As I Was Saying. (4)
Richard: Is that all he's getting you? Harriet: Gin. Gin and tonic. (Turns away from Richard and puffs deeply on her cigarette.) Richard: Red hats. Cold hands. No drawers. Warm heart. (Richard sits and stares up at the sky. He sits in a shared silence with Harriet.) End of Scene Five. Act Two. Scene Six. Ten minutes later. Harriet has moved to the other table and left Richard on the other table alone. Harriet�s table is clear and the ashtray empty. Richard�s table is full of glasses and the ashtray cluttered. Richard is looking out at the seascape with a moody expression. Harriet is sitting tense and looking down at the ground. Harriet: All men have double standards. Hypocrites. (Richard begins to hum a number of bars from Wagner�s Flying Dutchman Overture, whilst staring at the seascape.) It�s all right for men to have affairs and sleep with any young floosie that comes along, but any woman that does the same is branded a tart or loose woman. For men it�s just sowing their wild oats, but for a woman it�s a moral down turn. (She looks at Richard briefly, then turns and stares at the ground again.) Hypocrites. Double standard flag wavers! (Thomas slowly walks down stage from the hotel bar carrying a tray with the drinks. He stands looking at the two people at different tables and wavers in between.) Thomas: Ah. Drinks? (Goes to Richard�s table and gives Richard his glass.) Wagner? Flying Dutchman? (Stands by the table listening to Richard�s humming.) Harriet: That�s not what I�d call him. Thomas: Call whom? Harriet: Him. (Gestures with a nod of her head towards Richard. Thomas looks down at Richard. Richard stops humming.) Richard: Rum? Double? Good old boy. Harriet: May you drown in it. Thomas: Shall I sit at the other table? More room for my cup and saucer. Richard: Sit where you like, Thomas. Each to their own choice. (Sips from his glass. Turns and glances at Harriet.) Harriet: Drown in your bloody rum. Thomas: Gin and tonic. (Goes to the other table and hands Harriet her glass, then sits down.) And coffee for me. (Silence for a few moments in which all three look in different directions.) Air�s getting cooler. (Pause.) Bar was crowded. Couldn�t get near it for ages. (Pause.) The moon�s sort of becoming misty. Harriet: Thank you for the drink, Thomas. Richard: Seems quite clear to me. Harriet: You are a dear, Thomas. Thomas: Thought it was clouding over a bit. Harriet: Not like some, I could mention. Richard: The moon is like a silver coin shining on a black velvet cloth. Thomas: Hard to think men have walked on it. The moon, I mean. Harriet: Men have been the low point of my life. All the way through it. Richard: The stars are like diamonds twinkling on the dark cloth of God�s handkerchief. Thomas: Not that I�d want to walk up there. To see it is what I love. To see the beauty of such a thing in the night�s sky. Harriet: My mother warned me about men. Apart from the time when she tried to marry me off with her friend�s son. What a drip he was. Stammered like hell. (Smiles a little to herself) �W-w-w-will you go out with m-m-m-me?� he asked me one day outside our front gate. �I�d l-l-l-like to t-t-t-take you somewhere n-n-nice.� Richard: If God had a handkerchief. If God exists. Thomas: Yes. Life is full of ifs and buts. If I did this or that would my life have been so and so? We can all say such things. All of us. (Pause. Each one sits and sips from their drinks.) Harriet: And it got quite funny at times. �Can I f-f-f-find you a cigarette?� And �Sh-sh-sh-shall I find you a l-l-light? (Pause.) I couldn�t go out with the poor sod for long. He had me in stitches. He kissed me once. It was like being kissed by a dog. (Harriet stops. She sips her drink again.) Richard: When was your first sexual experience, Thomas? Thomas: 1959. In the gym at school. Richard: Not with old Cogan? Thomas: No, no, not like that. More passive. Richard: Sex is never passive. Sex is passion. Harriet: Is that what you heard? Thomas: Do you remember the young matron we had for a while? Richard: Oh, yes, thin thing with breast like pimples. Not her? Harriet: You aren�t one to speak from experience are you. Always what you�ve read or heard. Thomas: Have you two had a falling out? Richard: Ask her. Harriet: Ask him. Thomas: Some misunderstanding? Harriet: He seems to think there was no misunderstanding. That something is going on between us. (Harriet glares at Richard.) Thomas: Us? You and me? Something going on? Richard: Weren�t you holding hands previously? And isn�t she all over you like chicken pox? Harriet: (Singing softly) If you were the only boy in the world and I was the only girl� (Continues to sing for a few more bars, then stops) Nothing else would matter in the world today, Thomas, if you were the only boy. Richard: There you are old boy. She�s at your feet. Thomas: There�s nothing going on between us. She�s just winding you up to get you jealous. It�s the oldest trick in the book. Richard: She�s the oldest trick in the book. Harriet: He couldn�t hum his way out of a melody. Richard: She has the looks of a retired racehorse. Harriet: He�s just a weedy second-rate composer of third-rate songs. Richard: I have been to bed with better books than her. Harriet: I�ve read more interesting shopping lists than his ideas. Thomas: I think we need to get back to basics. (All become silent. Then Richard stands and walks lower stage and stares at the moonlit sea.) Richard: Can you honestly tell me, Thomas, that you and she do not have something going on between you? Thomas: Not a jot. Not a link. Nothing between us. Harriet: Only in your mind, Richard. Only in that dark cavern you call your mind. (Harriet stands up and walks upstage towards the hotel. Pauses. Looks back at Richard.) I�m going for a walk. Don�t wait up for me. (Walks off upper stage through the door to the hotel bar.) Thomas: Will she be all right on her own? Richard: She can take care of herself. She�s got a brown belt in judo. And a sharp tongue to send any Romeo on his way with a bite out of his rump. Thomas: Yes. Dare say she�ll be fine. (Thomas looks back to the hotel. Stares at it for a few moments, then looks back at Richard.) Richard: Sea�s getting rough. Thomas: Yes. You can hear the waves along the shore. (Both men stare at the seascape in silence.) Richard: Women. Why do we bother with them, Thomas? Thomas: Because they are essential to the future of mankind. Richard: Very philosophical. Thomas: But true. It is essential that we have women. Richard: And men. Neither can survive without the other. Thomas: Can�t live with them, can�t live without them, my father often said. Richard: Wise man. (Turns round and walks back to the table Thomas is sitting at and sits next to him.) What was matron like? Thomas: Gentle. Richard: First time? Thomas: Each time. Richard: More than once? Thomas: Frequently. Richard: Good God. You dark horse. Thomas: When was your first sexual experience? Richard: Back in the mists of time. (Thinks in silence for a few moments.) At university. I was not as lucky as you were. Rough time first time. Thomas: Who was it with? Richard: That girl who served behind the counter in the dinning hall. Thomas: Not spotty Minnie? Richard: No. The other one. Thomas: Oh. Her. Lardy Lillian. Richard: Man�s got to start somewhere. Thomas: Yes. (Pause.) She made some nice pies. Richard: Her custard was a bit lumpy. Thomas: Nice legs Richard: Her sprouts were done to a turn. Thomas: Fine figure in some places. Richard: She could have eaten me alive. Thomas: Was that a shooting star? Richard: Don�t you start. Harriet�s always saying that. �Was that a shooting star?� she�ll say while I�m waiting in bed for her. �I don�t care if it�s Martian come to bed,� I tell her. (Both men sit and stare at the sky.) Thomas: My wife wasn�t much for things like that. She�d not notice a full moon or a quarter moon. She was not romantic. Richard: Women. Why do we bother. Thomas: Lillian Lardycase. What an experience that must have been. Richard: Don�t remind me. Thomas: Wonder what she�s doing now? Richard: Making lumpy custard. Thomas: Taking first year students to bed. Richard: Making her lovely pies. (Silence. Both men stare at the sea.) Curtain falls. End of Act two and Scene Six. Act Three. Scene One. The next morning on the beach. Thomas, Harriet and Richard are sitting on three deckchairs, two close together, one slightly apart in which Harriet sits. It is early morning just after their breakfast at the hotel. Richard: A misty horizon. Thomas: Can�t see the ships passing. Richard: It will soon clear. Thomas: Like to see the ships passing across the horizon. Richard: It does add to the enjoyment though this misty start. I expect your father remembers these misty mornings at sea. Thomas: He never spoke much about the War. The odd word slipped out occasionally. Harriet: The breakfast was nice. I like a good breakfast on holiday. Richard: War is what separates the men from the boys, my father often said. Thomas: Many a day he�d start to say something, then he�d clamp up and become silent. I think the War troubled him. He had terrible nightmares my mother told me. Harriet: The toast was scrumptious. I like the toast done nicely. Richard: �Do them a power of good the lads these days, to be in uniform,� he said. Thomas: We just missed being called up. Good job too. Richard: I�d opt for the navy if I had been called up. Harriet: That sea looks ghostly. I almost expect a ghostly galleon to sail out of the fog. Richard: It�s sea mist, not fog. Harriet: Full of pirates. One of those ships you see in films with Errol Flynn. Thomas: I would not have liked the military life. Too