Flann O'Brien: Plays and Teleplays

  SHAW: (Taken aback and shaking his hand free.) Glad to meet you, I am sure.

  TOWN CLERK: (‘Introducing’ CULLEN.) This is another mimber of the gineral public like meself. (He turns to REILLY, who is skulking in the background.) And this is Mr. Reilly.

  SHAW: Hullo, Reilly. What on earth brings you here?

  REILLY: (Coming forward defiantly.) I just dropped in to tell the Chairman that there’s an inspector from the Department in the town. He’s above in the hotel and he’s down to smell out the ready-up about the rate collector or my name isn’t Reilly.

  TOWN CLERK: Begob, Chairman, if there’s an Inspictor in the town, my place is me office. (He grabs his hat.) My place is me office. I’ll see yez all later. You too, Mr. Bernard Shaw! (He hurries out.)

  KELLY: (Sneering.) Huh! I notice that you’re already acquainted with this distinguished visitor. By God, I see it all now. I know who my detractor and persecutor is.

  CULLEN: Won’t somebody tell me what’s going on in this house? What’s the trouble, Mr. Shaw?

  KELLY: The man’s out of his mind, Tom.

  SHAW: This man Kelly, if you must know, is a low swine who has destroyed my sister’s good name and robbed her.

  CULLEN: What?

  KELLY: You heard that, Tom?

  CULLEN: (To SHAW.) You must be off your head, man.

  KELLY: You heard that, Tom? Make a good note of it. Mark it and note it well because your testimony on it will be required at another place and at another time.

  CULLEN: (Amazed, to SHAW.) But surely, man, you’re not serious? Sure if the Chairman wants to court your sister, hasn’t he every right to?

  SHAW: If you don’t mind, I’ll be the judge of any matter affecting the honour of my family and the right of my sister to regulate her own life. (Sneering.) And her bank balance, too.

  CULLEN: My God, you must be crazy!

  KELLY: Listen, Tom, pay no attention. The man glories in calumny and detraction. I ask you, Tom, to make a note of everything that is said here. Not forgetting the part played by our mutual friend,

  Mr. Reilly.

  CULLEN: What has he been doing? What’s this about, Martin?

  REILLY: (Coming forward and standing near SHAW, facing KELLY.) Do I have to ask leave from you to attend to me own private affairs? I don’t give a snap of me fingers for you or any other twister. And you won’t get away with your ready-up about the rate collector and don’t think it.

  KELLY: (Throwing out his hands and turning his eyes to heaven.) Ah, this poor man, this poor misguided man!

  SHAW: Sanctimonious nonsense of that kind will avail you nothing. I’m going to smash you up in this town, you rotter!

  CULLEN: (Horrified, crossing the stage to the left, where KELLY and SHAWN are, leaving SHAW and REILLY together on right.) Listen, Shawn, can’t we do something in the name of God about this? This is awful and a reflection on the whole lot of us.

  SHAWN: (Puffing happily.) I do, I do, I do. ‘Tis reminiscent of me own stormy . . . hard . . . advinturous election days when Shawn Kilshaughraun stood out alone against the besht brains in the country. Sure, ‘tis many a row the Chairman will have before he reaches the free Parliament of the Irish people.

  SHAW: (To SHAWN.) Many a row after he reaches there? I’ll see that he’s kicked out at this election even if I have to go up against him myself.

  REILLY: (Astonished.) Go up yourself?

  SHAW: (Staring at REILLY. There is a pause.) And perhaps it’s not a bad idea at that. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea at that! Why shouldn’t I go up against him? WHY SHOULDN’T I?

  REILLY: Are you gone crazy, man?

  CULLEN: (Flabbergasted.) You go up? You a T.D.?

  KELLY: (To SHAWN.) I told you the man wasn’t right in the head. I told you.

  SHAW: (Pleased with himself, looking to each of them in turn.) Why shouldn’t I go up? I’m Irish, aren’t I? I’m Irish. I have the money. Why shouldn’t I go up and expose and defeat this rotter on his own ground? What do you say, Mr. Reilly?

  REILLY: (Puzzled.) Well, begob, Mr. Shaw, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. (He scratches his head in perplexity.) Begob, maybe you wouldn’t be the last man in the world to be appointed.

  SHAW: (Pleased.) D’you know, I think I will go up. I think I will go up.

  SHAWN: Begob now, three candidates would make it a grand . . . fine . . . heart-rending . . . pulsating election fight. (He rubs his hands gleefully.)

