Andrew looked up from the Food section of the Sunday Times. “Did he jump out of his coffin and give everybody the finger?”
“No.” I sat down on a Brazilian leather cube impersonating a chair. “He left me a lot of money.”
That made Arnold sit up straight. Finally I had produced something worthy to compete with three- melon risotto. “How much?”
“A lot.” Two beats. “All of it.”
I hadn’t seen Arnold this excited in a long time. “This is the uncle we never once went to visit, even though he only lived in New Rochelle?”
“He’s the one.”
“And there are a lot of other relatives…” I saw the penny drop. “Is this the same guy who used to feel you up when you were little?”
“He’s the one.”
Arnold whistled. “Wow!” he said, “Break out the champagne! Let’s drink to old fashioned Calvinist guilt!”
But I couldn’t drink. “There’s an unpaid
housekeeper who says she’ll sue.” I tried dismissing that
ugly scene from my mind. But ugly scenes don’t go so easily.
“Screw her,” he laughed, “Doubtless the old man did. To the one who got away!” he snorkled. “With…” drum-roll on the glass coffee table… “all the money!”
“I could split it with her,” I said thoughtfully. “Except that I need it all.” And if I divorced Arnold, I’d have to split it with him.
His eyes narrowed over my unusual decisiveness. “Sounds like you’ve made a plan.”
“I have. I’m pregnant and I’m moving.”
He rose to pursue me to the kitchen. I was the pursued one now.
“Rich? Pregnant? Moving?” He banged his palm against his chest. “It’s a lot to handle for one afternoon. Where are you going, oh helpmeet?”
“Upstate. The country.” There was no champagne. Of course not. There had been nothing to celebrate for so, so long. I poured us each an apple juice. “You could come with.” Two beats. “But you’d have to give up your girlfriend.”
Surprise! I saw him try to toss it off and keep on dancing. “What’s that? Getting jealous are we? Symptomatic of your condition?”
“Gayle.” I leaned forward, giving back the name. “She sent me such a charming letter.” In which she stated her utter non-comprehension of why the moody bitch wouldn’t just step aside and let the poor, kind, considerate man go free. Ugh. Apple juice is disgustingly sweet. I’ve never understood how adults can covet the provinces of children. Poor little sugar addicts, they are ruined before they start. I tried adding powdered tea from a mix. Still bad. The no-liquor lifestyle is a tough sell.
He was sputtering like a damp firecracker. But it was not Arnold’s turn to speak.
“Screwing students is the beginning of the end for a teacher. You’re lucky she notified me and not the superintendent.”
Unfortunately I could always read Arnold’s mind. He really needs to get some more interesting thoughts. I saw him deciding he’d better stop aimless denial until confronted with the evidence against him.
“Why upstate?” he bartered, testing me. “Why not, say, Europe?”
“Because,” I answered, “I like to get something for my money.” That alone made me my uncle’s worthy heir. Glittering silver dollars lit the darkened rooms of memory. I persisted — for I’m nothing if not persistent — “Haven’t you heard of the curse of the lottery winner? They spend it all and then some. I want a property I can buy outright – debt-free.” Wouldn’t it be heaven owing nobody nothing?
He toddled toward the window on his be- jeaned insect legs. He looks much better in big-boy pants. Was he trying to imagine life without me? Or without New York? So I sealed the deal with a siren song. “You could finish your screenplay…”
Amy liked Aunt Petra from the moment she first met her, because Aunt Petra was the only
grown-up who understood about the ghost room.
It was Amy who carried Aunt Petra’s suitcase up the stairs and showed her into the Blue
Room, because Amy’s mother was busy with lunch.
“I wonder why they didn’t put me in the ghost room,” said the guest, not even looking around her cheery boudoir before flinging herself on the bed and wrapping herself like a caterpillar in her paisley
pashmina.
Amy’s heart beat faster. “How did you know?” she gasped. Aunt Petra hadn’t even toured the house. The door to the ghost room was always closed and as directed, Amy had tried to scuttle past without
glancing in its direction.
“It felt cold, for one thing,” said Aunt Petra. “Several degrees colder than the rest of the
house. Brrr.“ She shivered. “I’m still cold.”
“Mom says it’s the furthest from the furnace,” Amy told her, “But when we put in an electric
heater it kept shorting out.”
Aunt Petra laughed. “Never heard yet of a ghost who mastered electricity, but I’m prepared to
believe it’s possible.”
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That’s when Amy decided she liked Aunt Petra so much. She offered, since her aunt didn’t appear to be moving “Would you like me to unpack for
you?”
“That would be wonderful,” said her aunt, so Amy opened the suitcase. Clothes and books and cartons of cigarettes and pill bottles were just thrown in haphazardly, but Amy took things out carefully one by one, folded them the way her mother had taught her. She
gave each category of item its own drawer in the highboy.
“I see you have a scientific mind like your father,” Aunt Petra commented. “Would you please hand over those cigarettes?” As soon as she had them in
hand she lit one and puffed on it fiercely.
“I’m going to be an artist,” objected Amy, although she wasn’t supposed to correct or even “talk back” to adults, which meant never pointing out they were obviously wrong. Then, “Mother says those things
will kill you.”
“Everything kills you,” sighed her aunt. “Everything, everything. You’ve got to take your pick.” She coughed heavily. “Allow me to serve as a bad
example.” swinging her feet, and reverted to the subject she really
Amy sat on the slipper chair, wanted to discuss. “There’s the smell,” she offered.
Aunt Petra looked at her floral cigarette in surprise so Amy elaborated, “In the ghost room. We washed it down in disinfectant and Mother had the rat man in but there was no getting rid of it. It comes
and goes.”
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”Very interesting,” said Petra in her drawling voice. “This will allow us to identify the ghostly
presence. What exactly does it smell like?” Amy considered. A question she
had never been asked before. “Dirty feet.”
“Ah,” said Petra. “I recognize that one. It’s the stench of neglect. Neglect and consequent
regret. Truthfully, do you go in there often?”
And although Amy had been forbidden to enter the room if she was going to insist on talking about the ghost, she liked Aunt Petra so much she
answered honestly. “Yes.” “So have you seen this ghost?”
Amy nodded gravely. “And you, Aunt Petra? Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“No,” said Aunt Petra, “I never have and I never will. Some people are gifted one way and some another.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the water glass Amy’s mother had thoughtfully provided for quite another purpose. Amy was too surprised by the revelation that you could believe in ghosts without ever seeing one to notice. Aunt Petra was certainly a strange species of grownup. So Amy asked, “But why would you want to
believe in ghosts? I mean if you didn’t have to?”
“When you get older you’ll find it very nice to believe that life doesn’t come to a full stop just because we’re no longer physically around,” her aunt responded. “Anyone over thirty is already a big fan of
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second chances.” She smoked. ‘And third and fourth. Infinite chances are very attractive.”
“Well Mother doesn’t believe in ghosts. She took me to the doctor.” Amy hated the fat doctor whose fingers smelled of penicillin. He was only good for shots. And sure enough, he gave her a vitamin shot. Vitamin B12 to cure her of ghosts. Amy had been afraid it would work, but of course it didn’t. Thinking about it, she ran her finger thoughtfully around the rim of
the empty suitcase.
“Know what’s especially amazing about it all?” asked Petra. “Your mother was half your age
when she saw her first ghost.”
me!”
Amy squealed incredulously. “Tell
“Well, our high school was right next to the kindergarten and so I always walked your mother home after class. And one day my appendix burst right in the middle of gym – I was rushed to the hospital but in the excitement everyone forgot about your mother completely. She waited until it was dark and then she tried walking home alone. She said this dog – she described him perfectly with his long droopy ears and the spot to the right of his nose – was following her. And he had such a friendly face he gave her courage. She knew he wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to her. Then when
she got home he disappeared.” Amy jumped up and down in her
excitement. “And the dog was a ghost?”
“It was my dog Peanut who died long before your mother was even born. We had no pictures of him and we never talked about him, so how
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could she have known? I wished I could have been the one to see him but I was grateful to him for walking her home. I liked thinking he was there.”
“You should tell her she saw a ghost,” insisted Amy. “She doesn’t even know!”
“Oh, you know your mother,” said Petra comfortably. “She wouldn’t believe either of us. We should give thanks instead for her practical head. Look at this beautiful room. And I know in advance that dinner
will be delicious and healthy.” Amy cared not a fig for house-
keeping. “I wish our ghost was a dog.” “Tell me all about him.” Aunt Petra
fixed her niece with a bright, beady stare.
“He’s an old man in a rocking chair. The rocking chair’s a ghost, too. He sits with a finger in the Bible, looking out the window at the frozen pond. He
never ever looks at me. Not once.”
“Maybe you’re a ghost to him,” said Petra. “What’s he look like?”
“He has white hair brushed straight up. And overalls. And boots with big looping laces that touch the floor. And his face is all wrinkly. His earlobes
dangle almost to his shoulders.”
“I can just see him,” said Petra. “Doesn’t he ever read the Bible? Just looks at the pond? I
wonder if I know what he’s thinking.”
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“I don’t see how you could.” Did ghosts have thoughts? Amy was astonished.
“He’s probably thinking he’s useless and his life is over. Wanting to jump right into that pond
but afraid of what will happen.”
“He must have jumped if he’s a “Maybe he regrets it.” “He ought to go to heaven with the
ghost,” said Amy. rest of the spirits and stop bothering us,” said Amy
heatedly. the doorway. “Let Aunt Petra rest before dinner. She’s had
a long trip.” said Amy, and Aunt Petra backed her up.
“Maybe we should tell him that.” “Amy!” Amy’s mother appeared in
“I wasn’t bothering her, honest,”
“We were having a wonderful talk.”
Downstairs her mother gave Amy a hug. “I know Petra wishes she had a little girl like you.”
“Well, why doesn’t she get one?”
Amy’s mother tapped a wooden spoon uncomfortably against her left cheek. “You know
mothers need a daddy to make a baby.”
