Hapgood: A Play

by Tom Stoppard

  You want to talk to Joe - where's Joe, where's Joe?

  (He lifts the red phone now and puts it into her right hand, meanwhile putting the extra earpiece in his ear. HAPGOOD is whimpering and disoriented.)

  HAPGOOD: (Into phone) Hello, where's Joe, I want to talk to Joe - I-Yes-yes-yes-Yes. I heard - can I talk to -

  (RIDLEY relaxes. He takes the phone from her gently and replaces it. The phone call has taken perhaps fifteen seconds. HAPGOOD springs away from the desk, from him, crying, comforting her injured hand.)

  RIDLEY: You were very good!

  HAPGOOD: You bloody maniac!

  (RIDLEY is disconnecting his eavesdrop, replacing everything into his bag.)

  Where's Betty? - is it true about Joe?

  RIDLEY: Yes, it's true. But we'll get him back. Eight hours to kill.

  (RIDLEY retrieves her cigarette from his pocket, lights it and puts it in her mouth. HAPGOOD draws on the cigarette, still shocked, trembling, settling down.)

  You were fine. We can go now. Me first. Count twelve and I'll see you outside.

  (RIDLEY picks up his bag. Carefully he takes away her cigarette, takes a drag himself, and keeps the cigarette. He opens the door.)

  Welcome to the firm.

  (RIDLEY leaves. Left alone, HAPGOOD relaxes, although her hand is still painful. MAGGS enters anxious.)

  MAGGS: Is everything all right, Mrs Hapgood?

  HAPGOOD: Yes, Maggs - everything's fine.

  (She heads through the open door.)

  Queen to king one.

  MAGGS: (Following her out) Queen to king one.

  SCENE 5

  A cheap hotel room. It is evening; dark. Perhaps a neon sign outside. HAPGOOD, fully dressed, has gone to sleep on the bed. RIDLEY stands watching her. Perhaps he is changing into the clothes which he will wear in the next scene. RIDLEY takes out his radio.

  RIDLEY: (To radio) Mother. (No answer.)

  (To radio) Mother.

  (No answer.)

  (Louder to radio) Mother - where the hell are you!

  (HAPGOOD, on the bed has stirred awake.)

  HAPGOOD: How much longer?

  RIDLEY: A couple of hours.

  (He puts his radio away and takes his gun out of his holster and checks it.)

  HAPGOOD: Ernest... I hardly dare ask you this, but is your mother in the secret service too?

  (RIDLEY ignores that. He puts his gun back into the holster.)

  What's that for, Ernie?

  RIDLEY: It's for killing people. It's a gun.

  HAPGOOD: Do you kill people, Ernie?

  RIDLEY: You'll be the second.

  HAPGOOD: I don't like this.

  RIDLEY: Me neither. Somebody's lying to somebody. They're lying to her or she's lying to me.

  HAPGOOD: Would she lie to you, Ernie?

  RIDLEY: Telling lies is Betty's habit, sweetheart - lies, fraud, entrapment, blackmail, sometimes people die, so Betty can know something which the opposition thinks she doesn't know, most of which doesn't matter a fuck, and that's just the half they didn't plant on her - so she's lucky if she comes out better than even, that's the edge she's in it for, and if she's thinking now it wasn't worth one sleepless night for her little prep-school boy, good for her, she had it coming.

  HAPGOOD: Maybe she did.

  RIDLEY: She should have given him a daddy instead of getting her buzz out of running joes to please an old bastard who...

  (a thought strikes him, strikes him as funny) who's been running her for years!

  HAPGOOD: What do you mean, Ernest?

  RIDLEY: Your sister carries a torch. When it came to a choice she traded in a daddy for a joe who would have been blown overnight if he was known to be the father.

  HAPGOOD: Talk English!

  RIDLEY: I'll get her kid back for her but it's only personal. If she's set me up I'll kill her.

  HAPGOOD: You're potty about her, Ernest. I'm disappointed in you. You don't know if you're carrying a torch for her or a gun, no wonder you're confused. You're out on a limb for a boy she put there, while she was making the world safe for him to talk properly in and play the game. What a pal, I should have a friend like you.

