Barker, Plays Eight Page 3

  SHADE: (Grabbing one end of the mirror.) My mirror!

  FLADDER: The knife under the pillow, the long, cold marital stare…

  EPSOM: (Wading in.) STUFF IT, BARRY! (GENDARMES rush in, pin back SHADE’s arms. A breathless pause.)

  FLADDER: Home? What’s that? The dead eye of the widow who finds she is no widow? The child’s sullen resignation of its place? HOME WHAT’S THAT. (Pause.) Go, if you wish. (THE GENDARMES release him. SHADE goes to take the mirror from GUMMERY.) No mirror. (He stops.)

  SHADE: No mirror? (He looks about him.) I SUFFERED FOR THAT MIRROR. IT’S MY PRIZE! (Pause.)

  FLADDER: The ship goes hooooooo…(Pause.) The ship goes hoooooooo…(Pause, then SHADE dumps to the ground. GUMMERY returns the mirror.)

  HELEN: First Troy is under the ashes. Second Troy now. (She goes to leave.)

  GUMMERY: Second Troy? Of what, lady? Paper?

  FLADDER: Paper, yes. Paper Troy now! No more weapons! No more walls! Write everywhere our shame! (HELEN goes out and FLADDER rises.) CONSTITUTION WRITERS! (To SAVAGE.) How’s your spelling?

  SAVAGE: Adequate.

  FLADDER: Spell agony.

  SAVAGE: H – E – L – E

  FLADDER: You’ll do! (He sweeps out, followed by GUMMERY and EPSOM. CREUSA remains, staring at SAVAGE. Pause.)

  CREUSA: So there you are…

  SAVAGE: Don’t start –

  CREUSA: There you fucking are –

  SAVAGE: DON’T START I SAID –

  CREUSA: THE IMAGINATION, THE INTELLECT –

  SAVAGE: The rattle of your mundane prejudice and –

  CREUSA: BARMY NOTIONS –

  SAVAGE: DOMESTIC TRIVIALITY YOU –

  CREUSA: POSTURING AS VISIONS YOU –

  SAVAGE: MICROSCOPIC OBSESSIONIST!

  CREUSA: SNOB! (A pause of exhaustion.)

  SHADE: It’s mine, now. (He indicates CREUSA with a nod.)

  SAVAGE: Yes.

  SHADE: The arse. The cry. The dream. Mine. (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: Yes. (CREUSA looks at SAVAGE, pitifully.)

  CREUSA: Oh, you mad and forlorn bastard…I couldn’t take any more of you! (Wearily, she takes the mirror and bundle from SHADE and goes off. SHADE looks a long time into SAVAGE.)

  SHADE: I also have a mind. (SAVAGE turns to look at him.)

  SAVAGE: You –

  SHADE: I also have a mind. (Pause.) I don’t exhibit it, like a balloon. THE MIND. (Pause.) I don’t wag it.

  SAVAGE: No…

  SHADE: But it exists. And it has archways, upon archways. And cisterns, and reservoirs also. Fuckall books and fuckall songs but. And anyway, what are those things? They are daggers, also. SONG IN THE EYES! (He feints at SAVAGE and goes off, watched by HOGBIN.)

  HOGBIN: (Fearfully.) Get out of ‘ere…

  SAVAGE: Why?

  HOGBIN: This crew. This regiment. ‘alf off their ‘inges, gates swinging in the ‘urricane, MIND YER GOB!

  SAVAGE: Why?

  HOGBIN: MAD GATES BANGING!

  SAVAGE: GO WHERE ANYWAY? (Pause.) Go, he says…the spontaneous retort if things degenerate…nomadic instinct of the urban boy…what are you, a sparrow, off at the first pin drop? A rabbit, pelting at the shadow of the cloud? Nomads have no written culture, you know that…

  HOGBIN: Fuck your comprehensiveness…

  SAVAGE: NO KNOWLEDGE ON THE HOOF.

