Brian Friel Plays 2 (58 page)

Who else? Billy Hughes was there; an old bachelor friend of Frank. Years ago Frank and he borrowed money from the bank and bought forty beehives; but I gather that didn’t work out. And Dorothy and Joyce; they’re physiotherapists in the hospital. And Tom McLaughlin, another of Frank’s bachelor friends. He’s a great fiddler, Tom. And that was it. And of course Rita, Rita Cairns, my oldest, my closest friend. She managed the health club I was working in. Rita probably knows me better than anybody.

There was a lot of joking that there were thirteen of us if you counted the baby. And Billy Hughes, who was already well tanked by the time he arrived, he suggested that maybe Jack – from that side – maybe Jack would do the decent and volunteer to leave since he was in a bad mood and wasn’t drinking anyway. And Mary, Jack’s
wife, she said that was the brightest idea all evening. So that was an even trickier situation.

And at some point in the night – it must have been about two – I’m afraid I had a brainwave. Here we are, all friends together, having a great time; so shouldn’t I phone Mr Rice and ask him to join us? Wasn’t he a friend, too? And I made for the phone and dialled the number. But Frank, thank God, Frank pulled the phone out of my hand before he answered. Imagine the embarrassment that would have been!

Anyway we chatted and we played tapes and we sang and we drank. And Tony and Betty from this side, Molly’s parents, they sang ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’ and there was so much tension between them you knew they weren’t performing at all. And Dorothy and Joyce did their usual Laurel and Hardy imitation. And Billy Hughes, the bee-man, told some of his jokes that only Frank and he found funny. And as usual Rita, Rita Cairns, sang ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’, her party piece. That was my father’s song, too. She has a sweet voice, really a child’s voice, and she sings it beautifully. And as usual, when she had finished, so she tells me, she nodded her head and smiled and cried all at the same time. That’s what she – ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’! That’s the title of Mr O’Neill’s poem! Poor old Mr O’Neill. Somebody told me recently that he’s in a hospice now.

And shortly after midnight – long before I had the brainwave to phone Mr Rice – Tom McLaughlin, Tom the fiddler, played ‘The Lament for Limerick’! He played it softly, delicately. And suddenly, suddenly I felt utterly desolate. Maybe it was Rita singing, ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’ earlier. Or maybe it was because all that night nobody once mentioned the next day or how they thought the operation might go; and because nothing was said, maybe that made the occasion a bit unreal, a bit frantic.
Or maybe it was because I was afraid that if things turned out as Frank and Mr Rice hoped, I was afraid that I would never again know these people as I knew them now, with my own special knowledge of each of them, the distinctive sense each of them exuded for me; and knowing them differently, experiencing them differently, I wondered – I wondered would I ever be as close to them as I was now.

And then with sudden anger I thought: Why am I going for this operation? None of this is my choosing. Then why is this happening to me? I am being used. Of course I trust Frank. Of course I trust Mr Rice. But how can they know what they are taking away from me? How do they know what they are offering me? They don’t. They can’t. And have I anything to gain? Anything? Anything?

And then I knew, suddenly I knew why I was so desolate. It was the dread of exile, of being sent away. It was the desolation of homesickness.

And then a strange thing happened. As soon as Tom played the last note of ‘The Lament for Limerick’, I found myself on my feet in the middle of the sitting-room and calling, ‘A hornpipe, Tom! A mad, fast hornpipe!’ And the moment he began to play, I shouted – screamed, ‘Now watch me! Just you watch me!’ And in a rage of anger and defiance I danced a wild and furious dance round and round that room; then out to the hall; then round the kitchen; then back to the room again and round it a third time. Mad and wild and frenzied. But so adroit, so efficient. No timidity, no hesitations, no falterings. Not a glass overturned, not a shoulder brushed. Weaving between all those people, darting between chairs and stools and cushions and bottles and glasses with complete assurance, with absolute confidence. Until Frank said something to Tom and stopped him playing.

God knows how I didn’t kill myself or injure somebody. Or indeed how long it lasted. But it must have been
terrifying to watch because, when I stopped, the room was hushed.

Frank whispered something to me. I don’t know what he said – I was suddenly lost and anxious and frightened. I remember calling, ‘Rita? Where are you, Rita?’

