Harold Pinter Plays 3
Page 13
The girl herself I considered unimportant. I didn’t think it necessary to go into details. I decided against it.
BETH
The windows were open but we kept the hood up.
Pause
DUFF
Mr Sykes gave a little dinner party that Friday. He complimented you on your cooking and the service.
Pause
Two women. That was all. Never seen them before. Probably his mother and sister.
Pause
They wanted coffee late. I was in bed. I fell asleep. I would have come down to the kitchen to give you a hand but I was too tired.
Pause
But I woke up when you got into bed. You were out on your feet. You were asleep as soon as you hit the pillow. Your body … just fell back.
BETH
He was right. It was desolate. There wasn’t a soul on the beach.
Silence
DUFF
I had a look over the house the other day. I meant to tell you. The dust is bad. We’ll have to polish it up.
Pause
We could go up to the drawing room, open the windows. I could wash the old decanters. We could have a drink up there one evening, if it’s a pleasant evening.
Pause
I think there’s moths. I moved the curtain and they flew out.
Pause
BETH
Of course when I’m older I won’t be the same as I am, I won’t be what I am, my skirts, my long legs, I’ll be older, I won’t be the same.
DUFF
At least now … at least now, I can walk down to the pub in peace and up to the pond in peace, with no-one to nag the shit out of me.
Silence
BETH
All it is, you see … I said … is the lightness of your touch, the lightness of your look, my neck, your eyes, the silence, that is my meaning, the loveliness of my flowers, my hands touching my flowers, that is my meaning.
Pause
I’ve watched other people. I’ve seen them.
Pause
All the cars zooming by. Men with girls at their sides. Bouncing up and down. They’re dolls. They squeak.
Pause
All the people were squeaking in the hotel bar. The girls had long hair. They were smiling.
DUFF
That’s what matters, anyway. We’re together. That’s what matters.
Silence
BETH
But I was up early. There was still plenty to be done and cleared up. I had put the plates in the sink to soak. They had soaked overnight. They were easy to wash. The dog was up. He followed me. Misty morning. Comes from the river.
DUFF
This fellow knew bugger all about beer. He didn’t know I’d been trained as a cellarman. That’s why I could speak with authority.
BETH
I opened the door and went out. There was no-one about. The sun was shining. Wet, I mean wetness, all over the ground.
DUFF
A cellarman is the man responsible. He’s the earliest up in the morning. Give the drayman a hand with the barrels. Down the slide through the cellarflaps. Lower them by rope to the racks. Rock them on the belly, put a rim up them, use balance and leverage, hike them up onto the racks.
BETH
Still misty, but thinner, thinning.
DUFF
The bung is on the vertical, in the bunghole. Spile the bung. Hammer the spile through the centre of the bung. That lets the air through the bung, down the bunghole, lets the beer breathe.
BETH
Wetness all over the air. Sunny. Trees like feathers.
DUFF
Then you hammer the tap in.
BETH
I wore my blue dress.
DUFF
Let it stand for three days. Keep wet sacks over the barrels. Hose the cellar floor daily. Hose the barrels daily.
BETH
It was a beautiful autumn morning.
DUFF
Run water through the pipes to the bar pumps daily.
BETH
I stood in the mist.
DUFF
Pull off. Pull off. Stop pulling just before you get to the dregs. The dregs’ll give you the shits. You’ve got an ullage barrel. Feed the slops back to the ullage barrel, send them back to the brewery.
BETH
In the sun.
DUFF
Dip the barrels daily with a brass rod. Know your gallonage. Chalk it up. Then you’re tidy. Then you never get caught short.
BETH
Then I went back to the kitchen and sat down.
Pause
DUFF
This chap in the pub said he was surprised to hear it. He said he was surprised to hear about hosing the cellar floor. He said he thought most cellars had a thermostatically controlled cooling system. He said he thought keg beer was fed with oxygen through a cylinder. I said I wasn’t talking about keg beer, I was talking about normal draught beer. He said he thought they piped the beer from a tanker into metal containers. I said they may do, but he wasn’t talking about the quality of beer I was. He accepted that point.
Pause
BETH
The dog sat down by me. I stroked him. Through the window I could see down into the valley. I saw children in the valley. They were running through the grass. They ran up the hill.
Long Silence
DUFF
I never saw your face. You were standing by the windows. One of those black nights. A downfall. All I could hear was the rain on the glass, smacking on the glass. You knew I’d come in but you didn’t move. I stood close to you. What were you looking at? It was black outside. I could just see your shape in the window, your reflection. There must have been some kind of light somewhere. Perhaps just your face reflected, lighter than all the rest. I stood close to you. Perhaps you were just thinking, in a dream. Without touching you, I could feel your bottom.
Silence
BETH
I remembered always, in drawing, the basic principles of shadow and light. Objects intercepting the light cast shadows. Shadow is deprivation of light. The shape of the shadow is determined by that of the object. But not always. Not always directly. Sometimes it is only indirectly affected by it. Sometimes the cause of the shadow cannot be found.
Pause
But I always bore in mind the basic principles of drawing.
Pause
So that I never lost track. Or heart.
Pause
DUFF
You used to wear a chain round your waist. On the chain you carried your keys, your thimble, your notebook, your pencil, your scissors.
Pause
You stood in the hall and banged the gong.
Pause
What the bloody hell are you doing banging that bloody gong?
Pause
It’s bullshit. Standing in an empty hall banging a bloody gong. There’s no one to listen. No one’ll hear. There’s not a soul in the house. Except me. There’s nothing for lunch. There’s nothing cooked. No stew. No pie. No greens. No joint. Fuck all.
Pause
BETH
So that I never lost track. Even though, even when, I asked him to turn, to look at me, but be turned to look at me but I couldn’t see his look.
Pause
I couldn’t see whether he was looking at me.
Pause
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.
Pause
So tender his touch on my neck. So softly his kiss on my cheek.
Pause
My hand on his rib.
Pause
So sweetly the sand over me. Tiny the sand on my skin.
Pause
So silent the sky in my eyes. Gently the sound of the tide.
Pause
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.
SILENCE
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 bears 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. Blade roads and girders. She clutching me. This way the way I bring you. Pubs throw the doors smack into the night. Cars 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 to-night?
ELLEN
I don’t know.
Pause
BATES
Come with me to-night.
ELLEN
Where?
BATES
Anywhere. For a walk.
Pause
ELLEN
I don’t want to walk.
BATES
Why not?
Pause
ELLEN
I want to go somewhere else.
Pause
BATES
Where?
ELLEN
I don’t know.
Pause
BATES
What’s wrong with a walk?
ELLEN
I don’t want to walk.
Pause
BATES
What do you want to do?
ELLEN
I don’t know.
Pause
BATES
Do you want to go anywhere else?
ELLEN
Yes.
BATES
Where?
ELLEN
I don’t know.
Pause
BATES
Do you want me to buy you a drink?
ELLEN
No.
Pause
BATES
Come for a walk.
ELLEN
No.
Pause
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 co
me 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.
Pause
RUMSEY
Can you cook now?
ELLEN
Shall I cook for you?
RUMSEY
Yes.
ELLEN
Next time I come. I will.
Pause
RUMSEY
Do you like music?
ELLEN
Yes.
RUMSEY
I’ll play you music.
Pause
RUMSEY
Look at your reflection.
ELLEN