Arnold Wesker Roots (1959)

Act 3

Mrs Bryant: There! I hed enough!

Mr Bryant: Well, what dyou wanna do that for?
Mrs. Bryant: I hed enough. All this time sheve bin home sheve bin tellin me I didnt do this and I didnt do that and I
hevnt understood half what sheve said and Ive hed enough. She talk about bein part o the family but shve never
lived at home since shve left school look. Then she go away from here and fill her head wi highclass squit and
then it turn out she dont understand any on it herself. It turns out she do just the same things she say I do. (Into
Beaties face.) Well, am I right, gal? Im right, ent I? When you tell me I was stubborn, what you mean is that he told
you you was stubbonr - eh? When you tell me I dont understand you mean you dont understand, isnt it? When you
tell me I dont make no effort you mean you dont make no effort. Well, what you blaming me for? Blaming me all
the time! I haven;t bin responsible for you since you left home - you bin on your own. She think I like it, she do!
Thinks I like being cooped up in this house all day. Well, Im telling you my gal - I dont! There! And if I had a
chance to be away working somewhere the shole lot of yous could go to hell - the lot on yous. All right, so O am a
bloody fool - all right! So I know it! A whole two weeks Ive bin told ot. Well, so then I cant help you my gal, no
that I cant, and you get used to that once and for all.
Beatie: No, you cant Mother. I know you cant.
Mrs Bryant: I suppose doin all those things for him werent enough. I suppose he werent satisfied wi goodness only.
Beatie: Oh, whats the use.
Mrs Bryant: Well, dont you sit there an sigh gal like you was Lady Nevershit. I ask you something. Answer me. You do
the talking then. Go on - you say you know something we dont, so you do the talking. Talk- go on, talk gal.
Beatie (despairingly): I cant Mother, youre right - the apple dont fall far from the tree, do it? Youre right, Im like you.
Stubborn, empty, wi no tools for livin. I got no roots in nothing. I come from a family o farm labourers yet I ent
got no riits - just like town people - just a mass o nothin.
Frank: Roots, gal? What do you mean, roots?
Beatie (Impatiently): Roots, roots, roots! Christ, Frankie, youre in the fields all day, you should know about growing
things. Roots! The things you come from, the things that feed you. The things that make you proud of yourself
-roots!
Mrs Bryant: You got a family ent you?
Beatie: Im not talking about family roots - I mean - the -I mean - Look! Ever since it begun the worlds bin growin hasnt
it? Things hev happened, things have bin discovered, people have bin thinking and improving and inventing but
what do we know about all that?
Jimmy: What is she on about?
Beatie (various interjections): What do you mean, what am I on about? Im talking! Listen to me! Im tellin you that the
sorlds bin growing for two thousand years and we hevnt noticed it. Im telling you that we dont know what we are
ir where we come from. Im telling you somethings cut us off from the beginning. Im telling you weve got no
roots. Blimey Joe! Weve all got large allotments, we all grow things around us so we should know about roots. You
know how to keep your flowers alive, dont you Mother? Jimmy - you know how to keep the roots of your vegets
strong and healthy. Its not only the corn that need strong roots, you know, its us too. But what weve got? Go on,
tell me, whatve we got? We dont know where we push up from and we dont bother either.
Pearl : Well, I arent grumbling.
Beatie: You say you arent - oh yes, you say so, but look at you. Whatve you done since you come in? Hev you said
anythin? I mean really said or done anothing to show what it mean? Any of you? Shall I tell you what Susie said
when I went and saw her? She said she dont care of that ole atom bomb drop and she die - thats what she say. And
you know why she say it? Ill tell you why, because if she had to care she;d have to do something about it and she
find that too much effort. Yes she do. She cant be bothered - were all too bored.
Mrs Bryant: Blust woman - bored you say, bored? You say Susies bored, with a radio and television an that? I go thell if
shes bored!
Beatie: Oh yes, we turn on a radio or a TV set maybe, or we go to the pictures - if thems love stories or gangsters - but
isnt that the easiest way out? Anything so long as we dont have to make an effort. Well, am I right? You know Im
right. Education ent only books and music - its asking questions, all the time. There are millions of us, all over the
country, and no one, not one of us, is aking questions, were all taking the easiest way out. We dont fight for
anything, were so mentally lazy we might as well be dead. Blust, we are dead! And you know what Ronnie say
sometimes? He say it serves us right! Thats what he say - its our own bloody fault!
Jimmy: So thats us summed up the - so we know where we are then!
Mrs Bryant: Well if he dont reckon we count nor nothin, then its as well he didnt come. There! Its as well he didnt
come.
Beatie: Oh, he thinks we count all right - living in mystic communion with nature. Living in mystic bloody communion
with nature indeed. But us count? Count Mother? I wonder. Do we? Do you think we really count? You dont wanna
take any notice of what them ole papers say about the workers bein all-important these days - thats all squit! Cos
we arent. Do you think when the really talented people in the country get to work they get to work for us? Hell if
they do! Do you think they dont know weont make the effort? The writers dont write thinkin we can understand,
nor the painters didnt paint expecting us to be interested - that they dont, nor dont the composers give out music
thinking we can appreciate it. Blust, they say, the masses is too stupid for us to come down to them. Blust, they
say, if they dont make no effort why should we bother? So you know who come along? The slop singers and the
pop writers and the film makers and womens magazines and the Sunday papers and the picture strip love stories -
thats who come along, and you dont have to make no effort for them, it come easy. We know where the money
 lie, they say, Hemm songs and film idols well giveem that then. Nythings good enough for them cos they dont
ask for no more! The whole stinkin commercial world insults us and we dont care a damn. Well, Ronnies right -
its our own bloody fault. We want the third-rate - we got it! We got it! We got it! We . . .
Suddenly Beattie stops as if listening to herself. She pauses, turns with an exstatic smile on her face.
Dyou hear that? Dyou hear it? Did you listen to me? Im talking. Jenny, Frankie, Mother - Im not quoting no
more.
Mrs Bryant (getting to sit at the table): Oh hell, I hed enough of her - let her talk a whole shell soon get fed up.
The others join her at the table and proceed to eat and murmur.
Beatie: Listen to me someone. (As though a vision were revealed to her) God in heaven, Ronnie! It does work, its
happening to me, I can fell its happened, Im beginning, on my own two feet - Im beginning . . .
The murmur of the family sitting down to eat grows as Beaties last cry is heard. Whatever she will do they will continue to
live as before. As Beatie stands alone, articulate at last, the curtain falls.