For the Reckord Page 10

  HELEN: Just this once.

  BROOK: Yeah.

  SYLVIA: Can’t we not bother. Let’s not go at all.

  BROOK: Well then you can bloody well not ‘ang around me.

  SYLVIA: But I like being with you, Brooksie.

  BROOK: Well?

  SYLVIA: The caff I liked.

  BROOK: You’ve gotta do other things, ‘aven’t you, wot other people like.

  SYLVIA: Does every girl ‘ave to then?

  BROOK: Sometime.

  A long silence.

  So are you comin’?

  SYLVIA: All right.

  BROOK is now very tender with SYLVIA.

  Can’t we go somewhere else than the bloody graveyard? All I know is there’s always plainclothes passing through.

  BROOK: Who told you about plainclothes?

  SYLVIA: (Pointing to CRAGGE.) ‘Im.

  CRAGGE: I told her before but she’s repeating it now ‘cos she doesn’t want to go.

  BROOK: (To SYLVIA.) Do you want to go?

  SYLVIA: If she is.

  COLMAN: (To CRAGGE.) So who’s a no gut? You!

  ADAMS: Who’s a no gut? You!

  JORDAN: Who’s a no gut?

  HELEN: You!

  ADAMS: (Jeering at CRAGGE.) She might go tell ‘er dad.

  COLMAN: You don’t want to be in no trouble!

  ADAMS: ‘E thinks people won’t love ‘im.

  HELEN: No one’ll speak to him.

  JORDAN: You’ll go and nark won’t ya!

  SYLVIA: Narker!

  ADAMS: Welsher!

  COLMAN: Kick ‘im!

  CRAGGE: Try.

  BROOK: I’m pushin’ ya. (Pushing him.)

  JORDAN: Look at him running.

  CRAGGE: I’ve got to find a pump for the bike.

  BROOK: Runnin’.

  CRAGGE: Say anythin’ you like.

  COLMAN: ‘E’s bloody cryin’.

  CRAGGE: (Tears in his face and voice.) You think I’m her you can do what you like with.

  BROOK: All right then.

  BROOK pushes then punches. All join in. There’s a fight, and CRAGGE, taking fright, is wickedly beaten. He lies on the ground kicking; the others shout as they go off, their voices receding.

  BROOK: Whitbread cart-horse.

  RECEDING VOICES: Whitbread cart-‘orse. Whitbread cart-‘orse.

  ACT THREE

  SCENE ONE

  The classroom the following evening after school. The boys have been kept in to do their essay on war. FREEMAN sits reading.

  ADAMS: Sir’s been kept in wiv us.

  COLMAN: Brooksie ain’t turned up.

  JORDAN: I notice that since Sylvia told ‘er dad we done ‘er Brook’s keepin’ scarce.

  COLMAN: Can’t blame ‘im. ‘Er dad’s jealous.

  FREEMAN: Come on, shut up and write. (Impatient to get home.) No one finished a page yet? You’ve been at it nearly an hour.

  JORDAN: I bloody forget what we was kept in for.

  COLMAN: If you hadn’t blabbed about bloody tarts we wouldn’t be here.

  FREEMAN: Belt-up.

  The scene slows down to a gentle sleepy murmur.

  JORDAN: Nine days to go in this bloody prison.

  ADAMS: One cell or another wot’s the odds?

  JORDAN: Wot you think ‘er dad’ll do?

  COLMAN: Nothin’. Forget it. It’ll blow over.

  Silence.

  ADAMS: Colley’s done nearly half a page.

  COLMAN: Good this is.

  Silence.

  ADAMS: Old Webster says, you must be vivid and put in commas.

  COLMAN: ‘Ow d’you spell total destruction. Write it down ‘ere.

  FREEMAN: (To COLMAN.) That’s coming on. (He picks up ADAM’s essay and reads it out.) ‘If they called me up and I had the bomb to drop on a Russian town I’d think of it as London and instead of dropping a bomb on them I’d fly out to the mid-ocean with it, and sink it in the heart of the sea… and for that I’d get the sack and maybe they drop one on us, but so what, there is better jobs or if someone’s going to be dead it might as well be us. That’s how I argue but not my dad…’

  CRAGGE: Your dad isn’t a nut.

  FREEMAN: It’s very good. Carry on. Very good.

  JORDAN: I couldn’t think of nothing.

  COLMAN: Come over ‘ere and ‘ave a look at mine.

  FREEMAN: Good. (Going over to CRAGGE.) Three lines in nearly an hour.

  CRAGGE: I’m thinkin’ about a job.

  ADAMS: (Mocking.) Professional footballer.

  CRAGGE: (Unable to cope.) Be insultin’.

