The Short Plays of Harold Pinter
Page 37
YOUNG WOMAN I do not speak the mountain language.
Silence. The OFFICER and SERGEANT slowly circle her. The SERGEANT puts his hand on her bottom.
SERGEANT What language do you speak? What language do you speak with your arse?
OFFICER These women, Sergeant, have as yet committed no crime. Remember that.
SERGEANT Sir! But you’re not saying they’re without sin?
OFFICER Oh, no. Oh, no, I’m not saying that.
SERGEANT This one’s full of it. She bounces with it.
OFFICER She doesn’t speak the mountain language.
The WOMAN moves away from the SERGEANT’s hand and turns to face the two men.
YOUNG WOMAN My name is Sara Johnson. I have come to see my husband. It is my right. Where is he?
OFFICER Show me your papers.
She gives him a piece of paper. He examines it, turns to SERGEANT.
He doesn’t come from the mountains. He’s in the wrong batch.
SERGEANT So is she. She looks like a fucking intellectual to me.
OFFICER But you said her arse wobbled.
SERGEANT Intellectual arses wobble the best.
Blackout.
Two
VISITORS’ ROOM
A PRISONER sitting. The ELDERLY WOMAN sitting, with basket. A GUARD standing behind her.
The PRISONER and the WOMAN speak in a strong rural accent.
Silence.
ELDERLY WOMAN I have bread –
The GUARD jabs her with a stick.
GUARD Forbidden. Language forbidden.
She looks at him. He jabs her.
It’s forbidden. (TO PRISONER.) Tell her to speak the language of the capital.
PRISONER She can’t speak it.
Silence.
She doesn’t speak it.
Silence.
ELDERLY WOMAN I have apples –
The GUARD jabs her and shouts.
GUARD Forbidden! Forbidden forbidden forbidden!
Jesus Christ! (TO PRISONER) Does she understand what I’m saying?
PRISONER No.
GUARD Doesn’t she?
He bends over her.
Don’t you?
She stares up at him.
PRISONER She’s old. She doesn’t understand.
GUARD Whose fault is that?
He laughs.
Not mine, I can tell you. And I’ll tell you another thing. I’ve got a wife and three kids. And you’re all a pile of shit.
Silence.
PRISONER I’ve got a wife and three kids.
GUARD You’ve what?
Silence.
You’ve got what?
Silence.
What did you say to me? You’ve got what?
Silence.
You’ve got what?
He picks up the telephone and dials one digit.
Sergeant? I’m in the Blue Room … yes … I thought I should report, Sergeant … I think I’ve got a joker in here.
Lights to half. The figures are still.
Voices over:
ELDERLY WOMAN’S VOICE The baby is waiting for you.
PRISONER’S VOICE Your hand has been bitten.
ELDERLY WOMAN’S VOICE They are all waiting for you.
PRISONER’S VOICE They have bitten my mother’s hand.
ELDERLY WOMAN’S VOICE When you come home there will be such a welcome for you. Everyone is waiting for you. They’re all waiting for you. They’re all waiting to see you.
Lights up. The SERGEANT comes in.
SERGEANT What joker?
Blackout.
Three
VOICE IN THE DARKNESS
SERGEANT’S VOICE Who’s that fucking woman? What’s that fucking woman doing here? Who let that fucking woman through that fucking door?
SECOND GUARD’S VOICE She’s his wife.
Lights up.
A corridor.
A HOODED MAN held up by the GUARD and the SERGEANT. The YOUNG WOMAN at a distance from them, staring at them.
SERGEANT What is this, a reception for Lady Duck Muck? Where’s the bloody Babycham? Who’s got the bloody Babycham for Lady Duck Muck?
He goes to the YOUNG WOMAN.
Hello, Miss. Sorry. A bit of a breakdown in administration, I’m afraid. They’ve sent you through the wrong door. Unbelievable. Someone’ll be done for this. Anyway, in the meantime, what can I do for you, dear lady, as they used to say in the movies?
Lights to half. The figures are still.
Voices over:
MAN’S VOICE I watch you sleep. And then your eyes open. You look up at me above you and smile.
YOUNG WOMAN’S VOIVE You smile. When my eyes open I see you above me and smile.
MAN’S VOICE We are out on a lake.
YOUNG WOMAN’S VOIVE It is spring.
MAN’S VOICE I hold you. I warm you.
YOUNG WOMAN’S VOIVE When my eyes open I see you above me and smile.
Lights up. The HOODED MAN collapses. The YOUNG WOMAN screams.
YOUNG WOMAN Charley!
The SERGEANT clicks his fingers. The GUARD drags the MAN off.
