Beatie (softly) No, I don’t know. I won’t know till he come here. From the first day I went to work as waitress in the Dell Hotel and saw him working in the kitchen I fell in love – and I thought it was easy. I thought everything was easy. I chased him for three months with compliments and presents until I finally give myself to him. He never said he love me nor I didn’t care but once he’d taken me he seemed to think he was responsible for me and I told him no different. I’d make him love me I thought. I didn’t know much about him except he was different and used to write most of the time. And then he went back to London and I followed him there. I’ve never moved far from home but I did for him and he felt all the time he couldn’t leave me and I didn’t tell him no different. And then I got to know more about him. He was interested in all the things I never even thought about. About politics and art and all that, and he tried to teach me. He’s a socialist and he used to say you couldn’t bring socialism to a country by making speeches, but perhaps you could pass it on to someone who was near you. So I pretended I was interested – but I didn’t understand much. All the time he’s trying to teach me but I can’t take it Jenny. And yet, at the same time, I want to show I’m willing. I’m not used to learning. Learning was at school and that’s finished with.
Jenny Blust gal, you don’t seem like you’re going to be happy then. Like I said.
Beatie But I love him.
Jenny Then you’re not right in the head then.
Beatie I couldn’t have any other life now.
Jenny Well, I don’t know and that’s a fact.
Beatie (playfully mocking her) Well I don’t know and that’s a fact! (Suddenly.) Come on gal, I’ll teach you how to bake some pastries.
Jenny Pastries?
Beatie Ronnie taught me.
Jenny Oh, you learnt that much then?
Beatie But he don’t know. I always got annoyed when he tried to teach me to cook as well – Christ! I had to know something – but it sank in all the same.
By this time it has become quite dark and Jenny proceeds to light a Tilley lamp.
Jenny You didn’t make it easy then?
Beatie Oh don’t you worry, gal, it’ll be all right once we’re married. Once we’re married and I got babies I won’t need to be interested in half the things I got to be interested in now.
Jenny No you won’t will you! Don’t need no education for babies.
Beatie Nope. Babies is babies – you just have ’em.
Jenny Little sods!
Beatie You gonna hev another Jenny?
Jenny Well, course I am. What you on about? Think Jimmy don’t want none of his own?
Beatie He’s a good man Jenny.
Jenny Yearp.
Beatie Not many men’d marry you after you had a baby.
Jenny No.
Beatie He didn’t ask you any questions? Who was the father? Nor nothing?
Jenny No.
Beatie You hevn’t told no one hev you Jenny?
Jenny No, that I hevn’t.
Beatie Well, that’s it gal, don’t you tell me then!
By this time the methylated spirit torch has burned out and Jenny has finished pumping the Tilley lamp and we are in brightness.
Jenny (severely) Now Beatie, stop it. Every time you come home you ask me that question and I hed enough. It’s finished with and over. No one don’t say nothing and no one know. You hear me?
Beatie Are you in love with Jimmy?
Jenny Love? I don’t believe in any of that squit – we just got married, an’ that’s that.
Beatie (suddenly looking around the room at the general chaos) Jenny Beales, just look at this house. Look at it!
Jenny I’m looking. What’s wrong?
Beatie Let’s clean it up.
Jenny Clean what up?
Beatie Are you going to live in this house all your life?
Jenny You gonna buy us another?
Beatie Stuck out here in the wilds with only ole Stan Mann and his missus as a neighbour and sand pits all around. Every time it rain look you’re stranded.
Jenny Jimmy don’t earn enough for much more ’n we got.
Beatie But it’s so untidy.
Jenny You don’ wan’ me bein’ like sister Susan do you? ’Cos you know how clean she is don’ you – she’s so bloody fussy she’s gotten to polishing the brass overflow pipe what leads out from the lavatory.
Beatie Come on gal, let’s make some order anyway – I love tidying up.
Jenny What about the pastries? Pastries? Oh my sainted aunt, the bread! (Dashes to the oven and brings out a most beautiful-looking plaited loaf of bread. Admiring it.) Well, no one wanna complain after that. Isn’t that beautiful Beatie?
Beatie I could eat it now.
Jenny You hungry again?