  SHAW: (Beginning to pace and think.) Yes. Quite. Quite . . .

  REILLY: Begob, if you’re not coddin’ about going up you’ll have to look snappy. You haven’t much time left. You’ll have to get your committee goin’ and get good substantial men to nominate you, and get posters printed. And all that takes money—bags of money. Could you put your hands in you pocket for a thousand pounds?

  SHAW: (Still thinking.) I have the funds, old boy, I have the funds.

  SHAWN: Yerrah, sure Mr. Shaw has the stuff. I’d know that to take wan look at him.

  KELLY: Lord save us, the next thing you’ll see me doing is laughing. LAUGHING! (He gives a long forced hollow guffaw.) The idea of it! The idea of it!

  SHAWN: Yerrah, boy, if he wants to go up isn’t he entitled.

  KELLY: (Half to himself.) The idea of it! The idea! And something tells me that if this lunatic goes up, it certainly won’t do me any harm. Listen, Shawn . . .

  (He goes over and begins to converse sotto voce with SHAWN. The only audible portion of the latter’s replies is the phrase ‘I do, I do.’)

  REILLY: (Rubbing his hands together.) Begob, do you know, Mr. Shaw, I think you’re the man we’re all looking for. I think you’d be a good match for all the political rogues we have in this bloody country. I think you’d know how to down-face the bastards and clean up all this dirty jobbery and back-door stuff.

  SHAW: I’m Irish, anyhow—born within two miles of this town.

  REILLY: (To SHAW, confidentially.) Listen here, Mr. Shaw. You say you’re Irish and that you come from this part of the country. Well, you speak like a man that spent a long time across the water. Tell me this. Maybe you changed your colours like a lot more when you were over there. The people here wouldn’t like that at all. Are you an R.C. still or did you learn to dig with the wrong foot?

  SHAW: Don’t be an ass, old man. I was born a Roman Catholic, and please God when I am called I will still be a Roman Catholic.

  REILLY: (Loudly and jubilantly.) Ah, well, that’s all right. If you’re an R.C., that’s all right. That’s grand. Grand.

  CULLEN: Are you seriously going up or is all this a joke?

  REILLY: Of course he’s going up.

  SHAW: I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance nor do I know your name, sir, but I may——

  REILLY: Cullen. His name is Cullen. Tom Cullen and he’s not the worst.

  SHAW: Ao. Mr. Cullen? (Bowing.) Glad to meet you, I am sure. I may tell you this much, Mr. Cullen. I am going up for election. Even if I never took my seat and never attended a single meeting of the Irish House of Commons in Dublin, I would still be doing the people of this country a great service. Do you know why?

  REILLY: Why?

  SHAW: Because by presenting myself for the election I would be saving them from that ruffian (his voice rises and he points at KELLY) —that impostor of a publican. No matter how it is done or what it costs me, I will save the people from that gentleman.

  REILLY: (Cynically.) Good man yourself. Well spoken!

  (KELLY has begun to glare at SHAW angrily and now walks over to confront him.)

  SHAWN: The blood is up. The election blood is up. I do, I do. (Pause.)

  KELLY: God in His mercy has so far given me the grace to keep my temper and I do not intend to lose it now. The golden virtue of control—control of self—is a thing I have always endeavoured to practise. I intend to persevere in that. I will not let a person of your type deflect me from that purpose. But this much I will say. This much I will permit myself. In a
lifetime extending over a period close on fifty years I have never had the misfortune to encounter a person who is a greater pup, a greater bags, than yourself. You have the effrontery to talk of your sister’s money. Not one penny of that have I ever touched. Not one penny of it could I ever bear to touch. WHAT YOU SAY IS A DAMNED LIE!

  SHAW: It is the truth, you rotter, and you know it!

  KELLY: But what is more important is why you are so interested in your sister’s money. What is more important is why you are afraid your sister should get married.

  SHAW: (Sneering.) Really? Really?

  KELLY: (Fiercely.) PERHAPS THAT IS WHY YOU LET LOOSE ON ME IN THIS ROOM THE MOST VILE FLOOD OF CALUMNY . . . AND SLANDER . . . AND FOUL LANGUAGE IT HAS EVER BEEN MY MISFORTUNE TO LISTEN TO!

  (SHAW glares at KELLY, then rushes over for his hat and stick and makes for the door, where he delivers a parting shot.)

