Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  EPSOM: Speech?

  SHADE: Speech! Yes! This is the frame of greatness, did you think battle was your forte? Never, battle’s for the bullock this is where proper violence belongs. WORDS! Les!

  EPSOM: Can’t –

  SHADE: He can’t, he can’t, Brian, you –

  GUMMERY: Must I?

  SHADE: You must, old friend.

  GUMMERY: Look at yourself then, Barry –

  SHADE: Brian, I do –

  GUMMERY: Look ‘ard and tell us, is it a healthy face is looking back at you?

  SHADE: Not healthy, no –

  GUMMERY: Or noble?

  SHADE: Noble, no –

  GUMMERY: Regard the beak, the way the eyes protrude –

  SHADE: They do, and I forgive your rudeness –

  EPSOM: Yellow skin –

  SHADE: Thank you –

  EPSOM: And puffy round yer lids –

  SHADE: Oh, Les, you have discovered speech –

  GUMMERY: Is there pity in the eyeball?

  SHADE: Pity? None –

  GUMMERY: Mercy?

  SHADE: Mercy? KEEP THE MIRROR STILL we’re looking for my – what –

  GUMMERY: Mercy –

  SHADE: No, can’t see it, Brian, unless that bloodshot vein is it… I think sometimes, they want me to be cruel. They bay at cruelty, but still I think they want me to be cruel. I think even the beaten man wants to be beaten. Why is that?

  SAVAGE: (Entering.) The governor is the nightmare of the populace… (Pause.)

  SHADE: Leave me with the doctor. We must define new life, the gutters and the ceilings of New Troy. How laughter might be made as sharp as wire and dancing a new drill…(GUMMERY and EPSOM leave. SHADE looks into SAVAGE. Pause.) SUPPOSING WE TRUSTED ONE ANOTHER! (Silence.) Supposing. (Pause.) Just supposing. (Pause.) I used the word trust loosely. Because I imagine there is trust and trust. Trust I think I fathom but TRUST…! What’s that? (Pause. GUMMERY comes back in. SHADE detects him in the mirror with alarm.) DON’T RETURN WITHOUT WARNING ME! (GUMMERY freezes.) What is it, Brian, you made me jump.

  GUMMERY: Old Helen of Old Troy.

  SHADE: What about her?

  GUMMERY: Is carrying ‘er ‘usband round the ‘ouse on ‘er back. ‘e croaks on ‘er like a sun-burned frog. Down alleys and through the estates. And ‘is saliva everywhere, buckets of, the tongueless dribble, it appears, in excess, and it’s making puddles where women exercise their dogs…

  SHADE: All right…

  GUMMERY: This was the cause of ten years’ bleeding and now look at ‘er, bare legs and filthy black – It makes a pig of everyone who raged for ten years at the gates if she’s to be a slut with unwashed legs –

  SHADE: I can see you’re anxious –

  GUMMERY: History, Barry!

  SHADE: History, yes, but even Helen ages –

  GUMMERY: Quicker than most, but dignity would help. (He goes out.)

  SHADE: I take his point. And once they sold her piss in little bottles. Well, so it was said by servants who crossed to our lines with buckets of the stuff. Could have been the cat’s for all we knew. One piss is just like any other. (Pause.) Or isn’t it?

  SAVAGE: No.

  SHADE: Some smeared their wounds with it. Some swallowed it with cordials. The very depth of barminess. Or was it?

  SAVAGE: No. (Pause.)

  SHADE: What do you want, Doctor Savage?

  SAVAGE: Knowledge.

  SHADE: How?

  SAVAGE: Through you.

  SHADE: Through me? But aren’t I coarse and stupid?

  SAVAGE: Yes. But stupidity’s my instrument.

  SHADE: (Smiles.) It’s night, I let all insults fly, like vermin coming through the floorboards RAT ON THE GOB!

  SAVAGE: You hate all kisses which aren’t quick –

  SHADE: Yes, I admit it.

  SAVAGE: And whispers of impossible intentions –

  SHADE: I admit that too! Night’s the time for filth and for confessions. LOATHSOME INSECT IN THE SINK! You think I will like you if you abuse me. Intellectual’s privilege? (He goes to SAVAGE, close.) I think my whim, my unrestrained and brutal impulse, spewed from the depths of my defective character and made by you into the monosyllables of late Trojan law, would in their essence be no worse than all the caring calculations of fifty trembling humanists, do you agree or not? (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: Reserve my judgement.

  SHADE: Reserve your judgement – (He sees EPSOM in the mirror.) WHAT IS IT LES YER MADE ME JUMP! (EPSOM enters.) Still up, old son? What is it, indigestion?

  EPSOM: She’s placed these adverts. (He holds out some postcards.)

