HARVEST
IN THE CLUB
THE ENGLISH GAME
UP ON ROOF
OBERONBOOKS
LONDON
This collection frst published in 2009 by Oberon Books Ltd Electronic edition published in 2012
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Copyright © Richard Bean 2009
Harvest frst published in 2005
In The Club frst published in 2007; second edition (revised), 2008
The English Game frst published in 2008
Richard Bean is hereby identifed as author of these plays in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.
All rights whatsoever in these plays are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to United Agents 12-26 Lexington Street, London, W1F 0LE (info@unitedagents.co.uk). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.
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PB ISBN: 978-1-84002-913-0
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84943-685-4
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INTRODUCTION BY CHRIS CAMPBELL
HARVEST
IN THE CLUB
THE ENGLISH GAME
UP ON ROOF
I used to share a fat with Richard Bean. During that happy period I noticed a number of things about him.
There was his infexibility in the matter of which brand of teabags to buy. There was the apparent psychological imperative always to be part-way through some elaborate DIY project. There was the ever-present possibility of a brilliantly funny remark at any moment. Perhaps the most striking thing about my former fatmate, however, was how very diffcult it was to predict what his opinion would be on any given issue. Think how rare that is. During his routine shouting at the radio or TV news I realised that Richard thinks about things with very few preconceptions. He follows the logic of the matter and lets it take him where it goes, rather than where he wants to get to. This can make him awkward to argue with, since lazy thinking and ill-considered opinion are the rational tools in general use.
I mention this partly as a general observation but partly too by way of explaining how he came to write his mid-career masterpiece, Harvest, a play for the hyper-metropolitan Royal Court theatre with a farmer as its hero-and not even an organic farmer at that. It’s almost like a dare and I’ve come to understand that this slight suggestion of confrontation is part of Richard’s process. He’s not comfortable with the current orthodoxy and incapable of keeping quiet about it.
One of the things Richard does supremely well in his work is the passage of time. Few modern playwrights take the passing decades so confdently in their stride. Harvest covers virtually the whole of a preternaturally extended lifespan and takes us through personal, social and political evolutions in a fascinating and moving way. It makes us think about farming and food in ways which most of us won’t have considered-properly and without ignorant sentimentality-whilst, at the same time, telling an endlessly involving family saga and introducing us to a series of wonderfully realised and unforgettable characters. I think it’s among the best two or three new plays of the last ten years. And of course, and this hardly needs saying, it’s also sensationally funny.
In the Club was the product of a very particular commission. Richard was asked to write a farce against the setting of the politics of the European Union. That may sound like the winner of a competition to come up with the least promising comic premise imaginable but, in fact, the complications of sex and the complications of Euro horse-trading turn out to resonate very nicely together. The Bean angle seems to suggest that questions of national politics and questions of sexual relations have more in common than generally acknowledged; that Turkey’s desire for European accession and my eagerness to go to bed with you are analogous and involve the same kinds of negotiation.
The play features a bluntly outspoken Yorkshireman who keeps coming out with awkward and uncomfortable remarks about corruption and shady deals which the smoother, more political elements prefer to skate over-no doubt a character plucked entirely from the air.
Typically, the play manages to be moving even in the midst of its most absurd fights of farce. There’s always a beating heart in Richard’s work, even at his apparently bluffest.
The third play in this volume has been thirty years or more in the preparation. My frst meeting with Richard was on a cricket feld near Oldham. We were introduced as people who were bound to get on so, of course, it took months before we could even be civil. Since that day, sometime in the mid 1980s, we’ve played for the same team Sunday after Sunday, summer after summer, hamstring injury after knee strain. What is it with cricket and the theatre? It’s not just the famous lovers of the game; the Becketts, the Pinters, the Hares. There’s also a whole network of teams featuring actors, writers and directors fghting it out on playing felds around London to the accompaniment of conspicuously well projected appealing. Perhaps it’s something to do with the way the game nurses individual performance in an ensemble context. Or perhaps it’s simply the excuse to sit about talking entertaining rubbish. Of course, everyone’s always saying, ‘you should write a play about this.’ And The English Game is that play.
It’s also the third of Richard’s plays to feature the word ‘England’ or its cognates in the title. He’s much concerned with Englishness, our author. He thinks it’s still a legitimate subject for enquiry rather than a slightly embarrassing relic from a pre-post-modern world. Although the play darkens towards the end and begins to confront some of our most pressing societal problems, it contains a sun-flled tribute to a certain kind of week-end as well as a superb range of characters; most of them based pretty closely on people I know and one of them, in fact, on me. We’re all there-only funnier.
Up on Roof is a sort of homecoming play. It was a commission from Hull Truck and is based on a historic incident in Hull Prison. When I saw the play produced in Hull, I felt as though I’d been transported to an earlier time when audiences felt they owned the stage, the play and the theatre. Every local reference or gag was greeted with show-stopping ovations and I saw several people who didn’t look as though they were likely to survive the titanic paroxysms of laughter shaking them to their roots.
It’s typical of Richard’s work in that it’s hysterically funny, well researched, thought provoking and ultimately tender. Of course, you may not look for those qualities in a play. Better look elsewhere.
