The Short Plays of Harold Pinter

by The Short Plays of Harold Pinter (retail) (epub)

  BEL Yes, you always entertained a healthy lust for her.

  ANDY A healthy lust? Do you think so?

  BEL And she for you.

  ANDY Has that been the whisper along the white sands of the blue Caribbean? I’m dying. Am I dying?

  BEL If you were dying you’d be dead.

  ANDY How do you work that out?

  BEL You’d be dead if you were dying.

  ANDY I sometimes think I’m married to a raving lunatic! But I’m always prepared to look on the sunny side of things. You mean I’ll see spring again? I’ll see another spring? All the paraphernalia of flowers?

  BEL What a lovely use of language. You know, you’ve never used language in such a way before. You’ve never said such a thing before.

  ANDY Oh so what? I’ve said other things, haven’t I? Plenty of other things. All my life. All my life I’ve been saying plenty of other things.

  BEL Yes, it’s quite true that all your life in all your personal and social attachments the language you employed was mainly coarse, crude, vacuous, puerile, obscene and brutal to a degree. Most people were ready to vomit after no more than ten minutes in your company. But this is not to say that beneath this vicious some would say demented exterior there did not exist a delicate even poetic sensibility, the sensibility of a young horse in the golden age, in the golden past of our forefathers.

  Silence.

  ANDY Anyway, admit it. You always entertained a healthy lust for Maria yourself. And she for you. But let me make something quite clear. I was never jealous. I was not jealous then. Nor am I jealous now.

  BEL Why should you be jealous? She was your mistress. Throughout the early and lovely days of our marriage.

  ANDY She must have reminded me of you.

  Pause.

  The past is a mist.

  Pause.

  Once … I remember this … once … a woman walked towards me across a darkening room.

  Pause.

  BEL That was me.

  Pause.

  ANDY You?

  Third area.

  Faint light. BRIDGET.

  BRIDGET I am walking slowly in a dense jungle. But I’m not suffocating. I can breathe. That is because I can see the sky through the leaves.

  Pause.

  I’m surrounded by flowers. Hibiscus, oleander, bougainvillea, jacaranda. The turf under my feet is soft.

  Pause.

  I crossed so many fierce landscapes to get here. Thorns, stones, stinging nettles, barbed wire, skeletons of men and women in ditches. There was no hiding there. There was no yielding. There was no solace, no shelter.

  Pause.

  But here there is shelter. I can hide. I am hidden. The flowers surround me but they don’t imprison me. I am free. Hidden but free. I’m a captive no longer. I’m lost no longer. No one can find me or see me. I can be seen only by eyes of the jungle, eyes in the leaves. But they don’t want to harm me.

  Pause.

  There is a smell of burning. A velvet odour, very deep, an echo like a bell.

  Pause.

  No one in the world can find me.

  Fred’s bedroom.

  FRED and JAKE, sitting at a table.

  JAKE What did you say your name was? I’ve made a note of it somewhere.

  FRED Macpherson.

  JAKE That’s funny. I thought it was Gonzalez. I would be right in saying you were born in Tooting Common?

  FRED I came here at your urgent request. You wanted to consult me.

  JAKE Did I go that far?

  FRED When I say ‘you’ I don’t of course mean you. I mean ‘they’.

  JAKE You mean Kellaway.

  FRED Kellaway? I don’t know Kellaway.

  JAKE You don’t?

  FRED Yours was the name they gave me.

  JAKE What name was that?

  FRED Saunders.

  JAKE Oh quite.

  FRED They didn’t mention Kellaway.

  JAKE When you say ‘they’ I take it you don’t mean ‘they’?

  FRED I mean a man called Sims.

  JAKE Jim Sims?

  FRED No.

  JAKE Well, if it isn’t Jim Sims I can’t imagine what Sims you can possibly be talking about.

  FRED That’s no skin off my nose.

  JAKE I fervently hope you’re right.

  JAKE examines papers.

  Oh by the way, Manning’s popping in to see you in a few minutes.

  FRED Manning?

  JAKE Yes, just to say hello. He can’t stay long. He’s on his way to Huddersfield.

  FRED Manning?

