Stefan holds his arm.
Light on Ellen.
Ellen If I may say – if I may be allowed to speak – yes, I loved him, though I shrank from his touch. In the twelve years of our love he aged into an old old man. He was only fifty-eight. He fell ill in our little house in Peckham. I brought him in the carriage to Gad’s Hill. I had promised Georgina I would not let him die in my house. When we got there, he asked to be put on the ground. His daughter Kate held him in her arms just a few sad moments and he died. Then, I mourned a while, and married a schoolmaster in Margate and never breathed a word about that strange, fled life.
Light now on Aggie.
Aggie I used the money that kind Mr Andersen gave me to go back to Ireland. My people were all dead, but I got work in a kip in Monto, to serve all the soldiers that were in barracks there in Marlborough Street, in the city of Dublin. When my son Walt was born I went on with that work, until he joined the army himself and went off to India with the Dublin Fusiliers and did well at the little wars there. Then he came home and didn’t he bring me on then with him to America, and fought in the last wars there against the poor redmen. And then we crossed up into Canada, myself and him and his wife. And I died an old old woman in Calgary, Alberta.
Andersen When I was leaving on the last day I could barely speak, I kissed him, and we parted. All the way to Gravesend he had brought me, and as the ship steamed out of the harbour, I looked back, certainly not expecting to see him, and there he was, on the last rough stones of the pier, standing in his bright yellow waistcoat, waving his hat in farewell, faithfully, faithfully waving.
Dickens steps forward, raising his hat with a slow flourish.
Dickens himself. Great friendship, like a conflagration, cooling to silence.
Stefan kisses Andersen on the mouth.
Then he goes and sits by Aggie, as if restored to her.
More light on Dickens. He sings ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, the company join in, then a last flourish of his hat, raised high, Andersen with his hat raised in answer, both hats held there, then slowly lowered, then slowly darkness.
About the Author
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His novels and plays have won, among other awards, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also had two consecutive novels, A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize. He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.
By the Same Author
fiction
THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY
ANNIE DUNNE
A LONG LONG WAY
THE SECRET SCRIPTURE
ON CANAAN’S SIDE
plays
BOSS GRADY’S BOYS
PRAYERS OF SHERKIN
WHITE WOMAN STREET
THE ONLY TRUE HISTORY OF LIZZIE FINN
THE STEWARD OF CHRISTENDOM
OUR LADY OF SLIGO
HINTERLAND
FRED AND JANE
WHISTLING PSYCHE
THE PRIDE OF PARNELL STREET
DALLAS SWEETMAN
TALES OF BALLYCUMBER
ANDERSEN’S ENGLISH
poetry
THE WATER-COLOURIST
FANNY HAWKE GOES TO THE MAINLAND FOREVER
Copyright
First published in 2010
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2014
All rights reserved
© Sebastian Barry, 2010
Cover image: from a photograph © National Portrait Gallery, London
The right of Sebastian Barry to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever, including performance rights, must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Independent Talent Group Ltd, 40 Whitfield Street, London W1T 2RH. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31927–5
Andersen's English Page 7