SCENE 8 - INT. FLIGHT DECK

DOUGLAS: Well, look at that. Nearly a solid hour without a crashing. I do believe that's the record.

MARTIN: Perhaps it's finally died down.

CAROLYN: Not quite so. Miss Cadwallader's locked herself in the loo, and that muffles the sobbing.

MARTIN: Well, there goes my next idea.

DOUGLAS: I take it we haven't raised your spirits much.

MARTIN: With your stories of bitter fights and lover's betrayal and a total of, oh, five failed marriages? No, can't say that you have.

CAROLYN: Well, sorry our lives couldn't have had perfect storybook endings just to make you feel better about your own.

MARTIN: Well, no, but don't you have… anything encouraging to tell me?

CAROLYN: What do you expect?

MARTIN: I don't know! Some— something to keep my faith because it's all going to work out in the end?

CAROLYN: For God's sake, Martin, the world isn't some treacly romantic comedy where you're guaranteed an attractive and suitable mate no matter how awkwardly you botch it.

DOUGLAS: And you don't look much like Hugh Grant.

MARTIN: Maybe— maybe I should just cancel! Call Theresa and tell her I've had a terrible family emergency that means I have to… go live in a cave. In Saudi Arabia. Forever.

DOUGLAS: Might be a challenge to explain how you've got mobile service.

MARTIN: But come on! If all of you can't manage it, with all your good sense, Carolyn, and your preternatural charm, Douglas, and Arthur's, well, Arthur's drowning-puppy sort of aspect? What chance do I have?

SOUND: FLIGHT DECK DOOR OPENING

ARTHUR: Mr. Speedwell— you can't go back—

CLIFF: Out of the way, twerp! If she can storm off whenever she likes, damn well if I'm going to wait around back there to tear me off another strip!

DOUGLAS: Oh, look, it's our foremost ringing endorsement for the institution of partnered love.

CAROLYN: Now, look here, Mr. Speedwell—

CLIFF: Blimey— look at the faces on you lot! You'd think you was the ones having an earful from Trudy. What's got you all ripped up? A girl?

MARTIN: Well—

CLIFF: Know that look a mile off! Listen, mate, let me give you some advice about women that I wish some bloke had spotted me. Don't even start with them! If I'd known what a fat lot of trouble they all are, well, I might have kept up a few tricks I learned from my days at boarding school!

DOUGLAS: Heh.

MARTIN: Oh, God.

CLIFF: Take it from somebody who's spent the last seven hours in the bear trap with the bear!

MARTIN: But there's got to be something to be said for being in love—

CLIFF: Love!? Love's the bait that lures you into the bloody thing! Until you stick in your soft bits and it snaps them clean off!

MARTIN: Augh!

DOUGLAS: There's an image for you.

CLIFF: Love is a sucker's game, lads, and I for one am sick and tired of the suck.

ARTHUR: Oh, stop it! Stop it, all of you!

CAROLYN: Arthur!

ARTHUR: No, Mum! Would you listen to yourselves!? Grousing on about love like it's some… pain in the neck you have to put up with, rather than something you're lucky to find every once in a while?

CLIFF: What are you on about!?

ARTHUR: So it doesn't always work out with every person you try it with! Does that mean it never works out for everybody, ever? Just because you haven't found it right away? No, it isn't always a walk in the park! But so what?

CAROLYN: Arthur, please—

ARTHUR: So what if Fliss set our front lawn on fire when I forgot her birthday? So what if Minty had me hide in the wine cellar for nineteen hours so her father wouldn't find me in the house? So what if Libbett made me wrap up her Pekingese in my parka so the snow wouldn't ruin his new perm!?

CAROLYN: Arthur—

ARTHUR: The point is, you got to stick your oar in if you're going to get anywhere! And yeah, that might mean sometimes… mincing some words, or dodging some crockery, until you figure things aren't working out. But love's supposed to make people happy, Mr. Speedstick. If you two hate each other so much, bloody well don't get married! Because if you do, you're just going to be tearing into each other for the rest of your lives! And if you don't really hate each other… what are you doing all this for?

(Pause.)

CLIFF: I ought to— I ought to biff your teeth out for talking to me like that.

CAROLYN: While I sympathize with the urge, sir—

CLIFF: But… but, blast it, you're right.

ARTHUR: I am?

MARTIN: He is?

CLIFF: So I better go get right myself.

SOUND: FLIGHT DECK DOOR OPENING.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS.

SOUND: THUMPING ON BATHROOM DOOR.

CLIFF: Trudy, darling? You there?

CAROLYN: (Muttered) Well, unless she's gone out the window—

TRUDY: (Muffled) What do you want?

CLIFF: Darling, I'm sorry I lost my head. Again. And I'm sorry about all the rest of it. The sniping, the name calling, the towel girl.

SOUND: BATHROOM DOOR OPENING.

TRUDY: Oh, Cliffy. Do you really mean it?

CLIFF: Bloody well do, Trude.

TRUDY: Oh, Cliffy!

ARTHUR: Awwwwww!

DOUGLAS: Well, look at that, Arthur. You've used your powers of relentless cheer for good instead of evil for once.

TRUDY: And I'm sorry too, Cliff. For the yelling, and the haranguing, and for chucking the brandy glass.

CLIFF: Let's stop letting the petty stuff come between us, dear. Like the towel girl, and the waitress, and the girl wearing the sushi at the Japanese restaurant.

TRUDY: Wait, who?

CLIFF: Nobody, love! That's the whole point!

TRUDY: Oh, Cliff!