Barker, Plays Eight Page 13
KING HENRY: Profoundly. He misses me profoundly!
MORE: But scholarship abhors society and –
KING HENRY: (Squeezing his shoulder.) Look –
MORE: I am looking –
KING HENRY: The moon, the moon…!
MORE: Yes –
KING HENRY: Are you looking?
MORE: Yes, of course I’m looking –
Yes –
Yes –
Why do you like the moon so much?
KING HENRY: Don’t know
(MORE leaves the eye-piece.)
Discourse, then.
MORE: I’m no astronomer.
KING HENRY: I have astronomers, I’m here for wit.
(Pause.)
MORE: (Returning to the lens.) The moon has long been honoured for its female character –
(A terrible cry is heard.)
A charismatic symbol which in pagan cultures represented –
KING HENRY: What’s that?
MORE: What? Charismatic?
KING HENRY: No. The yell.
MORE: Yell…
KING HENRY: Yes, I heard one.
(Pause, MORE leaves the lens.)
MORE: You traipse all the way from Westminster in dead of night to –
KING HENRY: Somebody yelled.
(Pause.)
MORE: Bonchope. He preaches heresy.
KING HENRY: The moon has truly entered him.
MORE: I don’t know why but regularly this sound issues from him, as if in contempt of speech, I’d say the devil was squatting in his gob but –
(The cry.)
there it goes again – I don’t credit the devil – shall we proceed, I –
(He returns the eyepiece.)
KING HENRY: Where is he?
MORE: In the lock-up.
KING HENRY: Gag him.
MORE: (Leaving the lens again.) Gag him? Now?
KING HENRY: His clamour’s messing up the moon.
MORE: Gag him?
KING HENRY: Yes, you know, a wad of cloth which inhibits speech –
MORE: I – I –
KING HENRY: (Taking a cloth.) I will. Where do you keep him?
MORE: On the bottom lawn.
(HENRY sets off. The sprawling men jump to their feet and follow.)
Should I – do you want me –
CECILIA: (Aside.) And the Brutopians, believing everything, sometimes laughed and sometimes wept at the same spectacle. They were luckily, bereft of tenderness. This made them perfect citizens. In Brutopia, you cannot be unkind. So much hypocrisy is spared by this!
(CECILIA’s face is seen between the trellis, still, observing, like a mask. After the passage of the royal party, MORE limps by.)
SCENE 2
MORE’s garden gaol. HENRY addresses its occupant.
KING HENRY: You explain to me the transmigration of souls and I will explain to you the paternity of Christ. You first, and remember I am a rampant theologian, one slip from orthodoxy and I hasten your ordeal, speak, I am all monarchic ears.
(BONCHOPE, gagged, is seen at the grille of a rustic prison. MORE watches.)
BONCHOPE: Mmm……mmmmm……mmmmm….
KING HENRY: (Stroking his chin.) Possibly….
BONCHOPE: Mmm….mmmmmmmm….!
KING HENRY: (Walking up and down contemplatively.)
Possibly………
(The followers, propped against trees, laugh.)
Yes……
BONCHOPE: Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!
KING HENRY: Steady! Controversial!
BONCHOPE: Mmm! Mmmmm!
KING HENRY: HERESY! HERESY! WE ESTABLISHED THAT AT TRENT YOU INVETERATE LIAR AND MANIPULATOR OF THE DOCTRINE!
(He goes to the grille.)
Look… there is a moon… Placed in its waters by the supreme being … do fix your dirty gaze on it, do …
(BONCHOPE’s eyes rise to the moon.)
Is life not infinitely sweeter than a single thought? For all that got you here is no more than a thought, though you prefer to call it truth, another truth is on its way behind you, shouldering your truth into the truth pit, LOOK OUT MORE TRUTHS! I do assure you, nothing holds, and it hurts to burn, you’ve seen it…
(MORE, unable to contain himself, hurries up to the prison and stares at BONCHOPE.)
MORE: Oh God, how I do hate him.
KING HENRY: Yes.
MORE: I try to hate his sin, but also I hate him.
KING HENRY: Yes.
MORE: HATE!
(Pause, BONCHOPE’s eyes are full of terror.)
KING HENRY: Worship the moon, now.
MORE: What?
