The Complaisant Lover, Page 3

  VICTOR: So did Ann, I think. Ha, ha. (He collects the glasses and carries them into the other half of the room.) They’d make a good couple.

  MARY: He’s nearly twenty years older.

  VICTOR: Well, I’m more than ten years older than you are. A difference like that gives a marriage stability. (He goes to the window.) This window’s not locked. Are you sure yours are?

  MARY: Yes.

  He comes and tests them all the same.

  VICTOR: Now did I, or did I not, lock the back door?

  MARY: What are you afraid for, Victor? There’s no old family silver.

  VICTOR: Well, there’s always a little cash lying around. And there’s your fur coat.

  MARY: The insurance is worth more than my old mink.

  VICTOR: It’s the idea of the thing, I suppose. (He yawns and sits down on the sofa.)

  MARY: Tired?

  VICTOR: A bit. (Pause.) You think I’m too careful about the house. But I’m not so careful as my father used to be. He always locked the inside doors too. Even the lavatory. He really believed it was all part of the Church of England because of that piece in the church service. You know—a strong man keeps his house.

  MARY: There’s something too about moths.

  VICTOR: Oh, mothballs are your province. But I always believe that wearing clothes instead of storing them keeps the moths away.

  MARY: I expect you’re right.

  VICTOR: The same applies to teeth.

  MARY: How interesting.

  VICTOR: Mary, is something wrong?

  MARY: What could be? I clean my teeth twice a day.

  VICTOR: I didn’t mean your teeth.

  MARY: I thought that was your chief interest.

  VICTOR: Yes. After my family. Is that wrong? (She doesn’t reply.) You weren’t ashamed of marrying a dentist sixteen years ago.

  MARY: I’m not ashamed, Victor. Not of you.

  VICTOR: But people are. I don’t know why. My patients don’t ask us to dinner. Yet they ask their doctor. Though he deals in more ignoble parts of the body than I do.

  MARY: I told you I’m not ashamed.

  VICTOR: I wonder how many doctors could say they were as trained as I am. I have to know surgery, radiology, prosthesis …

  MARY: What’s prosthesis?

  VICTOR: It’s too late to tell you now.

  MARY: It is late. Is your first appointment at nine?

  VICTOR: Nine-thirty. There was a time, Mary, when you were interested in what I did.

  MARY: Of course I’m interested.

  VICTOR: Admit you aren’t. There’s nothing wrong in that. If those two young ones marry, you can be sure Ann won’t be so interested in the bookshop after a few years. It’s human nature, Mary. I used to enjoy shopping with you. I don’t now. I get impatient when you can’t decide about the new curtains. I feel out of place among the shop assistants—as you would feel in my surgery in town. We have different professions, Mary. For a year or two we want to share them, but we can’t. I’m not a mother and you aren’t a dentist. That’s not a tragedy.

  MARY: Who’s talking about a tragedy?

  VICTOR: It’s not enough to break a marriage.

  MARY: Of course not. Who said it was? What’s the matter, Victor?

  VICTOR: I’ve felt for the last month that you were unhappy. And now I’ve drunk enough to talk. We don’t talk often.

  MARY: I’ve been a little tired, that’s all. The spring. It’s always tiring.

  VICTOR: You need a holiday without the children. While Sally’s away.

  MARY: It’s difficult. There’s half-term. And Robin’s teeth.

  VICTOR: We are both working too hard. We ought to go off somewhere—by ourselves. You and I haven’t had a holiday together for a long time.

  MARY (flatly): We haven’t, have we?

  VICTOR: The sooner the better for both of us. If only for a week. Suppose after Sally goes back—

  MARY (quickly): There’s the Dental Association dinner.

  VICTOR: Oh yes. I’d forgotten. (Doubtfully, asking her advice:) I could miss it, couldn’t I?

  MARY: You never have.

  VICTOR: I mustn’t get too set in my ways.

  MARY: It’s the only time in the year you can meet Baxter and Saville.

  VICTOR: A wife comes before old friends. You don’t look well, Mary.

  MARY: Suppose I went off for a few days on my own.

  VICTOR (with a cheerful laugh): You’d be bored to death.

  MARY: How do you know?

  VICTOR: Well, I mean it’s so unlike you.

  MARY: I could go with someone.

  VICTOR: Who?

  MARY: Oh, somebody’s sure to be free.

