JOHN
Not yet.
TORRIE (breathing)
In, out. In, out. Everything's different this time, because
I'm here with you.
JOHN
I know. You're my anchor.
TORRIE
Nobody's going to hurt my darlings.
JOHN
Torrie-- if it does get bad, we can leave, can't we? Promise?
If I say leave, we leave.
TORRIE
Of course. But you mustn't think that way. We're here because
you belong.
JOHN
I never felt I did. Not ever. Even when Lizzie and I were here
by ourselves, alone for
months at a time, I always felt as if I were an outsider.
TORRIE
This is yours. Your great-great-great grandfather built it just
for you.
JOHN
The woods were all right. But the house had an --atmosphere.
An attitude. We weren't
allowed to play, or even touch. We weren't entitled.
TORRIE
Yes, you were. The rules were wrong.
JOHN
Oh, no. The Grantham code is sacred. And so complicated
that we could never get it
right. The grown-ups just showed up to put us to the test. Whenever
they did, we failed it.
TORRIE
Your parents, you mean?
JOHN
No, all of them! My parents, their friends, teachers, the
servants,-- even the other kids,
the cousins and whatnot. All checking up, checking us out.
If we improved, or repented,
or--something, -- then maybe we'd have been allowed.
TORRIE
Allowed what?
JOHN
That's it, that's the sixty four dollar question.. Nobody really
said. But it had to be
wonderful, behind those closed doors. People laughing and hugging
and enjoying their
rewards. Otherwise, how could they demand so much of us?
TORRIE
Like what?
JOHN
Everything! Perfection. That Lizzie and I hadn't done whatever
it was that we did. That
we weren't who we knew we were.
TORRIE
But you were perfect. A perfect little you.
JOHN
Perfectly awful. I was an awful child. On the surface,
Lizzy was the brat. But
underneath--
TORRIE
Oh, no. You were born perfect, just like this little baby of
ours. Look at his tiny perfect
nails! So sweet, so vulnerable. Your family owed you their
love and protection, just as we
owe him. So they still owe you -- an apology. Maybe reparations.
JOHN
They're gone. Dead, most of them. Mother's still here, acting
like she's immortal and
infallible. But most of the time I realize Mother's just a cranky old
snob, as oblivious to--well.
It was so long ago. Why, when I come here, am I back in it?
Like a prisoner of war?
TORRIE
You've never had it out with them..
JOHN
I shouldn't need to! This is a house, just a house. Walls
and floors and windows.
Old furniture. Where does this power over me come from?
I can hardly breathe.
TORRIE
Lean back, darling. Breathe with me. In, out.
In, out. In,...
JOHN
I remember now. It's the build up. God, Torrie, this
is worse than going cold turkey.
TORRIE
Just let it out. The build up...?
JOHN
When they were coming home. Mom and Dad. They'd notify
the servants, of course.
Weeks ahead, because they never came alone but with important house
guests, and the
servants needed time to get ready. To get Lizzy and me ready, too --
at least they tried to.
After our parents had been away for a while the servants would
sort of slack off, you
know, and let us run wild.
TORRIE
I know. That's a sin of omission.
JOHN
What was?
TORRIE
Not of yours, silly. The grown-ups.
JOHN
Well, we loved running wild. The idea that nobody knew or cared
where we were or what
we were doing was horrible and lonesome: but it was thrilling
too. Exploring just how
much we could get away with. Lying, and backing each other
up---. There was one
period when we had weeks of fabricated sickness, forged notes from
a made-up governess.
Liz would even do her on the telephone in an English accent, the headmaster
was totally
taken in--
TORRIE
Just as you were. Not your fault.
JOHN
But the day of reckoning--. As our parents' homecoming
grew closer, the servants
panicked. If our crimes came out, they'd be blamed. They quick
tried to whip us into
shape, help us pass. But of course we never could. The great day'd
arrive, and Liz and I'd
be dressed up and brushed and trying to mind our manners --
TORRIE
That's the old story.
JOHN
It's starting up again.
TORRIE
It doesn't have to be. Everything's changed.
JOHN
Right.
TORRIE
You don't have to find reasons why you should be neglected and used.
You're not that
poor little boy any more.
JOHN
Poor little rich boy.
TORRIE
Little. That's the important part. You were little,
they were big. How could it be your fault?
JOHN
It couldn't.
TORRIE
You didn't deserve to feel abandoned..
JOHN
No.
TORRIE
You deserved to be loved and cared for, as much as any child.
JOHN
It's not a matter of deserving, Torrie, it's--
TORRIE
Yes. Yes, it is. You deserve every advantage that your family
has to offer. Everything that
was passed on to them by their parents. That's how it's supposed to
work.
JOHN
I guess that makes sense, given that---. But the pressure of
this place is--
ISABELLA (voice from outside the room)
John? (silence) John, is that you?
TORRIE
We're in here, Mother Grantham. We're having a rest.
ISABELLA
That's all very well, to have "a rest". But you said you were
going upstairs for it.
TORRIE
To change, Mother Grantham. John said he was going up to change.
ISABELLA
I'm too old, now, to go wandering about from room to room searching
for people. I
never did enjoy hide and seek.
TORRIE
John is all changed, as you can see. You're very quick, aren't
you, darling?
JOHN (points to golf equipment)
Umhmm. I found the shoes, and even my old set of golf clubs --
there. Those clubs must go
back to college.
ISABELLA (examines clubs)
The leather's gone.
JOHN
It was going thirty years ago. So was I, for that matter.
Still, we'll look rather nifty
together, don't you think?
TORRIE (laughing)
Nifty!?
JOHN (holding up a cap)
Even natty! Look what was in the pocket.
TORRIE
Whatever is that?
JOHN
Tell the young lady, mother.
ISABELLA
That's a tam-o-shanter.
JOHN
A genuine old school Jingo tam-o-shanter. Like it?
ISABELLA
John's fraternity -- which was also my father's fraternity -- awarded
a tam-o-shanter to the
Clan Chief every year. We were very proud. For his leadership,
his athletic
accomplishments--
JOHN
His willingness to stand all the brothers to drinks--.
TORRIE
I love it.
JOHN
Want to try it on?
TORRIE
I love it on YOU! (She holds out her hand to him,and JOHN
kisses it.)
ISABELLA (displeased)
I'll wait in the library untill you're through.
John?
TORRIE
Oh, Jonnikins will just gobble on forever. Won't you, you greedy
little thing?
But you all can stay here. Piggy- John and I don't mind
--- do we, precious?
I don't see being embarrassed at something so natural.
JOHN
In that light, Torrie looks like a Raphael Madonna, don't you think,
Mother?
TORRIE
Add a couple of halos and we're the Holy Family-- aren't we, piggy-sweet?
ISABELLA
They never have quite that expression with a bottle, do they?
"The milk from contented cows"..
JOHN
Uncalled for, Mother.
TORRIE
Mother Grantham may not mean to hurt my feelings, darling.
ISABELLA
It's an advertisement they used to have, on the radio--
JOHN
I know where it comes from. You used to say that about Molly.
ISABELLA
That's how we thought, we bright young things. No one in my generation
would have
dreamed of breastfeeding. It was barbaric.
TORRIE
Breastfeeding's the very best thing for them. Even the position,
skin to skin. It
communicates a sense of security. Love and comfort and
closeness--
JOHN
You didn't even hold the bottle, did you? You had Nanny.
ISABELLA
I held it. Sometimes.
TORRIE.
Besides that mother's milk has the nutrients, it has antibodies for
the baby's immune
system.
ISABELLA
Elizabeth used to badger me to get rid of my stock in Nestle's, for
the sake of African
babies.
JOHN
Did you?
ISABELLA
No.
TORRIE
There can't be many starve. Not with the world's fastest growing population.
JOHN
They have the high birth rate to insure that some survive.
ISABELLA
You think it's logical? I doubt it. More likely a matter of status,
or fashion. Before the Irish
made big families vulgar, our birth rate was high, too. My great
grandmother had a round
dozen.
TORRIE
I was one of nine, my Ma was one of fourteen.
ISABELLA
A pedigree to produce a grandson, after all these years.
I'd given up hope.
TORRIE
Never give up hope, Mother Grantham. I'll manage two or three
more. I'm young and
healthy.
JOHN
I'm not.
TORRIE (pats JOHN's hand.)
You're doing fine, darling.
JOHN
I've got to be going. I'm picking up Buddy
on the way.
ISABELLA
Buddy?
JOHN
Alan Crowther. You remember him. He goes back as far as
these clubs.
ISABELLA
You were at Groton together.
JOHN
Right. Well...Do you need anything from the car, sweetheart?
TORRIE
John-John's changing pad, and the.... I'll get it, if you'll
hold him.
JOHN
I can get it.
TORRIE
You'd never find it-- It's easier for me. Besides, It'lll be
good to stretch my legs. That car
ride--
JOHN
Sure you don't want to come golfing with me? You can lie in the
sun, take a dip in the
pool--
TORRIE
Don't you worry about me, sweet-thing! Hold out your arms.
JOHN
I don't want to wake him.
TORRIE (passes the baby to JOHN)
He's pretty much out.
ISABELLA
Should he hold him like that?
TORRIE
That's fine, John's doing fine. But if you'd rather...
ISABELLA
No, thank you. I'd be afraid I'd drop him.
TORRIE
I won't be a minute. (exits)
JOHN
You're sure you don't want to hold him?
ISABELLA
In my day we didn't allow infants to nurse themselves to sleep.
Feeding was done on a
schedule. And sleep was done in a crib. (pause) Since when have
you been interested in
golf?
JOHN
I played in college,
ISABELLA
Twenty-five years ago!
JOHN
More like thirty. My doctor says I should get regular exercise.
ISABELLA
Trying to keep up with a young wife's not enough for you?
JOHN
Golf's good for business.
ISABELLA
You call what you're doing "business"?
JOHN
For making contacts, then. For getting into business.
ISABELLA (pause)
Your game was tennis.
JOHN
I'm not up to tennis these days. I'm not up to one of your interrogations
either, Mother.
ISABELLA
Elizabeth will be very disappointed to find you've gone off golfing,
when she arrives.
JOHN
Lizzie's coming?
ISABELLA
Of course she's coming. She's your sister. She always asks
about you. My heavens, when
you were little you were so close people thought that you must be twins.
JOHN
When we were little.
ISABELLA
Have you quarreled?
JOHN
Not really. Have you?
ISABELLA
Of course! We always quarrel. We'll quarrel this time,
too-- that's probably why she's late.
I swear, sometimes I think your sister arranges her entire life just
to raise my blood pressure.
JOHN
I hope you'll stay calm, Mother. I don't deal well with ---
ISABELLA
With what?
JOHN
I need peaceful surroundings.
ISABELLA
Is that why your wife treats you like a child?
JOHN
No interrogations, Mother. Please. (pause)
ISABELLA
I think........ (pause)
TORRIE ( enters, to John)
Wasn't that fast? Put Jonnikins right in here. (JOHN puts
the baby in its basket)
Now give us a kiss, and then just you leave Mother Grantham and me
to our girl talk.
JOHN
Right. ( kisses TORRIE's cheek) Mother. (waves to his mother,
exits)
ISABELLA
You'll be back in time for dinner, won't you, John? (he has gone.)
He barely let me look at him. "No interrogations", he says.
I don't understand why he has to spend his afternoon chasing
a golf ball.
TORRIE
He has a date with an old friend. Healthy friends, friends who
exercise, they're good for
him.
ISABELLA
At school his game was tennis.
TORRIE
He tried tennis. He's not up to it.
ISABELLA
That's what he said. So what is he "up to"? I'd like an honest
account. When I came to see
you two in Philadelphia last year, John disappeared the second day.
Off on a business trip,
you said. Then I find out John doesn't have a real job--
TORRIE
He works. He goes in every day. How often did
he get up and go to work regular those
years he was married to Cynthia? Don't push
it, Mother Grantham. Let John play his
game of golf, and sit around your country club thing with that Buddy
he went to school
with, sipping on a glass of tonic water. You'll see. Your
son will be home in time for
supper, and we can all be one big happy family by the christening tomorrow.
