by David Hare
Joanne Pump her full of vitamins to keep her breathing, more like.
Joanne is changing the sheets on Elise’s bed. Elise has gone to lie on the third [vacant] bed.
Get off that bed, heffalump.
Elise Why?
Joanne (moving to stand at the top of it) It’s mine.
Elise Pardon. (Moves to centre bed.)
Joanne goes back to changing the sheets on Elise’s bed.
I wonder if things will be better next term.
Joanne They’ll never get better. There’ll be no change. We could be shitting gold bricks here and no one would come to sweep up the dung after us. People don’t like Brackenhurst. It’s like all the other useless institutions – schools, ministries, theatres, museums, post offices – people will go a long way to avoid them. Look at those lawns and flowerbeds and fountains. Nobody wants to go where people gather. Who wants it?
Elise There’s mud on my slippers, Joanne. On my slippers, mud.
Enter Ann, with a spent hypodermic. Heads behind screen to replace it.
Ann, there’s mud on my slippers.
Ann Well, Sherlock, tell me what you think.
Elise I haven’t been out of the house in them, (picking some off) Look.
Joanne is by now at work on the centre bed.
Joanne, did you borrow my slippers for your agricultural class?
Joanne Of course not. I mean, yes.
Ann No, you mean yes?
Joanne I admit it, yes.
Elise You planted vegetables in my slippers.
Joanne Not in them. Wearing them. That’s how the mud got on them, sorry.
Elise The pom-poms will wilt if you get them wet.
Joanne It’s all in the past.
Ann has joined Joanne working on centre bed. Pause.
Ann You’re cheerful, Joanne.
Joanne I’m sorry, does that spoil the atmosphere?
Ann Not at all.
Pause.
Elise There’s a trail of mud in fact right across the room.
Joanne It leads from the vegetable patch to your bed.
Elise Not that way it doesn’t.
Joanne I’ll do this bed, while you finish that.
Joanne is over at the third bed, taking with her all the dirty sheets which she puts down by the side of the bed.
Ann I’ll help.
Joanne It’s OK.
Ann Don’t put those dirty sheets on the floor.
Joanne They’re dirty.
Ann No need to make them dirtier.
To avoid Ann picking them up, Joanne chucks them over to Elise, who is back on her own bed.
Joanne You look after them.
Elise (opening them out) They’re incredibly dirty.
Joanne (moving to the far side) I’ll do this side.
Elise Joanne, have you been growing vegetables in your bed?
Joanne No.
Ann No you mean yes?
Joanne No I mean no.
Elise Well the world must be fighting its way through the floor.
Ann is by now at the bottom of the bed. She lifts up the bed, there’s a muddy blanket underneath which she casts aside, then lifts up the floor. Reveals hole, shovel, etc.
Ann You’re tunnelling your way out.
Joanne The Great Escape, John Sturges, 1963.
Ann You’ve ruined my parquet floor in your malicious attempt to escape.
Joanne I thought I’d get away with it.
Ann You thought I wouldn’t notice great piles of earth you’ve been throwing out the window.
Joanne I’ve been trying to mix it with the soil.
Ann What about the great white patches of cold mashed potato, then?
Joanne That’s poisonous potato. You can see the plants have died out there.
Ann The plants have suffocated under the weight of garbage you pour on to them.
Joanne It was the only place to put it.
Ann What were you doing in the first place?
Joanne I wanted out.
Ann You could have come and spoken to me. I would have listened.
Joanne I know.
Ann Quiet, wait till you’re spoken to. Expectavi orationem mihi vero querelam adduxisti.
Ann moves to the downstage table and sits down. Joanne shrugs at the Latin.
Joanne Look how far I got, look how near I was to getting out.
Ann (taking up her writing-pad) I knew all the time.
Joanne Like that dog. You know about that.
Ann It’s your fault walking in the grounds at night.
Joanne You didn’t tell me you starved the thing. I was the first meat it had seen in weeks.
