Plays Extravagant

by Dan Laurence

  EPIFANIA. You never will again.

  SAGAMORE. I dont doubt it for a moment. Now tell me: where does Alastair come in?

  EPIFANIA. I saw him win an amateur heavy weight championship. He has a solar plexus punch that no other boxer can withstand.

  SAGAMORE. And you married a man because he had a superlative solar plexus punch!

  EPIFANIA. Well, he was handsome. He stripped well, unlike many handsome men. I am not insusceptible to sex appeal, very far from it.

  SAGAMORE [hastily] Oh quite, quite: you need not go into details.

  EPIFANIA. I will if I like. It is your business as a solicitor to know the details. I made a very common mistake. I thought that this irresistible athlete would be an ardent lover. He was nothing of the kind. All his ardor was in his fists. Never shall I forget the day – it was during our honeymoon – when his coldness infuriated me to such a degree that I went for him with my fists. He knocked me out with that abominable punch in the first exchange. Have you ever been knocked out by a punch in the solar plexus?

  SAGAMORE. No, thank heaven. I am not a pugilist.

  EPIFANIA. It does not put you to sleep like a punch on the jaw. When he saw my face distorted with agony and my body writhing on the floor, he was horrified. He said he did it automatically – that he always countered that way, by instinct. I almost respected him for it.

  SAGAMORE. Then why do you want to get rid of him?

  EPIFANIA. I want to get rid of myself. I want to punish myself for making a mess of my life and marrying an imbecile. I, Epifania Ognisanti di Parerga, saw myself as the most wonderful woman in England marrying the most wonderful man. And I was only a goose marrying a buck rabbit. What was there for me but death? And now you have put me off it with your fooling; and I dont know what I want. That is a horrible state of mind. I am a woman who must always want something and always get it.

  SAGAMORE. An acquisitive woman. Precisely. How splendid! [The telephone rings. He rises]. Excuse me. [He goes to the table and listens] Yes? … [Hastily] One moment. Hold the line. [To Epifania] Your husband is downstairs, with a woman. They want to see me.

  EPIFANIA [rising] That woman! Have them up at once.

  SAGAMORE. But can I depend on you to control yourself?

  EPIFANIA. You can depend on Alastair’s fists. I must have a look at Seedystockings. Have them up I tell you.

  SAGAMORE [into the telephone] Send Mr Fitzfassenden and the lady up.

  EPIFANIA. We shall see now the sort of woman for whom he has deserted ME!

  SAGAMORE. I am thrilled. I expect something marvellous.

  EPIFANIA. Dont be a fool. Expect something utterly common.

  Alastair Fitzfassenden and Patricia Smith come in. He is a splendid athlete, with most of his brains in his muscles. She is a pleasant quiet little woman of the self-supporting type. She makes placidly for the table, leaving Alastair to deal with his wife.

  ALASTAIR. Eppy! What are you doing here? [To Sagamore] Why didnt you tell me?

  EPIFANIA. Introduce the female.

  PATRICIA. Patricia Smith is my name, Mrs Fitzfassenden.

  EPIFANIA. That is not how you sign your letters, I think.

  ALASTAIR. Look here, Eppy. Dont begin making a row –

  EPIFANIA. I was not speaking to you. I was speaking to the woman.

  ALASTAIR [losing his temper] You have no right to call her a woman.

  PATRICIA. Now, now, Ally: you promised me –

  EPIFANIA. Promised you! What right had he to promise you? How dare he promise you? How dare you make him promise you?

  ALASTAIR. I wont have Polly insulted.

  SAGAMORE [goodhumoredly] You dont mind, Miss Smith, do you?

  PATRICIA [unconcerned] Oh, I dont mind. My sister goes on just like that.

  EPIFANIA. Your sister! You presume to compare your sister to me!

  PATRICIA. Only when she goes off at the deep end. You mustnt mind me: theres nothing like letting yourself go if you are built that way. Introduce me to the gentleman, Ally.

