Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  OWEN: We’re not moving fast enough.

  YOLLAND: (Opens eyes again) Lancey lectured me again last night.

  OWEN: When does he finish here?

  YOLLAND: The sappers are pulling out at the end of the week. The trouble is, the maps they’ve completed can’t be printed without these names. So London screams at Lancey and Lancey screams at me. But I wasn’t intimidated.

  (MANUS emerges from upstairs and descends.)

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, ‘But certain tasks demand their own tempo. You cannot rename a whole country overnight.’ Your Irish air has made me bold. (To MANUS) Do you want us to leave?

  MANUS: Time enough. Class won’t begin for another half-hour.

  YOLLAND: Sorry – sorry?

  OWEN: Can’t you speak English?

  (MANUS gathers the things off the clothes-line. OWEN returns to the map.)

  OWEN: We now come across that beach …

  YOLLAND: Tra – that’s the Irish for beach. (To MANUS) I’m picking up the odd word, Manus.

  MANUS: So.

  OWEN: … on past Burnfoot; and there’s nothing around here that has any name that I know of until we come down here to the south end, just about here … and there should be a ridge of rocks there … Have the sappers marked it? They have. Look, George.

  YOLLAND: Where are we?

  OWEN: There.

  YOLLAND: I’m lost.

  OWEN: Here. And the name of that ridge is Druim Dubh. Put English on that, Lieutenant.

  YOLLAND: Say it again.

  OWEN: Druim Dubh.

  YOLLAND: Dubh means black.

  OWEN: Yes.

  YOLLAND: And Druim means … what? a fort?

  OWEN: We met it yesterday in Druim Luachra.

  YOLLAND: A ridge! The Black Ridge! (To MANUS) You see, Manus?

  OWEN: We’ll have you fluent at the Irish before the summer’s over.

  YOLLAND: Oh, I wish I were. (To MANUS as he crosses to go back upstairs) We got a crate of oranges from Dublin today. I’ll send some up to you.

  MANUS: Thanks. (To OWEN) Better hide that bottle. Father’s just up and he’d be better without it.

  OWEN: Can’t you speak English before your man?

  MANUS: Why?

  OWEN: Out of courtesy.

  MANUS: Doesn’t he want to learn Irish? (To YOLLAND) Don’t you want to learn Irish?

  YOLLAND: Sorry – sorry? I – I –

  MANUS: I understand the Lanceys perfectly but people like you puzzle me.

  OWEN: Manus, for God’s sake!

  MANUS: (Still to YOLLAND) How’s the work going?

  YOLLAND: The work? – the work? Oh, it’s – it’s staggering along – I think – (To OWEN) – isn’t it? But we’d be lost without Roland.

  MANUS: (Leaving) I’m sure. But there are always the Rolands, aren’t there?

  (He goes upstairs and exits.)

  YOLLAND: What was that he said? – something about Lancey, was it?

  OWEN: He said we should hide that bottle before Father gets his hands on it.

  YOLLAND: Ah.

  OWEN: He’s always trying to protect him.

  YOLLAND: Was he lame from birth?

  OWEN: An accident when he was a baby: Father fell across his cradle. That’s why Manus feels so responsible for him.

  YOLLAND: Why doesn’t he marry?

  OWEN: Can’t afford to, I suppose.

  YOLLAND: Hasn’t he a salary?

  OWEN: What salary? All he gets is the odd shilling Father throws him – and that’s seldom enough. I got out in time, didn’t I?

  (YOLLAND is pouring a drink.)

  Easy with that stuff – it’ll hit you suddenly.

  YOLLAND: I like it.

  OWEN: Let’s get back to the job. Druim Dubh – what’s it called in the jury lists? (Consults texts.)

  YOLLAND: Some people here resent us.

  OWEN: Dramduff – wrong as usual.

  YOLLAND: I was passing a little girl yesterday and she spat at me.

  OWEN: And it’s Drimdoo here. What’s it called in the registry?

  YOLLAND: Do you know the Donnelly twins?

  OWEN: Who?

  YOLLAND: The Donnelly twins.

  OWEN: Yes. Best fishermen about here. What about them?

  YOLLAND: Lancey’s looking for them.

  OWEN: What for?

  YOLLAND: He wants them for questioning.

