The Field, John B. Keane

• ACT ONE, Scene 1
• [Action takes place in the bar of a public-house in Carraigthomond, a small village in the south-west of Ireland]
• BIRD. 'Tis weather for snowmen and Eskimos. Where's your father? This place is getting more like Las Vegas with all the gambling going on.
• MICK. Go upstairs, your dinner is ready. [To LEAMY] I thought I told you to sweep out the shop!
• LEAMY. I had to look after the kids while my mother was feeding the baby.
• MICK. 'Tis too fond you are of hanging out with women and children. 'Tis a daughter you should have been not a son. [Discovering another child] And what are you doing hiding under the table, you little divil? [To LEAMY] Go and ask your mother will the dinner be ready soon.
• MAGGIE [Laughs at the idea]. 'Tisn't drink I'm looking for, Mr Flanagan. 'Tis other business entirely that brought me. I've been thinking of payin' you a call for some time.
• MAGGIE. No, not the house! Lord save us, do you want me on the side of the road or stuck in a room in some back lane in Carraigthomond? 'Tis the field I came to see you about. I'm a poor widow woman and I want the best price I can get. They say you're an honest man to get the last half-penny for a person.
• MICK. 'Tis easy to see you're a moral woman. 'Twould be a brighter world if there were more like you.
• MICK [To BIRD]. 'Tis nothing these days but young married women guzzling gin and up till all hours playing bingo or jingo or whatever they call it. [To MAGGIE] You're a fine moral woman, ma'am. There's no one can deny that.
• MICK. There's a great demand for land these days. The country is full of upstarts, on the mark for grazing. No shortage of buyers.
• MAGGIE. 'Twas willed to me by husband five years ago. 'Twas purchased under the Land Act by my husband's father, Patsy Butler. He willed it to my husband and my husband willed it to me. I'm the registered owner of the field.
• MICK. I fancy the Bull won't want to see it bought by an outsider. 'Tis bordering his own land.
• MAGGIE. Mr Flanagan, the highest bidder will get the field.
• MICK. Oh that you may be sure. But the Bull is sure to be the highest bidder. He needs that field. Well, Mrs Butler... Maggie... I'll stick a notice in the paper this evening and I'll have thirty-six bills printed and ready the day after tomorrow.
• MICK. That's more than £200 an acre!
• MICK. True for you! True for you! You'll get the last brown copper for it. I'll make sure of that.
• MAGGIE. 'Tis all I have apart from my widow's pension and I can't live on that. God will reward you if you get a good price for me. [She rises] Is there money going to you?
• MAGGIE. My husband always said you were an honest man, that I was to come to you if I was ever forced to sell. The Lord have mercy on him, he was a good honest man.
• MICK. Don't I know it, but business is business, Bird, and business comes first with me.
• MICK. What the Bull likes or don't like is nothing to me. I have my job to do.
• MAIMIE. No one... only nine kids. [MICK glowers] The baby's asleep, so you needn't turn on the wireless. If he wakes, that's the end of my hair-do.
• BIRD. 'Twasn't me said that now, 'twas somebody else I'm quotin'. There was a bunch of us at the corner the other night and young Nesbitt started off about you. The way these young fellows talk about married women.
• MAIMIE. He's not a bad looking chap.
• BIRD. He never stopped talking for ten minutes. Couldn't figure out why you married your man.
• MAIMIE. I hadn't much sense at nineteen.
• BULL. Was oul' Maggie Butler in here?
• TADHG. I'd say he knows all. Wouldn't you know by the cut of him?
• BULL. I'd say so, too. [To BIRD] She was puttin' up the field, wasn't she, Bird?
• BULL. She's out of her mind!
• BULL. She'd be well paid indeed, if I was to fork out £200.
• BULL [Surprise]. There won't be any other bidders! I'll see to that. Half this village is related to me and them that isn't is related to my wife.
• BULL. That's what I care about outsiders. Accursed friggers with nothing in their heads only to own ground we're walking on. We had their likes long enough, hadn't we? Land is all that matters, Tadgh boy, own your own land.
• BULL [Squeezing TADGH'S arm, taking bag of biscuits]. An' we'll get it, we'll get it, oul' stock. By all rights 'tis our property an' we're not men to be cheated out of our property.
• BULL. The Bird here tells me you have a field for sale.
• BULL. 'Twould give me as much claim to the field as the woman who has it for sale.
• TADGH. There wouldn't be a stitch of grass in it only for the manure of the heifers... our heifers!
• MICK. Ah, now, Bull, be fair, she's entitled to the best price she can get. The field is legally hers.
• MICK [Detaches paper from BULL'S hand]. The auction will have to be held.
• BULL. If it don't go to the papers an' if there's no bills who's going to know except what's here?
• BULL. 'Twas done before. You did it yourself.
• MICK. What are you going to do? Kidnap him?
• MICK. Hold it! Hold it! I can't be party to this. There's a reserve of £800 and the old woman needs the money. Besides, it's illegal.
