Complete Works, Volume IV

by Harold Pinter

  ANNA (Singing.) I get no kick from champagne,

  Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all,

  So tell me why should it be true—

  DEELEY (Singing.) That I get a kick out of you?

  Pause

  ANNA (Singing.) They asked me how I knew

  My true love was true,

  I of course replied,

  Something here inside

  Cannot be denied.

  DEELEY (Singing.) When a lovely flame dies . . .

  ANNA (Singing.) Smoke gets in your eyes.

  Pause

  DEELEY (Singing.) The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations . . .

  Pause

  ANNA (Singing.) The park at evening when the bell has sounded . . .

  Pause

  DEELEY (Singing.) The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses . . .

  ANNA (Singing.) The waiters whistling as the last bar closes . . .

  DEELEY (Singing.) Oh, how the ghost of you clings . . .

  Pause

  They don’t make them like that any more.

  Silence

  What happened to me was this. I popped into a fleapit to see Odd Man Out. Some bloody awful summer afternoon, walking in no direction. I remember thinking there was something familiar about the neighbourhood and suddenly recalled that it was in this very neighbourhood that my father bought me my first tricycle, the only tricycle in fact I ever possessed. Anyway, there was the bicycle shop and there was this fleapit showing Odd Man Out and there were two usherettes standing in the foyer and one of them was stroking her breasts and the other one was saying ‘dirty bitch’ and the one stroking her breasts was saying ‘mmnnn’ with a very sensual relish and smiling at her fellow usherette, so I marched in on this excruciatingly hot summer afternoon in the middle of nowhere and watched Odd Man Out and thought Robert Newton was fantastic. And I still think he was fantastic. And I would commit murder for him, even now. And there was only one other person in the cinema, one other person in the whole of the whole cinema, and there she is. And there she was, very dim, very still, placed more or less I would say at the dead centre of the auditorium. I was off centre and have remained so. And I left when the film was over, noticing, even though James Mason was dead, that the first usherette appeared to be utterly exhausted, and I stood for a moment in the sun, thinking I suppose about something and then this girl came out and I think looked about her and I said wasn’t Robert Newton fantastic, and she said something or other, Christ knows what, but looked at me, and I thought Jesus this is it, I’ve made a catch, this is a trueblue pickup, and when we had sat down in the café with tea she looked into her cup and then up at me and told me she thought Robert Newton was remarkable. So it was Robert Newton who brought us together and it is only Robert Newton who can tear us apart.

  Pause

  ANNA F. J. McCormick was good too.

  DEELEY I know F. J. McCormick was good too. But he didn’t bring us together.

  Pause

  DEELEY You’ve seen the film then?

  ANNA Yes.

  DEELEY When?

  ANNA Oh . . . long ago.

  Pause

  DEELEY (To Kate.) Remember that film?

  KATE Oh yes. Very well.

  Pause

  DEELEY I think I am right in saying the next time we met we held hands. I held her cool hand, as she walked by me, and I said something which made her smile, and she looked at me, didn’t you, flicking her hair back, and I thought she was even more fantastic than Robert Newton.

  Pause

  And then at a slightly later stage our naked bodies met, hers cool, warm, highly agreeable, and I wondered what Robert Newton would think of this. What would he think of this I wondered as I touched her profoundly all over. (To Anna.) What do you think he’d think?

  ANNA I never met Robert Newton but I do know I know what you mean. There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. There are things I remember which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place.

  DEELEY What?

  ANNA This man crying in our room. One night late I returned and found him sobbing, his hand over his face, sitting in the armchair, all crumpled in the armchair and Katey sitting on the bed with a mug of coffee and no one spoke to me, no one spoke, no one looked up. There was nothing I could do. I undressed and switched out the light and got into my bed, the curtains were thin, the light from the street came in, Katey still, on her bed, the man sobbed, the light came in, it flicked the wall, there was a slight breeze, the curtains occasionally shook, there was nothing but sobbing, suddenly it stopped. The man came over to me, quickly, looked down at me, but I would have absolutely nothing to do with him, nothing.

