Keeping On Keeping On

by Alan Bennett

  CHRIS

  People die. They have funerals.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  For the moment, Huggins, mortality is an irrelevance. All in all I think I am going to have to let you go, Huggins.

  CHRIS

  Where, sir?

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Agnews, Colnaghi, Weinreb and Douwma. The world, Huggins is your oyster. You’re actually rather an old-fashioned boy, aren’t you, Huggins? Cheeky is what you are. A cheeky chappy. Well, I don’t think this is quite the firm for cheeky chappies. You’d probably do well in the City. They like cheek there. And provided they can keep out of the hands of the Fraud Squad boys like you take home quite considerable sums of money. So goodbye, Huggins. Now where were we, Vanessa?

  VANESSA

  The left thigh.

  Chris goes to the door, then stops.

  CRESSWELL

  Out!

  CHRIS

  You don’t want to postpone it a week.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Don’t be insolent.

  CHRIS

  I’m only thinking of you.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Don’t. Do not think of me. Think only of yourself.

  CHRIS

  We’re into the semi-finals of the squash. You get rid of me people will say you couldn’t bear to lose.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  I shan’t lose. I always win.

  CHRIS

  Sure. Because they let you.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Could you wait outside, Vanessa.

  Marryatt-Smith waits calmly until Vanessa is out of the room.

  CRESSWELL

  You spermy prat. You greasy little prick. You’ve no business playing squash in the first place. Snooker is your game.

  CHRIS

  I can play that too, actually. But I’m right, aren’t I?

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Very well. You’ve got three days. Or until you’re defeated.

  CRESSWELL

  By me.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Unless of course, as I devoutly hope, you’re arrested first.

  CRESSWELL

  Out!

  Chris goes and we stay with Marryatt-Smith looking grim, a different kind of rage.

  INT. GARRARD’S, CORRIDOR – DAY

  OLLIE

  Not sacked.

  CHRIS

  Not yet.

  OLLIE

  Why?

  CHRIS

  Charm.

  Moberley, who is cross for the first time.

  MOBERLEY

  You’ve let me down, Christopher. You’ve let the firm down. I’ve always stuck up for you.

  He gives him a painting as Chris puts on white gloves.

  Take this down to the stockroom. Somebody’s going to put their foot through it here. And don’t dawdle. You’re in enough trouble as it is.

  He hands Chris a painting. We see Chris set off in the direction of the stockroom, then, when Moberley’s back is turned, double back heading upstairs.

  INT. GARRARD’S, JELLEY’S ROOM – DAY

  Chris leaves the picture outside and goes in to find Jelley studying the photograph.

  JELLEY

  (eating)

  What I’m supposed to tell from a photograph I don’t know. Talk about paddling with your socks on. I want to be able to touch it. Feel it. How’s your aunt by the way? Clinging on, is she?

  CHRIS

  Come again?

  JELLEY

  She was dying, remember. Seen any mustard anywhere?

  Chris finds him some.

  Nick it, did you? The original.

  CHRIS

  No.

  JELLEY

  People do, you know. That’s one of the functions of an auction house. As a high-class fence. Where did you get it?

  CHRIS

  You said you wouldn’t ask.

  JELLEY

  Don’t be a fool. This isn’t a game. If this is what it’s pretending to be it’s not a game at all.

  He gets a magnifying glass.

  Ollie comes in.

  I’ll want a lab report on the paper.

  OLLIE

  I’ve got that.

  He fishes out an envelope, which Jelley reads.

  JELLEY

  You’re serious boys, aren’t you? How come you’re still brown coats? In old age Michelangelo burned many of his drawings. Forgeries began not long after his death. So the paper has to be sixteenth century. (Reading the report.) Which it is.

  CHRIS

  So that proves it’s …

  JELLEY

  It proves nothing of the sort. It just proves it was done on paper of the right age. And with something like this there’s never going to be any absolute proof. But, listen to me, the pair of you. If it is what it looks like it ought to be in a safe. It ought to be air-conditioned. Where is it?

