The Complete Talking Heads

by Alan Bennett

  As I came out with my bags Scott was just loading the laundry. I said, ‘Ciao, Scott. It’s been a pleasure working with you.’ He said, ‘You win some, you lose some.’ I said, ‘Now it’s back to real life.’ He said, ‘Some of us never left it.’ It’s funny the way their clothes are always too small.

  The film’s coming out in West Germany initially, then Turkey possibly. Gunther says it’ll make me quite famous. Well, I suppose I shall have to live with that. Only I’m not just going to sit here and wait for the phone to ring. No fear. I’m going to acquire another skill. Spoken Italian. Selling valuable oil paintings. Canoeing. You see, the more you have to offer as a person the better you are as an actress. Acting is really just giving.

  FADE OUT.

  Soldiering On

  Muriel: Stephanie Cole

  PRODUCED BY INNES LLOYD

  DESIGNED BY TONY BURROUGH

  DIRECTED BY TRISTRAM POWELL

  MUSIC BY GEORGE FENTON

  MURIEL IS A BRISK, SENSIBLE WOMAN IN HER LATE FIFTIES. SHE IS IN A TWEED SKIRT AND CARDIGAN WITH SOME PEARLS, AND WE COME ON HER SETTLED IN A CORNER OF HER COMFORTABLE HOME. IT IS AFTERNOON.

  It’s a funny time, three o‘clock, too late for lunch but a bit early for tea. Besides, there were one or two brave souls who’d trekked all the way from Wolverhampton; I couldn’t risk giving them tea or we’d have had a mutiny on our hands. And I think people like to be offered something even if they don’t actually eat it. One’s first instinct was to make a beeline for the freezer and rout out the inevitable quiche, but I thought, ‘Muriel, old girl, that’s the coward’s way out,’ so the upshot was I stopped up till two in the morning trundling out a selection of my old standards … chicken in a lemon sauce, beef en croute from the old Colchester days (I thought of Jessie Marchant), and bushels of assorted salads. As it happened it wasn’t exactly a salady day, quite crisp for April actually, however Mabel warmed up the proceedings with one of her famous soups, conjured up out of thin air, so we lived to fight another day. Nobody could quite put their finger on the flavour, so I was able to go round saying, ‘Have you guessed the soup yet?’ and that broke the ice a bit. I don’t know what had got into Mabel but she’d gone mad and added a pinch of curry and that foxed most people. It was cauliflower actually.

  Still, it was a bit sticky at the start as these occasions generally are. There were people there one didn’t know from Adam (all the Massey-Ferguson people for instance, completely unknown quantities to me), and then lots of people I knew I should know and didn’t. But whenever I saw anyone looking lost I thought of Ralph and grabbed hold of someone I did know and breezed up saying, ‘This is Jocelyn. She’s at the Royal College of Art. I don’t know your name but the odds are you’re in agricultural machinery,’ and then left them to it. It was a case of light the blue touch paper and retire.

  Knowing Ralph, of course, it was a real mixed bag. Several there from the Sports Council and quite a contingent from Tonbridge, some Friends of Norwich Cathedral and the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society, Madge and Perce whom we met on the Mauretania on our honeymoon, Donald and Joyce Bannerman who were actually en route for Abu Dhabi, then Donald bought a paper at Heathrow, saw the announcement and came straight down. And one sweet old man who’d come all the way over from Margate. He said, ‘You won’t remember me, Mrs Carpenter, but I’m a member of the criminal fraternity.’ I shrieked. As the vicar said: Ralph touched life at many points.

  The children magnificent, of course, or Giles at any rate. Luckily Margaret didn’t appear. But Giles took off all the Household Brigade people on a tour of the garden while Pippa coped with some of the bigwigs from the City. ‘I don’t think you know George,’ I heard one of them say, ‘George cracks the whip at Goodison, Brown.’ Poor souls, they both of them deserved medals. And Crispin and Lucy angelic, Crispin popping in and out of people’s legs reaching up to fill the glasses. I wanted them to have a rest. ‘No,’ said Giles, ‘let them do it. They adored their grandpa.’ ‘Adored him,’ said Pippa, ‘like we all did.’

