Diego’s Dream

 

 

a play

by Roger Maybank

 

 

‘I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?’ said Tweedledum.

 

 

Characters:                DIEGO, an aging man

DORA, a woman of many parts

RAFA, an actor and goatherd

TIBO, an actor and goatherd

SOLTO, an actor and goatherd

 

 

 

(The stage is empty, except for DIEGO, who is lying upstage, on his side, his head resting on his arm, facing downstage. He appears to be asleep.  His  rough clothes are old and worn. DORA enters at stage right, wearing a loose, stylish smock, simple but elegant shoes; looking to be a woman in her mid- forties. She walks about, assessing the ‘lie of the land’; she appears not to see DIEGO.  DIEGO half-opens his eyes, lizard-like, watches her.  RAFA, TIBO   and SOLTO, as (amateur) actors, appear at stage right, stand there awkwardly. Two cardboard ‘trestles’ on wheels, each with a cut-out cardboard head, and a tuft of rope for a tail are visible beside them.)

 

DORA:       (to RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO) When you are entering, you will pull the goats after you. So people will see immediately that you are goatherds.

 

TIBO:         (sarcastically) ‘Goats’. That’re not goin’ to fool anybody. SOLTO:     Pretty small herd, just the two of them.

 

RAFA:       Not even one for each one of us.

 

DORA:       Two are enough, they will give the idea. And you will call other goats; so people will see goats. It is very simple.

 

(DIEGO raises himself on his elbow, gazes at DORA, who appears still not to see him.)

 

RAFA:       If we’re seein’ them as goats, ourselves, eh? Not so simple; they lookin’ to us as like to goats as..

 

DORA:       You are now seeing the trestles. You will then see them as goats.

What is the difficulty? Actors must have imagination.

 

RAFA: We’re not your professional actors, ma’am.  Just doin’ this because you asked us to. (in undertone) And are payin’ us for. And we can do with the extra..

 

SOLTO:     And goats isn’t somethin’ we’re any of us familiar with. Like these guys you’re puttin’ their words into our mouths. Lucky they don’t stink as much as the guys themselves must.

 

TIBO:         And it won’t be easy for us to remember all the words..

 

DORA:       The actual words are not so important. So long as they are in your own voices.  It is only a rehearsal.           But you are not to be seen yet. Stand back behind the cloth, with the goats. (going towards stage left) I shall go out this side. You will stay that side, to be ready for when you are entering.

 

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO back a step or two, until they are hidden by the cloth.) DORA:       And you will count to ten before you enter. You are understanding?

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO make muttering noises of understanding, and begin counting in low voices. DORA exits stage left. DIEGO, looking at where DORA has exited, takes up his sword from where it was lying upstage of his body, and stands up. RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO finish counting. They enter from stage  right, as goatherds. Each has a rough sack over his shoulder. RAFA and TIBO are each pulling a trestle. SOLTO is carrying roughly bundled blankets and a

 

small tin box. RAFA is carrying a fair-sized cardboard box. They all ‘encourage other goats’ to keep together. At centre stage they stop, look around. They see DIEGO standing upstage, his hands on the hilt of his sword, the point of it resting on the stage. He looks at them, his face expressionless.)

 

TIBO:         (in a low voice to RAFA and SOLTO) There’s..looks like the..man there.

 

(They both look.)

 

RAFA:       You mean that tall..rock? TIBO:                   It’s..that man.

SOLTO:     (peering) Yeah, it’s him, all right.

 

(DORA enters stage left, dressed neatly as an adolescent girl. DIEGO turns his head to follow her, as she goes to a ‘rock’ near centre-stage, sits down on it.)

 

RAFA:       Yeah. Turned his head, I can see him now. Light’s catchin’ his eyes.

 

(SOLTO ‘warns’, with a gesture, that DORA is onstage. They all three glance at her; then, as ‘goatherds’, pretend not to see her. Or DIEGO.)

 

TIBO:         (‘tethering the goats’) Sure is quiet.

 

SOLTO:     (laying down the blankets and the tin box) Winter’s end’s always quiet. Now.

 

RAFA:       (setting down the cardboard box) Even summers are quiet now.

Long while since we been hearin’ the noises of.. Any time o’ year.

 

(TIBO ‘sees’ DORA, gestures to the others to look. They gesture to him not to look.)

 

DORA:       (‘gazing into space’) You are not seeing me yet.

TIBO:                   (in an undertone) Oh. Yeah. Sorry.

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO lay out their blankets in a circle around the cardboard box. RAFA half-lifts and props up the upstage edge of the lid of the box. RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO all kneel, facing downstage towards the box. After a moment, they stand up.)

 

TIBO:         I can feel she’s not likin’ it here, same as always. There bein’ no trees about and her not likin’ places that aren’t havin’ any.

 

RAFA:       Never likes any place at first, however many times we been there before. Always wants to warm her feet by the old fire.

 

SOLTO:     We’ve got the old fire.

 

(He slides some ‘coals’ out of the tin box.  All three stoop and blow      on      the coals, and lay some ‘twigs’ on them, so ‘fire’ flares up.)

 

SOLTO:     It’s the old hearth she’ll be missin’. Down there by the sea.

 

TIBO:         Me too. But we’ll be gettin’ back to it again, first snow fallin’ in the hills.

 

RAFA:       She won’t remember, like as not; her memory bein’ what it is. Livin’ as she does, always in the one day.

 

DORA:       (in an undertone) Now you are seeing me.

 

TIBO:         (in an undertone) Yeah, OK (full voice) There’s..somebody..there. SOLTO:     Where?

RAFA:       (glancing towards DIEGO) You mean him? (undertone) We already saw him.

 

TIBO:         (undertone) Not him. (full voice) A..girl. Kinda..girl..it looks like. RAFA:                   (looking at DORA) Yeah, it’s a girl. No question o’ that.

(They move closer to DORA, stand looking at her. DIEGO is looking at her also. She reaches out her hand cautiously to a ‘flower’.)

 

RAFA:       Think it’s goin’ to bite you?

 

DORA:       (looking round, seeing them) It is a flower I do not know. TIBO:                   (in an undertone) Flower’s a flower; don’t bite.

SOLTO:     It’s just a ordinary flower. We be seein’ it some other times. DORA:       (leaning towards the ‘flower’) It has no scent.

TIBO:         Doesn’t, eh? Bein’ so bright, it’ll maybe not be needin’.. DORA:       Does it have a name?

RAFA:       A name? Hm, don’ know. Mostly flowers do, I think; if there’re enough of them around, people seein’ them. That one we’re not seein’ so very often ourselves, so it’s maybe not worked its way into a name yet.

 

DORA:       (looking around) Most of these flowers I do not know.

 

SOLTO:     They bein’ wild flowers, they’ll not be growin’ where you come from; that bein’ a town, I imagine.

 

RAFA:       Only there’ll not be any town near enough to here that you could’ve walked from easily.

 

TIBO:         Sure not in little shoes like those.

 

DORA:       (looking at her shoes) They are pretty shoes, are they not.

 

TIBO:         That’s as may be. But you’ll’ve been feelin’ all the stones through them, I’m thinkin’.

 

DORA:       The soles of them are not thick, it is true.

 

RAFA:       Rare for us, you may not be knowin’ it, to see anyone at all in these parts. For all our regular passin’ through them.

 

TIBO:         This is one of the emptiest places of people we go through. (glancing uncertainly at DIEGO) Except for…

 

RAFA:       Still some signs o’ people havin’ been here. Like there were, used to be, plenty of them. Summers full of their fightin’.

 

DORA:       You have been fighting here?

 

TIBO:         Not us. All these goats, what’re we goin’ to be doin’, fightin.

Probably lose the lot of them.

 

RAFA:       We didn’t even come through here when it was going on. Summer, that was; that was their fightin’ time.

 

SOLTO:     Winters were quiet enough, when we had to be down below there, by the sea, grass there bein’ good then.

 

RAFA:       And soldiers bein’ all gone home to their women, to make some more soldiers to do the fightin’ when they themselves wouldn’t be able to do it no more.

