Night. Dark blue light.
Picture of a ship on back screen with HIBERNIA in gold lettering.
Three steps at rear of stage leading to higher area.
Various props for the play are, as yet, invisible in the dark, but they include a melodeon, a bunch of wild flowers and grasses, a folded feather Christmas tree, several candles in iron sconces of different sizes, a statue of the Infant of Prague, a photograph of Kate’s mother, a bucket of water, a clothes horse and chairs hanging on nails on the wall.
Kate, a young girl in a navy gym frock, is standing with arms outstretched, eyes closed. She is dreaming.
From opposite sides of the stage, two people enter – Kate’s Mother in black satin nightgown. Mr Gentleman in long, navy nap coat.
The characters as they appear in Kate’s dream are unaware of each other.
Mr Gentleman Kate … are you coming?
Kate Yes. Yes. Where are we going?
Mr Gentleman Where do you want to go?
Kate Where we went before … to Cluaintarb, Clontarf, the Fort of the Bull. (Half in, half out of her dream.) The sea was so still, the water just, lapping … You said why don’t you say something and I said it’s because I am so happy, there’s no need to say anything when you’re happy.
Mr Gentleman Wasn’t there snow …
Kate That was a different time … when we went to Limerick and it started to snow … on the way home.
Mr Gentleman goes.
(To audience.) Mr Gentleman lived in the white house … on the hill. It had turret windows and an oak door … They kept to themselves. He worked as a barrister in Dublin and came home at weekends. In summertime he sailed his houseboat all along the Shannon River.
Mother Caithleen … Caithleen.
Kate Dada didn’t come.
Mother No.
Kate Will he come today?
Mother I heard the banshee.
Kate I didn’t.
Mother It means someone is about to die.
Kate That would be Thady’s mother … She’s a bag of bones, she only eats carrageen moss.
Mother The strange thing is, the voice was beautiful but the song was lonesome.
Mother goes.
Repeated ring of a bicycle bell as Baba cycles in on her pink-witch bicycle, singing lustily. That brings Kate awake.
Baba
She’ll be coming down the mountain
When she comes
When she comes
She’ll be wearing silk pyjamas
When she comes
Singing oy oy yippee yippee oy
Oy oy yippee yippee oy
She’ll be wearing silk pyjamas
When she comes
When she comes …
Over the song, Kate puts on her school satchel and picks up a woollen scarf and a bunch of country flowers.
She walks towards the clothes line, which has a sheet hanging on it. Baba cycles past her brazenly.
You’re like a bloody eskimo with that scarf.
Kate’s Mother in wrap-around apron walks towards the clothes line with a basin of clothes that she starts to hang.
Kate kisses her mother through the sheet and their conversation is played as they walk in and out under that sheet.
Kate (proffering the flowers) Smell.
Mother They say lilac is unlucky in the house.
Kate That’s the white lilac, not the purple.
Mother Put on your scarf.
Kate It’s sunny.
Mother Put it on … You could get a relapse.
Kate reluctantly puts on the scarf.
Where did you find all the flowers?
Kate In the woods … but I took a little bit of lilac from the garden. Will you meet me after school?
Mother Yes, darling. I’ll be down at the gate calling hens … They’re laying out like crazy … pure divilment in them … real wanderers. (Urgent.) Say a prayer that he’ll come home sober.
Kate goes.
Baba cycles back up and grabs a pyjama bottom from the clothes line, still singing.
Baba
Oy yoy yippee yippee yoy
She’ll be wearing silk pyjamas
When she comes … when she comes …
Mother (shouting) Baba Brennan, put that garment back.
Baba (coy) Oh Mrs Brady, aren’t you the great woman to have your washing done and a fine soft morning that’s in it and the birds and the bees agog.
Mother (cutting in) Put it back, I said.
Baba flings the pyjamas on to the line.
Baba By the way, Mummy says to tell you she hasn’t forgotten that she’s going to ask you over for afternoon tea … The drawing room is being redecorated and she doesn’t want you subjected to that smell – it’s the paste for the wallpaper, quite foul.
Baba cycles off even more recklessly.
Mother Afternoon tea! I’ve been hearing that for God knows how long.
Baba catches up with Kate.
Kate What soap are you using, Baba? It smells like roses.
Baba How would you know? You don’t even wash in that bathroom of yers … bowls of water on the kitchen table and an old face cloth cut up from rags.
Kate (defensive) We have a guest room.
Baba Jesus, ye have, and there’s oats in it. Did yer old fella come home?
Kate No.
Baba (boisterous) Oh, he’s on the batter.
Kate Don’t say that.
Baba grabs the flowers and puts them in her bicycle basket.
Kate I got them for Miss Moriarty.
Baba (as she cycles off) You’re a right-looking eejit.
Kate is met by Thady, who is holding a scythe. He is in his shirtsleeves, peaked cap and old greasy trousers. He sees himself as a bard in voice and gesture. Kate is trying to get away from him.
Thady Caith-leen … daughter of Houlihan.
Kate Hello, Thady … are you not in your pub?
Thady In the bosom of nature … disposing of thistle and ragwort.
Kate … Oh that’s grand.
As she walks he follows.
Thady Your dear mother, clad in her wonder, handbag and shoes of the lizard fraternity, extremely thin ankles as she alighted from the bridal carriage. (More rational.) How is your dear mother on this sultry morning? … Your dad not come home?
Kate (over-quickly) He had business in Nenagh.
