Five Plays Part 33

Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves. (_Breaking off his song_) Why, 'ullo. 'Ere's a bottle of beer. (_Finds it empty; looking off and downward_) I'm getting a bit tired of those blooming great stars down there and this rocky ledge. I've been walking along under this wall ever since. Why, it must be twenty-four hours since that house-holder shot me. And he needn't have done it, either, _I_ wasn't going to hurt the bloke. I only wanted a bit of his silver stuff. It felt funny, that did. Hullo, a gate. Why, that's the Gate of Heaven. Well, well. So that's all right. (_Looks up and up for some time_) No. I can't climb _that_ wall. Why, it's got no top to it. Up and up it goes. (_Knocks at the door and waits_)

JIM

That isn't for the likes of us.

BILL

Why, hullo, there's another bloke. Why, somebody's been hanging him.

Why, if it isn't old Jim! Jim!

JIM (_wearily_)

Hullo.

BILL

Why, Jim! 'Ow long 'ave you been 'ere?

JIM

I _am_ 'ere always.

BILL

Why, Jim, don't you remember me? Why, you taught Bill to pick locks years and years ago when he was a little boy, and had never learnt a trade and hadn't a penny in the world, and never would have had but for you, Jim. (_Jim stares vaguely_) I never forgot _you_, Jim. I broke into scores of houses. And then I took on big houses. Out in the country, you know, real big ones. I got rich, Jim, and respected by all who knew me. I was a citizen, Jim, one who dwelt in our midst. And of an evening, sitting over the fire, I used to say, "I am as clever as Jim." But I wasn't, Jim. I couldn't climb like you. And I couldn't walk like you on a creaky stair, when everything's quite still and there's a dog in the house and little rattly things left lying about, and a door that whines if you touch it, and someone ill upstairs that you didn't know of, who has nothing to do but to listen for _you_ 'cause she can't get to sleep. Don't you remember little Bill?

JIM

That would be somewhere else.

BILL

Yes, Jim, yes. Down on Earth.

JIM

But there isn't anywhere else.

BILL

I never forgot _you_, Jim. I'd be pattering away with my tongue, in Church, like all the rest, but all the time I'd be thinking of you in that little room at Putney and the man searching every corner of it for you with a revolver in one hand and a candle in the other, and you almost going round with him.

JIM

What is Putney?

BILL

Oh, Jim, can't you remember? Can't you remember the day you taught me a livelihood? I wasn't more than twelve, and it was spring, and all the may was in blossom outside the town. And we cleared out No. 25 in the new street. And next day we saw the man's fat, silly face. It was thirty years ago.

JIM

What are years?

BILL

Oh, _Jim_!

JIM

You see there isn't any hope here. And when there isn't any hope there isn't any future. And when there isn't any future there isn't any past.

It's just the present here. I tell you we're stuck. There aren't no years here. Nor no nothing.

BILL

Cheer up, Jim. You're thinking of a quotation, "Abandon hope, all ye that enter here." I used to learn quotations; they are awfully genteel.

A fellow called Shakespeare used to make them. But there isn't any sense in them. What's the use of saying _ye_ when you mean _you_? Don't be thinking of quotations, Jim.

JIM

I tell you there is no hope here.

BILL

Cheer up, Jim. There's plenty of hope there, isn't there? (_Points to the Gate of Heaven_)

JIM

Yes, and that's why they keep it locked up so. They won't let us have any. No. I begin to remember Earth again now since you've been speaking. It was just the same there. The more they'd got the more they wanted to keep _you_ from having a bit.

BILL

You'll cheer up a bit when I tell you what I've got. I say, Jim, have you got some beer? Why, so you have. Why, _you_ ought to cheer up, Jim.

JIM

All the beer you're ever likely to see again. They're empty.

BILL (_half rising from the rock on which he has seated himself, and pointing his finger at Jim as he rises; very cheerfully_)

Why, you're the chap that said there was no hope here, and you're hoping to find beer in every bottle you open.

JIM

Yes; I _hope_ to see a drop of beer in one some day, but I _know_ I won't. Their trick _might_ not work just once.

BILL