Flann O'Brien: Plays and Teleplays

  UNCLE ANDY is alone in his chair at the fire, peering desultorily at a newspaper. He puts the paper down and takes off his glasses. It is late and he is tired.

  ANDY: Well, declare to the fathers, it must be all hours.

  (After rummaging, he extracts a turnip, watches and studies it.)

  Twenty-two minutes fast. Take twenty-two away and, Lord save us, its five to eleven! This kelooderin’ll have to stop. I must put me fut down.

  (Puts watch away carefully.)

  There must be a little bit of law and order in every house.

  (There is a noise to the right and MARIE-THÉRÈSE comes in—tight-belted-coat, head-scarf, vastly painted and carrying enormous handbag.)

  PUDDINER: Ah, Uncle Andy, good night to ya. And isn’t it a gloryus night that’s in it—moon, stars and all, and a light below in Lanigan’s pub.

  ANDY: It’s a very late night that’s in it, me good woman.

  PUDDINER: Ah now, now, what’s wrong with me poor uncle? (Cajolingly.) Me own poor dacent darling, me sweet segotia. I’ll get yer hot jar ready in a minit.

  (Throws coat, etc. on a chair and sits on sofa.)

  ANDY: Now lookat here, Puddiner, you’re late every night.

  PUDDINER: And I bought something for ya, uncle.

  ANDY: We don’t want this house turned into a night club and have the name of Kilsalaher stink in the nostrils of the whole world. For pity’s sake have a thought for the neighbours.

  PUDDINER: Now don’t be talkin through the back of yer head, uncle.

  ANDY: And for the P.P. I thought he gev me a bit of a look a few Sundas ago.

  PUDDINER: The P.P. well knows that I’m one of the best chickens in his whole flock.

  ANDY: Well, Puddiner, you might think of yer poor oul uncle’s grey hairs.

  PUDDINER: (Suddenly irritated.) Now I’ve told you before, Uncle Andy, to stop calling me that. You know very well I have two names—Maree and Terrayz. You can call me both, or wan or d’other. But that word Puddiner is low vulgarity the like of which you’d oney hear in the Queen’s Theatre in Dublin.

  ANDY: I told you it was yer mother, God be good to her, who called you Puddiner first.

  PUDDINER: Because if ya don’t call me by me proper name, then there’s oney wan thing I can do.

  ANDY: Faith now! And what’s that?

  PUDDINER: I’ll have to ask ya to call me Miss Prendergast.

  (ANDY gives a low wheezing laugh.)

  ANDY: Ah-ha, that’s a good wan. Suppose a man come to the door with a two-pound box of chocolates and said they were for Miss Prendergast, know what’s I’d tell him? Me dear man, I’d say, you’ve got the wrong address. Nobody be that name lives here.

  PUDDINER: Do you want me to have the Gairds on ya?

  ANDY: The day after you were born, Puddiner, I called to see yer poor mammy. She was in good form, mindya. “Andy,” says she, “hand me over that puddiner.” Took the feet from under me. “Me good woman,” says I, “you’re oney after havin a child, and you’ll get no puddin. You’ll get milk . . . and whey . . . and beef tea, maybe a little chicken, and that’s all.”

  PUDDINER: (Nastily.) A yiss, Uncle. You were the nice man to visit a sick mother’s room, with bottles of stout stickin out of every pocket, and three or four pints already in the pit of yer stomach. Yiss—it wasn’t a bunch of flowers you were bringin the poor sufferin woman.

  ANDY: Will you whisht, girl. Your mammy pointed with her arm. “Hand me over here,” says she, “the little pink puddiner that’s over in that cot in the corner.”

  PUDDINER: And do you say she was talking about me? God forgive ya, Uncle Andy, for you can have a bad tongue in yer head, y’oul fraud. Don’t you dare to insult me poor mother’s memory.

  ANDY: (Still good-humoured.) Now, now, Puddiner, keep yer temper. I carefully lifted ya and handed ya into the bed. But it wasn’ to kiss an’ canoodle ya she wanted. . . .

  PUDDINER: What dya mean, uncle?

  ANDY: We’ll say no more. She had to attend to ya. I had to lave the room.

  (PUDDINER gets up angrily, starts rooting in her handbag, finds cigarettes and lights one.)

  ANDY: And it’s a good job the poor woman didn’t live to see the bould strap and fly-be-night her daughter was to grow into.

  PUDDINER: (Viciously.) You shut up or I’ll go to bed without bothering meself about your hot jar.

  ANDY: Ah now, Puddiner, I’m a hard oul chaw still and that wouldn’t kill me.

