Separate Tables

by Terence Rattigan

  Pause.

  MAJOR POLLOCK (at length). You’re thinking of her too, of course, aren’t you?

  MISS COOPER. Yes.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Reinstate the gallant ex-soldier in her eyes?

  MISS COOPER. That’s right.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Make her think she’s helped me find my soul and all that.

  MISS COOPER. Yes.

  Another pause.

  MAJOR POLLOCK (with an eventual sigh). Not a hope. Not a hope in the whole, wide, blinking world. I know my form, you see.

  MISS COOPER. I wonder if you do.

  MAJOR POLLOCK (sadly). Oh I do. I do, only too well. Thanks for trying, anyway.

  He looks cautiously out into the hall.

  Coast’s clear.

  He turns round and looks at her for a long time. She stares back steadily at him.

  (At length.) There’s a nine-something train, isn’t there?

  MISS COOPER. Nine thirty-two.

  There is another pause as he looks at her in doubt. Then he gives a shamefaced smile.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. I expect I’ll still catch the seven forty-five.

  He goes out.

  The lights fade.

  Scene Two

  Scene: the dining-room. As at the beginning of the first play, dinner is in full swing. The table by the window is now occupied by a pair of young ‘casuals’ – much interested in each other, and totally oblivious of everyone else. One table is unoccupied and unlaid; otherwise all the tables are occupied by the usual owners.

  As the lights come on, conversation is general – which means, more precisely, that the two casuals are murmuring together, the STRATTONS are arguing, LADY MATHESON and MR. FOWLER are talking between tables, and MRS. RAILTON-BELL is talking to SIBYL, MABEL is hovering over MISS MEACHAM who is absorbed in ‘Racing Up To Date’.

  MABEL (heard above the background). Were you the fricassee or the cambridge steak?

  MISS MEACHAM. What? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Both are uneatable.

  MABEL. What about the cold chicken, then?

  MISS MEACHAM. Cold chicken? But we haven’t had it hot yet.

  MABEL. If I were you I’d have the fricassee. It’s all right. It’s rabbit.

  MISS MEACHAM. The fricassee then.

  MR. FOWLER. Any cheese, Mabel?

  MABEL. Afraid not.

  MR. FOWLER. There’s never any cheese.

  MABEL serves MISS MEACHAM and stumps out to the kitchen. MRS. RAILTON-BELL leans across to LADY MATHESON.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. I believe there’s a new game on television tonight.

  LADY MATHESON. Yes, I know, dear, I read all about it in the Radio Times. It sounds quite fascinating – I shall certainly see it next week.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Why not tonight, dear?

  LADY MATHESON. I feel too tired. I’m going to go to bed directly after dinner.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Of course. (Lowering her voice.) What a really nerve-racking day it’s been, hasn’t it? I don’t suppose any of us will ever forget it. Ever. I feel utterly shattered, myself. (To SIBYL.) Pass the sauce, dear.

  LADY MATHESON nods. MRS. RAILTON-BELL takes a sip of wine.

  The MAJOR has walked quietly into the dining-room. MRS. RAILTON-BELL turns and stares unbelievingly at him as he walks slowly to his table and sits down. The conversation in the dining-room has frozen into a dead silence, for even the casuals seem affected by the electric atmosphere – though oblivious of the cause – and have ceased talking. The silence is broken by DOREEN entering the dining-room and seeing him.

  DOREEN (calling through the kitchen door). Mabel – Number Seven’s in. You said he was out.

  MABEL (off). Well, that’s what Joe said. Joe said he was leaving before dinner.

  DOREEN. Sorry, Major. There’s been a muddle. I’ll lay your table right away.

  She goes back into the kitchen. The silence remains unbroken, until DOREEN returns with a tray and begins quickly to lay the MAJOR’s table.

  What would you like? The fricassee’s nice.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. I’ll have that. Thank you.

  DOREEN. Soup first?

  MAJOR POLLOCK. No, thank you.

  DOREEN (finally laying the table). There we are. All cosy now. Fricassee you said?

  MAJOR POLLOCK. That’s right.

  She goes into the kitchen. SIBYL is staring at the MAJOR, but he does not meet her eyes. He is looking down at his table, as is everyone else, aware of his presence, save SIBYL and MRS. RAILTON-BELL who is glaring furiously in turn at him and at the others. The silence is broken suddenly by a rather nervously high-pitched greeting from CHARLES.

