The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore Page 3

mrs goForth [in her very 'pidgin' Italian]: Table here. Capite ? Tabolo. [Points.] Qui. On tabolo, I want - What are you grinning at?

  giulio [very Neapolitan]: Niente, niente, mascusa! [Places table

  by chaise.]

  SIMONETTA [giggling]: Tabolo. mrs goforth: On tabolo voglio - una bottoglia d'acqua

  SCENE TWO

  IJ7

  minerale, San Pellegrino, capite, molto ghiaccato: capite? [simonetta giggles behind her hand at giulio's antic deference to the Signora.

  mrs goforth glares suspiciously from one to the other, turning from side to side like a bull wondering which way to charge.

  blackie enters the terrace area with the mobile, folded.]

  mrs goforth: Che strange! Both of 'em.

  blackie: You mustn't call them that, it has an insulting meaning.

  mrs goforth: I know what it means and that's what I mean it to mean. Generalissimo Rudy says they sleep together and carry on together some nights right here on my terrace.

  blackie: They're from Naples, and -

  mrs goforth: What's that got to do with it?

  blackie:- And Generalissimo Rudy wants the girl for himself, so he -

  mrs goforth: will you please tell them what i want on the table by this chaise. here?

  blackie: What do you want on the table?

  mrs goforth: I - want a cold bottle of acqua minerale, cigarettes, matches, my Bain-Soleil, my codein and empirin tablets, a shot of cognac on the rocks, the Paris Herald-Tribune, The Rome Daily American, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times and Express, the -- Hey, what did you do with the -

  blackie: The visitor?

  mrs goforth: The beatnik trespasser, yes, and what the hell have you got there that rattles like a string of box cars crossing a railyard switch?

  blackie: The young man's in the pink villa where you told me to put him - this is something he gave me for me to give you. It seems he constructs mobiles.

  mrs goforth: Mobiles? Constructs?

  blackie: Yes, those metal decorations. He gives them titles: this one's called 'The Earth is a Wheel in a Great Big Gambling Casino'.

  mrs goforth: Is it a present or something he hopes he can sell me?

  I58 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  blackie: It's a present. He wanted me to suspend it before you saw it, but since you've already seen it - shall I hang it up somewhere?

  mrs goforth: No, just put it down somewhere and help me up, the sun is making me dizzy, I don't know why I came out here. What am I doing out here ?

  blackie: I was going to remind you that Dr Rengucci warned you not to expose yourself to the sun till the chest abscess, the lesion, has healed completely.

  mrs goforth: I don't have a chest abscess! - stop putting bad mouth on me! Open the door, I'm going in the library.

  [The stage assistants rush out and remove the screen masking that area as mrs goforth starts toward it, lifting a hand like a Roman empress saluting the populace. She enters the library area.] What did he have to say?

  blackie: The- ?

  mrs goforth: Trespasser, what did he have to say?

  blackie: About what?

  mrs goforth: ME.

  blackie: He wondered if you remembered him or not.

  mrs goforth: Oh, I might have met him somewhere, sometime or other, when I was still meeting people, interested in it, before they all seemed like the same person over and over and I got tired of the person.

  blackie: This young man won't seem like the same person to you.

  mrs goforth: That remains to be - Blackie, y'know what I need to shake off this, this - depression, what would do me more good this summer than all the shots and pills in the pharmaceutical kingdom ? I need me a lover.

  blackie: What do you mean by 'a lover'?

  mrs goforth: I mean a lover! What do you mean by a lover, or is that word outside your Vassar vocabulary?

  blackie: I've only had one lover, my husband Charles, and I lost Charles last spring.

  MRS goforth: What beats me is how you could have a husband named Charles and not call him Charlie. I mean the

  SCENE TWO 159

  fact that you called him Charles and not Charlie describes your whole relationship with him, don't it? blackie [flaring]: Stop about my husband! MRS goforth: The dead are dead and the living are living! blackie: Not so, I'm not dead but not living! mrs goforth: GIULIO!

  [He has entered the library area with the mineral water.] MRS goforth: Va a villino rosa e portame qui the sack - il

  sacco, sacco! - delle hospite la.

  blackie: Oh, no, you mustn't do that, that's too undignified ofyou!

  [giulio exits to perform this errand.]

  mrs goforth: Take care of your own dignity and lemme take care of mine. It's a perfectly natural, legitimate thing to do, to go through the luggage of a trespasser on your place for - possible - weapons, and so forth.... [Sits at desk.] Pencil, notebook, dictation.

