DR REID. The child was placed in a home.
PEARL. What “home”?
FLORA [making excuses]. A decent one, in the north–
DR REID [in contrast to FLORA, determined not to mince words]. A home for lunatics.
PEARL. Is she a lunatic?
DR REID. She is not compos mentis in the usual sense, but nor is she clinically mad.
PEARL. Then why was she in a mad house?
FLORA. Your father wanted her cared for … elsewhere.
DR REID. It was a diagnosis of convenience. And I made it, God forgive me, out of loyalty to Ramsay. But you can imagine the calibre of care.
FLORA. It was respectable haim, Young Farleigh visited –
DR REID. How often did you visit, Flora?
A beat. FLORA is too ashamed to answer. DR REID addresses PEARL.
A remote and antiquated facility designed solely for the warehousing of the blighted, the delinquent, the feeble-minded, mad, and otherwise unwanted members of “respectable” families. Ay, Flora, you’ve taken “good care” of the children. She’s lucky to be alive. [to VICTOR and PEARL] She’s here now only because your aunt ran out of money, [to FLORA] isn’t that so? But now that she is here, I vow upon my honour that I shall spend the rest of my life, restoring purpose to hers.
VICTOR. What’s wrong with her?
DR REID. She was born like that.
VICTOR. No, why doesn’t she wake up? You’ve drugged her, why?
DR REID. Would you rather see her in a strait-jacket?
PEARL. Did Mother … see her?
FLORA weeps.
DR REID. Your mother wanted to keep the child. Régine was … tender-hearted. I tried to convince Ramsay. I thought I could heal the poor thing – or at least remove the deformity. And I made a start. But Ramsay changed his mind before I could finish.
PEARL. She was an infant, then, when you operated?
DR REID. Of course; infants, like animals, feel no pain, but Ramsay took it into his head that the creature was suffering. Then your mother passed away and … [struggling; it is difficult for him to talk about Régine, and the painful events of those days]. I hadn’t the heart to continue even if your father had permitted it, so I … laid my research to rest, along with Régine’s dear … dear memory. But Pearl, your passion has rekindled my own. And I’m glad I did not proceed with the crude methods of my youth, for I realize now that her anatomy conceals treasures beyond the reach of a mere scalpel. You were right: she is an original; a real-life chimera; a brave new world, undiscovered, unclaimed. Oh Pearl, she has so much to teach us: about what we are; where we come from; where we are going and where we must not go. We stand poised to breach Nature’s last frontier. Within our grasp is the knowledge and the power: to select the best of Earth’s bounty; to combine what is there, to create what is not, to make a heaven of this hell. To chart Utopia in our time. The work begins here. With her offspring.
VICTOR. Her “offspring”?
DR REID. What I propose is standard laboratory procedure. Painless, humane –
VICTOR. Hers and who else’s? Yours? The puppy’s?
DR REID. You’re a disgrace.
FLORA. You’re a disgrace! And so am I, we’ve had no right –
DR REID. I have a duty! Pearl, I would not harm her in any way, why should I wish to? She is a gift.
FLORA. Ramsay forbade you to touch another hair on her head.
DR REID [furious]. Ramsay wanted to drown it!
FLORA. If that’s true, it only shows he didna want the poor creature to suffer.
DR REID. He didn’t want his pride to suffer! Ask Young Farleigh. Ramsay told him to put it in a sack and throw it into the sea. [blazing] I saved it! It’s mine!
A beat. THE CREATURE awakens. Sits up. It is a young woman. DR REID draws back. PEARL approaches.
PEARL. What is your name?
DR REID. It doesn’t have a name.
PEARL. Speak, child.
FLORA. She canna speak, pet.
PEARL. What is your name?
A beat.
YOUNG WOMAN. Claire.
A beat.
PEARL. I think you’d better leave now, Doctor.
DR REID. Pearl –
PEARL [calm]. Get out of my house.
DR REID takes his medical bag and exits. PEARL smooths the hair from CLAIRE’S face, to reveal a tall red canine ear. She strokes it. VICTOR picks up the tartan shawl, buries his face in it and inhales.
