Death and Nightingales (2018) s01e03 Episode Script

The last time you came in and sat on my bed, kissed me, not fatherly.
Oh, God.
- I'm Liam Ward of Brackagh.
- You have a problem, Liam? Three bombs exploded in London.
The man we suspect is a tenant of yours.
Liam Ward.
Dear God.
- Are you not happy here? - I'd be happier elsewhere.
- Is it because of the boss touching you? - In part.
One night, when I was 12, he got very drunk, opened the big safe in the gun room and showed me his gold.
Why not take what we need? - I couldn't kill anyone.
- There are bromides.
When I'm back, if you're not gone, you and your gulping half-wit brother! Now pack your bags and get out! I've said things I shouldn't have.
Please don't ask me more.
My crime is that I raised you and I loved you over-much.
Kiss me good night.
- How many should I use? - Use all of them.
- Can you do it? - Yes.
I'll be waiting by the broken silver birch.
By God, you fairly lashed on the mustard, girl.
I know you're partial to it, sir.
- You'll lock up? - Of course.
Please tell me how Mama died.
You know.
It was an accident.
Yes, but how? Corvey Island was part of your mama's dowry, and the other part a longhorn bull-calf.
She was so proud of it, telling everyone its name was Cooley, but, as the years went on, Cooley grew headstrong.
Then, one day, he turned savage.
When I heard tell of that, I said, he'll have to go.
The next day, as the men were loading him, the sky opened, and your poor mother came into the yard at that minute in her pony and gig, and she could see nothing with the blind of rain.
Cooley was half in the trailer when the ramp gave way beneath him, sending the boys tumbling across the yard.
Then out with him, roaring mad He had the pony gored and the gig cowped and your mam in the air, tossed and ripped pitiful I heard the blares of him from here until they got an axe to his skull and a knife across his throat.
When I ran to the yard Oh, Christ in heaven, what a shambles.
I covered her with a horse blanket, all to her lovely white face, and held her head up off the street, but she was dead, your your poor mama.
Dead.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
"I, William Hudson Winters, being of sound mind and memory "and in view of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death "do hereby make and declare this to be my last will and testament.
" "I bequeath to my beloved daughter Elizabeth Winters "and her heir in perpetuity, all my estate, real and personal, "all live and dead stock, all bonds and mortgages, "all notes of hand and whatever rent and debts "that may be due in at the time of my death.
"If she marries "She must marry a man of Protestant faith.
"Failing that, all land, monies and shares will remain in trust.
"If she fails to marry and proves childless, "the entire estate will pass to my next of kin.
" 'Clonoula.
Saturday, 11th July, '1885.
'Dear, Billy, sir.
'The manner of my leaving will I know enrage you.
'I am sorry.
'You left me little choice.
'How you have behaved with me these past years, 'you know full well, though every now and then you pretend innocence.
'Against all common sense, I have, in a way, 'always loved you and still do, in a way, 'and will miss this house where I was born 'and the fields where I grew up.
'My mother was very wrong to dupe you.
'The way you treated her was sometimes nearly as bad.
'Blame on both sides, but I can no longer be caught in the middle.
'Don't try to find me.
I'm going far away.
' What's wrong? What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of, Punch? It's all right.
It's only the Dummy.
- What's wrong? - HE MUMBLES I don't understand.
I'm sorry, I don't understand.
No I need to go I need to go Shhh! The boss is sleeping.
Quiet.
The house? The avenue? The grassland? Asleep in the grass.
Yes, I understand.
Something woke you.
Digging? A man digging? Two men.
What were they digging? A grave.
My grave? How do you know for me? They spoke my name? Who were these men? Liam Ward? Who was with him? Frank Blessing? You're not lying to me? Take me there.
Show me.
You should go.
Go on now.
And thank you for warning me.
You've saved my life.
SHE SOBS You lying thief.
You lying thief! Go on, run! You run to your thieving mongrel lover Ward! Go on, help him! Help him blow the world to bits! You run and you keep running! You'll never get my gold! My fields! Can you hear me? You've thrown yourself away! Shamefully! Secretly! Go couple with him in a ditch! I never want to see you ever again in my life! The longest day I live! Never! Can you hear me, girl?! There's a grave somewhere here but no body to put in it.
This is my body, this is my blood.
What's God up to? All's wrong in the world.
He loves me he loves me not.
What words did they use across a table or in a public house? What had they planned between them? A rope around my neck? A blow to the skull? That spike in the brain prostrate then and twitching, eyes open like any dying beast tumbled into this hole to sleep for ever and ever with the clay and the stones and the worms? Where so? Where to now? Alive beside my own grave in my best travelling clothes without a farthing Back to Clonoula? It's unthinkable.
There can be no returning.
So where? So where? Well? Nothing.
