by Alan Bennett
Violet keeps being told she will soon be getting a telegram from the Queen, though whether that custom persists and whether it is a telegram I am not sure, though doubtless I shall be told. Telegraph boys still rode the streets on their high bicycles when I was a boy, in their uniform of blue serge with red piping and a little pill-box hat. The telegram itself came in an orange envelope, smaller than the average letter, the message in capital letters on ticker tape stuck on a half sheet of rather mealy paper.
In our family one did not send telegrams lightly, partly because they were expensive but more because one was fearful of the initial shock when the door opened on the telegraph boy, the immediate assumption always being that he brought bad news. This was a legacy of the First War when telegraph boys were over-employed. Bumping over the setts on their high bicycles, every day they brought news of deaths in the trenches so that a single boy in four years of war might tell the fate of thousands. Seeing him go by women would stand at their doors to see which house he stopped at, this pageboy of death. And the same, presumably, in Germany: Der Todeskavalier.
I thought once of writing a TV play about such a boy, who, with men being called up, heard in the autumn of 1914 that ‘they were taking on down at the Post Office’ and so goes and gets his first job. He becomes a telegraph boy for the two years before he himself is old enough to enlist, thus every day bringing tidings of the fate of others that he knows may one day be his own.
And finally, an apology. How dramatists use (and invariably sanitise) illness for their own purposes is an interesting subject. The illnesses change: a hundred years ago if a character needed to fade away it was with TB or ‘consumption’. When fifty years or so ago TB ceased to be incurable it lost its popularity as a dramatic disease to be replaced very often by leukaemia, another condition with which a character could make a slow and dignified exit. That neither disease was as tidy or as well-mannered as dramatists chose to imagine seems insulting to the victims and now I am conscious that I have treated Francis’s death in much the same way, deaths from AIDS seldom so quick or so clean as I have made his departure, my only excuse being that it is Violet’s story more than his.
The six monologues were each rehearsed for just over a week and generally taped over one day at Twickenham Studios. I am grateful to all the performers, the directors and the production team whose names are separately listed and they will know that it is no reflection on them when I say that at every stage of the production process I never ceased to miss the presence of my long-time producer and friend, Innes Lloyd, who produced the first series of Talking Heads and who died in 1991. It is to him these monologues are dedicated.
The Hand Of God
Celia: Eileen Atkins
PRODUCED BY MARK SHIVAS
DESIGNED BY STUART WALKER
DIRECTED BY STUART BURGE
MUSIC BY GEORGE FENTON
CELIA, A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN, SITS AT THE END OF A REFECTORY TABLE. THERE ARE ODD PLATES ON THE WALL, A GRANDFATHER CLOCK: THE CORNER OF AN ANTIQUE SHOP. IN THE COURSE OF THE MONOLOGUE CELIA SITS IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE SHOP, OFTEN BY AN OIL RADIATOR.
I won’t touch pictures. I make it a rule. I’ve seen too many fingers burned.
Woman comes in this morning starts rooting in her shopping bag saying she has something I might be interested in, been in the attic etcetera etcetera. The usual rigmarole. Hadn’t thought anything about it, apparently, until she saw something similar on (and I knew what was coming) that television programme about antiques and that someone on the programme from Christie’s …
I said, ‘Barrow boys.’ She said, ‘Come again?’ I said, ‘Sotheby’s, Christie’s. Barrow boys. Nicely spoken, lovely suits, finger-nails immaculate. But barrow boys.’ She said, ‘Well anyway, he said £2000.’
I said, ‘Well, he would. He doesn’t have to get up at four in the morning and flog his ageing Volvo halfway across England just to sit all day in a freezing marquee and come away with two trivets and an umbrellastand.’ £2000! It was one step up from Highland cattle.
She said, ‘It’s a genuine oil painting. Look at the work that’s gone into it.’ I said, ‘Madam, if you’ll forgive me, could I point you along the street in the direction of A Tisket A Tasket? Basically a café it doubles as a bric-a-brac shop andYvonne does pictures on the side …’ though what I didn’t say was that they tend to be mice in pinnies-type thing.