  The door has opened and Moberley has come in with the picture he despatched with Chris.

  MOBERLEY

  Christopher, I told you to take this down to the stockroom. What’s it doing parked in the corridor?

  CHRIS

  Sorry, Mr Moberley.

  MOBERLEY

  What are you doing here in the first place? Out. Go on. You’d try the patience of a saint.

  CHRIS

  Mr Moberley …

  MOBERLEY

  Don’t Mr Moberley me. Whatever silly game it is you’re playing it had better stop right now. I thought you were different. I thought you wanted to get on. You’re like all the others. Bring that picture and do as you’re told. You too, Oliver.

  Ollie scurries out, leaving Moberley with Jelley. Jelley is taken aback by the outburst (which maybe should be fiercer). Moberley is a bit taken aback himself.

  INT. GARRARD’S, MAIN ROOM – DAY

  As Moberley hustles Chris and Ollie through we see Steiner and Kristina standing in front of the Rembrandt, now permanently installed on the dais. Steiner’s hand is on Kristina’s shoulder. Chris and Ollie leave the building surreptitiously, though maybe observed by Cresswell.

  EXT. ST JAMES’SSQUARE – DAY

  Farquarson is sitting on an out-of-the way seat in the garden. Marryatt-Smith comes along and sits down, not speaking at first.

  FARQUARSON

  This is somewhat melodramatic.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  I think not. There are rumours enough as it is.

  FARQUARSON

  They don’t affect the bank.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  They affect me.

  FARQUARSON

  We agreed to wait until after Mumbai. How was it?

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  We have a Rembrandt sale coming up.

  Farquarson looks pained.

  And there may be something else.

  Probably earlier Vanessa should have told Marryatt-Smith about further phone calls from Farquarson.

  Marryatt-Smith sees Chris and Ollie hurrying towards the London Library. He looks after them as they go.

  INT. LONDON LIBRARY – DAY

  Jelley takes the boys through the library down into the stacks. It is a Dickensian place. The floors are iron gratings, so that one can see up through the grating to the next floor. Many odd staircases, corners and doors.

  JELLEY

  Works of art seldom just appear from nowhere. They don’t suddenly surface after four hundred years. Go through the records and the likelihood is that over the centuries there have been glimpses. Sightings. Not always under the right names or ascribed to their proper source but somehow, somewhere, they break cover. Works of art change hands, are bequeathed, sold, lost, found again, stolen and recovered. They seldom hang on the same wall for more than three generations or are hidden in the same cupboard. Somehow, somewhere they see the light. And when they do somebody makes a note. A traveller writes in his diary. An auctioneer catalogues a sale. A clerk draws up an inventory.

  Chris and Ollie have ended up with a pile o
f books that Jelley has drawn from the shelves and they are about to go into a room when they see Marryatt-Smith coming in. They turn round and find a more obscure room, as Marryatt-Smith looks up towards them.

  JELLEY

  Yes. That’s its one drawback. A bit clubby. Too handy for work.

  They find a corner in an out-of-the way room and settle down.

  Very few of Michelangelo’s drawings for the Sistine Chapel survive. There is one notebook and a few bits and pieces.

  Ollie is consulting another catalogue.

  OLLIE

  He did some dirty drawings, apparently.

  CHRIS

  Doing you know what?

  OLLIE

  It says ‘scandalous’ so I imagine that’s what it means.

  CHRIS

  Personally I’m surprised there isn’t more of that. If I could draw, that’d be the first thing I’d do.

  OLLIE

  Yes. Women. Men. The combinations are endless.

  CHRIS

  Still life in your case.

  Possibly it’s the building but there are footsteps now and again on another floor of which Chris is aware but not Jelley.

  OLLIE

  Actually that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to Michelangelo. They say he never had sex in the whole of his life.

  CHRIS

  Christ.

  JELLEY

  (looking at the photograph)

  It is quite shocking.

