Henry and Charlotte and Debbie.
The living-room of Scene Two, without all the records. Charlotte is searching through a file of newspaper cuttings and programmes. A large, loaded ruck-sack is sitting by the door. Debbie is smoking.
Henry Since when did you smoke?
Debbie I don’t know. Years. At school. Me and Terry used to light up in the boiler room.
Henry I and Terry.
Debbie I and Terry. Are you sure?
Henry It doesn’t sound right but it’s correct. I paid school fees so that you wouldn’t be barred by your natural disabilities from being taught Latin and learning to speak English.
Charlotte I thought it was so that she’d be a virgin a bit longer.
Henry It was also so that she’d speak English. Virgo syntacta.
Debbie You were done, Henry. Nobody left the boiler room virgo with Terry.
Henry I wish you’d stop celebrating your emancipation by flicking it at me like a wet towel. Did the staff know about this lout, Terry?
Debbie He was on the staff. He taught Latin.
Henry Oh well, that’s all right then.
Charlotte Apparently she’d already lost it riding anyway.
Henry That doesn’t count.
Charlotte In the tackroom.
Henry God’s truth. The groom.
Charlotte That’s why he was bow-legged.
Henry I told you – I said you’ve got to warn her about being carried away.
Debbie You don’t get carried away in jodhpurs. It needs absolute determination.
Henry Will you stop this.
Charlotte No. I can’t find it. It was yonks ago. I mean, not being catty, I was nearer the right age.
Henry Does it really matter who played Giovanni to your Annabella in ’Tis Pity Shes a Whore?
Charlotte I just think it’s awful to have forgotten his name.
Debbie Perhaps he’s forgotten yours.
Charlotte But it was my virginity, not his.
Debbie Was it actually on stage?
Charlotte Don’t be silly – it was a British Council tour. No, it was in a boarding house in Zagreb.
Debbie A bawdy house?
Charlotte The British Council has a lot to answer for.
Henry Look, we’re supposed to be discussing a family crisis.
Charlotte What’s that?
Henry Our daughter going on the streets.
Debbie On the road, not the streets.
Charlotte Stop being so dramatic.
Henry I have a right to be dramatic.
Charlotte I see what you mean.
Charlotte Oh, I see what you mean.
Henry She’s too young to go off with a man.
Charlotte She’s certainly too young to go off without one. It’s all right. He’s nice. (She has given up her search of the file and now leaves carrying the file. To Debbie) If I’m in the bath when he comes I want to see you both before you disappear. (She goes out.)
Henry What does he play?
Debbie looks blank.
Ma said he’s a musician.
Debbie Oh – um – steam organ …
Henry A travelling steam organist? (Pause.) He’s not a musician.
Debbie Fairground.
Henry Well, swings and roundabouts.
Debbie Tunnel of love. How’s Annie?
Henry In Glasgow.
Debbie Don’t worry, Henry, I’ll be happy.
Henry Happy? What do you mean happy?
Debbie Happy! Like a warm puppy.
Henry Dear Christ, is that what it’s all come down to? – no philosophy that can’t be printed on a T-shirt. You don’t get visited by happiness like being lucky with the weather. The weather is the weather.
Debbie And happiness?
Henry Happiness is … equilibrium. Shift your weight.
Henry I don’t much like your calling me Henry. I liked being called Fa. Fa and Ma.
Debbie Happy days, eh? How’re the Everlys getting on? And the Searchers. How’s old Elvis?
Henry He’s dead.
Debbie I did know that. I mean how’s he holding up apart from that?
Henry I never went for him much. ‘All Shook Up’ was the last good one. However, I suppose that’s the fate of all us artists.
Debbie Death?
Henry People saying they preferred the early stuff.
Debbie Well, maybe you were better then.
Henry Didn’t you like the last one?
Debbie What, House of Cards? Well, it wasn’t about anything, except did she have it off or didn’t she? What a crisis. Infidelity among the architect class. Again.
Henry It was about self-knowledge through pain.
Debbie No, it was about did she have it off or didn’t she. As if having it off is infidelity.
Henry Most people think it is.
Debbie Most people think not having it off is fidelity. They think all relationships hinge in the middle. Sex or no sex. What a fantastic range of possibilities. Like an on/off switch. Did she or didn’t she. By Henry Ibsen. Why would you want to make it such a crisis?
Henry I don’t know, why would I?
Debbie It’s what comes of making such a mystery of it. When I was twelve I was obsessed. Everything was sex. Latin was sex. The dictionary fell open at meretrix, a harlot. You could feel the mystery coming off the word like musk. Meretrix! This was none of your mensa-a-table, this was a flash from the forbidden planet, and it was everywhere. History was sex, French was sex, art was sex, the Bible, poetry, penfriends, games, music, everything was sex except biology which was obviously sex but obviously not really sex, not the one which was secret and ecstatic and wicked and a sacrament and all the things it was supposed to be but couldn’t be at one and the same time – I got that in the boiler room and it turned out to be biology after all. That’s what free love is free of – propaganda.
Henry Don’t get too good at that.
Debbie What?
