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PECKER DUNNE – last of the travellers…contd.

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A campfire. Singing and dancing. Pecker, wearing a hat is seated, drinking and enjoying himself. A red-haired girl, throws herself down beside Pecker. Soon they are laughing and cuddling.. 

PD:     What’s your name?

       MARY:   Me name’s Mary. What’s yours?

PD:     Arra, you can call me anything, so long as it’s not too early in the morning.

       MARY:   I like your hat. Where did you get it?

PD:     Well, I’ll tell you now; I was buskin’ over in Dingle a few days ago and this fella said to me ‘I’ll give you two euros if you play a good tune for me’, so I said ‘give me four and I’ll play a better one’. I did, and he was so happy he said ‘play me another one now and I’ll give you me hat’. I did, and now I’m wearing it. ‘That’s a good hat now, look after it’, he said, ‘I paid 140 dollars for that hat in Australia’

        MARY:  Are you goin’ to wear it to Puck Fair?

PD:     Begod I am. They might crown me King of The Fair tomorrow with that hat on me head. (the girl laughs, and Pecker says in an aside) I think I’m alright here.

      MARY:    Will you give me a dance at the fair?

PD:     I surely will. I’ll even give you two for good measure. (he drags her to her feet)  We’ll have a practice one now.

They dance close together for a moment. Suddenly there is a roar and a man jumps between them and shoves them apart.

MAN: That’s my wife, stranger. What do you say to that?

PD:     A careless man and his wife are soon parted, that’s what I say.  She needs controlling, man.

MAN:  Well, if she does itself, I’m the one to do it. 

He drags the girl away and shoves her to one side, then kicks out at Pecker and knocks him to the ground. Then he takes off his shirt and stands in the pose of a fighter, his bare fists raised. Someone shouts ‘clear a space’ as Pecker rises and takes off his shirt. He, too, raises his fists.  They circle each other for a while, throwing punches and missing. Then Pecker connects with a wild swing to the head. His opponent goes down, pole-axed.  He lays there not moving; someone comes up and tests for a pulse at the side of his neck.

MAN: There’s no pulse. I think he’s dead.

Pandemonium on the site for a few minutes. Screams and shouting. Then a police whistle is heard. A Guard Sergeant marches on and drags Pecker off.

Lights dim, then we see Pecker singing PORTLAOISE GAOL (c Pecker Dunne)

PD:                 For thirty years I’ve been a tinker,                                                                      I’ve tramped the mountain and the glen  I’ve courted girls in every county,        and I’ve fought the very best of men                                                                      I drank an awful lot of porter, I slept in sunshine, snow and gale                                   But the life I loved was taken from me, when I spent two years in Portlaoise    gaol.             

Portlaoise gaol it was tamed the tiger – try, me boys, to get bail                                T’was many a heart was stopped inside – inside the walls of Portlaoise gaol.                              

I joined a camp outside Kilorglin, the night before they crowned the king There was song and dance and plenty porter,                                                         with our wagons formed around the ring                                                           Then a foxy lass sat down beside me, bedad says I, I’m alright here                       But her husband rose and leapt between us,                                                     and knocked me down with a kick in the ear                                                                I hit him hard below the navel,, he hit the ground with a might wail                   His neck was broke, he died in seconds,                                                              and I spent Puck Fair in Portlaoise gaol.                                   

 Portlaoise gaol it was tamed the tiger – try, me boys, to get bail                               T’was many a heart was stopped inside – inside the walls of Portlaoise gaol.

End of scene

The campsite. A man, a local farmer comes into view, in a temper.

MAN: Hey, ya pikey bastard, did you steal that bit of lead off the roof of my cowhouse the other day?

PD:     I’ve been passing this way the last twenty years and the devil a bit of lead I ever saw on that roof. A few galvanised sheets, and they fallin down with the rust, but no lead.

MAN: I’ll call the Guards. I’ll get you moved on.

PD:     They won’t find any lead here.

MAN: Well, if it wasn’t you it was them friends of your in that transit van.

PD:     They weren’t friends of mine, whoever they were.

MAN: Well they were over from Rathkeale way then. That town is full of pikeys and knackers. They sold my wife a roll of carpet and when she unrolled it there was a big square missing in the middle.

PD:     More fool her then. Is that what this is about? Someone sold your wife dodgy bit of carpet and you blame me for it. How do you know they were travellers? Maybe they were townies.

MAN: They were pikeys. Just like you.

PD:     That’s not a very nice word. We’re travelling people, not pikeys.

MAN: Well you’re all tarred with the same brush, aren’t you?  Steal anything that’s not nailed down, you lot would.

PD:     Even invisible lead. How would it be if I called you a sod-buster or a cockie, or something else derogatory.

MAN: Look, why don’t up sticks and just head off. You know you’re not wanted around here.

PD:     It’s still a free country – I think

. He  sings a few verses from THE TRAVELLING PEOPLE ( (c) Ewan McColl)

PD:                 I’m a freeborn man of the travelling people
Got no fixed abode with nomads I am numbered
Country lanes and bye ways were always my ways
I never fancied being lumbered

Well we knew the woods and all the resting places
The small birds sang when winter time was over
Then we’d pack our load and be on the road
They were good old times for the rover

In the open ground where a man could linger
Stay a week or two for time was not your master
Then away you’d jog with your horse and dog
Nice and easy no need to go faster

And sometimes you’d meet up with other travellers
Hear the news or else swop family information
At the country fairs we’d be meeting there
All the people of the travelling nation

I’ve made willow creels and the heather besoms
And I’ve even done some begging and some hawkin’
And I’ve lain there spent rapped up in my tent
And I’ve listened to the old folks talking

All you freeborn men of the travelling people
Every tinker rolling stone and gypsy rover
Winds of change are blowing old ways are going
Your travelling days will soon be over

I’m a freeborn man of the travelling people
Got no fixed abode with nomads I am numbered
Country lanes and bye ways were always my ways
I never fancied being lumbered

PECKER DUNNE – last of the travellers contd…

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Pecker and Margaret round the campfire. Others in the background.

MB:    Were you ever around Camden Town in  the fifties?

PD:     I wasn’t, Margaret. More’s the pity. I was stuck in Manchester. In a factory makin’ plastic thing-a-me- jigs. Can you imagine the Pecker in a factory?

MB:    I can’t. How did you breathe at all? Were you there long?

PD:     A few year. I nearly forgot how to play me banjo. It took me months to get back into me stride after I finally escaped. The money was good, but sure that’s no consolation for not bein’ able to go where you want to.

MB:    Freedom, boy, that’s all that matters. You would have loved Camden Town then. The Bedford Arms and the Favourite were our meeting places. The finest musicians and singers in Ireland were to be found there at the time. Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, Dominic Behan, Luke Kelly to name a few. And of course that’s where I met Michael.  Michael Gorman. The finest fiddle player of them all…

We hear the fiddle being played; the tune is a jig, THE STRAYAWAY CHILD, which was composed by Margaret. A couple can be seen dancing in the background. The music fades after a while.

PD:     The strayaway child. ( he hums a bit of it)

MB:    You know it then?

PD:     Yerra, indeed I played it many’s the time on the fiddle. One of Michael’s isn’t it?

MB:    Everyone thinks Michael composed it. But he didn’t, it was meself. It was the bane of me life, boy. I spent years trying finish it. I wrote it shortly after I ran away from home, but could never get it right. Michael helped me to put it all together. People were always talking about my relationship with Michael; I mean, they wanted to know was it just musical, or was it personal as well. Well now, I used to say to them, that’s between me and the gatepost,

PD:     Yarrah, who cares anymore, girl! Sure I was a divil after the women meself. And then after many years I found the one that mattered. Madeline. She gave me a wonderful family. (laughs) She was nearly young enough to be me daughter. But that didn’t matter. Shure love bates Bannaher.

MB:    And Bannaher bates the devil! – so they say. The thing is, I was never really in love. Would you believe that? Well, I had a husband, but I was only in love with one thing – and that was singing and music.

