The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (5 page)

SIR TIMOTHY
: A shilling a head.

BIG JEFF
: Hey—what about the fellers as got none?

SIR TIMOTHY
: Shilling a body.
(Turns to Lukey)
Has each man got a staff now?

Sam is the last to get one. As he turns with his, he finds Tetsy in front of him, the shawl pulled round her head.

TETSY
: What’s them for?

SAM
: Oh—makes the lads feel braver. In case, like.

TETSY
: Can I have one? Lukey—

SAM
: You ain’t comin’.

TETSY
: I am then, Lukey—

SIR TIMOTHY
: What’s this about?

SAM
: She wants to come, sir.

TETSY
(pointing to Lavinia)
: If Lady Hassall can go, I can. I don’t get easy frikkened, sir—

SIR TIMOTHY
: Faith, let her come.
(Turning to the rest)
Now remember all what I said—no shouting, no laughing, and keep your ears open. We’re like to return no wiser than we are now—but let’s be sure. If you do hear anything, come to me at once. Now—two men to light the way. Lukey and another—

Lukey and the lad pick up lighted lanterns while the others apply themselves to the long shaft and pull the cart round. Tetsy stays close to Sam’s side.

Lantern in hand, Jethro joins his master, who is watching with Lavinia. As the cart rumbles and jolts on the cobbles:

LAVINIA
: You really believe in those machines.

COBB
: They can free man from his folly. I believe that, yes.

LAVINIA
: How can they? He’ll have made them.

Cobb gives her a quick grin of appreciation. Then Sir Timothy is beckoning and they move to join him. Jethro brings up the rear with his lantern.

The camera cranes up a high shot as the heavily laden cart is turned and moves slowly off. Again it takes in, close at hand, the inn sign with its “Three Companions”.

THE WOODS—THE ROPED TREES

It is dark now in the wood. Two points of light bob in the distance. The creaking of the cart can be heard, then voices in sudden subdued argument, until, above the others:

BIG JEFF
(off-stage)
: She’s stuck against this root—

SIR TIMOTHY
(off-stage)
: Right, pull this way. Heave now, lads—heave. Heave.

A jolting, exclamation of success, and the cart rumbles on again.

LAVINIA
(off-stage)
: Oh, it’s so muddy.

COBB
(off-stage)
: Jethro—help the lady. I’ll take the lantern.

The two points of light enlarge into the lanterns carried by Lukey Chase and the lad. They flicker across branches and ropes as Lukey comes running ahead.

LUKEY
: This is the place, squire. Through here.

He moves on round the obstruction of a rope that zigzags between the trees. Sir Timothy follows and in the darkness Lukey has left behind him, collides with the rope.

Bells jangle. Bits of harness rattle. He gives a muffled yell.

Lukey and the lad run back. The squire has gone headlong over the rope and is spluttering in the leafmould. Lukey sets his lantern down and helps him.

Sir Timothy wipes the soil from his mouth.

SIR TIMOTHY
: I—I didn’t see the rope.

Cobb comes up with the third lantern. Just behind is Jethro, carrying Lavinia. She drops to her feet.

LAVINIA
: Timothy. You’re not hurt?

SIR TIMOTHY
(as Lukey dusts him down)
: The bones seem sound, eh, Lukey?

COBB
: Well, sir, you sprung your own trap.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Yes, I—you see how it works? It sets off the alarm if anyone—
(lamely)
You saw.

The cart is drawing up to them. Men are grinning, some laughing. Big Jeff to the next man, in a stage whisper:

BIG JEFF
: Squire was just puttin’ it to the test, like—

SIR TIMOTHY
: Where’s Sam Towler?

SAM
(coming forward)
: Here, sir.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Now show us the exact spot.

SAM
: Yonder. By the fallen tree.

THE CLEARING

Waving the cart on, Lukey trots up and sets his lantern on the great fallen trunk.

SIR TIMOTHY
: That’ll serve, lads.
(As the cart halts)
Now to unload.

Straps are whipped asunder, coverings removed, boxes lifted down. Sir Timothy stands by to supervise the handling of the more fragile items.

Cobb looks about, frowning, swinging his lantern to cast light into the dark places of the undergrowth. Lavinia pulls her cloak tight. She looks with revulsion at the fungus on the dead tree.

LAVINIA
: Loathsome. What is it?

Cobb tears off a piece. He shows it to Jethro.

JETHRO
: Polyporus betulinus.

LAVINIA
: He has Latin—

JETHRO
: It is a poison plant.

COBB
: In Jamaica they used it in their soup, no doubt.

JETHRO
: No, only for obeah.

The smile is wiped from Cobb’s face. There is a faint suggestion of one on Jethro’s.

COBB
: Go help there.

He points to the cart. Jethro does as he is bidden. Lavinia watches Cobb, puzzling him out.

Half a dozen planks are being unloaded. Jethro helps Lukey down with one. Other men swing down a big hamper.

Sir Timothy sets a tall, narrow box down by the tree. He opens it and extracts a wooden frame with glass tubing attached. He inspects the fancifully shaped thing briefly, then checks the other one in the box.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Both intact.
(To Cobb)
Thermometers. It’s said that supernatural events are marked by a great chilling of the air. I am ready to test that.

COBB
(dryly)
: Good.

Sir Timothy turns quickly back to the cart, where Jethro and Lukey are lifting down heavy iron tripods.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Now my tripods. Bear them over here—to the planks.
(He hurries past Tetsy, who is busy lighting lanterns, to where the planks are being laid out on different sides of the clearing)
This way—this way—

Behind, Cobb glowers.

COBB
: Are you not to help him?

LAVINIA
: He’s not taught me in these matters.