Did Mother go mad, Flora?
FLORA. No, pet. She was just terribly, terribly sad. She walked into the sea.
Scene 6 The Drawing Room
Four months later. MR ABBOTT waits, briefcase in hand. YOUNG FARLEIGH is asleep in the chair under the worn tartan shawl, PUPPY tucked by his side. The family portrait hangs once more over the mantle piece, the space between PEARL and VICTOR now revealed to contain an infant with the ears of a puppy. ABBOTT squints at the portrait. PEARL enters. Her hair is down, her flowing garments anticipate Vanessa Bell, and are particularly generous about the midriff.
PEARL. Ah, Mr Abbott.
ABBOTT. Good afternoon, Miss MacIsaac.
PEARL. Have you brought the documents?
ABBOTT. I have, Miss. [a beat] If you will permit me to say so, Miss MacIsaac, you are looking particularly well this afternoon.
PEARL. Thank you, Mr Abbott, I’m feeling particularly well.
ABBOTT. I had the good luck to attend a lecture yesterday evening, and have taken the liberty of bringing you a transcript which I venture to hope may excite your interest. [Hands her a sheaf of paper.]
PEARL [reading]. “Fossils of All Kinds, Digested into a Method Suitable to Their Mutual Relation and Affinity”.
She kisses MR ABBOTT. It’s a long kiss.
Mr Abbott, would you consent to be in a photograph?
ABBOTT [speechless].
PEARL. Good. Please join Auntie Flora in the conservatory.
He bows and exits, blindly. The clock strikes three. PEARL turns toward the entrance, expectant. DR REID enters.
DR REID. Hello, Pearl.
PEARL. Hello, Doctor. Thank you for coming.
DR REID [slight bow].
PEARL. Dr Reid, I have something of a delicate nature to tell you; and something of vital import, for which I must ask –
DR REID. Don’t ask. There is no need. My dear, I have already forgiven you. I am a doctor; I, of all men, ought to have been unsurprised by your reaction that fearful night. It is I who am at fault for having allowed these several months to pass in silence, but I have been much in demand abroad – nay, ‘tisn’t only that; I confess my pride was wounded. Still, when I received your invitation to call today, any trace of rancour melted away, so let us speak no more of it.
A beat.
PEARL. I’m pregnant.
A beat. VICTOR enters carrying PEARL’S camera with its hood and tripod. He wears a velvet cape and vest, a ruffled shirt and tight pants. He deposits the equipment, exits. DR REID notices the family portrait. VICTOR returns with CLAIRE by the hand. She is dressed as a cowgirl, with holsters and six-guns. Her hair is up, displaying her ear to advantage. VICTOR positions her on the couch and sets up the camera. DR REID stares. PEARL is pleasant and business-like.
[to DR REID] So you see, it throws a bit of a wrench into the inheritance.
DR REID. I beg your pardon?
PEARL. Father’s will. Bars me from bearing children.
DR REID. Pearl, dearest. Do you not recall, you yourself had the presence of mind to diagnose your condition. I sought, mistakenly I now see, to shield you from the truth, but the fact is, the power of repressed emotions has exacted a psychosomatic toll –
PEARL. – my womb is in revolt against the proviso of my father’s will –
DR REID. – such that your pregnancy is, in reality–
PEARL. Hysterical.
DR REID. Yes.
PEARL. No. At least not any more. Whatever was ailing me – hysterical, fantastical, o
r perfectly logical – it was certainly a conception of my mind, but I can assure you such is no longer the case.
A beat.
DR REID. You mean to say …? Victor, at this juncture it would behoove a gentleman to leave a lady alone with her physician.
VICTOR. Ay, it would.
He plunks down on the couch next to CLAIRE. They eat shortbread and watch.
DR REID. My dear, who has done this to you? I’ll have him clapped in irons.
PEARL. I really can’t say, Doctor.
A beat.
DR REID. How many men have there been?
PEARL. Need there have been any?
DR REID. Well how, otherwise, do you explain your pregnancy?
VICTOR. A lady needn’t explain.
PEARL. No, but I shall. Perhaps it is parthenogenic.
