Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 1

by Alan Bennett

  ANDY: Gooseberry?

  GEOFF: What?

  ANDY: Home-made. (Holding out bottle.)

  GEOFF: No, thanks. No, OK, I will. (He tries one.) You seen my set-square?

  ANDY: In James’s box, try.

  (GEORGE now appears with two carriers and several silver foil cartons of Indian food, which he dumps on the kitchen table.)

  GEORGE: Hello, stranger. We were just saying you’d not been round. You staying for supper?

  GEOFF: No.

  GEORGE: Indian food. There’s always plenty.

  ANDY: Except for the Indians.

  GEOFF: I’ll see to it, shall I?

  GEORGE: Would you? (GEOFF puts food in oven, etc.)

  Drink? (To BRIAN.) No? No.

  (GEOFF has now got most of his gear together.)

  Arc you going?

  GEOFF: Yes.

  BRIAN: To Spain.

  GEORGE: Spain?

  GEOFF: I’d borrowed one or two books. I don’t know where they go.

  GEORGE: Take some more if you want.

  GEOFF: I’d better not. It’ll be a bit before I’m back.

  GEORGE: Whereabouts?

  GEOFF: Torremolinos … I’m going to help set up this restaurant.

  GEORGE: Torremolinos?

  GEOFF: Yeah. It’s goodbye to The Smoke. Anywhere.

  (GEOFF is putting the books back on the shelf.)

  GEORGE: Take some. It’s not exactly Wittenberg, Torremolinos.

  GEOFF: What? I can never follow you.

  ANDY: It wouldn’t suit him so he can’t see why it should suit you either.

  GEORGE: I just don’t think Torremolinos Public Library will be much cop.

  ANDY: I envy you. I wish it were me.

  GEOFF: I don’t know what to choose.

  ANDY: Here. I’ll choose some.

  GEOFF: (To ANDY) I had a tape measure. Have you seen it…

  GEORGE: It’s on the sink. I shouldn’t worry about books, Geoff. Books are on their way out, nowadays, didn’t you know that? Words are on their last legs. Words, print and also thought. That’s also for the high jump. The sentence, that dignified entity with subject and predicate, is shortly to be made illegal. It probably already is in Torremolinos. Wherever two or three words are gathered together, you see, there is grave danger that thought might be present. All assemblies of words will be forbidden, in favour of patterns of light, videotape, every man his own telecine. Oh, and vibes. Yes, vibes. Does she know you’re here?

  GEOFF: A lot of the time I never understand what you’re saying.

  (GEORGE goes upstairs for POLLY.)

  ANDY: You’re not missing much. Mum.

  GEORGE: You’ll wake the kids. I’ll get her.

  (POLLY comes downstairs.)

  POLLY: You’re going then?

  GEOFF: Yes.

  POLLY: Is there anything you want?

  GEOFF: No.

  ANDY: Cheers.

  POLLY: Where you going?

  ANDY: Only out.

  (Goes out by outside door. ANDY should sense he is spare before going. GEOFF is left with BRIAN and POLLY.)

  GEOFF: Well, I’m off.

  POLLY: Oh, are you off?

  GEOFF: Yes. I’d better. Not mad, are you?

  BRIAN: Me? No.

  POLLY: No.

  GEOFF: My fault really.

  POLLY: You don’t want a cup of tea?

  GEOFF: No. Something I wanted to say. It… it wasn’t sex. I mean, it was. I wasn’t after anything, but it’s the least part of it. Nobody ever explains to you how the system works, what the timetable is, sort of. There ought to have been somebody when I was … I don’t know … somebody to say, ‘Look, this is the last bus. If you’re not on this one you’re going to have to walk.’

  (POLLY remembers something he has left and is about to give it to him.)

  No. Have that. We’re free-loaders, people like me. Hitch-hiking. Whereas you … all you … you’re on the motorway. We’re other routes. We’re … we’re lumbered.

  (GEOFF goes leaving POLLY and BRIAN rather lost. GEORGE comes back.)

  GEORGE: Geoff gone?

  POLLY: Mmm.

  GEORGE: I wanted to say goodbye. I shall miss him, you know. I’d got quite to like him. Wasted, you know a boy like that. Wasted. He was quite bright. He’s somebody in the dustbin. Torremolinos.

  POLLY: He’ll be all right. He’s beautiful. He won’t be in the dustbin for long. He’s got his head screwed on right.

