me the story.
What story?
Mm-mm, who left you to cry on
that little suitcase of yours?
I left him
..my second husband, and I
..I've left him forever because he's
fallen in love with another woman.
My dear, what a curious reason
for leaving your second husband.
Well, it was made so much worse
by her being a welfare worker.
Why is that worse?
Because she's such a good person.
HE LAUGHS
Merci.
Surely with your experience
of husbands, you must have noticed
falling in love with other people
is one of the things they do, hmm?
Wives fall in love
with other people too.
Oui.
How many husbands have you had?
Only two!
Combien? In England,
I am considered a beauty!
Oui
HE SPEAKS FRENCH
VOICEOVER: Linda was experiencing
an overwhelming physical sensation
like nothing she'd known before.
I have certainly never seen anyone
so lovely climbing down a drainpipe.
She asked herself how, after only
five minutes of acquaintance,
she could yearn so desperately
to be in bed with this man.
Ah, it would be impossible
to be very unhappy here.
Come and see my apartment.
Oh, monsieur!
Eh?
Yes, wellI admit that
I have made great mistakes
but I see no reason for sliding
down the hill altogether.
Can you please just take me
to the station?
Oui, bien sur, but I fear you have
missed the last train for London.
Then, cancan you please take me
back to the hotel
and I will catch the first
London train tomorrow?
To the hotel? Oui.
Tres bien. Merci.
By all means.
VOICEOVER: She could see this man
was certain of the outcome
and so was she.
Perfectly certain.
LOUD RHYTHMIC JAZZ RIFFS
Do you want to dance?
No, I want to keep chatting
and chatting and chatting.
Chatting? Oui.
HE REPLIES IN FRENCH
I adore chatting. It's
one of my favourite things to do.
Tell me a story.
I once read a story
about two English ladies seeing
the ghost of Marie Antoinette
sitting on a park bench.
HE LAUGHS
No? Yes, they saw her.
A ghost story made up by
some old, er, English virgins,
no, that's not interesting.
All right, thank you very much!
You tell me one then.
Tres bien, and this is a true story.
Right.
My grandmother,
she was very beautiful
and she had many lovers
her whole life.
Just before she died,
she was in Venice with my mother,
floating up some canal in a gondola,
when they saw an exquisite little
palazzo of pink marble.
Mmm. An old servant showed them
into a salon with three windows
looking over the canal, but my
grandmother was strangely moved.
At last, she said,
"If in the third drawer of that
bureau, there is a filigree box"
Right.
"..containing a small gold key,
this house belongs to me."
Si, absolument. And there it was.
One of my grandmother's lovers
had given it to her years before
and she had forgotten all about it.
Oh, what fascinating lives
you foreigners do lead!
How badly your hair is done.
Oh!
You don't like my clothes? No.
Or my hair? No.
And you think I'm bad at stories.
Oh, oui. Oui, madame.
So it's a very good thing I'm going
back to London tomorrow.
Oh, yes, I had forgotten.
What a pity.
MUSIC: Be My Husband by Nina Simone
# Be my husband
# Man, I be your wife
# Be my husband
# Man, I be your wife
# Be my husband
# Man, I be your wife
# Loving all of you
the rest of your life, yeah
# If you promise me
you'll be my man, yeah
# If you promise me
# You'll be my man
# If you promise me you'll be my man
SHE LAUGHS
# I will love you
the best I can, yeah
# Stick to the promise,
man, you made me. #
VOICEOVER: She told herself again
and again that tomorrow after this,
she WOULD go back to London.
KNOCK ON DOOR
# You made me, whoa-oh
# That you'd stay away
from Rosalie, yeah
# Oh, daddy
# Love me good
# Oh, daddy, now love me good#
But she had no intention
of going back and she knew it.
# Oh, daddy. #
Ah, thought I'd married
a bolter after all.
Alfred, no,
it's a terrible emergency!
Linda didn't come home
and I haven't seen her in so long
and I was so mean to her
when we argued and
It wasn't actually anything
about her, it was all about me, and
now something awful's happened to
her and I might never see her again!
Oh, God! Doesn't she have a habit
of falling on her feet?
No, we're best friends.
Alfred, she would have called me
if she were all right.
