GHENT is standing at a working surface, cleaning half a dozen small fresh trout. His back is to the door, and he does not look round as GWEN and SON enter. GWEN appears more tense than before.
GWEN
So you’re cooking yet again!
GHENT
Yes, the novelty’s still not worn off. I took these down the brook early this morning. It’s good to see they’re still there to be caught. All this talk of pollution assumed vast proportions in my mind. I imagined great rafts of detergent foam spreading like cancer on the brook I caught trout in as a boy. But it was much the same as when Sadkin was alive. Who’s the new water bailiff, by the way? I’ll have to go and explain my little ways. . .
He breaks off as he senses something different about the presence behind him, and turns to see GWEN and her SON. SON clearly resembles his mother; and equally clearly does not resemble GHENT.
GHENT looks at them both for a long while as the relationship becomes clear to him.
GHENT (flatly)
Your son.
GWEN
My son. His name is Anghrist. He’ll be five next month.
Pause. SON says nothing, simply stands looking straight back at GHENT, close to his mother who rests her hand on his shoulder, holding him close to her.
GHENT
I gave you. . . .
GWEN
You gave me freedom to act as I chose. We both had freedom to act as we chose. I chose to have Anghrist. (pause) You chose to blow up the Duke of Wellington.
Pause.
GHENT
Who is the. . .
GWEN
No one you know. It lasted three years. An extended affaire. Then he went. I sent him away. He was no one you know.
GHENT
You never talked about me?
GWEN
No. He didn’t know you. Oh, he knew my (pause) situation. Others told him, I suppose.
GHENT
We shouldn’t talk about it in front of the boy.
GWEN
It doesn’t matter. He can’t understand.
GHENT (quickly?)
What’s wrong with him? Is he deaf?
GWEN
No. He just doesn’t understand English.
GHENT
He doesn’t speak English?!
GWEN
No. It’s what we believe in.
GHENT
We?
GWEN
His mother tongue. His mother’s tongue, as well.
Pause.
GHENT (violently)
Then he can be no part of me!
GWEN
He is no part of you. (pause) I’m not the person you took me to be.
GHENT
No, I realise that only too well. But you certainly took advantage of my thinking you were that person.
GWEN
Perhaps I never was. Or it’s different now.
GHENT is silent, turns back to his cooking. He seizes a carrot, arbitrarily, cuts it into pieces very rapidly, puts one piece in his mouth.
GHENT (to himself)
You can’t hear so well when you’re eating. (pause) Strange.
Pause. Then GHENT in BCU.
GHENT (to himself)
I can change, you know. (pause; then with a little doubt in his voice) I can change.
END OF PART ONE (at about 33 minutes)
PART TWO
9. INTERIOR. BEDROOM. DAY
GHENT is standing buttoning up a clean shirt, relaxed, happier-looking than we have seen him before. Suddenly he stops, undoes shirt.
GHENT
I can change!
Takes off shirt.
Goes to cupboard, takes out another, differently-coloured shirt.
GHENT (lightly)
I have the right to change, I have the will to change. . . .
Takes off first shirt, picks up second.
GHENT
. . .and I choose to exercise it. Anyone can change their life if they don’t like it, if they choose to. (pause) I can change.
Puts on shirt, but before he can begin to button it CHRISTINA, completely naked, moves into shot, presses herself against him, kisses him.
CHRISTINA
You have changed. . . . .
In the background, the bed on which they have clearly just made love.
10. INTERIOR. COMMITTEE ROOM. NIGHT
A Committee Room of the Language Association.
HIND, with ERICSSON and YOUNG FARMER who were at the party; GWEN and CHRISTINA.
HIND
He’ll never change.
YOUNG FARMER
We can’t risk it anyway. He’s a liability whichever way you look at it, a bloody fool.
HIND
No, he’s not a fool. . . .
ERICSSON (half seriously)
What this movement needs is a martyr, a martyr on the grand scale! Can’t we tell him there’s still a job he could do for us?
HIND
It might be to our advantage to let people see what sort of hero he really is. We could arrange a tour of our branches for him — the very fact that he addressed them in English would be enough to put him down right from the moment he opened his mouth.
GWEN
You can never rely on people taking the effect you want them to in that kind of situation. He’s a good speaker. And he does have a certain amount of personal charm. . .
ERICSSON
What could he teach our people anyway? How to make a mess of blowing up equestrian statues of the Iron Duke?
HIND
No, you’re misjudging and underestimating the man. Blowing up anything requires a lot of nerve and courage. And none of us have the same experience. . . . .
YOUNG FARMER
None of us want it, either, I should think.
ERICSSON
What did go wrong? That’s the most useful thing he could tell us.
HIND
Has he told you any more?
This last remark is addressed to CHRISTINA. It is the first time her presence has been revealed in this scene: it is something of a surprise.
CHRISTINA (smiles to herself)
No. . .
HIND
There’s also the question of what he did with the rest of the gelignite. Sacsen told me they had over a hundred pounds in stock at the time, all made available to Stannis and Ghent, and they used less than twenty pounds on the job.
