The Complaisant Lover

by Graham Greene

VICTOR (pulling himself together): Oh, for me, you know, it wasn’t altogether a holiday. Work. There’s always work. Sit down. Would you like a whisky or shall I mix you a dry martini? I make good dry martinis.

  The bell is ringing again as the curtain falls.

  SCENE II

  The same scene about two hours later.

  During the progress of the scene the light changes from late afternoon sun to dusk.

  Victor sits at the dining-room table alone with an empty glass in front of him.

  Robin comes in from the garden carrying some orange squash at the bottom of a glass. He is about to go into the dining room when he sees his father. He studies him from a distance, then turns back into the drawing room.

  Mary comes in from the hall.

  MARY: Have you seen your father?

  ROBIN (he hardly hesitates): No.

  MARY: The Morgans were looking for him to say good-bye. And now the Forsters are going. If you see him ask him to come outside. Tell him the party’s nearly over.

  ROBIN: Okay.

  MARY: And please, for heaven’s sake, don’t say okay again or I shall scream.

  She goes into the garden.

  Robin goes back to the point where he can watch his father. Presently he speaks.

  ROBIN: Father.

  VICTOR: What is it?

  ROBIN: They’ve run out of soda water in the garden. Can I find some?

  VICTOR: Of course.

  Robin comes into the dining room and opens the sideboard to find the siphon. When he finds it he siphons some soda into his orange squash.

  ROBIN: Mother’s looking for you.

  VICTOR: Yes?

  ROBIN: I didn’t tell her you were here.

  VICTOR: Why? I’m not in hiding.

  ROBIN: She said I was to tell you the party’s nearly over.

  VICTOR: Thank God for that.

  ROBIN: Yes. It’s not a very good party, is it, as parties go?

  VICTOR: No?

  ROBIN: There’s a sort of mood around.

  VICTOR: What kind of mood?

  ROBIN: Like the last act in Macbeth. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

  VICTOR: Couldn’t you be a bit more precise?

  ROBIN: Everybody seems to be expecting something—something like the wood coming to Dunsinane.

  VICTOR: You seem to know Macbeth very well.

  ROBIN: Yes. I’m acting the Second Murderer at the end of term. But I may be the First Murderer yet because the First Murderer’s got mumps.

  VICTOR: Tell your mother I’ll be out in a minute or two.

  ROBIN: I needn’t say I found you if you’d rather not. Why don’t you go to the nursery? Nobody’s going to use the tele. The programme’s awful today. I’ll bring you up a drink and some sandwiches.

  VICTOR: I told you I’m not in hiding. And this isn’t Macbeth. Please go and find your mother, Robin. I want to talk to her alone.

  ROBIN: Today everybody wants to talk to everybody alone. Ann’s following Mr. Root like a hungry jackal, and Mr. Root’s dodging about trying to see Mother like a—

  VICTOR: I don’t want to know what Mr. Root’s like.

  ROBIN (sadly): I’m the only one nobody wants to be alone with. Not even Ann.

  He is going out when Victor calls him back.

  VICTOR: Robin. Come here, old chap. (Robin approaches.) I want to talk to you. (He doesn’t know what to say.)

  ROBIN: Yes?

  VICTOR: Do you know a boy at your school called Adams?

  ROBIN: Yes. He’s got a gold plate in his mouth.

  VICTOR: I put it in. Do you know him well?

  ROBIN: Oh, pretty well.

  VICTOR: Do you know about his family?

  ROBIN: Oh, yes, his father ran away with a girl who works in the zoo.

  VICTOR: Does he mind much?

  ROBIN: Not very much. He said it was more fun in the old days.

  VICTOR: Weren’t there quarrels?

  ROBIN: Oh, that was part of the fun. He said you never knew what was going to happen next. It’s very quiet now, he says.

  Pause.

  VICTOR: Does he see his father?

  ROBIN: He goes to a theatre with him every hols and he stays with him for two weeks in the summer. But he feels rather flat about that because the girl from the zoo’s never there. She used to look after Pet’s Corner and he’s passionately interested in pandas.

  VICTOR: But he’s quite happy—on the whole?

  ROBIN: Not at the moment. He had a rat that died.

  Pause.

  VICTOR: The other day—you know that shop in Oxford Street—I saw a wonderful rat made of plastic.