KING HENRY: Up there.
MORE: You are in a jaunty mood tonight.
KING HENRY: No, no, do it.
MORE: You strain my faith, but I will compose a sonnet.
KING HENRY: Yes, in Latin.
MORE: (After the slightest pause.)
Ad lumen, mater et filia –
Lumina et regina stellorum –
Sub canopis aeterna noctum et stabile –
KING HENRY: (Holding MORE close.) You don’t like girls, do you? (Pause.)
MORE: No. Not in the way you mean.
(Pause. HENRY goes to BONCHOPE.)
KING HENRY: (Intimately.) Sir Tom won’t jig.
MORE: I think you –
KING HENRY: Your persecutor. Your spiritual whatnot. He won’t jig.
(BONCHOPE’s eyes move from HENRY to MORE, and back again.)
Sir Tom wants me to feel the monkey in his presence. He wishes me to feel the ape.
MORE: Not in the least –
KING HENRY: To experience the humiliation of the hungry in the presence of the never-hungry – HAIR SHIRT!
(He pulls open MORE’s gown. He wears a hair shirt.)
Hair shirt! I knew it! He mortifies the dirty packet we call skin! He flagellates the sack of gristle we call body, WHO CAN COMPETE WITH SUCH AVERSION?
(Pause. He releases MORE’s gown.)
No, it’s magnificent. It’s mastery. He could stare at woman’s belly and think – rot waiting its hour. He could see her hips and think – death’s hiding place. Etcetera. No, it’s magnificent. Clearly, there is nothing which can stop the mind of More. He is himself a god.
(The moon comes from behind a cloud and floods his face. He turns to BONCHOPE.)
Good night, idiot. Do you know who I am?
(BONCHOPE nods.)
And admire me?
(He nods again. KING HENRY leads the way from the lawn.)
They blinded in Byzantium.
MORE: So I understand.
KING HENRY: Little execution. Much blinding.
(Pause.)
More, come to court more often, and show off.
MORE: Show off?
KING HENRY: Yes, you know, show off!
(MORE bows his head. HENRY embraces him, holding him tightly.)
Why do you pretend to be a bore?
MORE: (As if puzzled.) I – I –
KING HENRY: Do you want to disenchant me? Do you think a bore is never pestered? Awful error.
(HENRY releases him, strides away, followed by the rest. MORE watches them depart.)
CECILIA: (Aside.) In Brutopia, they know no pity. So when hurt, they seek no comfort, but find another to inflict their hurt upon. This eradicates preposterous sympathy!
(MORE’s wife appears.)
ALICE: Are you –
MORE: (Turning on her.) CAN’T I WALK IN MY OWN GARDEN! CAN’T I LURK A LITTLE IN MY PLOT!
(Pause.)
ALICE: How powerful the moonbeams are tonight, I –
MORE: CAN’T I STROLL AT ANY BARMY HOUR WITHOUT YOU IN FLAPPING SLIPPERS –
ALICE: Yes –
MORE: FLAPPING –
ALICE: Yes –
MORE: SPY AND SIMPERER!
ALICE: Yes –
MORE: (Pointing.) THERE IS YOUR GARDEN, THERE!
(Pause. He swiftly embraces her.)
ALICE: I understand… I do… I unde
rstand…
MORE: Yes…
ALICE: I only feared –
MORE: You feared. That is the function of all wives. To fear. Fear on and good night.
(He releases her. She turns to go.)
I am very grateful to you. Thank you. You are perfect and considerate. Thank you.
(She creates a smile. She starts to go.)
I am writing a description of the perfect world and consequently cannot sleep beside you. You understand that, obviously.
ALICE: I understand.
MORE: Good night now and kip well, dear one.
(Again she turns.)
HOLD HANDS!
(Pause. She returns, takes his hands. Pause.
He closes his eyes.)
Perfect now. The equilibrium of marriage.
(Pause.)
ALICE: Your daughter never sleeps.
MORE: (Opening his eyes.) Meg never sleeps?
ALICE: Meg sleeps. I mean the other.
MORE: Other?
ALICE: They are your daughters, both of them.
MORE: Never.
(He laughs.)
How could she, she denies me.
ALICE: Not the paternity.
