CECILIA: Are you the devil?
(Pause.)
Are you, though? Have you got a LONG TONGUE?
(He extends it.)
Not long, is it?
(Pause.)
I hear you read the Bible in English, why?
(Pause. He retracts his tongue.)
BONCHOPE: It is God’s will His words should –
CECILIA: Do you know God? How do you know His will?
BONCHOPE: It is self-evident God would want His flock to understand –
CECILIA: Nothing is self-evident.
BONCHOPE: You interrupt me when I –
CECILIA: I have to interrupt! I hear such fallacies what can I do but interrupt?
(Pause.)
BONCHOPE: Why don’t you cut out my tongue?
CECILIA: Well, of course, that is what they will do, but I am satisfied with interrupting you.
(Pause.)
I love the Latin bible. Latin is music. I don’t understand a word of it.
BONCHOPE: Then you are kept from God –
CECILIA: No, I’m nearer –
BONCHOPE: How can you be nearer when you cannot understand the words that –
CECILIA: That’s it!
BONCHOPE: When the words are –
CECILIA: That’s it! Not understanding. That is it.
(She extends her tongue.)
BONCHOPE: MADNESS!
(He turns away from the grille. CECILIA goes nearer.)
CECILIA: I think there will come a day you can’t hear Latin anywhere. And you will burn the Latin. Because you also are a burner.
(Pause.)
Listen! Oh, do come out! Listen! My father sailed to Amsterdam. He went to all the shops and bought up all the Bibles. Your Bibles. The English ones. Hundreds of Bibles! And he went into a field and burned them. Stoke, prod, like the bonfires in the Autumn. But hardly was his back turned and – yes! He didn’t understand this thing called printing. Printing really wrecks all discipline! Do you know printing?
BONCHOPE: Yes. It’s done with metal.
CECILIA: Metal, is it? Scarcely was he on the boat and they ran off another hundred!
(Pause. She grins.)
So I think it’s time to ban paper.
(Pause.)
You don’t talk more than you have to.
BONCHOPE: I’m horrified.
CECILIA: Horrified?
(A terrible cry comes from the prison.)
Recant, then! Just recant!
(Pause.)
Do come up again…
(Pause. She looks through the grilles. She turns away.)
It’s vile in there…!
IT’S NOT A DOVECOTE, IT’S NOT A DOVECOTE!
(She hurries away.)
SCENE 8
MORE is staring into the solution.
MORE: There is no Utopia. I invented it.
THE DOCTOR: It exists.
MORE: Where, then! Where?
THE DOCTOR: You think you can imagine, and there be no consequences? If a thing is imagined, it is born! I alone escaped Utopia. The place exists.
MORE: You are a Spanish liar and this liquid is trick, I’m not as old as this!
THE SERVANT: I discovered him outside the gate.
MORE: Yes, well, I’m famous, aren’t I? Quacks will queue for me.
THE DOCTOR: I landed at Deptford.
MORE: Deptford, did you? Off what boat?
THE DOCTOR: ‘The Angel of Deliverance’.
MORE: I’ll check that! I have friends in all the harbours! ‘Angel of Deliverance’! Write that down! And then what? Walked?
THE DOCTOR: Exactly.
MORE: Long walk. Deptford to Chelsea. Awful walk. Show me your shoes!
(He peers over the bowl.)
MORE: No shoes…!
THE DOCTOR: No footwear in Utopia.
MORE: No footwear, why? I never specified the abolition of the cobblers!
THE DOCTOR: No, but it occurred.
MORE: How?
THE DOCTOR: It was a consequence.
MORE: Of what?
THE DOCTOR: Utopia is all consequences.
MORE: You are a Spanish liar! Give its latitudes!
THE DOCTOR: How practical you are, in some respects…
(CECILIA appears, breathless.)
CECILIA: He’s standing in shit!
(Pause. She looks at THE DOCTOR, then back to MORE.)
MORE: (Standing, brushing his knees.) Well?
CECILIA: That’s all right, is it?
MORE: Not only all right, but a good thing. Shit comes from his mouth.
CECILIA: His mouth?
MORE: Therefore he stands in it.
CECILIA: Ah…
(Pause.)