  GEORGE: No. You don’t see it, Polly. You think because he’s pretty and knows a Chesterfield when he sees it that he’s got a pretty nice life. But I tell you, it’s waste. It’s like Dickens. Fortunes in the dust heap. How do we cast the net wider or make it with the finer mesh? Or are nets what we want? Somehow you see society’s got to be kept open. We can’t afford to lose people. Somehow boys like that…

  POLLY: Shut up.

  GEORGE: What?

  POLLY: One thing about Geoff …

  GEORGE: Why?

  POLLY: Just for once, let it pass. Shut up. No comment. You always have to fetch everything down to words.

  GEORGE: What else would you prefer … the music programme?

  POLLY: Nowhere, there’s nowhere safe … from words with you. No … no secret room, but what you have to be in there like an auctioneer’s clerk, cataloguing, describing, relating, reducing everything to a collection of objects, sticking labels on them. Lot numbers. And though nothing’s been changed, nothing taken away, just listed, catalogued and explained … yet it’s less. You make it less, George. It’s not a place any more.

  GEORGE: It just happens that all I was saying was… Geoff is a very good example of something…

  POLLY: He isn’t an example. That’s it. Can’t you see? Always this is what it’s like. It’s as if this or as if that. No. This is what it is. There isn’t a gap. You don’t have to be describing always. Not for me, anyway. Just leave it. Don’t say it. (She is crying.) All your talk, and you see less than anybody else. You can’t even see what’s under your nose.

  GEORGE: Like what?

  POLLY: Like … Oh, Georgie … I don’t know … like what people are … I don’t know … like …

  GEORGE: Like?

  POLLY: You’re the dead one, George. Irony, litotes, zeugma… that’s all you are. Just a figure of speech.

  (BRIAN gets up.)

  GEORGE: Don’t go, please.

  BRIAN: No, actually I’d better go.

  GEORGE: (To POLLY) Look. What is all this about? What am I supposed to have done?

  POLLY: Nothing. Nothing.

  GEORGE: Nothing. Right. (As if that settles it.) And what about you?

  BRIAN: Me?

  GEORGE: You’re not exactly Nancy with the Laughing Face. Will one of you tell me what I’m supposed to have done?

  BRIAN: You? You’ve done nothing. Look. There is something I … well, I ought to explain before tomorrow. Remember those postcards?

  GEORGE: Ignore them … it’s … forget about them …

  BRIAN: No. Something else has happened since then.

  ENID’S VOICE : Hello! ( BRIAN gets up hurriedly.)

  POLLY: Oh, Christ. That’s all it wanted. No, stay.

  BRIAN: No, I’ll nip out…

  (ENID puts her head round the door.)

  ENID: Coming, hiddy, or not.

  GEORGE: Now then.

  ENID: Cheer up, dear. I’m not stopping. I’ve got a taxi waiting.

  POLLY: Taxi? Where to?

  ENID: Stanmore, where else?

  POLLY: That’ll cost the earth.

  ENID: No. It won’t, you see, because …

  GEORGE: What’s happened about your tests?

  ENID: That’s what I called in to say. I’ve been living in fear and trembling and eventually screwed up my courage to the sticking point – Hello, Mr Thing, didn’t see you there – went to see dirty Doctor Proctor who, of course, has had the results for a week and never bothered to tell me.

  G
EORGE: And what is it?

  ENID: Nothing at all. I’m all right. I said what about the shadow and he said well that’s all it was, a shadow, no substance to it at all. (To BRIAN.) Sorry to visit all this on you.

  (BRIAN should go upstairs.)

  GEORGE: Oh, Enid. (Kisses her.)

  ENID: I really thought it was the fell sergeant this time. I made my will, everything, and such a weep doing it.

  POLLY: Enid, you are a twerp.

  ENID: Twerp! I thought it was curtains.

  GEORGE: I did.

  ENID: Did you? I’m glad you didn’t tell me. Anyway, all gone. So I went to my class tonight the first time for three weeks. And Zoë and I went out for a little celebration with the male model who turns out to be a taxi-driver in his spare time and not a nancy at all. He says it’s coming from Leeds. They all talk like that. You all right, dear?

  POLLY: Yes.’ Course I’m all right.

  GEORGE: And how do you feel?

  ENID: At this moment, dear, a bit tiddly. Sure?

  POLLY: Yes.