You? Nothing.
Christ, where is she? Still below, asleep maybe? Maybe she lost her nerve, changed her mind? - Maybe Billy catched her at the safe? - Doped and footless? Could she have made off with Billy's gold alone? - Took the farm pass to the low road? - I'd have seen her.
Without that gold, there'll be no guns to complete the job that Parnell lacks the guts to finish.
Jesus, man, tell me something I don't know.
If you hear tell of anything, get word to me.
May God forgive you, Billy Winters, because I won't.
In the early morning light he comes, my love, Liam my hero comes.
Jesus Christ.
Did he get you taking it? Yes, he caught me.
Did you not give him all the bromides? He spilled some whisky.
Maybe he got sick.
Anyway, he woke.
I was at the safe.
Didn't you hear him shouting like a bull? No I didn't hear anything.
What was he shouting? Run, run to Ward, the stable brat, the Fenian mongrel, run to your fellow thieves and vermin.
Things like that.
It's not funny.
We're bogged.
We have our two selves.
We're young, we have our health, we're not being hunted by the constabulary, we don't have to hide, we can walk out of this house and sail away to a new life.
Maybe it's in our good fortune.
We have no fortune.
We have nothing.
You could get something for the lease of this place.
80, 100 pounds.
And that's ten times more than a million others who left here.
- That's not enough.
- Enough for what? - Enough.
They say that people who have a lot of money are seldom happy.
Billy Winters isn't a happy man and he has a lot of money.
He's never happy except when he's drunk, and then he's hateful, but you know all that.
Liam you're my white knight, my saviour, my lover, my husband-to-be, my protector, my guardian angel.
Can you not forgive me, love, for bungling? There's nothing to forgive.
I wasn't happy at the idea of stealing because I've never stolen so much as a farthing my whole life from anyone, but for you, my love I was willing to rob my guardian, take every ounce of gold he had.
You took no risk, you paid no penalty, lost nothing.
I lost everything and maybe now, without the gold, you don't love me, don't want me.
That's not true.
You can prove that now, you could kill Billy Winters, take his gold, we could leave together as planned.
Today would be a bad day to try that.
Well, then, tomorrow? Next week? next month? He deserves to die.
Do you think you could do it, love? You're talking very odd.
Am I? Very.
Do you have nothing? I left it all behind.
MAN IMITATES BIRD There's someone there.
A visitor? This early? It's nobody.
Does "nobody" have a name? It's Frank Blessing.
Drunk most likely.
- Who? - Her.
Billy waked, beat her, kicked her out.
- What's she doing here? - She's no place else to go.
She's probably watching.
Laugh or something.
- What? - Laugh.
HE LAUGHS Your one inside is at the door this minute looking at the two of us.
Frank's here on the tear.
Wants to borrow a mouthful of whisky.
Liam was telling me you got a woeful hammering above.
A birthday treat.
Fist and horse-whip.
Well, you wouldn't be the first woman whipped by that fella.
You're well away from that house now and you neither kith nor kin.
He must have heard from someone, Liam, that we were grete, and you being a tenant, that in Billy's book means a gale-day liar, a debtor, a witless spade-man, a stable brat, the lowest of the low, a landless Paddy, a less than nothing nobody.
And you being unavailable for punishment, he took the whip to me.
It's common enough the world over.
Must be millions like me, whipped half-blind by blind-drunk men, for this, that and the other.
Or nothing.
He didn't spike the run of your tongue.
No.
But you're a wit of sorts, I'm told.
Who says that? Mercy Boyle tells me you're a witty man.
Full of "spakes", she says.
Mercy, is it? She swears it's the goat's milk you take to bed every night in a baby's bottle.
Well, she's a liar, then.
I couldn't believe it either.
Not Frank, I said.
Frank's too manly, I said.
Frank's a butcher.
This is the only bottle I bother with night or day.
Good luck to you, Miss Winters.
You'll need all the luck that's going.
May God go with you, Frank Blessing, and his blessed mother and may all the angels and saints guard and defend you.
My grandmother, my mother's mother, had an open hearth in her house.
A turf fire that burned day and night.
The boast was it never went out for 100 years.
A shroud-maker, she was, during the famine.
Terrible times.
It's left us all half-hungry and mad greedy, or that's what they say.
Only for those shrouds, I wouldn't be here now wondering how you're going to kill Billy Winters.
Would you quit talk of killing? There'll be no killing.
No? No.
You're right.
This is our honeymoon, Liam.
This is our love-cabin and we're alone now your friend is gone.
He's no friend.
But you work with him.
He helped you in the quarry, he helps you make hay.
- He is your friend, Liam.
- He's a neighbour.
I pay him.
But a friend of sorts, is he not? It doesn't matter what he is.
Oh, but it does.
