Alan Moore - Jerusalem

JOHN CLARE: [ Sighs heavily .] Oh, it’s my own fault. Being mad, you know, it’s very self-indulgent. I should buck up and get on with things. [ A pause .] What was she like, your personal Miss Joyce? Was she a young thing, like my own?

BECKETT: They all start out as young things, all of the Miss Joyces.

JOHN CLARE: Yes, that’s true.

BECKETT: Mine was a very pretty girl, who was afflicted by the old strabismus in one eye which she perceived as having ruined her. You know women and the low esteem in which they often hold themselves.

JOHN CLARE: I do.

BECKETT: There was some trouble with her brother, I believe, when she was young that may have had connection with her later upset. Anyway, the upshot of it was that Lucia lost her marbles.

JOHN CLARE: [ Puzzled .] I’m not sure I understand your turn of phrase.

BECKETT: She flipped her lid.

JOHN CLARE: No, I’m no nearer.

BECKETT: Away with the fairies.

JOHN CLARE: Ah! Ah, now, I think I have you. She would be what they call a hysteric?

BECKETT: Close enough. They sent her off to various sanatoriums and psychiatrists. You know the drill. At last she landed in Saint Andrew’s Hospital along Northampton’s Billing Road, where she remains at present.

JOHN CLARE: That’s the place where I was kept, although they called it something different then.

BECKETT: The very same. The institution has an interesting literary pedigree.

JOHN CLARE: You know, I think I am acquainted with the girl you speak of. If it’s who I’m thinking of, I had a romp with her off in the madhouse woods not long ago.

BECKETT: No, I’m afraid that’s just your lunacy that’s talking. Though it’s true you were both settled at the same asylum you weren’t congruent in the chronology of things. You hail from two entirely different periods.

JOHN CLARE: Why, you could say the same of you and me, yet here we are. No, this lass I refer to had dark hair and long legs, very little in the way of bubbies and a lazy eye.

BECKETT: I’ll admit, that’s very like her.

JOHN CLARE: Makes a lot of noise about it with the spending. Mind you, in my own ordeal I spent so hard that there were letters of the alphabet came fluttering from my ears.

BECKETT: Well, you’ve convinced me. That’s Lucia to a T, although I’m mystified about the circumstances of your meeting. You would not be speaking metaphorically?

JOHN CLARE: I don’t believe so, no.

BECKETT: Now that’s a mystery. She didn’t mention it to me when last I visited.

JOHN CLARE: It may be that she was embarrassed. I am not myself what you might call presentable, and I had the impression she was of the better type.

BECKETT: That may be so. She might have thought you were beneath her.

JOHN CLARE: Well, then she’d be right. That was exactly the configuration of our bout.

BECKETT: Leave off with it. You’re getting on my nerves now.

JOHN CLARE: Then I’ll beg your pardon. You have feelings for her still yourself?

BECKETT: Not of a carnal nature, no, though once I did. If I am to be truthful, back in those days it was only carnal feelings that I had, though that was not her understanding of the matter. Presently I go to visit her as often as I can. I love her in a way, but not the way she wants. I don’t know why I go so much, to be completely honest.

JOHN CLARE: Could it be you pity her?

BECKETT: No, I don’t think that that’s entirely it. She’s happy in her own way. It might very well be that she’s happier than me. In fact, I would have difficulty in believing it were otherwise, so, no, it isn’t pity. I suppose I feel I owe her something. When I met her I was callous and I couldn’t bring myself to see that she was drowning. I could have done more, that’s all I’m saying. Or I could have done less. One way or the other. It’s too late now.

JOHN CLARE: So it’s guilt, then?

BECKETT: I expect it is. I often find it’s guilt that’s at the bottom of a thing.

JOHN CLARE: I tend to share that point of view myself.

WIFE: What did you mean, it wasn’t all one-sided?

HUSBAND: I thought that you didn’t want me speaking to you.

WIFE: Don’t be clever. You’re not clever, Johnny. The last thing you are is clever. Tell me what you meant when you said that it wasn’t all one-sided.

HUSBAND: I meant it was a duet. It was a tango. Flanagan and Allen. It was something that took two is what I’m saying to you. Why must you be all the while so dense?

WIFE: So it was something that she wanted, that’s the gist of it?

HUSBAND: It is! That is the very crux of things, the fulcrum of the subject: it was something that she wanted.

WIFE: Oh, well, that’s all right then, I suppose.

HUSBAND: [ Sighs, relieved .] I knew that you’d come round.

WIFE: How did you know?

HUSBAND: That you’d come round? Oh, well, I know you can’t stay angry with me very long …

WIFE: [ Slowly and deliberately .] How did you know that it was something that she wanted? Is that what she told you? Did she say “It’s something that I want”?

HUSBAND: Not in as many words, no. No, she didn’t. But …

WIFE: Well, what words did she use, then? What words did she use when she told you that it was something that she wanted?

HUSBAND: Well, it wasn’t words as such. She didn’t tell me through the medium of words.

WIFE: [ Increasingly angry .] Well, what? Interpretive dance, was it? Did she mime it for you?

HUSBAND: [ Sounding trapped and uncomfortable .] It was signals.

WIFE: Signals?

HUSBAND: Little signals. You know what it’s like, how women are.

WIFE: I’m not sure that I do.

HUSBAND: The signals they give out. The little looks and glances, all of that. She was forever smiling at me, cuddling up to me and telling me she loved me …

WIFE: [ Horrified, shouting in rage .] Well, of course she was! Of course she’d do that! Johnny, you’re her father!

BECKETT: Ah, Christ. There you have it.

HUSBAND: But … I mean, I hadn’t thought of that. It isn’t what I’m used to. If a girl, a woman, if she looks at you a certain way. I mean, you know our Audrey, what she’s like …

WIFE: [ Furious, in helpless tears .] I don’t! I don’t know what our Audrey’s like, or not how you do, anyway! You tell me, Johnny. Tell me what she’s like. Come on, now, it’ll be a bit of fun. I know: the first time, did it make her cry?

JOHN CLARE: This is a horror. I had not expected this.

HUSBAND: Celia …

WIFE: Tell me, Johnny. Tell me what our Audrey’s like to be in bed with. Did it make her cry? Was she a virgin, Johnny? Was she? And what did you do about the sheets? [ The HUSBAND looks at his WIFE , haunted, but simply moves his mouth like a fish and cannot answer her. Eventually he looks away and stares bleakly into space. His WIFE sinks her head in her hands, perhaps weeping silently. While CLARE and BECKETT are still staring in mute horror at the seated couple, THOMAS BECKET ENTERS LEFT and wanders slowly over to join them. They regard him with silent bewilderment. He looks at the haunted couple, then looks at CLARE and BECKETT.]

THOMAS BECKET: Pray, has some great catastrophe befallen them?

BECKETT: It has.

THOMAS BECKET: And can you not console them?

JOHN CLARE: They can’t hear us.

THOMAS BECKET: They are deaf?

BECKETT: No, they’re alive. The rest of us are either dead or dreaming, or that’s how I understand it. Who might you be?

THOMAS BECKET: I am Becket.

BECKETT: I’ll be candid with you: that’s an answer I was not anticipating. I myself am Beckett.