Complete Works, Volume IV (8 page)

SPOONER
You expect me to remember what he said?

HIRST
No.

Pause.

SPOONER
What he said . . . all those years ago . . . is neither here nor there. It was not what he said but possibly the way he sat which has remained with me all my life and has, I am quite sure, made me what I am.

Pause.

And I met you at the same pub tonight, although at a different table.

Pause.

And I wonder at you, now, as once I wondered at him. But will I wonder at you tomorrow, I wonder, as I still wonder at him today?

HIRST
I cannot say.

SPOONER
It cannot be said.

Pause.

I'll ask you another question. Have you any idea from what I derive my strength?

HIRST
Strength? No.

SPOONER
I have never been loved. From this I derive my strength. Have you? Ever? Been loved?

HIRST
Oh, I don't suppose so.

SPOONER
I looked up once into my mother's face. What I saw there was nothing less than pure malevolence. I was fortunate to escape with my life. You will want to know what I had done to provoke such hatred in my own mother.

HIRST
You'd pissed yourself.

SPOONER
Quite right. How old do you think I was at the time?

HIRST
Twenty-eight.

SPOONER
Quite right. However, I left home soon after.

Pause.

My mother remains, I have to say, a terribly attractive woman in many ways. Her buns are the best.

Hirst looks at him.

Her currant buns. The best.

HIRST
Would you be so kind as to pour me another drop of whisky?

SPOONER
Certainly.

Spooner takes the glass, pours whisky into it, gives it to Hirst.

SPOONER
Perhaps it's about time I introduced myself. My name is Spooner.

HIRST
Ah.

SPOONER
I'm a staunch friend of the arts, particularly the art of poetry, and a guide to the young. I keep open house. Young poets come to me. They read me their verses. I comment, give them coffee, make no charge. Women are admitted, some of whom are also poets. Some are not. Some of the men are not. Most of the men are not. But with the windows open to the garden, my wife pouring long glasses of squash, with ice, on a summer evening, young voices occasionally lifted in unaccompanied ballad, young bodies lying in the dying light, my wife moving through the shadows in her long gown, what can ail? I mean who can gainsay us? What quarrel can be found with what is,
au fond,
a gesture towards the sustenance and preservation of art, and through art to virtue?

HIRST
Through art to virtue.
(
Raises glass.
) To your continued health.

Spooner sits, for the first time.

SPOONER
When we had our cottage . . . when we had our cottage . . . we gave our visitors tea, on the lawn.

HIRST
I did the same.

SPOONER
On the lawn?

HIRST
I did the same.

SPOONER
You had a cottage?

HIRST
Tea on the lawn.

SPOONER
What happened to them? What happened to our cottages? What happened to our lawns?

Pause.

Be frank. Tell me. You've revealed something. You've made an unequivocal reference to your past. Don't go back on it. We share something. A memory of the bucolic life. We're both English.

Pause.

HIRST
In the village church, the beams are hung with garlands, in honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have died virgin.

Pause.

However, the garlands are not bestowed on maidens only, but on all who die unmarried, wearing the white flower of a blameless life.

Pause.

SPOONER
You mean that not only young women of the parish but also young men of the parish are so honoured?

HIRST
I do.

SPOONER
And that old men of the parish who also died maiden are so garlanded?

HIRST
Certainly.

SPOONER
I am enraptured. Tell me more. Tell me more about the quaint little perversions of your life and times. Tell me more, with all the authority and brilliance you can muster, about the socio-politico-economic structure of the environment in which you attained to the age of reason. Tell me more.

Pause.

HIRST
There is no more.

SPOONER
Tell me then about your wife.

HIRST
What wife?

SPOONER
How beautiful she was, how tender and how true. Tell me with what speed she swung in the air, with what velocity she came off the wicket, whether she was responsive to finger spin, whether you could bowl a shooter with her, or an offbreak with a legbreak action. In other words, did she google?

Silence.

You will not say. I will tell you then . . . that my wife . . . had everything. Eyes, a mouth, hair, teeth, buttocks, breasts, absolutely everything. And legs.

HIRST
Which carried her away.

SPOONER
Carried who away? Yours or mine?

Pause.

Is she here now, your wife? Cowering in a locked room, perhaps?

Pause.

Was she ever here? Was she ever there, in your cottage? It is my duty to tell you you have failed to convince. I am an honest and intelligent man. You pay me less than my due. Are you, equally, being fair to the lady? I begin to wonder whether truly accurate and therefore essentially poetic definition means anything to you
at all. I begin to wonder whether you do in fact truly remember her, whether you truly did love her, truly caressed her, truly did cradle her, truly did husband her, falsely dreamed or did truly adore her. I have seriously questioned these propositions and find them threadbare.

Silence.

Her eyes, I take it, were hazel?

Hirst stands, carefully. He moves, with a slight stagger, to the cabinet, pours whisky, drinks.

HIRST
Hazel shit.

SPOONER
Good lord, good lord, do I detect a touch of the maudlin?

Pause.

Hazel shit. I ask myself: Have I ever seen hazel shit? Or hazel eyes, for that matter?

Hirst throws his glass at him, ineffectually. It bounces on the carpet.

