The Florrie and Jack Dialogues : Coming Out (Episode 6)

Coming Out

Jack : Any more news from the prison, Mum?

Florrie : Your Aunt Cilla was telling me Trevor is so involved with the writers group it takes up all his time. They had a visit from that poet oriel Andrew Motion, but quite honestly, Jack, he doesn’t have a  clue. He criticized Trevor’s work quite severely. He said he knew nothing about metre. What is metre, Jack?  The only metre I know about is the gas meter. What was the man talking about? As far as I’m concerned he’s just a played out academic. He wants to go back to that second rate university he comes from and stay there. He’s been nowhere near Wolverhampton – what does he know about writing, Jack? Intersexual, Jack? How can he be, he can’t recognize what your cousin Trevor is – a real non pareil.

J : Well if he thinks Trevor’s an intersexual he’s got it about right.

F : I shall stand up for your cousin, Jack, because no one else will in this dead and alive dump. But the real news is something else.

J : What’s that, Mum?

F : He’s getting an early release.

J : How?

F : Well how do you think? Me and Cilla put forward a really convincing case to quash this terrible constriction.

J : You do wonders, Mum.

F : I know, Jack, me and Cilla have been taking more fish oil and kelp for our brains than Trevor ever did.

J : He could go to Cardiff, Mum, for that concert as planned.

F : I know, Jack. I am overjoyed. It is to be Trevor’s first appearance on the imodium. The only trouble, Jack, is am worried. I have been reading in the paper stars are being found dead in a hotel room in Cardiff. He must stay in one overnight. If it has got out to the public Trevor is a genius he could be at risk. After all, Jack, it is almost the same as being a star.

J : Why doesn’t he take that boyfriend he’s picked up inside – Keith Sludge?

F : I’ll suggest it, Jack. Keith could be a decongestant.

J : Yes, Mum.

F : Aunt Cilla thinks this relationship is going to last and quite honestly, Jack, that shocked me.

J : Why do you say that?

F : They are planning setting up home on the Claxonwork council estate. The prison board is finding them a flat in one of those tower blocks.

J : So Keith is getting out too.

F : Yes, he is out next week. He’d been in six months before he ever set eyes on Trevor.

J : What was Keith’s crime, Mum?

F : GBH.

J : It doesn’t augur too well then?

F : Well, however it ogres we must support Trevor, Jack. I will not change my beliefs simply because such a bad experience as prison incantation has turned Trevor the other way. He might be catching a different bus, Jack, but I am sure our desecrations are quite contaminated.

J : Well, contaminated or conterminous, Mum, I don’t think it matters these days.

F : No, Jack, they all love a gay.

J : How’s Aunt Cilla doing?

F : Well, Jack, she is much better. She’ll be walking to the clinic now they have dropped the special arrangements she used to get. She said they made her feel like a cripple anyway. She has a much more healthy aptitude now, Jack.

J : Knowing Trevor is going to get early release will really buck her up.

F : Yes, Jack. Me and my sister have such faith in the justice system. We are seeing the scales of justice so finely balanced. It is a dream come true.

J : What do you think this Keith and Trevor will do? You don’t think it will be a civil partnership do you?

F : Surely they won’t go for that, Jack. That is a snare of the devil, Jack, replacing as it does the sacred and true rites of marriage.

J : It’s all the rage now, Mum. Even gay vicars marry; sometimes they get really young lovers.

F : Oh no, Jack, such perpetuity.

J : 'Fraid so, Mum. It looks like Trevor’s days of innocence are over.

F : I can’t believe that, Jack. That boy will find a suitable girl one day, I know he will. This is just a temporary hiccough after a very automatic experience.

J : And Keith, I wonder if he will treat Trevor right, if it does devolve to something more permanent.

F : Oh the horror, Jack, if Trevor were to become a bartered man. Where would it all end?

J : Another jail term probably.

F : Well I blame that Andrew Motion. If he’d encouraged Trevor in the right way none of this would have come about. If Trevor had been stuck into a blockbuster instead of forced into consignment with Keith Sludge, Trevor would be facing a publican not marriage to what is after all, Jack, a common criminal.

J : I like Keith, Mum. When I met him my heart melted.

F : Yes, Jack, I know what you mean. There is goodness in that man. I certainly hope so anyway for Trevor’s sake.

J : Are you going to take Trevor anything special for his last week inside, Mum?

F : I certainly am, Jack. I’m sending a cake of concatenations.

J : He will love that, Mum, though I think he has put on weight already.

F : Yes, no exercise, Jack, and so much time to relax on the prison bed it has broken Trevor. The hardness of the regime almost broke me, Jack.

J : I know, Mum. You have to be made of strong stuff to get through what Trevor’s been through.

F : Yes, Jack, why do you think I love Keith Sludge. He’s brought Trevor through this.

J : I think so, Mum. Keith is a real hero. In many ways he’s saved the day.

F : It is a great victory for love and justice, Jack, you must know that. Trevor, so clever, yet so vulnerable, fell prey to the vices of a corrupt society, Jack. What could be more heart rending than that? But now, now that the eagle has landed a giant emerges, Jack, engaging us all with the true spirit of genius, finding a position in a galaxy of stars, an interstellar master unshackled from ordinary conventions, Jack, and now destined to be a consummated propositional adored by millions.

J : Yeh, I couldn’t have put it better myself.