This passage is an excerpt from “The Veil” by Conor McPherson.
Night, around midnight on Thursday May 23rd. GRANDIE is sitting quietly near the fireplace as the fire dies. A wind is picking up outside. HANNAH slowly plays a single note over and over on the piano. There is a knock. The door to the hallway opens and BERKELEY and AUDELLE enter. They stand near the door, wrapped up in their coats.
BERKELEY. Ah, some nighthawks! We didn’t expect anyone to still be up.
HANNAH (rises). Sometimes Grandie gets up. She never knows when it’s night-time.
BERKELEY. Well, we had a lovely moonlight stroll. To walk off our dinner. Are we alone?
HANNAH. Everyone was in bed.
BERKELEY. Of course. Will we join you for a moment?
BERKELEY and AUDELLE come further into the room.
HANNAH. What time is it?
BERKELEY. It’s after midnight! Goodnight, Grandie. How fares the world? You know, I was only saying to Mr Audelle, Thursday was always my favourite day of the week when I was a little boy. It was the one day I was permitted out of the nursery and could sit all afternoon with my mother while my father wrote his lectures. I keenly remember the fascination and privilege I felt in their company. Every Thursday.
AUDELLE. I used to watch my father writing his sermons.
BERKELEY. I saw him preach. He was a great believer in the corrective terror of hell and damnation which lent his oratory an extra impassioned forcefulness, I remember! (Laughs.Pause.) You look tired, Hannah.
GRANDIE looks at him blankly then gives a slight smile of acknowledgement, turning her face back to the fire.
HANNAH. Well, yes I am, rather.
BERKELEY. Mr Audelle tells me you were kind enough to bring him up to the Queen’s Tomb yesterday.
HANNAH. Yes.
BERKELEY. But you didn’t stay long.
Short pause.
HANNAH. Yes, well, the weather was inclement.
AUDELLE. I was just telling the Reverend, for myself, laying my hand upon those prehistoric stones induced a sense of connectedness to the mysterious ancestors of this place, the sheer… force of which I had never experienced before.
BERKELEY. Oh, yes. I have always found it to be a place of dark enchantment. And you, Hannah? Did you experience a… sense of connectedness?
HANNAH. Well, I… I did not remain there for long, so…
Pause.
BERKELEY. You know, I often think of your poor father on nights such as this, Hannah.
HANNAH. I think of him regardless of the day or night.
BERKELEY. He is in your prayers.
HANNAH. With all of my family.
BERKELEY. With all of us. My dear Alice is still alive – in my mind, her fragile bones still shining beneath her transparent skin, just as poor old Edward still lives in yours. He is so
strong there. So… real. In which case, how can anyone say he doesn’t exist? Of course he still exists! These recent times weigh hard on you, I suspect, Hannah.
HANNAH. Well. I have many blessings. I shouldn’t complain.
BERKELEY. Yes, but even good news can bring its difficulties, especially when set against a tragedy so terrible as the one we have witnessed in Jamestown.
HANNAH. Especially when it occurred on the very evening you sought to summon the spirits of the dead.
BERKELEY (laughs, almost delighted she has risen to the bait). ‘The dead’! We didn’t cause those buildings to fall down. Hasn’t the Colonel himself said as much. Now, I hope you don’t mind, but you will be aware I have learned something of your recent experiences, Hannah.
HANNAH. Yes, well, I don’t want to discuss that.
BERKELEY. And I will come straight out with it and say it’s a pity you consider the specialness of your gift a burden – when rightly it should be something you ought to cherish. And be grateful for.
HANNAH. I just want to stop it now, so…
BERKELEY. Stop it?! Well, it’s my belief that would be a dreadful shame. What you really need is to understand it. Yes. You can take the sting of its unknowability away, and we would like to help you.