The Blackbirds : Part One

THE BLACKBIRDS

 

This tableau is set in a middle of the road hotel in the present day. It is winter and Xmas is approaching. On this particular evening there are two retired, elderly men seated in a corner at one of the tables. One of the men is a resident , the other is a visitor to the hotel. The resident is sixty-five and called Wily Old Bird, the visitor is eighty-four and called Dickie Bird.

UNSPOKEN LINES : Most of the dialogue is actually spoken but the thoughts of the men are occasionally given expression. The thoughts are in italics.

MUSIC : Respighi – The Birds. Extract 1 Prelude (2.59) Extract 2 ‘The Nightingale’ (4.39) Extract 3 ‘The Cuckoo’ (4.22). In contrast to the classical pieces of music Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ can be heard intermittently in the background whilst the men are talking.

THE CHARACTERS : Wily Old Bird is stoic, unchanging and in full command of his faculties. He speaks in a cynical way, but not without wisdom, and always slightly bored. He is knowing and wily.

Dickie Bird is of a different temperament. He has advanced Parkinson’s Disease and has a continually nodding head, which he makes every effort to control. When he speaks his tone is friendly and naive. It is Dickie who starts off the conversation.

 

DICKIE BIRD : Do you know I couldn’t see one of the cars coming at me on the way here tonight. You’re lucky to see me.

WILY OLD BIRD : The pavements are like an ice-rink. You can break your neck. At least you have a stick. I don’t bother going out.

DICKIE BIRD : It’s only a short walk down the road for me or I wouldn’t bother. I’ll get the first round in.

(He totters over to the bar and returns with the drinks)

(Rolling a charoot, Wily Old Bird ponders Dickie’s predicament and pierces him to the quick when he starts off about the past)

WILY OLD BIRD : I was thinking about the wife today. I left her in 1995, and quite honestly I was glad to see the back of her. But now, living here on my own, I sometimes get regrets.

DICKIE BIRD : Oh don’t bring that up, it’s something I just don’t want to talk about. (His voice is getting a bit tremulous but he continues..........) I was very close to my wife and when she died in 1993 it ended my world.

(Wily Old Bird thinks to himself...)

WILY OLD BIRD : That’s over twenty years ago – long enough to get over bloody world war two.

I wasn’t really devoted to my wife, even when we were together. We never saw eye to eye. Your experience has obviously been very different to mine. She put the meals on the table and a bit of housework and that was it. It was more of a working arrangement. She looked after the kids of course and we made love, such as it was, once a week as part of the routine. I didn’t exactly dread Friday night, like you would a visit to the dentist, but I didn’t look forward to it either.

DICKIE BIRD : My wife was everything to me. We shared our life together and when I lost her it was like losing a part of my body.

WILY OLD BIRD : They must have been attached at the waist.

DICKIE BIRD : Some people thought we lived in each other’s pockets and I think in a way were jealous. We had a nice house in a quiet road and I ‘ve still got the first sixpence I earned in the butcher’s shop. It’s mounted up since then of course but I can’t call myself a rich man.

WILY OLD BIRD : Bloody two hundred thousand in the bank by all accounts, if you believe the gossip, and he prefers living in sheltered accommodation anybody could afford. I’m better off than him really, still, he seems happy enough. Well, it’s like this, Dickie, I think you’re as rich as you feel, particularly at our age. I’ve got my two pensions, one from work and the state one and I find I can manage quite well. I’m not saying I’m Rockerfeller but  I‘m not discontented.

DICKIE BIRD : Oh I can manage.......... just about, but it’s not like the good old days when baccy was  a penny an ounce and you could drive the old Ford twenty five miles for a tanner.

WILY OLD BIRD : Stupid old bugger.............. how far back’s he going.....nineteen thirty? The facts are these, Dickie......... time doesn’t stand still and there’s more in life changed than the price of baccy or a car ride. People today couldn’t give a shit about the likes of you or me.

DICKIE BIRD : That’s a funny thing to say. I’ve never felt that. (His head stops shaking a bit and he manages a bit of control) There’s no harm in people, you know, Stan. I think you must be imagining it.

WILY OLD BIRD : He must be living on another planet, poor sod. Far be it from me to bring him down to earth and in a way I hope nobody bursts his bubble. It must be a lot easier than facing reality and a helluva lot more comfortable. I know when we were young there weren’t today’s pressures on people, but in many ways it was just the same. If you wanted to be a bad lad you did what I did and joined the navy. But somehow we didn’t go all out for this pleasure lust which dominates today’s culture. Take drugs. Smack, Ecstasy, LSD, all that trash. What’s the fun in ending up slashing your arms to stuff your veins for a trip? It wouldn’t come to that for the youngsters today if they thought for one minute of somebody other than themselves. I’m not saying I’m against enjoyment, I’m not, but I think it goes further than that when people enjoy themselves at other people’s expense.

