Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  HELEN: I think you are the most insatiable exhibitionist.

  FLADDER: (Glaring at her.) Exhibitionism you would know about, who hung your cunt out to all youth, I’VE SEEN HER DO IT LIKE THE BUTCHER SHOWING MEAT.

  HELEN: Get up and wash your face, will you…?

  FLADDER: What we do against others is no sin, it’s self-murder I prosecute, the only crimes are crimes against the self, that’s the source of cruelty.

  HELEN: Wash your face, please…

  FLADDER: Wash it, why? Wash yours, it’s black with terror. YOU THINK TO SHOW YOUR ARSE IS REVELATION? (She slaps him. Pause.)

  HELEN: You see, you bring out the worst in everyone. (Pause. FLADDER hangs his head.)

  GUMMERY: He was such a bugger once, a proper head-hacker, I saw him swallow blood hot from severed arteries, the head still rolling in the fosse…

  HELEN: Terrible decline… It comes from having Helen back…

  SAVAGE: (Briskly.) No executioner. Pity. Paper gaol, then, until such time as paper death sets in.

  FLADDER: (Seeing SHADE enter.) HERE’S THE MAN TO DO IT. (The look at SHADE.)

  EPSOM: Go ‘ome now, Barry, if yer wish. And take the mirror. (Pause.)

  SHADE: Home? What’s that?

  FLADDER: In him, even, whose mouth is a brass purse of pain, some rotted quality of personal perfection must persist, all gnawed and spoiled by terror and abuse, DEEP THOUGH! (Suddenly, SHADE flies at him.)

  HOGBIN: (Horrified.) Hey…!

  SAVAGE: (Looking.) Not looking…

  HOGBIN: Oi, you’re the –

  SAVAGE: NOT LOOKING –

  HOGBIN: MAGISTRATE!

  HELEN: (As SHADE works on FLADDER).

  His little sob at coming

  His great shout at coming

  His little spilling

  His great splash of fluid

  His snivelling at betrayal

  His great cataclysms of despair

  His skittering with infants

  His flinging of the baby at the wall

  WHAT COULD YOU MAKE OF THAT BRUTE AND BOY. (Pause.)

  No man made me more eager to betray him or more willing to come back…(Pause.)

  HOGBIN: He ain’t dead…(Pause.)

  HELEN: Not dead? (She laughs, as SHADE walks away from the kneeling FLADDER.)

  SHADE: The worst thing that can happen to a compulsive apologist I think, is to lose his tongue…

  HELEN: Lose his…

  SHADE: Finish Paper Troy.

  HELEN: His tongue…

  SHADE: (Tossing it away.) And paper knives –

  HELEN: NO TONGUE –

  SHADE: (Holding a vile thing.) I had to rip it up by its roots. NO PRIVATE LIFE IN NEW TROY! NO CLAMOUR OF APOLOGY! (Pause.)

  HELEN: Put it back…

  SHADE: (Turning to her.) Put it back? Why, did it please you very much, lapping your sour flavours? (EPSOM laughs.) NO MORE OF THAT EITHER. He only watches now, his eyeballs do the talking.

  HELEN: Put it back…

  SHADE: (Thrusting it at her.) You.

  HELEN: The voice. The words. Are what desire is. The message is arousal. Or we’re cattle. You have castrated him.

  SHADE: No, I left those shrivelled things intact.

  HELEN: YOU HAVE CASTRATED HIM. (Pause.) He could mutter me into upheavals no shoving hip could copy, earthquakes by his bawdy –

  EPSOM: LEND US THE TONGUE, THEN!

  HELEN: Oh, you sham male dog on its hind legs dancing –

  EPSOM: LEND US IT!

  HELEN: Parody of masculinity –

  SHADE: (Flinging the tongue to EPSOM.) Bury it, with honours, since it commanded us at epic slaughters, or pickle it for youth to gawp at. And this fat one, let him record its wit from recollections, in eight volumes. As for this bitch, new queen now, for new Troy. Where’s my looted woman?

  CREUSA: No thank you.

  SHADE: NEW QUEEN I SAID. (To HELEN.) And you, her slut. (He goes to the kneeling figure of FLADDER, puts his hands on FLADDER’s shoulders, embraces him.) Don’t think cruel men have not also suffered, or victims spluttered terrible savagery in tears…(Pause.) I’m looking for a god. (Pause. He turns to SAVAGE.) Could it be you?

  SCENE FIVE

  A Beach, GAY, with a stick. A BOY, seated.

  GAY: Reasons for the fall of Paper Troy. One! (THE BOY hesitates.) Come on, oh, do come on, or I will beat you!