Ann Alsatians can go for long periods without food.
Joanne Just see how near I was.
Elise is knitting again.
Elise Second bootee finito. Leggings now.
Ann (holding up the letter she’s written) ‘Dear Mum, How are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve written but we’ve been terribly busy this term – always like this in the Christmas term. I’ve hardly had time to sit down. What can I tell you about Brackenhurst?’ (Starts writing.)
Joanne I thought the hols were very quiet. Through the summer months I dug so gently into the earth, towards great peacefulness, great rest.
Ann ‘These are not days, mother, in which private education is much valued. I sometimes feel we are out of step with this generation. It is a constant struggle to keep in tune with new ideas. However, a new cricket pavilion will go some way …’ (She returns to writing.)
Joanne I’m giving myself a time limit. If I’m not out of here by the time that child is born, I’ll kill myself.
Elise Agreed.
Ann ‘How is father? How is his face? Joanne and Elise send you their love. They are a constant source of help to me.’
Joanne I’m going to be sick. (She rushes out.)
Ann ‘We have Mrs Reginald Maudling coming for speech day next year. Rather a catch. Love, Ann.’ Elise, you remember mother?
Re-enter Joanne.
Joanne Poisoner.
Ann What?
Joanne You’re poisoning me.
Ann How do you know?
Joanne Oesophagal pain, vomiting, bloody diarrhoea with traces of mucus, weakness, jaundice, restlessness, headache, dizziness, chills, cramps, irritability, paralysis, polyneuritis, anaesthesias, paresthesias, hyperceratosis of the palm and soles of the feet, cirrhosis of the liver, nausea, abdominal cramps, salivation, chronic nephritis in the cardiovascular system, dependent oedema, cardiac-failure.
Ann Remedy?
Joanne holds up a small bottle in her hand.
Joanne Dimercaprol. Complete recovery six months.
Blackout. End of Scene Five.
SCENE SIX
The Common Room, devastated in the cause of slipper hockey. A large table with a blackboard at the back covered in scores. Elise is umpiring at the back. All three are wearing tennis skirts.
Ann The hockey championships of Brackenhurst.
Joanne This is serious.
Ann The serious championship.
Joanne We need a fourth.
Elise I’m no good anyway, I’d as soon give up.
Joanne Certainly not. This is to the death.
Elise I can scarcely get across the pitch. I’m so far gone.
Joanne And here at Brackenhurst the tension is well nigh unbearable, with three prima donnas of the hockey circuit ranged in claw to claw fighting. Ann:
Ann Precision great maturity skill wonderful effortlessness.
Joanne Joanne:
Ann Brute power brilliant aim marvellous speed.
Joanne Elise:
Ann The odd fluke shot relieving general hopelessness.
Elise Thank you.
Joanne It would be much better if we had a fourth.
Elise Man.
A brief violent rally between Ann and Joanne.
Ann (crying out) Vigour and dash.
Joanne (slamm
ing) Con brio.
Ann My goal.
Joanne That was practice. We hadn’t started properly.
Ann That was not warming up. That was game. Elise?
Elise Wasn’t watching.
Joanne That’s right. Opt out.
Joanne whips off her cardigan very fast and we see her arms for the first time which are covered in scars and tattoos.
Ann What?
Elise Tattoos!
Joanne The criminal sisterhood: tattoos.
Ann And scars.
Joanne I cut my wrists.
Joanne hits viciously, Ann rushes for it but misses. Leaves it.
Ann When?
Joanne Some months ago.
Ann What happened?
Joanne Nothing. You’ve heard of haemophiliacs, well I’m a haemophobiac, couldn’t keep the wretched stuff flowing. Come on, serve.
Ann The tattoos.
Joanne Everyone has them.
Ann Who?
Joanne In Holloway.
Ann In Holloway!
Joanne The prisoners tattoo their girlfriends’ names on their arms; but when they get out their pimps are angry because they say it drives off custom.
