Plays 5

by Tom Stoppard

Coomaraswami That is not a requirement.

  Flora I’m afraid I’m without religion, you see.

  Coomaraswami I do see! Which religion are you afraid you are most without?

  Flora Now, Mr Coomaraswami, turning a phrase may do for Bloomsbury but I expect better from you.

  ‘And I told him about Herbert’s lady decorator being asked on her deathbed what was her religion and telling the priest, “I’m afraid I worship mauve”.’

  Coomaraswami (thoughtfully) For me, it is grey.

  Flora ‘I’m going to like India.’

  Pike (with letter) Who was Herbert?

  Mrs Swan Wells.

  Pike Ah. (catching on) H. G. Wells? Really? (cautiously) You don’t mean he and Flora …?

  Mrs Swan You should see your face. Flora met him not long before she went out.

  Pike Out?

  Mrs Swan To India. It must have been round Christmas or New Year. I think I got a postcard from Paris … (She delves into the shoebox.) Flora loved Paris. Here, look … is that it?

  Pike Paris, yes … no, 1924 … it’s a souvenir of the Olympic Games.

  Mrs Swan Oh yes, the hurdler. Flora apologized publicly in the Chelsea Arts Club. No medals for us in the hurdles.

  Pike Is that true, Eleanor?

  Mrs Swan Now, Eldon, you are not allowed to write a book, not if you were to eat the entire cake. The Collected Poems was a lovely surprise and I’m sure the Collected Letters will be splendid, but biography is the worst possible excuse for getting people wrong.

  Flora ‘So far, India likes me. My lecture drew a packed house, Mr C’s house, in fact, and a much more sensible house than mine, built round a courtyard with a flat roof all round so I had an audience in the gods like gods in the audience …’

  There is the sound of the applause. Coomaraswami faces the audience with Flora. It is night.

  ‘… and it all went terribly well, until …’

  Coomaraswami Miss Crewe in her wisdom and beauty has agreed to answer questions!

  Flora ‘– and the very first one went –’

  Questioner Miss Crewe, it is said you are an intimate friend of Mr H. G. Wells –

  Flora ‘– and I thought, “God, how unfair! – to have come all this way to be gossiped about as if one were still in the Queen’s Elm” –’

  Pike A public house in the Fulham area of Chelsea.

  Flora ‘– but it turned out nothing was meant by it except –’

  Questioner Does Mr Wells write his famous books with a typewriter or with pen and ink?

  Flora (firmly) With pen and ink, a Waterman fountain pen, a present from his wife.

  There is an appreciative hubbub.

  ‘Not that I had the least idea – Herbert showed small inclination to write his famous books while I was around.’

  Pike FC had met Wells no earlier than December and the affair was therefore brief, possibly the weekend of January 7th and 8th; which she spent in Paris.

  Flora ‘After which there was a reception with lemonade and Indian Scotch …’

  Flora and Coomaraswami are offered drinks from a tray of drinks. They are joined in due course by the questioner.

  ‘… and delicious snacks and conversation – darling, it’s so moving, they read the New Statesman and the TLS as if they were the Bible in parts, well, I don’t mean the Bible but you know what I mean, and they know who wrote what about whom; it’s like children with their faces jammed to the railings of an unattainable park. They ask me –’

  Questioner What is your opinion of Gertrude Stein, Miss Crewe?

  Flora Oh …

  ‘– and I can’t bring myself to say she’s a poisonous old baggage who’s travelling on a platform ticket …’

  Pike FC’s aversion to Gertrude Stein was reciprocated at their first and only meeting when Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas invited Flora to tea at 27 Rue de Fleurus in 1922. Even so, the legend that FC enthused over Miss Toklas’s chocolate cake and that Stein threatened to gouge out FC’s eyes, or possibly Miss Toklas’s eyes, cannot be trusted. FC did not like chocolate in any form.

  Flora ‘Then I met my painter …’

  Das Miss Crewe, may I congratulate you on your lecture. I found it most interesting!

  Flora Thank you …!

  Das I was surprised you did not mention Virginia Woolf.

  Flora I seldom do.

  Das Have you met George Bernard Shaw?

  Flora Yes. I was nearly in one of his plays once.

