Touch and Go Part 10

GERALD. I'm angry with myself for being myself--I always was that. I was always a curse to myself.

ANABEL. And that's why you curse others so much?

GERALD. You talk as if b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in your mouth.

ANABEL. You see, Gerald, there has to be a change. You'll have to change.

GERALD. Change of heart?--Well, it won't be to get softer, Anabel.

ANABEL. You needn't be softer. But you can be quieter, more sane even.

There ought to be some part of you that can be quiet and apart from the world, some part that can be happy and gentle.

GERALD. Well, there isn't. I don't pretend to be able to extricate a soft sort of John Halifax, Gentleman, out of the machine I'm mixed up in, and keep him to gladden the connubial hearth. I'm angry, and I'm angry right through, and I'm not going to play bo-peep with myself, pretending not to be.

ANABEL. n.o.body asks you to. But is there no part of you that can be a bit gentle and peaceful and happy with a woman?

GERALD. No, there isn't.--I'm not going to smug with you--no, not I.

You're smug in your coming back. You feel virtuous, and expect me to rise to it. I won't.

ANABEL. Then I'd better have stayed away.

GERALD. If you want me to virtuise and smug with you, you had.

ANABEL. What DO you want, then?

GERALD. I don't know. I know I don't want THAT.

ANABEL. Oh, very well. (Goes to the piano; begins to play.)

(Enter MRS. BARLOW.)

GERALD. h.e.l.lo, mother! Father HAS gone to bed.

MRS. BARLOW. Oh, I thought he was down here talking. You two alone?

GERALD. With the piano for chaperone, mother.

MRS. BARLOW. That's more than I gave you credit for. I haven't come to chaperone you either, Gerald.

GERALD. Chaperone ME, mother! Do you think I need it?

MRS. BARLOW. If you do, you won't get it. I've come too late to be of any use in that way, as far as I hear.

GERALD. What have you heard, mother?

MRS. BARLOW. I heard Oliver and this young woman talking.

GERALD. Oh, did you? When? What did they say?

MRS. BARLOW. Something about married in the sight of heaven, but couldn't keep it up on earth.

GERALD. I don't understand.

MRS. BARLOW. That you and this young woman were married in the sight of heaven, or through eternity, or something similar, but that you couldn't make up your minds to it on earth.

GERALD. Really! That's very curious, mother.

MRS. BARLOW. Very common occurrence, I believe.

GERALD. Yes, so it is. But I don't think you heard quite right, dear.

There seems to be some lingering uneasiness in heaven, as a matter of fact. We'd quite made up our minds to live apart on earth. But where did you hear this, mother?

MRS. BARLOW. I heard it outside the studio door this morning.

GERALD. You mean you happened to be on one side of the door while Oliver and Anabel were talking on the other?

MRS. BARLOW. You'd make a detective, Gerald--you're so good at putting two and two together. I listened till I'd heard as much as I wanted.

I'm not sure I didn't come down here hoping to hear another conversation going on.

GERALD. Listen outside the door, darling?

MRS. BARLOW. There'd be nothing to listen to if I were inside.

GERALD. It isn't usually done, you know.

MRS. BARLOW. I listen outside doors when I have occasion to be interested--which isn't often, unfortunately for me.

GERALD. But I've a queer feeling that you have a permanent occasion to be interested in me. I only half like it.

MRS. BARLOW. It's surprising how uninteresting you are, Gerald, for a man of your years. I have not had occasion to listen outside a door, for you, no, not for a great while, believe me.

GERALD. I believe you implicitly, darling. But do you happen to know me through and through, and in and out, all my past and present doings, mother? Have you a secret access to my room, and a spy-hole, and all those things? This is uncomfortably thrilling. You take on a new l.u.s.tre.

MRS. BARLOW. Your memoirs wouldn't make you famous, my son.

GERALD. Infamous, dear?

MRS. BARLOW. Good heavens, no! What a lot you expect from your very mild sins! You and this young woman have lived together, then?

GERALD. Don't say "this young woman," mother dear--it's slightly vulgar.

It isn't for me to compromise Anabel by admitting such a thing, you know.

MRS. BARLOW. Do you ask me to call her Anabel? I won't.

GERALD. Then say "this person," mother. It's more becoming.

MRS. BARLOW. I didn't come to speak to you, Gerald. I know you. I came to speak to this young woman.