Flann O'Brien: Plays and Teleplays

  KELLY: (Rising wearily.) And small harm it would do us, Martin, the wheat is a bit backward.

  CULLEN: (Going out.) O, true enough. Good night.

  SEVERAL VOICES: Good night, now!

  SHAWN: (On phone.) Yes boy. I do, I do. Lovely, thick, nourishing grass, grand . . . green . . . fertile . . . sweet . . . lovely grass, sure I’ve eaten some of it myself, it’s food for man and baste, boy.

  KELLY: (Producing his pipe and beginning to fill it.) Town Clerk, we will have a word together in the morning about (He numbers them on his fingers.)—the coal fund—the grant for Patrick Street—the scavenging contract. We must look into these things. We must take our coats off. Too many cooks here. You and I must get something done. We will feel fresher for tomorrow and please God we’ll put our shoulders to the wheel.

  TOWN CLERK: (Absorbed in his papers.) I’ll be here all day. Any time you like. (He looks over his watch and is startled; he rushes over to SHAWN and nudges him urgently.) Gob, look at this crow, Come on out o’ that man! It’s ten to ten! IT’S TEN TO TEN, MAN! See you later, Chairman! (He grabs his hat and rushes out. KELLY thoughtfully strikes a match and begins to kindle his pipe. SHAWN stands up still holding the telephone.)

  SHAWN: (Urgently.) Well, goodbye, now, avic, I’m called away on hard . . . important . . . business. I’ll see you on Thursday, boy. Bye, bye, now.

  (He slams down phone, grabs his hat and rushes out with a ‘Bye, bye, Chairman.’ KELLY grunts a reply. When they are all gone THE STRANGER comes down noiselessly and gives KELLY a great start by appearing suddenly at his elbow and beginning to talk in a very eerie colourless voice.)

  THE STRANGER: I congratulate you. There was no doubt that I would get the job but nevertheless I congratulate you. Before many moons are past you will be a T.D. and every other wish you have will be gratified.

  KELLY: (A bit agitated.) Yes, quite. Quite. Good.

  THE STRANGER: I will supply money and votes and everything that is required. Your love for Mrs. Crockett will prosper. And now that I am a rate collector, there will be no undue comment about my staying in the town. I now have locus standi in the neighbourhood.

  KELLY: Quite. And as rate collector you’ll have charge of the register of electors. The rate collector idea was a smart one, if I may say so.

  THE STRANGER: Everything will prosper for you from this day forward. Have no fear.

  KELLY: Yes. Good, good. (Pause. Kelly rises and backs towards door. THE STRANGER moving after him menacingly.) If you stay there a moment, I’ll get the Town Clerk back to fix you up formally and give you the lists. He’s having a drink next door.

  THE STRANGER: Yes, that would be wise.

  KELLY: (Backing out.) I won’t be a moment.

  CURTAIN

  ACT II

  Six weeks have passed.

  Scene is the living-room of MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT’S house. The room is comfortable and furnished with taste but is being used as the headquarters of an election campaign and is on that account disarranged. Pinned to the back wall are two posters. One reads VOTE FOR KELLY AND A NEW BROOM. The other NOT FOR PARTY NOR PRIVILEGE BUT FOR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE—KELLY. There is a door, left back, and another (to other parts of house), left front. There is a window, back right corner. On a side table are boxes of envelopes and stationery, a few brass musical instruments and a megaphone. In a corner stands an enormous furled tricolour. There is a fire at side, right. At back is a large two-doored cupboard which, when opened, reveals shelves of delf, tea-things, etc. The latter must be constructed so that the entire inside of it is hinged in a manner that will permit the action detailed towards the end of the play.

  A bell rings. HANNAH bustles in left, makes a frenzied attempt to clear up the litter, and then exits right. She is heard talking to someone off stage and in a moment re-enters leading THE STRANGER, who is dressed as before but seems in a somewhat genial mood. It is evident that HANNAH and he are on good terms from previous meetings. THE STRANGER looks over at the election paraphernalia appreciatively.

  THE STRANGER: Well, it won’t be long now, Hannah. It won’t be long till we are rewarded for all our work. But we’re going to win. Remember that. (He gives her a playful slap.) We’re going to win! (Puts brief-case on table.)

  HANNAH: Do you know, you’re getting worse.

  THE STRANGER: Perhaps I am, but it’s the excitement of this election. Rate collecting is a bit dull. We’ll have a great party the night the results come in.

