Barker, Plays Eight
Page 15
(MORE appears again dragging THE COMMON MAN with him, fixed in a headlock.)
MORE: Oh, yes, my eloquent and articulate –
THE COMMON
MAN: Oi!
MORE: My monosyllabic deity for whom all alleys are his just imperium –
THE COMMON
MAN: Oi!
(They pass CECILIA, who follows with her eyes.)
MORE: To stagger and vomit freely in as the whim inspires!
THE COMMON
MAN: Oi!
MORE: Yes, yes, my subtle bruiser, my darling criminal spewed from the gob of squalor, luscious delinquent –
THE COMMON
MAN: And arch-enemy of silence – there!
(He forces THE COMMON MAN to the ground in front of THE DOCTOR, retaining his hold.)
You were describing the Utopian. You argued that he had both a body and no body. Do elaborate. Shh!
(He tightens the stifling grip on THE COMMON MAN.)
THE DOCTOR: In Utopia half are gaoled and half are gaolers.
MORE: How? There are no criminals in Utopia because there is no property.
THE DOCTOR: Is the body not a property?
MORE: They steal bodies? Why?
THE DOCTOR: Is it not the site of all our hopes?
MORE: No, it is the pit of all our instincts! In Utopia all instinct is contained by thought, thought is the civilizer.
THE DOCTOR: And bad thought?
MORE: Bad thought has no place in Utopia!
(A LOUT’s cry nearby. Breaking glass. MORE stops. Bitterly, he thrusts THE COMMON MAN into the snow and climbs to his feet.)
SCENE 11
A part of the garden. A window is broken. THREE FIGURES lurch in the darkness. Two are bawling hooligan songs. CECILIA, concealed, watches MORE hurtle by.
MORE: I claim my peace you –
FACTOR: Oi!
(MORE seizes FACTOR by the throat.)
MORE: Muck-mouth and arse-faced breaker of all contemplation –
FACTOR: Oi!
MORE: Up my garden, will you, gobflash, I –
(He sees the third hooligan is HENRY, who stares at him. MORE, holding FACTOR in a headlock, freezes. Slowly, he releases him, and slowly sinks into a posture of obeisance. FACTOR sniffs. Pause.)
KING HENRY: I am no respecter of property.
(Pause.)
MORE: Who is?
KING HENRY: Or chastity.
(Pause.)
MORE: Who is?
KING HENRY: Which also is a property.
(Pause. He looks at MORE. FACTOR blows his nose. A fine wind scatters snow.)
MORE: No moon tonight, I was not expecting –
KING HENRY: I love night, when the enemy is drowsing. Down I come THE MONARCHY! They shiver in their gowns. Beautiful disorder and women trembling. THE MONARCHY! Women in their hanging hair and tumbling servants. THE MONARCHY!
(He nods in the direction of the others.)
This is Factor. This is Lloyd.
(They bow.)
I cannot move without my murderers, but Tom, I must get a mob behind me. How can I do this?
MORE: Moral example.
KING HENRY: Tosh, I have to hand out land.
(Pause.)
MORE: What land?
(Pause.)
KING HENRY: I read you my new poem.
MORE: Poem? At two in the night?
KING HENRY: WHY NOT POEMS AT TWO IN THE NIGHT?
(Pause.)
I feel in the night. So I write in the night.
MORE: Yes.
KING HENRY: Come, walk.
MORE: Walk?
KING HENRY: Yes, up, while I recite, a poem in three stanzas put to music by me obviously, a love whine, a love whimper, a love howl –
(MORE climbs to his feet. LLYOD tunes his lute.)
Dedicated to I SHAN’T SAY WHICH BITCH –
(The LOUTS laugh.)
but I paw her glass like a dog in a lather.
(They follow HENRY into the dark.)
Oh, English weather I adore you, damp and clammy mask of murderers, for without it there could be no woman skin such as we long to lap with out insatiable gobs –
(He stops.)
That’s not the poem –
(The hooligans laugh.)
Play, Lloyd – listen, this is my tune –
(The tune begins in earnest. The cry of BONCHOPE echoes across the garden. It is ignored. After an introduction, HENRY sings, walking.)
So shall I dream of her pale breast
Half exposed to the eye of swine
And her thin mouth so closed and stitched
Which grumbles yes to the infant’s cry
(He explains.)
She has a child you see, which she never wanted –
(He sings.)
Oh, distressed mater – nity,
Oh, encumbrance of my life,
Oh, maternity in which I walk
Like the caged wolf howling.
(LLOYD beats a new intensity. HENRY stops walking and turns to MORE, delivering the last stanza with a cruel and relentless violence.)
Oh, fang my back and tear my flesh
You hungry and unnourished she,
Your thin wrists will struggle with me
In the dead light of the mor-ning!
(The music stops. Pause.)
The clean version.
(Pause.)
You don’t understand, do you, Tom?
(MORE shakes his head.)
It is the single flaw in your genius.
MORE: May I sleep now?
KING HENRY: That you do without disturbance, do you?
MORE: So I predict.
(MORE bows, turns and walks.)
KING HENRY: Obviously, after her, there’ll be another!
(MORE stops.)
Which proves nothing.
MORE: The shallowness of your affections, arguably…
KING HENRY: No.
MORE: Gratification as a single end is near to comedy, I daresay –
KING HENRY: No. It is the wordless presence of a god.
(Pause. MORE smiles patiently.)
MORE: What is?
(Snow falls lightly. HENRY comes to him.)
KING HENRY: The clash of unknown parties in desire…
(Pause.)
MORE: I don’t know…
(He looks frantically at HENRY.)
I don’t know…
(He walks away.)
KING HENRY: Go to bed, then…
(Pause. The cry of BONCOPE.)
LLOYD: Sir Tom has never suffered love.
FACTOR: He loves God.
KING HENRY: No man loves God who has not suffered women.
(FACTOR laughs.)
I say so! The best priests make a wreck of all their vows. And the best atheists.
LLOYD: Home, James?
(HENRY doesn’t move.)
KING HENRY: More’s death is on him like a growth…
FACTOR: And ours…
KING HENRY: And everyone’s, ole! And everyone’s, you embroidered disembowellers, and everyone’s!
(He walks swiftly, followed by the hooligans, past the hidden faces of CECILIA and THE SERVANT, who follow with their eyes.)
CECILIA: He grows coarser…
THE SERVANT: Yes.
CECILIA: Is that because –
THE SERVANT: Nothing is denied him.
CECILIA: I too shall be coarse. Young and coarse.
Brilliant and coarse. Help me.
(She looks at her, kisses her quickly.)
Shall I marry the parliamentary member?
He pesters me with notes.
THE SERVANT: Shh!
(THE DOCTOR walks silently through the garden.)
CECILIA: (Aside.) In Brutopia, nothing is what it seems to be. This is universal and a source of comfort. Where nothing is expected, disappointment is unknown, and hope entirely redundant.
(The cry of BONCHOPE pierces the night. THE DOCTOR stops, liste
ning.)
CECILIA: Who is he?
THE SERVANT: He is from Utopia.
CECILIA: I long to meet him!
THE SERVANT: Shh!
(THE DOCTOR kneels in the snow, and sobs, noisily. CECILIA watches, transfixed. He ceases, gets up, walks on into the dark.)
His children are dead. His wife is dead.
His brother is in prison.
(The sound of mass laughter. THE SERVANT disappears in the dark. CECILIA looks over her shoulder. The BRUTOPIANS are massed in a sunken garden, gazing up at her.)
CECILIA: Laugh by all means.
(They do.)
The most comic thing in all Brutopia is – yes – the person who believes –
(They laugh.)
The very word – yes –
(They laugh.)
Ridicule – derision – yes –
(They stop.)
In Brutopia all pain is an act. The legless beggar acts discomfort. The orphan performs despair. HOW ELSE CAN YOU GET ATTENTION?
(They begin protesting their individual cases.
A cacophony ensues. CECILIA watched with bemused satisfaction.)
SCENE 12
The silence of a thaw. The single sound of a workman tapping at a broken window to remove the glass. MORE and MEG in the sun.
