Swann

  Jimroy rises and allows the applause to die as he stands at the lectern. He adjure his papers, loosens his tie, lowers the microphone. He is a man who enjoys teasing his audience, believing it sharpens their attention. But he manages to appear more fussy than in command, and the audience responds with restlessness. At last he speaks.

  JIMROY: Ladies and gentlemen, I must first ask your indulgence. Because of last night’s mishap … my briefcase caper … I am forced today to speak from the scantiest of notes, and may be even more rambling than is my usual way. (He breathes deeply and plunges into his talk.) Why, our honoured chairman asks, have devoted my attention for the last two years to the work and person of Mary Swann, a poet some have compared to Emily Dickinson, to Stevie Smith, and also, if it is not too extreme a comparison for so early in the morning (a sour glance at Lang) to the great romantic voice of the —

  His voice fades to a murmur, rising and falling with a somewhat monotonous rhythm, but the words themselves are blurred. The CAMERA, as he speaks, wanders to various other faces in the audience, settles for a moment on Sarah Maloney, exceptionally alert and possessed of an expectant sparkle. She wears boots, pants, and a beautiful silk shirt, and is sitting boyishly with one leg drawn up, tuned to every word. Her look is one of critical appraisal. The CAMERA also falls on Rose Hindmarch sitting next to Sarah. Rose touches her hair repeatedly, scratches her neck, tries to remain alert, but is distracted by the excitement of the gathering. She looks to right and left, over her shoulder, etc. Jimroy’s voice once again fades in.

  JIMROY: … always referred to as “a Canadian poet,” but I suggest the time has come to leave off this modifier and to spring her free of the bolted confines of regionalism. Hers is an international voice, which —

  Jimroy’s voice again blurs. The CAMERA falls on the bright, skeptical face of Frederic Cruzzi, octogenarian, dressed this morning in a grey suit with a red sweater beneath. He strokes his chin, a little bored, somewhat disapproving of the tack Jimroy is taking. An instant later his eyes begin to close; in recent days he has withdrawn more and more into his memories, a province he likens to a low, raftered attic with insufficient air.

  JIMROY (voice fading in again): … and who would happily blow Mrs. Swann’s past to ashes and make her a comely country matron cheerfully secreting bits of egg money, as well as those who want to force on her a myth she is too frail to support. She was a seer and a celebrant, and in her 125 poems, 129 when Professor Lang agrees to publish the love poems —

  MAN WITH OUTSIZE AFRO: Hear, hear.

  BLUE-SPOTTED TIE: But when, when?

  JIMROY (turning to Lang): You see, Professor Lang, how eagerly we await publication. To continue, who really was Mary Swann?

  His face dissolves again. The CAMERA travels across the faces of those in the audience; some take notes, some listen attentively, Cruzzi dozes, Rose fidgets.

  JIMROY (again becoming audible): May I suggest further that the real reason we have come here is the wish to travel (pause) that short but difficult distance (pause) between appearance and reality. Who, given what we know, was Mary Swann? A woman. A wife. A mother. Perhaps a lover. (He eyes Lang, who looks away.) She was poor. Badly educated. A woman who travelled only a few miles from her home. She had no social security card, no medical records. Her only official papers, in fact, consisted (dramatic pause) of a library card from the Nadeau Public Library.

  The CAMERA lights on Rose Hindmarch, who blushes appropriately and nods. CAMERA follows the faces in the audience; interest quickens and even Cruzzi jerks awake.

  JIMROY: It is a mystery, just as our own lives are mysteries. Just as we don’t ever really know that person sitting to our right or left. (Rose and Sarah exchange small smiles at this.) Appearance and reality.

  Jimroy ends his talk with a flourish, a crisp nod to the audience. He bows stiffly, and walks back to his chair.

  Director’s Note: The repetition of the phrase “appearance and reality” must be framed with silence and intensity, since it can be said to define the submerged dichotomy of the film. The applause, when it comes, must be slightly delayed so that the words (and implications) will have time to register.

  lang steps to the microphone and leads the applause, gleeful as a cheerleader; after a moment he gestures Jimroy back to the lectern.

