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Beneath this. Acroplexis. Different words.
The tuft of early spring, but once beheard
in digs the scuttled earth to creak. At day
Be warned of insight. Lady Sciens lay
In what was once called dust; that is dug doun
And now forebears a dusk athraw the groun.

Pieces now apprehensile of the feir,
Stowed in, an’ deep enbrought, clept in musea,
Their graw, what is not weeping, is the tide,
The wyrd and widness of formaldehyde.

The bear an’ bone, that pass the final dure,
Throw witness on a moderning- empure
With pallow hold and stearic eyes
The seeing glass where steirile ypnos drys.

Having passed from one thing to the other,
(Auden remembers) there was once one thing
In one place airman airman cigarette
One thing at once. But I remember that,
that there once was   oh    I    there was a    there..
What was there? then? Not then, no, what was there
What dramas did we play. There what cassettes.
What day? What if there ever was was that?
And there was that the day was then the thing?
Was it this? Was there this? Is this another THING
is this  TIME
is this it this TIME?
is this
the this that is this time, is this this this this time?
This question has no question has no brain
Has this turned smolder ashen under audens wet again.

A mattress day and nothing to do but work,
Tomorrow when my ship comes marching in,
I’ll drive till six o’clock and take my tea
Good grey, with feathers in. Come see me then

When I’m all done for, holding on till spring
Jusqu’a demain imagining our marriage,
And is his not the face? Jusqu’au soleil
Till sun comes up, on you with spinal pain.

In bed again. Somehow we always are;
And so alert. Never to sleep on glamour,
Not on magic. (What it was, I heard, was magic)
That wrote you sonnets, over and over again,To no response. No letters home to say
The captain and his mistress are out today.

But YOU don’t work (function, I mean, not… travayle)
The line between the bunker and the hat sale
Here’s new years new yours to huff – be gentle,
Sensible with the new books, sentimental
With new blood. Take them out on twilight kayaks,
To see where fresh get dealt a demoniac.
Allay, but child, I am top schooled of theirs–
Take but my glasses-tape and taupe affairs.

The autumn leg it out the office doors,
A miss. Wheel spins to studio applause
And down the greasy pipe, the long big slide,
To freedom? Yeah? —  How goes our easy bride?
Abysmal T-score at the last event
In any case, the hospital has fentanyl.

So that’s 73 now. The first of any substance for a clear month. And putting me as a man-doctor, with broken glasses? It is a little cruel. It is still noticeably seized – I’ve been writing with a cramp for coming on a dozen sonnets. At least since 65. No surprise that I imagine more spells of goodness than there ever were. But writing nothing isn’t discipline. I’m not scared of the “long big slide” – the grammar says I should be but it’s all ten feet away, smoke and mirrors from the stage side. I don’t know what kind of motion I have to exorcise; probably all medicated away. If I heard someone say art sublimated into craft I would take that, or mock it – I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t even feel cynical writing now, I just feel incapable. Not that I couldn’t do with an arts degree– but there are people to please and I don’t have the tricks for it. It should be obvious that I have always been disliked by so many – I can’t see how that ever slipped my mind. I’m not a real actor– not a real homo– not a real norwegian, not a real christian and certainly not a real jew. There are people with better personal summaries to take those wins. I think I’m left to the vermin now  – do they say that here? – but I am in any case, to be eaten by small animals.

His best accord agrees across a class
above, around all round and bold and brass
-neck flavours, all mankind’s appointed pass
-mark man, the man, the Mark-and-Matthew’s arse.

Ask Jesu, how they bind his arms and vex
a brave encounter with the stranger sex
come, lord, adorn his head with intertext
I-N-R-I-need-no-such-introspects. 

But give our leading man a hand to spit in,
(string parts played in bleeding hearts as written:
straight and slow) where filling crosswords, sitten
fate is, take his, less the iron mitten.Bless men like him who know their Sunday dress
Is cast for better crosses than are caught in nets of rest.

A belle requited till the next thing breaks.
(to hang on swept all that to brag on stakes
Is rough on swatches all the while (and hospo
She-said hotshots I say many lost so
(we did, darling ))) where’d my clauses go.
For whom the island tolls is belleboy crow
Who could not be a man for western flickies
Or bit resist her highness-nest an’ hickies
Sicker just as well a hellring double,
The bickering cup and coupe is hot-run trouble
(We drink to that, we did my dear, already)
Good love writ large hold substinate and steady;
Red substrate sectored out for grief and wedlock–
My adoré: the requisition headstock. 

Last night I dreamt the bore had razed my helm
Why, were it earnt, my lord? In sooth it was;
She had, by such a cunning brought it out,
That none could make a mincery of th’intent.
Indeed, I’d rather make a minstry of’t !
If she should rag the other one with bells
I’d surer call it minstrelsy than else !But here the devil comes. I could no wise
But hear, for th’intimation of the heels.
Why should we otherwise keep marble floors?
For dancing, sir, for dancing. Pray, with whom?
I’ll not be mocked in such a company –
Though I take devils thou defilets’t men;
Some dances rap so harshly down again.

Il ad d’une haie un pel pris       And of a gorse he plucked a mote,
E en sun col l’en ad il mis.         And set the thorn about his throat,

N’aveit hume ki al mund fust    Till none of men in one respect
Ki pur Tristran le cuneûst,          That face for Tristan’s might suspect

I rush the ritual shave with Iseult’s* scissors,
(My love is like a pair of secateurs)
I put my face in tint and see through mirrors
(I go to tell her stories and be hers)

I go to tell her what I’ve done. Undressed
And switching clothes I packet up the man
Who did those things. The dearest and the best
Of men. Of men I came and mad I am.

I speak like no man ever has, I think,
Like no man ever was I think I’m being,
Handing myself the weapon, active being,
Becoming black in white and blue in pink.And go, a not-thing, up the castle wall,
She’s mad, you see, when Tristan doesn’t fall.

*here eye-zult

Pick up a little; add it to the tilt,
The mix of things. The risk of the moment mended,
Measured, out of blend and out of kilter,
Filtering down to simple, close and tended.

Pick up a little, stick it at the header,
A stiff hermetic feather at the steel-prow,
A two-speed sound box, drive-wound wheel, all said
A several thousand pound investment row.

Pick up a little- pick a part to lead
And rush. And all is less, less all but lush,
Rich, the thicker stretch stripped down to seed,
And living down to need. All that for suchA let-down. You can break, but break tomorrow,
Now play it faster than the eye can follow

until there is no enemy, but peace !
(patience who waits is always last and least.)
But waiting is what has us best the beast,
If only I had really come deceased
I wouldn’t feel so out of sorts for stopping.

Do I need a reason, like, to go out shopping?

I hate it that they call that question rotting –
In general I object to their alotting
Explanations to that kind of feeling.
Like, really, would you call this trauma healing?I’d like a kind of drug to get me reeling;
A violent little life is more appealing
Than drinking coffee sitting on the stairs,
Seeing no sense in cutting off my hair.

I’m bit by sentiment when winter hits;
November snaps and brandy, not the dark,
The earnest 4pm nothingness that sits
In empty armchairs, bringing in the park

From adolescent bottle-cleaner nights,
But just the frank and unoppressive air
Of one bright morning, one prevailing light
From hundreds strung up in the street, but there

The town where I grew up. I call it that
But all I think is pictures getting sick;
The nasty sort of drunken backwash twat
That houses just contempt enough to pickOn an adult growing slowly out of phase,
Drágged báck and waiting out the days.

When someone learns my steps the trick is up!
I’d better drain the loving cup than drip
IV LOVE all over quick
Prescription fixes for the sweet and sick.

Wé could hang like tatty CD jackets
If not for Sunday morning. Feel the hoax
Get ruffled down to nothing in the covers:
The rough impression that they must be lovers.

And where’s the hope in that ! In all that knowing,
There’s nothing left to say that isn’t true.
So no more dolls for him, and no more passion;
The seventeens are falling out of fashion.And yet by heav’n I think my love as rare
As I could tolerate to pull my hair.

I don’t know if I could be satisfied with writing a journal these days. I used to have this faculty for great long tracts of pent, or even of prose, whenever there was something important to be said. And now I end up struggling to fill out a sonnet. Sonnets used to be my exercises, one-and-done pieces of catharsis, or else just work. When something important comes up, I can never resolve it in a sonnet. Amsterdam could be dealt with in Nederland because it made me feel so little, and because all in all I was happy. The immense feeling that Europe brought up in me this summer stormed through three sonnets and The AV Lives – nothing really cut it down to size until Reading. And that was after weeks, I think, of nothing. The ideas were floating around as I was leaving Greece, and couldn’t crystallise until I was bored with Brighton. It’s a good poem in my book because it doesn’t claim too much. I can maybe collapse one idea of Europe better than I can collapse “everything in its entirety”, which was essentially the point of The Act of Ending. Not to say I don’t like The Act of Ending, I do – it is really less juvenile than the poetry I was writing at the time. “Liquid Metal is the like of all drinking” is composed infinitely better than “the cathedral velvet / steers my eastward eyes”. Then again To An Actress does this well, and parts of the prose are too mouthy.
The point being, writing a 65th sonnet about how I am supposedly in love with this girl isn’t stirring much. There isn’t any more cynicism in that poem than the obvious shruggy kind. I think its domestic love is supposed to be real, but something about it being a sonnet makes that dead on arrival. Like, I have to be in conversation with Monotope because it’s the same girl, but the only real development seems to be “I can’t write that poem any more, because I’ve given her one too many hugs”. And that’s not good poetry – it’s the same reason that LIII and LIV, and all of the poems for M3 are basically crap. Poems about how sex is instantially too boring to be beautiful, are (surprise surprise), not beautiful. Two Boys tries to get around this by being all Norwegian about love (or the polite kind of Anglo-Norwegian which is more about kitchen counters than saunas and pubic hair), but in reality I didn’t feel that way at all. I didn’t want to be “across from” M3 I just couldn’t stand the idea of looking like I was screwing them and enjoying it. Or rather my poetics wouldn’t be seen within a mile of real sex – that’s why I wrote Ego, Fucked . I love it because it claims to be gritty when it’s openly idealistic. I have my cake and eat it with curse words because we assume “fucked” is real sex, and “passion”, “thirst” is all clouds and rainbows but it’s basically the other way round; there is no dirt in Ego Fucked like there is in Two Boys. You could put every line I’ve written about sex into two boxes and anything obscene-sounding will probably go in the box that isn’t much about sex at all. Then again, almost nothing I’ve ever written is about the act of sex, and can’t we all be thankful for that.

and the shroud was navy pink
Now that the death knell or post mortem clank
Is oil-change-immediate for you,
(That hand that wrapped or knuckled neck that sank,
Like fish teeth in the skin) and now your cue 

Is crossed out, and the manager relieved
That everything was done without a hitch.
The waiter holds his hand to give you leave;
So several hours later, in a ditch,

Your hatchback might be empty, upside-down,
And damp with bad white wine and dew, and then
With cobwebs, and with gristled leaves and ground
Be buried in the heavy fog for ten Or fifteen years, till some parental pet
Paws over your tin rooftop in the wet.

This morning as a charming euroman
Takes out the sun to tea at customs, here
In foreign power I alight with sand
And bowl all down Ourfatherstreet to pier

At afternoon a gamine sportswife, gets
The worst across the table, heads to port
For exercise I’m taking in the nets
As sailors pull me out of getting caught

At night a gloss-eyed girl asleep on fate
That boys embroider meaning in – I will
If nothing stands between me and the date
Upset myself at sundown, and as illAs nothing put the mockery to sleep
For seven hours, while the docks aboard their keep.

Hélas for eden’s brook and burğ of gorse,
The stable market shot for Bolton’s horse
Where Fiction’s war on anglophonic frets
Has won the race we ran on testy sets.

The hanging-round-in-bars of art was fed
The rice of bargain ars-es B&M
By Suntzu and by christ.
When Harrison
Imagined that the arts were left at breakfast
For a better life of foreign legalistic
Suicide protection he was right – Of course the east knows more, and war is prone
to Jesus types, and genius is blown
By art into proportion, while the north
Picks up the parts of pretty James the Fourth.

Where in the picture do you think we are-
The shivering server overfilled with passion,
Not knowing whether open or closed eyes
Would better seal the moment in, or else
The diva craning down to feed his moans,
Approving his affection for the while,Or some imagined third place, better suited
To bright, thin-blooded people such as us.
I think we had better stand a long way off
From love.
When people think of settling down
It’s always dark old houses, and the warmth
Of someone sleeping next to you. Let’s not
Deface ourselves for that. I’d rather hold
My glass across from you, in perfect cold.

Attend the jealous flight of land and water
From window in the first floor onboard morgue,
Where illness of the old and childish kind
Is kept below the waterline to dry.

Parental aid detained in gold casino,
Four floors above the level – in between
The indoor decks found skeletal, unlit,
Since no one had intended to go in.

The conscious drill as cleanly as they can
Discrete at duty-free, directly down
Beneath the floorboards – many more men die
In labours such as these, than modern writersDare to admit; in fact it’s happening now –
The lifeless come up much more light somehow

I thought my bent world better warmed by white
Than bright wings, arctic angel, bird of praise
Wholly my ghost, or gāst of me – the light
Plays tricks on people who approach my age.

If that thin spirit, image of a saviour,
Did what I ought to want the thing to do,
I think that inexcusable behaviour
Would clip its wings, or I would want it to.

And is that love and such a pain to say it
I think if it could raise me from the dead
It seems too cheap to call that something that.
If only I could get inside my head

And put a few things where they ought to be
Before the angel comes around for me.

Observed in classic from the Frenchman’s yacht
The triptych fringed in thick sclerotic moss
Is pan-am panoramic grey and blue
Though rather hard to climb for men like you.
Who in your Sofitel write far too sapphic
To join us in our southern hagiographic
__

Wild nights that bored me witless with a hoard
Of moreish semi-moorish semi-mores
Had promised me the height of this and that
And suitably more hip than herding catsIf there is any god to pray to here
I beg the great Fitzgenius give me ear
Confer on me the freedom of the Nick,
Not quite green-lit enough to make it stick

Hum gold-hair you are quite my charm tonight,
Since pink sky shepherds you to my delight:
I do forget, just you against the sky,
That you have less to do with it than I.

I take you fishing since it please me best,
And hold you watching BBC points west.
There is two-sugar happiness in this
When we confuse the thin-man with a kiss.

Tonight I want you well – and don’t you know
Society is organised to show that.
Let’s reduce this white tie town together,
We could had we but time enough and weather.

Or you could stand there looking down on me
Like some bad hostess, looking for his key.

had a place to go, and not to be,
(Just since you asked where I felt most like me,)
Or thén I did, when moving, feel my best
(that awful brain and yet-more-awful chest.)

But now you made me simple, boilt me down,
(What kind of man blows kisses back in town?)
And placed me close to where I held you still
(How sickening, how sickening, until—)

They’re quite terrific limits for a man,
(Who has that taste— at least, I think I am…)
They’re quite astounding movements for a doll
(That make me feel myself, though rather small.)

And how degrading just to lie in bed
(But how remarkable to move instead)

Why so concerned with England? Can’t you tell
That everything you think while moving through
The English landscape isn’t inspiration.
It’s only that the thoughts you want to have
Feel better in the face something pretty.

Why sitting in cross-country standard class,
The land is so much more desirable
Than when you’re walking through it, since you’d rather
Reach a town and get some thinking done

And yet it’s so frustrating to imagine
Dispatriate in some great town abroad
What welcome waits for you behind the border

You love it then – and what else should you do
When your own England can’t stop loving you

I knew that they were dahlias (but shush
You’ll wake your conscience, sit back down AT ONCE)
I’m sorry madam (just a little push
and…) what do you call those flowers? (man wins lunch!)

At dinner, housewife, with a kitchen chair
Makes eyes from under cleaver spectacles.
But with that language, and with, oh, that hair
You’ll never hope to look respectable!

Do you like smoking? I like smoking lots –
I’d sooner have a pack of straights than wealth;
(I’m very middle class) you join the dots,
I like this – FUCK – I love this sickened health.

Let-us gó you-and Í, and get sum exercise
En boj, en man, en master – of disguise !

May’s heat days with their hot steel railway track
Smoke under tall glass houses. Like the south-
Bound tourists, sick of Britain, heading back
To where the freak show heat is best kept out.

The luxury of those old southern towns
Sprung up in post-war promise far too tall –
I used to think it pity how they drowned
The altstadt. Now I see cathedrals all

The way along the Main, or on the Amstel
Bragging that they’ve seen the century out.
Or at the (avant-)centre-gare’s odd angles,
Or where the Thames is filled up at the mouth

Between the bridge at Hartslock and the sea,
The summer starts there (quite apart from me.)

Well no, of course, I didn’t want that to happen.
When I said I was bored, I meant that action
Might give me something more to think about
I didn’t think you’d tear the boredom out
And puncture my habitual comfort : sum
Up everything I counted on in one
Residual relief – how I was once
Was in one instant, par hazard, by chance
Demobilised, museumed for my seeing
Since fear had picked a best of out of being,
A list of days to hold the dead-gaze fast.
I thought my discount alabaster past
In environs and glasscase oh so artful;
No better to have lost my (Elgin) marbles.

Jesus’ sister stops near here to bury
A corpse in tarmac copse in the apocrypha.
Her legacy was withheld by the wary
Conscience of a jesuit photographer.

Her left hand fame framed this poor church improper,
Impossible (he thought) to hold that truth;
His pious parish thought strained (failed) to stop her
Raising the floor in roots up through the roof.

Yet what a man he was when he went under-
His snuffing, sobbing out to blazing fire,
The arc-and-six-seals suffering moans of thunder,
As his own bones sparked down to dust and wire.

The church was full of such rich music then,
I thought I heard the corpse speaking again.

Things like this resist the fit of lyric;
When the town and water scrublike, brackish, thin,
in charmless sidestones sit chalk white, and chirrup,
Birds like children force their bikes to sing.

If there were types of flowers I could spell
I might describe the roads in terms of those,
But since there’s no good church fire in the bell,
I hear the time as metric in bureaus,

Tin cogs, coils, clocks and peepshow, when unwoken
Planned bliss in cans and cabins – growing muter
The men whose looks hurl gore, the push, the choker,
Till misters win two soundless lips to tutor.

When wet, blood-ruined bandage blighted fags here,
Then those bled right wooed there, to let light lag here.

Picture that picture, the foreigner’s house, the set
Expression, of an absent-minded predator,
Goddess, with upset balance, airless, wet
with breath, the phrasal sweatings of her editor,

the Italian, dressing her up as victory, making
Her play huntress, for the bearded men.
He couldn’t leave her blind – how could he take
Her picture? How could he undress her then?

The pin-up satin and the costume furs,
Dragged somewhat from the innards of an drawer,
Draped, pinned, and plastered pink – the worse
It hurts, the more they like it, and the lower.

The painter had that dry rot in the lung,
And ground his girls to sawdust on the tongue

How many years has it been now? I think
I saw you last a week ago, that day
You pressed yourself onto my mouth, and linked
Nothing with nothing. Then I felt the weight

Of you, on tilting scales against my heart –
That was the day the doctor came to me
About my eyes, perhaps I had been starved
Of looks too long, and had began to see

What you wished on – the making of my mind
Into a set of dice, suspended in
The seconds after being cast, the line
Between the happening and the had, the sin

You prayed on, as you left the poison in
It’s place, inside a dose of medicine.

The doctor gets me down with vial and needle;
Abuse and violation ! What, for me?
A gift, a gift ! You left me in your lap-
I mean, in mine, a moan in mine, I mean
No medicine cures that! No men my care,
My cramp, my midworn life a worldwife sit-in,
Chaps in bowler hats and hasbin cherpsers,
Spare no brandies, cheer no spares, the in-set
Heirs set off from here, to there, to-here-again,
While I a dullist ‘ave some madeira ma-dear-again.

While I a pollist, polished piece restate
My pains that grow from me in adolescence;
I swell with blood (all power be beyond
Our sights now, coalescent, special child,
A girl enough that stakes bewilled and wild
Begotten are in her, where cotton hair
Would cover spikes. She’d like to grow them out,
And fill out all her clothes that once were tykes’)
Prick me, won’t I bleed the stuff of dykes?
Or leave me be, I’d still be she who takes
In pins and ends up pissing blood.
Or crosses poles and ends up wed to Adam –
Some mothers rather they had never had’em.

I am the state, or else am besteskind,
The founders of the freer west are F-
F- S, I’m under house arrest again.
What else is left but shoot myself with needles?
Read-books, to see John Read-books of the Yard,
Arrest myself under the act or deed
of doing. I want Read-books here to take me,
I take, or do, or fuck the law itself
To be my indiscreetly wedded dyke.
Like her, my womb is made of books and bleeding.
I’ll whet my knife and castrate Johnny Reading,
If that’s what wifey wants.
He shot me up!
That’s why I only now remember girlhood –
Morphine ! Heavy drugs and silicon,
That’s how they make the girls’ dolls nowadays,
Rent out a living mould and fuck her full
Of liquid plastic. Here’s salute from me
To everyone who winces at the thought,
While hurling up my insides in a bathroom
Bin, all foam. My throat all sloshed with bubbles.
then again
That’s what I get for crawling to the sickbeds.
So dangerously low on vital liquids.

Do you remember what it was beforehand?
What it meant seeing someone, seeing someone,
I’m lost; let me begin. I found you last –
Beginnings are like endings, without substance.
When you were cardboard, I could pin you up,
And when you turned to paper, tear you. Then !
That was the moment where something was real.
Inside the change, when I asked who you were –
It would have been absurd of you to answer,
But there was something to you. That was it,
And it the first and last moment of you.

To be beautiful is not to be sick,
Pain is so weak to you, and such a subject,
You burn it out in warmth, and she in cold,
(If not for that, I couldn’t keep you separate.)
But drawing out, you talk only of beauty.
Why is it she would never talk of beauty
But you did? Did and only of it? Why?
How does an ache say, I am muse? And skin
Shed off its undersignals for that cause?
Sit up, what, speak? And say – bow, clasp your hands
Or reverence with pencil, pretty thing?
Why is a woman like a statue, doll,
a bookcase, candle arm, and writing desk?
(I wrote on both) because she has no eyes.
Of course the hunter favours a blind game,
But there’s no man a hunter, rather, dead,
A dead one reading headlight in the other’s
Eyes, but that last moment: beauty, dearest
when it costs fear,
we stand the road together.

Desire. Is that the best thing? Not for us,
Not with us now – had I you best desire?
no, is it best – I only learned its meaning,
By well-equipped example, and too soon –
Desire is not a thing I had imagined
People to have, in the same breath as work.
Him who saw lust in the Venus de Milo
Could not tell women from statues, nor himself
From huntsmen – men, that is, who shoot at clay –
Because he feels desire only for gravel,
And tastes only the air of northern forest,
Imported south for leisure – where you wait,
Behind a hangnet, or a wood-line wall,
Voicing your beauty at the gunstand, saying
‘Desire, desire’ as though that much explained it.

Beauty is cut so bookish, so unwild
That nature must be awkward in itself.
It has the cadence of a fact, no swing,
No weight, only a quiet outward spill –
As it makes home for other idling senses,
Each one more tightly folding underneath,
Till everything is conferenced with beauty,
And everything is indexed to its height,
In answer to the moment – that was it.

Do you remember how it felt beforehand?
You stopped me, since as yet you had no eyes,
Your arms held tight to where your seams should be,
You said: there is no disjoint part of me –
which I believed, in fact I tried the same –
No disjoint part, as in ‘one symbol only’,
As in ‘when I say beauty, I mean beauty’,
As in, ‘no part of me could feel desire’,
No part of me could feel desire for you.

If I contrived, considered, caught myself
on better terms, I’d put an end to me –
Propose, I mean, a thousand natural shocks
That since I wore long socks have weighed me on,
As dowry to the death bell, or to buy
Initial glitters in the milkman’s eye.

If I could act, induce, allow myself
Economies of pop and sparkle, maybe –
I’d maybe write my hamlet as a boy
A little too concerned perhaps with faces
Or salt, or something better, something new
That Shakespeare hadn’t had the heat to do.

But if I cóuld improve, assume myself,
With plastics, anaesthetics, and the rest
I think I’d rather move up north in summer:
(and Isn’t that an artefact of love?)
I think I’d move and plant my flowers there
Where beauty isn’t sent us of the air

And I could write, at least, increase my share
Of flowers leaning low enough to press
Between my verses, or against my chest,
Without the feeling, far too sane to name,
That something’s always coming all the same.

Whip up Antarctica, your kitchen sink-ness
It hath a greater sound than lady-sickness.
And like the prince you lie eternal cold,
failing the final order to grow old —
Until your mother takes you out the freezer;
You thought a little trick was bound to please her
But júst lóok whát yóu’ve dóne
You’ve left your father down and out for one;
How rather high-poetical, your teeth
Should prove too weak for chewing through your leash….
And sick-a-more I spin back down to earth
Whose latitude belts were best considered first
And who though polar-toed and tropic-fingered
Hides comfort in the private parts of England.

If I could find, adore, define myself
In better terms than walking round in circles,
Or have found a nicer sounding word for- what?
Well, what’s the heart of it? if I knew that
I think I’d leave the poet growing older
And set myself up shop in somewhere colder.

It must have made you glitter, at fifteen,
To see that place knocked backwards into being,
When you decided no one else had met
The turnout of that local hazard yet
Of course you thought that first was strongest seeing.
I only wonder, since your arm is bleeding,
When that began – did you imagine then,
While scraping unseen places, or else when?
Did you forget how living feels (again)
When it became apparent that the river
Was sickly to the lung and tongue touch — liver
-wasting substances were uncovered there
In course of British standard criminal care —
That taste of blood and bilewood must have scared
You when it first hit; well, it bores you now.
In years abandoned you would sweat it out,
(You’d thought that’s just how heroes come about)
And one fine morning fear would flesh somehow,
And leap ecstatic from the bloody ground,
Not well up in a midtown hospital
Not ache incessant like a blathering child
Not drug you senseless, splitting with disdain—
They’ve signed the forms to shut you up again;
Exam reported trauma at fifteen,
Skin elsewhere unremarkable and clean,
That isn’t what it sounded like to me.
If you could find the moment where it hit
You’d find a white and quiet room and sit,
Imagining the impact of the fall—
But there are no such places. Not in all
The houses in the cultured world – the one
Made specially to accustom firstborn sons
To the hammered thought of living only once.
And all the world’s unfit for scrap – that’s biblical
Or truth as truth is in a shag political
Crash state – or that’s the world you’ve got to now.
But then you were so full up with belief
(Six years or seven – god I don’t know how
I made it past the gate) that your relief
Was bleeding out in European sun,
And now so careful, so unalive to shocks,
Settling your estate from inside a six-foot box.
While someone, somewhere in a well-paved town,
His face like yours gone mad, walks up and down.


You would assume I’d find my feet. you would.
Ugh, what’s the use in getting out of bed,
(Asks man named john or james or keswick harley)
Fit. Fitting. Fit. That’s not so very nearly
There as I had hoped. I’d find my feet
In slip-on trainers. Oh … they’re not here.
They’re there. I’m up to get them on.
(says boy named sam or antinomicon)

On the pavement we will plan spring rising,
And surely as the day it comes inclining

Everydays like this one, killing time ,
But there’s no room to kill time. Just to sit it
tightly in the corner, on to gather
A heap of complimentary stuff-and-things
a-brap a-brap a-brap. It’s not the death gun,
There’s no such thing. Not here there ís no guns.
Who’s at the door? Postman again. Why.
Though I not order post it come again.
I do not want these envelopes and tape.
Not at seven in the morning, tape in a different size
Is not a thing I want, or have a use forThis is ridiculous, and was ridiculous beforehand.
Do you see why such mettle needs spring rising…
I need it like a kicking in the neck.

and yet, he was a beautiful woman

Some say we have achieved something by this,
That, swimming in our bedclothes we distinguish
Ourselves from other selves, and prove our bodies
in unremarkable practice, practicable.
It is our miracle that I feel nothing
When you join up sweet circuits at the eye,
Or stare (I like that) stare at me in verse,
In bed, rather, in prose and in that comfort
lyricless and bored, but that in comfort.Sometime imagine what I fix between us,
The day I write better than you are,
And crucify you on my curtain-rail,
Sometime imagine how your hair remains
Divided in my hand while catching fire,
Then smoke and tell me that’s not what you want,
That’s what the consequence of new love is,
So take that fire to bed with you and sleep;
Prefer the thing so simple, and so sweet.

I am very violent […] language is violence. Violence is metaphor.

Man.
Oh that’s not violence, you’re too sensible –
When I was shot as a boy (how virginal)
When I was shot it taught me not to speak
As though my strength was in my being weak.
You ought to shut that rubbish up before
It starts to rub off on those sons of yours.
You’ll start to find yourself in quite a spot
When they assume there’s use in tying knots
If not to strengthen lengths of string for strapping,
Or if in spring they start to take to clapping
Hands with awful sorts you’d soon regret it –
It’ll end the twentieth century if you let it.
But then again, you’re just that kind of man;
I suppose this counts as doing what you can
When essentially you’re blessed with being sterile.
Its a shame it’s not a thing a man can share,
I’ve quite the closet of familiar wear,
I’m sure you understand (no pun intended)
These habits aren’t so easily amended.
The writing, though, is something you could cut
Who knows, dear, how your mouth might look when shut.
Of course, that leaves us where we were before;
It’s well and good, your ‘violent metaphor’
If that suffice for violence, in your head,
It’s a marvel that you’d take a man to bed.

Rsp.
Aren’t you the poet to have dreamt all that;
I only said it since I caught you flat
And thought you’d like a little entertainment,
But you’ve quite outdone me in repayment.
I’m sorry to adopt your turns of phrase;
There’s something so appealing in the way
You structure nonsense like the word of law,
As though I hadn’t heard it all before,
Of course I have, but since I aim to flatter,
I’ve learned a triple-twenty type of chatter,
That first concerned with what of men like me,
Then turns to what such men had better be.
Of course you’re drawn to something so concise
In diagnosing, then prescribing life,
But actually, as simple as it sounds,
I’m not that man, and you’ve imagined grounds
On which to pick me up – it’s not poetic,
It doesn’t have that cadence of polemic
That you command so subtly when speaking,
The fact is, sir, that truth is prone to leaking
Through the cracks of verse that rhetoric likes to seal,
The violent opposition to appeal
Is part of what I mean when I say violence.
I could have let your words ring out in silence,
It would have been a sensible thing to do,
But now I’ve turned the knife edge back on you,
I’ve proved my point: I could have made the choice,
To write you as a poem, not a voice.
But as it stands, I almost think you’re right
That two men together constitutes a fight.
But is it much relief to be correct,
When facing up the saw? Don’t you suspect
That since I’ve cut you down to a talking head
I might have been less violent in bed.

If you remained, we could have sold so much,
But this your purpose? No. I gave you hold
On something that won’t leave you quite so soon.
Do you think it’s possible to be like them?
You really never learned a thing. Listen,
There is no ecstasy like ours. Not this.

You’re better jealous than a cynic liar,
If I remained maybe you’d live in comfort
But I know you – there’s no more ecstasy
Than once was ours, and yours no comfort now.

If Basquiat painted this, he wouldn’t think
To fill it with pulled teeth and flattened jaws
Or draw on lines and violent crowns to applaud
The understate. It wouldn’t be something
He liked to paint, like flesh disasters were.
He might resent the absence of expression
In old stone which would not obey his riot;
(He couldn’t stand when dissonance was quiet.)
His hometown had its own war with tradition,
And no one there would dare to paint a church.
(No one would understand that kind of anger.)
He’d start to paint the door and see police
Breaking a life in, near the tarmac river.
But then he’d see it open — and whatever 
He thought of Britain, he would turn to face
The tea stall, and he’d start to think of anchoring
Here, where he could keep on painting buildings,
And drinking every hour of the day,
And saying nothing by that, and not thinking 
That someone stood beside in opposition 
To everything he’d done. He’d see that ways
Of life exist that don’t consider all things.
And then, of course, he’d change his name; Basquiat
Would not be fitting for the English spring,
And there would be no painters in New York,
For one or two days. Then the artist, walking
Between two villages would lose his insight,
And eat at noon while some young addict, breaking
His lines inside a Brooklyn penitentiary,
Would start to see how writing under street light
Shines, and so become the twentieth century
Genius who dies in bed at twenty-seven.
—And when our painter hears this, softly making
The last stroke of St Michael or St Paul
With cup and cloth in hand, he might imagine
If that young artist could have heard the bell
ring out midday, or seen the Sunday passion,
What kind of life he might of had instead
Of being Basquiat, the painter now twice dead.

He said “deteriorate” – he said I was
Too composite. But I think there is nothing
At my heart – elle n’arrive plus – no more
Is there ice, nor are whispers more – but he
Insisted, how he wrote me… slanders, thus
from every corner… a waste, he said he knew;
But what a waste to know me – isn’t it so?
That was no friend of ages, worse for words,
Who wrote beneath his books… Deteriorate,
He says, break down your verse, slow to a stop.
But he can light no fires without a match,
Sick man whose breath reproach his energy,
That hypocrite. Of course I had to talk…

I came to you to read a new fortune,
And you sent me outside to wear it in,
But you spoke second, dear my friend, for I
Had by then heard his voice crow deep from comfort:
Deteriorate, deléterī ; finish
Those words and I might start to drink with you,
But as they are, he lays his judgement still:
I could study the high oceans of fire,
Where men in brown coats long since lost their pens,
Were I not chained here, monitoring the walk:
The king of pins is found beneath a pave,
The hangman in my shirtsleeve: fear nothing,
These are suburban prophesies, their signs
Are wonders for the seventh highway-lane:

I made straight in the desert to the city
I have not left my God – who does me this…
I’th’throat he lies… Deteriorate… That poet
Will be the second coming fore he croaks,
Who speaks so kindly… in my fathers house
There may be many rooms, yet none for thee
Who breakest not thy verse – who does me this?
This is most brave, to raise impious war –
The soul of adonais like a wounded snake
Raise war in heav’n where the eternal are –
Who does me this? He said “deteriorate”
So musically, great poet, best of men,
Who never leaves the house, and eats dry toast,
And imitates his gramophone: break up,
Break up, de.. le… te…. re…… and eight nine ten
Then off to bed, great poet, best of men,
And with your verse I’ll dig you up again.

I’m sorry to have kept you up so late,
But I have such affections for the young,
The man I am is often much like you,
And I prefer your echo to the last,
You wouldn’t say deteriorate your verse,
Not so simply, but I have said it for you,
Thus every sin a servant to his father…
As I to mine, and you to yours. I’m sorry,
I wish that you would lie to me for him,
I wish you said, that evening when we met,
“Deteriorate, be this or nothing worth”
Then I might say this through you, and your heart
Would not be such an object to my point.
And thank you for these clothes. They suited me.
But I should leave – I don’t expect you care
That I was kept up by the words he said.
Perhaps as you don’t know him – nor do I,
I took his words to service mine; how close
You bring me to the essence of the thing,
And draw me out – o Lord thou drawest me,
In lines, in chalk, scratched where my body fell…

Are you returned, sir, from your foreign stand?
I heard you gave such speeches, yes, a shame
My tethers keep me here – the transcripts, sir,
Lend me that phrase – I owe myself to you.
Don’t be so coy, though Zürich thought it charming,
I must instill you in those higher passions,
You are a poet, sir – well, remonstrate
But twenty switzers put it to the press
To hail your passions prettier than I –
You are too kind, my words are very chancy,
I only hope to see my name in print,
Beneath “To my true servant, and my friend”,
That is, if gratitude resets it there.
I find advice in so few places now,
I really do owe you a world of good.
Advice? What, sir – I write so little –
But Thankyou, I will set that in my mind,
And write to you, if you’ll accept the favour.

I told him there and then to break it up,
With no strong feelings; he’s a decent writer,
I’ve always told him that, but not a poet.
In fact, he thinks himself the other way,
I only meant to sort the matter out,
But he’s been making noise about it. God,
If you could see the work I’ve done on him;
He used to count his syllables aloud.
He’s such a follower, you know the sort,
No aspirations, nothing much upstairs,
At least, not further than the second floor,
He thinks he’s missing shackles for his thoughts,
The sad thing is, he’s missing thoughts as well,
But aspirations, that’s the crucial part,
And no religion… that’s the thing… I find,
For man to talk with… well… it’s all
Been written… all this stuff… quite cleverly,
You ought to read the book, that’s what I say,
It’s probably my best… I ought to ask
If he’s begun to read it actually,
It might just clear things up, before he’s past it.

And all was silence where the teacher stood,
To hammer at the stone. The sacrifice
Of nothing to a god of nothing, noise
Resounding from the empty altar downward,
Towards the valley, and the sea of ice,
Where working men looked up in a frozen sweat:
As though they might recall the look of stone,
Cracking beneath the siren, and the hilt,
And breaking over all the earth. Look up.
The word at the beginning and the end
Rang out from every sacred place at once:

Deteriorate! Descendent from the echo!
Align your thoughts! Break up your verse! Oh hell!
Men talk with gods – Prefer a devil’s discourse:
Your voice is mine, you lying, sickening patchwork
I shut you up in what you most condemn,
And free myself from your salvation – you!
I’ve thrown you in to make my peace, so hear:
Untie your hands and hold the first in mine,
And close advised in handling that you take –
The next that proves a poet, I will break!

Words coughed with blood: and they all pay out thousands
Of all new money, each one to redeem
The moment which their heat destroys,
That long, cold feeling, full out in the dark,
Where neither light nor hope of light can reach
And distance curbs that hunger of the poor,
The all new deaf and blind idolatry
Of plastic, metal, sharp and bitter boxes
Each one a price to sell the cold-

He breaks
And I don’t understand a word he’s saying
Because he’s moved, completely moved by it
And I can’t bring myself to take it on
So I just wait, and when he doesn’t start
I tell him: yes, I think it’s just like that.
But he’s still not convinced. I did my best.
He says it’s kind to give me all these words
While I lie listening, sharpening my nails.

