So many ways to lose sight of them, then to recapture sight of them. They are sharp at first sight … then smudged … then lost … then glimpsed again … then gone.
BATES Funny. Sometimes I press my hand on my forehead, calmingly, feel all the dust drain out, let it go, feel the grit slip away. Funny moment. That calm moment.
ELLEN moves to RUMSEY.
ELLEN It’s changed. You’ve painted it. You’ve made shelves. Every thing. It’s beautiful.
RUMSEY Can you remember … when you were here last?
ELLEN Oh yes.
RUMSEY You were a little girl.
ELLEN I was.
Pause.
RUMSEY Can you cook now?
ELLEN Shall I cook for you?
RUMSEY Yes.
ELLEN Next time I come. I will.
Pause.
RUMSEY Do you like music?
ELLEN Yes.
RUMSEY I’ll play you music.
Pause.
Look at your reflection.
ELLEN Where?
RUMSEY In the window.
ELLEN It’s very dark outside.
RUMSEY It’s high up.
ELLEN Does it get darker the higher you get?
RUMSEY No.
Silence.
ELLEN Around me sits the night. Such a silence. I can hear myself. Cup my ear. My heart beats in my ear. Such a silence. Is it me? Am I silent or speaking? How can I know? Can I know such things? No one has ever told me. I need to be told things. I seem to be old. Am I old now? No one will tell me. I must find a person to tell me these things.
BATES My landlady asks me in for a drink. Stupid conversation. What are you doing here? Why do you live alone? Where do you come from? What do you do with yourself? What kind of life have you had? You seem fit. A bit grumpy. You can smile, surely, at something? Surely you have smiled, at a thing in your life? At something? Has there been no pleasantness in your life? No kind of loveliness in your life? Are you nothing but a childish old man, suffocating himself?
I’ve had all that. I’ve got all that. I said.
ELLEN He sat me on his knee, by the window, and asked if he could kiss my right cheek. I nodded he could. He did. Then he asked, if, having kissed my right, he could do the same with my left. I said yes. He did.
Silence.
RUMSEY She was looking down. I couldn’t hear what she said.
BATES I can’t hear you. Yes you can, I said.
RUMSEY What are you saying? Look at me, she said.
BATES I didn’t. I didn’t hear you, she said. I didn’t hear what you said.
RUMSEY But I am looking at you. It’s your head that’s bent.
Silence.
BATES The little girl looked up at me. I said: at night horses are quite happy. They stand about, then after a bit of a time they go to sleep. In the morning they wake up, snort a bit, canter, sometimes, and eat. You’ve no cause to worry about them.
ELLEN moves to RUMSEY.
RUMSEY Find a young man.
ELLEN There aren’t any.
RUMSEY Don’t be stupid.
ELLEN I don’t like them.
RUMSEY You’re stupid.
ELLEN I hate them.
Pause.
RUMSEY Find one.
Silence.
BATES For instance, I said, those shapes in the trees, you’ll find they’re just birds, resting after a long journey.
ELLEN I go up with the milk. The sky hits me. I walk in this wind to collide with them waiting.
There are two. They halt to laugh and bellow in the yard. They dig and punch and cackle where they stand. They turn to move, look round at me to grin. I turn my eyes from one, and from the other to him.
Silence.
BATES From the young people’s room – silence. Sleep? Tender love?
It’s of no importance.
Silence.
RUMSEY I walk with my girl who wears –
BATES Caught a bus to the town. Crowds. Lights round.
Silence.
ELLEN After my work each day I walk back through people but I don’t notice them. I’m not in a dream or anything of that sort. On the contrary. I’m quite wide awake to the world around me. But not to the people. There must be something in them to notice, to pay attention to, something of interest in them. In fact I know there is. I’m certain of it. But I pass through them noticing nothing. It is only later, in my room, that I remember. Yes, I remember. But I’m never sure that what I remember is of today or of yesterday or of a long time ago.
And then often it is only half things I remember, half things, beginnings of things.
My drinking companion for the hundredth time asked me if I’d ever been married. This time I told her I had. Yes, I told her I had. Certainly. I can remember the wedding.
Silence,
RUMSEY On good evenings we walk through the hills to the top of the hill past the dogs the clouds racing
ELLEN Sometimes the wind is so high he does not hear me.
BATES Brought her into this place, my cousin runs it.
ELLEN all the blue changes, I’m dizzy sometimes
Silence.
RUMSEY that the path and the bushes are the same, that the gate is the same
BATES You cross the field out of darkness. You arrive.
ELLEN I turn to them and speak.
Silence,
RUMSEY and watch the folding light.
BATES and their tittering bitches, and their music, and their love.
ELLEN They ask me where I come from. I say of course from the country.
Silence.
BATES Come with me tonight.
ELLEN Where?
BATES Anywhere. For a walk.
Silence.
RUMSEY My visit, my care, will be like any other visit, any other care.
BATES I see something in a tree, a shape, a shadow.
