The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (11 page)

And sees a figure.

It is standing high up on the peg-like steps. The figure of a woman in black, its face hidden by arms raised in front of it. It looks as if it is on the point of falling. Still and rigid.

In the same moment that the vision lasts—and it is only a moment—there is a shrill rasp in the air. A human scream that has lost its humanity, denatured and dead.

Then silence. The steps empty.

Jill twists about and clings to the doorpost, beyond crying out. She claws her way into the passage. In the entrance hall she can see Brock and Collinson talking to one of the builders’ men.

JILL
(hoarsely)
: Peter—

He turns. As he starts towards her she pitches forward . . .

BROCK’S SUITE – LIVING QUARTERS

Jill is huddled on a convertible bed. Her knees are drawn up beside her and her fists are bunched. She has come out of the first shock into a paroxysm of violent, confused sobbing.

Brock is trying to calm her.

BROCK
: All right now, all right. Jill!

He pulls her crumpled face round. Her eyes open but it takes her a moment to focus on him. She looks like a child that can’t explain what hurts. Then panic rises again.

JILL
: I can’t stay here, I’ve got to get away! Take me away!
(wildly)
Peter!

She sits up, tense and trembling, her fists held tight against her breasts and her body rigid. She is on the brink of hysteria.

He moves closer, stroking her, soothing her.

BROCK
: Jill, Jill, Jill. Easy now.
(He kisses her but she stays rigid in his arms)
I’m sorry. I didn’t listen to you before. Tell me about it.

JILL
: What?

BROCK
: The accident.

JILL
: It isn’t that.

BROCK
: Tell me.

JILL
: I—I hit a pile of sand, that’s all. There were vans and—I couldn’t have been watching.
(Suddenly)
I hate this place! I didn’t want to come here!

BROCK
: No. You didn’t.
(His face sets a little. Now he feels he knows where he is. They are on old ground. He sits back. Her fists are still pressed tight against her body like a barrier. He gently eases them down)
Here. Dump the moist hankie.

JILL
(opening her hand)
: Not—not a hankie.

Brock takes it.

BROCK
: Oh. Father Christmas’s letter.

She shakes her head.

BROCK
(reading)
: “What I want . . . for Christmas is . . . please go away. Signed Martin Tasker”. Well.

JILL
(whispering)
: Not what you’d say.

BROCK
: I don’t know. One of my kids is like that, hates the idea of him coming down the chimney.

JILL
: It wasn’t to Father Christmas.

BROCK
: Who, then?

JILL
: I know. I think I know!

Again the rising note of hysteria. Brock hardens himself against it. He gets up.

The room is only half finished. It will be very luxurious indeed but at present is still a mess of hanging wires and unopened crates.

BROCK
: How do you like it now? They’ve done a bit since we came down that time. All the shelving and—
(He looks into the adjoining office, where a huge desk stands in a sea of unsecured carpet, and back to her)
I quite liked it even without the shelving. Didn’t you?
(Her face is unresponsive)
You know what all this is about. You’re getting at me.
(He waits for a protest but there isn’t any)
Mind you, I quite enjoyed your previous ploys. “How are Christine and the kids? How are Timothy’s mumps? How’s the dog’s toothache?” Oh my Jilly. You’re a very female one.
(He sits on the bed)
I need you. I know you weren’t keen to transfer but I need you for your brain as well—if that doesn’t sound crass but of course it does. If you’re in doubt ask Eddie and the boys.
(He strokes her forehead)
What’s in there is so rare and . . . valuable.
(After a moment)
Do it your own way. Commute home to old mummy or stay here. Stay?
(She says nothing)
Sometimes, anyway.

Jill looks him straight in the face. She is calmer, but only by her own effort.

JILL
: I saw a ghost.

Just for a moment Brock’s eyes soften—then the response dies and they are hard again. He gets up briskly.

BROCK
: Let’s get out of here for a while. Leave Colly to fight the labour relations.

He helps her up. when she is on her feet he kisses her.

JILL
: Let’s go . . .

A LOCAL PUBLIC HOUSE

The brewers’ gimmick when they face-lifted this roadside pub was ‘motoring’. The beer handles are gaitered gear levers, and the whole bar looks like an accessory shop. Babycham bottles peep through spokes and steering wheels. Muffled muzak throbs.

Any jollity is dispelled by the bar lady, a genteel harridan, who forks out cold meats and pickles for Jill and Brock. Her helper, an ungainly little countrywoman, is allowed to work the beer engine.

HELPER
(beaming)
: One Danish draught, one Super-Strong.

BROCK
: One for yourself.

HELPER
: Ta.

BAR LADY
: No, thank you. Are they really making poison gas up there?

BROCK
: No—we aren’t.

BAR LADY
: It’s what I heard.

BROCK
: Not a whiff.

BAR LADY
(wearily)
: I mean germs. You know what I mean.

Feeling Jill’s tension rise, he puts his hand over hers.

JILL
: Do you know the place?

BAR LADY
: I’ve only been here a month. That’ll be—with the bread—one pound eighty pee.
(As Brock pays)
I mean, it won’t do us any good. These days people don’t like that sort of thing.

JILL
: It’s nothing bad!

BAR LADY
(freezingly)
: We all know what secret means.

She moves away to attend more favoured customers. The helper grimaces and lifts her glass.

HELPER
: Cheers. I believe it’s been made very nice.

JILL
: Do you know it?

HELPER
: I used to. Well, sort of.

