I HAVE TAKEN A PRISONER

A PLAY

IN

SIX SCENES.

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by

DOROTHY BLEWETT

(1950s)

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Epigraph:

"I have taken a prisoner

And he will not let me go".

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Characters

ALLEYNE MANNING	An unmarried woman of 45
ISABEL BROWN
CONNIE PERCEVAL	Friends of Alleyne’s and about the same age
ROBERT PERCEVAL	Connie’s husband
Members of a touring European ballet company
LISE FARRA	Aged 18
GABRIEL MAURICE	30
NATASHA
VERA OBELESKA
SERGE	Vera's husband

The time

The Present

The scene

In and near Sydney, Australia

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

The living room of Alleyne Manning’s flat, about five o’clock in an afternoon in late autumn.

The left half of the back wall is glass down to the floor. A door opens from it on to a sundeck which can be seen through the glass. The top of a flight of steps with a wrought iron gate at their head is seen in the far corner of the sundeck. Beyond, and far below, is a corner of Sydney Harbour—very blue sea, ochre limestone cliffs thickly wooded at the top, and at the foot of the cliff, some modern houses with gardens down to the water’s edge, small jetties and gaily painted boats. In the far distance, Sydney Heads.

The room itself is furnished with a mixture of old mahogany and modern pressed-wood furniture. There are many books, flowers, a baby grand piano, a large radiogram—all obviously new. It is a mixture of cultivated taste and conventionality—furnished by a woman who knows what she wants, but does not quite dare have it.

When the curtain rises, the stage is empty.

Isabel Brown and Connie Perceval, both in street clothes, enter from a door down left. They are followed by Alleyne and Robert Perceval. Alleyne who is in a simple indoor frock and wears no hat, is obviously showing them over the flat.

ISABEL: It’s all perfectly sweet, Alleyne. I adore that darling kitchen. After our barn of a place, I can think of nothing nicer than one where you can stand in the middle and reach everything.

ALLEYNE: It will suit my kind of entertaining. Now, do sit down while I make a cup of tea—

ISABEL: (Interrupting) Darling, I simply haven’t time for tea. Besides, we had one at Mabel’s—she simply insisted. That’s what made us so late.

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) Didn’t she know you were on your way here?

CONNIE: Nobody’s plans mean a thing to Mabel. You know what she’s like.

ALLEYNE: I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve never met Mabel.

ISABEL: Connie dear, I’m afraid Alleyne is angry with us.

ALLEYNE: Stupid of me, isn’t it? But it looks as if my house-warming is falling a little flat.

ROBERT: You’re quite right, Alleyne. We shouldn’t have stayed at Mabel’s so long. It was unforgivable.

ALLEYNE: All right—shall we forget it? At least you’ll have a drink—

CONNIE: Just a teeny one, dear. Then we really must fly.

Alleyne is already busy pouring drinks. Robert comes and hands them round.

CONNIE: (Raising glass) Well, here’s to the new flat. May you be very happy in it, Alleyne.

ROBERT: I can’t improve on that.

ALLEYNE: Thanks. I’ll drink to that myself. Heart’s desire!

(They drink with a flourish)

ISABEL: It really is lovely, Alleyne. I don’t wonder you are purring with satisfaction. I am, of course, quite livid with jealously.

ALLEYNE: Jealous—in heaven’s name, why? You’ve had a lovely home of your own for twenty years, and now you envy me who’s just attained it. —

ISABEL: You’re alone in yours.

CONNIE: Now, Isabel, don’t be morbid. You know you and Dick are quite happy—at least as happy as most married people—

ROBERT: Do I detect a faint note of criticism of the married state?

CONNIE: If the note’s faint, it’s because my voice is failing.

ALLEYNE: Sounds as though I’d better fill them up again. Nothing like auntie’s ruin for a failing voice. Being alone has its disadvantages, Isabel.

ISABEL: Yes, I know. I’d be willing to trade them—

ROBERT: Listen here now, Isabel Brown. Dick is one of my best friends; I’ve got to take his part, you know—

ALLEYNE: Oh, leave her alone, Robert—it’s the gin talking. Every married woman I know treats me to this story of the beauties of single blessedness. But let her husband show signs of wandering, and just you watch what happens.

ISABEL: I just wish Dick would show signs of wandering—would I, or would I not, refrain from pulling him back?

ALLEYNE: Look here, what is this—a drink to celebrate my attainment of independence, or a maudlin mull over the evils of marriage —

CONNIE: (With sincerity) You are happy, aren’t you, Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: Happy? Yes, I suppose you’d call it that. When you’ve teetered all your life on the edge of genteel poverty, to be suddenly secure—Yes, I suppose you’d call it happy.

CONNIE: And all done on a lottery! It doesn’t seem right, does it, Rob—for anyone to get so much out of a lottery?

ROBERT: Someone had to win it, Connie, and since it wasn’t us—well, who better than Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: Thank you for those kind words, Rob! But I know what Connie means. It doesn’t seem right—my own place, security, independence, leisure—all for a five shilling lottery ticket—all the things I’ve always longed for—even to my piano—

ISABEL: Don’t talk too loudly, Alleyne. The fairies might hear you.

ALLEYNE: And take them back?

ISABEL: Anyway, leisure isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You won’t know what to do with yourself after a while. I know when Richie went to live in college and Dick away so much—I was positively bored.

ALLEYNE: I’m willing to be bored now and then. Anyway, I’ve the flat to look after—and my view to look at—

CONNIE: Yes, the view is divine.

ISABEL: I don’t want to sound carping—

ALLEYNE: Perish the thought!

ISABEL: —but these windows will rather rattle, darling, in a southerly buster.

ROBERT: You’ll have to wedge them, Alleyne.

(He has gone over to the windows and is looking out)

ALLEYNE: I’ve got the wedges all ready. I’ll just put them in and wait—

ROBERT: (Who is looking down at the sea)   Hard over, man —  hard over!

(He runs out through the door on to the sundeck)

CONNIE:   What is it?

(The women follow Robert out on to the sundeck and they all go to the edge and look down for a moment)

ALLEYNE: (Leading the way back into the room)  That was a narrow squeak—I thought he was over.

CONNIE: He was too close in—

ISABEL: My sight’s getting terrible. Was there a red heart on his sail—because if there was, it was Richie.

ALLEYNE: There was some kind of red splodge—(To Robert who has come back rather reluctantly) Isabel thinks that might have been Richie, Rob. Could you see what his sign was?

CONNIE: (Who is beginning to show signs of her drinks)   Was it a red heart? Why do people always make hearts red—they ought to be some kind of sickly colour—kind of manure colour—

ROBERT: (Cutting her off) It might have been a heart—it’s a twelve-footer, anyway. He came right in to the sea-wall. I didn’t know this bay was in their course.

ISABEL: It isn’t normally.

ALLEYNE: Anyway, he’s quite safe. There’s always something happening on the harbour.

CONNIE: Three days, generally.

ALLEYNE: What’s three days, Connie?

CONNIE: The southerly buster.

ISABEL: On this subject of leisure, Alleyne—don’t take to bridge in the daytime. It’s a vicious habit.

ALLEYNE: But why not? You forget all the years I’ve been pounding a typewriter while you’ve been eating rich food and losing Dick’s money over cards, my dear. I’m going to catch up on all those years—oh, there are loads and loads of things I’m planning to do—(she turns her thoughts inward)—things I’ve never had time for before.

CONNIE: As, for instance?

ALLEYNE: Well—bridge in the daytime, as Isabel suggests—and getting my golf handicap down to reasonable proportions—and sitting in the sun when I feel like it—

CONNIE: (Shrewdly) Those weren’t the things you were thinking of.

ALLEYNE: Want to know really? I was thinking I can concentrate on my love-life. There’s never been time before.

CONNIE: (Comfortably) Don’t be silly, Alleyne. Anyone as efficient as you could have fitted in a love-life if you’d wanted to. Don’t forget I’ve known you twenty years—

ALLEYNE: And still, Connie my sweet, for all you know I might have a string of lovers stretching from here to the Harbour Bridge.

CONNIE: A raspberry to that!

She has gone over to the mirror over the mantelpiece and is powdering her nose, so misses the look that passes between Alleyne and Robert

ALLEYNE: (Quizzically) Am I so unattractive?

ISABEL: You’re very attractive. I’ve often said to Dick, why doesn’t Alleyne marry? Why haven’t you, anyhow?

ALLEYNE: Perhaps nobody axed me. (Lightly) I was too interested in being a career woman when I was young and when I woke up to the facts of life, all the nice men had been hooked.

ISABEL: What sort of a career, Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: Any sort. My family had no time for girls. Everything centred round my brother. They resented my being a girl—my name, even. Alleyne is generally a man’s name, isn’t it?

ISABEL: Your mother too?

ALLEYNE: She rather did think women were poor fish.

CONNIE: I didn’t know you had a brother. Where is he?

ALLEYNE: He was killed.

ISABEL:   In the first war?

ALLEYNE: No, nothing as sensible as that, even. Motor-bike accident—he ran over a child. Just as well he died perhaps—there would have been a manslaughter charge—(She stops for a moment as though even at this distance the matter cannot bear thinking about)

CONNIE: (Who has been busy with her own thoughts) It is funny you haven’t married, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: (So glad to change the subject that for a moment she is unguarded) Has it ever dawned on you, Connie, that I might have fallen in love with a married man?

ISABEL: So that’s it.

CONNIE: Darling, I simply don’t believe it. No one as sane as you would do anything so disastrous. And if you had, you’d have arranged a nice efficient, respectable divorce for him.

ALLEYNE: And if there were children?

CONNIE: No—that does make a difference, doesn’t it?

(She looks at Alleyne speculatively and there is a moment of stillness)

And I never even suspected! Who is it? Someone we know?

ALLEYNE: (Laughing) Don’t get ideas, Connie dear. I just mentioned it as a possibility… (With passion) You safe, smug, married women… (She stops abruptly and laughs again lightly) Dear me, I’ll be giving an impression of a disgruntled spinster—

ROBERT: Never disgruntled, Alleyne—and only barely spinster.

ISABEL: (Suddenly) I’m not surprised, even if Connie is. But then I’ve only known you a few years. You rather get an “as it was in the beginning” feeling about people you’ve known all your life.

CONNIE: Why not say straight out I’m dense, Isabel? Alleyne, I must delve into this when you’re in one of your more expansive moods. At the moment I think I’ll remove Rob from your unexpected influence. Come along, Rob—

ALLEYNE: You can’t go without one for the road. The same again, Isabel?

She moves round taking their glasses. Robert follows her taking glasses as she fills them and hands them to Connie and Isabel and takes his own. The conversation goes on

CONNIE: Do you really think strangers see more clearly what you are than your friends do, Isabel?

ROBERT: Isabel’s hardly a stranger, Con. She’s seen us all constantly for a couple of years.

CONNIE: Oh, well, ‘newcomer’, or whatever you like. Do you, Isabel?

ALLEYNE: Isabel means, my dear, that she sees what we have become, without being cluttered up with all the things that have gone to our making—the finished portrait, not the thing being painted, so to speak.

CONNIE: Yes—I’d never thought of it before. And you see Alleyne not as a spinster—which she obviously is.

ROBERT: I think the word should be ‘ostensibly’, darling.

ALLEYNE: (Handing Robert his glass as she speaks) Et tu, Brute? I ought to resent this cold-blooded analysis of my character—

ISABEL: Not your character, dear—we wouldn’t be interested in that. It’s your lack of it…

CONNIE: (With conviction) No—I just can’t believe it. Alleyne hasn’t been pulling my leg all these years. There just haven’t been men—not seriously. Why, Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: I work with them—that takes away the glamour, you know.

ISABEL: I believe you’re just another romantic.

ALLEYNE: (Shrugging) Perhaps… an idealist, anyway. I knew what I wanted…

CONNIE: That’s the worst of ideals. They never come off and then you get cynical.

ISABEL: Fortunately for the future of the race, most girls discard their ideals with their teens. It’s the good provider then…

ALLEYNE: It’s never seemed quite honest to me—to marry just for a meal ticket.

CONNIE: Most marriages of over twenty-fives are, I should say.

ISABEL: Well, the women earn their meals—darned hard earning most of it, too.

ROBERT: Don’t mind me, girls. Just go right ahead.

ISABEL: A subtle compliment, Robert. We are so sure of your understanding, we can tell the truth in your presence.

ROBERT: (Lazily) What have I ever done to make you feel I’d ‘understand’?

ALLEYNE: Nothing you do, Robert dear. It’s just a kind of sympathetic aura you carry round with you.

CONNIE: Here, he’s my husband. How come you two know so much about his understanding and his aura?

ALLEYNE: Darling Connie—I’ve either made your drink too strong or too weak. Let me fix it. (Takes Connie’s glass more or less forcibly and adds more gin. She speaks with her back to Connie) Robert’s the only man I know who’s intelligent about women’s clothes. Most men just ‘don’t like it’.

CONNIE:   I still think you know too much about Robert —

ISABEL: (Suddenly realising Connie has reached the argumentative stage) Did Robert help choose Nicolette’s dress for the Commencement Ball? Richie said she was a complete knock-out.

ROBERT: She does look lovely in it, doesn’t she?

ALLEYNE: You rather like your daughter, don’t you, Robert?

ROBERT: She is a lovely kid—and I don’t care who knows I think so.

CONNIE: I used to be like that—before I started reproducing.

ALLEYNE: You’re still a remarkably good-looking woman, Connie, and you know it—so don’t trouble to pull out the vox-humana stop.

CONNIE: I haven’t kept my looks as well as you have, Alleyne. No one would think you were forty-five, now would they, Isabel?

ALLEYNE: Hey, cut it out. I don’t mind being forty-five, but I’m darned if I want it blazoned round the world. Anyway, you’re forty-six, aren’t you?

ISABEL: Tut, tut, the party’s getting acrimonious. When people start talking about each other’s ages, it’s time to go home.

ALLEYNE: You can’t stay and have a poached egg with me, Isabel?

ISABEL: Sorry, dear. I can’t possibly. Dinner with Dick’s wealthy sister tonight—and one has to tighten the girdle to take that, I can tell you. I must not risk Richie’s chances of being mentioned in ‘the will’… my goodness, look at the time. I must fly…

Isabel’s voice trails off as she realises that Alleyne is not listening and they all turn and follow the direction of her gaze. She is looking at the door from the sundeck on which Lise has appeared, coming up the steps from below. Lise is hovering uncertainly in the doorway when she realises Alleyne is looking at her

ALLEYNE: Are you lost?… Can I help you?

LISE: (Coming inside the doorway, she is in sailing slacks and a pullover and carries a matching jacket. Her hair is tied in a bright scarf and she wears heelless sandshoes)   I… I think this is the right place… It was Mrs. Brown I wanted…

ALLEYNE: Mrs. Brown is here. Won’t you come in?

Lise comes right into the room

ALLEYNE: Aren’t you… but you are Lise Farra…

LISE: Yes.

ALLEYNE: I saw you dance ‘Giselle’. I’m glad to have the chance of saying ‘Thank you’.

LISE: Thank you.

ALLEYNE: This is Mrs. Brown.

ISABEL: But I don’t…

LISE: (Quickly) It was Richie, Mrs. Brown… I went sailing with them and I was sick… so they put me off at the seawall. Richie knew you’d be here and said you would take me back to town…

ISABEL: Isn’t that just like my son? Did he just dump you down like that? Oh dear…

LISE: He showed me the house. I’m afraid I’ve no idea of direction… I’ve been trying to find it from the street for ages, but I couldn’t, so I walked along the seawall and climbed up…

ALLEYNE: It’s a terrific climb; you must be half dead. Do sit down—you’ll have a drink?

LISE: No, thank you… I do not drink…

ALLEYNE: Of course not. I always forget how young you dancers are. Lemon squash then? Oh—I’m Alleyne Manning, and this is Mrs. Perceval, and Mr. Perceval. You saw Miss Farra last week, didn’t you, Connie?

LISE: My name is Elise Farraday really. I’m English you know.

ALLEYNE: Oh, yes. I remember seeing that in the paper. And you like to be called by your real name?

LISE: Please… I know it’s childish…

ALLEYNE: (Bringing her a lemon squash) We’re so used to the ballet being foreign…

LISE: (Taking the drink) Thank you.

CONNIE: (Speaking suddenly) Why shouldn’t you be childish? You’re only a child…

LISE: I’ve turned eighteen.

CONNIE: I’ve got a son twenty-two and a daughter older than you. Alleyne could have a daughter as old as you—anybody forty-five could…

ROBERT: I think we’d better be on our way, Connie… it’s getting late, almost six…

CONNIE: Get right out of your head that I’ve had too much gin, Robert. There’s a time when one has to do a little plain speaking…

ROBERT: Well, this is not the time. Come along, my dear.

Picks up her fur cape and puts it round her shoulders

ISABEL: (Standing up) I must go too, Alleyne… I should have gone half an hour ago.

LISE: (Hesitantly) And you can drop me near my hotel in the city, Mrs. Brown?

ISABEL: I’m sorry, Miss Farraday… Richie had no right to do such a thing… but I just don’t go near the city on my way home, and I’m incredibly late as it is. I’ll drop you at the tram stop… I’m so sorry, but it’s all I can do…

ALLEYNE: (Watching Lise) Don’t worry, Isabel. I’ll see Miss Farraday gets back to her hotel all right. Tell Richie from me he’s an uncouth young brute.

