Etiquette and Vitriol (27 page)

CLAIRE:
I know! I'll ask yes or no questions to fill in the narrative gaps!

PHILIP:
I've met a girl.

CLAIRE:
Oooo, I didn't ask that yet. Living or dead?

PHILIP:
Her name is Vivian.

CLAIRE:
Oh, you're not playing at all.

PHILIP:
A beautiful girl. A wonderful girl. The answer to my prayers.

CLAIRE:
Imagine.

PHILIP:
We're engaged to be married.

CLAIRE:
What!?

PHILIP:
I mean, we're engaged to be married.

AMY:
She said, “What?” That time I heard her.

CLAIRE:
Isn't this wonderful! Now I'll have to plan a party! We'll have seafood salad and eight different kinds of pâté— I adore pâté! This is too, too marvelous! Tell me all about her! I want to know everything—skip the ugly parts— where did you meet her? Is she British? I adore the British! I love their manners. I love their crooked rotting teeth and their receding chins!

PHILIP:
Actually, no. She was raised just around the corner.

CLAIRE:
From here?! Right here? Isn't that a coinkidink? Don't you think so, Amy?

AMY:
What? Oh yes, sure, whatever.

CLAIRE:
You had to go halfway around the world to meet someone from around the corner! Why it's just like that song— whatever it's called. Who cares really? I've always hated that song. You know the one I mean. That Italian girl sings it—what's her name? Judy Garland's daughter—have you seen her lately? I don't understand her hairdo at all—But isn't this something! At long last, I'll have a daughter!

(Amy takes a swig from her bottle.)

I'll have to invite all your old school chums to your party! The living at any rate. There's been a rash of suicides among
your peers. Who can explain it?
Not I
! But I'm so happy for you!—By the way, where is your luggage? Oh you young people lead such rag-tag lives—I feel like celebrating! I feel like renting a piano, just so I can sit on top of it and mouth the words to Bea Lillie recordings! Do you think that's extravagant? I don't care! I'm thrilled for you! I don't mind telling you, I was beginning to think you were a tad socially retarded, but now!! I'm beside myself! I wish I could take you out tonight for a steak bernaise and some pâté, but I'm committed to taking Tony to the Met—

PHILIP:
Tony?

CLAIRE:
I know! You'll join us!

PHILIP:
But, Mother—

CLAIRE:
I won't discuss it. You're coming along!

PHILIP:
But, Mother, Vivian is here.

CLAIRE:
What? What? Where?
(She looks under the furniture)
Vivian? Vivian? Where is she? Is she tiny?

PHILIP:
I mean, she's here.

CLAIRE:
Your new verbal tick is grating.

PHILIP:
She's in the hallway. I brought her here to meet you.

CLAIRE:
What? She's been out there all this time? Why didn't you say something?

PHILIP:
I did. I mean, I did.

CLAIRE:
Look at me. I'm not dressed! I can't meet anyone like this. I look a fright.

PHILIP:
It doesn't matter. She won't notice. She's not concerned with vanity.

CLAIRE:
We can't leave her loitering in the hallway. What must she think of us? She'll think we've no manners at all. I feel just awful. Bring her, Philip.

PHILIP:
VVVVVIIIIVVVIIIIAAAANNNNN!!!!!

CLAIRE:
I could've done that dear.

PHILIP:
Sorry.

CLAIRE:
This is so exciting! I'm a-tingle—AMY!! STAND UP STRAIGHT!! And should you succumb to a fit of DTs, excuse yourself, and I'll explain you're epileptic.

(Claire turns her back, pinches her cheeks to raise color and adjusts her hair. Vivian enters, wearing glasses and a shroud.)

VIVIAN:
Yes, Philip?

PHILIP:
Come here.

VIVIAN:
Yes Philip.

PHILIP:
I'd like you to meet my mother.

VIVIAN
(Extending her hand)
: It's a pleasure.

(Claire turns and is stricken by the severe sight of Vivian. She recovers at once.)

CLAIRE:
She's sweet! You're sweet. She's sweet, Philip!

VIVIAN:
I've heard so much about you.

CLAIRE:
Then you've the advantage, as I've only just heard your name.

VIVIAN:
You have a lovely home.

CLAIRE:
But you've only seen the hallway.

VIVIAN:
It's a lovely hallway.

CLAIRE:
Is it?

VIVIAN:
The wallpaper has a print of tiny pineapples.

CLAIRE:
I never noticed that . . . I adore your hair. Does it hurt?

VIVIAN:
No—

AMY:
Excuse me! I'm another person in the room.

PHILIP:
Oh yes. Vivian, that's my—

CLAIRE:
That's Amy. She's soused.

VIVIAN:
It's nice to—

CLAIRE
(Crossing to the bar)
: Now Vivian, I'll fix you a drink while you tell me all about yourself, in short, information-packed sentences, as I must fix my hair and change my clothes. We're all going out tonight, you're included, of course, to celebrate your engagement—AMY! You've finished all the liquor.—Oh no. Here's something.

VIVIAN:
What would you like to know?

CLAIRE:
Oh I don't care. What do you do?