Thady My little taverna is making ripples. Local T.D. pops in whenever he’s nigh, Dublin crowd last weekend, drinking till the small hours, malt and the odd biscuit to soak it up … very famous heart surgeon interested in the history of our little townland that yours truly is penning.
Thady Jocular chap, contends that daily brush with death sharpens zest for life.
Kate I better be getting on, Thady … Miss Moriarty would belt me if I was late.
Thady Too highly strung … runs in that family. Your mother coming thisaway?
Kate She might … there’s hens laying out … divils.
Thady Clad in her wonder … I have a few little keepsakes she might enjoy … heirlooms, belonged to Mother and dear Aunt Agatha – an amber brooch that glimmers when shaken, when still a mere amber, but when shaken … bursts.
Kate (calling back as she points in the distance) Is that the graves of the Leinster men over there?
Thady watches her go, his voice now angry, rapid, the words disjointed.
Thady What about the graves of the Ulster men and the Connaught men and the Munster men … Bachelors, beware of youth’s dream. It rusts, it rots, it warps, it wilts, it weeps … Unsilent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy waters.
Light fades on him.
Kate walks into the classroom and is met by Miss Moriarty, distraite, unkempt hair, grey lisle stockings not drawn up tightly enough, holding the flowers.
Miss Moriarty We have news to be proud of … our school has made a name for itself because our prize pupil has swept all Ireland before her.
Baba Who, who?
Miss Moriarty (to Kate) You, Kate, have made the annals, you are one of two girls to have won a scholarship and so secured for yourself a coveted convent education.
Kate Gosh.
Miss Moriarty Oh yes, I schooled you in the works of our bards. (Getting carried away.) ‘O Dun-dalgan, Dun-dalgan, thou city of my sires, my own city, how red now are thy consuming flames; but on the other march there shall be a red eric for thy destruction, when the Boyne shall receive the hosts of that bitter and relentless queen –
She gestures Kate to join her and together they finish the recitation.
– and their horses shall trample down their footmen, and mariners out in the Murinet will wonder at the ruddy tide which those sacred waters will roll down to the sea.’
Baba (interrupting) Where will she be going?
Miss Moriarty I am recommending that she go to St Enda’s … they have a great record with exceptional pupils.
Girl Can we have the day off, Miss?
Miss Moriarty Certainly not.
Girls (together, in Gaelic) Séad séad séad séad séad.
The Girls shout her down and then spontaneously begin a song in Gaelic, which also involves a hand-clapping game. The song is broken up between the snippets of conversation.
Beidh aonach amarach I gcontae an Chlair
Cen mhaith dom e, ni bheidh me ann!
Curfa:
Is a mhaithrin,
A ligfir chun an aonagh me?
A mhuirnin, O
Na heiligh e!
Rachaidh me a ’bailiu leat caora is cno,
Is bearfamid ahaile lan an chiseain mhoir.
Bhearfaidh me cnuasach chugat on tra
Crubain, creanach, duileasc brea.
Cuirfidh me an t-iorna ar an chrois
Is bogfaidh me an cliabhan le mo chois.
B’fhearr liom fein mo ghreasai brog,
Na oifigeach airm fen a lasa I oir.
Nil tu a deich na a haon deag fos,
Ach a bheas tu tri-deag, beidh tum or.
Baba I’m going to St Enda’s too. Daddy has it all fixed. We’re paying of course … it’s nicer when you pay.
Kate Liar.
Baba I’ll have my own cubicle … you’ll be in an open dormitory with the riff-raff.
They break away from each other and Baba runs off singing the Irish song lustily.
Miss Moriarty starts another of her recitations but the light goes down on her. The recitation is carried over Kate’s walk.
Miss Moriarty (voice, off)
Did they dare, did they dare to slay Owen Roe O’Neill?
Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel …
May God wither up their hearts, may their blood cease to flow …
Kate almost tramples on Hickey, the young workman, who is having a doze, his cap over his face. He is about twenty and sits up, sleepy-looking, hair tousled.
Hickey Dotey … darling … honeybunch … you gave me a fright.
Kate Why aren’t you in the bog?
Hickey I brought home two creels of turf already.
Kate I got a scholarship, I’ll be going to St Enda’s in September … Mama will be glad.
Hickey She’s gone to her mother’s.
Kate Why?
Hickey He came home staggering … the hat back on the head … angling for a fight. He wanted money, she refused, he began to get rough … I was in the dairy, I could hear it all, she saying she wouldn’t, she just would not and in the end she walked across and took the money from the tea caddy and off he went. It was for the rates. She’s gone to her mother’s to borrow more … you’re to stay the night with Baba.
Hickey goes to leave.
Kate I don’t want to stay with Baba … You’ll mind me, Hickey … we’re friends.
Hickey I can’t mind you … I have to carry this place on my shoulders … I can’t sit at the end of the kitchen table minding you.
Kate goes up the steps to the inner room and picks up a nightgown and hairbrush, which she puts in her school satchel for her overnight stay with Baba. To one side is a jewellery casket.
Baba enters whistling, opens the casket and takes out necklaces and bracelets, which she dons, preening.
Kate I’m to stay with you.
Baba Hope you haven’t lice or scabies.
Kate No, I haven’t.
Baba (lifting Kate’s hair both jealously and roughly) If you had lice in that hair you couldn’t stay … I can’t have crawlies all over my pillow … crawlies carry you off to the lake. We’ll have to douche you with paraffin oil. (Dangling a rope necklace and rings.) These will do for your keep.
Kate They can’t … they’re Mama’s.
Baba (mimicking) ‘They can’t … they’re Mama’s.’
