JELKA: Perhaps you should write an opera based upon your friend’s book, Edward?

ELGAR: I fear not, Jelka. Fred is the musical poet. I am just a journeyman in comparison. Fred! You must write it. You have it in you. A Village Romeo and Juliet was sublime.

DELIUS: I fear there is not enough time, Edward.

ELGAR: Time, that ghostly light about our heads.

JELKA: Shaw?

ELGAR: No, Elgar. Just thought of it. But I’ll tell you something, audiences do love good tunes, this is why popular music is so…well, popular.

JELKA: Absolutely.

We hear the opening bars of Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, which continues…

ELGAR: And I’ll tell you something else, popular composers use leitmotiv all the time. One must of course accentuate the rhythm, make the beat the dominant factor. Add to this what the jazz musician I believe calls the riff, which is a repetition that builds up tension and creates dynamics, and you have something quite magical. The nearest I came to it was in Pomp and Circumstance, and Land of Bloody Hope and Glory. Oh, how I wish I could write tunes like Gershwin and Ellington. Jelka, you really must take Fred to see Showboat, George and I did so enjoy it. Paul Robeson has the finest voice I’ve ever heard.

DELIUS: Very fond of Noel Coward.

Lights down, just a spot on Elgar and Delius. Elgar is now standing behind Delius. They now mime to Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen…

ELGAR:

In tropical climes there are certain times of day,
When all the citizens retire,
To take their clothes off and perspire.
It’s one of those rules
That the greatest fools obey,
Because the sun is far too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry violet ray.

DELIUS:

The natives grieve when the white man leaves
Their huts,
Because they’re obviously, definitely nuts!
BOTH: Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

ELGAR:

The Japanese don’t care to,
The Chinese wouldn’t dare to.
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly
From twelve to one.
But Englishmen detest a siesta.
Etc…

At the end of the mime Elgar and Delius take a bow. Jelka is laughing

JELKA: Bravo, bravo.

ELGAR: I wish I could write such tinkling tunes. Fred, isn’t there a line in on of Coward’s plays about the power of cheap music?

DELIUS: Private Lives.

ELGAR: That’s it…

DELIUS: Very flat, Norfolk.

General laughter

DELIUS: More champagne, Jelka.

Continues…
Jelka pours champagne

DELIUS: I have to say, Edward, I was saddened that Bridges-Adams didn’t commission you to write for Stratford.

ELGAR: Not for the want of asking on my part. But I fear, unlike Coward, I am now considered old fashioned. And I’m not sure I ’d want my music heard in such a dreadful building?

DELIUS: Certainly an improvement on the old monstrosity, which, had it not burned down I might happily have a put a match to it myself.

ELGAR: I rather liked the old wedding cake of a place, spent many happy hours there.

JELKA: It was an awful place, neither fish nor fowl, part Italianate church, part Tudor mansion. Elisabeth Scott’s wonderful creation is something Stratford must cherish.

ELGAR: George does rather agree with you. When he heard of the fire he sent the governors of the theatre a telegram saying they must be awfully pleased. And he was one of the prime movers to get the new theatre built. Perhaps it might grow on me?

DELIUS: But Shakespeare is rather overrated, don’t you think? He’s probably had his day?

ELGAR: But he is part of me…

DELIUS: It is the same old thing year in and year out. I’d bury all of Shakespeare’s works, and his memory, and good riddance.

ELGAR: Fred?

JELKA: But is it not possible to reinvent Shakespeare? In Germany he is now considered almost a German playwright. Hitler…

DELIUS: Damn Hitler, Jelka.

JELKA: Damned or not the man uses Shakespeare as German propaganda, promotes him as an anti-semite.

DELIUS: Jelka!

JELKA( to Elgar): Edward, have not your young producers, such as Baker…

DELIUS: Barker. Granville Barker.

JELKA: Yes. Have not your young producers, like Granville Baker, shone new light into Shakespeare’s world? Cleared out all the glittering sets, and allowed the words to tell the story once more?

ELGAR: Madam Delius you have a point, and a good one.

