by Tom Stoppard
MARKS (loudly, independently): Happiest days of my life, to coin a phrase!
BRINDLEY: Yes, indeed.
MARKS: Love to have them all over again. Still, I’ve done the next best thing.
BRINDLEY: What’s that?
MARKS: Sent the boy, of course. How’s Gerald buckling down, Crawford? Well-liked lad, is he?
CRAWFORD: Gerald, sir?
MARKS: My boy.
DOBSON (quietly): Marks, Crawford.
CRAWFORD: Oh—yes, sir. We don’t call him Gerald, sir.
MARKS: ’Course not. Has he got a nickname? Little beggar tells me nothing.
CRAWFORD: Er, I’m not sure. He’s in Junior School, sir.
MARKS: He’s got to have a nickname. You haven’t been accepted till you’ve got a nickname—isn’t that right, Chico?
BRINDLEY: Goodness!—I’d quite forgotten!
DOBSON: Oh, yes!—Yes, yes—Gale, Brindley and Marks, we used to call you the—what was it?—the Three Musketeers, Chico … no, that can’t be right …
JENKINS (quietly): I told you he’s past it.
BRINDLEY (laughing): No, no—it was the Three Marx Brothers—Groucho, Chico and …
DOBSON: Harpo. Exactly.
MARKS: That was it. Those were the days, eh?
BRINDLEY: Yes, indeed. Did you have a nickname, Crawford?
CRAWFORD: Well, not really, sir.
DOBSON: I regret to say that I am referred to as Dobbin.
MARKS: Dobbin!
DOBSON: Crawford seems embarrassed. Perhaps he thinks I didn’t know? I can’t think why—after all, Crawford, you were aware, were you not, that you were sometimes known as Crackers?
MARKS: Crackers!
* * *
CRAWFORD (viciously): Who said that?
(Silence.)
Marks?!
YOUNG MARKS (scared): It wasn’t me, Crawford.
CRAWFORD: Come on, I want to know which of you said that! Bellamy?
BELLAMY: Said what?
CRAWFORD: My name is Crawford! Come here.
BELLAMY: We didn’t mean anything, Crawford!
CRAWFORD: And you, Marks.
YOUNG MARKS: I didn’t do anything, Crawford!
CRAWFORD: You stink, Marks. You stink and you’re a wet. I do not like wet, stinky boys. Do you hear me, Marks? I will not abide wetness and stinkiness on any account. Why are you so wet? Don’t go away, Bellamy! Now then, Marks, tell me why are you so wet. How dare you be wet in my presence? Do you like being wet? Answer me, you moronic little tick, don’t you know that failure to answer a question offends me, Marks? Take off your shoe, go on take it off, I’ll teach you to be wet——
YOUNG MARKS: You can’t, please Crawford, I’ve got a mog from matron, I’m excused football, and everything——
CRAWFORD: How dare you answer me back! My God, you’re so wet, Marks, wetness must be beaten out of you—I’m watching you, Bellamy, don’t leave us—bend over, Marks—(grabbing him) bend over!
YOUNG MARKS: Please, Crawford! (Thump, MARKS cries out.)
* * *
(Thump. Thump. The HEADMASTER’s gavel. Silence overtakes the OLD BOYS’ Dinner.)
HEADMASTER: The traditional order of programme will be slightly different this evening, owing to a very sad circumstance.
DOBSON (quietly): I deplore this. Anybody would think that no one had ever died before.
HEADMASTER: I have to inform you that a few days ago, Mr. R. L. Jenkins died in hospital after a short illness. Many of you will remember him with affection and respect.
MARKS: Hear, hear.
HEADMASTER: He was a master for twenty years, and ever since his retirement ten years ago, he has been one of us, a familiar figure at these dinners, and even more behind the scenes, a tireless and selfless worker for the school. It is sad—indeed it is very difficult—to realize that his dapper figure, with gown billowing and moustache bristling, will no more be seen hurrying from Monk’s Pond to Chapel, and indeed Chapel will not be the same without his baritone shaming younger men.
