Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  (Pause. Then softly) But when his brain left him alone. When he was in form.

  There was one night in particular. Wales it was. Village called Llanblethian. An old Methodist church that I get for ten bob. A week before Christmas.

  And we’re flat broke. And Frank, he’s on two bottles of whiskey a day at this stage. And Gracie and him they’ve been fighting something terrible and she’s disappeared off somewhere. And I’ve a pocketful of bills to pay.

  Okay. Eight o’clock. I open the doors. I’m not exactly knocked down in the stampede. As a matter of fact, dear heart – nobody. God. And now it’s snowing. I close the doors. Frank he’s looking like he’s about to die, and his hands and his shoulders they’re shaking like this. ‘Get me a drink,’ he says. I pretend I don’t hear him. The door’s flung open. The stampede? (He shakes his head.) Gracie. ‘Where’s the genius?’ she shouts. ‘I came to see the great Irish genius. Where is he?’ And he hears her and he screams, ‘Get that bitch out! Get rid of that bitch!’ ‘Oh, he’s here, is he?’ she says. ‘Physician, heal thyself!’ she says with this great, mad, mocking voice. ‘Out! Out!’ he shouts. ‘The genius!’ she screams. ‘Out! Out!’ ‘Genius!’ And their voices they’re echoing up through those dirty big oak rafters of the church so that it goes on and on and on … Oh, God, I mean to say, dear heart …

  Finally – it must be near nine o’clock now – we’re about to pack up and the door opens and in come ten people. I don’t remember all the details now. There’s two kids, I know; one of them has this great big lump on his cheek. And there’s a woman with crutches. And there’s another young woman with a crying baby in her arms. And there’s a young man with dark glasses and one of those white sticks for blind people. Five or six others – I can’t remember – I mean I didn’t know then the kind of night it was going to be, did I? Oh, yes, and an old man, a farmer – he’s lame – he’s helped in by his daughter. And they all sit down. And I goes through my paces: Ladies and Gentlemen and et cetera and so on. And then I goes to Frank and I says, ‘Okay, Frank?’ And very slowly he straightens up and when I see his face I’m sure he’s going to be sick and he doesn’t answer me at all but sort of – you know – drifts past me and down to them and among them.

  (He slowly pours the remains of a bottle into his glass. Then takes a drink.)

  All I can say now is that it was … I mean I don’t ask you to believe what happened. Quite honestly – and I don’t say this with no belligerence – it makes no difference to me whether you believe me or not. But what happened that night in that old Methodist hall in the village of Llanbethian in Glamorganshire in Wales is that every single person in that church was cured. Ten people. All made right again. I’d seen him do fantastic things before but I’d never seen him do anything on that scale. Never. And I’ll tell you a funny thing: there was no shouting or cheering or dancing with joy, nothing at all like that. Hardly a word was spoken. It was like as if not only had he taken away whatever it was was wrong with them, but like he had given them some great content in themselves as well. That sounds silly, doesn’t it? But that’s the way it seemed.

  And when he had finished, they all got to their feet and shook his hand, one after the other, very formal like. And the old farmer, the one who’d been lame and had been helped in by his daughter, he made a little speech. He said, in that lilting Welsh accent – I can’t do that neither – he said, ‘Mr Hardy, as long as men live in Glamorganshire, you’ll be remembered here.’ And whatever way he said it, you knew it was true; and whatever way he said Glamorganshire, it sounded like the whole world. And then he took out his wallet and placed it on the table and he said, ‘I hope I’m not insulting you, sir.’ And they all went out.

