by Edna O'Brien
DAUGHTER We looked at places for Daddy to rent, so he could get down to his writing … one on the East River was quite something. I said “It will give you inspiration” and he gave me that gorgeous grin of his.
WIFE What is this nonsense about renting an office … Complete waste of money.
MISTRESS We came to a small town with dinky little houses and a pond; pairs of swans gliding by. After we’d checked in at the inn, we sat in the bar and had champagne cocktails … I’d never known him so open, so tender … said he’d been dreaming a lot of his early life and how I came into it … I was there in that place where I’ve never set foot.
WIFE I have a good idea—darling, we can turn the music room into an office … it’s never used. I’ll put a minifridge in, (half scolding) so you can mix your martinis.
DAUGHTER I begged him to take it … I could go after school with my friends and sit around talking to Daddy … listening to Daddy … telling stories.
MISTRESS His mother … his beautiful, high-strung mother adoring him, everybody adoring him … he felt he didn’t have enough love to give back … what he preferred was the fishing trips with his father in the mountains … two men barely speaking a word and cooking supper on an open fire at night.
WIFE Didn’t tell you I had lunch with your publisher … they’re waiting with baited breath … he’s a wine buff.
MISTRESS “Let the caged bird mate with the caged and the wild bird male with the wild …” It came into my head and I just spurted it out. “Which were we?” I asked him.
WIFE (turning to Brandy) You just stop calling real estate people …
DAUGHTER (cutting in) Who says I’m calling real estate people?
WIFE Three different firms called and I said we are not interested in leasing property at the moment.
DAUGHTER (bridling) Without speaking to Daddy or me.
WIFE You’re getting too big for your britches … you need your butt kicked.
Mistress, swashing male attire as Rosalind, is by her mirror.
MISTRESS He said we were swans, because swans mate for life. (her hands on her waist) When I tell him … will I lose him … Will it send him running … It couldn’t, it can’t. (pause) One word he said that keeps haunting me—entrapment. He dreaded entrapment.
STAGE MANAGER (v.o.) As You Like It company: Please take your places for the top of the show. Places, please, for the top of the show.
Mistress goes toward stairs.
Wife walks past Daughter with scorn.
DAUGHTER Off to get sloshed again?
WIFE (oversweet smile) Noo.
Wife goes out.
Daughter looks after her, wrinkles her nose in mockery, then looks puzzled, goes out.
SCENE FOURTEEN
Mistress is onstage as Rosalind, relishing her role.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind, playful) And in this manner … He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me.
Wife comes down the auditorium aisle, shouting.
WIFE Whore … English whore.
Mistress continues as if she has not heard it.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind) At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve.
WIFE Grieve and give him up … He’s mine, mine.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind, her voice getting rapider) … Be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles.
WIFE … full of treachery and deceit (to audience). Be not misled by these dulcet tones … she strews in her path desolation.
VOICES Sssh … sssh. … sssh … sssh.
WIFE We were a happy close-knit family until this well-bred whore entered our lives, broke us up … ruined us.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind) For every passion something … something.
WIFE (cutting in) Yes lady, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, every second of happiness you have stolen from me.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind, misses a line) … would now like him, now loathe him, then entertain him, their forswear him, now weep for him, then spit at him.
Wife has climbed onto the stage.
Mistress endeavors to keep within her role.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind, faltering) That I drave my suitor from his, from his mad humor of …
Daughter comes on stage and drags her Mother off.
DAUGHTER You’re so goddam dumb … so fucking stupid.
MISTRESS (as Rosalind) … his mad humor of love to a living humor of madness … that I, that I drove my suitor from his mad humor of love to a living humor of that I, that I … that I …
She stops suddenly.
Her face freezes.
Lights go dark.
Lights come up on, wife in living room.
SCENE FIFTEEN
The next day.
Light up on Daughter reading a newspaper.
DAUGHTER “Disturbance in theater brings giggles.”
Wife takes the paper and tears it methodically and violently.
Conversation over her action.
DAUGHTER He’ll know.