“Well, why doesn’t she get one of those?” It was terrible the way grownups acted powerless
all the time when they had all the power in the world.
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“Because she looks like hell warmed over,” said Amy’s father, sitting at the kitchen table with
his newspaper. “Marriage isn’t just about looks!”
“Bob!” barked Amy’s mother. “She acts snarky and superior too,”
said Amy’s dad. “Nobody likes that.”
“But you want me to be superior,” argued Amy. “You put me in the advanced class and made
me skip second grade.” “Just know you are superior without
acting that way,” said her father, confusingly.
Amy didn’t believe him for a minute. Aunt Petra was so easy to talk to she could probably explain to Amy the most puzzling problem of all: the difference between insides and outsides. How come people looked one way and felt another? In the following days she hung around her aunt, who never chased Amy away or acted bored by her company. She was the first to
tell Amy that her name meant “Loved.”
“The one who is loved. Could there be a better name? That says it all. My name means
“stone”.” change it,” said Amy. Aunt Petra was the one always
“If you don’t like it you should saying life was all about choice.
“Some things you’re stuck with,” said Petra. “Some things you can fix. It takes a lot of living
to tell the difference.”
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Of course she wanted Amy to take her to the ghost room. Aunt Petra told her sister that the light was just right for watercolors and so Amy’s mother allowed a special dispensation. At the doorway Aunt Petra halted, spread her arms and chanted,“Cold Huntsman,
depart, take your knife from out my heart.”
Cold Huntsman?”
Amy was impressed. “Who’s the
“The Cold Huntsman is Death,” said Petra. “It was just something we used to say when we were children, going anywhere scary. It’s a big help when passing graveyards by the light of the moon. It must have worked because I’m still here. Let me know when the
ghost comes back.”
Amy considered it a lot more exciting to be a child in the olden days, walking by yourself to school and strolling past graveyards by the light of the moon. No one she knew was allowed to get away with anything like that now. Parents seemed to
assume everything was fatal
Gratefully she offered, “Would you like me to paint a picture of you?”
“I would love that.” “It will be a picture of your insides,”
said Amy, “because I can’t do people’s outsides yet.”
“Better and better,” said Petra. “It’s just my insides that I care about. How can one girl get so
lucky?”
Aunt Petra was the perfect model, because all she wanted was to lie there. So Amy drew her with a face like the sun. Then one day the ghost came back.
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“He’s there,” she told Aunt Petra through chattering teeth. It was colder than it had ever been, and she felt a deep sense of horror, like she had
somehow made things worse.
Petra sat right up and threw off her pashmina. “I’m going to tell him he can go,” she said.
“Leave us.”
Amy waited in Petra’s room in an agony of excitement. When Aunt Petra finally returned her face was gray with exhaustion. She threw herself on the
bed.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“Did you see him?”
“I didn’t need to see him, I could feel him. I went and stood in his place right by the window.
Where he must have been sitting.” “You must have made him so
angry,” whispered Amy. “Was he the Cold Huntsman?”
“No. The Cold Huntsman had come and gone. I told him what he chose was the right thing and everyone else forgave him so we wanted him to forgive
himself.”
“And then?” “And then he went away. I think for
good. I hope so. We’ll see.”
“Let’s tell Mom!”
Amy jumped wildly up and down.
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But Petra made herself very small, under her shawl on the big bed. “When you grow up you will learn there are some things you can never tell
anybody.”
After Aunt Petra left the ghost didn’t come back. The room warmed up and the stink went away. Amy’s mom wouldn’t let Amy move her bed in there, but she was allowed to put her art table in the ghost’s place, under the window. Petra was right; the ghost had sat in the very best light. Amy was working there one day when she had the funniest feeling. She turned around and there was
Aunt Petra, lying under a shawl on the bed, eyes closed. Amy burst through the kitchen door
wailing. “Aunt Petra’s dead!”
Her mother’s face was stained with tears. “I should have told you,” she sobbed, “but I didn’t
know the best way. How on earth did you guess?”
But although Amy was a long way from grown up she had finally learned that there are some
This can’t be real, Jazz. It isn’t real. It’s some planet we’re not on.
JAZZ
But it makes perfect sense. It answers all the questions. You know in your heart that was his plan all along.
CHASE
It can’t be real because my Mom is dead. Years ago. She killed herself the first Christmas I didn’t come home.
JAZZ
(Keeps trying to go back)
But I saw her. I We were there. How can it not be true?
(He tries to hug her – she resists)
Don’t touch me! I don’t feel like touching ever again.
(CHASEsits on the edge of the stage)
CHASE
Corso loves games – he’s always up for the latest thing. He can even claim he told us! We fell for it like puppies jumping for a biscuit.
JAZZ
So that part’s real? Our sex archetypes all over the cloud?
CHASE
Sexsomnia is real. He was way ahead of me.
(beat)
I should have guessed. It’s always the worst thing he can think of. Welcome to my nightmare.
JAZZ
I don’t want details.
CHASE
But we need to see – Everyone needs to see – just how the magician operates.
JAZZ
You’re right – magic is the important thing. There was magic all along, in spite of Corso.
CHASE
All he cares about it is cash and control. He honed the perfect weapon to take life hostage.
JAZZ
How ironic that the moment we stop believing, magic appears!
CHASE
Only toddlers believe. And toddlers are ill-equipped for these frolics. Where’s the magic in that?
JAZZ
Seeing your Mom was magic.
CHASE
Dark magic, you’ll agree. What were they thinking? Russian-Irish could never work!
JAZZ
My combination’s Portuguese-Swedish. Your Mom said she forgave you.
CHASE
She didn’t!
JAZZ
She did. I heard her. What was it like to see her again?
CHASE
Amazing and frustrating – the way it always was.
JAZZ
Admit we got the most wonderful bath! For a few minutes we saw how happy we could be.
CHASE
A ritual cleanse. Did seem like it was working.
JAZZ
I felt such peace, like nothing could hurt us ever.
CHASE
Then my Dad showed up.
JAZZ
So now I know him, too. I experienced them through you.
CHASE
In the house that never got finished. I pushed my Dad into bankruptcy. I destroyed my family.
JAZZ
You did not.
CHASE
If you’re going to be my soulmate you’ve seen the house of horrors where you have to live. Nobody could blame you for walking out.
JAZZ
Where would I walk to? Seriously. I thought the more worlds we saw the more paths – the more choices we would have, but the maze leads only two places – sickness and murder or – each other.
CHASE
But what if we resist?
JAZZ
Are we back to murder? A life for a life?
CHASE
Surely you see the appeal?
JAZZ
I think when you want to kill Corso it’s really your dad you want to kill.
CHASE
Wow! Free therapy! Bzzzt! No. My Dad I can get away from.
JAZZ
Apparently not.
CHASE
Once and done.
JAZZ
Finding crime scenes should not be inspiring us to create more of them.
CHASE
Why not, if everyone’s doing it?
JAZZ
Jails are full of defective reasoners.
CHASE
So I’m a defective reasoner, am I?
(JAZZsits beside him)
JAZZ
Seems like. I’m stuck with you and you’re stuck with me.
CHASE
But I don’t get it – if death doesn’t free you, what does?
JAZZ
Why couldn’t you tell me about her?
CHASE
I can’t even go there.
(long pause)
JAZZ
If you can’t go there I can’t see where there is to get to.
CHASE
Sexsomnia is like sleepwalking. They –
JAZZ
Would you stop it with trying to rationalize the irrational? It makes me feel so alone.
CHASE
(Holding her – she lets him)
We can’t have that.
(They start to kiss)
Maybe it hasn’t happened yet.
JAZZ
What part?
CHASE
The video Corso’s trying to create. If he hasn’t finished it, he hasn’t released it.
JAZZ
But what we did. It’s out there, alive, wandering the cloud.
CHASE
Maybe not.
JAZZ
I like this Chase better. So let’s get rid of it and warn the others.
CHASE
Are you sure they’ll care?
JAZZ
Someone will.
CHASE
They may prefer secrecy, or destruction. But people don’t believe without evidence.
JAZZ
Our suffering is the evidence.
(She pushes him away)
You wanted this to happen. You twisted my life into evidence for your crime scene. You used the rest of us as bait.
CHASE
I swear I had no idea he’d go this far. But if it’s real we’ve got to face up to it. Destroying the evidence doesn’t cancel our suffering.
JAZZ
Without the video, we don’t remember. If we pass it along, Corso wins – whoever we pass it to.
CHASE
It isn’t “gone” just because we can’t remember. Haven’t what we’ve been through shown us that? It becomes a negative hallucination.
JAZZ
I feel sure I don’t want to know what that is.
CHASE
It means is not seeing the obvious.
JAZZ
Forgetting is almost as good as innocence.
CHASE
That’s what Corso counted on.
JAZZ
Help me.
CHASE
I’m trying.
(the distance between them is growing. They reach out their arms to each other but it’s too late. CHASE fades into darkness)
– KITCHEN set, bar with overhead wineglass and pot rack, burners steaming ( ZOYAorchestrates the food)
ZOYA
Stevie, could you open the wine and let it breathe?
(Clutches her own throat)
No one wants a strangled wine.
CHASE
Jazz drinks any kind of wine.
ZOYA
Jazz? What kind of name is that?
JAZZ
It’s a nickname. My name is Jasmyn Suzino.
ZOYA
(Thawing. She is cautious and protective, not mean)
If you’re important to my son I’m so glad you’re here.
CHASE
She’s very important to me.
ZOYA
I hope you like Welsh rarebit and Coquille Saint Jacques.
JAZZ
Sounds delicious. I hear you do your own cooking?
(CHASE takes bottle and opener from his mother.)
ZOYA
Love is the main ingredient, I always say. Red or white?
(She pulls down wineglasses from the overhead rack. There are several bottles of wine.CHASEopens them one after the other. JAZZ looks a little scared as if she might have to drink all this)
JAZZ
Oh, whatever. May I have ice, please?
CHASE
(Being a Farrell)
No.
ZOYA
Oh, for heavens sake let her have whatever she wants! Lemon, sugar! Anything! This is a party!