VIVIAN:
What do you mean?

CLAIRE:
What do I mean?

VIVIAN:
What do I do?

CLAIRE:
That was it!

VIVIAN:
For a living?

PHILIP
(Scolding)
: Mother.

CLAIRE:
Hush dear. Drink quietly. I'm getting to know Vivian.

VIVIAN
(Taking her drink)
: Thank you. Well. I've been working in London's West End. In an occult bookstore.

CLAIRE:
Is that your vocation?

VIVIAN:
I used to study art.

CLAIRE:
I love art! I don't know a thing about it, but I made some dandy macaroni sculptures when I was a girl.

AMY:
Do you believe in witchcraft?

VIVIAN:
I don't know. Witchcraft, per se, seems to me, to be the refuge of frustrated thinkers. But I certainly believe there's a spirit world.

CLAIRE:
Do you?

VIVIAN:
So much of the occult literature is powerful and persuasive. You need only to open your eyes to see that the tangible world is a thin veneer. I've personally had experiences that shake my faith in the concrete.

CLAIRE:
What are you talking about, dear?

PHILIP:
Spiritual enlightenment.

CLAIRE
(Dismissive)
: A different kind of Catholicism.

VIVIAN:
I don't believe in Catholicism.

PHILIP:
I believe in reincarnation. I mean, I believe in reincarnation.

CLAIRE:
Do you? And what do you think you were in a former life?

PHILIP:
I think, before I was me, I was my father.

CLAIRE:
He's still alive dear.

PHILIP:
Oh yes. Damn!

CLAIRE:
I believe in what I can see, hear, taste and smell. The rest is just a crutch that weak people use to distract themselves from the arbitrariness of their lives.

VIVIAN:
You forgot touch.

CLAIRE:
I didn't forget it dear. I don't believe in it.

PHILIP:
What do you mean?

CLAIRE:
I've no idea. Don't interrupt.

AMY:
I don't believe our lives are remotely arbitrary. And I certainly don't believe our fates lie in the mystic hands of unseen forces.

VIVIAN:
What
do
you believe?

AMY:
We control our lives. We make our destinies as if from mounds of clay. If you ask me—

CLAIRE:
I didn't. Did you?

AMY:
I have the power to create my future. We can make ourselves over in our own images. There is no power of the cosmos, but that which is inside of us. Or me, at any rate.

CLAIRE:
Thank you for the view from the bottom of the bottle.

AMY:
I'm going to lie down now.
(She collapses behind the bar)

CLAIRE:
She's epileptic!! . . . Do you still paint?

PHILIP:
Don't cross-examine her, Mother.

CLAIRE:
Was I?

VIVIAN:
I don't.

CLAIRE
(Condescending)
: I'm so sorry. Why's that?

VIVIAN:
I find, as I mature, the physical simply holds no allure. Wouldn't you agree?

CLAIRE:
Convince me.

VIVIAN:
I regret, now, the wasted years of my childhood, I spent believing beauty was something you could see, developing my senses, instead of my intellect.

CLAIRE:
Imagine!

VIVIAN:
Have you ever read Nietzsche? Or Schopenhauer? Ideas are the true aphrodisiacs. Don't you find?

CLAIRE:
It's over my head. I enjoyed
a
book—

VIVIAN:
Who can fail to be thrilled by the light breaking, as you expand yourself to embrace the metaphysical realities of the universe? I stopped painting, because I saw, all at once, with a gestalt-like clarity, the sham of the physical, the lie of the literal, the falseness of the tangible. I have been trying,
since the moment I last laid down my brush, to embrace, to understand, to become one with the all-encompassing apothegms of the unfettered mind and spirit! The world isn't something you can
see and paint
!! The vicissitudes of human development lay in the air around us and the atoms within us and cannot be made two-dimensional, or easily digestible!!!

CLAIRE
(After a moment)
: My.

VIVIAN:
I'm afraid I've oraculated.

CLAIRE:
Not at all.

VIVIAN:
I'm sorry.

CLAIRE:
To the contrary. I am absolutely fascinated, but I have to—brush my hair.

PHILIP:
You haven't understood at all.

CLAIRE:
I find her charming! I find you charming. But I have to sit in a hot tub, or I'm not worth as nickel.

VIVIAN:
I understand.

CLAIRE:
You must continue, later, to
enlighten
me: once I'm bathed and dressed. The most evolved of holy men could have no objection to a quick bath, I'm sure. And please,
do
promise that you'll come tonight. If you're worried that you've nothing—suitable to wear. You mustn't. I'm sure I have lots of dresses I'm sure you'd like. And now, you must excuse me. My head is throbbing!
(She exits)

VIVIAN:
I'm afraid I didn't make a very good impression.

PHILIP:
You were brilliant.

VIVIAN:
I gave her a migraine.

PHILIP:
She's shallow and condescending.

VIVIAN:
I'm not very charming or witty.

PHILIP:
You have ten times her intellect.

VIVIAN:
Do you think so?

AMY
(Rising, behind the bar)
: I think you're a vile bore and you drone on and on ceaselessly.

PHILIP:
AMY! How dare you!?