DELIUS: Of course she has a point, but what about new writers?

ELGAR: Yes, Fred, there must be a place for new talent. But I would not want to see Shakespeare forgotten, or Ibsen, even Heiberg, or given time, my friend George.

DELIUS: Like me he probably will be forgotten in fifty years.

JELKA: But we must not forget the price of canvas.

PAUSE

ELGAR: Canvas?

DELIUS: Canvas?

JELKA: Before the war canvas was two pfennings a metre. By 1919 it was three marks; no one could afford to paint scenery in Germany anymore. If the same was true in England it probably had the same effect on Granville Barker too. I fear cost will now direct who survives, and who does not. Thankfully I use very little canvas. I use board, anything I can find.

DELIUS: She probably has designs on this suit. The minute I’m dead it’ll be stretched for a canvas, perhaps my skin too?

JELKA: Don’t be ridiculous, Fred, human skin is a poor surface, far too greasy, and hairy. Now, as an upholstery fabric. More champagne everyone?

Jelka pours champagne for Elgar, then move to Delius…

JELKA: More champagne…Fritzy?

We hear Delius’ Cello & Violin Double Concerto in the background. The lights come down except for a spot on Delius, and a small area around him. A dim spot remains on Jelka.

Enter CLAIRE, a young American woman. She is wearing a silk robe and little else. She carries a champagne glass. She stands behind Delius.

Delius remains in his wheelchair, slowly becoming his younger self…FRITZY.

FRITZ: I hope I did not hurt you? Too much Bollinger I expect.

Claire speaks to Fritz.

CLAIRE: Fritzy, you are the most gentle man I know. I don’t think you have any idea what you do to me, when you touch me, when you…

FRITZ: Shhh. Have some more champagne.

Claire pours herself more champagne and drinks. She kisses Fritz.

CLAIRE: Come back to bed, Fritzy. I must have you again. I know you want me too.

Claire kisses and caresses Fritzy

FRITZ: Claire, you are too bold, and have absolutely no morals whatsoever.

CLAIRE: I am a new woman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, and I am not afraid of my sexuality if that is what you mean?

FRITZ: You are an aristocrat, a woman who can afford not to be afraid. You are also a married woman with two children who acts like a whore.

CLAIRE: I do?

FRITZ: You do, and fail miserably.

CLAIRE: Oh, do you know many whores, Fritz Delius?

FRITZ: Not as many as your husband. The man is a fool to leave you alone for the likes of me.

CLAIRE: The likes of you? As you say I am an aristocrat, at least by marriage, and I may be sexually aware, liberated even, but I am not promiscuous. ( Claire laughs) I only take one lover at a time, and at the moment, on this wonderful Tuesday afternoon, in one of the smartest Paris apartments my husband’s money can buy, whilst he watches rehearsals at the Opera House, which he owns - and where you should be incidentally - and the children are in the Luxembourg Gardens with Marie, my nanny, I want, insist, that you make love to me again.

They Kiss

CLAIRE: Tomorrow there may be someone else. And tonight, as with every Tuesday, it will be my husband. Music arouses him alarmingly Fritzy, and he will make love to me in tempo to whatever piece they have been rehearsing.

FRITZ: Princess, you are in for a stormy night. Wagner I’m afraid.

CLAIRE: Really?

FRITZ: Really.

CLAIRE: Damn.

They Kiss

CLAIRE: But there is a compensation is there not? His Wagner has just been…

Fritz is suddenly gripped by pain in his left leg.

CLAIRE: Darling? Are you ill?

FRITZ: No. I get these pains occasionally. Too much champagne I expect.

The pain gradually eases

CLAIRE: You are a strange young man. But perhaps that is not difficult to understand. German parents…

FRITZ: Jawhol!

CLAIRE: Yet born in the delightful Yorkshire town of Bradford. I believe it is delightful?

FRITZ( In a mock Yorkshire accent): Aye, ‘appen you’re right there, lass.

CLAIRE: Lass?

FRITZ: Did they not teach yer Yorkshire at Bryn Mawr?

