The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays

by Nigel Kneale

  Grels shoulders the stick. He and Nat wade along in the shallows at the foot of the cliff. Grels peers and pokes into crannies. He points to the mussels clustered on the rock face, cracks some with his stick and devours the contents. He offers a broken shell to Nat, who tastes and spits the mussel out. Grels roars with laughter.

  GRELS: Okay, you can boil ’em first. Now, look here—(They come to a steep pebbly beach with a scatter of driftwood. Grels picks some up) Good for your fire. Burns good.

  Then they are climbing up a steep cliff path, clutching heather roots for support. As they reach the top, Nat is sliding and panting. Grels reaches back and grabs him, pulls him up to safety. Glancing back, Nat is glad of his help.

  The cottage is just ahead. They make their way towards it.

  GRELS: Some time I show you how to get a sheep. Got to be quick and trick ’em. Then . . . you get a lot of meat. And the skin—like this—

  With satisfaction, he pats the rough sheepskin that covers him.

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE

  Deanie is watching at the window. She runs to the door to meet them.

  DEANIE: Nat!

  She is almost collapsed with terror. He drops the sack and takes her in his arms.

  NAT: What wrong? Where Keten?

  Then he sees Keten lying on her bed a few feet away. She looks white and shocked. Her hand and forearm are swathed in a rough, bloodstained attempt at a bandage.

  DEANIE: Fell against the wall. Out there playing when she saw it—and she ran and—

  NAT: Saw what?

  DEANIE: I dunno. Been watching us all the time—for hours—! Something, somebody, I dunno—

  Bulky Grels moves fast. He is outside in a moment, followed by Nat.

  OUTSIDE THE COTTAGE

  Grels scours the landscape, the heavy crab-hook raised like a weapon. Deanie clings to Nat.

  GRELS: Where is it?

  DEANIE (pointing): Out in the mist. Moving across . . . and then back. Sort of hiding.

  GRELS: A sheep.

  DEANIE: No. Saw them too. They ran.

  Grels grunts.

  NAT: Nobody else on the island?

  GRELS: No . . . there was nobody.

  He watches Deanie bury her face against Nat’s shoulders.

  DEANIE (faintly): Just wanted you—come back.

  GRELS: Need a bar on the door. Like this. (He picks up one of the pieces of driftwood he dropped. A Yard of heavy timber)—then you feel safe. I bring tools and make it.

  DEANIE: Tonight?

  GRELS (surprised): Okay. Tonight.

  DEANIE: Come both of you and eat with us.

  Grels nods, pleased. He gives Nat the crab-hook.

  GRELS: Here.

  They watch him move off, then turn back inside, quickly.

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE

  Nat shuts the door and clicks the feeble latch. He goes to Keten.

  NAT: Hurt still?

  She nods, too shocked to speak.

  DEANIE: You better see it.

  As she loosens the bandage Keten whimpers. Instantly Deanie becomes confused and clumsy, worsening things. All the distress they must have shared a few minutes ago returns. The child is afraid of the mother’s incompetance. Then the bandage is loose. Nat stares, at a loss. Deanie forces the words out, nearly sick.

  DEANIE: It was . . . all open. I got some things to . . . some thread and . . . to fasten it . . . together. (Looking at him) What do you think?

  NAT (helplessly): I dunno. Put that back.

  As Deanie bends over Keten to restore the bandage, he turns to the vision unit with cold anger spreading in him.

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  Priest and Opie sit watching at the control desk.

  NAT (on screen): Well? Did they laugh?

  He raises the crab-hook and slashes. The screen goes blank. Unperturbed, Opie flips switches. A low-angle shot of Nat fills the screen. He is slashing at the rafters with the crab-hook, ripping out delicate apparatus and wiring.

  OPIE (to desk): Show now on secondary units. Autolock.

  He locks controls.

  PRIEST: If he finds the others—

  OPIE: All hidden.

  PRIEST: Hut bugged?

  OPIE (nodding): They think the show over. Now it gets real super-king! (Priest frowns) Co-ordinator, the audience. They did laugh . . .

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE – NIGHT

  That night, by the light of a candle that Nat holds close for him, Grels is finishing two massive sockets, one each side of the cottage door. These are to accept the driftwood bar. As he chisels them smooth he grunts with appreciation.

  NAT: You work quick.

  GRELS: Uh . . .

  NAT: Where you been . . . before this island?

