House of Memory (Play)

This is a backstory based on the play, “The Steward of Christendom,” by Sebastian Barry (1995), about a Dublin Castle policeman who is senile; his wife and son are ghosts. He was called a traitor by the Catholics in 1922. when the Irish Free State was formed, because he had worked for the British Crown. It drove him insane. Like King Lear, two of his three daughters have abandoned him.

Only ANNIE, whose back is deformed by polio, visits him.

HOUSE OF MEMORY is about a ghost wife of the Dublin policeman, CISSY who died in childbirth ca. 1904.
The events recounted are of W.W.I. Willie is their dead soldier son. The play is set in a cottage in Dalky, near Dublin, Ireland, during two time frames, 1922 and 1932.
CISSY’s story stops in 1904. Though she is still present, she unable to communicate with her family. Cissy is house-bound, tied to the place where she lived and died in childbirth.

ANNIE’s mother CISSY, is talking to her, but ANNIE, not hearing her, has her own monologue about life treating her unfairly, being a spinster, wanting a family, feeling abandoned, feeling guilty about committing her father to the asylum...

LIST OF CHARACTERS:

CISSY, Thomas’ dead wife, a ghost who died in childbirth in her late 20’s.

ANNIE, her daughter, her spine crippled from polio, she hobbles, she plays two time periods, at the age of 19 years and age 29.

THOMAS, a deranged retired policeman (offstage voice)
Two men carrying straitjackets

ACT I
Scene 1
A cottage near Dublin, 1922

Setting: the kitchen in a small country cottage set in two time frames: in 1922, and in 1932. The kitchen is simple, against the upstage wall, a back door Dutch-style, a sink, a curtained window over the sink; the two side walls angle out obliquely. On one wall is a hearth with mantle, a rocking chair, hearth rug, and a front door (or the suggestion of a front door, the characters address the audience as they go out the front door). In the wall above the hearth is a small altar niche and votive candle with a picture of Jesus, and another of Mary, curled palm fronds, mass cards wedged in the frames, rosary, etc. A picture of a W.W.I soldier in uniform, (Will) a man in a policeman’s uniform (Thomas), a prayer book and some momentos. Perhaps there are chairs and boxes stored in the rafters above. (It would be tempting to play Eric Bogle's Willie McBride, if it isn't considered too anachronistic as it's a modern song though it refers to the Great War).

On the other wall, one door leads to a bedroom, another to a formal front parlor which isn’t used—ever. It's like a museum, with furniture draped in sheets. In the center of the stage is a large oval rug, behind which a worn kitchen table is covered in a grubby stained tablecloth, and a jam jar filled with spoons and a sugar bowl, a teapot, a mug. Two or three battered chairs are around the table.

There is a young housewife CISSY, dressed in a simple house dress reminiscent of the Victorian/Edwardian era with its pretensions of wealth. Seated at the kitchen table is CISSY, a woman in her late 20’s, Thomas’s dead wife, a ghost who died in childbirth in 1904.

(CISSY, a ghost, is standing at bedroom door.)
CISSY
Thomas? Thomas? Are you there?
(She moves to the front door looking out towards the audience.)
Thomas! Yoohoo! Where are you love? Where did you go? I bet he’s out walking that cursed meadow again. A lot of good that does him. Thomas! Come in from the cold, and make yourself some tea. A cop of tea and you’ll feel right as rain. Thomas?

(Inarticulate voice of THOMAS moans from back door offstage.)
THOMAS
Arghhh! Ummm. Uhhhh.

(CISSY sits in the rocking chair by the fire.)
CISSY
Oh there you are, Pet. Out in that meadow, morning, noon and night, he is. For the life of me, I can’t see what the attraction is. And here I am left all alone sitting by the fire wringing my hands. A lot of good that does. He never bothers to light it any more. Just as well. He’d burn us out of house and home. And then where would we be? His mind is something terrible queer these days.


