Hell's Belles by Deborah Mulhall

This Play is the copyright of the Author and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent

Characters

Arabella: between 35 and 50. Smart, savvy, stylish and separated from Mal.

Richelle: a divorcee between 35 and 45. Warm, cheerful.

Morax: a demon. In appearance, somewhere between 25 and 35. Charming, polite, devious.

Mal: Arabella's husband. 40's to 50's. Hard nosed businessman.

David: 40's. A aging rock musician with an inflated sense of his own talent.

Jimmy: 35 to 50. Would-be actor with an inflated sense of his own talent.

(Mal, David and Jimmy may all be - and should be - played by the same actor)

Setting

The time is now. The set varies between Richelle's living room, a café, a shop, a street and as indicated.

Hell's Belles!

(note: Scenes 1 and 2 should be played simultaneously)

Scene 1 (Fade up the living area of RICHELLE's apartment. Evening. She is dancing around the living room to rendition of "Do You Believe in Magic". There is old style and a pile of recording tape lying in a mess on the floor. As )

Scene 2 (Arabella is walking, carrying two bottles of wine in a bag. She has a newspaper and flicks it open to look at the front page. Gasps at the headline. Her mobile phone rings. She juggles her load to look at who is calling. When she sees who it is, she sighs but lets it ring out. Exits to knock on Richelle's door.)

RICHELLE: 'S open! (Arabella enters. The following happens as she carries the food and wine into what must be the kitchen whilst Richelle continues to mess around with the tape. Arabella will eventually emerge with two glasses of wine and hand one to Richelle. It isn't her home, but her comfort level is apparent.)

ARABELLA: I wish you wouldn't do that. Leave your door unlocked.

RICHELLE: You know I only do it when I know you are coming over.

ARABELLA: Anyone could just walk in here. Some sort of serial killer or madman.

RICHELLE: And rob me of all my expensive jewels and heirlooms? Besides, it's a secure apartment building.

ARABELLA: Hey, wanna go out for a change? Just two divorced women on the town?

RICHELLE: You are not divorced.

ARABELLA: (appears briefly to say) Yet. All but. Soon.

RICHELLE: So, what did you have in mind?

ARABELLA: Salsa dancing?

RICHELLE: Where?

ARABELLA: Lots of clubs have salsa dancing on a Friday night.

RICHELLE: Salsa dancing is a euphemism for the middle-aged pick-up scene.

ARABELLA: So?

RICHELLE: It just isn't us.

ARABELLA: (enters from kitchen, waving the comment away and handing Richelle a glass of wine) Here, have this, 'cos you're gonna need it. flourishes a newspaper.) Seen this?

RICHELLE: What?

ARABELLA: Look at the front page. Didn't you used to go out with this guy?

RICHELLE: Shit! "Which of these sons is a brutal murderer?" Gordon is a suspect in a murder!

ARABELLA: He murdered his mother?

RICHELLE: You know, I only went out with him for about four weeks. A couple of dinners and a movie. I mean, it's not as if

ARABELLA: Have you got something against mothers?

RICHELLE: What?

ARABELLA: You killed David's mother.

RICHELLE: I did not!

ARABELLA: Well, she choked on the banana cake you made her.

RICHELLE: She didn't choke to death!

ARABELLA: No. She died from the seizure the coughing brought on.

RICHELLE: Oh God. (silence)

ARABELLA: Hmm. Ok. What about a movie?

RICHELLE: Nah. Checked.

ARABELLA: A show then?

RICHELLE: American or English well worn comedies. Again.

ARABELLA: That's it?

RICHELLE: Or contemporary angst driven plays about the futility of the inner journey through the despair which characterizes modern life.

ARABELLA: Well done! Still, you should lock the front door.

RICHELLE: Nothing ever happens.

ARABELLA: How very Beckett of you. (Arabella goes to the kitchen to get more wine. Emerges and contemplates the music gear everywhere.)

ARABELLA: You really should have gone into the music industry. You always were obsessed with it.

RICHELLE: Excuse me? I am in the music industry.

ARABELLA: You manage a music store.

RICHELLE: Sort of connected

ARABELLA: Well, you know more than everyone else put together about bands and stuff. (Pause) I thought you put that gear away months ago.

RICHELLE: I did. But I got it out again.

ARABELLA: Why? I can't see the point. There are computers now, you know. No-one uses those old dinosaurs.

RICHELLE: It's the challenge. Some of these tapes may be the only live recordings of some bands.

ARABELLA: What bands? Drugged out surfies from the Northern Beaches stumbling around with cheap equipment copying each other's music? Bad lyrics set to even worse melodies?