ISABELLA
Nine years. It's been nine years since both my children were
last at home.
TORRIE
Both? Lizzy's coming?
ISABELLA
I expected her to be here hours ago. Come early, I said.
Come for lunch, we ought to
talk. But she's late. Whatever that may mean.
TORRIE
You should have warned me!
ISABELLA
Warned you? Of course John's sister will come for her nephew's christening.
TORRIE
I told you John might not want to see her. You said don't worry. You
said she'd refuse to come.
ISABELLA
Did I? If it were just me, she might refuse. Elizabeth and I
aren't speaking more often than not. . But
she and John don't fight. They were so close when they were children.
TORRIE
Too close! Don't you understand? Don't you realize it's
a miracle that John's back on his
feet and under this roof?
ISABELLA
Well, it's none too soon. I'm not going to live forever, and it's time
I came to some
decisions.
TORRIE
I think we both want to see John living the life he was born
for.
ISABELLA
A young person like you, you can't imagine the effort that
goes into a place like this.
TORRIE
Effort? I'm a human dynamo! Ask John. I was wallpapering,
hanging drapes, right up to
the minute I went into labor. Once the demons here are exorcised,
I could make this grand old
place shine. Really, Mother Grantham--
ISABELLA
Torrie, please. I would prefer that you not call me that.
TORRIE
Sorry! It's meant to be affectionate. Affectionate,
but respectful.
ISABELLA
So it would be, if I were an abbess. As we are now both Mrs.
Granthams, I suppose you
might as well call me Isabella.
TORRIE
I'll try to remember. Isabella. (the baby stirs) I think he's dreaming.
(TORRIE adjusts her
blouse) There, there, precious, Mommy's here.
ISABELLA
You could take him upstairs.
TORRIE
We'll just sit here for a while, if it's all right with you. Breastfeeding
makes us so peaceful.
ISABELLA
He certainly looks peaceful. Not a state I'd much associate with children.
TORRIE
As soon as Little John Jr. gets old enough to talk he'll solve
that problem of what to call
you. You'll be Grandma...unless you don't care for that
either!
ISABELLA
It would be splendid, to hear my own blood say "Grandma". But
I don't expect to live that
long.
TORRIE
Why, Isabella--! You'll be going strong at 105, out there for his college
graduation.
ISABELLA
Even the doctor who got me to quit smoking only promised me 90.
TORRIE
Well, that's a while yet, isn't it? More than enough time for
Little John to be talking. You
hold the fort here, Junior and I can come for visits, and one of these
days Big John might
see his way clear to move out of Philadelphia-
ISABELLA
Big John?
TORRIE
That's what I've started to call him now. It's kind of a joke.
ISABELLA
Is he putting on weight again?
TORRIE
Oh, no! Well, maybe a teensy touch, but I've been following the
dash diet, so it'll come
right off.
ISABELLA
I hope so. Seeing him that time in the hospital, so gross....
I was almost relieved when the
doctor told me I shouldn't visit.
TORRIE
That was his medication. Some people it does that, blows them
right up.
ISABELLA
But now he doesn't need it?
TORRIE
Just vitamins and my TLC. I keep telling John he's got to keep
healthy for all our sakes.
Model himself on you: you look twenty years younger --
!
ISABELLA
Younger than what? Methuselah?
TORRIE
If John's got the family stamina, we could have 40, 50 years
together.
ISABELLA
I wouldn't count on it. We're good stock, but it's the
women who last. My mother's
mother, and hers, lived past ninety.
TORRIE
But not your mother?
ISABELLA
No, she died when I was six. Influenza.
TORRIE
Still, there's no reason you and John can't just go on and on.
ISABELLA
Three flights of stairs: that's three reasons right there. Thirty-one
rooms, some of them not
dusted in months. It wears on me, watching all this decay.
If you and John want to live
here-?
TORRIE
We do! I mean, we will--
ISABELLA
He'd need a job. A real job.
TORRIE
With your help, he can get one. One near here. He'll be ready
by the time --
ISABELLA
Ready when? How soon?
TORRIE
Well, that depends. It could be tomorrow, but it could also take
time--
ISABELLA
I don't have time. I've had an offer, a good offer.
TORRIE
You'd let the house go?
ISABELLA
My children chose what they call a "different lifestyle".
TORRIE
Our Philadelphia house is nothing compared to this, but John and I've
been fixing it up,
restoring It's not what I was born to. I understand that.
ISABELLA
Even if one is born to it, it takes aptitude as well as energy to run
this house.
TORRIE
John says you were a famous hostess. If you weren't off in Europe somewhere,
you were
here hosting a fabulous bunch of celebrities.
ISABELLA
"Hosting"! There's no such verb. And they weren't celebrities,
but artists. Alas that my
son was never able to tell the difference.
TORRIE
Still, he was used to being around important people. I noticed
that right off, at Greycliffe.
I mean, even when John was really really sick, he wasn't any more impressed
by Doctor
Wizensky than by the Puerto Rican orderly. What John deserves now is
a position where
he's dealing with his own kind. If you could put the word out that
your son's looking --
ISABELLA
Would John be willing to accept that? I seems to me that
if I make a suggestion, my
children will go to great lengths to do the exact opposite.
TORRIE
If he lets you help him, it'll do him a world of good.
ISABELLA
There might be a place for him with his cousin Elliot, or at Wright
and Wards'. But
suppose he -- suppose he has a relapse?
TORRIE
He won't! Just do like you did for your artist friends.
Push him a little.
ISABELLA
That wasn't the point! Oh, I suppose being seen here might at
some juncture have given
impetus to a career. But what I really had to offer my artists
was an audience. People with
standards, with educated taste.
TORRIE
I know what you mean.
ISABELLA
Do you? My father called it "being a trustee".
TORRIE
Oh, sure. A trustee. John gets stuff in the mail, all the time. Starting
with the hospital that
already must've taken his insurance for a couple hundred grand.
Some nerve they've got,
asking a man to trustee a fund drive, when two years ago they wouldn't
even let him keep his own belt
and necktie! But if trusteeing is a family kind of thing---.
ISABELLA
I hadn't meant anything so literal.
TORRIE
Explain it to me, then. The way John told it, you held court like some
olden-day queen.
ISABELLA
That wasn't--well!(laughs) Perhaps it was: Queen Isabella, patroness
of the New World.
Or Eleanor of Aquitaine, muse of the troubadours. But what I was taught,
what my father
believed, is that all of what are called advantages-- wealth, education,
leisure-- these are
given to us so that we may act as stewards. Seek out and encourage
the best! That's our
family motto: Diuturnum Retinemus. "We hold what endures".
TORRIE
What it says there. On the mantlepiece.
ISABELLA
Yes. This house was built to hold treasures, -- and giants.
Donyanhi sat at my splendid
piano and played for the first time a concerto which will endure, long
after all that atonal
nonsense is forgotten. Amelia Hoffman --John's Godmother.
Very thin, with snow white
braids, Teutonic bones. You met her.
TORRIE
I can't recall...
ISABELLA
When I first took her up she had just made her debut. The critics were
in raptures. Then
came the war; and the German repertoire was out. Her looks, her name...she
married a
Jew who owned three department stores, and retired from concertizing.
But she would
come here, and she would play for us.
TORRIE
Hoffman...How old is she, now?
ISABELLA
Donyanhi played into his nineties!
TORRIE
My sister's husband, Jackson, the one who's a doctor -- he plays
the oboe. I'm not sure
how good he is -- it's only the last year or so I've listened to classical.
ISABELLA
At least you aspire. Elizabeth goes in for Folk Arts.
TORRIE
You mean like in the hills? Quilting and stuff?
ISABELLA
Yes, that's the "stuff". Soft sculpture she calls it; puppetry,
auto harp, thirty-verse
children's epics sung to three chords and a spoon. She surrounds
her little half-breed
daughter with international junk, and urges her to be creative; make
junk of her very own!
Evenings Elizabeth teaches at the Y, where she tries to foist that
idiocy onto the children of
the poor.
TORRIE
There was a lady like that up in Bear Fork. When I was in fourth grade
I went to her
house to take piano. My father said this lady, this Miss Treen,
we shouldn't take from her,
because she was stuck on herself. But Ma-- my mother said it wasn't
charity; the lady liked
to teach.
ISABELLA
You were fortunate. I studied piano under a great artist, but
I don't believe he liked to teach.
TORRIE
But she didn't like teaching me! She favored Billy Jack
Furlong, whose family was even
poorer that mine. She said Billy Jack had genius.
ISABELLA
Perhaps he did. Perhaps he did. Genius, talent, intelligence--
they can spring up
anywhere. But they only flourish where there is an informed
audience to maintain them.
TORRIE
I bet you play like a real professional--
ISABELLA
I gave it up. I knew I could never meet my own standards. Except..
. except perhaps as a
conductor. I believe I could've been a fine conductor.
TORRIE
I bet you could. Did you really talk movie stars into acting
here?
ISABELLA
They were glad to have the chance! Eric Brigman, -- forgotten
now, but oh so
handsome--he played in one slick comedy after another, but I staged
Mac --the Scottish
Play-- for him, here. Cecil did the costumes; I was
a witch-- tres chic.
TORRIE
I bet you were.
ISABELLA
These days, designers have gone mad. Styles out of the comic page,
mass bad taste--.
TORRIE
You mean this blouse? I got this so it'd be easy to breast-feed.
I had some doubts.
ISABELLA
When you have doubts, don't.
TORRIE
I'll get it right, Mother Granth---Isabella. It can't be
harder than chemistry. I graduated
top in my class. Whatever it takes, I can do.
ISABELLA
When John was married to Cynthia, he ran with a soup can crowd.
Makers of sex films.
TORRIE
At Greycliffe they didn't even have "R"'s. We saw "Snow White"-- twice.
Cried both times.
ISABELLA (laughing)
My God!
TORRIE
Well, John's sensitive. He writes poetry.
ISABELLA
When was this? Occupational therapy?
TORRIE
Don't you make fun of us! Compared to you and Lizzy and I, John may
be weak; and
compared to you and John and Lizzy, I may be ignorant: but as a team
we're a force to be
reckoned with. As I said, I learn fast.
ISABELLA
As you've said.
TORRIE
It's the truth. Three years ago I didn't know the first thing
about the stuff you've got in this
house----- why would I?
ISABELLA
Why indeed?.
TORRIE
But I took to antiques right away. Maybe because my mom clerked
in Dempster's, I had
the styles and all. Anyways, now I bet I could guess the appraisal
on most everything in
the house.
ISABELLA (chuckles)
Could you? That would be most illuminating.
TORRIE
Meaning that your sort doesn't bother?
ISABELLA
There is a list. From the insurance.
TORRIE
So I know dates and makers. Is that vulgar?
ISABELLA
Not at all. Knowledge is never vulgar.
TORRIE
But..?
ISABELLA
Should we have a contest, like on televisio?. What you guess,
you get.
TORRIE
You mean a contest against John's sister?
ISABELLA
Elizabeth may not give a hoot about her heritage, but oh, does she
hate to be outsmarted.
TORRIE
If she doesn't appreciate--
ISABELLA
Appreciate? From the day she began to crawl, she was always crashing
into things; spilling
things, breaking things. Things that would be hers! That's
our tradition: daughters get the
household goods. The tools of a woman's trade.
TORRIE
But Lizzy never cared.
ISABELLA
Yes. Well. The list's in the safe. Shall we
start?
TORRIE
You were serious?
ISABELLA
If my daughter breaks her word to me, why shouldn't I --? wait...
(ISABELLA listens, goes toward the hall )
TORRIE
What?
ISABELLA
I believe it's Elizabeth. In the very nick.
TORRIE
Keep her away from John. Until he's ready.
ISABELLA
Ready for what?