SERGEANT Yes, you’ve come in the wrong door. It must be the computer. The computer’s got a double hernia. But I’ll tell you what – if you want any information on any aspect of life in this place we’ve got a bloke comes into the office every Tuesday week, except when it rains. He’s right on top of his chosen subject. Give him a tinkle one of these days and he’ll see you all right. His name is Dokes. Joseph Dokes.
YOUNG WOMAN Can I fuck him? If I fuck him, will everything be all right?
SERGEANT Sure. No problem.
YOUNG WOMAN Thank you.
Blackout.
Four
VISITORS ROOM
GUARD, ELDERLY WOMAN, PRISONER.
Silence.
The PRISONER has blood on his face. He sits trembling. The WOMAN is still. The GUARD is looking out of a window. He turns to look at them both.
GUARD Oh, I forgot to tell you. They’ve changed the rules. She can speak. She can speak in her own language. Until further notice.
PRISONER She can speak?
GUARD Yes. Until further notice. New rules.
Pause.
PRISONER Mother, you can speak.
Pause.
Mother, I’m speaking to you. You see? We can speak. You can speak to me in our own language.
She is still.
You can speak.
Pause.
Mother. Can you hear me? I am speaking to you in our own language.
Pause.
Do you hear me?
Pause.
It’s our language.
Pause.
Can’t you hear me? Do you hear me?
She does not respond.
Mother?
GUARD Tell her she can speak in her own language. New rules. Until further notice.
PRISONER Mother?
She does not respond. She sits still.
The PRISONER’s trembling grows. He falls from the chair on to his knees, begins to gasp and shake violently.
The SERGEANT walks into the room and studies the PRISONER shaking on the floor.
SERGEANT (to GUARD) Look at this. You go out of your way to give them a helping hand and they fuck it up.
Blackout.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
The New World Order first published
in Granta, No. 37, Autumn 1991
© Fraser52 Limited, 1991
The New World Order was first performed on 19 July 1991 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London. The cast was as follows:
DES Bill Paterson
LIONEL Michael Byrne
BLINDFOLDED MAN Douglas McFerran
Directed by Harold Pinter
Designed by Ian MacNeil
Lighting by Kevin Sleep
Characters
DES
LIONEL
BLINDFOLDED MAN
A BLINDFOLDED MAN sitting on a chair.
DES Do you want to know something about this man?
LIONEL What?
DES He hasn’t got any idea at all of what we’re going to do to him.
LIONEL He hasn’t, no.
DES He hasn’t, no. He hasn’t got any idea at all about any one of the number of things that we might do to him.
LIONEL That we will do to him.
DES That we will.
Pause.
Well, some of them. We’ll do some of them.
LIONEL Sometimes we do all of them.
DES That can be counterproductive.
LIONEL Bollocks.
They study the man. He is still.
DES But anyway here he is, here he is sitting here, and he hasn’t the faintest idea of what we might do to him.
LIONEL Well, he probably has the faintest idea.
DES A faint idea, yes. Possibly.
DES bends over the man.
Have you? What do you say?
He straightens.
Let’s put it this way. He has little idea of what we might do to him, of what in fact we are about to do to him.
LIONEL Or his wife. Don’t forget his wife. He has little idea of what we’re about to do to his wife.
DES Well, he probably has some idea, he’s probably got some idea. After all, he’s read the papers.
LIONEL What papers?
Pause.
DES You’re right there.
LIONEL Who is this cunt anyway? What is he, some kind of peasant – or a lecturer in theology?
DES He’s a lecturer in fucking peasant theology.
LIONEL Is he? What about his wife?
DES Women don’t have theological inclinations.
LIONEL Oh, I don’t know. I used to discuss that question with my mother – quite often.
DES What question?
LIONEL Oh you know, the theological aspirations of the female.
Pause.
DES What did she say?
LIONEL She said …
DES What?
Pause.
LIONEL I can’t remember.
He turns to the man in the chair.
Motherfucker.
DES Fuckpig.
They walk round the chair.
LIONEL You know what I find really disappointing?
DES What?
LIONEL The level of ignorance that surrounds us. I mean, this prick here –
DES You called him a cunt last time.
LIONEL What?
DES You called him a cunt last time. Now you call him a prick. How many times do I have to tell you? You’ve got to learn to define your terms and stick to them. You can’t call him a cunt in one breath and a prick in the next. The terms are mutually contradictory. You’d lose face in any linguistic discussion group, take my tip.
LIONEL Christ. Would I?
DES Definitely. And you know what it means to you. You know what language means to you.
LIONEL Yes, I do know.