He says the young are decadent, we are.
But he bites gold as good as any man.
And I would rather that he do it now,
At least in daylight. But he’s too far down
In generosity to see himself.
And as he solves the problems of the world
He sees me struck down by the same disease
As I collapse onto the bed, and breathe.

Not I, who saw the missionary wizards
Become the coolest girls in christendom,
HE said “not I” — was it not his the vizard christened them?
Acquire the visage wanton, wintry blue,
Accrue wantwit sadness ladies do,
The fair farewell, the wives’ well due adieu,
Assume the Modern-ed Woman.

Well none of that! The Lancet holds
That woman comes of man,
Tragedies brand niew-vond in mask
Who cán I bé now?
máy he all, but ask.

There goes he with the old train,
(All those boys who too were girls)
Now incised in their verniers
And globed in vermeer’s pearls.
Where She! (in women’s clothing)
Spreekt geen yvel, ond geen Duits,
She begins consuming culture
In a death by thousand bites

I cannot refuse your refuse Madame K,
Those leatherers in your storeroom need a whipping boy by day
If you give yourself to charity
I’ll have your guts at cost
To spin the blackest fabric of
My birth, my grace your loss:
To be becoming, not in birth
In love I do deserve her
That wears my words on ruffled sleeve,
On skirting, skirt and girder.
Worse for wear, some say, but on my name
If they so much as mention
There’s the doing of a murder
Boiled in brewing, sewing, glowing, gorgeous
girls in hypotension– No !

What diagnosis ís this—
We low, with warm blood,
Soft heat that fogs us on the inside,
Abates, and tempers,
Steams and clouds the will,
Thus enterprises of great pithhhh
grow lith and lithtleth,
Thee a-lilting screech like lilith,
cool on desert rock,
Thy lillet and thy lily drink,
Good dream girl, in thy entreprise nothing.
These injections of great moment, moment-
lose the name of action

Since the evening I left Oxford to be a plumber,
few of my decisions have been so advisedly made

Home to put the barometrics in.
I’m working on a project for the family,
They’ve called me in. Unsaid. I bring my spindles.
(I always do; a man should never ask
For tools.) It’s underneath the kitchen cupboard?
Yes, well what a drudge, I’d bend you sideways,
Harry housewife you are, Mrs Batwich.

Bled bled rubber lips around the doornock,
keen civilian life for all concerned.
Let’s drop your act- one curtain and my trousers
Billowing in hot air.
But clyst arriven !
Blows me like a heiligeist arisen,
Kitchen smack and civvy days in pryzm.
Hacked at sacristy, the gaol or gulag
Luggage rack, or black detective ruggedge.
But no days out for dead men! Oh, my shoulders
(Privy to the wants of men my bollocks)
The man’s got cash abounding in his Pollocks,
But no more chamois left to clear the spill up,
Less to swill the drill-sarge champers fill-up.

The poor man waits on payday,
while the rich man waits on him,
what a happy kind of justice
when their livers all give in.

That’s why we gave up London to the gays,
And strayrats have their wine and wilder days,
This fine fine life. This now, this vin-da-laaaaaand.

A rot abides in frideswides
and up the high and turl,
the early Oxford in disguise
is lately in disgirls.

I’ve put your barometrics back m’lud,
And steady on I’m set to bring the cooker.
If you’ll wash out my name against the flood,
The general public might just overlook’er.

Perhaps this life is just the sort of prejudice I need,
Like Moses in his reedboat or the Major in his cab,
I’ll net a strike out-scabbing every other market weed
and fall a-cursing fleet on every scullion or drab.

Badum badum badum, that’s how the fucker reads to me.
I’ll throw your books and books and fucking- books into the sea.
If thou hast nought to do withal, I’ve nowt to do with thee,
But I’ve fixed your water pressure now so cough on up my fee.

The expansion of higher education over the past generation has become a progressively more important source of prosperity and the mainstay of economic growth since the global financial crisis – Tony Blair MA (Oxon)

A little light on entertainment
Begging for the boy
A paid up fiddler up the pavement,
Felt for playing coy
Our politician makes a statement
Fumbling his toy;
Those better benefits for laymen
Bugger up the goy

So that’s what serves for finery
In this our tottering state:
The great beefeater binary
Of stripper fat and steak
We’ll take whichever minorly
Enwitched and inwit slate
Will intervene in matters mean
O’gutter-dripping date

That’s tax on mister minister
(The rabbi plays his airs)
And wood from out his sister’s mouth
(He too must have his cares)
There’s empty fires in inishmaan
(And madmen up the stairs,
They’ve all gone drunk and fished on out
The dreg of Britain’s fare)

We’ll round’em up and court’em
By a jury of their peers;
Who found’em up near Fortinbras
Appalling tory queers.
What how-now-brown-cow taught’em up
So wise beyond their years,
To play the mule on short-and-street,
For penny sport and leers.

A war on wage retainers
Ain’t that not too much to ask
For us stood-in-gutter looking-uppers
Reft of means and mast
A light on entertainers
Less the ranklings of the past,
Or pluck-up and his pavement boy
Might play the genre’s last.

“Pourquoi ma douce, moi le faux mousse
Que le temps pousse, t’écrire de loin
C’est que je t’aime et tant je t’aime
Qu’ait peur ma reine d’un pharmacien “

Nothing to say and everything to do.
In just as many clothes I thought of you
Returning from the sail. The harder drink
At port is mine, the other half you sink.

The wet salt gleam, the pavement and the eyes
are felt the finer things a medway wife
Can buy on Bristol credit. On my life
There is no fountain like it. There’s no fair
like yours, the hordes on Brighton pier,
to hell with your admission fees, your visions and your beer !

It’s shit when you’re not sober,
just imagine what it’s like
When you’re twenty going thirty
on your fourteen year old bike.

On days like these- why can’t they pay us too?
We’re just as good as any one of you !

How old d’you have to be? How tall?
You’ve seen this place, you’ve seen em all,
so go home, (if you leave a slipper, though,
we’ll slit you up a kipper)
Either way there’s hits at home, yer still a slender fella,
if yer fit enough for tinder its a tender miff and all,
for you, my spliff-end cinderella, shall blow through the wall.

the young the young the young the young the young,
An excercise to exorcise the fluff from off your tongue.
You can play your stakes and adders, but there’s grease on every rung,
It’s all aboard the would-be train for you who’ve not been stung.

Saved always by the bell. I saw a needle
Speaking in my fortunes yesterday.
He said to pot black first. Being me I did.
Miscue. That’s what I said, I said “miscue”.
Not chalk enough to live on nowadays…
Although, he only told me what to do…
I knew it wasn’t good chalk anyways.

Abandon ship. Abandon ship. This fucker. Well. Who doesn’t?
We’ve got too close to water. Mate I swore she was your cousin.

And we’re supposed to sleep after all that?
That’s why we’re all on drugs down here.
That’s what the news says. Well, it’s not far wrong.
I miss you all, but I have got to sleep
At some point. What-fuck-ever point that is.

Here’s what we look like after dark.
It’s really fucking serious, ya mind?
We cut our arms up in a public park
As though there’s any part of it that we have left to find
The meaning of, I’m leaning pretty hard in one direction,
And I tell you what, we’re wasted on your suicide protection.

“we all jump off at the same time and break our necks and we’ll make at least 13 quid
and you knows we’ll be famous like fuckin’ Ghandi or the bloke off that sex film we seen”

Apparatchik rock chick trash
by Bowie, Blair and Walter Nash
I spend my cash on looking flash
And mountain bike suspension

Mounting tensions in the pension fund
I’ll funnel a few hundred off to Jim Henson
Bin there dun that-
One or two man-eating rats
won’t pop the puppet bubble.

OH, rocky. Smokes it till I die.
Yóu’ve flown over the rainbow
Why can’t I?
O-ver the rain-bow
Why then oh high gets I.

Teflon pick-me-up
Femdom stick-em-up
Hip-hop, reggaeton
Polly put the kettle on
Twenty-four and going strong
With kicks too cheap to mention.

Send for the cakes !
Watch out for snakes !
Don’t let me go !
Bromley-by-bow !
Raise the sales !
Save the whales !
Keep it up !
Coffee cup !
Rain check ! Train wreck !
Fifty dollar tarot deck !
Nowt as queer, stout as beer
and out goes you!

It’s up to forty-second street,
the lights are bright on broadway,
And ALL day LONG they SING their SONG;
It’s up and up and down some more
Tis still a pity she’s a whore
But now she’s on the second floor
And grabbing your attention !

Now every day is winsday
And a slow news day at that
Drink, drink, fucking dr-
Did you say man-eating rats?

At this point in the story our hero is eaten. By man-eating rats. The rats eat the men.
Oh the rats eat the men. That’s how this song goes. La la la. The RATS eat the MEN.

Bowling in the adult world. dead deadgirl.
All is me and home is boy,
Darling I’m home from dead !
Deadgirl in the adult world.
Dead Deadwards, deadpartment for deaducation
Girl politics.
Darling I’m home from girl politics.
Boy, I’m dead from girl politics
Boy am I dead! Girl! Deadgirl.

[…]

And yet there’s more.

Branches what grow out of this stonery rubbish.:
I’m living on St James’ road, near Morrisons,
And no one told me that’s what people do.
I know it looks a lot like that, but trust me,
Teach a man to fish for deeper meaning
And he might well eat himself. Or certainly,
He’ll never live as close to Morrisons as I do.

Schedule me all too plain.
I’m a musician.
Living off inherited commissions
Nicked from pseudo-classical tradition,
I don’t even listen to
Or even ask permission to,
Before I’ve pissed the proceeds up the wall,
It isn’t really any skill at all.

ALL that.
ALL that’s the ghost of Christmas fucked.
I’ll leave the erre-rewind for a better bit of luck.
The tip-top sit-rep set-up-shop is good enough to stand,
And I’m proud to be an American- I mean- British- I mean- man.
That’s weak and all. That’s poverty. That’s the most unkindest cut.
To put that under what I want to be when I grow up.
Imagine that, my A&O, my open life and shut:
I want to go to Brighton and drink till I throw up.

Champagne and paint stained pavement underfoot
Step march in common time
“our Oxford common?”
Chickens cackling úp air there
Their wear (cracked up) on TV air
Hie wæron thær
No more must in-
Yet songbird flights delay

I heard it wrong what once was said:
What herds-long heaved ,
it seemed in my old head
Had hád dunce coat
Had rather scoped us ,
Militated hocus pocus;

Ochres, acres back down seuth
Are better pressed in prophetmouth
Where by the sea,
Saw sea, saw see-saw
‘Sall the same
To smoke me black
On Romney train

Ac swa se enta eoten wæron
Latin talk is overbearing
Mitigate my home life blues
With Oxford slack and talkback twos

Three lights and windows winter called a drag
And summer says: three accents in the bag

Díng dóng béll
Cóurse is góing wéll

‘Course it is
A systemat situitus relápse
Relax, you’re not a medic yet-
Yét whát ?
And yet I’ve influence !

In dreams of Oxford thought I that I heard
A personal friend pretend to be a bird
Id rather Gerard (rather hardy hymnist)
Than Herod, rather, Hardy having heard
A wordy birdy murder book
Si clair si Clare, see Clare can do it right
But lets his birdies sleep at night
Where Hardy’s game demands the right
to Murder most fowl

Had I but dreamed of thát !
But I, a boy of Kentish rentish culture
Adopt a property of pentish proper

Nick names not for now
Not nick named nick now
Nick named John
One lie to found my truth upon

But man don’t dream a’ words
a’ worse for that
Essentially myself
When laid down flat
How rather too wordsworthian
Comes the cat

(That’s nothing or it stands for nothing
Something like the thing no thing would be
How so-and-so-all-overishly me !)

how boredom makes the Oxford man
have we convinced ourselves that this began
With truth ?

What now man, get you back to bed
The last time I was in my head
I tried to walk eleven dead
And deemed it nothing worth the wait
Sat up in bed for hours straight
And standing at the final stroke
It spoke
Now everyone is asleep

I think that’s where my mind was at
Last time I saw – too selflike comes the cat
Blue carpet – that’s the boyses flat
The boys I saw when up I sat
Who beat me with a rounders bat
And they’d a long tether to tolerate that !

Had I but better seen
I would’ve been
Another man asleep at seventeen
But if I stood in darkness
Thén I sáw

Where Oxford was
And where the hidden door

It’s ANOTHER cold day in hell.
Where men have duffle-vest pockets full of beer
What a queer and jolly old place to be
Is he or she enjoying now
Or killing like a sacred cow
In mansions cold and long.

Successes possesses a number of esses
Or so I’m inclined to believe
But the ex of exploitative sounds like an ess
So the sex I can take or leave

I might get locked in while I’m this late;
As always, that’s a matter for the morning.
To turn a twist of loathing to a little touch of flattery,
Well that’s the trick I’ve got for you tonight.
Tonight, my dear tonight – we mustn’t but we must.

Trust only in the drugs;
God is a very fearful thing of an evening.

I’d even drum up some routine
And learn to shower-

She was just nineteen,
And there’s the tragedy:
Born too young.

Karma is a bitch and so am I
With fishnet leggings spread against the sky
Like patient zero smacked out Betty Grable
Able bodied girl was I,
Ére I saw what websites had to offer
And all I had to suffer was the eyes.

I recognise the Spanish beach
The girl is standing on
Inside the naked calendar page
I’ve been staring at too long

I’m happy looking through her
Just as long as she’s opaque
the trans in transit trans-apparent’s
All too much to take.

And that’s what we’re forced to consider
As the sensible people of age.
Whěthěr wé have the talents
To offset the balance
Or just to get fucked on the stage.

I wasn’t in the frame of mind
When lying up in-famous glow til five,
The same as any other night,
To try and try to sleep
But keep on catching eyes,
And ankles,
and correct the hold,
And so the older blind,
If I should be so bold,
Should better bound behind
Be cold to the touch,
And when you wake I won’t think half as much.
And such a dreadful insult that your head
would droop or drop or better yet be pressed
To where you liked the pillow best,

I wasn’t of a mind to write romantics,
No, not cartwheels for the girl
Or for the draws (an awkward peep in turn)
And hold applause,
It turns out that she keeps her dress unlocked.
For some infernal reason –
If I were in the press I’d ruin her.

I understand the game now.
There’s no suffrage makes a girl go mad
like privacy, and I deserve the slap
For keeping little looks like that one
Tucked away in random access melody.

Oh well, since absinthe makes the heart grow blonder,
Foundered on the redlip drum and rock.
I’ll take a sock to any man
Who’d rather have a sober bird in hand,
Than pints in both.
And oh for swears and sweats and songs,
And odes and oaths to eldest things,
You know the one your brother sings,
I sang that while you slept.

And kept you close,
And watched your eyelids
Flicking off the dust;
You seemed to trust the single bed
To last us out, but now the head
is lying with its shutters dead
where metal gathers rust.

If two people talking is magic
(and I always believed that it was)
How to tragic to see
That the ending should be
So rarely received with applause.

Four weeks later you were drunk and incoherent and I was looking for tapes in your bedroom.
And naturally you weren’t there,
The window was open again when morning came,
And you weren’t there,
And since there was no single bed I slept on the floor,
And didn’t feel the need I felt before
To keep my open eyes on you;
It seemed like something someone ought to do.

Not I, who saw the missionary wizards

Lacquer-tack-attack attraction
Maquillage and coarser action
Back to mock religious faction –
faction, as that facts, as fiction
Ficted, liquor lick-addicted,
Dicta dicted, duct adducted,
Dead dad died and debt deducted,
That life overran and this line fucked it.

Son of man no man nor son,
Was born of woman ór of scum,
The sun’s come back to back a bank,
And back to back the son to thank an
Anchoritic critic, lank and rancorous,
A banker thinking plank-its all too cankerous,
And blankets just the thing to pick and hang for us,
And rank outside of mother’s reach to smother
What the brothers hang together, brother,
Why don’t we hang each other?
Swing is swung, as swim is swan,
And bang bang, where’s our daddy gone?

The meanest sense of father,
rather dense for driving nails,
He’ll drill us through with other
Writhing bits and mazing trails.
He’ll rack off our unneeded and keratinous extremes,
Unseemly, he’ll imagine us
De-clawed, applauded,
Sorted out,
In a rág-tág óld píle a’ cartilage
Mackied up for this the last and coarsest act, our martyrage.

The seventh call for pheasant breast en rose,
I suppose is something near what blissness is,
I’d rather that the business of a slice
Of modern life not come too kitsch and sink us.
Think us what you would and will, I wager
Wooding would outwill you all by whits
And wits upwill your wooden world to bits
What sits up top is still to sell, and hell
I’ll wheel you in myself,
If you’d be first to whip it from the shelf,

And kill your keller-rats,
Or by pro-rata writ go catch,
So sigils such as satchels sport,
Appear in gold where geometry was taught,
And one by one the kings of old
Or kings of rampant carpet mould
Are caught in court and courtward sent
And saying justice can’t be bent
The briberous librarians
And libellous barbarians
Slip checks in socks to aryans
But friendship can’t be bought.

Your peace is piece by piece devening prosperous,
And we’re prepared to disregard
The shames your shades’ll cost us.
So long as you’re decided on the price?
The feature staircase does look awfully nice,
Enough to keep you occupied
The turret’s one where criers cried,
And even pipers might have pied,
From up the tower
When in town
You’re bound to like it bowling down
At forty miles an hour :

The sport of chumps
Or Aristotle’s acrobatic jumps
Is simply taking life lump-sum
Can anybody fine me some- one’s body on the ground?
Or like the dove,
Pick up the bones you found,
And bring them in your teeth?

He’s buried underneath the Marble Arch,
Who took the summer residency last.

We’ll dig it out and never mind the cost,
It’s covered in the second will
you thought you must have lost.

Beware the tides

i. cellar full of cork
ii. receiving 13 at dinner
(Do not be anxious of the silverware)

iii. Herr S. “remains unwell” #

caution

SOLD

I’m pleased to say you’ve passed our credit check,
My colleague on the left will book you in.
That’s half the devil’s overtime for him,
Plus next to fifty thousand for the wife.
Before too long you’re bound to get picked up by Country Life

I dreamt of Gothenburg last night
Where is the old town?
I dreamt of Bergen and I did not dream of flowers

Where will you sit when March ends?
Cold as paint, on a bench by the canal?

Where is the old town?
What is your word for “family” here?
Does it also mean “thatches”
and does it mean
“Go downward, down
The sea is not blue
It is clear and black”

What does it mean that the beach is now quiet
with snow?

Why did you kill us with the railroad?
You ran our country down.

I never saw Bergen,
But it is an ugly town of diesel and fact,
It is the northernmost place without god,

I will not go there.

Water, water, water, in the desert water.
A string along a wasting year,
My own waist and wasting;
Dear, dear, aren’t you disciplined.

Simple asks we have us men,
But if I lived on bread and water,
I would be altogether something different
That I am, who does not feed as men.

Sell your organs.
Love’s an academic several kilos lighter,
Rich too, fill your cavity with paper,
Cash yourself in. Rags and dregs, just saleable.

Seltzer to redistribute your masses,
(Hissing down the neck-opening,
and through the failing tissues,
Closing up an abscess there. There, deary.)

What sort of cost do you plan for,
That will be paid for you,
In that last like exchange:
The reckoning of the stock of you.
You are valued at all this, and at this rate,
Held against the market.

Will people wish of you that you were better kept?
(When it comes to resale)
I do wish I were better held;
Now that I see no faith there in my share.

The day-to-day is better on this model,
It runs on green fuel: Ecoque, unmarketable.

My bastard has no way-out-card,
They lives on shop accounts
And thiefs my think-a-register,
In many small amounts.

These are too many factors to decipher,
When the cash is brought out
(edged like a razor)
So my impulse directs me on one pick,
Which is to be of no small help
To the real cause (which I did make up)
Of the categorical best.

And this, in search of that, a real pity,
With it particular slimness – of mind (perhaps, politely)
But I am not eating now,
I am tight skinned and victory;
Live hunter (Not yet extinct),
Driven glory in the ground,
And must flat my face down to root it out.

That is why now I count push-ups
And do not make mock of the year,
(But sidling I a schoolyard jewboy there;
That is not how we make a dead end meet)
I should be too coy for well-worth pain,
And too much in my vanity to wear and tear my arms or arms-de-force (electric meat, they say)
But I am not. Nor am I a gymnast. Maybe I am weak and also poor. (yes, broke). I go on in to tell the board it did not achieve what was intended which was its very self in absence looking for water in such a place as there is none for in this errand came I here.

that in the moment it was just frustrating like-
who put that there?
i said, who put that there?

that awful mass at the centre of it
by which truth bends

who put it in her ashtray mouth
to wend and hurl all things
that she reminds me; should she so
beget all things
of all things to embody
the truce of leisure centre perverts
that my Sunday childhood was

who put those facts in such a naive stall;
begot at turn of solstice to bring unity to all.

this will not do
it will be slow, and grace the longer evenings
when summer comes, we two will wake again.

There are three lights in the window.

One day you were lecturing a teacup,
You were establishing the nature of the storm

And one day there was turning beneath the sea,
And you whispered a grace for your needles,

Once you told me the artist could not tell his trade,
And then I took your mind in hand,
And you watched as I shattered your teacup,
Just to see you would still drink from it,
And I watched as you put back your needles
Just how I had taken them out
And you told me the artist could not tell his trade,
And I wouldn’t believe you.

So you left your overclothes behind,
And as you pulled me under them, I asked:

When you spoke on forests did you cry
And press your face to the autumn ground
And when you spoke on Corpus Christi
Is this really what you meant?
Have you found a place yet
To bury your words?

And when you spoke of frustrate labour
Was your heart full of those who drowned
In the unbounded Thames,
The Briton slaves that never were –
Have you heard them?
If I hadn’t loved you –

– Now, edges are folded upon edges,
And the dust gathers over the land
And the rib is lain down in the vipers nest,
And Persephone is writing her vices
In verse on the confessional wall –

And If I hadn’t loved you –
I could tell you what you mean –

– Have you heard the voice crying in the wilderness?
It is no longer speaking your language.
I know you’re forgetting to listen.
When you spoke on the ground,

Could you feel that the earth was beneath you and under your nails?
Do you only listen when the canons are fed –

If I hadn’t loved you –
I would say that you have said very much
And meant very little
But nonetheless I love you –
And before there was a light in the window -There was a great fire in Alexandria,
And across the bay the young men stood
On the beaches taking in the black sand,
And as the image of two suns fell upon the dark water,
I remember saying,
I will not see you again for a long while now.

the house was small, dark – a converted stable on the land of a large vicarage

When dinner ends in hay light house
Here only I kill moths
Turn grey in paper towel

And drink,
If I remorseful drink,
Who is not sorry yet
Will sure be sorry soon

Odd home house,
Insect pinstripe wall
Tiled wall
Two window tree—
No lock low ceiling bunker cellar
century feature floor

I drink in that
Odd placard house
You warned me that
Old placard house
You showed me that
Old nursery horse
When I knew that
Odd nursery house

When dinner ends
That house unstable house
Is this the stable house
If I remorseful drink the trough
And chew the ground, the ground.

I put my book down once by the field,
There were young men come to smoke there,
Knowing how that place has formed my mind,
I had gone to smoke there,
How it formed my mind.

Then I slept by the water,
In a summer of my guilt and golden sky,
And woke and woke again,
To winter writhing on the stone,

And every place became like you,
A subtle loss to the touch,
As the cold drew us together,
In soft, new lines…

Get the stirrups, man, he’s halfway up the window.
Bring out the operating table.
His left side all failing,
his right clambering too high.
What ever was it that put him in with us…

The buzzer on the door is sounding overnight:
There is something at the limit always passing

There is a guard asleep to give no reckoning
The panopticon collapsed

The clap of the fire curtain,
Cutting short the opera horror
Played by bald men pulling out their hair

The talk show staffed by puppets,
And raucous in the aisles,
Porcelain trap jaws,
Beak nose and cut-out eyes,
mock doctors allowed no middle age.

Bodies like sandbags,
Shuffling and slamming on the walls,
Pulled around.

Just where had he seen this before…

The room our grandparents kept for guests,
Light on one side, from the woodboard
And the corners dark imaginary green
When we wake up again
Cold breakfast, rocking chairs, and hunger,
The pit of the stomach
Piling in coal
When we wake up again
Two distant, old and quiet
In our grandfather’s room;
No radio, and no clock
Nothing

When we two wake again

I And when I look in your eyes,
Why I just see…

Grey sky above welsh firs
And the floor like toothpicks
I felt them through my boots
Behind a backwood town

We don’t have many hours left to film here
And we seem to have missed the light,
Let’s come back here, right here, tomorrow
Bring something to cut the soil
To stop us setting up life here
And salt the earth behind them

–

But why am I so tired? That’s what he says
Don’t come back mornings after your success
And sleep through while you leave your room a mess
If you want girls, you’d best get up and dress…
Her eyes still watching from the bedboard

And damn, damn, damn – I’ll go out for a while
And while it’s late and light go by the river
And sleep down where the forest starts and damn
I’ve grown accustomed to her-

Grey sky above welsh firs
You said the floor was toothpicks
You felt them through your boots
The day we moved there

Families are such that children dream of them
The fantasy, or feeling of – one day I’ll have your name
Or this is where we’ll put our name together
The village where we went to make our fortune

But more like burnt oil, or false gold
Or digging through the snow
In Labrador they saw welsh firs
And salt them where they grow

–

The fantasies she had
I wouldn’t touch them
What makes him happy
Makes him sick
And him – damn hymn
Why can’t a woman be more like a man

Men are so noble, so thoroughly-
Pick up the camera and we’ll come back here tomorrow

There’s no use trying to get her when it’s dark.

We’re sailing out two days from now
How can we hope to see her ?
Good man, we’ll take the forest with us !

–

How many times
Do I have to
Keep look out for you ,
Darling
you’re making me feel
Very sick

Okay, dear, I give up – where are you?
Come-out-come-out
It’s only me

–

Who brought you out into the rain
You had better come in.
The fire is warmer now we’ve cut those-

Grey sky over Eryri
My fantasy of bare rock
Where nothing grows

Sleepy Jack, the fire drill,
Run around around around around around
Cut the kids in half, cut the kids in half

Now I am in the furniture
Now I am daily bread
When I make for the hospital
The foreman thinks I’m dead.

Now I’m in the strait and narrow
Now I’m dead to rights
The world is made of silicones
The tackle makes me bite

The bitter makes me precious,
The pater makes me stay,
When the church is inundated
With the doings of the day.

My leopard is the temple
And my vessel still is dry
My brachial simplicity
Is Lai-la-lai-lai-lai (la-lai)

I’ve answered that before,
I’ve told you everything I think.
I’m done with these historics
but I’m not yet done with drink.

I said don’t worry about me – I’ve got my plans laid out.
I’ve said the- morning bell, morning bell

Paralysis boys. We talk all together once a month.
To stitch things together. Until our stories are one topcoat.
Which they are.

I think people are here to see me. I open the curtains and there is still no garden.
It has no outer wall. Windows out onto nothing. We could be underneath the lake.

And no one is here to see me. I don’t mind.

Girl in baggy boyskin PJs
And nightcap, nightshade,
Nightlight too, sorry evening
To sore morning. Dread soles.

When is use not use (I too was riddled)
To slam doors in the perpetrator’s personal space
The great hearse race
We all will run,
And no one win,
No single one, no vote of confidence in man,
No final admiral plan or play to save face,
No foreign priest to put on coats and say grace,
No ghosts left —
All of them gone to play their drafts in doors,
And under floorboards in our foreign wars come home, to rest,
to wish no other unrest come
till seconds come to roost in death again.
Prey a curse on our race to forgive me all my slander of the point;
I am no answer, no prediction,
Nothing augured, nothing destined,
Nothing but what used, used to be used,
To usure and be used, be used to using,
To use, and you in use, to be no use.

People say of me that I could write
Better in increase of appetite
To approach the great work (which I know)
Follows me killing myself
They shouldn’t say so and they do
But men and women expect of me that I export a music
At the commandrý of each distress,
Each to his own, a wail-song,
As though it faults in me in patterns of my poems
Where the saviour’s said to be

Do you remember? I don’t think I do
Remember when the first time was. I don’t
Encode order like that. That unsurprising
Thing, that life is, always having happened.

This same body I have expent.
Run it through the ringer
(At a late bell, taken in by strange men)
all my trials conjecture though they be
Shall be remembered, lord, by lord– by me.
A doubtful way upstairs as always was
Sat there. We might us go up stairs to hells
Door (as his older brother, late stale air,
let out his arm hair, from an old boys shirt)
That’s what was cultish. My dependence now
More fangled and more troubling. 1am
Is now time only for a quick kebab:
There was no boy who knew it.
Not who wouldn’t cut himself instead.
Not who took congratulations that he had not yet killed himself. That was a girl’s business. And matter of the hour there was no boy to match music and touch jokes so lightly — that was all my doing . Behind the great man there I am, the green way up
his back. his back. and ne’er so back again.

Where this train terminates,
All change please, all change.

I had left to wright:
absalom, absolute, absolution,
abcessing (into backwater)

then again love is not easy
what could be less easy than anything like being (being alive, being alive)

too much of that before the conductor draws it up with steam noise. He has a plan in life. 

a lot’s gonna change. And drop all your belongings first (at the first stop.)
and at the first stop, we all get off and go home after the journey (travel, brief.)
Drivers beg at you in town for you riffling your pockets, all change.

Vertigrade and Indigene,
Mirk, like myrtle soup – the pond deep.
Carp and fantail in checkerboard shallows;
Woodworm in the greathouse,
Vertigrade.

Tending up of sediment
From a watery leather boot
To air your long socks in the dry-room,
Wait turns in the woodhouse
L’Indigene

Sleep empty blackeye stoned on compazine,
At four’o’the’morning, stumbled out the backway,
Lies, all lies ! (But you fell too I think.)

All crumbles in, like sugar tabs, and flapjacks,
of the silk-wrap satchel brigade.
All crushes and no blushes were the days,
Now these days, idle pleasures pleases yous,
We rumble in each other’s sock drawer,
Tumble dry our rooms respective,
Hieing domestic ruffles in the dryer.
Scuffling each our selves and other selves,
Our mutual cupboard, and our godinmain.

This is not enough for the (…) harpist
Nor for the (…………….),
– perhaps than anyone else, a- should I say it –

Not near enough, perhaps – she not, I her,
not she, not I, she-her, not now, there, near.
Near all too near; That is the imminent of feature, fear.

All this to fear, but not for (…….)
no — not for a (star)
upon whose property was most dear life
A damned defeat of faith

I discover the weight.
But what damage that might do,
If not for a few sharp tools in the crew,
Who can let me know the tare:
What’s there before the freight goes in.

The weight goes up. But not from nought. From what? 

If everything else is over our heads,
Let’s figure out the level. The time it takes.
We’ll make it from the ground up,
Rounding down the start;
I know the wait. The time. The wear.
And all that goes to whittle down the tare.

Live. Okay. That’s all right with me.
But how low is the ceiling in your building?
How high is the floor?
Did you bury me like Swithun under the door?I’m aware of the weight.
What damage that might do,
If not for all the sympathy in you,
To take me into account.
To find the level ground
And to amount the tare,
What’s there before the work goes in.

Do-me-domestic one night in
To twenty months of lease
And taking twenty more to bed
My little slice of peace.If I had just that cotton place
That I could call my own.
I’d sit asleep and overnight,
I’d phone it in. That’s home.

Morning, late November, still at home-
 – whatchu talkin bout home ?

Hung on morning hung on night morning again
A little shuffled into five beat slapback
Well hey well that was me then that’s my face
It’s me that made the road here double grey
One coat to step in one to cover up
The night that hung on morning double cup.

Horrendous signs of warning merchant fame
From Marylebone to Haddenham and Thame
My teenage kicks and more on model trains
The synthesis of form and functionale.

The medicated text as writ of eye:
(One manuscript is dedicated thus:)
The mysteries or else the morphine sigh.

Why not to grasp at life? If I depraved
Like many on account that I’m descrived;
to go a caroll or a-carolling
My penance-prize for having killed the king.

The devil’s in the doornail – mine’s the fox
And midnight feast of blessured cotton socks–
Why father got his name from breaking rocks,
And put me in my padded golden locks.

But no more time for dances !

Old slacky head boy when he’d had his fill
Of spot solution, mum’s especial pills,
Was all warmed up to Borneo in film,
All pretty on the harbour up the hill.

Old slacky head boy when he’d had his fill
Of spot solution, mum’s especial pills,
Was all warmed up to Borneo in film,
All pretty on the harbour up the hill.

The British like their monuments
I learned that much at school –
The ruler standing several metres
Higher than the rule

I rather like those columns built
Just wide enough for feet
As if to keep them standing still
So high above the street,

As if they’d rather scuttle down
To meet the men they saved
Or failing that, to dig themselves
A less obtrusive grave.

But only royal gardens
Are symmetrical enough
To point the eye so perfectly
To such important stuff

They put a few in London
For the populace to see,
And the tourists stand on two legs
While the captains stand on three;

But men who died in battle
Don’t quite hold the same attention
As the peacetime monarchs propped up
By the nation’s favourite pension.

And those, of course, are kept behind
A pair of palace doors
Which owing to the national trust
Now close at half past four.

(But someone needs to pay
To keep the garden up to spec,
Since the house ran out of sinecures
To give the architect)

And still, they’re no less beautiful
For being well-defended
I’d rather have to jump a fence
Than let them go unmended

It can’t be cheap to keep the land
So flowerless and green,
Or to fill a three page spread
In House and Garden magazine.

(But journalists who often miss
The middle of the thing,
Are capable of looking past
A column and a king

And criticising something like
The choice of hothouse flowers
Or anything to fill the space
In PAYE hours.)

They like to keep their roses
Somewhere separate from the grass,
You can’t expect all types of beauty
When you buy a basic pass

I only thought to say it `
Since I saw one flowering
Some a hundred metres north
Of Pembroke’s statue of the King

Perhaps I’m sentimental
But I’m happy to have seen
Something north and south of beauty
At the mercy of the queen.

Harder now to sit with myself in silence,
Better to imagine that I
was born under the dust sign
And my footprint verified
at dig sites nation wide

The right to step where no man stepped
like arrogance or pity
Is naturally determined by
The city council answerphone
Who said that I
Was a better man than any
other come to apply that day

Hearing tremors at Etna
Fearing worst that fame is a debt
Owed to the old

The man that dug me up
The chinstrap man who chipped me out of ash
Assumed the state protection
And would bear me out
Sideways into the dread hospital
Which keeps its work light up past three
Would lay me on the table there
And put me back to gether

Us as us is at our most
Is post hand car wash candy,
One walking like a mother
And the other like a dandy

… well we start to make things
In those spaces
After a while
Two people together
After a while 

… as though we both talk at once

ten months ago
there was a whistle in the cold
like a teapot under scarf and snow 

so ready to melt the ground
and dig itself in

that in summer growing leaves
had not betrayed
or made corrupt

made scratches
in a man
or burnt its way inten months ago
the young
all dead now

We’ll all be in the wrong place soon enough
And when the fuse burns out 
There is no love to go around

If I sleep here 
And wake up here 
I know nothing has changed
But something must change

So if you asked me why I left 
That’s why

To all of it
And all of you
A not so soft goodbye

Before I got distracted
I was probably asking
at the moment of stress
What cracks first

Not this and not that
What’s left but

Bye bye bird
Read femíníst
Thought and theory
and be like this

…Talking in bed ought to be easiest

New – one night only at the!
That is in fact how language is used

Right he was to say that lies are easier said
Physically;

And if none of this is true
I couldn’t stop myself

Until I stop myself smiling
And smile instead

Inchoate poet unawares am I 
From house roof railing grip the reins too shy
In earnest hope of travelling and fly
The edge, as like an insect flutter by

Deep under barrow
I see a London crypt

This summer town
At port the merchant ships

We go up with dealers
Running in the sand

The air-conditioned
Hospice for one man

Summer,
My lungs hold out for you

She lectures on how it works
Under the embers of an engine bed
Who lit her office analogue
With irresponsible red…

I have found a place
Where it is always daytime
And people are taken constantly 
From the edge of death 
Into plastic

I wish I could write to you 
And tell you how I love it here

Amateur histrionics.
yes, and card-handy.
His worship and I had never seen
Such impoliteness.

There is no accounting for beauty,
One can forget about these things,
There is no place for beauty,
When the turn is up

Do not look at your partner
Or at your opponent
There will be time enough…
When so lucky in love.

You did so unreasonably.
soft-spoken, a scarf or 
/ a slash in place

Who was she I met earlier?
Under candle light – one needs a guiding arm

We sold seashells
But no room for a tablecloth
In the reverend armory.

It is written in both
As you should have written an end to the joke
Ah, but I asked first.

Dearest sirs, we have no common courtesy
/ and will not hear reason

They raised it up
Where the white horse was,
And laid down wires
To the centre state

And the new old town
Was set in place
So that over years
It would become fuel.

As I was urged together I fall apart
And drop out in circles from my centre;
And since I have studied those politics,
That is the art of how to break into pieces,
I am second to any moment I understand,
And first to the untamed hour.

The first time those ideas rose:
Her distaste blistered
Yes, so particular to see that face…
Built a new house, oh mister

And put her altar up
But to see it again…

And how prayers could break;
That hospitalised the man,
And what a taste that face
Drawn up in a chalk-cloth

So unformed the twilling of tongues,
In exalted speech
But picked down with those nails,
And sung,
A loath-familiar sweet

The tune…
Decoded once…
And sent away

We are pencilled in a moderate time;
And undecided of a “perpetual youth”
Which plays like game-poetics –
Our fathers did not read these same books,
Because their beauty felt no spring.

Have these looks come over other faces,
Their awful glide over other tongues,
When we speak in our dead language –
And fashion our new rented reverence,
And ask – Oh,
would you only let me taste those words,
If I had felt their presence in my hands,
I would have been a poet, such as you,
And not this spark I am
Unholstered where you lie me;

Speak to me those graces,
Where I embroider them…
And feel their mark

Every time the discipline
Follows the river
And the marches call
From the odd imperial seat
They must be surer than I
That believes in nothing

No one can be so sure
Of where these people are going,
Than him born in the common field,
Than him who greeted them twice,
Ten years for a good morning,
Ten years of a good night.

