LIGHTS UP on room: run down, shabbier than before.
A chair has been drawn up to the bookcase, a large manila envelope is on the floor.
TITANIA, ten years older, well-dressed and poised, is sitting in an armchair, deeply engrossed in ELIZA’s letter, close to the end. On the floor a sheaf of papers already perused.
LIGHTS on room dim. SPOT on ELIZA at her desk.
ELIZA: With no one in the village prepared to give us shelter,
all we could do was break into the church,
where we spent the rest of the night
huddled together in the family pew,
shivering in our sodden night clothes,
pondering what new horrors the morning would bring.
I was still clutching Petrus, but he no longer
felt warm against me, only cold and soggy –
and beginning to get stiff.
The stained glass windows shone with an orange glow;
we could smell the smoke and hear the dull roar of a fire
consuming treasures collected over many generations;
reducing to ashes the graceful lines of an age-old classical
structure.
In the early hours of the morning,
we heard the hoof beat of many horses passing by.
‘They will be our horses!’ mother cried.
‘We’ll never see them again!’
‘Oh well,’ my father sighed.
‘At least they are not being burnt alive in their stables.’
I can’t help thinking of Fiónn Hanrahan.
My good friend turned rebel.
Who slaughtered my puppy, helped pour the petrol,
stood by as my brother was murdered…
I remember him as a nice lad.
He often came up with his mother when she baby-sat for me.
He’d made me a reed-pipe, and I taught him to play Canasta,
though we both preferred Bagatelle…
I wonder, what became of him?
Did he stay on in the village, farming his share
of the land that used to belong to us,
driving his cattle past the charred remains of marble arches
and pillars, over the fragmented bones of our gallant
Captain Laurence?
Did he ever look back – to see a young girl playing his pipe
in a walled garden scented with roses?
Or the evening sun gleaming on oak-panelled walls
in the library as we played our games?
And what about that other, fearful night?
Did the memory continue to haunt him
the way it is still haunting me?
What did he make of it? How did he feel?
Proud – or ashamed?
SPOT on ELIZA down.
TITANIA looks up and out, shocked and stunned.
There is a noise off stage. TITANIA starts, puts the pages together, stuffs them into the envelope, puts it down.
Enter ANDREW, noticeably older and frail, carrying a fishing-rod. He stops and stares at TITANIA, speechless, overcome. She looks back.
SILENCE.
TITANIA: Mrs Conneely let me in.
ANDREW: Why?
TITANIA: I asked her to.
ANDREW: Why are you here?
TITANIA: I wanted to see you.
ANDREW: Haven’t I made my position clear?
TITANIA: That was a long time ago.
ANDREW: Nothing has changed.
TITANIA: I have changed, father.
I’m not the same.
ANDREW eyes her dubiously up and down.
TITANIA: I didn’t understand…
I never thought –
Father – I’m sorry.
I truly am.
ANDREW: That won’t bring your mother back.
Pause.
TITANIA: I stopped off at the churchyard to put some flowers on her grave.
ANDREW looks at her.
TITANIA: It was sad to see the church disused.
Windows smashed, graffiti on the walls…
ANDREW: You never cared for the church.
TITANIA: The grave was the only thing in good order.
ANDREW: (Sighing.) Yes. I do tend my future home.
TITANIA: What does the inscription on her tombstone mean?
‘Only Our Own’?
ANDREW: They were her last words.
TITANIA: But what does it mean?
ANDREW: You can work that out for yourself.
TITANIA: That family is all that matters?
ANDREW: That only your nearest and dearest have the power to destroy you.
Pause.
TITANIA: It wasn’t all my fault.
ANDREW: Forget it! I’m too old for this.
TITANIA: You, too, had a part –
ANDREW: Go back to America! To your life there.
TITANIA: I no longer have a life.
ANDREW: Just leave me in peace!
TITANIA: In America.
ANDREW: You’ve done enough damage.
TITANIA: I meant no harm.
I just wanted my marriage to succeed.
So I did my best to be what Spencer expected.
Allowed myself to be moulded into a perfect banker’s wife.
As smooth and polished and featureless as…as an egg.
But who wants to be married to an egg?
Pause.
He left me for another woman.
A younger model, a professional one,
Italian, aged twenty-three.
Pause.
One blow of the hammer was all it took
to shatter the shell I had so carefully constructed,
laying bare the fledgling soul trapped inside.
It took me years to grow wings
strong enough to fly on my own.
It hasn’t been easy.
ANDREW: Only fools expect life to be easy.
TITANIA: There were times when I was ready to give up.
If it hadn’t been for the children,
I wouldn’t still be here.
ANDREW: The children…
How have they fared?
TITANIA: (Smiling.) They are fine. Hardly children any more.
Eve is at college, reading history of art.
Charles is hoping to be a vet.
They often talk, fondly, about their time here.
The firm foundation you gave them has stood them in good stead.
Pause.
TITANIA: I thought I was giving us all a fresh start.
A chance to live life on our own terms.