  BOY: Erm…

  GAY: One! The degeneracy of the aristocracy and their flirtation with the arts. Two! The martial ardour of the warriors could find no satisfaction in origami! Three! Are you listening, I don’t think you try at all, this is HISTORY I’m teaching you! And stop fidgeting, or I will beat you! (Exasperated pause.) I sometimes think, people are such swine, such inveterate swine. And then I think, no, you can make them better.

  BOY: By beating them?

  GAY: By beating them, yes! How else? (She sees a figure, off.) Oh, no, here comes that horrid old man again! Don’t encourage him. Because he’s blind we all go silly, he knows that, he uses it to exploit us. (HOMER enters, blind.) YOU ARE NOT TO PUT YOUR HAND INTO MY DRESS AGAIN. (He stops.) I think the beach should be a place for children to be children and not poked about by peculiar old men.

  HOMER: You are not a child.

  GAY: I am a child. I am thirteen. Obviously I am a child.

  HOMER: You are not a child, and I am not an old man.

  GAY: Conundrum.

  BOY: What?

  GAY: Conundrum. He says all these things, these conundrums and things, and the next thing you know –

  HOMER: Stop –

  GAY: Hand up your –

  HOMER: STOP. (She concedes.) I am not an old man because I know nothing. And you are not a child because you know it all. Now give me your hand. (She extends it. HOMER draws it quickly to his crutch.)

  GAY: There! I knew that would happen!

  HOMER: A GOD LIVES THERE.

  HELEN: (Entering.) The author of the Iliad.

  GAY: HE IS TRYING TO MAKE ME INSANE! (She pulls away, runs off.)

  HOMER: The young…! No charity! So cruel, which is their fascination…

  BOY: She beats me with a twig!

  HOMER: Lucky fellow…

  BOY: Right round the face sometimes, whip. Because I don’t know ten reasons for the fall of Paper Troy.

  HOMER: There are not ten reasons.

  BOY: That’s what I say! (He hurries off.)

  HELEN: I hate your songs. Do you mind this? The ripping livers and the splash of brains. The prosody is marvellous but, I must say this and fuck the consequences. The torrents of intestine and the ravens picking skulls I AM SO VIOLENT, were you always blind? When their attacks were beaten off we maimed the wounded. With kitchen knives, me and the Trojan women, hacked them in the ditch, trimming the features off their heads like turnips for the market and their cocks we cropped. DON’T SAY YOU NEVER HEARD OF THIS were you born blind or was it horror spread some merciful film across your retina, and what’s pity, I do think pity is no substitute for truth –

  HOMER: Helen –

  HELEN: I REFUSE TO CLAP YOUR SONGS. (Pause.) I loved Troy, because Troy was to sin. Why did you never say that? But him who took me there was not a sinner, only an exhibitionist, and not my equal. DON’T YOU KNOW THE HELL IT IS TO FIND NO MAN YOUR EQUAL? Say that, in your next book. That was the agony of Troy, not slippery swords or old men massacred, but Helen’s awful loneliness in dream…

  HOMER: Helen…

  HELEN: Do what you like with my daughter – when history gets to a child no mother can be of the least relief.

  HOMER: (Holding out his arms.) Helen! (He encloses her. She weeps. SAVAGE appears with HOGBIN pushing the bin.)

  SAVAGE: I said, if I am the god, why do I have to drag the bin? Put wheels on it, he said…

  HELEN: (Pulling free of HOMER.) What are you?

  SAVAGE: What am I?

  HELEN: You come here, first a clerk and now a god – it’s obvious you want to destroy me – />
  SAVAGE: Me –

  HELEN: WHAT ELSE ARE YOU HERE FOR!

  HOGBIN: (Demonstratively.) The Interlude of the Bin! Within the bin – (He removes the lid.) The fruits of the hospital! I construct – I demonstrate – the vital elements of the Suffering Biped – ONE! (He reaches into the offal.) It’s a – (He looks at a shapeless thing.) Call it a foot – (He places it on the ground.) This transports the lie around – the biped is manoeuvrable, it is not still, no, it stamps in unison, the foot being also for DANCING, a futile repetition aimed at creating social unity, ANOTHER LIE and also, KICKING, the ecstasy experienced by the biped in inflicting pain, TWO! (He dips in again.) The knee! (He looks at a shapeless thing.) Call it a knee –

  SAVAGE: (Staring at HOMER.) Listen –

  HOGBIN: Why not a knee –

  SAVAGE: Listen, will you?

  HOGBIN: (Laying the piece down.) I’m talking –

  SAVAGE: This is him who –

  HOGBIN: I’M TALKING, AREN’T I? (Pause.) Knee. For kneeling with. To imaginary forces such a God, or actual forces such as the party, the murderer, etcetera, a complex joint enabling the biped to grovel most convincingly –

  SAVAGE: HO – MER! (He throws himself at HOMER’s feet and kisses the hem of his garment.)