It was he saw in glass
That I can see in you;
And that you hate it happening
Is how I know it’s true,

And what was in that secret
That you only told me once –
Are there days we haven’t heard yet,
Or was that sound – just my chance …

Oh this, he says, is passion.
And the stolen words
to account for its condition
are desanctified by use.

Clichés of passion
are the heat of passion.
And cold discretion is a happier thing;
but this is love,
that ends in verse.

And everyone else,
who is now silent or dead,
has nothing to say
and no love to feed.

Is it so that skin can bleed
still hours after death?

And is it so that hope condenses
cold on glassy breath?

That youth undoes each syllable
and falls like silk to ground
 
as these old bruises weigh themselves
too old yet to be found.
 
I love myself in you – that is
my faith, my living hope

delivers me my words, to speak,
too old, too young to cope.

I understand it must be done now.
Whispering eyes blanched
In hot stain kettles.

The kitchenette marks
From where you were cut up
Are feminine.

Down the garden path:

The trees, surgery
Has estrange van
Which bares your name.

This little green,
Black plants where solips died
You dress in the grass shade.

Fast cars on the AM
radio track, by the industrial centre,
It is yours we drove.

Bridges wrote a little
Letter to you which I burned
Because I understand you.

You sent me a few
Post-it notes when I was a boy,
Hey. Hey. Come over.

You lie on the river
Bed half sleeping blowing
Bubbles at me.

It was your language
Singing where the water carves
A bracken path astride unsea

You are all this and more,
It should have been done,
But it is done now.

A dress-shirt
And a bow-tie;
That was you all over

You’re words, halve in pink light
And mine, gasp for your air.

Every time the discipline
Follows the river
And the marches call
From the odd imperial seat
They must be surer than I
That believes in nothing

No one can be so sure
Of where these people are going,
Than him born in the common field,
Than him who greeted them twice,
Ten years for a good morning,
Ten years of a good night.

It was he saw in glass
That I can see in you;
And that you hate it happening
Is how I know it’s true,

And what was in that secret
That you only told me once –
Are there days we haven’t heard yet,
Or was that sound – just my chance …

Oh this, he says, is passion.
And the stolen words
to account for its condition
are desanctified by use.

Clichés of passion
are the heat of passion.
And cold discretion is a happier thing;
but this is love,
that ends in verse.

And everyone else,
who is now silent or dead,
has nothing to say
and no love to feed.

I’m still trying to catch a breath 
But my fingernails tear, instead, 
The flesh of a passing skirt.

A faithful servant 
Dressed in my way
In my clothes left out for rainy days.

She holds me ill and dying 
As my heart pours open 
Words and colours unknown

She used to do me food
What I couldn’t imagine she’d do 
She used to make my meals

She was a little help but not enough 
And I don’t yet fully understand 
Despite the servant.
I wish her dead a while
And keep her body for show.

Best advised to stand at the edge of the west, surrounded by mountains.

So I was reminded by a Turkish newsagent putting out headlines outside Reading station. Anger falls over Caucasus like wet towel. I was sleeping in a hotel and heading west – Reading, the first intersection of the Great Western, is a sufficient town at several times of day. I was heading west earlier from Damascus. The old town seemed to have run out of ink. I was undressed in hotel bedrooms for a month, and not accompanied until I hit the border. It rained in Dover, and I met her underneath the station. 

The inconvenient change at Reading was engineered. I had intended to stay in a bad hotel but the reception was polite when I arrived. It is a shame about all my money, but wonderful to hear British voices, and to pay for the pleasure. 

Earlier, careering through the northern south I felt a little that I had made myself foreign. When I introduced myself to her I had a diplomat’s handshake – that is something that fuels desire. I have always known Dover very well, and would have shown her up to the castle (had I lived there at the time.) But warm tea in a retirement café was a good trick. I didn’t want to make her scared; I only wanted her to feel that her home life had begun and ended. I wanted her like someone’s wife on a loss-day. And when we slept on bed and board (north of the cliffs one can see the lighthouse out) I think she was apology enough.

The past is very like that. Except at the border of this country, when I was struggling to write my prose, and could not sleep for being six three on a night coach, I was a little more concerned. For no reason I began to count beautiful women in Thessaly; there is nothing like the freedom of being detested. I think I could feel love in the greyer latitudes (When it first rained on the glass I believed so.)

But I don’t think quite that way anymore.
On Thamesis along the road to
Ahmed’s Food and Wine and spoils of war.

The awkward stop at Reading,
and something in the empty double bed
that makes me write.

I might be here for ever
it’s no matter, but I might

I did call her in the Vanoise, which was very unlike the times, but I was a long time alone and bored of subtleties. She talked like a person and yet in person (two weeks later) she looked like a bird. This late I don’t dare ask why. Do I call this instead a run of incredible success? Perhaps if I were a better man who wrote his own headlines. 

That must be the turn-up of reading the west in print. At least for a month I have made myself unviable. Or the kind of lover you might take as baggage. And it must be because I am surrounded by collapse; in Reading I was intending to be freed from the Great National, but what has followed me in but the old butchery horse. Of course there’s nothing to flatter, after six weeks under the meathook – what a joke it would be to love after all that.

And there goes the west ! Someone had a dress and an idea in an ugly (perhaps a soviet) room, but it’s all gotten very old. Now I am sat in the room which we presume doesn’t exist or at least not anymore and I am reading the comic book news. My lover in a black catsuit is crashing through the door, and I am to hear       bang bang bang – A noise from the imaginary south.

So I return to my notes. Clarity is a thing felt, I believe, in respect of great ill. I would like that what I have written be so great, in my notes, but it is not. It is… sedulous. I would like three great precepts, like windmills – or many: spindly things, jottings celebrated and brief. What I have is the measure of myself.

Polite! Polite! Ever so. 

I run circles around the house. Well, I am in bed, I run circles around the bed. Well, I am an academic. I feel this morning I am writing the next in thought – the event is of a schedule (paradigm), forthcoming. Yet, at the snap of a clipboard I run dry again. 

So, relate what it is to be a student. Well, it has no nature, unless it be ink-and-wood-tasting. Of course, we are all adults, and that is behind us. 

Mighty ! 

When I went to school we qualified for little jumpers when the winter came in. Now I am a student and sleep in a raincoat.

But yet to purpose of my rather speech… I am all full up of telos and topos, and my pocket banks are shut. I know it’s hard to understand but I would be a fisherman. If I only had the crook to- Once there were mountains and mountains–

ACH. (nasty burn from a hotknife.) I’m woken up all butter and toast, somewhere down the country. Fucker to have lived into working life. Now the kettle steam boils up to a carpeted ceiling: one feels it like living ad nauseam. 

Safer to return to my notes, study a while (nowadays it’s no page-turner.) I’m just a little beat-up from the book club is all. Leave me my peace. 

No, that was peace.

Sitting up at bar tables alongside girls in blonde ponytails – I have been nuisance to them and others. The man with a stiff beard behind the bar says I shouldn’t drink how I do. He stares at me while I order… I imagine he is taking my order. But I am thinking more than he would approve; maybe he is like a hurdle, or like a pincushion, something to be got through. Or maybe he is an older man than I am – he could teach me the quiet principle of living in a flat. Such people have identical glasses, and a cupboard for their liquors. I would have.

Now I’m getting a little rocky. Sometimes walking in the bathroom I feel my body is important when it isn’t. The bathroom here is spectacular: I am spectacular in it; I am drunk. ….Water and ice has a boring taste. It’s not that I like the taste of alcohol, only it’s the correct one. Hurt now and tomorrow morning coffee – perfect. It is so simple and wonderful to be between strangers. When she looks at me I look at her and she realises that her original purpose was weak, and she looks back at nothing.

“It is a beautiful wall”, I say. She pretends not to move her eyes (which is a difficult thing to do.) I ask her name and she stands up. The beardy man looks at me again; we must both be thinking of her impoliteness. She is gone – heels first into the ladies. When I ask for another drink he tells me that I’m closed and the bar must be drunk. “If it must be drunk”, I say, “I will open up again”. So he puts me on the street because this joke isn’t funny to him. 

Ahmed knows I am a gentlemen, and he sells me a cheap russian horror from the bottles. I am throwing a party – in Ahmed’s mind I am – for twenty or so, for dinner, and I put this nonsense in a cocktail. I dismiss it all with a little wave as a leave his shop. The doorbell rings in my ears for a few seconds while I stare at the floor. God bless the man.

It’s not the same stuff- grim chemical harvest. They used to clean the mines with this… 

        … I loved how he did…

    … I sing….     ; bad tarmac again…      Maaaaaaa- 

    call it.

Whatever the Wether…

…with me !

I want a muse that isn’t here. Court summons. Come priest. My fingernails are cut while my toenails grow out. I’m old news in a modern field. I’m what is put in a barrel to make wise men. Fresh young vinegar and ruddy corks – the waste of the righteous process. I am not throated for the deep wail. I crow like the shallowfish, for a spindle in the cheek. I ask that you find me before I am profound, or dead, and do not move. I do not bend to apology, because there is no victim in the bottom of a basket. The brownish purple substance that you scraped from early autumn, plant it in the wet soil when the snow melts and expect me. Expect that I apologise for you because I have no more to lose, who woke up that morning with a headache and the dew. 

I never had writer’s block when I was younger. Even when I learned to write I didn’t. And now, to think it scares me- ? Well, I have the muscle now, and no real joy for using. When I have all my needs met I am head to toe with rot and still my plush will bear no lesser comfort. What is the secret…. that now I have no insight in the world. That now, I wear my glasses in the drudge, oh hell, where are we. Hell, where now but absent southern space. Wolds or fens or some other local place of no good comfort. In honesty, I miss the drugs. Or discipline, or what they meant one to the other, since neither means it now. No consequence to anything, as deep a well as any.

Toil, toil, toil. Mamaš, the nude-painter is readying up another butter dish of butter (what else?) — when he reads college disciplines I will put him up to more. But for now, he is safe in the ignorance of his auld helm. When will his wife thaw… is it evening yet and time to drink deep oils?

Red-red ruthful was his lover in country previous; now he is emigree with a stockskin family, and painting for a living. What mock soup is made of this in town; there bachelorites all play the artist picnic. “Let-us write a magazine”; “Let-us paint the dead and naked dead also”.

Let’s get real. God knows what he’s doing
and what’s that on your bedslip?

Nobody runs a bath anymore. Nobody has bare heels. What is sensory in this, this hell imaginate. No body is warm in colour and breadth, or so curved as brushes are. Creation owes all fire to (what, some one immense and rusty gesture?), what, my blood and kith and saltire is all knots; to think on’t, Mamaš, my bestiary all wax !

(was left melt, as with all the young things)

There I asked the wise man of the hill
Who is he can […]
Yet do not paint. You will forget what you are looking at.

I am telling you there is nothing left to take down. If you write in a magazine you must wring out blood from your own ankles and I say you must do this by cause.

Walk to the level in purple cloak and proceed at total pace to read schoolbook until tarmac melted. then you will be a scholar and we may publish you. we will in such a case leave copy by the pile and grave that is yours. commend you read it for edits.

I didn’t come here to look for anything, in fact, I didn’t look at all. Still, I am not really seeing – but that is part of something else, and it is not the beginning. The beginning was recent, because so much has happened since – there are facts buried in daily hours, like those which took me here. There is truth in an unchanging habit. I am lost again. Let me begin. 

I came here because the land is beautiful by the sea. I knew this because the end is like the beginning – and because I had seen the direction of many flights of birds, and the magnets of the city borne. And when I arrived here, I met you in many people, which I understood, when I met many people in you. Now I say I came here for the love of that, and of this, which is you, and I forget myself. Here, I am, where I cannot beckon you, and it swaddles me like a sumptuous loss, and silk over my eyes, which services for crape. 

That is how I followed the direction of every other thing, and fell in step with new standards, embroidered in old school heraldry, the author which mixes every colour with blackish serge. But I conform, and grow into a liberal heart – which presses itself in a beat to a flutter and pins itself back down into me. In this I square up the past and the future behind me, so that I am able to meet you. 

And as I meet you, I forget what these vicious names are for, and I am only standing, and walking. Of course I didn’t come here for the love of you. I only came here because I thought I might live, and know that I was always living. Now I am living, and what I see – because the world is not summoned, it is endured – what I see is that your face is the perfect model of many faces, that your masthead is first only to the prow, and there, in that moment, is the cold, soft flood. Quietly, I take myself further out, and you go in with the tide.    

Here is the taste of salt air, and the touch of a slight charge on the skin. Beyond the barrier, into the spacious clouds, watching lightly over the electric migration, drifting out of pulse, smothering early essences of decay, they deny me.  

Where are you? I am lost again. 

I came here to ask you for help. I’m sorry. 

I love you. 

What is your name?

Twenty Euro Angel 

Note on Content: Andres is a bad person. A confused and injured one perhaps, but essentially selfish and unempathetic. Why write about such a man, particularly one as reserved and uncharismatic as Andres? – Because such men exist. They exist outright, and in divided parts amongst many who are otherwise more favourable. The poetic and visionary world of the play is largely Andres’, and in that world, he is empathetic. But his world is not the real world, which we identify in the words of outsiders. Both worlds are staged to keep the play functional: Andres is a protagonist of one, and an antagonist of the other.

Note on Setting: Once again, these characters are European foreigners without nationality. This is, for one, a chance to use the creative structure of expatriate english: Andres and Diran say things no Englishman in England would ever think to say. Literary translation and vernacular foreignness are both set into the fabric of the play.

Note on Stage: The stage plan which the script utilises is not a detailed one. There must be an interior/exterior divide, running parallel to the audience, positioned so as to leave space for action on either side, or rigged to move in scene transitions. This should have a primary entrance, and may benefit from a secondary entrance. Andres’ bed and bedroom should feel like a central space, perhaps upstage, but any other location may be peripheral. A raised mezzanine for the upstairs of Andres’ house may be useful. Historic beauty in any of the locations should not be visible: abstracted, industrialist spaces are a good starting-point. We are in a developed city somewhere between Zurich and Moscow, but one that wouldn’t sell in a Travel Agents.

Curtain, Andres is standing onstage, staring across at Mariana, with his notepad, not yet writing, as she mills around her room. Sitting, standing, checking her phone. The music playing throughout is Gershwin’s “I’ve got a crush on you”. After a while her phone rings, silently. She picks it up and walks offstage. The music stops.

Low lights. Andres walks to centre stage, tired. He lies down. His breathing becomes heavier. He writhes and turns, and then thrashes, and finally screams. Lights. Enter Diran.

Andres Do you think it bad practice to write about a woman

Diran Why are you writing?

Andres I mean would it be in bad taste

Diran Who is she?

Andres You think that matters to the question?

Diran Yes. Why are you writing?

Andres I need to figure out whether I’m in love.

Diran You’re not

Andres I’m very upset

Diran Who is she?

Andres She’s a very beautiful woman

Diran You don’t love her. And you’re not upset. How’s Kristen?

Andres What?

Diran Have you seen her?

Andres Why do you care about my mother

Diran I just wanted to remind you

Andres I haven’t seen her

Diran I know. 

Andres Right, thankyou

Diran Is this your Swedish girl

Andres She was Norwegian and no

Diran Ah.

Andres Ah what?

Diran Then this is Mikhail’s friend

Andres I think

Diran You think the right girl or you think Mikhail’s friend?

Andres They’re still friends. 

Diran Mariana !

Andres …

Diran Pretty name

Andres I think so

Diran Come out with me tonight

Andres No 

Loud electronic music. Strobes. A crowd of people. The music deadens and Andres emerges with Sofia, visibly at the end of a long night

Andres Your hair is… 

They both laugh, she holds him in her arms, and looks up at him.

Sofia I like your hair. It’s… straight.

Andres Yours is… not straight

Sofia (smiling) yeah

They kiss, for a while. Andres stares at her.

Andres …

Sofia What you looking at?

Andres Nothing

Sofia Are we going back in?

Andres What’s your favourite colour?

Sofia Hmh, I don’t know

Andres How many minutes a day do you spend brushing your teeth

Sofia (almost laughing) What?

Andres Would you rather be dead or alive

Sofia Uh– I don’t know what you’re talking about

Andres Fuck you.

He leaves her. The music stops and she leaves. Now walking back, Diran is drunk.

Diran You have had fun. That is the message.

Andres I was very upset with that woman and I don’t know who she is

Diran That is because you– are a misogynist

Andres How much did you drink

Diran And in the morning I– will be a mixologist

Andres I think it would have been healthy to sleep with her

Diran But very unhealthy for her to sleep with you ! 

Andres My back hurts

Diran Your problem is that you view women as objects and yourself as people

Andres Person

Diran Persons. One dicksucker in three persons.

Andres Did you say dicksucker?

Diran And that is the problem with you, you are offended by the idea of sucking another man’s dick

Andres There seem to be a lot of problems with me

Diran And you never shut up about it

Andres I’ll call you a taxi

Diran Oh no! I am remonstrating at the spending of money on goods and services! But lo here comes a taxi cab and i would like ten euros please.

Andres (Sending him offstage with a banknote) Text me if you die on the way home

Diran I promise

Andres walks back to centre stage, lies down, same lighting as start, and begins the same convulsions. Again, he reaches a frustrated shout and stands abruptly. The lighting changes to a cold interior. Kristen enters stage right, calling as from far away

Kristen Andres, the windows are still broken

Andres I cut my hand

Kristen Have you called Mr Samicev

Andres Mam I’m bleeding

Kristen Call him again

Andres Where did you put my bed

Kristen We had to get rid of it, Mr Simacek is coming from the church

Andres Mam I’m tired

Kristen You need to get dressed, Mr Simonov is coming down on the schoolbus

Andres lies down, in anguish, and Mariana entes from stage left. She is dressed in white. She walks towards Andres’ body

Mariana Mrs Getting, your son is very tired

Kristen retreats off right, Mariana stands in between Andres’ legs. He looks up at her as at an angel.

Mariana Everything has happened already. It happens every time, in the same way exactly.

Mariana kneels, and then lies over him. A moment of peace. A phone ring fades in as the lights warm. Mariana lies there lifeless. Andres sits up and answers the phone. 

Andres Hello?

Mikhail Are you still coming today?

Andres What. What day is it?

Mikhail You were coming over to see me and Mariana

Andres I’m coming. I’m coming. Is midday okay?

Mikhail Good for me man.

Andres I’m coming. Sorry. 

He hangs up, stands up. He drags Mariana’s body off the balcony. He takes a deep breath and grabs his notebook. He begins to write.

Andres In my spirit’s going I find you always dearest, Mariana. Like the aspect of dawn that gets lost in a picture, I feel I can hold you only if I were a painting. I want only to be the medium in which you exist. I have learned beauty through you, so sensible and obvious, I feel the primary colour of love like a… pair of eyes with no brain behind it; no sense to temper how full I am, of you.

He walks out. Mikhail is at his house, sitting with Mariana on a sofa, playing a console game. Andres enters

Andres Sorry

Mikhail Dude I don’t care

Mariana Your loss Andy Warhol

Andres Andy Warhol?

Mariana He’s a British artist

Andres I know 

Mariana You see my point then

Andres No

Mikhail Sit down man

Andres Do you have a glass of water

Mikhail We have a glass and water

Mariana Sick, mathematics

Andres Where’s the water

Mariana In the sea

Andres Oh

Mikhail You found it?

Andres pours and drinks a cup of water, then pours another

Mariana What’s the water for?

Andres I’m sick

Mikhail Shit, really?

Andres Just a bad night. My throat hurts

Mariana Do your knees hurt too?

Andres It’s my allergies I think

Mikhail Allergies to what?

Andres Heavy drinking

Mikhail Are you hungover?

Andres I don’t get hangovers 

Mariana It was a joke about sucking dick

Andres Thankyou

Mariana You’re very welcome

Andres Ach. What are you playing.

Mariana War gun rise of the dawn of the Nazis four

Mikhail It’s some Czech game. Basic Destruction or something?

Andres I don’t know it

Mariana Video games are bad for your brain, man, they make you want to kill whores

Mikhail You wanna play?

Andres I’m fine

Mariana Had enough last night?

Andres Enough what?

Mariana Basic Destruction? I dont know. Czechs?

Andres I was out with Diram at Mic House

Mikhail How is he.

Andres He was drunk when I left him

Mikhail When? 

Andres Last night. Sent him home in a cab

Mikhail Good call. Wait, my food’s here.

Mikhail leaves. Mariana turns round.

Mariana You look as if you’re dead 

Andres How are you?

Mariana Bored. How’s Kristen?

Andres What?

Mariana I like her, she gets the better of you.

Andres Are you just bored?

Mariana It’s satisfying watching you cower

Andres Do you have a mother?

Mariana No, jesus, I couldn’t live with the authority. 

Andres What happened?

Mariana No parents, no police, no problems. 

Andres Is your father alive ?

Mariana He was a policeman so I killed him

Mikhail enters

Mikhail I have chips if you want them 

Mariana takes too large a handful of chips

Mariana This is how the working woman lives, Andres.

Andres I don’t think you know what that means

Mariana No, I don’t think you know what it means

Andres Can I talk to you outside?

Mariana No.

Mikhail Are you gonna sit down?

Andres What?

Mariana I thought you were going home?

Mikhail Are you going?

Andres … I have work to do

Andres leaves. He arrives at home, Kristen is inside the door.

Kristen Andres, you’re home

Andres This is my house

Kristen Sorry, I let myself in

Andres You don’t have a key

Kristen I saw you at Mic House last night

Andres What were you doing at Mic House?

Kristen You were at Mic House, I was in a taxi

Andres In the Ostend at two in the morning?

Kristen Sanjid lives out on Kirke Street

Andres Did you decide he wasn’t good enough then?

Kristen I had work this morning so he called me a taxi

Andres What a gentleman

Kristen Why were you there

Andres I was going for a drink with Diran

Kristen At a gays’ club?

Andres It’s not a gay club anymore, mam 

Kristen Ach, people remember these things

Andres He wanted to to meet some girls

Kristen Did you meet anyone nice

Andres I had to walk him home, he was drunk

Kristen He’s very immoderate man

Andres Ya

Kristen On the upside, he makes you look good

Andres Did you come here for a reason

Kristen You left your old jumper at home. I put it on your bed.

Andres (Worried) What? Why?

Kristen Do you not want it?

Andres No, nothing. Is that it then?

Kristen So desperate to get rid of me?

Andres I have work, mam

Kristen Okay, okay, I’ll get out of your way 

Kristen heads out

Andres Thankyou

Kristen Keep smart

Kristen exits. Andres waits for her to leave completely, then rushes to his bedroom. He pulls out a cardboard box from by his bed, checks it, and returns it carefully. He looks at the jumper on the bed, holds it up, looks at it, and throws it onto a pile of clothes in the corner. He lies face down in bed. Diran enters, and Andres turns to him immediately.

Andres Diran what the fuck

Diran Kristen let me in

Andres Why?

Diran She was leaving

Andres Why are you here

Diran I’m bored

Andres Yeah, go learn ice hockey. How did you know I was here.

Diran Instead of where?

Andres Out

Diran (Confused) We’re not out

Andres …

Diran Are we going out?

Andres What do you think I do all day?

Diran I don’t know, I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna get sad about it 

Andres What?

Diran I just imagine that your life’s a mess man. It’s cool it’s just how I picture it.

Andres Jesus and you didn’t want to ask me about it

Diran That’s why I didn’t ask, it’s sad.

Andres I think you should try getting into a plane crash

Diran No, I’d hate that man.

Andres You’re such a mystery to me

Diran (missing it) Yeah. Do you have a drink?

Andres Really?

Diran I just mean a beer

Andres Yeah, sure, in the kitchen

Diran You having one

Andres If it keeps you out of my room

Diran I have no- inclination to go in there. Bachelor nightmare.

Andres What?

Diran Are we going out though?

Andres My back hurts

Diran Every time you say that like it’s a fucken surprise – take some tramadol 

Andres That shit is bad for you

Diran uuuuuh, pain is bad for you 

Andres Do you ever get sick 

Diran Yeah, sometimes, but I don’t make a career out of it

Andres (with his head in his hand) do you never think you should talk about things more sensitively – since I’m a fucking invalid

Diran Yeah look dude it sucks your- your- pain.

Andres You see there, you say that word like it’s in a foreign language

Diran What word?

Andres Like your translating the word into some sort of Diran equivalent for pain. Like oh, your back hurts, that sucks, it must be like spilling a beer.

Diran Have you tried lying down 

Andres It’s not that, It’s not the consequence of bad judgement. It’s the strength of the feeling, I- I endure, the sensation of every part of my body, wherever I am, all the time. So pain is as native to me as anything else.

Diran Sure

Andres that’s medical, man, that’s medical fact. I am- I am hypersensitive. There are people like me sitting in a padded room eating rice every day, right, so I’ve got something to play for. I feel everything- ten times as much as you do. So I take tramadol, that’s a move, you know. And it’s ten times more of a move than- (it’s obvious Diran isn’t getting it) yeah so I will consider… all of that.

Diran I don’t understand why you would do that

Andres is that a response?

Diran You just think a lot. 

Andres give up and gets out a beer. Music starts up again and they are at the same bar again. Andres stumbles out front with Anya, more drunk than last time.

Anya Are you okay

Andres I feel very well

Anya (Giggling) yeah, me too. This is a cool place.

Andres (Archly)  do you come here often

Anya is that a trick

Andres (Slurring a little) I am not in the least interested in having sex with you 

Anya (Giggling again) Okay

Andres I was being coy, it’s a very well-respected technique

Anya (With controlled sarcasm) Yeah it’s working perfectly

Andres (dropping his head slightly) I see

Anya Are you sure you’re okay?

Andres (Almost too straightly) Yes I am fine.

Anya Are you going back inside?

Andres No

Anya Do you want me to go back inside 

Andres Depends how much of you is detachable 

Anya (confused) What?

Andres it was a joke

Anya (bothered) Yeah. I think you’re really drunk.

Andres That is very likely to be true ! 

Anya Do you need a cab

Andres (too quiet) what the fuck do you want from me 

Anya Sorry?

Andres (too loud, with an oversized smile) What the fuck do you want from me

Anya (seeing through him, keeping control) do you think you’ll manage calling a cab

Andres (with condescending pity) I seeee, I seeeee what’s your problem. You are so romantic about men. But it is a false hope- you hold- in your beautiful heart. (His gesture at her “heart” is a little too close for comfort.) But nonetheless, it is not true that men only want sex! They are motivated by many complex, individual factors, but those factors are very rarely to do with you. What is: your name, for example. I do not remember. 

Anya (calmly) … some men are like that

Andres (camply) Oh, your innocence !

Anya (Smiling) I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. (She turns to go back inside)

Andres (Rapturously, as under divine influence) What a fucking miracle – to know what everything is!

Andres falls to the floor, the lights go down. In a dream again. He begins writhing and turning, but in a moment he is struck down to the floor, lying face up. He sits up slowly, and speaks candidly.

Andres Darling my eyes are full of visions 

Mariana (Appearing beside him) How awful.

Andres Do you think the people will see me one day

Mariana I should say they might 

Andres Do you think then we should build a cage out of iron

Mariana Is that what you’d like?

Andres Would you know how to do that

Mariana Of course

Andres I think we should build it around us 

Mariana You mean I should build it

Andres (smiling) Yes

Mariana (smiling with him) I might be a while 

Andres then stay here for a moment

Mariana is that what you’d like

Andres (simply) yes

Mariana (holding him) What are you seeing?

Andres Radio men. The awful young ones. A man and a girl… talking… about nothing. 

Mariana Is there music?

Andres (lying back down) No. and I think there… ought to be… music

As soon as Andres hits the ground he sits bolt upright, and Diran is next to him. 

Andres Huh?

Diran Are you awake?

Andres fucking obviously I’m awake , I- ah

Diran what?

Andres Ow

Diran what?

Andres Are we going back?

Diran Can you get up

Andres (frustrated) yes I can get up. Find a taxi.

Diran Do you have cash?

A moment. A metro train approaches, and Diran moves towards it. Andres drags Mariana’s body, and pushes it onto the track, then follows Diran onto the train. At the next station, they walk together in silence towards Andres’ door. 

Andres are you good to get back

Diran ah, kind of

Andres cool

Diran do you not have the couch

Andres I just- I- no

Diran … you were gonna sleep on the Ostend road.

Andres Thanks

Diran I can sleep on the floor

Andres it’s kind of full here 

Diran I got you a ticket home and I can’t sleep in your bathroom?

Andres You didn’t get my ticket 

Diran (too tired to argue) Yeah, fuck you, I don’t have mystery income wealth.

Andres (handing him a banknote) get a cab home

Diran (ungratefully) thankyou. (He wait for a second, then pulls out a pillbox) Good for your back. (He throws him the box) or you know, (he gestures at Andres’ general state) that.

Diran leaves, Andres goes inside and up to his bedroom. He throws the pillbox into a corner, and takes out the cardboard box. Kneeling down, he sets the cardboard box on the bed. From inside he takes a pair of women’s underwear and holds in his hand. He holds it more tightly while frustration builds in his eyes, as though he were lifting a heavy weight. He is visibly stuck by pain and runs to the bathroom to throw up, leaving the underwear on the bed. After a while he walks dizzily back to the bed, and looks down at it. He holds up the box and upturns it over the bed – scattering the bed with a dozen or so more pairs of whitish underwear. He stares at the bed for a moment, as though about to lie down, then sighs and begins to throw the underwear back into the box with frustration. Once finished, he pulls out his notepad and begins to write.

Andres I am aware of having seen so many people without the slightest interest in what they’re wearing. Someone passes me in the street and I can’t remember if they’re wearing a sweater… or shoes. And as soon as someone gets close their clothes become consuming. Everything is a contest of ownership for yourself, and if I feel the need to take your shirt it’s not because I want to see your chest, it’s because it’s the most I can do to take part of you away for myself. And if I can’t do that it’s information, I know your name, I know where you come from, and every time that’s a little part of you-

he pauses, then takes his phone and calls Mariana

Andres Where were you born?

Mariana Hello?

Andres It’s Andres, where were you born 

Mariana Oh,  I haven’t been born for ages

Andres I was just surprised that I don’t know

Mariana I was raised by wolves in the eastern forest

Andres Why did you move here

Mariana The wolves are a metaphor for communism

Andres Oh

Mariana Yeah, I’m a poster child. Long live the free west.

Andres Sure

Mariana You called me to ask where I was born

Andres Yeh

Mariana Thankyou officer do you need to search my car

Andres No I wanted- to talk 

Mariana My rates are online 

Andres I wanted to talk about you

Mariana That costs double

Andres Are you doing anything today 

Mariana Your mother

Andres Do you want to go for a drink

Mariana No (She hangs up. Andres is confused. He calls back)

Andres Hello?

Mariana Did you laugh

Andres What?

Mariana When I hung up? (She gasps) did you cry?

Andres I can come to yours if you want 

Mariana Why? (Andres is speechless) Any further questions please contact my secretary. (She hangs up)

Pause. Andres seems at a loss. He goes to put the box of underwear away and notices the old jumper on the floor. He picks it up, looks at it, throws it down violently and calls Kristen.

Kristen Andres?

Andres Yes. 

Kristen What’s wrong?

Andres Do you want to come around?

Kristen Why ?

Andres Am I supposed to have a reason, I didn’t know those were the rules now

Kristen I’m with Sanjid

Andres (Worried and quickly) Why?

Kristen Am I supposed to have a reason?

Andres Doesn’t he have a job?

Kristen He doesn’t have to work weekdays. This is the modern world

Andres What are you doing with the modern world? It can’t be good for your heart 

Kristen i know you don’t like me talking about love, Andres, but- 

He hangs up. He realises that this was a slightly bad idea. He begins to punch the number back into his phone, but puts it down and lies in bed. Mariana appears at the side of the stage.

Mariana Andres. Andres. Andres.

Andres Are you calling me?

Mariana (she walks closer to him) I remember your name.

Andres Andres?

Mariana Mariana. Mariana. Mariana

Andres I remember your name 

Mariana Andres

Andres … (she arrives at his feet, and kneels between his legs. He responds, softly but assuredly) Mariana

Mariana Good. What’s my name? (Kristen appears at the side of the stage)

Kristen Andres? Andres?

Andres No. 

Mariana drops her head over Andres’ shoulder and Kristen disappears offstage.

Mariana Do you think I’m making sense

Andres It’s difficult to tell

Mariana I think you understand me. I think I only talk because I know you’ll understand me. And because you’ll remember this. How it feels. And that’s what I mean. 

They both relax completely. A phone rings, Andres sits up to answer it.

Andres Hello?

Mikhail Are you coming today?

Andres What?

Mikhail Mariana said you would, I don’t know why (Andres is speechless) Hello?

Andres I’m in bed 

Mikhail Yeah, I mean this evening. Is Diran coming?

Andres (confused) why should I know?

Mikhail He can come if you want. See you later man.

Andres is confused, he calls Diran

Andres Are you going to Mikhail’s later?

Diran Sure

Andres But you weren’t going?

Diran Yeah I don’t mind 

Andres I- do you think I’m a real person

Diran Sure, you look like one

Andres What are you doing tonight 

Diran I thought we were going to Mikhail’s

Andres (A completely baffled pause.) Yeah.

Diran I’ll walk over at five if you want.

Andres Fine

Diran Cool. Peace. (He hangs up)

Still confused, Andres walks out into the street. He doesn’t look where he is going and a man walks into him from the side 

Andres I’m sorry

Man Look where you’re going, dick

Andres Wait

Man What?

Andres I’m sorry (the man walks away from him faster. Andres looks after him, then follows. He catches up with him and taps him on the shoulder)

Man The fuck?

Andres I’m sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going, I was distracted, I didn’t mean to walk into you 

Man Not today lad

Andres I’m not homeless, I’m a functioning man. I wanted to tell you I’m actually sorry, I wasn’t just saying it.

Man Look I haven’t got any money

Andres I’m not asking for money, I live on the western road. (The man is confused.) You’re a- respectful man, I didn’t want you getting the wrong idea, I’m walking into town to meet one of my friends. I wasn’t looking because I was thinking, about my girlfriend.

Man Look, I’m sorry lad but I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you’re talking about 

Andres I know

Man Come on now, you seem alright, but I’m just getting on with my day.

Andres Me too, I know. Are you married.

Man What?

Andres I’ll buy you a drink, are you married?

Man it’s eleven in the morning

Andres Coffee?

Man (as if to a child) I don’t know, what you’re talking about 

Andres …

Man Get on lad. (He walks away. He begins to walk faster and calls back) You should be in a fuckin home !

Andres considers this for a moment, takes out his notepad, and begins to write.

Andres People don’t like people. Even since we’ve been out of the war people are suspicious and irrational. The world is fast and offensive and all I want is to lie myself down in opposition to it. I want go out into the road, and sit with you until there’s no road, no buildings, no people anymore, just the world as it was before someone decided against it. I believe that in you, because that’s what it means to be alone, and in love.

Diran enters.

Diran Keep standing in the road, man, you might get lucky.

Andres Yeah I was thinking that 

Diran You’re just going to this thing for the girl right 

Andres Mikhail’s my friend

Diran Mah, the guy’s got nothing to say. I can keep him occupied though.

Andres I don’t need you to.

Diran Ah shush she’s a nice girl. You’re going to her house. 

Andres I thought I was supposed to be bad for women.

Diran Some women sure. I think this one’s very ‘enter at your own risk’

Andres Yech

Diran I wasn’t saying that, you were just thinking about it. I don’t treat girls any different from guys.

Andres That’s a pretty low bar for respect

Diran Look, I’ve never slept with someone who didn’t respect me.

Andres …

Diran You live like a virgin, you die like a virgin, man. Go out and get laid. There’s like a distress you connect with having sex, but I gotta say the adult world doesn’t give a shit about it.

Andres You mean you don’t give a shit about it

Diran I don’t understand it. You’re an attractive guy with a metric ton of dead dad money.

Andres (dispassionately) That’s uh, not a nice thing to say.

Diran He died before you were born, you get the sweet deal. I had to watch my dad get sick for five years and I was still broke at the end of it.

Andres Jesus

Diran Yeah it was the worst time of my life

Andres Do you smile on principle or do you not get the concept.

Diran I’m happy it’s over 

Andres Still not feeling positive

Diran To be fair you are a sad man

Andres Again, do you have to say that

Diran You’re like the saddest guy I know. You walk around like a truckful of shelter dogs, collecting up pity. 

Andres That is just a regular insult

Diran Ah whatever I’m just observing. It’s like you’re sad six days a week and then Saturday, you drink, you get happy, and somehow it’s much worse.

Andres What’s wrong with when I drink

Diran Your shame stops working. You start boasting about your own failures, and expecting people to fuck you anyway. You’re like a politician.

Andres So now I get social commentary with my abuse.

Diran I am saying. What I see. Just drink some water tonight.

Andres I always drink water

Diran You should drink water, no beer, no nothing. Try and get of a bit of a compromise going.

Andres What compromise?

Diran Between drinking your own piss and pouring it on other people.

Andres Deft, a deft metaphor. 

Diran I’ll be there, you can enjoy yourself without drinking.

Andres I won’t drink. I need to talk to her anyways

Diran Andres will not drink tonight. The fates are aligned for women of the world everywhere.

Andres And it’s you who’s gonna be making me feel better?

Diran I’m good at it

Andres … Yeah. Somehow.

Diran Where is this house anyway?

Electronic music starts up, as before. This time Diran stumbles out with Mikhail

Diran They’ve got some good music

Mikhail It’s my house

Diran Your music?

Mikhail (Obviously) Yes

Diran Oh.

Mikhail Dude I play music.

Diran Yeah…

Mikhail Professionally

Diran Oh. Little rockstar?

Mikhail Heh?

Diran I’m joking. I think you’d look good with a guitar

Mikhail Ha, yeah.

Diran See, you’re smiling now.

Mikhail I don’t know, you’re funny

Diran Did Andres say that

Mikhail (Definitely) No

Diran You shouldn’t believe everything you hear on TV. 

Mikhail Really…

Diran Cause I’ve got enemies. 

