Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  CON: Get on with the story, honey.

  LIZZY: (With dignity) Would you please desist from bustin’ in on me?

  (CON spreads his hands in resignation.)

  LIZZY: But listen to this – this’ll kill you – Mother’s here, see? And Agnes is here and I’m here. And Agnes leans across Mother to me – you know – and she says in this helluva loud voice – she says – (Laughs) – this really does kill me – she says – in this whisper of hers – and you know the size of Bailtefree chapel; couldn’t swing a cat in that place – (Suddenly anxious.) That chapel’s still there, isn’t it? It hasn’t fell down or nothing, has it?

  CON: (Dryly) Unless it fell down within the last couple of hours. We drove up there this morning. Remember?

  LIZZY: (Relieved) Yeah. So we did. Fine place. Made me feel kinda – you know – what the hell was I talking about?

  BEN: Agnes leaned over to you and said –

  (LIZZY puts her arm around him and kisses the crown of his head.)

  LIZZY: Thanks, Ben. A great friend with a great memory! I’ll tell you, Gar, Ben Burton’s one hundred per cent. The first and best friend we made when we went out. (To CON.) Right, honey?

  CON: Right.

  LIZZY: Way back in ’37.

  CON: ’38.

  LIZZY: (Loudly) October 23rd, 19 and 37 we sailed for the United States of America, (CON spreads his hands.) Nothing in our pockets. No job to go to. And what does Ben do?

  CON: A guy in a million.

  LIZZY: He gives us this apartment. He gives us dough. He gives us three meals a day – until Bonzo (CON) finally gets himself this job. Looks after us like we were his own skin and bone. Right, honey?

  CON: Right.

  LIZZY: So don’t let nobody say nothing against Ben Burton. Then when he (CON) gets this job in this downtown store –

  CON: First job was with the construction company.

  LIZZY: Would you please desist? (CON spreads hands.) His first job was with Young and Pecks, hauling out them packing cases and things; and then he moved to the construction company, and then we got a place of our own.

  PUBLIC: You were telling us about that morning.

  LIZZY: What’s he talking about?

  PUBLIC: The day my father and mother got married.

  LIZZY: That day! Wasn’t that something? With the wind howling and the rain slashing about! And Mother, poor Mother, may God be good to her, she thought that just because Maire got this guy with a big store we should all of got guys with big stores. And poor Maire – we were so alike in every way, Maire and me. But he was good to her. I’ll say that for S.B. O’Donnell – real good to her. Where the hell is he anyhow? Why will S.B. O’Donnell, my brother-in-law, not meet me?

  CON: He (PUBLIC) told you – he’s away at a wedding.

  LIZZY: What wedding?

  CON: Some local girl and some Dublin doc.

  LIZZY: What local girl? You think I’m a stranger here or something?

  CON: (To PUBLIC) What local girl?

  PUBLIC: Senator Doogan’s daughter.

  PRIVATE: Kathy.

  LIZZY: Never heard of him. Some Johnny-hop-up. When did they start having senators about this place for Gawd’s sakes?

  BEN: (To PUBLIC) You have a senate in Dublin, just like our Senate, don’t you?

  LIZZY: Don’t you start telling me nothing about my own country, Ben. You got your own problems to look after. Just you leave me to manage this place, okay?

  BEN: Sorry, Elise.

  LIZZY: Ben! (She kisses the top of his head.) Only that I’m a good Irish-American Catholic – (To PUBLIC) and believe me, they don’t come much better than that-and only that I’m stuck with Rudolph Valentino (CON) I’d take a chance with Ben Burton any day (Kisses him again.) black Lutheran and all that he is.

  (MADGE appears at the door of the shop. She refuses to look at the visitors. Her face is tight with disapproval. Her accent is very precise.)

  MADGE: Are there any Clarions to spare or are they all ordered?

  PUBLIC: They’re all ordered, Madge.

  LIZZY: Doing big deals out there, honey, huh?

  MADGE: Thank you, Gareth.

  (MADGE withdraws.)

  LIZZY: ‘Thank you, Gareth!’

  (She giggles to herself.)

  CON: Honey! (To PUBLIC) You’ll think about what we were discussing?

  PUBLIC: I will, Uncle Con.

  CON: The job’s as good as you’ll get and we’d be proud to have you.

  LIZZY: Don’t force him.

  CON: I’m not forcing him. I’m only telling him.

  LIZZY: Well now you’ve told him – a dozen times. So now desist, will you?