TORRIE
I can't believe that you--! All right, you don't know a
thing. But it's not my place to--
ISABELLA
Shhh!
LIZ (voice off)
Mother?
ISABELLA
In here, Elizabeth. In here. (LIZ enters. She is
wearing paint spattered overalls
with a scarf
over her hair.)
Better late than never, I suppose. (They embrace stiffly at the
door.
ISABELLA returns to
her chair. TORRIE is looking out the window)
LIZ
I almost didn't. I arranged for the housekeeper next door to
let the movers in, but I'm not
even all packed yet. Everything's taking twice as long.
ISABELLA
I'm glad you could spare a moment for your family, Elizabeth.
However, I think that
even after --what, nearly three years? -- I could have waited another
quarter of an hour for
you to dress. Will you come in and sit down, please? I'm
not holding a conversation with
someone in the doorway, not at my age. What IS that you're wearing?
LIZ
I told you, I was packing, and I had trouble with the car.
ISABELLA
This is what, then? Your mechanic's outfit? Really, Elizabeth!
LIZ
Would you prefer that I leave? It's only a three hour drive.
Shall I drive home to Boston,
change, and come back tomorrow for the Christening?
ISABELLA
No, no, now that you're here. Sit down-- not on white damask!
LIZ
Sorry. These are dry paint stains, you know. They won't
rub off.
ISABELLA
I see what looks like some kind of oil.
LIZ
Motor oil. I had to keep adding it.
ISABELLA
Couldn't you have taken your car around to the back? If the neighbors
notice it, they're
likely to call the police.
LIZ
I thought I was pushing my luck to get it this far.
TORRIE
Your jalopy looks like it's made its last trip.
LIZ
I certainly hope not. Once I'm moved I should be able to manage
without a car, but while
I'm in the middle of it --
TORRIE
Dr. George had some nerve, sticking you with a piece of junk
like that. How much did
you pay your lawyer?
LIZ
Let's not dump on George. He held me together until I could do it for
myself. I think of my
marriage as a kind of sheltered workshop.
TORRIE
Like Goodwill? Well, you're certainly dressed for it.
ISABELLA
Where we're going, Torrie, you may wish you had overalls. There'll
be dust-
LIZ
Dust? In this house?
ISABELLA
I'm ashamed to admit there is. But only in the farther reaches.
TORRIE
Your mother is about to take me on a complete inspection. Don't suppose
you'll want to
come?
LIZ
The grand tour? No thanks, I've had it. From conservatory to lavatory.
TORRIE
Conservatory? Where's that?
LIZ
Right here. You're in it.
TORRIE
This room, this...?
ISABELLA
Conservatory.
TORRIE
I thought a conservatory was a music room.
ISABELLA
No, a music SCHOOL. A school for music, or a room for plants.
A silly idea. Plants
belong outside, except for flower arrangements. Nothing in here
but cheap wicker, or
wrought iron.
TORRIE
That handsome desk?
LIZ
That's mine.
TORRIE
Part of the collection, though?
ISABELLA
Elizabeth's plaything, really. The children battered it so, I
had it moved in here, out of my
sight. I never used this room, then.
TORRIE
John told me that.
ISABELLA
When they were little Elizabeth and John used to cover the desk with
a quilt and play
house under it. Little cottage in the woods.
LIZ
A gypsy camp.
ISABELLA
Later Elizabeth used it to do her homework.
LIZ
Or write letters.
ISABELLA
Though she seldom sent any. What a struggle to get her to compose
thank-yous. I suppose
she wrote complaints to God.
TORRIE
Or to the devil.
LIZ
I kept my complaints for my diary.
ISABELLA
Oh yes. She was fanatical about her diary. She kept it
locked in that second drawer.
TORRIE (tries drawer)
It's locked now. (LIZ is startled, moves towards the drawer)
ISABELLA
When she was twelve she wore the key on a chain around her neck. Can
you imagine?
TORRIE
You knew this was going on, but you just looked the other way?
LIZ
No vigilance is perfect. Ninety-nine out of every hundred
items in this house we kids were
forbidden to touch. A rule enforced by a round-the-clock surveillance
team of servants
and snitches.
TORRIE
But anything in this space was at your mercy. No matter how precious.
ISABELLA
That desk isn't precious, Torrie. It's a reproduction. American, not
French; made in the
fifties.
TORRIE
No older than John is? But the joining is...
LIZ
The 1850's, Torrie.
ISABELLA
A revival piece, my dear. Definitely not museum quality.
For Elizabeth it has sentimental
value, as my childhood piano does for me. I've kept that tinny
old thing, though no one
who has tried the Steinway would ever want to play on it.
TORRIE
That monster Steinway! It takes up a whole room.
ISABELLA
It was built for giants.
LIZ
Maybe for gods.
ISABELLA
Elizabeth might like to peek at the baby, Torrie. Before she goes upstairs
to freshen up.
LIZ
Yes indeed, mother. Time I freshened up.
TORRIE
John-john's so sweet when he's sleeping. Like a perfect angel.
LIZ
John Wells Grantham IV?
TORRIE
You haven't seen him yet, have you?
LIZ
Just the pictures.
TORRIE (pulls back blanket to show baby)
He's grown. Careful. We don't want him waking up and spoiling
our house tour.
ISABELLA
The pictures don't really do him justice. He has the Wells nose.
LIZ
Poor little thing!
TORRIE
It is a nose and a half, isn't it? Still, I
think the nose will look distinguished.
ISABELLA
My father always said a large nose is a sign of character.
LIZ
He would have said that. Given the size of his.
TORRIE
Well, Lizzie? Aren't you going to say something nice about your nephew?
LIZ
Nice, yes. Healthy, good-looking. But I was already impressed
by the pictures. My
brother's become a photographic pro.
TORRIE
He ought to be, with what he spent on the cameras! They are good
pictures, I must admit.
ISABELLA
Too bad that the very best one of the baby's the one where you're wearing
those -- things.
TORRIE
I look a fright! I want to frame that one, but cut me out.
LIZ
You look beautiful in all of them, Torrie. Motherhood agrees
with you.
TORRIE
I'd like to have a dozen. Bearing a child's fulfillment, it really
is.
LIZ
Maybe I should give a try.
TORRIE
At your age?
LIZ
Why not?
TORRIE
Aren't you through the change?
LIZ
Medical science can reverse that, now. I'm making a fresh start.
A city apartment, classes
at college, a new job --- might as well go after everything I missed
the first time. Why not
a baby?
ISABELLA
Out of wedlock?
LIZ
We don't call it wedlock any more, mother. Not since everybody's
got a key.
ISABELLA
Torrie, why don't you put the baby's basket in the kitchen, and ask
Rita to keep an eye on
him? I'll meet you outside the Rose Room in ten minutes, for our tour.
TORRIE
Good! That'll give me time to change my blouse.
(exits with baby basket,
LIZ starts to follow)
ISABELLA (to LIZ)
Elizabeth! Where are you going?
LIZ
To change. Wasn't that what you ordered?
ISABELLA
I want to talk to you first. You did bring a decent dress?
LIZ
Two. A silk suit, and the Chanel you bought me. I couldn't wear
either in the car: the
upholstery's ripped, and a spring sticks out like a claw.
ISABELLA
You brought the camel-colored Chanel?
LIZ
I brought the one I have left. The blue.
ISABELLA
You gave the other away?
LIZ
I wore it out, actually. I never said it wasn't flattering. I
just couldn't see spending what
would feed an Ethiopian tribe.
ISABELLA
As long as you won't embarrass your family. Visually or verbally.
LIZ
Oh, Kim doesn't embarrass easily.
ISABELLA
I meant your brother's embarrasment, in front of some rather important
guests.
LIZ
That kind of dinner? How ambitious, mother! How many?
ISABELLA
Twenty-two.
LIZ
Pulling out all the table leaves! I'm rather hurt. You never
spread the groaning board for
Kim.
ISABELLA
How is Kim?
LIZ
She's fine. Thanks to your money, she's having a ball at tennis
camp.
ISABELLA
Good. Though I'd have preferred to hear it from her.
LIZ
She's written to thank you, hasn't she? She said she did.
ISABELLA
I'm still waiting for a letter.
LIZ
I can't believe Kim would lie to me.
ISABELLA
I got a thank you card.
LIZ
So she's thanked you!
ISABELLA
From Hallmark. To go with the Christmas card, and the belated-birthday
card. I think that
the last time I got what could by the most generous definition be called
a letter from your
Kim was at least three years ago.
LIZ
The one you sent back, with red-penciled corrections! How can
you expect Kim to write
to you, if when she does you punish her?
ISABELLA
Correction is not punishment, Elizabeth. I should hope that you'd
have the background to
help Kim understand that. As my father used to say, "There are
two things it is our duty to
pass on to the next generation: good blood and high standards."
You may scoff at good
blood -- - it was out of fashion when you were in school, though the
geneticists are
bringing it round again. But standards? You must want that child
to have standards.
LIZ
Kim has standards.
ISABELLA
She wears eight earrings, and a silver ball in her nose.
LIZ
In that particular instance, her standards are those of her peers.
ISABELLA
Apparently they want to pass for savages. Playing dress-up is
all very well, for children
who look like Americans. But for a child with Kim's ancestry---
LIZ
Kim's ancestors were part of a great civilization when ours were
painting themselves blue.
ISABELLA
I hope you 'll refrain from that sort of remark at dinner. If
you've come intending to bait
me--or your sister-in-law--
LIZ
It seems to me that she's the one doing the baiting. Have you talked
to John? Has he
explained why he stopped speaking to me?
ISABELLA
John's said nothing. If you've come to confront him --
LIZ
I 've come to admire Torrie's baby.
ISABELLA
My grandchild.
LIZ
That's what it said on the invitation.
ISABELLA
I've waited almost thirty years for this.
LIZ
You have a grandchild. You've had 15 years to practice. I hope you
don't make the same
mistakes over again.
ISABELLA
You never made it easy for me!
LIZ
Well, I had a lot to learn, too. Such as how to be a mother.
ISABELLA
Implying that I never was one?
LIZ
Implying that by the time Kim was in school I wanted her to have a
family badly enough to
try to make a fresh start.
ISABELLA
Family! I don't know what it is you mean, when you say
that word. Divorce, adoption--.
When I think of the hopes I had on your wedding day!
LIZ
My daughter, the wife of the doctor! I'm surprised you considered George
good enough.
ISABELLA
By that time, anyone with a haircut was good enough! And if you'd
been a proper wife to
George, shown some interest in family, you wouldn't be alone today.
LIZ (laughing)
Really? You see George as a Biblical patriarch, putting
away a barren wife?
ISABELLA
You weren't barren! You were on the pill.
LIZ
Ah.
ISABELLA
Until it was too late to save your marriage--
LIZ
I can't complain. We had twenty-two years --- three times the national
average.
Considering how screwed up I was when I met George, and the fact I
married him in a
last-ditch panic rebound--
ISABELLA
A man like George Westerveldt!
LIZ
They're all like George Westerveldt! Aren't they, Mother?
Men of the right class? A little
more bald, or a little less boring, but basically....
TORRIE (voice off, calling)
Ready when you are, Mother Grantham!
LIZ
Duty calls! Or is it pleasure? It must be invigorating,
seeing all your treasures again
through fresh and greedy eyes.
ISABELLA
Greedy, is she?
LIZ
What is it you two are planning? Be careful, mother. You
aren't the only schemer, this
time.
ISABELLA
I asked you to come early. I intended to be fair.
LIZ
Sorry.
ISABELLA
You'll need time to shower and do your hair, as well. We'll meet
you back here in two
hours, for tea.
(ISABELLA exits. LIZ goes to the old desk, unlocks the
drawer with a key she is wearing
around her neck. She rummages though the drawer, removes a diary,
ruffles through it
quickly and then relocks the drawer and exits carrying the diary with
her.)
LIZZY
Elizabeth wouldn't--
TORRIE
If you don't believe me, offer her some money. You'll see how
much she cares for her
Great-Grandma's bedstead.
