You turned into such a pompous, prejudiced shit.
[AGATHA slaps her. CLODIA slaps her back]
Don’t slap me, dammit. You aren’t my fucking family.
You aren’t my mother. Who the hell are you?
AGATHA
[Shakes her]
Agatha Willett. That’s who. Agatha Willett.
CLODIA
Not to me, Aggie Willett. Not to me.
I’ll tell you what process changed Aggie Willett:
she lost her accent teaching us to talk
like little horseback-riding ladies and gents,
and so the teacher became what she taught.
So first the accent, then the aggression went,
and with the aggression gone, the politics.
And the class struggle that was in herself.
She just couldn’t resist the comforts of the estate
once Uncle Ozzie offered them to her. Maybe
that’s what she’d really wanted, not her equals,
but friendlier servants. Aggie was just like us!
Avenging her background. I’d have done the same.
God, who could resist the smell of Santa Rosa?
Besides, they wanted her like that, the English lady.
AGATHA
You can talk properly now, I’m proud of that.
I sacrificed those politics for you all.
For Victor’s sake. A life-long sacrifice.
CLODIA
Sydney is the sacrifice.
AGATHA
O Clodia, Clodia, love …
CLODIA
Small island. Small war. Small men. Who’ll remember? Who’ll bleed in Washington, or London, or Paris if they all die? What is Trinidad? A speck of fly shit on a map of the world. People like Sydney come and go like grass. And grass go cover their dreams up in the bush, and things go on like nothing ever happened. Sydney was here. He was injured. He asked for you. Like he was showing his teacher what he had learnt. Can’t you hear me? Don’t block your ears.
[Shouts]
Sydney was here!
[Pause]
He can’t hate you, Aggie. You were like his mother.
AGATHA
I did my job. I kept my vow to Victor. Christ,
I keep seeing that old white porcelain bathtub
charred and blackened in the grass. Why?
A whole house burns, and that’s all I remember.
CLODIA
[Embraces her]
Your mind’s so choked with memories, isn’t it, Aggie?
Like a pond choking with white water lilies.
AGATHA
Shh. I heard the car come in. Oswald’s come back.
I know I’m full of memories, but one more.
I remember, one moonlit night at Santa Rosa,
Oswald gave me this lamp and challenged me
to burn down the estate. If I had done it then,
would things have changed, would there be a new world,
a different one, today, for you and Sydney?
Why didn’t you tell him how much you loved him?
But you forgot too, didn’t you? The time passed.
Time. Ah, girl, there is a wick in every heart,
it flares up in our youth, rebellious;
then we trim the wick down in middle age,
and sooner than you notice things grow vague.
Their revolution went past me. That’s all.
CLODIA
It’s not going to happen to me, Aggie.
[OSWALD and TONY enter]
OSWALD
The army officer who was with me insisted I couldn’t go on to identify my property. I told him he knew it was my property. He said it was regulations. Right there on the side of the road we had a big quarrel. He said that tomorrow there’d be martial law declared, that I had to obey him. I said arrest me, arrest me, you khaki-arse, but I not turning back. [Distant steel bands. Silence] In the end I got tired quarreling and came back. Tomorrow they’ll let us estimate the damage.
[Silence]
TONY
You know, I been designing Carnival bands for years. The marches started and all my members backed out. Afraid of the same black people they were dancing with. This year, to honour Victor, I designed a Watteau band. Now, with this light like the fire, orange, and silks, the sunset, I see the moment of stillness Victor wanted. Because here we are, we can’t move. Just like these people in the painting. Motionless …
CLODIA
[Leaping up]
Motionless, hell! I gone and play me Mas.
TONY
You go dead dancing. Come! I’ll dress you.
[They exit]
AGATHA
She’s prettier than when I played Jane Avril.
Life. It goes so fast! A sunbeam on a sofa.
OSWALD
Marry me, Willett.
AGATHA
Don’t be silly, Oswald.
OSWALD
Why? We go to bed. Why not? A gift from Victor.
AGATHA
Because I need something I can say no to.
It seems to me I’ve said yes once too often.
[Sings]
The working class can kiss my arse …
OSWALD
You did your bit, Aggie.
AGATHA
It wasn’t enough.
I tried to change the island and it changed me.
The change was imperceptible, not like our seasons.
What can I say now about Aggie Willett?
First she observed the customs of the house
by being used to the customs of the house,
its velvet habits, its mahogany surfaces,
where candles doubled themselves like mirrors
during dinner. Her nails were tapered, too,
like candle flames, trembling with elegance,
and ebony servants in their silver service
appeared like zombies to a small brass bell,
circling a chair that she always set for Victor.
