Rock 'n' Roll (11 page)

MAX
(
interested
) Really? Tell me about that.

ESME
(
cross
) No. Stop making everything about
your
thing. I'm talking about, I don't know, being the dog's bollocks at Latin when I was thirteen—which I was. Well, I've done that now, so you can.

MAX
No, I'm justly rebuked. Yesterday, standing in the polling station … There was no one to vote for. No one. It's not just you.

ESME
(
small laugh
) After the drama of getting you in and out of the car?

MAX
Do you want to know something terrible?

ESME
No. What?

MAX
I thought about voting for Thatcher.

ESME
Why?

MAX
To keep the issues in plain sight. Sharp enough to cut. Draw blood. Widen the gap and rub the workers' faces in it, reward the fat and the smug. Anything to wake the buggers up—anything—
anything
better than five years of amelioration and accommodation calling itself the Party of Labour. But I voted for them. Did you?

ESME
I lost the form, the postal thing. Pa—(
She takes the plunge.
) Alice is worried that—

MAX
Don't worry about her. You'll have to find something to occupy yourself.

ESME
I'm not the problem, it's Alice.

MAX
No, it's you.

ESME
(
gives up again
) Let's wait and see when she gets her results. Can we go in?

MAX
The college doesn't care about her results, it knows what it's getting.

ESME
Is that fair?

MAX
No, but it's just.

He has been easing himself to get up. He relapses.

MAX
(
cont.
) Give me a minute. Where's that … (whisky)?

ESME
How is it?

MAX
Hurts.

Esme starts to get up. Alice enters from indoors with the ‘small whisky', and a mug of tea for Esme.

ESME
You can have a couple of Nurofen ahead of time, it won't do you any harm.

MAX
No, I can't …

Alice arrives and gives Max the whisky, then the tea to Esme.

ALICE
(
to Esme, disingenuously
) All done?

MAX
… I'm not allowed the Nurofen with alcohol.

ESME
Pa—

MAX
That's what the doctor said.

ESME
No, he didn't! He said you aren't allowed alcohol with the Nurofen.

MAX
Same thing.

He drinks half the whisky.

MAX
(
cont.
) Your mother and I have been talking about your gap year.

ALICE
Oh yes?

MAX
A gap year in Cambridge is a nonsense. You'd be bored silly.

ALICE
So, you'll …

MAX
I spoke to the college. You can matriculate in September. You won't be the youngest undergraduate at Cambridge. What do you think? You'll get your degree sooner and have a gap year when you can enjoy it.

Pause.

ALICE
Yeah, okay. Cool.

ESME
(
with relief
) Darling, are you sure?

MAX
(
handing Alice his empty glass
) Would you oblige me, Alice? It's helping.

ESME
(
to Alice
) Don't you!

ALICE
(
playing along
) My leg's gone to sleep.

MAX
I'll get it myself, then.

Max feints, Alice takes his glass and a crutch.

ESME
Is it all right about your friends?

ALICE
They're boring.

Alice hobbles indoors using the crutch.

ESME
Honestly!

MAX
There's more of you in her than you think.

ESME
Is there? A man at the shops today … a bit rough-looking, with his head almost shaved but balding anyway … he saw Alice and said, ‘Hello, it's you.'

MAX
Why?

ESME
He thought she was me. He used to be in a band, he was quite famous, with wild black hair, you know, a great face, he looked, well, he looked like a rock star, but he blew his mind and the band sort of dropped him … and one night, just round that time, before I knew him, before I knew it was him, I saw him in the garden. Just up there. I had my ‘O' level results in my underpants—the envelope—which I'd, you know, opened but I thought, ‘Well, all in good time'—and I'd gone out to the Dandelion to see who was playing, and when I came home late through the garden, he was on the wall tootling on a pipe, like Pan. (
pause
) I wasn't always sure it happened, like a lot of things. But later he had a solo album, and … well, I went to see him play once, at the Corn Exchange, in my red-leather bomber jacket I gave Alice. He was in the support band. It turned out to be
the last gig he ever played, and he was all over the place … The bass player and the drummer tried to stay with him, they'd find him and he'd lose them again, so they left him to it but he wouldn't give up, he botched his way on and on, fudging chords and scowling with his hair falling over the strings. He'd cut his finger and he was bleeding on the guitar. It was terrible but somehow great. I got up on the stage and danced. He looked at me, sort of surprised. He said, ‘Oh, hello. It's you.' He was the Piper.

Blackout and ‘Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd, three minutes in.

Smash cut.

Prague, 1987.

Exterior open space. Early morning.

Nigel is waiting, alone, nervous. He has grown up into a been-around reporter. He has a shoulder-bag.

Jan arrives. He has a plastic bag containing a record album, and a paper bag containing bread rolls. He has weathered the eleven years pretty well.

JAN
Ahoj.

