Read Online Complete Works, Volume IV by Harold Pinter - Free Book Online Page A

do while I waited? Look through my album? Make plans for the future?
    BRIGGS ( bringing glass ) You’d crawl to the bottle and stuff it between your teeth.
    HIRST No. I drink with dignity.
    He drinks, looks at Spooner.
    Who is this man? Do I know him?
    FOSTER He says he’s a friend of yours.
    HIRST My true friends look out at me from my album. I had my world. I have it. Don’t think now that it’s gone I’ll choose to sneer at it, to cast doubt on it, to wonder if it properly existed. No. We’re talking of my youth, which can never leave me. No . It existed. It was solid, the people in it were solid, while . . . transformed by light, while being sensitive . . . to all the changing light.
    When I stood my shadow fell upon her. She looked up. Give me the bottle. Give me the bottle.
    Briggs gives him the bottle. He drinks from it.
    It’s gone. Did it exist? It’s gone. It never existed. It remains.
    I am sitting here forever.
    How kind of you. I wish you’d tell me what the weather’s like. I wish you’d damnwell tell me what night it is, this night or the next night or the other one, the night before last. Be frank. Is it the night before last?
    Help yourselves. I hate drinking alone. There’s too much solitary shittery.
    What was it? Shadows. Brightness, through leaves. Gambolling. In the bushes. Young lovers. A fall of water. It was my dream. The lake. Who was drowning in my dream?
    It was blinding. I remember it. I’ve forgotten. By all that’s sacred and holy. The sounds stopped. It was freezing. There’s a gap in me.I can’t fill it. There’s a flood running through me. I can’t plug it. They’re blotting me out. Who is doing it? I’m suffocating. It’s a muff. A muff, perfumed. Someone is doing me to death.
    She looked up. I was staggered. I had never seen anything so beautiful. That’s all poison. We can’t be expected to live like that.
    I remember nothing. I’m sitting in this room. I see you all, every one of you. A sociable gathering. The dispositions are kindly.
    Am I asleep? There’s no water. No one is drowning.
    Yes, yes, come on, come on, come on, pipe up, speak up, speak up, speak up, you’re fucking me about, you bastards, ghosts, long ghosts, you’re making noises, I can hear you humming, I wear a crisp blue shirt at the Ritz, I wear a crisp blue shirt at the Ritz, I know him well, the wine waiter, Boris, Boris, he’s been there for years, blinding shadows, then a fall of water—
    SPOONER It was I drowning in your dream.
    Hirst falls to the floor. They all go to him. Foster turns to Spooner.
    FOSTER Bugger off.
    Briggs pulls Hirst up. Hirst wards him off.
    HIRST Unhand me.
    He stands erect. Spooner moves to him.
    SPOONER He has grandchildren. As have I. As I have. We both have fathered. We are of an age. I know his wants. Let me take his arm. Respect our age. Come, I’ll seat you.
    He takes Hirst’s arm and leads him to a chair.
    There’s no pity in these people.
    FOSTER Christ.
    SPOONER I am your true friend. That is why your dream . . . was so distressing. You saw me drowning in your dream. But have no fear. I am not drowned.
    FOSTER Christ.
    SPOONER ( to Hirst ) Would you like me to make you some coffee?
    BRIGGS He thinks he’s a waiter in Amsterdam.
    FOSTER Service non compris.
    BRIGGS Whereas he’s a pintpot attendant in the Bull’s Head. And a pisspot attendant as well.
    FOSTER Our host must have been in The Bull’s Head tonight, where he had an unfortunate encounter.( To Spooner. ) Hey scout, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. You’re not in some shithouse down by the docks. You’re in the home of a man of means, of a man of achievement. Do you understand me?
    He turns to Briggs.
    Why am I bothering? Tell me. Eh?
    He turns back to Spooner.
    Listen chummybum. We protect this gentleman against corruption, against men of craft, against