The big four-poster, the white lace that lifted
and settled down to silence with the roses,
the sunlit satisfaction of that house
deep as its sofas. She became the house.
The mirrors drank her, all the outside world
was vague as distance, shouts behind
the clipped and muffled hedges of the house
were like the faint sounds you hear from paintings,
mice scratching at her mind. The house
swallowed her like a cloud.
OSWALD
[Sings quietly]
O Para-dis …
AGATHA
In all the years I’ve known you
you’ve never finished that song.
Finish it now.
OSWALD
You joking, Aggie.
AGATHA
I’m waiting.
OSWALD
Sing? In all this … mess?
L’Africaine. Vasco da Gama discovers the New World.
[Silence]
My mother sang it. She played the piano beautifully.
She’d sing it on evenings in the cocoa country
to my father. I have to turn my head.
[Sings]
O Paradis …
La la … la la …
[Stops]
I’ve forgotten.
It’s gone. Me too!
[Exits. AGATHA walks over to the painting, then to the photographs, the blank spaces on the wall]
AGATHA
[To the Pilgrim figure, VICTOR’s costume]
What a damned good thing I had the exhibition.
Not many people came. It isn’t a good time.
That watch of mine you swung over the water?
I lost it somewhere. But … Oh, shut up, Willett.
[OSWALD returns, dressed in his Watteau costume and carrying AGATHA’s]
OSWALD
Come, woman, we going fêti
ng. For the last time.
The place burn, it burn, I can’t do anything.
We can’t waste these costumes that Tony designed.
So, go behind the screen and change. I mean it.
AGATHA
What’s this? You’re not going to some fête still, are you,
Oswald? Be realistic. They burnt down the estate.
OSWALD
So many years you living here you ain’t know Trinidad?
I play my Mas come hell or high water.
The guerrilla ain’t born yet who can stop me.
[Takes her hand]
AGATHA
That costume? You’re mad. At my age?
[She rises, laughing]
OSWALD
These costumes that Tony worked on for months.
You have to make Victor take pride in his son.
And dammit, Aggie, they ain’t go spoil my Mas.
They ain’t go win! Change! Dress. Buck up, Willett!
The Yacht Club, the Country Club, who cares?
It bound to have a fête somewhere. What? Aggie?
AGATHA
I remember Victor. I remember the row we had.
I expect him to come straight through that door.
You were dressed in …
[A young black MAJOR enters]
OSWALD
Ah, Major, you again? What’s your problem now?
MAJOR
This isn’t an invasion; do forgive me.
My boys, up Chancellor Hill. They found this animal.
We’d like to have kept it, but we’re infantry.
We brought him and his rider back.
AGATHA
What animal?
[TONY enters]
TONY
Clodia’s gone.
AGATHA
Wait, Tony.
MAJOR
Miss Willett, isn’t it? We’ve met. Government House.
We’ve got him in the yard.
OSWALD
What happened?
MAJOR
Miss Willett, tell me, are you a national?
AGATHA
Yes … well …
MAJOR
I mean, you’ve kept your passport?
AGATHA
Yes.
MAJOR
Excellent. Because I suggest
tomorrow you get in touch with your Ambassador.
OSWALD
What happened to the rider?
MAJOR
He was shot.
TONY
Who was shot?
MAJOR
[The MAJOR hands AGATHA a small photograph. She returns it]
Africo, Cuffy: formerly Sydney Waldron.
He was attached to this family, wasn’t he? A groom?
TONY
Well, he played his last Carnival, for damn sure.
AGATHA
He was here this morning. I’m sure I saw him.
He was right there. I was watering the rosebushes
and he stood there, and then he went away.
[Silence]
MAJOR
We’ve got this body on our hands, Mr. De La Fontaine.
We’ll shove it in the morgue unless someone claims it.
[Offers him a paper]
Can you sign this?
AGATHA
Bring him up here, Major.
OSWALD
Bring him where? Not in my living room.
TONY
Who’ll sign?
[Screams]
Who’ll sign for the fucking body?
[OSWALD takes the paper, signs]
MAJOR
Excuse me, but my chaps are hungry.
Do go and see your ambassador, Miss Willett.
They could be evacuating British citizens soon.
[Bows, walks towards door]
TONY
I’ll help you stable him.
AGATHA
Major?
MAJOR
Ma’am?
AGATHA
Where were you trained?
MAJOR
Sandhurst.
AGATHA
The best?
[Silence]
MAJOR
I was quite satisfied. Good night.
[TONY, MAJOR exit]
AGATHA
He borrowed Clodia’s horse.
OSWALD
He stole it.
[GEORGE enters]
George, boy . .
GEORGE
Miss Agatha, Mr. Oswald. You all want supper?