  The church had been absolutely chocker and I’d managed not to blub until right at the finish when they struck up witch ‘I vow to thee my country’. And then I’d a hundred and one things to do so I was perfectly all right until I saw awful Angela Gillespie had made the mistake of talking to boring old Frank from the firm, and I heard the dreaded words ‘fork-lift trucks’ and thought how many times I used to have to shut Ralph up in similar circumstances, and the idea of shutting Ralph up at all set me off instantly and I had to nip into the pantry to staunch the flow, shortly to be followed by Mabel who’d just fallen over one of his old wellingtons and promptly gone into floods. So we had a good laugh and a good cry over that before powdering our noses and hurling ourselves back into the fray.

  When everybody’d gone I’m just having five minutes in the chair before tackling the debris when Margaret comes plunging into the room. She said, ‘What were all those people?’ I said, ‘It was a kind of party for Daddy.’ She said, ‘Why? Is he dead?’ I said, ‘You know he’s dead.’ She said, ‘Who killed him?’ I said, ‘Don’t be such a donkey. Come along and we’ll find you a tablet.’ Some of Ralph’s medicine’s still in the cupboard. Fat lot of good that did, I thought, and poured it down the lav. Then felt a bit choked.

  Anyway the tablet did the trick. I heard her walking about at two in the morning but I didn’t get up. Except then I had to get up anyway because it suddenly came to me, in all the excitement I’d completely forgotten to feed the dogs.

  GO TO BLACK.

  Come up on Muriel sitting in an armchair. Evening.

  Everybody I run into says not to take any big decisions. I staggered into the Community Centre bearing Ralph’s entire wardrobe which Angela Gillespie had nipped in smartish and earmarked for Muscular Dystrophy. Five minutes later, Brenda Bousfield had come knocking at the door on behalf of Cystic Fibrosis. Knives out straightaway, I practically had to separate them. In fact I did separate them in the end, the City suits to Angela and Brenda the tweeds. All lovely stuff. Beautiful dinner jacket from Hawes and Curtis, done for Giles if he hadn’t got so fat. Mind you, he didn’t want the ties either. Angela did. ‘Lovely jumble,’ she said. ‘How’re you coping? Don’t take any big decisions, one day at a time, I don’t see any shoes.’

  Actually I’d been silly and kept his shoes back. I loved his shoes. Always used to clean them. ‘My shoeshine lady.’ ‘Whatever you do,’ Angela said, ‘don’t give them to Brenda. They’re top-heavy on staff, their group, it’s well known. It all goes on the admin. We can use shoes.’

  I thought I’d go into the library and see if Miss Dunsmore could find me something on bereavement. That’s something I learned from Ralph: plug into other people’s experience, pool your resources. ‘A new experience is like travelling through unknown country. But remember, others have taken this road before you, old girl, and left notes. So Question no. I: Is there a map? Question no. 2: Am I taking advantage of all the information available? It doesn’t matter if you’re going to get married, commit a burglary or keep a guinea pig; efficiency is the proper collation of information.’ Oh Ralph.

  Miss Dunsmore did a reconnoitre round, but the only information she could come up with was a book about burial customs in Papua New Guinea. I think even Ralph would draw the line at that. However, she thought the Health Centre did a pamphlet on bereavement. Miss Dunsmore said she wasn’t offering this as consolation but apparently elephants go into mourning and so, very strangely, does the pike. So we chatted about that for a bit. Told me not to take any big decisions, and if I was throwing away any of his books could I steer them her way as she ran some sort of reading service for the disabled.

  I dropped into the Health Centre and the receptionist said there was a pamphlet on death; they’d had some on the counter, only the tots kept taking them to scribble on, so they hadn’t re-ordered. She said she’d skimmed through it and the gist of it was not to take any big decisions and to throw yourself into someth
ing. I said, ‘You don’t mean the canal?’ She said, ‘Come again?’ Nobody expects you to make jokes. As I was going out she called me back and said did Ralph wear spectacles? Because if he did, not to throw away the old pairs as owing to cutbacks they’d started a spectacles recycling scheme.

  Back at base Mabel said Margaret had been plonked on the chair in the passage all morning with her bag packed and her outside coat on, and for some reason wellington boots. Said the police were coming. We manhandled her upstairs, and after about seventeen goes I managed to smuggle in a tablet which did the trick and she’d just settled down for a little zizz when who should draw up at the door but Giles.

