Cover

Landing Page

Sebastian Barry

The Pride of Parnell Street

Dedication

For Catriona Crowe

Contents

1. Title Page
2. Dedication
3. Characters
4. The Pride of Parnell Street
5. About the Author
6. By the Same Author
7. Copyright

Characters

Janet

Joe

THE PRIDE OF PARNELL STREET

September 1999. Janet is a Dublin woman of about thirty-three years of age. She wears the day clothes of a normal inner-city person: jeans and maybe a hooded jacket. She sits on a nondescript chair downstage left.

In the shadows to the right, lies her husband, Joe, on a bed – might be a hospital bed. He’s a good-looking man, some years older than Janet, but with his close-cut hair he looks rough enough. He has a thin gold chain around his neck. He’s very thin.

Their accent is the Dublin accent of the area around Parnell Street, north of the Liffey.

There might be a suggestion in the stage design of a number of things, the old ESB power station in Ringsend, maybe the old water conduit that used to pour out of it that Joe wanted to clean himself in, or other places of the play.

There can be bits of music, Thin Lizzy and other bands and songs mentioned in the play, where needed – maybe inside speeches, and certainly between, wherever is thought useful. The actors might stay where they are, or move about, as instincts dictate. Even Joe might want to get out of bed for certain very active speeches, and get back in again and resume his illness. The lighting should be helpful to the actors, and not necessarily naturalistic. There might be certain effects, of Dublin sunlight and so on, not necessarily where they are mentioned, but echoing things said, as comfort, or warning. It is not a naturalistic space, except in the last scene perhaps. It is all the places they have been and know, and describe, just as they embody all their ages and deeds. Whether they are aware of each other before the last scene is up to the actors’ instincts.

Light up clearly on Janet, who at last raises her eyes and looks straight out, with her fearless nature evident. She fingers the gold band of her wedding ring.

Janet   In them days – in them days, long long ago, it seems like, when we was girls only really ourselves – sounds like some storybook, but. Me, I’d had the three boys already, Billy, Jack and little Macker. I was sixteen years old when I had Billy. Then the other two, on the trot, really. Yeh, and I was hoping for a little girl, you know, the way you do, but we thought we’d better call a truce at three, me and their da. Big Macker was their da, me husband, but I called him Joe, because that was his real name. It was his ould mother called him Macker, you know?

He was what was called a Midday Man. A Midday Man did get up at midday and he goes along the cars and looks for open cars and then he goes in and takes what he can find. And then down to Parnell Street to the Afternoon Man, he was a man that sat in the ’98 pub, and he took in the stuff and gave cash on it, in the jacks like. And I was often told to go and do the same when the husband was laid up with flu or the like, and then I was a Midday Woman – you might say. But – that was how it was, in them days.

In them days – I’m fucking counting on me fingers and it’s only nine years ago and it could be ninety, for all the changes. And here comes the new fucking millennium, just around the corner, and I suppose we’re like the scrawny little kid on the seesaw, balancing in the middle, while his two mates bang the seesaw up and down at either end, in the ould playground on Hill Street as may be.

In them days was before the Africans came to Parnell Street and it was only ourselves knocking around and drinking in the pubs there. The kids played on the pavements outside the pub while we drank so we knew where they were. My Billy catched on the back of a beer lorry the O’Connell Street end of Parnell Street, and was dragged in the back of it somehow, how it happened only God knows, and when the driver heard people screaming at him, screaming at him they were, he stopped and got out of his cab, and found poor Billy all bundled up somehow in the what-ja-me-call-it, the fender round the back wheels. We didn’t have no money that time as usual and we had to bury little Billy in the Angels’ Acre, the plot of ground in Glasnevin where stillborn babbies and small childer was put. When they died. We stuck up a bit a’ wood for a cross with ‘Billy’ wrote on it and his ma put a dome of plastic flowers where she thought the little chest might be.

He was only six.

It was an awful pity we didn’t have the money for a headstone, you know.

Then when we had done our crying over that, Joe caught the middle child Jack at the same lark and he ran after and didn’t he give him a right thrashing for that, because he was still as sad as Marlon Brando after what happened to Billy.

So maybe Joe was like a fella gets a taste of blood, hitting something smaller than himself, you know?

And not that it done Jack any good. He was always a holy terror. Him and his mates used to go up North Great George’s Street, trying all the car locks as they went. They used to practise on the older cars, ould Fords from the seventies, because you could open them with a screwdriver. In them days that street was bumper to bumper with cars, and if Jack and his mates wasn’t educating themselves on the locks, they liked to go up the whole street on the backs of the cars, never touching the pavement once. If they came to a car they knew, you know, if they knew the owner, someone that lived on the street as may be, they might go around that car, in a friendly way. I mean, Sinéad O’Connor lived on the street that time, and to Jack and his mates that ould beamer she drove was like a holy fucking relic. They’d never a’ walked over that. Never. Your man from The Pogues lived there too, but, he didn’t drive a car, for obvious reasons. I mean, you never saw him without a beer in his paw.

Of course, Joe couldn’t say much to Jack about all that, considering his own line of work. But.