Ann Let me see. (Reads Joanne’s arm.) Ann. Elise.
Joanne Leave me alone. (She breaks away.)
Ann You’ve tattooed our names on your arm.
Joanne I’m taking a penalty. My pimp’ll be angry when I get out.
Elise Five minutes’ time.
AnnPlenty can still happen.
EliseWe’ll know in five minutes.
Joanne We’ve sat through this vast vacation waiting for damned anybody to enrol, face it, nobody’s coming.
Ann Give it time. We are teachers first and foremost, you and I, plain strength it would be wrong to misapply.
Elise Five minutes and the term starts.
Joanne hits the slipper but Ann catches it with her hand.
Ann Unlock the doors.
Joanne Hardly any point. We know already.
Ann That’s not true.
Joanne I think we’ll be able to control the flow.
Ann You’re really back on form.
Elise She got her confidence back.
Joanne I do feel secure.
Elise Do I chalk up that last goal or not?
Ann Let her have it.
Joanne (bowing) Madame.
Ann Bully.
Joanne I don’t want to keep you from your duties, my dear.
Ann puts down her stick.
Ann I call it poor sportsmanship when you needle insidiously and scratch at subjects that are nothing to do with the game in hand.
Joanne We’re only playing to pass the time, thanks to your scholastic success. We should be out on cocoa duty in the normal way of things, or lugging trunks up abandoned staircases to the dorm, instead of staging the international championship of all time.
Ann We know why Brackenhurst has hit a poor patch. One person teaching knife throwing, Jew baiting, guerrilla antics and sexual self-help has sharply influenced enrolment figures.
Joanne Fire me.
Ann Quite. Service.
Ann serves and the ball is way out of line.
Joanne Your own goal.
Ann lays down her bat and stalks out.
Mark up that point, Elise.
Elise To you?
Joanne To me. She’s mad. Give me the slipper.
Elise lumberingly serves. Joanne scores effortlessly. Elise trundles to get it, almost falls.
You look really ugly today. Ugly in some special way falling over yourself for that little thing.
The bell rings incredibly loud.
She’s gone completely off her head.
Ann’s voice comes over the loudspeakers.
Ann (off) Testing, testing 1–2–3–4–5 –
Elise It works.
Joanne Four weeks’ work and it had better.
Ann (off) Testing. Report immediately to your headmistress. Do not collect two hundred pounds, do not pass go.
Joanne makes huge gestures of insanity and gabbles.
(sings – off) What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
Joanne Give me another.
Joanne wins casually.
No fun with you. Look at your horrible body.
Elise My stomach is in a way very beautiful.
Joanne It would need a woman to fancy you. You really look revolting.
Elise Doesn’t matter, you used to say, what women look like. Physical appearance was a snare, something men had invented to grade off women.
Joanne One day – all women – are going to be equal.
Elise It’s not so much that women aren’t equal. It’s more that they’re ugly.
Ann (sings – off) What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
Joanne Give over.
Elise When I first learnt I was pregnant and I didn’t go to a doctor by the way, just stopped getting the curse and watched myself inflate, then I felt the joy of a way to leave Brackenhurst. Now I’ve had the bugger in my womb so long I feel I’ve lugged it from here to Singapore.
Joanne There are times when I feel I’ve suffered so much that the world has just got to move over and yield.
An enormous hymn comes flooding over the speakers, with the voices of 400 schoolgirls raised in song.
(shouting through the din) Where’s it coming from?
Elise It’s her.
Enter Ann, her hands raised as if at the head of a religious procession. Joanne dashes out, Ann bows slightly, smiling at Elise. The music ends very suddenly, the plug ripped out and Joanne’s voice comes over the speakers.
Joanne (off) The revolutionary party has seized control of the radio station and therefore declares the revolution complete. End of revolution.
The speakers go dead.
Ann There’s no one. Not even Lucrecia. There are no pupils.
Enter Joanne.
