ANNA Me?
DEELEY And black stockings. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten The Wayfarers Tavern? You might have forgotten the name but you must remember the pub. You were the darling of the saloon bar.
ANNA I wasn’t rich, you know. I didn’t have money for alcohol.
DEELEY You had escorts. You didn’t have to pay. You were looked after. I bought you a few drinks myself.
ANNA You?
DEELEY Sure.
ANNA Never.
DEELEY It’s the truth. I remember clearly.
Pause
ANNA You?
DEELEY I’ve bought you drinks.
Pause
Twenty years ago . . . or so.
ANNA You’re saying we’ve met before?
DEELEY Of course we’ve met before.
Pause
We’ve talked before. In that pub, for example. In the corner. Luke didn’t like it much but we ignored him. Later we all went to a party. Someone’s flat, somewhere in Westbourne Grove. You sat on a very low sofa, I sat opposite and looked up your skirt. Your black stockings were very black because your thighs were so white. That’s something that’s all over now, of course, isn’t it, nothing like the same palpable profit in it now, it’s all over. But it was worthwhile then. It was worthwhile that night. I simply sat sipping my light ale and gazed . . . gazed up your skirt. You didn’t object, you found my gaze perfectly acceptable.
ANNA I was aware of your gaze, was I?
DEELEY There was a great argument going on, about China or something, or death, or China and death, I can’t remember which, but nobody but I had a thigh-kissing view, nobody but you had the thighs which kissed. And here you are. Same woman. Same thighs.
Pause
Yes. Then a friend of yours came in, a girl, a girl friend. She sat on the sofa with you, you both chatted and chuckled, sitting together, and I settled lower to gaze at you both, at both your thighs, squealing and hissing, you aware, she unaware, but then a great multitude of men surrounded me, and demanded my opinion about death, or about China, or whatever it was, and they would not let me be but bent down over me, so that what with their stinking breath and their broken teeth and the hair in their noses and China and death and their arses on the arms of my chair I was forced to get up and plunge my way through them, followed by them with ferocity, as if I were the cause of their argument, looking back through smoke, rushing to the table with the linoleum cover to look for one more full bottle of light ale, looking back through smoke, glimpsing two girls on the sofa, one of them you, heads close, whispering, no longer able to see anything, no longer able to see stocking or thigh, and then you were gone. I wandered over to the sofa. There was no one on it. I gazed at the indentations of four buttocks. Two of which were yours.
Pause
ANNA I’ve rarely heard a sadder story.
DEELEY I agree.
ANNA I’m terribly sorry.
DEELEY That’s all right.
Pause
I never saw you again. You disappeared from the area. Perhaps you moved out.
ANNA No. I didn’t.
DEELEY I never saw you in The Wayfarers Tavern again. Where were you?
ANNA Oh, at concerts, I should think, or the ballet.
Silence
Katey’s taking a long time over her bath.
DEELEY Well, you know what she’s like when she gets in the bath.
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY Enjoys it. Takes a long time over it.
ANNA She does, yes.
DEELEY A hell of a long time. Luxuriates in it. Gives herself a great soaping all over.
Pause
Really soaps herself all over, and then washes the soap off, sud by sud. Meticulously. She’s both thorough and, I must say it, sensuous. Gives herself a comprehensive going over, and apart from everything else she does emerge as clean as a new pin. Don’t you think?
ANNA Very clean.
DEELEY Truly so. Not a speck. Not a tidemark. Shiny as a balloon.
ANNA Yes, a kind of floating.
DEELEY What?
ANNA She floats from the bath. Like a dream. Unaware of anyone standing, with her towel, waiting for her, waiting to wrap it round her. Quite absorbed.
Pause
Until the towel is placed on her shoulders.
Pause
DEELEY Of course she’s so totally incompetent at drying herself properly, did you find that? She gives herself a really good scrub, but can she with the same efficiency give herself an equally good rub? I have found, in my experience of her, that this is not in fact the case. You’ll always find a few odd unexpected unwanted cheeky globules dripping about.