I popped over the road to tell Derek and Cyril. They’d just had a buyer in from Stockholm who’d practically cleared them out. Staffordshire mostly, which is their big thing. Doesn’t do anything for me but Derek and Cyril love it; chunky, I suppose. Actually I don’t have a particular line. Good cottage furniture sums it up, elm, fruitwood and anything painted. And clocks, of course, when I can get hold of them. Plus pots of the period.
Some things I won’t sell. Teddy bears, for instance. Teddy bears are a minefield. I was at a sale in Suffolk and saw a teddy bear actually torn apart between two bidders, one of them a vicar.
These days they’re all going in for little sidelines. Eking the job out with jam and little pots of chutney. Woman came in the other day, said, Did I have any chutney? I said, ‘I shall start doing chutney, madam, when Tesco start doing gateleg tables.’ But the garage sells pot-pourri so what do you expect?
I think of Lawrence. ‘Christ, old girl, I didn’t sink my gratuity in this place to start selling bloody condiments.’ He was in bomb disposal which was why to begin with we went in for clocks. Though of course there were clocks then. There was everything then. Furniture. Pottery. Stock no problem. And if one had the eye, which I do, one could pick and choose.
Not any more. Take what you can get. And money, money, money. If you love beautiful things, which is why I came into this business in the first place, it just breaks your heart.
And everybody’s an expert now, up to all the tricks of the trade. You’ll see something catch their eye and they don’t ask about it straightaway; they enquire about something else, pretend they’re not interested then it’s,‘Oh … incidentally, how much is this little thing?’ It’s the oldest dodge in the world and they expect you to be taken in by it. Of course they’ve picked all that up off the television. I won’t have one. I said to Nancy Barnard, I refuse to watch. She said, ‘Well, we only have it because of Fay.’ Fay! They’re both glued to it!
Wish I could shift this refectory table. It was a real snip when I got it but I’ve had it a year now and not a nibble. Lovely top. Elm.
She gives a little smile as someone obviously looks in the window
Old Miss Ventriss seeing what there is. Took two Crown Derby plates off her once, just as a favour, one of them chipped.
Looking a bit frail. Going on.
Lovely cameo brooch.
FADE.
They talk as if you’re not in the room.
Couple just now, looking at the Asiatic Pheasant tureen. ‘£60!’ she said, ‘I gave £2.10 for mine.“Yes, but when?’ I wanted to say, ‘1955?’
And some of them so careless they practically hurl things to the floor. I’ve got a notice up now:
‘Lovely to look at, nice to hold,
but if you break it
I say Sold!’
Somebody looking in. Goldfish bowl.
No.You can’t see the price, however far you bend.You’re going to dislocate your neck and you still won’t see it, because I’ve carefully arranged the ticket so that if you want to see the price you’ll have to come into the shop. Which you’re not doing.
Even if they could see the price they wouldn’t understand it because I’ve got my little code.
She looks at the ticket on the refectory table, at the end of which she’s sitting.
I could take £1300 for this at a pinch. I’ve had it a year. Too long. Lawrence would be reading me the Riot Act. ‘Keep your stock ticking over, old girl. Move it on.’ And he did, even if it meant not making much.
‘It’s like Scrabble, my dear. Start saving up for the big one, the sev
en letter word, and you’re done for. Get your letters down. £5 here. £10 there. Buy for x one week, sell for y the next. That’s how you make your money.’ Look well in a boardroom. Or one of these loft conversion things. I’d even consider £1150.
I kept wondering about Miss Ventriss. So what with not having seen her for a bit I thought I’d just knock on her door, see how she was.