  Das But you are not an actress …?

  Flora No, that was the trouble.

  Das What do you think of Jummapur?

  Flora Well, I only arrived the day before yesterday but –

  Das Of course. How absurd of me!

  Flora Not at all. I was going to say that my first impression –

  Das Jummapur is not in any case to be compared with London. Do you live in Bloomsbury?

  Flora No, I live in Chelsea.

  Das Chelsea – of course! My favourite part of London!

  Flora Oh! You …?

  Das I hope to visit London one of these days. The Chelsea of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood! – Rossetti lived in Cheen Walk! Holman Hunt lived in Old Church Street! ‘The Hireling Shepherd’ was painted in Old Church Street! What an inspiration it would be to me to visit Chelsea!

  Flora You are a painter!

  Das Yes! Nirad Das.

  Flora How do you do?

  Das I am top hole. Thank you. May I give you a present?

  Flora Oh …

  Das Please do not judge it too harshly, Miss Crewe …

  Flora Thank you!

  Das Of course, I work in oils, Winsor and Newton. If it would please you to sit for your portrait I would like to repay you for your superfine portrait-in-words of the rough-and-tumble of literary life in London.

  Flora Would you really?

  Das I would very much! (He produces a small sketch pad and tears off a sheet. He gives it to her shyly.)

  Flora ‘… and he gave me a pencil sketch of myself holding forth on the literary life.’

  Flora retraces her steps with Coomaraswami.

  Pike She mentions a pencil sketch. Do you know what happened to it?

  Mrs Swan I’m sure I never saw it. I would have remembered if it had been among what was called her effects. It was only one suitcase.

  Pike Do you still have it?

  Mrs Swan What? Her suitcase? Heavens, it was a battered old thing even then, and being always on the move, Eric and I, one shed things …

  Pike You threw away Flora Crewe’s suitcase?

  Mrs Swan What is it you’re up to, Eldon? A luggage museum? Really, you’re like an old woman about her; except, of course, that I’m not.

  Pike But she was Flora Crewe!

  Mrs Swan (crisply) Well, if so, where was everybody sixty years ago?

  Mrs Swan replenishes the teacups. Pike takes one or two more letters from the shoebox and scans them.

  At the guesthouse, Nirad Das arrives by bicycle. He has his wooden workbox strapped to the pillion-rack. His folded easel is strapped to his back. He rides one-handed, holding a canvas in his free hand. Flora, in her cornflower-blue dress, comes out from the interior.

  Flora Good morning!

  Das Miss Crewe! Here I am! A little late! Forgive me!

  Flora I didn’t realize – I’ve been writing a letter. Does this look all right?

  Das (nervously) Very, very good.

  Flora Now … this will be nice, we’ll both be working. Poet and painter. Work in progress.

  Das unstraps his work-box and establishes himself on the verandah. Flora establishes herself at her work table. Pike is puzzling over a letter.

  Pike She says paint on paper.

  Mrs Swan Yes.

  Pike ‘… a smudge of paint on paper’ … ‘Perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper’ … She’s referring to an actual painting, isn’t she?

  Mrs Swan I don’t
know.

  Pike And ‘undressed’. She says ‘undressed’. Like a nude. On paper. That would be a watercolour, wouldn’t it?

  Mrs Swan What would? There isn’t any ‘it’.

  Pike Well, if it doesn’t mean a portrait of Flora undressed, what do you think it means?

  Mrs Swan As much or as little as you like. Isn’t that the point of being a poet?

  Pike I don’t know, I’m not a poet, but it reads quite specific, the deserted house … where is the bit?

  Mrs Swan Between your teeth, Eldon.

  Pike Here. ‘In an empty house … Perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like … Radha?’

  Mrs Swan Radha.

  Pike ‘– the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed –’

  Mrs Swan (interrupting, briskly) Well, the portrait, as it happens, is on canvas and Flora is wearing her cornflower dress.

  Pike Portrait?

  Mrs Swan She mentions the portrait somewhere. It was rolled up in the suitcase.

  Pike Eleanor … do you mean there’s a portrait of Flora?

  Mrs Swan Would you like to see it?

  Pike Oh my God.

