Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

MRS. CONSTABLE My sisters used to have cherry contests. They stuffed themselves with cherries all week long and counted up the pits on Saturday. It made them feel exuberant.

MOLLY I can’t eat cherries.

MRS. CONSTABLE I couldn’t either. I’d eat a few and I’d feel sick. But that never stopped me. I never missed a single contest. I despised cherry contests, but I couldn’t stand being left out. Never. Every week I’d sneak off to the woods with bags full of cherries. I’d sit on a log and pit each cherry with a knife. Then I’d bury the fruit in a deep hole and fill it up with dirt. I cheated so hard to be in them, and I didn’t even like them. I was so scared to be left out.

LIONEL They are harder to leave, Molly, places that don’t work out. I know it sounds crazy, but they are. Like it’s three times harder for me to leave now than when I first came here, and in those days I liked the decorations. Molly, don’t look so funny. I can explain it all some other way. ( Indicates oyster-shell door ) Suppose I kept on closing that door against the ocean every night because the ocean made me sad and then one night I went to open it and I couldn’t even find the door. Suppose I couldn’t tell it apart from the wall any more. Then it would be too late and we’d be shut in here forever once and for all. It’s not going to happen, Molly. I won’t let it happen. We’re going away — you and me. We’re getting out of here. We’re not playing cards in this oyster cocktail bar until we’re old.

MOLLY ( Turns and looks up the stairs and then back to LIONEL) If we had a bigger light bulb we could play in the bedroom upstairs.

LIONEL ( Walking away ) You’re right Molly, dead right. We could do just that. We could play cards up there in that God-forsaken bedroom upstairs.

( Exits. )

MRS. CONSTABLE ( Gets up and goes to MOLLY) Molly, call him back.

MOLLY No, I’m going upstairs.

MRS. CONSTABLE It’s time … Go … go with Lionel.

MOLLY My mother’s coming. I’m going to her birthday supper.

MRS. CONSTABLE Don’t go there …

MOLLY I’m late. I must change my dress.

( She exits up the stairs. )

MRS. CONSTABLE ( Stumbling about and crossing to the bar ) You’re hanging on just like me. If she brought you her love you wouldn’t know her. You wouldn’t know who she was. (MRS. CONSTABLE sinks into a chair below the bar. GERTRUDE enters. She is pale, distraught. She does not see MRS. CONSTABLE) Hello, Gertrude Eastman Cuevas.

GERTRUDE ( Trying to conceal the strain she is under ) Hello, Mrs. Constable. How are you?

MRS. CONSTABLE How are you making out?

GERTRUDE Molly wrote me you were still here. Where is she?

MRS. CONSTABLE You look tired.

GERTRUDE Where is Molly? (LIONEL enters ) Lionel! How nice to see you! Where’s Molly?

LIONEL I … I didn’t know you were coming.

GERTRUDE Didn’t you?

LIONEL I didn’t expect to see you. How are you, Mrs. Eastman Cuevas? How was your trip? When did you arrive?

GERTRUDE Well, around two … But I had to wait … They were driving me here … Didn’t you know I was coming?

LIONEL No, I didn’t.

GERTRUDE ( Uneasily ) But I wrote Molly. I told her I was coming. I wanted to get here for my birthday. I wrote Molly that. Didn’t she tell you about it? I sent her a letter. The paper was very sweet. I was sure that she would show it to you. There’s a picture of a little Spanish dancer on the paper with a real lace mantilla pasted round her head. Didn’t she show it to you?

LIONEL ( Brooding ) No.

GERTRUDE That’s strange. I thought she would. I have others for her too. A toreador with peach satin breeches and a macaw with real feathers.

LIONEL ( Unheeding ) She never said anything about it. She never showed me any letter.

GERTRUDE That’s strange. I thought … I thought … ( She hesitates, feeling the barrier between them. Tentative ) Macaws are called guacamayos down there.

LIONEL Are they?

GERTRUDE Yes, they are. Guacamayos …

LIONEL What’s the difference between them and parrots?

GERTRUDE They’re bigger! Much bigger.

LIONEL Do they talk?

GERTRUDE Yes, they do, but parrots have a better vocabulary. Lionel, my birthday supper’s tonight. I suppose you can’t come. You work late at night, don’t you?

LIONEL I work at night, but not for long …

GERTRUDE You’ll work in the day then?

LIONEL No.

GERTRUDE Then when will you work?

LIONEL I’m quitting.

GERTRUDE What?

LIONEL I’m quitting this job. I’m getting out.

GERTRUDE Getting out. What will you do? Where will you work?

LIONEL I’m quitting. I’m going.

( He exits. )

GERTRUDE Lionel … Wait … Where are you going?

MRS. CONSTABLE Come on over here and talk to me … You need a drink.

GERTRUDE Where is she? Where’s Molly?

MRS. CONSTABLE She’s gone down on the rocks, hunting for mussels.

GERTRUDE Hunting for mussels? But she knew I was coming. Why isn’t she here? I don’t understand. Didn’t she get my letter?

MRS. CONSTABLE ( Dragging GERTRUDE rather roughly to a table ) Sit down … You look sick.

GERTRUDE I’m not sick … I’m just tired, exhausted, that’s all. They’ve worn me out in a thousand different ways. Even today … I wanted to see Molly the second we arrived, but I had to wait. I tried to rest. I had a bad dream. It’s hanging over me still. But I’ll be all right in a little bit. I’ll be fine as soon as I see Molly. I’m just tired, that’s all.

MRS. CONSTABLE I’m glad you’re well. How is Mrs. Lopez? If I were a man, I’d marry Mrs. Lopez. She’d be my type. We should both have been men. Two Spanish men, married to Mrs. Lopez.

GERTRUDE She was part of the whole thing! The confusion … the racket … the pandemonium.

MRS. CONSTABLE I like Mrs. Lopez, and I’m glad she’s fat.

GERTRUDE There were twelve of us at table every meal.

MRS. CONSTABLE When?

GERTRUDE All these months down in Mexico. Twelve of us at least. Old ladies, babies, men, little girls, everyone jabbering, the noise, the screeching never stopped … The cooks, the maids, even the birds …

MRS. CONSTABLE Birds?

GERTRUDE Dirty noisy parrots, trailing around loose. There was a big one called Pepe, with a frightening beak.

MRS. CONSTABLE ( Rather delighted ) Pepe?

GERTRUDE Their pet, their favorite … Crazy undisciplined bird, always climbing up the table leg and plowing through the food.

MRS. CONSTABLE ( Ingenuous ) Didn’t you like Pepe?

GERTRUDE ( Dejected, as if in answer to a sad question, not irritated ) No, I didn’t like Pepe. I didn’t like anything. Where’s Molly?

( Going to oyster-shell door. )

MRS. CONSTABLE When are you going back?

GERTRUDE Back? I’m never going back. I’ve made up my mind. From now on I’m staying in the house up here. It was a terrible mistake. I told him that. I told him that when he had to be there he could go by himself. We had a terrible fight … It was disgusting. When he stood there saying that men should never have given us the vote, I slapped him.

MRS. CONSTABLE I never voted. I would vote all right if I could only register.

GERTRUDE He’s a barbarian. A subnormal human being. But it doesn’t matter. He can stay down there as long as he likes. I’ll be up here, where I belong, near Molly. ( Face clouding over ) What was he saying before? What did he mean?

MRS. CONSTABLE Who?

GERTRUDE Lionel. He said he was quitting. He said he was leaving, getting out of here.