  (CON spreads his hands.)

  PUBLIC: I will think about it. Really.

  LIZZY: Sure! Sure! Typical Irish! He will think about it! And while he’s thinking about it the store falls in about his head! What age are you? Twenty-four? Twenty-five? What are you waiting for? For S.B. to run away to sea? Until the weather gets better?

  CON: Honey!

  LIZZY: I’m talking straight to the kid! He’s Maire’s boy and I’ve got an interest in him – the only nephew I have. (To BEN.) Am I right or am I wrong?

  BEN: I’m still up in Bailtefree chapel.

  LIZZY: Where? (Confidentially to CON) Give him no more to drink. (Patiently to BEN) You’re sitting in the home of S.B. O’Donnell and my deceased sister, Maire, Ben.

  CON: You were telling us a story about the morning they got married, honey, in Bailtefree chapel.

  LIZZY: Yeah, I know, I know, but you keep busting in on me.

  PUBLIC: You were about to tell us what Agnes whispered to you.

  LIZZY: (Crying) Poor Aggie – dead. Maire – dead. Rose, Una, Lizzy – dead – all gone – all dead and gone …

  CON: Honey, you’re Lizzy.

  LIZZY: So what?

  CON: Honey, you’re not dead.

  LIZZY: (Regarding CON cautiously) You gone senile all of a sudden? (Confidentially to BEN) Give him no more to drink. (To CON) For Gawd’s sakes who says I’m dead?

  BEN: You’re very much alive, Elise.

  (She goes to him and gives him another kiss.)

  LIZZY: Thank you, Ben. A great friend with a great intellect. Only one thing wrong with Ben Burton: he’s a black Baptist.

  BEN: Just for the record, Gar, I’m Episcopalian.

  LIZZY: Episcopalian – Lutheran – Baptist – what’s the difference? As our pastor, Father O’Flaherty, says – ‘My dear brethren,’ he says, ‘Let the whole cart-load of them, and the whole zoo of them, be to thee as the Pharisee and the publican.’

  CON: Honey!

  LIZZY: But he’s still the best friend we have. And we have many good, dear, kind friends in the US. Right, honey?

  CON: Right.

  LIZZY: But when it comes to holding a candle to Ben Burton – look – comparisons are – he’s not in the halfpenny place with them!

  BEN: (Laughing) Bang on, Elise!

  LIZZY: Am I right or am I wrong?

  CON: Honey!

  LIZZY: (To PUBLIC) And that’s why I say to you: America’s Gawd’s own country. Ben?

  BEN: Don’t ask me. I was born there.

  LIZZY: What d’ya mean – ‘Don’t ask me?’ I am asking you. He should come out or he should not – which is it?

  BEN: It’s just another place to live, Elise: Ireland – America – what’s the difference?

  LIZZY: You tell him, honey. You tell him the set-up we have. (Now with growing urgency, to PUBLIC.) We have this ground-floor apartment, see, and a car that’s air-conditioned, and colour TV, and this big collection of all the Irish records you ever heard, and fifteen thousand bucks in Federal Bonds –

  CON: Honey.

  LIZZY: – and a deep freezer and – and – and a back yard with this great big cherry tree, and squirrels and night-owls and the smell of lavender in the spring and long summer evenings and snow at Christmas and a Christmas tree in the parlour and – and – and – />
  CON: Elise …

  LIZZY: And it’s all so Gawd-awful because we have no one to share it with us …

  (She begins to sob.)

  CON: (Softly) It’s okay, honey, okay …

  LIZZY: He’s my sister’s boy – the only child of five girls of us –

  BEN: I’ll get the car round the front.

  (BEN goes off through the scullery.)

  LIZZY: – and we spent a fortune on doctors, didn’t we, Connie, but it was no good, and then I says to him (CON), ‘We’ll go home to Ireland,’ I says, ‘and Maire’s boy, we’ll offer him everything we have –’

  PRIVATE: (Terrified) No. No.

  LIZZY: ‘– everything, and maybe we could coax him – you know – ’ maybe it was sorta bribery – I dunno – but he would have everything we ever gathered –

  PRIVATE: Keep it! Keep it!

  LIZZY: – and all the love we had in us –

  PRIVATE: No! No!

  CON: Honey, we’ve a long drive back to the hotel.

