Country Girls Read online

  Baba runs onstage, her coat unbuttoned, wild-looking. Kate cowers back, not wanting to be seen.

  Baba almost stumbles on her.

  Baba Where the Christ have you been?

  Kate ‘Dupped the chamber door …’

  Baba Where?

  Kate Yonder.

  Baba Yonder, feck. We scoured the lanes all night … Thought you were strangled … Gustav is gone to the guards …

  Kate (in her own world) Afterwards he fell asleep, my Romeo from beyond Donabate … It was so long, so lonely a night … This … lifetime between when I waited in Bachelors Walk under the awning … in a whirl … in seventh heaven … ‘He made my life a beautiful song’ – that was what I was going to say to Mr Gentleman. He funked it … Lifetime between that and this … a trail of blood on the linoleum stairs.

  Baba (concerned) You’re alright.

  Kate (very fast) The small rain down doth rain … Christ that my love was in my arms, and I … kept saying it to myself in that dump room … No feelings of any kind … no sweetness. Hide me Baba, hide me.

  Baba Get up.

  Kate I want to stay here. (Emphatic.) Stay here. Stay here.

  Baba You’re in feckin’ slob land.

  Kate I’m the feckin’ slob land.

  She opens back the newspaper to show the menstrual blood.

  Baba picks up the plastic bucket and runs offstage.

  Nacht und Träume … Night and dreams.

  Kate kneels on the ground among the litter and dark porter bottles with broken necks. She picks one up and just looks at it.

  Baba returns with bucket full of water and a dipper, takes broken bottle from Kate and kicks the other bottles aside. As she washes Kate she sings a lullaby, the song interspersed between the dialogue.

  Baba

  Seoithín seothó, mo stór é mo leanabh

  Mo sheod gan chealg, mo chuid den tsaol mór

  Seoithín seothó, nach mór é an taitneamh

  Mo stóirín ina leaba ina chodladh gan bhrón

  A leanbh, mo chléibh, go n-éirí do chodladh leat

  Slán agus sonas a choíche ’do chomhair

  Seo beannacht Mhic Dé agus téagar a Bhuime leat

  Téiríg a chodladh gan bíogadh go ló –

  Kate (blurry voice) That’s lovely, Baba … Miss Moriarty used to recite to herself after we left – ‘I fled him down the days and down the nights, I fled him down the arches of the years and in the midst of my own tears I conquered him.’ The Hound of Heaven. Mr Gentleman was that, is that …

  Baba (cutting in) You’re crazy.

  Kate I was crazy but I’m not now … I’m sane.

  Baba I’m sane too but I’m not about to slit my wrists.

  Kate You don’t understand … you don’t know.

  Baba

  Ar mhullach an tí tá síoga geala

  Fá chaoin ré an earraigh ag imirt a spóirt

  Is seo iad aniar chun glaoigh ar mo leanbh

  Le mian é tharraingt isteach sa lios mór

  Goirm tú, a chroí, ní bhfaighfidh siad do mhealladh

  Le brí a gcleas ná le binneas a gceoil

  Táimse led’ thaoibh ag guí ort na mbeannacht

  Seoithín, a leanbh, ní himtheo’ tú leo.

  Over the song, Kate takes one of the broken bottles and puts it to her ear.

  Kate Clontarf … the sea silent, then slurping … He’s holding a shell to my ear and telling me things that the sea is saying and he saying it too, big, deep, enchanted things.

  Baba We all want that … that’s what we all want, big, deep enchanted things.

  Baba goes to leave.

  Kate gets up and throws the bottle on to the ground.

  Kate Don’t go.

  Baba Old Reg gave me the elbow.

  Kate (aghast) No?

  Baba His missus got back from the Canaries a day early and found out. He gave me all this bull about family values and what Maureen and he had been through when they came to Dublin, didn’t have the price of a cup of tea or a currant bun … She stood by him, helped him to be the man he is – the tycoon … But, I’d always have a place in his heart … Still a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do … ’Twas hilarious …

  Kate How did she find out?

  Baba My knickers … he had it in a drawer as a souvenir.