‘Here at the window,’ she said. And I stumbled, groped my way to her and sat beside her. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ she said. ‘We’ll have none of that. You’re not allowed to cry. I’m the only one that’s allowed to give a performance and then cry.’

Mr Rice
The night before I operated on Molly Sweeney I thought about that high summer in my thirty-second year. Cairo. Another lecture; another conference; another posh hotel. As usual we all met up: Roger Bloomstein from New York, Hans Girder from Berlin, Hiroko Matoba from Kyoto, myself. The meteors. The young turks. The four horsemen. Oslo last month. Helsinki next week. Paris the week after. That luminous, resplendent life. Those glowing, soaring careers.

Maria left the children with parents in Geneva and flew down to join us. Still wan and translucent after the birth of Helga. And so beautiful; my God, so beautiful. We had a dinner party for her the night she arrived. Roger was master-of-ceremonies. Toasted her with his usual elegance. Said she was our Venus – no, our Galatea. She smiled her secret smile and said each of us was her Icarus.

Insatiable years. Work. Airports. Dinners. Laughter. Operating theatres. Conferences. Gossip. Publications. The professional jealousies and the necessary vigilance. The relentless, devouring excitement. But above all, above all the hunger to accomplish, the greed for achievement.

Shards of those memories came back to me on the night before I operated on Molly Sweeney on Tuesday, October 7. I had had a few drinks. I had had a lot of drinks. The fire was dead. I was drifting in and out of sleep.

Then the phone rang; an anxious sound at two in the morning. By the time I had pulled myself together and got to it, it had stopped. Wrong number probably.

I had another drink and sat beside the dead fire and relived for the hundredth time that other phone-call. The small hours of the morning, too. In Cairo. That high summer of my thirty-second year.

It was Roger Bloomstein. Brilliant Roger. Treacherous Icarus. To tell me that Maria and he were at the airport and about to step on a plane for New York. They were deeply in love. They would be in touch in a few days. He was very sorry to have to tell me this. He hoped that in time I would see the situation from their point of view and come to understand it. And he hung up.

The mind was instantly paralysed. All I could think was: He’s confusing seeing with understanding. Come on, Bloomstein. What’s the matter with you? Seeing isn’t understanding.

You know that! Don’t talk rubbish, man!

And then … and then … oh, Jesus, Maria …

Frank
Just as I was about to step into bed that night – that same Tuesday night that Dick Winterman phoned – the night of the operation – I was on the point of stepping into bed when suddenly, suddenly I remembered: Ethiopia is Abyssinia! Abyssinia is Ethiopia! They’re the same place! Ethiopia is the new name for the old Abyssinia! For God’s sake only last year the
National
Geographic
magazine had a brilliant article on it with all these stunning photographs. For God’s sake I could write a book about Ethiopia! Absolutely
the
most interesting country in the world! Let me give you one fascinating fact about the name, the name Abyssinia. The name Abyssinia is derived from the word ‘habesh’; and the word ‘habesh’ means mixed – on account of the varied nature of its peoples. But interestingly,
interestingly the people themselves always called themselves Ethiopians, never Abyssinians, because they considered the word Abyssinia and Abyssinians as derogatory – they didn’t want to be thought of as mixed! So now the place is officially what the people themselves always called it – Ethiopia. Fascinating!

But of course I had to say no to Dick. As I said. Those rambling days were over. Molly was about to inherit a new world; and I had a sense – stupid, I know – I had a sense that maybe I was, too.

Pity to miss Abyssinia all the same – the one place in the whole world I’ve always dreamed of visiting; a phantom desire, a fantasy in the head. Pity to miss that.

You shouldn’t have dangled it in front of me, Dick Winterman. Bloody, bloody heartbreaking.

Molly
I remember so well the first day Frank came to the health club. That was the first time I’d met him. I was on a coffee-break. A Friday afternoon.

I had known of him for years of course. Rita Cairns and his friend Billy Hughes used to go out occasionally and I’d hear his name mentioned. She never said anything bad about him; but when his name came up, you got the feeling he was a bit … different.

Anyhow that Friday he came into the club and Rita introduced us and we chatted. And for the whole ten minutes of my coffee-break he gave me a talk about a feasibility study he was doing on the blueback salmon, know in Oregon as sockeye and in Alaska as redfish, and of his plan to introduce it to Irish salmon farmers because it has the lowest wastage rate in all canning factories where it is used.

