by Muriel Spark
CATHERINE. Young Charlie attempted to seduce me. Where’s that tape? — I can prove it. Not that I hold it against him. Where …
ANNIE. Daphne took it up with her. But if I were you, Catherine, I should try to preserve that record for always. It’s most flattering, when you come to think of it.
CATHERINE. Do you think so, Annie?
ANNIE. Well, to be quite frank, I’m afraid he didn’t attempt to kiss me, although he had every opportunity to do so.
CHARLIE. Any normal woman would regard it as an insult. Any normal woman would have slapped his face.
CATHERINE. I’m not a normal woman, thank you very much.
CHARLIE. It’s a question of your dignity. Leonora would have slapped his face. Any woman of normal instincts—
LEONORA. I’m not a normal woman, Charlie, thank you very much.
ANNIE. You must not insult us like this, Charlie. We aren’t the sort of women who go round assaulting affectionate young men.
CHARLIE. I see. You only assault each other.
LEONORA. The circumstances were exceptional. Mrs. Weston would bring out the slapping instinct in anyone. I must say, I rather enjoyed it.
CATHERINE. Me too.
Enter MRS. S. to clear up the litter.
MRS. S. This is the last time I stop overnight to help you out. If I want a free-for-all I can get it at my sister’s place. (Pours herself a whisky.) They like to bring the evening to a boil. It isn’t any holiday for me to stop here overnight and be witness to a free-for-all. Mrs. D., are you aware of a large bunch of flowers on the floor of the downstairs lavatory?
CATHERINE. Oh! The flowers … I forgot all about them. I’ll go and get them, Annie, they’re lovely.
ANNIE. What a brilliant oversight! (CATHERINE goes out.) You see, Charlie, what rational people like you and Leonora don‘t realise, is that there’s a mysterious force that provides for the needs of simple-minded ordinary women like me.
MRS. S. They’ve been laying in the lav without water for six hours. Won’t last. (Pours herself a whisky.) I don’t know about you lot, but I’m going to bed.
CHARLIE. We’re all going to bed.
Enter CATHERINE with flowers.
ANNIE. Roses at midnight, how thrilling! Who can they be from? (Looks at envelope attached.) They’ve been sent by Transatlantic Cable … America, now who … ? (Looks closely at envelope.) Oh, it’s addressed to Leonora. I say, Leonora, how thrilling, someone in America’s sent you some roses. Open them up at once.
LEONORA opens envelope and reads message.
CHARLIE. There isn’t any more room for any more flowers in the house. We’ve got nothing but flowers all over the place, using up oxygen.
CATHERINE. What a lovely surprise!
ANNIE. Leonora doesn’t look very surprised.
LEONORA. Really, do you think I’ve never had flowers before?
CHARLIE. Arriving in the middle of the night, that’s the significant point. (Looks at envelope.) By Cable. Expensive shop, must have cost a fortune, it would have kept an Indian peasant for a year.
DAPHNE rushes in.
DAPHNE. I’ve just found a note from Charlie. It was lying on the door-mat. But I can’t read it, it’s in Greek, signed Charlie in English. Leonora … Mother … read it.
CATHERINE. Let me see.
LEONORA looks over CATHERINE’s shoulder at the note.
MRS. S. Sounds like he’s done away with himself. Too cryptic for my liking.
LEONORA. It’s a quotation from the Greek Anthology.
CATHERINE. So it is. It’s a well-known epitaph.
CHARLIE. Let’s hear it.
DAPHNE. Translate.
LEONORA. ‘Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their commands.’
MRS. S. A very moving farewell, that one is.
DAPHNE. I didn’t know he knew any Greek.
CHARLIE. Suicides never announce their departure. They just go and do it.
LEONORA. I have heard of suicide notes being left.
MRS. S. My brother-in-law left a parting note before he turned on the gas. I’d like to tell you what he wrote — but no, it’s too macabre. I just couldn’t.
CATHERINE. I think this is a hoax.
MRS. S. You should a seen my brother-in-law’s farewell — but no, I couldn‘t repeat it. Sorry, I just couldn’t. Talk about nostalgie de la boue!
CHARLIE. Does young Charlie possess a gun or anything?
DAPHNE. Oh no. He doesn’t believe in shooting anything whatsoever.
CHARLIE. No, I suppose that would be unnecessary in his job.
ANNIE. Can young Charlie swim?
DAPHNE. Yes, but he wouldn’t if he was trying to drown himself, now would he?
MRS. S. If they don’t know how to go about it, they struggle for life and save themselves at the last minute. But the really experienced suicide cases always attach a weight to themselves and jump in with their boots on.
ANNIE. Don’t you think we should ring the police?
CATHERINE. That’s too drastic. We don’t want our name in the papers just now. Charlie’s appointment still has to be confirmed.
DAPHNE. I think you’re a monster.
LEONORA. Perhaps, after all, it’s a hoax.
DAPHNE. Don’t listen to her, Leonora — she hasn’t a scrap of natural affection. She ought to see a psychiatrist. I’m going to ring the police. They must drag the canal.
CATHERINE. Very well. I shall ring the police
(Goes out followed by ANNIE).