  VICTOR: But you said just now how difficult it was to get away.

  MARY: You don’t need me at the dinner.

  VICTOR: You always come.

  MARY: I have old friends as well as you.

  VICTOR: I offered not to go. Mary, it looks very much …

  MARY: Yes?

  VICTOR: As though you’d rather have a holiday without me.

  MARY: That’s stupid, Victor.

  VICTOR: Then why shouldn’t we both leave out the dinner?

  MARY: You’d miss it, that’s why. And when I’m tired like this I’m no companion, Victor.

  VICTOR: Where did you think of going?

  MARY: I don’t know. Somewhere abroad—somewhere quiet. I could go with Jane. She never spends her allowance. We could manage on it for a week.

  VICTOR: Have I ever met Jane?

  MARY (lying hard): I think once.

  VICTOR: I have an idea. (He takes out his notebook to examine the dates.) You could go away with what’s-her-name—Jane—immediately after half-term, and then four days later I’d join you—after the dinner. Then I’d have both, the dinner and the holiday with you. Perhaps we could even get rid of Jane.

  MARY (desperately seeking a solution): It doesn’t seem fair to Jane. To come all that way—

  VICTOR: What way?

  MARY: From Northumberland.

  VICTOR: Well then, why not take our holiday in Northumberland?

  MARY: But I want sun, Victor, sun. We have enough rain here. And think how dreary it would be for Jane.

  VICTOR: When did I meet Jane?

  MARY: When we were married, I think. She never comes to London.

  VICTOR: Just stays there in the rain? What’s her other name?

  MARY (the first word that comes): Crane.

  VICTOR: Jane Crane stays in the rain. She sounds a bit lowering as a companion.

  MARY: It wouldn’t be much fun for you with her there.

  VICTOR: Oh, I don’t know. She’d be a companion for you while I was busy.

  MARY: Busy at what?

  VICTOR: That’s another bright idea of mine. I’ve always wanted to see the Dutch dental hospitals. So you and Jane could go to Amsterdam.

  MARY: It rains in Amsterdam.

  VICTOR: Nonsense. It’s called the Venice of the north.

  MARY: I think that’s Stockholm.

  VICTOR: Well, let’s go to Stockholm then. Swedish dentistry is just as interesting, and there’s a special Scandinavian allowance for tourists.

  MARY: I’d thought of some little place in the south. In the sun.

  VICTOR: Oh, no, that wouldn’t do at all. It would have to be a city because then I can get a business allowance. The three of us can’t enjoy ourselves on Jane’s hundred pounds.

  MARY: I hadn’t thought there would be three of us.

  VICTOR: Be sensible, Mary. You’d be bored to death alone with Jane. You haven’t seen her for years. So you say. You might not even like each other now. Early friends drop out like—like milk teeth.

  MARY: Please, do you have to bring dentistry into everything?

  VICTOR: You’re behaving in a very odd way, Mary. Here I am proposing a holiday, trying to make the whole thing fun for you, and one would almost think I was forcing you to go away. Stockholm is one of the beaut
ies of the north. There are lots of people who’d give their … (He hesitates.)

  MARY: Eye teeth to see it.

  VICTOR: The town hall is famous. And the glass.

  MARY: The Royal Family is the most democratic in Europe. Please, Victor, if it has to be a city I’d rather go to Amsterdam.

  VICTOR: Right. It was my first choice, too. Now let’s look at dates. Sally goes back on the twelfth. There’s no reason why you and Jane shouldn’t leave on the thirteenth. My dinner’s on the sixteenth. I could join you on the seventeenth.

  MARY: Leave one day, Victor, for a hangover. You won’t be in bed till two.

  VICTOR: Right. Then I’ll join you on the eighteenth. When does Robin have his teeth out?

  MARY: Not till the twenty-fifth.

  VICTOR: Splendid. We’ll get a whole week together. And Jane may not want to stay as long as that.

  MARY: I don’t suppose she will. But there’s Robin. We can’t leave him all alone.

  VICTOR: He can go to his aunt. Now don’t think about it any more. My secretary can book the plane and the hotel rooms—the Amstel is the best. Is Jane a Miss or a Mrs.?

  MARY (hesitating): Miss. Why?

  VICTOR: The air company will want details of the names.

