Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  LILY: Hello? Is that Miss Betty Breen? This is Mrs Elizabeth Doherty speaking. Yes – yes – Lily. How are you keeping since we last met, Betty? No, no, he’s fine, thank you, fine – the chest apart. No, I’m in good health, too, Betty, thank you. It just happened that I chanced to be with some companions near a telephone and your name come up in casual conversation, and I thought I’d say How-do-do. Yes. Yes. Well, Betty, I’ll not detain you any longer, Betty. I’m sure you’re busy with finance. Good-bye. No, the kiosk’s still broken. I’m ringing from the Mayor’s parlour. (She suddenly bangs down the receiver and covers her face with her hands.)

  LILY: Jesus, young fella, I think she passed out! Oooooops!

  SKINNER: That’s a great start. Who else is there?

  LILY: Give us a second to settle myself, will you? I’m not worth tuppence. Look at my hands. (The bottle stutters against the glass as she pours herself a drink.) Didn’t I tell you?

  SKINNER: I love your posh accent, Lily.

  LILY: Hold your tongue. Lily’s no yokel. Wait till I tell you: one time when the chairman was in the TB hospital I rung him up to tell him that Gloria had fell off the roof – that was eighteen months ago, she was four and a half then – and the ward sister I spoke to asked the chairman who the swank was he was married to!

  MICHAEL: I want the two of you to know I object to this carry-on.

  LILY: Sure it’s only a bit of innocent fun, young fella. Have you no give in you at all? (Examines bottle.) What d’you call this port wine?

  SKINNER: It’s sherry.

  LILY: I’m going to get a bottle of it next Christmas.

  SKINNER: Who else do you know, Lily? Any friends? Relatives?

  MICHAEL: You’re behaving exactly as they think we behave.

  LILY: As who thinks?

  SKINNER: Have you any uncles? Any brothers? Any sisters?

  LILY: I have one sister – Eileen.

  SKINNER: Is she on the phone?

  LILY: She is.

  SKINNER: Eileen what? What’s her second name?

  MICHAEL: No wonder they don’t trust us. We’re not worthy of trust.

  LILY: You’ll not get her in that book.

  SKINNER: From the operator, then.

  LILY: No, I’m not going to ring Eileen. She’d think something terrible had happened.

  MICHAEL: And even if you have no sense of decency, at least you should know that that’s stealing unless you’re going to leave the money.

  LILY: Lookat, young fella: I don’t need you nor nobody else to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. (To SKINNER) Give me that.

  (SKINNER hands her the phone.)

  LILY: How do you get the operator?

  SKINNER: Dial 100 and give your number.

  LILY: I didn’t say I wasn’t going to leave the money, did I? I’m as well acquainted with my morals as the next. (Into phone) Operator, this is 7643225, Derry City, Northern Ireland. I wish to make a call to Mrs Eileen O’Donnell, 275 Riverway Drive … She’s getting me inquiries. If you don’t mind, I’ll take my glass. Thank you. Inquiries? This is 7643225, Derry City, Northern Ireland. I wish to make a call to Mrs Eileen O’Donnell, 275 Riverway Drive – yes – Riverway – Riverway – (The accent is dropped.) God, are you deaf, wee girl? Riverway Drive, Brisbane, Australia. (She hangs up.) She’ll call me back.

  (SKINNER laughs and slaps the table with delight.)

  SKINNER: Lily, you’re wonderful! The chairman’s married to a queen. Does he deserve you?

  (BRIGADIER JOHNSON-HANSBURY enters right. He speaks through a loudhailer. He is guarded by three armed SOLDIERS.)

  BRIGADIER: Attention, please! Attention!

  MICHAEL: Listen!

  LILY: And when I get my breath back, I might even give a tinkle to cousin William in the Philippines.

  MICHAEL: Shut up! Listen! Listen!

  BRIGADIER: This is Brigadier Johnson-Hansbury. We know exactly where you are and we know that you are armed. I advise you to surrender now before there is loss of life. So lay down your arms and proceed to the front entrance with your hands above your head. Repeat – proceed to the front entrance with your hands above your head. The Guildhall is completely surrounded. I urge you to follow this advice before there is loss of life.

