I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  ‘If I did that I could even join the Party.’ But he had refused.

  Stephen didn’t respect pettish ways with parents.

  ‘What are we fighting for if not good housing, central heating, free entertainment, peace, prosperity, the cocooning of all from the cradle to the grave? I never met a communist yet who wasn’t fighting for a bourgeois way of life for himself, his family and the rest of mankind. He just varies the full-belly Utopia to suit his tastes.’

  He was acid. He could not endure another like himself; he hated himself; and he was trying to provoke Everett.

  Everett said, ‘You can’t buy the revolution. It’s just bourgeois American to think you can buy everything. You can’t buy people: not all the people, all the time.’

  ‘You can try,’ said Stephen laughing.

  ‘Yes, how about giving it a try, buying the revolution? Enlist some tender-eyed Midas,’ said Jack Smole, a writer.

  ‘I consider you’ve let the revolution down and ought to be censured for giving up your family money; you could have given it to the Party,’ said Jay Moffat Byrd.

  ‘So you too think you can buy it,’ said Everett disdainfully. ‘Is that Marxist or just MGM? A plot for Robert Taylor?’

  Fair, small-faced, forty-year-old playwright, doing well as a screenwriter, Jack Smole continued, ‘Everything can be bought and why not? As soon as you know there is value you put a price on it. The thing is to recognise all values. Money’s only a means of exchange; what you get for it is your business. Here we’ve reduced all values to one. That’s going to simplify things for us later on. You can take out the money and substitute the value ticket. The revolution’s made; and no one hurt.’

  ‘Supposing there were someone, a nation, rich enough to buy out Hollywood and the monopolists of America and he were a communist, wouldn’t he be right to buy them out, tell them to go play hoops and hand it over to the workers—or the Russians?’ said another writer, Bob Beauclerk.

  Byrd, a heavy dark man in dark clothes, rose and moved his armchair, towards the centre of the room. A silence of consent followed.

  He said, ‘Stephen, would you move over next to Emily? We want to talk to you.’

  ‘What is this?’ said Stephen. He moved beside Emily. Emily was bubbling over with mirth, talking furiously, and had not noticed Byrd’s portentous move.

  Stephen said, ‘Put down your glass, Emily. You’re higher than a kite.’

  She put down her glass, her face swam at them. Jack Smole crossed over, put his face close to hers and said, ‘We’ve all discussed your book Johnny Appleseed as a screen possibility and we feel we can’t do anything with it out here. We’ve changed our minds. We feel you made a mistake writing it.’

  This was said in a considerate but determined tone. Emily stopped laughing and stared.

  Byrd cleared his throat, moved his chair a little to face them directly and said, ‘This has all been discussed and we want you to know how we feel. Our feeling is unanimous. It is with some regret that we have decided to speak to you. But for some time, since 1942 in fact, when Stephen was roving reporter to the Western Weekly, he was observed by some to oppose the policy of national unity pursued by socialists throughout the world, a unity embracing all, including capitalist elements who sought victory over the Axis. In a series of articles he wrote, which the editors of the Western Weekly rejected in their original form—we have taken the trouble to have this confirmed—Stephen attempted to narrow this policy and to develop an approach which would have divided the anti-Axis forces and disrupted the war effort. The Howards, both, in divers articles have described as reformist what we term progressive, and call all reference to pro-Roosevelt forces “reformist illusions”. They have demanded the casting away of the present political structure of the Party and the formation of a class-conscious Labour Party. Now is not the time for any such trial and error tactics.’

  This was delivered in a final solemn tone. The guests, except Stephen and Emily, sat in a tense quiet, their eyes fixed on the rug, or on the pair they had already judged. Only Mrs Byrd, sprawled on the brocade sofa, a magnificent body, a gay, inflamed face, paid no attention. She got up now and went to the drinks-table to fill her glass. The convention among them was to take no notice of Mrs Byrd’s behaviour.

  She returned, joy in her face, tipsily treading, and sat down without spilling a drop.

  ‘This is a straightening-out, I take it, and you are the treble-dated crow to sing the requiem over two dead souls,’ said Emily.

  ‘Emily,’ said Stephen.