Silence.
ELLEN When I run …
RUMSEY Floating … under me.
ELLEN The horizon moves from the sun.
Silence.
RUMSEY They are sharp at first sight … then smudged … then lost … then glimpsed again … then gone.
BATES feel all the dust drain out, let it go, feel the grit slip away.
ELLEN I look them in their eyes.
Silence.
RUMSEY It’s high up.
ELLEN Does it get darker the higher you get?
RUMSEY No.
Silence.
ELLEN Around me sits the night. Such a silence.
BATES I’ve had all that. I’ve got all that. I said.
ELLEN I nodded he could.
Silence.
RUMSEY She was looking down.
BATES Yes you can, I said.
RUMSEY What are you saying?
BATES I didn’t hear you, she said.
RUMSEY But I am looking at you. It’s your head that’s bent.
Silence.
BATES In the morning they wake up, snort a bit, canter, sometimes, and eat.
Silence.
ELLEN There aren’t any.
RUMSEY Don’t be stupid.
ELLEN I don’t like them.
RUMSEY You’re stupid.
Silence.
BATES For instance, I said, those shapes in the trees.
ELLEN I walk in this wind to collide with them waiting.
Silence.
BATES Sleep? Tender love? It’s of no importance.
ELLEN I kiss them there and say
Silence.
RUMSEY I walk
Silence.
BATES Caught a bus
Silence.
ELLEN Certainly. I can remember the wedding.
Silence.
RUMSEY I walk with my girl who wears a grey blouse
BATES Caught a bus to the town. Crowds. Lights round the market
Long silence.
Fade lights.
MONOLOGUE
Monologue first published a limited edition 1973
&n
bsp; © FPinter Limited,
Monologue was first transmitted on on BBC Television on 13 April 1973.
MAN Henry Woolf
Directed by Christopher Morahan
MAN alone in a chair.
He refers to another chair, which is empty.
MAN I think I’ll nip down to the games room. Stretch my legs. Have a game of ping pong. What about you? Fancy a game? How would you like a categorical thrashing? I’m willing to accept any challenge, any stakes, any gauntlet you’d care to fling down. What have you done with your gauntlets, by the way? In fact, while we’re at it, what happened to your motorbike?
Pause.
You looked bold in black. The only thing I didn’t like was your face, too white, the face, stuck between your black helmet and your black hair and your black motoring jacket, kind of aghast, blatantly vulnerable, veering towards pitiful. Of course, you weren’t cut out to be a motorbikist, it went against your nature, I never understood what you were getting at. What is certain is that it didn’t work, it never convinced me, it never got you on to any top shelf with me. You should have been black, you should have had a black face, then you’d be getting somewhere, really making a go of it.
Pause.
I often had the impression … often … that you two were actually brother and sister, some kind of link-up, some kind of identical shimmer, deep down in your characters, an inkling, no more, that at one time you had shared the same pot. But of course she was black. Black as the Ace of Spades. And a life-lover, to boot.
Pause.
All the same, you and I, even then, never mind the weather, weren’t we, we were always available for net practice, at the drop of a hat, or a game of fives, or a walk and talk through the park, or a couple of rounds of putting before lunch, given fair to moderate conditions, and no burdensome commitments.
Pause.
The thing I like, I mean quite immeasurably, is this kind of conversation, this kind of exchange, this class of mutual reminiscence.
Pause.
Sometimes I think you’ve forgotten the black girl, the ebony one. Sometimes I think you’ve forgotten me.
Pause.
You haven’t forgotten me. Who was your best mate, who was your truest mate? You introduced me to Webster and Tourneur, admitted, but who got you going on Tristan Tzara, Breton, Giacometti and all that lot? Not to mention Louis-Ferdinand Celine, now out of favour. And John Dos. Who bought you both all those custard tins cut price? I say both. I was the best friend either of you ever had and I’m still prepared to prove it, I’m still prepared to wrap my braces round anyone’s neck, in your defence.
Pause.
Now you’re going to say you loved her soul and I loved her body. You’re going to trot that old one out. I know you were much more beautiful than me, much more aquiline, I know that, that I’ll give you, more ethereal, more thoughtful, slyer, while I had both feet firmly planted on the deck. But I’ll tell you one thing you don’t know. She loved my soul. It was my soul she loved.
Pause.
You never say what you’re ready for now. You’re not even ready for a game of ping pong. You’re incapable of saying of what it is you’re capable, where your relish lies, where you’re sharp, excited, why you never are capable … never are … capable of exercising a crisp and full-bodied appraisal of the buzzing possibilities of your buzzing brain cells. You often, I’ll be frank, act as if you’re dead, as if the Balls Pond Road and the lovely ebony lady never existed, as if the rain in the light on the pavements in the twilight never existed, as if our sporting and intellectual life never was.
Pause.
She was tired. She sat down. She was tired. The journey. The rush hour. The weather, so unpredictable. She’d put on a woollen dress because the morning was chilly, but the day had changed, totally, totally changed. She cried. You jumped up like a … those things, forgot the name, monkey on a box, jack in a box, held her hand, made her tea, a rare burst. Perhaps the change in the weather had gone to your head.
Pause.
I loved her body. Not that, between ourselves, it’s one way or another a thing of any importance. My spasms could be your spasms. Who’s to tell or care?
Pause.
Well… she did … can … could …
Pause.
We all walked, arm in arm, through the long grass, over the bridge, sat outside the pub in the sun by the river, the pub was shut.
Pause.
Did anyone notice us? Did you see anyone looking at us?
Pause.
Touch my body, she said to you. You did. Of course you did. You’d be a bloody fool if you didn’t. You’d have been a bloody fool if you hadn’t. It was perfectly normal.
Pause.
That was behind the partition.
Pause.
I brought her to see you, after you’d pissed off to live in Notting Hill Gate. Naturally. They all end up there. I’ll never end up there. I’ll never end up on that side of the Park.
Pause.
Sitting there with your record player, growing bald, Beethoven, cocoa, cats. That really dates it. The cocoa dates it. It was your detachment was dangerous. I knew it of course like the back of my hand. That was the web my darling black darling hovered in, wavered in, my black moth. She stuttered in that light, your slightly sullen, non-committal, deadly dangerous light. But it’s a fact of life. The ones that keep silent are the best off.
Pause.
As for me, I’ve always liked simple love scenes, the classic set-ups, the sweet… the sweet… the sweet farewell at Paddington Station. My collar turned up. Her soft cheeks. Standing close to me, legs under her raincoat, the platform, her cheeks, her hands, nothing like the sound of steam to keep love warm, to keep it moist, to bring it to the throat, my ebony love, she smiles at me, I touched her.
Pause.
I feel for you. Even if you feel nothing … for me. I feel for you, old chap.
Pause.
I keep busy in the mind, and that’s why I’m still sparking, get it? I’ve got a hundred per cent more energy in me now than when I was twenty-two. When I was twenty-two I slept twenty-four hours a day. And twenty-two hours a day at twenty-four. Work it out for yourself. But now I’m sparking, at my peak, up here, two thousand revolutions a second, every living hour of the day and night. I’m a front runner. My watchword is vigilance. I’m way past mythologies, left them all behind, cocoa, sleep, Beethoven, cats, rain, black girls, bosom pals, literature, custard. You’ll say I’ve been talking about nothing else all night, but can’t you see, you bloody fool, that I can afford to do it, can’t you appreciate the irony? Even if you’re too dim to catch the irony in the words themselves, the words I have chosen myself, quite scrupulously, and with intent, you can’t miss the irony in the tone of voice!
Pause.
What you are in fact witnessing is freedom. I no longer participate in holy ceremony. The crap is cut.
Silence.
You should have had a black face, that was your mistake. You could have made a going concern out of it, you could have chalked it up in the book, you could have had two black kids.
Pause.
I’d have died for them.
Pause.
I’d have been their uncle.
Pause.
I am their uncle.
Pause.
I’m your children’s uncle.
Pause.
I’ll take them out, tell them jokes.
Pause.
I love your children.
FAMILY VOICES
Family Voices first published by
Next Editions 1981
© Fraser52 Limited, 1981
Family Voices was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 22 January 1981. The cast was as follows:
VOICE 1 Michael Kitchen
VOICE 2 Peggy Ashcroft
VOICE 3 Mark Dignam
Directed by Peter Hall
The play was presented in a ‘platform performance’ by the National Theatre, London, o
n 13 February 1981, with the same cast and director. The decor was by John Bury.
Family Voices was subsequently presented with A Kind of Alaska and Victoria Station as part of the triple bill Other Places, first performed at the National Theatre, London, on 14 October 1982. The cast was as follows:
VOICE 1 Nigel Havers
VOICE 2 Anna Massey
VOICE 3 Paul Rogers
Directed by Peter Hall
VOICE 1 I am having a very nice time.
The weather is up and down, but surprisingly warm, on the whole, more often than not.
I hope you’re feeling well, and not as peaky as you did, the last time I saw you.
No, you didn’t feel peaky, you felt perfectly well, you simply looked peaky.
Do you miss me?
I am having a very nice time and I hope you are glad of that.
At the moment I am dead drunk.
I had five pints in The Fishmongers Arms tonight, followed by three double Scotches, and literally rolled home.
When I say home I can assure you that my room is extremely pleasant. So is the bathroom. Extremely pleasant. I have some very pleasant baths indeed in the bathroom. So does everybody else in the house. They all lie quite naked in the bath and have very pleasant baths indeed. All the people in the house go about saying what a superb bath and bathroom the one we share is, they go about telling literally everyone they meet what lovely baths you can get in this place, more or less unparalleled, to put it bluntly.
The Short Plays of Harold Pinter Page 31