The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays

by Nigel Kneale

  Cobb on his feet and taking the brandy from Jethro.

  COBB: Good. What’s your name?

  Tetsy with a rapid, unskilled curtesy.

  TETSY: Tetsy, so please you.

  Sir Timothy has swung round to his wife in a cold fury.

  SIR TIMOTHY (whispering): Why did you ask him here?

  Lavinia flicks him a look of faint amusement. Then the door is closing and Cobb is pouring himself brandy.

  COBB: Mm, pretty. (To them) Will you join me? (Sir Timothy puts up his hand. Lavinia shakes her head, smiling. Cobb drinks) . . . You’re wise. At least it washes away the coffee. I really doubt that they’ve ever made coffee here before. I do.

  LAVINIA: I must apologise again, Mr. Cobb, for having put you to all this . . .

  COBB: No, no. The coach was late.

  LAVINIA: We had everything ready for you at the Hall. Timothy’d even been to the cellar to choose wines.

  COBB: Wines? Not imponderable fluids? I’m honoured. (He laughs. She laughs. Sir Timothy is tight-lipped, and Cobb is quickly grave again) Sir, do you keep a chymical chamber at the Hall? A laboratory?

  SIR TIMOTHY: Yes.

  COBB: You’ve studied long?

  SIR TIMOTHY: A number of years, mostly on my own.

  COBB: Rewarding, heh?

  SIR TIMOTHY: Yes, indeed.

  LAVINIA: Often I scarce see him for a week. He’s shut away there with his reports and the whole parish may go rot.

  COBB: Most singular—a squire that would sooner hunt a chymical element than a fox.

  SIR TIMOTHY (hand on the jar again): Shall I go on?

  COBB: Please.

  SIR TIMOTHY: If tonight there should be a manifestation, I’d expect changes in the air, the release of—of imponderable fluids. Phlogiston caloric, even the electric fluid. Now, for the electric—

  He draws forward the electroscope. At the same moment there is a bump on the door, which flies open. It is the landlord, with his arms full of logs.

  LANDLORD: Here you are, sir.

  SIR TIMOTHY: It’s intolerable.

  LANDLORD: Logs.

  COBB: Throw them all on—I need a great blaze to thaw my vitals. If you’d dragged for ten hours behind those damned lame jades . . .

  LAVINIA: I feel so guilty!

  Cobb to the landlord as he builds up the fire.

  COBB: And then make more coffee (To the others) I don’t know how he brews it—I’ve tasted naught like it in London.

  LANDLORD (with modest pride): We have our ways, sir.

  COBB (heavily): Ay. (To Lavinia) Coffee is the element I float in, madam, be it exquisite or vile. I chart my way through the flavours like the great whale in his sea. Now where did we meet in London—I’d swear it was at Mrs. Brook’s?

  LAVINIA: It was.

  COBB: There! I never forget a bean! The aroma . . . nay, the aura . . . of that Mrs. Brook’s. But you, squire . . . I think you were not there?

  SIR TIMOTHY: No.

  LAVINIA: I was up in town alone, visiting my cousin.

  Cobb gives a faint smile as he glances from wife to husband.

  COBB: No, sir, I think you were not.

  The landlord turns from the fire and picks up the tray of plates.

  LANDLORD: There, sir . . . that’ll soon pick up.

  COBB: Thank’ee.

  Sir Timothy looks at his fob watch. He follows the landlord to the door and looks out.

  SIR TIMOTHY: My men not returned?

  LANDLORD: Not yet, sir.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Be sure to let me know. Send Lukey to me.

  LANDLORD: I will, squire.

  He goes, shutting the door. Cobb has risen and is warming his back at the fire.

  COBB: This witness of yours.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Sam Towler

  COBB: He’s with them?

  SIR TIMOTHY: Yes. They’ve been roping off the area with alarm bells to detect intruders.

  COBB: You mean hoaxers?

  SIR TIMOTHY (unhappily): Yes.

  COBB: You admit it could all be an imposture, then?

  SIR TIMOTHY: To keep an open mind, I must. But I think not. I think there is something here worth probing with all the means we have!

  He claps his hands confidently on the alembic-like jars.

  LAVINIA: Not forgetting pussy.

  COBB: Ah, yes, the cat’s head. (He peers at it) What does it do?

  SIR TIMOTHY: Er—it may provide additional attraction for electrical fluid.

  COBB: How?

  SIR TIMOTHY: The whiskers.

