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, funt at least acontrast to the iong
unsmiling faces of GEORGE and CURLY as we see themo
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 nerveso
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


3 a
GEORBB: No birds then?
CURLY:
You should know.
GRORGES Well I didn't fix anything up like.
CURLYS
Well then we ahall have the silence--end the rent
man, won't we?
GHRRGES 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 Well I'm not always sure of the sum. All right take
the piss. I've been on airscrewa for eight hours.
: CURLY:
Two of 'em at double time, eh?
GEORGES Well I'm not swanning all over the tarmac in an electric
trolley, I mean it's on your nerves all the time, the
acream 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 screem
GEORGE:
Well how much is it exactly then?
CURLY:
Eight pounds, ten shillings and threepence it's been for
vall nigh two years.
GEORGE: I get contused about your contribution, which isn't much
in all conscience.
: CURLY:
I'll tell you your weakness---you believe in circumstences.
When a
door
bird comes in that
it brings you to life but
it don't me. So when they stay away you feel a terrible
let-down, don't you?
GHOGRES Well I like things to be de cently organised---not that
really but you know what I mean, settled, 80 you know
who's calling, I mean some thing you can look forward to
every nighi, sort of cosy.


CURLY: 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 ien't.
a GEORGB: 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 airacrews on a superjet, I know.
GEORGES Not far wrong either. It was sex or love as you'd say
that got me into aircraft.
CURLY: : How do you make that out?
GEOGREI My dad put the question to me, will you carry on at
school bringing in clothes money which your mum spends
y on curtains, or go out to work and feel some money in
your pocket? I was in the park every evening with a
bird-t this was some years after my mum end dad took
me and I amelled the flowers-and the image of the
pocket did 1t, it got mixed up necessarily wi th the
bird. At school my pocket would have been empty in
all senses. And I was no celibate. Hence I vent
into an arcraft factory where I now feel identified
with the jet in every way.
CURLY: And you won't marry. That's going to lie heavily
againet you when you're drinking char with the Almighty.
GEORGES 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.
GEORGE: 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' 8 not
normal.
GEORGE: 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 theré a so nuch sexual licence at this moment
of our isl and-history, because of the generations of
dirty thinking that went before.
GEORGES I adnit that when they sigh and breathe all over me
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
CURLYS
You're permanently paralysed if you ask me. All the
word love does is to spread the paralysis all over your
body from a certain place. The paralysis then engults
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 small and not even importente
GEORGES But essentis al--
CURLY:
--element in a super-jet engine.
But you can't
turn that inot a shiny instrument however much you wash
it, not that.
GEORGES Is lod a skilled or an unskilled worker?
CUHLY:
You've got me there.
GEORGE: You know some times it does seem you've got a little
light in your eye. They're always intrigued by you.
CURLYI
It's my tea does it.
GEORGE: Jill said last night, is that nice bloke still in digs
with you?
CURLY:
You see George I look at 'em right at the centre, not
on the outside any more. I used to. Gave it up.
GEORGE: I sadd 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?
: GHORGES 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. Always did. My dad had
a face unlined with worry. He went out as early as I
do and he was on night shift two monthaks 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 alwaya 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.
CURLYS
And they had no techniques at all, did they? thereas
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.
CURLY:
And nightmares every night. That you're getting
older, which you are. Or in a prison. No wonder
you went to play cards at four in the morning, and
hate cards.
GEORGE: And none of 'em loves me.
CURLYS
They love you. for your instrument. They want to see
what it's like, just to appease their curiosity, that's
all.
GEORGES Listen, how do you stand driving that absurd little
electrical van. from one hangar to another 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.
GEORGE: But sometimes a thought must pass through your brain.
You ware educated up to masturbation level as you
always say. Now what happened after that? What did
your mind do? How did it make the necessary under-
standing not to trouble itself any more?
CURLY:
Basy. Ceasing to be employed, it laid itself open to
natural intl Luences. It never had such a wonderful
time in its life.
GEORGE: I often think I might be able to invent somethinge
I thini 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 sea
GEORGE: 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.
GEORGEI I bet you never talk to the birds like that. Too
busy, eh?
CURLY:
That and the fact that they understand anyway.
You
rarely get a technical womm.
GEORBES Do they ever talk to you?
CURLY: : Sometimes.
GEOGRES About me?
CURLY:
The description would have to be technical, mate-
s0 long and so thick, and running time an ho ur and
tventy minutes, but that's not intresting for me to
hear. Jill was insul ted that you disliked her voice,
and happy that I seemed to revel in it, not that I
said.a word about it.
CEORGE: That bird with the double glance, she kept glancing
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.
CURLY:
No I aimply turned the scales on her.
GBORGES 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.
GEORGE:
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,
CURLI:
I suppose we're really family men underneath when 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 vife, 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 downstairs or ask how she is.
GEOGRES You'll be crying in a minute.
CURLY:
I've got all the love in the world but they always go
away. The one I thought would stay was Double Glance
and she was the first to go, skitting epart.
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,
CURLY:.
I'll tell you why that is, without shahe or forethought.
As an unskilled worker I feel passed over.
GBORGES 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.
CUKLY:
I wouldn't say better time but God shire 8 the lights
for us every evening, which is more than he does if-
but p'raps I'm wrong.
GROGHE: That cabaret girl tried to seal a bargain vith 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 face
like a baby, wanted me to stop. Do you remember?
CURLY:
Out 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 wi th my head
inside 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