RICHELLE: Some of that music was really avant-garde at the time. Cutting edge stuff.

ARABELLA: If it was so bloody marvelous, how come they didn't make it big huh?

RICHELLE: (defensively) Some of them did.

ARABELLA: Name one. Name me one of these local bands you taped who had a hit overseas.

RICHELLE: You don't have to make it overseas to be successful!

ARABELLA: Of course you do! (accusingly). And you put in so much time and effort and money of your own to promote them.

RICHELLE: It was never about the money, Bella.

ARABELLA: It never is about money with you Rish darling.

RICHELLE: It was always about the music. And just trying.

ARABELLA: Hah! You've been looking at your old photo album again, haven't you?

RICHELLE: Well, you know, I was cleaning out the storage cupboard and I came across this stuff

ARABELLA: No no no no no no no! That David fucked you over when you were eighteen. And again when you were twenty-eight. And thirty-two. I forbid you to let him do you over again.

RICHELLE: After that thing with his mother, I don't think it's a problem. (sighs) I don't know what it is about me and musicians. I swear, I don't even try. I ignore them. But somehow, one of them will find me. Usually the bass player.

ARABELLA: I thought David used to be a front man. A lead or something.

RICHELLE: He was.

ARABELLA: Now he sings ad jingles. (laughs) That's a hell of a music career.

RICHELLE: (lost in reverie) He sat next to me during a break because I was the only female in the whole club not watching him. How's that for an ego?

ARABELLA: Nick wasn't a muso.

RICHELLE: No. Nick was a journalist. Lying comes naturally to him.

ARABELLA: And your ex-husband wasn't a muso.

RICHELLE: Not a basis on which to marry someone. The fact that he wasn't a muso. What's all that say about me?

ARABELLA: I run afoul of lawyers.

RICHELLE: There was that one who wasn't, remember?

ARABELLA: The barman who thought he was an actor?

RICHELLE: Yes. Him

ARABELLA: An aberration. Mostly it's lawyers. What's that say about me?

RICHELLE: Speaking of lawyers, how's the settlement going?

ARABELLA: Mal keeps phoning. I keep playing back his messages.

RICHELLE: You have to erase them.

ARABELLA: I know.

RICHELLE: You're not over him.

ARABELLA: It's all so clichéd. An affair with his bimbo secretary for God's sake!

RICHELLE: Maybe he wants to try again.

ARABELLA: No. He's hell bent on something though. Always at me.

RICHELLE: You should be able to make that work in your favour in the settlement. If he's in such a rush.

ARABELLA: I don't like being rushed into anything. And it's another one of his schemes. For which he is always cash strapped. Then, amazingly, he always seems to get the money. The devil looks after his own.

RICHELLE: Why's he hassle you then?

ARABELLA: He just likes to be on the winning side. Every version of the settlement has a catch or clause of some sort which means I get screwed.

RICHELLE: Isn't your solicitor supposed to go over any contracts?

ARABELLA: Hah! Don't trust him. They're all in it together. You can't imagine what hell it is divorcing a divorce lawyer.

RICHELLE: Hey, what about the fat barrister? He should be good for free advice.

ARABELLA: I have decided to give up the fat barrister.

RICHELLE: Why?

ARABELLA: 'Cos he's fat.

RICHELLE: Excuse me, I thought you liked his mind enough to overlook the huge doughnut that he is.

ARABELLA: But everywhere we went, until last night, was a function.

RICHELLE: And last night?

ARABELLA: Last night we went to dinner.

RICHELLE: And now we know why

ARABELLA: he's fat. It was like that scene in the Monty Python film. (they both fall silent for a moment, picturing it)

RICHELLE: So, you didn't sleep with him then?

ARABELLA: He wouldn't be able to see it. Or probably even find it! And I'd suffocate under the whale. (mimics) (they fall about laughing, crudely miming)

RICHELLE: Ohhhh seriously Bella. Why even bother with someone like that?

ARABELLA: It's an intellectual thing. (they laugh) Looking for a lover whose brain I can't trample over.

RICHELLE: (as she threads some tape through the player) Whereas I am looking for someone who doesn't trample over me.

ARABELLA: (inspired) You should look for someone to just have sex with. No strings.

RICHELLE: This is sound advice?

ARABELLA: You always invest sex with love. It's why you get so fucked up by men.

RICHELLE: Listen to you! You're obsessed with lawyers! And you haven't even cut yourself loose from the last one.

ARABELLA: I like their incisive minds.

RICHELLE: Hey, maybe it's not the men. Maybe it's us.

ARABELLA: There's a depressing thought.

