Selected Poems, 1956-1968 Read online

  Queen Victoria

  I'm not much nourished by modern love

  Will you come into my life

  with your sorrow and your black carriages

  and your perfect memory

  Queen Victoria

  The 2oth century belongs to you and me

  Let us be two severe giants

  (not less lonely for our partnership)

  who discolour test tubes in the halls of science

  I 143

  who turn up unwelcome at every World's Fair

  heavy with proverb and correction

  confusing the star-dazed tourists

  with our incomparable sense of loss

  1 44 I

  T H E N E W S T E P

  A Ballet-Drama in One Act

  CHARACTERS:

  MARY and DIANE, two working girls who room together.

  MARY is very plain, plump, clumsy: ugly, if one is inclined

  to the word. She is the typical victim of beauty courses and

  glamour magazines. Her life is a search for, a belief in the

  technique, the elixir, the method, the secret, the hint that

  will transform and render her forever lovely. DIANE is a

  natural beauty, tall, fresh and graceful, one of the blessed.

  She moves to a kind of innocent sexual music, incapable of

  any gesture which could intrude on this high animal grace.

  To watch her pull on her nylons is all one needs of ballet

  or art.

  HARRY is the man DIANE loves. He has the proportions we

  associate with Greek statuary. Clean, tall, openly handsome,

  athletic. He glitters with health, decency, and mindlessness.

  THE CoLLECTOR is a woman over thirty, grotesquely obese,

  a great heap, deformed, barely mobile. She possesses a commanding will and combines the fascination of the tyrant and the freak. Her jolliness asks for no charity. All her

  movements represent the triumph of a rather sinister spiritual energy over an intolerable mass of flesh.

  ScENE:

  It is eight o'clock of a Saturday night. All the action takes

  place in the girls' small apartment which need be furnished

  with no more than a dressing-mirror, wardrobe, recordplayer, easy chair, and a front door. We have the impression, as we do from the dwelling places of most bachelor girls, of an arrangement they want to keep comfortable but

  temporary.

  I 145

  DIANE is dressed in bra and panties, preparing herself for

  an evening with HARRY. MARY follows her about the room,

  lost in envy and awe, handing DIANE the necessary lipstick

  or brush, doing up a button or fastening a necklace. MARY

  is the dull but orthodox assistant to DIANE's mysterious

  ritual of beauty.

  MARY: What is it like?

  DIANE: What like?

  MARY: You know.

  DIANE: No.

  MARY: To be like you.

  DIANE: Such as?

  MARY: Beautiful.

  (Pause. During these pauses DIANE continues her toilet as does MARY her attendance.)

  DIANE: Everybody cau be beautiful.

  MARY: You can say that.

  DIANE: Love makes people beautiful.

  MARY: You can say that.

  DIANE: A woman in love is beautiful.

  (Pause.)

  MARY: Look at me.

  DIANE: I've got to hurry.

  MARY: Harry always waits.

  DIANE: He said he's got something on his mind.

  MARY: You've got the luck.

  (Pause.)

  MARY: Look at me a second.

  DIANE: All right.

  (MARY performs an aggressive curtsy.)

  MARY: Give me some advice.

  DIANE: Everybody has their points.

  MARY: What are my points?

  DIANE: What are your points?

  MARY: Name my points.

  (MARY stands there belligerently. She lifts

  up her skirt. She rolls up her sleeves. She

  lucks her sweater in tight.)

  DIANE: I've got to hurry.

  MARY: Name one point.

  DIANE: You've got nice hands.

  MARY (Surprised) : Do I?

  DIANE: Very nice hands.

  MARY: Do I really?

  DIANE: Hands are very important.

  (MARY shows her hands to the mirror and

  gives them little exercises.)

  DIANE: Men often look at hands.

  MARY: They do?

  DIANE: Often.

  MARY: What do they think?

  DIANE: Think?

  MARY (Impatiently): When they look at hands.

