Читать книгу Complete Works, Volume IV - Harold Pinter - Страница 10
ОглавлениеOld Times
Old Times was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 1 June 1971, with the following cast:
| DEELEY | Cohn Blakely |
| KATE | Dorothy Tutin |
| ANNA | Vivien Merchant |
All in their early forties
Directed by Peter Hall
The play was produced for television by the BBC in October 1975 with the following cast:
| DEELEY | Anna Cropper |
| KATE | Barry Foster |
| ANNA | Mary Miller |
Directed by Christopher Morahan
It was produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, in April 1985 with the following cast:
| DEELEY | Michael Gambon |
| KATE | Nicola Pagett |
| ANNA | Liv Ullmann |
Directed by David Jones
PLACE
A converted farmhouse.
A long window up centre. Bedroom door up left. Front door up right.
Spare modern furniture.
Two sofas. An armchair.
Autumn: Night.
ACT ONE
Light dim. Three figures discerned.
DEELEY slumped in armchair, still.
KATE curled on a sofa, still.
ANNA standing at the window, looking out.
Silence
Lights up on Deeley and Kate, smoking cigarettes.
Anna’s figure remains still in dim light at the window.
KATE (Reflectively.) Dark.
Pause
DEELEY Fat or thin?
KATE Fuller than me. I think.
Pause
DEELEY She was then?
KATE I think so.
DEELEY She may not be now.
Pause
Was she your best friend?
KATE Oh, what does that mean?
DEELEY What?
KATE The word friend . . . when you look back . . . all that time.
DEELEY Can’t you remember what you felt?
Pause
KATE It is a very long time.
DEELEY But you remember her. She remembers you. Or why would she be coming here tonight?
KATE I suppose because she remembers me.
Pause
DEELEY Did you think of her as your best friend?
KATE She was my only friend.
DEELEY Your best and only.
KATE My one and only.
Pause
If you have only one of something you can’t say it’s the best of anything.
DEELEY Because you have nothing to compare it with?
KATE Mmnn.
Pause
DEELEY (Smiling.) She was incomparable.
KATE Oh, I’m sure she wasn’t.
Pause
DEELEY I didn’t know you had so few friends.
KATE I had none. None at all. Except her.
DEELEY Why her?
KATE I don’t know.
Pause
She was a thief. She used to steal things.
DEELEY Who from?
KATE Me.
DEELEY What things?
KATE Bits and pieces. Underwear.
Deeley chuckles.
DEELEY Will you remind her?
KATE Oh . . . I don’t think so.
Pause
DEELEY Is that what attracted you to her?
KATE What?
DEELEY The fact that she was a thief.
KATE No.
Pause
DEELEY Are you looking forward to seeing her?
KATE No.
DEELEY I am. I shall be very interested.
KATE In what?
DEELEY In you. I’ll be watching you.
KATE Me? Why?
DEELEY To see if she’s the same person.
KATE You think you’ll find that out through me?
DEELEY Definitely.
Pause
KATE I hardly remember her. I’ve almost totally forgotten her.
Pause
DEELEY Any idea what she drinks?
KATE None.
DEELEY She may be a vegetarian.
KATE Ask her.
DEELEY It’s too late. You’ve cooked your casserole.
Pause
Why isn’t she married? I mean, why isn’t she bringing her husband?
KATE Ask her.
DEELEY Do I have to ask her everything?
KATE Do you want me to ask your questions for you?
DEELEY No. Not at all.
Pause
KATE Of course she’s married.
DEELEY How do you know?
KATE Everyone’s married.
DEELEY Then why isn’t she bringing her husband?
KATE Isn’t she?
Pause
DEELEY Did she mention a husband in her letter?
KATE No.
DEELEY What do you think he’d be like? I mean, what sort of man would she have married? After all, she was your best—your only—friend. You must have some idea. What kind of man would he be?
KATE I have no idea.
DEELEY Haven’t you any curiosity?
KATE You forget. I know her.
DEELEY You haven’t seen her for twenty years.
KATE You’ve never seen her. There’s a difference.
Pause
DEELEY At least the casserole is big enough for four.
KATE You said she was a vegetarian.
Pause
DEELEY Did she have many friends?
KATE Oh . . . The normal amount, I suppose.
DEELEY Normal? What’s normal? You had none.
KATE One.
DEELEY Is that normal?
Pause
She . . . had quite a lot of friends, did she?