RICHELLE: But what if it is? How come none of our relationships ever work out?

ARABELLA: If you look at it from a certain perspective, they do work out. They just have a use-by date, that's all.

RICHELLE: Is that supposed to be comforting?

ARABELLA: It's grasping at straws. (There is a contemplative pause.)

RICHELLE: Bella, what do you really want? I mean, if you could have anything at all, what would be your heart's desire?

ARABELLA: (ironically) Besides world peace?

RICHELLE: Yes, Miss America.

ARABELLA: Ooh. Shoes. And clothes. All the accessories that go with them. All that gorgeous designer stuff. Not having to work.

RICHELLE: Seriously?

ARABELLA: I guess. Money may not buy happiness but it buys choices. And maybe things the way they used to be with Mal. In the beginning. What about you?

RICHELLE: This sounds old-fashioned but I'd like someone to take me away from all this. Who loves me unconditionally and who would do anything for me. (Pauses) Isn't it funny how we always put our personal desires ahead of any thought of big social issues.

ARABELLA: Like starving children in Africa.

RICHELLE: And global warming.

ARABELLA: I suspect you need to have money to be a philanthropist. What's brought on all this genie in the lamp stuff?

RICHELLE: Maybe the contemplation of the past.

ARABELLA: Leave the past where it belongs.

RICHELLE: Are you listening to yourself?

ARABELLA: Since when have I ever listened to myself? (Pause) How's it going?

RICHELLE: I think I have this piece of tape sorted out.

ARABELLA: Give me your glass and I'll get some more wine. (ARABELLA exits. RICHELLE switches the deck on. The tape plays a series of tortuous sounds, then there is a small explosion. The lights momentarily flicker out. When they come up, a young man in rather old and odd fashioned clothing is sitting awkwardly among the tangle of tape. ARABELLA yells a "What was that!" from the kitchen, RICHELLE screams and begins to run around hysterically. The young man moans.

ARABELLA rushes in, waving a wine bottle.)

ARABELLA: What the hell was that? And who the hell is that?

RICHELLE: (hysterically) I don't know. I don't know he just walked in and let off some sort of bomb. Oh god, it's some sort of terrorist!

ARABELLA: That bloody front door!

RICHELLE: You came in last! You could have locked it behind you.

ARABELLA: It's your place! You should be locking your own door! YOUNG MAN: (as though in pain) Arrgghh! Excuse me?

ARABELLA: Honestly, Rish, I have been warning you for ages about this sort of thing.

RICHELLE: Call the police or something.

ARABELLA: Hang on, what exactly happened? YOUNG MAN: Please, excuse me

RICHELLE: Honestly, I was just playing the tape, which I think somehow I got in back to front because it was making weird noises.

ARABELLA: Was that what it was? It sounded very effective.

RICHELLE: Wasn't it though? So I either threaded the tape backwards or the machine is so old it doesn't play properly. YOUNG MAN: Please forgive my interruption, Mistresses, but

ARABELLA: (brandishing the wine bottle) Get out before I call the police. Go on!

YOUNG MAN: Mistress Arabella, believe me, I would do so but alas I cannot.

RICHELLE: Alas?

ARABELLA: What do you mean you cannot?

YOUNG MAN: Mistress Richelle has me trapped.

RICHELLE: Me?

ARABELLA: (to Richelle) What have you been up to behind my back?

RICHELLE: I nothing I…

YOUNG MAN: Mistress, please break the charm so I may move.

ARABELLA: Don't touch him! It is probably some sort of entrapment scheme to con you or sue you for everything.

RICHELLE: (indicating) I haven't got anything. Hang on a minute, did you just say our names?

YOUNG MAN: Mistress Richelle, please, this position is quite distressing.

ARABELLA: How do you know our names? (she prods him with her foot)

RICHELLE: And what's your name?

YOUNG MAN: Mistress, you summoned me particularly. You must know I am Morax.

RICHELLE: Morax? Never heard of you.

ARABELLA: What's with this "mistress" stuff? Rish, have you been getting into kinky stuff without telling me?

RICHELLE: I wish. Kinda nice, isn't he?

ARABELLA: Well not my type really. Hmm. Okay, Morax if that really is your name who sent you? And why? And why are you all hunched up like that?

MORAX: (Moaning) I told you. Mistress Richelle summoned me. She uttered the charm and created the iron pentacle.

RICHELLE: (indignant) I did no such thing!

MORAX: (indicating the pile of tape around him) Please break the pentacle so I may move.

ARABELLA: He is very polite.

RICHELLE: That isn't a pentacle, it is a pile of magnetic recording tape.

[end of extract]

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