HUSBAND: Goings on? What goings on? [WIFE does not reply. He stares at her for a few moments then gives up and looks down at his shoes in silence. CLARE looks from one to the other, hopeful of further conversation. When none is forthcoming, he sags dejectedly.]
JOHN CLARE: [Sighs heavily.] Oh, never mind. Sorry I’ve bothered you. It’s just a game that I’ve come up with for when no one’s here to talk to. Tell you what, I’ll leave you both alone and mind my business. [CLARE turns and begins to shuffle back towards his alcove. Halfway there he turns and looks back over his shoulder at the couple on the steps.] Do you know, sometimes I think I am the statue with stone wings atop the Town Hall up the road, and it in turn is everyone? [The couple do not respond. CLARE shakes his head sadly then continues on towards the alcove, where he once more takes his seat. There is a long silence during which the piano music from off finishes abruptly halfway through a bar. Nobody reacts.]
HUSBAND: [Eventually.] Look, I’m as in the dark as you are. As for goings on, not that I’m saying I’m aware of any, that’s just life as far as I’m concerned. In life, you’ll always get a lot of goings on. And highly strung young girls, they can have funny turns –
WIFE: There’s goings on and goings on. That’s all I’m saying.
HUSBAND: Celia, look at me.
WIFE: I can’t.
HUSBAND: The chances are, what all this will turn out to be, she’s on her rags.
WIFE: [Turning to him angrily.] You bloody liar. You heard what she shouted.
HUSBAND: What?
WIFE: You heard.
HUSBAND: I didn’t.
WIFE: Everybody heard. They could have heard her in Far Cotton. “When the grass is whispering over me, then you’ll remember.” Well? Remember what? What did she mean? To me, it sounds a funny thing to say.
HUSBAND: Well, that’s … that’s just the song-words, isn’t it? The song that she was playing –
WIFE: You know that those aren’t the words. And you know what you’ve done.
HUSBAND: You mean these goings on of yours?
WIFE: They’re not my goings on. They’re yours. That’s all I’m saying. [While they talk, JOHN BUNYAN enters from off right beneath the portico behind them, dressed in dusty, drab 17th-century attire. He does not appear to notice CLARE sat in the shadows of his alcove, but instead pauses to listen to the bickering couple on the steps with a puzzled frown.]
HUSBAND: I’ve done nothing anyone in my position wouldn’t do. You haven’t got the first idea of what it’s like, with my responsibilities for managing the band. All of the travelling around together, there’s an intimacy that develops over time, I’ll grant you that, but –
WIFE: I dare say there’s intimacy! So, am I to take it you admit that there’s been goings on?
HUSBAND: I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean by goings on?
WIFE: I mean the other.
HUSBAND: What?
WIFE: The slap and tickle.
HUSBAND: I’m not getting you.
WIFE: The How’s-Your-Father.
HUSBAND: Oh. [Long pause. WIFE looks angrily away from HUSBAND, who stares bleakly at the ground in front of him.] Well, anyway, we can’t sit here all night.
WIFE: You’re right. We can’t. [Both remain seated. Behind them, BUNYAN regards the silent couple with bewilderment. He still has not noticed CLARE until the latter speaks from the dark alcove in the background.]
JOHN CLARE: Ha! I’ll bet you won’t hear me either, you great nincompoop.
JOHN BUNYAN: [Wheeling about to peer into the darkness under the portico.] What? Who goes there, skulking like a cutthroat?
JOHN CLARE: Oh, no. I’ve miscalculated. This is an embarrassment.
JOHN BUNYAN: Come out! Come out, before I draw my sword! [CLARE rises nervously out of his alcove, tottering hesitantly forward with both palms raised in placation.]
JOHN CLARE: Oh, come now. There’s no need for that. ’Twas but a jest, for which I make apology. I had not realised you were dead as well. It is, I’m sure, a common error.
JOHN BUNYAN: [Surprised.] Are we dead, then?
JOHN CLARE: I’m afraid that is my understanding of the situation, yes.
JOHN BUNYAN: [Turning to look at couple on steps in foreground.] What about them? Are they dead?
JOHN CLARE: Not yet. I expect they’re hanging on to see what happens.
JOHN BUNYAN: This indeed is a conundrum. Dead, then. I had thought that I but dreamed, and had not woken on my gaol cot to make water or turn on my side in an uncommonly long while.
JOHN CLARE: It is a plain fact you will never do these things again.
JOHN BUNYAN: Well, I am astounded. I had thought the world to come a fierier terrain than this, and now am disappointed by the writings that I made about it.
JOHN CLARE: [Interested.] Was it writings that you made? Well, here’s a pretty match. I once was in that kind of work myself, now that I think of it. I wrote all day, I’m sure of it, when I was married first to Mary Joyce and then to Patty Turner. Was I Byron then, or was I king? I can’t remember all the little details now, the way I once did. But what of yourself? Would there be any of your writings I might know of?
JOHN BUNYAN: I’d not think it likely. I once penned some words about a pilgrim, meant to show the pitfalls and the troubles that there are in worldly life. The common people liked it well enough, yet I was not the courtly crawler Dryden was, and when another Charles came to the throne I did not do so well of it. This recent news of being dead makes me suppose the greater part of what I wrote did not survive me.
JOHN CLARE: [Incredulous, with dawning realisation.] You would not be Mr. Bunyan, late of Bedford?
JOHN BUNYAN: [Cautiously flattered.] That I am, unless there is another. Is it so few years since my demise that I am still remembered? But things seem so changed. Were not the pillars of All Hallows Church here built from wood when last I passed this way? Or did that all go in the fire? It makes me pleased to think you know of me.
JOHN CLARE: Why, from the look of things I’d say it must be getting on three hundred years since you were last alive. I take it you’ll have noticed the fine calves and ankles on the woman there, for they were the first things I looked at. It’s outlandish days we’re in, you may be sure, but I would bet a shilling that the progress of your pilgrim is a thing on everybody’s lips, just as your name’s on everybody’s feet. Upon these feet of mine, most certainly, when I made my own progress out of Matthew Allen’s prison in the forest and walked eighty miles back home to Helpstone. You’ll no doubt have heard of it, and of myself. I am Lord Byron, who they call the peasant poet. Does that ring a bell?