  * * *

  LANG: Our guest has kindly agreed to field a few questions. We have, I believe, just ten minutes before our coffee break. Questions? (Several hands go up at once. Lang, dancing like a marionette, pleased things are running smoothly, points to Dr. Buswell near the back of the room): Syd? You have a question for Mr. Jimroy?

  Syd Buswell is a man of about forty, wearing blue jeans and a tweed jacket; he speaks with a nasal, aggrieved whine, employing truncated phrases that give the impression of self-importance.

  BUSWELL: The question of influences! Very important as we all know. You mention, Professor Jimroy, that Mrs. Swann was an avid reader. A great borrower of books from the local library. Now I have been to the local library in Nadeau, Ontario. I have made a point of going there. I am sure you have as well. And I feel sure that you will agree with me that there isn’t a great deal offered by the Nadeau Public Library. Pleasant it may be, but —

  Director’s Note: Another sort of director, distrustful of his or her audience, might employ a flashback at this point. Buswell, clad in a ratty leather jacket, prowling through the innocent shelves of the Nadeau library, or something along those lines.

  JIMROY: Ah yes, but —

  BUSWELL: For example. There is no T.S. Eliot in the Nadeau library. Just an example. Enough said? (He sits down, believing he has scored magnificently with this point.)

  JIMROY (clearing his throat): Perhaps you’re aware, Professor Buswell, that the librarian of the Nadeau Public Library, Rose Hindmarch, is in our midst today? (CAMERA close-up of Rose, who looks hideously alarmed.)

  BUSWELL: I am perfectly aware that Miss Hindmarch is present. And she would no doubt agree. With me. That this particular library was in no particular position to offer much. Much substance that is. To someone like Mary Swann. Now it is all very well —

  Rose has risen to her feet; there are tears in her eyes, and her face wears a mixed look of self-censure and wincing bewilderment; this is not what she expected.

  ROSE (quavering): We have a budget. People don’t always appreciate … a very small budget. Last year it got cut twice, the hockey arena got a hike, but we got —

  BUSWELL (lazily): I’m sure you do the best you can, Miss Hindmarch. With a limited budget. I was not imputing (at this Rose blinks) that you run an establishment that is … less than —

  JIMROY (icily): That is exactly what you did say, Professor Buswell, and —

  BUSWELL (unperturbed): It is hardly an accusation to acknowledge that a particular rural library is … substandard. No Eliot. No Lowell. I ask you. (He sits down in triumph.)

  ROSE (rising again): Every year I tell the council the same thing, we need money, the price of books —

  JIMROY: Miss Hindmarch, there is no need for you to defend your —

  BUSWELL (rising again): No one said anything about a need to defend. I am simply saying what we all know. That the Nadeau Public Library cannot have provided serious nourishment to the mind of a poet like —

  ROSE (on her feet, her terrible garrulousness shifting to its defensive mode): Oh, Mrs. Swann came every two weeks to the library. I don’t think she ever missed, not for years and years, every two weeks, like clockwork —

  BUSWELL: Miss Hindmarch. My interest is in addressing the question of influences. I assure you, I am not challenging you personally. It is Mr. Jimroy who makes claims for Mrs. Swann’s familiarity with certain works in the modern trad —

  JIMROY: I suggest only. I do not claim.

  ROSE (not understanding the focus of the discussion): We do have a poetry section. We use the Library of Congress numbering system and you can find —

  BUSWELL (to Jimroy, ignoring Rose): Yo
u point to parallels between Swann and Emily Dickinson and you suggest —

  ROSE (still awkwardly standing): Mrs. Swann liked a good story. For example, Pearl Buck. I remember she liked Pearl Buck real well. And Edna Ferber —

  Director’s Note: Others in the audience watch the proceedings with distress, humour, annoyance, fascination. There must be a sense of order breaking down and a suggestion that an unwanted revelation threatens.

  WOMAN IN GREEN TWEED SUIT: Is this really germane?

  MAN WITH CRINKLED FOREHEAD: Of course it’s germane. Everything that sheds light on —

  WATTLED GENT: Why not let Mr. Jimroy reply? After all, he’s the one who —

  MERRY EYES: Order.

