All That Fall

A play for radio

Written in English in 1956. First broadcast on the BBC Third
Programme on 13 January 1957. First published in 1957 by Grove
Press (New York) and Faber and Faber.
CAST

MRS ROONEY (Maddy) a lady in her seventies

CHRISTY a carter
MR TYLER a retired bill-broker
MR SLOCUM Clerk of the Racecourse
TOMMY a porter
MR BARRELL a station-master
MISS FITT a lady in her thirties
A FEMALE VOICE

DOLLY a small girl

MR ROONEY (Dan) husband of Mrs Rooney, blind
JERRY a small boy
Rural sounds. Sheep, bird, cow, cock, severally, then together.
Silence. MRS ROONEY advances along country road towards railway
station. Sound of her dragging feet.
Music faint from house by way. “Death and the Maiden.” The steps
slow down, stop.

MRS ROONEY: Poor woman. All alone in that ruinous old house. [Music
louder. Silence but for music playing. The steps resume. Music dies. MRS
ROONEY murmurs, melody. Her murmur dies. Sound of approaching
cartwheels. The cart stops.
The steps slow down, stop.]
Is that you, Christy?
CHRISTY: It is, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: I thought the hinny was familiar. How is your poor wife?
CHRISTY: No better, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Your daughter then?
CHRISTY: No worse, Ma’am.
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: Why do you halt? [Pause.] But why do I halt?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: Nice day for the races, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: No doubt it is. [Pause.] But will it hold up?
[Pause. With emotion.] Will it hold up?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: I suppose you wouldn’t— MRS ROONEY: Hist! [Pause]
Surely to goodness that cannot be the up mail I hear already.
[Silence. The hinny neighs. Silence.]
CHRISTY: Damn the mail.
MRS ROONEY: Oh thank God for that! I could have sworn I heard it,
thundering up the track in the far distance. [Pause.] So hinnies whinny.
Well, it is not surprising.
CHRISTY: I suppose you wouldn’t be in need of a small load of dung?
MRS ROONEY: Dung? What class of dung?
CHRISTY: Stydung.
MRS ROONEY: Stydung … I like your frankness, Christy. [Pause.] I’ll ask
 the master. [Pause.] Christy.
CHRISTY: Yes, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Do you find anything … bizarre about my way of speaking?
[Pause.] I do not mean the voice. [Pause.] No, I mean the words. [Pause.
More to herself.] I use none but the simplest words, I hope, and yet I
sometimes find my way of speaking very … bizarre. [Pause.] Mercy!
What was that?
CHRISTY: Never mind her, Ma’am, she’s very fresh in herself today
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: Dung? What would we want with dung, at our time of life?
[Pause.] Why are you on your feet down on the road? Why do you not
climb up on the crest of your manure and let yourself be carried along? Is
it that you have no head for heights?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: [To the hinny.] Yep! [Pause. Louder.] Yep wiyya to hell owwa
that!
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: She does not move a muscle. [Pause.] I too should be getting
along, if I do not wish to arrive late at the station. [Pause.] But a moment
ago she neighed and pawed the ground. And now she refuses to advance.
Give her a good welt on the rump. [Sound of welt. Pause.] Harder! [Sound
of welt. Pause.] Well! If someone were to do that for me I should not dally.
[Pause.] How she gazes at me to be sure, with her great moist cleg-
tormented eyes! Perhaps if I were to move on, down the road, out of her
field of vision … [Sound of welt.] No, no, enough! Take her by the snaffle
and pull her eyes away from me. Oh this is awful! [She moves on. Sound
of her dragging feet.] What have I done to deserve all this, what, what?
[Dragging feet.] So long ago … No! No! [Dragging feet. Quotes.] “Sigh
out a something something tale of things, Done long ago and ill done.”
[She halts.] How can I go on, I cannot. Oh let me just flop down flat on the
road like a big fat jelly out of a bowl and never move again! A great big
slop thick with grit and dust and flies, they would have to scoop me up
with a shovel. [Pause.] Heavens, there is that up mail again, what will
become of me! [The dragging steps resume.] Oh I am just a hysterical old
hag I know, destroyed with sorrow and pining and gentility and
churchgoing and fat and rheumatism and childlessness. [Pause. Brokenly.]
 Minnie! Little Minnie! [Pause.] Love, that is all I asked, a little love, daily,
twice daily, fifty years of twice daily love like a Paris horse-butcher’s
regular, what normal woman wants affection? A peck on the jaw at
morning, near the ear, and another at evening, peck, peck, till you grow
whiskers on you. There is that lovely laburnum again.
[Dragging feet. Sound of bicycle-bell. It is old MR TYLER coming up behind
her on his bicycle, on his way to the station. Squeak of brakes. He slows
down and rides abreast of her.]
MR TYLOR: Mrs Rooney! Pardon me if I do not doff my cap, I’d fall off.
Divine day for the meeting.
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Mr Tyler, you startled the life out of me stealing up
behind me like that like a deer-stalker! Oh!
MR TYLER: [Playfully.] I rang my bell, Mrs Rooney, the moment I sighted
you I started tinkling my bell, now don’t you deny it.
MRS ROONEY: Your bell is one thing, Mr Tyler, and you are another. What
news of your poor daughter?
MR TYLER: Fair, fair. They removed everything, you know, the whole … er
… bag of tricks. Now I am grandchildless.
[Dragging feet.]
MRS ROONEY: Gracious how you wobble! Dismount, for mercy’s sake, or
ride on.
MR TYLER: Perhaps if I were to lay my hand lightly on your shoulder, Mrs
Rooney, how would that be?
[Pause.] Would you permit that?
MRS ROONEY: No, Mr Rooney, Mr Tyler I mean, I am tired of light old
hands on my shoulders and other senseless places, sick and tired of them.
Heavens, here comes Connolly’s van! [She halts. Sound of motor-van. It
approaches, passes with thunderous rattles, recedes.] Are you all right, Mr
Tyler? [Pause.] Where is he? [Pause.] Ah there you are! [The dragging
steps resume.] That was a narrow squeak.
MR TYLER: I alit in the nick of time.
MRS ROONEY: It is suicide to be abroad. But what is it to be at home, Mr
Tyler, what is it to be at home? A lingering dissolution. Now we are white
with dust from head to foot. I beg your pardon?
MR TYLER: Nothing, Mrs Rooney, nothing I was merely cursing, under my
breath, God and man, under my breath, and the wet Saturday afternoon of
 my conception. My back tyre has gone down again. I pumped it hard as
iron before I set out. And now I am on the rim.
MRS ROONEY: Oh what a shame!
MR TYLER: Now if it were the front I should not so much mind. But the
back. The back! The chain! The oil! The grease! The hub! The brakes! The
gear! No! It is too much!
[Dragging steps.]
MRS ROONEY: Are we very late, Mr Tyler? I have not the courage to look at
my watch.
MR TYLER: [Bitterly.] Late! I on my bicycle as I bowled along was already
late. Now therefore we are doubly late, trebly, quadrupedly late. Would I
had shot by you, without a word.
[Dragging feet.]
MRS ROONEY: Whom are you meeting, Mr Tyler?
MR TYLER: Hardy. [Pause.] We used to climb together. [Pause.] I saved his
life once. [Pause.] I have not forgotten it.
[Dragging feet. They stop.]
MRS ROONEY: Let us halt a moment and let this vile dust fall back upon the
viler worms.
[Silence. Rural sounds.]
MR TYLER: What sky! What light! Ah in spite of all it is a blessed thing to
be alive in such weather, and out of hospital.
MRS ROONEY: Alive?
MR TYLER: Well half alive shall we say?
MRS ROONEY: Speak for yourself, Mr Tyler. I am not half alive nor anything
approaching it. [Pause.] What are we standing here for? This dust will not
settle in our time. And when it does some great roaring machine will come
and whirl it all skyhigh again.
MR TYLER: Well, shall we be getting along in that case?
MRS ROONEY: No.
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney— MRS ROONEY: Go, Mr Tyler, go on
and leave me, listening to the cooing of the ringdoves. [Cooing.] If you see
my poor blind Dan tell him I was on my way to meet him when it all came
over me again, like a flood. Say to him, Your poor wife, She told me to tell
you it all came flooding over her again and … [The voice breaks.] … she
simply went back home … straight back home …
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just
take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.
MRS ROONEY: [Sobbing.] What? What’s all this now? [Calmer.] Can’t you
see I’m in trouble? [With anger.] Have you no respect for misery?
[Sobbing.] Minnie! Little Minnie!
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just
take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.
MRS ROONEY: [Brokenly.] In her forties now she’d be, I don’t know, fifty,
girding up her lovely little loins, getting ready for the change …
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail— MRS ROONEY:
[exploding.] Will you get along with you, Mr Rooney, Mr Tyler I mean,
will you get along with you now and cease molesting me? What kind of a
country is this where a woman can’t weep her heart out on the highways
and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers! [Mr Tyler
prepares to mount his bicycle.] Heavens you’re not going to ride her flat!
[Mr Tyler mounts.] You’ll tear your tube to ribbons! [Mr Tyler rides off.
Receding sound of bumping bicycle. Silence. Cooing.] Venus birds! Billing
in the woods all the long summer long. [Pause.] Oh cursed corset! If I
could let it out, without indecent exposure. Mr Tyler! Mr Tyler! Come
back and unlace me behind the hedge! [She laughs wildly, ceases.] What’s
wrong with me, what’s wrong with me, never tranquil, seething out of my
dirty old pelt, out of my skull, oh to be in atoms, in atoms! [Frenziedly.]
ATOMS! [Silence. Cooing. Faintly.] Jesus! [Pause.] Jesus!
[Sound of car coming up behind her. It slows down and draws up beside
her, engine running. It is MR SLOCUM, the Clerk of the Racecourse.]
MR SLOCUM: Is anything wrong, Mrs Rooney? You are bent all double.
Have you a pain in the stomach?
[Silence. MRS ROONEY laughs wildly. Finally.]
MRS ROONEY: Well if it isn’t my old admirer the Clerk of the Course, in his
limousine.
MR SLOCUM: May I offer you a lift, Mrs Rooney? Are you going in my
direction?
MRS ROONEY: I am, Mr Slocum, we all are. [Pause.] How is your poor
mother?
MR SLOCUM: Thank you, she is fairly comfortable. We manage to keep her
out of pain. That is the great thing, Mrs Rooney, is it not?
MRS ROONEY: Yes, indeed, Mr Slocum, that is the great thing, I don’t know
how you do it. [Pause. She slaps her cheek violently.] Ah these wasps!
MR SLOCUM: [Coolly.] May I then offer you a seat, Madam?
MRS ROONEY: [With exaggerated enthusiasm.] Oh that would be heavenly,
Mr Slocum, just simply heavenly. [Dubiously.] But would I ever get in?
You look very high off the ground today, these new balloon tyres I
presume. [Sound of door opening and MRS ROONEY trying to get in.] Does
this roof never come off? No? [Efforts of MRS ROONEY.] No … I’ll never
do it … you’ll have to get down, Mr Slocum, and help me from the rear.
[Pause.] What was that? [Pause. Aggrieved.] This is all your suggestion,
Mr Slocum, not mine. Drive on, Sir, drive on.
MR SLOCUM: [Switching off engine.] I’m coming, Mrs Rooney, I’m coming,
give me time, I’m as stiff as yourself.
[Sound of MR SLOCUM extracting himself from driver’s seat.]
MRS ROONEY: Stiff! Well I like that! And me heaving all over back and
front. [To herself.] The dry old reprobate!
MR SLOCUM: [In position behind her.] Now, Mrs Rooney, how shall we do
this?
MRS ROONEY: As if I were a bale, Mr Slocum, don’t be afraid. [Pause.
Sounds of effort.] That’s the way! [Effort.] Lower! [Effort.] Wait! [Pause.]
No, don’t let go! [Pause.] Suppose I do get up, will I ever get down?
MR SLOCUM: [Breathing hard.] You’ll get down, Mrs Rooney, you’ll get
down. We may not get you up, but I warrant you we’ll get you down.
[He resumes his efforts. Sound of these.]
MRS ROONEY: Oh! … Lower! … Don’t be afraid! … We’re past the age
when … There! … Now! … Get your shoulder under it … Oh! …
[Giggles.] Oh glory! … Up! Up! … Ah! … I’m in! [Panting of MR
SLOCUM. He slams the door. In a scream.] My frock! You’ve nipped my
frock! [MR SLOCUM opens the door. MRS ROONEY frees her frock. MR SLOCUM
slams the door. His violent unintelligible muttering as he walks round to
the other door. Tearfully.] My nice frock! Look what you’ve done to my
nice frock! [MR SLOCUM gets into his seat, slams driver’s door, presses
starter. The engine does not start. He releases starter.] What will Dan say
when he sees me?
MR SLOCUM: Has he then recovered his sight?
MRS ROONEY: No, I mean when he knows, what will he say when he feels
 the hole? [MR SLOCUM presses starter. As before. Silence.] What are you
doing, Mr Slocum?
MR SLOCUM: Gazing straight before me, Mrs Rooney, through the
windscreen, into the void.
MRS ROONEY: Start her up, I beseech you, and let us be off. This is awful!
MR SLOCUM: [Dreamily.] All morning she went like a dream and now she is
dead. That is what you get for a good deed. [Pause. Hopefully.] Perhaps if
I were to choke her. [He does so, presses the starter. The engine roars.
Roaring to make himself heard.] She was getting too much air!
[He throttles down, grinds in his first gear, moves off, changes up in a
grinding of gears.]
MRS ROONEY: [In anguish.] Mind the hen! [Scream of brakes. Squawk of
hen.] Oh, mother, you have squashed her, drive on, drive on! [The car
accelerates. Pause.] What a death! One minute picking happy at the dung,
on the road, in the sun, with now and then a dust bath, and then—bang!—
all her troubles over. [Pause.] All the laying and the hatching. [Pause.]
Just one great squawk and then … peace. [Pause.] They would have slit
her weasand in any case. [Pause.] Here we are, let me down. [The car
slows down, stops, engine running. MR SLOCUM blows his horn. Pause.
Louder. Pause.] What are you up to now, Mr Slocum? We are at a
standstill, all danger is past and you blow your horn. Now if instead of
blowing it now you had blown it at that unfortunate—
[Horn violently. TOMMY the porter appears at top of station steps.]
MR SLOCUM: [Calling.] Will you come down, Tommy, and help this lady
out, she’s stuck.
[TOMMY descends the steps.]
Open the door, Tommy, and ease her out.
[TOMMY opens the door.]
TOMMY: Certainly, Sir. Nice day for the races, Sir. What would you fancy
for— MRS ROONEY: Don’t mind me. Don’t take any notice of me. I do
not exist. The fact is well known.
MR SLOCUM: Do as you’re asked, Tommy, for the love of God.
TOMMY: Yessir. Now, Mrs Rooney.
[He starts pulling her out.]
MRS ROONEY: Wait, Tommy, wait now, don’t bustle me, just let me wheel
round and get my feet to the ground. [Her efforts to achieve this.] Now.
TOMMY: [Pulling her out.] Mind your feather, Ma’am.
[Sounds of effort.] Easy now, easy.
MRS ROONEY: Wait, for God’s sake, you’ll have me beheaded.
TOMMY: Crouch down, Mrs Rooney, crouch down, and get your head in the
open.
MRS ROONEY: Crouch down! At my time of life! This is lunacy!
TOMMY: Press her down, Sir.
[Sounds of combined efforts.]
MRS ROONEY: Pity!
TOMMY: Now! She’s coming! Straighten up, Ma’am! There! [MR SLOCUM
slams the door.]
MRS ROONEY: Am I out?
[The voice of MR BARRELL, the station-master, raised in anger.]
MR BARRELL: Tommy! Tommy! Where the hell is he?
[MR SLOCUM grinds in his gear.]
TOMMY: [Hurriedly.] You wouldn’t have something for the Ladies Plate,
Sir? I was given Flash Harry.
MR SLOCUM: [Scornfully.] Flash Harry! That carthorse!
MR BARRELL: [At top of steps, roaring.] Tommy! Blast your bleeding
bloody— [He sees MRS ROONEY.] Oh, Mrs Rooney … [MR SLOCUM drives
away in a grinding of gears.] Who’s that crucifying his gearbox, Tommy?
TOMMY: Old Cissy Slocum.
MRS ROONEY: Cissy Slocum! That’s a nice way to refer to your betters.
Cissy Slocum! And you an orphan!
MR BARRELL: [Angrily to TOMMY.] What are you doing stravaging down
here on the public road? This is no place for you at all! Nip up there on the
platform now and whip out the truck! Won’t the twelve thirty be on top of
us before we can turn round?
TOMMY: [Bitterly.] And that’s the thanks you get for a Christian act.
MR BARRELL: [Violently.] Get on with you now before I report you! [Slow
feet of TOMMY climbing steps.] Do you want me to come down to you with
the shovel? [The feet quicken, recede, cease.] Ah God forgive me, it’s a
hard life. [Pause.] Well, Mrs Rooney, it’s nice to see you up and about
again. You were laid up there a long time.
MRS ROONEY: Not long enough, Mr Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were still in
bed, Mr Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were lying stretched out in my
 comfortable bed, Mr Barrell, just wasting slowly, painlessly away, keeping
up my strength with arrowroot and calves-foot jelly, till in the end you
wouldn’t see me under the blankets any more than a board. [Pause.] Oh no
coughing or spitting or bleeding or vomiting, just drifting gently down into
the higher life, and remembering, remembering … [The voice breaks.] …
all the silly unhappiness … as though … it had never happened … What
did I do with that handkerchief? [Sound of handkerchief loudly applied.]
How long have you been master of this station now, Mr Barrell?
MR BARRELL: Don’t ask me, Mrs Rooney, don’t ask me.
MRS ROONEY: You stepped into your father’s shoes, I believe, when he took
them off.
MR BARRELL: Poor Pappy! [Reverent pause.] He didn’t live long to enjoy
his ease.
MRS ROONEY: I remember him clearly. A small ferrety purple-faced
widower, deaf as a doornail, very testy and snappy. [Pause.] I suppose
you’ll be retiring soon yourself, Mr Barrell, and growing your roses.
[Pause.] Did I understand you to say the twelve thirty would soon be upon
us?
MR BARRELL: Those were my words.
MRS ROONEY: But according to my watch which is more or less right—or
was—by the eight o’clock news the time is now coming up to twelve …
[Pause as she consults her watch.] … thirty-six. [Pause.] And yet upon the
other hand the up mail has not yet gone through. [Pause.] Or has it sped by
unbeknown to me? [Pause.] For there was a moment there, I remember
now, I was so plunged in sorrow I wouldn’t have heard a steam roller go
over me. [Pause. MR BARRELL turns to go.] Don’t go, Mr Barrell!
[MR BARRELL goes. Loud.] Mr Barrell! [Pause. Louder.] Mr Barrell! [MR
BARRELL comes back.]
MR BARRELL: [Testily.] What is it, Mrs Rooney, I have my work to do.
[Silence. Sound of wind.]
MRS ROONEY: The wind is getting up. [Pause. Wind.] The best of the day is
over. [Pause. Wind. Dreamily.] Soon the rain will begin to fall and go on
falling, all afternoon. [MR BARRELL goes.] Then at evening the clouds will
part, the setting sun will shine an instant, then sink, behind the hills. [She
realizes MR BARRELL has gone.] Mr Barrell! Mr Barrell! [Silence.] I
estrange them all. They come towards me, uninvited, bygones bygones,
 full of kindness, anxious to help … [The voice breaks.] … genuinely
pleased … to see me again … looking so well … [Handkerchief.] A few
simple words … from my heart … and I am all alone … once more …
[Handkerchief. Vehemently.] I should not be out at all! I should never leave
the grounds! [Pause.] Oh there is that Fitt woman, I wonder will she bow
to me. [Sound of MISS FITT approaching, humming a hymn. She starts
climbing the steps.] Miss Fitt! [MISS FITT halts, stops humming.] Am I then
invisible, Miss Fitt? Is this cretonne so becoming to me that I merge into
the masonry? [MISS FITT descends a step.] That is right, Miss Fitt, look
closely and you will finally distinguish a once female shape.
MISS FITT: Mrs Rooney! I saw you, but I did not know you.
MRS ROONEY: Last Sunday we worshipped together. We knelt side by side
at the same altar. We drank from the same chalice. Have I so changed
since then?
MISS FITT: [Shocked.] Oh but in church, Mrs Rooney, in church I am alone
with my Maker. Are not you? [Pause.] Why even the sexton himself, you
know, when he takes up the collection, knows it is useless to pause before
me. I simply do not see the plate, or bag, whatever it is they use, how
could I? [Pause.] Why even when all is over and I go out into the sweet
fresh air, why even then for the first furlong or so I stumble in a kind of
daze as you might say, oblivious to my co-religionists. And they are very
kind I must admit—the vast majority—very kind and understanding. They
know me now and take no umbrage. There she goes, they say, there goes
the dark Miss Fitt, alone with her Maker, take no notice of her. And they
step down off the path to avoid my running into them. [Pause.] Ah yes, I
am distray, very distray, even on week-days. Ask Mother, if you do not
believe me. Hetty, she says, when I start eating my doily instead of the thin
bread and butter, Hetty, how can you be so distray? [Sighs.] I suppose the
truth is I am not there, Mrs Rooney, just not really there at all. I see, hear,
smell, and so on, I go through the usual motions, but my heart is not in it,
Mrs Rooney, my heart is in none of it. Left to myself, with no one to check
me, I would soon be flown … home. [Pause.] So if you think I cut you just
now, Mrs Rooney, you do me an injustice. All I saw was a big pale blur,
just another big pale blur. [Pause.] Is anything amiss, Mrs Rooney, you do
not look normal somehow. So bowed and bent.
MRS ROONEY: [Ruefully.] Maddy Rooney, née Dunne, the big pale blur.
 [Pause.] You have piercing sight, Miss Fitt, if you only knew it, literally
piercing. [Pause.]
MISS FITT: Well … is there anything I can do, now that I am here?
MRS ROONEY: If you would help me up the face of this cliff, Miss Fitt, I
have little doubt your Maker would requite you, if no one else.
MISS FITT: Now, now, Mrs Rooney, don’t put your teeth in me. Requite! I
make these sacrifices for nothing—or not at all. [Pause. Sound of her
descending steps.] I take it you want to lean on me, Mrs Rooney.
MRS ROONEY: I asked Mr Barrell to give me his arm, just give me his arm.
[Pause.] He turned on his heel and strode away.
MISS FITT: Is it my arm you want then? [Pause. Impatiently.] Is it my arm
you want, Mrs Rooney, or what is it?
MRS ROONEY: [Exploding.] Your arm! Any arm! A helping hand! For five
seconds! Christ what a planet!
MISS FITT: Really … Do you know what it is, Mrs Rooney, I do not think it
is wise of you to be going about at all.
MRS ROONEY: [Violently.] Come down here, Miss Fitt, and give me your
arm, before I scream down the parish!
[Pause. Wind. Sound of MISS FITT descending last steps.]
MISS FITT: [Resignedly.] Well, I suppose it is the Protestant thing to do.
MRS ROONEY: Pismires do it for one another. [Pause.] I have seen slugs do
it. [MISS FITT proffers her arm.] No, the other side, my dear, if it’s all the
same to you, I’m left-handed on top of everything else. [She takes MISS
FITT’s right arm.] Heavens, child, you’re just a bag of bones, you need
building up. [Sound of her toiling up steps on MISS FITT’s arm.] This is
worse than the Matterhorn, were you ever up the Matterhorn, Miss Fitt,
great honeymoon resort. [Sound of toiling.] Why don’t they have a
handrail? [Panting.] Wait till I get some air. [Pause.] Don’t let me go!
[MISS FITT hums her hymn. After a moment MRS ROONEY joins in with the
words.] … the encircling gloo-oom … [MISS FITT stops humming.] … tum
tum me on. [Forte.] The night is dark and I am far from ho-ome, tum tum
— MISS FITT: [Hysterically.] Stop it, Mrs Rooney, stop it, or I’ll drop
you!
MRS ROONEY: Wasn’t it that they sung on the Lusitania? Or Rock of Ages?
Most touching it must have been. Or was it the Titanic?
[Attracted by the noise a group, including MR TYLER, MR BARRELL and
 TOMMY, gathers at top of steps.]
MR BARRELL: What the—
[Silence.]
MR TYLER: Lovely day for the fixture.
[Loud titter from TOMMY cut short by MR BARRELL with backhanded blow
in the stomach. Appropriate noise from TOMMY.]
A FEMALE VOICE: [Shrill.] Oh look, Dolly, look!
DOLLY: What, Mamma?
A FEMALE VOICE: They are stuck! [Cackling laugh.] They are stuck!
MRS ROONEY: Now we are the laughing-stock of the twenty-six counties.
Or is it thirty-six?
MR TYLER: That is a nice way to treat your defenceless subordinates, Mr
Barrell, hitting them without warning in the pit of the stomach.
MISS FITT: Has anyone seen my mother?
MR BARRELL: Who is that?
TOMMY: The dark Miss Fitt.
MR BARRELL: Where is her face?
MRS ROONEY: Now, deary, I am ready if you are. [They toil up remaining
steps.] Stand back, you cads! [Shuffle of feet.]
A FEMALE VOICE: Mind yourself, Dolly!
MRS ROONEY: Thank you, Miss Fitt, thank you, that will do, just prop me up
against the wall like a roll of tarpaulin and that will be all, for the moment.
[Pause.] I am sorry for all this ramdam, Miss Fitt, had I known you were
looking for your mother I should not have importuned you, I know what it
is.
MR TYLER: [In marvelling aside.] Ramdam!
A FEMALE VOICE: Come, Dolly darling, let us take up our stand before the
first class smokers. Give me your hand and hold me tight, one can be
sucked under.
MR TYLER: You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?
MISS FITT: Good morning, Mr Tyler.
MR TYLER: Good morning, Miss Fitt.
MR BARRELL: Good morning, Miss Fitt.
MISS FITT: Good morning, Mr Barrell.
MR TYLER: You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?
MISS FITT: She said she would be on the last train.
