The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (33 page)

CAHOOT
: Useless … [*Afternoon …]

EASY:
(
Absently
) Useless … (
then sees who it is
.)
Cahoot!
Geraniums!? [*How are you!?]

CAHOOT
: Gymshoes. Geraniums? [*Fine. How are you?]

EASY
: Gymshoes.

CAHOOT
: Upside cakeshops? (*Have you brought the blocks?]

EASY
: Slab. [*Yes.]

CAHOOT
: Almost Leamington Spa? [*From Leamington Spa?]

EASY
: Slab, git. Even artichoke. [*Yes, sir. I’ve got a lorry.]

CAHOOT
: Cube. [*Thanks.]
(
He signs clipboard
.)

EASY
: Cube, git. [*Thank you, sir.]

INSPECTOR
: Just a minute. What the hell are you talking about?

CAHOOT
: Afternoon, squire!

INSPECTOR
: Afternoon. Who’s your friend?

HOSTESS
: He’s the cake-hops man.

INSPECTOR:
Well, why can’t he say so?

CAHOOT:
He only speaks Dogg.

INSPECTOR:
What?

CAHOOT:
Dogg.

INSPECTOR:
Dogg?

CAHOOT:
Haven’t you heard of it?

INSPECTOR:
Where did you learn it?

CAHOOT:
You don’t learn it, you catch it.
(
EASY
notices
‘MALCOLM’.)

EASY:
Useless. [*Afternoon.]

‘MALCOLM’:
Useless … Geraniums?

EASY:
Gymshoes. Geraniums?

‘MALCOLM’:
Gymshoes … cube …

EASY:
(
To
CAHOOT
.) Blankets up middling if senses stuck, after
plug-holes kettle-drummed lightly A412 mildly
Rickmansworth.

‘MALCOLM’
: Rickmansworth.

‘
MACDUFF
’: (
To
‘
MALCOLM
’,
heading for the door
.) He needs a bit
of a hand …

EASY:
Slab.

‘MALCOLM’
: (
Leaving
.) … with the cake-hops …

EASY:
Clipped awful this water ice zig-zaggled.

CAHOOT
: His mate got struck down by lightning.

HOSTESS
: Shazam …

EASY:
Slab.

CAHOOT:
(
Hands
EASY
the plans
.) Albatross. [*Plans.]
(
To
EASY
.) Easy! Brick …

EASY:
Slab, git.

CAHOOT:
Brick. (
He positions
EASY
for building steps
.)

EASY:
Brick? [*Here?]

CAHOOT:
Cake-hops. Brick.

EASY:
Cube, git. [*Thanks, sir.]

CAHOOT/HOSTESS:
Gymshoes. [*Excellent.]

INSPECTOR:
May I remind you we’re supposed to be in a period
of normalization here.

HOSTESS:
Kindly leave the stage. Act Five is about to begin.

INSPECTOR
: Is it! I must warn you that anything you say will be
taken down and played back at your trial.

HOSTESS
: Bicycles! Plank? [*Ready?]
(
To
INSPECTOR
.) Slab. Gymshoes!
(
CAHOOT
and
HOSTESS
leave
.
INSPECTOR
and
EASY
are left
.)

INSPECTOR
: What gymshoes?

EASY
: What, git? [*Eleven, sir?]

INSPECTOR
: Gymshoes!

EASY
: Slab, git.

INSPECTOR:
(
Giving up
.) Useless …

EASY:
(
Enthusiastically
) Useless, git! [*Afternoon, sir!]

INSPECTOR
: Right—that’s it! (
To ceiling
.) Roger! (
To the audience
.)
Put your hands on your heads. Put your—placay manos—
per capita … nix toiletto!
(
’Phone rings
.
EASY
answers, hands it to
INSPECTOR
.)

EASY
: Roger.

INSPECTOR:
(
Into ’phone
.) Did you get all that? Clear as a what?
Acting out of hostility to the Republic. Ten years minimum.
I want every word in evidence.
(
LADY MACBETH
enters with lighted taper
.)

LADY MACBETH
: Hat, daisy puck! Hat, so fie! Sum, dock: hoops
malign my cattlegrid! Smallish peacocks!
Flaming scots git, flaming! Fireplace nought
jammy-flits?

   (
’Phone rings
,
INSPECTOR
picks it up
.)

INSPECTOR
: (
Into ’phone: pause
.) How the hell do I know? But if it’s not free expression, I don’t know what is!
(
Hangs up
.)

LADY MACBETH
: (
Dry-washing her hands
.) Ash-loving pell-mell on.
Fairly buses gone Arabia nettle-rash old icicles nun. Oh oh oh …
[*Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand…]
(
She exits
.)

INSPECTOR
: (
To
EASY
.) She’s making it up as she goes along.
You must think I’m—
(
But
EASY
is glowing with the light of recognition
.)