DOBSON: Ridiculous fuss.
HEADMASTER: He could be a stern man, but he always had a twinkle in his eye, and I think everyone who was taught by him learned to respect his demanding standards. Like all the best teachers, he had a passion for his subject and the absolute conviction that if it was not necessarily the most important subject, it was the most rewarding. I think it would be fitting, therefore, if before we said Grace, we were to stand for a minute or two in silence and think of Mr. Jenkins, who is now lost to us.
(After a short pause, the company gets to its feet.)
JENKINS (quietly): I say—Gale! Are you asleep?
GALE (flatly): Good-bye, Mr. Jenkins! Or rather, au revoir.
JENKINS: Mr. Gale—we’ve got to stand for Jenkins.
GALE: I’m sitting down for Jenkins. We stood for Jenkins long enough.
(GALE is speaking very quietly, but not whispering.)
DOBSON: Hush!
GALE: And anyway Jenkins has stood me up.
DOBSON: Gale!
GALE: Jenkins, where are you now, now that I really need you?
MARKS: What’s the matter with you, man?
GALE: Oh, shut up, Marks. He never taught you anything either. He made us afraid.
MARKS: Speak for yourself.
GALE: We walked into French like condemned men. We were too afraid to learn. All our energy went into ingratiating ourselves and deflecting his sadism on to our friends. We brought him lumps of French to propitiate him until the bell went, and some of it stuck, that’s all—right, Brindley?
BRINDLEY: Gale, I beg you—this is not the time.
GALE: Once when I was ill—itself an admission of some obscure failure, you will remember—I spent my time in the San feverishly keeping up with the French I had missed, using my brother’s exercise book—he used to lend me it. One day he forgot to pick it up and found himself in a French lesson without any prep to hand in. Jenkins slapped him around for five minutes. (Gavel.)… What a stupid man! I think we would have liked French. It is not, after all, a complex language.
(The gavel sounds again.)
HEADMASTER: I can hardly believe my ears. I apologize to those who have had to endure that muttering. I do not know the reason for it but I am profoundly shocked. I will say no more at present. Please be seated, gentlemen, for Announcements, which will be followed as usual by Grace and then the School Song, with our music master, Signor Luzzato, at the pianoforte.
(The OLD BOYS sit down.)
MARKS: Trust Groucho to make a scene.
* * *
HEADMASTER (barks): Silence!
(Sounds subside.)
First of all I want to draw attention to the deplorable state of the lockers. In future boys who omit to put away their Wellingtons properly will be punished. Prefects, please see to it. Next—it has been drawn to my attention that, after last Saturday’s away match at Bridlington, certain members of the Second Eleven were seen in the town without their caps and in the company of girls. I must say that I am profoundly shocked by this misuse of trust. The boys have already been punished, and it is only for the sake of the school and the team as a whole that I have been prevailed upon not to bar them from playing in future matches. However, if there is any repetition of this street-corner behaviour, I shall without demur have the Bridlington fixture cancelled.
* * *
HEADMASTER: But now for some happier news. It is with great pride and pleasure that I am able to announce to you an item of news that has brought great honour to the School—namely that for services to national industry, Geoffrey Carson has been honoured by her Majesty the Queen with the Order of the British Empire. Congratulations, Carson Minor!
(Laughter and applause from the OLD BOYS. The HEADMASTER’s voice and occasional light applause continues under the following.)
DOBSON: Why did you come?
GALE: I wanted to see if I’d got him right—if he had any other existence which might exp
lain him … As it is, he’ll have to go to my grave as I remember him. Still, perhaps he remembered me as a minor bully and a prig, which I was.
JENKINS: Some of us have happier memories.
GALE: Oh yes, the snows of yesteryear … (Agonized.) Where were they then? Oh, where the Fat Owl of the Remove, where the incorruptible Steerforth? Where the Harrow match and your best friend’s beribboned sister? Whither Mr. Chips? Oh no, it’s farewell to the radiators and the punishable whisper, cheerio to the uncomprehending trudge through Macbeth and sunbeams defined by chalk-dust, the sense of loss in the fruitcake sent from home, the counted days, the hollow fear of inconsiderable matters, the hand raised in bluff—Sir, sir, me sir!——
MARKS: It wasn’t all like that, Groucho. We had good times.
