Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  SAVAGE: (Grinning.) CAN’T WRITE THE BOOK!

  CHARITY: Write a book? What for?

  SAVAGE: To spread unhappiness, of course…

  CHARITY: (Inspiration.) I’ll be the book. They say that men in concentration camps learned poems of nine thousand lines. I can do that! (She sits cross-legged.) Ready! (She gets comfortable.) Now, you speak!

  GAY: (Entering with officers.) You say you saw it happen –

  FIRST OFFICER: Everybody did –

  GAY: Where is she, then?

  FIRST OFFICER: I REPEAT WE ALL SAW HELEN DIE.

  GAY: All legless and armless women, fetch them in!

  SECOND OFFICER: There’s only one in all of Troy –

  GAY: Bring her! (THE OFFICER leaves.) They say that Helen’s dead –

  SAVAGE: She is. I kissed her cooling mouth.

  GAY: Then where’s the body?

  CHARITY: WE’RE TRYING TO WRITE A BOOK!

  GAY: Be quiet you precocious little – and I can see your knickers, you are not to sit like that!

  CREUSA: You were the same –

  GAY: I was never –

  CREUSA: You were just the –

  GAY: IT IS NOT POSSIBLE I WAS LIKE THAT. (CREUSA shrugs. THE OFFICER pushes in A POOR WOMAN on a trolley. She is armless and legless.)

  SECOND OFFICER: Do you mean this?

  GAY: Yes. How did she lose her limbs?

  SECOND OFFICER: She fell under a tram. To be precise, she fell under two.

  GAY: When?

  OFFICER: When –

  GAY: Not you. (To WOMAN.) You.

  OLD WOMAN: When there were trams, of course.

  GAY: She’s lying. When were there ever trams?

  FIRST OFFICER: During Mechanical Troy.

  GAY: Mechanical Troy… I’d forgotten Mechanical Troy.

  FIRST OFFICER: It rusts in shady corners…

  GAY: (To THE WOMAN.) Well, if you’d lived in Dancing Troy, you’d only have got bad feet.

  OLD WOMAN: (Creaking with laughter.) Seen some of ‘em! I prefer me truck.

  GAY: This can’t be Helen, she’s far too sensible.

  SECOND OFFICER: (To THE WOMAN.) Shove off! (They start to leave.)

  GAY: Wait a minute! (She stops.) Which tram?

  OLD WOMAN: The 3.

  GAY: Which direction?

  OLD WOMAN: Empty. To the Depot. (Pause.)

  GAY: All right. (THE WOMAN moves.) Why do you live? (Her trolley stops.)

  OLD WOMAN: Out of habit. Why do you?

  GAY: You are impertinent for a thing on castors.

  OLD WOMAN: Beg pardon –

  GAY: What are you trying to make me do? Commit suicide?

  OLD WOMAN: No, I just –

  GAY: Isn’t there enough suicide without you –

  OLD WOMAN: All over the shop –

  GAY: I could regard that question as an attempt on my life!

  SECOND OFFICER: We’ll bring charges –

  GAY: No, get her out – (SECOND OFFICER propels her.) And see she’s washed…! (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: That was Helen…

  GAY: Idiot.

  SAVAGE: HELEN!

  GAY: Do you think I don’t know my own mother…?

  CHARITY: I WISH YOU WOULDN’T INTERRUPT THE BOOK. (GAY and THE OFFICERS go out. Pause.) Chapter One! No! INTRODUCTION. (She shuts her eyes.) Ready. Expatiate!

  CREUSA: (Suddenly.) It’s coming –

  CHARITY: Shh!

  CREUSA: (Stands.) The child –

  CHARITY: The book!

  CREUSA: THE MIRACLE! SAVAGE! (SAVAGE jumps up.)

  CHARITY: (To SAVAGE.) If you go, you will never write the book. (He hesitates.) You know that, don’t you? You do know that?

  CREUSA: THE CHILD, SAVAGE…! (He stares, his mouth open.)

  CHARITY: ‘This book was so nearly never written…’

  MACLUBY: (Entering.) Examining your feelings, Dr Savage?

  CHARITY: ‘So nearly never written because I pretended feeling I did not posses…’

  MACLUBY: She only wants her hand held…

  CHARITY: Conscience delays all journeys, but especially journeys of the mind… (She jumps up.) That’s it, first line! (MACLUBY assists CREUSA away. SAVAGE watches.) Refusal. That’s the only way we learn. (A high wind. SAVAGE turns impulsively on THE CHILD and starts to throttle her. By a twisting motion of her body, CHARITY escapes. SAVAGE reels. FLADDER enters, carrying a rule, a yard long. He places it against a wall and makes a chalk line. He turns, sees SAVAGE.)

  FLADDER: That low. (Pause. SAVAGE reassembles himself.)