(Slaps out an ice bucket)
CHASE
Taste it without ice first. It’s Christmas wine from Lebanon.
JAZZ
Wow. Delicious. You’re right….forget the ice.
(JAZZsits at the bar – ZOYAblots the corner of JAZZ’s mouth with a napkin, lays napkins down. What with spoons and potlids, she gives an impression of sacred priestess juggling sacred tools)
CHASE
Mom made all this lace herself.
JAZZ
Awesome. Exquisite. I didn’t know humans made lace.
CHASE
Mom was beaten into submission by nuns. You propitiate the gods by giving them lace.
ZOYA
(Raps him sharply with a spoon)
Stevie, you heretic! What will our guest think?
CHASE
“Make our damn lace or be consumed by the Holocaust!”
ZOYA
Stevie! Oh, what’s the use? You’ll never change. I forgive you.
JAZZ
Uh, the flowers on that cake look almost real.
ZOYA
I love making sugar flowers. Those are lilies and camellias. I wore them at my wedding.
CHASE
Mom studied pastry making at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.
ZOYA
It was just a summer course. Canapés or crudités?
CHASE
Crudity always.
JAZZ
(ToCHASE)
Paris! Were you there?
CHASE
Naw. I was just a bullet in my father’s bandolier in those days.
ZOYA
Oh, Stevie! You’re such a silly! How I love you! No, he’s never been to Paris. We’ve not been back. That was our honeymoon, so long, long ago.
(Seems like she might cry)
It’s so hard to keep the rarebit from separating.
(sniffs – offers a plate)
Duck pâté?
JAZZ
Er, sure.
(ZOYA and CHASE toss off their wine, he refills their glasses. JAZZ holds hers against her chest. ZOYA reaches down a platter)
ZOYA
I love to cook! Following a recipe to make things right. I wish people ate more, but they’re always on such weird diets. Cyanne’s a vegan who won’t eat gluten. Everything’s changed. I used to pick my own watercress but now I’m afraid of the fisher cats.
CHASE
Fishers eat squirrels, mom, not people.
ZOYA
Somebody needs to eat those squirrels. They’re too assertive. But it’s the fisher cats who scream – like someone being murdered.
CHASE
They’re nocturnal, Mom. And watercress is out of season.
ZOYA
(Fighting back tears)
So how does your family celebrate grand occasions, Jasmyn? I’m sure it’s something more splendid than a homely family party.
JAZZ
(nervous)
We make a lot of toasts.
(She lifts her glass. ZOYAandCHASEboth drain their glasses and immediately refill as if that’s what etiquette requires)
ZOYA
Stevie, you say the blessing.
CHASE
You’re going to have to stop calling me that, Mom. My name is Chase.
ZOYA
But that’s a stupid name. It doesn’t mean anything. Steven was your grandfather’s name.
CHASE
But he’s gone. You want me to be gone?
ZOYA
I’m praying you never leave again.
(Lifts her glass)
Zemlya pukhom!
CHASE
It’s your birthday, Mom. We toast to you.
(He raises his glass)
ZOYA
(Abashed, almost frightened.)
No more bad luck. I’m not fit to catch God’s eye. Dolgaya zhizn!
JAZZ
What’s that mean?
CHASE
Long life.
JAZZ
Long life!
(They drink. A moment of happiness. Enter CUTTER FARRELLdressed as if for wild weather. CUTTER slowly removes outer gear but continues to play with belt – appraising the group as if wondering who to use it on. He is a cold, cold-eyed man, a paler, blockier version of CHASE. Accepts drink from placatory ZOYA)
CUTTER
Filthy night. What have we here?
ZOYA
Stevie brought a friend to my birthday party! Isn’t that exciting?
CUTTER
(Takes drink, cranes his neck insultingly)
Little Stevie brought a date? Where is he? I don’t see him.
(JAZZsteps up bravely and offers her hand)
JAZZ
Hi, I’m Jasmyn Suzino.
(CUTTERtakes her hand and presses it to his chest, looking her up and down at his leisure)
CUTTER
Where did this dark-eyed beauty spring from? Be still my loins. I’m Cutter Farrell, young lady. Pleased to make your acquaintance.
JAZZ
(Awkwardly)
I go to school with Chase. Er – Steven.
CUTTER
Bet you met him yesterday.
(JAZZ reacts as though this might be true. CHASE steps forward, detaches JAZZ’s arm)
CHASE
Pick on someone in your own weight class, Dad.
CUTTER
And that would be you? I’ve heard braggadocio but I’m getting tired waiting.
ZOYA
(Panicky)
Please don’t fight. It’s my birthday.
CUTTER
I don’t like surprises. That’s all.
(Pops some savory in his mouth and drains half his drink)
So. Suzino. What kind of a name is that?
JAZZ
It’s Portuguese.
CUTTER
Is there a Dad in your picture?
JAZZ
(After a beat)
Not really.
CUTTER
That’s the Portuguese in him. We Irish, now, keep families together. We hang on till every lost dog is drawn and quartered.
(ZOYAsnaps tensely atCHASEwho is eating)
ZOYA
(Spanks his arm with her lace napkin)
Don’t double dip, darling! It’s disgusting!
(Blots her forehead)
I’m sorry.
CUTTER
(Poking freely among the crudités tray)
When’s dinner?
(ZOYAclatters pot lids hopelessly)
ZOYA
Half an hour. Forty-five minutes.
CUTTER
Just enough time for a private pow-wow. Bring your drinks, kids. You’ll need them.
CHASE
No thank you.
CUTTER
I’ve got a business proposition for you. Come along now: fair’s fair. You’ve got to give me a chance to get my money back. All the cash I spent on you…
CHASE
I’m not putting my money into any of your schemes.
(CUTTERtakesJAZZ’s arm)
CUTTER
Fine. Then your little girlfriend and I will have a sit down. You stay out here with Mummy the way you always preferred, Jasmyn and I will have a heart to heart and find out what’s what.
ZOYA
(Desperate)
Cutter, please!
CUTTER
You cook, dumpling, I’ll entertain our guests.
ZOYA
By arguing?
CUTTER
I only stand up for what’s mine.
(ToCHASEwho’s sliding unwillingly off his barstool)
You’re going to wantto see this. Believe me. It’s the next biggest thing, and I’m offering you a buy-in on the ground floor.
CUTTER’S DEN- SCENE XIV. Macho and dark; leather furniture, deer head, creels and powder horns, gun rack
CUTTER
So, what are you studying in this college of yours?
JAZZ
We’re participating in a research experiment.
CUTTER
I’ll bet you are. Anything to do with the Internet?
JAZZ
The Internet?
CUTTER
(Shaking his head as he looks atCHASE)
Where do you get these girls? You haven’t heard of the Internet, young missy? The World Wide Web?
JAZZ
(Blushing but controlling herself at a warning look fromCHASE)
It has nothing to do with that.
CUTTER
(Studying her speculatively)
Well, I can’t answer for how they behave in Portugal, but it’s possible you were pimped out without your knowledge.
(Picks up a video controller. CHASEandJAZZstares stupefied at a screen that flickers dancing shapes over their faces)
CUTTER
Look what your boyfriend got you into! It’s a game, see? You can make them do any combination, anything you want.
(Struggles with his controller)
How do you make this thing go frame by frame?
JAZZ
Oh, my God. It’s US!
CHASE
Turn that thing off!
(CHASElunges for his Dad, they tussle, CUTTER playing “keep away” with remote)
CUTTER
Wait, wait –the good part is coming up!
(CHASE succeeds in dashing controller to floor, screen light goes off)
Here’s a fine thing for a father to have to see! You could at least ensure they disguise the faces – but you all make yourselves so recognizable with those tattoos. Nice birthday gift for mommy, wouldn’t you say?
(CHASE lunging – they are full-on wrestling)
CUTTER
This idea’s worth millions – unless you sign away your rights – AGAIN. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? Anything rather than take dad’s advice! Why don’t you hit me, since you’ve been longing to. Go ahead – hit your father!
(CHASEmanages to turn off screen, throw remote, pushes CUTTER away)
CHASE
Come on, Jazz, let’s get out of here.
CUTTER
I suppose you’ll claim that was art.
(Heavy fake Irish accent)
Will you be taking it around to the festivals now? Put it up for the booby prize?
CHASE
You’re dead to me.
(Dragging JAZZ away)
CUTTER
I’m dead to you, you spineless party pooper?I’mdead toyou?
(ZOYA appears holding a wine opener pushed to her neck)
ZOYA
I’m dead to everyone and nobody noticed!Nobody even noticed!
(JAZZ tries to go to her, CHASE pulls her away downstage – lights off on FARRELL RESIDENCE)
SCENE XI – FARRELL RESIDENCE. (ZOYA, festively dressed excitable little woman with dyed hair teeters forward on high heels)
ZOYA
Stevie!
(She clutches CHASE, kissing him everywhere)
Oh Stevie, Stevie, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come.
CHASE
Miss your birthday? How could I possibly? And I brought a friend.
(JAZZ wavesnervously)
JAZZ
(Awkwardly extending plant)
Happy Birthday.
(Painfully obvious this is way too big a plant for this tiny person)
ZOYA
(Making no move to take it)
Oh, my. That looks so…interesting. Well come in, come in.
( JAZZ unloads plant on hall table, looking around, awed. ZOYA regards plant apprehensively.)
ZOYA
I suppose I’m ancient, dry and prickly just like this plant. Does it come with directions?
JAZZ
It’s a Christmas cactus. It’s going to have three blooms. See?
ZOYA
(Without enthusiasm)
Lovely.
(Clings to CHASE)
It’s so wonderful to see you!
(She squeezes him)
Look how tall you’ve gotten.
CHASE
(hugs her)
Good to see you, Mom. You’re looking well.
JAZZ
Sorry I’m not dressed for a party.
CHASE
Jazz had kind of a disaster. Somebody jumped out of her dorm room window.
(JAZZand CHASEexchange looks)
ZOYA
How terrible! Were they badly hurt?
