Etiquette and Vitriol by Nicky Silver (classic fiction .txt) 📗

CLAIRE: I love art! I don’t know a thing about it, but I made some dandy macaroni sculptures when I was a girl.

AMY: Do you believe in witchcraft?

VIVIAN: I don’t know. Witchcraft, per se, seems to me, to be the refuge of frustrated thinkers. But I certainly believe there’s a spirit world.

CLAIRE: Do you?

VIVIAN: So much of the occult literature is powerful and persuasive. You need only to open your eyes to see that the tangible world is a thin veneer. I’ve personally had experiences that shake my faith in the concrete.

CLAIRE: What are you talking about, dear?

PHILIP: Spiritual enlightenment.

CLAIRE (Dismissive): A different kind of Catholicism.

VIVIAN: I don’t believe in Catholicism.

PHILIP: I believe in reincarnation. I mean, I believe in reincarnation.

CLAIRE: Do you? And what do you think you were in a former life?

PHILIP: I think, before I was me, I was my father.

CLAIRE: He’s still alive dear.

PHILIP: Oh yes. Damn!

CLAIRE: I believe in what I can see, hear, taste and smell. The rest is just a crutch that weak people use to distract themselves from the arbitrariness of their lives.

VIVIAN: You forgot touch.

CLAIRE: I didn’t forget it dear. I don’t believe in it.

PHILIP: What do you mean?

CLAIRE: I’ve no idea. Don’t interrupt.

AMY: I don’t believe our lives are remotely arbitrary. And I certainly don’t believe our fates lie in the mystic hands of unseen forces.

VIVIAN: What do you believe?

AMY: We control our lives. We make our destinies as if from mounds of clay. If you ask me—

CLAIRE: I didn’t. Did you?

AMY: I have the power to create my future. We can make ourselves over in our own images. There is no power of the cosmos, but that which is inside of us. Or me, at any rate.

CLAIRE: Thank you for the view from the bottom of the bottle.

AMY: I’m going to lie down now. (She collapses behind the bar)

CLAIRE: She’s epileptic!! . . . Do you still paint?

PHILIP: Don’t cross-examine her, Mother.

CLAIRE: Was I?

VIVIAN: I don’t.

CLAIRE (Condescending): I’m so sorry. Why’s that?

VIVIAN: I find, as I mature, the physical simply holds no allure. Wouldn’t you agree?

CLAIRE: Convince me.

VIVIAN: I regret, now, the wasted years of my childhood, I spent believing beauty was something you could see, developing my senses, instead of my intellect.

CLAIRE: Imagine!

VIVIAN: Have you ever read Nietzsche? Or Schopenhauer? Ideas are the true aphrodisiacs. Don’t you find?

CLAIRE: It’s over my head. I enjoyed a book—

VIVIAN: Who can fail to be thrilled by the light breaking, as you expand yourself to embrace the metaphysical realities of the universe? I stopped painting, because I saw, all at once, with a gestalt-like clarity, the sham of the physical, the lie of the literal, the falseness of the tangible. I have been trying, since the moment I last laid down my brush, to embrace, to understand, to become one with the all-encompassing apothegms of the unfettered mind and spirit! The world isn’t something you can see and paint!! The vicissitudes of human development lay in the air around us and the atoms within us and cannot be made two-dimensional, or easily digestible!!!

CLAIRE (After a moment): My.

VIVIAN: I’m afraid I’ve oraculated.

CLAIRE: Not at all.

VIVIAN: I’m sorry.

CLAIRE: To the contrary. I am absolutely fascinated, but I have to—brush my hair.

PHILIP: You haven’t understood at all.

CLAIRE: I find her charming! I find you charming. But I have to sit in a hot tub, or I’m not worth as nickel.

VIVIAN: I understand.

CLAIRE: You must continue, later, to enlighten me: once I’m bathed and dressed. The most evolved of holy men could have no objection to a quick bath, I’m sure. And please, do promise that you’ll come tonight. If you’re worried that you’ve nothing—suitable to wear. You mustn’t. I’m sure I have lots of dresses I’m sure you’d like. And now, you must excuse me. My head is throbbing! (She exits)

VIVIAN: I’m afraid I didn’t make a very good impression.

PHILIP: You were brilliant.

VIVIAN: I gave her a migraine.

PHILIP: She’s shallow and condescending.

VIVIAN: I’m not very charming or witty.

PHILIP: You have ten times her intellect.

VIVIAN: Do you think so?

AMY (Rising, behind the bar): I think you’re a vile bore and you drone on and on ceaselessly.

PHILIP: AMY! How dare you!?

AMY: I’m sorry . . . I thought I was unconscious.

VIVIAN: Oh, she’s right. At least that’s what your mother thought.

PHILIP: Who cares what she thought?

VIVIAN: You do. I know how much you like her. I just wanted to make a good first impression. Oh I’m a mess. Philip? Where’s the powder room?

PHILIP: Through there.

VIVIAN: Thank you. Excuse me. I’m going to wash my hands and face in an effort to become more vain and shallow. (She exits)

PHILIP: AMY! I wish you wouldn’t talk to my fiancée like that!

AMY: I said I was sorry.

PHILIP: You have no business! I mean, you have no business!

AMY: That’s the same thing.

PHILIP: What’s the same thing?

AMY: Skip it. Philip, you’re not really going to marry her, are you?

PHILIP: Of course I am!!

AMY: But why?

PHILIP: I LOVE HER! YOU KNOW I HAVEN’T ALWAYS BEEN A HAPPY PERSON! I’VE NEVER BEEN THIS RELAXED! I’VE NEVER BEEN SO EASYGOING!

AMY: But she seems so dreary and serious. Completely lifeless. How old is she?

PHILIP: You know, I don’t know. I never thought to ask.

AMY: I think she’s a hundred. She’s not very fun loving. Really, I’m fifteen and I’m pregnant.

PHILIP: It’s perverted that you should measure her merits by the standards of your mistakes.

AMY: It’s just so sad to see you settle. We’re too young to settle.

PHILIP: I think you’re jealous!

AMY: What!?

PHILIP: I think you’re jealous.

AMY: THAT’S THE SAME THING!

PHILIP: You’ve always been jealous of me—don’t bother to deny it! You resented that mother preferred me to you!

AMY: Ridiculous.

PHILIP: No matter what I had, you wanted it! My God! When I had the chicken pox you were pea-green with envy! And now I think you’re jealous of Vivian! You said you were a lesbian. It’s only natural that you would be attracted to her. She’s so winning! You have some nitwit, schoolgirl crush on Vivian!