[MR BARRELL goes.] Then at evening the clouds will part, the setting sun will shine an instant, then sink, behind the hills. [She realizes MR BARRELL has gone.] Mr Barrell! Mr Barrell! [Silence.] I estrange them all. They come towards me, uninvited, bygones bygones, full of kindness, anxious to help … [The voice breaks.] … genuinely pleased … to see me again … looking so well …. [Handkerchief.] A few simple words … from my heart … and I am all alone … once more …. [Handkerchief. Vehemently.] I should not be out at all! I should never leave the grounds! [Pause.] Oh there is that Fitt woman, I wonder will she bow to me. [Sound of MISS FITT approaching, humming a hymn. She starts climbing the steps.] Miss Fitt! [MISS FITT halts, stops humming.] Am I then invisible, Miss Fitt? Is this cretonne so becoming to me that I merge into the masonry? [MISS FITT descends a step.] That is right, Miss Fitt, look closely and you will finally distinguish a once female shape.
MISS FITT: Mrs Rooney! I saw you, but I did not know you.
MRS ROONEY: Last Sunday we worshipped together. We knelt side by side at the same altar. We drank from the same chalice. Have I so changed since then?
MISS FITT: [Shocked.] Oh but in church, Mrs Rooney, in church I am alone with my Maker. Are not you? [Pause.] Why even the sexton himself, you know, when he takes up the collection, knows it is useless to pause before me. I simply do not see the plate, or bag, whatever it is they use, how could I? [Pause.] Why even when all is over and I go out into the sweet fresh air, why even then for the first furlong or so I stumble in a kind of daze as you might say, oblivious to my co-religionists. And they are very kind I must admit–the vast majority–very kind and understanding. They know me now and take no umbrage. There she goes, they say, there goes the dark Miss Fitt, alone with her Maker, take no notice of her. And they step down off the path to avoid my running into them. [Pause.] Ah yes, I am distray, very distray, even on week-days. Ask Mother, if you do not believe me. Hetty, she says, when I start eating my doily instead of the thin bread and butter, Hetty, how can you be so distray? [Sighs.] I suppose the truth is I am not there, Mrs Rooney, just not really there at all. I see, hear, smell, and so on, I go through the usual motions, but my heart is not in it, Mrs Rooney, my heart is in none of it. Left to myself, with no one to check me, I would soon be flown … home. [Pause.] So if you think I cut you just now, Mrs Rooney, you do me an injustice. All I saw was a big pale blur, just another big pale blur. [Pause.] Is anything amiss, Mrs Rooney, you do not look normal somehow. So bowed and bent.
MRS ROONEY: [Ruefully.] Maddy Rooney, née Dunne, the big pale. blur. [Pause.] You have piercing sight, Miss Fitt, if you only knew it, literally piercing. [Pause.]
MISS FITT: Well … is there anything I can do, now that I am here?
MRS ROONEY: If you would help me up the face of this cliff, Miss Fitt, I have little doubt your Maker would requite you, if no one else.
MISS FITT: Now, now, Mrs Rooney, don’t put your teeth in me. Requite! I make these sacrifices for nothing–or not at all. [Pause. Sound of her descending steps.] I take it you want to lean on me, Mrs Rooney.
MRS ROONEY: I asked Mr Barrell to give me his arm, just give me his arm. [Pause.] He turned on his heel and strode away.
MISS FITT: Is it my arm you want then? [Pause. Impatiently.] Is it my arm you want, Mrs Rooney, or what is it?
MRS ROONEY: [Exploding.] Your arm! Any arm! A helping hand! For five seconds! Christ what a planet!
MISS FITT: Really…. Do you know what it is, Mrs Rooney, I do not think it is wise of you to be going about at all.
MRS ROONEY: [Violently.] Come down here, Miss Fitt, and give me your arm, before I scream down the parish!
[Pause. Wind. Sound of MISS FITT descending last steps.]
MISS FITT: [Resignedly.] Well, I suppose it is the Protestant thing to do.
MRS ROONEY: Pismires do it for one another. [Pause.] I have seen slugs do it. [MISS FITT proffers her arm.] No, the other side, my dear, if it’s all the same to you, I’m left-handed on top of everything else. [She takes MISS FITT’s right arm.] Heavens, child, you’re just a bag of bones, you need building up. [Sound of her toiling up steps on MISS FITT’s arm.] This is worse than the Matterhorn, were you ever up the Matterhorn, Miss Fitt, great honeymoon resort. [Sound of toiling.] Why don’t they have a handrail? [Panting.] Wait till I get some air. [Pause.] Don’t let me go! [MISS FITT hums her hymn. After a moment MRS ROONEY joins in with the words.] … the encircling gloo-oom … [MISS FITT stops humming.] … tum tum me on. [Forte.] The night is dark and I am far from ho-ome, tum tum–
MISS FITT: [Hysterically.] Stop it, Mrs Rooney, stop it, or I’ll drop you!
