[The newly commingled portion of the novel and play in progress]
Act 3: Scene 3
Unto an age of Romanticism or, On the Beach
Down stage center. The illumination is bright. A stone wall ranges left to right. Michael and Deirdre settle themselves with their backs to the wall, facing the audience, both wearing baseball caps, sunglasses, shirts and shorts, with their shoes off. They are sitting on a striped blanket. The sloping sand below them is part of a beach. Other people are sitting at either side, but they are mostly in bathing suits.
MICHAEL
(Looking to the audience as he might the water)
It’s a fair crowd for June. But the tide’s on its way out, and the water looks cold. No one’s really trying to swim. But at least they’re as near naked as the law allows. Something to look at. When I used to come here on the hottest days back in the early 1970’s, it would be empty. There was an obstacle course of floating Styrofoam, knots of tar, condoms and battered pucks of offal from the sewage plant stretching from the wall here all the way to the mooring buoys.
DEIRDRE
(Leaning back)
Why did you come at all?
MICHAEL
(Leaning back)
Desperation. I grew up near a beach. It was part of my chemistry.
DEIRDRE
You came with Margret?
MICHAEL
No. Before Margaret. Margaret had a car, so by then we used to drive down to her parent’s place on the Cape.
DEIRDRE
(Considering this a moment)
Tell me why things didn’t last with Margaret? After all those years.
MICHAEL
That’s rather bold, don’t you think, simply launching right into the heart of the matter. But I don’t know. More often than not, I wish it had. For me, at least, it was a comfortable existence. I was doing exactly what I wanted.
DEIRDRE
You even wrote about that.
MICHAEL
More than once. But then again, I don’t know why we even got married in the first place. We always argued—well, I do know that. She was pregnant. But then we kept compounding the thing until . . . It was hopeless.
DEIRDRE
You didn’t love each other?
MICHAEL
Of course we did. I still love her. But we are a lot happier, apart. At least she is.
DEIRDRE
So, what was the problem?
MICHAEL
(Looking at Deirdre for a moment too long)
We have nothing in common.
DEIRDRE
(Immediately sitting up straight.
Do you mean you and Margaret, or you and me?
MICHAEL
Yes.
DEIRDRE
Well, that sums things up pretty quickly. And I didn’t even get a kiss out of it.
MICHAEL
Yeah. Yes? No. That part is really disappointing. I’ve been thinking about kissing you since a couple of weeks ago. No. Actually a lot longer. . . .You know, once, when you came in the shop a couple of years ago I had that same idea, very definitely.
DEIRDRE
You didn’t say anything.
MICHAEL
Well, no. I was just turned sixty-five about then and feeling sorry for myself.
DEIRDRE
Was that the time you were standing on a ladder and trying to put something up in the window?
MICHAEL
Amazing! Yes! It was a model plane. I was doing a display of old flying books.
DEIRDRE
I remember. I remember that I thought you looked pretty cute. But I thought you were only sixty-four.
MICHAEL
You had on some very red lipstick and I was taken with the idea of kissing you right then. It was the way you were looking up at me, with a little grin on your face, as if you were just waiting for me to do it. Maybe that was just the lipstick.
DEIRDRE
I thought you were just looking down the front of my blouse.
MICHAEL
I was. That too. But you must have stood there at the bottom of the ladder for at least a couple of minutes. What were you grinning at?
DEIRDRE
I didn’t know I was grinning. Maybe it was just the bright light from the window. I know I thought you were going to fall. I think I was afraid you were going to fall and I should stay there and catch you.
MICHAEL
You did. It just took a little longer
DEIRDRE
(Considering this for a moment of silence)
But we have nothing in common.
MICHAEL
Sure we do. We have that much—I mean, the fact that we have nothing in common.
DEIRDRE
Okay. If two negatives make a positive, then lets start with that. What is it we both have nothing in common about?
MICHAEL
Hmm. Considering the physics along with the biology involved, it might be better to find something we agree on. At least something that would just be a positive.
