Dancing at Lughnasa Page #6

You've already offered us

that bit of wisdom.

Come on. Come and join me.

Come on.

Come on.

Will you and Michael

come away with me?

I know.

Is there nothing I can do?

Nothing.

I could leave you alone.

You could.

Soon.

Don't leave me just yet.

Come on. Keep up.

Come on, Daddy.

Give it to me.

Soccer's no game for a man.

Rugby! That's what Welshmen play.

If I had time,

I'd teach you to play rugby.

You know I'm goin' away

tomorrow, don't you?

Will you miss me?

Will you miss me?

And Mammy? Will you miss her?

I will.

Then don't go, Daddy.

I'm a soldier now, Michael.

I have to fight.

Look, there's your Uncle Jack.

What's he doin' in that regalia?

Gerry, my dear friend.

We must now make

our formal farewells.

I hope all goes well in Spain,

you old rogue.

- You're off tomorrow?

- I am, comrade.

That's a wonderful uniform.

I could do with that for Spain.

It was my uniform when I was chaplain

to the British Army in the Great War.

There was a time when it fitted.

There was a time when it was splendid.

It still is splendid.

We must now make the exchange

the way they do in Africa.

Now, I place my possession

on the ground.

And take three steps away.

Then I turn round once.

Now, you come to where I was, and

I move over to where you were standing.

The exchange is now formally

and irrevocably complete.

This is my straw hat.

And that is your ceremonial hat.

Put it on.

Splendid! It suits ya.

Splendid.

I'm broke to the bone arrivin' so late

but I had to tell youse...

it's definite.

I have to pay youse off.

There'll be no more need

for home knit gloves.

The factory's definitely

startin' in Donegal Town.

How are we going to live, Vera?

Youse may apply for a job in it.

I wish youse better luck

than I had.

They told me I was too old.

I'm 41.

They said I was too old.

It was good of you

to come and tell us.

I only wish it was better news.

- Good night to youse.

- Good night.

Good night.

I'll make us all

a nice cup of tea.

Sit down.

Right.

Right you be.

For there's no places

on Earth just like

The homes of Donegal

I can't stick that song.

- We might get another rooster for ya.

- It doesn't matter.

- And I'll put manners on him early.

- I don't want another.

Where's Jack?

He's out lookin' up

at the moon and stars.

He's conducting his own

distinctive spiritual search.

Let him.

Do you know what I'm thinkin'?

What has Ballybeg not got

that Ballybeg needs?

- What?

- A dressmaker.

So why doesn't Agnes Mundy

who has such clever hands...

why doesn't she dressmake?

- Clever hands?

- You'd get a pile of work.

- You'd make a fortune.

- Some fortune in Ballybeg.

Stitching shrouds.

- Then how you gonna manage?

- She'll manage.

We'll pull together.

The family will always manage.

We will manage.

We always do.

- And you know how, don't you?

- How?

Our secret. Don't you remember?

That's right. Our secret.

We never saw them again.

They vanished without a trace.

Years later I learned that they ended

as shadows on the streets of London...

scraping a living together,

dying alone.

My Uncle Jack

lasted as long as he could...

believing to the end

in the Earth and the stars.

My father did go to Spain

and was wounded.

My Aunt Kate said it would

put an end to his dancing days.

Maybe it did.

My mother got a job at the factory.

She hated it all her life.

And my father wrote to her

occasionally.

Through it all, Aunt Maggie

tried to keep the house going.

She tried to pretend

that nothin' had happened...

but the family had changed.

It had changed forever.

And my Aunt Kate

was inconsolable.

Inconsolable.

Me... I was waitin'

to become a man...

waitin' to get away.

Just to go away.

But the memory of that summer

is like a dream to me...

a dream of music that is

both heard and imagined...

that seems to be both itself

and its own echo.

When I remember it,

I think of it as dancing...

dancing as if language

had surrendered to movement...

dancing as if language

no longer existed...

because words were

no longer necessary.

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