JOHN (quietly). You’d better sit at your table. She’ll be back in a moment.
ANNE. Yes. Yes, I will.
She sits down at her table. He remains at his.
I was desperately worried about you.
JOHN. You needn’t have been. I was quite all right. How are you now?
ANNE. All right too. (After a pause.) I’m going this morning, you know.
JOHN. So I heard.
ANNE. I won’t bother you again. Ever again. I just wanted to say I’m sorry I had to lie to you –
JOHN. Thank you, Anne.
ANNE. I don’t know why I did. Not for the reasons you gave, I think, though they may be right too, I admit. I don’t seem to know very much about myself any more. I’m sorry, John.
JOHN. That’s all right.
ANNE. I am an awful liar. I always have been – ever since school. I don’t know why but I’d rather lie than tell the truth even about the simplest things. (With a wan smile.) It was nearly always about my lying that we used to quarrel in the old days – do you remember?
JOHN. Yes. I remember.
ANNE lowers her head quickly as the tears come suddenly.
ANNE. Oh, John. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me –
DOREEN comes in with a tray. ANNE turns her head quickly away from her. DOREEN goes to JOHN’s table first, and puts down a plate of biscuits.
DOREEN. Thought you might like some more. I know your appetite.
She goes to ANNE’s table with some biscuits. ANNE has managed to wipe her eyes unseen.
DOREEN. Here you are, Mrs. Shankland.
ANNE. Thank you.
DOREEN. Coffee’s just coming.
DOREEN goes out, having noticed nothing.
ANNE (smiling again). Narrow escape. I’m sorry. I’m in a rather weak state this morning.
JOHN. How much money exactly does Shankland give you, Anne?
ANNE. I’ve told you – seven fifty. (She meets his eyes. At length, murmuring shamefacedly.) Fifteen hundred.
JOHN. Can’t you live quite happily on that?
ANNE. How can I live happily on anything now?
JOHN. But you don’t need to be alone in London. You may not have many friends, but you have hundreds of acquaintances, and surely you can go out and enjoy yourself –
ANNE. You can be more alone in London than in this place, John. Here at least you can talk from table to table. In London it’s the phone and usually no answer.
Pause.
JOHN. You must give up those drugs. Anne.
ANNE. She told you?
JOHN. They won’t help, you know.
ANNE. I know they won’t.
JOHN. Throw them all into the dustbin. They’re no good, those things.
ANNE. I won’t do that. I can’t. I’m not strong enough. But I’ll cut them down if I can.
JOHN. Try.
ANNE. I will try. I promise.
Pause.
JOHN. Tell me, Anne. When you say you need me, is it me you really mean, or just my love? Because if it’s my love you must know now that you have that. You have that for life.
ANNE. It’s you, John.
JOHN. But why? Why, for heaven’s sake?
ANNE. I suppose because you’re all the things I’m not. You’re honest and true and sincere and dependable and – (She breaks off and tries to smile.) Oh dear, this is just becoming a boring catalogue of your virtues. Too embarrassing. I’m sorry, and that damn waitress will come in and catch me crying again.
JOHN (slowly). I may have had some of those virtues once, Anne. I’m not at all sure that I have them now, so I don’t know if I’d be able to satisfy your need. I do know though that you can never satisfy mine.
ANNE. How can you know?
JOHN. Experience.
ANNE. Supposing I’d learnt something from the last eight years?
JOHN. It’s not a lesson that can be learnt.
ANNE. I could still try.
JOHN. So could I, Anne. So could I. And we’d both fail.
ANNE. How can you be so sure?
JOHN. Because our two needs for each other are like two chemicals that are harmless by themselves, but when brought together in a test-tube can make an explosive as deadly as dynamite.
ANNE (shrugging). I could take the risk. After all, there are worse deaths, aren’t there? (She looks round the room at the empty tables.) Slower and more painful and more frightening. So frightening, John. So frightening. (She lowers her head as once more the tears come.) I’m an awful coward you see. I never have been able to face anything alone – the blitzes in the war, being ill, having operations, all that. And now I can’t even face – just getting old.
