"What the hell do you think you're doing you dirty young bastard," yelled Maureen, aiming a stinging blow at Sean's face.
Sean leapt up from the sofa holding his reddening cheek and spluttering, "What the hell did you do that for?"
"You know bloody well why I did it, you touched me."
"It was only a friendly little touch; there was no harm in it."
"No harm...no harm, you filthy beast; you pinched my tit."
"I did not pinch it; I just gave it a gentle squeeze."
"It's the same thing, and me your mother and your father hardly cold in his grave."
"Maureen, you're not my mother and father's been dead for nearly two years."
"Well, step-mother then, and I'll mourn Patrick until the day I die."
"That's it! I was trying to comfort you."
"Ha, next thing you'll be trying to comfort me by putting your hand up my skirt."
"If you think it'd help I'd..."
Maureen jumped up, letting loose another yell and aimed a further blow at Sean. He managed to duck so she missed and knocked over the standard lamp instead.
"Calm down Maureen or you'll wake Deirdre up."
Maureen plonked down on the sofa again and trying another tack quavered, "How you can do such a thing to a woman twice your age I don't know, and she in deep mourning."
"Well," said Sean moving out of range, "You shouldn't have such beautiful boobs, and your not twice my age, your only twenty nine, it was father who was more than twice your age."
"Yes, and he was one of God's saints, though why I married him to take on a twenty year old lout like you I don't know."
"You married him because he got you pregnant with Deirdre after mum died, and as for being a saint..."
"Don't you dare speak ill of the dead. Your father's in heaven now singing with the heavenly choir. He was one of God's angels..."
"Who got you pregnant."
"Well, we'd had a little too much to drink that night, and he had all the charm in the world. It's a wonder the birds themselves didn't come and sit on his shoulders like...like...er...Saint...er..."
"Saint Francis," said Sean. "I wonder if Saint Francis used to beat up his wife in the bedroom?"
"He didn't have a wife. Saints aren't allowed to have wives, and as Father Riley taught us when we were little girls, a husband is entitled to chastise his wife if he wants to."
"I bet some saints had wives, or at least had a bit on the side."
"May God scorch your tongue Sean Conroy. Father Riley was quite specific. Saints had to shun the evils of the flesh, as we all must do, or else we'll roast in hell fire for all eternity."
"Do you mean that even if you're married you have to avoid having...?"
"Father Riley said that married people could only have se...intimate relations if they intended to procreate."
"Is that why father used to beat you up, because you wouldn't procreate with him?"
"Father Riley said..."
"Your always going on about Father Riley, where is he now?"
Maureen raised her eyes piously to heaven and said in a hushed voice, "The dear Father has long gone to his heavenly reward, God rest his soul."
"Father Riley...Riley? Isn't he the one a few years back that was in all the newspapers because he interfered with little boys?"
"God strike you dead and send you to the eternal fires Sean Conroy. It was lies, all lies, he never touched me once."
"But you weren't a little boy, were you?"
"That makes no difference; it was all lies they said about him."
"There were fifteen boys who said it wasn't lies, and Father Riley did commit suicide."
"Those boys were sent by Satan to bring down an angelic man... and he died by accident."
"Funny sort of accident, tying a rope round a beam, putting a noose round your neck, standing on a stool and then kicking it away."
"He must have been trying to change a light bulb."
"With a noose round his neck?"
"That was what those tabloids of the Tempter wrote, but all journalists go to hell for the lies they tell, everyone knows that."
"I thought that was politicians and lawyers."
"Them too...and don't change the subject."
"I wasn't...er...what was the subject?"
"You trying to take advantage of the grieving widow of man who died a model of holy perfection."
"Maureen he died because he was drunk and stepped off the curb at a corner and under the wheels of O'Leary's car. It was a good job O'Leary was fully insured or we might have had to pay up for the damage to the car when O'Leary ran into a lamppost trying to avoid father."
Maureen dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "It was a sad day for us all when the blessed man was taken from us. No woman had a better husband, and now I'm left with no one to console me in my grief."
"Well, I'll console you if you like."
"How the bloody hell can you console me standing right over there?"
"You might hit me again."
"There you are," wailed Maureen, "what am I saying? A stepson who won't give consolation to his grieving stepmother because he's frightened of a little blow. Ah, it's terrible times we've come to when a lonely widow can't find solace for her broken heart. Your father was never afraid of a blow."
"That's true," agreed Sean, "the only thing is, it was he who used to give the blows."
"I can see him now, standing in that bedroom in his long woolen underpants and socks. 'Maureen' he'd say..."
"Shouted," interrupted Sean.
"'Maureen' he'd say," went on Maureen ignoring the interruption; "'Maureen, a man's got to do what a man's got to do'."
"Yes, he always did like those cowboy films."
"Then he'd smack me one across the chops and he'd...Ah, he was a real man, not like some of the namby pamby weak-kneed men these days."
Sean had crept back cautiously to the sofa and seated himself beside Maureen, in the hope that he might not be classified as "weak-kneed."
"You mean if I smacked you across the chops you'd let me..."
"A real gentleman he was; it's a pity his son doesn't take after him. He knew how to treat a lady."
"But he used to throw up on the bedroom floor after you'd stopped screaming."
"Only when he was drunk."
"He was drunk nearly every night."
"And anyway, I never screamed because he hit me. It was only when he threw me on the bed and...how dare you pry into your parent's intimate relations! The next thing is you'll be spying on me when I'm undressing."
"I wasn't prying, you were just telling me."
