The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore Read online

the witch [crossing to bar cart for a refill]: I can't tell you the rumours that have been circulating about you since your house-party last month. The ones you brought over from Capri came back to Capri with stories that I love you too much to repeat.

  mrs goforth: Repeat them, Connie, repeat them.

  the witch: Are you sure you feel well enough to take them? [Returns to her chair.] Well - they said you were, well, that you seemed to be off your rocker. They said you spent the whole night shouting over loudspeakers so nobody could sleep and that what you shouted was not to be believed!

  Mrs goforth: Oh, how nice of them, Connie. Capri's turned into a nest of vipers, Connie - and the sea is full of Medusas? Mmm. The Medusas are spawned by the bitches. You want to know the truth behind this gossip?

  l68 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  Or would you rather believe a pack of malicious inventions?

  the witch: You know I love you, Sissy. What's the truth?

  mrs goforth: Not that. - I'll tell you the truth. [Rises and indicates the inter-com. speaker,,] I'm writing my memoirs, this summer. I've got the whole place wired for sound, a sort of very elaborate inter-com. or walkie-talkie system, so I can dictate to my secretary, Blackie. I buzz my secretary any time of the day and night and continue dictating to her. That's the truth, the true story. [Crosses to the witch.]

  the witch [holding her hand]: I'm so glad you told me, Sissy, love!

  mrs goforth: Has it ever struck you, Connie, that life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going? It's really all memory, Connie, except for each passing moment. What I just now said to you is a memory now - recollection. Uh-hummm .. . [She paces the terrace.] - I'm up now. When I was at the table is a memory, now. [Arrives at edge of lighted area Down Right and turns.] � When I turned at the other end of the terrace is a memory now...

  [the witch crosses to her.]

  Practically everything is a memory to me, now, so I'm writing me memoirs ... [Points up.] Shooting star: it's shot: - a memory now. Six husbands, all memory now. All lovers: all memory now.

  the witch: So you're writing your memoirs. mrs goforth: Devoting all of me to it and all of my time. ... At noon today, I was dictating to Blackie on a tape-recorder: the beautiful part of my life, my love with Alex, my final marriage: Alex. the witch [crossing to bar cart]: Oh, the young Russian

  dancer from the Diaghilev troupe ?

  mrs goforth [crossing back to her chair]: Oh, God, no, I never married a dancer. Slept with a couple but never married a one. They're too narcissus for me, love only mirrors. Nope. Alex was a young poet with a spirit that was as beautiful as his body. Only one I married that wasn't rich as Croesus.

  SCENE THREE 169

  Alex made love without mirrors. He used my eyes for his

  mirrors. The only husband I've had of the six I've had that

  I could make love to with a bright light burning over the

  bed. Hundred watt bulbs overhead! To see, while we

  loved.... the witch [also back at the table, with the pitcher of martinis]: -

  Are you dictating this ? Over a loudspeaker? mrs goforth: - Ah, God - Alex ... the witch: - Are you in pain? Do you have a pain in your

  chest?

  mrs goforth: - Why? the witch: You keep touching your chest. mrs goforth: - Emotion, I've been very emotional all

  day.... At noon today, a young poet came up the goat-path

  from the highway just as I was in the emotional - throes -

  of dictating my memories of young Alex.... the witch: Ah-ha. [Finishes her martini.] mrs goforth: He came up the goat-path from the Amain

  Drive wearing lederhosen like Alex was wearing the first

  time I set eyes on Alex.

  the witch [starts to pour another martini]: Ahh-ha! mrs goforth [snatching the pitcher from her and placing it on the

  floor]: - Do you want to hear this story ? the witch: Liquor improves my concentration. Go on.

  You've met a new poet. What was the name of this

  poet?

  mrs goforth: His name was on the book. the witch: Yes, sometimes they do put the author's name

  on a book.

  mrs goforth [unamused]: Sanders? No. Manders? No. the witch: Flanders. Christopher Flanders. [Makes large

  eyes.] Is he still in circulation? mrsgoforth:I don't know if he's in circulation or not but I

  do know he came up here to see me and not by the boat and

  funicular he -

  the witch [crossing to her]: Well, God help you, Sissy. mrs goforth: Why, is something wrong with him? the witch: Not if you're not superstitious. Are you superstitious?

  170 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  MRS goforth: What's superstition got to do with -

  the witch: I've got to have a wee drop of brandy on this!

