Touch and Go Part 15

OLIVER. Quite. But what he loves, and what he admires, and what he aspires to, he MUST betray. It's his fatality. He lives for the moment when he can kiss Gerald in the Garden of Olives, or wherever it was.

ANABEL. But Gerald shouldn't be kissed.

OLIVER. That's what I say.

ANABEL. And that's what his mother means as well, I suppose.

(Enter GERALD.)

GERALD. Well--you've heard the voice of the people.

ANABEL. He isn't the people.

GERALD. I think he is, myself--the epitome.

OLIVER. No, he's a special type.

GERALD. Ineffectual, don't you think?

ANABEL. How pleased you are, Gerald! How pleased you are with yourself!

You love the turn with him.

GERALD. It's rather stimulating, you know.

ANABEL. It oughtn't to be, then.

OLIVER. He's you Judas, and you love him.

GERALD. Nothing so deep. He's just a sort of AEolian harp that sings to the temper of the wind. I find him amusing.

ANABEL. I think it's boring.

OLIVER. And I think it's nasty.

GERALD. I believe you're both jealous of him. What do you think of the working man, Oliver?

OLIVER. It seems to me he's in nearly as bad a way as the British employer: he's nearly as much beside the point.

GERALD. What point?

OLIVER. Oh, just life.

GERALD. That's too vague, my boy. Do you think they'll ever make a bust-up?

OLIVER. I can't tell. I don't see any good in it, if they do.

GERALD. It might clear the way--and it might block the way for ever: depends what comes through. But, sincerely, I don't think they've got it in them.

ANABEL. They may have something better.

GERALD. That suggestion doesn't interest me, Anabel. Ah, well, we shall see what we shall see. Have a whisky and soda with me, Oliver, and let the troubled course of this evening run to a smooth close. It's quite like old times. Aren't you smoking, Anabel?

ANABEL. No, thanks.

GERALD. I believe you're a reformed character. So it won't be like old times, after all.

ANABEL. I don't want old times. I want new ones.

GERALD. Wait till Job Arthur has risen like Anti-christ, and proclaimed the resurrection of the G.o.ds.--Do you see Job Arthur proclaiming Dionysos and Aphrodite?

ANABEL. It bores me. I don't like your mood. Good night.

GERALD. Oh, don't go.

ANABEL. Yes, good night. (Exit.)

OLIVER. She's NOT reformed, Gerald. She's the same old moral character--moral to the last bit of her, really--as she always was.

GERALD. Is that what it is?--But one must be moral.

OLIVER. Oh, yes. Oliver Cromwell wasn't as moral as Anabel is--nor such an iconoclast.

GERALD. Poor old Anabel!

OLIVER. How she hates the dark G.o.ds!

GERALD. And yet they cast a spell over her. Poor old Anabel! Well, Oliver, is Bacchus the father of whisky?

OLIVER. I don't know.--I don't like you either. You seem to smile all over yourself. It's objectionable. Good night.

GERALD. Oh, look here, this is censorious.

OLIVER. You smile to yourself. (Exit.)

(Curtain.)

ACT III

SCENE I

An old park. Early evening. In the background a low Georgian hall, which has been turned into offices for the Company, shows windows already lighted. GERALD and ANABEL walk along the path.