The last time you came in and sat on my bed, kissed me, not fatherly.
HE WHISPERS Oh, God.
I'm Liam Ward of Brackagh.
You've a problem, Liam?
FAIRBROTHER: Three bombs exploded in London.
The man we suspect is a tenant of yours... Liam Ward.
Dear God.
Are you not happy here? - I'd be happier elsewhere.
Is it because of the boss... touching you?
In part.
One night, when I was twelve, he got very drunk
opened the big safe in the gun room and showed me his gold.
Why not take what we need?
I couldn't kill anyone.
There are bromides.
When I'm back, if you're not gone, you and your gulping half-wit brother!
Now pack your bags and get out!
I've said things I shouldn't have.
Please don't ask me more.
My crime is that I raised you and I loved you over-much.
Kiss me goodnight.
BETH: How many should I use? - WARD: Use all of them. Can you do it?
- Yes. - I'll be waiting by the broken silver birch.
By God, you fairly lashed on the mustard, girl.
I know you're partial to it, sir.
Will you lock up? - Of course.
SHE TAKES A DEEP BREATH
BILLY GRUNTS
CLINKING
SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC
LOCK CLICKS
COINS CHINK
SHE BREATHES NERVOUSLY
BETH (VO): Please tell me how Mama died...
BILLY: You know.
It was an accident.
Yes, but how?
Corvey Island was part of your mama's dowry, and the other part a longhorn bull-calf.
She was so proud of it, telling everyone its name was Cooley
but as the years went on Cooley grew headstrong.
Then one day he turned savage.
When I heard tell of that I said he'll have to go.
The next day as the men were loading him the sky opened
and your poor mother came into the yard at that minute in her pony and gig
and she could see nothing with the blind of rain.
Cooley was half in the trailer when the ramp gave way beneath him
sending the boys tumbling across the yard.
Then out with him, roaring mad...
He had the pony gored, and the gig cowped
and your mama in the air tossed and ripped pitiful...
I heard the blares of him from here
until they got an axe to his skull and a knife across his throat.
HE SOBS
When I ran to the yard... Oh, Christ in heaven, what a shambles.
I covered her with a horse blanket all to her lovely white face
and held her head up off the street...
but she was dead...
your... your poor Mama...
HE SOBS ...dead.
I'm sorry...
I'm so sorry. - SOBBING CONTINUES
BETH READS: "I, William Hudson Winters, being of sound mind
and memory and in view of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death
do hereby make and declare this to be my last will and testament."
"I bequeath to my beloved daughter, Elizabeth Winters and her heir in perpetuity
all my estate, real and personal
all live and dead stock, all bonds and mortgages, all notes of hand
and whatever rent and debts that may be due in at the time of my death."
"If she marries..."
"...she must marry a man of Protestant faith."
SHE TAKES A DEEP BREATH - "Failing that
all land, monies and shares will remain in trust."
"If she fails to marry and proves childless
the entire estate will pass to my next of kin..."
BETH (VO): Clonoula. Saturday, 11th July, 1885.
Dear Billy sir.
The manner of my leaving will I know enrage you.
I am sorry.
You left me little choice.
How you have behaved with me these past years, you know full well
though every now and then you pretend innocence.
Against all common sense I have, in a way, always loved you
and still do, in a way, and will miss this house
where I was born and the fields where I grew up.
My mother was very wrong to dupe you.
The way you treated her was sometimes nearly as bad.
Blame on both sides but I can no longer be caught in the middle.
Don't try to find me. I'm going far away.
DOOR SCREECHES
COINS CLINK
HORSE SNORTS
BETH: What's wrong? What are you afraid of?
What are you afraid of, Punch?
It's alright. It's only the Dummy.
HE GRUNTS
What's wrong? - HE GRUNTS
I don't understand. I'm sorry, I don't understand.
No... I need to go... I need to go... - HORSE SNORTS
HE BABBLES
Shhh! The boss is sleeping.
Quiet.
The house?
The avenue?
The grassland?
Asleep in the grass, yes, I understand.
Something woke you.
Digging?
A man digging?
Two men.
What were they digging?
A grave.
My grave?
How do you know for me?
