Harold Pinter: Old Times

Act two

DEELEY: Like the room?

ANNA: Yes.

D: We sleep here. These are beds. The great thing about these beds is that they are susceptible to any amount of permutation. They can be separated as they are now. Or placed at right angles, or one can bisect the other, or you can sleep feet to feet, or head to head, or side by side. It’s the castors that make all this possible.

He sits with coffee.

Yes, I remember you quite clearly from The Wayfarers.

A: The what?

D: The Wayfarers Tavern, just off the Brompton Road.

A: When was that?

D: Years ago.

A: I don’t think so.

D: Oh yes, it was you, no question. I never forget a face. You sat in the corner, quite often, sometimes alone, sometimes with others. And here you are, sitting in my house in the country. The same woman. Incredible. Fellow called Luke used to go in there. You knew him.

A: Luke?

D: Big chap. Ginger hair. Ginger beard.

A: I don’t honestly think so.

D: Yes, a whole crowd of them, poets, stunt men, jockeys, stand-up comedians, that kind of setup. You used to wear a scarf, that’s right, a black scarf, and a black sweater, and a skirt.

A: Me?

D: And black stockings. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. The Wayfarers Tavern? You might have forgotten the name but you must remember the pub. You were the darling of the saloon bar.

A: I wasn’t rich, you know. I didn’t have money for alcohol.

D: You had escorts. You didn’t have to pay. You were looked after. I bought you a few drinks myself.

A: You?

D: Sure.

A: Never.

D: It’s the truth. I remember clearly.

Pause

A: You?

D: I’ve bought you drinks.

Pause

Twenty years ago… or so.

A: You’re saying we’ve met before?

D: Of course we’ve met before.

Pause

We’ve talked before. In that pub, for example. In the corner. Luke didn’t like it much but we ignored him. Later we all went to a party. Someone’s flat, somewhere in Westbourne Grove. You sat on a very low sofa, I sat opposite and looked up your skirt. Your black stockings were very black because your thighs were so white. That’s something that’s all over now, of course, isn’t it, nothing like the same palpable profit in it now, it’s all over. But it was worthwhile then. It was worthwhile that night. I simply sat sipping my light ale and gazed… gazed up your skirt. You didn’t object, you found my gaze perfectly acceptable.

A: I was aware of your gaze, was I?

D: There was a great argument going on, about China or something, or death, or China and death, I can’t remember which, but nobody but I had a thigh-kissing view, nobody but you had the thighs which kissed. And here you are. Same woman. Same thighs.

Pause

Yes. Then a friend of yours came in, a girl, a girl friend. She sat on the sofa with you, you both chatted and chuckled, sitting together, and I settled lower to gaze at you both, at both your thighs, squealing and hissing, you aware, she unaware, but then a great multitude of men surrounded me and demanded my opinion about death, or about China, or whatever it was, and they would not let me be but bent down over me, so that what with their stinking breath and their broken teeth and the hair in their noses and China and death and their arses on the arms of my chair I was forced to get up and plunge my way through them, followed by them, followed by them with ferocity, as if I were the cause of their argument, looking back through smoke, rushing to the table with the linoleum cover to look for one more full bottle of light ale, looking back through smoke, glimpsing two girls on the sofa, one of them you, heads close, whispering, no longer able to see anything, no longer able to see stocking or thigh, and then you were gone. I wandered over to the sofa. There was no one on it. I gazed at the indentations of four buttocks. Two of which were yours.

Pause

A: I’ve rarely heard a sadder story.

D: I agree.

A: I’m terribly sorry.

D: That’s all right.

Pause.

I never saw you again. You disappeared from the area. Perhaps you moved out.

A: No. I didn’t.

D: I never saw you in The Wayfarers Tavern again. Where were you?

A: Oh, at concerts, I should think, or the ballet.

Silence

Katey’s taking a long time over her bath.

D: Well, you know what she’s like when she gets in the bath.

A: Yes.

D: Enjoys it Takes a long time over it.

A: She does, yes.

D: A hell of a long time. Luxuriates in it. Gives herself a great soaping all over.

Pause

Really soaps herself all over, and then washes the soap off, sud by sud. Meticulously. She’s both thorough and, I must say it, sensuos. Gives herself a comprehensive going over, and apart from everything else she does emerge as clean as a new pin. Don’t you think?

A: Very clean.

D: Truly so. Not a speck. Not a tidemark. Shiny as a balloon.

A: Yes, a kind of floating.

D: What?

A: She floats from the bath. Like a dream. Unaware of anyone standing, with her towel, waiting for her, waiting to wrap it round her. Quite absorbed.

Pause

Until the towel is placed on her shoulders.

Pause

D: Of course she’s so totally incompetent at drying herself properly, did you find that? She gives herself a really good scrub, but can she with the same efficiency give herself an equally good rub? I have found, in my experience of her, that this is not in fact the case. You’ll always find a few odd unexpected unwanted cheeky globules dripping about.

A: Why don’t you dry her yourself?

D: Would you recommend that?

A: You’d do it properly.

D: In her bath towel?

A: How out?

D: How out?

A: How could you dry her out? Out of her bath towel?

D: I don’t know.

A: Well, dry her yourself, in her bath towel.

Pause

D: Why don’t you dry her in her bath towel?

A: Me?

D: You’d do it properly.

A: No, no.

D: Surely? I mean, you’re a woman, you know how and where and in what density moisture collects on women’s bodies.

A: No two women are the same.

D: Well, that’s true enough.

Pause

I’ve got a brilliant idea. why don’t we do it with powder?

A: Is that a brilliant idea?

D: Isn’t it?

A: It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath.

D: It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath but it’s quite uncommon to be powdered. Or is it? It’s not common where I come from, I can tell you. My mother would have a fit.

Pause

Listen. I’ll tell you what. I’ll do it. I’ll do the whole lot. The towel and the powder. After all, I am her husband. But you can supervise the whole thing. And give me some hot tips while you’re at it. That’ll kill two birds with one stone.

Pause

(To himself.) Christ.

He looks at her slowly.

You must be about forty, I should think, by now.

Pause

If I walked into The Wayfarers Tavern now, and saw you sitting in the corner, I wouldn’t recognize you.