  ALASTAIR. Oh, I forgot. Julius Sagamore, my solicitor. An old pal. Miss Smith.

  EPIFANIA. Alias Polly Seedystockings.

  PATRICIA. Thats only my pet name, Mr Sagamore. Smith is the patronymic, as dear wise old father says.

  EPIFANIA. She sets up a wise father! This is the last straw.

  SAGAMORE. Do sit down, Miss Smith, wont you? [He goes to fetch a chair from the wall].

  PATRICIA [contemplating the wrecked chair] Hallo! Whats happened to the chair?

  EPIFANIA. I have happened to the chair. Let it be a warning to you.

  Sagamore places the chair for Patricia next the table. Alastair shoves the broken chair back out of the way with his foot; fetches another from the wall, and is about to sit on it next Patricia when Epifania sits on it and motions him to her own chair, so that she is seated between the two, Patricia on her left, Alastair on her right. Sagamore goes back to his official place at the table.

  PATRICIA. You see, Mr Sagamore, it’s like this. Alastair –

  EPIFANIA. You need not explain. I have explained everything to Mr Sagamore. And you will please have the decency in his presence and in mine to speak of my husband as Mr Fitzfassenden. His Christian name is no business of yours.

  ALASTAIR [angry] Of course, Eppy, if you wont let anybody speak –

  EPIFANIA. I am not preventing you nor anybody from speaking. If you have anything to say for yourself, say it.

  PATRICIA. I am sorry. But it’s such a long name. In my little circle everyone calls him just Ally.

  EPIFANIA [her teeth on edge] You hear this, Mr Sagamore! My husband is called ‘Ally’ by these third rate people! What right have they to speak of him at all? Am I to endure this?

  PATRICIA [soothingly] Yes: we know you have to put up with a lot, deary; –

  EPIFANIA [stamping] Deary!!!

  PATRICIA [continuing] – but thats what the world is like.

  EPIFANIA. The world is like that to people who are like that. Your world is not my world. Every woman has her own world within her own soul. Listen to me, Mr Sagamore. I married this man. I admitted him to my world, the world which my imagination had peopled with heroes and saints. Never before had a real man been permitted to enter it. I took him to be hero, saint, lover all in one. What he really was you can see for yourself.

  ALASTAIR [jumping up with his fists clenched and his face red] I am damned if I stand this.

  EPIFANIA [rising and facing him in the pose of a martyr] Yes: strike me. Shew her your knock-out punch. Let her see how you treat women.

  ALASTAIR [baffled] Damn! [He sits down again].

  PATRICIA. Dont get rattled, Ally: you will only put yourself in the wrong before Mr Sagamore. I think youd better go home and leave me to have it out with her.

  EPIFANIA. Will you have the goodness not to speak of me as ‘her’? I am Mrs Fitzfassenden. I am not a pronoun. [She resumes her seat haughtily].

  PATRICIA. Sorry; but your name is such a tongue-twister. Mr Sagamore: dont you think Ally had better go? It’s not right that we should sit here arguing about him to his face. Besides, he’s worn out: he’s hardly slept all night.

  EPIFANIA. How do you know that, pray?

  PATRICIA. Never mind how I know it. I do.

  ALASTAIR. It was quite innocent; but where could I go to when you drove me out of the house by your tantrums?

  EPIFANIA [most unexpectedly amused] You went to her?

  ALASTAIR. I went to Miss Smith: she’s not a pronoun, you know. I went where I could find peace and kindness, to my good sweet darling Polly. So there!

  EPIFANIA. I have no sense of humor: but this strikes me as irresistibly funny. You actually left ME to spend the night in the arms of Miss Seedystockings!

  ALASTAIR. No, I tell you. It was quite innocent.

  EPIFANIA [to Patricia] Was he in your arms or was he not?

  PATRICIA. Well, yes, of course he was for a while. But not in the way you mean.

  EPIFANIA.
Then he is even a more sexless fish than I took him for. But really a man capable of flouncing out of the house when I was on the point of pardoning him and giving him a night of legitimate bliss would be capable of any imbecility.