They spoke my name?
Who were these men?
Liam Ward?
Who was with him?
Frank Blessing?
SHE SOBS
You're not lying to me?
Take me there. Show me.
SHE SHIVERS
You should go.
Go on now and thank you for warning me.
You've saved my life.
COINS CLINK
SHE CRIES
COINS RATTLE
You lying thief.
SHE SCREAMS AND SOBS
BETH: No... No... - WHIPPING
HE GRUNTS - SHE SCREAMS
BILLY: Go on, run! You run to your thieving mongrel lover Ward!
Go on, help him!
Help him blow the world to bits!
You run and you keep running! You'll never get my gold! My fields!
Can you hear me!? You've thrown yourself away!
Shamefully, secretly!
Go couple with him in a ditch!
I never want to see you ever, ever again in my life!
The longest day I live!
Never!
Can you hear me girl?
BREEZE BLOWS - BIRDS CHIRP
OWL HOOTS
There's a grave somewhere here but no body to put in it.
This is my body, this is my blood.
What's God up to?
All's wrong in the world.
He loves me...
he loves me not.
What words did they use...
across a table or in a public house?
What had they planned between them?
A rope around my neck...
a blow to the skull...
SHE SOBS ...that spike in the brain...
prostrate then and twitching, eyes open like any dying beast
tumbled into this hole to sleep forever and ever with the clay
and the stones and the worms?
SHE CRIES Where so? Where to now?
Alive beside my own grave
in my best travelling clothes without a farthing...
Back to Clonoula?
SHE SNIFFS It's unthinkable.
There can be no returning.
SHE EXHALES DEEPLY
So where?
SHE WHINES
WARD: Well? - BLESSING: Nothing. You?
WARD: Nothing.
Christ, where is she?
Still below, or asleep maybe?
Maybe she lost her nerve, changed her mind?
Maybe Billy catched her at the safe? - Doped and footless?
Could she have made off with Billy's gold alone?
Took the farm pass to the low road? - I'd have seen her.
Without that gold there'll be no guns to complete the job
that Parnell lacks the guts to finish.
Jesus, man, tell me something I don't know.
HORSE SNORTS
If you hear tell of anything get word to me.
SHE SNIFFS
May God forgive you, Billy Winters, because I won't.
SHE SOBS
SHE WHINES
SHE SNIFFS
DISHES SHATTER
SHE MOANS
CHICKENS CLUCK
In the early morning light he comes
my love Liam...
my hero comes.
Jesus Christ, did he get you taking it?
Yes, he caught me.
Did you not give him all the bromides?
He spilled some whiskey, maybe he got sick.
Anyway he woke. I was at the safe.
Didn't you hear him shouting like a bull?
No, when...?
I didn't hear anything.
And what was he shouting?
"Run, run to Ward, the stable brat, the Fenian mongrel
run to your fellow thieves and vermin."
Things like that.
SHE CHUCKLES
It's not funny. We're bogged.
We have our two selves.
We're young, we have our health
we're not being hunted by the constabulary, we don't have to hide.
We can walk out of this house and sail away to a new life...
Maybe it's in our good fortune.
We have no fortune. We have nothing.
You could get something for the lease of this place.
Eighty, a hundred pounds.
And that's ten times more than a million others who left here.
That's not enough.
Enough for what? - Enough.
They say that people who have a lot of money are seldom happy.
Billy Winters isn't a happy man and he has a lot of money.
He's never happy except when he's drunk
and then he's hateful, but you know all that.
Liam...
you're my white knight, my saviour, my lover, my husband-to-be
my protector, my guardian angel.
Can you not forgive me, love, for bungling?
There's nothing to forgive.
I wasn't happy at the idea of stealing because I've never stolen so much
as a farthing my whole life from anyone
but for you, my love, I was willing to rob my guardian
take every ounce of gold he had.
You took no risk, you paid no penalty, lost nothing.
I lost everything and maybe now
without the gold you don't love me, don't want me.
That's not true.
You can prove that now, you could kill Billy Winters
take his gold, we could leave together as planned.
Today would be a bad day to try that.
Well then, tomorrow, next week, next month?
He deserves to die.