(Dressed in traveling clothes of the 1920s, their daughter ANNIE enters from the back door. CISSY gets up as if to greet her.)
ANNIE
Hallo house! Hallo Da. Dear God but it’s musty as a dungeon in here. You’d think it was never aired it out. Or a fire lit, for that matter. Da?
(ANNIE opens the curtains and windows. She peers in the bedroom door, closes it, goes to the back door again, opens upper half of the door and peers out)
Da? Where are you? (pause) Da? Don’t tell me he’s goin’ down the Sea Road again. Da? What am I to do wiith him?

CISSY
No it’s not the Sea Road, Annie, dear, thanks to God. Your Da, he’s out walking in the lunatic meadow again with the cat. It might as well be potter’s field as he’s no longer with us, so to speak.

ANNIE
I can’t be off chasing him morning, nooon and night. I’ve precious little time off from work as it is. And they’ll be talking—or worse. Nothing better to do than to let their tongues wag like the hind ends of dogs. Da?
(ANNIE leaves by the back door, leaving it ajar.)

CISSY
Don’t forget to close the door proper now or the birds will get in. And you know what that leads to. Where’s the cat when you need him? Shoo! Shoo! Annie! Annie? Come back inside soon now, I can’t bear all the endless waiting.

End of Scene 1


Scene 2

(ANNIE comes back into the cottage,the house is in a shambles.)
ANNIE
Dear God, I bet he’s out walking the meadow in his nightshirt again. And he won’t come in from the cold. Just look at the state of this place. You’d think it was pigs that moved in. He’s a full time child, he is.

(CISSY is seated at the kitchen table, talking to her daughter ANNIE, who can’t hear her.)
CISSY
Come in from the cold, girl, now, come in. Look at your shoes all wet. You’ll catch your death, you will. Sit down. Sit. There’s a pet, now.

ANNIE
He says the house is whispering something to my Mum, and her some 20 years dead. Nonsense! Whatever am I to do with him? The neighbors are already complaining about him left too much on his own.

CISSY
Ach! Annie-girl, the neighbors are the least of our worries with your father off in his world. He’s not harming a soul. Innocent as a lamb, he is.


ANNIE
Da? He’s a full-time job unto himself, he is. How can I keep up with him? There’s only so much a body can do. Where is he now? He's driving me mad!
(ANNIE gets up from the table looks out the front door)

CISSY
I suppose he’s out walking in the lunatic meadow again—I tell you, after telling me you mustn’t be talking to shadows... Shadows. Conversing with himself, he is, with the trees, and with God Almighty—for all I know.

(ANNIE sits at the kitchen table in defeat. She picks up a spoon and traces patterns on the cloth. Picks up a dishtowel and wipes the teacup clean.)
ANNIE
Do you think he wandered down the Sea Road again? Oh, God, he’s barefoot. There’s his shoes by the fire. What am I to do? What is to be done? (She stifles a sob, fist in mouth).
(ANNIE exits out back door. Lights dim.
CISSY enters and sits at the table, Lights come up,
ANNIE re-enters from back door and circles to the kitchen table as if to sit down, pacing around the kitchen.)

CISSY
NO he’s not down by the Sea Road. Every day he’s out walking that cursed meadow like a surveyor. Shoeless Thomas the surveyor surveying his grass kingdom. I keep telling him he must let go of the past. But he doesn’t listen. Instead, it’s his mind that’s lost. But no one ever listens to me.
ANNIE sweeps the kitchen floor, puts the house in order.)
Watching the ginger cat following him like a dog, her tail curled up in a question, as if she understood every word he was saying. Stopping to sniff the flowers like a large hairy bee with whiskers and mewing as if to answer. Silly creature.

Sit down Annie. Sit down. You’re making me dizzy with all that pacing.

(ANNIE sits down at the kitchen table, she’s reading a letter from her sister Dolly in America.)

ANNIE
Dolly says she misses you, house, and Da. Hmmmf! She should be here by right and not me. It wasn’t supposed to be my place.