  RIDLEY: It's not her fault. Do you think you cracked it taking snaps of fancy junk? She's all right. Anyway, I like kids, and you never know, now and again someone is telling the truth.

  HAPGOOD: You're all right, Ernest. You're just not her type.

  RIDLEY: Yeh, she says I'm not safe. Too damned right I'm not. If I was safe I wouldn't be in a whore's hotel with somebody's auntie waiting for a meet that smells like a dead cat.

  HAPGOOD: Where would you be?

  RIDLEY: Anywhere I like, with a solid gold box for a ticket.

  HAPGOOD: You can walk away, Ernie, it's only skirt.

  RIDLEY: Shut up.

  HAPGOOD: (Cranking up) You'd better be sure, she plays without a board. You haven't got a prayer.

  RIDLEY: Shut up!

  HAPGOOD: If you think she's lying, walk away. If you think bringing back her son will make you her type, walk away. You won't get in the money, women like her don't pay out - take my advice and open the box.

  RIDLEY: (Grabbing her) Who the hell are you?

  HAPGOOD: I'm your dreamgirl, Ernie - Hapgood without the brains or the taste.

  (She is without resistance, and he takes, without the niceties; his kiss looks as if it might draw blood.)

  SCENE 6

  The pool. Night. Empty. A towel hangs over the door of Cubicle One (any cubicle).

  It is dark. RIDLEY (TWO) enters from the lobby carrying a large torch. He looks around with the help of the torch. He moves upstage. We see only the torch now. The torch-beam comes back towards us. RIDLEY (one) walks into the beam. He has come from the showers (depending on the layout). He carries the sports bag. He approaches the torch. The two men embrace briefly. Our RIDLEY remains: The one with the torch retires. (The torch, of course, changed hands upstage - here and subsequently we only clearly see, and only hear, the actor who plays RIDLEY.)

  RIDLEY now opens his holdall, takes out a disc-box and posts it under the door with the towel on it. He removes the towel and enters Cubicle Two. He hangs the towel over that door. HAPGOOD enters from the lobby. She pauses. Timid.

  HAPGOOD: Ernest... ?

  (RIDLEY with the torch, reveals himself.)

  RIDLEY: It's OK. Call the boy.

  (HAPGOOD hesitates.)

  Call the boy. HAPGOOD: Joe...

  JOE: (Out of sight) Mummy... ?

  (He appears from upstage in the cubicle area. HAPGOOD moves to where she can see him.)

  HAPGOOD: Hello, darling. It's all right.

  RIDLEY: Stay there, Joe.

  (JOE halts.)

  Do it.

  (HAPGOOD opens her bag, takes the disc-box from it, and posts it under the door of Cubicle Two (where the towel hangs). She pulls the towel down and tosses it over the door into the cubicle. She comes back to JOE and takes his hand.)

  HAPGOOD: Off we go.

  (HAPGOOD takes JOE out through the lobby doors, followed by RIDLEY. When they have gone RIDLEY (TWO) comes out of Cubicle Two, holding the towel and the disc which HAPGOOD had posted. He takes the towel to Cubicle One, where it had originally hung, and tosses it over the door. The door of the cubicle opens. WATES is inside. WATES has a gun.)

  WATES: (Just conversation) Hey, Ridley. Here's what you do. You walk, you don't talk.

  (WATES walks RIDLEY upstage into the dark cubicle area. Pause. BLAIR comes from upstage and approaches Cubicle One. He takes from the cubicle the disc which had been posted there. BLAIR moves out towards the lobby but before he gets there RIDLEY comes in. RIDLEY is amused.)

  BLAIR: (Greeting) Ridley.

  (RIDLEY laughs.)

  RIDLEY: It never smelled Russian, not for a minute. It smelled of private profit. No wonder the kidnap was so clean. Uncle Paul. What a breeze.

  BLAIR: Except... surely...

