by David Hare
They just want to prove you’re sane
To eat up your magic and change you
So I’ll help keep the bastards away
SCENE SIX
The deserted equipment. At the front of the stage Maggie is sitting reading a book. Her lips are moving. A bottle stands by the chair.
Then Saraffian finds her.
Saraffian Looking for you. Everyone. Everywhere.
Maggie In the library.
Saraffian Didn’t think of that. There are some things you should be told.
Maggie holds up the tiny book.
Maggie Thoughts of St Ignatius. Look. Pretty thin, eh?
Saraffian Yeah.
Maggie Poor value. Just whatever came off the top of his head.
She throws it to him.
Saraffian Maggie … there’s a problem with the bust …
Maggie And I got you a trinket.
She tosses him a napkin ring.
Saraffian Thank you.
Maggie You can melt it down.
Saraffian I will.
Maggie And pour it down your throat.
Saraffian Maggie …
Maggie You really got me Saraffian.
Saraffian I know.
Maggie You did well.
Saraffian The timing …
Maggie I was going to quit.
Saraffian I’m sure. But I sacked you first.
Pause.
Are you hurt?
Maggie Not in my overself.
Saraffian What does your overself say?
Maggie My overself says: everything’s OK.
Pause.
Saraffian Maggie about the bust …
Maggie Why are girls who fuck around said to be tragic whereas guys who sleep about are the leaders of the pack?
Saraffian Why do people drink?
Maggie Can’t stand it?
Saraffian Wrong. Need an excuse.
Maggie Ah.
Saraffian They want to be addicted so’s to have something to blame. It’s not me speaking. It’s the drink. The drugs. It’s not me can’t manage. They want to be invaded, so there’s an excuse. So there’s a bit intact.
Maggie I’ve never been addicted.
Saraffian No?
Maggie This goes through me like a gutter. Even on heroin I knew I could beat it. I did beat it. There’s something in me that won’t lie down.
Pause.
You know I’ve always pitied schizophrenics.
Saraffian Oh yes.
Maggie Struggling along on two personalities. I have seventeen, I have twenty-one.
Saraffian Like everyone else.
She doesn’t hear.
Maggie Do you know the purpose of reincarnation?
Saraffian Not exactly.
Maggie You get sent back because you failed last time.
Saraffian I see.
Maggie I believe all we’re doing here is trying to avoid coming back. I think you get sent back because you didn’t get it right last time. Basically. You got sent back for having blown it the time before. Well, this time … I’m not coming back.
Pause.
I was a Viking, I was a Jew …
Saraffian Ah.
Maggie I could get you through the Sinai desert, no map, no compass. I’d know. Just like that.
Saraffian Really?
Maggie Why don’t people take more care of their overselves? They just rub them in the mud.
Saraffian Yes.
Maggie Why is that?
Saraffian It’s a failing people have.
Maggie You don’t believe a single word I say.
Saraffian No. Nor do you.
Maggie Con safos.
Pause.
Go to San Francisco, sing in a bar.
Saraffian You never would.
Maggie Well, what am I going to do tomorrow? Tonight?
Saraffian I thought you had the little fellow …
Maggie Don’t patronize me, Saraffian.
Saraffian … the finger freak. What happened to him?
Maggie I don’t know. I gave him some acid, told him to get high.
Saraffian How did you get it?
Maggie What?
Saraffian The acid.
Maggie Oh, some creep. Liked the way I sang.
Saraffian Have the police talked to you?
Maggie I’m OK. Don’t worry. I’m cool. This is legal and it’s all I’ve got.
She shows him the bottle and smiles.
Saraffian Maggie.
Maggie You’re not my manager now.
Saraffian No.
They both smile.
Maggie Do you know why I liked you as my manager?
Saraffian I have a fairly shrewd idea.
Maggie Because you were such an unspeakable shit.
Saraffian That’s right. I was aware of that. You’d say to people, I’d love to do your charity gig, play free in the streets of Glasgow, great but – er – that bastard Saraffian would just never let me. And everyone says, poor girl.
Maggie You’re right.
Saraffian I know. That’s why everyone likes to be handled by me. I’m an excuse. Any artist stands next to me looks like a saint. Canonization. Cheap at twenty per cent.
Maggie Then why did you like me?
Saraffian I don’t know. Two-bit band, one of five hundred, fifteen hundred. Your tunes were better and the singer had balls. But where did I get you? One week in the Melody Maker at number eighty-four. And what’s called a minor cult. I’d rather have leprosy than a minor cult. You know, some booking manager rings you, says what’ve you got? I say Maggie Frisby’s lot, he says, no no, I never take minor cults. You have it round your neck in letters of stone.
Maggie So what happened?
Saraffian Well. What happens to everyone? Bands just break up. Travel too much. Drop too much acid. Fifty-seven varieties of clap. Become too successful – never your problem, my dear – they break up because they don’t feel any need. I don’t mean fame, that’s boring, or money, that’s a cliché, of course it goes without saying that money will separate you from the things you want to sing about, we all know that. I mean – need. Maggie. Where’s the need?
Maggie I don’t know. What do you think?
