Lights change, LEN’s room, PETE and MARK looking at chess board. LEN watching them. Silence.
LEN Eh …
They don’t look up.
The dwarfs are back on the job.
Pause.
I said the dwarfs are back on the job.
MARK The what?
LEN The dwarfs.
MARK Oh yes?
LEN Oh yes. They’ve been waiting for a smoke signal you see. I’ve just sent up the smoke signal.
Pause.
MARK You’ve just sent it up, have you?
LEN Yes. I’ve called them in on the job. They’ve taken up their positions. Haven’t you noticed?
PETE I haven’t noticed. (To MARK.) Have you noticed?
MARK chuckles.
LEN But I’ll tell you one thing. They don’t stop work until the job in hand is finished, one way or another. They never run out on a job. Oh no. They’re true professionals. Real professionals.
PETE Listen. Can’t you see we’re trying to play chess?
Pause.
LEN I’ve called them in to keep an eye on you two, you see. They’re going to keep a very close eye on you. So am I. We’re waiting for you to show your hand. We’re all going to keep a very close eye on you two. Me and the dwarfs.
Pause.
MARK (referring to chess) I think I’ve got you knackered, Pete.
PETE looks at him.
PETE Do you?
Lights change and come up full in room. LEN enters with old gilt mirror. MARK follows.
MARK Put that mirror back.
LEN This is the best piece of furniture you’ve got in the house. It’s Spanish. No, Portuguese. You’re Portuguese, aren’t you?
MARK Put it back.
LEN Look at your face in this mirror. Look. It’s a farce. Where are your features? You haven’t got any features. You couldn’t call those features. What are you going to do about it, eh? What’s the answer?
MARK Mind that mirror. It’s not insured.
LEN I saw Pete the other day. In the evening. You didn’t know that. I wonder about you. I often wonder about you. But I must keep pedalling. I must. There’s a time limit. Who have you got hiding here? You’re not alone here. What about your Esperanto? Don’t forget, anything over two ounces goes up a penny.
MARK Thanks for the tip.
LEN Here’s your mirror.
MARK exits with mirror. LEN picks out apple from a fruit bowl, sits in armchair staring at it. MARK returns.
This is a funny looking apple.
He tosses it back to MARK, who replaces it.
Pete asked me to lend him a shilling.
MARK Uh?
LEN I refused.
MARK What?
LEN I refused downright to lend him a shilling.
MARK What did he say to that?
LEN Plenty. Since I left him I’ve been thinking thoughts I’ve never thought before. I’ve been thinking thoughts I’ve never thought before.
MARK You spend too much time with Pete.
LEN What?
MARK Give it a rest. He doesn’t do you any good. I’m the only one who knows how to get on with him. I can handle him. You can’t. You take him too seriously. He doesn’t worry me. I know how to handle him. He doesn’t take any liberties with me.
LEN Who says he takes liberties with me? Nobody takes liberties with me. I’m not the sort of man you can take liberties with.
MARK You should drop it.
LEN sees toasting fork, takes it to MARK.
LEN This is a funny toasting fork. Do you ever make any toast?
He drops the fork on the floor.
Don’t touch it! You don’t know what will happen if you touch it! You mustn’t touch it! You mustn’t bend! Wait.
Pause.
I’ll bend. I’ll … pick it up. I’m going to touch it.
Pause … softly:
There. You see? Nothing happens when I touch it. Nothing. Nothing can happen. No one would bother.
A broken sigh.
You see, I can’t see the broken glass. I can’t see the mirror I have to look through. I see the other side. The other side. But I can’t see the mirror side.
Pause.
I want to break it, all of it. But how can I break it? How can I break it when I can’t see it?
Lights fade and come up again in MARK’s room. LEN is sitting in an armchair. MARK enters with whisky bottle and two glasses. He pours drinks for PETE and himself. PETE, who has followed him in, takes his glass, MARK sits in other armchair. Neither takes any notice of LEN.
Silence.
