THE STATUE’S DAUGHTER


  CHARACTERS               (Original Cast)

JOHNNY DOUGLAS             John O’Gorman
THE REV. WALTER HUMPHREYS  Edgar Keatinge
PETER HUMPHREYS            Tom Purefoy
JOAN LATHAM                Kitty Thuillier
PETER PAUL SWEENEY         John MacDarby
JACK COSTELLO              Alan Desmond
PHIL DOYLE                 James Dunne
EILEEN DOYLE               Sheila Manahan
GEORGE O’LEARY             Seumas Healy
FINTAN O’LEARY             Gerard Healy
BRIGID O’ROURKE            Josephine Fitzgerald
ELLEN O’ROURKE             Shela Ward
MAID                       Joan MacAuliffe


TIME—The early 1940’s



ACT ONE

The sitting-room in St. Donagh’s Rectory, late on an Autumn Evening.

WALTER [Off]: Where are you, Nellie? [He comes in.] What are you doing
here? Why don’t you come when I call you? Was that the postman that
was going out of the house?

MAID: It was, sir.

WALTER: What was it? Letters?

MAID: No sir, there was no letters.

WALTER [Angrily]: What ails you, will you answer me properly.  What
did the postman bring?

MAID: I think I had better pack my bag. I’m not suited to this house
at all.

[Enter Joan.)

WALTER: Joan, will you talk to this fool of a girl for me. I saw the
postman leave and I asked her what he brought, and all I could get out
of her is that she is going to pack her bag.

MAID: I’m not suited here at all, Miss Joan. People telling you to tell
things, and other people telling you not to tell things.  People
telling you to lend people money, and then people telling you not to
lend people money. I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels.

JOAN: Did the postman bring something for Mr. Peter, Nellie?

MAID: He did, miss. He brought a parcel.

JOAN: And I suppose you paid for it?

MAID [Sniffing]: Yes, miss. He told me I would have to.

JOAN: That’s quite all right, Nellie. You did perfectly right. Don’t
worry. Is supper nearly ready?

MAID: Yes, Miss. [She goes out.)

WALTER [After her]: And tell Mr. Peter I want to see him down here.

MAID: Yessir.

WALTER: I knew it was something like that. Good heavens, I have only
to cross the street for something to happen with that fellow. You know
what it is, don’t you? He has been buying books again.

JOAN: It is all right, Uncle. I will parcel them up and send them back
with a note.

WALTER: Yes, you can do that now, but it’s only because we caught him
at it. Next time we won’t catch him so easily.  Now, I’m not going to
stand this any longer, Joan. It’s driving me out of my mind.

JOAN: I know, Uncle Walter. You’ve been very good and very patient
with him.

WALTER: Child, you don’t know half of what I’ve been through; for more
than 20 years I’ve put up with that fellow. He’s had everything that I
never got. He’s had education and travel and society. He’s had a fine
career in the Foreign Office, and look at the mess he made of it. He
came back here and people were kind to him. Harveys the Brewers gave
him a big job. He drank himself out of that. He lost three other jobs
one after another, and for five years now he hasn’t done a stroke of
work.

JOAN: I’m afraid he will never do much work now.

WALTER: No, because he’s drunk away his brains.

JOAN: I don’t think it’s that, Uncle Walter. He gets very little to
drink.

WALTER: He can always get drink from those blackguards of Republicans
across the square, the fellows he was in jail with.  That’s something
you don’t remember about him, Joan, but I’m not likely to forget it,
and that was really the beginning of his downfall. He had good friends
here and they might have put up with his drinking, but when he got
mixed up with that gang of cutthroats and ended up in jail, no decent
person could ever trust him again. You see, he’s even afraid to come
downstairs now.

JOAN: I will send him down to you.

WALTER [Sitting at his desk]: Yes, do.

JOAN [Standing at the door—doubtfully] Uncle, give me a little while
to think this over, won’t you?

WALTER: Oh, don’t you distress yourself about it, child, that fellow
isn’t worth it.

JOAN: If you turn him out now he has nowhere to go.

WALTER: Very well, very well, I’ll see about it. Now you run up and
change.  [Peter comes in.]

JOAN: Oh, Peter, Peter!




WALTER: Run along, child, run along. This has nothing at all to do
with you.  [Joan goes out.]

PETER: You want to speak to me, Walter?

WALTER: I don’t suppose it’s very much use speaking to you.
Have you been buying books again? [Silence.] Can’t you
answer me? Have you been buying books?

PETER [Meekly]: Yes, Walter.

WALTER: And why did you do it, man? Don’t you know how we are
situated? Don’t you know we have very little money and that we are
likely to have less? Surely you can see the struggle it is for me to
keep this house going? Do you do it to spite me?

PETER: I feel so lost without books, Walter. It’s the only way I have
of keeping in touch.

WALTER: I don’t believe you even read the books you buy. I don’t think
you could understand them if you did. I suppose you intended to sell
them, as you did before.

[Peter looks at him in the same stupid way.]

WALTER: Ah, don’t stand there gaping at me, man. How much do these
books cost?

PETER: I don’t really know, Walter. I haven’t had time to look at the
bill, you know. [Takes it out and lifts his spectacles.)  I think this
must be it.

WALTER: Give it here to me. £3. 17. 6d! My God, what’s to become of
me!

PETER: I’m sorry, Walter, really I am. If I could only get some
suitable work I would be able to pay it all back to you.

WALTER: And why don’t you go to some of those blackguards across the
road and ask them for work? Your jailbird friends are in control of
everything now. Why don’t they help you?

PETER: I didn’t think of that, Walter. It’s an idea, of course.

WALTER: Bah! They are not such fools, and that’s what you are, just a
fool. You have had every chance, chances I would have given my eyes
for, and you’ve thrown them all away. A fool, a fool, that’s what you
are, and they know it well. You’re a penny-boy for them, you went to
jail for them. You found shelter for them when the police were on
their heels, and you made Joan’s mother do the same.

PETER: No, I didn’t, Walter.

WALTER: Who else did it? Didn’t you bring the cutthroats down to stay
at her house when her husband was away? Oh, you thought I didn’t know
that, but there’s very little I don’t know.  And when her blackguard
of a husband did leave her he had reason enough, if only he had known.

PETER: Oh, Walter, don’t be absurd.

WALTER: Isn’t it true that they were staying there while he was away?

PETER: Just as they were staying in hundreds of other houses.

WALTER: Not in the houses of people like her, though.

PETER: And besides, you know, it simply isn’t true. I mean, Hilda
wasn’t that sort, you know.

WALTER: I’m not saying Hilda was that sort. I’m not saying Hilda did
anything wrong, but it wouldn’t have mattered to you whether she did
or not. Your career was no model for her, anyhow.

PETER: You can say what you please about me, but you really shouldn’t
suggest anything like that about your own sister.  It was just that
her husband was an English officer and that her house was not likely
to be searched.

WALTER: Yes, her husband was an English officer, and you encouraged
her to betray him when his back was turned.

PETER: Oh, if you call that betrayal!

WALTER: That’s exactly what I do call it, but I wouldn’t expect you to
see that. You wouldn’t have the manliness to see it.  You have drunk
and sponged away your brains and your self respect. Better give those
books back to Joan tonight and let her send them back. You owe it to
her that I haven’t turned you out of the house.

[Walter goes out and Peter takes a small phial out of his pocket and
swallows a tablet. Joan comes in and sees him.]

JOAN: Peter, what are you doing?

PETER [Giggling]: Oh, Joan, you really should have heard the Reverend
Walter. He was in splendid form. He said I drank my manliness away; my
manliness and self-respect. That’s what he said. Dear Walter, there’s
nobody quite like him.

JOAN: You gave me your word not to take any more of those things.

PETER: And I haven’t, Joan, I haven’t really. It’s just that I have
such a terrible headache.

JOAN: You know what Walter would say if he knew.

PETER: Oh, yes, just what he always says. I have got to know all his
sermons by heart.

JOAN: You shouldn’t talk like that, Peter. You know he is a very fine
man.

PETER: He’s a nasty, mean, narrow-minded, bigoted, interfering old
prig of a parson, and he hasn’t got an atom of brains or of culture,

JOAN: He has done a great deal for us, Peter.

PETER: Oh, yes, and hasn’t he made us pay for it. Haven’t we listened
to his silly, prosy sermons from morning to night?  Who else would
have listened to him as we have listened to him?

JOAN: A wife and children of his own, to begin with.

PETER [Sniffling]: Oh, I see, you’ve turned against me now.

JOAN: That’s not true, Peter, but you don’t seem to understand how
serious things are in our house. Do you know Uncle Walter threatened
to put you out?

PETER: Oh yes, I have heard that too, many times.

JOAN: I think he means it now. He thinks the Bishop is going to close
down some doors. The Congregation has dropped from close on 300 to 25.

PETER: Oh yes, and most of them old women, and one of these days they
will go too. I have known that was going to happen ever since I came
back from the Continent, and what is left of it all is just stuffy,
stupid and full of decay. Just like this house. That’s how classes and
religions are and that’s why I’ve told you you ought to go to London.

JOAN: Or marry a Catholic, I think you said?

PETER: Or marry a Catholic, as you say. At any rate, there are enough
of them.

JOAN: I couldn’t do that, Peter.

PETER [Ironically]: Oh, of course, you couldn’t possibly. In the old
days in the Foreign Office we had a great many people like you. All
sorts of minority problems. Slavs in Austria, Poles in Germany,
Germans in Italy, Italians in Germany, and Jews all over the shop. All
of them convinced that God made them different from the rest of
humanity.

JOAN: It isn’t that at all, Peter, honestly I don’t want to be a
minority problem.

PETER: Well, that’s what you are, just the same, and it’s all
imagination. Nothing but imagination. A Jew is a Jew first and
foremost because he believes he is a Jew. If he believed he was
something else he would behave differently and he would stop being a
Jew.

JOAN: And if a miser stopped believing he was a miser and believed he
was a generous man I suppose he would become generous.

PETER: He would, and if an Irish Protestant stopped believing he was
an Irish Protestant he would become a human being like anybody
else. Your mother married an English officer, and then when the Black
and Tans came and she saw people being murdered in the street she
forgot about being an Irish Protestant and the men who were hiding
from the Black and Tans used to come and shelter in her house.

JOAN: Did they, Peter? You never told me that before.

PETER: No, your Uncle Walter reminded me of it just now. It was
something else for him to fling in my face.

JOAN: You know, Peter, after that I might find it a little easier.

PETER: And yet that’s only something you take on trust, just like all
the other things you take on trust. As if any of us were certain who
we really were!

JOAN: What do you mean by that, Peter?

PETER: Years ago when I was in Austria I knew an Austrian family. They
had one daughter. The man who thought he was her father was not her
father. She was really the daughter of an Englishman who had been
staying in the house. The Englishman went back to England. Tell me,
Joan, suppose you were that girl and that one day somebody told you
who your real father was, what would you do?

JOAN: It’s rather hard to say. I think I would pack my bag and go and
find my father.

PETER: Even if you were very fond of the man you had always looked on
as a father?

JOAN: That would be different, of course, but even then I think I
would do the same.

PETER: Even if your real father were poor and lonely, and that it
meant giving up your home for a foreign country?

JOAN: Peter, how depressing you are this evening. It’s getting so dark
in here. I must put on the light.  [Enter the Maid with Peter Paul
Sweeney.]

PETER PAUL: You’ll excuse me, Mr. H., butting in like this. I wonder
if you remember me? Sweeney is my name. I met you one night with
George O’Leary!

PETER: Oh, yes, I remember you now. You’re a teacher, aren’t you?

PETER PAUL: I’ve left that now. I’m Secretary to the Board of Health.

PETER: That’s a very good job, isn’t it?

PETER PAUL: Ah, I think I’d like to go back to the teaching some time,

PETER: You know my niece, don’t you? Joan Latham.

PETER PAUL: How do you do, Miss Latham? What I called about was to ask
you would you give us a subscription for the statue.

PETER: What statue? I’m afraid I haven’t heard of any statue.

PETER PAUL: Ah, go on! Sure I thought everybody knew we were putting
up a statue to Brian O’Rourke, and it is outside your own house, as
you might say!

JOAN: Oh, is that what the pedestal is for?

PETER PAUL: That’s right. There, I thought everybody knew about it.

PETER: I’m very glad you didn’t forget to call on me. I will certainly
send you a subscription. Of course, I knew Brian O’Rourke awfully
well.

PETER PAUL: So I heard, Mr. H. By all accounts he was a great bit of
stuff. Of course, I was too young to know him.

PETER: Oh yes, he was a very remarkable man. You know, he stayed a
good deal at my Sister’s house during the troubles.

PETER PAUL: Is that so? Well, Mr. H., isn’t it awful the way the
country is after going since then. My God, even Brian O’Rourke’s best
pals dodge me in the street and all for the sake of a couple of
bob. You know, there’s very few like you left, Mr. H. How much will I
put you down for?

PETER: Oh, er, let me see. Suppose we say, er, three guineas?

JOAN: Peter, three guineas!

PETER: That’s all right, Joan, you leave that to me.

PETER PAUL: That’s grand, Mr. H., that’s splendid. You’ll be surprised
how few subscriptions like that we get. Ah, sure the country is gone
to the dogs!

PETER: I’ll see that you get the cheque tomorrow.