  COBB: Ah. And ornamental, in a way. In a way. Now, sir . . . you’ve formed your theory already—no, don’t protest—I can see you’re positively agog with it.

  SIR TIMOTHY: In some sense, I . . .

  COBB: A new proof of the existence of hobgoblins!

  SIR TIMOTHY (protesting): No, sir!

  COBB: Then confound me, sir!

  SIR TIMOTHY: Imagine—imagine that hereabouts in the far past there was some great catastrophic event.

  COBB: Was there one?

  LAVINIA: So they say.

  COBB: What?

  LAVINIA: That Queen Boadicea fled through these woods with her army.

  COBB: Ah, Queen Boadicea.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Wait, wait! An event of such spiritual force that it somehow imprinted itself on the very landscape.

  He breaks off, listening.

  LAVINIA: What is it?

  SIR TIMOTHY: They’re back!

  He hurries to the door.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  The working party is streaming in behind Lukey Chase. Sir Timothy meets them, calling to the landlord.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Ale for these fellows! Two full tankards each, no more. I want cool heads tonight. (He ignores groans from Big Jeff and one or two others, and draws Lukey aside) Now, Lukey?

  LUKEY: We finished, squire, sir.

  SIR TIMOTHY: You’d metal enough?

  LUKEY: Ay.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Our guest was late, or I’d have come out again myself. Tell me, was anything heard or seen?

  Lukey frowns. Then, understanding, he shakes his head. The camera pans to the bar, where the new arrivals are being served. Tetsy slips from her work quickly round to Sam’s side.

  TETSY (whispering): Sam . . . they been talking about you. I was frikkened, love.

  SAM: Eh? Who?

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  Cobb is impatient. He pours more brandy, with a glance at Lavinia, who declines.

  COBB: Where’s this fellow, now?

  LAVINIA: Towler?

  COBB: Ay. Jethro, find him and we’ll proceed.

  Jethro goes to the door.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  As before, those nearest turn to stare as Jethro appears. Further along there is a more pronounced reaction. Tetsy jerks Sam round to see the negro. So it is to him that Jethro speaks.

  JETHRO: Sam Towler? (Faces turning to Sam confirm his guess. Jethro moves towards him) My master wishes to speak to you.

  Tetsy clings to the young man, whispering in his ear.

  TETSY: Don’t go with him! His master ain’t yourn . . . he can’t make you.

  JETHRO: Will you come, please?

  Sir Timothy pushes through from where he has been talking to Lukey.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Now, now, this is well enough. Come along, lad. Bring your ale if you will. (Jethro goes before and holds the door for them. The squire calls to the rest:) Stay close. We leave within the half-hour.

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  Cobb scrutinises the young man fiercely. Sam faces him, the tankard clutched in his hands.

  SIR TIMOTHY: This is Sam.

  COBB: Are you honest, Sam?

  Sam turns to Sir Timothy indignantly.

  SIR TIMOTHY: I can answer for him. He’s worked in my stables for . . . how long?

  SAM: Since a young lad, sir.

  COBB: So . . . you can curry a hunter’s coat, Sam? Wax a saddle and shine brasses? All honest t
hings. But are you honest in the mind?

  SAM: What’s he mean, sir?

  SIR TIMOTHY: Indeed, Mr. Cobb—

  COBB: Honest with yourself. Not many achieve it.

  Seeing Sam’s jaw set, Lavinia interposes.

  LAVINIA: Sam . . . Mr. Cobb has come from London to help us tonight. I think you should tell him your story.

  COBB (taking cue): Don’t fear me, lad. I’m neither a judge nor a High Constable. I’m a philosopher. D’you know what that is?

  SAM: Ay, sir, like the squire.

  COBB: Not exactly like. As I have none of those remarkable chymical jars I am obliged merely to think. About the truth. (Lavinia shoots her husband a look as she passes, changing her seat for a better view of the proceedings) Come now.

  Sam turns to Sir Timothy.

  SAM: I think he’ll mock me.

  COBB: I mock nothing but folly and knavery. Let us be two good fellows—heh? . . . helping each other to illumination. Jethro, take notes.

  Jethro sits, pulling from his tail pocket a portable inkwell and quill. There is paper on the table.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  Tetsy is straining to hear what is going on in the private room. Watching her, the villagers grin.

  LANDLORD: Tetsy . . . come away.

  She glances at him, but does not move from the door.

