DEELEY If it was her skirt. If it was her.
ANNA (Coldly.) Oh, it was my skirt. It was me. I remember your look . . . very well. I remember you well.
KATE (To Anna.) But I remember you. I remember you dead.
Pause
I remember you lying dead. You didn’t know I was watching you. I leaned over you. Your face was dirty. You lay dead, your face scrawled with dirt, all kinds of earnest inscriptions, but unblotted, so that they had run, all over your face, down to your throat. Your sheets were immaculate. I was glad. I would have been unhappy if your corpse had lain in an unwholesome sheet. It would have been graceless. I mean as far as I was concerned. As far as my room was concerned. After all, you were dead in my room. When you woke my eyes were above you, staring down at you. You tried to do my little trick, one of my tricks you had borrowed, my little slow smile, my little slow shy smile, my bend of the head, my half closing of the eyes, that we knew so well, but it didn’t work, the grin only split the dirt at the sides of your mouth and stuck. You stuck in your grin. I looked for tears but could see none. Your pupils weren’t in your eyes. Your bones were breaking through your face. But all was serene. There was no suffering. It had all happened elsewhere. Last rites I did not feel necessary. Or any celebration. I felt the time and season appropriate and that by dying alone and dirty you had acted with proper decorum. It was time for my bath. I had quite a lengthy bath, got out, walked about the room, glistening, drew up a chair, sat naked beside you and watched you.
Pause
When I brought him into the room your body of course had gone. What a relief it was to have a different body in my room, a male body behaving quite differently, doing all those things they do and which they think are good, like sitting with one leg over the arm of an armchair. We had a choice of two beds. Your bed or my bed. To lie in, or on. To grind noses together, in or on. He liked your bed, and thought he was different in it because he was a man. But one night I said let me do something, a little thing, a little trick. He lay there in your bed. He looked up at me with great expectation. He was gratified. He thought I had profited from his teaching. He thought I was going to be sexually forthcoming, that I was about to take a long promised initiative. I dug about in the windowbox, where you had planted our pretty pansies, scooped, filled the bowl, and plastered his face with dirt. He was bemused, aghast, resisted, resisted with force. He would not let me dirty his face, or smudge it, he wouldn’t let me. He suggested a wedding instead, and a change of environment
Slight pause
Neither mattered.
Pause
He asked me once, at about that time, who had slept in that bed before him. I told him no one. No one at all.
Long silence
Anna stands, walks towards the door, stops, her back to them.
Silence
Deeley starts to sob, very quietly.
Anna stands still.
Anna turns, switches off the lamps, sits on her divan, and lies down.
The sobbing stops.
Silence
Deeley stands. He walks a few paces, looks at both divans.
He goes to Anna’s divan, looks down at her. She is still.
Silence
Deeley moves towards the door, stops, his back to them.
Silence
Deeley turns. He goes towards Kate’s divan. He sits on her divan, lies across her lap.
Long silence
Deeley very slowly sits up.
He gets off the divan.
He walks slowly to the armchair.
He sits, slumped.
Silence
Lights up full sharply. Very bright.
Deeley in armchair.
Anna lying on divan.
Kate sitting on divan.
No Man’s Land
No Man’s Land was first presented by the National Theatre at the Old Vic, London, on 23 April 1975, with the following cast:
HIRST Ralph Richardson
SPOONER John Gielgud
FOSTER Michael Feast
BRIGGS Terence Rigby
Directed by Peter Hall
Designed by John Bury
This production transferred to Wyndham’s theatre, London, on 15 July 1975.
The play was revived at the Almeida theatre, London, on 2 November 1992, with the following cast:
HIRST Harold Pinter
SPOONER Paul Eddington
FOSTER Douglas Hodge
BRIGGS Gawn Grainger
Directed by David Leveaux
Designed by Bob Crowley
This production transferred to the Comedy Theatre, London, in February 1993.
