Complete Poems and Plays (90 page)

I’m afraid. Poor Michael! Mother spoilt him

And Father was too severe — so they’re always at loggerheads.

C
HARLES.
But you spoke of several reasons for your going with your father.

Is there any better reason than his fear of solitude?

M
ONICA
.
The second reason is exactly the opposite:

It’s his fear of being exposed to strangers.

C
HARLES
.
But he’s most alive when he’s among people

Managing, manœuvring, cajoling or bullying —

At all of which he’s a master. Strangers!

M
ONICA
.
You don’t understand. It’s one thing meeting people

When you’re in authority, with authority’s costume,

When the man that people see when they meet you

Is not the private man, but the public personage.

In politics Father wore a public label.

And later, as chairman of public companies,

Always his privacy has been preserved.

C
HARLES
.
His privacy has been so well preserved

That I’ve sometimes wondered whether there was any …

Private self to preserve.

M
ONICA
.
                             There
is
a private self, Charles.

I’m sure of that.

C
HARLES
.
                You’ve given two reasons,

One the contradiction of the other.

Can there be a third?

M
ONICA
.
                         The third reason is this:

I’ve only just been given it by Dr. Selby —

Father is much iller than he is aware of:

It may be, he will never return from Badgley Court.

But Selby wants him to have every encouragement —

If he’s hopeful, he’s likely to live a little longer.

That’s why Selby chose the place. A
convalescent
home

With the atmosphere of an hotel —

Nothing about it to suggest the clinic —

Everything about it to suggest recovery.

C
HARLES
.
This is your best reason, and the most depressing;

For this situation may persist for a long time,

And you’ll go on postponing and postponing our marriage.

M
ONICA
.
I’m afraid … not a very long time, Charles.

It’s almost certain that the winter in Jamaica

Will never take place. ‘Make the reservations’

Selby said, ‘as if you were going’.

But Badgley Court’s so near your constituency!

You can come down at weekends, even when the House is sitting.

And you can take me out, if Father can spare me.

But he’ll simply love having you to talk to!

C
HARLES
.
I know he’s used to seeing me about.

M
ONICA
.
I’ve seen him looking at you. He was thinking of himself

When he was your age — when he started like you,

With the same hopes, the same ambitions —

And of his disappointments.

C
HARLES
.
                                   Is that wistfulness,

Compassion, or … envy?

M
ONICA
.
                                Envy is everywhere.

Who is without envy? And most people

Are unaware or unashamed of being envious.

It’s all we can ask if compassion and wistfulness …

And tenderness, Charles! are mixed with envy:

I do believe that he is fond of you.

So you must come often. And Oh, Charles dear —

[
Enter
L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
]

M
ONICA
.
You’ve been very long in coming, Father. What have you been doing?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Good afternoon, Charles. You might have guessed, Monica,

What I’ve been doing. Don’t you recognise this book?

M
ONICA
.
It’s your engagement book.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
                               Yes, I’ve been brooding over it.

M
ONICA
.
But what a time for your engagement book!

You know what the doctors said: complete relaxation

And to think about nothing. Though I know that won’t be easy.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
That is just what I was doing.

M
ONICA
.
                                                                Thinking of nothing?

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
Contemplating nothingness. Just remember:

Every day, year after year, over my breakfast,

I have looked at this book — or one just like it —

You know I keep the old ones on a shelf together;

I could look in the right book, and find out what I was doing

Twenty years ago, to-day, at this hour of the afternoon.

If I’ve been looking at this engagement book, to-day,

Not over breakfast, but before tea,

It’s the empty pages that I’ve been fingering —

The first empty pages since I entered Parliament.

I used to jot down notes of what I had to say to people:

Now I’ve no more to say, and no one to say it to.

I’ve been wondering … how many more empty pages?

M
ONICA
.
You would soon fill them up if we allowed you to!

That’s my business to prevent. You know I’m to protect you

From your own restless energy — the inexhaustible

Sources of the power that wears out the machine.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
They’ve dried up, Monica, and you know it.

They talk of rest, these doctors, Charles; they tell me to be cautious,

To take life easily. Take life easily!

It’s like telling a man he mustn’t run for trains

When the last thing he wants is to take a train for anywhere!

No, I’ve not the slightest longing for the life I’ve left —

Only fear of the emptiness before me.

If I had the energy to work myself to death

How gladly would I face death! But waiting, simply waiting,

With no desire to act, yet a loathing of inaction.

A fear of the vacuum, and no desire to fill it.

It’s just like sitting in an empty waiting room

In a railway station on a branch line,

After the last train, after all the other passengers

Have left, and the booking office is closed

And the porters have gone. What am I waiting for

In a cold and empty room before an empty grate?

For no one. For nothing.

M
ONICA
.
                              Yet you’ve been looking forward

To this very time! You know how you grumbled

At the farewell banquet, with the tributes from the staff,

The presentation, and the speech you had to make

And the speeches that you had to listen to!

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
[
pointing
to
a
silver
salver,
still
lying
in
its
case
]
.
I don’t know which impressed me more, the insincerity

Of what was said about me, or of my reply —

All to thank them for that.

Oh the grudging contributions

That bought this piece of silver! The inadequate levy

That made the Chairman’s Price! And my fellow directors

Saying ‘we must put our hands in our pockets

To double this collection — it must be something showy’.

This would do for visiting cards — if people still left cards

And if I was going to have any visitors.

M
ONICA
.
Father, you simply want to revel in gloom!

You know you’ve retired in a blaze of glory —

You’ve read every word about you in the papers.

C
HARLES
.
And the leading articles saying ‘we are confident

That his sagacious counsel will long continue

To be at the disposal of the Government in power’.

And the expectation that your voice will be heard

In debate in the Upper House …

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
                            The established liturgy

Of the Press on any conspicuous retirement.

My obituary, if I had died in harness,

Would have occupied a column and a half

With an inset, a portrait taken twenty years ago.

In five years’ time, it will be the half of that;

In ten years’ time, a paragraph.

C
HARLES
.
                                        That’s the reward

Of every public man.

L
ORD
C
LAVERTON
.
           Say rather, the exequies

Of the failed successes, the successful failures,

Who occupy positions that other men covet.

When we go, a good many folk are mildly grieved,

And our closest associates, the small minority

Of those who really understand the place we filled

Are inwardly delighted. They won’t want my ghost

Walking in the City or sitting in the Lords.

And I, who recognise myself as a ghost

Shan’t want to be seen there. It makes me smile

To think that men should be frightened of ghosts.

If they only knew how frightened a ghost can be of men!

[
Knock.
Enter
L
AMBERT
]

L
AMBERT
.
Excuse me, my Lord. There’s a gentleman downstairs

Is very insistent that he must see you.

I told him you never saw anyone, my Lord,