Alan Bennett: Plays, Volume 1

by Alan Bennett

LINDA: I thought he was quiet. Is he dead?

  MAM: Possibly. It’s not completely clear. There’s evidence on both sides. I’d welcome your opinion.

  (LINDA lifts the towel covering DAD.)

  LINDA: Blood and sand!

  MAM: Exactly.

  LINDA: I don’t know much about death. Is that what it looks like?

  MAM: Yes and no.

  LINDA: If he’s dead what’s he doing in the house?

  MAM: Nowadays it is unusual. It was much more the thing when we were younger.

  LINDA: Get him out of here. This is the twentieth century.

  MAM: Linda, he’s your father.

  LINDA: Yes. I want to show some feeling and get him into the fridge. I can’t understand. You were always so houseproud. What’s Sid going to think.

  SID: Don’t mind me. I’ve got a family of my own.

  MAM: This is a departure: gab, gab, gab.

  LINDA: Have you notified the authorities?

  MAM: I don’t think so. I can’t remember.

  LINDA: Why not?

  MAM: I’m beat, Linda. I’m weary. I’m just at the far end.

  LINDA: You can’t leave him stuck there. Notify somebody.

  MAM: I will once I’ve got him washed.

  LINDA: No. Now. Write it down so you don’t forget. (She does so.) Dad dead. Burial required.

  MAM: Why can’t you do it?

  LINDA: You’re his wife.

  MAM: We reckon to be a family.

  LINDA: Family nothing. All you need do is tell them and they’ll be round to fetch him like a shot. It’s bread and butter to somebody is that. Stuck there. Life is for living, that’s my motto.

  MAM: I’ll get me washed and go up to the Co-op.

  LINDA: Why can’t she go?

  MAM: It’s not her place. Why can’t he go?

  LINDA: What’s it to do with him?

  SID: My wife’s in a steel collar. She had one of these accidents in the home. The home is more dangerous than the roads apparently. In terms of statistics.

  MAM: That’s fascinating. I wish she’d take a leaf out of your book.

  LINDA: You’d better come upstairs.

  MAM: Yes. Go upstairs. Have a meander round. Show him your room, love. Your home environment. All part of the picture.

  LINDA: (Wearily) Mam.

  MAM: And Linda.

  (LINDA pauses.)

  Don’t be upset about Saudi Arabia. Plenty more fish in the sea.

  (LINDA and SID go upstairs.)

  She’s a resilient girl. She’ll soon bounce back. (Pause) Only I shall have it all to do, I can see that. The death and all the donkey work. He’d have taken all this in his stride. But then he’d been educated.

  (Music starts.)

  Did I tell you I had a son?

  Terry his name was.

  He loved music. Adored music. Dad was tone deaf. I had perfect pitch. So where are you? I could have been in the Philharmonic Chorus, you know.

  Asked round to these coffee parties after rehearsals, cocktails, little savoury things. There’s no telling where I could have ended. Another Kathleen Ferrier possibly. She had a northern background. It didn’t stop her.

  (During this last speech MAM and MS CRAIG have begun to dance and MAM sings ‘I Can Give You the Starlight’, the music swelling under her singing as they dance.) You’re light as a feather.

  (They dance in great style. When they stop they continue to hold one another for a moment.)

  MS CRAIG: Mam.

  MAM: About bloody time! Got up in that costume. It doesn’t suit you. It doesn’t suit you one bit. Navy’s your colour. You always looked lovely in navy. Give your Mam a kiss. I think on the whole I preferred you in sportscoat and flannels.

  MS CRAIG: Those days are over.

  MAM: Terry. Are you still Terry?

  MS CRAIG: I spell it with an ‘i’.

  MAM: You didn’t have far to go then?

  MS CRAIG: My friends call me Kim.

  MAM: Kim. That’s a nice name. I prefer Kim to Terri. Kim’s more classy. I never thought I’d have a son called Kim. Let alone a daughter. You wouldn’t recognize Leeds. It’s all pedestrianized now. The traffic’s been secluded. And one way and another all your Aunties have died. Mrs Metcalf’s had a stroke and their David now works in computers in Kettering. Has anything much else happened apart from you changing your name? Are you rich?

  MS CRAIG: To some extent.

  MAM: That’s good. Though money isn’t everything. Did you get a degree?

  MS CRAIG: Yes. At Cambridge.