Thank you…
MORE: (To THE DOCTOR.) I shall study the bills of lading, Spanish doctor, and God help you…
(He walks with his arm round CECILIA, leaving THE DOCTOR seated.)
We must hate evil, we must not extend to evil any tolerance or pity which would stimulate its growth, or even enter into conversation with it, for then it dares assume equality with good, and posturing its legitimacy, corrupts the weaker minds, for some minds are weaker just as some bodies are, it is God’s will and we can’t dispute it, but to those of us with swift intelligence is lent a natural authority to sort the ideas into heaps, the good and bad heaps, and let the bad heap burn –
(He stops.)
Cecilia, if you withhold your admiration from me is it any wonder I am unkind? Is it? I can embroider what you find hard to speak, but offer up some, do you see, I am being realistic, I am being terribly frank, say you understand me.
(Pause.)
CECILIA: You want – you have to be –
MORE: The focus of your adoration, yes.
SIMPLE ENOUGH!
(Pause.)
CECILIA: Yes.
(Pause.)
If only I could be – impulsive.
MORE: Yes. Impulsive, yes. That’s what you need. Make Meg your model!
(He smiles at her, squeezes her cheek, goes off. She sees ROPER hurrying towards her.)
ROPER: Sir Tom!
(CECILIA intercepts him.)
CECILIA: Give us some paper.
ROPER: (Who is holding an armful of documents.) Paper, why?
CECILIA: Old stuff. Junk will do.
ROPER: We must account for paper.
CECILIA: Account for it by all means.
ROPER: Four sheets.
(He draws the sheets from his sheaf.)
CECILIA: Four sheets! You reckless and dissolute man! No, even four’s too much, your instinct was correct, I will write it on a SINGLE SHEET.
ROPER: What?
CECILIA: The Fyrste and Most Remarkable Account of the Geography and Society of the Unknowne and Terrible Kyngedom of – Brutopia! Because what is love but emulation? That’s love, surely?
ROPER: You should marry.
CECILIA: (Sarcastically.) I should have, but you opted for my sister. You married her and not me because she more closely represents my father, isn’t that so? He led you to our bedroom and pulled off our covers, and there we were, all arse and breast exposed, and quite honestly, there is not a deal of difference, is there? So it must be –
ROPER: The personality of Meg has always –
CECILIA: No, that’s codswallop, you thought she was more completely Thomas More.
(Pause.)
With necessary adjuncts. Reproductive parts and all female etceteras but him, in essence, whereas I –
ROPER: I think you know so little about love.
(Pause.)
CECILIA: Little? I know nothing.
ROPER: (Wryly.) A man will come and steal you. Without your noticing. Steal your whole world. And you will see nothing but him on every page or window.
(Pause.)
Hell it will be, I think.
CECILIA: Obviously love’s hell, why else would you want it?
ROPER: (Slipping away.) Shh! I think he’
s coming! (She grins. He disappears. CECILIA turns, and finds a man close and staring at her.)
CECILIA: Who are you?
THE COMMON
MAN: The Common Man.
CECILIA: Then go a common place. This is a private garden.
THE COMMON
MAN: Nothing’s private any more.
CECILIA: That must depend how many dogs you’ve got.
THE COMMON
MAN: I tame dogs.
CECILIA: How, by suffocating them? You stink and I hate the way you look at me. BOB!
(Pause.)
THE COMMON
MAN: Bob’s my mate.
(Pause. She looks at him a long time. A wind whistles through the garden. Suddenly CECILIA slaps his face violently, time and time again. He staggers backwards, disappears. CECILIA holds her hands in the air.)
CECILIA: Soap!
Somebody!
SOAP!
(THE SERVANT appears with a bowl and towel. CECILIA plunges her hands in, washes them, dries them, gives back the towel. She turns, and through the trellis, catches sight of MORE sitting at a table with THE COMMON MAN, talking avidly and laughing. She stares.)
THE SERVANT: Your dad. He loves my class.
CECILIA: Why?
THE SERVANT: My thieves. My criminals.
CECILIA: Why?
(Pause. CECILIA embraces THE SERVANT.)
You are my love.
