For the Reckord Read online

  CRAGGE: What’s that?

  FREEMAN: What does it sound like?

  CRAGGE: Dunno.

  FREEMAN: Can I see it?

  FREEMAN reads it. CRAGGE watches him anxiously. FREEMAN smiles once or twice. CRAGGE fidgets. Enter WEBSTER.

  WEBSTER: (Coming and looking over FREEMAN’s shoulder.) What’s this? Cragge’s report! ‘Headed and missed’ spelt m-i-s-t.

  FREEMAN: (To CRAGGE.) You can leave me this.

  CRAGGE starts to walk away before anything can happen to spoil the reception.

  CRAGGE: Is that O.K., then?

  FREEMAN: It’s fine.

  CRAGGE: I mean, will they ‘ave it in the newspaper and all that?

  FREEMAN: Yes, it’s good.

  CRAGGE: But will they ‘ave it in?

  WEBSTER: They try to, if it’s any good.

  CRAGGE exits, anxious, hopeful.

  FREEMAN: (Wearily.) Why does it have to take me the best part of half a day to get this report into the newspaper? And I’m still not certain if it’s got in. No wonder boys are left stranded if everything takes so much trouble. The school’s too big, you have to go through so many people.

  WEBSTER: (Interested in CRAGGE’s work.) ‘The most talked about match for the season will be the one last night between Stevenson and Arnold House. Arnold’s snappy forwards, from the whistle, unleashed a ripping attack on the Stevenson defence which were doing a good job, marking their men and fighting back.’

  Does it bear any relation to the match, or did he copy it from a newspaper? I suppose he copied the clichés, but that’s all right for a start. Nothing wrong with that. And the boys will enjoy reading it. But after next Friday he’ll have forgotten all this.

  FREEMAN: Whether he leaves or not next Friday, this makes him know he can do something besides fooling. But I think now he’ll stay.

  WEBSTER: (Nicely.) Like to bet?

  SCENE THREE

  Next evening after school. CRAGGE is at the window looking at the preparations for prize-giving.

  CRAGGE: Cups and books for the prize-giving tonight. How many bloody cups they taking in? Don’t them sixth-form blokes love carrying them?

  JORDAN: Drop ‘em! (He’s very nervy.)

  CRAGGE: They been shining them all day.

  JORDAN: It’s all right if you’re getting a prize like but they ain’t giving me no prize… Who’s dealing me another fag? You don’t get ‘em where I’m goin’.

  CRAGGE: What’s up?

  JORDAN: The heat’s on.

  CRAGGE: When?

  JORDAN: The law’s on to ‘Elen. They want her to say we threatened Sylvia… It ain’t probation second offence.

  CRAGGE: Brook will stop her leakin’. It’s his line, wimmen. Line is line. You gotta find your own line.

  JORDAN: Wot’s mine… Doin’ time… It’s misery in the nick with the likes a Brook. You either knuckle under or peg out or spend your life defendin’ yourself. (Of CRAGGE.) You’re in the clear. But you ain’t never in the clear down ‘ere. It’s the gang of us. Didn’t your family tell you?

  CRAGGE: I’m stayin’ on ‘ere. I can do better with my brains than with me feet, I know that. I can always see things that need arguin’ and find the argument: that’s brain. And it comes to me like birds come to Brook.

  JORDAN: Give me the birds.

  CRAGGE: That’s barmy. I wanted football and rock ‘n’ roll. But only because when you’re born down here and think you’re goin’ to be big you go after the big things you know about, like rock ‘n’ roll and football; even fiddlin’. Then you find you’re only comin’ second in them all the time, but there’s nothing else except birds and you’re no good with them. I played football like a natural only sometimes, and dreamed it only now and then. But I always dream up arguments.

  Enter ADAMS.

  ADAMS: Brook’s bringin’ ‘Elen up ‘ere. ‘E’s keeping her happy.

  JORDAN: She can’t come in ‘ere. She ain’t even a nice girl. The ‘ead would ‘ave a fit. And there’s staff around.

  ADAMS: She’ll have them whistling.

  CRAGGE: She’ll ‘ave Brook whistling any tune she likes to keep ‘er sweet.

  ADAMS: He’s got to bring her in. He has a bet on with Colley.

  JORDAN: Big deal.

  CRAGGE: There’s hundreds of cleaners around doing up the place for prize-giving, so bringing Helen up here’s nothing.

  JORDAN: She’s too young to pass for a bloody cleaner.

  ADAMS: He’ll never get by all them busy bastards up and down them stairs.