NIGEL
Oh … hi.

JAN
I am Jan.

NIGEL
(
pause
) Oh, yes?

JAN
You are Nigel. Of course.

NIGEL
Oh. ‘It's my first visit to your beautiful—'

JAN
Aaagh! ‘Cigarette! Will you give me a cigarette!'

NIGEL
(
with relief
) Oh, Jesus, what a nightmare! I forgot the cigarettes, then the shops weren't open, then I stopped the taxi miles away in case I was being—

JAN
(
cheerful, shaking hands
) It's okay! I don't smoke. Everything is okay. Tell Tomas it is not necessary to behave like criminals!

NIGEL
I was worried about getting you into trouble.

JAN
Trouble is something else. How is Tomas?

NIGEL
I don't know him. He's just the guy in London you call for Czech dissident stuff.

JAN
But you are here for Gorbachev, of course?

NIGEL
Yeah, but our Moscow correspondent is covering the diplomatic story, he came in ahead of Gorby. I'm doing dissidents, which basically means queuing up to interview Havel. So I could use a story if you've got one.

JAN
A story?

NIGEL
(
looking front
) What is all that? I've been wondering.

JAN
The John Lennon wall.

NIGEL
The John Lennon
wall?

JAN
When Lennon died people started coming here … You know, to light candles and play his music …

NIGEL
(
interested
) Really? Are the flowers for Lennon?

JAN
(
nods
) The police come and clear everything away and arrest a few people, then it starts again.

Nigel comes forward for a closer look. From nearby there comes the sound of John Lennon singing ‘Give Peace a Chance' on a tinny cassette-player.

NIGEL
Czech hippies! Pictures of him. Has anybody used this?

JAN
Is it a story?

Nigel considers, then grimaces.

NIGEL
It's a piece. But it's not a story.

He goes back, taking a handful of cassettes from his bag.

NIGEL
(
cont.
) These are from Esme. She said you probably wouldn't have CDs …

JAN
(
accepting them
) Thank you! Please tell her thank you. (
slightly surprised
) Uh, Madonna … and Queen … from Esme? How is she?

NIGEL
She's okay, fine.

JAN
What is she doing now?

NIGEL
Not a lot. Coping with Alice. Our daughter is starting Cambridge.

Nigel opens his wallet and shows it.

NIGEL
(
cont.
) The family brains skipped a generation. That's her.

JAN
(
thrown
) With Eleanor?

NIGEL
With Esme. Alice with Esme.

JAN
(
works it out
) Oh. Yes. Can I? (
He looks for a moment.
) She's … Thank you. (
abruptly
) This is for her. The Plastic People of the Universe. Live album, very rare, in fact illegal—made from tapes taken out by a tourist.

NIGEL
(
nervous
) Okay. What happens if I get caught with it?

Jan draws his finger across his throat.

NIGEL
(
cont.
) Shit. Really? Okay.

He's ready to go.

NIGEL
(
cont.
) Well … sorry to get you up so early.

JAN
No, I came from work.

He shows a bread roll from his bag.

JAN
(
cont.
) Still warm.

NIGEL
(?)

JAN
I work in a bakery.

NIGEL
Right. Okay. It'll have to be Havel.

JAN
You don't need Havel. I can tell you Havel. Havel is in despair with the Czech people. When Gorbachev and the beautiful Raisa smile and wave, the Czech people go crazy. They think Gorbachev has come to save them from Husák. When will they ever learn that only they can save themselves?! That's Havel. When we were reformers, the Soviets invaded. Now the Soviets are reformers, they have discovered a deep respect for Czechoslovakia's right to govern itself. Havel can see the joke, it's his business. Why can't President Husák see the joke? Because he knows it's over. He's a realist. Gorbachev got it long ago, he's an economist.

NIGEL
It's over?

JAN
Sure. Gorbachev is a masterpiece. He plays golf, he drinks whisky, his tailor is a reform tailor, he even has a reform wife, and he is a Communist leader! He has discovered the concept of internal political asylum for all. Perestroika!

NIGEL
Rrright … As I say, I'm not doing the think piece. What I need is a story.

JAN
There are no stories in Czechoslovakia. We have an arrangement with ourselves not to disturb the appearances. We aim for inertia. We mass-produce banality. We've had no history since '68, only pseudo-history—the newspapers report speeches, ceremonies, anniversaries, announcements of socialism's latest triumph … (
nostalgically
) I loved your newspapers.

NIGEL
Thank you. You're breaking new ground here.

JAN
Well, they're human … sometimes stupid and barbaric, but with so many papers, all different, there's a correction of the extremes. Here there is only one agent of truth. This is not human—humans disagree with each other.

NIGEL
Yeah. Right on. Well, I'll get back to the Inter-Continental for breakfast. Good to meet you.

JAN
Don't forget … (the record).