WIFE: They say all flesh is grass.
HUSBAND: Well, not my flesh, it’s not. Not me. I’m not grass.
WIFE: Yes you are. You’re grass. Look at you. You’re half-cut and gone to seed. And like all flesh, you’ll have your season and you’ll be mowed down. And then you’ll have it on your conscience for eternity. The music, that’ll still be playing. And the grass will still be whispering. [Beneath the portico behind them, SAMUEL BECKETT enters from OFF, LEFT. He notices the couple on the steps, but does not notice CLARE or BUNYAN in their alcoves. BECKETT wanders over to stand just behind the couple, looking down at them in puzzlement as they ignore him.]
HUSBAND: Eternity. God, there’s a thought. All of that bloody whispering, for eternity.
BECKETT: Hello, now. How are things with you tonight?
WIFE: It’s me shall have to put up with the whispering and all the tongues.
BECKETT: Tongues? I’m not sure I follow you.
HUSBAND: Oh, and that’s my fault, is it?
BECKETT: I’m not saying that it’s your fault, I’m just saying I don’t follow you.
WIFE: Well, you’re the one with all the secrets and the mysteries and the goings on.
BECKETT: Ah, that’s a common thing, to say that I’m impenetrable.
HUSBAND: Oh, not that old tale again. Give it a rest with all of your long silences and all of that evasive and insinuating chatter you’re so fond of. I’m fed up of it.
BECKETT: I’d have to say I don’t think that you’ve understood contemporary drama.
JOHN CLARE: They can’t hear you. We’ve been through all this already.
WIFE: I’m the one who’s fed up of it.
BECKETT: [Startled, BECKETT wheels round to face CLARE and BUNYAN.] Who’s that? What’s all this about?
JOHN BUNYAN: Be not alarmed. My friend here has explained it to me. We, like you, are but departed shades, and living souls such as the pair upon the step can neither see nor hear us.
JOHN CLARE: I’d go further. I do not believe that they can smell us, either.
BECKETT: Departed shade? Don’t you go telling me I’m dead. I haven’t even got a cough. To my mind, it’s more likely that this is a dream of some description.
JOHN BUNYAN: That is very like what I myself supposed, and yet I’m told that we are halfway through the twentieth century after our Lord and I myself beneath the turf more than two hundred years.
BECKETT: Two hundred years? Well, I’m all right, then. [BECKETT looks around and gestures towards the surrounding town centre.] All this looks like just after the war, whereas as far as I’m aware I’m sleeping in a hotel in the far from satisfying 1970s.
JOHN CLARE: A hotel! In the 1970s! I do not know which of these things is harder to imagine!
JOHN BUNYAN: Just after the war, you say? Was it another civil war?
BECKETT: A civil war? God, no. Is that the time that you yourself are from? This was a war with Germany, primarily; the second of two world wars that we had. They flattened London so the English firebombed Dresden, and then the Americans dropped something that you can’t imagine on the Japanese, and then it was all over.
JOHN BUNYAN: [BUNYAN also glances around at the surrounding town, his expression mournful.] So, then, it would seem the nation’s pilgrimage has taken it to just beyond the City of Destruction. By my calculations, that would make this place Vanity Fair.
BECKETT: You’re quoting Bunyan at me, now?
JOHN CLARE: It’s not like he can help it. He’s John Bunyan. And I’m Byron.
JOHN BUNYAN: [To BECKETT.] Oh, don’t listen to him. [To CLARE.] No you’re not. You’re making both of us look bad and not to be believed. You said yourself you were John Clare. Stick to your tale or we’ll end up with everyone confused as you!
BECKETT: [BECKETT laughs in amazement.] John Bunyan. And John Clare. Well, now, this is a lively dream. I must book into this hotel again.
JOHN CLARE: [Surprised and incredulous.] John Clare. You’ve heard of him? You’ve heard of me?