Doctors of Philosophy

by Muriel Spark

  LEONORA. Fruitless.

  ANNIE. Absolutely fruitless. If I were you, Leonora, I’d go and see a doctor, even if it’s only about your health. I must go and change into something suitable for gazing across the canal by dusk. Whenever there’s a gap in my life I go and see a doctor. That’s my philosophy. (Exit.)

  CURTAIN

  END OF ACT 1

  ACT TWO

  SCENE I

  A WEEK LATER.

  Another view of the same room. French windows open, ANNIE, dressed in an opulent dressing-gown, sits writing by a desk near the window. CHARLIE is in the room.

  ANNIE. Take no notice of it.

  CHARLIE. I can’t.

  ANNIE. Well then, don’t be so mean. After all, Leonora’s one of the family. Give her a child if she wants a child, anything for a quiet life. How do you spell susceptible?

  Enter CATHERINE with a shopping basket.

  CATHERINE. Annie, it’s gone twelve.

  ANNIE. So it has. I’ve only written two and a half letters. Charlie has been giving me the full story of his experiences during the past week.

  CATHERINE. Hadn’t you better be getting dressed in case anyone comes in or something?

  CHARLIE. ‘Give me a child …’

  ANNIE. I am dressed.

  CATHERINE. I meant dressed in something different from your bedroom attire. Not that I myself care in the—

  ANNIE. I chose this as being specially suitable for sitting by a sunny window writing letters.

  CHARLIE. I don’t think she knows what she’s saying at the time.

  CATHERINE. It does look rather charming, I must admit. Stand up and turn round slowly.

  CHARLIE. Looks very nice, Annie. I say I don’t think she knows what she’s saying at the time.

  CATHERINE. But I wouldn’t myself call it suitable for writing letters, particularly.

  ANNIE. It depends what sort of letters you write.

  CHARLIE. Looks very nice, Annie— I don’t think she wants a child. It is simply something she says. She’s under a compulsion to say it.

  ANNIE. That’s exactly what I suffer from. I’m always saying things. Something inside me makes me.

  Enter MRS. S.

  I might easily say to you ‘Charlie, give me a child, I want a child.’ I mean, at the very worst you could reply, ‘Anything you say, Annie darling.’

  MRS. S. Did you get the cucumber, Mrs. D.?

  CATHERINE. No, you didn’t mention cucumber.

  MRS. S. Yes, I did. — Just carry on with your conversation, Annie. — I said bring a cucumber, I could see you wasn’t listening.

  ANNIE. No-one would think it odd, I’m sure, if I said, ‘Charlie—’

  CATHERINE. Leonora’s different from you, Annie.

  CHARLIE. It would be a different proposition altogether, Annie.

  MRS. S. Leonora hasn’t got freedom of speech like you, Annie. She’s educated. Daphne’s on a diet to catch a husband. It wasn’t much to ask, any normal mother would a laid herself out to get a cucumber under the circumstances, but I knew—

  CATHERINE. Leonora’s a scholar, one takes her seriously. There’s no comparison, Annie, between the effect of what you might say and the effect of what Leonora says. MRS. S. We take everything from whence it comes in this establishment, Annie. Poor Leonora don’t get away with much, she can’t sit around like you all morning looking like the Caliph of Bagdad’s favourite Christian. Make people think she was off her rocker. You’re all right, you haven’t got a rocker. I wanted to slice a bit of cucumber for Daphne’s salad, special diet.

  CHARLIE. She should eat what’s put before her.

  MRS. S. Let her enjoy herself while she’s young. She’ll soon have her Ph.D., and once you’ve got it you’ve had it. Annie, the time’s getting on if you want to change into something suitable for consuming shepherd’s pie with oily lettuce leaves on your side plate.

  ANNIE. Mrs. S., I’m sure Mr. S. must have loved you very dearly. I know he must have done.

  MRS. S. I wouldn’t be sure. I remain agnostic on that point. What makes you raise the subject, academically speaking?

  ANNIE. I always like to bring the conversation round to love, I do it by instinct.

  MRS. S. A pernicious instinct. Enough to spoil your appetite. (Goes out.)

  CHARLIE. A drink, Annie, … Catherine …?

  ANNIE. Yes, please — my usual.

  CATHERINE. Please. Annie can take hers—

  ANNIE. Annie can take it upstairs while she changes.

  CATHERINE. Annie dear, do what you like. I’m all on edge.

