HENRY
| Let us get up and go.
|
ADA
| Go? Where? And Addie? She would be very distressed if she came and found you had gone without her. [
Pause.
] What do you suppose is keeping her?
[
Smart blow of cylindrical ruler on piano case. Unsteadily, ascending and descending, Addie plays scale of A Flat Major, hands first together, then reversed. Pause.
]
|
MUSIC MASTER
| [
Italian accent
] Santa Cecilia!
[
Pause.
]
|
ADDIE
| Will I play my piece now please?
[
Pause. Music Master beats two bars of waltz time with ruler on piano case. Addie plays opening bars of Chopin's 5th Waltz in A Flat Major, Music Master beating time lightly with ruler as she plays. In first chord of bass, bar 5, she plays E instead of F. Resounding blow of ruler on piano case. Addie stops playing.
]
|
MUSIC MASTER
| [
violently
] Fa!
|
ADDIE
| [
tearfully
] What?
|
MUSIC MASTER
| [
violently
] Eff! Eff!
|
ADDIE
| [
tearfully
] Where?
|
MUSIC MASTER
| [
violently
] Qua! [
He thumps note.
] Fa!
[
Pause. Addie begins again, Music Master beating time lightly with ruler. When she comes to bar 5 she makes same mistake. Tremendous blow of ruler on piano case. Addie stops playing, begins to wail.
]
|
MUSIC MASTER
| [
frenziedly
] Eff! Eff! [
He hammers note.
] Eff! [
He hammers note.
] Eff!
[
Hammered note, “Eff!” and Addie's wail amplified to paroxysm, then suddenly cut off. Pause.
]
|
ADA
| You are silent today.
|
HENRY
| It was not enough to drag her into the world, now she must play the piano.
|
ADA
| She must learn. She shall learn. Thatâand riding.
[
Hooves walking.
]
|
RIDING MASTER
| Now Miss! Elbows in Miss! Hands down Miss!
[
Hooves trotting.
] Now Miss! Back straight Miss! Knees in Miss! [
Hooves cantering.
] Now Miss! Tummy in Miss! Chin up Miss! [
Hooves galloping.
] Now Miss! Eyes front Miss! [
Addie begins to wail.
] Now Miss! Now Miss! [
Galloping hooves, “Now Miss!” and Addie's wail amplified to paroxysm, then suddenly cut off. Pause.
]
|
ADA
| What are you thinking of? [
Pause.
] I was never taught, until it was too late. All my life I regretted it.
|
HENRY
| What was your strong point, I forget.
|
ADA
| Oh . . . geometry I suppose, plane and solid. [
Pause.
] First plane, then solid. [
Shingle as he gets up.
] Why do you get up?
|
HENRY
| I thought I might try and get as far as the water's edge. [
Pause. With a sigh.
] And back. [
Pause.
] Stretch my old bones.
[
Pause.
]
|
ADA
| Well, why don't you? [
Pause.
] Don't stand there thinking about it. [
Pause.
] Don't stand there staring. [
Pause. He goes towards sea. Boots on shingle, say ten steps. He halts at water's edge. Pause. Sea a little louder. Distant.
] Don't wet your good boots.
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| Don't! don't. . . .
[
Sea suddenly rough.
]
|
ADA
| [
twenty years earlier, imploring
] Don't! Don't!
|
HENRY
| [
ditto, urgent
] Darling!
|
ADA
| [
ditto, more feebly
] Don't!
|
HENRY
| [
ditto, exultantly
] Darling!
[
Rough sea. Ada cries out. Cry and sea amplified, cut off. End of evocation. Pause. Sea calm. He goes back up deeply shelving beach. Boots laborious on shingle. He halts. Pause. He moves on. He halts. Pause. Sea calm and faint.
]
|
ADA
| Don't stand there gaping. Sit down. [
Pause. Shingle as he sits.
] On the shawl. [
Pause.
] Are you afraid we might touch? [
Pause.
] Henry.
|
HENRY
| Yes.
|
ADA
| You should see a doctor about your talking, it's worse, what must it be like for Addie? [
Pause.
] Do you know what she said to me once, when she was still quite small, she said, Mummy, why does Daddy keep on talking all the time? She heard you in the lavatory. I didn't know what to answer.
|
HENRY
| Daddy! Addie! [
Pause.
] I told you to tell her I was praying.
[
Pause.
] Roaring prayers at God and his saints.
|
ADA
| It's very bad for the child. [
Pause.
] It's silly to say it keeps you from hearing it, it doesn't keep you from hearing it and even if it does you shouldn't be hearing it, there must be something wrong with your brain. [
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| That! I shouldn't be hearing that!
|
ADA
| I don't think you are hearing it. And if you are what's wrong with it, it's a lovely peaceful gentle soothing sound, why do you hate it? [
Pause.
] And if you hate it why don't you keep away from it? Why are you always coming down here? [
Pause.
] There's something wrong with your brain, you ought to see Holloway, he's alive still, isn't he?
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| [
wildly
] Thuds, I want thuds! Like this! [
He fumbles in the shingle, catches up two big stones and starts dashing them together.