  Pause

  No, no, I’m quite wrong . . . he didn’t move quickly . . . That’s quite wrong . . . he moved . . . very slowly, the light was bad, and stopped. He stood in the centre of the room. He looked at us both, at our beds. Then he turned towards me. He approached my bed. He bent down over me. But I would have nothing to do with him, absolutely nothing.

  Pause

  DEELEY What kind of man was he?

  ANNA But after a while I heard him go out. I heard the front door close, and footsteps in the street, then silence, then the footsteps fade away, and then silence.

  Pause

  But then sometime later in the night I woke up and looked across the room to her bed and saw two shapes.

  DEELEY He’d come back!

  ANNA He was lying across her lap on her bed.

  DEELEY A man in the dark across my wife’s lap?

  Pause

  ANNA But then in the early morning . . . he had gone.

  DEELEY Thank Christ for that.

  ANNA It was as if he had never been.

  DEELEY Of course he’d been. He went twice and came once.

  Pause

  Well, what an exciting story that was.

  Pause

  What did he look like, this fellow?

  ANNA Oh, I never saw his face clearly. I don’t know.

  DEELEY But was he—?

  Kate stands. She goes to a small table, takes a cigarette from a box and lights it. She looks down at Anna.

  KATE You talk of me as if I were dead.

  ANNA No, no, you weren’t dead, you were so lively, so animated, you used to laugh—

  DEELEY Of course you did. I made you smile myself, didn’t I? walking along the street, holding hands. You smiled fit to bust.

  ANNA Yes, she could be so . . . animated.

  DEELEY Animated is no word for it. When she smiled . . . how can I describe it?

  ANNA Her eyes lit up.

  DEELEY I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  Deeley stands, goes to cigarette box, picks it up, smiles at Kate. Kate looks at him, watches him light a cigarette, takes the box from him, crosses to Anna, offers her a cigarette. Anna takes one.

  ANNA You weren’t dead. Ever. In any way.

  KATE I said you talk about me as if I am dead. Now.

  ANNA How can you say that? How can you say that, when I’m looking at you now, seeing you so shyly poised over me, looking down at me—

  DEELEY Stop that!

  Pause

  Kate sits.

  Deeley pours a drink.

  DEELEY Myself I was a student then, juggling with my future, wondering should I bejasus saddle myself with a slip of a girl not long out of her swaddling clothes whose only claim to virtue was silence but who lacked any sense of fixedness, any sense of decisiveness, but was compliant only to the shifting winds, with which she went, but not the winds, and certainly not my winds, such as they are, but I suppose winds that only she understood, and that of course with no understanding whatsoever, at least as I understand the word, at least that’s the way I figured it. A classic female figure, I said to myself, or is it a classic female posture, one way or the other long outworn.

  Pause

  That’s the position as I saw it then. I mean, that
is my categorical pronouncement on the position as I saw it then. Twenty years ago.

  Silence

  ANNA When I heard that Katey was married my heart leapt with joy.

  DEELEY How did the news reach you?

  ANNA From a friend.

  Pause

  Yes, it leapt with joy. Because you see I knew she never did things loosely or carelessly, recklessly. Some people throw a stone into a river to see if the water’s too cold for jumping, others, a few others, will always wait for the ripples before they will jump.

  DEELEY Some people do what? (To Kate.) What did she say?

  ANNA And I knew that Katey would always wait not just for the first emergence of ripple but for the ripples to pervade and pervade the surface, for of course as you know ripples on the surface indicate a shimmering in depth down through every particle of water down to the river bed, but even when she felt that happen, when she was assured it was happening, she still might not jump. But in this case she did jump and I knew therefore she had fallen in love truly and was glad. And I deduced it must also have happened to you.

  DEELEY You mean the ripples?

  ANNA If you like.

  DEELEY Do men ripple too?

  ANNA Some, I would say.