  SAVAGE: What…

  FLADDER: That low. (FLADDER goes off.)

  SCENE SIX

  Under the city gate. THE OLD WOMAN, parked.

  CREUSA: (Entering with a mass of bundles.) I did it.

  OLD WOMAN: You did.

  CREUSA: And it is whole.

  OLD WOMAN: That’s something all Troy knows.

  CREUSA: Look, it feeds off me…its fingers reach for my flooding tit, which, as if to ridicule my age, is bursting. Sixty, and in surplus!

  OLD WOMAN: Baldness and abundance. Arthritis and suck.

  CREUSA: Don’t wonder where these gifts come from…

  OLD WOMAN: Enjoy your miracles and keep your mouth shut.

  CREUSA: (Hoisting her load.) Off now.

  OLD WOMAN: And by the same gate, Creusa…! Forty years since you last fled. (Pause. CREUSA looks at her.)

  CREUSA: By the same gate, yes.

  OLD WOMAN: Good luck!

  CREUSA: Some dithering old peasant will lend me a corner of his sack, and if he don’t speak Trojan, all the better, spare me his preamble, and swop dinner simply for the fuck.

  OLD WOMAN: No note for the husband?

  CREUSA: Once a quitter, always a quitter. Tell him that.

  OLD WOMAN: Damn all reconciliations. It couldn’t last. They say he had been Helen’s man, so really it never had a chance.

  CREUSA: It wasn’t that.

  OLD WOMAN: Once tasted, Helen spoiled a man for others –

  CREUSA: IT WASN’T THAT. (Pause.) He had no hope. (Pause.)

  OLD WOMAN: Hope? Can you eat that? (CREUSA shrugs, sets off. FLADDER enters with his rule and chalk. He marks a wall, is about to go.) First Troy was burnt by foreigners. But last Troy the people burn themselves.

  FLADDER: That low! (He departs.)

  OLD WOMAN: What…! (THREE YOUTHS are hustled in. GAY enters.)

  FIRST OFFICER: Three more who say they have seen Helen and enjoyed her!

  GAY: Where?

  FIRST YOUTH: Down the docks.

  SECOND OFFICER: When?

  FIRST YOUTH: Between seven and eleven, I don’t know exactly, time stood still –

  GAY: What did she say?

  FIRST YOUTH: Nothing.

  GAY: Nothing? Neither mm or ahh?

  FIRST YOUTH: She’s dumb, ain’t she? (He looks to the others.) Helen’s dumb? (THE OFFICER thrusts him away. He runs.)

  FIRST OFFICER: You!

  SECOND YOUTH: I met her near the botanical gardens and she drew me in –

  GAY: To what?

  SECOND YOUTH: The lily house, we poured with sweat –

  GAY: When?

  SECOND YOUTH: Some time between – say, five and nine –

  SECOND OFFICER: FIVE AND NINE?

  SECOND YOUTH: I couldn’t say exactly, time stood still –

  FIRST OFFICER: (Elbowing him away, addressing the next.) Where?

  THIRD YOUTH: On a bus –

  SECOND OFFICER: Upstairs or down –

  THIRD YOUTH: Upstairs, of course.

  GAY: When?

  THIRD YOUTH: Oh, anything between –

  SECOND OFFICER: TIME STOOD STILL DID IT?

  THIRD YOUTH: Yer know! He knows, so why –

  FIRST OFFICER: And is she dark or fair?

  SECOND/THIRD: ‘er ‘ead is shaved! (They laugh and run.)

  GAY: Someone is chalking lines. All over Troy, a metre high. Both on the villas
and the slums.

  SECOND OFFICER: Not some one Mrs. Some many have been caught with chalk.

  OLD WOMAN: Where is the harm in a line?

  GAY: We don’t know, but we think it has a message.

  OFFICER: There’s one! (He goes to the wall and taking out a cloth, begins rubbing FLADDER’s line.)

  GAY: And oddly, the suicides have ceased.

  OLD WOMAN: That’s good, if life is…

  GAY: Not good! (Pause. They look at her.) No, not good, because the hate must go somewhere. The hatred must. If only we had Helen! She could be the object but now it’s the state!

  SECOND OFFICER: (Seeing A YOUTH at a wall.) Oi! (He grapples THE YOUTH to the floor.)

  GAY: Oh, hold him! He stinks of cellars! And don’t puncture him! Be careful of his blood!

  SECOND OFFICER: (Kneeling on THE YOUTH.) What’s this with chalk?

  GAY: His spit! Be careful, all their fluids kill!

  SECOND OFFICER: What!

  FOURTH YOUTH: That low –

  SECOND OFFICER: Come again, you –

  FOURTH YOUTH: THAT – LOW – (THE OFFICER looks at GAY.)

  GAY: Release him.

  SECOND OFFICER: Release him?