CHASE
(With relish)
Killed, Mom. Dead.
(His mother backs away, looking at the pair of them)
ZOYA
Do they give you an automatic A and send you home?
CHASE
Urban legend, Mom. You’ve got to stop believing myths.
(His mother strikes him lightly on the arm)
ZOYA
I never know when you’re teasing.
CHASE
If Jazz could borrow something of Cyanne’s…?
ZOYA
(Recollecting she’s the hostess)
Of course, of course. Cyanne has way too many clothes. She’s always shopping. You look about the same size. She’d say yes but she’s away at college. She’s pledging my sorority. Quick drink before you freshen up?
(An expression almost of panic)
Because I’ve got to get back – back to the kitchen.
(Backs away as if dragged – exit)
CHASE
My Mom always bakes her own birthday cake.
JAZZ
Why didn’t you tell me your mother hates plants?
(Gestures)
All these plants are fake.
CHASE
Mom says growth’s a lot of work.
JAZZ
(Mimes looking at family photos on the walls)
That you as a baby?
CHASE
The very same. Aren’t I adorable? You can’t tell which is me and which is Cyanne.
JAZZ
You all look so happy.
CHASE
Appearances can be deceiving.
JAZZ
So your real name’s Stevie.
CHASE
Steven. Now that you know it, forget it. Just another thing that’s gone.
JAZZ
You could have told me.
CHASE
Who knew we’d end up here? I’ve never been good at telling people things. The vortex assumed control.
(BEXappears in a spot on theTOWER LIFT, holding a pair of binoculars and a shotgun. Scans the stage)
CHASE
(Holding JAZZ close)
You’re making me feel incredibly powerful
(They kiss with increasing urgency. BEX appears to focus on them. He racks his gun angrily, climbs down, his spot dissolving. JAZZ and CHASE’s “shadows” explode hugely against the back wall, seeming to rise up in the air)
JAZZ
Feel that?
CHASE
I do. Don’t fight it.
JAZZ
Who’s fighting it? You’re the one fighting it.
SCENE X – SWAP MEET. (When the lights come up the curtain has fallen and JAZZ and CHASEstand outside it, hand in hand, staring into the audience.)
JAZZ
Where are we?
CHASE
Looks like a swap meet. But all they’re selling is Christmas stuff.
JAZZ
That’s weird.
CHASE
Especially since I hate Christmas.
JAZZ
Who could possibly hate Christmas?
CHASE
It never lives up to its billing.
(RADappears, pushing a shopping cart. Sets up a table and starts laying out junk)
RAD
Hi, guys! Long time no see. You in the market for a knickknack? Ganja? Electronics? Jewelry?
CHASE
Is this your gig?
RAD
Gotta have a side hustle – gotta get the scratch. You’d be amazed what some people just throw away. How about a nice Christmas cactus? I did have a shotgun but I sold it.
CHASE
You sold a shotgun? Who to?
RAD
Biker dude from out of town. He said if it didn’t work he would come looking for me.
JAZZ
Does it work?
RAD
Let’s hope so. Just passing on whatever I find.
CHASE
We don’t want anything.
JAZZ
Speak for yourself. I’d love a Christmas cactus.
(RADreaches into the depths of his cart and produces an unflowering – apparently dead plant –JAZZ takes it)
CHASE
Great. It’s dead.
JAZZ
It is not. It only blooms once a year. Says here, this one’s going to have three blossoms.
RAD
Can’t go to the party without a present.
CHASE
What party?
RAD
Isn’t life a party?
JAZZ
So far.
CHASE
More like a bribe for the deadboat captain. So we poor ghosts don’t get shoved into steerage.
RAD
That’ll be a hundred bucks.
CHASE
A hundred bucks!
RAD
This is a rare, one time offer. Not shown on TV. I’ve got bills.
JAZZ
Blood money, remember?
CHASE
If that’s what you want. You got giftwrap?
(RAD produces pink foil and a massive ribbon)
JAZZ
Wow. This says “Happy Birthday.” Do we know anybody born in December?
CHASE
My mom.
JAZZ
Oh, my God! Hide!
(She drags CHASEdown the stage steps to cower behind the stairs. BEXappears with a shotgun, racking the slide. RAD hastily packs up. Both exit offstage)
They’re not letting anyone in. Do you know who lives in Room 824?
JAZZ
Actually, I live there.
SOLIZ
Oh, you do, do you? Well, some guy fell out your window.
JAZZ
Just like your dream!
SOLIZ
(threateningly)
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
CHASE
Some guy? Who?
SOLIZ
Unidentified. You can’t see him, he’s under a tent.
CHASE
Can’t Jazz collect her stuff?
SOLIZ
Come back later. It’s chaos over there.
(SOLIZfrees them from tape; JAZZandCHASElurch off downstage)
JAZZ
This is Soliz’s dream. I remember if she doesn’t.
CHASE
Except this was a guy.
JAZZ
Let’s hope it was Bex.
CHASE
So now you’re pro-violence?
JAZZ
Who’s saying I pushed him? It would be so unlike me.
CHASE
So, no going home for you.
JAZZ
Hadleigh was never my home.
CHASE
Well, you can camp out at my place while we figure out what to do with this new corpse.
JAZZ
Makes me harder for Bex to find. On the other hand when he does, he’ll just get madder.
CHASE
We’ve got enough problems without worrying about satisfying his unsatisfiable psyche. We’ve got three dead bodies!
JAZZ
And God knows how many crime scenes. Explain exactly why soulmating requires detective work?
CHASE
Maybe nature is one big crime scene. Red of tooth and claw.
JAZZ
You and your classical education.
CHASE
Voilã! Here we are at my place.
SCENE VIII – Lights go up on CHASE’S APT – disheveled male bedroom/kitchenette
JAZZ
This is definitely a crime scene.
(Throws herself into a low-slung chair)
CHASE
(Sitting close)
You expected harp music? Hey, you admitted your life was a crime scene too.
JAZZ
I guess I thought the point of soulmates is all the hard work would be magically be done.
CHASE
So no going over the past trying to understand and explain the mess? Wouldn’t that be nice!
JAZZ
Why can’t we just escape the mess? The mess would no longer matter. We could rise above the mess.
CHASE
Your fantasy forgets about the demons. If we’ve unleashed demons –
JAZZ
Who’s to say we unleashed them? I’m not responsible for Bex.
CHASE
Yet he’s out there, rampaging. At least I know I’m responsible for Corso.
JAZZ
But Corso’s using your involvement to keep his rampage going. Oh. Touché. I see what you mean.
CHASE
We’re dissociating. Living each other’s nightmares.
JAZZ
At least we’re braving hell together.
(they touch hands)
CHASE
If it’s purgatory, graduation’s a possibility.
JAZZ
We’re on a multiple universe scavenger hunt!
CHASE
A time and space jigsaw puzzle!
JAZZ
We need to get to the crime scene before the crime happens.
CHASE
How would we know it was a crime scene?
JAZZ
Tell me what you know. What Corso did to you.
CHASE
God! You know I don’t want to talk about it.
JAZZ
What specifically are you afraid will happen if you talk about it?
CHASE
That this whole thing would shatter right in front of me. I would wreck – whatever this is happening between us.
JAZZ
Maybe we’re meant to reveal, not repair, each other’s real selves.
CHASE
Let’s talk about your fears and malfeasance. That’s more fun for me.
JAZZ
Somebody increased power by sucking out ours. We’re going to reclaim it. Tell your soulmate what Dr. Corso did to you.
CHASE
If you know, aren’t you ruined too? How can I stay with someone who knows this disgusting thing about me?
JAZZ
I guess we’ll just have to see. We need to free ourselves to be with each other.
CHASE
But there’s the difference, right there – you left Bex, I pursued Corso. I came after him.
JAZZ
You are so competitive. If you need to be “worst”, prove it.
CHASE
He was a teacher at my choir school. Latin, of all things. We spent an eternity on the Aeneid. God, I hate talking about this. I haven’t talked about it since I was fifteen, with the lawyers and judges.
JAZZ
He molested you?
CHASE
Between my ninth and thirteenth years. He had a way of making us compete to be “the favorite”. If you could just get on that easy street, life became golden. Finally I saw what a prisoner I was. Mustered up the courage to get the hell out of there.
JAZZ
Jesus.
CHASE
Great pillow talk, huh? And that’s not the worst of it.
JAZZ
How could it get worse?
CHASE
I brought him other boys. Whatever he wanted.
JAZZ
You were a kid. None of this could possibly be your fault.
CHASE
Yet here I am. Still a slave.
JAZZ
But you found your soulmate.
(They hug)
How did it end?
CHASE
It hasn’tended. I mean, the sex thing ended when Corso met my sister – my twin sister – and decided he was ready to branch out. He was like, deliver her or else. That woke me up. I went home and refused to go back to school. I finally told my parents.
JAZZ
And?
CHASE
They pretty much behaved the worst they possibly could. First, they didn’t believe me. My dad has always been a total bastard making fun of me for singing in a high voice and wearing a lace collar and Mom was sort of a “the church can do no wrong” nut. You know, like, who are you going to believe, a priest or your own lying eyes? They just couldn’t take it in. Butthena kid at school hanged himself and things started to snowball. Corso got kicked out. People started suing. My dad smelled a payday. The other families accepted settlements not to squeal. Everybody settled except my father. He was holding out for the Big Money that was going to make all his dreams come true.
JAZZ
Then what?
CHASE
What always happens with my Dad. He was having such a good time holding the whip, he waited too long. The minute I turned sixteen, I got legally emancipated. I could prove that Dad was hitting me – I had the sense to record him – so the judge refused to give Dad the cash. Dad declared bankruptcy and I finished high school on my own. Living at the Y.
(Restless pacing)
So on top of everything else, I’m singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of my family.
JAZZ
Scapegoating. People need someone to blame, it’s another form of hostage-taking. This isn’t your fault. Time to forgive yourself.
(Leonard & Virginia Woolf in the Conservatory at Dalingridge Hall)
VIRGINIA If only I could trust you.