ANNA Why don’t you dry her yourself?
DEELEY Would you recommend that?
ANNA You’d do it properly.
DEELEY In her bath towel?
ANNA How out?
DEELEY How out?
ANNA How could you dry her out? Out of her bath towel?
DEELEY I don’t know.
ANNA Well, dry her yourself, in her bath toweL
Pause
DEELEY Why don’t you dry her in her bath towel?
ANNA Me?
DEELEY You’d do it properly.
ANNA No, no.
DEELEY Surely? I mean, you’re a woman, you know how and where and in what density moisture collects on women’s bodies.
ANNA No two women are the same.
DEELEY Well, that’s true enough.
Pause
I’ve got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we do it with powder?
ANNA Is that a brilliant idea?
DEELEY Isn’t it?
ANNA It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath.
DEELEY It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath but it’s quite uncommon to be powdered. Or is it? It’s not common where I come from, I can tell you. My mother would have a fit.
Pause
Listen. I’ll tell you what. I’ll do it. I’ll do the whole lot. The towel and the powder. After all, I am her husband. But you can supervise the whole thing. And give me some hot tips while you’re at it. That’ll kill two birds with one stone.
Pause
(To himself.) Christ.
He looks at her slowly.
You must be about forty, I should think, by now.
Pause
If I walked into The Wayfarers Tavern now, and saw you sitting in the corner, I wouldn’t recognize you.
The bathroom door opens. Kate comes into the bedroom. She wears a bathrobe.
She smiles at Deeley and Anna.
KATE (With pleasure.) Aaahh.
She walks to the window and looks out into the night. Deeley and Anna watch her.
Deeley begins to sing softly.
DEELEY (Singing.) The way you wear your hat . . .
ANNA (Singing, softly.) The way you sip your tea . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) The memory of all that . . .
ANNA (Singing.) No, no, they can’t take that away from me . . .
Kate turns from the window to look at them.
ANNA (Singing.) The way your smile just beams . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) The way you sing off key . . .
ANNA (Singing.) The way you haunt my dreams . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) No, no, they can’t take that away from me . . .
Kate walks down towards them and stands, smiling. Anna and Deeley sing again, faster on cue, and more perfunctorily.
ANNA (Singing.) The way you hold your knife—
DEELEY (Singing.) The way we danced till three—
ANNA (Singing.) The way you’ve changed my life—
DEELEY No, no, they can’t take that away from me.
Kate sits on a divan.
ANNA (To Deeley.) Doesn’t she look beautiful?
DEELEY Doesn’t she?
KATE Thank you. I feel fresh. The water’s very soft here. Much softer than London. I always find the water very hard in London. That’s one reason I like living i
n the country. Everything’s softer. The water, the light, the shapes, the sounds. There aren’t such edges here. And living close to the sea too. You can’t say where it begins or ends. That appeals to me. I don’t care for harsh lines. I deplore that kind of urgency. I’d like to go to the East, or somewhere like that, somewhere very hot, where you can lie under a mosquito net and breathe quite slowly. You know . . . somewhere where you can look through the flap of a tent and see sand, that kind of thing. The only nice thing about a big city is that when it rains it blurs everything, and it blurs the lights from the cars, doesn’t it, and blurs your eyes, and you have rain on your lashes. That’s the only nice thing about a big city.
ANNA That’s not the only nice thing. You can have a nice room and a nice gas fire and a warm dressing gown and a nice hot drink, all waiting for you for when you come in.
Pause
KATE Is it raining?
ANNA No.
KATE Well, I’ve decided I will stay in tonight anyway.
ANNA Oh good. I am glad. Now you can have a good strong cup of coffee after your bath.
Anna stands, goes to coffee, pours.
I could do the hem on your black dress. I could finish it and you could try it on.
KATE Mmmnn.
Anna hands her her coffee.
