And, with a peal of laughter as intolerably bright as the sunlight, Dorothy vanishes.
His nerves at snapping point, Neil grips his pen tightly and we hear his inner voice. .
The question is not only how to be in different places at the same time, but how to be in the same place at different times. The place, assuredly, is Dublin City. But we cannot talk about the Easter Rising of 1916 if we do not understand the strikes of 1913–1914. . the rise and fall of Parnell in the 1890s. . or the six-hundred-year history of the British occupation. And we must go not only backward but forward in time as well. Show how the people of Dublin, though not supportive of the rebellion during Easter Week itself, gradually came to espouse the rebels’ cause as, day after day, early in May, their leaders were cruelly and systematically executed by British firing squads. Pearse, Plunkett, MacDonagh, Connolly. . sixteen in all, including the one whom I personally denounced, Major John MacBride. A swaggerer to the end: boasting that he’d faced British fire before, he met his death without the customary blindfold. And then I was denounced. By whom? Must have been that blond kid in the bushes. To whom? I’m still not sure — both ways? To the government and the rebels? A two-way traitor, I became. Traitor to my class — the bar defrocked me. Traitor to my cause — the Sinn Féin cast me out. But it’s not my own tale I want to tell, it’s the tale of my city. The upheaval of Easter 1916 left dear dark Dublin ruined and ravished but renewed. Ripe for revolution.
Neil’s knuckles are white from squeezing the pen too tightly.
Three loud, swift knocks at the door.
“What now? Who is it?” he shouts, leaping to his feet.
“Your mother,” comes the icy answer.
Yanking the door open, he sees fear in his mother’s eyes and realizes he must be a sight: hair on end, rumpled shirttails, wrinkled trousers, suspenders awry; he hasn’t slept a wink.
“Your father would like to have a word with you,” says Mrs. Kerrigan stiffly, advancing not so much as the pointed toe of her pink velvet mule beyond his threshhold.
CUT to Judge Kerrigan’s den, replete with all the symbols of virile wealth and power: leather-bound books serried on bookshelves, framed diplomas, green lampshades, polished oak desk, gilt leather blotters and paperweights. . you get the picture. The man’s success is ostentatious not to say ferocious, and any one of our potential spectators could probably write the ensuing dialogue as well as we can, Milo.
“You wished to see me, Father?”
“I did.”
“Well, here I am.”
“I’ve been thinking about your future, Neil. Things cannot go on like this. It’s been eighteen months since we learned of your involvement with the rabble rebels, a year since the bar defrocked you. .”
“My dream, as you know, Father, is not to be refrocked. Not as long as every court of law in Dublin is run by the occupying forces.”
The judge’s voice booms out, covering his son’s.
“Neil, I’m convinced it is not completely hopeless. There might be a way for you to regain access to your profession.”
Neil waits, and knows he won’t have long to wait. Turning his back on his son, Judge Kerrigan moves to the window and lights his pipe.
“You must volunteer to join the army.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ve made preliminary inquiries at the Castle. Because of their respect for me, two or three individuals are willing to put in a good word for you. You could start out directly with officer rank.”
“Despite my besmirching of the family name?”
“Yes, that could be overlooked. Give it some thought. I advise you to seize the opportunity. It is unlikely that a second chance for saving your reputation will come along.”
“Father, I am twenty-five years old. You are aware of both my political convictions and my artistic aspirations, and yet you find it natural to ask me to betray both, simply for the sake of restoring the name Kerrigan to its virginal purity. .”
“You will not address your father in such terms, young man. I am not a blank page to be sullied by the smutty mutterings of scribblers such as yourself and Jimmy Joyce. Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist, indeed! How gumptious can you get?”
“It’s the other way around, Father. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”
“Traitors, the lot of you! Your country is in need? Joyce runs off to hide in Switzerland, and you can think of nothing better to do than take up with a crowd of rag-a-tag outlaws! Well, now that your mates have all been shot, why don’t you go help the Bolsheviks who are currently laying waste to Russia? Perhaps they have a better chance of winning!”
“I’m a writer, Father.”
“Neil, I am most weary of awaiting evidence of that claim’s validity.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that unless you either accept the generous offer I’ve just made you or give me some tangible proof that you’ve become a respectable member of the Irish literary establishment, you will no longer be welcome in my household. Writers are known to enjoy starving in miserable garrets at the outset of their careers, are they not? Find yourself a miserable garret in which to starve. Kindly remove your belongings from the premises by next Sunday.”
“I’ll give you the proof.”
“That will be all, Neil.”
“I’ll give you the proof!” says Neil in a slightly louder voice.
Ignoring him, Judge Kerrigan sits down at his desk and violently opens a ledger.
CUT to Neil dragging a box of old papers from under his bed and rummaging through it. Finding his old manuscript of poems. Slipping it into a black folder.
CUT to County Galway: a cab deposits Neil in front of Thoor Ballylee. Black folder under left arm, he walks toward the tower. Close-up on his face. His expression is part awe, part amazement at his own audacity. Weeds and wildflowers grow rampant at the tower’s base; no glass graces its windows. .
(Think we can do this, Milo? Think we can get permission to shoot inside Yeats’ Tower itself? Wouldn’t that be fantastic? With. . uh, say, Lambert Wilson in the role of Willie Yeats? Yeah. . Fantastic.)
Neil is let into the tower by a portly, gray-haired maid, complete with white cap and apron. After leading him up a winding flight of rickety stairs, she ushers him into the poet’s drawing room. The place being as yet unfurnished, the echoes of their footsteps ricochet on stone walls. . Yeats seems in a bit of a dither. Spectacles askew, gray jersey misbuttoned, he paces up and down the room and runs his hands through his hair.
“So you’re the young poet who wrote to me last week.”
“I am, sir.”
“Did you see the wild swans?”
“The. .”
“Did you see them, the wild swans, as you were brought here?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t notice them, sir. Was it today they flew south, then?”
“How. . how. . how are they the same swans every year? The same uplifting passion, the same fierce beating of wings against the sky? Flinging themselves multitudinously southward in the same breathtaking flight, while we humans. . age, change, hesitate, lose our certainties and our teeth. .”
“Uh. . that’s true, sir.”
“Why have you come to me?”
“I need help, sir.”
Yeats glances discreetly at the envelope on his desk.
“Your letter said as much, Mr. . ah. . Kerrigan, but why have you come to me?”
“Only because. . er. . I once tried to help you, sir.”
“Kindly explain yourself. I’m certain I never set eyes on you before today.”