  DEELEY I see.

  Pause

  ANNA And later when I found out the kind of man you were I was doubly delighted because I knew Katey had always been interested in the arts.

  KATE I was interested once in the arts, but I can’t remember now which ones they were.

  ANNA Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our days at the Tate? and how we explored London and all the old churches and all the old buildings, I mean those that were left from the bombing, in the City and south of the river in Lambeth and Greenwich? Oh my goodness. Oh yes. And the Sunday papers! I could never get her away from the review pages. She ravished them, and then insisted we visit that gallery, or this theatre, or that chamber concert, but of course there was so much, so much to see and to hear, in lovely London then, that sometimes we missed things, or had no more money, and so missed some things. For example, I remember one Sunday she said to me, looking up from the paper, come quick, quick, come with me quickly, and we seized our handbags and went, on a bus, to some totally obscure, some totally unfamiliar district and, almost alone, saw a wonderful film called Odd Man Out.

  Silence

  DEELEY Yes, I do quite a bit of travelling in my job.

  ANNA Do you enjoy it?

  DEELEY Enormously. Enormously.

  ANNA Do you go far?

  DEELEY I travel the globe in my job.

  ANNA And poor Katey when you’re away? What does she do?

  Anna looks at Kate.

  KATE Oh, I continue.

  ANNA Is he away for long periods?

  KATE I think, sometimes. Are you?

  ANNA You leave your wife for such long periods? How can you?

  DEELEY I have to do a lot of travelling in my job.

  ANNA (To Kate.) I think I must come and keep you company when he’s away.

  DEELEY Won’t your husband miss you?

  ANNA Of course. But he would understand.

  DEELEY Does he understand now?

  ANNA Of course.

  DEELEY We had a vegetarian dish prepared for him.

  ANNA He’s not a vegetarian. In fact he’s something of a gourmet. We live in a rather fine villa and have done so for many years. It’s very high up, on the cliffs.

  DEELEY You eat well up there, eh?

  ANNA I would say so, yes.

  DEELEY Yes, I know Sicily slightly. Just slightly. Taormina. Do you live in Taormina?

  ANNA Just outside.

  DEELEY Just outside, yes. Very high up. Yes, I’ve probably caught a glimpse of your villa.

  Pause

  My work took me to Sicily. My work concerns itself with life all over, you see, in every part of the globe. With people all over the globe. I use the word globe because the word world possesses emotional political sociological and psychological pretensions and resonances which I prefer as a matter of choice to do without, or shall I say to steer clear of, or if you like to reject. How’s the yacht?

  ANNA Oh, very well.

  DEELEY Captain steer a straight course?

  ANNA As straight as we wish, when we wish it.

  DEELEY Don’t you find England damp, returning?

  ANNA Rather beguilingly so.

  DEELEY Rather beguilingly so? (To himself.) What the hell does she mean by that?

  Pause

  Well, any time your husband finds himself in this direction my little wife will be only too glad to put the old pot on the old gas stove and dish him up something luscious if not voluptuous. No trouble.

  Pause

  I suppose his business interests kept him from making the trip. What’s his name? Gian Carlo or Per Paulo?

  KATE (To Anna.) Do you have marble floors?

  ANNA Yes.

  KATE Do you walk in bare feet on them?

  ANNA Yes. But I wear sandals on the terrace, because it can be rather severe on the soles.

  KATE The sun, you mean? The heat.

  ANNA Yes.

  DEELEY I had a great crew in Sicily. A marvellous cameraman. Irving Shultz. Best in the business. We took a pretty austere look at the women in black. The little old women in black. I wrote the film and directed it. My name is Orson Welles.

  KATE (To Anna.) Do you drink orange juice on your terrace in the morning, and bullshots at sunset, and look down at the sea?

  ANNA Sometimes, yes.

  DEELEY As a matter of fact I am at the top of my profession, as a matter of fact, and I have indeed been associated with substantial numbers of articulate and sensitive people, mainly prostitutes of all kinds.