  OWEN: Probably stolen somebody’s nets. Dramduffy! Nobody ever called it Dramduffy. Take your pick of those three.

  YOLLAND: My head’s addled. Let’s take a rest. Do you want a drink?

  OWEN: Thanks. Now, every Dubh we’ve come across we’ve changed to Duff. So if we’re to be consistent, I suppose Druim Dubh has to become Dromduff.

  (YOLLAND is now looking out the window.)

  You can see the end of the ridge from where you’re standing. But D-r-u-m- or D-r-o-m-? (Name-Book) Do you remember – which did we agree on for Druim Luachra?

  YOLLAND: That house immediately above where we’re camped –

  OWEN: Mm?

  YOLLAND: The house where Maire lives.

  OWEN: Maire? Oh, Maire Chatach.

  YOLLAND: What does that mean?

  OWEN: Curly-haired; the whole family are called the Catachs. What about it?

  YOLLAND: I hear music coming from that house almost every night.

  OWEN: Why don’t you drop in?

  YOLLAND: Could I?

  OWEN: Why not? We used D-r-o-m then. So we’ve got to call it D-r-o-m-d-u-f-f – all right?

  YOLLAND: Go back up to where the new school is being built and just say the names again for me, would you?

  OWEN: That’s a good idea. Poolkerry, Ballybeg –

  YOLLAND: No, no; as they still are – in your own language.

  OWEN: Poll na gCaorach,

  (YOLLAND repeats the names silently after him.)

  Baile Beag, Ceann Balor, Lis Maol, Machaire Buidhe, Baile na gGall, Carraig na Ri, Mullach Dearg –

  YOLLAND: Do you think I could live here?

  OWEN: What are you talking about?

  YOLLAND: Settle down here – live here.

  OWEN: Come on, George.

  YOLLAND: I mean it.

  OWEN: Live on what? Potatoes? Buttermilk?

  YOLLAND: It’s really heavenly.

  OWEN: For God’s sake! The first hot summer in fifty years and you think it’s Eden. Don’t be such a bloody romantic. You wouldn’t survive a mild winter here.

  YOLLAND: Do you think not? Maybe you’re right.

  (DOALTY enters in a rush.)

  DOALTY: Hi, boys, is Manus about?

  OWEN: He’s upstairs. Give him a shout.

  DOALTY: Manus! The cattle’s going mad in that heat – Cripes, running wild all over the place. (To YOLLAND) How are you doing, skipper?

  (MANUS appears.)

  YOLLAND: Thank you for – I – I’m very grateful to you for –

  DOALTY: Wasting your time. I don’t know a word you’re saying. Hi, Manus, there’s two bucks down the road there asking for you.

  MANUS: (Descending) Who are they?

  DOALTY: Never clapped eyes on them. They want to talk to you.

  MANUS: What about?

  DOALTY: They wouldn’t say. Come on. The bloody beasts’ll end up in Loch an Iubhair if they’re not capped. Good luck, boys!

  (DOALTY rushes off. MANUS follows him.)

  OWEN: Good luck! What were you thanking Doalty for?

  YOLLAND: I was washing outside my tent this morning and he was passing with a scythe across his shoulder and he came up to me and pointed to the long grass and then cut a pathway round my tent and from the tent down to the road – so that my feet won’t get wet with the dew. Wasn’t that kind of him? And I have no words to thank him … I suppose you’re right: I suppose I couldn’t live here … Just before Doalty came up to me this morning, I was thinking that at that moment I might have been in Bombay instead of Ballybeg. You see, my father was at his wits e
nd with me and finally he got me a job with the East India Company – some kind of a clerkship. This was ten, eleven months ago. So I set off for London. Unfortunately I – I – I missed the boat. Literally. And since I couldn’t face Father and hadn’t enough money to hang about until the next sailing, I joined the army. And they stuck me into the Engineers and posted me to Dublin. And Dublin sent me here. And while I was washing this morning and looking across the Tra Bhan, I was thinking how very, very lucky I am to be here and not in Bombay.

  OWEN: Do you believe in fate?

  YOLLAND: Lancey’s so like my father. I was watching him last night. He met every group of sappers as they reported in. He checked the field kitchens. He examined the horses. He inspected every single report – even examining the texture of the paper and commenting on the neatness of the handwriting. The perfect colonial servant: not only must the job be done – it must be done with excellence. Father has that drive, too; that dedication; that indefatigable energy. He builds roads – hopping from one end of the Empire to the other. Can’t sit still for five minutes. He says himself the longest time he ever sat still was the night before Waterloo when they were waiting for Wellington to make up his mind to attack.

