The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (29 page)

OPIE
: Sad for me.

PRIEST
(chuckling)
: Yes, yes. Sad for pal Opie.

Appreciative amusement from the senior colleagues.

OPIE
: Look.

Grels has halted and turned, to crouch in the heather . . .

INSIDE THE COTTAGE

Nat is at the window, watching.

NAT
: No sight of him. He not coming back.
(He turns to Keten, tossing in her bed)
Try and eat now? Eat something?
(she does not respond. He joins Deanie at the hearth. The fire is brisk now and Deanie ladling boiling water into a bowl)
What you got?

DEANIE
: Powder soup.

She stirs the mixture.

NAT
: Need to take it easy. We not got so much.

DEANIE
: Got to feed her.
(There is a cry from the bed, a sort of chirrup. Its weirdness unnerves them. Deanie pours some of the soup into a cup and takes it to the child)
Keten. Try this?
(She lifts the child and puts the cup to her mouth. Keten twists her head away. Deanie looks helplessly at Nat)
I got to. How?

NAT
: Keten. Like a story? Keten?

Keten tries to focus on him.

KETEN
: About the caves?

NAT
(struggling)
: Well . . . about the caves . . .
(To Deanie)
I can’t do it, I can’t tell his story . . . There were caves, not by the sea. They had a lot of people in ’em . . .
(Deanie makes another vain attempt to feed Keten)
Sort of old-days time. Well, they were happy. Plenty to eat. They had . . . soup. They liked soup, had a lot of it.

Deanie shakes her head.

KETEN
(tense)
: Too many people in the caves!

NAT
: No. Don’t think so . . . a lot of caves, if one got too full they just moved.

KETEN
: Too many people!

There is a kind of seizure.

DEANIE
: Keten—

KETEN
(to her)
: Nurse? They come yet?
(She clutches at Deanie)
Nurse?

DEANIE
: Keten, it’s me, it’s Deanie—

KETEN
: Deanie Webb and Nat Mender, they come to take me out there and leave me—on account of the test!—Nurse, not let ’em, not let ’em take me when they come—

The words are slurring now, and she is struggling in Deanie’s grasp. Deanie holds her tightly—and the fit suddenly passes. She goes limp and lets Deanie lay her back against the bolster. Deanie rises, white-faced.

NAT
: She not mean this—

Deanie shakes her head. She can hardly choke the words out.

DEANIE
: What I felt . . . like the arm, all big . . . Nat, it’s everywhere!
(She stares at him, helpless)
What we do?
(Her eyes go to the wrecked vision unit in the roof)
Ask Output. But you bust that thing. You bust it!

NAT
: Get no help from Output.

DEANIE
: Yes! Yes, if you let ’em watch and see and hear this—they got to help then! But you bust it! You did it! You! You! You!

She is battering at him with her fists, weeping . . .

INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

OPIE
: Old-days, I think they called that “despair”. Right, Co-ordinator?

Priest nods, numbly. The watchers in the production pod have grown in number. Misch is back with them, sitting beside the hollow-eyed Opie.

MISCH
: She cross, too, that Deanie.

Opie turns to the senior colleagues.

OPIE
: You see? The danger-force of those bad feelings? We seen “fear” and “anger” and “worry” and “pain” and so on. Soon, I think, one called “grief”.

INSIDE THE COTTAGE – NIGHT

That night it is over.

Nat and Deanie sit huddled together on the big bed, trying to comprehend a sense of loss. Their eyes are fixed on what we do not see, on the smaller bed.

DEANIE
: Now we not ever know—

NAT
: Mm?

DEANIE
: What she said that time. Afraid of us, that we take her away and leave her—

NAT
: She was sick.

DEANIE
: She did think it.

NAT
: Before, maybe, back in the Centre. When she come with us . . . it was okay.

DEANIE
: We not ever know.

Nat moves forward, with a strange awe of the unseen body, and retrieves the rag doll. He studies it.

NAT
: This knows.

DEANIE
: Nat—

NAT
: In a way. Her closest thing. I got to look at this a lot . . . Till I get the feel she had. Then maybe . . . I get what was in her head . . .

Deanie looks at him. He seems lightened by the intention. Her voice too softens, with love. She holds Nat tightly.

DEANIE
(whispering)
: Nat . . . I get more babies, Nat . . .

INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

Watching, Misch chuckles to Priest.

MISCH
: That Deanie . . . ! Babies! I warn him . . . !

Opie is on his feet, haggard but triumphant, keeping himself going with brighteners as he addresses the now crowded production pod.

