Tom Stoppard Plays 3

by Tom Stoppard

PHILO: I’m afraid it is not very nice, but of course they are not used to …

  CAROL: Of course.

  PHILO: (Pause) I’ve been thinking about … about you being here.

  CAROL: Oh yes?

  PHILO: (To ACHERSON) I see you do not wish to talk to me. I am sorry I was rude to you.

  ACHERSON: Not at all. But thank you anyway for the thought.

  CAROL: What were you thinking about?

  PHILO: About coincidence. I think this is the first time any tourist has spent the night in this village, in this house. Why you? – why now?

  CAROL: Funnily enough, my mind was going on the same lines. In fact I was wondering whether Charles had arranged the whole thing.

  (ACHERSON looks at her in sharp surprise. PHILO is also taken aback.)

  PHILO: Why should you think that?

  CAROL: We were supposed to be having dinner with some people tonight. He doesn’t like them.

  ACHERSON: (Relapsing) Oh, don’t be ridiculous.

  CAROL: The Fosters will think we’ve stood them up. They’ll be disappointed.

  ACHERSON: Giles Foster will be very disappointed.

  CAROL: And I’m disappointed –

  (ACHERSON gets suddenly to his feet.)

  ACHERSON: (To PHILO) Come on – I’ll buy you a drink. What’s that music?

  PHILO: The wedding feast. The whole village is there.

  ACHERSON: Can we go?

  PHILO: You will be welcomed. There is a tradition of hospitality here.

  ACHERSON: Good. (To CAROL) Coming?

  CAROL: No, thanks.

  (ACHERSON hesitates and then leaves with PHILO.)

  56. INT. OUTSIDE ACHERSONS’ ROOM. SAME TIME

  As they go …

  PHILO: The Fosters?

  ACHERSON: Friends of ours in Monte.

  PHILO: The British Consul?

  ACHERSON: Yes. I was at school with him. Always was a little toady. Do you know him?

  PHILO: No. Is that why you came here?

  ACHERSON: No – I told you. A sales trip.

  PHILO: Oh yes. Another coincidence. Where did you go last year?

  ACHERSON: Majorca. I think I mentioned that too.

  PHILO: And before that?

  ACHERSON: Italy. No – that was the year before. Paris last year. Wonderful town but the French are awful, the waiters and so on, they’re tip mad. No place like home, is there?

  PHILO: When do you go back?

  ACHERSON: Tomorrow night. Last train to Trieste then the sleeper to Paris, and the boat train from there … Ever been to England?

  PHILO: Yes. Years ago.

  ACHERSON: Well, if you ever think of going back I hope you’ll look us up. We’re in the book. Acherson. Will you remember?

  PHILO: I’ll remember Toytown International.

  ACHERSON: I doubt that you’ll find me there, between you and me. Carol doesn’t know it yet but I’m sort of due for the push.

  PHILO: Oh. I’m sorry. Why?

  ACHERSON: Long story. I’m not really their type.

  57. INT/EXT. WEDDING FEAST. NIGHT

  Whatever this involves, it involves music, dancing and drinking not to say drunkenness.

  Judging by Acherson’s state, a good lot of drinking time has elapsed, PHILO, also drunker but joylessly, finds ACHERSON, among new friends. They are able to speak English, ACHERSON and PHILO, without being understood by those around them.

  ACHERSON: Frightfully good party, old man. I wish Carol would come down.

  PHILO: Yes – she could take pictures.

  ACHERSON: (Hush-hush) Natives don’t like it – ruined her last film, she says. I say, you don’t happen to have a ladies’ nightie and some perfumed soap …?

  PHILO: I’m afraid not.

  ACHERSON: She wanted to get away from the tourists. Now she wants perfumed soap. Never mind, let’s have a drink.

  PHILO: I like your wife very much. You don’t mind me saying that?

  ACHERSON: Not at all, old man.

  PHILO: How long have you been married?

  ACHERSON: Four years. It’s the only life, you know. Splendid girl, Carol. Didn’t want to marry me at first.

  PHILO: No?

  ACHERSON: No, stuck on a tennis champion. Thick as two planks.

  PHILO: Do you play tennis?

  ACHERSON: Golf. Handicap of eighty-one. Play much golf?

  PHILO: Not much.

