Touch and Go

a lawn-mower has.

  JOB ARTHUR. It remains to be seen.

  GERALD. No, it doesn't. It's perfectly obvious--there's nothing

  remains to be seen. All that Labour is capable of, is smashing

  things up. And even for that I don't believe it has either the

  energy or the courage or the bit of necessary passion, or slap-dash--

  call it whatever you will. However, we'll see.

  JOB ARTHUR. Yes, sir. Perhaps you see now why you're not so very

  popular, Mr. Gerald.

  GERALD. We can't all be popular, Job Arthur. You're very high up in

  popularity, I believe.

  JOB ARTHUR. Not so very. They listen to me a bit. But you never

  know when they'll let you down. I know they'll let me down one day--

  so it won't be a surprise.

  GERALD. I should think not.

  JOB ARTHUR. But about the office men, Mr. Gerald. You think it'll

  be all right?

  GERALD. Oh, yes, that'll be all right.

  JOB ARTHUR. Easiest for this time, anyhow, sir. We don't want

  bloodshed, do we?

  GERALD. I shouldn't mind at all. It might clear the way to something.

  But I have absolutely no belief in the power of Labour even to bring

  about anything so positive as bloodshed.

  JOB ARTHUR. I don't know about that--I don't know. Well.

  GERALD. Have another drink before you go.--Yes, do. Help yourself.

  JOB ARTHUR. Well--if you're so pressing. (Helps himself.) Here's

  luck, all!

  ALL. Thanks.

  GERALD. Take a cigar--there's the box. Go on--take a handful--fill

  your case.

  JOB ARTHUR. They're a great luxury nowadays, aren't they? Almost

  beyond a man like me.

  GERALD. Yes, that's the worst of not being a bloated capitalist.

  Never mind, you'll be a Cabinet Minister some day.--Oh, all right--

  I'll open the door for you.

  JOB ARTHUR. Oh, don't trouble. Good night--good night. (Exeunt.)

  OLIVER. Oh, God, what a world to live in!

  ANABEL. I rather liked him. What is he?

  OLIVER. Checkweighman--local secretary for the Miner's Federation--

  plays the violin well, although he was a collier, and it spoilt his

  hands. They're a musical family.

  ANABEL. But isn't he rather nice?

  OLIVER. I don't like him. But I confess he's a study. He's the

  modern Judas.

  ANABEL. Don't you think he likes Gerald?

  OLIVER. I'm sure he does. The way he suns himself here--like a cat

  purring in his luxuriation.

  ANABEL. Yes--I don't mind it. It shows a certain sensitiveness and

  a certain taste.

  OLIVER. Yes, he has both--touch of the artist, as Mrs. Barlow says.

  He loves refinement, culture, breeding, all those things--loves them--

  and a presence, a fine free manner.

  ANABEL. But that is nice in him.

  OLIVER. Quite. But what he loves, and what he admires, and what he

  aspires to, he MUST betray. It's his fatality. He lives for the

  moment when he can kiss Gerald in the Garden of Olives, or wherever

  it was.

  ANABEL. But Gerald shouldn't be kissed.

  OLIVER. That's what I say.

  ANABEL. And that's what his mother means as well, I suppose.

  (Enter GERALD.)

  GERALD. Well--you've heard the voice of the people.

  ANABEL. He isn't the people.

  GERALD. I think he is, myself--the epitome.

  OLIVER. No, he's a special type.

  GERALD. Ineffectual, don't you think?

  ANABEL. How pleased you are, Gerald! How pleased you are with

  yourself! You love the turn with him.

  GERALD. It's rather stimulating, you know.

  ANABEL. It oughtn't to be, then.

  OLIVER. He's you Judas, and you love him.

  GERALD. Nothing so deep. He's just a sort of AEolian harp that

  sings to the temper of the wind. I find him amusing.

  ANABEL. I think it's boring.

  OLIVER. And I think it's nasty.

  GERALD. I believe you're both jealous of him. What do you think of

  the working man, Oliver?

  OLIVER. It seems to me he's in nearly as bad a way as the British

  employer: he's nearly as much beside the point.

  GERALD. What point?

  OLIVER. Oh, just life.

  GERALD. That's too vague, my boy. Do you think they'll ever make a

  bust-up?

  OLIVER. I can't tell. I don't see any good in it, if they do.

