The Playwright's Woman Read online

  Muirenn – the pulse of my heart, my timeless muse – is to blame for it all. Women have the tendency to leave a man with less time to do things such as writing, but I can be certain that I am now writing more than I had been previously. In her I feel I have found my factor unaccounted for; my bright spark. “Write some more, my darling” she would often say to me. Sometimes she will only sit in still silence on the sofa, and watch me as I do nothing but write for hours on end. I can scarcely believe it.

  Amidst all this creative vigour I find that I have written a play, Ferguson’s Ghost. I finished it the week before last. The producer Williams has already read it, and was quite taken by it. To my great surprise, I find that he is already beginning early preparations for production. He has called the script a ‘winner’, I am glad to say. Let us hope his faith in it is not misplaced.

  * * *

  The Diary of James Grey

  September 26th, 1889

  My concern for Kevin’s wellbeing has well and truly become alarm.

  Something exceedingly unwholesome is transpiring. Kevin’s hair is now streaked with grey and white, even though he is young; younger even than myself. He appears haggard and worn, and often seems greatly fatigued, even early in the morning. Kevin is wasting away, quite simply, before my eyes! Furthermore, he seems absent-minded when I try to engage him – he will often lose his train of thought, glance away and murmur quietly to himself while in conversation. He once even forgot my name. Not a good indication at all, especially considering we will have known one other for three years this November.

  It would seem to me that he has eased up on the consumption of absinthe in recent months; I have not seen him drink it at the Bishop’s Elbow in some time. I am at a loss, therefore, as to what could be causing such profound damage. Perhaps he has been taking the absinthe in secret; buying and depositing bottles of the stuff in his room, away from scrutinizing eyes. Perhaps he has been taking opium, or possibly laudanum? Even those frightful concoctions could surely not be responsible for what I am seeing.

  Could it possibly be, somehow, that it is Muirenn who answerable for this frightful change in Kevin? I dare not to think the thought; it is ridiculous in its absurdity and perhaps not something that a rational mind is meant to entertain. But Muirenn is a thoroughly bizarre woman. She is different to any other woman that I have ever met; there is a certain sense of incredible foreignness about her. She hails only from the island that sits across the water from this one yet she seems more dissimilar to your average Englishwoman than a lady newly arrived in London from China or Hindustan. I have looked into her eyes, and they have never ceased to make one feel ill-at-ease. There is a faint but un-ignorable sensation; perhaps an awareness that something is not quite as it should be. The only thing which I can think of to compare it to is the feeling that one has forgotten something, but not knowing what.

  I have spoken to Rachel about the whole business with Kevin, and she too has grown concerned for him. She has expressed her approval of my plan – to bring Kevin into our house, to live with us for a time. To keep close watch over him, and to wean him from his devotion to Muirenn. It will not be easy – he will suffer – but I feel it to be absolutely necessary. It is all for Kevin’s best interests, after all.

  * * *

  The Diary of K. F. Darley

  October 6th, 1889

  The factor unaccounted for

  The factor unaccounted for

  The factor unaccounted for

  She is everywhere, my Muirenn. In all places, at all times. I see her in the sky, looking down on me. I hear her voice on the wind that blows through the streets. I see her reflected in the paving stones soaked by rain. I see her out there, in the great black of night. I see her face in the moon. She is everywhere, and I cannot escape from her.

  And I would not want to.

  She has told me many times of her home. Her ‘country’, she calls it. She has said that the sun shines there perpetually. She has said that it is always spring. She has said that the breeze is sweet with the smell of honey and apple-blossoms. She has said that, with the fullness of time, we will go there hand in hand.

  I like that prospect very much.

  * * *

  The Diary of James Grey

  November 20th, 1889

  My gravest fears – those which dwelt in the deep dark places of my mind; the ones which I dare not consider for the fear that they should somehow come to fruition – have been suddenly realized.

  Poor Kevin has died.

  His latest play – Ferguson’s Ghost – premièred at the Pantheon earlier this week to much glittering praise and adulation from the audiences and the critics. The playwright, however, was notably absent.

  I went to Kevin’s room the day before yesterday, with the intention of checking in on his wellbeing and congratulating him on the play. I knocked at the door, and no one answered. I knocked once again, but there was still no answer. I left the building, and then went searching for him at the Bishop’s Elbow and then the theatre. I was drawn back, however, to the front door of his flat. I had a feeling – an instinctual one, perhaps – that I would find him inside. I threw myself against the door three times, and on the third it gave way.

  Inside I found him, lying not on his bed but on his boarded floor, swaddled in sheets and blankets. Hundreds of leaves of paper were scattered throughout the room – some were flat, some were crumpled, many still were wadded up into tight balls. The corpse was almost unrecognizable as Kevin’s own: it was pale and misshapen, with sparse, snow-white hair and a deeply furrowed face. A long, lank hand – stark white but for great black stains of ink – sat emerged from the wrappings. The hand (the right, his writing hand) was bent crookedly, and fastened in its death-grip was a pen, the steel nib of which was heavily worn from overuse.