MORE: No, not that. But the rest. The imitation and the admiration. That she withholds.
(ALICE turns to leave.)
BUT I’M NOT CHAGRINED!
SCENE 3
Sun in an arbour. CECILIA sits with MEG. ROPER, a young man,
shrugs and grins.
CECILIA: I dislike you. Shall I tell you why? Because you tell jokes all the time. I have no sense of humour, so why do you persist?
(He shakes his head, smiling.)
You want to control me. That is why you want me to laugh. One day I can see whole populations laughing, their heads will go back as if on a single hinge. Laughter! And they will be incapable. They will be enslaved. Do stop nodding, you are so –
(He smiles.)
All right, you have seen my naked arse, do you think that gives you an authority?
(He shakes his head.)
STOP SMILING YOU CAREERIST.
(Pause.)
I wish someone would talk to me who was extraordinarily intelligent. Whose eyes. Whose mouth. Radiated like a sun boiling. But washed. But clean. You seem to think neglecting yourself is some evidence of moral strength, to me it is rather –
(ROPER gets up, walks slowly away, CECILIA turns to her sister.)
How can you love that man, he is a –
(MEG smiles.)
Shh! His master walks! Shh! His mentor exercizes!
(She peers through the foliage. MORE is discovered.)
MORE: (Through the trellis.) Do you find nothing funny in the whole wide world? Cecilia?
CECILIA: Nothing.
MORE: Not the absurdity of the posturing prince?
Or the monkey’s habits?
CECILIA: Neither.
MORE: How hard you are to love.
CECILIA: Impossible, I hope.
MORE: It is a pity we can’t talk. It is an indictment of us both, for I can talk to anyone.
CECILIA: I’ve seen you.
MORE: I have brought workmen crashing off their ladders with an apt remark.
CECILIA: It is an odd talent.
MORE: And left the coarsest labourer choking on my wit.
CECILIA: An extraordinary talent.
MORE: AND YOU DON’T GIGGLE.
(Pause.)
My own dear one. My own implacable and adamantine one. My loved one, my obdurate. Have you seen spit on a flint?
So it is with you. GIRLHOOD! Where is it? GIRLHOOD! I saw it! There!
(He laughs, turns to go away.)
CECILIA: Who is in the lock up?
MORE: Nothing
CECILIA: Nothing? I said who, and you say –
MORE: Nothing. (He smiles, goes out.)
SCENE 4
A Maze. It is raining. CECILIA enters.
CECILIA: (Calls.) Are you here?
(She goes into the maze, stops.)
You are! I know you are!
(She marches on, to the centre. A woman is seated on a bench. She is drenched, but still.)
Mud. Much mud in Brutopia.
(Pause. She sits beside her, embraces her swiftly.)
How cruel are you today?
(Pause.)
Oh, bitterly, I can tell.
(She stares at her.)
Warped by resentment, stained by malice, she crouches on her grudges like a hen on eggs…!
(Pause.)
Is there war in Brutopia?
THE SERVANT: All the time.
CECILIA: Continuous? The thrashing of the populace in endless struggle! What sort of war?
THE SERVANT: Civil.
CECILILA: Civil war! Yes!
THE SERVANT: The rich against the poor, and the poor are guilty.
CECILIA: (Inspired.) The poor are guilty! Yes! Of what, though?
THE SERVANT: Poverty.
CECILIA: Poverty, of course! Their poverty is ugly, and the ugliness of their poverty arouses the indignation of the rich! Yes! The poor rich! The angry rich! So the rich lash the poor, and then?
(Pause.)
What?
(Pause.)
THE SERVANT: You don’t understand, do you?
CECILIA: I’m trying to.
THE SERVANT: The poor are guilty.
CECILIA: Yes. I said yes.
THE SERVANT: How can you understand Brutopia if you are witty?
CECILIA: I’m sorry.
THE SERVANT: Wit has nothing to do with Brutopia.
CECILIA: No.
THE SERVANT: No wit in Brutopia.
CECILIA: None at all. Forgive me. Anything else?
(Pause.)
THE SERVANT: The poor erupt. They kill the rich. But not only the rich. They kill each other.
CECILIA: Horribly.
THE SERVANT: Horribly. It is their only pleasure.
CECILIA: Yes.