Kate’s Father on the bottom step, drunk, vexed, his hat pulled back on his head.
Father All quiet in the castle. Where’s your mother?
Kate I don’t know.
Father Answer my question.
Kate I don’t know.
Baba tries to squeeze her way past him but he blocks her.
Baba tries to squeeze her way past him but he blocks her.
Father (to Kate) Who are you packing them things for?
Baba She’s to stay with us.
Father She is not … She’s staying here to look after her father.
Baba There is someone coming to cook the dinner … Mrs Miles from the cottages … as a matter of fact we have to go down there now and tell her to come up here immediately and get it on.
She pulls Kate and they squeeze past him and run out.
Father Come back here.
Baba Jesus, he’s blotto.
Father Come back here.
Light on Martha, Baba’s mother, sitting on the chaise doing her nails. She has a cuticle set, a bottle of nail polish. Her actions are affected. The Girls come running in, breathless.
Baba Jesus, her aul fella attacked us … We’re lucky to have escaped.
Martha Hello, Kate.
Kate Hello, Mrs Brennan … (Clumsy.) I’m sorry to be a nuisance.
Martha I like visitors … it puts my hubby in a good mood.
Baba I’m starving … Where’s that dope, Molly?
Molly (offstage) I heard you … It is a worm you have in you … an’ no manners.
Molly comes on with a Pyrex bowl of trifle and two spoons. Baba nabs it.
Martha Give Kate some.
Baba She doesn’t eat trifle, she’s fasting.
Martha She shouldn’t. (To Kate.) You’re very thin. (She dons a shawl that is on the back of the chaise.) I’m taking you girls to a show … a treat. I believe Kate has won a scholarship. Congratulations, love.
Baba (fixing the shawl) Those actresses don’t hold a candle to you, Mummy … You could have had a career on stage or screen … instead you marry Mr Grump.
Martha stands and wraps her shawl around herself very affectedly.
Who’ll be there?
Martha A few people of note and the plebs.
Baba Will old heart-throb be there?
Martha Meaning …
Baba Old Gentleman.
Martha He might … he’s so elusive. (To Molly.) Tell Mr Brennan I took the girls to a show … There’s some cold cuts in the pantry and you can heat those potatoes.
Molly (offstage) I thought it was my night off.
Martha (with an arm around Kate) I would have invited your mother but she’s not at home.
Kate She’ll be back … she only went to get something.
Music. The company, some playing, some humming, arranges chairs for the movie house. Thady in smart waistcoat and high collared white shirt is holding posters of Nosferatu and acting as Master of Ceremonies.
Thady Ladies and gentlemen, step right up, travel to the Castle of Night, Nosferatu the Vampyre, the insufferable one. All are welcome to share in the extravaganza of terror.
Martha, Kate, Baba and others begin to find their seats. Mr Gentleman enters, tall, aloof, wearing a long motor coat, vague smile.
Thady (giving him a programme) Sir, what an honour.
Martha (to Mr Gentleman) Hello, stranger … I thought we’d see you at the hunt ball.
Mr Gentleman Work work work. I’m in chambers all week. I rarely get home.
Martha Lucky you … I pine for the city.
Mr Gentleman You can have it.
Mr Gentleman takes out a silver cigarette case, snaps it open and offers Martha a cigarette, which she accepts.
Martha Do you still have your houseboat, Gabriel – Shannon Girl?
Mr Gentleman Oh yes. It’s my passion.
Martha (flirtatious) Why so?
Mr Gentleman Nothing can compare with it, the peace, the quiet, the freedom, the breeze, the vastness, I don’t even wear a watch. (Smiling.) I banish time.
Martha Would you describe yourself as a loner?
Pause.
Mr Gentleman Absolutely.
Martha And how does Mildred cope?
Mr Gentleman She loves her garden.
Martha Men!
Movie house lights dim, the whir of the projector. Murnau’s Nosferatu with it’s tremulous underscoring.
Suddenly, into the pitch darkness is the beam of a flashlight, Mr Brennan walking towards them.
Baba (whisper) Jesus, it’s my aul fella.
Mr Brennan whispers to Mr Gentleman and he and Martha go out. Kate is watching the screen earnestly, identifying with the heroine, her mouth half open in terror.
Mr Brennan takes Kate out downstage.
There are two Women and a Simpleton with a hen in his pocket. The Women bless themselves repeatedly as Kate approaches.
Kate What’s up?
She goes from face to face but none answer.
What is it?
Mr Brennan Let’s go across to the hotel, Caithleen.
Thady Tell the girl … ’tis better to tell her.
Kate Tell me what?
Mr Brennan Your mother got on Tim Haran’s boat to go across to the island to her mother’s and they haven’t been seen since.
Thady I always said that boat was rotten.
Kate Where are they?
Mr Gentleman No one knows …
Mr Brennan A squall came up …
Kate Where are they?
Mr Gentleman Maybe they’re in some cove … sheltering.
Woman 1 Lord have mercy.
Woman 2 Christ have mercy.
Simpleton Hairy eggs and bacon hairy eggs and ham hairy eggs and bacon.
Martha Will someone shut that hooligan up.
Simpleton brings the hen close to their faces to frighten them.
Simpleton Chook chook chook.
(Singing.) Give the woman in the bed more porter, More porter for the woman in the bed.
He is pushed away.
Thady (to Kate) I would have given your dear mother the money for the rates … as God is my judge. She had only to ask.
Kate How long are they missing?
Mr Brennan We don’t know. The sergeant has gone to Mount Shannon … he should be back any minute now and we’ll know more then.
