The Complaisant Lover

by Graham Greene

  The Complaisant Lover

  A Play

  Graham Greene

  The Complaisant Lover was first presented on the New York stage on November 1, 1961, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. It was produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Glen Byam Shaw, with scenery and costumes by Motley, and had the following cast:

  VICTOR RHODES Sir Michael Redgrave

  WILLIAM HOWARD George Turner

  CLIVE ROOT Richard Johnson

  ANN HOWARD Sandy Dennis

  MARGARET HOWARD Christine Thomas

  MARY RHODES Googie Withers

  ROBIN RHODES Nicholas Hammond

  HOTEL VALET Gene Wilder

  DR. VAN DROOG Bert Nelson

  CHARACTERS

  (in order of appearance)

  VICTOR RHODES

  WILLIAM HOWARD

  CLIVE ROOT

  ANN HOWARD

  MARGARET HOWARD

  MARY RHODES

  ROBIN RHODES

  HOTEL VALET

  DR. VAN DROOG

  SCENES

  ACT ONE

  SCENE I: A cutlet with the Rhodeses.

  SCENE II: Amsterdam: the end of a holiday.

  ACT TWO

  SCENE I: Home again with the Rhodeses. Nine days later.

  SCENE II: The same, after an interval of a few hours.

  Act One

  SCENE I

  The living room of a house in North London. It is designed to serve as both dining room and drawing room, the walls slanting in the centre towards the footlights and back again, so as to form an inner room rather than an alcove, where the men in the party now in progress are sitting over the wine. There is a sideboard and upstage from the sideboard a door. The men are in dinner jackets.

  At the back of the living room tall windows open on to a small garden, but the curtains are drawn. A door opposite the dining room leads to the hall and stairs.

  The host, Victor Rhodes, is a man in his middle forties. He has a plump round face, now a little flushed with wine, an air of happiness and good nature. Throughout the scene we are a little haunted by the thought that we have encountered him somewhere before; his anecdotes, of which he has so many, have surely at one time fallen into our own ears. He is on his feet half-way between sideboard and table.

  On the right of his empty chair sits William Howard, a local bank manager, a man in his late fifties. The third man, the youngest there, is in his late thirties, with sullen good looks and an air of being intellectually a little more interesting than his companions. He runs, as we soon learn, a local antiquarian bookshop: his name is Clive Root; but the profession of Victor Rhodes—and it is perhaps a professional air which we are trying to identify—remains unknown until later in the scene.

  The women are upstairs, but they will soon drift down to the drawing room. There is Mrs. Howard, a woman in her early fifties, quiet and kindly; her daughter Ann, a girl of nineteen, pretty and immature, and Mary Rhodes, a woman in the middle thirties, who moves quickly, nervously, with unconscious beauty.

  When the curtain rises only the men are there. From the attitude of the men Victor is obviously concluding a long address.

  VICTOR: Off on the wrong foot, arse over tip, and there I was looking up at the stars—I mean Oxford Circus. And what did my wife say—“That word in nine letters was escalator.” Ha, ha, ha. If there’s one thing I thank God for, Mr. Root, it’s a sense of humour. I’ve attained a certain position in life. There are not many men in my profession I would acknowledge as my masters, but I would sacrifice all that—this house and garden, that chair you are sitting on, Mr. Root—it cost me no mean figure at Christie’s, I like beautiful things around me—what was I saying, William?

  HOWARD: You were telling Mr. Root and me about your sense of humour.

  VICTOR: That’s right. A sense of humour is more important than a balance at the bank—whatever William may say.

  HOWARD: I don’t say anything, Victor, you never let me.

  VICTOR: Ah-ha, William has a sense of humour too, you see. Perhaps it’s not so important in a bank manager as in a man of my profession, but it’s not our professions that I have in mind. Mr. Root, you are looking tonight at a very rare phenomenon—two men who are happily married. And why are we happily married?

  HOWARD: Because we happen to like our wives.

  VICTOR: That’s not enough. It’s because we’ve got a sense of humour. A sense of humour means a happy marriage.

  CLIVE: Is it as simple as that, Mr. Rhodes?

  VICTOR: I can assure you there are very few situations in life that a joke won’t ease.

  HOWARD: You were going to let us have some port, Victor.