(THE SERVANT strokes her head.)
Do you hear me? I have no other.
(She frees herself.)
THE SERVANT: I bathed and dressed you once.
CECILIA: Yes.
THE SERVANT: And slapped and powered you. And while you slept, skirts up for somebody!
(CECILIA smiles.)
CECILIA: Good. I trust no one but the two-faced and corruptible. Now say you detested me, even as you spooned my infant mouth.
THE SERVANT: I was near to infanticide.
CECILIA: Oh, nurse, you bitch!
THE SERVANT: Spitefully made pinpricks in you, and hid sharp things underneath your mattress!
CECILIA: (Wide-eyed.) You –
THE SERVANT: Sprinkled you with ice-cold water –
CECILIA: Oh, immaculate –
THE SERVANT: Burst paper bags behind your ear –
CECILIA: And no one knew! No one spotted!
(Pause. THE SERVANT smiles.)
The world’s foul, obviously…
(The cry of BONCHOPE is heard over the gardens.)
First premise of Brutopia…
(She suddenly slaps THE SERVANT over the cheek.)
That’s for all that, then. Quits.
(She turns away, smartly.)
SCENE 9
CECILIA walks through the overhung garden.
CECILIA: (Aside.) Brutopia is a republic, but with a monarch. The population is literate, but there are no books.
(She stops.)
No.
(She continues.)
There are books, but these are written in Brutopic. The rules governing this language are extremely complex!
(Inspired.) Yes! Utterly complex and obscure, and there are no dictionaries!
(She comes up to the gate of the maze. The heads of the BRUTOPIANS appear among the hedges, complaining.)
No dictionaries, and no grammars, either!
(She goes into the maze.)
Complain away, complaint is the music of Brutopia!
(They mob her. She rebukes them.)
Do you want everybody getting knowledge? What would you do with it? UPSET BRUTOPIA! Oh, yes, you would, I know you would, it would UNSETTLE you.
(She moves on, stops.)
Books can be discovered, yes, they can, but it entails appalling effort. Terrible effort, yes. So those who want must suffer. Knowledge is acquired through pain.
(They groan.)
That’s perfectly correct! That’s wholly proper!
ALICE: (Offstage.) Cec-ilia!
(Pause. All is still.)
Cec-ilia!
(Pause. A FIGURE climbs a ladder, stares at her over the hedges.)
BERTRAND: Is she small?
(Pause.)
Is she pallid?
(Pause. She stares back at him.)
I am in the Russia trade.
(Pause. ALICE joins CECILIA.)
ALICE: (Sotto voce.) This is a man with a future and good legs.
BERTRAND: (Deliberately.) Whalebone. Timber. Fur.
ALICE: (Sotto voce.) Twirl a bit.
CECILIA: You twirl.
ALICE: Flick something.
BERTRAND: Leather. Grease. Elkhorn.
ALICE: He has a seat in Parliament. Ask him.
BERTRAND: Resin. Hide. Esparto grass.
ALICE: (Nudging CECILIA.) Say something! Don’t you want a husband?
CECILIA: Welcome to Brutopia.
BERTRAND: Where’s that?
CECILIA: Here, of course.
BERTRAND: What happens in it?
CECILIA: Everything.
BERTRAND: And who is the monarch?
CECILIA: The worst swine.
ALICE: His parliamentary seat, ask him.
BERTRAND: And do the people suffer?
CECILIA: Appallingly.
ALICE: (Nudging her.) What constituency, say.
BERTRAND: Is there beauty in Brutopia?
ALICE: Oh, yes. It is an instrument of torture.
BERTRAND: I understand this country. I will be its first explorer. I will draw its maps.
(Pause. He climbs off the ladder, disappears from sight.)
ALICE: He’s coming!
CECILIA: Yes.
ALICE: He likes you.
CECILIA: Yes.
ALICE: (Holding her.) Marriage is a desert. But some find oases.
CECILIA: Yes.
ALICE: And he has wonderful legs!
(She hurries away. BERTRAND appears. Pause. A thin wind rattles the foliage.)
CECILIA: (Looking coolly at him.) Brutopia is imperfect, and where perfection appears, it is eradicated.
