Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 1

by Alan Bennett

  SIR PERCY: I wish to speak to your daughter.

  LADY RUMPERS: My daughter has been spoken to by at least four people this afternoon, one of whom has proposed marriage. Naturally, she is exhausted.

  SIR PERCY: I wish to take down her evidence.

  MRS WICKSTEED: You’ve taken down quite enough this afternoon.

  SIR PERCY: LIES, LIES.

  LADY RUMPERS: What sort of evidence?

  SIR PERCY: She has this very afternoon been assaulted.

  MRS WICKSTEED: Haven’t we all.

  LADY RUMPERS: Suffice it to say that my daughter is to marry the person who assaulted her.

  SIR PERCY: But he is married already. To this lady. (Indicating MRS WICKSTEED.)

  LADY RUMPERS: Indeed. She has been masquerading as his mother. These are new depths.

  WICKSTEED: Understandably Sir Percy is a little confused.

  SIR PERCY: Little!

  WICKSTEED: He is over-excited. You are over-excited.

  SIR PERCY: That is not true. I was never more calm in my life. I am the only person here telling the truth. Unclean, unclean. I’ll break you. Under cover of a medical examination this man assaulted your daughter.

  LADY RUMPERS: You? My daughter appears to have been assaulted by the whole family.

  MRS WICKSTEED: No. Not me.

  WICKSTEED: No. Not you. You confined yourself to our friend in the shirt-tails. You’re the prey of any tom-cat that knocks at the door.

  SIR PERCY: (To WICKSTEED) You can talk.

  MRS WICKSTEED: (To SIR PERCY) You can talk.

  SHANKS: (To MRS WICKSTEED) You can talk.

  THROBBING: I seem to be the only one with nothing to be ashamed of.

  LADY RUMPERS: Now I remember you. You are the Beast of the 10.26. Just because you’re a clergyman you think you can look up girls’ legs.

  CONNIE: Is this true?

  THROBBING: One has to look somewhere.

  CONNIE: Harold! Don’t touch me.

  FELICITY: Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.

  DENNIS: Penelope.

  FELICITY: FELICITY. I despise you. You lied to me.

  DENNIS: Not really.

  FELICITY: I thought it was only going to be for three months.

  DENNIS: But you said you loved me.

  FELICITY: All your faults… the stuff you put on your hair, your awful trousers, your terrible terrible feet. For three months yes, I could swallow it all, string vests, everything. But not for life.

  DENNIS: What if I promised to commit suicide at the end of three months?

  FELICITY: It’s very nice of you, but it wouldn’t be the same.

  Don’t touch me.

  MRS WICKSTEED: Arthur.

  WICKSTEED: Don’t touch me.

  FELICITY: (To DENNIS) Don’t touch me.

  WICKSTEED: (To SIR PERCY) Don’t touch me.

  CONNIE: (To THROBBING) Don’t touch me.

  SIR PERCY: All in all, I can say quite confidently that I’ve seen nothing like this since I was a locum in Liverpool. (All come on slowly, and stand in a great circle round SIR PERCY.)

  MRS SWABB: And now, suddenly the air is black with the wings of chickens coming home to roost.

  WICKSTEED: You did say Liverpool?

  SIR PERCY: Liverpool.

  LADY RUMPERS: Liverpool?

  MRS WICKSTEED: Liverpool.

  MRS SWABB: Liverpool.

  SIR PERCY: Yes, Liverpool. What of it. I did a locum there. In the War.

  WICKSTEED: Yes, of course, the War.

  LADY RUMPERS: That would be the Second War, the one to make the world safe for democracy?

  SIR PERCY: That was how it was advertised.

  WICKSTEED: When the enemy was always listening, and cigarettes were two a penny. (He lights a cigarette lighter.)

  MRS SWABB: Put that light out.

  (Darkness, the sounds of an air raid.)

  LADY RUMPERS: That’s him! That’s him!

  SIR PERCY: Who?

  LADY RUMPERS: My seducer.

  SIR PERCY: Are you all mad?

  WICKSTEED: Liverpool. The War. The docks. Yes?

  SIR PERCY: No.

  WICKSTEED: Buildings crashing down. Whole streets ablaze.

  Yes?

  SIR PERCY: No. No.

  WICKSTEED: A doctor’s surgery. Yes?

  SIR PERCY: I don’t remember.

  WICKSTEED: Your surgery.

  SIR PERCY: No.