  KELLY: And that is about the size and shape of it and please contradict me if I am wrong, Mr. Kilshaughraun.

  SHAW: (At the door, after taking up hat, stick and gloves.) If it’s the last thing I do in this world, I’ll break you into little pieces, so help me—I’ll run you out of this house and out of this country, you objectionable little pig of a publican. I’ll destroy you, do you hear? And I’ll make sure of one thing. You’ll never be an Irish M.P. YOU’LL NEVER BE AN IRISH M.P. YOU——*

  CURTAIN QUICKLY

  * * *

  * Insert appropriate local term of abuse.

  ACT III

  Four weeks later.

  The scene is the same save that the room is in a far more advanced state of disorder with posters, stationery, banners, flags and all manner of electioneering paraphernalia. A clock shows that it is about nine in the evening. The curtains are drawn.

  MARGARET is sitting disconsolately alone on the sofa, which is facing the audience towards the left of the stage. KELLY is listening on the phone, bending over a small table towards the right. There is complete silence for a few seconds after the curtain goes up.

  KELLY: What? What?

  (MARGARET sighs and passes her hand wearily across her brow.)

  KELLY: (Eagerly.) Yes. Yes, yes! Good, good. Excellent. Yes? (He pauses to listen.)

  MARGARET: What does he say?

  KELLY: (Holding up his hand to silence her.) Are you sure of that?

  WHAT? (He listens.) Good! Ring me up later. I SAID RING ME UP LATER! Goodbye!

  (He bangs down the phone and turns to MARGARET, gleefully rubbing his hands.)

  KELLY: Margaret, Margaret, I’m nearly home and dried. I’m nearly home and dried! (He flops down on the sofa beside her and takes her hand.) I’m nearly home, Margaret.

  MARGARET: (Dejectedly.) That’s good news.

  KELLY: (Trying to cheer her up.) O, now listen, woman, CHEER UP! (He takes her hand again and looks at her entreatingly.) Are you not glad I’m winning? Come on, now! Are you? Honest?

  MARGARET: (Looking up.) I am, I am glad. But I’m worried. I was thinking about things. I was talking to Father Healy today.

  KELLY: (Impatiently.) Now for God’s sake you’re not going to start again about this business of being a nun? You’re not going to be a nun and that’s all about it. You’re going to marry me. You’re not going into any convent, Margaret. I WON’T HAVE IT!

  MARGARET: Turning on him suspiciously.) I believe you have drink taken again today.

  KELLY: (Shocked.) Margaret! Me? How can you say a thing like that?

  MARGARET: Well, you had a drink taken last night, and so had that Town Clerk.

  KELLY: (Soothingly.) Listen, Margaret, you’re a little bit unnerved by the worry of this election and I don’t blame you. You know in your heart I never touch it, Margaret. Don’t you believe me, Margaret?

  MARGARET: (Putting her hand wearily to her head.) O, I don’t know. I’m very worried. God forgive me for quarrelling with James. He has made a fool of himself at the elections. And I’m to blame for that. I was talking to Father Healy about people with late vocations. I’m sorry I didn’t do what I wanted to do years ago. I’m honestly thinking of going away. Away from all this bitterness and fighting. Nearly everybody in the town was drunk when they were voting. Father Healy was telling me all about it. Drink, drink, drink.

  KELLY: Listen, Margaret, don’t be talking like that. Public life is by no means perfect but please God we will change what is bad and shameful in it. And I said we, Margaret. You and I. Together we can strike a blow for the old land. Together we can do our small part to right the wrongs that have come down through seven centuries of alien domination and godless misrule. What do you say, Margaret?

  MARGARET: (Deflating him.) I can’t get it out of my head that you take drink.

  KELLY: Margaret!

  MARGARET: Drink is what killed my husband.

  KELLY: (Earnestly.) I tell you, Margaret, I never touch it. I never touch it. (He pauses and bursts out.) My God, Margaret, why do you keep on saying that?

  MARGARET: (Sadly, in a preoccupied way.) Drink is what killed my husband. And my father. I would never marry a man that took drink. Never!

  KELLY: (Going over solicitously and sitting down beside her again.) Listen to me, now, Margaret. We won’t go into the poor weak souls who were tortured and destroyed in the past by indulgence in bacchanalian vice. It is a branch of the national character which we must reform—

  MARGARET: And why must you go back to the past? Look at this town today. Look at that Town Clerk. He’s the cheekiest little man in this town and he’s always half drunk. He is always full of stout.