ANNA Or I could read to you.
DEELEY Have you dried yourself properly, Kate?
KATE I think so.
DEELEY Are you sure? All over?
KATE I think so. I feel quite dry.
DEELEY Are you quite sure? I don’t want you sitting here damply all over the place.
Kate smiles.
See that smile? That’s the same smile she smiled when I was walking down the street with her, after Odd Man Out, well, quite some time after.
What did you think of it?
ANNA It is a very beautiful smile.
DEELEY Do it again.
KATE I’m still smiling.
DEELEY You’re not. Not like you were a moment ago, not like you did then.
(To Anna) You know the smile I’m talking about?
KATE This coffee’s cold.
Pause
ANNA Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll make some fresh.
KATE No, I don’t want any, thank you.
Pause
Is Charley coming?
ANNA I can ring him if you like.
KATE What about McCabe?
ANNA Do you really want to see anyone?
KATE I don’t think I like McCabe.
ANNA Nor do I.
KATE He’s strange. He says some very strange things to me.
ANNA What things?
KATE Oh, all sorts of funny things.
ANNA I’ve never liked him.
KATE Duncan’s nice though, isn’t he?
ANNA Oh yes.
KATE I like his poetry so much.
Pause
But you know who I like best?
ANNA Who?
KATE Christy.
ANNA He’s lovely.
KATE He’s so gentle, isn’t he? And his humour. Hasn’t he got a lovely sense of humour? And I think he’s . . . so sensitive. Why don’t you ask him round?
DEELEY He can’t make it. He’s out of town.
KATE Oh, what a pity.
Silence
DEELEY (To Anna.) Are you intending to visit anyone else while you’re in England? Relations? Cousins? Brothers?
ANNA No. I know no one. Except Kate.
Pause
DEELEY Do you find her changed?
ANNA Oh, just a little, not very much. (To Kate.) You’re still shy, aren’t you?
Kate stares at her.
(To Deeley.) But when I knew her first she was so shy, as shy as a fawn, she really was. When people leaned to speak to her she would fold away from them, so that though she was still standing within their reach she was no longer accessible to them. She folded herself from them, they were no longer able to speak or go through with their touch. I put it down to her upbringing, a parson’s daughter, and indeed there was a good deal of Brontë about her.
DEELEY Was she a parson’s daughter?
ANNA But if I thought Brontë I did not think she was Brontë in passion but only in secrecy, in being so stubbornly private.
Slight pause
I remember her first blush.
DEELEY What? What was it? I mean why was it?
ANNA I had borrowed some of her underwear, to go to a party. Later that night I confessed. It was naughty of me. She stared at me, nonplussed, perhaps, is the word. But I told her that in fact I had been punished for my sin, for a man at the party had spent the whole evening looking up my skirt.
Pause
DEELEY She blushed at that?
ANNA Deeply.
DEELEY Looking up your skirt in her underwear. Mmnn.
ANNA But from that night she insisted, from time to time, that I borrow her underwear—she had more of it than I, and a far greater range—and each time she proposed this she would blush, but propose it she did, nevertheless. And when there was anything to tell her, when I got back, anything of interest to tell her, I told her.
DEELEY Did she blush then?
ANNA I could never see then. I would come in late and find her reading under the lamp, and begin to tell her, but she would say no, turn off the light, and I would tell her in the dark. She preferred to be told in the dark. But of course it was never completely dark, what with the light from the gasfire or the light through the curtains, and what she didn’t know was that, knowing her preference, I would choose a position in the room from which I could see her face, although she could not see mine. She could hear my voice only. And so she listened and I watched her listening.
DEELEY Sounds a perfect marriage.
ANNA We were great friends.
Pause
DEELEY You say she was Brontë in secrecy but not in passion. What was she in passion?
ANNA I feel that is your province.
DEELEY You feel it’s my province? Well, you’re damn right. It is my province. I’m glad someone’s showing a bit of taste at last. Of course it’s my bloody province. I’m her husband.
