The Habit of Art: A Play Read online

  Author Because being the author of a literary biography of Auden, and ten years or so after that a biography of Benjamin Britten, you are in a unique position to give a commentary on their lives. You have become…the storyteller.

  Donald Mr Know-All. I just feel I irritate. I’m in the way.

  Fitz That’s because you are.

  Kay No, darling, no.

  Author You irritate him, I agree. But biographers always irritate their subjects.

  Donald If this were television I’d just be a voice-over and nobody would even notice.

  Pause.

  I just feel…I just feel I’m…a device.

  Kay A device? Oh no, darling. No.

  Donald I am. I am.

  Kay You’re not a device, darling. I’ve never thought you were a device.

  ASM And even if you are a device it’s a very good device, because otherwise they’d all be having to tell each other stuff they know already.

  Kay That’s right. Device is good.

  Henry And anyway, what’s a device? Horatio’s a device.

  The Fool is a device.

  The Chorus is a…well, the Chorus is a device.

  Kay (going to Donald) Oh, darling. You should have said. A device! No.

  Kay is holding Donald’s hand. It should be Hay Fever melodramatic.

  Donald Because you see, in life he wasn’t a device, Humphrey Carpenter. He was a really interesting, talented guy. I’ve been reading up about him and all the other things he did besides writing. He had a jazz band. He used to like to dress up and perform. And he practically started Radio 3. Anyway, I just wondered if there’s a way of using some of that to muffle the fact that I’m a device – No, darling, I am. And I don’t mind being a device if I can somehow use some of the other sides to him to disguise it.

  Author (suspiciously) Using what? What sort of thing?

  Carpenter His music, for instance. Could I just try something out later on, something I’ve been working on that might help?

  Kay I’m sure you can, darling.

  And with a look she defies both the Author and Fitz to contradict her.

  Something musical, darling. Lovely. I’m sure we’ll love it. Going to spend a penny, darling? Love you.

  Donald goes off.

  Author What fucking music?

  Kay raises her hands, disclaiming all responsibility.

  Of course he’s a fucking device. And what’s more, he should be grateful. Actors. Why can’t they just say the words? Why does a play always have to be such a performance?

  Kay Will you please settle down, Neil! On we go.

  ASM (giving cue) ‘And do you like your job…?’

  Auden And do you like your job as a rent boy?

  Stuart I hope it won’t be my life’s work. You get to meet unexpected people…like your good self.

  If you don’t mind, though, I’d prefer you not to call me a rent boy.

  Auden Why not? That’s what you are. You are a rent boy. I am a poet. Over the wall lives the Dean of Christ Church. We all have our parts to play.

  Stuart I won’t always be, though. I do it, but it’s not what I am.

  Auden No. Though I am condemned to be a poet. (He gets up.) I may say that in the unlikely event of your being my neighbour at Christ Church High Table we wouldn’t be able to have a conversation like this and for two reasons. Firstly, and obviously, decorum. It would not be thought proper. Secondly and to my mind much more irksomely – because for you at any rate, who are what I believe some well-meaning persons nowadays call a sex worker – a conversation about dicks is in fact shop…and on Christ Church High Table we are not, absurdly in my view, supposed to talk shop.

  The phone rings.

  Yes? Yes, I see. What time did he say? What time? Thank you.

  He puts the phone down.

  What time is seven-ish?

  Stuart Just after seven. Or just before.

  Auden Exactly. Not a time at all. Seven-ish!

  Stuart Why?

  Auden Someone is going to call. An old friend.

  He starts ineffectually to tidy up.

  You must go.

  Stuart nods.

  Stuart Can I ask you something? Something personal. Has your face always been like that? The lines and that.

  Auden No. When I was a young man – when I was your age, for instance – I was smooth-skinned. I was said once to look like a Swedish deckhand. I still may of course. Who knows what Swedish deckhands look like in the evening of their lives? It’s been said that nowadays my face resembles a scrotum.