  [Crosses to bar cart.] This is really uncanny! mrs goforth: Well, come out with it, what? the witch [selecting the brandy bottle]: I think I'd rather not

  tell you.

  mrs goforth [commandingly]: WHAT? the witch: Promise me not to be frightened? mrs goforth: When've I ever been frightened? Of what? Not even that stiletto you've got for a tongue can scare me! [Downs her own martini at a gulp.] So what's the - ? th e witch: Chris, poor Chris Flanders, he has the bad habit of coming to call on a lady just a step or two ahead of the undertaker. [She sits.] Last summer at Portofino he stayed with some Texas oil people and at supper one night that wicked old Duke of Parma, you know the one that we call the Parma Violet, he emptied a champagne bottle on Christopher's head and he said, I christen thee, Christopher Flanders, the 'Angel of Death'. The name has stuck to him, Sissy. Why, some people in our age bracket, we're senior citizens, Sissy, would set their dogs on him if he entered their grounds, but since you're not superstitious. - Why isn't he dining here with us ? mrs goforth: I wanted some information about him before

  I-

  the witch: Let him stay here?

  mrs goforth: He's here on probation. [She rings for giulio and crosses centre.] I put him in the pink villa where he's been sleeping since noon, when he climbed up a goat-path to see me. the witch [following]: I hope he's not playing his sleeping

  trick on you, Sissy. mrs goforth: Trick? Sleeping?

  The witch: Yes, last summer when he was with that Portofino couple from Texas, they were thrown into panic when they heard his nickname, Angel of Death, and told him that night to check out in the morning. Well, that night, he swallowed some sleeping pills that night, Sissy, but of course he took the precaution of leaving an early morning

  SCENE THREE

  171

  call so he could be found and revived before the pills could-[mrs goforth abruptly leaves.]

  - Where're you going, Sissy?

  MRS goforth: Follow me to the pink villa, hurry, hurry, I better make sure he's not playing that trick on me.

  [She rushes offstage, the witch laughs wickedly as she follows. The stage assistants immediately set a screen before this acting area and it dims: then they remove a screen upstage and we see chris asleep in the pink villa. Harmonium: Variation of a lullaby, perhaps Brahms! mrs goforth and the witch appear just on the edge of the small lighted area.] mrs goforth: Everything's pink in this villa so it's called

  the pink villa. the witch: I see, that's logical, Sissy. Hmmm. There he is:

  sleeping.

  mrsgoforth [in a shrill whisper as they draw closer to the bed]: Can you tell if he's - ?

  [the witch removes her slippers, creeps to the bedside and touches his wrist.]

  - Well?

  the witch: Hush! [Slips back to mrs goforth.] You're lucky, Sissy. His pulse seems normal, he's sleeping normally, and he has a good colour. - Let me see if there's liquor on his breath. [Slips back to bed and bends her face to his.] No. It's sweet as a baby's.

  Mrs goforth: Don't go to bed with him!

  the witch: No, that's your pr
ivilege, Sissy.

  mrs goforth [moving downstage from the lighted area in a follow spot]: Come out here.

  the witch [reluctantly following]: You must have met him before.

  Mrs goforth: Oh, somewhere, sometime, when I was still meeting people, before they all seemed like the same person over and over and I got tired of the� person.

  the witch: You know his story, don't you?

  [The stage assistants place a section of balustrade, at an angle, beside them, and a copper brazier with the blue flame in it.

  172 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  The flame flickers eerily on the witch's face as she tells what she knows of chris: Harmonium plays under the stylized recitation.']

  Sally Ferguson found him at a ski lodge in Nevada where he was working as a ski instructor. mrs goforth: A poet, a ski instructor? the witch: Everything about him was like that, a contradiction. He taught Sally skiing at this Nevada lodge where Sally was trying to prove she was a generation younger than she was and thought she could get away with it. - Well, she should have stuck to the gentle slopes, since her bones had gone dry, but one day she took the ski lift to the top of the mountain, drank a hot buttered rum, and took off like a wild thing, a crazy bird, down the mountain, slammed into a tree and broke her hip bone. Well, Christopher Flanders carried her back to the ski lodge. We all thought she was done for but Chris worked a miracle on her that lasted for quite a while. He got her back on her pins after they'd pinned her broken hip together with steel pins. They travelled together, to and from Europe together, but then one time in rough weather, on the promenade deck of one of the Queen ships, the Mary, he suddenly let go of her, she took a spill and her old hip bone broke again, too badly for steel pins to pin her back together again, and Sally gave up her travels except from one room to another, on a rolling couch pushed by Chris. We all advised her to let Chris go like Chris had let go of her on the promenade deck of the Mary. Would she? Never! She called him my saint, my angel, till the day that she died. And her children contested her will so that Chris got nothing, just his poems published, dedicated to Sally. The book won a prize of some kind and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar played it up big with lovely photos of Chris looking like what she called him, an angel, a saint....

  mrs goforth: Did he sleep with that old Ferguson bitch? Or was he just her Death Angel ?