  JAKE Huddersfield, yes.

  FRED I don’t know any Manning.

  JAKE I know you don’t. That’s why he’s popping in to see you.

  FRED Now look here. I think this is getting a bit out of court. First Kellaway, now Manning. Two men I have not only never met but have never even heard of. I’m going to have to take this back to my people, I’m afraid. I’ll have to get a further briefing on this.

  JAKE Oh I’m terribly sorry – of course – you must know Manning by his other name.

  FRED What’s that?

  JAKE Rawlings.

  FRED I know Rawlings.

  JAKE I had no right to call him Manning.

  FRED Not if he’s the Rawlings I know.

  JAKE He is the Rawlings you know.

  FRED Well, this quite clearly brings us straight back to Kellaway. What’s Kellaway’s other name?

  JAKE Saunders.

  Pause.

  FRED But that’s your name.

  RALPH to JAKE and FRED.

  RALPH Were you keen on the game of soccer when you were lads, you boys? Probably not. Probably thinking of other things. Kissing girls. Foreign literature. Snooker. I know the form. I can tell by the complexion, I can tell by the stance, I can tell by the way a man holds himself whether he has an outdoor disposition or not. Your father could never be described as a natural athlete. Not by a long chalk. The man was a thinker. Well, there’s a place in this world for thinking, I certainly wouldn’t argue with that. The trouble with so much thinking, though, or with that which calls itself thinking, is that it’s like farting Annie Laurie down a keyhole. A waste of your time and mine. What do you think this thinking is pretending to do? Eh? It’s pretending to make things clear, you see, it’s pretending to clarify things. But what’s it really doing? Eh? What do you think? I’ll tell you. It’s confusing you, it’s blinding you, it’s sending the mind into a spin, it’s making you dizzy, it’s making you so dizzy that by the end of the day you don’t know whether you’re on your arse or your elbow, you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. I’ve always been a pretty vigorous man myself. I had a seafaring background. I was the captain of a lugger. The bosun’s name was Ripper. But after years at sea I decided to give the Arts a chance generally. I had tried a bit of amateur refereeing but it didn’t work out. But I had a natural talent for acting and I also played the piano and I could paint. But I should have been an architect. That’s where the money is. It was your mother and father woke me up to poetry and art. They changed my life. And then of course I married my wife. A fine woman but demanding. She was looking for fibre and guts. Her eyes were black and appalling. I dropped dead at her feet. It was all go at that time. Love, football, the arts, the occasional pint. Mind you, I preferred a fruity white wine but you couldn’t actually say that in those days.

  Third area.

  JAKE (eighteen), FRED (seventeen), BRIDGET (fourteen).

  BRIDGET and FRED on the floor, JAKE standing.

  A cassette playing.

  FRED Why can’t I come?

  JAKE I’ve told you. There isn’t room in the car.

  BRIDGET Oh take him with you.

  JAKE There’s no room in the car. It’s not my car. I’m just a passenger. I’m lucky to get a lift myself.

  FRED But if I can’t come with you what am I going to do all night? I’ll have to stay here with her.

  BRIDGET Oh God, I wish you�
��d take him with you. Otherwise I’ll have to stay here with him.

  JAKE Well, you are related.

  FRED That’s the trouble.

  BRIDGET (to FRED) You’re related to him too.

  FRED Yes, but once I got to this gig I’d lose him. We wouldn’t see each other again. He’s merely a method of transport. Emotion or family allegiances don’t come into it.

  BRIDGET Oh well go with him then.

  JAKE I’ve told you, he can’t. There isn’t any room in the car. It’s not my car! I haven’t got a car.

  FRED That’s what’s so tragic about the whole business. If you had a car none of this would be taking place.

  BRIDGET Look, I don’t want him to stay here with me, I can assure you, I actually want to be alone.

  FRED Greta Garbo! Are you going to be a film star when you grow up?

  BRIDGET Oh shut up. You know what I’m going to be.

  FRED What?

  BRIDGET A physiotherapist.

  JAKE She’ll be a great physiotherapist.

  FRED She’ll have to play very soothing music so that her patients won’t notice their suffering.

