Hard Truths

Housewife Pansy is not happy. She is agoraphobic, a hypochondriac and paranoid about animals, birds, insects, plants and flowers. She is confrontational with everyone, especially her plumber husband Curtley and her unemployed son Moses, whom she thinks is wasting his life.

Her sister Chantelle runs a thriving hair salon. A single mum, she enjoys life, and lives harmoniously with her daughters Kayla, who works in cosmetics, and Aleisha, a trainee lawyer.

Despite initial resistance from Pansy, on Mother’s Day she and Chantelle visit the grave of their mother, Pearl, whom Pansy now accuses of having favoured Chantelle. Pansy is resentful that she was the one who found Pearl dead in bed. Pansy breaks down, and, both upset, they hug in tears.

Chantelle rejects Pansy’s assertion that the whole family hate her; they all love her, she insists. At Chantelle’s flat, Pansy is sullen, and refuses the food that the girls have made. Privately, Chantelle expresses her worries about Pansy, suggesting that she leave her husband and son.

Discovering that Moses has bought her Mother’s Day flowers, Pansy breaks down.

Back home, Pansy silently goes upstairs, where she empties Curtley’s wardrobe, and is aggressive towards him. Overcoming her normal phobia, she ventures briefly into the garden, then puts Moses’s flowers in water, and retires to bed. Curtley sleeps alone.

At work next day, he injures his back, and is driven home by his assistant, Virgil, who wakes Pansy with Curtley’s news.

At Piccadilly Circus, Moses is befriended by a young lady tourist.

Curtley sits downstairs, waiting for Pansy, Pansy remains upstairs, immobile.