] Stone! [
Clash.
] Stone! [
Clash. “Stone!” and clash
amplified, cut off. Pause. He throws one stone away. Sound of its fall.
] That's life! [
He throws the other stone away. Sound of its fall.
] Not this . . . [
pause
] . . . sucking!
|
ADA
| And why life? [
Pause.
] Why life, Henry? [
Pause.
] Is there anyone about?
|
HENRY
| Not a living soul.
|
ADA
| I thought as much. [
Pause.
] When we longed to have it to ourselves there was always someone. Now that it does not matter the place is deserted.
|
HENRY
| Yes, you were always very sensitive to being seen in gallant conversation. The least feather of smoke on the horizon and you adjusted your dress and became immersed in the
Manchester Guardian.
[
Pause.
] The hole is still there, after all these years. [
Pause. Louder.
] The hole is still there.
|
ADA
| What hole? The earth is full of holes.
|
HENRY
| Where we did it at last for the first time.
|
ADA
| Ah yes, I think I remember. [
Pause.
] The place has not changed.
|
HENRY
| Oh yes it has,
I
can see it. [
Confidentially.
] There is a levelling going on! [
Pause.
] What age is she now?
|
ADA
| I have lost count of time.
|
HENRY
| Twelve? Thirteen? [
Pause.
] Fourteen?
|
ADA
| I really could not tell you, Henry.
|
HENRY
| It took us a long time to have her. [
Pause.
] Years we kept hammering away at it. [
Pause.
] But we did it in the end. [
Pause. Sigh.
] We had her in the end.
[
Pause.
] Listen to it! [
Pause.
] It's not so bad when you get out on it. [
Pause.
]
Perhaps I should have gone into the merchant navy.
|
ADA
| It's only on the surface, you know. Underneath all is as quiet as the grave. Not a sound. All day, all night, not a sound. [
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| Now I walk about with the gramophone. But I forgot it today.
|
ADA
| There is no sense in that. [
Pause.
] There is no sense in trying to drown it. [
Pause.
] See Holloway.
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| Let us go for a row.
|
ADA
| A row? And Addie? She would be very distressed if she came and found you had gone for a row without her. [
Pause.
] Who were you with just now? [
Pause.
] Before you spoke to me.
|
HENRY
| I was trying to be with my father.
|
ADA
| Oh. [
Pause.
] No difficulty about that.
|
HENRY
| I mean I was trying to get him to be with me. [
Pause.
] You seem a little cruder than usual today, Ada. [
Pause.
] I was asking him if he had ever met you, I couldn't remember.
|
ADA
| Well?
|
HENRY
| He doesn't answer any more.
|
ADA
| I suppose you have worn him out. [
Pause.
] You wore him out living and now you are wearing him out dead. [
Pause.
] The time comes when one cannot speak to you any more. [
Pause.
] The time will come when no one will speak to you at all, not even complete strangers. [
Pause.
] You will be quite alone with your voice, there will be no other voice in the world but yours. [
Pause.
] Do you hear me?
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| I can't remember if he met you.
|
ADA
| You know he met me.
|
HENRY
| No, Ada, I don't know, I'm sorry, I have forgotten almost everything connected with you.
|
ADA
| You weren't there. Just your mother and sister. I had called to fetch you, as arranged. We were to go bathing together.
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| [
irritably
] Drive on, drive on! Why do people always stop in the middle of what they are saying?
|
ADA
| None of them knew where you were. Your bed had not been slept in. They were all shouting at one another. Your sister said she would throw herself off the cliff. Your father got up and went out, slamming the door. I left soon afterwards and passed him on the road. He did not see me. He was sitting on a rock looking out to sea. I never forgot his posture. And yet it was a
common one. You used to have it sometimes. Perhaps just the stillness, as if he had been turned to stone. I could never make it out.
[
Pause.
]
|
HENRY
| Keep on, keep on! [
Imploringly.
] Keep it going, Ada, every syllable is a second gained.
|
ADA
| That's all, I'm afraid. [
Pause.
] Go on now with your father or your stories or whatever you were doing, don't mind me any more.
|
HENRY
| I can't! [
Pause.
] I can't do it any more!
|
ADA
| You were doing it a moment ago, before you spoke to me.
|
HENRY
| [
angrily
] I can't do it any more now! [
Pause.
] Christ!
[
Pause.
]
|
ADA
| Yes, you know what I mean, there are attitudes remain in one's mind for reasons that are clear, the carriage of a head for example, bowed when one would have thought it should be lifted, and vice versa, or a hand suspended in mid-air, as if unowned. That kind of thing. But with your father sitting on the rock that day nothing of the kind, no detail you could put your finger on and say, How very peculiar! No, I could never make it out. Perhaps, as I said, just the great stillness of the whole body, as if all the breath had left it. [
Pause.
] Is this rubbish a help to you, Henry? [
Pause.
] I can try and go on a little if you wish. [
Pause.
] No? [
Pause.
] Then I think I'll be getting back.
|