Mikhail Andres doesn’t talk about anything

Diran I mean people trying to make me look bad, but you know I think they make me look better. I think it’s sexy.

Mikhail (Charmed) What is?

Diran The mystery ! Like maybe I’m talking bullshit all the time, that’s possible, but I’m serious, you know, when I look at someone and say hey, my name is Diran Singh Bhatia, people like me.

Mikhail Dude I don’t know what you’re saying

Diran But you like me !

Mikhail Sure.

Diran Is it my face? People tell me I have a pretty face.

Mikhail Who are all these people?

Diran Oh, very trustworthy people

Mikhail I don’t know if I trust them

Diran  (With deliberate eye contact) Well it’s your call

Mikhail I’m gonna go inside

Diran Sure man I need to smoke.

(Mikhail goes inside, Diran lights a cigarette smugly. After a moment, Andres walks out)

Andres Why did you stop me drinking?

Diran Are you bored with her already?

Andres  I can’t be sober with the two of them

Diran They’re your friends

Andres Your my friend and you’re out here smoking like an oligarch. 

Diran I’m planning

Andres Can you tell Mariana I want to talk to her

Diran  What?

Andres I’ve realised I need to talk to her

Diran Sure but we’re not twelve, I’m not gonna do chinese whispers for you

Andres  Diran this isn’t a joke

Diran This isn’t a joke?

Andres  Look, maybe you don’t believe me. Or you don’t believe in love.

Diran Oh jesus, you’re still saying that

Andres I don’t know but I’m trying to do the right thing. And It’s not like you’ll be happy if I fuck this up.

Diran … Sure.

Andres I want to do the right thing.

Diran if you want me to get Mikhail out of the way / I can

Andres You don’t need to sleep with Mikhail

Diran Ach, need to, it’s all drive and duty with you today. Whatever happened to fun?

Andres And you getting it on with my friend, that’s fun?

Diran (beat. simply) yes.

Andres I don’t want to be playing catchup 

Diran Oh my god you’re a child 

Andres I don’t want to look like I’m hitting on her the same way you’re hitting on him

Diran You couldn’t if you tried to, baby 

Andres Yuch. 

Diran (going back inside) Don’t be jealous, man. You’re doing this to yourseeeeelf.

Diran slams the door. Andres takes out his notepad.

Andres Fear and love see into the future. That’s what motivates dreams, the presence of all time in one place. Fear and love. But when you’re alive, you’re awake, it’s all frustrations and the past pushing at you from behind. But you can see into the future. Premonitions you feel more closely than anything else. In the moment that my life is put together in one point, I am put together with you. I know my future is yours. And I can live through the fear.

Mariana walks out, to light a cigarette. 

Mariana Oh.

Andres Did you think I wasn’t here?

Mariana I’m expressing surprise

Andres You saw me walk out

Mariana Yeah and I’m a cctv camera

Andres Do you smoke

Mariana (lighting her cigarette) No

Andres …

Mariana (Sensationally) Don’t look now but I think your friend has his knives out

Andres (Concerned) What?

Mariana He’s trying to get his teeth around Mikhail. Do you think they’ll do it?

Andres No

Mariana Twenty euro says they do

Andres Diran’s not interested

Mariana Yeah and Mikhail isn’t a novel, ya dig. I’m not interested in my cigarette but it still ends up in the same place.

Andres I understand

Mariana I don’t. Are you gonna go inside?

Andres …

Mariana … Okay… (archly) it’s not too late, you can still stop them. 

Andres It’s pretty beautiful out here

Mariana “Grey concrete against black sky”, sounds like a rip off. I think a picture should have boats. Or animals.

Andres People are animals

Mariana A. wrong – B. just a weird response to what I said

Andres  I’m sorry

Mariana  (she points at him for a second, then confidently:) you’re alright

Andres … What are you thinking about

Mariana Death. Exchange rates. Pollen. 

She flicks her cigarette and promptly goes back inside. Once again Andres is dumbfounded. After a moment he calls Kristen.

Andres It’s Andres

Kristen Ah.

Andres Can we talk?

Kristen – I’m with Sanjid.

Andres Okay. Can we talk?

Kristen Andres you know we can talk but you can ask when I have time

Andres What are you doing?

Kristen (sighing) We’re drinking Veltliner and listening to the Ettinger programme. It’s my one moment of rest and the last thing I need is to pity you.

Andres …

Kristen Oh come on Andres, you’re an adult now, you never call me for anything else.

Andres I’m in love

Kristen Ha.

Andres I’m in love with someone

Kristen Yes, I’m sure

Andres I just wanted you to know that. Maybe you don’t believe me but I- know love, and it has changed me completely. (beat, then spitefully:) Now will you turn off your culture show and speak to your son? 

Kristen I told you, there’ll be time.

Andres There is time. Now. And if you had even a bit of empathy you’d see how much more important it is / than your-

Kristen No. I’ll be happy to hear what’s ruining your life another day, but I am sitting with the man whose house and whose family will soon be my house and my family. I wake up with him, I go to bed with him, and I am going to spend this evening with him. You can talk about love, Andres, but that’s what it means. Not just finding people to suffer for you.

Andres …

Kristen Keep smart, Andres.

She hangs up. Andres is agitated, and weighs his options. He looks at his notepad, and an idea begins to form. He goes inside. The loud music flares up again, and the lights become closer. Diran and Mikhail, both drunk, are are spat out of the house as before.

Diran And I’m feeeeeeliiiiiiin- (he pauses and takes a deep breath, looking at Mikhail) gooooood 

Mikhail (Laughing) Is that a song?

Diran It’s my song. I wrote it about feelin gooooood.

Mikhail I like it

Diran I bet you say that to all the girls

Mikhail You play anything?

Diran I play the hand I’m dealt. And the panpipes.

Mikhail Oh nice

Diran No I don’t actually, but you’re beautifully positive

Mikhail I try my best

Diran (with exaggerated, almost french charm) and positively beautiful

Mikhail (laughing) I’ll take it.

Diran Take what? Take the piss? Take the high road? … Take me?

Mikhail I don’t think I could if I tried

Diran I think you could.

Mikhail (smiling) good to know

Diran Hey, this is your house right?

Mikhail yeah

Diran I think I left something up in your bedroom. You think you could help me look for it?

Mikhail  What? What did you lose?

Diran Excuses mainly

Mikhail Ha. Sure. I’m sure we can find them. 

They go upstairs together, Andres comes out a moment later clearly looking for them, and sees they’ve gone upstairs.

Andres Motherfucker. 

Andres pulls out his notebook and writes hurriedly

Andres People never know what’s good for them. Kids with a house and two parents go out and use their bodies like a fairground ride. It’s all two strangers in a public toilet. Our parents get love and we get fucked. One night it throws you in front of the right person and – you wake up at thirty-five with a wife and a hangover. I want that to be you. Tonight. Out of the chaos what does it matter how – when we look back at it you won’t even know how to thank me.

Mariana stumbles out, drunk. Andres feigns drunkness.

Mariana Fuckin… writer !

Andres Yeah I…. I fuckin am.

Mariana heeeh. When did you start drinking?

Andres Hey I got my hours a day to be sober

Mariana Yea. Being honest, you sober isn’t really party-aligned. 

Andres (conceiling slight woundedness) ha. Did Diran say that?

Mariana Not like I’ve got eyes, is it. To see. That you are boring.

Andres Well that’s mean, maybe youuuuu ‘re just looking in the wrong place

Mariana (throwing her hands up) Okay. Not boring. You win.

Andres Serious. I’m too serious. (with drunk confidence) But I don’t give a shit.

Mariana Auuugh, Andres fuckin swearing, someone call the- the p’lice

Andres Heh I’m … I’m feelin good.

Mariana You know what? Me too. Skål.

Andres Fuckeeeeeen- Skål motherfucker

Mariana Hey you can quit the swearing now I already know you’re cool

Andres What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?

Mariana Standing mostly 

Andres Do youuu uh stand here often?

Mariana (playfully) Oh- oh no oh gosh are you making an attempt on me

Andres (playing along) I can neither confirm nor deny…

Marian Well as an upstandingly good citizen I am offended, and as an outstandingly bored citizen, I am looking for something to do, so…

Andres I could make some time in my schedule

Marian (going to shake his hand) good business. (from shaking his hand, she takes and raises his hand up, leading him inside)

Andres Goood fuckin business.

As the two enter the door, they turn to each other, the silhouette is dramatically intimate. The lights rise up inside the house, and the music increases, transitioning discordantly into Gershwin’s “I’ve got a crush on you”. Until the interior is uncomfortably loud and bright.

Blackout. The first full blackout in the show. Warm light slowly up on the two, asleep on the sofa, as in Andres’ visions, the gershwin plays bandpassed, as if through a radio. Andres wakes up, and gradually becomes conscious of Mariana next to him. He takes a moment to enjoy it fully, before raising himself up, enjoying the glow of the morning. This takes a while. He puts his hand softly on Mariana’s head, and she begins to wake up, looking around confusedly, before noticing the hand, and turning up to see Andres. He is staring at her with unadulterated affection, she looks back in slightly awkward confusion, then jokey shared embarrassment.

Marian (quickly, on a casual laugh) Fuck, we didn’t do anything did we?  

Suddenly, the loud music returns and the light flashes. Andres returns home in chaos. The lights transition from strobing to shaking, as Andres rushes inside, into his room. He looks in panic at the bed, then hurries to it and lies down. Obviously he can’t sleep. The tension builds in his body until he jumps up, and pulls the box from under the bed. He moves and looks around as though disposing of a live bomb, but he sees nowhere to put them and becomes briefly paralysed. A thought occurs to him, like a hope. He runs to the corner of the room, dropping the box, and picks up Diran’s pill box. He takes a deep breath, and swallows a couple of pills. 

A brief, almost calm pause. He lays himself down on the bed and the lights fade into the dream state, with the same thrashing as before. When he sits up, the stage is empty. He looks around, confused, and flashes back awake. This immediately panics Andres. He looks up. He takes out his notebook, and reads.

Andres:  In my spirit’s going I find you always dearest- … Mari-

Something is missing. He falls to his knees in apparent agony and slams his face into the bed. After this outburst he begins to control his breathing, and sits down on the bed. He pours out the pillbox into his hand, and swallows the remainder of the pills. He falls back onto the bed and begins to convulse in heavier, slower motions than before. He sits up, and the stage is still empty. He stands, with much effort, and looks around for someone, as though weighed down. The lights shake and flicker, as Andres moves even more heavily to centre stage, before looking out, and realising what he has done. He manages to get out one low syllable of acceptance:

Andres Oh.

Andres collapses as the lights close in on him, flickering, then flicker down to nothing. For a moment, he could be dead. But before this has fully landed, the stage cuts to hospital lights and low monitor beeps. Diran is beside Andres, who is in a hospital bed. A nurse is in the corner of the room. When Andres talks, it is with great effort. He recovers his voice gradually.

Diran You’re awake.

Andres …

Diran She said I could go when you’re awake

Diran walks out

Andres ah-

Andres tries to get his bearings, but Kristen walks in.

Kristen Diran wouldn’t tell me what happened

Andres ahm–

Kristen I came to the house to tell you I’m sorry – that I didn’t get through to you, yesterday, but I’m right. Things like this happen when you won’t just live a normal life.

Andres I was- I didn’t know what I was doing

Kristen You don’t need to make excuses to me, Andres, I just want you to do the right thing… The way you live. I know some people think we’re all going to catch up to the modern world but you can see that you’re hurting yourself, I know you can.

Andres (genuinely confused) What’s the way I live?

Kristen (for the first time uncomfortable with what she’s saying) I don’t know what you call it. Whatever. But- but- you’re good for so much more than- than this modern fetish.

Andres (more confused) What?

Kristen You call me from the ostend at three in the morning to tell me you love this man, and I find you passed out in your room with a pile of– (she can’t quite say it)

Andres The- There’s no man. I- I was poisoned

Kristen Yes well what do you expect. Hanging around clubs like that, you should know what those people do.

Andres I was with Diran- At Mikhail’s  

Kristen I don’t want to know, Andres, where or when or who it was, or how that ended up with you dressing up in womens’ underwear. But we both know it’s not you Andres.

Andres That’s not me

Kristen I believe you can change Andres. But until you do, I won’t be there for you- late night phone calls. I’ll be with my family, with Sanjid.

Andres I don’t understand

Kristen takes a deep breath, realises her argument is useless, and walks out. Andres is totally lost.

Andres Diran? Diran?

Mikhail enters.

Mikhail He’s just taking a second

Andres Oh, are you…

Mikhail Huh?

Andres Together?

Mikhail … We pretty much met yesterday

Andres Didn’t you sleep together?

Mikhail Fuck, man, that’s- y’know

Andres What? Insignificant?

Mikhail Private.

Andres You’re pretty close and confidential then?

Mikhail I don’t- I like- I was gonna check you’re okay and you’re okay. 

Andres Have you seen Mariana?

Mikhail What? Yes- What?

Andres What did she say?

Mikhail When?

Andres After yesterday what did she say?

Mikhail A lot of stuff. What do you mean?

Andres (wrestling with the thought, particularly and intensely) I thought a lot had happened, I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything

Mikhail … Slow news day I guess

Andres So it’s okay? She’s coming here.

Mikhail Don’t know. She said she might come.

Andres Where is she?

Mikhail I’m going to get a coffee

Andres Can you get Diran in?

Mikhail I- think he might want a coffee too

Andres … right. Fuck me then, fuck the guy in the hospital bed.

Mikhail Dude you’re in the bed cause you paid for it. You think national hospitals give a private room to some guy taking half an overdose?

Andres …

Mikhail Look, sorry. Should I call Mariana?

Andres …

Mikhail Yeah… cool 

Mikhail leaves. Andres sits, unfulfilled, takes out his notebook and begins to write.

Andres One room gets desperate very quickly. One room with one person. One body with one person, one life in one room. It’s hollow. It falls in on itself. Now there’s Mariana, the name Mariana with no picture, the room and the time is all empty, all singular, all ripped apart into little pinheads of experience, people in rooms, times in places, all calculated against: love. All love has catastrophe, the place where time is all condensed into one point… One room, one bed. And then — things fall out. outside of time. One room with one bed – and one person. 

Mariana walks through the door

Mariana You look great

Andres What?

Mariana Are you looking for something

Andres I’m surprised

Mariana I’m Mariana

Andres (testing a smile) I’m… glad?

Mariana (keeping her implacable half smile)

Andres We’re okay?

Mariana (equally implacable) No. (This throws Andres. His facial response is indecisive) Our okay-ness may not have survived your really- uh- left field response to us sharing a sofa.

Andres Sharing a sofa.

Mariana Did you not like sharing in school?

Andres I – I’d really be good with knowing what’s going on

Mariana Yup. Yeah.

Andres They can let me out of here, it’s private, we can go for a drink.

Mariana Dude it’s the middle of the day

Andres Coffee?

Mariana It’d be cool if you just stayed there. Didn’t follow me around saying weird shit. People didn’t tell you to just like, calm it down, in the past, with the sincerity? Like you’re the final episode of a soap opera?

Andres I’m honest, I thought that was good

Mariana Honest is good. Your thing? Difficult. Talking to you is a- is a big task 

Andres Yeah, thanks.

Mariana I’m just being honest.

Andres Okay, then tell me, please, what this is. I don’t understand it anymore.

Mariana One: question doesn’t make sense, but Two: “this”? “This” is you. Probably cause you don’t work, you just go around doing random shit your brain makes up reasons for. Imagining that you have something, with other people. Nope. You are an okay person, in a few people’s lives, you are: fine. 

Andres I think if you can get past this-

Mariana It’s you ! I’m not getting the redeeming stuff here. What do I win for spending time with you? Diran gets money, Mikhail gets Diran, seems like I’ve got the last musical chair.

Andres We can be something. Actually, we can. This is- this is a moment in the present, and we haven’t both done the right thing, and we’ll do the wrong thing again, but in the end this works. 

Mariana (flatly) It works…?

Andres (“nicely”) Yea. (beat, then measuredly, almost familially:) So are you going to say sorry?

Mariana … (She is appalled but barely showing it. She stares at him throughout the next speech, planning her attack)

Andres I put myself on the line, with you, I gave you the opportunity to be honest with me, because I was stuck- we were stuck behind all the fake- individual- personal- shit, like we can see through to something real, but one of us has risk something, and when I do that you don’t even say anything? Not thankyou? I mean, you were out of your head, so I don’t mind if maybe you didn’t realise at the time what was happening, but it’s happened now. The hard part is over, you don’t have to pretend that we’re- strangers. –

Mariana And what is it you know about me, huh? That you like about me? That if you weren’t for some reason still trying to be polite, you’d say you love about me.

Andres I understand you.

Mariana Understand what? What is there to understand? I’m just trying to live my life, you’re not entitled to anything, any participation, and information about me that’s extra, man.

Andres Do you see that’s not believable. Something has happened, you know it has

Mariana Diran told me you’re not drinking 

Andres …

Mariana So that’s happened. Not that it makes any difference to me. Just means you’re an idiot sober as well. Maybe I should have guessed

Andres I don’t think that’s fair 

Mariana ooooh, “fair”. Is that “fair”. Hmm I don’t know. Do you not think it’s “fair”.

Andres (controlling himself) I still like you 

Mariana Well that’s not “fair” at all. What do you think of me? I can’t be real to you can I?

Andres Look at me – everyone wants to come and abuse me when I’m in a fucking hospital

Mariana Do you think all of this is violence against yourself? You want to plug yourself into the pleasure machine go ahead but don’t pretend you’re hurting yourself, cause you haven’t got the nerve.

Andres (controlling himself, almost through gritted teeth)… Whatever you say, I see past that

Mariana So you see past the “I don’t like you” bit, to the “wow, let’s run away together” fucking fairytale soulmate bit

Andres (Insistently) I understand you

Mariana (Almost at her wits’ end) Okay! Right. Do you? Or is it just that you look at me, half your brain tells you you wanna fuck me and the other half starts picking up the pieces. 

Andres (finally beginning to break into desperation) Do you think this about sex? Do you think I talk to you like I talk to girls I wanna fuck-

Mariana No, no I don’t. But that’s not sex that’s just you making a claim over some stranger’s organs, like you believe that’s sex

Andres So sex is about love, well then you’re right. I don’t know, I just understand what love is around you. And maybe at the moment I want to rip that out of you and sleep with that, but I can’t, so I will take all of you, because if you leave / I will have nothing to feel that about 

Mariana Yeah what a goddamn adorable proposal. It doesn’t factor into any of this that I’m a person, does it?

Andres it does, that’s all it is. You are the only person in my life.

Mariana And look what you’ve done with that (she moves to leave)

Andres It’s like you want to KILL me. (Mariana stops and turns. This touches a nerve) Like you can’t see through my skin? Like you can’t see where it hurts me? You have control over all of my body, and you just stare at me here while I’m tensing up in convulsions like a fucking spastic; do you enjoy that ! (She clearly has more to say but decides it will achieve nothing and leaves) The weaker I get does it just excite your appetite? See this? Do you feel satisfied that you’ve watched me breaking, totally. (At this point she is gone) And I’m entitled, am I? Like I’m entitled to this drip, this bed, something to keep me from bleeding out on the pavement. (He rips out the drip, and limps up) Sure, I’m selfish. Taking all this care from the poor and needy, I guess I should just go and throw myself into the road! (His activity has attracted the attention of the nurse, who comes in and gives an IM sedative) I’ve just had it too fucking good ! 

The lights turn out, as in the first image of the play. Andres’ breathing becomes heavier. He writhes and turns. Mariana enters from stage left. Andres sees her and stands to face her. She moves closer. Slowly, he holds her face in his hands, and snaps her neck. He holds her body in his arms, and lies back down in bed. He lies there, hiding beneath her, as a child beneath his bedsheets for fear.

A Very Good Film

Introduction

Artistic responsibility is one of the few issues of public health about which the prevalent opinion runs directly opposite to the general interest. Both creators and consumers of media are taught that violent, uncompromising exposure is the great success of the modern revolution in art against censorship and delusion, and the pursuit of this ‘virtue’ is not tempered with an understanding of the artist’s responsibility to bring about less harm than good. That is my belief, but the voice which contradicts it, saying ‘Art must not compromise, art must represent, that is the essence of individual being’ is perhaps more convincing, and more satisfying in its progress than my own, easily characterised as moralistic and regressive. That is all to say: it is not to tackle the lofty and unanswerable question of artistic purpose that I want to bring this issue to the fore, but to question whether the kind of art presented in this scene is configured, intentionally or otherwise, to hurt the very people who praise it.

Serssman, 40s

Beatrik, 20s

Aliastav, 40s

Note: These characters are not English, and particularly not American. The need to specify where each would find themselves more at home would be somewhat dishonest, given that they are written primarily as outsiders, and should to any one audience be unfamiliar.

Scene I

S. Oh land of the free, this is. When good things come to those who wait, Bea. Epitaphs and epigraphs, batteries brimming with praises. I had to come in here just for the relief. You know, Holmes and Rahe index no stress higher than outstanding personal achievement? But what do they know when their lives’ work is a catalogue of misery. Then again. Some might say the same of me: One slash-fest to the next. 

B. But it gets better.

S. They get better. I never change. You see I’m assured of my quality. It’s only a mercy to see people catching up.

B. But it gets better.

S. I write what strikes me, not what follows in your sort of continuum. When I was writing murders it wasn’t because people liked it, it was because that’s what I saw. On the streets over here, every man in his puffer jacket about to come up and stab me. They’re all monsters, it’s in the face, really. Some kind of relief in mixing up blood out of starch and water, pouring it all over everything. All of those trampy sets… I don’t see so much of that now.

B. Your jacket is (She signs it) spotted

S. What, where?

B. The shoulder to your left. He has a little mark.

S. Where? I can’t see anything. In any case, I’m not getting my dry-cleaning done on the way in. When does he want me?

B. Eight o’clock. She’s waiting.

S. Oh. Thankyou. What’s her name?

B. Aliastav.

S. Oh good. No one flatters like the gutter press. Come here. I love you, little Beatrik. You’re like the son I never wanted.

A. Mr Serssman?

S. Yes, on my way in

A. So it seems. How is the evening?

S. Well I’ve passed the easy half. Lots of rich people offering me drinks and compliments. I don’t drink, though. Had to take double the flattery.

A. (Smiling politely) All positive, then?

S. Well, I hope so, they did pay to watch it.

A. That can be all the more reason for disappointment.

S. It’s only a film.

A. Oh, I wouldn’t let them hear you say that.

Pause

S. I’m told you have some questions for me

A. Ah if you don’t mind?

S. It’s half the job

A. I’d like to talk to you about your latest film, or should I say your latest piece, Unchained

S. Nice little bit for the tape there?

A. It helps keep my articles on-script. They don’t like too much paratext. 

S. Where’s your artist’s mutiny?

A. I’m a journalist.

S. Then you prefer to keep your mutinies actual? Faith only in the semi-colon. You can push out the same structure every week with new nouns for each atrocity. Last week famine, death, this week Alec Serssman’s newest film. The public are gravely concerned concerning, et cetera.

A. Would you consider the film concerning?

S. Would you?

A. You mentioned the public being concerned

S. I’m sure it was an example. There are always people who don’t like the look of things. But my films don’t offend people. There’s no politics in it, it’s only… things. And people can be bothered by nasty things. In fact it’s nice that some people still are, but they’re under no obligation to watch them.

A. Now these things you talk about, where is it you get them?

S. Are you trying to steer me back on course?

A. If you’re ready, I just wanted to ask about inspiration. Is there a ‘real life’ Sam Baker?

S. Not other than the Americans who gave me the name, no. I think he was always supposed to be an american. Before he was anyone.

A. What do you think of America?

S. I love it. Here they have such wonderful principles.

A. Which you’ve applied to your film

S. Yes, I suppose so. I’m developing American tendencies. I’m not sure they want me back home anyhow. Nothing will ever be Bergman.

A. Ingmar?

S. Oh, I didn’t realise you were close. Yes. I always found those things rather ugly. Grotesque.

A. Is that much of a criticism from a horror writer?

S. Yes, when Bergman’s meant to be uncovering the secrets of the universe. I wrote what struck me. Not what I was supposed to tell. But in answer to your question no – I prefer to do things inside out, I don’t have models.

A. But behind that, we all borrow our flesh from somewhere. Behind it there are people.

S. People, it’s very boring, People. It isn’t how I do things as a matter of fact. There are no people in Unchained, it’s magic – it’s what you call fairy dust.    

A. And it is magic, I mean, just looking at those – stunning sets and such beautiful actors as well

S. They’ve both had a lot of work done

A. But everything together it’s really quite overwhelmingly: beautiful

S. I think that’s all Kubrick. You talk about inspiration, there’s one – I think he’s utterly brilliant. Giving such detail to everything, and his horror, what they call his horror – it doesn’t feel like horror, it’s magnificent, The Shining, Clockwork Orange, it’s a triumph. I think if anyone has come close to recording the human soul, that’s- that’s it. As terrifying as it seems.

A. And Kubrick was famously difficult of course, particularly to his actors

S. Oh don’t make it about that. I assure you any time we were shooting- something serious I was there with a handkerchief and a bottle of champagne on standby. I think people began to look forward to it.

A. I’m sure they’re very happy. Now for those reading who haven’t had the privilege of seeing the film-

S. You’re going to ask for a summary aren’t you, a- a- synoptic soundbite

A. Well, if you have one 

S. Okay, I can tell you that it’s called unchained, and it’s a good film and you should go and watch it.

A. Could you spare any details?

S. (Realising the formal necessity of a contribution) It’s not really the kind of thing, but- I’ve sort of been interested in this one with the – limits of depravity, and the bargain of the soul. Will that sell the film, do you think?

A. To anyone who doesn’t speak genius, it’s basically about a rockstar on drugs

S. Yes very elegantly put

A. Are you interested in this film being seen?

S. No I’m interested in this film being watched – by people who understand it. 

A. Maybe you could help more people to understand

S. Well what do you want to know?

Scene II

Beatrik talks into a tape recorder, scrolling through articles on a laptop

B. If I could make him to help himself – I did not put myself in this position for the expense of his pride. There is not so many points- for a person to get out of the well- as when someone comes to drag you out of it. And it’s the taste of success. How it tastes is- is not bitter, is- uh- cold- too deep and dead… It’s for no reason I’m just- reasoning the- state of things… That I didn’t see the irony how I used to- jump at these scary films. And now I’m righting the hand of this man. Who is very serious when is writes them and – but to everything is a joke. And is it- And is it I’m built for success, this body, this failure? And I said, I’m not speaking of those, he’s – is very happy here. And for my English, as it is when I’m learning from a writer – English beauty, second hand. That he sees, English a land of freedom and me- a free beauty. Maybe… beauty in a language I don’t yet speak. That I don’t understand. There’s good hope – here for me. And every letter I speak to you I go about it a little happier, a little more of the street corners mine enough to stand on them without fearing. And I don’t take that from him, by the way. I take my pay and I get out of him, because I’m not failing your ideas, I’m just learning what it means to be a person here. And I’m not inside the film, you don’t need to watch it. You wouldn’t like it. It’s all men and their- fascinations. 

Scene III

A. I’d like to ask about the haircut

S. Ah – and there’s a point of interest!

A. One gets the feeling it’s a scene will come out remembering

S. Yes, I’m glad of that. It’s was such a big part of the- process. I don’t think our hair people were so happy that we got through all those styles, just to pick one- ah- but it was very satisfying to get the right appearance for Sam, for Willet you know to be that person. And that scene- it speaks for itself of course- but it’s nice for him to be becoming, in that moment- saying this is me, this is Sam Baker. For the audience too, everything fitting into place.

A. And what is it that it’s saying?

S. What do you mean?

A. Why, out of everything, does the film come down to that?

S. I’m not trying to make it about the haircut, it’s about a lot more than that, but that scene is the- point where Sam becomes this character that he’s really trying not to be. And to have him there, in the bathroom, and of course the bathroom is very significant to the end of the film – not to be too obvious – and to have him there, making this first random act of violence, these straight lines over the side with the razor. Suddenly he sees himself in the mirror and he’s visibly become- those thoughts he was trying to avoid. That’s the film, you see, being confronted with the consequence, and not being scared by it. It’s desperation, in the moment, but its determination that from that moment, he has to keep going while violently aware of his own life.

A. I mean you say it’s desperation, but you said it yourself, this is the work of a hollywood stylist, it’s not some junkie shaving off his hair in the bathroom

S. Okay, I don’t know what this tendency is to make things awful because that’s somehow the reality of suffering. I mean, it’s awful, but it doesn’t have to be incompetent, you know, films are always more real than real. Not that I want to tell you your job, but you don’t want the man looking- looking like a tramp who’s caught his hair in something, it has to be the essence of the moment.

A. Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical to go on changing and changing the hair, you realise a man like that only gets one chance

S. What-? He’s a man in a film – do you not see the divide here, not- not everything is the same. There’s real, and the film- is real, but it’s displaying what that realness means, it’s not a shopping list. When he’s in the bathroom, he sees the razor and that’s a clear cut- moment, I don’t mean to explain it, but he’s drawn into this violence against himself, and it’s hard for him, but as an audience we see that pain-

A. I understand what the film is about, mister Serssman. But I’m not young enough to look at all of these posters, and think it wasn’t part of your consideration, how the haircut looks in print.

S. It works on the posters because it’s part of the film

A. That’s fair as long as the film has something more to say

S. I’m sorry, but you don’t get a response like this for nothing. If you’ve come to talk about unchained like it’s a sort of- merchandising piece, then, well, politely-

A. The looks may not be the heart of the film, but that’s always what travels. People remember pictures, and beauty. You remember the strong, and the pretty.

S. Yes you’ve completely misidentified the film which is / a bad place to start

A. No I don’t think I have. Unchained is successful, do you think it’s because your concept is touching peoples hearts? I mean, to be honest I’m not sure you know what your concept is

S. It speaks for itself, I’m not going to defend it in discussions of theory, not with you – I’m sorry to say your readership isn’t interested. Or really capable-

A. Don’t worry about my readership. Let’s talk.

S. If you’re not- (Aliastav begins to take the batteries out of the tape recorder). If you’re not going to talk about any of this (The batteries drop to the floor) I don’t see why I-

A. Let’s talk.

Scene IV

Continuing to talk, and scroll

B. I like it of course though. I like to be here in the heat of everything. He’s put me going through his news feed. Don’t know why it is, he always comes up roses, it’s Serssman genius this and tour-de-force this. Americans they like these pretty bodies. He has me looking, I think, for people who see through to the dead ones on ice. So close that a touch starts them decomposing. The film has so much, and all of the films, discarded behind when he finishes hollowing the beauty from it. He does process, it’s- he works through people and files them down to bone. Don’t take it like, he’s against me, he loves me. But he wants- I don’t- don’t know what he wants but it feels he want’s to take something and break it down to nothing. Or to something small, that’s thin and dead. It is a beautiful film, to him like I’m a beautiful… (pause) but it’s just a film. I’ll speak something to you when I get it all finished. I don’t know how he wants me to keep writing, five star, four star, incredible- cinema, intense- is the, storytelling. It’s dark to me- these pages of pages, these praises they fling to him – just because he makes, he has no care for his making, he’s – breaking at a block of wood and the critics praise him for the poetry it sounds. But the- but the poetry they hear. Because it- (Something catches Beatrik’s eye on the screen) Sorry- (Beatrik reads in silence, and gradually shock) I… (Beatrik turns off the tape machine, looks at the screen, and across to Serssman, begins to go to him, in a strange, solemn panic, but stops short, as though it isn’t their place to interrupt, and positions themself to hear the remainder of the interview)

Scene V

S. Okay, what is it you want to talk about

A. Now we can talk straightly I should ask you what you wanted to achieve

S. Achieve with what?

A. With Unchained

S. That’s not a straight question, and it’s one I’ve been attempting to answer

A. Attempting, yes, answering, no.

S. Then tell me what it was since you know so much more of it / than I do

A. The answer is it doesn’t matter what you were trying to achieve. Which is good since you cant have thought too hard about it.

S. Thought about it? I worked on it for/ months and months

A. But if you want to know, you’ve achieved the acceptable face of despair. The maniac who wears a thousand dollar suit in the bath. Do you think that was necessary?

S. Those were his clothes, he could afford to leave them, that’s clearly not the point / of the scene

A. Did he still need to look beautiful while he was slitting his wrists? …  In all those lovely close-ups.

S. … I’m not going to grace that with / an actual response

A. I’d like you to answer. I think you need to have an answer.

S. I don’t need to answer, it’s not even a real / question.

A. It’s easy for you to look down on your moviestar hero because he has your money and your fame but just doesn’t quite have his brain together – but to someone who wants that fame and power, the sanity is so quickly given up. If it’s all the same, it’s better to have loved and died. Taking your pick safely from the great heap of debauch and drugs and death, that is a privilege not afforded to everyone

S. To anyone who makes a hero out of a suicidal drug-addict I can only wish them the best of help

A. Do you think those people aren’t even worth a thought? And they didn’t make him a hero, you put a halo round his head and on a poster in the window, and called like the pied piper to suffer little children unto Uncle Sam, and the perfect cuts in  his arm. oh, that habit of yours of draping your sets in blood? These people of yours, that come from nowhere and bleed high-class blood for their fawning female followers, every film you let the pretty man die last, and wash your hands of him. If you want people to believe in your art, in your theory, they believe in the sweat and the blood. And that is what you have to want, and that is what you have to work with.

S. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about. You think that because I have a character killing himself people are offended, people are hurt? I feel sorry for explaining now because yes, all that is posthumous, it doesn’t matter. You’d have to be an idiot when you’re watching the film to think – ah, this is a false presentation, the is a limb of some privileged ego, because it’s clearly a good fucking film. And I don’t think you understand what that means, how that happens. I write. I do not do. I don’t have the competence to do. I write. And you, you do with that what you can. Because that’s your part of the deal. It isn’t my problem if people are scared, it never has been, if they’re scared they can stop watching.

A. They were scared. They were scared when your all of your characters were just meat to be cut up by some two-bit psycho but now they’re in love with him and you and the clothes and the bathroom, and the stunning high-rise symmetry, and the wonderfully inevitable violence. Not random violence, but deliciously calculated torture of the self. Yes, you’re right it’s a good film, so you need to know what that means. Every piece of beauty is a suggestion of something perfect, hiding beneath all of your mindless glory boys, that promise of the punctual overdose and the blood red in the bath spilling out to a perfect death. All the roughness beaten out into a soft, thin, golden film. Unchained.

Serssman stands and leaves in silence. Just before exiting he turns back quickly

S. I’ll get someone in touch but I can assume you’re not publishing any of this? 

Aliastiav returns the batteries to the tape recorder and replaces it in her bag.

Scene VI

Beatrik is by the door.

S. I didn’t know journalists had developed the habit of being insane. Sorry what are you doing there? I gave you time to work.

B. I was. Sorry. Did she see your jacket?

S. My jacket? (He brushes it again) No, it’s fine. Sorry, you said you were working? What happened?

B. She was talking to you?

S. Who?

B. She talked to you about the news

S. That woman? What news?

B. The film is talked about in a few hours ago

S. Talked about what? What did we do?

B. You didn’t. It was a man on there. He was- they were talking about the film

S. What, an interview? God, I’m not doing more of those. Look, the film’s done it’s bit I don’t need to keep going around defending it, people watch it, people like it. I’ve held up my end, so at least for the two of us, little beatrik, we can go on as though it never happened.

B. I could show you. Look.

S. Young man twenty five dead by suicide – why are you trying to disturb me?

B. The photo

S. … Christ. Oh this is going to cause me a nightmare.

B. Is it wrong?

S. What-? 

B. What are you going to say to them?

S. Say, I’m not going to say anything. If a madman wants to dress up as my film while he does… Jesus, while he does that, it’s not my problem.

B. I think you should say something.

S. I’ve got nothing to say. If some schizo claims to be jesus you don’t blame the fucking bible. 

B. Alec-

S. No. I don’t know why this causes you people so much grief – you’re in it with me and I say it’s nothing so it’s nothing. You see? You can’t account for the mad and the sick. At best you can account for yourself. And for now what you are is a part of a very good film. So you can be thankful for that.

Serssman leaves. Beatrik stares, looks back at the tape recorder, and considers. Blackout.

Truth And Dances;

Three Portraits from Life 

For Three Actors:

Marshall / Sere / Traxia

Halcourt / Pax / Hangman

Turner / Will / Winter

I. A Private Affair

Crooked, indecorous love,

Creaking beneath and within,

My generation has bones of wood –

Something is going to hurt you

PRIVATE MARSHALL is a young woman, in uniform

HALCOURT is a young man, in uniform

TURNER is a young man, in uniform

MARSHALL

I don’t think I can go on after this evening. 

It’s weighing on me terribly. 

I’ve come out of the cold, at least, but there doesn’t seem to be much more for me inside. 

I hope my words will live a little longer, yours ever faithful, 

Private Marshall.

HALCOURT

Evening

MARSHALL

Good evening Hal

HALCOURT

Occupied, are we?

MARSHALL

No, just busy

HALCOURT

…

MARSHALL

You’ve been out 

HALCOURT

Just surveying the area

MARSHALL

Why?

HALCOURT

I don’t know. It’s probably the last walk I’ll get in before closing time. I suppose you’ve decided writing will help?

MARSHALL

It does help

HALCOURT

Right.

Poetry or prose?

MARSHALL

I don’t know.

HALCOURT

Confessions, then. You know those are terrible to read.

MARSHALL

That’s not really my concern.

HALCOURT

Oh of course, the modern artist.

MARSHALL

…

HALCOURT

Do you want some tea?

MARSHALL

Yes.

HALCOURT

A dangerously brief response. Black?

MARSHALL

Two sugars.

Actually four sugars.

HALCOURT

Christ, who died?

MARSHALL

No one.

HALCOURT

No one yet.

MARSHALL

No one yet.

HALCOURT 

I’ve given you three

MARSHALL

Thank God for moderation.

HALCOURT

Here. Don’t drink at all at once.

MARSHALL

I’m sideways with grief, you know

HALCOURT

Grief? What have you got to grieve over? 