Oh, poor Linda,
she really is such an innocent.
Do you always laugh
when you make love?
Don't most women?
Ah, non, they do not.
More often they cry.
Hmm
How extraordinary.
Don't they enjoy it?
While we're on the subject
of your private life Mmm.
..could one know your name?
Haven't you discovered that?
Extraordinaire!
HE CHUCKLES
Well, my name is
Fabrice Sauveterre.
I'm happy to tell you
that I'm a very rich duke.
A most agreeable thing to be,
even in these days.
And are you married?
Non. Why not?
My fiancee died.
Oh, how sad.
What was she like?
Very kind.
Kinder than me?
Much kinder. Mmm.
Very correct.
More correct than me?
You, madame, are not correct at all.
Hmm.
She was a very virtuous woman.
Do you mean to say you never went
to bed with her? Never.
Never would have crossed my mind
in a thousand years. Goodness!
In England, we always do.
Ah, my dear, the animal side
of the English is well-known.
They are a drunken
and incontinent race.
Well, they say it's foreigners
who are all those things. Are they?
French women are the most virtuous
in the world. Ah, non. Ah, si.
I must tell you that my mother
and one of my aunts
and one of my sisters
and my cousin are virtuous women,
so virtue is not
unknown in my family.
And anyway, Fabrice, what about your
grandmother and all those lovers?
Oh, yes, I admit,
she was a great sinner!
But she was also a very great lady.
SHE LAUGHS
You can't be virtuous
and a sinner, I'm afraid.
Alfred, everything's always
one thing or the other with you!
PHONE RINGS
You do? Where?
When? What time?
No, no, no, no,
Alfred can stay with the baby.
No, he won't mind in the least.
Oh, dear God, David,
do you think she's all right?
SENSUAL FRENCH MUSIC PLAYS
Tres chic.
THEY LAUGH
Merveilleuse!
We take it all, allez.
You can't do that! Oui.
What would my mother say?
Oh, no, wait, it's perfect.
Even the swimming suit
which you won't be able to wear,
of course, because the beaches will
be battlegrounds, but we take it.
I prefer to sunbathe naked anyway.
VOICEOVER: Linda wondered if
she was teetering on the edge
of being a kept woman
..and decided she may as well
be hanged for a sheep as a lamb!
She was possessed by a calm
and happy fatalism.
The whole world was waiting
for the war to begin,
but this curious feeling did not
disturb her in the least.
She moved into an apartment
provided for her by Fabrice
and occupied the weeks
since she met him shopping,
lying in the sun and waiting for him
to come and visit her
Madame, voulez un masque?
Bonjour, ca va?
We'll soon be at war, madame.
Bonjour.
..which he did
every evening at seven.
Well, you DO look pretty!
Oh! Goodness!
MerlinDavy
..Fanny!
God, Linda, darling,
thank God you're still alive!
Well, of course I'm still alive.
I've never seen anyone
more alive in my life.
Oh. Hello, darling. Hello.
Are you in disguise?
Oh, the spectacles?
I've got to wear them
when I go abroad.
I've got such kind eyes, you see,
beggars and things cluster round,
annoy me.
You don't seem very pleased
to see us.
How did you find out?
Do Ma and Fa know? No, no, they
still think you're with Christian.
Oh, good.
You gave us a fright.
Another time,
you might send a postcard.
So wonderfully old-fashioned, the
parcels, the shopping, the flowers.
What an interest
you are in one's life!
Davy, don't tease!
The flat is a terrible joke.
I bet she's got a glass bath.
Yes.
THEY LAUGH
I wouldn't be surprised
if she's got little goldfish
swimming along the sides of it.
You've looked!
The way Frenchmen keep
their mistresses
always follows
such a stereotypical plan.
There are a couple of things
that raise the level, though.
That Gauguin, a couple of Cezannes.
Bit chintzy but, you know
I suppose your protector is
very rich, is he? Yes, he is.
Then might one ask
for a tiny cup of tea?
BELL TINKLES
Well, come on then, enlighten us.
Who is this unimaginative Frenchman?
His name is Duc de Sauveterre.
Fabrice de Sauveterre?
Yes. You know him?
One forgets, under that look
of great sophistication,
what a little provincial
you really are.