Christopher Campbell
Deputy Literary Manager
National Theatre
Characters
ALBERT
WILLIAM
PARKER
MAUDIE
LORD PRIMROSE AGAR
STEFAN
LAURA
WARCLIFFE
ATS OFFICER
ALAN
TITCH
VET
BLUE
DANNY
YOUNG AGAR
Harvest was first performed at The Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Sloane Square, London on 2 September 2005, with the following cast:
MAM/ATS OFFICER Sharon Bower
LAURA Siân Brooke
WARCLIFFE/LEWIS Mike Burnside
WILLIAM Matthew Dunster
ALBERT/ALAN Gareth Farr
DANNY Craig Gazey
MAUDIE Jane Hazlegrove
TITCH Adrian Hood
VET Clare Lams
PARKER/BLUE Paul Popplewell
STEFAN Jochum Ten Haaf
LORD PRIMROSE AGAR/YOUNG AGAR Dickon Tyrrell
Director Wilson Milam
Designer Dick Bird
Lighting Designer Paul Keogan
Sound Designer Gareth Fry
CONTENTS
1914 THE STALLION MAN
1934 ADAM AND EVE
1944 THE NAZI
1958 MUCK DAY
1979 A ROMAN ROAD
1995 SUFFRAGETTE
A SONG IN YOUR HEART
1914 THE STALLION MAN
(1914 August. Mid-morning. The big farmhouse table is set running from stage left to stage right. Enter WILLIAM. He is nineteen, and handsome with refined features. He is dusty from the harvest, and wears sacking around his legs which has become wet. He runs upstairs, and once in his room takes a letter from his trousers, reads it and then hides it. He runs downstairs. As he is half way down the stairs ALBERT enters. He is eighteen, WILLIAM’s brother, and broader with rougher features. He is also dusty, with the same sacking on the legs. ALBERT looks at WILLIAM suspiciously. ALBERT quenches his thirst from a jug of water. He is rough and functional in his manners.)
WILLIAM: ’ot.
ALBERT: Aye.
(Pause. WILLIAM quenches his thirst using a cup.)
Where d’yer go on yer ’lowance?
WILLIAM: Mind yer own.
ALBERT: Spittle Garth meadow?
WILLIAM: Mebbe. Mebbe not.
(Pause. WILLIAM pours some stew from a pot, cuts some bread, sits and begins to eat.)
ALBERT: He found out worr it was.
WILLIAM: Aye?
ALBERT: Aye.
(ALBERT runs wet hands through his hair, and spits noisily into the sink. He ladles himself some stew, cuts some bread, sits and starts to eat. WILLIAM looks to ALBERT for further enlightenment but gets none.)
WILLIAM: What worr it?
ALBERT: A vixen.
WILLIAM: Aye?
ALBERT: Aye.
WILLIAM: I said it worr a fox all along. I said to him, I said ‘that’s the work of either one of two beasts. A fox or a Bengal Tiger.’
ALBERT: Aye?
WILLIAM: Aye. D’he kill it?
ALBERT: Aye.
WILLIAM: Good.
(Pause.)
ALBERT: They say the Kaiser’s gorr a withered arm.
WILLIAM: ‘They say’.
ALBERT: His left arm. He can’t even shek hands with it.
WILLIAM: No-one sheks wi’ the left hand. Norr even Kings.
ALBERT: They’ve given him a little cane to carry. So he’s gorr an excuse not to have to use it. Bastard.
(Pause. They eat.)
WILLIAM: The problem we’ve gorr is that we both wanna go. But we can’t both go. Worr I’m saying is we have to find a way of deciding who’s gooin. Me or you.
ALBERT: Dad’s dead.
WILLIAM: I had noticed.
ALBERT: I’m the youngest. Eldest son gets the farm. You get the farm, so you stay. All around here it’s the youngest what is gooin. Sid’s gooin.
WILLIAM: Mad Sid or Little Sid?
ALBERT: They wouldn’t have Mad Sid.
WILLIAM: What’s wrong with Mad Sid?
ALBERT: Teeth.
WILLIAM: Aye, he’s got terrible teeth. I didn’t know they was choosey. So Little Sid’s gooin is he?
ALBERT: Aye. He’s learning hissen some French. For the girls. They eat a lot of red meat don’t they, French girls. They say it meks ’em alles ready for loving.
WILLIAM: Little Sid’s an expert on French women is he? Every day he drives a cart from Driffield to Beverley and back again. When he gets adventurous, when he wakes up in the morning and thinks he’s Captain Fucking Cook, he goes as far as Hull.
(Pause.)
ALBERT: We could have a fight.
WILLIAM: You’d win. Look, you’re good with the ’osses. Most things I do, Mam can do, but she don’t like the ’osses over much.
ALBERT: They’re onny ’osses, you don’t have to like ’em. You like Brandy.
WILLIAM: Brandy’s a beautiful good natured ’oss. I an’t gorr a problem with her. It’s the others.
ALBERT: So what yer saying? I stay and work the farm cos I’m good with ’osses and keep it gooin so you can go off to France and have yer fun and when you come back yer can tek it over again beein as you’s the awldest.
WILLIAM: Yer mek it sound like summat scheming. I don’t see the justice in me missing out on gooin ovverseas just cos I’m twelve month aulder ’an you.
(Pause.)
ALBERT: Worrabout your project?
WILLIAM: This war’ll all be ovver well afore the spring and spring is the right time for me project.
ALBERT: Why won’t yer tell no-one worr it is?
WILLIAM: Cos it’s a bloody secret project.
ALBERT: Go on, tell us.
WILLIAM: No, I’m not telling yer.
ALBERT: It’s pigs innit?
WILLIAM: Who towld yer?
ALBERT: Mam. I don’t like pigs.
WILLIAM: Pigs is onny mathematics. Yer not saying ‘I don’t like pigs’, yer saying ‘I don’t like mathematics’.
(Pause.)
ALBERT: As I see it, we both wanna go, so – [we both go and –]
WILLIAM: – We’re gooin round the houses here!
(Pause.)
Did yer book the stallion man?
ALBERT: Aye. He’s on his way through to Langtoft. He’s staying there tonight. Should be here soon.
WILLIAM: Where’d he stay last night?
ALBERT: Rudston.