PD:     Ah now…I don’t believe that…

 MB:   I’m telling you. You never met anyone like me, boy – that could say I never loved a man. Only the one thing I’m in love with and that’s music.

We hear a woman’s voice off

OFF:   You’re a fraud Maggie Barry.

MB:    Who the divil is that?

A woman appears.

            MB:    Oh Lord save us, it’s me step-mother.

WOMAN:      Queen of the gypsies me backside! You’re not a Tinker – nor a Traveller no more than I am. It’s not even your right name. Your father was Charles Power.

MB:    It’s me stage name. Anyway, my grandmother came from Spain and she was a Romany gypsy. She was a singer too, and played the guitar, and her ancestors was gypsies from Italy.

WOMAN:      Don’t listen to her, mister. Her father played the music for the silent pictures in Cork for most of his life. He never left the city till the day he died. You can’t just decide to become a traveller – you have to be born one.

           MB:     My people were all travellers. Just because me father choose to stay in Cork for most of his life doesn’t change that one bit. What do you know about it anyway?

           PD:      She’s been Margaret Barry all my life. And she has done more for Travelling people and their music than almost anyone else I know. That’s good enough for me.

  WOMAN:    She has you bamboozled, like she bamboozled men all her life. She could always twist men around her finger. Like that Gorman fella, the fiddler, she took up with in London. He left behind a wife and family, broken-hearted and starvin’, back home in Sligo.

           MB:     Why you….! That was nothing to do with me. I didn’t even know Michael then. You’re spreading malicious gossip.  You should be locked up you spiteful auld strap.

WOMAN:      Shaa!  Anyway, you broke your father’s heart when you ran away. And left me to pick up the pieces.

           MB:     That’s your real gripe, isn’t it? He didn’t want me. And you certainly didn’t. You made that clear. It was the happiest day of my life when I got on my bicycle and headed for the North. I was content there for nearly twenty years, living in me caravan, and singing and playing to me heart’s content at the fairs and the matches.

WOMAN:      Until you ran away with the fiddler Gorman

            MB:    I never ran away with him. I was invited to London by Alan Lomax to do some recording. That’s how I met Michael.

WOMAN:      Maybe, maybe not. But you were never a Tinker Margaret Barry. Never a Tinker…(she exits)

MB:    And you were always one. By nature anyway.  You don’t suppose people will think I was a fraud, Pecker?

PD:     That’s the least of your worries, girl. Sure you’re more popular these last  years than you ever were when you were…when you …

MB:    When I was alive, boy.  Don’t be afraid to say it. Well, that’s nice to know anyway. (she looks around) You know, I often think this place is a bit like the Wells Fargo Depot. Stagecoaches come in, people get off and get on; they bring a bit of news, and then they go away again. Off to God knows where. And you’re left waiting for the next coach to come in…

PD:     You’re here a long time yourself, girl. Without movin’ on, I mean.

MB:    Am I, boy? I wonder why that is?  Ah shure ours is not to reason why. Ours is just to….well you know what I mean.

Pecker and Margaret both sing a few verses of IT’S NEARLY OVER NOW, AND NOW I’M EASY ( (c) Eric Bogle)


BOTH:           For nearly sixty years, I’ve been a Cockie
Of droughts and fires and floods I’ve lived through plenty
This country’s dust and mud have seen my tears and blood
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy

I married a fine girl when I was twenty
But she died in giving birth when she was thirty
No flying doctor then, just a gentle old black ‘gin
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy

She left me with two sons and a daughter
On a bone-dry farm whose soil cried out for water
So my care was rough and ready, but they grew up fine and steady
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy

My daughter married young, and went her own way
My sons lie buried by the Burma Railway
So on this land I’ve made me home, I’ve carried on alone
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy

City folks these days despise the Cockie
Say with subsidies and dole, we’ve had it easy
But there’s no drought or starving stock on a sewered suburban block
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy

For nearly sixty years, I’ve been a Cockie
Of droughts and fires and floods, I’ve lived through plenty
This country’s dust and mud, have seen my tears and blood
But it’s nearly over now, and now I’m easy
And now I’m easy

End of scene

PD:                 My proper name is Paddy Dunne. It was me uncle who said call yourself Pecker. Pecker, that’s a great name, boy, he said. And he was right. I think  music is something that has got to be born in you. In the blood. Like the blood horse, the drop of blood has to be there. If I hadn’t got the music I think I would be very hungry. Nobody else gives a damn for my family only me. All my people were show people, carnival people, still are today. The cinema, fairs, the circus, hurling and football matches, that’s where you’ll find us, anywhere there’s a big crowd

You’d always know spring was here when you saw the crows building their nests, and when you saw the primroses growing at the side of the road, and when you saw me father’s caravan coming over the brow of the hill. That’s the time when me mother would tell us we ‘were goin’ off to the country again’.

A man appears in the background. He is dressed in 1940’s clothes, the clothes of an artisan, and carrying a set of uileann pipes. He begins to play. The tune is called COLONEL FRASER/RAKISH PADDY.  We hear it for a few minutes, and see a couple dancing in the background.

PD:     Well, God…do you know what? I’d swear that’s Johnny Doran. The great Johnny Doran.

MB:    Tis, boy. I‘d recognise him anywhere. We were often in competition. At a match, or a fair. If you saw Johnny on the horizon, ‘twas time to pack up and move on, because the pennies would be very scarce in your bag that day.

PD:     I heard tell of one fair where he collected nearly fourteen pounds for the day’s playing –  and the wages of a farm labourer at the time was twelve pounds for a whole year.  I often collected four or five, but fourteen pounds! (he shakes his head then shouts)  Hey, Johnny, is that you? Is that Johnny Doran?

The man looks at him and smiles, then waves. He plays the pipes for a few more minutes , and the couple dance again.

PD:     Did you know that in Cromwellian times there was a bounty on pipers? Five pounds, the same as on priests, cos the authorities believed they had the power to incite rebellion.

MB:    And why wouldn’t they – have the power, I mean –  if they could play like Johnny

PD:     The finest piper in Ireland. He was one of the Cashs’ you know. One of their descendants, anyway. I remember the Cash’s when I was growin’ up in Wexford. Goin’ to school there, and the Cashs’ and the Dunnes’ being put together on one side of the classroom. That’s the way it was for some reason. I suppose it was because we were Travellers.

MB:    That was the prejudice, boy. We hadn’t a name for it then , we just thought that was the way all people treated travellers. But that’s what it was. Pure prejudice.

PD:     Because we dared to be different. And it wasn’t ignorant people doing it.

MB:    Like guards. Or farmers.

PD:     It was educated people. Teachers. And priests. The parish priests ran the schools in them days, so suppose it was on their orders that we were…what’s the word?

MB:    Segregated.

PD:     That’s the fella.

MB:    Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany.

PD:     We were in good company then. Segregated be people who weren’t fit to lick  Johnny Doran’s  boots.

MD:    Johnny would put the heart crossways in you when you listened to him. Did you know he taught Willy Clancy how to play the pipes? Willy himself told me that. (pause) He died young. Too young. He was crushed beneath a wall that fell on his caravan in Dublin. Wasn’t I livin’ there around the time? Ah, he lived for two year after in a wheelchair, boy, but what sort of a life was that for him?  He never played the pipes again.

The music should get louder now, as the couple finish the dance, then disappear.

PD:     Well, he’s not in the wheelchair now. You know, that’s the second miracle I’ve seen in me life. The first was when a nun talked me into givin’ up the lush – the drink. I thought I would never do it. And I told her so. But she wouldn’t leave it lie. ‘You’re an alcoholic’, she said to me. I didn’t like those words – but she was right. And she persuaded me to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

Pecker stands before his peers, as if at an AA meeting.

