Three Plays (26 page)

TOM
: What gave her that idea?

AMANDA
: What gives her any idea? However, you do act strangely. I—I'm not criticizing, understand
that!
I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world—you've had to—make sacrifices, but—Tom—Tom—life's not easy, it calls for—Spartan endurance! There's so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you! I've never told you but I—
loved
your father....

TOM
[gently]
: I know that, Mother.

AMANDA
: And you—when I see you taking after his ways! Staying out late—and—well, you
had
been drinking the night you were in that—terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it! Is that true, Tom?

TOM
: No. You say there's so much in your heart that you can't describe to me. That's true of me, too. There's so much in my heart that I can't describe to
you!
So let's respect each other's—

AMANDA
: But, why—
why
, Tom—are you always so
restless?
Where do you
go
to, nights?

TOM
: I—go to the movies.

AMANDA
: Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?

TOM
: I go to the movies because—I like adventure. Adventure is something I don't have much of at work, so I go to the movies.

AMANDA
: But, Tom, you go to the movies
entirely
too
much!

TOM
: I like a lot of adventure.

[
AMANDA
looks baffled, then hurt. As the familiar inquisition resumes he becomes hard and impatient again. Amanda slips back into her querulous attitude towards him.]

AMANDA
: Most young men find adventure in their careers.

TOM
: Then most young men are not employed in a warehouse.

AMANDA
: The world is full of young men employed in warehouses and offices and factories.

TOM
: Do all of them find adventure in their careers?

AMANDA
: They do or they do without it! Not everybody has a craze for adventure.

TOM
: Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!

AMANDA
: Man is by instinct! Don't quote instinct to me! Instinct is something that people have got away from! It belongs to animals! Christian adults don't want it!

TOM
: What do Christian adults want, then, Mother?

AMANDA
: Superior things! Things of the mind and the spirit! Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys—pigs.

TOM
: I reckon they're not.

AMANDA
: You're joking. However, that isn't what I wanted to discuss.

TOM
[rising]
: I haven't much time.

AMANDA
[pushing his shoulders]
: Sit down.

TOM
: You want me to punch in red at the warehouse, Mother?

AMANDA
: You have five minutes. I want to talk about Laura.

TOM
: All right! What about Laura?

AMANDA
: We have to be making some plans and provisions for her. She's older than you, two years, and nothing has happened. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me terribly how she just drifts along.

TOM
: I guess she's the type that people call home girls.

AMANDA
: There's no such type, and if there is, it's a pity! That is unless the home is hers, with a husband!

TOM
: What?

AMANDA
: Oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I see the nose in front of my face! It's terrifying! More and more you remind me of your father! He was out all hours without explanation!—Then
left! Good-bye!
And me with the bag to hold. I saw that letter you got from the Merchant Marine. I know what you're dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded.

[She pauses.]

Very well, then. Then,
do
it! But not till there's somebody to take your place.

TOM
: What do you mean?

AMANDA
: I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independent—why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you! But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter - I say for your sister because she's young and dependent.

I put her in business college—a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young Peoples League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn-out records. What kind of a life is that for a girl to lead?

TOM
: What can I do about it?

AMANDA
: Overcome selfishness! Self, self, self is all that you ever think of!

[Tom springs up and crosses to get his coat. It is ugly and bulky. He pulls on a cap with earmuffs.]

Where is your muffler? Put your wool muffler on!
[He snatches it angrily from the closet and tosses it around his neck and pulls both ends tight.]
Tom! I haven't said what I had in mind to ask you.

TOM
: I'm too late to—

AMANDA
[catching his arm—very importunately. Then shyly]
: Down at the warehouse, aren't there some—nice young men?

TOM
: No!

AMANDA
: There must be—
some
…

TOM
: Mother—
[Gesture.]

AMANDA
: Find out one that's clean-living—doesn't drink and—ask him out for sister!

TOM
: What?

AMANDA
: For
sister!
To
meet!
Get
acquainted!

TOM
[stamping to door]
: Oh, my
go-osh!

AMANDA
: Will you?
[He opens door. Imploringly.]
Will you?
[He starts down.]
Will you?
Will
you, dear?

TOM
[calling back]
: YES!

[Amanda closes the door hesitantly and with a troubled but faintly hopeful expression.

Spotlight on Amanda at phone.]

AMANDA
: Ella Cartwright? This is Amanda Wingfield! How are you, honey?

How is that kidney condition?

[Count Five]

Horrors!

[Count five.]