The play was revived on the Lyttelton stage of the National Theatre, London, on 6 December 2001, with the following cast:
HIRST Corin Redgrave
SPOONER John Wood
FOSTER Danny Dyer
BRIGGS Andy de la Tour
Directed by Harold Pinter
Designed by Eileen Diss
CHARACTERS
HIRST, a man in his sixties
SPOONER, a man in his sixties
FOSTER, a man in his thirties
BRIGGS, a man in his forties
PLACE
A large room in a house in North West London. Well but sparely furnished. A strong and comfortable straight-backed chair, in which Hirst sits. A wall of bookshelves, with various items of pottery acting as bookstands, including two large mugs.
Heavy curtains across the window.
The central feature of the room is an antique cabinet, with marble top, brass gallery and open shelves, on which stands a great variety of bottles: spirits, aperitifs, beers, etc.
ACT ONE
Summer.
Night.
SPOONER stands in the centre of the room. He is dressed in a very old and shabby suit, dark faded shirt, creased spotted tie.
HIRST is pouring whisky at the cabinet. He is precisely dressed. Sports jacket. Well cut trousers.
HIRST As it is?
SPOONER As it is, yes please, absolutely as it is.
Hirst brings him the glass.
SPOONER Thank you. How very kind of you. How very kind.
Hirst pours himself a vodka.
HIRST Cheers.
SPOONER Your health.
They drink. Spooner sips, Hirst drinks the vodka in one gulp. He refills his glass, moves to his chair and sits. Spooner empties his glass.
HIRST Please help yourself.
SPOONER Terribly kind of you.
Spooner goes to cabinet, pours. He turns.
SPOONER Your good health.
He drinks.
SPOONER What was it I was saying, as we arrived at your door?
HIRST Ah . . . let me see.
SPOONER Yes! I was talking about strength. Do you recall?
HIRST Strength. Yes.
SPOONER Yes. I was about to say, you see, that there are some people who appear to be strong, whose idea of what strength consists of is persuasive, but who inhabit the idea and not the fact. What they possess is not strength but expertise. They have nurtured and maintain what is in fact a calculated posture. Half the time it works. It takes a man of intelligence and perception to stick a needle through that posture and discern the essential flabbiness of the stance. I am such a man.
HIRST You mean one of the latter?
SPOONER One of the latter, yes, a man of intelligence and perception. Not one of the former, oh no, not at all. By no means.
Pause.
May I say how very kind it was of you to ask me in? In fact, you are kindness itself, probably always are kindness itself, now and in England and in Hampstead and for all eternity.
He looks about the room.
What a remarkably pleasant room. I feel at peace here. Safe from all danger. But please don’t be alarmed. I shan’t stay long. I never stay long, with others. They do not wish it. And that, for me, is a happy state of affairs. My only security, you see, my true comfort and solace, rests in the confirmation
that I elicit from people of all kinds a common and constant level of indifference. It assures me that I am as I think myself to be, that I am fixed, concrete. To show interest in me or, good gracious, anything tending towards a positive liking of me, would cause in me a condition of the acutest alarm. Fortunately, the danger is remote.
Pause.
I speak to you with this startling candour because you are clearly a reticent man, which appeals, and because you are a stranger to me, and because you are clearly kindness itself.
Pause.
Do you often hang about Hampstead Heath?
HIRST No.
SPOONER But on your excursions . . . however rare . . . on your rare excursions . . . you hardly expect to run into the likes of me? I take it?
HIRST Hardly.
SPOONER I often hang about Hampstead Heath myself, expecting nothing. I’m too old for any kind of expectation. Don’t you agree?
HIRST Yes.
SPOONER A pitfall and snare, if ever there was one. But of course I observe a good deal, on my peeps through twigs. A wit once entitled me a betwixt-twig peeper. A most clumsy construction, I thought.
HIRST Infelicitous.
SPOONER My Christ you’re right.
Pause.
