At this point Mickey and Eddie have their backs to either wing standing opposite each other, the two spotlights still separating them. Then Mickey continues, “I’ve been thinkin’ again Eddie. You an’ Linda were friends when she first got pregnant, weren’t y’?” at this point Mickey’s voice is raised and as he talks he shakes the gun at Eddie. Letting out a desperate cry Eddie whales “Mickey!” He can’t believe what he is hearing.
Mickey’s next line is “Does my child belong to you as well as everythin’ else? Does she Eddie? Does she?” as he says this Mickey will burst into tears, saying this really touched a nerve showing how desperate he is. Mickey edges forward threatening Eddie and he steps back backing away showing Mickey is the stronger party in the argument. Eddie replies with a holler “No for God’s sake!” Then two policemen enter from the back of the auditorium one goes down one side of the theatre, they both squat in position on the stairs at the front sides of the stage, their pistols pointed at Mickey and his trembling gun warning him to put it down.
One talks through a loudhailer pleading with Mickey to put the gun down and not to do anything stupid. Mickey continues talking to Eddie dismissing their presence, he tells Eddie he doesn’t even know what he is doing, he was going to shoot him but he cant even pluck up the courage to do that, he doesn’t even know if the gun is loaded. The policemen edge forward up on to the stage assuring Mickey that everything will be all right. Mickey’s voice is startling with a slight sense of nervousness coming from him and you can see the perspiration dripping from both Eddie and Mickey’s brows, the police do all they can in their power to protect Eddie. The two policemen are dressed in traditional police uniforms.
Mrs Johnstone slowly enters through a door in the backdrop at the back of the stage, which would be the entrance to the Town Hall. She cautiously walks down between the chairs where Eddie’s audience were sitting earlier; she looks at both Eddie and Mickey and evaluates the situation. She is on edge not knowing what to do for the best. “Mickey. Mickey. Don’t shoot him Mickey.” She pleads with her son. Mrs Johnstone is wearing a long dark coat down to her ankles it is open showing a pink blouse and knee length navy skirt, her shoes are black along with her stocking. She has mascara tears down her face to show she has been crying, I think Willy Russell wants the audience to feel sorry for her and the predicament she is in and what to do in the best interest of her boys. Mickey tells his mother to go away be she wont and walks closer to them, “Mickey. Don’t shoot Eddie. He’s your brother.
You had a twin brother. I couldn’t afford to keep the both of you. His mother couldn’t have kids. I agreed to give one of you away!” I would have her pausing when she says “Don’t shoot Eddie (pause) He’s your brother.” The rest of it she would say with only a couple of breaths as though she was pushing the truth out even thought she never wanted it to come out into the open. Her superstitious beliefs have stopped her from telling them in the past, but she needed to try and protect her children. She looks at them both but can’t look them in the eye as she feels like she has let them down.
Mickey explodes and stands staring at Eddie taking short but evil glances at his Mother “You!” he screams “You! Why didn’t you give me away!” he now stands glaring at her, almost uncontrollable with rage. “I could have been… I could have been him!” And on the word him Mickey full of anger waves the gun carelessly at Eddie. The gun explodes and Eddie falls dramatically to the ground. Mickey turns to the police screaming the word “no!” They open fire two guns explode blowing Mickey away.
Everything now is quiet, Mrs Johnstone falls to the ground in between the two brothers who lay silently upon the floor in disbelief of the situation, she clutches them both in her hands with her head hung glancing at them both. Linda runs franticly down the aisle from the back of the auditorium and inspects Mickey first the Eddie in floods of tears she is taken to one side by a policemen and comforted. All the lights go dim as the Narrator appears and one spotlight illuminates him, he sums up the ending by saying “And do we blame superstition for what came to pass?
Or could it be what we, the English, have come to known as class?” He then goes on by saying what he opens with at the beginning of the play “Did you ever hear the story of the Johnstone twins, As like each other as two new pins, How one was kept and one given away, How they were born, and they dies, on the self same day?”
The light on the Narrator dims as he walks off and Mrs Johnstone is put into the spotlight she now starts singing still kneeling on the floor holding the bodies of her sons. At the start of the second verse she stands up slowly, as she sings she uses her hands to express herself she walks right to the front of the stage with her arms out in front then up above her as the song ends and the curtain drops. While she is still singing in the background the bodies of her sons are put on stretchers and covered up with black sheets, undertakers then carry them off going opposite ways exiting on both sides of the stage.