Of course we know him
and all about him.
And what's more,
so does everyone else except you.
Fabrice de Sauveterre is undoubtedly
one of the most
wicked men in Europe!
Ha!
Do you remember in Venice one used
to see him out at work on that
gondola, one after another, bowling
the ladies over like rabbits!
THEY LAUGH
Fabrice de Sauveterre! Wow!
Please remember that you are
drinking his tea at the moment.
I know my pancreas
will pay for this,
but one's not in Paris every day.
I think Fabrice has been shot at
more than any bachelor alive!
Oh, do shut up!
Come on, Mer, it's time the little
lady got into her negligee.
LAUGHS
Goodbye, Linda. We're off to meet
our intellectual friends.
Do give our love to Fabrice.
I'll see you later, Fanny, dear.
RAUCOUS LAUGHTER
Oh, darling!
Oh, no, gosh! Oh, no, I forgot to
call and tell you I was all right!
I'm so sorry.
Darling, I haven't slept for days.
That's not important now.
Let's just get you safe and home
and please, do not be scared.
Fanny, no, come and sit down,
let me explain.
UmI don't want to be rescued.
I
Oh, Fanny, I have been forced to the
conclusion that all Englishmen
..are hopeless lovers.
Not at all. Alfred is wonderful.
Yes, of course.
Twice in my life I have mistaken
something else for love.
It's like seeing somebody
in the street you think is a friend
and you smile and wave and run after
them, but it's not the friend
It's not even very like them.
And then, a few minutes later,
the real friend appears and
What happened to
saving the world, Linda?
Because I must say, you got
very easily distracted.
I thought that you were
renouncing men forever?
I know, but I've never felt
anything like this before.
Yes, you have.
Linda, you might have called.
It's been heaven to see you,
darling, but
..Fabrice is going to
be here any minute.
Could we chat all about it
at lunch tomorrow?
Oh
Yes, of course.
Darling, I'm sorry.
I love you, Fanny.
Merlin was just here
with Fanny and Uncle Davey.
They say they know you.
Merlin, bien sur.
Oh
Never let me go back to them!
FABRICE CHUCKLES
But, my darling, you love them.
Fran, Fanny, Jassy, Matt.
You're Fa's little favourite.
Fa is exactly the reason
why we all ran away.
He is so loathed abroad.
Matt and Jassy and I were all
hellbent on going there,
and then, of course,
it was enchanting
and full of people who don't look
and think like us.
Full of you.
Please never let me leave you
or Paris as long as I live.
The war is coming.
You will have to soon.
Couldn't I stay?
You may stay here for a time, but
when I ask you to leave, you must.
Even if you see no reason
for doing so.
All right.
Bien.
Bien.
Bon. Where will you go?
Home to the English lord
who loathes abroad?
No. No.
No, I shall go to my little
house in Chelsea.
And wait for you.
Ah, oui?
It might be months or years.
I shall wait.
WHISPERING: I shall wait.
WOMEN SPEAK FRENCH
IN BACKGROUND
Sorry.
Davey and Merlin stayed up too late.
I'm beginning to become aware
of the cruel pangs of dyspepsia.
I'm suffering from an ordinary,
straightforward hangover,
and so is Davey.
His eyes are not at all kind today.
WOMAN: Not for a few days.
I returned from Biarritz.
You have seen Fabrice at all?
THEY CHUCKLE
Well, I see him quite often
in Madame de Sauveterre's.
And when does the beautiful
Jacqueline return?
Oh, she's still in England.
She misses him dearly, but they talk
every day on the phone.
Who would have thought Fabrice
of all people would be so faithful?
I know!
My darling, thank goodness I came.
Now, tell me, where does he live?
Erm, withwith his
mother somewhere.
I don't know.
Excuse me, sir. Madame. I'm looking
for the Duke de Sauveterre's
mother's apartment. Can you help?
This is most urgent. Absolument.
We'd better go in and find
Davey and Merlin. Let's go.
What? No! Can we just forget
that we ever heard this?
Don't be absurd. You have to break
it off with this man.
But I've never been happier
in my life.
We're all going to die soon anyway.
Poor Merlin has the wrong kind.
Wrong kind of what?
Pill to take when the Germans come.
He's got the sort you give to dogs.
