Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  SAVAGE: No fat…

  HELEN: No fat, and yet boiled down he make a million bars to perfume Troy with…

  GAOLER: (To SAVAGE.) Wash, you!

  SAVAGE: I’m clean.

  GAOLER: No one is clean.

  SAVAGE: All right, but washed –

  GAOLER: Wash again –

  SAVAGE: It hurts my skin to wash it hourly –

  GAOLER: The lather of Hyacinth brings only comfort to the sore –

  SAVAGE: Yet, but –

  GAOLER: Wash, then –

  SAVAGE: Again?

  GAOLER: Again. (Pause. SAVAGE goes to the basin.)

  SAVAGE: I could go joyfully to a tramp’s groin now –

  GAOLER: And do it thoroughly.

  SAVAGE: Or suck great lungfuls from whores’ cavities –

  GAOLER: Front –

  SAVAGE: Every crack would be a garden –

  GAOLER: Back –

  SAVAGE: The rank old human odour flooding the tortured nostril –

  GAOLER: Now do her –

  SAVAGE: Fart’s paradise and sweat’s apotheosis!

  MACLUBY: (Entering.) Today, you are fifty! (He drapes a garland on him.)

  SAVAGE: Fifty…?

  MACLUBY: And Helen fifty-five!

  SAVAGE: But I was born in August!

  MACLUBY: Why shouldn’t dates be flexible! What’s wisdom if it can’t burst calendars? What’s a system if it can’t call this the New Year One and abolish stacks of squalid centuries?

  SAVAGE: Let us out of here, we die of disinfectant…

  MACLUBY: Fifty! An age without distinction! Fifty, and no solutions! (To HELEN.) DON’T STARE AT THIS PARTS, DESIRE IS SOAPED OUT OF EXISTENCE.

  SAVAGE: Fifty…?

  MACLUBY: Fifty, and the ground shifting, fifty and the air thick with falling categories! It snows old faiths, it snows old dogmas! Fragrant Troy forgives your misdemeanours, how clean are you?

  SAVAGE: Not clean yet…evidently…

  MACLUBY: But washed? (He sniffs him.) You have the odour of the will to compromise, which is acceptable… (He goes out.)

  HELEN: I have this horror we will never fuck again… (Pause. SAVAGE is staring.)

  HELEN: I said I have this horror we will –

  SAVAGE: Heard…

  HELEN: Not because it is forbidden but because –

  SAVAGE: Fifty…!

  HELEN: You have lost the will – are you listening?

  SAVAGE: FIFTY AND NO KNOWLEDGE YET! (Pause. HELEN stares appalled.)

  HELEN: No knowledge? Look at me. Sliced. Minimal. Reduced. Hacked. Slashed. Incapable. How dare you say no knowledge. I AM IT. (Pause. He fixes her with a look.) That isn’t looking it’s a fence.

  SAVAGE: WHAT’S A LOOK, HELEN? (Pause.)

  HELEN: What it is, I don’t know. What it was, I will tell you. It was a thing as solid as a girder, down which streamed all the populations of our forbidden life… (Pause. SAVAGE sobs.)

  CREUSA: (Entering.) I have to tell you this. I am to be your wife again. (They stare at her.) Do you think I wanted it? (Pause.) WELL, SPEAK, BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT’S POSSIBLE. Hatred could not prevent it. In that pit of contempt called bed we reached out sometimes like the drowning in the dark. EVEN COPULATION WE COULD DO.

  HELEN: SHUT UP.

  CREUSA: IT’S POSSIBLE AND IT HAPPENS IN EVERY PLACE. (Pause.) Clean Troy is to make divorce the only capital offence. And I, for all my maggot life am not ready to die just yet WE ARE TO BE A SHOW MARRIAGE. Life, yes, life in any mould, SPEAK THEN, you must admire me above all martyrs, I am a martyr to nothing but life itself, and in the end ONE MALE BIT IS MUCH LIKE ANY OTHER –

  HELEN: I VOMIT YOUR –

  CREUSA: You would, you are a monument to pain –

  HELEN: VOMIT YOUR TOLERANCE. (Pause.)

  CREUSA: The smell of Hyacinth…! In every bath and prison tub…Hyacinth, who could not make an entry while he lived, in table form swims through the lush of every woman’s parts… (To THE GAOLER.) Let me out, please…! (She goes. Pause.)

  HELEN: You did not deny. (Pause.) Did you? You did not deny? Or are my ears defunct in sympathy with other parts –

  SAVAGE: I was so –

  HELEN: Deny it then.

  SAVAGE: Overthrown by –

  HELEN: Indeed, but now –

  SAVAGE: Disbelief –

  HELEN: Now, though?

