Only Our Own
Page 6
It involves the whole community.
We’re learning to live together in harmony.
Free of the shackles of the past.
TITANIA: Come off it! All you want is to keep the children to yourselves.
To brighten up your old age.
MEG: To begin with, all we did was for their sake.
To break the isolation that you had found so hard to bear.
Like the little play-school we started, in some trepidation, not knowing whether other parents would go along with it.
But they did – and we all made friends…
ANDREW: Their support lead us on to things like the pony shows, charity events, sports for the school-children…
And it soon became clear that Aoife and Cathal weren’t the only ones to benefit.
We got just as much out of it – and the same, I dare say, went for everyone else taking part…
MEG: We realized that the barriers we’d been hiding behind didn’t serve any real purpose.
If we ignored them, they ceased to exist.
ANDREW. It brought us all together, in an on-going healing process.
With Aofie and Cathal at the centre.
Like no one else, they straddle the divide.
TITANIA: Aren’t you forgetting something?
They are my children.
MEG: And Gerry’s.
TITANIA: We all make mistakes.
ANDREW: You are making one now, Titania.
Think carefully about it.
MEG: Aofie and Cathal belong here.
In a way you never did.
They are part of the new Ireland.
TITANIA: And why should I sacrifice my children for a country that has never done anything for me other than exclude me, treat me like a pariah?
I owe nothing to Ireland!
The best thing I ever did was leave!
ANDREW: (Approaching her.) You stupid girl! You see no further than your damned painted finger-nails!
TITANIA: They are my children!
They are coming with me!
And there is nothing you can do to stop me!
ANDREW: (Grabs her by the shoulders, shakes her.) You’re a selfish
cow! All the misery in the world is caused by people like you!
Self-seekers who put their own interests before those of the common good!
TITANIA: At least I own up to it!
You are nothing but a fucking hypocrite!
ANDREW slaps her face.
MEG: Andrew –
TITANIA: Hypocrite!
He hits her again. She stumbles and falls over.
MEG: (Restraining him.) For God’s sake –
TITANIA: (Slowly picking herself up.) When Spencer hears about this – it will be the last you ever see of your grandchildren.
She exits.
BLACK OUT.
MUSIC: Sombre.
SCENE 5
LIGHTS UP on drawing-room.
No evidence of children.
MEG is lying on the sofa, with pillows and duvet, looking very ill, her gaze void of life.
ANDREW enters with a vase of colourful azaleas.
ANDREW: (Very gently.) Look dearest, the grounds have exploded in a symphony of colour in joy at having you back.
MEG does not respond.
He puts down the vase.
ANDREW: We’ve all missed you, you know.
Not just myself, but the house, the garden…
Everything was late this year.
No daffodils until the middle of March, and I thought the trees would stay in bud for ever.
Even the swallows were late arriving.
It was as if they were all waiting, just like me, waiting for your return.
And now you’re back, we have to do all we can to get you well enough to enjoy your little world again.
MEG does not respond.
ANDREW sits down next to her.
ANDREW: Listen, love – I know how you feel.
It’s no different for me.
But at the same time, we have to see reason.
Because really, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
We should never have allowed ourselves to think of the grandchildren as ours to keep.
Morally we had no right to them at all, even less so than their biological father.
I saw him yesterday, by the way.
Staggering out of Fallon’s pub in Clifden, at three o’clock in the afternoon.
MEG: (Into the air.) The poor man –
ANDREW looks at her.
MEG: – lost his children.
Pause.
ANDREW: I also met the vicar – he was asking after you.
Strange, isn’t it, how after all these years of supporting the church, we get so little comfort from our faith now that it’s badly needed.
MEG: No comfort.
No comfort at all.
ANDREW: We have to be strong, Meg. Be there for each other.
For there is no one else.
Pause.
ANDREW: Really, we should be pleased for our daughter.
After the difficulties she’s had.
Let’s hope and pray that this third reinvention of herself will prove to be final and decisive.
Mrs Spencer Powell Jr. – ‘Tania’ to her friends:
American housewife, stylishly housed in Connecticut, married to a successful Wall Street banker, mother of two school-age children, Eve and Charles.
It could be worse, by all means.
A whole lot worse indeed.
Pause.
ANDREW: Things will get better, I promise.
It’s not as if they’re gone forever.
In due course, they’ll come back for visits.
We just have to give them time.
At the moment I imagine they are doing all they can to fit into their new environment.
Be like little Americans, complete with chewing-gum, roller-skates and computer games.
But that doesn’t mean we’ve lost them.
They still have what we gave them.
The best possible start in life.
MEG: Gone forever…
ANDREW picks up a cup from the table.
ANDREW: You haven’t had your broth!