  Kate Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

  Baba So we’re both strumpets now and we’re off to London.

  Kate We don’t know anyone in London … Hickey’s in Birmingham.

  Baba I heard this gas story about a posh English deb type, riding in Rotten Row, she steps down off the horse and says, ‘Oh shit, I’ve stepped in a doodah.’ We’ll be a breath of fresh air, with our country sayings … we’ll be the toast of the town.

  Kate I’m not going.

  Baba Please yourself.

  Kate We’ll never find love, we’ll never know what true love is.

  Baba Not half.

  Sound of a church bell tolling the hour.

  Baba drops the dipper.

  Kate Where are you off to?

  Baba A hotel … for a last big guzzle with Reg. He’s bringing the lolly, the lovely lovely lolly.

  Baba goes.

  Kate starts to walk and as she does she talks to the audience.

  Kate I just kept walking and walking … I knew what Baba said was true, everyone in the same boat as me, but when you love a person you’re blind … I was certain that I would walk into Mr Gentleman, we’d be on the same bit of road, walking towards one another and I was … light-headed.

  As she walks, her Father walks towards her, furious, Joanna trailing behind.

  Joanna (to Kate) We think you dead … We think you cut up like poor nurse stuffed in suitcase and left in alleyway.

  Father (to Kate) Cover yourself.

  Kate (almost brazen) Why?

  Father I said cover yourself … You’re coming home.

  Kate I’m not. Baba and I are going to England.

  Father England, my arse. I’ll knock England out of you and every other bit of wantonness.

  Joanna (to Father) Mister, sir, be not so loud … My Gustav he never shout.

  Father She’s a harlot.

  Kate (to Joanna) Leave us … This is between him and me.

  Joanna hesitates, then goes.

  Father What did you do, what did he do to you?

  Kate ‘What did you do, what did he do to you?’ … I went with a man to a hotel room. (Strange little laugh.) That’s what I did.

  Father (cutting in) ‘Old enough to be your father … His wife had to get the Canon to talk sense into him. Blackened my name. you have.

  Kate (cutting in) It wasn’t with Mr Gentleman that … I … harloted. It was with a stranger, from near the border.

  Father crosses and pinions her against a wall.

  Father Foul. Degenerate. There’s rotten blood in you.

  Kate (reliving it as if for herself) Crept out, carrying my clothes … Walked. Walked towards the sea … then away from the sea towards the dunes … I kissed Mr Gentleman in the dunes. And it was beautiful.

  Father slaps her.

  Father You’re a lunatic.

  Kate Yes, a lunatic … when things happen … when you can’t take it any more, or think you can’t take it … you go (mimicking) lunatic, tit-willow, tit-willow, tit-woo … But you come back, because otherwise they put you away … they put volts into your brain to deaden you … to kill all the love in you.

  Father (slapping her even harder) Damn right, they do.

  Kate jerks his hand away and touches her cheeks, as if brushing away the assault.

  Kate You can break in horses, Dad … but not a person. Don’t you see, I have crawled out from under your … sway … My mother and I, how often we stood out of doors under the big copper beech tree, in our nightgowns, for fear of you … Waiting for you to come home … roaring and shouting. That was it … that was always it, in our nightgowns, waiting for you to come home roaring
and shouting.

  He grips his hand around her throat to strangle her.

  Go on … do for me … They’ll put you away and you’ll have lots of time to think ‘What kind of a father am I?’ … ‘What kind of husband was I?’ The truth is there … the day she drowned … and the word came and we were called out of Nosferatu and you were called out of a pub in Portumna … blotto.

  He drops his arm, stunned by her words.

  Father Why are you doing this to me?

  Kate I want you to see … to feel.

  Father Good Christ … I see myself by the fire, every single night, scratching my head … (Voice rising with each intonation.) I see … I see … I see … (Desperately.) I don’t know what to do, without your mother. I loved her … I haven’t touched a drink since … and you torture me – for what?

  Kate To be the father you never were to me.

  Father You’d scoot to England and send back one of your fine, false letters.

