by Alan Bennett
Pohlmann But that still wouldn’t be an accident. You can’t conduct an insurance company on suppositions like that, can you?
Kafka And if we were able to magnify each inhalation, see under the microscope each breath, capture the breath that killed the cell, register the gasp that caused the cough that broke the vein that atrophied the flesh. Wouldn’t that be an accident? A very small accident? This man has no claim because he is suffering from a condition. But isn’t a condition the result of many small accidents that we cannot see or record?
Pohlmann But so is living. Or dying. There is no alternative but to breathe.
Kafka And this man. A young man. So regularly doused in dye he has begun to grow a second skin. Isn’t that an accident? A long slow accident?
Miss Weber People will be wanting compensation for being alive next.
Kafka looks as if this might not be a bad idea.
Kafka I do understand.
Franz What good is that to me? You can’t do anything. You’re worse than them, not better. You say you understand; well, if you understand and you don’t help, you’re wicked, you’re evil.
Miss Weber Don’t speak like that to Doctor Kafka. He has a university degree.
Kafka begins to take out his wallet.
Franz I don’t want money.
Franz rises. Kafka follows him.
Kafka I am not offering you money.
They leave the office. Kafka gives Franz a card.
I know of a factory that is starting. It will be in a month or two.
They move off down the corridor which runs between the offices.
Franz This is a terrible place.
Kafka Is it? I always forget that. I find it … almost cosy. But then I’m just an official. I am accustomed to office air.
They stop at the end of the corridor.
If you cannot find a job I may be able to help.
Kafka shakes hands. When Franz has gone Kafka removes some small bits of skin that have adhered to his hand.
INT. AN EMPTY FACTORY. DAY
The high ornate door of an empty factory, with a huge rose window. Inside the factory there is a rope hanging down attached to a sack. We hear Kafka’s brother-in-law before he enters.
Brother-in-Law (out of vision) Don’t expect anything too wonderful. It’s very rudimentary. Well, one factory is very much like another.
Kafka enters the factory with his Brother-in-Law.
But why am I telling you? You’ve got expertise. You know about factories. You’ve seen plenty. (Pause.) It’s not as if I’m asking you to go into something blindfold.
They are now up on a higher floor.
And here; shipments could come in and out. You see, you see. It’s ideal. I know I can succeed, Franz. Do you ever have that feeling?
Kafka Only when I’m very depressed.
They walk down steps and out of shot. Mix through to:
INT. CHRISTINA’S PARENTS’ APARTMENT, NIGHT
Franz sits awkwardly in the formal room with his fiancée Christina, and the Old Lady in the wheelchair. Christina reaches out to him. Franz says nothing, then stands up and to Christina’s horror starts to remove his clothes. The Old Lady watches. The Girl is horrified by the disfigurement of his skin. She runs out of the room.
Christina Mother! Father!
Franz stands there, naked, looking at the Old Lady, who looks at him without emotion. Christina’s Mother looks in, shrieks and closes the door. Christina’s Father opens the door, stares wordlessly, and closes the door. Then Christina very nervously opens the door, and gets hold of the wheelchair and takes the Old Lady out. Her Sister closes the door. There is silence. Franz sits down. He seems quite tranquil. There are whisperings and muttered conversations outside the door. Finally the door opens and Christina comes in and throws something on to the sofa, next to where Franz is sitting. Franz picks it up. It is the engagement ring. Mix through to:
INT. NEW FACTORY. DAY
Kafka at the new factory. A busy atmosphere and noticeably dusty. Kafka coughing, handkerchief over his mouth, as he supervises the work. His Brother-in-Law comes up to him with a message.
Brother-in-Law Franz, Franz, some people to see you in the office.
We track Kafka and Brother-in-Law through to:
INT. FACTORY OFFICE. DAY
Brother-in-Law (as they enter the office) Coughing still?
Kafka No.
Brother-in-Law (jubilantly) This is something to cough about. Three more orders this morning. I’m run off my feet.
He exits up the stairs. Franz is waiting in the office. Kafka smiles and shakes hands.
Kafka So you’re still interested in the job?
Franz Yes. Very much so.
Kafka You look well.
Franz Yes, I’m better. My skin cleared completely. (Shows him his hands.) A miracle.
Kafka Why is that, do you think?
Franz I don’t know. I’ve never been so well.
A Girl is sitting in the background.
This is my fiancée, Beatrice.
The Girl moves towards them and we see it is not Christina, but the girl from the dyeworks office, who, at the start of the film, told him to ask about insurance.
Kafka Let me show you.
The three of them go through into the factory.
Franz So what is it you’re producing here?
Kafka Building materials. Mainly asbestos.
Franz shakes hands with Kafka.
Franz Thank you. You saved my life.
Mix through to:
INT. DOCTOR’S CONSULTING ROOM, PRAGUE. NIGHT. 1945
Franz (Old) and the Doctor are standing by the X-ray.
Franz It’s so long ago. But you think it may have been that factory?