KATE Hundreds.
DEELEY You met them?
KATE Not all, I think. But after all, we were living together. There were visitors, from time to time. I met them.
DEELEY Her visitors?
KATE What?
DEELEY Her visitors. Her friends. You had no friends.
KATE Her friends, yes.
DEELEY You met them.
Pause
(Abruptly.) You lived together?
KATE Mmmnn?
DEELEY You lived together?
KATE Of course.
DEELEY I didn’t know that.
KATE Didn’t you?
DEELEY You never told me that. I thought you just knew each other.
KATE We did.
DEELEY But in fact you lived with each other.
KATE Of course we did. How else would she steal my underwear from me? In the street?
Pause
DEELEY I knew you had shared with someone at onetime . . .
Pause
But I didn’t know it was her.
KATE Of course it was.
Pause
DEELEY Anyway, none of this matters.
Anna turns from the window, speaking, and moves down to them, eventually sitting on the second sofa.
ANNA Queuing all night, the rain, do you remember? my goodness, the Albert Hall, Covent Garden, what did we eat? to look back, half the night, to do things we loved, we were young then of course, but what stamina, and to work in the morning, and to a concert, or the opera, or the ballet, that night, you haven’t forgotten? and then riding on top of the bus down Kensington High Street, and the bus conductors, and then dashing for the matches for the gasfire and then I suppose scrambled eggs, or did we? who cooked? both giggling and chattering, both huddling to the heat, then bed and sleeping, and all the hustle and bustle in the morning, rushing for the bus again for work, lunchtimes in Green Park, exchanging all our news, with our very own sandwiches, innocent girls, innocent secretaries, and then the night to come, and goodness knows what excitement in store, I mean the sheer expectation of it all, the looking-forwardness of it all, and so poor, but to be poor and young, and a girl, in London then . . . and the cafés we found, almost private ones, weren’t they? where artists and writers and sometimes actors collected, and others with dancers, we sat hardly breathing with our coffee, heads bent, so as not to be seen, so as not to disturb, so as not to distract, and listened and listened to all those words, all those cafés and all those people, creative undoubtedly, and does it still exist I wonder? do you know? can you tell me?
Slight pause
DEELEY We rarely get to London.
Kate stands, goes to a small table and pours coffee from a pot.
KATE Yes, I remember.
She adds milk and sugar to one cup and takes it to Anna. She takes a black coffee to Deeley and then sits with her own.
DEELEY (to Anna.) Do you drink brandy?
ANNA I would love some brandy.
Deeley pours brandy for all and hands the glasses. He remains standing with his own.
ANNA Listen. What silence. Is it always as silent?
DEELEY It’s quite silent here, yes. Normally.
Pause
You can hear the sea sometimes if you listen very carefully.
ANNA How wise you were to choose this part of the world, and how sensible and courageous of you both to stay permanently in such a silence.
DEELEY My work takes me away quite often, of course. But Kate stays here.
ANNA No one who lived here would want to go far. I would not want to go far, I would be afraid of going far, lest when I returned the house would be gone.
DEELEY Lest?
ANNA What?
DEELEY The word lest. Haven’t heard it for a long time.
Pause
KATE Sometimes I walk to the sea. There aren’t many people. It’s a long beach.
Pause
ANNA But I would miss London, nevertheless. But of course I was a girl in London. We were girls together.
DEELEY I wish I had known you both then.
ANNA Do you?
DEELEY Yes.
Deeley pours more brandy for himself.
ANNA You have a wonderful casserole.
DEELEY What?
ANNA I mean wife. So sorry. A wonderful wife.
DEELEY Ah.
ANNA I was referring to the casserole. I was referring to your wife’s cooking.
DEELEY You’re not a vegetarian, then?
ANNA No. Oh no.
DEELEY Yes, you need good food in the country, substantial food, to keep you going, all the air . . . you know.
Pause
KATE Yes, I quite like those kind of things, doing it.
ANNA What kind of things?
KATE Oh, you know, that sort of thing.
Pause
DEELEY Do you mean cooking?
KATE All that thing.
ANNA We weren’t terribly elaborate in cooking, didn’t have the time, but every so often dished up an incredibly enormous stew, guzzled the lot, and then more often than not sat up half the night reading Yeats.
Pause
(To herself.) Yes. Every so often. More often than not.
Anna stands, walks to the window.
And the sky is so still.
Pause
Can you see that tiny ribbon of light? Is that the sea? Is that the horizon?