LEONARD You can.
VIRGINIA But these drugs turn my brain to cotton wool. There’s a pattern behind the cotton wool, if only I could find it. Did you know the Duckworths, that incestuous race, were cotton merchants? Coining money from the cotton wool that packs me now. If only I could fight back! But my will is so fragmented. My theory is that we all live so dishonestly, unconsciously, disconnected and detached. You are such a stranger! Everything about you is different. That must be why I married you.
LEONARD Tell me everything, Virginia. Tell me what you fear, so we can kill it.
VIRGINIA Where does one begin? Last night I looked in the mirror beneath a pitiless light and suddenly a dreadful animal face showed itself behind me. He bellowed, he stared, his nostrils flared. The pig’s snout broke the mirror until my thighs ached. How could one forget the thrusting of that ugly snout, the snout that meant starvation, pain and death? The purple foaming stain. Somehow it was all my fault. Roars of laughter at my expense. Dream or was it a memory? All that’s left is hopeless sadness. Being dragged down into a pit of absolute despair. Powerlessness. Paralysis. That’s what I remember.
LEONARD Begin at the beginning.
VIRGINIA The beginning is insomnia. I lie awake at night listening to a senile old man gasping, croaking vile indecencies. I thought it was Father, having a fit of the horrors. But the nurse said it was only a cat. Or perhaps the beginning was the whooping cough. I think I knew happiness before I became so ill. The grownups laughed with me, not at me. Whooping cough steals the breath – none of us could breathe. The atmosphere was tangled, matted with emotion. All the children came down with it, all of us gasping. Mother ran from bed to bed until her skin was paper thin and the bones stood out. I used to wonder if Mother had traded my life for hers, until I remembered she preferred the boys. Women serve, men are served.
LEONARD But all of you recovered.
VIRGINIA They threw me into a tank with Gerald, the alligator. Drowning. I knew I must not sink. Couldn’t get my head above the whirlpool.
LEONARD Go on.
VIRGINIA They covered the mirrors when Mother died. I was thirteen. Vanessa was sixteen, Thoby fifteen. Stella was twenty-five, quite grown up. George was twenty-seven, Gerald twenty-four. Adrian was twelve. No one told me what was happening. I was taken to her bed to say good bye but Mother seemed reproachful, so condemning and stern. She said, “Hold yourself straight, little Goat.”
LEONARD Why were you called Goat?
VIRGINIA I was Goat because I couldn’t control my purple rages. The others hated that he talked to me and gave me books. He didn’t allow Stella to read Cousine Bette but said it couldn’t harm me, because I had read Gibbons on the fall of Rome.
LEONARD Did everyone have nicknames?
VIRGINIA Adrian was Wombat, Nessa was the Saint. Thoby was the Goth because he fought. Mother advised self-control to everyone but Father. My mother had two characters, I think. Her real self, and the Angel in the House. Stifler and the life-giver. And to this day I have the oddest feeling that I’m two people, too.
LEONARD Are you talking about the poet Coventry Patmore’s Angel in the House?
VIRGINIA Yes. Wasn’t she so popular? Singing, “Sacrifice. Sacrifice yourself.” I caught her by the throat and killed her. It was self-defense. I had to kill her or she would have killed me.
LEONARD Your mother died of pneumonia, Virginia. Don’t feel guilty, Children are disgustingly violent, every one of them. It’s a wonder anyone lives to grow up. I’ve decided brute strength is the enemy of thought – that’s why bullies rule and why we must all be pacifists and abjure force, even though it goes against our natures. Tell me, was this “angel” thing why Nessa was called Saint?
VIRGINIA No. That was because she was too proud to tell a lie. We hid from Father in the garden, and when he demanded, Didn’t we hear me calling? We all said No. Only Nessa said Yes. I told her she was an old fraud.
LEONARD Goat is the worst name, I think.
VIRGINIA No, that was Stella! She was the Cow, because she brought the milk.
LEONARD These nicknames are strangely degrading.
VIRGINIA I named myself Miss Jan. I so longed to be someone else. Laura was the worst of us but she was called Her Ladyship of the Lake.
LEONARD How old was Laura and why on earth was she called that?
VIRGINIA Laura was exactly Gerald’s age. But she was gone by the time mother died. Sent away, because she wouldn’t mind. Father said she was the Giver of the Sword because she forced him to punish her. Then she screamed so he had to punish her more. When Maitland was writing Father’s life he said that everything about Laura would have to be suppressed. Everyone hated Laura.
LEONARD Why did you hate her?
VIRGINIA Temper tantrums. We all had temper tantrums, but hers were worse. Father was still having them, but Mother could calm him.
LEONARD So, Laura went to an asylum?
VIRGINIA When I was ten. Until then she lived with a governess at the top of the house. At night, we heard her howling like an animal.
LEONARD Did your parents ever say what exactly was the problem?
VIRGINIA Mother said she was wicked. Father said she was perverse. Thoby thought she wouldn’t stop touching herself. I read all Father’s letters when I helped Maitland with his book. Father begged Mother to marry him to help with Laura.
LEONARD But she couldn’t help, could she?
VIRGINIA Abominable system, family life. It goes from ignorance and indifference to denial and contempt, open attack and ultimate destruction. None of it was Mother’s fault. She was always visiting the poor and making them clothes. I always thought the poor knew how to enjoy themselves better than we do, because we are cooped up, day after day while they walk out freely.
LEONARD Did you ever visit Laura?
VIRGINIA Once I went with Stella. Laura spoke only gibberish. The only comprehensible sentence was, “I told him to go away.” I couldn’t go back because that was where I saw the deformed men.
LEONARD I don’t understand why Stella was The Cow. Wasn’t she a young, beautiful girl?
VIRGINIA I thought her lovelier than Mother. She was so pale, so white, she looked like cow parsley by moonlight. I don’t think Mother loved her, really. She was Mother’s loyal handmaid. Stella taught us our letters. She was supposed to look after Father when Mother was gone, and Mother was absent a lot.
LEONARD Where did your mother go?
VIRGINIA Nursing the sick. Mother loved nursing the sick, she said they were easier than the well. She seemed always so far away, in her mind. When we spoke to her she looked through us as if she didn’t see us. While Mother was gone, Stella stood in for her.
LEONARD Didn’t Stella have a life of her own?
VIRGINIA She turned down proposals, I know that. Mother didn’t want her to marry. Cousin Jem was obsessed with her – we children were frightened of him.
LEONARD Cousin Jem? Wasn’t he the mad cousin?
VIRGINIA Yes, but before he was locked up, he conceived a passion for Stella. He would run into the house, shouting, while Stella fled up the front stairs. He pursued her, bellowing, right to the nursery where he speared our toast on his swordstick. I thought he looked like a tormented bull. Father said to tell him Stella wasn’t home, but Mother said she could never bar her door to Jem. She said she loved him and he needed us because he was banned from all his clubs. Once he abducted me and Mother.
LEONARD He abducted you?
VIRGINIA Yes, funny, I’d forgotten it till just this moment. I suppose that’s how memory works. He took us to his rooms because he wanted me to pose for him. Mother didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t stop him. As he painted, he declaimed his own poetry:
“if all the harm that were done by men were doubled and doubled and doubled again squared and raised to the power of ten there wouldn’t be nearly enough, not near to keep a small girl for a tenth of a year.”
LEONARD And you were a small girl.
VIRGINIA I was. The smallest. I never saw the picture.
LEONARD How did you get away?
VIRGINIA Did I get away? I don’t remember. I always stammered when I told him Stella wasn’t home so he knew I was lying. When he grabbed me by the collar I thought of the Ripper Man who had been in all the papers. This is what they must have felt, those women, when they were grabbed by Ripper Man. I’m afraid I wet myself and Nurse was angry. She punished everything I did, but I never listened to her. Nurse claimed all emotions like fear, dread, disgust – come from desiring the wrong food or not moving one’s bowels. Children must accept whatever’s given. If you show a preference, then that’s the very thing you’re not allowed to have. It’s as bad for a girl to cry for what she wants as for a boy to land a blow. Yet we did both, because Nurse was nobody.
LEONARD Cousin Jem was taken away to the madhouse. That was a good thing, surely.
VIRGINIA Where he starved himself to death, and that’s what I shall do if ever you lock me up in one of those places.
LEONARD Go back to your mother’s death.
VIRGINIA I didn’t know what had happened until I saw the nurses crying. I thought they were pretending and we should laugh at them but everyone pulled a face. I went to kiss Mother but she was cold as iron. I never touch iron without thinking of her. Father caromed off people and walls, seeking anyone to wail against. It was like being shut up in a cage with a wild beast.
LEONARD My family was rigidly quiet when my father died. Stiff upper lip, get on with it, try harder, everyone must buckle down. That sort of thing.
VIRGINIA A family is a conspiracy, driven by uncontrollable lusts. I saw a man sitting with mother’s corpse but the others saw no one there. We became unmoored, entering a time of hopeless suspense, muddle, mismanagement, battling the stupidity of those in power. It was as if a finger had been laid upon our lips, sentencing us to a sultry, opaque miasma that choked us and blinded us. Father shouted at Stella if she didn’t stock his writing paper or ordered too much fish. I knew it really was because she couldn’t tell him he was a first-rate writer, as mother always did. Stella had no mind and nobody respected her. Poor father was haunted by fears that he only had a third-class mind.
LEONARD And did he, do you think?
VIRGINIA His ego crippled him. Self-assertion is so loathsome. Father began writing The Mausoleum Book. About death. He wailed from the top of the stairs, “We perished, each alone.” Nothing is to be dreaded so much as egotism. Stella tried her best to rescue us. I wasn’t kind to her because she dragged me to the dentist and ordered all my clothes. I couldn’t bear standing for inspection while being stuck with pins. She was made me wear stays for the first time. Then Stella fell in love.
LEONARD With Jack Waller Hills. Did you like him?
