Barker, Plays Eight

by Howard Barker

  BOLEYN: Poor love, that repudiates for two little slaps… and he is mad for you… (She gets up.) That’s simple, then. Write him a letter.

  CECILIA: Dictate, and I’ll put my signature.

  BOLEYN: No. You are the scholar. I’m from the scullery. You do it.

  CECILIA: Me? A scholar?

  BOLEYN: Yes, you’re Meg, aren’t you? Who has your parent’s cranium? (CECILIA laughs with resignation, disbelief, shame and bitterness.) You are not Meg… You are another of…

  CECILIA: I’m another, yes…

  BOLEYN: Of his…

  CECILIA: Another of his, yes… (Her eyes meet BOLEYN’s. Her nose is bleeding. BOLEYN turns to go.) Wait… (She stops.) You have the body of the King and may it give you pleasure, but give me something for my sacrifice.

  BOLEYN: I’m not buying my own husband, dear.

  CECILIA: No, but I think it will be hard to keep him off me, and for all the slaps I’m still susceptible, so bribe me, will you? Help me desist?

  BOLEYN: How?

  CECILIA: By balancing a greater thing against desire?

  BOLEYN: And what is greater?

  CECILIA: A book.

  BOLEYN: Book? But you’re not Meg –

  CECILIA: I’M NOT MEG BUT STILL I’M LITERATE.

  I’M NOT MEG BUT STILL I’M PERFECT.

  CERTAINLY I AM NOT MEG. (Pause. She grins.)

  I have this work, you see, which your husband calls inhuman. Get it licensed. You know the bishops. Get them to pass it for the printer. Do it for me.

  BOLEYN: (Measuring her.) I could not do what you have done. When I loved I’d tear my gums against flint walls to reach my wanted one. (Pause.)

  CECILIA: Yes… I am not passionate…. (BOLEYN inclines her head, formally and departs. THE SERVANT appears beside CECILIA.) A queen’s been here… smell the air… a queen…

  THE SERVANT: To plead?

  CECILIA: To prostrate herself. To bow before the powers of my belly where her unruly husband knocks like tree trunks in high seas butt the harbour wall… (She laughs.) I AM A TERRIBLE LIAR AND I MEAN TO HAVE BOTH. (She turns desperately to THE SERVANT.) MAN AND BOOK! BODY AND BOOK! (She stops, alarmed.) Is this a birth pain? (She feels herself.) I think the effort’s brought me on. What’s a birth pain? Call Meg! I awfully wish Meg to do my drudgery – (THE SERVANT turns.) Oh, listen – (She stops.) Was that – what I just did – was that politics?

  SCENE 18

  A child crying. THE SERVANT walks up and down with the swaddled infant. CECILIA is draped in a wooden lounge chair, convalescent.

  She wears spectacles, and attempts to read.

  CECILIA: Oh, do stop bouncing it..! Did you bounce me like that? No wonder I’m so. No wonder. (She opens her arms for the baby. THE SERVANT gives it to her. She looks at it.) I shan’t name the child, because I am not keeping her. (THE SERVANT stares in disbelief.)

  THE SERVANT: Not keeping her…?

  CECILIA: That’s what I said. (She looks at THE SERVANT.) Oh, my tutor in malevolence, you are outbid. And your expression tells me all your wickedness is shallow. You are appalled. You are no further use to me. (She smiles.) Which is correct! The student must surpass the teacher, or what’s the use of knowledge?

  THE SERVANT: I’ll bring her up.

  CECILIA: Silly.

  THE SERVANT: No, let me bring her up, I’ll –

  CECILIA: You! (She stares.) With your Utopian ideas? Do you think I’d give my loved one into you? You would load her back with such – CONVICTIONS! No, I have a better parent. (She lifts the child, now silent, in the air, and smiles.)

  THE SERVANT: She needs you…

  CECILIA: No, she exaggerates, we all do…

  THE SERVANT: (Unable to contain herself.) I think you are a wicked and ill woman and I should have strangled you at birth!

  SCENE 19

  THE COMMON MAN, waiting in a place. CECILIA approaches with the child. He waits. She gives it him.

  CECILIA: Make her imperfect. Make her ache for the impossible. Teach her to detect the liar but never contradict him. Forbid her wisdom. Teach her to draw her consolation from the stars. And say her mother talked too much to make a decent whore. (THE COMMON MAN takes the child, wraps it like an item of shopping, and bounds off. HENRY appears, interrupting her thoughtfulness. He removes her spectacles.)