JOHN gets up quietly from his table and walks to hers. She has her head lowered and a handkerchief to her eyes, so that it is only when she has recovered herself a little that she finds him sitting there. She looks at him without saying anything. He takes her hand.
JOHN (gently). You realize, don’t you, that we haven’t very much hope together?
ANNE nods, and holds his hand tight in hers.
ANNE. Have we all that much apart?
DOREEN comes in with ANNE’s coffee. They release their hands.
DOREEN (seeing them). Oh. (To JOHN.) Do you want your tea over there?
JOHN. Yes, please.
She brings his cup over, and gives ANNE her coffee.
Thank you.
DOREEN. Do you two want to sit at the same table from now on? You can, if you like.
JOHN. Yes. I think we do.
DOREEN. Oh. I’ll make up a double for you for lunch then. It’s just so long as we know –
She goes into the kitchen. JOHN once again takes ANNE’s hand.
Curtain.
TABLE NUMBER SEVEN
Characters
in order of speaking
JEAN STRATTON
CHARLES STRATTON
MAJOR POLLOCK
MR. FOWLER
MISS COOPER
MRS. RAILTON-BELL
MISS RAILTON-BELL
LADY MATHESON
MISS MEACHAM
MABEL
DOREEN
Scene One: Lounge. After Tea.
Scene Two: Dining-Room. Dinner.
Scene One
Scene: the lounge of the Beauregard Private Hotel. It is, perhaps, eighteen months or so since the events of the preceding play, but apart from a rearrangement of the chairs to accord with the summer season, and a set of new covers on those chairs, there has been little alteration. CHARLES STRATTON, in flannels and sports-shirt, lies on the sofa, reading some large medical treatise. Through the french windows, which are open, JEAN STRATTON (née JEAN TANNER) appears pulling a pram.
JEAN (to the unseen baby). Tum along now. Tum along. Tum and see Daddy – Daddy will give you a little tiss and then beddy-byes –
CHARLES’s face shows his annoyance at the interruption to his studies.
CHARLES. Bed-time, already?
JEAN. After six. How are you getting along?
CHARLES. Miles behind. Endless interruptions. It was idiotic to come back to this place. I should have remembered what it was like from the last time. We could have borrowed David’s cottage –
JEAN. Nasty air in the Thames Valley. Not good for baby. Bournemouth air much better, (To baby.) isn’t it, my little lammykins? He says, Yes Mummy, lovely air, lovely sun, makes baby teep like an ickle top –
CHARLES. He doesn’t say anything of the sort. All he ever appears to say is ‘goo’. I’m getting a bit worried.
JEAN. Don’t be silly, darling. What do you expect him to do at five months? Quote T. S. Eliot?
CHARLES. I think all this ‘tum along’ stuff you smother him in is bad for him. It’s very dangerous, too, you know. It can lead to arrested development later on –
JEAN (complacently). What nonsense you do talk.
She has now sat on the sofa beside him and kisses him fondly. He turns from the caress a trifle brusquely.
JEAN. Give me a proper kiss.
CHARLES (murmuring). A kiss, but not a tiss.
He kisses her with a little more warmth, then breaks off.
JEAN. Go on.
CHARLES. No.
JEAN. Why not?
CHARLES. It’s too early.
JEAN. You’re so horribly coarse-grained sometimes that I wonder why I love you so much. But I do, you know, that’s the awful thing. I’ve been thinking all the afternoon how much I loved you. Funny how it seems sort of to have crept up on me like this. Did it creep up on you too, or did you lie in your teeth before we got married?
CHARLES. I lied in my teeth. Now take baby up to beddy-byes, dear, and leave Daddy to his worky-perky – or Daddy won’t ever become a docky-wocky.
There is the sound of a loud jovial voice in the garden.
MAJOR POLLOCK (off). Hullo, ’ullo, Miss Meacham. Working out the form, eh? Got any tips for tomorrow?
MISS MEACHAM (off). Let me see.
CHARLES. Oh God! Here’s the Major. Go on, darling, for heaven’s sake. If he sees the baby we’re lost. He’ll talk for hours about infant welfare in Polynesia or something.
