BELLY’s victory coincides with DINER’s completion of this course. He wipes his mouth roughly; farts hard. Even as he does this there is still a dignity about him; that is, he does not fart in a polite nor a mannered way: it is simply a human function performed naturally.
DINER takes another draught of Chablis, which sets off BELLY into shivers again, more sorrowfully than painfully.
Enter WAITER with oysters; clears previous course, refills glass.
DINER takes large draught of mineral water; belches again before starting on oysters. He sprinkles lemon juice on a few, tosses first back without biting. BELLY groans progressively louder as half a dozen or so are wolfed down without pause.
BELLY:
At least bite them first! Kill them! The buggers are fighting each other down here! It’s a right punchup! What you don’t realise is that they think they’re back in their native element down here, you’ve never realised it, they get all lively, until me hydrochloric acid gets them, and we all know there’s not enough of that to go round, you can’t go on doing this to me, let alone the others, one of us’ll crack soon, you must know what I’m talking about, I’ve been warning you all these years. . .
DINER pauses, gasps with sudden pain at gripe in stomach (this can be co-ordinated by BELLY actor tapping shin of DINER actor). DINER pours mineral water, swallows draught; then another.
DINER:
Aaaaaah. . .!
DINER swallows another glass of Chablis. BELLY makes drowning, glugging noises. DINER resumes wolfing oysters.
BELLY:
Two dozen he has tonight! That must be eight. . . another sixteen to go. . .!
DINER:
Fifteen, actually. There’s one here I don’t like the look of at all. . .
It is the first time he has answered BELLY; it ought to be acceptable by now.
BELLY:
Small mercies. . .
DINER:
There may be more. You can’t tell until you squeeze the lemon on. Sam taught me that. Only the third time I had had oysters, in my young life, and in Paris. His eyes were bad, Ginnie saw him feel for the ashtray with his little finger before tapping his ash, later he did it in the sugar bowl, we averted our eyes. I used to like oysters, he said to me, young, I used to like oysters too until once when I put the lemon on I saw the creature wince. (pause) If they don’t wince they’re no good, if they don’t wince they’re dead! (pause) Though we happily eat other. . . corpses.
Silence.
DINER continues knocking back the oysters and Chablis. Mounting groans from BELLY, culminating in another stab of pain felt by DINER.
BELLY:
Take that, you slippery sliders, you oily swine!
DINER grunts, pauses.
BELLY:
(vengefully) You’re beginning to pay!
DINER recovers, with an effort, more mineral water, finishes remaining two or three oysters, sits back with a practised satisfaction, wipes mouth.
DINER:
Fines claires. . . so different from the fat, oily Whitstable natives I had the first time, a stall on the front, where was it, most unlikely, I was a young lad then, really only. . .
DINER gulps, his gorge rising, controls himself with difficulty.
BELLY sighs with relief.
Enter WAITER. Begins to clear.
WAITER:
And to follow, sir?
DINER belches.
WAITER:
May I recommend the venison, sir, filets mignon with juniper berries, the sauce. . .
DINER:
After what you told me about Maxim’s?
WAITER clears away, in a huff. DINER studies menu. Rumblings from BELLY. DINER finishes Chablis. WAITER returns; professional smile.
WAITER:
For the entrée, sir?
BELLY:
Something light! You’d enjoy something light!
DINER:
(to himself) It must be substantial, nourishing, as mother would say. (pause) Now she says nothing. (pause)
BELLY:
Something light! As a feather! Preferably nothing!
DINER:
Shut up! Or I’ll order a chili, in between whiles!
BELLY:
(panic) No! No!
Silence.
DINER ponders menu. WAITER hovers, not daring to make a further suggestion.
Whimperings from BELLY.
DINER:
(at length) The beef, then.
WAITER:
Sir.
BELLY:
All right, then, I’ll accept the beef, under protest, but nothing fancy, just plain beef, I can’t take some of those sauces, nothing fancy. . .
DINER:
Where’s the pepper from?
BELLY:
No! Nothing fancy!
WAITER:
(improvising) The pepper, sir? Curacao, sir, I heard the chef ordering it myself, sir, only this morning. . .
DINER:
Liar.
WAITER:
Sir! Not from Curacao itself, of course, sir, from the wholesalers’. But I could have sworn it was Curacao he said. . .
BELLY:
Don’t have it wherever it came from! Not pepper!
DINER:
(pause) You’re sure he ordered it this morning?
WAITER:
Yes sir, gospel sir.
DINER:
So it should be fresh, wherever it came from?
WAITER:
Yes, sir.
DINER:
I’ll take the steak au poivre, then, just sealed, no more. . .