EASY
: … Ah …
Macbeth
).
(
Sound of cannon. Smoke
,
MACBETH,
armed, appears on battlement
.)

MACBEIH:
Sack-cloth never pullovers!—wickets to flicks.
Such Birnam cakeshops carousals Dunisnane!
… Dovetails oboes Malcolm? Crossly windowframed!
[*Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all
Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane.
What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman?]

(
’Phone rings
,
INSPECTOR
snatches it
.)

INSPECTOR:
(
Into ’phone
.) What? No—crossly window-framed, I think … Hang about—

MACBETH
: Fetlocked his trade-offs cried terrain!
Pram Birnam cakehops bolsters Dunisnane!
[*I will not be afraid of death and bane
Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane!]

(
The back of the lorry opens, revealing
MALCOLM
and
OTHERS
within, unloading the blocks etc
.
INSPECTOR
sees this—speaks into walkie-talkie
.)

INSPECTOR:
Get the chief. Get the chief!
(
One or two
—
Ross
,
LENNOX
—
are to get off the lorry to form a
human chain for the blocks and slabs etc. to pass from
MACDUFF
in the lorry to
EASY
building the steps
.)
MALCOLM:
(
To
MACDUFF
who is in the lorry with him
.)
Jugged cake-hops furnished soon? [*What wood is this before us?]

INSPECTOR:
(
Into walkie-talkie
.) Wilco zebra over!
MACDUFF:
Sin cake-hops Birnam, git. [*The woods of Birnam, sir.]

INSPECTOR:
Green Charlie Angels 15 out.

MALCOLM:
State level filberts blacken up aglow … [*Let
every soldier hew him down a bough …]

INSPECTOR
: Easy Dogg!

EASY
: (
To
INSPECTOR
.) Slab, git?
MALCOM:
Fry lettuce denial! [*And bear it before him!]
(
MACDUFF
and
ANOTHER
leap off lorry; blocks start flowing
towards
EASY,
who builds steps
.
LADY MACBETH
—
Wails and crys off-stage
.
MESSENGER
enters
.)

MESSENGER
: Git! Margarine distract! [*The queen, my lord is dead!]

MACBETH
: Dominoes, et dominoes, et dominoes,
Popsies historical axle-grease, exacts bubbly fins
crock lavender …
[*Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the
last syllable of recorded time …]

INSPECTOR
: (
Into ’phone
.) Yes, chief! I think everything’s more or less under control chief…
(
This is a lie. The steps are building
,
MACBETH
is continuing his
soliloquy, in Dogg: drums and cannons … and—
)

MACDUFF
: Docket tanks, tarantaras!
[*Make all our trumpets speak!]

(
Trumpets sound
.

And a
MESSENGER
rushes in for
MACBETH.)

MESSENGER
: Flummoxed git! [*Gracious lord!]

   
MACBETH
: Docket! [*Speak!]

MESSENGER
: Cenotaph pay Birnam fry prevailing
cakehops voluntary!
[*As I did stand my watch upon the hill
I looked toward Birnam and anon methought
The wood began to move.]

   
MACBETH
: Quinces icepacks! [*Liar and slave!]

(
MESSENGER
retreats
.)

(
Throughout the above
,
EASY
is calling for, and receiving, in the right order, four planks, three slabs, five blocks and nine cubes; unwittingly using the English words.
Meanwhile
,
MACDUFF
has confronted
MACBETH
.)

MACDUFF
: Spiral, tricycle, spiral! [*Turn, hellhound, turn!]

MACBETH
: Rafters Birnam cakehops hobble Dunsinane,
fry
counterpane nit crossly window-framed,
fancifully oblong! Sundry cobbles
rattling up so chamberlain. Frantic, Macduff!
Fry butter ban loss underlay—November glove!
[*Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet will I try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff;
and damned be him that first cries ‘Hold
enough!’]

INSPECTOR:
(
Interrupts
.) All right! That’s it!
(
The
INSPECTOR
mounts the now completed platform
.)

INSPECTOR
: Thank you. Thank you! Thank you! Scabs!
Stinking slobs—crooks. You’re nicked, Jock.
Punks make me puke. Kick back, I’ll break necks,
smack chops, put yobs in padlocks and fix facts.
Clamp down on poncy gits like a ton of bricks.
(
CAHOOT
applauds
.)

CAHOOT
: Gymshoes. Marmalade. Yob?
(
General applause
.)

EASY
: Yobbo, git.

INSPECTOR
: Boris! Maurice!
(
Two
POLICEMEN
enter and stand to receive slabs thrown to them from the doorway
.)

MACDUFF
: Spiral, tricycle, spiral!

INSPECTOR
: Slab!
(
Grey slabs are now thrown in and caught by
BORIS
and
MAURICE
who build a wall across the proscenium opening as
MACBETH
and
MACDUFF
fight and
MACBETH
is slain. ’Phone
rings
.
EASY
picks it up
.)