  SARAH (rising, twisting her wedding ring as she speaks): Why can’t we just say that Mary Swann was self-evolved and be done with it? Remember what Pound said about Eliot, that he made his own modernism —

  GINGER PONYTAIL: And isn’t it possible that her influences were general rather than specific —

  WIMPY GRIN: The question of influence is oversimplified in most cases. For instance —

  JIMROY (to all three comments): Yes. And furthermore —

  BUSWELL: All I want to say, and then I promise to pipe down, is that the resources of the Nadeau Public Library cannot seriously be considered as an influence.

  JIMROY (instinctively dealing in flattery, knowing how efficacious it can be in such a public situation): Professor Buswell, from previous discussions you and I have had, I know you to be a man of wide reading and sensitivity. Of course I understand that you are anxious to establish a link between Mrs. Swann’s writing and her grasp on modern poetics —

  BUSWELL: I only ask —

  JIMROY:—and I can tell you that Mrs. Swann’s daughter, whom I have interviewed in depth in recent months, has confided that her mother was familiar with that genre of verse commonly known as Mother Goose —

  BUSWELL (with an appalled laugh): Nursery rhymes! Surely you’re not serious —

  JIMROY: I see no reason to dismiss —

  MAN WITH OUTSIZE AFRO: Bloody rude son of a —

  BIRDLADY: … snobbish approach to —

  JIMROY (leaning on lectern beseechingly; he has clearly lost control, but will not admit to it): If you will allow me to enlarge —

  LANG (stepping nimbly forward): Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, it might be more profitable to continue this most interesting discussion over coffee, which I now believe—(he peers over the heads of the audience)—yes, I can see coffee is ready and …

  Lang’s voice fades; all around him people are rising to their feet and heading toward the coffee urns. They can be seen chatting, stretching, moving.

  Rose rises hurriedly and heads for the door into the corridor. There are tears standing in her eyes, and her nose is red. She is a woman who can never speak coherently when her emotions are stirred, and for this reason she is anxious to escape.

  SARAH (attempting to catch up with Rose): Rose, wait a minute. Excuse me, I want to—Rose! (She follows Rose into the corridor, looks right and left and sees nobody.) Rose! (She sees a door marked “Ladies,” decides Rose is there, and enters. The CAMERA follows, focusing on three stalls, the door to one of them closed.) Rose, you there? (Sarah leans on a washbasin and folds her arms, prepared to be patient.) Okay, Rose, I know you’re in there. Now listen to me. You trust me, don’t you? Buswell’s a shit. Everyone in that room knows what he is. An asshole. Insecure. That’s what the tenure system does to the insecure. The man’s paranoid, Rose. Can you hear me? You can’t stay in there all day, you know.

  She continues talking while turning and glancing in the mirror; her face has the kind of seriousness that throws off energy. From her deep bag she takes a hairbrush and begins brushing her long hair, an act performed with a kind of distracted sensuality.

  SARAH: I can tell you, Rose—I was on the Steering Committee—that, that twit, Buswell, is one hundred per cent on the defensive. He’s running for the bushes. This is confidential, Rose, but I can tell you this much—he was supposed to be giving a paper himself, something idiotic and desperate on vowel sounds in Swann’s Songs, and he’s been working on it for two years (gives her hair a yank) and then he suddenly writes to the committee, this was in October, to say his notes had been stolen. Stolen! Everyone knows he’s the most absent-minded nerd. (She puts the brush away, turns sideways, observes the curve of her abdomen and runs her hand over it.) He’s the sort of crazy creep that loves to put the blame … well, they all are, the bunch of them, it makes me wonder if I want to spend my life hanging out with—Rose? (She sees that the collar of her pink shirt is standing prettily away from her neck, careless and controlled at the same time in a way that makes her happy.) Rose? Rose! (She pushes open the door, which swings in to reveal nothing but a solitary toilet.) Rose. (Softly, hands on hips): Rose?

  Dissolve to: Interior, meeting room. Late morning.

  Members of the symposium are enjoying a coffee break. People are milling about, relaxed, standing in groups of three or four, and there is a pleasing sense of animation. In one corner Jimroy, Buswell, and Cruzzi are conducting a cheerful but guarded discussion. CLOSE-UP on Lang, he scurries from group to group sociably, then joins Jimroy and the others; his look is amiable and conciliatory. A nearby group consists of Wattled Gent, Wimpy Grin, Ginger Ponytail, and Sarah, who joins them belatedly and is handed a cup of coffee by Silver Cufflinks.