  Byrd emphatically continued, ‘All of us, reading your articles and hearing Emily’s lectures, have reached the conclusion that you have a consistent plan; that you are attacking the basic lines that we defend, slandering the leadership, taking up the position of petty-bourgeois pseudo-radicalism and maintaining sympathetic contacts with anti-socialist forces outside our ranks. There has been a consistent campaign of destructive, factional attacks.’

  He paused and everyone sat in silence. Stephen looked at Emily. Byrd said, ‘We have refrained until now from making public our views, in the hope that the passing of time and the grave national and international problems confronting the American people and its socialist patriots would cause Stephen and Emily to abandon their puerile leftism and place the fight for peace, democracy and socialism above personal pique and petty individualism. Instead, they have developed their ultra-left posturing into an approach to domestic and foreign affairs which is in conflict with that of socialists fighting for peace and unity in this and other countries. No, Emily and Stephen, we know your value; and your loss would be a great loss to the movement and to us all; for you are fellow-workers, good fighters and valued acquaintances, where you are not friends. We want you, therefore, to consider that this is not a warning or an admonition, not a preaching, but an exhortation, a friendly gesture, to make you reconsider all that you have written and said in a, perhaps, intemperate, ill-considered personal way; and asking you to reconsider and to make amends. It would be thought a good thing if this were in the form of a signed document which could be circulated. All this has caused us much heart-burning, much regret, and it would make us all feel better. It is the time now. You have enough influence to influence others. It would be a pity for us to lose that influence. Outside our movement, what influence can you have? I ask you very seriously to consider your position and this most grave conjecture, which is perhaps the most serious in your lives.’

  He finished and the silent audience, like only half-living things, retired into themselves with quiet and greedy satisfaction, was yet appalled at what was going on, at the awfulness of it, at the fates of two people they could see, being suspended like that, by a hair, at two people hanging in the air by a thread. They relaxed slightly.

  ‘May I leave my seat, please?’ said Emily, getting up and going to the drinks table. ‘Katsuri, I need a good one, a stinger.’

  ‘That was the wrong thing to do,’ said Stephen, ‘to get us here on a pretext and then turn it into a trial with the judgment and sentence all arranged. That was a lousy thing to do. Lead us on and put us on the mat.’

  ‘We want you to know we are all your friends; and if you are with us, you would not want us to hide things of this nature from you. Of course, you are on our side, or we would not trouble to give you this chance. You see we think we know what has changed you. We understand why you have taken this diversionist road.’

  ‘If you know it, tell me the secret,’ Stephen shouted.

  At this Godfrey got up and sat on the settee beside Millian, his wife. He had in his hand three or four sheets of paper, covered with single-spaced typing. He said mildly in his fine round voice, ‘Sit down Emily, this concerns you both.’

  ‘Holy mackerel, not another parson at the graveside,’ said Emily.

  He said gently, ‘Sit down, Emily. It concerns Olivia, the rape of Olivia.’

  ‘The—WHAT—of Olivia? Oh Jehosaphat—‘

  Stephen hushed
her. ‘Let’s hear this indictment to the end. For I assume it is another indictment.’

  Godfrey put his hand on Millian’s arm as he began to read, ‘This has not been written without long and careful thought, painful thought, and has been discussed with others.’

  He looked up and then at his wife, ‘Millian and I have been over every idea expressed here, every word, you may say.’

  He went on to read, ‘I have the permission of those others to read this; and it incorporates their view of a situation which may seem private, but which, on account of elements in it which have social implications, affects us all. This concerns the little twelve-year-old girl Olivia Howard, who now resides with Emily and Stephen Howard and is introduced as their daughter and is Stephen’s daughter. A court case is pending in which Florence Howard Baldwin and Mrs Anna Howard, the grandmother, are also asking for joint guardianship. We have been asked our opinion and this is the testimony which Millian and I have agreed to give, as neutral observers. I must add that we are friends of all parties, friends too of Isaiah Higham, a close friend of Bertram and Florence Baldwin; Higham agrees with us.’