  MAM: Cambridge. That’s nice. You get all that from me. Your father never opened a book in his life, bless him. (She goes and looks at him,) No change. His thing’s still there. Shocking except he wasn’t all that bad. Considering you were his only son he didn’t really dislike you. I shall miss him in other ways. I’ve missed you,

  MS CRAIG: I’ve missed you too.

  MAM: Linda hasn’t changed, has she?

  MS CRAIG: She has a bit.

  MAM: She’s a personal secretary, you know.

  (MS CRAIG nods.)

  She goes all over. She won’t be here long before she’s setting off. Stockholm. Kuala Lumpur. If it’s not one place it’s another. (Pause) Actually I don’t believe that. Your Dad did. He thought she was a personal secretary. I didn’t disillusion him. I don’t think she’s a personal secretary at all. You don’t wear them hairy pink jumper things if you’re a personal secretary. No, she lets us think she’s a secretary but do you know what I think she is? A policewoman: that would account for her odd hours, bobbing in and out. I wouldn’t put it past her to be on detective work. What do you think, Kim?

  MS CRAIG: It’s possible, Connie.

  MAM: That shows you’ve gone up in the world, using my name. Better-class children do that. Treat their parents like people. Oh, Kim.

  MS CRAIG: I’m going to take you away, Connie.

  MAM: Where, Kim? London? I’ve always dreamed about going to London. Most people have made at least one visit by the time they reach my age. Let’s have a day or two in London and it will remove the stigma.

  MS CRAIG: I’m going to take you away for good! You’re going to be protected.

  MAM: What from? Not your Dad? He’s dead.

  MS CRAIG: Everything. Life. You’re going to be looked after, Connie. Sheltered. Cared for.

  MAM: It’s a home, isn’t it? You’re going to put me in a home. You’ve come back just to put me in a home. Well, I’m not ready. I’m not silly. My memory’s bad but I’m not incontinent. I don’t want to go into a home. I want to go into the horrible new flats. Oh, Terry Craven, what a trick to do.

  MS CRAIG: It’s not a home, Connie. I wouldn’t put you in a home.

  MAM: Children always say that. That’s what I said to my mother. And we did. We did. She lost her memory and we put her in a home.

  MS CRAIG: Connie, I promise you. It’s not a home. Listen.

  MAM: No, you listen. You can’t just put me in a home the way I put my mother in a home. It’s not as simple as that now. There’s people on the Council can stop you. Wardens, social workers. Old people now, they have to be treated with imagination, it’s the law. And I’m not old. It’s just that I forget. You and me were such pals.

  MS CRAIG: Mam, how many more times, I don’t mean a home.

  MAM: Will you promise me? Promise me over the body of your father you will not put me in a home.

  MS CRAIG: I promise you over the body of my father I will not put you in a home.

  MAM: (Pointing) It’s gone. Look, it’s gone. Oh, Terry. It must just have been his way of saying goodbye. Oh, Wilf, forgive me, Wilf.

  DAD: Wilf? What’s this Wilf? What’s happened?

  MAM: Dad? Are you not dead? We thought you were dead.

  DAD: You were wrong then, weren’t you? You were premature.

  What’s been the matter with me?

  MAM: You passed out.

  DAD: What am I like this for? Tied up?
<
br />   MAM: You’re not tied up.

  DAD: I’m bound hand and foot.

  MAM: You never are.

  DAD: I can’t move. I’m in water.

  MAM: No.

  DAD: I’m in water up to my neck.

  MAM: You’re at home. Look.

  DAD: How look? I can’t look. I’m in plaster from head to foot. I’m paralysed.

  MAM: You weren’t paralysed a minute ago. Sit for a bit and it’ll go off.

  DAD: Sit? I can’t move.

  MAM: It may be nerves. Nervous paralysis. People go for years thinking they can’t move a muscle and it’s nothing but their imagination.

  DAD: It was that youth. Banging my steel plate, and her just sat there.

  MAM: No.

  DAD: She sat there and watched.

  MAM: You’re confused.

  DAD: He was banging it up and down like a coal-hole lid while she never lifted a finger.

  MAM: She’d never do that. Another human being. We thought you were dead.

  DAD: I bet.

  MAM: I was just learning to accommodate. You do lead us a dance.

  DAD: I can’t bloody move. Feel me. See if there’s any feeling left.

  MAM: I won’t. I’m not starting on that game again.

  DAD: Light me a cig.