  DIANE: They think: There's a nice pair of hands.

  MARY: What else?

  DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands to

  hold.

  MARY: And?

  DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands tosqueeze.

  MARY: I'm listening.

  DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands tokiss.

  MARY: Go on.

  DIANE: They think-(racking her brain for compassion's sake.)

  MARY: Well?

  1 '47

  DIANE: Those are nice hands to-love!

  MARY: Love!

  DIANE: Yes.

  MARY: What do you mean "love"?

  DIANE: I don't have to explain.

  MARY: Someone is going to love my hands?

  DIANE: Yes.

  MARY: What about my arms?

  DIANE: What about them? (A little surly.)

  MARY: Are they one of my points?

  (Pause.)

  DIANE: I suppose not one of your best.

  MARY: What about my shoulders?

  (Pause.)

  DIANE: Your shoulders are all right.

  MARY: You know they're not. They're not.

  DIANE: Then what did you ask me for?

  MARY: What about my bosom?

  DIANE: I don't know your bosom.

  MARY: You do know my bosom.

  DIANE: I don't.

  MARY : You do.

  DIANE: I do not know your bosom.

  MARY: You've seen me undressed.

  DIANE: I never looked that hard.

  MARY: You know my bosom all right. (But she'll

  let it pass. She looks disgustedly at her

  hands.)

  MARY: Hands!

  DIANE: Don't be so hard on yourself.

  MARY: Sexiest knuckles on the block.

  DIANE: Why hurt yourself?

  MARY: My fingers are really stacked.

  DIANE: Stop, sweetie.

  1 4s I

  MARY: They come when they shake hands with

  me.

  DIANE: Now please!

  MARY: You don't know how it feels.

  (Pause.)

  MARY: Just tell me what it's like.

  DIANE: What like?

  MARY: To be beautiful. You've never told me.

  DIANE: There's no such thing as beautiful.

  MARY: Sure.

  DIANE: It's how you feel.

  MARY: I'm going to believe that.

  DIANE: It's how you feel makes you beautiful.

  MARY: Do you know how I feel?

  DIANE: Don't tell me.

  MARY: Ugly.

  DIANE: You don't have to talk like that.

  MARY: I feel ugly. What does that make me?

  (DIANE declines to answer. She steps into

  her high-heeled shoes, the elevation

  bringing out the harder lines of her legs,

  adding to her stature an appealing

  haughtiness and to her general beauty a

  touch of violence.)

  MARY: According to what you said.

  DIANE: I don't know.

  MARY: You said: It's how you feel makes you

  beautiful.

  DIANE: I know what I said.
/>
  MARY: I feel ugly. So what does that make me?

  DIANE: I don't know.

  MARY: According to what you said.

  DIANE: I don't know.

  MARY: Don't be afraid to say it.

  I 149

  DIANE: Harry will be here.

  MARY : Say itl (Launching herself into hysteria.)

  DIANE: I've got to get ready.

  MARY: You never say it. You're afraid to say it.

  It won't kill you. The word won't kill

  you. You think it but you won't say it.

  When you get up in the morning you

  tiptoe to the bathroom. I tiptoe to the

  bathroom but I sound like an army.

  What do you think I think when I hear

  myself? Don't you think I know the difference? It's no secret. It's not as though

  there aren't any mirrors. If you only said

  it I wouldn't try. I don't want to try. I

  don't want to have to try. If you only

  once said I was-ugly!

  (DIANE comforts her.)

  DIANE: You're not ugly, sweetie. Nobody's ugly.

  Everybody can be beautiful. Your turn

  will come. Your man will come. He'll

  take you in his arms. No no no, you're

  not ugly. He'll teach you that you are

  beautiful. Then you'll know what it is.

  (Cradling her.)

  MARY : Will he?

  DIANE: Of course he will.

  MARY: Until then?

  DIANE: You've got to keep going, keep looking.