DEIRDRE
(They both sit in silence again)
I like your shop.
MICHAEL
That’s something.
DEIRDRE
(Waiting)
Come on, can’t you find anything you like about me?
MICHAEL
I like your shape.
DEIRDRE
I’m not sure I agree with you about that.
MICHAEL
So that falls into the other column, I guess. But you’d be wrong.
DEIRDRE
What else am I wrong about?
MICHAEL
I thought we were going to accentuate the positive. . . .I like your voice.
DEIRDRE
That’s stuff I was born with. A gift from my parents. How about something I’ve done.
MICHAEL
You have the advantage there. I’ve only read the one unpublished novel you showed me.. I told you that was terrific, and it is. . . . And I’ve read some of your stuff in the Post, but mostly just the things you’ve written about me lately. I don’t know if that counts.
DEIRDRE
Why don’t you read the Post?
MICHAEL
It’s a load of crap, claptrap, misinformation, and progressive propaganda.
DEIRDRE
Other than that, what do you really think?
MICHAEL
I wonder why you’ve worked there for most of your life. That doesn’t seem like a worthy thing for someone to do.
DEIRDRE
That’s harsh! Journalism is an honest trade!
MICHAEL
It can be. I suppose.
DEIRDRE
Are you saying I’m dishonest?
MICHAEL
I hope not, but how do I know? All I’ve really read is the stuff you’ve written about the shop. That’s been okay, I guess. And few other things. I read the one about the bag lady they’d tossed out of McLean mental hospital with the progressive idea that no one should be incarcerated, even for their own good, and she lived on the streets for twenty years. And the one about the Vietnam vet who still sends Christmas cards to the families of his lost buddies—only the list has grown through the years to several hundred as so many have died by the rapine of time. And the two sisters who lived together right here in South Boston for fifty years after their husband’s both died in World War Two. All of it good stuff. It’s the best stuff in the Post.
DEIRDRE
(Shrugs and draws a question mark in the loose sand with her index finger)
It’s all on the internet now. You can read it there. It’s indexed. But what did you really think of the pieces I wrote about you?
MICHAEL
They were okay.
DEIRDRE
Just okay?
MICHAEL
Just. But that’s not necessarily your fault. You wrote them the way your editor wanted it. That’s your job. You don’t always get to write the stories you’d like to tell. Most writers don’t. Not like it is with me. That’s the real benefit to publishing your own work, I guess, even if fewer people get to read it. . . . So, what kind of stories did you want to tell when you started?
DEIRDRE
(She laughs)
You wouldn’t have liked those. I was very much the feminist then. Very political. I saw everything through that lens.
MICHAEL
When did you change?
DEIRDRE
‘AD.’ After Dennis. He was the editor there at the Post that I was in love with—the one who took the job at the Times in New York. But I don’t want to talk about that rat again. Tell me what you came here to say.
MICHAEL
I just came here to talk.
DEIRDRE
Well, we’re certainly getting that done.
MICHAEL
Well, I’ve avoided discussing philosophy for obvious reasons. Where might that end?
DEIRDRE
Dolesome.
MICHAEL
Nice word. Trouble is that biology is no longer a branch of natural history, and philosophy has long since been overtaken by politics. I guess I wonder if you fully understand what it is I stand for? Or sit for, in this case. More importantly, would you sit still for it, given your own inclinations?. . . But then, ‘The time has come, ‘The Walrus said,’ to talk of many things: Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages, and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.’
DEIRDRE
Are you trying to put me off with a bunch of jabberwock? After all, I’ve actually known you for twenty years. Many’s the time I’ve heard you expounding your recidivist thoughts aloud to some stunned customer who’d only just asked a simple question. It’s true, I don’t always understand what you’re going on about, but I usually get the drift.
MICHAEL
You have a point there. I’d just thought of an appropriate lie in response and started in on that before I realized it was the truth as well, . . . I’m too old for this. I like romance well enough, but likely, I don’t have enough heart left for the breaking.
DEIDRE
Go ahead then. Tell me what you’d really like to, in your own way. I’ll catch up.
