TICK TICK
One Act
Maurice Ro wdon


CHARACTERS
GEORGE
CURLY
J AMES HAFFNER


SCENE
CURLY and GEORGE, in their mid-thirties, share
a bleak tenement-flat in a town with neither character
nor centre near an airport. They work at the airport,
GEORGE in the hangar and CURLY driving an airport-trolley.
The wall facing us is covered with multiple blown-
up photographs of girls in all states of undress, pver-
dress and party-jollity. Sometimes they are seen with
GEORGE and/or CURLY. It all looks the greatest, if
too deliberate, fun: at least acontrast to the iong
unsmiling faces of GEORGE and CURLY as we see them.
Background-sound is in the form of jet-engines.
They tend to accompany GEORGE's and CURLY's movements,
rising and falling as they raise cups of tea to their
lips etc, and filling some of the pauses in the con-
versation.
These two products belong to their work
in more ways than one.
When they talk about their "birds'---Double Glance,
The One with the Voice--they refer to her by pointing
to her photograph on the wall.
GEORBE's 'First World War skit' is spoken with
terrible earnestness, his 'tick tick' corresponding
to a fearful jerk of his face or body. He---like
HAFFNER later---speaks these lines with his lips pnly,
in an unpunctuated flow.
CURLY is a fat unanxious man with a bright rosy
face and staring, rather dreamy eyes. His hair is
like his name, and may be something of a clown's wig.
He is in a white coat.
GEORGE is thin and anxious, dressed in overalls.
He has lines of anxiety painted grotesquely on his
face. He winces, winks and twitches with bad nerves.
HAFFNER is like a terrible repetition of GEORGE:
he is dressed in black, or even a battered top hat and
tattered tails. His face is painted deathly pale,
with almost black lips. His hands tend to hang like
a skeleton's. He sits or stands absolutely rigid,
fixing the other man with a cold stare. His lips move
terribly fast but his face not. He is Death. Or
rather, GEORGE's idea of Death.


There is a table and hard-backed chairs, with
a sink and stove. The door is on the actor s left.
At curtainrise CURLY is alone, preparing tea for
both of them. His preparations are punctuated by
various jet-sounds. Just when he is sitting down
with an idler's satisfaction to enjoy his cup of tea,
GEORGE comes in from work


GBORBB: No birds then?
CURLY:
You should know.
E GBORGE: Well I didn't fix anything up like.
CURLY:
Well then we shall have the silence--end the rent
man, won't we?
GHARGES I've put the money out.
CURLY:
So I see.
GEORGES I think it's right.
CURLY:
I've never known a man look so worried over money.
GEORGES Vell I'm not always sure of the sum. All right take
the piss. I've been on airscrews for eight hours.
CURLY:
Tvo of 'em at double time, eh?
GEORGE:
Well I'm not swanning all over the tarmac in an electric
trolley, I mean it's on your nerves all the time, the
scream of the jets.
CUHLY:
They're not screaming all the time.: In fact they € ardly
scream at all in your hangar. It's your nerves that screen
GEORGES
Well how much is it exactly then?
CUELY:
Eight pounds, ten shillings and thre epence it's been for
vall nigh two years.
GEORGE: I get confused about your contribution, which isn't much
in all conscience.
CURLY:
I'll tell you your weakness---you believe in circumstances.
When a bird comes in that door it brings you to life but
it don't me. So when they stay away you feel a terrible
let-down, don't you?
GEOGRES Well I like things to be de cently organised---not that
really but you know what I mes an, settled, so you know
who'a calling, I mean some thing you can look forvard to
every nighi, sort of cosy.


T -a
CURLYS Sounds like a family man talking.
GEORGES Not on your life. Still, now and again. I've been
jittery all day. Come on, tell us a joke. Better
still, prove God exists. You alvays say you can but
never do.
CURLY: Listen, if I could prove it there'd be some doubt about
it and there isn't.
GEOBGE: I wish my mum and dad was alive, They took me to the
park every Sunday it was fine, I used to amell the
flowers
CURLY:: Dreaming of the airscrews on a superjet, I know.
GRORGES Not far wrong ei ther. It was sex or love as you'd say
that got me into aircraft.
CURLY: How do you make that out?
GEOGRES My dad put the question to me, will you carry on at
school bringing in clothes money which your mum spends
on curtains, or go out to work and feel some money in
your pocket? I was in the park every evening with a
bird-- this was some years atter my mum and dad took
me and I smelled the nowers- and the image of the
pocket did it, it got mixed up necessarily with the
bird. At school my pocket would have been empty in
all senses. And I was no celibate. Hence I vent
into an adrcraft factory where I now feel identified
with the jet in every way.
CURLY: And you won't marry. That's going to lie heavily
against you when you're drinking char with the Almighty.
GEORGE: Not entirely. His only Son said you should be a eunuch
if you could manage to hold it,
CURLY: : You're no eunuch. You have a different bit every night.
GEORGES Just a little jet of energy is all that's left of me
after the eight-hour stint, you can't build a married
life on that. I'm very clear about that.
CURLY: No, it's deeper than that. The way you wash yourself.
That's not normal. You take a bath a day and wash
your privates separately every morning on top of that,
I've never seen a man scour like you, now that's not
normal.
GEORGES Clean habits?
CURLY: But they can't get dirty in that short time, unless
you're determined to think of them as dirty. That's


