Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  HELEN: O my God.

  TINA: How did you get down?

  BEN: It took a full detachment of engineers – scaffolding, generators, arc lights – the biggest peacetime operation ever mounted by Western Command. And an ambulance –

  HELEN: Two ambulances!

  BEN: And that old MO – Colonel –?

  HELEN: Hayes.

  BEN: That’s him. ‘Where the hell are the blankets?’

  HELEN: What a day – what a day!

  TINA: You must have had a lot of fun.

  HELEN: I don’t know what I’m laughing at. I thought I was finished.

  BEN: I pointed it out to Anna about a month ago – one day we were out at the caravan – and told her the whole escapade; but somehow there was none of the terror, none of the delight. (Goes inside.) Now I have a feeling that if my commandant father knew I was here, he’d rush home and throw his arms around me and say, ‘Welcome, son. Help yourself to a drink.’

  (HELEN goes inside. TINA follows.)

  HELEN: Part of him probably wants to.

  BEN: Offer me a drink?

  HELEN: You know very well.

  BEN: ‘A large whiskey, Sir? Thank you very much, Sir. You’re altogether too kind.’

  HELEN: And if he did?

  (Pause as BEN pours a drink.)

  BEN: Too late – too late.

  HELEN: But if he did?

  BEN: We’re long beyond that.

  HELEN: What if he did?

  BEN: What if he did? After all that’s been said?

  HELEN: Despite all that.

  BEN: The day she died I called him a murderer.

  HELEN: Six years have passed.

  BEN: And he hit me – don’t you remember? – he hit me!

  HELEN: That’s all over.

  BEN: Years, years of hostility.

  HELEN: That fades.

  BEN: Does it?

  HELEN: You know it does.

  BEN: You can preserve it.

  (He goes outside again. She follows. As before, TINA tags along.)

  HELEN: Why would you want to?

  BEN: In case you’d forget.

  HELEN: No!

  BEN: Out of a sense of loyalty.

  HELEN: To whom?

  BEN: You can embalm it consciously, deliberately –

  HELEN: That would be wrong.

  BEN: – in acts of terrible perfidy –

  HELEN: You wouldn’t do that, Ben.

  BEN: – which you do in a state of confusion, out of some vague residual passion that no longer fires you; hitting out, smashing back, not at what’s there but at what you think you remember; and which you regret instantly – oh, yes, yes, yes, never underestimate the regret. But then it’s too late, too late – the thing’s preserved in perpetuity – as Charlie would say.

  HELEN: You shouldn’t drink.

  BEN: So as we used to say – put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  HELEN: (To TINA) Going off his head in that hermitage of his.

  BEN: Helen.

  HELEN: You are drunk.

  BEN: Sister Helen.

  HELEN: Sit down on that seat.

  BEN: Helen Sarah Fidelma.

  HELEN: H. S. F. – yes, I remember.

  TINA: What was that?

  HELEN: Horrible Smelly Feet.

  TINA: I never heard that before!

  HELEN: He used to drive me mad with that.

  TINA: I’m going to remember that – H. S. F.!

  BEN: I want to tell you something.

  HELEN: You’re getting silly.

  BEN: I am not. And I want to tell you something.

  HELEN: (To BEN) Give me a cigarette.

  TINA: No, Helen, no!

  HELEN: Just one.

  BEN: Honourable Sincere Friend.

  TINA: Don’t, Helen, please.

  BEN: We’ll both have one.

  TINA: You’ll regret it, Helen.

  BEN: I’ve something to say to you.

  HELEN: Is it important?

  BEN: Very important – vitally important – and you’ll know it’s important.

  HELEN: How?

  BEN: Because I’ll probably start stammering in the middle of it! (They all laugh at this.)

  HELEN: Give me a light.

  TINA: I’m disappointed in you, Helen.

  HELEN: (Mocking) She’s disappointed in me! Now I’m really upset. (To BEN) D’you remember – out in the turf shed – passing the cigarette from one to the other and it hot with sucking!

  BEN: What I’m going to tell you is a big secret.

  HELEN: I hate secrets.

  BEN: No, not really a secret.

  HELEN: Make up your mind.

  BEN: More a confidence than a s-s-s-secret.

  (They all laugh.)

  HELEN: You faked that!

  BEN: I did not!

  HELEN: You did – to hook me!