VIRGINIA I did then, but I realized later he was a terrible old Fascist. He used to say, “the weak are wrongdoers who foul the nets.” I know he meant me, that I was a weak wrongdoer. In the end, he was a typical man who liked to have his way. He always put his great hoof down. But at first, he seemed the only truth-teller we had ever met. I was thirsty for knowledge, and he knew things. He taught me how to sugar trees for moths, how to collect and mount butterflies, how to take pride in killing beautiful things. He told me everything about sex, about “street love”, common love, why it is that women can never walk alone. I was so shocked. I asked, What about honor? He said men never think of honor, that they had women constantly, so all their talk of purity is nonsense. Every man has his whore. Every woman except the cheap ones must be locked up tight. Yet they call women fallen! Men are the whores. It makes no sense to me.
LEONARD It does sound mad.
VIRGINIA The night Jack proposed a tramp broken into the garden. Thoby threatened him, shouting at him to go away. We were always frightened of tramps – it seemed they could get in anywhere. I was afraid one had invaded the house and was lurking and leering, waiting to pounce. But it was only Jack. When Father found out about the engagement he tried to stop the wedding but Stella had her own money so he could do nothing. He postponed the wedding until Stella agreed to buy the house next door so that she could still take care of him. During all this Nessa and I were forced to chaperone. You can’t think how awful it is to sit between a couple whispering and trying to touch. I was so angry at Stella I broke my umbrella in half.
LEONARD Child chaperones? Whatever will they think of next?
VIRGINIA I know! I often think I’m the only one who isn’t crazy! Stella and Jack convinced the aunts that Nessa and I could accompany them properly to Bognor but immediately we got there they sent us two out into the rain so they could be alone. We were soaked to the skin!
LEONARD Was there no one who could speak for you?
VIRGINIA The old aunts were the worst of the lot. They curdled our brains with their falsehoods and their pieties. The wedding was the most horrible ordeal. Nessa and I resolved to be Stoic and show no emotion, as if it were nothing touching us. If ever you show feelings you are treated like a beast at the zoo and will never escape the cage. Thus we were buried beneath obligations, under torrents of uncomfortable clothes, awkward visits and unspeakable rituals. I think we are to be congratulated, you and I, that we sidestepped that whole mess so neatly.
LEONARD Yes, the registry office is so much better. It’s over so fast. But after the wedding?
VIRGINIA The happy couple went to Italy, and we were left alone with Father. He was awful to Nessa, how I hated him! He shouted at her as he’d shouted at Stella. But Nessa stood up to him, she was a rock, she didn’t care. That’s when she summoned up her supreme indifference. It’s the bane of all who love her.
LEONARD But Vanessa had no money of her own.
VIRGINIA No. If Stella hadn’t given us allowances we would have had to beg Father for every penny. And then Stella and Jack came home early because Stella was ill.
LEONARD What was wrong with her?
VIRGINIA Violet Dickinson told me Jack must have hurt her with his violent lovemaking. That he broke her somehow. But Violet was just a spinster, so what could she possibly know? The doctors called it appendicitis but you know what cretins they turned out to be. They couldn’t operate because of the baby – she was pregnant, of course. On the night she died, I was sleeping in her new house – in her dressing room in fact –
LEONARD You were sleeping in Stella’s dressing room?
VIRGINIA Yes, I’d been so ill, you see. I always got ill when people went away. But Stella was dying so they sent George to fetch me. George the over-fed pug dog, fat as a louse, beady-eyed as a rat. He wrapped me in Stella’s fur cape and carried me back to Father’s house.
LEONARD And then?
VIRGINIA Stella died and Jack was left bereaved. Now we had two widowers wailing. The men in our family hardly waited for the bodies to be buried before turning to their next victim. I remember Jack holding my wrist on one side so tightly he left bruises, and George holding me on the other side. I was trapped, you see, I couldn’t get away. George won so Jack settled on Nessa. They actually wanted to marry! I couldn’t believe it. I told Nessa, you can’t be serious! She said, “So you’re against me too,” and gave me a look that broke my heart. But she knew they couldn’t marry because of the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Act.
LEONARD They could have married in France.
VIRGINIA That’s what they say about everything, that “the French get away with it.” Luckily it all blew over because Nessa was granted a place at the Slade. Then I was quite alone. George pounced immediately and began ordering clothes and jewels to release me into society. I was the sacrificial offering to his violent gusts of passion and his mean little piggy brain.
LEONARD
And then?
VIRGINIA
And then Father began to die and I went mad a little. After he died, I went mad a lot.
LEONARD
Well, it isn’t any wonder, from what I’ve heard. If you are mad then so am I.
VIRGINIA You can’t think how long I’ve waited for those words!
(she reaches out a hand to him – he clutches it and kisses it)
LEONARD
Dearest! You will always be my only love!
(they gaze at each other, both trembling with pent-up emotion)
VIRGINIA But darling, if Dr. Craig consigns me to deepest darkness you will have to marry someone else. You can’t waste your life waiting for me.
LEONARD That won’t happen. Craig says our future’s what we make of it.
VIRGINIA Oh, honey mongoose! Let’s make a pact right now to rise above the nay-sayers. You have given me all the best things I have ever had in life, rescued me from the cliff edge again and again. You have been absolutely perfect to me, and I have been disgraceful to you. You work so hard and I do nothing. It’s all my fault. I was mad and angry before I met you and I am madder and angrier right now. I want you to know that I do want to cuddle you but I don’t know how to show it. In spite of my vilest imaginings I’ve always known that I love you and that you love me.
(he leans his face towards her, she awkwardly moves closer and they kiss delicately)
LEONARD Virginia, I promise not to ever push you any farther than you want to go.
VIRGINIA Oh honey! And I promise to follow all your rules; early bed, milk for breakfast; just so long as I can always read and write.
(they embrace)
LEONARD
If ever you cease writing I shall divorce you immediately.
VIRGINIA
(laughing awkwardly as if she has forgotten how)
It’s a bargain. Oh, darling, shall we really have our own press and print all our own work?
LEONARD Yes, and some of your friends if they are good enough. You decide.
VIRGINIA
And can I have a bulldog, too? I’ve always wanted a bulldog pup.
LEONARD
Certainly, my pet.
VIRGINIA
And can we live in London? A new house all our own?
LEONARD
Not London but perhaps some leafy suburb.
VIRGINIA
Leonard! Suburbs!
LEONARD
Think of the bulldog, Virginia. He must have a healthful life.
VIRGINIA
You’re right of course, Leonard. You are always right.
LEONARD
Bulldogs need a place to roam.
VIRGINIA
Fresh air and food. Lots of good red steak.
LEONARD
May I order dinner now, Virginia? Surely, it’s time.
VIRGINIA Yes, Leonard.
(She clutches his hand fiercely while with his other he rings the bell) CURTAIN – END
(Curtain. Lights up on Scene 3, CONSULTATION ROOM of DR. CRAIG. LEONARD sits, head in hands.)
DR CRAIG Glad to see you, Mr. Woolf. I am eager to hear your opinion of the progress of our patient.
LEONARD Virginia and I have been talking and I must admit she does not sound altogether mad to me.
DR CRAIG My dear fellow, insanity of the mind merely means whatever derangement disables a person from thinking the thoughts, feeling the feelings and doing the duties of the social body in, for, and by which he lives. Insanity is nothing more than a want of harmony between the individual and his social medium. That individual sadly becomes a social discord of which nothing can be made.
LEONARD She speaks frequently of her home life where her brothers took advantage of her.
DR CRAIG You are referring to her delusions. You will have noticed that patients, particularly intelligent ones, are very cunning as they seek to involve their caregivers into sharing their beliefs of persecution and misfortune. It is much better not to allow oneself to re-hash a history that must remain forever uncertain but to forcefully insist on a calming, healthful daily regimen starting now.
LEONARD Surely, you’ll agree that being resentful of bad treatment hardly constitutes insanity.
DR CRAIG My dear sir, your wife is under doctors’ care because she tried to take her own life. We are obviously not dealing with a healthy person here. No, taken by themselves, delusions do not necessarily indicate insanity but when they are found in conjunction with broad evidence of failure to conform one’s general conduct to the ordinary rules of life and society such a diagnosis must be made. Clearly such an obligation places great responsibility on the keen insights and experience of professional men rigorously educated to the highest standard and admitted by the demanding qualifications of the Royal Society of Medicine. As a man of the world you must know that is always very common for weaker beings to resent those on whom greater fortune has been showered and to feel their gains are somehow ill-gotten. This resentment stirs up a host of fantasies that must be very firmly rejected. Successful work never leads to this disorder but unsuccessful work shows a very different etiology.
LEONARD But in the case of Virginia’s upbringing –
DR CRAIG Mr. Woolf, in every case the instinctive impulses of children must sooner or later clash with the social regime, to the infant’s sorrow and momentary discomfiture. Elders must be recognized as the authority in such matters or chaos would result. Therefore, no airing of childhood wrongs can ever constitute a fruitful line of inquiry.
LEONARD It seems the situation was so severe that Dr. Savage was consulted at the time –
DR CRAIG My good fellow, it would be better for you to face the fact that delusions never require any other support than the conviction of the deluded. A man may believe, for example, that his head has been opened, his brains removed and some other substance substituted. That is a very common delusion, I can assure you.
LEONARD Virginia is an intelligent woman. I believe she must be handled intelligently. I may even say she has a touch of genius. In fact, I believe she is the only true genius I have ever met.
DR CRAIG Are you arguing that geniuses are in some way above or beyond the law, Mr. Woolf? I certainly hope you are not.