Do I detect a touch of the hostile? Do I detect—with respect—a touch of too many glasses of ale followed by the great malt which wounds? Which wounds?

Silence.

HIRST
Tonight . . . my friend . . . you find me in the last lap of a race . . . I had long forgotten to run.

Pause.

SPOONER
A metaphor. Things are looking up.

Pause.

I would say, albeit on a brief acquaintance, that you lack the essential quality of manliness, which is to put your money where your mouth is, to pick up a pintpot and know it to be a pintpot,
and knowing it to be a pintpot, to declare it as a pintpot, and to stay faithful to that pintpot as though you had given birth to it out of your own arse. You lack that capability, in my view.

Pause.

Do forgive me my candour. It is not method but madness.

He stands.

Heed me. I am a relevant witness. And could be a friend.

Hirst grips the cabinet, rigid.

You need a friend. You have a long hike, my lad, up which, presently, you slog unfriended. Let me perhaps be your boatman. For if and when we talk of a river we talk of a deep and dank architecture. In other words, never disdain a helping hand, especially one of such rare quality. And it is not only the quality of my offer which is rare, it is the act itself, the offer itself—quite without precedent. I offer myself to you as a friend. Think before you speak.

Hirst attempts to move, stops, grips the cabinet.

Remember this. You've lost your wife of hazel hue, you've lost her and what can you do, she will no more come back to you, with a tillifola tillifola tillifoladi-foladi-foloo.

HIRST
No.

Pause.

No man's land . . . does not move . . . or change . . . or grow old . . . remains . . . forever . . . icy . . . silent.

Hirst loosens his grip on the cabinet, staggers across the room, holds on to a chair.

He waits, moves, falls.

He waits, gets to his feet, moves, falls.

Spooner watches.

Hirst crawls towards the door, manages to open it, crawls out of the door.

Spooner remains still.

SPOONER
I have known this before. The exit through the door, by way of belly and floor.

He looks at the room, walks about it, looking at each object closely, stops, hands behind his back, surveying the room.

A door, somewhere in the house, closes.

Silence.

The front door opens, and slams sharply. Spooner stiffens, is still.

FOSTER
enters the room. He is casually dressed.

He stops still upon seeing Spooner. He stands, looking at Spooner.

Silence.

FOSTER
What are you drinking? Christ I'm thirsty. How are you? I'm parched.

He goes to cabinet, opens a bottle of beer, pours.

What are you drinking? It's bloody late. I'm worn to a frazzle. This is what I want.
(
He drinks.
) Taxi? No chance. Taxi drivers are against me. Something about me. Some unknown factor. My gait, perhaps. Or perhaps because I travel incognito. Oh, that's better. Works wonders. How are you? What are you drinking? Who are you? I thought I'd never make it. What a hike. And not only that. I'm defenceless. I don't carry a gun in London. But I'm not bothered. Once you've done the East you've done it all. I've done the East. But I still like a nice lighthouse like this one. Have you met your host? He's my father. It was our night off tonight, you see. He was going to stay at home, listen to some lieder. I hope he had a quiet and pleasant evening. Who are you, by the way? What are you drinking?

SPOONER
I'm a friend of his.

FOSTER
You're not typical.

BRIGGS
comes into the room, stops. He is casually dressed, stocky.

BRIGGS
Who's this?

FOSTER
His name's Friend. This is Mr Briggs. Mr Friend—Mr Briggs. I'm Mr Foster. Old English stock. John Foster. Jack. Jack Foster. Old English name. Foster. John Foster. Jack Foster. Foster. This man's name is Briggs.

Pause.

BRIGGS
I've seen Mr Friend before.

FOSTER
Seen him before?

BRIGGS
I know him.

FOSTER
Do you really?

BRIGGS
I've seen you before.

SPOONER
Possibly, possibly.

BRIGGS
Yes. You collect the beermugs from the tables in a pub in Chalk Farm.

SPOONER
The landlord's a friend of mine. When he's shorthanded, I give him a helping hand.

BRIGGS
Who says the landlord's a friend of yours?

FOSTER
He does.

BRIGGS
I'm talking about The Bull's Head in Chalk Farm.

SPOONER
Yes, yes. So am I.

BRIGGS
So am I.

FOSTER
I know the Bull's Head. The landlord's a friend of mine.

BRIGGS
He collects the mugs.

FOSTER
A firstclass pub. I've known the landlord for years.

BRIGGS
He says he's a friend of the landlord.

FOSTER
He says he's a friend of our friend too.

BRIGGS
What friend?

FOSTER
Our host.

BRIGGS
He's a bloody friend of everyone then.

FOSTER
He's everybody's bloody friend. How many friends have you got altogether, Mr Friend?

BRIGGS
He probably couldn't count them.

FOSTER
Well, there's me too, now. I'm another one of your new friends. I'm your newest new friend. Not him. Not Briggs. He's nobody's fucking friend. People tend to be a little wary of Briggs. They balk at giving him their all. But me they like at first sight.

BRIGGS
Sometimes they love you at first sight.

FOSTER
Sometimes they do. That's why, when I travel, I get all the gold, nobody offers me dross. People take an immediate shine to me, especially women, especially in Siam or Bali. He knows I'm not a liar. Tell him about the Siamese girls.