ISABEL: You’re a dear, Alleyne. I’ll have a word to say to young Richie myself… I do apologise for my son, Miss Farraday. Alleyne will look after you… Alleyne darling, I positively must fly. Your flat is ravishing… but you’ll be lonely in it… wait and see...

She kisses Alleyne lightly and moves to door downstage right

CONNIE: All right, Robert, I’m coming now… but I still say Alleyne could easily have a daughter as old as this child…

ALLEYNE: (Goodnaturedly) Of course I could Connie… I wish I had. I’ve always envied your Nicky. Thanks for coming and warming my flat for me.

She kisses Connie

Connie goes over to door right. Robert puts his hand briefly on Alleyne’s shoulder as he passes her on the way to the door

ROBERT: Good luck, Alleyne. Heart’s desire, you called it—I hope it lives up to that.

ALLEYNE: Thanks, Robert. It will if I have any say in it.

ROBERT: (Turning at door) Goodbye, Miss Farraday.

LISE: (Speaking shyly) Goodbye.

Connie, Isabel and Robert go out. Alleyne follows them pausing at the door to speak to Lise

ALLEYNE: I’ll be back in a second… (She goes out)

(Lise finishes her drink, replaces glass on tray, then wanders round the room looking at the view from the door and windows and coming back more than once to the piano. She opens it at last and plays a few tentative chords on it. While she is doing so, Alleyne returns

LISE: (Confused) Oh!

ALLEYNE: Do play if you’d like to.

LISE: (Closing the piano hurriedly and coming back into the main part of the room) I don’t play really… only enough to work out my ballets.

ALLEYNE: You don’t have to go straight away, do you?

LISE: Is it… far… to walk…?

ALLEYNE: Into the city, you mean? … My dear child, haven’t you any money with you?

LISE: No… I thought Joan and Richie… I didn’t think I’d need any… They picked me up at the hotel…

ALLEYNE: I could screw Richie’s neck. He’s the most hopelessly spoiled boy I’ve ever met.

LISE: It was my own fault really… I was so sick. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to dance for days.

ALLEYNE: You’re not dancing tonight?

LISE: No. But Boris—he’s our director, you know—likes us to be at the theatre whether we are dancing or not.

ALLEYNE: I’m going into the city tonight to a film. Supposing you have a meal with me in a few minutes and then we’ll get a taxi in… you won’t feel like crawling on and off trams in these clothes… It won’t be too early for me.

LISE: You are… kind. I shouldn’t trouble you.

ALLEYNE: It’s no trouble. In fact, it’s lovely to have someone. Your friend Richie’s mother was warning me I’d find it lonely. I suppose I’ll get used to being alone…

LISE: It sounds beautiful to me, to be quite alone. Have you lived with your family before?

ALLEYNE: No; my parents died when I was not much older than you. Since then, I’ve lived in boarding houses and the idea of a place of my own has been a kind of lodestar.

LISE: And this is… new to you?

ALLEYNE: I’ve been here six days… and already, the gilt is wearing off the gingerbread. Although I wouldn’t let Isabel Brown know for quids—she’d crow too horribly.

LISE: But… to do whatever you liked, when you wanted to…

ALLEYNE: That’s just the catch… you don’t want to do most things when there is nothing to stop you. It is a kind of embarrass des richesses.

LISE: It is a lovely room. One could rest here.

ALLEYNE: Has it that atmosphere? I wanted it to. (There is a short silence) I can’t believe you’re really here, sitting in my sitting room. Watching you dance, one hardly realises you’re flesh and blood. Your Giselle was exquisite.

LISE: Thank you. But I’m really not very good, you know; just good enough…

ALLEYNE: I know just enough about ballet to appreciate my own ignorance. I couldn’t judge whether you were good or bad—I only know you satisfied me.

LISE: How do you mean, satisfied you?

ALLEYNE: Emotion, I think. You got across to me where the other ballerinas left me cold.

LISE: (Ruefully) That’s what is wrong with my dancing; the emotion is still there. It should be crystallised, given out… not held inside myself.

ALLEYNE: Should it? ... Emotion remembered in tranquillity.

LISE: That was Wordsworth on poetry… wasn’t it?

ALLEYNE: Wordsworth… Or Coleridge. You know... (She stops quickly) I was just going to say something frightfully rude then… I somehow didn’t expect you’d know much about Wordsworth. One rather thinks of ballet people as doing nothing but dance, as having very little time for ordinary education.

LISE: I’ve only been with the company three years.

ALLEYNE: What made you take it up as a career?

LISE: I’ve always danced.

ALLEYNE: Not many English girls do—or do they?

LISE: More than you’d think. You are deceived by the Russianized names… and some of us deceive ourselves and develop most unenglish temperaments.

ALLEYNE: What are they like—the rest of the company, I mean?

LISE: (Dryly) Not one big happy family, I assure you.

ALLEYNE: No—I rather thought that. Natasha Tamarovna looks all temper and terperament. She is really Russian, isn’t she?

LISE: Yes… but she has neither temper nor temperament. She’s a beautiful efficient machine. Vera Obeleski is the one with the temper…

ALLEYNE: Is she? She looks as placid as a cow. She’s married to the man with the unpronounceable name, isn’t she?

LISE: Serge? Yes. He’s, or rather his parents were, from the Ukraine, and his name really is unpronounceable.

ALLEYNE: And Gabriel Maurice?

LISE: (Quickly) Gabriel! (She stops abruptly for a moment, then speaks slowly) Gabriel is like a god.

ALLEYNE: He dances like one… if gods dance.

LISE: But surely. When Gabriel dances, one’s heart melts.

There is a little silence

ALLEYNE: You said something about ‘working out your ballets’. You do the choreography?

LISE: Yes. And sometimes the music too. I can’t write other music; silly, isn’t it? It’s only when I think in terms of dance movement that I can make music at all. That’s why I have to dance, and dance well… Even then, someone else has to orchestrate…

ALLEYNE: And Gabriel… who is like a god… is he married?

LISE: (Fiercely) No… no… (Pulling herself up) Does it matter, who is married and who not?

ALLEYNE: No, not really, I suppose. It’s just my incorrigible middle-class inquisitiveness.

LISE: You’re surely not interested? Oh, no… it doesn’t fit you.

ALLEYNE: What doesn’t?

LISE: This popular obsession with marriage and amours and who sleeps with whom… it’s all revolting.

ALLEYNE: Most people wouldn’t agree with you. After all, it’s what makes the world go round.

LISE: Yes… but it’s not the only thing…

ALLEYNE: It’s the mainspring.

LISE: Surely the things of the mind are more important.

ALLEYNE: I doubt it… we’re each a trinity—mind, body and soul—all equally important.

LISE: (Scornfully) Oh, body…

ALLEYNE: (With humour) At your age, my dear, I felt just exactly the same. It’s as one gets older that doubts begin to creep in.

LISE: You haven’t married!

ALLEYNE: Oh, lord… I’ve had one session on this subject already this afternoon.

LISE: (Stiffly) I’m sorry. I had no right…

ALLEYNE: My dear child… I can answer you with the words I used this afternoon… Only you may recognise them as the truth. When I was young, I was too interested in having a career. When I realised there was to be no career, the men I would have married were all married already. One learns to look askance at a man still unmarried at thirty-five… he’s either hopelessly selfish, or a mother’s boy—neither of which turns into a good husband. So one goes on being a self-sufficient spinster…

She gets up as she finishes speaking and switches on low lamps that give a soft intimate light. She closes the door on to the sundeck. Outside, the light fades and lights show up as pinpoints on the other side of the harbour. Lise sits and watches her in silence. It is not until she has come back to her chair and sat down that Lise speaks

LISE: One would not mind being a spinster if it meant being like you.

ALLEYNE: Like me? (Laughing a little) What is there in me to admire? … to aspire to?

LISE: (Simply) Your poise… your sureness… maturity… oh, humour… all the things the young have not. I loathe being young, and gauche, and full of self-doubts…

ALLEYNE: Time will mend the youth. The self-doubts? Don’t ever expect anything to mend them.

LISE: But… (Wistfully) you are sure… always?

ALLEYNE: When I cease to have self-doubts, I shall know my mind is dead—and that it is time for my body to die too.

LISE: That is what one feels about you—that your mind is alive.

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) It has had to be. One needs to be wide awake to make a decent living in this town.

LISE: That’s what’s so surprising.

ALLEYNE: What is?

LISE: (Hesitantly) People who’ve acquired things like this… these surroundings… mostly their minds are clogged with material things… money and golf and races… and all the rest of it.

ALLEYNE: And what makes you think mine isn’t? I warn you I like all these things you’re so scornful about. Money—I adore it. Golf—well, my handicap isn’t all it might be, but I hope to change that. Races… and parties… I love them. Don’t tell me you don’t like parties?

LISE: They are agony… a long-drawn agony. The stupid attempts at conversation… and if one makes a real comment, the startled looks people give you before they edge away—as though you are peculiar, or something. But then—I suppose I am peculiar.

ALLEYNE: (Bracingly) Everyone likes to think that, even if they’re as ordinary as they can be. I can remember telling all the girls at school that I was going insane… I used to have bilious attacks and they weren’t nearly romantic enough.

LISE: Oh… please… I’m not as young as all that. I know… (Fiercely) I know I’m not like other girls.

ALLEYNE: How are you different?

LISE: I hate men… really hate them, I mean.

ALLEYNE: Ten minutes ago you said “Gabriel is like a god”.

LISE: (Thinking about Gabriel)   Yes… yes, he is… But then, he is all brain…

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) I seem to remember an exquisite body, exquisitely controlled.

LISE: A perfect machine… obedient to his will. That is marvellous… to make the body the servant of one’s mind.

ALLEYNE: (Still with the same dry humour) Bodies have a way of bobbing up… taking possession of one’s mind… of one’s will...

LISE: Gabriel is different, quite different.

ALLEYNE: Lives only for his art?

LISE: Well… no. But when he dances, I forget everything but the perfection.

ALLEYNE: One man at least then, you don’t hate.

LISE: I think you are teasing me... Wilfully misunderstanding me. I mean when he dances one does not need to remember that he is a man… he becomes in a way divine. There are not men and women in art, merely artists.

ALLEYNE: In theory, I agree. In practice—this is a man’s world—my dear—and pity help the woman who challenges them on their own ground.

LISE: You are a feminist?

ALLEYNE: Not really. I can’t say I’ve much time for my own sex…

LISE: Oh, but… (Eagerly) women are beautiful… I think that is why I admire Gabriel… he is slim and small. Those beefy, red-faced men, you don’t really like them; you can’t!

ALLEYNE: I assure you I can, and do.

LISE: But you are not married…

ALLEYNE: Marriage? A few words in a church? I don’t know they make any difference.

LISE: You have had lovers?

ALLEYNE: (Suddenly realising she is saying too much) Really, my dear child… After all, we are strangers…

LISE: (Confidently) But we won’t always be… I felt your sympathy as soon as you spoke. You have possibilities.

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) Thank you. I think I’d better get our meal, or we’ll be running against time.

LISE: Oh, don’t… need we eat?

ALLEYNE: Indeed we need. You may exist on thistledown and dreams—you look as though you could—but I’m a fleshy creature. I enjoy my food. Put some music on while I’m in the kitchen. Franck’s Symphonic Variations are there—I just bought the records this morning.

LISE: You love Franck too?

ALLEYNE: My secret vice… I love to walk in the wind and sing his themes… Really, I don’t know what there is about you that loosens my tongue like this.

LISE: You’re falling in love with me a little, I expect.

ALLEYNE: (Startled) Falling in love?

LISE: (Matter of factly) It often happens—mostly women about your age.

ALLEYNE: (With noticeable distaste) You are a ridiculous child. I must get some food… (She goes off left to the kitchen)

Lise kneels on rug where she has been turning over records, then sits back on her heels and stays forlornly still. Alleyne wheels in a dropside autotray on which is set a simple meal.

ALLEYNE: I had it all ready for myself—just had to add another plate… (She breaks off abruptly and looks at Lise who has not moved). My dear child...

LISE: (Speaking forlornly in a small voice)   It’s always like that… just when I am beginning to feel free and relaxed...

ALLEYNE: (Bracingly) Snap out of it… Anyway, don’t let it worry you. Most girls go through a stage of hating men—they grow out of it. You happen to be developing more slowly, I suppose.

LISE: (Hopelessly) You’d never understand…

ALLEYNE: I might.

LISE: It isn’t that I’m developing more slowly… I’m far away ahead of most girls of my age… I think I’ve always known ‘the facts of life’... (She laughs bitterly). My father treated my mother so badly that she left him when I was five… Even then, I knew why they quarrelled… he was…oh, beastly to her…

ALLEYNE:  She made it up to you afterwards… didn’t she?

LISE: I stayed with him. He wouldn’t let me go—needed me to satisfy his craving for power, I suppose. He used to try to get my affection away from her… but mother wrote to me a lot… she told me exactly what he was…

ALLEYNE: Where is she now… your mother?

LISE: (Shortly) Here—in Australia.

ALLEYNE: You are old enough now to go to her, aren’t you?

LISE: I don’t want to… she’s married again… Anyway, I want to be free—free from all ties like that. It’s a mistake to love anyone.

ALLEYNE: You poor child!

LISE: Oh, I don’t know. One has to be disillusioned sooner or later.

ALLEYNE: If you ask me, I think you’re just going through the normal adolescent morbid phase. You’ll grow out of it.

LISE: Who cares!

ALLEYNE: No one probably, except yourself. Just a bit trying for those round you…

LISE: Do you think I’m trying?

ALLEYNE: I only met you an hour ago…

LISE: (Eagerly) And you do… like me?

ALLEYNE: Yes… I think I might even like you quite a lot. But our ways just don’t lie in the same direction.

LISE: We can make them lie in any direction we like… you wait and see…

ALLEYNE:  (Humouring her)   All right. (She plugs in a toaster on the tray) Will you sit here and watch the toast while I get the eggs…

She goes off as she speaks. Lise puts a record on the radiogram and as the first notes of Franck’s symphonic variations are heard, she wanders over to the tray and the toaster as the curtain falls

Act One

Scene Two

Eighteen months later.

The same scene as scene one. The curtains are drawn and the electric fire is burning. The vases are filled with early spring flowers.

In the centre of the room is a small table set for a meal for two. The auto tray with coffee cups, percolator etc. is pushed to one side behind the table.

When the curtain rises, Alleyne is sitting in an armchair in front of the fire.

ALLEYNE: (Calling out) Need any help?

LISE: (Offstage) No, thanks. Just coming.

Lise enters from the kitchen left, with a plate in each hand. She places the plates on the table

There you are, darling. A real Spanish omelette, made from a good old-fashioned Californian recipe.

She draws up a chair for Alleyne who seats herself. Lise hovers over her for a moment without touching her. Then she draws a chair up opposite and seats herself. They go on with the meal during the dialogue

ALLEYNE:  Looks good, and smells good. (She tastes it.) And tastes good. I’m glad you learned something useful like omelette-making while you were in the states.

LISE: I don’t think you’re a bit impressed about the film.

ALLEYNE: I am impressed… I hope I still will be when I see it.

LISE: Parts of it are good… really good, I think.

ALLEYNE: I’m sorry you didn’t dance it yourself. What is this Mexican girl like?

LISE: Exquisite. Photogenic, of course, and I’m not really. She has the right depth… and her mime was… But never mind all that; you don’t understand what we drive at in ballet.

ALLEYNE: (Wryly) My limited intelligence is, of course, a drawback.

LISE: Oh, darling, I’ve hurt you. I wish you didn’t have such an inferiority complex.

ALLEYNE: (Laughing now) Dearest Lise… I’ve got many bad points, but an inferiority complex is not one of them. Just forget that I don’t understand words of more than four letters and tell me about the Mexican girl…

LISE: (Turning her thoughts inward) They were right to give the role to her. The whole thing was too much part of me… too important to me for me to dance. I was thinking of the ballet itself… she had only to dance. (A long pause) Of course, she’s in love with Gabriel—that helped…

ALLEYNE: And you’re not?

LISE: Not—in love with Gabriel!

ALLEYNE: (After a little pause) Your letters were full of him for a while… then nothing. What happened, Lise?

LISE: What could happen? I haven’t altered.

ALLEYNE: I thought perhaps you were growing up, a little.

LISE: For a while I thought Gabriel was different.

ALLEYNE: And he turned out to be just a man, not a… is it cherubim or seraphim who are all wings and voice?

LISE: I hate you when you laugh at me.

ALLEYNE: Darling, you don’t expect to be taken seriously when you say things like that. You’ll laugh yourself when you’re a bit older.

LISE: You don’t understand—not the least little bit.

ALLEYNE: Lise, really it’s only a phase. What I’m afraid of is that you’ll take it seriously yourself—harden it into a habit. You’re such a stubborn little wretch—you’ll make yourself live up to it, rather than admit you’ve grown up.

LISE: (In an entirely different manner) What makes you think I haven’t grown up?

ALLEYNE: Oh, darling… Is it Gabriel?

LISE: H’m, h’m.

ALLEYNE: I’m so glad. (She beams with satisfaction)

LISE: (Watching her curiously) You are, too… really glad.

ALLEYNE: Of course I am. It’s the best news I’ve heard for years.

LISE: You’re not… jealous?

