Who is Sylvia? and Duologue

by Terence Rattigan

  MARK. It couldn’t have been a bad oyster. These oysters came from my club –

  DORIS. Poor Chloe! She feels she ought to go straight home, don’t you, dear?

  OSCAR. Oh, no.

  CHLOE. Oh, yes. I must go home. Otherwise I might break out in a rash in the stalls, and that’d be terrible, wouldn’t it?

  DORIS. I’ll drive her home, dear. Won’t take me five minutes –

  OSCAR. Look – let me drive her home.

  CHLOE (sharply). Oh, no. (Recovering herself.) Oh, no, Major, please don’t bother.

  OSCAR (winningly). My dear young lady, I can assure you that the inestimable boon of prolonging our all too brief acquaintance by an extra five minutes would far outweigh the faintest element of bother –

  CHLOE stares at him, as if he were some particularly repulsive cobra, momentarily in the guise of Lord Byron. She gives a faint shudder and turns quickly to MARK.

  CHLOE. Well – it has been nice, Mr Wright. Perhaps you’ll let me come again some time. Come on, Doris.

  OSCAR (advancing on her). And how may I give myself the pleasure of a renewal of this encounter?

  CHLOE (helplessly). Is it my phone number you want?

  OSCAR. That would be a privilege indeed.

  CHLOE. Well – you can always get me at Fabia’s, except that Madam doesn’t really like us being rung up in working hours – and I can’t go upsetting Madam, can I? Because, you see, I’m really only there working hours. Come on, Doris.

  She darts out. DORIS lingers at the door.

  DORIS (to OSCAR). Don’t worry, General. I’ll fix things. (Follows CHLOE out.)

  OSCAR shrugs his shoulders forlornly.

  MARK (chuckling). Poor old Oscar. What very bad luck.

  OSCAR. I can’t really see what you find so hilarious about having poisoned one of your guests.

  MARK (laughing). Nonsense. She’s not poisoned, she’s running away from you, that’s all.

  OSCAR. There’s no need for you to laugh. If I’m a joke, so are you.

  MARK. Joke? Speak for yourself.

  OSCAR. I’m speaking for both of us. You know what we are, Mark – just a couple of stock Punch figures for whom the austerity age has no further use.

  MARK. Nonsense, Oscar. It’s got plenty of use. Even the austerity age has to have generals and ambassadors.

  OSCAR. Yes – but not my kind of general – nor your kind of ambassador. Austerity generals – austerity ambassadors. My God – you see them around everywhere – drinking dill water and eating grated carrots and talking basic English. Heavens! How I hate austerity, don’t you?

  MARK. I can’t hate it. I represent it.

  There is the noise of a stone against the window.

  What was that?

  OSCAR. Stone at the window.

  There is another stone.

  There it is again.

  MARK goes to the window.

  MARK. It’s probably Doris. She must have forgotten her key – (Looking out.) Doris?

  CAROLINE (off). Mark!

  MARK (hurtles backwards into the room, speechless). My God! My God! Oscar – my God!

  OSCAR. What’s the matter?

  MARK. Caroline.

  OSCAR (rising). It couldn’t be!

  MARK. It is. It is.

  A woman’s voice can be heard calling.

  CAROLINE (off). Mark! Mark! Don’t be so idiotic. Let me in.

  MARK (in a panic). She’s seen me. I’m lost.

  OSCAR. Say it’s my flat. We’re dining here alone –

  MARK. Doris will be back –

  CAROLINE (off). I’m freezing out here, and I’ve got a cold anyway. Hurry up, Mark – for pity’s sake –

  OSCAR. I’ll say Doris is my friend. Better let her in, Mark.

  MARK (keening softly). Oh, my God! Oh, Oscar, how awful! (Slowly ap proaches the window. Out of the window, in tones of exaggerated sangfroid.) Hullo? Who is that? Oh, Caroline. What a surprise! I thought you were in bed.

  CAROLINE (off). Well, I’m not, my dear. I’m out here. But I’ll be in my coffin tomorrow if you don’t let me in.

  MARK (with apparent surprise). Let you in. Oh yes. (Loudly to OSCAR.) Oscar, Oscar, let Caroline into your flat. Just coming, Caroline.

  OSCAR. Is she delirious?

  MARK. She didn’t seem to be –

  OSCAR. I mean – she’s not in her dressing gown or anything?

  MARK. I didn’t notice.

  OSCAR. You must have noticed.

  MARK. Go and let her in, Oscar.