  [blackiepays no attention to these demands: lights a cigarette behind mrs goforth's back as she begins dictating.]

  - Season of '24, costume ball at Cannes. Never mind the style, now, polish up later...

  - Went as Lady Godiva. All of me, gilded, my whole body painted gold, except for - green velvet fig leaves. Breasts? Famous breasts? Nude, nude completely!

  - Astride a white horse, led into the ballroom by a young nigger. Correction. A Nubian - slave-boy. Appearance created a riot. Men clutched at my legs, trying to dismount me so they could mount me. Maddest party ever, ever imaginable in those days of mad parties. This set the record for madness. - In '29, so much ended, but not for me. I smelt the crash coming, animal instinct - very valuable asset, put everything into absolutely indestructible utilities such as - chemicals, electric... minerals.

  [giulio enters with the rucksack.] giulio: Ecco, il sacco! [Drops it before mrs goforth with a

  crash that makes her gasp.]

  blackie: May I be excused? I don't want to take part in this. goforth: Stay here. You heard that noise, that wasn't just clothes, that was metal.

  l6o THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  blackie: Yes, I suppose he's come here to seize the mountain by force of arms.

  MRS ggforth [to giulio]: Giulio, open, apierte! [giulio opens the sack and the inspection begins.]

  blackie: I told you he made mobiles, the sack's full of metalsmith's tools.

  MRS GOFORTH:He hauled this stuff up the mountain?

  blackie: It didn't fly up.

  MRS goforth: He must have the back of a dray horse. Tell this idiot to hold the sack upside down and empty it all on the floor, he's taking things out like it was a Christmas stocking.

  blackie: I'll do it. He'd break everything. [She carefully empties the contents oj the sack on to the floor].

  mrs goforth: See if he's got any travellers' cheques and how much they amount to.

  blackie [ignoring this order and picking up a book]: He offered me this book, I forgot to take it.

  MRS goforth [glaring at the book through her glasses]: 'Meanings Known and Unknown'. It sounds like something religious.

  blackie: He says it's a verse-adaptation he did of a -

  mrs goforth: Swami Something. See if you can locate the little book they always carry with names and addresses in it, sometimes it gives you a clue to their backgrounds and -inclinations. Here. This is it. [Snatches up an address book.] -Christ. Lady Emerald Fowler, she's been in hell for ten years. - Christabel Smithers, that name rings a long ago church bell for a dead bitch, too. Mary Cole, dead! Laurie Emerson, dead! Is he a graveyard sexton? My God, where's his passport?

  blackie [picking it up]: Here. mrs goforth: Date of birth. 1928: hmmm, no chicken,

  Blackie. How old's that make him?

  blackie: - Thirty-four. [Lights a cigarette. MRS goforth coughs and snatches the cigarette from blackie's hand. She sets it on the desk and in a moment will start smoking it herself.] mrs goforth: No trav
ellers' cheques whatsoever. Did he have some cash on him?

  SCENE TWO

  161

  blackie: I don't know, I neglected to frisk him.

  MRS goforth: Did you get him to bathe?

  blackie: Yes.

  MRS goforth: How'd he look in the bath-tub?

  blackie: I'm afraid I can't give you any report on that.

  MRS goforth: Where's his clothes, no clothes, niente vestiti in

  sacco?

  [giulioproduces one shirt, laundered but not ironed.] giulio: Ecco, una cammicia, una bella cammicial mrs goforth: One shirt! blackie: He probably had to check some of his luggage

  somewhere, in order to get up the - goat path ... and the

  clothes he had on were demolished by Rudy's dogs. mrs goforth: Well, put a robe in his room: I know: the

  Samurai warrior's robe that Alex wore at breakfast, we

  always wore robes at breakfast in case he wanted to go back

  to bed right after...

  [stage assistant enters with robe: sword belt attached] blackie: Did he keep the sword on him at breakfast? mrs goforth: Yes, he did and sometimes he'd draw it out of

  the scabbard and poke me with it. Ho, ho. Tickle me with

  the point of it, ho ho ho ho!

  blackie: You weren't afraid he'd - accidentally - ? mrs goforth: Sure, and it was exciting. I had me a little

  revolver. I'd draw a bead on him sometimes and I'd say,

  you are too beautiful to live and so you have to die, now,

  tonight - tomorrow -

  [stage assistant has handed the robe to blackie who accepts it without a glance at him.] - put the robe in the pink villino, and then call the Witch of

  Capri.

  blac kie: Which witch? Mrs goforth: The one that wired me last month. 'Are you

  still living?' Tell her I am. And get her over for dinner, tell

  her it's urgentissimo! Everything's Urgentissimo here this

  summer___

  [Phone buzzes on desk. As blackie starts off, mrs go-forth answers the phone:]

  Pronto, pronto, chi parla? - Taormina? Sicilia? - I've placed

  162 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  no call to that place. [Slams phone.] - Hmmmm, the summer is coming to life! I'm coming back to life with it! [She presses buttons on her inter-com. system: electric burners sound from various points on the stage as the stage assistants cover the library area with the griffin-crested screen.]

