Boston Marriage Read online

  CLAIRE: A Séance.

  ANNA: At which:

  CLAIRE: At which, amidst both the Mumbo and the Jumbo …

  ANNA: Mmm.

  CLAIRE: You divine …

  ANNA: Yes.

  CLAIRE: By means of the Jewel …

  ANNA: (Pause) But what do we know, what can we adduce or invent of the clairvoyant?

  MAID: Miss …

  CLAIRE: Shut up for a moment, will you?

  MAID: It’s a monkey.

  CLAIRE: How, at this séance, shall we convince each, of our aforementioned supernormal powers?

  ANNA: We shall present them with, with circumstantial facts of their previous lives. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: The man was seven years in India.

  ANNA: What do we know of India …? (Pause)

  CLAIRE: Ah, well…

  ANNA: How I wish I read …

  CLAIRE: India …(Pause)

  ANNA: …the, the, the …

  CLAIRE: "India" …

  . Or, at the risk of Pedantry:

  ANNA: India is possessed of

  CLAIRE: Please:

  ANNA: India is Bounded on the North by …

  MAID: It’s a monkey.

  CLAIRE: Have you not, lacking sufficient awe, that sense of fitness to stand mute before your betters?

  MAID: Mum?

  CLAIRE: Go away or we shall have a policeman in to shoot you and stick your head on a pike.

  MAID: Begging your pardon. It’s a monkey.

  ANNA: What’s a monkey?

  MAID: A tarsier. My Dad had one in Bengal.

  CLAIRE: In Bengal?

  MAID: Yuh.

  ANNA: Bengal. In India.

  MAID: That’s right.

  ANNA: And did he, as one would assume, regale you with tales of that dark, unknowable land?

  MAID: Yes, miss.

  ANNA: (to CLAIRE) Write to invite them to our séance.

  CLAIRE: …but, but, how …

  ANNA: We shall deluge them with, folk, folk wisdom.

  CLAIRE: Folk wisdom …?

  ANNA: Women’s Wisdom, do you see? The Sayings of the Auld Grandmarm.

  CLAIRE: The trash the slavey’s grandma gibbered.

  ANNA: Let it extract us from our difficulties. I shall adopt it as that axiom which rules my life. Molly:

  MAID: I suppose it’s bootless to beg for a character.

  ANNA: I …

  MAID: Just give me me wages.

  ANNA: Molly, Dear …?

  MAID: Did ye want to count the Silver?

  ANNA: How Colorful…!

  MAID: For I’ve got to look out for meself, you know, for when you turn on me.

  ANNA: As if we could distrust you! How I love that Earthy Humor.

  CLAIRE: Earthy Humor, yes.

  ANNA: So …

  CLAIRE: Close to the soil. Your mistress would opine perhaps she’s been too hasty.

  MAID: Too hasty …

  ANNA: Yes. I…

  CLAIRE: She withdraws the Edict…

  MAID: The edict.

  CLAIRE: The, the Ukase …the …

  ANNA: I take back what I said.

  CLAIRE: And she hopes. That you will see fit to remain in …

  ANNA: In my Service.

  (Pause)

  MAID: Yeh want me to stay.

  CLAIRE: We want you to help us plan a sort of party.

  MAID: Waal, I don’t know.

  ANNA: What don’t you know?

  MAID: …after th’ things you’ve said …

  CLAIRE: Oh, bullshit. Sit down, or we’ll throw you in the streets to starve, pox ridden and pregnant.

  ANNA: Nora, oblige us. Please tell us about your grandmother.

  MAID: Yes, mum.

  ANNA: You see? You see how it profits? One must keep a civil tongue in one’s mouth.

  CLAIRE: Mmm.

  ANNA: … it need not be one’s own.

  CLAIRE: Well— aint you wicked …

  SCENE TWO

  (Late)

  ANNA and CLAIRE in vaguely Middle Eastern Garb. CLAIRE goes to examine herself in a mirror.

  CLAIRE: The couture of the paranormal does not well withstand the gaze of day.

  ANNA: Like that of the boudoir.

  CLAIRE: Pray do not taunt me.

  ANNA: Quite right. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: I feel I’d like to climb beneath some lavishly appointed rock.

  ANNA: It is the waiting galls one.

  CLAIRE: Is it?

  ANNA: Ah, yes, we suffer for our sins, we suffer for them.

  CLAIRE: But not before we have made others suffer for them.

  ANNA: You still indict me for our dilemma?

