MRS ROONEY advances along country road towards railway station. Sound of her dragging feet.
Music faint from house by way. “Death and the Maiden.” The steps slow down, stop.
MRS ROONEY: Poor woman. All alone in that ruinous old house. [Music louder. Silence but for music playing. The steps resume. Music dies, MRS ROONEY murmurs, melody. Her murmur dies.
Sound of approaching cartwheels. The cart stops. The steps slow down, stop.]
Is that you, Christy?
CHRISTY: It is, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: I thought the hinny was familiar. How is your poor wife?
CHRISTY: No better, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Your daughter then?
CHRISTY: No worse, Ma’am.
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: Why do you halt? [Pause.] But why do I halt?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: Nice day for the races, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: No doubt it is. [Pause.] But will it hold up? [Pause. With emotion.] Will it hold up?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: I suppose you wouldn’t–
MRS ROONEY: Hist! [Pause.] Surely to goodness that cannot be the up mail I hear already.
[Silence. The hinny neighs. Silence.]
CHRISTY: Damn the mail.
MRS ROONEY: Oh thank God for that! I could have sworn I heard it, thundering up the track in the far distance. [Pause.] So hinnies whinny. Well, it is not surprising.
CHRISTY: I suppose you wouldn’t be in need of a small load of dung?
MRS ROONEY: Dung? What class of dung?
CHRISTY: Stydung.
MRS ROONEY: Stydung … I like your frankness, Christy. [Pause.] I’ll ask the master. [Pause.] Christy.
CHRISTY: Yes, Ma’am.
MRS ROONEY: Do you find anything … bizarre about my way of speaking? [Pause.] I do not mean the voice. [Pause.] No, I mean the words. [Pause. More to herself.] I use none but the simplest words, I hope, and yet I sometimes find my way of speaking very… bizarre. [Pause.] Mercy! What was that?
CHRISTY: Never mind her, Ma’am, she’s very fresh in herself today.
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: Dung? What would we want with dung, at our time of life? [Pause.] Why are you on your feet down on the road? Why do you not climb up on the crest of your manure and let yourself be carried along? Is it that you have no head for heights?
[Silence.]
CHRISTY: [To the hinny.] Yep! [Pause. Louder.] Yep wiyya to hell owwa that!
[Silence.]
MRS ROONEY: She does not move a muscle. [Pause.] I too should be getting along, if I do not wish to arrive late at the station. [Pause.] But a moment ago she neighed and pawed the ground. And now she refuses to advance. Give her a good welt on the rump. [Sound of welt. Pause.] Harder! [Sound of welt. Pause.] Well! If someone were to do that for me I should not dally. [Pause.] How she gazes at me to be sure, with her great moist cleg-tormented eyes! Perhaps if I were to move on, down the road, out of her field of vision …. [Sound of welt.] No, no, enough! Take her by the snaffle and pull her eyes away from me. Oh this is awful! [She moves on. Sound of her dragging feet.] What have I done to deserve all this, what, what? [Dragging feet.] So long ago …. No! No! [Dragging feet. Quotes.] “Sigh out a something something tale of things, Done long ago and ill done.” [She halts.] How can I go on, I cannot. Oh let me just flop down flat on the road like a big fat jelly out of a bowl and never move again! A great big slop thick with grit and dust and flies, they would have to scoop me up with a shovel. [Pause.] Heavens, there is that up mail again, what will become of me! [The dragging steps resume.] Oh I am just a hysterical old hag I know, destroyed with sorrow and pining and gentility and church-going and fat and rheumatism and childlessness. [Pause. Brokenly.] Minnie! Little Minnie! [Pause.] Love, that is all I asked, a little love, daily, twice daily, fifty years of twice daily love like a Paris horse-butcher’s regular, what normal woman wants affection? A peck on the jaw at morning, near the ear, and another at evening, peck, peck, till you grow whiskers on you. There is that lovely laburnum again.
[Dragging feet. Sound of bicycle-bell. It is old MR TYLER coming up behind her on his bicycle, on his way to the station. Squeak of brakes. He slows down and rides abreast of her.]
MR TYLER: Mrs Rooney! Pardon me if I do not doff my cap, I’d fall off. Divine day for the meeting.
MRS ROONEY: Oh, Mr Tyler, you startled the life out of me stealing up behind me like that like a deer-stalker! Oh!
MR TYLER: [Playfully.] I rang my bell, Mrs Rooney, the moment I sighted you I started tinkling my bell, now don’t you deny it.
MRS ROONEY: Your bell is one thing, Mr Tyler, and you are another. What news of your poor daughter?
MR TYLER: Fair, fair. They removed everything, you know, the whole … er … bag of tricks. Now I am grandchildless.