PETER PAUL: That’s splendid, Mr. H. The Courthouse is my address. I’ll
be looking out for it.

PETER: Oh, by the way, before you go. Do you happen to have a
cigarette on you?

PETER PAUL: Cigarette, sir? Cigarette, Mr. H? Oh, yes.

PETER: Thanks so much. I’ll take one or two of these, if you don’t
mind. It will save me going to the shop tonight. I’ll see you get that
cheque tomorrow.

PETER PAUL: That’s grand. Good-night, now, Mr. H. Good-night, Miss
Latham. [Exit Peter Paul.]

JOAN: Peter, what are you doing? Really, it’s not fair. It’s not
fair. You know how Walter feels about all this. You know how I have to
pinch and scrape on the housekeeping, and then you promise three
guineas to a man like that.

PETER: I know quite well what I’m doing, Joan. I’ve told you already
that Brian O’Rourke stayed at your mother’s house.

JOAN: But, Peter, that’s no reason why you should promise money and
even if you do succeed in getting the money and Walter finds out about
it, what will happen to both of us?

PETER: I’m sorry, Joan, I did not tell you everything.

JOAN: Whatever do you mean?

PETER: Just that, Joan. I told you that Brian O’Rourke stayed at your
mother’s house, but that isn’t the whole story. I don’t even know if I
should tell you now.

JOAN: Oh, then, don’t tell me, please. I feel it’s something terrible.

PETER: There’s nothing terrible in it. It happens every day. It’s only
human nature. Who the devil is making that confounded row?

JOAN: It’s only Johnny at the organ. Peter, are you serious about
this? Do you mean there was something between my mother and Brian
O’Rourke?

PETER: Your mother — — — I’m sorry, Joan. My head is so queer. [He
takes out another tablet and puts it into his mouth.] I’ve forgotten
what I was saying. Her husband deserted her. You know all that, of
course. O’Rourke was being hounded day and night by the English and
she put him up.

JOAN: I know all that, but the other thing—you can’t mean that they
were lovers?

PETER: Yes, Joan, I do.

JOAN: Does Walter know this?

PETER: He doesn’t know it. He has suspicions of it. That was another
thing, too, in my face.

JOAN: Peter, that story you were telling me just now about that family
in Austria. Was that a fable?

PETER: If you like.

JOAN: And the girl in the fable. The girl who didn’t know who her
father was. Was that me?

PETER: Yes, Joan, you were the girl I was thinking of.

JOAN: Oh, God! Then my father was not an English officer but Brian
O’Rourke, the Rebel.

PETER: Some people call him a hero.

JOAN: It’s rather soon for me to change, isn’t it? Oh, Peter, are you
sure of this? You know what it means for me, don’t you.  What it means
for me to be the girl in the fable. It means that I must leave
everything I have ever known and go out to look for my father. You
wouldn’t tell me a thing like that unless you were certain?

PETER: No, Joan, I would not.

JOAN: Then I suppose I must only try to get used to it. It’s funny to
see everything else in the same place and to hear Johnny at the
organ. I feel they should all have been blown up with my life. You’re
right, Peter, imagination; all imagination. We crucify ourselves for a
name or imagination, and in a moment it’s gone and we’ve nothing left
inside us. Peter, is there no such thing as reality?

PETER: People can’t exist in a vacuum. They must take something on
trust.

JOAN: I suppose so, and yet I feel as if I had gone away from myself
for the first time, away into some sort of limbo where souls hang
round between one incarnation and another. I feel as if I don’t want
to come down, for if I do I’ll just be in another doll’s house as
unreal as the last. Tell me, Peter, how did my father die?

PETER: He was stabbed to death in his bed. [Joan shudders.]  What is
it, Joan?

JOAN: Nothing. The vacuum filled again, that’s all.

PETER: I’m sorry.

JOAN: It doesn’t matter, but I can scarcely bear to think of him.  To
think that old women in the lane still worship him, and how often I
must have sinned against his memory. I wonder if he forgives me
wherever he is; he must have suffered on my account. Peter, why didn’t
you tell me before?

PETER: Perhaps because you were too young.

JOAN: And now they are putting up his statue before our door just as
if they knew it all. It will be strange drawing the blinds on it at
night, trying to imagine what he was like. I have always wanted a
father, Peter. I have even lain awake at night imagining things he
would say, things I would answer, and now I am a statue’s daughter.

PETER: It’s a great honour, Joan.

JOAN: Yes, tell me so. Talk to me, comfort me. It’s as though I had
been miles away in the air with all the souls that died and were
waiting to be born again looking down on this place and the sort of
life I lived here, saying good-bye to it, and now it’s sort of dark
and I’m falling again. When I awake in the morning I will be someone
else, not Joan Latham at all, and there will be more little streets
and more little houses about me. Fairy wisdom is like fairy gold—it
dwindles when you touch it.

PETER: Joan, come here, I want to tell you something.

JOAN [Hurrying out]: No, Peter, don’t say anything, not now.  Tomorrow
when I awake.

[The organ swells.]

[CURTAIN]




ACT TWO

The interior of the Teach Miodhchuarta, the Gaelic League
headquarters: a long room over a stable. A meeting of the Brian
O’Rourke Memorial Committee is in session: Doyle in the chair, Fintan
O’Leary as Secretary, Peter Paul as Treasurer and George
O’Leary. Eileen, Doyle’s daughter, is sitting near the window looking
down the street.

DOYLE: And that, I think, about closes the meeting.

FINTAN: It does nothing of the kind.

DOYLE: Fintan, we’ll leave all the rest to you. Sure, we know you’ll
do nothing wrong.

FINTAN: Oh, yes, pile all the work on to me! Ye decide that ye want a
statue, and then ye leave everything to me. Fintan, see this fellow,
Fintan, interview the railway company, Fintan, make arrangements with
the band.

DOYLE: Fintan, you’re a natural secretary. George, how long is it
since we used to hold the Volunteer meetings here? Twenty odd years?
Do you remember how the meetings used to end?

O’LEARY: By Gor, I was after forgetting. The insignia!

DOYLE: Precisely. I’m waiting for a motion.

O’LEARY: Mr. Chairman, I move that the insignia be now placed on the
table.

DOYLE: Peter Paul, that cupboard by the door. [Peter Paul gets up.]
Look in the comer on the left hand side. [Peter Paul takes out a pack
of cards. Impatiently.] The insignia, Peter Paul! In front of the
chairman! [Peter Paul lays them before him.] Cut for deal!

FINTAN: Here, hold on, hold on! The most important thing of all isn’t
decided yet. Who’s going to deliver the address at the unveiling?

DOYLE: George, that son of yours will go far. How did we come to
forget that? What are we going to do about it?

P.P.: I suppose we ought to ask Jerry Noone, since he’s the T.D.

O’LEARY: That damned humbug! He’s fit for nothing only to be in the
Government.

DOYLE: Still, you know, ‘twill be expected.

O’LEARY: Not by anyone that knew Brienie. The man would rise from the
grave if he knew that fellow was making speeches about him,

DOYLE: Of course, there’s always Brigid.

O’LEARY: His sister? Not likely!

DOYLE: Still, George, there was a time you’d have sat listening to
Brigid for a whole evening.

O’LEARY: Not on politics!

DOYLE: Anyway, you won’t be able to stop her. She’ll speak whether you
like it or not.

O’LEARY: I declare to God, I’m almost sorry I ever started it. I
wanted to remind people of Brian O’Rourke, but all it boils down to is
putting up a statue that has no resemblance to him, and getting
someone to tell a pack of lies about him.  What good is that?

DOYLE: Fintan, we have always to fall back on you. Get us out of this
fix like a deecnt boy!

FINTAN: Well, what’s wrong with letting my old fellow speak?  The dear
knows, he has enough of old gab when ‘tisn’t wanted.

O’LEARY: Pon my soul, you young blackguard, I’d be very tempted.

DOYLE: And what’s to stop you?

O’LEARY: I’d be very tempted, I say. I’d like to tell some of the
young whippersnappers that are growing up now a few things. I’d like
to tell them of the days when there were half a dozen of us here
learning Irish, and if we went into a house in this city we were
treated like comics out of the theatre.  ‘Say us a bit of Irish.’ And
when Brienie and myself went down the country to talk at some meeting
that often ‘twas under a ditch we spent the night because no one would
offer us a bed.

FINTAN [Scribbling]: Because no one would offer us a bed. Go on!
That’s shaping very nicely.

O’LEARY: Oh, I know, I know, I know I haven’t the gift of the gab. [He
grows more and more excited.] If I could only string words together
the way some fellows can, I’d show young pups like you the sort of
living death we saved this country from, and make ye ashamed of the
mess ye made of the victory we won for ye. But I can’t and I know I
can’t.

FINTAN: What about yourself, Phil? Wouldn’t you give us a few bars?

DOYLE: And have your father after my blood? Don’t you know, whatever
anyone says he’ll disagree with it?

O’LEARY: I don’t care what anyone says so long as they tell the
truth. I don’t want any statues that look as if they were after coming
out of a skating rink; I don’t want any blooming national heroes or
plaster saints. What I want is the real man, the Brian O’Rourke we
used to know.

DOYLE: That Brian O’Rourke is dead, George. You’d better make up your
mind to it. All we have is the skating rink and the plaster saint.

O’LEARY: Then I want a man who’ll bring him alive again.

EILEEN: Why doesn’t any of you think of Jack Costello?

FINTAN: Jack Costello? Eileen, are you crazy?

EILEEN: Well, anyway he knew Brian O’Rourke, and he can talk.

P.P.: Yes, but the sort of things he’d say!

O’LEARY: I think the girl is right. Jack Costello is the very man we
want.

DOYLE: But you know yourself he’ll only attack everybody.

O’LEARY: We’ll manage him all right.

FINTAN: You’re a cleverer man than I think you are if you can manage
him, The man is batty.

O’LEARY: We know he’s batty, but that’s the way things went, man, It’s
all the split, the damn split. He was an idealist, like the rest of
us, but he expected too much from the blooming country, and that’s
what has him the way he is.

DOYLE: But it’s his own fault, George. The fellow could have any job
he liked, only he’ll stick at nothing. One minute ’tis agriculture;
the next ’tis a Dramatic Society. You know yourself

DOYLE: He started a poultry farm with the little bit of money his
mother left him. He decided the hens wanted to be washed, and he
washed them, and he gave the whole lot of them pneumonia. And then the
chickens got the gapes and he put them into a case that had powdered
magnesia in it and every one of them died of suffocation. Sure, you
know yourself the man isn’t right. And now, the latest lunacy is
Social Credit!  Social Credit! A fellow that couldn’t get credit for a
packet of fags!

COSTELLO [Entering]: Who couldn’t get credit for a packet of fags?

O’LEARY: Oh, Jack, is that you? What the blazes are you doing here?

COSTELLO: I seem to have arrived at an unfortunate moment.
Am I, by any chance, the man who couldn’t get credit for a
packet of fags?

DOYLE: Oh, not at all, Jack, not at all! How could you fancy that? We
were talking about a fellow—you wouldn’t know him—a friend of
Fintan’s. Isn’t that so, Fin?

FINTAN: Oh, yes; a Dublin fellow; a—a haberdasher I think he is.

COSTELLO: A haberdasher, and can’t get credit for a packet of
cigarettes? What’s the business coming to?

FINTAN: Ah, well, he’s a bit touched.

COSTELLO: So naturally, he’s interested in Social Credit.

O’LEARY: Ah, for God’s sake, stop these lies! Of course, we were
talking about you, as we’re always talking about you and what a bloody
unmitigated nuisance you are to your friends.

COSTELLO: That’s better, George.

EILEEN: And we all agreed that you were the only man to make a speech
at the unveiling of the O’Rourke statue.

DOYLE: Exactly.

FINTAN: You will do it, Jack, won’t you?

DOYLE: You see, Jack, you knew him, and you have the gift of the
gab. We knew him too but we couldn’t string two words together to save
our lives.

COSTELLO: Do you mean this, George?

O’LEARY: We do. We don’t want any jackeen of a politician coming down
here and talking about dying for Ireland at £400 a year. We have only
one idea in putting up this statue; to make the young fellows growing
up now think of Brian O’Rourke and what he did for the country. And we
want them told what sort of man Brianie was.

COSTELLO: The real Brian O’Rourke?

O’LEARY: Exactly! A human being just like you and me and the rest of
us that could tell a story and crack a joke and bite the head off some
fellow. Not a plaster saint, Jack; just the sort of man that they
could be if only they’d have a couple of ideals in their nuts.

COSTELLO: I see what you want; just the plain, untarnished truth.

DOYLE: The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

O’LEARY: The man we knew and loved and that we’d have laid down our
lives for, Jack.

COSTELLO: Very well then, I agree, but mind, only on that
condition—the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

DOYLE: Then, that’s settled, and we can have our game of cards.

P.P.: Hold on a minute, Phil. I dont like all this business about the
truth,

COSTELLO: Then the deal is off!

O’LEARY: The deal is not off. What the hell ails you, Sweeney?

P.P.: I have an idea that Jack Costello has something up his sleeve.

COSTELLO: What can I have up my sleeve? I assume you all know as well
as I do that Brian O’Rourke was the lover of a woman you all knew of,
and that you won’t expect me to conceal that.

DOYLE: Bah, I should have know you’d be up to some new lunacy!

FINTAN: And that’s what brought him here—just to tell us that!

DOYLE: Costello, you positively disgust me!