  HANNAH: (Still trying to tidy up.) Well, you won’t have it here because you know what herself thinks about drink. It was the drink killed her husband. You can bring a Mills bum and put it on the mantelpiece there, but God help you if you try bringing in a bottle of stout. Are you sure they’re going to make a T.D. out of poor Mr. Kelly?

  THE STRANGER: Of course we are. Everybody’s going to vote for Kelly. Wait till you see. They had a great meeting the other night.

  HANNAH: What about that necklace you promised me?

  THE STRANGER: (Surprised.) What? The necklace? (Recovering quickly.) O, you needn’t think I forgot about it. It’s waiting for you under that cushion. (Points to divan.)

  HANNAH: (Not believing him but going to lift the cushion to make sure.) Where—here? O, glory be to God! Glory be to God! (Flabbergasted, she holds up a glistening necklace.)

  THE STRANGER: What did I tell you?

  HANNAH: O, thank you sir. When did you put it there?

  THE STRANGER: (Brushing the thing aside.) Now, now, no questions. Is her ladyship up yet?

  HANNAH: She is, or she should be. She had her breakfast in bed an hour ago. (She turns round on THE STRANGER accusingly.) And if she’s not up before now it’s not her fault. She had another late night last night with your friend Mr. Kelly. I declare to God I don’t know what hour of the night or day he left because I went to bed. It’s not respectable, that class of thing. (She pauses to reflect.) It wouldn’t be so bad if they were married, of course. People think nothing of rascality and carry-on if you are married.

  THE STRANGER: Now, Hannah, Mr. Kelly left at a respectable hour and always does. I was expecting to see him here this morning. I’ve some extracts from the electoral register here to give him. He has a committee meeting here this morning. (He takes a letter from his pocket.)

  HANNAH: There’s nothing but meetings here. (A bell rings.)

  THE STRANGER: Ah, here he is now. That’s a real T.D.’s ring.

  HANNAH: It’s early in the morning he’s coming back then. (She hurries out, right.) I don’t believe he’s five hours out of this house, but sure it’s no business of mine. (She returns almost at once, excitedly bearing a telegram.)

  HANNAH: It’s a telegram for the missus! A telegram! (She pauses in the middle of the stage on her way off, left.) God between us and all harm, I wonder what’s in it.

  THE STRANGER: Good news, my dear girl, good news! Don’t be always expecting the worst.

  HANNAH: (Going out left.) Well, thank God I never got a telegram.

  THE STRANGER: (Regarding poster on wall.) ‘NOR privilege’—’NOR privilege’! That’s wrong. That ‘nor’ should be ‘or.’ ‘Or privilege’ it should be.

  (He walks over to the poster and passes his hand over it. Revealed to audience is the same poster but with OR instead of NOR. This can be done by having the ‘N’ printed on a separate slip of paper, lightly fastened to the poster.)

  HANNAH: (Re-entering excitedly.) No, no, you needn’t ask me. Her ladyship keeps her good fortune and her hardship to herself. Wouldn’t even open a letter and read it in front of me. Waits till she’s alone.

  THE STRANGER: Well, I still think it is good news, Hannah. (He looks at a watch which he takes from his waistcoat.) I think I’d better go away and try to get some money out of the ratepayers, if it can be done at all. (He picks up his brief-case.)

  HANNAH: Well, we all have to do a bit of work some time.

  THE STRANGER: When Mr. Kelly comes, Hannah, will you give him these lists and t
ell him I’ll look in and see him tonight. Will you do that for me like a good girl?

  HANNAH: (Taking the letter.) He’ll get it safe and sound. (She puts it on the mantelpiece.)

  THE STRANGER: Well, goodbye, Hannah.

  (Exit.)

  (Then KELLY walks in suddenly. HANNAH is tidying around the hearth.)

  KELLY: Good morning, Hannah. Is Mrs. Crockett up yet?

  HANNAH: That man with the hat was here again this morning, Mr. Kelly. He was looking for you and left a letter. You just missed him.

  KELLY: I met him at the door going out. I had a word with him in the porch. None of the others have arrived yet?

  HANNAH: No sir. Here’s the letter, sir.

  KELLY: Thanks. Thanks, Hannah.

  (He sits down wearily and opens the envelope mechanically, showing no interest in the contents.)

  KELLY: Mrs. Crockett isn’t up yet?

