The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (10 page)

Some laughter.

BROCK
: Right. Let’s butter their paws. Come on—
(Leading the way briskly)
Lift, soon to operate, I hope. My office is up there.

EDDIE
: Very palatial.

BROCK
: Of course, or why be boss? Reception desk, with Sergeant Patterson. Sergeant, get to know these faces.

SERGEANT
(nodding and grinning)
: I know some already, sir.

BROCK
: From here on, we’re secret. So no chums in, no parties in the canteen—which by the way is through there and extremely decent.

COLLINSON
: And working.

BROCK
: Loos that way, also working. And now—

He opens the lab door and leads the way in.

The laboratory is large and well equipped. It is filled with benches and steel shelves holding all kinds of equipment. Crates still unpacked stand round the walls.

There are a couple of TV cameras on roller tripods, large monitors, oscillographs, thermographs, a spectrum analyser.

Separated off from the rest by a glazed partition is the computer section. This is the territory of Jill and Stew. There is the usual teleprinter for data communications—a plotter of automatic graphs . . . a high-speed line printer. But only a couple of the conventional tape storage units with their heavy tape spools visible through windows.

BROCK
: This is Lab One. Soon there’ll be two others like it to spread into. And if that’s not enough there are five hundred acres outside to sit and think in.

MAUDSLEY
: Who else is coming here?

BROCK
: Nobody. Just us.

HARGRAVE
: But it’s enormous.

BROCK
: We’ll get bigger. I’ll expand the team with people I choose. Hand-picked. The best. Same as you’re the best.

STEW
: Flattery, Pete..

MAUDSLEY
: Gets him a lot of places.

DOW
: Yeah.

HARGRAVE
: This lot.

MAUDSLEY
: Fantastic.

DOW
: Too good to be true.

HARGRAVE
: After North Acton, eh!

STEW
: What about the other crowd? The washing machine?

DOW
: Here?

BROCK
: Forget it.

DOW
: That bunch in here?

BROCK
: No! Can’t you get it through your heads—you’re special! Incredible as it may seem, you are! I’ll spell it out. This—place—is—ours. It—is—all—for—us. Because—we—are—on—the Big One!
(He surveys their faces)
D’you want a pep talk? D’you really want that?

DOW
: About the Japs?

STEW
: He’s a bit simple. Brilliant but simple.

BROCK
: Cliff—it is always about the Japs. In ten years they are going to have us all by whatever part of our anatomy they pick. There will be no electronics industry anywhere in the world but theirs. Unless—

EDDIE
: I think we’ve a good chance.

BROCK
: We’ve got only a single chance. We’ve got to play a card so high they can’t top it.

STEW
(mock-Japanese)
: Aah, so!

BROCK
: A completely new recording medium.

STEW
: Already have in honourable pocket.

EDDIE
: Shut up, Stew.

STEW
(seriously)
: What about tape, though?

EDDIE
: Tape’s finished.

STEW
: They can still improve—

EDDIE
: Its day is done.

BROCK
: Stew.
(He has a spool in his hand)
Magnetic tape is compact, responsive, all the sales chat-up says.
(He pulls some loose and crushes it in his fingers)
Also delicate and prone to lose its memory.

MAUDSLEY
: Like Cliff here.

BROCK
: As you rightly say.
(He tosses the spool down)
It’s time, gentlemen, for a breakthrough. Just record me, say, the whole of Wagner’s Ring cycle inside a pin head—with instant playback, of course—

MAUDSLEY
: Gimme till lunchtime.

BROCK
: —and you can name your royalties.

EDDIE
(hungrily)
: It
is
royalties, then?

BROCK
: Forget about bonuses, you’ll be right in there. I’ve got his word on it.

EDDIE
: Himself?

BROCK
: Yesterday. “Just put the boot into ould Nippon!” is how he delicately phrased it. So—if you want to be millionaires, it’s a crash programme. Find the medium and everything else follows.

DOW
: The hardware?

BROCK
: We’d take the lot. Computers—TV—home recording—satellites—they all follow. Then Ryan Electrics becomes Ryan International becomes Ryan Interspatial. It is up to you.

EDDIE
: I love this man’s modesty.

BROCK
: Thanks to Eddie you’ll find all your junk in familiar order.

EDDIE
: Disorder.

BROCK
: Obviously. Sorry.

EDDIE
: All that string.