WIFE You can’t tell him.
DAUGHTER She’ll tell him.
WIFE She won’t.
DAUGHTER Why did you do it? Why did you make such an ass of yourself?
WIFE I’ll do anything.
Daughter goes to her own area, pulls up her skirt, tries on saucy garters, singing “It’s a Man’s World.”
DAUGHTER I slept over at Judy’s house and we would all lie on her big bed and watch TV—Nancy, Venus, Betsy, and Kim, and me. That’s how I met Nathan … He was really cute, except for his armpits. Judy’s parents were so rich that they were never in any one place for more than twenty-four hours. Nathan would take turns sitting between the girls in his boxer shorts, said it was good for us to have the male energy lines, a helluva hip guy, I’ll give him credit for that. … One night he brought a porno, people doing it nonstop, like a zoo … We couldn’t stop guzzling the booze and giggling … Nathan gave himself a body scrub in the shower.
Mistress is sitting on the last step of the staircase.
MISTRESS (low with emotion) When I told him, he froze. He said, “You’ve got to get rid of it.” And I said, “No, it’s mine, mine … I’ll rear it alone.” I’ve never seen a man so thrown, so flabbergasted, he went ashen. I said, “Is it your wife … is it your daughter?” and he said a most cutting thing. He said, “It’s not my wife, it’s not my daughter, it’s you and it’s me … A man thinks he has found a new woman, a great woman, but it always turns out to be the same bloody woman in different costume.” He walked out of the restaurant; “You rat, you fucking rat!” I shouted and I was certain that he had merely gone down the street to think things over, men are wont to go down the street to think things over, but I was wrong. Not long after, I rang my friend Rachel to ask for her doctor’s number and I took two weeks off work and learnt that my understudy was a wow.
Daughter lying on her futon, flicking through salacious magazines, whistles, etc.
DAUGHTER Wow, she’s curvy … You’ve got a very big bush, madam, you could sweep Amsterdam Avenue with that.
SCENE SIXTEEN
Wife in raincoat and red beret approaches the Mistress’s space pointing the ferule of the long black umbrella. She is smiling, almost laughing. She has had a few drinks, weaves a little.
WIFE (singing) Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar
Oh pretty boy
Please don’t ask why,
You know that you must die …
Oh, pretty boy
MISTRESS Whenever I saw a mother and a baby on the street I just burst into tears.
WIFE (quizzical) Your hair … something different … Seems shorter … Not quite so tousled.
MISTRESS You’ve been on the town, I see.
Wife, ignoring that, takes a photograph out of her wallet.
WIFE Souvenir. Thought you’d like to see what Henry looked like when we met twenty years ago …
He’d seen a postcard of James Dean wearing a cap, standing by some fence so he got himself the same cap. From the moment I met him I decided that he was the one, my Orpheus, even if it meant going down into hell for half the year.
MISTRESS Look, I am not breaking up your marriage and I don’t intend to … I am his mistress and I know the rules.
WIFE You and your ilk are a pox on married households … up our husbands’ asses, licking our husbands’ asses … and we carry the can and smile and say, “Darling, shall we have Lourda O’Shaughnessy around for dinner?” She of the alabaster cleavage. And we smile and smile (lower voice) and get fat.
MISTRESS He spends time with you … Christmas, Thanksgiving, anniversaries … values your advice about his work.
WIFE He’s washed up. He has a block. He can’t deliver. It’s different with actors, you can fake it … you have your (pause) repertoire of masks … that you put on and off at will … but a writer dons a mask at his peril. When he goes into solitary, he doesn’t lie, Clarissa.
MISTRESS (scornful) What pearls of wisdom.
Wife picks up a vodka bottle off the dressing table.
WIFE May I?
MISTRESS Help yourself.
Wife drinks, savoring it.
WIFE You went to Washington with him.
MISTRESS Did I?
WIFE I telephoned him at his hotel and the girl on the switchboard said he was out, so I tried later. She said, “Ma’am … you’ve been phoning all evening.” I said: “No, that’s his whore, that’s his English whore that’s been phoning all evening; can’t you tell from our accents?”