  Kate (nettled) You’re right … I might have written one of those fine, false craven letters – ‘Dear Dad, I hope you are bearing up and how is the weather, and how many yearlings do you have in the Calf Park?’ Tripe.

  Father Yes, tripe.

  Kate But you have saved me that hypocrisy. Every hard thing that happens brings us nearer to the truth … I know that now … you told us once of being on a boat with your younger brother on the Shannon and a storm blew up and your younger brother – he’s dead, poor man – got hysterical and you slapped him … thought you slapped his fear out of him, but really, Dad, you slapped his fear into him … and into us, my mother and me.

  Father I am a father … I feel things.

  Kate I know. I have heard you cry … even when Mam was alive … I pitied you, sometimes, going up to bed on a summer’s evening, while it was still bright, the fawn blind drawn. What were you missing … drink … the life in the pub … your youth … the parents that died on you, died together on you when you were four.

  Father (softened by this) Come home … You can go to the technical school and learn some craft – cookery and needlework.

  Kate I can’t, Dad.

  Father Why not?

  Kate Because I have already gone.

  Father ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth is thankless child.’ You quoted that once to your mother and swore you’d never do the same.

  Kate (close to tears) Let me go.

  Father turns and takes three steps away from her.

  Father (half turning) You don’t know the cost it is to me – the heartbreak.

  Kate I do.

  Pause.

  Come in. We’ll ring a taxi to take you to the station.

  Father I’ll walk … I know the road.

  He goes.

  Sudden darkness.

  Foghorn and screaming seagulls. Commotion as ship is being loaded with cargo. Muffled voices of workmen offstage.

  Kate is downstage sitting sideways, oblivious of the scene that commences around her as others gather for the farewell scene on the boat.

  On the back screen a big ship with the name HIBERNIA in gold lettering, as in Act One.

  A new moon.

  A man carrying a melodeon and clothes for Kate walks on. He dresses her in a jacket, a hard hat and high black leather boots. She seems oblivious of him, talking talking talking.

  Kate (to audience) I’ll wait outside the Four Courts … as they pass one by one … the barristers in their gowns and their yellowy wigs. Mr Gentleman will see me and he’ll melt … we’ll drive out to Cluaintarb, Fort of the Bulls. (Zany but trying to be matter-of-fact.) Battle of Clontarf, April 23rd 1014 between the forces of Brian Boru and the forces of Mael Morda, the trees spattered with the blood of the slain, and though Brian was the victor, Brodir saw him praying in his tent and killed him, yelling, ‘Now let man tell man that Brodir felled Brian.’

  Over her speech others come on stage so that we only get snippets of the Battle saga.

  First is The Body, his sleeves rolled up, wearing a long leather waistcoat with pockets, and in the pockets a bottle of whisky and tiny shot glasses. He is holding a bunch of yellow roses. With him is another man, The Innocent. Together they carry on a bed. Sounds of seagulls, foghorns and merchandise being loaded on to the ship, along with the strains of the melodeon softly played.

  Innocent Man talks eagerly in a Dublin accent while The Body whistles as they set the bed up.

  They are followed by Joanna, who has a suitcase in each hand and two or three hats on her head, this being the way to carry them. Gustav carries a white cotton quilt and Kate’s books bound with a strap. Everything is flung on to the bed.

  Sister Mary is carrying her white veil and fingers her soft new, black hair.

  Innocent Man Did ya hear … yer man back in John O’Gods … Shockin’ shockin’ altogether, he’s effin’ and blindin’ and him that wouldn’t hurt a fly, I’d say it’s not the drink, it’s his mammy, she thought the sun shone out of him.

  The Body Did it shine out of his backside?

  Innocent Man I lit two candles for the girls. I did. Wan in St Teresa’s and the other in the Pro Cathedral, they say you have to have the naked flame for it to shoot straight up to heaven … Poor craytur effin’ and blindin’, he attacked a warder he did, gave him a black eye an’ a nose bleed.

  The Body ignores him as he crosses and offers Joanna a drink from the whiskey bottle.

  Joanna (shaking her head) I no like the germs …

  The Body then offers it to Gustav, who takes it and drinks.