  Mrs Swan It’s fairly ghastly, like an Indian cinema poster. I think I know where it is but I’ll need you to get it down for me. Should we go in? We’re about to lose the sun.

  Pike Oh my God. But this is … Oh my God. There’s never been one, not a real portrait.

  Mrs Swan That’s true. Apart from the Paris portrait; but that was on canvas, too.

  Pike The Paris portrait …?

  Mrs Swan Yes, Flora’s first time in Paris, she was driving an ambulance, officially, in the last year of the war … so she was twenty-three, I suppose, when she met Modigliani.

  Pike Modigliani?

  Mrs Swan Oh, Flora met everybody. Not that Modigliani was anybody at the time.

  Pike A portrait by Modigliani?

  Mrs Swan I was nine at the Armistice, so that was, my goodness, sixty-six years ago! I’m coming up to seventy-five, you know.

  Pike Eleanor … I can hardly believe my ears.

  Mrs Swan I’m afraid so. I was born in 1909. But thank you, Eldon. Have another slice of cake.

  Pike No – thank you – I – excuse me: a painting of Flora by Modigli –

  Mrs Swan Yes. A nude. I never saw it myself. I was at school, of course, and then, it was too late.

  Pike Too late?

  Mrs Swan Yes, isn’t that bad luck? The Technicolor Flora like a cork in a storm, washed up on top of a wardrobe in a bungalow in Shepperton, and the Modigliani, which would have paid for the bungalow several times over, burned to ashes in a bathtub in the Ritz.

  By now she has assembled the tea-tray and she leaves with it.

  Pike Could you run that by me again?

  Pike totters after her.

  Flora, in her blue dress, is at the table on the verandah, writing in her notebook with a fountain pen. She pauses, thinking, sitting quite still. Her feet are bare and her shoes are placed neatly to one side. Das is painting her portrait.

  Flora (recorded)

  ‘Yes I am in heat like a bride in a bath

  without secrets, soaked in heated air

  that liquifies to the touch and floods,

  shortening the breath, yes

  I am discovered, heat has found me out,

  a stain that stops at nothing,

  not the squeezed gates or soft gutters,

  it slicks into the press

  that prints me to the sheet

  yes, think of a woman in a house of net

  that strains the oxygen out of the air

  thickening the night to Indian ink

  or think if you prefer –’

  Flora has unconsciously crossed her legs, which brings Das’s work to a halt. He waits, patiently. She notices that Das has stopped.

  Oh …

  Das No, please be comfortable.

  Flora I’m sorry! (She puts her feet side-by-side.) There. Is that how I was?

  Das You are patient with me. I think your nature is very kind.

  Flora Do you think so, Mr Das?

  Das I am sure of it. May I ask you a personal question?

  Flora That is a personal question.

  Das Oh my goodness, is it?

  Flora I always think so. It always feels like one. Carte blanche is what you’re asking, Mr Das. Am I to lay myself bare before you?

  Das (panicking slightly) My question was only about your poem!

  Flora At least you knew it was personal.

  Das I will not ask it now, of course.

  Flora On that understanding I will answer it. My poem is about heat.

  Das Oh. Thank you.

  Flora I resume my pose. Pen to paper. Legs uncrossed. You know, you are the first man to paint my toe-nails.

  Das Actually, I am occupied in the folds of your skirt.

  Flora Ah. In that you are not the first.

  Das You have been painted before? – but of course you have! Many times, I expect!

  Flora You know, Mr Das, your nature is much kinder than mine.

  Flora resumes. Das resumes.

  Anish Das comes into the Shepperton garden. He has a soft briefcase; he sits in one of the garden chairs.

  Mr Das, I have been considering whether to ask you a delicate question, as between friend and artists.

  Das Oh, Miss Crewe, I am transported beyond my most fantastical hopes of our fellowship! This is a red-letter day without dispute!

  Flora If you are going to be so Indian I shan’t ask it.

  Das But I cannot be less Indian that I am.

  Flora You could if you tried. I’m not sure I’m going to ask you now.

  Das Then you need not, dear Miss Crewe! You considered. The unasked, the almost asked question, united us for a moment in its intimacy, we came together in your mind like a spark in a vacuum glass, and the redness of the day’s letter will not be denied.

  Flora You are still doing it, Mr Das.