MISTRESS Does he know what poisons you are dipped in?
Wife laughs lustily and takes Mistress’s bare arm, strokes it.
WIFE I know you fancy women … I’ve checked you out … you shared a suite in Philadelphia with a German girl … the two of you stayed in that suite all day, all day until it was time to go to the theater … she was your dresser was she not … made you sheer dresses with tiny waists. Kiss me … go on.
Wife kisses her.
WIFE (passionate) You’d like us both, Henry and me … that’s what you’d really like … Henry and me together … because then you would not be an outsider … you would be one of us … Henry watching me kissing you kissing your cunt … Henry coming into you and into me and into both … part of one another … that’s what you really want and that’s what Henry wants … but he doesn’t know it yet, it will all just unfold … like seascape.
MISTRESS (shrill, mirthless laugh) That’s very bizarre.
Wife brings her face close to Mistress’s face.
WIFE What am I … a mind reader? … I know what you’re thinking … (imitating an English accent) Oh, Henry, please come through that door and fuck us both and put an end to all this torture and all this untruth and all this agony and all this jealousy …
Mistress stands pushing Wife away.
Wife touches Mistress’s lips with her forefinger, then kisses her, a longer kiss.
WIFE (cont.) You’re a piece of work, Clarissa.
Wife goes.
Mistress pours herself a drink and drinks in one gulp.
MISTRESS I just pictured her going home and saying, “She has a luscious mouth, your whore.” For one awful second I yielded … I was unfaithful to him with his own wife.
SCENE SEVENTEEN
Daughter is tripping out and is standing, one foot on a chair, the other foot on the table, her arm stretched out calling a boy. Wife comes in but Daughter is unaware of anything except her trip. Disco music starts during her monologue as she creates a rock concert in her own mind and is the star of it. Strobe lighting. She is wearing a fur coat, inside out.
Daughter addresses imaginary audience.
DAUGHTER Zack … Zachary … I can’t see you … you’re hiding … hidey hidey (whisper) I’m wearing a see-through skirt with nothing on underneath … it seems we’re going to the same party … you want dialogue … uh huh … that’s tough … we’re hooking up with Venus … you’ve got to take care of her … she gets catatonic after two lines (She takes a tiny pill box and shakes it playfully.) We get our goodies down the hill from the school at the pizza place … My mother would have a hissy fit. (giggling) We kind of know who to hit up … weird guy … Zack … you’ve got to get groovy … I mean university professor or not groovy is where it’s at … enlightenment baby … Venus got blown away the first time … whiney about her belly flab. (wooing) To be perfectly profane about it Zack, it’s good good shit. (more alert) You what … What … You’re not coming? Never mind … it’s not an issue … screw you. (to her audience) They’ve rented this huge space for the Homecoming Party … a bunch of us going … do you want to hear my dirty little secret … I’m performing … I’m the guest performance artist … cee-voo-play … (rousing) Ladies and gentlemen will you please welcome Miss … Brandy … Macready …
Deafening applause as Daughter starts to ad-lib from “I’ll Take Care of You/It’s a Man’s World.”
DAUGHTER (cont.) (singing) I know what you’re going through … and I want to take care of you.
Wife bursts into Daughter’s space.
DAUGHTER (cont.) Doobedoobedoo … doobedoobedoo … take care of you … we never have to worry … we never have to pine … you’ve got to trust me (really loud) trust me … trust me.
WIFE Brandy.
Daughter ignores her and goes on with her solo.
DAUGHTER (singing) Without a woman … without a girl … without a woman … (speaking voice) what town is it … (singing) without a woman without a woman.
Wife turns to Henry as if he is there.
WIFE (loudly) You see what your fornicating has done to this family, this child.
Daughter takes off fur coat. She is wearing a skimpy slip.
DAUGHTER (coy voice) Daddy … Daddy did I tell you I lost it … my cherry was popped … it was with Nathan … it was so (searching) nothing. I kept saying to him, “Is it over, is it over?” … now we do it wherever we get the chance … I’m very good at it … sex is not all it’s cracked up to be but it’s terrific not to be a virgin … virgin sucks. Sucks.