  SHADE: Must I look?

  EPSOM: In corner shops.

  SHADE: Must I? You read. (He goes to the window.) Look, the very paring of a moon, a nail of moon, against the plague pit of the sky, the word tonight is HACK. You could hack pods of pregnancy with the moon’s hook…

  EPSOM: (Reading.) Helen, formerly of Troy –

  SHADE: Don’t you love moons, doctor? They teach us all is shit, by shining on the good and bad alike…

  EPSOM: Model, seeks interesting work part-time…

  SHADE: STOP THAT!

  EPSOM: (Stops reading.) I mean, if she’s no better than a whore – then what did we – ten years of –(Pause.)

  SHADE: She was a whore! Why else did we go there? I think the sex thing is such a punishment to us. I think you cattle. Don’t you? Copulating cattle? Seeing the rear end of a cow I think, its hips are not unlike a stooping tart, and us likewise no doubt, our bits droop like a dog’s. HUMAN DIGNITY WHAT’S THAT.

  SAVAGE: I don’t know.

  SHADE: Don’t you?

  SAVAGE: I think it’s love.

  SHADE: What love? You chuck words up like a dead men’s ashes, what love? The love of criminals in cars or bankrupt marriages? WHAT?

  SAVAGE: I don’t know! I’m frightened to know!

  SHADE: The love of old men for their benches, what?

  SAVAGE: I’M FRIGHTENED TO KNOW!

  SHADE: Stare in the glass! (He fetches the mirror.) Stare in the glass.

  SAVAGE: (On his knees still.) I don’t like mirrors…

  SHADE: No one does. (He places it close to SAVAGE.)

  SAVAGE: Avoided mirrors all my life –

  SHADE: Because you’re ugly –

  SAVAGE: Am I? Yes I –

  SHADE: Ugly, yes, go on –

  SAVAGE: Shaved without one, you can see –

  SHADE: Go on –

  SAVAGE: Lots of hairs get missed, my wife, she used to say you are the most ungroomed and unprepossessing man I ever – do you think it honours you to be dishevelled – I shun fashion like a –

  SHADE: Digressing, doctor –

  SAVAGE: As if for some reason there was sin in elegance –

  SHADE: Digression on digression –

  SAVAGE: I do find speaking to a mirror very –

  SHADE: Now your eyes are shut –

  SAVAGE: Are they – my eyes –

  SHADE: Shut, yes–

  SAVAGE: I THINK IF LOVE LIES ANYWHERE IT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SHAME. (Pause.)

  CREUSA: (Who has entered.) Don’t believe him, will you? His confessions? The routine torrent of his preposterous sins…(SAVAGE looks at her, very long.)

  SAVAGE: (Pause.) This – vilifying hag – obsessed me with her fundament. The breath turned lead, went solid in my lung, to see her knicker on the stair… I have to say this, she moved me to oaths and superlatives, so I won’t speak. Knowledge compels stillness.

  SHADE: This private life! I do shudder. This stew of knotted flesh! I do writhe. (Pause. He turns to SAVAGE.) How can we make the new man? (Pause.) I think he must live in the street. In public always, where nothing uncommon can be done. Can you do this?

  SAVAGE: Yes…

  SHADE: Laughing. Dancing. I think he should move and think in crowds. Can you write this?

  SAVAGE: Yes…

  SHADE: Once, when I saw men in the streets with mise
rable faces, staring at the ground, I nutted them. In streets in Attica where I ran yobbish prior to the war I said cheer up you cunt and if they did not grin to order I rammed my forehead through their gristle. This was instinct but now I see it also must be politics. (Pause.) New Troy. The land of laughter…(Pause. He looks to SAVAGE.) Write it, then…

  CREUSA: And Helen? (They look at her.) Helen who is all clandestine fuck? (Pause.)

  SHADE: I see no place for Helen, do you, Dr Savage? No place for her in Laughing Troy? Her ego and her filthy legs? Her mouth and acts of endless privacy? She is all I and this is the age of we…

  SAVAGE: I has no arms. (Pause. He looks up, half-curious.) Does it? The letter? (Pause.) I is a single stem? (Pause.)

  CREUSA: (With rising horror.) Oh, God, he’s –

  SHADE: (To SAVAGE.) Go on. More cogitation. Further elaboration of the infant thought…

  CREUSA: Listen –

  SHADE: I THINK BECAUSE I HAVE TO.

  SHADE: Oh yes, you do, you do.

  SAVAGE: AND HAVING THOUGHT IT – OUT THOUGHT! VILE OBJECT, OUT FOR SCRUTINY! (Pause.) Helen, who has grown so wild, Helen might be – (He struggles.)

