The Habit of Art: A Play

  Britten It puts it into context.

  Auden And coming from the subconscious makes it respectable. Apollo, Dionysus. Tosh…it’s a boy on a beach.

  Britten You don’t understand. In the book Aschenbach is the innocent. He is seduced by beauty.

  Auden That’s why you were attracted to it? Presumably because at sixty-eight, or whatever he is, Aschenbach is the innocent and the boy leads him on? You fancy it the story of your life.

  Britten No. No. Stop! Stop! (He covers his ears.) It’s too soon. You haven’t changed. You ask too many questions, just like you always did. I don’t know the answers yet and I only find the answers through the music. Ask too many questions too soon, and I never will because it won’t get written. I have to write it before I can write it, can’t you see that? In the book –

  Auden Ben, fuck the book. I can’t write a furtive libretto. You like boys, Ben. No amount of dressing Tadzio up as a vision of Apollo can alter the fact that Dionysus for you comes in a grey flannel suit or cricket whites. This is an old man lusting after a boy, and Apollo has got fuck all to do with it.

  Britten Wystan. How many more times? Aschenbach is the innocent. In the story it is the boy who is the tempter. If all my operas are concerned with the loss of innocence, well, in this one the innocence is – the old man’s.

  Auden What does it matter? Why does innocence come into it? Neither of them are innocent. It’s not corruption. It’s collaboration.

  Long pause.

  Britten Constraint, that’s what you’ve never appreciated.

  Auden Rubbish. A poet is governed by constraint, by metre and form.

  Britten No, I mean where subjects are concerned. Where this subject is concerned. You don’t believe in restraint.

  I do. I always have. And I hope I never see the day when in opera or in drama there is nothing that cannot be sung or said. A time of no limits.

  Auden This is England talking, isn’t it, Ben? This is taste, modesty, self-restraint. The family virtues. Except that you don’t belong in a family any more than I do. And you’re harder to spot. Lovable, sought after, beautifully mannered; the parents didn’t mind, maybe, but you were the predator.

  Britten No. No. (To Author. As Henry.) Is it true about the parents? Didn’t they mind?

  Author The fathers could be uneasy. The mothers didn’t seem to mind at all.

  Fitz Dear Ben.

  Henry Did anything happen?

  Author (shrugs) There were boys all through his life to whom he gave his heart. Sometimes he was loved in return. And licensed.

  Henry And that’s when Aldeburgh looked the other way.

  Author He seems to have been drawn to boys who knew the score. Who didn’t flinch at the occasional hug or were unabashed when the naked composer came and sat on the side of the bath. ‘What a funny boy you are.’

  Henry But no one ever complained?

  Author So far as we know, the worst Britten inflicted on these beloved youths was occasional embarrassment.

  Kay Mmm. On…

  Britten If I like boys…

  Auden Ben, there is no ‘if’…

  Britten All right, all right. Listen. For once in your life, listen. I don’t prey on them. They like me if only because I…attend to them. I listen. And since many of them are musical we play together…musically. Even the ones I cannot touch I can play with. And maybe one sort of playing is a substitute for another sort of playing, but it means we can do things together and perfectly properly. There is no threat in a duet. Or…playing the teacups.

  Auden Still, it’s a dangerous game. Imagine the scene – you have, I’m sure. A middle-aged man wakes up one morning, unemployed mostly but who gets by giving violin lessons or doing music copying…some ex-Tadzio who decides those high times in Aldeburgh were when his life took the wrong turning. So being a dutiful citizen he goes down to the police station, though not of course in Aldeburgh, and tells his story. Then you wake up.

  The model pupils of this world believe that artists have to pay, otherwise it isn’t fair. You’ve never really paid, have you?

  Britten Not paid? I’m dying.

  Auden Ben, Ben. Death isn’t the payment. Death is just the checkout. (Pause.) I’ve failed the test, haven’t I?

  Britten There was no test. I needed a hand. Not with the writing. Someone to say, ‘Go on. Go on.’ You used to be good at that. But you were always a bully. I’m too old for that.