  (The BRIGADIER goes off. The SOLDIERS follow him. Silence, LILY gets to her feet. SKINNER gets to his feet. Pause.)

  LILY: Arms? What’s he blathering about?

  SKINNER: His accent’s almost as posh as yours, Lily.

  (Pause.)

  MICHAEL: Some bastard must have done something to rattle them – shouted something, thrown a stone, burned something – some bloody hooligan! Someone like you, Skinner! For it’s bastards like you, bloody vandals, that’s keeping us all on our bloody knees!

  ACT TWO

  A short time later.

  The parlour is almost in darkness.

  MICHAEL, LILY and SKINNER stand beside the positions they had at the opening of Act One. They do not move.

  A BALLADEER stands at stage right; his ACCORDIONIST is behind him. As before, he has a glass in his hand. Before, he was aggressive-drunk; this time he is maudlin-drunk. He is dressed in a dark suit and black tie. He sings (to the air of Kevin Barry):

  BALLADEER: In Guildhall Square one sunny evening three Derry volunteers were shot.

  Two were but lads and one a mother; the Saxon bullet was their lot.

  They took a stand against oppression, they wanted Mother Ireland free.

  Their blood now stains the Guildhall pavements; a cross stands there for all to see.

  We’ll not forget that sunny evening, nor the names of those bold three

  Who gave their lives for their ideal – Mother Ireland, one and free.

  They join the lines of long-gone heroes, England’s victims, one and all.

  We have their memory still to guide us; we have their courage to recall.

  (The BALLADEER goes off. The JUDGE appears in the battlements.)

  JUDGE: The weight of evidence presented over the past few days seems to be directing the current of this inquiry into two distinct areas. The first has to do with what at first sight might appear to be mere speculation, but it could be a very important element, I suggest, in any understanding of the entire canvas of that Saturday – and I refer to the purpose the three had in using the Guildhall, the municipal nerve-centre of Londonderry, as their platform of defiance. And the second area – more sensible to corroboration or rebuttal, one would think – concerns the arms the deceased were alleged to have used against the army. And I suggest, also, that these two areas could well be different aspects of the same question. Why the Guildhall? Counsel for the deceased pleads persuasively that in the melée following the public meeting the three in their terror sought the nearest possible cover and that cover happened to be the Guildhall – a fortuitous choice. This may be. But I find it difficult to accept that of all the buildings adjacent to them they happened to choose the one building which symbolized for them a system of government they opposed and were in fact at that time illegally demonstrating against. And if the choice was fortuitous, why was the building defaced? Why were its furnishings despoiled? Why were its records defiled? Would they have defaced a private house in the same way? I think the answers to these questions point to one conclusion: that the deceased deliberately chose this building; that their purpose and intent was precise and deliberate. In other words that their action was a carefully contrived act of defiance against, and an incitement to others to defy, the legitimate forces of law and order. No other conclusion is consistent with the facts.

  (When MICHAEL, LILY and SKINNER speak, they speak calmly, without emotion, in neutral accents.)

  MICHAEL: We came out the front door as we had been ordered and stood on the top step with our hands above our heads. They beamed searchlights on our faces but I could see their outlines as they crouched beside their tanks. I even heard the click of their rifle-bolts. But there was no question of their shooting. I knew they weren
’t going to shoot. Shooting belonged to a totally different order of things. And then the Guildhall Square exploded and I knew a terrible mistake had been made. And I became very agitated, not because I was dying, but that this terrible mistake be recognized and acknowledged. My mouth kept trying to form the word mistake – mistake – mistake. And that is how I died – in disbelief, in astonishment, in shock. It was a foolish way for a man to die.

  LILY: The moment we stepped outside the front door I knew I was going to die, instinctively, the way an animal knows. Jesus, they’re going to murder me. A second of panic – no more. Because it was succeeded, overtaken, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of regret, not for myself nor my family, but that life had somehow eluded me. And now it was finished; it had all seeped away; and I had never experienced it. And in the silence before my body disintegrated in a purple convulsion, I thought I glimpsed a tiny truth: that life had eluded me because never once in my forty-three years had an experience, an event, even a small unimportant happening been isolated, and assessed, and articulated. And the fact that this, my last experience, was defined by this perception, this was the culmination of sorrow. In a way I died of grief.

