Original subtitles

Love is like a butterfly, soft and gentle as fire. The

multicolored moods of love are like its batting wings.

Love makes your heart feel strange inside. It flutters like the winds in

Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing.

to pass any objection to my having a bath?

Anyone got anything in the bathroom which they've forgotten about but will

remember when I'm having my bath?

Is it remotely possible that I will find a live carp in my bath?

Or that somebody has removed the bath altogether to build a garden pond?

We've had a family consultation.

And we've decided you may have a bath, provided you don't work yourself up into

a coma and drown in it.

I thought eggs had yolks.

Hey, Mum, I thought eggs had yolks.

There's one there somewhere.

Funny how she never got the hang of it.

I thought cooking came naturally for a woman.

Maybe she's out of her time.

Maybe eggs were supposed to look like this.

Something wrong?

You look as though you're conducting post -mortem.

No, it's fine.

Couldn't you just eat what I put in front of you? Do you have to know what

is?

There is no hot water.

Oh.

Why is there no hot water?

Russell, do you know why there is no hot water? No.

Tell him I just took my bath, that's all.

He just took his bath, that's all.

Adam? Me too. I thought I bathed. It seems we all just sort of bathed.

We can't think what happened to the hot water.

That's, of course, we used it all.

Coffee, please.

I don't know why they bother bathing anyway. They've nowhere to go. They

do anything.

The outside world is not exactly waiting to clutch them to our hard -slogging,

nerve -wracking, money -earning bosom, is she?

They can't get work. It's not their fault, is it?

There are millions of other unemployed people in this country, you know.

They should have stayed at school.

We've been through all that.

Their headmaster said they were bright, inventive, creative, full of spirit, and

academically thick.

How come they're both running cars?

Well, Russell saved up for his while he was working, and Adam made his while he

wasn't. This country makes it too easy.

Once upon a time, only the strongest survived.

You either ran with the herd or got left behind.

When I was a boy, one had a name in life.

A girl.

And to get there, you had to run like hell.

Oh, yes.

And how I ran.

Oh, yes.

I had to work.

Before my tea, I had to do a paper round.

After my paper round, it was homework. Homework and after homework, bed. Oh,

yes, bed and work, work and bed. That is why I breathe my heart.

That is why I'm successful. That is why I am one great big drag.

I think the water will be hot now.

Sexy legs.

Is that a joke?

Is it?

Is that a joke?

No, it was a light -hearted remark to make you feel good.

Most people feel good when they're told they look sexy.

It hasn't made me feel good.

No, well, now I've seen your legs front on, I don't think you have any reason

to.

Do you spend your entire life thinking about sex?

Yes.

Are they really mine?

I'm afraid so.

But I remember you telling me that one day we would do gentle, civilised

Like play with train sets together.

Those days have gone, Ben.

They never came.

I brought a train set home, they plugged it in, crashed it, bombed it, then blew

my attic up.

I bought them remote -controlled aeroplanes.

They set them on a collision course, there was a mild explosion over the

rest home and that was it. I never even got to press the button.

Even a simple game of Ludo with them turned into some kind of nightmare.

You took it all too seriously.

Relax, life is a lark. We're here for five minutes, that's all.

Mum's right.

You should smile some more, Dad.

While you've still got all your own teeth.

What are you sniggering about?

All this silence. It's unnatural for father and son not to talk to each

Doesn't worry me. Of course it doesn't worry you. You don't have to charge

between you and your father with messages, do you?

You don't have to deliver a glare to one and a snarl to the other.

My face is taking on the appearance of a busy guard dog.

Morning.

Pain down outside.

I woke this morning with a bright little candle burning inside me.

I was vaguely aware that I'm on the wrong side of 40 and that three of my

minutes have already gone, but it continued to burn even though your

stood in the hall and threatened the whole neighbourhood with his bath.

And my sons prodded their breakfast like two scientists who just uncovered a new

poison.

However, it is now apparently peeing down outside.

So my... The candle has finally gone out.

I am no longer the middle -aged lady with the teenage glow.

I'm a seething, palpating, frustrated mass of extinguished candle.

And I wish to say one word about my cooking.

Sure. Why not try yuck?

I do not like cooking. I am not happy cooking.

When I am cooking... You don't have to explain. The evidence is all here on the

plate.

Horses cannot fly.

Birds cannot gallop. I cannot cook.

And since your survival depends upon my unhappy experiences in the kitchen, I

have an announcement to make.

This is my latest unhappy experience.

when I put it in the oven, but they seem to have disappeared.

However, it will be on the table tonight, complete with custard.

And if any one of you dares to utter one word, I will splatter the walls with it

and leave this house forever.

Moments like this should draw us closer together.

I'm sure it's the kind of thing that makes man unite with man.

I suggest, should anything happen to any one of us during the grim process of

eating this tonight, that we ought to make a pact that, in spite of any

differences we may have, assistance must be given to the afflicted.

want me to do? Go out there and die?

Hello. Remember me?