  CRAGGE: Oh they can’t see for looking this lot. The headmaster’ll pass this tarty cleaner coming along the corridor and he’ll wonder, then he’ll look back and see her bum swinging like a pail and think yeah, that’s all right, that’s a cleaner.

  Enter HELEN.

  HELEN: He won!

  Enter BROOK and COLMAN.

  COLMAN: Blimey.

  HELEN: You won, you won.

  CRAGGE: There’s hundreds of cleaners about.

  COLMAN: This wasn’t the bet.

  BROOK: I brought her up.

  COLMAN: There’s hundreds of visitors ‘cos it’s prize-giving. It’s no bet on a day like this.

  BROOK: Pay me.

  COLMAN: Who won, Craggsie?

  CRAGGE: All I wanna know is, does it rate an article in the bloody newspaper?

  COLMAN: I could bring her up on a day like this. Lay a bet.

  HELEN: I feel safer with him. What a glass-house! People can see everything you do. I feel eyes all over. Where do you sit?

  BROOK: On me arse… Why can’t they have a mirror on the wall so a person can see theirselves.

  HELEN: What’s he dressing up for?

  BROOK: The prize-giving.

  JORDAN: Yeah, let’s dress him up for the prize-giving.

  HELEN: He ought to have a collar.

  JORDAN: Anybody got a collar?

  HELEN: He can’t wear them drainpipes either.

  COLMAN: He needs a pair of pants.

  JORDAN: He can’t sing the bleeding hymn in drainpipes.

  ADAMS: (To HELEN.) You lend him a pair of pants, go on, lend him a pair of pants.

  COLMAN: He’s got to represent us lot.

  JORDAN: He’s got to sit in the great hall and put out his fag.

  COLMAN: So he can go up and shake the old people’s hands.

  ADAMS: Well done! Well done! Old grey balls.

  JORDAN: My lords ladies and gentlemen…

  COLMAN: Me lord stiff!

  ADAMS: Me lord ‘elpless!

  BROOK: Me lord ‘elpless and lady never-had-a-gent.

  JORDAN: My lord Jo

  Have a go.

  JORDAN and COLMAN: Have a go with lady Flo!

  ALL except CRAGGE: My lord Jo

  Have a go

  Have a go with lady Flo!

  BROOK: Let’s go to the prize-giving and help the headmaster out with a few remarks.

  COLMAN: There’s a few things I could tell him.

  BROOK: Let’s boo him.

  JORDAN: (Not believing he’ll do it.) Garn!

  BROOK: Let’s boo him.

  ADAMS: Boo him.

  COLMAN and JORDAN: Boo him.

  BROOK: Yeah let’s break the joint up.

  JORDAN: Yeah!

  ADAMS: Yeah!

  COLMAN: Yeah!

  HELEN: Can I come too?

  BROOK: (To CRAGGE.) What about it?

  CRAGGE: Who wants to hang around them?

  BROOK: You do. You’d rather lick up to him ‘cos you need a paper. (To the others.) Let’s boo him.

  VOICES: Boo, boo, boo.

  BROOK: We’ll give them something to remember us. ALL: (Going) Boo! Boo!

  CRAGGE silent and anxious, watches them run off.

  SCENE FOUR

  We fade into the prize-giving. The HEADMASTER speaks to the audience.

  HEAD: My Lord Bishop, Mr. Mayor, Lady Gibson, Members of the Board of Governors, ladies and gentlemen: we are re
ally most honoured in having such a distinguished list of guests with us here tonight. I particularly want to express my gratitude to the Mayor and Lady Gibson. Lady Gibson is, of course, no stranger to us, and a living example to the boys of dignity, simplicity and charm. I welcome our guests especially as I am able to report, frankly, a proud year to add to our record. The things this school stands for, not only three Rs, but integrity, and character, we have, I hope, continued to cherish. Our aim in a comprehensive school of this size is not success in any grand worldly sense. We must face the fact that the dream of many of our boys here is to get into the trades and factories as quickly as possible and earn high wages. Well, good. I don’t condemn that. On the contrary, I am often grateful that they have escaped what seems to me the ruling passion in our world – I mean the uneasy ambition to hustle one’s way to notoriety and wealth. In an age when we are eaten up with a curiously unsatisfying acquisitiveness is it not time a voice in the wilderness called attention to our older English traditions of content. But whether our lads end up in the trades or in one of your factories, Mr. Mayor, I want them to leave here with a dawning awareness of the finer things of life – music, art, literature and that forgotten solace, nature. And the task of awakening them to these abiding values down here is frankly a man-size job. You can perhaps have little idea how much sacrifice on the part of all concerned: staff, and parents and boys…

  Boo.