• MICK. You don't seem to understand that this is highway robbery.
• BULL. 'Tis as much mine! Look here, Flanagan, there's nothing to prevent a boycott of your shop.
• MICK. Fair enough! The Bird better keep his trap shut.
• MICK. I'll have to get the bills printed but I'll get the lot burned when they come from the printers.
• BIRD. What about a £1 on deposit?
• SERGEANT. I didn't call to see you, Mick. I came to have a word with Mr McCabe here.
• SERGEANT. This won't take long. I'm here investigating the death of a donkey.
• SERGEANT. Can you prove that you didn't visit Mrs Butler's field over the river on that night?
• BULL. The Bird there was playing cards with us till two o' clock in the mornin'.
• BIRD. Gospel!
• SERGEANT. How do you know he wasn't poisoned?
• SERGEANT. Bird, you say you were at this man's house that night and I say -- you're a liar!
• BULL. And a Sergeant might get his face split open one night and all the guards in Ireland wouldn't find out who did it... not if they searched till Kingdom Come!
• ACT ONE, Scene 2
• MAIMIE. Well, did he like it?
• MAIMIE. The fellow you told me about. Young Nesbitt, the solicitor's son.
• MAIMIE. Waited up till I came home. I asked a few of the boys in for a drink and he hiding all the time around in the stairway. [The BIRD whistles] Heard ever word we said. Luck o' God, 'twas all innocent. He got a great suck-in. It's a pity I didn't know he was listening I'd have stuck in something deliberately.
• MAIMIE. Oh, he waited till the boys were gone and there he was, sitting on the steps of the stairs as I was going up. Christ, I thought I'd drop dead... he struck me and I fell down the stairs. I pretended to be unconscious. That frightened him. You should have heard him! Oh, the lamenting would bring a laugh from a corpse.
• WILLIAM. No. I'm a Galway man. I live in England. Living there, twelve years. Me, if I had my way, that's where I'd like to stay.
• WILLIAM. No... business. That's why I'm here. I came to see your husband. If he's around I'd like a few words with him.
• WILLIAM. I have a letter here from Mr Nesbitt, the solicitor, about the sale of a field. [Looks at watch] The auction was supposed to take place at eleven o' clock today. Maybe there's been a mistake...
• MICK. There's only four acres... you couldn't possibly make a living there.
• WILLIAM. Nesbitt said nothing about a boycott.
• MICK. You don't know about land. You're a stranger... you wouldn't understand. There will be trouble.
• WILLIAM. Well, I'm a prospective buyer, so how about getting along with the auction?
• WILLIAM. I'm not so welcome, am I?
• BULL. No foreign cock with hair-oil and a tie-pin is goin' to do me out of my rights. I've had the field for five years. It's my only passage to water. You're tacklin' a crowd now that could do for you, man. Watch out for yourself.
• WILLIAM. Is that a threat?
• WILLIAM. All right. I'll bid £300.
• WILLIAM. I take it then that my bidding being the highest, you'll give me something in writing until morning.
• WILLIAM. That's not beyond me and I'm prepared to bid again.
• WILLIAM. If the field is for auction, I'm entitled to have a look at it.
• MAGGIE. You can see my field any time, sir.
• BULL. You should remember that!
• ACT ONE, Scene 3
• DANDY. Married twenty-four years and never a cross word between us.
• MAIMIE [Reading from ledger]. One acre of turbary purchases last January, including fees, thirty-six pounds ten. It's here all right, Dandy.
• BULL. You came, Dandy. Blood is thicker than water.
• BULL. ... So, when the civic guards come with their long noses, all of you will remember that Tadgh and myself were in this pub at the time that robbin' gazebo got his dues... We'll give him just enough to teach him a lesson. Now, I'll want a promise, won't I, to show we can trust one another. Dandy, you'll take an oath on the Holy Ghost.
• MICK. OK, Bull, but don't over do it.
• MAIMIE. It isn't right to beat a man up. He's alone here.
• BULL. There will be real trouble if you don't swear to keep your trap shut. I know enough about you to cause a right plateful of trouble. Your husband might be blind but the Bull McCabe knows your comings and goings like the back of his hand.
• BULL. Of course he won't. There's men around here would think nothing of puttin' a bomb up ag'in' a public house door. 'Twas done before, the time of the land division. Who's to say what people will do?
• MAIMIE. All right! All right! We get the message.
• ACT TWO, Scene 1
• TADGH. D'you think he'll come?
• TADGH. Why don't yourself and Ma talk?
• BULL [Rises, pauses, and returns to TADGH]. Eighteen years since I slept with her or spoke to her.
• BULL. I was in bed when she told me. I had a share of booze taken. I walloped her more than I meant, maybe.
• TADGH. There's a daughter of Patsy Finnerty's.
• TADGH. She's a man by day but she's a woman at night.
• TADGH. There's nine acres o' land.
• BULL. That will be knocked out of her.