  SAVAGE: Appalling and grotesque resuscitation of –

  HELEN: So you won’t –

  SAVAGE: And yet it’s possible. (Pause. He looks at her.) It’s possible… (He is aghast.) Is it? (Pause.) HORROR! (Pause.)

  HELEN: I am indifferent who – with which bitch you – devour time – all skirt’s your garden, out and plunge there by the armful, and if I discover you fat and naked in the compost, red from exploration, good but NO RENUNCIATION, PLEASE. (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: I am exhausted by –

  HELEN: Yes –

  SAVAGE: THE PLUNGING LIFT OF THIS INFATUATION.

  HELEN: It’s not infatuation –

  SAVAGE: Floor after floor of –

  HELEN: I HAVE NEITHER ARMS NOR LEGS, IT IS NOT INFATUATION. (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: I think…let me speak…I think…you are a barrier to knowledge now, when once you were the absolute condition… (Pause.)

  HELEN: All my life I was afraid I might recant, but never did. Always, it was the man who suffocated passion in the puddle. (Pause.) Don’t be the grey-arsed priest, I beg of you, don’t hide under the arch, squatting on your heels and with a withered finger trace the ancient hieroglyphs, all intellect and sterile. Let me be the board you chalk your meaning on, chalk screaming on the wet of my wounds… (He doesn’t respond.) All right, renounce… (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: Helen –

  HELEN: No, shh, all words suddenly redundant –

  SAVAGE: Helen –

  HELEN: Can’t hear you –

  SAVAGE: I have to know what –

  HELEN: Words, aren’t they weapons? Aren’t they wires? Keep your weapons off me! Look out, wires!

  SAVAGE: RENUNCIATION ALSO MUST BE KNOWLEDGE. (Pause.)

  HELEN: I don’t persuade. I never have persuaded. They persuaded me. Helen never urged a man, he came, he drenched her in his fever, (With a sudden wail.) oh, undress me, no one’s looking, I am maimed without you, and fuck all limbs, this is the torture…! (He stares at her.) What have you learned, then? That you hate Helen?

  SAVAGE: Yes –

  HELEN: Hate her, and could punch the sight out of her eyes –

  SAVAGE: Yes –

  HELEN: The feeling out of her lips –

  SAVAGE: ALL RIGHT…!

  GAOLER: (Entering.) Go home, now, citizens…

  HELEN: OH, THE GROSS INTRUSION OF BANALITY…

  GAOLER: Thank you, and take your bowls –

  HELEN: Persist…

  GAOLER: Towels to the laundry –

  HELEN: Persist…! (The infusion of the city.)

  SCENE TWO

  A Public place. The cage is no longer visible. FLADDER enters holding a gong and sits.

  GAY: (Entering.) The Concentrated Thoughts of a Great King Deposed Reviled, Neglected and Eventually Rehabilitated in the Interests of Universal Harmony! (To FLADDER.) Beat the gong if you deny my version. (He gongs.) Not yet, silly. (Pause.) My catastrophic marriage to a – (He gongs.) No, let me get started, gong at the end if you have to. (She composes herself.) My catastrophic marriage to a libidinous woman inexorably led to the death of thousands – (He dongs.) How can you gong that? Everybody knows that! It’s a Historical Fact. If you are going to gong everything we will take the gong away from you. You abuse the privilege of age. (She proceeds.) When I was destitute I came to truth – (He gongs.) Give it to me! (She snatches it and tosses it offstage.) YOU ARE TRYING TO RIDICULE THE GOVERNMENT OF FRAGRANT TROY – (He shakes his head.) You are and we are not obliged to tolerate it! (She rehearses.) In poverty I discovered twenty truths –

  One! In limitation lies the source of satis
faction.

  Two! The question leads only to the next question.

  Three! You have to die some time.

  Four! The final end of equality is universal plastic surgery. (FLADDER makes a noise in his throat.) Shut up –

  Five! To suffer is to be without soap! (He gurgles.) Shut up, I said –

  Six! Dig your garden till the sun sets.

  Seven! And when the soldiers have gone, plant it again.

  Eight! (To FLADDER.) I SHALL NOT DESIST, NO MATTER HOW YOU GURGLE.

  (Pause.)

  Eight! If you must kiss do it with your eyes open.

  Nine! The great joy is to concede.

  Ten! Don’t grieve after midnight.

  Eleven! (To FLADDER, who is frothing.) THIS IS WHAT YOU DISCOVERED, ISN’T IT? KEEP STILL, THEN. (Pause.) Eleven! Fornication is the aptitude of mongrels.

  Twelve! Swans mate for life.

  Thirteen! Violence is no solution.

  Fourteen! Nor is justice.

  Fifteen! Soap is experience. (To FLADDER.) YOU ARE DRIBBLING ON MY LEG.