ALLEYNE: Jealous? Why should I be? Gabriel’s always been someone apart for you. He’s probably the one person who could cure this silly… obsession of yours.

LISE: I believe you really are glad I’m ordinary. Just like other girls—doing the proper conventional thing… falling in love, going all soft and gooey about some quite ordinary man…

ALLEYNE: (Laughing) I don’t think you need worry… you’ll always do conventional things the unconventional way. You have some kind of understanding with him, Lise?

LISE: (Reluctantly) Oh yes.

ALLEYNE:  And you are going to marry him?

LISE: I suppose I’ll have to. Isn’t that the natural corollary?

ALLEYNE: (Worried) Here, let’s get this straight. Remember this limited intelligence of mine and tell me, in simple words, exactly what has been going on.

LISE: Just the usual thing! You preached and preached at me… how ill-balanced women are without men... (She speaks with frequent pauses, turning her thoughts inward, trying to explain herself to herself as much as to Alleyne) He is wonderful… he has so much that I need… We are so alike, he seems almost a mirror of myself… there never could possibly be any other man for me… He said… well, he just took it for granted…

ALLEYNE: Lise… you’re having an affair with him?

LISE: (Coming back from distant places) You’re so conventional… you should be the last person to be shocked, surely.

ALLEYNE: No, no. But you’re so terribly young, so unprotected. He had no right—a man in his position—so much older than you…

LISE: He’s an artist—and Continental. They don’t look at things through our narrow standards.

ALLEYNE: Indeed they do—particularly Frenchmen. French girls of your age have far less liberty than you do—he wouldn’t be allowed to spend five minutes alone with one…

LISE: Things have altered since the war.

ALLEYNE: I’ll guarantee that hasn’t. You keep saying convention, convention… as though they were just rules set up without reason. Conventions are your protection, your safeguard—I wish you’d realise that…

LISE: I was a fool to expect you to understand.

ALLEYNE: Lise, I’m not condemning. For god’s sake, don’t think that. I’m thinking of your future, your safety…

LISE: Gabriel loves me… he does really, Alleyne. He’ll take care of me.

ALLEYNE: And you intend to marry, Lise?

LISE: (Evasively) I’ve my work to think of—it’s different for me… This is the way I want it...

ALLEYNE: Are you happy?

LISE: Yes... In a fashion. You would rather I married than had a career, wouldn’t you?

ALLEYNE: I don’t know why you can’t do both… particularly as your career lies with Gabriel’s… I want you to be happy… I want more than anything that you should be happy, have a round life…

LISE: And marrying is the only way?

ALLEYNE: I… no, I don’t think that. It’s probably the easiest way... (A little pause) I think it takes a really great person to be happy outside the social code… it needs a kind of nobility that isn’t given to many… Otherwise, one can’t escape the sordidness…

LISE: I’ll probably marry him. He says I’ll never really be any good, and he knows. There’s something too rigid in the English—they’re not good at ballet…

ALLEYNE: (Mildly) Too much sense of humour, perhaps…

LISE: You love to laugh, don’t you, Alleyne? It’s something in you I can’t understand. Tragedy is so much greater than comedy.

ALLEYNE: Oh, my dear, no. I couldn’t agree with you less.

LISE: (Quickly) Don’t let’s argue about that… It’s a flaw in you, and I want you to be flawless.

ALLEYNE: What a horrible idea! Five minutes ago you wanted me to be jealous—or isn’t jealousy a flaw?

LISE: (Refusing to treat the matter lightly) If you loved me, Alleyne, it would be enough… it would last me all my life…

ALLEYNE: I do love you, Lise; you know that. It isn’t the kind of love you think you want—but it’s all I can give. I haven’t much maternal instinct, but what I have is all for you… Now, don’t let’s talk so much about love… like a bad Russian play.

LISE: I don’t want maternal love—horrible, cloying, possessive…

ALLEYNE: Oh, stop that nonsense, Lise. I think I dislike you when you start that silly art-school stuff...

They watch each other warily for a moment or so, then Lise sighs and turns away with a hopeless gesture

LISE: I’ll marry Gabriel… if he really wants me to…

ALLEYNE: You mustn’t, you really must not marry Gabriel, or anyone else, in that frame of mind…

LISE: Don’t preach at me. Oh, god, there isn’t any solution, is there? Life is—horrible—

ALLEYNE: (Exasperated) Heavens, child! I know now why parents resort to smacking. If ever anyone needed a good sound spanking, you do…

LISE: If anyone hurt my body… I think I’d kill them...

ALLEYNE: (Relaxing) No one is likely to; it’s at least ten years too late. Darling, you get too intense about everything. Can’t you take things a little less tragically? Believe me, life can be a good thing, if you touch it lightly, and don’t try to wallow.

LISE: You’re so inconsistent, Alleyne. All those letters you wrote telling me to accept experience, not to run away from life. And now you say, touch life lightly!

ALLEYNE: Take the light things seriously, and the serious things lightly—the art of living gracefully. An old friend of my father’s used to say that. He was a dear—and his life was graceful.

LISE: I’ll bet he lived and died in good King Edward’s day. How can you do anything these days but grab and grab and grab at happiness… there’s so little time...

ALLEYNE: (Appalled) Do all you children think like that?

LISE: Probably. (Shrugging) I never talk to other people much; it’s what I think…

ALLEYNE: A whole generation who grab and grab at happiness.

LISE: Haven’t people always done that? We happen to be more honest and admit what we’re doing.

ALLEYNE: Selfishness being a virtue?

LISE: We’ve a right to happiness, haven’t we? My generation?

ALLEYNE: Yes—but, darling, that’s not the way, to grab and grab. You against the rest of the world…

LISE: (Coming round the table and kneeling beside Alleyne) Oh, love me, Alleyne, love me… We’d be a tight little core then, and the rest of the world wouldn’t matter…

Alleyne shakes her head slowly

LISE: You do love me, I know… If you would only acknowledge it, let yourself go… Darling, relax… you only need a bit of teaching…

ALLEYNE: (Releasing herself and rising abruptly) Lise, stop! Don’t you understand the whole idea of such an… unnatural obsession nauseates me…

LISE: (Sneering) The love of a good man is so much better, I suppose…

ALLEYNE: Don’t sneer, Lise. Yes, it is—it’s right too.

LISE: Who is this lover of yours? Alleyne, I must know.

ALLEYNE: You must know?

The door bell rings suddenly and insistently. Alleyne stands transfixed for a moment

LISE: And I suppose I will know, now.

Alleyne relaxes slowly. When she speaks, she does so naturally and easily

ALLEYNE: I suppose this will be Robert. Run the tray out, sweet—and powder your nose. You don’t look a bit like a highly successful film-script writer…

She goes off right to the front door. After a moment Lise gets up and rather sullenly wheels the autotray out to the kitchen. Alleyne enters followed by Robert

ALLEYNE: Lise is here.

ROBERT: I didn’t know they’d arrived. When do they open?

ALLEYNE: Not till next week. (Raising her voice) Where are you, Lise? It’s Robert.

Lise comes in slowly from the kitchen

ROBERT: Welcome back, Lise. Congratulations on the film. When are we going to see it here?

LISE: Hullo. God knows when it will get here. Things never do till years after everyone else has finished with them.

ROBERT: Can’t you use your influence?

LISE: My influence! I was less than the dust; I just created the thing. It’ll be a miracle if my name is even mentioned.

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) Lise is seeing the world through dun-coloured glasses tonight.

ROBERT: I thought I noticed something.

LISE: You two always laugh at me. You know, I never suspected it was you.

ALLEYNE: (Sharply) Lise!

ROBERT: Not as obvious as we thought, Alleyne. Evidently our guilty consciences.

Alleyne and Robert smile at each other with the understanding of years

LISE: I suppose you’d like me to go.

ALLEYNE: Don’t be any more childish than you can help.

LISE: (Turning to Robert) Alleyne would like me to behave like a well-brought up girl who does all the right things and never has a thought in her head.

ROBERT: Oh, I don’t know. Some girls behave quite well and still think a lot. My young Nicky does, I know.

LISE: (With a wealth of contempt) Nicky! But then, of course, she’s engaged to one of the right people.

ALLEYNE: If you’re going to be rude, Lise, you’d better go.

LISE: I can’t yet. Gabriel is calling for me.

ALLEYNE: (Her voice warm) Oh, is he? I’ll be so glad to meet him again and really get to know him.

LISE: It’s hopeless anyhow… you simply have nothing in common. Gabriel has no small talk…

ROBERT: How does he entertain you then—glower in silence, or utter great truths?

ALLEYNE: Don’t, Robert. They’re so terribly young.

LISE: Terribly young.

ALLEYNE: And so, so tragic, Robert. Lise and Gabriel really do have a lot in common. Lise feels he is almost a mirror of herself…

ROBERT: Wasn’t that—yes, it was—Narcissus or Echo or something?

LISE: I’ve read Freud too.

ALLEYNE: Putting a label on an attitude doesn’t… well, legalise it. I can’t see how reading Freud helps.

ROBERT: You know at least where your prejudices spring from.

ALLEYNE: It still doesn’t excuse your behaviour.

LISE: By which I suppose you mean that even a psychiatrist can’t cure me.

ALLEYNE: (Tartly) I mean that you can cure yourself, if anyone can.

ROBERT: I didn’t know we were talking about you, Lise.

ALLEYNE: We weren’t really. Lise makes a personal issue of everything.

LISE: On an impersonal plane then—surely it’s a help to know why one feels and does thus and thus.

ROBERT: Only if you use the knowledge to stop yourself from acting thus and thus. As anyone with a weakness for alcohol (He stops for a moment as though he knows of whom he speaks) can, if she—or he—wants to avoid the places where it is.

LISE: You can’t get rid of complexes by ignoring them.

ROBERT: You can by refusing to pamper them—they’re mostly conscious cussedness anyway, with a dash of exhibitionism.

LISE: Of course I’m an exhibitionist… every artist is.

ROBERT: (Judicially) Yes—I think I’ll allow that one.

LISE: And why not? Who wants to be part of the drab mass—look and act like… a potato?

ALLEYNE: I like potatoes.

LISE: But not for every meal.

ALLEYNE: No one could call you one.

LISE: But you and Robert would like me better if I were.

ALLEYNE: I don’t think so, darling. I’d feel happier if you were more like… well, a cabbage, at any rate.

LISE: (Wryly) I’ve given you a fine weapon to point your morals with.

ALLEYNE: I never moralise to anyone else.

LISE: Poor Alleyne, always trying to fill in the gaps in my education. Darling, won’t you ever realise I can teach you far more than you’ll ever teach me...

ROBERT: Are you suggesting Alleyne’s brain is more receptive than yours? You’re probably right.

LISE: You two are so beastly superior—so sure, merely because you’re old. It’s nothing to be proud of...

ALLEYNE: And please don’t add we’re jealous because you’re young. There’s a stage when one pities the young...

ROBERT: This is a dry kind of conversation. Isn’t there a drink in the house?

ALLEYNE: Robert… I am absorbed when I forget your whisky.

She goes over to cabinet, takes out decanter and glasses and puts them on a salver which she brings across and sets on a small table beside Robert’s chair

LISE: (Sotto voice) I can['t] see myself doing that for any man.

ROBERT: Thank you. (Starts to pour out drinks). What will you have, Lise?

LISE: I still haven’t acquired the habit.

ROBERT: Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: The usual, thanks, Robert. Oh, there’s ginger ale in the fridge.

ROBERT: (Getting up and going out to the kitchen) Heathen habit, spoiling good whisky with ginger ale.

(He goes out)

ALLEYNE: Lise… that is the only thing I’ve been able to do for Robert for twenty years… get out a decanter and a glass. Occasionally, since I’ve been here, I’ve cooked a meal for him… The only things I’ve been able to do for the man I love…

LISE: Alleyne—those things don’t matter.

ALLEYNE: But they do, my dear, they do. They’re what living together really means—the little everyday domestic things. The purple patches, the high romantic moments—they’re not half so important in the end.

ROBERT: (Entering with bottle in his hand) Your stock’s getting low. That chocolate stuff in the fridge wasn’t half bad.

ALLEYNE: Tomorrow’s lunch!

LISE: You won’t need it. You’re lunching with us.

The door bell rings

That will be Gabriel now.

ALLEYNE: Do you want to let him in?

LISE: All right. (She goes off right to front door)

ALLEYNE: (Speaking hurriedly) She’s going to marry him…

ROBERT: (Horrified) That dancer bloke…

ALLEYNE: Yes...

She breaks off as Lise comes in followed by Gabriel. He is small and lightly built. His clothes are informal in a studied manner and he moves with the litheness of the ballet dancer

ALLEYNE: How do you do, Gabriel. I am so glad to see you here again. You’ve met Mr. Perceval, haven’t you?

GABRIEL: (Bowing over Alleyne’s hand) It is a pleasure to be back in Australia. How do you do, sir. (Shakes hands with Robert)

ROBERT: Fresh from your American triumphs. Congratulations. When will the film be released?

GABRIEL: Who knows? Never perhaps.

ALLEYNE: You’re as defeatist as Lise, Gabriel.

GABRIEL: She is an apt pupil. Haven’t you found that?

ALLEYNE: Not to me. She takes not the slightest notice of anything I tell her.

GABRIEL:  I could tell a different story.

LISE: Stop discussing me as though I weren’t here. It makes me uncomfortable.

ROBERT: Scared they’ll compare notes, Lise?

LISE: I don’t care what they do.

ALLEYNE: Can’t you help her develop a sense of humour, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: Lise has told you I want to marry her?

ALLEYNE: (A little bit taken aback) We haven’t had much chance to talk yet, but I gathered something like that was in the air.

GABRIEL: You will not stop her?

Robert walks over to the window and draws a curtain aside to look out. He pointedly takes no part in the conversation.

ALLEYNE: I think you overestimate my influence. Of course, I won’t attempt to stop her… provided I feel she will be happy with you.

GABRIEL: And you think she won’t?

ALLEYNE: I don’t know you well enough to say, Gabriel. I think Lise is too young to marry, too inexperienced to know what she wants in a man. But if she really wants to marry you, I certainly won’t even try to stop her. I only want her to be happy.

GABRIEL: I promise you—she will be happy.

ALLEYNE: What do I say now—bless you my children?

LISE: I’m not going to be disposed of as though I’m a…

ROBERT: (Turning round and coming back into the group) Sack of potatoes?

LISE: Oh, please… Alleyne...

ALLEYNE: Darling child, no one is disposing of you. You are still perfectly free to make up your own mind. I’m glad Gabriel has spoken so freely to me… you are such a child.

GABRIEL: She is growing up, Alleyne.

LISE: (In a sudden fever to end the conversation) We must go at once, Gabriel… Robert and Alleyne don’t want us here… We’ve got a rehersal…

ALLEYNE: It’s not much past seven...

GABRIEL: You will have lunch with Lise and me tomorrow?

ALLEYNE: Yes, I’d love to, thank you. Ring me in the morning, Lise...

LISE: Alleyne, Alleyne… go back to what we were talking about when Robert came… Alleyne, what shall I do?

ALLEYNE: The decision rests with you yourself.

LISE: No, no—with you.

ALLEYNE: Marry Gabriel, darling.

For a moment Lise stands tense searching Alleyne’s face. Then she relaxes with a little forlorn gesture.

LISE: Yes… I’ll marry Gabriel...

Alleyne smiles at her with great affection. Lise throws her arms round Alleyne who responds

ALLEYNE: It is the best way.

LISE: No. It couldn’t be worse. But I must do it if you tell me to.

ALLEYNE: I am so sure, Lise.

LISE: Goodbye… oh, goodbye, my darling…

She disengages herself quickly and runs from the room. Gabriel waves goodbye and follows her. Alleyne stands in the same position, tense even after the front door has slammed. After a moment Robert moves forward and places his glass on the small table.

ROBERT: Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: (Coming back from a great distance) I feel as though I have betrayed her.

ROBERT: Don’t get morbid about her, my dear. She’ll be all right once she settles down.

ALLEYNE: I’m afraid it isn’t as easy as that, Robert.

ROBERT: Forget her, Alleyne. That child has been coming between us ever since you met her.

ALLEYNE: Nicky has been coming between us for twenty years.

ROBERT: That has always been the way you wanted it.

ALLEYNE: I know. Although perhaps I’ve always deceived myself and I couldn’t ever have taken you away from Nicky. It may be just as well I didn’t put it to the test.

ROBERT: You’ve been wonderful, Alleyne—always. You’ve made things easy for me when they could have been darned hard. Don’t think I haven’t known… and appreciated it…

ALLEYNE: But was that why I did it… or was it just to evade responsibility, dodge issues… as I’m doing now, with Lise?

ROBERT: What responsibility have you there?

ALLEYNE: The responsibility one has for anyone who loves you, is dependent on you… She puts me on a pedestal, Robert. If I fail her, I will do her great harm. I have to be wise for her… and I’m not really wise at all.

ROBERT: She is a lovely child… and one gets very fond of her in a queer exasperated way. She’s spoiled… great success so early in life, unusual talent that sets her apart. But she dramatizes herself, and she’s got you at the same game.