WILLIAM: Different bed every night eh. You’d like that would yer?
ALBERT: Aye. They say the stallion man has fun in about equal measure to that stallion of his. They say he’s fathered –
WILLIAM: – ‘They say’. Who are these they?
ALBERT: You should see his clothes. He’s all rigged out for the music hall. Breeches, yellow waistcoat, bowler hat. Like a bloody Lord. Cane with a brass knob on the end.
WILLIAM: Aye, well we all know what that’s for.
ALBERT: (Laughing.) Aye.
WILLIAM: He’s a nobody. He’s gorr a big ’oss and the gift of the gab. Any fool could be a stallion man. You could be a stallion man.
ALBERT: Oh now – [come on it ain’t that easy.]
WILLIAM: – Get yersen a big ’oss and a fancy hat. You’re good with ’osses. Then you’d get yer travel. Different bed every night.
ALBERT: To be a proper stallion man you godda have summat...I dunno...summat –
WILLIAM: – indefinable.
ALBERT: Aye.
WILLIAM: Personality.
ALBERT: Aye.
WILLIAM: Well you an’t got that.
(Pause.)
Will Brandy stand for that stallion of his?
ALBERT: Aye, she’s ’ot. Should be a beautiful ’oss out of our Brandy and that big Percheron of his. Pedigree.
(ALBERT finishes his stew and licks the plate. He then lights his pipe. WILLIAM finishes his stew, cuts himself a piece of bread and wipes his plate with the bread and eats it.)
Bit fancy.
WILLIAM: I’m courting ain’t I.
ALBERT: Aye, you’ve been behaving summat a long way off the regular all harvest.
WILLIAM: That’ll be the courting.
ALBERT: (After a decent draw on his pipe.) I ’ad me eye on Maudie.
WILLIAM: We bin through this afore.
ALBERT: I thought you might go for that sister of hers.
WILLIAM: I like Maudie. Kate’s a bit of an ’andful. Why don’t you have a try at Kate?
ALBERT: (Knowing he’s no chance.) Oh aye.
(WILLIAM lights a cigarette.)
If you’re courting Maudie, you’d berrer stay, and I’ll go.
WILLIAM: We’ve onny just started courting.
ALBERT: (Standing.) I’m not courting no-one at all. That’s all I’m saying. You are. And I’m the youngest. Everywhere round here it’s the youngest what is gooin.
(Enter MAM carrying a dead chicken by the legs. She sticks it in a copper boiler, still holding it by the legs, and starts to count to thirty in her head.)
WILLIAM: Stew was grand Mam, ta.
ALBERT: Why yer killed that hen?
WILLIAM: Not right, Mam, eating chicken. What are we? The royal family?
MAM: She’s stopped laying.
WILLIAM: Tough but fair.
MAM: Gerrin’ an egg out of her is like winter waiting for spring.
(Horses hooves are heard in the fold yard. ALBERT stands and opens the door.)
WILLIAM: There’s yer stallion man.
MAM: I’m not having him in the house. Not with them ‘come to bed’ eyes of his. (Laughs.)
(To ALBERT.) Will your Brandy stand for that stallion?
ALBERT: Aye, she’s ’ot.
(ALBERT leaves closing the door behind him.)
MAM: What have I been hearing about you William Harrison?
WILLIAM: I built me own spacecraft and went off to the moon. There in’t nowt much up there burr a load of brambles. I filled up fifteen Kilner jars. Yer can mek yer bramble jelly now. Mek sure yer wash the dust off fost. Might be electrical.
MAM: You’re walking out with Maudie.
WILLIAM: That’s so typical of round here, yer mek the effort of gerrin to the moon and back, without suffering a scratch, and no-one’s bloody interested.
MAM: Language!
(MAM pulls the chicken out of the pan and immediately starts plucking the chicken.)
I don’t approve of you and Maudie.
WILLIAM: Oh right then, I’ll call it off.
MAM: Yer using Maudie to get to that sister of her’s. I know you. It’s Kate yer got yer eye on. I know men. I’m never wrong.
WILLIAM: Yer wrong this time.
MAM: Have yer sorted out which one of yer’s gooin?
WILLIAM: As it stands we’re both gooin.
MAM: Tut! That can’t be, yer know that.
WILLIAM: Try telling him that.
(Enter ALBERT followed by Company Quartermaster SERGEANT PARKER. PARKER is a man in his thirties in army uniform.)
ALBERT: It in’t the stallion man. It’s the army.
(PARKER shakes hands with everyone.)
PARKER: Company Quartermaster Sergeant Parker. Beautiful day, ma’am.
MAM: Yer requisitioning?
PARKER: You’ve heard have you?
MAM: Aye.
PARKER: I’ll just talk you through the powers bestowed on me –
MAM: – We know yer powers. Just gerr on with it.
PARKER: (Laughs.) I like doing business in Yorkshire. At the end of the day, when all’s said and done, there’s a lot of time saved, you know what I mean. Have you got your harvest in?
WILLIAM: The corn, aye.
PARKER: What are you, here?
WILLIAM: Corn, barley, we’re using peas as a break. Sheep. Chickens. We gorr eight Holsteins an’all.
PARKER: Holsteins?
WILLIAM: Cows.
PARKER: You were getting a bit technical with me there, with your ‘Holsteins’. ‘Cows’, I’ve heard of. (Laughs.) I’m from Befnal Green, we fink milk was born in a bo”le. (Laughs.) Nice up this way. Wouldn’t mind –
MAM: – It’s August.
PARKER: Yes, I can imagine.
WILLIAM: Are you gonna tek the cows?
PARKER: We’re an army, not a dairy. (Laughs.) What do you have in the way of horses?
WILLIAM: Six.
ALBERT: One of them’s lame.