When he left I said to Rita that I’d never met a more enthusiastic man in my life. And Rita said in her laconic way, ‘Sweetie, who wants their enthusiasm focussed on bluebacks for God’s sake?’

Anyhow, ten minutes after he left, the phone rang. Could we meet that evening? Saturday? Sunday? What about a walk, a meal, a concert? Just a chat?

I asked him to call me the following Friday.

I thought a lot about him that week. I suppose he was the first man I really knew – apart from my father. And I liked his energy. I liked his enthusiasm. I liked his passion. Maybe what I really liked about him was that he was everything my father wasn’t.

Frank
I spent a week in the library – the week after I first met her – one full week immersing myself in books and encyclopaedias and magazines and articles – anything, everything I could find about eyes and vision and eye-diseases and blindness.

Fascinating. I can’t tell you – fascinating. I look out of my bedroom window and at a single glance I see the front garden and the road beyond and cars and buses and the tennis-courts on the far side and people playing on them and the hills beyond that. Everything – all those details and dozens more – all seen in one immediate, comprehensive perception. But Molly’s world isn’t perceived instantly, comprehensively. She composes a world from a sequence of impressions; one after the other, in time. For example, she knows that this is a carving knife because first she can feel the handle; then she can feel this long blade; then this sharp edge. In sequence. In time. What is this object? These are ears. This is a furry body. Those are paws. That is a long tail. Ah, a cat! In sequence. Sequentially.

Right? Right. Now a personal question. You are going to ask this blind lady out for an evening. What would be the ideal entertainment for somebody like her? A meal? A concert? A walk? Maybe a swim? Billy Hughes says she’s a wonderful swimmer. (
He
shakes
his
head
slowly.
)

The week in the library pays off. Know the answer
instantly. Dancing. Take her dancing. With her disability the perfect, the absolutely perfect relaxation. Forget about space, distance, who’s close, who’s far, who’s approaching. Forget about time. This is not a sequence of events. This is one continuous, delightful event. Nothing leads to nothing else. There is only now. There is nothing subsequent. I am your eyes, your ears, your location, your sense of space. Trust me.

Dancing. Obvious.

Straight into a phone-box and asked her would she come with me to the Hikers Club dance the following Saturday. It’ll be small, I said; more like a party. What do you say?

Silence.

We’ll ask Billy and Rita and we’ll make it a foursome and we’ll have our own table and our own fun.

Not a word.

Please, Molly.

In my heart of hearts I really didn’t think she’d say yes. For God’s sake why should she? Middle-aged. No skill. No job. No prospect of a job. Two rooms above Kelly’s cake-shop. And not exactly Rudolf Valentino. And when she did speak, when she said very politely, ‘Thank you, Frank. I’d love to go,’ do you know what I said? ‘All right then.’ Bloody brilliant.

But I vowed to myself in that phone-box, I made a vow there and then that at the dance on Saturday night I wouldn’t open the big mouth – big? – enormous for Christ’s sake! – I wouldn’t open it once all night, all week.

Talking of Valentino, in point of fact Valentino was no Adonis himself. Average height; average looks; mediocre talent. And if he hadn’t died so young – in 1926 – he was only 31 – and in those mysterious circumstances that were never fully explained – he would never have become the cult figure the studios worked so hard to …

Anyhow …

Molly
As usual Rita was wonderful. She washed my hair, my bloody useless hair – I can do nothing with it – she washed it in this special shampoo she concocted herself. Then she pulled it all away back from my face and piled it up, just here, and held it in place with her mother’s silver ornamental comb. And she gave me her black shoes and her new woollen dress she’d just bought for her brother’s wedding.

‘There’s still something not right,’ she said. ‘You still remind me of my Aunt Madge. Here – try these.’ And she whipped off her earrings and put them on me. ‘Now we have it,’ she said. ‘Bloody lethal. Francis Constantine, you’re a dead duck!’

Frank
She had the time of her life. Knew she would. We danced every dance. Sang every song at the top of our voices. Ate an enormous supper. Even won a spot prize: a tin of shortbread and a bottle of Albanian wine. The samba, actually. I wasn’t bad at the samba once.