  OWEN: What age is he?

  YOLLAND: Born in 1789 – the very day the Bastille fell. I’ve often thought maybe that gave his whole life its character. Do you think it could? He inherited a new world the day he was born – The Year One. Ancient time was at an end. The world had cast off its old skin. There were no longer any frontiers to man’s potential. Possibilities were endless and exciting. He still believes that. The Apocalypse is just about to happen … I’m afraid I’m a great disappointment to him. I’ve neither his energy, nor his coherence, nor his belief. Do I believe in fate? The day I arrived in Ballybeg – no, Baile Beag – the moment you brought me in here, I had a curious sensation. It’s difficult to describe. It was a momentary sense of discovery; no – not quite a sense of discovery – a sense of recognition, of confirmation of something I half knew instinctively; as if I had stepped …

  OWEN: Back into ancient time?

  YOLLAND: No, no. It wasn’t an awareness of direction being changed but of experience being of a totally different order. I had moved into a consciousness that wasn’t striving nor agitated, but at its ease and with its own conviction and assurance. And when I heard Jimmy Jack and your father swapping stories about Apollo and Cuchulainn and Paris and Ferdia – as if they lived down the road – it was then that I thought – I knew – perhaps I could live here … (Now embarrassed) Where’s the pot-een?

  OWEN: Poteen.

  YOLLAND: Poteen – poteen – poteen. Even if I did speak Irish I’d always be an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be … hermetic, won’t it?

  OWEN: You can learn to decode us.

  (HUGH emerges from upstairs and descends. He is dressed for the road. Today he is physically and mentally jaunty and alert – almost self-consciously jaunty and alert. Indeed, as the scene progresses, one has the sense that he is deliberately parodying himself. The moment HUGH gets to the bottom of the steps YOLLAND leaps respectfully to his feet.)

  HUGH: (As he descends)

  Quantumvis cursum longum fessumque moratur

  Sol, sacro tandem carmine vesper adest.

  I dabble in verse, Lieutenant, after the style of Ovid. (To OWEN) A drop of that to fortify me.

  YOLLAND: You’ll have to translate it for me.

  HUGH: Let’s see –

  No matter how long the sun may linger on his long and weary journey

  At length evening comes with its sacred song.

  YOLLAND: Very nice, sir.

  HUGH: English succeeds in making it sound … plebeian.

  OWEN: Where are you off to, Father?

  HUGH: An expeditio with three purposes. Purpose A: to acquire a testimonial from our parish priest – (To YOLLAND) a worthy man but barely literate; and since he’ll ask me to write it myself, how in all modesty can I do myself justice? (To OWEN) Where did this (drink) come from?

  OWEN: Anna na mBreag’s.

  HUGH: (To YOLLAND) In that case address yourself to it with circumspection. (And HUGH instantly tosses the drink back in one gulp and grimaces.) Aaaaaaagh! (Holds out his glass for a refill.) Anna na mBreag means Anna of the Lies. And Purpose B: to talk to the builders of the new school about the kind of living accommodation I will require there. I have lived too long like a journeyman tailor.

  YOLLAND: Some years ago we lived fairly close to a poet – well, about three miles away.

  HUGH: His name?

  YOLLAND: Wordsworth – William Wordsworth.

  HUGH: Did he speak of me to you?

  YOLLAND: Actually I never talked to him. I just saw him out walking – in the distance.

  HUGH: Wordsworth? … No. I’m afraid we’re not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer to the warm Mediterranean. We tend to overlook your island.

  YOLLAND: I’m learning to speak Irish, sir.

  HUGH: Good.

  YOLLAND: Roland’s teaching me.

  HUGH: Splendid.

  YOLLAND: I mean – I feel so cut off from the people here. And I was trying to explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a community this is. To meet people like yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek and Latin. And your place names – what was the one we came across this morning? – Termon, from Terminus, the god of boundaries. It – it – it’s really astonishing.

  HUGH: We like to think we endure around truths immemorially posited.

  YOLLAND: And your Gaelic literature – you’re a poet yourself –

  HUGH: Only in Latin, I’m afraid.

