Pinball

by Alison Lyssa

  LOUISE: He’s carrying an enormous burden.

  VANDELOPE and AXIS enter disguised as workers from the Undone Graffiti Company. AXIS has a cleaning machine, and a concealed pot of paint and brush. VANDELOPE has a cassette player, with Greek music—loud. If desired, AXIS could be the cleaning machine itself, operated by VANDELOPE by remote control.

  Hooray. There’s the wall, we want it all off, do you hear? All off, completely off, it’s got to be totally off, clean.

  VANDELOPE: Buenos noces, madame et m’sieur.

  During the following AXIS paints another word on the wall: ‘OK!’

  Santa Lucia. Tinafto portoleni agapi, sa gapo, volpone,

  Ik ike ok

  Waynee weedy winky

  Amo amas amat

  Hoki mai, wahine.

  LOUISE: What?

  VANDELOPE: Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

  LOUISE: Turn it off.

  VANDELOPE: What you say, lady?

  LOUISE: [turning towards AXIS] Turn it off.

  VANDELOPE: Hey! Honi soit qui mal y pense. Sui mar a luciar lustro d’argento.

  LOUISE: I don’t speak Greek.

  AXIS and VANDELOPE exchange a look.

  VANDELOPE: [miming needing a hose] Pshhh.

  LOUISE: Oh, round the back.

  VANDELOPE: No, no, lady, you don’t understand. Pshhh.

  LOUISE: Round the back.

  VANDELOPE: Danke schoen lady. [To KURT] Guten tag, Mettwurst.

  VANDELOPE and AXIS leave.

  LOUISE: I don’t think anybody understands.

  KURT: You can trust me.

  ‘O my love, in the clefts of the rock—’

  LOUISE: I’m not in the mood. It’s the past. I haven’t got a past. Not like Sylvester has. No child of my own. No great love to look back on. Apart from the curtains in the lounge room, I can’t point to something and say, ‘That’s what I did’. As long as that boy is here, or there, or anywhere, Sylvester is tied to her.

  SYLVESTER enters unseen by KURT and LOUISE.

  KURT: You just need to be reminded how beautiful you are.

  LOUISE: No!

  KURT: Sylvester needs you, and my nephew needs both of you. You can hold this family together. Otherwise Sylvester will dither away on his well-cleaned academic bum until Theenie has manipulated Alabastar into a suitable case for a lobotomy.

  SYLVESTER: Get out of here. Now.

  LOUISE: Darling!

  KURT sees what has been added to the wall graffiti.

  KURT: More! See?

  LOUISE: What? Oh, no, Sylvester!

  KURT: The ratbags. Fraternise with them and you turn this country into a cesspit for subversives. Hey, you! Where are you taking the kid? They’re kidnapping Alabastar. Harlots!

  He runs off.

  LOUISE: Sylvester, do something.

  SYLVESTER: It’s their month, darling.

  LOUISE: I could shake you at a time like this.

  SYLVESTER: Don’t, darling. Don’t make it harder than it already is.

  LOUISE: I’m not. It’s just the strain of not knowing where we are.

  SYLVESTER: Bear with me. I need you, sweet one.

  LOUISE: All right, darling. I’m sorry. What would you like for dinner, darling?

  LOUISE and SYLVESTER leave.

  SCENE THREE

  KURT arrives. He cues in organ music and lights for a stained-glass window. Moves the table. MIRIAM arrives with the baby in a christening robe. MIRIAM poses for a flash photo. KURT takes the baby.

  MIRIAM: Careful!

  KURT: ‘My dove, my perfect one, is only one

  The darling of her mother,

  Flawless to her that bore her?’

  KURT and MIRIAM pose together for four photos. VIOLET and ARCHIBALD enter.

  ARCHIBALD: I trust Theenie is not bringing her life’s companion, the misfit?

  VIOLET: Shhh, Arch. We’re in church. Hullo, Miriam.

  KURT gives VIOLET the baby. Photo flash of VIOLET and the baby. VIOLET hands the baby to ARCHIBALD.

  Careful!

  Flash of ARCHIBALD and the baby. The baby gets passed along the line to MIRIAM. Photo flash of each change of holding the baby. Change of lights.

  What a lovely service! But a bit rushed, don’t you think?

  ARCHIBALD: Come and sit down, Miriam.

  The baby cries. MIRIAM finds a dummy.

  VIOLET: Miriam, not a dummy, that is naughty. You’ll make her a smoker in later life!