ISABELLA
Elizabeth isn't mercenary. She gives everything away--
TORRIE
With George, she could afford to. Now, with the child's college--
LIZ (enters)
College? Mapping out the heir's path to glory, so soon?
Groton, of course, but Harvard --?
TORRIE
We were talking about yours, actually.
LIZ
Oh? Beginning to like the idea of me as an unwed "elderly primagravida"?
ISABELLA
Will you never grow out of the desire to shock? To publish
every sordid detail....
LIZ
It's not sordid, Mother. Thanks to technology, fertilization
requires no fleshly contact at all.
ISABELLA
Such talk is uncalled for! What devilish satisfaction do you
get, having denied George
Westerveldt a son, and me a grandchild- -!
LIZ
Daughters count! Or do you count them only if they are part of
the Wells collection?
ISABELLA
Threatening to bring a bastard into this world, to make some
perverse point!
TORRIE
Not to mention that you're too old to raise one.
LIZ
I'm one year older than John is.
TORRIE
That's different. Older men make the best fathers. They
have more patience.
LIZ
More than young mothers?
TORRIE
No!
ISABELLA
John is too old! I was too old! I studied abroad, I had my artists,
my friends. By the time I
understood what I owed my family, it was too late. Everyone I
knew was past babies, and
I had to deal with mine all alone.
LIZ
What do I hear? Are you coming off the gold standard, mother?
ISABELLA
I'm giving you advice, hard-won advice: let it go. There's no
turning back.
LIZ
Relax. The baby's a fantasy. Kim will be enough for me.
ISABELLA
One never knows how far you'll let spite carry you.
LIZ
Moving from twelve rooms to three is a spite-raising process. As is
throwing out pieces of
my past. So much of what I've folded or dusted over the years
is not worth keeping.
ISABELLA
What's not worth keeping's not worth having. Our family motto,
Torrie: "Diuturnum
Retinemus."
LIZ (simultaneously)
"We hold what endures."
TORRIE
Yes, I remember.
ISABELLA
I've been thinking, Elizabeth. Do you suppose that Kim will want the
porcelain?
LIZ
Why the porcelain?
ISABELLA
Her oriental background.
LIZ
Since Kim left the exotic East at the of age two months, I don't see
it as much of an
influence. She is showing some interest in carpentry, though.
She'll appreciate the
furniture.
ISABELLA
Elizabeth, has it ever occurred to you to live here?
LIZ
With you? Not my style, Mother.
ISABELLA
The house, the woods: get Kim away from the dangers of the city.
LIZ
I cope with them better than the dangers here.
TORRIE
It is dangerous, Mrs.Grantham. Alone here, in a place built for
--. How many servants?
LIZ
In the 1800's, when this place was like an English manor, and
had a Home Farm? Dozens:
a blacksmith, scullions, dairy-maids---
TORRIE
I meant when John was little.
ISABELLA
Six or seven, usually, in the house. Two maids, Nanny, the cook,
a handyman and the
housekeeper. Others would come in by the day. When we were traveling--
LIZ
Which was most of the time-.
ISABELLA
The staff and Nanny stayed on with the children.
TORRIE
All those servants! John remembers it as lonesome. Marooned
with nobody but his sister--.
LIZ
He was, after Nanny left.
ISABELLA
The children weren't allowed to make friends of the servants,
Torrie.
TORRIE
Why ever not, when that's all there was? When you folks were
always gone?
ISABELLA
They had real friends, cousins ...
LIZ
Once in a blue moon.
TORRIE
So those two were left to themselves.
ISABELLA
In Paradise! To play "let's pretend", or roam the woods. There were
acres of woods, then.
A healthy place to grow up.
LIZ
Unless one's allergic to it. Or melancholic, like John.
TORRIE
He's not.
LIZ
I know my brother.
TORRIE
John's changed. He's not your ten year old victim any more.
LIZ
Mine? We were victims together. Or partners in crime.
Either way, we promised that when
we grew up we'd put a stop to it.
ISABELLA
Well, you at least succeeded, Elizabeth. There will be no more
of our ancient female line.
The collection will never grace your descendant's home, and the
pieces I passed to you on
your marriage -- over your protests, against your express wishes--
LIZ
I didn't need them then..
ISABELLA
You left with our things with George. Our heirlooms. George is excellent
stock, good blood.
But not our blood.
LIZ
George will take care of it, though. He knows he's acting as a trustee
for Kim--
ISABELLA
Who is not our blood, either. Now that I have a grandson--
LIZ
So that's what you're up to!
ISABELLA
It seems to me that the spirit of the tradition favors John.
If Torrie should have a daughter --
TORRIE
Which I will--
LIZ
Torrie's not your precious blood! You pounded the immutable Wells
Grantham ways into
John and me until we were sick of them -- literally, in John's case.
And now you declare
that the code isn't really graven in stone, isn't truly more sacred
than the ten
commandments. So John and I really, truly, didn't have to accept
the whole litany of "thou
shalts". We could have sifted through the lot, and fit in with
just the rules that fit us.
ISABELLA
What in the world are you trying to say?
LIZ
That our family's just a family, like any other. Not Western
Civilization. Not the White
Man's Burden. That you're not, as a mother, the Fourth Person
of the Trinity--
TORRIE
As if your mother ever said that!
LIZ
Well, she frequently implied it. The good news is that the bonus
for giving up infallibility
is that she's not the Wicked Witch of the West, either.
ISABELLA
Well, goody goody for me. Is this the formulation of your latest
therapist?
LIZ
Oh, most of them over the years have said something like that.
Pointed out that you 're just
somebody's daughter-- like me, or like Torrie, here-- trying to put
together a life out of
what was passed on to you.
TORRIE
Don't fool yourself, Lizzie. There is such a thing as wickedness.
LIZ
Yes, there is wickedness. Fortunately, though, it's rarer
than ordinary human muck.
Unless you count it wickedness to tell your children that ordinary
muck doesn't happen in
families from good stock.
ISABELLA
It does happen, but less frequently.
LIZ
If you pretend it never happened,-- like our cousin Thaddeus
shooting himself with your
grandpa's pistol,-- or you push it into a dark corner, like that desk
of Great Grandmother
Sarah's, so no one sees the curse she carved into it.-
ISABELLA
Grandmother never did that!
LIZ
Oh? Who did?
ISABELLA
It must have been one of the servants.
TORRIE
My guess is Miss Lizzie did it herself.
ISABELLA
That's not possible, the carving's old.
LIZ
I could feel Sarah when I sat at this desk. Her misery,
her rage. Faint, but clear once I
noticed it: Like the indentation made by female elbows, where one of
us year after year sat
at this desk and wrote letters and receipts and maybe kept a diary
of her wrongs, real or
imagined--
ISABELLA
Few of us have the imagination you have.
TORRIE
Thank the Good Lord.
LIZ
I used to think that all that history, all that sorrow, would be too
much for Kim. But I've
changed my mind.
ISABELLA
Rather late in the day..
LIZ
It's taken me and my patient therapist all this time to dig under my
defenses and find my
family. But I'm getting down to it. Ready to take it all on. My desk,
my ancestors, my
brother and his prodigy--.
ISABELLA
You mean "progeny".
LIZ
This progeny is a prodigy. Ask his wife.
TORRIE
Ask me what?
LIZ
So. You have plans for the cult objects, Torrie?
TORRIE
Your mother feels that they should go to people who'll appreciate and
care for them.
John and I-
LIZ
Amazing! Who'd 've guessed that the little boy who tried to use his
great-great-aunt's
embroidery frame for kindling would come to see it as a sacred trust?
ISABELLA
Used for what?
LIZ
Kindling.
ISABELLA
Are you talking about the fire in the study?
LIZ
Certainly you never bought John's story about the candles. Or
my idiot alibi.
ISABELLA
John wasn't capable of making up a story on his own.
TORRIE
Or of doing terrible evil things.
LIZ
Well, you punished us both for it. A week without dinner, solitary
confinement.
ISABELLA
You were punished for carelessness and lying. It never occurred
to me the fire was
deliberate.
LIZ
You didn't know? Well! John and I were better than we thought,
at secrets. Still, failures
at the greater goal--- bringing down the House of Grantham. Neither
with flame nor
sterility --
TORRIE
It was your goal, not John's! You tried to destroy him, too---
LIZ
In fact, I counted us a success-, At least, I did until last
month, when I got Torrie's birth
announcement. Had to twirl my mustache and ejaculate, "Curses, foiled
again!"--
TORRIE
A normal loving sister would be happy for him. But for you John
was only a tool, a way
to spite your parents and embarrass them in front of their friends.
You're doing it now--
ISABELLA
When Elizabeth gets like this the only thing to do is ignore her.
LIZ
Well, Torrie's done a great job of ignoring. My letters aren't answered,
I wasn't allowed to
see John in the hospital-
TORRIE
That was doctor's orders!
LIZ
Who gave the doctor the idea, Nurse?
TORRIE
You've done him enough damage!
LIZ
What has John said to you? You'll never understand John,
or help him understand
himself, unless you know what we were up against.
ISABELLA
When Elizabeth was a child she had this absolutely incredible delusion
that her father and I
were monsters, and she the victim of her family's persecution.
Sometimes she even
convinced John to share this -delusion. Though most of the time
he was quite normal.
TORRIE
Yes, he is.
ISABELLA
John may have told you about the time Elizabeth talked him into
cutting his wrists-
TORRIE
When they were ten and eleven.
ISABELLA
The cuts weren't deep enough to be serious, but John's became infected
and he had to
spend a week in hospital.
TORRIE
How could a little child want to kill himself.
ISABELLA
He didn't. It was nothing like that, really.
LIZ
Wasn't it?
ISABELLA
The two of them were acting out some kind of red Indian ritual.
Native American,
Elizabeth says now. Identifying with the outcast and oppressed.
TORRIE
Poor little rich girl.
ISABELLA
Savages....she dresses up in their buckskins and beads. Brings
them home for dinner.
LIZ
Only the noble ones.
ISABELLA
Like that foul-mouthed brave who relieved himself on the dining room
carpet.
LIZ
He was drunk. Not unheard of, here. Your school chum Natalie Gardener
vomited in the
shrubbery.
ISABELLA
The difference between in the shrubbery and on the carpet is the difference
between
civilization and savagery.
LIZ
Come now, mother -- some of your musician friends were far from tame.
Franz, for
instance. I was only twelve, and I had to be careful never to let him
corner me--
ISABELLA
Not in this house! There was never anything but descretion in this
house, until you decided
to grind our faces in it! Beatniks, Mau-maus, Hindu hustlers, pimps
and drug dealers from
the lowest gutter.
LIZ
Bringing the world to your doorstep, mother.
ISABELLA
You'd flaunt them. Announce you were sleeping with them. I had
nightmares of a
chocolate version of the Grantham nose. Isn't he delicious, mother,
isn't this exciting. Take
that for bearing me, you honkey bitch!
LIZ
I see the message got through! Too bad you never let me
know: I wouldn't have had to
keep repeating myself.
ISABELLA
I was terrified that you'd marry one.
LIZ
But I didn't. I married a doctor, lawyer, Yankee chief.
Scared to do my act without a net.
ISABELLA
Even after, you brought them, with God knows what bugs and diseases--.
LIZ
Mother! It's been twenty-two years since I had my last picturesque
boyfriend!.
ISABELLA
Those children, slum children. You encourage Kim to play with
them. Not even
washing--.
LIZ
How come you never quarantined George? Imagine what he's exposed
to. What does his
kind of doctor do all day, but poke around in privates? Checking for
pox, harvesting
sperm, prescribing for crabs! Imagine the microbes, Mother. AIDS,
even!
ISABELLA
That's disgusting!
LIZ
It is, once you think about it. But still, I did better in the
spouse department than brother
John.
TORRIE
You bitch!
LIZ
Sorry. Present company excepted, Mrs. Grantham. I was referring
to the crazy slut
who was number one.
