The CTR Anthology Read online

  Uncle John: Arch! ’Twas a bloody prison. (Confused) Dey’s something there though. (Walks forward right.) Something. Can’t quite put me finger to it. Is it because I’m what I am that they is what they is. Because o’ ye and them.

  Skipper Pete: It’s all of it. It’s ye and the Govermint wid its eddication and its handouts and the women snivelling after hot air stoves and ’lectric ovens and motor cars and Bishops goin’ from altar to altar and seein’ nothing between …

  Uncle John: (Unhearing) They was either hypocritical God-driven old tyrants like ye or wild men like me fader who cursed God and man and the sea until one o’ the three took’n.

  (A pause)

  Skipper Pete: (Sighs) We’se old men now, me son. No pint in us fretting now. Just do what we have to do. That’s all they is. Relive the good times. (A pause) They was good times. (John does not answer.) They was good times. (John is staring painfully out.) Canvas – salt-stiff cracking in the wind. Fish in their t’ousands. The voyage home wid a fair wind and the holds full. Walking thru’ the skinny clerks o’ St John’s, they feared to look at’n. Aye they was good times.

  Uncle John: Were they? (A pace towards Pete) I need to know, Pete. God help me, I don’t know myself. Was they good times?

  (Pete looks at him. Then down at the net in his hands)

  Skipper Pete: I’ll finish me net now, son. It’s time. (This is said with an air of finality. John pauses a moment, indecisive. Then moves backstage area. Exits onto stage head.)

  Skipper Pete: (Singing-humming)

  Eternal father strong to save

  Whose arm does bind the restless wave …

  (Pauses – puzzled. To himself)

  That’s no good fer today. Today’s fer celebratin’. The end of the voyage.

  The journey. (Hums again.)

  At the tender age of sixteen years,

  I had to sail away,

  All on a banking schooner,

  In the morning light of day,

  (A woman s voice outside.)

  Woman: John. John.

  Skipper Pete: (Looks up sharply. Cocks his head, spits with disgust.) Get in anywhere they will.

  (John staggers back through rear door carrying a huge killick. Places it right centre.)

  Woman: (Off) John. Are ye there?

  Skipper Pete: Don’t let that in ’ere.

  Uncle John: ’Tis yer own daugher. (Bitter) Remember?

  Skipper Pete: Kin be the Divil’s for all I know. Jest don’t let it in here.

  (The woman appears in D/S right doorway.)

  Woman: There you are.

  Skipper Pete: (Laughing without mirth) Go to her, boy. Go to her. (Mimics) John. John.

  Uncle John: (Angry) Ye mind, Skipper. Ye mind. She wouldn’t ’a come unless it was important.

  (Pete spits emphatically once more. John crosses to his wife. She’s still standing outside the door.)

  Wife: I jist wanted to know, John, if ye was coming to Aunt Alice’s funeral. It’s at three o’clock.

  Uncle John: (Uncertain) Oh aye. I’d forgotten. We was finishing up ye see. I s’spose we’d better go then. (Turns to Pete) Will we be done by three, Skipper? (Pete doesn’t bother to answer. John takes a pace towards him.) Aunt Alice is to be buried at three.

  Skipper Pete: When did she die?

  (Wife climbs across entrance, and goes right of John.)

  Wife: Last night, poor soul. And her as frail as a bird. “Put another quilt on me for the Lard Jesus Sake” she said, not meaning it blasphemous, mind, “For I’m so thin I’m sure I’ll fly to Heaven afore me time’s up.” And she laughed then ye know – just like a poor sick chicken the sound was, a little whispering in the throat, and then she closed her …

  Skipper Pete: (Abruptly) Which cemetery?

  Uncle John: (Anxious to prevent his wife getting into full flow again) That’d be the Pentecostal wouldn’t it, maid? Alice and they was all Pentecostal.

  Skipper Pete: (As if unhearing) What cemetery did ye say?

  Uncle John: (Shouting) Pentecostal. She’s to be put down in the Pentecostal.

  Skipper Pete: I’ll not be going. Never been to a Pentecostal service in me life an I’m too old to start that foolishness now.

  Wife: She was kin, father. Ye should be ashamed of yerself. And she did many a good turn for our poor mother, God rest her soul.

  Skipper Pete: (Suddenly raging) Ah, to the Divil with the lot o’ ye. What she did fer yer mother on this earth might help her in the next and I wish her good luck we’ her good deeds. But she did nothing for me, and she’s a Pentecost. And I’ll not be going to any arm-raising mumbo jumbo like that. (As an afterthought) Not while I’m alive anyways.