ALLEYNE: That’s not the whole story, Robert; I wish it were. There’s distortion there. She’s so delicately balanced—with a happy normal home, she’d have been all right, but with her background… (She shrugs) it’s no wonder she’s out of plumb. For a little while, I was afraid I would have to go some of the way with her, get so close to her that I could straighten the twisted places in her mind. This development… falling in love, marrying… has come so much sooner than I expected… I’m worried for fear I’m grasping at it, advising her wrongly merely to protect myself from something I fear, that rather appals me…

ROBERT: You’re right to be appalled. You can’t touch that kind of unnatural business without being… well, affected by it to some extent.

ALLEYNE: A good sensible attitude. A pity one feels it’s pharisaical.

There is a little silence. Then Alleyne shakes herself and speaks in a deprecating whimsical manner

ALLEYNE: Although, perhaps you’re right and I am dramatizing the whole business. You see… it’s the first time in my life I’ve even seemed to be of paramount importance to anyone. Even to you, I’ve always been more of an embarrassment than anything else. For a few months, I’ve had the illusion of being important to Lise… and now I’m giving her the advice that will cut her off from me…

ROBERT: Why should it?

ALLEYNE: I’m hopeless with that crowd… it’s as though our words had different meanings… Perhaps I’m just sentimentalising because I know it will mean losing her…

ROBERT: (Uneasily) I’m sorry this has happened tonight...

ALLEYNE: (Focusing her attention entirely on him) Why ‘tonight’ in that special tone, Robert?

ROBERT: Connie, my dear! She has delivered an ultimatum. Our friendship with you ceases completely, as from tonight.

ALLEYNE: And if not?

ROBERT: Divorce, I suppose—and in the nastiest possible way. Connie has no reticences… she’d want the whole world to know why, and whom… It’s bad, Alleyne… with Nicky’s wedding so close.

ALLEYNE: There’s nothing to do, Rob. Your friendship with me ceases—and that’s that.

ROBERT: You take it very calmly, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: What should I do—rave and scream? I’ve always known the day had to come some time. It’s a relief in a way; it hasn’t been easy to be natural with Connie all these years. The silly part is, Rob… I’m fond of Connie, really fond of her. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have been content to let things just go on and on.

There is a little silence

Robert, how did Connie find out?

ROBERT: You started it yourself, you know. The day you came into this flat…

ALLEYNE: Yes, I remember. Something perverse seemed to get into me that day. It was the same day that Lise walked in…

ROBERT:  I’m sorry she’s going to marry that twerp.

ALLEYNE: He isn’t really… he’s rather sweet. Not strong enough for Lise, too much given to the same kind of storms that sweep her. They’ll be an uneasy pair… Why are you sorry… you’re not suggesting you care what Lise does?

ROBERT: No, not Lise. It was you I was thinking about. I was hoping she’d… well, be an interest…

ALLEYNE: To take your place… (She begins to laugh then gets a bit hysterical and finally starts weeping).

ROBERT: Alleyne darling... for god’s sake, don’t.

ALLEYNE: (Controlling herself a little) Sorry, Robert… it just struck me suddenly that I’ve got to do the proper thing… send Lise to Gabriel… let you go gracefully… because I haven’t any choice…

ROBERT: (Stilling her rising hysteria) No, you haven’t any choice—you being you…

ALLEYNE: Don’t sympathise with me, Rob… I couldn’t bear that…

ROBERT: What will you do now, Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: (Vaguely) You mean now… this evening? Sit here, by myself… as I’ve done so often before—imagining you going… with Connie… into those places where I can’t go with you… Thinking a little of Lise—how sweet it would be to have a daughter… Why didn’t I marry when I was young, Robert? It wasn’t really that I didn’t want to… but now I can’t remember that anyone ever asked me to marry him… nobody [possibly]. There were men, of course, but evidently I wasn’t the marrying kind. Then, of course, there was you…

ROBERT: I’m feeling… pretty terrible about it, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: Darling Robert. It won’t be much different you know—only nothing to look forward to… nothing… (On a sudden note of hysteria) Do you mind going now, Robert… now, at once…

ROBERT: Yes, at once… Alleyne….

He makes as though to take her in his arms but she holds him away stiffly. He takes both her hands in his and presses his face against them for a moment. Then he goes out swiftly. After a moment the front door bangs behind him. Alleyne stands quite still for a while then she deliberately resumes her chair, clasps her hands loosely in her lap. After she has sat quite still for a moment

The curtain falls slowly

Act One

Scene Three

Late summer, rather more than a year later. The back of the flat occupied by Gabriel and Lise.

At right, jutting at an angle on to the stage, a low iron-roofed verandah under which can be seen a square-paned window to the kitchen of the flat. There is a door also into the kitchen at right downstage. The window is open and milk bottles can be seen ranged along the windowsill inside.

Well above the level of the Verandah roof at the back is a street at the top of an ochre limestone wall, edged by an iron railing. At the extreme left, an opening in the railing leads to steps down past the house. At ground level, a gate opens from the steps into the yard of the flat. The steps go on down out of sight behind the corner of the Verandah.

During the action of the scene, people come and go up and down these steps, taking only the slightest cursory interest in what is going on in the yard.

There is a garden to the left containing a large frangipani shrub and a coral tree in full bloom. The stone wall at the back is stained dark brown in places by water seepage and ferns grow in the crevices. On the level space at the back of the house, a small rickety table stands centre. There is a pile of highly coloured Sunday newspapers on the table and sheets of them lie on the ground round Gabriel’s feet. He is dozing in a deckchair. There is another deckchair and in it, a darning basket from which mending is bulging. A couple of other chairs are pushed back under the verandah.

When the curtain rises, Gabriel is dozing with a paper half slipping from his hands. Lise can be seen through the window working in the kitchen. She wrings out a dishcloth and hangs it over the windowsill, then calls out through the window.

LISE: Gabriel, hang this on the line. (Gabriel does not hear her) Gabriel… Oh, damn! (She disappears from window and comes out through door downstage with tea towel in her hand) Gabriel—I wish you’d help a little…

GABRIEL: Eh? (He rouses himself) Did you say something?

LISE: I’ve been calling you to wipe up…

GABRIEL: I dozed off. I’m tired…

LISE: So am I. I do think you could help a little, on Sundays at least.

GABRIEL: Woman’s work, my little Lise.

LISE: I work as hard as you do all the week.

GABRIEL: But… so ineffectively, my darling. 

LISE: (Tightly) You’ve said that every day lately. What are you doing to me, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: Saving you much heartache in the future, perhaps. (He shrugs his shoulders) Who knows?

Lise goes over to a line strung left downstage and hangs the tea towel on it. She comes back slowly and stands looking down at Gabriel for a moment

LISE: (Slowly) I can’t understand you. How can belittling my work, shaking my confidence, save me heartache… what is it you’re trying to do?

GABRIEL: Is this to be another scene… on Sunday afternoon… when I am tired and drowsy with the heat…

LISE: If you would tell me where I am wrong… Why were you so pitying this morning, so falsely ‘interested’? What’s wrong with “Refugee”? (Passionately) You must tell me…

GABRIEL: You force me to be brutal, to hurt you…

LISE: All right. It’s bad. But tell me why… you sneer and destroy… and patronise…

GABRIEL: If you don’t value my opinion, why ask for it?

LISE: (Reluctantly) I do value it… you know that. But your attitude this morning was an insult… it took something out of me, froze me. No one could dance against that. Why, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: The conception was too big… it is beyond your powers, my darling. The little things… the frail, the atmospheric, the—the spirituelle… those are your things. “Refugee” should be stark, brutal—of the earth… the stateless striking back like blind animals at the forces that have dispossessed them…

LISE: But those are my own words… that’s how I described it to you in the beginning. It was there, wasn’t it?

GABRIEL: Oh, pretty pretty. Romanticised, womanised…

LISE: There are times when I hate you, Gabriel.

GABRIEL: Because I criticise. Remember you asked for criticism.

LISE: I wish I could trust you. I feel there is something behind all this… this deliberate pulling down of everything I do… why, why, why?

GABRIEL: (Deprecatingly) Please, Lise… a little peace. All this soul-searching, on Sunday afternoon.

LISE: You’re always evasive—never a straight answer to anything.

GABRIEL: Never the answer you want, perhaps.

There is a short silence. Lise sits moodily on the grass. Gabriel composes himself for dozing again

LISE: It’s something to do with spiting Alleyne.

GABRIEL: (Sitting up suddenly) Ah… Alleyne! Sooner or later, her name crops up.

LISE: You sneer at her all the time. But she is your friend really. I wouldn’t be here with you if it hadn’t been for her…

GABRIEL: And you think that makes me like her more!

LISE: I don’t know where I am. Everything is wrong and horrible.

GABRIEL: Why do you stay with me, why, I say? ... With your heart and mind full of that woman...

LISE: (Scornfully) You’re jealous of her. (Gabriel makes no answer and after a moment, Lise relaxes) How can I strengthen it… harshness, brutality… Angularity would help, but I hate lines that are not fluid…

GABRIEL: You use a childish language of your own, Lise.

LISE: You know what I mean.

GABRIEL: Yes, but it makes it difficult to take you seriously.

LISE: They didn’t think so in Hollywood.

GABRIEL: (Shrugging) They thought you were ‘cute’. It all comes to the same thing. That naiveté is all right when one is eighteen… it becomes ridiculous in a married woman.

LISE: What has being married got to do with it? I wish you would stop evading and give me a straight answer for once. What are you trying to do to me—stop me from dancing? … From writing? I thought loving you, belonging to you, would make me safe, secure. Instead I feel more unsettled, more rootless than ever. What is it you want from me?

GABRIEL: (Forced reluctantly into answering her seriously) I think honestly that you waste valuable time on these little ballets of yours. They are nothing—quaint fancies perhaps, but valueless. When you were a child, they were interesting, promising, but the promise was all. There is no fulfilment. If you stop now, there will be no disillusionment. Besides… I have… other plans for you…

LISE:  Ah!

GABRIEL: I have decided to leave the company, to stay here when they go back to Europe. I shall set up my own school here—yes, there is money here; the people are ripe for ballet. I shall teach, and you, with a little training, you will be a good teacher for the children. We will make a lot of money, eh, my little Lise?

LISE: Teach! I couldn’t teach!

GABRIEL: You will learn how. I will show you—and for that, it is better that your head is not filled with ideas of being a great choreographer.

LISE: I see. (Hopelessly, tonelessly) Well, at least we know where we are.

GABRIEL: You will be glad yet that I stopped you...

LISE: I suppose if you killed me now, I should thank you for saving me from old age.

GABRIEL: It is useless to discuss things with you. You take refuge always in exaggeration…

LISE: You can’t do this to me, Gabriel—you can’t—everything I’ve ever done or been has been for this one reason. You can’t take it away from me—just like that—

GABRIEL: It is what I have decided. Do not worry, my darling—there will be other things. You will not miss the company after a while. You will have our home, a child, perhaps… yes, a child. You would like that, eh?

LISE: You know how I feel about having children—that is one thing you did discuss with me. You talked about it to Alleyne too… or have you conveniently forgotten that? You promised you would not expect that till I was ready…

GABRIEL: You never will be ready until you stop thinking of dancing… until you cease to see yourself as someone with a mission.

LISE: (Almost to herself) A mission—a mission to dance, a mission to breathe—a mission to be alive… Does Alleyne know all this… is this what you were talking about the other night?

GABRIEL: Alleyne will approve anything that keeps you in Sydney, you know.

LISE: I can’t believe that. She wants me to develop… she believes in me… The whole plan is ridiculous (She is rapidly becoming hysterical)

GABRIEL: She would believe in you if you started a new religion. Alleyne is not capable of judging… she thinks your ballets are “sweet” or “quaint”…

LISE: That isn’t true. She judges with her emotions, not her mind… She believes in me.

GABRIEL: You said that before… and it still means the same. Alleyne is like an indulgent mamma… she admires everything you do, because it is you who does it….

LISE: You’d take that from me too… Alleyne’s belief in me... Oh god, you take everything away… (She starts to weep dismally, rocking herself backwards and forwards) You leave me nothing…

GABRIEL: I tell you the truth. Is it my fault that you’re too immature to take it?

In the street above Natasha, Vera and Serge have appeared. They come down the steps talking animatedly and their voices overwhelm Lise’s

LISE: Sooner or later, it comes back to that—I am too young. But not too young to live with you… to bear your children… oh, no!

VERA: (As they open the gate and enter the yard)… and that is what I told him. So, so, I say, even Maurice is to do as he is told? We shall see…

SERGE: Brava, brava.

NATASHA: Do not encourage her, Serge. She is already too worked up… Stop them, Gabriel… All lunch they talk and talk and talk...

LISE: I wish you’d all stop. You all do nothing but talk and talk and talk.

GABRIEL: My little Lise is bad tempered this afternoon. She wants us to sit round and admire. Lise Farra—the great choreographer.

LISE: Gabriel, you are hateful.

VERA: Your ballet is not bad. Me, I could dance it if I were a man. I feel it here—

GABRIEL: Yes, woman stuff. That is what I tell Lise. It is womanised—sugar, where it should be steel.

NATASHA: It has the feeling. Lise knows how it is to be homeless, to be not belonging. It is there, the feeling.

LISE: Gabriel says it isn’t. He says it is pretty pretty.

GABRIEL: (Speaking with great distinctness) I said it should be stark, brutal…

LISE: (Sarcastically) Ah, yes, the stateless striking back like dumb animals. Perhaps you would like guns in it.

SERGE: Ah, guns—or aeroplanes spraying bullets…

LISE: Perhaps you would like a battle too—you could carry popguns and go round at each other. Pop. Pop. Pop—Tch. … what’s the good of talking to you, any of you dancers, that’s all you are. A pirouette—an arabesque—first position—third position—that’s all you understand...

NATASHA: (Nodding her head with satisfaction) She has the temperament, our little Lise…

GABRIEL: Temperament without technique’s no good, Natasha—you know that.

LISE: He means you’ve got the technique but not the temperament, Natasha. He won’t allow that anyone can do anything—except the great Gabriel, of course.

GABRIEL: (Laughing lazily) Lise is angry with me. I criticised—the unforgivable sin, eh, Lise?

LISE: (Somberly) I don’t mind criticism.

She walks over to the other side of the garden and drops down cross legged on the lawn, her back to the others

VERA: If I were Lise, I would give you one helluva blow on the ear, Gabby.

GABRIEL: Is that how you treat Serge?

VERA: Sometimes… sometimes, when he is difficult… my Serge.

NATASHA: Don’t believe her, Gabriel. She is afraid of Serge.

SERGE: Me, I am the big bad bold husband, eh?

GABRIEL: Your English improves, Serge.

VERA: He learned that from the little waitress at the hotel, did you not, Serge my husband?

SERGE: See how she is afraid of me.

LISE: (Talking more or less to herself) It wasn’t meant to be only the war refugees. There are all the other stateless people too—the spiritual refugees—in neither one world nor the other—running away from themselves, from life—the misfits, the outcasts. The war refugees, they pass; the others remain… always, always, stateless, rootless...

NATASHA: The poor ones!

VERA: It was there, Lise. Do not believe Gabriel. He is jealous. Before you came, there was only Gabriel to compose—now, he is jealous.

LISE: He isn’t jealous—not of me, Vera. But I don’t trust him. He is trying to do something to me, and I don’t understand what it is, or why.

NATASHA: He is a man. So he must dominate. It is just that, Lise.

LISE: No, it isn’t just that. I could understand that. He’s trying to take my self-confidence, I think—aren’t you, Gabriel? But why? But why?

GABRIEL: I tell you the truth. Would you rather I lied to you—filled you with foolish conceit? I love you too much for that, Lise.

LISE: Love me? You’re in love with me—that’s not the same. It’s a pity we’re so much in love—because underneath, we really hate each other. There’s never any peace between us…

SERGE: There is no peace ever between lovers, Lise… Always tension—always war…

LISE: It shouldn’t be like that… Surely love should be peace… and safety… and trust…

GABRIEL: Trust! Trust must be given.

LISE: (Passionately) I cannot trust you, Gabriel. There is something in you that is not true to me…

GABRIEL: The something is in yourself. You give only part of yourself… always the barrier is there between us.

LISE: What barrier?

GABRIEL: (Sullenly) You know…

VERA: (Brightly) Yes, where is the friend? I thought she would be here congratulating you. She crept away this morning, crying. Me, I cried too.

GABRIEL: What does she know about ballet?

LISE: Enough to cry when she is moved.

GABRIEL: An old hen with one chicken.

LISE: Why do you hate her so? She is a good friend to you.

GABRIEL: She is no friend…

VERA: You will have to be stopping talking about her. Here she is coming…

Alleyne appears at the top of the steps and walks down slowly as though uncertain of her welcome. Lise gets up from the grass with a little cry and runs forward to the foot of the steps to meet her

LISE: Darling, you went away this morning without speaking to me.

ALLEYNE: I wanted to think about the ballet before I talked to you—you know how slowly my mind works. Hullo, Gabriel. (To the others vaguely)How do you do.

VERA: (Who has no inhibitions) You cannot pronounce our names. It is better you call us Natasha and Serge and me, Vera.

ALLEYNE: I always do call you by your Christian names when I talk to Lise. But I’m a fool with foreign names—too self-conscious to try to say them...

GABRIEL: (Aggressively) You have come to tell Lise how wonderful she is.

ALLEYNE: (Taken back by his hostility) I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t think so. But I did think “Refugee” was good. It made me feel… desolate.

NATASHA: Yes, that is the word… desolate.

GABRIEL: It was bad. The music will do—good orchestration will strengthen it. But the choreography—bad. There is no other word for that.