Oh, it's you. Do you always go around encouraging people to commit suicide?

Just attracting your attention, that's all. Just letting you know that I'm

Oh, thanks.

Just knowing you're there has altered my entire life.

My nerves will never be the same.

I don't eat lunch.

Come and watch me eating mine, then.

I can go to the zoo for that.

So was I.

It never stopped me eating lunch.

Maybe that's why you're divorced.

It's not that I can't cook, just that I don't want to cook.

Oh, I do it, just like I do the ironing, but it's all a bit aimless, isn't it?

What I mean is, there's not much point in putting a lot of effort into

if you're just going to swallow it, is there?

Well, if I was going to jump off Blackpool Tower, I wouldn't get my hair

would I?

It stands to reason, well, everything I say stands to reason. I feel very

strongly about it.

I feel very strongly about everything I say.

I go around all day filled with these deep emotions.

I'm just like a bottle full of butterflies, and I can't get the top

it's confusing, and what's more, I haven't got the slightest idea what I'm

talking about.

Have you got any idea what I'm talking about?

No.

I'm worrying about the flowers.

Oh, did I do all that?

Well, they certainly didn't commit suicide.

I always get distracted when I'm talking in restaurants, especially if it's

something I feel deeply about. I unpick the tablecloth and I spear a little

bread roll.

Here. You forgot to mutilate this one.

Oh.

I'll take it home. I think it deserves to live.

I'm looking for a tissue.

Will that do?

clanking noises and it's full of rubbish.

I met your sons driving their car.

They're quite big for nine and ten.

Why did you lie?

I didn't lie.

Just knocked a bit off their ages, though you would knock a bit off mine.

Did you want to impress me?

Certainly not.

Capture me, enchant me and then finally seduce me?

You have a potent imagination.

I happen to be attractive to my husband.

Does he move you?

Yes. Trillium? Yes?

When he touches you, do you reach ecstatic, dizzy heights?

Well, yes. Ah, now we have a well as well as a yes. Soon we shall have two

followed by a no.

What exactly are you trying to tell everybody in this restaurant?

I'm trying to say that love is a severe form of blood pressure.

The higher it goes, the quicker you die from it.

Oh, dear.

You're depressed.

Yes, I am depressed.

Perhaps you're missing your wife.

I'm missing a... a person.

You know the loneliest experience in a man's life?

To wake up in the middle of the night, in the middle of his life, in the middle

of a double bed.

However, this morning, I did awake with a... With a bright little candle burning

inside you.

Well, no, it wasn't quite like that.

But I did have a lovely little experience just later on. It happened

of the office girls walked past.

She was, is, quite attractive.

All soft and bouncy.

Like a mobile blancmange.

Anyway, I gazed my usual gaze, she smiled her usual smile, and it ended in

of my usual conquests.

And?

Well, that's it, really. I'm seeing her tonight, eight o 'clock, her place.

And why are you depressed?

No, I don't know.

I mean, it's all so undignified, isn't it? I mean, what am I going to do with

her?

Oh, God, it's going to be difficult.

just hoisting my stomach in long enough to chatter up nearly finished.

That's what you've not got a lot going for you, have you?

You'll just have to put the lights out tonight and do it all by Braille.

How everything seems to be going fine when suddenly you're 44, which is

towards 50, which is galloping towards 60.

So you think to yourself, what the hell, I might as well cram everything in

before I'm 70.

So you end up chatting up a girl who is 20.

Pathetic, isn't it?

Like painting by numbers and still getting it wrong.

You see, what I need is someone to talk to.

A mature soul mate.

A fellow creature limping through the forest of life with the same injury.

I'm sorry, I don't have the same problem.

Age doesn't worry me.

I'm hardly aware of it.

I like being mature.

I'm at the apex.

of my life, the height of my career as a woman.

I'm just glad to be me.

I look in the mirror and I think... I think... Go on, tear those

to pieces while it's on.

Behold the dreaded sponge.

Absolutely, yes.

You should know by now that my custard is unpredictable.

Very good.

Very good.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is absolutely nice.

Mum, I really don't think I can... It will take me three minutes to pack a

Oh, I was...

Looking at your new scientist.

He was looking at your new scientist.

There's a very good article about the studies of Lawrence Gilbert.

There's a very good article about the studies of... Oh, yeah, he's the

guy, isn't he? Yeah.

He has this interesting theory on the migratory behaviour of various species.

Excuse me.

Particularly, actually... That's Russell.

I may not be the perfect father, but I do know one son from the other.

Apparently, the Heliconis butterfly, according to the research this man

Gilbert's been doing, anyway... has this very interesting pattern of behaviour,

especially during migration.

I can't tell you what this moment means!

The whole year.

I thought you would never speak to each other again.

I thought...

Conversation, words, opinion, laughter.

Say something to your father.

Go on.

It doesn't have to be intelligent.

You'll get round to that when you've had more practice.

Hey, Dan?

Yes, son?