  ACHERSON: You should. If you played golf you’d know people. (Pauses.) Still, I don’t suppose there’s a lot of golf around here.

  PHILO: Not a lot.

  ACHERSON: (Nodding wisely) They haven’t got the grass.

  PHILO: What else do you do?

  ACHERSON: How do you mean –?

  PHILO: I want to know about your life.

  ACHERSON: Oh, it’s a good life, on the whole – lots of friends, bridge friends, golf friends … I don’t know … I mow the lawn and help with the dishes. Quiet life, really, I don’t ask for more. Of course, England is the place, isn’t it? I mean, if you’re English. God, I must sound – sorry, sorry, old man, where was I? – No, the thing about England is the trees. Don’t you agree?

  PHILO: The trees?

  ACHERSON: You don’t get nice trees in other places, not the variety. Nice trees are taken for granted in England. Yes, awfully fond of trees, damned fond, I don’t mind telling you. I say, I’m not drunk, you know, not entirely. Carol’s got a tree, you know – her own. I actually bought her a tree for her birthday. You can do that – phone them up and tell them to send round a tree, and round it comes, on a lorry, not a sapling, a tree. They dig a hole and in it goes, bingo. Cherry tree. No cherries, it’s the blossom she likes. I’d do almost anything for Carol. (He wipes away a tear.)

  PHILO: Yes. I hope you will be happy, and find a job where you – where you are their type. It’s not good, is it, if you’re not really interested in the things.

  ACHERSON: What things?

  PHILO: Well, the toys, of course.

  ACHERSON: Oh ah. The toys. (He starts to giggle.)

  PHILO: What’s the matter?

  ACHERSON: Oh, the whole thing’s so frightful, old man. I’m glad I’m going really.

  PHILO: Why are they throwing you out?

  ACHERSON: I stopped a few black marks, that’s all. That’s what the factory is all about. The actual job is merely the surface activity. Underneath that runs the main current of preoccupation, which is keeping one’s nose clean at all times. This means that when things go wrong you have to pass the blame along the line, like pass-the-parcel, till the music stops – and you don’t know the half of it.

  PHILO: No?

  ACHERSON: No. I have the title of Co-ordinator. The lowest rank of technical responsibility. Do you see the hideous subtlety of that position? All the black marks at the bottom rise like damp till they reach me. And those that start at the top are deflected down. I am a sort of elephants’ graveyard for every black mark somewhere in motion in the Department. (He looks earnestly at PHILO, caution apparently gone.) They’re making a scapegoat out of me, old man. Acherson pays so that honour is satisfied, and the big chief can carry on. Well, he’s probably right. And furthermore I don’t care, because it was making me sick – the callous abstraction of human lives: the pin moved across the map, the card removed from the index … it’s a trick, old man, a sleight of mind which allows the occasional squalid alliance for the necessary end, the exceptional act of injustice for the overall good, the regrettable sacrifice for the majority’s health – yes, he’s probably right and he’s certainly got the cleanest nose in Christendom, but if there’s a God above it will all catch up on him one day and perhaps even he will see himself as the cold-blooded zombie he really is, and I wish to God I could be there.

  (It is evident that, in his cups, ACHERSON has gone beyond the physical presence of PHILO; but seeing PHILO staring at him, ACHERSON registers the shock of self-awareness – and tries to smile, but PHILO can’t resist it now – he comes clean.)

>   PHILO: Otis …

  (ACHERSON’s brain takes this. He tries to say something but his instinct is to get away from his own indiscretion. He staggers away, starts to run, with PHILO going after him, leaving the party music, etc.)

  58. EXT. VILLAGE. NIGHT/DAWN. SAME TIME

  The street is deserted. ACHERSON stumbles and runs into an open space, where there is a fountain pool or a horse trough; at which point PHILO catches up with him, grabs him and pushes him under the water. ACHERSON comes up fighting and spluttering, and goes down again under the water, PHILO drags him up and shakes him, and lets him go. The whole experience – and the water – have done something to sober both of them.

  PHILO: Now you tell me why you are in Montebianca.

  ACHERSON: Who are you?

  PHILO: Marin.

  ACHERSON: Marin?

  PHILO: Philo.

  ACHERSON: Philo Marin?

  PHILO: No. My code name was Philo.