Beatie (making an attack upon the clothes that are lying around) I’m always hungry again. Ronnie say I eat more’n I need. ‘If you get fat woman I’ll leave you – without even a discussion!’
Jenny (placing bread on large oval plate to put away) Well, there ent nothin’ wrong in bein’ fat.
Beatie You ent got no choice gal. (Seeing bike.) A bike! What’s a bike doin’ in a livin’ room – I’m putting it outside.
Jenny Jimmy ’ont know where it is.
Beatie Don’t be daft, you can’t miss a bike. (Wheels it outside and calls from there.) Jenny! Start puttin’ the clothes away.
Jenny Blust gal, I ent got nowhere to put them.
Beatie (from outside) You got drawers – you got cupboards.
Jenny They’re full already.
Beatie (entering – energy sparks from her) Come here – let’s look. (Looks.) Oh, go away – you got enough room for ten families. You just bung it all in with no order, that’s why. Here – help me.
They drag out all manner of clothes from the cupboard and begin to fold them up.
How’s my Frankie and Pearl?
Jenny They’re all right. You know she and Mother don’t talk to each other?
Beatie What, again? Who’s fault is it this time?
Jenny Well, Mother she say it’s Pearl’s fault and Pearl she say it’s Mother.
Beatie Well, they wanna get together quick and find whose fault ’tis ’cos I’m going to call the whole family together for tea to meet Ronnie.
Jenny Well, Susan and Mother don’t talk neither so you got a lot of peace-making to do.
Beatie Well go t’hell, what’s broken them two up?
Jenny Susan hev never bin stuck on her mother, you know that don’t you – well, it seems that Susan bought something off the club from Pearl and Pearl give it to Mother and Mother sent it to Susan through the fishmonger what live next door her in the council houses. And of course Susan were riled ’cos she didn’t want her neighbours to know that she bought anything off the club. So they don’t speak.
Beatie Kids! It makes me mad.
Jenny And you know what ’tis with Pearl don’t you – it’s ’cos Mother hev never thought she was good enough for her son Frankie.
Beatie No more she wasn’t neither!
Jenny What’s wrong wi’ her then? I get on all right.
Beatie Nothing’s wrong wi’ her, she just wasn’t good enough for our Frankie, that’s all.
Jenny Who’s being small-minded now?
Beatie Always wantin’ more’n he can give her.
Jenny An’ I know someone else who always wanted more’n she got.
Beatie (sulkily) It’s not the same thing.
Jenny Oh yes ’tis.
Beatie ’Tent.
Jenny ’Tis my gal. (Mimicking the child Beatie.) I wan’ a ’nana, a ’nana, a ’nana. Frankie’s got my ’nana, ’nana, ’nana.
Beatie Well, I liked bananas.
Jenny You liked anything you could get your hands on and Mother used to give in to you ’cos you were the youngest. Me and Susan and Frankie never got nothing ’cos o’ you – ’cept a clout round the ear.
Beatie ’Tent so likely. You
got everything and I got nothing.
Jenny All we got was what we pinched out the larder and then you used to go and tell tales to Mother.
Beatie I never did.
Jenny Oh, didn’t you my gal? Many’s the time I’d’ve willingly strangled you – with no prayers – there you are, no prayers whatsoever. Strangled you till you was dead.
Beatie Oh go on wi’ you Jenny Beales.
By now they have finished folding the clothes and have put away most of the laundry and garments that have till this moment cluttered up the room. Beatie says ‘There’, stands up and looks around, finds some coats sprawled helter-skelter, and hangs them up behind the door.
I’ll buy you some coat-hangers.
Jenny You get me a couple o’ coats to hang on ’em first please.
Beatie (looking around) What next. Bottles, jars, nicknacks, saucepans, cups, papers – everything anywhere. Look at it! Come on!
Beatie attempts to get these things either into their proper places or out of sight.
Jenny You hit this place like a bloody whirlwind you do, like a bloody whirlwind. Jimmy’ll think he’ve come into the wrong house and I shan’t be able to find a thing.
Beatie Here, grab a broom. (She is now gurgling with sort of animal noises signifying excitement. Her joy is childlike.) How’s Poppy?
Jenny Tight as ever.