TORRIE
Was Cynthia crazy when John married her? Or did she get that
way after she found out
she was barren? Women who can't have children, who can't fulfill
themselves in a natural
way, sometimes react by abusing their own bodies--
LIZ
Cynthia wasn't barren. George had to help her out at least twice,
before abortions were
legal.
ISABELLA
Abortions? But why?
LIZ
Because they didn't want offspring, mother. I used to wonder
if John married Cynthia
simply because he was sure she wouldn't ever want kids.
TORRIE
Is that what you did, too?
LIZ
You mean abortions? I had two, before George was convinced that
I meant what I said
and got me fixed so I'd never have to worry.
ISABELLA
You killed my grandchildren? Both of you?
LIZ
Cynthia's weren't yours. I mean they weren't John's.
TORRIE
How would you know?
LIZ
George knew. He was their doctor. And of course George told his
wife, we were a happy
family. That's how I was sure that John was serious about the
childhood pact we made,
and meant to keep it. Neither of us would ever have children,
never add to the curs-ed
line--
TORRIE
John never did such an evil thing! Maybe you did...
LIZ
George agreed, too. Not that George saw the Granthams as tainted
blood, which I think is
how John and I thought of it when we were children. George just
thought me too fragile
to risk motherhood.
TORRIE
He married you, thinking that?!
LIZ
Funny thing, George liked me.
TORRIE
He must be as sick as you are.
LIZ
Yes, well, if he is it doesn't show. So. After ten
years, George still liked me; and he also
agreed that I'd worked my way out of some of my problems. So we decided
to adopt Kim.
Then another dozen years passed, and George found somebody young he
liked even
better.
ISABELLA
Who is giving him a child.
LIZ
Is she?
TORRIE
You don't know?
LIZ
I know she was pregnant when George divorced me. That doesn't
mean it's his.
ISABELLA
I'm beginning to think you ARE insane.
LIZ
George never equated fathering with biology. From med school
on, George donated
sperm every chance he got. He took a certain satisfaction in
the thought that his excellent
Westerveldt genes were marching by battalions into the next generation
--
ISABELLA
It's as if you speak a different language. The words are familiar,
but all the meanings--
LIZ
But he never wanted to track any of those kids down and hug them.
George was so
detached and scientific that I worried that he wouldn't love Kim
--
ISABELLA
God in heaven--
LIZ
But he did. He does. Of course, I worried even more that
I wouldn't love her, that my --
problems -- had stifled the instinct-
TORRIE
The instinct is to love your own. Not just any child, not a child
of a different color--
LIZ
But Kim turned out to be easy to love. I expect John will find
it easy to love your son, too.
The instinct's not as exclusive as the social register.
ISABELLA
Many of the families in Torrie's part of the country are old Anglo-Saxon
stock. That area
never had the prosperity to tempt immigrants, so the people there are
as-- --
LIZ
Inbred as Yankees? Up to the Grantham standard? The name's
bad enough: John Wells
Grantham IV. A lot to lay on an innocent kid, even without the
Good Blood nonsense.
Suppose someday John-John checks his type, and finds out he's not "good"
enough?
ISABELLA
I have no idea what you mean.
LIZ
Torrie knows.
TORRIE
I know you're tear-ass jealous!
LIZ
You're right, I am. Claws out to defend my nestling, one cuckoo's Mom
to another. I don't
like the way this feels.
TORRIE
You're not a materialist. Everybody says so-- Lizzie's not interested
in money. She's
practically a Socialist. But here you are all greedy and hateful.
LIZ
Right. George will pay support. It's not as if Kim's destitute.
But I'm so angry--
TORRIE
There's two possibilities. Either you're jealous in a really
sick way, like a sexual rival; or
you want to hurt your mother so bad that you don't care what you do
to John. Either way,
it's not sisterly affection that's brought this whole thing up.
ISABELLA
What? What thing?
LIZ
John's thing, mother. You aren't that dense. Brother John's, whose
thing supposedly
fathered this miracle child, twenty years after a very thorough
vasectomy.
TORRIE
The operation's reversable.
LIZ
For some it is. A percentage. But I'll take odds John isn't among
them. My brother swore
that we'd be the last of the clan, word of a Grantham; and for thirty-some
years he's kept
that oath. Besides, George checked. You were the one who had the clinic
appointments. Not John.
ISABELLA
I don't believe this.
TORRIE
Of course not, it's Lizzie being hateful. The vasectomy
was Cynthia's idea . Cynthia
insisted, Cynthia wanted to swing in threesomes, she wanted orgies.
John would be more
attractive to those perverts if he never had to wear protection --
ISABELLA
I can't listen to this.
(JOHN, in golfing
gear, comes to the french doors and stops, listening silently)
TORRIE
That poor man was so demoralized, so used to being abused, he did whatever
Cynthia said
ISABELLA
So the baby is?
TORRIE
Mine! And John's!
ISABELLA
John is the father?
LIZ
The sperm bank is. It has to be.
TORRIE
When I went to the clinic--
ISABELLA
You mean a test tube?
LIZ
She means a donor. Mr. A. Nonomous. Or Dr. A. Nonomous,
MD., mostly healthy ,
high IQ, blue eyed Northern European type Rh positive. What any
All-American mother'd
want. Genes like George. In fact, it might've been George, since
he donates all the time.
It's his little joke--everyone can see that yellow Kim's not his, but
they'd never guess the
ones that are. We'd pass a baby on the street and try to sneak
a peek at its earlobes.
Earlobes like John-john's--
TORRIE (throws her lemonade at LIZ)
Stop that!
LIZ (positioning lemon slice, laughing)
I deserved that. Look, Mother! It's just my style!
(LIZ notices JOHN at door)
ISABELLA
You had it all worked out, didn't you, young woman? Marry my
poor weak son, and then
trick me into passing this house to a bastard, to the offspring of
a liar and nobody!
TORRIE
Don't you call me names. I saved your son's life.
LIZ
She's right, mother. Sell it all, and give the money to John.
ISABELLA
While this woman's in control of him?
LIZ
Then give it to a museum, mother, all of it. The Isabella Wells
Grantham Memorial
Closet; roped off so no one can put their hands on it.
I'm serious, mother. Forget about
control.
ISABELLA
All these lies. I don't know what to believe.
LIZ (indicates JOHN's presence. TORRIE is too agitated to notice)
Why don't you ask John?
TORRIE
Don't you dare! Oh, you're two of a kind, you are. I was
so sure it was all Lizzy, Lizzy
and that creepy gardener's boy. But you don't give a shit for
him, either of you -- you
never did. All you care about is having your own way, and if
it costs John all he is or
could be, well -- too bad. No wonder he wanted to die.
JOHN
I didn't really want to die, Torrie. I just couldn't see any
other way out, before you came.
ISABELLA
John? What am going to do? I've announced this, I've invited
friends, they believe that
this is my grandson.
TORRIE
Who says he isn't?
LIZ
It's nobody's business, Mother.
ISABELLA
A matter of honor....
TORRIE (embracing JOHN, speaking to the women)
You don't deserve him, this lovely man. Do you want to have a
son, or don't you? We
can march out to the car and you'll never see us again.
LIZ
That might be the best thing you could do, John.
(Faintly, in another part of the house, the
baby can be heard crying)
JOHN
Is that what you want?
LIZ
I'm in a financial bind myself, John. But whatever I can scrape
together you're welcome to--
JOHN
We'll be all right. I'll go pack.
TORRIE
The baby's awake. Isn't Rita with him?
ISABELLA
Don't go, John. Not yet.
LIZ
If we stay, we have to tell the truth. Come to terms, or break
off entirely.
JOHN (hugs LIZ, awkwardly)
I haven't even said hello. You look great, Liz. Divorce
agrees with you.
LIZ
You too, brother John. Your marriage, I mean. Or is it parenting?
TORRIE
I'm going to get the baby. Mrs. Grantham--?
ISABELLA
Stay here, please, but leave me alone, all of you.
I'm exhausted, I'm going to my room to
lie down. I need quiet, I need to think. I have a duty, but--
(exits)
LIZ
John--
TORRIE
John, come with me. I need you upstairs. (TORRIE pulls John out
the other door.
JOHN smiles ruefully at LIZ and gives a little wave)
Act Two 37
ACT II SCENE 1
(LIZ is sprawled across
the wicker chair, her feet propped up on
the desk, reading in her
childhood diary, an album-like book.
She rips out the page she
has just finished, crumples it, adds it
to a crumpled pile. When
she hears ISABELLA's approach, LIZ shoves
book and papers into the
open desk drawer, quickly shuts and
locks it; puts the key,
which is on a chain, around her neck. )
ISABELLA
Where are they?
LIZ
Still upstairs. What are you going to do?
ISABELLA (pouring herself some sherry)
Do? You mean right now? There are guests arriving. I have duties.
LIZ
To the guests, or to the ghosts?
ISABELLA
I've always been able to feel them here in this house. Watching
me, judging me. I've
known what they would expect of me, --- at least, I thought I did.
LIZ
Who? The great They, as in what will They think? Or a specific,
personal ancestor like
Great-grandmother Sarah?
ISABELLA
My father. His parents and yes, his grandparents, all the way
back to the giants who were
among the founding fathers of this country--.
LIZ
That's such a fraud. The Almighty Ancestors. Ours had money and
status, some of them.
But tell me one noble deed, one work of art or one invention that was
actually ours. Done
by a Wells or a Grantham or a Coumbs or a Durham? They bought things,
they hired
people, they donated and they patronized. But what did
they do?
ISABELLA
Our family's not about objects, or even noble deeds, as you so
quaintly call it! The steady
discharge of duty, the upholding of standards--
LIZ
Their standards, everyone else's duty.
ISABELLA
Without standards, behavior is based on greed or fraud or self-gratification.
LIZ
If only you could concede that it's not always easy for a person to
see what her duty is--
even when it seems clear to you.
ISABELLA
What would you do if I were to turn all this over to you?
LIZ
This house? You mean now?
ISABELLA
Say I resent being manipulated.
LIZ
I'd have to think about Kim. What's best for her.
ISABELLA
You wouldn't donate it to an ashram or something?
LIZ
No. But I'd have to think, hard. It was terrible for us
alone here, you know. Worse for
John than for me. But a house is just a house.
ISABELLA
Indeed it is. Why condemn a house, when you can blame your
mother?
LIZ
I don't want to blame you! I get so pissed with myself, when
I open my mouth to you and
out comes a smartalec brat. I'm not so far from old, myself,
now. And I wish to God I
could attain a little serenity and wisdom.
ISABELLA
This house could be your job. You wouldn't have to get a degree, or
type in an office.
LIZ
I can't type. Remember?
ISABELLA
The East rooms and the library could be my apartment. I'd get to know
Kim
LIZ
Giving up on John-John?
ISABELLA
I suppose you think it's no more than I deserve.
LIZ
You must admit a certain irony. You always seemed to think of
kids as a kind of conveyer
belt, to get the family from here to posterity.
ISABELLA
You really felt like that?
LIZ
I did: That's just how I felt.
ISABELLA
John, too?
LIZ
John, too. Groomed to be future custodian of all the artifacts
that were worthy of your
love. That's when we were noticed at all. I resented Brigman
because you smiled at him,
envied the Chippendale because you touched it. But then, after I began
doing my crafts, I
had a revelation: You're not a materialist. I was wrong to be jealous
of the chairs.
ISABELLA
Is that an apology?
LIZ
It may be an accusation: You're not the sort to fondle fabric.
The lines of a footstool don't stop
you in your tracks.
ISABELLA
If I gave to these objects the attention you feel should have been
yours-
LIZ
I wish you had: hugged every stick and finial. But I don't think that
there's a single thing
here in this house that's precious to you for its own sake. Is there?
ISABELLA
They are precious because they represent a way of life--
LIZ
You learned their value by rote, because Authority said so.
Nothing personal.
ISABELLA
I haven't time for this.
LIZ
It makes a difference, you see. Abstract value, like abstract
love, is useless. Worse: it kills.
