The Collected Shorter Plays Read online

  MR. SLOCUM

  Is anything wrong, Mrs. Rooney? You are bent all double. Have you a pain in the stomach?

  [Silence. Mrs. Rooney laughs wildly. Finally.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Well if it isn’t my old admirer the Clerk of the Course, in his limousine.

  MR. SLOCUM

  May I offer you a lift, Mrs. Rooney? Are you going in my direction?

  MRS. ROONEY

  I am, Mr. Slocum, we all are. [Pause.] How is your poor mother?

  MR. SLOCUM

  Thank you, she is fairly comfortable. We manage to keep her out of pain. That is the great thing, Mrs. Rooney, is it not?

  MRS. ROONEY

  Yes, indeed, Mr. Slocum, that is the great thing, I don’t know how you do it. [Pause. She slaps her cheek violently.]

  Ah these wasps!

  MR. SLOCUM

  [coolly] May I then offer you a seat, Madam?

  MRS. ROONEY

  [with exaggerated enthusiasm] Oh that would be heavenly, Mr. Slocum, just simply heavenly. [Dubiously.] But would I ever get in, you look very high off the ground today, these new balloon tyres I presume. [Sound of door opening and Mrs. Rooney trying to get in.] Does this roof never come off? No? [Efforts of Mrs. Rooney.] No. . . . I’ll never do it . . . you’ll have to get down, Mr. Slocum, and help me from the rear. [Pause.] What was that? [Pause. Aggrieved.] This is all your suggestion, Mr. Slocum, not mine. Drive on, Sir, drive on.

  MR. SLOCUM

  [switching off engine] I’m coming, Mrs. Rooney, I’m coming, give me time, I’m as stiff as yourself. [Sound of Mr. Slocum extracting himself from driver’s seat.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Stiff! Well I like that! And me heaving all over back and front. [To herself.] The dry old reprobate!

  MR. SLOCUM

  [in position behind her] Now, Mrs. Rooney, how shall we do this?

  MRS. ROONEY

  As if I were a bale, Mr. Slocum, don’t be afraid. [Pause. Sounds of effort.] That’s the way! [Effort.] Lower! [Effort.] Wait! [Pause.] No, don’t let go! [Pause.] Suppose I do get up, will I ever get down?

  MR. SLOCUM

  [breathing hard] You’ll get down, Mrs. Rooney, you’ll get down. We may not get you up, but I warrant you we’ll get you down.

  [He resumes his efforts. Sound of these.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Oh! . . . Lower! . . . Don’t be afraid! . . . We’re past the age when . . . There! . . . Now! . . . Get your shoulder under it. . . . Oh! . . . [Giggles.] Oh glory! . . . Up! Up! . . . Ah! . . . I’m in! [Panting of Mr. Slocum. He slams the door. In a scream.] My frock! You’ve nipped my frock! [Mr. Slocum opens the door. Mrs. Rooney frees her frock. Mr. Slocum slams the door. His violent unintelligible muttering as he walks round to the other door. Tearfully.] My nice frock! Look what you’ve done to my nice frock! [Mr. Slocum gets into his seat, slams driver’s door, presses starter. The engine does not start. He releases starter.] What will Dan say when he sees me?

  MR. SLOCUM

  Has he then recovered his sight?

  MRS. ROONEY

  No, I mean when he knows, what will he say when he feels the hole? [Mr. Slocum presses starter. As before. Silence.] What are you doing, Mr. Slocum?

  MR. SLOCUM

  Gazing straight before me, Mrs. Rooney, through the windscreen, into the void.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Start her up, I beseech you, and let us be off. This is awful!

  MR. SLOCUM

  [dreamily] All morning she went like a dream and now she is dead. That is what you get for a good deed. [Pause. Hopefully.] Perhaps if I were to choke her. [He does so, presses the starter. The engine roars. Roaring to make himself heard.] She was getting too much air! [He throttles down, grinds in his first gear, moves off, changes up in a grinding of gears.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  [in anguish] Mind the hen! [Scream of brakes. Squawk of hen.] Oh, mother, you have squashed her, drive on, drive on! [The car accelerates. Pause.] What a death! One minute picking happy at the dung, on the road, in the sun, with now and then a dust bath, and then—bang!—all her troubles over. [Pause.] All the laying and the hatching. [Pause.] Just one great squawk and then . . . peace. [Pause.] They would have slit her weasand in any case. [Pause.] Here we are, let me down. [The car slows down, stops, engine running. Mr. Slocum blows his horn. Pause. Louder. Pause.] What are you up to now, Mr. Slocum? We are at a standstill, all danger is past and you blow your horn. Now if instead of blowing it now you had blown it at that unfortunate—

  [Horn violently. Tommy the porter appears at top of station steps.]