  FREEMAN: Cut this out.

  ADAMS: (Expert baiting.) You the stooge and Brook the guv. All your life.

  FREEMAN: (Severely.) All right!

  CRAGGE: (To ADAMS.) Rather than muck in wiv ‘em like you did, lemme die.

  ADAMS: You don’t die. Nothin’ like that. You stay alive watchin’ Brook live it up.

  CRAGGE: Yeah and dodgin’ cops.

  COLMAN: If Sylvia goes to the law, she’ll tell ‘em you tried to give ‘er a bike.

  CRAGGE: That’s peanuts. That ain’t rape.

  JORDAN: Rape? She was willin’.

  ADAMS: That ain’t wot she’s sayin’ now. She’s saying we broke and entered.

  COLMAN: There was nothin’ to break Brooksie said, and he was there wasn’t he, living the life.

  CRAGGE: He’ll live it up in a cell.

  JORDAN: No one’s in for ever.

  CRAGGE: (Scornful; passionate.) No, it ain’t forever. He comes out but ‘e’s a bit behind and ‘e’ll wanna be laughin’. So ‘e’ll thieve, and blow the tickle like it ain’t ‘is, then thieve and thieve again till ‘e’s copped and bangled; in and out of a horse box; his name bawled out to come and stand before a man like himself. Two years; three; which-ever the man happens to think.

  JORDAN: All right. So ‘e does ‘is bird like a gent.

  CRAGGE: Yeah. And ‘e’s well-liked in there same as out ‘ere, the reg’lar guy, he is; cons want to share his bed. Lemme finish. He’s a criminal then. Soon ‘e spends ‘arf his life doin’ time, a failin’ old geezer. The way the cops are gettin’ to ‘ave ‘im on their ‘ands’ sorta pathetic. In the end he’s a rotten shambles, crawlin’ ‘ome to nick. That’s Brook.

  ADAMS: ‘E’s getting’ ‘ard.

  CRAGGE: You’re a huddler. You’ll always end up muckin’ in with them and I won’t and they can tell. So I get beat up. But you’ll get pipped, you lot. I’ll do better in life than a bunch of bastards warming round Brook.

  COLMAN: Wot a sad load a dreams, this geezer.

  FREEMAN: (Trying to break this up; to JORDAN.) You go and see if Mr. Webster’s still here.

  JORDAN: What for?

  FREEMAN: I wanted a lift home on his motor-bike. Satisfied?

  JORDAN exits.

  O.K. boys, take it home and finish it. You make sure you finish that. About another page. And if it’s good all the way through we’ll send it to the school newspaper.

  ADAMS: You ain’t serious.

  FREEMAN: O.K. Buzz.

  ADAMS: (Walking to the door, clowning.) ‘E’ll put me in the newspaper chaps. Adams in print. The only print I’ll ever be in is fingerprint.

  FREEMAN: Oh God, can’t you just stop talking and think?

  ADAMS: Such an undertakin’.

  COLMAN: Ain’t you gonna wish us lots a lolly out in the world. You ain’t gonna see much of us again.

  ADAMS: Wish us all we wish ourselves. It ain’t very much.

  COLMAN: ‘E won’t.

  ADAMS: Well, good night, cock.

  FREEMAN: (Of ADAMS and COLMAN.) Fools. Probably leaving school to run telegrams.

  CRAGGE: Not Colman. Colman’s a politician. ‘E just kept watch in the graveyard, so he’s clean if the law starts askin’.

  FREEMAN: Were you in with ‘em?

  CRAGGE: No, I’m clean. No worries, ever again. Not me. I remember me uncle comin’ home from prison and sayin’ ‘
I’m here again.’ Loud. It’s a family thing. But not me. I’m gonna be somethin’.

  FREEMAN: You’ll do better with your brains than at football. Why didn’t you write anything just now?

  CRAGGE: You call Adams’s simple guff writing. He’s gonna be droppin’ his bomb in the ocean, a guy who runs with the crowd. What about that contradiction. Why don’t that come into his essay.

  FREEMAN: That’s fair criticism.

  CRAGGE: (With great force and bitterness.) Yet the newspaper’s open to him. The first time the bloody newspaper’s offered to our lot it’s to him.

  FREEMAN: You alone know how good a writer you are if you write nothing. He wrote a page.

  CRAGGE: Quality?

  FREEMAN: The best in the class. You’re incredible the way you hate others’ success. I believe you hate even your own, and defeat yourself: up against it with your mates just now, instead of producing a better essay than Adams’s you write three lines.

  CRAGGE: I was thinking about me dad.

  FREEMAN: What does he do?

  Silence.