  TINA: Tell us your secret.

  BEN: May I confide my confidence?

  HELEN: You may not.

  BEN: I’m going to tell you.

  HELEN: I don’t want to hear it.

  BEN: Helen –

  HELEN: Everybody tells me their confidences.

  BEN: Please –

  HELEN: I’m sick of their confidences.

  BEN: It’s about –

  HELEN: (Covering her ears) No, no, no, no!

  TINA: (Laughing) Tell me, Ben! Tell me!

  BEN: It has to do with my embalming job.

  HELEN: Can’t hear a word you’re saying!

  BEN: (Shouts) And with my profound regrets.

  HELEN: We all have our regrets. Look after your own.

  BEN: I’ll shock you, Helen.

  (HELEN takes her hands away from her ears. The atmosphere suddenly changes: the laughing is finished.)

  HELEN: (Imperious) I want a cup of coffee! He needs a cup of coffee! Go and make it for me, Tina!

  BEN: Mother’s voice – exactly!

  TINA: I want to hear what Ben’s –

  HELEN: (Calmer) Would you, darling, please?

  (She looks firmly at TINA until TINA finally gives way and goes into the living-room. She is about to go into the kitchen but hesitates to listen.)

  On a night like this you can hear the sea breaking on the Tor Mor.

  BEN: (Quiet, urgent) I’ve got to tell you, Helen.

  HELEN: You’ve ‘got to’ nothing.

  BEN: When you wanted to talk about your Gerry I listened to you.

  HELEN: Years ago. For God’s sake, you’re a man now!

  BEN: I was the one carried your messages.

  HELEN: Stop bleating! Stop snivelling!

  BEN: Stood watching outside the gym hall when you and he were inside. Warned you that night the two of you took the jeep and went to the dance in Omagh –

  HELEN: And stood there at Mother’s side – and held her hand – held her hand as if you were her husband, while he stood at the door with his cap in his hand, trembling, the fool, trembling because the Commandant’s wife was quizzing him in her quiet and most reasonable voice about his ‘educational background’ and his father’s ‘profession’ and his ‘prospects in his chosen career’ – Private Gerald Kelly, batman – my Gerry – my Gerry. And all the time you stood beside her in that wicker chair, facing him, stroking her hand. You did, Ben; yes, you. And d’you know what he did when he came outside? Gerald Kelly – the defiant, the reckless, the daredevil Gerry Kelly? He cried, Ben. Yes; like a child. Gerry Kelly cried. Yes. He cried. Yes.

  (She goes to the other end of the garden. She cries quietly. BEN goes to her.)

  BEN: I’m sorry, Helen.

  HELEN: (Simply) Sorry? What’s sorry? ‘Never underestimate the regret.’ Is that what you said? I’ve lost him. She killed him. He’s gone. Do I love Gerry Kelly still? I thought I’d squeezed every drop of him out of me. But now I know I haven’t forgotten a second of him.

  BEN: Helen –

  (Pause. Then SIR rises and moves forward.)

  SIR: Thank you
. We’ve got quite a bit done. I’d say the back’s broken.

  (To audience) We’ll resume again in approximately – what? – fifteen minutes.

  Quick Black

  ACT TWO

  Only MIRIAM is on stage, sitting in the wicker chair, reading the Donegal Enquirer, eating a slice of cake, an empty coffee mug beside her.

  Great bursts of laughter come from the kitchen. And as the other characters come on they carry with them an air of good humour – a gaiety, or, as SIR calls it, a ‘giddiness’ that permeates the beginning of this sequence, right up until the arrival of SIR. They are dressed as we saw them at the end of Act One, except FRANK, who is in desert uniform. TINA, laughing, opens the kitchen door.

  TINA: There’s a few cream cakes left. Do you want one?

  MIRIAM: Don’t tempt me.

  TINA: Or a doughnut?

  MIRIAM: Please. I’m up to here. What are they laughing at?

  TINA: Father Tom’s telling stories about when he was a curate in Yorkshire.

  MIRIAM: God, weren’t we reared on them!

  TINA: Daddy says he makes them up as he goes along.

  MIRIAM: Listen to this – from the Enquirer – ‘Commandant Butler’s eldest daughter, Christina, is in London –’

  TINA: Me!

  MIRIAM: ‘His youngest daughter‚ Helen, lives at home.’