JILL
: You went there?

HELPER
: Not actually in. It was during the war when the Yanks was there.
(She leans forward with a grotesque confidential giggle)
I was a good-time girl!

BROCK
: Hooray for you.

HELPER
(pleased)
: Yes, well—why not? They was nice boys. And the nylons!

JILL
: Did they talk about the house?

HELPER
: Ooh—it was all generals and people. Some headquarters. Eisenhower was there once.

JILL
: I mean—what was it like inside?

HELPER
(puzzled)
: No. Very posh, I expect. There was one boy, though—
(Fondness shows)
—He was a caution. He said—now lemme think—oh dear, he had all these funny words, y’see, he was a coloured boy. I know—guppy. He said there was guppies in the store—that’s where he worked—

BROCK
: Guppies are fish. Tropical.

HELPER
: Oh dear. Duppies?

A man in his late twenties moves along behind the bar, aproned and carrying a crate of bottles.

MAN
: He must have meant rats.

HELPER
: You don’t know, Alan.

ALAN
: Taskerlands is full of rats. We used to play up there when I was a kid.

HELPER
: Oh yes—you and that Jackie and—

She breaks off in some curious embarrassment. He gives her a hard look and goes on with emphasis, as if to prove he doesn’t mind talking about it.

ALAN
: Yes, old Jackie. We used to do dares.

JILL
: The end room—you know it?

ALAN
(after a moment)
: Yes. Stand there in the dark, after a bit you’d hear ’em all noising about and squealing.

JILL
: Did you see them?

ALAN
: What was there to see? If they was behind the woodwork?

He moves off with his crate. Brock glances at Jill. She is trembling.

JILL
: Who else would know about it? About the house?

THE VICARAGE LIBRARY

The vicar is in his sixties. He is a scholar gone completely to seed. He has opened an old glass-fronted bookcase and is searching hopelessly through the mess inside. It is crammed to bursting with tattered journals and folders and exercise books. Bundles fall, scattering dust.

Brock and Jill are with him. All her tension has returned.

VICAR
: You’ve seen the parish registers. Not many Taskers there . . . among the births and marriages and . . . they were not . . . statistically prominent. But apart from the registers I really don’t know—

BROCK
: We’re wasting your time.

JILL
: No, please—

VICAR
: It’s quite all right, if I can only—

JILL
: I just thought there might be something more—personal. About the family and the house.

VICAR
(opening an exercise book)
: Old sermons. Now who on earth would want to hear today about . . . about . . . ?

JILL
: Did you know them? The Taskers?

VICAR
: Eh? Oh . . . they’d all gone before I came. Died out. That last one was a recluse, I believe. Now—there must be some odds and ends from my predecessor’s time. I fancy—somewhere here—
(He suddenly turns to them with eyes brightened by a vital recollection)
You know? It came to me the other day—about pollution. It’s the modern rediscovery of sin. The only form it can take in a materialistic world!
(He is delighted with his notion)
All the rubbish and mess—that’s the new wickedness! And they can see it! The sudden conviction of—of—of non-returnable bottles! Eh?

BROCK
(uncomfortably)
: Yes, Jill, I think—

VICAR
: Then sackcloth and ashes. Plenty of ashes!

BROCK
: I think we’d better get back.

VICAR
: Oh dear.

BROCK
: This—was just a thought.

VICAR
(moving with them to the door)
: Yes, well I . . . Come again and p’raps by then I—

BROCK
: Thanks anyway.

VICAR
: They must have been funny people. There was something about an exorcism once—

JILL
: Exorcism!

VICAR
(shaking his head)
: Now I can’t approve of that. I know it’s in the prayer-book, but—oh, dear, dear!

JILL
: You do mean—laying a ghost?

Her intensity catches at Brock.

VICAR
: It was either there or . . . now was it? Ah!
(He seems to change his mind)
I may be maligning them.

JILL
: When was it?

VICAR
: Oh—long, long ago.
(Then he brightens out of his vagueness and happily remounts his hobby-horse. He beams)
I feel I’m obsolete but not sinful—I cause so little pollution. Apart from tea-leaves—and my hens eat those up—

OUTSIDE TASKERLANDS HOUSE – DUSK

Jill’s Austin pulls out of the corner behind the building materials, backfiring repeatedly. Brock holds up his hand to halt her and runs round behind the car to kick the sand out of her exhaust pipe. He waves her on. Engine running more smoothly, she turns away down the drive.

Brock watches her go. His face is serious. He has sent her off early. The other cars still stand parked. After a moment he starts towards the caravan. There is a light in its window.

INSIDE THE CARAVAN

Brock looks in and finds Collinson at work with two fingers on a portable typewriter by the light of an angle poise lamp.

BROCK
: How did it go?

COLLINSON
: Well—they’ve made a start, clearing the old panelling out. I’m just making a report.
(As Brock glances back at the house)
I’d leave them to it. They were decidedly tricky.

BROCK
: Any reason given?

COLLINSON
: No. They just don’t like it. Come in—have a drink.

BROCK
: Good idea.

Collinson clears a space for him. The whole caravan is tightly packed with files and office equipment as well as personal things, but method keeps everything in place. He produces whisky and glasses from a tiny cupboard, ice from an equally tiny fridge.

COLLINSON
: How’s Jill now?

BROCK
: I’ve sent her home.

COLLINSON
: Just as well. A nasty shake-up.

BROCK
: It wasn’t just the car.