Kate runs to go to her mother. Mr Gentleman follows and pulls her back by the sleeve of her cardigan.
Mr Gentleman Caithleen … we just have to wait … and hope. Two fishermen and a gillie have gone searching and if anyone can find them, they will.
Kate (high-pitched) Take me to them … take me.
Mr Gentleman Child, child.
Kate Bring me there.
Mr Gentleman We will, we will.
Woman 1 puts a black mantilla over Kate.
Kate If she’s dead, I want to die too.
Mr Gentleman Don’t talk like that.
Kate We have only each other … my mother and me.
Mr Gentleman You have everybody here … you have me.
He puts his arm around her and leads her away.
Dawn. Cock crow.
Baba and Kate are huddled together on the floor covered by a single eiderdown.
Baba You’re my best friend … my best-best friend.
Kate Will they find her?
Baba I’m scared.
Kate I’d know if she was dead … she’d appear to me.
Baba She’s out there on the landing … I can hear her walking, pacing … her footsteps.
Kate Call someone. Call Molly. Call your father.
Baba I can’t … I’d have to pass her … She’s coming into the room … Jesus Jesus, duck down, before she gets us.
The two of them duck down under the covers.
Mr Brennan in his shirtsleeves enters carrying a mug of tea for Kate.
Mr Brennan Caithleen … I wish … Look, it’s like this … they’ve …
Kate Given up.
Mr Brennan shakes his head again and again and turns away to hide his emotion.
But they’re down there in the lake … they are there.
Mr Brennan I know … but they can’t find them … They’ve dragged with nets all night all night all morning.
Kate They’re drowning, and they’re gasping for us to help them.
Mr Brennan They’re not drowning, Caithleen – they’re dead … we have to pray for the repose of their souls.
Kate jumps up screaming. Baba follows and clings to her.
The two girls turn their backs to the audience as Martha and Molly come on and dress them slowly and ceremoniously in navy gaberdine coats, black shoes and navy caps.
The girls then turn round to face the audience.
Thady hands Kate a book.
Thady Dubliners by James Joyce, first published in 1914.
Molly (crying) I’ll miss ye.
Martha Chin up … You won’t feel it till Christmas.
Martha and Molly go.
Kate and Baba walk towards the convent area, where there are sconces of lit candles.
From a tall plinth, Sister Immaculata, the Head Nun, is reciting a litany.
Sister Immaculata
Blessed be God
Blessed be His Holy name
Blessed be Jesus Christ through God and through Man
Blessed be the name of Jesus
Blessed be His most sacred heart
Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy sacrament of the Altar
Blessed be the great mother of God, Mary most Holy.
Kate and Baba are kneeling as another girl, Cynthia, hurries in and kneels next to them.
Sacred music offstage.
Cynthia Where’re you from?
Baba Ballenfeckin …
Cynthia There’s no such place.
Baba There is so … in County Leitrim … named after St Feckin. We’ll get housemaid’s knee.
Cynthia What’s that?
Baba Nuns get it from kneeling … that and scabies.
Kate is trying to control her tears.
Cynthia What’s wrong?
Baba She’s an eejit. She’s homesick.
Sister Mary enters with a fourth girl carrying white quilts and chairs, which will serve as sleeping beds. Sister Mary walks towards Kate.
Sister Mary (whispers) What’s your name?
Kate Kate.
Sister Mary That’s a lovely name.
Kate My mother drowned … she was on her way to her own mother’s, on Islandmore.
Sister Mary Oh, you poor soul.
Kate She and Tim Haran … He had four children.
Sister Mary (praying) Hail Holy Queen Mother of Mercy, Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope. To Thee do we cry poor banished children of Eve, to Thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
The Girls settle into the chairs with white quilts pulled up over them. Sister Immaculata gives her homily.
Sister Immaculata St Enda’s has always been proud of its modesty. One imperative of modesty is the way a girl dresses and undresses. She should do it with decorum. Girls should face south as they might surprise each other if they face the side of their beds. Silence at all times to be observed in the dormitory. Shoes to be left outside the door. No food to be kept in the presses on any account and sleep is advised within three minutes after retiring.
The lights go out. Sister Immaculata goes.
Baba ’Tis like sleeping on nails.
Cynthia The nuns sleep in hair shirts and get up three or four times a night to say their Office.
Baba Feck them … let’s have a hooley.
Baba jumps up and the others follow.
Kate takes from a toiletry bag a hunk of cake and a photograph of her mother in a frame.
I could eat a young child.
Kate I’ve no knife to cut it.
Baba breaks the cake into lumps and hands bits around.
Cynthia It’s gorgeous.
Baba Let’s boogie-woogie.
The light changes to a beguiling ballroom purple. Dance music offstage.
Baba and Cynthia jive and exchange dialogue as between boy and girl. Kate looks on, admiringly.
Do you come here often?
Baba A bit on the stuffy side.
Cynthia It’s fab.
Baba The Crystal is the ‘in’ place.
Cynthia I’ll say.
Fourth Girl Show bands.
Cynthia Spiffing.
Baba The Druids are my faves … Fancy a stroll?
Cynthia No ta.
Baba Care for a mineral?
Cynthia Getting fresh, boyo?
Baba Scram.
As they are dancing Sister Immaculata returns and they make a dive for the floor.
She takes a small torch from her pocket and shines it on each girl’s face, in order to remember to whom to mete out for punishment.
She stands above Kate and shines the torch on the photograph.
Sister Immaculata What is the meaning of this?
