Vicar No sudden movements.
Ellie Can I ask you something?
Vicar You might wake my son.
The Vicar suddenly shoots the gun. Ellie screams and jumps out of the way.
Vicar I saw something move.
Ellie You see, the thing is I went to church. Every Sunday for twenty years. I sometimes took my son when I needed to practice the organ. He’d play in the church and I’d tap and pedal away. He used to sit on the carpet and say ‘Mum. Come and sit on here and we can go on a magic carpet ride’. I used to tell him not to be so silly. How I wish I’d joined him. I wore this coat. My Sunday coat. He said it made me look like the Queen. I burnt it when he died. (Beat.) Your son?
Vicar (nods) You can help me dispose of the body.
She looks to him alarmed. She realises she is sitting on his son’s corpse.
Ellie Is this him?
And she taps him.
Vicar Don’t hit him.
Ellie You shot him!
Vicar Well he had the disease.
Ellie Did he?
Vicar Yes! Well I don’t know actually.
Ellie So why did you . . .
Vicar It was so hard to tell in the eighties.
Ellie Will you tell me if Jesus forgives me?
Vicar What did you do wrong?
Ellie I committed the worst crime. I turned my back on my son.
Vicar I killed mine. There were extenuating circumstances.
Ellie There should be no excuses. (Stands.) Okay. I know what I have to do. I don’t think the ark is coming. I think it’s been and gone.
She heads off. Suddenly the wind gets up and mists swirl more, enclosing them. When eventually the fog separates we find:
Scene Eleven – Hospital, 1986
Mickey is sitting up in bed. Russell is brushing his hair.
Russell I’m shaking. Why am I nervous?
Mickey Coz you’re a big fat Jessie.
Russell They’re your bloody parents. Let’s have a look.
He steps back to admire his handiwork.
Russell You don’t look too bad.
Mickey Thanks.
Russell Okay you look brilliant.
Mickey I don’t care how I look. The more shocking the better.
Russell Where are they? The nurse said they were at the entrance ten minutes ago.
Mickey Probably got lost.
Russell Come out of the wrong lift and currently partaking in a Popmobility class. Aaand stretch! Where are they?
He hurries to the door and looks out.
Russell I think I see them. Do I curtsy?
Mickey Calm down.
Tom and Ellie come in. Ellie is wearing a coat that wouldn’t look out of place on the Queen. Tom has a bouquet of flowers. Ellie freezes in the doorway.
Russell (Nods.) Mr Harris. Mrs Harris.
Tom (To Mickey.) Hello Son.
Mickey I’m blind. Prove it’s you.
Ellie remains frozen as Tom approaches the bed. He sits at Mickey’s side.
Tom You know it’s me.
Mickey When I was little. Mum’s birthday party. I was in bed and I heard you singing in the garden. I pulled the curtains back and saw you. I thought you’d be singing to Mum. But you were singing to the stars. If you can remember that song, it’s you.
Tom clears his throat and eventually starts to sing.
Tom If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air Quaint little villages here and there You’re bound to fall in love with old Cape Cod.
He goes to take Mickey’s hand but can’t. Ellie remains in the doorway. Mickey cries.
Russell You can come in Mrs Harris.
She doesn’t budge.
Ellie Did you give it to him?
Russell What? No. I love him very much Mrs Harris. He’s my best friend.
Ellie Is this what love does?
Ellie looks away. Russell goes and looks out of the window.
Tom If you like the taste of a lobster stew Served by a window with an ocean view You’re sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.
As he sings, Melanie walks in with older Russell. They survey the tableau. She is shocked. She looks to Russell.
Melanie I live on my nerves. I’m by nature a very nervous person.
Russell nods. She looks to Ellie.
Melanie So much for the Moped in Tring.
The lights fade.
Act Three
Scene One – Central Hall, 1971
Lights up on Mary Whitehouse standing at a lectern addressing the Festival of Life Gathering. During the scene, various actors will be placed in the audience to disrupt her talk. Mostly men in drag, dressed up as Home Counties Housewives.