MRS ROONEY: Do not imagine, because I am silent, that I am not present,
and alive, to all that is going on.
MR TYLER: [To MISS FITT.] When you say the last train— MRS ROONEY:
Do not flatter yourselves for one moment, because I hold aloof, that my
sufferings have ceased. No. The entire scene, the hills, the plain, the
racecourse with its miles and miles of white rails and three red stands, the
pretty little wayside station, even you yourselves, yes, I mean it, and over
all the clouding blue, I see it all, I stand here and see it all with eyes …
[The voice breaks.] … through eyes … oh if you had my eyes … you
would understand … the things they have seen … and not looked away …
this is nothing … nothing … what did I do with that handkerchief?
[Pause.]
MR TYLER: [To MISS FITT.] When you say the last train— [MRS ROONEY
blows her nose violently and long.] —when you say the last train, Miss
Fitt, I take it you mean the twelve thirty.
MISS FITT: What else could I mean, Mr Tyler, what else could I conceivably
mean?
MR TYLER: Then you have no cause for anxiety, Miss Fitt, for the twelve
thirty has not yet arrived. Look. [MISS FITT looks.] No, up the line. [MISS
FITT looks. Patiently.] No, Miss Fitt, follow the direction of my index.
[MISS FITT looks.] There. You see now. The signal. At the bawdy hour of
nine. [In rueful afterthought.] Or three alas! [MR BARRELL stifles a guffaw.]
Thank you, Mr Barrell.
MISS FITT: But the time is now getting on for— MR TYLER: [Patiently.]
We all know, Miss Fitt, we all know only too well what the time is now
getting on for, and yet the cruel fact remains that the twelve thirty has not
yet arrived.
MISS FITT: Not an accident, I trust! [Pause.] Do not tell me she has left the
track! [Pause.] Oh darling mother! With the fresh sole for lunch!
[Loud titter from TOMMY, checked as before by MR BARRELL.]
MR BARRELL: That’s enough old guff out of you. Nip up to the box now and
see has Mr Case anything for me.
[TOMMY goes.]
MRS ROONEY: Poor Dan!
MISS FITT: [In anguish.] What terrible thing has happened?
MR TYLER: Now now, Miss Fitt, do not— MRS ROONEY: [With
 vehement sadness.] Poor Dan!
MR TYLER: Now now, Miss Fitt, do not give way … to despair, all will
come right … in the end. [Aside to MR BARRELL.] What is the situation, Mr
Barrell? Not a collision surely?
MRS ROONEY: [Enthusiastically.] A collision! Oh that would be wonderful!
MISS FITT: [Horrified.] A collision! I knew it!
MR TYLER: Come, Miss Fitt, let us move a little up the platform.
MRS ROONEY: Yes, let us all do that. [Pause.] No? [Pause.] You have
changed your mind? [Pause.] I quite agree, we are better here, in the
shadow of the waiting-room.
MR BARRELL: Excuse me a moment.
MRS ROONEY: Before you slink away, Mr Barrell, please, a statement of
some kind, I insist. Even the slowest train on this brief line is not ten
minutes and more behind its scheduled time without good cause, one
imagines. [Pause.] We all know your station is the best kept of the entire
network, but there are times when that is not enough, just not enough.
[Pause.] Now, Mr Barrell, leave off chewing your whiskers, we are
waiting to hear from you—we the unfortunate ticket-holders’ nearest if not
dearest.
[Pause.]
MR TYLER: [Reasonably.] I do think we are owed some kind of explanation,
Mr Barrell, if only to set our minds at rest.
MR BARRELL: I know nothing. All I know is there has been a hitch. All
traffic is retarded.
MRS ROONEY: [Derisively.] Retarded! A hitch! Ah these celibates! Here we
are eating our hearts out with anxiety for our loved ones and he calls that a
hitch! Those of us like myself with heart and kidney trouble may collapse
at any moment and he calls that a hitch! In our ovens the Saturday roast is
burning to a shrivel and he calls that— MR TYLER: Here comes
Tommy, running! I am glad I have been spared to see this.
TOMMY: [Excitedly, in the distance.] She’s coming. [Pause. Nearer.] She’s
at the level-crossing!
[Immediately exaggerated station sounds. Falling signals. Bells. Whistles.
Crescendo of train whistle approaching. Sound of train rushing through
station.]
MRS ROONEY: [Above rush of train.] The up mail! The up mail! [The up
 mail recedes, the down train approaches, enters the station, pulls up with
great hissing of steam and clashing of couplings. Noise of passengers
descending, doors banging, MR BARRELL shouting “Boghill! Boghill!”, etc.
Piercingly.] Dan! … Are you all right? … Where is he? … Dan! … Did
you see my husband? … Dan! … [Noise of station emptying. Guard’s
whistle. Train departing, receding. Silence.] He isn’t on it! The misery I
have endured to get here, and he isn’t on it! … Mr Barrell! … Was he not
on it? [Pause.] Is anything the matter, you look as if you had seen a ghost.
[Pause.] Tommy! … Did you see the master?
TOMMY: He’ll be along, Ma’am, Jerry is minding him.
[MR ROONEY suddenly appears on platform, advancing on small boy
JERRY’s arm. He is blind, thumps the ground with his stick and pants
incessantly.]
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Dan! There you are! [Her dragging feet as she hastens
towards him. She reaches him. They halt.] Where in the world were you?
MR ROONEY: [Coolly.] Maddy.
MRS ROONEY: Where were you all this time?
MR ROONEY: In the men’s.
MRS ROONEY: Kiss me!
MR ROONEY: Kiss you? In public? On the platform? Before the boy? Have
you taken leave of your senses?
MRS ROONEY: Jerry wouldn’t mind. Would you, Jerry?
JERRY: No, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: How is your poor father?
JERRY: They took him away, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Then you are all alone?
JERRY: Yes, Ma’am.
MR ROONEY: Why are you here? You did not notify me.
MRS ROONEY: I wanted to give you a surprise. For your birthday.
MR ROONEY: My birthday?
MRS ROONEY: Don’t you remember? I wished you your happy returns in the
bathroom.
MR ROONEY: I did not hear you.
MRS ROONEY: But I gave you a tie! You have it on!
[Pause.]
MR ROONEY: How old am I now?
MRS ROONEY: Now never mind about that. Come.
MR ROONEY: Why did you not cancel the boy? Now we shall have to give
him a penny.
MRS ROONEY: [Miserably.] I forgot! I had such a time getting here! Such
horrid nasty people! [Pause. Pleading.] Be nice to me, Dan, be nice to me
today!
MR ROONEY: Give the boy a penny.
MR ROONEY: Here are two halfpennies, Jerry. Run along now and buy
yourself a nice gobstopper.
JERRY: Yes, Ma’am.
MR ROONEY: Come for me on Monday, if I am still alive.
JERRY: Yessir.
[He runs off.]
MR ROONEY: We could have saved sixpence. We have saved fivepence.
[Pause.] But at what cost?
[They move off along platform arm in arm. Dragging feet, panting,
thudding stick.]
MRS ROONEY: Are you not well?
[They halt, on MR ROONEY’s initiative.]
MR ROONEY: Once and for all, do not ask me to speak and move at the same
time. I shall not say this in this life again.
[They move off. Dragging feet, etc. They halt at top of steps.]
MRS ROONEY: Are you not— MR ROONEY: Let us get this precipice
over.
MRS ROONEY: Put your arm around me.
MR ROONEY: Have you been drinking again? [Pause.] You are quivering
like a blancmange. [Pause.] Are you in a condition to lead me? [Pause.]
We shall fall into the ditch.
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Dan! It will be like old times!
MR ROONEY: Pull yourself together or I shall send Tommy for the cab. Then
instead of having saved sixpence, no, five-pence, we shall have lost …
[Calculating mumble.] … two and three less six one and no plus one one
and no plus three one and nine and one ten and three two and one …
[Normal voice.] two and one, we shall be the poorer to the tune of two and
one. [Pause.] Curse that sun, it has gone in. What is the day doing?
[Wind.]
MRS ROONEY: Shrouding, shrouding, the best of it is past. [Pause.] Soon the
first great drops will fall splashing in the dust.
MR ROONEY: And yet the glass was firm. [Pause.] Let us hasten home and
sit before the fire. We shall draw the blinds. You will read to me. I think
Effie is going to commit adultery with the Major. [Brief drag of feet.]
Wait! [Feet cease. Stick tapping at steps.] I have been up and down these
steps five thousand times and still I do not know how many there are.
When I think there are six there are four or five or seven or eight and when
I remember there are five there are three or four or six or seven and when
finally I realize there are seven there are five or six or eight or nine.
Sometimes I wonder if they do not change them in the night. [Pause.
Irritably.] Well? How many do you make them today?
MRS ROONEY: Do not ask me to count, Dan, not now.
MR ROONEY: Not count! One of the few satisfactions in life!
MRS ROONEY: Not steps, Dan, please, I always get them wrong. Then you
might fall on your wound and I would have that on my manure-heap on
top of everything else. No, just cling to me and all will be well.
[Confused noise of their descent. Panting, stumbling, ejaculations, curses.
Silence.]
MR ROONEY: Well! That is what you call well!
MRS ROONEY: We are down. And little the worse. [Silence. A donkey brays.
Silence.] That was a true donkey. Its father and mother were donkeys.
[Silence.]
MR ROONEY: Do you know what it is, I think I shall retire.
MRS ROONEY: [Appalled.] Retire! And live at home? On your grant!
MR ROONEY: Never tread these cursed steps again. Trudge this hellish road
for the last time. Sit at home on the remnants of my bottom counting the
hours—till the next meal. [Pause.] The very thought puts life in me!
Forward, before it dies!
[They move on. Dragging feet, panting, thudding stick.]
MRS ROONEY: Now mind, here is the path … Up! … Well done! Now we
are in safety and a straight run home.
MR ROONEY: [Without halting, between gasps.] A straight … run! … She
calls that … a straight … run! …
MRS ROONEY: Hush! Do not speak as you go along, you know it is not good
for your coronary. [Dragging steps, etc.] Just concentrate on putting one
 foot before the next or whatever the expression is. [Dragging feet, etc.]
That is the way, now we are doing nicely. [Dragging feet, etc. They
suddenly halt, on MRS ROONEY’s initiative.] Heavens! I knew there was
something! With all the excitement! I forgot!
MR ROONEY: [Quietly.] Good God!
MRS ROONEY: But you must know, Dan, of course, you were on it.
Whatever happened? Tell me!
MR ROONEY: I have never known anything to happen.
MRS ROONEY: But you must— MR ROONEY: [Violently.] All this
stopping and starting again is devilish, devilish! I get a little way on me
and begin to be carried along when suddenly you stop dead! Two hundred
pounds of unhealthy fat! What possessed you to come out at all? Let go of
me!
MRS ROONEY: [In great agitation.] No, I must know, we won’t stir from
here till you tell me. Fifteen minutes late! On a thirty minute run! It’s
unheard of!
MR ROONEY: I know nothing. Let go of me before I shake you off.
MRS ROONEY: But you must know! You were on it! Was it at the terminus?
Did you leave on time? Or was it on the line? [Pause.] Did something
happen on the line? [Pause.] Dan! [Brokenly.] Why won’t you tell me!
[Silence. They move off. Dragging feet, etc. They halt. Pause.]
MR ROONEY: Poor Maddy! [Pause. Children’s cries.] What was that?
[Pause for MRS ROONEY to ascertain.]
MRS ROONEY: The Lynch twins jeering at us.
[Cries.]
MR ROONEY: Will they pelt us with mud today, do you suppose? [Cries.]
MRS ROONEY: Let us turn and face them. [Cries. They turn. Silence.]
Threaten them with your stick. [Silence.] They have run away.
[Pause.]
MR ROONEY: Did you ever wish to kill a child? [Pause.] Nip some young
doom in the bud. [Pause.] Many a time at night, in winter, on the black
road home, I nearly attacked the boy. [Pause.] Poor Jerry! [Pause.] What
restrained me then? [Pause.] Not fear of man. [Pause.] Shall we go on
backwards now a little?
MRS ROONEY: Backwards?
MR ROONEY: Yes. Or you forwards and I backwards. The perfect pair. Like
 Dante’s damned, with their faces arsy-versy. Our tears will water our
bottoms.
MRS ROONEY: What is the matter, Dan? Are you not well?
MR ROONEY: Well! Did you ever know me to be well? The day you met me
I should have been in bed. The day you proposed to me the doctors gave
me up. You knew that, did you not? The night you married me they came
for me with an ambulance. You have not forgotten that, I suppose?
[Pause.] No, I cannot be said to be well. But I am no worse. Indeed I am
better than I was. The loss of my sight was a great fillip. If I could go deaf
and dumb I think I might pant on to be a hundred. Or have I done so?
[Pause.] Was I a hundred today? [Pause.] Am I a hundred, Maddy?
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: All is still. No living soul in sight. There is no one to ask.
The world is feeding. The wind—[Brief wind.]—scarcely stirs the leaves
and the birds—[Brief chirp.]—are tired singing. The cows—[Brief moo.]
—and sheep—[Brief baa.]—ruminate in silence. The dogs—[Brief bark.]
—are hushed and the hens—[Brief cackle.]—sprawl torpid in the dust. We
are alone. There is no one to ask.
[Silence.]
MR ROONEY: [Clearing his throat, narrative tone.] We drew out on the tick
of time, I can vouch for that. I was— MRS ROONEY: How can you
vouch for it?
MR ROONEY: [Normal tone, angrily.] I can vouch for it, I tell you! Do you
want my relation or don’t you? [Pause. Narrative tone.] On the tick of
time. I had the compartment to myself, as usual. At least I hope so, for I
made no attempt to restrain myself. My mind— [Normal tone.] But why
do we not sit down somewhere? Are we afraid we should never rise again?
MRS ROONEY: Sit down on what?
MR ROONEY: On a bench, for example.
MRS ROONEY: There is no bench.
MR ROONEY: Then on a bank, let us sink down upon a bank.
MRS ROONEY: There is no bank.
MR ROONEY: Then we cannot. [Pause.] I dream of other roads, in other
lands. Of another home, another—[He hesitates.]— another home.
[Pause.] What was I trying to say?
MRS ROONEY: Something about your mind.
MR ROONEY: [Startled.] My mind? Are you sure? [Pause. Incredulous.] My
mind? … [Pause.] Ah yes. [Narrative tone.] Alone in the compartment my
mind began to work, as so often after office hours, on the way home, in the
train, to the lilt of the bogeys. Your season-ticket, I said, costs you twelve
pounds a year and you earn, on an average, seven and six a day, that is to
say barely enough to keep you alive and twitching with the help of food,
drink, tobacco and periodicals until you finally reach home and fall into
bed. Add to this—or subtract from it—rent, stationery, various
subscriptions, tramfares to and fro, light and heat, permits and licences,
hairtrims and shaves, tips to escorts, upkeep of premises and appearances,
and a thousand unspecificable sundries, and it is clear that by lying at
home in bed, day and night, winter and summer, with a change of pyjamas
once a fortnight, you would add very considerably to your income.
Business, I said— [A cry. Pause. Again. Normal tone.] Did I hear a cry?
MRS ROONEY: Mrs Tully I fancy. Her poor husband is in constant pain and
beats her unmercifully.
[Silence.]
MR ROONEY: That was a short knock. [Pause.] What was I trying to get at?
MRS ROONEY: Business.
MR ROONEY: Ah yes, business. [Narrative tone.] Business, old man, I said,
retire from business, it has retired from you. [Normal tone.] One has these
moments of lucidity.
MRS ROONEY: I feel very cold and weak.
MR ROONEY: [Narrative tone.] On the other hand, I said, there are the
horrors of home life, the dusting, sweeping, airing, scrubbing, waxing,
waning, washing, mangling, drying, mowing, clipping, raking, rolling,
scuffling, shovelling, grinding, tearing, pounding, banging and slamming.
And the brats, the happy little healthy little howling neighbours’ brats. Of
all this and much more the week-end, the Saturday intermission and then
the day of rest, have given you some idea. But what must it be like on a
working-day? A Wednesday? A Friday? What must it be like on a Friday!
And I fell to thinking of my silent, backstreet, basement office, with its
obliterated plate, rest-couch and velvet hangings, and what it means to be
buried there alive, if only from ten to five, with convenient to the one hand
a bottle of light pale ale and to the other a long ice-cold fillet of hake.
Nothing, I said, not even fully certified death, can ever take the place of
 that. It was then I noticed that we were at a standstill. [Pause. Normal
tone. Irritably.] Why are you hanging out of me like that? Have you
swooned away?
MRS ROONEY: I feel very cold and faint. The wind—[Whistling wind.]—is
whistling through my summer frock as if I had nothing on over my
bloomers. I have had no solid food since my elevenses.
MR ROONEY: You have ceased to care. I speak—and you listen to the wind.
MRS ROONEY: No, no, I am agog, tell me all, then we shall press on and
never pause, never pause, till we come safe to haven. [Pause.]
MR ROONEY: Never pause … safe to haven … Do you know, Maddy,
sometimes one would think you were struggling with a dead language.
MRS ROONEY: Yes indeed, Dan, I know full well what you mean, I often
have that feeling, it is unspeakably excruciating.
MR ROONEY: I confess I have it sometimes myself, when I happen to
overhear what I am saying.
MRS ROONEY: Well, you know, it will be dead in time, just like our own
poor dear Gaelic, there is that to be said.
[Urgent baa.]
MR ROONEY: [Startled.] Good God!
MRS ROONEY: Oh the pretty little woolly lamb, crying to suck its mother!
Theirs has not changed, since Arcady.
[Pause.]
MR ROONEY: Where was I in my composition?
MRS ROONEY: At a standstill.
MR ROONEY: Ah yes. [Clears his throat. Narrative tone.] I concluded
naturally that we had entered a station and would soon be on our way
again, and I sat on, without misgiving. Not a sound. Things are very dull
today, I said, nobody getting down, nobody getting on. Then as time flew
by and nothing happened I realized my error. We had not entered a station.
MRS ROONEY: Did you not spring up and poke your head out of the
window?
MR ROONEY: What good would that have done me?
MRS ROONEY: Why to call out to be told what was amiss.
MR ROONEY: I did not care what was amiss. No, I just sat on, saying, If this
train were never to move again I should not greatly mind. Then gradually a
—how shall I say—a growing desire to—er—you know—welled up
 within me. Nervous probably. In fact now I am sure. You know, the feeling
of being confined.
MRS ROONEY: Yes yes, I have been through that.
MR ROONEY: If we sit here much longer, I said, I really do not know what I
shall do. I got up and paced to and fro between the seats, like a caged
beast.
MRS ROONEY: That is a help sometimes.
MR ROONEY: After what seemed an eternity we simply moved off. And the
next thing was Barrell bawling the abhorred name. I got down and Jerry
led me to the men’s, or Fir as they call it now, from Vir Viris I suppose, the
V becoming F, in accordance with Grimm’s Law. [Pause.] The rest you
know. [Pause.] You say nothing? [Pause.] Say something. Maddy. Say you
believe me.
MRS ROONEY: I remember once attending a lecture by one of these new
mind doctors. I forget what you call them. He spoke— MR ROONEY: A
lunatic specialist?
MRS ROONEY: No no, just the troubled mind. I was hoping he might shed a
little light on my lifelong preoccupation with horses’ buttocks.
MR ROONEY: A neurologist.
MRS ROONEY: No no, just mental distress, the name will come back to me
in the night. I remember his telling us the story of a little girl, very strange
and unhappy in her ways, and how he treated her unsuccessfully over a
period of years and was finally obliged to give up the case. He could find
nothing wrong with her, he said. The only thing wrong with her as far as
he could see was that she was dying. And she did in fact die, shortly after
he had washed his hands of her.
MR ROONEY: Well? What is there so wonderful about that?
MRS ROONEY: No, it was just something he said, and the way he said it, that
have haunted me ever since.
MR ROONEY: You lie awake at night, tossing to and fro and brooding on it.
MRS ROONEY: On it and other … wretchedness. [Pause.] When he had done
with the little girl he stood there motionless for some time, quite two
minutes I should say, looking down at his table. Then he suddenly raised
his head and exclaimed, as if he had had a revelation, The trouble with her
was she had never really been born! [Pause.] He spoke throughout without
notes. [Pause.] I left before the end.
MR ROONEY: Nothing about your buttocks? [MRS ROONEY weeps. In
affectionate remonstrance.] Maddy!
MRS ROONEY: There is nothing to be done for those people!
MR ROONEY: For which is there? [Pause.] That does not sound right
somehow. [Pause.] What way am I facing?
MRS ROONEY: What?
MR ROONEY: I have forgotten what way I am facing.
MRS ROONEY: You have turned aside and are bowed down over the ditch.
MR ROONEY: There is a dead dog down there.
MRS ROONEY: No no, just the rotting leaves.
MR ROONEY: In June? Rotting leaves in June?
MRS ROONEY: Yes, dear, from last year, and from the year before last, and
from the year before that again. [Silence. Rainy wind. They move on.
Dragging steps, etc.] There is that lovely laburnum again. Poor thing, it is
losing all its tassels. [Dragging steps, etc.] There are the first drops. [Rain.
Dragging steps, etc.] Golden drizzle. [Dragging steps, etc.] Do not mind
me, dear, I am just talking to myself. [Rain heavier. Dragging steps, etc.]
Can hinnies procreate, I wonder? [They halt.]
MR ROONEY: Say that again.
MRS ROONEY: Come on, dear, don’t mind me, we are getting drenched.
MR ROONEY: [Forcibly.] Can what what?
MRS ROONEY: Hinnies procreate. [Silence.] You know, hinnies, or jinnies,
aren’t they barren, or sterile, or whatever it is? [Pause.] It wasn’t an ass’s
colt at all, you know, I asked the Regius Professor.
[Pause.]
MR ROONEY: He should know.
MRS ROONEY: Yes, it was a hinny, he rode into Jerusalem or wherever it was
on a hinny. [Pause.] That must mean something. [Pause.] It’s like the
sparrows, than many of which we are of more value, they weren’t
sparrows at all.
MR ROONEY: Than many of which! … You exaggerate, Maddy.
MRS ROONEY: [With emotion.] They weren’t sparrows at all!
MR ROONEY: Does that put our price up?
[Silence. They move on. Wind and rain. Dragging feet, etc. They halt.]
MRS ROONEY: Do you want some dung? [Silence. They move on. Wind and
rain, etc. They halt.] Why do you stop? Do you want to say something?
MR ROONEY: No.
MRS ROONEY: Then why do you stop?
MR ROONEY: It is easier.
MRS ROONEY: Are you very wet?
MR ROONEY: To the buff.
MRS ROONEY: The buff?
MR ROONEY: The buff. From buffalo.
MRS ROONEY: We shall hang up all our things in the hot-cupboard and get
into our dressing-gowns. [Pause.] Put your arm round me. [Pause.] Be
nice to me! [Pause. Gratefully.] Ah, Dan! [They move on. Wind and rain.
Dragging feet, etc. Faintly same music as before. They halt. Music clearer.
Silence but for music playing. Music dies.] All day the same old record.
All alone in that great empty house. She must be a very old woman now.
MR ROONEY: [Indistinctly.] Death and the Maiden.
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: You are crying. [Pause.] Are you crying?
MR ROONEY: [Violently.] Yes! [They move on. Wind and rain. Dragging
feet, etc. They halt. They move on. Wind and rain. Dragging feet, etc. They
halt.] Who is the preacher tomorrow? The incumbent?
MRS ROONEY: No.
MR ROONEY: Thank God for that. Who?
MRS ROONEY: Hardy.
MR ROONEY: “How to be Happy though Married”?
MRS ROONEY: No no, he died, you remember. No connexion.
MR ROONEY: Has he announced his text?
MRS ROONEY: “The Lord upholdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that
be bowed down.” [Silence. They join in wild laughter. They move on. Wind
and rain. Dragging feet, etc.] Hold me tighter, Dan! [Pause.] Oh yes!
[They halt.]
MR ROONEY: I hear something behind us.
[Pause.]
MRS ROONEY: It looks like Jerry. [Pause.] It is Jerry.
[Sound of JERRY’s running steps approaching. He halts beside them,
panting.]
JERRY: [Panting.] You dropped— MRS ROONEY: Take your time, my
little man, you will burst a blood-vessel.
JERRY: [Panting.] You dropped something, Sir. Mr Barrell told me to run
after you.
MRS ROONEY: Show. [She takes the object.] What is it? [She examines it.]
What is this thing, Dan?
MR ROONEY: Perhaps it is not mine at all.
JERRY: Mr Barrell said it was, Sir.
MRS ROONEY: It looks like a kind of ball. And yet it is not a ball.
MR ROONEY: Give it to me.
MRS ROONEY: [Giving it.] What is it, Dan?
MR ROONEY: It is a thing I carry about with me.
MRS ROONEY: Yes, but what— MR ROONEY: [Violently.] It is a thing I
carry about with me!
[Silence. MRS ROONEY looks for a penny.]
MRS ROONEY: I have no small money. Have you?
MR ROONEY: I have none of any kind.
MRS ROONEY: We are out of change, Jerry. Remind Mr Rooney on Monday
and he will give you a penny for your pains.
JERRY: Yes, Ma’am.
MR ROONEY: If I am alive.
JERRY: Yessir.
[JERRY starts running back towards the station.]
MRS ROONEY: Jerry! [JERRY halts.] Did you hear what the hitch was?
[Pause.] Did you hear what kept the train so late?
MR ROONEY: How would he have heard? Come on.
MRS ROONEY: What was it, Jerry?
JERRY: It was a— MR ROONEY: Leave the boy alone, he knows
nothing! Come on!
MRS ROONEY: What was it, Jerry?
JERRY: It was a little child, Ma’am.
[MR ROONEY groans.]
MRS ROONEY: What do you mean, it was a little child?
JERRY: It was a little child fell out of the carriage, Ma’am. [Pause.] On to
the line, Ma’am. [Pause.] Under the wheels, Ma’am.
[Silence. JERRY runs off. His steps die away. Tempest of wind and rain. It