(WILLIAM glances at ALBERT. PARKER notices this.)
PARKER: Sorry, ma’am, would you have a drink of water for a not-so-young man fighting the Germans. (Laughs.) It’s a hot one.
MAM: Lemonade? I med it mesen.
PARKER: Ooh! Smashing. We need a hundred and sixty thousand horses by next Tuesday. So far I’ve got seven. (Laughs.) And I’ve already come out in a rash. (Laughs.) (MAM gives him a glass of lemonade. He takes a long swig.) Marvellous. Have you two lads enlisted? My colleague, Major Caddick, is at the corn exchange in Driffield from eight tomorrow morning.
WILLIAM: We know. We’ll be there.
PARKER: Ooh! Keen! Don’t get to thinking it’s automatic. There’s a medical you know.
MAM: Onny one of ’em’s gooin. Me husband’s bin dead ower ten year.
PARKER: The youngest then, that’s the form.
ALBERT: That’s me.
PARKER: Anyhow, I’m not men, I’m horses. Can all your horses draw pole wagons?
WILLIAM: Aye.
PARKER: Lovely.
ALBERT: It don’t tek long to train an ’oss up to draw a pole wagon.
PARKER: Maybe, but we’re a bit pushed for time at the moment what with the Kaiser strolling through Belgium.
MAM: What d’yer do if yer tek any of our ’osses?
PARKER: You’ll get a ticket. Every ticket’s got a picture of the King on it.
(PARKER takes out his ticket book and flicks it.)
So you’ve got six horses.
WILLIAM: We need at least a pair to keep going, for the ploughing.
PARKER: We’re not going to take them all, don’t worry. The army needs feeding same as everyone.
ALBERT: We gorr a mare that’s ’ot, she’s gerrin serviced this afti. We’ve booked and paid for the stallion man. She’s onny used for breeding. She’s not been schooled to draw a pole wagon.
PARKER: And she’ll be the lame one is she?
ALBERT: Aye.
Pause.
PARKER: Look son, it’s not an easy job this. I try and do it with a smile and a laugh, but at the end of the day you’re looking at the government. Your old mum, excuse me ma’am, gave me lemonade not water. She understands who I am, and what I can do. I can take whatever I like, and all I have to do is give you a ticket. I can take your cows, your pigs, your chickens, your pole wagons, your salt and pepper pots, (Laughs.) your doors, your wallpaper, your walls. So don’t start getting clever with me son, because it’s not even lunchtime yet and I’ve got a full book of tickets. Your brother here said ‘all’ your horses can draw a pole wagon. All. Let’s go have a look at the beauties, eh. (ALBERT and PARKER leave, closing the door behind him.)
MAM: He’ll leave us a pair.
WILLIAM: Aye, Bess and that auld bastard Punch.
MAM: He’ll tek one look at Brandy and that’ll be that.
WILLIAM: Aye.
MAM: D’yer hear him? He said the form is – it’s the youngest what goes. You’re the eldest. By rights it’s you what should be staying.
WILLIAM: Aye, well mebbe I’m tired of doin what’s right.
MAM: Why’d’yer wanna go?
WILLIAM: Mother, I’ve exhausted these fields. I’m a man and I ant never done nowt. Seen nowt, done nowt, been nowhere. Me whole life’s been these eighty acres of chalk and clay.
MAM: Yer got yer pigs.
WILLIAM: The pigs is onny an idea.
MAM: This farm needs ideas.
WILLIAM: There int nowt clever about pigs. It’s nowt but mathematics.
MAM: Nowt difficult for you mebbe.
WILLIAM: I’ll be back afore the spring when all that starts up.
(Horses hooves are heard in the fold yard. WILLIAM goes over to the window and holds back the nets.)
MAM: What’s he tekkin?
WILLIAM: Venus. He’s tekkin the harness an’all.
(WILLIAM lets the nets drop back.)
MAM: What’s this with Maudie? Yer should be walking out with that sister of hers. I was hoping Albert might tek a fancy to Maudie. She’s right for him, Maudie She’s plain.
WILLIAM: I’ll tell her when I see her. Mam. I like Maudie. I find Maudie calm. I find Kate alarming. Self-admiring.
MAM: Aye, that’s why you’re right for each other.
(Horses hooves are heard, and a horse’s neighing. WILLIAM goes over to the window and looks through the nets.)
Saturn?
WILLIAM: Aye.
(WILLIAM lets the nets drop again.)
MAM: Aye, well, they’re a pair. Don’t tek this the wrong way. I don’t want neither of yer to go but you love, you’ve got Eskritt blood. Albert’s gorr his father’s. Don’t go to the army now, let Albert go, and you can leave here when he gets back if yer must.
WILLIAM: If Dad were alive we’d both be gooin.
MAM: If you were truly courting Maudie you wunt want to be going. You’re the eldest, no-one would blame you staying, you wunt get white feathered. Mebbe yer think gooin away will give yer that summat extra, the uniform, the glory, your absence. That summat extra to sway Katie.
WILLIAM: It in’t Katie what interests me! It’s Maudie. I love Maudie!
MAM: Yer love her?
WILLIAM: Aye.
MAM: Well, well, I never.
(WILL moves over and sits at the table. He seems annoyed with the table for some reason.)
WILLIAM: Why do we have the table like this?
MAM: Like what?
WILLIAM: Running this way. It feels all wrong.
MAM: It’s alles been there. I’m used to it.
WILLIAM: Aye, but what I’m saying is it’d be better if we turned it round. If someone’s at the sink, and someone wants to get past, it’s impossible. The table’s in the way. And look, there’s a shadow. I’m casting a shadow.
MAM: Sit t’other side then.
WILLIAM: That wouldn’t feel right though would it.
