Read Andersen's English Page 7


  Stefan holds his arm.

  Light on Ellen.

  Ellen If I may say – if I may be allowed to speak – yes, I loved him, though I shrank from his touch. In the twelve years of our love he aged into an old old man. He was only fifty-eight. He fell ill in our little house in Peckham. I brought him in the carriage to Gad’s Hill. I had promised Georgina I would not let him die in my house. When we got there, he asked to be put on the ground. His daughter Kate held him in her arms just a few sad moments and he died. Then, I mourned a while, and married a schoolmaster in Margate and never breathed a word about that strange, fled life.

  Light now on Aggie.

  Aggie I used the money that kind Mr Andersen gave me to go back to Ireland. My people were all dead, but I got work in a kip in Monto, to serve all the soldiers that were in barracks there in Marlborough Street, in the city of Dublin. When my son Walt was born I went on with that work, until he joined the army himself and went off to India with the Dublin Fusiliers and did well at the little wars there. Then he came home and didn’t he bring me on then with him to America, and fought in the last wars there against the poor redmen. And then we crossed up into Canada, myself and him and his wife. And I died an old old woman in Calgary, Alberta.

  Andersen When I was leaving on the last day I could barely speak, I kissed him, and we parted. All the way to Gravesend he had brought me, and as the ship steamed out of the harbour, I looked back, certainly not expecting to see him, and there he was, on the last rough stones of the pier, standing in his bright yellow waistcoat, waving his hat in farewell, faithfully, faithfully waving.

  Dickens steps forward, raising his hat with a slow flourish.

  Dickens himself. Great friendship, like a conflagration, cooling to silence.

  Stefan kisses Andersen on the mouth.

  Then he goes and sits by Aggie, as if restored to her.

  More light on Dickens. He sings ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, the company join in, then a last flourish of his hat, raised high, Andersen with his hat raised in answer, both hats held there, then slowly lowered, then slowly darkness.

  About the Author

  Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His novels and plays have won, among other awards, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also had two consecutive novels, A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize. He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.

  By the Same Author

  fiction

  THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY

  ANNIE DUNNE

  A LONG LONG WAY

  THE SECRET SCRIPTURE

  ON CANAAN’S SIDE

  plays

  BOSS GRADY’S BOYS

  PRAYERS OF SHERKIN

  WHITE WOMAN STREET

  THE ONLY TRUE HISTORY OF LIZZIE FINN

  THE STEWARD OF CHRISTENDOM

  OUR LADY OF SLIGO

  HINTERLAND

  FRED AND JANE

  WHISTLING PSYCHE

  THE PRIDE OF PARNELL STREET

  DALLAS SWEETMAN

  TALES OF BALLYCUMBER

  ANDERSEN’S ENGLISH

  poetry

  THE WATER-COLOURIST

  FANNY HAWKE GOES TO THE MAINLAND FOREVER

  Copyright

  First published in 2010

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2014

  All rights reserved

  © Sebastian Barry, 2010

  Cover image: from a photograph © National Portrait Gallery, London

  The right of Sebastian Barry to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever, including performance rights, must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Independent Talent Group Ltd, 40 Whitfield Street, London W1T 2RH. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–31927–5

 


 

  Sebastian Barry, Andersen's English

 


 

 
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