  (Short pause) That was one of the big nights, that was. I mean we were stunned – Gracie – me – Frank himself; we just stood looking at one another. I mean to say – ten people – all in a few minutes. And then he suddenly went crazy with delight. And he threw his arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks. And then he ran down to Gracie and caught her in his arms and lifted her up into the air and danced her up and down the aisle of that old church and the two of them sang at the top of their voices, ‘Lovely, never never change’, trying to sing and dance and at the same time breaking their sides laughing. And then he flung the doors open and they ran outside and sang and danced in the snow. What a pair! Oh my dear, what a pair! Like kids they were. Just like kids. Then I heard the van starting up. But by the time I got out they were gone. Just like that. Didn’t see them again for four days – what happened was they went off to some posh hotel in Cardiff and lived it up until the wallet was empty. Just like kids, you know. Thoughtless; no thought for tomorrow. And no cruelty intended – oh no, no cruelty. But at a time like that a bit thoughtless. And that’s understandable, too, after a night like that, isn’t it? Just a little bit thoughtless – that’s all.

  (He goes to the locker for another bottle. As he goes) What a funny couple they were, though. Oh dear, what a funny couple. I mean to spend the greater part of their lives together, fighting as they did; and when I say fighting, I mean really sticking the old knife in and turning it as hard as they could. I never understood it – job for the head-shrink, isn’t it? – why two people should burn themselves out in that way. Sure they could have split. Why didn’t they then? Don’t ask me. For God’s sake why didn’t I leave them and get myself something nice and simple and easy like – like – like a whistling dolphin? And what was the fighting all about in the end? All right you could say it was because the only thing that finally mattered to him was his work – and that would be true. Or you could say it was because the only thing that finally mattered to her was him – and I suppose that would be true, too. But when you put the two propositions together like that – I don’t know – somehow they both become only half-truths, you know.

  Or maybe you could say that no artist should ever be married. I’ve heard that theory, too; and after a lifetime in the profession I would incline to the conclusion that that theory has quite a bit of validity in it. I mean look at Rob Roy, The Piping Dog. Just consider for one minute the fortune I could have made in stud fees when that dog was a household name. Queuing up with their bitches they were; queuing bloody up. Twenty nicker a throw they were offering me. I thought I was sitting on a gold-mine. Do you know what I did in anticipation of the fortune that was going to come pouring in? I got a fifteen-foot black Carrara marble headstone with gold lettering put up over my mother’s grave. Set me back £214, that did. Okay – and what happened? – what happened every single time? I’ll tell you. I come into the room here with a very beautiful and very sexy whippet bitch. He’s just been rehearsing and he’s lying there in that basket, gasping for breath. I say to him, ‘Look at this then, old Rob. Who’s good to you then, eh?’ But he’s temperamental – he won’t look up. And the bitch, she’s rolling her eyes and waggling all over and laughing like a bloody gypsy. ‘Come on, boy,’ I say, ‘come on, come on. You’ve got a nice friend here.’ And what does he do every time, every single time? He gets to his feet. He gives this great yawn. And then suddenly – just like that – goes for her throat! For her bloody throat for God’s sake! Tries to tear her limb from bloody limb! Course he’s stupid but he’s not that stupid! I mean he knows what it’s all about! My God he knows! My God, there’s days he’s so randy, that whippet, there’s days I daren’t strap the bloody bagpipes to him! And yet look what he does when it’s bloody handed to him on a plate – some of the most beautiful whippet bitches in the country and every one of them crying out for it! Goes for her throat and tries to desecrate my mother’s memory at the same time! Oh my God – artists! I ask you!

  (He gathers the empty bottles on the table and drops them into a waste-paper basket. As he does.) Ups and downs – losses and gains – roundabouts and swings – isn’t that it?

  And if that night in Llanbethian was one of the high spots, I suppose the week we spent in that village in Sutherland was about as bad a patc
h as we ever struck. For Gracie it was. Certainly for Gracie. And for me, too, I think. Oh, that’s going back a fair few years. About the time he really began to lose control of the drinking. Anyway, there we were away up in Sutherland – what was the name of that village? Inverbuie? Inverbervie? Kinlochbervie? – that’s it! – Kinlochbervie! – very small, very remote, right away up in the north of Sutherland, about as far north as you can go in Scotland, and looking across at the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

  I’ll always remember our first sight of that village. We climb up this long steep hill through this misty fog and when we get to the top we stop; and away down below us in the valley – there’s Kinlochbervie; and it is just bathed in sunshine. First time we’ve seen the sun in about a month. And now here’s this fantastic little village sitting on the edge of the sea, all blue and white and golden, and all lit up and all sparkling and all just heavenly. And Gracie she turns to me and she says, ‘Teddy,’ she says, ‘this is where my baby’ll be born.’ Even though she wasn’t due for three more weeks. But she was right. That’s where the baby was born.