 

TIBO:         We sure wouldn’t be hanging about here then; just now bein’ the time they’d be sharpening their swords, generally gettin’ themselves ready. Like..uh..

 

(He looks at DIEGO. RAFA shakes his head. TIBO looks away.)

 

RAFA:       Used to be one or two still wanderin’ round here some years, like they’d lost their way home, you know? If they had one any more. Them apart, we never see anybody here now, in all our times o’ passin’ through.

 

SOLTO:     Why we were so surprised seein’ you.

 

DORA:       (looking from one to another) I have not seen you before either.

TIBO:         We be comin’ by here, like he says, regular, twice a year.

DORA:       (smiling) That is not very often, in quite a long time. You’re hardly using up any of the year at all.

 

TIBO:         We’ve got a long way to go. Goats’ve got to have pasture.

 

DORA;       Goats will look after themselves, I think.

 

RAFA:       They will that for sure; left to theirselves, they’ll be eatin’ the roots as well as the grass itself. Soon enough be no grass anywhere for anybody.

 

SOLTO:     That’s why we be movin’ them about, you see; knowin’ better than they do where to find good grass, and where not.

 

(Dora laughs, stands up.)

 

DORA:       I think goats will still be around eating grass when you have all gone..somewhere else.

 

RAFA:       And the grass will be here when they’re gone, you might as

well also say; and the dirt and stones when the grass is gone. But as long as we be here ourselves..

 

(DORA ‘s attention wanders.  Seeing the shrine, she walks around it, looking at it.)

 

DORA:       What is this pretty thing?’

SOLTO:     It’s our shrine.

DORA:       What is a..’shrine’?

TIBO:                   It’s where she lives.

DORA:       Who lives? It is very small to live..

SOLTO:                   It’s our..lady. Who’s lookin’ after us.

DORA:       Does she look after you well? As she is so very small.

 

RAFA:       She can be any size she likes to be. But for carryin’ her, like we have to, travellin’ like we do, her bein’ small is easier.

 

TIBO:         She looks after us pretty well.

 

DORA:       Not very well?

 

RAFA:       As she’s only got a small following—as far as we know, that is, hardly ever havin’ seen her in the company of others like ourselves— goatherds they’ll be too—we think sometimes she could give us a bit more attention than she does.

 

DORA:       What is the sort of..attention..?

 

TIBO:         She could well be makin’ the grass grow faster, for one big thing; and greener, with more taste in it.

 

SOLTO:     And the lowlands, you know—where we’re comin’ from now—are pretty often swampy with early rainin’ when we get there in the late summer. That’s not a good thing.

 

DORA:       Why do you not stay in the hills then?

 

TIBO:         It’ll be snowin’ in the hills then, that’s why. Winter comin’ on.

DORA:       (peering into the shrine) I do not see any ‘lady’ in your box. TIBO:                   She don’t show herself to just anybody.

RAFA:       Gods don’t have no shape made out of..whatever. Don’t need one. TIBO:         Shapes are for the likes of us. What don’t see so good.

DORA:       (smiling) Then how do you know that she is there?

TIBO:                   We be feelin’ her all right.

RAFA:       She’s floatin’ out of that ‘box’, like you call it, into the air all round us, every moment. When we’re sleepin’ too, she’s right beside us.

 

SOLTO: That’s when we can see her sometimes. Like in dreamin’, you know. She shows herself all shinin’. We’ve each seen her like that a couple o’ times.

 

DORA:       What does she look like? Is she very pretty?

 

RAFA:       Even in dreams she’s shining too bright for us to..see her exactly, like normal seein’; like we do each other.

 

TIBO:         It’s more like..feelin’ her, like we were sayin’. DORA:       You touch her? Is she soft to touch?

SOLTO:     We never think o’ tryin’ to touch her. That’d be like tryin’ to touch..fire, blazin’ fire. If you could, it’d be the end of you.

 

RAFA:       We’re feelin’ her more like a..bit o’ wind touchin’ us. With the smell o’ flowers in it.

 

DORA:       Can you smell her now? (sniffing) I do not. (laughing) The smell of the goats is too strong for her.

 

SOLTO:     Smellin’ strong they do, no question o’ that. Doesn’t stop them from seein’ her though.

 

RAFA:       Night’s when they’re seein’ her best; moonlight flarin’ in their eyes.

Can nearly see her ourselves then.

 

DORA:       (laughing) Only in eyes of your goats you are seeing her? At night, I think, goats are not awake; they are sleeping.

 

(As DORA laughs, DIEGO is roused from his steady gazing at her; he lifts his sword, cradles the blade in his bent left arm, seems about to move towards her, but stays where he is.)

 

RAFA:       They’re sleepin’ all right, good part of the night; sleepin’ and dreamin’, like everybody. But what they’re dreamin’ then, behind their closed eyes, is somethin’, I guess, we’ll not be seein’ at all.

 

SOLTO:     Where goats is livin’, day or night, is somewhere we don’t know; lookin’ at us, the way they do, like the world they’re lookin’ out of isn’t this one at all; and we’re like some strange..shapes movin’ round the edges of theirs.

 

TIBO:         Nightfall, them all around us around the fire, only the eyes and eyes of them we’re seein’, flickering with the firelight, it’s like we’re right in the middle of their world. And still not knowin’ what it is.

 

DORA:       I think they are then seeing nothing themselves. Their eyes are only mirrors, full of the firelight that you are seeing.

 

TIBO:         They’re eyes, aren’t they? And eyes are for seein’. If they’re not seein’, they ain’t eyes, just somethin’ looks like..

 

SOLTO:     We had one goat, once, that wasn’t seein’. Blind, it was. Eyes all grey, not shinin’ in any kind o’ light. With us for a long time.

 

DORA:       Where is she now? SOLTO:     Long time dead.

TIBO:         Wasn’t a she anyway. Billy goat it was.

 

DORA:       You had a blind male goat? Why? He would not have been useful. TIBO:         (chuckling) He was useful, all right. Best tupper we ever had.

DORA:       ‘Tupper’? I do not..

 

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO are embarrassed.)

 

SOLTO:     It’s what male goats do. To make more goats.

DORA:       Oh, I see. In the female goats.

SOLTO:     (embarrassed) That’s right. Sorry if..

 

DORA:       What is there to be sorry for? (laughing) If there will be no more goats, you are sorry.

 

(DIEGO, as if roused again by DORA’s laughter, moves like a shadow towards her. The ‘goatherds’, seeing him approach, back away fearfully, their eyes on  his sword. DORA appears unaware of him until he is standing beside her.)

 

DIEGO:     (gazing into the distance) Dead place this. You’ll do well—like them

—not to stay here long.

 

(DORA looks up at him, unsurprised at his presence.) DORA:       Why is it dead?

DIEGO:     Earth’s full o’ blood.

DORA:                   Does blood kill the earth?

DIEGO:     Not the blood itself. The anger in it, like rust, of the men whose blood it was. All of them gone now, years gone. Except me.

 

DORA:       Why have you not gone?

 

DIEGO:     It’s natural you ask that. But the answer is difficult to say. (Pause, He gazes into the distance, leaning on his sword.)

DIEGO:     The others, with their swords, kept missing,.

DORA:       They were not skilful with their swords?

DIEGO:     They were skilful, all right, they hit me a good many times; I’ve got wounds enough for ten men. But they always missed my..heart, you could say. End of each day I was still standing here; and the end of the summer, and the next summer..

 

DORA:       The summer is now beginning.

 

DIEGO:     No danger now, or hope, that I won’t still be here at the end of it; there being nobody here now, but myself.

 

DORA:       If you are all alone, with nobody to fight, why do you not go away from this place? If , as you say, it is dead,?

 

DIEGO:     Where should I go? It is better, I think, to remain where the others are.

 

DORA:       They are all dead, you say.

 

DIEGO:     They’ll still all be dead, and I’ll still have to carry them. Wherever I go.

 

DORA:       Are they very heavy to carry?

 

DIEGO:     Heavy? No, they’re light as..anything. It’s me, my own body, that’s heavy.

 

(Still gazing ‘to the horizon’, he sits on a ‘rock’ beside

DORA. She looks at his face with girlish curiosity.)