  GRELS: Not remember. All I remember, I been here. I like this island. I make stories. (Keten is watching him, wide-eyed, from her bed nearby) You like stories?

  KETEN: Yes.

  GRELS: Mm. She not—(He nods across at the woman)—Betty. Not like stories, her. (His voice sharpens as he calls) Betty! How the crabs?

  Betty is with Deanie by the hearth, holding the crabs ready in a basket. She stiffens at Grels’s call. Deanie peers into the cooking pot.

  DEANIE: Boiling.

  Betty starts dropping the crabs into the pot. But her eyes go constantly across to Grels.

  GRELS (softly, as he works): Big caves down there. You know caves?

  KETEN: No.

  NAT: Like holes in the rock. Real jumbo.

  GRELS: Yes, you saw them. Deep, deep in the rock . . . of the island. The sea goes in, all white . . . and the little fishes. In and out. Where we got to? say the little fishes . . .

  Betty has despatched the crabs. Only the direction of the eyes in her impassive face show that her attention is on Grels. She turns to Deanie then, as if picking her time for some whispered confidence.

  DEANIE (peering into the pot): They gone all red.

  Then she notices the other woman’s unease . . . the eyes that flick between herself and Grels.

  GRELS: . . . And the sea pull at the rocks and tear. Little stones fall. Every night and every day the sea tear. And the caves get more . . . and more . . . and the little fishes come again and say, where we got to now? Deep in the island . . . (He chuckles. He picks up the bar of driftwood and drops it across the sockets. He slaps it finally into place) There! That keep ’em out!

  He grins across at Betty and Deanie.

  KETEN: Who?

  GRELS: Anything.

  Betty stands frozen. Then she turns and peers into the cooking pot, and stirs the crabs.

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  Misch has joined Opie and Priest at the control desk.

  PRIEST (puzzled): What he pretend for? All this about some danger outside—he must know it was just her.

  MISCH: Just who?

  PRIEST (nodding at the screen): Her. His woman there. When she came and just kept hid in the mist.

  MISCH: Why she come?

  PRIEST (uncomfortably): She got frightened.

  OPIE: Got frightened to do it.

  MISCH: Do what?

  OPIE: Warn them.

  He smiles, then looks away. The faces on the Audience Sampler are smiling, too, rippling with expectant laughter . . .

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE – NIGHT

  Hours later. A candle stump is guttering on the cottage table, lighting the picked crab shells that are scattered there. Grels and Betty have gone. Nat and Deanie are in bed. Nat lies awake, Deanie half-asleep.

  NAT: I not get it.

  DEANIE: What?

  NAT: Those two, Grels and—

  DEANIE: She shudders me.

  KETEN: Nat.

  DEANIE (to him): Sssh.

  KETEN: Nat.

  DEANIE (drowsily stirring): Okay.

  NAT: No. She call me. (He gets up, pulling a blanket over himself. Keten is restive. He pours her a cup of water. She drinks thirstily) Feel hot?

  KETEN: Yes. (He takes back the em
pty cup. She lies with wide eyes) Make a story. Like the man.

  NAT: Not got any.

  KETEN: Just talk.

  Nat is at a loss. The only images he has to draw on are the dry, formless ones of Output.

  NAT: Well . . . lemme see . . . talk about where we come from. In Output . . . back in Output everything automated. You not got to do anything, just program it. One day some man . . . (Apologetically) Try make a story. One day some man . . . he . . . he want something they not got.

  KETEN: What?

  NAT: I dunno . . . (After a moment) A sheep. That do?

  KETEN: Yes.

  NAT: Well . . . how to program a sheep. Push dispenser buttons . . . no good. Control buttons . . . no good. So . . . so he . . .

  KETEN: What?

  NAT: I dunno . . .

  It didn’t work. He has dried up. He is suddenly, absurdly anguished at his inadequacy. He puts a hand to his face.

  KETEN: Talk.

  He looks at her. He puts his hand over her uninjured one.

  NAT: Keten, I like you. (she smiles) I like you, Keten. I like you. (He goes on slowly whispering) I like you. I like you. I like you. I like you. I like you. I like you. I like you . . .

  When he stops her eyes are closed. She is not asleep but reassured. He gets up and goes to the door. He tests the heavy bar in its sockets. He frowns, wondering . . .

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  Opie is still hunched over the control desk, though the duty engineer has come to relieve him. Misch is asleep with her head on Opie’s shoulder. She stirs.

