Synge

by Colm Toibin

  The following day, we all went walking up to an ancient church above Killeanny village. We climbed the hill beyond the cottages with the Dutch girl and her new chaperone following some distance behind us. She was wearing a red tartan skirt that afternoon, which flapped in the wind every now and again, making life on crutches even more difficult. At the monastic ruin of Teampaill Bheannain, the breeze frequently revealed the entire stump of plaster. We read the historical information on the sign and looked at the crumbling walls covered in yellow lichen. Occasionally, we understood for a brief moment how ancient this place was, but we were always brought back to the present by the sound of the crutches and sight of the tartan in the wind.

  On the way back through Killeanny that afternoon, we came walking by the cottages and saw hundreds of salted fish laid out along the walls to dry like small white dish-cloths. Each one of the cottages had fishing implements outside, lobster pots, oars, and buoys. At the harbour, we saw the tide gone out and the black seaweed draped along the rocks. Some men and dogs were sitting on the small pier.

  We carried on walking past the cottages with the Dutch girl and her chaperone out in front of us this time. The crutches were clicking slowly along the road with no hurry, making it sound like a hospital ward in the open air. Now and again she stopped to take the weight off her hands, hopping around for a moment on her good leg and falling into her chaperone with her arms around him. At one of the cottages there was an old woman leaning at the gate, looking out at the sea and watching the slow procession coming towards her. She began to talk to us, first of all saying it was a fine day to be walking and doing nothing. She wanted to know where the girl was from and what happened to her leg. We explained that she had broken her leg in a car accident on the mainland and that she was spending the summer on the island until it was healed. The old woman began to laugh, saying there was not much to do on the island for a woman with a plaster on her leg.

  … they crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am not married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could not understand all they were saying, yet I was able to make out that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the seaweed, and the young girls grew red with embarrassment and stared down into the surf.

  By now the Dutch girl and her partner had already begun to move ahead along the road, while we were still listening to the old woman and answering her provocative questions with shrugs and smiles. She asked us why we had no girlfriends and what was wrong with all the island girls walking up and down the road day and night with no crutches.

  Their skirts do not come much below the knee, and show their powerful legs …

  The old woman smiled. She was looking at us with a humorous idleness, leaning lazily with her elbow on the wall. We could see the ancient teeth left over in her mouth and the deep lines across her face. We could see the marks of the weather and the wind and the rain around her sunken cheeks, but underneath, she had the expression of a young Killeanny girl. Nothing could hide the mischievous optimism in her eyes as she watched us drifting away and called out a final exhortation in Irish behind us. ‘Scaoil amach an deabhaillín,’ she said with a wink (Let out the little divileen).

  We had been misinformed by the landscape, by the wind, by the desolate features of this island. Now we began to understand why we felt the world had been turned around for us. It was not just the direction of the sunlight. It was all the things we had expected to come from London, from Europe and New York. They were here on the Aran Islands in plenty. Let out the little divileen.

  … I would be right to marry a girl out of this island, for there were nice women in it, fine fat girls, who would be strong, and have plenty of children, and not be wasting my money on me.

  Excerpts from The Aran Islands by John Millington Synge.

  Illustration 4: Photo of John Millington Synge. Reproduced by permission of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin

  4 A Glass of Champagne ~ Marina Carr

  Chekhov stands beside a huge blue door. He waits expectantly. Fixes his tie. Clears his throat. The door slides open onto an immense black sky strippled with stars. Enter John Millington Synge, dishevelled, confused.

  Chekhov: Welcome.

  Synge: Where am I?

  Chekhov: I’ll explain that in due course. How was the journey?

  Synge: What journey? Last I remember I was lying in my hospital bed. A red-haired nurse … why are they always red-haired? … crooning in my ear. ‘It’s all right’, she whispers. ‘It’s far from all right’, I whisper back. And next thing I’m watching myself die.

  Chekhov: One of the great experiences life has to offer.

  Synge: I looked so small, like a swaddled baby arrayed for a christening. Why would anyone want to kill such a puny harmless thing? That’s what I was thinking. And then the swirling dust, the frightening cold, the chortling vacuum … and here.