  HOGBIN: Also, for driving into softer organs such as the stomach or the genitals, to render ineffective the thing I number THREE – (He dips in again at random.) The organ of increase! (He pulls out a shapeless thing.) Call it a dick – why not a dick – and with the other bit – two elements with which…(He stares at the thing.) the biped…in a extravaganza of futility…pretends to…shake off consciousness…or fails to…RIBS! (He reaches in, stops in mid-movement. To SAVAGE.) You mustn’t do that…he may be the very wickedest of bastards…

  SAVAGE: THE GREAT MAN LENDS US HOPE…

  HOGBIN: You say that because you sense you are a great man yourself, but undiscovered…

  SAVAGE: (To HOMER.) We squabble, my student and I, my desperate and sadistic student, we – but you would know, you with your flocks of followers –

  HOGBIN: Creeping…

  SAVAGE: Clustering around you for the least perception which –

  HOGBIN: Creeping…

  SAVAGE: LET ME WORSHIP SOMEBODY! (Pause.) So barren isn’t it, a life without prostration? (To HOGBIN.) AND THAT GOES FOR ALL JUVENILE ICONOCLASTS! (Pause. To HOMER.) Savage, PhD, lecturer in classics, theses on metre and the first six books…(Pause.) Beloved genius… I call you genius…though he would say there’s no such thing…THERE IS AND THIS IS IT… (Pause.) Speak to me…a little philosophical deduction…no, that’s a lot to ask, a real impertinence, forgive me…anything would do…(Pause.) Not anything, that’s silly, not anything, not the time of day, no, but a little distillation? Or is distillation now impossible? (Pause.) COME ON, I WROTE TWO BOOKS ABOUT YOU!

  HOGBIN: Ribs! (He pulls a shapeless thing from the bin.) Call it ribs, all right? (He places it down.) In the shelter of which the biped hides his HEART, formerly conceived as the organ of feeling, passion, etcetera, but now exposed as leathery and boring PUMP.

  HOMER: I hate the young. When I was young even, I hated the young…(Pause.)

  SAVAGE: (To HOMER.) You are the greatest poet in the world. Of any time. Of any culture. (Pause.)

  I wonder if you heard? I said –

  HOMER: You imagine you compliment me.

  SAVAGE: Don’t I?

  HOMER: And having complimented me, you expect the compliment to give me pleasure.

  SAVAGE: Doesn’t it? (Pause. Suddenly, shockingly HELEN leaps on HOGBIN and wrestles him.)

  HOGBIN: Oi! (HELEN and HOGBIN roll about. She bears him down.) Oi! (She laughs with delight.) Oi! (They roll over the floor.)

  HOMER: The great artist drifts beyond the common consciousness, like a child carried to sea by a raft. The beach gets further, the paddlers get further, the weak swimmers, then the strong swimmers, all out of reach, until – YOU ARE WRITING IT DOWN!

  SAVAGE: No, I –

  HOMER: LIAR. HEARD THE PEN.

  SAVAGE: (Innocently.) Was I?

  HELEN: (To HOGBIN, climbing off him.) Be my lover.

  HOGBIN: No!

  HELEN: They say no now! Listen! No, he says. Look, I plead…!

  HOGBIN: Don’t wanna…

  HELEN: We will have a child and call it – (To HOMER.) DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT I AM NOT INFERTILE. (HOGBIN scrambles to his feet.)

  HELEN: Listen…! (She cups her ear.) The daily chant of Laughing Troy…

  SHADE: (Entering.) The word. (He looks at them.)

  The word today is Us.

  All say it.

  Us.

  It soothes the soul, it calms the temper, can’t hear you.

  Us. (HOMER starts to leave.)

  I thought you were blind, not dumb. (He stops.) I also have a mind.

  HOMER: Us.

  SHADE: Excellent. I think with vast and bloated genius, to stoop is healthy. (He turns to the others.) Everybody!

  ALL: Us. (Pause. He turns to leave.)

  SAVAGE: Excuse me, am I still a god?

  SHADE: Why not? Aren’t you still ugly? (He goes to leave again.)

  SAVAGE: Tomorrow’s word then! (SHADE stops.) If you’re looking for suggestions…(Pause.) MUST.

  SHADE: Must…?

  SAVAGE: US and MUST. The twin pillars of history…(SHADE goes out. Pause. They look at SAVAGE critically.) I did not come here to sit on a beach…(They stare at him.) Where’s knowledge? Where does it lie? In meditation? The lillies and the rhyming couplets? The whispering sandal in the aromatic garden? NO POET EVER TOLD US ANYTHING. (HOGBIN looks at HOMER.) And why? BECAUSE HE NEVER GOVERNED. That’s why he’s blind, he only looks inside. ALL RIGHT MR HOMER YOU CAN ABUSE ME NOW. (Pause.) I’m waiting, in a lather of submission…(Pause.)