Kate I’m lonely, Sister.
Sister Immaculata You are not alone in your loneliness.
Sister Immaculata takes the photograph, putting it in the apron of her habit.
Kate Don’t take it … it’s my mother … Please don’t take her.
Kate starts to cry.
Cynthia (singing)
I called, I called a thousand times
None answered my call
Save the sheep on the mountainside.
Dawn light.
Chapel bell and the lighter, more perfunctory ring of refectory bell intermingle.
Each girl carries a plate with a metal lid and walks into refectory area.
They lift the lids and smell.
Baba It’s gone off.
Cynthia It stinks.
Kate What is it?
Baba Horsemeat.
Cynthia Let’s dump it.
Baba How?
Cynthia You just put it inside your gym frock and when we’re out for walkies we dump it in the lake.
Kate It’ll ruin my new uniform … the gravy will.
Baba Put it in your hankie.
They start to wrap the meat in their handkerchiefs except Kate, who is staring at hers.
Baba holds a saucer of tapioca, upside down.
Oh Lady divine, will you pass me the wine
Oh Lady supreme, will you pass me the cream
You bald-headed scutter
Will you pass me the butter.
Cynthia Baba Brennan, you’re crude.
Sister Immaculata comes in and sees that Kate hasn’t touched her dinner.
Sister Immaculata Caithleen Brady, eat your cabbage.
Kate There’s a slug in it, Sister.
The others get up quietly and go off, sniggering.
Sister Immaculata Eat your cabbage.
Sister Immaculata goes.
Kate eats a little of it and retches, handkerchief to her mouth as she crosses the stage.
She begins to read from Dubliners.
Sister Mary comes on from the opposite side and stands to listen, unobserved at first by Kate.
Kate (reading) ‘Snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.’
Sister Mary That’s … poetry.
Kate That’s James Joyce.
Sister Mary Oh my God, where did you get it? He’s anti-Christ.
Kate Thady gave it to me … he was in love with my mother.
Sister Mary You can’t have it here … you’d get killed. It’s blasphemous … it reeks of sin.
Kate But there’s nothing sinful in it. It’s only about snow and the mutinous Shannon waves.
Sister Mary You’d be expelled if Sister Immaculata found it. You’d be corrupting young minds.
Kate Do you think that?
Sister Mary No, but I’m young … I have years before my final vows.
Kate How many years?
Sister Mary Four.
Kate That’s a lifetime.
Sister Mary Tell you what … we’ll bury it. (From her pocket she takes a little trowel.) We’ll put it with my roses and my sweet peas and my dahlias and my evening scented stock and now and then you can come out and have a peep at it.
They kneel and Sister Mary digs vigorously with the trowel.
Kate You’ll dirty your hands.
Sister Mary It’s good for them. I was always one for the out of doors … digging potatoes, milking cows, tramming hay.
Kate Do you like being a nun, Sister?
Sister Mary Sometimes. Sometimes one has doubts.
Kate Like that nun that escaped over the big high wall.
Sister Mary When I’m tempted I kneel down and ask my Good Shepherd to protect me and he does.
Kate Did he give you the vocation?
Sister Mary No. My mother was sick … they gave her six months to live … she was riddled with cancer … they opened her and they closed her … we all prayed, we watched her get thinner and thinner and whiter and whiter and one day I was out in the field, driving cattle and I made this vow that if she got better I’d be a nun.
Sister Mary She did.
Kate Oh, poor you.
Sister Mary I am the bride of Christ … (Ecstatic.) Christ is the eternal bridegroom.
Over their speech is the boisterous sound of girls laughing, Baba’s voice loudest.
Baba
No more Latin, no more French
No more sitting on a hard old bench
Kick up tables, kick up chairs
Kick Immaculata down the stairs.
Baba and Cynthia enter, skipping, with autograph books. Kate joins. Baba snatches Cynthia’s autograph book and reads aloud.
(Reading.)
‘My body is but a cabbage
The leaves I give to others
But the heart I give to you.’
(Flinging it.) Slop … Did Kate write that?
Kate She did not.
Baba and Kate go. Molly takes the feather tree out of its folder and shakes it as she would an umbrella. She starts to dress it with baubles. A carol (‘Twelve Days of Christmas’) is sung. Molly hangs a few Christmas decorations. Baba and Kate are in the Brennans’ sitting room with Martha, Mr Brennan, Molly and Kate’s Father. Kate has a statue of the Infant of Prague, which she has won for the end-of-term exams.
Martha The girls, the girls. (Looking at the statue.) What’s this?
Kate I won it.
Father You’ll be someone yet and you’ll bring your father with you.
Kate Lovely fire.
Father I provide it … I keep them in turf and timber … Did you miss your father? Since your mother died I have no one … no one … You only wrote once.
Kate (abruptly) The nuns said that we are to remit for the extras this week without fail.
Father What extras?
Kate I get a cup of hot milk at night.
Father (snappy) Money … always blasted money … Not a kind word to your father … not how are you … how are you managing … only grab grab.
Kate I’m sorry … I don’t mean to … grab.
Martha hands Kate a shoebox with a ribbon round it.
Martha It’s from Hugo and me. Go on, open it.
Kate opens the box, gasps as she takes out red suede high-heeled shoes.
Put them on.
Kate Can I?
Kate puts on the shoes and walks around unsteadily.
Father, throwing down his cigarette, goes to tackle her to show his displeasure.
Father You’re too young for them. You’re to wear flat shoes.