  ACHERSON: Code name? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  PHILO: Well, I’m not talking about toy trains.

  (After a pause ACHERSON gives up.)

  ACHERSON: You see how I’m not their type.

  PHILO: You remember Philo?

  ACHERSON: Yes … I remember when you came out. There was a fuss, wasn’t there? – at the frontier … Small world.

  PHILO: Is it? What’s this so-called sales trip you’ve told your wife about?

  ACHERSON: It’s just a security leak at the Consulate. They think the place has sprung a leak.

  PHILO: A coincidence, you mean?

  ACHERSON: That’s right … What the hell would I want with you? (He picks himself up, his clothes dripping.)

  PHILO: What do they say about me? Or am I forgotten?

  ACHERSON: No, you’re remembered.

  PHILO: What is remembered? What do they say? That I was a traitor?

  ACHERSON: (Uncomfortably) Well, I wouldn’t call it that. You were one of them, weren’t you? Doesn’t that make you a patriot?

  PHILO: Acherson, you’re a pig.

  ACHERSON: (Turning to go) Well, there’s no point in discussing it. It was a long time ago – and I’m getting pneumonia.

  PHILO: No – I want you to know what happened.

  ACHERSON: You were blown, weren’t you?

  PHILO: I don’t know if I was or not. But Otis thought they’d let me out on a long string.

  ACHERSON: Otis would.

  PHILO: Yes, of course he would, he’d be in the wrong job if he didn’t – but you’re as bad as Otis, Acherson – worse because you’re not even honest. You get a little drunk and you start moralizing and you think because you have seen through the dirt, that makes you clean. But you didn’t have the morality to get out before you were kicked out, and to tell Otis why.

  ACHERSON: Point taken. Now if you’d excuse me …

  PHILO: I’m sorry Acherson, but I won’t excuse you. You talk about Otis making lives into abstract bits of his game – but I stand in front of you and my life means nothing. Otis knows what he did to me, but you don’t know, Acherson. You think I’m lucky not to be in a British gaol or a Russian cemetery, so on the whole I’m OK.

  ACHERSON: No … that’s not …

  PHILO: You don’t know what it is to be an outlaw. There are only two sides in Europe now and I’m tainted to both. Well, I found a place, and here I rot – in this no man’s land among people who don’t speak my language, where the landscape, the smells, the architecture, the very air, is foreign to me. You come here for a few days and you think it’s charming till you have to spend one night too close to it, and then you’ll go back home and tell your golf friends about your little adventure. Well, tell them about me. Acherson. Tell them what they did to me.

  (PHILO has followed ACHERSON towards the bar, which is dark and empty. ACHERSON turns before going in.)

  ACHERSON: Look, I’ll talk to Otis –

  PHILO: Don’t waste your time.

  ACHERSON: No, no, I’ll tell him …

  PHILO: You don’t understand, Acherson. He had his chance. I’d rather die in this prison.

  59. INT. ACHERSONS’ ROOM. SAME TIME

  Dawn, CAROL is asleep. ACHERSON comes in quietly. He starts to strip off his wet clothes, and to dry himself. CAROL wakes.

  CAROL: Charles …!

  ACHERSON: It’s all right. Go back to sleep.

  CAROL: What happened to you?

  ACHERSON: Our friend pushed me in the fountain.

  (CAROL lies back and chuckles.)

  CAROL: Good party?

  ACHERSON: What do you think of him?

  CAROL: He doesn’t know whether to be friendly or suspicious.

  What did he have to say?

  ACHERSON: Quite a bit. People like that … what does one do about them?

  (The note in his voice brings her up.)

  CAROL: He upset you.

  ACHERSON: He did a bit.

  CAROL: You’re sorry for him?

  ACHERSON: I suppose so.

  CAROL: You can’t afford to be sorry for people. Not if there’s nothing you can do about it.

  ACHERSON: He’d like to leave. I offered to put in a word for him at home, but he didn’t go for that.

  CAROL: Oh … perhaps he’ll change his mind.

  ACHERSON: He doesn’t like us.

  CAROL: He likes me. Let’s not talk about him. (She comes over to his bed, wearing only underwear, and kisses him tamely.) It’s better than the hotel now.

  ACHERSON: Is it?

  CAROL: More sordid. (She kisses him again.) Much better.

