Catastrophe Practice

by Nicholas Mosley

  The Hostess moves towards the gothic door; then stops and looks back at Harry.

  Waldorf, Geordie, Smudger and Norbert have settled down round the table, right. They repeat, as if jokingly —

  SMUDGER

  Smudger —

  WALDORF

  Waldorf —

  SMUDGER

  Nobby —

  WALDORF

  Wally —

  GEORDIE

  Geordie —

  SMUDGER

  Smudger —

  NORBERT

  Nobby —

  GEORDIE

  George —

  They stop.

  There is suddenly deafening music (a military march) from the machine as if it were a juke box. Harry puts his hands over his ears.

  The Hostess goes out through the gothic door, left.

  The Four sit round their table, right, and seem to confer, quickly, amongst themselves, under cover of the music.

  The Barman has gone behind the bar. He pulls the electric plug out.

  The music stops.

  The Four at the table stop talking.

  Harry remains with his hands over his ears. After a time the Four at the table, right, speak as if in a comic routine they have learned.

  WALDORF

  — Where’s the child —

  SMUDGER

  — Where’s the car —

  NORBERT

  — Where’s the money —

  GEORDIE

  — At the airport.

  Norbert lifts the radio from the floor on to the table. He pulls up the aerial, carefully. The Four continue to talk as if in obviously assumed voices.

  SMUDGER

  — I’ll be at the second milestone —

  WALDORF

  — I’ll be at the fourth —

  GEORDIE

  — Then run —

  WALDORF

  — I can’t —

  NORBERT

  — Why not —

  WALDORF

  — Arthritis.

  Norbert has put an ear to the radio. He seems to be tuning it.

  The Barman has been watching the Four at the table. He glances at the Char, who has turned to look at him.

  Harry takes his hands away from his ears. He looks at the Barman.

  After a time the Barman begins to shake up and down as if he were on a train. He comes from behind the bar as if moving down a corridor. He takes a pad and pencil from his pocket and stands by the table, right.

  He watches Norbert who seems to be tuning the radio. He seems to be trying to see what Norbert is doing.

  BARMAN

  You know, in the old days, they took on water south of Carlisle. There was a trough. A little nozzle —

  He jerks his hips forwards and holds his behind.

  Do you mind!

  Norbert looks up at him.

  Harry looks at the Char. The Char looks at Harry. The Barman bends down to the radio: he shouts as if into it —

  — How’re you doin’ Nob, all right?

  He seems to listen to the radio.

  Then he shouts again —

  — Wife and kids?

  Geordie answers as if for Norbert.

  GEORDIE

  All right.

  The Barman straightens. He moves back, walking ordinarily, to the machine at the right of the bar. He murmurs to Harry —

  BARMAN

  Know how the post office works? The telephone — ?

  He touches the machine. A green light comes on.

  He turns to the audience.

  There are these particles, see, going through you all the time. Like seeds. Like parachutes —

  He waits.

  He seems to quote —

  — And where were you on the night of the thirteenth —

  HARRY

  I don’t know —

  BARMAN

  But you would if you were —

  HARRY

  What —

  There are three flashes from the machine, as if it were taking photographs.

  The Barman waits.

  The Four, at the table, right, talk in turn into the radio — as if it were a microphone, and they were establishing through it, by code, a programme in a computer.

  SMUDGER

  — I’m interested in the marketing of these self-reversing spectacles —

  GEORDIE

  — Actually, on my way here, I saw a cloud in the shape of a bird —

  WALDORF

  — When we came to the barricade against its soft grey walls we battered —

  NORBERT

  — There were not many left to tell the tale.

  After Norbert has spoken, it is as if the programme has been set.

  The Four move back slightly from the radio. The Barman, at the bar, speaks facing the audience —

  BARMAN

  There was a young couple lived here after the war —

  Harry speaks watching the machine.

  HARRY

  What did they do —

  BARMAN

  Worked in the fields. Kept animals.

  The Char, at the table, left, bends down, and picks up off the floor the piece of paper from the machine that the Barman and Harry have earlier discarded She seems to read it. Then puts it in her pocket.

  BARMAN

  What did you call them —

  HARRY

  Spot. Beauty.

  BARMAN

  Aeroplanes flew over —

  HARRY

  We shot one down —

  BARMAN

  What with —

  HARRY

  Ack Ack —

  The Char seems to be trying to look under the table, right, where the Four have put their bags. Then the green light on the machine goes out. The Barman goes to it and takes from a slot what seems to be a set of photographs. He looks at them.

  HARRY

  They’d lost their child.

  BARMAN

  It was in its pram —

  HARRY

  There was a bomb. Or was it crossing the road —

  BARMAN

  How can God let such a thing happen?

  HARRY

  You believe in God?

  BARMAN

  If I say no —

  HARRY

  Then what’s the difference.

  The Barman comes to the counter. He pushes across to Harry what seems to be the set of photographs.

  Harry takes them: turns them this way and that. Then he stands, looks round on the floor. He speaks while he searches.

  HARRY

  On a temporary overflow airport, put up to be out of the likelihood of fog, there met, for the purposes of history, four travellers, or representatives, of the antique style —

  He seems to be looking for the piece of paper he has earlier discarded.

  — Taffy Evans, Smudger Smith, Nobby Clark and Geordie —

  He looks at the audience.

  — Also undercover agents, from the liberation army —

  He turns to the gothic doorway, left.

  — It was not known, at this stage, if the mysterious sixth person was with them —

  The Char says to the Four at the table, right —

  CHAR

  Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation —

  The Barman says to Harry —

  BARMAN

  You were meeting her here?

  HARRY

  Yes.

  BARMAN

  When —

  HARRY

  Today.

  Harry looks at the set of photographs he is holding.

  Not only did the negotiators go to their destination blindfold, but their wives were under the impression that they were making arrangements for divorce —

  He throws the set of photographs on to the round. Then he looks at the Char.

  The Four at the table, right, have been acting as if with increasing tension.

  The Char gets up and goes over to them, ca
rrying her chair. She sets her chair down by them. She seems to be trying to see under the table. She acts —

  CHAR

  — My father was a vicar in the West Country. Each morning he’d run down towards the sea. If the seagulls got him, I’d climb into his bed —

  The Four have not made room for her. She is squashed up against them awkwardly.

  — He’d tell me of the great world outside. Of goblins, and dragons —

  She seems to be groping, with her foot, for one of the bags under the table.

  The Barman has been watching her. After a time, he calls out to her —

  BARMAN

  — And you, madam, what did you do in the war —

  CHAR

  — I opened my Bible and my eye fell on one Samuel fifteen —

  BARMAN

  — Is that the same as quarter past Samuel one?

  — He laughs manically.

  Then he leaves the bar and comes to the front of the stage and looks at what the Char is doing. The Char has got hold of one of the bags with her foot.

  The Barman looks at the audience.

  CHAR

  It’s about Agag, who was hacked to pieces.

  She seems to be having difficulty in dragging the bag towards her.

  After a time the Barman acts, as if in panic —

  BARMAN

  It wasn’t like that! No!

  He goes to the centre of the stage and begins to mime, violently, a waiter as if in a Charlie Chaplin film going in and out of swing doors in a restaurant carrying trays.

  He shouts —

  This one — was this one’s —

  He stops, looking at the audience. He speaks as if in despair —

  — this one —

  Then he seems to avoid, just in time, someone coming the other way —

  — in this one’s —

  He seems just to avoid the door again. Then it is as if a door hits him in the face. He staggers: collapses in front of, almost on top of, the table, right, where the Four and the Char are sitting. The Char, with a foot, manages to push the bag at her feet towards him so that it is in front of him when he falls.

  He speaks quietly, facing the audience —

  — official residence!

  Lying on his side, the Barman unzips the bag and feels inside quickly. Then he becomes still. He stares at the audience.

  Smudger begins to sing in a quiet voice —

  SMUDGER

  I was walking down the street and I was walking down the street and I wanted a cup of tea and I wanted a cup of tea —

  He puts one of the briefcases by the radio on the table.

  Geordie stands.

  GEORDIE

  — Pip! Pip! —

  Waldorf moves towards the plate-glass door, singing quietly —

  WALDORF

  — And I poured two spoonfuls into the pot, and I poured some water into the pot —

  He stops by the plate-glass door.

  Smudger puts the other briefcase on the table.

  NORBERT

  — Boom boom —

  Smudger goes and joins Waldorf by the glass door.

  GEORDIE

  Don’t look now, but we’re outside our own hotel, Daddy —

  Geordie and Norbert have stood. They move towards the plate-glass door.

  They have left the case by the radio on the table. It is as if the case might contain a bomb, which might be about to be set off by the radio.

