ROS (raises his head at GUIL): Seventy-six -- Love.
GUIL gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his
shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his
environment or lack of it.
Heads.
GUIL: A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing
else at least the law of probability. (He slips a coin over his
shoulders as he goes to look upstage.)
ROS: Heads.
GUIL, examining the confines of the stage, flips over two more coins
as he does so, one by one of course. ROS announces each of them as
"heads".
GUIL (musing): The law of probability, it has been oddly asserted, is
something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has
surprised himself) ... if six monkeys were ...
ROS: Game?
GUIL: Were they?
ROS: Are you?
GUIL (understanding): Game. (Flips a coin.) The law of averages, if I
have got this right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the
air for long enough they would land on their tails about as often as
they would land on their --
ROS: Heads. (He picks up the coin.)
GUIL: Which even at first glance does not strike one as a particularly
rewarding speculation, in either sense, even without the monkeys. I
mean you wouldn't bet on it. I mean I would, but you wouldn't... (As
he flips a coin.)
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: Would you? (Flips a coin.)
ROS: Heads.
Repeat.
Heads. (He looks up at GUIL -- embarrassed laugh.) Getting a bit of
a bore, isn't it?
GUIL (coldly): A bore?
ROS: Well...
GUIL: What about the suspense?
ROS (innocently): What suspense?
Small pause.
GUIL: It must be the law of diminishing returns... I feel the spell about
to be broken. (Energising himself somewhat. He takes out a coin,
spins it high, catches it, turns it over on to the back of his other
hand, studies the coin -- and tosses it to ROS. His energy deflates
and he sits.)
Well, it was an even chance... if my calculations are correct.
ROS: Eighty-five in a row -- beaten the record!
GUIL: Don't be absurd.
ROS: Easily!
GUIL (angry): Is that it, then? Is that all?
ROS: What?
GUIL: A new record? Is that as far as you are prepared to go?
ROS: Well...
GUIL: No questions? Not even a pause?
ROS: You spun them yourself.
GUIL: Not a flicker of doubt?
ROS (aggrieved, aggressive): Well, I won -- didn't I?
GUIL (approaches him -- quieter): And if you'd lost? If they'd come down
against you, eighty-five times, one after another, just like that?
ROS (dumbly): Eighty-five in a row? Tails?
GUIL: Yes! What would you think?
ROS (doubtfully): Well... (Jocularly.) Well, I'd have a good look at
your coins from the start!
GUIL (retiring): I'm relieved. At least we can count on self-interest as
a predictable factor... I suppose it's the last to go. Your capacity
for trust made me wonder if perhaps... you, alone... (He turns on
him, suddenly, reaches out a hand.) Touch.
ROS clasps his hand. GUIL pulls him up to him.
GUIL (more intensely): We have been spinning coins together since -- (He
releases him almost as violently.) This is not the first time we
have spun coins!
ROS: Oh no -- we've been spinning coins for as long as I can remember.
GUIL: How long is that?
ROS: I forget. Mind you -- eighty-five times!
GUIL: Yes?
ROS: It'll take some beating, I imagine.
GUIL: Is that what you imagine? Is that it? No fear?
ROS: Fear?
GUIL (in fury -- flings a coin on the ground.): Fear! The crack that
might flood your brain with light!
ROS: Heads... (He puts it in his bag.)
GUIL sits despondently. He takes a coin, spins it, lets it fall
between his feet. He looks at it, picks it up, throws it to ROS, who
puts it in his bag.
GUIL takes another coin, spins it, catches it, turns it over on to
his other hand, looks at it, and throws it to ROS, who puts it in
his bag.
GUIL takes a third coin, spins it, catches it in his right hand,
turns it over on to his left wrist, lobs it in the air, catches it
with his left hand, raises his left leg, throws the coin up under
it, catches it and turns it over on the top of his head, where it
sits. ROS comes, looks at it, puts it in his bag.
ROS: I'm afraid --
GUIL: So am I.
ROS: I'm afraid it isn't your day.
GUIL: I'm afraid it is.
Small pause.
ROS: Eighty-nine.
GUIL: It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of
wealth. (He muses.) List of possible explanantions. One: I'm willing
it. Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning
double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private
atonement for an unremembered past. (He spins a coin at ROS.)
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: Two: time has stopped dead, and the single experience of one coin
being spun once has been repeated ninety times... (He flips a coin,
looks at it, tosses to ROS.) On the whole, doubtful. Three: divine
intervention, that is to say, a good turn from above concerning him,
cf. children of Israel, or retribution concernng me, cf. Lot's wife.