  PUDDINER: Yiss indade—it’s hard to kill a bad thing.

  ANDY: Might I respectfully inquire, madam, where you were tonight to his hour?

  PUDDINER: Sairtintly you may inquire. You have a sharp nose from stickin it in where it isn’t wanted. I was with me steady, Shaymus, and he has a bit of a job on his hands.

  ANDY: What ails Shaymus now?

  PUDDINER: Shaymus got a present of a pup and he doesn’t know what to call it.

  ANDY: Doesn’t know what to call it? Can’t he call it anything that comes into his head? Can’t he think of the name of somebody he doesn’t like and calls the baste be that name?

  PUDDINER: Ah yiss, Uncle Andy. I asked him would he like to call it after you, hah?

  ANDY: Well now Puddiner and is that so? If he done that, I’d call to see Shaymus and give him me answer with the business end of my Irish blackthorn stick. Mind that now.

  PUDDINER: Well, you’re the man with the head on you. What should he call it?

  ANDY: (Chuckling reflectively.) Tell ya wan thing, Puddiner. I thank God I wasn’t born to be a dog in England!

  PUDDINER: Lord save us! Why, Uncle Andy?

  ANDY: Because, me dear gerrl, if you’re a dog in England, matteradamn what breed or size you are, you are bound to be called either Rex or Rover.

  PUDDINER: Ah yis, I suppose that’s true. Now suppose I was a bitch in England.

  ANDY: (Shocked, sits up.) The what was that?

  PUDDINER: A female dog, stupid. I’d be called Flossie . . . or Ursula . . . or Dympna . . . or Bridie. Is that right? The names of Christians?

  ANDY: The names of saints, ya mean. Disgraceful!

  PUDDINER: Yiss. It’s a good job that neither of us is man’s best friend, (daintily) a fluffy little bundle of tricks and affection.

  ANDY: (Sententiously.) The trouble about names—any name—is that it lasts forever. Even if ya find it doesn’t suit, ya can’t change it. Ya have to be careful. . . .

  (PUDDINER has risen, got ANDY’S old-fashioned porcelain hot water jar and is attending to it at the fire, where a kettle has been suspended from the chain.)

  PUDDINER: (With resignation.) Ya can say that again. I should know. I, Maree-Terrayz.

  ANDY: But you can be too careful. Would ya like to hear, Puddiner, what happened me when I was a young fella not four years married below in Arkla?

  PUDDINER: Don’t ya know I’m very fond of fairy tales, always was.

  ANDY: Well, dya see, Puddiner, there I was with me little houseful. Declan was just over two, a lovely chi-ild with fair hair and blue eyes, all th’oul wans used to stop and kiss in the street. Ah, ya couldn’t help losin yer heart to the little divil. Dya understand, Puddiner?

  PUDDINER: Yiss. Usually the sort of youngster that needs a good skelp.

  ANDY: Ah now Puddiner, give little Declan a chance. Declan was game-ball, a lovely chisler. Then there was Cruhoor, about a year old, the dead spit of his da and one of the . . . prettiest . . . tenderhearted little babbies that God made. Ah, Puddiner, you’d take him in yer arms!

  PUDDINER: (Looking up.) What? And have meself destroyed?

  ANDY: But then what? You’d never guess. I’m presented with a third son! Hah! You talk about yer man Shaymus being stuck for a name?

  PUDDINER: (Standing up, the bottle filled.) Shure that would be no problem to a man with a head like yours.

  ANDY: Now take it easy, Puddiner. I was bet. I got a headache trying to think. At the heel of the hunt, I went to the P.P., a most accomplished and s
aintly man. I put the whole thing before him, told him all about Declan and Cruhoor, and then this new arrival in search of a name. Well, lookat, Puddiner. The grand old priest looked at me and do you know what he said?

  PUDDINER: What, Uncle Andy?

  ANDY: Are you married, says he! Are you married? says he!

  PUDDINER: Oh, help!

  (She dissolves into a howl of laughter but the camera, moving up to close up, shows the laugh freeze on her face and her jaw drop.)

  PUDDINER: And Uncle Andy . . . were ya?

  ANDY: (Sulkily silent, rises and is handed his hot water bottle.) Time for bed.

  PUDDINER: Uncle Andy, you never asked me what I bought you.

  ANDY: Well, what?

  PUDDINER: A baby power!

  ANDY: Oh, em. Thank you . . . Miss Prendergast.