  GAY: Kill him, then, what difference does it make? (Pause. THE OFFICER kills THE YOUTH. OTHER YOUTHS pass, running. SAVAGE enters.)

  SAVAGE: The Miracle has gone.

  GAY: Into the park with its –

  SAVAGE: Been in the park. Just dogs. Just starlings. And dirty youths marking the streets with rules.

  GAY: And the mother? Where is she?

  SAVAGE: Gone. Without a note.

  GAY: Deserted you? But she’s seventy! (A sound of disintegration. FLADDER, with YOUTHS, hurtles in. They stop.)

  FLADDER: LAST TROY. (Pause. She stares at hm.)

  GAY: I understood – you – had – no – tongue –

  FLADDER: (Opening a cavernous mouth.) NO TONGUE. (She stares.) But I articulate the people. (A fall of buildings. He thrusts out the ruler.) THAT HIGH. The ruins. THAT LOW. The city. (People pour out the city, with or without bundles. THE OLD WOMAN is buffeted. FLADDER departs in the surge of the crowd.)

  OLD WOMAN: Oi! Mind my trolley! (She is knocked.) That hurts, idiot! (And trodden.) Bite your arse! WHAT’S THE RUSH? It’s no different over the hill, I know because I been there! (She shouts.) THEY BUILT ELEVEN TROYS AND EVERY ONE WAS FAULTY! I LOVED ELEVEN MEN AND EVERY ONE WAS FLAWED. BUT DO I SURRENDER?

  EPSOM: (Passing with a sack.) Save breath, four wheels…

  OLD WOMAN: Oh, my second father!

  EPSOM: Ta ta, four stumps…

  OLD WOMAN: Don’t go, I still got lips –

  EPSOM: Fuck it –

  OLD WOMAN: Fuck it, yes, what’s in the sack?

  EPSOM: (Departing.) Daggers.

  OLD WOMAN: YER CAN’T EAT DAGGERS. (He goes.) Teach a man a trade, and he’ll find hirers…

  SAVAGE: (Seeing.) Helen…

  OLD WOMAN: Oi! My trolley! (Some women start to tip her.) Come off it, girls, steal from the wealthy if you must – rob yer enemies –(They lift her off, dump her on the ground and place their bundles on the trolley.) WELL, THAT’S NOTHING IF NOT PREDICTABLE! (One slaps her.) Sorry! Suffer in silence! Sorry!

  SAVAGE: Helen…

  OLD WOMAN: (Now in the midst of the torrent.) Sorry – can’t move…beg pardon… (A sack is dropped, abandoned. Tablets of soap spill out over the ground. THE OLD WOMAN cranes to smell them.) Hyacinth! I smell you, Hyacinth!

  SAVAGE: (Beside her.) It’s you…

  OLD WOMAN: No, it’s not.

  SAVAGE: It is…it’s you…

  OLD WOMAN: Not me. And never was. (A shattering of masonry.) No Helen but what other people made of her. I deny the body exists except within the compass of another’s arms… (A rush of fugitives. CHARITY glimpses SAVAGE.)

  CHARITY: Come on! We’ve not finished yet!

  SAVAGE: No, nor started…

  CHARITY: Chapter One! (He stares at her.) But I’m the book…! (He doesn’t move. THE CROWD moves on, CHARITY with them.)

  OLD WOMAN: Give us a lift, somebody! Give us a lift! (She is spun round.) I go in a pocket! I go in a bag! Oi! (She is knocked onto her back, She lies, laughing. THE CROWD thins to individual scattering.)

  MACLUBY: (Appearing with a sack into which he pops the soap tablets.) All gone except the cripples…

  OLD WOMAN: ‘ho are you calling a cripple? (He looks at her with supreme detachment.) I suppose if birds shit in my mouth I might be fed… (She opens her mouth. Pause.) Come on, sparrow, I chucked pastry at you once… from honeyed beds…from honeyed balconies…my fingers crumbled over-abundant cake…SHORT MEMORY! (SAVAGE looks at THE OLD WOMAN. He looks around him. Pause. MACLUBY tosses him a spade)

  OLD WOMAN: Terrible shortage of sparrows…come on, pigeons, divest! (She opens her mouth wider still.) Crows? (SAVAGE goes to her. He flings on a shovel of earth.) Anyone! (He flings on another.) Oi! (And another.) I GOT NO POWER, WHY MUST I BE DEAD? (He smothers her with earth, breathless. She is silent. He walks back to GAY, flings the shovel at MACLUBY. GAY wraps SAVAGE in her arms. He is still.)

  SAVAGE: All that I know…and all you don’t…

  GAY: Shh…

  SAVAGE: The long length of our quarrel yet to come…

  GAY: Shh…

  SAVAGE: Shallow reconciliations and lingering angers in the dark…

  GAY: That’s love, isn’t it? (He looks at her.)