why theres a so much sexual licence at this moment
of our island-history, because of the generations of
dirty thinking that went before.
GEORGE: I admit that when they sigh and breathe all over ne
and the word love comes in I scatter and my mind fills
with the sound and screan of engines all the way home.
It doesn't embassass me. . s0 much as paralyse meo
CURLY; : You're permanen itly paralysed if you ask me. All the
word love does is to spread the paralysia all over your
body from a certain place. The paralysis then engulfs
your whole life untii you see that everything you ever
did and ever thought about was useless, ending in the
production at Hangar D of one amall and not even importen atme
GEORGB: But essenti al--
CURLYS
-element in a super-jet engine. But you can't
turn that inot a shiny instrument however much you wash
it, not that.
: GRORGES Is lod a skilled or' an unskilled worker?
CUKLY:
You've got me there.
: GEORGE: You know some times. it does seem you've got a little
light in your ey" e. They're always intrigued by you.
CURLYI
It's my tea does it.
GEORGE: Jill said last night, is that nice bloke still in dige
with you?
CURLY:
You see George I look at 'em right at the centre, not
on the outside any nore. I used to. Gave it up.
. GEORGE: I said why don't you keep your voice down? She has got
voice that one. I said to her one day, I said, you'd
get up on your own sound-vibrations if I had you in my
hangar.
CURLY:
And she said?
GBORGES She said you're not having me in your hangar tonight
mate, your car's too draughty. Life's all bits and
gadgets and odds and ends isn't it, really? None of
it adds up, does it really?
CURLY:
Not if you look at it like that.
GEORGE: of course I worry too much.
Alw ways did. My dad had
a face unlined with worry. He went out as early as I
do and he was on night shift two monthakx of the year yet
he looked as if he was dreaming it up all the time, do
you know what I mean? It didn't seem to touch him.


He had to punch his ticket of a morning like me
but he al waya looked as if he was doing it for the
sound of the bell, do you know what I mean?
CURLY:
He was a nice man, by your descriptions,
GBORGES Yet those were the pioneers of our present technical
society.
CURLY:
And they had no techniques at all, did they?
whereas
you're so damned skilled it's eaten into your life.
After you there's nothing, George.
GEORGES No children, no image of an unlined face to pass on.
CURLYS
And nightmares every night. That you're getting
older, which you are. Or in a prison. No wonder
you want to play cards at four in the morning, and
hate cards.
GEORGE:
And none of 'em loves me.
CURLY:
They love you. for your instrument. They want to see
what it's like, just to appease their curiosi ity, that's
all.
GEORGES Listen, how do you stand driving that absurd little
electrical van. from one hangar to enother in rain and
aun, wi thout a line appearing in your face, Curly?
CURLY:
It's akill makes lines,
I've told you that before.
GEORGES But sometimes a thought must pass through your brain.
You were educated up to masturbation level as you
al ways say. Now what happened after that? What did
your mind do? How did it make the necessary under-
atanding no t to trouble itself any more?
CURLY:
Easy. Ceasing to be employed, it laid 1t tself open to
natural influences. It never had such a wonderful
time in its life.
GEORGES I often think I might be able to invent something.
I thinic about it on the train. I have to think of
something.
CURLY:
I don't think of anything. The weather to start with
gives us such variety. It's never the same twice.
There was a wind this morning in which I could smell
the seae
GEORGES All I smelled was diesel.
CURLY:
There's always something you can get out of life.