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 darkness
closed them from my sight,again, tick tick. Their hands
were used to rough work bpt 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 a3
suggested children or young bearing mothers in a new
puri ty 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
af 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 bits of
white tape tick tick that hed been used tick tick to
mark out paths between the tick tick tick mines all cmme
floating by and took a personal belonging tick tick with
them perhaps a letter sodden now or a stub of pencil it
might 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! DEADIL
CURLY:
what's the idea of that tick tick?
GEORGES She. said it put a cold bloody hand down her
you
know that raw way she had of speaking. honavinen that?
Oh the tick tick is the tick tick of death.
CURLY: : That was the night they complained downstairs. I vas
very sorry about that. He said he had nightmares and
seemed to bl ame them on to us.
Well I saw his point,
our faces probably grinned through his sleep, not a happy
thought. It always 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.
GEORUS:
Who?
CURLY:
The rent_man. Goes by the name of James Harfner now.
Bought up this and fourteen other ho uses along the same
street.


GEORGE:
What end 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 this one 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. of course they have these sweep-
ing ideas, don't they, the Germens? 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 end they haven't been seen or heard
aince, at least by me.
GEORGES 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 rai way
she had of speaking?
CUKLY:
GEORGE: That's the marvallous thing about your mind, how it
casts evepything out like garbage.
CURLY:
All things being for the glory of God, I don't have to
retain then in the mind. For what pian? what technique?
what human assembly?
GEORGES But you don't even remember how you frigh atened her out
of her wits by making your heart stop beating?
CURLY:
GEORGB:
Well I call that rejection---I mean fear. Of the past.
CURLY:
I can remember amiles and some handshakes, a sentence
here and there but whole si tuations never stay with mea
GEORGES Did
say he was German?
you
CURLY:
According to the sound of his name, anyway.
GEORGE: 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 beo 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-inst 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 same whoever she is, whereas you lie
down with a new expérience 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 boards akked me today how about
children.
CUKLYS
What about 'em?
GEORGES
Well, if none of us married.
CUKLY:
Oh, that.
GBO RGES 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:
BBURGE: That's just wilful. You must be jealous.
CURLYS
What of, your mind or your money?
GEORGS: I often wonder if she was right.
CURLI:
That Jill said you gave her a thrill but she felt
terribly empty aftewards, you know that daft way she
talks.
GLORGE: Oh so they do say something.