Do you think you could do it, love?
You're talking very odd.
Am I?
Very.
Do you have nothing?
I left it all behind.
BLESSING MAKES BIRD CALL
There's someone there. A visitor?
This early?
It's nobody.
Does "nobody" have a name?
It's Frank Blessing... drunk most likely.
DOOR OPENS
BLESSING: Who? - Her. Billy waked, beat her, kicked her out.
What's she doing here? - She's no place else to go.
She's probably watching. Laugh or something.
What? - Laugh.
HE LAUGHS FALSELY
BLESSING: Your one inside is at the door this minute looking at the two of us.
Frank's here on the tear, wants to borrow a mouthful of whiskey.
CHICKENS CLUCK
Liam was telling me you got a woeful hammering above.
A birthday treat.
Fist and horse-whip.
Well, you wouldn't be the first woman whipped by that fella.
You're well away from that house now.
And you nether kith nor kin.
He must have heard from someone, Liam, that we were 'great'
and you, being a tenant, that in Billy's book means a gale-day liar
a debtor, a witless spade-man
a stable brat, the lowest of the low
a landless Paddy, a less than nothing nobody.
And you being unavailable for punishment he took the whip to me.
It's common enough the world over.
Must be millions like me, whipped half-blind by blind-drunk men
for this, that and the other...
Or nothing.
BLESSING CHUCKLES - Song...
he didn't spike the run of your tongue.
No.
But you're a wit of sorts I'm told.
Who says that?
Mercy Boyle tells me you're a witty man, full of "spakes" she says.
Mercy is it?
She swears it's the goats' milk you take to bed every night in a baby's bottle.
Well, she's a liar then.
I couldn't believe it either.
"Not Frank," I said, "Frank's too manly", I said.
"Frank's a butcher".
This is the only bottle I bother with night or day.
Good luck to you, Miss Winters.
You'll need all the luck that's going.
May God go with you, Frank Blessing, and his blessed mother
and may all the angels and saints guard and defend you.
HE SCOFFS
DOOR SCREECHES
My grandmother, my mother's mother
had an open hearth in her house.
A turf fire that burned day and night.
The boast was it never went out for a hundred years.
A shroud-maker she was during the famine.
Terrible times.
It's left us all half-hungry and mad greedy, or that's what they say.
DOOR SCREECHES
Only for those shrouds I wouldn't be here now...
wondering how you're going to kill Billy Winters.
Would you quit talk of killing.
There'll be no killing.
No?
No.
You're right...
this is our honeymoon, Liam, this is our love-cabin
and we're alone now you're friend is gone.
He's no friend.
But you work with him, he helped you in the quarry
he helps you make hay, he is your friend, Liam.
He's a neighbour. I pay him.
But a friend of sorts, is he not? - It doesn't matter what he is.
Oh, but it does...
if he was your brother you couldn't help that.
Not your fault.
But friends you pick and they do matter.
But in a way, you're right.
We'll be on the high seas soon. Or have you other plans now?
I've been thinking and thinking and this place could be a happy garden
but it needs a woman's hand...
There's wild rosemary and thyme and wild garlic
and then there's no end of bilberries for jelly and wine.
We could grow potatoes, you could put in a stripe of barley.
This place could be a kind of paradise. Why would we run from paradise?
If you pay rent to Billy Winters we could stay here.
We could be the happiest people in the whole world.
HE MUMBLES Sure you're raving.
I didn't hear that.
You're raving.
SHE WHISPERS I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, my love, he knocked my wits sideways.
I'll try to talk less but talk I must, true love they say never runs smooth
but you must believe that love conquers all, in the end?
You're still raving.
Then I'll stay quiet and listen.
Tell me, what are we to do?
You can't stay here.
Why?
Because.
Then tell me what you plan, love. What's in your mind?
You'll have to go. - Where can I go?
Tell me where I can go? I have nowhere to go.
You must have friends. - But I want to stay with you.
For you, for love, I stole.
You've, you've took no risk, you've not been beaten
or driven out, you've lost nothing...
and if young girls like Biddy O'Goarman can strangle infants
surely you can dispatch a hateful, brutal man for me, for love.
And for gold?