  BIG JEFF: Hey, Tetsy . . . they’re feedin’ him to the black man!

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  Jethro is scribbling with his quill as Sam talks.

  SAM: ’Twas last year, a couple of days after Michaelmas.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Exactly a year ago tonight, the first day of October 1769. And that night you were out in the woods?

  SAM: Yes, sir.

  COBB: Why?

  SAM: Just . . . just wandering about.

  COBB: Alone?

  SAM (after a moment): Yes.

  COBB: How long?

  SAM: Hours. It was full dark when I heard the noises.

  COBB: The noises.

  SAM: Weren’t much at first; like some sort of whistles or squeaks, and I thought . . . birds. But ’tweren’t birds.

  COBB: What were they, then?

  SAM: I dunno. Then they started to burst out more. Very loud. And between whiles there was quiet. And then . . . I was laid on the ground an’ I could feel it startin’ to shake . . . An’ the noises come nearer, a-roarin’ and a’rattlin’ like naught I ever did hear. I was frikkened, sir.

  COBB: Rattling . . . of what? Wheels? Chains?

  SAM: Neither one, I don’t think.

  COBB: Can you imitate any of these sounds for us? With your mouth? (Sam frowns. He manages a low-pitched hum. He parts his lips and it comes out as a harsh buzzing. He stops abruptly, embarrassed, and clears his throat) Thank you. How did you set that down, Jethro?

  JETHRO: “A kind of buzz or hum”.

  Cobb grunts approval.

  SAM: There seemed to be voices too.

  COBB: Human voices?

  SAM: Ay, sir. Yelling and screeching. (The memory of it catches at him) And footsteps running . . . under the ground I was lyin’ on!

  Lavinia gives a tiny involuntary shiver. Jethro glances up from his notes at Sam.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  Tetsy is pressed against the door listening. She grasps the doorknob.

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  COBB: You mean they ran in the earth?

  SAM: Right under me where I lay. But the queer thing was . . . they sounded like feet on cobbles.

  JETHRO (writing): Footsteps on cobbles . . .

  SIR TIMOTHY: There’s nothing but turf and leafmould throughout the woods.

  COBB: And the voices?

  SAM: They were all round me. I stopped up my ears like this . . . but . . . oh, I tried, but it made no matter.

  COBB: Could you pick out words?

  SAM: None I could make sense on.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Latin, perhaps.

  COBB: Were they in our tongue?

  SAM: Some . . . some might have been . . . I can’t tell now. (His voice grows increasingly high and distressed) But mainly it was all screams and screechings . . . near and far away too, like as if all the dead people was risin’ out o’ Hell an’ coverin’ the land! (Staring in front of him) An’ then—it must have stopped, I don’t recall. I run home an’ when I seen the houses I cried. (He turns to Cobb as if dazed) The queerest of all . . . nobody else had heard it!

  COBB: No one?

  SAM: I couldn’t believe that, I couldn’t!

  The door is flung open. Tetsy runs to his side, clinging to him and shouting.

  TETSY: Don’t torment him!

  SIR TIMOTHY: There’s no harm, girl.

  TETSY: Sir, you must stop them.

  LAVINIA: She was listening.

  TETSY: I had to! I couldn’t help it.

  LAVINIA: Get out of here.

  COBB: No, wait. Please.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  The landlord comes round from the bar. Big Jeff, Lukey and others drift towards the open door of the private room.

  COBB (off-stage): Now, Sam, I want you to tell me . . .

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  COBB: . . . For whom were you waiting in the woods that night? For her?

  TETSY (before Sam can answer): Oh no, sir . . . we were not then . . . not . . .

  She breaks off, blushing.

  COBB: I beg pardon. (To Sam) Some former sweetheart?

  Sam nods unhappily.

  TETSY (whispering to Sam): Was it Meg?

  Sam nods again, not looking at her.

  SAM: But she didn’t come. Not that night.

  COBB: Ah. You waited in vain. And there’s our picture! An overwrought young man in a lonely place . . . his fancy hard at work . . .

  LAVINIA: You mean he made it up?

  SAM: I didn’t, sir.

  COBB: I’ll tell you what you heard. You heard your own heartbeats throbbing against the ground. You heard the small creatures of the undergrowth.

  SAM (positively): No, sir, no.

  COBB: But chief of all, you heard your own memory. I’m told there’s a local tale . . . (He glances at Lavinia) . . . about that queen of ancient times.

  He snaps his fingers, frowning.