CURLYS
A thrill don't last but secrets in the dark do.
GEORGE: Meaning?
CURLI:
Nevér mind.
GEORGE: Alvaya never mind. Like your proof about God.
CURLYS
Me prove him? A grain of sand prove a BENEEOR
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.
GRORGRI what?
CURLY:
There you are. Dashing ab out. Go on, look at it
again, count it out, that's right. You oounted it
out a couple of minutes ago but anybody 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-?
CUELY:
But you just counted it out.
GEORGES Well just tell me how much the ren t isl
CURLY:
But don't you know?
GEORGES It makes me nervous to think of a new rent man, that's
all.
CUHLY:
Everything makes you nervous.
GEORGES Some times I wake up in the middle of the night and I
seem to be some 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 you: all the people you could be if you
weren't a
that
super-jet craftsman,
is no person at
all. The ghosts come.back from pre-techaical society
to haunt you, mate.
GEORGES
They're realer than the real me. I mean, I could do
fantastic thinga as some of these other people. My
body seems to come into existence for the first 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 if
hin and his body wasn't the same.
And he sweats a
lot.
GHORGES 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 doimand then plonk, what's on the prggra amme 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's ano ther 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.
GEORGE: They've got money in their pockets, what more do they
want? Are you serious? I not ticed you wasn't in for
Barbara two nights off.
CURLY:
Nof 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 isn't easy to do
in Hailey Street.
GEORGES I like my routines.
CURLY:
They take guns to fetch down an odd bird which I don't
hold vith 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 hlokes 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.
MA CURLYI
And go back to school again? No thanks.
It's no
use taking present hunen organisation seriously, it
von't last all that long. When I get in that soft
leather seat every morning and whine my way across
the tarmac I have a great sense of happiness.
GEORGE: 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 patents
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 forming 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 vas talking to
these new Hangar B blokes and they seem all right,
We could put them on the right path. I mean that's
why the birds tral 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, end 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 contri bute?
CURLY:
Well, the just mount.
1 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 eweeping up
to me.
GEORGES
But not if I'm going to be considered mean and you take
all the credit and the birds too. Behind your droway
nature-face there's a brain working, Curly, you've got
a way of working things so that my hand always dips in


ay pocket, in the end.
CURLYS
But you are mean. It's one of your. proble ems. You
know it i8.
GBORGES 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 yourselr and
get a skilled job for twice or three times the scres,
instead of being looked dow on as a sack of tripe.
CURLYS
Oh, a. sack of tripel
: GEORGES Ir I'n a mean technical brain, that'a what you are.
CUELY:
Just because : I don't see life as jet-propelled? and
don't run round all day wondering if I signed a vrong
check or left the ignition on? I haven't got a
check book or a car. It simplifies matters.
GBORGES It does for you, because you use mine. And it's you
who leaves the igni tion on.
CUELY:
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 1igh ts turning
a different colour, they'd sit here and wait for us all
day, and cook our meals for us.
GEORGBI It's a funny thing, sometimes I think I'm inventing
that gun to protect myself. I get this sense of
foreboding all the time.
CURLYS
If you lmded yourself a nice unakilled job driving a
trolley at a top speed of fifteen miles end hour epart
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.
CURLYS.
It's up to us to make it. The nights have been duff
the last few weeks. It happens like that.
GEORGES I remember the way my dad used to come in of a night
with his cheeks burning from the cold, and the unk he
gave us before he kissed mum, end he didn't have to
think anything up. I got quite frightened vhen Jill
said she couldn't and Double Glance wasn't at the Powder
Puff. Thenif they are there and they do come round
I start worrying 11 they're my level, I mean whether
I shouldn't be studying something up or getting on
with that damed gun that comes in all my dreams and
even when I'm on the job, did I tell you that, even


then?
CURLY:
Sometimes I think you've got a war sort of mind.
GEORGES I'll never forget her fece when I did that skit. Sho
was trembling all over. I was suddenly-
A knock on the door.
CURLY: : Sounds like the rent man. That authentic rat-tat.
(Opens the door) Ah, Mr Haffner?
JAMISS HAFFNER appears.
HAFFNER: That's right.
GEORGE: You're the new owner?
HAFFNER: That's right.
CURLY:
Well come in.
HAPFNER: Thanks.
GEORGES what happened to the little bloke with the *** tar?
HAFTNER: Bought him out.
Cost me a cool ten thou, Half the
street though.
That's apart from what I oun near the
nick.
Jet
GEORGES Oh you've,property up there?
HAFFNER: Yes but it's valueless. The presence of a nick is a
kiss of death residentially. It is'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 arrears.
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 minu te
the door opens.
CURLYS
Are you going to be paid now?
HAFFNER: Oh yes. In full.
CURLYI
How do you me an, in full?
HAFFNER: 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 vay or the other but it doesn't seem to alter 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.
GHORGES I can sympathise there.
: HAFFNER: Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night
GRORGBI Yeu?
I . FHERI
and wonder 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
posaess a shiny instrument with many small parts that
clicked though I'm not partial to any sort of explosion--
GBORGES 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 veighs 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 ien't as if count ting it out once will be
enough for me, I have to do it a dosen times and that'a
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 not.
HAFFN ERs You seem to be staring at me.
GHORGE: Am I?
HAFFNX NR: 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.
GEORGES Oh?
HAFFNER: There, you seem to be staring at me again.
GEORGE: Not that I was conscious of.
HAPFNER: 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 ai tting
room as well.
GBORGE: Oh, 80 you know all about us, then, eh?
HAFENER: That's right tick tick.
GEORGES
what was that you said?
HAPFNER: When?
GEORGES Just now.
HAFFNER: I said about this sitting room upstairs. He only
wanted ten bob a week more I believe.
GEORGE: No, after that.
HAFFNER: After what?
GEORGE: 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.
GEORGE: No, vell, I just though 1t, 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 vas glad to
get back. It all seemed very strange and alien if you
know what I mean,