HIRST What a wit.
SPOONER You’re most acutely right. All we have left is the English language. Can it be salvaged? That is my question.
HIRST You mean in what rests its salvation?
SPOONER More or less.
HIRST Its salvation must rest in you.
SPOONER It’s uncommonly kind of you to say so. In you too, perhaps, although I haven’t sufficient evidence to go on, as yet.
Pause.
HIRST You mean because I’ve said little?
SPOONER You’re a quiet one. It’s a great relief. Can you imagine two of us gabbling away like me? It would be intolerable.
Pause.
By the way, with reference to peeping, I do feel it incumbent upon me to make one thing clear. I don’t peep on sex. That’s gone forever. You follow me? When my twigs happen to shall I say rest their peep on sexual conjugations, however periphrastic, I see only whites of eyes, so close, they glut me, no distance possible, and when you can’t keep the proper distance between yourself and others, when you can no longer maintain an objective relation to matter, the game’s not worth the candle, so forget it and remember that what is obligatory to keep in your vision is space, space in moonlight particularly, and lots of it.
HIRST You speak with the weight of experience behind you.
SPOONER And beneath me. Experience is a paltry thing. Everyone has it and will tell his tale of it. I leave experience to psychological interpreters, the wetdream world. I myself can do any graph of experience you wish, to suit your taste or mine. Child’s play. The present will not be distorted. I am a poet. I am interested in where I am eternally present and active.
Hirst stands, goes to cabinet, pours vodka.
I have gone too far, you think?
HIRST I’m expecting you to go very much further.
SPOONER Really? That doesn’t mean I interest you, I hope?
HIRST Not in the least.
SPOONER Thank goodness for that. For a moment my heart sank.
Hirst draws the curtains aside, looks out briefly, lets curtain fall, remains standing.
But nevertheless you’re right. Your instinct is sound. I could go further, in more ways than one. I could advance, reserve my defences, throw on a substitute, call up the cavalry, or throw everything forward out of the knowledge that when joy overfloweth there can be no holding of joy. The point I’m trying to make, in case you’ve missed it, is that I am a free man.
Hirst pours himself another vodka and drinks it. He puts the glass down, moves carefully to his chair, sits.
HIRST It’s a long time since we had a free man in this house.
SPOONER We?
HIRST I.
SPOONER Is there another?
HIRST Another what?
SPOONER People. Person.
HIRST What other?
SPOONER There are two mugs on that shelf.
HIRST The second is for you.
SPOONER And the first?
HIRST Would you like to use it? Would you like some hot refreshment?
SPOONER That would be dangerous. I’ll stick to your scotch, if I may.
HIRST Help yourself.
SPOONER Thank you.
He goes to cabinet.
HIRST I’ll take a whisky with you, if you would be so kind.
SPOONER With pleasure. Weren’t you drinking vodka?
HIRST I’ll be happy to join you in a whisky.
Spooner pours.
SPOONER You’ll take it as it is, as it comes?
HIRST Oh, absolutely as it comes.
Spooner brings Hirst his glass.
SPOONER Your very good health.
HIRST Yours.
They drink.
Tell me . . . do you often hang about Jack Straw’s Castle?
SPOONER I knew it as a boy.
HIRST Do you find it as beguiling a public house now as it was in the days of the highwaymen, when it was frequented by highwaymen? Notably Jack Straw. The great Jack Straw. Do you find it much changed?
SPOONER It changed my life.
HIRST Good Lord. Did it really?
SPOONER I refer to a midsummer night, when I shared a drink with a Hungarian émigré, lately retired from Paris.
HIRST The same drink?
SPOONER By no means. You’ve guessed, I would imagine, that he was an erstwhile member of the Hungarian aristocracy?
HIRST I did guess, yes.