Beatie What won’t he give you now?
Jenny ’Tent nothing wi’ me gal. Nothing he do don’t affect me. It’s Mother I’m referring to.
Beatie Don’t he still give her much money?
Jenny Money? She hev to struggle and skint all the time – all the time. Well it ent never bin no different from when we was kids hev it?
Beatie No.
Jenny I tell you what. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mother were in debt all the time, that it wouldn’t. No. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Beatie Oh, never.
Jenny Well, what do you say that for Beatie – do you know how much he allow her a week look?
Beatie Six pounds?
Jenny Six pound be buggered. Four pounds ten! An’ she hev to keep house an’ buy her own clothes out of that.
Beatie Still, there’s only two on ’em.
Jenny You try keepin’ two people in food for four pound ten. She pay seven an’ six a week into Pearl’s club for clothes, two and six she hev on the pools, and a shilling a week on the Labour Tote. (Suddenly.) Blust! I forgot to say. Pearl won the Tote last week.
Beatie A hundred pounds?
Jenny A hundred pounds!
Beatie Well no one wrote me about it.
Jenny ’Cos you never wrote no one else.
Beatie What she gonna do wi’ it – buy a TV?
Jenny TV? Blust no. You know she hevn’t got electricity in that house. No, she say she’s gonna get some clothes for the kids.
There is a sound now of a drunk old man approaching, and alongside of it the voice of Jimmy. The drunk is singing: ‘I come from Bungay Town, I calls I Bungay Johnnie.’
Well I go t’hell if that ent Stan Mann drunk again. And is that Jimmy wi’ him? (Listens.)
Beatie But I thought Stan Mann was paralysed.
Jenny That don’t stop him getting paralytic drunk. (Listens again.) That’s Jimmy taking him into the house I bet. A fortune that man hev drunk away – a whole bleedin’ fortune. Remember the fleet of cars he used to run and all that land he owned, and all them cattle he had and them fowl? Well, he’ve only got a few acres left and a few ole chickens. He drink it all away. Two strokes he’ve had from drinking and now he’s paralysed down one side. But that don’t stop him getting drunk – no it don’t.
Jimmy enters and throws his jacket on the couch, takes off his boots and gaiters, and smiles meanwhile.
Jimmy Silly ole bugger.
Jenny I was just telling Beatie how he’ve drunk a fortune away hevn’t he?
Jimmy He wanna drink a little more often and he’ll be finished for good.
Jenny Didn’t he hev all them cows and cars and land Jimmy? And didn’t he drink it all away bit by bit?
Jimmy Silly ole sod don’t know when to stop.
Jenny I wished I had half the money he drink.
Jimmy He messed his pants.
Jenny He what? Well where was this then?
Jimmy By the allotment.
Jenny Well, what did you do then?
Jimmy He come up to me – ’course I knowed he were drunk the way he walk – he come up to me an’ he say, ‘’Evenin’ Jimmy Beales, thaas a fine turnover you got there.’ An’ I say, ‘Yearp ’tis.’ An’ then he bend down to pick a carrot from the ground an’ then he cry, ‘Oops, I done it again!’ An’ ’course, soon ever he say ‘done it again’ I knowed what’d happened. So I took his trousers down an’ ran the ole hose over him.
Beatie Oh, Jimmy, you never did.
Jimmy I did gal. I put the ole hose over him an’ brought him home along the fields with an ole sack around his waist.
Beatie He’ll catch his death.
Jimmy Never – he’s strong as an ox.
Jenny What’d you do with his trousers and things?
Jimmy Put it on the compost heap – good for the land!
Now Stan Mann enters. He’s not all that drunk. The cold water has sobered him a little. He is old – about seventy-five – and despite his slight stoop one can see he was a very strong upright man. He probably looks like every man’s idea of a farmer – except that he wears no socks or boots at this moment and he hobbles on a stick.
Stan Sorry about that ole son.
Jimmy Don’t you go worrying about that my manny – get you along to bed.
Jenny Get some shoes on you too Stan, or you’ll die of cold and booze.
Stan (screwing up his eyes across the room) Is that you Jenny? Hello ole gal. How are you?
Jenny It’s you you wanna worry about now ole matey. I’m well enough.