  HANNAH: Yes, sir, she should be here any minute. She just got a telegram.

  KELLY: A telegram? Who from?

  HANNAH: I don’t know, sir. She didn’t say, sir.

  KELLY: I hope it isn’t bad news.

  HANNAH: Oh, I’m sure its good news, sir. We mustn’t always be expecting the worst.

  KELLY: (Sighing.) True enough, Hannah. True enough.

  (There is a ring. HANNAH hurries out left to answer it.)

  HANNAH: That’ll be the other gentlemen, sir, for the meeting. The missus should be down any minute, I don’t know under God what’s keeping her.

  KELLY: Ah, yes.

  (He takes some documents out of the envelope and begins looking over them idly. HANNAH re-enters followed by TOWN CLERK.)

  TOWN CLERK: The top of the morning to you, Chairman.

  KELLY: (Wearily.) Good morning, Town Clerk. Is Cullen or Kilshaughraun not with you?

  TOWN CLERK: No, Chairman, I left word for them to folly me here.

  KELLY: (Rousing himself to a brisker posture.) These lists I have here are very promising if Cullen has marked them right. Our enemy Cooper seems to be very weak, on this side of the country anyway. According to these lists, we have about four votes in every five. Now could that be right?

  TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, man dear, you’ll have more than that before the dawn of polling day, sure our campaign is only gittin’ steam up. We’ll have to bate the lard out of that Protestant that’s up against you.

  KELLY: Ah now, Town Clerk, where is poor old Christian charity? Have we forgotten that altogether in the heat of the campaign? Are the Protestants not Christians also?

  TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, that’s all me eye for a yarn, you won’t win any election with that class of talk.

  HANNAH: (Who is pretending to be working but who stops every now and then to listen to the talk.) I believe Cromwell was a Protestant.

  TOWN CLERK: He was, and a good one.

  HANNAH: And look at England that’s full of Protestants.

  TOWN CLERK: Ah, that’s a different thing. You’d be a damn fool to be anything but a Protestant in England. There’s a place and a time for everything, girl. What would you expect to find in the say only fish. It comes natural to them in England to be Protestants. But it’s a very unnatural thing in Ireland.

  KELLY: Some of my best friends are Protestants.

  TOWN CLERK: Hand me over those lists, Chairman, till I run me eye over them. With any more of this class of talk we’ll lose our deposit.

  (KELLY hands them over with a wry smile. TOWN CLERK sits on corner of divan.)

  KELLY: Well, indeed, it wouldn’t be any harm if Shawn and Tom Cullen hurried up till we get down to our meeting.

  TOWN CLERK: (Reading lists.) And the lady of the house, by the same token. (Pause.)

  KELLY: (Rises and starts to pace room.) Haven’t we two rallies on Sunday in Tobberglas after the last Mass and Knockaree at two o’clock old time?

  TOWN CLERK: Yes, it’s all arranged. We’ve a man from the Waterford Chamber of Commerce to say a few words—it looks well, you know, for an independent business candidate like yerself. An’ we’re having the Patrick Sarsfield Fife and Drum Band for the Knockaree rally—half of the divils in that place go back to bed after their dinners of a Sunday and we’ll have the divil’s work to get them up again for the meeting.

  (HANNAH, bored, finishes her show of working and goes out left.)

  KELLY: (Meditatively.) Yes. Fair enough. I think I’ll say a few words about the banks. And emigration, that is bidding fair to drain our land of its life blood and spelling ruin to the business life of the community. The flight from the land is another thing that must be arrested at no far distant day. Please God when I get as far as the Dail I will have a word in season to say on that subject to the powers that be. And of course the scandal of the Runny Drainage Scheme is another subject upon which I will make it my particular business to say a few well-chosen words. Other members may sing dumb if they choose. Other members may be gagged by the party Whip. The opportunist and the time-server may not worry about such things. But please God if I win the confidence of the people of this country—if they see fit to entrust me with the task of representing them in the national assembly—I will speak my mind freely and fearlessly.

  TOWN CLERK: (Putting down the papers he is studying and looking quizzically at KELLY.) Well, be Gob, if you’d only talk like that when you’re above on the platform, you’d have de Valera standin’ down from the Governmint to make room for you!

