Tom Stoppard Plays 3

by Tom Stoppard

  FRENCHMAN: Mais oui, but if you ask me in French, you must say, ‘Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire?’ – ‘What is that which you wish to say?’ Naturellement, it is in order for me to reply, ‘Je veux dire etcetera.’

  STONE: (Excitedly) But you are making my point – don’t you see?

  MCKENDRICK: What do you think the chances are of meeting a free and easy woman in a place like this?

  STONE: I can’t ask you in French.

  MCKENDRICK: I don’t mean free, necessarily.

  FRENCHMAN: Pourquoi non? Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire? Voilà! – now I have asked you.

  CHETWYN: You don’t often see goose on an English menu.

  (CHETWYN is the last to finish his main course. They have all eaten the main course. There are drinks and cups of coffee on the table.)

  STONE: The French have no verb meaning ‘I mean’.

  CHETWYN: Why’s that I wonder.

  STONE: They just don’t.

  CHETWYN: People are always eating goose in Dickens.

  MCKENDRICK: Do you think it will be safe?

  FRENCHMAN: Par exemple. Je vous dis, ‘Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire?’

  MCKENDRICK: I mean, one wouldn’t want to be photographed through a two-way mirror.

  STONE: I don’t want to ask you what you would wish to say. I want to ask you what you mean. Let’s assume there is a difference.

  ANDERSON: We do have goose liver. What do they do with the rest of the goose?

  STONE: Now assume that you say one but mean the other.

  FRENCHMAN: Je dis quelque chose, mais je veux dire –

  STONE: Right.

  MCKENDRICK: (To STONE) Excuse me, Brad.

  STONE: Yes?

  MCKENDRICK: You eat well but you’re a lousy eater.

  (This is a fair comment. STONE has spoken with his mouth full of bread, cake, coffee, etc. and he is generally messy about it. STONE smiles forgivingly but hardly pauses.)

  STONE: Excuse us.

  FRENCHMAN: A bientôt.

  (STONE and the FRENCHMAN get up to leave.)

  STONE: (Leaving) You see, what you’ve got is an incorrect statement which when corrected looks like itself.

  (There is a pause.)

  MCKENDRICK: Did you have a chance to read my paper?

  ANDERSON: I only had time to glance at it. I look forward to reading it carefully.

  CHETWYN: I read it.

  ANDERSON: Weren’t you there for it?

  MCKENDRICK: No, he sloped off for the afternoon.

  ANDERSON: Well, you sly devil, Chetwyn. I bet you had a depressing afternoon. It makes the heart sick, doesn’t it.

  CHETWYN: Yes, it does rather. We don’t know we’ve been boro.

  MCKENDRICK: He wasn’t at the football match.

  CHETWYN: Oh – is that where you were?

  ANDERSON: No, I got distracted.

  MCKENDRICK: He’s being mysterious. I think it’s a woman.

  ANDERSON: (To CHETWYN) What were you doing?

  CHETWYN: I was meeting some friends.

  MCKENDRICK: He’s being mysterious. I don’t think it’s a woman.

  CHETWYN: I have friends here, that’s all.

  ANDERSON: (To MCKENDRICK) Was your paper well received?

  MCKENDRICK: No. They didn’t get it. I could tell from the questions that there’d been some kind of communications failure.

  ANDERSON: The translation phones?

  MCKENDRICK: No, no – they simply didn’t understand the line of argument. Most of them had never heard of catastrophe theory, so they weren’t ready for what is admittedly an audacious application of it.

  ANDERSON: I must admit I’m not absolutely clear about it.

  MCKENDRICK: It’s like a reverse gear – no – it’s like a breaking point. The mistake that people make is, they think a moral principle is indefinitely extendible, that it holds good for any situation, a straight line cutting across the graph of our actual situation – here you are, you see – (He uses a knife to score a line in front of him straight across the table-cloth, left to right in front of him) ‘Morality’ down there, running parallel to ‘Immorality’ up here (He scores a parallel line) – and never the twain shall meet. They think that is what a principle means.

  ANDERSON: And isn’t it?