CISSY
Oh don’t fret so, child. I wonder what the cat said to him because soon enough he quieted down like a lamb. And the birds singing by the moon. It’s all wrong I tell you.

ANNIE
I bet she doesn’t miss trying to find him. Sure, she’s living a fine and mighty life in America, mind you. Always asking after him. And never a penny home to help with his upkeep. Ohio. It sounds as pretty as a sigh. Ohiooooooh... And her flicking the golden dust of the rich and famous with a lace tea towel.
(Loud knocking at the front door.
ANNIE freezes, looks at the door as if in alarm.)

CISSY
Annie, Annie, get the door, there’s a good girl. I wonder who it could be, it’s been ages since we had visitors. Annie, who is it? I’m afraid... bad news. The knocking. I knew it was bad. A bird flew into the house. Tsk, tsk. Who is dead, Annie. Who is it? Not Maud. Not Dolly... Oh Willie, son, where are ye? Where’s your Da? Where’s the old man?
(More knocking. ANNIE goes over to the front door, wringing her hands.)

(Two men carrying straitjackets enter by the front door )
TWO MEN
Good afternoon, Ma’am. We’re here for the old man. Where is he?

ANNIE
Out in the meadow, I’m afraid. I don’t know what else to do. He’s as mad as Mad Sweeney himself, out there morning noon and night talking to the birds and the trees. This way, gentlemen.
(They follow ANNIE out the back door. She is crying. The door closes. Sounds of muffled shouting, Thomas being dragged off.)

CISSY
So, what’s all this nonsense about mad king Sweeney straying in the meadow? Him dead a thousand years or more. It’s them birds she’s always letting them into the house. No good ever comes of it.
(pause)
Annie, what have ye done? Annie, girl, you’ve been gone so long. Regular as clockwork you are every Sunday after mass. It’s been weeks, months. Annie, where did you go?
(pause)
Am I left her all alone, without even my poor mad Thomas to comfort me? Where’s my doubting Thomas? Thomas? Yoohoo! Thomas, where are you, love? Thomas?


Scene 3
Ten years later, 1932

(Lights dim, ANNIE gets up from the table and goes to the mantle and freezes in a spotlight to signify a 10-year jump ahead in time. It is 1932, perhaps ANNIE puts on a shawl or sweater to signify the 30s.

CISSY walks up to ANNIE, who is still frozen in time, she reaches out as if to touch her.

ANNIE wearily sits at the kitchen table. )

CISSY
What use are these arms? All I could do was watch. My penance, for I don’t know what, reduced to nothing but a shadow myself I am, ’tween worlds. I couldn’t bear it seeing his arms raised up to the night sky and the watery stars weeping. And him keening like Absolom.

(ANNIE covers her face in her hands, rubs it as if to wash away a bad memory then she puts her head on the table, cradled in her arms as if asleep.

CISSY wanders about the kitchen, and settles in the rocking chair.)

ANNIE
Maybe it’s the Kiltegan witch’s curse...taking root after all.

CISSY
It took a long time ripening. A sad harvest it was.

ANNIE
That field belonged to the witch was next door.

CISSY
And her washing the milk buckets in the same well always made us a bit queasy. There was something wrong there.

ANNIE
A sudden chill as if someone...

CISSY
Again! Uisht! Do you hear it? Sure, And who’s busy walking on my grave? There’s been enough of that lately. And the way they paraded round and round that meadow until I was dizzy with grief. Even the small fingers of sunlight couldn’t banish all the fear rising up from the dark eye of the well. Oh Thomas, where are you now?

(ANNIE lifts her head startled, and looks around as if she heard something.)
ANNIE
Funny how the mind plays tricks. Even now. I swore I heard Da coming up the back porch steps. And him under lock and key these ten long years. No chance of that, thank God. Unless he’s escaped....
(ANNIE goes to the back door as if to look for her father.)