  Stuart N-no. It’s what I’d call a lived-in face. You could be quite distinguished.

  Auden Thank you.

  Britten is finishing his auditions. Donald and Ralph the dresser enter quietly. Ralph carries a box containing the mask.

  Britten Thank you. Thank you very much. You still sound rather early morningish, much too late in the day for that. So, why don’t we finish off by singing something a bit more jolly and really have a good time?

  The Boy sings Britten’s arrangement of “Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son.”

  Don’t hold back. That’s right, it’s meant to sound horrid, it’s modern music. Smashing!

  Auden is now dozing.

  Carpenter Film this moment and with the poet alone the camera creeps in to sneak a close-up of the famously fissured face and its congregation of wrinkles.

  Kay (to Author) I’m not privy to Stephen’s thoughts on this one. He’s talked about it though.

  Ralph (beckoning Fitz upstage to put on mask) Fitz, it’s here!

  ASM brings out a large blown-up photograph of Auden from behind the set.

  Author Perhaps he’ll get some inspiration in Leeds. If not, when in doubt take it out. It’s only a play.

  Kay Yes. Well, I think we’ll just do it, darling. Tom!

  The Wrinkles are played by Stage Management.

  Wrinkle One (played by Kay) I am one of the creases on the face of the poet. Taken together, my colleagues and I constitute the Touraine-Solente-Golé Syndrome. In a fairy story, solve the riddle of its name and you would be its master, but not alas in medicine, and call it Touraine-Solente-Golé or what you will, there is no cure and it goes with him to the grave.

  Wrinkle Two (played by ASM) On the bright side, though, were his face made of the beloved limestone that it resembles our crevices in the cove that is Auden would, like Malham, be host to the hart’s-tongue fern, the purple saxifrage and other such botanical rarities. As it is, though, the crud in our cracks goes uncolonised and uncleansed and all we represent is a Q-tip’s missed opportunity and a challenge to Botox.

  Fitz appears in the Auden mask.

  Donald Jesus!

  Kay Oh my goodness!

  Fitz I’m rather impressed. (His voice is indistinct.) What’s it look like?

  Various Asides ‘You look just like him.’ ‘It’s like Marlon Brando.’ (Etc.)

  Fitz You wouldn’t know it was me, would you? Hides me completely.

  Donald Yes, you’re invisible. Save hours in makeup.

  Kay Can you talk in it?

  Fitz Yes.

  Henry Can he remember in it? That’s the question.

  Charlie, the singer, comes over and stares at Auden, indifferent as ever but at least not looking at his Nintendo. Fitz shakes his masked head to startle the child, which it doesn’t, Charlie just giving him another indifferent stare before being taken out of the rehearsal room by his chaperone.

  Author Kay, whose idea was this?

  Kay rolls her eyes in the direction of Fitz. Author is in despair.

  Kay You have to let them try, dear.

  Author (who has his head in his hands) It looks like what it is, a mask. And if one was wearing a Britten mask and the other a Humphrey Carpenter mask, fine. But…it’s turning into Spitting Image.

  Kay We’ll see what Stephen says.

  Fitz Well, I’m pleased.

  Kay You going to wear it now?

  Fitz (t
aking off mask) Actually I’ll take it off for a minute. It’s quite hot, I’ll need to practise.

  Ralph takes mask from Fitz and puts it in box.

  Kay Moving on. Ready?

  Auden (playing and singing at piano)

  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;

  His truth is marching on.

  Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

  Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

  Somewhere in the middle of this, Britten slips into the room.

  Auden (without turning round or apparently having seen him) I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.

  Britten It’s only just seven.

  Auden No. It’s after seven.

  Britten When we haven’t seen each other for twenty years five minutes doesn’t make much difference. Does it?

  Auden (with an heroic effect) No. And it is nice to see you.