  CRAGGE: (Wearily.) ‘E works… Once upon a time, ‘e ‘ad a business. Then ‘is business bust. Then T.B. One man. ‘E was ‘opin’ for a break and that’s wot ‘e got. The back a me ‘ead tells me nothin’ in the world can be right when that can happen.

  FREEMAN: It wouldn’t be his fault that he failed.

  CRAGGE: His fault? His luck. Me dad’s been a fair stooge all ‘is life but I ain’t gonna be. Sometimes I believe I can do anything. But I can’t decide wot. It’s me whole life so it’s gotta be somethin’ good to ‘elp stop war and that. I was for war in the argument just now wasn’t I? (Vain even in vice.) Bet you didn’t notice that? Did you? In an argument whatever it’s about I just say the opposite to win. I argue about which trumpeter is better than which without ‘aving ‘eard neither a them. It shows I don’t wanna be good, just big, like Brook and this bloody ‘eadmaster, and I think about that, even in my sleep I think about it and wake up with me mind aching. And it’s also the decision of givin’ your whole life to a think. The other day I sweat deciding to give up for life the things I’d ‘ave to give up to be a real Christian, like. I decided, then the next day changed me mind, then decided, then changed me mind again. Instead I was gonna be a rock and roll singer and give concerts in Moscow. Then I decided to be a footballer and ‘ere I am now.

  FREEMAN: Would writing up sports for the newspaper interest you?

  CRAGGE: How?

  FREEMAN: You could report on football matches.

  CRAGGE: Me?

  FREEMAN: Yes.

  CRAGGE: (Immediately taken but disliking to appear so.) I won’t be ‘ere much longer.

  FREEMAN: Do you want to or don’t you?

  CRAGGE: I ain’t particular. If Adams could be in it it don’t mean nutten. You can’t praise me if you praise ‘im.

  FREEMAN: You don’t want to.

  CRAGGE: (Pauses.) I don’t mind. But if I go to a sixth-form bloke like, and give them a report they won’t want me ‘aving nothin’ to do with it. They mightn’t do nothin’ about it.

  FREEMAN: You report the match. Hand it in. If it’s good they’ll use it.

  CRAGGE: They wouldn’t ‘ave nutten to do wiv me, except ‘ave a laugh. Take the mick.

  FREEMAN: If it’s any good I’ll get it in to Mr. Webster.

  CRAGGE: Will it be good though?

  FREEMAN: That’s up to you.

  CRAGGE: (Eagerly.) There’s a house match goin’ on in the park now. How about that? I’ll write it up and you pass it in to old Webster. O.K.?

  FREEMAN: Fine.

  CRAGGE: Swear to God.

  FREEMAN nods. WEBSTER comes in.

  WEBSTER: Any trouble Mr. Freeman?

  CRAGGE: (To FREEMAN.) You ask ‘im now.

  FREEMAN: Could we get a report on tonight’s match into the newspaper? He’s going to write the report.

  WEBSTER: (Not showing his doubts.) Cragge putting pen to paper. Very good. I’m not editing any longer but I’m sure it’ll be all right.

  CRAGGE races out.

  They don’t know thank you. Have you been threatened yet?

  FREEMAN: Yes.

  WEBSTER: At least we build up their muscles. Gym and football and free milk.

  FREEMAN: Cragge wants success but has a deep grudge against it because people he loves didn’t have it. His father had loads of trouble so defeats himself in sympathy and hates the people who go around succeeding.

  WEBSTER: I’ve enough on my plate without psychology.

  FREEMAN: How good is he?

  WEBSTER: Who’ll ever know. He never does enough work. No practice, so even what he does do is erratic. He’ll probably write as well as he played football and come next week Friday, thank God, he’ll be rid of us, bound for the Mirror.

  FREEMAN: He talks, but he talks well.

  WEBSTER: Cockney patter. No depth to it. You wanted a lift?

  SCENE TWO

  The classroom. CRAGGE is at his desk writing. The pips go for the end of break.

  Enter COLMAN, JORDAN, ADAMS and BROOK. JORDAN just sits worried and mostly silent.

  BROOK: Why do they keep blokes ‘ere till they’re fifteen?

  ADAMS: ‘Cos fifteen’s the age of puberty.

  CRAGGE: How d’you spell unleashed?

  COLMAN: What for?

  CRAGGE: I’m writing up last night’s match for the newspaper.

  ADAMS: Freeman wanted me to do the write up and I turned ‘im down.

  CRAGGE: And I’m doin’ it.

  JORDAN: What’s puberty?

  ADAMS: When your balls drop and you can give ‘er pups. That’s part of the trouble we’re in. They might be breedin’.

