The day I first interviewed Wendy she wore a tight tweed skirt. Her left thigh never ceased to caress her right, and vice versa. All this took place under her skirt. She seemed to me the perfect secretary. She listened to my counsel wide-eyed and attentive, her hands calmly clasped, trim, bulgy, plump, rosy, swelling. She was clearly the possessor of an active and inquiring intelligence. Three times she cleaned her spectacles with a silken kerchief.
After the wedding my brother in law asked my dear wife to remove her glasses. He peered deep into her eyes. You have married a good man, he said. He will make you happy. As he was doing nothing at the time I invited him to join me in the business. Before long he became my partner, so keen was his industry, so sharp his business acumen.
Wendy’s commonsense, her clarity, her discretion, are of inestimable value to our firm.
With my eye at the keyhole I hear goosing, the squeak of them. The slit is black, only the sliding gussle on my drum, the hiss and flap of their bliss. The room sits on my head, my skull creased on the brass and loathsome handle I dare not twist, for fear of seeing black screech and scrape of my secretary writhing blind in my partner’s paunch and jungle.
My wife reached down to me. Do you love me, she asked. I do love you, I spat into her eyeball. I shall prove it yet, I shall prove it yet, what proof yet, what proof remaining, what proof not yet given. All proof. (For my part, I decided on a more cunning, more allusive strategem.) Do you love me, was my counter.
The pingpong table streaked with slime. My hands pant to gain the ball. My sons watch. They cheer me on. They are loud in their loyalty. I am moved. I fall back on strokes, on gambits, long since gone, flip, cut, chop, shtip, bluff to my uttermost. I play the ball by nose. The twins hail my efforts gustily. But my brother in law is no chump. He slams again, he slams again, deep to my forehand. I skid, flounder, stare sightless into the crack of his bat.
Where are my hammers, my screws, my saws?
How are you? asked my partner. Bandage on straight? Knots tight?
The door slammed. Where was I? In the office or at home? Had someone come in as my partner went out? Had he gone out? Was it silence I heard, this scuffle, creak, squeal, scrape, gurgle and muff? Tea was being poured. Heavy thighs (Wendy’s? my wife’s? both? apart? together?) trembled in stilletos. I sipped the liquid. It was welcome. My physician greeted me warmly. In a minute, old chap, we’ll take off those bandages. Have a rock cake. I declined. The birds are at the bird bath, called his white wife. They all rushed to look. My sons sent something flying. Someone? Surely not. I had never heard my sons in such good form. They chattered, chuckled, discussed their work eagerly with their uncle. My parents were silent. The room seemed very small, smaller than I had remembered it. I knew where everything was, every particular. But its smell had altered. Perhaps because the room was overcrowded. My wife broke gasping out of a fit of laughter, as she was wont to do in the early days of our marriage. Why was she laughing? Had someone told her a joke? Who? Her sons? Unlikely. My sons were discussing their work with my physician and his wife. Be with you in a minute, old chap, my physician called to me. Meanwhile my partner had the two women half stripped on a convenient rostrum. Whose body swelled most? I had forgotten. I picked up a pingpong ball. It was hard. I wondered how far he had stripped the women. The top halves or the bottom halves? Or perhaps he was now raising his spectacles to view my wife’s swelling buttocks, the swelling breasts of my secretary. How could I verify this? By movement, by touch. But that was out of the question. And could such a sight possibly take place under the eyes of my own children? Would they continue to chat and chuckle, as they still did, with my physician? Hardly. However, it was good to have the bandage on straight and the knots tight.
OLD TIMES
Old Times was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 1 June 1971, with the following cast:
DEELEY Colin Blakely
KATE Dorothy Tutin
ANNA Vivien Merchant
All in their early forties
Directed by Peter Hall
The play was produced for television by the BBC in October 1975 with the following cast:
DEELEY Anna Cropper
KATE Barry Foster
ANNA Mary Miller
Directed by Christopher Morahan
It was produced at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, in April 1985 with the following cast:
DEELEY Michael Gambon
KATE Nicola Pagett
ANNA Liv Ullmann
Directed by David Jones
A converted farmhouse
A long window up centre. Bedroom door up left. Front door up right.
Spare modern furniture
Two sofas. An armchair.
Autumn: Night.
ACT ONE
Light dim. Three figures discerned.
DEELEY slumped in armchair, still.
KATE curled an a sofa, still.
ANNA standing at the window, looking out.
