Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  HELEN: Gay.

  GAY: When I – and – obviously – (She sobs.)

  HELEN: Gay.

  SAVAGE: Let her.

  HELEN: Let her, why?

  SAVAGE: Mourn –

  HELEN: Mourn, why?

  SAVAGE: WHEN PARIS DIED YOU FILLED ALL TROY WITH MAD WOMAN’S HOLLERING! (She looks at him.) And pints of your spit ran down the lintels, and your legs were bruised with kicking the inanimate, and servants ran from your flying pans of piss! (To HOMER.) He knows! He heard it!

  HELEN: In those days I swept over every kind of trivia. (SAVAGE stares at her.) How you hate that. How you hate me to pulp the past and look on old fevers with contempt. What are you afraid of? Your coming neglect?

  GAY: (Rising to her feet.) Better now! (She straightens her dress. To HOMER.) Was he a hero? You know what heroes are.

  SAVAGE: Coming neglect?

  GAY: Heroes have reputations, and these reputations matter more than life itself. Is that correct?

  SAVAGE: WHAT NEGLECT?

  GAY: At crucial points the hero must choose between the death of reputation or death itself. Invariably he chooses –

  SAVAGE: I DENY NEGLECT’S THE CONSEQUENCE OF PASSION –

  HELEN: Why? It happens.

  SAVAGE: I STILL DENY.

  HELEN: Deny by all means –

  GAY: WILL YOU BE SILENT. I’M BEREAVED! (Pause.)

  HOMER: Helen, they will make you smaller still…

  HELEN: (Horrified.) Will they…? Oh, will they…? Have you seen…? (GUMMERY, EPSOM, OTHERS, rush in.)

  GUMMERY: New Troy! Don’t move, you unfulfilled!

  EPSOM: (Seeing the body.) Oi! (He points.) Accountant. Dead.

  GUMMERY: (Appalled.) Wholeness he promised me…

  SAVAGE: Yes, but he was in a state of horror. Terror lent him speech.

  GUMMERY: Wholeness…

  SAVAGE: Speech of a reckless order –

  GUMMERY: I long to be whole! (SAVAGE is silent.)

  HELEN: Whole, yes, but whole for what? Health yes, but health for what? I am neither whole nor healthy and I am in torment if the wind blows from the East but have I ever asked for peace?

  GUMMERY: Shut up.

  HELEN: I ask you, peace for what? You must ask better questions –

  GUMMERY: Shut up!

  HELEN: Shh! Helen, not queen now, shh!

  GUMMERY: How did he die?

  SAVAGE: By choosing not to live.

  GUMMERY: What was his name? Accountant, was it?

  SAVAGE: He seemed content to be called Hogbin. I never heard him shun it.

  GUMMERY: (Hurt.) Hogbin? We can’t have that. I prefer he be called – (He is inspired.) Hyacinth. (He looks at him.) I give up arms today. And punch nobody.

  EPSOM: Brian –

  GUMMERY: I give up knackering. And bruisery. I preach Hyacinth.

  EPSOM: Brian –

  GUMMERY: There are hyacinths all along the seashore. We waded through them, coming off the boats.

  EPSOM: Remember it…

  GUMMERY: I PREACH HIM, THEN. I, utterly illiterate, will preach, and where I falter, PRAISE MY EFFORT. (He braces himself.) How much easier it was down the gym… (Pause.) Hyacinth says, great sunsets are reflected in slum windows. I WAS SUCH A WINDOW.

  EPSOM: Oh, fuck it, Brian –

  GUMMERY: I WON’T DESIST THOUGH SPEAKING COSTS ME BLOOD.

  EPSOM: Daft bugger –

  GUMMERY: Or grow wild with you, Les, however ill your criticism. Hyacinth would have me hear!

  EPSOM: (Indicating HOGBIN’s body.) Corpse of a yob!

  GUMMERY: Throw away your liquor!

  EPSOM: Bollocks.

  GUMMERY: Tip away your beer!

  EPSOM: Twice bollocks!

  GUMMERY: I forgive this, Les –

  EPSOM: (Turning.) YOU ARE A MURDERER.

  GUMMERY: Was, Les, was –

  EPSOM: AND A WOMAN BUTCHER.

  GUMMERY: Was, was –

  EPSOM: AND A CHILD SPITTER.

  GUMMERY: Add to my list! Record not one, but every act of unfulfilment!

  EPSOM: Unfulfilment? It was your finest hour!

  GUMMERY: A slum window, reflecting every kind of filth, and you, on your rotting hinges, also reflect –

  EPSOM: Don’t call me a slum window –

  GUMMERY: Oh, you catcher of bad lights! PRAISE MY POWERS AND THE BODY, SHRIVEL!

  EPSOM: Goodbye, biceps…

  GUMMERY: SHRINK!