  CREUSA: Listen, I said –

  SHADE: SHUT UP, YOU. (Pause. He goes to SAVAGE.) Won’t help the thought to birth. You birth it, you conceived…

  SAVAGE: Yes…

  SHADE: TERRIBLE LABOUR OF THE THOUGHT!

  SAVAGE: Pruned…(Pause.)

  SHADE: Pruned? (Pause. He walks up and down. Suddenly SAVAGE lets out a terrible cry.)

  SAVAGE: KNOWLEDGE! (SHADE hurries out, bundling CREUSA with him. SAVAGE rocks on his knees. MACLUBY appears.)

  MACLUBY: Knowledge…(SAVAGE turns, sees him. He scrambles to his feet.)

  SAVAGE: Helen – got to – Helen – Where’s she?

  MACLUBY: Wrong way.

  SAVAGE: Is it? (He turns to go the other way.) Can’t move with this –

  MACLUBY: Solidarity Street.

  SAVAGE: Where’s that?

  MACLUBY: Near the Us Museum.

  SAVAGE: Which way’s –

  MACLUBY: Quick!

  SAVAGE: (Tugging at the bin.) How can I, with this thing! (Pause. SHADE enters again, with the key to the manacles. He unlocks them.)

  SHADE: Genius can’t be encumbered, can it? Genius? (He goes out again. SAVAGE rubs his wrists.)

  MACLUBY: Moon’s gone again…(Pause.) Never find yer way…

  SAVAGE: Free concerts block the avenues…

  MACLUBY: (Gazing into him.) Unfortunately…(Pause. Suddenly SAVAGE confronts his horror.)

  SAVAGE: All right! (Pause. He crawls to the mirror SHADE has left, and looks in it.) All right…! (MACLUBY goes out.)

  SCENE SEVEN

  The Street. Sound of a conga. HOGBIN rushes in.

  HOGBIN: Oi! (The conga appears, the dancers in sacks.) Somebody! (They chant.)

  THE CONGA: Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Oh – so – glad –

  Oh – so – glad –

  HOGBIN: Listen, will yer! (They pass by.) I must stop doin’ that. I shout oi! And no one shifts. Why should they? The Redundant Oi, by Kevin Hogbin. (He sees HOMER.) Oi! (He runs up to him.) I saw three geezers drag a woman off!

  HOMER: The first duty of the poet is to survive. (Pause.)

  HOGBIN: Is it…? (The conga returns.)

  THE CONGA: Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Oh – so – glad –

  Oh – so – glad –

  HOGBIN: (In despair.) Can’t think, can yer? CAN’T FUCKIN’ THINK! (The conga departs.)

  HOMER: Testament… Not participation…testament!

  HOGBIN: An ‘alf of me says ‘dance, Kevin! The beat!’ And ‘alf says ‘put wax in yer ears! Tie down yer feet!’

  HOMER: How hard that is! (He grabs him.) Listen, my third book.

  HOGBIN: THIRD book?

  HOMER: I sing you my third book.

  HOGBIN: Third book…?

  HOMER: Listen, I give it to you! Listen! (Pause.) The Heroic Life of the Citizens of Sacked Cities.

  HOGBIN: Long title for you.

  HOMER: (Pause.) The Ruinad. (Pause.) I sang it once before. And they left, singly or in groups, like men who had forgotten to post letters, until at the end, I was singing to myself…(He suddenly sobs.)

  HOGBIN: All right…all right…so what…if it’s true – (The conga reappears.) OH, FUCK THEM…! (HOMER begins to sing, but is drowned by the conga.)

  THE CONGA: Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Got – to – be – so – glad – now –

  Oh – so – glad –

  Oh – so – glad –

  HOMER: You ask me to believe,

  You ask me to believe,

  In the mercy of the gods,

  I say their mercy is only

  A refreshment of their malice…

  (He fades, falters.)

  HOGBIN: What? (Pause. HOMER is peering blindly, off.) ‘omer? (Pause.) I’m still ‘ere. (Pause.) As long as one child is ‘alf attentive, you ‘ave an audience. (Pause.) ‘omer. (Pause.) I COMMAND THE POWER OF YOUR GENIUS! The people’s right to your imagination…give us it! (Pause, then EPSOM passes through.)

  EPSOM: Old times… Suddenly, what seemed like always and forever, is old times…

  HELEN: (Entering, supported by FLADDER, and bandaged.) Murder me. (She looks around.) MURDER ME.

  HOMER: (Who sees nothing.) Murder Helen? Why?

  HELEN: MURDER! (Pause.)

  HOMER: You don’t mean that.

  HELEN: I do. I do mean it.

  HOMER: Then why ask? There are cliffs. And ponds. Railway tracks, and dynamos –

  HELEN: I want to die –

  HOMER: Liar –

  HELEN: LOOK AT ME.