GALE: And Marks has sent his son. God, I wish there was a way to let small boys know that it doesn’t really matter. I wish I could give them the scorn to ride them out—those momentous trivialities and tiny desolations. I suppose it’s not very important, but at least we would have been happier children, and childhood is Last Chance Gulch for happiness. After that, you know too much. I remember once—I was seven, my first term at prep school—I remember walking down one of the corridors, trailing my finger along a raised edge along the wall, and I was suddenly totally happy, not elated or particularly pleased, or anything like that—I mean I experienced happiness as a state of being: everywhere I looked, in my mind, nothing was wrong. You never get that back when you grow up; it’s a condition of maturity that almost everything is wrong, all the time, and happiness is a borrowed word for something else—a passing change of emphasis.
(The HEADMASTER ceases, the OLD BOYS stand up.)
GALE: Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.
HEADMASTER: Let us say Grace.
(There is a general clearing of throats.)
HEADMASTER: For what we have received may the Lord make us truly thankful.
OLD BOYS: Amen.
(General easing movement but all remain standing. marks giggles.)
BRINDLEY: What are you laughing at?
MARKS: Just thinking—for ten years of my life, three times a day, I thanked the Lord for what I was about to receive and thanked him again for what I had just received, and then we lost touch—and I suddenly thought, where is He now?
BRINDLEY (giggling): I say, that’s not at all funny, Harpo … Er, do you intend to drink your wine?
MARKS: No, no—have it by all means. The brandy’s quite tolerable.
(A piano chord is sounded. The piano continues to play a couple of bars of introduction, but JENKINS has already accepted the first chord as his cue to start singing, to the tune of ‘Men of Harlech’.)
JENKINS: Sons of Oakleigh, oaken-hearted
Are we ever broken-hearted?
No! …
(The piano falters and dies. JENKINS’ solo also dies.)
I say, have they changed the Song?
DOBSON: What school were you at, Mr. Jenkins?
JENKINS: Oakleigh, of course. Oakleigh House for the Sons of Merchant Seamen’s Widows.
BRINDLEY: Oh dear. I think that’s the lot having dinner downstairs, in the Chatsworth Room.
(The piano has re-started, from scratch. Now—to the tune of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’.)
OLD BOYS: Onward fellow Hovians,
Onward into life!
Never mind the struggle,
Never shun the strife!
Spread the flag of Britain
All around the globe!
And the lesson we have learned
In happy days at Hove!
Be the scourge of cruelty
Of heathen be the bane!
It’s not so much the runs we score
As how we play the game!
Onward fellow Hovians,
Play it by the rules!
Up for Queen and Country,
Up the dear old school!
Onward fellow Hovians,
Onward into life!
Never mind the struggle,
Never shun the strife!
Spread the flag of Britain
All around the globe!
And the lesson we have learned
In happy days at Hove!
(During this, for the first time, there is a cross-fade into the past: on an open windy field, GALE is playing some sort of game with a few other boys. He is shouting and laughing, calling for the ball, and being called—‘Here, Gale! Gale, Gale!’—the voices distant and almost snatched away by the wind. It is a day he has forgotten, but clearly he was very happy.)
ARTIST DESCENDING A STAIRCASE
CHARACTERS
MARTELLO (SENIOR)
BEAUCHAMP (SENIOR)
DONNER (SENIOR)
SOPHIE
MARTELLO (JUNIOR)
BEAUCHAMP (JUNIOR)
DONNER (JUNIOR)
NOTE: There are eleven scenes. The play begins in the here-and now; the next five scenes are each a flashback from the previous scene; the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh scenes are, respectively, continuations of the fifth, fourth, third, second and first. So the play is set temporally in six parts, in the sequence ABCDEFEDCBA
A = here and now
B = a couple of hours ago
C = Last week
D = 1922
E = 1920
F = 1914
We hear, on a continuous loop of tape, a sequence of sounds which is to be interpreted by MARTELLO and BEAUCHAMP thus:
(a) DONNER dozing: an irregular droning noise.
