My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown Page #3

---

Aah!

(BABY CRYING)

SHEILA :
Christy, please! Christy, stop!

Stop it, Christy! Come on!

SHEILA :
Christy, stop.

Christy. It's all right, Christy.

He's gone now, Christy.

Christy, come on.

Christy, it's all right.

Christy, I'm going away.

I'll miss you, too.

Look after me ma for me.

(BABY CRYING)

(APPLAUSE)

I need a light.

What?

I need a light.

MARY :
I don't smoke.

I need a light!

I'm not deaf. I can hear you.

You need a light.

I haven't got any matches

so you'll have to wait here

while I go and get one.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Don't you think I'm your mother just because

I'm looking after you for the evening.

I don't need a f***ing psychology lesson.

I just need a f***ing light.

Light.

Have you got a cigarette?

I'm just after telling you I don't smoke.

Is there anything else I can do for you?

Glass.

No point in drinking out of the bottle, huh?

Hello. Dr Cole, please.

Hello, Eileen.

Yes. Yeah.

Athetoid cerebral palsy.

- He's 19?

- Yes, 19.

Yes, 19.

Yes. That's correct.

Mm. I'll get his address.

OK. OK.

Mm-hm.

Dr Cole thinks that this model

would be the best for your son.

- Which one?

- This one.

That is grand.

Yeah.

MA :
See, that there, he won a prize for that.

- That's lovely.

- His best one's here. Wait till I show you now.

- What's that?

- Nothing. See that one? Isn't that lovely?

And that one - torn, but you get the idea.

That's his first one he ever did there. See?

MA :
Watch your step there.

DR.COLE :
I'm fine.

Christy, there's someone to see you.

This is Dr Cole.

Hello, Christy.

You're a great painter.

No.

Look, I'm a doctor, like your mother says,

and I specialise in cerebral palsy.

We've just started a clinic: here in Dublin

and I wonder, would you like to attend it?

(INDISTINCT SPEECH)

No, we don't have to pay, Christy.

- DR.COLE :
Well?

- (SIGHS)

(Slurred) Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.

- He said, "Hope deferred..."

- "Maketh the heart sick."

DR.COLE :
I understood that.

Ah, come on.

Maybe.

DR.COLE :
Good.

- Come on in!

- Please!

- No!

- You have to.

What do you want them to do,

tow you behind?

Do you want to ride up front

with the driver?

Come on, Christy.

Come up in the front with me.

I'm all right.

He said he's all right.

(VAN DOOR CLOSES)

(PEOPLE CHATTERING)

Eileen.

Eileen, come here.

Easy. Come on. Relax.

- What?

- I want to go home.

- Are you sure?

- Yeah.

MA :
The door's been locked

for a few days now.

DR.COLE :
I've got to try.

(KNOCK ON DOOR)

MA :
Christy.

Go away.

MA :
Christy, there's

somebody here to see you.

(MA SPEAKING SOFTLY)

(KNOCK ON DOOR)

DR.COLE :
Christy?

I'm not a child.

MA :
Not a child, he says.

There's too many children at the clinic.

DR.COLE :
Christy, if you like,

we can work here.

F*** off.

With speech therapy, I could teach you

how to say "f*** off" more clearly.

One, two...

three, four, five.

And over again.

One, two...

Just relax with it. Relax.

Three, four, five. That's it.

One, two, three, and out.

(EXHALES)

Breathe.

(BLOWING)

Nope. Your lungs are too weak. Leave it be.

DR.COLE :
That's right. Try this instead.

Right. Now you have a go.

Yes. Blow.

Steady, steady.

And one big breath.

That's very good.

Now focus the breath.

(DR COLE LAUGHS)

Breathe slowly and...

He's been like that for three days now.

I don't know what's wrong.

He won't talk to me.

Go on up and see him.

(KNOCK ON DOOR)

I've brought you a present.

CHRISTY :
Thanks.

There's a speech in there

I'd love you to have a look at.

It's "To be or not to be." Hamlet.

I wish you'd stop feeling sorry for yourself.

(SIGHS)

I don't want to be a failure, either.

Will you have a look at it for me?

CHRISTY :
Maybe.

(DOOR CLOSES)

CHRISTY :
"To be...or not...to be.

"To be...or not to be.

"That is the question.

"To be or not...

"To be...

"That is the question...

"Whether...

"nobler in the mind to..."

"To be...or not to be."

PADDY :
"To be or not to be...

"That is the question.

"Whether it is nobler in the mind..."

to have to f***ing suffer listening to that.

He's in love with this girl Eileen.

(CHRISTY CONTINUES FAINTLY)

Well...so long as he's getting better.

He could get hurt, Paddy.

A broken body's nothing to a broken heart.

Hmm.

- (KNOCK ON DOOR)

- Yeah!

Eileen, how's it going?

Very, very well.

I've got some news for you.

What?

Remember I told you about

Peter and his gallery?

Yeah.

Well, he's offered you

an exhibition of your own.

What do you think about that?

I think you're brilliant.

Yeah. I'm only as brilliant as my patients.

(BOTH LAUGH)

CHRISTY :
"Consummation...

"devoutly to be wished.

"To die, to sleep..."

"To sleep...

"perchance to dream.

"Aye, there's the rub.

"For in that sleep of death

what dreams may come."

Is that our Christy up there?

Huh?

Does that sound like our Christy?

Sounds a lot better.

Not to me, it doesn't.

Are you mad, woman?

You can understand your child

for the first time.

I always understood him.

PADDY :
Nobody else ever did.

At least he can function now.

There's something in that voice that...

that disturbs me.

What do you mean?

Too much hope in it.

PADDY :
What?

There's too much hope in it.

"Fly to others that we know not of?

"Thus, conscience does make

cowards of us all."

CHRISTY :
What was it?

- "And thus, the native hue..."

- "And thus, the native hue of resolution

"is sicklied over with

the pale cast of thought

"and enterprises of great pitch and moment

"with this regard, their currents turn awry

and lose the name of action."

(LAUGHS)

What do you think about Hamlet, Christy?

A cripple. He can't act.

He did in the end.

Too late.

Eileen...

I like you very much.

And I like you, Christy.

You have the heart of a poet.

No.

Oh, Well.

What?

Nothing.

I better go.

(CHATTERING)

(MUTTERS)

Ladies and gentlemen?

- Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

- (CHATTERNG STOPS)

It gives me great pleasure

to open this exhibition...

of the work of Christy Brown.

A lot of people say that Christy

is a great crippled painter.

I think that's an insult to Christy.

That's right!

Christy is simply a great painter, full stop.

He has struggled with his material...

as every painter must do,

to bring it under control.

If you look around the walls today

you'll see the forces

that shape Christy Brown.

His mother...

his father...

his brothers and sisters...

and the lady who brought him

to public recognition,

Dr Eileen Cole.

Yes!

(APPLAUSE)

MAN :
So, what do you think?

There are only two kinds of painting...

religious and the circus.

(LAUGHTER)

Give me some wine.

You know, on each side of the nose.

(CHRISTY SLURPING)

MAN :
That's what it says here -

"Seven-day Seascape". Something like that.

MA :
There you go.

And you've had enough to drink.

Don't have any more drink.

Do you hear me?

I'm going for a meal, Ma. You coming?

No, no, no. I'm...

I'll take your father home.

He's not feeling well.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes