Rock 'N' Roll

by Tom Stoppard

  MAX There’s a man come to see me all the way from Prague, and I’m afraid I …

  ALICE But it’s meet the wife!

  MAX It went clear out of my head. Actually, having two extra will stop it turning into the clash of the titans.

  ALICE (bristling) I hope you weren’t thinking of having a go at her.

  MAX I meant you.

  Alice slams down a large pepper-mill and marches out in a huff. Max notes Esme, who has remained absorbed.

  MAX (cont.) I said, ‘Eleanor wouldn’t expect you to go that far.’ She became incensed and called me a fool. Apparently it’s all to do with a plan she’s got to be a lecturer on Swan Hellenic cruises.

  STEPHEN Who’s your Czech?

  Stephen leaves the paper on the table and starts a stillborn effort to lay places.

  MAX Jan? He teaches philosophy at Charles University … ex-dissident—he was in prison briefly.

  STEPHEN So why isn’t he an ambassador, or minister of something?

  MAX Now, now. Come upstairs and tell me what the comrades are doing now that history has ended.

  STEPHEN Can’t, I have to lay the table. Why don’t you read the journal, then you’d know.

  MAX Marxism Today? It’s not so much the Eurocommunism. In the end it was the mail order gifts thing. I couldn’t take the socks with the little hammers and sickles on them.

  STEPHEN Well, read the Morning Star and keep up with the tankies.

  MAX The tankies … How the years roll by. Dubcek is back. Russia agrees to withdraw its garrisons. Czechoslovakia takes her knickers off to welcome capitalism. And all that remains of August ’68 is a derisive nickname for the only real Communists left in the Communist Party. I’m exactly as old as the October Revolution …

  STEPHEN I know, you said.

  MAX My life would have been neatly encapsulated if I’d dropped dead in March. From the October Revolution to the dissolution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When did it start to go wrong?

  STEPHEN 1917.

  Max’s fires are not out. He can still be terrifying. He swings his stick at Stephen, and brings the stick down on the table, smashing a plate or two.

  MAX You haven’t earned the right to condescension! You lilywhite turd, I’ll let you know when I can take a joke!

  Esme has jumped up and come running.

  ESME What’s going on?

  STEPHEN It wasn’t a joke, Max. I’m sorry if you thought so.

  Esme has seen the smashed crockery. She starts gathering it.

  ESME What on earth—?

  MAX It seems I’ve devoted my life to a mistake.

  STEPHEN To correcting a mistake.

  ESME What are you talking about?!

  STEPHEN (to Max) What I’m talking about is December 1917, ‘The General Instructions on Workers’ Control’ in reply to the Petrograd Factory Committees—

  ESME (furious) Oh, for God’s sake! You’re like a couple of children!—

  MAX Factory Committees?

  ESME —and I won’t have it in my house!

  MAX You anarchist arsewipe!

  ESME That’s enough!

  Pause.

  STEPHEN (meek) Sorry.

  ESME I thought you were coming to help.

  STEPHEN I am helping.

  Esme leaves inward with the bits of crockery.

  STEPHEN (cont.) Is it her house?

  MAX Of course not. It belongs to the college. Jesus. And as for you. Christ almighty. The boy stood on the burning deck arguing the small print of workers’ control in the Petrograd Factory Committees.

  STEPHEN You asked me. When Soviet Communism collapsed it was further away from the theory than when it started—so I’d say it went wrong at the beginning.

  MAX So forget the civil war, the famines, Hitler, American hegemony—it all went wrong when the workers weren’t trusted to manage the workplace. You’re not an anarchist, you’re a Utopian. I don’t know why you joined.

  STEPHEN I don’t know why you left. You’ve still got the hymn sheet. But it’s not Communism if the revolutionary elite is giving the orders and the workers are still taking them. That was the core of the matter, since you asked.

  MAX Well, it’s not the core of the matter for us, now The working-class vote could make this a socialist country permanently, and they voted in millions for the most reactionary Tory government of modern times. We give them crap. They eat crap, they read crap, they watch crap, they have two weeks in the sun, and they’re content. Why aren’t they angry? That’s the core of the bloody matter!

  STEPHEN Then you should be listening to them instead of despising them for their crap tabloids, crap TV, package holidays—no, really, you hate what’s happened to this country—mass culture and yuppy culture, both. The workers have let us down, haven’t they? They jump to buy their council houses and shares in British Telecom. The Labour Party moved to the left and got trounced—and you think the problem is it’s not ‘left’ enough. Well, it’s over. Marx read his Darwin but he missed it. Capitalism doesn’t self-destruct, it adapts. The tankies are in denial, still looking to the melting snowman of organised labour. The Trots can organise revolutionary demos coast to coast, till you realise it’s the same fan-base turning up for every gig. We can get the Tories out by modernising. Eurocommunism wins votes.

  MAX (angry) Of course it does. But why call it Communism?

  ESME (entering) Who’re these people you’ve invited?

  MAX (to Esme) If I said to you ‘I’m a Euro-vegetarian, so I’m allowed lamb chops’, would you (a) laugh in my face, (b)—

  STEPHEN Fish pie, Max. Not lamb chops, okay? Fish pie.

  ESME (to Stephen) Alice needs you to do your salad dressing.

  Esme moves the paper aside, then notices it.

  ESME (cont.) Oh—is this …?

  STEPHEN (Yes.)

  ESME (like Alice) She looks all right. ‘Candid Candida, the Columnist Who Cuts the Crap …’ Poor Nigel. ‘Candida’s Carp’ … ‘Stamps are going up and you know where you can stick it.’ Is that grammar?

  STEPHEN I can see you’re going to hit it off.

  ESME Did you show Alice? Here.

  STEPHEN Actually, hide it somewhere till after. There’s a big spread on Syd Barrett, she’ll go berserk. It describes him as a vegetable with the wild staring eyes of a frightened animal. That’s a bit strange when you think about it.

  Esme has found the page.

  ESME Oh, God …

  STEPHEN They doorstepped him.

  ESME He looks sweet. ‘A drug-crazed zombie who barks like a dog’ … Honestly, are they allowed to do that?

  MAX Who’re you talking about?

  STEPHEN Someone Alice knows.

  MAX What’s the matter with him?

  ESME Nothing.

  STEPHEN He’s a bit turned in on himself, that’s all.

  Esme stares at Syd’s photo.

  ESME He used to be so …

  Alice sticks her head in, shouts for Stephen. Esme closes the paper in response.

  STEPHEN Salad dressing.

  Stephen leaves. Esme skims the paper.

  MAX (tired) What is to be done?

  ESME Don’t worry, I’ll see to things now.

  She folds the paper back to CANDIDA’s picture, pausing over it.

  ESME (cont.) Did you see Nigel’s wife’s picture?

  MAX (leaving) Don’t worry, their byline photos are always years old.

  ESME How do you know?

  MAX It’s the sort of thing I know.

  Max leaves.

  Esme ‘hides’ the paper in a drawer and goes outside to gather her books. Jan approaches from the garden. He has a briefcase. He sees Esme. He watches her for a moment. Then she sees him.

  JAN Ahoj.

  ESME Oh my God. Jan.

  JAN Yes. Hello.

  ESME Jan.

  Esme, carrying her stuff, moves to greet him. They manage an awkward combination of cheek kiss and handshake and second cheek.

&
nbsp; JAN Max didn’t …?

  ESME No! No, he didn’t. He probably thought he did, but … Oh, come inside, why are you in Cambridge?

  She leads him indoors and puts her books down.

  JAN To see Max. He forgets things now?

  ESME A bit.

  JAN Seventy … three, nearly.

  ESME Yes. How long are you …?

  JAN Max said for lunch.

  ESME Of course, but in Cambridge?

  JAN Just to see Max.

  ESME When did you talk to him?

  JAN Yesterday from Prague … and just now from Dr Chamberlain’s house.

  ESME Sit down a minute. (changes her mind) No, you want to see Max, of course.

  JAN Don’t … Don’t. There’s no hurry now.

  Jan sits down and puts his briefcase by him.

  JAN (cont.) My first time driving a car in England. Very nice. An adventure. From Stansted.

  ESME You rented a car at the airport? Well, of course you did. I worked that out.

  Pause.

  ESME (cont.) (sudden) Look, there’s some wine.

  JAN No …

  ESME Or …

  JAN No. (pause: the books) So, what are you …?

  ESME Oh, just … keeping occupied. Who’s Dr Chamberlain?

  JAN You know. Lenka.

  ESME Oh. Lenka. I didn’t … She wasn’t married in those days.

  JAN (small laugh) No, of course not. Oh, you mean when …

  ESME Yes. What?

  JAN About Max.

  ESME That’s what I meant.

  JAN Lenka told me. Her and Max.

  ESME He didn’t last.

  JAN Nor did Mr Chamberlain, she said.

  ESME Oh, so, so you’re staying with Lenka?

  JAN No. I … stopped to see her …

  ESME Oh—she’s the other one to lunch.

  JAN She’s coming. She has a pupil, extra tuition … Plutarch.

  ESME So … well, you can stay, of course.

  JAN No, I have to go back.

  ESME (jumps) Lunch!—Oh, God—it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter at all, but Nigel’s just got married—he’s my—

  JAN Of course. Nigel. With the cassettes.

  ESME Yes—that Nigel. He’s married a journalist. The fact is they were supposed to go to lunch at Alice’s and her boyfriend’s, for her to, you know, to meet her new—oh, Alice is my—Nigel’s and my—

  JAN No, I get it.

  ESME Right. But now it’s all happening here, because she chickened out.

  JAN Not enough chicken.

  ESME No, she … (prickly) Are you making fun of me?

  JAN No. I’m sorry.

  ESME (pause) So what’s happened?

  JAN (?)

  ESME Don’t tell me, then.

  JAN About what?

  ESME I don’t know. You phone, you get on a plane, you rent a car, you drive to Cambridge, just to see Max, and you drive back to the airport. That’s right, isn’t it?

  JAN Yes. It’s really nothing.

  Alice comes in with a tray of stuff for the table.

  ALICE Oh. Hi. Hello.

  ESME This is Alice. Jan.

  ALICE Hi.

  JAN Yes. Hello.

  ESME (bright) Some of the cassettes were Alice’s.

  JAN (enlightened) Ah. (He points his finger at Alice.) ‘Like a Virgin’ … ‘A Kind of Magic’ …

  ALICE Oh … you’re him.

  JAN ‘Born in the USA’.

  Alice finds her ease.

  ALICE Yeah, that was me, and don’t forget ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’—I gave you good stuff, not like Mum dumping her post-punk techno misery-guts-with-drum-machines she’d gone off.

  ESME I thought they were cerebral.

  JAN (serious) Oh, yes—Kraftwerk, a modernist angst in a period of reaction.

  ESME You see? How is the, you know, loaves-and-fishes situation?

  ALICE FHB. (to Jan) I’ll see you later. Have you got ‘Opel’?

  JAN No. What …?

  ALICE There’s a new Barrett album—well, not new; outtakes, worth having, though. Mum told me about that night you—

  ESME It’s got a different take of ‘Golden Hair’.

  ALICE Yeah. Without the overdubs. You should have it.

  Alice leaves.

  JAN Does Syd Barrett live in Cambridge still?

  ESME (nods) He’s called Roger.

  JAN Roger?

  ESME It’s his name.

  JAN It would be wonderful to see him.

  ESME Well, you can’t, I’m afraid.

  JAN I know. I meant, if he just … jumped up on the wall. See him.

  ESME Alice knows where he lives but you can’t go.

  JAN Okay.

  ESME Don’t say I said.

  JAN Okay. The Rolling Stones are in Prague on Saturday. The Rolling Stones at Strahov … Strahov is where the Communists had their big shows. Life has become amazing.

  ESME I didn’t tell Alice about … Only about the wall.

  JAN The Great God Pan.

  ESME You remember.

  JAN Oh yes. Of course.

  ESME I saw Syd … Roger … on his bike one day when I was with Alice, and told her … so she bought ‘The Madcap Laughs’, I only had the vinyl, and next thing … well, she’s, you know, adopted him—(laughs to herself)—whether he knows it or not. She protects him.

  JAN From what?

  ESME Just people bothering him, pilgrims mainly, people who think Pink Floyd have been rubbish since 1968 …

  Jan laughs.

  Max enters, tipped off by Alice.

  MAX Jan!

  JAN Max. On three legs.

  MAX Don’t be misled, it’s my mind that’s gone. Did Esme explain? I forgot we had family—

  JAN I won’t eat.

  MAX That’s not a problem, pilchards are being inserted into the fish pie.

  ESME (alarmed) I hope not! Get Jan a glass of wine.

  Esme hurries out to save the lunch.

  MAX Do the wine. I’ll have a beer. No glass.

  JAN Beer for me also. Thank you.

  Jan deals with the beer.

  MAX We both look all right. Where’s Lenka?

  JAN She’s coming in half an hour.

  Jan delivers the beer bottle.

  MAX You need half an hour?

  JAN (laughs) She has a pupil.

  MAX Oh, yes. Skol.

  JAN Skol.

  They clink bottles and swig.

  MAX Lenka … She told you?

  JAN Yes.

  MAX A little month or ere those shoes were old, hey? Grief doesn’t work the way you’d think. It keeps itself to itself, nothing you do has any meaning for it. Doing something is the same as not doing it—grief sucks value out of the world like a bomb sucks out the oxygen. Take the woman to bed; don’t take the woman to bed. What’s the difference? Stay in; get out …

  Pause.

  MAX (cont.) Eleanor always spoke up for her. Maybe that was it. (lightly) But I don’t improve with age, I don’t give fair return, I was rude about astrology and the I Ching … and Lenka wanted a husband, so she could go home with a return ticket that worked …

  JAN Max …

  MAX Yes. What’s the trouble?

  JAN There’s no trouble.

  Jan opens his briefcase and takes out an ancient cardboard file. He gives the file to Max.

  MAX (?)

  JAN It’s your secret police file. Statni Bezpecnost.

  MAX Ah. I did wonder about that. Why have you got it?

  JAN A friend gave it to me. Magda. You met her once. She’s a lawyer now, working for the parliamentary commission investigating the STB archive.

  Max casually opens the folder and glances at the contents.

  MAX The originals. Some friend. Must be a lot of stuff coming out of the woodwork.

  JAN Yes.

  MAX Well, Jan, I don’t read Czech, so you’ll have to tell me.

  Max gives the folder back.

&
nbsp; JAN It’s not much, a few meetings with a contact, Milan, a code name, and two documents, from 1968 and 1977.

  MAX Oh, yes … 1968 (laughs) Somebody in the Cabinet Office … dined in Hall one night and got to swanking over the port … told us the Sovs were going to bring the hammer down on Dubcek and no two ways about it—he’d seen the minutes from the Joint Intelligence Committee. That was a few weeks before the invasion. I thought if I told the Czechs, it might bring Dubcek to his senses. And 1977, you said. That’ll be my briefing paper on the British Left.

  Jan gives him a lengthy document.

  MAX (cont.) Is this a translation?

  JAN Not a translation, a full abstract. A study of groupings in the Labour government and the Labour Party … on Europe, on the Special Relationship, the Cold War, the peace movement … Commentary, analysis, predictions … also character sketches of certain politicians, apparently very entertaining.

  MAX Mostly common sense and High Table gossip.

  JAN But good low-grade intelligence, it says.

  Max’s attention is caught as he turns the pages.

  MAX Why is your name here?

  JAN Because it explains—you traded this in exchange for my freedom. In September ’77 I was in prison in Ruzyne, sentenced to one year for being a parasite, which is having no work. One day my name was called and two hours later I am standing outside the prison, a parasite once more, but there’s a Tatra with three cops waiting for me. ‘Get in.’ I got in. They said nothing. They drove me to the new bakery in Michle and took me into the office there. The policeman who was in charge said to the boss, ‘This man works here now’. Then they drove away, and I worked at the bakery for twelve years.

  MAX So, good. So this friend of yours, she saw this in my file and, what, she stole it?

  JAN Yes. It’s a present.

  MAX A present. And what do you expect me to do with it?

  JAN What is that to me?

  MAX I’ll tell you what, Jan. Why don’t you take this file and fuck off back to Prague.

  JAN (pause) Okay.

  MAX (angry) I don’t need saving.

  JAN Okay. I’m sorry.

  MAX I’ve done nothing I’m not prepared to defend. So don’t expect me to thank you for telling me different. Have we done?

  JAN (pause) At Cambridge, being your pupil, invited to the Marxist Philosophers meetings, it was a joy for me … this house, your family. Pretending to be a good Communist was ridiculous, but what did I care? I was at Cambridge! They thought they were using me, but I was using them. Mine was the real reality … And all they wanted in return from me was … a character study, yes, of Max Morrow.