  Wife: Ye haven’t changed. (She pushes past John and crosses to Pete.) Not one bit, father. Only one breath away from God or the Devil hisself and still as spiny as a whore’s egg.

  Skipper Pete: Mind yer place, girl. Ye’re in my house and don’t forgit it.

  Wife: (Hurling across stage right) House is it? (Laughs) A house. Oh sure, ’tis where ye spend time making fools of yourselves, the two of ye. Coiling and uncoiling the same rope day after day. Knitting nets you’ll never use. Making killicks. And they’s only fit now to make ornaments in the homes of the stuck-up in St John’s and upalong. Talking about things that once were and will never be again, Thank God. (She is flushed and angry. Storms over to the killick and with one heave pushes it over.)

  Uncle John: That’s enough, maid. Ye’ve no right to be saying those things.

  Wife: Enough! Oh, ’tis enough all right. I saw ye with the can on yistiday. Time for another celebration is it? A drunk at the end of the voyage and ye nivir moving from the stage hid from one day – no, year, to the next. An’ poor simple Absalom the only one can stand upright in a boat. What’ll the catch be today, boys? Three, four fish!

  Uncle John: That’s enough, woman. ’Tis no business of yours. We don’t harm no one.

  Wife: Just ye, John. (Softening, putting her hand on his arm) Can’t ye see? That’s the way he holds onto ye now. Just like it used to be. Smash yer face in if he caught ye with a drink on the voyage, and then encourage you to riot yer last cent away at the end of it, so ye had to go back. He’s still doin’ it, John. And ye should be at home now, on the daybed, or out on the bridge. With a nice cup of tea and a few squares I’d make ye. Living comfortable. Talking to yer neighbours. Waiting to see yer grandchildren.

  (Pete gets up. The conversation has taken a dangerous turn. He points his stick at her.)

  Skipper Pete: I niver wanted ye in my house. When ye were born. And I still don’t want ye. Get out. (He moves as if to strike her with his stick but she is unflinching, unafraid. Scornful.)

  Uncle John: Come on, maid. Come on out now. I’ll think about the funeral … (He takes her by the arm as if to propel her to the door)

  Wife: Get your foolish hands off me. I’ll find me own way to the door. Aye, and home. And to me Maker when the time comes. (She moves to the door. Turns back.) Don’t forgit yer supper will be waiting. And the television ye’re ashamed to tell him ye watch. And the electric blanket the doctor told ye to get to keep your arthritic bones from paining at nights. (Makes one last desperate effort.) For the love of God, John. Leave off this foolishness and come home.

  (John pauses, uncertain.)

  Skipper Pete: Go home, John, for the Lard Jesus sake. Go home. I’ll celebrate the end of the voyage by meself.

  Uncle John: I’ll be along by and by now, maid.

  Wife: An’ I knows when that’ll be. (Almost in tears) Theys times, so they is, when I wishes you’d fall into the water to be bait fer the connors and the tansies. If theys anything more foolish than a drunken young man ’tis a drunken old one. An if theys anything more foolish than a fine young man thinking he can make a living from the sea, ’tis an old man who can’t stop lying to himself about the living he used to make. (She turns, exits, pausing on the other side of the barrier to say) I’ll say a prayer at the graveside f
or ye, father. But I doubt it’ll do any good.

  (We hear her as she walks back along the rim of the stage and down the steps.)

  (A pause.)

  Skipper Pete: (Savage) I told ye not to let her in.

  Uncle John: (Defensive) She’s your daughter.

  Skipper Pete: Useless bitch. Always was. Can’t understand why ye married her.

  Uncle John: (Angrily raising the killick and dragging it towards his seat) Ye was happy enough fer it to happen at the time.

  Skipper Pete: (Laughs) Thought I’d get rid of both of ye at once. Killing two birds with one slingshot.

  Uncle John: No. No. That’s not it. (He stumps up stage right. Finds some heavy twine. Comes back and begins to fasten the four ends together) Ye thought … (viciously tightening the tope and punctuating his words with the actions) Ye thought that … with two of your responsibilities under one roof… that it’d be easier to bend’n.

  Skipper Pete: (Is enjoying himself. Is enjoying JohnV anger) John! John! When your father was drownded, I took ye fer me own. Treated ye just like me own sons …

  Uncle John: (Bitter) Aye. That’s true enough.

