by David Hare
Ann The bus went hours ago and there’s not one back today.
Joanne I’ll go tomorrow.
Ann No bus tomorrow because it’s Thursday.
Joanne I’m walking tomorrow.
Ann It’s eighteen miles.
Joanne I’ll cycle.
Ann The tyres are flat.
Joanne I want to see a fucking film.
Ann Don’t swear.
Elise Shot.
Joanne I’m sick of looking at things live. I want to see them second hand.
Ann When D. H. Lawrence went to the cinema for the first time he found it so – vulgar – he vomited.
Joanne You mean old snipcock.
Elise Joanne.
Ann Lawrence was the most wonderful man of our age.
Joanne Lawrence never got over his amazement that the bits slotted together.
Ann Lawrence loved truth and beauty. Stop this filthy talk. (Pause.) Stupid girl has run herself out.
They clap.
Elise Well played.
Ann Good innings.
Elise Well done.
Ann Very good.
Elise How ugly she is.
Joanne She can’t help that.
Elise Never said she could.
Joanne Why pick on me all the time?
Joanne gets up and walks off towards the returning batswoman offstage.
I say, Sarah.
Exit Joanne.
Ann Now.
Elise replaces her own chair with an old deckchair she gets from the fence and sits down in another spot with her original chair.
Elise There.
Ann That one?
Elise It’ll do what’s required. I prepared it.
Ann It’s hardly fair to her.
Elise Don’t weaken now.
Ann Excellent. I have very high hopes of this joke.
Elise This is awfully good fun.
Ann Who is in now?
Elise points.
Oh, it’s her. She won’t score anything.
Elise I hate her.
Ann She’s not much.
Joanne enters.
Joanne I said well done to that girl and she said that was no compliment coming from me as I hate cricket.
Elise True.
Joanne I get easily upset. (Joanne sits in the chair. It collapses.)
Elise Hurrah, hurrah.
Ann She fell right into it.
Joanne What imagination.
Elise Don’t be sarky. You fell right into it.
Joanne Imaginative.
Elise Don’t try and get out of it. You fell for it.
Joanne I’m suffering, damn you.
Ann Don’t take it so seriously.
Elise Have a little fun.
Joanne Doesn’t anyone realize how much I suffer?
Ann We can see.
Elise So can the whole school. All seven.
Joanne You will not take me seriously.
Elise No.
Joanne Isn’t there a time to stop joking and –
Elise No.
Joanne You shun me, the girls shun me.
Ann You’re making a ridiculous exhibition of yourself. Shut up and sit down.
Joanne What have you got against me?
Elise Relax.
Ann You think we persecute you.
Joanne You poison my food.
Ann You think everyone hates you.
Joanne It’s a pathetically ineffective way of poisoning anyone to put arsenic in their food, because it starts coming out in their hair. Look.
Joanne gets up, shakes her head down and runs her fingers through her hair.
Elise Dandruff.
Joanne Arsenic.
Ann We love you.
Joanne You collapse my deckchair.
Elise Joke.
Joanne It’s not just you, it’s the girls.
Ann You think everyone is against you.
Joanne Let me make myself clear. I didn’t come here to be liked. I came for different reasons and it wasn’t to entertain you or fartarse on your behalf. I was wrong to be sidetracked. I’m tough as leather as the children say – they hate me. OK. What I set out to do was educate this mob to be themselves. I’m here to teach isolation so I resent the fact I have to mix with you at all. I want every child to know that it’s a girl and different for being a girl and better for being a girl. I want a separate culture. I want a different way of life. We’re too far gone to want anything but everything – all the way out. I want a self-sufficient child. I want an alternative to everything men are. I left everything I loved, I haven’t been to the cinema for I don’t know how long, to come to Brackenhurst, to work in a community that was feminine by necessity and make it feminine by choice. You should want to be women. And I found – what did I find – Elise whose idea of the sexual revolution is to open her legs and say AAAAAH and Ann – what can I say? And a combined ability that keeps a tenuous grasp on just seven children. I’ll teach them all they need and I don’t care if you hate me for it.
Elise It’s gone right past square leg.
Ann Oh well hit.
Elise And you teach them – sleight of hand.
Ann Not that incident again.
Elise You teach them dexterity with the Mum rollette.
Joanne What a squalid mind you have.
Ann Let me tell you something, Joanne, that I ought to have told you a long time ago.
Joanne What’s that?
Ann No, I can’t be bothered.
Joanne You have nothing to tell me.
Ann I’m putting you in charge of the School Corps.
Joanne Over my dead body.
Ann If necessary. I’m appointing you Sergeant Major. It’s a position of some responsibility. At Brackenhurst we control the minds of the young. We have the influence to shape their lives. I have listened to you for some time now, Joanne. I’ve heard your views on power, responsibility, education, the British Press, constitutional monarchy, the race to the moon, the emancipation of women, Lord Thomson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, cricket, dancing, smoking and masturbation and I’m glad having listened to judge your opinions pure balls and your mind irretrievably shallow.
Elise That’s strongly put.