  HOGBIN: Yes, but this – (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: To go beyond. That’s our hunger, that’s our thirst. To go beyond, you must stand still. FIRST PARADOX OF ALL GREAT JOURNEYS. (He opens his arms.) Kiss me, I have told you something.

  HOGBIN: You always wanna be kissed –

  SAVAGE: DO IT OUT OF GRATITUDE! (HOGBIN pecks him.)

  HOGBIN: Who was that, your Mrs who got lost? I think you shoved your cold chisel in ‘er cracks and drove a decent woman barmy. Did you? But I think she’s kind, as all blasphemers are…

  SCENE FOUR

  A tumult of paper. Men folding. HOGBIN on his knees, copying. HELEN enters with A DAUGHTER.

  HELEN: WILL WHOEVER BRINGS DEAD MEN’S RIBS AND THINGS INTO MY BEDROOM STOP!

  FLADDER: (Entering.) Second Troy has paper walls because they offer no defence. All the energies of the inhabitants will be directed towards the examination of our errors. Write reconciliation everywhere, and artists, if there are any, stick pictures on it!

  HELEN: It is an offence to tamper with war graves in any case, who is doing it, do you know…?

  HOGBIN: Not the foggiest…

  HELEN: Someone is, I’m not imagining it.

  FLADDER: WHERE’S SAVAGE? HAS HE MADE THE LOVING CONSTITUTION YET?

  HELEN: A bit of thigh, or skull with weird red hair on it? Perhaps the dogs do it?

  HOGBIN: Maybe dogs…

  HELEN: No shortage of dogs in Second Troy.

  HOGBIN: Dogs all over the shop…

  HELEN: No, it isn’t dogs, it’s men. A CORPSE IN THE BED WILL BE NEXT. (SAVAGE enters.)

  SAVAGE: The Seven Principles of New Troy.

  FLADDER: Seven is it…good…

  SAVAGE: The poor will apologize. The rich will forgive. The thief will be compensated. The victim accused.

  FLADDER: Of what?

  SAVAGE: Tempting the thief.

  FLADDER: Good.

  SAVAGE: All governors will swim rivers at seventy.

  FLADDER: Why?

  SAVAGE: To prove their minds are still good.

  FLADDER: Yes…

  SAVAGE: The sick will dictate morality. The healthy will never be paid.

  FLADDER: They have health.

  SAVAGE: They have health, yes. The intellectual will be revered until he speaks. The passionate will be in receipt of pension books. (Pause.)

  FLADDER: That’s eight, surely? (SAVAGE bows.)

  HELEN: When I was fourteen I could tell jokes. And men said, you tell jokes better than a man!

  GUMMERY: I don’t call that a constitution…

  HELEN: But for all their laughing, not one of them would lay a hand on me. Not one!

  GUMMERY: Do you Les?

  HELEN: So I stopped telling jokes. And they were all over me! Breaking one another’s jaws, and scrapping in the gutter.

  GUMMERY: (To SAVAGE.) I DON’T CALL THAT A CONSTITUTION.

  HELEN: There is a time for jokes, but it’s not now.

  SAVAGE: (To GUMMERY.) Nail it to the doors, and all the citizens of Paper Troy will be outraged and stamp their feet, and go around shouting ‘Never!’ (Pause.) Which is good, and the proper condition for a populace to be in.

  FLADDER: PAINT IT. THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF PAPER TROY.

  ESPOM: (To WORKERS off.) PAINTS!

  GUMMERY: (Confused.) Seven? You said eight…

  FLADDER: Seven, yes! (To SAVAGE.) You see, they gawp at your magnificence…(GUMMERY stares at the paper.)

  SAVAGE: (Patiently, to GUMMERY.) This gives you freedom…

  GUMMERY: Freedom?

  SAVAGE: To break the stranglehold of the consecutive. You can write seven twice. Or not number them at all.

  GUMMERY: (Shaking his head.) Confusing…

  SAVAGE: Yes!

