Pause.
But what if I cross this horizon before my grandchildren get here? They won’t know where I am. What will they say? Will you ever tell me? Will you ever tell me what they say? They’ll cry or they won’t, a sorrow too deep for tears, but they’re only babies, what can they know about death?
BEL
Oh, the really little ones I think do know something about death, they know more about death than we do. We’ve forgotten death but they haven’t forgotten it. They remember it. Because some of them, those who are really very young, remember the moment before their life began – it’s not such a long time ago for them, you see – and the moment before their life began they were of course dead.
Pause.
ANDY
Really?
BEL
Of course.
Half-light over the whole stage.
Stillness. A telephone rings in Fred’s room. It rings six times. A click. Silence.
Blackout.
Third area.
Faint light. ANDY moving about in the dark. He stubs his toe.
ANDY
Shit!
He moves to an alcove.
Why not? No fags, no fucks. Bollocks to the lot of them. I’ll have a slug anyway. Bollocks to the lot of them and bugger them all.
Sound of bottle opening. Pouring. He drinks, sighs.
Ah God. That’s the ticket. Just the job. Bollocks to the lot of them.
He pours again, drinks.
Growing moonlight finds BRIDGET in background, standing still.
ANDY moves into the light and stops still, listening.
Silence.
Ah darling. Ah my darling.
BEL appears. She walks into moonlight. ANDY and BEL look at each other. They turn away from each other.
They stand still, listening. BRIDGET remains still, in background.
Silence.
Lights fade on ANDY and BELL.
BRIDGET, standing in the moonlight.
Light fades.
Fred’s room.
JAKE and FRED. FRED in bed.
JAKE
How’s your water consumption these days?
FRED
I’ve given all that up.
JAKE
Really?
FRED
Oh yes. I’ve decided to eschew the path of purity and abstention and take up a proper theology. From now on it’s the Michelin Guide and the Orient Express for me – that kind of thing.
JAKE
I once lived the life of Riley myself.
FRED
What was he like?
JAKE
I never met him personally. But I became a very very close friend of the woman he ran away with.
FRED
I bet she taught you a thing or two.
JAKE
She taught me nothing she hadn’t learnt herself at the feet of the master.
FRED
Wasn’t Riley known under his other hat as the Sheikh of Araby?
JAKE
That’s him. His mother was one of the all-time-great belly dancers and his father was one of the last of the great village elders.
FRED
A marvellous people.
JAKE
A proud people too.
FRED
Watchful.
JAKE
Wary.
FRED
Touchy.
JAKE
Bristly.
FRED
Vengeful.
JAKE
Absolutely ferocious, to be quite frank.
FRED
Kick you in the balls as soon as look at you.
JAKE
But you know what made them the men they were?
FRED
What?
JAKE
They drank water. Sheer, cold, sparkling mountain water.
FRED
And this made men of them?
JAKE
And Gods.
FRED
I’ll have some then. I’ve always wanted to be a God.
JAKE (Pouring)
Drink up.
FRED
Listen. Can I ask you a very personal question? Do you think my nerve is going? Do you think my nerve is on the blink?
I’m going to need a second opinion.
FRED
We haven’t had the first one yet.
JAKE
No, no, the second is always the one that counts, any fool knows that. But I’ve got another suggestion.
FRED
What’s that?
JAKE
What about a walk around the block?
FRED
Oh no, I’m much happier in bed. Staying in bed suits me. I’d be very unhappy to get out of bed and go out and meet strangers and all that kind of thing. I’d really much prefer to stay in my bed.
Pause.
Bridget would understand. I was her brother. She understood me. She always understood my feelings.
JAKE
She understood me too.
Pause.
She understood me too.
Silence.
FRED
Listen. I’ve got a funny feeling my equilibrium is in tatters.
JAKE
Oh really? Well they can prove these things scientifically now, you know. I beg you to remember that.
FRED
Really?
JAKE
Oh yes. They’ve got things like light-meters now.
FRED
Light-meters?
JAKE
Oh yes. They can test the quality of light down to a fraction of a centimetre, even if it’s pitch dark.
FRED
They can find whatever light is left in the dark?
JAKE
They can find it, yes. They can locate it. Then they place it in a little box. They wrap it up and tie a ribbon round it and you get it tax free, as a reward for all your labour and faith and all the concern and care for others you have demonstrated so eloquently for so long.
FRED
And will it serve me as a light at the end of the tunnel?
JAKE
It will serve you as a torch, as a flame. It will serve you as your own personal light eternal.
FRED
Fantastic.
JAKE
This is what we can do for you.