  MCKENDRICK: No. The two lines are on the same plane. (He holds out his flat hand, palm down, above the scored lines.) They’re the edges of the same plane – it’s in three dimensions, you see – and if you twist the plane in a certain way, into what we call the catastrophe curve, you get a model of the sort of behaviour we find in the real world. There’s a point – the catastrophe point – where your progress along one line of behaviour jumps you into the opposite line; the principle reverses itself at the point where a rational man would abandon it.

  CHETWYN: Then it’s not a principle.

  MCKENDRICK: There aren’t any principles in your sense. There are only a lot of principled people trying to behave as if there were.

  ANDERSON: That’s the same thing, surely.

  MCKENDRICK: You’re a worse case than Chetwyn and his primitive Greeks. At least he has the excuse of believing in goodness and beauty. You know they’re fictions but you’re so hung up on them you want to treat them as if they were God-given absolutes.

  ANDERSON: I don’t see how else they would have any practical value –

  MCKENDRICK: So you end up using a moral principle as your excuse for acting against a moral interest. It’s a sort of funk –

  (ANDERSON, under pressure, slams his cup back on to its saucer in a very uncharacteristic and surprising way. His anger is all the more alarming for that.)

  ANDERSON: You make your points altogether too easily,

  McKendrick. What need have you of moral courage when your principles reverse themselves so conveniently?

  MCKENDRICK: All right! I’ve gone too far. As usual. Sorry. Let’s talk about something else. There’s quite an attractive woman hanging about outside, loitering in the vestibule.

  (The dining-room door offers a view of the lobby.)

  Do you think it is a trap? My wife said to me – now, Bill, don’t do anything daft, you know what you’re like, if a blonde knocked on your door with the top three buttons of her police uniform undone and asked for a cup of sugar you’d convince yourself she was a bus conductress brewing up in the next room.

  ANDERSON: (Chastened) I’m sorry … you’re right up to a point. There would be no moral dilemmas if moral principles worked in straight lines and never crossed each other. One meets test situations which have troubled much cleverer men than us.

  CHETWYN: A good rule, I find, is to try them out on men much less clever than us. I often ask my son what he thinks.

  ANDERSON: Your son?

  CHETWYN: Yes. He’s eight.

  MCKENDRICK: She’s definitely glancing this way – seriously, do you think one could chat her up?

  (STONE turns round to look through the door and we see now that the woman is MRS HOLLAR.)

  ANDERSON: Excuse me.

  (He gets up and starts to leave, but then comes back immediately and takes his brief case from under the table and then leaves. We stay with the table. MCKENDRICK watches ANDERSON meet MRS HOLLAR and shake her hand and they disappear.)

  MCKENDRICK: Bloody hell, it was a woman. Crafty old beggar.

  9. EXT. STREET. NIGHT

  ANDERSON and MRS HOLLAR walking.

  A park. A park bench. SACHA HOLLAR sitting on the bench.

  ANDERSON and MRS HOLLAR arrive.

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) Here he is. (To ANDERSON) Sacha. (In Czech) Thank him for coming.

  SACHA: She is saying thank you that you come.

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) We’re sorry to bother him.

  SACHA: She is saying sorry for the trouble.

  ANDERSON: No, no I am sorry about … everything. Do you learn English at school?

  SACHA: Yes. I am learning English two years. With my father also.

&nbs
p; ANDERSON: You are very good.

  SACHA: Not good. You are a friend of my father. Thank you.

  ANDERSON: I’m afraid I’ve done nothing.

  SACHA: You have his writing?

  ANDERSON: His thesis? Yes. It’s in here. (He indicates his briefcase.)

  SACHA: (In Czech) It’s all right, he’s still got it.

  (MRS HOLLAR nods.)

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) Tell him I didn’t know who he was today.

  SACHA: My mother is not knowing who you are, tomorrow at the apartment.

  ANDERSON: Today.

  SACHA: Today. Pardon. So she is saying, ‘Come here! Come here! Come inside the apartment!’ Because she is not knowing. My father is not telling her. He is telling me only.

  ANDERSON: I see. What did he tell you?

  SACHA: He will go see his friend the English professor. He is taking the writing.

  ANDERSON: I see. Did he return home last night?

  SACHA: No. He is arrested outside hotel. Then in the night they come to make search.

  ANDERSON: Had they been there all night?

  SACHA: At eleven o’clock they are coming. They search twenty hours.

  ANDERSON: My God.