DAPHNE. How did the victims in the epitaph die, Leonora?
LEONORA. On the field of battle in Thermopylae.
CHARLIE. He evidently sees himself in a very heroic light. Sheer conceit.
MRS. S. You should have heard my brother-in-law’s case. Far more stirring than this. But you couldn’t a heard it. The court was cleared at the inquest for the reading of the note. And you couldn‘t a read it. News of the World wouldn’t touch it. Too hot.
(Lifts YOUNG CHARLIE’s note and holds it up to the light, looking at it for a few seconds.)
Queen’s Velvet.
DAPHNE. I told him to disappear out of my life. But I didn’t say out of his.
Enter CATHERINE.
Are the police coming?
CATHERINE. No. I funked it.
DAPHNE. I’m going
MRS. S. Hark! There’s something going on. (Goes out on terrace followed by the others.) Here we are. Stand back. (Pushes them all back.) They’ve got the body.
CHARLIE (going out to terrace). What’s going on?
DAPHNE. The body! Let me see.
LEONORA. Daphne, sit down and keep quiet.
Enter CHARLIE BROWN, carrying the limp body of YOUNG CHARLIE. Both are dripping wet.
CHARLIE B. I just got him when he was going down the fourth time.
CHARLIE. Someone go and ring the doctor.
CATHERINE. It’s unnecessary to ring the doctor. He’s still breathing.
CHARLIE. My wife’s gone mad. Of course we must have a doctor. Leonora — the number’s on the thing. — The National Health doctor, of course.
LEONORA goes out.
We’ll have to work on him, I suppose.
DAPHNE. I know what to do. Stand back, everybody.
CHARLIE B. I don’t know that he hasn‘t gone, Miss.
DAPHNE administers first aid to YOUNG CHARLIE, pumping and breathing.
MRS. S. She’ll lose it, if she goes on like that. (Exit.)
CATHERINE. Let me take a hand, Daphne, I know what to do.
DAPHNE. You’re not going to touch him.
CHARLIE B. He’s opening his eyes. Not before time.
LEONORA returns, with towels.
CHARLIE. The doctor coming?
LEONORA. No, I funked it. Doctors get aggrieved at night, unless there’s an emergency.
CATHERINE. You are quite right, Leonora.
CHARLIE. This is an emergency. Get off that man at once, Daphne.
LEONORA (to CHARLIE BROWN) I’d go and get dry in the kitchen if I were you, Charlie.
CHARLIE B. You’re not in my shoes now, Doctor. This is real-life drama. I want to see the outcome.
DAPHNE. He’s closed his eyes again.
Enter MRS. S. with hot drinks.
MRS. S. Guess what Annie’s doing.
CATHERINE. Changing into something suitable.
DAPHNE. Charlie, are you all right?
YOUNG CHARLIE. Carry on, it’s lovely.
CHARLIE. Daphne, stop kissing him in that obscene way in the full electric light. Sit up, Charlie. Daphne, remember this man is an attempted suicide, and suicide is a mortal sin. I’d better get him upstairs and out of his things.
DAPHNE. Are you all right, Charlie?
YOUNG CHARLIE. Oh yes, I mean horribly wet. … Cheers. (Walks out.)
DAPHNE (to CHARLIE BROWN). Don’t forget to take my tape recorder to Kensington tomorrow, Charlie, whatever you do.
CHARLIE. Don’t forget to remove the tape, Catherine, whatever you do. (Goes out with DAPHNE.)
Enter ANNIE.
ANNIE. Has the press arrived ? Have the police been? Has the doctor come?
CATHERINE. No, there was no need to dress up.
ANNIE. I was thinking entirely of young Charlie’s interests. I would have been arrested instead of him, I would have been photographed instead of him.
CATHERINE. You did that marvellously, Charlie.
CHARLIE B. I thought the young fellow did a good turn. Looked real drowned.
ANNIE. Catherine, you’re brilliant! Charlie, you’re a hero and a marvellous actor. I saw through the whole thing immediately.
CATHERINE. Well I thought it was time I did something dramatic for a change. Charlie, go and get dry.
MRS. S. I can lend you an old coat that’s been chucked out. As soon as I saw that bit of Queen’s Velvet I knew it was a frame-up. Young Charlie always puts his private and personal communications to Daphne on Basildon Bond, as I know for a fact. Where would he a got Queen’s Velvet at this time of night? He got it off you, Mrs. D. Come on, Charlie.
Exit with CHARLIE BROWN.
LEONORA. Catherine, it was a splendid arrangement.
ANNIE. Did you see through it too, Leonora? Never mind, Catherine, you’ve made a brilliant start. When you’ve had more experience of staging things, nobody will see through anything.
LEONORA (looking at the note). You’ve got the accents of the Greek all wrong.
CATHERINE. It was supposed to be young Charlie’s Greek, Leonora. I believe in dramatic realism.
LEONORA. English would have been more realistic as he hasn‘t got any Greek.
CATHERINE. But less dramatic.
Enter CHARLIE BROWN dressed in an old coat followed by MRS. S.
Put down some whisky, Charlie.