  BRIDGET I did your neck the other day and you didn’t complain.

  FRED That’s true.

  BRIDGET You had a spasm and I released it.

  FRED That’s true.

  BRIDGET You didn’t complain then.

  FRED I’m not complaining now. I think you’re wonderful. I know you’re wonderful. And I know you’ll make a wonderful physiotherapist. But I still want to get to this gig in Amersham. That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re wonderful.

  BRIDGET Oh go to Amersham, please! You don’t think I need anyone to stay with me, do you? I’m not a child. Anyway, I’m reading this book.

  JAKE You don’t want to be all on your own.

  BRIDGET I do want to be all on my own. I want to read this book.

  FRED I don’t even have a book. I mean – I have books – but they’re all absolutely unreadable.

  JAKE Well I’m off to Amersham.

  FRED What about me?

  BRIDGET Oh for God’s sake take him with you to Amersham or don’t take him with you to Amersham or shut up! Both of you!

  Pause.

  JAKE Well I’m off to Amersham.

  He goes. BRIDGET and FRED sit still. Music plays.

  ANDY’s room. ANDY and BEL.

  BEL I’m giving you a mushroom omelette today and a little green salad – and an apple.

  ANDY How kind you are. I’d be lost without you. It’s true. I’d flounder without you. I’d fall apart. Well, I’m falling apart as it is – but if I didn’t have you I’d stand no chance.

  BEL You’re not a bad man. You’re just what we used to call a loudmouth. You can’t help it. It’s your nature. If you only kept your mouth shut more of the time life with you might just be tolerable.

  ANDY Allow me to kiss your hand. I owe you everything.

  He watches her embroider.

  Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what are you making there? A winding sheet? Are you going to wrap me up in it when I conk out? You’d better get a move on. I’m going fast.

  Pause.

  Where are they?

  Pause.

  Two sons. Absent. Indifferent. Their father dying.

  BEL They were good boys. I’ve been thinking of how they used to help me with the washing-up. And the drying. The clearing of the table, the washing-up, the drying. Do you remember?

  ANDY You mean in the twilight? The soft light falling through the kitchen window? The bell ringing for Evensong in the pub round the corner?

  Pause.

  They were bastards. Both of them. Always. Do you remember that time I asked Jake to clean out the broom cupboard? Well – I told him – I admit it – I didn’t ask him – I told him that it was bloody filthy and that he hadn’t lifted a little finger all week. Nor had the other one. Lazy idle layabouts. Anyway all I did was to ask him – quite politely – to clean out the bloody broom cupboard. His defiance! Do you remember the way he looked at me? His defiance!

  Pause.

  And look at them now! What are they now! A sponging parasitical pair of ponces. Sucking the tit of the state. Sucking the tit of the state! And I bet you feed them a few weekly rupees from your little money-box, don’t you? Because they always loved their loving mother. They helped her with the washing-up!

  Pause.

  I’ve got to stretch my legs. Go over the Common, watch a game of football, rain or shine. What was the name of that old chum of mine? Used to referee amateur games every weekend? On the Common? Charming bloke. They treated him like shit. A subject of scorn. No decision he ever made was adhered to or respected. They shouted at him, they screamed at him, they called him every kind of prick. I used to watch in horror from the touchline. I’ll always remember his impotent whistle. It blows down to me through the ages, damp and forlorn. What was his name? And now I’m dying and he’s probably dead.

  BEL He’s not dead.

  ANDY Why not?

  Pause.

  What was his name?

  BEL Ralph.

  ANDY Ralph? Ralph? Can that be possible?

  Pause.

  Well, even if his name was Ralph he was still the most sensitive and intelligent of men. My oldest friend. But pathologically idiosyncratic, if he was anything. He was reliable enough when he was sitting down but you never knew where you were with him when he was standing up, I mean when he was on the move, when you were walking down the street with him. He was a reticent man, you see. He said little but he was always thinking. And the trouble was – his stride would keep pace with his thoughts. If he was thinking slowly he’d walk as if he was wading through mud or crawling out of a pot of apricot jam. If he was thinking quickly he walked like greased lightning, you couldn’t keep up with him, you were on your knees in the gutter while he was over the horizon in a flash. I always had a lot of sympathy for his sexual partner, whoever she may have been. I mean to say – one minute he’d be berserk – up to a thousand revolutions a second – and the next he’d be grinding to the most appalling and deadly halt. He was his own natural handbrake. Poor girl. There must be easier ways of making ends meet.