Have you ever tasted anything like this in your whole life?

Just gotta be the worst thing she's ever come up with, yeah.

to spend my days in this brick prison, pushing that thing around.

I thought you ought to be the first to know.

I might kill myself today.

You're right, that would be silly.

Besides, it wouldn't be fair, you coming home after a frantic day, finding me in

the oven instead of your dinner.

So, I'll go shoplifting instead.

Kill myself tomorrow.

I've changed my mind.

I'll commit adultery today, I'll go shoplifting tomorrow, and I'll have all

Wednesday to kill myself.

So you'll have to make do with the salad on Wednesday, because like I said, I'll

be using the oven.

I could do something more constructive.

I could put... killing myself until Thursday.

I could write some poetry.

And you could use the royalties to pay for some suitably splendid headstone, a

sort of winged figure in white marble slumped over an ironing board.

You're not the world's most brilliant conversationalist, are you?

Sometimes I think you're not there.

And then his hand comes out from behind the newspaper, hunting down the toad.

I think I'll take all my clothes off and charge through Harrods shouting,

Woolworth!

Oh, why not?

I'll catch a plane. I'll fly to Paris. I'll go to the Louvre and draw a

moustache on Whistler's mother.

I'll put food in the washing machine and...

Clothes in the liquidiser. We'll have spun dry omelettes and shredded socks.

And on Friday... I'll kill myself.

You're listening to me.

Does this cry from the heart mean nothing to you?

Oh, I am bored.

I am frustratedly...

a letterbox.

I want someone to meet me from a train.

I want to go running across a field, barefooted, Nicholas.

Hoping on buttercups.

I want to be raped.

I never found a thing in this house.

Mr. Parkinson, please.

Ben, I love you.

I just thought you might like to know.

I have been around. I just haven't been around the same places as you've been

around.

Hey, would you believe it's just on lunchtime?

Yes, I would believe it.

Your lunch hour starts when you get up and lasts until you go to bed at night.

Your life is one long lunch hour.

Did I do something wrong?

Look, I know this could be loosely described as a brush -off, but they sell

very good stroganoff in there. Look, I can't... I can't talk to you. Please go

away. Go away? Why should I go away? I like it here.

I mean go away from me.

But I thought we were friends.

Married people can't have friends. That is, married women can't have men

friends. It's got something to do with husbands.

Do you mean to say he won't allow you to talk to other men?

How do you cope with a milkman? Sign language?

That could be very dangerous.

He doesn't not allow me to do anything. I do what I want.

And right now I want you to leave go of my arm. so it can follow the rest of me.

Okay.

Okay, I see your point.

I suppose the sight of a charming, handsome man with more than his fair

masculine attributes is enough to knock any woman of a tightrope.

Yes, that's right.

As soon as I was confronted with one, I married him.

Yeah, well, come to think of it, you look married.

You've got that captured look, like an owl in an aviary.

Tell me, Mrs. Married, would you exchange this packet of salt powder for

another? Oh, no. I prefer my old brand.

It gets things clean, and besides, it keeps my life whiter than once.

Okay, okay. I said I'm sorry.

Sorry? What has sorry got to do with it? Look, I'll buy you another one, all

right? What with?

The money you give me for my allowance.

So I'm buying... myself another one. What is it? What is it? Ten pounds I

for this.

Talking to him again has already cost me approximately 45 .5p per hour. By the

time he's 30, I could be bankrupt.

Ben, Russell, what have you done with your father's butterfly net?

I had a blockage in my exhaust. I just needed something long, that's all.

Right, now he's in a mood.

He has every reason to be in a mood.

Tomorrow's Sunday and he can't go catching butterflies.

It's only a net.

It's only a net. It's only a net.

has the blockage in his exhaust.

He doesn't stick your guitar up it, does he?

Now, go on. Go in there and be nice to your father.

Go on!

Oh.

All right, all right. I said I'm sorry. Just don't go on about it. I'm not going

on about it. I made him mention it. No, like the hundredth time. No values, no

ambition. That's the young today. Easy come, easy go. If it weren't for people

like me... Mum said go in there and be nice to your father, so I'm talking to

you, aren't I? You're not talking, you're muttering. All right, so I

That's how I am. When I talk, I mutter. Stop!

One single word and I will pack that case and leave this house forever.

Don't speak.

Don't anybody speak. Not ever again.

Not you to him, nor you to him, nor you to him or him or any other permutations

you can think of.

Nothing -ness.

Mum, can I just say something?

Before we finally don't say anything, it was just that Dad and I are actually

still on friendly terms.

Could we have a quick quarrel? No, you cannot.

You will quarrel with each other through me.

OK.

Could you tell him, then, that before we got round to thinking about his

butterfly nets, we snapped his golf clubs? Oh, and before that, please,

you tell Russell I'm going down the...

Could you tell Adam I'm coming with him? Would you tell them to come back here

at once so I can...

And will you tell my wife that I love her too?

I thought she might like to know.

Thank you.