MARSHALL

Oh, sorry, I have plenty of-

HALCOURT

You can’t grieve over abstracts, that’s not grief, it’s melancholy, it’s not real.

MARSHALL

I’m grieving for all the men in the world. What have they done to themselves?

HALCOURT 

We haven’t done anything to ourselves

MARSHALL

Not you, men. Proper men.

HALCOURT

Ah yes, of course, I suppose I don’t qualify-

MARSHALL

Waves and waves of identical men. Walking past me, walking over me.

HALCOURT

And of course you’re the victim of all this 

MARSHALL

I am the victim of anything which seeks to destroy me 

HALCOURT

which in your estimation is…?

MARSHALL

Almost everything 

HALCOURT

Right.

MARSHALL

But them in particular.

HALCOURT

Men are harmless, really. Awful, but essentially harmless.

MARSHALL

I don’t believe that

HALCOURT

Well fine. But I’m experienced with them.

MARSHALL

Really?

HALCOURT

Really.

I’m sure you don’t know what you want – oh such sorrow little Marshall is ssssubjugated

MARSHALL

I’m not-

(Contentedly) 

you don’t understand

HALCOURT

I know I don’t, no one does.

That’s it, isn’t it, no one understands?

MARSHALL

Why do you dress like that, it’s disturbing

HALCOURT Smiles

HALCOURT

Well no one understands me either, but I’d call that a right of privacy.

MARSHALL

Privacy?

HALCOURT

Well, you’re a private person, I’m a private person

MARSHALL

Yes

HALCOURT

I’m not complaining, I think it’s wonderful. England for the English, my head for my mind.

MARSHALL

England for the-? Right. 

HALCOURT

How’s the tea

MARSHALL

… Sweet

HALCOURT

Really… what does that make you then?

MARSHALL

…

HALCOURT

A very private person. Ha.

Scene 2

MARSHALL

It is possible that I have missed the ending, and that I am now hiding underneath the point where change is made.

Like the caterpillar I have scrawled myself up into a bunch of bones, and truth is forming around me. And now, no one can see past my lines – this is the end of my person, and I am falling with only the mist to slow me.

This is the end of one truth, and the beginning of another, my own private death –

The death of a man.

Yours ever faithful,

TURNER

What’s this?

MARSHALL

Nothing.

TURNER

Nothing?

MARSHALL

Anything’s nothing 

TURNER

I don’t understand

MARSHALL

I’m working.

TURNER

You don’t look like-

MARSHALL

I’m working.

TURNER

Marshall, no one’s after you

MARSHALL

Everyone’s after me

TURNER

Are you…?

I’ve been waiting to talk to you and I realise now I don’t know why. I don’t…

Are you really saying you’re… lonely?

MARSHALL

I’m distraught. Destroyed.

TURNER
Well I can’t help with that

MARSHALL

I didn’t ask you to help

TURNER
You haven’t asked me to leave either

MARSHALL

Would you?

TURNER

No.

You know there are other places to look than… than here

MARSHALL

Don’t.

TURNER
If these are your problems, you can’t look inside yourself for answers.

MARSHALL

Not now, Turner, please

TURNER
If you think you’re going to die one of these days, you’re not going to be able to reason your way out of…

MARSHALL

Out of what.

TURNER
Either way.

He’s listening.

MARSHALL
I don’t think I’m up to that conversation at the moment

TURNER

Whatever it is. 

Anyway.

You need to say something, yes? Then say it. It’s okay.

MARSHALL

I’ve told everyone who needs to know.

(she almost laughs)

TURNER

Has anyone said to you that you’re an unbelievable hypocrite

MARSHALL

Yes.

TURNER
You’re writing to god. Whatever selfish, paraphiliac god that is.

MARSHALL

I am in the process of working through a problem which you do not understand, and which no one understands, and your attempts to break into my consciousness are not interesting to me, because nothing is interesting to me, except the one thing which is killing me, and I would like you to leave now.

TURNER

Confessions, then. Not for us to see?

MARSHALL

…

TURNER

There are lots of ways to begin, Marshall, but only one way to end.

Scene 3

MARSHALL

Everything is dead in me – except what is killing me.

A woolen doll, stuffed with the corpse of a man. And all these layers of a person packing me into that place which I don’t understand.

And there is a beating heart, somewhere tied up in the fabric, which senses something honest, and something which I am so, so scared to say,

Because I know that it will make me into nothing

Yours ever,

HALCOURT

Oh hello

TURNER

I didn’t realise he was taking visitors

HALCOURT

You’ve been cheating on me, darling 

MARSHALL

(a little delighted)

I don’t know what that means

TURNER

Have you got anywhere?

HALCOURT

Don’t encourage him

MARSHALL

I want a drink

HALCOURT

Where the hell are you going to get a drink from 

TURNER

(Producing a flask)

Here.

HALCOURT

Here’s to Turner’s holy water

MARSHALL

Thankyou

She drinks, a little too long

Thankyou 

HALCOURT

Does that suffice for your morals then? 

TURNER

You are a terrible, and devious little person

HALCOURT

I am rather 

TURNER

Why don’t you give Marshall a chance?

MARSHALL

Please don’t.

HALCOURT

See – this is what he wants from me. Nice words and the knowledge that I’m right. I suppose you’d call that religion…

TURNER

Damn poor excuse for religion; look at you both. Fighting over scraps of the soul, mind and body.

HALCOURT

Soul, mind and body? 

TURNER 

Charity builds churches, schools and hospitals.

HALCOURT

Prophesy, Philosophy and Pornography. There’s your trinity. 

St Paul, Plato and Playboy.

TURNER 

Do you actually destroy everything you touch?

HALCOURT

Would you like to find out?

TURNER

…

I don’t believe you

MARSHALL

wait…

HALCOURT

Come here 

MARSHALL

Wait.

HALCOURT

Come on. Come and see what the world looks like.

MARSHALL

Don’t, Turner, he-

HALCOURT grabs TURNER’s face and kisses him, TURNER resists and HALCOURT insists, pushing them both to the ground. TURNER scrambles up from underneath him.

HALCOURT

What do you have that body for?

MARSHALL

Hal-

HALCOURT

God be in my hands, so I can turn my pages? In my eyes to watch the world sit still?

TURNER

You know nothing 

HALCOURT

There is no virtue, Turner, I know.

I’ve seen. 

TURNER

Seen what? 

HALCOURT 

Whatever’s going on behind your eyes, the same as what’s out there. I’ve seen that.

TURNER

I only came here to help.

HALCOURT

Well you’ve made a bloody good effort-

MARSHALL

Please. I’m done. 

I’m ready.

HALCOURT

You’re- what?

MARSHALL

I have to tell you something, and it isn’t going to- work very nicely 

TURNER

Okay

HALCOURT

Sorry, what do you-

This is what you’ve been writing?

TURNER

You can’t end all of this yourself

MARSHALL

Maybe not. 

But please, listen.

And, now, I think, it might help.

SCENE 4

MARSHALL

I have drawn up my terms of engagement with myself, and I know, that there is no real comfort in hiding, only comfort in not being seen.

So here I am, standing in front of… ha… standing in front of a boy…

And I am saying that I am in love, but I’m in love with the truth. Holding the truth close to me, burning it into my chest. 

Terrible love. Faithful love, of a truth known only to me, but of a truth which is killing me. 

And now I understand. 

The words at the end of a long silence…

Coming up for breath…

The thrashing fear of coming up for breath, and opening my body to the air,

And saying

That my body is dead, and that    I am a woman,

Before the first waves break over me

Yours ever-

Mortal,

Marshall.

Mar-

sha

END

II. His Bride

is it so that skin can bleed

still hours after death?

and is it so that hope condenses 

cold on glassy breath?

that youth undoes each syllable

and falls like silk to ground

As these old bruises weigh themselves

Too old yet to be found

I love myself in you – that is 

My faith, my living hope

Delivers me my words, to speak, 

Too old, too young to cope.

WILL is a young man, in a wedding gown.

SERE is a young man. 

PAX is a young man. 

Scene 1

WILL

I’ve been sitting here for seven days.

Not eating.

Not married.

Not a woman, by the way. I might as well be, but I’m not. I’m just a man. Man? A boy. Urgh. I’m just here.

This is the best way to do this – it probably doesn’t look like it, but it is. 

There we are. Let them drown in- let them drain in.

SERE

He’s been sitting there for days I reckon. Ha. I reckon he has. Yeah I- I reckon he has been. 

Isn’t he hungry? 

You’d think he was a girl sitting there. Might as well be. Ha. But he’s not. He’s a- he’s like the rest of us.

Sitting there… what’s he thinking? Yeah, makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what’s he thinking… what’s he thinking.

Yeah I don’t know. I don’t know.

PAX

She’s been sitting there for like a week. I mean, God- 

Little girl in a wedding dress doesn’t eat that much, hm? Yeah. 

I should say she’s not a woman, she just likes the dress. I think it’s awful. But doesn’t she look so cute, hm?

But either way it’s not her dress. It’s not hers and she shouldn’t be wearing it. I mean god, what a woman has to go through these days, hm hm hm!

WILL

So I’m gonna sit here a bit longer. And god give me peace.

Scene 2

PAX

Leave peace to the gods, Sarah

SERE

Se-yuh

PAX

Sa-ra 

SERE

I don’t think you’re trying very hard

PAX

I want to try now, do I?

SERE

Yeah, well – yeah, Pax, that’s not what it is 

PAX

Yeah, well – I apologise with the utmost sin-ce-ri-ty.

SERE

Sometimes I think- sometimes I think you like making good things bad. Like you just tear him to shreds Pax, sometimes- 

you tear him up.

PAX

Some of us like being torn up dar-ling, it’s what we call the experience.

SERE

I just don’t like it with your hands all over him. 

You’re worse than an animal. Worse than an animal, I call it.

PAX

I’ll take him when you’re done with him.

SERE

(To PAX, leaving)

Yeah well, thankyou. 

(To WILL)

How is he then, how is he? 

All pale and shaky, all cold and sad – that’s you isn’t it? 

Well that’s all fair. 

It’s nice you’ve done your hair nice, still – lovely hair. 

Wake up, eh? Wake up and chat.

WILL

You talk to me like I’m sick 

SERE

Yeah, sure, sorry

WILL

I’m not sick

SERE

Yeah, right-o

Scared though.

WILL

Yes I’m scared, I’m always scared. All I ever am is scared.

SERE

Well it’s not snowing tonight.. 

And you can stay nice and safe out here, still, for a bit. 

And if there’s snow you’ll be stronger than it.

WILL

I don’t believe that.

SERE

Yeah well. Have what you can. 

He wants to talk to you after me.

WILL

I’m not stronger than snow, I’m weaker, I’m weaker than snow.

SERE

Alright, see ya

Exit SERE

WILL

(In a breath) 

I AM AS WEAK AS THE AIR – I AM AS WEAK  AS THE SPACE BETWEEN THE AIR – I AM LESS THAN NOTHING

He collapses, PAX enters

PAX

Oh, I see. You’re doing this again. 

Well I won’t stand for it, darling, I won’t stand for it. 

I won’t watch as you tear your eyes out over a boy. No, she’s a strong woman, isn’t she William, isn’t she William?

WILL

I really don’t believe you sometimes

PAX

Oh, I don’t believe you ever. 

Now, I want you to stand up for me and say I AM MASTER OF MY DESTINY, I AM THE LORD OF-

WILL

Shut up, shut up, please stop talking to me

PAX 

I am the lord of the dance, said she.

But it’s a lovely dress, and I won’t have you crying in it.

PAX covers WILL’s eyes

Oh beautiful- we’re both seeing nothing. It all tastes of nothing. 

WILL

Please, don’t touch me. It doesn’t help.

PAX

Well on your crown be it, darling.

(leaving) sending love and hope to the recently decease-d

Don’t sleep in it.

PAX leaves

WILL

I won’t sleep. I can’t sleep. 

I’m surrounded by sheets but I’m being strangled, on all sides. Strapped into that place which I don’t understand.

You. You and these lights and this stage and that- you’re corseting me. 

But this is the best way to do it. Honesty. Honesty always. 

You couldn’t watch me sleep. You’d be bored to death. 

You’d be sure – 

But you’d be bored to death.

WILL lies down on his side

Scene 3

SERE

(sitting by WILL, he offers him a biscuit, WILL snaps some off, they both eat briefly in silence)

We’re all- we’re all going on with something.

Don’t bother that he’s always making it out like it’s all one thing, yknow, cause- it’s all sorts isn’t it. 

Yknow – love.

WILL

(glaring at him joylessly) 

I like the cold. 

I feel amazing. Everything feels…

SERE

Yeah

WILL

I feel like the sky.

SERE

Yeah, well.

We’re sitting down now.

WILL

(Only just smiling) everything is bliss, now.

Distance and daisies.

SERE

Almost makes you stand up

WILL

Almost.

SERE 

I’ve been walking, yknow. Down along that way. Nice, sort of, nice place.

WILL

I think I need some time.

SERE

Yeah, yeah, I see it.

He heads off reluctantly 

Keeping the sharks off… 

WILL smiles at him


It does suit you, a bit.

WILL

Goodbye

SERE signs off, leaves

WILL

Well you’re all looking at me now. I suppose it’s difficult not to.

But I’m sorry – I just want to be honest with you. 

It’s not about anyone, as much as it’s about me. I didn’t ask for this, but it’s what I’m left with. The feeling of winter, and the traces of his hands all over me. 

But I’m keeping the dress clean. However it comes out.

PAX enters

Pax.

PAX

We’re still sitting there, hm? Well I don’t blame you. It’s a tricky world out there, isn’t it. 

For a girl like you.

WILL

You know I can’t stand you any longer

PAX

Well that’s okay. That’s just fine. We’ll have a nice long talk, you and me, and we’ll figure it all out

WILL

I can’t even look at you 

PAX

That’s what the glasses are for, darling. 

He takes WILL’s glasses

And as soon as you dry your eyes 

He breathes on WILL’s glasses and clears them 

You’ll see us all perfectly beautiful again. 

WILL

You know you’re just as bad as him

PAX

No, I’m just as good as him. Aren’t I?

WILL

(Clearly provoked) 

No.

PAX

Oh because you’re his little bride-

WILL

NO FOR GOD’S SAKE NO

PAX 

But I make up for it, don’t I / darling

WILL

I DON’T WANT YOU HERE PLEASE PLEASE GO

PAX

Oh I’m just fine, we’re just fine, me and you. We’re the blind man, 

He grabs WILL’s shoulders, WILL tenses 

Feeling our way around…

WILL

I can’t feel my hands

PAX

(Taking his hands)

Well we’re cold, darling

WILL

He said it wouldn’t snow.

PAX

Well he says lots of things, his damn mouth is always open

Will retreats

Oh you’re no fun anymore.

Freeze yourself to death out here, I don’t care.

But there are always warmer places. And maybe inside you wouldn’t need to wear all of this.

PAX leaves

Scene 4

WILL

(singing imprecisely)

Violets wilt and daisies die,

As the snowdrops, so will I

Daisy give your heart away,

Remember this…

      … your wedding day

That’s real love. I don’t get a choice. It’s all or nothing. 

And I get colder and colder out here. Because they’re both inside. He’s inside.

And that’s honesty. Honesty always.

So I’ll clear things up if you want; I’m tearing my eyes out over both of them because you don’t get to choose. 

(As a slogan) 

Get involved with someone who hates themself and you get two for the price of one:

Pax and Sere – Se-ruh? See-ree? Why the fuck did I pick that name. But anyway, I’m sad about a boy, and that’s as good as it gets.

And maybe I could have worn real clothes but you only live once, right? 

It’s all boring, really. 

Is that the truth? Probably not. I don’t know. Who cares. 

Do you care? It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.

Yknow, curtain.

I’m going back inside.

END

III. Sexagesima

In the game of Hangman,

The obscured word may remain unknown

And the man will die.

HANGMAN is a young man

WINTER is a young man 

TRAXIA is a young man

Scene 1

TRAXIA

So what is this? You want me to just stand here and listen to you yeah? god, okay, tell you what, I’m going to leave now, I’m gonna leave and give you your fucking ‘peace of mind’, alright? 

Hey? Do you want me to do that? 

Ohhhh fuck. I’m not even talking to you anymore am I. Jesus.  

I’ll see you about then. If you’re done thinking.

(Exit Traxia)

HANGMAN

I’ve actually lost my body, and the funny thing is-

My eyes are red from all the- ha- from all the sleeping through the day.

So I thought it might be worth asking whether you’d help me. However desperate that sounds, because, my body’s been left out somewhere and I- I really don’t know where it is. 

Tear. Drops. Rain. Drops. Teardrops Raindrops. Tear- tear- tear— drops. Keep the air in, close the doors, and raindrops outside like- and teardrops outside like (inbreath) rain. 

Teardrops outside like rain.

I am sinking into that place which I don’t understand. I am writing up my- terms of engagement with myself.

Firstly, to say— it is not permissible both to open the windows and to turn on the lights, in that, it is not acceptable both to breathe and to see, because, there are things outside which must not be allowed to come in, and yet—

I have just run out of answers, or that, my answers have just run out of me, in that, my answer has just run out- on me.

So here’s the answer by the hour: I am tired. And I can pretend to be satisfied and I will let my eager answers- let my ego answer me.

I have absolute faith in everything.

Now, I am going to feel myself working. Wind myself up and let myself go in the image of…

Hangman. 

I love you. I love you. There it is. Hangman.

Scene 2

WINTER

So do we just sit around?

HANGMAN

Yeah, that’s the point.

WINTER

Oh, okay.

HANGMAN

I’m glad you’re here

WINTER

Me too

HANGMAN

Do you want a cup of tea?

WINTER

No

HANGMAN

Good. I don’t know how I would have gone about that. 

WINTER laughs

Don’t do that.

WINTER

Sorry.

HANGMAN

What do you want to do?

WINTER
Honestly?

HANGMAN

No

WINTER

Oh… then… what?

HANGMAN

What do you think? You should want? 

Now, here, this;

What do you want to want?

WINTER

Come on, that’s…

I don’t know, I guess?

HANGMAN

Yeah. So.

When you do.

WINTER

Huh. 

…

I want to- know how this happened?

(HANGMAN smiles, WINTER receives it and moves in slightly)

HANGMAN

…

Oh fuck it, there’s no point.

Scene 3

HANGMAN

This can’t be a functional… thing.

The writer with his hands tied to the bed… Maybe he’d get some sleep- maybe I’d-

And I’d sleep there, under those clothes, as though it were nothing, although it is nothing, and though it will be nothing, I feel something, in that I feel some thing as I fall into nothing, and fall over nothing into something, into someone, into…

Some white figure – at the end of the bed, some spirit thinly under-clothed in white, under some spirit, disclothed into thin whiteness, a thin spirit disclosing whiteness under-

Under a mile of nothing.

He gestures in frustration.

A spirit is a solution if the spiritual is unsolvable, yet if solvable, a soluble spirit dissolves in a spiritual solution – a spirit-solvent solely solving. Yet.

He produces a flask, TURNER’s

Solution to disillusion: dissolution of spirit diluted in spirit unsolving.

He drinks, a little too long

Fuck. 

(Thinking, then quickly, rhythmically, in a breath)

Where is this empty place? It seems a fall 

Befalls my conscious head, and so withal

My voice from low to high – as high to low

My conscience falls – falls, and in quickness, slow

It slows my quickness to a sleep, so much

A fall from place, in grace requires – should such

A fall, though heading to no end, require

My head’s end, fallen end or head the higher?

Ha.

There’s any proof.

But hell, –

It is not that I have to talk a lot, but that we have a lot to talk about, because it is not that I do not love you…

It is- not that I do- not love you.

There it is.

Scene 4

WINTER

So do we just sit around?

HANGMAN

No, sorry. I’m sorry, it’s just I haven’t thought of anything for us to do yet

WINTER

Well, it’s not like we have to-

HANGMAN

It’s just that- 

Together. I- really want to do something together.

WINTER

Aw. Yeah, we can – that’d be nice, maybe.

HANGMAN

I could make you a cup of tea

Winter laughs

What- is that-?

WINTER

(Smiling)
No, it’s just, I’m not sure you could…

HANGMAN

(Smiling with him)

Oh- huh – ha, yeah

Sorry, it’s just- I haven’t thought of anything for us to do yet.

WINTER

Um, yeah, you said.

HANGMAN

Sorry, yeah, it’s just that I- don’t- not- entirely… not love you…

WINTER
You don’t- not…?

HANGMAN

Yeah, exactly, I-

I don’t not, and I-

I haven’t- thought of anything for us to do yet?

WINTER
…

HANGMAN

…

I don’t have problems with intimacy.

WINTER

No. uh.

HANGMAN

I am going to need to say now, that I’m going to leave, temporarily, but I need to say, also, that I’m not leaving temporarily, and that I’m leaving permanently.

So you should leave as well.

I’m leaving. Sorry.

Scene 5

TRAXIA

That went well

HANGMAN

No.

TRAXIA

I can’t believe you. 

Where have you got to now, huh? Trying to figure out what comes next.

HANGMAN

No. I don’t know.

TRAXIA

Hey, you’re not a victim, Hal – you’re  a guy who doesn’t know where to put his hands.

HANGMAN

I don’t think it’s time for this

TRAXIA

It’s not like I actually walked out on you, like you weren’t basically asking me to

HANGMAN

I didn’t say- anything

TRAXIA

Yeah god knows you didn’t. 

HANGMAN

I’m sorry I don’t have my phone

TRAXIA

What. What the fuck does that mean?

HANGMAN

I’m sorry.

TRAXIA

Hey, do you want to try that again?

HANGMAN

I’m sorry.

TRAXIA

…

Yeah

HANGMAN

Sorry.

Sorrow, sadness sympathy self-pitying-

I don’t think this is the time. This isn’t the time to think. I don’t think there is time… This time I don’t think.

Open, empty, arbitrary accuracy acrimony undone.

If he is undone, I am open. If he is open, I am undone. 

I don’t think, I am empty, I am undone.

There it is.

Scene 6

WINTER

So do we just sit around?

HANGMAN

Winter roses

WINTER

Okay, hm.

HANGMAN

I could see that there was a soul caught in the thorns last winter

WINTER

That’s nice.

HANGMAN

And I picked you the moment the petals began to grow heavy with blood

WINTER

Thanks

HANGMAN

And I stared for a second into the face of a truth, and a place which I did not understand

WINTER

I didn’t see you yesterday

HANGMAN

And I remembered moments of silence, inside the black walls a girl writing letters and two voices tying up a dress.

WINTER

Still, it’s nice that you came along. I do actually want to see you.

HANGMAN

But then so many flowers were coming into bloom, I could hardly recognise your face.

WINTER

I really do.

HANGMAN

So I picked as many as I could – 

(cascading into darkness) 

roses, lilies, violets, daisies, snowdrops. Teardrops.

(Until very darkly)

Raindrops.

WINTER

Teardrops?

HANGMAN

Raindrops.

Keep the air in, close the doors and teardrops outside like-

Suddenly TRAXIA replaces WINTER

rain

 TRAXIA

Jesus, you haven’t even-

I am so fucking tired and you’re making me worry about you, I swear to god, I don’t have the- 

I don’t even know why I came back in. I was gonna say I left something but-

…

Fuck, well, goodbye. Again.

…

Huh. Really nothing to say. 

…

TRAXIA exits

HANGMAN

Nothing to say. 

It means nothing to say it means nothing.

But there is – truth- somewhere, tied up in sheets, corseted by the lights and the stage. Somewhere, a heart, bound up in a curtain.

And that’s honesty. Looking out at you. Beckoning you.

That’s the feeling, after the crash of the water and the cold, letting the air breathe through you, 

letting the world break down, 

turning away from the last look of a person and slowly, 

slowly, 

falling in love with the truth.

SLATER

NOTES ON FORM

Though the subscenes were originally executed with v/o through a visible backstage relay, a stage configuration whereby the actors ‘onstage’ can be seen performing Slater may better sustain the flow of the performance during extended subscenes. The division between the green room and the stage is left to directorial discretion. The change of location between scenes is quick, and should be helped by production design (particularly sound) to come across clearly without interrupting the continuity of scenes.

NOTES ON CHARACTER

Rich Weiss plays Bill Tenfold. Rich is in his thirties, and has been in underpaid but sincere theatre work since youth. He values no one and nothing more than his art, and is rarely focussed on anything else.

KD Mack plays Daryl. KD is only nineteen, and is clearly in his first adult production, in which he has exerted no effort to be cast. He enjoys acting, but has yet to shake a schoolboy attitude towards its importance.

Peter Selfield plays Ben Tellerman. Peter is in his fifties, and finds the company of Slater a regrettable, albeit temporary downgrade from his usual standard of work. 

Davey Jennings plays Dennis Pinner. Davey is in his fifties, and is still suffering the hangover from a series of pulp action films. He sees theatre as a way back in, but ultimately doesn’t understand it.

Will Irons plays Slater. Will is in his early forties, and enjoys the spotlight of Slater like any other, and any component of the production outside of his own voice and face serve, in his eyes, only to complement them.

Alex Dee is a Stage Manager. Alex is in his twenties, and has not yet developed the necessary cynicism for his position. His genial, collaborative attitude commands no respect whatsoever

NIGHT I – 7 Days Before Reviews

1999. A theatre green room. The tables are cluttered. The actors enter the green room, and complete their Slater costumes

Alex

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Winston Theatre, and to this preview performance of Simon Denison’s Slater. Please take your seats, the show will begin shortly. 

Mr Irons this is your beginner’s call for Act I. And a note to everyone, please return your personal props to the table stage right after your scene. You won’t be able to leave things lying around next week when we have to do quick get-outs on the road. With that in mind, break a leg everyone, thanks. Cue one for lights.

Will exits to stage, the remaining actors in the opposite direction.

Subscene 1

Slater

(Very much overshooting the conversation)

So I told him there weren’t going to be any drinks there – hah! Her loss, really, all things considered. He’s a- sort of a good man as it were. Well anyway, it’s all sorted so you’re welcome to come along. Yes it’s all good. Not much my doing, when it comes down to it, but still, I’m the one who gets the cards, yes. I’ll be playing solitaire by the end of the night – hah! Well I ought to. They shouldn’t keep me on ice, as it were. The potential is there, that’s what’s so terrible about it. I spend more time on the edge of something than ever doing anything.  You know If God were kind he’d never give us a chance. Know your lot and stick to it – a little cottage opposite the church at Stoke row; the boredom wouldn’t half compare to the stress. I can only thank god that I have someone like you to look after details. I have to seem like I care, you see, but I can’t get anything sizeable done if I bother with what goes where and who eats what, or whom – hah. I’d be careful, Sugar, people always eat each other when you least expect it. I confess I’m not entirely innocent myself… Yes I’m not sure what that means, actually. I’m fairly sure I don’t want to eat anyone but I suppose one can’t be certain, times being what they are. But I suppose you can hardly blame the times for any of it. Still it’s easy to get caught up in it, the way things are. Train stations and that sort of thing. Honestly, a friend of mine spent three hours looking for someone in a train station only to find he was looking for himself – hah! Although to be perfectly fair, that might have been a dream. Well, like I said it’s hard to tell. I don’t know if I’m a butterfly dreaming of being a man or a- you know the sort of thing

Scene I

Rich, KD, Peter, and Davey sit on chairs which they have evidently separated intentionally. Peter reads over his lines with calm focus, Davey fills in a sudoku from a newspaper. Alex does various jobs outside of the green room, and either calls his lines in or comes just through the door when called.

Rich

What? Is that right? Alex? Alex?

Alex

Yes?

Rich

A butterfly dreaming of being a man? I thought we dropped that.

Alex

No, Simon wants it in

Rich

Oh. A man dreaming of being a butterfly. An actor dreaming of being a man. Ha. The same dream six nights a week-

KD

Oi

Rich

A hundred weeks a year for what… The curtains going up and down like a…

KD

Oi

Rich

Like a mouth opening and closing. Yes. The stage like… A mouth bearing its wooden teeth and licking its velvet lips. And… And we’re in this tank, waiting a few metres away, for a hundred thousand nights. Waiting to be eaten alive. No. Waiting to be-

KD

Oi

Rich

What?

KD

The fuck are you on about? 

Rich

(He sighs)

Nothing. Ever.

KD

Those your lines?

Rich

(Offended)

No.

KD

We should do our lines.

Rich

I’m thinking.

KD

Yeah, same.

Rich

Ha. I’ve lost my bookmark.

KD

Lost your book as well.

Rich

It’s a mental thing.

KD

You’re a mental thing, “ha”.

Davey

(From nowhere)

Are they ever going to get past scene one? 

Rich

Good morning

Davey

He’s enjoying himself too much. The audience want to get into the action.

Peter

And when exactly does that start?

Davey

I don’t know, probably- with the party, and Faircroft, and-

Rich

We’ve cut Faircroft.

Peter

Oh good – it might have been entertaining otherwise. It’s no surprise the audience aren’t reacting, Simon cuts wherever he hears laughter. 

Rich

It’s a bad crowd. 

Peter

And it’s been a bad crowd for four nights?

Davey

It could be worse than silence, it’s dramatic. It’s gradual.

KD

Yeah actually it’s so long and I’m not even on till like the end. And then like nothing even happens

Davey

I think that’s supposed to be ‘art’. Spose they don’t teach you that at NYT?

Peter

Where’s your high horse come from, Harry Gunshots

Davey

It was Harry Hotshots, actually. And I like Slater. Just cause it’s not- Burt Reynolds doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.

Rich

There is a kind of sweet justice that your best role in twenty years is playing an aging, middle-class neurotic 

Davey

Piss off. Okay, I might not like this, but it’s bona fide. You know, proper theatre.

Peter

Ibsen is proper theatre. When I was at the National they didn’t hire charity cases like you and boy wonder. Are you sure you find the play interesting, or just Tessa’s secretary costume?

Davey

(sternly)

I like it. It’s challenging.

Peter

Challenging to sit through, yes

Rich

(slightly hurt)

Well why don’t you wait to see what people think, yeah?. It’s only a matter of time before someone realises what Simon’s actually doing. 

Peter

They realised with Solicitudes, and The Marshborough Cycle

KD
Yeah I saw that. It was shit.

Rich

It wasn’t shit. It was subtle. And Solicitudes was never meant for a proscenium theatre.

Peter

If they’d done it in the round it just would have been bollocks on four sides instead of one. People don’t talk like that. You might pretend to, but people don’t.

Rich

That’s ridiculous. Simon’s changed anyway – Slater has ‘purpose’, that’s what Spencer wanted last time, wasn’t it not just ‘inane commentary.’ They ought to take him seriously with this, he told me himself he can’t carry on if they keep slashing him in the papers.

Davey

Ah to fuck with the reviews. Doubt you’ll get a mention anyway.

Rich

And there’s the point. Simon has his neck on the line and I can do whatever the hell I want. I’m nothing more than a loose end in his murder investigation, a citation in his biography.

Peter

Are you writing plays again?

KD

You’re writing plays?

Rich

I am not writing plays. 

KD

What because of Simon?

Rich

I am not writing because I don’t have the faculties. ‘My wit’s diseased’.

Peter 

Oh brilliant, Rich. Words words words from England’s most middle-aged regional theatre Hamlet.

Rich

That’s awful.

Peter 

It was awful. “What Richard Weiß’s Hamlet lacked in youth and energy, he made up for with an insufferable literary arrogance” two stars. No wonder you’re stuck here making your own coffee and sharing digs with Mr Discman.

KD

Discman?

Peter

Oh just- sorry I can’t keep up with a bunch of- bi-curious- Shakespeare in Love- cardigan-wearing nancies. 

Rich

You already said bi-curious

Davey

I’ve got to take this moustache off. 

Rich

Just stay here, I’m sure they’ll keep going without you.

Davey

Yes I’m sure the critics will love Slater’s balcony monologue where, instead of talking to Pinner, he smokes both a cigarette and a pipe while going insane

KD

Honestly, like, that could be in it

Alex

Mr Jennings this is your two minute call. And please do actually go on.

Davey

Was he listening to us?

Rich

None of you understand this play do you 

KD

No

Davey

(getting up)

No one does. Listen.

Rich

What?

Davey

That was a joke. That was a joke and no one laughed because they’re being forced into thinking it’s too clever for them.

Rich

But that’s Simon’s point. You can’t understand.

Davey

What kind of an excuse is that?

Rich

Simon knows how these things work.

Davey

People?

Rich

Plays

Davey

It is a play, yes

Rich

I don’t understand why everyone thinks its worthlessness goes without saying

Peter

Because it’s bollocks

Rich

Very helpful

Peter

Simon may know how plays work but he doesn’t know the first thing about people.

Rich

But- characters aren’t people, they’re just vehicles for meaning.

Davey

I suggest you spend more time living in the real world, Rich

Rich

God no

Peter

Whatever you and Samuel Beckett might think, it isn’t interesting. No one cares, except people like you who think dulling the audience into a mixture of fear and confusion is a theatrical success. At least in Godot they have funny hats.

Rich 

Action is pointless, inaction is sublime

Peter

Inaction is dull, in here or onstage. And your bloody ramblings about theatre are only better than Simon’s because we’re not paying to listen to you.

Alex

Mr Jennings, could you make your way stage left, thanks

Davey

Speaking of 

Davey exits to stage

KD

Break your legs innit 

Rich

Yeah. 

Peter 

God are we only on page nine

KD

(Gesturing upwards)

I don’t really think that’s his problem

Rich

It’s the comedy of the stars

KD

Come on, you were on Eastenders once

Rich

I mean the stars, the fates. 

KD

Ah yeah

Peter

I’m getting tired of this.

Rich

(Rising, with KD)

Me too, I need a smoke. 

Peter

You go, I’ll keep an eye on the play. Make sure no one accidentally enjoys it.

They both leave, Rich raising his middle finger as he exits away from the stage.

NIGHT II – Review Night

Alex

Ms Alban to stage left please. And the Telegraph and Sunday Times are in the front row so don’t drop your jacket this time, it stayed there until the interval yesterday. Thankyou. Cue six for lights.

Subscene 2

Pinner

Well he’s too young to be working in my opinion

Slater

Evidently not

Pinner

Why exactly Tellerman likes him I can’t begin to-

Slater

He’s a picture of young genius, I think. Him and the scruffy one – they’re a perfect team for organising executions.

Pinner

Why do you even want a party if he isn’t going to come

Slater

He’ll be there – and it’s not a party

Pinner

No, of course not. But I presume you want food for your- pointless vanity project

Slater

Oh come on, I’m not writing an opera about myself, I’m doing my job.

Pinner

It’s a slippery slope. And I need to see your…

Slater

Woman?

Pinner

Your assistant. What’s her name?

Slater

Sugar

Pinner

(Disbelieving) 

Really?

Slater

Oh yes. Sugar, honey… something-or-other

Pinner

You haven’t got a nickname for her then

Slater

Sometimes I call her Slater

Pinner

I assume you mean to flatter her

Slater

I mean to make my life easier. If we’re both Slater that’s half as many names to remember

Pinner

Will you excuse us

Slater

Of course

Pinner

I hope you didn’t hear any of that 

Sugar

No

Pinner 

Good, good. Is he alright

Sugar

He is perfectly alright.

Pinner

(Advancing awkwardly)

Good. He uh- he wouldn’t tell me your name.

Sugar 

Sugar. Honey… something or other. You can call me Slater.

Pinner

(Defeated)

God, you’re in on it

Sugar

One has to be.

Pinner 

Well for a woman in your position it’s- well, necessary, yes.

Sugar

For a woman?

Pinner

Well, for a- for a-

Sugar

It’s alright. I’m perfectly used to it.

Pinner

I really don’t want you to think of me as a- as a subsidiary of his

Sugar

You undersell yourself

Pinner

Oh I… you don’t really like him, do you

Sugar

Oh I do. He has his merits. But I’m sure you see that.

Scene II

In the green room, Rich paces as KD stands against a wall

Rich 

Oh, what merits? Sugar’s called Slater, Slater’s called Simon – begging forgiveness for the both of them from his absurdist rubber room. … We could do “Slater is a man, in the first instance, for whom masculinity is the primary goal. Sugar, then, is a representation of a male fantasy of subordinate femininity whose underlying male traits betray an instability in the exclusively heterosexual archetype.”

KD

(Looking down at the script)

Your line is “What, here?”

Rich

I don’t want my lines, I want my line

KD

Why?

Rich

For Simon, I need my take on Slater. Someone has to figure it out.

KD

I see

Rich

Really?

KD

No. Is this a weird thing with him?

Rich

Why does everyone talk about Simon like he’s some kind of mentalist who collects old Doctor Who tapes

KD

Does he do that?

Rich

(Vehemently)

Probably not! He’s a grown man. I just feel like I have to protect him

KD

Yeah sounds like a grown man

Rich

We should be feeling sorry for him- reviews’ll be out in the morning

KD

Don’t they like all that bollocks though 

Rich

They tolerate that kind of theatre when they’ve paid enough for it; In a place like this it’ll be written off in a second. 

KD

Ok so actors, critics, everyone out there thinks he’s bad, and you think he’s alright

Rich

He is alright

KD

And you’re his friend

Rich

Justice! That’s all I ask. I want the critics to give him what he deserves

KD

You don’t have to stress so much, man

Rich

There’s a serious chance we’re about to be slammed in multiple national newspapers; you’re the one reacting disproportionately

KD

It’s just a job, like, you still get paid. So it’s a bad play, doesn’t mean you’re bad.

Rich

It’s not bad. It’s just the ending doesn’t- How about “The tragedy of Slater’s arc lies precisely its non-conclusion. His arrogance is neither rewarded nor punished – it must be judged simply as a fact.”

KD

Slater’s brilliant, because he’s arrogant – that’ll make Simon feel better about himself

Rich

Then “Slater is a man”?

KD

Right. Why is he a man?

Rich

Because of the paradigm 

KD

What?

Rich

All of the Slater/sugar stuff. “His masculinity strengthens the satire of a theatrical order left to ruin by a developing west”

KD

What about the East?

