The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays

by Nigel Kneale

  BROCK: You’re a country lad. You know the sound rats make.

  ALAN (ignoring this): I reckon we must have bust all the windows. Real bad, we were. Used to see who could find a pane of glass still whole and—smash! Cost you a lot to put ’em back, did it? (He is talking faster, suddenly urgent) I better go now. There’ll be trouble if I don’t get back. That old cow down there, she—(He breaks off, listening. The others notice something too. Maudsley shivers. Dow tenses and makes a dive for the parabolic reflector. All of them sense the chill: Brock . . . Eddie . . . Alan) I reckon I’ll just get along.

  But he has hardly turned to go when there is a rapid pattering . . . a single rasping cry.

  INSIDE THE LABORATORY

  No sound comes through the speaker but Jill reacts.

  JILL (turning to Stew): It’s there! Can’t you hear it?

  INSIDE THE STORAGE ROOM

  The screech comes again and again.

  Alan stands paralysed as Eddie and the others try to bring their apparatus to bear. Cameras are swung on their tripods. Microphones scan the room.

  Alan stands staring at Brock. Suddenly he cracks. With a strangled exclamation he turns and bolts. He collides with Maudsley. He pushes Dow out of his way, trips over a cable and falls against a thermograph tripod. He goes down with it. Then he is crawling towards the doorway, frantic with terror.

  THE ENTRANCE HALL

  Alan drags himself along the passage, trying to regain his feet. But blood is spilling from a cut above one eye and he looks half stunned—only driven on by animal fear.

  As he sways against the wall Jill throws the lab door open. He jerks away from the sudden movement. He stumbles past the reception desk and the pop-eyed sergeant—and drops to his knees, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes. As Jill catches him up he peers round to see who or what it is.

  ALAN: Don’t want to be—like Jackie—

  Brock appears in the passage, to find Jill crouching by Alan and the sergeant running to help.

  BROCK: All right. It’s over.

  SERGEANT: What happened, sir?

  BROCK: Get some water—whisky—anything—(As the sergeant hurries off, he makes for Alan) You never went into that room. Did you?

  ALAN: I did.

  BROCK: You’re lying.

  JILL: Peter—

  BROCK: You stayed at the door and listened. You knew what it was.

  JILL: Leave him alone!

  BROCK: You were afraid of it.

  JILL: Why not? Why shouldn’t he be? It’s a normal human reaction. He’s the sane one! We’re the freaks!

  Brock turns quickly down the passage.

  INSIDE THE STORAGE ROOM

  Dow is playing a tape recording back and getting only a confusion of bumps and scuffles and shouts. He looks up as Brock returns, and shakes his head.

  Eddie is watching a wildly swinging playback image on a monitor screen.

  EDDIE (turning to Brock): Nothing.

  Alan’s panic has brought something to the surface in them all. He has acted out the secret fear they suppress, and it needs more effort to keep a rational view of this unrecordable thing.

  THE ENTRANCE HALL

  The sergeant had brought water in a jug, and a glass. Alan has drunk some. Jill is washing the cut on his face.

  JILL: What happened to Jackie?

  ALAN: Eh?

  JILL: You said just now—

  ALAN: We never done nothing to him. It was the door got stuck. That door.

  JILL: He was inside the room?

  ALAN (nodding): We never meant—we couldn’t help it, could we? (His face is suddenly suffused with guilt) He’s all right, old Jackie.

  JILL: Did he . . . see it?

  ALAN (after a moment): He made out it spoke to him. And then . . . the others come.

  JILL (chilled): Others?

  ALAN: Just his talk, see.

  JILL: What happened to him?

  ALAN: He’s all right. Got this job, hasn’t he?

  JILL: Can I meet him?

  ALAN: What for? He don’t remember. (She stares at him) They took him up the County.

  JILL: Where?

  ALAN: The County. You know. They put him right. They can do that. He don’t care a button, he just laughs. All the time. He’s all right.

  She can say nothing. Seeing Brock returning, Alan moves off abruptly and heads for the outer door.

  BROCK (calling): Wait a minute—I’ll get a car to take you—

  JILL (fiercely): Let him go!

  Then Alan has gone. They look at each other. Brock is showing the same strain as the rest of his team.

  The phone rings on the reception desk, grating raw nerves.

  SERGEANT (answering it): Reception . . . Yes, he is. (To Brock) Mr. Ryan’s office.