If I was in Hangar D with my head inside a jet-case
I'd get something out of that.
But I know it's
hopeless to talk.
GEORGE: I bet you never talk to the birds like that. Too
busy, eh?
CURLY:
That and the fact that they underatand anyway. You
rarely get a technical woma.
GEORBES Do they ever talk to you?
CURLY:
Sometimes.
GEOGRES About me?
CURLY:
The description would have to be technical, mate-
so long and so thick, and running time an hour and
tventy minutes, but that's not intresting for me to
hear. Jill was insul ted that you disliked her voice,
end happy that I seemed to revel in it, not that I
said.a word about it.
CEORGB: That bird with the double glance, she kept gl ancing
back as if she thought you'd scatter, what do you make
of that?
CURLY:
These are all deep experiences underneath, mate, if
you only try and understand them. All the men she ever
hed did scatter.
Even you did.
GEORGE: Yes, well, there is a limit. I was eating celery like
a maniac but too much wasn't half enough for her.
CURLY:
But I didn't have to run away. In fact she ran away
from me.
GEOGRE:
Yes but you do no thing all day--in the open air too.
CURLYS.
No I simply turned the scales on her.
GEORGE: Meaning?
CURLY:
Instead of letting her jump on me like a bus and drive
me away I looked at her because I thought her curious,
and she saw how curious she was from the way I looked
at her. That's all. She's still my friend but not
for that.
GEORGES And now your hands are empty.
CURLY:
what about yours?


GEORGE: I stopped a bit in the canteen and she said she might
call our number but it's not certain because her mum's
been taken bad.
CURLY:
I suppose we're really family men underneath vhen you
come to look at it. We've got a wife but she's differ-
ent every night, with a different name, but she's still
the wife, when the blinds have been drawn and the radio
swi tched off.
And one night she don't come we feel a
big let-down and wonder if she's all right, all five or
six of her, and then we're even lower when ve realise
that in her not being one person we can't vait for her
at the gate downatairs or ask how she is.
GHOGRES You'll be crying in a minute.
CURLY:
I've got all the love in the world but they always go
avay. The one I thought would stay was Double Glance
and she was the first to go, skitting apart.
GBORGES You won't mind me seying this, it's a technical remarks
but if you found your birds yourself you might get the
one you wanted.
CURLYS.
I'll tell you why that is, without shahe or forethought.
As an unskilled worker I feel passed over.
GBORGE: Do you remember that one who worked in cabaret or said
she did anyway?, I tried to book her for the Boxing
Day rag but she' d gone by then.
We get a better time
than family men, that's one thing.
CURLY:
I wouldn't say better time but God shire a the lights
for us every evening, which is more than he does if-
but p'raps I'm wrong.
GEOGKE: That cabaret girl tried to seal a bargain with me, did
I tell you that? She said, sort of squeezing up to
me, mede me feel funny, why don't we get married George?
I nearly succame.
But she had a catch. She had shou
business in blood and mind. I did my First World Wer
patter.
She cried and put her little fists on my faco
like a baby, wanted me to stop. Do you remember?
CURLY:
vut of three hundred evenings a year how can I remember
one?
GEORGES It influenced her mind all week, did that grotesque
little bit of patter which I thought up with my head
inaide a super-jet frame. I seem to hear these voices
like as if I was only the receiving plant, It appeal-
ed to her no end, do you remember? 'My two friends
had been wi th me over two weeks and four days. We ad
ad many conversations in the trenches but now they was


poor 9-
conducted in silence. We ad exchanged many glances
some loying some not but now they were all an absorbed
stare, from dawn when they woke up until the darkmess
closed them from my sight_egain, tick tick. Their henda
were used to rough work bot now tick tick at the edge of
this dug-out tick tick they were idle and never seemed to
move and even began to take on an alabaster look such @3
suggested children or young bearing mo thers in a new
purity tick tick.
And their breathing which had been
hard and stentorian because of heavy duties and smoking
black shag was now tick tick so slow, in fact hardly
discernible, that you coulan't say it was at all, tick
tick. And whereas before they always moved on this job
or that tick tick they never stirred themselves now as
ar too lazy or not in the mood any more tick tick. They
only seemed to want to stare tick tick in that
valley
where the rain came every day and the mud tick tick and
the rats in the water tick tick and the dirty bi ts of
white tape tick tick that hed been used tick tick to
mark out paths between the tick tick tick mines all came
floating by and took a personal belonging tick tick with
them perhaps a letter sodden now or a stub of pencil it
might t be tick; tick or a little piece of akin and we did
no thing to retrieve it tick tick we went on sitting and
if tick tick the flood tick tick moved us a little why
we shifbed our pesi tions and stayed tick tick and vent on
staring and sitting tick tick end never moving tick tick
tick tick our hands tick tick our lips tick our eyes tick
tick tick tick---we were dead! DEADI!
CURLY:
what's the idea of that tick tick?
GEORGES She.said it put a cold bloody hand down her spine, you
know that raw way she had of speaking. What's that?
Oh the tick tick is the tick tick of death.
CURLY: : That was the night they complained downstairs. I was
very sorry about that. He said he had nightmares and
seemed to bla ame them on to us.
Well I saw his point,
our faces probably grinned through his sleep, not a happy
thought. It alw ways seems very silent down there nov.
Have they gone away?
GBORGE:
Which reminds me, the rent man's coming (counting the
money) It seems a lot for two bedrooms and one kitchen,
plus a hole in the ground.
CURLY:
He's changed, I see.
GEORGES Who?
CURLY:
The rent_man. Goes by the name of James Harmer now.
Bought up this and fourteen other ho uses along the same
street.