  Gustav Nice, nice … hooch.

  The Body wipes the rim of the bottle with a dirty handkerchief, pours a little into one of the shot glasses, which he offers to Sister Mary.

  Sister Mary (as she takes it) I have the pledge.

  The Body You’ve more than that, baby.

  Baba enters in a long ocelot coat with matching handbag and very high-heeled shoes, holding the boat tickets between her teeth. Music louder.

  The Body hands her the roses and leads her into a galumpin’ dance.

  Innocent Man (above the music) May the road rise to meet ye. May the wind be always at yer back.

  The Body (louder) With ye gone it won’t be the same.

  Baba Why not?

  The Body Yer special, yer wild. You’re wild on one way and Kate in another.

  Baba You never said this before.

  The Body No, but I felt it.

  Innocent Man May ye come in the morning … May the wind be always at yer back.

  Joanna (to Kate) Why you go?

  Kate I have to.

  Joanna He no finished … your friend. The mans, they love the young frau.

  Kate I’d be his pet fish on the end of the rod … dying and dangling.

  Joanna Mein Gott … you are in love with him.

  Sister Mary crosses to Kate.

  Halfway through her speech Mr Gentleman enters, not seen by Kate.

  Sister Mary (softly) I was in love with you the way you were in love with James Joyce and his Shannon waves.

  Kate His mutinous Shannon waves. (Pause.) Are you out now?

  Sister Mary Yes … feel my hair.

  Kate (feeling it) It’s like a baby’s.

  Sister Mary You’re doing the right thing.

  Kate Am I? If he came now … I’d swoon … I’d faint.

  Mr Gentleman walks downstage, directly opposite where Kate is standing.

  There is a hush from all the others.

  Mr Gentleman Hello, Kate.

  Pause.

  Say anything.

  Kate does not acknowledge him.

  I hear you’re going to London … London’s a big city … a city of wolves.

  Kate Yes. Baba and I are leaving.

  Mr Gentleman But you hope to write … to be a writer. Your inspiration is here … in your own country … History … Nature … Kith and kin. ‘Little stony pastures, whose flowers are sweet but rare …’

  Kate (rapidly) History … Natur
e … Kith and kin … The wide open gate and the crooked road and all that one thinks and feels and finds and loses … the grief and the gall, Mr Gentleman.

  Mr Gentleman You don’t know the power you have over me.

  Kate It can’t be. It can’t be.

  Mr Gentleman Why not, Kate?

  Kate We’re not strong enough. It’s not like the myths … it’s not Tristan and Isolde or Diarmuid and Grainne.

  Mr Gentleman It is. Give things a chance.

  Kate I’d love to … but I know.

  Mr Gentleman What do you know?

  Kate The night my mother died and the night you didn’t come … they’re linked … Two worlds. Two absences. We fill up with everything that happens to us, the good things and the not good things and it’s like we’re in this big deep well and we long for another to put a dipper down into us … for that connection. And it happens, it does happen … and then it unhappens … and we are alone … That’s why there’s poems, Mr Gentleman … to fill the void.

  Over a loudspeaker, a Male Voice.

  Male Voice (Cork accent) Will all those who are not travelling please immediately disembark the ship.

  The others start to go.

  Mr Gentleman So you really are going away.

  Kate Yes. (Pause.) Maybe you’re right, maybe some part of me will always be in the fields around home.

  Mr Gentleman walks up to her, whispers in her ear and then goes.

  Mr Gentleman (offstage) My ghost love … my ghost child.

  Kate (crying) My ghost love, my ghost child.

  Baba walks towards her and biffs her with her handbag.

  Baba And you’re still a right-looking eejit.

  They totter back to the bunk as the boat moves.

  The Melodeon Player moves closer in to serenade them.

  Darkness.

  In the darkness we hear Kate writing the first line of her future novel.

  Kate It began to snow, the flakes fell sudden and slanting against the windscreen … Cows came round a bend so we had to slow down to let them pass. His hand came off the steering wheel and met mine … It was cold and white like marble and he said my name, softly, soft as the patter of the falling snow.