(b) Careful footsteps approach. The effect is stealthy. A board creaks.
(c) This wakes DONNER, i.e. the droning stops in mid-beat.
(d) The footsteps freeze.
(e) DONNER’s voice, unalarmed: ‘Ah! There you are …’
(f) Two more quick steps, and then Thump!
(g) DONNER cries out.
(h) Wood cracks as he falls through a balustrade.
(i) He falls heavily down the stairs, with a final sickening thump when he hits the bottom. Silence.
After a pause, this entire sequence begins again … Droning …
Footsteps … (as before).
MARTELLO: I think this is where I came in.
(TAPE: ‘Ah! There you are …’)
BEAUCHAMP: And this is where you hit him.
(TAPE: Thump!)
MARTELLO: I mean, it’s going round again. The tape is going round in a loop.
BEAUCHAMP: Well, of course. I record in loops, lassoing my material—no, like trawling—no, like—no matter.
(TAPE: DONNER reaches the bottom of the stairs.)
MARTELLO: Poor Donner.
(MARTELLO and BEAUCHAMP are old men, as was DONNER.
(The TAPE starts off again as before.)
BEAUCHAMP (over TAPE): Round and round, recording layer upon layer of silence while Donner dozed after a heavy lunch, the spools quietly folding silence upon itself, yes like packing linen into trunks … Fold, fold until the footsteps broke it … and woke him——
(TAPE: ‘Ah! There you are …’)
How peaceful it was, in the afternoon in the great houses before the Great War, to doze after luncheon with only a fly buzzing in the stuffy room and a sense of the maids somewhere quietly folding the linen into pine chests …
(TAPE: DONNER reaches the bottom of the stairs.)
Donner knew the post-prandial nap. His people were excellently connected. With mine, in fact.
(TAPE: re-continues under.)
I suppose we should let someone know, though not necessarily the entire circumstances. I’m not one to tell tales if no good can come of it.
MARTELLO: I will stand by you, Beauchamp. We have been together a long time.
BEAUCHAMP: You may rely on me, Martello. I shall not cast the first stone.
MARTELLO: You have cast it, Beauchamp, but I do not prejudge you.
BEAUCHAMP: My feelings precisely, but there seems to be some confusion in your min
d——
MARTELLO: My very thought. Turn off your machine, it seems to be disturbing your concentration——
(TAPE: ‘Ah!——’ and is switched off.)
BEAUCHAMP: There you are.
MARTELLO: On the contrary, Beauchamp, there you are. Unless we can agree on that, I can’t even begin to help you clear up this mess.
BEAUCHAMP: Don’t touch him, Martello.
MARTELLO: I don’t mean clear up Donner!—honestly, Beauchamp, you buffoon!
BEAUCHAMP: Cynic!
MARTELLO: Geriatric!
BEAUCHAMP: Murderer!
(Pause.)
MARTELLO: As I was saying, I shall help you so far as I can to get through the difficult days ahead, whether in duplicity or in the police courts, depending on how you intend to face the situation; but I shall do so only on the condition that we drop this farce of accusation and counter-accusation. You had only two friends in the world, and having killed one you can’t afford to irritate the other.
BEAUCHAMP: Very well!—I gave you your chance, and now I’m going to get the police.
MARTELLO: A very sensible decision. You are too feeble to run, and too forgetful to tell lies consistent with each other. Furthermore, you are too old to make the gain worth the trouble. Be absolutely frank with them, but do not plead insanity. That would reflect undeserved credit on three generations of art critics.
BEAUCHAMP: I must say, Martello, I have to admire your gall.
MARTELLO: Stress all mitigating factors, such as Donner’s refusal to clean the bath after use, and his infuriating mannerisms any of which might have got him murdered years ago. Remember how John used to say, ‘If Donner whistles the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth in six/eight time once more I’ll kill him!’?