  (He starts to respond.)

  60. EXT. THE ROAD. EARLY MORNING

  Along the unmade road, out of sight of the village a handful of children are walking, fooling around as they go. They are dressed for school and carry books. The BOY is among them.

  Their road is approaching a more important metalled road. There are still no houses in view.

  The group reaches the junction. A car is heard approaching.

  The car arrives, slows down.

  HARDY is driving, LAUREL is looking at a map. They are going to turn into the village road but they are not certain about it. The car stops some way from the children.

  The BOY looks at the car, at LAUREL and HARDY, and he feels that these are the ‘debt collectors’. He goes up to the car.

  LAUREL: Ah … Ask him.

  HARDY: (To BOY) Vlastok? (He points.)

  (The BOY shakes his head. He points down the main road, and signifies a turn further along.)

  BOY: Vlastok – that way – the next road.

  (LAUREL squints at his map, but HARDY is already reversing the car. They drive off in the direction indicated by the BOY.

  A tattered old bus that serves as a school bus arrives. The other children climb aboard, but the BOY breaks away and starts to trot back towards the village.)

  61. EXT. BAR. THE YARD. MORNING

  STANISLAVSKY the welder is busy welding under the Fiat. ACHERSON stands by.

  62. INT. ACHERSONS’ ROOM. SAME TIME

  The door is open, CAROL, dressed, is repairing her face and hair.

  PHILO comes to the door.

  CAROL: Hello. Charles has just gone down.

  PHILO: Is the car all right?

  CAROL: Pretty well. He’s just checking it. You look a bit rough.

  PHILO: Yes. I’m sorry I kept your husband up so late … I think he’s a good man.

  CAROL: Well, why shouldn’t he be a good man?

  (CAROL takes some Alka Seltzer out of her handbag.)

  Here’s something for you. Charles had some.

  (There is water in a jug, and a glass.)

  I suppose the water’s all right?

  PHILO: Oh yes – much better than you drink in London.

  CAROL: Sorry. (She gives him the drink.)

  PHILO: Thank you.

  CAROL: Who looks after you?

  PHILO: I don’t need much looking after. I eat downsta
irs on credit. I’ve got a bank account in town.

  CAROL: Do you go?

  PHILO: No. It’s a three-mile walk to the bus. Boris usually goes in for me, if I need anything.

  CAROL: You’re a bit of a mystery, aren’t you?

  PHILO: I do not think so. A refugee drinking up his savings. There must be many. Do you mind if I ask you a pointless question?

  CAROL: No, go ahead. I don’t promise to answer.

  PHILO: What kind of trees do you have in your garden at home?

  CAROL: Trees?

  PHILO: Yes.

  CAROL: (Amused) Well, let’s see – there are only three I think, a couple of elms or something like that, and a cherry.

  PHILO: Thank you.

  CAROL: Is that all?

  PHILO: Yes. Do you like cherries?

  CAROL: Yes, but there’s no fruit on it, just flowers.

  PHILO: Ah. Does your husband look after the garden?

  CAROL: What, him? Golf most weekends.

  PHILO: Do you play?

  CAROL: No.

  PHILO: What do you play?

  CAROL: Nothing.

  PHILO: You never did?

  CAROL: I played some tennis – look, what is this?

  PHILO: I’m sorry. Mrs Acherson, I’m very glad you came this way. You are an innocent person.

  CAROL: That sounds rather dull.

  PHILO: Oh no, innocence is rare.

  CAROL: Mr Kramer … are you in some kind of trouble?

  PHILO: (Pause) I’d like to ask your husband a favour.

  CAROL: Oh. You won’t get him into trouble, will you?

  PHILO: No.

  CAROL: All right. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.

  63. EXT. THE YARD. MORNING

  ACHERSON is coming out from under the car. BORIS finishes pouring in petrol from a can. He screws on the cap. STANISLAVSKY has a tiny Citroën, battered. He packs his tools.

  PHILO helps ACHERSON to his feet.

  PHILO: Is it all right?

  ACHERSON: Yes.

  PHILO: Leaving now?

  ACHERSON: In a few minutes.

  PHILO: About last night.

  ACHERSON: I behaved stupidly.

  PHILO: Yes. But you’re all right. (Pause.) You said you might help me.