(Horses hooves are heard in the fold yard.)
MAM: Shurrup wi’ yer nonesense and go tell me what ’oss that is.
(WILLIAM goes over to the window.)
WILLIAM: Ha! You’ll never believe it, he’s tekkin Punch. Ha, ha! Never mind cows he can’t know nowt about ’osses neither. Ah, well, s’pose they could eat the auld bugger.
MAM: What’s that? Three.
WILLIAM: Aye. He’s gorra leave us a pair. So he can only tek one more.
(Extended silence. WILLIAM stays watching at the window.)
MAM: Yer might get killed. Have you thought about that?
WILLIAM: There’s an angel for farmers.
MAM: That’s yer dad’s talk. And he’s dead.
(Horses hooves are heard on the yard. WILLIAM looks over to his mother and says nothing, but lets the net curtain fall back into place. His mother goes over, pushes the curtain to one side.)
MAM: Lord God Almighty! She’s a beautiful ’oss. That’ll kill our Albert. They’ll need hossmen. Mebbe Albert can go with her.
(Enter ALBERT. His eyes are watering. ALBERT sits, and puts his head in his hands.)
WILLIAM: Is he done? He’s leaving us a pair is he?
(ALBERT doesn’t answer. Enter PARKER.)
PARKER: All done. Everything tickety boo.
(He starts writing out tickets on the kitchen table. Still standing. He glances at ALBERT.)
I’ve taken four horses ma’am and four sets of harness. I’ve left you a good pair for your ploughing.
(He stamps the ticket. When he finishes a ticket he stamps it with a government stamp.)
Shire mare. Venus.
(He stamps the ticket.)
Shire mare. Saturn.
(He stamps the ticket.)
(Doubtful.) Clydesdale gelding. Punch. He’s a bit old.
Alright is he?
WILLIAM: Punch? Aye, he’s a smashing ’oss. He’ll win the war for yer.
PARKER: (Doubtful.) Lovely. Right.
(PARKER stamps the ticket.)
Percheron mare. She’s a beauty. Kaw! Have you ever showed her?
WILLIAM: Aye. She’s won a couple.
PARKER: Not surprised. Lovely looking horse. What d’yer call her? He wouldn’t tell me.
WILLIAM: Brandy.
PARKER: Brandy? Lovely! It’s that dapple grey isn’t it. (Laughs.)
(ALBERT starts sobbing.)
If I had a penny for every shilling I’d put on a grey, I’d be laughing. (Laughs.)
MAM: You’re laughing anyhow.
PARKER: Indeed.
(PARKER stamps the ticket. ALBERT is now crying. No-one attends to him.)
After this war is won, if she comes back, you can tear up the tickets, if she don’t come back, them’ll be worth something. Good day to you ma’am.
(PARKER gives the tickets to MAM. They all listen to ALBERT crying.)
If it’s any use to you, seeing as how one of your lads has to stay on the farm – and I can say this because I know war Mrs Harrison, I was in South Africa and I saw a few things that I can only describe as impolite – on behalf of Major Caddick, God and the King, in that order – that lad of yours there is a fine strapping lad, but he’s no use to us.
(PARKER exits closing the door behind him. ALBERT continues his sobbing. MAM looks over to WILLIAM who looks away.)
(To black.)
1934 ADAM AND EVE
(1934. March. Early evening, and not yet dark. The farmhouse kitchen. Enter MAUDIE, she is carrying a freshly killed rabbit. She hangs the rabbit on a nail from a beam and swiftly pulls down on the rabbit’s fur and skins it completely in one go. She unhooks the rabbit and begins to prepare it. Enter ALBERT with a shotgun. He goes to the gun cabinet to get more cartridges.)
MAUDIE: Wet.
ALBERT: Aye.
MAUDIE: It’s been fair siling down all day. How many more have yer lost then?
ALBERT: Tither.
MAUDIE: What were you doing? Sleeping? That’s more than one fox then. You don’t lose three lambs to the one fox.
ALBERT: Aye.
MAUDIE: Yer wanna tek William up there with you. He’d be alright in the hut.
ALBERT: I don’t want him up theere with me.
MAUDIE: He’s gorra good eye. He can handle a rifle, he’s had the training. You can’t hit a barn door at ten paces.
ALBERT: I don’t want his rifle and I don’t want his company. (Beat.) Did he do it? What he said he was gonna do?
MAUDIE: Aye.
ALBERT: Oh bugger. Has the squire bin round?
MAUDIE: Not yet.
(Enter WILLIAM. He is in a wheelchair which is a comfy chair set on a bogie of pram wheels. He has lost both legs. He has with him stashed in his chair a pad of paper, a book, and a newspaper, a scarf, a hat. The chair is more a ‘station’ than a chair. He smokes a pipe.)
ALBERT: What you bin doing?
WILLIAM: Chasing rabbits.
ALBERT: I’ve heard what you done. Did anyone see yer?
WILLIAM: Aye. It’ll be all round Yorkshire bi now. Bin losing lambs?
ALBERT: Aye.
MAUDIE: There’s no use offering, he don’t want yer company.
WILLIAM: I promise to do everything in me powers not to gerr on yer nerves.
I’ll not talk, I won’t sing, and I’ll mek a particular effort not to mention them grunty things.
(MAUDIE laughs.)
ALBERT: I’m not gerrin’ into pigs and that’s final.
WILLIAM: Maudie! Did I say pigs?!
ALBERT: (TO MAUDIE.) You’re my wife! Mark who’s side yer on.
(TO WILLIAM.) Round here’s too cawld for pigs. Yer know what Grandad Harrison used to say.
MAUDIE: ‘A cawld pig is a thin pig’.