  CLAIRE: I find myself hoping to lure back my love with a funny hat.

  ANNA: Is that not woman’s lot?

  CLAIRE: How ill philosophy becomes you.

  ANNA: They will respond.

  CLAIRE: I cannot think so. Oh, I am other than well.

  ANNA: Do you know. I have noticed. In the midst of this or that upheaval, that at times, the spirit is relieved by the simple increase of bulk in the diet. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: What is bulk?

  ANNA: Bulk, and I ask your pardon in advance,

  CLAIRE: …please.

  ANNA: is that which tends toward the cleansing of, I believe, the colon, or whatever the …the …(Pause)

  CLAIRE: … I never could abide "learning," do you know …

  ANNA: Mmm.

  CLAIRE: …always seemed so "pushy."

  ANNA: Yes. Down through the ages, it is the historic tool of the Social Climber.

  CLAIRE: Are my seams straight?

  ANNA: Euclidean.

  (The MAID enters. All stand.)

  ANNA: Is the room prepared?

  MAID: All prepared, mum …

  ANNA: Report.

  MAID: We got the draperies drawn, the table moved, the chairs all thronged together so the people’s knees will touch…

  ANNA: The candles…?

  MAID: I’ve lit ‘em.

  ANNA: Did you not say …did you not say …We must wait till the incantation?

  CLAIRE: Isn’t that what your Auld Gran Said?

  ANNA: …were we not told…. we must wait till the incantation …

  CLAIRE: Why have you lit the candles?

  MAID: Well, the sun’s goin’ down. (Pause) Where’s your guests?

  ANNA: Withdraw until you’re called. (MAID exits.)

  CLAIRE: They will not come. They will not respond. We shall be left two foolish old women, trusting to chemistry and candlelight. (Pause)

  ANNA: Be strong.

  CLAIRE: Easy for you.

  ANNA: If my protector withdraws his support, I am reduced to poverty, but do you see me complain?

  CLAIRE: I could compass the girl’s waist with my two small hands. But perhaps I grow too technical.

  ANNA: Oh God oh God oh God of hosts, how we are Reduced …how the Shadow of Poverty …How

  Stress …

  CLAIRE: What is Of Hosts?

  ANNA: It connotes "of Many."

  CLAIRE: Truly …?

  ANNA: Why do you dismiss the comfort of such sacred and archaic language?

  CLAIRE: I was brought up in a barn. (MAID reenters.)

  ANNA: (To MAID) What?

  MAID: I’m worried, mum.

  ANNA: No need to worry. For men live to be deceived. They would rather be deceived than sated. We shall prevail—

  MAID: That ain’t what worries me.

  CLAIRE: What worries you?

  MAID: What if I have a child?

  CLAIRE: One waits until the colder months, and exposes them in a tree.

  ANNA: Off you go! (MAID exits. Pause.) May I ask you, do you never feel that you’ve missed something?

  CLAIRE: What would that be?

  ANNA: Motherhood.

  CLAIRE: Were I to say that the joys of conception, parturition, and lactation had been vouchsafed to me I would tell a lie.

  ANNA: Yes. But certain wome
n profit from it.

  CLAIRE: In what way?

  ANNA: They, they have children.

  CLAIRE: Apart from that.

  ANNA: No. I take your point.

  MAID: (Reentering) We ain’t got no new candles. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: Isn’t this always the way.

  ANNA: Run quick and get them. Hurry. Go. (MAID exits.)

  CLAIRE: They have abandoned us. What time is it? They will not come.

  ANNA: They will come.

  CLAIRE: What will make them come?

  ANNA: We shall dispatch a second note.

  CLAIRE: A second note?

  ANNA: (To MAID, calling after her) Send for a messenger.

  CLAIRE: And how will this second note be more effective than the first?

  ANNA: WE SHALL INVITE THE WIFE!

  CLAIRE: …the wife …?

  ANNA: How blind I have been. If we are soothsayers. As we are. If we possess the power to alleviate pain, to, to cure her vapors, to …

  CLAIRE: …yes…?

  ANNA: Then let us cure the wife! She is the cornerstone! With her endorsement, both the man and the girl are licensed to frequent our home. How blind I have been. (She writes) "Madame de blah blah, to whom the future and the past are one, awaits to set your mind at rest. Having divined and prognosticated by the means of your jewel…." Ha ha ha ha ha. "And having, at length, diagnosed the cause of your discomfort, she invites you."

  CLAIRE: She will not come.

