JAMES: Did the doctor bring me to?
CALLIFER: Oh, no. You were awake before he came.
JAMES: It isn’t possible, is it, I mean—what Potter thought?
CALLIFER: If you were dead it would have been a miracle, and if it were a miracle God would exist. That hideous picture there would have a meaning. But if God existed, why should He take away His faith from me? I’ve served Him well. I go on serving Him. The saints have dark nights, but not for thirty years. They have moments when they remember what it felt like to believe.
JAMES: Do you remember nothing?
CALLIFER: I don’t want to remember. You shouldn’t have come.
JAMES: Tell me what you remember.
CALLIFER (drinking): The shed and you lying there and Potter struggling with your arms.
JAMES: And then?
CALLIFER: I prayed. I was a model priest, you see, with all the beliefs and conventions. Besides, I loved you. Yes, I remember now, how I loved you. I couldn’t have a child, and I suppose you took his place. Let me have one more drink. (He pours out a drink but does not drink.) When I had you on my knees I remember a terrible pain—here. So terrible I don’t think I could go through it again. It was just as though I was the one who was strangled—I could feel the cord round my neck. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, I had to pray in my mind, and then your breath came back, and it was just as though I had died instead. So I went away to bury myself in rooms like this.
JAMES: What did you pray?
CALLIFER: It’s so long ago.
JAMES: Try to remember.
CALLIFER: What difference would it make to you?
JAMES: I’ve been close to despair too.
CALLIFER (changing the subject): What made you remember me?
JAMES: Potter’s widow.
CALLIFER: Is he dead? Poor fellow. And so you came to me? Do I look as though I could be of any use to anyone at all? (Pause.) It was an awful moment, finding you dead in that way.
JAMES: Dead?
CALLIFER: I mean you seemed to me dead.
JAMES: What did you do?
CALLIFER: I’d have given my life for you—but what could I do? I could only pray. I suppose I offered something in return. Something I valued—not spirits. I really thought I loved God in those days. I said—I said, “Let him live, God. I love him. Let him live. I will give you anything if you will let him live.” But what had I got to give Him? I was a poor man. I said, “Take away what I love most. Take—take—” (He can’t remember.)
JAMES: “Take away my faith but let him live”?
CALLIFER: Did you hear me?
JAMES: Yes. You were speaking a long way off, and I came towards you through a cave of darkness. I didn’t want to come. I struggled not to come. But something pushed me to you.
CALLIFER: Something?
JAMES: Or somebody. (Callifer begins to weep.) Uncle, can I help?
CALLIFER: I even forgot what I said to Him, until you came. He answered my prayer, didn’t He? He took my offer.
JAMES: Do you really believe …
CALLIFER: Look around you. Look at this room. It makes sense, doesn’t it, now? (He sweeps a glass onto the floor.) You must forgive me. I’m tired and a little drunk. I haven’t thought about that day for thirty years. Will you see me to my room? It’s dark on the landing. (He gets up, and then pauses and looks up at the hideous picture.) I thought I had lost Him forever.
CURTAIN
Act Three
Act Three
The drawing room at Wild Grove. Evening. Mrs. Callifer has a book on her lap but she is not reading. Sara is facing an untidy pile of holly.
SARA (picking up the holly): It’s a bad year for berries. (She looks up at the cornice.) I’ll have to get the stepladder.
MRS. CALLIFER: Leave it to the morning, dear, and then Anne can help you.
John enters in an overcoat, hat in hand.
JOHN: Anne’s still not ready. Mother, this is the only children’s party I go to these holidays. I’m getting too old for Blind Man’s Buff.
MRS. CALLIFER: Well, dear, it was you who insisted.
JOHN (going to the hall door): Anne!
MRS. CALLIFER: I don’t think she’s very fond of Blind Man’s Buff either.
JOHN: She has to learn her social obligations. (Anne enters.) We are a quarter of an hour late already.
ANNE: I know. With any luck we shall miss The Ocean Is Agitated.
MRS. CALLIFER: What’s that?
ANNE: It’s the most hideous game of the year. Can I have a cocktail, Granny?
MRS. CALLIFER: Of course you can’t.
ANNE: He had a whisky. He said he wanted Dutch courage.
JOHN: That’s quite different. Come on.
ANNE: We needn’t stay long, need we?
