Complete Works, Volume III
Page 14
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BETH
So that I never lost track. Even though, even when, I asked him to turn, to look at me, but he turned to look at me but I couldn't see his look.
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I couldn't see whether he was looking at me.
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Although he had turned. And appeared to be looking at me.
DUFF
I took the chain off and the thimble, the keys, the scissors slid off it and clattered down. I booted the gong down the hall. The dog came in. I thought you would come to me, I thought you would come into my arms and kiss me, even . . . offer yourself to me. I would have had you in front of the dog, like a man, in the hall, on the stone, banging the gong, mind you don't get the scissors up your arse, or the thimble, don't worry, I'll throw them for the dog to chase, the thimble will keep the dog happy, he'll play with it with his paws, you'll plead with me like a woman, I'll bang the gong on the floor, if the sound is too flat, lacks resonance, I'll hang it back on its hook, bang you against it swinging, gonging, waking the place up, calling them all for dinner, lunch is up, bring out the bacon, bang your lovely head, mind the dog doesn't swallow the thimble, slam—
Silence
BETH
He lay above me and looked down at me. He supported my shoulder.
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So tender his touch on my neck. So softly his kiss on my cheek.
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My hand on his rib.
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So sweetly the sand over me. Tiny the sand on my skin.
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So silent the sky in my eyes. Gently the sound of the tide.
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Oh my true love I said.
Silence
Silence was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre on 2nd July, 1969, with the following cast:
ELLEN: a girl in her twenties Frances Cuka
RUMSEY: a man of forty Anthony Bate
BATES: a man in his middle thirties Norman Rodway
Directed by Peter Hall
Three areas.
A chair in each area.
RUMSEY
I walk with my girl who wears a grey blouse when she walks and grey shoes and walks with me readily wearing her clothes considered for me. Her grey clothes.
She holds my arm.
On good evenings we walk through the hills to the top of the hill past the dogs the clouds racing just before dark or as dark is falling when the moon
When it's chilly I stop her and slip her raincoat over her shoulders or rainy slip arms into the arms, she twisting her arms. And talk to her and tell her everything.
She dresses for my eyes.
I tell her my thoughts. Now I am ready to walk, her arm in me her hand in me.
I tell her my life's thoughts, clouds racing. She looks up at me or listens looking down. She stops in midsentence, my sentence, to look up at me. Sometimes her hand has slipped from mine, her arm loosened, she walks slightly apart, dog barks.
ELLEN
There are two. One who is with me sometimes, and another. He listens to me. I tell him what I know. We walk by the dogs. Sometimes the wind is so high he does not hear me. I lead him to a tree, clasp closely to him and whisper to him, wind going, dogs stop, and he hears me.
But the other hears me.
BATES
Caught a bus to the town. Crowds. Lights round the market, rain and stinking. Showed her the bumping lights. Took her down around the dumps. Black roads and girders. She clutching me. This way the way I bring you. Pubs throw the doors smack into the night. Curs barking and the lights. She with me, clutching.
Brought her into this place, my cousin runs it. Undressed her, placed my hand.
ELLEN
I go by myself with the milk to the top, the clouds racing, all the blue changes, I'm dizzy sometimes, meet with him under some place.
One time visited his house. He put a light on, it reflected the window, it reflected in the window.
RUMSEY
She walks from the door to the window to see the way she has come, to confirm that the house which grew nearer is the same one she stands in, that the path and the bushes are the same, that the gate is the same. When I stand beside her and smile at her, she looks at me and smiles.
BATES
How many times standing clenched in the pissing dark waiting?
The mud, the cows, the river.
You cross the field out of darkness. You arrive.
You stand breathing before me. You smile.
I put my hands on your shoulders and press. Press the smile off your face.
ELLEN
There are two. I turn to them and speak. I look them in their eyes. I kiss them there and say, I look away to smile, and touch them as I turn.
Silence
RUMSEY
I watch the clouds. Pleasant the ribs and tendons of cloud.
I've lost nothing.
Pleasant alone and watch the folding light. My animals are quiet. My heart never bangs. I read in the evenings. There is no-one to tell me what is expected or not expected of me. There is nothing required of me.
BATES
I'm at my last gasp with this unendurable racket. I kicked open the door and stood before them. Someone called me Grandad and told me to button it. It's they should button it. Were I young . . .
One of them told me I was lucky to be alive, that I would have to bear it in order to pay for being alive, in order to give thanks for being alive.
It's a question of sleep. I need something of it, or how can I remain alive, without any true rest, having no solace, no constant solace, not even any damn inconstant solace.