  ROBIN: Oh, good. Did you buy it?

  VICTOR: No. Your mother’s a bit tired of my jokes.

  ROBIN: I’m not. Wouldn’t it be grand to have enough money to buy the whole stock? A different catch every day of the week for a year.

  VICTOR: I think if I did that your mother would leave me.

  ROBIN: Oh well, I expect we’d manage somehow together. Do you mind me saying okay?

  VICTOR: I suppose in time I’d get tired of it too. Go and find your mother.

  Mary has entered with the Howards during the last of this dialogue.

  MARY: Oh, Victor, that’s where you’ve been hiding.

  VICTOR: Not hiding.

  MARY: The Forsters and Morgans went without saying goodbye, and here are William and Margaret. They’re leaving too.

  MRS. HOWARD: It’s been a lovely party. The sun’s come out specially for you.

  HOWARD: A change after last week. Record rainfall for the month. But of course you missed that.

  VICTOR: It rained in Amsterdam too.

  MARY: Robin, go and tell Ann her mother’s leaving.

  ROBIN: Where is she?

  MRS. HOWARD: She’s by the rockery with Mr. Root.

  Robin leaves.

  HOWARD: You look all in, Victor. Never known you so quiet.

  MARY: He’s had a hard day.

  HOWARD: Raking in the shekels. Lucky for you people aren’t all like me. No trouble with my teeth. Every one false.

  VICTOR: Then you ought to be careful of the gums.

  HOWARD: He’s always got an answer, hasn’t he?

  MARY (covering for Victor): There’s a new assistant. She’s a bit careless. There’s nothing more tiring than training a new girl.

  MRS. HOWARD: We won’t wait for Ann, dear. Tell her we’ve gone on.

  HOWARD: I don’t know what she finds to say to that young man.

  MRS. HOWARD: I expect much the same as what I said to you.

  Years ago.

  MARY: He’s not so young. I’d like to see Ann with someone more her own age. He’s too old for her. (Her anxiety shows a little too much.)

  VICTOR (with just controlled anger): It’s no concern of ours.

  MRS. HOWARD (making peace): What lovely ear-rings, Mary. I’ve been admiring them all the evening. Did Victor give them to you?

  MARY (with the slightest hesitation): Yes.

  HOWARD (to Mrs. Howard): That’s what comes of being a dentist. If I gave you diamonds I’d be suspected of embezzlement.

  MRS. HOWARD: If you gave me diamonds nobody would believe it. They’d think I had a lover.

  HOWARD: Now we know why you chose Amsterdam, Victor. How did you work the currency, old fox?

  VICTOR (he can stand no more): I worked no currency. I’m not a black marketeer, William.

  He walks from the dining room.

  An embarrassed silence.

  HOWARD: Well, I am sorry. I never meant …

  MARY: Nor did he. He’s tired and worried, that’s all.

  HOWARD: I never thought I’d see Victor unable to take a joke. Do you remember a few weeks ago how he had to drink from his own dribbling-glass—

  MRS. HOWARD: We aren’t always in the mood for jokes, William. Come along, dear, or you won’t get any dinner.

  HOWARD (as they move out): You will tell him, won’t you, that I never mea
nt …

  MARY (going towards the door with them): Of course. Don’t worry.

  MRS. HOWARD: Don’t come, Mary. We’ll let ourselves out.

  They leave.

  Mary goes immediately to the dining-room door and calls “Victor.” A pause and she calls again: “Victor.”

  Clive, followed by Ann, comes from the garden.

  CLIVE: He went to the garage.

  MARY: Garage?

  CLIVE: He said something about going for a drive.

  MARY: How odd. He doesn’t like driving. He never drives himself if he can help it.

  CLIVE: Is something wrong?

  MARY: Yes. (She looks at Ann.) He had bad news today. A letter from Holland.

  CLIVE: I see.

  MARY: Are you sure you do?

  CLIVE: Yes.

  MARY: How can you possibly know what was in the letter?

  CLIVE: I can guess. Was he angry?

  MARY: Not angry. If you want to know, he wept. I’ve never seen him weep before.

  CLIVE: Ann, you’d better go home.

  ANN: Why? I know what you’re talking about.

  CLIVE: Oh no, you don’t. Even Mary doesn’t.

  MARY: What do you mean?