  DIM OUT

  SCENE THREE

  That evening: the terrace of the white villa and a small section of mrs goforth's bedroom, upstage left.

  In this scene, the stage assistants may double as butlers, with or without white jackets.

  At rise: two screens are lighted, one masking the small dinner table on the fore stage, the other mrs goforth. A stage assistant stands beside each screen so that they can be removed simultaneously when a chord on the harmonium provides the signal.

  The middle panel of mrsgoforth's screen is topped by a gold-winged griffin to signify that she is 'in residence' behind it.

  mrs goforth's voice [asthmatically]: Simonetta, la roba. [simonetta rushes behind the screen with an elaborate Oriental costume.]

  Attenzione, goddam it, questa roba molto, molto valore. Va bene. Adesso, perruga!*

  simonetta [Emerging from the screen]: La perrucba bionde?

  mrs goforth: Nero, nero!

  [The musician strikes a ready chord on the harmonium: the screens are whisked away. In the stage left area, we see mrs goforth in the Oriental robe, on the forest age, rudy in his semi-military outfit pouring himself a drink, and a small section of balustrade on which is a copper brazier, flickering with blue flame, blackie enters, stage right, with a napkin and silver and sets a third place at the table, rudy hovers behind her:]

  blackie: Stop breathing down my neck.

  mrs goforth: Ecco!

  [She puts on a black Kabuki wig with fantastic ornaments stuck in it. Her appearance is gorgeously bizarre. As she moves, now, out upon the forest age, the harmonium outlined dimly against a starry night sky, plays a bit of Oriental music] Well, no comment, Blackie.

  *Wig.

  164 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  blac kie: The Witch of Capri has just gotten out of the boat and is getting into the funicular.

  MRS goforth: You kill me, Blackie, you do, you literally kill me. I come out here in this fantastic costume and all you say is the Witch of Capri has landed.

  blackie: I told you how fantastic it was when you wore it last week-end when that Italian screen star didn't show up for dinner, so I didn't think it would be necessary to tell you again, but what I do want to tell you is that I wish you'd explain to Rudy that I find him resistible, and when I say resistible I'm putting it as politely as I know how.

  mrs goforth: What's Rudy doing to you?

  blackie: Standing behind me, and-

  mrs goforth: You want him in front of you, Blackie.

  blackie: I want him off the terrace while I'm on it.

  mrs goforth: Rudy, you'd better go check my bedroom safe. These rocks I've put on tonight are so hot they're radioactive. [To blackie.] Guess, what I'm worth on the hoof in this regalia.

  blackie: I'm no good at guessing the value of-

  mrs goforth: I can't stand anything false. Even my kidney-stones, if I had kidney-stones, would be genuine diamonds fit for a queen's crown, Blackie.

  [blackie lights a cigarette, mrs goforth, takes the cigarette from her.]

  A witch and a bitch always dress up for each other, because otherwise the witch would upstage the bitch, or the bitch would upstage the witch, and the result would be havoc.

  blackie: Fine feathers flying in all directions?

  mrs goforth: That's right. - The Witch has a fairly large collection of rocks herself, but no important pieces. [Crosses, smoking, to the table.] Hey. The table's set for three. Are you having dinner with us ?

  blackie: Not this evening, thanks, I have to catch up on my typing.

  mrs goforth: Then who's this third place set for?

  blackie: The young man in the pink villa, I thought he'd be dining with you.

  mrs goforth: That was presumptuous of you. He's having

  SCENE THREE 165

  no meals with me till I know more about him. The Witch of Capri can give me the low-down on him: in fact, the only reason I asked The Witch to dinner was to get the low-down on this mountain climber. the witch [at a distance]: Yoo-hoo!

  MRS goforth: YOOO-HOOO! She won't be here more than a minute before she makes some disparaging comment on my appearance. Codein, empirin, brandy, before she gets here; she takes a morbid interest in the health of her friends because her own's on the down-grade. the witch [nearer]: Yoo-hoo!