  GERALD. It might clear the way--and it might block the way for ever:

  depends what comes through. But, sincerely, I don't think they've

  got it in them.

  ANABEL. They may have something better.

  GERALD. That suggestion doesn't interest me, Anabel. Ah, well, we

  shall see what we shall see. Have a whisky and soda with me, Oliver,

  and let the troubled course of this evening run to a smooth close.

  It's quite like old times. Aren't you smoking, Anabel?

  ANABEL. No, thanks.

  GERALD. I believe you're a reformed character. So it won't be like

  old times, after all.

  ANABEL. I don't want old times. I want new ones.

  GERALD. Wait till Job Arthur has risen like Anti-christ, and

  proclaimed the resurrection of the gods.--Do you see Job Arthur

  proclaiming Dionysos and Aphrodite?

  ANABEL. It bores me. I don't like your mood. Good night.

  GERALD. Oh, don't go.

  ANABEL. Yes, good night. (Exit.)

  OLIVER. She's NOT reformed, Gerald. She's the same old moral

  character--moral to the last bit of her, really--as she always was.

  GERALD. Is that what it is?--But one must be moral.

  OLIVER. Oh, yes. Oliver Cromwell wasn't as moral as Anabel is--nor

  such an iconoclast.

  GERALD. Poor old Anabel!

  OLIVER. How she hates the dark gods!

  GERALD. And yet they cast a spell over her. Poor old Anabel! Well,

  Oliver, is Bacchus the father of whisky?

  OLIVER. I don't know.--I don't like you either. You seem to smile

  all over yourself. It's objectionable. Good night.

  GERALD. Oh, look here, this is censorious.

  OLIVER. You smile to yourself. (Exit.)

  (Curtain.)

  ACT III

  SCENE I

  An old park. Early evening. In the background a low Georgian

  hall, which has been turned into offices for the Company, shows

  windows already lighted. GERALD and ANABEL walk along the path.

  ANABEL. How beautiful this old park is!

  GERALD. Yes, it is beautiful--seems so far away from everywhere, if

  one doesn't remember that the hall is turned into offices.--No one

  has lived here since I was a little boy. I remember going to a

  Christmas party at the Walsalls'.

  ANABEL. Has it been shut up so long?

  GERALD. The Walsalls didn't like it--too near the ugliness. They

  were county, you know--we never were: father never gave mother a

  chance, there. And besides, the place is damp, cellars full of

  water.

  ANABEL. Even now?

  GERALD. No, not now--they've been drained. But the place would be

  too damp for a dwelling-house. It's all right as offices. They burn

  enormous fires. The rooms are quite charming. This is what happens

  to
the stately homes of England--they buzz with inky clerks, or their

  equivalent. Stateliness is on its last legs.

  ANABEL. Yes, it grieves me--though I should be bored if I had to

  be stately, I think.--Isn't it beautiful in this light, like an

  eighteenth-century aquatint? I'm sure no age was as ugly as this,

  since the world began.

  GERALD. For pure ugliness, certainly not. And I believe none has

  been so filthy to live in.--Let us sit down a minute, shall we? and

  watch the rooks fly home. It always stirs sad, sentimental feelings

  in me.

  ANABEL. So it does in me.--Listen! one can hear the coal-carts on

  the road--and the brook--and the dull noise of the town--and the

  beating of New London pit--and voices--and the rooks--and yet it is

  so still. We seem so still here, don't we?

  GERALD. Yes.

  ANABEL. Don't you think we've been wrong?

  GERALD. How?

  ANABEL. In the way we've lived--and the way we've loved.

  GERALD. It hasn't been heaven, has it? Yet I don't know that we've

  been wrong, Anabel. We had it to go through.

  ANABEL. Perhaps.--And, yes, we've been wrong, too.

  GERALD. Probably. Only, I don't feel it like that.

  ANABEL. Then I think you ought. You ought to feel you've been wrong.

  GERALD. Yes, probably. Only, I don't. I can't help it. I think

  we've gone the way we had to go, following our own natures.

  ANABEL. And where has it landed us?

  GERALD. Here.

  ANABEL. And where is that?

  GERALD. Just on this bench in the park, looking at the evening.

  ANABEL. But what next?

  GERALD. God knows! Why trouble?