  He’d cancelled all his appointments, eluded the guards at the office and just belted down the A12 because he suddenly thought I might need cheering up, bless him. He could always get round Mabel ever since he was little, so she agrees to hold the fort while he whisks me off to lunch at somewhere rather swish. I thought to myself, I hope you’re watching, Ralph, you old rascal, and eating your words. Ralph and Giles never got on for more than five minutes whereas, it’s funny, he was always dotty about Mags.

  When eventually we get back, what with all the wine etc. (I mean pudding and cheese), I’m just longing to put my head down, but Giles cracks the whip and gets me to sign lots of papers. It turns out Ralph’s left me very nicely off. What with the house and all his various holdings, one way and another I’m quite a rich lady. He’s tied a bit up for Margaret, nothing specific for Giles, but he doesn’t mind because of course he doesn’t need any and when I go he’ll get it all anyway. But what I do have is what Giles calls a liquidity problem, and the first item on the agenda is to give me some ready cash, hence the papers. Then something about buying a forest. Bit wary to start with, said, ‘Can I not mull it?’ and Giles said, ‘Well you can, but the index is going down.’ I said, ‘What about Mr Sherlock?’ Giles said, ‘You know what lawyers are.’ Wish old Ralph could have seen me, signing away. He never showed me any papers at all, whereas Giles took me through them and explained it all. I suppose it’s a different generation. What he did do, which made me feel a tiny bit shifty, was to take away three or four of the best pictures, the two carriage clocks and a couple of other choice items. Said that when the sharks from the revenue came round to assess the stuff for estate duty these were just the items that would bump the figure up. I said, ‘What about the inventory?’ Giles said, ‘I think we’ll just drag our brogues on that one.’ Apparently everybody does it. He’s just going to keep the stuff under the bed at Sloane Street until the heat is off, then back they come.

  Margaret still lying on the bed when I went upstairs. Asleep she looks quite presentable. Daddy’s little girl. Not so little now, those great legs. But as Mabel says, ‘It looks as if we’re on the hospital trail again.’ If she goes in, I could perhaps go to Siena. Except I’ve nobody to go with. One keeps forgetting that.

  GO TO BLACK.

  Come up on Muriel sitting at a table writing letters. Afternoon.

  It’s not an ideal place, no one is saying it is. Even Giles doesn’t say that. In fact it’s a perfect example of one of those places they’re always famously about to scrap. Started life as a workhouse probably, during the Napoleonic Wars, and qua building not displeasing. As someone weaned on Nikolaus Pevsner and practically a founder member of the National Trust I wouldn’t alter a single brick. And as an arts centre first rate. As a museum of industrial archaeology … couldn’t be bettered. Or as a craft centre, weaving, pottery, a shop-window where craftsmen and craftswomen could make and display their wares …absolutely ideal, the very place. But as a mental hospital …oh no, no, no, no, no.

  The food, for instance. The food has to cross a courtyard — the kitchen is so far away for all I know it may have to cross a frontier. One toilet per floor …I just put my head round the door and wished I hadn’t; no telephone that I could see and the beds so crammed together if you got out of one you’d be into another. Dreadful.

  And of course I keep thinking of Ridgeways, the cup of tea, the matron’s parlour and that immaculate lawn. It would break old Ralph’s heart. But Ridgeways costs money. It always did. First of the month, beg to inform, respectfully submit, all very nice but £600 on the dot. And more. And more. And as Giles says, ‘Mummy no can do. That kind of money we do not have.’ Well we do, but it’s all tied up.

  And whereas in normal circumstances one would have fought tooth and nail to keep her in the private sector, just out of respect for Daddy, nowadays we are in what Giles calls a different ball game. And the old thing minds. Goodness, he minds. I wanted him to come with me today but just the idea of the place upsets him so much he won’t even set foot in it. And actually I feel the same, but where is that going to get us? I thought of Ralph (as if I ever think of anybody else) and I thought, ‘Come on, Muriel. You’re a widow lady, you’ve got time on your hands, if anybody’s in a position to roll their sleeves up it’s you.’ So today when I paid Mags a visit I got the name of the hospital secretary, almoner it used to be called in my day, and bearded him in his den. He did have a beard actually and looked pretty sorry for himself besides. It turns out he has to precept for absolutely everything down to the last toilet roll, and if he does have any brainwaves about improvements and can sell them to his own management committee, he’s still at the mercy of the regional spending programme.