GEORGE:
What and collects his own rent?
CURLY:
So they tell me.
GRORGES What, that bloke with the little taz isn't coming any
more?
CURLY:
He was a paid hireling. My mother used to hate rent
men. But thisone collects his own, so they sey.
GEORGES Hasn't he got work of his own then?
CURLY:
He looks on that as his work, 80 they say.
GLORGES Sounds a German name. or course they have these sweep-
ing ideas, don't they, the Germans? I'll tell him the
rent isn't ready because I ran out of Deutschemarks and
see how he takes it.
CURLY: I wonder if that's why they moved out downstairs. He
took over last week and they haven't been seen or heard
since, at least by me.
GEORGE: I wish I could think of that bird' s name-she thought I
was lined up for show business, wanted to know what I
was doing getting people's bottoms off the ground at
speed, as she put it. Don't you remember that ra way
ahe had of speaking?
CUKLY:
GEORGE: That's the marvallous thing about your mind, how it
casts eve resything out like garbage.
CURLYS
All things being for the glory of God, I don't have to
retain theu in the mind. For what plan? what technique?
what human assembly?
GEORGE: But you don't even remember how you frightened her out
of her wits by making your heart stop beating?
CURLY:
GEORGE:
Well I call that rejection---I mean fear. Of the past.
CURLY:
I can remember miles and some handshakes, a sentence
here and - there but whole si tuations never stay with mee
GEORGES Did you say he was Germen?
CURLY:
According to the sound of his name, anyway.
GEORGB: All.Double Glance gave me was. a double gl ance after that


First World War patter, I don't think she really got
it you know. You see that's half the trouble-- they
haven't got the brains, at least not on my. side of the
tarmac. I said to this new bird this morning, what about
tonight, here's my card, and she said may be. Sometimes
I think that visiting card isn't a good idea. Too
skilled.
It frightens some.
CURLY:
Not on your life. They like the hard, stebl-ins trument
appro ach. I found that out with Jill. That' s why she
has to shout. And grab. I've never seen man or beast
grab like her,
GEORGES I have to admit they seem peaceful when they come from
you.
CURLY:
I'll tell you why, because there's no. first time with
me, a woman's the sane whoever she is, whereas you lie
down with a new experi ence every time and of course it
makes them nervous, they feel you're waiting to find out
what they're like and that's unsettling.
Whereas they
feel I know them already.
GEORGE: A chap on the drawing bo ards akked me today how about
children.
CUKLY:
What about 'em?
GEORGE:
Well, if none of us married.
CUKLY:
Oh, that.
GBORGES Don't you even remember her saying that a mind like mine
had more than jets to give?
CURLI:
GEORGE: Because of these voices that entered it? And how I said
no, you need a mind and a half for jets and how?
CURLY:
BEORGE: That's just wilful. You must be jealous.
CUKLY:
What of, your mind or your money?
GEORGS: I often wonder if she was righ t.
CURLY:
That Jill said you gave her a thrill but she fel t
terribly empty aftewards, you know that daft way she
talks.
GHORGE: Oh so they do say sonething.


CUELY:
thrill don't last but secrets in the dark do.
GEORGE: Meaning?
CURLI:
Never mind.
GEORGE: Always never mind. Like your proof about God.
CURLY:
Me prove him? A grain of sand prove a MNEEOR
deserti? As soon as you know you're a grain. of sand
and love it, you'll know he's there. By the way, the
rent's short.
GEORGRS what?
CURLYS
There you are. Dashing ab out. Go on, look at it
again, count it out, that's right. You counted it
out a couple of minutes ago but enybody can knock you
off your perch can't they? Now a grain of sand feels
cosy, with all the other ones. Sits in the aun all
day. Not you. You've lost your creator, mate, 80
you're frightened of all the surprises he might springi
GEORGES No come on, is this all right, because we won't be paid
for two days--?
CURLYS
But you just counted it out.
GEORGE: Well just tell me how much the rent iel
CURLY:
But don't you know?
GEORGES It makes me nervous to think of a new rent man, that's
all.
CURLY:
Everything makes you nervous.
GEORGES
Some times I wake up in the middle of the night and I
seem to be somel body else. I've got somebody else's
smell and way of thinking. I sit up and think, who
is it now? who a I being identified wi th?
CURLY:
I'll tell yous all the people you could be if you
weren't a super-jet craftsman, that is no person at
all. The ghosts come -back from pre-techaical society
to haunt you, mate.
GEORGE:
They're realer than the real me. I mean, I could do
fantastic things as some of these other people. My
body seems to come into existence for the firat time.
I seem to sweat more.


CURLY:
That's what Double Glance said. He seems to have a
thicker and harder body than most, she said. As 1f
him and his body vasn't the same. And he sweats a
lot.
GBORGES Go on, she said that?
CURLY:
Sometimes I think if you died I don't know what I'd
do---come in of an evening and make a cup of tea and
sit dowm(and then plonk, what's on the prggre arme tonight?
There's a new crowd down at Hangar B, mate, they go out
at night and you know rouse up a bit of trouble. Wanted
me to join them for a lark.
GEORGE: They ought to be too tired at night, I reckon they get
it easy down your hangar.
CURLY:
Not exactly my buddies. Dangerous lot sometimes.
GEORGE: Yoy getting a friend of violence all of a sudden then?
That'a another thing I get: I see the whole country
overrun by barbarians. Really I'm happy to work as I
do. The jest-case the way it gleans is a comfort.
CUKLY:
Well they want a new sort of deal. I can see their
point up to a point.
E. GEORGE: They've got money in their pockets, what more do they
want? Are you serious? I noticed you wasn't in for
Barbara two nights off.
CURLY:
No it isn't that but I mem sometimes I think it's the
family men holding us back.
Some of these blokes go
out in the woods on Saturdays and stay the night and
learn to be grains of sand, which it ien't easy to do
in Hailey Street.
GEORGE: I - like my routines.
CURLY:
They take guns to fetch down an odd bird which I don't
hold with but it's a mixed world. It's good to feel
the rain on your face. I wouldn't mind that, lying
out under all of God's moods for a couple of nights,
Do you get a sense of force in me, sometimes, when I've
been out to the end of the road where the waste field
is and taken the air a bit? I can't stand being hedged
in any more but as one of the hliokes said that's an
attitude not a fact.
GEORGES If you ask me you're getting bored on that job.
CURLY:
I don't think of it as a job.


GEORGES There must be unskilled jobs in Hangar B wi thin your
scope.
F - CURLY:
And go back to school again? No thenks. It's no
use taking present hunan organisation seriously, it
won't last all that long. When I get in that soft
leather seat every morning and whine my vay across
the tarmac I have a great sense of happiness.
GEORGES You could get twice the money, and find your own birds
instead of using mine.
CURLY:
Then I'd have nightmares about being somebody else.
I don't want to dispose of my identity, thanks.
GEORGES May be I could invent some thing. I went to the paten ts
office and got the particul ars straight. Something
we all need which would exploit jet-action. My mind
keeps turning on a jet-fired gun but I wouldn't epprove
of that. But I can't help it forning in my mind a bit
more every night, in the train. We're much less big
than our destiny, aren't we?
CURLY:
I reckon we should break out a bit. I wad talking to
these new Hangar B blokes and they seem all right.
We could put them on the right path. I mean that'a
why the birds trail off like they do because you're
mean at entertaining. I mean wi th eighty quid or so
we could have a real big do, according to what we was
saying this morning. Not beer and sandwiches I mean
but we could take a hall, something like that, hire a
band, run a few surprises, skits and stuff like that
where the boys come in in masks and the lights go out,
you know what I mean. These evenings get me down.
That's the basic trouble, you're mean, and the birds
feel it. If you really spread yourself one night it'd
last the whole year in terms of generosity felt and
appreciated.
Georges And how much would you contribute?
CURLY:
Well, the just emount.
GEORGE: That wouldn't be much. Even a lot from you wouldn't
be much.
GEORGES I just thought that with your technical brain you would
want to finance it, I mean you're the one who impresarios
and leaves the dirty work of catering and sweeping up
to me.
GEORGE:
But not if I'm going to be considered mean and you take
all the credit and the birds too. Behind your drovsy
nature-face there's a orain working, Curly, you've got
a way of working things so that my hand always dips in