Silence
Lights up on DEELEY and KATE, smoking cigarettes.
ANNA’S figure remains still in dim light at the window.
KATE
(Reflectively.) Dark.
Pause
DEELEY
Fat or thin?
KATE
Fuller than me. I think.
Pause
DEELEY
She was then?
KATE
I think so.
DEELEY
She may not be now.
Pause
Was she your best friend?
KATE
Oh, what does that mean?
DEELEY
What?
KATE
The word friend … when you look back … all that time.
DEELEY
Can’t you remember what you felt?
Pause
KATE
It is a very long time.
DEELEY
But you remember her. She remembers you. Or why would she be coming here tonight?
KATE
I suppose because she remembers me.
Pause
DEELEY
Did you think of her as your best friend?
KATE
She was my only friend.
DEELEY
Your best and only.
KATE
My one and only.
Pause
If you have only one of something you can’t say it’s the best of anything.
DEELEY
Because you have nothing to compare it with?
KATE
Mmnn.
Pause
DEELEY
(Smiling.) She was incomparable.
KATE
Oh, I’m sure she wasn’t.
Pause
DEELEY
I didn’t know you had so few friends.
KATE
DEELEY
Why her?
KATE
I don’t know.
Pause
She was a thief. She used to steal things.
DEELEY
Who from?
KATE
Me.
DEELEY
What things?
KATE
Bits and pieces. Underwear.
DEELEY chuckles.
DEELEY
Will you remind her?
KATE
Oh … I don’t think so.
Pause
DEELEY
Is that what attracted you to her?
KATE
What?
DEELEY
The fact that she was a thief.
KATE
No.
Pause
DEELEY
Are you looking forward to seeing her?
KATE
No.
DEELEY
I am. I shall be very interested.
KATE
In what?
DEELEY
In you. I’ll be watching you.
KATE
Me? Why?
DEELEY
To see if she’s the same person.
KATE
You think you’ll find that out through me?
DEELEY
Definitely.
Pause
KATE
I hardly remember her. I’ve almost totally forgotten her.
Pause
DEELEY
Any idea what she drinks?
KATE
None.
DEELEY
She may be a vegetarian.
KATE
Ask her.
DEELEY
It’s too late. You’ve cooked your casserole.
Pause
Why isn’t she married? I mean, why isn’t she bringing her husband?
KATE
Ask her.
DEELEY
Do I have to ask her everything?
KATE
Do you want me to ask your questions for you?
DEELEY
No. Not at all.
Pause
KATE
Of course she’s married.
DEELEY
How do you know?
KATE
Everyone’s married.
DEELEY
Then why isn’t she bringing her husband?
KATE
Isn’t she?
Pause
DEELEY
Did she mention a husband in her letter?
KATE
No.
DEELEY
What do you think he’d be like? I mean, what sort of man would she have married? After all, she was your best – your only – friend. You must have some idea. What kind of man would he be?
KATE
I have no idea.
DEELEY
Haven’t you any curiosity?
KATE
You forget. I know her.
DEELEY
You haven’t seen her for twenty years.
KATE
You’ve never seen her. There’s a difference.
Pause
DEELEY
At least the casserole is big enough for four.
KATE
You said she was a vegetarian.
Pause
DEELEY
Did she have many friends?
KATE
Oh … the normal amount, I suppose.
DEELEY
Normal? What’s normal? You had none.
KATE
One.
DEELEY
Is that normal?
Pause
She … had quite a lot of friends, did she?
KATE
Hundreds.
DEELEY
You met them?
KATE
Not all, I think. But after all, we were living together. There were visitors, from time to time. I met them.
DEELEY
Her visitors?
KATE
What?
DEELEY
Her visitors. Her friends. You had no friends.
KATE
Her friends, yes.
DEELEY
You met them.
Pause
(Abruptly.) You lived together?
KATE
Mmmnn?
DEELEY
You lived together?
KATE
Of course.
DEELEY
I didn’t know that.
KATE
Didn’t you?
DEELEY
You never told me that. I thought you just knew each other.
KATE
We did.
DEELEY
But in fact you lived with each other.
KATE
Of course we did How else would she steal my underwear from me? In the street?
Pause
DEELEY
I knew you had shared with someone at one time …
Pause
But I didn’t know it was her.
KATE
Of course it was.
Pause
DEELEY
Anyway, none of this matters.
ANNA turns from the window, speaking, and moves down to them, eventually sitting on the second sofa.