MORE: (Promenading.) What is the relation between justice and the court?
MEG: None.
MORE: None, for the court merely dispenses punishment. What is the relationship between punishment and crime?
MEG: None.
MORE: None, for crime is an effect of property. Without property, crime has no function.
MEG: Does crime need a function? Can’t crime exist for itself?
(He looks at her. They are beneath the ladder.)
MORE: (Calling up.) It can’t be, can it?
WORKMAN: Wha’?
MORE: Can’t, can it?
WORKMAN: Sir?
MORE: Property and crime? Insidiously linked?
WORKMAN: Wha’?
MORE: NO STUFF NO NICKING. Come on, don’t ape ignorance, I put a proposition to you, weigh it, test it, the glazier is not without opinion, surely?
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: Sir, I –
MORE: WHAT SIR WHAT SIR WHAT SIR WHAT?
(Pause. Then with infinite patience.)
If I have, and you don’t have, must you have what I have?
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: Erm…
MORE: Now, don’t give me the answer you think I want, give me the answer that accords with your opinion.
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: No, sir.
MORE: No, he says, why not?
WORKMAN: No, or I would crack your head now, surely?
MORE: And what prevents you?
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: Erm…
MORE: (Sprinting up the ladder he presents his head.)
Skull!
(He takes the man’s tool.)
Hammer!
(He poses, sacrificially.)
Tension.
(Pause.)
Still alive…
WORKMAN: I do not sufficiently dislike you.
MORE: Liking? Liking’s inapplicable, it’s fear of punishment!
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: Could be, I suppose –
MORE: You fear capture –
WORKMAN: (Thinking.) Could be –
MORE: THE SANCTION STAYS YOUR HAND.
(He gives him back the tool.)
Thank you. Glaze on.
(He rejoins MEG at the bottom.)
The sole protection of all property is fear of violence –
WORKMAN: No, not fear of punishment. Sorry, no.
(MORE and MEG stop. A faint irritation spreads over MORE’s features.)
MORE: What, then? Obviously, you want what I have, not having it yourself.
WORKMAN: No.
MORE: Yes. You would rob me of my brain were it not most securely in a box.
WORKMAN: No –
MORE: No? No? It’s the best brain in Europe, why don’t you want it? It would be certain proof of your imbecility if, seeing the special nature of my brain and the – I mean this in all kindness – relatively mundane nature of your own, you did not covet it –
WORKMAN: I don’t covet it –
MORE: You do –
WORKMAN: Don’t covet it, I promise –
MORE: Envy, envy it!
(Pause.)
WORKMAN: Forgive me, but I don’t want your brain, nor any other of your property.
MORE: (Coolly.) Then you are glazier through and through.
(He bursts out laughing.)
Through and through!
(He nudges MEG)
Through and through!
SCENE 13
CECILIA’s breast, the object of BERTRAND’s fixed stare. A groan comes from his depths. Swiftly, she lets her garment fall over it.
CECILIA: Enough, and what did you do today?
BERTRAND: (Moved to an ecstasy of frustration.) Oh…
Cecilia…
CECILIA: In the House of Parliament?
BERTRAND: Oh…
CECILIA: (Perplexed.) You lie. You exaggerate. It is only –
(He hides his face in his hands. She watches him. Pause.)
Or does it make you really ill?
(Pause.)
Does it?
(She goes to him.)
Are you ill with me?
BERTRAND: Mad women always did excite men, though they took them in secret, whereas I –
CECILIA: I AM NOT MAD! I AM THOMAS MORE’S DAUGHTER. (The voice of MORE laughing with his peculiar tone drifts nearer. The moment he appears, BERTRAND releases her hand.)
CECILIA: The House of Parliament, you said –
BERTRAND: (Recovering.) We passed a resolution on the subject of the limitations of continental cloths, silver thread from Nimes and coarse wool from Ravenna, both stuck at seven thousand ells, and went on to discuss apprenticeships, reducing wages and whipping for football, it was a hard debate, some said footballers had their uses, they made good infantry, but I was eloquent, I said in my experience footballers fled at the first sight of a horse…
(MORE and MEG enter.)