-15 Ekiv
ay pocket, in the end.
CUELYS
But you are mean. It's one of your. probl ems. You
know it is.
BBORGEL Yes but I'm not torking out the best part of eighty
quid in order to be called mean. And come to that,
as I said before, you could easily rouse yourselt and
get a skilled job for twice or three times the scres,
instead of being looked dom on as a sack of tripe.
CURLYS
Oh, a: sack of tripel
GBORGES It I'm a mean technical brain, that's what you are.
CUELY:
Just because I don't see life as jet-propelled? and
don't run round all dey wondering if I signed a vrong
check or left the igni tion on? I haven't got a
check book or a car. It simplifies matters.
GHORGES It does for you, because you use mine.
And it's you
who leaves the igni tion on.
CUELYS
Once. If we had seventy or eighty quid, thought
and a hall full of birds, and Hangar B personnel
getting up a lark and ali that, with the 11gh ts turning
a different colour, they'd sit here and wait for us all
day, and cook our meals for us.
GEORGES It's a funny thing, sometimes I think I'm inventing
that gun to protect myseli. I get this sense of
foreboding all the time.
CURLYS
It you landed yourself a' nice unakilled job driving a
trolley at a top speed of fifteen miles end hour apart
from little accelerations up to twenty when in a hatr-
raising state of mind you'd be better off it seems.
GEORGES I thought of moving into a bigger city, might be more
going on.
CUKLY:
It's up to us to make it. The nights have been dutf
the last few weeks. It happens like that.
GEORGES I remember the way my dad used to come in of a night
with his cheoks burning from the cold, and the unk he
gave us before he iissed mum, and he didn't have to
think snything up. I got quite frightened vhen Jill
said she couldn't and Double Glance wasn't at the Pouder
Puff. Then if they are there and they do come round
I start worrying 1f they're my level, I mean whether
I shouldn't be studying something up or getting on
with that damned gun that comes in all my dreams and
even when I'm on the joo, did I tell you that, even


then?
CURLY:
Sometimes I think you've got a war sort of mind.
GEORGEI I'll never forget her face when I did that skit. She
was trembling all over. I was suddenly--
A knock on the door.
CURLYS
Sounds like the rent ma. That authentic rat-tat.
(Opens the door) Ah, Mr Haffner?
JAMISS HAFFNER appears.
:7 HAPFNER: That's right.
: GEORGB: You're the new owner?
HAFFNER: That's right.
CURLY:
Well come in.
HAPFNERS Thanks.
GEORGB: what happened to the little bloke with the *** tas?
HAPFNER: Bought him out.
Cost me a cool ten thou, Half the
street though. That's apart from what I own near the
nick,
Jet
GEORGES Oh you'veproperty up there?
HAFFNER: Yes but it's valueless. The presence of a nick is a
kiss of death residentially. It im't easy, my work.
I don't exactly get the best expressions of face when -
the door opens and I stand revealed as what I em.
People with the best hearts in the world don't feel
active joy to pay the rent, especially if there happens
to be arreara.
CURLY:
That's right.
HAFFNER: And I'm not the type of man who can let it all roll off
him and then count his money tranquilly at home wi th his
fond and avaricious wife looking on. I haven't got a
vife, to start with. No, the trouble is I remember
every face, every little twitch here and involuntary
frown there, and there lies the undoing of my nervous
system.
CURLY:
You must develop a certain eye for the species.
HAPFNER: That's right.


CURLY:
A very telling eye.
HAFFNER: Oh yes. I know if I'm going to be paid the minute
the door opens.
CURLY:
Are you going to be paid now?
HAFFNER: Oh yes. In full.
CURLY:
How do you me en, in full?
HAPFNER: We'll come to that.
And don't think I want more than
I've a right to, will you? I hand out a lot of money
one way or the other but it doean't seem to al ter the
reputation I have among certain
people for being on the
tight side.
And unlike the people who can*go (blandly
their way and even believe in God I find every vord
leaves its wound, until I don't know hardly where I
stand or who I am.
GHOI RGES I can aympathise there.
HAFFNER: Sometimes I wake
in the middle of the
night
GBORGBI Yes?
1i THERS
and vonder who I am. As if my real self had been
stolen from me and I was only a sort of print for other
people's dirty negatives. Sometimes I'd like to
possess a shiny instrument with many small parts that
clicked though I'm not partial to any sort of explosion--
GBORGE: No, like me.
HAFFNER: I even enjoy the click of this bag and I think one of the
main re asons I plod from door to door is the click and
rustle of the money as it goes in. I always tell tenants
to prepare a cheque if possible because it weighs me
down less but I think the weight of the bag is beginning
to become a strange technical pleasure.
And then when
I get home it ian't as if count ting it out once will be
enough for me, I have to do it a dosen times and that's
quite a considerable sum when you think of three long
streets, a warehouse and a number of shops. Am I boring
you?
GEORGE: No you're no t.
HAFFNER: You seem to be staring at me.
GHORGE:
Am I?
HAFFN MR: I remember being stared at.