MRS. CALLIFER: If you stay as long as your father thinks polite you can have a glass of wine when you come home.
ANNE: Thank you, Granny. Now I can spurn the fruit cup. (She goes out, followed by John, who makes a despairing gesture.)
MRS. CALLIFER: How pretty she is.
SARA: Yes, isn’t she? (Busying herself with the holly): I sometimes wonder what she would have been like if her mother had lived.
MRS. CALLIFER: Do parents influence children? I don’t see much of our influence on John.
SARA: Or James?
MRS. CALLIFER (closing down): He always went his own road.
SARA: He never spends Christmas here, does he?
MRS. CALLIFER: His work doesn’t allow him time.
SARA: Or do you never invite him?
MRS. CALLIFER: It’s only because of Anne we celebrate at all. Henry had his own name for the day. He called it Children’s Day. He never approved of the word Christmas.
SARA (ironically): Why shouldn’t we celebrate the great Palestinian religious leader?
MRS. CALLIFER: Oh, you know, dear, Christmas existed long before him.
SARA: Did your husband mind holly?
MRS. CALLIFER: No. That belonged to the ancient pagan festival—so he said. Did you hear a car?
SARA: No.
MRS. CALLIFER: I hope Anne hasn’t found some excuse.
SARA: I’ll go and see. (As she crosses the room a bell rings.)
MRS. CALLIFER: I hate a bell at night.
SARA: Perhaps an extra Christmas mail.
Sara goes out. Mrs. Callifer has her eyes fixed on the door. Who does she expect to see enter? James? William? Certainly she is not expecting Dr. Kreuzer. She doesn’t give Sara time to announce him.
MRS. CALLIFER: Dr. Kreuzer!
Pause.
KREUZER: Good evening, Mrs. Callifer.
MRS. CALLIFER: Has something happened to James? Is he with you?
KREUZER: I hoped to find him here.
MRS. CALLIFER: Here? He isn’t here. Why didn’t you telephone?
KREUZER: Because I have to see you, Mrs. Callifer. If I had telephoned you would have refused to let me come.
MRS. CALLIFER: But what’s all the urgency? I don’t understand why—
KREUZER: I telephoned to him twice yesterday. He wasn’t at home. Again today. Even Mr. Corner didn’t know where he was. When you saw him in Nottingham did he talk to you about going away?
MRS. CALLIFER: Perhaps. Vaguely. I can’t really remember.
KREUZER: I am very anxious, Mrs. Callifer. You see, I know that he had suicide on his mind.
SARA: Suicide?
KREUZER: He took some pills from my desk. They are quite harmless, but he didn’t know that. So you see, I have to know what happened afterwards between the two of you.
MRS. CALLIFER: We talked. What could have happened? We talked of this and that.
KREUZER: Did he seem disturbed?
MRS. CALLIFER: I don’t know. Perhaps. A little.
SARA: You never told me that.
KREUZER: Mrs. Callifer, I wish you’d be more specific. This is your son.
MRS. CALLIFER: He talked of visiting someone.
&
nbsp; KREUZER: Who? (No answer.) Who was he going to visit, Mrs. Callifer?
MRS. CALLIFER (reluctantly): His uncle.
SARA (astonished): William Callifer?
MRS. CALLIFER: It was just a wild notion of his. I don’t suppose he went.
KREUZER: Mrs. Callifer, your son is in a very dark place. We in Europe have had experience of dark places. I know a man who lived five days in a sewer without food. The manhole was in the pavement just in front of his home. All day he heard the voices of strangers and at night there were the footsteps of policemen. He stayed there just under the manhole, waiting for his mother to speak to him and tell him it was safe to come out. He couldn’t trust even his father.
SARA (bitterly): I suppose she never came.
KREUZER: She came.
SARA: Perhaps in Europe they breed mothers.
MRS. CALLIFER (pleading): Sara, my dear—
SARA: But not here. Oh, no. Not here.
KREUZER: It’s time, Mrs. Callifer, to tell us what you know.
MRS. CALLIFER: But there’s nothing I know.
KREUZER: Your son’s in danger. Great danger. Think. If he were hiding in that sewer you’d have risked anything …
MRS. CALLIFER: Of course. It would be easy that way. This is different.