DEELEY You live on a very different coast.
ANNA Oh, very different. I live on a volcanic island.
DEELEY I know it.
ANNA Oh, do you?
DEELEY I’ve been there.
Pause
ANNA I’m so delighted to be here.
DEELEY It’s nice I know for Katey to see you. She hasn’t many friends.
ANNA She has you.
DEELEY She hasn’t made many friends, although there’s been every opportunity for her to do so.
ANNA Perhaps she has all she wants.
DEELEY She lacks curiosity.
ANNA Perhaps she’s happy.
Pause
KATE Are you talking about me?
DEELEY Yes.
ANNA She was always a dreamer.
DEELEY She likes taking long walks. All that. You know. Raincoat on. Off down the lane, hands deep in pockets. All that kind of thing.
Anna turns to look at Kate.
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY Sometimes I take her face in my hands and look at it.
ANNA Really?
DEELEY Yes, I look at it, holding it in my hands. Then I kind of let it go, take my hands away, leave it floating.
KATE My head is quite fixed. I have it on.
DEELEY (To Anna.) It just floats away.
ANNA She was always a dreamer.
Anna sits.
Sometimes, walking, in the park, I’d say to her, you’re dreaming, you’re dreaming, wake up, what are you dreaming? and she’d look round at me, flicking her hair, and look at me as if I were part of her dream.
Pause
One day she said to me, I’ve slept through Friday. No you haven’t, I said, what do you mean? I’ve slept right through Friday, she said. But today is Friday, I said, it’s been Friday all day, it’s now Friday night, you haven’t slept through Friday. Yes I have, she said, I’ve slept right through it, today is Saturday.
DEELEY You mean she literally didn’t know what day it was?
ANNA No.
KATE Yes I did. It was Saturday.
Pause
DEELEY What month are we in?
KATE September.
Pause
DEELEY We’re forcing her to think. We must see you more often. You’re a healthy influence.
ANNA But she was always a charming companion.
DEELEY Fun to live with?
ANNA Delightful.
DEELEY Lovely to look at, delightful to know.
ANNA Ah, those songs. We used to play them, all of them, all the time, late at night, lying on the floor, lovely old things. Sometimes I’d look at her face, but she was quite unaware of my gaze.
DEELEY Gaze?
ANNA What?
DEELEY The word gaze. Don’t hear it very often.
ANNA Yes, quite unaware of it. She was totally absorbed.
DEELEY In Lovely to look at, delightful to know?
KATE (To Anna.) I don’t know that song. Did we have it?
DEELEY (Singing, to Kate.) You’re lovely to look at, delightful to know . . .
ANNA Oh we did. Yes, of course. We had them all.
DEELEY (Singing.) Blue moon, I see you standing alone . . .
ANNA (Singing.) The way you comb your hair . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) Oh no they can’t take that away from me . . .
ANNA (Singing.) Oh but you’re lovely, with your smile so warm . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) I’ve got a woman crazy for me. She’s funny that way.
Slight pause
ANNA (Singing.) You are the promised kiss of springtime . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) And someday I’ll know that moment divine, When all the things you are, are mine!
Slight pause
| ANNA (Singing.) | I get no kick from champagne, |
| Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all, | |
| So tell me why should it be true— |
DEELEY (Singing.) That I get a kick out of you?
Pause
| ANNA (Singing.) | They asked me how I knew |
| My true love was true, | |
| I of course replied, | |
| Something here inside | |
| Cannot be denied. |
DEELEY (Singing.) When a lovely flame dies . . .
ANNA (Singing.) Smoke gets in your eyes.
Pause
DEELEY (Singing.) The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations . . .
Pause
ANNA (Singing.) The park at evening when the bell has sounded . . .
Pause
DEELEY (Singing.) The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses . . .
ANNA (Singing.) The waiters whistling as the last bar closes . . .
DEELEY (Singing.) Oh, how the ghost of you clings . . .
Pause
They don’t make them like that any more.