BELLY:
(groans) Noooo! Look, it’s not only me, it’s the kidneys, too.
WAITER:
(offended) Yes sir, as usual for you, of course.
DINER:
. . .with lyonnaise potatoes and perhaps a green. . .no, asparagus, yes asparagus. . .
BELLY:
Sparrers arse, nooo! In butter they’ll be!
DINER:
. . .in butter.
BELLY:
Oooooooh!
WAITER:
Sir. And no doubt the Gevrey-Chambertin with it?
DINER nods. Exit WAITER.
BELLY:
Now look, don’t say we haven’t been warning you for months now. I’ll have a word with the kidneys. . .
Whispered consultations, other groans from BELLY who appears to be mediating with someone else.
DINER gives increasing and various signs of physical discomfort from now on, though as he is a large man they are not noticeably dramatic.
BELLY:
(flatly) Look, one kidney’s not answering, and the other says he’s had all he can take. He’s up to the gills in bloody pepper as it is. Any more, and he says he’s jacking it all in too. (pause) For good. (pause) Liver’s not looking too bright, either. (pause) (in pain) D’you hear?
DINER takes no notice, appears to be wrapped in thought, apart from occasional shifting of position on chair.
BELLY:
(in distress) D’you hear! Your last kidney’s on the blink, and Liver’s asking for his cards!
WAITER returns with burgundy; opening, sniffing, tasting business. DINER drinks whole bottle throughout entrée course following.
BELLY:
(as though listening) What’s that? (pause) Yes, they’re all at it now! Spleen says he’s hanging up his boots! Spleen! You know, your spleen!
DINER:
I don’t know them all. Appendages, how should I know?
BELLY:
Appendages! (nostalgically) Appendix!
Remember Appendix?
DINER:
Ah, Munich!
BELLY:
Ah, pendix! Appendix! My Appendix. How I miss her! Forty years we were together. . .
DINER:
I nearly died. . .
BELLY:
I with you. . .
DINER:
The two of us. . .
BELLY:
I
with you. . .
DINER:
Both one. . .
BELLY:
Together.
Pause. Silence. Sudden rumbling. DINER drinks deeply from glass, refills it.
DINER:
Nearly had my. . .appendages, that dog. Must have been the day before I went into hospital. Vast beergarden in Munich, fat, ugly waitresses. Dog was tied to a tableleg, green, castiron, out in the open. I was with. . .fat, ugly girl. All I could get. All I could get, then. Probably all I deserved. I thought she was. . .boring. Nothing to say. We drank, she matched me stein for stein. Nothing to say. I stared at the dog, stared him out. Was it a bitch? Were they both? I’d never stared out a dog before. They are easily aggravated by a staring match, I found. I won, of course. Twice the dog passed the point, twice leapt at me, fell back on the lead, frustrated. What did the owners look like? (pause) No recollection. The dog was a black mongrel about the size of a. . .badger. It must have disturbed the table, a dog that size, caused the beers to shake, destroyed any meniscus there might have been. (pause) Then I forgot about it. I suppose the fat fraulein must have made some proposition worth considering. I forget. But the dog didn’t forget. I suppose it had nothing better to do than watch for its chance. On the way out I walked near its table, and it leapt again at me. Providence saved my appendages that day, for the length of the dog’s lead was such that it restrained its teeth by a matter of an inch from connecting. It swung round in an arc, snapping and nipping, within an inch of my. . .flies. No doubt I ducked backwards from the waist, no doubt I took steps away, but only when I had seen the danger, only when he had committed himself. Gnashing he swung, brushing my. . .I had nearly said balls.
BELLY:
Ha!
DINER:
Are you still there?
BELLY:
Still here. (groans)
DINER:
Gnashing. It was a very narrow miss, nearer than an inch, I wasn’t measuring accurately.
DINER imitates with teeth, swinging his head in an arc in the action the dog performed. Then drinks.
BELLY:
When did you last see Winkle, anyway? (pause) Twenty years ago.
DINER:
There are mirrors, you know.
BELLY:
In the flesh! When did you last see your Winkle in the flesh?
DINER:
Does it matter? He still performs one of his two functions. . . . .
BELLY:
It’s an act of faith, your believing in Winkle now. . .
DINER:
He widdles, therefore he is. Winkle. Winkle! Winkle? (pause) He used to come at my call. (pause) I don’t need to see him.
BELLY:
But when did you last see him?
DINER:
Bratislava? No? Zvolen?
BELLY:
Swollen. . .
DINER:
Zvolen was where they started, where the idea came from.
BELLY:
And ours.
DINER:
And ours. But Bratislava. . .
BELLY:
Ah. . .
DINER:
They’d just built the new bridge over the Danube.
