FIRST VOICE
In the blind-drawn dark dining-room of School House, dusty
and echoing as a dining-room in a vault, Mr and Mrs Pugh
are silent over cold grey cottage pie. Mr Pugh reads, as
he forks the shroud meat in, from Lives of the Great
Poisoners. He has bound a plain brown-paper cover round
the book. Slyly, between slow mouthfuls, he sidespies up
at Mrs Pugh, poisons her with his eye, then goes on
reading. He underlines certain passages and smiles in
secret.
MRS PUGH
Persons with manners do not read at table,
FIRST VOICE
says Mrs Pugh. She swallows a digestive tablet as big as a
horse-pill, washing it down with clouded peasoup water.
[Pause]
MRS PUGH
Some persons were brought up in pigsties.
MR PUGH
Pigs don't read at table, dear.
FIRST VOICE
Bitterly she flicks dust from the broken cruet. It settles
on the pie in a thin gnat-rain.
MR PUGH
Pigs can't read, my dear.
MRS PUGH
I know one who can.
FIRST VOICE
Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes, Mr Pugh
minces among bad vats and jeroboams, tiptoes through
spinneys of murdering herbs, agony dancing in his
crucibles, and mixes especially for Mrs Pugh a venomous
porridge unknown to toxicologists which will scald and
viper through her until her ears fall off like figs, her
toes grow big and black as balloons, and steam comes
screaming out of her navel.
MR PUGH
You know best, dear,
FIRST VOICE
says Mr Pugh, and quick as a flash he ducks her in rat soup.
MRS PUGH
What's that book by your trough, Mr Pugh?
MR PUGH
It's a theological work, my dear. Lives of the Great Saints.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Pugh smiles. An icicle forms in the cold air of the
dining-vault.
MRS PUGH
I saw you talking to a saint this morning. Saint Polly
Garter. She was martyred again last night. Mrs Organ
Morgan saw her with Mr Waldo.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
And when they saw me they pretended they were looking for nests,
SECOND VOICE
said Mrs Organ Morgan to her husband, with her mouth full
of fish as a pelican's.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
But you don't go nesting in long combinations, I said to
myself, like Mr Waldo was wearing, and your dress nearly
over your head like Polly Garter's. Oh, they didn't fool me.
SECOND VOICE
One big bird gulp, and the flounder's gone. She licks her
lips and goes stabbing again.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
And when you think of all those babies she's got, then all
I can say is she'd better give up bird nesting that's all
I can say, it isn't the right kind of hobby at all for a
woman that can't say No even to midgets. Remember Bob
Spit? He wasn't any bigger than a baby and he gave her
two. But they're two nice boys, I will say that, Fred Spit
and Arthur. Sometimes I like Fred best and sometimes I
like Arthur. Who do you like best, Organ?
ORGAN MORGAN
Oh, Bach without any doubt. Bach every time for me.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
Organ Morgan, you haven't been listening to a word 1 said.
It's organ organ all the time with you..
FIRST VOICE
And she bursts into tears, and, in the middle of her salty
howling, nimbly spears a small flatfish and pelicans it whole.
ORGAN MORGAN
And then Palestrina,
SECOND VOICE
says Organ Morgan.
FIRST VOICE
Lord Cut-Glass, in his kitchen full of time, squats down
alone to a dogdish, marked Fido, of peppery fish-scraps
and listens to the voices of his sixty-six clocks, one for
each year of his loony age, and watches, with love, their
black-and-white moony loudlipped faces tocking the earth
away: slow clocks, quick clocks, pendulumed heart-knocks,
china, alarm, grandfather, cuckoo; clocks shaped like
Noah's whirring Ark, clocks that bicker in marble ships,
clocks in the wombs of glass women, hourglass chimers,
tu-wit-tuwoo clocks, clocks that pluck tunes, Vesuvius
clocks all black bells and lava, Niagara clocks that
cataract their ticks, old time-weeping clocks with ebony
beards, clocks with no hands for ever drumming out time
without ever knowing what time it is. His sixty-six
singers are all set at different hours. Lord Cut-Glass
lives in a house and a life at siege. Any minute or dark
day now, the unknown enemy will loot and savage downhill,
but they will not catch him napping. Sixty-six different
times in his fish-slimy kitchen ping, strike, tick, chime,
and tock.
SECOND VOICE
The l*** and lilt and lather and emerald breeze and
crackle of the bird-praise and body of Spring with its
b****** full of rivering May-milk, means, to that lordly
fish-head nibbler, nothing but another nearness to the
tribes and navies of the Last Black Day who'll sear and
pillage down Armageddon Hill to his double-locked
rusty-shuttered tick-tock dust-scrabbled shack at the
bottom of the town that has fallen head over bells in love.
POLLY GARTER
And I'll never have such loving again,
SECOND VOICE
pretty Polly hums and longs.
POLLY GARTER (Sings)
Now when farmers' boys on the first fair day
Come down from the hills to drink and be gay,
Before the sun sinks I'll lie there in their arms
For they're good bad boys from the lonely farms,
But I always think as we tumble into bed
Of little w**** Wee who is dead, dead, dead...