  ALASTAIR. Pardoning me! Pardoning me for what? What had I done when you flew out at me?

  EPIFANIA. I did not fly out at you. I have never lost my dignity even under the most insufferable wrongs.

  ALASTAIR. You hadnt any wrongs. You drove me out of the house –

  EPIFANIA. I did not. I never meant you to go. It was abominably selfish of you. You had your Seedystockings to go to; but I had nobody. Adrian was out of town.

  SAGAMORE. Adrian! This is a new complication. Who is Adrian?

  PATRICIA. Adrian is Mrs Fitzfassenden’s Sunday husband, Mr Sagamore.

  EPIFANIA. My what, did you say?

  PATRICIA. Your Sunday husband. You understand. What Mr Adrian Blenderbland is to you, as it were. What Ally is to me.

  SAGAMORE. I dont quite follow. What is Mr Blenderbland to you, Mrs Fitzfassenden, if I may ask?

  EPIFANIA. Well, he is a gentleman with whom I discuss subjects that are beyond my husband’s mental grasp, which is extremely limited.

  ALASTAIR. A chap that sets up to be an intellectual because his father was a publisher! He makes up to Eppy and pretends to be in love with her because she has a good cook; but I tell her he cares for nothing but his food. He always calls at mealtimes. A bellygod, I call him. And I am expected to put up with him. But if I as much as look at Polly! Oh my!

  EPIFANIA. The cases are quite different. Adrian worships the ground I tread on: that is quite true. But if you think that Seedystockings worships the ground you tread on, you flatter yourself grossly. She endures you and pets you because you buy stockings for her, and no doubt anything else she may be short of.

  PATRICIA. Well, I never contradict anyone, because it only makes trouble. And I am afraid I do cost him a good deal; for he likes me to have nice things that I cant afford.

  ALASTAIR [affectionately] No, Polly: you dont. Youre as good as gold. I’m always pressing things on you that you wont take. Youre a jolly sight more careful of my money that I am myself.

  EPIFANIA. How touching! You are the Sunday wife, I suppose.

  PATRICIA. No: I should say that you are the Sunday wife, Mrs Fitzfassenden. It’s I that have to look after his clothes and make him get his hair cut.

  EPIFANIA. Surely the creature is intelligent enough to do at least that much for himself.

  PATRICIA. You dont understand men: they get interested in other things and neglect themselves unless they have a woman to look after them. You see, Mr Sagamore, it’s like this. There are two sorts of people in the world: the people anyone can live with and the people that no one can live with. The people that no one can live with may be very goodlooking and vital and splendid and temperamental and romantic and all that; and they can make a man or woman happy for half an hour when they are pleased with themselves and disposed to be agreeable; but if you try to live with them they just eat up your whole life running after them or quarrelling or attending to them one way or another: you cant call your soul your own. As Sunday husbands and wives, just to have a good tearing bit of lovemaking with, or a blazing row, or mostly one on top of the other, once a month or so, theyre all right. But as everyday partners theyre just impossible.

  EPIFANIA. So I am the Sunday wife. [To Patricia, scornfully] And what are you, pray?

  PATRICIA. Well, I am the angel in the house, if you follow me.

  ALASTAIR [blubbering] You are, dear: you are.

  EPIFANIA [to Patricia] You are his doormat: thats what you are.

  PATRICIA. Doormats are very useful things if you want the house kept tidy, dear.

  The telephone rings. Sagamore attends to it.

  SAGAMORE. Yes? … Did you say Blenderbland?

  EPIFANIA. Adrian! How did he know I was here?

  SAGAMORE. Ask the gentleman to wait. [He hangs up the receiver]. Perhaps you can tell me something about him, Mrs Fitzfassenden. Is he the chairman of Blenderbland’s Literary Pennyworths?

  EPIFANIA. No. That is his father, who created the business. Adrian is on the board; but he has no business ability. He is on fifteen boards of directors on the strength of his father’s reputation, and has never, as far as I know, contributed an idea to any of them.