  CHRIS

  A hand? How?

  JELLEY

  It’s not just a hand, you numbskull. Look at the ring: the coat of arms are the arms of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo’s patron. The Pope who commissioned him to do the ceiling. The hand is the hand of God, but with the Pope’s ring on it.

  CHRIS

  You mean it’s a joke?

  JELLEY

  Not if you want to be burnt at the stake it isn’t. The Almighty with the world at His fingertips. The touch that gives life, the finger that animates Creation. It’s as if the hand – the hand of God – were holding a coin, a banknote, and it’s for this that Adam is reaching. The world animated by cash. Wages.

  CHRIS

  Why not?

  Jelley exasperated with him.

  JELLEY

  Take this back.

  He hands him a volume and we follow Chris down into the basement.

  INT. LONDON LIBRARY, BASEMENT – DAY

  The basement is filled with rows of metal shelves which are wound apart by a manually operated wheel which concertinas the shelves or opens them up. We see Chris winding the wheel and opening up a bay. He replaces the volume on the shelf, then idly opens another book, which he rests on a shelf. He senses a tremor of the shelves, frowns slightly but takes no notice. Then there is a more violent movement of the shelves as they are suddenly wound together.

  CHRIS

  No. Hey, I’m here. I’m in here.

  Cut to:

  Two hands winding the wheel tighter. Chris caught by his wrist between the shelves. An umbrella pushed between the spokes of the wheel and turned tighter. Chris pinioned between the shelves. Muffled cries. Then suddenly silence.

  A little Old Lady has come into the room, now empty. She checks her shelf and slowly unwinds the wheel and opens them out. She goes into a bay, the same one in which Chris has been imprisoned. She consults a book, ignoring Chris who has managed to wedge himself on one of the empty shelves and is now nursing his wrist. She goes on looking at her book, but as she leaves she says, without directly addressing Chris:

  OLD LADY

  I wouldn’t let the librarian catch you lying on the shelves. He’s a real tartar.

  INT. LONDON LIBRARY, ANOTHER PART OF THE LIBRARY – DAY

  Jelley and Ollie are still consulting books.

  JELLEY

  Michelangelo didn’t get on with Julius II. He always had to haggle for his money, so in one respect that explains the drawing. But the ring … like our simple friend says, a bit of a joke. But for the Pope to be depicted not just as God’s representative but as God Himself … God’s hand, His hand … even the most fervent Catholic would hesitate to make such a claim. It is scandalous. It would have played straight into the hands of the Protestant critics. Wait a minute. What were you saying about some drawings of sex?

  OLLIE

  It doesn’t say sex. It does say scandalous.

  JELLEY

  Where?

  OLLIE

  A Dominican monastery in Hungary.

  JELLEY

  That’s good.

  OLLIE

  Why?

  JELLEY

  The Dominicans were the most fervent of the Pope’s supporters. Now say it wasn’t sex. Say it was some different sort of scandal. Money. Power. And that was why they suppressed it. A drawing by Michelangelo saying that the Pope was all things the Protestants said he was … a money man, a banker. God and Mammon.

  Chris comes in holding his wrist.

  JELLEY

  What happened to you?

  CHRIS

  Somebody’s just tried to kill me.

  EXT. LONDON STREET, OR A MCDONALD’S – DAY

  Somewhere at any rate where Jelley has just had a disgusting meal.

  CHRIS

  So what do you think?

  JELLEY

  I think so far so good.

  CHRIS

  Great.

  JELLEY

  I also tremble. I don’t know where this drawing is, where it came from, and how you come to have it I daren’t think. But I must see it. Where is it?

  CHRIS

  Safe. Isn’t it?

  OLLIE

  Yes.

  JELLEY

  Safe? What does that mean? You twerps. To begin with, it should be in a safe. Is it? No. It should also be somewhere that’s air-conditioned and in a controlled climate. Where is it?

  CHRIS

  We can get it to you tonight.