  KATE (To Anna.) And do you like the Sicilian people?

  DEELEY I’ve been there. There’s nothing more to see, there’s nothing more to investigate, nothing. There’s nothing more in Sicily to investigate.

  KATE (To Anna.) Do you like the Sicilian people?

  Anna stares at her.

  Silence

  ANNA (Quietly.) Don’t let’s go out tonight, don’t let’s go anywhere tonight, let’s stay in. I’ll cook something, you can wash your hair, you can relax, we’ll put on some records.

  KATE Oh, I don’t know. We could go out

  ANNA Why do you want to go out?

  KATE We could walk across the park.

  ANNA The park is dirty at night, all sorts of horrible people, men hiding behind trees and women with terrible voices, they scream at you as you go past, and people come out suddenly from behind trees and bushes and there are shadows everywhere and there are policemen, and you’ll have a horrible walk, and you’ll see all the traffic and the noise of the traffic and you’ll see all the hotels, and you know you hate looking through all those swing doors, you hate it, to see all that, all those people in the lights in the lobbies all talking and moving and all the chandeliers . . .

  Pause

  You’ll only want to come home if you go out. You’ll want to run home . . . and into your room . . .

  Pause

  KATE What shall we do then?

  ANNA Stay in. Shall I read to you? Would you like that?

  KATE I don’t know.

  Pause

  ANNA Are you hungry?

  KATE No.

  DEELEY Hungry? After that casserole?

  Pause

  KATE What shall I wear tomorrow? I can’t make up my mind.

  ANNA Wear your green.

  KATE I haven’t got the right top.

  ANNA You have. You have your turquoise blouse.

  KATE Do they go?

  ANNA Yes, they do go. Of course they go.

  KATE I’ll try it.

  Pause

  ANNA Would you like me to ask someone over?

  KATE Who?

  ANNA Charley . . . or Jake?

  KATE I don’t like Jake.

  ANNA Well, Charley . . . or . . .
r />   KATE Who?

  ANNA McCabe.

  Pause

  KATE I’ll think about it in the bath.

  ANNA Shall I run your bath for you?

  KATE (Standing.) No. I’ll run it myself tonight.

  Kate slowly walks to the bedroom door, goes out, closes it.

  Deeley stands looking at Anna.

  Anna turns her head towards him.

  They look at each other.

  FADE

  ACT TWO

  The bedroom.

  A long window up centre. Door to bathroom up left. Door to sitting-room up right.

  Two divans. An armchair.

  The divans and armchair are disposed in precisely the same relation to each other as the furniture in the first act, but in reversed positions.

  Lights dim. Anna discerned sitting on divan. Faint glow from glass panel in bathroom door.

  Silence.

  Lights up. The other door opens. Deeley comes in with tray.

  Deeley comes into the room, places the tray on a table.

  DEELEY Here we are. Good and hot. Good and strong and hot. You prefer it white with sugar, I believe?

  ANNA Please.

  DEELEY (Pouring.) Good and strong and hot with white and sugar.

  He hands her the cup.

  Like the room?

  ANNA Yes.

  DEELEY We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It’s the castors that make all this possible.

  He sits with coffee.

  Yes, I remember you quite clearly from The Wayfarers.

  ANNA The what?

  DEELEY The Wayfarers Tavern, just off the Brompton Road.

  ANNA When was that?

  DEELEY Years ago.

  ANNA I don’t think so.

  DEELEY Oh yes, it was you, no question. I never forget a face. You sat in the corner, quite often, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. And here you are, sitting in my house in the country. The same woman. Incredible. Fellow called Luke used to go in there. You knew him.

  ANNA Luke?

  DEELEY Big chap. Ginger hair. Ginger beard.

  ANNA I don’t honestly think so.

  DEELEY Yes, a whole crowd of them, poets, stunt men, jockeys, standup comedians, that kind of setup. You used to wear a scarf, that’s right, a black scarf, and a black sweater, and a skirt.