LEONARD Her family was considered the highest intellectual intelligentsia of their day. It seems obvious to me –
DR CRAIG What is obvious to me, is that the degree of education and the social status of the person whose conduct is under consideration are indeed important facts, for habits that would be decidedly eccentric in the upper classes may pass unremarked in the lower reaches of society. The sex of the patient is even more critical to diagnosis. Outbursts of emotional weeping in men, for example, are a symptom of grave import but among women occasion no remark. Any woman’s effort to escape her true femininity places her moral hardihood at peril. Imagine some up to date woman adopting a divided skirt under the belief that it is a healthier form of apparel and permits greater freedom of action. Very well. But should she indulge in so subversive a notion as to think that male attire is even more hygienic and to actually carry her belief into practice, the arm of the law will at once reach out to warn her. If the warning is not heeded, society will place her in safekeeping until she has learned to conform to the ideas of the majority. This is the situation in which your wife finds herself at the current time. Before her marriage, I am given to understand that your wife frequented a rather louche artistic bohemia. Now that she is a married woman you have acquired a unique opportunity to place her feet on a more secure footing. I understand you have rejected the possibility of committing her to an asylum but want to give her another chance in the wider world. It is accordingly crucial that you not indulge her in useless analysis of who or what was at fault in her upbringing but encourage her to commit to a fresh new life, with you, where she submits to a healthful pattern which you will lay out for her.
LEONARD What you say makes a good deal of sense, but Virginia has always had her own ideas about everything. Her reading alone, even from childhood has been voluminous. I think I can say that she’s read everything and everybody.
DR CRAIG Now I think you are laying your finger on a much likelier culprit in your wife’s hysteria than the boyish behaviors of exuberantly boisterous, youthful males. Most women’s minds are simply not capable of absorbing and processing the histories and theories of men who lived in more pernicious times. As a Cambridge graduate you do not need me to point out which books might be especially dangerous. We may even disagree on which authors have a nihilist or even Bolshevik bent. But if you are committed to keeping your wife out of the asylum you must make it your life work to supervise your wife more closely in future. I understand there is family money?
LEONARD Some money. We will both need to seek employment.
DR CRAIG I think you will find your wife far too fragile for the hurly burly of economic exchange. These patients are frequently considered brilliant in conversation. But on inspection this seeming brilliancy will be found in large measure to be due to the unconventional nature of their chatter. Patients such as your wife are often considered more entertaining when ill than when in health for through loss of control they make remarks which the healthy would fear to utter. A sane person is inhibited in both speech and action. I think you must reconcile yourself to having a saner, healthier but possibly duller wife who partakes of a less unsettling society.
LEONARD But can it ever be right to subject an intelligent person to regimes designed for the mad?
DR CRAIG My dear sir, there is really no distinction between physical disease and mental disorder. Mrs. Woolf must learn to practice equanimity and you are the best judge of how to assist her in that course. In any given individual where nothing more than exaggerated and uncontrolled normal characteristics may constitute mental disorder, we realize how narrow is the margin between those whom we call the sane and the insane. You are her husband. Have faith in your power to exercise benevolent dominance. It is a husband’s obligation.
LEONARD But Virginia is so sensitive! I am concerned –
DR CRAIG I cannot suggest too strongly, my dear sir, that you focus more on your wife’s bowels than on her brains. Constipation is not only a common symptom of the insane, it is the rule rather than the exception. Another symptom which appears early and which stands out in strong relief, is hypersensitivity. To me this is the symptom of all symptoms which may occasion unsoundness of mind.
LEONARD Virginia becomes so excited when I approach her –
DR CRAIG I will prescribe Hyoscynamine. It is a wonderful relaxant which has given excellent results in quieting the most difficult patients.
VIRGINIA Go away, Leonard. I can’t bear to hear you lie to me.
LEONARD I’m not lying when I say I want you to get well more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.
VIRGINIA Don’t bother making me feel guilty, I already know I’m wasting your life. If only I weren’t so stupid a Mandrill, so unworthy of her poor, virtuous outsider Mongoose who is so thin, who trembles so much and who tries so hard. You have headaches too, you suffer from recurring malaria. Why should you toil so that I can be idle? I know these doctors’ bills are crushing us. Nessa sold the silver, I sold the jewelry, Thoby sold the Thackeray letters. What’s left, Leonard? Will you scheme with them to isolate me until there’s nothing left?
LEONARD I can earn money writing. I’ve proved that. You can earn money writing, you’ve proved that. But to get back in the fight we must be hardy and strong.
VIRGINIA I should never have married you. What kind of a wife can I ever be? Save yourself, Leonard. It’s too late for me. Let the wind blow, let the poppy seed itself, let the carnation mate with the cabbage. Let the swallow build her nest in the drawing room where the thistle thrusts between the tiles. Let all civilization be like broken china tangled over with blackberries and grass.
LEONARD That you demand so much of existence, still fighting as you sit among George’s flowers, shows you’re feeling better. What we must do is keep up the strengthening. A few more days, Virginia.
VIRGINIA But how can I return to you? There’s the undisputed fact of my sexual cowardice. Perhaps it’s really nothing but my terror of real life that keeps me in this nunnery. I tried telling my parents but they didn’t want to hear. Parents have forgotten their own childhood. Or they don’t want to remember.
LEONARD What did you try to tell them? You can say anything to me.
VIRGINIA I saw the spirits of evil as soon as I could speak, but because I was a girl child I was not supposed to know. Each child hugs its vice, brooding over the swollen vein, the bruised flesh that was white and sweet but yesterday.
LEONARD I told my parents that life is unquestionably vile and humanity’s nothing but an ant heap. Parents never want to hear that.
VIRGINIA That’s what I love about you, Leonard. You at least will speak the truth. Sometimes.
LEONARD It’s a fallacy to think that children are happy. They’re not. I never suffered so much as when I was a child. Children never forget injustice. But here is the heart of it, Virginia. What we write depends upon what we think. What “spirits of evil” did you see?
VIRGINIA Going to practice Dr. Head’s talking cure on me, are you? Is that the plan? I could make up a dozen stories – I see a dozen pictures. But when I open my mouth I am locked up and shut away. What is my true story? Something lies deeply buried. Shall I grasp it or let it mortify in the depths of my mind? I want to describe the world seen without a self. But I am afraid that there is no future. There are no words.
LEONARD There are words, and there is a future we shall make. Tell me. Tell me everything.
VIRGINIA When I was young, I dug furiously to uncover myself. When I discovered that I was me and not anyone else it seemed a wonderful achievement. Once I sat beside my stepsister Stella on roots as hard as skeletons, and the next day she was a skeleton. It’s strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners or in dreams. Don’t you remember that morning at breakfast when I saw my mother? You said she wasn’t there.
LEONARD I saw nothing.
VIRGINIA Cambridge educated everything but your eyes. What is the hope of talking to you? That was the morning was when I first became aware of the enemies who change but are always present; the forces we must fight even though we suffer terribly becoming separate bodies. Don’t you recognize the enemy advancing against us, pawing at his pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy.
LEONARD Marriage is the opposing force against death. A marriage of true minds can fight all enemies. Once upon a time we shared our thoughts, and fell in love. I needed someone who could hold her own, and there you were. You are the only wife I ever wanted, the only woman I have ever loved. Please, Virginia, I want you to come back to me.
VIRGINIA
(dazzled)
Oh to be a wife, to be wanted, would be so complete! Is it possible, Leonard, after the terrors, the disgusting dangers we have seen?
LEONARD If it isn’t I don’t want to live either.
(She holds out a hand to him. They clutch hands briefly)
VIRGINIA Sit down, Leonard. You look silly on your knees.
(She looks away. LEONARD sits)
VIRGINIA I used to make the family laugh. They thought me clever. But when I chased the evil spirits through a hole in the escallonia hedge, I resolved to tell the exact truth and write down the phenomena I’d seen. But no one believed me, and at that moment the laughter turned against me. I said, must not we find some way to get outside ourselves, to give our brains a wider scope? My parents declared God was dead and the world empty and meaningless. Father said to be weak is to be wretched. He said that Society is a ravenous appetite, and Nature is a state of war. You’ve laughed at me behind my back, I know you have. You, my own husband, want to get rid of me, to lock me up forever and steal my money.
LEONARD I love you, Virginia. Maybe it’s a bad thing to love you as much as I do – it cuts me off from the outside world. But the outside world is worthless and your world is so rich. When I went away to school for the first time I was shocked and appalled by the horrifying corruption of dirty-minded schoolboys. It marked me. Then I realized all of humanity are mean, nasty, untruthful, cowardly, and cruel. Perhaps I’ve been searching for a world that doesn’t exist.
VIRGINIA Perhaps we both have.
LEONARD If you will care for your health – if you will allow me to care for your health – you’ll recover. As you’ve recovered before.
VIRGINIA Nessa won’t rest till I’m brought low. When she was ill with typhoid Savage wanted to put her in a home but I backed her up! I told Savage I would care for her. Now look at what she’s done to me. You betrayed our secret, telling Nessa I’m a frigid failure as a wife. She told Clive and now everyone knows. They’re all laughing, jeering. plotting behind my back. You were sent to Ceylon to break the natives and now you’ve been sent to break me. I have been derided, insulted, sacrificed and betrayed, by all of you.
LEONARD Virginia, I am on your side. My eyes were opened in Ceylon. I was an anti-imperialist wallowing in the fleshpots of imperialism. But I changed. Now I support the independence movement with all my heart. All problems can be solved by science and logic, Virginia. It was I who was a failure as a husband. It was my marital duty to arouse you but you seemed so afraid of me. At my wit’s end, I asked your older sister for help.
VIRGINIA Does she offer lessons in humiliation? She knows how better than anyone. Is it my fault that I hate my legs being pried apart? I should never have married you, but I couldn’t bear to remain a spinster. I was struggling at everything, and you seemed so different. You said you liked women. You said you admired women’s minds.
LEONARD It’s true. Women feel more deeply, think more deeply, talk more deeply.
VIRGINIA Yet men demand obedience. You want me to obey you but I never will. You know nothing about me. Did you know that before I tried to die I read a book? Would you like to know which one?
LEONARD Which book did you read?
VIRGINIA It was your book. Your book that I read.
LEONARD My book?
VIRGINIA Your book about me.
LEONARD (a gratified author, in spite of everything)
You read The Wise Virgins? What did you think?
VIRGINIA So you admit it’s about me!
LEONARD Virginia, please. I’d love to discuss my book with you.