  ANNA: She will come, and let her call it "Doubt" or "Indignation," let her call it what she will, she must succumb to her curiosity … It is the weakness of the sex. (Doorbell. MAID passes through.) Who is it?

  MAID: A messenger.

  ANNA: …arrived so soon? Bid him attend a moment…"And to perfect, for you, through the accumulation and dispersal of tea leaves, the lessons of the crystal ball, and the application of exotic herbs." (Resist that if you can. She cannot. For women are …)

  CLAIRE: …pray do not say what we are. I know too well what we are …

  ANNA: Then you know the wife must come. I’ve sussed out her fulcrum, it is Curiosity, and we have her on the hip. I bet you a new Hat. (continues writing) "et cetera, to remove those noxious ethereal influences we have found surround you. And restore your spirits and your soul. In the name of various gods, I remain …"

  (MAID reenters with a letter. ANNA hands the MAID the note)

  ANNA: Give the messenger this. Thank him for his prompt response.

  MAID: For what response?

  ANNA: To our summons.

  MAID: What summons, mum?

  ANNA: We summoned him to take a letter.

  MAID: No, mum. He brought a letter. (Pause) He brought a letter.

  (CLAIRE takes the letter. Opens it. MAID exits)

  CLAIRE: (Reads) Who is Rehab the Harlot?

  ANNA: I believe it is for me.

  CLAIRE: Will you hear your fate?

  ANNA: I am prepared. (Reads) It is from his attorney. They have decamped. The entire family. He will… he has, yes, he has terminated the, the "consultation fees," which, of late, it has been his use to pay me.

  CLAIRE: … he no longer desires to consult with you …

  ANNA: …and he requires the immediate return of his wife’s necklace, which had somehow found its accidental way into my possession.

  CLAIRE: … he wants his sparkler back …

  ANNA: …absent which …legal remedies, criminal proceedings, bailiff, theft…jail…

  CLAIRE: Oh, dear.

  ANNA: …and he will send an emissary to collect the Jewel.

  CLAIRE: (Takes the letter) And pop goes the entire weasel. (Pause)

  ANNA: I fear I was mistaken in his steadfastness. (Pause)

  CLAIRE: You must keep it, of course.

  ANNA: Keep?

  CLAIRE: The Jewel.

  ANNA: The Jewel. I cannot.

  CLAIRE: You Must.

  ANNA: How can I?

  CLAIRE: He gave it to you.

  ANNA: It was not his to give.

  CLAIRE: Are all our possessions, and all our joys, but loaned on sufferance, and subject to the whim of men? He’s broke his promise. He’s deceived you. He’s had the use of your body, and he paid for it with stolen goods. For God’s sake keep the necklace.

  ANNA: You are distraught.

  CLAIRE: Have I not cause?

  MAID: (Reentering) I’m goin’ for the candles, mum.

  ANNA: What?

  MAID: I’m goin’ for th’ …

  CLAIRE: I don’t think we’ll require them. (Pause) I doubt we’d want to pay for them.

  (MAID exits.)

  ANNA: Well, are we worse off than we were before?

  CLAIRE: What a dreary standard by which to gauge one’s life.

  ANNA: What choice have we but to take heart?

  CLAIRE: Are you not, then, chilled by the spectre of poverty?

  ANNA: … by poverty?

  CLAIRE: Yes.

  ANNA: Doth not the Bible teach us to leave ungleaned the corners of our fields?

  CLAIRE: I have no idea.

  ANNA: I assure you.

  CLAIRE: And what might that mean?

  ANNA: That the urge, at the risk of tendentiousness…

  CLAIRE: …please.

  ANNA: To Consume All.

  CLAIRE: Yes, I get ya …

  ANNA: Oh good. (Pause) And, and …

  CLAIRE: …yes?

  ANNA: Might we not then deduce …then, that true happiness might lie …not in obtaining the, the object of one’s…

  CLAIRE: …lust.

  ANNA: If you will, but, in being free of it? Would that not be joy? (Pause)

  CLAIRE: No. (Pause)

  ANNA: Oh.

  CLAIRE: But thank you for asking.

  ANNA: Look here: if we have enough to eat, suitably cut raiment, and shelter from the storm, what do we care?

  CLAIRE: You are too good.

  ANNA: Not at all. I’m merely practical.

  CLAIRE: I have lost her. And with her, the last good instant of my youth.

  ANNA: Oh, dear …

  CLAIRE: No, it all went pear-shaped.