LISE: The great god Gabriel has spoken.

ALLEYNE: But why, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: How can I explain to you? You know nothing about ballet...

ALLEYNE: (Mildly) I’m learning. I am, at any rate, the average ‘ballet fan’. My reaction should be worth something.

GABRIEL: It is a matter of experience, of standards...

ALLEYNE: Yes, I suppose it is. One can only criticise in terms of one’s own experience.

GABRIEL: (Rudely) You can only criticise from the heart.

ALLEYNE: Perhaps. Still… I have some criticism.

LISE: Yes. What?

ALLEYNE: The pas de deux… you intended it as the fight between the free man and the dictator… organised authority… didn’t you?

LISE: Yes. Well, what?

ALLEYNE: (Hesitantly) It seemed to me to be too much on the physical plane; almost a sexual fight... I can’t suggest how you can alter it… I just felt it was too… graceful, not inevitable enough. Sorry, I can’t be more definite…

GABRIEL: (Putting a world of scorn into the words) The whole thing was too graceful.

ALLEYNE: (Still mild) So my criticism wasn’t altogether negligible.

SERGE: Natasha did that. She makes the movement, but she never think.

ALLEYNE: Don’t you mind—being criticised like that?

NATASHA: Not at all. Serge would not know the good dancing. Me… no, I do not mind.

LISE: What else, Alleyne… what other faults did you find?

ALLEYNE: (Laughing) With my heart? I rather quarrelled with the grouping at the end—they were too huddled, too orderly. I felt they should have been more… disintegrated… giving more a feeling of lack of direction. But then perhaps that would violate some ballet convention… would it?

SERGE: (Springing up and taking up a dancing position) It is in the posture. In their minds, it should be…

GABRIEL: You can’t have people straying all over the stage.

VERA: The desolation… it is here… in the droop of the arms… so… (She takes up an attitude)

In the street above them, two or three people have stopped to watch them. They are joined by others who stand looking down on them curiously. Alleyne has her back to them, does not notice them

GABRIEL: Never mind “Refugee”. I’ll have to think about it. Perhaps it will be possible to do something with it.

LISE: It is mine… you cannot touch it. Or are you trying to take that from me too?

ALLEYNE: What do you mean, Lise? What is Gabriel taking from you?

LISE: My self-confidence…

GABRIEL: (Interrupting) Oh, stop bellyaching. Get us a drink, Lise.

LISE: (Going nevertheless out through the kitchen door) It is true… I hate you, Gabriel.

In the background, Serge, Natasha and Vera go on discussing the ballet, explaining movements and gestures to each other

ALLEYNE: What does Lise mean, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: She is no good, Alleyne. It is not good to let her go on wasting her time, making out she is an artist. Tell her the truth… it is better in the end.

ALLEYNE: You wouldn’t be jealous of her, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: Jealous! I? Of Lise?

ALLEYNE: I think Lise has great talent. It is delicate, elusive… very individual. Yes, I think you might quite easily be jealous of her. She’ll never be a firstclass ballerina—she hasn’t the technique—even I can see that. But her choreography is good. You’ll be doing a very great wrong if you stop her. I am frightened of what could happen if you do that...

GABRIEL: (Sullenly) She’ll have no time for it soon.

ALLEYNE: What do you mean?

Lise re-enters by kitchen door, carrying one bottle of beer under her arm, another in one hand and in the other a tray on which are five glasses of odd shapes and sizes

SERGE: (Immediately leaving the group and coming over to Lise) Ah, beer. Iced beer is good on a hot day.

Lise sets tray on table. Serge opens a bottle and starts to pour the beer. Natasha comes and takes a glass, Vera comes over to table

VERA: One, two, three, four, five. You have not brought enough glasses, Lise. We are six.

She goes off through kitchen door. Lise has gone moodily away from the group

SERGE: M’selle Manning… beer? (He takes glass to Alleyne)

ALLEYNE: Thank you, Serge. Gabriel, what did you mean, that she won’t have time?

GABRIEL: I have other plans.

ALLEYNE: You can’t do anything that will take Lise away from her dancing. (Startled) There aren’t any… complications?

VERA: (Coming out from kitchen with glass in her hand) Lise, you little pig. You do not wash up. This glass on the studio shelf… all dusty and sticky...

LISE: (Springing up and rushing over to Vera) Not that glass—oh, no, Vera. Not that glass.

VERA: (Holding it up out of Lise’s reach) Why? What glass is it?

GABRIEL: (Springing up and taking it from Vera. He dashes it into the garden)       That for the glass! I have had enough, you understand. I have had enough.

LISE: (Sinking down on her knees and endeavouring to gather up the pieces) It is broken… oh, oh… it is broken. I can never put it together…

VERA: I did not know, Lise…

GABRIEL: (Fiercely) It went with us everywhere… to America, to England, and back to America. Everywhere, that filthy glass goes with us. Now, it is finished.

ALLEYNE: What is going on? What’s it all about?

LISE: It was your glass, Alleyne—the one you drank from that first night… it is broken… it is broken (She scrabbles about on the ground gathering up the fragments)

GABRIEL: Leave it alone. (He pulls at her shoulder) Leave it alone…

LISE: I hate you… you beast, you unspeakable beast. Don’t touch me…

GABRIEL: Will you stop! Stop it, I say.

Lise goes on picking up the glass and suddenly Gabriel brings his foot down on her hand

LISE: Oh!

ALLEYNE: Gabriel... Gabriel (she runs across to Lise who has stood up and is nursing her hand) Gabriel, how could you!

LISE: (Moaning) Take me away, Alleyne… take me away...

ALLEYNE: Darling… is your hand hurt? (She is rattled by all the sudden flare up of passion and shows her uncertainty)

VERA: That was… naughty, really naughty, Gabby.

GABRIEL: You shut up and keep out of it.

VERA: Indeed, I will not. You are jealous—but you should not hurt her…

ALLEYNE: (Seizing on one word) Jealous!

NATASHA: But, yes. It is not her fault that she loves you more than him, poor little Lise.

ALLEYNE: (Still bewildered) Jealous—of me?

LISE: He is stupid with jealousy. Take me away from him, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: But… Lise, you are his wife.

GABRIEL: She’s no wife of mine.

ALLEYNE: You can’t put off a wife just by words, Gabriel.

VERA: So. It is as I said. The friend, she does not know.

ALLEYNE: What is all this?

GABRIEL: She is not my wife.

ALLEYNE: Lise, you must tell me. What does he mean?

LISE: (Sullenly) What he says. We aren’t married.

ALLEYNE: But you told me… you wrote to me…

LISE: (Shrugging) You would have made a fuss… you’re so conventional and proper…

ALLEYNE: (Grimly) YOU can leave my conventionality out of it. Why… what was the need? (No one answers her and after a moment she goes on) Whose idea was it—yours or Gabriel’s?

GABRIEL: It was hers. I would have married her…

LISE: That isn’t true—you talked and promised, but you meant none of it. It was all lies—all lies... You always found excuses…

ALLEYNE: Is that true, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: (Avoiding her eyes) What man wants to be tied to a slattern like Lise. She can’t even keep a room clean…

ALLEYNE: This is terrible… I didn’t dream… (Wearily) You had better come home with me, Lise...

LISE: Oh, darling Alleyne... (She goes to put her arms around Alleyne who evades her) Oh, you are angry...

ALLEYNE: I’m too bewildered to know… If I could only understand!

LISE: (sullenly) You did not want me… What else was there for me to do?

ALLEYNE: (Helplessly) You could have gone on as you were… but it’s no use talking now. You can stay with me till we decide what can be done…

GABRIEL: If she goes, she goes… completely. From the company as well…

LISE: You can’t do that to me, Gabriel.

ALLEYNE: Lise, be quiet. There’s no need to be vindictive—or melodramatic, Gabriel.

LISE: He’s been scheming and scheming to do this, Alleyne—to take my work away from me. It is only an excuse; whether I go or stay, he will do that.

ALLEYNE: I can’t cope with all this. It’s beyond me. But you can’t stay here, Lise—that’s unthinkable...

LISE: I would rather be with you than anywhere else on earth.

ALLEYNE: It isn’t quite as simple as that…

GABRIEL: (Coming over close to Lise)       If you go, you do not come back—you understand?

LISE: You are a bully, Gabriel… I was right not to marry you and put myself in your power forever...

GABRIEL: I didn’t need to marry you…

LISE: You unspeakable, rotten little toad… (She rushes and slaps him furiously across the face)

ALLEYNE: Lise… (She turns round and sees the interested spectators on the street above) Oh, Lise—come away, come away…

She draws the girl away from Gabriel. Lise turns to her and starts to cry. Alleyne puts her arm around her and draws her into the house. Gabriel stands apart in a sullen attitude while the three dancers grotesquely mimic their actions sur les pointes…

As the curtain falls

Act Two

Scene One

Three months later. Alleyne’s flat. The time is evening.

Alleyne is in a very tailored skirt, shirt and tie and is reading a newspaper.

Lise is working, sitting on the floor in front of the fire with several sheets of music manuscript spread round her. She hums the same phrase over and over again, making annotations on the score from time to time. Suddenly, she throws her pencil down with a gesture of disgust.

ALLEYNE: Isn’t it coming out right?

LISE: Don’t be fatuous, darling.

ALLEYNE: It’s a perfectly natural question, not fatuous at all.

LISE: You make me feel like an infant prodigy—as though my work were a hobby—stamps, or moths, or autographs...

ALLEYNE: (Dryly) I gather it isn’t going well.

LISE: How can it go well? I need the stimulus of the others round me… someone to help me try it out...

ALLEYNE: There is no need for you to cut yourself off so much from the company… I’m sure they’d try it out if you asked…

LISE: Ask Gabriel! No, thank you.

ALLEYNE: You’re silly to be so hostile, Lise.

LISE: It’s you who are silly to be taken in by Gabriel. You believe everything he tells you. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been seeing him…

ALLEYNE: I had tea with him one afternoon. How did you know?

LISE: I followed you.

ALLEYNE: What an extraordinary thing to do! You only had to ask me where I was going and I’d have told you. What made you do that?

LISE: I knew you were up to something. He rang you, didn’t he? And you went to tea with him and talked about me.

ALLEYNE: Yes. I enjoyed it too. Although we didn’t talk all the time about you by any means. In fact, I quite like him without your edginess between us.

LISE: What did he say? Or (Sarcastically) is it confidential?

ALLEYNE: Don’t be any sillier than you can help. He was quite reasonable—asked me to use my influence with you, so that you behave a bit better at rehearsal. He was serious, Lise. He says you simply can’t go on as you’re doing. The whole company is at sixes and sevens through your uncertain temper, and Boris is at the end of his patience.

LISE: So it’s Boris now, is it? Never Gabriel, whose every gesture and word is an insult…

ALLEYNE: You make me quite angry when you talk like that. As far as I can see, Gabriel is behaving very well indeed. After all, it can’t be easy for him. If you had left him for another man, he would have had everyone’s sympathy. As it is, his manhood is affronted… (She realises that though Lise is looking at her, she is not listening)

Lise jumps up and stands in front of Alleyne, pushing her hair back flat on either side of her head.

LISE: I think you must have your hair cut very short. It would suit you—bring out the strength of your cheek bones.

ALLEYNE: I have no intention of having short hair. Nor of wearing slacks, for that matter.

LISE: Why not?

ALLEYNE: Because I haven’t the right figure for them. They’re ugly on anyone but slim, small women.

LISE: It doesn’t matter what they look like. They’re a symbol… a kind of badge...

ALLEYNE: A badge I refuse to flaunt.

LISE: Darling, you’re terribly stuffy and Edwardian, aren’t you?

ALLEYNE: Never mind my stuffiness; we’ve been over that before. Let’s return to my talk with Gabriel. I’m afraid, Lise. You wouldn’t like to be dropped when they go to New Zealand… and from what he said, I think that might happen.

LISE: He threatened that, did he?

ALLEYNE: He didn’t threaten at all…

LISE: My dear Alleyne, what a babe you are! Gabriel turns Boris round his little finger—you ought to know that by now— and Gabriel is just getting his alibi ready. He never intended me to go to New Zealand; I knew that all along… Why else do you think they’ve delayed renewing my contract? I knew what he was up to… so I got in first.

ALLEYNE: What do you mean?

LISE: I resigned yesterday. The company goes to New Zealand without me…

ALLEYNE: Lise! Why didn’t you tell me you intended to...

LISE: Don’t you want me here with you?

ALLEYNE: Of course I do, you silly child. But that’s quite beside the point. The ballet’s your life and your work. (Diffidently) What are you going to live on… or have you enough left from your Hollywood money?

LISE: (Sullenly) Of course there’s none of that left. I didn’t get much… Boris and Gabriel saw to that.

ALLEYNE: But… I understood…

LISE: You understood what you wanted to understand… you’re such an absolute innocent. It’s only got to be a man who tells you something, and you believe it.

ALLEYNE: (With heat) That’s utter nonsense, Lise.

LISE: Darling, now your feelings are wounded. I wish you weren’t so easily hurt… Can’t I stay on here—it’s heaven to be with you, away from all the petty jealousies and the endless bickering…

ALLEYNE: I love to have you… (Uneasily) but my income isn’t very big… it won’t really stretch to two.

LISE: (Eagerly) We can be frightfully economical. I’ll do the marketing; I’m much better at that than you are—you just pay whatever you’re asked and never bargain.

ALLEYNE: I hate haggling over pennies.

LISE: You won’t have to in future... I’ll do all that...

ALLEYNE: (Still uneasy) But you can’t just do nothing, darling.

LISE: I’ll go on working… there are other companies.

ALLEYNE: Well… we’ll see first what happens. They may not accept your resignation.

LISE: They’ll accept it all right; Gabriel has been trying to ease me out of the company ever since Hollywood. He’s hellishly jealous. As long as he could pick my brains and take what he wanted of mine, everything sailed along very nicely. At first... It was all right… I was his pupil... He did teach me a lot, at first… but when I found my feet, when the things were my own, mine entirely from the conception right on, he still wanted to go on taking the credit. Once I dropped to what he was doing and started fighting for the credit that was due to me… ah, that was another thing. It was different then… Gabriel was going to leave the company… Gabriel was going to start a ballet school and turn me—me!—into a teacher for the little ones.

ALLEYNE: He still hasn’t abandoned that idea, you know. It really is close to his heart.

LISE: He has got you in! Do you believe that nonsense?

ALLEYNE: (Spiritedly) Yes, I do believe it. I think he is quite genuine when he says he wants to marry you and settle down. He wants a home and a family—why shouldn’t I believe him? It’s a very natural thing for a man to want.

LISE: Ordinary men, perhaps—dull clots of business men who put on striped pants and go to an office every day. But even you ought to see that Gabriel’s not like that—he’s a dancer.

ALLEYNE: Perhaps he feels his dancing career won’t last much longer. He’s getting too old—soon he won’t be good enough for the three Ivans… (Hastily as Lise is about to interrupt) I’m quoting his own words; it’s not my opinion. For what that’s worth, I think he’s dancing superbly… as well as he ever did.

LISE: (Simply) He is, too. He’s the only one of us all that is really good. Serge could be, but he’s too lazy. The rest… (she shrugs her shoulders) If we were any good, do you think we’d be here? We’d be in London, Paris, New York…

ALLEYNE: Lise, you can never leave the company—you know that. It’s in every word you say—you’re part of it… you think of yourself always as part of it... You can’t just casually cut off what has been your whole life for so many years...

LISE: But I must. I can’t go on. It’s like a great weight bearing down on me, stifling every bit of individuality… I feel unreal… like a puppet...

ALLEYNE: (Uneasily) I know that feeling of unreality... Of being jerked on strings by other people’s hands...

LISE: (Seizing her advantage)   If I stay with them, I’ll no longer be a person. You do understand, leaving the company is the only way…. to save my soul alive...

ALLEYNE: To save your soul… alive… it sounds so melodramatic...

LISE: What other way is there to say it?

ALLEYNE: All right. Leave the company if you must… and we’ll see how things work out.

LISE: (Immediately on the crest of the wave) Darling Alleyne… it will be so wonderful to be always together… I’ll make you happy…

The door bell rings

ALLEYNE: Are you expecting anyone?

LISE: Of course I’m not.

ALLEYNE: Who could it be then?

LISE: Why not go and see?

ALLEYNE: (Laughing) How stupid I’m being! But the bell ringing just at that moment startled me.

She goes out left to front door. Lise sits down again among her sheets of paper and is studiedly busy with them when Alleyne returns followed by Robert

ALLEYNE: (Unnecessarily) It’s Robert.

LISE: Oh! Hullo.

ROBERT: Hullo, Lise. I didn’t expect to find you here.

LISE: Why not? I live here.

ROBERT: (Nonplussed) I—I thought I heard you were married.

LISE: Oh, that. That’s all washed up.

ROBERT: Oh. Divorced?

LISE: (Flatly) No.

ALLEYNE: Sit down, Robert. You’ll have a drink, won’t you? I think there’s some whisky.

ROBERT: Just a small one. I’m going a bit slow on it lately.

ALLEYNE: Really. Why? (She gets out drinks)

ROBERT: Caught sight of myself in a mirror one day… No, I suppose I’ve… stopped trying to run away from reality.