  MARY: Keep up with my exercises.

  DIANE: Yes.

  MARY: Keep up with my ballet lessons.

  DIANE: Exactly.

  MARY: Try and lose weight.

  DIANE: Follow the book.

  MARY: Brush my hair the right way.

  DIANE: That's the spirit.

  MARY: A hundred strokes.

  DIANE: Good.

  MARY: I've got to gain confidence.

  DIANE: You will.

  MARY: I can't give up.

  DIANE: It's easier than you think.

  MARY: Concentrate on my best points.

  DIANE: Make the best of what you have.

  MARY: Why not start now?

  DIANE: Why not.

  (MARY gathers herself together, checks

  her posture in the mirror, crosses to the

  record-player and switches it on. "The

  Dance of the Sugar-plum Fairy." She

  begins the ballet exercises she has learned,

  perhaps, at the Y WCA, two evenings a

  week. Between the final touches of her

  toilet DIANE encourages her with nods of

  approval. The dom·bell rings. Enter

  HARRY in evening clothes, glittering although his expression is solemn, for he

  has come on an important mission.)

  HARRY: Hi girls. Don't mind me, Mary.

  (MARY waves in the midst of a difficult

  contortion.)

  DIANE: Darling!

  (DIANE sweeps into his arms, takes the

  attitude of a dancing partner. HARRY,

  with a trace of reluctance, consents to

  lead her in a ballroom step across the

  floor.)

  HARRY: I've got something on my mind.

  (DIANE squeezes his arm, disengages herself, crosses to MARY and whispers.)

  DIANE: He's got something on his mind.

  (DIANE and MARY embrace in the usual

  squeaky conspiratorial manner with

  which girls preface happy matrimonial

  news. While MARY smiles benignly exeunt

  HARRY and DIANE. MARY turns the machine louder, moves in front of the mirror, resumes the ballet exercises. She stops them from time to time to check

  various parts of her anatomy in the mirror at close range, as if the effects of the

  discipline might be already apparent.)

  MARY: Goody.

  (A long determined ring of the doorbell.

  MARY stops, eyes bright with expectation.

  Perhaps the miracle is about to unfold.

  She smoothes her dress and hair, switches

  off the machine, opens the door. THE

  CoLLECTOR enters with lumbe-ring difficulty, looks around, takes control. The

  power she radiates is somehow guaranteed by her grotesque form. Her body is

  a huge damaged tank operating under

  the intimate command of a brilliant field

  warrior which is her mind: MARY waits,

  appalled and intimidated.)

  CoLLECTOR: I knew there was people in because I

  heard music. (MARY cannot speak.) Some

  people don't like to open the door. I'm

  in charge of the whole block.

  MARY (Recovering) : Are you collecting for something?

  152 I

  CoLLECTOR: The United Fund for the Obese, you

  know, UFO. That includes The Obese

  Catholic Drive, The Committee for Jewish Fat People, the Help the Blind Obese,

  and the Universal Aid to the Obese. If

  you make one donation you won't be

  bothered again.

  MARY: We've never been asked before.

  CoLLECTOR: I know. But I have your card now. The

  whole Fund has been reorganized.

  MARY : It has?

  CoLLECTOR: Oh yes. Actually it was my idea to have

  the Obese themselves go out and canvass.

  They were against it at first but I convinced them. It's the only fair way. Gives

  the public an opportunity to see exactly

  where their money goes. And I've managed to get the Spastic and Polio and

  Cancer people to see the light. It's the

  only fair way. We're all over the neighbourhood.

  MARY: It's very-courageous.

  CoLLECTOR: That's what my husband says.

  MARY: Your husband!

  CoLLECTOR: He'd prefer me to stay at home. Doesn't

  believe in married girls working.

  MARY: Have-have you been married long?

  CoLLECTOR: Just short of a year. (Coyly.) You might

  say we're still honeymooners.

  MARY: Oh.