  MISCH (dazed): Coddy . . . what we still here for?

  OPIE: I was right. (The Audience Sampler is crowded, even at this later hour. The faces are comfortably alert) They can take tension . . . even want it. So long it not happen to them. Sadness, worry, fright, pain. I was right.

  Misch yawns. She strokes a hand across his shoulders but he is not to be moved. She looks at the duty engineer and shrugs. As she goes, the duty engineer gets up and follows.

  Opie sits with his head in his hands, staring at the main screen . . .

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE – DAY

  Keten is sick. She lies drowsily while Deanie works on the bandage, now and then moaning with pain. Nat joins them.

  NAT: Ran the instructions. Nothing more.

  DEANIE (worried): Her hand gone all big. (She tries to show him but the child winces) And hot.

  NAT: Looks hot all over.

  DEANIE (puzzled): But in here it’s cold.

  NAT: I get the fire hot. For a fever, keep warm—it did say that.

  He goes to attend to the feeble fire. Deanie lifts the door bar out of its sockets. She picks up a bucket and goes out to get water.

  Nat is piling peat on the fire when he hears her exclaiming outside, and then the bucket clatter. He meets her in the doorway, pointing confusedly.

  OUTSIDE THE COTTAGE

  Grels is sitting slumped against the wall of the vegetable patch. Nat goes to him, mildly relieved.

  NAT: Grels. (The big man looks at him muzzily, genially) How long you been here? (Grels shrugs and slumps back against the wall. Nat is puzzled) Anywise, glad you are. Need your help, Grels. Kid’s sick. (Grels seems uninterested) Maybe . . . maybe Betty can help. She know anything about . . . fever? Grels, you get Betty to come?

  Grels focuses on him at last.

  GRELS (huskily): She gone.

  NAT: What? Where?

  GRELS (vaguely): I think . . . maybe she went for gull-eggs. Maybe she fell down the rocks. You can fall down the rocks easy.

  It is so blatant an invention that he is not even bothering to make it convincing.

  Nat stares at him, taking in the meaning, working it out. He sees Grels’s gaze shift from himself to something behind him. It is Deanie. She pushes the long handle of an axe into Nat’s hand. Nat brings it round, raises it but not threateningly. Deanie grabs the bucket and fills it quickly from the shallow spring-well a yard or two away. Then she goes back inside.

  NAT: Grels . . . you better go.

  Grels looks at him, and at the axe. He sighs. He gets slowly and stiffly to his feet. It is as if he has been sitting here a long time. Nat waits until he is moving away. Then he goes into the cottage.

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE

  As Nat enters, Deanie is ready. She slams the door shut and drops the wooden bar across. Nat goes quickly to the window.

  NAT: Gone. (He lowers the axe and turns to Deanie) Really think he—?

  She gives a tiny, tense nod like a bird. Her indrawn breath shivers.

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  Opie is still watching in the production pod, haggard but obsessed. Priest is there, too, apparantly anxious to justify himself to a few senior Output personnel who have joined them. He is ill-at-ease.

  The main screen holds a picture of Grels, moving through the heather.

  PRIEST: This big man so quiet now.

  OPIE: Just for a time. On account of he kill his woman.

  Priest turns quickly to draw in his colleagues.

  PRIEST: You got the ratings. (Turns to the screen again) Look at him—like comfy and cosy. Like apathy almost.

  OPIE: For him it is.

  PRIEST (to the others, getting it over): Grels a psycho. Killed his girl in the Olympics twelve years ago. Got put in exile.

  OPIE: Not the Olympics.

  PRIEST: Eh? No, not the main Olympics, just the trials.

  OPIE: No audience to see it.

  PRIEST: No audience. (Taking the point) Or we got all this breakthrough then, twelve years ago. How about that?

  OPIE: Sad for me.

  PRIEST (chuckling): Yes, yes. Sad for pal Opie.

  Appreciative amusement from the senior colleagues.

  OPIE: Look.

  Grels has halted and turned, to crouch in the heather . . .

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE

  Nat is at the window, watching.

  NAT: No sight of him. He not coming back. (He turns to Keten, tossing in her bed) Try and eat now? Eat something? (she does not respond. He joins Deanie at the hearth. The fire is brisk now and Deanie ladling boiling water into a bowl) What you got?

  DEANIE: Powder soup.

  She stirs the mixture.

  NAT: Need to take it easy. We not got so much.