 

DORA:       If you saw other people, and talked with them, a little, it would be lighter, I think.

 

DIEGO:     And what would I ever say to them, who were never here, about all these years of fighting, and dying?  I’d as well tell these rocks; they at least will have felt the dripping on them of the blood, and the warm rotting of the bodies.

 

DORA:       (looking about her) There are no signs..anywhere of anyone dying here.

 

DIEGO:     None to be seen, that’s true. The scavengers—vultures and crows, and wolves, and men—have seen to that; the flesh and clothes of them, even the bones, have found someone, something, which wanted them for its own life. Only the blood they couldn’t take; that still lies clotted in the earth, like the many wounds still in my body.

 

DORA:       I don’t feel them.

 

DIEGO:     (with a faint smile) And how might you, young girl that you are, feel my wounds?

 

DORA:       I meant the..bodies, that have lost their blood.

 

DIEGO:     They too are not for you to feel. (reaching down his hand to touch her shoe) Except only on your fine shoes, that the bloodied earth is here and there clinging to.

 

(DIEGO wipes the side of DORA’s shoe with his fingers.)

 

DORA:       (drawing her foot slightly away) I can clean them when I am at home.

 

DIEGO:     (touching her shoe again, stroking it) So you can.

 

TIBO:         (undertone to RAFA and SOLTO) Don’t like that way he’s touchin’ her.

 

RAFA;       Long time since he’s touched anybody, from the sound of it; except with that sword. Probably forgotten how.

 

TIBO:         He don’t need to learn with her.

 

SOLTO:     And what way, anyway, is an old fightin’ man like him to touch a young girl?

 

RAFA:       Hard to find any kinda answer to that.

 

DIEGO:     (looking at DORA’s eyes for the first time, as he strokes the air over her feet) You didn’t feel through the soles of your fine shoes the blood clottin’ the earth you walked over in coming here?

 

DORA: Why will it be clotted there now? The raining of the winters will have melted it into the earth. The roots of all these flowers are drinking it. That is perhaps why they are so many.

 

DIEGO:     (looking away) When you’re young, everything is flowering. But even then, death is breathing its cold breath against your body. (feeling the point of his sword with his fingers) This sword has pierced into the bodies of boys as young as you are now.. (pausing, as if he cannot speak)..who should have been in their villages or towns, making love to..girls..

 

(His hand slides down the blade of the sword; his other hand caresses the air close to DORA’s feet.)

 

TIBO:         He’s talkin’ one thing, doin’ another.

 

RAFA:       Same thing, looks like. Different ways of..

SOLTO:     One hidin’ in the other.

RAFA:       Not from her. She knows what he’s at, all right.

 

SOLTO:     But how’s she goin’ to stop him? He looks a strong man, even if not any more so young.

 

TIBO:         We’re the ones gonna stop him, if..

RAFA:       If she don’t ask us, what can we..?

DORA:       If they are all gone now, your side and the other side, what is the use of your sword?

 

DIEGO:     (gazing into space, his free hand stroking the air by DORA’s arm) You can’t ever be sure. I look, daylong, at the hills all around, hoping to see someone’s head, and then his body, rising above them, he too carrying a sword. (caressing the air at DORA’s shoulder and the back of her head) And, seeing me, coming to me down the slope..

 

DORA:       (watching DIEGO’s face) And why is he coming?

DIEGO:     To fight with me. Kill me. If I’m lucky.

DORA:       He will kill you more easily if you have not a sword.

 

DIEGO:     (faintly smiling, caressing the air at DORA’s cheek) That—laying down my sword before he comes to me—would be like killing myself. I can’t do that. I..can’t. I have to wait the time of its own coming. (caressing the air at DORA’s back) And anyway, if he’s a man, he wouldn’t do it; just murder me like any animal.

 

DORA:       (shifting her position on the ‘rock’, as if drawing away from his ‘caressing’) He may think you have..something..he can steal.

 

DIEGO:     If I have, he can have it. I haven’t anything I want myself.

 

TIBO:         Just something he wants that he hasn’t got.

 

RAFA:       (little chuckle) Yeah, she’ll not be talkin’ for no reason about stealin’.

 

SOLTO:   It’s his sword he’s not showin’ her, I’m uneasy about; that he’s aimin’ to use sooner than later, from the look of it. Startin’ her bleedin’, that never knew till now what bleedin’ was.

 

RAFA:       The way she’s let him come so near her is makin’ me wonder what kind of idea she’s got about where he’s goin.

 

TIBO:         Well we know well enough, no question. (picking up a ‘big stone’) Better be ready for when she starts callin’ for us.

 

(SOLTO also picks up a ‘stone’. DORA touches the point of DIEGO’s sword with her fingers)

 

RAFA:       I’m beginnin’ not to be sure she’s goin’ to be doin’ that.

 

DORA:       It is very sharp. (her fingers feeling the side of the blade) And bright.

 

DIEGO:     I keep it that way; never let any rust settle into it. And as for use dulling it, it doesn’t now have any. So I’m always ready for whoever..

 

DORA:       If you rubbed it a little against the earth it would become dull, I think; and there would be a greater chance that you would lose to..him.

 

DIEGO:     (his face hardening, his hand unmoving in the air near DORA’s body) I never lose, never have lost. Anybody coming down that slope will feel its biting blade in his body.

 

DORA:       (her hand drifting away from the sword) But you said you want to lose to..whoever..

 

DIEGO:     I said that, indeed. But only with the mouth of my..mind. (caressing the air on the other side of DORA’s body, so his body is almost touching hers) I can feel the whole of my body not wanting to lose to..

 

DORA:       (with a little laugh) Because it is your body that will lose.

DIEGO:     (laying down his sword carelessly) And me, myself?

DORA:       When you are not your body? What are you when you are not your body?

 

DIEGO:     (his lips nearly touching the side of DORA’s face) I don’t know.

 

DORA:       (smiling, not moving her head) And how will you know? Unless you..lose..

 

(DIEGO kisses the air very close to DORA’s cheek.)

DIEGO:     I don’t know.

TIBO:         He knows well enough what he’s doin’ now, though.

RAFA:       By the looks of it, so does she.

SOLTO:     I guess we’ll not be needin’ our stones.

 

(He drops his ‘stone’. TIBO holds onto his. They all three watch as DIEGO circles the air around DORA’s body, not touching her body itself, and her body ‘yields’ to his arms. They move slowly upstage, where they sink gently to the ground, as the ‘daylight’ dies. RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO sit down around their ‘fire’; their faces are gently lit by its red light. SOLTO plays a tin flute softly. The firelight dies, the music ends, the stage is dark.)

 

(Dawning light begins to suffuse the stage, showing the goatherds kneeling in prayer around the shrine-box. As the light increases, TIBO crouches over the ‘fire’, blowing to rouse it, making ‘coffee’. SOLTO ‘milks’ one of the ‘goats’.)

 

(DORA wakes, stretches luxuriously. Her ‘neat’ clothes are looser, her feet are bare.  She is a woman of forty, in full flower. DIEGO is standing at the far side  of the stage, without his sword. He looks at DORA as she feels the sun on her body; he looks away into the distance, seems troubled. The goatherds  approach DORA cautiously.)

 

SOLTO: It’s a fine morning.

 

DORA: (looking at them, smiling) So it is.

TIBO: We’ve made some coffee, if you..

DORA: Coffee would be very good.

SOLTO:     We’ve got some bread too. It’s pretty hard, but good-tasting. And some fresh goats’ milk.

 

TIBO:         For the coffee; which, bein’ of acorns only, you might be findin’ bitter. SOLTO:     Milk sweetens it up pretty nicely.

(DORA nods and smiles absently, looking around. TIBO and SOLTO go to the ‘fire’ to ‘prepare the breakfast’. RAFA stands looking at DORA.)

 

RAFA:       (awkwardly) You slept pretty well, I guess. Open air’s good for sleeping.

 

DORA:       (running her fingers through her hair) Did I? Yes, I think so. I had a long dream.

 

RAFA:       (hesitantly) You’ll still be rememberin’ it?