O’LEARY: Hold on! I want to get at the truth of this. Jack Costello,
you were Brian’s pal and you wouldn’t spread a dirty yarn about him
without reason. Who was this woman?

COSTELLO: Peter Humphrey’s sister.

O’LEARY: Does Peter know?

COSTELLO: I heard it as coming from Peter.

DOYLE: Lies! The wife of an English officer! Lies, I say!

O’LEARY: Brianie stayed there, Phil.

DOYLE: You stayed there and I stayed there. Did you ever lay eyes on
the woman while you were there?

O’LEARY: That’s no proof that Brianie didn’t.

DOYLE: But Brianie? He couldn’t do a thing like that, he wouldn’t do
it. Brianie was the soul of honour. As long as you were with him, did
you ever see him do a deceitful thing?

O’LEARY: We mayn’t have seen him do it, Phil, but that’s no proof he
didn’t do it.

EILEEN: But what’s upsetting you all so much? What’s there surprising
in it? After all, isn’t it only human nature? There’s a young married
woman, and I suppose her husband was away somewhere at the War. She
was lonely. He was on the run.  It was the only home he had. Damn it,
it all seems perfectly natural to me.

DOYLE [Snarling]: Is that the sort of morality you learned at school?

EILEEN: No, it isn’t, but you all seem to me so silly, fussing about
it like a lot of old maids.

FINTAN: You’ll see whether we’re fussing or not when you hear how many
people want to withdraw their subscriptions.

O’LEARY: Subscriptions! You young lout! Is that all you see in it?

EILEEN: But honestly, Mr. O’Leary, what else is there?

O’LEARY: Your father and I, girl, haven’t enough illusions left to see
any more of them shattered.

DOYLE: My illusions aren’t shattered. I tell you I don’t believe one
word, not one word of it.

O’LEARY: That’s not the point. The point is that anyone can believe
whatever they choose to believe. Brianie stayed there; she was a
handsome girl; he had the opportunity. If people choose to believe
that story we can never prove the opposite.  There’s no evidence.

COSTELLO: There’s evidence enough, but unfortunately, the evidence is
of the wrong kind.

O’LEARY: What evidence?

COSTELLO: A young woman, aged twenty or so, and as good-looking as
her mother.

O’LEARY: Peter Humphreys’ niece?

COSTELLO: Brian O’Rourke’s daughter.

DOYLE: Great God!

EILEEN: But what is there strange in that? What difference does it
make?

O’LEARY: A daughter of Brian’s and I not to have laid eyes on her!
Does she know?

COSTELLO: If she doesn’t, she soon will. The whole town is buzzing
with it.

[Enter Joan.]

JOAN: May I come in?

FINTAN: Sorry, miss, but there’s a Meeting on.

JOAN: I wonder if I could see the secretary.

FINTAN: I’m the secretary.

JOAN: I wanted to enquire about Irish classes. This is the Gaelic
League, isn’t it? Oh, good evening, Mr. Sweeney.

P.P.: Good evening, Miss L. No, this is a meeting of the Brian
O’Rourke Memorial Committee. If you come back about half seven you’ll
see the secretary.

JOAN: Oh, thank you so much. [She goes out.]

FINTAN: That’s a nice looking Jane, Peter Paul, who is she?

PETER PAUL: AH, sure, you know who that is, don’t you?

FINTAN: No, who is it?

PETER PAUL: That’s the very girl you were talking about—the statue’s
daughter.

O’LEARY: You mean that girl gone out?

P.P: Yes, I thought ye all knew her.

O’LEARY: Damn it, man, couldn’t you say so?

DOYLE: Where are you going?

O’LEARY: I’m going to call her back to be sure.

DOYLE: And what are you going to say to her?

O;LEARY: I want to talk to the girl. I want to see what is she like.

DOYLE: But listen, man, listen! You can’t go up to the girl and talk
to her about a thing like that. Be reasonable.

O’LEARY: Is it Brianie’s daughter come into a room, and we sitting
here like a lot of dummies! What’ll she think only that we were
ashamed to talk to her? Get out of my way!  [Enter Peter.]

PETER: Oh, you’re all here. I’m so glad.

O’LEARY: Look here, you’ve got to tell us what truth is in this story
that Costello just brought in.

PETER: Ssh! Ssh!

O’LEARY: What’s the hushing about? By this time it’s all over the
city.

PETER: It’s my niece, She’s outside on the landing. I met her going
down the stairs. Don’t raise your voices please.

DOYLE: Then will you tell us what all this is about?

PETER: That’s what I came for, to say I was sorry. But really I
couldn’t go on any longer as I was going. My sister made me promise
never to tell her, but what could I do? After all, she is O’Rourke’s
daughter, she belongs to this country as much as anybody ever did, but
there are all those absurd divisions of religion and class. There
wasn’t any other way to prove to her how much she belonged to this
country.

O’LEARY: I don’t blame you for telling her. If she is what you say I
blame you for not telling her fifteen years ago.

P.P.: But is she? That’s the point!

DOYLE: Peter, you are sure? I mean, there’s no possibility of a
mistake?

PETER: Oh, none! First of all there are the dates to prove it.  And
there are letters.

O’LEARY: Letters from Brian?

PETER: Yes, but, of course, I’m not at liberty to show them to
anybody.

O’LEARY: I want no letters. You and I are old gaol-mates, and all I
want is your word that what you’re telling us is true.  That’s enough
for me.

PETER: Oh, certainly it’s true.

DOYLE: Then God help us all!

EILEEN: And I think ye’re all being lousy. I’m going to call the girl
in. (Exit.]

PETER: Who is that girl, George? I don’t think I’ve met her before.

O’LEARY: That’s Phil Doyle’s daughter.

PETER: But what an attractive girl! [Enter Joan and Eileen.)

EILEEN: Well, here we all are. My name is Doyle. That’s my old fellow
there. That’s Fintan O’Leary, and that’s Fintan’s old fellow. He talks
rough, but he’s a decent skin. And that’s Jack Costello that’s going
to make the oration.

COSTELLO: That was going to make the oration. Now, I don’t know if
I’ll be asked again.

EILEEN: Mr. Costello often talks like that, but he’s a decent skin
too. And we’re all delighted to meet you, and we hope we’ll see a lot
more of you.

O’LEARY: I haven’t the gift of the gab, girl, but what Eileen says
goes for all of us.

DOYLE [Speechless]: For all of us.

JOAN: It’s grand of you all to be so nice to me, and I’m sure we’re
going to be great friends.

COSTELLO: And so you’re going to learn Irish?

JOAN: That’s what I came for. To join the class.

COSTELLO: Yes, when you came in it gave me a start. It reminded me of
an evening long ago when I came in here and said ‘Please, I want to
learn Irish.’ I almost wanted to beg of you not to.

O’LEARY: Costello, Costello!

JOAN: But what would you have advised me to do?

COSTELLO: To clear out while you were still young and full of ideals.

JOAN: But it’s as if a miracle had happened to me, and you want me to
behave as though it hadn’t happened at all.

COSTELLO: And when the miracle begins to lose its novelty, what will
become of you? This is no country for idealists.

O’LEARY: Jack, Jack, I told you before you remind me of The Boy stood
on the Burning Deck.

COSTELLO: No, be quiet, you. Twenty odd years ago, child, I came in
that door just as you did, with my heart filled with confidence, and
now I haven’t an ideal left. In ten years time, if you haven’t grown
hard and coarse and cynical like all the others you may become what I
am now. One night I may meet you, cowering on a bench by the river
when you’re so lonely that you’ll be glad of even a tramp to talk to.

JOAN: And I feel as if I’d been all my life in exile and now at last
I’m home.

COSTELLO: Yes, I know there was something you reminded me of‒a poem of
Heine’s

  Thou dost look deathly pale but still
  Be comforted! Thou art at home!

JOAN: Thanks, Mr. Costello, I feel quite at home. [Enter the
O’Rourkes.]

O’LEARY: Good Lord, look who’s here! Well, well, ladies, ye were the
last people I expected to see. Joan, you know the O’Rourkes, don’t
you? This is Brianie’s sister and this is his aunt.

BRIGID: You haven’t told us who the young lady is, Mr. O’Leary.

O’LEARY: Oh, I forgot. This is—this is Miss Latham.

ELLEN: Oh!

BRIGID: Now aunty, leave this to me. So you’re Mr. Humphreys niece?

JOAN: Yes.

BRIGID: And I take it that since you’re here you must have heard the
extraordinary rumour that’s going the rounds?

ELLEN: Lies! Lies and slander!

BRIGID: Aunty! Well, child?


JOAN: Naturally I’ve heard it.

BRIGID: I hope you’re not in any way responsible for it?

ELLEN: Sure, of course she’s responsible.

PETER: I think I’d better explain. My name is Humphreys. I am
responsible for the rumour, as you call it, and it is not a rumour. I
think that’s all.

BRIGID: Oh, no, Mr. Humphreys, I don’t think it’s all, not by a long
way. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m talking to your niece at the moment.

PETER [Squelched]: Well, if it comes to that, she’s your niece as much
as mine.

BRIGID: That’s the point I’m discussing with Miss Latham, Mr.
Humphreys. . . . You see, child, everybody knew what Brian’ reputation
was when he was alive, and still the English spread lying stories
about him. Now, he’s dead; they’re putting up a statue to him—it isn’t
much of a statue, God knows, but that’s neither here nor there. And a
few days before, along comes a young woman—a very good-looking young
woman, by the way—and says she’s Brian’s daughter; his illegitimate
daughter, if you please. And at the same time—pay attention to this
now—this girl is the niece of a man who used to be employed in the
British Foreign Office. Miss Latham, do the British Foreign Office
think we’re fools?

PETER: Oh, really, this is all nonsense.

BRIGID: We’ll see whether ‘tis nonsense or not.

PETER: But I tell you the British Foreign Office or any other foreign
office doesn’t do such silly things—starting scandals about a statue—a
statue! It’s just too silly for words.

BRIGID: I’m asking your niece, Mr. Humphreys . . . Is that suspicious,
or isn’t it?

JOAN: Don’t speak to me please. How dare you say such things to me.

O’LEARY: Now, Brigid, that’s no way to speak to the girl.

BRIGID: Don’t get emotional, any of you. Don’t lose control of
yourself, Mr. O’Leary. You’re a very excitable man, [Produces
document.] Now, this is a statement, denying the whole thing from
beginning to end. All Brian’s relatives and friends are going to sign
it. You’re going to sign it too, Miss Latham, or I hope you are,
because if you don’t, you’ll be given twenty-four hours—mind now,
twenty-four hours—to leave the country. Would you like to look at it?

JOAN: I’ve told you already not to speak to me.

BRIGID: You know, I think you ought to read it.

JOAN: Very well then. Give it to me, [She tears it up.] That will teach
you to insult me, you wicked old women.

ELLEN: Oh, you thing! The age of you and the impudence of you!

BRIGID: You needn’t worry, aunty. I came well prepared. [She takes out
another copy.] Mr. O’Leary, you were Brian’s best friend. You won’t
refuse to sign this?

ELLEN: And you, Phil Doyle, that watched over his lifeless body with
the mark of the English bayonets in it?

DOYLE: Ah, now, Miss Ellen, I don’t like to be mixed up in family
matters.

BRIGID: I see, I see, I got here too late. She got her story in before
me. I thought I was coming to Brian’s friends, and I find them leagued
with English spies to destroy his good name—he that never in all his
days looked at the side of the road a woman walked at.

ELLEN: Never as much as took a drop of drink—oh, the malice!

BRIGID: Never used a coarse word or as much as smoked a
cigarette—George O’Leary, what’s after coming over you?

O’LEARY: Oh, that’s all true, every word of it.

BRIGID: Is it true, Mr. Doyle?

DOYLE: It is, it is.

ELLEN: And are you going to deny it?

COSTELLO: I’m afraid I don’t attach the same importance to cigarettes
as you do.

BRIGID [Stung]: That comes very well from you, Mr. Costello.  In the
old days you knew better than to insult an old woman.  But how can we
expect better from men that turn upon a dead comrade?

O’LEARY: We never turned upon a dead comrade.

BRIGID: And all for the sake of a pretty face.

O’LEARY [Goaded]: Ah, God Almighty, woman, you don’t understand.

BRIGID [Calm]: What is it we don’t understand, Mr. O’Leary?

O’LEARY: What bloody loonies we all were then.

ELLEN: Nice language and nice sentiments.

BRIGID [icy]: Auntie! Would you mind repeating that, Mr.  O’Leary? I
didn’t catch the exact expression.

O’LEARY: Loonies, I said. Bloody misfortunate loonies! Now, you talk
about Brienie, but look at me. Would you believe I never drank? Would
you believe I never swore? Would you believe I never smoked a
cigarette? Would you or anyone believe that till the day I married I
never as much as kissed a girl? And you know that, Brigid O’Rourke!

BRIGID: I know nothing about your business, Mr. O’Leary.

O’LEARY: Then by God ’tis time you know that.

BRiGID [In a low voice]: Leave yourself and myself out of it.

O’LEARY: I’ll do nothing of the sort. What do we know or care about it
only the way it touched yourself and myself? You know well the sort we
were, Brienie and myself, spending our weekends on bikes, hopping from
old churches to old castles, and never talking anything only Irish
though we weren’t past third book at the time and ‘twas nothing but
_’O nach bhfuil an_ scenery beautiful?’ and ‘_Ta mo_ tyre flat.’ Month
after month of it! It nearly broke our hearts. Ah, sure, Brigid, you
know yourself we weren’t natural.