  CLIVE: Christmas was too far off, Mary. I couldn’t wait so long. I dictated the letter.

  MARY: You…?

  CLIVE: I borrowed your room for the purpose. Don’t you remember?

  MARY: What a bastard you are.

  ANN: Don’t call him that.

  MARY: Oh, go home, Ann. Please.

  ANN: Why should I? This concerns me too.

  MARY: How can it?

  ANN: I happen to love Clive.

  MARY: Love? My dear, that’s a thing one can sometimes say after bed, but never before.

  ANN: How I hate your experience.

  MARY: Aren’t you looking for it? Go and find it with someone of your own age. Clive’s too used for you.

  CLIVE: Mary!

  MARY (to Clive): Aren’t you? Even I didn’t expect this last clever stroke of yours. An anonymous letter to a husband. He’s lived with wives too long, Ann. He’s learned too many tricks.

  ANN: You drove him to it.

  MARY: If you took Clive on, you’d have to learn to love where you don’t trust. Better wait a while. You’ll be riper for him in a few years, after you’ve been married, too.

  ANN (to Clive): She calls you too used. Look at her. Can’t you see what she’s like now?

  CLIVE: I see somebody I love and want, that’s all.

  MARY: You read too much Zane Grey, Ann. Clive isn’t one of your great open spaces. He’s more like an over-crowded town. Only I happen to love over-crowded towns. I like a tenement life. I’d be bored with prairies, and the only animal I love has got two backs, not four hooves. Call it “nostalgie de la boue” if you like.

  ANN: I call it dirt. I’m free. I want to marry Clive.

  MARY: Marriage is not all that clean. (Ann is crying.) Do you want a handkerchief?

  Robin appears unnoticed from the garden.

  ANN: Not one of yours. (She takes a handkerchief from her bag and accidentally drops a glass object that breaks. Clive is going to stoop for it when she stops him.) Don’t bother. It’s only some nonsense her child gave me. (Robin comes forward and picks up the pieces in silence.) I’m sorry, Robin. I didn’t mean … (Robin doesn’t reply, but after gathering up the pieces, makes for the door.) Give them to me. I can stick them together again.

  ROBIN: It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work anyway.

  MARY: Where are you going?

  ROBIN: To bed.

  MARY: Where’s your father?

  ROBIN: In the garage.

  MARY: Is he still there?

  ROBIN: I heard him start the car, but he didn’t come out.

  Robin leaves the room.

  There is a pause. The thought of suicide has come to all three of them, but no one likes to speak first.

  CLIVE: I expect he’s just fooling about with the engine. Cleaning it or something.

  MARY: He never has before.

  CLIVE: Would you like me to go and find him?

  MARY: No, I’ll go. (But she doesn’t move either.) He wouldn’t, would he, do anything silly?

  CLIVE: Of course he wouldn’t.

  ANN: What are we standing here for? Somebody’s got to go and see.

  She starts for the garden. Clive goes after her and takes her arm.

  CLIVE: Not you, Ann.

  She pulls away from him, then stops in the window, looking at something outside.

  Victor enters.

  A pause.

  VICTOR: Hullo. What is it?

  MARY: Where have you been?

  VICTOR: In the garage. There are only two places where a man can be alone in his own house.

  Another pause.

  CLIVE (to Ann): I’ll see you down the street.

  Ann says nothing. They walk to the door.

  MARY: I’m sorry, Ann.

  ANN: That seems to be the signature tune today.

  CLIVE (at the door): I shall come back.

  Clive and Ann leave.

  MARY: You scared us. We half thought … Robin heard the engine running.

  VICTOR: Yes?

  MARY: Of course, I knew you wouldn’t do anything silly, really.

  VICTOR: Silly is the operative word. I only wanted to be alone, so I sat in the car. Then I remembered something I had read in the papers. I turned the engine on. I shut the garage doors. But the word “silly” came to my mind too, and the headline in the newspaper: “Love Tragedy in West Drayton.” This isn’t West Drayton, but the district is wrong for tragedy too.

  MARY: How could you even have thought …

  VICTOR: It’s unfair, isn’t it, that we’re only dressed for a domestic comedy. A suicide looks better in a toga, and carbon monoxide poisoning is not exactly a Roman death. I thought of Macbeth.

  MARY: Why Macbeth?

  VICTOR: “The way to dusty death.” Robin hopes to play the First Murderer at the end of term.

