TYE: What did you say, Babe?
[He has finished dressing and is now at the mirror, absorbed in combing his hair. Jane utters a soft, involuntary laugh.]
JANE: A hundred dollars, the price, and worth it, certainly worth it. I must be much in your debt, way over my means to payoff!
TYE: Well, I ain’t paid to make a bad appearance at work. [He puts on a sport shirt with girls in grass skirts printed on it.]
JANE: I hate that shirt.
TYE: I know you think it’s tacky. Well, I’m tacky, and it’s the only clean one I got.
JANE: It isn’t clean, not really. And does it express much grief over the Champagne Girl’s violent departure to Spain?
TYE: Do you have to hit me with that? What reason . . . ?
JANE: I’ve really got no reason to hit a goddamn soul but myself that lacked pride to keep my secrets. You know I shouldn’t have told you about my—intentions, I should have just slipped away. The Brazilian was far from attractive but—my circumstances required some drastic—compromises.
TYE [crouching beside her]: You’re talking no sense, Jane. The Brazilian’s out of the picture; those steps on the stairs were steps of hospital workers coming to take a—pick a dying fruit outa the place.
JANE: Do you think I expect you back here again? You’ll say yes, assure me now as if forever—but—reconsider—the moment of impulse . . .
TYE: Cut some slack for me, Babe. We all gotta cut some slack for each other in this fucking world. Lissen. You don’t have to sweat it.
JANE: Give me another remission; one that lasts!
TYE: Gotta go now, it’s late, after dark and I’m dressed.
JANE: Well, zip your fly up unless you’re now in the show. [She rises and zips up his fly, touches his face and throat with trembling fingers.]
TYE: Jane, we got love between us! Don’t ya know that?
JANE [not harshly]: Lovely old word, love, it’s travelled a long way, Tye.
TYE: And still’s a long way to go. Hate to leave you alone but—
JANE: I’m not alone. I’ve got Beret. An animal is a comforting presence sometimes. I wonder if they’d admit her to St. Vincent’s?
TYE: St. Vincent’s?
JANE: That charity hospital where they took the painter called Nightingale.
TYE: You ain’t going there, honey.
JANE: It strikes me as being a likely destination.
TYE: Why?
JANE: I watched you dress. I didn’t exist for you. Nothing existed for you but your image in the mirror. Understandably so. [With her last strength she draws herself up.]
TYE: What’s understandable, Jane? —You got a fever? [He rises, too, and stretches out a hand to touch her forehead. She knocks it away.]
JANE: What’s understandable is that your present convenience is about to become an encumbrance. An invalid, of no use, financial or sexual. Sickness is repellent, Tye, demands more care and gives less and less in return. The person you loved—assuming that you did love when she was still useful—is now, is now as absorbed in preparing herself for oblivion as you were absorbed, in your—your image in the—mirror!
TYE: [frightened by her vehemence]: Hey, Jane!
[Again she strikes away his extended hand.]
JANE: Readies herself for it as you do for the street! [She continues as to herself.] —Withdraws into another dimension. Is indifferent to you except as—caretaker! Is less aware of you than of—[Panting, she looks up slowly through the skylight.]—sky that’s visible to her from her bed under the skylight—at night, these—filmy white clouds, they move, they drift over the roofs of the Vieux Carré so close that if you have fever you feel as if you could touch them, and bits would come off on your fingers, soft as—cotton candy—
TYE: Rest, Babe. I’ll be back early. I’ll get Smokey to take over for me at midnight, and I’ll come back with tamales and a bottle of vino! [He crosses out of the light. She rushes to the door.]
JANE: No, no, not before daybreak and with a new needle mark on your arm. Beret? Beret!
[She staggers wildly out of the light, calling the cat again and again.]
WRITER: I lifted her from the floor where she’d fallen . . .
[Various voices are heard exclaiming around the house.]
[The writer reappears in the studio area supporting Jane, who appears half conscious.]
Jane? Jane?
JANE: —My cat, I scared it away . . .
NURSIE [offstage]: What is goin’ on up there?
WRITER: She was frightened by something.
JANE: I lost my cat, that’s all. —They don’t understand . . . [The writer places her on the bed.] Alone. I’m alone.
WRITER: She’ll be back. [He continues as narrator.] Jane didn’t seem to hear me. She was looking up at the skylight.
JANE: It isn’t blue any more, it’s suddenly turned quite dark.
WRITER: It was dark as the question in her eyes. [The blues piano fades in.]
JANE: It’s black as the piano man playing around the corner.
WRITER [to Jane]: It must be after six. What’s the time now?
JANE: Time? What? Oh. Time. My sight is blurred. [She shows him her wristwatch.] Can’t make out the luminous dial, can you?
WRITER: It says five of twelve.
JANE: An improbable hour. Must have run down.
WRITER: I’ll take it off. To wind it. [He puts the watch to his ear.] I’m afraid it’s broken.
JANE [vaguely]: I hadn’t noticed. —Lately— I tell time by the sky.
WRITER: His name was Sky.
JANE: Tye . . .
WRITER: No, not Tye. Sky was the name of someone who offered me a ride West.
JANE: —I’ve had fever all day. Did you ask me a question?
WRITER: I said I’d planned a trip to the West Coast with this young vagrant, a musician.