  VICTOR: Port? (He looks at the decanter.) Oh yes. (He sits down.) You, William?

  HOWARD: Thanks. You, Mr. Root?

  CLIVE: Thanks.

  VICTOR: Do you know how this business of passing the port clockwise originated?

  HOWARD: Yes, Victor. I learnt it from you. Last week.

  VICTOR (unabashed): Ha, ha, that’s good. I’ll remember that to tell my victims.

  HOWARD: How are the second-hand books, Root?

  VICTOR: You ought to call them antiquarian, William. It’s more expensive. Do you know the first thing Dr. Fuchs found in the Antarctic?

  HOWARD (wearily): No, Victor.

  VICTOR: A second-hand Penguin.

  He looks from one to the other, but nobody laughs.

  CLIVE: The second-hand books would gather a lot more dust, Mr. Howard, if it wasn’t for your daughter.

  HOWARD: I never thought of Ann as a great reader.

  Ann has come down first of the women. She stands a moment as though listening and then picks up a magazine.

  CLIVE: Her interests are specialized. The early Western. We are talking of you, Ann.

  ANN: Only Zane Greys.

  VICTOR: Not highbrow, anyway. She’s too pretty, William, to be highbrow.

  CLIVE (who obviously has some hidden antipathy to Rhodes): Brows are a matter of opinion, Mr. Rhodes. The early Zane Greys cost quite a lot already and they are a good investment.

  VICTOR: Investment? That’s an idea. A man says to me—they often do if I give them the chance—“I’m buying tobacco now for a rise. What do you say?” And now of course I’ll tell him “Put your money into Zane Greys.”

  CLIVE: You’d be giving perfectly good advice. Unless someone discovers that books are a cause of cancer.

  HOWARD: At the bank I tell my customers, “Hold on to gold.”

  VICTOR: Send the port round again, Root.

  Mrs. Howard has come down, closely followed by Mary Rhodes.

  MARY: She will bring in the coffee before I ring. I suppose it’s nearly cold.

  MRS. HOWARD (feeling the pot): Oh, no.

  MARY (with her eyes on the other part of the room): I wish you’d pour out.

  MRS. HOWARD: Of course I will. Sugar?

  MARY: Please.

  ANN: Oh, Mother—not in mine.

  MRS. HOWARD: I forgot she’s on a diet. Look up what time the Larkins are on, dear. Your father won’t want to miss them. (Handing Mary her cup.) Thank God I’m past dieting. I’ve got my man.

  MARY: We both have, haven’t we? (She takes her cup and goes to watch the men.)

  Her husband has at last found his chance. Clive looks up and sees her. They watch each other while Victor talks.

  VICTOR: Now take that chap Farquhar I told you about last week.

  MARY (to Mrs. Howard): We have them for better, for worse.

  HOWARD: Why should we, Victor?

  VICTOR (quite unthrown): Take him anyway. Most interesting man. He’s put his little all into potatoes. He was telling me yesterday that they’re growing a new kind which wi
ll be pale mauve in colour.

  HOWARD: Why?

  VICTOR: The ladies will like it. Pretty on the plate. It’s the same with oranges. A man in the fruit trade told me you can’t sell a green orange. Tastes just the same, but you can’t sell them. In South Africa they pass them through gas chambers to make them orange.

  MRS. HOWARD: Really!

  HOWARD (trying to switch him.): Could I have a last glass of port, Victor?

  VICTOR: Of course, William. Not me though. You, Mr. Root? You have strong young teeth.

  CLIVE: What have teeth got to do with it?

  VICTOR: Too much wine causes acidity. Acidity causes tartar. Tartar …

  Mary turns away and goes back to Mrs. Howard.

  CLIVE: I’ll have another glass. There are worse things than tartar.

  VICTOR: Such as …?

  CLIVE: The worms that eat my stock. They’re like some people, Mr. Rhodes. You can only tell where they have been by the holes they leave behind.

  VICTOR: I’m rather a specialist in holes myself.

  CLIVE: I thought perhaps you were.

  VICTOR: Here’s a riddle for you. What kind of thing is it we prefer with holes in it?

  HOWARD: Gruyère.

  VICTOR: You’re the first person to guess.

  HOWARD: You told it to me, Victor, a month ago.

  VICTOR: It comes of knowing so many people. One forgets to whom one has told what. Believe me, I’ve told a man his own life history before now.