  ANABEL. One must trouble. I want to feel sure.

  GERALD. What of?

  ANABEL. Of you--and of myself.

  GERALD. Then BE sure.

  ANABEL. But I can't. Think of the past--what it's been.

  GERALD. This isn't the past.

  ANABEL. But what is it? Is there anything sure in it? Is there any

  real happiness?

  GERALD. Why not?

  ANABEL. But how can you ask? Think of what our life has been.

  GERALD. I don't want to.

  ANABEL. No, you don't. But what DO you want?

  GERALD. I'm all right, you know, sitting here like this.

  ANABEL. But one can't sit here forever, can one?

  GERALD. I don't want to.

  ANABEL. And what will you do when we leave here?

  GERALD. God knows! Don't worry me. Be still a bit.

  ANABEL. But I'M worried. You don't love me.

  GERALD. I won't argue it.

  ANABEL. And I'm not happy.

  GERALD. Why not, Anabel?

  ANABEL. Because you don't love me--and I can't forget.

  GERALD. I do love you--and to-night I've forgotten.

  ANABEL. Then make me forget, too. Make me happy.

  GERALD. I CAN'T make you--and you know it.

  ANABEL. Yes, you can. It's your business to make me happy. I've

  made you happy.

  GERALD. You want to make me unhappy.

  ANABEL. I DO think you're the last word in selfishness. If I say

  I can't forget, you merely say, "I'VE forgotten"; and if I say I'm

  unhappy, all YOU can answer is that I want to make YOU unhappy. I

  don't in the least. I want to be happy myself. But you don't help

  me.

  GERALD. There is no help for it, you see. If you WERE happy with

  me here you'd be happy. As you aren't, nothing will make you--not

  genuinely.

  ANABEL. And that's all you care.

  GERALD. No--I wish we could both be happy at the same moment. But

  apparently we can't.

  ANABEL. And why not?--Because you're selfish, and think of nothing

  but yourself and your own feelings.

  GERALD. If it is so, it is so.

  ANABEL. Then we shall never be happy.

  GERALD. Then we sha'n't. (A pause.)

  ANABEL. Then what are we going to do?

  GERALD. Do?

  ANABEL. Do you want me to be with you?

  GERALD. Yes.

  ANABEL. Are you sure?

  GERALD. Yes.

  ANABEL. Then why don't you want me to be happy?

  GERALD. If you'd only BE happy, here and now---

  ANABEL. How can I?

  GERALD. How can't you?--You've got a devil inside you.

  ANABEL. Then make me not have a devil.

  GERALD. I've know you long enough--and known myself long enough--to

  know I can make you nothing at all, Anabel: neither can you make me.

  If the happiness isn't there--well, we shall have to wait for it,

  like a dispensation. It probably means we shall have to hate each

  other a little more.--I suppose hate is a real process.

  ANABEL. Yes, I know you believe more in hate than in love.

  GERALD. Nobody is more weary of hate than I am--and yet we can't fix

  our own hour, when we shall leave off hating and fighting. It has to

  work itself out in us.

  ANABEL. But I don't WANT to hate and fight with you any more. I

  don't BELIEVE in it--not any more.

  GERALD. It's a cleansing process--like Aristotle's Katharsis. We

  shall hate ourselves clean at last, I suppose.

  ANABEL. Why aren't you clean now? Why can't you love? (He laughs.)

  DO you love me?

  GERALD. Yes.

  ANABEL. Do you want to be with me for ever?

  GERALD. Yes.

  ANABEL. Sure?

  GERALD. Quite sure.

  ANABEL. Why are you so cool about it?

  GERALD. I'm not. I'm only sure--which you are not.

  ANABEL. Yes, I am--I WANT to be married to you.

  GERALD. I know you want me to want you to be married to me. But

  whether off your own bat you have a positive desire that way, I'm

  not sure. You keep something back--some sort of female reservation--

  like a dagger up your sleeve. You want to see me in transports of

  love for you.

  ANABEL. How can you say so? There--you see--there--this is the man

  that pretends to love me, and then says I keep a dagger up my sleeve.

  You liar!

  GERALD. I do love you--and you do keep a dagger up your sleeve--some

  devilish little female reservation which spies at me from a distance,

  in your soul, all the time, as if I were an enemy.