Martha She’s on her holidays, Johnnie …
Mr Brennan Plus she has been studying very hard … The nuns say she’s a bookworm.
Molly peeps through the niche that serves as a window.
Molly (excited) Holy Jesus. It’s Mr Gentleman, Mam … He’s come to see the girls … Cripes … what a night!
Mr Gentleman with a light fall of snow on his black overcoat and on his hair. He pats Baba on the head, kisses Martha on the cheek and simply stares at Kate.
Mr Gentleman I was just passing and saw all the lights on.
Martha We’re delighted …
Mr Gentleman (to Kate) You’ve got tall.
Kate It’s the shoes … Martha gave them to me.
Martha We’ve been baking and basting all day … Hugo was given a brace of pheasants, so you will be able to take one home for Mrs G … how is she?
Mr Gentleman Much better. (To Baba.) Convent life suits you.
Baba (arch) It doesn’t. The food is disgusting.
Mr Gentleman You both look like young ladies.
Mr Brennan puts a record on the gramophone. John Count McCormack is heard singing ‘Silent Night’.
As they sit listening, awed, Molly passes round the hot mince pies and they each bite into one.
Mr Brennan Hot.
Martha Hot.
Baba Hot.
Father Very hot.
Molly (offstage) Yer dinner is on the table.
They all leave except for Kate and Mr Gentleman.
Mr Gentleman (softly) So how are you … how is it?
Kate It’s not great … but it’s better than being at home.
Mr Gentleman You know that if ever you wanted anything … you have only to ask.
Kate (shyly) I have my new red shoes.
Mr Gentleman I’d like to give you a present. What about a little bookcase in walnut or rosewood, with all your favourite books, and then year after year we can add to it?
Kate A library.
Mr Gentleman Yes.
Molly sticks her head in.
Molly (to Mr Gentleman) The missus says you have to say grace.
Mr Gentleman (as he goes) Are you coming?
He goes. She does not follow.
Morning light.
Baba walks towards Kate from the opposite direction, carrying a doctor’s leather bag.
Baba (imperious) I want to do a little experiment.
Kate For what?
Baba Take your blouse off.
Baba rummages in the bag for a tube of cream.
Kate What kind of little experiment?
Baba We’ve got to get out of that dump.
Kate We can’t.
Baba I’m not staying in that convent and neither are you. we’ll be dried up … we’ll be on the shelf … no man will look twice at us. We’ll run away … we’ll join a circus or some fecking outfit …
Kate I want to study … I want to write about the snow and the mutinous Shannon waves.
Baba peels off Kate’s jumper.
Baba You give me the pip … winning statues and playing up to nuns … jumping up to open and close the damn doors for them as if they had cerebral palsy and couldn’t do it for themselves.
Kate We’ll have an education.
Baba starts to rub some ointment into Kate’s breasts.
Baba Give us bubs … make us females.
Kate We are females.
Baba (still applying the ointment)
We must … we must
Develop our bust
The bigger the better
The tighter the sweater
The boys depend on us.
Kate What is it?
Baba It’s for udders … my aul fella uses it on young heifers.
Kate tries to stop her but to no avail.
Just think it’s old Gentleman, old Gabriel giving you a feel … You’re a sly one … His wife will go mad when she hears.
Kate We did nothing wrong.
Baba You went to Limerick, you were seen in The Savoy, at the pictures, necking.
Kate We were not necking.
Baba You wait … his wife will be carted off to Our Lady’s … What do you feel?
Kate I’m burning.
Baba That’s good … Are you swelling?
Kate I don’t know if I’m swelling … all I know is I’m burning … like mad. Baba, they’re coming off.
Baba What’s coming off?
Kate My … diddums … Get your mother, get your father … I’m on fire … I’m on fire!
Baba Feck.
Baba pours a bottle of calamine lotion over her and drags Kate off.
Sister Mary is by a blackboard doing a geometry equation. She writes rapidly and with great expertise, completes it with QED – ‘quad erat demonstrandum’.
She can’t be alright in the upstairs department.
Kate Shhh. Shhh.
Baba In Dublin for a year … with a figure like that and not to bolt it, bonkers.
Kate She was studying at university and lived in the Mother house.
Baba She’d be great with pancake, rouge and mascara.
Kate Shhh.
Baba I suppose they only shave the head … plenty of hair under the armpits and down below … I wonder how they have a scratch.
Kate They live on a higher plane.
Sister Mary turns sharply and singles out Kate.
Sister Mary Caithleen Brady, repeat the theorem that I have just demonstrated.
Kate I can’t, Sister.
Sister Mary Why not?
Kate I don’t know, Sister.
Sister Mary You have been muttering … yourself and your mocking friend.
Sister Mary throws the duster at her and Kate is showered in chalk. Sister Mary, shocked by her own intemperance, stalks out, the stick of chalk like a cigarette between her fingers.
Cynthia God, she’s flaring.
Baba She’s not long for this world.
Cynthia How do you know?
Baba Hysteria … too many women cooped up together and no men. They fantasise about doing it with priests and monks and altar boys.
They go. Kate sits alone, contrite.
Sister Mary re-enters carrying a plate with a beautiful silver salver. She lifts the salver to reveal a jam tart.
Sister Mary Yes, you could … you have a sweet tooth, I know.
Kate takes it reluctantly and Sister Mary sits in the chair next to her.
Kate Did you like your year in Dublin?
Sister Mary Not really … I missed the grounds and the quiet. Your hair is different.
Kate (whisper) Sister, is your head shaven?
Sister Mary I can’t answer that.
Kate Sorry. Sorry.