FRED
Who?
JAKE
Society.
Pause.
FRED
Listen. I’d like – if you don’t mind – to take you back to the remarks you were making earlier – about your father – and about your inheritance – which was not perhaps quite what it purported to be, which was not, shall we say, exactly the bona fide gold-plated testament deep-seated rumour had reckoned but which was – in fact – according to information we now possess – in the lowest category of Ruritanian fantasy –
JAKE
Yes, but wait a minute! What exactly is being said here about my Dad? What is being said? What is this? What it demonstrably is not is a dissertation upon the defeated or a lament for the lost, is it? No, no, I’ll tell you what it is. It is an atrociously biased and illegitimate onslaught on the weak and vertiginous. Do you follow me? So what is this? I am entitled to ask. What is being said? What is being said here? What is it that is being said here – or there – for that matter? I ask this question. In other words, I am asking this question. What finally is being said?
Pause.
All his life my father has been subjected to hatred and vituperation. He has been from time immemorial pursued and persecuted by a malignant force which until this day has remained shadowy, a force resisting definition or classification. What is this force and what is its bent? You will answer that question, not I. You will, in the calm and ease which will come to you, as assuredly it will, in due course, before the last race is run, answer that question, not I. I will say only this: I contend that you subject to your scorn a man who
was – and here I pray for your understanding – an innocent bystander to his own nausea. At the age of three that man was already at the end of his tether. No wonder he yearned to leave to his loving son the legacy of all that was best and most valuable of his life and death. He loved me. And one day I shall love him. I shall love him and be happy to pay the full price of that love.
FRED
Which is the price of death.
JAKE
The price of death, yes.
FRED
Than which there is no greater price.
JAKE
Than which?
FRED
Than which.
Pause.
Death –
JAKE
Which is the price of love.
FRED
A great great price.
JAKE
A great and deadly price.
FRED
But strictly in accordance with the will of God.
JAKE
And the laws of nature.
FRED
And common or garden astrological logic.
JAKE
It’s the first axiom.
FRED
And the last.
JAKE
It may well be both tautologous and contradictory.
FRED
But it nevertheless constitutes a watertight philosophical proposition which will in the final reckoning be seen to be such.
JAKE
I believe that to be so, yes. I believe that to be the case and I’d like to raise a glass to all those we left behind, to all those who fell at the first and all consequent hurdles.
They raise glasses.
FRED
Raising.
JAKE
Raising.
They drink.
FRED
Let me say this. I knew your father.
JAKE
You did indeed.
FRED
I was close to him.
JAKE
You were indeed.
FRED
Closer to him than you were yourself perhaps.
JAKE
It could be argued so. You were indeed his youngest and most favoured son.
FRED
Precisely. And so let me say this. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
JAKE
You move me much.
Pause.
FRED
Some say of course that he was spiritually furtive, politically bankrupt, morally scabrous and intellectually abject.
Pause.
JAKE
They lie.
FRED
Certainly he liked a drink.
JAKE
And could be spasmodically rampant.
FRED
On my oath, there’s many a maiden will attest to that.
JAKE
He may have been poetically downtrodden –
FRED
But while steeped in introversion he remained proud and fiery.
JAKE
And still I called him Dad.
Pause.
FRED
What was he like in real life? Would you say?
JAKE
A leader of men.
Pause.
FRED
What was the celebrated nickname attached to him by his friends with affection, awe and admiration?
JAKE
The Incumbent. Be at the Black Horse tonight 7.30 sharp. The Incumbent’ll be there in his corner, buying a few pints for the lads.
FRED
They were behind him to a man.
JAKE
He knew his beer and possessed the classic formula for dealing with troublemakers.
FRED
What was that?
JAKE
A butcher’s hook.
Pause.
FRED
Tell me about your mother.
JAKE
Don’t talk dirty to me.
Andy’s room.
ANDY and BEL.
BEL
The first time Maria and I had lunch together – in a restaurant – I asked her to order for me. She wore grey. A grey dress. I said please order for me, please, I’ll have whatever you decide, I’d much prefer that. And she took my hand and squeezed it and smiled and ordered for me.
ANDY
I saw her do it. I saw her, I heard her order for you.
BEL
I said, I’ll be really happy to have whatever you decide.
ANDY
Fish. She decided on fish.
BEL
She asked about my girlhood.
ANDY
The bitch.
BEL
I spoke to her in a way I had never spoken to anyone before. I told her of my girlhood. I told her about running on the cliffs with my brothers, I ran so fast, up and down the heather, I was so out of breath, I had to stop, I fell down on the heather, bouncing, they fell down at my side, and all the wind. I told her about the wind and my brothers running after me on the clifftop and falling down at my side.