[Dragging feet]
MRS ROONEY: Gracious how you wobble! Dismount, for mercy’s sake, or ride on.
MR TYLER: Perhaps if I were to lay my hand lightly on your shoulder, Mrs Rooney, how would that be?
[Pause.] Would you permit that?
MRS ROONEY: No, Mr Rooney, Mr Tyler I mean, I am tired of light old hands on my shoulders and other senseless places, sick and tired of them. Heavens, here comes Connolly’s van! [She halts. Sound of motor-van. It approaches, passes with thunderous rattles, recedes.] Are you all right, Mr Tyler? [Pause.] Where is he? [Pause.] Ah there you are! [The dragging steps resume.] That was a narrow squeak.
MR TYLER: I alit in the nick of time.
MRS ROONEY: It is suicide to be abroad. But what is it to be at home, Mr Tyler, what is it to be at home? A lingering dissolution. Now we are white with dust from head to foot. I beg your pardon?
MR TYLER: Nothing, Mrs Rooney, nothing, I was merely cursing, under my breath, God and man, under my breath, and the wet Saturday afternoon of my conception. My back tyre has gone down again. I pumped it hard as iron before I set out. And now I am on the rim.
MRS ROONEY: Oh what a shame!
MR TYLER: Now if it were the front I should not so much mind. But the back. The back! The chain! The oil! The grease! The hub! The brakes! The gear! No! It is too much!
[Dragging steps.]
MRS ROONEY: Are we very late, Mr Tyler? I have not the courage to look at my watch.
MR TYLER: [Bitterly.] Late! I on my bicycle as I bowled along was already late. Now therefore we are doubly late, trebly, quadrupedly late. Would I had shot by you, without a word.
[Dragging feet.]
MRS ROONEY: Whom are you meeting, Mr Tyler?
MR TYLER: Hardy. [Pause.] We used to climb together. [Pause.] I saved his life once. [Pause.] I have not forgotten it.
[Dragging feet. They stop.]
MRS ROONEY: Let us halt a moment and let this vile dust fall back upon the viler worms.
[Silence. Rural sounds.]
MR TYLER: What sky! What light! Ah in spite of all it is a blessed thing to be alive in such weather, and out of hospital.
MRS ROONEY: Alive?
MR TYLER: Well half alive shall we say?
MRS ROONEY: Speak for yourself, Mr Tyler. I am not half alive nor anything approaching it. [Pause.] What are we standing here for? This dust will not settle in our time. And when it does some great roaring machine will come and whirl it all skyhigh again.
MR TYLER: Well, shall we be getting along in that case?
MRS ROONEY: No.
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney–
MRS ROONEY: Go, Mr Tyler, go on and leave me, listening to the cooing of the ringdoves. [Cooing.] If you see my poor blind Dan tell him I was on my way to meet him when it all came over me again, like a flood. Say to him, Your poor wife, She told me to tell you it all came flooding over her again and … [The voice breaks.] … she simply went back home … straight back home….
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.
MRS ROONEY: [Sobbing.] W
hat? What’s all this now? [Calmer.] Can’t you see I’m in trouble? [With anger.] Have you no respect for misery? [Sobbing] Minnie! Little Minnie!
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail has not yet gone up, just take my free arm and we’ll be there with time and to spare.
MRS ROONEY: [Brokenly.] In her forties now she’d be, I don’t know, fifty, girding up her lovely little loins, getting ready for the change….
MR TYLER: Come, Mrs Rooney, come, the mail–
MRS ROONEY: [Exploding.] Will you get along with you, Mr Rooney, Mr Tyler I mean, will you get along with you now and cease molesting me? What kind of a country is this where a woman can’t weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers! [Mr Tyler prepares to mount his bicycle.] Heavens you’re not going to ride her flat! [Mr Tyler mounts.] You’ll tear your tube to ribbons! [Mr Tyler rides off. Receding sound of bumping bicycle. Silence. Cooing.] Venus birds! Billing in the woods all the long summer long. [Pause.] Oh cursed corset! If I could let it out, without indecent exposure. Mr Tyler! Mr Tyler! Come back and unlace me behind the hedge! [She laughs wildly, ceases.] What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with me, never tranquil, seething out of my dirty old pelt, out of my skull, oh to be in atoms, in atoms! [Frenziedly.] ATOMS! [Silence. Cooing. Faintly.] Jesus! [Pause.] Jesus! [Sound of car coming up behind her. It slows down and draws up beside her, engine running. It is MR SLOCUM, the Clerk of the Racecourse.]
MR SLOCUM: Is anything wrong, Mrs Rooney? You are bent all double. Have you a pain in the stomach?
[Silence, MRS ROONEY laughs wildly. Finally.]