BELLY:
Ah. . .
DINER:
Bratislava!
Enter WAITER with next course; sets it out during following.
BELLY:
Yes, they’d just built the new bridge over the Danube, fine modern design, nothing like it in Europe. . .
DINER:
Ah, Bratislava!
Pause.
BELLY:
Your last. As the sun went down. (pause) In the east.
DINER:
(pause, then starts) In the east!
BELLY:
Sharpen up! Your last true sighting of Winkle!
DINER:
I still feel for him.
BELLY:
Ha!
DINER begins to eat; exit WAITER.
DINER:
What was I doing there?
BELLY:
In Bratislava?
DINER:
Yes
BELLY:
Watching the sun go down. . .
DINER:
Ah. . .
BELLY:
And feeling for Winkle.
Silence. DINER champs away, drinks. BELLY begins to groan: a progression towards the climax.
DINER:
(suddenly) There’s no conviction about. . .about, any longer. (pause) Winkles at Southend, as a boy. And oysters, too. . .
BELLY:
(outburst) Oysters! The last sod’s still not dead down here, bucking and slewing about, my acid’s not what it was!
DINER:
(sharply) What is? (pause) Oysters on the front there, was it Nantes, with Zulf, late at night, what a feed, one could see why they thought them such good nourishment long ago, and earlier, poor people’s food they were too. . .
BELLY:
The bastards! Me hydrochloric’s bubbling!
All the sounds (slurping, and so on) of a last-ditch stand against the oysters consumed earlier. DINER meanwhile goes on with his steak, lyonnaise, asparagus, regardless.
BELLY:
All those years! Faithfully serving, dealing with all that working-class muck, surviving the lean years, pretending I could make do with sandwiches and the occasional rock and chips, ah, I was young then, we all were, weren’t we? (pause) And the later affiuence, the in-between times, when we didn’t know where we were, one day taken out to lunch at the Mirabelle, the next back to rock salmon at Bell’s by the Angel. . .
DINER:
Ah. . .
BELLY:
All very well for you!
DINER:
For us!
BELLY:
(abashed) For us. And then when it set in, the layers of adipose tissue, I bore the torture, the Pavlonian business of stop-go, in-out, on-off, oaoaoaoaoah. . .
DINER:
(pausing between champs) The diets I went on. . .
BELLY:
The diets!
DINER:
My favourite was Slimming the Eastern Way. . .
BELLY:
Just because the exercises were based on belly-dancing. . .
DINER:
The food was good, too, shashlik and. . .
BELLY groans piteously.
DINER suddenly stops eating, quite dramatically, drops cutlery.
DINER:
Look on the bright side. It has been good. There has been more good than. . .Don’t forget the good times. (pause) There were good times. (Brightly) There are always enough good times to make it worthwhile! That’s the secret! No doubt. The reason why one does not actually (pause) do it. Look on the bright side! We did enjoy certain things! Don’t forget the good times!
BELLY continues to groan, ignoring him.
BELLY:
The blood! Untreated blood! And the vicious pepper! Aaoooooh! I give up, even your shirtfront spattered with blood, how can you, how could you, slobbering outside and in, think about your. . .
DINER:
(fiercely) Why should I?
BELLY:
I am you! You are me!
DINER breaks into sudden wild laughter, for say ten seconds; then BELLY joins in. Sudden stop. Pause.
DINER:
(soberly) I don’t know why I was born with an appetite. Or, if you like, I don’t know why I was conditioned to think that my appetite was the most important thing in my life. I do know I have suffered from my appetite, my grossness, my peculiarity. The thought of death even, of shortening my life itself, has been no deterrent. I was digging my grave with my teeth! Many have been those who have quoted that cliche to me. It has not mattered. I am what I am. I have done what I have done. I have followed, followed. That is what I am. That is what I have been conditioned to become. Who can argue with those laws, those. . .(pause) Good teeth they are, too, those I have used to dig my grave. Would I have been given such
good teeth if I had not been meant to dig my grave with them?
Enter WAITER. He begins to clear away, though the course is unfinished; this occasions some flicker of surprise; nothing more.
WAITER:
(challenging, seeing the state DINER is in) And now, sir?
DINER:
What? Ordering, yes, so long. (ignores proffered menu) Profiteroles, of course. Sauternes with them, what else? No, rich champagne, not Sauternes, what am I thinking of?
Exit WAITER with smirk; for DINER is slumping lower and lower over table. BELLY’s moans now continuous, increasing to end.
DINER:
In Zvolen, where it started, I had rich champagne, but Russian, not bad though not at all as good as they imagined it was, what is, aaah, but there also. . . (pause)
Well Done God! Page 29