  Pause.

  Anyway, leaving him aside, if you don’t mind, for a few minutes, where is Maria? Why isn’t she here? I can’t die without her.

  BEL Oh of course you can. And you will.

  ANDY But think of our past. We were all so close. Think of the months I betrayed you with her. How can she forget? Think of the wonder of it. I betrayed you with your own girlfriend, she betrayed you with your husband and she betrayed her own husband – and me – with you! She broke every record in sight! She was a genius and a great fuck.

  BEL She was a very charming and attractive woman.

  ANDY Then why isn’t she here? She loved me, not to mention you. Why isn’t she here to console you in your grief.

  BEL She’s probably forgotten you’re dying. If she ever remembered.

  ANDY What! What!

  Pause.

  I had her in our bedroom, by the way, once or twice, on our bed. I was a man at the time.

  Pause.

  You probably had her in the same place, of course. In our bedroom, on our bed.

  BEL I don’t ‘have’ people.

  ANDY You’ve had me.

  BEL Oh you. Oh yes. I can still have you.

  ANDY What do you mean? Are you threatening me? What do you have in mind? Assault? Are you proposing to have me here and now? Without further ado? Would it be out of order to remind you that I’m on my deathbed? Or is that a solecism? What’s your plan, to kill me in the act, like a praying mantis? How much sexual juice does a corpse retain and for how long, for Christ’s sake? The truth is I’m basically innocent. I know little of women. But I’ve heard dread tales. Mainly from my old mate, the referee. But they were probably all fantasy and fabrication, bearing no relation whatsoever to reality.

  BEL Oh, do you think so
? Do you really think so?

  FRED’s room.

  FRED and JAKE, at the table.

  JAKE The meeting is scheduled for 6.30. Bellamy in the chair. Pratt, Hawkeye, Belcher and Rausch, Horsfall attending. Lieutenant-Colonel Silvio d’Orangerie will speak off the record at 7.15 precisely.

  FRED But Horsfall will be attending?

  JAKE Oh, Horsfall’s always steady on parade. Apart from that I’ve done the placement myself.

  FRED What are you, the permanent secretary?

  JAKE Indeed I am. Indeed I am.

  FRED Funny Hawkeye and Rausch being at the same table. Did you mention Bigsby?

  JAKE Why, did Hawkeye tangle with Rausch at Bromley? No, I didn’t mention Bigsby.

  FRED They were daggers drawn at Eastbourne.

  JAKE What, during the Buckminster hierarchy?

  FRED Buckminster? I never mentioned Buckminster.

  JAKE You mentioned Bigsby.

  FRED You’re not telling me that Bigsby is anything to do with Buckminster? Or that Buckminster and Bigsby –?

  JAKE I’m telling you nothing of the sort. Buckminster and Bigsby are two quite different people.

  FRED That’s always been my firm conviction.

  JAKE Well, thank goodness we agree about something.

  FRED I’ve never thought we were all that far apart.

  JAKE You mean where it matters most?

  FRED Quite. Tell me more about Belcher.

  JAKE Belcher? Who’s Belcher? Oh, Belcher! Sorry. I thought for a moment you were confusing Belcher with Bellamy. Because of the ‘B’s. You follow me?

  FRED Any confusion that exists in that area rests entirely in you, old chap.

  JAKE That’s a bit blunt, isn’t it? Are you always so blunt? After all, I’ve got a steady job here, which is more than can be said for you.

  FRED Listen son. I’ve come a long way down here to attend a series of highly confidential meetings in which my participation is seen to be a central factor. I’ve come a very long way and the people I left to man the bloody fort made quite clear to me a number of their very weighty misgivings. But I insisted and here I am. I want to see Bellamy, I want to see Belcher, I need to see Rausch, Pratt is a prat but Hawkeye is crucial. Frustrate any of this and you’ll regret it.