DORA:       Yes. I remember it.

(DORA looks at RAFA, sees that he is waiting. She stands up. DIEGO’s sword is visible upstage of her. She appears unaware of it.)

 

DORA:       But it is not for casting to the wind. (smiling) The wind that blew through it, breeding it in me.

 

RAFA:       Morning wind carries my dreams away pretty quick. No breedin’ of ’em at all.

 

DORA:       (seeing DIEGO, who is gazing into the distance) It is true that but little remains of what..seemed to be..in the moment..

 

RAFA:       There’s nothin’ much to be expected o’ dreams, however big they be seemin’ at the time.

 

DORA:       In the light of day, you mean?

 

RAFA:   Well, that’s the light there is.  Moonlight too’s only daylight, reflection of. We not seein’ so well then, dreams can be lively enough. Till the mornin’ comes.

 

(TIBO and SOLTO come to them with ‘breakfast’)

DORA:       (smiling at them) As it has now.

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO all cluster round DORA, clumsy in their eagerness to serve her, so that she laughs gently. As if hearing her, DIEGO looks round, watches them.)

 

SOLTO:     (giving DORA a mug of ‘coffee’) We’re sorry about the mug bein’ chipped. They’re all chipped. That’s the best one.

 

DORA:       (drinking) But the coffee, it is very good.

 

TIBO:         It’s the goats’ milk. Nothin’s like goats’ milk for makin’ good coffee.

 

SOLTO: We make the coffee turnabout. (indicating TIBO) He made it this morning, his bein’ the best, some reason; and this bein’ your..first mornin’ with us.

 

DORA:       (chewing on the ‘bread’) And the bread, it is not so very hard.

 

SOLTO:     We sprinkle some water on it and toss it in the pan. Softens it a good bit.

 

DORA:       It is..all..very good. It is warming to the inside of me, as the sun is to the outside.. (looking at the ‘shrine-box’) She also, your lady, is perhaps hungry, and would like some..breakfast. Gods too, I think, will have dreams that make them hungry when they wake.

 

TIBO:         She don’t sleep. Don’t need to, not havin’ a body.

 

RAFA:       But we gave her what we think she likes in the morning; first thing,

 

before you were awake yourself.

DORA:       And what is that, that she likes?

SOLTO:     (awkwardly) Just a bit o’ prayer.

DORA:                   (absently) Ah.

(Pause.   DORA  gazes into space.  SOLTO sees DIEGO’s sword lying near them, points it out cautiously to RAFA and TIBO.)

 

DORA:       It is very quiet here.

 

RAFA:       Yeah. Now it is. Wasn’t always.

 

(TIBO reaches out his hand toward the sword. DIEGO watches him.)

DORA:       What was it that was making it not quiet?

SOLTO:     The fightin’.  Like we told you..  Yesterday. (looking confused) Yeah, there was always fightin’. Year after year.

 

(TIBO touches the sword ‘bravely’, as if it were alive. RAFA and SOLTO watch him askance, uneasily.)

 

DIEGO:     (in an undertone) It won’t hurt you. It’s dead as the ground it’s lying on. And what it used to feed on when it was living has been long swallowed by crows and ants and..whatever is smaller than ants. It’s as clean of life as anything could be.

 

SOLTO:     Didn’t bother us ourselves too much; fightin’ not happenin’ down here in the winter, like we said. And in the summer, when it was, we were off up in the hills.

 

(TIBO cautiously strokes the blade of the sword.)

 

RAFA:       But even there, most days, we were still hearin’ it.

SOLTO:     (indicating the shrine-box) And she didn’t like it.

 

DORA:       How do you know she did not..?

SOLTO:     We could tell.

(TIBO’s hand closes on the hilt of the sword.)

SOLTO:     Box felt different.

RAFA:       Weather was dry, it felt damp, and other way round. (TIBO lifts the sword a few inches from the ground.)

SOLTO:     Cold weather it felt hot.

 

DIEGO:     (in undertone) A staff is the better weapon for a goatherd. (sardonic smile) Being nearer to something living.

 

RAFA:       Like she was feelin’ out o’ tune with things. And we knew it was the noises of the fightin. So we took her—when we could—to somewhere where we couldn’t hear them ourselves, hopin’ she couldn’t either..

 

SOLTO:     If she couldn’t, the box’d be feelin’ the same as the air round it; and we’d all feel a lot better.

 

(TIBO sees DIEGO looking at him. He lowers the sword to the ground and lifts his hand away from it. He moves a little away from the sword.)

 

DORA:       She is more quiet, now that there are no longer noises of fighting?

 

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO look at each other uneasily, and at DIEGO, who has moved a step or two, as if ‘carelessly’, towards them, his eyes on DORA.)

 

RAFA:       (uncertainly) Yeah, she is. But we’re not sure the fightin’s stopped for good an’ all.

 

SOLTO:     Could start again anytime, we think.

TIBO:                   (watching DIEGO) Easy as..

 

RAFA:       A head appearin’ over the hill; like he said.

 

DORA:       (indicating the ‘shrine-box’) She will not protect you from that?

 

RAFA:       Like we tried to say, so you’d understand, It’s more for herself we’re worryin’ than for us.

 

DORA:       (laughing) I think gods do not worry about themselves. It is we who..

 

SOLTO:     Well, maybe she’ll not be worryin’ exactly; but she sure enough gets upset if things aren’t goin’ the way she likes.

 

TIBO:         And her not bein’ happy about..whatever..

SOLTO:     Which we don’t always know what it is..

TIBO:         We be runnin’ then into a lot o’ troubles: snow, winds, bad weather generally.

 

DORA:       And how is it that you are able—when you are—to keep her happy?

 

RAFA:       Same as with any god: just lettin’ her know, different ways, that we love her.

 

TIBO:         Which we do, o’ course, that’s natural. But—like any god, woman in particular—she likes to be told.

 

DORA:       And how do you tell her that?

 

RAFA:       We put things in her shrine. Little things. That we like ourselves, so we’re pretty sure she will too.

 

TIBO:         And in the mornings, sometimes, we sing to her a bit.

 

RAFA: But our voices not bein’ up to much, we think she’s not overly happy with that; so in the evenings he (indicating SOLTO) plays her a tune on his tin flute.

 

TIBO:         That he plays really good.

 

(As DIEGO nears them, RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO back a little away from DORA, their eyes on her and DIEGO. He looks from her to them, back to her, uncertainty clouding his face.)

 

DIEGO:     Why are you sitting here?

 

DORA:       It is quiet here, and the sun is shining.

DIEGO:                   (frowning) Why are those..men..still here?

DORA:       Why should they not be? They move slowly, as their goats need time to graze.

 

DIEGO:     Goatherds, are they? I never saw them around here before.

SOLTO:     (in undertone) Don’t look, you don’t see.

DORA: They pass through here twice a year, following the need of their goats for grass. (gesturing to the trestles, and to ‘goats’ beyond) They have many goats. As you can see.

 

DIEGO:     Don’t look up to much. Of course, the land about here’s so poor..

DORA:       (with a faint smile) Except in blood.

DIEGO:     Even in that now it will be poor. With the years passing. Rain falling; as it does, sometimes. (to the goatherds) And how do you know..her?

 

RAFA:       (looking confused) She—some time back now—was sittin’ on..that stone there..

 

DIEGO:     (indicating the ‘stone’) This very stone? (to DORA) Where you were sitting, when I..we..?

 

DORA:       (smiling) Here. Just here.

 

TIBO:         I was the first one to be seein’ her. (to DORA) You were young then.

Just a young girl you were.

 

SOLTO:     Long time back from here now.

DORA:       I was a girl for a very long time.

RAFA:       So you’ll still be havin’ more to remember about it than most of us has.

 

DORA:       (smiling) The days were so like one to another that I do not well remember any one of them.

 

RAFA:       Myself, I don’t remember much about bein’ a boy. Only a few times, sometimes, I can feel him walkin’ through me.

 

SOLTO:     In our work, you gotta grow up pretty quick. Even young goatherds have a kind of old look about ’em.

 

TIBO:         And there’re only a few real old ones about . We mostly don’t last too long.