  MR. SLOCUM

  [calling] Will you come down, Tommy, and help this lady out, she’s stuck.

  [Tommy descends the steps.] Open the door, Tommy, and ease her out. [Tommy opens the door.]

  TOMMY

  Certainly, Sir. Nice day for the races, sir. What would you fancy for—

  MRS. ROONEY

  Don’t mind me. Don’t take any notice of me. I do not exist. The fact is well known.

  MR. SLOCUM

  Do as you’re asked, Tommy, for the love of God.

  TOMMY

  Yessir. Now, Mrs. Rooney.

  [He starts pulling her out.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Wait, Tommy, wait now, don’t bustle me, just let me wheel round and get my feet to the ground. [Her efforts to achieve this.] Now.

  TOMMY

  [pulling her out] Mind your feather, Ma’am. [Sounds of effort.] Easy now, easy.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Wait, for God’s sake, you’ll have me beheaded.

  TOMMY

  Crouch down, Mrs. Rooney, crouch down, and get your head in the open.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Crouch down! At my time of life! This is lunacy!

  TOMMY

  Press her down, sir. [Sounds of combined efforts.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Pity!

  TOMMY

  Now! She’s coming! Straighten up, Ma’am! There!

  [Mr. Slocum slams the door.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  Am I out?

  [The voice of Mr. Barrell, the station-master, raised in anger.]

  MR. BARRELL

  Tommy! Tommy! Where the hell is he? [Mr. Slocum grinds in his gear.]

  TOMMY

  [hurriedly] You wouldn’t have something for the Ladies Plate, sir? I was given Flash Harry.

  MR. SLOCUM

  [scornfully] Flash Harry! That carthorse!

  MR. BARRELL

  [at top of steps, roaring] Tommy! Blast your bleeding bloody— [He sees Mrs. Rooney.] Oh, Mrs. Rooney. . . .

  [Mr. Slocum drives away in a grinding of gears.] Who’s that crucifying his gearbox, Tommy?

  TOMMY

  Old Cissy Slocum.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Cissy Slocum! That’s a nice way to refer to your betters.

  Cissy Slocum! And you an orphan!

  MR. BARRELL

  [angrily to Tommy] What are you doing stravaging down here on the public road? This is no place for you at all! Nip up there on the platform now and whip out the truck! Won’t the twelve thirty be on top of us before we can turn round?

  TOMMY

  [bitterly] And that’s the thanks you get for a Christian act.

  MR. BARRELL

  [violently] Get on with you now before I report you! [Slow feet of Tommy climbing steps.] Do you want me to come down to you with the shovel? [The feet quicken, recede, cease.] Ah God forgive me, it’s a hard life. [Pause.] Well, Mrs. Rooney, it’s nice to see you up and about again. You were laid up there a long time.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Not long enough, Mr. Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were still in bed, Mr. Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were lying stretched out in my comfortable bed, Mr. Barrell, just wasting slowly, painlessly away, keeping up my strength with arrowroot and calves-foot jelly, till in the end you wouldn’t see me under the blankets any more than a board. [Pause.] Oh no coughing or spitting or bleeding or vomiting,
just drifting gently down into the higher life, and remembering, remembering . . . [the voice breaks]. . . all the silly unhappiness . . . as though . . . it had never happened. . . . What did I do with that handkerchief? [Sound of handkerchief loudly applied.] How long have you been master of this station now, Mr. Barrell?

  MR. BARRELL

  Don’t ask me, Mrs. Rooney, don’t ask me.

  MRS. ROONEY

  You stepped into your father’s shoes, I believe, when he took them off.

  MR. BARRELL

  Poor Pappy! [Reverent pause.] He didn’t live long to enjoy his ease.

