Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  (He bends over to his search again. EAMON gets to his feet.)

  EAMON: What is he at? Who’s missing?

  JUDITH: What’s the position about the flowers, Claire?

  CASIMIR: Here it is! (He stands up.) You see – I remember it. Distinctly! (He marks the spot with a napkin.) That means that there must be another one – (He strides across the lawn) – somewhere about here. (He grins at EAMON.) Amn’t I right?

  EAMON: I’m sure you are.

  CASIMIR: Seven in all – isn’t that it?

  EAMON: At least.

  CASIMIR: No, no, just seven; and the peg in the middle.

  (He suddenly drops on his hands and knees again and begins groping.)

  EAMON: Who is Peg?

  JUDITH: Claire!

  CLAIRE: Sorry?

  JUDITH: The flowers arrive on the last bus tomorrow night?

  CLAIRE: (Vague, indifferent) I think so.

  JUDITH: And Jerry’ll collect them and bring them up here?

  CLAIRE: Yes … probably … I suppose so.

  JUDITH: Claire, it’s –

  WILLIE: I’ll remind him this evening.

  JUDITH: Would you?

  WILLIE: And if he’s busy I’ll collect them.

  (EAMON picks up the cassette and switches it on – Étude Op. 10, No. 3 in E major. He sings with it in a parody of the Crosby style of the late 1940s.)

  EAMON: ‘So deep is the night –’

  (CASIMIR, automatically, without looking up.)

  CASIMIR: Terrific. The E major Étude – right, Claire?

  EAMON: F major.

  (CASIMIR sits up.)

  CASIMIR: Are you –? No, it’s the – Ah, you’re taking a hand at me, Eamon! I know you are. Ha-ha. Very good. Very comical.

  (He bends to his search again.)

  EAMON: ‘No moon tonight; no friendly star to guide me on my way – boo-be-doo-ba-ba-de-ba …’

  (He pours himself a drink.)

  JUDITH: What arrangement have you come to with Miss Quirk, Claire?

  CLAIRE: No arrangement.

  JUDITH: Is she going to play or is she not?

  CLAIRE: I told you all I know. I met her by accident.

  JUDITH: And what did she say?

  CLAIRE: All she said was ‘I play the harmonium at every wedding in Ballybeg’.

  ALICE: (Eyes closed) Who? Miss Quirk? O my God!

  CLAIRE: I don’t care. Let her play if she wants.

  JUDITH: Did she ask you what music you wanted?

  CLAIRE: You know very well she can play only two pieces.

  ALICE: Tom Hoffnung!

  TOM: Hello?

  ALICE: Before you leave you should meet Miss Quirk.

  TOM: Yeah?

  ALICE: She’s the Scott Joplin of Donegal.

  JUDITH: (To WILLIE) I suppose I’ll have to pay her something?

  WILLIE: I’ll look after it. You can square with me later.

  (EAMON is wandering around, glass in hand. He sings with the tape again, inventing the wards he has forgotten.)

  EAMON: ‘And so am I, lonely and forgotten by the stream …’ (To WILLIE) Remember dancing to that in the Corinthian in Derry?

  WILLIE: Every Friday night.

  EAMON: The steam rising out of us from getting soaked cycling in on the bikes.

  WILLIE: And the big silver ball going round and round up on the ceiling. Jaysus.

  EAMON: Tommy McGee on the sax; Bobby Kyle on piano; Jackie Fogarty on drums; young Turbet on clarinet.

  WILLIE: And slipping out to the cloakroom for a slug out of the bottle.

  EAMON: And the long dresses – the New Look – isn’t that what it was called?

  WILLIE: Oh Jaysus.

  EAMON: (To JUDITH) Remembrance of things past.

  JUDITH: (To WILLIE) Is that coffee stone cold?

  (WILLIE rises immediately.)

  WILLIE: If there’s any left in it.

  (He goes to the remains of the picnic.)

  EAMON: Do you remember the night we sneaked out to the Corinthian on my uncle’s motor-bike?

  JUDITH: Yes.

  EAMON: We were still sitting over there (in the gazebo) when the sun came up.

  CASIMIR: Here we are! Two more holes! Corner number two! All agreed?

  (He stands up, marks the position with a napkin as before, and goes to another part of the lawn.)

  EAMON: You wore your mother’s silver tiara in your hair. Do you remember?

  JUDITH: Yes.

  EAMON: Everything?

  CASIMIR: So that number three must be about – here.

  (He drops on his hands and knees again and begins groping.)