COBB
: Say “either.”

LAVINIA
: Either.
(Dimpling)
Mr. Cobb—

COBB
: He’ll be out after marsh damps or subjecting copper to the seven heats when he’d do better in bed.
(She laughs)
Why did you marry him? Grew up in the country—a vicar’s daughter? I knew it. A match for the young squire, well, younger than some and a baronet—
(She nods, her eyes growing hard)
I’ve met a score of him—gentlemen amateurs with a nose for idle novelty—
(He stares suddenly)
God a mercy. Look at this.
(Theatrical props are being unloaded. Two fanciful Roman helmets, plumed with feather boas and a cardboard shield. And a large scroll on wooden rollers. And a human skull)
Yorick too. What company of actors had he these from?

LAVINIA
: They passed in the spring, playing Julius Caesar.

COBB
: And he sets the scene.

He roars with laughter. She glances at him. Her voice is sharp.

LAVINIA
: Show him!
(He looks at her)
What he is!

COBB
: Ah . . .

LAVINIA
: You can!

COBB
: A bargain!
(She frowns. He studies her)
I had a cat once. Her name was Tibb and she was a great killer. Yes, there was something about her—

LAVINIA
: Her eyes?

COBB
: The corner of her mouth.

With a sudden sweep of his arm he clears the fungus from part of the trunk. He lifts Lavinia by the waist and seats her upon it. She stares at him. As he turns away towards her husband, her smile flickers back.

Unloading the last things from the cart—two “Roman” swords and a horse’s skull—Lukey glances at her. He catches Big Jeff’s eye and grins.

The tripods have been set up in four places, straddling planks. They are a couple of feet high and two of them already contain the alembic-jars they are meant to take. On the plank below each sits a lighted lantern and the removed lid of the jar.

Sir Timothy is now arranging a third jar in its tripod. Sam stands by with a fourth in its box, while Tetsy has a lighted lantern. A lantern is already in place below where Sir Timothy is working, casting a bright upward glow on him as he moves the lid.

Cobb comes up.

COBB
: Surely you cannot catch imponderables in a jar? By their very nature they will escape through the very glass—that is, if they exist at all.

SIR TIMOTHY
: There may be something else.

COBB
: Oh?

SIR TIMOTHY
: Something heavier.
(He places the lids carefully on the plank below)
An animal-magnetic fluid. I should call it that. Something like the magnetic fluid of iron, but exuded instead by living creatures?

COBB
: Is this your own idea?

Sir Timothy is apparantly unaware of any irony.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Suppose it had the quality of lingering—say, where some violent action of the past had riven it into the earth—to issue forth again at certain times and under certain conditions. Times like the yearly cycle
—(He is moving towards the last tripod. They follow
)—at each anniversary of some great disaster. More especially near the century mark. Lantern, girl!
(He signs to the staring Tetsy. She sets down the remaining lantern while he takes the jar from Sam’s box)
As if part of the vital spirits of the people there have been torn away under the dreadful pressure of fear and death—

TETSY
(a hoarse cry)
: Part of their souls!

It chills them. Men look round. One drops the horse’s skull. Lavinia jumps down from her place on the fallen tree. Cobb puts a reassuring arm round the shaking girl.

COBB
: There, my dear. I think the squire means something more—more chemical than souls. Besides, Queen Boadicea may be officially doubted to have had any. She was a pagan.
(He glances across at Lavinia, his wrist round Tetsy’s waist for a moment more, till she frees herself and moves towards the scowling Sam)
Your master’s going to insist on the old queen, my lad. She fits his theory. So if she shows herself tonight, he’ll bottle her up!

Sir Timothy rises from his work, scowling.

SIR TIMOTHY
: If anything happens
—(seeing the mockery in Cobb’s face)
Oh, leave me be!

He turns away, but Cobb keeps with him, enjoying it now.

COBB
: But you’ll make it happen, sir—try at least. Or why all this?

He points to the “Roman” props. The skull is wearing one of the plumed helmets and has been stuck bizarrely on a post. The other helmet is fixed nearby, empty. The horse’s skull is hung below the human one, while the swords and shields have been hooked on branches.

The scroll is suspended open to reveal a Latin text. The effect is amateurishly occult.

COBB
(continuing)
: Ancient Rome! The centurion and his horse!

SIR TIMOTHY
: They might help to distill out the—

COBB
: To chase her into your bottle!
(He calls after the smarting Sir Timothy)
But the text, sir! From Caesar! She was not born in Caesar’s day—

By the cart, surrounded by the other men, Lukey Chase has some bizarre instruments—two long toasting forks, each soldered at the blunt end to a large coil of bright wire. The lad has a similar pair of forks and is handily putting the coils over his arm.

BIG JEFF
: Lukey goin’ to fight th’ old devils with their own weapons!

Sir Timothy, sharply over the laughter:

SIR TIMOTHY
: Come now! Who’s your helper?

LUKEY
(struggling with the coils)
: Him. I telled him what to do.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Right.
(Glancing up)
Let him take that tree. And you, Lukey, this one.

The lad is the nimbler. He is up among the branches in a moment. Lukey fumbles for footholds, gasping.

BIG JEFF
: Get after them devils, Lukey!
(Feinting at him with the pitchfork)
Like this!

LUKEY
(scrambling up)
: Hey, hey!

Sir Timothy turns to find Cobb taking another of the forks from the cart. He relieves him of it.

SIR TIMOTHY
: Yes, an ordinary toasting fork. Another of—my own ideas.
(He passes it to Jethro—and the transfer is not lost on either master or man. Then a second fork-and-coil from the box)
Wedge them there in the thorn bush.
(Turns to call up into the trees)
Are you ready?