ALLEYNE: (Sincerely)   I was terribly distressed about Nicky, Robert. I wrote to Connie—did you know?—but she didn’t answer. I scarcely expected her to.

ROBERT: She was in hospital for a long time round about then.

ALLEYNE: I’m sorry… I didn’t know she’d been ill. What was wrong? (She brings Robert his drink)

ROBERT: Thank you. A kind of general collapse… (A bit uneasily) all these things came at a bad time for Connie.

LISE: (Who continues all the time to work at her music) What became of Nicky’s brat?

ALLEYNE: Lise!

ROBERT: (Equably) He was buried with his mother.

LISE: (For once a little nonplussed) Oh—I didn’t know it died too.

ALLEYNE: And Nicky’s husband? He was such a nice lad, I thought.

ROBERT: He married again almost immediately.

ALLEYNE: Had Connie been ill before that… or did Nicky’s death start it?

ROBERT: She’s been ill off and on for a long time… losing Nicky finished it… (After a little pause) She doesn’t like the girl Robbie’s married.

ALLEYNE: I saw the account of his wedding in the papers. Quite a splash, wasn’t it?

ROBERT: Darned vulgar performance, if you ask me. Connie rather blamed me for that too… I introduced him to the girl…

ALLEYNE: And is Connie better now?

ROBERT: I really don’t know. I haven’t seen her for months…

ALLEYNE: But…

ROBERT: You evidently don’t read your Sunday papers, Alleyne. Our divorce went through last week...

ALLEYNE: Oh, Rob… I had no idea.

LISE: I knew.

ALLEYNE: Why didn’t you tell me?

LISE: Didn’t give it a thought. In any case, your interest would be purely academic.

ALLEYNE: Don’t be ridiculous. Connie and Robert are my oldest friends… I’m... miserable about that, Rob… I thought things might go straight.

ROBERT: Don’t feel guilty, Alleyne. Nicky was the core—when she went there was nothing left. You know what a detached young savage Robbie is; neither Connie nor I have ever mattered the slightest bit to him. If he’d been—well, even remotely interested in his mother, she might not have felt Nicky’s loss so much. But you know how it is these days. You can’t thrust loyalties into children...

LISE:   Why should children be loyal? They don’t ask to be born...

ROBERT: There’s a fallacy there—but I know that’s the fashionable belief among the younger generation.

LISE: When parents start talking about the “younger generation” in that tone of voice, you know instinctively the younger generation is being blamed for being what its parents have made it.

ROBERT: (Suddenly desperate) I’d rather hoped for a quiet talk with you, Alleyne.

LISE: There’s nothing about Alleyne that doesn’t concern me too.

ROBERT: Still trying to act the enfant terrible, Lise? Isn’t it time you grew up a bit?

ALLEYNE: We could go… into the kitchen, Robert… or the bedroom; there’s nowhere else.

LISE: (Gathering up her papers angrily) All right, I’ll get out.

The other two watch her as she stalks into the bedroom and ostentatiously closes the door. Then they look at each other and start to laugh

ALLEYNE: (Ruefully) I do apologise, Rob… Lise doesn’t know any ordinary movements—they’re always drama.

ROBERT: Melodrama. She wants spanking.

ALLEYNE: Rather late in the day for that, I’m afraid. (They laugh again) Oh, it’s good to laugh. We live on a very intense plane. Life is real, life is earnest, and a sense of humour is quite too suburban. Still, I’ll have her under my eye for a while, and who knows—I may be able even to teach her to laugh.

ROBERT: She’s living here with you?

ALLEYNE: It started as a temporary arrangement, but she’s left the company now… I don’t know what she is going to do for a living and I can hardly turn her out into the street… (She is silent for a moment thinking about Lise) She’s such a silly, frightened, undeveloped child under all that façade, Rob… but you didn’t come here to talk about Lise. It’s wonderful to see you… I’ve missed you so much…

ROBERT: Yes. I know. It hasn’t been easy all this time—almost two years… I didn’t realise how much I’d depended on your sanity... and understanding. I’d have given anything to talk things over with you, time after time… but I did try to straighten things out with Connie; I honestly did, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: One can’t go back along the road. They ought to drill that into us when we’re young. “I pass this way but once…” What happened—about Nicky, Rob?

ROBERT: There were complications right from the beginning; but... you know what Nicky was. She would never admit defeat, and she was determined to have the child… poor kid! You know the things that go on in your mind at such a time… you try to make bargains with God… and with Death.

ALLEYNE: Oh, Rob.

ROBERT: I’d put too much into her, and when she went, I was sunk. It broke Connie completely too... And by that time, we’d got too far apart to be of any use to each other…

ALLEYNE: I wanted so much to help you both… I think I thought of Connie most… you and Nicky had always rather shut her out… (A little silence) But when she didn’t answer my letter, I couldn’t thrust myself on her. If she still felt badly about me, that would only have made matters worse. You were quite right to keep away from me...

ROBERT: Connie had… well, plenty of grounds for divorcing me…

ALLEYNE: (A bit flatly) Oh, did she? Who?

ROBERT: No one in particular—just the usual hotel bills... I could have supplied dozens. (Bitterly) A nasty sordid way to end something that should have been good and clean… I know it was my fault mostly… and I’m not proud of myself. In fact, I suppose I shouldn’t expect to come back to you now.

ALLEYNE: Is that… what you’re doing?

ROBERT: If you’ll have me.

ALLEYNE: This is… rather a shock, Robert.

ROBERT: I don’t know why it should be. I’ve come the moment I decently could. You’ve been on my conscience always.

ALLEYNE: Why? After all, I was not a child… No, that doesn’t seem a sufficient reason...

ROBERT: There hadn’t been anyone before me...

ALLEYNE: No; and—strangely—there never has been anyone else. Is it only because I’m on your conscience?

ROBERT: Twenty years ago I said you were the woman I should have married—or don’t you remember?

ALLEYNE: Yes, I remember. But there was no possibility then of its coming true.

ROBERT: So you didn’t believe it?

ALLEYNE: I thought it was just one of those—tactful things men say under the circumstances.

ROBERT: No. I meant it.

ALLEYNE: Twenty years ago. I would have been in the seventh heaven if I’d know it was the truth. (Uneasily) But I’m a different person now, Rob. I was—I suppose—safe, and undemanding, then. I wouldn’t be satisfied with crumbs now.

ROBERT: I’m not offering you crumbs, my dear, but the whole table—such as it is. I’m twenty years different too.

ALLEYNE: I never was very exciting…I’m less so now.

ROBERT: You’re sane and serene… and I need sanity and serenity. Am I being selfish? Taking from you again more than I can ever give in return, as I used to… but I honestly don’t think so. No, I’d like to square the account a bit…

ALLEYNE: Rob, I’m sorry… but I just don’t feel anything. What am I to say?

ROBERT: There’s no need for you to say anything, yet. As long as you know what is in my mind...

ALLEYNE: And your heart?

ROBERT: And in my heart, Alleyne.

He starts to put his arms round her and draw her towards him when the bedroom door is flung open and Lise erupts into the room. She crosses to the rug and begins to scratch round on it

LISE: I’m not interrupting your love scene. I had to have my rubber. Ah, here it is.

ROBERT: We won’t let you interrupt us, anyway. If I want to kiss Alleyne, I will.

He kisses Alleyne. Lise crouches on the floor watching them

LISE: Alleyne, do you want him to kiss you?

ALLEYNE: Yes… I think I do.

LISE: Oh, no… no.

ALLEYNE: (Patiently) Why, my dear? It’s quite natural, to like being kissed.

LISE: No… it’s revolting…

ROBERT: (Sarcastically) Thank you.

LISE: Oh, you would take it personally.

ROBERT: How else can one take a remark like that?

LISE: Men are so gross…

ALLEYNE: Don’t start all that again, Lise. We’ve been over it so often before.

LISE: And you agreed with me.

ALLEYNE: No...

LISE: (Quickly) You did, Alleyne. You know you did.

ALLEYNE: You twist what one says.

ROBERT: In any case, it’s no business of yours, Lise, what Alleyne does.

LISE: I said before and I say it again; whatever concerns Alleyne concerns me.

ALLEYNE: (Seeing the situation getting away from her) Lise, Robert and I are probably going to be married.

LISE: Oh, no… oh, no, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: You know we have loved each other for a long time.

LISE: (Moaning) No… No… I can’t bear it...

ROBERT: This is ridiculous. What’s wrong with the girl?

LISE: (Hysterically) There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing at all… Just my whole life falling in ruins… but there’s nothing wrong with me...

ALLEYNE: (Sharply) Really, Lise… what a stupid thing to say...

LISE: Oh, god… what is to become of me? What is to become of me?

ROBERT: You could go back to your… (Alleyne stops him with a gesture)

ALLEYNE: Please, Lise, no dramatics. Nothing is altered.

LISE: (Wildly) Everything is altered… Everything, I tell you. Alleyne, I need you so much… Don’t, don’t go away from me now… I need you more than ever now…

ALLEYNE: (Half exasperated) I’m not going away from you, as you call it, now, this minute. (her attention suddenly caught by Lise’s intonation) Why do you say ‘now’ in that tone of voice?

ROBERT: The lady puts on a fine act.

ALLEYNE: I’m afraid this is real. Why ‘now’ particularly, Lise?

LISE: (Dully) There’s nothing at all left. (She seems to be speaking to herself. Alleyne goes to her and forces Lise to look at her)

ALLEYNE: Lise, you must tell me. What do you mean?

LISE: (Bursting out suddenly)   I didn’t resign… they dropped me… (In between sobs) No money… nothing… nobody left to care… may as well be dead too.

ROBERT: (Across her head to Alleyne)   Who’s dead?

Alleyne shakes her head

ALLEYNE: You said yourself there are other companies, other places you can work. Stop crying, darling. I won’t let you starve… neither will Robert.

LISE: He’ll change you… They always do.

ALLEYNE: (Sharply, insistently) Who is dead, Lise?

LISE: (In a rising wail) Daddy’s dead… he hanged himself…

ROBERT:  Good god! Do you think it’s true?

ALLEYNE: Oh, my dear… When did you hear? I don’t understand…

LISE: (Controlling herself a little) I knew he’d died… I had a cable… and a letter today… He hanged himself…

ROBERT: Poor kid!

ALLEYNE: You should have told me, Lise… (To Robert) I had no idea… she seemed happy enough before you came in.

ROBERT: I’m terribly sorry, Lise. Is there anything I can do?

LISE: (Wildly) What can anyone do? Can you bring back the dead? Go away… oh, go away and leave us in peace…

She gets up and rushes into the bedroom

ALLEYNE: Robert… (With a little helpless gesture) I’ll have to get to the bottom of this before she makes herself quite ill with hysteria… she can, you know. I wonder if you’d mind…?

ROBERT: (Wryly) Going? This isn’t what I’d planned, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: Nor what I would wish, my dear.

ROBERT: You still care more for that child than for anyone else.

ALLEYNE: (A little sharply) She’s all I’ve had to care for for years now. She’s been like the child I never had… Did you expect me to go back to where we were… like a light switched on again?

ROBERT: (Looking at her steadily before he speaks) You’re different, Alleyne… changed fundamentally.

ALLEYNE: Fundamentally!... I don’t think one ever changes fundamentally. What I was then, I still am—what I am now, I already was. It’s only that… you’re seeing a different facet.

There is a little silence

ROBERT: Do you think all this is true?

ALLEYNE: Yes—the facts will be. I’ve learned to expect the incredible where Lise is concerned.

ROBERT: She doesn’t ring true to me.

ALLEYNE: I know… but she is, in her own twisted way. Oh, it’s no good trying to explain her… I do know though that I mustn’t fail her now. Everyone else has, every single person she’s ever cared for, starting with her mother… and I mustn’t, or she’ll be utterly destroyed…

ROBERT: All right. I’ll go…

ALLEYNE: Thank you… Ring me tomorrow, Robert.

ROBERT: Yes… I’ll ring you… soon. Goodnight, my dear. (He turns and walks towards the door)

ALLEYNE: (Tentatively) Rob…

ROBERT: (Turning) Goodnight, my dear… Don’t come down... I can let myself out... (He goes out)

Alleyne stands without moving until a door bangs, then she sinks into a chair dejectedly. After a few moments the bedroom door opens and Lise comes out

LISE: Has he gone?

ALLEYNE: Yes.

LISE: Is he coming back?

ALLEYNE: I don’t think so… We’ll see him again, oh, yes… but he won’t come back. (After a pause) Lise, tell me about your father. When did you get the cable that he had died?

LISE: (Sullenly) Over a week ago.

ALLEYNE: Why didn’t you tell me?

LISE: Why should I? There was nothing anyone could do.

ALLEYNE: Who sent the cable, and who wrote you? I didn’t know you had any relations...

LISE: My aunt. My father’s sister. She’s always hated me… She blames me… Alleyne, did you mean that? That he’s not coming back?

ALLEYNE: I… I don’t want to talk about it, Lise.

LISE: But I do. Darling Alleyne, don’t be upset about him. We can be so happy together, you and I. You don’t need him…

ALLEYNE: (Breaking down suddenly) Robert was right… it was an act… all that about your father? How true is it… or is it all lies? (Lise goes to put her arms around her but Alleyne pushes her away) It’s no good, Lise… I can’t trust you.

LISE: But it is true. Read the letter yourself… It’s here (She finds it among papers on the piano and thrusts it into Alleyne’s hand) Here, read it yourself.

ALLEYNE: (Dully) I don’t think you know what is true and what is false. Nothing touches you.

LISE: Things touch me too much… I’m frightened... I don’t dare let them matter. I must ignore them. I thought you knew that...

ALLEYNE: I’m not going to read your aunt’s letter. Was she right? Were you to blame?

LISE: What does it matter? It’s too late now to alter anything.

ALLEYNE: But not too late to stop your doing the same thing again.

LISE: He’s been ill for a long time… some horrible disease that made him shake all the time… (In a higher tone) I couldn’t bear it… I hate anything like that… I couldn’t bear to be with it all the time… to nurse him—that’s what he wanted…

ALLEYNE: I wish I had known, Lise. I could have lent you the money to fly home…

LISE: He sent me the money.

ALLEYNE: Have you still got it?

Lise shakes her head without speaking

Your fur coat and all the new clothes, I suppose. That wasn’t honest, Lise.

LISE: I didn’t know he would die… I didn’t know… I couldn’t be the kind of daughter he wanted... He’d have gone on disapproving... being disappointed…

ALLEYNE: But surely he’s proud of all you’ve done?

LISE: (Speaking with difficulty) He could never see me as myself… only my mother in me…

ALLEYNE: And you wanted him to approve… to be proud of you?

LISE: Yes… oh, yes… Oh, Daddy, Daddy... (She breaks down completely)

ALLEYNE:     Lise, my darling child… (Lise runs across and throws herself beside Alleyne’s chair. Alleyne gathers her into her arms and strokes her hair)

LISE: Don’t leave me… don’t leave me, Alleyne… don’t ever stop loving me...

ALLEYNE: I won’t, Lise. I won’t ever stop loving you... You can be sure of that… I won’t ever leave you...

The curtain falls slowly

Act Two

Scene Two

About six months later—a Sunday morning in early summer.

A small seaside cottage. There are two windows in the back wall and a door at centre back opening on to a narrow verandah almost on ground level. The verandah roof is supported by thin posts. Beyond is a lawn of rough couch grass and a picket fence with gate opposite the door. Beyond that again, a strip of fine yellow sand and the sea. In the distance on one side can be seen a rocky headland.

The room is furnished as a living room with steamer chairs and one wicker basket chair, small table with gingham cloth, a couch with a wire spring mattress and thin cretonne covered mattress cushion, imitation oak sideboard. The place is shabby, drab and mean.

When the curtain rises, Alleyne, in a shirt and slacks, is taking various vases, a clock, etc., from a suitcase standing open on the couch, and placing them on the bare mantelpiece. There are other suitcases, still strapped, standing about the room.

LISE: (Off) Where is my small striped case, darling?

ALLEYNE: What did you say?

LISE: (Poking her head from door up left) Where is my small striped case?

ALLEYNE: I put it in there. Just a minute… (She follows Lise who goes back into the room. Almost immediately Alleyne returns speaking as she comes)… right under your nose all the time. What do you want out of it?

LISE: My swimsuit. (She enters from the door up left as she speaks)

ALLEYNE: (Looking out back door) It does look inviting. It will be cold though… not enough sun yet...

LISE: My sweet, I don’t propose to go in. Merely to sun-bathe for a while. Are you coming?

ALLEYNE: With all this unpacking still to do? I don’t think so—not this morning.

LISE: The sun will go off the beach quite early.

ALLEYNE: That will be all to the good later in the summer.

LISE: (Diffidently) Do you think you’ll like it here?

ALLEYNE: Since we had to leave the flat, I think this is as nice as anywhere, particularly with the hot weather ahead…

LISE: Do you… mind very much? Leaving the flat?

ALLEYNE: Of course I mind. That flat represents so much to me. Still... It’s not for always and we decided there was nothing else to do. So let’s forget it and make the most of this. The extra rent from the flat just makes things possible. It was a bright idea of yours, subletting it furnished… I don’t know why I’m saying all this… you know it as well as I do.

LISE: You do understand, Alleyne… you do agree that I couldn’t possibly work at anything else but my own work… it would be absolute death to me to be shut in a morbid office every day… you do understand darling?