Silence
What happened to me was this. I popped into a fleapit to see Odd Man Out. Some bloody awful summer afternoon, walking in no direction. I remember thinking there was something familiar about the neighbourhood and suddenly recalled that it was in this very neighbourhood that my father bought me my first tricycle, the only tricycle in fact I ever possessed. Anyway, there was the bicycle shop and there was this fleapit showing Odd Man Out and there were two usherettes standing in the foyer and one of them was stroking her breasts and the other one was saying ‘dirty bitch’ and the one stroking her breasts was saying ‘mmnnn’ with a very sensual relish and smiling at her fellow usherette, so I marched in on this excruciatingly hot summer afternoon in the middle of nowhere and watched Odd Man Out and thought Robert Newton was fantastic. And I still think he was fantastic. And I would commit murder for him, even now. And there was only one other person in the cinema, one other person in the whole of the whole cinema, and there she is. And there she was, very dim, very still, placed more or less I would say at the dead centre of the auditorium. I was off centre and have remained so. And I left when the film was over, noticing, even though James Mason was dead, that the first usherette appeared to be utterly exhausted, and I stood for a moment in the sun, thinking I suppose about something and then this girl came out and I think looked about her and I said wasn’t Robert Newton fantastic, and she said something or other, Christ knows what, but looked at me, and I thought Jesus this is it, I’ve made a catch, this is a trueblue pickup, and when we had sat down in the café with tea she looked into her cup and then up at me and told me she thought Robert Newton was remarkable. So it was Robert Newton who brought us together and it is only Robert Newton who can tear us apart.
Pause
ANNA F. J. McCormick was good too.
DEELEY I know F. J. McCormick was good too. But he didn’t bring us together.
Pause
DEELEY You’ve seen the film then?
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY When?
ANNA Oh . . . long ago.
Pause
DEELEY (To Kate.) Remember that film?
KATE Oh yes. Very well.
Pause
DEELEY I think I am right in saying the next time we met we held hands. I held her cool hand, as she walked by me, and I said something which made her smile, and she looked at me, didn’t you, flicking her hair back, and I thought she was even more fantastic than Robert Newton.
Pause
And then at a slightly later stage our naked bodies met, hers cool, warm, highly agreeable, and I wondered what Robert Newton would think of this. What would he think of this I wondered as I touched her profoundly all over. (To Anna.) What do you think he’d think?
ANNA I never met Robert Newton but I do know I know what you mean. There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. There are things I remember which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place.
DEELEY What?
ANNA This man crying in our room. One night late I returned and found him sobbing, his hand over his face, sitting in the armchair, all crumpled in the armchair and Katey sitting on the bed with a mug of coffee and no one spoke to me, no one spoke, no one looked up. There was nothing I could do. I undressed and switched out the light and got into my bed, the curtains were thin, the light from the street came in, Katey still, on her bed, the man sobbed, the light came in, it flicked the wall, there was a slight breeze, the curtains occasionally shook, there was nothing but sobbing, suddenly it stopped. The man came over to me, quickly, looked down at me, but I would have absolutely nothing to do with him, nothing.
Pause
No, no, I’m quite wrong . . . he didn’t move quickly . . . That’s quite wrong . . . he moved . . . very slowly, the light was bad, and stopped. He stood in the centre of the room. He looked at us both, at our beds. Then he turned towards me. He approached my bed. He bent down over me. But I would have nothing to do with him, absolutely nothing.
Pause
DEELEY What kind of man was he?
ANNA But after a while I heard him go out. I heard the front door close, and footsteps in the street, then silence, then the footsteps fade away, and then silence.
Pause
But then sometime later in the night I woke up and looked across the room to her bed and saw two shapes.
DEELEY He’d come back!
ANNA He was lying across her lap on her bed.
DEELEY A man in the dark across my wife’s lap?
Pause
ANNA But then in the early morning . . . he had gone.
DEELEY Thank Christ for that.
ANNA It was as if he had never been.
DEELEY Of course he’d been. He went twice and came once.
Pause
Well, what an exciting story that was.
Pause
What did he look like, this fellow?
ANNA Oh, I never saw his face clearly. I don’t know.
DEELEY But was he—?
Kate stands. She goes to a small table, takes a cigarette from a box and lights it. She looks down at Anna.
KATE You talk of me as if I were dead.
ANNA No, no, you weren’t dead, you were so lively, so animated, you used to laugh—
DEELEY Of course you did. I made you smile myself, didn’t I? walking along the street, holding hands. You smiled fit to bust.
ANNA Yes, she could be so . . . animated.
DEELEY Animated is no word for it. When she smiled . . . how can I describe it?
ANNA Her eyes lit up.
DEELEY I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Deeley stands, goes to cigarette box, picks it up, smiles at Kate. Kate looks at him, watches him light a cigarette, takes the box from him, crosses to Anna, offers her a cigarette. Anna takes one.