CISSY
I keep thinking of Hamlet chatting up his dead father like that. No, I said, Thomas, you come in from the cold. What will the neighbors say?

(ANNIE moves back to the mantle and picks up the picture of her brother Will in uniform.)
Willie’s not coming back. He’s dead...

ANNIE
Willie should be here taking care of this place. A man about the house is what the place needs.

CISSY
...I told your father. Sure it’s your nightshirt all wet from the dew, I said. Sleep, Thomas, that’s the ticket. But grief began anew each time as if it was the first time he heard of it. He just turned his face to the wall. Then the awful silence.

(ANNIE hums a mournful tune, dusts off the photo, kisses it, and replaces it in the niche).

CISSY
Talking to shadows he was. I don’t blame him. But I do blame the hawthorn he slept beneath all the next day, and the bees breaking their hearts over the closed flowers in the stillness of late afternoon. And I was so afraid.

ANNIE
Willie, where did you go, I wonder. What dreams were left to hold you after the Great War was over? Not even a proper burial.

CISSY
I wanted to bring him some tea but it was no use. I thought to myself, if only we could catch the honeyed words. Put them in a jar for some creature comfort later. Ach, I could kill for a good cup of tea.

(ANNIE goes to the sink to fill the kettle for tea, puts it on the stove.)

ANNIE
Shall I make us a nice cup of tea?

CISSY
Make it strong enough for the mice to skitter across it. About time the cat earned her keep. Don’t forget to scald the pot proper. There’s a good girl.

ANNIE takes the teapot form the table, rinses it out in the sink, and sets the tea things on the table. CISSY follows her about the room.)

CISSY
Scald the pot! Oh for God sakes, Annie. That’s a poor way to be making tea. They’ll say you had a bad upbringing. But then, poor tyke, you had to become your own mother—and your own father too after he went off in the head.
(CISSY sits down at the table. ANNIE arranges some flowers.)

ANNIE
Forget-me-nots and rosemary for remembrance. Forsythia and rue. But not the hawthorn, that’s bad luck, and never the bridal wreath. Not for me, it seems.

CISSY
You remember what they say about sleeping under the hawthorn?
I’m sure that’s how it all began. I don’t like the Aram lilies and lilacs.
Makes this place smell like a funeral, it does.

ANNIE
Is there no man left in Ireland hat would have me? Lilies of the field.

CISSY
Never you mind that. It’s your father you should be taking care of. Instead of that rest home. It’s not his fault his mind wandered to all sorts of strange places. It’s what they did to him in the name of freedom. Poor man.

Once he insisted he was with Hannibal crossing the Alps. Imagine that! Poor lummoxing beasts climbing mountain passes with no more understanding of snow than the man in the moon. Him worried about the elephants trembling at the sight of snowflakes. Wanting me to knit them all sweaters! Me, a knitter of elephant sweaters. I thought to humor him but I’d never hear the end of it in the Hereafter. Should I use the popcorn stitch or a cable stitch like Aran sweaters, dogtags for the drowned fishermen lost at sea?

(The kettle whistles, ANNIE pours water into the teapot.)

Annie, for God sakes, scald the teapot! Scald the teapot.
(ANNIE hesitates, as if to scald the pot, then shakes her head to say no, then changes her mind, scalding the pot first).

CISSY
That’s a good girl now, Annie. Sure, I didn’t know what to make of it. There he was, ranting through the ages, a fine white snow covering him. Petals drifting down on him from the hawthorn until he was blanketed white as snow. I blamed the hawthorn, I did. We were told never to pick it or invite trouble into the house. Thorns into the bed. Or a changeling. And that he was. A changeling.

(ANNIE sits at the table and stirs the tea in the teapot.)

CISSY
Annie, let it steep proper, five minutes. Leave it alone, would ye. Quit fussing over it or you’ll spoil it.

(ANNIE puts the lid back on the teapot, gets up and fixes a plate of biscuits at the sink).

