Town Is Dead

Phillip McMahon, Philip McMahon

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783197989
• eBook ISBN: 9781783197996
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Ellen thought she'd end her life where it began – in a rundown flat in Dublin's north inner city. Now her building is sold, and she's being moved into a box room in her snooty sister's house in the suburbs. When an unexpected visitor lands in her front room, Ellen is forced to delve into the past in order to lay some ghosts to rest. From the writers of Alice in Funderland, Town is Dead is a living room musical, an ode to Dublin and an exploration of how Ireland treats its people. It looks at the future of the city through the eyes of one older citizen. Town is Dead has been nominated for 5 Irish Theatre Awards 2017, including Best New Play.

SCENE FOUR

The living room, a little later. KATARINA watches a battered old TV. She has earphones plugged into it, which means she has to sit very close to the screen, the light illuminating her face. ELLEN and RACHEL sit at the kitchen table.

RACHEL: I am in Nuneaton.

ELLEN: What is it love?

RACHEL: I said before. My husband thinks I’m in Nuneaton.

ELLEN: Yes. You said that.

RACHEL: It’s ’cos I am. I’m staying with a friend.

ELLEN: Oh?

RACHEL: I don’t know if I can go back.

ELLEN: What about your kids?

RACHEL: With their Dad. I can’t help thinking I’m bad for them.

ELLEN recognises the impulse.

Did you leave my Dad?

ELLEN: Yeah.

RACHEL: Was it that bad?

ELLEN is quiet.

I didn’t know him is the thing. I never asked him anything. About his life – nothing. That’s me really.

Pause.

ELLEN: I had to.

RACHEL: Why though?

KATARINA butts in from beside the TV.

KATARINA: Don’t set her off.

ELLEN: I’ll be dug out of you.

KATARINA: It’ll be the last thing you do.

Beat.

ELLEN: I was made manager of the Queen’s Head. The pub. This is years later. 1985.

KATARINA joins the conversation.

Stock take. Cash up. In my little boozer. You name it – I was responsible for it.

My Sean was ragin’ – went on like a child he did. He’d all but stopped talking to me by that time.

Save for to get him his drink or put his dinner up.

And George – George was working in the bank by then. He’d call in to the Queen’s every Friday after work, and we’d neck gin and scoff Scampi Fries and he’d have me head spinnin’ – Oh, he was a dirty divil – he’d have me howlin’ with the filth he’d been up to in the parks and toilets of Birmingham.

KATARINA: What d’ya mean?

ELLEN: Don’t worry about it.

But, er, when he didn’t stop in one Friday, I thought nothin’ of it.

And when he didn’t show up the next one, I thought, fuck ye George. Friday is me night.

But I met this Kathy one, who said, did you hear what happened Black George?

KATARINA: What happened ’im?

ELLEN: I’m gettin’ there.

Beat.

He was attacked, wasn’t he?

RACHEL: Oh no.

ELLEN: They got him somethin’ awful. Collared by a group of blokes in the park. Up on Cannon Hill?

RACHEL: Cannon Hill, yes.

ELLEN: Kicked the living shite out of him. He’d be up that way cruisin’.

KATARINA: Up what?

ELLEN: Don’t ask.

Long as I live, I will never forget the shock and the fright that I got, when I walked through that door.

Oh, they savaged him.

They had him ruined, the bastards.

I barely recognised him.

They’d broken his bones – kicked him ’til his skull gave way – I mean – his eye sockets were fractured.

KATARINA: Dirty bastards.

ELLEN: Some man out walking his dog had found him, unconscious.

He’d been in a coma since.

I sat – jokin’ with him and chattin’ with him – hopin’ he could hear me.

But I was terrified – I was sick leavin’ that hospital.

Then when I got home I put the child to bed and I filled a cup of whiskey. One for me and a cup for Sean, and I says to Sean – fuck me.

The tears came as he grabbed me – to correct me language. The whiskey scorching me throat. The heart thumping in me chest. His long arm choking me as he held me in the middle of our living room.

We don’t know we’re alive, do we? We don’t know we’re alive.

And then he fucked me. As the young’un slept downstairs, he fucked me for the first and last time. The rest you would call duty. But he was boiling with passion that night.

And me thinking of George.

It was morning when the boy called in to work. I was filling the salt shakers ’cos we did a toasted sandwich from eleven. Reminded me of a neighbour of ours from home what went off to be a priest./

WILL: Ha ah ah ah

Ha ah ah ah

Ha ah ah ah

Ha ah ah ah

Ha ah ah ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four