Jesus, it was like fucking Hollywood, North Great George’s Street, that time, but without the palm trees.

We were all rubbing along together, I suppose.

Well.

Now Joe was always good enough in his way, his mother was from North Summer Street, his father had a scrapyard in the garden at the back instead of flowers, you know – Joe used to be sent as a little lad out to Ringsend on his own to bring back pram wheels, I don’t know why there were so many prams dumped out by the power station, but there were. And he used to go swimming at the Shelly Banks in the summer in his knicks, while he was on the job like, and he always did say that was the happiest days of his life.

It wasn’t a real job, was it?

He wanted to get a job at the power station because he knew the workers there washed the coal off themselves in this river of hot water that came out of the power station, it was after cooling the engines, and they had soap stuck in the walls of the river, and Joe liked all that, he said it was a grand life. But he never had a job in his life, other than being a Midday Man like I said.

In them days the Irish were doing real well at the football and after getting over the surprise of that, we began to think we could win the World Cup maybe and that lifted the spirits. That was a queer thing. 1990 it must have been, right? After a victory the whole of O’Connell Street would be like a bleeding party, and lads going crazy, and girls, and fellas falling down drunk and pissing on the statues, and general happy mayhem.

So now here we come to the hard bit of me story – you know, like a hard sum at school. I suppose there’d be a couple of hard bits actually.

To be winning the matches was a great ould thing and a great ould feeling was caused in us, me too included, and me boys were delighted and the whole flats was delighted and we’d go into Lucky Duffy’s and she was delighted – she was a great woman, the queen of Parnell Street – and the filth would be looking happy too, though they was mostly country fellas and GAA men really, but.

And that was all great.

And it was summertime, you know, and Dublin in the summertime is just lovely, with the leaves on the old trees and the baking tar smells and just the way the breeze smelling of the sea goes along the old streets – but you know all that – sure why would we live in Dublin iffen we didn’t adore her?

But I was saying – the first match we won Joe comes home in the small hours, he was right tanked, and that was all right, but he had pissed down his trousers and he was all in a twist sort of about something but not having the words to say what. He musta bought a soccer jersey in the street, it was size small, and he gives it to me, beaming he was.

He was happy, high happy, like a crazy happy, a big blank happy look on his musher like he was on some bad drug, but he never done that. And that was very queer, and me and the little lads kinda slunk off in a corner and let him – blow up like a balloon – roaring and happy as a king – kinda bursting he was – then in the morning, like a balloon left sitting for a week he was, the sag in his face and the low throttle in his poor voice. Oh, yes.

And we was winning and winning. You remember?

But did we ever score a goal?

I don’t think so.

It was always a draw, or some kinda advantage, or some kinda squirming through by a miracle – but no, we musta scored a goal, we musta scored one.

There was nothing but happiness them days for Joe. You’d swear he was after playing in the games himself, ‘we’ done this and ‘we’ done that, and ‘the lads’ were after doing such and such, and saying such and such – and maybe that was the trouble.

Now thinking about it all these years later, because Janey it must be near ten year ago, before even the Africans came to Parnell Street, and got everyone wearing beads in their hair, and got old shops all new again – thinking about it, maybe that was the trouble. Maybe that was the trouble, the great yawning gap between – the fact that in the upshot, he wasn’t a ‘we’, he wasn’t winning nothing, he wasn’t really connected, he was just fucking Joe, Joe Brady whose mother was from North Summer Street, and he was still getting up at midday and scouting the fucking cars, he was still a Midday Man, no matter what fucking countries we beat, and no nearer in all of eternity to washing himself in that wonderful river he was yearning for, yearning for, down at the Shelly Banks.

So this night he comes home, it was the night we got as far as the – was it the semi-final, or the quarter? I could not tell you at this distance – but we had got as far as we were going and although there was jubilation as the fella on the telly might say, yes, yes, there was something else also. There was something else like a crusher of stones, there was something else.

Joe came home from O’Connell Street. I was wearing the green jersey he had brung home for me the first time, I always wore it in bed on a match night, like instead of me T-shirt, to bring Joe luck. It was about four o’clock in the morning, and he was sober as a judge. I remember the lovely yellow light of the early morning sitting up in our bedroom window like some ould flower. He comes over to me half-asleep in the scratcher.

I was so glad to see him. I loved Joe, I knew everything about him, what he had to do to make a crust, and he was fond of his boys, he was, and he cried like a baby when Billy was killed, he cried for three days.

But what he was thinking of that time I do not know.

He comes over to the bed and I’m all warm like, you know the way you are, in the sheets in the summer, and sleepy, and glad to see him. ‘How did it go, Joe?’ I says, and he says, ‘What did you say?’ ‘How did it go?’ I says, and he looks at me all dark, and he comes over closer, and he sees the green jersey and he grabs it.

It was like a red rag to a bull, that green jersey, a red rag to a bull.

And he pulls me from the bed. It was all so sudden like. I couldn’t believe it. I never had nothing from him before that but kindness, he depended on me, you know? For everything. I’d known him since I was four and he was a big fella of ten going round the place. And why it didn’t stop him beating the shite out of me, I’ll never know, as God is my witness.