Ann I’m so tired of the political mind.
Joanne breaks away fast to the back.
Joanne Where’s the gap in this bloody thing?
Joanne darts back and forth, gives up trying to find a gap, throws herself up on to the wire instead. Ann gets up.
Ann Come back here.
Joanne I’m getting out.
Joanne clambers up towards the top. Ann pursues, catches her leg, pulls at it, brings her to the ground. Joanne up on her feet launches at Ann. Ann throws her over her shoulder to the ground. Helps her up, leads her forward.
Ann Karate specialist, you see. Simple skill worth knowing.
Joanne is sat down gently.
Joanne You hurt me.
Ann Everyone tries a breakout at one time or another.
Elise The third mistress always tries.
Joanne You’ve let them go before.
Ann The mistresses, not the girls.
Elise The girls are easier to catch.
Ann One girl reached the village but the uniform gave her away.
Elise I thought this was meant to be the ideal community.
Joanne If we are to be grouped together for some social purpose …
Elise Social theory.
Joanne But this is a repressive …
Ann You are hardly likely to get any farther than anyone before you.
Joanne Masculine …
Elise Not on those legs!
Joanne Does no one listen to anything I say?
Elise No.
Joanne I feel victimized.
Ann This school …
Joanne Don’t bother to go on.
Ann This school …
Joanne Don’t bother to go on.
Ann This school …
&n
bsp; Joanne I don’t want to hear. We don’t want to hear.
Ann This school …
Joanne Don’t finish that sentence.
Ann This school …
Joanne I won’t let you.
Ann This school …
Joanne You’re not to.
Ann This school …
Pause. Surprise.
This school has some standards to keep up. And I will murder to maintain them.
Pause.
Joanne I think that sums up things pretty well. From now on war.
Joanne tries minimally to break again, but Ann is on her feet almost before she moves.
Vicious.
Joanne edges back towards Ann’s old chair, which she moves away from the other two. Ann is left without one.
Ann Education should be lethal. I think of teaching as a knife.
Joanne Vicious.
Ann We must be very careful what they hear and see. The sight of you, Joanne, is therapeutic. They thank God they’re not like you.
Elise It’s true.
Ann I use you in my social adaptability classes. Some of the girls have very advanced theories about you.
Joanne Such as.
Ann I use you as an example of the modern woman.
Joanne What about her?
Elise Me?
Joanne Permissiveness.
Elise I wish it was.
Joanne Debauchery, love of body. Isn’t she in your classes?
Ann Elise is the Assistant Headmistress.
Joanne That’s not what it says on the lavatory wall.
Ann It is really of no consequence. You and I know that, Joanne. We are above such things. I look at Elise.
Elise Don’t bother with me.
Ann And pity that pathetic dependence on the body.
Joanne Pathetic.
Elise I’m just backward.
Ann You shudder she’s so retarded.
Elise I’m just backward, I like cricket and sex.
Ann Cricket, my God.
Ann runs out to the front of the stage, peers out. Sigh of relief. Claps.
I completely forgot.
Elise Shot.
Ann Very good.
Joanne Nothing has changed.
Elise Excellent.
Ann Excellent. Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive? After all your bickering and complaint? It’s criminal not to enjoy yourself. I’m so sorry for you, my love.
Joanne Forget it.
Ann But I must ask you to do your duty now. That dreadful woman is signalling which means you must go out and umpire.
Joanne I hate it.
Ann It’s your turn.
Joanne I make all the wrong decisions. Everyone gets so angry with me.
Ann Quite right. It makes for a game of chance. Better by far for the character.
Elise I’m always fair.
Ann I always try to throw in some errors of judgement to spite all those frightful girls who are all skill and no charm.
Elise They think it’s favouritism.
Ann I’ll do your umpiring for you, Joanne, if you’ll do my shower duty in return.
Joanne Thank you.
Exit Ann.
Joanne All right, tell me now.
Elise Do you really want to know?
Joanne She trusts you, doesn’t she?
Elise She believes I love Brackenhurst.
Joanne It’s all a bit improbable.
Elise I don’t know the details but I can tell you this much. There are no men at Brackenhurst.
Joanne Tradesmen.
Elise Let’s not get political. Tradesmen aren’t real men. Who comes here? A few corn and meat merchants, hardly virile, hardly material for Ann. But … she is definitely having an affair with the butcher.
Joanne The butcher!
Elise She says he has capable hands. I’d call them murderous. Real butcher’s hands with black hairs on the finger joints – they attract her.
Joanne How disgusting it all is.
Elise She thinks of him a lot. He’s called Haskins.
Joanne There’s an alliance, a union?
Elise Of course.
Joanne Intercourse on some, on several occasions?
Elise Of course.
Joanne The pig.
Elise Ann told me he was an energetic man.
Joanne Things are definitely happening.
Elise Oh yes.
Pause.
Joanne I knew that it would all come out.
Elise She’s a woman of character.
Joanne I can see her across the field. Look, look. Everything other people would have wanted her to be. I daren’t be too rude for fear you won’t like me.