  Pause.

  MARY: What do you want to do, Victor?

  VICTOR: If I asked you to give him up, would you do it?

  MARY: No.

  VICTOR: I understand how you feel. You see, I don’t know how to give you up either.

  MARY: Somebody has got to do something.

  VICTOR: That’s what I thought when I went out to the garage. But why should I be the one who acts? There are three of us.

  MARY: Clive acted. He wrote that letter.

  VICTOR: Clive wrote it?

  MARY: I mean he dictated it to the valet.

  VICTOR: Then why on earth did he write all that about windmills?

  MARY: I didn’t ask him. I’m sorry, Victor. It was a monstrous thing to do.

  VICTOR: I dare say in his place I might have done the same. If I’d thought of it.

  MARY: You wouldn’t have. You are a good man. Victor, be glad you aren’t married to a good woman. The good are horribly hard to leave.

  Pause.

  VICTOR: Does anybody have to leave? I can forget the letter, Mary. Just give me time. You needn’t promise me anything.

  MARY: It wouldn’t work.

  VICTOR: It can. Just don’t make things too obvious locally, that’s all. You don’t hate me, do you?

  MARY: Of course I don’t hate you. I suppose I love you in my shabby way.

  VICTOR: There’s nothing shabby about it. It’s different, that’s all. When the real teeth fail—I’m sorry. Dentistry again.

  MARY: One calls the others “false” teeth.

  VICTOR: If you go away for a holiday now and then, I won’t ask you where.

  MARY: There’s always somebody who finds out.

  VICTOR: That’s my problem, not yours. They’ll sympathize with you.

  MARY: Clive would never agree. He told me that he couldn’t bear to go on much longer like this. I asked him to go on till after Christmas, but then he wrote that letter.


  VICTOR: If he loves you, he can go on. If I can.

  MARY: It’s a different love. If it is love. I don’t care whether it is or not. I love him any way. It’s like a sickness, one of those beastly women’s diseases. It probably has a Latin name. (She is nearly crying and he puts his arms round her.) I’ve tried to cure it. Please believe that.

  VICTOR: Don’t worry, dear. I’ll speak to him.

  MARY: If I have to choose …

  VICTOR: I know. You’ll choose him.

  MARY: I don’t know. I don’t want to choose. I don’t want to leave you and the children, I don’t want to leave him. Victor, dear Victor, why can’t we sometimes, just once, have our cake and eat it?

  VICTOR: I won’t take away your cake, Mary. I’ll be what they call a complaisant husband.

  MARY: Three people have got to be complaisant. It needs a lot of strength.

  VICTOR: I can stand it.

  MARY: Yes, but can he?

  The door opens and Clive comes in. Mary turns abruptly and goes out into the almost dark garden.

  CLIVE: Well? This interview had to come, hadn’t it? Sooner or later.

  VICTOR: Yes. Just stay where you are for a moment. Under the light. Now open your mouth. There’s just something—I’m afraid you don’t have a very good dentist.

  CLIVE: What are you talking about?

  VICTOR: That filling in the upper canine—it shows too much. Like an old sardine tin. I would say that it’s a very old-fashioned amalgam.

  CLIVE (unconsciously feeling with his finger): You mean it’s a very old stopping?

  VICTOR: Better have it done again.

  CLIVE: But I can’t bear that thing of yours—what d’you call it? The whizzy.

  VICTOR: You wouldn’t feel a thing. The nerve is probably dead—or I’d use pentothal. Ring up my secretary and make an appointment.

  CLIVE: Thanks. Perhaps I will.

  VICTOR: We’re neither of us young men, Root. The appearance matters. Can I get you another whisky now the party’s over?

  CLIVE: No thanks. I came back to have a word—

  VICTOR: With Mary? She’ll be back in a moment. I think she’s clearing up the mess in the garden. You know how it is after a party. Why not have another Scotch while you wait?

  CLIVE (hesitating): It’s very kind of you. I haven’t been in the mood …

  Victor pours out two glasses of whisky.

  VICTOR: Sit down. (Clive is about to sit down in the musical chair when Victor stops him.) Not in that chair. Oh, it doesn’t matter. The tune’s run out. (He hands Clive a glass.) This is good stuff. Black Label. I can only get two bottles a month. I keep it for special friends.