  ALICE: (Eyes closed) I have it on very good authority that in the privacy of her digs Miss Quirk plays the ukulele and sings dirty songs.

  EAMON: There was a hedgehog caught in the tennis-net. He had rolled himself up into a ball and his spikes were up against danger. Like me, you said. Do you remember?

  JUDITH: Yes.

  EAMON: And I asked you to marry me.

  ALICE: I’m ashamed to say I like dirty songs, Tom.

  EAMON: And you said yes.

  JUDITH: Where had we got to? – taxis. What about taxis, Willie?

  WILLIE: You’ll need only two. The car that leaves Jerry at the chapel then comes up here for you and Claire; and it waits here until the other car has headed off with the rest of the family and then it follows on. (He returns with a cup of coffee.) There’s a wee drop in it – it’s not too bad. They were good times, Eamon, eh?, them nights in the Corinthian.

  EAMON: They were good times, Professor.

  TOM: What were?

  EAMON: Plebeian past times. Before we were educated out of our emotions.

  (He switches up the volume of the cassette while he sings again.)

  EAMON: ‘So deep is the night, ba-ba-dee-boo-ba-ba-ba-ba …’

  (He reduces the volume again.)

  JUDITH: I think we have enough wine.

  ALICE: I hope there’s plenty wine.

  WILLIE: (To ALICE) I left in two cases – is that enough?

  (ALICE now opens her eyes and sits forward.)

  ALICE: Good ole Willie! (Sings) ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes –’

  (Immediately EAMON begins singing.)

  EAMON: ‘Boo-ba-de-boo-ba-ba’

  ALICE: ‘And I will pledge with mine’.

  (CASIMIR, without interrupting his search, joins ALICE.)

  ‘Or leave a kiss within the cup

  And I’ll not ask for wine.’

  (ALICE sits back, closes her eyes and continues humming.)

  EAMON: (To TOM) Recognize it?

  TOM: Elizabethan. Is it Ben Jonson?

  EAMON: The very buck. Used to nip into the scullery and recite it to granny.

  TOM: I think perhaps I should check that.

  EAMON: Would I tell you a lie?

  FATHER: I have considered very carefully everything I have heard and I must now ask you to – I must request – I must – I – I …

  (The suddenness and authority of father’s voice create a stillness, almost an unease. Nobody speaks for a few seconds.)

  JUDITH: He’s very restless today.

  CASIMIR: I wasn’t caught that time – no, no! I wasn’t caught that time – ha-ha!

  FATHER: Judith!

  (CASIMIR stiffens.)

  FATHER: Judith? Judith? Where’s Judith? Jud-ith!

  ALICE: Stay where you are. I’ll go.

  (She rises.)

  JUDITH: It’s all right. He probably wants nothing at all.

  (JUDITH goes off quickly. ALICE walks about. She is slightly unsteady.)

  ALICE: But I would like to go – I would like to help. Why won’t she let me help? When I went up to see him last night just after I arrived, I got such a shock – he’s so altered. Isn’t he altered? I mean he was always such a big strong man with such power, such authority; and then to see him lying there, so flat under the clothes, with his mouth open –

  (CASIM
IR stands up. He has been listening to ALICE and the vigour of his announcement this time is forced.)

  CASIMIR: The third! There you are! Number three! (He marks it as before.) Only one more to get.

  (He crosses the lawn to the fourth corner but does not go down on his hands and knees. He stands listening to ALICE.)

  ALICE: I caught his face between my hands – isn’t that right, Casimir? You were there beside me – and I held it like that. And it was such a strange sensation – I must never have touched his face before – is that possible never to have touched my father’s face? And it seemed so small between my hands; and it was so cool and his beard so rough and I felt so – so equal to him. (She begins to cry.) And then he opened his eyes. And he didn’t recognize me – isn’t that right, Casimir? And that’s when I began to cry. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know you either, Casimir, did he?

  CASIMIR: No.

  ALICE: He didn’t know me either. It was so strange – your own father not knowing you. He didn’t know you either, Casimir, did he?

  CASIMIR: No.

  ALICE: His own flesh and blood. Did he know you, Willie?

  WILLIE: Well, you see like, Alice, I’m not his son.

  ALICE: That’s true. And that’s when I began to cry. I’m sorry – I’m sorry – I know I’m slightly drunk but I’m still capable of – of – of –

  (EAMON offers her Judith’s coffee – she brushes past him.)

  ALICE: I want a drink. Who’s hidden the drink? Where’s the drink all hidden? (She finds it and helps herself.) Oh dear, dear God.