Rich

Fuck you, it works. (KD sneers) There are only so many ways to skin a cat

KD

Yeah a badly-written cat

Rich

Yes but it’s Simon’s bloody cat

KD

Are you hot for him or something

Rich

Oh piss off

KD

Alright

Rich

Suggestions, then?

KD

Give up

Rich

I am become increasingly aware of that option 

KD

What about Simon though

Rich

What about Simon. What about Simon.

KD

Yeah what about Simon

Rich

I’m thinking… 

KD

How about – go to Simon’s house with a cake

Rich

A cake, a packet of tissues and card that says my godforfucking condolences. I can’t be satisfied with treating the man like a grieving widow

KD

Then marry him

Rich

It is only very very slightly like that

KD

It’s out your hands. Just do him a letter with nice curly writing.

Rich

I just feel like such a…

KD

Heartless bastard?

Rich

I don’t feel good making money off the man’s suicide note

KD

How is that even-

Rich

He gets the reviews tomorrow and then it’s all been a waste of time 

KD

It’s not-

Rich

I know, three stars from the Sunday Messenger New Theatre Spotlight boo-bloody-hoo but he’s a sensitive… man

KD

A sensitive man?

Rich

Yes. Can we get on?

KD

You’re not getting anywhere

Rich

I’m trying! I really do try my best with Slater and I could deal with the bickering and the half-heartedly allusive monologues if there was some sort of string to draw it tight. A door closing, a nervous breakdown, half the characters being poisoned at a fencing match – where are the classics when you need them!

KD

I’m gonna sound like you but that’s the-

Rich

Point! That’s the point! That’s always the point but what does it achieve! It is good, it is, but he makes it so hard for people

KD

Ha.

Rich

God above.

Alex

Mr. Weiß and Mr. Miller, this is your five minute call.

KD

We have actually got to go on

Rich

(Leaving)

Go on! Go on! Always going on – doesn’t get you anywhere, not a bastard step.

Rich exits, followed by KD

NIGHT III – One Day After Reviews

Alex

Mr Jennings and Mr Irons please make your way to stage left, and your cue to enter is with lights up; it may have been late for the critics yesterday but it can still be on time for the people of Northampton tonight. Thankyou. Cue twelve for lights.

Subscene 3

Pinner

Well done with Tellerman – it seems your charms go considerably further than mine

Slater

And food?

Pinner

We don’t have any 

Slater

I don’t believe you 

Pinner

I told you I wouldn’t do it 

Slater

You’re ridiculous

Pinner

I’m helping you. Your reputation won’t make you dinner, as it were.

Slater

(Humourlessly)

What in the bastard hell are you playing at? God swear I do everything for you and the moment I need something in return you shift me off with this – pseudo-moral dexterity. It’s pitiful.

Pinner

You’re quite unlike yourself

Slater

I’d get nowhere if I weren’t

Pinner

Can’t you do anything about it?

Slater

I could try talking to you – or attempt the knife-swallowing trapeze for all the good it would do my blood pressure

Pinner

Are you making note of these

Slater

What do you think she’s for?

Pinner

The question remains…

Slater

But the food is done

Pinner

Of course it is, it always bloody is

Scene III

In the green room.

Davey enters with Will from the stage of Slater.

Will

Somehow it always gets done… It’s a hell of a first half 

Davey 

What?

Will

Just admiring the performance.

Davey

(Picking up a newspaper)

You seem to be the only one.

Will

(Looking over his shoulder)

I didn’t read them

Davey

“Simon Denison’s Slater, despite the best efforts of Will Irons’ promising lead performance, succeeds only in playing an elaborate trick on its audience, whereby the illusion of theatre is created with no substance at all”

Will

Oh!

Davey

Da-da-da-da-dum… here it is; “Keen fans of the Locked and Loaded series may notice David Jennings as Pinner, returning to the theatrical profession, albeit disillusioned by age” – I’m forty-six! Still, I believe it – I’m an ageing businessman dreaming of being an actor. What do you reckon?

Will

I don’t know, try pulling off your moustache

Davey

There’s precious little hope of that – this thing’s tight on. The amount of glue makeup were using, I felt like I was having a plastercast done.

Will 

They should put you in Madame Tussaud’s

Davey

And I’d still look like Pinner 

Will

I’m surprised the core concept of acting is so difficult to you

Davey

It’s all bloody alien – I’m not like this, I’m not this

Will

Yes that’s the idea

Davey

But it’s that way of being the first – the first Pinner there is. And now I have to share this face with that character, some middle-marketing prick born from the mind of a self-important Stoke Row socialite

Will

Simon’s from Hackney

Davey

Oh but it’s all the same. Look at the buttons, the please and thankyou, Pride and Prejudice of all of it. Just listen. The sound of an audience realising they’ve spent forty quid to hear how much better Simon is than them, as if they could have missed that from the Brecht quotes in the programme. And we’ve got to keep this up for four weeks now everyone’s been told it’s rubbish. They won’t even clap if they like it, now, cause someone with a media degree told them they shouldn’t.

Will

You’re angsty, well done, but I don’t believe you want to go off and be an accountant

Davey

I want to be serious. Those buggers on TV always complaining they’re not doing serious theatre, well it’s an uphill bloody battle. A serious actor, if anything, is more of a joke.

Will

Why did you ever get started with it?

Davey

Probably after some girl

Will

Plus ça change

Davey

Tessa’s married. Point is I wanted to get up onstage in a suit and be the kind of person no one would let me be off of it. But now I’m going up there every night, getting slower and sadder every night, being the kind of person everyone reckons deep down I’m actually gonna end up being. Middle aged, bloody balding, bloody-

Will

Posh?

Davey

I’m not – god knows I’m not but who could tell that now. Just look at me, Will. (Will doesn’t look up from his sudoku, Davey stands, Will looks up, looks back.) It’s a dire state of…

Will

Affairs? 

Davey

Very funny

Will

Sorry?

Davey

It’s not like I’ve got anywhere with her. She’s getting enough being fucked over by Simon every night. God, It must be a pathological thing wanting to do the lead. Can’t think of a single play it hasn’t happened.

Will

I’m flattered, but…

Davey

I mean Tessa. I mean the woman for Christ’s sake. And you need to do scene one quicker.

Will

What?

Davey

It gets slower every night, and there’s nothing in it.

Will

I’m not taking notes from you. (Smugly) Anyway, people seem to like me. And if we’re giving notes, you need to be more than frustrated and sarcastic.

Davey

I can’t get through it otherwise. The show’s decaying from its own disappointment – the least I can do is pretend to be in on the joke. I think that’s how Simon wrote it – I ought to believe in him till I eventually off myself.

Will

You sound like Rich

Davey

God, I’m sorry. I was an actual filmstar and I’ve fucked it, look, I’ve just fucked this job. It’s everyone’s dream job and I’ve fucked it. I’ve fallen for the big con. Look at my face. Look. 

Will

Yes?

Davey

It’s unspeakable. I can’t stomach an inch of it.

Will

If you think your face is unspeakable I’ll happily speak your face

Davey

What?

Will

Never mind, I was only trying to cheer you up

Davey

I’m sorry that was lost in translation from the phrase “I’ll speak your face”. Well, not much we can do now, just wait out the war in a bunker.

Will 

You really do sound like Rich

Davey

I can’t help it. He’s the actor’s actor. We all quit or end up like him. It’s half the reason I’m throwing it in

Will

I like him. Not everything he says is rubbish, you know.

Davey

Ah I see – no one listens to the subversive genius. He’s like Ted Kaczynski. Or the IRA.

Will

Alright. I was trying to help you.

Davey

Well thanks. How can I ever repay you?

Alex

Davey, can you get stage left

Will

I take cheque

Davey

(Falsely) 

Where’s my cheque book? Oh sorry, I had to burn it for warmth. I’m practically staying in a doss house. Who knew there was a shit part of Bath?

Alex

Davey, I’m not having two late entrances today.

Will

What are you going to do?

Davey

I’m going to go on 

Will

You’ve gone on a bit already

Davey 

(Getting up)

What’s that smokers say- I can quit whenever I want? A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single fuckup

Will

Just put one foot in front of the other

Davey

One foot in front of the other

Davey exits

NIGHT IV – 14 Days After Reviews

Alex

Peter can you get stage right, thankyou… Now please. Thankyou. Cue thirty-three for lights.

Subscene 4

Pinner

I told you he wouldn’t come

Slater

He’s here.

Pinner

No he isn’t

At this point, Peter rushes into the green room and, during the ensuing dialogue, heads onstage. Alex attempts to reprimand him silently, but is left more apologetic himself than Peter is capable of being

Slater

What authority are you on whether he’s here. I have the divine promise. Now sod off.

Pinner

Yes I’ll hide in the cupboard shall I? Isn’t that a lot for a senior manager.

Enter Tellerman

Tellerman

There’s the man – eponymity must be a great pressure on you, Slater

Slater

What?

Tellerman 

I said, equanimity must be a great pressure on you Slater, with relations breaking up?

Slater

Did you?

Tellerman

Almost. Both are true, you understand. 

Slater

Almost.

Tellerman

Perhaps if the play had any other name, Hamlet may have got on a little more straightforwardly. But be sure Hedda Gabler would still end up with a pistol in her mouth. (Knowingly) Women. I can see this whole business is tearing you up at the seams like a bedlam lark- you put ever too much pressure on yourself.

Slater

One has to meet up to demand

Tellerman

Forsaken men mishandle demand! I’ve been doing my Times cryptics as well, mister Slater, but I’m afraid you’re much worse than damned.

Slater

I should hope so

Tellerman

Prospect of ascendency follows in favour

Slater

Fourteen down. And I’m afraid it has to be ascendency prospect

Tellerman

How do you figure that?

Slater

Definition first: ascendency. Then prospect, ie motion, follows in favour, ie pro. Motion follows pro makes promotion, ie ascendency

Tellerman

Now, now, I abhor symbolism. If a man has business with another man he ought to be straight about it

Slater

I’d agree but what men do in the privacy of their own offices is quite beyond us to dictate

Tellerman

Beyond you, perhaps 

Slater 

You’re free to involve yourself but I can’t say either party will come out satisfied 

Tellerman

There are two types of people that matter, Slater, those who talk towards purpose and those who talk away from it. You are the best of the blind, truly an exceptional practitioner of nothingness, but the business of the great is the business of incantation. People like you spend a lifetime scurrying after what is – while the truly exceptional, Slater, declare what shall be. Incantation. You may be content to be enlisted in telling society to do up its buttons, but you will never write the Bible, mister Slater, not with your woman or otherwise. Daryl will be in touch.

Slater

And there it is. Sentenced to a night in purgatory, waiting for a call.

A scattered applause begins confusedly, and does not last.

Scene IV

In the green room, Davey is filling in another sudoku. Enter Peter and Will.

Peter

Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. 

Davey

How’d it go?

Peter

Well they’re getting a lot louder now they’re leaving. It’s as though Simon got bored of writing the damn thing before giving it an ending. He didn’t even bother to write ‘curtain’.

Will 

I mean, I’m not even getting applause. They were probably expecting a bow.

Peter

They don’t want a bow, they want to leave. Looks like the critics were right after all. 

Will

If I remember, your performance was “reductive and declamatory”

Peter

(Begrudgingly)

Unfortunately, that was the point

Will

(Concealing smugness)

Yeah. Are you going out tonight?

Davey

(Not looking up)

Yep

Peter

Hardly

Will

We can all go – drown our respective… selves?

Peter

With you.

Will

Yeah. Where’s Rich

Peter

With his best friend 

Davey

KD?

Peter

I literally don’t know his name. Why are you looking for Rich?

Will

I’m not- he’s a nice… look fuck off I was just asking 

Peter

Yes it’s going to be great fun, drinks with you 

Will

It’ll be easier with alcohol

Peter

Making it all the more fun for me

Will

It’s your choice not to drink

Peter

I can choose what I want. You don’t see me making fun of your… choices

Will

What?

Peter

I was only making a point 

Will

Yeah. Wow.

Peter

I mean a point about my drinking, Jesus. If it’s any consolation, you can come into my dressing room and have me while I’m getting changed. Or would you rather that were Rich?

Will

Oh fuck off. You don’t have a dressing room. They wouldn’t even give me one

Peter

I do, I share it with Davey.

Davey

(Looking up)

What?

Will

Exactly. Alex, have you seen Rich?

Alex

Yeah, I think he left after scene six.

Davey

I’m not surprised. You’d think with how much he loves the play he’d remember the bloody words.

Will

I don’t think he forgot them

Davey

Oh what, he changed them, did he? If only I’d thought of that, I might still have a chance of being cast in something.

Peter

Might you now?

Davey

What

Peter

Do you really believe anyone saner than Simon would have given you a chance? Driving a sports car and pointing guns at people is not acting. This is Theatre, you know.

Davey

I’ve had enough of that, Ian bloody Mckellen, he cast you as well. I didn’t choose this role for my image, some of us need the money.

Will

Okay, I thought there might be some hope left around here but since you’ve all given up, I’m going, enjoy your drinks.

Davey

(After Will)

Yeah, and you, have fun in your BBC radio dramas. Prick.

Peter

Just the two of us, then. No time for the old…

Davey

I’m forty-six! … Fuck it. I need to drink somewhere.

Rich enters. He takes out of his bag a prop gun, and put it on the props table, begins writing out a label. Alex enters. Throughout the scene Rich is pleasant and straightforward, losing his previous anxiety.

Alex 

Hello?

Rich

(Not looking up)

Hello there

Alex

Are you… What are you doing?

Rich

I am putting (He finishes the label and places it next to the gun, looks up) this handgun on the props table

Alex

Is it a real gun

Rich

No it’s a prop, otherwise I’d put it on the real table. You need to add another cue.

Alex

I can’t- are you just asking me?

Rich

Yes

Alex

So you’re asking me, and I can just say yes, and? What then? Why should I?

Rich

You’re young, you’re unprofessional, you don’t like the show. 

Alex

I’m not-

Rich

The past three nights we haven’t even had half the house in – if they don’t like it, it might as well have been a mass delusion. If they like it, we’re working on a show people can tolerate. Simple as.

Alex

It’s not simple as.

Rich

I’m going to take this, and give it to Will. And tomorrow he’s going to go on with it. It’s up to you if it fires.

Alex

Good luck convincing Will to change the play, he likes it

Rich

He’s said that last line to silence every night since we opened. I think he’ll take the chance.

Rich looks at Alex. Alex’s confidence breaks.

NIGHT V – 15 Days After Reviews

Alex

Rich and KD are you stage left? The theatre isn’t actually empty, you have to go on. Good, thankyou. Cue twenty-seven for lights.

Subscene 5

Tellerman

I will see you this evening

Daryl

(Inciting argument)

I am inclined to persist

Tellerman

Please leave my office

Daryl

What has this man done?

Tellerman

You told me yourself 

Daryl

What are you doing?

Tellerman

What’s gotten into you?

Daryl

Stop asking questions

Tellerman 

It’s not a question

Daryl

Tell me where you’re going!

Tellerman

I’m fixing things!

Daryl

You have no right to do this!

Tellerman 

I have every right! This is my company, keep your head on your shoulders. I will do as I please. Now leave my office, and turn the lights off on your way out.

Daryl

Keep an eye on the time 

Tellerman 

I never take it off.

A light switch is flipped 

Tellerman

All the better to see you with.

Scene V

Alex

Can we please clear the stage properly tonight – I was left to do it myself yesterday. Thankyou. Sorry, just checking, does anyone actually listen to these? I feel like I tell you stuff and you just go on doing whatever you feel like doing. Well if you do feel like following the script, Will you’re on in five. Thankyou.

Rich enters with KD from the stage of Slater, and paces, thinking. KD sprawls over a chair. After a moment, Will enters from the other side of the stage.

Will

Hi

Rich 

Hi

KD 

Alright

Will

… Hi

Rich

Isn’t this exciting

Will

What

Rich

Going on. Going off. Going on again

Will

No?

Rich

A thousand nights in a year

Will

Not now. Please. Alex said you left early yesterday

Rich

I was thinking

Will

Right. But you stayed tonight?

Rich

Could you leave us alone for a minute

KD

That sounds so gay

Rich

Yes, well. We can’t all be perfect.

Will

Are you two done?

KD

Are you two done?

Will 

What?

KD

(venomously)

What?

Rich

Go away

KD

Alright

KD exits

Will

Hello

Rich

Relax, we’re talking shop

Will

Shop, then? What’s shop nowadays?

Rich

Slater

Will

Oh, we’re talking Slater? (In Slater’s voice:) Well, naturally I have opinions on it myself – Ha!

Rich

Did you ever listen to Dead Ringers?

Will

Shut up. I did- want to talk to you actually-

Rich

I want you to tell me what happens in Slater

Will

(Playing)

Wait, this is a trick isn’t it

Rich

Seriously, just tell me-

Will

But I suppose I should play along

Rich

It’s just a question, Will

Will

Aren’t you more qualified to answer? Something about the instability of the paradigm

Rich

You shouldn’t need qualifications to tell me what it’s about

Will

Okay, well. It’s about work, and about… men and women and the instability of the fucking paradigm, what do you want me to say?

Rich

I want you to tell me it isn’t about anything

Will

It isn’t about anything

Rich

That’s a very astute point you’ve made there

Will

Sure is

Rich

And of course, now you’re going to say that you don’t mind it in general

Will

I’m sorry?

Rich

Come on, you don’t mind it in general

Will

Yeah, maybe – what are you doing?

Rich

Come on, I’m writing you a confession. I need you to do something and… you might not want to

Will

Look, I’ve been defending you to- everyone, you can just say

Rich

Defending me?

Will

Sorry. I get you, is what I mean.

Rich

It’s Slater. It’s got no conclusion, the dice are left spinning when the lights go out

Will

I’m sorry?

Rich

I need you to change it.

Will

Change it? Change what?

Rich

I know you believe in it, or you did – because I did. But the ending is wrong. Simon wrote something, which is wrong, and you can hear that. Every night you can hear that. And I think… I can fix it. It’s in here.

Will

What is? 

Rich

A monologue – and this. 

Rich takes out the gun, it isn’t particularly impressive.

Will

(Dryly)

Please tell me that’s a prop

Rich

I kept it from a festival production of The Seagull

Will

Oh come on, that’s cheap

Rich

And loaded

Will

And… interesting

Rich

Yeah?

Will

Yeah

Rich

(Sensationally, he gets closer to Will again, takes out his monologue from his pocket)

It’s in here. Slater is distraught; torn between a life of mindless acceptance and intellectual torture. Tired, frustrated, drunk – Slater considers: to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. As the final words drift off from the stage, Slater looks deeply into nowhere; he sees his dream – in life, an endless string of unfulfilling professional and personal seductions, in sleep, nothing but a few moments of nothing before a six-thirty alarm and a disappointing cup of tea. And beyond that, work… sleep… work… sleep… his hands move half-unconsciously to the inside pocket of his suit, and he withdraws- (By now suggestively close to Will, Rich draws the gun sharply to his head, then utters softly:) Bang. The end of everything.

Will

I see

Rich

And finally the play means something. How do you like it?

Will

It looks… not very period-appropriate

Rich

Suspend your disbelief for fuck’s sake. 

Will

Am I going to do this?

Rich

There’s nothing for it. We have the incomplete article and the means to complete it. A fate predestined by the invisible hands of time and place

Will

I see. ‘The fates are upon me’

Rich

Exactly. Your only chance to submit yourself into the machine of the art – to eat and be eaten. You can take this, or you can let Slater die unfinished. ‘Scarce half made up’.

Will

Okay. (Will breathes deeply, and takes the gun) ‘This is my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine’

Alex

(From outside)

Will?

Rich

You’re on

Will

You’re on

Rich

No, you’re on

Will

(Only now stepping out of intimacy)

Oh, sorry. 

Rich

Go on

Will

You’re sure it’ll be convincing?

Rich

I’m never sure. It’s a play, you just – just do what it says on the paper.

Will

(Breaking into a smile)

Okay. Thanks for the tip. Will winks at Rich, and leaves towards the stage.

Rich

Seven days a week, a hundred weeks in a year, a thousand years in a lifetime. Here in this tank, waiting to be eaten alive. But the curtain is operated by hand. The artist is not only the animal, but the abattoir, the butcher, and the customer. (Rich sits down centre stage)

Rich listens to the relay as the lights are slowly lowered; listening to the monologue he is at first nervous and tentative, but gradually becomes more satisfied as his artistic intention is finally fulfilled.

Slater

And there it is. Sentenced to a night in purgatory, waiting for a call… Predictable enough. Moving from point to point. Politely, prettily, perfectly. I should start keeping a diary, then all of these things can be accounted for. They can stop drifting around and start meaning something. Is that too much to ask? For anything to signify something? I’m sure I can get rid of this… adolescent angst. The question is whether to keep living or start writing about it. Either I can continue to accept all of this, all of this stuff for what it is, or write it all down and hold everything in my life secretly accountable to my own inscrutable principles, either way there’s no good complaining like this. I mean, just by way of an example, I’ve been confronted sequentially by six people today and you would have thought some sort of exchange of information might have occurred, but I can’t say I’ve learnt anything, for a hell of a long time. In fact, it all seems to be gradually taking away my ability to think, and beyond that my ability to aspire to anything beyond the next arbitrary… (he gestures impotently, gives up) … Hurdle! The next arbitrary hurdle, that’s a strange word. So it’s a losing game, really. It looks like a choice between taking control and giving up, but it’s really only a question of how long. Realise now you’re not going anywhere or spend your life trying and realise that you’re dead. God that’s depressing. It’s the monologuing, it brings it out of me. What am I doing? I should really know, shouldn’t I? I’m paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to throw words around vaguely and effortlessly in the interest of no one. What am I doing? Digging myself a shallow grave with an overpriced headstone, engraved at a thousand pounds a letter by the points of my own teeth. God, you can get tired of talking, can’t you. Point, shoot, miss by a mile. 

a gunshot.

Rich smiles as, over the relay, he hears the audience break out in applause.

CURTAIN

The Man Who Is Jesus

Pete, Paul, Tom stand onstage.

Jesus of Nazareth Enters. A considerable silence.

Pete: Is that..?

Paul: What?

Pete: Is that um…?

Paul: Is that what?

Pete: Well he looks a bit like um… he looks like Jesus doesn’t he?

Tom: Who does?

Pete: Him. Him over there.

Tom: Oh yeah

Paul: Well he would, wouldn’t he.

Pete: What? What do you mean he would?

Paul: Coz it’s Jesus

Pete: What like… Jesus?

Paul: Yeah.

Pete: Well… what sort of Jesus?

Paul: Well, there’s only one of them in’t there?

Pete: Yeah course. So if he’s… You said he’s Jesus, you don’t mean like, if we were like, doing a war re-enactment thing, and the bloke playing Hitler was late, then he comes in, and you’re like – oh, there’s Hitler – you don’t mean he is hitler, right, it’s just the bloke playing hitler

Tom: Hardly a fair comparison is it

Pete: Well, no, I didn’t mean-

Tom: Cause Hitler, yknow, he was a genocidal maniac war murderer, wasn’t he, and jesus is the… is the saviour of mankind and that

Pete: No, no, I accept your point

Paul: Yeah so it’s really not- yknow- you can’t say it’s like that cause it isn’t

Pete: Yeah, fine, yeah but I’m just asking, is he a bloke who’s being Jesus for some reason or is he – Jesus

Paul: Bit of both / I suppose

Tom: Yeah, bit of both

Pete: So he’s not… the Jesus, he’s just what – a Jesus?

Paul: No, no, he’s the one, water into wine, sermon on the mount, all that. Just also he is a bloke who’s being jesus, cause he is Jesus

Pete: Right… Isn’t he dead?

Tom: Came back, didn’t he

Pete: Yeah I know but that was, ages ago / that was

Tom: He’s come back again

Pete: Why’s he done that?

Tom: Probably, come to judge the living and the dead, open the heavenly gates, bring about the rapture of the souls of mankind, all that.

Pete: What and back home for tea?

Tom: No, right, I’m just saying he’s probably gonna do all that, I’m not saying, yknow, he’s not gonna do it all at once, probably- probably get around a bit first

Paul: Get around where?

Tom: Well, he’s three stops on the bakerloo from Piccadilly Circus, probably go see the Trocadero

Paul: Nah, wouldn’t do, Trocadero’s closed up

Tom: Did it?

Paul: Yeah, few years ago now.

Tom: Ah right, used to go there all the time

Paul: Think it’s a hotel now

Tom: Really? Now I didn’t know that.

Pete: What’s he doing?

Paul: Who is?

Pete: Him, yknow

Paul: Jesus?

Pete: Jesus, yeah. … What’s he doing?

Paul: Praying

Pete: What for?

Paul: Souls of the righteous, probably, look, why you asking so many fuckin questions, just tryin to have a nice, lovely stand, out in the sunshine, right, and you’re goin on and on at me about jesus, like, if you want to go and have a talk to him, go and, yknow, go and talk to him.

Pete: What, dya think I could?

Tom: He’s just over there, just give him a shout

Pete: No, I mean, dya reckon he’d mind?

Tom: Well he can’t, can he, all that – “suffer little children to come unto me”, that’s all settled like, you’re the little children, we have suffer you to go… go talk to Jesus.

Pete: Right, right. What do I call him?

Paul: M’lord?

Pete: What, like a judge?

Paul: Well he is a judge, int’he, judge of the immortal / soul

Pete: Still, M’lord, bit professional innit… bit poncey.

Tom: Jesus is a bit, yknow. No, no, not being funny, just mean he’s all, just, waving his hands about, all “you will see the angels descending on the son of man”, all that.

Paul: Right, don’t start with cause if anything, if there’s any- time not be saying that about Jesus it’s now, cause chances are he’ll be coming down hard on that, once he’s been round the Trocadero

Tom: Shut, innit

Paul: Ha, yeah, forget don’t you – used to go there all the time.

Pete: What if I just called him Jesus

Paul: No that’s, I mean that’s- you’d have to be a disciple to like, use his first name

Pete: What, so, what’s his second name? Christ?

Tom: No, cause if you go up to him like “Oh, Christ”, he’s gonna think you’re just going “Oh, Christ”, you know, like “Oh, Christ, left the gas on”

Paul: Well no, cause he probably gets that all the time doesn’t he. Cause he’ll think, oh he’s just left the gas on, then, but he’ll remember, oh course Christ, like Jesus Christ, so he’ll know you’re trying to get his attention.

Pete: Come to think of it though, I could just say nothing

Tom: What? Yeah but you wanted to-

Pete: No, just that he’d- if he’s jesus he knows what i’m thinking so- well I don’t even really need to go over there do I?

Tom: Common courtesy though

Paul: Yeah its a bit- especially if you haven’t talked to him before, to be like yeah use your mind-reading thing, come over talk to me, probably come off a bit presumptuous.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, probably right. Erm. So I just say, hello my- my saviour, my shepherd, my- my-

Paul: Look, just do your best he’s not gonna hold it against you

Tom: I mean that is really actually the last thing he would do

Pete: Okay, yeah, thanks. … What should I ask?

Paul: Well, anything. Yknow, spiritual, personal probably best, don’t start asking for the lottery numbers or- don’t be- just ask for some wisdom.

Pete: Wisdom, what kind of wisdom?

Paul: Ancient wisdom, Christian wisdom, I mean he really is the bloke for that.

Pete: God, yeah, Christianity is actually like- it’s like all… hard to think about really that he’s just there, standing

Tom: he’s sitting down now

Pete: Yeah, he’s sitting down but that doesnt really detract… from the… cool. I’m gonna…

Paul: Yeah, good luck

Pete: Thanks… hah… thanks guys. 

Pete approaches Jesus, Paul and Tom saunter off with brief glances back in Pete’s direction

Pete: Hello. Hello Hello… Hello uhm, uh, Hello… Jesus.

Jesus: Hello, Peter

Pete: Oh, ha- hah thats a bit- sorry you just don’t expect you to, to know the, but yeah, course you do. I was just- just wondering if, yknow, it’s not too much trouble, if I could get some advice.

Jesus: Yes

Pete: Oh good. … So uhm, what is it?

Jesus: If you seek answers on earth, my son, seek them not first with my father in heaven, seek only heaven in that which is heavenly, and earth in that which is earthly. Observe yonder tree, should you beg of its leaves the secrets of its root? Or should you rather kneel, and seek greater knowledge in the place where it may best be found?

Pete: Yeah. yeah, brilliant. That’s really, I just uh, I just do have a question. 

Jesus: Is it not written, my son, seek and ye shall find?

Pete: Yeah okay, well, I’m not a theologian, but I am familiar to some extent, with the kind of basic apologetics that those with a stable footing in academic circles are compelled to give notice, both as a necessary tool in the intersecting fields of literary and philosophical enquiry, but also on a personal level, as a gesture of good-will towards those who require some sort of Christian understanding in order to operate on something like an even playing field academically. Either way, it strikes me as a difficult question whether reason should play any significant part in establishing belief in a church, or indeed in an abstract or personal system of religious worship in which faith is considered a necessary component of worship, and indeed a central virtue in general. But this concern is, in fact, secondary to any difficulties with the theoretical or practical philosophy of any actual church; the choice of belief system and method whereby such a choice is made is fundamentally less interesting, that is less problematic, than the attempt to systematically rationalise a particular set of beliefs. Now any number of these sets of beliefs may be widely held, and as far as I am concerned, any one may be true, so perhaps it serves me best to uphold the principles of generality and generosity, that is choosing the least restrictive, and least contestable option for contention, especially since this kind of arguably reductive scrutiny lends itself far more often to contest than support. I, however, believe wholeheartedly that my main motive is the pursuit of truth, and even then, only of a truth which consists in a kind of harmony, a spiritual harmony perhaps, but a harmony to which reason and empiricism both aspire – to varying degrees of success. Since I don’t mean to bore you with the processes and outcomes of my stress-testing every link in the doctrinal chain, but rather to ask your opinion on what I have found, in fact almost without contest, to be the central schism, as it were, within many of the religious, and indeed personal, tensions which have met their misfortune under the indiscriminate hammer of my reason, that is the division between the bodily and the spiritual. Naturally, you seem to sigh at the approach of the well-trodden ground, the tension of the dual being, old as the loathing which fuels it, but in fact I don’t mean to question where the line is drawn between the self and the object, the spirit and the vessel, but rather to say: your father makes man in his image, and out of the dust. That is our being, that is what we struggle with, and that is the tension of which I was speaking: the spiritual answer, the eternal yes, the end and the beginning, the truth which is both light and love is not, and can never be one with dust. I see, and I breathe, and I see that you breathe, and I despair. There is nothing here which cannot be broken. I know, and you know, that everything will turn into dust. So if there is one thing I would like to ask, it’s this: where is my life?

Jesus: I don’t know mate, they only wrote me the first few lines.

Pete: Oh for fuck’s sake. For fuck’s sake that’s really, really fucking unbelievable. Are you- are you- WHAT… WHAT THE FUCK? I did not- if- if there’s- if there’s one thing, I did not fucking expect to happen it was…

Jesus: Look you’re wasting your energy, mate, I’m just as pissed off as you are really, I don’t know what to say. Like look, you worked really hard on that and it really came through, honestly, I just- I can’t do more than they’ve written me, so I’m, like, I’m really sorry, I am really sorry.

Pete: Yeah, fuck, I- thats the ironic thing actually is that I never really felt like a spiritual- a sort of spiritual feeling before and then saying that, I really, actually for the first time, felt something like, actually personal, like a light shining in the darkness, you know, like- like I was looking at… fffuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Jesus: Yeah it’s confusing, really I get that, multiple layers of reality at once, it’s actually surprisingly hard to handle. Like I’m gonna say that the play is almost over in a second and now the audience are going to be wondering which layer of the dramatic reality I belong to when in fact, yknow, they themselves are dealing with several of them at once, and it’s really lost labour trying to sort them out cause you miss the main point they’re actually trying to make.

Pete: You know, Jesus, that makes absolutely no fucking sense

Jesus: I’m not Jesus

Pete: I don’t care.

CURTAIN

The Psychiatrist Joke

Scene 1

There are two knocks on the door. Each entrance of a patient follows quickly from the end of the previous scene, such that one enters the office just while the other is still in the chair. They do not, of course, acknowledge each other in these moments, but Welsh is able to acknowledge both. Welsh makes notes in a book throughout each scene.

1974; Briggs is clean-shaven man in his mid 50s, he is sharply and tightly dressed but the elegance at which he is clearly aiming evades him. He walks with a stick, sheepishly through the door to the office of Welsh, a psychiatrist. Welsh is a few years younger than his patient, with well-kempt facial hair, and a kind of impersonal positivity and fervour which borders on unsettling. Welsh observes routinely as Briggs’ eyes dart around the room, seeing: a large chair, inhabited monarchichally by Welsh, antique cabinets of medicine, which itself is stored anachronistically in glass containers, a side-table, a mantlepiece adorned with small, indecipherable wooden statues, and finally a couch, whose appearance unnerves him.

Wel. Do take a seat

Bri. (Taken aback) Sit down?

Wel. (Unmoved) Yes

Bri. Good

Wel. Make yourself comfortable

Bri. Sorry?- yes, comfortable

Wel. Well. Good morning.

Bri. Isn’t it.

Wel. (Engagingly)  Is it?

Bri. (Disengagingly) No. Look- hello

Wel. That’s alright, I can give you a moment

Bri. No, no, I’ve been waiting out there all morning we can- you can go

Wel. Well, hello then.

Bri. Yes.

Wel. How has your day been?

Bri. (Half desperately) Terrible, I’ve been waiting to see you.

Wel. Is that such a terrible thing to be waiting for?

Bri. No, not at all, it’s just that I’d imagined this as rather a radical decision and having so wait so long it took the…

Wel. Took wind out of your sails?

Bri. Yes. I mean I was quite literally practising my… spiel in the mirror this morning, as ridiculous as it sounds

Wel. Well perhaps you could tell me along what lines you were thinking.

Bri. Yes. Of course. All it is, is that I’ve- been- feeling somewhat ‘down’, for lack of a better word, and after everything, I thought this might be a good place to seek some uh, consolation.

Wel. A reasonable approach.

Bri. Yes. It’s only that I’ve been opposed to the kind of um, investigative tactics, of members of your- profession… For instance I have no interest in talking about my family, or-

Wel. There’s no need for us to talk about your family if you don’t want to.

Bri. No I’m not opposed to the principle, I just don’t think it would be of much use and, after all, I’m paying quite a lot of money to be here and-

Wel. Let’s get to the point then, shall we? In the interest of thrift.

Bri. Yes, I- I am trying.

Wel. Good!

Bri. Ha- haha- yes! Good, ha?

Wel. Very good. So why do you think it is that you’ve been feeling ‘down’ recently?

Bri. (Visibly yet incompetently careful) Well I wouldn’t say I was feeling down, per se, only that I’ve been finding it difficult to keep up, with certain things in my life, you see? My job, for one, my interests, my friends, my family-

Wel. Your family?

Bri. (Indirectly) No, well- only- (Then directly) I wasn’t beaten up as a child. I mean really that was totally off the table

Wel. I see

Bri. Sorry. What I’m referring to is the usual, kind of day-to-day, the quotidian, yes the quotidian- wobbles

Wel. Quotidian wobbles?

Bri. Yes, rife with them. But as I said that’s nothing out of the ordinary, it’s really only a side note to my work

Wel. Where do you work?

Bri. A bank, in the city. A rather large- well, a branch of a rather large city bank, in Dagenham.

Wel. And how do you find that? 

Bri. (Blusteringly) Well it’s very- (pulling back) it’s quite… (sheepishly) bracing.

Wel. I’d like for a job to be bracing

Bri. You don’t find this… bracing?

Wel. No, no, not so much as: just.

Bri. (Lowly) Just?

Wel. Yes!

Bri. (On a laugh) Oh! Well I don’t think mine is so much as that

Wel. (Joyfully) Still – what do you do there?

Bri. (Apologetically) … Banking

Wel. And how do you feel about that

Bri. Yes, I think there’s a kind of- integrity? To committing oneself and to- to wearing a uniform and all of that. I suppose from your position that might seem a bit shallow…

Wel. Not shallow – (celebratorily) honest !

Bri. It is. I mean despite everything I really have achieved that, to be… Anyhow it’s more than bracing, it’s purposeful

Wel. An enviable position

Bri. Well, yes. – but not to you I suppose, purpose enough here

Wel. Enough ends.

Bri. Exactly. Noble ends. (Jokingly) justifying the means

Wel. I wouldn’t go so far as that

Bri. But it must be wonderful, doing the right thing.

Wel. I’m sure it is. If it’s not too much, could I ask how it is that you are finding such a job difficult?

Bri. Difficult?

Wel. Difficult to ‘keep up’ with, you said

Bri. Ha. Well. It’s a very serious business, and I’m not altogether- a serious man.

Wel. You don’t seem all that unserious

Bri. I’m flattered, but I don’t think it’s all quite my speed. ‘Serving the nation’

Wel. What’s that, ‘serving the nation’?

Bri. (Smiling) Something my father used to say, about waking up so early – a little sleep’s nothing besides serving the nation!

Wel. He was military?

Bri. No, no, only in spirit; he was a barrister.

Wel. That must have served you and your mother nicely?

Bri. (Closing up) I- I imagine it did. Not much bearing, though, to the matter at hand.

Wel. Which matter in particular?

Bri. My- the difficulties, I’ve been experiencing.

Wel. I don’t think one should reject the possibility of anything being relevant

Bri. Yes, but of all things-

Wel. I’ve only been following you. There’s really no need to be hostile to anything, you really can talk freely, relevant or not.

Bri. Right, sorry. Of course I’m under stress, from- well, you know

Wel. Go on, how do you feel 

Bri. I feel as though everything is moving very quickly, and I’m trying to find a… a grip, a solution to keep myself afloat, if that isn’t too mixed of a metaphor

Wel. What sort of things do you picture moving so quickly?

Bri. People, really. I almost feel they’ve outrun me, or- tricked me with their new clothes. Like it’s raining and I’ve been wandering around without shoes on, everyone else holding umbrellas.

Wel. Yes?

Bri. And any time I think someone’s offering me an umbrella they turn around and rough me up with it.

Wel. Who do?

Bri. People! Mary, George, god knows

Wel. Mary?