I am strong, but not as strong as the bastards in the other room, and their tittering bitches, and their music, and their love.
If I changed my life, perhaps, and lived deliberately at night, and slept in the day. But what exactly would I do? What can be meant by living in the dark?
ELLEN
Now and again I meet my drinking companion and have a drink with her. She is a friendly woman, quite elderly, quite friendly. But she knows little of me, she could never know much of me, not really, not now. She's funny. She starts talking sexily to me, in the corner, with our drinks. I laugh.
She asks me about my early life, when I was young, never departing from her chosen subject, but I have nothing to tell her about the sexual part of my youth. I'm old, I tell her, my youth was somewhere else, anyway I don't remember. She does the talking anyway.
I like to get back to my room. It has a pleasant view. I have one or two friends, ladies. They ask me where I come from. I say of course from the country. I don't see much of them.
I sometimes wonder if I think. I heard somewhere about how many thoughts go through the brain of a person. But I couldn't remember anything I'd actually thought, for some time.
It isn't something that anyone could ever tell me, could ever reassure me about, nobody could tell, from looking at me, what was happening.
But I'm still quite pretty really, quite nice eyes, nice skin.
BATES moves to ELLEN
BATES
Will we meet tonight?
ELLEN
I don't know.
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BATES
Come with me tonight.
ELLEN
Where?
BATES
Anywhere. For a walk.
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ELLEN
I don't want to walk.
BATES
Why not?
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ELLEN
I want to go somewhere else.
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BATES
Where?
ELLEN
I don't know.
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BATES
What's wrong with a walk?
ELLEN
I don't want to walk.
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BATES
What do you want to do?
ELLEN
/> I don't know.
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BATES
Do you want to go anywhere else?
ELLEN
Yes.
BATES
Where?
ELLEN
I don't know.
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BATES
Do you want me to buy you a drink?
ELLEN
No.
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BATES
Come for a walk.
ELLEN
No.
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BATES
All right. I'll take you on a bus to the town. I know a place. My cousin runs it.
ELLEN
No.
Silence
RUMSEY
It is curiously hot. Sitting weather, I call it. The weather sits, does not move. Unusual. I shall walk down to my horse and see how my horse is. He'll come towards me.
Perhaps he doesn't need me. My visit, my care, will be like any other visit, any other care. I can't believe it.
BATES
I walk in my mind. But can't get out of the walls, into a wind.
Meadows are walled, and lakes. The sky's a wall.
Once I had a little girl. I took it for walks. I held it by its hand. It looked up at me and said, I see something in a tree, a shape, a shadow. It is leaning down. It is looking at us.
Maybe it's a bird, I said, a big bird, resting. Birds grow tired, after they've flown over the country, up and down in the wind, looking down on all the sights, so sometimes, when they reach a tree, with good solid branches, they rest.
Silence
ELLEN
When I run . . . when I run . . . when I run . . . over the grass . . .
RUMSEY
She floats . . . under me. Floating . . . under me.
ELLEN
I turn. I turn. I wheel. I glide. I wheel. In stunning light. The horizon moves from the sun. I am crushed by the light.
Silence
RUMSEY
Sometimes I see people. They walk towards me, no, not so, walk in my direction, but never reaching me, turning left, or disappearing, and then reappearing, to disappear into the wood.
So many ways to lose sight of them, then to recapture sight of them. They are sharp at first sight . . . then smudged . . . then lost . . . then glimpsed again . . . then gone.
BATES
Funny. Sometimes I press my hand on my forehead, calmingly, feel all the dust drain out, let it go, feel the grit slip away. Funny moment. That calm moment.
ELLEN moves to RUMSEY
ELLEN
It's changed. You've painted it. You've made shelves. Everything. It's beautiful.
RUMSEY
Can you remember . . . when you were here last?
ELLEN
Oh yes.
RUMSEY
You were a little girl.
ELLEN
I was.
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RUMSEY
Can you cook now?
ELLEN
Shall I cook for you?
RUMSEY
Yes.
ELLEN
Next time I come. I will.
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RUMSEY
Do you like music?
ELLEN
Yes.
RUMSEY
I'll play you music.
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RUMSEY
Look at your reflection.
ELLEN
Where?
RUMSEY
In the window.
ELLEN
It's very dark outside.
RUMSEY
It's high up.
ELLEN
Does it get darker the higher you get?
RUMSEY
No.
