Stage Play / Marigold - Scene Eight

Columbo, Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot.
Joe Mohan doesn’t watch shows like that anymore. Simply because to him their just ridiculous, far fetched works of fiction. Real Private detectives don’t have adventures like those guys do. There is in his opinion, very little personal glory to be had in his chosen profession, personal pride perhaps, or at least there used to be. Sat on his leather couch he fumbled for the T.V. remote, Peter Falk was listening intently to an aging Dance teacher ask with mock concern
‘Who could possibly want to kill, my husband, lieutenant’? “She did it” he said aloud to nobody in particular and took a large gulp from his class of Chilean merlot. “They always do it, in one way or another” It was four-thirty seven am, he had been drinking since about nine the previous evening and his mind was just about ready to quit on him, and why not, it hadn’t really had to do lately. Joe lay back into the always welcoming embrace of his office couch, drained the remnants of his wine glass, closed his eyes and let his case file slip from his grip, the folder fell to the floor, its contents spilled onto his expensive cream double weave foam backed carpet, and under his moderately priced Glass Topped Coffee Table.
Transcripts of phone conversations, photographs taken up close from behind bushes and from afar with a 200mm zoom lens, A breakdown of the subjects daily movements, a comprehensive report on the findings, and of course, an invoice for services rendered to be paid within fourteen days lay exposed for all to see.

Joe’s mind didn’t register that his neatly prepared report had hit the floor and pieces of paper and various photographs issued from their cardboard jacket, he did however open his eyes for a moment when he thought he heard a scream, his brain couldn’t decide whether it was coming from the television or the dark city street outside, it was followed by the sound of angry male voices shouting, a warm blanket of drowsy drunkenness pulled itself around him tightly, another, more distant scream, a female this time hung in the air then more shouting, also female, hysterical, distant, very distant, so very ………
Mother sleep had claimed him for another night.

Knocking, in the darkness Joe could hear knocking, is that the time already he thought Shit, he remember that he had a meeting With Mr James Short this morning at eleven.
James short was his current client, a decent man who owned a chain of butchers’ shops. Mr Short had long suspected that his wife was hiding something from him, and instead of facing up to Mrs short and just asking her outright if she was cheating on him, he tried to gently glean information from their precious four year old, Gemma Short.
When darling daughter Gemma couldn’t confirm anything more solid than mummies friends that come to the house when your at work, all are nice, are all men, and that they gave her ‘Chokit’ he hired Joe to tell him what he thinks he already knows. The poor bastard doesn’t know the half of it. He should have just embraced his fear of confrontation and told his wife that he knows she has been sleeping with another man while he was busy at work trying to provide a future for his family. The poor sap actually told Joe he felt sorry for his wife because she was at home with their child, probably feeling alone and neglected, because he’s been too busy to give her enough attention.
When Gary first dropped the freshly developed pictures on Joe’s desk he thought; “oh boy, the poor guy probably didn’t even know she could bend like that”

Knock Knock Joe looked at his watch, nine-twenty one.
A wave of sickness washed over him, his head throbbed and felt momentarily light as he sat up right. Has Mr James come early, he hated it when clients did that, if a client turns up to a meeting two hours early then he’s guaranteed to have spent the night brooding on the grim possibilities that await his future and will be agitated, impatient, emotional and in no state of mind to deal with the dirty little secrets of their dearly beloveds. Quickly Joe picked up and shuffled together Mr James case file, composed himself against his desk, straightened his tie, smoothed down his slept in shirt, and went to open his office door, his stomach lurched.