AGATHA
George, speak to us.
GEORGE
Speak? And say what?
AGATHA
Grinding Time. Slow, grinding, merciless Time.
He is the tyrant, let me tell you, love.
These things creep up on you little by little:
someone adjusts your coat and you say “Thanks,”
then you say nothing. A black maid brings you tea.
You stir it and watch the flowers in the garden.
The silence of the white flowers and the maid’s silence
become the same thing, become identical,
and you accept her service like the flowers,
whose silence is in being there to please you.
This takes some time, and you don’t notice time
here, in a climate with no changes, and this way,
you change yourself, subtly, without noticing.
One day you wake up and the girl you knew
has withered in you quietly, like a vine.
You see what you caused, Miss Aggie Willett?
We killed him. Didn’t we, George? Me, Mr. Victor,
Mr. Oswald. Don’t hang your head. Look at me,
drive knives in my heart!
OSWALD
The army killed him.
The army is his own people. Not so, George?
GEORGE
Yes, Mr. Oswald.
[CLODIA enters, in ordinary clothes. Behind her, TONY]
CLODIA
They tried not to kill the horse. You know that?
“We saved the animal,” the major said. We saved the animal.
I said, “Good shot.” He smiled. And out there …
AGATHA
Merciful God in heaven, let Sydney’s heart
be the last ember left at Santa Rosa, let it
not go out in all the other ashes. The army?
The army only finished what I began. GEORGE! SPEAK!
GEORGE
What words you want me to speak? You know these words?
“So I returned, and considered all the oppressions
that are done under the sun; and, behold, the tears
of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter,
and, on the side of their oppressors there was power,
but they had no comforter …
[Roar of trucks leaving]
Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead,
More than the living which are yet alive…”
What words I could speak could match that, Miss Aggie?
Now, tell me what you want. I making supper.
SCENE 4
Next day. The docks. Sunset, fiery, then fading. A wire fence with a sign: TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO CUSTOMS—NO TRESPASSING. CLODIA, carrying a coat, quietly seated. A disturbance off.
BROWN’S VOICE
This is the gate for the Antilles! Let me pass!
VOICE
You can’t go in there, sir! I tell you, you can’t go in there, man. This is a restricted area. I go shoot, eh!
BROWN’S VOICE
Shoot, huh? Shoot. All you niggers
ain’t tired killing your own people?
[BROWN enters]
It’ll be cold in England. It’s winter. February.
There’re West Indians there. You can’t escape us.
Miss Willett told me you wanted to leave alone.
CLODIA
Yo
u love me, right? Not really? Find a cause and love it. Die for it like Sydney. I don’t want to end like her. She waited like this, you see? Twenty years ago. And she kept waiting. A fine morning on the wharf. Small whitecaps and gulls. And pelicans. Sunday, I think she said it was. On one of those big white cruise ships that look like castles. Aggie Willett. Her flag was flying over the Customs. Was it the Queen then, or the King? She waited like this till Victor came. She smelt the cocoa beans stacked in the sheds, and when Victor came she asked him what it was. That was over there. Where the Holiday Inn is. There was a big fire, and the green wooden building went. She was happy waiting, till Victor came. He swung her watch over the water and she knew she had all the time in the world. She knew she would be happy in this island with her new life. And the smell of the cocoa beans was a good omen. Then Victor came.
[Cry of pelicans]
BEEF, NO CHICKEN
FOR LIZ AND ANNA
Beef, No Chicken was first produced by the Trinidad Theatre Workshop at the Little Carib Theatre, Port of Spain, Trinidad, on April 30, 1981, directed by Cecil Gray, with the following cast:
SUMINTRA
Theresa Awai
OTTO
Errol Jones
EUPHONY
Jerline Quamina
THE LIMER
Charles Applewhaite
ELDRIDGE FRANCO
Stanley Marshall
DRUSILLA
Brenda Shillingford
CEDRIC
Claude Reid
FIRST BANDIT
David Benskin
SECOND BANDIT
Michael Hoyte
THE MAYOR
John Dasent
MITZI ALMANDOZ
Sonya Moze
MR. MONGROO
Michael De Gale
MR. LAI-FOOK
Rodney Beckles
CARDIFF JOE
Peter O’Neill
The play was produced by the Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, during their Winterfest II (January–February 1982), directed by Walton Jones, with the following cast:
SUMINTRA
Elly Koslo
OTTO
Norman Matlock
EUPHONY
Barbara Montgomery
THE LIMER
Sullivan Walker
ELDRIDGE FRANCO
Leon Morenzie
DRUSILLA
Angela Bassett
CEDRIC
Herb Downer
Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken; and A Branch of the Blue Nile Page 7
