Such Men Are Dangerous
Page 33
WILLIAM
I see he’s beginning to feel far more like his usual self.
TOM
The thing is, Trev, there’s something here you should always be prepared for. Spontaneous combustion. If people anywhere can suddenly burst into flame—then someday it’s got to happen in this house. We keep an ashtray to collect the cinders. Less showy than an urn—and you know how it is: they’d only run through the holes in the wicker basket. Irritating, when you have a father who…well, when you know that everything he touches turns to ash.
WILLIAM
Especially if you haven’t got the Hoover handy.
NORAH
Or the Rennies!…But I think we’ll let that pass.
TREVOR
One query gets solved; another arises. But, Tom, there was a Dickens novel, wasn’t there? And I believe it has happened. Grief, though…(Gives a shudder) Imagine actually seeing it!
TOM
Bleak House…That was the name of the book, I mean, in case you thought I was merely looking around.
LINDA re-enters with coffee; pours it and hands it round.
NORAH
Thank you, darling. Trevor, do have a biscuit. They’re homemade.
TREVOR
And look very good.
NORAH
A special American recipe. But ignorance is bliss. If I’d known you were coming they would probably have gone all wrong.
TREVOR
(Having taken a bite, raises his coffee cup) In that case, let’s drink to ignorance.
NORAH
No, you’re always preempting me. I shall drink to bliss!
LINDA
What about American recipes?
NORAH
Yes—all right—but after that I want to drink to Paul Newman, The perfect American dish! Actually, to be completely frank, I would rather drink with Paul Newman but I suppose one can’t have everything.
TOM
I think at this point we should remember Annabella. To you, Annabella!
NORAH
And to you, Paul Newman! Indeed, to Paul Newmans everywhere! (Raises her cup towards WILLIAM) Upholders of decency. Upholders of truth. And incredibly sexy with it.
WILLIAM
Well, if we’re drinking to the world of make- believe—(Returns NORAH’S gesture, lifting his cup chiefly towards her, but also including LINDA)—perhaps we shouldn’t leave out the Cinderellas.
TOM
I think he means the Annabellas. Well done, Dad. I’m thinking of you, Mrs Tyrone Power.
WILLIAM
For, once upon a time…Yes, once upon a time…
TOM
Oh, good! A story.
WILLIAM
…those were the two fair hands that held the beautiful glass slipper. Before ever they knew of beautiful pink Camay.
NORAH
Why, my darling, how very sweet of you! My own Prince Charming!
TOM
That’s jumping to conclusions. Why not your own fairy godmother?
LINDA
Your own ugly sister?
TOM
Your own other ugly sister?
NORAH
But more to the point, I am proud and happy to say, this was the foot that fitted the glass slipper. (Another toast to WILLIAM) They don’t make slippers like it any more. (Toast to LINDA and TREVOR) Except on very rare occasions.
WILLIAM
Nor feet.
TOM
Of course, the whole thing was a con trick from start to finish.
NORAH
What was?
TOM
The glass slipper. After midnight. It didn’t exist. It couldn’t have. If all the other finery vanished or turned back into rags—
WILLIAM
It was clearly a most superior product. Gucci, not Dolcis.
TOM
I say if everything else vanished where was the logic, where was the integrity? And please don’t waffle on about poetic licence. What I demand from my stories is the truth.
NORAH
It might have been a miracle. Have you ever considered that?
WILLIAM
Hear, hear! Hear, hear!
LINDA
I said you were getting more and more like him. It’s almost indecent.
NORAH
Then does no one today believe in miracles? Other than Daddy and me?
TOM
Mother, you’re not treating this with the seriousness it deserves. And in any case there was only the one slipper. Does Gucci often go in for half-price sales?
NORAH
But, darling, you can’t say I wasn’t being serious. Relative to the context.
TREVOR
Yes, Norah, I believe in miracles.
TOM
What, Trev—outside of fairy tales and the waving about of wands? Perhaps you mean on the level of bending spoons and forks; producing white rabbits; doing two-hundred-and-fifty press-ups?
TREVOR
No, I mean I believe—or want to believe—that there are certain times when God does intervene. And yes I do believe, quite definitely, in two- hundred-and-fifty press-ups.
TOM
Or want to believe?
TREVOR
In this case, both.
TOM
Personally I don’t see how anyone could want to believe in God’s intervention. If you believe he intervenes you’ve immediately got to work out why he’s so damned particular. “All right—let’s part the Red Sea; that would be fun and provide a bit of spectacle…someday I know they’ll put it into a movie. But no—sorry—application turned down for saving all those Jews again and Ethiopians and Father Popieluszko. And right—okay—so there’s a baby in the microwave and eighteen bandsmen in the burning bus and God knows what’s happening right this moment in Northern Ireland—excuse me, I sometimes talk about me in the third person—but go away: I’m just not in the mood.”