  MARY (seeing the complications ahead): I’d rather go by boat. The sea air …

  VICTOR: Two-berth cabin then?

  MARY: Leave out the cabin. It’s expensive.

  VICTOR: Dear Mary, I hope I can still afford a cabin for my wife. Would you rather have two singles?

  MARY: But, Victor, would you mind very much if I paid for myself—just this time?

  VICTOR: But why?

  MARY: I want it to be my present for Jane. She’s not well

  off.

  VICTOR: You know you’ll be short before the end of the month.

  MARY: If I am, then I’ll come to you. (The sound of Robin crying: “Mother, Mother, Mother.” Wearily:) I forgot to say good night.

  VICTOR: Time for all of us to say good night.

  MARY: You use the bathroom first. I want to write to Jane.

  VICTOR: Why not wait till morning?

  ROBIN’S VOICE: “Mother, Mother, Mother.”

  MARY (shouts): I’m coming, Robin. (To Victor:) I want to write while the idea’s fresh. I won’t be long.

  Mary goes out. Victor looks around to see that everything is tidy. He straightens the cushions. As he does this to one of the chairs he remembers the musical box, and fetches it from where Mary had put it; he slips it again under the cushions. He sits down for a moment to try it out, a blissful look upon his face, and lets it play two bars. Then he gets up and puts out the light and goes into the other half of the room. There he locks the whisky in the sideboard cupboard. He turns out the lights there too and goes. Pause, and then Mary enters. She goes to a telephone and dials a number. After a while a voice answers.

  MARY: Clive. Are you alone? … I’m coming away with you, Clive. … I only mean a holiday. Could you leave on the thirteenth? … No, we can’t go there, it’s too far for a short holiday, Clive. … But I can only manage four days. I’m sorry, but that’s how things are. And, Clive, it’s got to be Amsterdam. … I can’t tell you why now. It just has to be, Clive. It’s the Venice of the north. … All right. If you don’t want four days alone with me in Amsterdam, just say so. We can call it off. … If it does rain, Clive, what does it matter? We’ll just stay in bed, drinking Bols, whatever that is. … Oh, he’s quite happy about it. He thinks I’m going with someone called Jane Crane. … No, she doesn’t exist. … The name just came into my head. … What do you mean, “Jane, Jane, tall as a crane”? Why do you all have to make up verses about her? … I don’t care if Edith Sitwell wrote them. I can’t alter Jane’s name now. … Clive, will you do the bookings? I’ll pay you back, next month when my allowance comes in. Any hotel but the Amstel. … I know it’s the best, but someone I know is arriving there on the eighteenth. I don’t want them mixed up. … You are happy, darling? … Yes, I am. … No, we won’t buy diamonds. … Did you say herrings? Raw herrings? … Oh, but I think raw herrings sound fascinating, and anything may happen, Clive, anything. Even in Amsterdam.

  The curtain falls as she talks.

  SCENE II

  A hotel bedroom, in Amsterdam. Two single beds have been pushed together to make a double. They are unmade. The room is that of a medium-priced hotel: a desk, one easy chair, a tall looking-glass in the wardrobe door, a door leading to the bathroom. The room is in the confusion of packing up. One man’s incredibly shabby suitcase is already locked and ready by the door; two women’s cases—very decorative—lie open in a froth of tissue paper beside the bed. The bathroom door is open and Mary speaks from inside to Clive, who is sitting glumly on the bed in his shirt-sleeves.

  MARY’S VOICE: You haven’t packed your face-cloth.

  CLIVE: Never mind.

  MARY’S VOICE: And there’s a packet of razor blades here.

  CLIVE: Let the valet have them.

  MARY’S VOICE: Darling, do you always scatter your belongings over the globe like this?

  CLIVE: How damnably cheerful you sound.

  Mary comes to the door of the bathroom, her hands full of plastic pots and tubes. She is still in her dressing gown.

  MARY: I’ve been happy, that’s why. Haven’t you?

  CLIVE: Yes, in a way.

  MARY: Is that all?

  CLIVE: The first day I was happy. Even the second. Yesterday was not so good.

  MARY: I loved yesterday.

  CLIVE: The shadow of today was over it. But I didn’t know then what a shadow. Mary, why didn’t you tell me about Victor before we came away?

  MARY: I was afraid you wouldn’t come.

  CLIVE: You could have told me yesterday.

