Harold Pinter Plays 2 (14 page)

MARK:
Uh?

LEN:
I refused.

MARK:
What?

LEN:
I refused downright to lend him a shilling.

MARK:
What did he say to that?

LEN:
Plenty. Since I left him I’ve been thinking thoughts I’ve never thought before. I’ve been thinking thoughts I’ve never thought before.

MARK:
You spend too much time with Pete.

LEN:
What?

MARK:
Give it a rest. He doesn’t do you any good. I’m the only one who knows how to get on with him. I can handle him. You can’t. You take him too seriously. He doesn’t worry me. I know how to handle him. He doesn’t take any liberties with me.

LEN:
Who says he takes liberties with me? Nobody takes liberties with me. I’m not the sort of man you can take liberties with.

MARK:
You should drop it.

LEN
sees
toasting
fork,
takes
it
to
MARK
.

LEN:
This is a funny toasting fork. Do you ever make any toast?

He
drops
the
fork
on
the
floor.

Don’t touch it! You don’t know what will happen if you touch it! You mustn’t touch it! You mustn’t bend! Wait. [
Pause.
]
I’ll bend. I’ll… pick it up. I’m going to touch it. [
Pause
…
softly.
]
There. You see? Nothing happens when I touch it. Nothing. Nothing can happen. No one would bother. [
A
broken
sigh.
]
You see, I can’t see the broken glass. I can’t see the mirror I have to look through. I see the other side. The other side. But I can’t see the mirror side. [
Pause.
]
I want to break it, all of it. But how can I break it? How can I break it when I can’t see it?

Lights
fade
and
come
up
again
in
MARK’S
room.
LEN
is
sitting
in
an
arm
chair.
MARK
enters
with
whisky
bottle
and
two
glasses.
He
pours
drinks
for
PETE
and
himself.
PETE
,
who
has
followed
him
in,
takes
his
glass.
MARK
sits
in
other
armchair.
Neither
take
any
notice
of
LEN
.

Silence.

PETE:
Thinking got me into this and thinking’s got to get me out. You know what I want? An efficient idea. You know what I mean? An efficient idea. One that’ll work. Something I can pin my money on. An each way bet. Nothing’s guaranteed, I know that. But I’m willing to gamble. I gambled when I went to work in the city. I want to fight them on their own ground, not moan about them from a distance. I did it and I’m still living. But I’ve had my fill of these city guttersnipes—all that scavenging scum! They’re the sort of people, who, if the gates of heaven opened to them, all they’d feel would be a draught. I’m wasting away down there. The time has come to act. I’m after something truly workable, something deserving of the proper and active and voluntary application of my own powers. And I’ll find it.

LEN:
I squashed a tiny insect on a plate the other day. And I brushed the remains off my finger with my thumb. Then I saw that the fragments were growing, like fluff. As they were falling, they were becoming larger, like fluff. I had put my hand into the body of a dead bird.

PETE:
The trouble is, you’ve got to be quite sure of what you mean by efficient. Look at a nutcracker. You press the cracker and the cracker cracks the nut. You might think that’s an exact process. It’s not. The nut cracks, but the hinge of the cracker gives out a friction which is completely incidental to the particular idea. It’s unnecessary, an escape and wastage of energy to no purpose. So there’s nothing efficient about a nutcracker. [
Pete
sits,
drinks
]
.

LEN:
They’ve gone on a picnic.

MARK:
Who?

LEN:
The dwarfs.

PETE:
Oh Christ. [
Picks
up
paper.
]

LEN:
They’ve left me to sweep the yard, to keep the place in order. It’s a bloody liberty. They’re supposed to be keeping you under observation. What do they think I am, a bloody charlady? I can’t look after the place by myself, it’s not possible. Piles and piles and piles of muck and leavings all over the place, spewed up spewed up, I’m not a skivvy, they don’t pay me, I pay them.

MARK:
Why don’t you settle down?

LEN:
Oh don’t worry, it’s basically a happy relationship. I trust them. They’re very efficient. They know what they’re waiting for. But they’ve got a new game, did I tell you? It’s to do with beetles and twigs. There’s a rockery of red-hot cinder. I like watching them. Their hairs are curled and oily on their necks. Always squatting and bending, dipping their wicks in the custard. Now and again a lick of flame screws up their noses. Do you know what they do? They run wild. They yowl, they pinch, they dribble, they whimper, they gouge, and then they soothe each others’ orifices with a local ointment, and then, all gone, all forgotten, they lark about, each with his buddy, get out the nose spray and the scented syringe, settle down for the night with a bun and a doughnut.

PETE:
See you Mark. [
Exit.
]

MARK:
Why don’t you put it on the table? [
Pause.
]
Open it up, Len. [
Pause.
]
I’m supposed to be a friend of yours.

LEN:
You’re a snake in my house.

MARK:
Really?