MRS ROONEY: Well if it isn’t my old admirer the Clerk of the Course, in his limousine.
MR SLOCUM: May I offer you a lift, Mrs Rooney? Are you going in my direction?
MRS ROONEY: I am, Mr Slocum, we all are. [Pause.] How is your poor mother?
MR SLOCUM: Thank you, she is fairly comfortable. We manage to keep her out of pain. That is the great thing, Mrs Rooney, is it not?
MRS ROONEY: Yes, indeed, Mr Slocum, that is the great thing, I don’t know how you do it. [Pause. She slaps her cheek violently.] Ah these wasps!
MR SLOCUM: [Coolly.] May I then offer you a seat, Madam?
MRS ROONEY: [With exaggerated enthusiasm.] Oh that would be heavenly, Mr Slocum, just simply heavenly. [Dubiously.] But would I ever get in, you look very high off the ground today, these new balloon tyres I presume. [Sound of door opening and MRS ROONEY trying to get in.] Does this roof never come off? No? [Efforts of MRS ROONEY.] No …. I’ll never do it … you’ll have to get down, Mr Slocum, and help me from the rear. [Pause.] What was that? [Pause. Aggrieved.] This is all your suggestion, Mr Slocum, not mine. Drive on, Sir, drive on.
MR SLOCUM: [Switching off engine.] I’m coming, Mrs Rooney, I’m coming, give me time, I’m as stiff as yourself.
[Sound of MR SLOCUM extracting himself from driver’s seat.]
MRS ROONEY: Stiff! Well I like that! And me heaving all over back and front. [To herself] The dry old reprobate!
MR SLOCUM: [In position behind her.] Now, Mrs Rooney, how shall we do this?
MRS ROONEY: As if I were a bale, Mr Slocum, don’t be afraid, [Pause. Sounds of effort.] That’s the way! [Effort.] Lower! [Effort.] Wait! [Pause.] No, don’t let go! [Pause.] Suppose I do get up, will I ever get down?
MR SLOCUM: [Breathing hard.] You’ll get down, Mrs Rooney, you’ll get down. We may not get you up, but I warrant you we’ll get you down.
[He resumes his efforts. Sound of these.]
MRS ROONEY: Oh! … Lower! … Don’t be afraid! … We’re past the age when…. There! … Now! … Get your shoulder under it …. Oh! … [Giggles.] Oh glory! … Up! Up! … Ah! … I’m in! [Panting of MR SLOCUM. He slams the door. In a scream.] My frock! You’ve nipped my frock! [MR SLOCUM opens the door. MRS ROONEY frees her frock. MR SLOCUM slams the door. His violent unintelligible muttering as he walks round to the other door. Tearfully.] My nice frock! Look what you’ve done to my nice frock! [MR SLOCUM gets into his seat, slams driver’s door, presses starter. The engine does not start. He releases starter.] What will Dan say when he sees me?
MR SLOCUM: Has he then recovered his sight?
MRS ROONEY: No, I mean when he knows, what will he say when he feels the hole? [MR SLOCUM presses starter. As before. Silence.] What are you doing, Mr Slocum?
MR SLOCUM: Gazing straight before me, Mrs Rooney, through the windscreen, into the void.
MRS ROONEY: Start her up, I beseech you, and let us be off. This is awful!
MR SLOCUM: [Dreamily.] All morning she went like a dream and now she is dead. That is what you get for a good deed. [Pause. Hopefully.] Perhaps if I were to choke her. [He does so, presses the starter. The engine roars. Roaring to make himself heard.] She was getting too much air! [He throttles down, grinds in his first gear, moves off, changes up in a grinding of gears.]
MRS ROONEY: [In anguish.] Mind the hen! [Scream of brakes. Squawk of hen.] Oh, mother, you have squashed her, drive on, drive on! [The car accelerates. Pause.] What a death! One minute picking happy at the dung, on the road, in the sun, with now and then a dust bath, and then–bang!–all her troubles over. [Pause.] All the laying and the hatching. [Pause.] Just one great squawk and then … peace. [Pause.] They would have slit her weasand in any case. [Pause.] Here we are, let me down. [The car slows down, stops, engine running, MR SLOCUM blows his horn. Pause. Louder. Pause.] What are you up to now, Mr Slocum? We are at a standstill, all danger is past and you blow your horn. Now if instead of blowing it now you had blown it at that unfortunate–
[Horn violently. TOMMY the porter appears at top of station steps.]
MR SLOCUM: [Calling.] Will you come down, Tommy, and help this lady out, she’s stuck.
[TOMMY descends the steps.]
Open the door, Tommy, and ease her out.
[TOMMY opens the door.]