restricted. Richard: You�re too romantic, Harriet. It�s just a sea mist. Harriet: Just my imagination working overtime. I can see myself painting it though. If I was up to painting again. Which I�m not. I have other things on my mind at the moment. Thomas: I can�t bear being restricted. Life like art should be free of restrictions. Richard: What things? Harriet: What? Thomas: Art and life should be free of unnecessary limitations. Richard: What things, Harriet? Harriet: Yes. You are right, Thomas, they should be. Richard: Should be what? Thomas: Art and life free of� Harriet: Limitations. No restricted areas. No no-go areas concerning art and life. Richard: What things are you talking about? Harriet: Art and life. Thomas: It should be like an open horizon. Richard: What have you two being eating on your toast? I can�t make head or tail of what you�re on about. Harriet: Richard seems to be at cross-purposes as usual. Richard: You said to me that you have other things on your mind. What things? Harriet: You know. (Pause.) Don�t pretend you don�t know. (Lifts her handbag up from beside her deckchair and places it on her lap. She searches through it) Richard: If I knew, I wouldn�t ask. Why do women assume you can mind read. My mother was the same. She�d say things like that. My father would get quite humpty dumpty about it. �I can�t mind read woman,� he�d say to her. Thomas: I think women are quite intuitive. Richard: Quite what, Thomas? Thomas: Intuitive. Perceptive. Instinctive. Richard: Sounds like a shopping list. Women lack a sense of logic. They have never had it. That is why there have never been great women philosophers. Harriet: You know what I mean. (Withdraws her cigarette packet and lighter.) You pretend behind this jargon that you don�t, but you do. (Takes out a cigarette and puts it between her lips. She puts the cigarette packet back in her handbag and then after a few seconds staring at Richard, she lights the cigarette.) Thomas: But logic is not the be all and end all of life, Richard. Life is not restricted by what is logical and reasonable. Life is at times illogical and unreasonable. Harriet: (Talks with a cigarette in between her lips, so words are slightly muffled.)I want a baby. Is that plain and simple for you? I don�t give a fig how I get one, but I want one. I don�t give a monkey�s what-you-call-it, I want a baby and soon. Thomas: Is war reasonable? Is it logical to go to war and kill thousands of people? Richard: Harriet you are too highly strung to be a good mother. You haven�t the nerve for it. Thomas: I think that�s a tanker coming through the mist. You can barely see it. Richard: Yes. A tanker. I�d not like to steer a ship in this mist. Harriet: You talk such fiddle-sticks. I want a baby and will do whatever I have to do to get one. Even if it means� (Pause. Takes cigarette out and holds it between her fingers. She looks at it for a few seconds and then at Thomas.) Babies are what women are made for. What they are equipped for. Richard: It�s a talent, steering ships. I�d not want such a responsibility. Thomas: No ghostly galleon, though, Harriet. Richard: No pirates. Thomas: No treasure hidden in the hold. (Pause. Both men are silent. Each one musing on their thoughts of ghostly galleons and pirates.) Harriet: No treasure. (Takes a quick drag on cigarette.)No ghostly galleon. (Pause.) No pirates�Except you, Richard, except you. (All three sit and look out at the sea mist in silence.) End of Scene One. Act Three. Scene Two. A short time later. Thomas and Richard are sitting on two of the three deckchairs. Thomas is sitting back gazing at the sun. Richard is leaning forward staring at the sea. Richard: Hope she comes back in a better mood. Thomas: The sky is clearing. The sun is warming up. Richard: She didn�t return last night until God knows what hour. Thomas: A fine day is promised in those clouds. Richard: A face like a tortured soul when she did came back. Thomas: You can feel the warmth gradually being unleashed. It�s so rewarding waiting for the warmth to unfold. Richard: I�m sure women have demons. Ought to bring back witch-hunts. (Pause.) I can�t focus when she�s in one of her moods. (Turns and looks at Thomas.) You�d be wise to have nothing to do with her, Thomas. She�s poison to some men. Thomas: I remember as a child lying under a tree and watching the sun slowly unfold itself from behind a cloud and feel the warmth search for me below and almost embrace me in its invisible arms. (Pause. Smiles to himself.) My aunt had a kitten, which I adored. I would hold it up to the sun so that it could feel the warmth also. Strange how near that memory seems. Richard: Had her back to me most of the night. Like sleeping with a corpse. (Turns and looks back at the sea.) That sun is warming up. Should have put on my trunks and bathed. Not that she�d