Nary a drink in eight years; count ’em. So maybe this will be a good time to start again. At least, it won’t be too soon.
(to Stevens)
Drink up. A little water behind it?
As though not aware that he had done so, he sets his untasted glass back on the tray, splashes water from the pitcher into a tumbler and hands the tumbler to Stevens as Stevens empties his glass and lowers it, taking the tumbler. Temple has not touched hers either.
Now maybe Defence Attorney Stevens will tell us what he wants here.
STEVENS
Your wife has already told you. To say good-bye.
GOWAN
Then say it. One more for the road, and where’s your hat, huh?
He takes the tumbler from Stevens and turns back to the table.
TEMPLE
(sets her untasted glass back on the tray)
And put ice in it this time, and maybe even a little water. But first, take Uncle Gavin’s coat.
GOWAN
(takes bottle from his pocket and makes a highball for Stevens in the tumbler)
That won’t be necessary. If he could raise his arm in a white courtroom to defend a murdering nigger, he can certainly bend it in nothing but a wool overcoat — at least to take a drink with the victim’s mother.
(quickly: to Temple)
Sorry. Maybe you were right all the time, and I was wrong. Maybe we’ve both got to keep on saying things like that until we can get rid of them, some of them, a little of them ——
TEMPLE
All right, why not? Here goes then.
(she is watching, not Gowan but Stevens, who watches her in return, grave and soberly)
Don’t forget the father too, dear.
GOWAN
(mixing the drink)
Why should I, dear? How could I, dear? Except that the child’s father is unfortunately just a man. In the eyes of the law, men are not supposed to suffer: they are merely appellants or appellees. The law is tender only of women and children — particularly of women, particularly particular of nigger dope-fiend whores who murder white children.
(hands the highball to Stevens, who takes it)
So why should we expect Defence Attorney Stevens to be tender of a man or a woman who just happen to be the parents of the child that got murdered?
TEMPLE
(harshly)
Will you for God’s sake please get through? Then will you for God’s sake please hush?
GOWAN
(quickly: turns)
Sorry.
(he turns toward her, sees her hand empty, then sees her full glass beside his own on the tray)
No drink?
TEMPLE
I don’t want it. I want some milk.
GOWAN
Right. Hot, of course.
TEMPLE
Please.
GOWAN
(turning)
Right. I thought of that too. I put a pan on to heat while I was getting the drinks.
(crossing toward dining-room exit)
Don’t let Uncle Gavin get away until I get back. Lock the door, if you have to. Or maybe just telephone that nigger freedom agent — what’s his name? ——
He exits. They don’t move until the slap of the pantry door sounds.
TEMPLE
(rapid and hard)
How much do you know?
(rapidly)
Don’t lie to me; don’t you see there’s not time?
STEVENS
Not time for what? Before your plane leaves tonight? She has a little time yet — four months, until March, the thirteenth of March ——
TEMPLE
You know what I mean — her lawyer — seeing her every day — just a nigger, and you a white man — even if you needed anything to frighten her with — you could just buy it from her with a dose of cocaine or a pint of . . .
(she stops, stares at him, in a sort of amazement, despair; her voice is almost quiet)
Oh, God, oh, God, she hasn’t told you anything. It’s me; I’m the one that’s —— Don’t you see? It’s that I cannot believe — will not believe — impossible ——
STEVENS
Impossible to believe that all human beings really don’t — as you would put it — stink? Even — as you put it — dope-fiend nigger whores? No, she told me nothing more.
TEMPLE
(prompts)
Even if there was anything more.
STEVENS
Even if there was.
TEMPLE
Then what is it you think you know? Never mind where you got it; just tell me what you think it is.
STEVENS
There was a man there that night.
TEMPLE
(quick, glib, almost before he has finished)
Gowan.
STEVENS
That night? When Gowan had left with Bucky at six that morning to drive to New Orleans in a car?
TEMPLE
(quick, harsh)
So I was right. Did you frighten her, or just buy it?
(interrupts herself)
I’m trying. I’m really trying. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard if I could just understand why they don’t stink — what reason they would have for not stinking. . . .
