The Cripple of Inishmaan (Modern Plays) by Martin McDonagh

Author:Martin McDonagh
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
Published: 2013-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

Scene Six

The shop, summer, four months later. A couple of flyers for Man of Aran, being shown at the church hall, hang on the walls. The sweetie boxes and a stone lie on the counter, beside which Bartley stands, pursing his lips dumbly and doing other stuff for a few moments to fill in time as he waits for Kate to return. Helen enters carrying a few dozen eggs.

Helen What are you waiting for?

Bartley She’s gone in the back to look for me Fripple-Frapples.

Helen Oh you and your fecking Fripple-Frapples.

Bartley Fripple-Frapples are nice sweeties.

Helen arranges the eggs on the counter.

Barley I see you’ve brought the eggs up.

Helen You, you’re awful observant.

Bartley I thought bringing the eggs was the egg-man’s job.

Helen It was the egg-man’s job, but I did kick the egg-man in the shins this after and he didn’t feel up to it.

Bartley What did you kick the egg-man in the shins for?

Helen He insinuated it was me murdered Jack Ellery’s goose and Pat Brennan’s cat for them.

Bartley But it was you murdered Jack Ellery’s goose and Pat Brennan’s cat for them.

Helen I know it was, but if it gets bandied around town I’ll never be getting paid.

Bartley How much are you getting paid?

Helen Eight bob for the goose and ten bob for the cat.

Bartley Why did you charge extra for the cat?

Helen Well, I had to pay Ray Darcy for the borrow of his axe. See, the goose I only had to stomp on him. It takes more than a stomp to polish a cat off.

Bartley A plankeen of wood you could’ve used on the cat, and saved shelling out for the axe at all.

Helen Sure I wanted the job carried out professional, Bartley. A plank is the weapon of a flat-faced child. I wouldn’t use a plank on a blue-arsed fly.

Bartley What would you use on a blue-arsed fly?

Helen I wouldn’t use a thing on a blue-arsed fly. There’s no money involved in killing blue-arsed flies.

Bartley Jim Finnegan’s daughter killed twelve worms one day.

Helen Aye, be breathing on them.

Bartley No, be sticking needles in their eyes.

Helen Now there’s the work of an amateur. (Pause.) I didn’t even know worms had eyes.

Bartley They don’t after Jim Finnegan’s daughter gets through with them.

Helen What’s this stone here for?

Bartley I caught Mrs Osbourne talking to that stone when first I came in.

Helen What was she saying to the stone?

Bartley She was saying ‘How are you, stone’, and then putting the stone to her ear like the stone was talking back to her.

Helen That’s awful strange behaviour.

Bartley And asking the stone, then, if it knew how oul Cripple Billy was doing for himself in America.

Helen And what did the stone say?

Bartley (pause) The stone didn’t say anything, Helen, because stones they don’t say anything.

Helen Oh, I thought you said Mrs Osbourne was doing the voice for the stone.

Bartley No, Mrs Osbourne was just doing her own voice.

Helen Maybe we should hide the stone and see if Mrs Osbourne has a nervous breakdown.

Bartley Sure that wouldn’t be a very Christian thing to do, Helen.

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