You... you told me you loved Billy Winters in a way.
No longer, now I have murder in my heart.
It's stupid, I'd be caught and hung.
"Killing is easy", you said...
Then where must I go?
Elsewhere... you'll have to stop talking, you're making my head light...
No matter where I am or where you are we'll have to pick a name.
It's going to be a March, love, or thereabouts.
"Faolan", perhaps, if it's a boy...
You'd expect Faolan Ward to be somebody and of course he would be
because he'd be your son, Liam, and mine.
"Corrie", if it's a girl.
The Corries are a branch of the Maguire clan, a good Fermanagh name.
Corrie Ward...
she sounds clever.
You feel she could give a good account of herself, manage her life...
You shouldn't've kept that from me till now.
What better day.
The first day of our new life together.
Crying, love?
Really and truly crying... are you?
I had no notion you were that way.
Nature's a terrible tinker.
You had no right to keep that from me.
I know where I can go.
Corvey Island.
You'll starve there.
It'll only be for a few days.
A week at most until you're finished here.
I could live on bread, butter, watercress and black tea... that's no hardship.
You could be right.
I know I am.
You alright?
Yes.
Sure?
I'm sure.
They're new. And tight.
Sit down! Jesus, you'll cowp us. Beth!
I can't swim! - May God forgive you, my love...
Beth! Beth! Beth - ...and me.!
Don't you'll cowp it. Beth, I can't swim! - BOAT CREAKS
Beth! I...
Beth!
Beth! Help me!
Beth! Beth!
Help me!
Beth! - I believe in God the Father Almighty
Creator of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ His only Son.
Our Lord...
Our only son... Our only child... died and was buried...
SHE SOBS - ...and the third day he rose...
Beth! - O sweet Jesus, still howling, how long...
Beth! Help me!
- The Third time he rose again from the dead... - Beth!
Is that it?
Is he gone now?
He ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.
SHE SOBS And where is my father all my life?
Where is he now?
Oh, that he can see me in the flatness of my misery, with eyes of pity...
SHE CRIES
MUFFLED CRYING
Don't girn, idiot, swim or you'll join him...
SHE GRUNTS
SHE COUGHS
SHE SHIVERS
SHE STRUGGLES - SCRAPING NOISE
SHE PANTS
BILLY SHOUTS Beth! Beth!
HE SOBS
Oh, you're icy cold...
I was certain you were gone.
I saw the empty curragh drifting and I thought, she's...
she's gone, she's dead...
the... the light of my life...
I've... I've... I've driven out, I've killed the only thing...
How did you guess I was here?
That Dummy McGonnell.
Did they harm you, girl? - Nothing visible. You did that.
A terrible, terrible mistake...
A nice word.
But you were, you were robbing me, you were robbing me
for him, for Ward, your lover...
could you not guess what he is? Evil.
And what are you?
Or any man?
I loved him.
SHE WHIMPERS I loved him.
Surely you of all people can understand that?
Where is Ward now?
Dead and gone.
How? - Drowned.
How? - Loudly. Squalidly.
Yes, but how?
He can't swim.
I stood... and tipped the curragh
cowped it.
It drifted away and I watched him sinking...
SHE WHIMPERS ...sinking...
A drowning accident.
"Death by misadventure," that's what they'll call it.
I don't care what they call it.
No, neither do I, but I care deeply about you, daughter.
I am not your daughter.
MATCH SCRATCHES AND LIGHTS UP
HE SNIFFS
Can you forgive me...
ever, Beth?
Not today...
not tomorrow, not ever, maybe.
I'd care for you different from this day out.
I hate you, Billy Winters
and if I had courage enough I'd kill you, too, and feel nothing.
You wouldn't. - I would.
For what you did to Mama, to me
to God knows who else.
I will... always hate you.
I will always love you, Beth Winters.
I'm with child.
What? - I'm expecting Ward's baby.
Jesus God...
Not again.
SHE SOBS
We're a pair, we two. HE SNIFFS
Tethered both to treachery.
Maybe we should marry, go elsewhere, raise the child...
SHE GRUNTS
Are you hurting?
Are you sick, Beth?
Unto death, Mister Winters...
unto death.