YOUNG FARMER
What do we want with gelignite anyway? You’d never carry the members with you if you wanted to start that kind of violence!
HIND
I just want to know where it is, that’s all. And while it may be politic to agree with the members now, I’ll remind you that no small nation has ever succeeded in becoming independent without the use of some kind of violence.
The others are silent at this: no one argues: tense faces.
11. INTERIOR. KITCHEN/LIVING AREA/TERRACE. DAY
GHENT’S clothes are the most noticeable change about him: but his manner is different, too: that of a man who is confident, has made up his mind about something important.
During this scene he is restless, moves about from living area to kitchen, then to terrace, back again, and so on. His movements parallel the vagaries of his moods during the conversation.
GHENT (expansively)
. . . .John Stannis could never remember his socks, God knows why. But he was a most meticulous man about washing, about keeping himself clean. I remember one gig we were doing, and John Stannis turned up just before we were due to go on, the sockless wonder yet again, and you just can’t go on and have people saying “The bass player isn’t wearing any socks” now can you, the bass player’s the most energetic, you’d see his trousers going up and down, wouldn’t you? And first we thought of tossing up to decide who went without, someone in a less conspicuous position, and then we thought of all going without, as a piece of. . . stylistic uniformity, if you like. Or two of us handing over one sock each and keeping one foot h
idden however we could. But finally we noticed some ink in the dressing room there, and we painted him on a pair of blue-black socks and dammit if anyone noticed!
It is only now that it becomes evident to whom GHENT is speaking: the JOURNALIST, who is clearly not at ease in the interview. That is, he is trying to be interested in the anecdotes GHENT tells, but they are not what he came for. This is evident in his reply, which is only partly relevant to what has gone before: but it is the best he can do.
JOURNALIST (awkwardly)
The normal is what is done by the majority. . .
GHENT
Eh?
JOURNALIST
Er. . .you were not normal in that you put into practice those. . .
GHENT
You have to feel yourself abnormal, oppressed, the underdog if you’re a poet, or a writer of any sort. A real writer, that is. You must feel that everyone has things better than you do, is better off than you are, has things easier, or richer, or longer, or bigger. Otherwise you can’t cultivate a proper curiosity, a proper ambition to put down on paper what you see. Even if you don’t feel that, then you have to teach yourself to feel it, to be it.
JOURNALIST
Yes, but that’s not quite what I meant. . . .
GHENT looks innocent.
JOURNALIST
Since you. . . .since you and John Stannis went out and did what others only talked about. Why? What’s the essential difference between you and others? That’s what I’m after.
GHENT
I know what you’re after. I did some journalism myself once, in my early days, in London. Freelance, of course, part time, too, while I was teaching. Here, d’you know, I was making some notes for an article once, at a dance, and the local oicks and tearaways beat me up because they thought I was a copper? (pause) I could never really fit it together, that experience. Why did I seem a threat to them, at a dance of all places? I could. . . .
The JOURNALIST is becoming increasingly impatient.
GHENT
. . .have understood it if I’d been outside writing down the numbers of their motorbikes or something, but why at. . .
JOURNALIST
But what about John Stannis?
GHENT
Oh, he didn’t have a motorbike. Too scared, John Stannis was. . .
JOURNALIST
No! You persist in misunderstanding my questions!
GHENT
You persist in misunderstanding my answers!
JOURNALIST
I came here to interview you. . . .
GHENT
At your own request, without there being any noticeable advantage to me.
JOURNALIST
I came to see you as something of a hero in your own country, to give some substance to what is a pretty shadowy myth as far as I can see.
GHENT smiles, unperturbed.
JOURNALIST
As for what’s in it for you, I should have thought that what you’re trying to do needs all the publicity it can get in England.
GHENT
From your paper?
JOURNALIST
From any paper.
GHENT
But you’ve never given us a fair hearing — or anyone else’s nationalism for that matter.
JOURNALIST
The paper stands for the large nationalism — we want barriers broken down, not set up. Surely that’s logical? The bigger the nation the better, until it. . . .
GHENT
I haven’t noticed you extending it to the blacks yet. . . .
Reaction shot: JOURNALIST.
GHENT
. . . .there’s a barrier for your paper to break down! And if I remember rightly you were outright anti-semitic before the war, right up to a couple of weeks before the war started!
JOURNALIST (tartly)
I wasn’t on the paper then. . . .
GHENT
No, but your proprietor was.
GHENT turns, goes into kitchen. He starts dismembering a plucked duck. The JOURNALIST follows him into the kitchen.
JOURNALIST
Okay, so I’ll act the bum and ask all the stupid questions. And you put me down each time.
GHENT says nothing.
JOURNALIST
So why did you agree to see me?
GHENT
I didn’t. I can only think the arrangement was another act of malice on the part of my wife. (pause) My ex-wife. (pause) I let you in out of common courtesy, or something. Wanting to know who you were. And now I can’t physically remove you because you’re younger and stronger than I am.