  EAMON: ‘Boo-ba-de-ba-ba-ba-ba; boom-boom-boom’ …

  (EAMON moves over beside CLAIRE. CASIMIR gets down on his hands and knees again. ALICE drops into a seat and closes her eyes.)

  EAMON: Whatever he’s looking for, he deserves to find it.

  CLAIRE: The remains of an old croquet court.

  EAMON: Ah. Before my time.

  (A new tape begins: Nocturne in F sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2. CLAIRE is fingering a gold watch.)

  EAMON: Present from Jerry?

  CLAIRE: For my last birthday.

  EAMON: Very handsome, isn’t it?

  JUDITH: Is something wrong?

  CLAIRE: Yes.

  FATHER: Judith?

  JUDITH: I’m here beside you.

  CLAIRE: And I told you, didn’t I – he’s getting me a car for Christmas.

  JUDITH: What’s the matter?

  EAMON: Lucky you.

  FATHER: Judith?

  JUDITH: What is it?

  CLAIRE: And he’s had the whole house done up from top to bottom. New carpets everywhere – even in the kitchen. I helped Ellen choose them.

  JUDITH: Are you cold? Do you want the quilt on again?

  (Without any change in her tone, and smiling as if she were chatting casually, CLAIRE continues.)

  CLAIRE: I’m in a mess, Eamon.

  JUDITH: You’re upset today.

  CLAIRE: I don’t know if I can go on with it.

  JUDITH: You got your pills, didn’t you?

  FATHER: Judith betrayed the family – did you know that?

  JUDITH: Yes. Now – that’s better.

  FATHER: Great betrayal; enormous betrayal.

  JUDITH: Let me feel those tops.

  FATHER: But Anna’s praying for her. Did you know that?

  JUDITH: Yes, I know that, Father.

  CLAIRE: Listen to them! (Short laugh.) It goes on like that all the time, all the time. I don’t know how Judith stands it. She’s lucky to be so … so strong-minded. Sometimes I think it’s driving me mad. Mustn’t it have been something trivial like that that finally drove mother to despair? And then sometimes I think: I’m going to miss it so much. I’m so confused, Eamon.

  EAMON: Aren’t we all confused.

  CLAIRE: But if you really loved someone the way you’re supposed to love someone you’re about to marry, you shouldn’t be confused, should you? Everything should be absorbed in that love, shouldn’t it? There’d be no reservations, would there? I’d love his children and his sister and his lorry and his vegetables and his carpets and everything, wouldn’t I? And I’d love all of him, too, wouldn’t I?

  (EAMON puts his arm round her.)

  CLAIRE: That’s one of the last nocturnes he wrote.

  EAMON: Is it?

  CLAIRE: Why does he not see that I’m in a mess, Eamon?

  EAMON: You don’t have to go on with it, you know.

  (CASIMIR is suddenly and triumphantly on his feet again.)

  CASIMIR: Number four! There you are! The complete croquet court! See, Eamon? Look, Claire! I remember! I knew!

  (CLAIRE jumps up. She is suddenly vigorous, buoyant, excited. Her speech is rapid.)

  CLAIRE: Come on – who’s for a game?

  CASIMIR: Me-me-me!

  CLAIRE: Give me a mallet.

  (CASIMIR mimes giving her one.)

  CASIMIR: There you are.

  CLAIRE: Is this the best you have?

  CASIMIR: It’s brand new – never been used.

  CLAIRE: Where are the hoops?

  CASIMIR: All in position. Just a second. (He drops three more napkins in the centre of the court.) That’s it. This one (centre napkin) is the peg.

  CLAIRE: And the balls?

  CASIMIR: At your feet.

  CLAIRE: Right.

  CASIMIR: Who goes first?

  CLAIRE: The bride-to-be – who else?

  CASIMIR: Wonderful! Off you go. Ladies and gentlemen – please – give the players room. Thank you. Thank you.

  CLAIRE: First shot of the game.

  CASIMIR: And a beautiful, beautiful shot it is. Now for the champion.

  (This imaginary game and their exchanges about it continue during the following sequences, EAMON rises; switches off the cassette; picks up a bottle of wine and a glass; drifts across the lawn. As he passes WILLIE:)

  EAMON: ‘Ba-ba-de-boo-ba-ba’. Many hedgehogs about now?

  WILLIE: What?

  EAMON: Hedgehogs – you know – (He mimes one) – many of them about?

  WILLIE: How the hell would I know about hedgehogs?

  EAMON: ‘Ba-ba-de-boo-ba-ba – Ba-ba-boo …’

  WILLIE: Hedgehogs! Jaysus!