  It is like a cold douche. Brock takes the phone.

  BROCK: Brock . . . Oh . . . Helen, my love, how are you? . . . Yes, we’re settling in nicely . . . (Alarmed) Crawshaw? But—that’s all been settled, there’s no question of—there’s no room for him here! . . . (Alarm subsiding) Talk to him? Well . . . I just don’t want to see the man, I’m in the middle of an experiment. Look, is he there? (He manages a grisly jocularity) Himself, th’ould grey widow maker? . . . I see, when’s he back? . . . All right, then, under duress. Tomorrow. ’Bye. (He puts the phone down) Hell!

  JILL: Experiment . . .

  THE LABORATORY – DAY

  A display screen flickers. Tiny flicks of blue light jump up and hold, building into an irregular graph-like pattern.

  JILL: I don’t know what you’d call that. The time since she died.

  BROCK: Quasi-life.

  JILL: All right, her quasi-life. During it she must have made eight thousand appearances, minimum.

  BROCK: Sound only?

  JILL: Yes. In vision, about a tenth as many.

  Eddie and the others are gathering round to watch. There is a curious tension growing in them, a sense of the rational put under severe strain.

  EDDIE: Sounds a hell of a lot.

  JILL: Spread over all those years, it isn’t. And there’s a cyclic factor. Bursts of activity.

  She indicates the peaks of the display.

  BROCK: 1905 looks a good year. All round there.

  JILL: The time of the letter.

  BROCK: Yes . . . it could have been.

  STEW: What letter?

  BROCK: One to Father Christmas except that it wasn’t.

  JILL: From Martin Tasker aged 8. Later to die a recluse.

  Brock moves aside for the others to inspect the display.

  BROCK: See them? Patches of concentrated haunting.

  EDDIE: Let’s scrap that word.

  BROCK: Haunt?

  EDDIE: Yes.

  MAUDSLEY: It blows Eddie’s mind.

  EDDIE: It gets in the way. Like the jokey talk.

  MAUDSLEY: Saw a ghost eating toast

  Halfway up a lamp post!

  EDDIE (rounding on him): Shut up!

  The tension has thickened.

  BROCK: Eddie’s right. Let’s cut out all the loaded words. Ghost . . . spook . . . apparition . . . phantom.

  EDDIE: Supernatural.

  BROCK: Yes, that’s a beauty. Spectre . . . wraith . . . spirit.

  HARGRAVE: Like a rollcall.

  BROCK: This isn’t a little shade that couldn’t get into heaven because the pearly gates were shut. It’s something else, something interesting.

  A tiny silence.

  JILL: You don’t want her to be alive.

  EDDIE: Do you think it is?

  JILL: No.

  EDDIE: Well, then—

  JILL: I might be wrong.

  BROCK: Is anybody religious?

  JILL: I don’t mean that. Just—respect. For her, I suppose.

  MAUDSLEY: Old Louisa?

  JILL: She wasn’t old, she was nineteen.

  Brock gives her a long hard look.

  BROCK: You’ve demolished her! I know you, love, I know how your mind wo
rks. You’re on the track of something that serves her up as a very dry dish indeed—and you feel funny about it. Come on. Give!

  JILL (hesitantly): It’s just the first rough model. (She flips a switch. A wide coil of paper chatters and spills from the line printer) I took the sudden coldness as basic. A temperature drop of at least three degrees or we wouldn’t notice it.

  EDDIE: Fair enough.

  JILL: Taking the volume of air in that room—and varying times from ten to ninety seconds—what we get is a power flow between 20 and 200 kilowatts a minute.

  EDDIE: A heat pump.

  STEW: A furnace in reverse!

  Brock studies the print-out.

  JILL: Peter you see what’s coming out there? Heat drawn rapidly from the surroundings and concentrated.

  EDDIE: Ionisation?

  BROCK: Hot spots forming in the air.

  EDDIE: Like—fireballs.

  BROCK: Converting into other forms of energy—sound waves—light . . . (doubtfully) It’d be quite a process. Crude energy forming itself into regular, recognisable patterns. I don’t know . . .

  EDDIE: Let’s make a practical start. Search for these—hot spots, see if they exist.

  STEW (amused): Hot spots.

  MAUDSLEY: Ay, ay, Eddie.

  DOW: Dirty old man.