ANNA
Queuing all night, the rain, do you remember? my goodness, the Albert Hall, Covent Garden, what did we eat? to look back, half the night, to do things we loved, we were young then of course, but what stamina, and to work in the morning, and to a concert, or the opera, or the ballet, that night, you haven’t forgotten? and then riding on top of the bus down Kensington High Street, and the bus conductors, and then dashing for the matches for the gasfire and then I suppose scrambled eggs, or did we? who cooked? both giggling and chattering, both huddling to the heat, then bed and sleeping, and all the hustle and bustle in the morning, rushing for the bus again for work, lunchtimes in Green Park, exchanging all our news, with our very own sandwiches, innocent girls, innocent secretaries, and then the night to come, and goodness knows what excitement in store, I mean the sheer expectation of it all, the looking-forwardness of it all, and so poor, but to be poor and young, and a girl, in London then … and the cafés we found, almost private ones, weren’t they? where artists and writers and sometimes actors collected, and others with dancers, we sat hardly breathing with our coffee, heads bent, so as not to be seen, so as not to disturb, so as not to distract, and listened and listened to all those words, all those cafés and all those people, creative undoubtedly, and does it still exist I wonder? do you know? can you tell me?
Slight pause
DEELEY
We rarely get to London.
KATE stands, goes to a small table and pours coffee from a pot.
KATE
Yes, I remember.
She adds milk and sugar to one cup and takes it to ANNA. She takes a black coffee to DEELEY and then sits with her own.
DEELEY
(to ANNA.) Do you drink brandy?
ANNA
I would love some brandy.
DEELEY pours brandy for all and hands the glasses. He remains standing with his own.
ANNA
Listen. What silence. Is it always as silent?
DEELEY
It’s quite silent here, yes. Normally.
Pause
You can hear the sea sometimes if you listen very carefully.
ANNA
How wise you were to choose this part of the world, and how sensible and courageous of you both to stay permanently in such a silence.
DEELEY
My work takes me away quite often, of course. But Kate stays here.
ANNA
No one who lived here would want to go far. I would not want to go far, I would be afraid of going far, lest when I returned the house would be gone.
DEELEY
Lest?
ANNA
What?
DEELEY
The word lest. Haven’t heard it for a long time.
Pause
KATE
Sometimes I walk to the sea. There aren’t many people. It’s a long beach.
Pause
ANNA
But I would miss London, nevertheless. But of course I was a girl in London. We were girls together.
DEELEY
I wish I had known you both then.
ANNA
Do you?
DEELEY
Yes.
DEELEY pours more brandy for himself.
ANNA
You have a wonderful casserole.
DEELEY
What?
ANNA
I mean wife. So sorry. A wonderful wife.
DEELEY
Ah.
ANNA
I was referring to the casserole. I was referring to your wife’s cooking.
DEELEY
You’re not a vegetarian, then?
ANNA
No. Oh no.
DEELEY
&nbs
p; Yes, you need good food in the country, substantial food, to keep you going, all the air … you know.
Pause
KATE
Yes, I quite like those kind of things, doing it.
ANNA
What kind of things?
KATE
Oh, you know, that sort of thing.
Pause
DEELEY
Do you mean cooking?
KATE
All that thing.
ANNA
We weren’t terribly elaborate in cooking, didn’t have the time, but every so often dished up an incredibly enormous stew, guzzled the lot, and then more often than not sat up half the night reading Yeats.
Pause
(To herself.) Yes. Every so often. More often than not.
ANNA stands, walks to the window.
And the sky is so still.
Pause
Can you see that tiny ribbon of light? Is that the sea? Is that the horizon?
DEELEY
You live on a very different coast.
ANNA
Oh, very different. I live on a volcanic island
DEELEY
I know it.
ANNA
Oh, do you?
DEELEY
I’ve been there.
Pause
ANNA
I’m so delighted to be here.
DEELEY
It’s nice I know for Katey to see you. She hasn’t many friends.
ANNA
She has you.
DEELEY
She hasn’t made many friends, although there’s been every opportunity for her to do so.
ANNA
Perhaps she has all she wants.
DEELEY
She lacks curiosity.
ANNA
Perhaps she’s happy.
Pause
KATE
Are you talking about me?
DEELEY
Yes.
ANNA
She was always a dreamer.
DEELEY
She likes taking long walks. All that. You know. Raincoat on. Off down the lane, hands deep in pockets. All that kind of thing.