DICKIE BIRD : I was reading in the paper today about an old woman who had two thousand pounds stolen from her house, and when the police tracked down the thieves they confessed to blowing it together on a fortnight in Tenerife. I was never callous, Stan................... and to my dying day I couldn’t hurt a fly. Last night I had another of my turns but I suppose my life’s coming to an end........ and although it’s a depressing thought I’m looking forward to resting in peace.

WILY OLD BIRD : Wresting with the devil probably if things are as bad as they seem. I don’t believe in God. I sort of thought it could be true when I was young but after living through recent times I’m convinced there’s nothing to believe in except your own self worth..........If you don’t believe in yourself these days you’ve got nothing, and in that respect I think I’m like the young people of today.

DICKIE BIRD : He’s a shallow fellow: there’s a lot of goodness in my heart and others like me......funny, he doesn’t see it like I do. There’s more to being happy than having self esteem. What I think the young people of today need is the military, whether they believe in themselves or not, and if they do it’s probably in the totally wrong way.

WILY OLD BIRD : We’re going to get a sermon on the profligacy of youth now...... we’ll be here all night. What I think’s different now, Dickie, is people are aware of evil, and a corrupting, murderous evil, at an early age, which we were not. I know things are bad in Britain. I have a nephew, Arnold, and he is a writer but he can’t for the devil get anywhere. It’s as if he was suppressed by the government. He writes really popular stuff and he hasn’t made a penny. You’re not telling me he’s no good because he is. I really enjoy his books. It’s like those Bay City Rollers in the seventies, that pop group all the girls went wild over. Do you remember them? They ended up without a penny because of suppression. They should have been multi millionaires. The powers that be were jealous and took almost everything off them.

DICKIE BIRD : Maybe it’s because they are good people they get nowhere. I know one of the Bay City Rollers became a nurse and lived a blameless life. The people at the top can be so corrupt. I think these boys were hated by an evil regime. The sort of regime that operates under the cover of respectability in this country.

WILY OLD BIRD : Well, they aren’t even respectable are they? I heard on the television that David Cameron had done obscene things with a pig and no one as much as blinked.

DICKIE BIRD : No, I suppose that was propaganda. They could feel he makes mistakes too.

WILY OLD BIRD : I’ve underestimated you, Dickie, you aren’t naive at all.

DICKIE BIRD : No, I know something about Britain – the cut and the thrust of the British psyche.

WILY OLD BIRD : You flatter him, Dickie.

DICKIE BIRD : How clumsy of me, I meant to accuse.

WILY OLD BIRD : Aren’t those lines from ‘The Sound of Music’?

DICKIE BIRD : Well, we’ve come to the same end. The troops will be marching soon enough. Germany are talking of civil war in Europe over the refugee crisis.

WILY OLD BIRD : Yes, they will bring war and terror to our people.

DICKIE BIRD : That’s rather hard, Stan. A lot of it is tragic, a lot lose their lives they are so desperate. The truth hurts, Stan. People hate those that speak the truth.

WILY OLD BIRD : Yes, that’s always been the case, Dickie. It doesn’t look good though does it for the Conservatives? It was on the news that past Prime Minister Edward Heath allegedly abused boys on his yacht and Leon Brittan was an alleged rapist. Because so many of them were corrupt Britain has accrued many enemies.

DICKIE BIRD : The corruption lingers, Stan. Labour shouldn’t have to work too hard for credibiity, should it?

WILY OLD BIRD : I like this Jeremy Corbyn but I think he makes mistakes, like snubbing the Queen for one. It’s as if he wasn’t a patriot. Everybody looks up to the Queen.  She’s the only one who has never been corrupt. He won’t tow the party line at all, will he? But that will just lose him support. Maybe he is a republican but I don’t think that will necessarily be a vote catcher. Also he doesn’t support Trident, another faux pas, if you ask me.

DICKIE BIRD : I think the people are manipulated by a totalitarian government. I f Corbyn comes to power which is what they want it will clear the path to abolishing the monarchy.

WILY OLD BIRD : The truth is the most shocking thing in the world, Dickie.

DICKIE BIRD : Aye, Stan, it certainly is. Once the Queen goes Britain will be nothing, just a nonentity annexed to America.

Continued in Part Two