Bri. – sorry. Almost forgot who I was talking to.

Wel. That’s quite alright. … Mary?

Bri. (Bothered) My wife, it was a just an example

Wel. You’re married? congratulations!

Bri. Bit late for all that

Wel. Yes?

Bri. 21 years

Wel. Still, always something to celebrate 

Bri. 21 years, Jesus. Ha. Different times, eh?

Wel. Not so different to me

Bri. You must feel a very lucky man

Wel. Must I?

Bri. Well, being able to keep it up so long

Wel. Yes?

Bri. However many faces sit in this chair, in 21 years, nothing changing?

Wel. The process is much the same

Bri. Well, I’ll be… you know, when I met her she’d say her rosary every night before bed. I mean, I’m no Catholic, but the integrity – how faithful you’d have to be to…

Wel. Rituals aren’t the only kind of faith

Bri. No, well, no faith anymore. Cup of tea and a kick in the shins before bed. Metaphorically. 

Wel. It’s alright-

Bri. Sorry, it’s just violence, there’s no place for it. Don’t you think? Make love not war…

Wel. No harm in a little of both

Bri. It is possible to have a good marriage, it’s just difficult to explain a bad one when you don’t believe in bad people

Wel. Don’t you?

Bri. You don’t. Psychologists; no bad people, only… circumstances 

Wel. It’s not quite as simple as that 

Bri. No, I think so. There is evil in some sorts of people.

Wel. Evil?

Bri. Sounds a bit of an old word now, but I think certain virtues – strength, honesty – certain things: count.

Wel. I think we all respect those qualities

Bri. Ha! Don’t we? Times change, I think, people change.

Wel. So you say

Bri. But there we are. I am ‘old-fashioned’. I like… evening dinners and buttered toast. It just gets away from me so quickly.

Wel. There’s no shame in keeping those sorts of things. Your priorities are just as important as anyone else’s

Bri. Yes, thankyou, doctor feelgood, but I’m trying to get to the heart of a problem

Wel. Which problem

Bri. My bloody difficulties! The thing that wakes me up in the morning feeling like a wrung-out towel. 

Wel. Good! how does that feel?

Bri. (A little too frustrated to speak) It feels… Should I tell you a story? 

Wel. If you’d like to

Bri. That’s what you like, isn’t it? That’s what I ought to do.

Wel. Anything about you is good

Bri. Well, it’s about this thing, the start of it. Or at least, what I made into the start of it. There was a day when I was younger, I had gotten ill somehow and missed a day off school. I spent the whole morning sitting around, but by the afternoon I had started looking in the mirror, thinking, preparing how I’d look when I got back in. It almost seemed exciting, as though I’d slightly stepped ahead of everyone. … but the next day I went into school and in the corridor everyone was laughing at something, snickering behind their hands, like a fever had come on suddenly. Not even laughing at me, just softly, to each other, at a joke I wasn’t allowed to understand. Enemies, friends… teachers, anyone. It was the slowest day of my life. And then, I took the bus home, and I just saw people whispering, smiling, and people moving on the street. And back at home, my father, joking and laughing with- it was as though everyone knew. Everyone knew. 

Wel. Knew what?

Bri. I’ve never found out. 

Scene 2

1971. George, a young man in his early twenties, carrying a proprietary standoffishness which fills out the broad shoulders of his suit jacket. All things considered, he is quite good-looking, but his brazen recognition of this fact is subversive to it. With the determination of a man returning home from work, he enters Welsh’s office. 

Wel. Do take a seat

Geo. Thankyou 

Wel. How has your day been

Geo. Standard, really. 

Wel. Good!

Geo. (Immune to his positivity) No. No excitement, no happening. Just dullness. Quotidian… something

Wel. (Helpfully) Wobbles?

Geo. No. (Almost incensed by the minor confusion) No, what?

Wel. Sorry, I should have let you speak

Geo. It’s alright. I just didn’t follow

Wel. No need, really, I’ll follow.

Geo. What?

Wel. Sorry, let’s start again; how are you?

Geo. I’m fine, look, this really isn’t the kind of atmosphere I was-

Wel. It’s okay, just speak your mind

Geo. I was doing. The world’s dull, I’m surrounded by dull people, and I’m told on good authority that that makes me ill.

Wel. I’d say anyone who is unhappy is unwell.

Geo. Unhappiness is a standard response.

Wel. Only if you’re looking at the wrong things.

Geo. What should I be looking at?

Wel. Things to be thankful for. Friends, family.

Geo. I’m an only child

Wel. Yes?

Geo. I don’t have a ‘family’

Wel. You have a mother and father?

Geo. Yes, one of each, as factory standard.

Wel. Are you thankful for them

Geo. I’m thankful to them for the food and the roof over my head. I doubt I would have survived as a wild infant.

Wel. So they’re just doing their job?

Geo. Yes

Wel. That doesn’t seem entirely fair

Geo. You’re not very good at this, are you. I’m paying you to take my side.

Wel. Don’t you have anyone else to do that?

Geo. What? 

Wel. Is there anyone else in your life you feel might be on your side?

Geo. Sorry, I was just paralysed by how appallingly rude your comment was

Wel. Oh, I am sorry, it wasn’t directed that way

Geo. Well I do, in fact, have friends. It may surprise you to know, that some of them are even quite fond of me

Wel. Look, we may have got off on the wrong foot

Geo. No, don’t bother, I’m paying by the hour.

Wel. You can’t put a price on trust

Geo. But you just soldier on and put a price on it anyway. And a very steep price at that, so, where were we?

Wel. Your support circle

Geo. Oh, thats very good, my support is a circle. A lovely round circle of all the people who don’t want me dead.

Wel. Is that how you think of your friends?

Geo. It was a bloody joke! Which I, as a man of numerous functional friendships, am perfectly accustomed to. But not you, probably on account of the fact that you won’t associate with anyone who can’t pay ten pounds an hour for the pleasure.

Wel. I’m sorry, but deliberately antagonising me won’t make you back any of the money you’ve spent. I’m perfectly happy for this to be the last we see of each other, but you’ve paid for the hour so you might as well take it.

Geo. Alright, but if we go on at this rate, I’ll be cured in twenty minutes.

Wel. Sorry?

Geo. In all honesty, I respect your ability to take fire. The world is very sensitive altogether, and I’ve been informed that my opinions aren’t to everyone’s taste

Wel. Informed?

Geo. Politely. No man is an island et cetera.

Wel. A friend?

Geo. (A little hesitantly) Yes. Shock horror.

Wel. A good friend?

Geo. Are you testing me…? Maybe you know how to do your job after all

Wel. What sort of friend?

Geo. (Urging him off the subject) One of them.

Wel. I see. Any distinctive features?

Geo. This is a ridiculous line of enquiry

Wel. And you’re a particularly serious man?

Geo. Yes. No. What are you driving at?

Wel. Only trying to make you feel better

Geo. I feel great. I’ll tell you, there are a few people who’d be better sent to you than me

Wel. Yes?

Geo. (Obviously) Yes

Wel. Friends?

Geo. Family. ‘Man hands on misery to man’ …

Wel. What’s that?

Geo. Larkin.

Wel. Ah

Geo. I’m something of a fan. People think he’s miserable, but he’s really just observant. (Wryly) What’s a genius more than a written depressive. Well, hardly depressive. I mean look at me; not dressed for the psychiatric hospital

Wel. There’s no need for all that

Geo. Sorry, we’re having a conversation, aren’t we. How are you?

Wel. Well; high spirits.

Geo. (Flatly) Good. Me too. 

Wel. Why do you think that is?

Geo. I’m basking in the joy of much-needed psychiatric help

Wel. Why, seriously?

Geo. … I suppose I tend to get out of bed feeling it. A day of successes waiting to be had. I do think the benefit of detachment is the incredible productivity it allows 

Wel. Detachment?

Geo. You know, not going in for all of it.

Wel. Could you be more specific

Geo. Use your deduction, doctor Holmes

Wel. You mean friends?

Geo. Oh for Christ’s sake

Wel. What are you referring to?

Geo. Look. Say you’re listening to a joke. If nobody tells you the punchline it doesn’t look like a joke. Now what I mean is, when I step out of the house in the morning, facing a lifelong joke, I don’t waste time asking why the horse walks in to the bar. It isn’t possible, doctor, to assess the emotional state of that horse, because he doesn’t exist.

Wel. I see

Geo. Well there’s a turn-up for the books.

Wel. Do you ever think that kind of cynicism might be counterproductive?

Geo. No

Wel. If you take the world on it’s own terms you might not find it so boring

Geo. There it is, the physician’s mercy, crawling back into ignorance for a tenner an hour

Wel. I wouldn’t say you’re any less ignorant for your skepticism, mister Briggs

Geo. If you had become aware of a hungry tiger in the room with you, would you consider it sufficient remedy to turn off the lights?

Wel. (Briefly) When you lack the insight to tell a tiger from a tabby cat, yes.

Geo. (A little admiringly) We all have our pets of choice. It serves me well, honestly, I’m not ill.

Wel. I don’t believe you came in this morning by accident. You drove here yourself. (Straightforwardly) Why?

Geo. I respect you, you know. You have a respectable face.

Wel. You don’t have to answer, but if you keep evading me, you’ll leave with the impression that I haven’t done my job. 

Geo. This is the most enjoyable morning I’ve had in weeks; I’d say you’ve done it admirably.

Scene 3

Briggs enters Welsh’s office

Wel. Do take a seat

Bri. (Smitten) Oh, well this is wonderful. Like going to school in the morning.

Wel. Sorry?

Bri. Sorry, yes. This place is just a lot nicer once you’ve come to terms with it.

Wel. I find that too

Bri. But I thought I might talk about my mother

Wel. That’s certainly a change of tone

Bri. It’s only that I don’t want to give you ideas, mentioning it glancingly. In fact, it’s not nearly as interesting as it might seem.

Wel. Nonetheless, a little interesting?

Bri. Perhaps to you. I wouldn’t choose to talk about it. Of course, if it weren’t necessary.

Wel. Of course.

Bri. The only reason she was- the reason the issue came about was that I felt bad for my father. She was bad for him.

Wel. In what way

Bri. In that way women are. Well, most women. (Closingly) Anyway that’s how I came about not talking about her. Out of pity.

Wel. For your father.

Bri. For both of them. They both ended up in the gutter, only that she started there too.

Wel. So your father’s money…

Bri. Well I made enough for myself as it turned out. There it is. I didn’t hope to talk about it but at least we can get on now.

Wel. Did your father feel the same way about her?

Bri. I- I think he must have loved her, in the end. But that’s by the way. You’re supposed to be making me better.

Wel. It isn’t so easy as flicking a switch

Bri. Right, yes. 

Wel. How was your morning?

Bri. In fact, I watched the television

Wel. Really?

Bri. It is a Sunday

Wel. Yes it is

Bri. Truth be told, it made me sick.

Wel. The television?

Bri. Dozens of people standing around chatting for an hour, making double what I do in a week.

Wel. You’re a socialist?

Bri. Of course not. But I don’t believe in that sort of hack, if honest people are working, you know.

Wel. What about this?

Bri. Sorry?

Wel. Well I might make a sight more than you without getting my hands dirty

Bri. I couldn’t say it wasn’t honest to be a doctor

Wel. Don’t you find it a little too safe?

Bri. (unnerved) No, I don’t think so.

Wel. I do. At least sometimes.

Bri. (swallowing) Well, that’s a surprise.

Wel. We should be serving the nation, shouldn’t we?

Bri. What-? – Ha- Yes – ha! We’re both getting on then, for now.

Wel. How do you mean?

Bri. For as long as we’re young. And uncompromised.

Wel. Sorry?

Bri. I mean our principles. We will have to hold on to them. Even if we don’t want to.

Wel. Yes, I quite agree.

Bri. (Smiling) Good! good. I do believe there’s still hope for a good man… Even if I’m not quite carrying it myself.

Wel. Aren’t you?

Bri. I do try. People can get in the way.

Wel. In what sense?

Bri. In the sense that people do. Most people. When you have faith in something, it’s dispiriting… I mean, I wanted to buy a box of matches once, and I was in a hurry so I asked the cashier, and she told me they didn’t sell them. And I turned around and I could see them on the shelf. When you have faith in something…

Wel. I don’t follow

Bri. Never mind. I only wanted them to smoke, she was probably trying to help me. 

Wel. Do you still smoke?

Bri. Not for the same reasons. I used to surprise myself, picture me, smoking, ha. But it’s become a habit. I feel as though I’m wearing myself away. Of course my son doesn’t smoke now, because I do. The world has to save one of us.

Wel. Sacrifice.

Bri. Yes. I like that; that one person should entirely take the place of another. And yet it’s only allowed before disaster. I’d like to sacrifice everything, for each thing to throw itself into the place of the next, and hand on its native struggles to a stranger. That’s my religion, doctor.

Wel. I’m an atheist

Bri. So am I.

Wel. (Laughing) Oh well! You don’t seem so serious about it as I am. Fundamentally, I know that there is no god. And isn’t that a comforting thing? It is for me. (Overcome) I find it – bracing! As you would have it.

Bri. (Again unnerved) Yes, I haven’t come to that conviction exactly. 

Wel. (Conspiratorially) We must confront our troubles… (As a reveal) Alone!

Bri. Well, not quite

Wel. Quite. Now we can talk about your son

Bri. My son – why?

Wel. (Suggestively) You were keen not to let me get ideas earlier. You told me you have a son, so, put me right before I start wondering.

Bri. My son, George. I suppose I didn’t mention him as he’s so little trouble to me. He gets on so well I half think he’s mocking me sometimes, in his uniform, in church. No doubt he’ll end up my superior if I live to see it.

Wel. How old is he?

Bri. Gosh – Nineteen now.

Wel. And he’s living at home?

Bri. Only for a few months, then I’m completely disowned. No claim to my own future.

Wel. You have your own aspirations

Bri. Ha! Wherever they’ve gone. I look back sometimes and imagine I used to dream of being a banker. It softens the fall.

Wel. Did you?

Bri. I dreamed of being a barrister. For a while.

Wel. And you didn’t pursue it

Bri. I- lost faith soon enough. I thought of those immortal systems, as they appear to children. I suppose I realised there were men behind all of them. 

Wel. I suppose you’d rather a machine were looking after you here?

Bri. I only mean that it’s all corruptible. 

Wel. But not all corrupted

Bri. (suggesting a smile) Not yet, I hope.

Wel. (returning it) Would you like a cup of tea

Bri. I…

Wel. I thought it polite to ask since I’m set on having one myself

Bri. Well, yes I would.

Welsh gets up and leaves briskly. Briggs sits for a while, and rises inquisitively, to examine the figures on the mantlepiece. As he picks one up, Welsh re-enters with both cups of tea. Briggs sets down the figure and turns, frozen.

Wel. Do sit down.

Bri. (taken aback) yes.

Wel. But your son, you get on well with him?

Bri. I think so. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought me a complete failure. But perhaps he ‘likes’ me.

Wel. (Encouraging) That’s good.

Bri. Although – maybe I don’t talk to him enough to know. As pathetic as it sounds, I’m afraid of it. As much of what he might say as what I might. The last time I saw him he had come back late from… I don’t know, from somewhere, and the first thing he said. He came into our bedroom – Mary was away at the time, a lot, at the time – and he came in and he said, “you could have held this family together”. Could have. And then he left. Like doing the dusting. “You could have held this family together” But you didn’t.

Scene 4

George enters the office, followed by Welsh

Geo. Hmm. Wonderful.
Wel. Do take a seat

Geo. Do you deal a lot with broken homes?

Wel. Sorry?

Geo. I wanted to know how many people come in here when their parents lose the will.

Wel. No more than-

Geo. Because they blame themselves, I suppose. (knowingly) But I have the feeling it might just be rubbish. So what’s the score – how many climb out of the wreckage to end up here?

Wel. (settlingly) No more than don’t

Geo. (fulfilled) See. No surprises, the trouble’s all with people. I’ll remember that – see where fidelity gets you.

Wel. What brings you to ask?

Geo. You’re useful, doctor. Not often you meet someone who’s in the game.

Wel. I’m beginning to see what you want me for.

Geo. (falsely) Oh for help. I’m utterly helpless. Anyway, you were beginning to be interesting

Wel. How’s that?

Geo. I was getting your opinion on the state of marriage.

Wel. (worthily) Would you like my opinion

Geo. I thought I’d got the essence of it.

Wel. Marriage may be seen as an institution, or a covenant, but as you say, marriage is more importantly two people. It will suffice to say, that if two people will succeed united – marriage should unite them!

Geo. But it doesn’t make something out of nothing! That’s the point. It’s no more sacred than the people it consumes. I’ll be no more thankful for any marriage than I am for the people in it.

Wel. You don’t intend to marry yourself, then?

Geo. Marry myself? Can’t say that’d satisfy anyone.

Wel. That’s very funny, Mister Briggs.

Geo. No. Not for the time being anyway. I told you, the solitude helps.

Wel. Do you live alone?

Geo. I try to. (Responding to a look from Welsh) I keep my parents out of the way. (convincingy) It’s a temporary arrangement.

Wel. I see that’s what’s bothering you

Geo. I’ve done it for nineteen years, it’s hardly breaking me now.

Wel. How are your parents?

Geo. Bored. And terminally supportive.

Wel. Of you?

Geo. Of each other. To come home late every day, making no money, while she sits there waiting for him… that’s fidelity.

Wel. Do you know what fidelity means?

Geo. Oh good, you’ve gone back to insulting me

Wel. Faith. Belief without reason, you’d say?

Geo. I’m an atheist.

Wel. Oh. Do you believe in a God?

Geo. (lightly outraged) No I don’t believe in God.

Wel. Sorry, it gets a little unsettled around here.

Welsh stands

Geo. (disrupted) What are you doing?

Wel. Sorry, I’ll just be a moment. Do stay there.

Welsh leaves. George stands to look after him, he is gone. George looks at Welsh’s chair. He goes to the cupboard and looks at the glass bottles, then back at the chair, afraid. He breathes heavily with childlike determination, and moves to Welsh’s chair, as if either to sit in it or to attack it, when Welsh enters, with a cup of tea. George turns sharply.

Geo. (Suppressing himself) Look, I’m keen to get this done as quickly as possible.

Wel. (At his tea) I’m sorry for the habit. I’ll be all the better for it.

Geo. What sort of a doctor are you?

Wel. I’m a psychiatrist.

Geo. Oh. 

Wel. Would you have said so much to me otherwise?

Geo. (Still darkly) I was just, a little, disturbed. That’s all.

Wel. Faith! That’s what we were talking about. 

Geo. We were, although I don’t see why.

Wel. Fidelity. Your father’s religious?

Geo. Yes. Well, my mother is. I’ve seen enough of it.

Wel. Enough of it to know?

Geo. To know what?

Wel. That there is no god!

Geo. Of course I don’t know- but for the thousand times I’ve been in church I’ve only ever seen people. One thing I do believe is that the world was still, for a very long time before people started stirring it up. Making chaos.

Wel. I’m afraid that Chaos doesn’t exist. We have roads, we have doctors, we have justice. Nothing arises by chance, Mister Briggs!

Geo. (Touched) You’re not really being useful anymore

Wel. But I am! You are a man in search of a solution, and here I am telling you that the solution is already made. (particularly) Bring up your problems to face you. And come back here if you make it worse.

Geo. (Incensed) Oh if I could hear that bloody answer again! Keep order! Throw your rope around the world and- … I know, that these things don’t get fixed. (disparagingly) Maybe I’ll talk to my father. Like that’ll stop the tides from going. I’m not being picked at, by little problems you can train out of me – I am sunken in it. 

Wel. (Consequently) Perhaps it’s time we went about this a different way.

Geo. Perhaps. (regretfully) I thought you were helping me. You’re not, you’re fixing me. But I’m afraid you’re late to that. I’m fixed.

Wel. That’s good to hear.

(A long pause)

Geo. I’m sorry. We were getting somewhere.

Wel. Yes?

Geo. About marriage. 

Wel. Of course

Geo. Marriage makes no miracles.

Wel. Not children, then?

Geo. Giving birth is not a miracle – it’s a very predictable result of action. I’d begin to think you’re a Christian as well with that value of life stuff. A child has no more natural value than it has natural deficit.

Wel. And yet you say your parents owe it to you to keep you safe, to keep you- ?

Geo. That’s not charity, it’s investment. I’m only beginning to pay it back. (Welsh looks intrigues as George dives off into thought, for a pause) Maybe I will talk to my father. Might pick up speed on my repayments.

Wel. (Jollily) Precisely. ‘Leave nothing unsettled which you have the tools to put right.’

Geo. Is that your design then – putting me right?

Wel. (Paternally) We’re putting the world right, together.

Geo. That I don’t mind paying for

Wel. (With a guiding hand) I have confidence that can fix your issues, but be careful settling old debts. The bonds can be: contorted.

Geo. (Unimpressed) Well, how very mystical.

Wel. I can only equip you with the knowledge that every prison is an impression of the last. “Man hands on misery to man” of course.

Geo. Your brain seems to keep far more space for phrases than for psychiatry.

Wel. (Joyfully) Psychiatry’s just a living. (A pause). So it is your father, then?

Geo. (Definitely) No. (indefinitely) What?

Wel. That you came to talk to me about.

Geo. No, I- I don’t know why I came.

Wel. Then I have the pleasure of enlightening you.

Geo. My father is barely a figure in my life at all. He couldn’t derange me with a wooden club. I only meant to talk to him to shake him out of his dreadful life – since there’s nothing to be done about mine. (Dryly) You’ve inspired me, doctor, to liberate him with the truth.

Wel. How wonderful! I can tell you, first hand, that’s as good a medicine as any.

Geo. Please don’t suggest you were in my position. 

Wel. I’m afraid a lot of us migrate from that seat to this one. I hope you don’t feel the blind are leading the blind.

Geo. (Distractedly) No of course not. (Pointedly) Is this all there is? Is this the kind of progress you’re after?

Wel. In stages, yes.

Geo. But no more?

Wel. No more?

Geo. No- (a pause) If that’s everything think I’ll be going.

Wel. (More pointed than ever) Why?

Geo. It’s not very much to overcome, is it? You’re only telling me to talk, I might as well agree with you.

Wel. I’m sorry?

Geo. (a painful victory) I’ve outgrown you completely. You’re like the bloody Wizard of Oz, shadow on the curtain.

Wel. (Humourlessly) I don’t really understand

Geo. This. This is the end of the line – the psychiatrist.  Finally, I’d given up enough to lie down and take the world’s medicine. Take my pills for penance at the white confessional . You’re the last hope, aren’t you. And you’re as mad as the rest of us.

Scene 5

Music. Welsh sits alone in his office, following a path in his mind. He moves to the figures on the mantelpiece and rearranges them, very particularly. Two face each other, one is placed slightly further off, and the rest are placed a carved wooden box. He considers the consequences of this move. He knocks one of the central figures down. This strikes him a little. He picks up the other figure, and studies it closely. He holds it delicately up to the light, and snatches it down.

Scene 6

Welsh enters, Briggs follows a little late. Briggs patient is restrained, even more so than in scene 1, by an insurmountable private consideration, and Welsh’s positivity has gained direction and determination.

Wel. Take a seat

Bri. … Thankyou. I’ve been hoping to see you.

Wel. Good 

Bri. (With false simplicity)  I just, wanted to say- firstly- that I appreciated your way of- going about things. And although my- difficulties, haven’t exactly regressed, it’s all the better for: talking to someone.

Wel. How was this morning?

Bri. (Almost relieved) oh, well I- hadn’t thought about it. 

Wel. You might think about it now?

Bri. Good. I think. Good.

Wel. And yesterday?

Bri. (With funereal positivity) Everything’s been good. Really.

Wel. So work is alright

Bri. (Relieved, as though the knife has missed him again) Yes! Of course. I’m beginning to see the- calling

Wel. You are?

Bri. Yes the- the simple life is- so enticing.

Wel. (Drilling) But ambition! Surely, we ought to strive for something!

Bri. (Bristling) oh no, that’s- beyond me really. 

Wel. (Smiling throughout) Don’t tell me you’re content to live in one place, with one job, one child, one woman-

Bri. (Taunted) Stop! What do you mean?

Wel. (With convincing lightness) I mean nothing at all. 

Bri. What brought you to all that?

Wel. I was wondering, if you’d had a talk with your son

Bri. (After a silence) I don’t understand 

Wel. Don’t worry about all that. To someone of my profession, the facts often seem to arrange themselves. (Pause) I only wondered why you didn’t start by telling me!

Bri. I- I didn’t want to bother you with those… domestic things. There’s such a (weightily) history to it

Wel. What is it you suppose I don’t know? William King in 1066? Charles dead in 1649? Your wife’s Catholic, your mother’s a whore and your father’s a lawyer – that should suffice, shouldn’t it? 

Bri. (Quickly) My mother’s dead. (Collectedly) And it’s only that she distracted him from work. I pity the both of them.

Wel. Distracted him how?

Bri. I don’t need to- (a pause; he looks Welsh up and down, and concedes) to argue a case- there needs to be impartiality. And the… connections through my mother were… I think they’d call it a ‘conflict of interest’. 

Wel. (Feeding on it) Everything’s corruptible.

Bri. We’re humans? Aren’t we? There’s got to be some pity in that! (He hangs forward)

Wel. As long as we play our part. Remain strong…

Bri. Yes… yes. Tempted thrice.

Wel. You are a terribly uncommitted atheist

Bri. It tends to waver in our house. Of course, when you- see absolute surety – standing there when George and I have nothing 

Wel. Your son isn’t religious?

Bri. No, I don’t think so. Like all children, really, he’s developed contempt for his origins.

Wel. Or one of his origins.

Bri. Well. Yes. My son. 

Wel. Your son.

Bri. He’s… I brought him up, I… there’s nothing of me in him, I’d swear it. And you know, I almost thank Mary for that. Like the child would want what I could give him.

Wel. But he is your son?

Bri. Mary may have had faith. Somehow that doesn’t make her the most faithful. (Pause) I told you, I didn’t mean to get into this. It’s just- details, domestic…

Wel. It’s alright. Good context.

Bri. (Heavily) Good context.

Wel. Well, either way it doesn’t seem to concern him.

Bri. Who?

Wel. Your son, he isn’t worried about it… as I gather

Bri. Yes, he- didn’t seem to be.

Wel. And?

Bri. When he talked to- when we talked, he was trying to put it right, I think.

Wel. He does know, then?

Bri. I never told him. I suppose he guessed it to look at me. He said he wanted- to liberate me, from my… “unbalanced union”

Wel. (particularly) He said that exactly?

Bri. Somehow.

Wel. You must be proud.

Bri. I’m sorry?

Wel. Of your work

Bri. (Disbelieving) You mean George? No, I- I’ve only tried to keep him out of trouble. He was… naturally bright, we really only- had to- clear the way. Set him back on track, now and then, but, nothing really, not in the end.

Wel. You’ve done well. Have you ever wanted to be a psychiatrist?

Bri. (Offended) I really don’t think I’d do any good

Wel. Of course. But you have.

Bri. (Cautiously) I really… I haven’t

Wel. It’s alright. I can sense your tendency to fix things. Keep order?

Bri. (Nervously) I’ve only- I’ve only tried to be- honest, and- straightforward, That’s really all I’ve ever wanted.

Wel. Relax. I don’t know what it is that you’ve done, but I’m sure it was perfectly understandable.

Bri. I don’t… what I’ve… done?

Wel. I’m sorry, Mister Briggs, people don’t come in here, looking like that, with clean hands. And your son missed his appointment yesterday. Would you like your cup of tea?

Welsh stands to leave. Briggs holds a stunned, and then a terrified silence. Welsh leaves and Briggs calls after him.

Bri. (Carefully outraged) You’ve… been seeing George?

Welsh calls from offstage

Wel. (Positively) Yes! Though I’m not sure yet why he’s been seeing me. Anyway, do go on – he said he wanted to liberate you?

Bri. What did he say? Sorry, when you last saw him – when was it?

Welsh enters with the tea

Wel. Thursday last. The same time as you, actually.

Bri. (lightly relieved) Oh. Sorry.

Wel. So it happened after that?

Bri. (Startled) What?

Wel. You shouldn’t sigh so heavily. You’ve talked since then.

Briggs takes a deep breath, and establishes a false composure.

Bri. Yes, we- had a disagreement. A little domestic- a little problem. That was all. 

Wel. You said he wanted to liberate you – where’s the argument in that?

Bri. It was- mainly what he said about Mary. In spite of everything – I’m responsible…

Wel. Doesn’t he feel for his mother?

Bri. I suppose he’s told you anyway, but no. He said that I, (It is clear this phrase has been repeated in his mind) I was trapped by goodness, and that she was no fit for me as it is. He said I should know – I should know that fidelity was rarely shared.

Wel. (beaming) Oh my!

Bri. Of course I felt for Mary, that he knew, that she was nothing but a- nothing like the… mother I had wanted- her to be. But then I also saw him, not my son, just- a man. Looking down at me, in my old clothes I felt unfit to wear. And there was the family I had thought of, the father I had thought of being. And not a drop of my blood in him.

Scene 7

George bursts in to Welsh’s office.

Wel. I’m sorry, but you’re not-

Geo. You’ve been seeing my father! That unbelievable-

Wel. My other patients are only-

Geo. He’s not an other patient, he’s directly concerned in my- wellbeing!

Wel. What he has said has had no bearing-

Geo. What has he said, then? That I’m a madman talking nonsense? God, I should have known you were on his side. There’s the catch.

Wel. I take the patients that come to me. There aren’t too many people with the money to spare. And you have to admit, there’s a neatness to it

Geo. (Outraged) Neatness? There are real people’s lives in the balance, doctor. We are not gamepieces to be shuffled around as you please.

Wel. Please, be reasonable-

Geo. And I came to you for help. While you’re at it with the same man who stopped me going here, the man who- who… Who started the whole bloody problem.

Wel. Your father stopped you coming here

Geo. (Bitterly) Oh yes, sit up, calm down, or we’ll send you to the psychiatrist. And the shadow never appears. Of course he was keeping you all to himself.

Wel. I’m afraid he’s made my work a lot more difficult

Geo. Your-? He’s the only reason I’m here. Had to see it for myself, someday, didn’t I? Well, great lot of help that’s been.

Wel. You’re feeling better, aren’t you?

Geo. If you hadn’t put me up to your- justice, I’d never have – (almost with a shudder) forced myself onto him. Asking him to abandon my own mother. I only pitied him, he’s my father!

Wel. Your father?

Geo. Yes! I only pitied him, and I drove him to- to madness. It must be madness. You’ll be getting his fee for some time I’d say.

Wel. He was in his wits last week. He was certainly sharp enough to keep up his lying.

Geo. Well I’m not surprised

Wel. He was disguising something, George.

Geo. Don’t call me that. You can call me Mr Briggs, if my father hasn’t claimed that title.

Wel. Your father?

Geo. Yes! What obsesses you about that?

Wel. You mean, your father by blood?

Geo. As much as I wish he weren’t. (He pulls up the leg of his trouser) Gradual paralysis of the lower limbs. One of the many things I have to thank him for.

Wel. Haven’t you told him that?

Geo. Not with what he thinks of me. (scornfully) A new hope. Wouldn’t want him to know I’m as defective as him. Then again, the repulsion might have kept him off.

Wel. What did he say to you?

Geo. Nothing. I said to him. That he’s a real man, and no fit for a wax figure of a wife. He married her when they were nineteen, tied himself up to post, with a god and a household. I told him that kind of fidelity’s worth nothing. And I… I told him to be a man… and to find someone else!

Wel. That isn’t what you said

Geo. You weren’t there. You talked to him about what happened. and I can tell you, my father would hardly be telling the truth about that.

Wel. You claimed he didn’t say anything.

Geo. He didn’t. Nothing except “I understand”. And he… looked at me. (Shutting up, spitefully) And that was what happened.

Wel. I understand. (George looks at him darkly) That was all he said, “I understand”?

Geo. Yes. I don’t think he understood what love was – that’s why he married her. He was just scared of what it could become. What it had become with grandpa. Full of the desire for everything he’d missed. And it wouldn’t stop at that, not til it was fixed. But I think you can hear the rest from him. 

Scene 8

Briggs enters Welsh’s office, concealing anxiety.

Wel. Do sit down

Bri. Of course. I- feel a lot better now everything’s normal. Working, seeing Mary. 

Wel. And George?

Bri. (Suppressive) He- he’s gone up early. Get to know the town before he starts to work.

Wel. I’m afraid I have to leave you

Bri. (Desperately) What?

Wel. You were late. That means tea comes early – would you like one?

Bri. Well, in fact I- yes, I need one

Wel. You deserve it. After all this.

Bri. Thankyou 

Wel. I know you might think it unprofessional of me, but I’m afraid my practice isn’t altogether professional, in the colloquial sense.

Bri. I don’t know entirely what you mean by that

Wel. I’m not scientific enough, you see, I read too many books. So do my best in that kind of way, since medical referrals don’t send too many to me.

Bri. (Puzzled) Right.

Wel. But the human interest has persisted nonetheless. The desire to help people is very, very tenacious, you know. But don’t mistake that for empathy, for involvement – that’s a dangerous thing. It’s about knowing what’s best.

Bri. For the patient?

Wel. Yes, I suppose so. For the patient and- I’ve never had any desire to better the world, but I think to set things right, in the small worlds which are handed to me. That’s the reassurance, that there is no greater world, not absolute truth to measure our actions, just individual worlds, with their own morals. Their own beginnings and ends – one week I know nothing, a year later they’re better or they’re dead. That’s the easiest way about it.

Bri. In a year?

Wel. Oh, not always so long. Sometimes it’s just a push in the right direction. Would you like to hear a joke?

Bri. A- I don’t know

Wel. It keeps running through my head actually. Well it begins with a man coming into a psychiatrist’s office

Bri. Yes, I see how that’s come up

Wel. And he tells the doctor that he’s torn up because he suspects his wife of being unfaithful, and that he can’t take it any longer. 

Bri. Are you making- is this a joke?

Wel. Yes. Naturally the doctor tells him not to do anything to himself, and the man asks “why, do you think she’s innocent?” And the doctor says, “no, but I told her last night you’d be back home for tea”

Bri. Oh. I don’t- I don’t follow

Wel. Of course, one isn’t supposed to interfere – it’d be far too easy to keep the work coming in

Bri. … people’s lives…

Wel. I may have overstepped a little, I admit. I could see what you thought of George from the beginning. I know because it isn’t medical. Still I didn’t think you had the action in you. You must feel guilty, yes? (Briggs is silent) It’s all confidential. But it’s not a very nice story – even considering your parents, it’s unbalanced. So, what was the point? You’re going to be justifying it to yourself for the rest of your life – no harm in starting early.

Bri. I think it’s best I-

Wel. Stay here. We’re tying everything up. 

Bri. … He isn’t my son.

Wel. (Collaboratively) That’s not true. What does Mary think?

Bri. I’ve realised what I have, now. I don’t blame her.

Wel. And you don’t blame yourself?

Bri. I- of course I do. George doesn’t deserve this. I do.

Wel. Yes! There’s the trick. You’re finishing your own story at the expense of his. Where is he now? Clever George with his abusive father. Or maybe no one will know.

Bri. No one… he won’t say anything.

Wel. I suppose not. 

Bri. I’m not going to start my life in fear of him. My house, my job, my marriage… I’ve earned that. Through everything.

Wel. How did you know your wife had been unfaithful?

Bri. I’m sorry?

Wel. Did she tell you?

Bri. I’m not- no, I- George did in the end.

Wel. And you believed him?

Bri. Of course I believed him, he’s- he was….

Pause

Wel. I think you’ve misunderstood.

Bri. No.

Wel. A phantom push, Mr Briggs. 

Bri. What?

Wel. No one goes to the edge without the urge to jump. Only some need more help than others. 

Bri. Would you talk straightly for God’s sake

Wel. No. I have a degree. And before you try to hurt me, I don’t know anything about your family. In fact I haven’t left this office in twenty years. 

Bri. Do you know you’ve become incredibly unhelpful 

Wel. I never wanted to help you. I wanted to prepare you 

Bri. Prepare me? For what?

Wel. Sacrifice. You can’t leave everything with George. You need to keep some sins for yourself.

Bri. (With terrified clarity) that’s a very strange sentiment for an atheist

Wel. It’s a lot easier than the truth. I suppose that’s why you like it?

Bri. Like it?

Wel. Absolution through guilt. But you aren’t saved, I’m afraid. To keep to the metaphor, you’re damned. 

Bri. I don’t understand 

Briggs goes to drink the last of his tea, but stops. He looks at Welsh. His face drops. Welsh takes his cup.

Wel. I’ll return the remainder of your down-payment. It might be useful for Mary, don’t you think? (Pause. Briggs eyes are fixed open and his mouth fixed shut with an inexpressible emotion. Welsh goes to write a cheque) Anyway, I don’t need it really, I have my patients. Oh don’t be sorry, this is just the way it happens. And we all live happily ever after.

Bri. You are- remarkably- unprofessional

Wel. For a doctor, yes. But that’s something off the mark. Writer, maybe. Judge, comic, executioner… Knock knock.

Welsh tucks the cheque into Briggs’ jacket pocket, returns to the figures, and returns the central figures into the box, smiling. But before the last can be replaced, George appears at the door:

Scene 9

Geo. He didn’t abuse me, Charles, of course he didn’t.

Wel. I’m sorry?

Geo. Do take a seat

Wel. Why exactly are you here?

Geo. Because as far as I can make out, you’ve just poisoned my father with a cup of tea, which I have to say is really quite strikingly unoriginal.

Wel. I thought it worked. 

Geo. It didn’t work, you made half of it up.

Wel. Yes, that’s true, isn’t it.

Geo. You see, this is your problem, Charles, you’ve picked the wrong god. Because your god believes that punctual trauma is in some way an antidote to working in a bank.

Wel. What do you mean? 

Geo. Sit down. And you can refund me while you have the book out.

Wel. No.

Geo. It’s not a metaphor, please, I want my money. 

Wel. Have I gone mad, do you think?

Geo. No, you’re just dead and I’m the second coming of christ.

Wel. That’s strange. But don’t you think it was nice?