ISABELLA
What are you talking about?
LIZ
Materialism. When the Bible says "the love of money is the root
of all evil"--
ISABELLA
I memorized that in Sunday School. Is the Bible politically correct
again, these days?
LIZ
I'm making a point. It's not materialism that is condemned, but
abstraction. Loving money
is loving a concept rather than the real material things and people
of this world--
ISABELLA
Really, Elizabeth.
LIZ
It's all right to treasure possessions, from the heart. My sculptures,
Kim's woodworking.
Old valentines. Odd bits of shell and feathers---
ISABELLA
Junk.
LIZ
A gold frame says look! All this money: what's inside must be beautiful.
But maybe just
framing it turns it ugly. So. What is it this gold frame of a
house does to the lives that live
here? This house has a hundred ways of saying "conform, adapt,
repress, be silent--"
ISABELLA
You were hardly repressed or silent.
LIZ
I was about everything that mattered.
ISABELLA
We come to that again! There's no defense against that kind of
whining. I don't even
understand what you mean by it.
LIZ
That's what I told my therapist.
ISABELLA
Concern, loyalty. I understand. I suppose now I ought to
rejoice because John's getting
"love" from Torrie. "My special TLC"! Well, goody for him!
Goody for her. No matter what
she is, she's better than Cynthia. Does that mean I should
accept my children whatever they do,
give them whatever they want, clutch them to my bosom like stray pets?
LIZ (laughs)
I'm trying to imagine you with stray pets!
ISABELLA
I have no interest in pets! Or in blind devotion. The regard of one
human being for another
ought to be earned.
LIZ
Sorry.
ISABELLA
Who was there to love me? I was never coddled, or made into a
pet. My own mother
died almost before I can remember. You don't see me snuffling about
for scraps of affection!
LIZ
My therapist pointed out that it's not fair to blame you. For
not giving what you never had--
ISABELLA
What's wrong with self-reliance?
LIZ
I'll let you know after my first week on the job.
ISABELLA
Do you really need money? You got nothing from George ?
LIZ
I didn't ask him for any. He's not that rich, you know. A lot of his
work is charity.
ISABELLA
Blood or no blood, Kim's his responsibility. He could give up his charities
until Kim's grown.
LIZ
I gave up most of mine. With the best intentions, I couldn't stop trying
to run people's lives.
After all, my standards are so much higher -- and then I began to resent
them, these objects
of charity, because they're so stupid and ugly and ungrateful,
and yet somehow they
outsmart me all the time. Are you gloating yet, Mother?
A lesson class in class. So I don't
think social work will suit me.
ISABELLA
At your age, you shouldn't have to start a career. George should
see that.
LIZ
Between his debts and his girlfriend's new baby, I didn't think I ought
to insist. I--
(TORRIE and JOHN enter.)
Little brother. Torrie.
ISABELLA
Well, come in.
JOHN
How's the weather in here?
LIZ
Clearing.
JOHN
Good. Sit down, Torrie. So I can. I'm
going to be stiff.
ISABELLA (to John)
How was your golf?
JOHN
Not bad, not bad at all. I'm not up to my old handicap
but I held my own against Buddy.
He's put on so much weight I'm surprised he can see the tee.
TORRIE
John is fitter than he's been in years. (TORRIE demonstrates)
JOHN
I've been working out.
TORRIE
He watches what he eats, too, don't you, darling?
JOHN
Sure do. Fact is, I'd like to watch some right now!
ISABELLA
It's too early to think about dinner, John. We could have a cocktail.
Don't pretend to be
shocked, Elizabeth, I'm still allowed one.
JOHN (going to the cart)
What have you got here?
TORRIE (warning him)
The lemonade's delicious.
JOHN
Any of those scones? Like Anna Macdougal used to make?
ISABELLA
Rita makes cakes. They're under the cover.
JOHN
These'll do. Until dinnertime.
ISABELLA
I'm expecting the Tildens.
JOHN
Tonight?
ISABELLA
Around six. It'd be a long drive for them, so I've
asked them to stay.
JOHN
Anybody else?
ISABELLA
Nearly a dozen are coming in from New York, but since they'll be on
the nine o'clock
plane, I think we can assume that they won't expect to have dinner
here. We will eat, John.
It's not necessary for you to shovel in those cakes with both hands.
LIZ
Torrie tells me you've got a new interest; John. You're doing photography.
JOHN
I sure am. Has Torrie shown you?
TORRIE
They've seen the ones of the house and the baby.
JOHN
What about the portraits? Did she show you the portraits?
ISABELLA
No.
JOHN
Well, why don't you get them, honey? They're in the case on the back
seat of the car.
TORRIE
I don't think this is the time for...
JOHN
Sure it is. I'd really like to show them. They're interesting.
You go on, now. (TORRIE goes)
ISABELLA
John. Your wife seems to feel that we shouldn't talk, but there
are some things I have to
get straight. Don't you agree? I could have a heart attack
any day-- Charlotte Steen did.
With things left unsettled--
JOHN
Not now, mother. Aren't you expecting a houseful of people?
You're the hostess, you
can't be embroiled. There'll be time. These portraits of mine
are rather special. I did the
first ones in the hospital: shot all the patients on my floor.
LIZ
I came to see you there, did you know that? Four times,
but they would never let me in.
JOHN
I wasn't allowed visitors, not for quite a while.
ISABELLA
Not even your own mother?
JOHN
The doctors do what they think best, Mother. Now, I believe
you're going to like these
portraits. In the halfway house we used to play this quiz game
with them. Try to match
each face with its case history.
LIZ
Could you do that?
JOHN
Some you could, some you can't. For instance, hardly anybody
guessed me.
LIZ
I wouldn't dare try. But I'd be glad if you'd tell me.
JOHN
My diagnosis?
LIZ
Not just that, but how you think it came about. Heredity? Childhood?
Your marriage?
ISABELLA
Elizabeth!
JOHN
Johnny Walker played a part. Jim Beam.
LIZ (to Isabella)
How much did Dad drink?
ISABELLA
Your father didn't drink!
LIZ
Everybody drank! Cocktails, liqueurs, sherry!
ISABELLA
Socially.
JOHN
Some a little more.
LIZ
I thought I'd never seen Dad drunk. But then after he died,
I thought some more, and I
began to wonder if I'd ever seen him sober.
JOHN (laughs)
That's a funny one Liz. You know, I'd never thought of
that!
ISABELLA
Your father's death is not amusing.
LIZ
His liver. What is it that kills the liver? Besides alcohol,
what?
JOHN
Hepatitis.
LIZ
How many of your friends have died of drink? Adams, Buswell,
two of the Granger
boys, Wally Wallace--
ISABELLA
He was killed in a collision.
LIZ
Drunk driving. How many others?
JOHN
That's a pretty tall order, Liz.
LIZ
But you've thought about it yourself? When you were drinking.
Or in the hospital.
You've added them up?
JOHN
I've thought about it.
LIZ
Did you do the Twelve Steps? The serenity prayer? "Give
me the power to change--"
ISABELLA
Elizabeth! John's entitled to some privacy. Some respect!
As are our family and friends.
This ghastly urge your generation has to "let it all hang out!" We
know John was ill, we
know he's better now, what's the point?
LIZ
I don't know anything!
ISABELLA
We have what Torrie's told us, we have her letters.
LIZ
Not me! Nobody wrote to me.
JOHN (getting up)
Scuse me a minute, Sis. (calling) Torrie!
TORRIE (right outside and coming in)
Here, honey.
JOHN (taking the portfolio)
Now the first section of this album is portraits, and the back half's
architecture.
TORRIE
He did a lot of those when we were looking for a house.
JOHN (showing Isabella)
Here's a house we took a look at right outside Philly that's
the twin sister of this one.
TORRIE
There's no grounds though, they've built right up to it. There's a
clinic next door, with a
beauty parlor at street level.
JOHN
It's an old folks home.
ISABELLA
An old folks home. .
LIZ
Why not? All those rooms to heat, it makes sense to have people
in them.
TORRIE
There's people in them, all right: two, three, and even four to a room.
Wheelchair ramps
slashed across the veranda.
JOHN
The original floorplan was just like this one, though.
TORRIE
But they used local stone.
JOHN
A different treatment on the windows. Still, I bet it's the same architect.
TORRIE
See this carved door? And will you look at the roof, see where they've
opened it up with a
skylight. You ought to do that here, its so dark up there on the third
floor.
LIZ
Nothing up there but servants and children: why should they need light?
(the doorbell
chimes)
ISABELLA
That must be the Tildens.
JOHN
Hooray! We eat.
ISABELLA
We eat when I let Rita know we're ready, John. Try to show
some restraint.
(ISABELLA goes toward the door to greet her guests)
LIZ
May I look at the house? (JOHN goes to LIZ with pictures)
TORRIE
The Tildens'll be wanting to get acquainted with me and see the
baby, John. Lizzie can
look for herself, can't she? Both my John-Johns deserve their
chance to shine.
(JOHN grins and exits with TORRIE. LIZ looks
after them, then takes the key on a chain from
around her neck. She opens the "secrets"
drawer in the desk, takes out the diary and
some odd objects which we can't see
clearly; looks through them. )
END OF SCENE 3
SCENE FOUR
Late that night. John enters the conservatory. He checks to make sure
that no one is there, and that he hasn't been followed, and then he takes
a long
drink from a cordial bottle he has concealed under his jacket.)
TORRIE (at door)
John? (pause) Sweetheart? Are you in here ?
JOHN (hides the bottle beneath his coat.)
I'm in here.
TORRIE
What are you doing?
JOHN
Getting out from under the axe.
TORRIE
But you've been perfect, Sweetheart! And I haven't done too badly,
have I? Your mother's
not going to attack, so there's no reason to hide.
JOHN
You think so because you've never been held to the highest standards.
Liz and I know
better!
TORRIE
What's wrong?
JOHN
Laughing, talking, scratching my ear: everything we do is wrong.
TORRIE
Everything I do?
JOHN
She's not watching you. It's Liz and me.
TORRIE
That's silly. You're doing just what your mother does.
JOHN
Oh, no. She knows I'm a fake. She's never believed in any of my shows--
School, work,
friends -- all front, all words, a poor imitation. You just can't see
it, Torrie. So don't try to
copy her, all right? The harder you try, the cheaper you look.
TORRIE
John!
JOHN
You asked for it, didn't you? You insisted we come. Believe
me, Torrie, her standards are
not my standards. They never were. But the minute I set
foot in her house, that's it. They apply.
TORRIE
They always apply, for you! Everywhere! You can't run away
without running right out
of your own life.
JOHN
Then that's what I've got to do! Can I be in your life, please?
Or maybe Liz's? Even Buddy
Crowther's!
TORRIE
You're being childish.
JOHN
That's what I'm telling you! Right now I've got the responses
of an eight year old, while
my body feels eighty! If you felt like that, wouldn't you hide?
TORRIE
I did, for years. Till I learned that the only way to be
free of them was to confront them.
JOHN
All right. I'll confront them. I promised you I would.
When they're on their own, though,
without the damn houseguests.
TORRIE
We could go upstairs.
JOHN
Mother did this all the time when we were kids. Always an audience,
always putting on a
show for them. Never a moment to be yourself, say what it is
you need, admit the truth.
TORRIE (smoothing his hair)
If you're going to be a baby, mamma can rock you to sleep.
JOHN
I'll be all right. It was just being in that damn room with her.
After all that's happened,
seeing her carry it on as if it were 1953.
TORRIE
Or 1553, in a well-run kingdom-
JOHN
--Queendom....I wanted to jump up on the table, kick over the goblets,
swing from the
chandelier... the peasants revolt!
TORRIE (puts her arms around him)
Time for a soothing massage.
JOHN (he shrugs away)
Forget it, will you? I'm fine now. I don't need a ministering angel.
TORRIE
You don't look fine.
JOHN
I will be. This place's safe. Liz and I used to hide here.