Please Meg, try just a little.
You have to get stronger.
He tries to feed her the broth but she turns her face away.
ANDREW: Meg – you must make an effort.
This is not good.
I should have told you so long ago.
But I thought all you needed was time…
like that other occasion, after our little boy died.
You were much the same then: lethargic, not eating or sleeping, lost in a world of your own.
Even when your fainting spells started,
I put them down to your emotional state.
Waited for it all to pass, like it did before.
MEG: Dead and gone… Our little boy.
ANDREW: I should have been more alert to your symptoms.
Taken you to the doctor straight away.
It could all have been nipped in the bud.
You wouldn’t have needed such a major operation.
MEG: No help from doctors.
ANDREW: Still, the surgeon was optimistic. He said, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make a full recovery.
As long as you make the effort.
That was his main concern.
You don’t seem to want to get better.
Pause.
Meg – is that so?
Is that why I can’t reach you any more?
Why you’re not eating?
Not listening when I read to you,
even your favourite books?
MEG: No help.
ANDREW gets down on his knees beside her, takes her hand.
ANDREW: My darling one.
You gave me my life.
The only life I’ve had worth living.
We belong tog
ether, you and I.
Please don’t leave me.
You come from a long line of fighters.
Don’t give up now.
She gives him a long deep look.
ANDREW: Remember what your grandfather used to say:
‘Whatever is done to us – they’ll never break our spirit.’
MEG gives a wan smile.
MEG: (In a brittle voice.) Of course they won’t.
Only our own can do that.
Pause.
MEG: (Faintly.) Only our own.
FADE OUT slowly, as she slumps.
ANDREW: Meg… Meg!
BLACK OUT.
ACT III (2013)
SCENE 1
LIGHTS UP on room: run down, shabbier than before.
A chair has been drawn up to the bookcase, a large manila envelope is on the floor.
TITANIA, ten years older, well-dressed and poised, is sitting in an armchair, deeply engrossed in ELIZA’s letter, close to the end. On the floor a sheaf of papers already perused.
LIGHTS on room dim. SPOT on ELIZA at her desk.
ELIZA: With no one in the village prepared to give us shelter,
all we could do was break into the church,
where we spent the rest of the night
huddled together in the family pew,
shivering in our sodden night clothes,
pondering what new horrors the morning would bring.
I was still clutching Petrus, but he no longer
felt warm against me, only cold and soggy –
and beginning to get stiff.
The stained glass windows shone with an orange glow;
we could smell the smoke and hear the dull roar of a fire
consuming treasures collected over many generations;
reducing to ashes the graceful lines of an age-old classical
structure.
In the early hours of the morning,
we heard the hoof beat of many horses passing by.
‘They will be our horses!’ mother cried.
‘We’ll never see them again!’
‘Oh well,’ my father sighed.
‘At least they are not being burnt alive in their stables.’
I can’t help thinking of Fiónn Hanrahan.
My good friend turned rebel.
Who slaughtered my puppy, helped pour the petrol,
stood by as my brother was murdered…
I remember him as a nice lad.
He often came up with his mother when she baby-sat for me.
He’d made me a reed-pipe, and I taught him to play Canasta,
though we both preferred Bagatelle…
I wonder, what became of him?
Did he stay on in the village, farming his share
of the land that used to belong to us,
driving his cattle past the charred remains of marble arches
and pillars, over the fragmented bones of our gallant
Captain Laurence?
Did he ever look back – to see a young girl playing his pipe
in a walled garden scented with roses?
Or the evening sun gleaming on oak-panelled walls
in the library as we played our games?
And what about that other, fearful night?
Did the memory continue to haunt him
the way it is still haunting me?
What did he make of it? How did he feel?
Proud – or ashamed?
SPOT on ELIZA down.
TITANIA looks up and out, shocked and stunned.
There is a noise off stage. TITANIA starts, puts the pages together, stuffs them into the envelope, puts it down.
Enter ANDREW, noticeably older and frail, carrying a fishing-rod. He stops and stares at TITANIA, speechless, overcome. She looks back.
SILENCE.
TITANIA: Mrs Conneely let me in.
ANDREW: Why?
TITANIA: I asked her to.
ANDREW: Why are you here?
TITANIA: I wanted to see you.
ANDREW: Haven’t I made my position clear?
TITANIA: That was a long time ago.
ANDREW: Nothing has changed.
TITANIA: I have changed, father.
I’m not the same.
ANDREW eyes her dubiously up and down.
TITANIA: I didn’t understand…
I never thought –
Father – I’m sorry.
I truly am.
ANDREW: That won’t bring your mother back.
Pause.
TITANIA: I stopped off at the churchyard to put some flowers on her grave.
ANDREW looks at her.