  MAM: I won’t light you a cig. Light your own cig.

  DAD: I can’t move.

  MAM: Use it as a challenge.

  DAD: Out Linda’d light me one. Our Linda’d care.

  MAM: Our Linda. Our Linda. You’re going to have to change your tune a bit. There’s going to have to be less of our Linda now.

  (MS CRAIG lights MR CRAVEN a cigarette, putting it in her mouth then his.)

  MS CRAIG: Changed your brand, Dad? These give you a more satisfying smoke, do they?

  DAD: What do you know about a satisfying smoke. You’re not man enough to know about a satisfying smoke. That’s how I knew you were a nancy: you never smoked.

  MAM: He smokes now, don’t you love. Can’t criticize him on that score.

  DAD: Coming in all dolled up. I knew you straight off.

  MAM: I would have done if it hadn’t been for my memory.

  DAD: Frocks. I caught him in one of your frocks once. While you were out. I was physically sick. My own son. He’d be fifteen then. I thought it was just a phase. I ought to have known. There were other signs. Most lads would have at least one unwanted pregnancy to their credit by the time they got to that age. Not our Terry.

  MAM: His name’s Kim, now, isn’t it, love? I’m very happy for him. Her.

  DAD: A bit of beef skirt, that’s what he is. He wanted me killed. He looked on while I was assaulted.

  MAM: Only as part of his job. He was conscientious even as a boy.

  DAD: I can’t move.

  MAM: That’s not Kim’s fault. She’s come to take us away, haven’t you, Kim?

  MS CRAIG: Yes, Connie.

  DAD: Connie? Who the fuck’s Connie?

  MAM: Me, I’m Connie.

  DAD: Don’t you Connie, her, madam. I’m the one who Connie’s her. She’s Mam to you. Mam. Dad. Connie.

  MAM: I’m Mam to you too. You never say my name.

  DAD: I choose my moments. I say it when it’s appropriate. Kim. Connie. Have you both gone mad? You dirty sods. You dirty stinking sods. Using your names. You disgust me.

  MAM: Dad.

  DAD: You wanted me dead. You thought I was dead. ‘Wilf’.

  MAM: We had begun to bank on it a bit, I must admit, however, let’s change the subject. Kim’s got a proposition to make.

  MS CRAIG: I’ve come to take you away, Dad.

  MAM: Where is it you’re taking us, love?

  MS CRAIG: It’s on the outskirts.

  MAM: Does that mean the Green Belt? It’s been one of Dad’s ambitions to live on the outskirts.

  MS CRAIG: It’s in a park.

  MAM: I never dreamed I would end up in a park.

  DAD: What sort of park? Homes are in parks. The outskirts are where all the homes are. He’s going to put us in a home. Your son, stroke daughter.

  MAM: It’s not a home. Terry has promised me faithfully it’s not a home.

  DAD: You told your mother it was a hotel. A private hotel.

  MAM: No.

  DAD: She was just going there for the weekend while we went to Scarborough.

  MAM: No.

  DAD: She couldn’t speak when we saw her next. She’d gone silly.

  MAM: No.

  DAD: Yes. It’s a home.

  MAM: God forgive you, Terry. Your own mother. (GREGORY opens the door and comes inside, waiting. ADRIAN follows and waits, the other side. HARMAN enters. The same age as GREGORY and ADRIAN, but with more authority. He is followed by two more young men, CHARLES and ROWLAND, who wait in the background, holding clipboards.)

  HARMAN: And if there is a problem get on to Maintenance and let them sort it out. It’s what we pay them for. Now. What have we here?

  (HARMAN walks round the house and round MAM and DAD without speaking. GREGORY and ADRIAN follow, GREGORY with a notebook, ADRIAN with a Polaroid camera.)

  (After an excessive silence) The mantelpiece is perfect. Pity they ruined the fireplace.

  (GREGORY makes a note.)

  The curtains are good.

  (ADRIAN snaps the curtains.)

  All this is beautiful.

  (HARMAN maybe frames a section of the room in his hands and ADRIAN then photographs it. HARMAN opens the staircase door.)

  Get a sample of that wallpaper. It’s terrible. (He sees the bath.) I like the bath. The bath comes over loud and clear.

  (HARMAN now looks very closely at MAM and DAD, without speaking. He maybe runs his hand over MAM’s face absently.) Hello, love.

  MAM: Hello.

  DAD: Who the fuck are you?