 

DIEGO:     (to DORA) Why were you sitting there?

 

DORA:       (smiling) The stone is of a good height, and is comfortable. Where is it that you think I should sit?

 

DIEGO:     I’ve no quarrel with the stone. I’ve no quarrel with anything you might..touch, or..it touch you. But this is a poor place for anyone to sit, or stand or lie; or in any way to be.

 

RAFA:       (to DORA) He’s in the right there. This is the poorest land we go through the whole way from the sea to the hills. (to DIEGO)  We’ll not be stayin’ round about here more’n another day, you can be sure o’ that.

 

TIBO:         Got a fair bit more sense than..

 

SOLTO:     Even the crows’ve long cleared out of this place.   Grass, poor or rich, not bein’ what their bellies are croakin’ for.

 

DIEGO:     They had their good days, as I think you are suggesting; rich in food they like. But such days—as is well known, and often lamented—no more endure than..

 

DORA:       (smiling) ..the bad days of those on whom the crows filled their bellies.

 

RAFA:       And there’s few around anywhere, except maybe those crows, to be sorry for that. (his hand stroking the air over the shrine-box) Our lady, I can tell you, is very happy for those days bein’ gone. (looking at DIEGO) If they are.

 

TIBO:         (looking at DIEGO) That we can’t never be sure of.

 

SOLTO:     (laying his hand on the lid of the shrine-box, and looking at DIEGO) Somethin’ right now is botherin’ her, I can feel that right through..

 

DIEGO:     (to DORA) Is there..something..in that box? DORA:       They say there is. I have not seen her.

DIEGO:     ‘Her’? The ‘lady’ that one of them was speaking of, is it? (peering at the box) That they are keeping close in that box? Some small talismanic sign of her, I suppose; that they won’t let you look in there to see? Keeping her all for themselves.

 

DORA:       I have not sought to see her, as she is not mine to see. But, if you would like to, they may—it is possible—let you look into the box.

 

(The goatherds look uneasy, close together in front of the shrine-box. DORA laughs lightly)

 

DORA:       I see that I was saying what is not so.

SOLTO:                   What is it you’re wantin’ to be lookin’ at?

RAFA:       There’s nothin’ for you to see. With your sword lyin’ there ready on the grass, hilt so close to your hand while you were sleepin’, after..

 

DIEGO:     Sleeping, do you call it? All I know of sleep is my calling out for that dead sword all the night long.

 

TIBO:         (undertone) Didn’t hear ‘im. Night was as quiet as..

 

DIEGO:     And although it is lying, as you say, close beside me, I can never find it to defend myself from..my enemies who..

 

RAFA:       That’s the time then you’ll be losin’ your battles; balancin’ out the day of winnin’ them..

 

(DORA laughs gently.)

 

DIEGO:     What my life has been is, I suppose, a kind of food for laughter. But, being within it, I am not able to laugh myself. Remembering as I do too clearly, whether I will or not, all the other men’s bodies that sword has passed through; though it lies there now like a dead body itself.

 

RAFA:       And how—and why—were you learnin’ then to push it through all those other men’s bodies? That you’re not likin’ so well at all now?

 

DIEGO:     (bitter smile) From my father I learned, from whom else? Who curled my small fingers about the hilt of a..boy’s sword, and showed me how to hold it; as he had learned from his father.

 

DORA:       And your mother, as a loving mother, smiled to see you learning, I am sure.

 

DIEGO:     My loving mother kissed the sword itself, that it would keep me from what it gave to others. (wry smile) As it has done; though she is long gone from knowing, and delighting, in that.

 

RAFA:       One day then, likely enough you’ll be puttin’ that sword there in your own boy’s hands. For him to be playin’ with.

 

SOLTO:     Which is just what keeps us some nights from sleeping so good ourselves: that the wind’ll again be bringin’ us the noises our lady feels through the whole of her body.

 

DIEGO      (bleakly) I have no boy, no son, no one to follow me. A line has to end somewhere.

 

TIBO:         Them you killed though will be havin’ sons.

 

SOLTO:     (in undertone) And it’s the heads of them you’ll be seein’ one day over the hilltops.

 

DORA:       Those other men—the men you have fought with, and overcome— they had no mothers kissing their swords?

 

DIEGO:     They will, of course, have had mothers. And I suppose they too kissed their swords. It is customary.

 

DORA:       But the kissing of your mother was stronger; the good fortune it brought you was greater.

 

DIEGO:     You may say so. (wry smile) But fortune is not always so fortunate as it appears.

 

SOLTO:     (in undertone) All that fightin’ and still alive, what’s he complainin’ about?

 

RAFA:       Bein’ alive and alone maybe.

 

SOLTO:     And whose is the fault in that? His mother’s kissin’ his sword? Or his father’s showin’ him how to use it?

 

TIBO:         Must’ve showed him pretty well, for him to be here still, givin’ us a chance to be sorry for ‘im.

 

DIEGO:     (to the goatherds) I can see well, from the look of you, that none of you has ever known a battle. Of any kind. Nor dreams of them either. Your lives are only a wandering, empty-headed, over land now as dead as the many many bodies which have fallen on it.

 

TIBO:         (in undertone) It’s not us that made ’em fall.

RAFA:                   We’ve got our work to do, our goats to herd.

SOLTO:     Which would all be a good deal worse off if we weren’t doin’ it.

DIEGO:     So you think, do you? (pause, he looking from one of them to

 

another) Well, you are right; your lives are of some use. (bleak smile) You are fortunate in that. Although I suppose goats, left to themselves, would know well enough where the air is warm, and the grass sweet.

 

TIBO:         Goats can get up to a lot o’ trouble on their own. Got their ways too o’ hurtin’ the land. Not knowin’ it, o’ course, in their case.

 

SOLTO:     And somebody’s got to milk ’em, night comin’ on. Can’t do that for themselves.

 

DORA:       (smiling) Not while they are thinking they are goats.

 

RAFA:       It’ll not be the goats thinkin’ they’re goats, or anythin’ else. It’s only us callin’ them goats. Gotta call them somethin’.

 

DORA:       You think they will not have a name for themselves?

TIBO:                   Goats got no name for anything.

SOLTO:     (pointing to the shrine) Same as her. She’s got no name, except what we give her. We’re the ones givin’ out names.

 

DORA:       You think she has not a name she calls herself?

 

RAFA:       She’s not got any need for one. Like me, I don’t call myself anythin’, any kind o’ name.         (indicating TIBO and SOLTO) They’re the ones callin’ me by a name.

 

DORA:       You might then, I think, call..her by some name.

TIBO:         We don’t think she’d like that; us decidin’ what her name was.

RAFA:                   What’s her need of a name? She knows when we’re talking to her. Some of the time when we don’t even know it, first off, ourselves.

 

DORA:       She will perhaps like you to say her name; one name or another.

What the name itself is, is not so important.

 

TIBO:         If she was likin’ anythin’ like that, she’d soon enough be lettin’ us

know, you can be sure.

 

SOLTO:     (looking at DIEGO) Like she soon enough lets us know what she doesn’t like.

 

RAFA:       Which right now is himself there bein’ so near her, even with not havin’ his sword any more in his hand.

 

TIBO:         But she’s feelin’ it too near to ‘im all the same.

 

DORA:       (to DIEGO) I was not seeing that you are not with your.. (looking around) Where is it?

 

DIEGO: (gesturing) On the grass there. The poor grass of this poor land; feeling on its blade the soft rust which the dews of the night have sprinkled over it.

 

DORA:       What then, if that head you spoke of, and the body carrying it, will appear over the hilltop? With a like sword, catching the morning sun, in its hand?

 

DIEGO:     It’s of no matter now that my own sword is rusty, and its edge dull, as there will be no head, nor body supporting it, nor arm to hold a sword of any kind appearing above the far slope of that hill. (looking around) Nor of any other hill. Excepting only those in my own head.

 

DORA:       They may escape from it. Swords which catch the sunlight in your head may glide down the hill slope as easily as snakes.