  GAY: My mother called me Gay. Do you know why? I don’t know why, I’m sure. And I had a sister called FELICITY. What was that about? Felicity died, naturally, and of such a painful illness! But I am going to be gay. I am. (HELEN leans fondly over her daughter.) DON’T TOUCH ME WITH THOSE GNAWED AND KNEADED TITS. (Pause. She smiles, kissing her mother fondly.)

  SAVAGE: Knowledge is a suite of rooms. Dirty rooms, unswept as museums in the provinces. And to enter each room you must leave with the woman at the door some priceless thing, which feels part of yourself and your identity, so that it feels like ripping skin. And the keepers sit in piles of discarded treasures, like the pelts of love or children’s pity, and at each successive door the piles are less because few stagger such long distances, until there comes a door at which there lies a small, white rag stained as a dishcloth, which may be sanity. AND IF YOU THINK THAT IS THE
END YOU ARE MISTAKEN, IT IS THE BEGINNING. (Pause.) And people say, ‘I know myself’. Have you heard that? Never! They know the contents of one room. (Pause.)

  FLADDER: But who’d want knowledge if knowledge meant I could simply look at her, and looking see only a hundred pounds of flesh, which by virtue of its shape defines her beautiful? If knowledge is to be so cool I’d say stuff knowledge WHAT DO YOU FIND HELEN, DR SAVAGE? SHE MADE ME THINK APPALLING THOUGHT. (Pause.) Lay down for my inspection every inch of you infatuation. (Pause.) What, no words, and you a teacher? (Pause.) You see, if she is not impossible to see without she wrecks our peace, what did we suffer for? IMAGINE THE TEMPER IN THE WAR CEMETERIES! (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: All my life I have searched out Helen of Troy. And if you stuck a bin of offal there and called it Helen, I should have to stoop to it. (The fraction of a pause.)

  FLADDER: BIN! (He goes out.)

  SHADE: (Calling off.) A BIN!

  HELEN: Oh, doctor, they will chain you to it and you will suffocate on stench for uttering one solid truth upon another…(A bin is manoeuvred on.)

  CREUSA: (Entering). Oh God, what has he done?

  HOGBIN: Been a silly bugger all over again – (THE SOLDIERS chain SAVAGE to the bin by his wrists. GAY sits down on the floor.)

  GAY: The amount of killing I have seen! My father, for example, on the floor and skinned. Paris! Yes, it’s true! They skinned him. And my grandfather was INSIDE OUT. I have seen the lot, I can assure you, and I thought to myself, Gay, they want you to go INSANE. So I decided there and then I would not. I DECLINED TO BE INSANE. (Pause.) I think Paper Troy won’t last. And then what? Another pile of murders and a skinning or two! (Pause.) My mother gave birth to me with my father’s thing in her gob I JUST KNOW IT. He took his clothes off while she contracted and lay beside her. I JUST KNOW HE DID THEY WERE LIKE THAT. So I’ve seen the lot, really, and am I insane? QUITE THE CONTRARY. (She skips out.)

  HOGBIN: (A crablike move to SAVAGE.) Too fucking clever –

  SAVAGE: Away you skinny newt –

  HOGBIN: Night’s coming in and storm clouds full of freezing rain –

  SAVAGE: You book-snapping terrier –

  HOGBIN: You will perish of exposure you unhealthy sod of fat –

  SAVAGE: You whimpering abortion of a greyhound’s toss –

  HOGBIN: NOW, THEN, TRUTH-TELLER! (He rolls about on the floor.) No chains! (He somersaults.) No bin! (He goes towards CREUSA, who has drawn a paper over herself. A storm rumbles. HOGBIN gets under with her. He pokes out his head.) Adopt the nature of the chameleon. (He withdraws. A ragged book flies out. Then HOGBIN’s head.) Borkman and Salberstein. (He goes back in.)