  ANNIE. I think you very calm and detached in the circumstances, Catherine.

  CATHERINE. Thank you, but I don’t feel it.

  CHARLIE. Neither do I.

  ANNIE. You don’t look it. Catherine does, she’s brilliantly calm.

  CHARLIE. She says she does not feel it.

  ANNIE. Then she has a marvellous control over her feelings.

  CHARLIE. Catherine is usually controlled when she’s got something to worry about, she only loses control when she’s worried about nothing.

  ANNIE. Are you sure you are not worrying about nothing? After all, Leonora may be having a little joke. One gets bored at times, after all, and one might easily …

  CHARLIE. Leonora doesn’t play little jokes.

  CATHERINE. Her jokes are entirely academic and verbal.

  ANNIE. I wonder, Charlie, if you’ve been imagining, or partly dreaming about Leonora? Let me assure you that one isn’t morally responsible for what one dreams. A priest told me that.

  CATHERINE. Annie—

  Enter DAPHNE.

  DAPHNE. The tape recorder’s gone. Have you got it?

  CATHERINE. What do you mean, it’s gone?

  CHARLIE. Where’s it gone?

  DAPHNE. Someone has taken it. Annie, have you moved a tape recorder from the broom cupboard this morning?

  ANNIE. I never go near a broom cupboard, darling.

  CATHERINE. Have you asked Mrs. S.?

  DAPHNE. She hasn’t seen it. Someone must have taken it very early this morning. I hid it in the cupboard very late last night. It’s still got the tape in it.

  CHARLIE. Damn silly place to put it. Why didn’t you take it to your room?

  DAPHNE. I thought it would be safer in the broom cupboard. I thought nobody would find it there.

  ANNIE. Leonora must have found it there. Leonora’s got it, obviously. Leonora’s probably bored now that she hasn’t got her book to write. Ask Leonora when she comes in, you’ll find she’s borrowed it, after all it’s only a tape recorder. Is it a very high-class one ?

  DAPHNE. It isn’t mine. I borrowed it for a purpose.

  CHARLIE. I can’t afford to replace it.

  CATHERINE. We managed to get a recording of Leonora’s voice, Annie, to prove that she does what Charlie says she does. It’s on the tape, it’s there when one plays it back.

  ANNIE. How thrilling. You could blackmail Leonora now, I suspect she’s quite well off. It wouldn’t be a real crime, would it, if you just kept it in the family.

  CHARLIE. How could she have suspected?

  ANNIE. Leonora’s a scholar, you know. Scholars are very sly, you must admit they do things very much on the sly. I once met a scholar in the train to Cardiff.

  CATHERINE. Supposing Leonora should play it back, not quite knowing what it was she said? It might give her a frightful shock. I wish we hadn’t thought of the tape recorder. I feel rather mean.

  DAPHNE. I don’t. It will force her to have treatment.

  CATHERINE. From whom?

  DAPHNE. She should be psychoanalysed.

  CATHERINE. I don’t see Leonora submitting to psychoanalysis. She’s so inevitably bound to be more intelligent than the analyst, she’d be analysing him.

  DAPHNE. Something will have to be done.

  CATHERINE. Something has been done.

  DAPHNE. Something more will have to be done.

  ANNIE. Nonsense. We
had another cousin Sarah, who used to talk to the squirrels. Nothing was ever done about her. We just put up with it— Remember, Catherine?

  DAPHNE. This is quite different. There’s nothing desperately odd about talking to a squirrel.

  ANNIE. These squirrels were not there. We just had to put up with it. Can’t you just put up with this little freak of Leonora’s, Charlie?

  CHARLIE. No.

  CATHERINE. It upsets Charlie.

  ANNIE. It flatters him.

  CHARLIE. It frightens me. What are we going to do when she comes back? That’s the problem.

  CATHERINE. Perhaps she won’t come back.

  ANNIE. Oh, she wouldn’t run off with Daphne’s tape recorder. It would be criminal.

  CATHERINE. Leonora’s a serious problem, Annie. She might not return.

  ANNIE. That’s what Charlie wants, isn’t it? So that would be an end of the problem.

  CATHERINE. It would present a worse problem.

  ANNIE. I’ve got a brilliant idea. I know what we can do.

  MRS. S. (off). Lunch ready.

  CATHERINE. What, Annie?