PD:     Me name is Pecker Dunne and I’m an alcoholic. I had me first drink when I was twelve years old at me Confirmation in Wexford town.  I went out to celebrate with my father’s brothers who were confirmed on the same day. That was my first drinking session and I went on to drink for the next forty years. I became an alcoholic because I like the taste of the lush. I liked the way it made me feel. I knew at an early age I had a problem but I wasn’t able to stop. I tried a few times. I remember coming to Clonmel to play some music and decided there and then to take the Pledge. I managed to stay off the drink for six months; I bought a wagon and horses and felt a lot healthier in meself. But then I hit the bottle again and within a few weeks the wagon, the horses, the nice harness were all gone. I spent everything on the dark stuff in the bottom of the bottle  (pause)

            I drank everything; beer, spirits, poitin, anything that would make me high. But like many alcoholics I was in denial for years. This despite the fact that I was as bad an alcoholic as you would find anywhere in Ireland. I almost hit a priest once when he told me I was an alcoholic. I was in denial, you see. Drink can strip you of your dignity and leave you with nothing. That is how powerful it is. There are years in my life I can remember very little about. They are like a blur. It is like I wasn’t really living. I went through a period of sleeping in graveyards, don’t ask me why. I suppose I was in good company because I was half-dead myself. I remember waking up very early in a graveyard in Kerry one morning and thinking, ‘God, it must be resurrection day and I am the first up’.

            And then I met this nun from Skibereen who saved me. I was in hospital because of the drinking and she came over to me and tried to help me. The abuse I gave that poor woman. ‘Leave me alone, I’m dying sick’, I would say, But she wouldn’t give up. ‘We’ll have a talk’, she’d say. And I would say to her ‘If we do have a talk will you leave me alone after that?’  And she would say ‘No I won’t’.  Then one day she came over and said ‘Now, just relax and listen to me for a moment. Do you know you have a disease called alcoholism?  The alcohol is in the bottle and the ‘ism’ is in you. That’s what it is, plain and simple. If you leave the bottle alone you will have no problems. I will take you to a place where you can start to fight your addiction’. And she took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

            When I came out of the meeting she was waiting for me. ‘How do you feel now?’ she asked me. ‘Sister’, I said, ‘the gates of heaven haven’t opened to let me in yet, but the gates of hell are starting to open to let me out’. She put her arms around me and said, ‘You know I love you, Pecker’. That fixed it for me. Her telling me she loved me meant everything to me. The drink had brought me so low I didn’t care anymore whether I lived or died, but when she said that I knew there was at least one person in the world that cared. I said to myself, ‘someone wants me to live’. And shortly after that I met my wife. I’ve been sober ever since.

Pecker sings the song SULLIVAN’S JOHN  (c Pecker Dunne)

PD:                 Oh Sullivan’s John, to the road you’ve gone
Far away from your native home
You’ve gone with the tinker’s daughter
For along the road to roam
Ah, Sullivan’s John you won’t stick it long
Till your belly will soon get slack
As you roam the road with a mighty load
And a tooten box on your back

I met Katy Caffrey and a neat baby
All behind on her back strapped on
She had an old ash plant all in her hands
For to drive her donkey on
Enquiring every farmer’s house
As along the road she passed,
Oh, where would she get an old pot to mend
And where would she get an ass

There’s a hairy ass fair in the County Clare
In a place they call Spancel Hill
Where my brother James got a rap of a hames
And poor Paddy they tried to kill
They loaded him up in an ass and cart
For along the road to go
Oh, bad luck to the day that I went away
To join with the tinker’s band

Oh Sullivan’s John, to the road you’ve gone
Far away from your native home
You’ve gone with the tinker’s daughter
For along the road to roam
Ah, Sullivan’s John you won’t stick it long
Till your belly will soon get slack
As you roam the road with a mighty load
And a tooten box on your back

MB:     That’s a great song, Pecker.

PD:     I wrote that song when I was eleven. And I think it’s the best one I ever wrote. It was a romantic incident that I saw among the travelling people that inspired me. We pulled in off the drag – the road – one evening outside Kilrush, joining a camp that was already set up. We were there for a few days and every evening I noticed this farmer’s son coming down to the molly – the camp – and he had his eye on this beautiful traveller girl. You could see that that he was crazy about her and she about him. In the heel of the hunt, they were so mad about each other that they ran away to England together. Johnny Sullivan was the boy’s name and I named the song after him.  He joined the travelling life in England and started his own tarmac and trucking business there. In the song I pretended that he was a tinker tramping the road, but in reality he became a very wealthy man. Ah, that’s what they call poetic licence I suppose. 

End of scene

PECKER DUNNE – last of the travellers

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Pecker dunne…part 1

PECKER DUNNE – LAST OF THE TRAVELLERS

By

Tom O’Brien

A play with music about the travelling musicians of Ireland, mostly concentrating on Pecker Dunne and Margaret Barry. They were both from travelling families, Tinkers, and were marginalised by Irish society. Looked down on, indeed persecuted for their way of life. Both were great singers and musicians, and along with the great Johnny Doran, did more to promote Irish traditional music than almost any other person of our times.                               Both are dead now and the play is set in a kind of imaginary ‘halting site’, where departed souls are temporarily resident while awaiting transport to somewhere permanent.

Characters

                        Pecker Dunne………………….40-60 yrs

                        Margaret Barry……………….30-50 yrs

                        Guard Sergeant………………..  40’s

                        Richard Harris/John Power….50-60yrs

                        Kathleen……………………………early 20’s

                        Johnny Doran……………………..late 30’s

                        Mary…………………………………..mid 20’s

                        Tinker Man…………………………30-40 yrs

                        Step-Mother………………………..early 40’s

                        Farmer…………………………………40’s

Apart from Pecker and Margaret, all the other characters can be played by one male and one female actor if need be.

Some musicians may be required, possibly a banjo/fiddle player and an accordionist.

Margaret Barry has a pronounced Cork accent, even when singing.

PECKER DUNNE – LAST OF THE TRAVELLERS

By

Tom O’Brien

Scene one

A darkened stage, then a spotlight. PECKER DUNNE appears, carrying a banjo case. The case has Pecker Dunne stencilled across the body. Bearded, he wears a wide black leather belt with silver buckle on his trousers, and could be anywhere between 40/60 years of age. He sings I’M THE LAST OF THE TRAVELLIN PEOPLE (c) Pecker Dunne)

PD:                 Me name it is Paddy, I’m called Pecker Dunne                                                                     I walk the road but I never run,                                                                                              I’m the last of the travellin’ people                                   

With me banjo and fiddle I yarn and song,                                                    and sing to people who do me no wrong                                                  But if others despise me I just move along,                                                    and know I’ll find friends in the morning                                          Arah money is money and friends they are friends,                                       And drinking with them is where all money ends                                          But it isn’t on money it’s on them I depend                                                         When friends and the guards are against me.                                                           

From Belfast to Wexford from Clare to Tralee,                                             a town with a pub is a living for me                                                                       I haven’t a home but thank God I am free,                                                 I’m the last of the travellin’ people

The road isn’t aisy but it’s what I choose,                                                      I’m not always a winner but I’l           Summer and winter keep travelling I will                                                     But the road it is long and I know it will kill                                                  The last of the travelling people.  

As Pecker finishes the stage lights come up. There is a blank screen as backdrop.  Towards the front we see what looks to be a travellers halting site; campfire, cooking utensils etc – the impression being given is that the wagons etc are just out of sight. It should be a hazy, sort of unreal-looking place, with a few people seated at various points. Some of these can be musicians.

            PD:     Where the bloody hell is this place?

  On screen we can now read HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY PECKER.

            PD:     Birthday? Eighty?  What’s goin’ on here?

 MARGARET BARRY appears from the mist with her banjo. She sings THE GALWAY SHAWL (traditional)

MB:                At Oranmore in the County Galway,
One pleasant evening in the month of May,
I spied a damsel, she was young and handsome
Her beauty fairly took my breath away.

Chorus:
She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint or powder, no, none at all.
But she wore a bonnet with a ribbon on it
And round her shoulder was a Galway Shawl.