The main office door leads into a small narrow hallway, which is bare apart from a small ornamental three-legged table with a glass top, on which are stacked a pile of business cards. JOE MOHAN. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. The door beyond the quaint antique table has a frosted glass window with JOE MOHAN. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR stencilled on it in dramatic pearl white letters. Through the glass Joe could make out the blurred image of a slender woman with a big head of blond frizzy hair sporting a red cocktail party dress.
“Morning Joe.”
“Claire?” he stopped a moment to let his eyes focus “Workin late eh?”
She Floated through the hall and into the room with the grace of a fifties Hollywood movie starlet, carrying with her the air of authority of Betty Davis in practically anything she’s ever been in and Two cups of Starbucks Grande Cappuccino.
“I always work late darlin, you know me.” She had a twinkle in her eye that showed a mischievous streak, but she looked tired and Joe thought that this morning her face was in danger of showing her years. Many young men had fallen in love with Claire not knowing as Joe did that she could easily have passed as their mother, well, on paper at least.
“I saw your light on Jojo, and I took a chance that you could use a cup.”
Joe took it from her and slumped onto the armchair that came with the sofa, and took a swig through the hole in the plastic take away lid, the flavour of freshly brewed coffee awoke his taste buds as the warmth of warm whisky warmed his insides.
Claire’s eyes flashed with mischievousness, “I’ve Irished it up for you”
“Cheers babe, I need it.”
“I thought you might, hello, what are you working on today,” she said as she bee lined for the open case file.
“No, Claire, no!!” Joe said with an absolute authority in his voice.
“Oh. Come on”, She flicked open the file, the documents were in disorder and one of the photo’s were lay on the top of the pile. “Jesus, somebody’s been having a good time.”
Joe rushed to grab the file from Claire; she pulled it away and looked at him as a mother would to an unruly child,
“Ah ahh, it’s rude to snatch” she said, then her eye’s softened as joe remembered that the rough approach was most defiantly not the way forward with this woman.
“I’m Sorry, it’s been a long night – may I?” Joe was sure he saw the faintest smile crack from her otherwise fixed full lips as she gently and gracefully handed it over.
‘Thank you’, he sat back in his armchair and rested the file on the glass-topped coffee table that sat in front of them both.
Claire, it seemed, was waiting for something.
They sat for a few minutes in silence drinking their Irish Grande’s until finally, Joe broke the silence.’ how are you Claire?”
“You know same old stuff, different day”,
“Don’t do that”
“Do what?”
“Come on Clare, do that! Don’t dive me a Generic answer to an honest question”.
Claire smiled, she looked tired Joe Thought.
“I’m fine, business is great, my girls are doin good, they’re happy”.
‘Their Happy’, Joe thought.
A key turned in the out side Frosted Glass door.
“Did you hear anything going on in the street last night?”
“Yep I thought I heard some screams it was probably just some drunk lads scrapping, you know what the girlfriends are like when their lads are kicking the shit out of each other, the don’t do anything useful they just scream like fuckin banshee’s”
Clair winced at the unnecessary use of bad language
“You wouldn’t Hear them wailing every night if you slept at home.”
“What makes you think that I didn’t?”
Clair sniffed and pulled a face
“It smells musky in here, like slept in socks and old pumps.”
Joe had the good manners to look sheepish at this remark.
“Whatever was going on out there it didn’t affect you did it?”
“No”
“Good, like you said, same shit, different day.”
Gary Thompson, a small-framed redheaded lad of twenty-seven year, and Joe’s partner for four years poked his head through the door.
‘‘Morning boss, oh, am I interrupting something’’
‘‘You most certainly are not Gary, I was just leaving’’ said Claire as she elegantly rose from her seat.
‘‘I could go and get a Mac brekkie, if you two need some more time alone’’
On her way out Claire whispered something into Gary ear, and this time it was Gary’s turn to look sheepish.
“I’ll leave you boys to your fun and games, I’ll see you soon”
As she left, she slyly winked at Gary and said just loud enough for Joe to hear.

“So, we’ll see you later then, stud,” Now Gary was positively orange all over
“Oh eye, what was that?”
“What?” Replied Gary
“What? What she say?”
“Nothin”
“Look at you, you’re goin orange. You look like a pumpkin in a bomber jacket”
“Yeah, whatever mate”
Gary stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air
“Did you sleep in here last night?” Joe cocks his head and squints at Gary “Yep”
“Thought so, it smells like old farts and dirty socks”

This is a decent scene as far as scene-work goes, but I will really need to see the rest of the play (or at least the seven previous scenes) before I can make an accurate analysis of the effectiveness of the characters and the core dramatic action.  That said I think you build the tension and well and show a genuine intimacy in your characters that I rather enjoy.  It seems you know them well and understand their motivations.  There is a real sense of connectedness with their situation, however dispondent, and I feel that is probably what you meant when you described the theme in your introduction.  Its a familiar duality for which many people probably have some awareness.  I like the simple domestic bickering--it really creates empathy with an audience.  The cold pizza, her lack of motivation--or perhaps his overindulgence in these things outside of her—and other seemingly petty and insignificant matters compound to generate one massive, utterly meaningless and avoidable complication that I’m sure has more relevance within the greater context.

I liked the scene, but still felt it missing something and, aside from some minor editing, its probably just the theme taken out of the larger plot.  

Can’t wait to read the rest.