Congratulations on your revolution.
Joanne seizes the hockey stick.
Joanne Total annihilation.
Ann Very well.
They take up their stances but:
Joanne Enough.
They both immediately relax.
The experiment must be counted a flop. The fight began on a real pretext – we wanted the hearts and minds of our pupils. I was to set up a feminist community. The result is the first feminist birth.
Ann That’s not the way I saw it.
Joanne The wrists I cut in summer several times. We have credentials of our suffering – all of us.
Elise My baby.
Ann drops to her knees and puts her ear on Elise’s stomach.
Ann Is that the little baby? Ooh. Diddums. Can I come out now, Auntie? No you can’t – not for a month or two. Oh he’s crying.
Elise He wants a little peace. Joanne, lock the doors.
Exit Joanne.
Ann Is he crying? Ooh. Are you sad?
Elise It wasn’t worth waiting through the vac.
Ann We held on.
Elise Really it was just delay.
Ann What do you do now?
Elise Find a father.
Ann Elise.
Elise It’s well enough for you. You have a man.
Ann I never knew Haskins. I pretended.
Elise But you said.
Ann Think I’d sleep with a tradesman? I’ve got some pride left.
Elise Virility attracted you.
Ann I just wanted to annoy her.
Elise While you were poisoning her.
Ann Yes.
Elise This is not the way women speak together, it’s not the way they live. It doesn’t ring true.
Ann The slow sprinkling of arsenic seemed as humane a way as possible. I’ve not thought Joanne evil or depraved. Wayward more like and needing me.
Enter Joanne.
Joanne So I can go now?
Elise (with real, unparalleled enthusiasm) I just wanted to say to you, Joanne, I think you’re blood
y marvellous and your generation is more bloody marvellous than any before it. And if ever I want a friend for life, I’ll want you.
Joanne Women are going to be free one day to behave as they choose. We’re only so far fledglings on this earth.
Ann Break it up.
Elise There was no virgin birth. There are simply declining standards in private education and that is all.
Exit Elise.
Joanne Private schools were always like this. We’re not unusual.
Ann I know what you feel. We’ve all been brought up to be sold out and pitied and scorned and screwed and abused. She’s right. So what?
Joanne So?
Ann Well, exactly.
Joanne Why are the workers silent, Ann? Why does the revolution land with such a sigh? Twenty-five years the war is over, and everyone trying to get the workers to respond. And they won’t. Where are the working women? Lulled by romantic love and getting home to cook the dinner.
Ann I was weaned on R. A. Butler and the Beveridge report, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Joanne Why have half the world, the women, vowed never to fight, to be slow to anger, not to destroy the world?
Joanne starts moving the furniture.
Ann If you’d ever had anything but some generalized complaint I could sympathize. But you don’t even know what you want. Some unstated alternative that evaporates like your breath on the air.
Joanne Help pack these away.
Ann Those are good chairs you’re manhandling. What are you doing?
Joanne Historic evolution. The end of Brackenhurst. Citizen Kane. Orson Welles. 1942.
Ann I’ve no intention.
Joanne This is the end of it.
Joanne takes a machine-gun out of the furniture at the back. Ann is facing downstage and can’t see Joanne, who has put on a Negro mask.
Ann Please don’t leave me. Please.
Ann turns and sees the pointed machine-gun.
Joanne After the revolution, retribution.
Enter Elise with her bike.
Elise Look what I’ve been hiding in the wine cellar.
Joanne Get out the way.
Elise, excited, throws down the bike, runs to cower behind Joanne.
(to Ann) Don’t move.
Elise See my bike. I’ll be in Gloucestershire by dawn.
Joanne Shut up.
Elise Down the M1, pausing only for childbirth at an all-night caff.
Joanne Shut up. This is my revolution.
Joanne starts walking downstage to Ann.
Ann Don’t think I can’t take a joke, Joanne.
Elise Give it to her, give it to her, Joanne.