  CoLLECTOR: Don't be embarrassed. One of the aims

  of our organization is to help people like

  me lead normal lives. Now what could

  be more normal than marriage? Can you

  I 153

  think of anything more normal? Of

  course you can't. It makes you feel less

  isolated, part of the whole community.

  Our people are getting married all the

  time.

  MARY: Of course, of course. (She is disintegrating.)

  CoLLEcToR: I didn't think it would work out myself

  at first. But John is so loving. He's taken

  such patience with me. When we're together it's as though there's nothing

  wrong with me at all.

  MARY: What does your husband do?

  CoLLECTOR : He's a chef.

  MARY : A che£.

  CoLLECTOR: Not in any famous restaurant. Just an

  ordinary chef. But it's good enough for

  me. Sometimes, when he's joking, he says

  I married him for his profession. (MARY

  tries to laugh.) Well I've been chatting

  too long about myself and I have the rest

  of this block to cover. How much do you

  think you'd like to give. I know you're

  a working girl.

  MARY: I don't know, I really don't know.

  CoLLECTOR: May I make a suggestion?

  MARY: Of course.

  CoLLEcToR: Two dollars.

  MARY: Two dollars. (Goes to her purse obediently.)

  CoLLECTOR: I don't think that's too much, do you?

  MARY: No no.
/>
  CoLLECTOR: Five dollars would be too much.

  154

  MARY : Too much.

  CoLLECTOR: And one dollar just doesn't seem right.

  MARY: Oh, I only have a five. I don't have any

  change.

  CoLLECToR: I'll take it.

  MARY: You'll take it?

  CoLLEcToR: I'll take it. (A command.)

  (MARY drops the bill in the transaction,

  being afraid to make any physical contact

  with THE CoLLECTOR. MARY stoops to

  pick it up. THE COLLECTOR prevents her.)

  COLLECTOR: Let me do that. The whole idea is not to

  treat us like invalids. You just watch how

  well I get along. (THE CoLLECTOR retrieves the money with immense difficulty.)

  CoLLECTOR: That wasn't so bad, was it?

  MARY: No. Oh no. It wasn't so bad.

  CoLLECTOR: I've even done a little dancing in my

  time.

  MARY : That's nice.

  CoLLECTOR: They have courses for us. First we do it

  in water, but very soon we're right up

  there on dry land. I bet you do some

  dancing yourself, a girl like you. I heard

  music when I came.

  MARY: Not really.

  CoLLECTOR: Do you know what would make me very

  happy?

  MARY: It's very late.

  CoLLECTOR: To see you do a step or two.

  MARY: I'm quite tired.

  CoLLECTOR: A little whirl.

  I •55

  MARY: I'm not very good.

  CoLLECToR: A whirl, a twirl, a bit of a swing. I'll put

  it on for you.

  (THE CoLLECTOR begins to make her way

  to the record-player. MARY, who cannot

  bear to see her expend herself, overtakes

  her and switches it on. MARY performs

  for a few moments while THE CoLLECTOR

  looks on with pleasure, tapping out the

  time. MARY breaks off the dance.)

  MARY: I'm not very good.

  CoLLEcToR: Would a little criticism hurt you?

  MARY : No-

  CoLLECTOR: They're not dancing like that any more.

  MARY: No?

  CoLLECTOR: They're doing something altogether different.

  MARY: I wouldn't know.

  CoLLECTOR: More like this.

  (The record has reached the end of its

  spiral and is now jerking back and forth

  over the last few bars.)

  CoLLECTOR: Don't worry about that.

  (THE CoLLECTOR moves to stage centre

  and executes a terrifying dance to the repeating bars of music. It combines the

  heavy mechanical efficiency of a printing

  machine with the convulsions of a spastic. It could be a garbage heap falling

  down an escalator. It is grotesque but

  military, excruciating but triumphant_

  It is a woman-creature proclaiming a

  disease of the flesh. MAJ!.Y tries to look