Pause. Stalemate. JOURNALIST decides to try throwing himself on GHENT’S mercy.
JOURNALIST
Look, I’ve got a job to do. . . .You know what it’s like — fall down on a big one like this and I’ll be out.
GHENT looks sceptical.
JOURNALIST
. . .I beg you to help me.
GHENT laughs.
JOURNALIST
Will you at least answer some questions straight?
GHENT says nothing, carries on preparing wild duck soup: has drumstick in hand as JOURNALIST goes on regardless.
JOURNALIST (mock-intensely)
What’s the philosophy behind your work? What’s the meaning of it?
GHENT smiles to himself at this stupid question, does not answer.
JOURNALIST
Do you still hold those opinions you did eight years ago?
GHENT (tiredly)
Yes and no. . .
JOURNALIST
What kind of an answer is that? (pause) Are you still a nationalist?
GHENT
I was born in this country: I can never be anything else, I can’t resign from that, can I?
JOURNALIST
But will you use violence again to support your nationalism?
GHENT
You don’t imagine I would tell you anyway, do you?
JOURNALIST
What was it like in prison?
GHENT
You haven’t done your homework if you have to ask me that!
JOURNALIST
I want to hear it from you.
GHENT (parodying his earlier self)
You have to float. . .if you don’t float you go under. . . .
JOURNALIST
Would you go under if you went back inside again? (pause) You’d go down for a long time if you blew anything else up — perhaps twenty years. (pause) Does this affect the strength of your beliefs? Or your will to put them into action? Do you think about it at all?
GHENT (in same mood of self-parody)
The whole of life is a prison sentence, some people say, usually Christians. Not me. Life is a holiday from the great nothing, a vacation from the void — and, like all holidays, it seems interminable.
The JOURNALIST does not know which way to take this; tries yet another tack.
JOURNALIST
You read about your own death while you were. . . .
GHENT
No, I didn’t.
JOURNALIST
My information is. . . .
GHENT
Your information is wrong.
JOURNALIST
But you were on the run?
GHENT
On the walk, really.
JOURNALIST
Where?
GHENT
From pub to pub mainly, as I remember.
JOURNALIST
Which part of the country?
GHENT
I don’t remember that. One pub looks much like another.
JOURNALIST
Don’t remember! (pause) Why didn’t the bomb that killed Stannis kill you too?
GHENT pauses, looks up. This question has hit him, jolts him out of his former mood. The JOURNALIST sees this, presses his advantage.
JOURNALIST
You’d took off, hadn’t you? You weren’t going to be the patsy, you weren’t. . . .
GHENT (exploding)
Patsy! Bloody
Americanisms! Look at you, dressed up like a fancy cowboy! Have you ever thought that you live in an American colony, that you ape American fashions and American so-called culture? Have you no national pride of your own, no English national character? Who d’you think you are to talk to me about my country? We have our own language, unpolluted by Americanisms! You ought to be starting a resistance movement yourselves against that sort of corruption and pollution! Every sort! You can’t know how far it’s gone — I can, comparing it with eight years ago. I thought I knew English, but the extent of Americanisation that’s gone on makes you more and more unrecognisable! Unrecognisable! (pause) Look to your own next, scum, before you foul ours!
The JOURNALIST clearly sees he can achieve nothing: is taken aback by this attack, but not moved by its validity.
JOURNALIST turns, leaves by kitchen outside door, not shutting it behind him, disappearing along side of house right (that is, in the same direction, but outside, that GHENT will presently take).
GHENT goes back to cooking, picks up duck drumstick, then looks up.
GHENT (to himself)
Meaning. . . .meaning!
Puts down knife, turns, goes out of kitchen into living area, across and on to terrace. There he leans over the parapet, waves duck drumstick wildly to (unseen) JOURNALIST presumably departing down path from house to road.
GHENT (triumphantly)
Meaning! What’s the meaning of duck soup, eh?! Duck soup!
12. INTERIOR. DOCTOR’S STUDY/CONSULTING ROOM. NIGHT
DOCTOR and GHENT, very friendly, close. Clearly it is outside consulting hours, late at night, and they have been drinking. DOCTOR offers GHENT another drink.
DOCTOR
Another before we unlock Joanna Southcott’s box?
GHENT
No, let’s do it while we’re still sober.
They both go over to where two large safes (of the kind in which a doctor would keep dangerous drugs) are standing. One looks as though it is used a great deal; the other does not. It is the latter which the two men go to. It is of the kind which requires two keys to unlock. Both GHENT and DOCTOR produce separate keys and place and turn them in their separate keyholes. The DOCTOR turns the handle, pulls: the door stays shut. Both pull, and the door swings open. Inside there are a few phials and other medical containers, clearly old stock and disregarded; and an old fibre suitcase.
GHENT removes the suitcase and places it on the desk. He tries the catches but cannot budge them.
GHENT
Did we lock this?
DOCTOR
I don’t even remember having keys for it.
Well Done God! Page 22