The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays (12 page)

WIDOW QUIN
(more soberly).
There's talking for a man's one only son.

CHRISTY
(breaking out).
His one son, is it? May I meet him with one tooth and it aching, and one eye to be seeing seven and seventy divils in the twists of the road, and one old timber leg on him to limp into the scalding grave.
(Looking out)
There he is now crossing the strands, and that the Lord God would send a high wave to wash him from the world.

WIDOW QUIN
(scandalized).
Have you no shame?
(Putting her hand on his shoulder and turning him round)
What ails you? Near crying, is it?

CHRISTY
(in despair and grief).
Amn't I after seeing the lovelight of the star of knowledge shining from her brow, and hearing words would put you thinking on the holy Brigid speaking to the infant saints, and now she'll be turning again, and speaking hard words to me, like an old woman with a spavindy ass she'd have, urging on a hill.

WIDOW QUIN. There's poetry talk for a girl you'd see itching and scratching, and she with a stale stink of poteen on her from selling in the shop.

CHRISTY
(impatiently).
It's her like is fitted to be handling merchandise in the heavens above, and what'll I be doing now, I ask you, andIakind of wonder was jilted by the heavens when a day was by.

 

(There is a distant noise of girls' voices.
WIDOW QUIN
looks from window and comes to him, hurriedly.)

 

WIDOW QUIN. You'll be doing like myself, I'm thinking, when I did destroy my man, for I'm above many's the day, odd times in great spirits, abroad in the sunshine, darning a stocking or stitching a shift; and odd times again looking out on the schooners, hookers, trawlers is sailing the sea, and I thinking on the gallant hairy fellows are drifting beyond, and myself long years living alone.

CHRISTY
(interested).
You're like me, so.

WIDOW QUIN. I am your like, and it's for that I'm taking a fancy to you, and I with my little houseen above where there'd be myself to tend you, and none to ask were you a murderer or what at all.

CHRISTY. And what would I be doing if I left Pegeen?

WIDOW QUIN. I've nice jobs you could be doing, gathering shells to make a whitewash for our hut within, building up a little goose-house, or stretching a new skin on an old curragh I have, and if my hut is far from all sides, it's there you'll meet the wisest old men, I tell you, at the corner of my wheel, and it's there yourself and me will have great times whispering and hugging....

VOICES (outside, calling far away). Christy! Christy Mahon! Christy!

CHRISTY. Is it Pegeen Mike?

WIDOW QUIN. It's the young girls, I'm thinking, coming to bring you to the sports below, and what is it you'll have me to tell them now?

CHRISTY. Aid me for to win Pegeen. It's herself only

that I'm seeking now. (WIDOW QUIN
gets up and goes to window.)
Aid me for to win her, and I'll be asking God to stretch a hand to you in the hour of death, and lead you short cuts through the Meadows of Ease, and up the floor of Heaven to the Footstool of the Virgin's Son.

WIDOW QUIN. There's praying.

VOICES
(nearer).
Christy! Christy Mahon!

Christy
(with agitation).
They're coming. Will you swear to aid and save me for the love of Christ?

WIDOW QUIN
(looks at him for a moment).
If I aid you, will you swear to give me a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the time that you'll be master here?

CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.

WIDOW QUIN. Then we'll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pegeen won't know your story till the end of time.

CHRISTY. And if he chances to return again?

WIDOW QUIN. We'll swear he's a maniac and not your da. I could take an oath I seen him raving on the sands to-day.

 

SUSAN. Come on to the sports below. Pegeen says you're to come.

SARA TANSEY. The lepping's beginning, and we've a jockey's suit to fit upon you for the mule race on the sands below.

HONOR. Come on, will you?

CHRISTY. I will then if Pegeen's beyond.

SARA TANSEY. She's in the boreen making game of Shaneen Keogh.

CHRISTY. Then I'll be going to her now.
(He runs out followed by the girls.)

WIDOW QUIN. Well, if the worst comes in the end of all, it'll be great game to see there's none to pity him but a widow woman, the like of me, has buried her children and destroyed her man.
(She goes out.)

SCENE,
as before. Later in the day.
JIMMY
comes in, slightly drunk.

 

 

JIMMY
(calls).
Pegeen!
(Crosses to inner door)
Pegeen Mike!
(Comes back again into the room)
Pegeen! (PHILLY
comes in in the same state.)
(To PHILLY) Did you see herself?

PHILLY. I did not; but I sent Shawn Keogh with the ass cart for to bear him home.
(Trying cupboards which are locked)
Well, isn't he a nasty man to get into such staggers at a morning wake? and isn't herself the divil's daughter for locking, and she so fussy after that young gaffer, you might take your death with drought and none to heed you?

JIMMY. It's little wonder she'd be fussy, and he after bringing bankrupt ruin on the roulette man, and the trick-o‘-the-loop man, and breaking the nose of the cockshot-man, and winning all in the sports below, racing, lepping, dancing, and the Lord knows what! He's right luck, I'm telling you.

PHILLY. If he has, he'll be rightly hobbled yet, and he not able to say ten words without making a brag of the way he killed his father, and the great blow he hit with the loy.

JIMMY. A man can't hang by his own informing, and his father should be rotten by now.

 

(OLD MAHON
passes window slowly.)

 

PHILLY. Supposing a man's digging spuds in that field with a long spade, and supposing he flings up the two halves of that skull, what'll be said then in the papers and the courts of law?

JIMMY. They'd say it was an old Dane, maybe, was drowned in the flood. (OLD MAHON
comes in and sits down near door listening.)
Did you never hear tell of the skulls they have in the city of Dublin, ranged out like blue jugs in a cabin of Connaught?

PHILLY. And you believe that?