SARA: It’s no good, Dr. Kreuzer. You’re working on a false assumption. Mothers don’t necessarily love their children.
MRS. CALLIFER: That’s not true, Sara. You know it’s not true.
SARA: When I married James I never saw you in our house. But when I divorced him, I became your dear adopted daughter.
MRS. CALLIFER: Henry and I loved you, Sara.
SARA: Yes, so long as James wasn’t there. She’s upright, Dr. Kreuzer, she’s strong, she’s loyal, she has all the wifely virtues. But don’t look for a mother there.
MRS. CALLIFER: I love him.
SARA: Who? Henry? I don’t suppose James told you this, Dr. Kreuzer. It was always Henry—what suited his stomach (not string beans), his mind, his reputation. William Callifer didn’t suit it. He had to go. And then her son. If I had a son, I wouldn’t sacrifice him for my husband. Why do we have to sacrifice people? Why can’t we just let each other be?
MRS. CALLIFER: Henry wasn’t selfish, Sara. He was weak, that’s all. You don’t know yet how weakness can call to you.
SARA: But I don’t want to protect anyone—I’m not a god. I’m not strong enough or wise enough and I don’t want to be protected either—I’m not that cunning.
MRS. CALLIFER: Haven’t you any pity?
SARA: And I haven’t that much pride. You don’t pity an equal.
KREUZER: Why did he want to see his uncle so suddenly, Mrs. Callifer?
Silence.
SARA: All right. You can sit there and wait for him to die. I can’t. Will you drive me to town, Dr. Kreuzer?
KREUZER: If you wish me to.
SARA: I’m going to pack my bags. Someone else will have to decorate—for Children’s Day.
Sara leaves. Pause. Then a strained conversation begins.
MRS. CALLIFER: She is very overwrought.
KREUZER: Yes.
MRS. CALLIFER: She won’t really go. It’s just a mood. I would have been happy to put you up, Dr. Kreuzer.
KREUZER: It’s kind of you, but I have to be in London early tomorrow.
Pause.
MRS. CALLIFER: Do you think me a monster too?
KREUZER: No. But perhaps I’ve been treating the wrong patient.
Baston enters.
BASTON: You’re Dr. Kreuzer.
MRS. CALLIFER: This is Dr. Baston. (Baston doesn’t shake hands.)
BASTON (to Mrs. Callifer): Sara seems upset. What’s this about James attempting suicide again?
KREUZER: Again?
BASTON: When he was fourteen he tried to hang himself.
KREUZER: So that was it?
MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.
KREUZER: And now he knows that?
MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.
KREUZER: I wish I had known of it first. Mrs. Callifer, is that all you have to tell me?
MRS. CALLIFER: Yes.
BASTON: Dr. Kreuzer, this matter of the pills—that’s really serious. I think we have to consider whether he wouldn’t be better—for a while—in a home. It’s hard for you, Mary, but—
MRS. CALLIFER: I’ve never believed in captivity, even for animals. Don’t you remember that letter we all signed?
BASTON: This is different. This is for his good.
MRS. CALLIFER: I’ve heard people defend zoos that way. The animals are freed from starvation and fear. Oh yes, I know all those answers, Fred. Don’t hand them out to me. We fought in the same causes.
BASTON: And sometimes we were wrong. Sometimes we were too general and too emotional. We must avoid sentimentality.
MRS. CALLIFER: That’s what we always call a sentiment we don’t share, isn’t it?
BASTON: We have to deal with facts. At fourteen he tried to kill himself. Since then he’s suffered from all kinds of delusions. Melancholia. (James enters through the open door.) A sense of persecution. (Kreuzer and Mrs. Callifer see James. Mrs. Callifer is distressed. She half rises and then sinks down again. Kreuzer leans forward, watching James closely. Baston, his back turned, talking pompously, head lowered, hands behind back, notices nothing.) You hadn’t the chance to observe him, Dr. Kreuzer, when he came here for his father’s funeral. I had.
MRS. CALLIFER: Please, Fred.
BASTON: Let me finish, Mary. I admit I have less experience of psychotics than you, Dr. Kreuzer—
JAMES: I’m sorry to interrupt.
BASTON (quietly): What on earth—
MRS. CALLIFER: What are you doing here, James?
JAMES: I’ve come to see Sara.