 

DIEGO:     If any of them does, it will encounter only what the rust will have left of mine: the mere shadow of a sword, darkened by the light falling on it. (smiling faintly) So the man, bravely holding in that light his..still..bright one, will see me, if he sees me at all, only as another..goatherd.

 

DORA:       (smiling) And will he ask you for milk? And will you give it?

SOLTO:     It’s not everyone who knows how to draw milk from a goat. TIBO:                   He’d sure find that out soon enough.

 

RAFA:       (to DIEGO) And if that head don’t show sooner still, we’ll not be here to do it for you. We bein’ the real goatherds will be gone up into the hills where there’s good grass growin, now the snows’ve melted.

 

SOLTO:     Leavin’ yoiu to play your goatherd to his sword as best you can.

 

DORA:       (indicating the box) And your lady will then be happy. Or will she not?

 

RAFA:       With her there’s never any knowin’. Everythin’ around her movin’ her this way and that; as it does.

 

SOLTO:     She likes things to be still and quiet around her.

 

DORA:       Your carrying her about, as you do, she does not perhaps like so well.

 

RAFA:       Our movin’ about don’t bother her; long as we’re movin’ quiet in ourselves.

 

SOLTO:     Not always so easy. (glancing at DIEGO) Standin’ still in the wrong place is worse than quiet movin’.

 

TIBO:         If the goats are quiet, she herself is, mostly. And they mostly are, not havin’ too much to be troubled about.

 

RAFA:       Except being milked, and getting good grass into their bellies.

 

SOLTO:     Which they’re not getting here, in this dead place. (to DIEGO) That your lot have made dead.

 

DIEGO:     ‘My lot’ as you call them, are now as dead as the land itself; all of them. Excepting only myself.

 

SOLTO:     And what’re you stayin’ about for then? Lookin’ after all their ghosts, are you?

 

TIBO:         (chuckling) Goats is better’n ghosts; give a lot more milk.

 

DORA:       But ghosts can live here, even on this bare ground; as they need no food. (half-smiling) Not even the blood which it offers.

 

DIEGO:     The blood they‘re needing, thinking they’re needing, little good though it can do them, is not their own dead blood, that they’ve left everywhere here in the earth. It’s my living body’s blood they’re wanting to drink of. Which is nothing but waste, they having no shreds even of bodies of their own to hold the blood in them; so it trickles right through what’re just the shadows of their bodies back onto the earth, doing that no good neither.

RAFA:       Blood-suckin’ ghosts, are they? Some kind of life still in them, then. TIBO:                   You hadn’t killed ’em, you wouldn’t now have ’em suckin’ at you;

they only tryin’ the best they can to heal all the wounds you made in them.

 

DIEGO:     No more than they made in me. And all of them, theirs as well as my own, I am still carrying.

 

DORA:       You can feel the pain of them in your body, even now?

 

DIEGO:     (smiling sardonically) ‘Even now’. As if any time had passed, since then, except out..here. Their swords are still piercing my body in the night, all night; and all day the wounds ache; from the first rays of the sunlight they are as sharp as the swords were sharp, cutting into every part of my body.

 

DORA:       That will be the sunlight’s healing of them. (looking intently at DIEGO) Trying to heal them.

 

DIEGO:     It feels only as if it is opening them, so they bleed afresh. (smiling bitterly)  So the ghosts will have fresh blood to drink.               From the wounds of their own bodies.                    Yes, that I made in them, and my own body is still carrying.

 

DORA:       (moving near to DIEGO) And where does the sunlight now cause you to feel the pain of those wounds?

 

DIEGO:     There is no saying where. They move, like the sun itself, through the

 

whole of my body.

 

DORA:       (touching his upper arm) Is there pain..there?

DIEGO:     (sharp intake of breath) Yes!

DORA:       (touching his shoulder) And there?

DIEGO;     Ahh! Yes.

DORA:       (her hand resting lightly on his shoulder) You are more fortunate than they, who are able to feel nothing at all, not even your warm blood, which they think they drink as it is flowing down through their shadows to the ground.

 

SOLTO:     Sure no question about that.

 

TIBO:         (to SOLTO, in undertone) Unless he’s one o’ them ghosts hisself, not knowin’ it. Just walkin’ about like alive..

 

SOLTO:     (to TIBO, in undertone) Sure grey as a ghost. Still, it looks like her touch is hurtin’ him somewhat.

 

DIEGO:     (wincing as DORA gently caresses his shoulder) I wish they could drink it, every drop of it, until my whole body was as empty of blood as theirs are.

 

DORA:       (smiling, her other hand caressing DIEGO’s back) They are, perhaps, generously trying to fulfil your wish.

 

DIEGO:     (his body twisting, as if in pain) All every one of them has is his..own wishing: to be..alive again. As they’re seeing..me to be, and can still re..member that they were..once, themselves. Memory, shadow though it..self is, being all they’ve..got..left of the world. And their..wanting to be ‘alive’ like..me. (smiling bitterly) Only..difference between..me and them is my..still feeling this dead..earth under my feet; and the..pain in my whole..body of..their..wounds.

 

SOLTO:     If a little blood-drinkin’—which they can’t even do—is all you got to fear from them, you’re pretty well off, y’ask me.

 

TIBO:         Dead don’t harm nobody. And If any one of that lot was still alive now, and around this miserable place, he’d soon be dead again..o’ hunger.

 

RAFA:       (to DIEGO) If he’d not even sooner be runnin’ off somewhere else, for seein’ your sword, rusty or not, lyin’ only a yard or two from you; and him, nor any other o’ them havin’ any such theirselves; they bein’ all sold off years back now in the markets o’ the towns roundabout.

 

TIBO:         (to DORA) Which is what we’re still bein’ troubled about, you see.

For her more’n for ourselves.

 

DORA:       (absently, her hand gently stroking the nape of DIEGO’s neck) For what are you troubled for her?

 

SOLTO:     People sellin’ swords and knives, and whatever else, needs others to be buyin’ them. And what’re they buyin’ them for?

 

RAFA:       It might be—could be—for layin’ onto whatever shrines they’ve got; like buryin’ a time gone by; but..

 

SOLTO:     It’s more like they’ll be keepin’ ’em clean and sharp, for usin’ when the time comes onto them. Like he was doin’ not long back, and we’ve seen him clear enough doin’ through these few last quiet years when we’ve passed through here without him seein’ us.

 

RAFA:       Though now he says its half or more dead with rust; which we’ll take his word for. Though generally if you listen to the tales of them what’s been soldiers, you need a fair peck o’ salt to go with ’em.

 

TIBO:         And not seein’, like we don’t, any sign on his face of those wounds he’s so strong on. Got lines, o’ course; him bein’ not young. Got those kinda lines ourselves.

 

RAFA:       He’ll’ve been wearin’ a helmet, o’ course. There’s nobody goes into battle without wearin’ one of those.

 

TIBO:         Wearin’ some armour on his body too, I suppose. But it not helpin’ him much, if he’s got all the wounds he says he..

 

SOLTO:     Sayin’s the easiest thing in the world. For some.

 

(DORA presses her hand flat on the right side of DIEGO’s chest. He cries out in pain.)

 

DORA:       There is pain there?

 

DIEGO:     (sharp expelling of breath) Yes!

 

DORA:       (laying her other hand gently on the left side of his chest, her voice soft) And..here?

 

DIEGO:     (in an almost erotic low groan) Ye..es.

 

TIBO:         Somethin’ sure is hurtin’ him where she’s touchin’ him; way he’s flinchin’.

 

(DORA moves her hands lightly over DIEGO’s upper body,  as if caressing it.  He shudders and twists his body, and it is evident that the pain is becoming pleasurable.)

 

SOLTO:     Don’t look so much like it’s hurtin’ he’s feelin’ now.

 

(DORA’s hands caress the air around DIEGO’s body. His body relaxes and his hands begin to caress the air around her body.)

 

SOLTO:     Other things than wounds he’s got in mind, I’d say.

RAFA:                   She herself looks to have no quarrel with that, at all.

TIBO:         Women like fightin’ men, that’s well known. The blood on ’em starts their own runnin’.