BRIGID: You got quite natural since then though, didn’t you?

O’LEARY: Sure, of course I did, woman alive. Isn’t that the very thing
I’m telling you? And Brienie would have done the same if he lived.

ELLEN: Wisha, how dare you, you insignificant little gnat, comparing
yourself to our Brienie?

BRIGID: I think he means it as a compliment, auntie.

O’LEARY: Sure, of course I do. What else? Brian was an intelligent
man. What else could he do? How else would he live?  I nearly went
bankrupt half a dozen times since I came out of gaol and why? Because
I was too honest. Fintan here will tell you—too honest. Look at me
now! I may not be a millionaire, but I’m a substantial man; I have a
car of my own, and the Income Tax Inspector doesn’t believe daylight
from me, And why? Because I’m a double-dyed rogue and intriguer;
because when I meet Mick Mud and Dick Dirt ‘tis out with the old mitt
and ‘How are you, Mickie boy, and how are all the little Muds?’

FINTAN [Piously]: Father!

O’LEARY: ’Tis true for me. But that’s business for you. There’s only
one thing I didn’t descend to—the hoodlums with the skull and cross
bones, the secret societies.

FINTAN: Father, if I ever thought you’d do a thing like that I’d
disown you.

O’LEARY: No, but because the men I fought with would rise from their
graves to haunt me if I did. And praise be to God I never lost
anything by it. I’m known; I’m liked; wherever I go I get the best
seats and the best rooms. But that’s the only thing I didn’t descend
to. Now, ladies, I’m telling you the truth. The young people of this
country are always up there [the ceiling.] or down there. [the floor.]
At present they’re down there. Like my specimen, Stand out there, like
a good boy, and give us a look at you.

FINTAN: Shoot away, William Tell. I’m modern Ireland.

O’LEARY: You’re after taking the words out of my mouth.

FINTAN: God knows, I hear them often enough. And anyway ’tisn’t my
fault if I’m not a national hero. I can’t go plugging bobbies after
breakfast, can I?

O’LEARY: You wouldn’t be fit to plug a bobby before or after
breakfast. Rattling round the country on a motor bike is all you’re
fit for. Or backing horses or going to the pictures.

FINTAN: Or drinking or courting. You might as well give us the whole
litany.

O’LEARY: You needn’t be a bit afraid—I will. Yes, ladies and
gentlemen, this is Modern Ireland. I hope we’ll never look upon its
like again. Now, I’m fond of the boy; he’s my only one, and I’m idioty
about him, but I can put my hand on my heart and say he hasn’t one
good point. I called him Fintan, and for all the difference it made I
might as well have called him Adolphus. Before he was six I was
reading Shelley to him, and he never reads anything only dirty books
he gets from Peter Paul Sweeney.

P.P.: I never gave any dirty books.

O’LEARY: Only for censuring; I know; but they were dirty books all the
same. He’s chasing after girls since he’s out of long clothes—ask
Eileen Doyle.

EILEEN: And I never heard a word of it.

O’LEARY: Look, that I might be killed stone dead—at the age of ten he
could rob a slot machine. He’s a born crook. When I’m dead and gone
he’ll be in the hoodlums. And in his hearts of hearts he thinks I’m an
old puke. Don’t you?

FINTAN: And what else are you?

O’LEARY: I know, I know. That’s what I’m trying to say, man, I am an
old puke, and I know it, and I know ’twas nothing but nonsense, the
antics of Brienie and myself, but in spite of it, when I think of the
pair of us cycling up Glenmalure, to see where Feagh MacHugh beat the
English, without the price of a cup of tea between us, and having to
sleep out on the mountain—yes, and enjoying it, enjoying it as I never
enjoyed anything since; pretending we were like Feagh MacHugh
clansmen, and the moon rising over the old barracks in the valley and
the waterfalls roaring—then the old heart gives one mighty leap inside
me, and I say to you and all the other little hoodlums ‘Puke
yeerselves! Ye never knew what it was to be young in Ireland.’

BRIGID: I still don’t know what you want me to do.

O’LEARY: Be friends, girl; that’s all I want you to do, there was
hatred enough between us all. For the sake of our youth, no matter how
foolish it was, and Brienie’s sake, no matter what he did, for the
sake of all we hoped and suffered for let the dead rest and let us be
friends.

BRIGID: Myself and the men that are trying to destroy my brother’s
good name.

O’LEARY: No, you couldn’t do it.

BRIGID: I’d never do it.

O’LEARY: You couldn’t do it. The Brianie you remember isn’t the living
Brianie; you have nothing but a dead man. The milk is gone sour in
you, nursing a dead man.

DOYLE: George, George, mind what you’re saying!

BRIGID: Oh, I know what George O’Leary thinks, Mr. Doyle.  There’s
nothing new in that. But whatever I am, or whatever he is, you all
know me of old, and you know I mean what I say. And I tell you I’ll
never rest till I clear Brian’s name, and show this girl up for what
she is. [They go.]

O’LEARY [Collapsing]: Almighty God!

FINTAN: Phew! If that’s Ancient Ireland I hope we’ll never look
upon its like again.

DOYLE: Sssh! Your father broke his heart for that woman before ever
you were born.

JOAN: Did you, Mr. O’Leary?

O’LEARY: I used to hide in a lane near her house, just to see her go
out walking, and then follow her—moyyah, we met by accident. She was
like Deirdre or Grania or someone out of the old stories. God
Almighty, and look at her now!

P.P.: Oh, and by the way, Mr. H. I wonder would you have that couple
of bob on you?

PETER: Couple of bob? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking
about.

P.P.: Ah, you know, the subscription for the statue.

PETER: No, of course, I haven’t. What’s the hurry?

P.P.: Well, the fact is, I want to get my books totted up. I’m
resigning.

PETER: Resigning? What the devil for?

O’LEARY: Resigning? You little rat!

DOYLE: Let him go, George! He’s small loss.

FINTAN [after a pause]: You think there’s going to be trouble about
the statue, Peter Paul?

P.P.: I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, Fintan,

FINTAN: No, no more would I.

CURTAIN.





ACT THREE

The sitting-room in St. Donogh’s Rectory.

Joan: There’s something mysterious about a statue all covered up like
that. Have you seen it, Fintan?

FINTAN: Oh, yes, a couple of times.

JOAN: I wonder what it’s like?

FINTAN: Ah, not bad, not bad. In the modem style. Cusack the fellow
that did it studied in Paris. Not very like the man; so my old fellow
says, but of course they all think no one knew what he was like only
themselves.

JOAN: Well, anyhow, it’s up now, and there’s nothing very much that
anybody can do about it.

FINTAN: Ah, I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that at all. To tell
you the truth I’d prefer a spot of trouble to this hushaby loc
business. It always gives me a feeling that someone is going to give
me a nasty dig.

[The telephone rings.)

JOAN: Somebody wants to speak to you, Fintan,

FINTAN: Oh, yes, I left word at the office if anyone rang to put them
on here. [At the phone.] Hello? Oh, yes, Peter Paul.  That’s
right. What? You want to see me? Hold on a minute.  ...Joan, will it
be all right if Peter Paul comes up here?

JOAN: Oh, yes, quite all right. My uncle is away.

FINTAN: Well, look here, Peter Paul, I’m at the Rectory. Yes, at the
Rectory. No, I’m not getting converted. What? Ah, go away, you
blackguard! No, we were just reading a few chapters of Scripture
together. Come up right away, Peter Paul. You’re quite safe. The sky
pilot is out... You should have touched wood, Joan.

JOAN: What is it?

FINTAN: Oh, some trouble about the statue. He wouldn’t tell me over
the phone. Sound judge!

JOAN: He said something else—about me.

FINTAN: Ah, that was only larking.

JOAN: What did he think your reason was for coming here?

FINTAN: Well, after all, what was my reason for coming here?  [She
doesn’t reply.] You don’t mind, do you, Joan?

JOAN: No, I don’t mind, Fintan, but what about Eileen?

FINTAN: Well, what about her?

JOAN: Weren’t you great friends?

FINTAN: Great friends: Oh, I don’t know, Joan. I wouldn’t go as far as
that. Of course I knew her since she was that high; naturally, seeing
that our old fellows were in gaol together; and we were always good
pals, but you mustn’t imagine there was anything more serious.

JOAN: But Eileen may have thought it.

FINTAN: Oh, no, Oh, not at all! I can answer for that, Joan.  [Enter
the Maid.]

MAID: There’s a Miss Doyle to see you, miss.

FINTAN: Eileen? Now, what the devil is she doing here?

JOAN: Tell her to come in, Nellie.  [Eileen comes in.]

EILEEN: Oh, I didn’t know you had anyone with you.

JOAN: Come along, Eileen. Fintan isn’t anyone.

EILEEN: Ah, no, really! I’ll come back later on. I’m going into town
now.

JOAN: Did you want to see me alone, Eileen?

EILEEN [More and more embarrassed]: Ah, no, honest, it’s nothing.

JOAN: Fintan, will you leave us alone for a few minutes?

EILEEN: Honest, Joan, you’re making me ashamed of myself.  It’s a
thing will do any time.

FINTAN: Of course, if you want me to I will. [Pauses at door.)  Look
here, if this is anything about me, I’m entitled to listen to it.

EILEEN: Oh, so that’s what you think, is it? You must have a very bad
conscience, Fintan.

FINTAN: My conscience is all right. It’s your tongue that I’m afraid
of.

EILEEN: Well, you needn’t, Fintan. If you really want to know I’ve
nothing whatever to say about you—or to you. Does that satisfy you?

FINTAN: Oh, all right. I’ll be in the garden, Joan. [He goes out.)

EILEEN [Moodily]: It’s queer to let yourself be upset by a fellow like
that. [With a change of tone.] It’s about your uncle Peter I wanted to
see you. Maybe you’ll think I’m silly but I thought I’d better tell
you that he thinks he’s getting off with me.

JOAN: Eileen, I never guessed it!

EILEEN: Ah, I don’t give a hoot, but he seems to be a bit gaga. He
wrote me the queerest sort of letter, and I like a fool left it lying
around, and my da is in a flaming wax about it. I thought I’d better
warn you in case he says anything.

JOAN: Honestly, Eileen, I had no idea or I’d have told you before.
You mustn’t mind Peter. He’s not always responsible.

EILEEN: Do you mean he’s—

JOAN: No, no, it’s not that. It’s only where women are concerned.  You
see, he was in the Foreign Office. The life excited him too much; the
entertainments and intrigues and so on; he thought girls were in love
with him or that they were deceiving him—

EILEEN: I know, that’s what he said about me. That I had a ladder in
the back for Fintan’s convenience.

JOAN: Oh, dear, I didn’t know it was as bad as that. I should have
told you. There was a scandal in Austria—some actress he ran off
with—he had to come home. Usually, he’s full of sense, but now he
seems excited again.

EILEEN: Excited isn’t the word. Anyway, I’d better be going.

JOAN: Before you go, don’t you want to talk about Fintan?

EILEEN: No, Joan, I don’t. You can have Fintan,

JOAN: I don’t want Fintan if it means coming between you.

EILEEN: The first few days that was how I felt about it. Now I don’t
mind.

JOAN: Fintan didn’t think you cared for him.

EILEEN: Oh, that’s what he’d say, of course.

JOAN: You mean he wasn’t telling the truth?

EILEEN: No, I mean he was being prophetic.

JOAN: Oh, I can see he has certain faults.

EILEEN: No, Joan, you can’t. You’re like the little girl that wandered
into the fairy wood, and didn’t know which way to turn.  And she met a
handsome young man that offered to show her the way, and, of course,
you think the handsome young man is Prince Charming.

JOAN: It was clever of you to see that I felt like that. You see it’s
all so strange to me.

EILEEN: Oh, I know what I'd feel like if someone told me that my real
father was an American sailor. And anyway, all our generation is a bit
like that. We’re all astray in the fairy wood.  My da’s generation
were all right; they had something to fight for. It may have been only
a tinpot ideal, but it was an ideal.  We’ve nothing to fight
for. Fintan jeers at Jack Costello, but Jack is twice the man.

JOAN: Jack Costello? But isn’t he terribly impractical?

EILEEN: People are bound to be impractical when there’s nothing they
can do. He’s a disappointed idealist, and he’s disappointed in us. Our
generation let him down.

JOAN: Eileen, you’re not seriously thinking of him?

EILEEN: Why? Do you think I’d be cracked?

JOAN: He’s as old as your father.

EILEEN: He’s younger than Fintan; he still has illusions left.  [Enter
the Maid.]

MAID: There’s a gentleman called Costello to see you now, miss

EILEEN: Joan, you’re not trying to take both my fellows, are you?

JOAN: That’s all right, Nellie. Show him in.

[Costello appears at the door. The maid goes out.]

COSTELLO: I hope you’ll forgive my intruding like this.

JOAN: Oh, it’s quite all right. Won’t you sit down?

COSTELLO: Perhaps I’d better come back later.

EILEEN: I’ll go, Joan.

COSTELLO: No, any time will do for me. I just wanted to speak to Miss
Latham about this speech of mine. There were a few points I wanted to
consult her on.

JOAN: Oh, but that’s splendid. Just wait until I call Fintan in.  He’s
sure to be helpful. [Exit.]