You really should go to my doctor.
You take the white one first,
then you take the black one.
I must say, Linda's finally
fulfilled the promise of her youth.
Her reward for getting older
is a magical, haunting sadness
of which she is unaware, but which
speaks straight to the heart
and is the completion of her beauty.
She's living as
a high class prostitute,
and damn the consequences.
Well, she's just his bit
on the side. She's sunk so low.
She thinks she's happy now,
but she's going to end up miserable.
One has to live in the world
as it is,
because society really
makes things beastly
for those who disobey the rules.
Fanny, you really are most
dreadfully conventional.
We can't all experience the same
sort of domestic bliss
that you and
You and
Alfred. Alfred.
..Alfred have achieved.
Some of us must protect bohemia,
irreverence.
Good on her.
The baby missed you terribly.
What about you?
What do you mean?
You go to work. Sometimes he doesn't
see you for days at a time.
Don't you worry he misses you
when you go to work?
I work, yes,
to provide for my family.
Oh, to provide for people.
To go off every day, read books,
write about them,
and then talk to other clever
people about them.
You're not making any sense.
I have to endure this endless
drudgery of housekeeping,
then getting overlooked at your
intellectual dinner parties.
The boring and repetitive
conversation of small children,
their absolute incapacity to
amuse themselves,
the sudden terrifying illnesses.
Your not infrequent bouts
of moodiness,
your invariable complaints
at meals about the pudding
Where has all this come from?
Are you happy? What do you mean?
Well, isn't that the point,
to be happy?
To be in love
and to be one's best self,
and then to be really
marvellously happy?
Well, when I married you, this
seemed to be the life you wanted.
Well, this life was the only option.
What?
Happily married
or unhappily married.
That's it, that's the choice
if you're a woman.
Or I suppose you could be a bolter.
At least bolters
get to see the world.
Are you losing your mind,
Fanny? Yes!
Yes, Alfred. Yes.
Yes.
Joyeux anniversaire, madame.
Wow.
FABRICE CHUCKLES
No!
Not a French bulldog!
Hello.
Plon-Plon.
Plon-Plon? Oui, Plon-Plon.
PHONE RINGS
Non, pour moi.
Pour moi.
My hat.
And my French bulldog.
Bien. The thing I feared
would happen has happened.
We must move very quickly.
Linda did not fully understand
that she was leaving
her happy life behind her forever.
None of us fully understood.
HE SIGHS
At least you won't have to suffer
my complaints about the pudding.
Maybe the puddings will be
better in France.
# Every light is on #
Linda had gone back
to Cheney Walk to wait,
as she promised she would,
for a sign of Fabrice.
# Oh, baby, don't stay too late
# You know I hate #
Month after endless month
she waited.
# And now I'm alone #
But no sign came.
# Baby, won't you come on home? #
I was very little in touch
with Linda during that time.
I had wanted to call her often, but
I hadn't quite known what to say.
# Oh, babe, won't you come on home?
# Home #
Darling, I'm in agony
waiting for a sign of him.
She finally asked me
to come and see her.
She was desperate about Fabrice,
who hadn't called or written to her
since Paris.
# Hate to be alone
# And now I'm alone
# Baby, won't you come on home?
# Baby, won't you come on home? #
PHONE RINGS
Franny, darling.
'Allo, 'allo.
I have been waiting for you so long.
How nice, then.
Can I come and see you now?
I have a taxi outside,
I shall be with you in two minutes.
Oui.
CAR PULLS UP
Did you come to join
General de Gaulle?
Oui.
I shall see him, of course.
But I came on a private mission.
I came to tell you I love you.
You
You never said that to me in Paris.
I had said it so often in my life.
I never said it to you because
..from the first moment
..I knew this was as real
as the others were false.
It was like recognising somebody.
Just
I can't explain it, I'm sorry.
I suppose religious people
sometimes feel like this.
Darling Linda, everything's going
to be all right.
I promise.
I figured it all out on the train.
Obviously men are a bit useless.
They'll never understand us,
and they'll never think
that they have to.
Luckily they're probably about to
get shot or bombed or something.
And then you can come
and live with me,
and we'll chat and we'll have baths,
and we'll be our best selves
like we used to.
