Harold Pinter Plays 2 Read Free

there now. In the rush of it. I bet he’s having a poke around in it now this very moment.
    ASTON. I’ll pop down sometime and pick them up for you.
    ASTON goes back to his bed and starts to fix the plug on the toaster.
    DAVIES. Anyway, I’m obliged to you, letting me … lettingme have a bit of a rest, like … for a few minutes. (He looks about.) This your room?
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. You got a good bit of stuff here.
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. Must be worth a few bob, this … put it all together.
    Pause.
    There’s enough of it.
    ASTON. There’s a good bit of it, all right.
    DAVIES. You sleep here, do you?
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. What, in that?
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. Yes, well, you’d be well out of the draught there.
    ASTON. You don’t get much wind.
    DAVIES. You’d be well out of it. It’s different when you’re kipping out.
    ASTON. Would be.
    DAVIES. Nothing but wind then.
    Pause.
    ASTON. Yes, when the wind gets up it.…
    Pause.
    DAVIES. Yes.…
    ASTON. Mmnn.…
    Pause.
    DAVIES. Gets very draughty.
    ASTON. Ah.
    DAVIES. I’m very sensitive to it.
    ASTON. Are you?
    DAVIES. Always have been.
    Pause.
    You got any more rooms then, have you?
    ASTON. Where?
    DAVIES. I mean, along the landing here … up the landing there.
    ASTON. They’re out of commission.
    DAVIES. Get away.
    ASTON. They need a lot of doing to.
    Slight pause.
    DAVIES. What about downstairs?
    ASTON. That’s closed up. Needs seeing to.… The floors.…
    Pause.
    DAVIES. I was lucky you come into that caff. I might have been done by that Scotch git. I been left for dead more than once.
    Pause.
    I noticed that there was someone was living in the house next door.
    ASTON. What?
    DAVIES. (gesturing). I noticed.…
    ASTON. Yes. There’s people living all along the road.
    DAVIES. Yes, I noticed die curtains pulled down there next door as we came along.
    ASTON. They’re neighbours.
    Pause.
    DAVIES. This your house then, is it?
    Pause.
    ASTON. I’m in charge.
    DAVIES. You the landlord, are you?
    He puts a pipe in his mouth and puffs without lighting it.
    Yes, I noticed them heavy curtains pulled across next dooras we came along. I noticed them heavy big curtains right across the window down there. I thought there must be someone living there.
    ASTON. Family of Indians live there.
    DAVIES. Blacks?
    ASTON. I don’t see much of them.
    DAVIES. Blacks, eh? (DAVIES stands and moves about. )Well you’ve got some knick-knacks here all right, I’ll say that. I don’t like a bare room. ( ASTON joins DAVIES upstage centre ) . I’ll tell you what, mate, you haven’t got a spare pair of shoes?
    ASTON. Shoes?
    ASTON moves downstage right.
    DAVIES. Them bastards at the monastery let me down again.
    ASTON. (going to his bed.) Where?
    DAVIES. Down in Luton. Monastery down at Luton.… I got a mate at Shepherd’s Bush, you see.…
    ASTON ( looking under his bed ).I might have a pair.
    DAVIES. I got this mate at Shepherd’s Bush. In the con venience. Well, he was in the convenience. Run about the best convenience they had. (He watches ASTON .) Run about the best one. Always slipped me a bit of soap, any time I went in there. Very good soap. They have to have the best soap. I was never without a piece of soap, whenever I happened to be knocking about the Shepherd’s Bush area.
    ASTON (emerging from under the bed with shoes). Pair of brown.
    DAVIES. He’s gone now. Went. He was the one who put me on to this monastery. Just the other side of Luton. He’d heard they give away shoes.
    ASTON. You’ve got to have a good pair of shoes.
    DAVIES. Shoes? It’s life and death to me. I had to go all the way to Luton in these.
    ASTON. What happened when you got there, then?
    Pause.
    DAVIES. I used to know a bootmaker in Acton. He was a good mate to me.
    Pause.
    You know what that bastard monk said to me?
    Pause.
    How many more Blacks you got around here then?
    ASTON. What?
    DAVIES. You got any more Blacks around here?
    ASTON ( holding out the shoes ).See if these are any