Pause.
Sister Mary I had to rebuke you today.
Kate nods.
Have you ever thought of what you would like to be?
Kate Sometimes.
Sister Mary (a little excited) The night before I entered I went off cycling with a boy and we lost our way up the mountain and I was terrified that we’d never get back … and in another way I was happy and free … free as the wind.
Kate What was it like, giving up the world?
Sister Mary Awful. (Pause.) A few months after I entered we were allowed a day by the seaside. Reverend Mother and two senior nuns and myself. We drove all the way to Connemara and it was glorious. We sat on the rocks … The sea was several colours but mostly turquoise … There we were, looking out to sea, and something goes pop and we all jump and what was it but the bottle of home-made lemonade which Sister Pius had given us … The cork flew out and we lost most of it … just when we were parched.
Kate Just when you were parched!
Sister Mary We saw the steamer going over to the Aran Islands … it looked so stately like a great white swan … People waved to us and Reverend Mother said, ‘Wave back, show them we are human like everybody else,’ and we did, we waved.
Pause.
Kate Were you ever in love, Sister?
Sister Mary What do you know about love?
Kate Books … the pictures … Cathy and Heathcliff on the Yorkshire Moors.
Sister Mary There is much beauty in your soul.
Sister Mary touches Kate’s hand with tenderness.
Kate Sister, I think …
Sister Mary (whisper) What?
Kate I might be a nun.
Sister Mary (folding her hands) Oh glory be to God and the archangels and angels and saints. Let us pray for that … that you will be the Bride of Christ.
Sister Immaculata (commandingly) Sister Mary … Sister Mary … Sister Mary.
Sister Mary runs in one direction.
The girls gather.
Sister Immaculata speaking as she hurries in.
We have had extremely upsetting news. It concerns Sister Mary … she has lost her only brother in a driving accident. A young boy with his life before him …
She takes out small white cards with black edging and hands each girl one.
This evening we will offer up the rosary for the repose of his soul … but meanwhile I would like you all to write letters of condolence which she may take home to her dear bereaved mother and father.
The girls struggle to write appropriate letters, each girl looking at what the girl next to her has written. Sister Immaculata walks up and down murmuring a litany and then begins to read what has been written.
(Reading.) ‘It is with broken heart I write you these lines in your great grief …’ ‘It is with true sincerity I reach out to you in your great loss …’ ‘Your great loss has reached my ears and hurt me profoundly …’ (She stands to read what Kate has written.) ‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’ (Snatching the letter.) This is not a letter of sympathy. (Holding it to the others as to a tribunal.) This is not a letter of sympathy. (To Kate.) To whom is this addressed?
Kate Nobody, Sister.
Sister Immaculata To one of your classmates, perhaps?
Pause.
Kate No.
Sister Immaculata To whom, then?
Kate I can’t say.
Sister Immaculata Why not?
Kate It’s a secret.
Sister Immaculata There are no secrets from God.
Kate There are from you.
Girls gasp at Kate’s audacity.
Sister Immaculata You will stand in front of the Blessed Sacrament until such time as you confess.
Sister Immaculata drags her away by her hair, with extreme violence.
The girls cower nervously.
Darkness. Sound of crashing offstage.
Lights back up.
Kate is sitting on a chair, her head swathed in a big white bandage.
Baba You nearly kicked the bucket … nearly broke your skull when you fell on the marble.
Kate I felt dizzy from the standing. One minute I was staring at the tabernacle and the next minute everything went woozy.
Baba You could sue Immaculata.
Kate She’ll have a down on me for ever.
Baba lifts a bit of bandaging and looks at Kate’s temple.
Baba A battlefield … You’ll have fits from now on … Leave me your twin set and your pleated skirt and that marcasite brooch of your mother’s. Did you and old Mary have a cuddle? By the way, I told old Gentleman you flipped over a nun.
Kate You did not.
Baba Oh yeah … we correspond. Madge, the day girl, sneaks them in and out for me. (She whistles to intimate the riskiness of it.)
Kate I hate you, Baba Brennan.
Baba Ditto.
Baba trips off. A Lay Nun creeps on and hands her an orange and an oblong case.
Lay Nun I was asked to give you these.
Kate By who?
Lay Nun puts her finger to her lips to signify secrecy.
Kate opens the case and sees that it is a fountain pen. With a flourish she unscrews the cap and begins to trace a letter in the air.
Girls re-enter.
Baba What’s the new priest like?
Cynthia Beautiful. He has sallow skin … I believe he’s a divil in confession.
Baba He won’t worm my sins out of me … What’s his name?
Cynthia Father Thomas Aquinas.
Father Thomas, on the higher level, young, in gold vestments, waving incense from a gold censer. Nuns sing hymn in Latin, girls join. All assume worshipful posture.
Priest
He who feeds on my flesh
And drinks my blood
Has eternal life
My flesh is real food.
Baba Sure is.
Priest
Baba Jesus, he’s the business … I wonder what sign he is.
Baba tiptoes to the wall cupboard and from Kate’s prayer book takes out the holy picture of the Virgin in the grotto. With Kate’s new pen she writes on the back.
On the back screen Virgin in blue tulle is seen emerging from clouds. Underneath is Baba’s handwriting – ‘Father Tom stuck his long thing into Sister Mary’s hairy thing.’
Baba hands the card to Kate to read.
Kate reads innocently.
Kate ‘Father Tom stuck his long thing – (beginning to waver) into Sister Mary’s hairy thing.’ God Almighty!
Baba Put your name to it.