TITANIA: It was sad to see the church disused.
Windows smashed, graffiti on the walls…
ANDREW: You never cared for the church.
TITANIA: The grave was the only thing in good order.
ANDREW: (Sighing.) Yes. I do tend my future home.
TITANIA: What does the inscription on her tombstone mean?
‘Only Our Own’?
ANDREW: They were her last words.
TITANIA: But what does it mean?
ANDREW: You can work that out for yourself.
TITANIA: That family is all that matters?
ANDREW: That only your nearest and dearest have the power to destroy you.
Pause.
TITANIA: It wasn’t all my fault.
ANDREW: Forget it! I’m too old for this.
TITANIA: You, too, had a part –
ANDREW: Go back to America! To your life there.
TITANIA: I no longer have a life.
ANDREW: Just leave me in peace!
TITANIA: In America.
ANDREW: You’ve done enough damage.
TITANIA: I meant no harm.
I just wanted my marriage to succeed.
So I did my best to be what Spencer expected.
Allowed myself to be moulded into a perfect banker’s wife.
As smooth and polished and featureless as…as an egg.
But who wants to be married to an egg?
Pause.
He left me for another woman.
A younger model, a professional one,
Italian, aged twenty-three.
Pause.
One blow of the hammer was all it took
to shatter the shell I had so carefully constructed,
laying bare the fledgling soul trapped inside.
It took me years to grow wings
strong enough to fly on my own.
It hasn’t been easy.
ANDREW: Only fools expect life to be easy.
TITANIA: There were times when I was ready to give up.
If it hadn’t been for the children,
I wouldn’t still be here.
ANDREW: The children…
How have they fared?
TITANIA: (Smiling.) They are fine. Hardly children any more.
Eve is at college, reading history of art.
Charles is hoping to be a vet.
They often talk, fondly, about their time here.
The firm foundation you gave them has stood them in good stead.
Pause.
TITANIA: I thought I was giving us all a fresh start.
A chance to live life on our own terms.
Away from the past, free of constraints and constriction…
ANDREW: Without roots.
TITANIA: I was wrong.
I’ve learnt now, the hard way, what it’s like to be without roots.
Nothing to hold on to
when a mean wind blows.
Pause.
TITANIA: (Gently.) What about you?
Are you managing all right?
ANDREW: (Sigh.) They say you get the old age you deserve
TITANIA: What does that mean?
ANDREW: The fishery is losing money.
Salmon stocks are depleted, visitor numbers way down.
My pension does not suffice to plug the holes and
keep this place running.
The bank is getting impatient.
TITANIA: So what do you intend to do?
ANDREW: Nothing much I can do.
Pause.
TITANIA: What if I tell you that I’ve come across someone in
New York.
An Irishman – professional, successful…
Working in finance, but only as a means to an end.
What he really wants to do is come back to Ireland, buy an old house deep in the country, run it as an upmarket B & B, with fishing an extra attraction…
He’s a keen fisherman himself.
ANDREW: So?
TITANIA: He has his eye on this place.
ANDREW: It’s not for sale.
TITANIA: Would it not solve your problems?
ANDREW: Where would it leave me?
Dumped in a nursing-home?
TITANIA: You could stay here.
ANDREW: A paying guest in my own home?
No thank you.
TITANIA: As a member of the family.
I’m going to marry this man.
Pause.
ANDREW: You want to come back here?
TITANIA: Yes.
ANDREW: And what makes you think all of a sudden that you’d be happy living in Connemara?
TITANIA: I’d be with someone who loves me for what I am.
Who is man enough to embrace all that I consist of.
And that includes my roots.
Pause.
ANDREW: Going back is never a good idea.
TITANIA: But this could be a way forward.
For all of us.
ANDREW: It wouldn’t suit me.
TITANIA: Think of it, father – what have you got to lose?
ANDREW: Nothing – but I’m used to it.
TITANIA: We’d be here to look after you.
ANDREW: I have Mrs Conneely.
TITANIA: And the children –
They’d love to be back here.
ANDREW: They’ll have their own lives to lead.
TITANIA: They need a fixed point in the world.
And this is the only place they ever thought of as home.
Pause.
TITANIA: I’m not asking you to take a stand.
Just please consider it.
ANDREW: All right…
I’ll think about it.
TITANIA gets up, prepares to leave.
TITANIA: I’ll be in touch again.
She sees the envelope, picks it up, contemplates it briefly.
TITANIA: There is one thing I have to tell you…
About my future husband.
ANDREW: What?
TITANIA: A mutual friend introduced us, having discovered that we both had a family connection with the same village in Tipperary.
That was how it all started…
ANDREW: What’s his name?
TITANIA: Fiónn Hanrahan.