The Remains of Maisie Duggan by Winters Carmel;

Author:Winters, Carmel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Scene Two

The kitchen is gleaming from top to bottom. Maisie takes off her apron, straightens a kettle on the stove and assembles the kitchen chairs in a direct line to the open mouth of the oven.

She is about to climb onto the chairs but the gaze of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hanging on the wall opposite bothers her. She covers his face with a tea-towel before lying back down on the chairs and putting her head in the oven.

We hear the gas hiss.

Kathleen enters, with transparent plastic gloves on and a plastic tub of hair dye in hand.

Kathleen There was only a scrape in the two packets, I don’t know will we have enough to do the whole head – The sight of her mother’s head in the oven, the shoe dangling from her foot sends Kathleen into a panic.

Kathleen Mam? Mam!

Maisie (scrambling out) What? What is it?

Kathleen Your two legs sticking . . . The way your shoe – dangling . . .

Maisie stands guiltily in front of the oven.

Kathleen Did you do that to me before? When I was small, did I see – what did I see?

Maisie Good girl. (Examining the plastic tub of dye.) That’s it, is it? What’s left of the two packets mixed?

Kathleen separates the chairs. Closes the oven door. Switches off the gas.

Kathleen That’s it.

Maisie takes the towel from the Sacred Heart and puts it around her shoulders, ready for Kathleen to begin.

Kathleen If you waited ’til the morning I could nip to the chemist for a new pack.

Maisie No more waiting. Concentrate on the front and sides and it’ll be grand. They’ll hardly have me thrown in my coffin face down.

Kathleen Right.

Maisie (beat) And I don’t want any fancy headstone. If he didn’t spend a bob on me and I alive, there’s no sense throwing money at my corpse now.

Kathleen ‘Kay. Head back.

They work in silence for several moments, Kathleen splattering the near-empty tub of hair dye onto her mother’s head.

Maisie There was a call for you while you were out. She didn’t give her name, said you’d got cut off the other day.

Kathleen says nothing.

Maisie I said you were out on the farm blocking a gap in the ditch or something. She said she’d call back later.

Kathleen When?

Maisie About a half hour ago, maybe more. She had a nice manner of speaking. Elegant.

Kathleen No, I mean, what time did she say she’d call back? Did she mean tonight?

Maisie She didn’t say. Should I have asked? Suppose I should have. I didn’t like to pry.

Several beats.

Maisie ‘Kitty’ she called you. In her lovely elegant voice. ‘Can I speak to Kitty please?’ As if she was worried about you . . .

Kathleen busies herself with the hair dying, but she is clearly shaken. Several moments pass.

Maisie Oh! I nearly forgot. If I don’t give you these now Reilly’s wife will get her claws on them.

Maisie takes off her earrings, gives them to Kathleen.

Maisie You saved up your Holy Communion money for them earrings.

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