CISSY
Your father was like Hannibal all alone in Abyssinia, he was leaderless after he turned over Dublin Castle to them. A loyal servant of Ireland and the Crown he was. The Crown was good to us. I remember when the king came to visit. It was after Queen Victoria died. Your father called her the Flower of Christendom, he did.
(ANNIE returns with a plate of biscuits and sits down. It begins to rain.)

ANNIE
This hair’s a mess. Should I cut it? Have it bobbed. That’s the ticket.

CISSY
Did you know that King Edward he praised my beautiful hair? Blue-black as the barrel of a rifle it was. It was 1903. I wore a polka-dotted dress for tea. You’d better pour the tea or it’ll get bitter. Did you no get any decent teacakes?

(ANNIE pours her tea, adds milk and sugar, stirs, the spoon clanging like a small bell in the mug).

CISSY
A right proper tea it was. All the little teacakes staring up at us like Christmas presents. Oh! How I loved to dance.

ANNIE
Maybe a new frock. But I’ve no money. Maybe there’s something of Mum’s I could cut down.

CISSY
But your father, he stood like a great tree in the middle of the dance floor. I was afraid he’s take root right there. They began to whisper and laugh. Shame spread like Brigid’s red cloak. I had to coax him off the floor with the teacakes. And them laughing.

(ANNIE sips her tea, warming her hands on the mug. She returns to the mantle and picks up a photo of her father in uniform. She takes it over to the kitchen window to scrutinize it.)

ANNIE
Lovely biscuits. Too bad they’re so dear.

CISSY
Annie, don’t be so hard on your father. There was a time when he was a different man, he wore his invincibility like a cloak but after he turned Dublin Castle over to Collins and the like, he was a different man.

After that, he was always after dreaming candlelight into song and questing for distant horizons. The glory of Rome.

He admired Michael Collins, you know. But they called him a traitor. Blamed him for Larkin’s death. And the others. He never even carried a gun. Just the billy club was enough. He kept Dublin orderly and safe. It was his job.

Ach, it was terrible the way they treated your father. There was some trouble with his pension, with the new government, and him chief constable of Dublin working for Ireland and the Crown 45 long years! And they called him a traitor.

(A rumble of thunder. A tattoo of rain, a thunderclap.)

ANNIE
Is there no end to the rain? Oh, my heart, it’s like a caged bird beating at the windowpane.

CISSY
There’s always betrayal at the heart of it. They should look to themselves. And who was it gave the order to kill the Big Fella? Themselves alone. How he wept when Collins died. There was real hope for the Big Fella, you see. Not for “King” de Valera, him with the stone heart of a mathematician leading us back into slavery with rings through our noses like cattle to Rome.

Dev, the called him, more like devolution. Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Soldiers of destiny they called themselves. All it brought was more civil war. As if there wasn’t enough bloodshed.

(Thunderclaps. A downpour. ANNIE returns the photo and brushes her hand across Will’s photo).

CISSY
It all began with your brother Willie’s death, it unsettled your father something terrible. You know, he was never quite right in the head after that. I swear he saw God in the face of his newborn son. That settled him down right enough. But why is it fathers and sons never see eye to eye until it’s too late? Poor Willie! All he wanted was a kind word. And your father like a big lump of a stone. Poor tyke.

(ANNIE picks up a prayer book and opens it, closes it, strokes the cover, puts it back. She lights the votive candle.)

CISSY
He was only six when I was with Dolly in the childbed, my own blood racing to meet Lough Derg. Such a long night it was. And I couldn’t stop it for the life of me. When the candle failed, the birds began to sing, it was my father came to me, but it was so queer, for he was my husband with my father’s face. I didn’t know who I was talking to. He began to keen. Hush, I said. But the candle guttered. Him crying like his heart would break.

(ANNIE returns to the table, sits, and resumes sipping her tea.)

CISSY
’Tis a pity I never got to hold Dolly. My arms and breasts ache for her. Where is she now? America? And your sister Maud? She never comes home. Only you. Why do you keep returning to this house empty of memory with no family of your own to fill it?