WILLIAM: ‘Do you Edward Herbert Harrison take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?’ ‘A cawld pig is a thin pig!’
MAUDIE: (Laughs.) Shush!
ALBERT: Pigs are the worst bloody mothers on the ark.
MAUDIE: (To WILLIAM.) You can’t deny that!
WILLIAM: Bulls have horns, ducks quack, pigs are lousy mothers. Fact. House them indoors, manage the farrowing, and separate the sow from the litter. Pigs is a better bet than milk. We ant gorr enough land to build up a dairy herd.
ALBERT: We gorr enough grazing for sixty head. And we can buy in cattle cake.
WILLIAM: The milking parlour onny teks twennie.
MAUDIE: (To WILLIAM.) He wants to borrow money.
WILLIAM: Oh aye.
ALBERT: I’m limited by the size of the parlour.
WILLIAM: How come I ant heard mention of this?
MAUDIE: He tawld me not to tell yer.
ALBERT: Maudie!
WILLIAM: Borrowing money? Kaw! What a terrible, terrible thing auld grandad Harrison did to us all when he won that bloody wager.
ALBERT: It’s the right size farm this, for a family farm.
WILLIAM: Eighty acres of up and down!? It’s exactly the wrong size farm. Too small to tek owt to market, and just big enough so’s it’s full time working. I’ll tell yer the right size family farm – the squire’s. Forty thousand fucking acre.
MAUDIE: Language!
WILLIAM: Stuck here with you two. With my army training I coulda gone to Canada and bin a mountie.
ALBERT: They’d never have tekken yer.
WILLIAM: Yer don’t need legs. Yer gerr an ’oss. Canada, aye. Find mesen a little squaw. Cabin – log cabin. Fire – log fire. Dog – log dog.
MAUDIE: (Laughs.) Stop it!
WILLIAM: Some decent huts is all we need. I’ve done a design for a pig house with... [separate stalls for the sows...]
ALBERT: (Banging the gun on the table.) I’m not gerrin into pigs! (Silence.)
MAUDIE: Put that gun away. Things are bad enough without the squire opening the door and seeing you prepared for Armageddon.
(ALBERT complies.)
Eh, worr am I gonna do? I ant gorr owt to offer him.
WILLIAM: Everything we got was his once anyhow.
ALBERT: Got some whiskey ant we?
WILLIAM: He’s a cannibal. Offer him human flesh. An ear.
MAUDIE: Don’t you go mentioning that cannibalism business when he’s in my kitchen or I’ll kill yer!
ALBERT: Anyone stranded like that with all the food gone, would do what he did. The Lord’ll forgive him. Any road, don’t exaggerate, it was onny an Eskimo, and she were already dead.
WILLIAM: Mebbe the squire’ll sign yer book for yer.
ALBERT: Aye. It might gerr us off on the right foot an’all.
(ALBERT picks the book of the sideboard.)
My favourite bit is when the son has to dig his father’s grave to teach him the dignity of labour. That’s not a bad idea that.
WILLIAM: It’s all med up. Rescued by eskimos, teks seven wives, has twenty-four children, and teaches them all to yodel.
ALBERT: Forget his story, you’d better have your story straight for him.
WILLIAM: I’m gonna the pub.
ALBERT: You’re not gooin nowhere! This is your doing!
WILLIAM: He’s not the bloody King you know. He’s a bloody headcase.
ALBERT: Sh!
(The sound of a dog barking at someone’s arrival.)
(Standing and listening.) That’s the squire.
(More barking.)
WILLIAM: No, no, no. That’s a dog.
(MAUDIE laughs. ALBERT has opened the door, stepped through into the fold yard.)
ALBERT: (Off.) Evening sir.
WILLIAM: (With contempt.) Sir.
MAUDIE: (To WILLIAM.) You behave!
AGAR: (Off.) Who are you?
ALBERT: (Off.) Albert Harrison sir. Put yer stick ower theere if –
AGAR: (Off. Snapping.) No!
MAUDIE: (Quietly.) Oh bloody hell.
(Enter AGAR and ALBERT. AGAR is a man of about twenty-five. He’s dressed in shorts and a vest over which he wears a full length coat made out of bear skins. He has a stout staff on which is drawn and carved many weird ethnic things suggestive of Native American or Innuit cultures. His hair is in a pony tail.)
AGAR: (Shaking hands with MAUDIE.) Who are you?
MAUDIE: Mrs Harrison sir.
WILLIAM: Maudie.
AGAR: Is that long for Maud?
MAUDIE: Yes. How are yer sir?
AGAR: I don’t know.
(AGAR shakes hands with WILLIAM.)
William isn’t it? I remember you! It’s the wheels! Albert Harrison, Maudie Harrison, and William Harrison. And who is married to whom?
ALBERT: I’m married to Maudie sir.
AGAR: Good. And you two, the two men, are you brothers?
ALBERT: Aye.
AGAR: Yes, that’s often the way.
(To WILLIAM.) And are you married William?
WILLIAM: No.
AGAR: (To ALBERT.) Do you have a son?
ALBERT: No.
AGAR: Daughter?
ALBERT: No.
AGAR: No?
ALBERT: No.
AGAR: Do you have a chair?
MAUDIE: Yes, sorry sir.
(MAUDIE gives him a chair. He sits. Holding his stick in front of him.)
AGAR: (Looking at the ground.) It’s very sad this. Indicative of a greater malaise. People.
MAUDIE: Would you like a glass of whiskey sir?
AGAR: Yes.
(MAUDIE pours a glass of whiskey. ALBERT gives the book to AGAR.)
ALBERT: I knows it’s not what brings you here sir, burr I wonder if you wunt mind signing yer book for us.
(AGAR signs the book.)
WILLIAM: I think the title skews it towards being summat that it int.
