The Hothouse by the East River (12 page)

Pierre
turns as his mother speaks. She is already causing a stir, but Pierre looks at
her languidly, as one well accustomed to absorb any shock. Katerina sways a
little, stands lankily upright for a moment, then leans back on bulky
Peregrine. ‘Am I on a trip or is she real?’ Katerina says.

‘Both,’
says Elsa.

‘We’d
better get to our seats,’ Paul says uneasily, taking Princess Xavier’s arm to
edge her out of the little crowd. Garven follows with an anxious, trapped look.

‘Wait a
minute,’ says Elsa, ‘I want to see these photographs.’ She pushes through a
cluster of people who, now somewhat hypnotised, make way for her.

On a
wall a poster announces the show ‘Peter Pan — Unexpurgated’, followed by a list
of the cast. This is flanked by numerous large stills of the play. An aged
baby-faced Peter Pan. with his elfin cap holds up to his old lips with knobbly
fingers a grandiose horn. The caption reads, ‘Miles Bunting, the Broadway veteran.,
plays Peter, the boy who never grew up.’

‘Well, Poppy,’
says Elsa to the Princess, ‘what do you make of this? Miles Bunting. Is it the
same Miles Bunting we used to work with during the war? Remember, at the
Compound?’

‘He was
a professor of something,’ says Princess Xavier, scrutinising the photograph.
‘He was never an actor,’ She turns to Paul. ‘Do you remember Miles Bunting?’
she says.

Paul is
looking over her shoulder at the photograph. Something has gone wrong, he is
thinking. Life can’t be like this, I simply don’t accept it. He says, ‘To me,
it looks the same man, greatly altered of course. Much fuller in the face. But
the mouth, the nose, the eyes, all the features in fact. The name alone could
be a coincidence, but the face…’

‘Lady,
you come to the wrong playhouse,’ says a man’s voice behind them.

A girl
laughs, then Pierre’s voice says, ‘My mother has come to the right place.’

‘And
there’s Wendy,’ says Elsa. ‘Who’s playing Wendy?’ Anyone we know or used to
know?’

‘Curly
Curtiss,’ the Princess reads in a loud voice from the caption. The picture is
that of a haggard and bony woman with glittering eyes and wild long white hair.
‘I don’t recall any Curly Curtiss, though, do you Paul?’

Paul
does not reply.

‘What’s
curly about her?’ Elsa says, peering at the picture.

Garven
says, ‘I think we ought to move on. I really think we should take our seats as
unobtrusively as possible.’

At
which Katerina comes out of her trance and gives a loud unearthly laugh.

They
troop into the little theatre, through the curtains held open impassively by
Pierre. He follows them, guiding them with his voice. ‘Right down to the front.
There are four seats reserved in the front row.’

The
theatre is already almost full. Someone in the audience has started to applaud
as Elsa and the Princess appear. Then a few others applaud merrily. ‘She left
her tiara in the bank,’ says someone.

‘Leave
her alone,’ yells another voice. ‘She’s free to wear what she likes isn’t she?
Like you’re free and I’m free.’

Elsa,
settling in her seat, lets her white foxes fall from her shoulder.

‘Those
jewels real?’ says someone.

Princess
Xavier, who has been settled with difficulty in her seat between Garven and
Paul, now makes further difficulties for them by rising. She turns to the
audience and calls out, ‘Our jewels are as real as you are.’

This
wins further applause.

The
Princess allows herself to be helped back into her seat, complaining, ‘We’ve
been far-out longer than they have.’

A man
slinks down the aisle, and takes a flash picture of the group of four. Paul
starts with fright. Garven looks fiercely at Elsa. But the house has filled and
the hubbub becomes a murmur. Soon a hush falls and the curtain rises.

‘It’s a
crime to do this to a little kids’ entertainment,’ someone says after the
first act. ‘It’s sick.’

‘Sick
is interesting. Sick is real.’

All the
same, laughter has arisen., has roared and has filtered away to silence again. and
again during the first act.