  MRS. ROONEY

  I remember him clearly. A small ferrety purple-faced widower, deaf as a doornail, very testy and snappy. [Pause.] I suppose you’ll be retiring soon yourself, Mr. Barrell, and growing your roses. [Pause.] Did I understand you to say the twelve thirty would soon be upon us?

  MR. BARRELL

  Those were my words.

  MRS. ROONEY

  But according to my watch which is more or less right—or was—by the eight o’clock news the time is now coming up to twelve . . . [pause as she consults her watch] . . . thirty-six. [Pause.] And yet upon the other hand the up mail has not yet gone through. [Pause.] Or has it sped by unbeknown to me? [Pause.] For there was a moment there, I remember now, I was so plunged in sorrow I wouldn’t have heard a steam roller go over me. [Pause. Mr. Barrell turns to go.] Don’t go, Mr. Barrell! [Mr. Barrell goes. Loud.] Mr. Barrell! [Pause. Louder.] Mr. Barrell! [Mr. Barrell comes back.]

  MR. BARRELL

  [testily] What is it, Mrs. Rooney, I have my work to do.

  [Silence. Sound of wind.]

  MRS. ROONEY

  The wind is getting up. [Pause. Wind.] The best of the day is over. [Pause. Wind. Dreamily.] Soon the rain will begin to fall and go on falling, all afternoon. [Mr. Barrell goes.] Then at evening the clouds will part, the setting sun will shine an instant, then sink, behind the hills. [She realizes Mr. Barrell has gone.] Mr. Barrell! Mr. Barrell! [Silence.] I estrange them all. They come towards me, uninvited, bygones bygones, full of kindness, anxious to help . . . [the voice breaks] . . . genuinely pleased . . . to see me again . . . looking so well. . . . [Handkerchief.] A few simple words . . . from my heart . . . and I am all alone . . . once more. . . . [Handkerchief. Vehemently.] I should not be out at all! I should never leave the grounds! [Pause.] Oh there is that Fitt woman, I wonder will she bow to me. [Sound of Miss Fitt approaching, humming a hymn. She starts climbing the steps.] Miss Fitt! [Miss Fitt halts, stops humming.] Am I then invisible, Miss Fitt? Is this cretonne so becoming to me that I merge into the masonry? [Miss Fitt descends a step.] That is right, Miss Fitt, look closely and you will finally distinguish a once female shape.

  MISS FITT

  Mrs. Rooney! I saw you, but I did not know you.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Last Sunday we worshipped together. We knelt side by side at the same altar. We drank from the same chalice. Have I so changed since then?

  MISS FITT

  [shocked] Oh but in church, Mrs. Rooney, in church I am alone with my Maker. Are not you? [Pause.] Why even the sexton himself, you know, when he takes up the collection, knows it is useless to pause before me. I simply do not see the plate, or bag, whatever it is they use, how could I? [Pause.] Why even when all is over and I go out into the sweet fresh air, why even then for the first furlong or so I stumble in a kind of daze as you might say, oblivious to my co-religionists. And they are very kind I must admit—the vast majority—very kind and understanding. They know me now and take no umbrage. There she goes, they say, there goes the dark Miss Fitt, alone with her Maker, take no notice of her. And they step down off the path to avoid my running into them. [Pause.] Ah yes, I am distray, very distray, even on week-days. Ask Mother, if you do not believe me. Hetty, she says, when I start eating my doily instead of the thin bread and butter, Hetty, how can you be so distray? [Sighs.] I suppose the truth is I am not there, Mrs. Rooney, just not really there at all. I see, hear, smell, and so on, I go through the usual motions, but my heart is not in it, Mrs. Rooney, my heart is in none of it. Left to myself, with no one to check me, I would soon be flown . . . home. [Pause.] So if you think I cut you just now, Mrs. Rooney, you do me an injustice. All I saw was a big pale blur, just another big pale blur. [Pause.] Is anything amiss, Mrs. Rooney, you do not look normal somehow. So bowed and bent.

  MRS. ROONEY

  [ruefully] Maddy Rooney, née Dunne, the big pale blur. [Pause.] You have piercing sight, Miss Fitt, if you only knew it, literally piercing. [Pause.]

  MISS FITT

  Well . . . is there anything I can do, now that I am here?

  MRS. ROONEY

  If you would help me up the face of this cliff, Miss Fitt, I have little doubt your Maker would requite you, if no one else.

