“I am the only person that stands between you and Stafford House.” Doris tells us Zuleema says.
Doris reacts with cheeky or sarcastic comments, letting us know that she is not bothered and knows that Zuleema is just trying to influence her,
“They don’t put people in Stafford House just for running around with the Ewbank.”
Doris doesn’t want to be stuck in a place where she will be treated like an invalid. She has an opinion of the home, although it doesn’t seem to be based on any real experiences,
“I don’t want to be stuck with a lot of old lasses. And they all smell of pee. And daft half of them… They even mix up your teeth.”
The real reason she doesn’t want to go to Stafford House is that she likes to be independent.
Doris tends to exaggerate events, such as threatening to use the cream cracker she finds under the settee as evidence to get rid of Zuleema.
“I’ve only got to send this cream cracker to the Director of social services and you’ll be on the carpet. Same as the cream cracker.” She pretends to say to Zuleema.
One of the things that Doris talks about is when she miscarried John. The nurse attending to Doris wasn’t sensitive or sympathetic and made the baby out to be some thing that was dirty and messy. It seems that Doris got no support from Wilfred either.
“I don’t think Wilfred minded.”
During the pregnancy, Doris must have made a tremendous effort to prepare everything (such as the pram that she talks about when she reaches a place near the door where it used to stand), so that the child could be bought up in the right sort of environment. Each thing would have to be sterilised, so it would be safe for the baby, however the midwife contradicted this by saying that the baby was dirty.
“Wrapping him in newspaper as if he was dirty. He wasn’t a dirty little thing”
Doris may have felt the need to continue this routine of keeping everything sterile and clean as her own way of handling the situation, and become obsessed with everything being clean.
The baby is obviously a huge part of her life and is almost what the monologue is based around as she keeps referring to him.
“If it had lived I might have had grandchildren now. Wouldn’t have been in this fix”
A lot has changed since her time. However, Doris is convinced that society has taken a turn for the worse. She has a very negative attitude towards today’s youth. She stereotypes them. For example when a boy comes towards the house after she has fallen over and is in need of help.
“Cheeky monkey. He’s spending a penny. Hey.”
After shouting at him to ‘Clear off’ she soon realises that he could have been her only chance of help. She then says,
“He wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. Only a kiddy”
I think that this is her way of making herself feel better about the fact that she scared him away. She wants to make herself feel better by telling herself that he couldn’t have helped anyway.
Doris makes no effort at all to try and socialize with the neighbours. She tends to keep to herself while watching them from afar.
“I don’t know anybody around here now. Used to be the Marsdens… Smartish woman after them.”
The language that she uses is typical of an old woman, and this lets us know from the start that she old.
“Ewbank… sneck… spending a penny…”
Even her name ‘Doris’ is an old persons name, as is her husbands name ‘Wilfred’.
At the end of the monologue we hear from just one other person. This is the policeman that asks Doris if she is all right. She obviously is not, after falling from trying to reach a place to dust, but she convinces the policeman that she is all right. She seems to be almost committing suicide by telling the policeman not to worry. Her last words are,
“Never mind. It’s done with now, anyway.”
This could be referring to many things, telling the policeman to go away or falling from cleaning but I think that it is really about the baby that she lost. This is the central part of the monologue and remains central right up until the end where the light fades.
The monologue written by Alan Benner works extremely well as we get to know Doris and understand her and her thoughts.