 

RAFA:       Tired o’ bein’ a young girl, from what she was sayin’, she’s maybe grateful to him for pullin’ her out of it.

 

(DORA and DIEGO move in a slow ‘blank verse’ dance about the stage, their arms caressing the air about each other’s body. The goatherds watch them.)

 

(DORA and DIEGO’s ‘dance’ slows to stillness and they sink to the ground together upstage, as the light dies. The goatherds unroll their blankets and set the shrine-box in their midst, centre-stage, and kneel around it, praying. Darkness.)

 

(The ‘light of morning’ slowly lights the stage. DIEGO is lying asleep upstage, where DORA was lying on the first morning. The goatherds are bowing to their shrine. DORA is standing upstage left, an old woman. She is half-smiling, as if  in a world of her own. She stoops to touch ‘something’, as if she doesn’t see what it is. She smiles, shrugs, looks about her. Touching ‘something’ else, she again smiles and shrugs. She begins to move slowly about the stage. The goatherds watch her, as they prepare for the day. TIBO blows to rouse the ‘fire’, SOLTO hangs a ‘pot’ over it. DIEGO stirs, stretches, wakes. He looks about  him, evidently looking for DORA. Seeing her, he smiles and follows her with his eyes; not yet seeing her as old. The goatherds, seeing her grow older and older as she moves about the stage, watch her with concern. She makes little clumsy steps, stumbles, nearly falls once or twice; but is evidently untroubled, sings to herself. The goatherds cluster round her, like a living protecting cage, moving  as she moves. RAFA and SOLTO each take one of her arms, and lead her to the ‘rock’ she was first sitting on. They help her to sit on it. She seems not quite to know who they are, but to trust them. She reaches out a hand to touch their faces, as if unsure that they are really there; smiles when she does touch them. TIBO kneels at her feet, setting them straight on the ground. DORA pats the crown of his head. DIEGO, watching them, sees that DORA is old. The smile dies from his face. He moves closer, to watch them. DORA leans forward, stretches out her hand towards the ground.)

 

SOLTO:     She wants the flower.

 

TIBO:         (reaching his hand to the ‘flower’) She’ll be wantin’ to smell it.

 

(He picks ‘it’ and gives it into her hand, which clasps it awkwardly. She smiles at the ‘flower’, brings it close to her nose, smells it, nibbles at it.)

 

RAFA:       Didn’t use to like pickin’ them. When she was young.

 

(DORA stretches out her other hand towards the ground. TIBO picks another ‘flower’, gives it to her. She treats it the same as the first.)

 

SOLTO: (gently stroking DORA’s hair) Like the goats now she is, ready to eat

 

everything she sees.

 

DIEGO:     (looking bleakly at DORA) Why is she so..old?

RAFA:                   Same as anybody. Years piled on her back.

DIEGO:     Yesterday she was..

SOLTO:                   Yesterday’s a long time ago.

DIEGO:     In the night she was..in..my arms.

 

RAFA:       Nights are different. Anything can happen in the night. When we be livin’ inside our own selves.

 

SOLTO:     Like she is now, even though it’s day.

 

TIBO:         (seeing DORA smiling at him, as he lays ‘flowers’ in her lap) But she knows we’re here, right at the horizon, you could say, of where she

is herself. We bein’ with her now so many years.

 

(DORA looks about her, as if to see whom he is talking to; evidently seeing nobody, she looks and smiles at the goatherds, takes ‘flowers’ from her lap, eats them.)

 

DIEGO:     She doesn’t know I am here. And yet, last night, her body.. Was it..her?

 

RAFA:       What was her then is her now. Long as her body’s holdin’ her to the ground.

 

(DORA gazes around her with dreamy eyes.)

 

RAFA:       Which, from the look of her, is a time about to be endin’.

 

(DORA’s eyes slowly close, and her head droops forward on her breast. She is still. The goatherds gaze at her quietly. DIEGO gazes bleakly into the  distance.)

 

RAFA:       She’ll be gone now. From here. Just her body left us.

 

SOLTO:     Which we’ll not be leaving lyin’ outside the earth; like those that’re still every night drinkin’ your blood.

 

TIBO:         Not that she’d ever do that; bein’ the lady she is.

 

DIEGO;     I wish she would, every drop of it, and it give her back the life that was flowing in her only..yesterday.

 

RAFA:       Givin’ you your own death at the same time. She not bein’ the same kind o’ dead ghost as the others.

 

DIEGO:     If she will then be alive, what will it matter that I am not? As I am not anyway, for all the blood still flowing through my veins.

 

RAFA:       Well, she’ll not be drinkin’ it, whether you’re wantin’ it or not. She’ll not be stayin’ here at all.

 

SOLTO:     Exceptin’ only her body that we’ll be laying right here in this poor earth, and coverin’ it with all the few flowers it lets grow.

 

TIBO:         The body of her only; not herself, that’ll be comin’ with us, wherever we go, like she always has.

 

RAFA:       Knowin’ better our needs here, that probably she wasn’t seein’ so well before..’

 

(The three goatherds together lift DORA up, and lay her out on her back, centre- stage. They go about gathering ‘handfuls of flowers’, which they lay and scatter on her body. They grow increasingly high-spirited as they do it, and pass  a bottle of ‘wine’ from hand to hand. They begin to move round DORA in a jigging dance. DIEGO watches them, his aspect bleak.)

 

RAFA:       (seeing him) Feller’s not too happy-lookin’.

 

SOLTO:     (giggling) Thinks we shouldn’t be dancin’ maybe. His own feet bein’ too heavy for it now.

 

TIBO:         (chuckling) All those scars o’ war—his own and everybody else’s— weighin’ him down.

 

(RAFA gathers some ‘flowers’, offers them to DIEGO.)

 

RAFA:       Will you be wantin’ yourself to lay some flowers on her?

DIEGO:     (moving back from A) I.. I..

TIBO:         Just that small handful.

 

RAFA:       So she’ll be knowin’ you’re here.

 

SOLTO:     (in undertone) She’s knows right enough. It’s himself that doesn’t.

 

(DIEGO cups his hands and RAFA lays the ‘flowers’ in them. All three goatherds encourage and nudge DIEGO towards where DORA is lying. He looks down at her in painful sorrow, his body is wracked with smothered sobbing. The goatherds pull his hands apart, so the ‘flowers’ fall on DORA’s body. The goatherds back away from DIEGO, look at each other.

 

RAFA:       It’s dancin’ he’s needin’.

TIBO:                   Sure does.

SOLTO:     We’re the ones to make him, are we?

TIBO:                   Don’t see nobody else.

RAFA:       There bein’ nobody nowhere, (voice becoming singsong) nowhere…at..all. Just us.

 

SOLTO:     (singsong voice) Just us, nobody..but..us. TIBO:                   (singsong voice) Nobody, nobody, nobody..

RAFA:       (bass voice) But..us.

RAFA:       (reaching out his hand to DIEGO) You’d better be givin’ me your hand there.

 

(RAFA takes and  holds DIEGO’s hand.  DIEGO doesn’t seem to notice. TIBO takes DIEGO’s other hand. SOLTO takes the free hand of RAFA and TIBO.)

RAFA:       That’s the way of it. Here we go now.

TIBO:         Here we go!

 

SOLTO:     (pulling his tin flute out of his pocket) Here we go!

 

(They begin jigging around DORA, singing clumsily to SOLTO’s poor flute- playing, their movements growing more and more lively and chaotic. DIEGO moves like a man asleep, his body swaying, his feet stumbling.)

 

(In a kind of paroxysm, all their hands fly apart, and the three goatherds stagger about the stage, still half-singing. DIEGO stands still, gazing bleakly into space. RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO come together ‘by chance’ and sink to the ground drunkenly, their backs resting against one another.)

 

(DORA sits up, smooths her clothes, stands up. Her body is young. She takes her smock from where it has been hanging, hidden, slings it over her shoulder. DIEGO watches her ‘transformation’ keenly; she appears not to notice him. She goes to RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO, looks down at them with a faint indulgent smile.)

 

DORA:       For a rehearsal it was not perhaps too bad. (touching each of their heads lightly) But it is over.