  CHARLES (to the MAJOR). Hullo.

  MAJOR POLLOCK (murmuring). Hullo.

  CHARLES. Clouding over a bit, isn’t it? I’m afraid we may get rain later.

  JEAN is furiously glaring at her husband. MRS. RAILTON-BELL has turned fully round in her chair in an attempt to paralyse him into silence.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Yes. I’m afraid we may.

  MISS MEACHAM. We need it. This hard going’s murder on form. (To MAJOR POLLOCK.) You know Newmarket, don’t you?

  MAJOR POLLOCK. No, I don’t.

  MISS MEACHAM. But I remember your saying – (She gets it.) Oh, I see. Well, it’s a very tricky course in hard going. Still, if they get some rain up there tomorrow, I think I’ll be able to give you a winner on Tuesday.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Thank you. Thank you very much. The only thing is, I may not be here on Tuesday.

  MISS MEACHAM. Oh, really? All right. Leave me your address then and I’ll wire it to you. I’ll need the money for the wire, though.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Thank you. That’s very kind of you.

  MISS MEACHAM. You won’t think it so kind of me, if it loses.

  She goes back to her ‘Racing Up To Date’.

  MISS COOPER comes in.

  MISS COOPER (brightly). Good evening, Mrs. Railton-Bell. Good evening, Lady Matheson. Good evening, Mr. Pollock.

  The ‘Mr.’ is barely distinguishable from ‘Major’, and her voice is as brightly ‘managerial’ to him as to the others.

  I hear they didn’t lay your table tonight. I’m so sorry.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Quite all right.

  MISS COOPER. I’d advise the fricassee, if I were you. It’s really awfully nice.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. I’ve ordered it.

  MISS COOPER. Good, I’m so glad. (She passes on.) Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Stratton. Everything all right? (They nod and smile.) Splendid.

  She bows rather less warmly to ‘the casuals’ and goes out.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL pretends to feel an imaginary draught.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (to LADY MATHESON). It’s very cold in here suddenly, don’t you think, dear?

  LADY MATHESON nods, nervously.

  I think I’ll turn my chair round a bit, and get out of the draught.

  She does so, turning her back neatly on the MAJOR. MR. FOWLER gets up quietly from his table and walks to the door. To do this he has to pass the MAJOR. A step or so past him he hesitates and then looks back, nods and smiles.

  MR. FOWLER. Good evening.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Good evening.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL has had to twist her head sharply round in order to allow her eyes to confirm this shameful betrayal.

  MR. FOWLER. Hampshire did pretty well today, did you see? Three hundred and eighty-odd for five.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Very good.

  MR. FOWLER. I wish they had more bowling. Well –

  He smiles vaguely and goes on into the lounge. There is an audible and outraged ‘Well!’ from MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Silence falls again. Suddenly and by an accident the MAJOR’s and LADY MATHESON’s eyes meet. Automatically she inclines her head and gives him a slight smile. He returns the salute.

  LADY MATHESON (to MAJOR POLLOCK). Good evening.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (in a whisper). Gladys!

  LADY MATHESON, who has genuinely acted from instinct, looks startled. Then she apparently decides to be
as well hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

  LADY MATHESON (suddenly very bold, and in a loud voice). I advise the apple charlotte. It’s very good.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Thank you. I’ll have that.

  She is instantly conscience-stricken at what she has done and hangs her head over her apple charlotte, eating feverishly. She refuses to look at MRS. RAILTON-BELL, who is staring at her with wide, unbelieving and furious eyes. MRS. RAILTON-BELL, getting no response from LADY MATHESON, deliberately folds her napkin and rises.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (quietly). Come, Sibyl.

  SIBYL (equally quietly). I haven’t finished yet, Mummy.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (looking puzzled at this unaccustomed response). It doesn’t matter, dear. Come into the lounge.

  SIBYL makes no move to rise. She stares up at her mother.

  There is a pause.

  SIBYL. No, Mummy.