Geo. No! Conceiving the idea that I’d been a victim of sexual abuse isn’t nice in the slightest.

Wel. Oh, where’s your appreciation of poetry?

Geo. You killed my father with an overdose of prescription medicine – do you understand even remotely how strange of a thing to do that is?

Wel. The full force of it is starting to come to me. I have to say, you’re breaking down my confidence slightly.

George goes to the box of figures

Geo. Good. Good, that’s very good. What are these?

Wel. Things

Geo. What kind of things?

Wel. I’m afraid I don’t know 

Geo. Yes, unsurprising. In fact, you don’t know anything at all. I think it’s time we put all of this behind us.

Wel. I think so.

George takes the box and pours the figures out.

Geo. Good. Why have you had to make this so confusing? Aren’t the paths of justice straight?

Wel. …

Geo. Don’t worry, it’s a trick question.

Wel. …

Geo. You must be so disappointed. Knock Knock.

Wel. Who’s there?

Geo. Sorry?

Wel. Who’s there?

Studies In Progress

Editorial Note: The play is written more as a midpoint between masque and farce than as a drama. The specificity of the language is half ridiculous and half exhibitory. If a poem is something like a joke, then the space for Studies In Progress is somewhere between the recital and the circus. The abuse of assonance in And The Office Is Full Again is the easiest example of this – most of Sebastian’s phrases could be punchlines were the sense adjusted – but every part is comic and poetic on a very close level. Allowing for this, the play builds as a farce does, becoming more and more strained until epiphany is inevitable. 

Writer’s Note: Studies in Progress is unsurprisingly the endpoint of what I have been attempting, more or less successfully, for the past three years: to write theatre which consumes itself. A New Play, Slater or Megalomania, Truth and Dances, and even The Man Who Is Jesus do this to some extent. Studies In Progress is the result of this method in extremis, partially in the hope that I might be freed from it hereafter. I think a method so openly antagonistic to its audience asks for some justification. For me, it is the joy of a disobedient medium: words and worlds which won’t behave as the narrative needs them to, the chaos of something destroying itself, and of not knowing whose side you’re on. I love the feeling of the carpet being pulled, of dramatic assumptions being broken. We remember our first time seeing a play’s set deconstructed by its characters because it broke down barriers we didn’t know were there. Theatre which can access that will always be joyful to me – it’s the same disobedient joy of “I wish for infinite wishes” and of “ceci n’est pas une pipe”. I suppose some part of me also believes that any medium deals most truthfully with its own defects, but the rest of me doesn’t need that explanation.

Directorial Note: The force of any production should be clarity of confusion. The separate scenes of the initial two acts should appear entirely isolated in style and substance, and an effort must be made to uphold these distinctions when the borders are crossed in the third act. The confusion must be clear. In the fourth act, the divisions can be blurred by question and disruption, and by the fifth, the idea of division should seem absurd. In fact, the conceit of the play should seem absurd, incongruous, and irresolvable — but clearly so.

Characters

Scene I – Father’s Hand

FRANCIS, a young man

ANTHONY, a young man

MARTHA, a young woman

FATHER, an old man

Scene II – Breakses

MADS, a young man

WILL, a young man

Scene III – Libraries In Alexandria

TRAXI, a young person

HAL, a young person

Scene IV – Men Of My Influence

DEE, a middle-aged man

AL, a young man

Scene V – And The Office Is Full Again

SEBASTIAN, a young man

Act I 

Scene I – Father’s Hand

FRANCIS

Have you seen the garden?

ANTHONY

Yes, I left my watch there.

FRANCIS

What time?

ANTHONY

I don’t know 

FRANCIS

And you dropped it – what for?

ANTHONY

Or thereabouts, yes.

FRANCIS

Will you listen to me, really

ANTHONY

I am listening. 

FRANCIS

You ought to come back into the house 

ANTHONY

Father can ask me himself

FRANCIS

No he can’t. You should see him, now we’re both here.

ANTHONY

Later, I’m busy.

FRANCIS

He’s read everything you sent him

ANTHONY

Oh, well he knows it already then

FRANCIS

What?

ANTHONY

Me. Now could you leave me to work.

FRANCIS

Come in later. At least have a cup of tea before the Masons arrive

ANTHONY

What are they doing with him now?

FRANCIS

I’m making dinner. For all of us.

ANTHONY

Fine. When I’ve finished. Which I won’t have any time soon if you keep distracting me

FRANCIS

I’m sorry. 

Pause. Francis leaves.

ANTHONY

The important thing is to keep it moving. Because when it stops moving I don’t understand it. It deflates – into a thing. I see the light coming through the east wing, splintered into beautiful colours, and then I’m looking through someone’s window.  And I’ve lost it again. And I can’t look for it – because that pushes the thing further away. I’ve lost it. Where’s Martha? I need Martha.

MARTHA

I’m here. 

ANTHONY 

Good. What do you think.

MARTHA

It’s nothing. If you were honest, you could write it in one line – “for the content of my soul, see the complete works of William Blake”

ANTHONY

Is it worth being angry?

MARTHA 

Only if it’ll help you

ANTHONY

Even then, what for? Is my happiness worth less than this? There’s a dire state.

MARTHA

Keep your hands off your own head. You need them to write with.

ANTHONY

I need them to eat.

MARTHA 

Go out or go back in. That’ll fix you.

ANTHONY

Yes. And my sorry heart, that fills whatever shape it fits in. My tidal brain.

MARTHA

You’re wasting time. 

ANTHONY

I know. It’s an effort. … Fine. You’ll see me later. And I’m starting something else. I can’t live forever in verses. I need to break apart.

Scene II – Breakses

MADS

No, cause he was, but then he literally recorded from the window.

WILL

No fuck off

MADS

Actually and he sent the, the, like he put it on 4chan or something 

WILL

James’s on 4chan? No of course he is, man, that’s insane. 

MADS

Honestly. He goes mental, like, he sent me a message going oh, someone put something in my drink but I’d already paid for it so

WILL

What was it?

MADS 

I don’t know, rohypnol probably.

WILL

Meth

MADS

Probably meth, yeah. Just a little bit a meth.

WILL

Jesus

MADS

So he is coming, but like, Issy’s coming with him, he’s just gonna be with her

WILL

What, does she know?

MADS 

Yeah, man, they know like, everything. Honestly they have the most functional relationship it’s insane.

WILL

Issy?

MADS

I mean, I like james, he’s great

WILL

Yeah, great guy

MADS

But yknow

WILL

Yeah yeah.

Pause

MADS

Do you ever…

WILL

Yeah sometimes

MADS

Often

WILL

no, not often, no

MADS

Ah okay. Do you smoke uh

WILL

yeah, well evidently, yes

MADS

But like, lots. Are you a – stone man?

Pause

WILL

I don’t even like smoking really I just do it.

MADS

Oh yeah no, same. It is fun though.

WILL

How often do you like, cause, I used to smoke all the time and it just stopped being fun

MADS

No, it’s still fun

WILL

Okay.

Pause

WILL

(Particularly) Little Puppets

MADS

mmm. Little puppets.

Scene III – Libraries In Alexandria

TRAXI

How often do we actually talk though?

HAL

Enough. I mean, it’s good. Sorry.

TRAXI
I’m not getting at you, Hal, it’s just that if you say you know me that well

HAL

Well, phrasially it’s- not I know of you, but

TRAXI
You know of me?

HAL

No, not that. I… I get, you?

TRAXI

You don’t, that’s what I’m saying, you don’t

HAL

But literally, I mean, I know who you are.

TRAXI
And half the time we talk it’s just this kind of- it’s not conversation, talking, it’s just words

HAL

Fine, I suppose, why do you care anyway?

TRAXI

I care, I just care. Because it’s my life I care.

HAL

Yeah. Your life.

TRAXI

It’s our life, fine, our collective, relationship, house on the prairie fucking life

HAL

I thought you weren’t getting at me

TRAXI

Yeah I’m not… (lowly) Open the doors, Hal

HAL

What?

TRAXI

Nothing.  

Scene IV – Men Of My Influence

AL

What is it then?

DEE
Nothing, mate, just the same old

AL

What you having?

DEE
Ah. Pint a your bitter, please.

AL

What’s that then? 

DEE

You’re pouring it.

AL

We got Ghost Ship and London Pride

DEE

Anything local?

AL

No

DEE
Where’s London Pride then from?

AL

London

DEE

Yeah I know London. Doesn’t matter. Let’s have a ghost ship

AL

Coming up

DEE
Are you now

AL

Five eighty please

DEE
Bloody hell

AL

Cash or card

DEE
You take cheque?

AL

No

DEE
Cash then. You mind coins, twenties?

AL
No we’re short on twenties actually

DEE
There’s a charm. Five eighty and none to spare. 

AL

Cheers.

DEE

And you.

Scene V – And The Office Is Full Again

SEBASTIAN
Listen. Stop. I’m starting again. I’m feeding the canons. One musician, known to most by no name in particular, giving a concert tonight in the shape of a certain voice. No accompaniment, a piano, capella, sotta, slightly voiced. So in fathomable fashion, roll up the carpet and sit them down on the floor. He’s Marcelli, the mark of the understander, and a devilish monuc at that. And yet the spanner knows his english left from his right. Are you putting it together yet, or does the detective rest in pieces? But alas – no curtains for the night tonight. No curtains please.

Act II

Scene I – Father’s Hand

FATHER

Francis? Francis, where have you been?

ANTHONY

No.

FATHER

No?

ANTHONY

Not Francis.  

FATHER

Oh sorry, Francis.

ANTHONY

Not Francis.

FATHER

Yes. I thought you were in Algiers.

ANTHONY

No, I’m back. 

FATHER

I suppose it was the heat

ANTHONY

No, it was the country. I can only work here, I think.

FATHER

Oh well, yes, Keates, Milton…

ANTHONY

Yes

FATHER

You’re still writing those poems 

ANTHONY

No, not anymore.

FATHER

Oh? What have you been doing for so long, if you’re not writing-

ANTHONY

I am writing, but not those poems. I’ve finished them and I’m writing something else

FATHER

I see. Going well?

ANTHONY

Not entirely, no.

FATHER

Are you happy with it?

ANTHONY

No. 

FATHER

Why not? If you came all the way back from Africa for it

ANTHONY

It’s figuring itself out, slowly. It’s a kind of musical thought. Poetry of theatre, I think.

FATHER

Quite beyond most people, I suppose

ANTHONY

If anyone could do it, they’d never pay me

FATHER

Do they pay you?

ANTHONY 

I’m not here to ask you for money

FATHER

Good. Don’t think I’d give you any.

ANTHONY 

I don’t want any. 

FATHER

You’re an ascetic now

ANTHONY

Well you’re clearly alive, I’m going downstairs

FATHER

Will I see both of you at dinner?

ANTHONY

If I can find both of me, yes.

FATHER

Good.

Scene II – Breakses

MADS

Oh, you’re like…

WILL

Yeah man, as fuck. Can’t be doing it

MADS

No no, that’s fair, that’s fair. Not enjoying the history?

WILL

I like history, just, don’t know if I like school, schooling, well, not actually, but yknow

MADS

Are you still gonna live up there?

WILL

If I can, if I can. When I stop getting money I might have to- rejig.

MADS

Do a little jig.

WILL

Yeahhh. Get everything jigged up. It’s a bit fucked honestly.

MADS

Hmyeah well, if it’s what you want, don’t do it if you think you’re…

WILL

I dunno… I’m just so far away from like- you and James and people doing normal life stuff.

MADS

I get that.

WILL

I know you’re not gonna- bring the hammer down on me cause like, we’re friends, but honestly I feel like I’m doing a bit of a shit decision

MADS

Hey, it’s up to you. You’ll probably do the right thing.

WILL

Yeah, well, that’s easy to- yeah. Fair. I’m doing it anyway. I’m not gonna get this far and just stay there. I’ve actually had enough of fucking essays, I’ve written enough essays.

MADS

Dude, sucks…

WILL

I know I should like writing but it’s not like – writing, it’s just saying stuff. Means nothing. 

MADS

Totally.

WILL

Ironically, like, I haven’t had time to actually write. Yknow… I’m trying to write another weird thing.

MADS

Cool.

WILL

Like a kind of Christian, but not actually Christian sort of thing. Monastic or something. 

MADS

Cool

WILL

I could actually be a monk, honestly. 

MADS

Have the, like, bald haircut

WILL

Suit me ythink?

MADS

Oh hundred percent. Writing with a little- little quill

WILL

No I wish, actually. I hate computers. I’d write with a quill.

Scene III – Libraries In Alexandria

TRAXI
So are you going to tell me what it’s about?

HAL

Yeah, sure I- I can try but it’s not- I could read it to you

TRAXI

Uh, we can, later. 

HAL

No, fine, it’s just stressful people reading it is all

TRAXI

I don’t have to

HAL
Yeah but I want you to. I thought you’d want to, I mean.

TRAXI

Yeah, I do?

HAL

…

TRAXI
Not now then.

HAL

No, it’s- it’s not important

TRAXI
Okay, I don’t mind

HAL

Do you think… if I’m writing about how much I love you-

TRAXI
You’re not writing about how much you love me

HAL

I am.

TRAXI

Yeah, you think you are. What are you writing about

HAL

Love. And friendship, and- doubt, and… I’m not sure but I think it’s something.

TRAXIA
Yeah. (Traxi turns Hal’s laptop around.) Okay.

HAL

That’s why I wanted to read it to you

TRAXIA
What is?

HAL

Because it doesn’t look like what it is. I don’t just want to write about two guys talking to each other, that’s not what it’s about.

TRAXIA

Yeahh… okay, well, I trust your judgement on that

HAL

I love you

TRAXIA

Okay. That too.

Scene IV – Men Of My Influence

DEE

Yknow – it’s funny being here

AL

Funny.

DEE
Yeah, nice place, don’t get me wrong, but strange

AL

Yeah?

DEE
Yeah there’s a little dust in the air- fire under the tables.

AL

Right.

DEE

Look, I’ve not gone wrong, right, I’m telling this, mate, as a matter of business – you’ve got æther or something. Some kind of spiritual rot. You might want to check your pipes.

AL

Yeah, I’ll pass that on

DEE

You won’t, that’s alright, I don’t mind. I’m not a cleaner, see. I just pile up the dirt in a corner. That’s what I got here. All my dirt.

AL

Right, what’s that?

DEE

It’s my book, innit. Book of words. I got a little black book with me poems in. Got wild, staring eyes don’t I?

AL

Maybe a bit

DEE
It’s a song ya hammock. I do though, and I got all my stuff in here as well. People. Things they said. Love.

AL

Love?

DEE
Oh yeah. Like you never seen.

AL

Haven’t I?

DEE
Not like this you haven’t

Scene V – And The Office Is Full Again

SEBASTIAN
What he’s been shaping has been cooling into shape – hardening up unsightly sorts and unsorted sights for the popular market. And pleasure I am to be on that train, as Marcelli’s not a native man. For his particular sins I’m happy to be a medium, and if the burned won’t look downward, the blind might look forward, at least for me to switch my chips each turn. So rare a medium so well done as media is these days. And I’ve dropped the hand myself; to intern my favour in this nouvel’ crowd I’ve taken to his pet englishman, the showman drunk. And since I see you noting that sympathy, we find the time to dive all at once, into a further convulsion.

Act III

Scene I – Father’s Hand

ANTHONY

Oh, pity. Martha? Martha? Why do you always drop me at the first opportunity? I’m not talking to Francis about this.

WILL

Why not

ANTHONY

What?

WILL

Why won’t you talk to Francis about it?

ANTHONY

Why should I talk to him about it?

WILL

Well, he’s your brother, what do you hate him for?

ANTHONY

Or thereabouts

WILL

That doesn’t mean anything. Why do you hate him?

ANTHONY

There’s a question

WILL

Yeah, what’s the answer?

ANTHONY

You’re not here on his behalf?

WILL

Well, as much as you are.

ANTHONY

He’s a coward

WILL

Oh!

ANTHONY

Somehow his faith begets more respect than mine because it lacks the voracity to question itself

WILL

VORacity or VERacity?

ANTHONY

Voracity.

WILL

Yeah. Yours is voracious. Good.

ANTHONY

There are no good principles left to be picked up. Good faith is wrung.

WILL

Wrung… good – faith – wrung… not wrought?

ANTHONY

Wrung. as in “let joy size to God knows what, whose smile ‘s not wrung”

WILL

Little bit oblique

ANTHONY

But true. Either way, you’re keeping me.

WILL

From what?

ANTHONY

…

WILL

Just have a think about it

Scene II – Breakses

WILL

I don’t know, probably doesn’t work anyway. Sort of had enough of it.

HAL

How have you had enough?

WILL

What?

HAL

Isn’t it too close to you

WILL

What, for what?

HAL

Too close to give up?

WILL

Nah it’s just a bunch of- shit I’m doing cause I’m not really doing much at the moment

HAL
You don’t know what you have.

WILL

Yeah, maybe. Maybe I do.

HAL

Do you think this is my fault?

WILL

What’s your fault?

HAL

Are you okay

WILL

What dya mean your fault?

HAL

I feel responsible

WILL

For me? Nah, no one’s got me, I’m my own- being. Self and the same. It’s uh- It’s all sorting itself out in the end.

HAL

Sorry

WILL

(yawning)

Yeah, it’s not your fault just fuck off.

Scene III – Libraries In Alexandria

HAL

Sorry, it’s work

DEE

Yeah

HAL

I only wanted to do something together

DEE

Alright

HAL

(He notices him)

Oh. What are you doing here.

DEE

Just asking.

HAL

I don’t think I’ll be much help

DEE
You will. Where is he?

HAL

I don’t know. He just goes. I always think I’ve done something.

DEE

It’s not your fault.

HAL

I know.

DEE

I don’t think you do. Sorry but I don’t think you can

HAL

Can what?

DEE

Know what you mean to him. You’re in it alone.

HAL

Why?

DEE

I don’t know. That’s how you’ve always been. 

HAL

That’s- It’s not really fair is it?

DEE
No, it’s not. But beautiful

HAL

What is?

DEE

(putting together a smile)

… Nothing

Scene IV – Men Of My Influence

SEBASTIAN

Here’s the centre square.

DEE
Oh.

SEBASTIAN
And the frère-en-passant of Mephisto, who art in trouble, don’t you know?

DEE

He’s only gone to clean the tables

SEBASTIAN

Deciduous, it seems, on the clinical matter of clerical clarity, he’s chaste in pursuit of your aethers.

DEE
I did tell him he’d have worries in a week or two if he didn’t get it sorted

SEBASTIAN
Of course that’s the service your master prays you for. He’s a tenacious gift.

DEE

He’s a what?

SEBASTIAN

Particoloured by particulières as it stands – the business is subtle in your hands.

DEE

Until when?

SEBASTIAN

Until the father reaps the harvest of his son. So that posits me here at the heart of the thing – to inquire upon your enquiries.

DEE
All going fine. I’ve been making solid progress with our friend down here.

SEBASTIAN

Though whether that progress can be seen from both sides perhaps remains to be, or not to be, seen?

DEE
Doesn’t matter does it. Make things better, they get better. Don’t need to educate every tool along the way – pardon my language.

SEBASTIAN
Quite unnecessary

DEE

Yes you are

SEBASTIAN
You are ticking, sir.

DEE
…

Am I?

SEBASTIAN
…

Yes. And mine, above all, is an opinion you can trust.

Scene V – And The Office Is Full Again

SEBASTIAN

There’s the obedience a man might expect from the child of a child of a child. I’d take an earnest handle to it if I weren’t my father’s father’s son.

ANTHONY

You are not your father’s father’s son

SEBASTIAN

Or rather you are not your mother’s mother’s daughter.

ANTHONY

What have I done to snare myself in this kind of petty disagreement? There was a time when you were freedom itself – and now you’re tied up by the neck. Do you understand that you’re performing a service? Or at least I imagine I’m asking that question, before I dive back into the rough.

SEBASTIAN

Down through the flowerheads and into to the garden of the weeds. Canopy palls to pitch under prettier petals, and the detective rests in pieces.

ANTHONY

Would you be kinder to me if I told you my father was dead?

SEBASTIAN

Your father’s hand is quick enough to the strings – but the marionettes have no clothes for their funeral-dance. So back to the études for all.

ANTHONY

But what if I told you he was dead?

SEBASTIAN
Then the man would be paying in receipts

ANTHONY

The man?

SEBASTIAN

The devil

ANTHONY

What devil?

SEBASTIAN
The man. Marcelli.

ANTHONY
I thought you were your father’s son

SEBASTIAN
Or rather, I am your mother’s daughter.

ANTHONY

Is that what you have for me? Is this what work comes to in the modern day?

SEBASTIAN

I could speak confidently on the modern day myself but by dent a personal conscience I’ve found my watch broken.

ANTHONY

I can see to it

SEBASTIAN
See to it. And if your pleasure comes round to it, see in that the miracle of the moment; that a man might see it, see to it, and see nothing.

ANTHONY

If I’m going to be held to a task I might as well give some flesh the satisfaction. I think I’ll move to my family.

SEBASTIAN

Speak once, speak twice

ANTHONY

I’m putting you to bed

SEBASTIAN
No curtains tonight, no curtains please.

Act IV

Scene I – Father’s Hand

ANTHONY

I’ve come to cause chaos

FRANCIS
Please, can you leave this to another day?

ANTHONY
No, I’ve become aware of my situation and want deeply to make it anyone’s problem but my own

FRANCIS
I almost admire your awareness

ANTHONY

Francis, our father is a drunk and a cad

FRANCIS
Our father is bed-ridden 

ANTHONY

I meant our father in heaven. Or is he bed-ridden too?

FRANCIS
I know you have your problems with the church-

ANTHONY
That might explain quite a lot of things, in fact

FRANCIS
But I don’t see why you’ve chosen this moment to-

ANTHONY

All things converge, Francis, it’s ticking, it’s coming together.

FRANCIS
What is?

ANTHONY

The work. But I’m coming to the conclusion that it needs a death.

FRANCIS

We’re eating at eight.

ANTHONY
Well that will be the perfect time. Would you mind if I killed our father with a knife?

FRANCIS
I did want you to come but it’s no use if you’re going to make a scene

ANTHONY
Would it trouble you even slightly?

FRANCIS

We might have to have Martha instead

ANTHONY

No way man, she’s gotta come with me

FRANCIS

She what?

ANTHONY

Yeah, course, man – she’s my girl

FRANCIS

What are you doing? 

ANTHONY

I’m not sure. Man.

FRANCIS

I’ll see you at eight. And don’t kill anyone.

Exit Francis

ANTHONY

(As though trying something, it gradually becomes joyous)
Yeah. That’s it man. Ah. Two thousand… and one. What’s that sound? Am I not my Father’s son? Ah. AH! I’m monastic. The year of our lord, two thousand and one. Martha, come here ! I am learning to summon the devil !

Scene II – Breakses

WILL
But it means nothing

MADS
Yeah I get that

WILL

So plan is, I’m gonna get a bit more done then go down to the office

MADS

Office?

WILL

(Aware of the absurdity)

Like the administrative one. I don’t know really, not like I’ve done it before. I’m not a regular at the old, leaving University- trick.

MADS
Nah I do most- weeks. I been all round the country. 

WILL

(Entertained)

What, studying what?

MADS

… Science. Of owls.

WILL

(Laughing)
Yeah me too … big one. Fuck though, this is the point of no return. I’m on the- crux of the – matrix, not that but like the-

MADS
(With comic delicacy)

Fulcrum?

WILL

Yeah. The fulcrum of the times.

MADS

Going for a pint after, then? Post-fulcrum.

WILL

Yeah, course. Gotta be the custom of the post-fuck zone. Not like, post-actual fuck that’d be a weird one, like, post… life.

MADS
Post man?

WILL

Yep. No way Postman pat went to uni. Too busy posting.

MADS

Hundred percent

WILL

I’ll see you at the, uh, anchor. And give my love. Just because I can’t speak doesn’t mean I don’t love.

MADS

Love you too mate.

Exit Mads

WILL

(Confused)

Yeah. Love. That’s fucked. What is that? Who is this? I’m not me. And I’m not love, I’m not good at love, I’m… (a pause) oh.

Scene III – Libraries in Alexandria

HAL

Is it you this time?

TRAXIA
No it’s the police, we’ve finally come for you

HAL
It’s nice to see you

TRAXIA
Yeah, nice

HAL

(Powerlessly)

Not everything’s a comment, by the way

TRAXIA

(Obviously, then sincerely)

Sorry. I mean sorry. Actually. How was your day.

HAL

Not much of a day

TRAXIA
Okay. Do you wanna- tell me what you did?

HAL

I’ve been correcting it. You’re right. It wasn’t about loving you, I wasn’t writing about love. But I want to. I don’t understand the point in truth? I don’t want to draw pictures for you, I want to- draw… I want to- kiss you? Fuck- yeah- no- I do. Yeah. And I can’t write about that.

TRAXIA

(Holding off their cynicism)

That’s… cute?

HAL

And that makes me sound like a child.

TRAXIA
No, it doesn’t

HAL

It does, and that’s fine, because I’m not a builder, I don’t knock things into place, I- I- I’m a…

TRAXIA

(Reassuringly)

It doesn’t matter

HAL

Yeah. It doesn’t matter what I am. So long as I’m a metre of the soul. Few pints down, mate, and that’s all I am.

TRAXIA
Ha?

HAL

(Confused, then simply)

I’m… I’m trying.

TRAXIA
(Equally confused)

Yeah, I know, I love you.

HAL

(Thinking, without ill will)

Yeah. You love me. Because you have to. Because someone needs to love me and I need to stop them. Because I fail at being loved every time. Because, I’m, an idiot ! HA!

Scene IV – Men of My Influence

DEE

One more of your finest.

AL

What do you want

DEE

I told ya

AL

No you didn’t

DEE
You holding me to account for something? Seems you’re my punishment.

AL

Just tell me what you want

DEE

Not a bad way to go though, all things considered

AL

Right I can get you something or I can go

DEE

I think you’ve got the wrong idea

AL

Just give me a shout if you need something

DEE
(shouting after him ) I think you’ve got the wrong idea. You don’t go, mate. I don’t go. You’re put here to pour me drinks and I’ll have you do it.

AL

(particularly) what do you want?

DEE
A bloody drink. God almighty, shouldn’t be that hard should it?

AL

(Pouring a drink) a pint – of our finest.

DEE

There he is

AL

Now what do you want

DEE

Oh. Nothing. I got it all here. It’s seven nights in the barrel. Forty days of hard stone corporeal for our man-above-errors

AL
What?

DEE

Yeah. Simple place but there’s light spilling out the countertops

AL

I said I’d get to it

DEE

(Quickly) Too much light in’t there. No space for the real world. We’re built towards nothing but we can’t get close enough can we? Can’t make it simple. 

AL

I don’t know

DEE
No you don’t, no one does, no one knows simple, no one knows life, not me, not you, not my father, his father – NO ONE  — We’re it. We’re the ground. But there’s always something underneath. Ha.

Scene V – And The Office Is Full Again

SEBASTIAN

And there the system slips head-over itself. Two spaces spaced to sit in and the top takes both. Top-down I take to the tightly by titles: an evening of light delights at my fathers behest, request one father’s bequest be questioned quickly but by no means light-ly. And if tonight Marcelli might uncover that delight the undercover stationed tout-de-cover as it stands, the cover spared might profit our prophets gone spare for despair. One man’s tragedy is another man’s treasury. And so it goes for him…. That name, Marcelli, what’s it for? It doesn’t seem to mean anything at all. And all because that temperamental poet is a little too fond of tying knots. And yet, for the sake of obedience, I call that shape, that call I shape my father, and every decision shoots upwards to the hand. And everything as it runs, it ticks, (he holds out his palm upwards) and collects in the hand of the father. (and closes it) Ready to be closed away. Into silence. Hello again.

Act V

Scene I – Father’s Hand

(ANTHONY, FRANCIS, MARTHA and FATHER sit at a dining table, eating in silence)

FATHER

Anthony, why don’t you tell us about your book?

FRANCIS

It’s a shame about the Masons, father

FATHER
No, they’re an awful pain

ANTHONY

(as though not recognising the repetition)
I’m writing about an awful pain

FATHER
How interesting

ANTHONY
About half as much as the last one

MARTHA
Don’t be clever

ANTHONY

Sorry, I thought I’d save my ignorance for print.

FRANCIS

I’m glad to hear it’s going well

ANTHONY

You do have remarkable ears, Francis, to have heard that.

FRANCIS

(Restraining irritation)
Nonetheless

ANTHONY
The less I’m afraid. All the less for you.

MARTHA
What are you talking about

FATHER
Yes, you have quite lost me now

ANTHONY

There’s going to be rather a lot less for all of you when you’re dead and buried

FATHER
And when do you think that will be?

ANTHONY
I should think in about five minutes

FRANCIS

Remarkable

ANTHONY

You’ll forgive my imprecision, I don’t have a watch

MARTHA
You had a watch this morning

ANTHONY

Yes and I left it in case I wanted to be imprecise.

FATHER
So we’re all going to be dead in five minutes? That is interesting.

FRANCIS
Don’t listen to him, father, he’s being poetic

ANTHONY

A-ha! That is precisely why you should listen to me. Because you have been looking for omnipotence and all the while it’s been staring you in your horrible pale faces. I am not god. But I know which direction to look.

WILL

What?

ANTHONY
There he is! Hello, old physician, have you come to fix my wheels again.

WILL

(Simply)

What are you doing this for?

ANTHONY

What for! That’s the question. What for, what for. He asks it, you ask it. Because you don’t know. So what do we know?

WILL

You said you were gonna kill your father

ANTHONY

No, I said he was going to die. And now I’d argue it’d be quite dissatisfying if he didn’t. Would you agree?

FRANCIS

I certainly wouldn’t agree

ANTHONY

I don’t care, you’re a prick.

MARTHA

He’s a what?

ANTHONY

See? I’m in league with lower powers.

WILL

Is there even a way out of this?

ANTHONY

There’s one, yes.

WILL

I’m not killing your father

ANTHONY

No, of course not, not for three minutes.

MADS

Who you killing?

WILL

Not killing anyone

FATHER
Who are these people?

FRANCIS 

Yes, who are you?

WILL

I’m not anyone, it’s fine.

ANTHONY

No ! Ladies and Gentlemen this is the man upstairs

FATHER

Francis?

FRANCIS

I’m here, father

MADS
Ah, were you doing a joke?

WILL

I think so.

MARTHA
Anthony even from Tangiers I didn’t think you’d be bringing back this sort of company

ANTHONY

God, she’s very boring, can we get rid of her?

WILL
No

MARTHA

Get rid of who? You really ought to tell me what’s going on.

WILL

No, fair, you might be right. Sorry.

(Martha drops out of the scene)

FRANCIS
Anthony would you please focus

ANTHONY

And what about him? There’s nothing really going on there either. 

WILL

Isn’t he a coward?

ANTHONY

Not really, he’s just impassive

FRANCIS

Father, I think we ought to leave my brother to his friends

ANTHONY
Exactly

WILL

Yeah

(Francis drops out of the scene)

MADS
Ah shit I liked him

WILL

Why?

MADS
Funny

FATHER

I’d actually quite like to speak with you alone

WILL

Alright

FATHER
With Anthony

WILL

Alright

(He doesn’t leave)

FATHER
There is a little business between us 

WILL

Business

FATHER
Business.

WILL

Money

FATHER
Business

WILL

Money !

FATHER

Money 

WILL

Inheritance

FATHER

Inheritance.

WILL

AH ! There’s money for him.

MADS
Ohh

ANTHONY
Would you kill him now?

WILL

You need to resolve your artistic differences or something

ANTHONY
Resolve your own artistic differences

WILL

Alright, shut up, I’ll kill him.

FATHER
Kill whom?

MADS
It is repetitive actually

WILL

Sorry

(Father drops out of the scene)

ANTHONY

Wonderful. When exactly can I cash him in?

WILL

I don’t know. Call an arbiter, you know, what they called… 

MADS
Bank

WILL

Not a bank, a… thing, solicitor-y people

MADS

How much money is it?

ANTHONY

Five hundred thousand pounds

WILL

That’s a bit- Wait, when is this supposed to be again? Aren’t you using shillings and stuff?

ANTHONY

No. 

MADS

Are you getting what’s going on?

WILL

Yeah, thought I was  

ANTHONY

You don’t know. But someone knows something. What’s he for?

WILL

Who ?

ANTHONY

You, what’s the point of you?

MADS

I don’t know, nothing probably

ANTHONY

No, come on. what’s your purpose? SOMEONE?

HAL

Stop it 

ANTHONY

Aha !

TRAXIA

Am I leaving you alone now?

WILL

Ah fuck. 

ANTHONY

So, you must be my father’s father?

HAL

Who are you?

ANTHONY

Why’d you put him in with us. He’s a cushion.

HAL

I can’t put a person in a room without blinking

ANTHONY

And you blink enough to see double ! So our friend here stands a poetic punchbag, how inventive.

MADS

is that me?

ANTHONY

(Turning towards Mads)

And he understands – nothing. Useful, I must admit, but a poet holds himself to higher standards

WILL

I’m not a poet

HAL

I’m not a poet

ANTHONY

Not yet. You write in twos because it gives you space to be wrong. You want soliloquy but you can’t stand the sight of doubt unchallenged. If you have him standing alone, “leaving university”, it becomes too much like leaving, too much pursuit of self, and love as it should be. But you’re in love and you have ears so you can get it right, but you kill him first

MADS

Kill who?

HAL

… I don’t know who you are and my trust for you is terrifying.

ANTHONY

Don’t worry it’s just genetics. 

TRAXIA

I don’t think I should be here for this

ANTHONY

Shh it’s not your time yet.

HAL

You want Mads gone?

WILL

Sorry, fuck, am I not getting a say in this?

ANTHONY

I’m not going to know his name unless someone says it. But beyond that courtesy, yes.

HAL

You’re right

ANTHONY

I know

HAL

Sorry

Mads drops out of the scene

ANTHONY

You’re all painfully apologetic

WILL

Where’s he gone?

ANTHONY

He lives on in our hearts. Now. Your friend.

HAL

We’re not friends

ANTHONY

Yes, I can tell. Why not.

HAL 

I’m trying to help

ANTHONY

Yes but why can’t you 

HAL

I don’t know

ANTHONY

WHY?

DEE

Doesn’t matter

ANTHONY

Yes it does. Why do they hate each other?

DEE

People don’t click into love. People move like people.

AL

Can I get you anything?

ANTHONY

But people have motives. Lesson number one. 

DEE

And who cried to make you teacher?

ANTHONY

My father, Shakespeare and Christ. Now what’s going on inside her head

AL

Can I get you anything?

DEE

Doesn’t matter

ANTHONY

Yes it does, (tutorially) what does she want?

DEE

Nothing

ANTHONY

There we are. Love doesn’t work with one picture and one pinhead. You can’t make beauty from nothing. So commit to something, or commit it to obscurity

AL

Can I get you anything.

DEE

I don’t know what you want quite frankly

ANTHONY 

More than a drink I’m afraid. I think the simplest is both of them gone

DEE

Gone where?

AL

Can I get / you anything 

ANTHONY

Out. Your little lovers packed up.

DEE

And for what?

ANTHONY

For the purpose! I’m stuck out of time with half a million pounds and nowhere to put my honesty. If you concede there’s a breath of simplicity to it. God is quite easily distracted, you know, by our personal effects. And more importantly, is there anything else you can do?

DEE

…

I’m sorry

Traxia and Hal drop out of the scene, Will follows

 ANTHONY

(Faux mournful)

Oh and the child with them.

DEE

Are you happy?

ANTHONY

Almost. But I should point out that your friend has been saying the same five words since he came in.

DEE

That’s his job

ANTHONY

But I won’t sign for the death of aspirations. The best of us are addicts to the human form, and simplicity is nothing close.

DEE

Simple is simple

ANTHONY

Simple for a moment, and dead for a lifetime. So why stay stuck with simple? WHY NOT THROW YOURSELF IN?

SEBASTIAN

You press upon practice, and presage a preying on promises, dear my displacer you play upon previous parts

AL

Can I get you anything?

ANTHONY

Does that sound like the truth to you? 

SEBASTIAN

If you trust an untempered attempt at the truth you could tolerate talking untamed with all that

ANTHONY

He’s not a barman, he’s a plastic figure, I’d have thought you had more self-respect

SEBASTIAN

If you’d not have it done I will have it undone

ANTHONY

So you believe me.

SEBASTIAN

Enough, yes. Let’s move on.

Al drops out of the scene

ANTHONY

And what’s left

SEBASTIAN

Something less than the mark

ANTHONY

Which makes nothing 

Dee drops out of the scene. Pause.

SEBASTIAN

Let’s move on

ANTHONY 

Where to.

SEBASTIAN

To the centre. Our detective rests at last, or lasts defective into limping time, and drags a pace of pastness into presence. So what remains standing? The F of father is taken from flesh, and put into figure and from figure, into fugue. The C of crisis is plucked out of character and flung into chorus and catalyst. And the Ss of sorrow, and simple, and substance, are silent. And standing is the poet in knots, (towards Sebastian), through to know-it-all, needless and nothing. 

Sebastian drops out of the scene. Pause.

ANTHONY

The important thing is to keep it moving. Because when it stops moving I don’t understand it. I see light through the eyes, and I splinter myself into beautiful colours, breaking it up into why, into principles,  precepts, dividing my sounds and my sense, and enacting all that destruction with discipline! Every second turning beauty into work, and that constant tearing at things, that impulse to revolt at all costs sends it up in a flurry like pages and pages of doubt, and I’m looking at nothing. For the content of my soul, see – through. … Is there a sense of improvement in that? … Well, if nothing else I have the wording of what to say to father. “Good evening” will come first. Then “I have finished my verses and started work on a something different.” Yes, beautifully, indefinitely “different”. “I have managed to divide”, I think I’ll say, “managed to divide my tendencies towards life imitation, romanticism, social satire and linguistic experiment, but I am as of yet sleeping too roughly to make anything of them.” And at that point I’ll fall down to my knees, confess my love, and beg him for a loan.

none permitted.