Pause.
I spoke to her in a way I had never spoken to anyone before. Sometimes it happens, doesn’t it? You’re speaking to someone and you suddenly find that you’re another person.
ANDY
Who is?
BEL
You are.
Pause.
I don’t mean you. I mean me.
ANDY
I witnessed all this, by the way.
BEL
Oh, were you there?
ANDY
I was spying on you both from a corner table, behind a vase of flowers and The Brothers Karamazov.
BEL
And then she said women had something men didn’t have. They had certain qualities men simply didn’t have. I wondered if she was talking about me. But then I realised of course she was talking about women in general. But then she looked at me and she said. You, for example. But I said to myself, Men can be beautiful too.
ANDY
I was there. I heard every word.
BEL
Not my thoughts.
ANDY
I heard your thoughts. I could hear your thoughts. You thought to yourself, Men can be beautiful too. But you didn’t dare say it. But you did dare think it.
Pause.
Mind you, she thought the same. I know she did.
Pause.
She’s the one we both should have married.
BEL
Oh no, I don’t think so. I think I should have married your friend Ralph.
ANDY
Ralph? What, Ralph the referee?
BEL
Yes.
ANDY
But he was such a terrible referee! He was such a hopeless referee!
BEL
It wasn’t the referee I loved.
ANDY
It was the man!
Pause.
Well, I’ll be buggered. It’s wonderful. Here I am dying and she tells me she loved a referee. I could puke.
Pause.
And how I loved you. I’ll never forget the earliest and loveliest days of our marriage. You offered your body to me. Here you are, you said one day, here’s my body. Oh thanks very much, I said, that’s very decent of you, what do you want me to do with it? Do what you will, you said. This is going to need a bit of thought, I said. I tell you what, hold on to it for a couple of minutes, will you? Hold on to it while I call a copper.
BEL
Ralph had such beautiful manners and such a lovely singing voice. I’ve never understood why he didn’t become a professional tenor. But I think all the travel involved in that kind of life was the problem. There was a story about an old mother, a bewildered aunt. Something that tugged at his heart. I never quite knew what to believe.
ANDY
No, no, you’ve got the wrong bloke. My Ralph was pedantic and scholastic. Never missed a day at night school. Big ears but little feet. Never smiled.
One day though he did say something. He pulled me into a doorway. He whispered in my ear. Do you know what he said? He said men had something women simply didn’t have. I asked him what it was. But of course there was no way he was going to answer that question. You know why? Because referees are not obliged to answer questions. Referees are the law. They are law in action. They have a whistle. They blow it. And that whistle is the articulation of God’s justice.
MARIA and RALPH to ANDY and BEL.
MARIA
How wonderful you both look. It’s been ages. We don’t live up here any more, of course.
RALPH
Got a place in the country.
MARIA
Years ago.
RALPH
Ten. Ten years ago.
MARIA
We’ve made friends with so many cows, haven’t we, darling? Sarah’s doing marvellously well and Lucien’s thriving at the Consulate and as for Susannah, there’s no stopping her. They all take after Ralph. Don’t they darling? I mean physically. Mentally and artistically they take after me. We have a pretty rundown sort of quite large cottage. Not exactly a château. A small lake.
RALPH
More of a pond.
MARIA
More of a lake, I’d say.
ANDY
So you’ve given up refereeing?
RALPH
Oh yes. I gave that up. And I’ve never regretted it.
ANDY
You mean it didn’t come from the heart?
RALPH
I wasn’t born for it.
ANDY
Well, you were certainly no bloody good at it.
Pause.
RALPH
Tell me. I often think of the past. Do you?
ANDY
The past? What past? I don’t remember any past. What kind of past did you have in mind?
RALPH
Walking down the Balls Pond Road, for example.
ANDY
I never went anywhere near the Balls Pond Road. I was a civil servant. I had no past. I remember no past. Nothing ever happened.
BEL
Yes it did.
MARIA
Oh it did. Yes it did. Lots of things happened.
RALPH
Yes, things happened. Things certainly happened. All sorts of things happened.
BEL
All sorts of things happened.
ANDY
Well, I don’t remember any of these things. I remember none of these things.
MARIA
For instance, your children! Your lovely little girl! Bridget! (She laughs.) Little girl! She must be a mother by now.
Pause.
ANDY
I’ve got three beautiful grandchildren. (To BEL) Haven’t I?
Pause.
BEL
By the way, he’s not well. Have you noticed?