  RIDLEY: Except the boy will tell. I'm thinking.


  BLAIR: I should.

  RIDLEY: There was no kidnap.

  BLAIR: Better.

  RIDLEY: There was never any kidnap. You and Hapgood.

  BLAIR: Much better.

  RIDLEY: You and Hapgood. Make it look right, make a mug of me and the sister, and afterwards both of you back in place like china dogs on the mantelpiece.

  BLAIR: Now you've lost me. Something about a sister.

  RIDLEY: The sister is perfect. I know about this. She's here and she's not here.

  BLAIR: I keep thinking you said sister.

  (HAPGOOD has now come in quietly from the lobby.)

  Surely you know Mrs Hapgood?

  RIDLEY: I know her sister better.

  (To HAPGOOD) Don't I?

  (She gives nothing away.)

  Give me a minute, I'm slow.

  (A radio talks, softly, briefly. It is in HAPGOOD's hand. She raises it to her mouth.)

  HAPGOOD: Mother.

  (The radio mutters and stops. She puts the radio in her bag.)

  RIDLEY: Listen, be yourself. These people are not for you, in the end they get it all wrong, the garbage cans are gaping for them. Him most. He's had enough out of you and you're getting nothing back, he's dry and you're the juice. We can walk out of here, Auntie.

  HAPGOOD: You should have opened the box.

  RIDLEY: I could have walked away with it any time and let the boy take his chances. This way you got both, my treat.

  HAPGOOD: There was nothing in there except a bleep. (Pause.)

  RIDLEY: Well, now I don't know which one you are. One of them fucks and one of them -

  HAPGOOD: Don't Ridley -

  (RIDLEY is going to kill her, as promised. Everything goes into slow motion, beginning with and including the sound of HAPGOOD's gun, lasting probably five seconds. RIDLEY has got as far as taking his gun out when HAPGOOD shoots him. Meanwhile, WATES is leaning into view, upstage, slightly late, gun in hand. Strobe lighting. BLAIR doesn't move.

  Meanwhile the cubicles are disappearing, and we are to find ourselves outside rather than inside the lobby doors. If the doors themselves remain the sign 'Men' is no longer reversed. RIDLEY (i.e. his body) is erased along with the cubicles and becomes a body on a stretcher, the face covered by a blanket. The gunshot and the strobe extend through this scene change. At the end of the change we are left with HAPGOOD, BLAIR and WATES, the stretcher with stretcher bearers, and the RIDLEY TWIN, handcuffed, under arrest being led away. RIDLEY, passing the stretcher, manages to look at the face under the blanket. He cries out indistinctly and is led away (by MERRYWEATHER).

  There is the flashing blue light of an ambulance off-stage. All this happens swiftly, continuously from the gunshot.')

  BLAIR: (To WATES angrily) Where were you?

  WATES: I was second, he was third.

  (To HAPGOOD) Oh, you mother.

  BLAIR: (To WATES) I want that ambulance out of here.

  WATES: No rush.

  HAPGOOD: Ben - ? It was the shoulder.

  WATES: No, ma'am.

  HAPGOOD: It was the shoulder.

  WATES: I'm sorry. It's not like targets.

  (Pause. HAPGOOD moves a few paces towards where the stretcher left and then comes back to WATES.)

  HAPGOOD: Ben, thank you for your co-operation.

  (They shake hands.)

  WATES: You bet.

  (WATES leaves.)

  BLAIR: Come on, Elizabeth, Joe's waiting.

  HAPGOOD: We said we'd do it without Joe.

  BLAIR: It had to look right.

  HAPGOOD: You lied to me.

  BLAIR: Without the boy it wouldn't have looked right.

  HAPGOOD: I was willing to risk it. BLAIR: I wasn't.

  HAPGOOD: I'll never forgive you for that, never ever.

  BLAIR: I know that. I knew that.

  HAPGOOD: And what am I supposed to tell him?

  BLAIR: Tell him it's a secret. Small boys understand that.

  HAPGOOD: What do you know about small boys?

  BLAIR: Well, I was one.

