Crossings Read online

  Deirdre Kinahan

  CROSSINGS

  NICK HERN BOOKS

  London

  www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Original Production

  Characters

  Crossings

  About the Author

  Copyright and Performing Rights Information

  Crossings was commissioned by Pentabus and New Perspectives and first performed at Pentabus Theatre, Bromfield, Shropshire, on Wednesday 10 October 2018.The cast was as follows:

  VICTORIA BRAZIER

  WILL O’CONNELL

  Director

  Sophie Motley

  Set and Lighting Designer

  Sarah Jane Shiels

  Sound Designer

  Helen Skiera

  Costume and Props

  Carl Davies

  Movement Director

  Kitty Winter

  Voice and Accent Coach

  Emma Stevens-Johnson

  Associate Sound Designer

  Joe Dines

  Production Manager

  Alison Willcox

  Rehearsal Stage Manager

  Chaz Webb

  Touring Stage Manager

  Ali Bakewell

  Characters

  MARGARET

  GRACE

  SEAN

  MIRJANA

  This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

  ACT ONE

  We are in a traditional English village hall. A piano sits in the corner.

  The door opens and a woman, GRACE, enters, it is spring 1919. She wears a fashionable suit, and hat with a veil, which covers her face. She holds a clutch bag and carries a box parcel tied with string. She looks around the room. She is expecting someone. She sits on a chair against the wall. She waits. She is awkward. She looks out the window. She then approaches the piano. She runs her hand along the piano, opens it up and hits a note. She puts her bag on top and starts to play the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’… music first and then she sings… she has the voice of an Irishman.

  Another woman, MARGARET, enters, she is unnoticed. GRACE moves effortlessly from the hymn to another tune ‘Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty’… MARGARET interrupts after a verse.

  MARGARET. Miss Doherty?

  GRACE hits a discordant note and stops playing. She is a little aghast. She stands.

  GRACE. Yes. Yes. That’s me. I’m. I am.

  I am Miss Doherty.

  They both stand in silence.

  I… I just arrived.

  On the train.

  MARGARET. Very good.

  GRACE. Yes. It is. It’s very good. Very comfortable… and punctual.

  MARGARET. Very punctual.

  GRACE. Yes.

  Slight pause.

  Are you Margaret?

  MARGARET. I am.

  GRACE. Well… well…

  She sits back down again on the stool.

  I’m sorry.

  She takes a handkerchief from her sleeve.

  MARGARET. Are you not well?

  GRACE. No. Yes. No I’m really, I am quite well. It’s just that you look like… you resemble William… you do… you really do and… well, perhaps it’s all a bit… a little… startling.

  MARGARET. Startling?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. You say you knew William?

  In your note?

  You sent a note.

  GRACE. Yes, I did. And yes I knew William very well.

  MARGARET. How?

  GRACE. How?

  MARGARET. Yes. How did you know William?

  GRACE. Why we served together.

  MARGARET. You served together?

  GRACE. Yes.

  Inniskilling Fusiliers.

  MARGARET. William wasn’t in the Inniskilling Fusiliers.

  GRACE. No.

  Yes. I know that.

  MARGARET. William was in the King’s Shropshire.

  GRACE. Yes I know that.

  I was in the Inniskilling…

  MARGARET. Lance Sergeant.

  William was a Lance Sergeant.

  GRACE. Yes I know that.

  MARGARET. So?

  GRACE. So?

  MARGARET. I’m afraid.

  This appears.

  You appear.

  This is all a little confusing, Miss Doherty.

  GRACE. Is it?

  MARGARET. Yes it is.

  And I am a busy woman.

  I have things to do.

  GRACE. Of course you do.

  MARGARET. I have to open the hall.

  I have to arrange… chairs.

  I have to…

  GRACE. I brought some letters.

  Photographs.

  MARGARET. I have all of William’s letters.

  GRACE. And a few locks of his hair.

  I promised, you see.

  I promised William that I would find you.

  MARGARET. You promised William…?

  GRACE. That I would find you.

  MARGARET. It’s hardly difficult to find me, Miss Doherty.

  I was born and bred in Badgersbridge.

  GRACE. As was William.

  MARGARET. Yes. As was William.

  GRACE. And he wanted to be buried here.

  Did you know that?

  Next to the railway station.

  Under the old oak tree.

  If anything happened.

  He said that that was his spot.

  MARGARET is dumbfounded. She doesn’t reply… GRACE continues.

  He said that he would go missing there for hours, sketching the trains. Sketching the passengers.

  He said that you used to love watching the trains too when you were little.

  MARGARET. I didn’t… I don’t have time to watch trains.

  GRACE. A peculiar pastime all right… but then William was…

  MARGARET. William was what, Miss Doherty?

  GRACE. A different sort.

  MARGARET. A different sort, what do you mean by that, a different sort?!