EILEEN: If you want me to go I’ll go.

COSTELLO: No, why should you go? I suppose you’ll be bored, that’s
all.

EILEEN: Why? Do you think no one sees anything wrong with this country
but yourself?

COSTELLO [Pleased]: Oh, well, perhaps you will approve of it then.

[Enter Fintan with Joan.)

FINTAN: Hello, Jack. I believe your speech is ready.

JOAN: Suppose we all sit down and make ourselves comfortable.

COSTELLO: Thanks, I’d rather stand. I hope you’ll understand that I
wasn’t expecting an audience. I’m only just going to read a few
passages I’ve jotted down. “Ladies and gentlemen, today we are
unveiling a memorial to Brian O’Rourke, Commandant of the Irish
Republican Army, who was killed, etc., etc. To some of us who knew him
it may appear that in recent years the cause for which he laid down
his life has fallen into disrepute. We have all of us, at some time or
other, suffered at the hands of an incredulous and cynical generation.

EILEEN: Hear hear!

FINTAN: Carry on, Jack, that’s one in the kisser for me.

COSTELLO: “Before going further perhaps we should ask ourselves how
much this brutal cynicism is the natural reaction of
post-revolutionary generation, and how much a general attitude of the
whole nation. Let us contrast for a moment the position of our great
neighbours across the channel and of ourselves. On the one hand we see
a people, accepting realty, facing the facts of life, and out of them
a great empire, and on the other a people of whims and fancies who
have made themselves the bankrupts of Europe.”

FINTAN: Whose statue did you say this was for, Jack?

EILEEN: And isn’t he right? Isn’t that what we are?

FINTAN: Ah, I was only wondering who killed O’Rourke.

COSTELLO: But surely we must rise above such petty considerations as
that; surely we must take a broad philosophical view of history.

EILEEN: Sure, of course we must. We have no life, no life at all.

JOAN: But what does all this lead up to, Jack?

COSTELLO: To the fact that it’s just because of our skulking fear of
life that we try to turn Brian O’Rourke into legend and hide his
relationship to Joan’s mother.

FINTAN: Jack, you may have a slate loose, but you sound as if ’twas
the whole roof. Do you know what they’ll do to you?

COSTELLO: Do you think I'm afraid of them?

FINTAN: Bridgie O’Rourke will scratch your blooming eyes out.

EILEEN: Ah, it’s time old maids like Bridgie O’Rourke were told the
truth. And it is the truth, Fintan, you know ’tis the truth.  We’re
all bottled up; we have no life; we can’t even have a bit of a dance,
but you have some nosey old fool of a district justice asking what
were you doing in the car? Blazes, what would you be doing in a car?

FINTAN: Eileen, are you after taking leave of your senses? Aren’t we
taking risks enough already? Going ahead with the statue at all is a
risk. Asking Jack Costello to speak is a risk. That speech wouldn’t be
a risk, ’twould be a riot. Suppose he gave it, do you think he’d ever
again get a job in Ireland?

COSTELLO: I wasn’t thinking of a job in writing it.

EILEEN [All her practical instinct roused]: Fintan, suppose he didn’t
give it, would you try and get him a job?

COSTELLO: Splendid! Splendid! I give up my speech if I get a good
job. I think it’s worth it, don’t you, Joan?

FINTAN [Annoyed]: Ah, how soft you have it. Getting a job in this
country is a career in itself.

EILEEN: Seriously, Fintan, will you?

FINTAN: How the hell could I get him a job? There’s my da and yours
coming out of the hall; why don’t you ask them to get him a job?

EILEEN: As you put it like that, I will. [Rises.]

FINTAN: You needn’t worry. They’re coming over here. They look as if
they were out to shoot a bobby. There must be something up.

JOAN: I’ll let them in, Fintan. [She goes out.]

FINTAN: You mightn’t have any speech to deliver in the long run, Jack.

COSTELLO: Why? Is anything wrong?

FINTAN: Peter Paul says there’s trouble in the wind.  [Doyle and
O’Leary come in followed by Joan.]

FINTAN: Well, what is it, quick?

O’LEARY: It’s war, boy.

FINTAN: War?

DOYLE: Did you see the evening paper?

FINTAN: No.

DOYLE: There it is. Look at the leader.

FINTAN: “The O’Rourke Statue”? Janey Mack! So this was what Peter Paul
meant.

COSTELLO: In the evening paper? But there couldn’t be.

FINTAN [Handing it to him}: There is, and I think with all your old
guff about reality you might have tipped us the wink.

COSTELLO: But how could I, man, when I knew nothing about it?
[Reading.] Oh, God, cant, cant, cant!! “The committee in charge of
these arrangements should have their attention drawn to the
responsibility they bear to the youths and maidens of Ireland.”

EILEEN: Youths and maidens! Honest to God, wouldn’t it make you sick?

JOAN: But I don’t understand. What have the O’Rourkes to do with this?

EILEEN: It’s not the O’Rourkes, Joan. It’s the Holy Joes.

JOAN: The Holy Joes?

EILEEN: Yes, the Holy Joes that tar the trees so that we’ll spoil our
clothes if we go out for a coort, and censor every decent book in the
library; and now they’re going to make sure we don’t make glad eyes at
a statue. Holy God, if a girl isn’t even safe with a statue!

COSTELLO: That’s not the Holy Joes. That’s the hoodlums.

FINTAN: Ah, you have hoodlums on the brain.

EILEEN: Ah, don’t you see the girl doesn’t know what you’re talking
about?

O’LEARY: The hoodlums, child, are a gang that dress up like the Ku
Klux Klan, that swear themselves to secrecy on skulls, and have grips
and passwords like the Freemasons. The less you know of them the
better.

JOAN: But why do you think they’re behind this article?

FINTAN: They’re not.

COSTELLO: They are. All the leaders are written by Hegarty.  That’s
not Hegarty’s style. I was talking to him in the office last night. I
discussed my speech with him and he agreed with every word I
said. He’s cynical enough, God knows, but he’s not as cynical as that.

FINTAN: Now, be careful what you’re saying. This is serious You’re
certain What’s His Name didn’t write this?

COSTELLO: Absolutely certin. That’s not his style.

FINTAN: Who could have put it in over his head?

COSTELLO: Nobody but Ted Ivers, the owner.

FINTAN: But Ted Ivers doesn’t know night from day.

COSTELLO: I know, I know, and that’s why I say it’s the hidden hand.

FINTAN: Ah, hidden, my nanny! [At the phone] City 104, miss
please. Hello. Is that 104? Is that Miss Ivers speaking? Oh, Hello,
Helen, hello! Listen, pet, I’m awfully sick about last night. Myself
and a few of the boys were to have seen your old man, and I couldn’t
get there. No, no, it wasn’t. Sure you know there’s no one but
yourself I ever cared for. But look here, I wonder did the others turn
up? What? Only one of them? Ah, well, so long as there was somebody
there! By the way, which of them was it? [Grimly,] Right. So long,
Helen.

EILEEN: Was that the fellow that—?

FINTAN: Oh, no. That’s a hidden hand that’s going to get squeezed in
my door before much longer. Look here, Jack, you were talking about a
job. Why don’t you go for that job Peter Paul is going for in the
university; that lectureship in English literature?

DOYLE: Now, why the blazes didn’t we think of that ourselves?

COSTELLO: Would they give it to me?

FINTAN: You’d probably get it all right. But of course you’d have to
change that speech of yours a lot.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, and a lot of other things as well. I’d have to say
the Roman Empire was a disaster; the Renaissance, the Reformation,
Shakespeare, Racine and Voltaire; the invention of printing,
industrialism, railways, motor cars, cinemas and grand pianos, all
disasters.

DOYLE: You’ve been forty years saying the opposite and what the hell
good did it do you?

O’LEARY: You’ve had forty years of loneliness. Don’t you want a wife
and children of your own?

EILEEN: Don’t you want to do something for all those boys and girls up
there?

COSTELLO: That’s it, Eileen. That’s my great temptation. I could give
them something no one else could give them; a feeling for Europe and
its greatness; the Elizabethans; Raleigh and Sidney and Marlowe.

DOYLE: No, no, no, no, no!

O’LEARY: God Almighty, Costello, you’d break the heart in a saint.

DOYLE: You’re off again, Jack. Always wanting to improve other people.

O’LEARY: Come down to earth, man! Come down and stay down!

DOYLE: Think of six hundred a year.

FINTAN: And ringing up the broker, and telling him sell two hundred
Mexican Oils.

O’LEARY: And a wife and two kids and a car.

COSTELLO: I must have time to think it over.

FINTAN: This is a major event in Irish history—a job going after a
man, [At the phone.] Now, shoot! Do you agree?

EILEEN: Yes, Fintan, yes, he agrees.

FINTAN: Hallo. City, 139, miss please. Exactly, pettikins, 139.

DOYLE: Wouldn’t he remind you of Al Capone?

FINTAN: But I am Al Capone, Phil; didn’t you know? Hallo, hallo,
hallo, is that the bold Thomas? Yes, it is. You got it in one. Listen,
Tommy, I rang you up to warn you. Yes, to warn you. You heard about
that job at the university. Well, there’s an ex-gunman called Costello
going for that; a pal of my da’s. My da is canvassing like mad for
him, and I just want you to understand that I’m teetotally opposed to
him.  Yes, absolutely opposed.

O’LEARY: God Almighty, listen to that!

FINTAN: Would any of you like to handle this yourselves?

EILEEN: Ah, no, Fintan, go on, can’t you?

FINTAN [After a quelling glance]: Sorry, Tommy, that was one of the
carters. Yes, one of the carters. What’s that I was saying? Oh,
yes. The man I want to see get the job is our mutual friend, Peter
Paul. I’m glad. I say, I’m very glad you agree with me, Tommy. The
poor fellow deserves it with that family of his. Of course, in some
ways he’s not exactly the best candidate. Well, I mean there’s the
wife. Nora and myself are old friends; I wouldn’t in a hundred years
say a word against Nora, but still she’s a Delaney. And you know what
a Delaney is. Plant one and in a year’s time there’s a waving sea of
Delaneys as far as the eye can reach. I thought you knew all that. Oh,
look here, Tommy, this is awful ... If you let down Peter Paul on the
strength of something I said I’ll never forgive myself. [Enter the
Maid.]

MAID: There’s a gentleman called Mr. Sweeney to see Mr.  O’Leary,
miss, and this is my evening out.

FINTAN: Keep him out! Keep him out for the present.

MAID: People telling you to show people in, and people telling you to
keep people out, I have a reeling in my head with them.

JOAN: Just one moment, Nellie.

FINTAN: Hello, Tommy, that’s that carter again, I’m sorry. I’ll have
to go, but I’ll ring you again. Salaam! Now, I want you all to clear
out and let me handle this fellow. Quick! This is serious.

EILEEN: Oh, all right, Al Capone. We’ll be in the garden.  [All go out
except Joan]

FINTAN: I’ll tell you all about it later on [Sits down and lights a
cigarette.) Now, shoot!  [Peter Paul enters.]

PETER PAUL: Hallo, Miss Latham. Hallo, Fintan,

FINTAN: Hallo, Peter Paul. Sit down, man. What news have you for us?

PETER PAUL: Bad news, I’m afraid, Fintan.

FINTAN: That’s what I expected, Peter Paul.

PETER PAUL: It’s the committee, Fintan. They got hold of Dwyer, the
secretary, and he’s sending out notices for an extraordinary meeting
tomorrow.

FINTAN: I see. Dwyer lets me do all the work until it suits him.  And
what’s the extraordinary thing about the extraordinary meeting, Peter
Paul?

PETER PAUL: There’s a resolution signed by Fr. Cahill and Jerry Noone,
to postpone the unveiling.

FINTAN: And that means, of course, to cancel the arrangements and
remove the statue?

PETER PAUL: Without a doubt, Fintan.

FINTAN: And who’s the master mind behind this, Peter Paul?

PETER PAUL: Oh, Noone, I’d say, undoubtedly Noone. He’s mad because he
wasn’t asked to give the oration himself.  You know what politicans
are.

JOAN: But surely, if that’s all you could let him make the speech.

FINTAN: Ah, that’s all right, Joan. We’ll have plenty of time to think
of that before tomorrow—thanks to Peter Paul. Only for him we’d never
have known.

PETER PAUL: Oh, don’t thank me, Fintan. Sure you know in your heart
I’m on the side of the statue. But you know what the university is
like.

FINTAN: I do, Peter Paul, a hot shop. But you can rely on me.

PETER PAUL: I know that, Fintan. And Nora says the same.  “Our one
true friend,” that’s what she calls you.

FINTAN: I was only just mentioning her over the phone this minute to a
certain man. I thought I’d better warn him that my da was supporting
Jack Costello for that job in the university.

PETER PAUL: Is Jack Costello going for that, Fintan?

FINTAN: Oh, he is, of course, man. I thought you knew.


PETER PAUL: That’ll complicate things a lot, won’t it?

FINTAN: Ah, I wouldn’t say so, Peter Paul. So long as people know that
it’s only my father that’s supporting him, and not myself. That’s why
I rang up that chap I was speaking of.  I’d be afraid some
misunderstanding would occur.

PETER PAUL: Oh, of course, ’twould be very serious for me if it did,
Fintan.