She lives in one of the double-fronted houses on The Mount, original fanlight over the door and a lovely knocker, hand grasping a ball, which can’t be later than 1820 though the house I’d have said was Victorian. But of course it’s stucco which can cover a multitude of sins, and once I get inside I realise it’s seventeenth century and seemingly never been touched. And I’m right, of course she isn’t well, been in bed a fortnight and it’s Mabel, the home help who answers the door. Now I know Mabel of old because she’s been in from time to time with odd bits of stuff, little things …a silver vinaigrette, a jet brooch, spoons and whatnot, stuff I’ve found homes for straightaway. They all come from Newcastle, apparently, where her aunt’s had to go into a home. Anyway Mabel takes me upstairs to see Miss Ventriss, who tells me she’s had all sorts of tests and they still don’t know what’s wrong. Which probably means they do.
Thin little hand. Like dried leaves. Tragic.
Lovely bedside table with piecrust moulding. District Nurse comes while I’m there, plonks a bottle of medicine straight down on it. Criminal. I help give her some Benger’s food only she fetches it straight back.
The spoon’s silver and while they’re cleaning her up I look at the hallmark. Provincial, Bristol, about 1830.
Same sort that Mabel brought in.
FADE.
I love a nice finish … maple, rosewood, and walnut particularly. What I can’t abide is stripped pine. I don’t see the point, quite frankly. And they’re fanatics about it, some dealers. I mean still. They’ll strip everything. Five minutes in the caustic tank and it’s one hundred years of loving care down the drain. All the character gone.
I was thinking about this at Miss Uentriss’s because there’s polish everywhere. Walnut, elm, fruitwood. It’s like a jewel box. I’ve been popping round on a regular basis lately, just to relieve Mabel a bit because the old girl’s scarcely conscious now, doesn’t know I’m there half the time. I sit by the bed with the clock ticking …carriage clock, tortoiseshell veneer, fluted, about 1750. Made me think of Lawrence. Lovely.
Of course, everywhere you look there’s something. It’s like houses used to be in the fifties, and most of it museum quality practically. It’s from her grandfather, he was a great collector apparently.
I said to Mabel, ‘What’s going to happen to all this?’ She said, Well she didn’t think there were any relations. There’d been a niece in Canada but she had a feeling she was in an airline crash.
I couldn’t get her to take me round at first. Said she was under strict instructions from the solicitors. I said, ‘What solicitors are those?’ She said, ‘Paterson, Beatty and Brown.’ I said, ‘Well, there’s no problem there because I took a kneehole desk off Mr Paterson and gave him a very good price.’
She was still a bit reluctant so I said, ‘Mabel, I can well understand why you have to be careful. It’s so easy for little things to go walkabout, particularly with old people. Silver, little brooches, you know the sort of thing?’ She went a bit quiet so I said, ‘Shall we start with upstairs?’
I couldn’t believe it. Every room a treasure trove. Amazing.
When I was going Mabel said, ‘I’ll try and steer some of it your way if I can.’ I said, ‘Yes, well there’d be a nice little margin on most of this even running to the two of us. If the worst comes to the worst, of course.’ Mabel says ‘Yes. Though she seems a bit better today. Kept more of her dinner down anyway. Still, you’ve only to look at her under that nightdress and there’s nothing there.’ I said, ‘Yes. Where did that nightdress come from?’ She said ‘Her grandmother, I think. It’s all hand done.There’s half a dozen of them in the linen cupboard, some of them never worn.Tragic:
Of course the sharks are beginning to gather. I’m sitting by the bed this afternoon when Derek knocks at the door bearing one of Cyril’s wizened egg custards. Mabel didn’t let him get his foot round the door only then Nancy Barnard rolls up in her terrible beetroot slacks, says that she and Fay swear by some tincture from the swamps of Paraguay that they’d bought in Chelmsford, should she get her some? I said to Mabel, ‘They’re so transparent.’
Miss Ventriss is asleep so I have a little look at her bed. It’s a country piece. About 1830I’d have said, painted (which always gets my vote) and in such good condition. The doorbell goes again so while Mabel’s downstairs I lift up the mattress and where the paint isn’t worn it’s as good as new.
I’m just tucking the sheet back when I see her little eyes are open and she’s watching me. I think she said, ‘Happy?’ Only Mabel came in just then.