  Okay. We head down into the valley and just about two miles out of the village the front axle goes thrackk! Terrific. Frank, he’s out cold in the back. So I leave Gracie sunbathing herself on a stone wall and I hikes it into Kinlochbervie to get help.

  That was a Tuesday morning. The following Friday we’re still there, still waiting for a local fisherman called Campbell who’s out in his trawler to come back’ cause he’s the only local who owns a tractor and we’re depending on his mother who happens to be deaf as a post to persuade him when he comes back to tow us the thirty-five miles to the nearest village where there’s a blacksmith but there’s a chance, too, that this blacksmith might not be at home when we get there because his sister, Annie, she’s getting married to a postman in Glasgow and the blacksmith may be the best man. One of those situations – you know. (Shouts) ‘Are you sure this blacksmith can fix axles, dear heart?’ ‘Och, Annie, she’s a beautiful big strong girl with brown eyes.’

  Right. We hang about. And since funds are low – as usual – Gracie and Frank they sleep in the van and I’m kipping in a nearby field. I don’t mind; the weather’s beautiful. Saturday passes – no Campbell. Sunday passes – no Campbell. And then on Sunday evening … the baby’s born.

  (Very slowly he goes for another beer, opens it, pours it. As he does this he whistles a few lines of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ through his teeth. Then with sudden anger.)

  Christ, you’ve got to admit he really was a bastard in many ways! I know he was drinking heavy – I know – I know all that! But for Christ’s sake to walk away deliberately when your wife’s going to have your baby in the middle of bloody nowhere – I mean to say, to do that deliberately, that’s some kind of bloody-mindedness, isn’t it? And make no mistake, dear heart: it was deliberate, it was bloody-minded. ’Cause as soon as she starts having the pains, I go looking for him, and there he is heading up the hill, and I call after him, and I know he hears me, but he doesn’t answer me. Oh, Christ, there really was a killer instinct deep down in that man!

  (Pause. He takes a drink, puts the glass down on the table and looks at it.)

  I don’t know … I don’t know how we managed. God, when I think of it. Her lying on my old raincoat in the back of the van … shouting for him, screaming for him … all that blood … her bare feet pushing, kicking against my shoulders … ‘Frank!’ she’s screaming, ‘Frank! Frank!’ and I’m saying, ‘My darling, he’s coming – he’s coming, my darling – he’s on his way – he’ll be here any minute’ … and then that – that little wet thing with the black face and the black body, a tiny little thing, no size at all … a boy it was …

  (Pause.) And afterwards she was so fantastic – I mean she was so bloody fantastic. She held it in her arms, just sitting there on the roadside with her back leaning against the stone wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, just sitting there in the sun and looking down at it in her arms. And then after about half an hour she said, ‘It’s time to bury it now, Teddy.’ And we went into a nearby field and I had to chase the cows away’ cause they kept following us and I dug the hole and I put it in the hole and I covered it up again. And then she asked me was I not going to say no prayers over it and I said sure, why not, my darling, I said; but not being much of a praying man I didn’t know right what to say; so I just said this was the infant child of Francis Hardy, Faith Healer, and his wife, Grace Hardy, both citizens of Ireland, and this was where their infant child lies, in Kinlochbervie, in Sutherland; and God have mercy on all of us, I said.

  And all the time she was very quiet and calm. And when the little ceremony was concluded, she put her two white hands on my face and brought me to her and kissed me on the forehead. Just once. On the forehead.