abates. They move on. Dragging steps, etc. They halt. Tempest of wind and
rain.]
END
 Embers
A piece for radio
Written in English 1957–8 and completed February 1959. First
broadcast on the BBCThird Programme on 24 June 1959. First
published in Evergreen Review (November/December 1959).
HENRY
ADA
ADDIE
MUSIC MASTER ⁄ RIDING MASTER
PIANIST
Sea scarcely audible.
HENRY’s boots on shingle. He halts.
Sea a little louder.
HENRY: On. [Sea. Voice louder.] On! [He moves on. Boots on shingle. As he
goes.] Stop. [Boots on shingle. As he goes, louder.] Stop! [He halts. Sea a
little louder.] Down. [Sea. Voice louder.] Down! [Slither of shingle as he
sits. Sea, still faint, audible throughout what follows whenever pause
indicated.] Who is beside me now? [Pause.] An old man, blind and
foolish. [Pause.] My father, back from the dead, to be with me. [Pause.]
As if he hadn’t died. [Pause.] No, simply back from the dead, to be with
me, in this strange place. [Pause.] Can he hear me? [Pause.] Yes, he must
hear me. [Pause.] To answer me? [Pause.] No, he doesn’t answer me.
[Pause.] Just be with me. [Pause.] That sound you hear is the sea. [Pause.
Louder.] I say that sound you hear is the sea, we are sitting on the strand.
[Pause.] I mention it because the sound is so strange, so unlike the sound
of the sea, that if you didn’t see what it was you wouldn’t know what it
was. [Pause.] Hooves! [Pause. Louder.] Hooves! [Sound of hooves
walking on hard road. They die rapidly away. Pause.] Again! [Hooves as
before. Pause. Excitedly.] Train it to mark time! Shoe it with steel and tie it
up in the yard, have it stamp all day! [Pause.] A ten-ton mammoth back
from the dead, shoe it with steel and have it tramp the world down!
[Pause.] Listen to it! [Pause.] Listen to the light now, you always loved
light, not long past noon and all the shore in shadow and the sea out as far
as the island. [Pause.] You would never live this side of the bay, you
wanted the sun on the water for that evening bathe you took once too
often. But when I got your money I moved across, as perhaps you may
know. [Pause.] We never found your body, you know, that held up probate
an unconscionable time, they said there was nothing to prove you hadn’t
run away from us all and alive and well under a false name in the
Argentine for example, that grieved mother greatly. [Pause.] I’m like you
in that, can’t stay away from it, but I never go in, no, I think the last time I
went in was with you. [Pause.] Just be near it. [Pause.] Today it’s calm,
but I often hear it above in the house and walking the roads and start
talking, oh just loud enough to drown it, nobody notices. [Pause.] But I’d
be talking now no matter where I was, I once went to Switzerland to get
away from the cursed thing and never stopped all the time I was there.
[Pause.] I usen’t to need anyone, just to myself, stories, there was a great
one about an old fellow called Bolton, I never finished it, I never finished
any of them, I never finished anything, everything always went on for
ever. [Pause.] Bolton. [Pause. Louder.] Bolton! [Pause.] There before the
fire. [Pause.] Before the fire with all the shutters … no, hangings,
hangings, all the hangings drawn and the light, no light, only the light of
the fire, sitting there in the … no, standing, standing there on the hearthrug
in the dark before the fire with his arms on the chimney-piece and his head
on his arms, standing there waiting in the dark before the fire in his old red
dressing-gown and no sound in the house of any kind, only the sound of
the fire. [Pause.] Standing there in his old red dressing-gown might go on
fire any minute like when he was a child, no, that was his pyjamas,
standing there waiting in the dark, no light, only the light of the fire, and
no sound of any kind, only the fire, an old man in great trouble. [Pause.]
Ring then at the door and over he goes to the window and looks out
between the hangings, fine old chap, very big and strong, bright winter’s
night, snow everywhere, bitter cold, white world, cedar boughs bending
under load and then as the arm goes up to ring again recognizes …
Holloway … [Long pause.] … yes, Holloway, recognizes Holloway, goes
down and opens. [Pause.] Outside all still, not a sound, dog’s chain maybe
or a bough groaning if you stood there listening long enough, white world,
Holloway with his little black bag, not a sound, bitter cold, full moon
small and white, crooked trail of Holloway’s galoshes, Vega in the Lyre
very green. [Pause.] Vega in the Lyre very green. [Pause.] Following
conversation then on the step, no, in the room, back in the room, following
conversation then back in the room, Holloway: ‘My dear Bolton, it is now
past midnight, if you would be good enough—’, gets no further, Bolton:
‘Please! PLEASE!’ Dead silence then, not a sound, only the fire, all coal,
burning down now, Holloway on the hearthrug trying to toast his arse,
Bolton, where’s Bolton, no light, only the fire, Bolton at the window his
back to the hangings, holding them a little apart with his hand looking out,
white world, even the spire, white to the vane, most unusual, silence in the
house, not a sound, only the fire, no flames now, embers. [Pause.] Embers.
[Pause.] Shifting, lapsing, furtive like, dreadful sound, Holloway on the
rug, fine old chap, six foot, burly, legs apart, hands behind his back
holding up the tails of his old macfarlane, Bolton at the window, grand old
figure in his old red dressing-gown, back against the hangings, hand
stretched out widening the chink, looking out, white world great trouble,
not a sound, only the embers, sound of dying, dying glow, Holloway,
Bolton, Bolton, Holloway, old men, great trouble, white world, not a
sound. [Pause.] Listen to it! [Pause.] Close your eyes and listen to it, what
would you think it was? [Pause. Vehement.] A drip! A drip! [Sound of drip,
rapidly amplified, suddenly cut off.] Again! [Drip again. Amplification
begins.] No! [Drip cut off. Pause.] Father! [Pause. Agitated.] Stories,
stories, years and years of stories, till the need came on me, for someone,
to be with me, anyone, a stranger, to talk to, imagine he hears me, years of
that, and then, now, for someone who … knew me, in the old days,
anyone, to be with me, imagine he hears me, what I am, now. [Pause.] No
good either. [Pause.] Not there either. [Pause.] Try again. [Pause.] White
world, not a sound. [Pause.] Holloway. [Pause.] Holloway says he’ll go,
damned if he’ll sit up all night before a black grate, doesn’t understand,
call a man out, an old friend, in the cold and dark, an old friend, urgent
need, bring the bag, then not a word, no explanation, no heat, no light,
Bolton: ‘Please! PLEASE!’ Holloway, no refreshment, no welcome,
chilled to the medulla, catch his death, can’t understand, strange treatment,
old friend, says he’ll go, doesn’t move, not a sound, fire dying, white beam
from window, ghastly scene, wishes to God he hadn’t come, no good, fire
out, bitter cold, great trouble, white world, not a sound, no good. [Pause.]
No good. [Pause.] Can’t do it. [Pause.] Listen to it! [Pause.] Father!
[Pause.] You wouldn’t know me now, you’d be sorry you ever had me, but
you were that already, a washout, that’s the last I heard from you, a
washout. [Pause. Imitating father’s voice.] ‘Are you coming for a dip?’
‘No.’ ‘Come on, come on.’ ‘No.’ Glare, stump to door, turn, glare. ‘A
washout, that’s all you are, a washout!’ [Violent slam of door. Pause.]
Again! [Slam. Pause.] Slam life shut like that! [Pause.] Washout. [Pause.]
Wish to Christ she had. [Pause.] Never met Ada, did you, or did you, I
can’t remember, no matter, no one’d know her now. [Pause.] What turned
her against me do you think, the child I suppose, horrid little creature,
wish to God we’d never had her, I used to walk with her in the fields,
Jesus that was awful, she wouldn’t let go my hand and I mad to talk. ‘Run
 along now, Addie, and look at the lambs.’ [Imitating ADDIE’s voice.] ‘No
papa.’ ‘Go on now, go on.’ [Plaintive.] ‘No papa.’ [Violent.] ‘Go on with
you when you’re told and look at the lambs!’ [ADDIE’s loud wail. Pause.]
Ada too, conversation with her, that was something, that’s what hell will
be like, small chat to the babbling of Lethe about the good old days when
we wished we were dead. [Pause.] Price of margarine fifty years ago.
[Pause.] And now. [Pause. With solemn indignation.] Price of blueband
now! [Pause.] Father! [Pause.] Tired of talking to you. [Pause.] That was
always the way, walk all over the mountains with you talking and talking
and then suddenly mum and home in misery and not a word to a soul for
weeks, sulky little bastard, better off dead, better off dead. [Long pause.]
Ada. [Pause. Louder.] Ada!
ADA: [Low remote voice throughout.] Yes.
HENRY: Have you been there long?
ADA: Some little time. [Pause.] Why do you stop, don’t mind me. [Pause.]
Do you want me to go away? [Pause.] Where is Addie?
[Pause.]
HENRY: With her music master. [Pause.] Are you going to answer me
today?
ADA: You shouldn’t be sitting on the cold stones, they’re bad for your
growths. Raise yourself up till I slip my shawl under you. [Pause.] Is that
better?
HENRY: No comparison, no comparison. [Pause.] Are you going to sit
down beside me?
ADA: Yes. [No sound as she sits.] Like that? [Pause.] Or do you prefer like
that? [Pause.] You don’t care. [Pause.] Chilly enough I imagine, I hope
you put on your jaegers. [Pause.] Did you put on your jaegers, Henry?
HENRY: What happened was this, I put them on and then I took them off
again and then I put them on again and then I took them off again and then
I took them on again and then I— ADA: Have you them on now?
HENRY: I don’t know. [Pause.] Hooves! [Pause. Louder.] Hooves! [Sound
of hooves walking on hard road. They die rapidly away.] Again!
[Hooves as before. Pause.]
ADA: Did you hear them?
HENRY: Not well.
ADA: Galloping?
HENRY: No. [Pause.] Could a horse mark time?
[Pause.]
ADA: I’m not sure that I know what you mean.
HENRY: [Irritably.] Could a horse be trained to stand still and mark time
with its four legs?
ADA: Oh. [Pause.] The ones I used to fancy all did. [She laughs. Pause.]
Laugh, Henry, it’s not every day I crack a joke. [Pause.] Laugh, Henry do
that for me.
HENRY: You wish me to laugh?
ADA: You laughed so charmingly once, I think that’s what first attracted
me to you. That and your smile. [Pause.] Come on, it will be like old
times.
[Pause. He tries to laugh, fails.]
HENRY: Perhaps I should begin with the smile. [Pause for smile.] Did that
attract you? [Pause.] Now I’ll try again. [Long horrible laugh.] Any of the
old charm there?
ADA: Oh Henry!
[Pause.]
HENRY: Listen to it! [Pause.] Lips and claws! [Pause.] Get away from it!
Where it couldn’t get at me! The Pampas! What?
ADA: Calm yourself.
HENRY: And I live on the brink of it! Why? Professional obligations? [Brief
laugh.] Reasons of health? [Brief laugh.] Family ties? [Brief laugh.] A
woman? [Laugh in which she joins.] Some old grave I cannot tear myself
away from? [Pause.] Listen to it! What is it like?
ADA: It is like an old sound I used to hear. [Pause.] It is like another time,
in the same place. [Pause.] It was rough, the spray came flying over us.
[Pause.] Strange it should have been rough then. [Pause.] And calm now.
[Pause.]
HENRY: Let us get up and go.
ADA: Go? Where? And Addie? She would be very distressed if she came
and found you had gone without her. [Pause.] What do you suppose is
keeping her?
[Smart blow of cylindrical ruler on piano case. Unsteadily, ascending and
descending, ADDIE plays scale of A Flat Major, hands first together, then
reversed. Pause.]
MUSIC MASTER: [Italian accent.] Santa Cecilia!
[Pause.]
ADDIE: Will I play my piece now please?
[Pause. MUSIC MASTER beats two bars of waltz time with ruler on piano
case. ADDIE plays opening bars of Chopin’s 5th Waltz in A Flat Major,
MUSIC MASTER beating time lightly with ruler as she plays. In first chord of
bass, bar 5, she plays E instead of F. Resounding blow of ruler on piano
case. ADDIE stops playing.]
MUSIC MASTER: [Violently.] Fa!
ADDIE: [Tearfully.] What?
MUSIC MASTER: [Violently.] Eff! Eff!
ADDIE: [Tearfully.] Where?
MUSIC MASTER: [Violently.] Qua! [He thumps note.] Fa!
[Pause. ADDIE begins again, MUSIC MASTER beating time lightly with ruler.
When she comes to bar 5 she makes same mistake. Tremendous blow of
ruler on piano case. ADDIE stops playing, begins to wail.]
MUSIC MASTER: [Frenziedly.] Eff! Eff! [He hammers note.] Eff! [He
hammers note.] Eff!
[Hammered note, ‘Eff!’ and ADDIE’s wail amplified to paroxysm, then
suddenly cut off. Pause.]
ADA: You are silent today.
HENRY: It was not enough to drag her into the world, now she must play
the piano.
ADA: She must learn. She shall learn. That—and riding.
[Hooves walking.]
RIDING MASTER: Now Miss! Elbows in Miss! Hands down Miss! [Hooves
trotting.] Now Miss! Back straight Miss! Knees in Miss! [Hooves
cantering.] Now Miss! Tummy in Miss! Chin up Miss! [Hooves
galloping.] Now Miss! Eyes front Miss! [ADDIE begins to wail.] Now
Miss! Now Miss! [Galloping hooves, ‘Now Miss!’ and ADDIE’s wail
amplified to paroxysm, then suddenly cut off. Pause.]
ADA: What are you thinking of? [Pause.] I was never taught, until it was
too late. All my life I regretted it.
HENRY: What was your strong point, I forget.
ADA: Oh … geometry I suppose, plane and solid. [Pause.] First plane, then
solid. [Shingle as he gets up.] Why do you get up?
HENRY: I thought I might try and get as far as the water’s edge. [Pause.
With a sigh.] And back. [Pause.] Stretch my old bones.
[Pause.]
ADA: Well, why don’t you? [Pause.] Don’t stand there thinking about it.
[Pause.] Don’t stand there staring. [Pause. He goes towards sea. Boots on
shingle, say ten steps. He halts at water’s edge. Pause. Sea a little louder.
Distant.] Don’t wet your good boots.
[Pause.]
HENRY: Don’t, don’t …
[Sea suddenly rough.]
ADA: [Twenty years earlier, imploring.] Don’t! Don’t!
HENRY: [Ditto, urgent.] Darling!
ADA: [Ditto, more feebly.] Don’t!
HENRY: [Ditto, exultantly.] Darling!
[Rough sea. ADA cries out. Cry and sea amplified, cut off. End of
evocation. Pause. Sea calm. He goes back up deeply shelving beach. Boots
laborious on shingle. He halts. Pause. He moves on. He halts. Pause. Sea
calm and faint.]
ADA: Don’t stand there gaping. Sit down. [Pause. Shingle as he sits.] On
the shawl. [Pause.] Are you afraid we might touch? [Pause.] Henry.
HENRY: Yes.
ADA: You should see a doctor about your talking, it’s worse, what must it
be like for Addie? [Pause.] Do you know what she said to me once, when
she was still quite small, she said, Mummy, why does Daddy keep on
talking all the time? She heard you in the lavatory. I didn’t know what to
answer.
HENRY: Daddy! Addie! [Pause.] I told you to tell her I was praying.
[Pause.] Roaring prayers at God and his saints.
ADA: It’s very bad for the child. [Pause.] It’s silly to say it keeps you from
hearing it, it doesn’t keep you from hearing it and even if it does you
shouldn’t be hearing it, there must be something wrong with your brain.
[Pause.]
HENRY: That! I shouldn’t be hearing that!
ADA: I don’t think you are hearing it. And if you are what’s wrong with it,
it’s a lovely peaceful gentle soothing sound, why do you hate it? [Pause.]
And if you hate it why don’t you keep away from it? Why are you always
 coming down here? [Pause.] There’s something wrong with your brain,
you ought to see Holloway, he’s alive still, isn’t he?
[Pause.]
HENRY: [Wildly.] Thuds, I want thuds! Like this! [He fumbles in the
shingle, catches up two big stones and starts dashing them together.]
Stone! [Clash.] Stone! [Clash. ‘Stone!’ and clash amplified, cut off. Pause.
He throws one stone away. Sound of its fall.] That’s life! [He throws the
other stone away. Sound of its fall.] Not this … [Pause.] … sucking!
ADA: And why life? [Pause.] Why life, Henry? [Pause.] Is there anyone
about?
HENRY: Not a living soul.
ADA: I thought as much. [Pause.] When we longed to have it to ourselves
there was always someone. Now that it does not matter the place is
deserted.
HENRY: Yes, you were always very sensitive to being seen in gallant
conversation. The least feather of smoke on the horizon and you adjusted
your dress and became immersed in the Manchester Guardian. [Pause.]
The hole is still there, after all these years. [Pause. Louder.] The hole is
still there.
ADA: What hole? The earth is full of holes.
HENRY: Where we did it at last for the first time.
ADA: Ah yes, I think I remember. [Pause.] The place has not changed.
HENRY: Oh yes it has, I can see it. [Confidentially.] There is a levelling
going on! [Pause.] What age is she now?
ADA: I have lost count of time.
HENRY: Twelve? Thirteen? [Pause.] Fourteen?
ADA: I really could not tell you, Henry.
HENRY: It took us a long time to have her. [Pause.] Years we kept
hammering away at it. [Pause.] But we did it in the end. [Pause. Sigh.] We
had her in the end. [Pause.] Listen to it! [Pause.] It’s not so bad when you
get out on it. [Pause.] Perhaps I should have gone into the merchant navy.
ADA: It’s only on the surface, you know. Underneath all is as quiet as the
grave. Not a sound. All day, all night, not a sound. [Pause.]
HENRY: Now I walk about with the gramophone. But I forgot it today.
ADA: There is no sense in that. [Pause.] There is no sense in trying to
drown it. [Pause.] See Holloway.
 [Pause.]
HENRY: Let us go for a row.
ADA: A row? And Addie? She would be very distressed if she came and
found you had gone for a row without her. [Pause.] Who were you with
just now? [Pause.] Before you spoke to me.
HENRY: I was trying to be with my father.
ADA: Oh. [Pause.] No difficulty about that.
HENRY: I mean I was trying to get him to be with me. [Pause.] You seem a
little cruder than usual today, Ada. [Pause.] I was asking him if he had
ever met you, I couldn’t remember.
ADA: Well?
HENRY: He doesn’t answer any more.
ADA: I suppose you have worn him out. [Pause.] You wore him out living
and now you are wearing him out dead. [Pause.] The time comes when
one cannot speak to you any more. [Pause.] The time will come when no
one will speak to you at all, not even complete strangers. [Pause.] You will
be quite alone with your voice, there will be no other voice in the world
but yours. [Pause.] Do you hear me?
[Pause.]
HENRY: I can’t remember if he met you.
ADA: You know he met me.
HENRY: No, Ada, I don’t know, I’m sorry, I have forgotten almost
everything connected with you.
ADA: You weren’t there. Just your mother and sister. I had called to fetch
you, as arranged. We were to go bathing together. [Pause.]
HENRY: [Irritably.] Drive on, drive on! Why do people always stop in the
middle of what they are saying?
ADA: None of them knew where you were. Your bed had not been slept in.
They were all shouting at one another. Your sister said she would throw
herself off the cliff. Your father got up and went out, slamming the door. I
left soon afterwards and passed him on the road. He did not see me. He
was sitting on a rock looking out to sea. I never forgot his posture. And yet
it was a common one. You used to have it sometimes. Perhaps just the
stillness, as if he had been turned to stone. I could never make it out.
[Pause.]
HENRY: Keep on, keep on! [Imploringly.] Keep it going, Ada, every
 syllable is a second gained.
ADA: That’s all, I’m afraid. [Pause.] Go on now with your father or your
stories or whatever you were doing, don’t mind me any more.
HENRY: I can’t! [Pause.] I can’t do it any more!
ADA: You were doing it a moment ago, before you spoke to me.
HENRY: [Angrily.] I can’t do it any more now! [Pause.] Christ! [Pause.]
ADA: Yes, you know what I mean, there are attitudes remain in one’s mind
for reasons that are clear, the carriage of a head for example, bowed when
one would have thought it should be lifted, and vice versa, or a hand
suspended in mid-air, as if unowned. That kind of thing. But with your
father sitting on the rock that day nothing of the kind, no detail you could
put your finger on and say, How very peculiar! No, I could never make it
out. Perhaps, as I said, just the great stillness of the whole body, as if all
the breath had left it. [Pause.] Is this rubbish a help to you, Henry?
[Pause.] I can try and go on a little if you wish. [Pause.] No? [Pause.]
Then I think I’ll be getting back.
HENRY: Not yet! You needn’t speak. Just listen. Not even. Be with me.
[Pause.] Ada! [Pause. Louder.] Ada! [Pause.] Christ! [Pause.] Hooves!
[Pause. Louder.] Hooves! [Pause.] Christ! [Long pause.] Left soon
afterwards, passed you on the road, didn’t see her, looking out to …
[Pause.] Can’t have been looking out to sea. [Pause.] Unless you had gone
round the other side. [Pause.] Had you gone round the cliff side? [Pause.]
Father! [Pause.] Must have I suppose. [Pause.] Stands watching you a
moment then on down path to tram, up on open top and sits down in front.
[Pause.] Sits down in front. [Pause.] Suddenly feels uneasy and gets down
again, conductor: ‘Changed your mind, Miss?’, goes back up path, no sign
of you. [Pause.] Very unhappy and uneasy, hangs round a bit, not a soul
about, cold wind coming in off sea, goes back down path and takes tram
home. [Pause.] Takes tram home. [Pause.] Christ! [Pause.] ‘My dear
Bolton …’ [Pause.] ‘If it’s an injection you want, Bolton, let down your
trousers and I’ll give you one, I have a panhysterectomy at nine,’ meaning
of course the anaesthetic. [Pause.] Fire out, bitter cold, white world, great
trouble, not a sound. [Pause.] Bolton starts playing with the curtain, no,
hanging, difficult to describe, draws it back no, kind of gathers it towards
him and the moon comes flooding in, then lets it fall back, heavy velvet
affair, and pitch black in the room, then towards him again, white, black,
white, black, Holloway: ‘Stop that for the love of God, Bolton, do you
want to finish me?’ [Pause.] Black, white, black, white, maddening thing.
[Pause.] Then he suddenly strikes a match, Bolton does, lights a candle,
catches it up above his head, walks over and looks Holloway full in the
eye. [Pause.] Not a word, just the look, the old blue eye, very glassy, lids
worn thin, lashes gone, whole thing swimming, and the candle shaking
over his head. [Pause.] Tears? [Pause. Long laugh.] Good God no!
[Pause.] Not a word, just the look, the old blue eye, Holloway: ‘If you
want a shot say so and let me get to hell out of here.’ [Pause.] ‘We’ve had
this before, Bolton, don’t ask me to go through it again.’ [Pause.] Bolton:
‘Please!’ [Pause.] ‘Please!’ [Pause.] ‘Please, Holloway!’ [Pause.] Candle
shaking and guttering all over the place, lower now, old arm tired takes it
in the other hand and holds it high again, that’s it, that was always it, night,
and the embers cold, and the glim shaking in your old fist, saying, Please!
Please! [Pause.] Begging. [Pause.] Of the poor. [Pause.] Ada! [Pause.]
Father! [Pause.] Christ! [Pause.] Holds it high again, naughty world, fixes
Holloway, eyes drowned, won’t ask again, just the look, Holloway covers
his face, not a sound, white world, bitter cold, ghastly scene, old men,
great trouble, no good. [Pause.] No good. [Pause.] Christ! [Pause. Shingle
as he gets up. He goes towards sea. Boots on shingle. He halts. Pause. Sea
a little louder.] On. [Pause. He moves on. Boots on shingle. He halts at
water’s edge. Pause. Sea a little louder.] Little book. [Pause.] This
evening … [Pause.] Nothing this evening. [Pause.] Tomorrow …
tomorrow … plumber at nine, then nothing. [Pause. Puzzled.] Plumber at
nine? [Pause.] Ah yes, the waste. [Pause.] Words. [Pause.] Saturday …
nothing. Sunday … Sunday … Nothing all day. [Pause.] Nothing, all day
nothing. [Pause.] All day all night nothing. [Pause.] Not a sound.
Sea.
Rough for Radio I
Written in French in late 1961. First published in English as ‘Sketch
for Radio Play’ in Stereo Headphones, no. 7 (Spring 1976).
HE
SHE
MUSIC
VOICE
HE: [Gloomily.] Madam.
SHE: Are you all right? [Pause.] You asked me to come.
HE: I ask no one to come here.
SHE: You suffered me to come.
HE: I meet my debts.
[Pause.]
SHE: I have come to listen.
HE: When you please.
[Pause.]
SHE: May I squat on this hassock? [Pause.] Thank you.
[Pause.] May we have a little heat?
HE: No, Madam.
[Pause.]
SHE: Is it true the music goes on all the time?
HE: Yes.
SHE: Without cease?
HE: Without cease?
SHE: It’s unthinkable! [Pause.] And the words too? All the time too?
HE: All the time.
SHE: Without cease?
HE: Yes.
SHE: It’s unimaginable. [Pause.] So you are here all the time?
HE: Without cease.
[Pause.]
SHE: How troubled you look! [Pause.] May one see them?
HE: No, Madam.
SHE: I may not go and see them?
HE: No, Madam.
[Pause.]
SHE: May we have a little light?
HE: No, Madam.
[Pause.]
SHE: How cold you are! [Pause.] Are these the two knobs?
HE: Yes.
SHE: Just push? [Pause.] Is it live? [Pause.] I ask you is it live.
 HE: No, you must twist. [Pause.] To the right.
[Click.]
MUSIC: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
SHE: [Astonished.] But there are more than one!
HE: Yes.
SHE: How many?
[Pause.]
HE: To the right, Madam, to the right.
[Click.]
VOICE: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SHE: [With voice.] Louder!
VOICE: [No louder.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
SHE: [Astonished.] But he is alone!
HE: Yes.
SHE: All alone?
HE: When one is alone one is all alone.
[Pause.]
SHE: What is it like together?
[Pause.]
HE: To the right, Madam.
[Click.]
MUSIC: [Faint, brief.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SHE: They are not together?