• BIRD. Bull? ... Tadgh? ... Any of you there? Bull, 'tis me, the Bird... Tadgh?
• BULL. What do you know, ferret? Spit it out or 'twill be spat for you. [Releasing him] Come on! Out with it!
• BIRD. He was on the road behind me. That's why I ran. Don't forget who tipped you off, Bull.
• WILLIAM. Who the hell do you think you are? I have as much right to be here as you.
• BULL. You'll do as your told or your wife won't know you when she sees you again... an' I'm not foolin' you, boy!
• [WILLIAM attempts to pass BULL but TADGH jumps on him from behind, hits him on back of head and knocks him to ground]
• BULL. Stop it! ... Stop it! That's enough. We only wanted to frighten him.
• BIRD. You're after going too far. I don't like the look of him.
• [He kneels and examines WILLIAM. He is suddenly aware WILLIAM is dead. ... He then suddenly kneels and takes WILLIAM'S head in his lap and whispers an act of contrition.
• ACT TWO, Scene 2
• LEAMY. Muddy, why are the Bull McCabe and Tadgh and my father and the Sergeant such bullies?
• LEAMY. I was thinking of goin' to the barracks again and telling the Sergeant about the Bull.
• MAIMIE. No... not this time! There are hundred of guards, and detectives and the pressure is on for the first time and it's on from the outside.
• MAIMIE. I was never afraid once. I feared nothing that walked the face of the earth until my first child was born. A child makes a prisoner of a woman, but Leamy, you're a lovely gaoler... come on to Mass...
• BISHOP. 'Don't be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell.'
• How many of you, like Peter, would stand up and say: 'I know not the Man!' but you can lie without saying a word; you can lie without opening your lips; you can lie by silence.
• This is a parish in which you understand hunger. But there are many hungers. There is a hunger for food -- a natural hunger. There is the hunger of the flesh -- a natural understandable hunger. There is a hunger for home, for love, for children. These things are good -- they are good because they are necessary.
• But there is also the hunger for land. And in this parish, you, and your fathers before you knew what it was to starve because you did not own your own land -- and that has increased; this unappeasable hunger for land. But how far are you prepared to go to satisfy this hunger. Are you prepared to go to the point of robbery? Are you prepared to go to the point of murder? Are you prepared to kill for land? Was this man killed for land? Did he give his life's blood for a field? If so, that field will be a field of blood and it will be paid for in thirty pieces of silver -- the price of Christ's betrayal -- and you, by your silence will share in that betrayal.
• ACT TWO, Scene 3
• BULL. ... [To MAGGIE] Now, no one can say you didn't get a fair price.
• MAGGIE. So you say, but there's many that think that £800 would have been fairer.
• BULL. And we had to borrow from the bank. We're paupers but isn't it better to be a pauper and have a clean conscience about your debts?
• BULL. Isn't it better to have our principles than be millionaires? Isn't it, Tadgh?
• BULL. We have as fine a farm now as the best and maybe more to come and a woman with it, eh Tadgh?
• MICK. Father Murphy...!
• FR MURPHY. Better come to the point. This morning, Sergeant Leahy and I are making house to house calls. Our job is not a pleasant one but alas, 'tis a necessary one.
• MAGGIE. I don't live in the barracks with guards in all the rooms. An old woman... a woman drawing her pension that wants to be left alone... I never did harm to no one... I only ask to be left alone.
• SERGEANT. The mother has sworn him to silence. He'll never renege on her. His lips are stitched forever.
• MAIMIE. All right! So a man has been murdered! What's it to me? I've nine kids to look after. Look at the state of me from cooking and scrubbing and scraping but, thank God, I'm off on my annual holidays soon.
• MAIMIE. He did it... take him away! I'd swear him to the gallows if I thought I could have a year without having a baby.
• SERGEANT. Don't worry, Mick. Everybody knows that it wasn't you... because everybody knows that it was another man... maybe two men.
• SERGEANT. I'll watch you night and day from this on, you dirty, little sewer-rat. I'll haunt you, because I know as well as you do who committed the murder... And I think you were present when it happened.
• BIRD. If I took that £500, you'd be trying to solve a second murder, and you'd be no nearer than you are now to solving this one.
• SERGEANT. McCabe and his son killed this man. You know, I know and the whole village knows. Nobody cares and the terrible thing is nobody ever will care.
• BULL. And a woman it was, believe me! Isn't all the murders over women? 'Twas surely a woman.
• BULL. The likes of us that's ignorant has to be clever.
• BULL. And I'll ask God questions! There's a lot of questions I'd like to ask God. Why does God put so much misfortune in the world? Why did God make me one way and you another?
• BULL [Louder... after them]. No, I won't face her because I seen her and she's a pretty bit and the grass won't be green over his grave when she'll take another man... A dead man is no good to anyone. That's the way of the world. The grass won't be green over his when he'll be forgotten by all... forgot by all except me! [To MICK] There's your other twenty. C'mon Tadgh.