NORAH
Tom…Tom, love…Tom…
WILLIAM
Darling, it’s a valid point he’s making…
TOM
So what person with any scrap of intelligence would ever want to believe in God’s intervention? Present company excepted, of course.
WILLIAM
…but I wish that I was seventeen again and could feel so utterly cocksure.
NORAH
No, you don’t.
TREVOR
No, you don’t.
TOM
I bet you anything he does. Then he’d have been the swimmer that he’s always bleating on about, or the actor, or the politician. The totally incorruptible and all-reforming politician. Naturally!
WILLIAM
Naturally.
TOM
You approve of that word, do you? I suppose you don’t so often hear it, in connection with yourself?
WILLIAM
The sad thing is. you were born a disbeliever. I wouldn’t wish to be seventeen again if it took away my trust. Naturally I don’t expect you to believe that.
TOM
All I’m saying is: if you had the chance to be seventeen again in someone else’s shoes…
WILLIAM
Oh, I still don’t know.
TOM
…and more especially, perhaps, in someone else’s glass slippers…
WILLIAM
I’m not sure what you mean by that. I believe in miracles, not fairy tales. I don’t believe life is a fairy tale. I don’t think I’d even want to believe it. People wouldn’t have the opportunity—or would they?—of making any real progress. I’d rather opt for free will.
TOM
Oh, yes: so now you’re harking back to those old neuroses of yours, which you’re so happy to have picked up along life’s way.
TREVOR
What neuroses?
WILLIAM
Well—this won’t be easy—but let one example stand for all. I’m posting a letter, right? Unless I hear it go plop inside the pillar box—a nice, fat, unmistakable plop
—I think at once it must be lost: held fast for all time in some unsuspected crevice. Okay, I tell myself—while wiping a suppliant palm back and forth across the opening—a passing car or bus has camouflaged the plop. But…oh God: did I remember to put the stamp on? And if so did I lick it sufficiently? And what about the flap? On some buoyantly reckless impulse I didn’t reinforce it with my usual strip—or strips—of Selotape…So will the letter at length work its way out, leaving only an envelope to reach its destination? Most likely not: it’s now my writing I’m aware of: my threes and my capital S’s so often look like fives; my r’s are interchangeable with n’s. Oh hell. I know there’s absolutely no chance at all of delivery! That is, until I suddenly remember the wording of my final paragraph: perhaps the humour of it wasn’t clear—couldn’t it suggest something callous, even deeply hurtful, the very opposite of what I meant?…Oh God, there was never anything more certain: that letter will arrive. The British postman is wonderful—I recall a card I once received from Tokyo, addressed to Willing Peeman, with only the name of the town beneath. Oh, yes, beyond question it will get there. And I didn’t even read it through: all part of that liberating, devil-may-care attitude I sometimes get as a reaction to my customary old-maidishness—but which, despite my every hope, seldom outlives a single day…So now I really am in agony. What shall I do? Swiftly send a second letter to try to put things right? Difficult. If there’s even the faintest chance of my witticism not having misfired, then all I’m doing is suggesting the possibility that, after all, the other meaning was the one I had in mind. Besides, of course…that first letter will get there but what guarantee have I that the second ever will; because unless I hear it go plop inside the pillar box—a nice, fat, unmistakable plop…Trevor, I don’t know if that answers your question quite fully enough or gives you any flavour at all of the one or two small—
TOM
—of the one or two thousand small neuroses which so much broaden and enrich his life…and of course the lives of all of us.
NORAH
And that was merely the abridged version, praise the Lord! Which meant I had to wait no more than half an hour to express the one poor thing I now wish to say…You see, my darling, it just isn’t true that Tom was born untrusting. He used to think you were the fastest runner in the world.
TOM
When I was six years old and actually had faith in all the things that people told me. All right—I accept—I was a backward six-year-old.
NORAH
Darling, I so well remember that afternoon when you ran out of school all hot and flushed and no hello’s or anything. “Jonathan is the silliest little boy in all of England!” you cried. “He says that Daddy isn’t the fastest runner in the world! I tried to pull his hair and push him in the mud. And I told him that his stupid sister has buck teeth.” And I could still see the little runnels down your cheeks. You weren’t a boy who cried often.
TOM
I’d forgotten all of that. I’d forgotten Jonathan.
NORAH
Jonathan for me went down in history. Oh, Tommy was the sweetest little boy. Tomorrow I must show you photographs. And he can try to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes as much as he likes; but underneath he still is—no parents ever had two sweeter children, more openhearted and loving. And, Tom Freeman, you can scowl at me till Doomsday: I don’t believe you’ve really lost that trust; or at the very least—if you have—I think you’d like so very much to retrieve it.