  (WILLIE goes to the croquet court and watches the game.)

  CASIMIR: That was good – that was very good.

  CLAIRE: That was brilliant.

  CASIMIR: But watch this. This is how it’s really done. Aaaaaah!

  (ALICE opens her eyes, sits forward, and watches CLAIRE and CASIMIR in bewilderment.)

  CLAIRE: That ball hit your leg.

  CASIMIR: It did not.

  CLAIRE: I saw it – you winced.

  CASIMIR: (To ALICE) Did the ball hit my leg?

  ALICE: What?

  CASIMIR: Did you see me wince?

  CLAIRE: You did. I saw you. I saw you.

  ALICE: What are you doing?

  CASIMIR: Croquet. (To CLAIRE) My turn – right?

  CLAIRE: I’ll let you off this time. (To ALICE) Keep an eye on him – he cheats.

  ALICE: Where are the –?

  CLAIRE: But he’s still not winning. (To CASIMIR) And watch where you’re swinging that mallet.

  ALICE: Oh my God.

  (She closes her eyes and sinks back in her seat. The game continues, UNCLE GEORGE enters the study – his usual entrance – and is out on the lawn before he discovers it is occupied. He stops, looks around.)

  WILLIE: Hello, Mr George.

  (UNCLE GEORGE goes back into the study – and off)

  EAMON: Hello, Uncle George. Goodbye, Uncle George. Not one of you is aware that on the day of our wedding Uncle George shook my hand and spoke seven words. And the seven words he spoke were: ‘There’s going to be a great revolution.’ And I thought that after all those years of silence and contemplation that must be a profound remark. (EAMON is now beside TOM. He sits very close to him and smiles warmly at him.) Wasn’t I a fool?

  TOM: Were you?

  EAMO
N: I’m wiser now.

  TOM: Good.

  EAMON: And I’ve solved your problem.

  TOM: Which one’s that, Eamon?

  EAMON: Your book.

  TOM: Have I a problem?

  EAMON: It has to be a fiction – a romantic fiction – like Helga the Hun.

  TOM: Yeah?

  EAMON: A great big block-buster of a gothic novel called

  Ballybeg Hall – From Supreme Court to Sausage Factory; four generations of a great Irish Catholic legal dynasty; the gripping saga of a family that lived its life in total isolation in a gaunt Georgian house on top of a hill above the remote Donegal village of Ballybeg; a family without passion, without loyalty, without commitments; administering the law for anyone who happened to be in power; above all wars and famines and civil strife and political upheaval; ignored by its Protestant counterparts, isolated from the mere Irish, existing only in its own concept of itself, brushing against reality occasionally by its cultivation of artists; but tough – oh, yes, tough, resilient, tenacious; and with one enormous talent for – no, a greed for survival – that’s the family motto, isn’t it? – Semper permanemus. Don’t for a second underestimate them. What do you think?

  TOM: It’s your fiction.

  EAMON: A bit turgid – yes – I can see that. (Suddenly happy again.) But the romantic possibilities are there – oh, yes, by God. Mother for example. Make Mother central.

  ALICE: Leave Mother out of it.

  EAMON: Why?

  ALICE: You really are a bastard!

  EAMON: Because I see Mother as central?

  ALICE: For Christ’s sake!

  EAMON: Trust me – I’m an ex-diplomat.

  ALICE: Trust you!

  EAMON: Yes, I have pieties, too. (To TOM) She was an actress. Did you know that? No, you didn’t – that little detail was absorbed into the great silence. Yes; travelling round the country with the Charles Doran Company. Spotted by the judge in the lounge of the Railway Hotel and within five days decently wed and ensconced in the Hall here and bugger poor aul’ Charles Doran who had to face the rest of rural Ireland without a Colleen Bawn! And a raving beauty by all accounts. No sooner did Yeats clap eyes on her than a sonnet burst from him – ‘That I may know the beauty of that form’ – Alice’ll rattle it off for you there. Oh, terrific stuff. And O’Casey – haven’t they told you that one? – poor O’Casey out here one day ploughterin’ after tennis balls and spoutin’ about the workin’-man when she appeared in the doorway in there and the poor creatur’ made such a ramstam to get to her that he tripped over the Pope or Plato or Shirley Temple or somebody and smashed his bloody glasses! The more you think of it – all those calamities – Chesterton’s ribs, Hopkins’s hand, O’Casey’s aul’ specs – the County Council should put up a sign outside that room – Accident Black Spot – shouldn’t they? Between ourselves, it’s a very dangerous house, Professor.