We kept on walking, she kept on talking,
‘Till her father’s cottage came into view.
Says she, “Come in, sir, and meet my father,
And play to please him The Foggy Dew.”

She sat me down beside the fire
I could see her father, he was six feet tall.
And soon her mother had the kettle singing
All I could think of was the Galway shawl.

I played The Blackbird and The Stack of Barley
Rodney’s Glory and The Foggy Dew
She sang each note like an Irish linnet.
Whilst the tears stood in her eyes of blue.

‘Twas early, early, all in the morning,
When I hit the road for old Donegal.
She said goodbye, sir, she cried and kissed me,
And my heart remained with that Galway shawl.

PD:     God bless all here tonight. Isn’t Margaret great to turn up

for my birthday? Ladies and gentlemen, Margaret Barry.

MB:    That’s the first I heard about any birthday, Pecker.  I was told

there was a few shillings in it for me.

PD:     Ah, g’wan now girl.

MB:    Well, seein’ as it’s yourself Pecker. And it’s not as if we’re strangers. Shure, we sung together before.

PD:     Aye, we did, a long time ago. A chanter supreme, that’s what you are. It’s me birthday today – apparently. What age do you think I am?

MB:    I can still read, boy.  (indicates the screen and laughs)

 Not as ould as me, anyway.

PD:     Sure you’re no age. If you were six months younger I’d run away

with you!

MB:    I was born in 1917, boy.

PD:     That would make you…ah…

MB:    Dead, boy. T’would make me dead. (she looks around) ‘Tis a funny auld place, isn’t it?

PD:     Where is it at all? Is it the afterlife – or just another bit of roadside the council forgot to fence off?

MB:    The afterlife, boy! (looks around) There’s never anyone around to ask. People just seem to come and go.

PD:     You sure it’s not a guard (police)) station? There’s never anyone in them places anymore.

MB:    No, they’re always too busy hidin’ behind hedges and the like to give you a ticket for something or other. Don’t talk to me about the guards.

A uniformed Garda Sergeant walks into view.

            PD:     Well, Lord save us, if it isn’t auld Baldy Tyres himself!

MB:    I know that fella! He stopped me wance in Limerick for havin – how did he put it? – a ‘defective rear light on a moving vehicle’. On t’oul caravan, if you don’t mind! The lousy fecker.

GS:     Well now, what have we here?  The Pecker Dunne and Margaret Barry. When did you pair hitch up together? Or is that too delicate a question?

PD:     Since when did the matter of delicacy ever bother you? Or any Guard for that matter.

GS:     I was only doin’ me job.

MB:    That’s what Cromwell said at Drogheda.

PD:     And a lot more places besides. I wonder now if Guards are descendants of Roundheads?

MB:    (aside)  He have the head of one, anyhow

GS:     What was that? (he is walking about, looking at things) You know, you can’t park here anymore.

PD:     A bit of auld waste ground, on the side of the road – where’s the harm?

PS:      Ah now, it’s not as simple as that. Not like it used to be in the old days. There’s the health and safety issue to be considered for a start…

MB:    Health and safety, boy?  What’s that when it’s at home?  We parked here in 1930, when I was thirteen years old, and we’ve been parking here on and off ever since.

PS:      Not for the past twenty years you haven’t.  There’s new laws these days, official halting sites, proper…

PD:     He’s talkin’ about all these new EU laws, girl. Ah, shure it’s all changed since you…since you…(pause)  It’s the new United States of Europe. We’re all only satellites now, being told what to do be some mush in Brussels.

MB:    Is that a fact? I’m well out of it then.

PS:      Be that as it may. I know you Pecker, and I know what will happen if I give you permission to stay here. There’ll be a swarm of you here before you can say ‘Ballybunion’.

PD:     It’s me birthday. I’m entitled to ask a few friends round for me birthday.

PS:      Have ye any horses? I don’t want any horses roamin’ the road – or the farmer’s fields for that matter.

PD:     Prags? What would a traveller want with a prag these days? The only thing I travel with these days – apart from me four be four – is this. (he waves his banjo case)

PS:      I’ll be keeping a close eye on all of you. I don’t want any trouble now. ( he heads off)

MB:    He won’t go far, boy. He’ll be peeping from behind some hedge.

Pecker and Margaret sing DANNY FARRELL (by Pete St John)

I knew Danny Farrell when his football was a can
With his hand-me-downs and Welliers and his sandwiches of bran
But now that pavement peasant is a full grown bitter man
With all the trials and troubles of his travelling people’s clan

He’s a loser, a boozer, a me and you user
A raider, a trader, a people police hater
So lonely and only, what you’d call a gurrier
Still now, Danny Farrell, he’s a man

I knew Danny Farrell when he joined the National School
He was lousy at the Gaelic, they’d call him amadán – a fool
He was brilliant in the toss school by trading objects in the pawn
By the time he was an adult all his charming ways had gone

I knew Danny Farrell when we queued up for the dole
And he tried to hide the loss of pride that eats away the soul
But mending pots and kettles is a trade lost in the past
“There’s no hand-out here for tinkers” was the answer when he asked

He’s a loser, a boozer, a me and you user
A raider, a trader, a people police hater
So lonely and only, what you’d call a gurrier
Still now, Danny Farrell, he’s a man

I still know Danny Farrell, saw him just there yesterday
Taking methylated spirits with some wino’s on the quay
Oh, he’s forty going on eighty, with his eyes of hope bereft
And he told me this for certain, there’s not many of us left

He’s a loser, a boozer, a me and you user
A raider, a trader, a people police hater
So lonely and only, what you’d call a gurrier
Still now, Danny Farrell, he’s a man

Lights fade, then Spotlight on Margaret Barry

MB:    I was born on the first of January 1917 in the city of Cork. Peter Street. Me mother was seventeen years married to me father when she died. I was about twelve then. She was a beautiful woman; I don’t think there was a lovelier woman to be got in Cork. Lovely black hair, you know. She used to wear it in a plait right around her head, and all got up in a big bun at the back, with a big hairpin stuck in it. She got double pneumonia and it killed her. I remember her calling me to her bedside in the hospital and saying ‘Margaret, my Margaret’. I never got over her dying. Never. Me father re-married, but I couldn’t get on with them, so I set off on me own when I was sixteen and settled in the North of the country.                                                                                                            I sang through the fairs. And the markets. And I had very enjoyable times. And more times it wasn’t so nice because there was wind and rain, and I’d get wet coming back on me bicycle from somewhere. But I enjoyed every minute of it. Me heart was delighted when I went through the fairs and could keep on singing all the time. But as soon as ever I’d finish up at some fair or a market I’d actually go to some house. I used to always be hired. They knew me that well. Around Castleblaney,  Monaghan, Crossmaglen, Armagh, and all these places. And they used always come along for me and say ‘we’d like for you to come up to the house some night, and play a few tunes and sing a few songs’. And there I was, I used to go to the house at eight o clock in the evening and from then until maybe seven in the morning I’d keep on playing for them and singing. I’d get a rest about twelve o clock and get something to ate. And then off I’d go again. I’d play some half sets, and if there was room enough in the place they’d take away the furniture, and  they’d dance away the night. It would just be a sociable thing; it wouldn’t be a wedding or a wake or anything like that, it was the way they were around them parts, the way they enjoyed themselves. They loved that kind of life you see, the dancing and the craic. It was what they called a house ceili. And naturally enough, it was never without drink.  (shakes her head)  All gone now, boy.

