MRS B.: Yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: So she started to come down on Thursdays. I didn’t know she was coming down on Thursdays until one day I met her in the butcher.
MRS B.: Oh yes.
MRS A.: It wasn’t my day for the butcher, I don’t go to the butcher on Thursdays.
MRS B.: No, I know. (Pause.)
MRS A.: I go on Friday.
MRS B.: Yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: That’s where I see you.
MRS B.: Yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: You’re always in there on Fridays.
MRS B.: Oh yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: But I happened to go in for a bit of meat, it turned out to be a Thursday. I wasn’t going in for my usual weekly on Friday. I just slipped in, the day before.
MRS B.: Yes.
MRS A.: That was the first time I found out she couldn’t find a butcher up there, so she decided to come back here, once a week, to her own butcher.
MRS B.: Yes.
MRS A.: She came on Thursday so she’d be able to get meat for the weekend. Lasted her till Monday, then from Monday to Thursday they’d have fish. She can always buy cold meat, if they want a change.
MRS B.: Oh yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: So I told her to come in when she came down after she’d been to the butcher’s and I’d put a kettle on. So she did. (Pause.)
MRS B.: Yes. (Pause.)
MRS A.: It was funny because she always used to come in Wednesdays. (Pause.) Still, it made a break. (Long pause.)
MRS B.: She doesn’t come in no more, does she? (Pause.)
MRS A.: She comes in. She doesn’t come in so much, but she comes in. (Pause.)
MRS B.: I thought she didn’t come in. (Pause.)
MRS A.:She comes in. (Pause.) She just doesn’t come in so much. That’s all.
APPLICANT
An office. LAMB, a young man, eager, cheerful, enthusiastic, is striding nervously, alone. The door opens. MISS PIFFS comes in. She is the essence of efficiency.
PIFFS: Ah, good morning.
LAMB: Oh, good morning, miss.
PIFFS: Are you Mr. Lamb?
LAMB: That’s right.
PIFFS [studying a sheet of paper]: Yes. You’re applying for this vacant post, aren’t you?
LAMB: I am actually, yes.
PIFFS: Are you a physicist?
LAMB: Oh yes, indeed. It’s my whole life.
PIFFS [languidly]: Good. Now our procedure is, that before we discuss the applicant’s qualifications we like to subject him to a little test to determine his psychological suitability. You’ve no objection?
LAMB: Oh, good heavens, no.
PIFFS: Jolly good.
MISS PIFFS has taken some objects out of a drawer and goes to LAMB. She places a chair for him.
PIFFS: Please sit down. [He sits.] Can I fit these to your palms?
LAMB [affably]: What are they?
PIFFS: Electrodes.
LAMB: Oh yes, of course. Funny little things.
She attaches them to his palms.
PIFFS: Now the earphones.
She attaches earphones to his head.
LAMB: I say how amusing.
PIFFS: Now I plug in.
She plugs in to the wall.
LAMB [a trifle nervously]: Plug in, do you? Oh yes, of course. Yes, you’d have to, wouldn’t you?
MISS PIFFS perches on a high stool and looks down on LAMB.
This help to determine my … my suitability does it?
PIFFS: Unquestionably. Now relax. Just relax. Don’t think about a thing.
LAMB: No.
PIFFS: Relax completely. Rela-a-a-x. Quite relaxed?
LAMB nods. MISS PIFFS presses a button on the side of her stool. A piercing high pitched buzz-hum is heard, LAMB jolts rigid. His hands go to his earphones. He is propelled from the chair. He tries to crawl under the chair. MISS PIFFS watches, impassive. The noise stops. LAMB peeps out from under the chair, crawls out, stands, twitches, emits a short chuckle and collapses in the chair.
PIFFS: Would you say you were an excitable person?
LAMB: Not—not unduly, no. Of course, I—
PIFFS: Would you say you were a moody person?
LAMB: Moody? No, I wouldn’t say I was moody—well, sometimes occasionally I—
PIFFS: Do you ever get fits of depression?
LAMB: Well, I wouldn’t call them depression exactly—
PIFFS: Do you often do things you regret in the morning?
LAMB: Regret? Things I regret? Well, it depends what you mean by often, really—I mean when you say often—
PIFFS: Are you often puzzled by women?