  ANNIE. Well, in my opinion, the best way to deal with a problem is to solve it. That’s what we’ll do.

  MRS. S. (off). Lunch ready.

  CATHERINE. Lunch is ready.

  CURTAIN

  END OF SCENE I

  ACT TWO

  SCENE II

  MRS. S. WITH ELECTRIC POLISHER.

  The stage is empty and without scenery except for various pulleys and switches to adjust stage scenery and lighting, but with various coloured lights upon it.

  LEONORA comes in with a tape recorder. She sits on the stage, opens the tape recorder and starts to play it back.

  LEONORA’S VOICE (from the machine). Charlie, give me a child, I want a child.

  CHARLIE’S VOICE. Leonora, please …

  LEONORA’S VOICE. Charlie, before it’s too late. Give me a child.

  CHARLIE’S VOICE. Just sit down for a moment, Leonora. You are not well.

  Recorded footsteps retreating.

  LEONORA. That is a recording of a conversation between me and my cousin’s husband.

  MRS. S. Never!

  Switches on the polisher, which makes a humming sound, and polishes the floor of the stage with it.

  LEONORA. What do you make of it, Mrs. S.?

  MRS. S. Very revealing. Get up off the floor, you’ll catch a cold off it.

  LEONORA. Mrs. S., have you ever had a nervous breakdown?

  MRS. S. Yes. I shall never forget it. I had it on a Tuesday afternoon in March four years ago when Mrs. D. packed her bags to leave Charlie, but Charlie failed to return home at the anticipated hour to be left. Suspense held us both in its clammy clutch. We waited, gaunt, un-speaking, resolute, in the front hall where the shadows gathered round us in fraught mockery. Outside, a car slid like a homing egret to a swift standstill. Footsteps passed and faded relentlessly into the guesswork of another street. Silence. Fate. Footsteps again. Still no Charlie. I shall never forget it. Would you get up off the floor, Leonora? I got to polish up.

  LEONORA. Mrs. S. I’m occupied. This is a discovery and it requires concentration. Shall we hear it again?

  MRS. S. No, we heard it the first time. If that tape came to a head you would lose your job and so would Charlie. You got a bit of fluff on your skirt.

  LEONORA. Oh, that will soon brush off. The question is, what am I going to say to them all? I shall have to think of some explanation …

  MRS. S. You’ll think something up. You’d better move that machine.

  LEONORA. Reality is very alarming at first and then it becomes interesting. Are you interested in the nature of reality, Mrs. S.?

  MRS. S. Very, I’m trying to give it a polish as you can see.

  LEONORA gazes at the room.

  LEONORA. The wall, the room! Where is it? What’s happened?

  MRS. S. I told you, Leonora, I’m getting the place ready. Have patience. I’ve got to work in my own time-space.

  LEONORA. Mrs. S., I’m frightened. Would you mind putting this back in the broom cupboard. I just can’t bear the sight of it.

  MRS. S. Are you interested in the nature of reality, Leonora, or are you too frightened?

  LEONORA. I’m interested.

  MRS. S. Well, there isn’t any broom cupboard. Dramatic revelation.

  LEONORA. I got it out of the broom cupboard this morning.

  MRS. S. You did and you didn’t, let’s face it. The broom cupboard is a pure idea somewhere behind the scenes. There’s a lot goes on behind the scenes in this house that’s all pure idea. It’s very alarming at first and then it becomes interesting. (She switches off the polisher.)

  Enter CHARLIE BROWN with large piece of scenery — part of the original study set. He continues to adjust scenery by working pulleys, etc., with MRS. s. LEONORA watches with curiosity.

  You’re late, Charlie. I’ve had to keep the conversation going.

  CHARLIE B. Hallo, good afternoon, doctor.

  LEONORA. Let me try. (She helps to adjust a piece of scenery.)

  CHARLIE B. How’s your cousin?

  LEONORA. Good afternoon, Charlie. Which one ?

  CHARLIE B. The healthy one.

  MRS. S. That’s Annie. She’s in good health. Just mind out of the way, Leonora. We’ll soon have the place straight.

  CHARLIE B. How’s the young one?

  MRS. S. Daphne’s on a diet. Makes her bad tempered. Starts laying down the law.

  The room is now normal, but MRS. S. puts final touches.

  CHARLIE B. I ask the doctor a question, I don’t expect answers from you. There’s a question I want to put to you, doctor. Now suppose you was me. Put yourself in my place. Thirty-six. Unmarried. Good job in transport. Plenty spare time both ends of the journey. — You got the picture?