I am beginning to think this war's
such a wonderful opportunity
for women like us. Bonjour, madame.
Ooh.
FABRICE CHUCKLES
Finally, the brilliant Fanny
I've heard so much about.
WHISPERING: It's Fabrice.
Hello. My dear, tell me everything
about your life.
Will you please be so good
as to start with the Hans Cupboard?
Hons' Cupboard. Hons' Cupboard.
S'il vous plait.
He's wonderful!
Isn't he?
Wonderful.
And he loves to chat!
He actually listens.
And he doesn't bore on about
making money or politics.
In books, girls like you will
always end up dead, Linda.
I was so worried.
Hello.
But you're not Madame Bovary
or Anna Karenina. No.
Life isn't books.
In fact, you are the most incredibly
alive person I've ever met.
Oh, well, you know, Fanny,
I mean
..someone should write
a book about me.
And give it the most
tremendously happy ending.
That's a good idea.
MUSIC: Rue St Vincent
by Yves Montand
You shouldn't have.
FABRICE WHISPERS IN FRENCH
I love Paris.
TRAIN CLACKS
BRAKES SCREECH
Are you all right?
Should we get out?
I think it's a siren.
AIR-RAID SIREN IN DISTANCE
Oh, no. No!
Bloody Germans.
The cloud of war that seemed
so little at first grew and grew
until it became a thick grey blanket
smothering the horizon.
That funny face you make
when you tie your tie.
FABRICE LAUGHS
Do you think we shall ever live
together again?
Of course we shall.
For years and years, until I'm 90.
I have a very faithful nature.
But you weren't very faithful
to Jacqueline.
You know about her?
Mm-hm.
She was lovely.
I was immensely faithful to her,
and it lasted five years.
It always does with me, but
..as I love you ten times more
than the others,
that will bring me to 90,
and by then, mon Dieu, it will have
become such a habit.
And when shall I see you again?
I'll be back and forth.
I thought I heard a car.
Oui.
I must go.
Madame.
Au revoir.
The bad news got worse.
The cloud was now a great
horror of steel
rolling over France towards England.
We all took refuge at Alconleigh
without Linda,
who hadn't been back
there for two years now,
and whose return was much
longed for.
The more the merrier.
It is so lovely
Prepared for the invasion?
Ready to slay some Huns?
..Louisa's children.
It's like the old days.
The bombs were dropping thick
and fast on London now.
And Sadie begged me to try to fetch
Linda, who was worrying us all
by refusing to leave Cheney Walk,
even for a breath of air, in case
Fabrice called again.
Gosh. Hello, Moira.
Goodness, you've grown up.
She's in the bathroom being sick.
Oh, dear.
What's the puppy's name?
Plon-Plon, I think.
Is that French?
Daddy says the French are terrible.
I expect he does.
Moira's going to America
this afternoon.
She's come to say goodbye.
I am her mother after all.
Daddy says we ought to fight with
the Germans, not against them.
Hm. Daddy doesn't seem to be
fighting very much with anybody,
or against anybody, or at all,
as far as I can see.
Can you just stop playing
with the puppy for a minute
and just listen carefully
to what I'm saying?
I want you to know
..that I don't approve of you
running away like this from England,
just as soon as it's in trouble.
I think it most dreadfully wrong.
I have to do as I'm told, don't I?
But you'd much rather stay,
wouldn't you?
Oh, I don't think so.
There are air raids.
LINDA RETCHES
I'm in such a temper.
What do your children
think of air raids, Fanny?
I have to say,
they simply long for them.
Oh, that's a relief.
I thought perhaps it was
the whole generation.
Of course, it's not Moira's
fault entirely.
Pixie and Tony are frightened to
death. They're using her to escape.
You're only allowed on those boats
to America
if you've got a child in tow,
you know?
Fabrice bought this for me.
I was going to give it to Moira.
Oh, but I can't bear to waste
anything so pretty
on the little coward.
I think I'll give her
that dreadful sports wristwatch
I got when I married Tony instead.
Why are you always
so beastly to Moira?
LINDA VOMITS
TOILET FLUSHES
Oh.
This baby won't be
in the least like Moira.
You'll see.
I thought you weren't supposed to
have another one.
Doctors, what do they know?