TORRIE
That's silly. A huge house full of nooks and closets, and you'd in
hide a room that's all glass?
JOHN
Close your eyes and count to ten.
TORRIE
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10! (JOHN hides the bottle in a potted plant,but
makes no attempt to
hide himself. He simply goes directly behind TORRIE)
TORRIE
Ready or not, here I...
JOHN (grabbing TORRIE from behind)
Gotcha!
TORRIE
(screams) Awhhhh!
JOHN
Shhh! They'll be out here!
TORRIE
Do you think they miss us?
JOHN
Not like I do. Since we've been here, it's like you're not with
me, not anywhere near: and
God knows where I am.
TORRIE
I'm right with you, honey, whither thou goest.
JOHN
Then let's go.
TORRIE
If I thought it was right, I'd go in a minute! But if you
don't even try, if you just give it up
without making at least a try to win your self-respect and give our
child what he deserves,
you'll never forgive yourself. If it doesn't work, and instead of apologizing
she throws us out--
JOHN
I know her. She'll never bend while she has her audience, not
while she's Queen Isabella.
But once it's over, maybe--
TORRIE
Either way, we'll still have us. I love you--.
JOHN
More than you love the house? More than you love my mother? You seem
to be just
crazy about her.
TORRIE
Just to look at. Eighty years old, and she's beautiful!
JOHN
With a capital B. And perfect, with a capital P.
TORRIE
In clothes with a capital C.
JOHN
Though she's a bitch with a capital D.
TORRIE
My mother was an old hag at half her age. Wore out and used up.
JOHN
An old hag, maybe, but not an old witch.
TORRIE
You shouldn't talk like that. She is your mother, and deep down
she loves you. If she
could do you right without admitting she was wrong, she would.
JOHN
That's very deep.
TORRIE
It's on the level where you're alike. You are, you
know. The way you move your hands,
or tip your head when you're listening, the charm you have that condescends,
but not too far....
JOHN
She's got her spell on you, hasn't she? Always, I'd bring my
friends here, and they'd say,
what a great lady your mother is, how can you say those awful
things about her?.
TORRIE
You saw how she covered up for me, turned the conversation. I'd
have been
embarrassed--
JOHN
Trust Mother. Perfect hostess, perfect hypocrite.
TORRIE
I want to live like that. Flowers in the wintertime, candle light,
soft voices. I never want to
hear another human scream.
JOHN
My mother barely recognizes your strength, and she'd be shocked rather
than impressed by
the way you came to it. Nothing but contempt for what you've
been through.
TORRIE
Maybe so, but while I'm your wife she's not going to let anybody else
show contempt for
me. Not in public, at least. She knows what's due to a Grantham.
JOHN
Do-do-dootelly! She scarcely noticed me until I was old enough
to appear in public, and
do the duty of doing her credit.
TORRIE
Are you all raised like that? You Brahmins?
JOHN
I don't know. We all played the same sports, we all took music
lessons. We all had the
same clothes, the same food at our birthday parties. We were
all driven to school in a big
black car. But most cars, Mommy or Daddy did the driving.
TORRIE
Amazing the things a person can find more important than caring for
their children.
JOHN
Your mother had some excuse, with seven--
TORRIE
Seven's no excuse.
JOHN
I used to thank God Mother never even tried. I thought if she
knew, she'd --
TORRIE
What? Kill you?
JOHN
Not with her own hands. Send me away, I suppose.
Where I'd fall into the hands of
people who would kill me, or put me in jail--
TORRIE
When they did send you away, you were all right. Better than
all right; at school you were
smart and popular --
JOHN
For a while.
TORRIE
Well, I passed for normal, too, the first couple yerars of high
school.
JOHN
It's occurred to me that the rich and the poor are in some ways more
like each other than
either of us are like the ones in the middle.
TORRIE
How do you mean?
JOHN
Oh, like leaving their kids on their own--
TORRIE
The middle class does it, too, now. Mothers are working
full time, leaving their babies
with strangers. Foreign students, illegal immigrants from God-knows-where--
JOHN
Molly was probably illegal, and she loved us.
TORRIE
What?
JOHN
You remember, I told you about Molly. Our maid? I was six
when Mother sent her away.
TORRIE
Because she loved you.
JOHN
Lizzie said Mother didn't want us to have any love: not hers, or Molly's,
or each other's.
TORRIE
That was very clever of Lizzie. At how old?
JOHN
She must have been seven.
TORRIE
Such a clever little girl. What extraordinary spite.
JOHN
Can't I be ordinary? Honey? Isn't that what we planned for? You
get breakfast, I go to a
boring office, come home and play with the kid. Maybe he's going to
scream sometimes,
Torrie, he's only a human being--
TORRIE
What do you--?
JOHN
You said you never wanted to hear a human scream, and--
TORRIE
Babies don't scream, they cry; unless--
JOHN
He'll make demands, he'll make messes. I'll clean
them up, I'll give him a hug, we'll watch
TV together, watch him roller blade, maybe buy one of those camper
things--.
TORRIE
An RV.
JOHN
An RV.
TORRIE
Drive on down through the Appalachians, stop at my cousins' in Bear
Fork and have a few
beers? We ought to do better than that, John.
JOHN
This isn't better than that.
TORRIE
It will be. We made a life for ourselves at that horrible
Greycliffe, didn't we?
JOHN
Somehow we did. You did--
TORRIE
Compared to that, this place should be easy. You've made the
first steps, the ones that are
hardest. I'm so proud of you, and of myself, too-- (embraces him)
JOHN (kisses TORRIE.)
The Comeback Kid --
TORRIE
You taste like cough drops. You haven't been drinking?
JOHN
No, I....
TORRIE
I saw you turn them all down, so how were you drinking?
JOHN
Just the one, .....
TORRIE
Not just one! You're half-drunk, aren't you?
JOHN
What'd you expect, dragging me here? How'm I supposed to face
them? What a big nose
you have, Grandma! The better to smell you out with, sonny boy!
TORRIE
You haven't had a glass in your hand, I was watching. So where's the
bottle? Is that what
you did, stole a bottle?
JOHN
I don't have to steal, in this house! Heir of the dog.
Grantham booze is my booze.
TORRIE (looking for the bottle)
Then act that way! Not like a sneak. Not like Lizzy with her hideouts,
and her locked
drawers, and her dirty little secrets!
JOHN
Torrie, don't....
TORRIE (finds bottle.)
Will you look at this! A magic pint plant! Blooming just for you! Have
we got a glass here
too, or is that too much like the upper classes?
JOHN
Give it back. (JOHN tries to get the bottle,they tussle, TORRIE
slaps him)
TORRIE
Don't you grab from me! Don't you lower yourself!
JOHN
Sweetheart....
TORRIE
You're a gentleman. Drunk or crazy, you don't manhandle
a lady.
JOHN
Torrie, please, try to understand. You've got to help me.
TORRIE
That's what I've been doing.
JOHN
It doesn't feel that way. It's as if you've changed sides,
thrown in with Mother to put
pressure on me--
TORRIE
I'm on your side. Always.
JOHN
We should leave, right now.
TORRIE
Before the Christening?
JOHN
Before they break us.
TORRIE
This is your house, you just said so! Those people tonight,
the ones who'll be coming--
they're your kind, you can handle them. Without even thinking
about it.
JOHN
The only way to stop thinking is to start drinking.
TORRIE (giving JOHN the bottle)
All right, go ahead. I'm going upstairs and put on my nightie and kiss
little John and go to
bed. You can leave if that's what you're fixing to do. Or get drunk,
pass out, drop dead, do
what you want. God wants you to live, you know: He and I pulled you
out of the grave
together. But I'm not going to hold you up out of it against your will.
I respect you too
much for that--- even if you've got no respect for yourself, or pity
for the poor lonely little
boy who used to live here.
(TORRIE exits. JOHN drains the bottle, drops the empty
in the plant next to his chair. He goes to the desk,
tests the drawer. It's locked. LIZ enters, comes up
behind JOHN, and puts her hands over his eyes. She is
wearing a bizarre low-cut floor-length gown, spangled
black, with snake-like trim and zodiacal signs on it.)
LIZ
Guess who!
JOHN
Lizzy! What a scare you gave me.
LIZ
Guilty conscience?
JOHN
What could I have to feel guilty about?
LIZ (points at desk drawer)
A little burglary?
JOHN (tries drawer)
There can't be anything left in here.
LIZ
Why not? I never gave up the key. (shows it)
JOHN
What are you up to..?
LIZ
The same thing you are, I imagine. Isn't amazing we think so
alike?
JOHN
Frightening.
LIZ
I saw your bodyguard leave. Is the coast clear for a while, or
did she just dash out for a
pee?
JOHN
She's deserted her post. I'm a disappointment. To all who
love me.
LIZ (putting her arms round him.)
Surely not. A sweet boy like you. What's the matter?
JOHN
You smell like moth balls.
LIZ
How do you know? How'd you manage to get their little legs
apart?
JOHN
Get what apart?
LIZ
The moth's little legs. To smell his balls.
JOHN (laughing helplessly)
Aaarrggg! Remember the one about the rattlesnake?
LIZ (laughing, patting John's back)
How does an elephant pack his trunk? You smell pretty funny yourself.
What're you
drinking?
JOHN
Guava liquoir, I think. It's gone, I can't offer you.
LIZ
Got some. Primed for burglary. (LIZ holds up her glass.)
JOHN
Offer me?
LIZ
Sure! (LIZ hands him her glass)
JOHN
Naughty, naughty.
LIZ (takes back glass, drains it)
Oh, right. It's bad for you. Don't want to do what's bad
for you.
JOHN
Bad manners, not share. Set an example.
LIZ
Bad example. (they giggle)
JOHN
Not really stealing. The stuff's family.
LIZ
I stole. Raided the attic.
JOHN (indicates LIZ's dress)
For That?
LIZ (twirls about)
Recognize it?
JOHN (nods)
Witch outfit.
LIZ
Mother's witch outfit.
JOHN
From the Scottish Play. Which witch you were wont to wear.
LIZ
When the coast was clear.
JOHN
Doesn't fit you the way it fit when you were ten.
LIZ
I took out the pins. Tres chic.
JOHN
When was this raid? Made?
LIZ
Right after you fled, Johnny-O. Immediately subsequent to Mother's
touching recitation of
the cadet branch Wells' genealogy and morals.
JOHN
Sorry I missed that. What'd she say when she saw the costume?
LIZ
Not a thing. Mother looked right through me, just like she used
to, just as if I were still
wearing my good little blue silk suit. But I think she got the
message.
JOHN
Which is-- witch?
LIZ
That I can't come home and be her good little blue silk girl.
JOHN
You're starting to look like her. Have you noticed?
LIZ
God, no. Really?
JOHN (holding up empty glass)
Mamma witch and baby witch. Is there any more where you got this?
LIZ (checking the cart)
It's all cleared up but the brandy.
JOHN (hands LIZ his glass)
Fine. Brandy.
LIZ (hands the glass back to JOHN)
Pour it yourself if you insist. I want to be able to look
your little wifey in the eye and
swear that I wasn't an Enabler. (JOHN pours)
Do you really want to live here, Johnny? Take over this house?
JOHN
God, no! Torrie does.
LIZ
It's what Mother wants. Or at least, she wants us
to want it.
JOHN
When did what she wants matter all that much?
LIZ
Oh, it always mattered. It mattered so much we had to do
the opposite, do anything but.
Hell of a way to build a life.
JOHN
How long did it take you to figure that out?
LIZ
Oh, about a quarter of a century. But I'm still working on it.
JOHN
Me, too.
LIZ
Your bride seems eager --- considering the skeletons.
JOHN (rattles the drawer)
Are you going to open this?
LIZ (unlocks the desk drawer and takes out various things.)
Eye of newt, and toe of frog.........(LIZ holds up scraps of paper,
feathers, powders, etc.
and throws them into a wastebasket.)
JOHN
Was that our itching powder?
LIZ
And our rain charm, and our blood oath...