  He put the papers on his knee and looked thoughtfully at Stephen and Emily; then said gently, ‘I ought to prelude by saying that it is known that Stephen and Emily, for personal and to pinpoint it, mercenary reasons, fraudulently obtained possession of Christopher Potter two years ago, when Jacob Potter, the true father and a widower, was under the influence of alcohol. There can be no doubt of this. Stephen and Emily have several times related the circumstances in public. We admit here that Jacob Potter who is now in the hands of a psychoanalyst, is a compulsive drinker, subject to fits of deep melancholy and is even morose at times; and that Stephen and Emily may have had also an admirable or at least fully excusable motive for taking the child from him. When he was incapable of clear thought, however, an agreement was presented to him by them and signed by him and when the grandmother made claim they showed this agreement, and testimony as to Jacob Potter’s unfitness, which appears unassailable.’

  ‘Well, by golly, this is the limit,’ said Emily.

  Godfrey put up his well-shaped hand. ‘Listen, Emily, I have thought of you, had your interests at heart, too; and Millian too, when thinking this through.’ He continued, ‘Four years ago, Emily and Stephen had a son of their own, Giles. They had already adopted Lennie. Two years ago, they adopted in the manner I have shown, Christopher. Now, they wish to take back Olivia, who had already been handed over to Florence Howard Baldwin and Mrs Anna Howard, the grandmother. What is the reason underlying this avidity for adoption, this child-catching? It must surely be part of that aberration which makes young women steal children from their baby-carriages, from their beds.’

  ‘It’s horrible, it’s horrible,’ said Emily.

  He continued, ‘We all know since Emily Howard is of a free and frank nature, that Emily has always longed for a daughter; nothing more natural. In a way, her motherhood spent on boys only had been suppressed. Suppressed motherhood in itself constitutes a claim. But I am not a formalist. Social formulas and prejudices are embalming of what was once useful to society.’

  ‘If I had any gold ink I’d take it down in shorthand,’ Stephen sang out.

  ‘What I have written to the referee is as follows:

  ‘“Mr Referee: it is our opinion (that is, Millian’s and mine) that Stephen and Emily Howard are unsuitable guardians for Olivia Howard, the daughter of Stephen Howard and his deceased wife Caroline. We do this without the diffidence that might be thought prudent, because of our concern for the child and for the psychological comfort and affective needs of her aunt, Florence Howard Baldwin, who is very well known to us. We cannot judge accurately of a domestic interior. Marriages contain infinitely varied relationships and no one can pass judgment upon the satisfactions which may or may not be received in a relationship so intimate and indeed secret. But this thought is only for the man and the woman, the adults. The child caught between the two, undergoes not only the strain of his or her own adjustment to the world, which varies with every day and every year; but also the tensions of parental conflict in a context he cannot yet understand; not to mention strong intimations that filter through every conversation of an upset world.”’

  ‘Heard and approved, God,’ said Stephen; ‘go to the head of the class.’

  Probably Godfrey did not hear him.

  ‘Too many facts of an interior and exterior world for which he has no slide-rule are shuttled before him. And we are speaking of a little, sheltered girl. Conflict and economic and psychological tensions, and even suppressed conflict will produce mentally or even physically battered resentful and rebellious children, who will not adjust to any norm. Yet what is more normal than the family relationship? And where it concerns children of a sweeter more pliable nature, as for example Olivia Howard, whom we all have seen, it may produce either victims, masochists, or natures which become double-dealing, secretive, unstable, furtive; or insinuating and deducing natures; children who are not frank and self-reliant, or too much so who sit in judgment—’

  ‘What a cast of characters!’ said Stephen.

  ‘Won’t sell,’ said Emily, ‘too morbid, not for the suburban mamma.’

  ‘—in silent judgment; in fact, strangers in the house and in the world, sneaks, cowards, those who triumph in malice and suspicion, the voyeurs of others’ troubles. Is this the best way to bring up a child? Perhaps Olivia is Stephen’s daughter—’

  ‘Perhaps! Cicero, you will be sued for that—’ said Stephen.

  ‘That was rhetorical, I withdraw it. We know Olivia is Stephen’s daughter—’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘But if other claims on him are greater, if the family background fails her in her deepest needs, would she not be happier in her grandmother’s or her aunt’s peaceful and well-ordered, if more conventional households?’