  MISS FITT

  Now, now, Mrs. Rooney, don’t put your teeth in me. Requite! I make these sacrifices for nothing—or not at all. [Pause. Sound of her descending steps.] I take it you want to lean on me, Mrs. Rooney.

  MRS. ROONEY

  I asked Mr. Barrell to give me his arm, just give me his arm. [Pause.] He turned on his heel and strode away.

  MISS FITT

  Is it my arm you want then? [Pause. Impatiently.] Is it my arm you want, Mrs. Rooney, or what is it?

  MRS. ROONEY

  [exploding] Your arm! Any arm! A helping hand! For five seconds! Christ what a planet!

  MISS FITT

  Really. . . . Do you know what it is, Mrs. Rooney, I do not think it is wise of you to be going about at all.

  MRS. ROONEY

  [violently] Come down here, Miss Fitt, and give me your arm, before I scream down the parish! [Pause. Wind. Sound of Miss Fitt descending last steps.]

  MISS FITT

  [resignedly] Well, I suppose it is the Protestant thing to do.

  MRS. ROONEY

  Pismires do it for one another. [Pause.] I have seen slugs do it. [Miss Fitt proffers her arm.] No, the other side, my dear, if it’s all the same to you, I’m left-handed on top of everything else. [She takes Miss Fitt’s right arm.] Heavens, child, you’re just a bag of bones, you need building up. [Sound of her toiling up steps on Miss Fitt’s arm.] This is worse than the Matterhorn, were you ever up the Matterhorn, Miss Fitt, great honeymoon resort. [Sound of toiling.] Why don’t they have a handrail? [Panting.] Wait till I get some air. [Pause.] Don’t let me go! [Miss Fitt hums her hymn. After a moment Mrs. Rooney joins in with the words.] . . . the encircling gloo-oom . . . [Miss Fitt stops humming.] . . . tum tum me on. [Forte.] The night is dark and I am far from ho-ome, tum tum—

  MISS FITT

  [hysterically] Stop it, Mrs. Rooney, stop it, or I’ll drop you!

  MRS. ROONEY

  Wasn’t it that they sung on the Lusitania? Or Rock of Ages? Most touching it must have been. Or was it the Titanic?

  [Attracted by the noise a group, including Mr. Tyler, Mr. Barrell and Tommy, gathers at top of steps.]

  MR. BARRELL

  What the— [Silence.]

  MR. TYLER

  Lovely day for the fixture.

  [Loud titter from Tommy cut short by Mr. Barrell with backhanded blow in the stomach. Appropriate noise from Tommy.]

  A FEMALE VOICE

  [shrill] Oh look, Dolly, look!

  DOLLY

  What, Mamma?

  A FEMALE VOICE

  They are stuck! [Cackling laugh.] They are stuck!

  MRS. ROONEY

  Now we are the laughing-stock of the twenty-six counties. Or is it thirty-six?

  MR. TYLER

  That is a nice way to treat your defenceless subordinates, Mr. Barrell, hitting them without warning in the pit of the stomach.

  MISS FITT

  Has anyone seen my mother?

  MR. BARRELL

  Who is that?

  TOMMY

  The dark Miss Fitt.

  MR. BARRELL

  Where is her face?

  MRS. ROONEY

 
Now, deary, I am ready if you are. [They toil up remaining steps.] Stand back, you cads! [Shuffle of feet.]

  A FEMALE VOICE

  Mind yourself, Dolly!

  MRS. ROONEY

  Thank you, Miss Fitt, thank you, that will do, just prop me up against the wall like a roll of tarpaulin and that will be all, for the moment. [Pause.] I am sorry for all this ramdam, Miss Fitt, had I known you were looking for your mother I should not have importuned you, I know what it is.

  MISS FITT

  [in marvelling aside] Ramdam!

  A FEMALE VOICE

  Come, Dolly darling, let us take up our stand before the first class smokers. Give me your hand and hold me tight, one can be sucked under.

  MR. TYLER

  You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?

  MISS FITT

  Good morning, Mr. Tyler.

  MR. TYLER

  Good morning, Miss Fitt.

  MR. BARRELL

  Good morning, Miss Fitt.

  MISS FITT

  Good morning, Mr. Barrell.

  MR. TYLER

  You have lost your mother, Miss Fitt?

  MISS FITT

  She said she would be on the last train.