  TINA: Sure they never get anything right, that crowd.

  MIRIAM: But wait till you hear this. ‘And another daughter is married to Mr Charles Donnelly, who is popular in the legal and sporting life of Donegal. As a young man he was a well known amateur high-jumper and is the father of three children!’

  TINA: (Laughing) I’m away back to London.

  (She returns to the kitchen.)

  MIRIAM: High-jumper – sweet God. Amateur – my foot! (She continues reading. BEN enters left, singing, and meets ANNA, who enters from upstage – throughout this sequence none of the characters obeys the conventions of the set. They meet in the garden area.)

  BEN: We’re not late, are we?

  ANNA: I don’t think so.

  BEN: I suppose he’d be out clapping his hands for us. Come along, children, come along, come along.

  (She sits on the garden seat.)

  You’re eager to get it over with, aren’t you?

  ANNA: At the beginning I was. Now I don’t care. Are you?

  BEN: I don’t give a damn about anyone or anything. I feel … flushed, giddy … I feel euphoric.

  (ANNA laughs.)

  ANNA: ‘Euphoric’!

  BEN: I do. I haven’t felt like this since – (Stops)

  ANNA: When?

  BEN: I can tell you exactly – six years ago, October 19th – the day of my mother’s funeral. That’s when. That afternoon. After we had come back from the cemetery. Shocking, isn’t it?

  ANNA: Tell me about it.

  BEN: Nothing much to tell. We were all in there (living-room) – it was pouring with rain – there were some visitors – the girls were crying – everybody was whispering. And suddenly I had to rush out of the room because I was afraid I’d burst out singing or cheer or leap into the air. Honestly. Walked across the sand hills for maybe a couple of hours – I don’t remember. Anyhow until that madness passed.

  ANNA: Was it madness?

  (Pause. He looks at her quickly. Then resumes as before.)

  BEN: And then I came back. Guilty as hell and soaked to the skin. (Smiling) And assumed the grief again – a greater grief, a guilty grief. All very strange.

  ANNA: Are you going to sing for us now?

  BEN: Sing, dance, anything you like.

  (He does a few extravagant leaps around the stage, singing a few lines of ‘I’m singing in the rain’ at the same time. In the middle of his performance MIRIAM shouts out.)

  MIRIAM: Ben, will you – for the love of God!

  ANNA: (When he finishes) Very good. Very impressive.

  (He flops down beside her.)

  BEN: I really am giddy now!

  ANNA: I think you should stick to the fishing all the same.

  BEN: What are you going to do – when it’s all over?

  ANNA: An aunt of mine has a café in New Jersey. She always wanted me over. So I’ll stay with her for six months – until I’ve saved some money. Then I’ll move on to San Francisco or Los Angeles; more likely San Francisco.

  BEN: Just like that?

  ANNA: Yes.

  BEN: Have you any relatives in California?

  ANNA: No.

  BEN: Do you know anybody there?

  ANNA: No one.

  BEN: God, I wish I could be as decisive as that.

  ANNA: What’ll you do?

  BEN: When this is all over? Oh, I’ll – I suppose I’ll head off, too.

  ANNA: To America?

  BEN: Not America. America’s too – too foreign for me. Scotland. England, maybe. Somewhere. Who knows?

  ANNA: But you’ll keep coming back here, won’t you?

  (Great laughter from the kitchen.)

  BEN: Are you laughing at me, too?

  ANNA: But that’s what you’ll do, isn’t it?

  (BEN leaps up.)

  BEN: Let’s go and see what’s so funny.

  ANNA: Oh, Ben, there’s one thing I’d like you to do for me –

  BEN: Yes?

  ANNA: If you would.

  BEN: What’s that?

  ANNA: You look startled.

  BEN: Why should I look startled? What is it?

  ANNA: I left a pair of old flat shoes in the caravan – I think they’re in that press under the sink. And a blue and white scarf – it’s hanging behind the door.

  BEN: I’ll get them for you.

  ANNA: That’s all.

  BEN: Fine.

  (She goes up to him and kisses him lightly on the forehead.)

  ANNA: Dismiss.

  BEN: (Uneasy laugh) What’s that for?

  ANNA: Our attempt at a love affair.

  (Laughter from kitchen.)

  BEN: What do you mean – attempt?