  DEANIE: Got to feed her. (There is a cry from the bed, a sort of chirrup. Its weirdness unnerves them. Deanie pours some of the soup into a cup and takes it to the child) Keten. Try this? (She lifts the child and puts the cup to her mouth. Keten twists her head away. Deanie looks helplessly at Nat) I got to. How?

  NAT: Keten. Like a story? Keten?

  Keten tries to focus on him.

  KETEN: About the caves?

  NAT (struggling): Well . . . about the caves . . . (To Deanie) I can’t do it, I can’t tell his story . . . There were caves, not by the sea. They had a lot of people in ’em . . . (Deanie makes another vain attempt to feed Keten) Sort of old-days time. Well, they were happy. Plenty to eat. They had . . . soup. They liked soup, had a lot of it.

  Deanie shakes her head.

  KETEN (tense): Too many people in the caves!

  NAT: No. Don’t think so . . . a lot of caves, if one got too full they just moved.

  KETEN: Too many people!

  There is a kind of seizure.

  DEANIE: Keten—

  KETEN (to her): Nurse? They come yet? (She clutches at Deanie) Nurse?

  DEANIE: Keten, it’s me, it’s Deanie—

  KETEN: Deanie Webb and Nat Mender, they come to take me out there and leave me—on account of the test!—Nurse, not let ’em, not let ’em take me when they come—

  The words are slurring now, and she is struggling in Deanie’s grasp. Deanie holds her tightly—and the fit suddenly passes. She goes limp and lets Deanie lay her back against the bolster. Deanie rises, white-faced.

  NAT: She not mean this—

  Deanie shakes her head. She can hardly choke the words out.

  DEANIE: Wh
at I felt . . . like the arm, all big . . . Nat, it’s everywhere! (She stares at him, helpless) What we do? (Her eyes go to the wrecked vision unit in the roof) Ask Output. But you bust that thing. You bust it!

  NAT: Get no help from Output.

  DEANIE: Yes! Yes, if you let ’em watch and see and hear this—they got to help then! But you bust it! You did it! You! You! You!

  She is battering at him with her fists, weeping . . .

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  OPIE: Old-days, I think they called that “despair”. Right, Co-ordinator?

  Priest nods, numbly. The watchers in the production pod have grown in number. Misch is back with them, sitting beside the hollow-eyed Opie.

  MISCH: She cross, too, that Deanie.

  Opie turns to the senior colleagues.

  OPIE: You see? The danger-force of those bad feelings? We seen “fear” and “anger” and “worry” and “pain” and so on. Soon, I think, one called “grief”.

  INSIDE THE COTTAGE – NIGHT

  That night it is over.

  Nat and Deanie sit huddled together on the big bed, trying to comprehend a sense of loss. Their eyes are fixed on what we do not see, on the smaller bed.

  DEANIE: Now we not ever know—

  NAT: Mm?

  DEANIE: What she said that time. Afraid of us, that we take her away and leave her—

  NAT: She was sick.

  DEANIE: She did think it.

  NAT: Before, maybe, back in the Centre. When she come with us . . . it was okay.

  DEANIE: We not ever know.

  Nat moves forward, with a strange awe of the unseen body, and retrieves the rag doll. He studies it.

  NAT: This knows.

  DEANIE: Nat—

  NAT: In a way. Her closest thing. I got to look at this a lot . . . Till I get the feel she had. Then maybe . . . I get what was in her head . . .

  Deanie looks at him. He seems lightened by the intention. Her voice too softens, with love. She holds Nat tightly.

  DEANIE (whispering): Nat . . . I get more babies, Nat . . .

  INSIDE THE PRODUCTION POD

  Watching, Misch chuckles to Priest.

  MISCH: That Deanie . . . ! Babies! I warn him . . . !

  Opie is on his feet, haggard but triumphant, keeping himself going with brighteners as he addresses the now crowded production pod.

  OPIE: Now—if the kid just died here in Output those two get no jumbo upset like this. Just a bit of bother, maybe. A date not to keep anymore. But now—(He turns to the two crushed figures on the main screen, clinging to each other)—See? Their total nervous system is put out. Must be all the tension feelings they been getting. Proves those feelings are bad, bad, bad to have. Bad for the audience, bad for us too. Except . . . this way. (He gestures, one hand at the screen, the other at his listeners) Watch, not do. The total proof. You look happy, my pals. They as well.