  LIZZY: (Trying to control herself) That was always the kind of us Gallagher girls, wasn’t it … either laughing or crying … you know, sorta silly and impetuous, shooting our big mouths off, talking too much, not like the O’Donnells – you know – kinda cold –

  PRIVATE: Don’t man, don’t.

  CON: Your gloves, honey. It’s been a heavy day.

  LIZZY: (To PUBLIC, with uncertain dignity) Tell your father that we regret we did not have the opportunity for to make his acquaintance again after all these –

  PUBLIC: (Impetuously) I want to go to America – if you’ll have me –

  PRIVATE: Laddy!

  CON: Sure. You think about it, son. You think about it.

  PUBLIC: Now – as soon as I can, Aunt Lizzy – I mean it –

  LIZZY: Gar? (To CON, as if far confirmation) Honey?

  CON: Look son –

  LIZZY: To us, Gar? To come to us? To our home?

  CON: Ben’s waiting, Elise.

  PUBLIC: If you’ll have me …

  LIZZY: If we’ll have him, he says; he says if we’ll have him! That’s why I’m here! That’s why I’m half-shot-up!

  (She opens her arms and approaches him.)

  Oh Gar, my son –

  PRIVATE: Not yet! Don’t touch me yet!

  (LIZZY throws her arms around him and cries happily.)

  LIZZY: My son, Gar, Gar, Gar …

  PRIVATE: (Softly, with happy anguish) God … my God … Oh, my God …

  (Black-out)

  (When the bedroom light goes up PUBLIC and PRIVATE are there. The kitchen is empty. PUBLIC bangs the lid of his case shut and PRIVATE stands beside him Jeering at him. While this taunting goes on PUBLIC tries to escape by fussing about the room.)

  PRIVATE: September 8th, the sun shining, not a breath of wind – and this was your mother’s sister – remember? And that’s how you were got! Right, honey? Silly and impetuous like a Gallagher! Regrets?

  PUBLIC: None.

  PRIVATE: Uncertainties?

  PUBLIC: None.

  PRIVATE: Little tiny niggling reservations?

  PUBLIC: None.

  PRIVATE: Her grammar?

  PUBLIC: Shut up!

  PRIVATE: But, honey, wasn’t it something?

  PUBLIC: Go to hell.

  PRIVATE: Her vulgarity?

  PUBLIC: Bugger off.

  PRIVATE: She’ll tuck you into your air-conditioned cot every night.

  (PUBLIC, so that he won’t hear, begins to whistle ‘Philadelphia, Here I Came!’)

  PRIVATE: And croon, ‘Sleep well, my li’l honey child.’

  (PUBLIC whistles determinedly.)

  She got you soft on account of the day it was, didn’t she?

  (PUBLIC whistles louder.)

  And because she said you were an O’Donnell – ‘cold like’.

  PUBLIC: It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France –

  PRIVATE: But of course when she threw her arms around you – well, well, well!

  PUBLIC: – then the Dauphiness, at Versailles –

  PRIVATE: Poor little orphan boy!

  PUBLIC: Shut up! Shut up!

  PRIVATE: (In child’s voice) Ma-ma … Ma-ma.

  (PUBLIC flings open the bedroom door and dashes into the kitchen. PRIVATE follows behind.)

  PUBLIC: Madge!

  PRIVATE: (Quietly, deliberately) You don’t want to go, laddybuck. Admit it. You don’t want to go.

  (MADGE enters from the scullery.)

  PUBLIC: (Searching for an excuse) I can’t find my coat. I left it in my room.

  (MADGE gives him a long, patient look, goes to the nail below the school clock, lifts down the coat, and hands it to him. He takes it from her and goes towards the scullery door.)

  PUBLIC: If you would only learn to leave things where you find them you wouldn’t be such a bad aul nuisance.

  (PUBLIC and PRIVATE go off.)

  MADGE: (Calls) Don’t you dare come home drunk!

  (PUBLIC’s head appears round the door.)

  PUBLIC: (Softly) I’m going to say good-bye to the boys over a quiet drink or two. And how I spend my nights is a matter entirely for myself.

  MADGE: ‘The Boys!’ Couldn’t even come here to say good-bye to you on your last night.

  PRIVATE: Straight to the bone!

  PUBLIC: Just you mind your business and I’ll mind mine.

  MADGE: How many of them are getting the pension now?

  PUBLIC: And in case you’re in bed when I get back I want a call at half-six.

  MADGE: The clock’ll be set. If you hear it well and good.