  The Barman erupts into activity. He hurls the bag that he is holding towards the door, right. Smudger catches it. Then the Barman hurls himself on the Char and knocks her off her chair and lies on top of her on the ground. Then he jumps up and takes the other bags and briefcases and throws them to the Four by the door. They catch them. Then the Barman picks up the radio. He looks around as if to see where to throw it. He turns to Harry. Harry has his back to him; he is watching the gothic door, left. The Barman acts with decreasing assurance. After a time he puts the radio down at the very front of the stage. Then he lies on top of the Char again. The Four by the plate-glass window stand holding their suitcases.

  After a time Harry walks round the stage as if trying to re-establish the scene.

  HARRY

  The anaesthetist was here. Walls of dull grey steel. Curtains of stone. Forty years in the hospital service. Married. With children. Taking a whiff every now and then. To keep up appearances —

  He stops by the Barman and the Char.

  After a time the Barman stands up; dusts himself.

  Rats ran in their cages. Connections between the cortex and the ground —

  Harry waits.

  The Char stands up: dusts herself.

  The sister was here. With her strong brown arms. For the crowds at the railway station. The seeds in the wind —

  The Char goes and sits on a chair, left.

  Harry turns to the gothic door.

  The surgeon was here. Saw a gap in the clouds. Took aim —

  He remains watching the gothic door.

  After a time —

  And the students. The eternal trump cards. With their strings of sausages —

  He turns to the Four by the plate-glass.

  After a time he continues —

  Oh God, let it not have two arms, two heads —

  He waits.

  Let it have three.

  The gothic door opens, left, and the Hostess comes in. She leads by the hand Bert, a tall young man in white overalls. She is the younger, original Hostess. She leads Bert towards the centre of the stage. Then she stretches up and kisses him. Then she looks at Harry.

  Harry watches her.

  The Barman has gone behind the bar. He tidies up bottles.

  After a time the Four by the window, right, seem to try out, tentatively, ways of establishing communication with Bert.

  WALDORF

  — My dear fellow, did you have trouble getting through? —

  SMUDGER

  — I’m interested in the marketing of these self-reversing spectacles —

  Waldorf has pushed against the glass door, right.

  It seems locked

  GEORDIE

  — Actually, on my way here, I saw a cloud in the shape of a bird —

  NORBERT

  — When they came to the barricades against its soft grey walls —

  The Four move towards the wings, front right, as if they might be looking for somewhere to get out.

  Bert speaks facing the audience.

  BERT

  Johnny —

  HARRY

  Yes?

  BERT

  See any of the old crowd now?

  HARRY

  No.

  BERT

  Taffy or Smudger?

  HARRY

  No.

  Harry is looking at the Hostess.

  Bert is groping for the chair, centre, where the Char is sitting. He appears to be blind.

  The Char gets up. She joins the Barman behind the bar.

  BERT

  Johnny —

  HARRY

  Yes?

  BERT

  Remember the sundial?

  HARRY

  — While there was still time —

  BERT

  And the swing —

  HARRY

  There was a swing?

  BERT

  You went up to the leaves, the shadows —

  HARRY

  I fell, was resurrected —

  BERT

  You were fed and kept alive —

  Bert sits in the chair that the Char has left. Harry puts out a hand to the Hostess. She comes and takes it.

  BERT

  I know a place —

  HARRY

  What —

  BERT

  You know. Young people —

  The Four by the plate-glass have come to the front of the stage, right. They look out at the wings, tentatively.

  Harry and the Hostess seem to quote —
>
  HARRY

  — The more houses they build —

  HOSTESS

  — The more places there are in the evenings —

  HARRY

  — Till we’re all in one room —

  HOSTESS

  — Like a telephone box?

  The Hostess puts her head in her hands, as if embarrassed.

  The Four are watching Harry and the Hostess.

  BERT

  Johnny —

  HARRY

  Yes?

  BERT

  There were two climbers on the north face of the Eiger. They’d scorned the safety net that would take them to the top —

  Harry interrupts —

  HARRY

  Oh both —

  BERT

  What?

  HARRY

  Sorry —

  BERT

  One fell, and dangled on a rope. The other couldn’t lift him. He either had to cut the rope, in which case only one would die —

  He puts a hand to his head.

  After a time —

  HARRY

  Oh, the mother —

  BERT

  Why —

  HARRY

  — had they got married in the first place?

  The Hostess leaves Harry. She goes to the gothic door, left. She turns and looks at the Four, right. Bert speaks as if with increasing difficulty —

  BERT

  A man, on his honeymoon found he wanted his wife to die. The child that was then conceived became a danger to its mother —