  SAVAGE: Cut that short, then.

  GAY: Love…hammered out thing…shapeless thing…

  SAVAGE: Cut that short, then.

  GAY: Bashed out like copper…warped like yew…

  SAVAGE: CUT THAT SHORT, THEN. (She kisses him, but silently. He throttles her, letting her body lie over him. Pause. The wind. THE BOY enters, with a stiff bag. He looks at his father.)

  BOY: Find what you wanted?

  SAVAGE: Thank you, yes… (THE BOY turns to go.) Kiss me…? (THE BOY looks at him, blankly.) All right, give us the plate! (THE BOY looks puzzled.) Broken plate… (SAVAGE indicates with a nod the shards of broken plates which lie among the litter. THE BOY picks up a piece, gives it to him, goes. SAVAGE attempts to slash his own throat.) Can’t… (He braces himself, but fails.) Can’t! (And again.) HOW DID THE OLD MAN DO IT? CAN’T! (He chucks down the shard.)

  MACLUBY: What do you think suicide is, a solitary act? It’s peopled with absences.

  SAVAGE: I have absences.

  MACLUBY: You murdered everything, and long for nothing. Aren’t you already dead? (He picks up his bag and walks away.)

  SAVAGE: That’s knowledge, then… (Pause. Whistling offstage. ASAFIR enters, sees SAVAGE.)

  ASAFIR: Hey! We are having a picnic here.

  SAVAGE: Don’t mind me.

  ASAFIR: (Off.) Hey! (JOHN enters, bowed by hampers.) This is the picnic place.

  YORAKIM: (Entering.) Oh.

  SAVAGE: Don’t mind me.

  ASAFIR: But this is a picnic place!

  SCHLIEMANN: (As guide.) The University! What a terrible place this was! The little rooms suggestive of a gaol, the –

  YORAKIM: Erm –

  SCHLIEMANN: The corridors of inordinate length where tortured thinkers thrashed each other in pursuit of a deity they called Truth –

  YORAKIM: Erm –

  SCHLIEMANN: A deity without shape or form, of course, these were not primitives – (He looks at SAVAGE.) Are you on the tour? (An inordinate pause. Black.)

  BRUTOPIA

  SECRET LIFE IN OLD CHELSEA

  Characters

  SIR THOMAS MORE

  An Intellectual

  ALICE

  His Wife

  CECILIA

  His Daughter

  MEG

  His Daughter

  ROPER

  His Biographer

  THE SERVANT

  Nurse to CECILIA

  HENRY VIII

  The Monarch

  BERTRAND

  A Suitor

  BO
NCHOPE

  A Heretic

  THE COMMON MAN

  An Occupant of the Garden

  THE DOCTOR

  An Inhabitant of Utopia

  THE WORKMAN

  DAKER

  A Scholar

  FACTOR

  Lout to the King

  LLOYD

  Lout to the King

  HOLBEIN

  A Court Painter

  BOLEYN

  A Queen

  SERVANTS

  CARTERS

  PRINTERS

  MONKS

  NUNS

  THE SICKNESS

  SCENE 1

  The garden at Chelsea. The King of England standing in moonlight. About him, a body of men assemble a massive telescope and its cradle. Others sprawl on the ground.

  THE CAPTION

  Thomas More published Utopia in 1516. It describes the perfect society. His daughter Cecilia composed Brutopia in secret. Only now has the text been discovered.

  A figure appears pulling on a coat. He kneels before the monarch.

  CECILIA: (Aside.) My father did not love me. Therefore I chose to cease loving him. Once I accomplished this, so much confirmed me in the wisdom of my decision. And so it was in Brutopia, that all the reasons one might discover for affection were seen equally to be good reasons for contempt. In Brutopia love was impossible and anger took its place. This anger was in certain ways, indistinguishable from love.

  KING HENRY: I’m here to look at the moon.

  MORE: It’s late.

  KING HENRY: Of course it’s late you academic bastard, when else can you look at the moon?

  MORE: Forgive me, I’m more than half asleep.

  KING HENRY: No, I saw your lamp on, you scholarly bastard, you were in your study.

  MORE: Sleeping, yes.

  KING HENRY: Sleeping in your study? You theological bastard I saw your shadow pass the light or I should not have pestered you. Don’t you want to entertain me?

  MORE: Want, yes, but –

  KING HENRY: That’s as I thought, the genius longs to entertain me, so down to Chelsea for a discourse on the moon. Get up now and fix your eye to the lens, you see I come equipped, I come with all astronomy’s impedimenta. Gawp.

  (MORE is manoeuvred to the eye-piece. HENRY speaks quietly into his ear.)

  Do you miss me?

  CECILIA: (Aside.) In Brutopia there was neither lie nor truth. Everyone believed everything.

  MORE: Profoundly.