Stan (screwing his eyes still more) Who’s that next to you?
Jenny Don’t you recognise her? It’s our Beatie, Stan.
Stan Is that you Beatie? Well blust gal, you gotten fatter since I seen you last. You gonna be fat as Jenny here? Come on over an’ let’s look at you.
Beatie (approaching) Hello Stan Mann, how are you?
Stan (looking her up and down) Well enough gal, well enough. You married yit?
Beatie No.
Stan You bin courtin’ three years. Why ent you married yit?
Beatie (slightly embarrassed) We ent sure yit.
Stan You ent sure you say? What ent you sure of? You know how to do it don’t you?
Jenny Go on wi’ you to bed Stan Mann.
Stan Tell your boy he don’t wanna waste too much time or I’ll be hevin’ yer myself for breakfast – on a plate.
Jenny Stan Mann, I’m sendin’ you to your bed – go on now, off wi’ you, you can see Beatie in the mornin’.
Stan (as he is ushered out – to Beatie) She’s fat ent she? I’m not sayin’ she won’t do mind, but she’s fat. (As he goes out.) All right ole sweetheart, I’m goin’. I’m just right for bed. Did you see the new bridge they’re building? It’s a rum ole thing isn’t it . . . (Out of sound.)
Jenny makes up bed on couch for Beatie.
Jimmy Well, I’m ready for bed.
Beatie I can’t bear sick men. They smell.
Jimmy Ole Stan’s all right – do anythin’ for you.
Beatie I couldn’t look after one you know.
Jimmy Case of hevin’ to sometimes.
Beatie Ronnie’s father’s paralysed like that. I can’t touch him.
Jimmy Who see to him then?
Beatie His mother. She wash him, change him, feed him. Ronnie help sometimes. I couldn’t though. Ronnie say, ‘Christ, woman, I hope you aren’t around when I’m ill.’ (Shudders.) Ole age terrify me.
Jimmy You sleepin’ on that ole couch tonight?
Beatie Suppose so.
Jimmy You comfortable sleepin’ on that ole
thing? You wanna sleep with Jenny while you’re here?
Beatie No thanks, Jimmy. (She is quite subdued now.) I’m all right on there.
Jimmy Right, then I’m off. (Looking around.) Where’s the Evening News I brought in?
Jenny (entering) You off to bed?
Jimmy Yearp. Reckon I’ve had ’nough of this ole day. Where’s my News?
Jenny Where d’you put it Beatie?
Jimmy (suddenly seeing the room) Blust, you movin’ out?
Beatie Here you are Jimmy Beales. (Hands him paper.) It’s all tidy now.
Jimmy So I see. Won’t last long though will it? ’Night. (Goes to bed.)
Jenny Well I’m ready for my bed too – how about you Beatie?
Beatie Yearp.
Jenny (taking a candle in a stick and lighting it) Here, keep this with you. Your bed’s made. Want a drink before you turn in?
Beatie No thanks gal.
Jenny (picking up Tilley lamp. Leaving) Right then. Sleep well gal.
Beatie Good night Jenny. (Pause. Loud whispers from now on.) Hey Jenny.
Jenny What is it?
Beatie I’ll bake you some pastries when I get to Mother’s.
Jenny Father won’t let you use his electricity for me, don’t talk daft.
Beatie I’ll get Mother on him. It’ll be all right. Your ole ovens weren’t big ’nough anyways. Good night.
Moves to door.
Jenny Good night.
Beatie (an afterthought) Hey Jenny.
Jenny (returning) What now?
Beatie Did I tell you I took up painting?
Jenny Painting?
Beatie Yes – on cardboard and canvases with brushes.
Jenny What kind of painting?
Beatie Abstract painting – designs and patterns and such like. I can’t do nothing else. I sent two on ’em home. Show you when you come round – if Mother hevn’t thrown them out.
Jenny You’re an artist then?
Pause. Such a thought had not occurred to her before. It pleases, even thrills, her.
Beatie Yes. Good night.
Jenny Good night.
Beatie is left alone. Looks out of window. Blows out candle. We see only the faint glow of moonlight from outside and then –
The curtain falls.
Roots (Modern Plays) Page 3