by Tom Stoppard
Ruth Mr Guthrie to you – hop it.
Alastair goes. Guthrie sits in a comfortable chair on the verandah.
Oh dear, he’s taken rather a fancy to George. Next thing, he’ll want to be a journalist when he grows up. What is a mother to do?
Carson hangs up the phone.
Should I tell him it’ll send him blind, and risk psychological damage, or should I sew a war correspondent’s badge on his pyjamas and hope he grows out of it?
Carson (leaving the room) Darling, these gentlemen may not be used to your sense of humour, (calling) Allie!
Ruth Well I’m going to need a sense of humour if Alastair’s going to go around the house putting his foot in the doors and asking impertinent questions. Perhaps I’ll get him a reporter doll for Christmas. Wind it up and it gets it wrong. (She seems in high good humour.) What does it say when you press its stomach? Come on, Dick!
Wagner I name the guilty man.
Ruth (laughs) Very good.
Carson comes back and takes his place. Ruth gets up to replenish her glass.
Yes, that’s a question which has loomed large in my life – who’s the guilty man? Until Geoffrey of course. Geoffrey is entirely blameless.
Carson Steady on, Ruth.
Wagner Who is the guilty man this time, Geoff?
‘Ruth’ Don’t get cheeky, Wagner.
Wagner Shimbu or Mageeba?
Carson Oh …
‘Ruth’ Jesus!
Carson Depends which paper you read, doesn’t it?
‘Ruth’ Don’t do that to me.
Ruth takes her drink and sits apart from the men.
Wagner What did the President have to say?
Carson Are you interviewing me, Dick?
Wagner Is that all right?
Carson No, it isn’t.
Wagner Off the record, then.
‘Ruth’ Tell him to bugger off.
Wagner No attribution.
‘Ruth’ I’ll tell him. Elizabeth Taylor in Elephant Walk. (shouts) ‘Get out of this house! This is no longer Geoffrey Carson’s bachelor quarters, I’m his beautiful bride from England, and I’m sick of all you hooligans playing bicycle polo in my sitting-room!’
Carson realizes that Guthrie has fallen asleep holding his beer glass. Carson goes over and gently takes the glass out of Guthrie’s hands.
Carson George tells me he’d like to get into Malakuangazi.
Wagner We both would.
Carson What about Jake?
Wagner Jake is a freelance. I’m the Globe’s man on this story.
‘Ruth’ He’s got hair in his nostrils. I must have been drunk.
Carson He did well.
‘Ruth’ I was drunk.
Wagner Yes, he did well. He had some luck.
Carson Was that it?
‘Ruth’ I name the guilty men – J and B.
Wagner OK, but now it’s up to me to go where I can get ahead of the competition. There’ll be a lot of journalists with the same idea.
Carson They haven’t got a hope. The army won’t let them through.
Wagner Can you help?
Carson Yes. I can give you a car, a driver who speaks the lingo, and a pass signed by the President.
Wagner My God, what am I doing for you?
‘Ruth’ Don’t ask.
Carson Colonel Shimbu didn’t let me go for old times’ sake. I was taking a message. You’ll be taking the reply.
Wagner A reply from the President?
Carson Use your imagination.
Wagner Unprofessional. What I use has to check out.
Carson Well, I’m flying down to KC. I’ll be back in the morning, early, with a letter and the pass.
Wagner Signed by Mageeba.
Carson That’s it.
Wagner And the letter too? (Pause.) Just say yes – what’s the matter?
Carson It’s called giving you as much information as you need to know.
‘Ruth’ Terrible title, (sings, improvising) ‘Giving you as much information …’
‘Ruth’ worries away at this song, at intervals, until Ruth speaks out loud.
Wagner Has Shimbu offered a deal?
Carson Come on, Dick. Well, you can assume I wouldn’t ask you if I thought there’d be a war going on.
Wagner Why a journalist?
Carson Who else wants to go? I was thinking of Jake.
Wagner No. How long is the drive?
Carson About five hours. Lunch in Malakuangazi.
Wagner Friday lunch. Twenty-four hours to get back here and file. That’s nice going if the Colonel cooperates.