(she stops; it is as if she had heard a sound presaging Gowan’s return, or perhaps simply knew by instinct or from knowledge of her own house that he had had time to heat a cup of milk. Then continues, rapid and quiet)
There was no man there. You see? I told you, warned you, that you would get nothing from me. Oh, I know; you could have put me on the stand at any time, under oath; of course, your jury wouldn’t have liked it — that wanton crucifixion of a bereaved mamma, but what’s that in the balance with justice? I don’t know why you didn’t. Or maybe you still intend to — provided you can catch us before we cross the Tennessee line tonight.
(quick, tense, hard)
All right. I’m sorry. I know better. So maybe it’s just my own stinking after all that I find impossible to doubt.
(the pantry door slaps again; they both hear it)
Because I’m not even going to take Gowan with me when I say good-bye and go up stairs. — And who knows ——
She stops. Gowan enters, carrying a small tray bearing a glass of milk, a salt-shaker and a napkin, and comes to the table.
GOWAN
What are you talking about now?
TEMPLE
Nothing. I was telling Uncle Gavin that he had something of Virginia or some sort of gentleman in him too that he must have inherited from you through your grandfather, and that I’m going up to give Bucky his bath and supper.
(she touches the glass for heat, then takes it up: to Gowan)
Thank you, dear.
GOWAN
Right, dear.
(to Stevens)
You see? Not just a napkin: the right napkin. That’s how I’m trained.
(he stops suddenly, noticing Temple, who has done nothing apparently: just standing there holding the milk. But he seems to know what is going on: to her)
What’s this for?
TEMPLE
I don’t know.
He moves; they kiss, not long but not a peck either; definitely a kiss between a man and a woman. Then, carrying the milk, Temple crosses toward the hall door.
(to Stevens)
Good-bye then until next June. Bucky will send you and Maggie a postcard.
(she goes on to the door, pauses and looks back at Stevens)
I may even be wrong about Temple Drake’s odour too; if you should happen to hear something you haven’t heard yet and it’s true, I may even ratify it. Maybe you can even believe that — if you can believe you are going to hear anything that you haven’t heard yet.
STEVENS
Do you?
TEMPLE
(after a moment)
Not from me, Uncle Gavin. If someone wants to go to heaven, who am I to stop them? Good night. Good-bye.
She exits, closes the door. Stevens, very grave, turns back and sets his highball down on the tray.
GOWAN
Drink up. After all, I’ve got to eat supper and do some packing too. How about it?
STEVENS
About what? The packing, or the drink? What about you? I thought you were going to have one.
GOWAN
Oh, sure, sure.
(takes up the small filled glass)
Maybe you had better go on and leave us to our revenge.
STEVENS
I wish it could comfort you.
GOWAN
I wish to God it could. I wish to God that what I wanted was only revenge. An eye for an eye — were ever words emptier? Only, you have got to have lost the eye to know it.
STEVENS
Yet she still has to die.
GOWAN
Why not? Even if she would be any loss — a nigger whore, a drunkard, a dope-fiend ——
STEVENS
— a vagabond, a tramp, hopeless until one day Mr. and Mrs. Gowan Stevens out of simple pity and humanity picked her up out of the gutter to give her one more chance —
(Gowan stands motionless, his hand tightening slowly about the glass. Stevens watches him)
And then in return for it —
GOWAN
Look, Uncle Gavin. Why don’t you go for God’s sake home? Or to hell, or anywhere out of here?
STEVENS
I am, in a minute. Is that why you think — why you would still say she has to die?
GOWAN
I don’t. I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t even the plaintiff. I didn’t even instigate — that’s the word, isn’t it? — the suit. My only connection with it was, I happened by chance to be the father of the child she —— Who in hell ever called that a drink?
He dashes the whiskey, glass and all, into the ice bowl, quickly catches up one of the empty tumblers in one hand and, at the same time, tilts the whiskey bottle over it, pouring. At first he makes no sound, but at once it is obvious that he is laughing: laughter which begins normally enough, but almost immediately it is out of hand, just on hysteria, while he still pours whiskey into the glass, which in a moment now will overflow, except that Stevens reaches his hand and grasps the bottle and stops it.
STEVENS
Stop it. Stop it, now. Here.
He takes the bottle from Gowan, sets it down, takes the tumbler and tilts part of its contents into the other empty one, leaving at least a reasonable, a believable, drink, and hands it