Doctor It’s possible. Who knows?
They walk through to the consulting room.
Franz (on their way out) I was happy working there, though it was only for a year or two. The place went bankrupt. They say no good deed goes unpunished. He worked there too, Doctor Kafka, part-time, so I suppose the same thing could have happened to him.
They stop by the door.
Doctor You weren’t to know. He wasn’t to know. You breathed, that’s all you did wrong.
Pause. They move off down the stairs.
You breathed in the wrong place.
Franz I’ve a feeling he died. But he was a Jew, so he would have died anyway.
Doctor Mmm. I know the name. The father had a shop. He sold fancy goods. I bought some slippers there once.
He and Franz are now at the outside door. He opens it and we see on the road the shadow of a corpse hanging from a lamp-post.
I wonder how long they’re going to leave that body up there. (Shakes his head.) I heard him battering at some door last night, begging to be let in. Somebody was after him. Then the door was opened and he thought he was safe. But they were there first. Take care.
They shake hands. Franz goes out into the street and the Doctor closes the door. Then exits up the stairs. Hold on the closed door for the credits, seeing the corpse shadow through the glass.
THE OLD COUNTRY
To Mary-Kay
The cast consists of three married couples:
Hilary
Bron
Eric
Olga
Duff
Veronica
The Old Country opened at the Queen’s Theatre on Wednesday, 7th September 1977. The cast was as follows:
Hilary, Alec Guinness
Bron, Rachel Kempson
Eric, Bruce Bould
Olga, Heather Canning
Duff, John Phillips
Veronica, Faith Brook
Directed by Clifford Williams
Designed by John Gunter
Lighting by Leonard Tucker
The play was presented by Michael Codron
Act One
A broad verandah above a garden, which is not seen. It is a ramshackle place, a kind of open lean-to put togeth
er at various times suggesting one of the ‘down at heel riding schools, damp bungalows in wizened orchards’ described in the text. The furniture is simple and includes a rocking- chair. There are plenty of books about, standing on and under tables and in piles on the floor. The impression should be that the house is so full of books that they have overflowed on to the verandah. The colour and tone of these books is important. They are a library put together in the 1930s and 1940s and should have the characteristic faded pastel colours of books of that period. Many of them are still in their original dustwrappers. There is a piano offstage.
Hilary and Bron are in their early sixties, their colour and tone rather like that of the books, shabby and faded. Hilary is in a stained linen jacket, old flannels and carpet slippers. Bron is dressed in a vaguely artistic way, distinctive but not elegant.
As the curtain rises Hilary is asleep in the rocking-chair.
The sound of Elgar on the gramophone drifts through from an adjoining room. A very English scene. The music stops.
Hilary, sleeping, suddenly shouts out. It is a terrible cry of guilt and despair. He wakes. Sits. Hears the record has ended and leaving the chair rocking goes out to take it off.
For a moment the stage is empty, the chair rocking, then Bron comes up the stairs from the garden as Hilary comes back.
Hilary I went to sleep.
Bron Do you wonder? Elgar!
Hilary I was at home at Hookham. I was alone in the house when suddenly all the lights came on. I knew it was burglars; I could hear them whispering outside. I got everybody into one room …
Bron I thought you said you were alone?
Hilary I was … but there were other people there. Somebody started to open the front door so I got behind it with a hammer. I was just bringing the hammer down on his head when he looked up at me and smiled. It was Pa. Then we were all somehow at a garden party. (He has been reading a bookseller’s catalogue, which he picks up again.) Anyway I like Elgar.
Bron You don’t like Elgar.
Hilary I do like Elgar.
Bron I don’t see how anyone can like Elgar. I would prefer anything to Elgar.
Hilary starts to get up laboriously.
Except Vaughan Williams.
Hilary sinks back.
I looked up that pretty yellow flower. It’s a weed apparently.
Hilary I like it.
Bron I don’t dislike it. It’s just getting a bit big for its boots. I think a blitz is in order.
Hilary Is it native to these parts?
Bron ‘A determined little creeper’ the book says.
Hilary Botanically at least the world hasn’t shrunk.
Bron Has it shrunk?
Hilary When it comes to airports and architecture one place may look very much like the next but at least vegetation hasn’t gone international. Plants still stay more or less put.
Bron Have to. Don’t have a choice. It’s a kind of primrose. Smells fractionally of cat. Anyway that’s not true. These trees could be anywhere.
Hilary goes to one of the piles of books, with his catalogue.
Hilary People are insane. Thirty pounds. I paid … eight- and-six.
Bron When? In nineteen thirty-three? You never buy any books. You’re never going to get rid of the ones you’ve got. Why go through catalogues.
Hilary They collect anything now. Even fakes. Here’s a special section in which every item is an authentic guaranteed forgery. In which context a fake would need to be the genuine article. Like a woman at a drag ball. By being exactly what she seems she is the imposter. Soon, one imagines, forgeries of forgeries. However.
Pause.