  SILVER CUFFLINKS: Well, you might say Jimroy managed to capture the attention of —

  GINGER PONYTAIL (earnestly): Threw some light on the early poems which you have to admit are … but it’s the love poems we’re all waiting for —

  WIMPY GRIN (to Sarah): I suppose you must have met Morton Jimroy —

  SARAH (distracted, looking over her shoulder for Rose): Met who?

  WIMPY GRIN : Morton Jimroy—you must have met —

  SARAH (focusing, but still distracted): No. I decided not to go to the reception last night. All that smoke —

  GINGER PONYTAIL : So you don’t know him at all?

  SARAH: We’ve been corresponding. For about a year or so, but I haven’t actually met —

  LANG (approaching and taking Sarah by the elbow): Sarah, may I interrupt? I’d like very much to present you to Mr. Jimroy —

  SARAH (detaching herself from the group and following Lang through the crowded, noise-filled room): Willard, have you seen Rose Hindmarch? She seems to have disappeared. I’ve looked in the —

  LANG: Oh, she’ll turn up. Probably in the loo. Unfortunate. Tactless bugger, Buswell. Utterly paranoid, still says his notes were stolen —

  SARAH: Any news about Morton Jimroy’s briefcase?

  LANG (his face falling): Not yet. I can’t understand who—(He steers Sarah over to where Jimroy is holding court.) Morton, sorry to interrupt, but you expressly asked earlier to meet Sarah, and I’ve managed to snatch her away from—Sarah Maloney, Morton Jimroy.

  JIMROY (offering his hand and looking suddenly timid): How do you —?

  SARAH (smiling broadly, unprepared for such formality): At last! (She embraces him warmly and plants a kiss on one cheek; she is a naturally demonstrative woman.) At last!

  Jimroy, gratified but confused by so spontaneous an embrace, instantly draws back, squirming. CAMERA close-up of his face reveals a twisted scowl of mingled pain and desire.

  JIMROY (muttering coldly under his breath): So good to meet you.

  Sarah, interpreting Jimroy’s cool behaviour as an act of rejection, steps back and attempts to explain to him, to the others, and to herself.

  SARAH: After all the letters we’ve … I just felt, you know, that we were —

  JIMROY (aloofly): I assume you’ve met Professor Buswell?

  BUSWELL (carelessly): Old friends. We go way back. JIMROY: I see.

  SARAH (still puzzled by Jimroy’s snub): I’ve been looking forward to —

  LANG (recognizing an awkward situation and anxious to deflect it): And have you met Frederic
Cruzzi? Mr. Cruzzi, Sarah Maloney.

  CRUZZI (also trying to relieve the tension): We have met. By letter. A charming letter if I may say so.

  JIMROY (blanching, pierced to the heart by this information): You must be very busy, Ms. Maloney, with all your letter writing.

  LANG (rattling on expansively): It was Sarah who managed to persuade Mr. Cruzzi to attend our gathering.

  CRUZZI: A most persuasive letter. How could I possibly refuse?

  LANG: Actually we’re very, very fortunate to have Sarah with us. Perhaps you know her happy good news?

  JIMROY (icily): I’m afraid not.

  LANG: Just newly married. Christmas Eve, wasn’t it, Sarah?

  BUSWELL (breezy, bored): Congrats.

  JIMROY: Married. (There is more exclamation than query in this outburst.)

  SARAH: To someone—(shrugs nervously)—someone I’ve known for some time.

  JIMROY: My congratulations. Excuse me, won’t you? I see someone I must have a word with. (He starts to leave.)

  SARAH (perplexed): We will have a chance to talk later, won’t we, Morton?

  JIMROY (cringing at the sound of his name): I expect that might be possible —

  SARAH: There are dozens of things I want to ask you about —

  JIMROY (dismissively as he leaves): We must do that some time.

  SARAH (to others): Did I by any chance say something wrong? Put my foot in it or what?

  LANG (smoothly): I’m sure Mr. Jimroy is just tired, his long journey, and then speaking for—and without notes —

  SARAH: No, not just that, Willard. I’ve been (she pauses) snubbed.