  And later that evening I made a cross and painted it white and placed it on top of the grave. Maybe it’s still there. You never know. About two miles south of the village of Kinlochbervie. In a field on the left-hand side of the road as you go north. Maybe it’s still there. Could still well be. Why not? Who’s to say?

  (Pause.) Oh, he came back all right; just before it was dark. Oh, sure. Sober as a judge, all spruced up, healthy-looking, sunburned, altogether very cocky; and full of old chat to me about should we have a go in the Outer Hebrides or maybe we should cross over to the east coast or should we plan a journey even further north now that the weather was so good – you know, all business, things he never gave a damn about. And he seemed so – you know – so on top of things, I thought for a while, I thought: My God, he doesn’t know! He genuinely doesn’t know! But then suddenly in the middle of all this great burst of interest I see him glancing into the van with the corner of the eye – not that there was anything to see; I had it all washed out by then – but it was the way he done it and the way he kept on talking at the same time that I knew that he knew; and not only that he knew but that he knew it all right down to the last detail. And even though the old chatter never faltered for a minute, whatever way he kept talking straight into my face, I knew too that – oh, I don’t know how to put it – but I got this feeling that in a kind of way – being the kind of man he was – well somehow I got the feeling, I knew that he had to keep talking because he had suffered all that she had suffered and that now he was … about to collapse. Yeah. Funny, wasn’t it? And many a time since then I get a picture of him going up that hill that Sunday afternoon, like there’s some very important appointment he’s got to keep, walking fast with his head down and pretending he doesn’t hear me calling him. And I’ve thought maybe – course it was bloody minded of him! I’m not denying that! – but maybe being the kind of man he was, you know, with that strange gift he had, I’ve thought maybe – well, maybe he had to have his own way of facing things …

  Oh, I don’t know. None of my business, was it? None of my concern, thank the Lord, except in so far as it might affect the performance of my client. Listen to me, dear heart, I’ll give you this for nothing, the best advice you’ll ever get – the one rule I’ve always lived by: friends is friends and work is work and never the twain shall meet as the poet says. Okay? Okay.

  (With a glass in his hand he goes slowly up stage until he is standing beneath the poster. As he goes he hums the lines ‘Some day when I’m awf’ly low, When the world is cold’. He reads.) The Fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer: One Night Only. Nice poster though, isn’t it? A lifetime in the business and that’s the only memento I’ve kept. That’s a fact. See some people in our profession? – they hoard everything: press-clippings, posters, notices, photographs, interviews – they keep them all. Never believed in that though. I mean the way I look at it, you’ve got to be a realist, you know, live in the present. Look at Sir Laurence – you think he spends his days poring over old albums? No, we don’t have time for that. And believe me I’ve had my share of triumphs and my share of glory over the years; and I’m grateful for that. But I mean it doesn’t butter no p
arsnips for me today, does it?

  And do you know, dear heart, it was almost thrown out! Well, I mean it was thrown out – I just happened to spot it in this pile of stuff that Gracie’s landlord had dumped outside for the dustmen. I’d come straight from the morgue in Paddington, and the copper there he’d given me her address; and there I was, walking along the street, looking for number 27; and there it is, lying on the footpath where her landlord had dumped it. I mean, if it had been raining, it would have been destroyed, wouldn’t it? But there it was, neat as you like. And just as I was picking it up, this city gent he’s walking past and he says, ‘How dare you steal private property, Sir!’ (In a fury.) And I caught him by the neck and I put my fist up to his face and I said to him, I said to him, ‘You open your fucking mouth once more, mate, just once fucking more, and I’ll fucking well make fucking sausage meat of you!’

  (Pause while he controls himself again) If you’ll pardon the language, dear heart. But I just went berserk. I mean half an hour before, this copper he’d brought me to Paddington and I’m still in a state of shock after that. And besides it’s only – what? – twelve months since the whole County Donegal thing: that night in the Ballybeg pub and then hanging about waiting for the trial of those bloody Irish Apaches and nobody in the courtroom understands a word I’m saying – they had to get an interpreter to explain to the judge in English what the only proper Englishman in the place was saying! God!