HE: No.
SHE: They cannot see each other?
HE: No.
SHE: Hear each other?
HE: No.
SHE: It’s inconceivable!
[Pause.]
HE: To the right, Madam.
[Click.]
VOICE: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SHE: [With voice.] Louder!
VOICE: [No louder.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
SHE: And—[Faint stress.]—you like that?
HE: It is a need.
SHE: A need? That a need?
HE: It has become a need. [Pause.] To the right, Madam.
[Click.]
MUSIC: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SHE: [With music.] Louder!
MUSIC: [No louder.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
SHE: That too? [Pause.] That a need too?
HE: It has become a need, Madam.
SHE: Are they in the same … situation?
[Pause.]
HE: I don’t understand.
SHE: Are they … subject to the same … conditions?
HE: Yes, Madam.
SHE: For instance? [Pause.] For instance?
HE: One cannot describe them, Madam.
[Pause.]
SHE: Well, I’m obliged to you.
HE: Allow me, this way.
[Pause.]
SHE: [A little off.] Is that a Turkoman?
HE: [Ditto.] Allow me.
SHE: [A little further off.] How troubled you look! [Pause.] Well, I’ll leave
you. [Pause.] To your needs.
HE: [Ditto.] Good-bye, Madam. [Pause.] To the right, Madam, that’s the
garbage—[Faint stress.] —the house garbage. [Pause.] Good-bye,
Madam.
[Long pause. Sound of curtains violently drawn, first one, then the other,
clatter of the heavy rings along the rods. Pause. Faint ping—as sometimes
happens—of telephone receiver raised from cradle. Faint sound of dialing.
 Pause.] Hello … Miss … is the doctor … ah … yes … he to call me …
Macgillycuddy … Mac-gilly-cuddy … right … he’ll know … and Miss …
Miss! … urgent … yes! … [Shrill.] … most urgent! [Pause. Receiver put
down with same faint ping. Pause. Click.]
MUSIC: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HE: [With music.] Good God!
MUSIC: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence. Pause. Click.]
VOICE: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HE: [With voice, shrill.] Come on! Come on!
VOICE: [Faint.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
HE: [Low.] What’ll I do? [Pause. Faint ping of receiver raised again. Faint
dialling. Pause.] Hello … Miss … Macgillycuddy … Mac-gilly-cuddy …
right … I’m sorry but … ah … yes … of course … can’t reach him … no
idea … understand … right … immediately … the moment he gets back
… what? … [Shrill.] … yes! … I told you so! … most urgent! … most
urgent! … [Pause. Low.] Slut!
[Sound of receiver put down violently. Pause. Click.]
MUSIC: [Faint. Brief.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence. Click.]
VOICE: [Faint. Brief.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HE: [With voice, shrill.] It’s crazy! Like one!

