Catastrophe Practice
Page 13
Sophie looks at the audience.
If he were the stream where I was born, and I were fishes —
After a time, Harry holds the pan out to Sophie. Sophie mimes taking a bit of bacon out of the frying pan and putting it in her mouth. She chews. Harry mimes taking a bit of bacon out of the frying pan. He seems to burn his fingers. He waves his hand about. They eat.
After a time the Char, who has been facing the audience, exclaims —
CHAR
Did you see that — !
BARMAN
She hit him — ?
The Char turns to Sophie and Harry.
The Barman leaves the plate-glass window. He goes behind the bar.
They separate —
CHAR
Or die?
BARMAN
Or immediately form another attachment.
Harry and Sophie eat.
Then they mime finishing their breakfast, tidying up, and sitting around as if wondering what to do. Bert speaks as if still half asleep.
BERT
Johnny —
HARRY
Yes?
BERT
Got a job for you —
Bert stretches.
For a nice boy. Just down from the university —
Sophie is reclining on one elbow, as if facing the fire.
Did he or didn’t he do his mother —
Bert stands.
Did or didn’t he have a beard —
Harry is watching Sophie as if he were an artist and she were his model.
Bert calls.
Oi! They’re on the green! They’re getting into government!
He watches Harry.
Their washing’s hanging out!
He waits.
Do you want your children to see it?
Harry mimes as if he might be making a drawing of Sophie.
BERT
You’ve had the girl —
HARRY
That was yesterday —
BERT
You said it was for ever —
Harry mimes putting his drawing-board down.
He looks at Bert.
Bert speaks mockingly.
— Go through that door —
HARRY
— Along a corridor —
BERT
— In through another door —
Harry stands.
He says to Sophie.
HARRY
Don’t move! There are people watching —
Then he speaks to the audience.
The smell down there, honestly!
Waldorf, Smudger and Norbert look up at Harry.
Geordie turns and looks at the audience.
Bert has put his rifle down at the front of the stage, left. He goes to the Barman, takes him by the shoulder, and places him in front of the machine which is covered, right. The Barman stands there as if he were a waxwork.
Bert goes to the Char and takes her behind the bar where he places her with her elbows leaning on it: it is as if she were representing the Barman. Then Bert goes and squats down facing Sophie in the place that Harry has just left.
Harry speaks as if to the Four on the right.
HARRY
What have you been eating, toadstools?
He puts his hands to his head.
Didn’t you hear us tapping?
Waldorf, Smudger and Norbert watch him.
You had food, didn’t you? Wine —
He looks down at the audience.
You were kept alive — Kept animals —
He turns to the back of the stage.
Put your feet exactly where I do.
He begins to move towards the Barman at the back He seems to expect the Four to follow him, but they do not He stops with his back to the audience, one foot in front of the other, as if he were on a tight-rope.
After a time Bert, the Char and the Barman seem to prompt him, mockingly —
BERT
— I wouldn’t be in his shoes — !
CHAR
— You should hear him at night — !
BARMAN
— It’s terrible — !
Harry moves on to the Barman at the back. He stands in front of him.
After a time the Four get up and follow him. Norbert supports Geordie. They move past the plate-glass window as if they are nervous of the light.
Harry speaks facing the Barman. He acts as if he is a guide of a party on a tour.
HARRY
We now come to Napoleon’s tomb. Napoleon was born in 1821, after a distinguished career in the Indian Civil Service —
He waits.
Smudger has put a hand in front of the plate-glass. He looks to the left. There is no shadow.
HARRY
Every time he farted another couple of noughts were knocked off —
Norbert and Geordie have come up behind Harry.
Waldorf and Smudger join them.
HARRY
Note how the rocks are carved into the fantastic shapes of great statesmen.
After a time Harry turns and looks at the shelter, left.
NORBERT
What about suffering children.
HARRY
What about suffering children?
He moves on and stands in front of the Char.
Norbert raises the dust sheet over the machine, quickly, and looks behind it.
Harry speaks facing the Char.
We now come to the hall of mirrors, where everyone sees what they like. The man on the meat hook, with his balls against his eyes —
He stares at the Char.
Geordie cries —
GEORDIE
I saw her!
HARRY
And wherever you go, they follow you. Note the particularly fine modelling round the breast and thighs —
Geordie is looking at the gothic doorway, left.
HARRY
First century A.D. Defaced by early Christians.
Harry moves on. He stands looking down at Sophie and Bert.