  HOMER: LIAR. (Pause.)

  HOGBIN: (Who has been transfixed by the sight of her wounds.) Giggle…! Want to giggle…! Try to be grown up but want to giggle…! (He throws himself at HELEN’s feet, clasping her ankles.)

  GAY: (Entering.) Has anybody got the doctor?

  HELEN: It was a doctor who did it.

  GAY: Oh, good. Oh, good, because… Let’s face it, we have seen some awful things and the presence of trained specialists is comforting…it is! I hate bad hangmen, for example. Ask the hanged, they will tell you, merci, merci, for a trained professional…! (She goes to FLADDER and puts her arms around him affectionately.) She can always grip with her thighs, and her tongue, which they say is of such great versatility, that could become as tensile as a cable…(THE BOY enters, staring.)

  BOY: Woman got no arms…(They ignore him. He addresses HOMER.) Why did you cut her arms off?

  GAY: No, it wasn’t him.

  BOY: Must have been, he –

  GAY: No, he only –

  BOY: YES HE DID. (Pause.)

  HOMER: If I had not made Helen, Helen would not have been disfigured…(Pause.) But Helen had to be made…

  GAY: SHE DID NOT HAVE TO BE MADE! (She claps her hand to her mouth.)

  Oh, I –

  Oh, I – now that was – really, that was so – outburst in defiance of all – all right now – (She is straight, still.) Still as, and level as, the strand of sand when tides have all receded…there…(She smiles, coolly.) Euphoric Gay. (She goes out.)

  HOGBIN: (Going to HELEN.) Be arms for you. Brush teeth. Rub eyes. And scratch you where you itch. Anticipate every move your invisible limbs would make…(He encloses her.)

  Interlude

  TWO MUSLIMS enter, with a hamper carried by a EUROPEAN SERVANT. They gaze over the country.

  ASAFIR John, flag please.

  YORAKIM Or someone will take a shot.

  ASAFIR Will pot away.

  YORAKIM And make a shambles of the lunch. (THE SERVANT erects a white flag.)

  ASAFIR Thank you, now dish away, I famish, I absolutely famish, oh, look,
a skull.

  YORAKIM Trojan.

  ASAFIR Greek.

  YORAKIM The unmistakable long jaw of all –

  ASAFIR The instantly recognizable short forehead of the –

  TOGETHER WE JOKE LIKE THIS TO KEEP THE HORROR DOWN.

  YORAKIM Another flag there, John –

  ASAFIR He’s serving lunch –

  YORAKIM Yes –

  ASAFIR He’s only got two –

  YORAKIM So he has. Two only. I was thinking, however, is it visible from all the promontories?

  ASAFIR Get a flag yourself. (YORAKIM stares at ASAFIR.) All right, I will –

  YORAKIM No, John will. (Pause.) I do not think myself better than the servant. That is not the issue. The issue is that in showing myself willing to perform his functions, we –

  ASAFIR I can perfectly well –

  YORAKIM ERODE THE BASIS OF SERVICE. (Pause.) It would. Erode it.

  ASAFIR Yes, but if, in this instance, a flag of truce would make the crucial difference between life and death –

  YORAKIM IT’S FALSE! IT’S FALSE!

  TOGETHER WE GET LIKE THIS WHEN DRAWING LINES ACROSS THE WORLD.

  JOHN (Pointing.) TERRORISTS!

  YORAKIM (Spilling his tray.) Fuck…!

  JOHN Hundreds of –

  YORAKIM Oh, fuck…!

  ASAFIR (To JOHN.) The pilchards, please…! (They sit rigidly on the stools. JOHN serves.) Ah, pilchards…!

  YORAKIM Oh, Allah –

  ASAFIR Pilchards, I remark –

  YORAKIM (In control.) Yes.

  ASAFIR Pilchards, etcetera.

  YORAKIM (Seeing THE TERRORISTS.) With knives…!

  ASAFIR The pilchards have knives…?

  YORAKIM WE ARE IN MORTAL –

  ASAFIR (To JOHN.) Show them the maps. Shake out the maps. (JOHN indicates maps. They fall into sheets. He exhibits them.) Good. Tell them we are of the neutral powers. Tell them we are mappers of the frontier, accredited by the armistice commission, cartographers with no axe to grind. Show them the seals and laissez passers of all parties –

  YORAKIM Fuck and fuck –

  ASAFIR We have no weapons but – (JOHN is demonstrating certificates.) SHOULD HANDS BE RAISED AGAINST US WE WILL CALL DOWN STRIKES –

  JOHN (Demonstrating.) Crops – WOOF!

  ASAFIR And terrible vengeance will be –