ANNA You weren’t dead. Ever. In any way.
KATE I said you talk about me as if I am dead. Now.
ANNA How can you say that? How can you say that, when I’m looking at you now, seeing you so shyly poised over me, looking down at me—
DEELEY Stop that!
Pause
Kate sits.
Deeley pours a drink.
DEELEY Myself I was a student then, juggling with my future, wondering should I bejasus saddle myself with a slip of a girl not long out of her swaddling clothes whose only claim to virtue was silence but who lacked any sense of fixedness, any sense of decisiveness, but was compliant only to the shifting winds, with which she went, but not the winds, and certainly not my winds, such as they are, but I suppose winds that only she understood, and that of course with no understanding whatsoever, at least as I understand the word, at least that’s the way I figured it. A classic female figure, I said to myself, or is it a classic female posture, one way or the other long outworn.
Pause
That’s the position as I saw it then. I mean, that is my categorical pronouncement on the position as I saw it then. Twenty years ago.
Silence
ANNA When I heard that Katey was married my heart leapt with joy.
DEELEY How did the news reach you?
ANNA From a friend.
Pause
Yes, it leapt with joy. Because you see I knew she never did things loosely or carelessly, recklessly. Some people throw a stone into a river to see if the water’s too cold for jumping, others, a few others, will always wait for the ripples before they will jump.
DEELEY Some people do what? (To Kate.) What did she say?
ANNA And I knew that Katey would always wait not just for the first emergence of ripple but for the ripples to pervade and pervade the surface, for of course as you know ripples on the surface indicate a shimmering in depth down through every particle of water down to the river bed, but even when she felt that happen, when she was assured it was happening, she still might not jump. But in this case she did jump and I knew therefore she had fallen in love truly and was glad. And I deduced it must also have happened to you.
DEELEY You mean the ripples?
ANNA If you like.
DEELEY Do men ripple too?
ANNA Some, I would say.
DEELEY I see.
Pause
ANNA And later when I found out the kind of man you were I was doubly delighted because I knew Katey had always been interested in the arts.
KATE I was interested once in the arts, but I can’t remember now which ones they were.
ANNA Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our days at the Tate? and how we explored London and all the old churches and all the old buildings, I mean those that were left from the bombing, in the City and south of the river in Lambeth and Greenwich? Oh my goodness. Oh yes. And the Sunday papers! I could never get her away from the review pages. She ravished them, and then insisted we visit that gallery, or this theatre, or that chamber concert, but of course there was so much, so much to see and to hear, in lovely London then, that sometimes we missed things, or had no more money, and so missed some things. For example, I remember one Sunday she said to me, looking up from the paper, come quick, quick, come with me quickly, and we seized our handbags and went, on a bus, to some totally obscure, some totally unfamiliar district and, almost alone, saw a wonderful film called Odd Man Out.
Silence
DEELEY Yes, I do quite a bit of travelling in my job.
ANNA Do you enjoy it?
DEELEY Enormously. Enormously.
ANNA Do you go far?
DEELEY I travel the globe in my job.
ANNA And poor Katey when you’re away? What does she do?
Anna looks at Kate.
KATE Oh, I continue.
ANNA Is he away for long periods?
KATE I think, sometimes. Are you?
ANNA You leave your wife for such long periods? How can you?
DEELEY I have to do a lot of travelling in my job.
ANNA (To Kate.) I think I must come and keep you company when he’s away.
DEELEY Won’t your husband miss you?
ANNA Of course. But he would understand.
DEELEY Does he understand now?
ANNA Of course.
DEELEY We had a vegetarian dish prepared for him.
ANNA He’s not a vegetarian. In fact he’s something of a gourmet. We live in a rather fine villa and have done so for many years. It’s very high up, on the cliffs.
DEELEY You eat well up there, eh?
ANNA I would say so, yes.
DEELEY Yes, I know Sicily slightly. Just slightly. Taormina. Do you live in Taormina?
ANNA Just outside.
DEELEY Just outside, yes. Very high up. Yes, I’ve probably caught a glimpse of your villa.
Pause
My work took me to Sicily. My work concerns itself with life all over, you see, in every part of the globe. With people all over the globe. I use the word globe because the word world possesses emotional political sociological and psychological pretensions and resonances which I prefer as a matter of choice to do without, or shall I say to steer clear of, or if you like to reject. How’s the yacht?
