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it there. Leonora’s got it, obviously. Leonora’s probably bored now that she hasn’t got her book to write. Ask Leonora when she comes in, you’ll find she’s borrowed it, after all it’s only a tape recorder. Is it a very high-class one ?
    D APHNE. It isn’t mine. I borrowed it for a purpose.
    CHARLIE. I can’t afford to replace it.
    CATHERINE. We managed to get a recording of Leonora’s voice, Annie, to prove that she does what Charlie says she does. It’s on the tape, it’s there when one plays it back.
    A NNIE. How thrilling. You could blackmail Leonora now, I suspect she’s quite well off. It wouldn’t be a real crime, would it, if you just kept it in the family.
    C HARLIE. How could she have suspected?
    A NNIE. Leonora’s a scholar, you know. Scholars are very sly, you must admit they do things very much on the sly. I once met a scholar in the train to Cardiff.
    CATHERINE. Supposing Leonora should play it back, not quite knowing what it was she said? It might give her a frightful shock. I wish we hadn’t thought of the tape recorder. I feel rather mean.
    D APHNE. I don’t. It will force her to have treatment.
    CATHERINE. From whom?
    D APHNE. She should be psychoanalysed.
    CATHERINE. I don’t see Leonora submitting to psychoanalysis. She’s so inevitably bound to be more intelligent than the analyst, she’d be analysing him.
    D APHNE. Something will have to be done.
    CATHERINE. Something has been done.
    D APHNE. Something more will have to be done.
    ANNIE. Nonsense. We had another cousin Sarah, who used to talk to the squirrels. Nothing was ever done about her. We just put up with it— Remember, Catherine?
    D APHNE. This is quite different. There’s nothing desperately odd about talking to a squirrel.
    ANNIE. These squirrels were not there. We just had to put up with it. Can’t you just put up with this little freak of Leonora’s, Charlie?
    CHARLIE . No.
    CATHERINE. It upsets Charlie.
    ANNIE. It flatters him.
    CHARLIE. It frightens me. What are we going to do when she comes back? That’s the problem.
    CATHERINE. Perhaps she won’t come back.
    ANNIE. Oh, she wouldn’t run off with Daphne’s tape recorder. It would be criminal.
    CATHERINE. Leonora’s a serious problem, Annie. She might not return.
    A NNIE. That’s what Charlie wants, isn’t it? So that would be an end of the problem.
    CATHERINE. It would present a worse problem.
    A NNIE. I’ve got a brilliant idea. I know what we can do.
    MRS. S. (off). Lunch ready.
    CATHERINE. What, Annie?
    ANNIE. Well, in my opinion, the best way to deal with a problem is to solve it. That’s what we’ll do.
    MRS. S . (off). Lunch ready.
    CATHERINE. Lunch is ready.
    CURTAIN
    END OF SCENE I

ACT TWO
SCENE II
    M RS. S. WITH ELECTRIC POLISHER .
    The stage is empty and without scenery except for various pulleys a nd switches to adjust stage scenery and lighting, but with various c oloured lights upon it.
    LEONORA comes in with a tape recorder. She sits on the stage, opens the tape recorder and starts to play it back.
    LEONORA’S VOICE (from the machine). Charlie, give me a child, I want a child.
    CHARLIE’S VOICE. Leonora, please …
    LEONORA’S VOICE. Charlie, before it’s too late. Give me a child.
    CHARLIE’S VOICE. Just sit down for a moment, Leonora. You are not well.
Recorded footsteps retreating.
    L EONORA. That is a recording of a conversation between me and my cousin’s husband.
    MRS. S . Never!
Switches on the polisher, which makes a humming sound, and polishes the floor of the stage with it.
    L EONORA. What do you make of it, Mrs. S.?
    M RS. S. Very revealing. Get up off the floor, you’ll catch a cold off it.
    L EONORA. Mrs. S., have you ever had a nervous breakdown?
    MRS. S. Yes. I shall never forget it. I had it on a Tuesday afternoon in March four years ago when Mrs. D. packed her bags to leave Charlie, but Charlie failed to return home at the anticipated hour to be left. Suspense held us both in its clammy clutch. We waited, gaunt,