PETE Thinking got me into this and thinking’s got to get me out. You know what I want? An efficient idea. You know what I mean? An efficient idea. One that’ll work. Something I can pin my money on. An each-way bet. Nothing’s guaranteed, I know that. But I’m willing to gamble. I gambled when I went to work in the city. I want to fight them on their own ground, not moan about them from a distance. I did it and I’m still living. But I’ve had my fill of these city guttersnipes – all that scavenging scum! They’re the sort of people, who, if the gates of heaven opened to them, all they’d feel would be a draught. I’m wasting away down there. The time has come to act. I’m after something truly workable, something deserving of the proper and active and voluntary application of my own powers. And I’ll find it.
LEN I squashed a tiny insect on a plate the other day. And I brushed the remains off my finger with my thumb. Then I saw that the fragments were growing, like fluff. As they were falling, they were becoming larger, like fluff. I had put my hand into the body of a dead bird.
PETE The trouble is, you’ve got to be quite sure of what you mean by efficient. Look at a nutcracker. You press the cracker and the cracker cracks the nut. You might think that’s an exact process. It’s not. The nut cracks, but the hinge of the cracker gives out a friction which is completely incidental to the particular idea. It’s unnecessary, an escape and wastage of energy to no purpose. So there’s nothing efficient about a nutcracker.
He sits, drinks.
LEN They’ve gone on a picnic.
MARK Who?
LEN The dwarfs.
PETE Oh Christ.
Picks up paper.
LEN They’ve left me to sweep the yard, to keep the place in order. It’s a bloody liberty. They’re supposed to be keeping you under observation. What do they think I am, a bloody charlady? I can’t look after the place by myself, it’s not possible. Piles and piles and piles of muck and leavings all over the place, spewed up spewed up, I’m not a skivvy, they don’t pay me, I pay them.
MARK Why don’t you settle down?
LEN Oh don’t worry, it’s basically a happy relationship. I trust them. They’re very efficient. They know what they’re waiting for. But they’ve got a new game, did I tell you? It’s to do with beetles and twigs. There’s a rockery of red-hot cinder. I like watching them. Their hairs are curled and oily on their necks. Always squatting and bending, dipping their wicks in the custard. Now and again a lick of flame screws up their noses. Do you know what they do? They run wild. They yowl, they pinch, they dribble, they whimper, they gouge, and then they soothe each others’ orifices with a local ointment, and then, all gone, all forgotten, they lark about, each with his buddy, get out the nose spray and the scented syringe, settle down for the night with a bun and a doughnut.
PETE See you Mark.
Exit.
MARK Why don’t you put it on the table?
Pause.
Open it up, Len.
Pause.
I’m supposed to be a friend of yours.
LEN You’re a snake in my house.
MARK Really?
LEN You’re trying to buy and sell me. You think I’m a ventriloquist’s dummy. You’ve got me pinned to the wall before I open my mouth. You’ve got a tab on me, you’re buying me out of house and home, you’re a calculating bastard.
Pause.
Answer me. Say something.
&nb
sp; Pause.
Do you understand?
Pause.
You don’t agree?
Pause.
You disagree?
Pause.
You think I’m mistaken?
Pause.
But am I?
Pause.
Both of you bastards, you’ve made a hole in my side, I can’t plug it!
Pause.
I’ve lost a kingdom. I suppose you’re taking good care of things. Did you know that you and Pete are a music hall act? What happens? What do you do when you’re alone? Do you do a jig? I suppose you’re taking good care of things. I’ve got my treasure too. It’s in my corner. Everything’s in my corner. Everything is from the corner’s point of view. I don’t hold the whip. I’m a labouring man. I do the corner’s will. I slave my guts out. I thought, at one time, that I’d escaped it, but it never dies, it’s never dead. I feed it, it’s well fed. Things that at one time seem to me of value I have no resource but to give it to eat and what was of value turns into pus. I can hide nothing. I can’t lay anything aside. Nothing can be put aside, nothing can be hidden, nothing can be saved, it waits, it eats, it’s voracious, you’re in it, Pete’s in it, you’re all in my corner. There must be somewhere else!