ANNA Oh, very well.
DEELEY Captain steer a straight course?
ANNA As straight as we wish, when we wish it.
DEELEY Don’t you find England damp, returning?
ANNA Rather beguilingly so.
DEELEY Rather beguilingly so? (To himself.) What the hell does she mean by that?
Pause
Well, any time your husband finds himself in this direction my little wife will be only too glad to put the old pot on the old gas stove and dish him up something luscious if not voluptuous. No trouble.
Pause
I suppose his business interests kept him from making the trip. What’s his name? Gian Carlo or Per Paulo?
KATE (To Anna.) Do you have marble floors?
ANNA Yes.
KATE Do you walk in bare feet on them?
ANNA Yes. But I wear sandals on the terrace, because it can be rather severe on the soles.
KATE The sun, you mean? The heat.
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY I had a great crew in Sicily. A marvellous cameraman. Irving Shultz. Best in the business. We took a pretty austere look at the women in black. The little old women in black. I wrote the film and directed it. My name is Orson Welles.
KATE (To Anna.) Do you drink orange juice on your terrace in the morning, and bullshots at sunset, and look down at the sea?
ANNA Sometimes, yes.
DEELEY As a matter of fact I am at the top of my profession, as a matter of fact, and I have indeed been associated with substantial numbers of articulate and sensitive people, mainly prostitutes of all kinds.
KATE (To Anna.) And do you like the Sicilian people?
DEELEY I’ve been there. There’s nothing more to see, there’s nothing more to investigate, nothing. There’s nothing more in Sicily to investigate.
KATE (To Anna.) Do you like the Sicilian people?
Anna stares at her.
Silence
ANNA (Quietly.) Don’t let’s go out tonight, don’t let’s go anywhere tonight, let’s stay in. I’ll cook something, you can wash your hair, you can relax, we’ll put on some records.
KATE Oh, I don’t know. We could go out
ANNA Why do you want to go out?
KATE We could walk across the park.
ANNA The park is dirty at night, all sorts of horrible people, men hiding behind trees and women with terrible voices, they scream at you as you go past, and people come out suddenly from behind trees and bushes and there are shadows everywhere and there are policemen, and you’ll have a horrible walk, and you’ll see all the traffic and the noise of the traffic and you’ll see all the hotels, and you know you hate looking through all those swing doors, you hate it, to see all that, all those people in the lights in the lobbies all talking and moving and all the chandeliers . . .
Pause
You’ll only want to come home if you go out. You’ll want to run home . . . and into your room . . .
Pause
KATE What shall we do then?
ANNA Stay in. Shall I read to you? Would you like that?
KATE I don’t know.
Pause
ANNA Are you hungry?
KATE No.
DEELEY Hungry? After that casserole?
Pause
KATE What shall I wear tomorrow? I can’t make up my mind.
ANNA Wear your green.
KATE I haven’t got the right top.
ANNA You have. You have your turquoise blouse.
KATE Do they go?
ANNA Yes, they do go. Of course they go.
KATE I’ll try it.
Pause
ANNA Would you like me to ask someone over?
KATE Who?
ANNA Charley . . . or Jake?
KATE I don’t like Jake.
ANNA Well, Charley . . . or . . .
KATE Who?
ANNA McCabe.
Pause
KATE I’ll think about it in the bath.
ANNA Shall I run your bath for you?
KATE (Standing.) No. I’ll run it myself tonight.
Kate slowly walks to the bedroom door, goes out, closes it.
Deeley stands looking at Anna.
Anna turns her head towards him.
They look at each other.
FADE
ACT TWO
The bedroom.
A long window up centre. Door to bathroom up left. Door to sitting-room up right.
Two divans. An armchair.
The divans and armchair are disposed in precisely the same relation to each other as the furniture in the first act, but in reversed positions.
Lights dim. Anna discerned sitting on divan. Faint glow from glass panel in bathroom door.
Silence.
Lights up. The other door opens. Deeley comes in with tray.
Deeley comes into the room, places the tray on a table.
DEELEY Here we are. Good and hot. Good and strong and hot. You prefer it white with sugar, I believe?
ANNA Please.
DEELEY (Pouring.) Good and strong and hot with white and sugar.
He hands her the cup.
Like the room?
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It’s the castors that make all this possible.
He sits with coffee.
Yes, I remember you quite clearly from The Wayfarers.
