Complete Works, Volume IV. Harold Pinter

I don’t know.

      Pause

      ANNA Are you hungry?

      KATE No.

      DEELEY Hungry? After that casserole?

      Pause

      KATE What shall I wear tomorrow? I can’t make up my mind.

      ANNA Wear your green.

      KATE I haven’t got the right top.

      ANNA You have. You have your turquoise blouse.

      KATE Do they go?

      ANNA Yes, they do go. Of course they go.

      KATE I’ll try it.

      Pause

      ANNA Would you like me to ask someone over?

      KATE Who?

      ANNA Charley . . . or Jake?

      KATE I don’t like Jake.

      ANNA Well, Charley . . . or . . .

      KATE Who?

      ANNA McCabe.

      Pause

      KATE I’ll think about it in the bath.

      ANNA Shall I run your bath for you?

      KATE (Standing.) No. I’ll run it myself tonight.

      Kate slowly walks to the bedroom door, goes out, closes it.

      Deeley stands looking at Anna.

      Anna turns her head towards him.

      They look at each other.

      FADE

      ACT TWO

      The bedroom.

      A long window up centre. Door to bathroom up left. Door to sitting-room up right.

      Two divans. An armchair.

      The divans and armchair are disposed in precisely the same relation to each other as the furniture in the first act, but in reversed positions.

      Lights dim. Anna discerned sitting on divan. Faint glow from glass panel in bathroom door.

      Silence.

      Lights up. The other door opens. Deeley comes in with tray.

      Deeley comes into the room, places the tray on a table.

      DEELEY Here we are. Good and hot. Good and strong and hot. You prefer it white with sugar, I believe?

      ANNA Please.

      DEELEY (Pouring.) Good and strong and hot with white and sugar.

      He hands her the cup.

      Like the room?

      ANNA Yes.

      DEELEY We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It’s the castors that make all this possible.

      He sits with coffee.

      Yes, I remember you quite clearly from The Wayfarers.

      ANNA The what?

      DEELEY The Wayfarers Tavern, just off the Brompton Road.

      ANNA When was that?

      DEELEY Years ago.

      ANNA I don’t think so.

      DEELEY Oh yes, it was you, no question. I never forget a face. You sat in the corner, quite often, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. And here you are, sitting in my house in the country. The same woman. Incredible. Fellow called Luke used to go in there. You knew him.

      ANNA Luke?

      DEELEY Big chap. Ginger hair. Ginger beard.

      ANNA I don’t honestly think so.

      DEELEY Yes, a whole crowd of them, poets, stunt men, jockeys, standup comedians, that kind of setup. You used to wear a scarf, that’s right, a black scarf, and a black sweater, and a skirt.

      ANNA Me?

      DEELEY And black stockings. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten The Wayfarers Tavern? You might have forgotten the name but you must remember the pub. You were the darling of the saloon bar.

      ANNA I wasn’t rich, you know. I didn’t have money for alcohol.

      DEELEY You had escorts. You didn’t have to pay. You were looked after. I bought you a few drinks myself.

      ANNA You?

      DEELEY Sure.

      ANNA Never.

      DEELEY It’s the truth. I remember clearly.

      Pause

      ANNA You?

      DEELEY I’ve bought you drinks.

      Pause

      Twenty years ago . . . or so.

      ANNA You’re saying we’ve met before?

      DEELEY Of course we’ve met before.

      Pause

      We’ve talked before. In that pub, for example. In the corner. Luke didn’t like it much but we ignored him. Later we all went to a party. Someone’s flat, somewhere in Westbourne Grove. You sat on a very low sofa, I sat opposite and looked up your skirt. Your black stockings were very black because your thighs were so white. That’s something that’s all over now, of course, isn’t it, nothing like the same palpable profit in it now, it’s all over. But it was worthwhile then. It was worthwhile that night. I simply sat sipping my light ale and gazed . . . gazed up your skirt. You didn’t object, you found my gaze perfectly acceptable.

      ANNA I was aware of your gaze, was I?

      DEELEY There was a great argument going on, about China or something, or death, or China and death, I can’t remember which, but nobody but I had a thigh-kissing view, nobody but you had the thighs which kissed. And here you are. Same woman. Same thighs.

      Pause

      Yes. Then a friend of yours came in, a girl, a girl friend. She sat on the sofa with you, you both chatted and chuckled, sitting together, and I settled lower to gaze at you both, at both your thighs, squealing and hissing, you aware, she unaware, but then a great multitude of men surrounded me, and demanded my opinion about death, or about China, or whatever it was, and they would not let me be but bent down over me, so that what with their stinking breath and their broken teeth and the hair in their noses and China and death and their arses on the arms of my chair I was forced to get up and plunge my way through them, followed by them with ferocity, as if I were the cause of their argument, looking back through smoke, rushing to the table with the linoleum cover to look for one more full bottle of light ale, looking back through smoke, glimpsing two girls on the sofa, one of them you, heads close, whispering, no longer able to see anything, no longer able to see stocking or thigh, and then you were gone. I wandered over to the sofa. There was no one on it. I gazed at the indentations of four buttocks. Two of which were yours.

      Pause

      ANNA I’ve rarely heard a sadder story.

      DEELEY I agree.

      ANNA I’m terribly sorry.

      DEELEY That’s all right.

      Pause

      I never saw you again. You disappeared from the area. Perhaps you moved out.

      ANNA No. I didn’t.

      DEELEY I never saw you in The Wayfarers Tavern again. Where were you?

      ANNA Oh, at concerts, I should think, or the ballet.

      Silence

      Katey’s