  [Phone rings on the bedside table: the area has remained softly lighted, chris starts up: drops back, feigning sleep, at mrs goforth rushes to the phone, snatches it up.]

  SCENE THREE

  173

  - Pronto, dica. - Taormina, Sicily? No, Spogliato!

  [Looks with angry suspicion at chris, who murmurs as if in sleep. She notices the food tray by the bed, and snatches it up: returns to the witch, downstage.]

  MRS goforth: He's already making long-distance calls on the phone and look at this. He's had them bring him a food tray and I am going to remove it. I can't stand guests, especially not invited, that act like they're in a hotel, charging calls and calling for room service. Come on, I'm turning out the lights. the witch: My slippers.

  [She slips back to the bed and picks up her slippers: lingers over chris: suddenly bends to kiss him on the mouth. He rolls over quickly, shielding his lower face with an arm and uttering a grunt of distaste.] Possum I

  [The lights dim in the area: asthe witch moves downstage: mrs goforth to disappeared.] Sissy? Sissy? Yoo-hoo! mrs goforth [at a distance]: Yoo-hoo!

  the witch [crossinginto the wings]: Yooooooooo-hoooooo... [The stage assistants replace the screen that masked the pink villa bed. Then they fold and remove the screen before blackie's bed in the blue villa.

  The area remains dark till a faint dawn light appears on the cyclorama. Then blackie's bed is lighted and we see her seated on it, brushing her dark hair with a silver-backed brush.]

  SCENE FOUR

  Later that night: the terrace of the white villa. The watchman rudy sweeps the audience with the beam of his flashlight. We hear a long, anguished 'Ahhh' from behind the screen masking mrs goforth's bed. rudy, as if he heard the outcry, turns the flashlight momentarily on the screen behind which it comes. He chuckles: sways drunkenly: then suddenly turns the light beam on the figure of chris who has entered quietly from the wings, stage right.

  chris [shielding his eyes from the flashlight]: Oh. Hello.

  rudy: You still prowling around here?

  chris [still agreeably]: No, I'm. Well, yes, I'm - [His smile

  fades as rudy moves in closer.] - I just now woke up hungry. I

  didn't want to disturb anybody, so I -rudy: You just now woke up, huh? chris: Yes, I -

  rudy: Where'd you just now wake up? chris: In the, uh, guest-house, the -rudy: Looking for the dogs again, are you? [Whistles the dogs

  awake. They set up a clamour at a distanced] chris: I told you I just now woke up hungry: I came out to

  see if-rudy [moving still closer and cutting in]: Aw, you woke up

  hungry?

  chris: Yes. Famished. rudy: How about this, how'd you like to eat this, something

  like this, huh ? [ Thrusts his stick hard into Chris's stomach.] chris: [Expels his breath in a 'hah'.] rudy: 'Sthat feel good on your belly? Want some more of

  that, huh?

  [Drives the stick again into Chris's stomach, so hard that chris bends over, unable to speak. blackie rushes on to the terrace in a dressing-gown, her hair loose.] blackie: rudy! what's going on here?

  [The dogs have roused and have started barking at a distance.]

  SCENE FOUR

  175

  This young man is a guest of Mrs Goforth. He's staying in the pink villa. Are you all right, Mr Flanders?

  [chris can't speak: leans on a section of balustrade, bent over, making a retching sound.] Rudy, get off the terrace ! -you drunk gorilla ! rudy: [grinning]: He's got the dry heaves, Blackie, he woke up

  hungry and he's got the dry heaves. chris: Can't - catch - breath!

  [From her bed behind the griffin-crested screen, mrs goforth cries out in her sleep, a long, anguished 'Ahhhhhh !'. dog barking subsides gradually. The 'Ahhhhh' is repeated and a faint light appears behind her screen. blackie turns on rudy, fiercely.] blackie: I said get off the terrace, now get off it. rudy: You shoulda told me you -blackie: Off it, off the terrace! rudy [overlapping]: You got yourself a boy-friend up here,

  Blackie 1 You should've let me know that. blackie: Mr Flanders, I'll take you back to your place. chris [gaspingly]: Is there - anywhere closer - I could catch

  my breath? blackie: Yes. Yes, I'll - my place is closer. ...