  ENID: I suppose it ought to teach me to mend my ways. But I can’t see how. George dear, would you do something for me. Go along to the end and get me some ciggies. It’s for Gerry. He’s been ever so good.

  GEORGE: I’ve got some here. He could have those.

  ENID: No, dear, those aren’t the sort he likes.

  GEORGE: Well, what sort?

  ENID: Oh, any sort. He’s not fussy. Off you go before they close.

  (POLLY and ENID are alone.)

  You been crying, dear?

  POLLY: No.

  ENID: What about?

  POLLY: Nothing. I haven’t.

  ENID: Last time I saw you crying …

  POLLY: I haven’t been.

  ENID: … was when you were fifteen. Over Michael Fitton.

  POLLY: Who?

  ENID: Michael Fitton, dear, don’t you remember? A funny boy with weak ankles who played the violin and lived in the Drysdales.

  POLLY: That’s right. With ginger hair.

  ENID: He’s gone to New Zealand. I saw his mother in McCorquodales last week. You wouldn’t think there’d be openings for violinists in New Zealand, would you? She said they were crying out for them.

  POLLY: (Crying) Oh, Mum. You are lovely.

  ENID: Then there was Roger Mowbray. He stood for the council this year.

  POLLY: His… his feet used to smell.

  ENID: Terrible. Probably still do. He didn’t get in anyway. That was a narrow escape, too. You were quite smitten with him.

  POLLY: I never was.

  ENID: Yes, you were. You’ve forgotten, but you were. I remember Leonard saying. (Pause.)

  Is it that young man?

  POLLY: (Still crying) Sort of, I suppose. Oh dear. Things altogether, really. Things going on. And on. This is the way things are going to be now.

  ENID: Blow your nose, dear.

  POLLY: The family’s complete, we don’t want any more …. If I had another baby I think George would strangle it … and then him.

  ENID: Who?

  POLLY: George … George is … like he is … And this is our hand. It’s been dealt and now all there is to do is to play it for, what? Thirty years.

  ENID: (She is smoking) Thirty years.

  POLLY: You don’t smoke.

  ENID: Oh, I do occasionally. Special occasions. (Pause.) You wonder sometimes how you land up where you do. I look across at Leonard sometimes on a night and think of myself running up the steps of the Slade all those years ago. Only it doesn’t seem all those years ago. I thought life was going to be like Brahms, do you know? Instead it’s, well it’s been Eric Coat es. And very nice, too. But not Brahms.

  POLLY: You and Dad have been very happy I’ve always thought.

  ENID: Oh, yes, it’s been very happy.

  POLLY: I’ve got so much left. Spare. I suppose I ought to be more like you and further education.

  ENID: Going to classes? Oh, no, that’s not the answer, classes. Don’t start on that. I’ve been to so many classes. Pottery classes, first aid classes, classes in bookbinding and the first principles of Economics. Keats. Yoga. Poland, Cockpit of Europe. Judaism, an Introduction to Flower Arrangement. Classes in primary schools and scout huts, vestries in the black-out, sat there with my pencil and pad, improving myself, leaving Leonard’s supper ready. Making contact, taking up the slack, such an awful lot of slack left to take up somehow. Like a pie, marriage, so much pastry sliced off the dish. Oh, no, don’t start on that. That’s not the answer.

  POLLY: Did you have any affairs?

  ENID: One or two. At least I suppose that’s what they were. You never know, do you? I’m supposed to offer advice, aren’t I? Your silly old mother. I’m not much good as Evelyn Home.

  POLLY: I’m better for the cry, it’s all right.

  ENID: People ask you for help and all you do is root about in your own trunk trying to come across something similar.

  POLLY: It’s all right.

  ENID: I wouldn’t tell him.

  POLLY: No? I wanted to.

  ENID: It’s like setting him a test. No. Marriage isn’t Outward Bound, dear. Keep it to yourself, if he doesn’t know.

  POLLY: No. He doesn’t know.

  ENID: Stop talking now. Or I shall get on your nerves.

  POLLY: No.

  ENID: Yes. The trouble with both of us, dear, is that we’ve both been hit with the doolally stick.

  GEORGE: (Coming in) Hit with what.

  ENID: The doolally stick. A bit daft, it means, the pair of us, your wife and I. (Taxi hoots.)

  That’s Gerry. He’s taking me all the way back to Stanmore for nothing. He’s lovely. Is everything all right?