ANNA The what?
DEELEY The Wayfarers Tavern, just off the Brompton Road.
ANNA When was that?
DEELEY Years ago.
ANNA I don’t think so.
DEELEY Oh yes, it was you, no question. I never forget a face. You sat in the corner, quite often, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. And here you are, sitting in my house in the country. The same woman. Incredible. Fellow called Luke used to go in there. You knew him.
ANNA Luke?
DEELEY Big chap. Ginger hair. Ginger beard.
ANNA I don’t honestly think so.
DEELEY Yes, a whole crowd of them, poets, stunt men, jockeys, standup comedians, that kind of setup. You used to wear a scarf, that’s right, a black scarf, and a black sweater, and a skirt.
ANNA Me?
DEELEY And black stockings. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten The Wayfarers Tavern? You might have forgotten the name but you must remember the pub. You were the darling of the saloon bar.
ANNA I wasn’t rich, you know. I didn’t have money for alcohol.
DEELEY You had escorts. You didn’t have to pay. You were looked after. I bought you a few drinks myself.
ANNA You?
DEELEY Sure.
ANNA Never.
DEELEY It’s the truth. I remember clearly.
Pause
ANNA You?
DEELEY I’ve bought you drinks.
Pause
Twenty years ago . . . or so.
ANNA You’re saying we’ve met before?
DEELEY Of course we’ve met before.
Pause
We’ve talked before. In that pub, for example. In the corner. Luke didn’t like it much but we ignored him. Later we all went to a party. Someone’s flat, somewhere in Westbourne Grove. You sat on a very low sofa, I sat opposite and looked up your skirt. Your black stockings were very black because your thighs were so white. That’s something that’s all over now, of course, isn’t it, nothing like the same palpable profit in it now, it’s all over. But it was worthwhile then. It was worthwhile that night. I simply sat sipping my light ale and gazed . . . gazed up your skirt. You didn’t object, you found my gaze perfectly acceptable.
ANNA I was aware of your gaze, was I?
DEELEY There was a great argument going on, about China or something, or death, or China and death, I can’t remember which, but nobody but I had a thigh-kissing view, nobody but you had the thighs which kissed. And here you are. Same woman. Same thighs.
Pause
Yes. Then a friend of yours came in, a girl, a girl friend. She sat on the sofa with you, you both chatted and chuckled, sitting together, and I settled lower to gaze at you both, at both your thighs, squealing and hissing, you aware, she unaware, but then a great multitude of men surrounded me, and demanded my opinion about death, or about China, or whatever it was, and they would not let me be but bent down over me, so that what with their stinking breath and their broken teeth and the hair in their noses and China and death and their arses on the arms of my chair I was forced to get up and plunge my way through them, followed by them with ferocity, as if I were the cause of their argument, looking back through smoke, rushing to the table with the linoleum cover to look for one more full bottle of light ale, looking back through smoke, glimpsing two girls on the sofa, one of them you, heads close, whispering, no longer able to see anything, no longer able to see stocking or thigh, and then you were gone. I wandered over to the sofa. There was no one on it. I gazed at the indentations of four buttocks. Two of which were yours.
Pause
ANNA I’ve rarely heard a sadder story.
DEELEY I agree.
ANNA I’m terribly sorry.
DEELEY That’s all right.
Pause
I never saw you again. You disappeared from the area. Perhaps you moved out.
ANNA No. I didn’t.
DEELEY I never saw you in The Wayfarers Tavern again. Where were you?
ANNA Oh, at concerts, I should think, or the ballet.
Silence
Katey’s taking a long time over her bath.
DEELEY Well, you know what she’s like when she gets in the bath.
ANNA Yes.
DEELEY Enjoys it. Takes a long time over it.
ANNA She does, yes.
DEELEY A hell of a long time. Luxuriates in it. Gives herself a great soaping all over.
Pause
Really soaps herself all over, and then washes the soap off, sud by sud. Meticulously. She’s both thorough and, I must say it, sensuous. Gives herself a comprehensive going over, and apart from everything else she does emerge as clean as a new pin. Don’t you think?
ANNA Very clean.
DEELEY Truly so. Not a speck. Not a tidemark. Shiny as a balloon.
ANNA Yes, a kind of floating.
DEELEY What?
ANNA She floats from the bath. Like a dream. Unaware of anyone standing, with her towel, waiting for her, waiting to wrap it round her. Quite absorbed.
Pause