CLAIRE: They did not. (PAUSE) Anyway, you will soon be known in the sophisticated music world as the genius Frederick Delius. Known to me as Fritzy, who, for some strange reason did not want to spend the rest of his life in his father’s lucrative woollen business, or on the orange plantations of Florida where you, no doubt, had many lovers. Did you have a (She pauses for effect) nigger lover, Fritzy? Did you?

FRITZ (Angrily): How I hate, and detest that word. Why do you use it, Princess. Why is it so much more offensive in the mouth of a young woman? Especially a young American woman with a Bryn Mawr education?

CLAIRE: Was she good? Big and loud…

FRITZ (Shouting): Stop it! Why do you do this?

CLAIRE: Did you make love to her in…?

Delius tries to strike Claire, but from his wheelchair cannot do so. Claire moves away laughing…

CLAIRE: So sensitive, but then you are an artist. I just have money, and a Bryn Mawr education of course.

FRITZ: I thought Bryn Mawr was a highly liberal institution?

CLAIRE: Oh, it is, but you won’t find any nig…I mean blacks there. No, it is a white, upper class establishment for white upper class young American women whose mother’s do good work for the white lower classes, who are usually employed by the fathers’ of those same upper class young women. My father is a brewer who has made his fortune from those white lower classes, and the blacks. My mother teaches the dangers of venereal diseases, and the good sense of using contraception, to those same lower class white women, on the understanding they are married of course. My mother abhors sexual intercourse, so, like my husband, my father will visit prostitutes, who are given no information about venereal disease at all. Oh, I can assure you Fritzy I am not a carrier of the disease. My husband is very careful, and France has a much more open attitude to prostitution, black or white, does it not? You see blacks are not given any help whatsoever in the States by people like my mother, they simply do not exist for her.

FRITZ: Why do you talk like this, Claire? I fear for your sanity at times.

CLAIRE: You think I’m mad, that what I say is untrue?

Claire pours herself another drink

CLAIRE: Who is Jelka?

FRITZ: How do you know about her?

CLAIRE: Paris is like a small village, Fritzy. Who is she?

FRITZ: Well, if Paris is like a small village I am surprised you don’t know already?

CLAIRE: Perhaps I do? But I would like you to tell me.

FRITZ: Jelka Rosen, a German painter. She lives in Grez.

CLAIRE: Of good family? ( Claire laughs) But of course, you only choose women of good family don’t you. Who also happen to be rich?

FRITZ: Rich? Certainment.

CLAIRE: Do you love her?

FRITZ: I…

CLAIRE: Have you made love to her?

FRITZ: I…

CLAIRE: Have you?

FRITZ: Who is the sensitive one now?

CLAIRE (Shouting): Have you?

FRITZ ( Shouting): Yes

CLAIRE: You bastard, you lousy German bastard.

FRITZ: Does that go for the lousy Yorkshire bastard too? (Pause) Anyway I really must get back to the Opera House, and then pack for Christiania. And you will want to bathe before your husband returns. I know how fastidious you Americans can be.

CLAIRE: Go! I have no need of you. You are Tuesday afternoons. Anyway, you are no longer safe.

PAUSE

FRITZ: When I get back from Norway would you like me to call, before I go down to Grez?

CLAIRE: No. Just go.

FRITZ: I thought you wanted to make love again.

CLAIRE: I did, but I am probably too foul mouthed for your liking. And I wish to remain clean.

FRITZ: You say those words knowing they will upset me, have the desired affect of making me angry. You were testing me, I should have realised that. And your lecture was interesting, but is of no consequence. (Pause) I saw a bruise darling. Does your husband hurt you?

CLAIRE: No.

FRITZ: Claire?

CLAIRE: He will. He will take pleasure in his usual abnormalities.

FRITZ: Claire.

CLAIRE: That is Tuesday nights, Fritz.

FRITZ: Lets go back to bed darling, there is time.

CLAIRE: There is not going to be much more time for anything is there?

FRITZ: Time enough.

Claire takes a letter from a pocket of her robe and hands it to Jelka. Claire exits.

Go To Part 6.