GEORGE: Oh?
HAFFNER: I mean one sees a lot of unusual faces in this job
and some remain in one's head--two weeks and four days
was the longest.
GEORGE: Oh?
HAFFNER: There, you seem to be staring at me again.
GEORGE: Not that I was conscious of.
HAFFNER: This is a street for arrears, it had a very bad reputation
with the little bloke wi th the tas. Mind if I sit doun?
CURLY:
No, not at all. This is only a kitchen.
: HAFFNER: Yes, vell, you didn't want the bigger flat upstairs,
did you, otherwise you could have a nice big aitting
room 'as well.
GEORGEI Oh, 80 you know all about us, then, eh?
HAFFNER: That's right tick tick.
GEORGE:
what was that you said?
HAPFNER: When?
GEORGES Just now.
HAFFNER: I said about this si tting room upstairs. He only
wanted ten bob a week more I believe.
GEORGE: No, after that.
HAFFNER: After what?
GEORGEI Didn't you say something after that?
HAFFNER: About the flat upstairs, you mean? Do you still vant
it then?
GEORGE: No I didn't mean about that.
You're not from Germany
by any chance, are you?
HAFFNER: No.
GEORGES No, vell, I just thought, the name you know--I took
one of those cross-Channel day trips once and heard them
talking away gutterally on the other side, I was glad to
get back. It all seemed very strange and alien if you
know what I mean.


HAFFNER: Oh yes.
GEORGES No forbears?
HAFFNER: Eh?
GEORGES No Germa forbears?
HAFFNER: Not that I know of tick tick.
GEORGES Oh lord.
HAFFNER: Eh? There's just one thing, I don't like mentioning
this but a lot of girls seem to come up here on the
quiet, I mean it's all right by me, in fact I like a
night2out myself but a feast is a feast and there seems
to be a regul ar proc cession up them stairs tick tick
according to the people on the ground floor.
You
don't mind me saying that, do you?
GEORGB: Saying what?
HAFFNER: About the girls.
GEORGBS Why are you wearing bla ack?
HAFFNER: Just left the estate office, any objections?
CURLYS: Oh, you've got an office then?
HAFFNER: That's right.
CURLY::
And how is it you collect the rent yourself, Mr
Haffner? Times have changed in that respects thirty
years ago a landlord was never seen.
HAFFNER: Well I enjoy the feel of the money as I say. Like all
people born poor I like to see it grow door by door.
And why should I be robbed by an underling, and resented
into the bargain?
CURLY:
That's right.
HAFFNER: Anyway about those girls
CURLY:
Itisn't as if we make any noise.
GEORGE:
Any bird. who passes that groundfloor flat gets an
inspection from behind a cur tain and I'm fed up with
it. And more tha one bird an evening don't come up,
is that right, Curly?
CURLYS
Well we sometimes have a little crowd but not a romp.


GEORGES No music. Sometimes a skit, a bit of fun, but
no thing anybody else could hear, except in nightmares.
And we go home early because we're often on eerly turn
the next day and if I'm on late turn I'm not here ao
what are they talking about?
Harmer: All right, all right, keep your shirt on. I think of
more the morals of the thing that vorries them,
a family man down there.
CURLY: ' Oh, one of them.
HAFFNER: Nothing to do wit th me, I take the rent and then my
leave as I alvays say. I just put it to you, to try
and keep a happy home.
GBORGE: Yes, well, that's reasonable.
CURLY:
He's sometimes up late with his invention, working on
complicated
and all
but
grapha
that,
grapha make no
noise do they?
HAFFNER: Oh are you aL inventor? what is it?
GBORGSI Well it's not really formed yet.
HAFFNER: Big or small?
GEORGES
Biggish. You seem very interested.
HAFFNER: You're staring at me again-
GEORGE: No I'm not, you're staring at meo
KAFFNER: I was just curious that's all,lused to have a mania
for guns.
GEORGE: Guns? I-
HAPFNER: So how much are you kind gentlemen about to pay me for
the privilege of these three rooms?
CURLY:
Give him the lolly, mate.
GEORGE: I hope it's right. I counted it out.
HAFFNER: Thanks tick tick,
GEORGE: What' 8 that?
HAFFNER: Five, six, seven, eight pounds, five, ten shillings,
one, two, three pennies. About time they gave up
these pennies isn't it, they only
weigh,
And