  OSCAR goes out. MARK, left alone, rushes to try to remove traces of the two girls’ presence. He is in the act of bundling plates into a drawer when the front door is heard opening. CAROLINE comes in, followed by OSCAR. She is an imposing old lady of decided beauty, dressed in an evening gown and a cloak.

  CAROLINE. Good evening, dear.

  MARK. Good evening, Caroline. Oughtn’t you to be in bed?

  CAROLINE. I got up this afternoon because I had no temperature. I took it again at five and I still hadn’t one, so I decided to come to the first night. You’ve given my seat to Charlie Bayswater, haven’t you, dear?

  MARK. Oh, yes, but he’s chucked.

  CAROLINE. How fortunate.

  MARK. Very lucky you finding me here, Caroline – in Oscar’s flat.

  CAROLINE. Yes, dear. I rang up the Club and you weren’t there.

  MARK. As a matter of fact I was delayed at the Foreign Office and at the last possible moment a long dispatch came in –

  CAROLINE. Not one of those complicated cyphers –

  MARK. Very complicated, my dear –

  CAROLINE. From Mesopotamia? Of course, it couldn’t be – it’s called some thing else now, isn’t it?

  OSCAR. I’m sorry you had to throw stones at my window. The trouble is, you can never hear the front doorbell here –

  CAROLINE is looking idly round the room.

  CAROLINE (looking at wireless). Oh, so that’s where the little wireless went to. I’ve always wondered.

  MARK. I – er – lent it to Oscar – I’m sorry. I should have told you.

  OSCAR. Yes. It’s been astonishingly useful. Astonishingly – six o’clock news –

  CAROLINE. At twenty to, exactly, Denis said I could ring him up. What’s the time now? Oh, the clock from the morning room. Nearly twenty-five to. But that clock always gains about three minutes a week, dear. Do you regulate it?

  MARK. Do you?

  OSCAR. Oh yes. Constantly. Charming present of Mark’s, wasn’t it?

  CAROLINE. We’ve got seven and a half minutes. Have you ordered a car, darling?

  MARK. Yes.

  CAROLINE. Well, we’ll send it away. I’ve brought the Daimler.

  MARK. Oh, you have, my dear. That’s splendid. (In a whisper to OSCAR.) Doris, Doris.

  OSCAR. Oh – Caroline – by the way – a friend of mine is coming with us –

  CAROLINE. Oh, yes. The Minister for War?

  MARK. No, no. He chucked, too.

  CAROLINE. What a lot of chucking.

  MARK. Well, as a matter of fact, it’s a lady, a friend of Oscar’s.

  CAROLINE. Oh. Mabel Brightlingsea? Dear old Mabel. Is she quite up to going out these days?

  OSCAR. No. As a matter of fact, Caroline, I don’t think you know her. It’s just a young friend of mine – I thought I’d give her a treat, you know. (Crossing to champagne.) Well, now, Caroline, could I perhaps offer you a glass of champagne? It’s Moet and Chandon ’37 –

  The flat door slams.

  Here is the lady.

  DORIS enters.

  DORIS. Well, that’s done. I hope I haven’t made you late, Major.

  CAROLINE. Doris, isn’t this nice. I’m coming to the first night with you.

  DORIS (turning and seeing CAROLINE). Oh!

  CAROLINE. Yes, my temperature went down and I got up. This is the dress you showed me at Fabia’s. How do you like it in white?

  DORIS. Oh, it’s lovely.

/>   CAROLINE. Isn’t it nice I am able to wear it for the first night, after all. And I hear there’s still a seat.

  DORIS. Yes. Chloe’s.

  CAROLINE. Chloe?

  DORIS. That’s the tall girl I told you I thought the General would like to meet, do you remember?

  CAROLINE. Oh, yes.

  DORIS. Well, she got taken quite queer – a bad oyster, it was – and so it’ll be just the four of us – which will be ever so nice, won’t it? And nice for Denis, too, having his Mum and Dad out front after all.

  CAROLINE. Are you ready to start, dear?

  DORIS. No. I’ll just fix my hair, won’t be a tick. (Goes into the bedroom.)

  CAROLINE. What a sweet girl that is. So much nicer than that horrid existen tialist, in Paris.

  MARK (groaning). Caroline! Caroline! Caroline!

  CAROLINE. Yes, my dear?

  MARK. You have shocked and blasted me to the very depths of my being.