  YOLLAND: I understand it’s enormously rich and ornate.

  HUGH: Indeed, Lieutenant. A rich language. A rich literature. You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.

  OWEN: (Not unkindly; more out of embarrassment before YOLLAND) Will you stop that nonsense, Father.

  HUGH: Nonsense? What nonsense?

  OWEN: Do you know where the priest lives?

  HUGH: At Lis na Muc, over near …

  OWEN: No, he doesn’t. Lis na Muc, the Fort of the Pigs, has become Swinefort. (Now turning the pages of the Name-Book – a page per name.) And to get to Swinefort you pass through Greencastle and Fair Head and Strandhill and Gort and Whiteplains. And the new school isn’t at Poll na gCaorach – it’s at Sheepsrock. Will you be able to find your way?

  (HUGH pours himself another drink. Then: –)

  HUGH: Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to … inevitabilities. (To OWEN) Can you give me the loan of half-a-crown? I’ll repay you out of the subscriptions I’m collecting for the publication of my new book. (To YOLLAND) It is entitled: ‘The Pentaglot Preceptor or Elementary Institute of the English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Irish Languages; Particularly Calculated for the Instruction of Such Ladies and Gentlemen as may Wish to Learn without the Help of a Master’.

  YOLLAND: (Laughs) That’s a wonderful title!

  HUGH: Between ourselves – the best part of the enterprise. Nor do I, in fact, speak Hebrew. And that last phrase – ‘without the Help of a Master’ – that was written before the new national school was thrust upon me – do you think I ought to drop it now? After all you don’t dispose of the cow just because it has produced a magnificent calf, do you?

  YOLLAND: You certainly do not.

  HUGH: The phrase goes. And I’m interrupting work of moment. (He goes to the door and stops there.) To return briefly to that other matter, Lieutenant. I understand your sense of exclusion, of being cut off from a lif
e here; and I trust you will find access to us with my son’s help. But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of … fact. Gentlemen. (He leaves.)

  OWEN: ‘An expeditio with three purposes’: the children laugh at him: he always promises three points and he never gets beyond A and B.

  MANUS: He’s an astute man.

  OWEN: He’s bloody pompous.

  YOLLAND: But so astute.

  OWEN: And he drinks too much. Is it astute not to be able to adjust for survival? Enduring around truths immemorially posited – hah!

  YOLLAND: He knows what’s happening.

  OWEN: What is happening?

  YOLLAND: I’m not sure. But I’m concerned about my part in it. It’s an eviction of sorts.

  OWEN: We’re making a six-inch map of the country. Is there something sinister in that?

  YOLLAND: Not in –

  OWEN: And we’re taking place-names that are riddled with confusion and –

  YOLLAND: Who’s confused? Are the people confused?

  OWEN: – and we’re standardizing those names as accurately and as sensitively as we can.

  YOLLAND: Something is being eroded.

  OWEN: Back to the romance again. All right! Fine! Fine! Look where we’ve got to. (He drops on his hands and knees and stabs a finger at the map.) We’ve come to this crossroads. Come here and look at it, man! Look at it! And we call that crossroads Tobair Vree. And why do we call it Tobair Vree? I’ll tell you why. Tobair means a well. But what does Vree mean? It’s a corruption of Brian – (Gaelic pronunciation) Brian – an erosion of Tobair Bhriain. Because a hundred-and-fifty years ago there used to be a well there, not at the crossroads, mind you – that would be too simple – but in a field close to the crossroads. And an old man called Brian, whose face was disfigured by an enormous growth, got it into his head that the water in that well was blessed; and every day for seven months he went there and bathed his face in it. But the growth didn’t go away; and one morning Brian was found drowned in that well. And ever since that crossroads is known as Tobair Vree – even though that well has long since dried up. I know the story because my grandfather told it to me. But ask Doalty – or Maire – or Bridget – even my father – even Manus – why it’s called Tobair Vree; and do you think they’ll know? I know they don’t know. So the question I put to you, Lieutenant, is this: what do we do with a name like that? Do we scrap Tobair Vree altogether and call it – what? – The Cross? Crossroads? Or do we keep piety with a man long dead, long forgotten, his name ‘eroded’ beyond recognition, whose trivial little story nobody in the parish remembers?