where's the rest?
CURLY:
what rest?
HAPFNER: It's written in my book, eleven weeka at least.
CURLY:
Eleven weeks what?
HAPFNER: Arrears.
CURLY:
What?
HAFFBER: Can't you stop him staring at me?
CURLY:
Here, George, you remember paying that little bloke
with the taz, don't you? I know I put my whack on
the dresser like I did tonigh t, I was on late turn
80. you must have paid.
HAPFNER: A He don't seem to agree, does he?
GEORGE: Why are you tall and
pale? Ih?
HAFFNER: Eh?
GEORGES And that's a funny way you're sitting. Look at him,
Curly! Look! I'm frightened!
HAPFNERS What's the matter wi th this oloke?
CURLY: . what's the matter, George?
GEORGE: I don't know, I feel funny, here your mouth seems all
droopy, Here look---look Ourly---he's got a dirty piece
of white tape---look!
HAFFNER: That's a handkerchier. So would yours be dirty it you
had to xict use it as a towel, you don't think I'd vipe
my bands on their towels do you, some of these tenants,
I take a bath a day, so there's no doubt about ny cleen
habits.
GEORGES I'n sorry, I've had a long stint today.
HAFFNERS And so have I tick tick. Now suppose we return to the
subject in hand?
CURLY:
It's quite impossi ble, about that arrears.
HAPFNER: Have a look at it yourself. Either you've not been
paying or the little bloke with the tas hasn't been
ent tering. Either wy I didn't get my money.


CURLY:
Well that' s no t our responsi bility if he don't pay
it in, is it?
HAFFNER: I'll sit here all night if I have to.
GEORGEI No don't do that.
HAFFNERI what's that? I wat the sum---wait a minute, eight
by eleven is eighty-eight and eleven ten shillingses
in five pounds ten and ele even threepences is enybody's
guess, I'll let you have that as a bonus. So it's
the paltry sum of ninety-three pounds and ten shillings.
CURLY:
GEORGE: Here, you're not sticking us up for that.
HAFFNER: Yes I am tick tick.
GEORGE:
stop saying that will you?
HAFFNER: I should never have go t caught up in this racket only
poverty drove me to it tick tick. I go from door to
door and if I'm not paid you know I come for the last
time
GEORGES Herel
HAFFNER:
-the bailiffs move in after me, not the kindly little
bloke wi th the taz any more, because I've got bleak
and terrible experiences behind me.
GEORGE: And what about me?
HAFFNER: I've sat in the rain in my life tick tick and had the
water flowing past me tick tick taking any little
personal belongings of mino-
GEORGE: Herel
HAFFNER: --such as little bills that were never paid and letters
I'd wri tten tick tick to the girls at home and my hands
were used to rough work but now tick tick enforced by
poverty they seemed to get an alabaster look---
GEORGE: Nol
HAFFNER:
-such as babies and young mothers have tick tick and
my breathing which used to be stentorian tick tick came
in frail little shafts tick tick in fact hardly discern
ible and whereas I always used to stir myself a lot tick
tick I never did now tick tick as it too lazy or not in
the mood any more tick tick in that valley--


GEORGE: No!
HAFFNER:
-where the rain came every day tick tick-
GEORGE: Stop him Curly!
Curly!
HAFFNER:
-and the mud tick tick and the rats in the water-
GHORGE: Give him the money!
HAFFNER: ---and the dirty bits of whi to
GEORGE: No!
HAFFNER:
-sodden handkerchief tick tick came floating by
tick tick and I went on si tting--
GEORGE (clutching his heart) Give him the money--- Curly!
Give him--!
CURLY:
Here you'd better go, matel
HAFFN ER:
-never moving my hands tick tick or my lips tick
my eyes tick-
GEORGE (grabs a chair) Pleasel Please!
CURLY seizes the wallet being
offered frantically by GBORGE,
and pays out the ninety-odd pounds.
HAFFNER:
-seven ty tick seventy-five tick tick--eighty
GEORGES Pay him! Pay him!
HAFFNER: --ninety tick--one tick---two tick-three tick--
HAFFNER dashes out with the moneyo
CUKLY:
Here George---I'm sorry--it' sl George!
GEORGE no longer moves.
CURLY:
Here George, George---it was Jimmy Haffner a bloke
from Hangar B--it was a bloke from Hangar B Georgel
(dashes to door) Jimi
Jimi He's passed-
passed-
HAFFNER comes back,


HAFFNER: what's up?
CURLY:
He' 8--I think he's-
HAFFNER: Are you all right mate?
CURLY:
He's a nervous--- type.
HAFFNER: It's OK now mister,
can have your money, it
Curly's idea---here rey.ceng him):
CURLY:
You talked me into iti You didl You corrupted met
HAFFNER: Give him his money back go on, he'll be all righ t,
he's fainted (holding out his bag).
CURLY:
You.
HAPFNER: Here you are mister, here's the tush back, com on
take it mate---
He flings it gingerly at GEORGE,
A ring at the bell.
CURLY:
It's a birdi
HAFFNER: Come oni
CURLY:
Wake up George, it's a bird!
Georgel
HAFFNER: He's dead mate, you can see that! De ads
He leaves.
CURLY:
George I told 'em about your skit, I didn't know he' d
be so heartless. George. I didn't.
GEORGE reamins slumped, covered
with bank notes, while the bell
continues to ring.
CURLY (subai iding into a chair) Here you're staring at me George.


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