  WICKSTEED: And then, a knock comes at the door. It is a patient. A woman.

  SIR PERCY: It could have been anybody.

  WICKSTEED: But it wasn’t anybody.

  SIR PERCY: It was nobody.

  LADY RUMPERS: Nobody! It was me! (Lights up.)

  SIR PERCY: You!

  LADY RUMPERS: Don’t you remember how we clung to each other in the darkness of the surgery?

  THROBBING: Yes. Yes. Tell it like it is.

  SIR PERCY: No.

  LADY RUMPERS: And then you took me.

  THROBBING: Yee-ow.

  SIR PERCY: I took you? You took me. Your Land Army breeches came down with a fluency born of long practice.

  LADY RUMPERS: It is immaterial.

  THROBBING: Could we go back over that bit in more detail?

  SIR PERCY: No.

  THROBBING: They’ve missed it out again.

  LADY RUMPERS: There was a child. She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful.

  DENNIS: And I love her.

  (FELICITY weeps.)

  SIR PERCY: What’s the matter with her.

  WICKSTEED: It must be something of a shock to find she’s got you for a father.

  SIR PERCY: Father? Me? Bless her. To think, all these years denied the chance of lavishing on her fatherly affections. Those little services of love which are a father’s right. Stroke her hair, wipe away her tears, bath her.

  LADY RUMPERS: Bath her?

  SIR PERCY: Well, perhaps no. But help her choose her dresses, rub on her suntan lotion … those one hundred and one things only a father can do. You can fee she needs a father’s hand.

  WICKSTEED: Not down her blouse.

  LADY RUMPERS: I see you haven’t changed. No word of regret.

  SIR PERCY: The incident had vanished from my mind.

  LADY RUMPERS: You funny little man.

  SIR PERCY: Don’t say that.

  LADY RUMPERS: Rumpers was a little man too. He made no secret of his height. Strange, I’ve been looking for you all my life and now I’ve found you I don’t know what to do with you.

  SIR PERCY: You’ve got nothing to do with me.

  LADY RUMPERS: You don’t even seem sorry.

  SIR PERCY: Why should I be sorry? I didn’t know there was a child.

  WICKSTEED: And are you in the habit of seducing every patient who comes into your surgery?

  SIR PERCY: It was the War.

  WICKSTEED: And Lady Rumpers was your patient?

  SIR PERCY: No.

  LADY RUMPERS: You were the doctor, I was the patient and Felicity was the outcome. (Exits.)

  WICKSTEED: Tut, tut, tut. Hard lines, Perce.

  SIR PERCY: Don’t call me Perce. I am Sir Percy Shorter, President of the BMA.

  WICKSTEED: Not for much longer.

  SIR PERCY: You wouldn’t dare.

  WICKSTEED: I would. Unprofessional conduct. Interfering with patients. A list of charges as long as your arm, no, my arm. And the chief witness your own illegitimate daughter. I think it’s sleeping dogs time, Percy. Otherwise one word and it’s curtains, finito.

  SIR PERCY: It’s not fair. Why is it always me?

  WICKSTEED: How extraordinary! So even you, Percy are human. Just like all the rest of us, the world over. Each one of us walking the world because someone somewhere happened to bring their body and lay it against another body. Everyone. Every person you see in the street, read about in the newspaper. All the names in the births column. All the names in the deaths column. Chinese swimming rivers with
guns in their mouths, the Ryder Cup team. The Pope on his balcony. Everybody. Everywhere. All the time.

  MRS SWABB: (Bowing deeply) Sir Percy. Could I crave a boon?

  SIR PERCY: She’s mad too. They’re all in the plot.

  MRS SWABB: Examine Dennis. Tell her he’s dying. Pretend.

  SIR PERCY: Pretend? Tell her, who? Why?

  MRS SWABB: Felicity.

  SIR PERCY: My daughter? Pretend? I couldn’t pretend that. I couldn’t. You don’t know what you’re asking. My position. Jeopardizing my professional integrity.

  MRS SWABB: You haven’t got any. Not now.

  SIR PERCY: Nobody knows that.

  MRS SWABB: They could always find out.

  SIR PERCY: LIES. LIES. Blackmail. It’s a PLOT. I WILL

  NEVER DO IT. NEVER NEVER NEVER. Where is he?

  MRS SWABB: Follow me, Sir Percy. I will conduct you thither. (Enter CONNIE and FELICITY each looking at themselves.)