Pause
I mean I’d like to ask a question. Am I alone in beginning to find all this distasteful?
ANNA But what can you possibly find distasteful? I’ve flown from Rome to see my oldest friend, after twenty years, and to meet her husband. What is it that worries you?
DEELEY What worries me is the thought of your husband rumbling about alone in his enormous villa living hand to mouth on a few hardboiled eggs and unable to speak a damn word of English.
ANNA I interpret, when necessary.
DEELEY Yes, but you’re here, with us. He’s there, alone, lurching up and down the terrace, waiting for a speedboat, waiting for a speedboat to spill out beautiful people, at least. Beautiful Mediterranean people. Waiting for all that, a kind of elegance we know nothing about, a slim-bellied Cote d’Azur thing we know absolutely nothing about, a lobster and lobster sauce ideology we know fuck all about, the longest legs in the world, the most phenomenally soft voices. I can hear them now. I mean let’s put it on the table, I have my eye on a number of pulses, pulses all round the globe, deprivations and insults, why should I waste valuable space listening to two—
KATE (Swiftly.) If you don’t like it go.
Pause
DEELEY Go? Where can I go?
KATE To China. Or Sicily.
DEELEY I haven’t got a speedboat. I haven’t got a white dinner jacket.
KATE China then.
DEELEY You know what they’d do to me in China if they found me in a white dinner jacket. They’d bloody well kill me. You know what they’re like over there.
Slight pause
ANNA You are welcome to come to Sicily at any time, both of you, and be my guests.
Silence
Kate and Deeley stare at her.
ANNA (To Deeley, quietly.) I would like you to understand that I came here
not to disrupt but to celebrate.
Pause
To celebrate a very old and treasured friendship, something that was forged between us long before you knew of our existence.
Pause
I found her. She grew to know wonderful people, through my introduction. I took her to cafés, almost private ones, where artists and writers and sometimes actors collected, and others with dancers, and we sat hardly breathing with our coffee, listening to the life around us. All I wanted for her was her happiness. That is all I want for her still.
Pause
DEELEY (To Kate.) We’ve met before, you know. Anna and I.
Kate looks at him.
Yes, we met in the Wayfarers Tavern. In the corner. She took a fancy to me. Of course I was slimhipped in those days. Pretty nifty. A bit squinky, quite honestly. Curly hair. The lot. We had a scene together. She freaked out. She didn’t have any bread, so I bought her a drink. She looked at me with big eyes, shy, all that bit. She was pretending to be you at the time. Did it pretty well. Wearing your underwear she was too, at the time. Amiably allowed me a gander. Trueblue generosity. Admirable in a woman. We went to a party. Given by philosophers. Not a bad bunch. Edgware road gang. Nice lot. Haven’t seen any of them for years. Old friends. Always thinking. Spoke their thoughts. Those are the people I miss. They’re all dead, anyway I’ve never seen them again. The Maida Vale group. Big Eric and little Tony. They lived somewhere near Paddington library. On the way to the party I took her into a café, bought her a cup of coffee, beards with faces. She thought she was you, said little, so little. Maybe she was you. Maybe it was you, having coffee with me, saying little, so little.
Pause
KATE What do you think attracted her to you?
DEELEY I don’t know. What?
KATE She found your face very sensitive, vulnerable.
DEELEY Did she?
KATE She wanted to comfort it, in the way only a woman can.
DEELEY Did she?
KATE Oh yes.
DEELEY She wanted to comfort my face, in the way only a woman can?
KATE She was prepared to extend herself to you.
DEELEY I beg your pardon?
KATE She fell in love with you.
DEELEY With me?
KATE You were so unlike the others. We knew men who were brutish, crass.
DEELEY There really are such men, then? Crass men?
KATE Quite crass.
DEELEY But I was crass, wasn’t I, looking up her skirt?
KATE That’s not crass.
Complete Works, Volume IV Page 4