  BROOK: (Of JORDAN.)‘E’s worried stiff. If stiff’s the word.

  CRAGGE: How do you spell unleashed? ‘The Arnold House boys unleashed an attack…’

  COLMAN: I pass.

  BROOK: Nick yourself a dictionary from London County Council.

  ADAMS: Do you know what a bloke told me last Saturday when he offered me two pounds fifteen a week to work in ‘is firm as a tea-boy. ‘E said ‘I started on five bob, I did. When I went out into the world I started at the princely sum of five shillings a fortnight.’

  COLMAN: What did you tell ‘im?

  ADAMS: I said that was nineteen hundred.

  CRAGGE searches through the Mirror.

  CRAGGE: Where’s bloody unleashed?

  COLMAN: Write it down ‘ow you think and let old Freeman correct it. It’s what he’s paid for.

  CRAGGE: Got it.

  ADAMS: Tea-boy. You might as well pittle and play with the steam. I ain’t gonna be no tea-boy, van-boy, nuffink like that.

  COLMAN: (A bit smugly.) Someone’s gotta do the dirty work.

  ADAMS: Crawlin’ about a bleedin’ office, runnin’ everybody’s errands. You don’t wanna be that.

  CRAGGE: I’ll head it ‘Drama in the Park’.

  JORDAN: Sounds like a bloke interferin’ with little boys… The ‘ead’s comin’. Wot for?

  COLMAN: Nothin’. Ain’t you got the wind up.

  BROOK: He’s gonna be fatherly about somethin’. Or teach us manners. He tries ‘ard, the old nit.

  Enter HEADMASTER and FREEMAN.

  HEAD: Put on your ties the lot of you.

  ADAMS: We lost ‘em, sir, and we’re leavin’ so it ain’t any use buyin’ any.

  JORDAN: And inside we won’t need ‘em.

  HEAD: When did you lose them?

  ADAMS: Just last night, sir. We left them all together in the gym, and when we came back they was lost.

  JORDAN: Someone must a nicked the lot.

  HEAD: Mr. Freeman, please fix them up with ties from the lost property.

  FREEMAN exits obediently.

  I want to bring to your notice the arrangements for prize-giving. When and if you come tomorrow night, and I trust many of you, appropriately dressed, will avail yourselves of something a little different, you will rep
ort to Mr. Freeman and he will show you where to sit. I know there are none of you getting prizes but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t come and give those who are support. You boys haven’t always contributed as much as you should in your years at school. And I hope you will make one last effort at the prize-giving tomorrow and contribute your presence. School uniform, please, ties, caps, and your best behaviour. I’m sure it will be a worthwhile occasion and you’ll all benefit. Any further instructions will be announced over the tannoy. Now I’ll just read over the list of boys who are leaving. (Pause.) All of you, in fact, is that right?

  JORDAN: What’s the use a staying. They don’t learn you to talk no better and that’s what gives you the better jobs.

  HEAD: That, or settling down to work for G.C.E.

  CRAGGE: ‘Ow can we know till we’ve left whether we’re leaving, Sir?

  CRAGGE’s mates would be hostile if they knew he was now uncertain about leaving, so he has to appear merely to be pulling the HEADMASTER’s leg.

  HEAD: Don’t follow.

  CRAGGE: Well, I mean unless you ‘ave a good job to go to, Sir. HEAD: Still don’t follow.

  CRAGGE: ‘Cos you might change your mind when it comes to it, about diggin’ the road or window cleanin’ up there sixty feet above the ground floor in the depths a winter. You might decide school’s less exertin’ and a bit warmer like and you’d rather be an ‘eadmaster.

  The boys laugh at the HEAD.

  HEAD: Have you changed your mind then, Cragge?

  CRAGGE: But supposin’ I want to by next Friday. Why do we ‘ave to be pushed out on Wednesday evening?

  HEAD: Against Cragge I will put uncertain… Thank you.

  CRAGGE: Uncertain as Friday comin’, that’s me. (This is for the boys’ benefit.)

  The pips go for the end of school.

  ADAMS: Can we go now, guv?

  HEAD: Yes, go. Good night.

  He exits and all the boys except CRAGGE and BROOK.

  BROOK: Comin’? (He’s trying to get CRAGGE back into the gang.)

  CRAGGE: I can’t. I gotta stop ‘ere.

  FREEMAN re-enters with a load of ties.

  BROOK: (To CRAGGE.) See you. (To FREEMAN, politely.) Here’s another. (He pulls his school tie from his back pocket and adds it to the lot. Exit BROOK.)

  CRAGGE: I stopped in ‘ere all break, choppin’ and changin’ me report on the match.

  FREEMAN: Nil desperandum.