  ANABEL. How CAN you say so?--Doesn't it show what you must be

  yourself? Doesn't it show?--What is there in your soul?

  GERALD. I don't know.

  ANABEL. Love, pure love?--Do you pretend it's love?

  GERALD. I'm so tired of this.

  ANABEL. So am I, dead tired: you self-deceiving, self complacent

  thing. Ha!--aren't you just the same? You haven't altered one scrap

  not a scrap.

  GERALD. All right--you are always free to change yourself.

  ANABEL. I HAVE changed I AM better, I DO love you--I love you wholly

  and unselfishly--I do--and I want a good new life with you.

  GERALD. You're terribly wrapped up in your new goodness. I wish

  you'd make up your mind to be downright bad.

  ANABEL. Ha!--Do you?--You'd soon see. You'd soon see where you'd be

  if--- There's somebody coming. (Rises.)

  GERALD. Never mind; it's the clerks leaving work, I suppose. Sit

  still.

  ANABEL. Won't you g
o?

  GERALD. No. (A man draws near, followed by another.)

  CLERK. Good evening, sir. (Passes on.) Good evening, Mr. Barlow.

  ANABEL. They are afraid.

  GERALD. I suppose their consciences are uneasy about this strike.

  ANABEL. Did you come to sit here just to catch them, like a spider

  waiting for them?

  GERALD. No. I wanted to speak to Breffitt.

  ANABEL. I believe you're capable of any horridness.

  GERALD. All right, you believe it. (Two more figures approach.)

  Good evening.

  CLERKS. Good night, sir. (One passes, one stops.) Good evening,

  Mr. Barlow. Er--did you want to see Mr. Breffitt, sir?

  GERALD. Not particularly.

  CLERK. Oh! He'll be out directly, sir--if you'd like me to go back

  and tell him you wanted him?

  GERALD. No, thank you.

  CLERK. Good night, sir. Excuse me asking.

  GERALD. Good night.

  ANABEL. Who is Mr. Breffitt?

  GERALD. He is the chief clerk--and cashier--one of father's old

  pillars of society.

  ANABEL. Don't you like him?

  GERALD. Not much.

  ANABEL. Why?--You seem to dislike very easily.

  GERALD. Oh, they all used to try to snub me, these old buffers. They

  detest me like poison, because I am different from father.

  ANABEL. I believe you enjoy being detested.

  GERALD. I do. (Another clerk approaches--hesitates--stops.)

  CLERK. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Barlow. Er--did you

  want anybody at the office, sir? We're just closing.

  GERALD. No, I didn't want anybody.

  CLERK. Oh, no, sir. I see. Er--by the way, sir--er--I hope you

  don't think this--er--bother about an increase--this strike threat--

  started in the office?

  GERALD. Where did it start?

  CLERK. I should think it started--where it usually starts, Mr.

  Barlow--among a few loud-mouthed people who think they can do as

  they like with the men. They're only using the office men as a cry--

  They've no interest in us. They want to show their power.--That's

  how it is, sir.

  GERALD. Oh, yes.

  CLERK. We're powerless, if they like to make a cry out of us.

  GERALD. Quite.

  CLERK. We're as much put out about it as anybody.

  GERALD. Of course.

  CLERK. Yes--well--good night, sir. (Clerks draw near--there is a

  sound of loud young voices and bicycle bells. Bicycles sweep past.)

  CLERKS. Good night, sir.--Good night, sir.

  GERALD. Good night.--They're very bucked to see me sitting here with

  a woman--a young lady as they'll say. I guess your name will be

  flying round to-morrow. They stop partly to have a good look at you.

  Do they know you, do you think?

  ANABEL. Sure.

  CLERKS. Mr. Breffitt's just coming, sir.--Good night, sir.--Good

  night, sir. (Another bicycle passes.)

  ANABEL. The bicycles don't see us.--Isn't it rather hateful to be a

  master? The attitude of them all is so ugly. I can quite see that

  it makes you rather a bully.

  GERALD. I suppose it does. (Figure of a large man approaches.)

  BREFFITT. Oh--ah--it's Mr. Gerald!--I couldn't make out who it was.--

  Were you coming up to the office, sir? Do you want me to go back

  with you?

  GERALD. No, thank you--I just wanted a word with you about this

  agitation. It'll do just as well here. It's a pity it started--