  KING HENRY: I hate the spectacles. They shout SCRUTINY at me. I am not to be looked into. The long look’s critical. (She looks down.) The child thrives, then?

  CECILIA: It lives, and yet I’ve lost it.

  KING HENRY: Lost it? To whom?

  CECILIA: Nature. (He looks at her, puzzled.) You see how spoiled I am, how arid in the very heart of feeling. You drink her nourishment. (She unbuttons her dress.)

  KING HENRY: (Putting his hand on her wrist.) What have you done?

  CECILIA: Drink me murderer… (He is uncomfortable.)

  KING HENRY: Cecilia, you will be arrested…

  CECILIA: In my arms, she lay, thinking, THIS IS THE LIFE! She chuckled with a sickening complacency. But I saved her. (Pause. She pulls his mouth to her breast.) Rob! Plunder, then! (They engage, passionately. Then they are still. A voice, over the gardens.)

  THE PRINTER: Miss More! (She opens her eyes. A FIGURE in an apron is seen coming towards them.)

  KING HENRY: Hide me!

  THE PRINTER: Miss More! (CECILIA bundles HENRY beneath her skirts.)

  KING HENRY: Hide me!

  CECILIA: (To THE PRINTER, who is waving a bill.) You must want Meg. She gets all the letters.

  THE PRINTER: No, it says Cecilia.

  CECILIA: There are Cecilias all over Chelsea.

  THE PRINTER: Yes, but here?

  CECILIA: Not if here means here, but there is Cecilia who makes the pastry in –

  THE PRINTER: No, it’s you, Miss –

  CECILIA: Or the hag who lives in the beer barrel –

  THE PRINTER: Look – (He holds out a calf-bound book, slipping off its wrapping. She sees the legend ‘Brutopia’ on the spine. HENRY, concealed by her skirt, remains in a posture which excludes him from the conversation. A pause of depth and confusion. CECILIA makes a move of her head to indicate THE PRINTER should go. He fails to perceive its meaning.) I have a cart outside with seven hundred –

  CECILIA: Loaves! I don’t want seven hundred loaves – (She jerks her head again.) You see, you must mean –

  THE PRINTER: (Confused.) I –

  CECILIA: Cecily! Not Cecilia! You see, there’s your error! Cecily, the baker, she has a place beside the gate and you’ve misjudged the turning – (She thrusts the book back at him.) She is the loaf enthusiast – this is not the first time she’s – so off you go – (She waves him away.) Turn right, and right again – TAKE YOUR LOAVES AWAY! (He withdraws, faltering. She looks keenly into his eyes. He recedes. HENRY lifts his head, sits contemplatively.)

  KING HENRY: When More lived this place was all seclusion…

  CECILIA: The walls are falling down and dogs jump in…as well as monarchs… (She is in a state of passionate excitement at the appearance of the book. She kisses HENRY spontaneously.) I’m so – look at me – I am delighted! (She kisses him again.)

  KING HENRY: You are. With what, though?

  CECILIA: With you!

  KING HENRY: Me? Solely?

  CECILIA: Solely? Now, that’s ambitious! No, the sun shines and the blossom blows and I – (Pause.)

  KING HENRY: I only love you because I do not know you, Cecilia.

  CECILIA: Yes.

  KING HENRY: And when I know you –

  CECILIA: Then we’re done. And that’s good. That’s proper. (Pause. Then HENRY gets up.)

  KING HENRY: Down the river, now, to Hampton. Diplomacy and tennis. And as I bash, it’s you. And as I smash, it’s you.

  CECILIA: Call my name, but half-obscured, like a curse.

  KING HENRY: Bash. Smash. I carve your body on the yew hedge. Henry. His thing. (He smiles, kisses her tenderly, withdraws through the garden.)
r />   SCENE 20

  TWO PRINTERS gazing at CECILIA. Seven hundred copies of the book BRUTOPIA stacked in a neglected greenhouse. CECILIA, the object of their amazement and contempt, runs her hands over the bindings. She takes a copy. She inhales it. She is without shame. She nurses and fondles the book. She meets their eyes over the cover’s rim.

  CECILIA: Scotch leather. (She inhales the pages.) And the paper?

  FIRST PRINTER: Dutch.

  CECILIA: Dutch?

  SECOND

  PRINTER: All we could get, we –

  CECILIA: No, I love the Dutch… (With immaculate care she opens the book on a bench, runs her finger tips over the page.) And what of the ink.

  FIRST PRINTER: Clerkenwell. We make the ink. (Pause. She turns the leaves.)

  CECILIA: How much you print, and how little you read…

  SECOND

  PRINTER: We don’t do books. We are handbill printers.