Margaret sings THE FLOWER OF SWEET STRABANE  (traditional)

MB:                If I were King of Ireland and all things at my will
I’d roam through all creations new fortunes to find still
And the fortune I would seek the most you all must understand
Is to win the heart of Martha, the flower of sweet Strabane

Her cheeks they are a rosy red, her hair golden brown
And o’er her lily white shoulders it carelessly falls down
She’s one of the loveliest creatures of the whole creation planned
And my heart is captivated by the flower of sweet Strabane

If I had you lovely Martha away in Innisowen
Or in some lonesome valley in the wild woods of Tyrone
I would use my whole endeavour and I’d try to work my plan
For to gain my prize and feast my eyes on the flower of sweet Strabane

Oh, I’ll go o’er the Lagan down by the steam ships tall
I’m sailing for Amerikay across the briny foam
My boat is bound for Liverpool down by the Isle of Man
So I’ll say farewell, God bless you, my flower of sweet Strabane

POTEEN – a short story

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POTEEN by Tom O’Brien
I was weaned on country music, Elvis and large dollops of raw West-of-Ireland poteen. The indiscriminate lighting of matches in the vicinity of
Hickeystown could have had a disastrous effect on the population had anybody
but known it. Fortunately, no one gave it a second thought.
Poteen is the elixir that drives men mad and makes greyhounds run faster.
It is also useful for easing rheumy joints in cattle, horses and other beasts of
burden. Its madness- inducing properties were confirmed many years ago when
my grandfather had a vision. In the vision he saw gold; large quantities of it, on
top of Tory hill, an ugly limestone carbuncle that did its best to hide
Hickeystown from the rest of civilization.
Two days of feverish digging – aided and abetted by most of the ablebodied men in the village – produced nothing except two rusty bicycle wheels,
a dead sheep and a dozen bottles of poteen. Long afterwards it emerged that the
poteen was grandfather’s. He had forgotten where he had buried it and dreamed
up the scheme in an effort to locate it.
However, by that time the harm was done; madmen and poteen were
synonymous.
That it made greyhounds run faster was undoubtedly true. I witnessed it
many times with my own eyes. My uncle Jack kept a couple of them for a
pastime, and when he wanted them to run faster at the flapping tracks he
frequented, he always laced their water with a drop beforehand. This worked
well for a long time before someone figured out his secret. In the end every
dog was running so fast that- as he himself put it – they were meeting
themselves coming back before they got there. He settled for a couple of Jack
Russells after that.
Being illegal, it fell to the Gardai to discourage its manufacture. They
knew who was making it of course – indeed they were occasional customers
17
themselves – and periodically they would make a sweep of the outlying areas.
When you saw them heading for the hills, wellies slung over their shoulders, an
axe in their hands, you knew the hunt was on. This mode of dressing was
particularly noticeable in the weeks leading up to Christmas
Uncle Jack and my father chopped down trees for a living, and if they
supplemented their wages with the manufacture of a little ‘moonshine’, sure what
was the harm? Like all good traditions it had been handed down through the
generations; making it was just as natural as going to Mass on Sunday. The back
of Tory hill was the ideal location for their activities; a forestry plantation,
remote, and with plenty of spring water gurgling its way downwards from a
spring on the top.
Many is the day I spent there, reducing the trees to manageable sizes with
the aid of a chainsaw, hauling the logs down to the roadside with the aid of a
horse. Here, they were removed to the nearby chipboard factory by more horsepower – a lorry mounted with a hydraulic grab. In time I learned how to operate
the grab – and how to make poteen.
I am not going to reveal how it is made – some rituals are sacred –
suffice to say that it involves the use of a propane burner, a worm (a copper
tube coiled in a certain way), running water, and , of course, the ingredients.
When the concoction is bubbling merrily it has to be watched and nurtured,
and regularly monitored as to the timing and the proportions of the ingredients
added. (Uncle Jack once got his calculations wrong and several bottles
concealed in the saddlebag on his bicycle exploded as he was passing the
Garda station. Luckily it was closed at the time).
However, finding spots inaccessible to the Gardai became more difficult
as time went by. There were only a finite number of places that could be
utilized, and they would eventually run out. The use of decoy stills was
successful for a while, but as well as the extra costs involved it was a timeconsuming diversion. Eventually the day arrived when the Gardai marched past
the decoys. The days of poteen-making on Tory hill were over.
Which brings me to the music. (ah, I hear you say, I wondered when he’d
18
get round to the music). Country music, rock-n-roll and poteen, a potent mix
when ‘played’ by dad and uncle Jack in their band ‘The Moonshiners’.
The band, too, was a tradition. The brainchild of my grandfather, it
originally comprised of a fiddler, an accordionist and a bodhran player, and
was guaranteed to liven up wakes, weddings and other social diversions.
It still did that, but had added a guitarist and drummer to its ranks, and
had become electric instead of acoustic. This new ensemble needed a place to
practice, and when the parish priest offered them the now-defunct Temperance
Hall they were delighted. Afterwards they discovered that it wasn’t entirely
generosity that had prompted the offer; the church was the only building in the
village with walls thick enough to keep out the sound and practice
night saw a big attendance at evening devotions. The hall was also only four
doors away from the Garda station and that, too, tended to close early on
rehearsal nights.
It was the discovery of an underground stream beneath the cellars of the
hall that gave uncle Jack the idea. Now that Tory hill was redundant a new
venue was needed for making the poteen – and where better than right under
the noses of the Gardai? They could search the countryside high and low and
they would find nothing. They did too, but for the next five years all their
efforts were in vain.
Practice nights were still rigidly adhered to, but now the music that blared
from behind the locked doors was usually pre-recorded, while my father and
uncle were busy in the cellars. Their activities would probably still be
undiscovered to this day if it wasn’t for the fire. The cause of the fire is still a
mystery; a foraging wild animal knocking over the burner perhaps? but it
gutted the hall, destroying everything inside. What hadn’t burnt melted in the
intense heat generated by the potent mixtures in the cellar. A heady alcoholic
cloud hung over the village for the best part of a day, leaving nobody in any
doubt as to what had been going on.
19
The Garda Sergeant took it in good spirit (I know, a pun) considering
everything, but there wasn’t much else he could do when all the evidence had
been destroyed. Still, nobody was surprised when he was moved to a new post
shortly afterwards.
Father and Uncle Jack decided to quit while they were ahead, and they
put what money they had saved into a fish farm. They are cleaning up these
days selling fresh mussels to the best restaurants in Dublin and Cork.
And me? These days I front the band. We are still called ‘The
Moonshiners’, though I guess our brand of heavy rock would have grandfather
rolling in his grave if he could hear us. Still, it’s a living.
And I still make the poteen. Oh, not the illegal sort, but a carefully
blended, beautifully bottled concoction that is made under license in the now
re-built Temperance Hall.
The next time you stop off at Shannon Airport pop into the duty-free and
buy a bottle.
It is called Uisce Beatha – Water Of Life.

END.

THE HOMECOMING a short story

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THE HOMECOMING by Tom O’Brien

Did you ever see a hill shrink?  I mean get physically smaller bit by bit until there was nothing left.  To an occasional observer like myself it was probably more of a culture shock than if I had been present throughout its gradual disintegration.  But then, I only saw it every few years or so – when I came home on holidays from New York.  And every time there was another big chunk of it gone.  Things like that tend to stick in your mind.

It’s hard to describe how I felt about that hill.  It was like one of the family.  I grew up with it.  In the morning when I woke it would be there, looking down into our haggard.  A Jekyl and Hyde character; in the winter dark and foreboding, the mists clinging to its girth; in the summer smiling down on us children, beckoning us up into its warm embrace.

It never had a name, just The Hill. Mornings, before we left for school, mother would  shout at one of us to  run  to the Hill and fetch some milk from Nellie.  Nellie was our goat, and I think she liked The Hill better than our haggard.  The grazing wasn’t any sweeter up there, she just like the view.

She wasn’t the only one.  In summer we couldn’t wait to get home from school, divest ourselves of our school clothes, and climb up there.  There were five of us; my brother Seamus and myself, Frances and her two brothers, Billy and Josie.  We called our gang the Red Devils, which had Fr Dunphy sucking on his teeth when he first heard mention of the name. Frances was always kissing me,  which I didn’t care much for at the time.