  GRACE. Well, he sketched everything, didn’t he?

  I have two of his notebooks from France.

  Trucks, ditches, birds.

  Tinned milk, satchels… and faces… so many faces.

  And William could catch a face, couldn’t he.

  Couldn’t he, Margaret…?

  She makes to move toward her. MARGARET flinches. GRACE hesitates.

  He could catch the pain. The confusion… or the laughter.

  William could catch everything.

  See everything.

  That’s what made him different.

  MARGARET. I have… I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean?

  GRACE. I brought them with me, Margaret.

  William’s notebooks.

  I thought that I might bury them too but now I’m afraid that I can’t part with them.

  MARGARET. Bury?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. What on earth are you talking about, bury?

  GRACE. I promised.

  MARGARET. Promised who?

  Promised what?

  You are speaking in riddles.

  GRACE. Promised William, of course!

  But there was nothing left of him.

  You know that don’t you, Margaret?

  They told you that didn’t they – the army?

  MARGARET. William died in action.

  GRACE. Yes he did.

  MARGARET. William died on the field.

  GRACE. Yes.

  Did they tell you how?

  Did they tell you why?

  MARGARET doesn’t answer.

  William was out with a posse laying roads.

  He was laying a road in preparation for batt
le.

  And we were behind the lines… that’s the worst of it, Margaret… because he wasn’t supposed to… we weren’t supposed to die… because of the Balmorals.

  But it was a stray shell.

  A stray bloody shell.

  They’re not even sure if it was German or one of ours but it landed on top of him.

  William.

  It landed right on top…

  And I wasn’t there.

  And I wish I was, Margaret.

  Because I wish that I had died with him.

  Because I don’t know how to live.

  How to live without him now.

  Pause.

  MARGARET is aghast.

  Oh dear, have I said too much?

  Have I said too much, Margaret?

  MARGARET sits down silently in a chair.

  I promised.

  We promised, you see.

  Me and William.

  That if anything ever happened to either of us… that no matter what… we would bring the other home.

  So William chose his tree, Margaret, and I chose mine.

  And he told me exactly where it was, his tree, and I saw it as soon as I stepped off the train. I saw the ancient green of it. The thick of it.

  But he also told me to find you.

  ‘Find Margaret,’ he said, ‘you’ll love Margaret.’

  Slight pause.

  So here I am.

  MARGARET. Here you are.

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. ‘Startling.’

  There is a lot that is startling returns from this war.

  Slight pause.

  GRACE. So I thought… I hoped we might make a day of it?

  MARGARET. Make a day of what?

  Burying my brother?

  GRACE. He said you had a sharp tongue on you all right.

  But he also said to persevere… you’re softer than you let on.

  Slight pause.

  MARGARET. William said that.

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. It certainly sounds like something he would say.

  She pulls a hanky from her pocket.

  What was that hymn you were playing?

  GRACE. Hymn?

  MARGARET. On the piano.

  GRACE. Only ‘Blighty’.

  MARGARET. No, no before that?

  GRACE. Oh. That was William’s song for me.

  MARGARET. Grace?

  GRACE. Yes. I took the name after my mother.

  Though I’m not so sure she’d enjoy the compliment…

  MARGARET. I don’t. I really don’t understand this… You!

  GRACE. Me?

  MARGARET. Yes. I mean. Where… Where are you… your mother from?

  GRACE. Kells.

  Ireland.

  MARGARET. Ireland?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. Dear God…

  GRACE. Don’t you like Ireland?

  MARGARET. I know nothing of it… Nothing, Miss Doherty, except that it is a heinous treasonous place.

  GRACE. But what would give you that idea?

  MARGARET. Your little Easter Rebellion!

  You stabbed England in the back.

  GRACE. Ahh…

  Not everyone would see it that way.

  MARGARET. Well, we see it that way.

  We at Badgersbridge see it that way and we don’t know any Irish, and William doesn’t… didn’t know any Irish!

  GRACE. Thousands of us fought for you.

  Thousands of us died.

  MARGARET cannot reply.

  So I need to finish, Margaret… or I need to start… I’m not sure which.

  But what I do know is that I have this little box… and it is William… part of William, not the part that was blown to bits… but the living part, the heart of him and I’ve kept it with me for two years and I’ve kept it safe and now I need to bury it… bury him under his tree… so that I can continue with my life.

  MARGARET (exhales). I see.

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. And you want me to be a part of this charade?

  GRACE. Oh dear. You are hard.

  The war has made you hard.

  MARGARET. Life has made me hard, Miss Doherty.

  This life.

  GRACE. I don’t doubt it.

  I don’t doubt that you have cause.

  But we are survivors, aren’t we?

  Like it or not we survived.

  And if we don’t let in some light, Margaret.

  Some love.

  Or softness.

  Then what was all the killing for?

  Slight pause.

  Now I would like you to be a part of this… this laying-down of William.