  Pause.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (sharply). Sibyl, come with me at once –

  SIBYL (with quiet firmness). No, Mummy. I’m going to stay in the dining-room, and finish my dinner.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL hesitates, plainly meditating various courses of action. Finally she decides on the only really possible course left to her – the dignified exit. Before she has got to the door SIBYL has spoken to the MAJOR.

  There’s a new moon tonight, you know. We must all go and look at it afterwards.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Yes. We must.

  DOREEN has bustled in with the MAJOR’s dish as MRS. RAILTON-BELL, her world crumbling, goes into the lounge. DOREEN serves MAJOR POLLOCK.

  DOREEN. Sorry it’s been so long. You’re a bit late, you see.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Yes. My fault.

  DOREEN. What’s the matter with you tonight? You always say ‘mea culpa’.

  She beats her breast in imitation of an obvious MAJOR bon mot.

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Do I? Well – they both mean the same, don’t they?

  DOREEN. I suppose so. (Finishing the serving.) There you are. Now what about breakfast?

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Breakfast?

  DOREEN. Joe got it wrong about your going, didn’t he?

  There is a pause. SIBYL is looking steadily at the MAJOR, who now raises his eyes from his plate and meets her glance.

  MAJOR POLLOCK (quietly, at length). Yes, he did.

  DOREEN. That’s good. Breakfast usual time, then?

  MAJOR POLLOCK. Yes, Doreen. Breakfast usual time.

  DOREEN goes into the kitchen. MAJOR POLLOCK begins to eat his fricassee. SIBYL continues to eat her sweet. A decorous silence, broken only by the renewed murmur of ‘the casuals’, reigns once more, and the dining-room of the Beauregard Private Hotel no longer gives any sign of the battle that has just been fought and won between its four bare walls.

  Curtain.

  Textual Variants

  For the American premiere, Rattigan wrote a series of alternative passages, altering the nature of Pollock’s crime. They were not used, and this is the first time they have been published in their entirety. They replace those sections indicated in bold.

  Table Number Seven, Scene One

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. No, no. Ex-officer bound over.

  LADY MATHESON (brightly). Oh yes. (Reading.) ‘Ex-officer bound over. One a.m. arrest on Esplanade . . . ’ (Looking up.) On Esplanade? Oh dear – do we really want to hear this?

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (grimly). Yes, we do. Go on.

  LADY MATHESON (reading resignedly). ‘On Thursday last, before the Bournemouth magistrates, David Angus Pollock, 55, giving his address –’ (She starts violently.) ‘ – as the Beauregard Hotel, Morgan Crescent – ’ (In a feverish whisper.) Major Pollock? Oh!

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Go on.

  LADY MATHESON (reading). ‘Morgan Crescent – pleaded guilty to a charge of persistently importuning – ’ (Her voice sinks to a horrified murmur.) ‘male persons – ’ (She stops, unable to go on. At length.) Oh no. Oh no. He must have been drinking.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. He’s a teetotaller.

  LADY MATHESON. Perhaps just that one night.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. No. Read on.

  LADY MATHESON. ‘A Mr. William Osborne, 38, of 4, Studland Row, giving evidence, said that at about eleven fifteen p.m. on July the eighteenth Pollock had approached him on the Esplanade, and had asked him for a light. He had obliged and Pollock thereupon offered him a cigarette which he accepted. A few words were exchanged following which Pollock made a certain suggestion. He (Mr. Osborne) walked away and issued a complaint to the first policeman he saw. Under cross-examination by L.F. Crowther, the defendant’s counsel, Mr. Osborne admitted that he had twice previously given evidence in Bournemouth in similar cases, but refused to admit that he had acted as ‘a stooge’ for the police. Counsel then observed that it was indeed a remarkable coincidence. Inspector Franklin, giving evidence, said that following Mr. Osborne’s complaint a watch was kept on Pollock for roughly an hour. During this time he was seen to approach no less than four persons, on each occasion with an unlighted cigarette in his mouth. There was quite a heavy drizzle that night and the Inspector noted that on at least two occasions the cigarette would not light, and Pollock had had to throw it away. None of them, he admitted, had seemed particularly disturbed or shocked by what was said to them by the defendant, but of course this was not unusual in cases of this kind. At one a.m. Pollock was arrested and, after being charged and cautioned, stated: “You have made a terrible mistake. You have the wrong man. I was only walking home and wanted a light for my cigarette, I am a Colonel in the Scots’ Guards.” Later he made a statement. A petrol lighter, in perfect working order, was found in his pocket. Mr. Crowther, in his plea for the defendant, stated that his client had had a momentary aberration. He was extremely sorry and ashamed of himself and would undertake never to behave in so stupid and improper a manner in future. He asked that his client’s blameless record should be taken into account. He had enlisted in the army in 1925 and in 1939 was granted a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps.’