DR REID. Human asexual reproduction? Impossible.
PEARL. “Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.”
VICTOR. Who said that? The pope?
PEARL. Oscar Wilde.
DR REID. Apart from a rare species of lizard, parthenogenic reproduction in multi-celled creatures is confined to the class of worms and religious myth.
PEARL. Perhaps I have diversified successfully.
VICTOR. She was down winkling on the shore when she met a fellow with great tall ears and a long snout. Loaded with baked goods, he was.
PEARL. Victor dreamt I was impregnated by a psychopomp.
DR REID. You claim to have had congress with the Egyptian God of the underworld?
VICTOR. Not only that, she cured my phobia.
PEARL. I merely ventured that Victor, via his fits, may have subconsciously registered a warning: to wit, if we refuse to acknowledge kinship, not only with the mythic dog, but with all matter; if we resist the central truth of evolution –
DR REID. I am a child of the Enlightenment, I resist nothing that is rational, I believe in evolution, along with the rest of the civilized world.
PEARL. The civilized world behaves least as if it did believe. For all our scientific pieties, we still organize our societies as though we alone had been created in the image of a god in whom we profess no longer to believe. We have slain our brother, Abel, and who was he? Did he walk on two legs, or four? Did he creep, or swim, or fly? If we fail to recognize our true nature, we shall conduct our lives according to criteria that are divorced from matter – from our mother – Earth. If we behave as gods – warring, feasting and plundering – then, like gods, are we doomed to disappear in a twilight of our own making? Perhaps Victor was no more “hysterical” than Cassandra when she prophesied the fall of Troy. Lucky for her she didn’t live today, she’d be walking about short of a uterus by now.
DR REID. Pearl, I understand your reluctance to confess … multiple indiscretions. But I fear you may be suffering from a more serious malady.
PEARL. What is that?
DR REID. I cannot, in all decency, speak the word. Be assured there is hope that, with timely surgical intervention –
VICTOR. He thinks you’re a nymphomaniac.
PEARL. Really, Doctor? I’ve always wondered what they looked like.
VICTOR. Just my luck I’d finally meet a nympho and she’d turn out to be me sister.
DR REID. Pearl, I’m still willing to marry you.
MR ABBOTT enters dressed as a Highland warrior, his face streaked blue, still wearing his pince nez and carrying his briefcase.
ABBOTT. Good afternoon, Doctor.
DR REID [to PEARL]. Is this the man?
VICTOR. “Crucify him!”
PEARL. Mr Abbott, the documents, please.
VICTOR. Look lively, Lorenzo, we’re due at the asylum at half six.
DR REID. The asylum?
VICTOR. We’re going curling with the lunatics. They’ve got up a bonspiel.
DR REID. Pearl –
PEARL. I’ve no plans to marry at present, Doctor, thank you all the same.
DR REID. You realize that in the absence of an heir, Belle Moral must revert to the Kirk. I am not a rich man, but I am far from poor and I pledge to provide for you all.
MR ABBOTT hands PEARL a legal-size document from his briefcase.
PEARL. Thank you, Mr Abbott.
DR REID. You’ll be out in the street, the lot of you. Who will you depend upon then, eh? Your brother? He isn’t fit to black my boots. Your aunt? How will you live on the few pennies she’d eke out as a seamstress or washerwoman? That leaves you, Pearl, and whatever special talents you may have discovered of late.
PEARL slaps him
Quite right. Forgive me. Marry me.
VICTOR. But Doctor, there is an heir.
DR REID. Where?
PEARL. Claire.
FLORA enters dressed as Cleopatra.
FLORA. I’m ready, Pearl, how do you want me? [sees DR REID, stops]
VICTOR. Auntie, you are ravissanti.
PEARL [to DR REID]. My sister is quite competent. Despite twenty-seven years of privation she has, in a matter of months, learned to eat with a knife and fork, mastered the alphabet, and ceased to growl.
DR REID. She can’t inherit.
PEARL. Why not? You said yourself she’s not a lunatic.
DR REID. She’s an animal!
FLORA. We’re all of us animals.