  FIRST PRINTER: The pages came. The licence came. And then the money. Anonymous, the lot.

  SECOND

  PRINTER: Off we went.

  CECILIA: How satisfied you must be. I am so happy

  for you. How gratified.

  SECOND

  PRINTER: It was good money –

  CECILIA: No, no, I mean – to have at long last found an object worthy of your skills. (She looks at them for the first time. They shift uneasily.) This is no poster for a sordid dance, is it? Or handbill for a quack? All your apprenticeship, and years of craft, at last discover a fit task. (They look blank.) Midwives! Allies in great birth! (She seizes them in her arms. She hugs them, releases them.) Come now, you must have read some of it as you laid the type, what did you think?

  SECOND

  PRINTER: No, it’s – you rarely read when setting the –

  CECILIA: Of course not, no, but when you – read the proofs, the galleys, what are they? You – surely then you – (Pause.)

  SECOND

  PRINTER: We thought the margins were a bit broad, didn’t we, John? (Pause. They turn to go.)

  CECILIA: What is the use of craft if it – of industry, if it – invention, if it – you are the printers!

  (She follows them to the door.) The page is also you! (They step into the garden. She follows them. They retreat.)

  CECILIA: Your craft is not immune! (They ignore her.) THE PRINTERS WILL BE KILLED AND RIGHTLY, TOO! (They disappear through the hedges. ALICE appears beside CECILIA.)

  ALICE: Sir Tom would give them liquor.

  CECILIA: Yes.

  ALICE: He knew the fence that runs between labour and imagination. He knew better than you.

  CECILIA: Yes.

  ALICE: May I read the book?

  CECILIA: (Turning to her.) I don’t know. There are so few.

  ALICE: And you are saving them?

  CECILIA: Yes.

  ALICE: For better readers?

  CECILIA: (Holding ALICE tenderly by the arm.) Obviously it must be read by those already predisposed to understand it. Otherwise it might as well be thrown up in the air, to drift down in obscure places where – (She stops.) Yes, I think that is perhaps what I should do! I should not sell them, since then the rich will know everything as well as owning everything. It would not be good for them. (She smiles, thinks.) On the other hand, to give them to the poor would be to have them wrongly employed, as jambs for windows, draught excluders, and the like, no, that would demean my labour, obviously the books should reach their readers arbitrarily, rather. Only then can I be assured one copy, and only one perhaps, might reach its loved one and enrich his life. I will fling them over the wall.

  ALICE: Over the wall?

  CECILIA: Yes. Bookshops are prisons, after all. The books are gaoled. And there’s a highway over there, beyond the gate.

  ALICE: Yes…

  CECILIA: So many people pass, of all descriptions, to and from the city. Of these, the vast majority are shallow and incapable of dream, but one! One might, a single soldier in a platoon, a merchant bored with wealth, who knows, but one! (She smiles.) I am an optimist, you see… (ALICE looks at her.)

  ALICE: Cecilia, you are not well, the birth –

  CECILIA: The birth? I had forgotten the birth! (She looks distantly for a moment.) Why do you call me ill when what I say is true? Why do you? Surely the ill are the liars? Hold my arm… (ALICE takes her arm. They walk in silence.)

  ALICE: I have so much to tell you… so much to talk about… (They walk.) It’s strange how, because you are so single-minded, I feel – I – who am not single-minded – feel I have to – odd, isn’t it – confess to you… (They walk. Silence, they walk.) I want you to know things and yet I am certain in my heart these things you know already! (She stops suddenly.) I want to confess. (Pause.) And yet I know, when I do confess, you will say – oh, so typically of you – you will say, oh, that! I knew that! I already knew that! (She laughs. Pause.) So –

  BERTRAND’S

  VOICE: (Enraged over the lawns.) WHERE – IS – SHE!

  ALICE: Oh, God –

  BERTRAND’S

  VOICE: I SAID WHERE –

  ALICE: Oh, hell – (BERTRAND enters furiously.)

  BERTRAND: I GO TO THE COT AND –

  ALICE: Shh, you –

  BERTRAND: I GO TO THE COT – I RUN TO THE COT OF MY – AND SHE’S – THE SHEETS COLD – WHERE –

  ALICE: You have chosen the worst possible –

  BERTRAND: I ASK THE NURSE AND SHE SAYS –

  ALICE: I also am enquiring and you –

  BERTRAND: MY BASTARD DAUGHTER WHERE IS SHE THE LITTLE LOVE! (He stares at CECILIA.)