Kate I will not.
Baba signs their two names, props the card on the step leading to altar and hurries backward.
Sister Mary enters, sees it, screams and prostrates herself forward.
Kate cowers. Nuns enter, horrified, beating the two girls with their horn rosary beads and leather straps.
Kate’s Father and Mr Brennan enter. The men rush to retrieve the two sinful girls, but instead a fight ensues between them and the nuns. Veils and guimpes fall off, as does Kate’s bandage.
The Lay Nun is sprinkling holy water on the warring contenders.
Eventually Kate is led off with her Father thumping her and Baba on the opposite side with Mr Brennan thumping her.
Father (to Kate) A rotten apple … always were.
Mr Brennan It’s not her fault … it’s Baba’s. It’s Baba’s dirty work.
Kate It’s not … we planned it together … we hated being there.
Mr Brennan Why do you stand up for her, Kate?
Baba We’re best friends.
Father You’re finished with her … You’re coming on over home where I’ll rear you and rear you right.
Kate I’m not.
Father Yes, you are.
Kate I don’t want to.
Father Is that true?
She turns aside in shame.
Mr Brennan Leave it, Johnny … we’re all a bit het up. You can’t put an old head on young shoulders.
Father Thankless child … what we did for you … the sacrifices we made. Your mother depriving herself to buy you a tweed coat and cap.
Martha (leading him away) Come on, Johnny … Let’s have a cup of tea … it’s freezing in here.
Mr Brennan (to Kate) He’s your father.
Kate I know … I can’t talk to him … he’s like a bull.
Mr Brennan His bark is worse than his bite. (Pause.) Have you thought what your mother’s death has done to him … the guilt … the loneliness … up there at night … the going over it?
Kate (almost breaking) I have.
Mr Brennan pats her arm as he goes.
Molly is at the ready with the Hoover, which she turns on and off, to suit her monologue.
Molly Ye’er disgraced … everybody knows … I was dying for ye to come … Even the missus isn’t that vexed … not as tough as she used to be, she’s going grey. She’s back in the master bedroom so that’s something … My own mother won twenty pounds at cards … I had a bit of a fling, he was here from Sligo on a trainee course … he gave me this.
She pulls a scapular from inside her blouse.
Did you hear about Mrs Gentleman, she went nuts, she read some poem. (Artificial voice.) ‘My nerves are bad tonight … I fear I am in rats’ alley.’
Kate (finishing the verse as she walks)
‘My nerves are bad tonight … stay with me.
Speak to me … Why do you never speak …
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.’
Dusk as Kate arrives to where Hickey is crouched in a field roasting fresh mushrooms on a little portable brazier. His tools are on the ground, along with the sack. He is bidding goodbye to the place.
Hickey Dotey … Darling … Honeybunch.
Kate crouches down next to him, as he gives her a mushroom, which is very hot. The scene is played over their eating.
Kate Why are you going to England?
Hickey No work here … Land isn’t worth tuppence and he can’t stock it, poor man – him that was a big shot once.
Kate Who’ll mind him?
Kate I can’t, Hickey … I can’t. I love the place but I can’t stay.
Hickey I love it as much as you … I was here before you were born.
Kate I know.
Hickey Nursed you, taught you to walk and to talk … tried to teach you how to ride a bicycle.
Kate Mama used to get cross with you for dolloping the butter on to your bread and that day down in the woods, when you were supposed to shoot the fox you fell fast asleep … the fox walked straight into the hen house and killed them all. (A little excited.) Baba and I are going to Dublin … I’ll work in the day in a shop and go to classes at night.
Hickey We’ll miss this.
Kate I won’t.
Hickey Ah, you will. They say as you get older you miss home. It all keeps coming back to you … it’s in the joints and in the bones like arthritis or rheumatism.
Kate Like arthritis?
Hickey takes out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.
Hickey (reading) ‘When Hickey dug the slane into the turf bank, water squelched out and flowed down into the pool of black bog water. I saw the bog water and the bog lilies and the blackened patches of ground where Hickey had made a fire to boil a kettle and stoked it with swags of fresh heather.’ (He looks at her and smiles). Can I keep it?
Kate (nods affirmative) What use is it?
Hickey It will be … one day … You’ll be a writer and I’ll show it off … I learnt you nature and birdsong … the cry of the curlew.
Kate smiles at the fact of his remembering and goes, recalling two lines of Yeats’s ‘Curlew’. She says them with humour rather than bathos.
Kate
‘O curlew, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the water in the West.’
As Kate goes, Hickey calls after her.
Hickey I’ll send you a Christmas card and a pressie.
Hickey starts to pack his things, whistling ‘Oh Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight,’ etc.
He puts the sack on his back and follows to where Kate and Baba, each carrying a suitcase, are heading for Dublin.
Martha, Mr Brennan, Father and Molly enter to wave the girls off, as Hickey sings.
Twilight.
The country sounds are replaced with sounds of the city, car hooters, bicycle bells and a tune on a barrel organ.
Hickey (singing)
I met my love by the gasworks wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town.
Martha, Mr Brennan, Father and Molly wave, but the girls do not turn around.
Sudden brightness, with the speed of lightning, replaces the country twilight, as the girls walk into the city and look around, thrilled.
City lights.
A woman pushing a wheelbarrow hurries past them, singing.
Singing Woman
As I went down to Dublin City
At the hour of twelve at night
Who should I see but a Spanish lady
Combing her hair by candlelight.
They look at her, enthralled, and such is their joy that they hug each other, in happiness.
End of Act One.