Bron I’m terrified I’m not going to see any of the jokes.
Hilary Who says there’ll be jokes? You want help?
Bron With the jokes?
Hilary With the lunch. I wonder what we’ve got in store for them in the way of weather. Doesn’t look too promising. Dull but I imagine there’ll be a spot of sunshine later. No dramatic change: just a light rational breeze with a promise of gradual improvement. A day for Burke, not for Hobbes. Empirical weather.
Bron That’s not what it said on the forecast. The forecast said thunder. Have you nothing to do?
Hilary No. I thought I might write to The Times. I never have.
Bron What about?
Hilary Anything. Everybody else does. That seagull. Sir, Am I right or merely sentimental in thinking that in the old days one saw seagulls exclusively by the sea? Here we are, miles from any shore and there is a seagull.
Bron Aren’t you going to wear a tie?
Hilary Seagulls on the land, starlings by the shore. Perhaps Nature herself is becoming more liberal, embargoes are lifted, borders dissolved and birds as free to roam as we are.
Pause.
Bron You want to look nice. Spruce yourself up a bit.
Hilary No.
Bron I miss the sea. It’s ages since I saw it.
Hilary Quite candidly I’ve never seen the point of the sea. Except where it meets the land. The shore has point, the sea none. Of course when you say you miss the sea that’s what you mean: you miss the shore.
Bron I miss the sea. Chop, chop, chop. How do you know what I miss?
Hilary Lots of people seem to have died. I could write a note for the obituary column.
Bron Shall I look you out a tie?
Hilary Sir, Might I be permitted to pen a footnote to your (otherwise admirably comprehensive) obituary of Sir Derek (Jack) Clements.
Bron Is he dead?
Hilary Clem blew into my section sometimes in ’forty-two during those early Heath Robinson days when we still lived over the shop at the old Ministry of Supply. We must have seemed a pretty motley crew: a novelist or two, a sprinkling of dons. There was even a fashionable photographer. It was the sort of shambolic, inspirational kind of outfit that fetched the War Office out in a periodic rash. So when Clem came along with his one leg and Ronald Colman moustache it gave the proceedings a welcome air of respectability.
Bron He’s not dead?
Hilary Soon after the advent of Clem the tempo quickened. Dieppe, St Nazaire, Arnhem … none of them successes in the orthodox sense of the word. But then Clem was never orthodox: that wasn’t his way. Throughout his life and particularly in these last trying years he was sustained by the loving kindness of his wife, the famous Brenda. ‘More than a wife’ he used to say. ‘A chum.’ A few days before his death he was visited by a friend. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ve just pissed the bed. Still,’ and his face broke into a grin, ‘free country.’ Ah Clem, with you, irony was never far away. The world is a colder place without you. However.
Bron Is he dead?
Hilary Years ago.
Bron You keep doing that. Who was it died the other day? Somebody. I can’t remember. You should tell me when people die, otherwise I lose my bearings.
Pause.
He was the one with the ears?
Hilary That was Sillitoe.
Bron He’s not dead?
Hilary No. He lives with his sister in Tewkesbury. Or did. He may be dead … I don’t know. You can sort it out with Veronica. She’ll have all the dirt.
‘Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven
To his feet thy tribute bring’
He sings this snatch of a hymn and tails off into silence.
Bron Would you rather they weren’t coming?
Silence.
Would you?
Hilary Where would you say this landscape could be? Other than here.
Bron Would you?
Hilary Where?
Bron Nowhere.
Hilary Because given the lie of the land I would have said Scotland.
Bron Scotland.
Hilary
List characteristics, natural features, Available cover to safeguard retreat. A long fir tree plantation, heather handy for hide-outs. Odd birch trees give bearings and pinpoint the place. A house by the forest, the best o
f grid references, Smoke from a chimney, the first one for miles.
Scotland, darling. Caledonia, stern and wild. A smiling refuge on the edge of the moors: what the Scots call a policy. A patch of order. Peace amid the wildness of nature. Straight out of John Buchan. The moors baking in the sun of a pre-war summer. A line of beaters advance through the heather, as a single plane climbs slowly in the empty sky and a black car waits at the cross-roads. There is a crashing among the trees and a young man stumbles into the garden, incongruously dressed in a crumpled city suit. ‘I say, you look about all in.’ The young man eyes them warily. Who are they, this couple? They look ordinary enough. A country doctor perhaps. A retired professor and his wife. Dotty he decides, but harmless, and soon he is tackling a goodly meal of ham and eggs and fresh-baked bread, washed down with lashings of strong tea. In the spotless cottage kitchen he tucks in with a will, not knowing that elsewhere in the house a telephone call is being made. Did the young man but turn his head he would see beaters filtering through the wood as the black car creeps slowly up from the cross-roads. It is a trap, this haven: the place where they had meant him to end up all along. Or a reservoir, property of the East Midlands Water Board. That’s where they plant forests like this. To cover something up. A blanket round dumps. Camps. An official forest.