Silence
ELLEN
Around me sits the night. Such a silence. I can hear myself. Cup my ear. My heart beats in my ear. Such a silence. Is it me? Am I silent or speaking? How can I know? Can I know such things? No-one has ever told me. I need to be told things. I seem to be old. Am I old now? No-one will tell me. I must find a person to tell me these things.
BATES
My landlady asks me in for a drink. Stupid conversation. What are you doing here? Why do you live alone? Where do you come from? What do you do with yourself? What kind of life have you had? You seem fit. A bit grumpy. You can smile, surely, at something? Surely you have smiled, at a thing in your life? At something? Has there been no pleasantness in your life? No kind of loveliness in your life? Are you nothing but a childish old man, suffocating himself?
I've had all that. I've got all that. I said.
ELLEN
He sat me on his knee, by the window, and asked if he could kiss my right cheek. I nodded he could. He did. Then he asked, if, having kissed my right, he could do the same with my left. I said yes. He did.
Silence
RUMSEY
She was looking down. I couldn't hear what she said.
BATES
I can't hear you. Yes you can, I said.
RUMSEY
What are you saying? Look at me, she said.
BATES
I didn't. I didn't hear you, she said. I didn't hear what you said.
RUMSEY
But I am looking at you. It's your head that's bent.
Silence
BATES
The little girl looked up at me. I said: at night horses are quite happy. They stand about, then after a bit of a time they go to sleep. In the morning they wake up, snort a bit, canter, sometimes, and eat. You've no cause to worry about them.
ELLEN moves to RUMSEY
RUMSEY
Find a young man.
ELLEN
There aren't any.
RUMSEY
Don't be stupid.
ELLEN
I don't like them.
RUMSEY
You're stupid.
ELLEN
I hate them.
Pause
RUMSEY
Find one.
Silence
BATES
For instance, I said, those shapes in the trees, you'll find they're just birds, resting after a long journey.
ELLEN
I go up with the milk. The sky hits me. I walk in this wind to collide with them waiting.
There are two. They halt to laugh and bellow in the yard. They dig and punch and cackle where they stand. They turn to move, look round at me to grin. I turn my eyes from one, and from the other to him.
Silence
BATES
From the young people's room – silence. Sleep? Tender love?
It's of no importance.
Silence
RUMSEY
I walk with my girl who wears—
BATES
Caught a bus to the town. Crowds. Lights round—
Silence
ELLEN
After my work each day I walk back through people but I don't notice them. I'm not in a dream or anything of that sort. On the contrary. I'm quite wide awake to the world around me. But not to the people. There must be something in them to notice, to pay attention to, something of interest in them. In fact I know there is. I'm certain of it. But I pass through them noticing nothing. It is only later, in my room, that I remember. Yes, I remember. But I'm never sure that what I remember is of today or of yesterday or of a long time ago.
And then often it is only half things I remember, half things, beginnings of things.
My drinking companion for the hundredth time asked me if I'd ever been married. This time I told her I had. Yes, I told her I had. Certainly. I can remember the wedding.
Silence
RUMSEY
On good evenings we walk through the hills to the top of the hill past the dogs the clouds racing
ELLEN
Sometimes the wind is so high he does not hear me.
BATES
Brought her into this place, my cousin runs it.
ELLEN
all the blue changes, I'm dizzy
sometimes
Silence
RUMSEY
that the path and the bushes are the same, that the gate is the same
BATES
You cross the field out of darkness.
You arrive.
ELLEN
I turn to them and speak.
Silence
RUMSEY
and watch the folding light.
BATES
and their tittering bitches, and their music, and their love.
ELLEN
They ask me where I come from. I say of course from the country.
Silence
BATES
Come with me tonight.
ELLEN
Where?
BATES
Anywhere. For a walk.
Silence
RUMSEY
My visit, my care, will be like any other visit, any other care.
BATES
I see something in a tree, a shape, a shadow.
Silence
ELLEN
When I run . . .
RUMSEY
Floating . . . under me.
ELLEN
The horizon moves from the sun.
Silence
RUMSEY
They are sharp at first sight . . . then smudged . . . then lost . . . then glimpsed again . . . then gone.
BATES
feel all the dust drain out, let it go,
feel the grit slip away.
ELLEN
I look them in their eyes.
Silence
RUMSEY
It's high up.
ELLEN
Does it get darker the higher you get?
RUMSEY
No.
Silence
ELLEN
Around me sits the night. Such a silence.
BATES
I've had all that. I've got all that. I said.
ELLEN
I nodded he could.
Silence
RUMSEY