  KURT: ‘We have a little daughter,

  And she has no breasts.

  What shall we do for our daughter

  On the day when she is spoken for?’

  KURT leaves.

  ARCHIBALD: Miriam, my dear, the best thing I could do for her was to sign a pink slip of paper.

  VIOLET: Now, dear, it ought to be banked, for when she wants to go to university.

  MIRIAM: Oh, Archibald, you darling generous fairy godfather. Thank you! She’s too little to tell you herself. [Showing the baby the cheque] Look!

  ARCHIBALD: May she grow to have the delicate charm and modest demeanour of her mother. And her grandmother.

  VIOLET: And this, Miriam, belonged to her great-great-grandmother. It’s her diary, her poetry, and pressed flowers.

  MIRIAM: Oh. A treasure. For my wittle Sleeping Beauty.

  KURT enters with a huge package.

  KURT: Roll up, ladies and gents. Here in this tent we have the world’s most proud, most lavish daddy. Guilty, ladies and gentlemen, of bringing you from the seven corners of the globe, the world’s biggest, quadraphonic, walk-in, battery-operated—young Matthew can show her the wiring—dolls’ house.

  He opens the box away from the audience. The baby cries.

  VIOLET: Careful, Kurt, careful.

  KURT takes the baby.

  KURT: For Daddy’s noo girl? Can Sarah play too? If you can learn to stack the dishwasher half as quickly as your big sister Sarah, Daddy will be proud of you.

  The baby cries. VIOLET takes the baby. The crying stops.

  VIOLET: He earns at the bar more money than sense. And she ought to be feeding her baby now.

  KURT: Well, darling, what does my favourite wife think of it?

  MIRIAM: It’s very, very … everything. How will she manage? It makes me want to crawl in there and hide.

  KURT: Have you lost your contact lenses, woman? Don’t thank me, will you?

  MIRIAM: I was going to thank you, Kurt, of course I was.

  KURT: No, just don’t thank me.

  MIRIAM: Baby.

  She takes the baby.

  ‘This little piggy went to market,

  this little piggy stayed home …’

  THEENIE and AXIS enter.

  ARCHIBALD: Good afternoon, ladies.

  THEENIE: Hullo.

  VIOLET: Hullo, darling, hullo, Axis.

  KURT: That settles it. Theenie, there is no basis for negotiation if you bring into my house, that—that … black witch.

  ARCHIBALD: Son, will you have the intelligence to meet a crisis with the dignity of a gentleman?

  AXIS: Oh double bubble, I forgot the cauldron. Can I have a hold of her?

  KURT: No!

  MIRIAM: I don’t think I should let you.

  VIOLET: [to AXIS] Keep your hand under her head.

  She takes the baby from MIRIAM and gives her to AXIS.

  AXIS: [singing] A caterpillar on a tree

  Found a leaf to eat for tea.

  Humpity humpity hump.

  One day she felt the strangest things

  Her body was growing legs and wings.

  Humpity humpity hump.

  She stretched herself, and climbed up high,

  Bumpity bumpity bump

  Left the branch and learnt to fly.

  Humpity humpity hump.

  KURT: Father, they’re already turning Alabastar into a fairy. And we allow ourselves to be intimidated while she casts spells on my daughter. Look.

  ARCHIBALD: Enough. I wil
l speak to Theenie.

  VIOLET: Come along, Miriam dear. I’ll get you your cuppa, and you can feed her.

  ARCHIBALD: Subtlety is more valuable than kingdoms.

  AXIS: Alabastar can come too. He wants to see the baby.

  THEENIE: Thanks, Axis.

  AXIS: Courage! There’s a full moon. Look at her funny baby nose.

  VIOLET and AXIS, with the baby, go out.

  KURT: Run after them, go on, save your baby.

  MIRIAM: Oooh!

  She leaves.

  THEENIE: I want to ask you to stop insulting Axis. And me.

  ARCHIBALD: You’re very precious to me, Theenie. What’s in the parcel?

  THEENIE: It’s a book.

  KURT: The complete works of Ima Crank.

  THEENIE: The pages are blank.

  ARCHIBALD: For photographs.

  THEENIE: Or drawings, paintings. One day she might write in it herself.

  She gives the parcel to KURT.

  KURT: I can see returning the helpful sister I remember.

  ARCHIBALD: We all know and love a very attractive and intelligent Theenie.