  ANNA: What went all pear-shaped?

  CLAIRE: My life.

  ANNA: Your life, eh?

  CLAIRE: Which once shone so promising.

  ANNA: So many things are more amusing in Prospect, don’t you find, than …

  CLAIRE: Than in Actuality?

  ANNA: Yes,

  CLAIRE: No, I do not.

  ANNA: Mmm.

  CLAIRE: But I treasure your intention to amuse me.

  ANNA: Do you?

  CLAIRE: Quite diverting.

  MAID: (Entering) Mum…

  ANNA: No, but may one not …

  MAID: Mum.

  ANNA: One moment, Make that Leap. That, that Act of Renunciation which …

  MAID: Mum.

  ANNA: …shut up. And, and may we not seek that, that…

  MAID: Mum.

  ANNA: One moment, that, that State of Grace, that…

  CLAIRE: I don’t think so …

  ANNA: Of, of acceptance, yes, if it is offered. Yes, and I think it is constantly …

  MAID: Mum.

  ANNA: One moment. As at a Perfect Inn, or hostel.

  MAID: Mum. Mum! I just remembered. The cook said you could kiss her arse til Michelmas! (Pause)

  ANNA: Thank you. (MAID exits) At a Perfect Inn, or hostel, I say, waiting, welcoming the legitimately weary.

  CLAIRE: …no.

  ANNA: Yes. Ministering to the sore travelers as they trod that way, do you see, they must trod in any case.

  CLAIRE: Yes. That would be no end of jolly. Oh, Age, Age, Dreadful Age.

  ANNA: As long as, as long as one has not "done evil" …(Pause)

  CLAIRE: …done evil?

  ANNA: Yes. Caused pain, or …

  CLAIRE: …and, indeed, I have gained nothing and have caused you pain.

  ANNA: Yes, some, perhaps, but…

 
; CLAIRE: That is a sin …

  ANNA: No, no, a slip, perhaps, done in exuberance. But not a true Error …

  CLAIRE: Then what would be example of true error?

  ANNA: …writing in purple ink, or …

  CLAIRE: …you are too good to live.

  ANNA: Is that so?

  CLAIRE: I regret that I have enmeshed you in my cabal of loss.

  ANNA: Oh pray do not descend to the literary (Pause) Are we so badly off? Could we not strive to exist on my income?

  CLAIRE: Indeed, how …?

  ANNA: Do they not say two can live as cheap as one?

  CLAIRE: No doubt. The world is full of fools and if one listens long enough, one may hear damn near anything.

  ANNA: But if we curtailed our expenditures, could we not sustain ourselves, say, in the country?

  CLAIRE: In the country! You, who, self-confessed, can neither hum nor fart. (Pause) Hum nor fart. (Pause) Fart nor hum. (Pause)

  ANNA: "Farm nor hunt"?

  CLAIRE: Precisely. What would we do in the country? Sit and pray for dissolution. Like goldfish. Fit only to sicken and die. (Pause)

  ANNA: … I can hum, you know.

  CLAIRE: Can you indeed?

  ANNA: I could always hum. I could not "whistle." This is not the first time you’ve confused them. How affective are the very foibles of those close to us? I think that it is charming. What do you think? (Pause) Is it charming?

  CLAIRE: It is charming if you are charmed by it. (Pause)

  ANNA: Why do you reject those niceties of speech and conduct nature has contrived to even our rough way?

  CLAIRE: I have ruint what I touched.

  ANNA: …Claire …

  CLAIRE: Perhaps, as has no doubt been observed before, we human beings are but a plague upon the rocks or plants…and perhaps I am small potatoes. Perhaps I am not potatoes at all.

  ANNA: Oh, my dear, you must have loved her.

  CLAIRE: I do love her.

  ANNA: Well. You, you will have her In Retrospect.

  CLAIRE: In retrospect?

  ANNA: As, do you see, as the vision of a flame. Which persists. After the flame is gone.

  CLAIRE: No, I don’t get you.

  ANNA: When you blow the candle out.

  CLAIRE: The flame lasts?

  ANNA: The vision. The vision of the flame.

  CLAIRE: …oh, God, …no. Do not look on me. Time drags on. And each day I spin Gold into flax.

  ANNA: My dear, could we not intuit, in this Reversal, the, the operations of a Greater Hand?

  CLAIRE: A Greater Hand?

  ANNA: A Brake, or Governor, upon …

  CLAIRE: A "brake" …