The Hill was our territory.  Nobody could play there unless we invited them.  Once, we fought a running battle with some other kids who tried to muscle in.  We soon scattered them with a hail of stones.  That battle established it as our kingdom.  My father said we almost owned it anyway; the big farmer to whom it really belonged letting him have the use of it for ten shillings a year.

Clustered round its bottom were whitewashed cottages, the occasional bungalow, the pub, the creamery, and a galvanised shack occupied by a witch.  Behind the hill ran the railway line, and the level crossing,  which was manned by Frances’ father. Their house was part of the railway, and their front room was a mass of levers and cables.

We had a secret place on the Hill, a cave beneath an outcrop near its top.  You had to crawl on your belly to gain entrance because its mouth was guarded by several scraggy furze bushes.  We could have cut them down of course, but then we could have hidden inside and watched the goings-on below us.

The pub was the centre of the social activity.  On summers evenings there was open-air dancing on a makeshift stage in the field adjacent to the pub.  Old time waltzes and set dances  were the favourites.  The accordion player sat on a chair  playing his tunes, polishing off large bottles of porter as fast as they were put in front of him.  If playing was thirsty work then dancing was thirstier, and there was a constant stream of revellers shunting between pub and dance area.  From our vantage point we watched the dancers fling back their heads and swing their partners round and round, their shoes pounding on the timber, their shouts of joys ripping through the warm summer’s evening.

In the winter, the travelling shows came and pitched their tents in the same field, and entertained us for a few weeks with a mixture of comedy, drama and music.  Badly-acted plays and out-of-key singers warmed us up on many a cold night at the foot of the Hill.

My cousin, Nora,  took a fancy to one of the travelling showmen and began taking him up to our hiding place when the show was over.  We didn’t think much of that.  One summer’s evening we heard her screaming up on the Hill.  We found her in the cave, surrounded by a pool of blood.  When the doctor came he took away something in a bag, and later on I saw my father heading across the fields with a shovel on his shoulder.  The show never came by again.

As we grew older I began returning Francis’s kisses.  Now it was our turn to use the cave late at night!

I had just turned seventeen when the bulldozers moved in.  Shortly afterwards explosive experts began blowing up bits of the Hill, and the quarrying began in earnest. Soon there was a sprawling complex of dust-shrouded buildings, machines eating away at the Hill, and convoys of trucks bumping across the stony ground. Before long, the trees had turned grey, and the trains had stopped running.

My father cried as he watched the Hill disappear before his eyes.  The big farmer was sympathetic, but merely shrugged his shoulders; times were hard, and anyway, what use was a lump of rock to a farmer?  Father sold his smallholding, his sheep and his goats, and took a job in the quarry.  Very soon Seamus and myself followed.  Seamus was installed at the weighbridge, assisting with the dockets because he had a head for figures. Somebody must have reckoned I had a head for heights – because I was given the task of carrying the equipment for the men who set the charges. Every evening, just before six, the birds rose from the Hill like dust from a carpet, and shortly afterwards the silence was shattered by a series of thunderclaps.  Another bit of the Hill gone west.

It was shortly after my eighteenth birthday that Frances and Seamus died.  To the jaws of New York I ran; my solitary suitcase filled with the rags of my youth, a bottle of holy water, and a pile of Kit Carson and Johnny Mac Brown comics.  Away from the grief choking my lungs, and the red staining the grey rocks brown.  Away from the haunted thing staring at me from every reflective surface, and from the silent screams riding every breeze that tugged at the Hill’s battered face. Away to Uncle Willie.

          I saw many sights in New York, dreamed a thousand dreams, and knew real loneliness for a time.  The icy mistrals that periodically sweep down the great canyons of Broadway and the Bronx were warm compared to me.  I was a rock.  I was an island.  My days were spent constructing fashionable patios around  stucco-ed buildings with ornate entrances and moneyed owners, my nights in Uncle Willie’s counting house. In time, his small building firm became my large construction company.  Occasionally, when time permitted, I would come and watch the Hill grow smaller.

                                           ………………

All quiet here now.  The bulldozers and bedlam-makers have gone.  And so too has the Hill.  Erased from the skyline in thirty short years. A covering of topsoil hides some of the scars; here and there conifers and shrubs attempt to breathe new life into the pock-marked, lunar-like surroundings.  In the centre  a square of green, vivid against the drab background, seems strangely out of  place.  Even more incongruous is the white building, rising like a Phoenix from the embers, its five fluted columns standing like sentinels beneath its awning, its flanks guarded by a colonnade of progressively-sloping evergreens.

The pub still stands at the crossroads, grown larger and more prosperous over the years, and the creamery has expanded to become a cheese-making factory.  Of the level crossing and the railway there is no visible sign, although a cursory search would reveal the tracks still intact beneath the undergrowth. Most of the cottages have gone; replaced by new houses – many more of them – and the city, once more than five miles away, is now within spitting distance.

I look around me and shiver suddenly.  The ghosts of yesterday clamouring for attention once more.  The Red Devils scampering up that ungainly lump of granite. Voices drifting in the wind; “look what I found, look what I found!”.  Dogs, rabbits, burrows, names etched in flint.  Soft hair, silky thighs, music and laughter aloft on the breeze.  Then another excursion.  This time two people heading for the secret place, and another figure – hidden – watching.  An explosion.  The evening turning crimson. Two coffins submerged beneath a garden of flowers. A funeral cortege stretching further than the eye could see…Oh Frances, why? You and Seamus…Oh God!  I never meant for it to end like that…

A voice at my elbow brings me back to the present. 

“I found the keys in my briefcase.  Everything alright?”

I look at the man wearing the thick horn-rimmed glasses.  Was this tubby little estate agent really the boy I had played cowboys and indians with all those years ago?  Staked out on a warm rock as the rest of us chanted and danced around him?

“Yes”, I smile, “Everything is fine now Josie”.

He hands me the bunch of jangling keys.  “The keys to the Hill, Bernie. Welcome home”

end

STREET CORNER – a short play

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STREET CORNER

By

      Tom O’Brien

Characters

Shirl….teens

Jan…..teens

Al……teens

Kev…teens

NWM ….40’s

Period 1980’s

A street somewhere in London. ( Location can be changed if desired) Empty shop with FOR SALE sign. Garage attached to end of shop with door missing. Strewn with rubbish inside. Pavement – and presumably road – runs away to right of stage.. Another road runs at right angles to left of stage. The actors are free to stand, sit, or move within the setting as the action progresses. SHIRL, JAN and AL are on stage at curtain rise.

            SHIRL:          You go.

            AL:                 No, you go.

            SHIRL:          No-o, you go.

            AL:                 You go.

            JAN:               Bleedin’ hell!  I’ll go

            SHIRL:          Alright. Get me a coke. Diet.

            AL:                 Yeah. The same.

            JAN:               (not moving) Well Then?

            AL:                 Well what?

            JAN:               Money like. It costs ya know.

            AL:                 (hands her a fiver) Get ‘em out of that.

            SHIRL:          ‘Ere! Where’d you get a fiver? You was skint earlier

            AL:                 Sold a computer game, didn’t I?

            SHIRL:          (suspicious) ‘Oo to?

            AL:                 Fat Annie

            SHIRL:          She closes early Thursdays

            AL:                 She didn’t today. Ask Kev.

Jan has moved away at this point. Shirl shouts after her.

SHIRL:          Jan! Make mine a lilt instead  (To Al)  Where is Kev anyway?          We said six.

AL:                 He’ll be here.

SHIRL:          Is it true he fancies Nadine?

AL:                 Nadine who?

SHIRL:          The Nadine. The one who told you to sod off at the party.

AL:                 She never.

SHIRL:          She wouldn’t be seen dead with him anyway. She likes a good time.

AL:                 What are you doing here then?

SHIRL:          Who says I’m goin’ with Kev?

AL:                 Aren’t you?

KEV saunters up at this point.

            KEV:              Alright?

            AL:                 Alright.

            SHIRL:          You’re late.

            KEV:              Me mum’s sick. I had to do the housework.