Of course I can.
I'm simply longing for it.
Oh, God.
This is ridiculous.
Sadie and Matthew want you home,
Linda.
Come back to Alconleigh. You're ill.
No.
I'm having another one, too,
and so is Louisa.
Oh, I do call that nice.
They can be Hons together.
He knows to find me here.
You'll be killed, Linda!
And then he won't know
where to find you!
Or do you want to actually
die for love?
Maybe you think that's
romantic or something.
There are seven million
people in London, Fanny.
Do you really imagine they're all
killed every night?
Fetch me a glass of water, please.
Can you just open the door, Linda?
Not if you're going to try
and make me leave.
Why have I spent my whole life
worrying about you?
You are so incredibly selfish!
I do know I've been beastly
to Moira.
I think it was always in the back
of my mind
that I'd have to leave Tony
sooner or later.
I didn't want to get too fond
of Moira.
Or make her too fond of me.
She might become an anchor.
And I didn't dare let myself get
anchored to the Kroesigs.
Fanny
..sometimes I don't think we're
born women at all.
It's like
..your wings get clipped.
And then everyone's so surprised
when you don't know how to fly.
Fanny.
So I went back to Alconleigh alone
to wait out the months
in the freezing countryside.
It was a time made infinitely
more difficult
by the surprise arrival
of my mother.
It was with incredible adventures
that we escaped the Riviera.
Thank God for Juan here,
my ruffian Spaniard,
without whom I'd never have got out
of that ghastly prison camp
in Spain.
He's morose but ravishing,
don't you think?
He's sitting right next to you.
Don't worry about that, darling,
he doesn't understand
a word of English.
Oh, that's good.
Because I must tell you, Bolter,
I can't have a lot of
Dagos staying in the house.
You can stay as long as you like,
of course,
but I really do draw the line at
..Juan.
Can't turn him out
to starve, darling.
One must have human feeling.
Not towards Dagos.
You sure he can't understand us?
He looks very unhappy.
Oh, quite sure.
And I speak no Spanish.
We are incapable of verbal exchange.
Why are you with him, then?
Because we're engaged.
I thought you were still
married to the Major?
Do you know, I honestly
can't remember.
FANNY CHOKES
You all right, darling?
I just don't really approve of
people getting engaged
when they're married. No, I know.
It's always good to line yourself up
with the next one
before you've got rid of the one
before, don't you think?
That's more Linda's philosophy.
JUAN SIGHS LOUDLY
Is he all right?
The food, Sadie, it's the food.
The food is poisonous.
That's very rude,
given you've only just arrived.
Somebody had to say it.
I know it's the war, Sadie,
but I was sick for hours last night.
The day before,
Emily had frightful diarrhoea.
Fanny has that great big
spot on her nose.
Bolter's entirely right,
we're all being poisoned.
Bolter, please be more
ration conscious!
Darling, I'm going up to London
next week to get my wiggy washed
and I'll bring back a big huge
slab of it, I swear.
PHONE RINGS
AIR-RAID SIREN BLARES
EXPLOSION
# Are you leaving for the country? #
Don't pity me, Fanny.
I've had five months of perfect,
unalloyed happiness.
Very few people can say that in the
course of long lives, I imagine.
# Are you leaving for the country?
# You say the city brings you down
# Leave the iron cloud behind
# And feel the circus moving on. #
At ease. At ease.
I reckon we'll be able to hold
the Germans off for two hours,
possibly three,
before we're all killed.
Not bad for such a little squad.
You look like a miller.
Why are you all covered indust?
Did you get bombed?
Yes, I did, Fa.
And it's done me no end of good.
SADIE: Davey went into the business
room with Juan
and the Spanish dictionary, and our
whole lives have changed forever.
LAUGHING AND APPLAUSE
DAVEY: It turns out he was the cook
for some cardinal
before the civil war.
And he's been out in the woods
with a catapult, pickling
and preserving.
And already the store cupboard
is Aladdin's cave.
If I were the Bolter,
I should definitely marry him.
Well, knowing the Bolter,
I've no doubt she will.
You can talk.
At least Linda's doing her
bit for the war in Paris.
All you ever do is comfort crying
children, Fanny.
Did you get those lovely furs
when you were doing your bit
in Paris, Linda?