(ANNIE cradles her head in her folded arms and sobs into the tablecloth.)

CISSY
Poor Annie. Your poor back curving like a riverbend of hammered pewter at dusk that no man would ever set sail on. Have another cup of tea, there’s a pet. You’ll feel right as rain. I always did after a good cry. There, there, pet.

(ANNIE lifts her head and wipes her tears. She pours herself another cup of tea.)

ANNIE
Will this cursed rain never stop? It’s driving me clean mad. Willie, where are you now? What foreign field?

CISSY
Poor Willie. He gave his young life to save Europe, so proud to be in the Rifles. Caught in the crossfire. But you can’t lose a son without blaming yourself, your father said. You can’t fight a battle without spilling some blood. They said it was a whole generation Irish blood—not English—that fed the fallow fields of the Somme. Fodder for the Crown. That’s all they were good for. Fodder, that’s what your father said. They say there’s guns and war medals enough rusting on uniforms in the shadowed back rooms in every country of the world. But in Ireland even more so.

Willie, he was named after a heroic warrior, Willie he was our only Finn MacCool. We called him William after your Gran’Da. But the others, they thought it was King Billy we were referring to. And they shunned us at the market. Painting the door orange. Calling your Da a spy for the Crown. We were good Catholics, we were.

ANNIE
(ANNIE goes over to the niche, crosses herself, half-genuflects).
Da, where did you go now that I need you. Leaving me an orphan. Dolly in America and Maud crazy in her bed. What’s left to hold me?

CISSY
Annie, I don’t blame you for committing your father to the hospital. Really I don’t, pet. Imagine him brandishing a sword over your head like that. You’re absolutely right. Something had to be done. It scared the living daylights out of me and I felt so helpless because I couldn’t even comfort you.

Sure it was the Crown who put the food on our table during the Troubles when there was little to be had. What else could we do? They were jealously counting all our Sunday roasts stacking up into eternity. Accusing us of putting a little something aside for purgatory.

But jealousy is ever the traitor’s mistress. The Have Nots hungering after the hard-earned good fortune of others. I told him it was enough to make any man crazy serving two mistresses, Catholic Ireland and Anglican England. But he couldn’t hear me. Not a single thing I said. ’T’was a pity I was only talking to the shadows.
(ANNIE blows out the votive candle.)

ANNIE
This coffinship of a house is adrift in a sea of memory. And here I am talking to shadows. I’m never coming back to this empty house. Never.

CISSY
‘T’is such a pity the old man completely went off his mind babbling in the waving grasses like a babby wanting his mother. Annie, I swear he wouldn’t have harmed a hair on your head. The sword was a symbol of the power he’d lost.

’T’was the grief of only his wounded pride speaking in the graveyards of betrayal. The crows diving at him like banshees.

When the candlelight fails, when they’ve killed the heroes, and the potential of the father’s only sons lies buried in the cold clay, when that stony love slips down their cheeks into the glittering face of the well, what loyalty was left for there to crown?

There’s a good girl now Annie, put the kettle on the hob for some more tea? Annie? Don’t be leaving me! Annie?

(ANNIE gathers up her things and hobbles to the back door.)
ANNIE
Goodbye house. What arms are there left to hold me? Sure. It’s always a false quiet after the storm. I might as well throw away the key.
(She exits. Locks the door. Lights dim.

A spotlight on CISSY is like lightning, another peal of thunder and at the next flash of light, CISSY too is gone leaving the audience in an empty house.)


© 2002 (rev.iii) Maureen Hurley, the title is a bit of a pun on a Nabakov title, Speak, Memory, which I also used in an unrelated poem. This monologue came to me pretty much unbidden when the playreading was presented at the Irish Cultural Club, the focus was on Thomas, and I began to wonder about Cissy's story.

House of Memory (Cissy Speaks), monologue rev.HOUSE OF MEMORY, CISSY SPEAKS: