The Mushroom Pickers by Jaki McCarrick

Author:Jaki McCarrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Harvest Festivities. A long table is set in a field. A barbecue. There is a ghetto blaster playing The Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary. OWEN is DJ (he has a penchant for eighties tunes). PHILIP is holding court. TOM is dancing – eighties style. Voices rise above the music.

TOM Ah, Philip you make a great MC. The pickers are loving it. You have a great command with people as they say. Errol Flynn was exactly the same.

NANCY Don’t think there’s much of a comparison there now, Tom. It’s Tarry Flynn you’re thinking of.

PHILIP I should hope I’m nothing like either of them fecking eejit Flynns, excusing my language Mr. McE.

TOM I’ll say a prayer for you, don’t worry. (PHILIP gestures to OWEN to turn the music down. OWEN does so – just a little)

LAURA (dishing out the food) A great lover of Kavanagh aren’t you dad.

TOM Sure isn’t it a compliment I paid you when I compared you to Errol Flynn?

PHILIP Eh, no.

TOM If you say so.

OWEN Maybe you’ll do me Ladies Choice later, eh Nancy?

PHILIP Don’t fancy your chances of that, you.

OWEN Sure Nancy and me’s been forming a deep and close bond, McDonald.

PHILIP Sunshine’s getting to your head man. She’s just toying with you.

NANCY Tom you love Hollywood. You must admit, it’s what ruined your chances to be a priest. (to LAURA ) He’d be watching all the old films instead of reading the bible.

TOM Nancy you know rightly the two can be quite comfortable bedfellows and that’s not why they kicked me out.

NANCY Aye. ‘Family matters.’

TOM ‘Family matters’ exactly, Nancy.

PHILIP Ah Jaysus, we’ve got to get off that subject. Quick. Now! O’Gorman over there, you said you’d give us a rendition of Boolavogue. We’ll have it now please. Wait now and I’ll turn down this shite. (goes to ghetto blaster and turns off music)

Owen sings ‘Boolavogue’

AT BOOLAVOGUE AS THE SUN WAS SETTING

O’ER THE BRIGHT MAY MEADOWS OF SHELMALIER

A REBEL HAND SET THE HEATHER BLAZING, AND BROUGHT THE NEIGHBOURS FROM FAR AND NEAR. ETC

They all clap.

NANCY Ah that was beautiful, Owen. You have a beautiful voice. ‘Angelic’ is the word.

PHILIP (finds a prime position, readies himself, as if for a recitation) Now, when I was a lad, farming was real graft. None of this sunning yourself after picking a few mushrooms. I can remember my father setting off this time of year on a horse and cart filled with cabbages, travelling the guts of twenty mile to sell them at the market in Clones. Now that was backbreaking, heartbreaking work. Course it eventually killed him. That and the endless cutting and saving of turf and hay – but my point being – they – we – were made of different stuff in those days. Us men. Come spring, when the lambs ‘d be slaughtered, there I’d be with my tin cup catching the warm blood as it fell from the lamb’s throat (some squeamishness from crowd; PHILIP is unruffled) – then knocking it back goodo. Put hairs on a young fella’s chest, I tell you.

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