Bert is squatting watching Sophie, as Harry had done, as if he were an artist and she were his model.
Waldorf and Smudger have moved across the stage to the gothic door, left. Smudger puts a hand on the handle of the door. Waldorf puts out a hand as if to stop him.
Harry notices them.
Waldorf and Smudger pretend to fight, like fractious children, as if to cover what they have been doing. Then they join Norbert and Geordie, who have followed Harry.
Norbert has taken his hand from Geordie’s shoulder. Geordie has stopped acting as if he were ill.
Harry looks down at Bert and Sophie.
HARRY
The disrobing room, or bridal chamber, in which all opposites are revealed. The warp and the woof. The warp and the woof. And you look for a tennis ball at a depth of six inches. And it is behind your nose all the time. As is the space from the sun to the furthest stars. And if you touch it, it turns to gold. Never before seen in public—
He turns out of the wings, left, and returns with a photographer’s lamp which he sets up on its stand by the group watching Bert and Sophie. He points it down at Sophie.
— And never again.
He takes the wire of the lamp and goes behind the bar and seems to plug it in there. Then he sits on a stool at the bar with his back to the audience. The Four who are round Sophie and Bert watch them as if in uncertainty.
Harry speaks to the Char who is behind the bar.
HARRY
Those old buggers are made of concrete.
The Barman leaves his position in front of the machine and goes and stands in front of the plate-glass window looking up at the flies.
Geordie puts out a hand and touches the photographer’s lamp.
NORBERT
Is he watching?
GEORDIE
No.
Norbert squats down and looks at Sophie. Geordie switches on the lamp.
The lights above the stage go out.
&
nbsp; Sophie reclines in the circle of light.
HARRY
— I had a bus-load, once, going over the Alps —
BARMAN
— And an old lady wanted to pee — ?
Bert stands, stiffly, and joins Harry at the bar.
BERT
— So I said — Milk? Sugar? —
CHAR
— The water’s boiling —
Bert sits with Harry at the bar.
The Char moves from behind the bar. She goes to the shelter of tables and chairs, left, and drags from it, with difficulty, its covering of the original curtain. She drags this over to the Barman, right. They look up at the flies above the plate-glass window.
Waldorf, Smudger and Norbert are squatting on the perimeter of the circle of light, watching Sophie:.
Harry calls out savagely —
HARRY
— Have you got her buttocks in? Her breasts? —
The Barman crosses to the old shelter, left. He takes from this a chair, which he carries over to the Char, right. The Char sits on it. The Barman arranges the old curtain around her as if it were a cloak. Then he stands back and looks at her. It is as if she might be a figure in a church. Harry murmurs —
— Humiliation. Redemption —
BERT
— The names of your dearest friends —
The Four remain squatting around Sophie.
After a time —
SMUDGER
Get hold of her arms —
WALDORF
Put her feet up —
NORBERT
Has she swallowed it?
GEORDIE
What would it have been called.
Sophie kneels, facing front. She puts her hands across her breasts.
SOPHIE
As a matter of fact, they do want some reassurance, you know —
WALDORF
Such as —
SOPHIE
What were you doing last night, the names of your dearest friends —
SMUDGER
Get the head out —
WALDORF
Pin in —
GEORDIE
Do you tell them?
NORBERT
No.
Smudger bends down and puts his ear against Sophie’s stomach —
Waldorf, on his knees, comes behind Sophie and puts his hands on the fastening of her brassiere at the back.
WALDORF
— Nasty slippery things —
SMUDGER
— With moustaches —
Smudger straightens. He takes hold, delicately, of the straps of Sophie’s brassiere from the front. Gently, as if they are defusing a bomb, they try to take off Sophie’s brassiere without disturbing her breasts or arms.
WALDORF
Now —
SMUDGER
Good girl —
WALDORF
A big ’un —
GEORDIE
Begin?
NORBERT
— Big ’un!
They manage to get Sophie’s brassiere off. Smudger holds it up, with finger and thumb, at arm’s length. He stands. He looks at it.
SMUDGER
A cloud —
WALDORF
A camel —
SMUDGER
Two arms —
NORBERT
Two heads?
GEORDIE
And in between?
Smudger moves to the front of the stage as if to drop the brassiere down over the footlights. Waldorf’stands: follows him.
Sophie remains with her arms across her breasts. She is gazing up at the back of the auditorium as if she has seen a vision there.
Geordie is by the lamp.
Norbert remains kneeling.