Isn't it wonderful what you can get
there on no money if you're clever?
What sort of war work was it
again, Linda?
She was providing comforts
for the French army.
Sometimes all night long.
Oh, that's exhausting.
Do stop it!
Oh, poor thing. You can see she
misses Christian terribly.
Where is he now? Cairo?
It does seem unfair.
Linda has this glorious
time in Paris
and comes back with all these furs.
What do you and I get for sticking
our whole lives
with the same dreary old husbands?
Three-quarter length shorn lamb.
Don't be mean about husbands.
Feeling awfully guilty about mine.
Who's going to look after
that baby, Fanny?
It's obvious you and I
will have to do it.
She'll forget about it
the moment it's born.
Psst!
Darling.
Darling, Fanny.
Psst.
What are you doing?
Hiding.
Of course, wild horses wouldn't make
me tell Sadie about Linda
and Sauveterre, but I do think when
we're all together
Linda might be a tiny bit jolly
and I'll keep running off.
We could be great friends,
she and I.
Well, there is a selfishness to her.
I sometimes think I was made for
another planet altogether
and mistook the way.
Linda and I are greedy,
of course, darling,
but it is rotten to find yourself
involved with a fellow for life
just because he was the one
you met when you were 19.
Yes, but if you have a child
with that fellow,
don't you have a certain
responsibility to that child?
You can't bolt and keep hold
of the child.
Well, then, shouldn't you stay?
Oh, darling Fanny.
Please don't never be greedy.
Don't think you have to be
good all the time.
Sometimes being good kills you
just as painfully as being bad can.
Oh, my goodness, they found me!
You found me!
You got me! Ow!
We saw you from over there.
No, you didn't.
Yeah. I was hiding perfectly.
Oh, my goodness
Oh, darling.
This letter came from Fabrice,
I think. I
I've been looking and looking,
and I can't decipher a single word.
Isn't it torture?
Never mind.
Oh.
One day the telephone bell
will ring
..and he'll be there.
I'm certain of it.
Why does your mother keep
winking at me?
LINDA CHUCKLES
And saying things like,
"Let's face it, dear, we're just
a couple of fallen women"?
I'm sorry, Fanny,
but I can't bear her.
Well, yes, but of everybody,
doesn't she seem happiest, though?
Maybe it's not all that terrible
to be a bolter in the end.
No, but, Fanny, she's ghastly
and ridiculous.
And I'm not a bolter!
No, of course not.
In fact, I've always thought of you
as an innocent.
Really?
Mm.
Thank you.
And I've always thought of you
as the most daring.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Because II always ran away,
and you didn't.
It was the bravest thing
in the world to stay put.
And
..I am lost without you.
I really am.
Fanny, it'sit's not here
that's home.
It's always been you.
Oh, and I need to go and be sick.
I'm sorry, darling. I love sitting
here chatting with you.
Promise to still be here
when I get back!
Oh.
SHE SIGHS
DOOR CLOSES
Alfred.
What are you doing here?
I had a day's leave
and I've come to see my wife.
Well, I was told
I would find her in a cupboard.
Yes.
Here I am.
I'll get out, it's No.
I'll join you.
What's this?
Oh. It's a diary I used to keep
when I was young.
May I?
You spent the whole time
ogling Linda?
Do you wish you were Linda?
Because I for one am very pleased
you're not.
You see, that's just not helpful.
I have this great need to be thought
of as sympathetic and pleasing.
I'm also this selfish person with
selfish thoughts anddesires.
Are you saying you want
to have an affair?
I know I can be preoccupied.
Truth is, I
..sometimes feel I have to work very
hard to prove my value
No, I don't want to have an affair.
I want to have
Be a good wife to you, and a good
mother, and a good friend.
It's just hard when you feel
all twisted up, and jealous,
and scared, and resentful
all the time.
Because I know that I'm
a shy person,
but I've got this lion inside of me.
Do you understand?
I'm trying very hard to.
God, I don't know.
I'm so very pleased
that you're not dead.
Sorry.
Ooh.
FANNY MOANS
Alfred, you're so
Oh.
Alfred, you couldn't do that before.
Alfred, your glasses are steamed up.
Doesn't matter.
