by Nigel Kneale
BROCK: We’d take the lot. Computers—TV—home recording—satellites—they all follow. Then Ryan Electrics becomes Ryan International becomes Ryan Interspatial. It is up to you.
EDDIE: I love this man’s modesty.
BROCK: Thanks to Eddie you’ll find all your junk in familiar order.
EDDIE: Disorder.
BROCK: Obviously. Sorry.
EDDIE: All that string.
BROCK: Now. Your pet projects will go on as before—Eddie’s digital crystal and so on—but we’re going to try something new. We’ll correlate all results together.
MAUDSLEY: But Pete—if there’s no connection—
BROCK: The computer might spot one. (Doubtful noises) Every clue counts.
EDDIE: It puts a lot on the computer.
All eyes go to Jill. She is standing by the computer, her expression strange, as if she is still under the heavy apprehension that nearly made her crash the car.
BROCK: Jill’s ready. She’s going to try something very sophisticated. Projections—extrapolations—a sort of randomised mix with an accelerated uncertainty principle. How’s that?
Jill seems to come to herself.
JILL: Something of the sort.
BROCK: You all right?
JILL: Yes, I—(As if to take attention away from herself, she turns to the twin tape storage units) What about data storage? Are those all we’ve got?
BROCK: Colly. Computer storage room. When do we get it?
COLLINSON: Oh yes. Well—
BROCK: What?
COLLINSON (embarrassed): There’ve been—problems.
BROCK (quietly): You were here to solve them. (Controlling his anger) How far have they got with it? Colly, how much have they done?
COLLINSON (bluntly): Nothing.
Brock stares at him in disbelief, then makes for the door.
BROCK: Let me see!
He stamps off down the passage. Collinson looks at Jill. They both follow.
THE STORAGE ROOM
Brock throws open a massive door. There is still a notice screwed to it reading “U.S. ARMY. STORE ROOM”.
The room is immense. It could contain a small house. The walls go up 15 or 20 feet to meet the bare and rotting beams of the roof. The walls are covered with wooden panelling that now hangs away from them in sagging sheets.
There is a single window at one end, high up and half smothered by the ivy we saw outside.
Apart from a workmen’s trestle table, standing in the rubble, it is completely bare. A few square yards of the rotten panelling have been torn down and thrown on the floor. Then work seems to have been abandoned.
Brock stands in the middle of the room, unable to believe it.
BROCK: It—it simply isn’t—! Five months and not a single—! Why didn’t you report it?
Collinson joins him. Jill stays in the doorway.
COLLINSON: I knew there were reasons they had to finish the priority jobs.
BROCK: Colly, this was priority!
COLLINSON: To be fair, it wasn’t in phase one.
BROCK: Refacing and air-conditioning and wiring—! Did they just forget it?
COLLINSON: No.
BROCK: What then?
COLLINSON: Problems with the men. They claimed it was—I don’t know—a dirty job.
BROCK: There’s dry rot! Do they think it’s catching! Look at those panels—I could shift the lot in half an hour!
He grabs a swathe of distorted panelling and peels it back. It splits, disclosing shroud-like hangings of fungus. Dust scatters. Brock sneezes.
He pulls savagely at another section and this too rips away. More fungus—and something else.
BROCK: Stairs.
Jill comes to look. The steps are little more than pegs in the wall, scarcely a foot wide and very badly worn—hollowed, sloping and uneven.
COLLINSON: Yes, they saw those.
BROCK: The men?
He tugs at the next section of panelling, it is more resistant but it shows them enough.
JILL: They don’t lead anywhere.
The steps run from ground level to about eight feet up and then stop.
BROCK: Surely that wasn’t what—? (Sourly, as he releases the panel) What else did they find? A skeleton?
COLLINSON: No-o.
BROCK: Anything?
COLLINSON: As a matter of fact, yes. About thirty tins of Spam.
BROCK: Spam!
COLLINSON: And a letter to Father Christmas.
He nods at the trestle table. With a comic groan Brock goes to look. There is a pile of rusty tins. He picks one up.
BROCK: U.S. Army issue.
COLLINSON: Doubt if it’s fit now. They must have got forced in through the panelling. The Yanks used this for a store.
BROCK: Painted it khaki!
COLLINSON: Trying to quell the rot.
BROCK: Even then?
COLLINSON: It was empty before the war. When the rot gets really going like this they call it weeping. Weeping fungus.
Brock glares at the membranes of rot with personal enmity. There is a piece of paper on the table—a half disintegrated sheet that looks as if it was previously folded up in a tight wad. Jill picks it up and tries to make out the faded scrawl.
JILL: “Christmas Eve . . .”
COLLINSON: Oh yes, that’s it.
JILL: “What . . . I want for . . . Christmas . . .”
COLLINSON: A kid’s writing.
His manner has changed—tight and nervous.
Brock suddenly attacks the wall, kicking out a great piece of panelling. Rot and dead wood and dust go flying. He kicks at it again, hacking more away with his foot.
BROCK: Even the stone’s got it!
COLLINSON: It’s just—very old.
BROCK: 1880?
COLLINSON: Ah, that’s when they panelled it in. These walls are a lot older than the rest of the house. They’ve just been—built onto. In fact, they must have been knocked down and rebuilt and generally messed about a lot in the last thousand years. (Brock stares at him) Oh, yes. The foundations might be Saxon.
BROCK: Saxon!
COLLINSON: Just an amateur opinion.
BROCK: My God—!
COLLINSON: Informed amateur.
BROCK: If you’re right, you see what it means? (in despair) They’ll be in here—the environment boys, the conservationists—nailing their little notices on the door and writs and—they could stop everything! If they get on to it—(Thinking furiously)—what about the architect?
COLLINSON (with contempt): That architect!
BROCK: Didn’t he spot it?
COLLINSON: Not till the day he quit.
BROCK (a tight smile): Right! If we go ahead fast—get everything concreted over and the machines in—while we can! Where are the men now?
COLLINSON: Working on the back.
BROCK: Come on! (In the doorway he turns) Don’t worry, love, you’ll get your storage room!
They hurry off along the passage. Jill shivers. It is cold here, the chill suddenly striking. She follows.
As the men’s footsteps fade they seem to echo inside the room. Curiously changed, though—this is a rapid pattering.
The effect is so startling that Jill spins round expecting to see another person. And finds nobody. She forces calm on herself and makes for the door. As she reaches it the sense of another presence behind her is overwhelming. She halts and steadies herself against the doorpost. Quite deliberately, she turns to look.
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 i
nto 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 exerc
ise 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.