ALLEYNE: We’ve been over it so many times, Lise… But as someone who spent every day for thirty years in an office, I feel you’d have survived… somehow.

LISE: I’ll make it up to you, really darling, I will.

ALLEYNE: All right. But now we’re here and there’s nothing to distract you, you must settle down and do some work.

LISE: (Prowling round) Where shall we put the piano?

ALLEYNE: I don’t know till it arrives. But wherever we put it, it will look incongruous. And be in the way. I hadn’t realised what a colossal thing it is…

LISE: Oh, that lovely sun, and the soft untouched sand, and the sea rolling in so gently, so gently… Oh, I like it, I like it… (She starts to unbutton her dress)

ALLEYNE: (Sharply) Don’t fling your clothes down in here, darling. Put them in your room.

LISE: All right—all right... (Going into door upstage left) In several generations, you’ll have me behaving tidily…

ALLEYNE: A consummation devoutly to be wished, no doubt. But I fear most unlikely to happen. And before you go out, Lise, do help me stow some of these cases away. I can’t bear this clutter…

LISE: (Offstage) Just a minute… coming.

Alleyne takes books from case and puts them in a row at the back of the sideboard. She closes case and sets it on one side then lifts another full one onto the couch and begins to unstrap it. Lise re-enters in swimsuit adjusting straps as she comes. Her feet are bare

ALLEYNE: Those two there are empty. Put them on top of the cupboard in my room, sweet…

LISE: Oh, blast… and all the lovely morning slipping away. Come on out, Alleyne… never mind all this. Come and sit in the sun.

ALLEYNE: (Grimly)   Not until I’ve finished. There are the breakfast dishes still to be washed too.

LISE: I suppose you want me to stay and help.

ALLEYNE: It won’t take long if we both work. Lise, do put something on your feet. Goodness knows who had this place last. Don’t walk around in bare feet till we’ve scrubbed the floors…

LISE: Darling Alleyne… we’re not going to scrub floors… ourselves!

ALLEYNE: And why not?

LISE: One’s hands, darling—and horrible red scruffy patches on the knees—how could I dance?

ALLEYNE: Any red patches will have disappeared by the time you want to dance again.

LISE: Darling, you’re unusually acid this morning. Surely you’re not really upset at leaving that furniture-shoppy flat…

Alleyne suddenly drops down in a chair and begins to cry

ALLEYNE: (Muffled)   It was my home… my own place...

Lise runs contritely to her and kneels beside her

LISE: Darling, darling Alleyne. Oh, don’t cry, sweet—we’re going to be so happy here… you'll see. I’ll work too… really I will. It will be wonderful, just the two of us here, doing what we want to… no neighbours to worry about, and none of those awful golf people coming in and raising their eyebrows at me… Please, Alleyne, don’t cry… I can’t bear you to be unhappy… (She takes Alleyne’s handkerchief and wipes her eyes and face)

ALLEYNE:     I’m… I’m overtired, I think… all that packing, and seeing those dreadful people moving in among the things I love so much…

LISE:   I thought you were above being tied to bits and pieces like that… Darling, if I’d known you felt like this I’d have worked anywhere, washed up in a hotel, or something. Why didn’t you say?

ALLEYNE: You’ve known me for nearly four years, Lise. I thought you really did know me… That there was no need to say...

LISE: (Eagerly) Well, give them notice—their lease is only for three months. Then we’ll go back and I’ll get some kind of job… (Already dramatizing herself) Perhaps I could be a model...

ALLEYNE: (Again in command of herself) My sweet child, even models need some kind of training. The only work you could really do is to teach dancing… and you say nothing on earth would induce you to do that.

LISE: I hate children, particularly the ones who go to ballet classes… impossible little prigs—or problem children like I was… (Looking critically at Alleyne) Put some powder on, darling, and comb your hair—you look about a hundred…

ALLEYNE: (Getting up wearily and starting to repair the damage) And feel it. I’m halfway there, anyway.

LISE: Be happy, darling… please… (She holds Alleyne’s hand against her cheek)

ALLEYNE: I can’t turn happiness on and off like a tap.

As she is speaking Vera and Natasha appear outside the gate with close behind them Serge and Gabriel. They are all in hot weather clothes and carry beach bags

VERA: (At the gate)   Yes, this is it… “Mon Plaisir” (coming through the gate calling out) Lise… Lise are you there?

ALLEYNE: How did they know?

LISE: Vera… Natasha… come in, come in. Yes, we are here…

The dancers surge into the room flinging down their bags and embracing Lise enthusiastically

SERGE: M’selle Alleyne… we come to have the bath...

VERA: (Automatically) Bathe.

SERGE: To have the bathe and say adieu.

ALLEYNE: Oh, yes… you leave when?

VERA: Tomorrow… after three years… London, Paris…

ALLEYNE: Straight to London?

NATASHA: No… Monte Carlo for a little season… then London… and Paris in the spring… ah, Paris in the spring...

LISE: It’s wonderful.

GABRIEL: You should be going too, Lise.

LISE: (Avoiding his eyes) It’s too late now.

NATASHA: You are ready, Lise. You come, Alleyne?

ALLEYNE: No, I must finish our unpacking. We only came late yesterday afternoon. You go on, Lise...

VERA: We can undress somewhere?

LISE: Here, in my bedroom… and you and Gabriel can use Alleyne’s room, Serge. In there (she indicates door downstage left)

They wander round falling over each other looking for the bags they have dropped

GABRIEL: That’s mine, Vera… Yours is a blue thing with a red bird on it…

VERA: So it is too. We all went shopping yesterday. Such fun we had, but the man thought we were mad. Ah, here is mine, with the red bird… Where is the bag with the beer, Serge?

SERGE: That I have safely put… here. (He finds canvas carryall and puts it on the table)

ALLEYNE: It seems all wrong… you people preparing to go out into the sun…

NATASHA: For five whole weeks, it does not matter if we sunburn. We must burn all over, of course, but…

LISE: Oh, stop chattering, and hurry up.

Gabriel goes into Alleyne’s room. The two girls followed by Lise go into hers. Serge stays for a moment, his bag in his hands

SERGE: You did not know we come, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: I had no idea. When did Lise invite you—(Hastily) It does not matter, of course… I love to have her friends… and to see you all once more before you go…

SERGE: She is naughty, that one. She thinks only of herself. Do not let her… hurt you.

ALLEYNE: Lise would never do anything that really hurt me, Serge. She is selfish… but then, the young are selfish.

SERGE:   She is not so young, like a child. Already she is twenty-one—old enough to—how do you say it—think about what she does to other people.

ALLEYNE:     To have a sense of responsibility, you mean. (She laughs a little) I think you’re too optimistic if you expect Lise to develop that—at least, not till she’s forty-one—and gone through the mill a bit.

SERGE: Through the mill—a thing that turns round with the wind—I do not understand—

ALLEYNE: No, of course, you don’t. It’s a metaphor—oh dear, I don’t suppose that’s any more intelligible. I mean until she has faced up to life—and suffered a bit.

SERGE: I think you… protect her too much. She runs to you always… and you take the pain...

ALLEYNE: Perhaps. But she is so easily hurt...

SERGE: (Genuinely amazed) Who—Lise? Oh no, she is the hard one… she acts bad… (He comes and lays his hand on Alleyne’s arm) We like you so much, Vera and me… we want to help you… but soon we go and there is no chance any more.

ALLEYNE: How good of you, and Vera too. But you mustn’t worry, really. Lise would never knowingly do anything to hurt me…

SERGE: (Gesturing helplessly) You think you know her… better than we who have worked with her all these years, eh?

ALLEYNE: I think perhaps I do. Oh, I know she behaves badly… puts on acts to get her own way. But that’s because she’s always had to fight for herself—there’s no real ‘badness’ in her… (She is more or less convincing herself)

SERGE: She fights… when there is no need… always she must fight…

ALLEYNE: (Reluctantly) Perhaps you’re right there.

SERGE: And she is naughty. She tell us to come here, on Friday, when she comes to the theatre…

ALLEYNE: Lise went to your last night? Oh, I didn’t know. I wanted so much to go, but I thought she wouldn’t want to…

Gabriel emerges from the bedroom in bathing trunks with his sports jacked slung across his shoulders. He wears ropesoled sandals, as does Serge

GABRIEL: Hurry, Serge… it is cold indoors, and we are ready.

SERGE: I hurry… (He steps out of his slacks revealing bathing trunks underneath. He starts to unbutton his shirt)

ALLEYNE: Leave your things in my room, will you, Serge?

SERGE: Of course… or perhaps I should say it, too right.

(He picks up his slacks and beach bag and goes off into Alleyne’s room)

ALLEYNE: I’m so sorry I didn’t go to your last night. I thought Lise might be upset if I suggested it… I had no idea where she’d gone on Friday.

GABRIEL: I sent her a ticket for you too, of course. She is a queer girl. She sat there all the evening with the empty seat beside her… I thought you had decided against meeting any of us again.

ALLEYNE: You should know better than that. (There is warmth, understanding and friendliness between them)

GABRIEL: She should be going too, Alleyne. This is the company’s big chance, and Lise should be in it.

ALLEYNE: Isn’t it… a little your fault that she isn’t, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: (Thinking a moment before he answers) I don’t think anything I do influences Lise in the least—nor anything you do, for that matter.

ALLEYNE: Was it… possible… for her to stay with the company? Tell me the truth, Gabriel… didn’t you want her out of it?

GABRIEL: I… can’t answer that... Truthfully. It’s too involved with other things, with what I want from her myself… With Lise one is always on the edge of a precipice... one can neither think nor work… But, no… I didn’t want her out of it; she’s part of it and always has been. But she disrupts, Alleyne… destroys…

Lise comes running out of bedroom upstage

LISE: I thought I heard your voices nattering. What are you cooking up, the two of you?

ALLEYNE: We’re not cooking up anything, as you call it. Some of your remarks are in very poor taste, Lise. You should have told me there would be visitors for lunch.

LISE: I can never make out why these things are always so important. Darling, there’s salad and cheese and pickles and bread—what more can anyone want?

ALLEYNE: Oh, I know it’s bourgeois to think about food—but somehow I can never feel it’s really aristocratic to invite guests and make no preparation to feed them. But run along—there’ll be some kind of a meal…

Natasha and Vera enter from bedroom downstage in bathing suits and sunglasses. Natasha carries a bottle of suntan oil

VERA: Come along, come along. Let us get into the sun. Alleyne, you do not come?

ALLEYNE: No, not this morning. This afternoon I will. I’ll get the lunch ready. What’s the time now—eleven? Come back at half past twelve—

SERGE: (Bounding into the room whooping) I am ready... I am cold… I am cold… Come into the sun.

The three girls run out laughing down the garden path and through the gate. Serge follows. At the gate he turns and comes back for a moment. The girls turn left at the gate and go off out of sight

SERGE: (At door) Alleyne… the beer!

ALLEYNE: I’ll put it on the ice at once.

SERGE: That is well. (He bows theatrically and leaps out after the girls)  

ALLEYNE: I like him. I’m sorry you are going, all of you. Before there’s always been the certainty that you will be back in a few months… I’ll miss you all. You’ve been a breath from a different planet all these years...

GABRIEL: Alleyne—I’m not going. I have left the company—I stay here in Sydney.

ALLEYNE: You really have? You’ve said so often that you would stay, but I’m afraid I thought you were only talking. Gabriel, did Lise have anything to do with this?

GABRIEL: Did she influence me? No… not directly. I’ve scarcely seen her for weeks. I ring her up and make appointments, and she does not keep them. You knew?

ALLEYNE: I guessed it was you. But I never question her—I want her to be as free as possible… to make her live some kind of a life of her own apart from me. But it is difficult… and now she will not work… does nothing day after day. I should have had the strength of will to make her take a job somewhere—but you know how sweet she can be till she gets her own way.

GABRIEL: What work could she do? She knows nothing but dancing.

ALLEYNE: I got a position for her… in an office where they need someone to translate French and German letters and an occasional document. She could have done it so easily. It would have been good for her from every point of view… a glimpse of how the other half lives. It’s a kind of discipline she’s never experienced too… I am too soft with her.

GABRIEL: One never does the right thing, with Lise. She is too strong for us.

ALLEYNE: First Serge… now you, Gabriel. What is it you are trying to warn me against… as though Lise were evil…

GABRIEL: Evil people are conscious of what they do. No, I don’t think Lise is like that. She is not conscious—but the effect is the same...

ALLEYNE: No, oh no, Gabriel.

GABRIEL: When you talk to me, Alleyne, you say Lise is a child… a wilful, perverse child, you say... who does things instinctively, as a child would.

ALLEYNE: And that is so, Gabriel, I’m sure. I know her so well. She develops slowly, unevenly… her mind is so acute, her emotions so immature, so uncontrollable. Her world is bounded by fear, and her fears rule her…

GABRIEL: Her desires rule her. Believe me, Alleyne... Lise is shrewd and calculating where her own desires are concerned… she is old, old as sin...

ALLEYNE: What a terrible thing to say.

GABRIEL: But can you deny it?

ALLEYNE: Yes… no, in some ways, no… But how can you say such things and then in the next breath tell me you love her, that you want to marry her...

GABRIEL: I can’t explain… I only know I can’t bear to put half the world between us. So I stay...

ALLEYNE: What do you hope for, Gabriel?

GABRIEL: Nothing… I have gone beyond hoping… In my heart, I know I am a fool to stay… I should take the quickest way to the other side of the earth…

ALLEYNE: I’m not sure that I want Lise to marry a man who feels like that.

GABRIEL: I’m not even sure that I want to marry her.

ALLEYNE: Then I could wish you were not staying… (She is deeply troubled) You said before that she destroys…

GABRIEL: And I am afraid.

ALLEYNE: All this shocks me…

GABRIEL: You deceive yourself when you say that. You know we each, you and I, do as Lise wills... She knows her power to hurt, and she uses it...

ALLEYNE: No, Gabriel, I can’t allow that. You make her out a kind of monster… and she’s not that. Only a badly mistreated child… her beauty and her talent dazzle us into thinking her adult, but she isn’t, she isn’t…

GABRIEL: (Looking at her for a moment without speaking) You are very sweet, Alleyne… very good... But you will have to be hard, you know.

ALLEYNE: (Laughing a bit grimly)  We’re neither of us very good at that.

While Alleyne is speaking Lise comes running in from the beach

LISE: Gabriel, where are you… we’re waiting for you.

GABRIEL: I’m just coming. I was just gossiping a little with Alleyne.

LISE: (Coming right into the room) I distrust you two when I’m not with you.

ALLEYNE: Lise, that kind of remark annoys me.

LISE: I know your capacity for being taken in by men.

ALLEYNE: (Mildly, determined not to be argumentative) We won’t discuss that now. Are you really going in? It looks so cold, that sea.

LISE: Vera is in already; she says it’s lovely. Come on, Gabriel… No, you go ahead. I want to talk to Alleyne for a moment.

(Gabriel gestures ironically and smiles at Alleyne then goes out through the gate and to the left out of sight. Lise does not speak until he has gone).

What were you talking about?

ALLEYNE: That’s the wrong tone to talk with me, Lise. What I talk about to a guest in my own house—a guest you invited without my permission, don’t forget—is my own business.

LISE: You were talking about me… so it is my business.

ALLEYNE: Gabriel is a friend of mine, quite apart from you. There may be other things...

LISE: (Interrupting) I won’t have friendship between you two.

ALLEYNE: I beg your pardon! You won’t have friendship between us! Listen Lise… you disrupt my whole way of life… you live on my charity… And then you think you can tell me who shall or shall not be my friend.

LISE: (Coming close to her) Alleyne, I don’t trust him. He’s quite capable of making love to you… anything to come between you and me... and you’re simple enough to believe him...

ALLEYNE: (Thoroughly roused) How dare you! How dare you speak to me in such a fashion… Go out and look after your friends…

LISE: (Realising she has gone too far) Darling Alleyne you don’t understand… I’m terrified he’ll do something to spoil us… I couldn’t bear that. Don’t be angry with me… please, please...

ALLEYNE: I am angry with you. This continual suspicion that people are plotting against you wrecks everything you touch… you must learn to control it… (She realises she is wasting her time)

LISE: Don’t be angry… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to dictate, darling… it’s only that I know Gabriel so well. Forgive me, sweet…

ALLEYNE: (Mollified) Oh… all right. But please try to behave a little more normally… It upsets me to see you carry on like a savage… (Lise hugs her then turns to go out) We weren’t talking about you… we were talking about Gabriel himself… and his plans.

LISE: (Sharply) His plans? How are they different from the others? (Urgently) What did he tell you?

ALLEYNE: He’s staying here… he’s not going to Europe.

LISE: (Standing still for a moment then speaking with great elation) He’s not going to Europe…. He’s not going…

Suddenly she smiles dazzlingly exultantly then she turns and literally skips out through the door at the back. Alleyne stands watching her and realising many things as

The curtain falls

---

Act Two

Scene Three

The seaside cottage, at the end of the same summer. Morning.

It is a burning day and through the open door can be seen the sultry grey-blue sky and the burnished sea. The windows are curtained, so that the room is in shadow.

When the curtain rises, Alleyne, in slacks and shirt with her hair closely cropped, is huddled in the wicker armchair, fast asleep.

Lise enters behind the picket fence right, opens the gate quietly and walks almost furtively up the path and across the verandah into the room. She is in summer clothes, carries her hat, bag and gloves.