OPIE
: Now—if the kid just died here in Output those two get no jumbo upset like this. Just a bit of bother, maybe. A date not to keep anymore. But now—
(He turns to the two crushed figures on the main screen, clinging to each other)
—See? Their total nervous system is put out. Must be all the tension feelings they been getting. Proves those feelings are bad, bad, bad to have. Bad for the audience, bad for us too. Except . . . this way.
(He gestures, one hand at the screen, the other at his listeners)
Watch, not do. The total proof. You look happy, my pals. They as well.

He points to the Audience Sampler. All attention goes to that, to the alert, expectant faces on it. At the desk, Opie flicks up the sound of their enjoyment.

He finds Priest’s face a few inches from his own. It is oddly wracked.

PRIEST
: Why I let you do this? Why?

OPIE
: Do? Is what they need. What they want. What they got to have!

He flips the Sampler sound higher, drowning Priest’s feeble scruples.

THE ISLAND

It is dawn. A wide shot across the misty landscape towards the cottage. Small figures are moving there.

A closer shot. A little way from the cottage, Nat has just filled in a grave in the turf. Deanie stands watching, holding their weapon, the axe.

Nat looks round, almost instinctively, for something to mark the grave. He picks up one of the large quartzite stones that lie among the heather, staggers back with it and plants it firmly on the raw mound. As he does so he freezes, listening.

He looks about him into the mist, remembering the threat. He sees nothing. He joins Deanie and for a moment they stand together in this ancient, incredible duty. Mourners.

He listens again. This time she had heard it too . . . a scuttling somewhere nearby.

DEANIE
: A sheep?

Nat takes no chances. He takes the axe from her and waves her back to the cottage. She runs.

He starts to circle, a man defending his territory. Holding the axe at the ready. She is hardly inside the cottage when he hears her scream.

He turns and runs desperately towards it. The door is slammed shut—and as he reaches it, he hears the heavy bar drop into its sockets on the inside. And Deanie is screaming, on and on.

He attacks the door with the axe. Its timbers are resilient, absorbing the blows. He is in a frenzy.

INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

The crowded production pod echoes with laughter . . . mostly boosted from the Audience Sampler. Faces there are at a happy peak of vicarious excitement.

On the master screen we see the interior of the cottage as the door bursts in at last. Then struggling figures and the axe still slashing. But the tide of laughter from the outer world drowns all other sounds.

INSIDE THE COTTAGE

Silence now in the cottage.

Panting, Nat turns from the slaughtered body of his enemy. He was too late. He pulls Deanie towards him and strokes her face and head, the shut eyes.

NAT
: Deanie.

She will not speak again.

He is quite alone, crouching in a scene as grotesque and terrible as one of Kin Hodder’s drawings.

INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

The production pod is uproarious, with triumph now added to the audience’s laughter.

Opie is being feted. Heated by the aphrodisiac of success, Misch smothers him with kisses—even as he is half-carried out by his new admirers in the senior personnel.

Priest sits appalled at the control desk, staring at the master screen.

PRIEST
: Look at him. He’s alive . . .
(He turns and calls after the others with his frightening realisation)
He’s alive! It’s we that are not!

But nobody listens. He slumps down again in his seat, staring at Nat. Both alone. In two worlds.

An announcer-voice cuts in through the steady gale of laughter.

VOICE
: So ends the first edition of our new show, the Live-Life Show! Soon be others, bubbies and coddies! Soon be more for you! And now . . . over to Sportsex! . . . to see trials of new talent for this year’s Sex Olympics!

And we are off into the usual brassy lullaby.

T
HOMAS
N
IGEL
K
NEALE
(18 April 1922 – 29 October 2006) was a British screenwriter. He wrote professionally for more than 50 years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay. In 2000, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association.

Predominantly a writer of thrillers that used science-fiction and horror elements, he was best known for the creation of the character Professor Bernard Quatermass. Quatermass was a heroic scientist who appeared in various television, film and radio productions written by Kneale for the BBC, Hammer Film Productions and Thames Television between 1953 and 1996. Kneale wrote original scripts and successfully adapted works by writers such as George Orwell, John Osborne, H.G. Wells and Susan Hill.

He was most active in television, joining BBC Television in 1951; his final script was transmitted on ITV in 1997. Kneale wrote well-received television dramas such as The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968) and The Stone Tape (1972) in addition to the Quatermass serials. He has been described as “one of the most influential writers of the 20th century”, and as “having invented popular TV”.