LEN:
You’re trying to buy and sell me. You think I’m a ventriloquist’s dummy. You’ve got me pinned to the wall before I open my mouth. You’ve got a tab on me, you’re buying me out of house and home, you’re a calculating bastard. [
Pause.
]
Answer me. Say something. [
Pause.
] Do you understand? [
Pause
.]
You don’t agree? [
Pause.
] You disagree? [
Pause.
]
You think I’m mistaken? [
Pause.
] But am I? [
Pause.
]
Both of you bastards, you’ve made a hole in my side, I can’t plug it! [
Pause.
]
I’ve lost a kingdom. I suppose you’re taking good care of things. Did you know that you and Pete are a music hall act? What happens? What do you do when you’re alone? Do you do a jig? I suppose you’re taking good care of things. I’ve got my treasure too. It’s in my corner. Everything’s in my corner. Everything is from the corner’s point of view. I don’t hold the whip. I’m a labouring man. I do the corner’s will. I slave my guts out. I thought, at one time, that I’d escaped it, but it never dies, it’s never dead. I feed it, it’s well fed. Things that at one time seem to me of value I have no resource but to give it to eat and what was of value turns into pus. I can hide nothing. I can’t lay anything aside. Nothing can be put aside, nothing can be hidden, nothing can be saved, it waits, it eats, it’s voracious, you’re in it, Pete’s in it, you’re all in my corner. There must be somewhere else!
Swift
cross
fade
of
lights
to
down
centre
area.

PETE
is
seen
vaguely,
standing
downstage
below
LEN’S
room.
MARK
is
seated
in
his
room.
Unlit.
LEN
crouches,
watching
PETE
.

Pete walks by the river. Under the woodyard wall stops. Stops. Hiss of the yellow grass. The wood battlements jaw over the wall. Dust in the fairground ticks. The night ticks.
He hears the tick of the roundabout, up river with the sweat. Pete walks by the river. Under the woodyard wall stops. Stops. The wood hangs. Deathmask on the water. Pete walks by the—gull. Slicing gull. Gull. Down. He stops. Rat corpse in the yellow grass. Gull pads. Gull probes. Gull stamps his feet. Gull whinnies up. Gull screams, tears, Pete, tears, digs, Pete cuts, breaks, Pete stretches the corpse, flaps his wings, Pete’s beak grows, probes, digs, pulls, the river jolts, no moon, what can I see, the dwarfs collect, they slide down the bridge, they scutter by the shoreside, the dwarfs collect, capable, industrious, they wear raincoats, it is going to rain, Pete digs, he screws in to the head, the dwarfs watch, Pete tugs, he tugs, he’s tugging, he kills, he’s killing, the rat’s head, with a snap the cloth of the rat’s head tears. Pete walks by the … [
Deep
groan.
]

He
sinks
into
chair
left
of
his
table.
Lights
in
LEN’S
room
swiftly
fade
up.
PETE
turns
to
him.

PETE:
You look the worse for wear. What’s the matter with you?

LEN:
I’ve been ill.

PETE:
Ill? What’s the matter?

LEN:
Cheese. Stale cheese. It got me in the end. I’ve been eating a lot of cheese.

PETE:
Yes, well, it’s easy to eat too much cheese.

LEN:
It all came out, in about twenty-eight goes. I couldn’t stop shivering and I couldn’t stop squatting. It got me all right. I’m all right now. I only go three times a day now. I can more or less regulate it. Once in the morning. A quick dash before lunch. Another quick dash after tea, and then I’m free to do what I want. I don’t think you understand. That cheese didn’t die. It only began to live when you swallowed it, you see, after it had gone down. I bumped into a German one night, he came home with me and helped me
finish it off. He took it to bed with him, he sat up in bed with it, in the guest’s suite. I went in and had a gander. He had it taped. He was brutal with it. He would bite into it and then concentrate. I had to hand it to him. The sweat came out on his nose but he stayed on his feet. After he’d got out of bed, that was. Stood bolt upright, swallowed it, clicked his fingers, ordered another piece of blackcurrant pie. It’s my pie-making season. His piss stank worse than the cheese. You look in the pink.

PETE:
You want to watch your step. You know that? You’re going from bad to worse. Why don’t you pull yourself together? Eh? Get a steady job. Cultivate a bit of go and guts for a change. Make yourself useful, mate, for Christ’s sake. As you are, you’re just a dead weight round everybody’s neck. You want to listen to your friends, mate. Who else have you got?

PETE
taps
him
on
the
shoulder
and
exits.
A
light
comes
up
on
MARK
.
The
lights
in
LEN’S
room
fade
out.
LEN
rises
to
down
centre.

LEN:
Mark sits by the fireside. Crosses his legs. His fingers wear a ring. The finger poised. Mark regards his finger. He regards his legs. He regards the fireside. Outside the door is the black blossom. He combs his hair with an ebony comb, he sits, he lies, he lowers his eyelashes, raises them, sees no change in the posture of the room, lights a cigarette, watches his hand clasp the lighter, watches the flame, sees his mouth go forward, sees the consummation, is satisfied. Pleased, sees the smoke in the lamp, pleased with the lamp and the smoke and his bulk, pleased with his legs and his ring and his hand and his body in the lamp. Sees himself speaking, the words arranged on his lips, sees himself with pleasure silent. 
Under the twigs they slide, by the lilac bush, break the
stems, sit, scutter to the edge of the lawn and there wait, capable, industrious, put up their sunshades, watch. Mark lies, heavy, content, watches his smoke in the window, times his puff out, his hand fall, [
with
growing
disgust
] smiles at absent guests, sucks in all comers, arranges his web, lies there a spider.

LEN
moves
to
above
armchair
in
MARK’S
room
as
lights
fade
up.
Down
centre
area
fades
out.

What did you say?

MARK:
I never said anything.

LEN:
What do you do when you’re tired, go to bed?

MARK:
That’s right.

LEN:
You sleep like a log.

MARK:
Yes.

LEN:
What do you do when you wake up?

MARK:
Wake up.

LEN:
I want to ask you a question.

MARK:
No doubt.

LEN:
Are you prepared to answer questions?