  HARMAN: Hello! Are you the man of the house?

  MAM: My husband’s not himself at the moment.

  (HARMAN, GREGORY, ADRIAN and MS CRAIG now confer.)

  HARMAN: My feeling is we should take this place. As it stands. In fact don’t let’s piss around. We should take the whole street.

  MS CRAIG: I thought so.

  DAD: Who is this joker? Lay off.

  (HARMAN is standing by DAD, massaging his arm.)

  HARMAN: You’re understandably intrigued, Mr Craven. Your home invaded … are you totally paralysed? … habits documented by strangers … do you feel that? … your everyday life subject to scrutiny… no?… the flesh is so good: white, white, white.

  (GREGORY makes a note.)

  DAD: Mam.

  MAM: It’s all right, Dad. He’s from the Council. It’s to do with all-round happiness. We had the explanatory letter.

  DAD: Happiness nothing, I require medical attention.

  HARMAN: When Kim mentioned her family to me, Mrs Craven, I was quite frankly surprised. I never knew you had a family, Kim, I said. I had you down as an independent sort of person. And here you are. A queen. (I love the face, Kim.) We send out expeditions to Brazil. We plunge through the rain forests of the Amazon to protect a few lost tribes. But it’s here, Mrs Craven, now. This is the disappearing world. Leeds, Bradford, Halifax. A way of life on its last legs. Women like you …

  MAM: I’m old-fashioned, I know …

  HARMAN: This house … this street.

  MAM: They’re grand houses. I’ve always said so. It’s a crime to knock them down.

  HARMAN: Absolutely. Show her, Adrian.

  (ADRIAN takes MAM to the door.)

  DAD: Slums.

  HARMAN: No.

  MAM: They’ve gone. The bulldozers have gone.

  DAD: They’ll be knocking off early, the buggers.

  MAM: (And possibly she goes outside the house so we just hear her echoing voice) There isn’t a bulldozer to be seen.

  HARMAN: No. I had them withdrawn.

  DAD: Then unwithdraw them. We’re waiting to get into the new flats.

  HARMAN: He’s such value.

&nb
sp; MS CRAIG: I know. I hate him.

  HARMAN: Naturally.

  MAM: Are we not going to be knocked down then?

  HARMAN: Yes, but very lovingly and by qualified experts. Each brick numbered; a chart made for every slate, the whole house, the entire street to be re-erected on the outskirts in a parkland setting.

  DAD: It’s a home.

  MAM: It’s not a home, Dad. These are all refined young men.

  HARMAN: A park people will pay to go into. A people’s park.

  MAM: We shan’t be with zebras and kangaroos. We went to one of those once and they were all asleep. It was money down the drain.

  HARMAN: Visitors will alight from one of a fleet of trams to find themselves in a close-knit community where people know each others’ names and still stop and pass the time of day. There will be a cotton mill, steam engines and genuine hardship.

  MAM: This park, is it in a dean-air zone?

  HARMAN: Unfortunately yes, but on certain appointed days soot will fall like rain, exactly as it used to.

  MAM: But will I be able to keep the place spotless?

  HARMAN: Only by working your fingers to the bone.

  DAD: Will there be a fireside?

  HARMAN: A coal fire is a must, though underfloor central heating is provided strictly for use out of opening hours.

  MAM: I like a fire. A fire’s company.

  DAD: This fire, can I spit into it?

  HARMAN: At will and never accurately.

  MAM: That means I shall have to blacklead.

  HARMAN: Constantly.

  MAM: What will I cook?

  HARMAN: Tripe, cowheel, trotters, breast of mutton. The traditional food of your class.

  MAM: I hope you’ve got an understanding butcher. And I can bake. Bake like I did when I was first married.

  DAD: You never baked. My mother baked. You never did.

  MAM: I did, I’m sure I did. Quiches are the in thing now, aren’t they? All the young marrieds go in for quiches. I keep reading about it in these magazines. I imagine you have quiches, Kim? You have done well.

  MS CRAIG: It’ll be exactly like it was when I was little.

  MAM: I can’t remember what I was like when you were little.

  MS CRAIG: Don’t worry. I can.

  MAM: Was I a good mother? A capable housewife?

  MS CRAIG: Down to the last detail.

  MAM: I never let you go short?

  MS CRAIG: With you self-sacrifice always came first.

  MAM: I sound to have been a perfect mother.

  MS CRAIG: You were.