  EPSOM: Pectorals, ta-ta…

  GUMMERY: Yes, muscles waste, because they flexed for evil. (He waves his hand.) That’s it for today! (He is breathless from exertion.) I am tireder than I was from ninety press-ups, but I find myself, my unborn self…coming through the dark..

  EPSOM: I shall miss you, my ol’ mate…

  GUMMERY: (Wiping the perspiration off his face.) No, we shall –

  EPSOM: No, we shan’t –

  GUMMERY: Seek you out and –

  EPSOM: One day…one day… (He goes out.)

  GUMMERY: (Going to the cage.) Listen to me, did you? (He laughs, shakes his head.) No, we do change, we do… Make you a new cage…promise! (He stretches wearily on the floor.) To lie down…and know…what comes up behind me finds me…vulnerable…since I was a boy soldier, I always stood with my back to walls… (He sleeps, vulnerably.)

  GAY: He’s asleep.

  HELEN: Oh, his little freedom… I could put his whole consciousness into my ear, and it would fit. Or up a fingernail…his entire knowledge would lie like greasy dirt between my toes…

  GAY: Her arrogance… I do admire her arrogance, without admiring her at all…

  HOMER: No one admires Helen. It is not admiration Helen wants. If I had made her admirable, who would know her name? (He goes out.)

  SAVAGE: She is worn down. She is a butt. A scrag. She rubs out virtue BUT THE RUBBER ALSO SHRINKS…

  GAY: How I detest you. The things you say to make your smoked-out lives seem purposeful!

  SAVAGE: MY LIFE IS PURPOSEFUL. (HELEN shrieks with a shrill laugh.) Shriek, yes.

  GAY: (Goes to HELEN.) Oh, your dirty furrows…! I think of you two as fields deep in unrotted litter, ploughed and ploughed again and yielding less with every harvest I am a perfectly beautiful and fertile woman and I would not exchange one fallen hair for all your consciousness. (Pause. She looks up.)

  HELEN: How you hate us.

  GAY: Yes. Now someone cart my husband to the beach and let crabs chew his bits, this ten-day funeral nonsense was only an excuse for fucking, the widow got the males erect, I saw it, child between the laden tables, bewildered child, I saw it all –

  HELEN: That’s as it should be –

  GAY: IS IT!

  HELEN: Yes, fuck the widow out of grief.

  GAY: YOU WON’T DO ANYTHING PROPER. (Pause.)

  HELEN: I don’t think we ever shall be reconciled. Neither time nor pain will bring us close.

  GAY: Never. Your misdemeanours in Old Sparta were bad enough, but wickedness was fashion as long as there was order. There is no order any more. You’re fifty and ridiculous.

  HELEN: Oh, Helen, out of date!

  GAY: Habitual NAUGHTINESS.

  HELEN: What’s worse than being out of date?

  GAY: Fatuous MISCHIEF.

  HELEN: Armless and outmoded, god help me.

  GAY: Where is the truth in you? Everything is gesture! (Pause.)

  HELEN: Now, that’s unfair –

  GAY: Good, unfairness is our atmosphere! I hear my child calling, and though I hate it, I will give it milk. Obligation. Do you know the word?

  HELEN: Yes. It’s what we owe our feelings. (GAY rushes to HELEN, seizing her head in her hands.)

  GAY: TRUNCATED AND PONTIFICATING –

  HELEN: You are strangling me –

  GAY: SLUT. (She detaches herself.) You do – you really do – bring the violence out…in us… (She goes out as MACLUBY and FLADDER enter with a cart.)

  SAVAGE: My student’s dead.


  MACLUBY: But not without his uses…

  SAVAGE: I thought he’d learned a trick or two, but no, he’s dead…

  MACLUBY: (Lifting the body onto the cart.) Dead in one sense.

  SAVAGE: (Looking at the body.) And once he jolted to cheap music…

  MACLUBY: Persistent in another…

  SAVAGE: (Holding the dead youth’s ankle.) His foot could not keep still – (He shakes it.) JIVE NOW! Still now. THROB NOW! Still now. (They begin to move away.) Regret his death? No, a teacher must, a teacher worthy of the name, must welcome all the horror, such as – DEATH CALLS IN ALL OUR CAVITIES – and one he drummed his fingers in tutorials – (He seizes HOGBIN’s hand.) DRUM NOW! Still now. TWITCH NOW! Still now. But he emerged, he crawled from underneath the ruins of the rhythm, to know such things as – DEATH CALLS IN ALL OUR PASSAGES. (They start to move.) Don’t go, don’t go, let a man converse, eh? (To MACLUBY.) Regret his death, did you say, no, no, you see, he wanted through his fog, his pulsing fog, not knowledge but MORALITY, which I don’t reach… (They push the cart out.) WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HIM?