  CONNIE: It used to be so flat.

  FELICITY: It used to be so flat.

  CONNIE: Can you tell?

  FELICITY: You can tell.

  (SHANKS, in Purdue’s trousers, comes upon CONNIE still trying to adjust her bust.)

  SHANKS: Something tells me you’re the person we’re looking for. Miss Wicksteed?

  CONNIE: Yes.

  SHANKS: Allow me. There. Striking without being indiscreet. Full but not vulgar. What a day. Would you like to take a walk?

  CONNIE: In the street? Won’t people stare?

  SHANKS: At a striking woman. Yes. People will stare.

  CONNIE: I shall need different clothes, a larger fit. My hair ought to be different. My whole style.

  SHANKS: Come. The world is waiting.

  (Exit SHANKS and CONNIE. Enter SIR PERCY, with DENNIS and MRS SWABB.)

  SIR PERCY: There is no doubt about it. Brett’s Palsy.

  MRS SWABB: Brett’s Palsy. How terrible. Hov, terrible, Felicity.

  DENNIS: Don’t overdo it.

  SIR PERCY: In its tertiary stage.

  MRS SWABB: Tertiary. That’s good. Tertiary is good. Tertiary is very good.

  DENNIS: How long have I got?

  SIR PERCY: Do you really want me to tell you?

  DENNIS: For the sake of the my fiancée, yes.

  FELICITY: Your former fiancée. I gave you back the ring.

  SIR PERCY: In the circumstance a wise precaution. Your engagement would have been broken off anyway.

  FELICITY: You mean…?

  SIR PERCY: I’m afraid so. Three months. Four at the outside.

  FELICITY: You’re sure?

  MRS SWABB: President of the BMA. Physician to the Queen, ’course he’s sure. A man in his position can’t afford to make mistakes, can you.

  SIR PERCY: No.

  FELICITY: Oh Dennis. Forgive me.

  DENNIS: So I do have Brett’s Palsy after all. I knew I had Brett’s Palsy. I always said I had Brett’s Palsy. Felicity, how could you ever have doubted I had Brett’s Palsy. Time is short. We must be married this minute. (They exit,)

  MRS SWABB: That was very sporting of you, Sir Percy.

  SIR PERCY: Not difficult. Really rather sad.

  MRS SWABB: Sad? Why?

  SIR PERCY: He has three months to live. He thought he had Brett’s Palsy. He has got Brett’s Palsy. As paranoids sometimes have enemies, so hypochondriacs sometimes have diseases. It isn’t always in the mind.

  MRS SWABB: But he’s so happy.

  SIR PERCY: So what are you weeping about. He’s happy. He’s got his lady love. She’s happy. She thinks he’s going to die. He is going to die. Everybody’s happy. Except me.

  MRS SWABB: Well we’re into injury time now.

  There’s no time to make a rhyme up.

  Just the wedding and the line up.

  MRS WICKSTEED: Dear Dennis, I hope he’s making the right decision.

  WICKSTEED: What does it matter? He’s in love.

  MRS WICKSTEED: And we’re back where we started.

  WICKSTEED: I say love. That great conglomerate. Affection and attraction, envy and desire. All marketed under the same label. A father’s love, a daughter’s love, love of wives for husbands and mothers for children. It’s love all right. But which department … the headquarters in the heart or the depot between the legs?

  MRS WICKSTEED: Do try not to be vulgar, Arthur, or we shall never get on.

  WICKSTEED: Only time will tell.

  MRS SWABB: Delia, Lady Rumpers.

  LADY RUMPERS: From youth and from desiring

  From love and passion free

  Old with too much regretting

  My future’s plain to see.

  A small hotel in Eastbourne

  A nightly game of whist.

  An old colonial lady

  Who’ll die and not be missed.

  SIR PERCY: But Delia I too am lonely

  For lonely are the brave

  Come. Why do we not go together,

  In step towards the grave?

  MRS SWABB: So as the shadows lengthen

  Across the lawns of life

  They walk into the sunset…

  Sir Percy and his wife.

  (CONNIEsweeps on, transformed, with SHANKS)

  These flashing legs

  This smile so regal.

  I know that face.

  Dame Anna Neagle!

  CONNIE: No, no. You fool. It’s me, it’s Tie.

  Got up like an awful tart,

  But ready now to pay to Life

  The debt I owe to Art.

  My new fiancé, Denzil here, Is keen on heavy petting.