  HOWARD: We believe you.

  VICTOR: For goodness’ sake, Root. Your cigar. It’s burning the cloth.

  Clive snatches up a cigar butt and finds it to be only a trick one, the glowing end formed of red paper.

  CLIVE: I’m so sorry. Mrs. Rhodes …

  HOWARD: It’s only a fake. Never mind, Root.

  VICTOR: You should have seen his face.

  MARY: You have to pass an initiation ceremony in this house.

  CLIVE: I used to be very fond of these tricks—when I was a child.

  VICTOR: You aren’t offended, old chap, are you?

  CLIVE: No. Interested, that’s all. Jokes like this must be a compensation for something. When we are children we’re powerless, and these jokes make us feel superior to our dictators. But now we’re grown up, there are no dictators—except employers, I suppose.

  HOWARD: I’m the only one here who has an employer—if you can call Head Office that.

  VICTOR: I just think jokes like that are funny. I don’t see why you have to analyse everything.

  CLIVE: You should read Freud on the nature of a joke.

  VICTOR: Oh, I suppose he sees sex in it. Sex everywhere. (He holds up the cigar butt vertically.) Can you see any sex in that, William?

  HOWARD: Well, frankly, Victor, yes, I can.

  Victor looks at the cigar butt and drops it hastily.

  VICTOR: It’s time we joined the ladies. Anybody want to wash? The plants can do with a shower. No?

  They move into the other section of the room.

  Mary watches Clive come in, and so does Ann. Clive’s eyes are on Mary.

  MRS. HOWARD: If you’d stayed tippling much longer you’d have been late for the Larkins.

  HOWARD: My wife always pretends it’s I who must see them.

  MARY (to Clive): Was the port all right? I went to the Army and Navy for it myself.

  CLIVE: It was very good, and the cigar butt was very good too. Did that come from the Army and Navy?

  MARY: Oh, he has a lot of little tricks like that. He’s very fond of bleeding fingers and flies on lumps of sugar.

  Mrs. Howard is pouring coffee again and Victor is carrying round cups.

  VICTOR: Sugar, Mr. Root?

  CLIVE: No thanks. (Mary raises her eyebrows and Clive shakes his head. Victor has passed on.) He would hardly try to catch me twice in one evening. It would be a bit conspicuous.

  VICTOR: Why are we all standing around, William? Here, Root, you’ll find this chair comfortable. (As Clive goes towards the chair, Mary gets there first and, lifting the cushion, removes a small flat cushion.) Mary, what a spoil sport you are.

  MARY (to Clive): This plays “Auld Lang Syne.” If Victor had disliked you, he has another that cries like a baby and says Mama.

  VICTOR: My wife doesn’t approve of my jokes, Root, but I have the support of my children.

  CLIVE: How old are your children?

  VICTOR: Sally’s fifteen—she’s away at school—and Robin’s twelve. At the moment he’s passionately in love with Ann here. He’ll be down in a minute. It’s only the tele that could have kept him away so long.

  HOWARD: Has he proposed yet, Ann?

  ANN: No. Unless you count giving me a stuffed mouse. He’s stuffed it himself—very badly.

  HOWARD: He’s scientific, is he, like his father?

  VICTOR: Oh, Robin and I understand each other. We speak the same language.

  MARY: Give him a smile, Ann, when he comes in. The mouse meant a lot. I can never understand why people laugh at children’s love. Love’s painful at any age.

  VICTOR: Oh, come, Mary. I don’t find it painful.

  Mary turns abruptly away and becomes aware of the way in which Ann is watching Clive. She looks quickly back at Clive, but Clive is unaware of Ann.

  MRS. HOWARD: Don’t forget the Larkins.

  VICTOR: There’s time for more coffee first. You can trust me. I’ve never missed the Larkins yet. Do you know Lord Binlow? He likes them too.

  HOWARD: The old Liberal? Is he a friend of yours?

  VICTOR: Oh, he comes in regularly every three months. An affable old thing. I have to gag him or we’d never get our business done. He told me the Prime Minister can’t understand the jokes. They’re too quick for him—like the Russians.

  Robin Rhodes comes in in a dressing gown.

  ROBIN: Father, only three minutes for the show.