MICHAEL
You mean, about making passionate love to you?
DEIRDRE
Besides that!
MICHAEL
Not a lot, really. I have a few more novels I’d like to write. . . . And I’ve always wanted to spend a year or two out on the Prairie and maybe write a novel out there where I can smell the grass.
DEIRDRE
Why?
MICHAEL
Mostly because it’s flat. I’ve driven through it a dozen times and always wondered what I was missing. Obviously the charms there are more subtle.
DEIRDRE
What about the revolution?
MICHAEL
It can wait.
DEIRDRE
That doesn’t sound quite as committed as your buddy George.
MICHAEL
No. Well. I sort of feel as if I’ve already done what I can in that regard.
DEIRDRE
How’s that?
MICHAEL
With the shop.
DEIRDRE
(She lying back and staring directly up at the sky)
Oh.
MICHAEL
You know, we’ve probably never voted for the same candidate.
DEIRDRE
I stopped voting a long time ago. They’re all frauds and phonies.
MICHAEL
Well then, that’s something else we can agree on. Most of the time.
DEIRDRE
Whatever. So, let me understand this—the problem you have with the world is a general lack of integrity and responsibility.
MICHAEL
I guess, in short, yes—well, that, and a lack of class.
DEIRDRE
Well, we can agree on that, too.
MICHAEL
And I’m boring. Margaret told me that more than once, and I think it’s true. I like to be at home when I’m home. I enjoy the traveling but I like to stop and I dawdle wherever I can. Dilly-dally. I’d just as soon spend the day on a beach at Cardiff as looking at the castle.
DEIRDRE
(Deirdre shrugs)
Me too.
MICHAEL
Beaches are all different to me, and castles are too much the same.
DEIRDRE
‘Such quantities of sand!’
MICHAEL
There’s our Mr. Carroll again. I though you weren’t big on memorizing things.
DEIRDRE
(She smiles)
When I was a girl, I went to a parochial school. We had a sister there, Sister Mary Francis, who was quite intent on us memorizing things. I’ve still got a little of that in me.
MICHAEL
Then we have that in common too.
DEIRDRE
What? You were a girl in parochial school once?
MICHAEL
No. But I sat close to one.
DEIRDRE
Did you have a crush on her?
MICHAEL
Pure lust. She was very well developed for her age.
DEIRDRE
Did you send her notes?
MICHAEL
Until the nun caught me and confiscated all the rest from Maddy’s desk.
DEIRDRE
Did you tell this Maddy that you loved her?
MICHAEL
Madly. I copied poetry I didn’t even understand from Byron and Shelley, just because the book said they were Romantic poets.
DEIRDRE
(Sitting up and clapping her hands together)
Oh, excellent! I wish the boy who wanted to grope me in high school had quoted Byron. Lord, I do. I wouldn’t have been a virgin until I was twenty-eight! What happened then? What did the nun do?
MICHAEL
She read them aloud to the class. And when she was done, and poor Maddy had sunk completely beneath the desk in shame, Sister complimented me on my choices. It was an early assessment of my good taste in literature.
DEIRDRE
God, I wish I knew you then!
MICHAEL
What sort of notes did your groper send you?
DEIRDRE
He was illiterate. He drew pictures. Nasty pictures. My fear was that someone would think I had encouraged him in some way. So, when he wouldn’t stop, I turned them in.
MICHAEL
You turned him in?
DEIRDRE
No. Just the pictures. But the Nun knew who it was. He had a distinctive style. Picassoesque.
MICHAEL
You are tough! How old were you then?
DEIRDRE
Fourteen. And not much more developed than I am now, I’m afraid.
MICHAEL
But already a reporter.
DEIRDRE
Yes. I guess I was.
MICHAEL
Tell me about your first boyfriend?
DEIRDRE
You mean the first man I slept with, or the first I fell in love with?
MICHAEL
Don’t tell me about the sex. Please. Just the one you first fell for.