  BOY: (Entering.) Hyacinth… (He tosses a bar of soap to SAVAGE. SAVAGE catches it. Pause.) New Troy of Cleanliness. (THE BOY looks at his FATHER, then turns and follows the cart.)

  HELEN: (A sudden access of horror.) Do you love me?

  SAVAGE: Are you afraid?

  HELEN: I SAID DO YOU LOVE ME?

  SAVAGE: You are, you are afraid…!

  HELEN: Say, then!

  SAVAGE: Love? We have burst the word… (He looks after the departing cart.) He looked at me and thought – I’m sure he thought – I could boil that… (He smells the soap. Pause. He smells again. An expression of horror.) HOGBIN! HIS VERY ODOUR! HOGBIN! HIS VEST AND SOCKS!

  Interlude

  A German archaeologist, circa 1902.

  SCHLIEMANN: I came in search of Troy. I came in search of Helen’s bed. Why? Because I am a European, and Europe begins in Helen’s bed. But could I find Troy? I found Troy upon Troy upon Troy.

  ASAFIR: (Off.) Effendi! Effendi!

  SCHLIEMANN: I hired labourers. I hired Anatolians, the finest diggers in the world. To see him dig! They talk of the coolie, but see the Turk!

  ASAFIR: Effendi!

  SCHLIEMANN: The Asiatics took Helen into Asia. The Europeans took Helen back again. At that moment they became a culture!

  ASAFIR: (Entering with an object.) Effendi…(THE LABOURER thrusts the object at SCHLIEMANN.)

  SCHLIEMANN: Oh, Johnny, will you never learn? Dig, Johnny! (THE LABOURER is disconsolate.) The peasant does not discriminate between the spewings of industrial society and the most precious artefacts of the ancient world. THIS IS A BAR OF SOAP! (He hands it back to him.) Please, bring me only good. Nein gut, ja? (ASAFIR tosses the soap away.) You could wash with that! Don’t you want to wash? (He goes out.) These Troys, clustering upon real Troy, called themselves Trojans, but were they Trojan? Was Troy not dead?

  YORAKIM: Effendi!

  SCHLIEMANN: Desperate and ever-less viable imitations of a cultural entity expunged by history –

  YORAKIM: Effendi!

  SCHLIEMANN: (Patiently.) The Turk, avaricious and notoriously cruel, is also a natural gentleman. In this, he astonishes us, who think of cruelty as alien to manners, what have we here? (YORAKIM holds out a BABY in a cloth. Pause.) Are you trying to be funny? (YORAKIM thrusts it at SCHLIEMANN.) No, I do not wish to handle it. (And again.) Thank you, take it to its mother.

  YORAKIM: No mother.

  SCHLIEMANN: Well, that’s unfortunate. Did its mother die?

  YORAKIM: (Thrusting again.) NO MOTHER.

  SCHLIEMANN: Then it must be taken to the Ottoman authorities. We are not an orphanage, we are an expedition.

  YORAKIM: (Pointing to the ground.) Dig! Dig!

  SCHLIEMANN: Yes, good, dig until the light fails.

  YORAKIM: IN DIG. (Pause.)

  SCHLIEMANN: The child was in the dig? (YORAKIM nods emphatically.) Now, this is silly, how could it have been in – IT DOESN’T HELP FOR YOU TO SHOUT AND WAVE, IT DOES NOT HELP. (He uncovers THE CHILD, then sways with horror.) Its arms are missing…! (He thrusts it back at YORAKIM.) What are you – what the – YOU ARE TRYING TO SABOTAGE MY MENTAL STABILITY – it is hard enough to work in climates of this kind without – I HAVE NEVER LIKED YOUR FACE IT IS A SCREEN OF CUNNING –

  YORAKIM: (Indignantly.) IN – DIG.

  SCHLIEMANN: Liar! Asiatic liar!

  YORAKIM: NO LIAR! (Pause.)

  SCHLIEMANN: What is a lie to you in any case? Scarcely a stain upon your soul, deceit is the weapon of the underdog, nothing can be credited where race rules race, but I AM AN ACADEMIC AND TRUTH IS MY – (Pause. He sways.) All right, very well, thank you, this was bound to be a testing time, one cannot expect, seeking the bed, the seed and womb of Europe, can’t expect, the womb of Helen being, no, you can’t, and I certainly do not expect, so – (Pause.) Listen, my friend – (Pause.) No – you are not my friend, I apologize – listen, whoever you are, no baksheesh for baby, nein. (He waves his hand. YORAKIM starts to leave, then suddenly stops, shouts.)

  YORAKIM: Effendi! (SCHLIEMANN turns, alarmed. YORAKIM chucks the baby at him. SCHLIEMANN catches it, instinctively, as YORAKIM runs off.)