Saraffian I don’t know. I don’t sing.
Pause.
Maggie It’s nothing to do with singing.
Saraffian No?
Maggie Oh, come on, it’s nothing to do with being an artist, artists are just like everyone else …
Saraffian Then what …
Maggie I have this sense of arbitrariness you know. Like it was Arthur but it could have been one of ten thousand others.
Saraffian Just …
Maggie Where did we get this idea that one human being’s more interesting than another?
Pause.
Saraffian. In Russia the peasants could not speak of the past without crying. What have we ever known?
Pause.
My aunt’s garden led down to a river. It was the Thames, but so small and green and thick with reeds you wouldn’t recognize it. It was little more than a spring. I was staying there, I was six, I think, I had a village there by the riverbank, doll village with village shop, selling jelly beans, little huts, little roads. I took the local priest down there, I wanted him to consecrate the little doll church. The sun was shining and he took my head in his hands. He said, inside this skull the most beautiful piece of machinery that God ever made. He said, a fair-haired English child, you will think and feel the finest things in the world. The sun blazed and his hands enclosed my whole skull.
She smiles, pours whisky over her head, down her front, and inside her trousers. Then goes over to Saraffian, takes hold of him. Puts her hands round his head. Then she lets go.
Saraffian. Thank you. Great relationship. Great creative control.
Saraffian Maggie.
Maggie Great help in career at time most needed. Never forgotten. Farewell.
Saraffian
Maggie. The band didn’t get around to telling you. They stashed all their stuff in your bag. That means the bust sort of settles on you.
Long pause. Maggie turns back and looks at him.
Maggie OK. Try prison for a while, why not?
She sits down where she is. Pause. Then she lies down.
Saraffian Ah. Is that all right?
Pause. You can see him thinking. Then he takes some fags out and goes over to her.
Cigarette?
Maggie No.
Saraffian You know …
Pause.
You know how people crap on about Hollywood in the thirties.
Maggie Yes.
Saraffian Long books about Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer. Who laid the ice cubes on Jean Harlow’s nipples? But nobody notices they’re living through something just as rich, just as lovely. And in thirty years’ time they’ll write books about the record business of the fifties or sixties. What it was like to have known Jerry Wexler. Or glimpse Chuck Berry at the other end of the room.
Maggie You think?
Saraffian I’m banking on it. If I’m to have had any life at all. It’s going to look so special. Once it’s over, of course.
Pause. Then Inch comes on holding up one hand.
Inch Upper-class cunt, it’s in a world of its own. Smell my fingers.
Saraffian Thank you, no.
Inch Dab some be’ind yer ears.
Saraffian Inch …
Inch sits down with a vacuum flask and a Mars bar.
Inch Now I’m ’ungry.
Saraffian They should invent a machine.
Inch Wot?
Saraffian Gratify all your senses at once.
Inch Well, I did know someone used to eat Complan sittin’ on the can. ’E was into ’is ’ead, you see, despised the body, so ’e reckoned it best to sit shovellin’ it in at one end and pushin’ it out at the other, an’ that way get the ’ole job over with. Now I reckon if ’e coulda jus’ spared ’is left ’and as well . .
Saraffian Quite.
Inch Do the lot in one go.
Saraffian Yes. The rest of us, well, we spread our pleasures so thin.
Laura comes in.
Laura What’s happening?
Saraffian Did you find him?
Laura No. Is she all right?
Maggie is lying still on the ground.
Saraffian Yes. Get ready for the third set.
Laura It’s cancelled. There are notices all over saying it’s cancelled by popular demand.
Inch Great.
Saraffian I knew it. It’s in the contract. Three sets or we don’t get paid.
Laura So what do we do?
Saraffian Play it. Just play it, it’s our only chance of the cash. I don’t care if nobody’s listening. Why don’t you round up the band?
Laura It’s not my job.
Inch I’m ’avin’ me tea.
Saraffian Laura. Please.
She goes out to start looking.
Getting your hands on it. I mean, actually getting your hands on the cash. That is the only skill. Really. The only skill in music.
From offstage the sound of Peyote playing the piano with his feet. He is wheeled on by Wilson, Nash and Smegs as Saraffian goes out.
Peyote ’Ere we are.
Inch That’s not ours.
Peyote Saraffian said nick somethin’‚ I nicked somethin’.
Inch We can’t nick that, we can’t get it in the van.
Peyote Let’s ’ave a ball of our own.
Wilson Did yer talk to the pigs?
Peyote Let’s ’ave a party.
Laura returns.
Laura Right. Is everyone ready?
Wilson ’Ow yer feelin’, Peyote?
Peyote Fantastic. Let’s ’avva party.
Laura It’s three-thirty, let’s just play the …
Wilson ’E’s right back up there, ’ow does ’e do it?
Peyote Listen, mate, if you’d dropped as much stuff as me . .
Smegs It always comes back to this.
Peyote You lot’ll never understand …
Smegs If there’s one thing I really despise it’s psychedelic chauvinism …
Peyote I want some fun.
Smegs ‘I’ve had more trips than you.’
Peyote Fun.
Inch If you like I can …
Wilson Wot?
