Irish Blood, English Heart

Darren Murphy

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849430944
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435307
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Irish Blood, English Heart is an exploration of how memories, real and imagined, can shape our lives. Ray is a charming, enigmatic and successful comedian turned author. His brother Con is a London taxi driver struggling to keep his family together and bruised by his brother's success. When the two meet in a mysterious lockup following their estranged father's death, raw memories and unspoken truths come spilling out. Irish Blood, English Heart was performed at Trafalgar Studios, 2 May 2011 - 21 May 2011

ACT TWO

RAY and PEGGY. Half an hour later. PEGGY sits watching him attentively.

RAY is playing a small, tinny, Casiotone keyboard. Or rather, he is holding it up as it plays a pre-programmed, simplistic melody and rhythm. He half sings, half proclaims his song, Farewell, England's Mongrel Breed in a style that is a bastard hybrid of Rex Harrison and Mark E. Smith:

England belongs to me, and
My England belongs to the world of never will be, so
Farewell, England's mongrel breed:
Farewell, Phil Larkin rotting away in a library in Hull.
Farewell, stewed tea. Bad teeth.
And Barry Foster's grin in Frenzy.

Farewell, the cramped joy of paddling pools full of idiot
children
Seen from a South West train
Rolling over the small back gardens,
The mini-Edens, of Hersham.
Farewell, Jarvis Cocker. And sentimental gangsters.
And Murco garages. And Ginster's pasties.

Farewell, Michael Powell in exile after Peeping Tom.
Farewell, Morrissey on Top Of The Pops.
And the number 8 routemaster bus.
And Frazzles from vending machines.
And pissing in the chlorine at the Lido.
Farewell, discarded copies of Razzler in surburban
hedgerows.

And did those feet, in ancient times
Wear Converse trainers
And walk upon cracked paving slabs on Camberwell Green?
And would the holy countenance divine
Spit from my stereo rhymes sublime
As my Chariot of Fire gets snarled up
Round the Catford gyratory system and red lights?

Farewell, Joanna Lumley in The Avengers, and Mark E. Smith.
And The Great Escape on telly at Christmas.
And doing cross-country runs in the rain in your plimsols.
Half day closing. Jumble sales. Ancient Lights.
Farewell, a general sense of apathy and paralysis.
And my uncle Joe puking up his false teeth at Christmas when pissed.

But before you sink, finally, beneath toxic waves of roiling seas,
Rise up once more, England's mongrel breed,
Out of the ashes of cheap nostalgia shows, I summon thee
And crest the waves on an armada of rusting supermarket trolleys
Down Thames estuary.
And save us from this great floating turd of carcinogenic dreams,
And corporate sponsorship, and dead memory,
And the plastic stink of Starbucks coffee.
And polystyrene cups spilling builders tea.

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall the sword sleep in my hand ‘Til I have slain the last blue & yellow dragon
Of flat pack assembly furniture & meatballs Scandinavian
I will not cease from mental fight
I will not cease from mental fight…

He turns off the Casiotone keyboard. PEGGY, delighted, claps.

RAY: There's another eighteen verses, but you get the drift.

PEGGY: The gift that keeps on giving.

RAY: I offered it to HBO as the theme song for the show, but they thought it wouldn't, er, ‘resonate’ with their target demographic.

PEGGY: Feed the metre. Fucken idiot. I told him I put it in the car park.

RAY: (Laughs.) He's looking well.

PEGGY: Not as well as you.

RAY: Well, he was always a fat bastard so I suppose the difference is more noticeable with him.

PEGGY: He adores you, Ray. He does. He idolises you.

RAY: Con's not the adoring type.

PEGGY: It's good he got to see you. Four years, eh? Where does it go? What did you talk about? Anything in particular?

RAY: Oh, this and that. (Beat.) I always… Don't take this the wrong way, but I always thought it was a bit weird how you two ended up together. You always seemed to have more… well, drive.

PEGGY: It's not drive he lacks, Ray, its focus. I don't know anyone who works harder, or for longer, with so little to show for it.

RAY: It's not all it's cracked up to be. So-called success.

PEGGY: Sure.

RAY: Success on that very shallow, superficial –

PEGGY: When do we get what's ours, Ray? That's all I want to know.

RAY: How d'you mean?

PEGGY: When do we get what we deserve, what we've earnt? What's his by rights. When does that start to kick in?

RAY: What is his by rights?

PEGGY: I didn't mean… its a figure of speech, I just meant –

RAY: It wasn't a figure of speech, Peggy. What has he earned? That's been denied him?

PEGGY: Come on, Ray…

RAY: My book?

PEGGY: You know what's what. Don't make out you don't know what's what.

RAY: My book, you mean?

PEGGY: You don't think he's a bit entitled?

RAY: Entitled to what?

PEGGY: Come on, Ray…

RAY: A percentage of net sales? Royalties? Co-authorship, what?

PEGGY: You want me to spell it out?

RAY: I wrote it, Peggy, all by myself, that's how it works, if you write some –

PEGGY: It's him. The character in the book, the idiot savant visionary loser, the daydreamer, it's Con.

RAY: No it isn't. Not directly. It's a –

PEGGY: Don't tell me it's an amalgam of different personalities you met on the stand-up circuit, don't you dare give me that shit. And it hurt. He won't say, but it hurt. He may act like an idiot, when it suits him, but he's not. N...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Ancient Lights
• Dedication
• Contents
• Characters
• ACT ONE
• ACT TWO