  HELEN: You are not a very great man, Dr Savage…

  SAVAGE: His lashing, please…

  HELEN: Or even very dignified…

  SAVAGE: His lashing, not yours…! (Pause, then HOMER goes off.) I am beneath contempt…

  HELEN: Yes, but he’s looking for my daughter. (She turns to go, stops, looks at HOGBIN, who is replacing the offal in the bin.) What’s the matter, do you love another woman? (HOGBIN shrugs.) I hope I shan’t hate you. I’m such a hater. It’s the burden of my life.

  HOGBIN: I’m sorry, I–

  HELEN: Don’t! (Pause, to SAVAGE.) He was going to apologize! Or is that right? Perhaps he knows, if he really tried, he could love me? (She goes out. MACLUBY appears.)

  MACLUBY: The Pruning of Helen. (SAVAGE and HOGBIN fill the bin, replace the lid.) The pruning of Helen may have been – this is the nature of political decisions – spontaneous. A flash of intuition or a stab of malice.WHAT DO YOU THINK HISTORY IS, DELIBERATION? On the other hand it may have been the outcome of long and acrimonious debate within the ruling circle, WHAT DO YOU THINK HISTORY IS, SPASMS? (To SAVAGE, who is going out.) Oi! (SAVAGE stops.) He also sins who only writes the words. But you know that. (MACLUBY goes out. CREUSA enters.)

  CREUSA: Slave one day. Queen the next. Would you believe? The transformations! But happy by order, and to be illiterate. Difficult, when I was not illiterate in the first place. This Troy to be in single syllables. Difficult. Or hard, should say. (She exerts her imagination.) MY – PLAIN – FACE – TO – BE – THE – BADGE – OF – TROY! Done it! (She tries again.) AND – IN – MY – LIFE – THE – CROWD – WILL – SEE – AND – LOVE – ITS – SELF – NOT – STOOP – TO – SNOBS – NOR – LICK – THE – ARSE – OF – BEAUTY – Beauty’s two…(Pause.) Shade’s Troy. (She parrots.) I also have a mind…! (Pause. She looks at HOGBIN.) Will you talk to me, I have given up all hope of a quiet life, and a quiet life when I had it I despised, it was not quiet, it was clay, it was not quiet, it was mud, quiet is something else, not dense but light I think. I left notes for you in so many places, my scrambling love, my rodent, I was burrowed, I was tunnelled, all my dark exposed to daylight, a tent uptipped, a par
cel with your fingers at the strings, the haste, the impatience, the breathless hunt, and your great wail of desperation, did you get my notes, every tree trunk I left letters in and every litterbin, no, I exaggerate, some I did pass by, do I embarrass you at all, you look so, I am so rarely this enthusiastic and you look, OH, FUCK I HAVE OFFENDED HIM, calm down, calm down, there I’m calm now, I am so glad to see you, there, statement of extreme reserve, DON’T YOU WANT TO FUCK NOW, shh! I could, almost, I could, yes, I could almost BEAT YOU, I ALSO HAVE A MIND, please speak or don’t I leave you room, I don’t, do I, here’s room. (She stops. Pause.)

  HOGBIN: Cold today…(Pause.)

  CREUSA: Cold today. You? Ah. Shh! Could let out such a torrent. Could let out such a volley but no, shh, I have done everything. I have been everythinged, and you – a balding and precocious youth can WHO’S IMPOTENT AT THAT – for which no criticism – can make me who has done everything and been everythinged – (Pause.) If I believed in gods I’d say some godlike bugger had sprinkled me with what – delirium – to entertain himself – cold, is it? All right, just sit, to sit with you would be enough, and say a few words, or nothing if you – (He sits.) Thank you. (Pause.) I thank him. (Pause.)

  HOGBIN: Cold today…

  CREUSA: We are like that. We are! We are so inconsistent. We are liars without meaning it. And now I’m cold as well. Excellently cold. Excellently off the idea. Excellent. I could no more have you than. I am to speak in words of single syllables I must remind you. It is the function of my majesty. (Pause.) Arse is one syllable. Cunt obviously. It is a miracle when two moods coincide. It is a sacrament. THREE SYLLABLES! (A long pause, then she lets out a cry.) Oh, God…(Pause.) Oh, God, you have met someone else…(Pause.)

  SCENE SIX

  The Government. EPSOM carries on the mirror.

  SHADE: Gather round me. Come on, gather round me, comrades in arms, etcetera, treaders of the bowel carpet and the brain mat – (He opens his arms to them. He clutches them round the shoulders. They stare into the mirror.) Oh, we are ageing! Oh, we are shedding! Look, the ploughed up skins, we are hanging off our cheek bones and our eyes are dim. Look deep, look deep, we slew arbitrarily and we pitied arbitrarily. Look deep. Speech, Les.