All this tweed.
Spring came with
extraordinary beauty,
and we waited impatiently
for our babies to be born.
The days and hours dragged by again,
like they used to
when we were young girls
waiting for our lives to begin.
What's the time, darling?
Guess.
Half past twelve.
Better than that.
It's quarter to one.
Do you think if Fa had allowed us
to go to school, be clever
and accomplished like Fanny,
we'd have been quite
so desperate to escape his clutches?
No. As it is, we're all good for
exactly nothing.
And if I hadn't run far away
..I'd have never met Fabrice,
had my happy ending.
You should be the one to write
the love story, Fanny.
The one with the happy ending.
And it'll sell millions of copies,
and I'll get filthy rich.
And Alfred will have to suffer
the indignity
of me paying for him in restaurants.
If anything should happen to me,
you will look after Plon-Plon,
won't you?
Such a comfort to me all this time.
But she spoke idly,
as one who knows she will
live forever.
Louisa's baby, her sixth child,
was born in May, and we envied her
from the bottom of our hearts
for having got it over with.
GLASS CLINKS
I have an announcement to make
regarding how we are to respond
to the imminent German invasion.
In the
..inevitable event of my death,
there is one very, very
important job to be done.
Davey, I would like you to blow up
Juan's store cupboard, Aladdin.
What?
Now, I would ask Juan to
do it himself,
but the fact is, though I rather
like old Juan now,
once a foreigner,
always a foreigner.
Are you seriously asking me
to blow up Aladdin?
Matthew, you must be mad.
We can't reward the Germans
by feeding them from Aladdin!
Well, in my opinion, and speaking
on behalf of my absent siblings,
happiness only begins the day one
leaves this icy dark well
of a country and steps foot on
foreign soil,
and foreigners are to be adored.
However, in this instance,
Fa is right.
We must stop at nothing to
defeat the Germans.
Fa
..show me how to blow up Aladdin.
That's my girl, Linda.
That's my girl!
And when you've blown up Aladdin,
I want you to take down the
entrenching tool.
Like this, I'll show you.
You'll be well looked after, Linda.
Pregnant women always are.
I'll never be able to make them
understand about my insides.
I know Germans.
Will you stop talking about
your insides for once, Davey?
I've wanted to use this for years.
I must say, mine are feeling
frightfully peculiar
all of a sudden. Mine too.
Juan's poisoned us!
I always knew he would, all along.
He's turned against us.
Don't touch the food,
he's poisoned the lot of us.
Don't ruin my knickers!
Funny, I remember feeling just like
that every time the babies came.
THEY LAUGH
On the 28th of May,
both our babies were born.
Both boys.
The doctors who said that Linda
ought never to have another child
were not such idiots after all.
It killed her.
She died, I think, completely happy
and without having suffered
very much.
But for us at Alconleigh,
for her father and mother,
brothers and sisters,
for Davey and for Lord Merlin,
a light went out.
A great deal of joy
that could never be replaced.
At the same time as Linda's death,
Fabrice was caught by the Gestapo
and subsequently shot.
He was a hero of the Resistance,
and his name has become
a legend in France.
I have adopted little Fabrice
with the consent of Christian,
his legal father.
His eyes are the same as Linda's,
and he's a most beautiful
and enchanting child.
I love him quite as much
and perhaps more than I do my own.
Have you any interest
in seeing a witch?
I've brought one in my bag,
all the way from London.
Witchy-witchy-woo.
LAUGHING
Witchy-witchy-woo.
Don't look scared at all.
You don't have to stand here
and humour me.
Beautiful child.
Poor Linda.
Poor little thing.
It's desperately sad.
But, Fanny, darling,
don't you think it's just as well?
The lives of women like Linda
and me aren't so much fun
when one begins to get older.
Well, let's hope that in years to
come, these boys' granddaughters
can be more than just a bolter or a
sticker, or a Linda or a Fanny,
and decide who they are irrespective
of who they marry.
I do think that Linda would've been
happy with Fabrice.
He was the love of her life,
you know.
Darling, one always thinks that.
Every, every time.
SHE LAUGHS
Well, one does.
THEY LAUGH
# The sea of love
# I want to tell you
# How much I love you
# Ooh
# Ooh. #