  END

  Contributors

  DANIEL KEITH JERNIGAN is assistant Professor of English at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the editor of Drama and the Postmodern: Assessing the Limits of Metatheatre, as well as a collection of Aidan Higgins’s radio plays, Texts for the Air. His most recent book is the monograph Tom Stoppard: Bucking the Postmodern.

  JACK FENNELL is a researcher at the University of Limerick. His research interests are Irish literature, science fiction and cultural studies. He has published essays on Irish dystopian literature, the aesthetics of comic-book justice, and the politics of monsters and monstrous communities, as well as contributing informal articles to The James Joyce Literary Supplement and the Flann O’Brien ejournal, The Parish Review. His doctoral thesis is on the subject of Irish science fiction, from the 1850s to the present day.

  DAVID O’KANE received a Diplom Degree (with distinction) in 2009 and a Meisterschüler Degree in 2012 from the Hochschule für Grafik Buchkunst in Leipzig. He also holds a 1st class Joint-Honours Degree in Fine Art and History of Art from NCAD. He was awarded the Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship and Residency at the British School at Rome in 2009. In 2008, he received an e v+ a open award from Hou Hanru. He is currently a resident artist at the Stiftung Starke in Berlin.

  FLANN O’BRIEN, whose real name was Brian O’Nolan, also wrote under the pen name of Myles na Gopaleen. He was born in 1911 in County Tyrone. A resident of Dublin, he graduated from University College after a brilliant career as a student (editing a magazine called Blather) and joined the Civil Service, in which he eventually attained a senior position. He wrote throughout his life, which ended in Dublin on April 1, 1966. His novels include At Swim-Two-Birds, The Dalkey Archive, The Third Policeman, The Hard Life, and The Poor Mouth, all available from Dalkey Archive Press. Also available are three volumes of his newspaper columns: The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn, and At War.

  MICHAL AJVAZ, The Golden Age.

  The Other City.

  PIERRE ALBERT-BIROT, Grabinoulor.

  YUZ ALESHKOVSKY, Kangaroo.

  FELIPE ALFAU, Chromos.

  Locos.

  IVAN NGELO, The Celebration.

  The Tower of Glass.

  ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES, Knowledge of Hell.

  The Splendor of Portugal.

  ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON, Theatre of Incest.

  JOHN ASHBERY AND JAMES SCHUYLER,

  A Nest of Ninnies.

  ROBERT ASHLEY, Perfect Lives.

  GABRIELA AVIGUR-ROTEM, Heatwave and Crazy Birds.

  DJUNA BARNES, Ladies Almanack.

  Ryder.

  JOHN BARTH, LETTERS.

  Sabbatical.

  DONALD BARTHELME, The King.

  Paradise.

  SVETISLAV BASARA, Chinese Letter.

  MIQUEL BAUÇÀ, The Siege in the Room.

  RENÉ BELLETTO, Dying.

  MAREK BIENCZYK, Transparency.

  ANDREI BITOV, Pushkin House.

  ANDREJ BLATNIK, You Do Understand.

  LOUIS PAUL BOON, Chapel Road.

  My Little War.

  Summer in Termuren.

  ROGER BOYLAN, Killoyle.

  IGNACIO DE LOYOLA BRANDÃO,

  Anonymous Celebrity. Zero.

  BONNIE BREMSER, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.

  CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE, Amalgamemnon.

  BRIGID BROPHY, In Transit.

  GERALD L. BRUNS, Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language.

  GABRIELLE BURTON, Heartbreak Hotel.

  MICHEL BUTOR, Degrees. Mobile.

  G. CABRERA INFANTE, Infante’s Inferno.

  Three Trapped Tigers.

  JULIETA CAMPOS,

  The Fear of Losing Eurydice.

  ANNE CARSON, Eros the Bittersweet.

  ORLY CASTEL-BLOOM, Dolly City.

  LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE, Castle to Castle.

  Conversations with Professor Y.

  London Bridge.

  Normance.

  North.

  Rigadoon.

  MARIE CHAIX, The Laurels of Lake Constance.

  HUGO CHARTERIS, The Tide Is Right.

  ERIC CHEVILLARD, Demolishing Nisard.

  MARC CHOLODENKO, Mordechai Schamz.

  JOSHUA COHEN, Witz.

  EMILY HOLMES COLEMAN, The Shutter of Snow.

  ROBERT COOVER, A Night at the Movies.

  STANLEY CRAWFORD, Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine.

  Some Instructions to My Wife.

  RENÉ CREVEL, Putting My Foot in It.

  RALPH CUSACK, Cadenza.

  NICHOLAS DELBANCO, The Count of Concord.

  Sherbrookes.

  NIGEL DENNIS, Cards of Identity.

