Read Harold Pinter Plays 2 for Free Online Page A

one altogether.
    ASTON. No … what happened was, someone had gone off with your bag.
    DAVIES (rising). That’s what I said!
    ASTON. Anyway, I picked that bag up somewhere else. It’s got a few … pieces of clothes in it too. He let me have the whole lot cheap.
    DAVIES (opening the bag). Any shoes?
    DAVIES takes two check shirts, bright red and bright green, from the bag. He holds them up.
    Check.
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. Yes … well, I know about these sort of shirts, you see. Shirts like these, they don’t go far in the wintertime. I mean, that’s one thing I know for a fact. No, what I need, is a kind of a shirt with stripes, a good solid shirt, with stripes going down. That’s what I want. (He takes from the bag a deep-red velvet smoking-jacket.) What’s this?
    ASTON. It’s a smoking-jacket.
    DAVIES. A smoking-jacket? (He feels it.) This ain’t a bad piece of cloth. I’ll see how it fits.
    He tries it on.
    You ain’t got a mirror here, have you?
    ASTON. I don’t think I have.
    DAVIES. Well, it don’t fit too bad. How do you think it looks?
    ASTON. Looks all right.
    DAVIES. Well, I won’t say no to this, then.
    ASTON picks up the plug and examines it.
    No, I wouldn’t say no to this.
    Pause.
    ASTON. You could be … caretaker here, if you liked.
    DAVIES. What?
    ASTON. You could … look after the place, if you liked … you know, the stairs and the landing, the front steps, keep an eye on it Polish the bells.
    DAVIES. Bells?
    ASTON. I’ll be fixing a few, down by the front door. Brass.
    DAVIES. Caretaking, eh?
    ASTON. Yes.
    DAVIES. Well, I … I never done caretaking before, you know … I mean to say … I never … what I mean to say is … I never been a caretaker before.
    Pause.
    ASTON. How do you feel about being one, then?
    DAVIES. Well, I reckon … Well, I’d have to know … you know.…
    ASTON. What sort of.…
    DAVIES. Yes, what sort of … you know.…
    Pause.
    ASTON. Well, I mean.…
    DAVIES. I mean, I’d have to … I’d have to.…
    ASTON. Well, I could tell you.…
    DAVIES. That’s … that’s it … you see … you get my meaning?
    ASTON. When the time comes.…
    DAVIES. I mean, that’s what I’m getting at, you see.…
    ASTON. More or less exactly what you.…
    DAVIES. You see, what I mean to say … what I’m getting at is … I mean, what sort of jobs.…
    Pause.
    ASTON. Well, there’s things like the stairs … and the … the bells.…
    DAVIES. But it’d be a matter … wouldn’t it … it’d be a matter of a broom … isn’t it?
    ASTON. Yes, and of course, you’d need a few brushes.
    DAVIES. You’d need implements … you see … you’d need a good few implements.…
    ASTON takes a white overall from a nail over his bed, and shows it to DAVIES .
    ASTON. You could wear this, if you liked.
    DAVIES. Well … that’s nice, en’t?
    ASTON. It’d keep the dust off.
    DAVIES (putting it on). Yes, this’d keep the dust off, all right.
    Well off. Thanks very much, mister.
    ASTON. You see, what we could do, we could … I could fit a bell at the bottom, outside the front door, with “Caretaker” on it. And you could answer any queries.
    DAVIES. Oh, I don’t know about that.
    ASTON. Why not?
    DAVIES. Well, I mean, you don’t know who might come up them front steps, do you? I got to be a bit careful.
    ASTON. Why, someone after you?
    DAVIES. After me? Well, I could have that Scotch git coming looking after me, couldn’t I? All I’d do, I’d hear the bell, I’d go down there, open the door, who might be there, any Harrymight be there. I could be buggered as easy as that, man. They might be there after my card, I mean look at it, here I am, I only got four stamps, on this card, here it is, look, four stamps, that’s all I got, I ain’t got any more, that’s all I got, they ring the bell called Caretaker, they’d have me in, that’s what they’d do, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Of course I got plenty of other cards lying about, but they don’t know that, and I can’t