  I asked about a table-tennis table. He said, ‘My point exactly.’ A table-tennis table would mean going cap in hand to Ipswich, which he’s not anxious to do since the vegetable steamer’s on its last legs. And on the rare occasions he does have a bit of latitude he finds his hands are tied by NUPE. Well, the upshot is I’m writing sheaves of letters to everybody I’ve ever heard of in an effort to plug the hospital into the coffee-morning circuit and get a support group started. What I’m saying is that mental illness is a scourge. It’s also a mystery, can occur in the best-regulated families and nobody knows why. I mean, take us. Why have we been singled out? Loving parents. Perfectly normal childhood, then this.

  When I went in this afternoon, Margaret was weaving a basket, and not making a bad stab at it really, all things considered. It’s lucky I arrived when I did because she’d just got to the part where she had to integrate the handle with the main body and she was making a real pig’s breakfast of it. So I got cracking and showed her the whys and wherefores and actually ended up making both handles. Which seemed to make her a lot happier. She’s never been much good with her hands. Giles was a real wizard.

  A propos Giles there’s a bit of a crisis with the funds apparently. Nothing serious. A chum’s let him down. Didn’t read the small print. Says it’s nothing to worry about, though we may have to pull our horns in a bit further. So I said, ‘All hands to the pumps. With all Daddy’s contacts in the City why don’t I start up a little catering business, executive lunches and the like? Good nursery food and lashings of it.’ Giles not sure. Thought these days they wanted something a bit more nouvelle. I laughed, I said, ‘Don’t you believe it. Men are overgrown schoolboys, always were. Preached salad at Ralph for years and what good did it do?’ Giles said, ‘Small detail, Mum: what are you going to use for capital?’ So that put the tin hat on that one. It’s this bloody liquidity thing. It’s funny I never heard Ralph mention it.

  GO TO BLACK.

  Come up on Muriel in a bare unfurnished room. A suitcase open. A tea-chest. Afternoon.

  Job sorting out the one or two things I want to keep, though quite honestly I’m not sorry to see the back of most of it. I feel it puts me more in the same boat as Ralph. Lay not up for yourself treasures on earth type thing. The lilies of the field syndrome. Said this to the vicar who was looking round. He thought this was a healthy attitude and how much did I think the walnut sidetable might fetch, it would go so well in their hall. Huge marquee on the lawn. People trooping through the house, and Angela Gillespie never away. Said how horrid it must be to see people poking about among one’s prized possessions. I said, ‘Yes,�
� but it isn’t really. The person I do feel sorry for is Mabel, who’s had it to polish all these years. Still, she was getting on like a house on fire with the auctioneer’s men, who were all so careful and polite I’d have married any one of them on the spot. Angela beefing on about all the dealers being here, putting up the prices, I thought good job. Still, however much it all fetches it will only be a drop in the ocean.

  At one point Angela got the Duttons in a corner and started telling the tale. Said Giles had always been a wrong’un. I turned round and said she didn’t know what she was talking about, it had been a genuine mistake. She said, ‘Mistake? Hundreds of people losing their life savings a mistake?’ I said, ‘So why do you think I’m selling up?’ She said, ‘It wasn’t your fault. Why should you suffer? That’s what worries me, Muriel, it’s not fair on you.’ Fair on me or not it didn’t stop her buying the corner cupboard. She’s had her eye on it for years.

  I suppose Giles has been a scamp. But I don’t think he’s been wicked. Just not very bright that’s all. Still, Sloane Street is in Pippa’s name so that’s a blessing, and the school fees were covenanted for years ago so it’s not all gloom. I sat under the chestnut tree while the sale was going on, and thought how none of this would have happened if Ralph hadn’t died. Then I heard him say, ‘Buck up, old girl,’ and went and gave a hand with the tea. I haven’t told Margaret yet. Her fourteen-year-old psychiatrist thinks this may not be the moment. Sees some signs of improvement. Margaret brought him some tulips last week. Picked them from one of the hospital flowerbeds. I apologised and said I could give them some of our bulbs. He said not at all, it was a sign she was becoming more outgoing. Wanted to know about Ralph and Margaret. I said, ‘In what way?’ He said, ‘No particular way. When she was little.’ I said, ‘Ralph was fond of her: she was his little girl.’ He said, ‘Yes.’