AGAR: Concur. I wanted to call it ‘Living with the Innuit. The Incredible Arctic Circle Adventures of Lord Primrose Agar – As told by himself in his own words’. They said that’s too long.
WILLIAM: Their title’s certainly shorter. ‘Cannibal!’
(There is a suppressed squeak from MAUDIE.)
AGAR: Have you read the book Maudie?
MAUDIE: Yes, I thought it were very good, sir. Exciting. It’s a wonder you’re still alive, what with all them women slowing you down.
AGAR: It’s a man’s book really. My brother often mentions you William. Ypres.
WILLIAM: The officers were at Ypres, I was at Wipers. How is he?
AGAR: Not well. How do you manage without legs William?
WILLIAM: Banjo.
MAUDIE: That’s his pony sir.
AGAR: Ah!
ALBERT: This new German fellah looks like a bit of a rum un.
AGAR: (Mimes putting ingredients into a mixing bowl and mixing them.) Socialism. Nationalism. Sentimentality. (He makes the sound of an explosion.)
MAUDIE: Aye, well war’s always good for cereal prices.
ALBERT: Onny time we int swamped by imports eh!
WILLIAM: That hunt of yours in’t doing much good round Kilham top.
AGAR: Losing lambs eh?
ALBERT: I’ll spend the night in the hut again with the gun.
AGAR: It’s a wonderful thing for a man isn’t it. A night in a hut.
ALBERT: Aye. I bin up there all day.
AGAR: What did you say?
ALBERT: I’ve been up there all day sir. In the hut.
(AGAR frowns, puzzled, finishes his whiskey, and claps his hands.)
(To WILLIAM.) What have you done with my dairy herd?
WILLIAM: I took ’em all to Scarborough for the day out. You shoulda seen their little faces. None of them had ever seen the ocean.
AGAR: Where are they?
WILLIAM: Where’s our rent for the field?
(WILLIAM picks out a diary from the side of the chair and reads from it.)
October, no rent, spoke to Sammy Ellwood, he ses, ‘I’ll talk to the young squire.’ November, no rent, spoke to Sammy, ‘I’ll talk to the young squire’. December, no rent. Rode up to the house, asked to speak to the young squire, tawld he was in London meeting his publishers. February, no rent, spoke to Sammy Ellwood, he said to me – ‘fuck off you’.
AGAR: I’ll have a word with Mr Ellwood.
WILLIAM: Five months rent. Five shillings. Pay up and I’ll tell yer where I’ve put yer cows.
(AGAR counts out five shillings. He makes to give the money to WILLIAM.)
Maudie’s in charge of money.
(MAUDIE takes it, counts it, and nods approval to WILLIAM.)
Yer cows are at Fimber. Rogersons. I don’t understand yer mentality. Yer’ve got forty thousand acres across Yorkshire but yer choose to rent a field from us. It in’t cos yer need to rent, it’s cos yer want the field. If yer had a scheme to tek our best grazing and not pay us and thereby bust us it ain’t gonna work. Yer grandad lost Kilham Wold Farm in a bet, fair and square, it’s all legal, I seen the mandate in writing.
AGAR: My grandfather had a character flaw.
WILLIAM: He was a drunk and a gambler. And worst of all a loser.
ALBERT: We’re not for sale sir. We’re doing alright. We gerr a monthly milk cheque. I’m thinking very long term.
(AGAR stands and makes to go.)
AGAR: You don’t have a son.
(Pause.)
Did you buy anything today in Beverley? At the farm sale?
ALBERT: A cake crusher.
AGAR: I thought I’d seen you there. You looked right through me.
(Standing.) Pappachakwoquai! Innuit for ‘may your ancestors walk beside you’. Goodnight Mrs Harrison.
MAUDIE: Goodnight sir.
WILLIAM: If this farm were still in the estate, what would you be doing on it?
AGAR: Pigs.
(AGAR and ALBERT leave. ALBERT closes the door behind him.)
MAUDIE: You had no right to talk to him like that! Ever since you come back from abroad you bin as lippy as I don’t know what.
WILLIAM: Abroad? I dint go on the grand tour you know.
(Enter ALBERT.)
MAUDIE: (To ALBERT.) What the bloody hell’s this about Beverley?
ALBERT: I went to a farm sale.
MAUDIE: You told me you were up on the tops! You lied to me Albert Harrison!
ALBERT: I went to Beverley to a farm sale to try and pick up a cake crusher.
MAUDIE: We’ve already gorr a cake crusher!
ALBERT: It’s on its last legs.
MAUDIE: I found yer a second hand cake crusher onny a minute down the road.
ALBERT: It’s onny Beverley I an’t bin to bloody London.
MAUDIE: Stop cursing in my kitchen! So you went to Beverley to gerr a cake crusher?
ALBERT: Aye.
WILLIAM: So did you get one then?
ALBERT: Aye. I gorr a couple.
MAUDIE: Two!?
WILLIAM: Why d’yer buy two?
ALBERT: It was a bargain. The second one.
MAUDIE: Why dint yer just buy the second one then?
ALBERT: I’d already bought the fost one.
WILLIAM: That’s three bloody cake crushers we got now!
MAUDIE: We’ve onny got twennie five head of cattle! We’ve hardly need of one cake crusher!
WILLIAM: If you buy the cake crusher down the road we’ll have four!
MAUDIE: There’s farm sales every week by the end of the month we could have a dozen cake crushers!
WILLIAM: Start a cake crusher museum.
ALBERT: (He bangs the gun on the table.) We needed a cake crusher! I went to Beverley and got one.
(Pause.)
WILLIAM: Two.
(MAUDIE laughs.)
Don’t gerr him mardy, he’s gorra gun in his hand.