  KELLY: (Impatiently.) I know, Margaret, I know, but can we never talk of anything else? Listen, girl, I’m nearly certain to be elected. When I am and when I have taken my seat in the parliament of Ireland, can’t the two of us get married and go up and live above in Dublin!

  MARGARET: (Still despondent.) O, I don’t know what to say. But I don’t know what I should do. I always wanted to enter religion. I don’t like a lot of things I see in the world around me——

  KELLY: What things?

  MARGARET: O, a lot of things. Everything. I don’t like the way people behave. It’s not Christian. Look at the terrible things James, my own brother, said about you last Sunday. People are laughing at me—I know they are. I feel I am to blame for a lot of the trouble. And you are to blame too. We’re all to blame. How could James say what he said on Sunday if he was a proper Christian?

  KELLY: (Indulgently.) Ah, Margaret, it’s all poor old human nature. Poor sinful broken-down human nature. Bad as it is at the best of times, it goes to hell altogether when there’s an election in the air.

  MARGARET: And how could you talk the way you did a moment ago about drink when you own a public-house yourself?

  KELLY: (Shocked and hurt.) Margaret, that isn’t true. That isn’t true at all. I don’t own a public-house. It’s only an off-licence.

  MARGARET: I don’t care what it’s called.

  KELLY: (Emphatically.) And it’s only a six-day licence.

  MARGARET: Hannah was saying that she sees a lot of people going into your shop after the last Mass on Sunday, even though you’re closed.

  KELLY: Ah, they would be the language workers—the Gaelic League. I give them a room free of charge for their classes, you know. I do what I can to encourage the old tongue.

  MARGARET: But surely people wouldn’t be learning Irish at that hour on a Sunday. I always thought it’s at night people learn Irish.

  KELLY: Yes, yes, Margaret, but there is such a thing as a committee meeting, there is such a thing as a committee of ways and means. The real spade work has to be done behind closed door. O, well I know it—many’s a committee I served on.

  MARGARET: (Fiercely.) O, I don’t care.

  KELLY: (Impatiently.) Listen, Margaret. (He takes her hand ingratiatingly.) One simple question now. The same one I asked before. Margaret, will you marry me? Yes or no? After I get my seat, of course. Will you marry me? Will you?

  (The telephone
rings violently. KELLY, startled, jumps up and without a word takes up the receiver; just when he has begun listening he remembers to say ‘Excuse me’ to MARGARET, who looks very disconcerted by his abrupt departure from her.)

  KELLY: (Excitedly.) Hullo? Yes? Yes. What? (There is a long pause.) WHAT? Yes. YES. I AM? Are you certain? Good! Great! GREAT! Thanks, thanks, thanks.

  (He bangs down the receiver and rushes exuberantly about the room, rubbing his hands gleefully; he is beside himself with delight.)

  KELLY: I’m home, Margaret. I’m home and dried. The votes aren’t all counted but he can’t beat me now no matter what happens! Cooper’s second and your brother’s last! Master James is beaten, beaten to the ropes. HE’S BEATEN! And I’m in—I’m elected. I’m in!

  MARGARET: (Rising.) Are you sure?

  KELLY: Certain. CERTAIN! Sure I just got it on the wire.

  (The front door bell rings.)

  MARGARET: O, I don’t know what to say to you! I’m glad.

  (She rushes over to him impetuously; he catches her in a sort of halfembrace but this is broken almost instantly as HANNAH bustles in from left to answer the door bell. She exits left back, taking no notice of KELLY and MARGARET. Almost at once, the confused, thick babel of SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN and the TOWN CLERK is heard from without. In a second they march in, SHAWN leading the way. The TOWN CLERK is threequarters drunk but has long experience in disguising the fact. SHAWN is not the type that can be changed by drink and for all anybody knows may be completely drunk. His hand is already outstretched on the way in preparation for a handclasp of congratulation. MARGARET has begun to retreat again from KELLY and sits down again on the sofa.)

  KELLY: (Beaming.) Well, well, well.

  TOWN CLERK: (Only half in through door.) Good evenin’, one and all. And good evenin’ yourself, Mrs. Crockett.

  SHAWN: Ah, Chairman, Chairman, may you long live to wear the great, grand, fine honour that has been saddled on you this day by the people of this grand old historic country. May you live for long, long years to enjoy—and re-enjoy—every bit of it—every little bitteen of it, avic.