  … is involved in the running of a school of this size.

  Boo, boo.

  I was saying that some of you might have little idea how much sacrifice…

  Boo, boo, boo.

  Those would not be my boys.

  Boo, boo, boo.

  You see the sort of thing we have to put up with in this area, will someone catch the ruffians and have them removed. – You see, that’s the sort of thing…

  Boo, boo.

  … that gives you a vivid idea

  Boo, boo.

  SCENE FIVE

  The classroom the next day. CRAGGE alone reading the school newspaper.

  Enter COLMAN, BROOK, ADAMS.

  COLMAN: They ain’t done your stuff.

  ADAMS: ‘E won’t tell no lies no more, no more, no more, no more… Jordan’s findin’ out if it’s the booing he’s talkin’ to them six-formers about.

  COLMAN: ‘E’ll sweat dreamin’ about those boos.

  BROOK: (Friendly to CRAGGE.) You should a come. ‘E just spluttered out. All wind and piss like a barber’s cat. ‘E’s a back-rubbin’ bum. We should a kicked ‘im and the distinguished guests.

  COLMAN: (Nastily.) Leave it to your mates.

  CRAGGE: (Gently.) It’s alright, isn’t it, booin’ ‘im for bein’ a back-slapper so you get backslapped by all the people you tell.

  COLMAN: (Nasty.) See where the win’s blowin’. The head don’t deserve booin’.

  CRAGGE: (Dead cold.) I said that, did I?

  ADAMS: (Very much to the point.) Well, if ‘e deserves booin’ boo then.

  BROOK: ‘E’d rather lick up to them. ‘E needs a job.

  CRAGGE: Yeah, I got more use for ‘im than you lot. There’s nothin’ between mates. (In cold blood to COLMAN.) The best time between us as mates was at Trafalgar Square, New Year’s Eve. We ‘ad the fountain spray in our faces and talked a lot. That’s all I can remember about it. That the talk was fabulous and the mood was sweet, and that if I could a had a girl instead a you I would a swapped. In fact we’d gone out lookin’ for girls. So even when you was me mate I’d a swapped you for your sister or playing a big match.

  COLMAN: Yeah, that’s all you would bloody remember.

  CRAGGE: (In the same vein.) And if you leave ‘ere and got on, then we’d talk if we met, unless I see you first then I’d dodge ‘cos I couldn’t be bothered; or ‘cos I hated you for what you got.

  ADAMS: ‘E wouldn’t mind that. If ‘e got it.

  CRAGGE: That’s the God’s truth as well. And if I’d become a footballer you lot would be just crowds to clap me and bawl out me name, then let out to work for the next fare. That’s the gang of us.

  BROOK: (To CRAGGE.) Go and tell ‘eadmaster we booed ‘im.

  CRAGGE: I won’t ‘ave to. You ain’t gonna stop broadcastin’ it till it gets back to him.

  BROOK: Say you never done it. Rat.

  COLMAN: ‘E done it. It’s the gang of us.

  CRAGGE: (Deep pessimism.) Yeah, and ‘e’ll kick me out, deny it or not, I know it.

  COLMAN: (Jeering.) There’s always night-school.

  There is an announcement over the tannoy: ‘The following boys will report to the head’s study immediately: Brook, Adams, Colman, Cragge, Jordan.’

  JORDAN: (Rushing in.) Helen’s in a patrol-van at the back of the school.

  BROOK: She ain’t you know.

  JORDAN: We ain’t ‘ere.

  BROOK: Let’s go out by the fence.

  JORDAN: Ain’t you comin’?

  CRAGGE: I’m clean.

  ADAMS: ‘E wants to nark.

  CRAGGE: When I nark you kill me.

  BROOK: Helen will tell the law you were there. I’ll make ‘er tell ‘em you had ‘er, so they’ll take anything you say with salt.

  CRAGGE: Try anything you like. I stop ‘ere.

  BROOK: Didn’t you say ‘e’ll kick you out. You don’t believe what your brains tell you, d’ya! (He moves in.)

  CRAGGE: You know I been had up once for defendin’ meself, so you won’t hit me again, will you.

  JORDAN: He knows we booed him.

  CRAGGE: I didn’t boo.

  BROOK: ‘E wants to rat.

  JORDAN: You kept your ‘and ‘idden.

  COLMAN: Didn’t you just.

  BROOK: You suck.

