ACT ONE
â 1 â
Darkness.
Silence.
Dim light up on the square. In a spotlight stands ALAN STRANG, a lean boy of seventeen, in sweater and jeans. In front of him, the horse NUGGET. ALANâs pose represents a contour of great tenderness: his head is pressed against the shoulder of the horse, his hands stretching up to fondle its head.
The horse in turn nuzzles his neck.
The flame of a cigarette lighter jumps in the dark. Lights come up slowly on the circle. On the left bench, downstage, MARTIN DYSART, smoking. A man in his mid-forties.
DYSART: With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces. The animal digs its sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hourâlike a necking couple. And of all nonsensical thingsâI keep thinking about the horse! Not the boy: the horse, and what it may be trying to do. I keep seeing that huge head kissing him with its chained mouth. Nudging through the metal some desire absolutely irrelevant to filling its belly or propagating its own kind. What desire could that be? Not to stay a horse any longer? Not to remain reined up for ever in those particular genetic strings? Is it possible, at certain moments we cannot imagine, a horse can add its sufferings togetherâthe non-stop jerks and jabs that are its daily lifeâand turn them into grief? What use is grief to a horse?
[ALAN leads NUGGET out of the square and they disappear together up the tunnel, the horseâs hooves scraping delicately on the wood.
DYSART rises, and addresses both the large audience in the theatre and the smaller one on stage.]
You see, Iâm lost. What use, I should be asking, are questions like these to an overworked psychiatrist in a provincial hospital? Theyâre worse than useless; they are, in fact, subversive.
[He enters the square. The light grows brighter.]
The thing is, Iâm desperate. You see, Iâm wearing that horseâs head myself Thatâs the feeling. All reined up in old language and old assumptions, straining to jump clean-hoofed on to a whole new track of being I only suspect is there. I canât see it, because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle. I canât jump because the bit forbids it, and my own basic forceâmy horsepower, if you likeâis too little. The only thing I know for sure is this: a horseâs head is finally unknowable to me. Yet I handle childrenâs headsâwhich I must presume to be more complicated, at least in the area of my chief concern ... In a way, it has nothing to do with this boy. The doubts have been there for years, piling up steadily in this dreary place. Itâs only the extremity of this case thatâs made them active. I know that. The extremity is the point! All the same, whatever the reason, they are now, these doubts, not just vaguely worryingâbut intolerable . . . Iâm sorry. Iâm not making much sense. Let me start properly; in order. It began one Monday last month, with Hestherâs visit.
â 2 â
[The light gets warmer.
He sits. NURSE enters the square.]
NURSE: Mrs Salomon to see you, Doctor.
DYSART: Show her in, please.
[NURSE leaves and crosses to where HESTHER sits.]
Some days I blame Hesther. She brought him to me. But of course thatâs nonsense. What is he but a last straw? a last symbol? If it hadnât been him, it would have been the next patient, or the next. At least, I suppose so.
[HESTHER enters the square: a woman in her mid-forties.]
HESTHER: Hallo, Martin.
[DYSART rises and kisses her on the cheek.]
DYSART: Madam Chairman! Welcome to the torture chamber!
HESTHER: Itâs good of you to see me right away.
DYSART: Youâre a welcome relief Take a couch.
HESTHER: Itâs been a day?
DYSART: Noâ-just a fifteen-year-old schizophrenic, and a girl of eight thrashed into catatonia by her father. Normal, really . . . Youâre in a state.
HESTHER: Martin, this is the most shocking case I ever tried.
DYSART: So you said on the phone.
HESTHER: I mean it. My bench wanted to send the boy to prison. For life, if they could manage it. It took me two hours solid arguing to get him sent to you instead.
DYSART: Me?
HESTHER: I mean, to hospital.
DYSART: Now look, Hesther. Before you say anything else, I can take no more patients at the moment. I canât even cope with the ones I have.
HESTHER: You must.
DYSART: Why?
HESTHER: Because most people are going to be disgusted by the whole thing. Including doctors.
DYSART: May I remind you I share this room with two highly competent psychiatrists?
HESTHER: Bennett and Thoroughgood. Theyâll be as shocked as the public.
DYSART: Thatâs an absolutely unwarrantable statement.
HESTHER: Oh, theyâll be cool and exact. And underneath theyâll be revolted, and immovably English. Just like my bench.
DYSART: Well, what am I? Polynesian?
HESTHER: You know exactly what I mean!... [Please.] Please, Martin. Itâs vital. Youâre this boyâs only chance.
DYSART: Why? Whatâs he done? Dosed some little girlâs Pepsi with Spanish Fly? What could possibly throw your bench into two-hour convulsions?
HESTHER: He blinded six horses with a metal spike.
[A long pause.]
DYSART: Blinded?
HESTHER: Yes.
DYSART: All at once, or over a period?
HESTHER: All on the same night.
DYSART: Where?
HESTHER: In a riding stable near Winchester. He worked there at week-ends.
DYSART: How old?
HESTHER: Seventeen.
DYSART: What did he say in Court?...