THE SERVANT: This the rich both fear and yet encourage.
CECILIA: They encourage it, why?
THE SERVANT: BECAUSE THEY NEED IT, OBVIOUSLY!
(Pause.)
CECILIA: They need it, yes.
(Pause.)
Forgive me, why do they?
(Pause.)
THE SERVANT: I can’t tell you everything.
CECILIA: No, but –
THE SERVANT: It assures them they are correct. Because in Brutopia nothing is seen to be good unless it is opposed.
CECILIA: Anger is the proof of its correctness! Yes! I’ll write this down!
(She goes to move.)
This mud! Everywhere, mud!
(She looks at THE SERVANT, who does not move. She stands on the bench, looking over the hedge of the maze. The heads of the Brutopians are seen, plastered by rain, in all the alleys.)
They’re not happy. They are sullen. So sullen…!
SCENE 5
A sunny place. MEG is reading. Her father appears behind her. He leans on her chair.
MORE: How does my daughter love her husband?
MEG: So admiring is my husband of my father, I might almost say it is my father I have married. Your words ring out in the strangest places, your phrases trickle on our pillow. Peculiar.
(She grabs his hand.)
Promise not to die.
MORE: Never.
MEG: I think to wake and know you cannot be discovered somewhere, in the kitchen or the library, would wreck my –
MORE: (Demonstratively.) Thomas More! His tomb!
(Pause. He pretends to contemplate.)
A thing deceptively simple. Severe. A table without embellishment. MORE. His title, in stark and livid letters. MORE. Who dreamed the greatest dream, who overcame the monk, the monarch and the scholar. He dwarfed his peers, and in a cheap time stood a rock of – you finish it –
MEG: I refuse to flatter you, it –
MORE: Indelible and incorruptible –
MEG: No �
�� I said –
(MEG takes his hand playfully. He bites her hand.)
Ow! Ow!
(He laughs.)
Oh, God, you’ve – ow, you’ve bitten me! You bite, why do you bite? Look, blood! Why do you bite?
(He laughs.)
MORE: More’s a wolf!
(Pause. He stops laughing.)
I can’t apologize.
MEG: (Wrapping her hand.) It hurts, it really –
MORE: Yes, but I can’t apologize. Don’t ask me to apologize…
(He walks away, leaving her seated. A wind tugs at the foliage. He walks through covered ways.
He stops, seeing a group of figures. He looks at them.)
SCENE SIX
A cloaked and hatted FIGURE is sitting on a low stool staring into a bowl, wide but shallow. Sitting behind him THE SERVANT. A third figure, THE COMMON MAN, is squatting behind them, MORE approaches them, looks into the bowl.
MORE: What’s that?
THE DOCTOR: The solution.
MORE: To what? (Pause. THE DOCTOR does not reply.) I like the way you keep your hat on it lends you an authority you might otherwise lack, and never meeting my eyes is calculated also, don’t forget you are dealing with a genius, where are you from, Spain?
THE SERVANT: I got him in.
MORE: You got him in but where from? He pretends to be a doctor, but suppose he is a murderer?
DOCTOR: You have a fever.
MORE: I have a fever, do I? Who told you?
THE SERVANT: I did.
MORE: I am sometimes feverish but that stuff is green. In any case I’ve never taken medicine. Why doesn’t he speak, is he Spanish?
THE DOCTOR: I’m from Utopia.
MORE: (With a laugh.) There are no doctors in Utopia!
THE DOCTOR: Why, is there no sickness?
MORE: How could there be, there is no disharmony.
THE DOCTOR: I promise you, my hands are full.
MORE: With what? Childbirth? And please look in my eyes it is discourteous to stare at the ground, clear evidence to me you never set foot there, it is a society of honest men, without rank, shame or hierarchy. If you think I’m drinking that you are mistaken.
THE DOCTOR: Study the solution.
MORE: Study it? How? What is there to study? (He kneels.) All right, I study it. It’s opaque. It’s odourless. Its colour I have already established.
THE DOCTOR: Nothing else?
MORE: There is a life sized reflection of Sir Thomas More in – (Pause.) Oh, Jesus, I have put on years…
SCENE 7
The rustic prison. BONCHOPE at the grille. CECILIA is looking at him.