  Das You wish me to be less Indian?

  Flora I did say that but I think what I meant was for you to be more Indian, or at any rate Indian, not Englished-up and all over me like a labrador and knocking things off tables with your tail – so waggish of you, Mr Das, to compare my mind to a vacuum. You only do it with us, I don’t believe that left to yourself you can’t have an ordinary conversation without jumping backwards through hoops of delight, with whoops of delight, I think I mean; actually, I do know what I mean, I want you to be with me as you would be if I were Indian.

  Das An Indian Miss Crewe! Oh dear, that is a mental construction which has no counterpart in the material world.

  Flora So is a unicorn, but you can imagine it.

  Das You can imagine it but you cannot mount it.

  Flora Imagining it was all I was asking in my case.

  Das (terribly discomfited) Oh! Oh, my gracious! – I had no intention – I assure you –

  Flora (amused) No, no, you cannot unwag your very best wag. You cleared the table, the bric-a-brac is on the Wilton – the specimen vase, the snuff box, the souvenir of Broadstairs –

  But she has misjudged.

  Das (anguished) You are cruel to me, Miss Crewe!

  Flora (instantly repentant) Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be. It’s my nature. Please come out from behind your easel – look at me.

  Das May we fall silent, please. I prefer to work in silence.

  Flora I’ve spoiled everything. I’m very sorry.

  Das The shadow has moved. I must correct it.

  Flora Yes, it has moved. It cannot be corrected. We must wait for tomorrow. I’m so sorry.

  Das resumes working at the easel. Flora maintains her pose, but screws the cap on to her fountain pen.

  Anish stands up at the approach of Mrs Swan who comes from the bungalow with tea for two on a tray, and two kinds of cake.

  Anish Let me help you.

  Mrs Swan I’ve f
orgotten your sugar.

  Anish Actually, I don’t take it.

  Mrs Swan Oh. I thought you’d be more Indian.

  They settle the tray and themselves at the garden table.

  Anish This is so kind of you.

  Mrs Swan Oh no. Your letter was irresistible. Having an artist to tea was beyond my fondest hopes for my dotage. We’ll let it sit a minute. Do you think you take after your father?

  Anish I don’t know. I would like to think so. But my father was a man who suffered for his beliefs and I have never had to do that, so perhaps I will never know.

  Mrs Swan I really meant being a painter. You are a painter like your father.

  Anish Oh … yes. Yes, I am a painter like my father. Though not at all like my father, of course.

  Mrs Swan Your father was an Indian painter, you mean?

  Anish An Indian painter? Well, I’m as Indian as he was. But yes. I suppose I am not a particularly Indian painter … not an Indian painter particularly, or rather …

  Mrs Swan Not particularly an Indian painter.

  Anish Yes. But then, nor was he. Apart from being Indian.

  Mrs Swan As you are.

  Anish Yes.

  Mrs Swan Though you are not at all like him.

  Anish No. Yes. My father was a quite different kind of artist, a portrait painter, as you know …

  Mrs Swan I can’t say I do, Mr Das. Until I received your letter your father was unknown to me. In fact, the attribution ‘Unknown Indian Artist’ described the situation exactly …

  Anish He was not unknown in Jummapur!

  Mrs Swan … if indeed it was your father who did the portrait of Flora.

  Anish Oh, the portrait is certainly my father’s work, Mrs Swan! You cannot imagine my feelings when I saw the book in the shop window – my excitement! You see, I carry my copy everywhere.

  He takes The Collected Letters from his briefcase. The dustjacket has the portrait of Flora by Nirad Das.

  Mrs Swan Well, I hope there’ll be lots like you, Mr Das.

  Anish There will be no one like me, Mrs Swan! It was not the book, of course, but the painting on the jacket and reproduced inside. If only he could have known that one day his portrait of Flora Crewe …

  Mrs Swan He might have been more pleased to be in the window of an art gallery than a bookshop.

  Anish Perhaps not. I’m sure my father never had a single one of his paintings reproduced, and that is an extraordinary pleasure for an artist. I know! The painting under one’s hand is everything, of course … unique. But replication! That is popularity! Put us on book jackets – calendars – biscuit tins! Oh, he would have been quite proud!