Patrick White - The Eye of the Storm

ACTOR. First I’ve got to learn my lines. Got to rehearse them.

WOMAN. Enid will rehearse them with you.

ACTOR. Yes. Enid. (He is handed a magnificent robe which he slips on as ā disguise.) And as you say, there’s nothing to it. Half a dozen words … (His lungs expand.) … when I’ve got away with speeches lasting half a lifetime, and even for a fortnight the Lady Enid Bullshit herself.

SCENE: A boudoir crammed with too many rare and incongruous bibelots. A desk at which SECOND WIFE sits writing. She is dressed in a rich stiff kaftan. Her head is that of a well-bred Borzoi.

2ND WIFE (without turning). Basil?

ACTOR. I hoped you mightn’t recognize me.

2ND WIFE. Huh? (writing away). What is it, darling? You haven’t come to interrupt me, have you?

ACTOR. What are you writing, Enid?

2ND WIFE. My memoirs of course.

ACTOR. Still?

2ND WIFE (dashing away). Always! Isn’t life one long incredible memoir? All the journeys, all the friends — the husbands!

ACTOR. I want you to hear me my lines for this play in which I’m supposed to do a murder before committing suicide.

2ND WIFE (writing). What — again? (crosses out something with vicious pen.) In each case no doubt you’ll survive — as on the other occasions.

ACTOR. More likely not. This is the part I’ve never played.

2ND WIFE (glancing through what she has written, correcting). When I married an actor I thought it would mean going to bed with a different man every night. I found he always plays the same part — Himself. (She looks up, gnashing her bitch’s smile.) Rather a boring part, too.

ACTOR. That’s how you become a star. (His nerves remind him.) Give them too much — which is what I’m proposing to do — and they may tear you to bits. Because it isn’t what they expect of you.

2ND WIFE (yawning). It’s time I went on a journey, Basil. I think I’ll fly to the Sahara — get me a Tuareg. Besides being veiled, a Tuareg doesn’t talk. His ego is essentially physical.

(She stretches, and the garment she is wearing is released. She is left with her long plume of a Borzoi tail, lean human breasts and thighs.)

SCENE FADES into the LIMBO of semi-dark in which FIGURE OF A WOMAN in black silk kimono is visible.

WOMAN (to ACTOR). Better, but it’s you who must take your clothes off. (Withdrawing) It will probably come more easily after — after you’ve done the murder.

ACTOR (mechanically). Yes.

While he had been sitting at the desk scribbling, the light of morning had established itself so unequivocally in the hotel bedroom he saw that this must be the day when they would go out to Moreton Drive; it was in Dorothy’s interest as much as his own to face Mother with the arrangements they were making for her future. As a result of his decision his face looked younger, he thought, his nails closely pared, the skin round his fingertips more clearly defined than usual.

He would ring Dorothy after he had drunk his coffee, as soon as he had shaved. Not that he had much respect for the princess his sister, but there were certain convenances he found it difficult not to observe. If affection were among them, it was because this morning at least he had to stress a collaboration she ought, but did not have to concede.

‘Who?’ Before being told, she was sharpening her tone in defence.

‘Basil. Your brother.’

‘Oh.’ She sighed; she cleared her throat; she was giving an amateurish performance as a woman woken earlier than her rule allows. ‘Oh, Basil!’ She sighed, and coughed. ‘Of course your voice is unmistakable. It’s only the suddenness. Haven’t collected my wits yet.’

‘… know it’s early, Dorothy. But this, I think, will be the day, darling.’

‘Which day?’ A tone of suspicion, not to say hostility, was darkening her delivery.

‘The day we tell Mother what we’ve decided for her.’

‘Have we? Well, I know we’ve talked about it. But nothing’s been positively arranged, has it?’

‘As good as. In my mind, anyway.’

‘You may kill her.’ Dorothy spoke with such conviction she could only have intended to make him fully responsible.

‘Most old people are tough,’ he heard himself repeating a lesson. ‘In case this one isn’t, I’m asking you to come along with me. As a woman, you’ll know how to soften the blow.’ Ha-ha!

Dorothy was trying to impress him with the thought she was giving their grave situation. She sighed again, and even moaned once or twice, while in between (he recognized the technique) she was drinking her coffee.

‘Is it good?’ he asked.

‘How do you mean — is it good?’

‘The coffee.’

During the pause it might have been her stomach rumbling; then she said, ‘As a matter of fact it’s the most ghastly awful stuff — not that I expected anything better.’

They enjoyed a sympathetic laugh together.

He said, ‘I know what neglect of the little important unimportant things does to your sensitivity, darling.’

She could have been lashing about in the bed. ‘Are you flattering me?’ she asked.

‘Naturally. Haven’t you found flattery pays?’ Though it was too obvious she hadn’t: Dorothy would not have known how to flatter, least of all the opposite sex.

She ignored his question. ‘What time do you want me?’ She made it as coldly practical as the circumstances seemed to demand; so much so, he was taken aback.

‘Well, this morning, I suppose — since we’re agreed.’ If she needed the moment pinned down more accurately, he was not capable of it — for the moment. ‘Should we coax the Wyburd along? As a sort of witness?’

‘An unwilling and disapproving one. No. Embarrassing and unnecessary. What time?’ she persisted, it sounded irritably; and as though either of them could keep an appointment.

‘Well,’ he hesitated, ‘towards the end of the morning — at Moreton Drive.’

‘Say eleven.’

‘If you’re there.’

‘I’ll be there. Then we’ll get the morning nurse. She’s the silliest — and under your spell, Basil, I should say.’

‘Sister Badgery?’ He bridled.

‘Whatever her name, the skinny hen. It might be unwise for us to encounter the young one. She despises us for class reasons, while probably having hopes of Mummy; and you, Basil, could easily make a fool of yourself with anyone so pretty, and doubtless ambitious.’

He said, ‘It’s far less complicated, at any time of day or night, than you would like to think. Leave it to me.’

Dorothy laughed. ‘That’s my intention. It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

He was not sure. No, he didn’t; he had wanted Dorothy to take the dagger.

Madame de Lascabanes had dressed for what looked, from behind the closed window of the club bedroom, a brisk day: the harbour waters slightly shirred, newspaper rising and flapping in gutters, the paintwork on recent buildings and a moored liner as glossy as the makers advertised. The princess was wearing one of those timeless suits designed to silence criticism of an austere figure by emphasis of its bones and angles. Daring, anyway in this department, had remained a paying investment. And this morning her thin mouth looked right: no need to invoke her eyes in defence of a face where experience had routed ugliness, at least temporarily. Yes, she was pleased with her lack of compromise, in honour of which she had renounced jewellery even of a semi-precious variety. Why should she feel naked when realism was to be not only her weapon but her shield?

Walking down the corridor she heard the bones click once or twice from somewhere about her, and was reminded of early morning gallops on her first horse (as opposed to barrel-bellied pony) storming across the river flat in one long burst of thunder, till finally controlling her mount only by riding him, humped and groaning, at the steep of a hill. In the club corridor Dorothy Hunter’s breath came faster; her nostrils thinned; she surprised a chambermaid by smiling, then by positively whinnying at her. Realizing at once that she had gone foolishly far, the princess fell silent and sober. In the taxi she sat looking with less demonstrative pleasure at her crossed ankles.