  Auden And too celebrated. Too loved. But so you’ve always been. Still, it’s nice you thought of me. People don’t, nowadays, much. So. What do I say to you, Benjie? I say, ‘Take no notice. Go on, my dear.’

  Britten Even with Myfanwy?

  Auden Even with Myfanwy and Apollo and Dionysus and all that counterfeit classical luggage. We know it’s boys, Benjie.

  Let everybody like you.

  Let them love you.

  But go on. Go on.

  Britten ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do you will always be surrounded by people who adore you, nurse you, praise everything you do, and you build yourself a warm little nest of love by playing the lovable talented little boy.’

  Auden Who said that? It’s very good.

  Britten You did. It’s a letter you wrote me when we parted in New York in 1942. And you said if I was ever to grow up I would have to learn how to be a shit.

  Auden Well, you’ve managed that. Oh, not with me, but with all the other friends you’ve turned your back on. Still, dear Benjie, I’m glad you came. And – Myfanwy permitting, of course – I could still help out with the libretto. I knew him, you see. Mann was my father-in-law. Did I tell you that?

  Britten When I was a boy – because at twenty-three I was still a boy – I was baffled by the torrent of words that used to pour out of you and I clung to my pathetic staves and bar lines lest I drown in your wake. These magnificent words – I used to think my paltry music just an afterthought, a servant to the words. But it’s not. Music melts words…your words and Myfanwy’s, too. It’s the music that matters, even in Gilbert and Sullivan. Music wins.

  Carpenter And to Britten winning was important.

  He rises from his chair and re-enters the action.

  Silenced earlier, now I should speak, since as biographer to you both I am your passport to posterity.

  Auden The cheek. Our passport is what we have written.

  Britten Quite. Those who love and admire us. I am sure of that.

  Carpenter Are you? Would it not surprise you to learn that there is a growing number of your devotees who would in the nicest possible way be happy to see you dead?

  Britten Dead? Me?

  Auden Not in Milwaukee. They loved me in Milwaukee.

  Carpenter Not another opera, not more poems: a funeral.

  Britten I’ve still got so much to do.

  Auden I want to write this libretto.

  Carpenter There’s no malice in it. It’s just an entirely human desire for completion…the mild satisfaction of drawing a line under you. Death shapes a life.

  Dead, you see, you belong to your admirers in your entirety. They own you. They can even quote you to your face – only it will be a dead face – at your memorial service perhaps, or when they unveil the stone in Westminster Abbey. Over and done with: W. H. Auden. Benjamin Britten. Next.

  Fitz Not the same with actors, though, is it?

  Author Why?

  Fitz They’re not waiting for us to go?

  Author Yes, but actors aren’t always breaking new ground the way writers or composers are supposed to do. Actors can just be more of the same.

  Fitz With me?

  Kay Yes, with you, darling, and it is more of the same with actors most of the time. As you’d know if you were in the corner every night. They all have their little canteens of histrionic cutlery – Larry’s sudden fortissimos, John G.’s tremolo…

  Fitz It’s known as style.

  Kay I was in the corner for something Alec did.

  Tim Alec who?

/>   Kay On one particular line he used to do a little flick of his leg. Cut to five years later when I worked with him again…different play, same flick. Fool that I was, I made the mistake of mentioning it to the director, and fool that he was, he made the mistake of mentioning it to Alec. Result was he didn’t speak for four days. But they all do it. Great acting is a toolbox.

  Fitz Lucky not to get the sack.

  Kay Which we will if we don’t get on.

  (Giving cue.) ‘Why do you do this?’

  Britten Why do you do this? Write biography? Why not make your own way in the world instead of hitching a lift on the life of someone else?

  Auden I would find it intolerable myself if only because of the degree of self-relegation involved. A biographer is invariably second-rank even when he or she is first-rate.

  Britten That said, whose life will make the better read? Wystan’s, I imagine. Berlin. New York. Ischia. What have I got? Aldeburgh.

  Carpenter And the boys.