FINTAN: That’s what I’m saying, Peter Paul. And I’d hate you not to
get that job. Oh, by the way, I wonder do you know anything about the
leader in the paper, Peter Paul?

PETER PAUL: “The O’Rourke Statue”—I never heard a word of it, Fintan.

FINTAN: Oh, I thought you might be able to tell us who wrote it.

PETER PAUL: Isn’t it a chap called Hegarty writes these things as a
rule, Fintan?

FINTAN: That’s the funny thing, Peter Paul. That didn’t come from
Hegarty, but from Ted Ivers.

PETER PAUL: From Ted Ivers? But I didn’t think he’d be interested.

FINTAN: Exactly, Peter Paul, exactly, that’s what I can’t
understand. Unless he was ordered to put it in.

PETER PAUL: But who could order him, Fintan?

FINTAN: That’s the very thing I’m asking myself, Peter Paul.  Who
could order him? Oh, by the way, weren’t you at Ivers’ house last
night?

PETER PAUL [A little shaken]: Oh, that’s right, Fintan. Now you remind
me, I was. I was handing in a letter there.

FINTAN: Was that the letter, Peter Paul?

PETER PAUL: God knows, Fintan, you know it might be. I say it might
be. I never thought of that. ’Twas given to me on account of my
knowing Ted Ivers so well.

FINTAN: Was that letter supposed to come from the organisation, Peter
Paul?

PETER PAUL: Well, as a matter of fact, it did, Fintan—from one of the
boys. Of course, under the circumstances, ’twouldn’t be right for me
to tell you his name.

FINTAN: Nor I wouldn’t expect it, Peter Paul. I’d never ask you to be
disloyal to your friends. I wonder could you see that friend of yours
tonight?

PETER PAUL: I could, Fintan, of course, if you want me.

FINTAN [Rising]: I do want you, Peter Paul. I want you to see him
tonight without fail and tell him what happens to little boys that
come playing with my knocker.

PETER PAUL [Retreating]: Oh, I will of course, Fintan, as you put it
like that.

FINTAN: I do put it like that, Peter Paul. I put it even stronger than
that. Anyone that tries to double-cross me, Peter Paul, I open him
up. And I’d hate a thing like that to happen to any friend of you and
Nora, Peter Paul. [Opening the door.]  I’d see him tonight, if I were
you, Peter Paul. You can manage the front door, can’t you?  [Exit
Peter Paul.)

JOAN: Fintan, who did write that article?

FINTAN: Who do you think? That banjax! That dirty little crook! By
God, I’ll put forget-me-nots on that fellow’s grave before I’m through
with him. Joan, not a word about this to the others. Do you hear?

JOAN: I promise, Fintan.

FINTAN [His old charming self]: Ye can come in now.

O’LEARY: What is it?

FINTAN: Ah, nothing. The rest of the statue committee is calling a
meeting for tomorrow evening to rescind the whole thing.

O’LEARY: You mean to call off the unveiling?

FINTAN: Call off the unveiling, and send the statue home.

DOYLE: And are we going to stand for that?

FINTAN: Now, don’t rattle me, Phil, don’t rattle me, boy. I must think
this out.

O’LEARY: Who’s the man behind it?

FINTAN: Peter Paul says ’tis Noone.

EILEEN: Ah, don’t try to cod us, Fintan. You know it isn’t Noone.

COSTELLO: I told you who it was, Fintan, but you won’t believe me.

EILEEN: Don’t mind him, Jack. He knows who it is well enough.

FINTAN: Now, Eileen, don’t you start butting in.

EILEEN: I’m not going to stand here and see you pulling the wool over
everybody’s eyes. You can try and fool Peter Paul as much as you like
but you shouldn’t try and fool us as well.

O’LEARY [To Joan]: Is he telling the whole story of what happened in
here, girl?

JOAN: Sweeney said it was a man called Noone. I’m afraid I didn’t
understand it all.

EILEEN: Oh, Joan is in love and she’s sticking by her man. Tell the
truth, Fintan. You’re bested at last. Peter Paul bested you.

FINTAN: He did not best me.

EILEEN: He did best you. Your game was to be always on the right side
of the fence, and Peter Paul caught you on the wrong side, and now
he’s going to keep you there. And you like a fool make a date to meet
him in a Protestant Rectory.  Oh, Fintan, Fintan, it’s easy to see
you’re in love.

O’LEARY: Listen, girl. You seem to have some decency in you.  Do you
mean Fintan is one of that gang of dirty intriguers?

EILEEN: You might as well know it, Mr. O’Leary. He’s the leader of
them. Fintan is the Great White Knight.

FINTAN: Oh, the woman all out.

EILEEN: But the game is up, Fintan. Don’t you see yourself that the
game is up. The Great White Knight has a spot on his bib. Peter Paul
wrote the article, and Peter Paul rigged the meeting, and after
tomorrow night our poor little statue will be sent back to lie in the
stone-cutter’s yard...Oh, Joan, don’t you see that’s not the way out
of the fairy wood; that you can’t play at intrigue with these people,
because every time you step off the dotted line you’re knifed.

O’LEARY [With bitter quietness, to Fintan]: So that was how the
business was saved from bankruptcy?

FINTAN: Well, you thought it was your doing.

O’LEARY: And the free passes and free seats?

FINTAN: Well, now you know. You could have known five years ago if
only you’d come down out of the clouds.

O’LEARY: My God, my God, I was a bigger fool than I thought.  My
house, my garden, my little car—all graft and swindling and lies!
Blind, blind, blind!

FINTAN: Ah, father, be reasonable! You don’t think I did it for my own
sake, do you? Ever since I was a kid I worshipped you; I used to write
down your sayings as if you were Napoleon, but you know yourself you
never had a fluke.

DOYLE: I’m sorry, George, we’re beaten. Eileen is right. And when our
poor old statue goes back to the stone-cutter’s yard they might as
well take us along with it. We’re finished.

FINTAN: We’re not finished.

DOYLE: You may not be finished, Fintan, but we are. That wasn’t what
we fought for. Rainbow-chasers they used to call us. We were only
fools, you know, but we fought for something better, something nobler,
something [Points with his finger to the ceiling.] up there in the
sky—rainbows and stars and things—and we’re beaten.

O’LEARY [Springing up]: By God, I’ll show you whether we’re beaten.

COSTELLO: Eileen is right, George. There’s nothing we can do.  We’re
tied, tied, tied.

O’LEARY: I’ll show you whether I’m tied or not. [Goes to the door.]

DOYLE: Wait for me, man, wait for me. I’m going along with you,
whatever it is. (Exeunt.]

COSTELLO: The old cripples march out to their last battle. I can’t be
left out of this. The trumpet sounds from afar. Joan, haven’t you a
gramophone record you could play? The last fight of the Fianna. I feel
I ought to have a big drum.  [Marches out, humming and as if beating a
big drum.)

JOAN: What is your father going to do, Fintan?

FINTAN: I don’t know, Joan, I don’t know. When he’s like this he’s
capable of anything.

EILEEN [At the window]: They’re going back across the square.  They
must be going to the hall for something. No, I know what it is;
they’re going to the statue.

FINTAN [Jumping up]: To the statue?

EILEEN: One of them is climbing over the railing. He’s getting up on
the pedestal of the statue. Who is it, Fintan? Is it your father?

FINTAN: Oh God, I knew he’d be up to some lunacy. Open the window,
Eileen

EILEEN: There’s a little crowd gathered already.

O’LEARY [Off]: Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here tonight to
celebrate the memory of Brian O’Rourke, a soldier of this nation. We
should have come by daylight with bands and soldiers. We come by
night, just the few of us that are true to his memory, because there
are people who want us to be ashamed of him, people who want us to
deny him. That is something we’re not prepared to do for any man who
gave his life for us and for our children.

EILEEN [Mad with excitement]: Fintan, Fintan, why aren’t you your
father’s son and I’d never let you go?

JOAN: He’s cutting at the canvas with a knife. He’s hacking the
ropes. The canvas is falling away....Oh! [The statue is unveiled.)

EILEEN: The statue is unveiled now whether they like it or not.  We’ve
won! We’ve won! What are you standing there crying for, Joan? Blast
you, Fintan, stand to attention, will you, the three old cripples are
singing. They’re singing, do you hear them? [The three men are heard
singing the Soldiers Song.]  ‘Oh, God, God, isn’t it lovely? Rainbows
and stars! [Joins in.]

Sworn to be free, No more our ancient sireland, Shall shelter the
despot or the slave.

[And she points at Fintan, who walks dolefully away]


CURTAIN.




ACT FOUR

The Teach Miodhchuarta again. O’Leary sitting before the fire in
darkness. Enter Costello.

O’LEARY: Who’s that? Oh, is that you, Jack?

COSTELLO: Can I come in?

O’LEARY: Did anyone touch you coming in?

COSTELLO: Yes, there were two old sweats at the door.

O’LEARY: I know. I’m listening to them for the last half hour, talking
about what pub they’d go to if the Almighty God took compassion on
them before ten. What time is it now?

COSTELLO: About twenty to ten.

O’LEARY: There’s still hope.

COSTELLO: I’d have given it to them but I hadn’t it. I called to see
how the meeting went.


O’LEARY: Oh, fine, fine. Of course, they were all snapping round me
like a pack of beagles, about what right had I to unveil the statue on
my own, but there’s nothing they could do about it.

COSTELLO: You think we’ll hear no more about it?

O’LEARY: Of course you’ll hear no more about it. They can’t very well
veil it, or whatever it is again.

COSTELLO: You’re more confident than I am.

O’LEARY: I’m not confident at all, Jack. I’m shook. That fight took
more out of me than I thought. I’m getting old.

COSTELLO: Is that why you’re sitting in darkness?

O’LEARY: It’s soothing. This place is like a shell. You can hear the
whole city turning: the bells up the hills and the ships hooters on
the river. [A bell.] That’s Newport bell. A quarter to ten. Do you
ever examine your conscience, Jack?

COSTELLO: Three times a day, before or after meals—when I get any.

O’LEARY: I never do, It’s a bad habit. Do you believe in ghosts?

COSTELLO: No, I don’t.

O’LEARY: You never did believe in anything. You were always a contrary
man. I was half expecting one to come in the door. Our youth, Jack,
our youth!

COSTELLO: Our wasted, embittered youth!

O’LEARY: Our gallant, dreamy youth!

COSTELLO: Oh, for God’s sake, stop, stop, stop! You’ll drive me mad!
Light that gas, I tell you!

O’LEARY: We all have something to regret, Jack. None of us lived up to
the ideals we had then. Do you think Phil Doyle is easy in his mind?
Do you think I’m easy in my mind?

COSTELLO: No, no, but you have something to show for your lives. I’ve
nothing, nothing whatever.

O’LEARY: You still have your illusions.

COSTELLO: Illusions, that’s what they are. Have you any idea of the way
I live? I don’t get up until lunch time; I waste the evening, reading
or pottering about in my dressing gown.  My room is filthy. Sometimes
I make a real effort to turn an honest penny by writing articles on
Our Seaside Resorts or schoolbooks for children. I make a vow that I’m
going to reform; I turn out all my old notebooks; I sit down to write.
And then a cart goes by outside, or I hear a band somewhere —anything
is enough to divert me—only until I come back from the office, of
course; till tomorrow at the very latest.  So I go to the office; I
walk home with the subeditors; I hang over the bridge talking to the
policeman on night duty. And it’s only because I’m afraid of the
moment when they’ll leave me, and I’ll be face to face again with the
horror I’ve made of my life. Even now it rises up before me, a filthy
shapeless horror!

O’LEARY: Jack, what you need is a job. I’ve told you that a hundred
times.

COSTELLO: Yes, and I’ve lost the only job I had.

O’LEARY: You’ve lost the newspaper job? How?

COSTELLO: I took Ivers’ leading article and threw it in his face.
What else could I do? I was O’Rourke’s friend.

O’LEARY: Oh, Jack, Jack!

COSTELLO: Oh, I know, I know, I know. You think what everybody else
thinks, that I’m mad; that I’m temperamental and unstable, and it’s
true, I am. George, I know one thing that would save me,

O’LEARY: A job?

COSTELLO: No, responsibility.

O’LEARY: The responsibility of looking after a wife and family when
you can’t look after yourself?

COSTELLO: I’d do for them what I’d never do for myself.

O’LEARY: Have you a girl in your mind?


COSTELLO: I have.

O’LEARY: Do I know her?

COSTELLO: You do.

O’LEARY: Jack, isn’t that girl young enough to be your daughter’

COSTELLO: Do you think she’ll see it like that?

O’LEARY: For some reason girls of twenty always think men of forty are
old crocks.

COSTELLO: I don’t think she’s likely to be so foolish.

O’LEARY: And besides, I think she’s—whatever you call it—with somebody
else.

COSTELLO: With whom?

O’LEARY: Fintan, if you want to know.

COSTELLO: Oh, nonsense, George! It’s impossible. You’ve only to think
for a moment to see how impossible it is. Consider the types!

O’LEARY: Consider my nanny! I blame myself for this. This comes of
singing the Soldiers Song by starlight. We’re like a pair of old cars
with brand new engines and they’re kicking the guts out of
us....There’s Fintan’s step now. The two old swaddies are touching him
too...God Almighty, he didn’t give it to them either! What’s come over
that fellow? [Enter Fintan.] What’s the bad news?

FINTAN: How did you know there was bad news?