  SAVAGE: Oh, rain on, oh, dark on, and gales roar up the beach like bombers levelling the streets. I know what Helen is, I know what Helen is! Another shell in the boiling breech! Oh, to be at sieges, at every siege that ever was, and throw in death from the hills, the breakfast goes, the kitchen goes, the crockery went up a hundred feet, the horse stood at the traffic lights and then down came its parted hooves, one in the garden of the spinster, one in the orphanage, I trawl, I dig, I excavate! Under your half-truths! The lecturer’s voice is a whip. The vicar’s lectern is a rack for thrashing youth! Who trusts the smiles on the library steps? Razor blades in the dictionary! I know! I know what Helen is! She’s all that’s unforgivable! (FLADDER enters in an overcoat. He sits.)

  FLADDER: I like the night. I feel what in the day I must deny has every right to full consideration. Say you understand me. (He looks at the paper tent.) What is going on in the paper house?

  SAVAGE: My student is struck dumb by the body of my wife and theoryless for once, explores her with his tongue. And she’s another man’s thing, by which he risks castration at the least. A real cocktail of pleasures, but you’d appreciate it, what’s love without the risk of death?

  FLADDER: (Implacably.) I wish to be tried, and if necessary, executed. (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: (Astutely.) On no charges, presumably?

  FLADDER: No charges.

  SAVAGE: And the verdict?

  FLADDER: Guilty. And I prosecute myself.

  SAVAGE: So new Troy opens with the execution of the governor?

  FLADDER: I’ll demand the ultimate penalty.

  SAVAGE: And I’ll grant it. I take it I’m the magistrate?

  FLADDER: Who else? Are you not the only criminal? (He goes out.)

  SAVAGE: If every man is ashamed, and you are not ashamed. If every man is guilty, and you refuse guilt…WHAT THEN!

  CREUSA: (Emerging, adjusting her clothing.) He says…(A small, dry laugh.) He says…I drive all anger from his mind…he says…listen to this…to see me naked kills his ambition…the peace, the peace, he says…

  SAVAGE: Listen, I have –

  CREUSA: NO, YOU LISTEN. (Pause.) He says incredible things no man ever said of me. But he’s impotent as yet. UNDERSTANDABLE! If you put such store by one woman, to come erect at once would be no compliment, would it? I’m honoured by his crisis. (She looks at herself, bemused.) I’ve been through hell, but you were hell as well…what happened to our son? (Pause.) Oh, look, I ask as casually as one might for a book or newspaper! I had all the instincts but I learned to suffocate them in a bag, I don’t threaten you with maternal rages, so where did he, you can tell…(Pause.)

  SAVAGE: He. (Pause.)

  CREUSA: It’s me who broke the bond, and watched the three of you stagger out of my life, no claims and no reproaches, what’s a child in any case, we stepped across whole ditchfuls, I remember…(Pause.)

  SAVAGE: He. (Pause.)

  CREUSA: The product of a joyless copulation, no I have no temper, boot the sentiment, boot the mother stuff, HE WHAT. (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: Whatever you imagine is as likely as the truth. As painful, or as painless.

  CREUSA: Still, I want to know, however futile –

  SAVAGE: Dream it instead –

  CREUSA: I do, I dream it often but –

  SAVAGE: WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE.

  CREUSA: IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE! (Pause.) Tell me, I’ll swallow it. Down, like a single pill, gollop, and gone! Life continues, under Hogbin’s fascinated stare or beaten by the Greeks, today it’s rheumatism, tomorrow, plague, the sticky belt of crisis but first what happened to my son? (Pause.) The mundane bit of life I mundanely delivered…(Pause.)

  SAVAGE: I don’t know. I lost him. (Pause.)

  CREUSA: Lost him…

  SAVAGE: Lost him, yes…

  CREUSA: Mislaid him…

  SAVAGE: Mislaid him, yes, no, I lost him.

  CREUSA: Lost him?

  SAVAGE: LOST, YOU KNOW THE WORD, IT HAPPENED ALL OVER EUROPE. Drifting infants, in dead men’s uniforms…

  CREUSA: You –

  SAVAGE: LOST MY CHILD AND HELPED MY FATHER DIE!

  CREUSA: Oh, you –

  SAVAGE: And not guilty!