  ALICE: Enquiring, but more subtly…

  BERTRAND: (Not looking at her.) Shut up.

  ALICE: You are so horse-like, but that’s to malign the horse.

  BERTRAND: Shut up.

  ALICE: You are so bull-like, but that’s to malign the bull.

  BERTRAND: (Not removing his eyes from CECILIA.) Shut up, I said…! (Pause. There is a moment of recognition in CECILIA’s eyes. She smiles.)

  CECILIA: You two are lovers! It’s obvious! (She laughs. He slaps her violently.)

  ALICE: DON’T DO THAT.

  CECILIA: (Recovering.) How wonderful… your fingers touch on landings… oh, the ecstasy of the lingering, illicit touch… (He stares.) Marry my step-mother. Marry her and grow together like hard woods, gnarl like yews. She is a brilliant woman whom my father crushed… (He stares.)

  BERTRAND: I want the child…

  CECILIA: Utopia was false, and yet its falseness did not impede its progress. And your feelings for our bastard, perhaps they’re false, too…

  (She walks away from them. BERTRAND looks at her. Pause.)

  BERTRAND: Shall you send for the constable, or shall I? (ALICE does not reply. Night falls.)

  SCENE 21

  A pile of books. CECILIA seated by them, under a wall. It is night. MEG comes, joins her, pulling a gown closer for the cold.

  CECILIA: (In a whisper.) I toss them over the wall. Like this. (She chucks one, blindly.) At intervals. Irregular, or some dealer will stand there with a net and so prevent the LEGITIMATE READER gaining access to the text.

  (She smiles.) Who this reader is, God knows. But that must be the point of printing, surely? The anonymity? (Pause. Without taking her eyes off MEG, she spontaneously chucks another.) Three hundred and sixty-six to go. (Pause.) I know what kindness is. It is something done to the self. But when this self is made, give it to others. (She chucks again.) Shh! (She cranes her head to the wall.) Footsteps! Someone collects! Some scampers off, amazed… (ALICE comes through the darkness, and sits with them. Pause.

  A distant sound.)

  MEG: Look, a comet! (They all look. CECILIA suddenly throws a book. The sound is repeated.)

  ALICE: The last wolf in England….shh.. (They listen. The sound of oars in water. ALICE puts a hand on CECILIA’s knee.)

  CECILIA: Oars.

  Oars in the water.

  I think the boat’s for me. (She stan
ds up.)

  The agents of Utopia… have come for me…

  SCENE 22

  CECILIA waits in the moonlight on the sunken lawn. Some figures appear on the perimeter. They are NUNS. One approaches her, kindly.

  CECILIA: Be careful, I am the king’s mistress. (The NUN nods, slowly.) So one false move and – (She nods patiently.) Lay a finger on me and – (CECILIA draws a finger gruesomely across her neck. The NUN nods again. CECILIA whispers.) Got Brutopia? (The NUN looks uncertain.) Not got one yet? It’s passed around, you see, in brown paper covers, hand to hand, in alleys or upstairs in pubs…

  NUN: (Smiling.) We have such a nice room for you…

  CECILIA: They said that to my dad! (She grins.)

  NUN: Oh?

  CECILIA: Same words exactly, and listen, do stop smiling, I can’t be good in the company of the good and that smile is only violence,

  I’ll get you a copy – (She turns to go.)

  NUN: Not now.

  CECILIA: Not now? Why not now?

  NUN: It’s late.

  CECILIA: It’s late, but you came late, so don’t complain about the lateness!

  NUN: You are full of wit, I do like you.

  CECILIA: Good. So does everyone. For different reasons, obviously. Only my father failed to like me, and I arranged his death, which was what he wanted. I say I arranged it, no, I exaggerate, I blocked his pardon. (The NUN takes a step.) Be careful, the King does tend to – (She makes the gruesome gesture again.)

  NUN: Shall we go? (Pause, then suddenly CECILIA slaps her across the face. The NUN reels. From the perimeter, other NUNS hurry to her aid. The NUN gestures for them to stay back.)

  CECILIA: I’m sorry, I really cannot stand that smile. (Pause.) Go where?

  NUN: This room.

  CECILIA: I have a room.

  NUN: We want to care for you.

  CECILIA: You mean, I am to be loved whether I want it or not?

  NUN: We will love you, yes.

  CECILIA: When it’s soldiers, isn’t that called rape? (Pause.)

  NUN: I think you are much too clever for your own good.

  CECILIA: YES! MUCH TOO CLEVER! YES! And everything I know, I thought. From the bottom to the top. From the cellar to the attic. I did not borrow. I did not quote.