Music: The andante from Walter Leigh's concertino for harpsichord and strings. Fade music. Cue narration
TALION : I salute the number of people
I have been;
all my dead selves
in the graves they never had,
long gone and no laments
for the flowers that never knew
a forest.
Music again briefly
TALION : The car quiet,
the radio silenced,
dead the colonial sound
of the black man's music
transmuted to white noise.
Beyond the headlights
a vast, black hole,
rehearsing the day
when it would finally swallow up
everything.
Music again briefly
TALION : Round a slow corner and there,
explosive,
coned in the lights,
the Number One Growth Industry
of the twentieth century -
violence.
Immediately on cue, the screech of brakes. A car door opens, then slams
closed. the sound of running feet, a perspective shift as Talion approaches the scene of
the violence. A welter of indistinguishable sound. Talion's voice cracks into it.
TALION : Hold it right there!
An abrupt silence. A short pause. Then a sullen voice.
VOICE : This is none of your
business.
TALION : Four to one. I don't like
the odds.
A very slight pause. Then another VOICE, youngish, truculent but
not entirely sure of itself.
VOICE TWO That's not a real sun.
TALION Like to back your judgement?
It will only cost you a kneecap
if you're wrong.
A very slight pause.
TALION You. Get into the car.
VOICE THREE Yes.. yes, of course.
A very slight pause during which we hear the sound of receding
footseps
TALION Now listen. I make it just
after half past two. And
this is a very, very quiet,
lonely road. It might be
days before anyone discovered
anything that might happen here.
A very slight pause
TALION I'm going to get into that
car and drive away. If anyone
makes a move before I get in,
if anyone gets brave after I
get in, I'm going to shoot the
four of you dead.
A very slight pause, then the sound of receding footsteps. A car door
opens then slams shut. the car starts up. the sound approaches microphone, reaches a
peak, then fades.
Fade up car sound. It remains steady behind microphone.
TALION Except for the bruises
and the split lip,
my passenger was
Standard International Youth.
Close your eyes and stick a pin
anywhere on the map of the world
and someone with a beard
and hair
and levis
will say: "Ouch!"
Car sound momentarily alone. Cue narration
TALION I was thinking of someone
with a beard and hair and levis
who would never say anything again
when my passenger's voice
broke through my thoughts.
Cue passenger.
PASSENGER You may have saved my life.
TALION The thought doesn't turn me
on.
PASSENGER No?
TALION In China, at one time, if you
saved a man's life, that was
you saddled with him for as
long as he lived.
PASSENGER You don't have to get uptight
about that.
TALION Yeh, right. Another thing.
There's a funny old fallacy.
When you see four characters
duffing up a singleton, the
four characters have to be in
the wrong... direct me somewhere.
PASSENGER About another half mile.
You'll see gates on the
right. Then a long avenue.
TALION And where does that land us?
PASSENGER Balphinn House.
Theme music and narration in simultaneously.
TALION And there it was
dropped right in my lap.
Come on in, Trojan horse,
we've kept you sugar lumps.
Men on the walls of Jericho
waving and calling:
Now just you keep your shiny trumpets
right in their cases,
we're knocking the walls down
for you.
So much for me and all my fine
scenarios of infiltration.
Music alone, briefly.
TALION The gates were high,
wide-open, and had once been
handsome.
The avenue was broad and long,
flanked by mature trees,
Just enough potholes
to be interesting.
An occasional executed tree trunk
like a beached grey whale.
A rabbit, bored with the usual predators,
successfully ran across
the headlights' beam.
Fade music. cue scene.
PASSENGER Was that a real gun back
there?
TALION What gun?
PASSENGER Point taken... You don't
seem to have much time for
the human race.
TALION Why waste time on a failed
experiment?
PASSENGER Why waste time on me?
TALION Sometimes I get bored not
wasting time.
PASSENGER Laughs We're here.
Music creeping in. Cue narration.
TALION I pulled the car up
at the bottom of a flight of steps.
The building was a darker darkness
except for a tiny light, high up,
like a small, deprived star
waiting to be asked to join
a firmanent.
On the wall, to the right
of the enormous door,
there was a huge, red, aerosol word:
Brothel.
Music again, briefly.
TALION We got out of the car
and my passenger turned to me
uncertainly.
Fade narration. cue scene.
PASSENGER Well, thanks, I................
TALION Tell me about it in the
morning.
PASSENGER The morning?
TALION The underground magazine said
you had fifty-six rooms here.
There is a slight pause
PASSENGER You don't look like commune
material.
TALION You don't look like a
Personnel Officer.
PASSENGER (After a moment) All right then. And you can
talk to Jason in the morning.
He was a Personnel Officer.
Fade scene. Cue narration.
TALION Beyond the front door,
there stretched a hall
the size of a skinny tennis court.
Somewhere a low watt bulb
had given up illumination
and now amused itself
making the shadows interesting
and weird.
Scattered arouad were children' s toys
with that peculiar air
of suspended animation
that only belongs to things
that children use.