  ALASTAIR. Be fair to him, Eppy. No man in London knows how to order a dinner better. Thats what keeps him at the top in the city.

  SAGAMORE. Thank you: I think I have his measure sufficiently. Shall I have him up?

  EPIFANIA. Certainly. I want to know what he is doing here.

  ALASTAIR. I dont mind. You understand, of course, that I am not supposed to know anything of his relations with my wife, whatever they may be.

  EPIFANIA. They are perfectly innocent, so far. I am not quite convinced that I love Adrian. He makes himself agreeable: that is all.

  SAGAMORE [into the telephone] Send Mr Blenderbland up. [He hangs up the instrument].

  ALASTAIR [to Patricia] You will now see the blighter who has cut me out with Eppy.

  PATRICIA. I cant imagine any man cutting you out with any woman, dear.

  EPIFANIA. Will you be good enough to restrain your endearments when he comes in?

  Adrian Blenderbland, an imposing man in the prime of life, bearded in the Victorian literary fashion, rather handsome, and well dressed, comes in. Sagamore rises. Adrian is startled when he sees the company, but recovers his aplomb at once, and advances smiling.

  ADRIAN. Hallo! Where have we all come from? Good morning, Mrs Fitzfassenden. How do, Alastair? Mr Sagamore, I presume. I did not know you were engaged.

  SAGAMORE. Your arrival is quite opportune, sir. Will you have the goodness to sit down? [He takes a chair from the wall and places it at the table, on his own right and Patricia’s left].

  ADRIAN [sitting down] Thank you. I hope I am not interrupting this lady.

  PATRICIA. Not at all. Dont mind me.

  SAGAMORE [introducing] Miss Smith, an intimate friend of Mr Fitzfassenden.

  PATRICIA. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.

  Adrian bows to her; then turns to Sagamore.

  ADRIAN. The fact is, Mrs Fitzfassenden mentioned your name to me in conversation as her choice of a new solicitor. So I thought I could not place myself in better hands.

  SAGAMORE [bowing] Thank you, sir. But – excuse me – had you not a solicitor of your own?

  ADRIAN. My dear Mr Sagamore: never be content with a single opinion. When I feel ill I always consult at least half a dozen doctors. The variety of their advice and prescriptions convinces me that I had better cure myself. When a legal point arises I consult six solicitors, with much the same –

  EPIFANIA. Adrian: I have no sense of humor; and you know how it annoys me when you talk the sort of nonsense that is supposed to be funny. Did you come here to consult Mr Sagamore about me?

  ADRIAN. I did. But of course I expected to find him alone.

  SAGAMORE. Has the matter on which you wish to consult me any reference to Mr Fitzfassenden’s family circle?

  ADRIAN. It has.

  SAGAMORE. Is it of such a nature that sooner or later it will have to be discussed with all the adult members of that circle?

  ADRIAN. Well, yes: I suppose so. But hadnt we better talk it over a little in private first.

  EPIFANIA. You shall do nothing of the sort. I will not have my affairs discussed by anybody in public or in private. They concern myself alone.

  ADRIAN. May I not discuss my own affairs?

  EPIFANIA. Not with my solicitor. I will not have it.

  ALASTAIR. Now she is off at the deep end again. We may as well go home.

  EPIFANIA [restlessly rising] Oh, the deep end! the deep end! What is life if it is not lived at the deep end? Alastair: you are a tadpole. [She seizes his head and ruffles his hair as she passes him].

  ALASTAIR. Dont do that. [He tries to smooth his hair].

&n
bsp; EPIFANIA [to Patricia] Smooth it for him, angel in the house.

  PATRICIA [moving to Epifania’s chair and doing so] You shouldnt make a sight of him like that.

  SAGAMORE. Mr Fitzfassenden: why did you marry Mrs Fitzfassenden?

  EPIFANIA. Why!!! Does that require any explanation? I have told you why I married him.