Inch Set light to my fart.
Nash Oh no.
Wilson Not again.
Nash We’ve seen it.
Wilson Dozens of times.
Smegs One streak of blue flame and it’s over.
Wilson Can’t you do anything else?
Inch Yeah. I do bird impressions.
Smegs Really?
Inch Yeah. I eat worms.
Saraffian returns with a conductor’s baton which he taps on the piano.
Saraffian Right. Look lively, everyone. Third set. Any ideas? Requests?
Wilson I would like to ’ear Richard Tauber sing ‘Yew Are My ’eart’s Desire’.
Nash Wot is this?
Smegs Get in a line.
Peyote Let’s get on with it …
Saraffian This is the third set.
Peyote I’m gonna need a fuck in about forty-five seconds.
Nash Did you take sweeties again?
Randolph has appeared.
Randolph Guv, this little ball it just won’t go in . .
Saraffian Keep trying.
Nash Who’s the vocals?
Saraffian Just stay in a line.
Peyote I’m not gonna last.
Wilson Listen, we gotta ’ave real vocals.
Saraffian Tony. Sing with the band.
Randolph But I gotta try and …
Saraffian You may stop. You may sing with the band.
Randolph Wot key are we in?
A photographic moment. Held for a second, the new team with Randolph at the centre. Then the music begins with Smegs on Jew’s harp, the rest come in one by one. An improvised jam, very inspired.
Let’s Have A Party
Peyote
Ball gown baby
Bubble gum queen
Left her body
In my new blue jeans
Said hello
That was that
Didn’t have time to check my hat
So
Band
Let’s have a party, let’s paint the town
Let’s have a party, chase away that frown
Let’s have a party, let your hair down.
Instrumental verse, then:
Let’s have a party, etc.
Ball gown baby
Bubble gum queen
Saw her picture in a magazine
Said she’d go down
The butterfly flicks
All of them changes all of them licks
So
Let’s have a party, etc.
They leap back, challenging Randolph to enter the song. He does, falteringly, inventing the words as he goes.
Randolph
Ball gown baby
Bubble gum queen
Spread some sauce on my baked beans
Said hey I got you
Special treat
Be bop a lula
You eat meat
So
He is accepted. They all bash hell out of the piano.
All
Let’s have a party, etc.
Saraffian stops them.
Saraffian All right. Hold it. There’s no one to witness the third set took place. We need that little bloke. The one that booked us.
Wilson The one wiv the finger.
Saraffian Yes.
Wilson You won’t find ’im. Some cretin gave ’im some acid. They took ’im to ’ospital. Stupid little shit.
A pause. Maggie sits up. She looks at the band. A silence. Only Saraffian doesn’t see her. Maggie stands up and looks at them, then goes out. Sudden deflation.
Saraffian Oh dear.
Laura What ha
ppens next?
Saraffian Just let me think …
Laura What about …
Saraffian Tony, ring Mrs Saraffian, say I’m not going to get back tonight so she’s to change the budgie’s sandpaper, OK?
Randolph Will do.
He goes.
Peyote Are we gonna do this or are we not?
Nash I’m beginnin’ to feel jus’ a bit of a fool.
Wilson You think there’d be somebody. Wouldn’t you? Don’t you think? Jus’ somebody to hear us? Wouldn’t you think?
They stop and look out into the night. Then Arthur comes in.
Arthur What the hell is going on?
Saraffian Arthur …
Arthur I just talked to the police.
Saraffian Don’t worry, everything’s in hand …
Arthur They seem to think Maggie was pushing the stuff.
Saraffian That’s right.
Arthur Well, who the hell put the stuff in her bag?
Peyote I think I’ll jus’ phase out, you know …
Arthur He knows bloody well what’s going on.
Peyote Jus’ go and get laid.
Arthur He’s a bit fucking selective about what he blocks out.
Peyote shrugs and giggles.
Peyote Well.
Saraffian Arthur …
Arthur Did you tell Maggie?
Saraffian Yes.
Arthur Does she know she’s going to get done?
Saraffian Oh yes.
Arthur Well, what does she say?
Pause.
Saraffian Well … to be honest … she doesn’t seem to mind.
Randolph returns quickly.
Randolph You better come quick. She’s burning down the tent.
Blackout Pitch black. Silence.
SCENE SEVEN
Pitch dark. You can see nothing at all. You just hear their voices: Maggie is very cheerful.
Arthur Maggie. Maggie. Are you there?
Pause.
Are you there?
Maggie Arthur.
Arthur Ah.
Maggie I’m here. I’m naked and I’m covered in coconut oil.
Arthur Oh fuck, what was that?
Maggie It’s a rugby post.
She laughs.
Arthur You’ve done pretty well.
Maggie Thank you very much.
Arthur Yip. Police. Ambulance. Fire brigade. You just got to score the air-sea rescue service and you got a full house.
Maggie Thank you. What’s the damage?
Arthur Not bad.
Maggie (complaining) I can’t see any flames.
Arthur No, no, they’re all coping rather well. They all love it you know. Dashing about in the smoke. They’re hoping to make it an annual event.