MORE: (Grinning fatuously.) My loves, my loves, my love, my loves, my loves, my loves, my loves, my loves,
(He turns in a convoluted dance, slowly sinking to the ground, singing to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’.)
My loves, my loves, my loves, my loves, my loves, my loves, my lo-oves …!
(He lies on the floor, watched by BERTRAND, MEG, CECILIA. Pause. He is rigid.)
And in Utopia, the act of reproduction was perceived as half-distasteful, half-absurd, the necessary but eminently fatuous prelude to the better business of rearing future citizens…
BERTRAND: (Boldly to CECILIA.) When I meet you again you must submit, and I will submit to you, God help the consequences…
(He bows, hurries away.)
MORE: It’s Spring, my season! Spring, I swear!
(A figure is seen advancing waving a sheaf of paper.)
Daker!
DAKER: The preface!
MORE: (Still turning on the ground from one posture to another.) The preface to Utopia! Oh, Daker, I do hope it’s kind and complimentary!
DAKER: It is!
MORE: I hope it honours me immensely!
DAKER: As far as I could honour you without it seeming –
MORE: What?
DAKER: Obsequious and reverential –
MORE: What’s wrong with seeming so? Don’t you revere me? Are you not obsequious?
DAKER: Well, that may be, but –
MORE: Stuff but, if I am worthy, praise me!
(He holds it out.)
DAKER: Read it and see.
(Pause. His hand remains outstretched.)
Do read and judge for yourself. If I offend you, it’s only that I –
(MORE takes it, and tears it across. CECILIA laughs. Pause.)
MORE: Are you my ally, and my friend, dear Daker? And have I not educated you?
DAKER: You know it.
MORE: Away, then, to your stool and inscribe this preface without consideration to humility. Only the fullest praise, only the highest compliment, for Utopia’s a book commanding reverence and obsequy. Admit its greatness and stop shuddering for fear someone will call you creep, be honourable and praise it to the skies, how else can great work make its mark but by the unreserved devotion of its addicts?
DAKER: Yes.
(MORE smiles, hops up and clasps him round the shoulder.)
MORE: Meg! Feed Daker! Meg!
(CECILIA watches the three of them, arm in arm, prance down the arcade.)
CECILIA: (Aside.) The word most common in Brutopia is WE. I is forbidden. I is severely punished. But WE is everywhere! WE MUST. WE SHALL. This produces such a climate of mutual celebration! Endless mutual celebration until your ears are singing!
SCENE 14
A leafy place, intimate. BONCHOPE is standing before a laden table. ALICE is seated. She looks up.
ALICE: Mr. Bonchope!
(She hops up.)
Do have a seat! Or do you find you sit too much? Stand if that suits you better. This is chive, and this is cucumber, they are fresh from the garden, that’s shrimp, and that’s a little dip I make myself from medlar, do you know medlar? I don’t expect someone like you goes in much for medlars! It should be clearer, more a jelly, but in some ways it’s better when it’s thicker, is it terribly uncomfortable in there?
(He is filthy.)
I haven’t seen it but they say it’s tiny.
BONCHOPE: Tiny, yes.
ALICE: Oh, dear, and that thing there is fish in a glaze, I didn’t make it so I’m not responsible – do have a glass, would you like a stem, or do you like the straight ones? People are funny about glasses.
BONCHOPE: A straight one.
ALICE: And do you get plenty of food?
BONCHOPE: Very little food.
ALICE: Oh, goodness, well, tuck in, napkins over there and knives. I never feel hungry myself at lunch times, no matter what I have prepared, I only pick, why do you squawk, by the way?
(Pause.)
If it is a squawk?
(Pause.)
Perhaps I shouldn’t call it a squawk? Is it a signal?
(He sits, stiffly.)
I tell you why I ask, because when you’re just getting into bed it can be terribly disconcerting, as I suppose you –
BONCHOPE: I can’t help myself.
ALICE: You can’t –
BONCHOPE: Can’t help myself, no.
(Pause. MORE appears, picks up a plate and helps himself to food.)