MRS. CALLIFER: But it’s too late. There’s no train.
JAMES: I hitchhiked. Eight hours on the road. It’s a beautiful time of year. I like trees bare, so that you can see their shape. I didn’t expect to see you, Dr. Kreuzer. I seem to have interrupted a conclave.
BASTON: We were talking of you.
JAMES: I don’t suppose you would care for my opinion, but you know I’ve never felt saner in my life.
BASTON: Trying to kill yourself again—that wasn’t exactly sane.
JAMES: Oh, that. That belongs to the past. It won’t happen again.
BASTON: I feel strongly that a period of rest—perhaps under Dr. Kreuzer’s care—
JAMES: I don’t need Dr. Kreuzer’s care any longer. You see, the gap’s filled. I know what happened.
KREUZER: What do you know?
JAMES: That I killed myself in the potting shed.
BASTON: You see, Dr. Kreuzer?
Even Kreuzer is thrown by James’s remark. He gets up, takes a careful look and then moves away. He needs time to digest this new aspect of the case.
BASTON: Did your uncle convince you of this?
JAMES: Oh, no. He believed, like all of you, it was a mistake. It was the only belief he had left. He had given everything to bring me back.
BASTON: The asylums are full of people who think God chose them specially. Dr. Kreuzer, this is a far worse symptom than your stolen pills.
Sara enters in a travelling coat, wearing a scarf.
SARA: James! What are you—
JAMES: I came to see you, Sara.
BASTON: Sara, you’d better know this right away. I want to have James certified.
SARA: Certified? But that’s nonsense.
BASTON: He’s completely irresponsible.
SARA: But those pills—after all, they weren’t dangerous.
BASTON: We are dealing with something worse than pills. James has just told us he killed himself in the potting shed and was—resurrected. By the prayers of his uncle, I suppose.
SARA: James, you never said that. Dr. Baston, you misunderstood.
JAMES: Baston has reported me quite accurately.
SARA: But you are not mad, James.
JAMES: That’s w
hat they have to decide, isn’t it?
BASTON: Well, Dr. Kreuzer, are you satisfied now?
KREUZER: An illusion needn’t be dangerous. An illusion can be curative, Dr. Baston.
BASTON: Dr. Kreuzer, how many times do your patients have to attempt suicide before you are ready to certify them?
KREUZER: An attempted suicide is not necessarily serious. Only the suicides that succeed.
BASTON: Not serious. You astonish me, Dr. Kreuzer.
KREUZER: People play-act—to others, to themselves. The majority of attempted suicides never meant to succeed.
BASTON: But sometimes, Dr. Kreuzer, people may succeed through inexperience.
KREUZER: You can hardly gain experience in killing yourself, Dr. Baston.
BASTON: You know very well what I mean. Things may go wrong—a man may stumble on the right number of pills.
KREUZER: Very seldom. We all have great unconscious wisdom.
BASTON: He succeeded the first time.
KREUZER: He what, Dr. Baston?
BASTON (embarrassed): I mean he would have succeeded if the gardener had not found him. (Running hastily on): You are taking a great responsibility, Dr. Kreuzer, if you don’t sign with me. He’s your patient. Coroners are apt to take a harsh view of psychiatrists whose patients kill themselves. Has it never happened to you?
KREUZER: Dr. Baston, surely there’s another doctor whose opinion we ought to have, if he’s alive—the doctor who was here when it happened.
MRS. CALLIFER: Dr. Baston was the doctor.
KREUZER: I see.
BASTON: I can assure you there was nothing—unusual.
KREUZER: You massaged the heart?
BASTON: It was too late.
KREUZER: Too late?
BASTON: He was already conscious when I arrived.
KREUZER: Oh, I see.
BASTON: The layman can’t recognize death. He thinks just because a mirror doesn’t fog or a leaf on the lips move—
KREUZER: They tried that?
BASTON: If such a test for death was infallible, and it never could be, even then I would not accept a miracle. I would simply say we had to redefine our terms—the concepts, life and death.
MRS. CALLIFER: Henry told himself that too. The trouble was he didn’t believe the argument.
BASTON: What on earth are you suggesting, Mary?
MRS. CALLIFER: Henry believed that Potter’s story was true. He never spoke of it, but I knew.
The Potting Shed Page 6