  VICTOR: Manners, Robin, manners. Don’t you see who’s here?

  Robin looks across at Ann.

  ROBIN: Oh, yes, I do. (Ann works up a smile for him which immediately raises his spirits.) Good evening, Mrs. Howard, Mr. Howard. Good evening, Mr.—

  MARY: This is Mr. Root, Robin. He has the bookshop near the heath.

  VICTOR: The root of all evil. (He looks hopefully round, but no one laughs except Robin.)

  ROBIN: That’s frightfully good. (He realizes no one else has laughed.) Isn’t it?

  HOWARD: Your father has a great sense of humour.

  ANN: Have you been stuffing any more mice, Robin?

  ROBIN: Oh, no, I only did the one. I shan’t do any more. It’s not very well stuffed, I’m afraid.

  ANN: It was sweet of you to give me your only one.

  ROBIN: I’m afraid it’s a bit ragged. It’ll fall to pieces pretty soon, but then just throw it away.

  ANN: I’ll keep it in memory.

  ROBIN: You could keep an ear, perhaps. That would be quite clean and it wouldn’t take up any room. Come on, it’s time for the Larkins.

  CLIVE (catching Mary’s eye): I’m like the Prime Minister. I think I’ll stay behind with the coffee.

  Mary is about to speak when Ann speaks first.

  ANN: I’ll keep you company, Clive. I don’t want to see it either.

  Mary hesitates, then leads the way out.

  VICTOR (to Howard as he goes): We stow the tele away in the old nursery. Mary can’t bear that eye watching her. Guilty conscience, you know.

  MRS. HOWARD (as she goes): I wish we had a spare room for ours, but there’s only the cellar.

  HOWARD: Can’t use that. Door opening and shutting all the time. Upset the wine.

  They have all gone.

  ANN: Would you like some more coffee, Clive?

  CLIVE (looking at the books on the shelf): No, thanks. It’ll keep me awake.

  ANN: Are you a bad sleeper?

  CLIVE: Sometimes.

  ANN: I can let you have some awfully good pills.

  CLIVE: Surely you don’t take pill
s. At your age.

  ANN: How I hate that phrase.

  CLIVE: What phrase?

  ANN: “At your age.” They say “Do you still read Westerns at your age?” As though nineteen was middle-aged, and then when I have a Benzedrine at breakfast—

  CLIVE: Benzedrine!

  ANN: There you are. “Benzedrine at your age,” you were going to say, and this time nineteen means something in the nursery.

  CLIVE: Why do you take Benzedrine?

  ANN: I’m dieting. To get rid of this and this. They call it puppy-fat. Sometimes I want to scream at them—nineteen is a woman. I could have had a child of six by now.

  CLIVE: Six?

  ANN: Yes, six. I’m one of the early ones. I’m not a puppy, Clive.

  CLIVE (at the shelves): Why do you read Zane Grey?

  ANN: Because England’s so damnably small. I can’t walk to your shop without seeing four people I know. We all sit around and eye each other like suspects in a detective story. Is Zane Grey less worth reading than Agatha Christie?

  CLIVE: No.

  ANN: Sometimes I think I’d marry anyone who wanted to get away. Not necessarily marry either. I’m such a bitch, Clive, I have to make an effort even to smile at that little brat with his dried mouse.

  CLIVE: Robin’s not a bad child, is he?

  ANN: They think it funny and rather charming that he’s in love with me—and rather a compliment to me. It’s all very whimsical because we are both children and we don’t know what love really is.

  CLIVE: Do you?

  ANN: Yes.

  CLIVE: Poor you.

  ANN: You sound as if you don’t much like it either.

  CLIVE: No, I don’t.

  ANN: Clive, let’s go away together.

  CLIVE: Go away?

  ANN: For a time. It needn’t be always if you don’t like me. It could be a trial week.

  CLIVE: Ann, dear, you aren’t in love with me.

  ANN: How do you know? (Clive makes a gesture.) You mean you are not in love with me. I know that. It doesn’t matter so much, does it? There’s always lust.

  CLIVE: That’s not a word Zane Grey uses.

  ANN: I don’t get everything out of books, Clive. I’ve got eyes—and a body under this puppy-fat.

  CLIVE: You aren’t fat, Ann. You’re very pretty.

  ANN: As pretty as the girls in Curzon Street?