  MARY: And spoilt it all. All the lying late in bed, the wine we drank at lunch, even that silly film we saw …

  CLIVE: Yes, you were happy, and all the time you were deceiving me.

  MARY: I’ve been happy deceiving Victor, too, haven’t I? You didn’t mind me being happy doing that.

  CLIVE: I understood our relationship was rather different.

  MARY: Do you think I like packing up and going off to the Amstel to meet Victor?

  CLIVE: He gets a whole week of you. I had three days.

  MARY: It was the only way I could manage anything at all.

  CLIVE: He fixed our holiday. Why didn’t he fix our room at the Amstel too?

  MARY: I told him Jane wanted somewhere small and quiet.

  CLIVE: So he had our address all the time?

  MARY: Something might have happened to the children. I had to be available.

  CLIVE: Of course your room at the Amstel will be a much nicer one than this.

  MARY: I’ve booked two single rooms, Clive. 38

  CLIVE: And tonight I suppose you’ll take him to that little restaurant by the canal … and that bar …

  MARY: I won’t take him anywhere we’ve been together.

  CLIVE: There aren’t so many good restaurants in Amsterdam, and Victor likes his food.

  MARY: Darling, what’s the great difference? If I weren’t meeting him at the Amstel, I’d be meeting him at home tonight. I’m just meeting him, Clive, as one meets a kind relation and talks about the family.

  CLIVE: This was our life here. We haven’t had a very long one. Three days of birth, growing up, and I suppose this is age. Why had he got to butt into our life?

  MARY: Some people might say you’d butted into his.

  CLIVE: Oh, don’t be so damnably fair-minded. Not today.

  MARY (on her knees by suitcase): Clive, help me with this case.

  CLIVE (not looking at her): What’s wrong with the bloody case?

  MARY: I can’t make the key turn.

  CLIVE: I suppose you’ve busted the lock.

  MARY: Won’t you help?

  CLIVE: Why should I help you to go away from me? (All the same he joins her.) You shouldn’t buy cases for look
s. You ought to buy them for wear.

  MARY: Yours hasn’t worn so well.

  CLIVE (struggling with the key): Anyway I don’t go in for fancy monograms. M.R. for Mary Rhodes.

  MARY: It could stand for Mary Root too. (There is a ring at the door.) Come in. Entrez. Whatever you call it.

  The Hotel Valet enters.

  VALET: Are your bags ready, Madam?

  MARY: I won’t be a minute.

  CLIVE (pointing to his case): You can take that—the shabby one.

  The Valet leaves with Clive’s suitcase.

  MARY: It’s no use. The lock is broken.

  CLIVE: I’ll get you a strap.

  MARY: Have you time before the plane?

  CLIVE: I don’t have to report for an hour. When do you have to report?

  MARY: He’s on the midday plane.

  CLIVE: We may pass each other at the airport. Don’t worry. I’ll be ready to hide my face behind a newspaper.

  MARY: You needn’t. He wouldn’t think there was anything wrong.

  CLIVE: Is he as dumb as that?

  MARY: It’s not dumbness. When a man doesn’t want a woman any more, he can’t imagine anyone else desiring her—that’s all.

  Clive gets up.

  CLIVE: I’ll go and buy the strap. (Mary remains squatting by the suitcase.) Aren’t you going to kiss me? For being obedient?

  MARY: This isn’t good-bye. Even at the air terminus it won’t be good-bye. Clive, we’re going to be together again. Over and over again. For years.

  CLIVE: Are you sure?

  MARY: Even if you told me you didn’t want to go on, I wouldn’t believe you. I have my proofs, Clive.

  CLIVE: Where are they?

  MARY: I can’t show them to you now.

  Pause.

  CLIVE: I’ll be back as quickly as I can.

  When Clive has gone Mary busies herself packing again. Then she goes to the telephone.

  MARY: Reception, please. (There is a ring at the door.) Entrez. Reception? This is room 121. Will you have my bill ready, please?

  The door of the bedroom opens. Mary has her back to it as she telephones.

  The Valet stands on one side to admit Victor, who is followed by a man in a Continental suit.

  MARY: Yes. We’re checking out in a few minutes. (Over her shoulder to the Valet, her hand over the receiver.) You can’t take my bags yet. I’m waiting for a strap. (To the Reception.) Yes. We had breakfast this morning.