SPOONER On that summer evening, led by him, I first appreciated how quiet life can be, in the midst of yahoos and hullabaloos. He exerted on me a quite uniquely . . . calming influence, without exertion, without any . . . desire to influence. He was so much older than me. My expectations in those days, and I confess I had expectations in those days, did not include him in their frame of reference. I’d meandered over to Hampstead Heath, a captive to memories of a more than usually pronounced grisliness, and found myself, not much to my surprise, ordering a pint at the bar of Jack Straw’s Castle. This achieved, and having negotiated a path through a particularly repellent lick-spittling herd of literati, I stumbled, unseeing, with my pint, to his bald, tanned, unmoving table. How bald he was.
Pause.
I think, after quite half my pint had descended, never to be savoured again, that I spoke, suddenly, suddenly spoke, and received . . . a response, no other word will do, a response, the like of which—
HIRST What was he drinking?
SPOONER What?
HIRST What was he drinking?
SPOONER Pernod.
Pause.
I was impressed, more or less at that point, by an intuition that he possessed a measure of serenity the like of which I had never encountered.
HIRST What did he say?
Spooner stares at him.
SPOONER You expect me to remember what he said?
HIRST No.
Pause.
SPOONER What he said . . . all those years ago . . . is neither here nor there. It was not what he said but possibly the way he sat which has remained with me all my life and has, I am quite sure, made me what I am.
Pause.
And I met you at the same pub tonight, although at a different table.
Pause.
And I wonder at you, now, as once I wondered at him. But will I wonder at you tomorrow, I wonder, as I still wonder at him today?
HIRST I cannot say.
SPOONER It cannot be said.
Pause.
I’ll ask you another question. Have you any idea from what I derive my strength?
HIRST Strength? No.
SPOONER I have never been loved. From this I derive my strength. Have you? Ever? Been loved?
HIRST Oh, I don’t suppose so.
SPOONER I looked up once into my mother’s
face. What I saw there was nothing less than pure malevolence. I was fortunate to escape with my life. You will want to know what I had done to provoke such hatred in my own mother.
HIRST You’d pissed yourself.
SPOONER Quite right. How old do you think I was at the time?
HIRST Twenty-eight.
SPOONER Quite right. However, I left home soon after.
Pause.
My mother remains, I have to say, a terribly attractive woman in many ways. Her buns are the best.
Hirst looks at him.
Her currant buns. The best.
HIRST Would you be so kind as to pour me another drop of whisky?
SPOONER Certainly.
Spooner takes the glass, pours whisky into it, gives it to Hirst.
SPOONER Perhaps it’s about time I introduced myself. My name is Spooner.
HIRST Ah.
SPOONER I’m a staunch friend of the arts, particularly the art of poetry, and a guide to the young. I keep open house. Young poets come to me. They read me their verses. I comment, give them coffee, make no charge. Women are admitted, some of whom are also poets. Some are not. Some of the men are not. Most of the men are not. But with the windows open to the garden, my wife pouring long glasses of squash, with ice, on a summer evening, young voices occasionally lifted in unaccompanied ballad, young bodies lying in the dying light, my wife moving through the shadows in her long gown, what can ail? I mean who can gainsay us? What quarrel can be found with what is, au fond, a gesture towards the sustenance and preservation of art, and through art to virtue?
HIRST Through art to virtue. (Raises glass.) To your continued health.
Spooner sits, for the first time.
SPOONER When we had our cottage . . . when we had our cottage . . . we gave our visitors tea, on the lawn.
HIRST I did the same.
SPOONER On the lawn?
HIRST I did the same.
SPOONER You had a cottage?
HIRST Tea on the lawn.
SPOONER What happened to them? What happened to our cottages? What happened to our lawns?
Pause.
Be frank. Tell me. You’ve revealed something. You’ve made an unequivocal reference to your past. Don’t go back on it. We share something. A memory of the bucolic life. We’re both English.
Pause.
HIRST In the village church, the beams are hung with garlands, in honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have died virgin.
Complete Works, Volume IV Page 5