Carson It might be better if Jake went. Shimbu likes him.
Wagner Shimbu will like me. I’m very popular.
Ruth I’ve always wanted to meet a popular journalist. I mean socially, I don’t mean under one’s bed or outside the law courts. One is not normally introduced to journalists. I mention that as a matter of circumstance, not as a piece of social etiquette. Though, of course, it is that, too.
Carson I thought you were being unnaturally silent.
Wagner You don’t much care for the media, do you, Ruth?
Ruth The media. It sounds like a convention of spiritualists.
Carson Ruth has mixed feelings about reporters.
Ruth No, I haven’t. I despise them. Not foreign correspondents, of course – or the gardening notes. The ones in between. I’m sure you know what I mean.
Wagner You’ve met one or two, have you?
Ruth Under the bed, outside the law courts … But don’t imagine that I despise them because of any injury done to me – on the contrary I looked jolly nice in my divorce hat, and being on the front page of four morning newspapers did my reputation nothing but good in my part of Highgate – ‘Hasn’t she done well?’ And even the indignities with which the whole saga began … well, there are worse things than being pursued across Shropshire by the slavering minions of a philistine press lord; in fact, it brought Geoffrey and me closer together. I loved him for the way he out-drove them in his Jaguar, and it wasn’t his fault at all that the early morning tea in our hideaway hotel was brought in by a Fleet Street harpie in a tweeny … no, no, it isn’t that. It isn’t even – or anyway not entirely – the way it was written up, or rather snapped together in that Lego-set language they have, so that poor Geoffrey’s wife, a notably hard-boiled zoologist who happens to breed rare parakeets, and who incautiously admitted to a reporter that, yes she would like Geoff to give me up, and yes, she would have him back, was instantly dubbed Heartbreak Parrot Woman In Plea For Earl’s Brother. Earl’s Brother. That’s the bit. Of all the husbands who ran off with somebody’s wife that week, Geoffrey qualified because he had a measly title and if the right three-hundred people went down on the Royal Yacht he’d be Duke of Bognor. Has anyone ever bothered to find out whether anybody really cares? The populace and the popular press. What a grubby symbiosis it is. Which came first? The rhinoceros or the rhinoceros bird?
The study door opens.
Milne Dick! I got a line!
The study door closes. Wagner gets up to go.
Wagner Titled people haven’t had the greatest luck with journalists. Infatuation gave way to resentment without any intervening period of indifference. I remember you now. Just. The beginning of the Red Guard phase. Nick Webster was allowed thirty thousand pounds a year for tip-off money. Thought he was the scourge of privilege. Thought the paper was behind him. Don’t you love it? If someone had convinced the paper that the AB readership has gone over to astronomy, Nick would have found himself on the roof with a telescope. (He goes out into the study closing the door behind him.)
Carson You’re riding him a little hard, aren’t you? Is anything the matter? (He goes to the telephone and is using it during this scene.)
Ruth Geoffrey, there’s something I have to tell you.
Carson Mm? (into phone) Carson. Yes.
‘Ruth’ Darling, there’s something I have to tell you.
Ca
rson What’s up?
‘Ruth’ My darling, there’s something I have to tell you that happened when I was in London.
Carson (turning to her from the telephone) Ruth?
‘Ruth’ Geoffrey, darling, when I was in London I did something rather silly …
Carson Eh, Ruth?
‘Ruth’ (American) We’re two grown up people, Geoffrey, let’s try to be mature about this.
Carson temporarily free from the phone but still holding on.
Carson Aren’t you talking to me?
Ruth turns towards him for the first time.
Ruth I’m sorry I’m a rotten wife.
Carson You’re not a rotten wife. I’ve had one of those.
Ruth Geoff –
Carson is caught by the phone.
Carson I’m sorry, (into phone) Yes? … yes.
Carson is occupied on the phone now. Ruth lights a cigarette. She smokes long cigarettes and usually stubs them out after a few puffs.
‘Ruth’ (loudly) I have brought shame on the house of Carson! Yes! It’s Dick! He took advantage of me, Geoffrey! I fought it, my God how I fought it! But I couldn’t help myself!