‘I find
it a bit baleful,’ says the Princess. ‘It’s a great idea,’ says Garven. ‘It
gives you another dimension, seeing all those old hands. Peter Pan was really
good when. he flew in.. It must have been a strain on the old fellow. I must
say it was hilarious. It’s going down well. It’s —‘Garven’s enthusiasm,’ says Elsa,
‘tells me a lot about Garven. I wonder what the people who licensed the play
are going to do when they find out that it’s being presented as an obscene show?’

‘It
isn’t obscene,’ says Garven. ‘That’s to say, Peter Pan’s a deeply relevant
psychological problem.’

‘There’s
going to be trouble,’ Elsa says.

‘What
can they do?’ says Paul. ‘They’ve licensed the play. I went into this angle
with Pierre when I put up the money. The trustees don’t have any casting
rights. All the novelty of the interpretation. is in the cast. Nothing else is
changed. Old people instead of young.’

‘Well,
we haven’t seen it all yet,’ says the Princess.

‘It
can’t go wrong,’ Garven says emphatically to Elsa. ‘I’m wild about it. I’m …’
He stops as he sees her shadow moving beside her as she turns to adjust more
comfortably her voluminous white furs. Paul, noticing Garven’s sudden silence,
looks towards Elsa, too. He sees that she has on. her lap the large crocodile
leather bag. ‘I thought you said that bag was Poppy’s,’ he says.

‘So it
is.’

“Well,
it’s unsuitable. Vulgar. But anyway, you just don’t look at all right, so what
does the handbag matter? It’s been embarrassing for Garven and me. Let alone
Pierre.’

The
lights dim — Elsa settles back in. her seat among the white fox furs and Garven
once more shifts his mesmerised stare to watch the curtain rising.

The
scene is the traditional Never-Never Land, the island of Lost Boys. Garven
breathes heavily with psychological excitement as Lost Boys of advanced age
prance in fugitive capers with the provocative pirates, then hover over the
crone Wendy. Enter, Peter Pan. At this point Elsa stands up and starts throwing
squelchy tomatoes one after the other at the actors. One soft tomato after the
other she brings out of the big crocodile bag. The tomatoes land fairly
accurately. Her principal aim seems to be Peter Pan played by Miles Bunting, on
whose head Elsa lands two large tomatoes, and on whose retreating back she
lands one.

The
curtain. is urgently brought down, and meantime a certain pandemonium has
broken out. A man behind Elsa climbs over the seat and pulls at her hair. A
woman clutches Elsa’s jewelled necklace. Garven is trying to drag the Princess
away from the scene while Paul is doing his best to explain to Elsa’s attacker
that his wife is of delicate temperament.

Suddenly
out of nowhere, as if wafted through the air like Peter Pan. and Tinkerbell
themselves, the police are on the spot. The people at the back begin to leave
the theatre, but those at the front are caught up in a general riot in which
many members of the audience, assuming that some group of justified political contestors
is responsible for the tomato-throwing, hurl insults at the police. Three
policemen fight their way to the front where Elsa is on the floor being shouted
at by the man who had come from behind her.

Elsa
looks up at the officers of the law. ‘I’m the mother of the author,’ she says,
and is duly rescued, bearing the Princess with her. Paul follows humbly,
explaining that he is the father. Numerous hippies and Negroes and bearded
scholars, various taxpaying residents of Greenwich Village and other members
of the audience, including Garven, who are trapped in the front two rows, are
arrested and taken away by the police in a large van.

Outside
the theatre, Paul is saying wildly to a police officer, ‘Those people are not
real. My son, my wife, my daughter, do not exist.’

‘No?’
says the policeman.

Elsa is
meanwhile sitting with the Princess on a sofa in a little room off the foyer,
awaiting the arrival of safe transportation.. Elsa checks her jewellery and
finds all pieces intact, as also does the Princess.

‘Such a
wild crowd,’ says the Princess. ‘These days one isn’t safe anywhere. One can’t
even go to the theatre in peace.’

‘I
quite agree,’ says Elsa.

VI

‘Go back, go back to the
grave,’ says Paul, ‘from where I called you.’

‘It’s
too late,’ Elsa says. ‘It was you with your terrible and jealous dreams who set
the whole edifice soaring.’

‘You’re
not real. Pierre and Katerina don’t exist.’