  [She stands protectively near him as rUDy goes off the terrace, laughing.

  The stage assistants rush out to remove a screen masking blackie's bed in the blue villa, announcing 'Blackie's bedroom', chris straightens slowly, still gasping. The

  STAGE ASSISTANTS exit.

  Then chris and blackie cross to her villino, represented only by a narrow blue-sheeted bed with a stand beside it that supports an inter-com. box.] blackie: Now tell me just what happened so I can give a

  report to Mrs Goforth tomorrow.

  Chris: The truth is I was looking for something to eat. I've had no food for five days, Blackie, except some oranges that I picked on the road. And you know what the acid, the citric acid in oranges, does to an empty stomach, so I - I woke up feeling as if I had a - a bushel of burning sawdust in my stomach, and I -

  I76 THE MILK TRAIN DOESN'T STOP HERE ANYMORE

  blacie: I had food sent to your room, you didn't find it?

  Chris: No. God, no!

  blackie: Then the cook didn't send it or it was taken out while you were sleeping, and I'm afraid you'll have to wait till morning for something to eat. You see the only kitchen is in Mrs Goforth's villa, it's locked up like a bank vault till Mrs Goforth wakes up and has it opened.

  Chris: How long is it till morning?

  blac kie: Oh, my - watch has stopped. I'm a watch-winding person but I forgo
t to wind it.

  [The cyclorama has lightened a little and there is the sound of church-bells at a distance.]

  Chris: The church-bells are waking up on the other mountains.

  blackie: Yes, it's, it must be near morning, but morning doesn't begin on Mrs Goforth's mountain till she sleeps off her drugs and starts pressing buttons for the sun to come up. So -

  chris:-What?

  [The inter-com. box comes alive with a shrill electric buzz-]

  blac kie: Oh, God, she's awake, buzzing for mel

  chris: Oh, then, could you ask her to open the kitchen? A glass of milk, just some milk, is all I -

  blackie: Mrs Goforth isn't buzzing for morning, she's buzzing for me to take dictation and, Oh, God, I don't think I can do it. I haven't slept tonight and I just couldn't take it right now, I -

  chris: Let me take it for you.

  blackie: No. I'll have to answer myself or she'll come stumbling raving out and might fall off the cliff. [She presses a button on the inter-com. box.] Mrs Goforth? Mrs Goforth? [The stage assistants remove the screen masking MRS goforth's bed, up stage left. We see her through the gauze curtains enclosing the bed. She pulls a cord opening the curtains and speaks hoarsely into a microphone.]

  MRS goforth: Blackie? It's night, late night!

  blackie: Yes, it's late, Mrs Goforth.

  mrs goforth: Don't answer: this is dictation. Don't interrupt me, this is clear as a vision. The death of Harlon

  SCENE FOUR 177

  Goforth, just now - clearly - remembered, clear as a vision. It's night, late night, without sleep. He's crushing me under the awful weight of his body. Then suddenly he stops trying to make love to me. He says, Flora, I have a pain in my head, a terrible pain in my head. And silently to myself, I say, Thank God, but out loud I say something else: 'Tablets, you want your tablets?' He answers with the groan of - I reach up and turn on the light, and I see -death in his eyes! I see, I know. He has death in his eyes, and something worse in them, terror. I see terror in his eyes. I see it, I feel it, myself, and I get out of the bed, I get out of the bed as if escaping from quicksand! I don't look

  at him again, I move away from the bed___

  [We see her rising from the bed, the microphone gripped in her hand.]

  I move away from death, terror! I don't look back, I go straight to the door, the door on to the terrace! [She moves downstage with the microphone.] It's closed, I tear it open, I leave him alone with his death, his -

  blackie: She's out of bed, she's going out on the - [She rushes into the wings: light dims on the blue villa bed.]

  mrs goforth [dropping the microphone as she moves out on the white villa terrace]: I've gone out, now, I'm outside, I'm on the terrace, twenty-five stories over the high, high city of Goforth, I see lights blazing as bright as the blaze of terror that I saw in his eyes! [She staggers to the edge of the forestage.] Wind, cold wind, clean, clean! Release! Relief! Escape from - [She reaches the edges of the orchestra pit. A wave crashes loudly below.] I'm lost, blind, dying! I don't know where I -

  blackie [rushing out behind her]: Mrs Goforth! Don't move! You're at the edge of the cliff!

  Mrs goforth [stopping, her hands over her eyes]: Blackie! [She sways: blackie rushes forward to catch her.] Blackie, don't leave me alone!