  (PUBLIC disappears. MADGE fusses about the kitchen until S.B enters from the shop. He has a newspaper in his hand and sits at the top of the table. She watches him as he reads. She adjusts a few things. She looks back at him, then suddenly, on the point of tears, she accuses him.)

  MADGE: You sit there, night after night, year after year, reading that aul paper, and not a tooth in your head! If you had any decency in you at all, you would keep them plates in while there’s a lady in your presence!

  S.B.: (Puzzled) Eh?

  MADGE: I mean it. It – it – it – it just drives me mad, the sight of you! (The tears begin to come.) And I have that much work to do: the stairs have to be washed down, and the store’s to be swept, and your room has to be done out – and – and – I’m telling you I’ll be that busy for the next couple of weeks that I won’t have time to lift my head!

  (She dashes off. S.B. stares after her, then out at the audience. Then, very slowly, he looks down at the paper again – it has been upside down – and turns it right side up. But he can’t read. He looks across at GAR’s bedroom, sighs, rises, and exits very slowly to the shop. Silence for a second after S.B. leaves. The silence is suddenly shattered by the boisterous arrival of the boys and GAR. We hear their exaggerated laughter and talk outside before they burst in. When they enter they take over the kitchen, sprawling on chairs, hunting for tumblers for the stout they produce from their pockets, taking long, deep pulls on their cigarettes, giving the impression that they are busy, purposeful, randy gents about to embark on some exciting adventure. But their bluster is not altogether convincing. There is something false about it. Tranquillity is their enemy: they fight it valiantly. At the beginning of this scene GAR is flattered that the boys have come to him. When they consistently refuse to acknowledge his leaving – or perhaps because he is already spiritually gone from them – his good humour deserts him. He becomes apart from the others. NED is the leader of the group. TOM is his feed-man, subserviently watching for every cue. JOE, the youngest of the trio, and not yet fully committed to the boys’ way of life, is torn between fealty to NED and TOM and a spontaneous and simple loneliness over GAR’s departure. Nothing would suit him better than a grand loud send-off party. But he cannot manage this, and his loyalty is divided. He is patently gauche, innocent, obvious.)

  NED: There’s only one way to put the fear of
God up them bastards – (Points to his boot.) – every time – you know where.

  JOE: Who’s the ref, Ned?

  TOM: Jimmy Pat Barney from Bunmornan. (Guardedly to PUBLIC) Where’s the aul fella?

  PUBLIC: Haven’t a bloody clue. Probably in the shop. Relax, man.

  NED: That (the boot) or the knee – it’s the only game them gets can play; and we can play it too.

  TOM: (Relaxing) They’ve a hell of a forward line all the same, Ned.

  NED: They’ll be in crutches this day week. By God, I can hardly wait to get the studs planted in wee Bagser Doran’s face!

  (He crashes his fist into the palm of his hand.)

  TOM: All the same, Jimmy Pat Barney’s the get would put you off very quick.

  NED: He won’t say a word to me. He knows his match when he meets it.

  (TOM laughs appreciatively. MADGE appears at the scullery door.)

  MADGE: (Coldly) Just thought I heard somebody whispering. So youse finally made it.

  JOE: (Holding up glass.) True to our word, Madge, that’s us!

  PUBLIC: (Happily) They were on their way here when I ran into them.

  MADGE: Aye, so. (NED belches.) Mister Sweeney, too; gentlemanly as ever.

  NED: (Slapping his knee) Come on away over here and I’ll take some of the starch out of you, Madge Mulhern. How long is it since a fella gripped your knee? Haaaaaaaaaaa!

  MADGE: None of your smutty talk here, Mister Sweeney, And if the boss comes in and finds them bottles –

  PUBLIC: I’ll keep them in order, Madge.

  MADGE: ‘Boys’! How are you!

  (She goes out.)

  TOM: (Calling) You’re jealous because you’re past it-that’s what’s wrong with you. Right, Ned?

  PUBLIC: (Raising glass) Well, boys, when you’re lining out on the pitch, you can think of me, because I’ll be thinking of you.

  JOE: (Earnestly) Lucky bloody man, Gar. God, I wish I was in your –

  NED: (Quickly) By the way, lads, who’s the blondie thing I seen at the last Mass on Sunday?

  TOM: A big red-head?

  NED: Are you bloody well deaf! A blondie! She wouldn’t be Maggie Hanna’s niece, would she?

  TOM: There was two of them, sitting over near the box?