  EDDIE (eagerly): We’ve got heat sensors—we can do it. Two stages—a wide scan, then home in. It’s the crossover stage—we can improvise there—(Already on the move, he turns impatiently) Come on, then!

  DOW (as he follows): Hot spots.

  MAUDSLEY: Carry me to the Kasbah.

  Jill watches them go.

  JILL: Well, Eddie buys it . . .

  INSIDE THE STORAGE ROOM – DAY

  A thermograph detector is being slowly panned on a tripod by Maudsley. Eddie and the others are setting up black boxes improvised out of used canteen containers, with trailing wire and small lamps sprouting. Eddie places one on the top step.

  EDDIE: Early warning. Any quick temperature change—this lamp comes on. Half a dozen altogether, that should cover the—

  Turning to point the others out to Brock, standing below, he nearly slips off the worn steps.

  BROCK: Watch it!

  EDDIE (steadying himself): Following in Louisa’s footsteps!

  BROCK: One’s enough . . .

  INSIDE THE LABORATORY

  Stew and Jill are working slowly through a data routine.

  STEW: I don’t buy it either. I’ve never felt cold in there.

  Jill breaks off and swivels to face him.

  JILL: Never once?

  STEW: Not a goose-pimple.

  JILL: But—you’re skinny. You’re a natural shiverer.

  STEW: Yeah. Wrap up warm, Stew, me mum always says. (He frowns at his work) Struck another bug.

  JILL: Okay. Re-run.

  Stew presses keys. The teleprinter starts typing out its data so far. Brock comes in.

  BROCK: How’s it going? Trying more variables?

  JILL: There are some we missed.

  BROCK: Such as?

  JILL: The strength of people’s reactions.

  BROCK: To it?

  JILL: Everybody’s is different. One hears hardly at all. Why?

  BROCK: It’s what you’d expect. Strength of eyesight or hearing.

  JILL: What about Stew?

  STEW: I still don’t get a thing.

  BROCK: Okay, you’re ghostproof. Like colourblind.

  JILL: Good. I’m running a fresh program. I’m going to put him in it.

  BROCK: What?

  JILL: I’m running Stew in it as a parameter.

  STEW: Fame at last.

  BROCK: What’s the idea?

  JILL: He’s significant.

  BROCK: How?

  STEW: Don’t mind me.

  But Jill’s intensity grips Brock.

  JILL: Suppose . . . Stew was your only witness. In that case, would she . . . walk? D’you see what I mean? Would—she—walk—for—him?

  Brock begins to get it . . .

  INSIDE THE STORAGE ROOM

  Rapid footsteps patter in the storage room. This time they seem to run the whole length of it.

  Maudsley swings a thermograph scanner wildly, trying to follow the sound. Eddie scrambles to help him.

  Dow is aiming the parabolic microphone in another direction. Brock and Hargrave are busy with more thermographs. But all the monitor screens fed by these machines remain blank.

  Jill comes into the doorway with Stew.

  A harsh rasping squeal. The footsteps break into half a dozen crossing patterns.

  Suddenly Jill sees it: A black figure at the foot of the steps, clawing its way up as if in slow motion, somehow almost paralysed.

  JILL: Look!

  Hargrave sees it too.

  HARGRAVE (pointing): There it is! (Brock abandons his thermograph. He sees nothing. The steps are empty) It was there! Right there! Sort of creeping! You must have seen her!

  He runs to the spot as if he expects to find some trace and turns to them, baffled.

  BROCK: Just you and Jill.

  EDDIE (bitterly): No warning! (He snatches up one of his black boxes and breathes noisily, angrily, on the element. It instantly lights up) Oh, it works now!

  He shakes the thing until the contents rattle.

  Brock looks round. Stew is still standing in the doorway. Meeting Brock’s eyes, he shakes his head. Brock turns to Jill. She is standing stiffly, controlling herself with an effort.

  JILL: I saw her face this time. She’s frightened . . . !

  BROCK’S SUITE – LIVING QUARTERS, NIGHT

  Jill sits hunched over a drink. Brock is getting one for himself.

  JILL: She’s running from something.

  BROCK: The footsteps.

  JILL: Always running.

  BROCK: Probably old Tasker coming to pinch her bum. Three times round the table and the girl is mine, ha, ha.

  JILL (emotionally): She died!

  BROCK: It’s really getting to you. (That does it. She rubs and dabs at her face as tears start streaming) . . . Jill.