Music briefly.
TALION Corridors at right angles to
corridors
at right angles to
corridors. Then a door.
He unlocked it and
pressed down a switch.
Cue scene
PASSENGER When is somebody going to
fix this bloody light?
TALION (Ironically) Yeh. When is somebody?
PASSENGER I told them at the last
meeting the bulb was blown.
TALION
Now there's democracy. A
simple idiot like me would just
have put in a new one.
PASSENGER (Not really listening)
Yeh. You'll have to undress in
the darkness.
TALION Blind people have to do it all
the time;
PASSENGER (Still not really listening)
Yeh... Goodnight.
Music drifting in. Cue narration.
TALION He went out and I heard
the key turn in the lock.
A key in a commune, I thought,
a contradiction in terms,
I thought,
or maybe an amputated sense of property
having a phantom pain.
Music alone briefly.
TALION The room was as bare and cold
as an old bone.
It remembered too many winters.
A long dead architect had made this room
a No Go Area for the sun.
It was a place of small, moist
sadness and weeping
gone unheard.
Even the mice were muted.
Music alone, briefly. Cue narration.
TALION There were two beds,
estranged from each other
as far as the room allowed.
Army surplus from an army
of Spartans.
The blanketsy rejects from
a hairshirt factory.
Music alone, briefly. Cue narration.
TALION As I got into my barbed wire bed,
I could hear a distant, jagged sound
like static.
A door slammed like a blow.
Feet thudded angrily down a stair
and kept on thudding towards
my door.
Fade. The key turns in the door of Talion's room, the door opens
and then is slammed viciously shut. The door is locked again. A woman's voice muttering
angrily as she approaches microphone.
WOMAN Sel-fish pig... Sel-fish pig ...
A gasp, then a slight pause
TALION Room service?
WOMAN I'm sorry. I didn't know ............
TALION How could you? I just
arrived.
WOMAN He bring you back?
TALION The other way round.
WOMAN He didn't tell me there was
anyone here?
TALION Maybe you didn't give him a
chance.
WOMAN He's run out of chances.........
TALION I charge overtime rates for
counselling sessions this time
in the morning.
WOMAN I can't even stay in the same
room as him any more.
TALION It's a big house. Big enough
to absorb a tired old cliche
like that.
WOMAN One of the cool ones, eh?
TALION Just one of the tired ones.
There are millions of us. One
day we're going to take over
the world.
WOMAN (Laughs)
I'll use the other bed.
Cue music and narration.
TALION She walked across the room,
then the other bed sagged
and she caught her breath,
perhaps at the bed's coldness
or perhaps at what an epicene English poet
described as "the rough male kiss
of blankets".
Somewhere in the outside distance
an owl screamed
and some tiny creature died.
Then there was a lot of silence
but no sleep.
Fade narration. Cue scene.
WOMAN Do you want to come in beside me?
TALION How would that grab him?
WOMAN He would hate it.
TALION In that case, I would hate
it too.
WOMAN You're like him. You both
still have a lot of ego to destroy.
TALION My guru says it doesn't count
if somebody else helps you to do it.
WOMAN Your guru sounds a ripe old queen.
TALION What are you trying to do?
Substantiate that big red
aerosol word on the wall
outside?
WOMAN One of our ex-inmates did that.
TALION Yeh?
WOMAN Why the surprise?
TALION I had a thing going in my head
about hostile natives.
WOMAN No way. I don't think there's
one local could spell the word
"brothel".
TALION Who could spell it?
WOMAN He was a Jesus Freak. His name
was Jonathan Taverner.
Fade Scene. Cue music and narration.
TALION Every revolutionary is a
puritan.
He was about the same height as me
but slimmer.
During our bearded days
we were sometimes mistaken for each other
by people who needed glasses
or people who had too many.
I would ask him if he had kissed
any lepers lately
and he would smile.
Once he said to me; "Do you
need proof of God? Do you
light a candle
to see the Sun?"
Music alone, briefly.
TALION In the mornings the girl was gone.
The blankets lay on the floor.
She had stepped out of bed
and sloughed them
as a snake sloughs its skin.
I tried not to let that tell me
anything about her
or about myself,
made up the beds
and walked out into the maze
of corridors.
Music again briefly.
TALION Down a winding staircase
and into the hallway
came a strange procession;
three girls with long, straight hair
and long, straight skirts,
grave, stately, dedicated,
with ritual faces.
Victorian somehow.
Each girl carried a loaded
chamber pot
with a kind of reverence;
and I tried to guess which girl
had been my unexpected room-mate
The one whose utensil writhed
with overblown, painted pink roses?
The one with the Art Deco?
The one with the plain, unadorned
white china?
Music very briefly
TALION They disappeared towards the back
of the house,
my bedpan Brontes,
and I followed a smell of coffee
which led me into an enormous room.
A young man looked up as I came in.
He had a pale, oval, girlish face
and the shy manner of one
who had never been,
and never would be,
sure of his welcome
anywhere.