            SHIRL:          That’s a laugh!

            KEV:              Okay, I was robbing a bank.

            SHIRL:          They’re closed, stupid.

            KEV:              A launderette then. Will that do?

Jan returns with the drinks at this point.

            JAN:               You’re late.

            KEV:              She already said that.

            JAN:               Well, you are.

Kev watches her handing out the drinks.

            KEV:              Where’s mine?

            JAN:               You weren’t here.

            KEV:              I’m here now.

            SHIRL:          Come on, Jan, we’ll get another.

After they go, Kev gets out his cigarettes out and they light up. Al offers his coke.

            AL:                 You get it?

KEV:              Yeah. Fifteen squids. You already got a fiver, so if I give you another that makes us quits. Right?  ( he hands over a fiver)

AL:                 (trying to work it out) Yeah, yeah. (pause) And she called you a thicko!

KEV:              Who did?

AL:                 Her. That Nadine.

KEV:              (laughs) Plankton head

AL:                 Plankton?

KEV:              That’s what they called her at school. Plankton head. Y’know… seaweed? Her hair?

AL:                 (vague) Oh, right

Shirl and Jan return. Shirl hands a coke to Kev

            SHIRL:          Don’t say I never give you nuffing.

She shoves the change in Kev’s pocket. He takes it out and counts it.

            SHIRL:          It’s all there.

            JAN:               Guess what?

            KEV:              You’re pregnant.

JAN:               Don’t be stupid. Someone nicked all the lead of the church hall roof last night.

SHIRL:          Yeah. Old what’s-is-name, the neighbourhood watch bloke, was sayin’ in the shop…

JAN:               I thought roofs was all slates?

KEV:              Flashing.

JAN:               You what?

KEV:              The flashing. The bits that go round the edges. They’re lead.

SHIRL:          Clever, ain’t ya!

JAN:               What’s anyone want to nick that for?

AL:                 Scrap metal. There’s money in scrap metal.

SHIRL:          Yeah? Anyway, he reckons they’re bound to catch whoever done it. They found a knife up there…

Al drops his coke.

AL:                 Shit! (he picks it up) Sod this. Who wants a beer?

JAN:               I thought we was goin’ to the pictures?

KEV:              Plenty of time yet. (pause) Comin’ Al?

They move away. Jan takes a mirror from her purse and studies her face.

JAN:               Which on d’ya fancy then, Shirl?

SHIRL:          Which one d’you fancy?

JAN:               You first.

SHIRL:          No, you.

JAN:               Kev’s nice.

SHIRL:          You fancy him?

JAN:               Yeah.

SHIRL:          I know. Let’s toss (searches her bag) You got ten pee?

Jan hands her ten pee.

SHIRL:          Best of three, right? (she tosses)

JAN:               Heads.

Jan gives a squeal of delight when she wins. She loses the next two and makes a face.

            JAN:               Your hair is nice. Where’d you get it done?

SHIRL:          Me sister’s. I nearly died. I’m stiin’ there with all this gunk on my head and he comes in. You know, TONY, her fella? And she goes ‘you’re drunk’, and he goes’ you’re ugly but I’ll be sober later’. Then she goes, ‘you pig’., and he goes…

JAN:               And was he?

SHIRL:          Was he what?

JAN:               Drunk.

SHIRL:          I s’pose so. He kissed me when she was out of the room.

JAN:               He never! You want to be careful. Married men only want one thing.

SHIRL:          They ain’t married, are they. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind. He’s kinda hunky…

Shirl pauses as someone comes in their direction. It’s the Neighbourhood Watch man

            SHIRL:          Oh-oh. It’s old what’s-is-name

NWM:            Well, if it ain’t the terrible twins. Like hanging around empty properties, do you?

JAN:               That’s our business.

NWM:            And mine. Got to make sure nothing goes on inside, see? No drinking or smoking. No raves.

SHIRL:          Raves around this dump! You gott’a be joking!

JAN:               What’cha want anyway?

NWM:            I’m looking for Al Massey. You know him?

SHIRL:          Yeah, we know him.

NWM:            Seen him lately? (both shake their heads) If you do see him tell him I want a word. Before the cops do.

JAN:               What’s ‘e done, then?

NWM:            Why should he have done anything?

JAN:               You said….

NWM:            Never assume, young lady. Only an ass assumes. I would merely like to know why a knife with the initials AM should be laying on the roof of the church hall. Maybe he can tell me before I mention it to the law.

SHIRL:          Don’t they know?

NWM:            Not about the knife. Yet.

JAN:               Why haven’t you told them?

NWM:            His dad and me, we go back a long way. I just can’t believe…(pause) So if you see him tell him I want a word. ( he moves away)

JAN:               Wot you reckon. Shirl?

SHIRL:          About what?

JAN:               Al, was it him on the roof?

SHIRL:          Him and Kev, you mean. All for one and one for all, that’s their motto, innit?

JAN:               Not with me it ain’t! I’m not sharing…

At this point Kev and Al can be seen returning

SHIRL:          They’re coming back. Quick….!

The two girls move up the alley way and disappear behind the garage.

            KEV:              Where’ve they got to then?

AL:                 The bog probably. Girls are always in the bog doin’ things to themselves.

They sit beside the garage and open two cans of beer

            KEV:              We goin’ to the pictures or what?

            AL:                 Or what. Yeah.

            KEV:              How are we, like, goin’ to pair off?

            AL:                 I don’t know. Wot’cha think?

            KEV:              Jan’s okay.

            AL:                 Yeah. I know. Let’s toss. ( he produces a coin)

            KEV:              Heads. (he loses) Oh well…

Al looks down the road. He sees someone in the distance.

            AL:                 What? (listens) Yeah. We got it. Thanks. (to Kev) That was Tony   

            KEV:              I heard.  That Shirl’s sister, she gives him a hard time.

            AL:                 Yeah.

            KEV:              It’s not his fault he can’t get a job.

            AL:                 No.

            KEV:              Fifty sovs, that’s all he needed.

            AL:                 Yeah. Well, he’s got it now, ain’t he.

            KEV:              Yeah.

            AL:                 D’you reckon it’s true what Shirl said about the knife?

            KEV:              I reckon. I s’pose the old bill will be around.

            AL:                 Yeah. What ya think they’ll do?

            KEV:              (shrugs) A knife is just a knife. They can’t prove anything.

            AL:                 What about fingerprints?

Shirl and Jan have heard enough by now. They come running out.

JAN:               And initials. It had your initials on it, stupid. Old what’s-is-name has been round. He said so.

KEV:              (hands them beers) Have a beer. All that listening must be thirsty work.

SHIRL:          We wasn’t listening.

KEV:              What were you doin’ back there – sunbathing?

SHIRL:          Very funny! It was only a game. We couldn’t help hearing

AL:                 A stupid game.

JAN:               Not half as stupid as nicking that lead.

AL:                 We didn’t.

JAN:               Pull the other one.

AL:                 We Didn’t!

JAN:               He found your knife.

AL:                 Not mine.

JAN:               It’s got your initials on…

AL:                 Not my initials. (he takes a knife from his pocket and hands it ot her) That’s my knife

SHIRL:          Whose then?

KEV:              Maybe it was Tony’s

SHIRL:          Don’t be stupid, Kev!

JAN:               Shirl. Tony?…Anthony…

SHIRL:          Oh shit!

JAN:               Wot’s ‘is surname.

SHIRL:          I don’t know, do I? ( pause)  I think it’s Moran. Stupid…stupid… You knew? (to Kev)

KEV:              He told us earlier on. He hid the lead last night and got rid of most of it this morning. What bits were left he said we could have. (he holds up his beer) Cheers Tony!

They are all silent, finishing their drinks.

SHIRL:          What will happen now? To Tony, I mean?

AL:                 He might be lucky. Then again he might not.

KEV:              (to Shirl) And all because your sister wanted an expensive birthday present.

Kev finishes his beer and tosses it into the pile in the garage.