CHARLIE B. Ta. Congratulations, everyone.
LEONORA. We’ll drive you home, Charlie.
CHARLIE B. Got the van outside. I’ll be home in two minutes, just round the corner. Better not keep my friend waiting. I got engaged to my friend today.
CATHERINE. Congratulations, Charlie.
LEONORA. Who is it, Charlie?
CHARLIE B. The widow, she wanted me, so I thought she might as well have it her own way.
ANNIE. I always say, Charlie, it’s a woman’s world when all is said and done. (Raising glass.) To Charlie.
CHARLIE B. Thanks. Ta-ta. Nice roses. (Exit.)
CATHERINE, LEONORA (raising glasses). Charlie.
MRS. S. I must sit down to this. (Sits down and raises glass.) Charlie.
THE CURTAIN FALLS
THE END
A Biography of Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Spark (1918–2006) was an acclaimed Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet whose rhythmic prose and penchant for dark comedy made her one of the twentieth century’s most distinctive writers.
Spark was born Muriel Sarah Camberg on February 1, 1918, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her engineer father, Bernard, was Scottish, while her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Maud, was English family. Their mixed-faith background would fuel many of the moral concerns of Spark’s later novels. Spark was raised in Edinburgh and from an early age attended James Gillespie’s High School. There her education was closely guided by an idiosyncratic teacher named Christina Kay, the inspiration for the title character in her best-known novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
After school, Spark worked as a department store secretary, taught English, and took college courses before meeting Sydney Oswald Spark, whom she married in 1937. Sydney Spark had a teaching job in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Spark followed him there to get married in 1937. In 1938 she gave birth to a son, Robin. However, Sydney suffered from mental illness and was physically and verbally abusive. Spark left her husband, taking her son and his nanny with her in 1940, but because of World War II’s travel restrictions, she was unable to return to Britain until 1944.
Once arrived, she settled in London, where she worked for the Foreign Office; after the war, she took on a series of writing and editing jobs, mostly for literary and trade magazines. She was the editor of Poetry Review for a few contentious years, until her insistence on searching out unknown poets and paying them for their work caused discord. It was while editing a collection of letters by Cardinal Newman that Spark began to explore Catholicism, eventually joining the Roman Catholic Church in 1954.
After nearly collapsing under the pressures of poverty, loneliness, and an addiction to Dexedrine, Spark sought help for her drug use and began to work seriously on a first novel, The Comforters (1957), partly with the financial and emotional support of the novelist Graham Greene. Though a late fiction writer, Spark began producing novels and stories at a rapid pace. In 1961 she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, widely considered her masterpiece. The novel follows a teacher at a girls’ school who carefully and manipulatively cultivates the minds and morals of a select handful of promising pupils. In 1969, it was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film starring Maggie Smith and was a Royal Command Performance.
Many of Spark’s novels were brisk, black comedies with vivid characters and subtle moral underpinnings, partly influenced by Spark’s interest in religion. The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), for instance, is set in Jerusalem during the Adolph Eichmann trials, which she covered for the observer newspaper. The Only Problem (1984) draws from the Book of Job, while The Takeover (1976) skewers shallow religious conviction. Aside from questions of faith, novels such as Territorial Rights (1979) and Reality and Dreams (1996) center on protagonists that search for a moral center.
Spark lived for a time in New York City, where she was given an office at the New Yorker. The city was the setting for her novel The Hothouse by the East River (1973). She lived in Rome for many years writing short and more experimental novels until she moved to Tuscany, where she would live for the final thirty years of her life with her assistant and friend, the painter and sculptor Penelope Jardine. Spark regularly published throughout these decades, garnering many honorary degrees and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, a Commandeur des Artes et des Lettres in 1996, and an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1978. She died in Tuscany in 2006.
Spark as a child. She began attending James Gillespie's High School for Girls at the age of five.
A 1930 school photograph of the junior class of James Gillespie’s High School for Girls. Spark is seated in the middle row, second from the right. Also pictured, in the middle, is the teacher who was the inspiration for Spark’s Miss Jean Brodie, Miss Christina Kay.
A 1932 newspaper clipping of Spark being crowned the “Queen of Poetry” for winning first prize in a poetry competition. She was crowned by Esther Ralston, a popular silent film actress of the day.
Pages from Spark’s notebook from her science class in 1932. Her sketch of a siphon barometer is prominently featured.
Spark with her son, Robin, before she returned to Br
itain from Africa in 1944.
A London identity card of Spark’s from 1945–1950. The card indicates how many times Spark changed residences during the period following the war.
Spark’s curriculum vitae from 1953. She would continue to experience difficulties as she tried to stay afloat financially and continue writing.
Alan Maclean was beginning his career as a literary editor of Macmillan when he persuaded Spark to turn to novel writing. He would commission her first novel and subsequently published fourteen more.
A certificate, signed by Queen Elizabeth II, signifying Spark’s appointment as a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993.
Spark’s desk at her home in Tuscany in 2003. The photograph was taken by her friend, Scottish journalist Alan Taylor. (Included by kind permission of Alan Taylor.)
All images copyright of the Muriel Spark estate and by kind permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.
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This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media