HE: [With music and voice.] Yes … wait … [Music and voice silent. Very
agitated.] Yes … yes … no matter … what the trouble is? … they’re
ending … ENDING … this morning … what? … no! … no question! …
ENDING I tell you … nothing what? … to be done? … I know there’s
nothing to be done … what? … no! … it’s me … ME … what? I tell you
they’re ending … ENDING … I can’t stay like that after … who? … but
she’s left me … ah for God’s sake … haven’t they all left me? … did you
not know that? … all left me … sure? … of course I’m sure … what? …
in an hour? … not before? … wait … [Low.] … there’s more … they’re
together … TOGETHER … yes … I don’t know … like … [Hesitation.]
 … one … the breathing … I don’t know … [Vehement.] … no! … never!
… meet? … how could they meet? … what? … what are all alike? … last
what? … gasps? … wait … don’t go yet … wait! … [Pause. Sound of
receiver put down violently. Low.] Swine!
[Pause. Click.]
MUSIC: [Failing.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HE: [With music and voice.] Miss … what? … [Music and voice silent.] …
a confinement? … [Long pause.] … two confinements? … [Long pause.]
… one what? … what? … breech? … what? … [Long pause.] …
tomorrow noon? …
[Long pause. Faint ping as receiver put gently down. Long pause. Click.]
MUSIC: [Brief, failing.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HE: [Whisper.] Tomorrow … noon …