  Britten gets up, ready to go.

  Britten I must go.

  Auden (or Fitz) has fallen asleep.

  Henry The question is, is he asleep as Fitz or is he asleep as Auden?

  Author Auden could go to sleep here, actually. It’s quite plausible.

  Kay Don’t suggest it. It would be the thin end of a very long wedge.

  Fitz I’m not asleep.

  Kay Yes, you were, darling.

  Fitz I’m smoking tomorrow, that will help.

  Britten I must go.

  Auden Will you call me? They put calls through from the Lodge. I could start any time.

  Britten I’ll talk to Peter.

  Auden Give him my love. Tell him how I’ve changed.

  Britten We’ve both changed.

  Someone comes running up the stairs. It’s Stuart.

  Stuart Oh, sorry.

  Auden This is a friend of mine…What was your name again?

  Stuart Stuart.

  Auden This is Mr Britten.

  Pause.

  Stuart Why I came back…I’m not interrupting anything?

  Auden Is he? Is he interrupting anything, Benjie?

  Britten No. We’re…we’re finished.

  Stuart Why I came back was that the old guy I go to in Norham Road. I told him where I’d been – which I wouldn’t normally do because I don’t talk about clients – and he said I should come back, that you were famous and it would be something to tell my grandchildren about.

  Auden That depends on whether you’re going to have any grandchildren.

  Stuart Oh yes. This is just a phase.

  Auden And on how enlightened these putative grandchildren turn out to be. ‘Your grandpa was once a rent boy’ is hardly a bedtime story.

  Stuart I told you. That’s not a job description I answer to. Only, the thing I don’t understand is this…The guy I go and see, he’ll open the door and there are books everywhere, books in the hall, books on the landing, books and pictures…proper pictures, not prints. And he’s sitting there under the lamp in front of the fire and the clock’s ticking and the sherry’s poured. And he’s playing classical music on what he calls his radiogram…It’s just lovely.

  Auden In which case, you should go and see Mr Britten.

  Stuart Only then he tells me to come back here because you’re the great man…and look at it. Look at you. It’s a shit heap. Of course, however cosy it all is, he still wants me to take it out. Only I feel that pollutes it. I thought it was either/or. I never thought guys like him even did it. He doesn’t look as if he does. I thought he was respectable.

  Auden Then you’re very old-fashioned.

  Stuart You asked me, earlier on, what did I know? One thing I’ve learned is that given the chance everybody does it, one way or another. It’s not much of a lesson, though, is it?

  Fitz You don’t feel, author, that you’re glamorising this young man? Sorry, Tim. Would someone as sensitive – as potentially refined even – as you’re making him out to be, would he go on the game?

  Author It’s possible.

  Tim I can understand why he doesn’t want to be called a rent boy.

  Fitz Oh yes, dear boy. But would he be a rent boy?

  Kay That’s not really for you to ask, is it?

  Fitz I have to play the scene.

  Tim Am I doing it wrong?

  Kay No. Absolutely not. Fitz. (And she shakes her head in disapproval.)

  Henry When I was at RADA in the seventies someone I knew – a friend – was very hard up. And he went on the game.

  Donald Poor sod.

  Tim Why? It might be quite enjoyable. That was pretty well pre-everything then, wasn’t it? No risk and that.

  Kay How did it work? Did he hang around in Piccadilly?

  Henry No, no. It was classier than that. It’s like everything else in life. You get yourself an agent. The clients rang the agency, the agency rang him and he went round like he does in the play.

  Kay What were the others…the other boys? Were they full-time?

  Henry All sorts, one was a waiter, another worked at the Air Ministry. One was a porter at Sotheby’s.

  Tim What did your friend say they were like, the clients? Did he feel badly about it?

  Henry Who?

  Tim Your friend.

  Henry No, he didn’t feel badly about it at all. Only one evening he went round to a new client…and it was one of the teachers from RADA.

  Fitz Did they do it?

  Henry The teacher offered to help him with his fees, so he more or less stopped doing it after that.