JEAN. All right. (To baby.) Tum along then – (She meets CHARLES’s eyes. Firmly.) Come along, then, Vincent Michael Charles. It is time for your bath and subsequently for your bed. Better?
MISS MEACHAM (off). Red Robin in the three-thirty.
CHARLES. Much.
He blows her a kiss as she goes out into the hall with the pram, from which emerges a faint wail.
JEAN (as she goes). Oh. Did Mummy bring him out of ’ovely garden into nasty dark pace. Naughty Mummy.
Her voice subsides. CHARLES returns to his book.
MAJOR POLLOCK (off). Red Robin in the three-thirty? I’ll remember that. Not that I can afford much these days, you know. Not like the old days when one would ring up the hall porter at White’s, and get him to put on a couple of ponies. Lovely day, what?
MISS MEACHAM (off). Not bad.
MAJOR POLLOCK comes in. He is in the middle fifties, with a clipped military moustache and extremely neat clothes. In fact both in dress and appearance he is almost too exact a replica of the retired major to be entirely true.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Hullo, Stratton. Still at it?
CHARLES (with only the most perfunctory look-up from his book). Yes, Major.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Don’t know how you do it. Really don’t. Most praiseworthy effort, I think.
CHARLES. Thank you, Major.
Pause. The MAJOR sits.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Of course when I was at Sandhurst – oh so sorry – mustn’t disturb you, must I?
CHARLES (politely, lowering his book). That’s all right, Major. When you were at Sandhurst?
MAJOR POLLOCK. Well, I was going to say that I was a bit like you. Off duty, while most of the other young fellers were gallivanting about in town, I used to be up in my room, or in the library there, cramming away like mad. Military history – great battles of the world – Clausewitz – that sort of stuff. I could have told you quite a lot about Clausewitz once.
CHARLES. Oh. And you can’t now?
MAJOR POLLOCK. No. Afraid not. Everything goes, you know. Everything goes. Still I didn’t regret all those hours of study at the time. I did jolly well at Sandhurst.
CHARLES. Did you get the Sword of Honour?
MAJOR POLLOCK. What? No. Came quite close to it, though. Passed out pretty high. Pretty high. Not that it did me much good later on – except that they made me battalion adjutant because I was good at paper work. Could have been brigade major, as it happens, Turned it down because I thought, if trouble came – well – you know – miles behind the line – away from one’s own chaps. I suppose it was a bit foolish. I’d probably have been a general now, on full pay. Promotion was always a bit tight in the Black Watch. Should have chosen another regiment, I suppose.
CHARLES (plainly hoping to terminate the conversation). Yes.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Go on my boy. Go on. So sorry. I talk too much. That’s usually the trouble with old retired majors, what.
CHARLES. Not at all, sir. But I will go on, if you don’t mind. I’ve rather a lot to do.
There is a pause. CHARLES continues reading. The MAJOR gets up and, taking infinite pains not to make a sound, tiptoes to a table where he picks up a magazine, and tiptoeing back, sits down again. CHARLES has plainly been aware of the MAJOR’s tactfully silent passage. MR. FOWLER comes through the french windows, holding a letter.
MR. FOWLER. Oh, hullo, Major. I’ve just had the most charming letter –
MAJOR POLLOCK (putting his fingers to his lips, and indicating CHARLES). Sh!
CHARLES gets up resignedly and goes to the door.
Oh, I say. I do hope we’re not driving you away.
CHARLES. No, that’s quite all right. I can always concentrate much better in my room.
MAJOR POLLOCK. But you’ve got the baby up there, haven’t you?
CHARLES. Yes, but it’s a very quiet baby. It hasn’t learnt to talk yet.
He goes out.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Well, Fowler, who’s your letter from? An old flame?
MR. FOWLER (chuckling happily). Old flame? I haven’t got any old flames. I leave that to you galloping majors.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Well, I used to do all right once, I must say. In the regiment they used to call me Bucko Pollock. Regency buck – you see. Still, those days are past and gone. Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume.
MR. FOWLER (correcting his accent). Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume. Didn’t they teach you the new pronunciation at Wellington?