Rough for Radio II
Written in French in the early 1960s. First broadcast under the title
‘Rough for Radio’ on BBC Radio 3 on 13 April 1976. First published
in English by Grove Press, New York, in 1976.

ANIMATOR
STENOGRAPHER
FOX
DICK (mute)
A: Ready, Miss?
S: And waiting, Sir.
A: Fresh pad, spare pencils?
S: The lot, Sir.
A: Good shape?
S: Tiptop, Sir.
A: And you, Dick, on your toes? [Swish of bull’s pizzle. Admiringly.] Wow!
Let’s hear it land. [Swish and formidable thud.] Good. Off with his hood.
[Pause.] Ravishing face, ravishing! Is it not, Miss?
S: Too true, Sir. We know it by heart and yet the pang is ever new.
A: The gag. [Pause.] The blind. [Pause.] The plugs. [Pause.] Good. [He
thumps on his desk with a cylindrical ruler.] Fox, open your eyes, readjust
them to the light of day and look about you. [Pause.] You see, the same
old team. I hope— S: [Aflutter.] Oh!
A: What is it, Miss? Vermin in the lingerie?
S: He smiled at me!
A: Good omen. [Faint hope.] Not the first time by any chance?
S: Heavens no, Sir, what an idea!
A: [Disappointed.] I might have known. [Pause.] And yet it still affects
you?
S: Why yes, Sir, it is so sudden! So radiant! So fleeting!
A: You note it?
S: Oh no, Sir, the words alone. [Pause.] Should one note the play of
feature too?
A: I don’t know, Miss. Depending perhaps.
S: Me you know— A: [Trenchant.] Leave it for the moment. [Thump
with ruler.] Fox, I hope you have had a refreshing night and will be better
inspired today than heretofore. Miss.
S: Sir.
A: Let us hear again the report on yesterday’s results, it has somewhat
slipped my memory.
S: [Reading.] ‘We the undersigned, assembled under—’
A: Skip.
S: [Reading.] ‘… note yet again with pain that these dicta—’
A: Dicta! [Pause.] Read on.
S: ‘… with pain that these dicta, like all those communicated to date and
by reason of the same deficiencies, are totally inacceptable. The second
half in particular is of such—’
A: Skip.
S: ‘… outlook quite hopeless were it not for our conviction—’
A: Skip. [Pause.] Well?
S: That is all, Sir.
A: … same deficiencies … totally inacceptable … outlook quite hopeless
… [Disgusted.] Well! [Pause.] Well!
S: That is all, Sir. Unless I am to read the exhortations.
A: Read them.
S: ‘… instantly renew our standing exhortations, namely:
1. Kindly to refrain from recording mere animal cries, they serve only to
indispose us.
2. Kindly to provide a strictly literal transcript, the meanest syllable has, or
may have, its importance.
3. Kindly to ensure full neutralization of the subject when not in session,
especially with regard to the gag, its permanence and good repair. Thus
rigid enforcement of the tube-feed, be it per buccam or be it on the other
hand per rectum, is absolutely’—one word underlined—‘essential. The
least word let fall in solitude and thereby in danger, as Mauthner has
shown, of being no longer needed, may be it’—three words underlined.
‘4. Kindly—’
A: Enough! [Sickened.] Well! [Pause.] Well!
S: It is past two, Sir.
A: [Roused from his prostration.] It is what?
S: Past two, Sir.
A: [Roughly.] Then what are you waiting for? [Pause. Gently.] Forgive me,
Miss, forgive me, my cup is full. [Pause.] Forgive me!
S: [Coldly.] Shall I open with yesterday’s close?
A: If you would be so good.
S: [Reading.] ‘When I had done soaping the mole, thoroughly rinsing and
drying before the embers, what next only out again in the blizzard and put
him back in his chamber with his weight of grubs, at that instant his little
heart was beating still I swear, ah my God my God.’ [She strikes with her
pencil on her desk.] ‘My God.’
 [Pause.]
A: Unbelievable! And there he jibbed, if I remember aright.
S: Yes, Sir, he would say no more.
A: Dick functioned?
S: Let me see … Yes, twice.
[Pause.]
A: Does not the glare incommode you, Miss, what if we should let down
the blind?
S: Thank you, Sir, not on my account, it can never be too warm, never too
bright, for me. But, with your permission, I shall shed my overall.
A: [With alacrity.] Please do, Miss, please do. [Pause.] Staggering!
Staggering! Ah were I but … forty years younger!
S: [Rereading.] ‘Ah my God my God.’ [Blow with pencil.] ‘My God.’
A: Crabbed youth! No pity! [Thump with ruler.] Do you mark me? On!
[Silence.] Dick! [Swish and thud of pizzle on flesh. Faint cry from FOX.]
Off record, Miss, remember?
S: Drat it! Where’s that eraser?
A: Erase, Miss, erase, we’re in trouble enough already. [Ruler.] On!
[Silence.] Dick!
F: Ah yes, that for sure, live I did, no denying, all stones all sides—
A: One moment.
F: —walls no further— A: [Ruler.] Silence! Dick! [Silence. Musing.]
Live I did … [Pause.] Has he used that turn before, Miss?
S: To what turn do you allude, Sir?
A: Live I did.
S: Oh yes, Sir, it’s a notion crops up now and then. Perhaps not in those
precise terms, so far, that I could not say offhand. But allusions to a life,
though not common, are not rare.
A: His own life?
S: Yes, Sir, a life all his own.
A: [Disappointed.] I might have known. [Pause.] What a memor—mine!
[Pause.] Have you read the Purgatory, Miss, of the divine Florentine?
S: Alas no, Sir. I have merely flipped through the Inferno.
A: [Incredulous.] Not read the Purgatory?
S: Alas no, Sir.
A: There all sigh, I was, I was. It’s like a knell. Strange, is it not?
S: In what sense, Sir?
A: Why, one would rather have expected, I shall be. No?
S: [With tender condescension.] The creatures! [Pause.] It is getting on for
three, Sir.
A: [Sigh.] Good. Where were we?
S: ‘… walls no further—’
A: Before, that, Miss, the house is not on fire.
S: ‘… live I did, no denying, all stones all sides’—inaudibl—‘walls—’
A: [Ruler.] On! [Silence.] Dick!
S: Sir.
A: [Impatiently.] What is it, Miss, can’t you see that old time is aflying?
S: I was going to suggest a touch of kindness, Sir, perhaps just a hint of
kindness.
A: So soon? And then? [Firmly.] No, Miss, I appreciate your sentiment.
But I have my method. Shall I remind you of it? [Pause. Pleading.] Don’t
say no! [Pause.] Oh you are an angel! You may sit, Dick. [Pause.] In a
word, REDUCE the pressure instead of increasing it. [Lyrical.] Caress,
fount of resipescence! [Calmer.] Dick, if you would. [Swish and thud of
pizzle on flesh. Faint cry from FOX.] Careful, Miss.
S: Have no fear, Sir.
A: [Ruler.] … walls … walls what?
S: ‘no further’, Sir.
A: Right. [Ruler.] … walls no further … [Ruler.] On! [Silence.] Dick!
F: That for sure, no further, and there gaze, all the way up, all the way
down, slow gaze, age upon age, up again, down again, little lichens of my
own span, living dead in the stones, and there took to the tunnels. [Silence.
Ruler.] Oceans too, that too, no denying, I drew near down the tunnels,
blue above, blue ahead, that for sure, and there too, no further, ways end,
all ends and farewell, farewell and fall, farewell seasons, till I fare again.
[Silence. Ruler.] Farewell.
[Silence. Ruler. Pause.]
A: Dick!
F: That for sure, no denying, no further, down in Spring, up in Fall, or
inverse, such summers missed, such winters.
[Pause.]
A: Nice! Nicely put! Such summers missed! So sibilant! Don’t you agree,
 Miss?