  Looks around.

  Is that the Earth?

  Chekhov: I believe so … and there’s the moon.

  Synge: Different from the astronomy books.

  Chekhov: Yes. Very. Allow me to introduce myself. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

  Holds out his hand.

  Synge: John Millington Synge.

  Chekhov: They sent me ahead of the welcoming party. You’re my first so excuse me if I’m a little nervous.

  Synge: Your first.

  Chekhov: Yes. The others will be here shortly. They sent me ahead as they said we’d have things in common.

  Synge: Like What?

  Chekhov: Well breathing difficulties, early death, the theatre. That sort of thing.

  Synge: You write for the theatre?

  Chekhov: Yes. I do. I did.

  Synge: Any good?

  Chekhov: The odd line here and there. Not really. No.

  Synge: Me either.

  Chekhov: But I love it. I loved it.

  Synge: The theatre. Yes. Put me in a darkened room, bright up the lights and I swear to god I’d watch anything.

  Chekhov: Well we put on a lot of plays here. Some promising young ones coming up. They’ll be sent down shortly of course.

  Synge: Sent down?

  Chekhov: Down into the world, the living steaming world. The lucky things.

  Synge: And us?

  Chekhov: We’ve had our turn. Most don’t get one. Most are passed over. At least we got a crack at it.

  Synge: I’m only thirty seven.

  Chekhov: I know. I was forty four.

  Synge: And what took you out?

  Chekhov: The lungs. The women. A woman. The writing magic flown. The time allotted gone.

  Synge: You got longer than me.

  Chekhov: It’s not a competition.

  Synge: Isn’t it. Somehow I’ve always believed that I’d be left alive as long as I observed certain laws.

  Chekhov: Very old testament.

  Synge: Yes my mother was a religious nut … but what those laws are I could never figure out.

  Chekhov: It is no shame to die young. But I know what you mean. I spent the first couple of years here apologizing to everyone for dying. They don’t care. They really don’t. If I may offer you a little advice, John. May I call you John?

  Synge: Yes.

  Chekhov: Eternity cares nothing for the private sorrows of us brave little earthlings.

  Synge: Then I care nothing for eternity.

  Chekhov: You’re in shock. Say nothing for a while, just watch and wait. Trust me. Don’t be afraid. Can I offer you a glass of champagne?

  Synge: I had champagne last evening with my nephew.

  Chekhov: All the best people have champagne on their death beds.

  Synge: Did you?

  Chekhov: I was force fed it by a German doctor and when I died the cork flew out of the bottle. My biographers have made much of this detail. Really I was just trying
to get another glass to bolster me for the gallop here.

  He opens the champagne and pours two glasses, hands one to Synge.

  Synge: Thank you.

  Chekhov: A ghost cigar.

  Synge: Why not.

  They light them and puff out clouds of silver smoke.

  Chekhov: Smoking is a pleasure I’m re-discovering. I had to give it up when I was alive.

  Synge: Is my mother here?

  Chekhov: Your mother.

  Synge: Yes. She died last year.

  Chekhov: Then she must be around somewhere.

  Synge: They didn’t brief you on my mother..

  Chekhov: They didn’t mention her.

  Synge: No doubt she’ll be thrilled to hear I didn’t survive a year without her … so who is this advance party coming to meet me?

  Chekhov: Poets, painters, playwrights, philosophers, a few dancers and a horde of bawdy actors.

  Synge: I love actors.

  Chekhov: I prefer actresses.

  Synge: I suppose that’s what I meant. Will Shakespeare be coming?

  Chekhov: Everyone wants to be met by him.

  Synge: Have you met him?

  Chekhov: Oh yes. You’d want to see what he’s writing now. He’s going before the committee again soon.

  Synge: What committee?

  Chekhov: The selection committee … that’s what they’re called though no one has ever seen them. He wants to go back … we all do.

  Synge: And will they let him?

  Chekhov: He came close last time … too soon it was said.

  Synge: Too soon? Then what chance do I have?