WIFE Jesus.
SCENE EIGHTEEN
MISTRESS I was asked to do a reading of his play—The Winter Maze. Very grand apartment. I played the older woman and Rebecca played my rival … There were two males, the nice guy and the shit. People sat on chairs and cushions, the cream, the cognoscenti … Pauline, on a high throne, very relaxed, the sphinx. Afterward people said such adoring things to him, people gloated over him, women were gushing, telling him how great he was, how deep, how moving. He had thrown me the odd bashful smile and then he came over and said, “What did you think?” and I said, “It was good Henry … but it doesn’t cut the mustard.” He was appalled. I knew it was curtains because I knew that above and beyond what the shits and the cognoscenti said, that he had his own doubts about it. People were watching us, nudging, and Pauline the sphinx was sitting up commanding. I tried to make amends. I tried to give him back to himself, but it was too late. He did something ugly. A poodle kept sniffing around his ankle, just would not abstain, and he called across and said, “Pauline, can you get this bitch off me?”
WIFE (commandingly) What’s going on between you two?
MISTRESS He told her, said, “Clarissa thinks it doesn’t cut the mustard.”
WIFE (going to her) Oh really … and how do you come to that conclusion?
MISTRESS I can’t lie to him … I don’t lie to him about his work.
WIFE You think I do. You think he would have stayed with me all these years if I lied to him about what matters most to him in this world? You do us a disservice, my dear. Henry weighs every single word, a master jeweler, weighing his precious golds and his precious gems. Moreover, in case you think he stays with me because of my money you are also mistaken: Henry is a very independent man and I am not his purse. (goes toward Mistress gloatingly) You do know he does a real fine imitation of you
for after-dinner guests. (miming) Your dying fall, the little flick of your wrists, your nasal sensitivity.
Mistress cowers.
SCENE NINETEEN
MISTRESS I had to come out of As You Like It.
WIFE Struck poor Celia across the cheek, a hard nasty blow.
MISTRESS Her acting was false, mincing … the director took …
WIFE … Took you aside, sat you down …
MISTRESS Said I needed time off. Time off … I who dreaded leisure. What to do. I walked …
WIFE She walked.
MISTRESS Got to know Manhattan … the smells, the heat belching up out of the grids … trumpet, trombone, the ghost hands of the homeless like twigs … people sitting on steps … talking to themselves.
WIFE Crazy people … Thinking you would walk into him. In a bar. In that private club where he goes to play poker.
MISTRESS There was this man on the pavement, very tall. Red beard, tartan rug, he sold cheap prints … the wounded orchids of Georgia O’Keeffe, wounded, spent. I spoke to him, asked if he ever cracked up. He looked at me. “Never.” He was a mountain man and a Green Beret man … Plus I have God … Yes, that was his reply … I rang Rachel. I said, “Have you God, Rachel, do you feel the presence of God, are you enfolded in God’s arms?”
WIFE And Rachel told you—“You’re having a breakdown, very soon they’ll come for you and you’ll be in a place upstate where the inmates are not allowed to lock their bedroom doors … bars on the windows …”
MISTRESS Rachel must have telephoned him because one morning he was ringing my doorbell … Judge my disarray at him seeing me so unkempt … he bearing a large bunch of white roses …
WIFE Not roses … definitely not roses …
MISTRESS Let me say this, a man does not wish to see a woman on the verge of a breakdown … He had kept the car waiting … he was going to Washington to meet a senator … they’re all opportunists. “I got laid by one,” I said, harshly, too harshly, and he flinched and he said, “That’s not very attractive, that’s not like you,” and I said, “I know, I know.” He was in the doorway … and he said, “I did, do, and always will love you.” I followed him out into the hall. It’s a slow clunking lift. “Henry,” I called. “Clarissa,” he called back. We had never said each other’s names so tenderly, so … hopelessly … (about to break) They looked like roses …