  He wants to go too far with me

  And by God I’m going to let him.

  THROBBING: (To CONNIE) Your future hopes, your married bliss

  On firm foundations rest.

  Who knows, one day, I just might be

  guest upon that breast.

  My life I squandered waiting

  Then let my chance go by.

  One day we’ll meet in Heaven.

  That Matlock in the sky.

  MRS SWABB: That’s a refreshing change. The first time this evening everyone has had their trousers on.

  (Enter PURDUE without trousers.)

  I might have known. Where are your trousers?

  PURDUE: I gave them to him. You don’t need trousers where I’m going. I’ve just taken fifty sleeping pills. The pink ones.

  WICKSTEED: Those aren’t sleeping pills. They’re laxatives.

  MRS SWABB: He’s right. You don’t need trousers where he’s going.

  (THROBBING presides over wedding of DENNIS and FELICITY.)

  DENNIS: Yes, I take this woman.

  For my lawful wedded wife.

  FELICITY: To honour, love and cherish.

  The remainder of his life.

  DENNIS: It will be longer than she thinks.

  MRS SWABB: And shorter than he knows.

  FELICITY: My breast is filled with happiness.

  CONNIE: And mine with cellulose.

  (All dance.)

  MRS SWABB: The body’s an empty vessel,

  The flesh an awful cheat,

  The world is just an abattoir,

  For our rotting lumps of meat. So if you get your heart’s desire,

  Your longings come to pass,

  Remember in each other’s beds

  It isn’t going to last.

  The smoothest cheek will wrinkle

  The proudest breast will fall.

  Some sooner go, some later

  But death will claim us all.

  WICKSTEED: No, no, no. Well, yes … but….

  MRS WICKSTEED: But what?

  WICKSTEED: But on those last afternoons in the bed by the door.

  On the Clement Attlee Ward,

  When you mourn the loss of energy

  Even Lucozade cannot replace

  And Sister Tudor thinks you may go any time,

  Do you think that you think

  Of the things that yo
u did

  Or the things that you didn’t do?

  The promise broken, the meeting you missed,

  The word not spoken, the cheek not kissed.

  Lust was it or love? Was it false or true?

  Who cares now?

  Dying you’ll grieve for what you didn’t do.

  The young are not the innocent, the old are not the wise,

  Unless you’ve proved it for yourselves,

  Morality is lies.

  So this is my prescription: grab any chance you get

  Because if you take it or you leave it,

  You end up with regret.

  (All go, leaving him.)

  Put it this way.

  A VOICE: Arthur.

  WICKSTEED: Whatever right or wrong is He whose lust lasts, lasts longest.

  (He dances alone in the spotlight until he can dance no more.)

  CURTAIN

  ENJOY

  CHARACTERS

  WILFRED CRAVEN (DAD)

  CONNIE CRAVEN (MAM)

  MS CRAIG

  LINDA CRAVEN

  HERITAGE

  ANTHONY

  GREGORY

  MRS CLEGG

  ADRIAN

  SID

  HARMAN

  CHARLES

  ROWLAND

  Enjoy was first presented on 15 October 1980, at the Vaudeville Theatre, by Michael Codron with the following cast:

  WILFRED CRAVEN Colin Blakely

  CONNIE CRAVEN Joan Plowright

  MS CRAIG Philip Payer

  LINDA CRAVEN Susan Littler

  HERITAGE Roger Alborough

  ANTHONY Julian Ronnie

  GREGORY Steven Flynn

  MRS CLEGG Joan Hickson

  ADRIAN Graham Wyles

  SID Michael Hughes

  HARMA Marc Sinden

  CHARLES Simon Painter

  ROWLAND Gareth Price

  Directed by Ronald Eyre

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Playgoers who find that this text does not coincide with what they heard in the theatre may assume that the cast just did not know their lines. They will (I hope) be wrong. The text here printed is that of the play prior to rehearsal and production.

  ACT ONE

  The chorus ‘For unto us a child is born’ from Handel’s Messiah. The music is cut off sharply in full flow, there is a brief silence and the curtain rises on the living-room of a back-to-back house in the North. The outside door opens directly on to the street and other doors lead to the scullery and the upstairs. It is neat and ordinary and some effort has been made to improve the place. There should be something not quite right about the room … Is it that the furniture is too far apart (as it is, for example, in opera)? Or is it islanded in the centre of the stage with space round it … a stage upon a stage? Perhaps it’s just that the room is too real.