  JILL: Oh, Peter—to be afraid like that!

  He sits and pulls her to him. She is shaking.

  BROCK: Are you afraid? Of all this?

  JILL: No. I don’t think so—

  BROCK: What, then?

  JILL (with difficulty): It’s—the thought of it. Of there being nothing left of you but—just enough to repeat the worst moment of your life over and over again!

  BROCK: That doesn’t happen.

  JILL: But if it did—if she knew—

  BROCK: Look, love, we talked about it. We all agreed—

  JILL: Could there be anything there that knows?

  BROCK: Not in my book.

  JILL: Just—a dead mechanism?

  BROCK: That’s all that’s left.

  JILL: It’s horrible. But it’s better than knowing. I couldn’t bear it if she knew!

  He strokes her, gentling her.

  BROCK: All right, love.

  He kisses her but she is still tense and obsessed.

  JILL: To be so alone—

  She looks at him with horror behind her eyes.

  BROCK (firmly): All right, that’s it. You’ve said it and got it over. Your moment of superstition.

  JILL: It wasn’t.

  She is calmer now. For a moment or two longer he keeps his arms round her. The tension is lessening, but slowly.

  BROCK: What you need is another drink. (He picks up her empty glass. As he goes to fill it the phone rings) Oh, hell! (He tries to ignore it but it goes on ringing. He answers it) Hello? Christine, darling, I meant to ring before but you know—problems. Well, something slightly interesting for once. I’ll tell you all about it when I . . . Probably tomorrow . (Jill is on her feet. He flaps a detaining hand at her) Kids in bed are they? . . . Is she? Give her my biggest kiss . . . A what? A drawing? I can’t wait. (Jill makes for the door. His back is turned and he doesn’t notice) Liste
n, about Chuffy . . . was it inside the hoof? . . . What did the vet say . . . ?

  Jill slips out.

  THE STORAGE ROOM – NIGHT

  Jill slowly opens the door of the storage room. A face turns to her. It is Stew, sitting there alone by the dim flicker of blank monitor screens. Keeping a self-imposed watch.

  He shrugs.

  JILL (after a moment): She’s about. I can tell . . .

  BROCK’S SUITE – OFFICE, NEXT DAY

  The Sergeant opens the door.

  SERGEANT: Mr. Crawshaw, sir.

  Crawshaw comes in—a tall, talentless mechanic of relentlessly honest demeanour.

  CRAWSHAW: Hello, Brock. (The hand he extends is, disturbingly, bright scarlet. So is his other one) Excuse the red hands, I’ve been doing dye tests, in very inadequate conditions. (They shake, very briefly) You’ve never been to my place at Slough. Hardly more than a shed.

  Brock indicates a chair. Crawshaw sits—sinking down and down almost to floor level.

  CRAWSHAW (cannily): The interview chair.

  BROCK: Do the tests yourself?

  CRAWSHAW: All of them.

  BROCK: Is that so?

  CRAWSHAW (proudly): I make it a rule.

  BROCK: Never delegate?

  CRAWSHAW: Responsibility? Never.

  BROCK: No.

  CRAWSHAW: I’m a plain nuts-and-bolts man.

  BROCK: A what?

  CRAWSHAW: My own hands.

  BROCK (thoughtfully): He’d like that.

  CRAWSHAW: Who?

  BROCK: Old Patrick. He was a . . . nuts-and-bolts man himself once. Started with electric irons.

  CRAWSHAW: I know.

  BROCK: Of course you do. A good ploy.

  CRAWSHAW: I don’t like that word.

  BROCK: Gambit, then.

  CRAWSHAW (guardedly): He said we should have a talk.

  BROCK: We’re having it.

  CRAWSHAW: Meaningful.

  BROCK: No.

  CRAWSHAW: Eh?

  BROCK: Not meaningful. Since we’re being fussy about words, that’s not one he uses.

  A tiny unstated bluff is being called. It has to do with who knows Ryan better. It is resolved by Crawshaw suddenly looking humbler.

  CRAWSHAW: Brock—I need more working space. This place is enormous. Now if I could just look round it—

  BROCK (stiffening): I’m sorry.

  CRAWSHAW: Some rooms you’re not using—

  BROCK: Not a chance.

  CRAWSHAW: Look—let me tell you about my project, then you’ll see—

  BROCK: I know. The world’s first all-electronic washing machine.