Brian Friel Plays 1 (62 page)

Authors: Brian Friel

OWEN:
Do you believe in fate?

YOLLAND:
Lancey’s so like my father. I was watching him last night. He met every group of sappers as they reported in. He checked the field kitchens. He examined the horses. He inspected every single report – even examining the texture of the paper and commenting on the neatness of the handwriting. The perfect colonial servant: not only must the job be done – it must be done with excellence. Father has that drive, too; that dedication; that indefatigable energy. He builds roads – hopping from one end of the Empire to the other. Can’t sit still for five minutes. He says himself the longest time he ever sat still was the night before Waterloo when they were waiting for Wellington to
make up his mind to attack.

OWEN:
What age is he?

YOLLAND:
Born in 1789 – the very day the Bastille fell. I’ve often thought maybe that gave his whole life its character. Do you think it could? He inherited a new world the day he was born – The Year One. Ancient time was at an end. The world had cast off its old skin. There were no longer any frontiers to man’s potential. Possibilities were endless and exciting. He still believes that. The Apocalypse is just about to happen … I’m afraid I’m a great disappointment to him. I’ve neither his energy, nor his coherence, nor his belief. Do I believe in fate? The day I arrived in Ballybeg – no, Baile Beag – the moment you brought me in here, I had a curious sensation. It’s difficult to describe. It was a momentary sense of discovery; no – not quite a sense of discovery – a sense of recognition, of confirmation of something I half knew instinctively; as if I had stepped …

OWEN:
Back into ancient time?

YOLLAND:
No, no. It wasn’t an awareness of
direction
being changed but of experience being of a totally different order. I had moved into a consciousness that wasn’t striving nor agitated, but at its ease and with its own conviction and assurance. And when I heard Jimmy Jack and your father swapping stories about Apollo and Cuchulainn and Paris and Ferdia – as if they lived down the road – it was then that I thought – I knew – perhaps I could live here … (
Now
embarrassed
)
Where’s the pot-een?

OWEN:
Poteen.

YOLLAND:
Poteen – poteen – poteen. Even if I did speak Irish I’d always be an outsider here, wouldn’t I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won’t it? The private core will always be … hermetic, won’t it?

OWEN:
You can learn to decode us.

(
HUGH
emerges
from
upstairs
and
descends.
He
is
dressed
for
the
road.
Today
he
is
physically
and
mentally
jaunty
and
alert
– almost
self-consciously
jaunty
and
alert.
Indeed,
as
the
scene
progresses,
one
has
the
sense
that
he
is
deliberately
parodying
himself.
The
moment
HUGH
gets
to
the
bottom
of
the
steps
YOLLAND
leaps
respectfully
to
his
feet.
)

HUGH:
(
As
he
descends
)

Quantumvis cursum longum fessumque moratur

Sol, sacro tandem carmine vesper adest.

I dabble in verse, Lieutenant, after the style of Ovid. (
To
OWEN
) A drop of that to fortify me.

YOLLAND:
You’ll have to translate it for me.

HUGH:
Let’s see –

No matter how long the sun may linger on his long and weary journey

At length evening comes with its sacred song.

YOLLAND:
Very nice, sir.

HUGH:
English succeeds in making it sound … plebeian.

OWEN:
Where are you off to, Father?

HUGH:
An
expeditio
with three purposes. Purpose A: to acquire a testimonial from our parish priest – (
To
YOLLAND
) a worthy man but barely literate; and since he’ll ask me to write it myself, how in all modesty can I do myself justice? (
To
OWEN
) Where did this (
drink
)
come from?

OWEN:
Anna na mBreag’s.

HUGH:
(
To
YOLLAND
) In that case address yourself to it with circumspection. (
And
HUGH
instantly
tosses
the
drink
back
in
one
gulp
and
grimaces.
)
Aaaaaaagh! (
Holds
out
his
glass
for
a
refill.
)
Anna na mBreag means Anna of the Lies. And Purpose B: to talk to the builders of the new school about the kind of living accommodation I will require there. I have lived too long like a journeyman tailor.

YOLLAND:
Some years ago we lived fairly close to a poet – well, about three miles away.

HUGH:
His name?

YOLLAND:
Wordsworth – William Wordsworth.

HUGH:
Did he speak of me to you?

YOLLAND:
Actually I never talked to him. I just saw him out walking – in the distance.

HUGH:
Wordsworth? … No. I’m afraid we’re not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer to the warm Mediterranean. We tend to overlook your island.

YOLLAND:
I’m learning to speak Irish, sir.

HUGH:
Good.

YOLLAND:
Roland’s teaching me.

HUGH:
Splendid.