DR REID. You won’t find a physician with a scrap of integrity willing to certify her human much less sane.
VICTOR. That leaves you, then.
DR REID. I’ll sign nothing. In the eyes of the law, this creature does not even exist, she hasn’t so much as a birth certificate.
Realizes what he has said even as PEARL produces a second document.
That was Ramsay’s idea. He forbade me to register her birth, he –
PEARL. In the eyes of the law, you as attending physician were responsible for registering the child’s birth.
ABBOTT [reading from a law book through his pince nez]. “It shall be the duty of every qualified medical practitioner attending at the birth of any child, to give notice thereof forthwith to the Division Registrar of the Division in which the child was born –”
DR REID. I am aware of the law.
ABBOTT. “Any physician making a false statement –”
DR REID. I said –
ABBOTT. “– as to the cause of death of any person shall be subject to discipline by the Medical council of –”
DR REID. This is my recompense? This, my due?
PEARL. You falsified Mother’s death certificate to conceal her suicide.
DR REID. For you. For the sake of your family name–
ABBOTT. “– shall, on summary conviction therefor, be liable for every such offence to a penalty of –”
DR REID. Enough!
DR REID signs the documents.
Where’s your integrity now, eh Abbott? Where in your legal lexicon does blackmail appear as a just remedy?
ABBOTT. See under “humane”.
DR REID. See under “sex”.
WEE FARLEIGH enters as Pan, with horns, furry legs and pan pipes.
You are not well, Pearl. And what you nourish in your womb harbours the taint of your own forbears along with the moral degeneracy of some stray male.
He looks from WEE FARLEIGH to MR ABBOTT. They look at one another then at DR REID.
PEARL. What I carry, is a gift.
DR REID. When you see it you will beg me to take it from you.
PEARL [going to her camera]. Are we ready? Gather round, now.
They gather on and around the couch.
Young Farleigh. [loudly] Young Farleigh!
DR REID. You’re mad.
PEARL [unable to rouse him]. Well, gather round Young Farleigh then.
They do.
DR REID. What are you doing?
PEARL. I’m taking a family photograph.
DR REID. This is your notion of family? This is not a family, this is … a menagerie.
PEARL. The tree of life is a family tree
and we are all part of it.
DR REID. Even him? [YOUNG FARLEIGH.]
PEARL. Even you, Doctor. Would you care to be in the picture?
DR REID. He’d’ve killed your precious sister. He was on the point of casting her from the cliff when I stopped him.
PEARL. But he hadn’t yet, had he?
DR REID. Nay, but –
PEARL. So we’ll never know.
DR REID. He knows.
PEARL. He doesn’t. He hopes he would not have. But he doesn’t know.
DR REID. You think he’s atoned for that? How? By bringing her sweets in the asylum?
PEARL. He taught her her name.
DR REID. And that exonerates him?
PEARL. No. But it’s the best we’ve got.
FLORA. I don’t know that we’re any of us fit to cast the first stone. Heaven will judge him.
VICTOR. He’s coming back in his next life as a winkle. [to PEARL] Tell him to stop looking at me like that.
PEARL. Who?
VICTOR. Pan. [to WEE FARLEIGH] Pick on him, he’s the one wearin’ the skirt.
ABBOTT. It is a kilt, sir.
DR REID. Pearl, how do you propose to live? An unmarried woman with an illegitimate offspring, surrounded by a pack of lunatics, sodomites, and vegetarians.
PEARL. I am a scientist. I shall observe and document us. Belle Moral shall be my laboratory and we, my subjects.
DR REID. But you’re part of the experiment.
PEARL. Aren’t we all.
DR REID. You’re not dispassionate.
PEARL. True. As it turns out I am terribly, terribly passionate.
DR REID. Your results will be corrupted. You cannot be both an observer and participant.
PEARL. I cannot but be both. “Observation is participation”.
VICTOR. Who said that?
PEARL. No one; but someone really ought to. Was I to work and dwell at your side, never knowing my true relation to the subject?
DR REID. Knowing who she was would have hindered your ability to discover what she is. What is the good of such knowledge?