  ANNA: That’s what it was, wasn’t it? (She takes his arm and leads him into the living-room.) Come on – we’re missing the fun. (As they enter, the others – FRANK, TOM, TINA,

  HELEN – emerge from the kitchen. Now that they are all together the euphoric atmosphere is heightened.)

  FRANK: I don’t believe a word of it, Tom!

  TOM: Would I tell a lie, Helen?

  HELEN: I keep telling you – I believe you.

  FRANK: He now suddenly remembers that Canon Bradshaw had a wooden leg!

  MIRIAM: God forgive you, Father Tom!

  TOM: May I be called before my Maker.

  ANNA: Who’s Canon Bradshaw?

  (FRANK is standing beside ANNA, his arm casually around her shoulders.)

  FRANK: An eccentric parish priest he had when he was a curate in Hull.

  TOM: A terrific yoke made from parana pine and treated with linseed oil. And he had two types of ferrule that he could screw into the bottom: one was brass that he used to polish every Friday night when he was doing the candlesticks –

  HELEN: He’s remembering more details.

  MIRIAM: More lies.

  BEN: Let him tell the story.

  FRANK: (To ANNA) This was his first post.

  TOM: – and the other ferrule was wooden and covered with black astrakhan –

  (Great laughter.)

  BEN: Astrakhan?

  TOM: Just like a drumstick.

  MIRIAM: This is all new! Canon Bradshaw used to be a cripple in a wheelchair!

  TOM: God’s my judge. And he’d use the wooden one when he’d be saying mass upstairs in the oratory. And when he’d come to the Sanctus he’d suddenly kick out backways, just like a donkey, and bang the bell three times with the astrakhan head.

  BEN: Boom-boom-boom.

  (Laughter.)

  FRANK: Tom! Tom!

  TINA: When did he use the brass one?

  HELEN: You’re encouraging him.

>   MIRIAM: Try to stop him.

  TOM: He used the brass one –

  MIRIAM: This is definitely a lie.

  TOM: No. He used the brass one for walking, of course. And for beating carpets.

  (Again they all laugh.)

  I know – I know – no one ever believes me.

  HELEN: All that laughing – my sides are sore.

  FRANK: We’re all sore. What has made all of us so frivolous?

  MIRIAM: Listen – listen – listen – have you all seen this (paper)?

  BEN: What is it?

  FRANK: Yes, study that. I look very distinguished in that.

  TINA: I think so too, Daddy.

  FRANK: (To ANNA) Have you seen it?

  ANNA: It’s very good.

  BEN: Let me see.

  MIRIAM: Make up captions for the two of them as they shake hands. What’s the President thinking? What’s Father thinking?

  TOM: Hannibal’s old eyes; and the way he’s leaning slightly backways. You’re thinking: the cute hawk smells the brandy off my breath!

  HELEN: Very good. Anna?

  ANNA: Show me.

  FRANK: You be careful now.

  ANNA: The President’s saying to himself: my God, I’ve forgotten! Footman, Batman, Butler – what’s the man’s name?

  FRANK: If you want to know he called me Francis.

  BEN: I know what he’s thinking: today’s Monday – this must be the Italian equestrian team.

  MIRIAM: And what’s Father thinking?

  FRANK: You’d never guess.

  HELEN: Tell us.

  MIRIAM: I know – I know: he keeps calling me corporal – have I been demoted?

  FRANK: Wrong – wrong – all wrong.

  HELEN: All right – we give up – you tell us.

  FRANK: I will not.

  MIRIAM: Go. Go on.

  SEVERAL TOGETHER: Come on, Father. Tell us. Tell us. We’re dying to know.

  FRANK: No.

  TOM: He can’t tell because it’s obscene.

  FRANK: As a matter of fact –

  HELEN: Well?

  FRANK: (To ANNA) I was looking for you in the crowd.

  (This is greeted with clapping and with joking ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’.) That’s the truth.

  TOM: In that case, and with that set to your jaw your caption should read: ‘If she’s not here, I’ll shoot her!’

  (As he goes off) Anybody for more coffee? My wonderful coffee?

  SEVERAL TOGETHER: No! No! No! No! No! No!

  TOM: All right. All right.

  (FRANK takes advantage of the chorus to catch ANNA by the hand and lead her out to the garden. As he leads her out:)