  Skipper Pete: Now they’s you and Absalom. And me. That’s all they is left of all of us. And I thought, if ye married me daughter, ye might be able to shut her blather long enough to give me a grandson, even two maybe …

  Uncle John: (Stung) There you goes again. Give you a grandson. Not me. Not for her and me. No. D’ye know what ye did? Ye came between us even there that’s what ye did. It was like (he struggles for words – feelings. Desperation) I’d be lying atop her and I’d hear your voice. Roaring. Give it to her son. Give it to her. Don’t stop now. Don’t give up. And she felt the same … We had to stop …

  Skipper Pete: (Still goading) Two daughters. And ye had to stop! What a man!

  Uncle John: There was no love in it. Ye killed it. In her. In me …

  Skipper Pete: (Mock rage) What’s love got to do with having sons. They’s necessary. To make things continue as they were. To …

  Uncle John: Then why in Jesus name didn’t ye knock her up yerself?

  (A shocked pause. John is shocked at himself Pete, however, is not.)

  Skipper Pete: That’s blasphemy, son. The real kind. Not a man’s kind.

  Uncle John: (Tormented) God damn it. I didn’t mean it. Not that way. (Desperate) Ye knows I never meant it that way.

  Skipper Pete: What way did ye mean it …

  Uncle John: (Raging around like a tormented animal, touching something here, throwing rope down there, spinning a barrel across the floor)

  This is it isn’t it? This is us. God damn it, this is the answer to the sum the teacher could never knock into me stupid skull. And I hates it. I hates it. (Throws more gear about.) But I don’t understand anything else. It’s too late.

  (A pause. He goes and slumps by the killick, his head in his hands.)

  Skipper Pete: (Rises. Crosses to him. Puts a hand on his shoulder. Goes backstage, speaks out of the gloom) Ye do understand son. We understand. The old way. The only way. The proper way to do things. Greet the day at cockcrow. The sea, no matter the weather. Stack the gear. Mend the nets. Make the killick. Keep the store in order. They’s nothing without it. (A moment of insight) The new ways is for new people, that’s all. We don’t want their sympathy. And I don’t give a damn if anyone understands it or not. It’s just the way things always was. (Softly) When fish was t’ousands, that was the time. Sea and wind howling like the Devil after a man’s soul but the traps was out and the fish waiting … (Pete comes down and takes John by the arm and raises him up). Look boy. Look. (He turns him round and they stand facing out through the church window over the sea.) The sun’s on the water. Just like it always was. Days like this when we’ve given her every stitch of canvas and foamed down the sound – the water alive with boats about us all rushing to git to the grounds first. Good men, John b’y. Good men. But they’s gone. And their boats gone wid’n. And the land gone wid’n too. The fences broken. The trees marching back over the hayfields.

  (There is a noise outside. A shouting. A child’s voice.)

  Child: Somebody, quick. Jimmy Fogarty’s fallen off the wharf.

  Skipper Pete: (Unhearing) People kin laugh at us, John b’y. But we knows what we is.

  Child: (Offstage) Help! Quick somebody. (Appears in doorway stage right. Rushes in) Uncle John. Uncle Pete. Jimmy Fogarty’s fallen off the wharf fishin’ for connors and he can’t swim. He’s drowning.

  Skipper Pete: (He and John still facing out, Pete with his arm gripped tightly on John’s. They don’t turn around. The child is behind them.)

  Skipper Pete: I mind when young Amos fell overboard from his father’s schooner on the Labrador. Remember that, John? Wind a bit fresh. They wasn’t watching the sail. Jibed a bit sudden and took him straight over the side into a school of dogfish.

  Uncle John: Aye. I remember that all right.

  Child: (Tugging at them from behind) Uncle John. Uncle Pete. Please come quick. Jimmy’s drowning.

  Uncle John: Stripped clean in ten minutes. Took three of us to hold his father down from going in after him.

  Skipper Pete: Aye. No pint in two of ’em feeding the devils.

  Child: (As any child ignored by adults persistently … less forcefully) Jimmy Fogarty’s in the water … (They ignore him. The child rushes off… his cries for help fading in the distance.)

  Skipper Pete: Every time they’d haul a dogfish in the nit after that he’d hack it to pieces …

  Uncle John: Aye. Like a wild man. Or he’d cut his belly open just enough for the blood to show then fling it back overboard and watch his brothers eat’n alive.