  CAROLINE. Have I, my dear? I do apologise. I would have avoided it if I possibly could – but after you went blithering away on the telephone just now about: ‘I don’t know where he is, milady’ – darling, what a cockney accent – really – I realised I’d have to take drastic action if I wanted to see Denis play Mark Antony tonight.

  MARK. How long have you known, how long?

  CAROLINE. Now, let me see. (To OSCAR.) When was it that Oscar first let his flat to a Mr Mark Wright. That’s quite a long time ago now, isn’t it, dear?

  OSCAR. Thirty-three years ago, only thirty-three years.

  CAROLINE. Is it really? How time flies, to be sure. Well, now, when bills started turning up on my desk for decorations to No. 12 Wilbraham Terrace –

  MARK. Oh, my God!

  CAROLINE. And letters addressed to Mr Mark Wright – darling, I do hope you’re not as careless with confidential documents at the Embassy as you are with letters addressed to Mr Mark Wright.

  MARK. I told you Mark Wright was an old friend of mine –

  CAROLINE. You told me lots of things, dear, and you took the greatest trouble to make me believe them. If you tell lies to Foreign Ministers as clumsily as you tell them to me, I wonder that anyone ever speaks to us at the United Nations.

  OSCAR. Oh, what a tangled web we weave –

  CAROLINE. No, not a very tangled web, a remarkably simple web on the whole. And when – to crown it all, you go and choose a girl from a shop where I get my dresses and, of course, pick the very one whom I know particularly well –

  MARK. Doris never, never mentioned a word.

  CAROLINE. Of course not, dear. I swore her to utter secrecy – and she’s a sweet girI, so I knew she would never give me away.

  MARK. Caroline, for thirty-three years you have been deceiving me. You have just made the most immoral and unprincipled statement it has ever been my lot to listen to.

  CAROLINE. Is it immoral and unprincipled? What do you think, Oscar?

  OSCAR. I’m afraid, Caroline, that I must tell you that I am as deeply shocked as Mark.

  CAROLINE. Oh, well, then perhaps I am unprincipled and immoral. You see, I’ve never been much tempted to the more conventional forms of immorality – though I admit – now I come to think of it – that on just a couple of occasions it might have been rather nice to have been Caroline Wright –

  MARK (aghast). Oh – Caroline!

  CAROLINE. But I never did, dear. I never did.

  MARK. That, at least, is something.

  CAROLINE (brightly). So as I’ve never been immoral in other ways, this immorality of mine in not ever having made an issue of Mr Mark Wright was really only, I suppose, what you might call – having my little fling.

  MARK. Well, Oscar, I ask you –

  CAROLINE. I nearly made an issue once, you know, over that first girl – that silly flapper – what was her name? Mark, what was her name?

  MARK doesn’t reply.

  Oscar – that silly girl he met on a bus – Daphne Prentice, that was it.

  MARK groans.

  Yes. I nearly made an issue over her. But then I thought – well, if I do – he’ll drop this silly girl all right, but he’ll hate me for ever afterwards. So what’s the use? And then there was that time when you were thinking of leaving the Diplomatic because of that creature – what was her name now – Nora Patterson – and what an issue I’d have made over that – but then suddenly you dropped the whole idea – and I breathed again –

  MARK. Ah. Denis told you that, I suppose?

  CAROLINE (puzzled). Denis? Mark – you don’t mean it was Denis who got you to change your mind on that? Oh – I knew of course, you wouldn’t have done it yourself – but I always imagined it was Oscar who rescued you. It was Denis, was it? (Fondly.) Oh, what a clever boy, and he never even told his mother!

  MARK. This is my wife, Oscar. This is the woman I have always looked up to as a pillar of rectitude and simple-heartedness.

  CAROLINE. Simple-heartedness doesn’t mean half-wittedness, dear. Anyway I made no issue over Nora Patterson, because I didn’t have to after all – and none of the myriad others have really bothered me –

  MARK (groaning). What!

  CAROLINE. You see, from the beginning I thought to myself – well, this Mark Wright business must go rather deep. I’m his wife, and if he really wants to change his identity from time to time, then it must, in some way, be my fault. Something that I can’t give him, that he wants and can find elsewhere. I would have liked to have been Mrs Mark Wright, but I knew I couldn’t be. I knew I couldn’t ever be anything more than the wife of Mark Binfield – and as I wanted, more than most things, to go on be ing that, I realised I had to give up all claims on Mark Wright. And I did. Except, of course, that I had to do my best to see that Mr Wright came to no harm. In Paris, for instance, we always have to have him followed by the Embassy detectives. (To OSCAR.) He will go to such dread ful dives in Montparnasse.