YOLLAND:
I mean – I feel so cut off from the people here. And I was trying to explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a community this is. To meet people like yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek and Latin. And your place names – what was the one we came across this morning? – Termon, from Terminus, the god of boundaries. It – it – it’s really astonishing.

HUGH:
We like to think we endure around truths immemorially posited.

YOLLAND:
And your Gaelic literature – you’re a poet yourself –

HUGH:
Only in Latin, I’m afraid.

YOLLAND:
I understand it’s enormously rich and ornate.

HUGH:
Indeed, Lieutenant. A rich language. A rich literature. You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.

OWEN:
(
Not
unkindly;
more
out
of
embarrassment
before
YOLLAND
) Will you stop that nonsense, Father.

HUGH:
Nonsense? What nonsense?

OWEN:
Do you know where the priest lives?

HUGH:
At Lis na Muc, over near …

OWEN:
No, he doesn’t. Lis na Muc, the Fort of the Pigs, has become Swinefort. (
Now
turning
the
pages
of
the
Name-Book
– a
page
per
name
.)
And to get to Swinefort you pass through Greencastle and Fair Head and Strandhill and Gort and Whiteplains. And the new school isn’t at Poll na gCaorach – it’s at Sheepsrock. Will you be able to find your way?

(
HUGH
pours
himself
another
drink.
Then
: –)

HUGH:
Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying
to … inevitabilities. (
To
OWEN
) Can you give me the loan of half-a-crown? I’ll repay you out of the subscriptions I’m collecting for the publication of my new book. (
To
YOLLAND
) It is entitled: ‘The Pentaglot Preceptor or Elementary Institute of the English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Irish Languages; Particularly Calculated for the Instruction of Such Ladies and Gentlemen as may Wish to Learn without the Help of a Master’.

YOLLAND:
(
Laughs
)
That’s a wonderful title!

HUGH:
Between ourselves – the best part of the enterprise. Nor do I, in fact, speak Hebrew. And that last phrase – ‘without the Help of a Master’ – that was written before the new national school was thrust upon me – do you think I ought to drop it now? After all you don’t dispose of the cow just because it has produced a magnificent calf, do you?

YOLLAND:
You certainly do not.

HUGH:
The phrase goes. And I’m interrupting work of moment. (
He
goes
to
the
door
and
stops
there.
)
To return briefly to that other matter, Lieutenant. I understand your sense of exclusion, of being cut off from a life here; and I trust you will find access to us with my son’s help. But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of … fact. Gentlemen. (
He
leaves.
)

OWEN:
‘An
expeditio
with three purposes’: the children laugh at him: he always promises three points and he never gets beyond A and B.

MANUS:
He’s an astute man.

OWEN:
He’s bloody pompous.

YOLLAND:
But so astute.

OWEN:
And he drinks too much. Is it astute not to be able to adjust for survival? Enduring around truths immemorially posited – hah!

YOLLAND:
He knows what’s happening.

OWEN:
What is happening?

YOLLAND:
I’m not sure. But I’m concerned about my part in it.
It’s an eviction of sorts.

OWEN:
We’re making a six-inch map of the country. Is there something sinister in that?

YOLLAND:
Not in –

OWEN:
And we’re taking place-names that are riddled with confusion and –

YOLLAND:
Who’s confused? Are the people confused?

OWEN:
– and we’re standardizing those names as accurately and as sensitively as we can.

YOLLAND:
Something is being eroded.

OWEN:
Back to the romance again. All right! Fine! Fine! Look where we’ve got to. (
He
drops
on
his
hands
and
knees
and
stabs
a
finger
at
the
map.
)
We’ve come to this crossroads. Come here and look at it, man! Look at it! And we call that crossroads Tobair Vree. And why do we call it Tobair Vree? I’ll tell you why. Tobair means a well. But what does Vree mean? It’s a corruption of
Brian – (
Gaelic
pronunciation
) Brian – an erosion of Tobair Bhriain. Because a hundred-and-fifty years ago there used to be a well there, not at the crossroads, mind you – that would be too simple – but in a field close to the crossroads. And an old man called Brian, whose face was disfigured by an enormous growth, got it into his head that the water in that well was blessed; and every day for seven months he went there and bathed his face in it. But the growth didn’t go away; and one morning Brian was found drowned in that well. And ever since that crossroads is known as Tobair Vree – even though that well has long since dried up. I know the story because my grandfather told it to me. But ask Doalty – or Maire – or Bridget – even my father – even Manus – why it’s called Tobair Vree; and do you think they’ll know? I know they don’t know. So the question I put to you, Lieutenant, is this: what do we do with a name like that? Do we scrap Tobair Vree altogether and call it – what? – The Cross? Crossroads? Or do we keep piety with a man long dead, long forgotten, his name ‘eroded’ beyond recognition, whose trivial little story nobody in the parish remembers?