The Collected Shorter Plays

MRS. ROONEY

Poor woman. All alone in that ruinous old house.
[
Music louder. Silence but for music playing. The steps resume. Music dies. Mrs. Rooney murmurs, melody. Her murmur dies
.
Sound of approaching cartwheels. The cart stops
.
The steps slow down, stop
.]
Is that you, Christy?

CHRISTY

It is, Ma’am.

MRS. ROONEY

I thought the hinny was familiar. How is your poor wife?

CHRISTY

No better, Ma’am.

MRS. ROONEY

Your daughter then?

CHRISTY

No worse, Ma’am.
[
Silence
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Why do you halt? [
Pause
.] But why do I halt? [
Silence
.]

CHRISTY

Nice day for the races, Ma’am.

MRS. ROONEY

No doubt it is. [
Pause
.] But will it hold up? [
Pause. With emotion
.] Will it hold up?
[
Silence
.]

CHRISTY

I suppose you wouldn’t—

MRS. ROONEY

Hist! [
Pause
.] Surely to goodness that cannot be the up mail I hear already.
[
Silence. The hinny neighs. Silence
.]

CHRISTY

Damn the mail.

MRS. ROONEY

Oh thank God for that! I could have sworn I heard it, thundering up the track in the far distance. [
Pause
.] So hinnies whinny. Well, it is not surprising.

CHRISTY

I suppose you wouldn’t be in need of a small load of dung?

MRS. ROONEY

Dung? What class of dung?

CHRISTY

Stydung.

MRS. ROONEY

Stydung . . . I like your frankness, Christy. [
Pause
.] I’ll ask the master. [
Pause
.] Christy.

CHRISTY

Yes, Ma’am.

MRS. ROONEY

Do you find anything . . . bizarre about my way of speaking? [
Pause
.] I do not mean the voice. [
Pause
.] No, I mean the words. [
Pause. More to herself
.] I use none but the simplest words, I hope, and yet I sometimes find my way of speaking very . . . bizarre. [
Pause
.] Mercy! What was that?

CHRISTY

Never mind her, Ma’am, she’s very fresh in herself today.
[
Silence
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Dung? What would we want with dung, at our time of life? [
Pause
.] Why are you on your feet down on the road? Why do you not climb up on the crest of your manure and let yourself be carried along? Is it that you have no head for heights?
[
Silence
.]

CHRISTY

[
to the hinny
] Yep! [
Pause. Louder
.] Yep wiyya to hell owwa that!
[
Silence
.]

MRS. ROONEY

She does not move a muscle. [
Pause
.] I too should be getting along, if I do not wish to arrive late at the station. [
Pause
.] But a moment ago she neighed and pawed the ground. And now she refuses to advance. Give her a good welt on the rump. [
Sound of welt. Pause
.] Harder! [
Sound of welt. Pause
.] Well! If someone were to do that for me I should not dally. [
Pause
.] How she gazes at me to be sure, with her great moist cleg-tormented eyes! Perhaps if I were to move on, down the road, out of her field of vision. . . . [
Sound of welt
.] No, no, enough! Take her by the snaffle and pull her eyes away from me. Oh this is awful! [
She moves on. Sound of her dragging feet
.] What have I done to deserve all this, what, what? [
Dragging feet
.] So long ago. . . . No! No! [
Dragging feet. Quotes
.] “Sigh out a something something tale of things, Done long ago and ill done.” [
She halts
.] How can I go on, I cannot. Oh let me just flop down flat on the road like a big fat jelly out of a bowl and never move again! A great big slop thick with grit and dust and flies, they would have to scoop me up with a shovel. [
Pause
.] Heavens, there is that up mail again, what will become of me! [
The dragging steps resume
.] Oh I am just a hysterical old hag I know, destroyed with sorrow and pining and gentility and church-going and fat and rheumatism and childlessness. [
Pause. Brokenly
.] Minnie! Little Minnie! [
Pause
.] Love, that is all I asked, a little love, daily, twice daily, fifty years of twice daily love like a Paris horse-butcher’s regular, what normal woman wants affection? A peck on the jaw at morning, near the ear, and another at evening, peck, peck, till you grow whiskers on you. There is that lovely laburnum again. [
Dragging feet. Sound of bicycle-bell. It is old Mr. Tyler
coming up behind her on his bicycle, on his way to the station. Squeak of brakes. He slows down and rides abreast of her
.]

MR. TYLER

Mrs. Rooney! Pardon me if I do not doff my cap, I’d fall off. Divine day for the meeting.

MRS. ROONEY

Oh, Mr. Tyler, you startled the life out of me stealing up behind me like that like a deer-stalker! Oh!

MR. TYLER

[
playfully
] I rang my bell, Mrs. Rooney, the moment I sighted you I started tinkling my bell, now don’t you deny it.

MRS. ROONEY

Your bell is one thing, Mr. Tyler, and you are another.
What news of your poor daughter?