  Table Number Seven, Scene One

  LADY MATHESON. No, of course, it wouldn’t have been better. One has to know these things, I suppose – although sometimes I wonder why.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Because if there’s a liar and a fraudulent crook and a sexual pervert wandering around among us unsuspected, there could be well – there could be the most terrible repercussions.

  LADY MATHESON. Well, he’s been wandering around among us for four years now and there haven’t been any repercussions yet. Oh heavens! –

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. What’s the matter?

  LADY MATHESON. I was thinking of poor Sibyl. Oh dear. And she’s such a friend of his, isn’t she? Oh dear, oh dear.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Exactly.

  LADY MATHESON (after a moment’s troubled reflection). Maud, dear – it’s not my business, I know, and of course you have a mother’s duty to protect your child, but of course, I do see – and yet – well she’s such a strange girl – so excitable and shy – and so ungrownup in so many ways –

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Come to the point, Gladys.

  LADY MATHESON. Yes, I will. It’s this. I don’t think you ought to tell her this.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Not tell her?

  LADY MATHESON. Well, not all of it. Not the details. Say he’s a fraud, if you like, but not – please, Maud – not about the cigarettes. (Suddenly distressed by the thought herself.) Oh dear! I don’t know how I shall ever look him in the face again.

  Table Number Seven, Scene One

  LADY MATHESON. Pleaded guilty –

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Please, Gladys. He was found or pleaded guilty – I really don’t see that it matters which – to persistently importuning male persons on the Esplanade between eleven fifteen p.m. and one a.m. on the night of July the eighteenth, in that he made improper suggestions to no less than four persons whom he asked for a light, no, five, with the one who complained, and it was so wet that night that on at leas
t two occasions his cigarette just wouldn’t light at all, and he had to throw it away.

  There is a pause.

  CHARLES (at length). Well, at least he stood by the Guards’ slogan. Never admit defeat.

  LADY MATHESON. Really, Maud, I must correct that. I must. We don’t know anything of what he said to these people. Even the policeman admitted they didn’t seem shocked, so why shouldn’t he just have been talking to them about the weather?

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. What about the one who complained.

  LADY MATHESON. He might easily have made a mistake about the whole thing. I’m sure that’s quite easy. I remember once, in a bus, long ago, a man suddenly spoke to me and I thought – well, anyway I’d met him at the Forsyths, and clean forgotten, you see. Anyway I think this man Osborne was very odd in his behaviour. Why on earth didn’t he just say straight out to the Major ‘No thank you very much – but I’m not like that – ’ well perhaps not thank you very much, but whatever it is in a case like that you do say – and then just have gone on his way like the others instead of hanging around in the rain and complaining. The others didn’t complain, after all.

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL (patiently). He asked them all for a light, dear, and a petrol lighter – in perfect working order – was found in his pocket –

  CHARLES. A petrol lighter is never in perfect working order. He should have had one of those gas things –

  JEAN. You’re just idiotic about those gas lighters, Charles. They’re extremely expensive and they don’t work any better than petrol –

  MRS. RAILTON-BELL. Please, please. We seem to be losing the essential point in a welter of trivialities. The point is surely that the Major – the so-called Major – has pleaded guilty to a criminal offence of a disgusting nature, and I want to know what action we regular residents propose to take.

  Table Number Seven, Scene One

  CHARLES [continuing present speech] . . . It’s only fair to approach it from the purely logical standpoint of practical Christian ethics, and ask myself the question: ‘What harm has the man done?’ Well, apart from apparently wounding the delicate susceptibilities of a Mr. Osborne – whose motives in complaining – I agree with Lady Matheson, are extremely suspect – apart from that, and apart from telling us a few rather pathetic lies about his past life, which most of us do anyway from time to time, I really can’t see he’s done anything to justify us chucking him out into the street.