  LEONORA. Yes.

  CHARLIE B. Well, you’re still me, see? Now you want to settle down in life. Understand?

  LEONORA. Oh, yes.

  CHARLIE B. But you haven’t yet found the partner that you might call of your dreams. So what do you do?

  LEONORA. You wait, you have a look round, and—

  CHARLIE B. Quite. You wait. You got to give up travel for a week or two and wait. So what do you do while you’re waiting? I’ll tell you what you do. You improve yourself.

  MRS. S. Hanging round the canal watching Annie rowing the boat.

  CHARLIE B. I’m consulting the doctor if you’ll excuse me. Where was I?

  LEONORA. You improve yourself.

  CHARLIE B. You’re in my shoes, remember.

  LEONORA. I improve myself.

  CHARLIE B. Yes, that’s what you do while you wait for the right party to turn up. Now, I’m not a one for evening classes. Too old. So you borrow a couple a books.

  MRS S. Off of Annie. (Points to a gap in bookshelf.)

  CHARLIE B. I’m putting up a problem. Well, to cut a long story short, doctor, if you put yourself in my place, where you’re stopping the light isn’t good enough to read in bed at nights. It’s in the wrong place. So what do you do? You decide to buy a reading lamp. Right?

  LEONORA. An excellent idea, Charlie.

  CHARLIE B. Good. Now, you get dressed in a suit, you go up the West End, to Oxford Street. Right, you go into a big shop, electrical department, and you look round and you find what you want around your price. Right? Well, it’s not right. You find two or three, then you bring it down to two. You’re in my shoes, remember. You got a choice of a nice vase base in apple-green, black and white, Chinese blossom effect, cone-shaped shade, casts a pale-green glow, no good for reading. Or on the other hand you got a choice of a desk lamp, plain red wood base, long neck, flexible, and a small shade to protect your eyes from the naked bulb, Swedish made. Which one do you choose? If you was in your own shoes you’d choose the desk lamp every time, wouldn’t you?

  MRS S. Say yes, Leonora.

  LEONORA. Perhaps it would be more practical’ for read
ing.

  CHARLIE B. That’s right, for reading. But you’re in my shoes. Suppose when it comes to the push you don’t like the book? You put it down and you pick up the other and you don’t like that one either. A couple a days later you meet the lady of your inmost desires. Where’s the desk lamp going to get you? It won’t get you anywhere, will it? You be better off with the Chinese style vase, cone-shaped shade, pale-green glow. It would form the beginnings of a home on any mantelpiece.

  MRS. S. Try saying no, Leonora.

  LEONORA. Yes, in the circumstances I would choose that, Charlie.

  CHARLIE B. You’re sure? You’re not me now, you’re the doctor. Suppose I did like the first book, and suppose I liked the second. I might become a reader, isn’t that so, doctor?

  LEONORA. It’s quite a problem, Charlie.

  CHARLIE B. Let me run over the symptoms again. Thirty-six. Unmarried. Good job in transport …

  ANNIE comes in dressed ‘for boating on the Canal’.

  ANNIE. Leonora darling! — Oh, you’ve got the tape recorder, shall I put it back in the broom cupboard?

  She makes a swift exit with tape recorder.

  CHARLIE B. Plenty of time both ends of the journey

  MRS. S. That’ll be all for today, Charlie, much obliged.

  CHARLIE B. I haven’t finished consulting the doctor.

  MRS. S. You better go before you catch any more symptoms. (CHARLIE hesitates.) Mrs. D. will be in presently. LEONORA. Sit down, Charlie. I’ll try to give you some definite advice.

  Enter ANNIE.

  ANNIE. Well, good afternoon, Charlie. Lovely day for the canal, isn’t it?

  CHARLIE B. A perfect day, ma’am.

  ANNIE. You’re always so encouraging, Charlie.

  MRS. S. That’s exactly what the neighbours say when he stands on the bank and yells ‘Good old Annie. Go to it, Annie.’

  ANNIE. I hope the neighbours notice the improvement in my style. Rowing isn’t easy, it’s an art. You have to give yourself up to it. I’ve discovered that there’s no use whatsoever in making a determined effort. You’ve got to relax into a sort of rhythmic trance, like this. (Sits on the floor and makes trance-like rowing movements.) In, out …