MR. TYLER

Fair, fair. They removed everything, you know, the whole . . . er . . . bag of tricks. Now I am grandchildless.
[
Dragging feet
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Gracious how you wobble! Dismount, for mercy’s sake, or ride on.

MR. TYLER

Perhaps if I were to lay my hand lightly on your shoulder, Mrs. Rooney, how would that be?
[
Pause
.] Would you permit that?

MRS. ROONEY

No, Mr. Rooney, Mr. Tyler I mean, I am tired of light old hands on my shoulders and other senseless places, sick and tired of them. Heavens, here comes Connolly’s van! [
She halts. Sound of motor-van. It approaches, passes with thunderous rattles, recedes
.] Are you all right, Mr. Tyler? [
Pause
.] Where is he? [
Pause
.] Ah there you are! [
The dragging steps resume
.] That was a narrow squeak.

MR. TYLER

I alit in the nick of time.

MRS. ROONEY

It is suicide to be abroad. But what is it to be at home, Mr. Tyler, what is it to be at home? A lingering dissolution. Now we are white with dust from head to foot. I beg your pardon?

MR. TYLER

Nothing, Mrs. Rooney, nothing, I was merely cursing, under my breath, God and man, under my breath, and the wet Saturday afternoon of my conception. My back tyre has gone down again. I pumped it hard as iron before I set out. And now I am on the rim.

MRS. ROONEY

Oh what a shame!

MR. TYLER

Now if it were the front I should not so much mind. But the back. The back! The chain! The oil! The grease! The hub! The brakes! The gear! No! It is too much!
[
Dragging steps
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Are we very late, Mr. Tyler? I have not the courage to look at my watch.

MR. TYLER

[
bitterly
] Late! I on my bicycle as I bowled along was already late. Now therefore we are doubly late, trebly, quadrupedly late. Would I had shot by you, without a word.
[
Dragging feet
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Whom are you meeting, Mr. Tyler?

MR. TYLER

Hardy. [
Pause
.] We used to climb together. [
Pause
.] I saved his life once. [
Pause
.] I have not forgotten it.
[
Dragging feet. They stop
.]

MRS. ROONEY

Let us halt a moment and let this vile dust fall back upon the viler worms.
[
Silence. Rural sounds
.]

MR. TYLER

What sky! What light! Ah in spite of all it is a blessed thing to be alive in such weather, and out of hospital.

MRS. ROONEY

Alive?

MR. TYLER

Well half alive shall we say?

MRS. ROONEY

Speak for yourself, Mr. Tyler. I am not half alive nor anything approaching it. [
Pause
.] What are we standing here for? This dust will not settle in our time. And when it does some great roaring machine will come and whirl it all skyhigh again.

MR. TYLER

Well, shall we be getting along in that case?

MRS. ROONEY

No.

MR. TYLER

Come, Mrs. Rooney—

MRS. ROONEY

Go, Mr. Tyler, go on and leave me, listening to the cooing of the ringdoves. [
Cooing
.] If you see my poor blind Dan tell him I was on my way to meet him when it all came over me again, like a flood. Say to him, Your poor wife, she told me to tell you it all came flooding over her again and . . . [
the voice breaks
] . . . she simply went back home . . . straight back home. . . .

MR. TYLER

Come, Mrs. Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.

MRS. ROONEY

[
sobbing
] What? What’s all this now? [
Calmer
.]
Can’t you see I’m in trouble? [
With anger
.] Have you no respect for misery? [
Sobbing
.] Minnie! Little Minnie!

MR. TYLER

Come, Mrs. Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.

MRS. ROONEY

[
brokenly
] In her forties now she’d be, I don’t know, fifty, girding up her lovely little loins, getting ready for the change. . . .

MR. TYLER

Come, Mrs. Rooney, come, the mail—

MRS. ROONEY

[
exploding
] Will you get along with you, Mr. Rooney, Mr. Tyler I mean, will you get along with you now and cease molesting me? What kind of a country is this where a woman can’t weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers! [
Mr. Tyler prepares to mount his bicycle
.] Heavens you’re not going to ride her flat! [
Mr. Tyler mounts
.] You’ll tear your tube to ribbons! [
Mr. Tyler rides off. Receding sound of bumping bicycle. Silence. Cooing
.] Venus birds! Billing in the woods all the long summer long. [
Pause
.] Oh cursed corset! If I
could let it out, without indecent exposure. Mr. Tyler! Mr. Tyler! Come back and unlace me behind the hedge! [
She laughs wildly, ceases
.] What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with me, never tranquil, seething out of my dirty old pelt, out of my skull, oh to be in atoms, in atoms! [
Frenziedly
.] ATOMS! [
Silence. Cooing. Faintly
.] Jesus! [
Pause
.] Jesus! [
Sound of car coming up behind her. It slows down and draws up beside her, engine running. It is Mr. Slocum, the Clerk of the Racecourse
.]

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!