  GEORGE: Champion, champion.

  ENID: (Kisses POLLY) ’Bye, dear. I’m afraid you’ve got your old mother for another few years yet.

  POLLY: Enid. (And for the first time kisses her with genuine affection.

  BRIAN reappears. Taxi hoots.)

  That’s Gerry again. So impatient. Toodloo.

  GEORGE: That’s some good news, anyway.

  POLLY: Is it?

  BRIAN: I wondered… Anyway, I’ll be off.

  GEORGE: What is it, for Christ’s sake? I can’t see why you worry about it? It is that, isn’t it? The postcards.

  BRIAN: No. No. That’s to say, whoever it is has obviously got a bit tired of the situation. I’m still not certain what I’m going to do. He … has sent … they must have saved the clipping … from the newspaper. And sent it to my agent.

  GEORGE: So what’s happened?

  BRIAN: Blessingtoir, my agent, is an admirable man, who puts down half a bottle of whisky a day and has two convictions for drunken driving, but otherwise a pillar of society. With three teenage sons. The upshot is he has made some inquiries, and, as he put it, sounded opinion in the constituency and … I am not going to be asked to stand again.

  GEORGE: But that’s monstrous.

  POLLY: They can’t do that, can they, just chuck you out in between elections?

  BRIAN: No. Not now. Not straight away, not without there being a fuss.

  GEORGE: You can sit it out. There’s three years at least before they can shift you.

  BRIAN: It all depends. I can say, you see, I want to devote more time to business. That’s an eminently respectable reason.

  GEORGE: The sods. When you consider that there are many Members of Parliament, and alas not merely in the Conservative Party, men who have never had a moment of self doubt in their lives. We don’t expel them for greed, for arrogance, for debating the state of the nation in voices that would get them thrown out of a saloon bar, for spending lunchtime in strip clubs or trundling their throbbing pink tools round to little blondes in Victoria. What is it in this particular sin?

  POLLY: What are you going to do?

  BRIAN: If I give up, you mean?

  GEORGE: You mustn’t give up.

  BRIAN: Go back full time to the works, I can. Couldn’t do that
if there were a hullabaloo, you see. And it’s a bit late to strike out.

  POLLY: You could always do social work.

  BRIAN: What?

  POLLY: Some sort of social work.

  BRIAN: Me? Can you see it? Expiate my sin stroke crime by picking old men off bomb sites and feeding them tea and wads in some East End church hall. Along with a lot of other damp young men, fugitives from teachers’ training colleges, ex-altar boys, schizophrenics going straight and High Church young men who make daring jokes about vestments. The lame ducks. The ones who brought a note. No, thank you.

  GEORGE: You’re going to fight it?

  BRIAN: I may do. I may not. I haven’t thought it out yet. I only got to know this morning.

  GEORGE: It’s blackmail.

  BRIAN: That’s right, it’s blackmail. But don’t get worked up about it.

  GEORGE: Worked up, Christ!

  BRIAN: Some people might reckon I’m half a man. But then so are you, George, in a different way. So are all politicians. Come close and you’ll see a scar. We’ve all had an operation. We’ve been seen to, doctored, like cats. Some essential part of our humanity has been removed. It’s not honesty or straightforwardness, or the usual things politicians are supposed to lack. It’s a sense of the ridiculous, the bloody pointlessness of it all, that’s what they’ve lost. They think they’re important. As if it mattered.

  GEORGE: Now. Has he put anything down on paper?

  BRIAN: Who?

  GEORGE: Your agent.

  BRIAN: He wrote me a letter.

  GEORGE: Saying what?

  BRIAN: Saying what I told you.

  GEORGE: Outright? Not just hints or…

  BRIAN: Hints! He gave the actual date of the newspaper.

  GEORGE: Then you’ve got him. Where is it?

  BRIAN: What?

  GEORGE: Because if he actually committed himself on paper.

  BRIAN: I threw it away.

  GEORGE: What? But you only have to show that letter…

  BRIAN: I don’t want to show that letter to anybody.

  GEORGE: But there’s a principle.

  BRIAN: George. Fuck principle. I wasn’t going to say anything because I knew we’d have to have all this to go through. Just keep out of it. Smashing, isn’t it? A lively little liberal scuffle. A nice straightforward battle between right on the left and wrong on the right. Where you can go in with fists flying and hang the consequences.

  GEORGE: I know it’s harder for you to see it, but…