  MRS goforth: Yooo-hooo! Here she comes, here comes The Witch.

  [the witch of Capri, the Marquesa Constance Ridgeway-Condotti, appears on the terrace. She looks like a creature out of a sophisticated fairy tale, her costume like something that might have been designed for Fata Morgana. Her dress is grey chiffon, panelled, and on her blue-tinted head she wears a cone-shaped hat studded with pearls, the peak of it draped with the material of her dress, her expressive, claw-like hands a-glitter with gems. At the sight of mRs goforth, she halts dramatically, opening her eyes very wide for a moment, as if confronted by a frightening apparition: then she utters a dramatic little cry and extends her arms in a counterfeit gesture of pity.] the witch: Sissy! Love! mrs goforth: Connie ...

  [They embrace ritually and coolly: then stand back from each other with sizing-up stares.] the witch: Sissy, don't tell me we're having a Chinese

  dinner.

  Mrs goforth: This isn't a Chinese robe, it's a Kabuki dancer's, a Japanese national treasure that Simon Willing-ham bought me on our reconciliation trip to Japan. It's only some centuries old. I had to sneak it through customs - Japanese customs - by wearing it tucked up under a c
hinchilla coat. Y'know I studied Kabuki, and got to be very good at it, I was a guest artist once at a thing for typhoon relief, and I can still do it, you see.

  [She opens her lacquered fan and executes some Kabuki dance

  l66 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  steps, humming weirdly: the effect has a sort of grotesque beauty, but she is suddenly dizzy and staggers against the table, the witch utters a shrill cry: blackie rushes to catch her and the table, mrs goforth tries to laugh it off.]

  mrs goforth: - Ha, ha, too much codein, I took a little codein for my neuralgia before you got here.

  the witch: Well, I'm suffering, too. We're suffering together. Will you look at my arm. [Draws up her flowing sleeves to expose a bandaged forearm.] The sea is full of Medusas.

  MRS goforth: Full of what?

  the witch: Medusas, you know, those jelly-fish that sting, the Latins call them Medusas, and one of them got me this morning, a giant one, at the Piccola Marina. I want a martini. I've got to stay slightly drunk to bear the pain. [ She tosses her parasol to blackie and advances to the liquor cart.] Sissy, your view is a meraviglia, veramenta una meraviglial [Drains a martini that blackie pours her: then swings full circle and dingily returns to a chair at the table.] Do we have to eat? - I'm so full of canapes from Mona's cocktail do....

  MRS goforth: Oh, is that what you're full of? We're having a very light supper, because the smell of food after codein nauseates me, Connie.

  blackie: Mrs Goforth, shouldn't I take something to your house-guest since he's not dining with you?

  mrs goforth: No, meaning no, but you can leave us now, Blackie. Oh, excuse me, this is my secretary, Miss Black. Blackie, this is - what's your latest name, Connie?

  the witch: I mailed you my wedding invitation the spring before last spring to some hospital in Boston, the Leahey Clinic, and never received a word of acknowledgment from you.

  mrs goforth: Oh, weddings and funerals're things you show up at or you don't, according to where you are and - [Rings bell for service: the stage assistants appear with white towels over their forearms or coloured mess-jackets, note: Although they sometimes take part in the action of the play, the characters in the play never appear to notice the stage assistants.] - other circumstances: Have a gull's egg, Connie.

  SCENE THREE 167

  the witch: No, thank you, I can't stand gulls.

  MRS goforth: Well, eating their eggs cuts down on their population.

  the witch: What is this monster of the deep?

  MRS goforth: Dentice, dentice freddo.

  the witch: It has a horrid expression on its face.

  MRS goforth: Don't look at it, just eat it.

  the witch: Couldn't possibly, thank you.

  MRS goforth:- Are you still living on blood transfusions, Connie? That's not good, it turns you into a vampire, a pipistrella, ha ha.... Your neck's getting too thin, Connie. Is it true you had that sheep embryo - plantation in -Switzerland? I heard so: don't approve of it. It keys you up for a while and then you collapse, completely. The human system can't stand too much stimulation after -sixty....

  the witch: - What did they find out at The Leahey Clinic, Sissy?

  mrs goforth: Oh, that, that was just a little - routine check-up....

  the witch: When you called me today I was so relieved I could die: shouted 'Hallelujah' silently, to myself. I'd heard such distressing rumours about you lately, Sissy.

  mrs goforth: Rumours? Hell, what rumours?