LAMB: Women?
PIFFS: Men.
LAMB: Men? Well, I was just going to answer the question about women—
PIFFS: Do you often feel puzzled?
LAMB: Puzzled?
PIFFS: By women.
LAMB: Women?
PIFFS: Men.
LAMB: Oh, now just a minute, I … Look, do you want separate answers or a joint answer?
PIFFS: After your day’s work do you ever feel tired? Edgy? Fretty? Irritable? At a loose end? Morose? Frustrated? Morbid? Unable to concentrate? Unable to sleep? Unable to eat? Unable to remain seated? Unable to remain up right? Lustful? Indolent? On heat? Randy? Full of desire? Full of energy? Full of dread? Drained? of energy, of dread? of desire?
Pause.
LAMB [thinking]: Well, it’s difficult to say really …
PIFFS: Are you a good mixer?
LAMB: Well, you’ve touched on quite an interesting point there—
PIFFS: Do you suffer from eczema, listlessness, or felling coat?
LAMB: Er …
PIFFS: Are you virgo intacta?
LAMB: I beg your pardon?
PIFFS: Are you virgo intacta?
LAMB: Oh, I say, that’s rather embarrassing. I mean—in front of a lady—
PIFFS: Are you virgo intacta?
LAMB: Yes, I am, actually. I’ll make no secret of it.
PIFFS: Have you always been virgo intacta?
LAMB: Oh yes, always. Always.
PIFFS: From the word go?
LAMB: Go? Oh yes, from the word go.
PIFFS: Do women frighten you?
She presses a button on the other side of her stool. The stage is plunged into redness, which flashes on and off in time with her questions.
PIFFS [building]: Their clothes? Their shoes? Their voices? Their laughter? Their stares? Their way of walking? Their way of sitting? Their way of smiling? Their way of talking? Their mouths? Their hands? Their feet? Their shins? Their thighs? Their knees? Their eyes? Their [Drumbeat]. Their [Drumbeat]. Their [Cymbal bang]. Their [Trombone chord]. Their [Bass note].
LAMB [in a high voice]. Well it depends what you mean really—
The light still flashes. She presses the other button and the piercing buzz-hum is heard again. LAMB’S hands go to his earphones. He is propelled from the chair, falls, rolls, crawls, totters and collapses.
Silence.
He lies face upwards. MISS PIFFS looks at him then walks to LAMB and bends over him.
PIFFS: Thank you very much, Mr. Lamb. We’ll let you know.
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEWER: Well, Mr. Jakes, how would you say things are in the pornographic book trade?
JAKES: I make 200 a week.
INTERVIEWER: 200?
JAKES: Yes, I make round about 200 a week at it.
INTERVIEWER: I see. So how would you say things were in the pornographic book trade?
JAKES: Oh, only fair.
INTERVIEWER: Only fair?
JAKES: Fair to middling.
INTERVIEWER: Why would you say that, Mr. Jakes?
JAKES: Well, it’s got a lot to do with Xmas, between you and me.
INTERVIEWER: Xmas?
JAKES: Yes, well what happens is, you see, is that the trade takes a bit of a bashing round about Xmas time. Takes a good few months to recover from Xmas time, the pornographic book trade
does.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.
JAKES: Yes, what’s got something to do with it is, you see, that you don’t get all that many people sending pornographic books for Xmas presents. I mean, you get a few, of course, but not all that many. No, we can’t really say that people in our trade get much benefit from the Xmas spirit, if you know what I mean.
INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Jakes.
JAKES: Well, there you are. We make the best of it. (Pause.) I mean I put a sprig of holly … here and there … I put holly up all over the shop, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. (Pause.)
INTERVIEWER: What sort of people do you get in your shop, Mr. Jakes?
JAKES: I beg your pardon?
INTERVIEWER: What sort of people do you get in your shop?
JAKES: I’d rather not answer that question, thanks.
INTERVIEWER: Why not?
JAKES: I should think the security police could tell you a thing or two about that.
INTERVIEWER: Security police?
JAKES: Yes. They’ve got their dossiers, don’t you worry about that.
INTERVIEWER: But we have no security police in this country.