  The constables of Scotland Yard could not detect any sign of foul-play. They found it exceedingly difficult to believe me, however, when I claimed that he was only thirty five years old – after a time, I found that I was also inclined to doubt myself. The body is at the Southwark morgue presently, where they are endeavouring to find a cause of death. I suspect, however, that they will give up before long.

  I found correspondence with his mother, Una Darley of Castlerea, Ireland, on his writing bureau. Perhaps they will give me further insight into his mental state – I will be sure to read them over at a later date, and of course write to his mother to notify her of the sad turn of events.

  Throughout all this the inscrutable Muirenn, of course, was nowhere to be found. None of the neighbours had anything to say about any female companions of Kevin’s. She may as well have vanished into the ether. I do not expect I shall ever see her or hear from her again.

  * * *

  December 1st, 1889

  With the funeral services over, I and some of the boys from the Bishop’s Elbow set about sorting through Kevin’s (relatively few) belongings. It was agreed that the most sentimentally valuable items would be sent to his family in Ireland, and the rest to be sold or donated.

  The fellows down at the morgue, as I had suspected, did not know what to make of poor Kevin’s death. I mentioned to the head mortician Kevin’s heavy use of the spirit absinthe. The man said that that was the most likely cause of death, but I must say that he did not convince me and did not seem convinced on the matter himself. I suspect that Kevin’s was simply a corpse from which he wanted to keep his distance.

  Amongst Kevin’s things were a small collection of magazines and old books. There were a few novels (one of them an English translation of a French work), a tattered Bible and a tome of natural history. Of all these books, though, one volume in particular caught my eye: it was a book of the customs and the lore of the Irish, written by one Conan Thomas Stephens. Closed between the pages was a bookmark, a vivid red ribbon, suggesting that Kevin had been ready to take up the book at any moment and continue reading from where he had last left off. The book, however, was shelved with all the others,
and had collected a patina of dust. It had apparently not been touched in many months.

  I took down the book and opened to the marked page. What I read therein was shocking to me, and I am still at a loss as to what to make of it.

  The ‘leannan shee’. Surely it is only a figment of old lore. A thing of the Celtic imagination; pure superstition passed down in the form of stories told to children by their grandmothers. Muirenn was a thoroughly odd woman, certainly, but an odd woman was all that she was. To think otherwise is simply not rational.

  Kevin overcame his writers block in spectacular fashion, and produced prolific and acclaimed works in a very short span of time. A phenomenal occurrence, but not one entirely at odds with reason or logic. I cared not one iota for Muirenn, but it is obvious that Kevin was very much in love with her, and it is clear that she played an integral part in inspiring him to write. This is not beyond the limits of reason. This great creative vigour – along with poor Kevin’s life, of course – was snuffed out prematurely, by a worldly ailment. Some malady not yet accounted for or understood by medical science. Perhaps one brought about by impurities in the absinthe, I cannot be sure. It is a frightful and unheard-of tragedy, by all accounts, yes. But one that, when all is said and done, was only mundane. Only of this world.

  It must be so.

  * * *

  A Concise Dictionary of the Fables and Fairy-Tales of the Irish

  Conan Thomas Stephens (Second ed.; 1877)

  L

  Leannan shee

  “Barrow lover” or “fairy lover”. A fay spirit in the form of a beautiful woman who takes a mortal man – often a poet or artist – as a lover. In exchange for his love and devotion, the leannan shee will inspire the man and enliven his existence. This comes at a cost, however, to the man’s sanity and, ultimately, his life.

  * * *

  J. Grey

  22 Elvaston Mews,

  South Kensington,

  London,

  ENGLAND

  Mr. and Mrs. Darley,

  My name is James Grey, and for many years I have considered myself a close friend of your son, Kevin. It is with great sadness, however, that I must report to the event of his passing.

  I had just attended the première of his play, Ferguson’s Ghost, this past November 15th. I found that he was not present for the show, and, duly concerned, I made my way to his room on Cheyne Row. I arrived only to find the sad scene. I found Muirenn, but not Kevin. She was utterly inconsolable with grief, and told me of the news: that morning, she said, he had simply not woken up. The morticians at the Southwark morgue suspect that he had suffered from a type of sudden rupturing of one of the arteries at the base of the brain, and that he would not have experienced any pain or discomfort. I can corroborate this; upon viewing him, he did strike me as being very content and did not appear to have experienced any pain at all in his final hours.

  We laid him to rest with proper Roman rites at Westminster cemetery, and managed to acquire for his grave a very handsome marker.

  I am very sorry to have to tell you this news via letter, and would like to extend my most profound condolences. Kevin was a dear friend and I feel that his writing – and, more importantly, his friendship – has benefitted and edified me to no end. I will miss him dearly, and regret that he had to be taken from us so suddenly.

  Yours sincerely,

  James Grey, Esq.