MAJOR POLLOCK. No. The old.
MR. FOWLER. When were you there?
MAJOR POLLOCK. Now let’s think. It must have been nineteen eighteen I went up –
MR. FOWLER. But they were using the new pronunciation then, I know. Our head classics master was an old Wellingtonian, and I remember distinctly his telling me –
MAJOR POLLOCK. Well, perhaps they did and I’ve forgotten it. Never was much of a hand at Greek.
MR. FOWLER (shocked). Latin. Horace.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Horace, of course. Stupid of me. (Plainly changing the subject.) Well, who is your letter from?
MR. FOWLER. It’s a boy, who used to be in my house and I haven’t heard from for well over ten years. Brilliant boy he was, and done very well since. I can’t think how he knew I was down here. Very good of him, I must say.
MAJOR POLLOCK. What happened to that other ex-pupil of yours – the painter feller?
MR. FOWLER. Oh. I still read about him in the newspapers occasionally. But I’m afraid I don’t get much personal news of him. We’ve – rather lost touch, lately.
MISS COOPER comes in with a newspaper under her arm.
MISS COOPER. Good afternoon, Major, we’ve managed to get your copy of the West Hampshire Weekly News.
MAJOR POLLOCK (eagerly). Good afternoon, Miss Cooper.
MISS COOPER (handing him the newspaper). Joe had to go to three places before he could find one.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Thank you very much.
MISS COOPER. What was the urgency?
MAJOR POLLOCK. Oh – I just wanted to have a look at it, you know. I’ve never read it – strange to say – although I’ve been here – what is it – four years?
MISS COOPER. I’m not surprised. There’s never anything in it except parking offences and cattle shows.
The MAJOR opens the paper, turning away from her.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Well, thanks anyway.
MR. FOWLER. I’ve had a charming letter, Miss Cooper, from someone I haven’t seen or heard from in over ten years.
MISS COOPER (brightly). How nice. I’m so glad.
MR. FOWLER. I’m going to write to him and ask him if he’d care to come down for a day or two. Of course he probably won’t – but just in case he does, will that room be vacant?
MISS COOPER. Not at the moment, I’m afraid, Mr. Fowler. We have so many casuals. But at the end of September
–
MR. FOWLER. Good. I’ll ask him for then.
During this interchange between MISS COOPER and MR. FOWLER, MAJOR POLLOCK, unseen by them, has turned the pages of his paper over quickly, as if he was searching for something. Suddenly his eye is evidently caught by what he reads, and he folds the paper back with a sharp sound. MR. FOWLER looks up at him.
MR. FOWLER. You were with the Highland Division at Alamein, weren’t you, Major?
There is no immediate reply. When the MAJOR does look up his eyes are glassy and staring.
MAJOR POLLOCK. What? No. No I wasn’t. Not with the Highland Division.
MR. FOWLER. I thought you were.
MAJOR POLLOCK (almost fiercely). I never said so.
MR. FOWLER. I just wondered because this boy – Macleod his name is – James, I think, or John – anyway he was known at school as Curly – he says in this letter he was with the Highland Division. I just wondered if you’d run into him at all.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Macleod? No. No, I don’t think so.
MR. FOWLER. Well, of course, it would have been very unlikely if you had. It was just possible, though.
He goes to the door. MISS COOPER has been straightening cushions and tidying up. MAJOR POLLOCK sits down, holding his paper, and staring blankly into space.
(To himself.) Curly Macleod. He once elided a whole word in his Greek Iambics –
He chuckles to himself and goes out. MAJOR POLLOCK looks down again at his paper, and, as MISS COOPER straightens herself from her labours, pretends to be reading it casually.
MAJOR POLLOCK. Yes. Pretty dull, I grant you.
MISS COOPER. What?
MAJOR POLLOCK. This paper. I don’t suppose it’s much read, is it?
MISS COOPER. Only by locals, I suppose. Farmers, estate agents – those sort of people.
MAJOR POLLOCK. I’ve never heard of anyone in the hotel reading it – have you?
MISS COOPER. Oh yes. Mrs. Railton-Bell takes it every week.
Separate Tables Page 11