JAKES: Don’t you? You’d be surprised. They know all about it, take it from me. I’ve seen their dossiers.
INTERVIEWER: You’ve seen their dossiers?
JAKES: Dossiers? I’ve looked at more of their dossiers than you’ve had nights off.
INTERVIEWER: I see. Well, perhaps we’d better pass on to another question.
JAKES: Dossiers? I’ve been there morning and afternoon checking over their dossiers, identifying my customers, identifying their photographs right into the middle of the night, right into the middle of their dossiers.
INTERVIEWER: I had no idea –
JAKES: We’ve got them all taped in the pornographic book trade, don’t you worry about that.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, well –
JAKES: You’ve no need to become anxious about that.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Jakes –
JAKES: Every single individual that passes through my door goes out.
INTERVIEWER: What?
JAKES: Every single dirty-minded individual that passes through my door goes straight out again. As soon as he’s chosen his fancy – out he goes.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t … keep them in?
JAKES: Keep them in! Never! I wouldn’t keep one of them in my own little pornographic bookshop, not me. Not that they haven’t begged, mind you. Begged. They’ve gone down on their bended knees and begged me to allow them to stay the night in the backroom, in the punishment section. Not me. Not since I got the word.
INTERVIEWER: I think perhaps –
JAKES (confidentially): You don’t think the security police are the only people who’ve got dossiers, do you?
INTERVIEWER: No, I’m sure –
JAKES: You don’t think that, do you? Get out of it. I’m up half the night doing my dossiers! I’ve got one on every single member of my clientele. And the day’s coming, my boy, I can tell you.
INTERVIEWER: Coming?
JAKES: We’re going to hold a special exhibition, see? We’ll have them all in there, white in the face, peeping, peering, sweating, showing me false credentials to get to the top shelf, and then at a given moment we lock the doors and turn the floodlights on. And then we’ll have them all revealed for what they are.
INTERVIEWER: What … are they?
JAKES: They’re all the same, every single one of them. COMMUNISTS.
DIALOGUE FOR THREE
1ST MAN: Did I ever tell you about the woman in the blue dress? I met her in Casablanca. She was a spy. A spy in a blue dress. That woman was an agent for another power. She was tattooed on her belly with a pelican. Her belly was covered with a pelican. She could make that pelican waddle across the room to you. On all fours, sideways, feet first, arseupwards, any way you like. Her control was superhuman. Only a woman could possess it. Under her blue dress she wore a shimmy. And under her shimmy she wore a pelican.
2ND MAN: The snow has turned to slush.
1ST MAN: The temperature must have dropped.
WOMAN: Sometimes I think I’m not feminine enough for you.
1ST MAN: You are.
WOMAN: Or do you think I should be more feminine?
1ST MAN: No.
WOMAN: Perhaps I should be more masculine.
1ST MAN: Certainly not.
WOMAN: You think I’m too feminine?
1ST MAN: No.
WOMAN: If I didn’t love you so much it wouldn’t matter. Do you remember the first time we met? On the beach? In the night? All those people? And the bonfire? And the waves? And the spray? And the mist? And the moon? Everyone dancing, somersaulting, laughing? And you – standing silent, staring at a sandcastle in your sheer white trunks. The moon was behind you, in front of you, all over you, suffusing you, consuming you, you were transparent, translucent, a beacon. I was struck dumb, dumbstruck. Water rose up my legs. I could not move. I was rigid. Immovable. Our eyes met. Love at first sight. I held your gaze. And in your eyes, bold and unashamed, was desire. Brutal, demanding desire. Bestial, ruthless, remorseless. I stood there magnetised, hypnotised. Transfixed. Motionless and still. A spider caught in a web.
1ST MAN (to 2ND MAN): You know who you remind me of? You remind me of Whipper Wallace, back in the good old days. He used to knock about with a chap called House Peters. Boghouse Peters we used to call him. I remember one day Whipper and Boghouse – he had a scar on his left cheek, Boghouse, caught in some boghouse brawl, I suppose – well, anyway, there they were, the Whipper and Boghouse, rolling down by the banks of the Euphrates this night, when up came a policeman …… up came this policeman …… up came a policeman …… this policeman …… approached …… Boghouse …… and the Whipper …… were questioned ……this night …… the Euphrates …… a policeman …..