(He looks at her.)
How, did you say?
(Pause.)
By a committee of eradicators, of course!
(Pause. She takes him by the arm and leads him down a walk.)
Well, they call it a committee, but only one member has a vote. And only one can speak. The same one. The others must applaud, and the first one to stop applauding –
DEATH!
(She fixes her mouth to his, passionately kissing him. She stops, swallows.)
As for death….
(He looks at her. Pause.)
The horror of it is exaggerated here.
(Pause.)
Do you like women?
BERTRAND: Women? How you generalize!
CECILIA: We do in Brutopia. It’s the law.
BERTRAND: I delight in female company.
CECILIA: Do you? Why?
BERTRAND: The female mind is a subtle, sensitive, instinctive and –
CECILIA: No, I mean do you like us? Never mind the inventory of the virtues of the gender, do you like women undressed?
(Pause. He looks deeply into her.)
I long to marry you, obviously, but are you coarse enough?
BERTRAND: I try.
CECILIA: You try! Can you try to be coarse? It’s a gift, surely?
(Pause. She looks at him.)
I think you are full of kindness.
(Pause.)
What’s called kindness.
(Pause.)
Aren’t you?
ALICE: (Sweeping in.) That’s it, then! This way, and mind the thorns!
(BETRAND is led away by ALICE.)
BERTRAND: I love her.
ALICE: Excellent!
(She draws back a bramble.)
Mind your eyes!
BERTRAND: She’s ugly. Terribly ugly.
ALICE: Do you think so? I always have, and yet –
BERTRAND: I love her.
ALICE: This all need
s trimming back –
BERTRAND: Love her.
ALICE: I heard you –
BERTRAND: (Stopping.) UGLY AND I LOVE HER.
(Pause.)
ALICE: Speak to her father, then.
BERTRAND: But what’s Brutopia?
ALICE: I wouldn’t know.
BERTRAND: She’s touched, surely? Be honest, is she touched?
ALICE: (Coldly.) Marry and risk it.
(She smiles.)
SCENE 10
MORE enters the fountain garden at night. He holds up his palm to falling snow.
MORE: Are you still here?
(A shadow moves over the snow.)
Listen, you are a liar and now I can’t sleep.
(He discovers THE DOCTOR sitting under a wall.)
Look!
(He points.)
Bare feet!
(He smiles.)
More the sufferer!
(He stops smiling.)
There is no boat called ‘The Angel of Deliverance’, I checked it with my many friends and the boat’s a fiction, there!
(Pause.)
A fiction!
(Pause. Sound of drunken hooliganism in the distance. A broken bottle. MORE stares at THE DOCTOR.)
What’s gone wrong in Utopia?
THE DOCTOR: The flesh.
MORE: Whose?
THE DOCTOR: The body.
MORE: Whose?
(A burst of LOUTS.)
THE DOCTOR: Erupted.
MORE: Erupted…?
THE DOCTOR: Bodies overflowed the gaols.
MORE: What gaols?
THE DOCTOR: You don’t know about the gaols?
MORE: There are no gaols!
(He flings himself down beside THE DOCTOR.)
You see, you have not been there! Read the book! NO GAOLS!
(He thrusts a copy of Utopia at THE DOCTOR.)
THE DOCTOR: (Coolly.) That is an early edition…
MORE: Just off the presses!
THE DOCTOR: No, we have a different binding.
MORE: Oh?
THE DOCTOR: With your profile on the cover.
MORE: Oh?
THE DOCTOR: Every Utopian has one.
MORE: Really? Expensive!
THE DOCTOR: No, cheap and uniform. And inside, a picture of you seated.
MORE: Really?
THE DOCTOR: Your body in repose stares wisely at the reader. Your body, for some reason. The only body in Utopia. Officially.
MORE: Only body? What are you –
(A window is broken. Jeers and laughter. MORE bounds to his feet and tears over the snow. As he hurtles by, CECILIA, dark, freezes against a trellis. She opens her eyes. Sounds of protest nearby.)
THE COMMON
MAN: (Off.) Oi!
MORE: Oh, yes!
THE COMMON
MAN: (Off.) Oi!
Barker, Plays Eight Page 14