JIMMY
(pugnaciously).
Didn't a lad see them and he after coming from harvesting in the Liverpool boat? “They have them there,” says he, “making a show of the great people there was one time walking the world. White skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven't only but one.”

PHILLY. It was no lie, maybe, for when I was a young lad there was a graveyard beyond the house with the remnants of a man who had thighs as long as your arm. He was a horrid man, I'm telling you, and there was many a fine Sunday I'd put him together for fun, and he with shiny bones, you wouldn't meet the like of these days in the cities of the world.

MAHON
(getting up).
You wouldn‘t, is it? Lay your eyes on that skull, and tell me where and when there was another the like of it, is splintered only from the blow of a loy.

PHILLY. Glory be to God! And who hit you at all?

MAHON
(triumphantly).
It was my own son hit me. Would you believe that?

 

JIMMY. Well, there's wonders hidden in the heart of man!

 

 

PHILLY
(suspiciously).
And what way was it done? MAHON
(wandering about the room).
I'm after walking hundreds and long scores of miles, winning clean beds and the fill of my belly four times in the day, and I doing nothing but telling stories of that naked truth.
(He comes to them a little aggressively.)
Give me a supeen and I'll tell you now.

 

(WIDOW QUIN
comes in and stands aghast behind him. He is facing
JIMMY
and
PHILLY,
who are on the left.)

 

JIMMY. Ask herself beyond. She's the stuff hidden in her shawl.

WIDOW QUIN
(coming to
MAHON quickly). You here, is it? You didn't go far at all?

MAHON. I seen the coasting steamer passing, and I got a drought upon me and a cramping leg, so I said, “The divil go along with him,” and turned again.
(Looking under her shawl)
And let you give me a supeen for I'm destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN
(getting a glass, in a cajoling tone).
Sit down then by the fire and take your ease for a space. You've a right to be destroyed indeed, with your walking, and fighting, and facing the sun
(giving him poteen from a stone jar she has brought in).
There now is a drink for you, and may it be to your happiness and length of life.

MAHON
(taking glass greedily and sitting down by fire).
God increase you!

WIDOW QUIN
(taking men to the right stealthily).
Do you know what? That man's raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of Christy's deed, and he up and says it was his son had cracked his skull. O isn't madness a fright, for he'll go killing someone yet, and he thinking it's the man has struck him so?

JIMMY
(entirely convinced).
It's a fright, surely. I knew a party was kicked in the head by a red mare, and he went killing horses a great while, till he eat the insides of a clock and died after.

PHILLY
(with suspicion).
Did he see Christy?

WIDOW QUIN. He didn't.
(With a warning gesture)
Let you not be putting him in mind of him, or you'll be likely summoned if there's murder done.
(Looking round at
MAHON) Whisht! He's listening. Wait now till you hear me taking him easy and unravelling all.
(She goes to
MAHON.) And what way are you feeling, mister? Are you in contentment now?

MAHON
(slightly emotional from his drink).
I'm poorly only, for it's a hard story the way I'm left to-day, when it was I did tend him from his hour of birth, and he a dunce never reached his second book, the way he'd come from school, many's the day, with his legs lamed under him, and he blackened with his beatings like a tinker's ass. It's a hard story, I'm saying, the way some do have their next and nighest raising up a hand of murder on them, and some is lonesome getting their death with lamentation in the dead of night.

WIDOW QUIN
(not knowing what to say).
To hear you talking so quiet, who'd know you were the same fellow we seen pass to-day?

MAHON. I'm the same surely. The wrack and ruin of three score years; and it's a terror to live that length, I tell you, and to have your sons going to the dogs against you, and you wore out scolding them, and skelping them, and God knows what.

PHILLY (to JIMMY). He's not raving.
(To
WIDOW QUIN) Will you ask him what kind was his son?

WIDOW QUIN
(to
MAHON,
with a peculiar look).
Was your son that hit you a lad of one year and a score maybe, a great hand at racing and lepping and licking the world?

MAHON
(turning on her with a roar of rage).
Didn't you hear me say he was the fool of men, the way from this out he'll know the orphan's lot with old and young making game of him and they swearing, raging, kicking at him like a mangy cur.

MAHON
(putting his hands to his ears).
What in the name of God do they want roaring below?

WIDOW QUIN
(with the shade of a smile).
They're cheering a young lad, the champion Playboy of the Western World.

 

 

MAHON (going to window). It'd split my heart to hear them, and I with pulses in my brain-pan for a week gone by. Is it racing they are?

JIMMY (looking from door). It is then. They are mounting him for the mule race will be run upon the sands. That's the playboy on the winkered mule.

MAHON
(puzzled).
That lad, is it? If you said it was a fool he was, I'd have laid a mighty oath he was the likeness of my wandering son
(uneasily, putting his hand to his head).
Faith, I'm thinking I'll go walking for to view the race.

WIDOW QUIN
(stopping him, sharply).
You will not. You'd best take the road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where there isn't a spot you could sleep.

PHILLY
(coming forward).
Don't mind her. Mount there on the bench and you'll have a view of the whole. They're hurrying before the tide will rise, and it'd be near over if you went down the pathway through the crags below.

MAHON
(mounts on bench,
WIDOW QUIN
beside him).
That's a right view again the edge of the sea. They're coming now from the point. He's leading. Who is he at all?

WIDOW QUIN. He's the champion of the world, I tell you, and there isn't a hop‘orth isn't falling lucky to his hands to-day.

PHILLY
(looking out, interested in the race).
Look at that. They're pressing him now.

JIMMY. He'll win it yet.

PHILLY. Take your time, Jimmy Farrell. It's too soon to say.

WIDOW QUIN (
shouting
). Watch him taking the gate. There's riding.

JIMMY (
cheering
). More power to the young lad!