MRS ROONEY: Wasn’t it that they sung on the Lusitania? Or Rock of Ages? Most touching it must have been. Or was it the Titanic?
[Attracted by the noise a group, including MR TYLER, MR BARRELL and TOMMY, gathers at top of steps.]
MR BARRELL: What the–
[Silence.]
MR TYLER: Lovely day for the fixture.
[Loud titter from TOMMY cut short by MR BARRELL with backhanded blow in the stomach. Appropriate noise from TOMMY.]
A FEMALE VOICE: [Shrill.] Oh look, Dolly, look!
DOLLY: What, Mamma?
A FEMALE VOICE: They are stuck! [Cackling laugh.] They are stuck!
MRS ROONEY: Now we are the laughing-stock of the twenty-six counties. Or is it thirty-six?
MR TYLER: That is a nice way to treat your defenceless subordinates, Mr Barrell, hitting them without warning in the pit of the stomach.
MISS FITT: Has anyone seen my mother?
MR BARRELL: Who is that?
TOMMY: The dark Miss Fitt.
MR BARRELL: Where is her face?
MRS ROONEY: Now, deary, I am ready if you are. [They toil up remaining steps.] Stand back, you cads! [Shuffle of feet.]
A FEMALE VOICE: Mind yourself, Dolly!
MRS ROONEY: Thank you, Miss Fitt, thank you, that will do, just prop me up against the wall like a roll of tarpaulin and that will be all, for the moment. [Pause.] I am sorry for all this ramdam, Miss Fitt, had I known you were looking for your mother I should not have importuned you, I know what it is.
MISS FITT: [In marvelling aside.] Ramdam!
A FEMALE VOICE: Come, Dolly darling, let us take up our stand before the first class smokers. Give me your hand and hold me tight, one can be sucked under.
MR TYLER: You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?
MISS FITT: Good morning, Mr Tyler.
MR TYLER: Good morning, Miss Fitt.
MR BARRELL: Good morning, Miss Fitt.
MISS FITT: Good morning, Mr Barrell.
MR TYLER: You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?
MISS FITT: She said she would be on the last train.
MRS ROONEY: Do not imagine, because I am silent, that I am not present, and alive, to all that is going on.
MR TYLER: [To MISS FITT.] When you say the last train–
MRS ROONEY: Do not flatter yourselves for one moment, because I hold aloof, that my sufferings have ceased. No. The entire scene, the hills, the plain, the racecourse with its miles and miles of white rails and three red stands, the pretty little wayside station, even you yourselves, yes, I mean it, and over all the clouding blue, I see it all, I stand here and see it all with eyes … [The voice breaks.] … through eyes … oh if you had my eyes … you would understand … the things they have seen … and not looked away … this is nothing … nothing … what did I do with that handkerchief? [Pause.]
MR TYLER: [To MISS FITT.] When you say the last train– [MRS ROONEY blows her nose violently and long.] –when you say the last train, Miss Fitt, I take it you mean the twelve thirty.
MISS FITT: What else could I mean, Mr Tyler, what else could I conceivably mean?
MR TYLER: Then you have no cause for anxiety, Miss Fitt, for the twelve thirty has not yet arrived. Look, [MISS FITT looks.] No, up the line, [MISS FITT looks. Patiently.] No, Miss Fitt, follow the direction of my index, [MISS FITT looks.] There. You see now. T
he signal. At the bawdy hour of nine. [In rueful afterthought.] Or three alas! [MR BARRELL stifles a guffaw.] Thank you, Mr Barrell.
MISS FITT: But the time is now getting on for–
MR TYLER: [Patiently.] We all know, Miss Fitt, we all know only too well what the time is now getting on for, and yet the cruel fact remains that the twelve thirty has not yet arrived.
MISS FITT: Not an accident, I trust! [Pause.] Do not tell me she has left the track! [Pause.] Oh darling mother! With the fresh sole for lunch!
[Loud titter from TOMMY, checked as before by MR BARRELL.]
MR BARRELL: That’s enough old guff out of you. Nip up to the box now and see has Mr Case anything for me.
[TOMMY goes.]
MRS ROONEY: Poor Dan!
MISS FITT: [In anguish.] What terrible thing has happened?