She sees Alleyne asleep in the chair and goes on tiptoe across to the bedroom upstage left.

The clock strikes eleven. Alleyne wakes up. She rubs her hands wearily across her face, looks at the clock, then reaches up to the mantelpiece for a cigarette. As she lights it, she arrests her movement suddenly and listens for a moment.

ALLEYNE: Lise. (Calling out) Lise, is that you?

LISE: (Entering from room left and standing just inside the room)   Yes. Who else would it be?

ALLEYNE: Where have you been all night?

LISE: That’s my business. You do look a sight. Haven’t you been to bed?

ALLEYNE: I went down to meet the last bus. When you weren’t on it, I was… worried. You promised you wouldn’t do that again without letting me know.

LISE: The last bus leaves so early… I was at a party.

ALLEYNE: That’s new—the last I heard you didn’t like parties.

LISE: This wasn’t what you’d call a party.

ALLEYNE: (Sarcastically) More a communion of congenial souls, I suppose.

LISE: Anyway, I don’t have to give an account of myself.

ALLEYNE: No. But just in common courtesy, you could have rung and let me know.

LISE: And have you catechise me? No, thanks.

ALLEYNE: (Mildly) I just like to know where you are—in case of emergency, that’s all. Oh dear… I feel terrible. I’ll make some coffee. Have you had breakfast?

LISE: I haven’t time now.

ALLEYNE: Are you going out again?

LISE: If you must know, I’m packing.

ALLEYNE: You’re what?

LISE: Packing. Last night decided me. I’ve had enough of living out here in this benighted place, cut off from everything and everyone that matters.

ALLEYNE: You know why we live here.

LISE: (Mockingly) Because it’s cheap. Because it’s all we can afford.

ALLEYNE: Where are you going? (Urgently) I must know, Lise.

LISE: I haven’t time to argue. I’ve got a taxi waiting.

ALLEYNE: Did you come home by taxi—all the way out here?

LISE: Yes. I’m going back by taxi too. I don’t intend to lug cases in this heat.

She goes into her bedroom and brings out a partially filled suitcase which she places on the couch. All the time they are talking, she goes in and out of the bedroom with clothes which she puts in the case. Meantime Alleyne goes off right for a moment then comes back with a cup and saucer from the kitchen

ALLEYNE: (Speaking as she comes back into the room) I suppose I shouldn’t ask what you’re using to pay the taxi.

LISE: (Shortly) I’ve enough for that.

ALLEYNE: (Diffidently) Don’t forget to leave me the change from that five pounds—it’s all I have till the end of the month.

LISE: (Not pausing in her packing) Sooner or later, it’s always money. There isn’t any change from the five pounds.

ALLEYNE: (Almost in tears) Oh, Lise—how could you? You knew it was all I had.

LISE: Do stop harping on it. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.

ALLEYNE: Meantime, I suppose, I can starve.

LISE: You won’t starve. The shops will give you credit; they’ve done it before.

ALLEYNE: You know how I’ve always hated asking… I’ve always paid my way before.

LISE: I must have a few pounds, going to a new place. You’re known here.

ALLEYNE: Where are you going, Lise? Have you somewhere to live?

LISE: Yes.

Alleyne pauses waiting for her to continue. As she does not, Alleyne goes off right to kitchen returning in a few moments with coffee pot. She seats herself wearily at the table and pours herself a cup of coffee. She smokes all the time, lighting one cigarette from the butt of the last

ALLEYNE: Where is it you’re going, Lise? You must tell me…

LISE: It’s no good trying to persuade me to stay here.

ALLEYNE: I’m not going to. I think it’s best that you should go. We couldn’t go on as we’ve been these last few weeks… I think it would kill me.

LISE: It isn’t my fault I don’t love you any longer.

ALLEYNE: (Roused from apathy) What… did you say?

LISE: I said it isn’t my fault I don’t love you any longer.

ALLEYNE: It isn’t your fault. Nothing’s ever your fault, is it? We came here to live because I couldn’t afford to keep us both in town—anything to save you the trouble of keeping yourself. Oh, no… nothing’s ever your fault… It’s not a matter of loving… just one of behaviour, and responsibility.

LISE: You’ve preached at me for years. I wish you’d stop.

ALLEYNE: (With tired humour) Don’t seem to have done much good for all my moralising, do I? Lise, where are you going?

LISE: I don’t see why you need to know… but I’ve got a room in the same house as Gabriel.

ALLEYNE: As Gabriel! Have you been seeing him again?

LISE: Once or twice. There never really has been anyone else… ever.

ALLEYNE: And I don’t count at all.

LISE: Oh, don’t get maudlin about it. That’s one thing you were right about… if it’s any satisfaction to you. It is natural to love a man…

ALLEYNE: You’ve always played Gabriel and me off against each other, I know. I never could understand why… you could have married him… (Pause) You deliberately stopped me from marrying Robert—I looked at the date on your aunt’s letter... You’d had it more than a week before the night Robert came.

LISE: I had to protect myself; what else could I do? Where would I have been if you’d gone off with that red-faced moron?

ALLEYNE: Poor Robert... He knew more about you always than I know even now.

LISE: What were you doing reading my letters, anyway?

ALLEYNE:     Something you’d never stoop to do.

Lise prowls around the room, picks up some manuscript from among the clutter on top of the piano and takes several books from the row on the sideboard. She puts them all in the suitcase which she closes and fastens

ALLEYNE: Are you going to marry Gabriel?

LISE: Marry, marry, marry. You always think in suburban terms.

ALLEYNE: (Sharply) Lise, don’t be a fool the second time.

LISE: (Sullenly and suddenly less sure of herself) I don’t know that he wants to marry me now.

ALLEYNE: What are you going to do? What will you live on?

LISE: Gabriel has started his ballet school… I’m going to try to get him to let me teach… I don’t know whether he will… There’s another woman...

ALLEYNE: And supposing he won’t?

LISE: (With an expressive gesture) Then… I don’t know… (She stands still for a moment) I suppose you couldn’t… (Her voice trails away)

Alleyne looks at her for a long moment then starts to laugh. She laughs quite a long time before she answers

ALLEYNE: I couldn’t continue your allowance, is that it?

LISE: (Sullenly) I’ll pay you back…

ALLEYNE: (Grimly) I couldn’t count on that. You know exactly how much money I have… that it would mean going back to work myself?

LISE: (Still sullen) Well… you’ve always said you enjoyed it…

ALLEYNE: (Making a quick decision after a pause) No, Lise. I’ll pay you nothing… this is what I should have done months ago. You must take the responsibility for yourself. If you are really up against it, come and tell me…

LISE: (Furiously) I’ll see you in hell before I’ll ask again. I’d rather… go on the streets...

ALLEYNE: (Starting suddenly to weep) Lise, dear little Lise. How did we ever get to this… beastliness...

LISE: (Reluctantly) It was wonderful… at first, Alleyne. It’s just that suddenly… I couldn’t love you anymore… I saw you differently… an ordinary, middle-aged woman… Not really my kind of person at all...

ALLEYNE: Not really your kind of person at all… I’m what you’ve made me… (Then in a whisper) I’m what I’ve made myself… An ordinary middle-aged woman… but you’d still sponge on me if I’d let you… (Unsteadily) I think you’d better… go now...

Without replying Lise picks up her handbag etc. and the suitcase and goes off through the door at the back and through the gate, almost stumbling in her haste. She turns right at the gate and goes off out of sight.

Alleyne stands watching her till she is right out of sight. Then she goes across to a mirror hanging above the sideboard and stares at herself, half not knowing what she is doing. After a moment she looks for and finds her handbag on the sofa, takes out a lipstick and does her mouth, then gets out a comb and endeavours to rearrange her hair so that its shortness does not show. At last with a gesture of complete despair she lets them all drop. She goes to the table and gets a cigarette, then begins more or less automatically to tidy the table, taking the cup, saucer and coffee pot to the kitchen and returning starts to tidy the clutter of manuscripts on the piano with jerky movements. The work steadies her and soon she is working systematically. Among the clutter is a telephone directory. She takes it up in her hands, then puts it down again and goes to the telephone and dials a number.

Meantime, Connie has walked along outside the fence and in through the gate and up to the door. She stands in the doorway watching and listening while Alleyne telephones

ALLEYNE: Harrison and Perceval? Is Mr. Robert Perceval in? … He’s what? … Today? … No, I had no idea. I’ve been away for a long time, a long way away, and I’ve had no news… No, thank you, there’s no message. But, yes—when he comes back, do tell him Alleyne Manning rang, and wishes him every happiness... I beg your pardon… Alleyne. A.L.L.E.Y.N.E.… yes, that’s right. Thank you. Goodbye.

She replaces the telephone receiver slowly

CONNIE: Ask me in.

ALLEYNE: (Startled) Connie… Connie… How did you know where to find me?

CONNIE: Went to your flat, and the tenant told me—I didn’t know you weren’t living there any longer. (She nods towards the phone) You’ve just heard the news.

ALLEYNE: Yes. (After a moment she pulls herself together) Do come in and sit down. Are you better?

CONNIE: Better! Yes... I suppose you’d call it that.

ALLEYNE: What made you seek me out, Connie?

CONNIE: I… don’t know quite. I thought the two discarded females might… weep in each other’s arms, or something… But I forgot. You’re not the weeping kind, are you?

ALLEYNE: I’m… not sure what I am. (After a pause) Believe it or not, I was ringing Rob to see if he knew where I could get a job.

CONNIE: Were you? I thought you were lousy with money. Where’s it gone?

ALLEYNE: I’ve spent a good bit lately—rather foolishly, I’m afraid. Oh, I still have enough to live on comfortably enough… it’s something to do I want, some interest.

CONNIE: What’s wrong with the little dancing girl friend? Isn’t she interest enough? (She looks round the room and goes on without waiting for a reply) This is a bit of a dump, Alleyne—not what you’re used to, my dear.

ALLEYNE: It’s been all right for the summer… we’ve been out of doors most of the time. Anyway, I’ll go back to the flat, probably… if I can get the tenant out… (Her voice trails away)

CONNIE: (Conversationally) Bob came to see me—told me he was marrying again… that’s how I knew you’d been dumped too. You know whom he’s married? Miss Castles—the perfect secretary… I looked her over myself ten years ago, and decided she was harmless… and all the time, he was carrying on with my best friend. Make you laugh, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?

ALLEYNE: If one were in laughing mood… I suppose it would.

CONNIE: I said to him, “What about Alleyne”? When he told me you’d got yourself a girl friend… my god, I laughed. I laughed so hard they had to give me a sedative. Don Juan Perceval turned down for a little slut of a perverted child… the best laugh I’ve had in years.

ALLEYNE: (Unsteadily) I think you’d better go, Connie.

CONNIE: (Uneasily) Don’t send me away… I’ve got to talk to someone.

ALLEYNE: (After pause) Would you have felt this way if it had been me?

CONNIE: I… don’t think so. I’d got used to the idea of you. But this is so damn silly… he doesn’t even like her… he and Nicky used to laugh at her...

ALLEYNE: I know it’s no good saying I’m sorry... But I am. I meant what I wrote when Nicky died.

CONNIE: It’s a sad story—a really sad story, isn’t it?

ALLEYNE: Yes.

CONNIE: I’d counted on that baby… rather fancied myself as a grandmother. I thought they might let me have some part in the baby… it never even crossed my mind it might die…

ALLEYNE:  Oh, don’t, Connie… don’t!

CONNIE: Don’t you like being harrowed? (She drops her half maudlin manner for a moment and speaks shrewishly) You should have thought of that before you started all this… before you started making love to my husband...

ALLEYNE: Go on. Say what you will… I suppose you’ve a right to.

CONNIE: I’ll say I’ve a right to.

ALLEYNE: … Although I can’t be blamed for Nicky… I loved her so much myself.

CONNIE: No, you can’t be blamed for that—only for the rest that made that the last straw.

ALLEYNE: You were lucky it was I, and not some woman who didn’t know you.

CONNIE: He was bound to wander, you mean. Not a very strong character, my ex-husband. (Judicially) You’re probably right there. I suppose you could give yourself an alibi that way.

ALLEYNE: I loved Robert. Whatever I did, I tried not to injure him… but it wasn’t ever a very happy affair, if that’s any satisfaction to you. I don’t think I’ve ever been really happy… except for a few weeks six months ago.

CONNIE: Where is the little girl friend? Is she here?

ALLEYNE: Lise isn’t with me any longer.

CONNIE: So she’s dumped you too.

ALLEYNE: (Steadily) She’s done what I always intended she should—gone back to Gabriel.

CONNIE: Quite the public benefactor, aren’t you? Always helping people to do what’s good for them.

ALLEYNE: I don’t succeed very well, do I?

CONNIE: I’m thirsty—could I have a drink?

ALLEYNE: Of course. Would you like some tea… I could do with a cup myself.

CONNIE: Yes, thank you.

ALLEYNE: It won’t take a minute to make…

Alleyne goes off to the kitchen. Connie gets up and wanders round the room, finds Alleyne’s cigarettes and helps herself to one. Alleyne returns with tray on which are two cups and saucers, milk and sugar.

ALLEYNE: The kettle won’t be a moment. Ah, you’ve found yourself a cigarette…

CONNIE: Quite the perfect hostess still, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: Still myself, Connie.

She goes off again to the kitchen and brings back in a moment a teapot and jug of hot water. Connie watches her as she pours tea and starts to bring Connie’s across to her. Connie starts laughing uncontrollably.

CONNIE: (Between gusts of laughter)   You ought to see yourself. You do look a scream in your pants and your Eton crop.

Alleyne stops dead for a moment, then steadily continues across with Connie’s cup of tea, which she places carefully on a small table near her chair. Connie stops laughing as suddenly as she began.

ALLEYNE: (Speaking very quietly) If Lise had been a leper, and I had nursed her and become a leper too, I would have been a saint and a martyr. But now… I am a figure of fun, a sight and a scream. (There is a short silence) You know, there are still people who believe that blindness is a punishment for sin… who call on the blind to repent…

The atmosphere alters, becomes sympathetic. When Connie speaks, she does so quite naturally

CONNIE: You should have had lots of children, Alleyne. You take naturally to the kind of sacrifice mothers go in for. We all try to be what our children want us to be...

ALLEYNE: I don’t know that sympathy is… good for me, Connie.

CONNIE: When did Lise go?

ALLEYNE: A few minutes before you came in. It’s a wonder you didn’t meet her on the path up to the road...

CONNIE: What are you going to do now?

ALLEYNE: I… I haven’t even thought… go back behind the bars of my own personality and my own limitations I suppose… back into the loneliness…

CONNIE: (With infinite sympathy) It’s where we all get to in the end… the rest is all illusion…

ALLEYNE: I don’t know that I accept that… yet. What does one do… when one comes to the end? (She goes over to the door and stands looking out) I think I’ll… go for a swim…

CONNIE: The danger signals are out all down the coast. The lifeguards were hauling people out in dozens at Manly…

ALLEYNE: (Almost disinterestedly) Undertow… well, that’s one solution…

CONNIE: Don’t be silly, Alleyne.

ALLEYNE: (Laughing a bit grimly) I don’t think I’m the stuff that makes suicides... Did you ever think of suicide, Connie?

CONNIE: Often… but it didn’t seem fair to give young Robbie that to live down… divorced parents is quite enough…

ALLEYNE: (Coming away from the door) I think I’ll change into something cooler…

CONNIE: Aren’t you going to have some tea?

ALLEYNE: In a moment. Pour yourself another cup.

She goes off into the bedroom upstage. Connie finishes her cup of tea, pours herself another and lights another cigarette. Alleyne returns from the bedroom in a summer dress much like the one she wore at the beginning of the play.

CONNIE: Much better.

ALLEYNE: Cooler, at any rate. (She sits and begins to drink her tea)

Along the footpath beyond the fence, Lise comes running. She is without her hat, but carries her handbag. She comes hurrying in, speaking as she comes. She does not notice Connie

LISE: Alleyne, … oh, Alleyne. … I couldn’t… go like that…

ALLEYNE: Lise darling… (She and Lise embrace)

LISE: Here’s the address... (She takes out a piece of paper from her handbag)... And there’s the telephone number… I’ll keep in touch, Alleyne… really I will.

ALLEYNE: Yes... yes. I’ll ring you to see how things are going… and, Lise… if there are difficulties—money—or anything else—you’ll tell me.

LISE:   Of course I will... But I must stand on my own... I must... But I couldn’t ever cut myself right off from you. (She takes some notes from her purse and puts two down on the table) That’s half, Alleyne… will that do?

ALLEYNE: I’ll manage.

LISE: I must hurry… the taxi’s waiting and it will cost the earth… Goodbye... (She kisses Alleyne again)

ALLEYNE: (Half laughing) Goodbye, my sweet…

Lise hurries off through the back door, Alleyne’s gesture with her hands seeming to follow her as she goes. At the gate, Lise looks back and waves. She turns right and disappears from sight. Alleyne comes reluctantly back into the room. She sits down again and takes up her cup. For a while the two women sit quietly.

ALLEYNE: (Softly) Am I mad to still have… hopes… for her?

CONNIE: (With the least touch of bitterness) At least, she’s still… alive.

ALLEYNE:  She’s still alive——Connie...

She reaches out her hand to Connie who takes it briefly. There is peace and friendliness between them as they relax

And the curtain slowly falls

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