  SACHA: In morning I go to Bartolomesskaya to be seeing him.

  MRS HOLLAR: (Explains) Police.

  SACHA: But I am not seeing him. They say go home. I am waiting Then I am going home. Then I am seeing you.

  ANDERSON: What were they looking for?

  SACHA: (Shrugs) Western books. Also my father is writing things. Letters, politics, philosophy. They find nothing. Some English books they don’t like but really nothing. But the dollars, of course, they pretend to find.

  (MRS HOLLAR hears the word dollars.)

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) Tell him the dollars were put there by the police.

  SACHA: Not my father’s dollars. He is having no moneys.

  ANDERSON: Yes. I know.

  SACHA: They must arrest him for dollars because he does nothing No bad things. He is signing something. So they are making trouble.

  ANDERSON: Yes.

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) Tell him about Jan.

  SACHA: You must give back my father’s thesis. Not now. The next days. My mother cannot take it.

  ANDERSON: He asked me to take it to England.

  SACHA: Not possible now. But thank you.

  ANDERSON: He asked me to take it.

  SACHA: Not possible. Now they search you, I think. At the aeroport. Because they are seeing you coming to the apartment and you have too much contact. Maybe they are seeing us now.

  (ANDERSON looks around him.)

  Is possible.

  ANDERSON: (Uncomfortably) I ought to tell you … (Quickly) I came to the apartment to give the thesis back. I refused him. But he was afraid he might be stopped – I thought he just meant searched, not arrested –

  SACHA: Too quick – too quick –

  (Pause.)

  ANDERSON: What do you want me to do?

  SACHA: My father’s friend – he is coming to Philosophy Congress today.

  ANDERSON: Tomorrow.

  SACHA: Yes tomorrow. You give him the writing. Is called Jan. Is OK. Good friend.

  (ANDERSON nods.)

  ANDERSON: Jan.

  SACHA: (In Czech) He’ll bring it to the university hall for Jan tomorrow. (SACHA stands up.) We go home now.

  (MRS HOLLAR gets up and shakes hands with ANDERSON.)

  ANDERSON: I’m sorry … What will happen to him?

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech) What was that?

  SACHA: (In Czech) He wants to know what will happen to Daddy.

  MRS HOLLAR: Ruzyne.

  SACHA: That is the prison. Ruzyne.

  (Pause.)

  ANDERSON: I will, of course, try to help in England. I’ll write letters. The Czech Ambassador … I have friends, too, in our government –

  (ANDERSON realizes that the boy has started to cry. He is specially taken aback because he has been talking to him like an adult.)

  Now listen – I am personally friendly with important people – the Minister of Education – people like that.

  MRS HOLLAR: (In Czech but to ANDERSON) Please help Pavel –

  ANDERSON: Mrs Hollar – I will do everything I can for him.

  (He watches MRS HOLLAR and SACHA walk away into the dark.)

  10. INT. ANDERSON’S ROOM. NIGHT

  ANDERSON is lying fully dressed on the bed. His eyes open. Only light from the window. There are faint voices from Grayson’s room. After a while ANDERSON gets up and leaves his room and knocks on Grayson’s door.

  Exterior Grayson’s room.

  GRAYSON opens his door.

  GRAYSON: Oh hello. Sorry, are we making too much noise?

  ANDERSON: No, it’s all right, but I heard you were still up and I wondered if I could ask a favour of you. I wonder if I could borrow your typewriter.

  GRAYSON: My typewriter?

  ANDERSON: Yes.

  GRAYSON: Well, I’m leaving in the morning.

  ANDERSON: I’ll let you have it back first thing. I’m leaving on the afternoon plane myself.

  GRAYSON: Oh–all right then.

  ANDERSON: That’s most kind.

  (During the above the voices from the room have been semi-audible.

  McKendrick’s voice, rather drunk, but articulate, is heard.)

  MCKENDRICK: (His voice only, heard underneath the above dialogue) Now, listen to me, I’m a professional philosopher. You’ll do well to listen to what I have to say.

  ANDERSON: That sounds as if you’ve got McKendrick in there.

  GRAYSON: Oh – is he one of yours?

  ANDERSON: I wouldn’t put it like that.

  GRAYSON: He’s getting as tight as a tick.

  ANDERSON: Yes.