  SCHLIEMANN: AAAAH! (He holds it at arm’s length, in disgust. Darkness is falling. The sound of the evening prayer fills the stage as THE LABOURERS kneel towards Mecca.) Your imperfection horrifies me…creeps along my wrists… (Pause.) Soon, so soon, the birth of monsters will be an impossibility, such will be the sprint of science…and all pain abolished…YOU WERE BORN TOO SOON. (He puts it on the ground.) Even if my wife fell ill I could not sponge her face all day, I could not change her linen and remain a genius, it is a full time occupation, YOU ONLY COME TO ME BECAUSE I AM A CHRISTIAN, but I also owe a duty to my soul. I REFUSE TO HAVE MY MORALITY EXPLOITED! (He kicks the baby.) YOU EXPLOIT ME! (Pause.) Oh, God, am I one of your flock? (ASAFIR appears, holding a sickle.)

  ASAFIR: Effendi!

  SCHLIEMANN: The responsibilities of this ethic are too onerous, as Christ knew, and incompatible with freedom, AS CHRIST KNEW.

  ASAFIR: Effendi?

  SCHLIEMANN: (Looking at it.) I don’t think, I really do not think this is of the least… (ASAFIR jerks his head towards THE CHILD.) archaeological… (He does the movement again. SCHLIEMANN sees.) Oh, God, I do think the Turkish mind is of such extraordinary and shuddering cruelty… (ASAFIR goes to THE CHILD.) HOW CAN YOU MAKE CARPETS LIKE YOU DO? (SCHLIEMANN turns his back, resumes his lecture.) These later Troys, clustering like – (He hears the blow, lets out a stifled cry.) like – THERE WOULD BE NO KNOWLEDGE IF PITY GOVERNED, WOULD THERE, ASAFIR? YOU KNOW.

  ASAFIR: Effendi?

  SCHLIEMANN: You know. Look me in the eyes and say you know. Look me in the eyes, then… (He takes him by the shoulder.)…stare in my European eyes with your Asiatic eyes, go on, stare, STARE…! (ASAFIR stares at the ground.) Off now, Asafir, you casual murderer, you are already late for prayers…

  ASAFIR: Baksheesh?

  SCHLIEMANN: Baksheesh… (Pause. He dips in his pocket.) Baksheesh…

  Act Three

  PROLOGUE

  MACLUBY: The exhibitionists!

  No, they are though, to wreck our peace.

  REFUSE TO BE WRECKED

  I do

  I say

  Listen

  Copy me

  I say

  This is just another death I am singularly

  Unimpressed I look you in the eye whilst not

  Reducing one iota my walking pace

  Oh, you are cutting your throat

  Oh, you are dying on the steps

  Oh, I go,

  Fancy,

  And if the blood goes surging

  If it gushes down the cracks

  I lift my leg

  With

  Such

  Exquisite

  Grace

  No, you have to or they will GET OUR PEACE AND

  BITE IT

 
; This suicide epidemic

  This madness epidemic

  And the beggars are a lake

  A lake of beggars

  A pond of suicides

  The rapids of the mad

  IT TAKES SOME NAVIGATING THE CONTEMPORARY STREET

  But this is a revolution

  WHO SAID

  This is a revolution

  NOBODY TOLD ME

  I am a revolutionary also

  Says the millionaire in the two-piece suit

  And truth dripped through their jeers

  In bloody clots

  The weak brains pop

  The frail imaginations pop

  Like skulls in the boiler

  Stalin

  Who grew in wit as he grew in cruelty

  Lenin

  Who later on was rarely seen to smile

  Robespierre

  Gorky

  Brecht

  AND ALL THE STRATA SMASHERS

  ALL THE RIPPERS OF THE ROOTS

  They knew

  That under pressure

  They called it

  THE INTENSIFICATION OF THE STRUGGLE

  Excellent

  They called it

  THE GROWING STRAINS OF CONTRADICTION

  I do love that

  Under pressure

  OUR BRAINS WOULD POP

  I hear it, shh!

  I hear it, shh!

  This also is a revolution, then

  NOBODY SAID

  Oh, yes, a proper

  I NEVER KNEW

  Shh!

  The youth are popping

  But they are always to the fore

  Chucking bottles

  Waving bayonets

  Throwing matches at the poor

  They are such ruthless imperialists of the soul

  No

  Let youth go

  Bid youth farewell

  Paris

  Petrograd

  Budapest

  Warsaw

  Europe’s youth to the fore

  To the workshops

  Let us batter out a modern laugh

  A laugh for the era

  Not a boring howl

  But something growing from the bowel

  HAAAAA!

  It’s only the madwoman skating

  Exquisitely skating on the suicide’s gore

  SCENE ONE

  The gaol in Fragrant Troy. A place of baths and faucets.

  HELEN: Where was the fat on him? Even his buttocks would have earned a greyhound’s pity…