When, however, they had reached the edge of the town…the woman began to feel desperate. Because it was plain now that everything must come to an end. “Ah Fritz”, she cried, and the desperate sounds of a bird with the knife at its throat came out of her mouth. So Amy Parker hung there crying for the lost world. Now that the structure of her life was shaken, full misery smote her.
–Patrick White: The Tree of Man.
With trembling hands, Cathy held on to the tuft of flowers she had carefully chosen and gathered that morning; a parting gift for someone whom, after that day, she would never see again. She was looking from her window out to the deserted road that ran through her village. She began to hear voices and the sound of horseshoes tapping on the cobble stones, coming from down the road. She knew it would still be several minutes before the group went past her house. During those few minutes she remembered everything that had happened in the last months.
Mrs Shaughnessy had died and, Charles Shaughnessy, the school teacher, seemed to have accepted the death of his wife with resignation. He continued to teach, read his books, take his strolls along the beach, pick up wild flowers and replant them in the school house yard, where he lived, as if nothing had happened. To the village tavern, he would never go. A boring life, one could say, but he seemed happy with it.
Only that Cathy did not think so. She was convinced he was extremely lonely, and for this reason she started going out of her way to please him, to bring some comfort to his (in her opinion) sad life. “Mr. Shaughnessy, May I clean your desk?”, “Mr. Shaughnessy, May I wash the dirty dishes in the sink?”, “Mr. Shaughnessy, May I help you clean the classroom?”, “Mr. Shaughnessy, here are some beautiful, uncommon wild flowers that I picked up for you, at the top of the cliff, by the ancient watchtower”. Mr. Shaughnessy would smile and acquiesce, troubled by the way Cathy looked at him; with her cheeks in flames; her penetrating, unflinching blue eyes, searching for something she did not know about, yearning for things she probably would never attain; and her innocent, yet stern face, as if to show that she would do no matter what to find it. But, what future was in hold for that little girl, in that dismal village? She probably would stay in her small world, marry a rough, dull, drunk, older guy, have a lot of children, and die prematurely. There was also the possibility that she would become another Rosy.
Whether Cathy’s feelings towards Mr. Shaughnessy went beyond mere human compassion or not, she did not know, she could not know; she was only thirteen. But she had a glimpse of what they were when Rosy Ryan started frequenting the school, and offering Mr. Shaughnessy the services that were, at least in Cathy’s mind, her prerogative. Rosy, the daughter of Thomas Ryan, owner of the tavern, was nineteen, and past the school age. A violent sensation convulsed Cathy’s soul, a terrible jealousy which she, of course, could not name by that word, because she simply did not know it. But she quickly called by its name, “hatred”, the feeling she had for Rosy Ryan. That word she knew. Cathy, scared and desperate, redoubled her efforts to please her teacher, as if that were going to change the inevitable.
A couple of months later, much to Cathy’s sorrow, Charles Shaughnessy married Rosy Ryan. And since the teacher lived at the school house, that is where Rosy came to live; event that extremely mortified Cathy, as now she had to see Rosy every day.
As months wore on, and marital life dullness set in, Rosy seemed to be bored, cooking, cleaning, knitting, and helping her husband (a quiet man, uninterested in physical love) in the classroom. Consequently, she started taking walks every morning, along the beach, and on top of the cliff. This pleased Cathy very much, since that spared her of Rosy’s presence, and she had a hunch that it might be a sign of the beginning of the end for the Shaughnessys’ marriage. She was too young to realize that in Catholic Ireland, you marry someone until death cut you asunder.
Rumours started to circulate that Rosy was seen walking on the beach, and on top of the cliff, in the company of Major Doryan, the commander of the British garrison. An obscene and ghastly gossip, as all villagers, including the girls, despised the British soldiers; and Father Collins ran a tight ship, to the point that in the village there were only two kinds of women: married, and virgins.
Major Randolph Doryan had been transferred from the Western front to County Kerry with a Victoria Cross, an amputated leg, due to a land mine, and a mutilated soul, due to shell shock. For the amputated leg he wore a prosthetic limb. There is not prosthesis for a broken spirit.
Whether the rumours were true or not might have never been known, had it not been for Michael, whom many looked down upon as the village half-wit. His deformed body, with a small lump on his back; his limping; his mouth, which he kept open all the time, full of damaged teeth; his raggedy clothes, and his lost gaze, easily gave the impression that he was not right in the head. But he was. He used to wander around the beach, picking up things, like shells, or driftwood. One day he spotted Rosy and Randolph hiding behind the rocks, in a secluded cove; they were hugging and kissing. He was taken aback by what he saw, because he was well aware of what it meant. Although he could not articulate one word, he managed to explain to Father Collins what he saw.
Father Collins confronted Rosy, first reproaching her reckless behaviour of taking walks in the company of Major Doryan, and then challenging her to confirm whether the rumours were true. She denied everything.