TEA PARTY
(Short Story)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I wrote this short story in 1963, and in 1964 was commissioned by the B.B.C. to write a play for the European Broadcasting Union. I decided to treat the same subject in play form. In my view, the story is the more successful.
H.P.
TEA PARTY
My eyes are worse.
My physician is an inch under six feet. There is a grey strip in his hair, one, no more. He has a brown stain on his left cheek. His lampshades are dark blue drums. Each has a golden rim. They are identical. There is a deep black burn in his Indian carpet. His staff is bespectacled, to a woman. Through the blinds I hear the birds of his garden. Sometimes his wife appears, in white.
He is clearly sceptical on the subject of my eyes. According to him my eyes are normal, perhaps even better than normal. He finds no evidence that my sight is growing worse.
My eyes are worse. It is not that I do not see. I do see.
My job goes well. My family and I remain close friends. My two sons are my closest friends. My wife is closer. I am close friends with all my family, including my mother and my father. Often we sit and listen to Bach. When I go to Scotland I take them with me. My wife’s brother came once, and was useful on the trip.
I have my hobbies, one of which is using a hammer and nails, or a screwdriver and screws, or various saws, on wood, constructing things or making things useful, finding a use for an object which appears to have no value. But it is not so easy to do this when you see double, or when you are blinded by the object, or when you do not see at all, or when you are blinded by the object.
My wife is happy. I use my imagination in bed. We love with the light on. I watch her closely, she watches me. In the morning her eyes shine. I can see them shining through her spectacles.
All winter the skies were bright. Rain fell at night. In the morning the skies were bright. My backhand flip was my strongest weapon. Taking position to face my wife’s brother, across the dear table, my bat lightly clasped, my wrist flexing, I waited to loosen my flip to his for
ehand, watch him (shocked) dart and be beaten, flounder and sulk. My forehand was not so powerful, so swift. Predictably, he attacked my forehand. There was a ringing sound in the room, a rubber sound in the walls. Predictably, he attacked my forehand. But once far to the right on my forehand, and my weight genuinely disposed, I could employ my backhand flip, unanswerable, watch him flounder, skid and be beaten. They were close games. But it is not now so easy when you see the pingpong ball double, or do not see it at all or when, hurtling towards you at speed, the ball blinds you.
I am pleased with my secretary. She knows the business well and loves it. She is trustworthy. She makes calls to Newcastle and Birmingham on my behalf and is never fobbed off. She is respected on the telephone. Her voice is persuasive. My partner and I agree that she is of inestimable value to us. My partner and my wife often discuss her when the three of us meet for coffee or drinks. Neither of them, when discussing Wendy, can speak highly enough of her.
On bright days, of which there are many, I pull the blinds in my office in order to dictate. Often I touch her swelling body. She reads back, flips the page. She makes a telephone call to Birmingham. Even were I, while she speaks (holding the receiver lightly, her other hand poised for notes), to touch her swelling body, her call would still be followed to its conclusion. It is she who bandages my eyes, while I touch her swelling body.
I do not remember being like my sons in any way when I was a boy. Their reserve is remarkable. They seem stirred by no passion. They sit silent. An odd mutter passes between them. I can’t hear you, what are you saying, speak up, I say. My wife says the same. I can’t hear you, what are you saying, speak up. They are of an age. They work well at school, it appears. But at pingpong both are duds. As a boy I was wide awake, of passionate interests, voluble, responsive, and my eyesight was excellent. They resemble me in no way. Their eyes are glazed and evasive behind their spectacles.
My brother in law was best man at our wedding. None of my friends were at that time in the country. My closest friend, who was the natural choice, was called away suddenly on business. To his great regret, he was therefore forced to opt out. He had prepared a superb speech in honour of the groom, to be delivered at the reception. My brother in law could not of course himself deliver it, since it referred to the longstanding friendship which existed between Atkins and myself, and my brother in law knew little of me. He was therefore confronted with a difficult problem. He solved it by making his sister his central point of reference. I still have the present he gave me, a carved pencil sharpener, from Bali.
Harold Pinter Plays 3 Page 15