Swift cross fade of lights to down centre area. PETE is seen vaguely, standing downstage below LEN’s room. MARK is seated in his room. Unlit, LEN crouches, watching PETE.
Pete walks by the river. Under the woodyard wall stops. Stops. Hiss of the yellow grass. The wood battlements jaw over the wall. Dust in the fairground ticks. The night ticks. He hears the tick of the roundabout, up river with the sweat. Pete walks by the river. Under the woodyard wall stops. Stops. The wood hangs. Death mask on the water. Pete walks by the – gull. Slicing gull. Gull. Down. He stops. Rat corpse in the yellow grass. Gull pads. Gull probes. Gull stamps his feet. Gull whinnies up. Gull screams, tears, Pete, tears, digs, Pete cuts, breaks, Pete stretches the corpse, flaps his wings, Pete’s beak grows, probes, digs, pulls, the river jolts, no moon, what can I see, the dwarfs collect, they slide down the bridge, they scutter by the shoreside, the dwarfs collect, capable, industrious, they wear raincoats, it is going to rain, Pete digs, he screws in to the head, the dwarfs watch, Pete tugs, he tugs, he’s tugging, he kills, he’s killing, the rat’s head, with a snap the cloth of the rat’s head tears. Pete walks by the …
Deep groan.
He sinks into chair left of his table. Lights in LEN’s room swiftly fade up. PETE turns to him.
PETE You look the worse for wear. What’s the matter with you?
LEN I’ve been ill.
PETE Ill? What’s the matter?
LEN Cheese. Stale cheese. It got me in the end. I’ve been eating a lot of cheese.
PETE Yes, well, it’s easy to eat too much cheese.
LEN It all came out, in about twenty-eight goes. I couldn’t stop shivering and I couldn’t stop squatting. It got me all right. I’m all right now. I only go three times a day now. I can more or less regulate it. Once in the morning. A quick dash before lunch. Another quick dash after tea, and then I’m free to do what I want. I don’t think you understand. That cheese didn’t die. It only began to live when you swallowed it, you see, after it had gone down. I bumped into a German one night, he came home with me and helped me finish it off. He took it to bed with him, he sat up in bed with it, in the guest’s suite. I went in and had a gander. He had it taped. He was brutal with it. He would bite into it and then concentrate. I had to hand it to him. The sweat came out on his nose but he stayed on his feet. After he’d got out of bed, that was. Stood bolt upright, swallowed it, clicked his fingers, ordered another piece of blackcurrant pie. It’s my pie-making season. His piss stank worse than the cheese. You look in the pink.
PETE You want to watch your step. You know that? You’re going from bad to worse. Why don’t you pull yourself together? Eh? Get a steady job. Cultivate a bit of go and guts for a change. Make yourself useful, mate, for Christ’s sake. As you are, you’re just a dead weight round everybody’s neck. You want to listen to your friends, mate. Who else have you got?
PETE taps him on the shoulder and exits. A light comes up on MARK. The lights in LEN’s room fade out. LEN rises to down centre.
LEN Mark sits by the fireside. Crosses his legs. His fingers wear a ring. The finger poised. Mark regards his finger. He regards his legs. He regards the fireside. Outside the door is the black blossom. He combs his hair with an ebony comb, he sits, he lies, he lowers his eyelashes, raises them, sees no change in the posture of the room, lights a cigarette, watches his hand clasp the lighter, watches the flame, sees his mouth go forward, sees the consummation, is satisfied. Pleased, sees the smoke in the lamp, pleased with the lamp and the smoke and his bulk, pleased with his legs and his ring and his hand and his body in the lamp. Sees himself speaking, the words arranged on his lips, sees himself with pleasure silent.
Under the twigs they slide, by the lilac bush, break the stems, sit, scutter to the edge of the lawn and there wait, capable, industrious, put up their sunshades, watch. Mark lies, heavy, content, watches his smoke in the window, times his puff out, his hand fall, (with growing disgust.) smiles at absent guests, sucks in all comers, arranges his web, lies there a spider.
LEN moves to above armchair in MARK’s room as lights fade up. Down centre area fades out.
What did you say?
MARK I never said anything.
LEN What do you do when you’re tired, go to bed?
MARK That’s right.
LEN You sleep like a log.
MARK Yes.
LEN What do you do when you wake up?
MARK Wake up.
LEN I want to ask you a question.
MARK No doubt.
LEN Are you prepared to answer questions?
MARK No.
LEN What do you do in the day when you’re not walking about?
MARK I rest.
LEN Where do you find a resting place?
MARK Here and there.
LEN By consent?
MARK Invariably.
LEN But you’re not particular?
MARK Yes, I’m particular.
LEN You choose your resting place?
MARK Normally.
LEN That might be anywhere?
MARK Yes.
LEN Does that content you?
MARK Sure! I’ve got a home. I know where I live.
LEN You mean you’ve got roots. Why haven’t I got roots? My house is older than yours. My family lived here. Why haven’t I got a home?
MARK Move out.
LEN Do you believe in God?
MARK What?
LEN Do you believe in God?
MARK Who?
LEN God.
MARK God?
LEN Do you believe in God?
MARK Do I believe in God?
LEN Yes.
MARK Would you say that again?
LEN goes swiftly to shelf. Picks up biscuit jar. Offers to MARK.
LEN Have a biscuit.
MARK Thanks.
LEN They’re your biscuits.
MARK There’s two left. Have one yourself.
LEN puts biscuits away.
LEN You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.
MARK Really?
LEN Do you know what the point is? Do you know what it is?
MARK No.
LEN The point is, who are you? Not why or how, not even what. I can see what, perhaps, clearly enough. But who are you? It’s no use saying you know who you are just because you tell me you can fit your particular key into a particular slot, which will only receive your particular key because that’s not foolproof and certainly not conclusive. Just because you’re inclined to make these statements of faith has nothing to do with me. It’s not my business. Occasionally I believe I perceive a little of what you are but that’s pure accident. Pure accident on both our parts, the perceived and the perceiver. It’s nothing like an accident, it’s deliber
ate, it’s a joint pretence. We depend on these accidents, on these contrived accidents, to continue. It’s not important then that it’s conspiracy or hallucination. What you are, or appear to be to me, or appear to be to you, changes so quickly, so horrifyingly, I certainly can’t keep up with it and I’m damn sure you can’t either. But who you are I can’t even begin to recognise, and sometimes I recognise it so wholly, so forcibly, I can’t look, and how can I be certain of what I see? You have no number. Where am I to look, where am I to look, what is there to locate, so as to have some surety, to have some rest from this whole bloody racket? You’re the sum of so many reflections. How many reflections? Whose reflections? Is that what you consist of? What scum does the tide leave? What happens to the scum? When does it happen? I’ve seen what happens. But I can’t speak when I see it. I can only point a finger. I can’t even do that. The scum is broken and sucked back. I don’t see where it goes. I don’t see when, what do I see, what have I seen? What have I seen, the scum or the essence? What about it? Does all this give you the right to stand there and tell me you know who you are? It’s a bloody impertinence. There’s a great desert and there’s a wind stopping. Pete’s been eating too much cheese, he’s ill from it, it’s eating his flesh away, but that doesn’t matter, you’re still both in the same boat, you’re eating all my biscuits, but that doesn’t matter, you’re still both in the same boat, you’re still standing behind the curtains together. He thinks you’re a fool, Pete thinks you’re a fool, but that doesn’t matter, you’re still both of you standing behind my curtains, moving my curtains in my room. He may be your Black Knight, you may be his Black Knight, but I’m cursed with the two of you, with two Black Knights, that’s friendship, that’s this that I know. That’s what I know.
MARK Pete thinks I’m a fool? (Pause.) Pete … Pete thinks that I’m a fool?
The Short Plays of Harold Pinter Page 17