O’LEARY: I presumed as much when I heard you go past two poor devils
with a thirst like that on them.

FINTAN: Ah, I’ll soon be in much the same position myself. Well,
father, you can congratulate yourself at last. You always wanted me to
be as big a gom as yourself, and I am, and I’m paying for it....Jack
Costello, you were always right about this country. It’s lousy!

O’LEARY: Talking about this country is Jack’s privilege. What did the
country do to you?

FINTAN: Booted me out of my own organisation—my own organisation—and
put Peter Paul in my place! There’s gratitude for you! [Lights the
gas.] This place looks like a vault and smells like a vault. I have
enough to depress me without that.

O’LEARY: I was waiting for a ghost to appear. I hadn’t much luck so
far. That’s Phil Doyle’s step. I’d know it anywhere.  They’re touching
him too. [Urgently.] Give it to them, Phil, give it to them, man!
Can’t you see their poor old tongues are hanging out for it?
[Incredulously.] He didn’t even answer them. Damn and blast it, what
ails everyone tonight?

COSTELLO: Perhaps he has bad news too?

O’LEARY: Nonsense, man! He’s coming up the stairs, two at a time.

[Doyle bangs in the door, and stares.]

DOYLE: Hallo, what are ye all doing here?

O’LEARY: Listening to you refuse a couple of old sweats the price of a
drink! What’s after coming over you?

DOYLE: What sweats? I saw no sweats.

O’LEARY [Bitterly: He saw no sweats! He never as much as noticed
them! He’d pass a dying child and not hear its groans. Fintan, for the
love of God, run down and give them that before they expire on the
doorstep.  (Exit Fintan.)

DOYLE: George—Jack, I’ve something to tell you; something you wouldn’t
believe!

COSTELLO: You look like a man that’s seen a ghost.

DOYLE: I saw the most beautiful thing in the world.

O’LEARY: You’re going to hear the most beautiful thing in the world
now.

DOYLE: What’s that?

O’LEARY: The eleventh hour! Salvation at ten to ten! Listen!  They’re
not hurrying, of course! Oh, dear no! Just quickening their steps in
case the clock in the pub might be more than five minutes fast.

DOYLE: Ah, will you be serious? I say I saw the most beautiful thing
in the world.

O’LEARY: But how could I listen to anything with two men spitting with
thirst under the window? What sort of heart do you think I have? Go on
with what you were saying. [Enter Fintan.] Well?

FINTAN: One of them kissed my hand. [Doyle walks away.]

COSTELLO: Go on, Phill What was it you saw?

DOYLE: I saw the most beautiful thing in the world.

O’LEARY: You said that before.

DOYLE: Well, I did. Are you going to listen, man?

O’LEARY: You may be drinking tea these days, but your way of telling a
story stinks of a pub. I’d nearly want to get a forceps to extract
it. Go on! You saw the most beautiful thing in the world.

DOYLE: I went into the chapel—

O’LEARY: Into the what?

DOYLE: Ah, there’s no talking to you! I went into the chapel to say a
prayer on the way down.

O’LEARY: All right, Phil. Tell us what you saw.

DOYLE: I went over to the altar of Our Lady of Lourdes. I thought at
first I had the place to myself. I couldn’t see a soul, but then I got
a feeling; a queer sort of feeling that there was someone else there
as well. You know the sort of feeling you get; ’twasn’t anything; not
a sound; just a presence.  I couldn’t get over it and I went round the
church on tiptoe, looking. Then I nearly walked on top of the girl.

O’LEARY: This is the publichouse technique again. What girl?

DOYLE: Can’t you let me—?

O’LEARY: Oh, go on, go on!

DOYLE: She was at the very back, sitting in the shadows under the
organ gallery. Mind you, she wasn’t kneeling; she wasn’t praying; just
sitting there with her two hands on her knees, and her eyes fixed on
the sanctuary lamp, drinking it all in.  But I never saw prayer like
it. It was like a sleepwalker. You could feel she saw something; that
she was talking to someone.

COSTELLO: Oh, God, God, that’s how it gets us; that’s how it saps us
and destroys us, that longing for communion; to belong to something,
to be lost in something. God, why wasn’t I there?

DOYLE: That was it, Jack. He was calling to her; she was talking to
him there. I knew it as I know that you’re talking to me now. And now
she belongs to us.

O’LEARY: Who are you talking about, man? [Enter Joan.] I needn’t have
asked. One look at your face is enough. I knew there were ghosts
walking tonight.

JOAN: What is it, Mr. O’Leary?

O’LEARY: Nothing, child, nothing. A girl with a secret, that’s all

JOAN: Yes, Mr. O’Leary, I have a secret.

O’LEARY: And I hope you’re very, very happy, child?

JOAN: Yes, Mr. O’Leary, I’m very, very happy. And you? How did the
meeting go? Who won?

O’LEARY: We won.

JOAN [Radiantly]: I knew it.

COSTELLO: George is more confident than I am, Joan.

O’LEARY: Because you weren’t there. I know it. They’re licked.

COSTELLO: Those rascals have been in the saddle for twenty years and
they’re not licked.

JOAN: And your meeting, Fintan?

O’LEARY: Oh, that went splendidly too.

JOAN: I knew that also. I had a feeling tonight that there were
forces—things working for us. Don’t you ever feel that, Fintan?

FINTAN: Not very often, Joan, and when I do, I usually wonder what I’m
forgetting. My da was speaking metaphorically.  He just meant that I
was licked and booted out of the Knights.

JOAN: But why did they do that, Fintan?

FINTAN: Oh, lots of reasons. Mucking round with idealists and infidels
and people like that. And then having a father that unveils statues
around midnight.

JOAN: Fintan, are you quite sure it wasn’t on my account?

FINTAN [Hesitantly]: Ah, no, I wouldn’t say so. What put that into
your head?

JOAN: Sweeney didn’t bring up what you said to him over the phone
about the two of us being alone in the Rectory?

O’LEARY: I didn’t hear that. What was it?

FINTAN: Oh, a silly joke of mine. Peter Paul asked what myself and
Joan were up to, and I said reading a few chapters of Scripture.

O’LEARY: Scripture, Jack! Mark that!

JOAN: I felt at the time that it was going to injure us somehow.

O’LEARY: You mustn’t let that worry you, child. It’s only a phase.  I
remember in the old days we had a Protestant in this branch.  He was
the only Protestant in the whole blooming organisation, and we used to
practice being broadminded on him. We were as proud of him as a girl
with a Paris hat, and all the other branches were mad jealous and
always trying to steal him off us. Of course, they wanted a chance to
be broadminded too. And what did the bloody fellow do, the first day
of the last war, but go and join the British Army?

JOAN: Fintan, you haven’t told me. Did anyone ask you about me, about
the pair of us?

FINTAN: Yes, yes, I believe so. I believe one or two of them mentioned
you.

JOAN: What did you say?

FINTAN: Well, naturally, I said yes; that I was thinking of marrying a
Protestant. [O’Leary looks at Costello. Costello stands stiffly for a
moment, and then bows ironically.]

COSTELLO: You were right, George. Only an illusion like all the other
illusions. [In a frenzy; half laughing, half weeping, astonished and
appalled at himself.] God, I feel like a character in some Greek play,
pursued by furies, driven on to my own destruction.  [Exit.]

FINTAN: Well, I’m damned!

DOYLE: What ails him now, does anyone know?

O’LEARY: Poor devil, poor devil. He doesn’t know yet when it’s time to
take his chaney out of the play.

DOYLE: You don’t mean he wanted to marry Joan himself?

FINTAN [In a fury]: The conceit of that fellow!

JOAN: Oh, Fintan, I must go after him. I can’t bear to see him hurt
like that.

O’LEARY: No, Joan, let him alone. He’s forty, not twenty. The poor
devil has very little left now but his pride.

JOAN: Oh, but I never imagined it. It must have come as such a blow to
him.

DOYLE: Everything comes as a blow to him. Tomorrow or even tonight, it
might be ten minutes time you’ll see that fellow strutting back with
some new plan in his head. You can’t knock him out. [Enter Brigid
O’Rourke.]

BRIGID: Is George here, Phil?

DOYLE [Starting]: Hallo, Bridgie.

O’LEARY: Come in, girl. You give us a start,

BRIGID: Oh, law! How did I frighten ye?

O’LEARY: You called him Phil.

BRIGID: You weren’t as easily frightened last night, by all accounts.

O’LEARY: You did call him, Phil, after all. [With his arms out to
her.] That’s a tone of voice I didn’t hear from you for many a long
day, Brigid.

BRIGID [Close to tears, taking his hands]: Maybe I wasn’t as proud of
you for many a long day.

O’LEARY: I was waiting for a ghost tonight. When you came in the door
I thought you were the Brigid of twenty years ago coming back to me.

BRIGID: That Brigid will never come back to you, George, I’m
afraid. [In tears.] What madness was on us! What misery we made of our
lives. [Goes to Joan.] Forgive us, girl. We usedn’t to be so bitter.

O’LEARY: No, when people believe in something there’s a light shining
all round them. When the light goes out, they’re like men fighting in
the dark; they don’t know friends from foes.

BRIGID: Ah, George, I’m afraid you have a long battle before you yet.

O’LEARY: Never mind! I’m able for it now. With you behind me I’ll
fight in a bag, tied up.

BRIGID: You won’t let them blow up the statue?

O’LEARY: Who said they were going to blow up the statue?

BRIGID: A woman came into the shop an hour ago. She had a shawl up
about her face the way Aunt Ellen wouldn’t know her, and she just
whispered “Tell George O’Leary they’re going to blow up the statue.”

O’LEARY [Grimly]: So that’s it? She didn’t say who was going to blow
it up?

BRiGID: She didn’t say another word.

FINTAN: Oh, God, Peter Paul, if only I could get one thing on you I’d
rip you open.

DOYLE: But is it Peter Paul, Fin?

FINTAN: Of course it’s Peter Paul. I’d know his hand in it a mile off.

BRIGID: But who is this man? I never heard of him.

O’LEARY: A young man who’s after a job in the university and knows the
best way to set about it, Cant, girl! Cant and humbug.

FINTAN: If you think Peter Paul is going to all this trouble about a
job in the university, you’re mistaken, This isn’t wire-pulling; this
is big game hunting. [Enter Eileen.)

DOYLE: Hallo, girl, where were you all the evening?

EILEEN [Mysteriously]: I want to talk to Joan for a minute outside.

O’LEARY: Is there anything wrong?

EILEEN: I’d sooner talk to Joan by herself.

DOYLE: Ah, its all right, girl, it’s all right. We’re all friends
here.  Is it about the statue? That’s the important thing.

EILEEN: ’Tisn’t. ’Tis about her Uncle Peter.

JOAN: Eileen! What’s wrong with him? Is it an accident?

EILEEN: He’s not well, Joan.

JOAN: Oh, then it is an accident. Where is he, Eileen?

EILEEN: It isn’t an accident, and he’s all right; he’s up at our
house.

JOAN: What was it, Eileen?

EILEEN: We came to the office in a taxi. ’Twas all filled with flowers
inside. I don’t know where he got them. He wanted me to go off with
him. I thought it was better to humour him, he looked so queer. We
spent the evening driving out and then I got the driver to bring him
back to our place. I thought you’d sooner that.

JOAN: Thanks, Eileen. You’ve spared me a terrible scene.

DOYLE: I blame myself a lot for this. I should have showed Joan the
letters he was writing you.

FINTAN: Letters to Eileen? What the blazes was he writing to Eileen
about?

DOYLE: Oh, crazy letters—mad letters! He was—rather taken by Eileen.

FINTAN: Taken by Eileen?

EILEEN: I suppose you find that difficult to believe, Fintan?

FINTAN: But a man his age. Are all the old men in this town going mad?
Sure, he could be her grandfather! What did he say?

DOYLE: Oh, well—things you wouldn’t like to repeat—accusing her, for
instance, of keeping a stepladder in the backgarden for your
convenience.

FINTAN: A what? A stepladder for my convenience? And you knew this all
the time, Phil Doyle, and you never let on a word about it!

DOYLE: But, my goodness, how could I? Letters like that? You don’t
think I paid any attention to them? Sure, I was the first man brought
flowers to your mother when you were born.

FINTAN: But, Phil, Phil, Phil, didn’t you realise what it meant.  Holy
God, the trouble you could have spared us if you brought those
blooming letters to me! But never mind! God above, this is a rare
joke. Where’s me hat?

EILEEN: Someone ought to talk to the taximan. He’s waiting at the door
with a bill as long as your arm.

FINTAN: I’ll talk to the taximan. I’ll talk to more than the taximan,
I’m going to give myself laryngitis before this night is out.

O’LEARY: Stop a moment, Fintan. I’ve some things for you to do on your
way. Where are you off to?

FINTAN: To plant a few flowers on a fellow’s grave. So long,
everybody! [Exit Fintan.)

O’LEARY: That fellow is going off his nut, if you ask me. Eileen, will
you do those messages for us?

EILEEN: I will to be sure. What are they?

JOAN: I must go to my uncle, Mr. O’Leary.

O’LEARY: Wait now, wait, and don’t get me addled. How many of your old
company can you rely on, Phil?

DOYLE: I suppose I could get four or five.

O’LEARY: Have you a gun?

DOYLE: I have my own old gun.

O’LEARY: Could you lay hands on it, Eileen?

EILEEN: I could to be sure, but what’s it for.