  MARK groans again and covers his face with his hands. CAROLINE looks at her watch.

  Right. Time to ring up Denis. Os car, get the number, will you? It’s Waterloo 6849.

  OSCAR goes to the telephone.

  Darling, I am feeling so nervous for Denis tonight. How nice that you will be there to hold my hand. Darling, why will you wear stiff col lars with your dinner jacket. It looks so old-fashioned.

  MARK groans for the last time. CAROLINE squeezes his hand.

  OSCAR (into telephone). Oh, stage door… would you put me through to Mr Wright… it’s his mother.

  CAROLINE gets up and goes to the telephone. OSCAR comes to MARK, who is still sunk gloomily in his chair.

  CAROLINE (into telephone). Denis?… Darling, just to wish you everything in the world… yes, I’m coming. No, I am much better…

  OSCAR. The best of both worlds? How easy if you have the genius for it –

  MARK. Oh, Oscar. The shame of it! The shame!

  CAROLINE (into telephone). Oh, darling, how sweet of you. Yes, of course, we’d love it. (To MARK.) He’s chucking his first-night party and asking us to supper afterwards. Isn’t that nice? (Into telephone.) Darling, how do you feel?

  MARK rises.

  Don’t worry, you’ll be splendid. Well, darling boy, everything in the world. Here’s Father.

  She hands the telephone to MARK, who takes it in a daze.

  DORIS (entering). Is my hair all right?

  MARK (into telephone). Denis?… Yes. Just to wish you the very best of luck, old chap… Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve just been saying to Oscar that I consider it the best Mark Antony I have seen… (Catches OSCAR’s eye.) since Tree…

  OSCAR (in a whisper). Ask him about ‘bloody’.

  MARK. Shut up. (Into telephone.) What, old chap… Mother? Yes, I knew you’d be glad…

  OSCAR (louder). Ask him about ‘bloody’ –

  MARK. Go away. (Into telephone.) Oh, it’s only your Uncle Oscar. Some ridiculous idea he has that it’s ‘bloody piece of earth’, and not ‘bleeding…’ (To OSCAR.) There you are,
you see. You’ve gone and put him off. He says he can’t remember himself now –

  OSCAR. Oh, Lord. (Snatches the telephone. Frantically into telephone.) Look, old chap, it doesn’t matter, you know. Just say the first thing that comes into your head – bloody or bleeding – it doesn’t matter, old chap. It really doesn’t –

  MARK snatches the telephone back.

  MARK. Pay no attention to him, Denis. He’s drunk… Well, won’t keep you, old chap. All the very best –

  DORIS. Give him mine, too –

  MARK. Oh, and Doris sends her love too… No, Denis, there’s no point in lowering your voice and being tactful. I haven’t made a bloomer… Yes, well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. (Rings off.)

  CAROLINE. Come on, now. We’re going to be late. Oscar, will you escort Doris to the car? Where’s my bag?

  DORIS. Come along, Major, you must look after me tonight.

  OSCAR. That will be a pleasure, my dear.

  DORIS. We might do a little dancing later.

  DORIS and OSCAR go out.

  CAROLINE (running her finger on top of the radio). Really. I must speak to Williams about the way he keeps this flat.

  MARK (hopelessly). You must speak to Williams.

  CAROLINE. I have a little confession to make about Williams, darling. With the servant problem so terrible, it did seem such a waste – so he does occasionally pop in to Belgrave Square, and help out. Just now and then, you know.

  MARK. Just now and then?

  CAROLINE. I knew you wouldn’t mind.

  MARK. You knew I wouldn’t mind?

  She inspects the bronze head of Sylvia.

  CAROLINE. What a very pretty face Sylvia did have. Do you know, dear, she still looks a little like that.

  MARK. What?

  CAROLINE. Of course, she’s quite old now. What would she be exactly? A year younger than you, isn’t she? Sixty-three. Yes. She looks all of sixty-three, I’m afraid.

  MARK (aghast). You mean – you know her?

  CAROLINE. Sylvia Willoughby-Grant? My dear, we play bridge together.

  MARK (laughing hysterically). No. No – not that! No, Caroline – you can’t pull that one on me. She’s in South Africa –

  CAROLINE. My dear, didn’t you know? She came back years ago – before the war. She lives in Chester Square. I tell you what would be rather nice. I’ll have her to dinner next week –