Mary Ladies and Gentlemen. Friends. Christians. Welcome to Central Hall in the heart of Westminster for the very first Festival of Light in this the year of our Lord, 1971. We’re here today to celebrate everything that’s wonderful and bounteous about our existence. And hopefully to shine some of our light in the murky tunnels and under stones that others would rather leave unturned.
Someone in the audience starts to slow clap. It unnerves Mary. The clapping gets louder, spreading.
Mary I have some friends who recently returned from a year abroad as Missionaries. Peter and Janet Hill. And what were they confronted with? The Oz trial. Ken Russell’s film The Devils. The growth of open homosexuality. Women’s Lib. Sex outside marriage. In short, the degeneration of British life. Not so much a permissive society but a cruel and callous one. I don’t like the word permissive. I do not give my permission for these unchristian activities to be taking place. And neither do you.
Suddenly a Woman in the audience screams and the clapping stops.
Mary Today we have some fantastic guest speakers. Labour peer Lord Longford. The wonderful Bishop Trevor Huddleston. And, of course, a man who needs no introduction, but I’ll give him one anyway.
Mouse Woman AAAAGHHHHH! There’s a mouse! Mice! There’s loads of mice! Aaaahhh! It’s running up my leg!!
The Mouse Woman calms down. Elsewhere someone shakes a football rattle and two Men stand up and start to kiss.
Onlooker That’s disgusting. Somebody eject them! Homosexual scum! Read this and find out what subversive muck you are!
The Onlooker throws a Bible at them. Mary ignores all this.
Mary Malcolm Muggeridge. Or Marvellous Malcolm as I like to call him. Malcolm recently said – I think this is wonderful, I really do – ‘The purpose of the festival is that . . . the relatively few people who are responsible for the moral breakdown of our society will know that they are pitted against.’
Another Woman shrieks, standing up.
Porn Woman Someone’s pasted pornography into my hymn book! Who would do such a thing?!
Mary Not just a few reactionary people, but all the people in this country who still love this Light – the Light of the world.’
Porn Woman 2 I’ve got pornography in my hymn book too! It’s disgusting! That shouldn’t be humanly possible! Not without a shitload of poppers!
Mary (continuing) I think that deserves a round of applause.
Mary leads the audience in some restrained applause.
Porn Woman Actually I quite like it! Where’s the nearest toilet? (Running out.) Don’t applaud me! Don’t applaud me! I’m a God fearing porn lover!
Mary Then, we shall be hearing from one of our brightest young things. Hit popster, Mr Cliff Richard. Who lives in fear of the advancing finger of Homosexuality et al poking into society on a daily basis. And who can blame him? Oh what’s this?
From the balcony a banner is unfurled saying CLIFF FOR QUEEN.
Mary Ah I see we have some of Cliff ’s fans in the audience. They like you so much they think you should be royalty Cliff. Cliff for Queen! Well . . . wouldn’t that be a dandy idea? Sorry?
Onlooker Mrs Whitehouse, there are gentlemen in the audience wearing ladies clothing!
A Nun stands up as two other Nuns conga down the aisle.
Nun That’s terrible. It’s an abomination. Come to Sister Matic and be saved, come on you bent bastards! Where are you?
Mary Er . . .
Some other Nuns have started high kicking it down the aisles.
Mary May we begin proceedings by singing our opening hymn. How Great Thou Art.
An organ starts to play and a gospel choir sings.
Mary (sings)
O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hands have made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
The power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee
How great Thou art. How great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to thee
How great thou art, how great thou art!
During this the pandemonium in the auditorium increases with frenetecism as Security Guards rush in and manhandle the Nuns out, battering them as they go. More Women are carted out brusquely.
Toilet Woman I’m just an innocent housewife going to the toilet!
The Security Guard lets her go.