On one occasion when Mr. Shaughnessy took the children on an outing to the beach, he discovered footprints on the sand, which resembled those of his wife’s little feet, which farther ahead were joined by foot prints of boots. He tracked the prints to a cave and imagined Doryan and Rosy having an affair. He started to doubt his wife. He too, confronted her openheartedly. “Rosy, you would never be unfaithful to me, would you?” “Of course not,” Rosy replied, distressed, and overwhelmed by the fact that Charles already knew. And not knowing what else to do in that troubling situation, she simply went up to him, and hugged him. “Forgive me Rosy,” continued Charles. “What a rotten question for a man to ask his wife.”
Meanwhile, Michael went back to the cave, and found a button from Doryan's uniform; he pinned it on his lapel, and proudly paraded through the village. One day that Rosy was riding up the village road, Michael, displaying the button on his lapel, made a curtsy to Rosy, while everybody was staring. Although the villagers did not exactly understand what Michael meant with this pantomime, they started to suspect that it confirmed the connection between Rosy and Major Doryan. It did not take long before they concluded that the rumours were true. And word was out that Mrs Shaughnnessy was having an affair with Major Doryan. They all stopped talking to her, even the school children; the store keeper refused to sell her anything. In the opinion of the townsfolk, there were three classes of despicable women: loose women, whores, and British soldiers’ whores; the latter being the worst kind; and Rosy belonged to it.
Shortly after that, events took place that deflected the villagers’ attention from Rosy, but not for long. One night in January 1917, during a fierce storm, one of the Irish Republican Brotherhood leaders, Tim O'Leary, the fugitive rebel, who had killed a police constable earlier, reappeared in the village with four other men. He contacted Thomas Ryan, and told him that the following night, a German ship would be dropping guns, dynamite, and grenades on the waters near the beach; that he needed at least twelve men to join him, to pick up the weapons, and take the British garrison. May be this time it would be different from the Easter Rebellion of the previous year.
During Easter Week, April, 1916, while the United Kingdom was fighting the First World War, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection with the aim of ending British rule in Ireland, and establishing an independent Irish Republic. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798 (organized by The United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French revolutions). It was suppressed, due mainly to the much greater numbers and heavier weapons in possession of the British Army. The casualties included rebels, civilians, killed or wounded by British artillery and machine guns; and British military and police. Sixteen of the leaders were executed in May 1916. The shelling and resulting fires left parts of central Dublin in ruins.
The following night, while the storm was still raging, the packages dropped by the Germans were floating in and out of the beach, and being scattered all over. Tim and his men, who were waiting on the beach, thought they would not be able to retrieve them. To their surprise and delight, they noticed a crowd of people coming down the path the led to the beach. The entire village turned out to help the rebels, including Michael, Thomas Ryan, and Father Collins. Here was priest that was interested not only in saving his parishioners’ soul from the fire of hell, but also their land from the British invaders. O'Leary was overwhelmed with emotions at such a demonstration of support. They all helped with the task, wading into the breakers repeatedly to salvage boxes of weapons and explosives, and load them onto the lorry that was waiting on the beach. Due to the heavy cargo the lorry got stuck in the sand, and they gleefully helped release it. But when they were on their way to attack the garrison, up the hill, around the first bend, there was Major Doryan and his troops, waiting, with rifles and machine guns. Tim O’Leary and his men were arrested, and all weapons confiscated. They sure would be hanged. Somebody had betrayed them.
The entire village thought that the only possible traitor was Rosy, who was sleeping with the enemy. They stormed the school house, beat up Mr. Shaughnessy, and dragged Rosy out to the yard, where, to the sound of the laugh and screaming of the entire village, Rosy was beaten, stripped naked, her hair was cut, and her head shaved. Mister Ryan, who was present, ran away, unable to stand the scene, unable to defend his daughter, letting her take the blame for his own act of treason. Yes, Thomas, who publicly supported the recently suppressed Easter Rising, secretly, as a good publican, served the British as an informer. He had warned the garrison about Tim O’Leary’s plans.
The day after, Mr. Shaughnessy, in a forthright manner, explained the state of affairs to Rosy. He told her that he had no choice but to separate from her, but that before doing it, they should leave the village, and move to Dublin, away from pressure laid upon them by the villagers. Everything was decided, planned, and executed in a matter of days. Father Collins and Michael helped them load their stuff onto a horse-driven cart, and accompanied them up the road, through the village, to the bus stop. The village was deserted; everybody was hiding inside their houses, and watching from their windows. And now the cortege was approaching Cathy’s house.
Cathy was standing behind the window panes, angry, anguished, and resolute, with her eyes on the road. Nobody understood that for her, it was the end of the world, her world in any case. The one important thing in her life was school, and the teacher she fancied. And now he was leaving for good. She would never see him again. “Cathy do not open the door”, her mother yelled from inside. But when the cart and the group were treading by her door, she opened it, and went out. Then her father yelled “Cathy, come back inside, or I will take my belt on you.” But she defied their orders, and with the tuft of flowers still in her shaking hands, and an unflinching determination, she walked up to the group. Clenching her jaws to avoid screaming, but with tears in her eyes nevertheless, she offered the flowers to Mr. Shaughnnessy. With a broken voice she managed to say: “Good bye Mr. Shaughnnessy”. Charles took the flowers from her hands, and knelt to be at her level. “Good bye Cathy, and thank you”, he replied. And then he gave her a hug, and was able to feel and hear Cathy sobbing.