MR TYLER: Now now, Miss Fitt, do not–
MRS ROONEY: [With vehement sadness.] Poor Dan!
MR TYLER: Now now, Miss Fitt, do not give way … to despair, all will come right … in the end. [Aside to MR BARRELL.] What is the situation, Mr Barrell? Not a collision surely?
MRS ROONEY: [Enthusiastically.] A collision! Oh that would be wonderful!
MISS FITT: [Horrified.] A collision! I knew it!
MR TYLER: Come, Miss Fitt, let us move a little up the platform.
MRS ROONEY: Yes, let us all do that. [Pause.] No? [Pause.] You have changed your mind? [Pause.] I quite agree, we are better here, in the shadow of the waiting-room.
MR BARRELL: Excuse me a moment.
MRS ROONEY: Before you slink away, Mr Barrell, please, a statement of some kind, I insist. Even the slowest train on this brief line is not ten minutes and more behind its scheduled time without good cause, one imagines. [Pause.] We all know your station is the best kept of the entire network, but there are times when that is not enough, just not enough. [Pause.] Now, Mr Barrell, leave off chewing your whiskers, we are waiting to hear from you–we the unfortunate ticket-holders’ nearest if not dearest.
[Pause.]
MR TYLER: [Reasonably.] I do think we are owed some kind of explanation, Mr Barrell, if only to set our minds at rest.
MR BARRELL: I know nothing. All I know is there has been a hitch. All traffic is retarded.
MRS ROONEY: [Derisively.] Retarded! A hitch! Ah these celibates! Here we are eating our hearts out with anxiety for our loved ones and he calls that a hitch! Those of us like myself with heart and kidney trouble may collapse at any moment and he calls that a hitch! In our ovens the Saturday roast is burning to a shrivel and he calls that–
MR TYLER: Here comes Tommy, running! I am glad I have been spared to see this.
TOMMY: [Excitedly, in the distance.] She’s coming. [Pause. Nearer.] She’s at the level-crossing!
[Immediately exaggerated station sounds. Falling signals. Bells. Whistles. Crescendo of train whistle approaching. Sound of train rushing through station.]
MRS ROONEY: [Above rush of train.] The up mail! The up mail! [The up mail recedes, the down train approaches, enters the station, pulls up with great hissing of steam and clashing of couplings. Noise of passengers descending, doors banging, MR BARRELL shouting “Boghill! Boghill!”, etc. Piercingly.] Dan! … Are you all right? … Where is he? … Dan! … Did you see my husband? … Dan! … [Noise of station emptying. Guard’s whistle. Train departing, receding. Silence.] He isn’t on it! The misery I have endured to get here, and he isn’t on it! … Mr Barrell! … Was he not on it? [Pause.] Is anything the matter, you look as if you had seen a ghost. [Pause.] Tommy! … Did you see the master?
TOMMY: He’ll be along, Ma’am, Jerry is minding him.
[MR ROONEY suddenly appears on platform, advancing on small boy JERRY’s arm. He is blind, thumps the ground with his stick and pants incessantly.]
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Dan! There you are! [Her dragging feet as she hastens towards him, She reaches him. They halt.] Where in the world were you?
MR ROONEY: [Coolly.] Maddy.
MRS ROONEY: Where were you all this time?
MR ROONEY: In the men’s.
MRS ROONEY: Kiss me!
MR ROONEY: Kiss you? In public? On the platform? Before the boy? Have you taken leave of your senses?
MRS ROONEY: Jerry wouldn’t mind. Would you, Jerry?
JERRY: No, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: How is your poor father?
JERRY: They took him away, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Then you are all alone?
JERRY: Yes, Ma’am.
MR ROONEY: Why are you here? You did not notify me.
MRS ROONEY: I wanted to give you a surprise. For your birthday.
MR ROONEY: My birthday?
MRS ROONEY: Don’t you remember? I wished you your happy returns in the bathroom.
MR ROONEY: I did not hear you.
MRS ROONEY: But I gave you a tie! You have it on!
[Pause.]
MR ROONEY: How old am I now?
MRS ROONEY: Now never mind about that. Come.
MR ROONEY: Why did you not cancel the boy? Now we shall have to give him a penny.
MRS ROONEY: [Miserably.] I forgot! I had such a time getting here! Such horrid nasty people! [Pause. Pleading.] Be nice to me, Dan, be nice to me today!
MR ROONEY: Give the boy a penny.
MRS ROONEY: Here are two halfpennies, Jerry. Run along now and buy yourself a nice gobstopper.
JERRY: Yes, Ma’am.