Toilet Woman Fuck for Jesus!
He grabs her again and drags her out as some members of the Klu Klux Klan enter.
KKK Leader We have come to burn all perverts at the stake.
Billy runs down the aisle dressed as a Priest. He waves a cucumber in the air.
Billy Oral sex gives you vitamins! Oral sex gives you vitamins!
Mary recognises him.
Mary William!
Billy Lick a lezzy today Mary! You should try it!
Mary William, what have you done?!
Mary storms off the stage. Billy jumps on it and grabs the microphone. He takes a booklet out and starts to read.
Billy We are representatives of the Gay Liberation Front and this is our manifesto. We believe that all people atracted to their own sex should be brought up to believe that it’s normal.
A Policeman runs on and grabs Billy, trying to rescue the microphone off him. Billy resists.
Policeman Come on pervert!
Billy We believe that psychiatrists should stop treating homosexuality as an illness. We believe that . . .
The Policeman drags him off. Billy drops the microphone but keeps on shouting.
Billy Gay is good! Gay is good!
Blackout.
Scene Two – Hospital, 1986
Mickey lies in bed. Eventually Tom enters with a beaker of water and hands it to him.
Tom Your Mother’s gone home. I could lie. Say she’s got a busy week. Say Melanie needs her. Melanie does need her. But what’s the point?
Mickey What’s Melanie like?
Tom Ellie cossets her.
Mickey I’m gonna die without meeting her.
Tom Ellie’s worried what the neighbours’ll think. I don’t care any more.
Pause.
Tom Sorry. I’m unsure of the etiquette.
Mickey Don’t ask how I am. It’s impolite. Don’t ask how I’m feeling either.
Tom Impolite too?
Mickey None of your business.
Tom Okay.
Mickey I’m sick of thinking about how I’m feeling. Explaining how I’m feeling.
Tom Okay.
Mickey But don’t you dare sit there and not ask me how I’m feeling. Coz that drives me nuts. You can’t brush me under the carpet.
Tom So basically. I can’t win.
Mickey Basically who d’you have to fuck to get some pain relief round here?
Tom Where does it hurt?
Mickey Where doesn’t it?
Tom I’m so sorry Michael.
And he buries his head in the bed and sobs his heart out in silence. Mickey just sees the jerky fall and rise of his shoulders.
Mickey Not brilliantly helpful.
Tom Sorry.
Mickey Do you have any regrets Dad?
Tom Of course!! Of course I do! Look at you!
Mickey I regret I fucked a violinist in 1981. And I’ve never been to Leningrad.
Tom smiles.
Mickey I want you to say I died of AIDS. I don’t want euphemisms. I’m disappearing into silence and I don’t like it. I want to be screaming, even when I’m tulips. I know you never got me.
Tom I get you. I get you more than you know.
Mickey I never set out to hurt you.
Tom Nor have you.
Mickey But I dreamt. I dreamt that one day I’d walk down a street with my lover and we’d hold hands and no-one’d snigger. I’d switch on the TV and see grown men kissing. Adverts for condoms in the breaks. I dreamt that one day a kid could come out at school and that’d be okay. That dream kept me fighting.
Tom I have one big regret. That I never told you.
Mickey What?
Tom hesitates. Eventually.
Tom How proud I was of you. Able to be yourself and stuff the consequences. You may be dying Michael. But there’s more life in you than there’s ever been in me.
Mickey I never found love. I never went looking. I was gonna change the world first. Do all that later.
Tom Better than finding it and turning it away.
Mickey I’m scared Dad.
Tom I know you are Michael.
Mickey Alone. You’re always on your own.
Tom I’m not going anywhere Michael. I’ll set up camp in the corridor if I have to. I’m not leaving your side.
Mickey But work . . .
Tom Can wait.
Mickey It’s not like you.
Mickey takes his father’s hand. Just then Russell comes in with two coffees. Neither of them are aware of him coming in.