  KURT: We used to share our toys, remember; you loved marbles. I don’t like to see you seduced into something that isn’t you.

  ARCHIBALD: I appreciate, my dear, the enormity of the sacrifice that has to be made, but I feel certain that the young lady, out of decency and loyalty towards you, will understand that you care too deeply for Alabastar to let him be taken away.

  KURT: Think what it would mean to me personally, and to the whole family, if you left the proselytising to the frustrated fanatics and returned to being yourself.

  ARCHIBALD: Of course, come over to us for as long as you need. Your mother will be delighted.

  KURT: Miriam’ll love to take you shopping, we’ll arrange introductions, gallery openings …

  ARCHIBALD: Kurt, we could convert your old room to a studio for her. And as for Alabastar’s school fees, he shall have his share now while we’re still alive.

  THEENIE: No, thank you.

  Pause.

  KURT: Did I hear you?

  Pause.

  ARCHIBALD: It would behove you to explain, my dear daughter.

  THEENIE: There’s nothing I can say. Nothing.

  ARCHIBALD: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

  THEENIE: I could paint the willow trees, the pretty willows hanging in the garden, I could eat steak and jacket potatoes with sour cream and chives. I could lie still at night with my curtains open and watch the moon make my bed cold. I could paint a branch hanging in the garden. I could wash and iron and put away my thoughts and my dreams until strength became my wardrobe door and all my joy its mothballs.

  KURT: You’re mad.

  THEENIE: We’ll sit at Sunday lunch and talk of veins in leaves and lineages, make kind, safe touches of the brush, and when I’ve learnt to sit there, silent, soft, false and vulnerable, like the tub of table margarine, you will nod your satisfaction, ‘She is good enough for Alabastar’.

  KURT: Every word she plunges deeper.

  ARCHIBALD: My sometime daughter. I wipe my hands.

  KURT and ARCHIBALD leave. MIRIAM enters.

  MIRIAM: Oh, there you are. Thank you for the empty book.

  THEENIE: Help me. Please. What Axis and I do isn’t going to hurt Alabastar. Please tell Kurt.

  MIRIAM: You make everything so difficult! You have to come in to lunch.

  THEENIE: Wait. Who’s going to tell Alabastar I can’t see him any more?

  MIRIAM: There’s too much danger that he’ll grow up a …

  THEENIE: Yes, he will grow up. And as for the other unmentionable, he might. Or he might not. I don’t know why Kurt’s so scared of it—tell him it’s free enterprise.

  MIRIAM: Actually, I quite like Alabastar. He offered to babysit if I ever wanted to go to a meeting, but I do most of our entertaining here.

  THEENIE: Tell him Alabastar can’t be cut in half.

  MIRIAM: What makes you think Kurt would listen to me? If I agreed with you … which I can’t.

  THEENIE: Ask him to drop the case or he can’t screw you.

  MIRIAM: I’ve just had a baby.

  THEENIE: Suppose he was trying to take your baby away from you.

  MIRIAM: He might, if I behaved like you.

  She leaves.

  THEENIE: Miriam!

  Pause.

  Axis, come and find me. I don’t want to go on being an idealist. I keep getting disappointed.

  I paint split-second canvasses.

  In my head the walls come down.

  I hang a picture here,

  Violet, purple, lavender,

  Different, and not punished.

  This arms race ends,

  Power and all its weapons rot—

  And boldly from the compost

  Grow celery and walnuts.

  VIOLET enters with a photo album.

  VIOLET: The way you adults behave, you’re worse than the children. You’re shouting this whole house and family to pieces. Kurt, don’t you raise your hand to her. Stop him, Arch! Where’s your father, he needs his cup of tea.

  She sees THEENIE.

  Theenie, it’s not good for you to be sitting in the draught, dear. There aren’t enough hours in the day to be miserable, dear. If only you’d given Alabastar a little brother or sister while there was still time. I go inside my head and make up stories. You’ve got a minute, haven’t you?

  She opens the album.

  THEENIE: It’s nice, Mum. Do you know where Alabastar is? Violet, have you seen Alabastar and Axis?

  VIOLET: What, darling? In this one you were—you would have been six, that’s your big brother, Kurt, he’ll be seven and a half, we like our picnic by the paperbarks. Now what have I done with it? Always losing things, your silly mother. Theenie? Have you got it? Have you got it? The bag of bread to feed the ducks?

  THEENIE: Mum. This is now. I’m grown up. Don’t go mad. You’re cold.

