Brian Friel Plays 1

by Brian Friel

  MANUS: It was a gesture.

  MAIRE: What sort of gesture?

  MANUS: Just to indicate … a presence.

  MAIRE: Hah!

  BRIDGET: I’m telling you – you’ll be arrested.

  (When DOALTY is embarrassed – or pleased – he reacts physically. He now grabs BRIDGET around the waist.)

  DOALTY: What d’you make of that for an implement, Bridget? Wouldn’t that make a great aul shaft for your churn?

  BRIDGET: Let go of me, you dirty brute! I’ve a headline to do before Big Hughie comes.

  MANUS: I don’t think we’ll wait for him. Let’s get started.

  (Slowly, reluctantly they begin to move to their seats and specific tasks. DOALTY goes to the bucket of water at the door and washes his hands. BRIDGET sets up a hand-mirror and combs her hair.)

  BRIDGET: Nellie Ruadh’s baby was to be christened this morning. Did any of yous hear what she called it? Did you, Sarah?

  (SARAH grunts: No.)

  BRIDGET: Did you, Maire?

  MAIRE: No.

  BRIDGET: Our Seamus says she was threatening she was going to call it after its father.

  DOALTY: Who’s the father?

  BRIDGET: That’s the point, you donkey you!

  DOALTY: Ah.

  BRIDGET: So there’s a lot of uneasy bucks about Baile Beag this day.

  DOALTY: She told me last Sunday she was going to call it Jimmy.

  BRIDGET: You’re a liar, Doalty.

  DOALTY: Would I tell you a lie? Hi, Jimmy, Nellie Ruadh’s aul fella’s looking for you.

  JIMMY: For me?

  MAIRE: Come on, Doalty.

  DOALTY: Someone told him …

  MAIRE: Doalty!

  DOALTY: He heard you know the first book of the Satires of Horace off by heart …

  JIMMY: That’s true.

  DOALTY: … and he wants you to recite it for him.

  JIMMY: I’ll do that for him certainly, certainly.

  DOALTY: He’s busting to hear it.

  (JIMMY fumbles in his pockets.)

  JIMMY: I came across this last night – this’ll interest you – in Book Two of Virgil’s Georgics.

  DOALTY: Be God, that’s my territory alright.

  BRIDGET: You clown you! (To SARAH) Hold this for me, would you? (her mirror.)

  JIMMY: Listen to this, Manus. ‘Nigra fere et presso pinguis sub vomere terra …’

  DOALTY: Steady on now – easy, boys, easy – don’t rush me, boys –

  (He mimes great concentration.)

  JIMMY: Manus?

  MANUS: ‘Land that is black and rich beneath the pressure of the plough …’

  DOALTY: Give me a chance!

  JIMMY: ‘And with cui putre – with crumbly soil – is in the main best for corn.’ There you are!

  DOALTY: There you are.

  JIMMY: ‘From no other land will you see more wagons wending homeward behind slow bullocks.’ Virgil! There!

  DOALTY: ‘Slow bullocks’!

  JIMMY: Isn’t that what I’m always telling you? Black soil for corn. That’s what you should have in that upper field of yours – corn, not spuds.

  DOALTY: Would you listen to that fella! Too lazy be Jasus to wash himself and he’s lecturing me on agriculture! Would you go and take a running race at yourself, Jimmy Jack Cassie! (Grabs SARAH.) Come away out of this with me, Sarah, and we’ll plant some corn together.

  MANUS: All right – all right. Let’s settle down and get some work done. I know Sean Beag isn’t coming – he’s at the salmon. What about the Donnelly twins? (To DOALTY) Are the Donnelly twins not coming any more?

  (DOALTY shrugs and turns away.)

  Did you ask them?

  DOALTY: Haven’t seen them. Not about these days.

  (DOALTY begins whistling through his teeth. Suddenly the atmosphere is silent and alert.)

  MANUS: Aren’t they at home?

  DOALTY: No.

  MANUS: Where are they then?

  DOALTY: How would I know?

  BRIDGET: Our Seamus says two of the soldiers’ horses were found last night at the foot of the cliffs at Machaire Buidhe and … (She stops suddenly and begins writing with chalk on her slate.) D’you hear the whistles of this aul slate? Sure nobody could write on an aul slippery thing like that.

  MANUS: What headline did my father set you?

  BRIDGET: ‘It’s easier to stamp out learning than to recall it.’

  JIMMY: Book Three, the Agricola of Tacitus.

  BRIDGET: God but you’re a dose.

  MANUS: Can you do it?

  BRIDGET: There. Is it bad? Will he ate me?

  MANUS: It’s very good. Keep your elbow in closer to your side. Doalty?

  DOALTY: I’m at the seven-times table. I’m perfect, skipper.

  (MANUS moves to SARAH.)

  MANUS: Do you understand those sums?

  (SARAH nods: Yes. MANUS leans down to her ear.)

  MANUS: My name is Sarah.

  (MANUS goes to MAIRE. While he is talking to her the others swop books, talk quietly, etc.)

  MANUS: Can I help you? What are you at?

  MAIRE: Map of America. (Pause.) The passage money came last Friday.

  MANUS: You never told me that.

  MAIRE: Because I haven’t seen you since, have I?

  MANUS: You don’t want to go. You said that yourself.

  MAIRE: There’s ten below me to be raised and no man in the house. What do you suggest?

  MANUS: Do you want to go?

  MAIRE: Did you apply for that job in the new national school?

  MANUS: No.

  MAIRE: You said you would.

  MANUS: I said I might.

  MAIRE: When it opens, this is finished: nobody’s going to pay to go to a hedge-school.

  MANUS: I know that and I … (He breaks off because he sees SARAH, obviously listening, at his shoulder. She moves away again.) I was thinking that maybe I could …

  MAIRE: It’s £56 a year you’re throwing away.

  MANUS: I can’t apply for it.

  MAIRE: You promised me you would.

  MANUS: My father has applied for it.

  MAIRE: He has not!

  MANUS: Day before yesterday.

  MAIRE: For God’s sake, sure you know he’d never –

  MANUS: I couldn’t – I can’t go in against him.

  (MAIRE looks at him for a second. Then: –)

  MAIRE: Suit yourself. (To BRIDGET) I saw your Seamus heading off to the Port fair early this morning.

  BRIDGET: And wait till you hear this – I forgot to tell you this. He said that as soon as he crossed over the gap at Cnoc na Mona – just beyond where the soldiers are making the maps – the sweet smell was everywhere.

  DOALTY: You never told me that.

  BRIDGET: It went out of my head.

  DOALTY: He saw the crops in Port?

  BRIDGET: Some.

  MANUS: How did the tops look?

  BRIDGET: Fine – I think.

  DOALTY: In flower?

  BRIDGET: I don’t know. I think so. He didn’t say.

  MANUS: Just the sweet smell – that’s all?

  BRIDGET: They say that’s the way it snakes in, don’t they? First the smell; and then one morning the stalks are all black and limp.

  DOALTY: Are you stupid? It’s the rotting stalks makes the sweet smell for God’s sake. That’s what the smell is – rotting stalks.

  MAIRE: Sweet smell! Sweet smell! Every year at this time somebody comes back with stories of the sweet smell. Sweet God, did the potatoes ever fail in Baile Beag? Well, did they ever – ever? Never! There was never blight here. Never. Never. But we’re always sniffing about for it, aren’t we? – looking for disaster. The rents are going to go up again – the harvest’s going to be lost – the herring have gone away for ever – there’s going to be evictions. Honest to God, some of you people aren’t happy unless you’re miserable and you’ll not be right content until you’re dead!

  DOALTY: Bloody righ
t, Maire. And sure St Colmcille prophesied there’d never be blight here. He said:

  The spuds will bloom in Baile Beag

  Till rabbits grow an extra lug.

  And sure that’ll never be. So we’re all right. Seven threes are twenty-one; seven fours are twenty-eight; seven fives are forty-nine – Hi, Jimmy, do you fancy my chances as boss of the new national school?

  JIMMY: What’s that? – what’s that?

  DOALTY: Agh, g’way back home to Greece, son.

  MAIRE: You ought to apply, Doalty.

  DOALTY: D’you think so? Cripes, maybe I will. Hah!

  BRIDGET: Did you know that you start at the age of six and you have to stick at it until you’re twelve at least – no matter how smart you are or how much you know.

  DOALTY: Who told you that yarn?

  BRIDGET: And every child from every house has to go all day, every day, summer or winter. That’s the law.

  DOALTY: I’ll tell you something – nobody’s going to go near them – they’re not going to take on – law or no law.

  BRIDGET: And everything’s free in them. You pay for nothing except the books you use; that’s what our Seamus says.

  DOALTY: ‘Our Seamus’. Sure your Seamus wouldn’t pay anyway. She’s making this all up.

  BRIDGET: Isn’t that right, Manus?