Four: a spectacular vindication of the principle that each
individual coin spun individually (he spins one) is as likely to
come down heads as tails and therefore should cause no surprise each
individual time it does. (It does. He tosses it to ROS.)
ROS: I've never known anything like it!
GUIL: And a syllogism: One, he has never known anything like it. Two he
has never known anything to write home about. Three, it is nothing
to write home about... Home... What's the first thing you remember?
ROS: Oh, let's see... The first thing that comes into my head, you mean?
GUIL: No -- the first thing that you remember.
ROS: Ah. (Pause.) No, it's no good, it's gone. It was a long time ago.
GUIL (patient but edged): You don't get my meaning. What is my meaning.
What is the first thing after all the things you've forgotten?
ROS: Oh I see. (Pause.) I've forgotten the question.
* * *
ROS (at edge of stage): It must have been thunder, Like drums...
(By the end of the next speech, the band is faintly audible.)
GUIL: A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third
place of no nmae, character, population or significance, sees a
unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling,
but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various
kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down
to fancy; until -- "My God," says a second man, "I must be dreaming,
I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added
that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third
witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads
it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there
are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it
is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience...
"Look, look!" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its
forehead! it must have been mistaken for a deer."
ROS (eagerly): I knew all along it was a band.
GUIL (tiredly): He knew all along it was a band.
ROS: Here they come!
GUIL: (At the last moment before they enter -- wistfully): I'm sorry it
wasn't a unicorn. It would have been nice to have unicorns.
* * *
ROS: We could play at questions.
GUIL: What good would that do?
ROS: Practice!
GUIL: Statement! One -- Love.
ROS: Cheating.
GUIL: How?
ROS: I haven't started yet.
GUIL: Statement. Two -- Love.
ROS: Are you counting that?
GUIL: What?
ROS: Are you counting that?
GUIL: Foul. No repetition. Three -- Love and game.
ROS: I'm not going to play if you're going to be like that.
GUIL: Whose serve?
ROS: Hah?
GUIL: Foul! No grunts. Love - One.
ROS: Whose go?
GUIL: Why?
ROS: Why not?
GUIL: What for?
ROS: Foul! No synonyms! One all.
GUIL: What in God's name is going on?
ROS: Foul! No rhetoric. Two - One.
GUIL: What does it all add up to?
ROS: Can't you guess?
GUIL: Are you addressing me?
ROS: Is there anyone else?
GUIL: Who?
ROS: How would I know?
GUIL: Why do you ask?
ROS: Are you serious?
GUIL: Was that rhetoric?
ROS: No.
GUIL: Statement! Two all. Game point.
ROS: What's the matter with you today?
GUIL: When?
ROS: What?
GUIL: Are you deaf?
ROS: Am I dead?
GUIL: Yes or no?
ROS: Is there a choice?
GUIL: Is there a God?
ROS: Foul. No non sequiturs. Three - Two. One game all.
GUIL (seriously): What's your name?
ROS: What's yours?
GUIL: You first.
ROS: Statement. One -- Love.
GUIL: What's your name when you're at home?
ROS: What's yours?
GUIL: When I'm at home?
ROS: Is it different at home?
GUIL: What home?
ROS: Haven't you got one?
GUIL: Why do you ask?
ROS: What are you driving at?
GUIL (with emphasis): What's your name?!
ROS: Repetition. Two -- Love. Match point.
GUIL (seizing him violently): Who do you think you are?
ROS: Rhetoric. Game and match! (Pause.) Where's it going to end?
GUIL: That's the question.
ROS: It's all questions.
* * *
GUIL: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace... to
which we are... condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one--
that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll
just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened,
just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was
part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. (He sits.) A
Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a
philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he
was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a
Chinese philosopher. Envy him, in his two-fold security.
* * *
GUIL: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us,
with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell
of smoke, and a presumption that our eyes once watered.
* * *
GUIL: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than
a man talking nonsense not to himself.
ROS: Or just as mad.
GUIL: Or just as mad.
ROS: And he does both.
GUIL: So there you are.
ROS: Stark raving sane.
* * *
ROS: We can't afford it.
GUIL: Yes, one must think of the future.
ROS: It's the normal thing.
GUIL: To have one. One is, after all, having it all the time... now...
and now... and now...
ROS: It could go on for ever. Well, not for ever, I suppose. (Pause.) Do
you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a
lid on it?
GUIL: No.
ROS: Nor do I, really....It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one
thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take
into account that fact that one is dead...which should make all the
difference... shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a
box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not
that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any
air-- you'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be?
Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly.
That's why I don't think of it...
(GUIL stirs restlessly, pulling his cloak round him.)
Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that,
I mean you'd be in there for ever. Even taking into account that
fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if
you're dead, really... ask yourself, if I asked you straight
off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be
alive or dead? Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is
better than no life at all. I expect. You'd have a chance at least.
You could lie there thinking-- well, at least I'm not dead! In a
minute someone's going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out.
(Banging the floor with his fists.) "Hey you, whatsyername! Come out
of there!"
GUIL (jumps up savagely): You don't have to flog it to death!
(Pause.)
ROS: I wouldn't think about it, if I were you. You'd only get depressed.
(Pause.) Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where is it all
going to end? (Pause, then brightly.) Two early Christians chanced
to meet in Heaven. "Saul of Tarsus yet!" cried one. "What are you
doing here?!" ... "Tarsus-Schmarsus," replied the other, "I'm Paul
already." (He stands up and restlessly flips his arms.) They don't
care. We count for nothing. We could remain silent till we're green
in the face, they wouldn't come.
GUIL: Blue, red.
ROS: A Christian, a Moslem and a Jew chanced to meet in a closed
carriage... "Silverstein!" cried the Jew. "Who's your friend?" ...
"His name's Abdullah," replied the Moslem, "but he's no friend of
mine since he became a convert." (He leaps up again, stamps his foot
and shouts into the wings.) All right, we know you're in there!
Come out talking! (Pause.) We have no control. None at all... (He
paces.) Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about
death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it
first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been
shattering, steeped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.
It never occurred to me at all. What does one make of that? We must
be born with an intuition of morality. Before we know the words for
it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and
squalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the
world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure. (He
reflects, getting more despearte and rapid.) A Hindu, a Buddhist and
a lion-tamer chanced to meet, in a circus on the Indo-Chinese
border. (He breaks out.) They're taking us for granted! Well, I
won't stand for it! In future, notice will be taken. (He wheels
again to face into the wings.) Keep out, then! I forbid anyone to
enter! (No one comes. Breathing heavily.) That's better...
* * *
ROS: Now we've lost the tension.
GUIL: What tension?
ROS: What was the last thing I said before we wandered off?
GUIL: When was that?
ROS (helplessly) : I can't remember.
GUIL (leaping up): What a shambles! We're just not getting anywhere.
ROS (mournfully) : Not even England. I don't believe in it anyway.
GUIL: What?
ROS: England.
GUIL: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?
* * *
ROS: A compulsion towards philosophical introspection is his chief
characteristic, if I may put it like that. It does not mean he is
mad. It does not mean he isn't. Very often, it doesn't mean anything
at all. Which may or may not be a kind of madness.
GUIL: It really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic
allusions, mistaken identities, arguing his father is his mother,
that sort of thing; intimations of suicide, forgoing of exercise,
loss of mirth, hints of claustrophobia not to say delusions of
imprisonment; invocations of camels, chameleons, capons, whales,
weasels, hawks, handsaws -- riddles, quibbles and evasions; amnesia,
paranoia, myopia; day-dreaming, hallucinations; stabbing his elders,
abusing his parents, insulting his lover, and appearing hatless in
public -- knock-kneed, droop-stockinged and sighing like a love-sick
schoolboy, which at his age is coming on a bit strong.
ROS: And talking to himself.
GUIL: And talking to himself.
* * *
ROS: Saved again.
GUIL: Saved for what?
(ROS sighs.)
ROS: The sun's going down. (Pause.) It'll be night soon. (Pause.) If
that's west. (Pause.) Unless we've --
GUIL (shouts): Shut up! I'm sick of it! Do you think conversation is
going to help us now?
ROS (hurt, desperately ingratiating): I -- I bet all the money I've got
the year of my birth doubled is an odd number.
GUIL (moan): No-o.
ROS: Your birth!
(GUIL smashes him down.)
* * *
ROS: That's it then, is it?
(No answer. He looks out front.)
The sun's going down. Or the earth's coming up, as the fashionable
theory has it.
(Small pause.)
Not that it makes any difference.
What was it all about? When did it begin?
(Pause. No answer.)
Couldn't we just stay put? I mean no one is going to come on and
drag us off... They'll just have to wait. We're still young...
fit... we've got years...
(Pause. No answer.)
(A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone. Did we?
GUIL: I can't remember.
(ROS pulls himself together.)
ROS: All right then, I don't care. I've had enough. To tell you the
truth, I'm relieved.
(And he disappears from view.)
GUIL: Our names shouted in a certain dawn... a message... a summons...
There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have
said -- no. But somehow we missed it. (He looks round and sees he is
alone.)
Rosen--?
Guil--?
(He gathers himself.)
Well, we'll know better next time. Now you see me, now you-- (and
disappears.)
* * *