Mickey The night I told you I was gay. You threw up. I heard you. In the back garden. By the dahlias.
Tom I wasn’t repulsed by you. How could I be?
Mickey You got in the car. And went driving. But you took off so fast. Like you wanted to drive yourself off a cliff.
Tom It was a shock. I was so wrapped up in me and my problems. I never even considered that you might be too.
Mickey What problems?
Tom I never hated you Michael. I envied you.
Mickey doesn’t understand.
Mickey I might be what too?
Tom Mickey. I’m . . .
But just then Mickey screams out in agony. Russell is frozen.
Tom I’ll call a nurse. I’m so sorry. I’ll call a . . .
He sees Russell standing there.
Tom Well don’t just stand there. Get someone!
The Nurse comes in.
Nurse Okay Mickey. We’ll give you some more morphine.
She attends to Mickey.
Russell You might be what? Tom?
Tom Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Russell comes and holds Mickey’s hand. Tom gets up and looks out of the window.
Blackout.
Scene Three – Police Station, 1971
Billy sits in his cassock in a dark, damp police cell, turning a navy blue handkerchief over and over in his hands, nervously. Suddenly the door opens and Tom comes in. Billy is gobsmacked to see him. Billy seems a bit manic, unable to settle, almost on the verge of hysteria at times.
Tom So. Arrested for playing silly beggars up Westminster Hall.
Billy Well I suppose you would see it that way, fascist. Or if I may be so bold. Self loathing fascist.
Tom It’s been . . . how long? Ellie and I moved down when she was . . .
Billy I’m part of a movement.
Tom You’re an activist?
Billy I’m strong now. I’ve got clarity. Gay is good. Say it often enough and it becomes true. Try.
Tom You’re all right.
Billy gets up and paces the room.
Billy You know it’s liberating, being in a room full of gay people. They even organise dances. Rooms full of gay people dancing. Can you imagine that?
Tom I’m not sure I’d want to.
Billy We’re Britain’
s youngest civil rights movement. We might even start a magazine. We did our first demo on Highbury Fields. Your lot nicked a guy caught cottaging there so a hundred and fifty of us went down there with candles and . . . it was so special.
Tom So. You’ve started a revolution.
Billy I dunno if it’s a revolution or a party.
Tom Tune in, turn on, drop out?
Billy You should come to a meeting Tom. Or come on our next zap. There’s this book. Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid To Ask by David Reuben. Or to give him his full medical title, David Reuben. It’s full of dangerous misleading inaccuracies. It says gay men shove light bulbs up their arses for sexual gratification. A load of us have been collecting, well, nicking, lightbulbs for ages. We’re going to go to Pan Books. The publishers. And scatter like . . . hundreds and hundreds of lightbulbs over the floor of their reception. You see? No-one’s gonna get hurt. And it might make people think.
Tom I’m busy that day.
Billy Staying in and washing your truncheon?
Tom smiles.
Billy Today was a scream. I loved every minute of it.
Tom You’ve been arrested for using a cucumber obscenely. All sounds a bit childish to me.
Billy These people. These idiots who call themselves Christians. They’re so concerned about what I get up to in bed, yet they have complete disinterest in the starvation and murder of people in Bangladesh. Is my sex life really more vital than that?
Tom Sounds like it is to you.
Billy It’s not all about sex Tom. As you well know. Women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society respects human rights. We’re the canaries in the mine.
Tom Try and calm down Billy. You seem a bit manic. A bit . . . obsessed.
Billy Can you blame me?
Tom I have to get back to my duties. It’s good to see you Billy.
Billy I hope one day you find some peace.
Tom Ditto.
And he heads to the door.
Billy Tom?
Tom looks back.
Billy I forgive you. I just want you to know.
Tom In a way it’d be easier to deal with if you hated me.
Billy How’s Ellie?
Tom Fine.
Billy Kids?
Tom A boy. He’s a handful. We’d like another.
Canary Page 6