KEV:              Picture time.

Kev and Al begin to move away.

            AL:                 You comin’ or what?

Shirl and Jan look at each other for a moment, then shrug and follow.

Curtain.

DEAD IN A DITCH

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

Dead In a Ditch by Patrick Kavanagh

(To Hilda)
   
Unless you come
I shall die in a ditch,
Poet dead in a ditch.
There will be no bluebells there, 
Only the vetch
Smelling of death
Weeds around me,
The mud of hooves
That prance there
Falling over my eyes.

Rags of beggars that passed
Will clothe my soul.
The winter will come through the bushes,
Rain will fall
Making puddles in my face,
The snow will come
And cover me up
Like the Babes in the Wood.
Then no one will stop
To examine the heap,
No one will know where a poet's asleep.

I shall die in a ditch
Like a dog or bum,
Poet dead in a ditch
Unless you come.

My new play - DEAD IN A DITCH - Is now available in paperback on Amazon

LIFE AINT WOT IT USED TO BE (continued)

/ gorgeousgael / Leave a comment

Scene 4

Lionels grubby flat.

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                  People ask why I never married. Well, I’m married to dozens of people. I am not married to a lady, and I have no children. But I loved one lady very much, but alas she died. Maybe I should’a married her. (pause)                                                                                                                               I am a gypsy; I am also an Arab. Know what I mean? I lived in Morrocco for over three years, and to me sex and love are two different things. And gender too. There’s love for a man, love for a boy, love for a woman and love for a girl. (pause and laughs)                        So am I bisexual?  (laughs) Maybe I’m trisexual! I don’t know. Whatever! I’m spontaneous.

Pause to pour and drink some vodka. He dozes for a little while, sitting on a settee with a big Teddy Bear. For company

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                        I woke up one day to realise I was my own audience. No one else was looking.

 (he waves the drink  and pats the Teddy)

Then I found Lionel (hugs the Teddy)                                                                                         I couldn’t hold a pen long enough to stop my hands shaking. (laughs) And my drying out sessions lasted as long as Elisabeth Taylor’s diets!

We hear knocking

 I used to kick my day off with a bottle of vodka, and finish it off with two more by the end of it. (laughs) You know, I never really liked the taste of alcohol, but I soon discovered it was the quickest route to oblivion

We can hear knocking again but Lionel ignores it.

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                     I was lonely y’know? (pause) Apart from Alma in 1966 my greatest personal loss came in 1977 when my lifelong friend and drinking partner, Sean Kenny, died. He was only in his early forties. (pause) I wasn’t completely friendless though: John – John Gorman – kept me from losing it completely…

We can hear more loud knocking and a voice shouting.

VOICE:                                                                                                                                    LIONEL! IT’S JOHN. ARE YOU IN THERE? OPEN THE BLOODY DOOR

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                          It’s not bloody locked. There just a table behind it. Give it a good push!

We can hear some noise, then John comes storming in and notices the bear

JOHN:
What the bloody hell…? (points at the bear) Is that the effing bear from the opening night?

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                   That’s Lionel. My new friend. You’re right, he was at the opening night of ‘Lionel’ with me. (pause) What a bloody disaster.

JOHN:                                                                                                                                       I  didn’t see the show myself. Thank God. But I read the reviews. They were, well…desperate.

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                  The whole show was a pile of crap. It struggled on for a few weeks then closed. They say it lost a quarter of a million. (laughs) At least it wasn’t my dough this time. (he pats the Teddy) We could have fixed it, couldn’t we, Lionel? but they barred us from the rehearsals.

JOHN: (seeing him talking to the Teddy)                                                                             Lionel, are you sure you are okay? I mean, talking to…that.  Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.

LIONEL:                                                                                                                                       You’d want to be mad to see a psychiatrist! (pats the bear) What do you think Lionel?

John loses his temper, grabs the bear, and throws it out the door. He starts cleaning up, tossing bottles into the bin. He takes the drink from Lionel and shakes him.)

JOHN:
Snap out of it, Lionel! This isn’t you.

(Lionel looks at him, a mix of defiance and vulnerability in his eyes.)

LIONEL:
Isn’t it?

(Blackout)

Scene 5
(John is talking to the audience. Lionel is in the background, sitting at a table, writing. The lighting is dim, with a spotlight on John. As the scene progresses, the lighting shifts to create a dreamlike atmosphere when Alma appears.)

JOHN: (looking at Lionel)
Look at him. He’s been like that for the best part of twenty years. Ever since Twang! went belly up, to be honest. (shakes his head) It’s hard to calculate how much that disaster cost him. (pause) Well, no. It isn’t. It cost him everything. Maybe even his sanity.

(John walks closer to Lionel’s table, glancing at the papers scattered there.)

I read somewhere that his old place, The Fun Palace, sold recently for one point five million pounds. Bart was forced to sell it for half what he paid for it when you add up all the improvements he made to it. I know, ‘cos I’ve been doing his books more or less since the Twang! fiasco.

(John sighs, then looks back at the audience.)

He doesn’t talk much these days. Just sits there, scribbling away. Songs, mostly. Songs no one will ever hear.

(As John speaks, the lights on Lionel begin to soften, and a faint, ethereal glow appears stage left. Alma steps into the light, dressed as she was in her prime, radiant and smiling. Lionel doesn’t notice her at first, but the audience does. John continues, unaware of Alma’s presence.)

JOHN:
They say you can’t kill a dream, but I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen to him.

(Lionel looks up from his writing, sensing something. He sees Alma. The music begins softly, a haunting piano melody. Lionel stands, slowly, as if in a trance.)

LIONEL: (whispering)
Alma?

ALMA: (smiling)
Hello, Lionel.

(John freezes, as if time has stopped for him. The spotlight on him dims, leaving only Lionel and Alma illuminated. Alma begins to sing the first verse of “The Man I Used to Be.” Her voice is soft, nostalgic, and filled with warmth.)

ALMA: (singing)
I once held the world in my hands,
A kingdom built on melodies and dreams.
But the notes turned to dust, and the stage grew cold,
And nothing’s quite as it seems.

(Lionel joins in, his voice trembling at first but growing stronger as he sings with her. Their voices blend in harmony, creating a poignant, bittersweet duet.)

LIONEL & ALMA: (singing together)
I chased the light, I caught the flame,
But the fire burned too bright to tame.
Now I sit here, pen in hand,
Trying to rewrite what I don’t understand.

(As they reach the chorus, Alma steps closer to Lionel, placing a hand on his shoulder. The lighting shifts to a warm, golden hue, suggesting a moment of connection and healing.)

LIONEL & ALMA: (singing together)
Where is the man I used to be?
The one who danced with destiny.
The songs I wrote, the love I knew,
Are echoes now, but still ring true.

(After the chorus, Alma speaks, her voice gentle but firm.)

ALMA:
You’re still that man, Lionel. The music never left you. It’s still there, inside.

(Lionel looks at her, tears in his eyes.)

LIONEL:
I lost it all, Alma. The money, the fame, the… the Fun Palace. Even you.

ALMA: (smiling softly)
You didn’t lose me. I’ve always been here, in your songs, in your heart.

(She begins to sing the bridge, her voice filled with reassurance. Lionel joins her, their voices intertwining once more.)

ALMA & LIONEL: (singing together)
Maybe the music never dies,
It lives on in the tears we cry.
And though the world has moved along,
The heart still sings its timeless song.

(As they finish the song, Alma steps back, the light around her beginning to fade.)

ALMA:
Keep writing, Lionel. The world still needs your songs.

(She disappears into the shadows. The spotlight returns to John, who unfreezes, unaware of what just transpired. Lionel sits back down, picking up his pen with a renewed sense of purpose. John looks at him, puzzled but relieved.)

JOHN:
Well, I’ll be damned. He’s smiling.

(The lights fade as Lionel begins to write again, the faint sound of a piano melody lingering in the air.)

BLACKOUT.

THE END.