  MANUS: I think so.

  BRIDGET: And from the very first day you go, you’ll not hear one word of Irish spoken. You’ll be taught to speak English and every subject will be taught through English and everyone’ll end up as cute as the Buncrana people.

  SARAH suddenly grunts and mimes a warning that the master is coming. The atmosphere changes. Sudden business. Heads down.)

  DOALTY: He’s here, boys. Cripes, he’ll make yella meal out of me for those bloody tables.

  BRIDGET: Have you any extra chalk, Manus?

  MAIRE: And the atlas for me.

  (DOALTY goes to MAIRE who is sitting on a stool at the back.)

  DOALTY: Swop you seats.

  MAIRE: Why?

  DOALTY: There’s an empty one beside the Infant Prodigy.

  MAIRE: I’m fine here.

  DOALTY: Please, Maire. I want to jouk in the back here.

  (MAIRE rises.)

  God love you. (Aloud) Anyone got a bloody table-book?

  Cripes, I’m wrecked.

  (SARAH gives him one.)

  God, I’m dying about you.

  (In his haste to get to the back seat, DOALTY bumps into BRIDGET who is kneeling on the floor and writing laboriously on a slate resting on top of a bench-seat.)

  BRIDGET: Watch where you’re going, Doalty!

  (DOALTY gooses BRIDGET. She squeals. Now the quiet hum of work: JIMMY reading Homer in a low voice; BRIDGET copying her headline; MAIRE studying the atlas; DOALTY, his eyes shut tight, mouthing his tables; SARAH doing sums.After a few seconds: –

  BRIDGET: Is this ‘g’ right, Manus? How do you put a tail on it?

  DOALTY: Will you shut up! I can’t concentrate!

  (A few more seconds of work. Then DOALTY opens his eyes and looks around.)

  False alarm, boys. The bugger’s not coming at all. Sure the bugger’s hardly fit to walk.

  (And immediately HUGH enters. A large man, with residual dignity, shabbily dressed, carrying a stick. He has, as always, a large quantity of drink taken, but he is by no means drunk. He is in his early sixties.)

  HUGH: Adsum, Doalty, adsum. Perhaps not in sobrietate perfecta but adequately sobrius to overhear your quip. Vesperal salutations to you all.

  (Various responses.)

  JIMMY: Ave, Hugh.

  HUGH: James. (He removes his hat and coat and hands them and his stick to MANUS, as if to a footman.) Apologies for my late arrival: we were celebrating the baptism of Nellie Ruadh’s baby.

  BRIDGET: (Innocently) What name did she put on it, Master?

  HUGH: Was it Eamon? Yes, it was Eamon.

  BRIDGET: Eamon Donal from Tor! Cripes!

  HUGH: And after the caerimonia nominationis – Maire?

  MAIRE: The ritual of naming.

  HUGH: Indeed – we then had a few libations to mark the occasion. Altogether very pleasant. The derivation of the word ‘baptize’? – where are my Greek scholars? Doalty?

  DOALTY: Would it be – ah – ah –

  HUGH: Too slow. James?

  JIMMY: ‘Baptizein’ – to dip or immerse.

  HUGH: Indeed – our friend Pliny Minor speaks of the ‘baptisterium’ – the cold bath.

  DOALTY: Master.

  HUGH: Doalty?

  DOALTY: I suppose you could talk then about baptizing a sheep at sheep-dipping, could you?

  (Laughter. Comments.)

  HUGH: Indeed – the precedent is there – the day you were appropriately named Doalty – seven nines?

  DOALTY: What’s that, Master?

  HUGH: Seven times nine?

  DOALTY: Seven nines – seven nines – seven times nine – seven times nine are – cripes, it’s on the tip of my tongue, Master – I knew it for sure this morning – funny that’s the only one that foxes me –

  BRIDGET: (Prompt) Sixty-three.

  DOALTY: What’s wrong with me: sure seven nines are fifty-three, Master.

  HUGH: Sophocles from Colonus would agree with Doalty Dan Doalty from Tulach Alainn: ‘To know nothing is the sweetest life.’ Where’s Sean Beag?

  MANUS: He’s at the salmon.

  HUGH: And Nora Dan?

  MAIRE: She says she’s not coming back any more.

  HUGH: Ah. Nora Dan can now write her name – Nora Dan’s education is complete. And the Donnelly twins?

  (Brief pause. Then: –)

  BRIDGET: They’re probably at the turf. (She goes to HUGH.) There’s the one-and-eight I owe you for last quarter’s arithmetic and there’s my one-and-six for this quarter’s writing.