  CREUSA: You –

  SAVAGE: NOT GUILTY, NO! (She stares at him. Pause.)

  CREUSA: Hold my hand, you terrible mouth, biting the concrete, your gums all shredded and your lips all torn…terrible mouth on you…(She hold his hands. HOGBIN emerges and looks. To HOGBIN, not turning.) It’s all right…these are old bruises we have to bruise again…(She gets up, goes out.)

  HOGBIN: Funny, ain’t it, any bastard can serve a woman properly but me. Any phlegm-stained criminal to do a violation of a child is rigid as a tree branch. Any dancing manikin dribbling on a deb gets seven inches on request. WHAT ABOUT ME!

  SAVAGE: Patience…

  HOGBIN: PATIENCE…!

  SAVAGE: She is. (Pause.) It’s only a space.

  HOGBIN: A space?

  SAVAGE: A mobile space.

  HOGBIN: A MOBILE SPACE?

  SAVAGE: You think by parroting you diminish truth you hate to entertain –

  HOGBIN: IT’S OBLIVION! (Pause.)

  SAVAGE: So’s a grave. A space enclosing oblivion. (Pause.)

  HOGBIN: Want it anyway. So did you, once…(HELEN enters, holding a fragment.
)

  HELEN: Neck bone. (She lifts the lid of SAVAGE’s bin, drops it in, replacing the lid.) I think they do this because they desire me. I may be wrong. It could be hatred, but then, what’s hatred? I think it’s desire also, what do you say? (She looks at HOGBIN.)

  HOGBIN: (Cautiously.) I wouldn’t disagree with you –

  HELEN: Oh listen, I am so sad tonight, so stuff your tact. I want a conversation.

  HOGBIN: Stuff it, yes…

  HELEN: I get no sleep. I go to my room, and even as I go towards the door I think to myself, oh, the futility of this…

  HOGBIN: Know the feeling…

  HELEN: I fling the sheet aside and there – WHY DO YOU ALWAYS AGREE WITH ME? (Pause. HOGBIN shrugs.) I fling the sheet back and – (Pause.) Of course I suffer all the consequences. More lined. And more bad tempered. The face becomes a landscape of insomnia and yet the overall effect is that I am MORE DESIRABLE. Yes! It’s true! Do you think I am insane? Do you think, poor thing, she is deluded? There is no point in the conversation if you hold that opinion, none at all, no, I tell you the truth because you are unhappy, I ditched modesty decades ago and so would you, I have had nine children, my belly’s a pit, or as the poetically-inclined say when they’re lapping me, a sandy strand from which the tide receded leaving feathered frontiers. Ugly, but who’s deterred? You see, for compliments I have a perfect memory…(Pause.) This is not a conversation, is it? I am doing all the talking. (EPSOM and GUMMERY rush in with FLADDER between them, stripped and beaten.)

  FLADDER: I am the murderer! I am the victim!

  HELEN: (Horrified.) WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM!

  FLADDER: I am the killer! HANGMAN IN ATTENDANCE, PLEASE!

  HELEN: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIS FACE!

  GUMMERY: He told me to!

  FLADDER: (To SAVAGE.) SENTENCE ME, THEN!

  HELEN: His face, look…

  GUMMERY: HE TOLD ME TO…!

  FLADDER: Innocent squaddies! (She goes to wipe away his blood.) DON’T TOUCH THE ASSASSIN’S FACE! (She stands back.) I asked them to hurt me, and all they could think of was their fists, what other tortures do they know about? Love? NO CHAIR FOR THE ACCUSED, I kneel, no, that’s too comfortable, I squat, what was the sentence, death?

  SAVAGE: Yes…

  FLADDER: Didn’t hear it.

  SAVAGE: It goes without saying.

  FLADDER: CACOPHONY IN COURT! Listen, the destruction of cities, the wrecking of fleets, the burning of crops, infanticide by numbers, all this is so much TRIVIA. War crimes, rubbish, no. In Paper Troy the only crimes are crimes against the self.