  VIOLET: It doesn’t matter what the weather’s like, dear, as long as you wear your warm singlet and don’t sit on the concrete.

  THEENIE: Will I get you a rug?

  VIOLET: My helpful little Gappy.

  THEENIE: This is not happening.

  VIOLET: Don’t you go worrying about me. Look at you. You’ll get your two front teeth for Christmas, but you must put your paints away now and have your bath, your father’s coming home, I’ve only got one pair of hands.

  THEENIE: What have we done? Where are we? That’s more than twenty years ago.

  VIOLET: You mustn’t cry, my darling daughter, you know I’m never unhappy. Brush your hair and it will shine like gold. Your father knows. He’s bringing you home another box of paper. I’ve got all your paintings, safe and sound. Oh no, he has to load the rubbish on the trailer for the tip. ‘If you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs …’

  AXIS enters.

  AXIS: They’ve taken Alabastar. The fucking shits have taken Alabastar.

  VIOLET: There she is. Stop shouting. Everybody’s shouting.

  AXIS: You’ve got to tell them all to get stuffed.

  THEENIE: I can’t.

  VIOLET: I’ve got too much to do to sit here all day. There’s only one thing that worries me, and that’s when you children fight, it’s the bane of my existence.

  She cries.

  THEENIE: Mother, we won’t fight any more.

  AXIS: I’m sorry she’s upset, but so am I.

  THEENIE: Shhh!

  AXIS: Will you listen to me. You’ve got to stand up to them, or they’ll suck you in until you’ve gone as mad as the rest of them.

  THEENIE: I told them what I wanted. I told Kurt. I told Dad. Whatever I do, I—

  VIOLET: You can’t go on shouting at your party.

  AXIS: You’re never going to satisfy them.

  THEENIE: Where’s Alabastar? He didn’t come and say goodbye.

  AXIS: He ran out to their car. With all the kids. Lou
ise came and said they’d go disco-skating.

  THEENIE: Why didn’t you call me?

  AXIS: I was screaming for you, this house is huge and fucking soundproof. I tried to run after Albie, Kurt grabbed my arms, I kicked him, we’ve got to get out of here.

  THEENIE, crying, wipes her nose on her sleeve.

  VIOLET: Go and get a handkerchief, a sleeve is a sleeve.

  THEENIE: Mum.

  VIOLET: No, you don’t have to hold onto me, it’s a beautiful moon for a new baby. Where’s your father, he needs his cup of tea. My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.

  She leaves.

  THEENIE: I’ll get her to lie down and sleep.

  AXIS stops her going.

  AXIS: Your father’s there.

  THEENIE: When she wakes up tomorrow, the world might have gotten better.

  AXIS: Come back. You can’t live her life.

  THEENIE: When I look at the back of my hand I see my mother’s, how it looked when I was small, and when I look in her face, it’s too late. I love her. The only mirrors here are pinball screens. Help me. I want to find a picture of myself.

  AXIS hugs her.

  I shouldn’t have brought you here, it’s so sad.

  AXIS: What about you?

  THEENIE: You know how the raindrops hang in the morning on a blade of grass? She used to look for beauty, very early, before we kids woke up, and Dad wanted marmalade. I’d find her in the garden with her hands folded, breathing the sunrise, and the sparrows. She was patient for years and years, and now Kurt and I are fighting and they’ve taken Alabastar.

  AXIS: You’re living in this dreamworld. It drives me crazy. You’ve got to act, Theenie. In the court.

  THEENIE: How can I fight them? I could if prejudice was a dragon and I didn’t know its name. But it’s not. It’s my family.

  AXIS: That doesn’t mean you’ve got to give up yourself. They might learn something if they hear you being honest, out loud.

  THEENIE: Not in public. I can’t.

  Pause.

  Mum used to like what I painted.

  AXIS: You’ve got to like it. You. I’m sick of our silence, Theenie. There’s a lot of people supporting you, you know. If it has to go to court, they’ll be ready, really fast. We’ll have a paste-up, leaflets, money coming in, a big demo, a bail fund, a dance at Balmain Town Hall.

  THEENIE: You’re scaring me shitless.

  AXIS: Smile. Come on. Vandelope’s out there raffling a few deals.

  THEENIE laughs.

  THEENIE: I’ll have an exhibition. ‘For Axis, who wouldn’t let me give up.’ We’ll get Albie back. You’re wonderful.