JANE: Young vagrants are irresponsible. I’m not at all surprised—he let you down? Well. I have travel plans, too.
WRITER: With Tye?
JANE: No, I was going alone, not with Tye. What are you doing there?
WRITER: Setting up the chess board. Want to play?
JANE: Oh, yes, you said you play. I’d have a partner for once. But my concentration’s—I warn you—it’s likely to be—impaired.
WRITER: Want to play white or black?
JANE: You choose.
[The piano fades in. Jane looks about in a confused way.]
WRITER: Black. In honor of the musician around the corner.
JANE: —He’s playing something appropriate to the occasion as if I’d phoned in a request. How’s it go, so familiar?
WRITER: “Makes no difference how things break,
I’ll still get by somehow
I’m not sorry, cause it makes no difference now.”
JANE: Each of us abandoned to the other. You know this is almost our first private conversation. [She nearly falls to the floor. He catches her and supports her to the chair at the upstage side of the table.] Shall we play, let’s do. With no distractions at all. [She seems unable to move; she has a frozen attitude.]
[There is a distant sustained high note from Sky’s clarinet. They both hear it. Jane tries to distract the writer’s attention from the sound and continues quickly with feverish animation. The sound of the clarinet becomes more urgent.]
Vagrants, I can tell you about them. From experience. Incorirgibly delinquent. Purposeless. Addictive. Grab at you for support when support’s what you need—gone? Whistling down the last flight, such a lively popular tune. Well, I have travel plans, but in the company of no charming young vagrant. Love Mediterranean countries but somehow missed Spain. I plan to go. Now! Madrid, to visit the Prado, most celebrated museum of all. Admire the Goyas, El Grecos. Hire a car to cross the—gold plains of Toledo.
WRITER: Jane, you don’t have to make up stories, I heard your talk with Tye—all of it.
JANE: Then you must have heard his leaving. How his steps picked up speed on
the second flight down—started whistling . . .
WRITER: He always whistles down stairs—it’s habitual to him— you mustn’t attach a special meaning to it.
[The clarinet music is closer; the sound penetrates the shut windows.]
JANE: At night the Quarter’s so full of jazz music, so many entertainers. Isn’t it now your move?
WRITER [embarrassed]: It’s your move, Jane.
JANE [relinquishing her game]: No yours—your vagrant musician is late but you’re not forgotten.
WRITER: I’ll call down, ask him to wait till midnight when Tye said he’ll be back.
JANE: With tamales and vino to celebrate— [She staggers to the window, shatters a pane of glass, and shouts.] —Your friend’s coming right down, just picking up his luggage!
[She leans against the wall, panting, her bleeding hand behind her.]
Now go, quick. He might not wait, you’d regret it.
WRITER: Can’t I do something for you?
JANE: Pour me three fingers of bourbon.
[She has returned to the table. He pours the shot.]
Now hurry, hurry. I know that Tye will be back early tonight.
WRITER: Yes, of course he will . . . [He crosses from the studio light.]
JANE [smiling somewhat bitterly]: Naturally, yes, how could I possibly doubt it. With tamales and vino . . . [She uncloses her fist; the blood is running from palm to wrist. The writer picks up a cardboard laundry box and the typewriter case.]
WRITER: As I left, I glanced in Jane’s door. She seemed to be or was pretending to be—absorbed in her solitary chess game. I went down the second flight and on the cot in the dark passage-way was—[He calls out.] Beret?
[For the first time the cat is visible, white and fluffy as a piece of cloud. Nursie looms dimly behind him, a dark solemn fact, lamplit.]
NURSIE: It’s the cat Miss Sparks come runnin’ after.
WRITER: Take it to her, Nursie. She’s alone up there.
MRS. WIRE: Now watch out, boy. Be careful of the future. It’s a long ways for the young. Some makes it and others git lost.
WRITER: I know . . . [He turns to the audience.] I stood by the door uncertainly for a moment or two. I must have been frightened of it . . .
MRS. WIRE: Can you see the door?
WRITER: Yes—but to open it is a desperate undertaking . . . !
[He does, hesitantly. Transparencies close from either wing. Dim spots of light touch each character of the play in a characteristic position.
[As he first draws the door open, he is forced back a few steps by a cacophony of sound: the waiting storm of his future—mechanical racking cries of pain and pleasure, snatches of song. It fades out. Again there is the urgent call of the clarinet. He crosses to the open door.]
They’re disappearing behind me. Going. People you’ve known in places do that: they go when you go. The earth seems to swallow them up, the walls absorb them like moisture, remain with you only as ghosts; their voices are echoes, fading but remembered.
[The clarinet calls again. He turns for a moment at the door.]
This house is empty now.
THE END
Copyright © 1977, 1979 by The University of the South.
Introduction © 2000 by Robert Bray
INSCRIBED TO KEITH HACK
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Vieux Carré, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the agent for The University of the South, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Limited, National House, 60-66 Wardour St., London WIV 4ND, England.
Inquiries concerning the amateur acting rights should be directed to The Dramatists’ Play Service, Inc. 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, without whose permission in writing no amateur performance may be given.
Vieux Carré is published by arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
First published clothbound and as New Directions Paperbook 482 in 1979; an introduction by Robert Bray was added to the paper edition, reissued as NDP911, in 2000.
eISBN 978-0-8112-2593-9
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011
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