Away from the past, free of constraints and constriction…
ANDREW: Without roots.
TITANIA: I was wrong.
I’ve learnt now, the hard way, what it’s like to be without roots.
Nothing to hold on to
when a mean wind blows.
Pause.
TITANIA: (Gently.) What about you?
Are you managing all right?
ANDREW: (Sigh.) They say you get the old age you deserve
TITANIA: What does that mean?
ANDREW: The fishery is losing money.
Salmon stocks are depleted, visitor numbers way down.
My pension does not suffice to plug the holes and keep this place running.
The bank is getting impatient.
TITANIA: So what do you intend to do?
ANDREW: Nothing much I can do.
Pause.
TITANIA: What if I tell you that I’ve come across someone in
New York.
An Irishman – professional, successful…
Working in finance, but only as a means to an end.
What he really wants to do is come back to Ireland, buy an old house deep in the country, run it as an upmarket B & B, with fishing an extra attraction…
He’s a keen fisherman himself.
ANDREW: So?
TITANIA: He has his eye on this place.
ANDREW: It’s not for sale.
TITANIA: Would it not solve your problems?
ANDREW: Where would it leave me?
Dumped in a nursing-home?
TITANIA: You could stay here.
ANDREW: A paying guest in my own home?
No thank you.
TITANIA: As a member of the family.
I’m going to marry this man.
Pause.
ANDREW: You want to come back here?
TITANIA: Yes.
ANDREW: And what makes you think all of a sudden that you’d be happy living in Connemara?
TITANIA: I’d be with someone who loves me for what I am.
Who is man enough to embrace all that I consist of.
And that includes my roots.
Pause.
ANDREW: Going back is never a good idea.
TITANIA: But this could be a way forward.
For all of us.
ANDREW: It wouldn’t suit me.
TITANIA: Think of it, father – what have you got to lose?
ANDREW: Nothing – but I’m used to it.
TITANIA: We’d be here to look after you.
ANDREW: I have Mrs Conneely.
TITANIA: And the children –
They’d love to be back here.
ANDREW: They’ll have their own lives to lead.
TITANIA: They need a fixed point in the world.
And this is the only place they ever thought of as home.
Pause.
TITANIA: I’m not asking you to take a stand.
Just please consider it.
ANDREW: All right…
I’ll think about it.
TITANIA gets up, prepares to leave.
TITANIA: I’ll be in touch again.
She sees the envelope, picks it up, contemplates it briefly.
TITANIA: There is one thing I have to tell you…
About my future husband.
ANDREW: What?
TITANIA: A mutual friend introduced us, having discovered that we both had a family connection with the same village in Tipperary.
That was how it all started…
ANDREW: What’s his name?
TITANIA: Fiónn Hanrahan.
After his grandfather.
ANDREW: Sounds very Irish.
TITANIA: (Deep breath.) His grandfather was a rebel.
He was there when they burnt Belford.
He helped pour the petrol!
ANDREW: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?
TITANIA: I didn’t know!
I only discovered it –
ANDREW: Mixing with that scum!
TITANIA: – reading Grandma’s letter.
While I was waiting for you.
ANDREW: So you know what they did.
To her and her family. Your forbears.
Seized their land – laid waste their property – executed the son and heir!
TITANIA: I know!
I’ve read all about it.
ANDREW: The only thing left was this place.
And you would let them take that, too!
TITANIA: Nothing will be taken!
Fiónn is going to help us keep it, look after it, care for it.
Stop it from going to rack and ruin.
ANDREW: Over my dead body!
TITANIA: He’d want to keep everything just as it’s always been.
ANDREW: Your grandmother will be turning in her grave.
TITANIA: I don’t think so.
ANDREW: And, to top it all, he’s taking you!
Like an idiot, you’ve walked straight into it.
TITANIA: Father – Fiónn has no idea.
He doesn’t know what his grandfather got up to.
ANDREW: Some chance.
TITANIA: You should know.
It’s not something families talk about.
ANDREW: High time then, that you enlighten him.
TITANIA: I don’t know that I will.
ANDREW looks at her.
TITANIA: Can’t you see – this only concerns you and me.
It’s for us to decide what’s worth holding on to, and what will do more harm than good.
Pause.
ANDREW moves away from her, stops, fingers an object connected with MEG.
ANDREW: (To himself.) Certain things…best forgotten…
TITANIA: One has to take what life offers.
ANDREW: (To himself.) Baggage the young can do without…
TITANIA: Accept it gracefully – on the terms given.
ANDREW: (To himself.) No good…dwelling on the past…
TITANIA: Whatever the past – the future is our own.
ANDREW: (To himself.) Let bygones be bygones…
TITANIA: Father – what is that you’re saying?
ANDREW: (Looking at her.) What can I say?
Other than…
He turns towards her, holding out his hands.
ANDREW: Welcome home.
Their eyes meet and hold.
FADE OUT.
A SPOOKY LIGHT picks out MEG and ELIZA upstage, before they dissolve into darkness.
THE END.