Fade narration. Cue scene.
DAVID There's coffee. And I could
do you some eggs, if you like.
TALION Great.
DAVID They're our own eggs.
TALION That's a good trick, if you
can do it.
DAVID From our own hens, I mean.,.....
He laughs uneasily as he gets the joke; the story of his life. There is a
slight pause.
TALION You the steady cook around here?
DAVID Oh, no, no. I.... we're supposed
to take it in turns. It... it
should have been Simon this
week but he was...er...out late
last night and.. er......
TALION He's still in bed and he told
you to get lost.
DAVID (Defensively)
He was tired and., er.. I quite
like cooking.
TALION You're what used to be called
in the dear old dead domestic
days, a treasure.
DAVID laughs uneasily again. There is a very slight
pause
TALION Talking of the dear old dead
domestic days, I saw a weird
procession coming downstairs......
DAVID (Giggling)
It's really too much, isn't it?
Every morning, all of us with
our potties..........
TALION Why?
DAVID It's Jason. He's suddenly into
recycling. Producing methane from
.. er.. human waste. Don't quite
understand it myself......................
TALION Jason's the man to know round
here, isn't he?
DAVID Well... er.. we try not to be
too rigidly structured............
TALION But Jason's the money tree.
DAVID Right. Of course, we all... er...
chipped in but.. well, yes, as you
say, Jason is the money tree.
TALION Did he earn it, inherit it, or
steal it?
DAVID (Giggles again)
If I told you how Jason earns
his money, he would probably
kill me.
Fade. Cue music and narration.
TALION The prospect did not seem
to worry him unduly.
There's always a pecking order,
I thought,
and if there is one thing you can never trust
it's a pecking order.
A pecks B,
B pecks C
A pecks B and C,
B and C peck D
and just when you think you've got it straight
you find that D turns round
and pecks A.
Music alone briefly.
TALION He went off happily
to make fresh coffee
and cook more eggs.
That was his niche in life
and hooray for him!
One day he would make a fine wife
for someone
or several someones.
Music alone briefly.
TALION The breakfast room
was at the front of the house.
It was bare except for a table
that could have seated
a whole monastic order.
Newspapers were scattered around
all with different dates.
A seed catalogue.
An abandoned letter.
Music alone briefly.
TALION I never got that coffee,
I never got those eggs.
Instead, I got my last night's good deed
come bursting in.
Fade. Cue scene.
SIMON (Very aggressive)
I want to talk to you.
DAVID (off mic)
Coffee, Simon?
SIMON Get lost, David.
TALION I'm going to buy you a big
yellow button to wear. Stamped
on it in black: "Get lost, David".
Then you won't have to talk to him
at all.
SIMON What I have to say is private.
TALION (Baiting him)
I have no secrets from David,
DAVID giggles. Then there is a slight pause
SIMON It's about you and Sarah.
TALION Was that her name?
SIMON (Furious)
By Christ! You certainly ask a
big return for a small favour.
TALION That favour buys me nothing.
Has bought me nothing.
SIMON You spent the night with her.
TALION I spent the night in the same
room as her.
There is a slight pause. Then TALION sighs
TALION Get lost, Simon.
A slight pause
SIMON You're a trouble-maker. I don't
think we want you here.
TALION That's hardly for you to
say, is it?
SIMON I'm going to report this whole
thing to Jason.
A slight pause, then a door slams. DAVID giggles
TALION Schadenfreud.
DAVID What's that?
TALION An unholy glee at the misfortunes of others.
DAVID (Considering)
Yes.. possibly.. and again,
well, in another way, no.
TALION It might be easier just to
share the joke.
DAVID (Giggling)
Sarah is Jason's wife.
Fade on DAVID giggling. Cue music and narration
TALION Imagine being a house
and being stuck with people;
century after century
of undiluted people;
and you not able to do anything about it.
Not able to run away.
Your pride forbidding you even
to fall down.
When, one wet day, the bulldozer
came lurching over the horizon,
who could blame you for screaming out:
"Welcome, friend, where have you been?
And what the devil kept you?"
Music alone briefly.
TALION (In an obscure way)
I felt I owed the house something:
or perhaps more accurately
that I should pay another's debt.
anyway, next thing there I was,
scrubbing that large, red aerosol word
off the side of the building.
A tall girl in dungarees
and a woollen shirt
and heavy wellington boots
appeared and watched me
and laughed.
Fade narration. Cue scene. The girl, Esther, laughing.
ESTHER I'd become quite fond of that
big, nasty red word.
TALION I thought it might render the
commune liable to prosecution
under the Trades Description
Act.
ESTHER (Dryly)
Some people might consider that
a moot point.
TALION Somebody obviously did.
ESTHER His name was Jonathan Taverner.
Mad as a brush.
TALION The name seems to ring another
bell.
ESTHER He blew himself up in London.
He was on his way to plant a
home-made bomb somewhere when
it went off and scattered him
over the landscape.
Fade.