  SAM: Queen Boadicea.

  COBB (trapping him): There . . . he knows it!

  SAM: They say she come through those woods with her whole army in rout.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  The watchers through the open doorway nod to each other. This is familiar ground.

  Then they draw back a little, for Cobb is moving about the inner room, eyeing them. But his words are half-addressed to them, as a useful part of his audience.

  COBB: All those sad barbarians, sweating the blue woad off their bodies as they fled. Tossing their spears away . . .

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  COBB: . . . Yelling and screaming in their terror. And behind them . . . the trumpets and the drums, the rolling drums (he savours the word) of the Roman Army.

  SIR TIMOTHY: It may well have happened.

  COBB: Happened or not, it’s what he learned at his mother’s knee. See how the rascal’s eyes shine! Oh, Sam, you’d make a writer, a veritable Grub Street romantic . . . if you’d only learned your A.B.C.! It’s been in his mind since childhood, this fustian tale, and when he’s in an emotional state it comes back to him and . . . there’s your phantom army!

  Sam turns, aware that Cobb is playing to some gallery behind him. He walks slowly towards the men in the doorway.

  SAM (quietly): That wasn’t what I heard.

  COBB: What does he say.

  Sam turns on him.

  SAM: You try to show me as a fool, sir. But I’ve thought about this many a day, as honestly as you’d wish. (Jethro looks up from his note-taking, glances at his master. Cobb frowns too, at this returning of his own words) And I know. ’Tweren’t that old queen and her people that I heard. (He turns to Sir Timothy) If they
had come by here, they’d have had chariots—that’s like carts, ain’t it, sir? . . . and horses. (To Cobb) I’ve heard drums, too, and trumpets . . . in town when the soldiers came. (Finally) ’Twas none of these. None of ’em. (He pushes through those in the doorway) Let me by.

  Everyone is staring at him. Even Cobb’s complacent mask is disturbed.

  Tetsy starts after Sam. Just through the doorway she meets her father’s eye and halts.

  INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR

  Sam is walking slowly down the empty bar-room. All his concentration is directed within himself. He turns as the others come straggling after him.

  SAM: I heard men running on a great cobbled road through them woods. But there’s no road, nor ever has been.

  SIR TIMOTHY (from doorway): That’s true. It’s always been forest land.

  A momentary silence. Then Cobb is beside him, breaking the spell.

  COBB: Come, sir, come . . . you realise what you’re doing? You’re adducing this very lack, this nothing . . . as if it supported his tale! (Sharply) Has no one else ever heard these sounds?

  BIG JEFF: Job Mousley.

  An amused murmur.

  SIR TIMOTHY: An old poacher. Three years ago. He was in the woods on what must have been the same night of the year, but that signified naught until Sam here . . .

  COBB: Where is this old man?

  SIR TIMOTHY: He died. A week or two later.

  COBB (heavily): Of shock, no doubt?

  Some nods and mutterings.

  LANDLORD: He was took mortal strange.

  COBB: How disobliging of him. (He glances round) And there’s no other witness of this remarkable annual uproar? You must all live within a mile or two. Nobody? (As heads are shaken, he turns to Sir Timothy) Yourself, sir? Your lady . . . your servants . . . (He looks down the bar) . . . with one exception.

  Sam is at the window, peering out through the tiny panes at the darkening village street.

  SIR TIMOTHY: It seems you have to be in the woods. (He looks at his watch again, calls out) We leave in ten minutes.

  BIG JEFF: It’ll be a cool night, sir.

  SIR TIMOTHY: Very well . . . (To landlord) . . . Hot toddy for every man before we go. Small ones, though. (To Cobb) I take it, sir, you will not be with us?

  LAVINIA: Oh, he must. Who else will stand for common sense?

  COBB: Thank’ee, madam.

  LAVINIA: It was for that I invited Mr. Cobb.

  Cobb shows her back into the private room.

  COBB: And for that only?

  INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM

  LAVINIA: What do you mean, sir? When Sir Timothy told me he was going to investigate . . . (She suddenly breaks into a direct, disarming smile) . . . I thought you might . . . like to come . . . (He moves towards her. Conscious of Jethro’s presence, she moves away. It is a kind of unskilled coquettishness, clumsy for lack of practice. She picks up Jethro’s notes and after a glance casts him a look of mild surprise) . . . a neat hand! (She is conscious of both men, as just now she was conscious of Cobb and her husband. To Cobb) What did you think of him?