If he was your brother, you couldn't help that, Not your fault.
But friends you pick and they do matter.
But, in a way, you're right.
We'll be on the high seas soon or have you other plans now? I've been thinking and thinking and this place could be a happy garden, but it needs a woman's hand There's wild rosemary and thyme and wild garlic and then there's no end of bilberries for jelly and wine.
We could grow potatoes, you could put in a stripe of barley.
This place could be a kind of paradise.
Why would we run from paradise? If you pay rent to Billy Winters, we could stay here.
We could be the happiest people in the whole world.
- Sure you're raving.
- I didn't hear that.
You're raving.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, my love, he knocked my wits sideways.
I'll try to talk less but talk I must.
True love, they say, never runs smooth but you must believe that love conquers all in the end.
You're still raving.
Then I'll stay quiet and listen.
Tell me what are we to do? You can't stay here.
Why? Because.
Then tell me what you plan, love.
What's in your mind? - You'll have to go.
- Where can I go? Tell me where I can go.
I have nowhere to go.
- You must have friends.
- But I want to stay with you.
For you, for love, I stole.
You've You've took no risk.
You've not been beaten or driven out.
You've lost nothing, And if young girls like Biddy O'Goarman can strangle infants, surely you can dispatch a hateful, brutal man for me, for love and for gold? You told me you loved Billy Winters in a way.
No longer, now I have murder in my heart.
It's stupid.
I'd be caught and hung.
Killing is easy, you said.
- Then where must I go? - Elsewhere.
You'll have to stop talking, you're making my head light.
No matter where I am or where you are, we'll have to pick a name.
It's going to be in March, love, or thereabouts.
Faolan, perhaps, if it's a boy.
You'd expect Faolan Ward to be somebody and, of course, he would be because he'd be your son, Liam, and mine.
Corrie if it's a girl.
The Corrys are a branch of the Maguire clan - a good Fermanagh name.
Corrie Ward.
She sounds clever.
You feel she could give a good account of herself.
Manage her life.
You shouldn't've kept that from me till now.
What better day? The first day of our new life together.
Crying, love? Really and truly crying, are you? I had no notion you were that way.
Nature's a terrible tinker.
You had no right to keep that from me.
I know where I can go.
Corvey Island.
You'll starve there.
It'll only be for a few days.
A week at most, until you're finished here.
I could live on bread, butter, watercress and black tea.
That's no hardship.
You could be right.
I know I am.
You all right? Yes.
You sure? I'm sure.
They're new.
And tight.
Sit down.
Jesus, you'll cowp us! Beth, I can't swim! May God forgive you, my love, and me.
Beth! Don't! You'll cowp it.
Beth, I can't swim! Beth! I Beth! Beth! Beth, help me! Beth! Beth! Help me! Beth! I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son.
Our Lord Our only son Our only child died and was buried and the third day he rose Beth! Beth! How long? Help me! - The third time, he rose again from the dead - Beth! Is that it? Is he gone now? He ascended into Heaven and siteth on the right hand of the Father And where is my father all my life? Where is he now? Oh, that he can see me in the flatness of my misery, with eyes of pity Don't gurn, idiot.
Swim, or you'll join him.
RUMBLE OF THUNDER Beth! Beth! Oh, you're icy cold.
I was certain you were gone.
I saw the empty currach drifting and I thought, she's She's gone, she's dead.
The The light of my life.
I've I've driven out I've killed the only thing How did you guess I was here? That Dummy McGonnell.
- Did they harm you, girl? - Nothing visible.
You did that.
A terrible, terrible mistake.
A nice word.
But you were You were robbing me.
You were robbing me for him.
For Ward.
Your lover.
Could you not guess what he is? Evil.
And what are you? Or any man.
I loved him.
I loved him.
Surely you of all people can understand that? Where is Ward now? Dead and gone.
How? Drowned.
- How? - Loudly, squalidly.
Yes, but how? He can't swim.
I stood and tipped the currach.
Cowped it.
It drifted away and I watched him sinking.
Sinking.
A drowning accident.
Death by misadventure.
That's what they'll call it.
I don't care what they call it.
No, neither do I, but I care deeply about you, daughter.
I am not your daughter! Can you forgive me ever, Beth? Not today not tomorrow, not ever, maybe.
I'd care for you different from this day out.
I hate you, Billy Winters.
And if I had courage enough, I'd kill you too and feel nothing.
- You wouldn't.
- I would.
For what you did to Mama, to me to God knows who else.
I will always hate you.
I will always love you, Beth Winters.
I'm with child.
What? I'm expecting Ward's baby.
Jesus, God.
Not again.
We're a pair, we two.
Tethered both to treachery.
Maybe we should marry go elsewhere and raise the child.
Are you hurting? Are you sick, Beth? Unto death, Mr Winters.