  Chekhov: I ask myself the same.

  Synge: What’s he like?

  Chekhov: He has one golden wing. He fishes all the time.

  Synge: Is he any good?

  Chekhov: What do you think?

  Synge: I’d be surprised if he was a good fisherman unless he chants some witchery to draw them in. Too good a writer to be much use for anything else if you ask me. I’ve met plenty of fishermen. Like everything else it’s an art form. Fishing. Takes a lifetime to perfect.

  Chekhov: He disappears for days, years, whatever time is called here. He goes off fishing with his son. The young Hamnet.

  Synge: Is he still eleven?

  Chekhov: That child was never eleven. You’ll meet them. He goes everywhere with the boy.

  Synge: Do you … did you have children?

  Chekhov: No

  Synge: No. Me either. Does that matter in the grand scheme of things?

  Chekhov: I don’t know about the grand scheme but it matters to me.

  Synge: I thought I had abundance of time. I was just beginning to figure what it’s all about and bam, it’s over. Last night I was drinking champagne with Edward. We talked about birds. Birds. This time of year I like to be in the hills or out on the Islands but I was having surgery, I thought I’d go mad cooped up and my nephew came with champagne and he spoke to me about birds and it was ordinary, I was even a bit bored, but my God from here it was glorious. And then he left and I went to bed. And that’s it. Is this a dream? Will I wake in the morning and laugh that I took you for real?

  Chekhov: Oh I’m real. Real as only a shade can be. Another drop?

  Synge: This champagne is good. Well if this is eternity it is not as cold as I thought it would be. It’s light, it bubbles, it sparkles.

  Chekhov: It has its ethers too. Its sulphour and vapours, its whirling terrors and its night sweats but you’ll meet those soon enough.

  Synge: And the creator? Do I get an audience with him?

  Chekhov: If you do you’ll be the first.

  Synge: He’s not here.

  Chekhov: There are ruins of old palaces rumoured to be his. Moulds of rubbled turquoise and some rock no one can identify. No one is sure who lived there. He hasn’t been here in a while. If ever.

  Synge: Then what’s the point of prolonging it if he’s not here?

  Chekhov: You don’t have to.

  Synge: I can die again.

  Chekhov: Most opt to finish it in the clay.

  Synge: They don’t go for this?

  Chekhov: This is nothing. It’s not like this. This suit of clothes I wear is not a suit of clothes. I am a different creature away from here. You’ll see. You’ll be given the choice. Don’t be afraid. I tell myself that forty times a minute. Don’t be afraid. Just look on it as one of those revenge tragedies.

  Synge: Who revenges who?

  Chekhov: It is nothing like you have ever experienced.

  Synge: So these are not champagne glasses and this is not a cigar and that backdrop is not the distant earth.

  Chekhov: And you are not John Millington Synge.

  Synge: Then who am I?

  Chekhov: Some ancient thing that suffers and desires. I’m a novice here too. They swirl through the air John. You will swirl through the air all beak and talons. The light is different here, not for the faint hearted. There will be times you will weep for the quiet of dust.

  Synge: Well I know one thing now.

  Chekhov: And what is that?

  Synge: This is what I should’ve been writing about. Eternity. I didn’t trust it enough. Wasted more paper writing about girleens in shebeens and little mammy’s boys who wouldn’t know one end of a woman from the other. You know I did twelve drafts of a play once. It got worse and worse with each draft.

  Chekhov: What was it about?

  Synge: Aah … nonsense about a playboy who wasn’t. Where I come from no one had sex. Or if they did it was by accident. That’s what I was trying to write about but big corseted mammy Ireland was having none of it. Out on the Island they were different. Savages. The women were savages. They attacked me one day on the pier. I was the only man on the Island. They were high from watching husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, loading cattle onto boats for the fair. And then suddenly the men all gone and me alone with seventy, ninety, a hundred women on the pier, all shrieking at me, ‘Why aren’t you married? Come on show us why you’re not married.’– and puling and tearing at my clothes.

  Chekhov: I love Islands.