  JELLEY

  I’m working late. It’s this bloody sale. It’s good working for an auction house – except they always have to sell everything.

  CHRIS

  Ollie’ll bring it to you. OK?

  JELLEY

  Be careful.

  He goes in at the front entrance of Garrard’s as they go to the basement.

  CHRIS

  Shit.

  OLLIE

  What?

  CHRIS

  My wrist. I’m going to lose.

  Chris takes out his mobile and phones Kristina.

  INT. BECK’S HOUSE, FRONT ROOM – DAY

  Kristina answers. Puts the phone down.

  KRISTINA

  Wrong number.

  We pull out to see that Lightfoot is in the room. He is staring at the cupboard.

  LIGHTFOOT

  OK.

  Grisewood comes out of the cupboard. A fingerprint man stands by and brushes the inside of the cupboard door.

  INT. SQUASH CLUB, LOCKER ROOM – NIGHT

  Ollie helps Chris bind up his wrist. Chris takes the envelope containing the drawing from the underside of his locker shelf and gives it to Ollie.

  EXT. SQUASH CLUB – NIGHT

  Ollie leaving the Squash Club. He is watched by Lightfoot and Grisewood in an unmarked police car.

  INT. SQUASH CLUB, COURT – NIGHT

  Some of the other young porters have come to cheer Chris on, so there is something of an atmosphere to the match. Marryatt-Smith stands at the back of the gallery, grim-faced.

  Cresswell and Chris are knocking up.

  CRESSWELL

  I gather you win this, Huggins, or it’s the sack.

  CHRIS

  Winning, losing … it’s the game that counts. Didn’t they teach you that at school?

  CRESSWELL

  What did you do to your wrist?

  CHRIS

  Nothing. It’s an old masturbation injury.

  The match begins. Chris loses the first point. His arm is obviously going to give him trouble.

>   The porters are dismayed.

  INT. GARRARD’S, SALEROOM – NIGHT

  Garrard’s is in chaos preparing for the evening auction. Television crews setting up etc.

  Ollie threads his way through and goes up to Jelley’s room where Jelley is sitting waiting. He gives him the drawing. Jelley begins to study it.

  EXT. SQUASH COURT – NIGHT

  Ollie returns, observed by the police. We follow him inside where the match is not yet over. Chris has managed by some tricks to hold off Cresswell but it can’t last much longer. At the break Ollie brings Chris a drink while Cresswell goes off court for one.

  INT. SQUASH COURT, DRINKS DISPENSER – NIGHT

  Cresswell is just having a Coke when Marryatt-Smith comes up.

  CRESSWELL

  Won’t be long now. He’s knackered.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Ye-es. Nigel. I think we should perhaps put a reserve on this one.

  CRESSWELL

  What?

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  I’m putting in a bid by the house. Save it for another day.

  CRESSWELL

  But I’m wiping the floor with him.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Quite. But I think that would look better coming from me.

  CRESSWELL

  Charles, I’m going to look a real prat.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Not to me, Nigel. Not to me.

  INT. SQUASH CLUB, COURT – NIGHT

  Chris and Cresswell are playing the final match. Cresswell seems to slip and Chris gets the final point.

  The porters in the gallery go wild, Cresswell looks furious. Ollie is jubilant. Chris is unconvinced and pensive.

  MARRYATT-SMITH

  Congratulations, Huggins. You live to fight another day.

  EXT. SQUASH CLUB – NIGHT

  Lightfoot and Grisewood are waiting outside the Squash Club in the police car.

  LIGHTFOOT

  He still doesn’t smell like a murderer to me.

  GRISEWOOD

  He was in the house. He was in the cupboard.

  LIGHTFOOT

  Families do murders. Relatives, not boys just wanting a fuck.

  GRISEWOOD

  So do you think it was her?

  LIGHTFOOT

  I don’t know.

  Chris getting on his bike. He rides off. They follow.

  EXT. LONDON STREETS – NIGHT