  PETER DIMOCK, A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family.

  ARIEL DORFMAN, Konfidenz.

  COLEMAN DOWELL,

  Island People.

  Too Much Flesh and Jabez.

  ARKADII DRAGOMOSHCHENKO, Dust.

  RIKKI DUCORNET, The Complete Butcher’s Tales.

  The Fountains of Neptune.

  The Jade Cabinet.

  Phosphor in Dreamland.

  WILLIAM EASTLAKE, The Bamboo Bed.

  Castle Keep.

  Lyric of the Circle Heart.

  JEAN ECHENOZ, Chopin’s Move.

  STANLEY ELKIN, A Bad Man.

  Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.

  The Dick Gibson Show.

  The Franchiser.

  The Living End.

  Mrs. Ted Bliss.

  FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL, Invitation to a Voyage.

  SALVADOR ESPRIU, Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth.

  LESLIE A. FIEDLER, Love and Death in the American Novel.

  JUAN FILLOY, Op Oloop.

  ANDY FITCH, Pop Poetics.

  GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Bouvard and Pécuchet.

  KASS FLEISHER, Talking out of School.

  FORD MADOX FORD,

  The March of Literature.

  JON FOSSE, Aliss at the Fire.

  Melancholy.

  MAX FRISCH, I’m Not Stiller.

  Man in the Holocene.

  CARLOS FUENTES, Christopher Unborn.

  Distant Relations.

  Terra Nostra.

  Where the Air Is Clear.

  TAKEHIKO FUKUNAGA, Flowers of Grass.

  WILLIAM GADDIS, J R.

  The Recognitions.

  JANICE GALLOWAY, Foreign Parts.

  The Trick Is to Keep Breathing.

  WILLIAM H. GASS, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas.

  Finding a Form.

  A Temple of Texts.

  The Tunnel.

  Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife.

  GÉRARD GAVARRY, Hoppla! 1 2 3.

  ETIENNE GILSON,

  The Arts of the Beautiful.

  Forms and Substances in the Arts.

  C. S. GISCOMBE, Giscome Road.

  Here.

  DOUGLAS GLOVER, Bad News of the Heart.

  WITOLD GOMBROWICZ,

  A Kind of Testament.

  PAULO EMÍLIO SALES GOMES, P’s Three Women.

  GEORGI GOSPODINOV, Natural Novel.

  JUAN GOYTISOLO, Count Julian.

  Juan
the Landless.

  Makbara.

  Marks of Identity.

  HENRY GREEN, Back.

  Blindness.

  Concluding.

  Doting.

  Nothing.

  JACK GREEN, Fire the Bastards!

  JIŘÍ GRUŠA, The Questionnaire.

  MELA HARTWIG, Am I a Redundant

  Human Being?

  JOHN HAWKES, The Passion Artist.

  Whistlejacket.

  ELIZABETH HEIGHWAY, ED., Contemporary

  Georgian Fiction.

  ALEKSANDAR HEMON, ED.,

  Best European Fiction.

  AIDAN HIGGINS, Balcony of Europe.

  Blind Man’s Bluff

  Bornholm Night-Ferry.

  Flotsam and Jetsam.

  Langrishe, Go Down.

  Scenes from a Receding Past.

  KEIZO HINO, Isle of Dreams.

  KAZUSHI HOSAKA, Plainsong.

  ALDOUS HUXLEY, Antic Hay.

  Crome Yellow.

  Point Counter Point.

  Those Barren Leaves.

  Time Must Have a Stop.

  NAOYUKI II, The Shadow of a Blue Cat.

  GERT JONKE, The Distant Sound.

  Geometric Regional Novel.

  Homage to Czerny.

  The System of Vienna.

  JACQUES JOUET, Mountain R.

  Savage.

  Upstaged.

  MIEKO KANAI, The Word Book.

  YORAM KANIUK, Life on Sandpaper.

  HUGH KENNER, Flaubert.

  Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians.

  Joyce’s Voices.

  DANILO KIŠ, The Attic.

  Garden, Ashes.

  The Lute and the Scars

  Psalm 44.

  A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.

  ANITA KONKKA, A Fool’s Paradise.

  GEORGE KONRÁD, The City Builder.

  TADEUSZ KONWICKI, A Minor Apocalypse.

  The Polish Complex.

  MENIS KOUMANDAREAS, Koula.

  ELAINE KRAF, The Princess of 72nd Street.

  JIM KRUSOE, Iceland.

  AYŞE KULIN, Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul.

  EMILIO LASCANO TEGUI, On Elegance

  While Sleeping.