TOM
Who wouldn’t like to have trust? In peace on earth and goodwill toward all men? In Gary Cooper beating back the baddies? In Superman and all that crap?
WILLIAM
I wish I could have been the fastest runner in the world—in the face of all those Jonathans.
TREVOR
Well, there are Jonathans and Jonathans. My middle name is Jonathan. I’d have put my money on you. (To TOM) We’d have had no need to push each other in the mud.
TOM
But one of us, I’m glad to say, has developed a bit since then. You’ve gone on listening to the same old stories…even if you’ve turned a remarkably deaf ear to all those parts which didn’t suit you.
TREVOR
Such as?
TOM
Such as? Well—for instance—how about old Christopher Reeves or Sean Connery or whoever it was saying to the rich young man, “Come back, sonny, when you’ve disposed of all your dough”? Now for me to claim it’s all camels and needles and moonshine is no copout. But for you…you clearly need to be selective; like so many of your kind.
TREVOR
What kind is that?
TOM
The dishonest kind…with all due respect.
WILLIAM
Now watch it, my young Thomas—my young doubting Thomas. Trevor looks as though he wants to hit you, for one thing; and for another, it may be according to the rules for you to strike out at us, you family, but it is very much against them to treat a guest in the same way. I ask you to apologize.
TOM
I thought you were the one who always said you should treat guests and family alike!
WILLIAM
I never said you took advantage of a guest’s politeness and his inability to answer back. Or at the very least, if you’re offering hospitality to someone, you acquaint him with the house rules at the same time that you’re showing him where the lavatory is or where you keep the milk.
NORAH
Oh Lord. Trevor, have we shown you where the lavatory is?
TREVOR
Yes, William did.
WILLIAM
Besides, Tom, Jesus himself was selective. “For many are called, but few are chosen.” So, you see, it isn’t such an insult. And what about Orwell, whom you like so much—and Tolstoy—and Dickens?
TREVOR
And Freeman?
WILLIAM
All selective in our own small way.
TOM
And you more than most. (Looks significantly towards LINDA and TREVOR) But, anyway, I’m sure you’re well aware you’re fudging the issue. Once again.
WILLIAM
You’re such a great big dope in some ways. Even if you do think up some rather good titles. Camels and Needles and Moonshine. May I use that for my next book? I’ll credit you, of course.
TOM
What next book?
WILLIAM
I suppose you don’t believe there’ll be one. In your eyes I’m all washed up? A has-been?
TOM
Albeit a suntanned has-been. But I can see why a title like that would excite you. A story of humps and pricks in the waning light. Who’s got the hump, because who’s doing the humping and so who’s got—?
NORAH
Enough! Oh, this is too much! Now you’ve really gone too far!
TREVOR
Tell me, is he just going to get away with it?
NORAH
Remember what happened upstairs? I’ve already slapped your face once tonight! Do you want me to slap it again?
WILLIAM
It’s a story of one so sharp that someday, if he doesn’t learn, he’s going to cut himself off beyond all hope of repair.
TOM
Learn what? What is it that you’ve learned—after your long, frustrated, cocked-up life?
WILLIAM
Norah. Trevor. Let me tell him what I’ve learned. I don’t know what I’ve learned…That when people are unhappy they very often don’t mean one word of what they say? That, for instance, “Go away, I won’t discuss it!” usually means, “Please stay with me and can’t we talk?” That, “I’m not hungry, I shan’t eat!” is far more likely, “Don’t give up on me, I just need you to be patient.”
TOM
And is that the grand sum total?
WILLIAM
Well, at least it’s something. Better than nowt.
TOM
No, it isn’t. Others may find that wonderfully affecting; I find it simply part of the facade—an offshoot of all tho
se awful Forties tearjerkers that you love to sit and cry over. Didn’t Mum herself say as much earlier on—before she sobered up or changed sides or buried her head again, whatever?
He overrides reactions: “I never said that—when did I say that?”…“Your mother didn’t…!”…“Fine, so now it’s your mother’s turn?”—this last from TREVOR)
TOM
(Cont) Because the thing is, you see, it’s all about you. I wish I were the fastest runner in the world. I wish I were an actor—one of the company, all of us pulling together, intent on the common cause. I wish I were a swimmer; I wish I were a skier; I wish I were Fred Astaire. All you, you, you! Nothing but you!
WILLIAM
I was only saying that I don’t like to see anyone unhappy.
TOM
And that makes you so different, does it, to everybody else?
WILLIAM
I didn’t suggest that.
TREVOR
It’s no good. I’m sorry but I’ve simply got to say it. I think you’re such a bastard. Snide and bitter and vindictive. Ungrateful, too. You’d never get away with it in most families.