HAFFNERS 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
night?out myself but a feast is a feast and there seems
to be a regul ar procession up them stairs tick tick
according to the people on the ground floor.
You
don't mind me saying that, do you?
GEORGES Saying what?
HAFFNERS About the girls.
GEORGBI Why are you wearing bl ack?
HAFFNER: Just left the estate office, any objections?
CURLY:: Oh, you've got an office then?
HAFFNER: That's right.
CURLYS:
And how is it you collect the rent yourself, Mr
Haffner? Times have changed in that respect: 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 curtain and I'm fed up with
it. And more than one bird an evening don't come up,
is that right, Curly?
CURLYS
Well we sometimes have a little crowd but not a romp.


GBORGES 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 so
what are they talking about?
Harmers All right, all right, keep your shirt on. I think it'
more the norals of the thing that vorries them,
a family man down there.
CURLYS - Oh, one of them.
HAFFN ERi Nothing to do with ne. I take the rent and then my
leave as I alvays say. I just put it to you, to try
and kéep a happy home.
GBORGE: Yes, well, that's reasonable.
CURLY:
He's sometimes up late with his invention, vorking on
complicated graphs and all that, but grapha make no
noise do they?
HAPFNER: Oh are you as inventor? What is it?
GBORGSI
Well it's not really formed yet.
HAFFNER: Big or amall?
GEORGES Riggish. You seem very interested.
HAFFNERI You're staring at me again-
GEORGE: No I'm not, you're staring at meo
SAFFNIESR: I was just curious that's all,lused to have a mania
for guns.
GEORGE:
Guns? I
HAFFNER: 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.
HAPFHER: Thanks tick tick,
GEORGES 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 weeks at least.
CURLY:
Eleven weeks what?
HAFFNER: Arrears.
CURLY:
What?
HAPPBER: Can't you stop him staring at me?
CURLYS
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 tonight, I was on late turn
80. you must have paid.
HAFFNER: He don't seem to agree, does he?
GEORGE: Why are you tall end
pale? Eh?
HAFFNER: Eh?
GEORGES And that's a funny way you're sitting. Look at him,
Curly! Look! I'm frightened!
HAPFNER: What's the matter wi th this oloke?
CURLY: : What's the matter, George?
GEORGEI I don't know, I feel funny, here your mouth seems all
droopy, Here look---look Ourly---he's got a dirty pieco
of white tape---look!
HAFINER: That's a handkerchier.
So would yours be dirty it you
hed to xick use it as a towel, you don't think I'd pe
my kands on their towels do you, some of these tenants,
I take a bath a day, so there's no doubt about ny cleen
habits.
GEORGE: I'm sorry, I've had a long stint today.
HAFFNER: And so have I tick tick, Now suppose we return to the
subject in hand?
CUKLYS
It's quite impossi ble, about that arrears.
HAFFNER: 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 not our responsi bility if he don't pay
it in, is it?
HAFFNERE I'll sit here all night if I have to.
GEORGEI No don't do that.
HAFENI ERs What's that? I want the sum---wait a minute, eight
by eleven is eighty-eight and eleven ten shillingses
in five pounds ten and eleven threepences is anybody'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:
Nol
GEORGES 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 got 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-
GEORGE: Herel
HAFENER:
the bailiffs move in after me, not the kindly little
bloke with 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 lire tick tick and had the
water flowing past me tick tick taking any little
personal belongings of mine-
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 al abaster look---
GEORGE: No!
HAFFNER:
-such as babies and young mothers have tick tick and
my breathing which used to be stentori an 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-


GEORGES 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 bi ts of whito
GEORGE: No!
HAFFNER:
-sodden handkerchier 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 Pleasel
CURLY seizes the wallet being
offered frantically by GEORGE,
and pays out the ninety-odd pounds.
HAFFNER:
-seven ty tick- - seventy-five tick tick--eighty
tick---ninety-
GEORGE: 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 Georgel
GEORGE no longer moveso
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--
MAFFIER comes back,


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


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