  HAPGOOD: Paul-

  BLAIR: No, no, you'll get over it.

  HAPGOOD: No.

  BLAIR: What about your network?

  HAPGOOD: What network?! Ridley's blown it inside out! Christ, Paul, I must have been buying nothing but lies and chickenfeed since Joe was in his pram!

  BLAIR: One has to pick oneself up and carry on. We can't afford to lose. It's them or us, isn't it?

  HAPGOOD: What is? What exactly? The game has moved on. Read the signs. It's over.

  BLAIR: Try telling that to the opposition.

  HAPGOOD: Oh, the KGB! The opposition! Paul we're just keeping each other in business, we should send each other Christmas cards - oh, f-f-fuck it, Paul!

  (So that's that. BLAIR turns away, hesitates and leaves. The next time HAPGOOD moves she is standing by the rugby pitch.)

  SCENE 7

  HAPGOOD stands on the touchline. She isn't looking at much.

  KERNER is standing some way behind her, wearing an overcoat.

  Some rugby sounds.

  KERNER comes down to join her.

  HAPGOOD sees him.

  HAPGOOD: Joseph... You came to say hello?

  KERNER: On the contrary.

  (He looks front, a bit puzzled. Gamely.)

  Interesting.

  HAPGOOD: It hasn't started yet. They're just practising.

  KERNER: Oh yes, which one is he?

  HAPGOOD: (Pointing) New rugby boots. I'm awfully glad to see you.

  KERNER: (Spotting him) Oh, yes.

  HAPGOOD: He'll come over when they take their tracksuits off. I tried to find you this morning.

  KERNER: I was buying my ticket. Also a suitcase.

  HAPGOOD: I heard you've been sending your luggage on ahead for months. Does Paul know why?

  KERNER: (Shrugs) Paul thinks I was a triple, but I was definitely not, I was past that, quadruple at least, maybe quintuple.

  HAPGOOD: They found out about Joe, didn't they? They turned you back again. You made up the truth.

  KERNER: It is nothing to worry, you know.

  HAPGOOD: I'm not worried. I'm out of it now. This is him.

  (JOE runs in, wearing his tracksuit, which he takes off now. His rugger kit is clean. The new boots.)

  JOE: Hello, Mum. H

  APGOOD: Good luck, darling. This is Mr Kerner - Joseph. Another Joe.

  JOE: Hello, sir.

  KERNER: Hello. How are you?

  JOE: All rights'a, thankyous'a.

  (To HAPGOOD) Will you be here after?

  HAPGOOD: Yes, see you later.

  (She has the tracksuit. Perhaps the top half goes round her neck. JOE runs off. Pause.)

  KERNER: Very nice. Very English.

  (Pause.) Of course, he is half English, one forgets that. Well... good.

  HAPGOOD: Do you want to stay for tea? They lay it on for parents.

  KERNER: Better not, I think.

  HAPGOOD: Oh, Joe.

  (She breaks down. He holds her, awkwardly.)

  Prosty, Josef.*

  KERNER: Da nyet - vyet u menya byl vybar, Lilichka.

  HAPGOOD: Nyet tagda u tibya nye bylo vybora -

  KERNER: Da - muya pashol... ya napishu kagda dayedu...

  (KERNER kisses her and starts to leave.)

  HAPGOOD: How can you go? How can you?

  (She turns away. The game starts. Referee's whistle, the kick. After a few moments HAPGOOD collects herself and takes notice of the rugby. When the game starts KERNER's interest is snagged. He stops and looks at the game.)

  Come on St Christopher's - We can win this one! Get those tackles in!

  (She turns round and finds that KERNER is still there. She turns back to the game and comes alive.)

  Shove! - heel! - well heeled! - well out! - move it! - move it, Hapgood! - that's good - that's better!

  *HAPGOOD: I'm sorry, Joseph.

  KERNER: No, no. I bad a choice too, Lilychka.

  HA
PGOOD: You had no choice then.

  KERNER: Yes, I'd better go. I'll write when I get there.