A: Hsst!
F: — fatigue, what fatigue, my brother inside me, my old twin, ah to be he
and he—but no, no no. [Pause.] No no. [Silence. Ruler.] Me get up, me go
on, what a hope, it was he, for hunger. Have yourself opened, Maud would
say, opened up, it’s nothing, I’ll give him suck if he’s still alive, ah but no,
no no. [Pause.] No no.
[Silence.]
A: [Discouraged.] Ah dear.
S: He is weeping, Sir, shall I note it?
A: I really do not know what to advise, Miss.
S: Inasmuch as … how shall I say? … human trait … can one say in
English?
A: I have never come across it, Miss, but no doubt.
F: Scrabble scrabble— A: Silence! [Pause.] No holding him!
S: As such … I feel … perhaps … at a pinch …
[Pause.]
A: Are you familiar with the works of Sterne, Miss?
S: Alas no, Sir.
A: I may be quite wrong, but I seem to remember, there somewhere, a tear
an angel comes to catch as it falls. Yes, I seem to remember … admittedly
he was grandchild to an archbishop. [Half rueful, half complacent.] Ah
these old spectres from the days of book reviewing, they lie in wait for one
at every turn. [Pause. Suddenly decided.] Note it, Miss, note it, and come
what may. As well as for a sheep … [Pause.] Who is this woman …
what’s the name?
S: Maud. I don’t know, Sir, no previous mention of her has been made.
A: [Excited.] Are you sure?
S: Positive, Sir. You see, my nanny was a Maud, so that the name would
have struck me, had it been pronounced.
[Pause.]
A: I may be quite wrong, but I somehow have the feeling this is the first
time—oh I know it’s a far call!—that he has actually … named anyone.
No?
S: That may well be, Sir. To make sure I would have to check through from
 the beginning. That would take time.
A: Kith and kin?
S: Never a word, Sir. I have been struck by it. Mine play such a part, in my
life!
A: And of a sudden, in the same sentence, a woman, with Christian name
to boot, and a brother. I ask you!
[Pause.]
S: That twin, Sir …
A: I know, not very convincing.
S: [Scandalized.] But it’s quite simply impossible! Inside him! Him!
A: No no, such things happen, such things happen. Nature, you know …
[Faint laugh.] Fortunately. A world without monsters, just imagine!
[Pause for imagining.] No, that is not what troubles me. [Warmly.] Look
you, Miss, what counts is not so much the thing, in itself, that would
astonish me too. No, it’s the word, the notion. The notion brother is not
unknown to him! [Pause.] But what really matters is this woman—what
name did you say?
S: Maud, Sir.
A: Maud!
S: And who is in milk, what is more, or about to be.
A: For mercy’s sake! [Pause.] How does the passage go again?
S: [Rereading.] ‘Me get up, me go on, what a hope, it was he, for hunger.
Have yourself opened, Maud would say, opened up, it’s nothing, I’ll give
him suck if he’s still alive, ah but no, no no.’ [Pause.] ‘No no.’
[Pause.]
A: And then the tear.
S: Exactly, Sir. What I call the human trait.
[Pause.]
A: [Low, with emotion.] Miss.
S: Sir.
A: Can it be we near our goal. [Pause.] Oh how bewitching you look when
you show your teeth! Ah were I but … thirty years younger.
S: It is well after three, Sir.
A: [Sigh.] Good. Where he left off. Once more.
S: ‘Oh but no, no—’
A: Ah but no. No?
S: You are quite right, Sir. ‘Ah but no, no—’
A: [Severely.] Have a care, Miss.
S: ‘Ah but no, no no.’ [Pause.] ‘No, no.’
A: [Ruler.] On! [Silence.] Dick!
S: He has gone off, Sir.
A: Just a shade lighter, Dick. [Mild thud of pizzle.] Ah no, you exaggerate,
better than that. [Swish and violent thud. Faint cry from FOX. Ruler.] Ah
but no, no no. On!
F: [Scream.] Let me out! Peter out in the stones!
A: Ah dear! There he goes again. Peter out in the stones!
S: It’s a mercy he’s tied.
A: [Gently.] Be reasonable, Fox. Stop—you may sit, Dick—stop jibbing.
It’s hard on you, we know. It does not lie entirely with us, we know. You
might prattle away to your latest breath and still the one … thing remain
unsaid that can give you back your darling solitudes, we know. But this
much is sure: the more you say the greater your chances. Is that not so,
Miss?
S: It stands to reason, Sir.
A: [As to a backward pupil.] Don’t ramble! Treat the subject, whatever it
is! [Snivel.] More variety! [Snivel.] Those everlasting wilds may have their
charm, but there is nothing there for us, that would astonish me. [Snivel.]
Those micaceous schists, if you knew the effect [Snivel.] they can have on
one, in the long run. [Snivel.] And your fauna! Those fodient rodents!
[Snivel.] You wouldn’t have a handkerchief, Miss, you could lend me?
S: Here you are, Sir.
A: Most kind. [Blows nose abundantly.] Much obliged.
S: Oh you may keep it, Sir.
A: No no, now I’ll be all right. [To FOX.] Of course we do not know, any
more than you, what exactly it is we are after, what sign or set of words.
But since you have failed so far to let it escape you, it is not by harking on
the same old themes that you are likely to succeed, that would astonish
me.
S: He has gone off again, Sir.
A: [Warming to his point.] Someone, perhaps that is what is wanting,
someone who once saw you … [Abating.] … go by. I may be quite wrong,
but try, at least, what do you stand to lose? [Beside himself.] Even though
 it is not true!
S: [Shocked.] Oh Sir!
A: A father, a mother, a friend, a … Beatrice—no, that is asking too much.
Simply someone, anyone, who once saw you … go by. [Pause.] That
woman … what’s the name?
S: Maud, Sir.
A: That Maud, for example, perhaps you once brushed against each other.
Think hard!
S: He has gone off, Sir.
A: Dick!—no, wait. Kiss him, Miss, perhaps that will stir some fibre.
S: Where, Sir?
A: In his heart, in his entrails—or some other part.
S: No, I mean kiss him where, Sir?
A: [Angry.] Why on his stinker of a mouth, what do you suppose?
[STENOGRAPHER kisses FOX. Howl from FOX.] Till it bleeds! Kiss it white!
[Howl from FOX.] Suck his gullet! [Silence.]
S: He has fainted away, Sir.
A: Ah … perhaps I went too far. [Pause.] Perhaps I slipped you too soon.
S: Oh no, Sir, you could not have waited a moment longer, time is up.
[Pause.] The fault is mine, I did not go about it as I ought.
A: Come, come, Miss! To the marines! [Pause.] Up already! [Pained.] I
chatter too much.
S: Come, come, Sir, don’t say that, it is part of your rôle, as animator.
[Pause.]
A: That tear, Miss, do you remember?
S: Oh yes, Sir, distinctly.
A: [Faint hope.] Not the first time by any chance?
S: Heavens no, Sir, what an idea!
A: [Disappointed.] I might have known.
S: Last winter, now I come to think of it, he shed several, do you not
remember?
A: Last winter! But, my dear child, I don’t remember yesterday, it is down
the hatch with love’s young dream. Last winter! [Pause. Low, with
emotion.] Miss.
S: [Low.] Sir.
A: That … Maud.
 [Pause.]
S: [Encouraging.] Yes, Sir.
A: Well … you know … I may be wrong … I wouldn’t like to … I hardly
dare say it … but it seems to me that … here … possibly … we have
something at last.
S: Would to God, Sir.
A: Particularly with that tear so hard behind. It is not the first, agreed. But
in such a context!
S: And the milk, Sir, don’t forget the milk.
A: The breast! One can almost see it!
S: Who got her in that condition, there’s another question for us.
A: What condition, Miss, I fail to follow you.
S: Someone has fecundated her. [Pause. Impatient.] If she is in milk
someone must have fecundated her.
A: To be sure!
S: Who?
A: [Very excited.] You mean …
S: I ask myself.
[Pause.]
A: May we have that passage again, Miss?
S: ‘Have yourself opened, Maud would say, opened—’
A: [Delighted.] That frequentative! [Pause.] Sorry, Miss.
S: ‘Have yourself opened, Maud would say, opened—’
A: Don’t skip, Miss, the text in its entirety if you please.
S: I skip nothing, Sir. [Pause.] What have I skipped, Sir?
A: [Emphatically.] ‘… between two kisses …’ [Sarcastic.] That mere
trifle! [Angry.] How can we ever hope to get anywhere if you suppress
gems of that magnitude?
S: But, Sir, he never said anything of the kind.
A: [Angry.] ‘… Maud would say, between two kisses, etc.’ Amend.
S: But, Sir, I— A: What the devil are you deriding, Miss? My
hearing? My memory? My good faith? [Thunderous.] Amend!
S: [Feebly.] As you will, Sir.
A: Let us hear how it runs now.
S: [Tremulous.] ‘Have yourself opened, Maud would say, between two
kisses, opened up, it’s nothing, I’ll give him suck if he’s still alive, ah but
 no, no no.’ [Faint pencil.] ‘No no.’
[Silence.]
A: Don’t cry, Miss, dry your pretty eyes and smile at me. Tomorrow, who
knows, we may be free.
Words and Music
A piece for radio
Written in English and completed towards the end of 1961. First
broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 13 November 1962. First
published in Evergreen Review (November/December 1962).

MUSIC
CROAK
WORDS
MUSIC: Small orchestra softly tuning up.
WORDS: Please! [Tuning. Louder.] Please! [Tuning dies away.] How much
longer cooped up here in the dark? [With loathing.] With you! [Pause.]
Theme… . [Pause.] Theme … sloth. [Pause. Rattled off, low.] Sloth is of
all the passions the most powerful passion and indeed no passion is more
powerful than the passion of sloth, this is the mode in which the mind is
most affected and indeed—[Burst of tuning. Loud, imploring.] Please!
[Tuning dies away. As before.] The mode in which the mind is most
affected and indeed in no mode is the mind more affected than in this, by
passion we are to understand a movement of the soul pursuing or fleeing
real or imagined pleasure or pain pleasure or pain real or imagined
pleasure or pain, of all these movements and who can number them of all
these movements and they are legion sloth is the most urgent and indeed
by no movement is the soul more urged than by this by this by this to and
from by no movement the soul more urged than by this to and—[Pause.]
From. [Pause.] Listen! [Distant sound of rapidly shuffling carpet slippers.]
At last! [Shuffling louder. Burst of tuning.] Hsst! [Tuning dies away.
Shuffling louder. Silence.]
CROAK: Joe.
WORDS: [Humble.] My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: Humble muted adsum.
CROAK: My comforts! Be friends! [Pause.] Bob.
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK: Joe.
WORDS: [As before.] My Lord.
CROAK: Be friends! [Pause.] I am late, forgive. [Pause.] The face. [Pause.]
On the stairs. [Pause.] Forgive. [Pause.] Joe.
WORDS: [As before.] My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK: Forgive. [Pause.] In the tower. [Pause.] The face. [Long pause.]
Theme tonight … [Pause.] Theme tonight … love. [Pause.] Love.
[Pause.] My club. [Pause.] Joe.
WORDS: [As before.] My Lord.
CROAK: Love. [Pause. Thump of club on ground.] Love!
WORDS: [Orotund.] Love is of all the passions the most powerful passion
and indeed no passion is more powerful than the passion of love. [Clears
throat.] This is the mode in which the mind is most strongly affected and
indeed in no mode is the mind more strongly affected than in this. [Pause.]
CROAK: Rending sigh. Thump of club.
WORDS: [As before.] By passion we are to understand a movement of the
mind pursuing or fleeing real or imagined pleasure or pain. [Clears
throat.] Of all— CROAK: [Anguished.] Oh!
WORDS: [As before.] Of all these movements then and who can number
them and they are legion sloth is the LOVE is the most urgent and indeed
by no manner of movement is the soul more urged than by this, to and—
[Violent thump of club.]
CROAK: Bob.
WORDS: From.
[Violent thump of club.]
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK: Love!
MUSIC: Rap of baton on stand. Soft music worthy of foregoing, great
expression, with audible groans and protestations—‘No!’ ‘Please!’ etc.—
from WORDS. Pause.
CROAK: [Anguished.] Oh! [Thump of club.] Louder!
MUSIC: Loud rap of baton and as before fortissimo, all expression gone,
drowning WORDS’ protestations. Pause.
CROAK: My comforts! [Pause.] Joe sweet.
WORDS: [As before.] Arise then and go now the manifest unanswerable—
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: —to wit this love what is this love that more than all the cursed
deadly or any other of its great movers so moves the soul and soul what is
this soul that more than by any of its great movers is by love so moved?
[Clears throat. Prosaic.] Love of woman, I mean, if that is what my Lord
means.
CROAK: Alas!
WORDS: What? [Pause. Very rhetorical.] Is love the word? [Pause. Do.] Is
soul the word? [Pause. Do.] Do we mean love, when we say love? [Pause.
 Pause. Do.] Soul, when we say soul?
CROAK: [Anguished.] Oh! [Pause.] Bob dear.
WORDS: Do we? [With sudden gravity.] Or don’t we?
CROAK: [Imploring.] Bob!
MUSIC: Rap of baton. Love and soul music, with just audible protestations
—‘No!’ ‘Please!’ ‘Peace!’ etc.—from WORDS. Pause.
CROAK: [Anguished.] Oh! [Pause.] My balms! [Pause.] Joe.
WORDS: [Humble.] My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: Adsum as before.
CROAK: My balms! [Pause.] Joe. [Pause. Thump of club.] Joe.
WORDS: [As before.] My Lord.
CROAK: Age!
[Pause.]
WORDS: [Faltering.] Age is … age is when … old age I mean … if that is
what my Lord means … is when … if you’re a man … were a man …
huddled … nodding … the ingle … waiting—
[Violent thump of club.]
CROAK: Bob. [Pause.] Age. [Pause. Violent thump of club.] Age!
MUSIC: Rap of baton. Age music, soon interrupted by violent thump.
CROAK: Together. [Pause. Thump.] Together! [Pause. Violent thump.]
Together, dogs!
MUSIC: Long la.
WORDS: [Imploring.] No!
[Violent thump.]
CROAK: Dogs!
MUSIC: La.
WORDS: [Trying to sing.] Age is when … to a man …
MUSIC: Improvement of above.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] Age is when to a man . .
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] Huddled o’er … the ingle … [Pause. Violent
thump. Trying to sing.] Waiting for the hag to put the … pan in the bed …
MUSIC: Improvement of above.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] Waiting for the hag to put the pan in the bed.
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] And bring the … arrowroot … [Pause.
Violent thump. As before.] And bring the toddy …
[Pause. Tremendous thump.]
CROAK: Dogs!
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] She comes in the ashes … [Imploring.] No!
MUSIC: Repeats suggestion.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] She comes in the ashes who loved could not
be … won or …
[Pause.]
MUSIC: Repeats end of previous suggestion.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] Or won not loved … [Wearily.] … or some
other trouble … [Pause. Trying to sing.]
Comes in the ashes like in that old— MUSIC: Interrupts with
improvement of this and brief suggestion.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] Comes in the ashes like in that old light …
her face … in the ashes …
[Pause.]
CROAK: Groans.
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.] That old moonlight … on the earth … again.
[Pause.]
MUSIC: Further brief suggestion.
[Silence.]
CROAK: Groans.
MUSIC: Plays air through alone, then invites WORDS with opening, pause,
invites again and finally accompanies very softly.
WORDS: [Trying to sing, softly.]