  Fitz More or less? Did he still have to sleep with the teacher?

  Pause.

  Henry Now and again.

  Kay Life.

  Henry Yes.

  Kay Come on. Last lap.

  Henry What I was meaning is – it can be quite ordinary most of the time. A job. Not degradation.

  ASM (giving cue) ‘I’d better be going.’

  Britten I’d better be going.

  Auden No, we haven’t finished.

  Britten Wystan, we have.

  Auden Besides, you can tell your grandchildren about this gentleman, too.

  Stuart Yeah? Are you somebody, then?

  Britten No, I’m just a friend of Mr Auden’s.

  Auden A friend from way back.

  Stuart Everybody knows everybody.

  Auden Well, having brought you two together, I think I might spend a tactful penny…though I’ll pay you both the compliment of doing it in the bathroom.

  Auden goes out. Awkward pause.

  Stuart Are you more famous or less famous? One to ten.

  Britten Both about eight.

  Stuart You’re more normal. You don’t smell, for a start. So should I remember you when I’m old?

  Britten Ask your man in Norham Road. You’d be better playing the music. And with Wystan, reading the poetry.

  Stuart So was he sexy?

  Britten Looking, you mean? No. But you didn’t ever want to be with anyone else.

  And talking always. People went to bed with him to stop him talking…though it didn’t.

  Young men aped the way he talked, aped how he dressed. And wrote how he wrote, or tried to. He was…

  Stuart A star.

  Britten Yes, I suppose. Are you…musical at all?

  Stuart No.

  Pause.

  Are you?

  Britten I am, yes, a little.

  Stuart Great. What sort of thing?

  Britten Oh, highbrow stuff mainly. Orchestras. Singing. Opera.

  Stuart Great. Great.

  (To the audience.) This is when I wish I was round the back of the bus station. Then, there’s no talk. If I met this guy round Gloucester Green, we wouldn’t have to go through all this…

  Britten plays a chord.

  I’ve never seen an opera.

  Britten That’s good. I wrote an opera for boys like you who’d never seen one.

  Stuart Yeah?

  Br
itten It was quite jolly. Some of them couldn’t play or sing but they did the music with drums and teacups.

  Stuart Teacups?

  Britten Yes. And the audience sang, too.

  Stuart Did you have to pay them?

  Britten The audience? No. No. They did it for…well, for love, I suppose. I live in Suffolk. People…people like me there. Perhaps you could come there one day.

  Stuart Suffolk? Yeah. I’d like that.

  Carpenter Britten’s boys generally had more to offer than this. Their voices, for a start; they could read music; some of them could play music, even compose it. They were accomplished young men. All this boy has to offer is his dick.

  Stuart So? Do you think I don’t know that?

  Britten Do you think I don’t?

  Auden returns.

  Auden Are you going, Benjie? Hold my hand for a second.

  Britten having gone out, Auden thinks of something and runs to the top of the stairs.

  And remember, Ben. Fuck Aldeburgh. And while you’re at it, fuck Glyndebourne! But Ben. Go on. Ah, Boyle.

  Boyle (read by Henry), who is coming up the stairs with a tray, must have caught the full force of these imprecations, but he is as imperturbable as ever.

  Boyle Not disturbing you, am I, sir? You missed dinner. That’s not like you. The Dean was worried. He thought you might have died.

  Auden No such luck. And…a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself utter: I forgot the time.

  Boyle lays out the dinner.

  (To Stuart.) Have you had anything to eat?

  Boyle Oh, come along, sir.

  Auden It’s too late for me.

  Stuart Are you sure?

  Auden Please.

  Boyle maybe pours him a glass of wine while looking murderous.

  Boyle Professor Tolkien was dining in hall, sir.

  Auden That’s a shame. I like him.

  Boyle Written another book, apparently.

  Auden Really? More fucking elves, I suppose.

  Boyle That was Mr Britten, wasn’t it? Big car. Chauffeur. Probably writes commercials. Jingles. It’s how they all make their money nowadays, musicians.