appreciate that. She hates the water. Has a fear of water so she says. Strange notions she has. (Sits back and stretches his legs out in front of him.) The clouds are clearing. The blue sky is promising. Thomas: Fear of water, fear of drowning. Perhaps she drowned in a previous life. Richard: You don�t believe in all that nonsense do you? Thomas: Many religions have some form of reincarnation or a renewal of some sort. It must be comforting to believe in that sort of thing. Richard: A crutch that�s all religions are. Something to lean on through life�s up and downs. My father said there was no God in the desert when men died. No God there when men suffered. (He goes silent for a few moments.) Thomas: Maybe God suffers too. Maybe that�s what all this suffering is about: sharing in God�s suffering and pain. Richard: More nonsense. What book of theology did you pick that gem from? (Looks at Thomas.) Your brain is softening. You need to see through my eyes to appreciate what life�s like. No God suffers in my world, only people. Thomas: Where did Harriet go? Richard: People suffer day in day out. (Looks at Thomas more intently.) Belsen, Hiroshima. The Western Front. Where was your God then? Thomas: She didn�t seem too happy I must admit. Richard: Went off for a walk to the pier. Thomas: She wants a baby badly. It�s eating into her soul. Richard: Wanted to see that fortune-teller again. Strange ideas she has. This is the real world I told her, accept what there is. (Pause.) Thomas: Funny things babies. Never had one, but strangely they interest me. Like an unwrapped present. Full of expectations. Gradually unfolding what they are and will be. Hard to believe we were all babies once. Dependant on others for our very survival. Dependency becomes a dirty word as you grow older, but we all needed it at some point in our lives. Richard: The seagulls are comforting. Always there. Just like old friends. (Stares up at the sky.) The sound of seagulls always brings back my childhood. Like the taste of porridge always reminds me of school. Association of ideas and memory. Like Proust and his�She�ll be back in a better mood I hope. (Points up at the sky.) Look at them. Like vultures. I love them none-the-less. Seagulls are my gods of memory. Thomas: There�s nothing going on between Harriet and me. She just needs patience and understanding at the moment. She feels a little vulnerable. Needs someone to listen. (Pause.) She merely took hold of my hand in a gesture. Nothing more. Nothing more to be said. Richard: The sea is calm. Thomas: The tide�s out. Richard: Wish she were calm. Nothing like the sea. The sea can absorb so much. She absorbs little of any worth. Look how far it stretches. A complete horizon of water. People have drowned in vast numbers over the centuries. Thomas: The Thames was a favourite for drowning. Many a maidservant has jumped in there to escape her misery. The sea also has claimed many. Richard: Shelley being one of the most famous. Thomas: Sad that. Richard: Like losing a best friend. Thomas: Or a brother. (Pause. Looks at the sea.) Richard: I was an only child. Never had a brother or a sister. What you�ve never had you never miss. You however have lost�I hope she returns soon. Thomas: Fool he was. Drunken fool. (Pause.)She�ll be back soon. Like some goddess from the depths. Richard: The tides out. Thomas: The sea is calm. (Both men sit in silence watching the far off tide.) End of Scene two. Act Three. Scene Three. An hour later. Richard and Harriet are sitting on two of the three deckchairs. There is one deckchair empty between them. Harriet is leaning forward her hands joined together as if she were praying. Richard is sitting back with his legs stretched out in front of him.) Harriet: That fortune-teller could no more read my palm than find her own backside with her eyes shut. (Pause.) Cross my palm with silver, she says. It�s all in the stars. Fraud she was. No more gypsy than I�m a virgin. (Looks at Richard.) Where�s Thomas? Richard: Gone to look for a bookshop. Wants to see if they�ve got his latest book in stock, no doubt. The man�s changed. He�s almost a woman now. Harriet: He could do worse. Richard: He had the talent to be a great writer. He should have stuck with it and not given in to the market place. Harriet: You�re well paid by the market place. You�re no Schubert yourself. Richard: I keep you dressed and fed. Harriet: Would you rather I was naked and starved? Richard: Naked I don�t mind, but starved no. (Pause.)I used to have an aunt who could eat the backside off a donkey and still be as skinny as Gandhi�s leg. She used to wear this red woollen hat and wrinkly stockings and moan like the wind, but boy could she eat. Harriet: You�d have me starved. Richard: She was so thin she looked liked a Swan Vesta match with legs.
Copyright © 2005 Terry Collett |