MR ROONEY: Come for me on Monday, if I am still alive.
JERRY: Yessir.
[He runs off.]
MR ROONEY: We could have saved sixpence. We have saved fivepence. [Pause.] But at what cost?
[They move off along platform arm in arm. Dragging feet, panting, thudding stick.]
MRS ROONEY: Are you not well?
[They halt, on MR ROONEY’s initiative.]
MR ROONEY: Once and for all, do not ask me to speak and move at the same time. I shall not say this in this life again.
[They move off. Dragging feet, etc. They halt at top of steps.]
MRS ROONEY: Are you not–
MR ROONEY: Let us get this precipice over.
MRS ROONEY: Put your arm around me.
MR ROONEY: Have you been drinking again? [Pause.] You are quivering like a blancmange. [Pause.] Are you in a condition to lead me? [Pause.] We shall fall into the ditch.
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Dan! It will be like old times!
MR ROONEY: Pull yourself together or I shall send Tommy for the cab. Then instead of having saved sixpence, no, fivepence, we shall have lost … [Calculating mumble.] … two and three less six one and no plus one one and no plus three one and nine and one ten and three two and one … [Normal voice.] two and one, we shall be the poorer to the tune of two and one. [Pause.] Curse that sun, it has gone in. What is the day doing?
[Wind.]
MRS ROONEY: Shrouding, shrouding, the best of it is past. [Pause.] Soon the first great drops will fall splashing in the dust.
MR ROONEY: And yet the glass was firm. [Pause.] Let us hasten home and sit before the fire. We shall draw the blinds. You will read to me. I think Effie is going to commit adultery with the Major. [Brief drag of feet.] Wait! [Feet cease. Stick tapping at steps.] I have been up and down these steps five thousand times and still I do not know how many there are. When I think there are six there are four or five or seven or eight and when I remember there are five there three or four or six or seven and when finally I realize there are seven there are five or six or eight or nine. Sometimes I wonder if they do not change them in the night. [Pause. Irritably.] Well? How many do you make them today?
MRS ROONEY: Do not ask me to count, Dan, not now.
MR ROONEY: Not count! One of the few satisfactions in life!
MRS ROONEY: Not steps, Dan, please, I always get them wrong. Then you might fall on your wound and I would have that on my manure-heap on top of everything else. No, just cling to me and all will be well.
[Confused noise of their descent. Panting, stumbling, ejacula
tions, curses. Silence.]
MR ROONEY: Well! That is what you call well!
MRS ROONEY: We are down. And little the worse. [Silence. A donkey brays. Silence.] That was a true donkey. Its father and mother were donkeys.
[Silence.]
MR ROONEY: Do you know what it is, I think I shall retire.
MRS ROONEY: [Appalled.] Retire! And live at home? On your grant!
MR ROONEY: Never tread these cursed steps again. Trudge this hellish road for the last time. Sit at home on the remnants of my bottom counting the hours–till the next meal. [Pause.] The very thought puts life in me! Forward, before it dies!
[They move on. Dragging feet, panting, thudding stick.]
MRS ROONEY: Now mind, here is the path…. Up!… Well done! Now we are in safety and a straight run home.
MR ROONEY: [Without halting, between gasps.] A straight… run! … She calls that … a straight … run! …
MRS ROONEY: Hush! Do not speak as you go along, you know it is not good for your coronary. [Dragging steps, etc.] Just concentrate on putting one foot before the next or whatever the expression is. [Dragging feet, etc.] That is the way, now we are doing nicely. [Dragging feet, etc. They suddenly halt, on MRS ROONEY’s initiative.] Heavens! I knew there was something! With all the excitement! I forgot!
MR ROONEY: [Quietly.] Good God!
MRS ROONEY: But you must know, Dan, of course, you were on it. Whatever happened? Tell me!
MR ROONEY: I have never known anything to happen.
MRS ROONEY: But you must–
MR ROONEY: [Violently.] All this stopping and starting again is devilish, devilish! I get a little way on me and begin to be carried along when suddenly you stop dead! Two hundred pounds of unhealthy fat! What possessed you to come out at all? Let go of me!
MRS ROONEY: [In great agitation.] No, I must know, we won’t stir from here till you tell me. Fifteen minutes late! On a thirty minute run! It’s unheard of!
MR ROONEY: I know nothing. Let go of me before I shake you off.
MRS ROONEY: But you must know! You were on it! Was it at the terminus? Did you leave on time? Or was it on the line? [Pause.] Did something happen on the line? [Pause.] Dan! [Brokenly.] Why won’t you tell me!
The Complete Dramatic Works Page 17