When Charles stood up, looked at Cathy once more and she was able to see something that to her was stunning. Mr. Shaughnessy, a very impassible man, who never showed any emotions, who never smiled, who was never angry, who always saw the good in everybody, and everything, who did not show any anguish when his wife died, who did not show any rage when he discovered Rosy was cheating on him, was crying. He was, after all capable of deep feelings and suffering. Cathy watched them walk away in anguish, thinking not what was going to become of her now, but what was going to happen to Mr. Shaughnnessy now.
© William Almonte Jiménez, 2020
© Robert Bolt, 1970. This story was inspired by and is based on the film “Ryan’s Daughter. It is not an act of plagiarism. It is a tribute to its writer (Robert Bolt), its cinematographer (Frederick Young), and its director (David Lean). See notes below.
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NOTES
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Last night, 2020-06-20, I saw “Ryan’s Daughter” for the second time. The first time was 50 years ago. I didn’t like the movie very much then. I didn’t remember most of it. I was only fifteen then. This time I enjoyed it immensely; above all the cinematography by Frederick Young.
I remembered it as a tragic and sad story. Back then, the scene where Rosy Ryan is stripped naked, in public, and had her hair cut, seemed to me unbearable to watch; it was humans driven by their basest instincts. Of course, at that time I didn’t know anything about the Irish-British conflict; about Ireland as an oppressed country, and the British as the occupying army. I didn’t know that betraying the cause of the Irish people, in favor of the British was the most despicable thing that any Irish could ever do. The villagers could deal with Rosy sleeping with the enemy; they simply stopped talking to her. But they could not forgive her for betraying Tim O’Leary and his group; they thought Rosy was the traitor (which she was not). Now I judge them less harshly.
And although I feel for the Irish cause, and I would like for Tim O’Leary and his group to have taken the garrison, I am also less judgmental of the British soldiers. They too were victims of some sort, pinions in the machinery of war, following orders, fighting in the name of King and Country, for the interests of the ruling classes. Major Randolph Doryan had been transferred from the Western front to County Kerry with a Victoria Cross, an amputated leg, due to a land mine, and a mutilated soul, due to shell shock. The current captain is being shipped to France, on the front line, to join the Second Battalion, South East Lancashire. This is an excerpt of the conversation they had when they first met.
-Captain: Will you tell me something? Man to man? What’s it like, really, Front Line?
-Doryan: Silence.
-Captain: Aye, well, I’ll find out soon enough. I am a coward, you see. No really, always have been, from being a lad; can’t master it. Well, perhaps I haven’t tried really. But I’d give my left arm to have a bit of what you’ve got. I hate it! Just the bloody thought of it gives me the shakes. That’s my nightmare as a matter of fact…the Shakes. Don’t mind dying, not; if it’s quick. Life’s not that much is it? Wouldn’t mind a gammy leg like you’ve got, though I don’t suppose it’s funny, but, the Shakes, shell-shock; shaking and shambling like…epileptic baby. Nay I’d rather be dead. I can see what’s coming; I’m going to disgrace myself!
-Doryan: You don’t know what you’ll do. No one does. You don’t know what you’re doing.
-Captain: Really? Well, I read what you did in the newspapers. And that were no flash in the pan. You’d do the same again, I dare say.
-Doryan: You’d be wrong.
My favorite characters were the minor ones: Little girl Cathy, Michael (excellent performance by John Mills), and Father Hugh Collins (Trevor Howard, one of my favorite actors), a far cry from your typical priest, always obedient of the Vatican decrees, which in turn, was often in unholy alliance with the powers that be. Cathy was only a school girl who wasn’t given much time in the story, but for me she was an important character. I think Mr. Bolton, and Mr. Lean wasted the potential of Cathy’s character, as a glimpse of what Rosy had been, or as a suggestion that she would one day become another Rosy. In fact my favorite scene of the whole movie, which I think Bolton, and Lean wasted, was at the end, when Charles and Rosy, accompanied by Michael, and Father Collins, were leaving town, forever, and were walking up the village’s main thoroughfare. The street was deserted. Everybody was hiding in their houses, peeping through the windows. Cathy comes out with a tuft of flowers in her hand, and stands by her house, waiting for the group to come by. Then her father threatens her. For a moment she defies her father, but then, scared, backs off, throws the flowers to the ground, and goes back inside.
I think Lean and Bolton wasted this scene. It should have been written in a different way, to reveal another side of Charles, and Cathy. That’s why I wrote the story above. It is the story of Cathy, as I see it. I don’t know if in doing this I am in infringement of copyrights, but, I am duly giving all the credits to Robert Bolt, David Lean, and Frederick Young.
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