DES Yes, you do know. Look at this man here, for example. He’s a first-class example. See what I mean? Before he came in here he was a big shot, he never stopped shooting his mouth off, he never stopped questioning received ideas. Now – because he’s apprehensive about what’s about to happen to him – he’s stopped all that, he’s got nothing more to say, he’s more or less called it a day. I mean once – not too long ago – this man was a man of conviction, wasn’t he, a man of principle. Now he’s just a prick.
LIONEL Or a cunt.
DES And we haven’t even finished with him. We haven’t begun.
LIONEL No, we haven’t even finished with him. We haven’t even finished with him! Well, we haven’t begun.
DES And there’s still his wife to come.
LIONEL That’s right. We haven’t finished with him. We haven’t even begun. And we haven’t finished with his wife either.
DES We haven’t even begun.
LIONEL puts his hand over his face and sobs.
DES What are you crying about?
LIONEL I love it. I love it. I love it.
He grasps des’s shoulder.
Look. I have to tell you. I’ve got to tell you. There’s no one else I can tell.
DES All right. Fine. Go on. What is it? Tell me.
Pause.
LIONEL I feel so pure.
Pause.
DES Well, you’re right. You’re right to feel pure. You know why?
LIONEL Why?
DES Because you’re keeping the world clean for democracy.
They look into each other’s eyes.
I’m going to shake you by the hand.
DES shakes LIONEL’s hand. He then gestures to the man in the chair with his thumb.
And so will he … (He looks at his watch.) in about thirty-five minutes.
PARTY TIME
Party Time first published
by Faber and Faber Ltd 1991
© Fraser52 Limited, 1991
Party Time was first performed by the Almeida Theatre Company at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 31 October 1991. The cast was as follows:
TERRY Peter Howitt
GAVIN Barry Foster
DUSTY Cordelia Roche
MELISSA Dorothy Tutin
LIZ Tacye Nichols
CHARLOTTE Nicola Pagett
FRED Roger Lloyd Pack
DOUGLAS Gawn Grainger
JIMMY Harry Burton
Directed by Harold Pinter
Designed by Mark Thompson
Characters
TERRY
a man of forty
GAVIN
a man in his fifties
DUSTY
a woman in her twenties
MELISSA
a woman of seventy
LIZ
a woman in her thirties
CHARLOTTE
a woman in her thirties
FRED
a man in his forties
DOUGLAS
a man of fifty
JIMMY
a young man
GAVIN’s flat.
A large room. Sofas, armchairs, etc. People sitting, standing. A WAITER with a drinks tray.
Two doors. One door, which is never used, is half open, in a dim light.
GAVIN and TERRY stand in foreground. The others sit in half-light, drinking.
Spasmodic party music throughout the play.
TERRY I tell you, it’s got everything.
GAVIN Has it?
TERRY Oh, yes. Real class.
GAVIN Really?
TERRY Real class. I mean, what I mean to say, you play a game of tennis, you have a beautiful swim, they’ve got a bar right there –
GAVIN Where?
TERRY By the pool. You can have a fruit juice on the spot, no extra charge, then they give you this fantastic hot towel –
GAVIN Hot?
TERRY Wonderful. And I mean hot. I’m not joking.
GAVIN Like the barber.
TERRY Barber?
GAVIN In the barber shop. When I was a boy.
TERRY Oh yes?
Pause.
What do you mean?
GAVIN They used to put a hot towel over your face, you see, over your nose and eyes. I had it done thousands of times. It got rid of all the blackheads, all the blackheads on your face.
TERRY Blackheads?
GAVIN It burnt them out. The towels, you see, were as hot as you could stand. That’s what the barber used to say: ‘Hot enough for you, sir?’ It burnt all the blackheads out of your skin.
Pause.
I was born in the West Country, of course. So I could be talking only of West Country barber shops. But on the other hand I’m pretty sure that hot towels for blackheads were used in barber shops throughout the land in those days. Yes, I believe it was common practice in those days.
TERRY Well, I’m sure it was. I’m sure it was. But no, these towels I’m talking about are big bath towels, towels for the body, I’
m just talking about pure comfort, that’s why I’m telling you, the place has got real class, it’s got everything. Mind you, there’s a waiting list as long as – I mean you’ve got to be proposed and seconded, and then they’ve got to check you out, they don’t let any old spare bugger in there, why should they?
GAVIN Quite right.
TERRY But of course it goes without saying that someone like yourself would be warmly welcome – as an honorary member.
GAVIN How kind.
DUSTY walks through the door and joins them.
DUSTY Did you hear what’s happened to Jimmy? What’s happened to Jimmy?
TERRY Nothing’s happened.
DUSTY Nothing?
GAVIN Nobody is discussing this. Nobody’s discussing it, sweetie. Do you follow me? Nothing’s happened to Jimmy. And if you’re not a good girl I’ll spank you.