Henry Persuasive nonsense. Sophistry in a phrase so neat you can’t see the loose end that would unravel it. It’s flawless but wrong. A perfect dud. You can do that with words, bless ’em. How about ‘What free love is free of, is love’? Another little gem. You could put a ‘what’ on the end of it, like Bertie Wooster, ‘What free love is free of is love, what?’ – and the words would go on replicating themselves like a spiral of DNA … ‘What love is free of love? – free love is what love, what? –’
Debbie (interrupting) Fa. You’re going on.
Henry Yes. Well, I remember, the first time I succumbed to the sensation that the universe was dispensable minus one lady –
Debbie Don’t write it, Fa. Just say it. The first time you fell in love. What?
Henry It’s to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It’s what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy … we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What’s left? What else is there that hasn’t been dealt out like a deck of cards? A sort of knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what’s shared – she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she’s everybody’s and it don’t mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it’s held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it’s gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain.
Pause.
Debbie Has Annie got someone else then?
Henry Not as far as I know, thank you for asking.
Debbie Apologies.
Debbie Don’t you. Exclusive rights isn’t love, it’s colonization.
Henry Christ almighty. Another ersatz masterpiece. Like Michelangelo working in polystyrene.
Debbie Do you know what your problem is, Henry?
Henry What?
Debbie Your Latin mistress never took you into the boiler room.
Henry Well, at least I passed.
Debbie Only in Latin.
Doorbell.
Do me a favour.
Henry What?
Debbie Stay here.
Henry That bad, is he?
Debbie He’s frightened of you.
Henry Jesus.
Charlotte enters in a bath robe, a towel round her hair perhaps. She carries a bunch of postcards.
Charlotte Ten postcards – stamped and addressed. Every week I get a postcard you get ten quid. No postcards, no remittance. (She gives Debbie the postcards.)
Debbie Oh – Charley – (Kisses Charlotte.) See you, Henry.
Henry There; my blessing with thee. And these few precepts in thy memory …
Debbie Too late, Fa. Love you. (Kisses him.)
Debbie leaves with the ruck-sack followed by Charlotte. Henry waits until Charlotte returns.
Charlotte What a good job we sold the pony.
Henry Musician is he? She’s hardly seventeen.
Charlotte Almost over the hill for an Elizabethan heroine. (Pause.) How’s Annie? Are you going to Glasgow for the first night?
Henry They don’t open for a couple of weeks.
Charlotte Who’s playing Giovanni?
Henry I don’t know.
Charlotte Aren’t you interested?
Henry Should I be?
Charlotte There’s something touching about you, Henry. Everybody should be like you. Not interested. It used to bother me that you were never bothered. Even when I got talked into that dreadful nudie film because it was in Italian and Italian films were supposed to be art … God, that dates me, doesn’t it? Debbie’s into Australian films. Australian. Not Chips Rafferty – actual films.
Henry You’ve gone off again.
Charlotte Yes, well, it didn’t bother you so I decided it meant you were having it off right left and centre and it wasn’t supposed to matter. By the time I realized you were the last romantic it was too late. I found it didn’t matter.
Henry Well, now that it doesn’t … How many – um – roughly how many –?
Charlotte Nine.
Henry Gosh.
Charlotte And look what your one did compared to my nine.
Henry Nine?
Charlotte Feel betrayed?
Henry Surprised. I thought we’d made a commitment.
Charlotte There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day. You think making a commitment is it. Finish. You think it sets like a concrete platform and it’ll take any strain you want to put on it. You’re committed. You don’t have to prove anything. In fact you can afford a little neglect, indulge in a little bit of sarcasm here and there, isolate yourself when you want to. Underneath it’s concrete for life. I’m a cow in some ways, but you’re an idiot. Were an idiot.
Henry Better luck next time.
Charlotte You too.
Have a drink?
Henry I don’t think so, thank you.
How are things with your friend? An architect, isn’t he?
Charlotte I had to give him the elbow. Well, he sort of left. I called him the architect of my misfortune.
Henry What was the matter with him?
Charlotte Very possessive type. I came home from a job, I’d been away only a couple of days, and he said, why did I take my diaphragm? He’d been through my bathroom cabinet, would you believe? And then, not finding it, he went through everything else. Can’t have that.
Charlotte I said, I didn’t take my diaphragm, it just went with me. So he said, what about the tube of Duragel? I must admit he had me there.
Henry You should have said, ‘Duragel! – no wonder the bristles fell out of my toothbrush.’
Charlotte (laughs) Cheers.
Henry (toasting with an empty hand) Cheers.
Henry stands up.
Charlotte Do you have to go?
Henry Yes, I ought to.
Charlotte You don’t fancy one for the road?
Henry No, really.
Charlotte Or a drink?
Henry (smiles) No offence.
Charlotte Remember what I said.
Henry What was that? (Pause.) Oh … yes. No commitments. Only bargains. The trouble is I don’t really believe it. I’d rather be an idiot. It’s a kind of idiocy I like. ‘I use you because you love me. I love you so use me. Be indulgent, negligent, preoccupied, premenstrual … your credit is infinite, I’m yours, I’m committed …
It’s no trick loving somebody at their best. Love is loving them at their worst. Is that romantic? Well, good. Everything should be romantic. Love, work, music, literature, virginity, loss of virginity …