MAUDIE: You’re up to summat!
ALBERT: (To MAUDIE.) You! Leave us a minute.
MAUDIE: No! If it’s farm talk I’m having some of it.
ALBERT: It’s not farm talk! It’s brothers! You’re my wife! Leave us be for a while.
WILLIAM: Go on love, go and give yer chickens a bollocking.
MAUDIE: Aye, I will, might gerr a bit of respect.
(She slams the door behind her. ALBERT struggles and fiddles. WILLIAM lets him struggle.)
WILLIAM: Some women, I’ve heard, do what yer tell ’em without any fuss.
(Pause.)
ALBERT: I’ve done some wrong, some evil. Don’t tell Maudie will yer?
WILLIAM: You bin to see a tart in Beverley?
ALBERT: No. I dint go straight to the farm sale. I went up to the hospital.
WILLIAM: Yer what?
ALBERT: Aye. I climbed ovver the ’ospital fence, went through the gardens. I knew where to go cos that’s where Katie had her little Laura. There was a side door open and I went in and it’s just after dinner time and I teks me hat off, and smiles at the mothers like I’m a dad, and I just have to gerrout cos I can feel me face just burning up, and I’m in a corridor and there’s a side room and I can see there’s a bain in theere and the mother’s asleep. Little lass, couldn’t be more than sixteen, bonny but summat common about her. Mebbe she wan’t wed and that’s why she were in that room, I dunno. I have a look see if the bain is a boy. He is. I pick him up and he dunt cry or owt. I walk out.
WILLIAM: Get yersen a drink.
(ALBERT stands and pours himself a whiskey, then sits.)
Don’t worry about me.
ALBERT: Aye. Sorry.
(ALBERT stands and pours a drink for WILLIAM. Then sits and drinks.)
Never been one for this stuff. It’s alright. I picked the bain out the cot...and headed straight out across the gardens with ’im. I gorr half way across and there’s this nurse, a sister I think, bit aulder, sitting on a bench and she stands and ses ‘hello’. Just like that. ‘Hello’. And I ses ‘how do?’ – and she ses ‘d’yer want me to tek that bain off yer hands?’ and I ses ‘Aye.’ and I gives her the little bugger and she looks at me and it was like them auld eyes of hers is looking deep down into my soul, and me face is burning up again, and I climb the fence and I run to the hoss and I’m away.
(ALBERT drinks.)
I can see why some folk can get accustomed to this stuff.
(He tops up his drink, and drinks again.)
He was a fine, dark looking boy, despite his mother. I think he woulda ended up being a good, big lad. Aye, well. I don’t think she was a country lass though. She’d be Beverley or Hull mebbe.
WILLIAM: Yer picked a bain up, walked ten yards, and give it to a nurse.
ALBERT: The Good Lord’s seen everything.
WILLIAM: Yer intent was badly wrong, but at the end of the day, when all’s said and done, the world is the same today, as it was yesterday.
ALBERT: Fastest way of losing this land is having no-one to work it.
WILLIAM: That’s beyond argument.
ALBERT: That’s what the squire was talking about. ‘You ain’t gorr a son.’ Did yer heard him?
WILLIAM: They cut me legs off Albert, not me ears.
ALBERT: There int no more Harrisons.
WILLIAM: There’s Laura.
ALBERT: (As if it’s been said before.) She’s not an Harrison.
WILLIAM: She’s our niece. She’s fifteen now and is still showing a liking for the life. She’s up from Hull every holiday.
(Beat.) Are yer still doing it?
ALBERT: There dunt seem no reason no more. She bin fifteen years wi me and she ant bin nowhere near carrying. I think the Lord has seen fit to punish me for my sinning as a young man.
WILLIAM: Maudie might be barren.
ALBERT: I can feel the sin within me. The Lord gave me Maudie, when by rights she was yourn. I’m in the same position as Adam’s brother.
WILLIAM: Adam who?
ALBERT: Adam and Eve.
WILLIAM: He didn’t have a brother.
ALBERT: That’s me point. Mebbe he did, but if the brother din’t have a son he wouldn’t gerr in the story, d’yer see? We need a son. Do yer understand worr I’m saying?
WILLIAM: I do.
ALBERT: Sometimes I wish Grandad Harrison hadn’t med that wager with the Squire. He’s med a rod for the back of every Harrison following him. You know worr I’m asking don’t yer?
WILLIAM: Aye.
(ALBERT stands and picks up the shotgun.)
ALBERT: Yer loved her once. I’m off up the tops.
WILLIAM: Tek the rifle.
(ALBERT swaps the shotgun for the rifle.)
You won’t have spoken to Maudie then?
ALBERT: No. I thought I’d leave that one to you.
(ALBERT leaves taking the rifle. WILLIAM sits and thinks. There is the hint of a smile. Enter MAUDIE.)
MAUDIE: Ha! He’s tekken the rifle then eh?
WILLIAM: Aye.
MAUDIE: How much did you drink in the end?
WILLIAM: The fox’ll be safe purr it that way.
MAUDIE: What are you looking at?
WILLIAM: You.
MAUDIE: You’re terrible you.
WILLIAM: Aye. You make me terrible.
MAUDIE: Shh!
WILLIAM: I like lambing time. Every year I like lambing more and more.
MAUDIE: He might not be gone.
(She checks by looking through the window.)
WILLIAM: Do you like lambing?
(She kisses him on the top of the head.)
MAUDIE: It’s me favourite time of the whole year.
(To black.)
1944 THE NAZI
(1944. April. Afternoon, still light, but beginning to fade. The nets are covered with blackout curtains, open. A wireless sits on the sideboard. LAURA sits up in bed. She is aged about twenty-five and dressed in farm gear.)