Age is when to a man Huddled o’er the ingle Shivering for the hag To put
the pan in the bed And bring the toddy She comes in the ashes Who loved
could not be won Or won not loved Or some other trouble Comes in the
ashes Like in that old light The face in the ashes That old starlight On the
earth again.

[Long pause.]
CROAK: [Murmur.] The face. [Pause.] The face. [Pause.] The face. [Pause.]
The face.
MUSIC: Rap of baton and warmly sentimental, about one minute. [Pause.]
CROAK: The face.
WORDS: [Cold.] Seen from above in that radiance so cold and faint …
[Pause.]
MUSIC: Warm suggestion from above for above.
WORDS: [Disregarding, cold.] Seen from above at such close quarters in
that radiance so cold and faint with eyes so dimmed by … what had
passed, its quite … piercing beauty is a little …
[Pause.]
MUSIC: Renews timidly previous suggestion.
WORDS: [Interrupting, violently.] Peace!
CROAK: My comforts! Be friends!
[Pause.]
WORDS: … blunted. Some moments later however, such are the powers of
recuperation at this age, the head is drawn back to a distance of two or
three feet, the eyes widen to a stare and begin to feast again. [Pause.]
What then is seen would have been better seen in the light of day, that is
incontestable. But how often it has, in recent months, how often, at all
hours, under all angles, in cloud and shine, been seen I mean. And there is,
is there not, in that clarity of silver … that clarity of silver … is there not
… my Lord … [Pause.] Now and then the rye, swayed by a light wind,
casts and withdraws its shadow.
[Pause.]
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: Leaving aside the features or lineaments proper, matchless
severally and in their ordonnance— CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: —flare of the black disordered hair as though spread wide on
water, the brows knitted in a groove suggesting pain but simply
concentration more likely all things considered on some consummate inner
process, the eyes of course closed in keeping with this, the lashes …
[Pause.] … the nose … [Pause.] … nothing, a little pinched perhaps, the
lips …
CROAK: [Anguished.] Lily!
WORDS: … tight, a gleam of tooth biting on the under, no coral, no swell,
 whereas normally …
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: … the whole so blanched and still that were it not for the great
white rise and fall of the breasts, spreading as they mount and then
subsiding to their natural … aperture— MUSIC: Irrepressible burst of
spreading and subsiding music with vain protestations—‘Peace!’ ‘No!’
‘Please!’ etc.—from WORDS. Triumph and conclusion.
WORDS: [Gently expostulatory.] My Lord! [Pause. Faint thump of club.] I
resume, so wan and still and so ravished away that it seems no more of the
earth than Mira in the Whale, at her tenth and greatest magnitude on this
particular night shining coldly down—as we say, looking up. [Pause.]
Some moments later however, such are the powers— CROAK:
[Anguished.] No!
WORDS: —the brows uncloud, the lips part and the eyes … [Pause.] … the
brows uncloud, the nostrils dilate, the lips part and the eyes … [Pause.] …
a little colour comes back into the cheeks and the eyes … [Reverently.] …
open. [Pause.] Then down a little way … [Pause. Change to poetic tone.
Low.]

Then down a little way Through the trash To where … towards where …

[Pause.]
MUSIC: Discreet suggestion for above.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.]

Then down a little way Through the trash Towards where …

[Pause.]
MUSIC: Discreet suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.]

All dark no begging No giving no words No sense no need …

[Pause.]
MUSIC: More confident suggestion for following.
WORDS: [Trying to sing this.]
 Through the scum Down a little way To where one glimpse Of that
wellhead.

[Pause.]
MUSIC: Invites with opening, pause, invites again and finally accompanies
very softly.
WORDS: [Trying to sing, softly.]

Then down a little way Through the trash Towards where All dark no
begging No giving no words No sense no need Through the scum Down a
little way To whence one glimpse Of that wellhead.

[Pause. Shocked.] My Lord! [Sound of club let fall. As before.] My Lord!

[Shuffling slippers, with halts. They die away. Long pause.] Bob. [Pause.]
Bob!
MUSIC: Brief rude retort.
WORDS: Music. [Imploring.] Music!
[Pause.]
MUSIC: Rap of baton and statement with elements already used or wellhead
alone.
[Pause.]
WORDS: Again. [Pause. Imploring.] Again!
MUSIC: As before or only very slightly varied.
[Pause.]
WORDS: Deep sigh.

END
 Cascando
A radio piece for music and voice
Written in French in 1962, with music by Marcel Mihalovici. First
broadcast in English on the BBC Third Programme on 6 October
1964. First published in English in Evergreen Review (May/June
1963).

OPENER
VOICE
MUSIC
OPENER: [Cold.] It is the month of May … for me.
[Pause.]
Correct.
[Pause.]
I open.
VOICE: [Low, panting.] —story … if you could finish it … you could rest
… sleep … not before … oh I know … the ones I’ve finished …
thousands and one … all I ever did … in my life … with my life … saying
to myself … finish this one … it’s the right one … then rest … sleep … no
more stories … no more words … and finished it … and not the right one
… couldn’t rest … straight away another … to begin … to finish … saying
to myself … finish this one … then rest … this time … it’s the right one
… this time … you have it … and finished it … and not the right one …
couldn’t rest … straight away another … but this one … it’s different …
I’ll finish it … I’ve got it … Woburn … I resume … a long life … already
… say what you like … a few misfortunes … that’s enough … five years
later … ten … I don’t know … Woburn … he’s changed … not enough …
recognizable … in the shed … yet another … waiting for night … night to
fall … to go out … go on … elsewhere … sleep elsewhere … it’s slow …
he lifts his head … now and then … his eyes … to the window … it’s
darkening … earth darkening … it’s night … he gets up … knees first …
then up … on his feet … slips out … Woburn … same old coat … right
the sea … left the hills … he has the choice … he has only—
OPENER: [With VOICE.] And I close.
[Silence.]
I open the other.
MUSIC: ..........................................
OPENER: [With MUSIC.] And I close.
[Silence.]
I open both.
OPENER: [With VOICE and MUSIC.] And I close.
[Silence.]
I start again.
VOICE: —down … gentle slopes … boreen … giant aspens … wind in the
boughs … faint sea … Woburn … same old coat … he goes on … stops …
not a soul … not yet … night too bright … say what you like … he goes
on … hugging the bank … same old stick … he goes down … falls … on
purpose or not … can’t see … he’s down … that’s what counts … face in
the mud … arms spread … that’s the idea … already … there already …
no not yet … he gets up … knees first … hands flat … in the mud … head
sunk … then up … on his feet … huge bulk … come on … he goes on …
he goes down … come on … in his head … what’s in his head … a hole
… a shelter … a hollow … in the dunes … a cave … vague memory … in
his head … of a cave … he goes down … no more trees … no more bank
… he’s changed … not enough … night too bright … soon the dunes …
no more cover … not a soul … not— [Silence.]
MUSIC: ..........................................
[Silence.]
OPENER: So, at will.
They say, It’s in his head.
No. I open.
VOICE: —falls … again … on purpose or not … can’t see … he’s down …
that’s what matters … face in the sand … arms spread … bare dunes …
not a scrub … same old coat … night too bright … say what you like …
sea louder … thunder … manes of foam … Woburn … his head … what’s
in his head … peace … peace again … in his head … no further … no
more searching … sleep … no not yet … he gets up … knees first …
hands flat … in the sand … head sunk … then up … on his feet … huge
bulk … same old broadbrim … jammed down … come on … he goes on
… ton weight … in the sand … knee-deep … he goes down … sea—
OPENER: [With VOICE.] And I close.
[Silence.]
I open the other.
MUSIC: ..........................................
OPENER: [With MUSIC.] And I close.
[Silence.]
So, at will.
It’s my life, I live on that.
[Pause.]
Correct.
[Pause.]
What do I open?
They say, He opens nothing, he has nothing to open, it’s in his head.
 They don’t see me, they don’t see what I do, they don’t see what I have,
and they say, He opens nothing, he has nothing to open, it’s in his head.
I don’t protest any more, I don’t say any more,
There is nothing in my head.
I don’t answer any more.
I open and close.
VOICE: —lights … of the land … the island … the sky … he need only …
lift his head … his eyes … he’d see them … shine on him … but no … he
—
[Silence.]
MUSIC: [Brief.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
OPENER: They say, That is not his life, he does not live on that. They don’t
see me, they don’t see what my life is, they don’t see what I live on, and
they say, That is not his life, he does not live on that.
[Pause.]
I have lived on it … till I’m old.
Old enough.
Listen.
VOICE: [Weakening.] —this time … I’m there … Woburn … it’s him …
I’ve seen him … I’ve got him … come on … same old coat … he goes
down … falls … falls again … on purpose or not … can’t see … he’s
down … that’s what counts … come on— OPENER: [With VOICE.] Full
strength.
VOICE: —face … in the stones … no more sand … all stones … that’s the
idea … we’re there … this time … no not yet … he gets up … knees first
… hands flat … in the stones … head sunk … then up … on his feet …
huge bulk … Woburn … faster … he goes on … he goes down … he—
[Silence.]
MUSIC: [Weakening.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OPENER: [With MUSIC.] Full strength.
MUSIC: ..........................................
[Silence.]
OPENER: That’s not all.
I open both.
Listen.
OPENER: From one world to another, it’s as though they drew together. We
have not much further to go. Good.

OPENER: Good.
[Pause.]
Yes, correct, the month of May.
You know, the reawakening.
[Pause.]
I open.
VOICE: —no tiller … no thwarts … no oars … afloat … sucked out … then
back … aground … drags free … out … Woburn … he fills it … flat out
… face in the bilge … arms spread … same old coat … hands clutching …
the gunnels … no … I don’t know … I see him … he clings on … out to
sea … heading nowhere … for the island … then no more … else—
[Silence.]
MUSIC: ..........................................
[Silence.]
OPENER: They said, It’s his own, it’s his voice, it’s in his head.
[Pause.]
VOICE: —faster … out … driving out … rearing … plunging … heading
nowhere … for the island … then no more … elsewhere … anywhere …
heading anywhere … lights—
[Pause.]
OPENER: No resemblance.
I answered, And that …
MUSIC: [Brief.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Silence.]
OPENER: … is that mine too?
But I don’t answer any more.
And they don’t say anything any more.
They have quit.
Good.
[Pause.]
Yes, correct, the month of May, the close of May.
The long days.
[Pause.]
I open.
[Pause.]
I’m afraid to open.
But I must open.
So I open.
VOICE: —come on … Woburn … arms spread … same old coat … face in
the bilge … he clings on … island gone … far astern … heading out …
open sea … land gone … his head … what’s in his head … Woburn—
OPENER: [With VOICE.] Come on! Come on!
VOICE: —at last … we’re there … no further … no more searching … in
the dark … elsewhere … always elsewhere … we’re there … nearly …
Woburn … hang on … don’t let go … lights gone … of the land … all
gone … nearly all … too far … too late … of the sky … those … if you
like … he need only … turn over … he’d see them … shine on him … but
no … he clings on … Woburn … he’s changed … nearly enough—
[Silence.]
MUSIC: ..........................................
OPENER: [With MUSIC.] God.
MUSIC: ..........................................
[Silence.]
OPENER: God God.
[Pause.]
There was a time I asked myself, What is it.
There were times I answered, It’s the outing.
Two outings.
Then the return.
Where?
To the village.
To the inn.
Two outings, then at last the return, to the village, to the inn, by the only
road that leads there.
An image, like any other.
But I don’t answer any more.
I open.

OPENER: [With VOICE and MUSIC.] As though they had linked their arms.

OPENER: [With VOICE and MUSIC.] Good.

OPENER: [With VOICE and MUSIC, fervently.] Good!

END