  Synge: And the women used to stand in the sea to bath themselves. Women to drive you mad. Not their fault, they’re just washing themselves in the sea, it’s what they’ve always done, but still, from the cliffs, something to behold. And then sometimes the men would take me out with them in the currach. They were different out there on the open sea. I was different. Our mood would accord itself with wonderful fineness to the suggestions of the day and the ancient gaelic we spoke was of such divine simplicity that I would have liked to turn the prow to the west and row with them forever. But all of that is over.

  Chekhov: Yes. All gone.

  Synge: Chekhov you said your name was.

  Chekhov: That’s right.

  Synge: I read a story of yours in some French journal a couple of years back … about a little boy travelling through the Steppe with a priest and his uncle … that was yours.

  Chekhov: You read it?

  Synge: Yes. And what’s more I loved it. The boy … was that you?

  Chekhov: When I was nine or ten my mother decided to go in search of her father’s grave. So she hired horses and a cart and we all piled on. My father stayed at home to our great delight. Me, Sasha, Kolya, Masha, the babies and my mother heading off on an adventure. We rode for a month through the mountains, sleeping under the stars, cooking by campfire, washing in streams.

  Synge: And did you find your grandfather’s grave?

  Chekhov: No we never did I wonder is she still alive … and Olga … Masha … you wouldn’t know would you?

  Synge: I’m sorry.

  Chekhov: Pointless even asking.

  Synge: Who are Olga and Masha?

  Chekhov: Olga was my wife. Masha? Who was Masha? My sister I suppose, but more than that. It would be good to see those three women again. Olga was an actress with the Moscow Arts. Faithless, light headed but a lifeline to me. I hardly saw her.
And Masha … poor old Masha … my work horse. It goes without saying they hated one another. And my wise old mother in the middle of them, reading her bible. I never said goodbye. Always in flight. I thought if I kept on the move I’d somehow beat this disease. I never dreamt it would happen so quickly. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen plenty of death but I could never apply it to myself. To be snuffed out like that. That was for others. And to be landed here. Irony of ironies. The sceptic in eternity. I still don’t believe in it but here I am. Here you are. And I’m rattling on about myself and I said I wouldn’t. I have no manners it seems.

  Synge: Your manners are fine.

  Chekhov: Well the champagne is finished. Will I open another bottle or do you feel up to the maelstrom?

  Synge: Couldn’t we just sit here for ever and drink and smoke cigars? If there was a violin around I’d play for you. That’s all I ever wanted to do, play the violin …

  Chekhov: We can send for a violin.

  Synge: Then do. I’ll open another bottle. Let’s have a wake.

  Chekhov: You mean mourn our own passing. I’m all for that. All right, you serenade me and I’ll sing you all the Russian hymns my father taught me.

  The blue door slides open. Shakespeare stands there with his son Hamnet.

  Shakespeare: Where’s this poet fiddler? Champagne! Fantastic! Will Shakespeare. This is Hamnet, my son. It is such a pleasure to finally meet the man who wrote Riders to the Sea. Better than the Greeks. Now tell me all the news from the old country. Play Hamnet, play little man, I always like music as the lamps go out.

  And fade on the scene as Hamnet plays on the violin.

  End

  Illustration 5: Synge’s Paris: The playwright’s room in the Hotel Corneille, where he lived in 1896. Reproduced by permission of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.

  5 A White Horse on the Street: Remembering Synge in Paris ~ Vincent Woods

  February 10:

  The Café des Arts after a poetry reading. A slightly drunken German woman in our company tries to explain the significance of the pattern on the Aran jumper. She strokes the white synthetic stitches on my friend’s chest. He already knows all about the tradition: has read Riders To The Sea in French and English but is too polite to tell her. This chill night he’s probably wearing the jumper more for warmth than any nostalgia for Ireland. ‘Each family had their own particular stitch, yes? So if you were drowned and the body was washed up they’d know it was you.’ She pokes him with a determined finger. ‘I could repair this jumper for you. On the Islands they’d make you an exact copy, and it would be yours - unique - nothing much has changed, you know, since Synge was there.’