Peter and Alice by John Logan Page A

: With respect, Mrs. Hargreaves, people have not forgotten. Everything associated with the Centenary is taking the fancy of the nation, including the reception today.
    ALICE : Momentarily, yes… But before this there was, and after this there shall be, quietude. I like to hear the bees buzzing.
    PETER : But don’t you think – ?
    ALICE : (Firm.) No, sir, I do not. In your quest for literary “truth” you must occasionally run across those stories you wish you hadn’t told, for the simple reason that no one really wants to hear the truth when it runs contrary – “contrariwise” as he would say – to the comfortable assumptions that people hold so dear. That’s the burden of truth, isn’t it?
    PETER : Yes, but–
    ALICE : Here’s a burden: the only reason anyone remembers me now as Alice in Wonderland is that I decided to sell my hand-written manuscript of the book. It was this act that brought me back into the public eye… But do you know why I sold the manuscript? Because I needed the money. To heat my house, Mr. Davies … Now, is that the Alice people want to know? Or is it just possible they would rather remember that little blond girl in the dress, eternally inquisitive, impossibly bold, never changing and never growing old?
    PETER : But we all grow old ! … That’s the story of our lives: the one immutable; the one inescapable. The crocodile in the lagoon, the iceberg on the horizon, death just around the corner, tick tick tick. I’m grasping now but–
    ALICE : (Interrupts.) What’s your name ?
    PETER : Peter Davies, ma’am.
    ALICE : All of it.
    PETER : Peter Llewelyn Davies.
    ALICE : Peter Pan.
    Beat .
    PETER : There were five of us.
    ALICE : Well, this is rich!
    PETER : I suppose so.
    ALICE : And a little bizarre.
    PETER : Mm.
    ALICE : Were you planning on telling me?
    PETER : No, actually, I wasn’t intending —
    ALICE : Of course not. But how could you help being who you are?
    PETER : And how can you?
    It’s a bit of a challenge .
    She moves around the room .
    ALICE : Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. We’re practically our own children’s book department… There were five of you?
    PETER : Five boys, yes. Five brothers… And there were three sisters?
    ALICE : Yes, we three Liddell girls, back in Oxford.
    PETER : But you’re “Alice.”
    ALICE : As you’re “Peter”… But after all, what’s in a name?
    PETER : What isn’t?
    She understands .
    ALICE : With me, it has been a wholly happy connection. When people find out, they always smile, for they’rebringing so many associations with them: first time hearing the story; first time reading the book; then reading it to their own children. You see it in their faces, the pictures behind that smile of recognition: the White Rabbit; the Mad Hatter; the Cheshire Cat. I think they smile because what they’re really remembering is themselves as children , and for that moment I see the wonder returning to them… When I look over my days I feel I was given a gift by Mr. Dodgson. Out of everyone, there’s only one Alice. He made me special . And that uniqueness has given me a lifetime of people looking back at me, with a growing smile, remembering their better selves, when they were new and life was before them and all they needed to find their way through was a little courage, a little imagination, and a bottle labeled “Drink Me.”
    PETER : I heard that speech on the wireless a few weeks ago.
    ALICE : Well it is my speech.
    PETER : Very effective.
    ALICE : I’m glad you think so. You’ll be hearing it again in a few minutes.
    PETER : Lovely words. But we know better though.
    ALICE : Do we?
    PETER : I think so.
    ALICE : You’re presumptuous.
    PETER : The truth isn’t so easy.
    ALICE : Ah, there’s the “truth” again.
    PETER : Let me tell you the rest of the story and you tell