Carson listening at the phone, half turns with his free hand stretched out towards her, his fingers ready to receive a lit cigarette.
Don’t shoot. Geoffrey!
Distant echo of gun-shot. She puts her cigarette between his fingers.
(Casually) By the way, Geoffrey, I let Wagner take me to bed in London, in the Royal Garden Hotel, view over Kensington High Street, chosen for its proximity to the Embassy, in the visa section of which I met him while he was fixing his papers. I was fixing Alastair’s. ‘Going out to Kambawe?’ ‘Actually, I live there.’ ‘How interesting. I’m going out for the Sunday Globe. I say, you couldn’t spare the time for a chat, could you? – spot of lunch – dinner – drinks – nightcap – and so on.’ And so on. I believe it’s called de-briefing. Not half bad either, though not as good as he thinks. Next day I picked up Allie and flew home.
Carson hangs up the phone.
Carson It’s on.
His back is to Ruth. He is looking at a document, taken from his pocket; not absorbed in it, perhaps talking to Ruth though we can’t see his face.
‘Ruth’ I didn’t blame Wagner at all, ’til he showed up here looking for a second helping. I thought I let him off lightly. That man is not a gentleman. Thinks I hop into bed with strange men because I hopped into bed with a strange man. (Pause.) I’m sorry.
Carson Are you listening, Ruth?
Ruth I’m sorry –
Carson I’ve told Allie to get dressed.
Ruth What?
Carson He can stay with the Krebs for a couple of days. I don’t want him here.
Ruth Is it on, then?
Carson Looks like it. You really ought to go, too. I trust Mageeba less than I trust Shimbu, and I don’t trust Shimbu.
Ruth Do you want me to go with Allie?
Carson No. I don’t.
Ruth kisses him. Nothing too special.
Ruth Then I’ll stay.
Wagner, re-entering from the study, almost catches this.
Wagner Sorry.
Carson All right.
Wagner would have retired, but now closes the study door and comes forward.
I’ll go and see how Allie’s getting on.
Carson goes.
Wagner Is it safe to come in?
Ruth Why not? (She goes to the drinks shelf, and pours the remainder of a bottle of J and B into a glass for herself. It makes a large double scotch.)
Wagner I thought I detected feelings of bitterness and bad news.
Ruth Whatever gave you that idea? I name this ship Titanic – (She smashes the neck of the empty bottle on the marble shelf.) – long may she sail. (She drops the rest of the bottle into the bin at her feet. She picks up her glass and turns to Wagner.)
Wagner You seemed to find me agreeable enough in London.
Ruth And you thought I might find you just as agreeable in Jeddu, eh? That’s something I forgive. It’s crass but I forgive it. And just in case finding-you-agreeable-enough is supposed to be Australian understatement for wetting myself down to my socks, let me tell you something, Wagner – if I had fancied you at all when you chatted me up in the visa office, I would have run a mile. That’s what we honourable ladies with decent husbands do – didn’t you know that? Every now and again we meet a man who attracts us, and we run a mile. I let you take me to dinner because there was no danger of going to bed with you. And then because there was no danger of going to bed with you a second time, I went to bed with you. A lady, if surprised by melancholy, might go to bed with a chap, once; or a thousand times if consumed by passion. But twice, Wagner, twice … a lady might think she’d been taken for a tart.
Wagner takes his cable out of his pocket and gives it to Ruth.
Wagner This is a cable I got on Sunday, from my editor. I didn’t come here to sniff at your skirts.
While Ruth is reading the cable.
Believe it or not, I like to read. I like modern fiction and historical biography best. One of the things that makes novels less plausible than history, I find, is the way they shrink from coincidence. (He waits until Ruth looks up.) And also the way that so few women in fiction are in love with their husbands.
Ruth I’m not in love with anybody. I just like some people a great deal more than I like others, and I like Geoffrey a great deal more than I like you. Is that all right?
Wagner Yes, that’s fine.
Ruth Good. (She gives him back the cable.) Happy Birthday.
Alastair comes in dressed to travel.
Come to give me a kiss, Allie?
Alastair No – I want my camera.
Ruth Be quick then.
Ruth goes out. Alastair goes to where Guthrie is sleeping. He kneels down and whispers to him.