  They both consider whether they should embrace but it turns into an awkward handshake.

  Britten Should I sit down?

  Auden Please.

  Auden moves something from a chair before Britten sits down.

  Britten I was told you were ill.

  Auden I was told you were ill. Are you?

  Britten Perhaps. Are you?

  Auden And so we begin as old friends do, comparing our respective degrees of decrepitude. They say I have a weak heart, whatever that means.

  Britten I have a bad heart, too. Sometimes I can’t lift my arm to conduct.

  Auden Oh, I can do that. (He does so.) Though I can’t conduct, of course.

  Britten Still, I’ve got a tip-top nurse.

  Auden Oh, I haven’t. Though there’s Chester.

  Britten He’s not here?

  Auden Athens. Peter?

  Britten Toronto.

  Awkward pause.

  Auden Have you seen anybody?

  Britten Not especially. Have you?

  Auden One or two. Cyril Connolly.

  Britten No.

  Auden Isaiah Berlin.

  Britten No.

  Auden Leslie Rowse.

  Britten shakes his head.

  The Spenders.

  Britten Oh yes.

  Auden Well, everyone knows the Spenders.

  Small pause.

  Oh Benjie, I’m sorry. I am so pleased to see you.

  He tries to lift Britten’s hand to kiss it, but Britten yelps.

  Britten My bad arm.

  So Auden bends and kisses it and smiles happily. They sit.

  I’ve been auditioning. Looking for a boy. So I thought I’d call.

  Auden And did you find one? A boy.

  Britten shakes his head.

  Britten They were all too perfect. Ideally I want a voice that is just on the edge of breaking.

  Auden You want a voice before it gets the mannish crack.

  Britten Is that you?

  Auden ‘Mannish crack’? No, alas, Cymbeline, I think.

  I knew you were here. I saw you this afternoon outside Magdalen. I was getting off the bus. You were getting out of a large car. A very large car. And though it was scarcely raining someone was waiting with an umbrella and there was another person to carry your briefcase. I’m not sure he didn’t bow before holding back the indifferent passers-by and ushering you into the lodge. Stravinsky used to be treated like that of course. Do they call you Maestro?

  Britten On occasion. Not in Aldeburgh.

  Auden Ha! One is struck by the imbalance, the disparity of respect accorded to music over the other arts. Music is a mystery of course, words are not. The deference accorded (which I don’t want).

  Britten Nor do I.

  Auden No, but the space given. The entourage. An upholstered life. Though what I really envy is that you are still working.

  Britten’s frailty is occasionally noticeable. Auden’s a different kind of frailty.

  Britten Do you not work?

  Auden Every day, but I do nothing. I have the habit of art. I write poems of a cosy domesticity trying to catch the few charred emotions that scuttle across my lunefied landscape. Still, writing is apparently therapeutic. That’s what they say these days, isn’t it? It is therapeutic. When I was young I envied Hardy’s hawk-like vision…his way of looking at life from a great height. I tried to do that, only now I suppose I have come down to earth. He has taken the words out of my mouth.

  Britten Who?

  Auden Whoever put them there in the first place. But I have to work, or else who am I? What I fear is that on Judgement Day one’s punishment will be to hear God reciting by heart the poems I would have written had my life been good.

  Britten I have not been alone with you in thirty years, but five minutes and I slide effortlessly back into the same groove, as tongue-tied as ever I was. I tell myself I am not the twenty-three-year-old prodigy mixing the music and doing the sound effects with tin cans in the studios of the GPO Film Unit. I am Benjamin Britten, OM.

  Auden OM! I do the occasional reading, mostly in America, where they always love me. The English are more…wary.

  Pause.

  How is Peter?

  Britten He’s in Toronto.

  Auden Chester is in Athens. He’s often in Athens. Does Peter have friends?

  Britten Friends? Oh, friends. Well, if he does I never ask.

