The Pursuit of Love

("Blue, Red, and Grey" by The Who playing)

# Some people seem so obsessed With the morning #

# Get up early just to watch The sunrise #

# Some people like it more When there's fire in the sky #

# Worship the sun when it's high #

# Some people go For those sultry evenings #

# Sipping cocktails In the blue, red, and grey #

# But I like every minute #

# Of the day #

# I like every second #

# So long as you are on my mind #

# Every moment Has its special charm #

# It's all right when you're around Rain or shine #

# The people on the hill #

# They say I'm lazy #

# But when they sleep I sing and dance #

# Some people have to have The sultry evenings #

# Cocktails In the blue, red, and grey #

# But I like every minute #

- (missile whistling) - # Of the day #

- (rumbling) - (Linda) Oh.

What did I tell you about air raids not killing people?

My bed simply went through the floor

and Plon-Plon and I went on it.

Perfectly comfortable.

Linda Radlett was not only my favourite cousin

but then and for many years, my favourite human being.

Don't pity me, Fanny.

I've had...

five months of perfect and unalloyed happiness.

Very few people can say that

in the course of long lives I imagine.

Very few.

As we turned down the drive at Alconleigh,

I asked myself if Linda's five months of perfect happiness

were quite worth all the chaos and confusion

of the other 29 years,

but I often thought about things like that with Linda.

It always feels like Christmas coming home.

I know.

Ever since I was a small child,

I was sent to spend the Christmas holidays with Linda

in a large, ugly, north-facing house,

high on a hill in Oxfordshire.

Most of these Christmases were marked with violence.

There was the time Linda's pony lay on her in the brook

and nearly drowned her.

The time she tried to kill herself

in an attempt to rejoin a smelly, old border terrier

which Uncle Matthew had put down.

- (both shrieking) - The time she decided

to tell the daughters of some neighbours the facts of life,

resulting in dreadful beatings from Uncle Matthew.

And luncheon alone for two whole weeks.

Linda hated to be alone.

She was a wild and nervous creature

full of passion and longing.

But of all the Christmases,

the Christmas I remember the most is when we were 17

and Linda decided that her life had to begin.

That's not fair!

I stumbled into the hall

and found Linda's mother, my Aunt Sadie

and the children having tea

as they always did in front of the fireplace,

over which hung, as it always had,

the entrenching tool Uncle Matthew had used

to whack to death eight Germans

as they crawled out of a dugout in 1915.

Linda's father, my Uncle Matthew, knew no middle course.

He either loved or he hated.

And generally, it must be said, he hated.

I hate Huns, frogs, Americans, Catholics,

and all other foreigners, but above all, I hate children!

He had four beautiful bloodhounds

with which every Christmas he would hunt his children

and a pair of stock whips he cracked

on the lawn every morning at dawn.

Had the Radletts been poor,

he no doubt would have been sent to prison

for beating and refusing to educate them.

Uncle Matthew loathed educated females...

particularly me.

- Fanny! - Fanny!

- (exclaims excitedly) - (laughs)

- (Sadie) Fanny... - You're here!

- (Sadie) Fanny! Welcome! Oh! - We missed you!

Fanny, you must be exhausted!

Come have a cup of tea. How was your journey?

- Come and sit. - (Sadie) Come sit in Jassy's chair.

As always, Linda was the most pleased to see me

but determined not to show it.

Linda, Fanny's here.

Would you like a cup of tea?

Yes, please.

Hello.

Where's your mouse?

Oh, she got a sore back and died.

Had you been riding it?

Nobody cried so much or so often as Linda.

...some sort of urinary disease...

Anything, but especially anything about animals

would set her off.

Her emotions were on no ordinary plane.

She loved or she loathed,

she laughed or she cried.

She lived in a world of superlatives.

Linda was the chairman of a secret club

- called the Hons Society. - (chuckles)

Its headquarters was a linen cupboard

at the top of the house.

Six.

Three and quarters...

The dead mouse was quickly forgotten.

It's more than last year.

Neck? Tummy?

One.

Seven and a third.

So I win on arms, eyes, waist, ankles, and you win on bust.

Hmm. I hate bust.

Farmers love busts.

Linda and I were both in love

with people we have never met.

I with a fat, red-faced middle-aged farmer

I sometimes saw riding through the village

and Linda with the Prince of Wales.

Why can't your prince and my farmer be invited to Louisa's ball?

Because Matthew won't let anyone fanciable

within 50 miles of the house.

A coming out ball was planned that Christmas

for Linda's older sister Louisa.

We're trapped!

Our only hope is the Prince breaking down in his motorcar.

- (chuckles) - (Linda) Pray,

who is that beautiful young lady?

I wish to marry her!

You can't!

- (laughs) - She's here under lock and key!

I've killed 15 Germans with this entrenching tool,

I can certainly kill you!

He must have your daughter, sir!

His happiness depends on it and subsequently

so does the happiness of England.

Even then, Linda's fantasies

were altogether more ambitious

- and dangerous than mine. - (knock on door)

I want to sit next to Fanny!

Of course, you took your time!

- This better be good, Linda! - (Linda) It is.

Oh, it's so hot in here. Talk about back to the womb!

It's more welcoming than my mother's womb, I imagine.

Fanny, it is unfair that you have wicked parents and not me.

So you aspire to being wicked and adulterous, do you, Linda?

No. I aspire to true love.

The kind which only comes once in a lifetime and lasts forever.

The news I have for the Hons today

while of considerable Hon interest

generally, particularly concerns...

- Fanny. - Oh.

- Aunt Emily is engaged. - (all gasp)

- No, Linda, you're making it up! - (Linda) I found proof.

"My dear sister Sadie...

Not to tell the children we're engaged.

The Captain and I will arrive late on Christmas Eve

and stay in time for Louisa's party, of course.

- All love from Emily." - Oh.

Why would she want to get married anyway?

She can't love him. He's 40.

- He must be ancient. - Well, maybe...

maybe he'll fall in love with Fanny.

Aunt Emily had brought me up

ever since I was a baby.

It had always been just her and me.

Aunt Sadie had two sisters, my mother and Aunt Emily.

At the age of 19, my mother,

feeling herself too beautiful and gay

to be burdened with a baby,

left my father for another man

and gave me to Aunt Emily to bring up.

- (engine revs) - Goodbye, darling!

My impetuous mother subsequently ran away so often

and with so many different men

that she became known to her family and friends as "The Bolter".

There you are, darling...

Occasionally, she would reappear like a meteor,

showering me with her extravagance,

and I would long to be caught up in her fiery trails

and be carried away...

But she would always vanish off again to a new man.

And in my heart, I knew how lucky I was

to have safe, reliable, kind Aunt Emily.

Come on, Fanny!

Get dressed, lazybones.