 

(She moves away from them towards stage right. RAFA lifts his head, looks around as if missing something. He sees DIEGO, frowns, looks confused.)

 

SOLTO:     (looking round blearily) I heard someone sayin’ somethin’. Sounded like a..lady.

 

TIBO:         (drunken singsong) A lady, a lady, where is the la..dy? (peering up from under his hat) What lady?

 

SOLTO:     I dunno. Just heard a..voice..

DORA:                   It is over, I said.

(RAFA, looking antagonistically at DIEGO, looks where he is looking, sees

 

DORA.)

 

RAFA:       (looking troubled, staring at DORA) There’s a..lady..there.

 

(TIBO and SOLTO turn their heads, see DORA. TIBO waves to her. SOLTO frowns, seems not to know who she is. DORA gestures to them to stand up; which they do, helping each other, all of them still half-drunk, and more than half still goatherds DORA gestures to them to go to her. They move towards her, unsteady on their feet, looking about them as if they don’t know where they are. TIBO stumbles over the shrine, backs away from it, awkwardly half-bowing his head to it. They all stand looking at it.)

 

DORA:       Bring it with you.

 

(They all bend down together to pick up the shrine-box. TIBO falls over. RAFA and SOLTO together pick up the box; SOLTO leaves it to RAFA.)

 

DORA:       You will bring everything with you. They will now be wanting the stage.

 

RAFA:       (as if half-awaking) Oh.. Yeah.

 

TIBO:         Movin’ on, are we?. (looking down, kicking the ground) Just as well; grass here’s as grey as..

 

SOLTO:     (peering about)  Goats’ll be hungry with nothin’ to eat. Hungry and restless, wantin’ to be movin’.

 

RAFA:       (to DORA, patting the ‘head’ of one of the trestles)  Do we take them with us?

 

DORA:       Of course. Why will they stay? This is not the place for them now. (RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO look at each other uncertainly.)

RAFA:       I’ll be leadin’ them off, then. (offering the shrine to TIBO) You want to hold this?

 

TIBO:         Uh..yeah.

 

(TIBO takes the shrine, holds it awkwardly away from his body.)

 

RAFA:       (piling one of the trestles on the other) Hm, pretty light. Not so much milk in them as..we thought there was.

 

SOLTO:     (gathering up a blanket) Well, better be clearin’ all our things outta here, then.

 

RAFA:       I guess we can say they’re..ours. (glancing at DORA) Or hers. (They gather up the blankets. SOLTO picks up the firebox.)

SOLTO:     Fire’ll be useful. Be probably pretty cold up in the hills.

RAFA:       (uncertainly) If that’s where we’re goin’.

TIBO:         Where else’re we..? This time o’ year.

 

RAFA:       (looking around) I guess.. (looking at DIEGO) He’s not goin’.

Nowhere to go, I guess.

 

SOLTO:     (chuckling) Waitin’ for that head to show over the hill.

DORA:       You are ready now? You have gathered everything?

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO look round, nod, murmur. DORA looks intently at the shrine. TIBO holds it closer to his body.)

 

DORA:       (to TIBO) You are now the custodian of the shrine?

TIBO:                   (awkward and nervous) I..um..’m not sure what..

DORA:       You are holding it.

 

TIBO:         Yeah, that’s right, I’m..holding..it. (Awkward pause.)

DORA:       I should like to hold it myself for a moment.

 

(RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO all look uneasy.)

TIBO:         What?

DORA:       I should like to feel..her in my hands, which are a little cold.

 

SOLTO:     She won’t mind that, she’s used to cold hands. Kinds of weather we’re out in.

 

RAFA:       She’s maybe not used to..strangers’..hands.

DORA:       It will be for a moment only. To feel her only.

SOLTO:     There’s nothing much you’re goin’ to feel, as a stranger.

 

TIBO:         (proffering the shrine) A moment won’t be hurtin’ her, I suppose. But hold her carefully. She sure won’t like being dropped. (indicating SOLTO) He dropped her once; only a little fall it was, but we had wind and snow and ice for days.

 

DORA:       (taking the shrine) I shall be very careful not to let her fall.

 

(DORA stands still a moment, holding the shrine on her extended hands, looking at it as at some strange, interesting object. DIEGO watches her  intently.  SOLTO touches DORA’s arm.)

 

SOLTO:     There’s a man there, he’s watchin’ you with eyes that..

 

TIBO:         (jostling SOLTO’s arm, loud whisper) Shh, it’s him that she was..

DORA:       Do not give him attention. He is not where we are.

SOLTO:     I can see him.

 

DORA:       (moving away, her attention on the shrine) Many things may be seen, which are not here.

 

RAFA:       Well, he’ll be one of those, all right. (gesturing towards the ‘grave’) But she saw him; and she..

 

DORA:       (smiling) Oh? Then you may ask her who he is.

(As RAFA, TIBO and SOLTO look at the ‘grave’, DORA glides offstage right). RAFA:                   (confused) She’s..dead now. She was in the..play we were..playin’..

Weren’t we? And..you..were.. (looking round to see her) Where’s she gone to?

 

(TIBO and SOLTO  both look about  for DORA.    DIEGO looks steadily at where DORA was last seen.)

 

SOLTO:     Don’t be seein’ her..anywhere about. I suppose she’ll be havin’ other things to do

 

TIBO:         Ourselves, we got the goats to think of, some of them there are wanderin’ about pretty free. (moving towards stage right) And they’ll be needin’ some milkin’, for sure.

 

SOLTO:     (moving towards stage right) She’s probably not gone far; just be a little way ahead of us, probably.

 

(TIBO and SOLTO exit stage right. RAFA looks around, as if still hoping to see DORA.)

 

RAFA:       She could have left us the shrine; it wasn’t hers. (shrugging, faint smile) Well, I guess it wasn’t ours either.

 

(RAFA exits stage right, drawing the piled trestles after him.)

 

(DIEGO remains onstage. He looks about, as if assessing  where  he  is.  DORA, as ‘director’, reappears, wearing the smock carelessly, barefoot, and carrying the shrine. DIEGO looks at her calmly.)

 

DORA:       You are still here?

 

DIEGO:     [as ‘stage caretaker’] Someone has to look after the place.

DORA:       And that someone is yourself?

DIEGO:     Seems to be. (glancing round) Don’t see anyone else. At the

moment. (indicating the ‘shrine-box’) Are you wanting to leave that with me?

 

DORA:       That will be convenient, If it will not be a trouble..

 

DIEGO:     No trouble, Ma’am; none at all. (taking the box from her) It might be wanted again, I suppose.

 

DORA:       That is possible. (Awkward pause.)

DIEGO:     (faint ironic smile) I’m wondering if I might now just look inside..it. DORA:       There will not be anything to look at. It is empty.

DIEGO:     My understanding was that there was in it a..kind of..shrine. To a..lady, I think they said.

 

DORA:       (faintly smiling) They..the goatherds..thought so. But the actors who were playing them of course knew that it was empty. (light laugh) Would they otherwise have left it in my hands?

 

DIEGO:     Or you have left it in mine.

DORA:       I am not so particular.

DIEGO:     Well, I’ll hold onto it then, against somebody coming and..wanting it.

As it’s sure, I suppose, they will.

 

DORA:       Many things short of death itself are surer than that.

 

(She turns from DIEGO, moves a few steps towards stage left, stops.)

DORA:       There may, I suppose, be some small scent of her in it still.

DIEGO:     (wry smile) I doubt if my old nose will be equal to smelling it.

DORA:       (smiling) Then you may imagine it.

 

(She  continues towards stage-left. The light around her is bright; but it dims around DIEGO, who follows her with his eyes, holding the box with both hands.)

 

DORA:       As you have your many brave battles.

 

(As she is about to exit stage-left, she turns and looks at DIEGO.)

DORA:       And me.

(DORA exits.   Where she was,  the light  swiftly dims. DIEGO gazes at where she was, then looks down at the box in his hands.)

 

DIEGO:     (bending his head towards the box) I suppose I might smell..something.

 

(As he sniffs the air over the box, the lights dim out.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Mt. Tuam, 11th of June, 2014)