TOMMY: Certainly, sir. Nice day for the races, sir. What would you fancy for–
MRS ROONEY: Don’t mind me. Don’t take any notice of me. I do not exist. The fact is well known.
MR SLOCUM: Do as you’re asked, Tommy, for the love of God.
TOMMY: Yessir. Now, Mrs Rooney.
[He starts pulling her out.]
MRS ROONEY: Wait, Tommy, wait now, don’t bustle me, just let me wheel round and get my feet to the ground. [Her efforts to achieve this.] Now.
TOMMY: [Pulling her out.] Mind your feather, Ma’am. [Sounds of effort.] Easy now, easy.
MRS ROONEY: Wait, for God’s sake, you’ll have me beheaded.
TOMMY: Crouch down, Mrs Rooney, crouch down, and get your head in the open.
MRS ROONEY: Crouch down! At my time of life! This is lunacy!
TOMMY: Press her down, sir.
[Sounds of combined efforts.]
MRS ROONEY: Pity!
TOMMY: Now! She’s coming! Straighten up, Ma’am! There!
[MR SLOCUM slams the door.]
MRS ROONEY: Am I out?
[The voice of MR BARRELL, the station-master, raised in anger.]
MR BARRELL: Tommy! Tommy! Where the hell is he?
[MR SLOCUM grinds in his gear.]
TOMMY: [Hurriedly.] You wouldn’t have something for the Ladies Plate, sir? I was given Flash Harry.
MR SLOCUM: [Scornfully.] Flash Harry! That carthorse!
MR BARRELL: [At top of steps, roaring] Tommy! Blast your bleeding bloody– [He sees MRS ROONEY.] Oh, Mrs Rooney.… [MR SLOCUM drives away in a grinding of gears.] Who’s that crucifying his gearbox, Tommy?
TOMMY: Old Cissy Slocum.
MRS ROONEY: Cissy Slocum! That’s a nice way to refer to your betters. Cissy Slocum! And you an orphan!
MR BARRELL: [Angrily to TOMMY.] What are you doing stravaging down here on the public road? This is no place for you at all! Nip up there on the platform now and whip out the truck! Won’t the twelve thirty be on top of us before we can turn round?
TOMMY: [Bitterly.] And that’s the thanks you get for a Chr
istian act.
MR BARRELL: [Violently.] Get on with you now before I report you! [Slow feet of TOMMY climbing steps.] Do you want me to come down to you with the shovel? [The feet quicken, recede, cease.] Ah God forgive me, it’s a hard life. [Pause.] Well, Mrs Rooney, it’s nice to see you up and about again. You were laid up there a long time.
MRS ROONEY: Not long enough, Mr Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were still in bed, Mr Barrell. [Pause.] Would I were lying stretched out in my comfortable bed, Mr Barrell, just wasting slowly, painlessly away, keeping up my strength with arrowroot and calves-foot jelly, till in the end you wouldn’t see me under the blankets any more than a board. [Pause.] Oh no coughing or spitting or bleeding or vomiting, just drifting gently down into the higher life, and remembering, remembering … [The voice breaks.] … all the silly unhappiness … as though … it had never happened …. What did I do with that handkerchief? [Sound of handkerchief loudly applied.] How long have you been master of this station now, Mr Barrell?
MR BARRELL: Don’t ask me, Mrs Rooney, don’t ask me.
MRS ROONEY: You stepped into your father’s shoes, I believe, when he took them off.
MR BARRELL: Poor Pappy! [Reverent pause.] He didn’t live long to enjoy his ease.
MRS ROONEY: I remember him clearly. A small ferrety purple-faced widower, deaf as a doornail, very testy and snappy. [Pause.] I suppose you’ll be retiring soon yourself, Mr Barrell, and growing your roses. [Pause.] Did I understand you to say the twelve thirty would soon be upon us?
MR BARRELL: Those were my words.
MRS ROONEY: But according to my watch which is more or less right–or was–by the eight o’clock news the time is now coming up to twelve … [Pause as she consults her watch.] … thirty-six. [Pause.] And yet upon the other hand the up mail has not yet gone through. [Pause.] Or has it sped by unbeknown to me? [Pause.] For there was a moment there, I remember now, I was so plunged in sorrow I wouldn’t have heard a steam roller go over me.
[Pause. MR BARRELL turns to go.] Don’t go, Mr Barrell! [MR BARRELL goes. Loud.] Mr Barrell! [Pause. Louder.] Mr Barrell! [MR BARRELL comes back.]
MR BARRELL: [Testily.] What is it, Mrs Rooney, I have my work to do.
[Silence. Sound of wind.]
MRS ROONEY: The wind is getting up. [Pause. Wind.] The best of the day is over. [Pause. Wind. Dreamily.] Soon the rain will begin to fall and go on falling, all afternoon.