JOHN
I kept my oath, too long. Why don't you let up on me?
LIZ (making magical gestures)
You're released, absolved. I absolve you.
JOHN
Thanks. And I release you.
LIZ
I appreciate that. But the clock ran out on it a while back.
Absolution, however--
JOHN
I can't, Sis.
LIZ
Can't?
JOHN
I'm sorry. Would if I could. (pause. LIZ begins ripping
pages out of her diary, and
balling them up.)
JOHN
I've always wondered what all you put in there.
LIZ
You can read what I save, after I've censored it.
JOHN
Did we really believe in that mumbo jumbo? (chants) "Mumbo jumbo will
hoodoo you.."
LIZ
It worked, whether we believed in it or not. (pauses ripping
to read)
JOHN
Find what you're looking for?
LIZ (reading)
1956: "Mother's selling Brown Beauty. She says I'm not
responsible enough to have a
pony, because I rode him into the pond and ruined my watch. But
really she hates him
because he loves me." (LIZ crumples the paper, adds it to the wastebasket.)
JOHN
Did you keep those crazy letters I wrote you? When I thought
I was frigging Byron!
LIZ
I burned the letters. I kept your poems, though. They're
beautiful.
JOHN (holds out hand)
Give them to me.
LIZ
They're not in here. I had them typed and bound.
JOHN
Bound? You mean like published?
LIZ
John, I sent you a copy.
JOHN
No you didn't!
LIZ
Yes, I did.
JOHN
Did not!
LIZ
John, I did. And you got it. You told me you got it.
JOHN
I didn't.
LIZ
I sent it to you in Los Angeles, that was.. when? Some time in
the early seventies?
JOHN
God. Seventy-three, probably. That was a terrible year.
Maybe I--
LIZ
Forgot?
JOHN
No! No, Lizzy. I would have had a reaction. I would
remember.
LIZ
I did think it strange that you didn't react.
JOHN
What reaction were you looking for?
LIZ
I don't-- I can't remember.
JOHN
What reaction do you expect from anyone? When you show them?
LIZ
I only show them to people I can trust. Their reaction is positive.
JOHN
Jesus!
LIZ
A very, very few.
JOHN
Like how many?
LIZ
Maybe -- six. People who care for me.
JOHN
Like Kim? Have you shown them to Kim?
LIZ
Not yet, but when she's old enough.
JOHN
My God, "when she's old enough"! When would that be?
LIZ
She's slower to develop--
JOHN
You really are shameless, aren't you? Mother's right. The
flaunting, the goofy pride--
LIZ
John, don't. Your poems are beautiful. You were beautiful.
Sure, it's not "normal" to
want to be Byron, not particularly healthy to flirt with being "mad,
bad, and dangerous to
know"- -
JOHN
"Flirt with"!
LIZ (unfolds one of the crumpled papers, hands it to JOHN)
Trying on an adolescent identity. That's all that this was.
JOHN (reads it, tears and crumples it)
Your diagnosis.
LIZ
I think that I came out of it a fairly good person. But it wasn't easy--
I look like Mother,
you say. Do you think I'm turning?
JOHN
You could have helped me.
LIZ (showing a page in the diary)
I thought I was. Here's one: "Today John flunked his arithmetic.
He cried and I held
him.."
JOHN (looks at page, reads the next line, accusingly)
"I'm not sorry, though, if it means he won't go away to school...."
LIZ
Oops.
JOHN
Why don't you tear that all up? Burn it?
LIZ
I can show some of it to Kim someday, or Kim's children. If they wonder
why we had to
live in Dorchester when grandma was so rich.
JOHN
The pages with my name on: Tear them out.
LIZ
This part's harmless.
JOHN
Tear it out!
LIZ
O.K! Here. Do it yourself.
JOHN
What else is about me? (taking and crumpling the pages)
We ought to burn this stuff. What if somebody goes through the basket?
LIZ
Blackmail? Black magic?(JOHN snatches the papers out of
the basket, heaps them
on a metal tray on the cart, and tries rather ineffectually to get them
to burn.)
Mother wants her past to go on forever, you want yours to leave
no trace. The past is just
the past, Johnny. That's all.
JOHN
Damn paper must be damp.
LIZ
All the plants in here, needs a little mumbo jumbo. "Double,
double, toil and trouble, fire
burn.."
JOHN (joining in)
...double, toil and trouble, fire burn.." Any brandy left?
LIZ
Here.
JOHN (pours brandy on, the papers flare up)
Now look at it!
LIZ
Don't burn the house down!
JOHN
Why not? Or blow it up. "Boomlay boomlay boom!"
(JOHN picks up a small bag of powder, one of
the "treasures" in the drawer.)
LIZ
Now what?
JOHN
Don't you remember? Blasting powder. Found it down at the quarry,
to blow the place up...
LIZ
For God's sake, John! Be careful.
JOHN
Blast us all to wherever...?
LIZ
Don't be such a child--.
JOHN
Why not? You say that, all of you. "Don't be a child" Why not?
Wasn't that when you
loved me? (LIZ laughs.) Don't laugh at me, Lizzie!
LIZ (embracing him)
Johnny, Johnny, I'm not laughing at you. And I still love you.
I do.
JOHN (pulling away)
Jesus! You're fifty years old!
LIZ
So're you!
JOHN
I'm even older. How did that happen? When we were little,
you said that no matter how
many birthdays I had you'd still be older than me. But now I'm
older.
LIZ (ruffling his hair)
You'll grow younger now, Johnny, with a pretty young wife.
JOHN
Are you trying to seduce me?
LIZ (backing off)
I don't think so.
JOHN (gripping her elbows)
Cause I'm seducible. You can ask Torrie. Not often, and
not when sober. But
somewhere between high and comatose there's a brief period like this
where I'm
susceptible. Mostly to underage chippies who look a lot like
you did at twelve.
LIZ
John--
JOHN
The rest of the time I'm not particularly sexy. You can ask Torrie
about that, too.
LIZ
It was so long ago.
JOHN
We were right, you know, back then. We should've blown up Mom up and
the house and
us, too. You let me plan it, but you were the one who had follow
through. It was your
fantasies we acted out, not mine. "Let's play magician".(JOHN
throws some powder onto the tray.)
"Let's play doctor" The only fantasy I had
was to take Great Gramp's pistol
out of the gun room and shoot myself -- and I stole that idea from
our legendary Cousin Thaddeus,
and never had the nerve-- (throws more powder) (There is
a small flash of flame, and an alarm horn goes off.)
What the hell!
LIZ
Smoke alarm.
JOHN
Jesus. They'll all be down here in a minute. (JOHN tries to put out
the fire)
Son of a ..ouch!
LIZ (takes JOHN's hand)
Hurt?
JOHN (embraces LIZ roughly)
What're you going to do -- kiss it and make it all better?
TORRIE ( is at the door)
John? (JOHN and LIZ step apart guiltily.)
JOHN (exits)
I'd better see if I can turn the thing off.
TORRIE (to LIZ)
Why can't you leave him alone!
LIZ
You're the one who brought him here.
TORRIE
You won't give up until you've killed him.
(the alarm is silenced.
Now the baby is crying)
LIZ
If you've got a good life going, there in Philadelphia, stay there.
Don't worry about the
inheritance. Mother will try to make us all jump through hoops.
But she'll probably leave
us enough for both Kim and little John to be secure, anyway. Best to
forget the house--
TORRIE
I wouldn't give you the satisfaction.
LIZ
If you talk her out of it, I can sue.
TORRIE
You think you'll win?
LIZ
Probably not. But between my lawyers and your lawyers there might not
be much left.
TORRIE
Why would you do that?
LIZ
For your son'ssake. If the kid grows up here, he'll always feel
like a pretender. Or a thief.
You know the saying, "Behind every fortune is a crime"? Well,
the chuildren of the rich
believe it, and try to hide it from everybody, including themselves.
Ask John. My brother's
the genuine genetic article, and a son to boot. But he still
never felt he was entitled.
(the baby has stopped crying)
TORRIE
John was entitled to grow up without being molested by his own sister.
LIZ
Being what?
TORRIE
Molested. Sexually.
LIZ
My brother and I used to play doctor. So what? Even George played doctor,
and he IS a doctor!
TORRIE
When someone who's older and more powerful takes advantage--.
LIZ
One year! One year and one half month I was older!
TORRIE
More powerful! Even now you're stronger! If I hadn't walked
in here just now you'd 've
had him down on the floor and been humping under the loveseat!
LIZ
You've got an overactive imagination.
TORRIE
Oh, no. I've got an imagination, all right. That's why
I belong here, why the hills couldn't
hold me. But I don't need an imagination to see filth; I was
raised in it.
(JOHN and ISABELLA are at the door, ISABELLA in her night
dress, JOHN carrying the baby)
JOHN
Mother wouldn't believe me that there was no damage. She had
to come see .
ISABELLA
I was dreaming of fire. The alarm was so loud, all over
the state people heard it and came
running, a great multitude coming to see the roof fall.
LIZ
It's nothing, some napkins is all.
ISABELLA
The destruction of our house.
JOHN
It's all right now. You're safe. Let's all go to bed.
ISABELLA
So hard, to admit to oneself that one has wicked children.
Naughty, yes, needful of
discipline: but wicked....
LIZ
No one here is wicked, mother.
TORRIE
What could be wickeder than incest?
JOHN
Torrie, Elizabeth loves me. She always did, and wanted what was
best for me.
TORRIE
The best thing for you would be for her to die! (to ISABELLA)
Cynthia's dying like that
did him a world of good. The terrible things they did to
him--
JOHN
Torrie, I don't know that. I can't remember, Torrie.
I'm not sure, any more, what we
really did and what was a dream or a nightmare. I would
get drunk, or take something --
do you realize I spent almost as many years drunk as you've been alive,
Torrie? -- and I'd
have these -- episodes-- and then I'd be so frightened--.
LIZ
Johnny--
JOHN
Torrie, look! We're alive! I'm going to be all right. I've said
the unspeakable, admitted the
unforgivable, and I wasn't hit by lightning.
TORRIE
Are you saying it was your fault?
JOHN
I'm saying it doesn't matter! Fault, mistake, fantasy--
ISABELLA (to Torrie)
I won't have it! How dare you make accusations, you with
your gutter mind? You know
prices all right, I'll give you that, but you have absolutely no sense
of values. To even think
such a thing, of a Grantham! My son John is weak, yes, he has
never been robust, and he's easy
prey to vital vulgar creatures like you and Cynthia. But not
in this house! Here he had the
best, he had supervision, he had good examples. There were no
such sick goings-on as---
as your filthy-- I won't countenance it! I want you to leave
here, young woman. Now. Not
in the morning. This minute.
I'll say the baby became ill in the night, or you did. You were
rushed to the hospital.
JOHN (ready to leave)
Come on up and get dressed.
TORRIE
It's not fair!
LIZ
I only feels like defeat, Torrie. It's for the best, believe
me. If it's all right with you two, I'll
meet you at the late night diner down at the Centre. You know
the one I mean, John?
JOHN
Chickie's.
LIZ
We can talk there, before I drive back to Boston.
JOHN
That's a good idea, Lizzie. Don't you see, sweetheart?
We'll be free, all of us. Home free.
LIZ
Let Mother leave it all to the DAR. The Isabella Weld Grantham Memorial
Closet.
Complete with skeletons. (LIZ and JOHN giggle and hug one another.
TORRIE looks on, distraught.)
ISABELLA
I'm closing the door on it. For all of you. Don't think
I'll sit here and grow old and lonely
and lower myself.
JOHN (leads LIZ to TORRIE, putting an arm around each)
Torrie, I'd like you to get to know my sister, Elizabeth.
Funny thing. All of a sudden I
feel like I have a family.
ISABELLA
I'll sell the house and move away. I have friends, good friends.
I'll winter where it's warm.
In the summer I can take a cottage, or there's Alice's place in Bar
Harbor. There's a few of
our kind left, a few with standards ......
THE END
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