O’LEARY: Phil, jot down the names and addresses of those fellows.
Eileen, you tell them they’re wanted urgently, and to be here before
eleven o’clock.

EILEEN: But what am I to tell them they’re wanted for?

O’LEARY: Tell them that Peter Paul Sweeney’s gang is going to try and
blow up the O’Rourke statue.

EILEEN: Blow up the statue? They’re after censoring all the books and
the pictures and now there’s nothing left for them but to blow up the
statues. But don’t they realise that there’s nothing in it? [Enter
Peter Paul and Jerry.]

PETER PAUL: Now will everybody keep perfectly calm, please.  There’s
no need for alarm. Nobody will be hurt, but all keep your places for a
few moments.

O’LEARY: You—you bloody little scut!

DOYLE: Quiet, now, George, quiet. [Drags him back.]

BRiGID: Are you the man that’s threatened to blow up my brother’s
statue?

PETER PAUL: I’m sorry, miss. We have our duty to do.

BRIGID: What spite have you against my brother? What wrong did he ever
do you, that you’ll take revenge on him when he’s dead?

PETER PAUL: I’m sorry, Miss O’Rourke, but it isn’t any use arguing the
toss about it now. The statue is being blown up at ten sharp. You’ve
only a few seconds to go. The square is cleared and everybody along
the terrace is warned. I just dropped in to advise anyone that
happened to be here to take cover.

O’LEARY: You try to stop me going out!

PETER PAUL: I won’t try and stop you, George. Go out, if you like! But
if you get a wallop of a lump of stone, don’t blame it on me.

DOYLE: Let him alone, George! We can’t stop it now and ’twill show
Ireland where we both stand. Don’t raise a finger to him!

EILEEN [Desperately]: But what are ye doing it for? Are ye all gone
mad or what? Don’t you realise there isn’t a word of truth in the
whole story about Brian O’Rourke and Joan’s mother, that ‘twas all
made up by her uncle?

PETER PAUL: Ah, now, Eileen, you don’t expect us to believe in that?
We heard that sort of thing before. You can’t take in old hands like
us.

EILEEN: But it’s true, I tell you. I’ll swear it to you. Oh, listen,
Peter Paul, I’m not joking, I’m not trying to trick you. Isn’t there
anything I can do to convince you? You’ll make yourself the laughing
stock of Ireland if you blow up that statue now. And Fintan knows it.

PETER PAUL: You should warn Fintan not to try tricks like that on me,
Eileen. Mind you, he’s smart, but he can’t take me in.

EILEEN: All right then, if you don’t believe me, blow the bloody
statue up; Blow the whole country up as you’re at it. It couldn’t be
any worse than it is with louts like you running it.

JOAN: Why do you hate the statue so much? What has it done to you?
What do you think it will do to you?

EILEEN: He thinks it’s going to be an occasion of sin to him.

PETER PAUL: You don’t understand Ireland, Miss Latham. People of your
persuasion never do. That statue stands for something we never put up
with.

JOAN: It stands for life and you stand for death. It stands for
reality, and you stand for sham; for hypocrisy.

EILEEN: Don’t talk to him, Joan. Don’t waste your breath on him, He’s
an imbecile; he’s only half human. His wife has five kids and she’s
still an old maid with him.

PETER PAUL: You have just five seconds to go.

BRIGID: Let me out till I tell the world Brian O’Rourke’s reward; till
I tell the world what Ireland did to the man that gave his life for
her.

JOAN: Tell the world what Ireland does to life.

PETER PAUL: Time’s up. [A clock is heard striking ten. Enter Fintan.)

FINTAN: Hallo, Jerry, hallo, Peter Paul. I heard ye were here so I
thought I’d have a few words with ye.

JERRY: Stand away from that window, Fintan, there’s going to be an
explosion.

FINTAN: Is that so? Where, Jerry?

DOYLE: Come away from that window, boy. They’re blowing up the statue.

FINTAN: Oh, was that what they were doing? My goodness, and I told
them to go home.

PETER PAUL: You what?

FINTAN: I told them to go home, Peter Paul. You see Tim Dillon was
there with a sort of a landmine, and I thought ‘twouldn’t be safe, so
I advised him to take it away.

PETER PAUL: Are you crossing my tracks again, Fintan?

FINTAN: Oh, no, Peter Paul, no, But, of course, they didn’t know that
this business about Brian O’Rourke and the doll was all moonshine.

PETER PAUL: So that was the yarn you spun them, was it?

EILEEN: I told him, Fintan, and he doesn’t believe it.

PETER PAUL: I don’t believe it now either, Eileen.

FINTAN: But it’s true, Peter Paul. I mean it. My goodness, you don’t
think I’d tell you a deliberate lie?

PETER PAUL: Oh, no, Fintan, but I’d think you might be deliberately
mistaken.

FINTAN: But listen, man, listen! Do you know what Joan’s uncle said
about Eileen and myself?

PETER PAUL: That has nothing to do with it, Fintan.

FINTAN: Oh, but it has, Peter Paul, it has. It has a great deal to do
with what he said about Brian O’Rourke and Joan’s mother. He said
Eileen kept a stepladder in the backyard for my convenience. Now one
stepladder and one love affair is a coincidence, but two stepladders
and two love affairs is a blooming historical romance.

DOYLE: Are you serious about this, Fintan?

FINTAN: Oh, absolutely, Phil. Eileen spotted it too, didn’t you,
Eileen?

EILEEN: I did. You see it, don’t you, Joan?

JOAN: I’m almost afraid to see it, Eileen.

JERRY: You mean there’s no truth at all in it, Fintan?

FINTAN: Not a glimmer, Jerry; not a tittle, not an atom.

JERRY: My God, we’ll be the laughing stock of Ireland. [To Peter
Paul.] In future you’d better take someone else with you when you’re
blowing up statues. [Exit.]

FINTAN: Well, Peter Paul?

PETER PAUL [Cheerfully]: Well, Fintan?

FINTAN: Satisfied?

PETER PAUL: I’m waiting for proof, Fintan,

FINTAN: Isn’t that proof enough for you?

PETER PAUL: I’m waiting for proof, I said.

O’LEARY: And so am I. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it...  If
what you say is true then we were crazy last night and we know
ourselves that we weren’t.

FINTAN: Then you’ll have to get Peter to tell you himself.

EILEEN: He’ll never tell. I don’t think he realises any longer that
’twasn’t true,

PETER PAUL: So there you are, Fintan, there you are! Just back where
you started. [Enter Peter, led by Costello.]

JOAN: Peter!

COSTELLO [In complete control of the situation}: Now, Joan, be careful
and don’t excite him. I met him wandering about town by himself so I
brought him back here. He’s very tired. Don’t ask him questions.

PETER PAUL [Blandly]: Well, Fintan?

FINTAN [Uneasily]: Well, I can’t very well put the man on the rack,
can I?

JOAN: Oh, Fintan, I must ask him. Peter, you must tell us once and for
all if this story about mother and Brian O’Rourke is true.

PETER [Dazedly]: Why, what’s happened?

JOAN: A lot has happened and you must see how much it means to us.

PETER: Oh, really, Joan, I can’t go back on all that again.

DOYLE: And the letters from Brian O’Rourke?

PETER [Snappily]: Will be published after my death.

PETER PAUL [With modest triumph]: So you see the way things are,
Fintan?

COSTELLO: What is all this about?

FINTAN: You see, Jack, some of us don’t believe any longer that Joan
is the statue’s daughter.

COSTELLO: Oh, but surely that’s quite plain now. It must be obvious to
anybody that the whole thing was a fantasy of Peter’s.

DOYLE: I said that fellow would be back in ten minutes doing the cock
of the walk again!

FINTAN: But we can’t prove it, Jack. That’s what’s driving us all
mad. We know now it wasn’t true but we can never get at the proofs.

COSTELLO: I see, I see. You’d better leave this to me.

DOYLE: You see! Leave it to him!

O’LEARY: Shut up, Phil!

COSTELLO [Clutching his chin]: Eileen, you were with Peter all the
evening, weren’t you?

EILEEN: Yes, I was.

COSTELLO: Didn’t he tell you something about his daughter, Eileen?

ALL: His daughter?

COSTELLO: Yes, yes, yes, his daughter, his daughter! Didn’t you tell
the others about that?

EILEEN (Rising to the trick]: No, Jack, I didn’t tell the others.

JOAN: But he hasn’t got a daughter.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, he has, he has; an illegitimate daughter; a
daughter who doesn’t know of his very existence. In Austria I think it
was.

PETER: [Distracted]: I didn’t say that, Eileen, did I?

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, you did, you did. You told her all about it, and
how terrified you were that your brother would find it out.

JOAN: Oh, yes, Jack, you’re right. It’s all perfectly plain now.  Of
course that was who the girl was; the girl who didn’t know her own
father. Why didn’t it strike me before?

PETER: If I said that I shouldn’t have said it. Please don’t repeat
it. It’s my head, my head! I can’t remember things any longer.

O’LEARY: But what has this to do with Joan, Jack?

COSTELLO: Don’t you see, man, it’s his daughter he was thinking of all
the time. Oh, he didn’t tell any lies, he didn’t try to deceive
anybody, but it was somebody else it was all intended to happen to. He
wanted his daughter to know who she really was. He’d lost sight of
her. It was a sort of black magic he was creating.

EILEEN: Yes, we understand. That’s enough, Jack. [To Peter Paul.] Even
you’re satisfied now, I hope?

PETER PAUL: Oh, yes, but my goodness, it’s all so queer. It’s like one
of these—you know?

EILEEN: I know, the kind you ban. If I were you I’d take him home now,
Joan.

JOAN: Thanks, Eileen, I will.

O’LEARY: Come up and see us tomorrow, Joan.

JOAN: I don’t think I will, Mr. O’Leary. I think I’d better see nobody
yet for a while. There’s so much I must get used to.

O’LEARY: And that’s the very reason we should stick together now.

JOAN: I think you and I saw something together. I don’t know yet what
it was. Oh! Everything is sinking away again.  There’s no reality, no
reality only what we believe, and we can’t choose what we will
believe.

FINTAN: I’m going with you, Joan.

JOAN: No, Fintan, you’d better go with your father. Tomorrow we can’t
tell how we’ll feel. It’ll all be different. The town will have its
statue, and Brian O’Rourke’s friends will have their hero, and I won’t
be the statue’s daughter any longer; just the minister’s niece. Oh, go
home with Eileen, Fintan, don’t you see she’s the girl for you. I
should never have come between you.

EILEEN: It wasn’t you, Joan. It was the statue that came between
us. [There is a sudden dull explosion and a brilliant light.]

BRIGID: Mother of God, what’s that?

FINTAN: I knew that fellow wanted to try out his blooming landmine.

PETER PAUL: This is serious, Fintan. I’d better go and see is anyone
hurt. [Exit.]

COSTELLO: Oh, it doesn’t matter.

O’LEARY: No, you’re right, Jack; it doesn’t matter. Five minutes ago
it mattered more than anything in the world, because it was the symbol
that bound us all together again. Now it’s just like any other old
statue. Let them blow it up if they want to, Come on, everybody.

BRIGID: Good bye, child. I almost wish it were true. I’d like a child
of Brian’s, and I’d like her to have been like you.

JOAN: Thanks, Miss O’Rourke. I’d have liked it too.

FINTAN: Eileen, did—did Peter tell you all that about his daughter?

COSTELLO: No, of course not. I guessed it at once when I saw what had
happened.

FINTAN: You ought to be fit to handle even the fellows in the
university, Jack.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, I’m going for that job, Fintan. And I’m trying for
something else as well.

DOYLE: Ten minutes. That fellow is like the Irish nation, You get him
on his knees, and in ten minutes he’s up again,

COSTELLO: Oh, and talking about the Irish nation, I wonder whether
you’ve noticed that Tim Dillon’s landmine was as efficient as
everything else that comes from the university.  The statue is still
there.

O’LEARY: Come on, come on. He’s talking about the country again.

PETER: Oh, I say, young fellow—could you oblige me with a cigarette? I
seem to have left my own behind. Oh, I wonder if you could spare a
few? Thanks so much. It’s so awkward— [And he talks himself amiably
off.]

COSTELLO: Cheer up, Joan. Look at that statue after all the gunpowder
that’s been wasted on it. I think it probably does mean something
after all.

JOAN: I wonder whether anything does mean very much.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, it does, look at me. I’m very like the statue.
I’ve been blown up so many times, and there are so many chips off me,
and yet I’m still here. We live in faith, and I’ve kept true to the
faith I had as a boy; that life can be a thousand times nobler and
finer than anything we imagine.  And even if I die and never see
anything like my dreams, life will still have been a little bit better
just because somebody had them. Joan, if I do get this job, and come
back in three months’ time to the minister’s niece, I wonder what
she’ll say to me?

JOAN: I don’t know, Jack. You don’t know what the minister’s niece was
like; I knew, but I’ve forgotten.

COSTELLO: I’ll come back tomorrow and see. And tonight I’m going to
see the statue’s daughter home.  [They quench the light. The statue is
brilliantly lit up but the rest of the stage is in darkness.]

CURTAIN



FRANK O’CONNOR, 1941

Source: Matthews, J. (ed). “A Frank O’Connor Miscellany”, _Journal of Irish Literature_. 1975-01. pp.59-117.

URI: https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-irish-literature_1975-01_4_1/page/60/