  ‘That is the question!’ said Stephen. ‘Say an aunt who comes home drunk every night in a taxi? Is that good for the young psyche, a goodnight kiss of that flavour?’

  ‘Stephen,’ said Godfrey, ‘since what is at issue here is the care and future of a girl, a beautiful, enchanting little girl, who is by reason of her background and her own personal fortune and her large expectations, entitled to expect the very best this country can provide for her—’

  ‘You mean a further million and a half in government bonds at the age of sixteen? I believe you! What more could her country do for her? Two million? That will come. She attracts money. My daughter Olivia will be of intense interest to all; but I come first.’

  Godfrey said, ‘Yes, the money is a factor. But it is real; we must deal in realities: it is part of the child and her future; and it makes her more interesting to you admittedly.’

  ‘Godfrey,’ said Emily, ‘get it over with. Chop off our heads. Where are the tumbrils? Let’s get out of here, Stephen. This is simply the Paul Pry Committee in executive session. Come on, Stephen.’

  ‘I am sorry, Stephen,’ said Godfrey, ‘to make direct references to Emily; and her possible motives as well.’

  ‘You mean because Emily’s father was originally an automobile worker and what money she has and what money is in our bank account, she has made? We grant it all. Good for her! Bad for me!’

  The other guests were fascinated by this trial without jury, entirely in the spirit of mid-century and of their society; but they were helping themselves to drinks, also. Emily, in spite of Stephen’s cranky whispers, made trips to the table too.

  ‘Why can’t we go? The play must go on, eh? If I stay I get something out of it.’

  Godfrey was speaking again, ‘Emily, like myself, is a member of the lower middle class and what money she has made is a credit to her. But where is that money? It is spent in a reckless manner, in accord with general incoherencies of speech and behaviour, and inconsistencies of opinion. We can only regard her behaviour-history of the last few years as a kind of rake’s progress—’


  ‘A rake? What rake?’ said Emily recrossing to her chair.

  ‘—intellectually, morally and politically; financially as well perhaps. Is not the present and expected fortune of the child regarded by Emily as the finger in the dyke? Can we not say that?’

  Stephen said, ‘Say that too: say anything. I’ve often wished I could sit in one of those high booths in a Chinese chow-mein palace where the lights are low, and listen to all my friends in the next booth talking about me. So you get your wishes. It’s as good as the little play in Hamlet. The king sees his crime done in public’

  Godfrey said, ‘Let me get to the end, Stephen; I didn’t come to wound you or to get into a battle. It was thought necessary by us all to get you here and be frank and clear; not to work against you behind your back.’

  ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,’ said Emily, draining her glass and laughing. ‘Godfrey, I know how you feel, everyone talks about Godfrey the honest man, we call you Godfrey the Good.’

  Godfrey flushed, ‘I’m glad of that!’

  Stephen took off a shoe and exercised his toes; ‘Yes, I was thinking it would make an epitaph.’

  Godfrey scarcely heard this. He continued, ‘Emily refers to herself always as Olivia’s mother. Is she equipped for the task? Compared with a real parent and putting aside for the moment the notion of biological motherhood—what is her equipment in this field? She is a woman, she is the guardian of two boys and mother of a third, she is an American and she can by her earnings provide a background of reasonable comfort and security. But Olivia’s social obligations will be large in a few years. We have here not merely a little girl, but a girl who in her adult years will have the control of an estate, perhaps two estates; and so we hear, will come into a large inheritance later on. We are not living in the ideal commonwealth, though we are living in one in which adjusted people can be happy. Is Emily by nature and training, by the way she makes her living and by emotional maturity, by present psychical state, a fit tutor, guardian, custodian, mentor, a fit all, for a mother is all, for this girl of great estate? That is to say, we know that on her twelfth birthday Olivia will have an accrued monthly income from government bonds of four hundred dollars. Now, with Millian and friends, on the information we have had from Olivia’s aunt and grandmother, we have carefully considered this situation, discussed it in all its intentions, over many nights and days, ever since we received the request.’