  They exit leaving CRAGGE. A moment after the HEADMASTER enters.

  HEAD: (To CRAGGE.) Where are the others?

  CRAGGE: I dunno. Gone.

  HEAD: Gone, eh? Well I’ve caught you.

  CRAGGE: I didn’t boo.

  HEAD: I know you. Into Assembly.

  CRAGGE: I didn’t boo. You’ll never believe me.

  HEAD: I’ll never know if you booed; but you’re the sort I must make an example of to this school before I hand you over elsewhere. You swear, you smoke, your mind’s filthy. You or your friends booed me last night in front of the Governors… I’ll burn it into your backside for the school to see that I’ll not be disgraced.

  CRAGGE: (Almost unable to speak.) I want to stay here at least to get on wiv the newspaper.

  HEAD: And to go on corrupting the school with filth. The public don’t read our magazines; they see your conduct. The Governors won’t blame me if you never get G.C.E. God is responsible for your brains but I give you your character… (Hardly able to speak with anger.) The Assembly is waiting.

  CRAGGE: I didn’t boo.

  HEAD: Into Assembly.

  CRAGGE: (Raging.) I didn’t boo. HEAD: Get in.

  CRAGGE: (Wearily.) If I stay it’s gonna be the same. It ain’t gonna be different. What ‘ave I got out of it ‘ere. What if I ‘adn’t come then. I could still do what you expect me to be doin’, hauling Whitbread’s when I ain’t actually doin’ porridge… My dad’s a fool, me own mum says that, and I ain’t gonna go his road. I got brains and my mum don’t want me there. What about your kid? (Scornfully.) What’s his brains? Why is it that the likes a me are the ones fillin’ jails. Why me, why not ‘im?

  HEAD: He’s in the school here like you.

  CRAGGE: He won’t be in bloody Whitbread.

  HEAD: You swear at me, boy?

  CRAGGE: Me dad says it and it just slipped out. I wanna stay so I take it back.

  HEAD: (Flicking his hand.) In. For the last time.

  CRAGGE: For sayin’ bloody I’ll ‘ave it in ‘ere.

  HEAD: You’ll obey while you’re here. You won’t stand there dictating.

  CRAGGE: Lots to boo about, ain’t there?

  HEAD: Frankly boy, the sort you are, if you touched a daughter of mine I’d strangle you.
Go to the police. Get out.

  CRAGGE: You’re willin’ to send blokes out, ain’t you? You’d ‘ave blokes put out. Yeah, though jobs that are prison to ‘em, or the prisons are waitin’. Alright. I’ll have it from you. I’ll ‘ave it from you, then I’ll talk to them. I’m clean, and if you’re clean you’re O.K. with ‘em. Most times. I’m straight. No fear. I’m gonna be in them papers.

  The HEAD puts on his cap and gown, and addresses the audience.

  HEAD: Be quiet, boys. Last night, as you must all have heard by now, something unprecedented happened in this school. Boys booed while I, their headmaster, was talking. This in the presence of guests.

  A murmur in the hall.

  Silence, please. (Immediately more severe.) I am not going to say who the boys are but I’m going to say what they are. They are, briefly, scum. Such boys we have no use for, and I am glad to say they are all but perhaps one of them leaving the school. (Milder again.) They have no use for us. They will be happier outside. I sincerely hope they will remain ‘outside’ and are never sent ‘inside’.

  Some who have caught the joke laugh.

  School was for them a sort of prison.

  The rest laugh, having caught on.

  Hooliganism, rowdyism, these will never be tolerated. Come here, Cragge. Bend over.

  As CRAGGE bends over and HEADMASTER raises his cane, the lights begin to fade. And the strokes are heard in the dark.

  The End.

  WHITE WITCH

  White Witch

  The play is loosely connected with a Jamaican legend of Annie Palmer, mistress of the Rose Hall plantation, who is said to have murdered four husbands and had many lovers. Reckord sets what he has called ‘a bloodstained comedy’ on a Jamaican plantation early in the nineteenth century.

  White and wealthy Simon Palmer, who has fathered children with slaves, marries Annie, the daughter of a duke, and brings her from England to produce for him a legal white heir. The marriage agreement is a business transaction between Palmer and the duke. The buyer works relentlessly to impregnate his purchase, but she has multiple miscarriages on the voyage to the Caribbean. By the time she lands in Jamaica there is a rumour that Annie may be a witch. As Chloe, one of Palmer’s discarded lovers, declares, ‘Babies are a blessing from heaven, a gift from above, a benediction by Almighty God, and witches never carry these little angels for long.’