As Smudger reaches the footlights the brassiere seems to jerk out of his hand: he grabs at it; half catches it; succeeds in tossing it to Waldorf, who catches it.
Then it seems to jerk out of Waldorf’s hand. Waldorf ducks; Smudger ducks; as if a huge bird were flying above them (Waldorf has screwed up the brassiere in his hand.)
Then Waldorf and Smudger straighten, and look out over the audience as if the bird had flown away there.
They are half smiling; as if it had been a game. Geordie and Norbert have remained still.
Sophie remains staring out over the auditorium. In the confusion, Harry has changed places with the Barman, right, so that it is he who is standing in front of the Char, looking down on her.
The Barman has gone behind the bar: then he has gone off stage — if possible without being seen. After a time Geordie turns off the photographer’s lamp. The stage is now lit just by a faint light coming from beyond the plate-glass window.
After a time the Char looks up at Harry.
CHAR
And the girl?
HARRY
Which —
CHAR
Both —
HARRY
Oh she was all right!
He puts his hand in the breast pocket of his overcoat as if to find money or a chequebook.
CHAR
Make it out in the name —
HARRY
Don’t say!
Harry says mockingly —
— A crate of champagne? A donation to your favourite charity?
The Char smiles.
CHAR
Your friends?
Harry moves round stage. He goes in and out of the figures of the others who have remained in the positions they were in when the photographer’s lamp went out.
He acts —
HARRY
— On such a night as this — the fields dirty with snow — the factory chimneys like men’s legs — I and my love have been separated for many a long year —
He looks at the audience —
— I have seen — children with dogs’ heads and fins of fishes —
He looks at Waldorf and Smudger —
— The skull of the observatory — the spire open to the wind —
He looks at Norbert and Geordie —
— The lights in the sky like pin-tables —
He looks at Sophie —
— Five paces to the wire, and five paces back again —
After a time Bert speaks from the bar —
BERT
Harry —
HARRY
Yes?
BERT
Got a cigarette?
Harry feels in his pockets. Then he goes to Bert and mimes holding out a packet.
BERT
You’ll get me into trouble you know!
Bert mimes taking a cigarette.
HARRY
Ah, it’s Christmas —
Bert mimes lighting the cigarette.
Harry mimes putting the packet away. He
watches Bert.
Do you ever see her now?
BERT
Yes, I sometimes see her.
Bert moves from the bar. He bangs his arms about as if he is cold. Then he seems to remember he is supposed to be holding a cigarette. He mimes brushing burning ash off his clothes.
HARRY
Look, when she comes tonight —
BERT
They’re coming tonight?
HARRY
Give us ten minutes —
BERT
Put in a good word for me, will you?
Bert mimes smoking, keeping his hands cupped round the cigarette as if it were after dark and he did not want to be seen.
I don’t agree with what they’re doing here, you know —
HARRY
Why, what are they doing — ?
BERT
Seeds, fertilizers. The lesser for the greater.
Blood and bone —
Harry watches him as if amused.
HARRY
But the news is a little better, don’t you think?
Bert half sings what seems to be a line of a song —
BERT
— I was only under orders —
Harr
y seems to finish the couplet —
HARRY
— And she was over the age of consent —
Bert mimes dropping his cigarette on the ground and stamping on it He looks at the plate-glass, right. He murmurs —
BERT
— Content? Content?
Then he goes over to Sophie who is still kneeling looking over the audience as if she were entranced. He clasps his hands to his head and acts dramatically —
Oh my God! What have they done to you? —
The light from behind the plate-glass becomes brighter. He looks at it.
He acts —
— You must walk — ! Don’t let me down — !
He waits.
The light seems to have become steady.
He murmurs —
And so on.
Then he goes to the old shelter, left, and begins to dismantle it.
After a time the Char stands, taking the old curtain from her shoulders, and kicks it so that it is along the bottom of the plate-glass window. Then she goes to Harry, at the bar, and seems to whisper in his ear.
Harry looks behind the bar. Then he climbs up on the bar and looks underneath it. Then he looks round the stage.
Smudger breaks his pose by the footlights. He goes to the shelter which Bert has been dismantling and takes a chair from it He carries the chair to the back, by the gothic door, where he sits.
Waldorf breaks his pose. He takes a chair from the shelter and follows Smudger and sits.
Geordie and Norbert remain where they are: but they glance at each other, uneasily.
Harry goes and opens the hatch of the food lift and looks down.