  SKINNER: A short time after I realized we were in the Mayor’s parlour I knew that a price would be exacted. And when they ordered us a second time to lay down our arms I began to suspect what that price would be because they leave nothing to chance and because the poor are always overcharged. And as we stood on the Guildhall steps, two thoughts raced through my mind: how seriously they took us and how unpardonably casual we were about them; and that to match their seriousness would demand a total dedication, a solemnity as formal as theirs. And then everything melted and fused in a great roaring heat. And my last thought was: if you’re going to decide to take them on, Adrian Casimir, you’ve got to mend your ways. So I died, as I lived, in defensive flippancy.

  JUDGE: We now come to the second area – were the deceased armed? Their counsel insists they were not. The security forces insist they were. If they opened fire at the army, their counsel asks with good reason, why were there no military casualties, and even more pertinently, what became of their weapons? To this the army replies that the guns were taken away by the mob which had gathered. Counsel for the deceased strongly denies this. They say that no civilians were allowed into the Guildhall Square until one hour after the shooting. The security forces say this is untrue, and point – for example – to the priest and the newsman who were right beside the deceased within five minutes of the shooting. So, in view of this welter of confusion, I wish to recall the pathologist, Professor Cuppley, tomorrow morning.

  (The JUDGE disappears. MICHAEL, LILY and SKINNER step briskly back into the parlour. MICHAEL goes straight into the dressing-room, SKINNER fills his empty cigarette packet from the silver box on the table. LILY moves about the parlour with an air of business – fixing chairs, emptying ashtrays. She switches on the light.)

  LILY: That’s better. I’m a great wan for light. The cold I don’t mine but I don’t like the dark.

  (She takes off her robe and examines it.)

  LILY: I’ll tell you something, Skinner: it’s a shocking sin having them lovely things lying idle in a wardrobe and them as fresh as the day they were bought. Lookat – not an elbow out of them nor nothing.

  SKINNER: It has the shoulders scratched off me.

  LILY: What are you wearing it for then? Give it to me, you clown you! Here’s your shirt. And them gutties must be dry by now.

  (SKINNER takes off the robe and puts on the dry shirt. He still wears the hat.)

  LILY: D’you know what it would make? A grand warm dressing-gown, wouldn’t it? And that’s what the chairman needs for when he be’s out in the chest hospital.

  SKINNER: Take it with you.

  LILY: Wouldn’t I look a quare sight walking along the street with this on my back! Like the time the polis came on the Boxer Branningan driving off the petrol lorry. D’you know the Boxer?

  SKINNER: Th’old one – two – three – one – two – three.

  LILY: And says the Boxer to them: ‘I was only looking for a refill for my lighter.’ Where’s the other one (robe)?

  SKINNER: Behind you.

  LILY: That young fella – what do they call him again?

  SKINNER: Michael.

  LILY: That’s it. A grand sensible lad that.

  SKINNER: Admirable.

  LILY: I have a Michael. Between Declan and Gloria. His master says he’s just throbbing with brains. Like the chairman.

  (SKINNER goes to the window and looks out. LILY watches him for a few seconds.)

  LILY: Is the aunt alive or dead, Skinner?

  SKINNER: Dead. Ten years dead.

  LILY: May the Lord have mercy on her good soul. And where do you live?

  SKINNER: Anywhere – everywhere. As they say – no fixed address.

  LILY: And sure if you’ve no fixed address you can’t claim no dale.

  SKINNER: Right.

  LILY: And how do you live?

  SKINNER: On my wits.

  LILY: But if anything was to happen to you -

  SKINNER: If I’m sick, the entire wisdom of the health authority is at my service. And should I die, the welfare people would bury me in style. It’s only when I’m alive and well that I’m a problem.

  LILY: Isn’t that peculiar? All the same, to be put down in style, that’s nice.

  SKINNER: Great.

  LILY: And do you just knock about the town all day?

  SKINNER: Sometimes I move out. To England. Scotland. The life of Riley.

  (LILY continues folding the robes.)

  LILY: I can’t offer you no bed, Skinner, ’cos there’s six in one room and seven in the other. But I could give you a bite to eat most days of the week.

  (Pause. Then SKINNER suddenly picks up the ceremonial sword.)