  GRAYSON: You couldn’t collect him, could you? He’s going to get clouted in a minute.

  ANDERSON: Go ahead and clout him, if you like.

  GRAYSON: It’s not me. It’s Broadbent and a couple of the lads. Your pal sort of latched on to us in the bar. He really ought to be getting home.

  ANDERSON: I’ll see what I can do.

  (ANDERSON follows GRAYSON into the room.)

  MCKENDRICK: How can you expect the kids to be little gentlemen when their heroes behave like yobs – answer me that – no – you haven’t answered my question – if you’ve got yobs on the fields you’re going to have yobs on the terraces.

  (Interior Grayson’s room.

  MCKENDRICK is the only person standing up. He is holding court, with a bottle of whisky in one hand and his glass in the other. Around this small room are BROADBENT, CRISP, CHAMBERLAIN and perhaps one or two members of the England squad. Signs of a bottle party.)

  GRAYSON: (Closing his door) I thought philosophers were quiet, studious sort of people.

  ANDERSON: Well, some of us are.

  MCKENDRICK: (Shouts) Anderson! You’re the very man I want to see! We’re having a philosophical discussion about the yob ethics of professional footballers –

  BROADBENT: You want to watch it, mate.

  MCKENDRICK: Roy here is sensitive because he gave away a penalty today, by a deliberate foul. To stop a certain goal he hacked a chap down. After all, a penalty might be saved and broken legs are quite rare –

  (BROADBENT stands up but MCKENDRICK pacifies him with a gesture.)

  It’s perfectly all right – you were adopting the utilitarian values of the game, for the good of the team, for England! But I’m not talking about particular acts of expediency. No, I’m talking about the whole ethos.

  ANDERSON: McKendrick, don’t you think it’s about time we retired?

  MCKENDRICK: (Ignoring him) Now, I’ve played soccer for years. Years and years. I played soccer from the age of eight until I was thirteen. At which point I went to a rugger school. Even so, Tommy here will tell you that I still consider myself something of a left-winger. (This is to CRISP.) Sorry about that business in the lift, by the way, Tommy. Well, one thing I re
member clearly from my years and years of soccer is that if two players go for a ball which then goes into touch, there’s never any doubt among those players which of them touched the ball last. I can’t remember one occasion in all those years and years when the player who touched the ball last didn’t realize it. So, what I want to know is – why is it that on ‘Match of the Day’, every time the bloody ball goes into touch, both players claim the throw-in for their own side? I merely ask for information. Is it because they are very, very stupid or is it because a dishonest advantage is as welcome as an honest one?

  CHAMBERLAIN: Well, look, it’s been a long evening, old chap –

  ANDERSON: Tomorrow is another day, McKendrick.

  MCKENDRICK: Tomorrow, in my experience, is usually the same day. Have a drink –

  ANDERSON: No thank you.

  MCKENDRICK: Here’s a question for anthropologists. Name me a tribe which organizes itself into teams for sporting encounters and greets every score against their opponents with paroxysms of childish glee, whooping, dancing and embracing in an ecstasy of crowing self-congratulation in the very midst of their disconsolate fellows? – Who are these primitives who pile all their responses into the immediate sensation, unaware or uncaring of the long undulations of life’s fortunes? Yes, you’ve got it! (He chants the ‘Match of the Day’ signature tune.) It’s the yob-of-the-month competition, entries on a postcard please. But the question is – is it because they’re working class, or is it because financial greed has corrupted them? Or is it both?

  ANDERSON: McKendrick, you are being offensive.

  MCKENDRICK: Anderson is one of life’s cricketers. Clap, clap. (He claps in a well-bred sort of way and puts on a well-bred voice.) Well played, sir. Bad luck, old chap. The comparison with cricket may suggest to you that yob ethics are working class.

  (BROADBENT comes up to MCKENDRICK and pushes him against the wall. MCKENDRICK is completely unconcerned, escapes and continues without pause.)

  But you would be quite wrong. Let me refer you to a typical rugby team of Welsh miners. A score is acknowledged with pride but with restraint, the scorer himself composing his features into an expressionless mask lest he might be suspected of exulting in his opponents’ misfortune – my God, it does the heart good, doesn’t it? I conclude that yob ethics are caused by financial greed.