In the blind-drawn dark dining-room of School House, dusty
and echoing as a dining-room in a vault, Mr and Mrs Pugh
are silent over cold grey cottage pie. Mr Pugh reads, as
he forks the shroud meat in, from Lives of the Great
Poisoners. He has bound a plain brown-paper cover round
the book. Slyly, between slow mouthfuls, he sidespies up
at Mrs Pugh, poisons her with his eye, then goes on
reading. He underlines certain passages and smiles in
secret.
MRS PUGH
Persons with manners do not read at table,
FIRST VOICE
says Mrs Pugh. She swallows a digestive tablet as big as a
horse-pill, washing it down with clouded peasoup water.
[Pause]
MRS PUGH
Some persons were brought up in pigsties.
MR PUGH
Pigs don't read at table, dear.
FIRST VOICE
Bitterly she flicks dust from the broken cruet. It settles
on the pie in a thin gnat-rain.
MR PUGH
Pigs can't read, my dear.
MRS PUGH
I know one who can.
FIRST VOICE
Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes, Mr Pugh
minces among bad vats and jeroboams, tiptoes through
spinneys of murdering herbs, agony dancing in his
crucibles, and mixes especially for Mrs Pugh a venomous
porridge unknown to toxicologists which will scald and
viper through her until her ears fall off like figs, her
toes grow big and black as balloons, and steam comes
screaming out of her navel.
MR PUGH
You know best, dear,
FIRST VOICE
says Mr Pugh, and quick as a flash he ducks her in rat soup.
MRS PUGH
What's that book by your trough, Mr Pugh?
MR PUGH
It's a theological work, my dear. Lives of the Great Saints.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Pugh smiles. An icicle forms in the cold air of the
dining-vault.
MRS PUGH
I saw you talking to a saint this morning. Saint Polly
Garter. She was martyred again last night. Mrs Organ
Morgan saw her with Mr Waldo.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
And when they saw me they pretended they were looking for nests,
SECOND VOICE
said Mrs Organ Morgan to her husband, with her mouth full
of fish as a pelican's.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
But you don't go nesting in long combinations, I said to
myself, like Mr Waldo was wearing, and your dress nearly
over your head like Polly Garter's. Oh, they didn't fool me.
SECOND VOICE
One big bird gulp, and the flounder's gone. She licks her
lips and goes stabbing again.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
And when you think of all those babies she's got, then all
I can say is she'd better give up bird nesting that's all
I can say, it isn't the right kind of hobby at all for a
woman that can't say No even to midgets. Remember Bob
Spit? He wasn't any bigger than a baby and he gave her
two. But they're two nice boys, I will say that, Fred Spit
and Arthur. Sometimes I like Fred best and sometimes I
like Arthur. Who do you like best, Organ?
ORGAN MORGAN
Oh, Bach without any doubt. Bach every time for me.
MRS ORGAN MORGAN
Organ Morgan, you haven't been listening to a word 1 said.
It's organ organ all the time with you..
FIRST VOICE
And she bursts into tears, and, in the middle of her salty
howling, nimbly spears a small flatfish and pelicans it whole.
ORGAN MORGAN
And then Palestrina,
SECOND VOICE
says Organ Morgan.
FIRST VOICE
Lord Cut-Glass, in his kitchen full of time, squats down
alone to a dogdish, marked Fido, of peppery fish-scraps
and listens to the voices of his sixty-six clocks, one for
each year of his loony age, and watches, with love, their
black-and-white moony loudlipped faces tocking the earth
away: slow clocks, quick clocks, pendulumed heart-knocks,
china, alarm, grandfather, cuckoo; clocks shaped like
Noah's whirring Ark, clocks that bicker in marble ships,
clocks in the wombs of glass women, hourglass chimers,
tu-wit-tuwoo clocks, clocks that pluck tunes, Vesuvius
clocks all black bells and lava, Niagara clocks that
cataract their ticks, old time-weeping clocks with ebony
beards, clocks with no hands for ever drumming out time
without ever knowing what time it is. His sixty-six
singers are all set at different hours. Lord Cut-Glass
lives in a house and a life at siege. Any minute or dark
day now, the unknown enemy will loot and savage downhill,
but they will not catch him napping. Sixty-six different
times in his fish-slimy kitchen ping, strike, tick, chime,
and tock.
SECOND VOICE
The l*** and lilt and lather and emerald breeze and
crackle of the bird-praise and body of Spring with its
b****** full of rivering May-milk, means, to that lordly
fish-head nibbler, nothing but another nearness to the
tribes and navies of the Last Black Day who'll sear and
pillage down Armageddon Hill to his double-locked
rusty-shuttered tick-tock dust-scrabbled shack at the
bottom of the town that has fallen head over bells in love.
POLLY GARTER
And I'll never have such loving again,
SECOND VOICE
pretty Polly hums and longs.
POLLY GARTER (Sings)
Now when farmers' boys on the first fair day
Come down from the hills to drink and be gay,
Before the sun sinks I'll lie there in their arms
For they're good bad boys from the lonely farms,
But I always think as we tumble into bed
Of little w**** Wee who is dead, dead, dead...