I can’t tell you all that he did – you wouldn’t believe me. Joe!

And when I got away from him and grabbed Jack and Little Macker from the other room, and hurried down the stairs as best I was able, I did, I looked back up and he was on the balcony, roaring and spitting fire like a demented demon, that’s what he was like.

Ran down the clattery iron stairs, bent almost double, and pulling on the little hands of me sons, to get them to come on.

And I went down to the Women’s Shelter and by now I was moving really really slow and feeling me injuries something bad, because, you know, you’re in shock for a little while at first, and numb, and the blood was pouring outa me nose, or somewhere, all down me fucking jersey, and me trying not to show too much for the boys’ sake, them whimpering and looking about, and me weeping weeping, trying not to, I couldn’t believe it, and by God if I tell a word of a lie, half the street was down there.

I wasn’t the only one.

Like wounded bleeding soldiers we were after a battle.

It must have been like a fever. When the Irish team lost, the lads suddenly knew what was what. When the Irish team were winning they could pretend they were winning, but when they lost, they knew they were losers too – had never been winners in the first place! It must have been like bubbles bursting in their heads, bullshit bubbles. They couldn’t stand it. There was a lot of happiness in them days and a lot of ould bullshit. That was the problem.

And then there was a lot of sorrow.

I went back to me mam’s house in Portobello and she said me and the kids could stay with her. She was living up there because me mam’s brother-in-law’s sister had had a fixed rental and she was after up and dying and she sorta left the rental to me ma so she went over there living. Me ma was sick of living in the Wild West as she called it and me da would do anything for me ma, even including leaving his favourite haunts. I got her to swear she wouldn’t say a word about what happened to me to me da, because I knew he’d only go spare. He had this really soft side to him, but when he was roused you couldn’t stop him, because he was a fucking giant. I don’t know what she told him, what with me bruises and whatnot, but as far as I know he never went after Joe. I was so glad because I didn’t want me da up for murder. But he musta known really, because he was so nice to me and the boys, buying them ice creams every day and that sort a’ thing, and he used to bring me flowers he’d pick along the Grand Canal on his way home.

Me poor da.

Anyway. I swore I would never go near Joe again.

It broke Joe’s heart, a mate a’ his told me a good while after, in the street. That was this awful skanky skanger called Jazzman Jack who never cared for nothing but drugs so maybe you couldn’t believe him anyway.

I burned the green jersey in the mam’s stove. It was like the fucking Turin Shroud with all the blood. Red rag is right. I didn’t want to be seeing that again.

Since them days the Irish team has never done so good. They got an eejit in after Jack Charlton to be looking after things.

Thank God, I say.

But my heart has never mended neither. I’ve been going about with a broken heart, the whole time. That’s how it is. I can’t tell you any different.

Light away from Janet mostly, although there’s a little left her, like stray light from a weak bulb.

Joe’s light doesn’t much improve, but there’s stage light given to his face, arms and hands. He has tattoos all over himself and his skin is blotchy.

Joe   That time I was in prison, God be with the days, I used to say to myself, When I get outa this place I’m going to show the world what’s what.

I used to say, I’m going to show the world what Joe Brady can do.

When they have you in there, in the Joy, for a good stretch like I been, you get to think an awful lot. Yes, sir. For the first while you’re just the same as you ever were, thinking the world had it in for you, and was out to get you, just you in particular. Set up that way, you know, by whoever, God, or whatever.

The fucking inner city they call it, like it was something inside something, something hidden inside, or safe inside, I don’t fucking know. But the place where I come from is all raw in the wind, outside with fucking knobs on, nothing fucking inner about it, it’s as out as you can get, like the North Pole.

And your emotions, you know, like the counsellors say in there, your emotions are just the thoughts and suchlike of the fella that’s always outside, freezing, like an animal yourself, one of them polar bears like you’d see anytime in the zoo. You know in your heart of hearts that what the big fellas, I mean, the politicians, really want to do, is get rid of you, just clean all the shite out of Dublin, like the shite in the Liffey, and have a nice clean fucking perfect Dublin, so clean and so perfect the fucking salmon will climb up the river walls and walk about, happy as Larry.

So for the first bit that’s how you’re thinking. For the first year even maybe. And then you’re thinking, how did I get into this fucking nightmare?

And that’s when you really would want strong drugs.

Because a whole heap of stuff comes down on your head, like when you break into a ceiling in an old house, and all this ould shite and dust comes down on your head from the attics, you know, if you’re doing demolition work on the buildings. Not that I ever done a gear job like that.

And that’s if you’re lucky. Because if that stuff never strikes you, you just go on the way you were, being a stupid bollocks, and using, and all the rest.

And I do wonder sometimes what being alive is for, I mean they call it the gift of life, and when I’m looking at some of me mates, I’m wondering what sort of fucking gift it is. I mean, God gives you the gift of life, and there might be a fella sitting in a cell there in Mountjoy, quietly getting the gear into himself, and his head locking back, and he’s calming down, and feeling kinda okay again, and then he’s at it again a few hours later, the poor bollocks, I mean, that’s it, the whole thing for some of them lads, and I don’t blame them, but, how can you call that the gift of life?

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!