  HUGH: Gratias tibi ago. (He sits at his table.) Before we commence our studia I have three items of information to impart to you – (To MANUS) A bowl of tea, strong tea, black –

  (MANUS leaves.)

  Item A: on my perambulations today – Bridget? Too slow. Maire?

  MAIRE: Perambulare – to walk about.

  HUGH: Indeed – I encountered Captain Lancey of the Royal Engineers who is engaged in the ordnance survey of this area. He tells me that in the past few days two of his horses have strayed and some of his equipment seems to be mislaid. I expressed my regret and suggested he address you himself on these matters. He then explained that he does not speak Irish. Latin? I asked. None. Greek? Not a syllable. He speaks – on his own admission – only English; and to his credit he seemed suitably verecund – James?

  JIMMY: Verecundus – humble.

  HUGH: Indeed – he voiced some surprise that we did not speak his language. I explained that a few of us did, on occasion – outside the parish of course – and then usually for the purposes of commerce, a use to which his tongue seemed particularly suited – (Shouts) and a slice of soda bread – and I went on to propose that our own culture and the classical tongues made a happier conjugation – Doalty?

  DOALTY: Conjugo – I join together.

  (DOALTY is so pleased with himself that he prods and winks at BRIDGET.)

  HUGH: Indeed – English, I suggested, couldn’t really express us. And again to his credit he acquiesced to my logic.

  Acquiesced – Maire?

  (MAIRE turns away impatiently. HUGH is unaware of the gesture.)

  Too slow. Bridget?

  BRIDGET: Acquiesco.

  HUGH: Procede.

  BRIDGET: Acquiesco, acquiescere, acquievi, acquietum.

  HUGH: Indeed – and Item B …

  MAIRE: Master.

  HUGH: Yes?

  (MAIRE gets to her feet uneasily but determinedly. Pause.)

  Well, girl?

  MAIRE: We should all be learning to speak English. That’s what my mother says. That’s what I say. That’s what Dan O’Connell said last month in Ennis. He said the sooner we all l
earn to speak English the better.

  (Suddenly several speak together.)

  JIMMY: What’s she saying? What? What?

  DOALTY: It’s Irish he uses when he’s travelling around scrounging votes.

  BRIDGET: And sleeping with married women. Sure no woman’s safe from that fella.

  JIMMY: Who-who-who? Who’s this? Who’s this?

  HUGH: Silentium! (Pause.) Who is she talking about?

  MAIRE: I’m talking about Daniel O’Connell.

  HUGH: Does she mean that little Kerry politician?

  MAIRE: I’m talking about the Liberator, Master, as you well know. And what he said was this: ‘The old language is a barrier to modern progress.’ He said that last month. And he’s right. I don’t want Greek. I don’t want Latin. I want English.

  (MANUS reappears on the platform above.)

  I want to be able to speak English because I’m going to America as soon as the harvest’s all saved.

  (MAIRE remains standing. HUGH puts his hand into his pocket and produces a flask of whiskey. He removes the cap, pours a drink into it, tosses it back, replaces the cap, puts the flask back into his pocket. Then: –)

  HUGH: We have been diverted – diverto – divertere – Where were we?

  DOALTY: Three items of information, Master. You’re at Item B.

  HUGH: Indeed – Item B – Item B – yes – On my way to the christening this morning I chanced to meet Mr George Alexander, Justice of the Peace. We discussed the new national school. Mr Alexander invited me to take charge of it when it opens. I thanked him and explained that I could do that only if I were free to run it as I have run this hedge-school for the past thirty-five years – filling what our friend Euripides calls the ‘aplestos pithos’ – James?

  JIMMY: ‘The cask that cannot be filled’.

  HUGH: Indeed – and Mr Alexander retorted courteously and emphatically that he hopes that is how it will be run.

  (MAIRE now sits.)

  Indeed. I have had a strenuous day and I am weary of you all. (He rises.) Manus will take care of you.

  (HUGH goes towards the steps. OWEN enters. OWEN is the younger son, a handsome, attractive young man in his twenties. He is dressed smartly – a city man. His manner is easy and charming: everything he does is invested with consideration and enthusiasm. He now stands framed in the doorway, a travelling bag across his shoulder.)

  OWEN: Could anybody tell me is this where Hugh Mor O’Donnell holds his hedge-school?

  DOALTY: It’s Owen – Owen Hugh! Look, boys – it’s Owen Hugh!