‘Don’t
we?’ she says. ‘Well then that settles the argument. Just carry on as if
nothing has happened all these years.’

He puts
down the newspaper he has been holding. He says, ‘The headline reads, “Offbeat
Production Peter Pan Ends in Tomato Throwing”. You’ve ruined Pierre’s show. Your
own son’s show.’

‘If
Pierre doesn’t exist and I’m dead,’ she says, ‘I don’t see how I could have
ruined his show. Use your logic.’

‘Read
the paper yourself. See the headlines. You know it was you who threw the
tomatoes.’

‘I
know,’ she says, ‘and I stopped the show. Tell Garven to bring some more
coffee.’ She hands him the coffee-pot from the breakfast tray. He takes it and
stands staring at her, adjusting the tie-belt of his dressing-gown. She says,
‘But I wasn’t to blame for the big blackout in. 1965. You were so sure it was
me. But then you saw in the papers that it was someone who forgot to shove in a
plug or put on a switch or something when. he went off duty. So you see, you
can be wrong about me, Paul. You can. make mistakes. You can be mistaken about
anything.’

He goes
to the kitchen. with the coffee-pot and can be heard speaking to Garven. Their
voices can be heard, conversing there. The words are undiscernible but the
sounds are of an unusual accord. It is like the conversation of men who have
shared a house for years and are used to each other’s ways; the tones of voice
do not reach very high or low registers; there is here and there a little force
behind a phrase, as of indignation or resentment, quickly followed by an equal,
altogether acquiescent response. The voices lower, as in confidential
exchanges. It is like the distant sea. The voices trail away as in. reciprocal
exasperation.. Elsa, in the drawing-room, trails her shadow in the morning
light, to the telephone table. She sits beside it, staring reflectively, and
when. Garven and Paul arrive with the coffee, wearing on their faces identical expressions,
they find her in that position.

Garven
carries a tray on which are a plate of curly buns, a dish of butter, a dish of
marmalade, three breakfast plates and an extra coffee-cup and saucer. Paul
carries the percolator.

‘I’m
going to have my breakfast here with you,’ Garven says. ‘We have to talk.’

‘Would
you mind fetching a duster?’ Elsa says. ‘The phone’s dirty. Black marks round
all the numbers. You have to remember to dust in between the crack with the
edge of the cloth. It looks awful.’

Paul
puts out one hand reassuringly towards Garven and with the other hand removes
his clean. white handkerchief from his pocket and gives it to Elsa. ‘Clean it
with this,’ he says.

She
slides the edge of the handkerchief into the dusty crevices of the dialling
disc and slides it round the surface of the numbers. ‘It must seem funny to
you,’ she says, not speaking specially to either of them, ‘to see this deadly
body of mine in full health, dusting the dust away.’

Paul
takes the tray and moves it to a table further away from her as if she might
continue, so spoiling his breakfast. Garven joins him.

‘I’d
like some coffee, now,’ Elsa says, casting aside the handkerchief. She starts
to dial a number. Paul pours her coffee and brings it over to her while she
speaks into the telephone. ‘Oh halo, is Miss Hazlett at home?’ she says.

Paul
moves back to his breakfast while Elsa puts her hand over the telephone and
says to him, ‘It’s a man.’ She uncovers the speaker and says, ‘I’m her mother,
Countess Janovic-Hazlett. Who are you?’

‘Elsa!’
says Paul. Elsa looks away from the phone and says without covering it, ‘She’s
got a man there, at this hour of the morning. He’s the one called Merlin.. Do
you remember Merlin, the boy she brought home in the summer?’ She directs her mouth
once more to the receiver and says, ‘I didn’t recognise your voice, Merlin. I
thought it was Gene or Harry. They’ve been currently staying to breakfast with
Katerina. Tell her I called.’ She clicks the receiver-rest with her finger then
starts to dial another number.

Garven
says, ‘I’m going to reconstitute my Institute of Guidance. I’m going back to
pick up where I left off.’ He butters his roll and Paul butters his. They eat,
they sip their coffee, in unison..

‘Halo,’
says Elsa. ‘This is the Countess Janovic-Hazlett calling. I want to talk to Mr
Mueller alias Kiel.’