  Auden You’re lucky not to be told. I am. How respectable we have become, both with our long-term partners. What do you call him?

  Britten Peter?

  Auden Do you say, my friend? My partner? My companion?

  Britten I try not to call him anything.

  Auden Because neither of us have actually said, have we, both of us just about claspable to society’s nervous bosom after a lifetime of our deviant status publicly unaffirmed. I’ve never felt the need either to pretend or proclaim. So no ‘coming out’.

  In literature, though, it’s different, where a close analysis of my poems and their pronouns has resulted in a tardy retrospective emergence. It is now assumed without it ever having been said. Has nobody in Aldeburgh ever remarked on your setup?

  Britten With Peter? No, of course not. Anyway, the ladies of Aldeburgh are iron-clad. Are you out of fashion now?

  Auden At twenty I tried to vex my elders. Past sixty, it’s the young I hope to shock. I’m unforgiven by the left because I have long since ceased to rally the troops. Still, I rankle, which is not unsatisfying.

  Britten The last thing of mine that was generally liked was the War Requiem.

  Auden I missed that.

  Britten It was very popular, though that of course turned informed musical opinion off. Stravinsky didn’t like it one bit. Now it’s Tippett who’s way out in front. I’m no longer avant garde. Tippett is the one the students listen to, model themselves on. The money is on Michael.

  Auden Art isn’t tennis, Ben. You don’t have to win.

  Britten I’d forgotten that.

  Auden What?

  Britten When you disapprove, you turn into a schoolmaster and call me Ben, which is what other people call me. You always called me Benjie. He’s a nice man, but he’s so…soppy.

  Auden Sorry. Who is this?

  Britten Tippett. These days they think I’m arid. Dry. I’m spare, I’m not dry.

  Auden Does it matter what they think?

  Britten I’ve never wanted to shock. I just want an audience to think that this is music that they’ve heard before and that it’s a kind of coming home – even when they’re hearing it for the first time. I want it to seem inevitable. Still, I’m not the darling any more, which should please you.

  Auden Me? Why?

  Britten You once told me that was what I wanted. To be loved.

  Auden Did I?

  Britten However we cling on.

  Auden That’s a misconception. C
linging on.

  Britten I’m sure.

  Auden We do not contain life. It contains us, holds us sometimes in its jaws. The senile, the demented, life has them in its teeth…in the cracks and holes of its teeth, maybe, but still in its teeth. They cannot let go of it until it lets go of them.

  Pause.

  Britten I have nothing to say. I would add more to your conversation if I just sat at the piano and accompanied it.

  Auden When I left New York to come back to England someone in my building was practising ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ on the saxophone.

  Britten Yes.

  Pause. He plays ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ on the piano.

  Auden Benjie. Why have you come to see me now? It can’t have been easy. I am a corpse. I was safely dead. Why am I being resurrected?

  Britten You’re not working on anything at the moment?

  Auden Nothing in particular. I work every day. But no. Nobody asks me any more.

  Britten I’m working on something. An opera. Death in Venice.

  Auden Yes, I believe I heard. Good subject.

  Britten You think so?

  Auden Oh Benjie, yes. Lovely idea. I’m surprised no one has done it before. Made for opera.

  Britten It’s proving difficult.

  Auden Well, it is difficult.

  Pause.

  Britten Wystan, I was trying to remember, what did we used to do? How did we used to start?

  Pause.

  Kay And curtain. Tea!

  Fitz But no cake. No cake!

  ASM Fifteen minutes, everyone!

  Interval.

  Part Two

  The rehearsal room as before, with all the company present except Donald, but including Brian, who is in Russian peasant costume as he’s visiting from his Chekhov matinee. Fitz as Auden has the mask on.

  Donald enters, dressed in drag and carrying a tuba. He then performs à la Douglas Byng, ‘I’m Doris, the Goddess of Wind’. In the course of this the Author enters but says nothing. At the end there is virtual silence from the company.