Plays Part 24

Out?

You have been brought in.

A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses To make a form that hasn't been- To make a person new.

And this we call creation, (very low, her head not coming up) Go away!

(TOM goes; HARRY hesitates, looking in anxiety at CLAIRE. He starts to go, stops, looks at d.i.c.k, from him to CLAIRE. But goes. A moment later d.i.c.k moves near CLAIRE; stands uncertainly, then puts a hand upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there.)

CLAIRE: (a slight shrinking away, but not really reached) Um, um.

(He goes. CLAIRE steps nearer her creation. She looks into what hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness. As she does this TOM returns and from outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he looks at her.)

TOM: Claire, (she lifts her head) As you stood there, looking into the womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be-as you wish. I can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (as she does not move) Speak to me, Claire. You-are glad?

CLAIRE: (from far) Speak to you? (pause) Do I know who you are?

TOM: I think you do.

CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (waits again) But why are you something-very far away?

TOM: Come nearer.

CLAIRE: Nearer? (feeling it with her voice) Nearer. But I think I am going-the other way.

TOM: No, Claire-come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going away.

CLAIRE: You're not going away?

TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is that-what you wanted?

CLAIRE: Wanted? (as if wanting is something that harks far back. But the word calls to her pa.s.sion) Wanted! (a sob, hands out, she goes to him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back) Are you trying to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop?

TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop.

CLAIRE: And loving me for that-would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is so important that I see it.

TOM: It is important. It is our lives.

CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more than that.

TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little more.

CLAIRE: Peace? (troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see clearly) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments very far apart. Peace-that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else?

TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.

CLAIRE: I know-what you pa.s.s for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that only living pattern-the trying to take pattern. Are you trying?

TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that.

CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it there, but turns away with a sob) If I cannot go to you now-I will always be alone.

(TOM takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest.)

TOM: Yes-rest. And then-come into joy. You have so much life for joy.

CLAIRE: (raising her head, called by promised gladness) We'll run around together. (lovingly he nods) Up hills. All night on hills.

TOM: (tenderly) All night on hills.

CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat.

TOM: On the sea in a little boat.

CLAIRE: But-there are other boats on other seas, (drawing back from him, troubled) There are other boats on other seas.

TOM: (drawing her back to him) My dearest-not now, not now.

CLAIRE: (her arms going round him) Oh, I would love those hours with you. I want them. I want you! (they kiss-but deep in her is sobbing) Reminiscence, (her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would remember) Reminiscence. (with one of her swift changes steps back from him) How dare you pa.s.s for what you're not? We are tired, and so we think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through-to what you're in the way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty.

TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire.

CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pa.s.s for it. Smother it with a life that pa.s.ses for it. But beauty-(getting it from the flower) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.

TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear.

CLAIRE: (drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held) When I have wanted you with all my wanting-why must I distrust you now? When I love you-with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth my hate?

TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it.

CLAIRE: (over the flower) Breath of Life-you here? Are you lonely-Breath of Life?

TOM: Claire-hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there you made a sh.e.l.l for life within, make for yourself a life in which to live. It must be so.

CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a sh.e.l.l called beauty?

TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we have?

CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. There is the long and flowing pattern, (she follows that, but suddenly and as if blindly goes to him) I am tired. I am lonely. I'm afraid, (he holds her, soothing. But she steps back from him) And because we are tired-lonely-and afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through-to what you're in the way of.

TOM: Then you don't love me?

CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know-which chance.

(Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. Looks into it as if to look through to the uncaptured. And through this life just caught comes the truth she chants.)

I've wallowed at a coa.r.s.e man's feet, I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to.

I've gone so low that words can't get there, I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me And called it loneliness-And called it G.o.d.

Only with life that waits have I kept faith.

(with effort raising her eyes to the man)

And only you have ever threatened me.