  SKINNER: On guard!

  (He fences with an imaginary opponent.)

  LILY: If you’re stuck.

  SKINNER: Okay.

  LILY: And even if I’m out working, the chairman’s always there.

  SKINNER: Fine.

  LILY: You know the old station. That’s where we live. It’s a converted warehouse. Third floor up.

  SKINNER: Do you like my technique?

  LILY: What?

  SKINNER: My swordsmanship.

  LILY: Lovely.

  SKINNER: How do you think I’m doing?

  LILY: Great.

  SKINNER: Thanks, Lily.

  LILY: Who are you fighting?

  SKINNER: At the moment the British army.

  LILY: God help them.

  (LILY goes on with her housekeeping. SKINNER continues fencing for a few seconds and then stops.)

  SKINNER: Lily.

  LILY: What?

  SKINNER: Has it anything at all to do with us?

  LILY: What?

  SKINNER: This marching – protesting – demonstrating?

  LILY: What are you talking about, young fella?

  SKINNER: Has it anything to do with you and me and him – if he only knew it?

  LILY: What are you ranting about? It’s for us it is. Isn’t it?

  SKINNER: Doctors, plumbers, teachers, accountants, all shoulder to shoulder – is that us?

  LILY: Don’t ask me nothing, young fella. I’ve no head. All I do is march. And if you want to know why you should be marching you ask the buck inside.

  SKINNER: Why do you march?

  LILY: Me?

  SKINNER: Why did you march today?

  LILY: Sure everybody was marching the day.

  SKINNER: Why were you out?

  LILY: For the same reason as everybody else.

  SKINNER: Tell me your reasons.

  LILY: My reasons is no different to anybody else.

  SKINNER: Tell me yours.

  LILY: Wan man – wan vote – that’s what I want. You know – wan man – wan vote.

  SKINNER: You got that six months ago.

  (Pause.)

 
; LILY: Sure I know that. Sure I know we got it.

  SKINNER: That’s not what you’re marching for, then.

  LILY: Gerrymandering – that’s another thing – no more gerrymandering – that’s what I want – no more gerrymandering. And civil rights for everybody – that’s what I want – you know – civil rights – civil rights – that’s why I march.

  SKINNER: I don’t believe a word of it, Lily.

  LILY: I’m a liar then?

  SKINNER: And neither do you.

  LILY: You’re calling me a liar, is that it?

  SKINNER: I’ll tell you why you march.

  LILY: He’ll be telling me my name isn’t Lily Doherty next.

  SKINNER: Because you live with eleven kids and a sick husband in two rooms that aren’t fit for animals. Because you exist on a state subsistence that’s about enough to keep you alive but too small to fire your guts. Because you know your children are caught in the same morass. Because for the first time in your life you grumbled and someone else grumbled and someone else, and you heard each other, and became aware that there were hundreds, thousands, millions of us all over the world, and in a vague groping way you were outraged. That’s what it’s all about, Lily. It has nothing to do with doctors and accountants and teachers and dignity and boy scout honour. It’s about us – the poor – the majority – stirring in our sleep. And if that’s not what it’s all about, then it has nothing to do with us.

  (LILY gazes at him. Pause.)

  LILY: I suppose you’re right.

  (He switches to flippancy.)

  SKINNER: And that’s why I appeal to you, when you go into that polling station, put an X opposite my name and ensure that your children, too, will enjoy the freedom of the city. And now I think we’ll have one for the road, Lily,

  (He goes to the cabinet.)

  SKINNER: Let’s walk into the future with bloodshot eyes and unsteady step.

  (Pause.)

  LILY: Did you ever hear tell of a mongol child, Skinner?

  SKINNER: Where did you hide the brandy?

  LILY: I told you a lie about our Declan. That’s what Declan is, He’s not just shy, our Declan. He’s a mongol. (She finds the brandy bottle and hands it to him.) And it’s for him I go on all the civil rights marches. Isn’t that stupid? You and him (MICHAEL) and everybody else marching and protesting about sensible things like politics and stuff and me in the middle of you all, marching for Declan. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard? Sure I could march and protest from here to Dublin and sure what good would it do Declan? Stupid and all as I am I know that much. But I still march – every Saturday. I still march. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard?