The Visit

In her sedan-chair, wearing her wedding dress, Claire is in Petersens’ Barn, one of the spots where she and Ill used to meet. The Doctor and the Schoolmaster come to see her. Despite the heat and dust, she explains, she needed a quiet spot after the wedding. To their shock, she has already sent the groom away and started the divorce process. They affirm that Ill is still alive due to their “Western principles” (64), but they tell her about the debt that the townspeople have accumulated. Claire muses, “In spite of your principles?” and the Schoolmaster says, “We’re only human” (64). They plead with her to invest in the town instead of giving a million pounds as “charity” or blood money. There is a foundry and a factory, and there are valuable minerals waiting to be mined. They only need a boost. Claire explains that it would be a decent investment, but she already bought all of it and had her agents close everything down, forcing the town into poverty as revenge for them casting out a pregnant teenager. She calls to her goons to carry her back to the hotel, where Husband IX would soon arrive.