(She hesitates, turning away her face, then facing him with rage)
VIRGINIA
You locked me away so I’d never find out!
LEONARD You were ordered rest cures long before you met me! I don’t believe in guilt or blame. Honestly, I wanted you to read my book as soon as you were well.
VIRGINIA I won’t be stamped and stereotyped. You have publicly lampooned me as a frozen, dowdy, fussy, futile woman.
LEONARD Not true at all. I called you my Aspasia.
VIRGINIA “Cold and snowy, like the rocks.” You said.
LEONARD I’m a bad writer. I agree. I’ve got nothing of your genius. I can never explain what I really want to say. If it’s any comfort to you no one else likes or understands it either. Sales are awful. All I was attempting to do was contrast the world of a poor Jew from Putney with the rarified aristocratic Olympus for which he yearns.
VIRGINIA You hold my world in contempt because you can never be a gentleman.
LEONARD Virginia, you hold “your world” in contempt.
VIRGINIA And then the hero marries the other girl. The stupid, cow-eyed one! It’s a betrayal.
LEONARD It’s just a bad novel, I’ll give you that. Don’t laugh at me. Not everyone is born with your gifts. Consider my perspective. Any rational mind must inevitably face disillusion and depression. I tried to show how poor Harry just couldn’t escape his past. He couldn’t but I think we can. I probably shouldn’t have published it but Arnold was willing and I couldn’t bear to waste all that work and all that suffering.
VIRGINIA What can you, a prizewinning Apostle from Cambridge, an imperialist potentate of a subject country, possibly know of real suffering?
LEONARD Virginia, I’m a Jew from Putney. All my life I’ve been spat upon. Job is the only book of the Bible I ever understood. Who ridiculed who first? I trained myself to avoid personal feeling. Admit you despised me. Your set. You made me into a joke.
VIRGINIA My set despises everyone. That’s what we do. It’s self-defense, from growing up amongst the most monumental hypocrites.
LEONARD You despised me personally. Be honest. You hated kissing me. You could barely bring yourself to marry me.
VIRGINIA But I did it, didn’t I!
LEONARD You wanted to shock them. You were competing with Nessa to see who could be most scandalous.
VIRGINIA I wouldn’t dare compete with Nessa. Competition is a male thing. It’s a brutal, endless game. I think all competition should be abolished.
LEONARD But it’s all you ever do! Your flirtation with her husband –
VIRGINIA (cringes visibly)
Oh God, not that. Somehow that memory turns a knife in me more than anything. How it catches at me, the fangs of that old pain. I know I lost Vanessa forever. She will never forgive me. I simply couldn’t comprehend why she married such a strange, intolerable creature with his twitching pink skin and a jerky laugh. Before Clive, Nessa and I drifted together on a sea of seducing half-brothers, hiding together beneath the dining room table. We spoke a special animal language.
LEONARD But you were no longer children. Vanessa waited till twenty-eight to marry.
VIRGINIA Who would willingly grow up? I never wanted to. As soon as you’re pushed out of the nursery, the happy moments vanish. Vanessa was the bowl of golden water that brims but never overflows. I lie prostrate at her shrine and still she won’t forgive me. When she brought home friends from the Slade they laughed at me behind the door. You can’t think what it feels like, having one’s self so thoroughly extinguished.
LEONARD I do know it. That was my exact experience at both St. Paul’s and Cambridge. St. Paul’s was a disgusting brothel, but at Trinity I met G. E. Moore. He taught me how to ask the important questions.
VIRGINIA
And what are the important questions?
LEONARD The most important question is why. Why can’t Vanessa forgive a mere flirtation? She must know by now that Clive sets out to bed every woman he meets. You at least resisted him.
VIRGINIA But I did wrong. Clive and I made common cause against my sister, his own wife. Some things should be sacred.
LEONARD
Wasn’t it true that he respected your intellectual work more than he could ever appreciate Vanessa’s daubs?
VIRGINIA Leonard! How can you!
LEONARD
If it’s the truth, shouldn’t we say so?
VIRGINIA
I tried speaking the truth, yet here I am locked up among the imbeciles. And weren’t we just arguing whether all imbeciles should be killed?
LEONARD You’re hardly “locked up with the imbeciles” at Dalingridge Hall!
VIRGINIA You’re wrong. In this castle beats the very heart of idiocy and evil. Aren’t you the one who said the most dangerous imbeciles are running the nation? Here I am at home among the hunters, where the miner sweats and dies and maiden faith is rudely strumpeted.
LEONARD But you used to love George! He told me you’d make an adorable wife.
VIRGINIA Perhaps I’ve been given too much time to think. Get a sense of proportion, the doctors keep telling me. So now I stare for the first time into the very mouth of doom. Look your last on all things lovely.
LEONARD Virginia, if you don’t want to be called crazy, you really must explain yourself. Whatever do you mean?
VIRGINIA George behaved little better than a brute. He never let me alone for a moment. That he was the pet of duchesses hardly excuses him. And yet it was Gerald who broke my hymen, when I was six years old. It’s a painful process. and now I freeze like ice. Give up on me, Leonard, there’s no awakening the dead. I’m ruined by incest, I’ve even desired my own sister. I’m locked up because I stew in murder, just as Laura did. I long to slice Gerald’s fat, transparent flesh, to take a rifle and shoot George directly in his smug, piggy face. Or could I bag him with a net and killing bottle? And why shouldn’t I turn on my tormentors? I suffered, I was helpless, why should I be the one forced to writhe with shame? I longed to be petted but instead was trapped in a cage with lions as sulky and angry as they were ferocious. I’m just a little monkey and little monkeys are too easily squashed and trampled. It’s too late for me, Leonard. My body is spoiled forever by George and Gerald.
LEONARD (shocked)
George? Gerald? These are pillars of society, your own half-brothers! It’s so unbelievable.
VIRGINIA George drowned us in kisses, me and Vanessa. Each kiss was an amputation. I used to sign my work, “One of the Drowned.” Oh, those horrible parties! The oppressive gatherings of Stephenses ground one to a pulp. Because I wanted to discuss Plato I was told I had no conversation. George was so angry! After I removed my ball gown and stripped off my gloves and stockings, he would come into my room and lock the door.
LEONARD But how can any of this be true? How could nobody have noticed it?
VIRGINIA Everyone did notice it. People contrive to bend it to the conventional heroic shape because he kept insisting on the purity of his love. I saw him kissing Countess Carnarvon behind a pillar at the opera! And now she’s his mother-in-law. I asked to join the British Sex Society, dedicated to the study of parent/child incest, but they wouldn’t let me in. Now that you know, you’ll have to spit in George’s face at the club.
LEONARD We don’t belong to the same clubs.
VIRGINIA Then when you thank him for this execrable house, challenge him to a duel. Will he at least feel some regret? Will he take the pigeon gun and blast himself instead? Then the aristocracy will hate me because it’s all my fault. Yet is it not a noble work, letting light in upon the evil Duckworths? Probably he’ll feel nothing. Possibly some vague imbalance.
LEONARD Let’s try to be objective, Virginia.
VIRGINIA If only I could! What a luxury that would be! How I hunger for the objectivity of beloved Macaulay or the stern analysis of cherished Carlyle. Lockhart’s ten volume Life of Scott was the best present I ever received. Reading relieves all my pain, but they won’t let me read anything here. In spite of them I’m continuing to learn. Only life itself matters, nothing but life – and the process of discovery, the everlasting perpetual process, and not the thing itself at all.
LEONARD
Virginia, I am speechless.
VIRGINIA
Now you know how it feels. I used to think it would be enough to have someone share my loneliness. But if no one believes me, the solitude is total. The Duckworths are guilty of nameless atrocities, and you’re complicit. You locked me away here, so I couldn’t speak. As soon as I open my mouth they try to destroy me. It’s a conspiracy of hush.
LEONARD If this is something you’ve only just remembered how can it possibly be true? It sounds mad.
VIRGINIA I don’t think memory is always at the forefront, Leonard. There’s only so much a human being can bear. Memory comes and goes. One requires tools to think with, to make sense of one’s experience, and these tools are alternately dull and sharp.
LEONARD Well, there are some things no one wants to think about.
VIRGINIA It’s clearer in my mind than the bad, stodgy meal I was force-fed yesterday. Our summer place at St. Ives, in the dining room; I must have been six years old. Eighteen-year-old Gerald lifted me up to a high ledge and explored my private parts. I fought and I struggled but I couldn’t get away. I could see his face in the dining room mirror. It was the face of a demon. I’ve seen that face since, on the drooling men who expose themselves in the park. Now I no longer look in mirrors. I can’t cross a puddle. The depth looks back at me, concealing malicious, hairy arms to reach out and grab. I can’t go forward, I am stuck in the loop of the six, no power even to lift my legs.
LEONARD The loop of the six? I don’t understand.
VIRGINIA
I was learning numbers. Six was my number. But I couldn’t close the loop.
LEONARD
This was Gerald you say? But Gerald is your publisher!
VIRGINIA I know! If I am not a madwoman, then the world itself is mad. What was I to do? I wrote a book and my incestuous brother was a publisher! Who else would even look at my work? When I delivered my manuscript to Gerald I was in such acute despair – so near the precipice!
LEONARD Did you tell anyone?
VIRGINIA I told Nessa and she told Dr. Savage. Who is an idiot, as you well know.
LEONARD I can’t believe it. Gerald seems so – so – well, ordinary. So completely controlled.
VIRGINIA Get out of here! I’m sorry I told you. I wish I was dead!
(She is tearing at her own throat – he rushes forward to hold her hands down, lifting her body out of the chair)
The use of force is all you know!
LEONARD Virginia, I love you.
(He kisses her neck, she becomes a dead weight. He lowers her carefully into the chair, arranges a blanket on her knees)
VIRGINIA When you touch me, I feel nothing. My body goes dead. That’s how I froze when George came into my room, night after night.
LEONARD Oh, Beloved!
VIRGINIA Don’t. He called me that. I don’t want to be loved, I want to be believed.
Alysse Aallyn 