Of course you can’t tell when it gets to this stage, it goes to the brain.
The visitor’s the priest, come to anoint her and whatnot, just to be on the safe side, as the doctor says she could go any time. Mabel and I left him to it, just stood respectfully in the background. Had a little embroidered cloth that he covered the chalice with, Arts and Crafts by the look of it and a beautiful thing. Pity it can’t be used for something.
Pause.
Of course, when she said ‘Happy?’, what she probably meant was that she was happy.
FADE.
I said to Nancy Barnard, ‘Am I a person?’ She said, ‘Come again, love?’ I said, ‘Am I a person? Or am I simply a professional bargain hunter?’
Because that was what she was implying. I said, ‘I’ve been coming here as a friend.’ She said, ‘I know that.’ Bright red cardigan, carmine lipstick and, at the funeral, leather trousers. Even Nancy had managed to find a skirt. Niece …she’d never even met Miss Ventriss, went to Canada at the age of six. Mabel had given me to understand she’d died in an airline crash. Turns out what she’d had was a hairline fracture, no crash at all.
And of course she comes in for everything. Which is understandable, except that no sooner does she see the place than she announces that aside from one or two of the choicest pieces which she’d be keeping for herself, she’d be sending the rest to Phillips.
I said, ‘Mrs O‘Rourke, I’m sure there are several local concerns who’d give you a very good price and you wouldn’t be landed with the vendor’s commission.’ Turns out she’s not paying much commission anyway as the stuff is of such good quality she’d come to an arrangement.
It was then she offered me this box of odds and ends from the desk drawer … I’d been very kind to her aunt, she said, and she wanted to give me a bit of something in return.
I said, ‘Thank you very much but I don’t want to be given anything.’ She said, ‘That’s good because with the solicitors being such sticklers I probably ought to charge you a nominal price anyway then it’s all legal and above board. Shall we say £5? I said, ‘I don’t sell bric-a-brac.’ She said, ‘Well, if you give me £5 and it fetches more than that you can give the rest to Oxfam.’ I said, ‘What do you do in Canada?’ She said, ‘Public relations.’ I said ‘Oh’ pointedly. ‘You must be on holiday then,’ gave her £5, took the box and went.
Of course being Canadian she probably thought I was being nice.
I haven’t been able to face unpacking the box. In fact, I’ve only just done it now. Much as I expected. One or two pressed glass ashtrays that I can get £2 or £3 a piece for. A little gunmetal cigarette case and a serviette ring. All of them items for the oddments box. The only thing of any interest at all is a rather smudgy drawing of a finger (I think it’s a drawing, it may be a print) but the frame is very distinctive. Quite small but with little doors that open so it looks a bit like an altar, nineteenth century probably.
When I’ve got a minute I’m going to take the drawing out and put something a bit more conventional in, a flower print or
something. Smarten it up a bit. Might fetch £30 or so, you never know.
Pause.
Funny thing to put in a frame, a finger.
FADE.
I think the refectory table’s gone. Came in this morning. Only young. Curly hair. Can’t have been much more than twenty. I said, Was he looking for anything in particular? He said, Well, he did want a little present for his girlfriend but he was interested in the refectory table. Didn’t begin by asking the price, which is always a good sign, just said could I measure it for him?
While I’m rooting about looking for a tape measure he picks up one or two bits and pieces. I’d brought Miss Ventriss’s little drawing out thinking I could spend the afternoon taking it out of the frame, and I’d just popped it down on the refectory table where he picks it up, then puts it on one side so’s he could look more closely at the table top.
When I’d measured it he got underneath and had a proper look; there was a bit of worm but in a piece that age it would be unusual if there wasn’t and anyway we both thought it was dead. So he said, what was the best I could do? I’d given £1100 for it a year ago so I said,‘Well, I can’t do much under £1700. Say £1650. It’s elm.’ He said, ‘I know. It’s beautiful. If it will fit, it’s just what we’re looking for.’ So I give him my card and he writes down the measurements and he’s going to ring back this afternoon.