  Because William loved you.

  He loved you with all his heart but…

  MARGARET. I know that William loved me!

  I know that…

  GRACE. Good.

  MARGARET. Good.

  GRACE smiles.

  GRACE. It’s a cold corner, Margaret.

  On that lonely road at Ypres.

  I just want to fulfil my promise and bring William, my William… home.

  MARGARET. Your William?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET. But aren’t you a man, Grace?

  GRACE. I’m a class of a man all right.

  MARGARET. Dear God!

  GRACE. Him again.

  Slight pause.

  MARGARET. I will ask you not to blaspheme…

  GRACE. It’s you that said his name, not me.

  MARGARET. Oh… Oh you are clever. Clever!

  I’ll give you that.

  GRACE (sighing). You are not the woman I imagined, Margaret.

  MARGARET. And I must say… neither are you, Grace Doherty!

  GRACE laughs now.

  She really laughs.

  GRACE. Grand.

  Grand so.

  I’ll go.

  I’ll go and do this by myself.

  MARGARET. No! No.

  I… I… I want to know what you know.

  I want to hear.

  Hear.

  What you have to say. Please…

  GRACE. What I have to say?

  MARGARET. Yes.

  GRACE. I don’t know what I have to say except that I love… loved your brother, Margaret.

  MARGARET. Loved my brother?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET (blurts). I loved him too.

  I… I loved him too.

  Pause as MARGARET attempts to pull herself together.

  Please.

  God. Dear God…

  GRACE. I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you.

  MARGARET. I’m not…

  I’m not upset. I just … I just need to verify.

  GRACE. What?

  MARGARET. That he. That you!

  That you are what you say you are… William’s friend?

  GRACE. And how do you hope to do that?

  MARGARET. Well, can I? May I start by seeing your face?

  GRACE. My face?

  MARGARET. Yes.

  …please.

  GRACE pauses a moment then carefully lifts up her veil.

  MARGARET looks at her. She reaches out her hand to GRACE’s face then pulls it back.

  Don’t you get stopped?

  Found out?

  GRACE. Rarely in Soho.

  MARGARET. Soho?

  London?

  Is that where you live?

  GRACE. Yes, that’s where I live.

  MARGARET. But what about today on the train?

  Did no one?

  Did no one stop you?

  GRACE. Today I am burying William.

  I will not deny us.

  MARGARET. Us?

  GRACE. Yes. Us.

  MARGARET. Well.

  I think you are very brave, Grace Doherty.

  GRACE. War can do that to you.

  MARGARET. Can it?

  I have a feeling that you were always brave.

  Slight pause.
>
  And did William?

  Did William know how you felt about him?

  GRACE. Oh yes. He loved me too.

  MARGARET. God… (Swallows the word now.)

  I can’t pretend to understand it… what you are saying… what I think you are saying.

  GRACE. There’s not so much to understand.

  MARGARET. But I did…

  I have heard … about such things…

  GRACE. Such things?

  MARGARET puts her hand to GRACE’s face again.

  This time she strokes it…

  MARGARET. War is brutal.

  GRACE. I know that.

  MARGARET. War is cruel.

  GRACE. I know that too.

  MARGARET. And this war… this war, Miss Doherty… the stories I have heard about life… life out there. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to think of William in it… all that mud and blood and murder. William is… was, you see… the most gentle of men. William wouldn’t hurt a fly so I knew, I knew that he would never survive it… as the truth came home… as the truth, not their bloody lies of glory and victory and love of country… but the truth… then I knew, I knew, William could only die in it.

  So I understand what you are saying, Grace, accept what you are saying because I believe that so far away from home and in times of great loneliness… one might ache… ache… for any form of comfort…

  GRACE. Why?

  Are you lonely, Margaret?

  MARGARET. I beg your pardon?

  GRACE. Do you ache?

  MARGARET. I… I! My. That is none of your business!

  GRACE. Don’t you have a sweetheart?

  MARGARET. A sweetheart?

  GRACE. Yes.

  MARGARET scoffs a laugh.

  MARGARET. The thought of it!

  GRACE. So you still live with your mother?

  MARGARET. No!

  No.

  Mother died.

  GRACE. She died?

  MARGARET. Yes.

  Not long after William.

  GRACE. Oh God, I am so sorry…

  I didn’t know.

  MARGARET. How could you know?

  What would you know about my mother?!

  GRACE. Only what William told me.

  And he spoke about her often… about you both often… and about your life here. He said it was a good life.

  MARGARET. It was a good life.

  Until Father died.

  GRACE. Then there was no money.

  MARGARET. How do you know these things?

  GRACE. Because William…

  That’s why he joined up, wasn’t it, Margaret.

  MARGARET. But we told him not to.

  We pleaded with him not to!

  GRACE. He wanted to save you the house.

  MARGARET. Ah yes, the house.