  KELLY: (Carried away by his own talk.) I’m telling you now, the country is in a very serious position. We must proceed with the utmost caution. Neither Right nor Left will save us but the middle of the road. Rash monetary or economic experiments will only lead us deeper into the mire. What the country requires most is informed and strong leadership and a truce to political wrangling, jobbery and jockeying for position. We have had enough of that—too much of it. Public departments must be ruthlessly pruned. Give me a free hand and I will save you a cool hundred thousand pounds in every one of them. I warrant you that if the people of this country see fit to send me to the Dail, there will be scandals in high places. I happen to know a thing or two. This is not the place or the time to mention certain matters. Suffice it to say that certain things are happening that should not happen. These things are known—to me at least. I can quote chapter and verse. I have it all at my finger-tips and in due time I will drag the whole unsavoury details into the inexorable light of day. No doubt they will seek to silence me with their gold. They will try to purchase my honour.

  TOWN CLERK: (Sotto voce, after listening in amazement.) I wish to God somebody would try to buy me.

  KELLY: (Bringing his fist again on the table.) Will they succeed? Will success crown their attempts to silence me? Will their gold once again carry the day and make me still another of their bought-and-paid-for minions? By God it won’t! By God in Heaven it won’t!

  TOWN CLERK: (Again sotto voce.) Be Gob, I’d sell me soul for half-acrown!

  KELLY: (Shouting savagely.) I won’t be bought by gentile or jewman! I won’t be bought! I’m not for sale! Do you hear me, Town Clerk? I’m not for sale! I’M NOT FOR SALE!

  TOWN CLERK: (Lifting his head.) Yerrah, Chairman, I’m not tryin’ to buy ye. Sure I didn’t make a bid at all. (There is a ring.) I’m only tryin’ to run me eye through these lists here. Be Gob, there’s some very quare people goin’ to vote for you if Cullen’s marks mean anything. There’s a Fianna Fail T.D. down here.

  KELLY: (In a high, excited voice, still pacing and ignoring the TOWN CLERK.) I’m going to break through this thieves’ kitchen . . . this thieves’ kitchen . . . of gombeenery and corruption. I tell you I’m going to make a clean sweep of the whole lot of them, I’ll drag them bag and baggage into the cold light of day. And I won’t be stopped by Knight or Mason. Mark that, Town Clerk. I WON’T BE STOPPED BY KNIGHT OR MASON!

  (There is another prolonged ring in the silence that follows this outburst.)

  TOWN CLERK: Here’s them two divils Kilshaughraun and Cullen, late an
d good-lookin’ after wastin’ half the mornin’. And yours too, Chairman.

  (HANNAH appears, somewhat flustered, and hurries across the stage to exit, left back. KELLY stops pacing, passes a hand wearily across his brow and subsides again in his chair with a sigh.)

  KELLY: Ah, Town Clerk, it’s not an easy world. It’s not an easy world. But please God we will do what we can for Ireland before we die. Please God we will be of some small service to the old land.

  TOWN CLERK: Sure I’ve been servin’ Ireland hard since I was born. And what thanks have I got? Me fees for fairs and markets were disallowed be the Minister last year.

  (Immediately towards the end of this speech an entirely unexpected figure enters the room, followed by a gaping HANNAH. He is a slim, tall man of about forty, very well and carefully dressed. He wears glasses and a small, carefully tended moustache. He carries himself with the complete and somewhat alien assurance of the gentleman whose training makes him at home in any situation. When he speaks, it is with a comically exaggerated haw-haw English accent. He strides into the room and evinces a very slight well-bred surprise at seeing the TOWN CLERK and KELLY seated so casually in somebody else’s house. The TOWN CLERK’S attitude to the stranger is entirely non-committal but KELLY shows somewhat hostile surprise. HANNAH retreats to the door left, but does not leave the room, being prepared to die rather than miss whatever surprise is forthcoming. The newcomer puts hat, stick and gloves on table near door.)

  SHAW: Ao. Good morning. Good morning.

  TOWN CLERK: Good morra, sir. That’s a grand spring morning, thank God.

  (KELLY rises and stares inquiringly.)

  SHAW: O yes, indeed, really marvellous weather. First class, actually. I say, my dear, is Mrs. Crockett about? Would you kindly let her know that Captain Shaw is here?

  HANNAH: (Gaping wider.) Yes, sir.

  (She is dismissed by his easy imperious manner and goes out left with great reluctance. KELLY continues to stare. The TOWN CLERK feels that his cuteness is challenged and is determined to find out who the stranger is and what is happening.)