  Sixteen! (Pause.) Sixteen! (To FLADDER.) YOU SEE, I AM NOT SABOTAGED BY YOU! (Pause.) Sixteen! The majority are sometimes right.

  Seventeen! It is perfectly natural to hate.

  Eighteen! It is love that’s artificial.

  Nineteen! Marriage is the government. (To FLADDER.) NO, I WON’T STOP!

  Twenty! (Pause.) Twenty! (Pause.) The Past never occurred! (She pushes him off his knees.) I did it! I did it, and I was not stopped by you! (Pause. She looks at him.) What does it matter if you thought those things or not? What does it matter? Clean Troy is not about truth. It’s about me. Now, get off your knees and scarper. (He climbs to his feet.) Take your gong. (He moves.) Do you still love your mother? (He stops.) You do…You do love her…! (Pause. She looks closely into him.) Is there anything she could do – anything – would stop you loving her? (Pause.) Extraordinary. (She walks a little, still looking at him.) I once put corpses in her bed. Arms and things. By this I meant to say, this wrist, this bowel, you caused to howl, you caused to wither. But she was only irritated by the smell. Is that the reason for her power? (HOMER enters, senile now, and with two sticks.)

  HOMER: Please, don’t let them bath me again…

  GAY: You must be bathed!

  HOMER: Not so often, surely?

  GAY: Yes, often and often! Do they scrub you?

  HOMER: Yes!

  GAY: That’s good, I told them, scrub him in every crack and pore because that’s where his misery collects, and his misery makes him sing those songs, oh, so miserable your songs are now, and anyone who hears you, they get miserable too! Why did Odysseus go back to Penelope? (HOMER stares, bewildered.) I asked you a question. I mean, hadn’t he met this girl, this perfect girl? So why did he go back to Penelope? SHE MUST HAVE BEEN PROPER HAG BY THEN. (Pause.)

  HOMER: No more soap!

  GAY: Oh, take him away and wash him…

  HOMER: No more soap!

  GAY: (Turning on him.) I THINK YOU MUST DEFEND YOUR FICTIONS AND NOT TAKE THAT ARROGANT STANCE.

  HOMER: (As he is hurried out.) Oh, God, not soap…!

  GAY: (To CREUSA, who enters with SAVAGE.) I don’t believe he has the slightest interest in art any more. He is interested in soap, and only soap. (She smiles.) Now, are you reconciled? You must consummate the marriage, and in public. And to think we once had public executions! No, this is progress –

  CREUSA: I wonder if I can –

  GAY: Please, don’t throw up objections…! How girlish you are…!

  CREUSA: Yes…

  GAY: When you have been so – used – and flogged – and flung around like soldiers’ baggage… (She kisses CREUSA on the cheek.) Your cheeks are maps of sordid life… (CREUSA goes out. GAY watches her.) The Troys are slipping away. So many errors…your sacrifice is a small thing compared to our survival.

  SAVAGE: Sacrifice? I could not do it if it were a sacrifice.

  GAY: What is it then?

  SAVAGE: An education, obviously.

  GAY: I might also be an education… (Darkness falls on the stage.)

  SAVAGE: On Monday I washed the body of the old woman.

  On Tuesday I cut the throat of a stranger.

  On Wednesday I lifted potatoes from the allotment.

  On Thursday I seduced the mother of my lover.

  On Friday I was ashamed and unable to act.

  On Saturday I read the works of great authors.

  On Sunday I lay and wished I was a baby.

  On Monday…

  On Monday I washed the body of the old woman…

  GAY: I’ll take my clothes off, shall I?

  SAVAGE: It’s night…!

  GAY: I will, if you will…

  SAVAGE: The dictator stirs inside his bunker…

  GAY: (Removing her shoes.) Shoes first…

  SAVAGE: The executioners are checking their weapons…

  GAY: Then socks…

  SAVAGE: And intellectuals rip the membranes of humanity in their shuddering cots… ALL RIGHT, UNDRESS! (Pause.)

  GAY: If I am naked and you are not, what then? (SAVAGE shakes his head.) One of us has the advantage, but who…?

  SAVAGE: You ask questions like a man throws stones. You talk to fend off silence.

  GAY: I have the advantage! (She flings off her last garment. She stands naked. Pause.) Stare at me, then. (Pause.) Stare. (Pause.) Consume me. (Pause.) Are you consuming me? (Pause.) You’re not, are you? Or are you, I can’t tell from – (She sees FLADDER, sitting.) Oh, God, there is a man still here! (She covers herself with her hands.)

  SAVAGE: What’s the matter? He can’t speak.

  GAY: He can see me – he – SEES ME.

  SAVAGE: But what he sees he can’t put into words. So what he sees he sees as the stars see. Or the stones. Do you hide yourself from stones? (Pause.)

  GAY: If you do not respond to me, I shall be damaged. I shall be damaged and the onus will be on you! (Pause. Suddenly she goes to grab her clothes but SAVAGE seizes them first.)

  SAVAGE: You look ridiculous. Beautiful and ridiculous. (She goes to snatch them but he whips them away. She looks, uncomprehending. She attempts to smile.)

  GAY: What’s this? Desire?

  SAVAGE: DESIRE! Do you think beauty makes desire? Do you think you only need to STAND AND BE OBSERVED? (She looks alarmed.) It’s night… (She looks nervously to FLADDER.) Don’t look to him. He is a stone.

  GAY: Are you going to – cut me into bits? (Pause. He is bemused. He sinks to the ground. Extends a hand limply.)

  SAVAGE: Shh…

  GAY: (Horrified.) ARE YOU?

  SAVAGE: Shh… (He shakes his head.) Oh, pitiful…oh, unknowing… (He beckons her with a gesture. Timidly she goes to him. He encloses her chastely in his arms. A figure enters from the darkness. It is GUMMERY, carrying SHADE in a small cage at his belt. He looks at GAY. He looks at SAVAGE.)

  GUMMERY: No anger but. (Pause.) I walk along the shore so full of kindness for the world. (Pause.) No anger but. (Pause.) We have our nightly stretch so kindness-sodden and we see his widow and our queen. No anger, obviously. Undressed. (Pause.) Much as old Helen might have been. (Pause.) Kindness is bruised and Hyacinth demeaned… (He turns to go, stops.) How hurt we are. No anger but. (He starts to leave.)

  SAVAGE: How hideous you are. Without your anger. How crippled and deformed. So kind you make all kindness loathsome not that it seemed a very precious thing but now it stinks the corpse of undone actions all tumours in your lung you passive and colourless licker of fallacies I see when I look at you why heroes have to die, Homer was right in this at least he did not pursue the Greeks to their retirement, shuffle, stagger away you offend the landscape and my vocabulary withers in describing you, I, a doctor, too. Speechless, and in revulsion… (GUMMERY is terribly still.) Cart your shrunk mate off, you spoil a decent night. (GUMMERY remains.) And yet you stay. To test what, I wonder? (GUMMERY is still. SAVAGE climbs to his feet.)

  GUMMERY:
Once, I made my body iron. To hurt. And now it’s iron to suffer… (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: Suffer? For what? My student’s gabble? There was panic in his trousers.

  GUMMERY: TEST ME.

  SAVAGE: And you were cruel…they told me… (SAVAGE goes to GUMMERY, who is still motionless. He stands behind him.)

  GAY: (Suddenly.) CAN’T WATCH! (She grabs her clothes, runs to FLADDER.) CAN YOU? (She rushes out.) CAN’T WATCH! (Wind. Darkness. The peculiar voice of SHADE, tunefully.)

  SHADE: Intellectuals also kill! Intellectuals kill! Intellectuals also kill! Intellectuals kill!

  SCENE THREE

  Bells. MACLUBY besuited. CREUSA gowned. They look over the city.

  MACLUBY: Troy isn’t what it was, when you last wed.

  CREUSA: Nor Creusa, either.

  MACLUBY: Troys have been, and Troys have gone…

  CREUSA: And Creusas, they have been and gone, too…

  MACLUBY: (Smiling.) This is the proper spirit for matrimony.

  CREUSA: Yes.

  MACLUBY: Accommodation.

  CREUSA: Yes.

  MACLUBY: No more climbing the greasy pole of personality, but –

  CREUSA: Yes. Because I fell, and fell again… (A blast of rattles and cheers as a massive bed descends. It is upholstered with twig or flint.) WHAT’S THAT…!

  MACLUBY: No one said it would be easy…

  GAY: (Entering.) The territory of epic adventures! The poor man’s empire! I am a romantic, at last I have kept that alive! (To CREUSA.) On the bed now, and good luck in the maze! I think it is a maze, with its dead ends and repetitions, but at the centre of which is – must be – for those who persevere – I don’t know what! (CREUSA is helped to the bed. Crowd applause.) How Troy needed this! Listen! When all was disintegration and morals were exploding nebulae! The young particularly will appreciate this AFFIRMATION, hurry, make yourself comfortable, your husband is IMMINENT. (CREUSA lies on the bed.) This shows as nothing better can, the utter CIRCULARITY OF LIFE, the fact we teach in school that if you walk defiantly away from a fixed point, the earth’s roundness ensures you will return to that same spot, no matter how terrible the journey! THE LOOP OF KNOWLEDGE. He’s coming! (Whistles.) I could weep with that strange weeping women do at weddings! I could! (SAVAGE enters, in a moth-eaten and devastated suit. Applause. He stares at the spectacle of the bed. Silence falls.)