Elise It’s all too far gone for that.
Joanne I feel silly.
Elise It’s never stopped you before.
Joanne You don’t like me anyway.
Elise I do.
Joanne She’s capable, lovable, would even be a good mother to a child. She’s a fool because she wants to be, like so many old people.
Elise She’s 32.
Joanne She’s old. Why do they all choose to be like that? The trouble with Ann –
Elise Tell me the trouble with Ann.
Joanne The trouble with Ann –
Elise The trouble with Ann is the trouble with most people. Her life stopped at the age of 18.
Minor uproar on the field.
What’s happening?
Joanne Hard to say. I think Ann called a no-ball some time after one of our lot was caught.
Elise Typical decision.
Joanne We must never accept things, never give in.
Elise What use is Ann to you?
Joanne No use. What’s the time?
Elise Tea time.
Joanne I haven’t worked everything out yet. You must remember I have survived an English education. To have any plan of action at the end of an English education is a triumph.
Elise But you don’t have a plan for Ann?
Joanne Brackenhurst is a pure ideal, pure idealism. I had a dream last night. It concerned you. Would you like to hear it?
Elise No.
Joanne I’ll tell you.
Elise I should think it was a ballet dancer in flames or a snake in a custard pie.
Joanne Not quite. This was the dream. You were about to have a child, and the rest of us – there were a lot of us – gathered round a table and waited for you to give birth. You were not much inflated, simply we knew you were pregnant. You didn’t look it. We knew it in the way you can be sure in dreams. You suddenly asked to be excused, to slip out for a few moments, but I protested. I took an active part because I felt involved which is unusual. I felt so strongly, not towards you, but about you. I wanted to see you have the child. You lay down on the table and the first animal came out. There was some discussion among us as to who should have the first bite, but a man interrupted and ate your first child which was a chicken. The second was a fish and I had some. You lay on the table and the wet animals came regularly from you. And we all ate.
Elise You really are a fraud.
Joanne It’s true.
Elise You muck around stamping about in our lives.
Joanne I’m just trying to help.
Elise Listen, help yourself.
Joanne How?
Elise Ann’s changed. She’s gone weak in the heart from knowing Haskins … He’s your man.
Joanne I want to get at her somehow.
Elise Use the butcher.
Joanne Yes.
Elise The butcher’s knife. Look, they’re coming in.
Applause.
Joanne It looks like Accident. Joseph Losey, 1967. The great Dirk Bogarde.
Elise In for tea.
Joanne They look so fucking happy.
Elise Rah! Rah!
Enter Ann in a white coat.
Ann Smashing game.
Blackout, end of scene.
During the scene change Helen Shapiro sings ‘Walking
Back To Happiness’.
SCENE THREE
A row of baths in a white-tiled room. Elise alone. She dances a few steps of her ‘Walking Back to Brackenhurst’ routine in complete silence but with facial expression. Runs suddenly to behind a tiled shower wall. Enter Joanne. A bucket falls on her head. Pain. She jumps up and down once or twice holding her head, hopping ludicrously. Turns. Sees Elise.
Joanne A bucket just fell on my head.
Elise No sense of humour.
Joanne Tit.
Elise I didn’t do it.
Joanne Bloody Ann did it. They’re out to get me. Last night the chandelier that’s over my bed crashed down as I was getting in. It’s getting so I daren’t move.
Elise It’s all in your imagination.
Joanne It was a vow we all took, remember? And it was inherent in the vow that we’d all love each other a little more.
Elise It wasn’t specified.
Joanne And we will stick to that?
Elise Yes.
Joanne And there will be a little more – love.
Elise Give me a hand.
Joanne I’ve a yoyo here I want to mend.
Elise Eh, lass.
Joanne It’s not running properly.
Elise Thou wer’t born idle and thou shal’t cum to nowt.
Joanne That’s very good.
Elise It should be. I was born there.
Joanne You come from the North?
Elise Of course.
Joanne I never knew. Was your father a miner?
Elise No.
Joanne Not the other side, not a millowner?
Elise Of course not.
Joanne And you were poor?
Elise Very.
Joanne And did you eat chip butties and go to chapel?
Elise Incessantly.
Joanne Oh, Elise I never guessed you were working class. Why’s your name Elise?
Elise They mis-spelt Elsie on the birth certificate.
Joanne And when you were young was it all day trips to Bingley and Huddersfield and Salford and Leeds? Is that how it really was? I see it so clearly. Did your parents fuck loudly in upstairs rooms?
Elise The only person who fucked was my sister. She married early and they came to live with us in the room next door to me. And at nights before I really knew what was happening, she used to cry out suddenly when she reached her orgasm – ‘Eh, by gum.’
Joanne How splendid!
Elise It was wonderful. I used to lie there and imagine what it would be like to have a real vaginal orgasm.
Joanne No such thing.
Elise There is.
Joanne Isn’t.
Elise Is.
Joanne All orgasms are the same in the female. The idea that there are two kinds has been put about by oppressive males determined to deny women their rightful clitoral pleasures.