Alastair Mr Guthrie …
Wagner Don’t wake him. I’ll find your camera.
Alastair He said he’d show me how it works.
Wagner He put a film in for you. (He finds the camera where Guthrie had been sitting.) Here you are.
Alastair Oh … gosh, thanks. It’s my dad’s old camera really.
Wagner I say, I thought you were going to bed.
Alastair Daddy’s taking me to Kamba City.
Wagner Why’s that?
Alastair I’m going to stay with Krebs. Do you know him?
Wagner No.
Alastair He lives in KC. He’s my friend.
Wagner Oh.
Alastair I bet you don’t know who my dad is going to see. I’ll give you a hundred guesses.
Wagner The President.
Alastair He told you.
Wagner Do you know the President?
Alastair No, I’m too young. That’s why daddy’s sending me to KC. He doesn’t want me here when the President comes.
Wagner (pause) Well, you’ll meet the President another time, I expect. When is he coming here?
Alastair Tomorrow night, probably. Don’t tell daddy I know it’s him – he just said it was somebody coming.
Wagner And who told you, then?
Alastair My mum.
Offstage Carson calls ‘Allie!’
Wagner Don’t worry, I won’t tell him.
Carson enters.
(With camera) You have to guess how far it is – you turn this, you see – three feet – six feet – and that’s infinity, which means as far as you can see.
Carson Come on, Allie, into the car. (to Wagner, as Allie goes) Allie was going to visit a pal in KC – so I’m taking him now –
Wagner I see.
Carson Might as well. Two birds with one stone.
Wagner What a childhood, eh?
Carson Yes. He’s quite used to helicopters.
Wagner Yes, he was saying. Well, I hope everything goes well for you.
Carson See you in the morning.
Wagner Thanks, Geoff.
Carson goes out. W
agner stands still, thinking, and listens to the sounds of farewell, the car doors slamming, the car leaving. Wagner is tense, and then he gives an inarticulate cry of triumph and punches his fist through the air like a goal-scorer. He moves quickly to Guthrie and slaps his hands together by Guthrie’s ear, calls his name, and wakes him unceremoniously. Guthrie comes awake, and stands up in the same moment, talking.
Guthrie I’m fine – I’m fine – where are we going?
Wagner is as high as a kite.
Wagner I’m going back to the hotel. Need the car.
Guthrie relapses into the chair.
Keys!
Wagner goes to the study door and opens it.
How are you doing?
He comes back and leaves the door ajar. The telex audible.
(To Guthrie) Listen, you’re going to Malakuangazi, you and Jake, in the morning.
Guthrie I should bloody think so.
Wagner I’ve got you a car, a driver and a pass, and I’ve arranged a cease-fire. The Globe never sleeps.
Guthrie (bitterly) I know.
Wagner I’ll cover this end.
Ruth returns to the room.
Ruth George – poor George – when did you last sleep in a bed?
Guthrie I was just pretending to be asleep. It’s an old photographer’s trick.
Ruth Oh yes, I’m sure.
Guthrie I promised to go and see Alastair –
Ruth Oh dear – you’ve missed him –
Guthrie Missed him?
Wagner I gave him the camera. You’ll see him next time. (to Ruth) I’m taking George to the hotel.
Ruth There’s room in the dorm. Geoffrey arranged it.
Wagner Well, that would be better. It’s going to be quite an early start.
Guthrie Yes, thanks. I’ll get my stuff out of the car. (He goes out.)
Ruth I hope you don’t mind sharing a room?
Wagner You’re a sport, Mrs Carson, but let’s just be friends.
Ruth Bastard.
Wagner I made an excuse and left.
Wagner is leaving but Milne comes out of the study holding a piece of telex. Milne doesn’t see Ruth.
Milne Dick, I’ve got your reply
Wagner What?
Milne (slightly embarrassed) The reply to your, um, protest …
Wagner Oh yes? From Battersby?
Milne No.
Wagner Well, what does it say?
Milne ‘Onpass Wagner. Upstick protest arsewards. Hammaker.’
Wagner This is Jacob Milne. He’ll be making the trip with George.