DEIRDRE
Russell. Rusty. The boy next door, almost. Two doors away. He used to take his shirt off to mow the lawn. He played the piano and you could hear him every evening at six o’clock when his lesson started. The repetitions were mesmerizing. He was Jewish. And unfortunately for me he was gay. But we were great friends until he went off to college.
MICHAEL
Sorry.
DEIRDRE
Why? It was a lot better than sitting around with the girls and just talking about boys. Rusty talked about all sorts of things I’d never thought about. His hero was Cole Porter, and he wanted to write music for the theatre.
MICHAEL
Did he do it?
DEIRDRE
A little, I think. Rusty died of aids in 1988. . . . End of story.
MICHAEL
Crap! Double crap!
DEIRDRE
So, who was your first girl friend? Maddy?
MICHAEL
No. I don’t think Maddy spoke to me again after the notes debacle. I don’t remember. I don’t think I actually had another girlfriend until Margaret.
DEIRDRE
(She pauses)
Lucky Margaret.
MICHAEL
I don’t think she was ever that happy about it. Like I said, she thought I was boring. She wanted to travel. And she had to teach me how to use a knife and fork.
DEIRDRE
She was more experienced than you.
MICHAEL
Pretty much. That’s what college is for, isn’t it?
DEIRDRE
You’ve never been in love with anyone else?
MICHAEL
Not that I knew. But I’ve had a lot of crushes on women from afar.
DEIRDRE
Anyone I would know?
MICHAEL
Jane Austen.
DEIRDRE
You’re kidding?
MICHAEL
No. I wrote an essay about her in my freshman English Lit class at BC. I was very serious. I even wrote a time-travel novel just so I could go back and make love to her.
DEIRDRE
Oh my god. You are insane. Really! . . . Anyone else. Anyone alive?
MICHAEL
I fell in love with Ayn Rand shortly after that. She was alive then. Just a little desiccated. But she quickly assumed possession of my abandoned Roman Catholic soul and the need for certainty in an uncertain world. It was a torrid affair, and that infidelity continued until it drove Margaret crazy. But even when the infatuation was over, I don’t think things were ever that right between Margaret and me. Those are the real wages of philosophy and sin.
(Deirdre remains silent)
But enough of that.
DEIRDRE
Is that it?
MICHAEL
What?
DEIRDRE
What you brought me here to say to me?
MICHAEL
I guess it’s by way of context.
DEIRDRE
What’s the text?
MICHAEL
I’m in love with you. Either that, or I have the flu.
DEIRDRE
Turns her head to him with her mouth hanging open a moment)
You are so very romantic!
MICHAEL
Yeah. You know, it’s a funny thing to consider what’ll make a boy read. The film From Here to Eternity was handsomely advertised with a poster of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr entangled half-naked on a beach with the waves at their feet. At the time, it was the most sexually electrifying portrait of love that my young eyes had ever seen, and the owner of the small movie theatre in my home town must have agreed with me because he left this soft-core porn displayed behind the glass of a lobby case for many years after the movie itself had come and gone. Though, I didn’t really take notice of it until the summer of 1959, when I turned twelve. A devastating time, over all. You can imagine. And that was just about the moment a new movie had opened at that same theatre called On the Beach. A calmer affair by far, especially in that it involved a very wooden Gregory Peck in Naval officer’s garb and a soft and teary but fully dressed Ava Gardner, begging to be disrobed. That, and incidentally, the end of the world. . . . It was Ava Gardner that really got me to read. I’d already tried to read the novel of From Here to Eternity, looking for the steamy parts, and found it boring. But when I read On the Beach, I was up all night with it, unable to sleep. And when I think of On the Beach today, first thing, I always first see Lancaster and Kerr, totally out of time, and place, and in that circumstance. So I like beaches, I guess.
DEIRDRE
Are you done?
MICHAEL
Yes.
DEIRDRE
Well, I’m not.
(She sits up and kisses him. The lights dim.)
[more of A Republic of Books, the novel and play in progress, may be found elsewhere on this ethereal site]