  (A pause. There’s a commotion outside which continues as Pete comes down slowly to his net, John to his killick. They begin to finish their work.)

  Skipper Pete: We shouldn’t be too long at it now.

  Uncle John: Not long. (He wrestles with the twine.)

  Skipper Pete: Absalom’s not so foolish he’d stay out all day.

  Uncle John: I ’lows he’ll come in directly now, when he’s caught something.

  Skipper Pete: Then we’ll have our own Thanksgiving.

  Uncle John: (Laughs, without mirth) Well. We’m alive. We can give thanks for that.

  (The noise outside is punctuated by a long high-pitched woman’s howl …An outburst of voices which dies away. Pete gets up and looks out of the window. Turns.)

  Skipper Pete: I ’low that the day is as civil as Wednesday afore last.

  Uncle John: I allow that it is. (Nods. Smiles) I ’low ’tis.

  (He works on in silence as …)

  Blackout

  ACT TWO

  The finished net is looped and draped from the beams stage left. The killick, finished, is now downstage left. Pete and John are sitting on two barrels on either side of the stove. In front of them another, smaller barrel on which rests three glasses and the jug of shine. As the curtain opens they are sitting, staring ahead, saying nothing. In the distance a bell begins to toll. John, after a moment listening, gets up slowly, goes to window left and stands looking out.

  Uncle John: That’s the bell for Aunt Alice. (No response) Quite a crowd too. They’s Faheys. They’s Catholic. Culls. They’s Anglican. An’ all the Pentecosts o’ course. Looks like it’s goin’ to be one of they mixed services everyone keeps on about. (A snort from Pete.)

  Skipper Pete: That’s easy for funerals.

  (John turns from the window, surprised.)

  Uncle John: Eh?

  Skipper Pete: Mixed funerals. They’s easy. Don’t mean nothing when the party’s dead.

  Christenings now – that’s different.

  Uncle John: How is it different?

  Skipper Pete: You never heard tell of the Pope attending a mixed christening now, have you.

  Uncle John: (Puzzled) No – I can’t say that I have.

  Skipper Pete: Well. Until he do I’ll stick to what I know. I thought I’d t
aught you that.

  (The bell is still tolling. John turns his head back and looks out. He says, with a trace of irony)

  Uncle John: Ye taught me so much, Skipper. I ’lows it’s difficult to remember all of it.

  Skipper Pete: (Unaware) Never change a habit or an opinion until someone proves there’s a better one.

  Uncle John: You and the Pope ’as got something in common after all then, Skipper …

  (Pete, surprised, is about to query this when there is the unmistakable sound of a four horsepower Acadia.)

  Skipper Pete: Listen, John. Listen.

  (Still it can be heard – amongst the bells.)

  Skipper Pete: Damn those bells. Enough to jangle the wits from the living.

  (The bells suddenly stop. The Acadia has the world of sound to itself.)

  Skipper Pete: It’s Absalom. Absalom, I’ll be bound.

  (John too is excited. He rushes backstage to the stage head door. Shouts back.)

  Uncle John: It’s him. It is Absalom.

  Skipper Pete: Any fish?

  Uncle John: What?

  Skipper Pete: Any fish?

  Uncle John: Can’t tell from here.

  Skipper Pete: Then ask him, ye fool.

  (John cups his hands.)

  Uncle John: Absalom. Hey, Absalom. Any fish?

  (The sound of the engine is quite close now.)

  Uncle John: Fish, boy. Any fish? (A pause) Skipper. He’s holden’n up. He’s got – one, two – my God he’s got six. And they’s big’uns.

  Skipper Pete: That’s my Absalom. Six, eh? A harvest. John, me son. The pan …

  (John scuttles to the table. Gets the pan. Brings it reverently down to the stove. Puts it on. Goes down right. Fetches bucket. Lifts hatch. Lowers bucket. Fetches up water. Puts bucket down. Lowers hatch. Pours some water from the bucket into the pan … Pauses …)

  Uncle John: Skipper. The table.

  Skipper Pete: (Lost in reverie) 1931 now, that was the year. 900 quintals, boat loaded until she was awash. Weather perfect. The sea like glass. The icebergs rearing up and folding in the sun. Lost a man that trip – that’s all. Tommy Burns from Greenspond. Fell overboard. Drunk. A single man, though, not as if he’d a family to keep. We divided his share among the rest of us.