SCENE SEVEN — JOCK THAMSON’S BAIRNS
Through the back curtains, one by one, come all our characters, stripped of all dignity and historicity, transformed to twentieth-century children by the rolling up of trouser legs, addition of a cardigan or pair of socks: FIDDLER, WEE BETTY (Elizabeth), WEE HENRY (Darnley), JAMES HEPBURN (Bothwell), RICHIE (Dancer/Riccio), and one by one KNOX baptises them by pouring a cup of dirty water from his pail over their heads, soaking them. They move off slowly and begin miming childhood games. KNOX takes off his pail, comes back, with his trouser legs rolled up and with a muffler, as WEE KNOXXY, a loner, who goes off to his own corner. Downstage, though, BETTY and FIDDLER have got WEE HENRY cawing their rope for them. One skips and both sing.
WEE BETTY and FIDDLER: Queen Mary, Queen Mary,
My age is sixteen
My faither’s a wino on Glesca green.
He’s drank up the Broo that should dress me up braw.
Och, will nae bonny laddy come tak’ me awa?
A! B! C! D! E!
(MARIE appears, by herself, very prominent, an outsider. She stands silent)
On a mountain
Stands a lady.
Who she is I do not know.
All she wants is
Power and glory.
All she wants is a fine young man.
(The two wee girls see MARIE, sign at each other. BETTY wolf-whistles)
WEE BETTY: Get her!
FIDDLER: Get swanky!
WEE BETTY and FIDDLER: Big banana feet and legs long and lanky!
(JAMES HEPBURN wolf-whistles)
JAMES HEPBURN: Hello, stranger!
WEE BETTY and FIDDLER: Hiya, stranger!
I hope yir maw
Thinks you’re braw!
Naw, naw
RICHIE: That’s a sin. She’s a wee orphan.
WEE BETTY: Little Orphan Annie!
Show us your fanny.
FIDDLER: (shocked) Oh-a!
(WEE BETTY and JAMES HEPBURN guffaw, lewd children)
WEE BETTY: What’s your name anyway!
MARIE: Marie.
WEE BETTY: Marie? Whit school do you go to?
JAMES HEPBURN: She means urr ye a left-fitter?
Haw, stranger, d’you eat fish oan a Friday?
WEE BETTY: You a Tim?
JAMES HEPBURN: You a Fenian?
WEE BETTY: Are you a Pape?
MARIE: I’m a Catholic. Ih-hih.
WEE BETTY: Ih-hih? How you mean, mmhmm?
MARIE: Just.
(Pause)
WEE BETTY: (very savage) Well, away and get converted!
Go an’ get born again.
Away an’ jine the Bandy Hope, the Tabernacle and go on a crusade up the Tent Hall tin hut and get saved or somethin’ — Away and get saved for a sweetie.
(The mention of ‘getting saved’ reminds them all of WEE KNOXXY)
WEE BETTY, JAMES HEPBURN, WEE HENRY and RICHIE:
Wee Johnny Knox
Peed in the jawbox
When he thought his mammy wisnae lookin’.
She hit it with a ladle
That was lying on the table,
Walloped him, and gie’d his heid a dooking!
(They torment him with this but WEE KNOXXY tries to ignore them, signing to himself)
WEE KNOXXY: I’m H.A.P.P.Y.
I’m H.A.P.P.Y.
I know I am, I’m sure I am,
I’m H. A.P.P.Y.
I’m S.A.V.E.D.
I’m S.A.V.E.D.
I know I am, I’m sure I am,
I’m S.A.V.E.D.
JAMES HEPBURN: Haw! Get Knoxxy!
(Some grab WEE KNOXXY, some MARIE)
WEE BETTY: Stick his heid up her skurt!
(They shove WEE KNOXXY’S head up MARIE’S skirt, holding both. WEE KNOXXY is struggling furiously and crying in real terror. MARIE too)
THE REST: A queen cried Mary hud a canary
Up the leg o’ her drawers!
WEE KNOXXY: Yuck it, Youse! Yuck it. Dinnae! Ah doan’t like lassies. Ma faither says I’m no’ tae play wi’ lassies.
(They drop him, afraid of his terror, it’s too real. MARIE is a sobbing shamed victim, ignored)
WEE BETTY: Goan’ then! Get tae! Away an’ play wi’ yoursel’ then!
JAMES HEPBURN: Aye, git!
WEE BETTY: Skoosh! RICHIE: Skedaddle.
WEE BETTY: See you later, alligator!
(And in sudden spite she pulls MARIE’S cardigan over her head. JAMES HEPBURN, who’s been no slouch at being part of the torturers, suddenly grabs MARIE, runs with her)
JAMES HEPBURN: Leave the lassie alane!
(All turn on them, including WEE KNOXXY, who sees how to taunt back)
WEE KNOXXY: Haw, Hepburn! Ah think you love her.
WEE BETTY: So do I, I think you love her! You gonny marry her?
JAMES HEPBURN: Nut.
WEE BETTY: Aye, you urr! James Hepburn loves Marie Stewart!
THE REST: James Hepburn loves Marie Stewart!
James Hepburn loves Marie Stewart!
JAMES HEPBURN: Ah jist says, lea’ the lassie alane!
(He pulls what’s tied and bundled over her head and MARIE is free, looks right into his eyes. He into hers. She spits right in his face)
Right!
THE REST: Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
JAMES HEPBURN: I am the axeman.
THE REST: Kiss the axe.
WEE KNOXXY: Pardon the executioner.
THE REST: And kiss the axe!
ALL: Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off.
Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off!
WEE BETTY: And eftir you’re deid, we’ll share oot yir froacks and pu’ a’ the stones oot yir brooches, and gie yir golden slippers a’ away to the Salvation Army, and we’ll gie’ the Saint Vincent de Paul —
JAMES HEPBURN: Sweet fuck all!
WEE BETTY: And eftir you’re deid
We’ll pick up your heid
Up aff the flair
By the long rid hair —
JAMES HEPBURN: Wallop!
WEE HENRY: Haw-haw! It was just a wig!
Yir heid goes —
JAMES HEPBURN: Wallop!
And it stoats alang the flair like a great big — Tumshie!
ALL: Wallop! Bum … bum … bum … bum.
WEE HENRY: Skoosh!
ALL: Splat!
(Pause)
WEE BETTY: And her wee dug …
(Mock tearful) Her lovely wee dug …
Her lovely wee dug
Wi’ the big brown eyes that loved her so much …
Comes scooshing oot fae under her crimson skirts where it has been hiding —
— And skites aboot among the blood barking and shiting itself!
(Shriek of harpy laughter from WEE BETTY, totally wild, hysterical. Silence. la CORBIE is wheeling the pram on the spot back and forth as she sits. She plays with a marigold head the old childhood dandelion game, flicks the golden head off)
LA CORBIE: (very quietly) Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off.
Mary Queen of Scots got her … head … chopped … off. (And all around MARIE/MARY suddenly grab up at her throat in a tableau, just her head over their hands. Very still in the red light for a moment then black)