You're a Christian martyr, yes, honey, that's what you are, a Christian martyr!

Well, I just now happened to notice in my little red book that your subscription to the
Companion
has just run out! I knew that you wouldn't want to miss out on the wonderful serial starting in this issue. It's by Bessie Mae Hopper, the first thing she's written since
Honeymoon for Three
.

Wasn't that a strange and interesting story? Well, this one is even lovelier, I believe. It has a sophisticated, society background. It's all about the horsy set on Long Island!

FADE OUT

SCENE FIVE

[It is early dusk on a spring evening. Supper has just been finished in the Wingfield apartment. Amanda and Laura in light-coloured dresses are removing dishes from the table, in the upstage area, which is shadowy, their movements formalized almost as a dance or ritual their moving forms as pale and silent as moths.

Tom, in white shirt and trousers, rises from the table and crosses toward the fire-escape.]

AMANDA
[As he passes her]
: Son, will you do me a favour?

TOM
: What?

AMANDA
: Comb your hair! You look so pretty when your hair is combed!
[Tom slouches on the sofa with the evening paper. Its enormous headline reads: 'Franco Triumphs'.]
There is only one respect in which I would like you to emulate your father.

TOM
: What respect is that?

AMANDA
: The care he always took of his appearance. He never allowed himself to look untidy.
[He throws down the paper and crosses to fire-escape.]
Where are you going?

TOM
: I'm going out to smoke.

AMANDA
: You smoke too much. A pack a day at fifteen cents a pack. How much would that amount to in a month? Thirty times fifteen is how much, Tom? Figure it out and you will be astounded at what you could save. Enough to give you a night-school course in accounting at Washington U! Just think what a wonderful thing that would be for you, Son!

[Tom is unmoved by the thought.]

TOM
: I'd rather smoke.
[He steps out on the landing letting the screen door slam.]

AMANDA
[sharply]
: I know! That's the tragedy of it….
[Alone, she turns to look at her husband's picture.]

[
DANCE MUSIC
: 'ALL THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE!']

TOM
[to the audience]
: Across the alley from us was the Paradise Dance Hall. On evenings in spring the windows and doors were open and the music came outdoors. Sometimes the lights were turned out except for a large glass sphere that hung from the ceiling. It would turn slowly about and filter the dusk with delicate rainbow colours. Then the orchestra played a waltz or a tango, something that had a slow and sensuous rhythm. Couples would come outside, to the relative privacy of the alley. You could see them kissing behind ash-pits and telegraph poles.

This was the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change or adventure.

Adventure and change were imminent in this year. They were waiting around the corner for all these kids. Suspended in the mist over Berchtesgaden, caught in the folds of Chamberlain's umbrella—

In Spain there was Guernica!

But here there was only hot swing music and liquor, dance halls, ban, and movies, and sex that hung in the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive rainbows....

All the world was waiting for bombardments!

[Amanda turns from the picture and comes outside.]

AMANDA
[sighing]
: A fire-escape landing's a poor excuse for a porch.
[She spreads a newspaper on a step and sits down, gracefully and demurely as if she were settling into a swing on a Mississippi veranda.]
What are you looking at?

TOM
: The moon.

AMANDA
: Is there a moon this evening?

TOM
: It's rising over Garfinkel's Delicatessen.

AMANDA
: So it is! A little silver slipper of a moon. Have you made a wish on it yet?

TOM
: Um-hum.

AMANDA
: What did you wish for?

TOM
: That's a secret.

AMANDA
: A secret, huh? Well, I won't tell mine either. I will be just as mysterious as you.

TOM
: I bet I can guess what yours is.

AMANDA
: Is my head so transparent?

TOM
: You're not a sphinx.

AMANDA
: No, I don't have secrets. I'll tell you what I wished for on the moon. Success and happiness for my precious children! I wish for that whenever there's a moon, and when there isn't a moon, I wish for it, too.

TOM
: I thought perhaps you wished for a gentleman caller.

AMANDA
: Why do you say that?

TOM
: Don't you remember asking me to fetch one?

AMANDA
: I remember suggesting that it would be nice for your sister if you brought home some nice young man from the warehouse. I think that I've made that suggestion more than once.

TOM
: Yes, you have made it repeatedly.

AMANDA
: Well?

TOM
: We are going to have one.

AMANDA
:
What?

TOM
: A gentleman caller!

[
THE ANNUNCIATION IS CELEBRATED WITH MUSIC. Amanda rises.]