BROCK
: Now. Your pet projects will go on as before—Eddie’s digital crystal and so on—but we’re going to try something new. We’ll correlate all results together.

MAUDSLEY
: But Pete—if there’s no connection—

BROCK
: The computer might spot one.
(Doubtful noises)
Every clue counts.

EDDIE
: It puts a lot on the computer.

All eyes go to Jill. She is standing by the computer, her expression strange, as if she is still under the heavy apprehension that nearly made her crash the car.

BROCK
: Jill’s ready. She’s going to try something very sophisticated. Projections—extrapolations—a sort of randomised mix with an accelerated uncertainty principle. How’s that?

Jill seems to come to herself.

JILL
: Something of the sort.

BROCK
: You all right?

JILL
: Yes, I—
(As if to take attention away from herself, she turns to the twin tape storage units)
What about data storage? Are those all we’ve got?

BROCK
: Colly. Computer storage room. When do we get it?

COLLINSON
: Oh yes. Well—

BROCK
: What?

COLLINSON
(embarrassed)
: There’ve been—problems.

BROCK
(quietly)
: You were here to solve them.
(Controlling his anger)
How far have they got with it? Colly, how much have they done?

COLLINSON
(bluntly)
: Nothing.

Brock stares at him in disbelief, then makes for the door.

BROCK
: Let me see!

He stamps off down the passage. Collinson looks at Jill. They both follow.

THE STORAGE ROOM

Brock throws open a massive door. There is still a notice screwed to it reading “U.S. ARMY. STORE ROOM”.

The room is immense. It could contain a small house. The walls go up 15 or 20 feet to meet the bare and rotting beams of the roof. The walls are covered with wooden panelling that now hangs away from them in sagging sheets.

There is a single window at one end, high up and half smothered by the ivy we saw outside.

Apart from a workmen’s trestle table, standing in the rubble, it is completely bare. A few square yards of the rotten panelling have been torn down and thrown on the floor. Then work seems to have been abandoned.

Brock stands in the middle of the room, unable to believe it.

BROCK
: It—it simply isn’t—! Five months and not a single—! Why didn’t you report it?

Collinson joins him. Jill stays in the doorway.

COLLINSON
: I knew there were reasons they had to finish the priority jobs.

BROCK
: Colly, this was priority!

COLLINSON
: To be fair, it wasn’t in phase one.

BROCK
: Refacing and air-conditioning and wiring—! Did they just forget it?

COLLINSON
: No.

BROCK
: What then?

COLLINSON
: Problems with the men. They claimed it was—I don’t know—a dirty job.

BROCK
: There’s dry rot! Do they think it’s catching! Look at those panels—I could shift the lot in half an hour!

He grabs a swathe of distorted panelling and peels it back. It splits, disclosing shroud-like hangings of fungus. Dust scatters. Brock sneezes.

He pulls savagely at another section and this too rips away. More fungus—and something else.

BROCK
: Stairs.

Jill comes to look. The steps are little more than pegs in the wall, scarcely a foot wide and very badly worn—hollowed, sloping and uneven.

COLLINSON
: Yes, they saw those.

BROCK
: The men?

He tugs at the next section of panelling, it is more resistant but it shows them enough.

JILL
: They don’t lead anywhere.

The steps run from ground level to about eight feet up and then stop.

BROCK
: Surely that wasn’t what—?
(Sourly, as he releases the panel)
What else did they find? A skeleton?

COLLINSON
: No-o.

BROCK
: Anything?

COLLINSON
: As a matter of fact, yes. About thirty tins of Spam.

BROCK
: Spam!

COLLINSON
: And a letter to Father Christmas.

He nods at the trestle table. With a comic groan Brock goes to look. There is a pile of rusty tins. He picks one up.

BROCK
: U.S. Army issue.

COLLINSON
: Doubt if it’s fit now. They must have got forced in through the panelling. The Yanks used this for a store.

BROCK
: Painted it khaki!

COLLINSON
: Trying to quell the rot.

BROCK
: Even then?

COLLINSON
: It was empty before the war. When the rot gets really going like this they call it weeping. Weeping fungus.

Brock glares at the membranes of rot with personal enmity. There is a piece of paper on the table—a half disintegrated sheet that looks as if it was previously folded up in a tight wad. Jill picks it up and tries to make out the faded scrawl.

JILL
: “Christmas Eve . . .”

COLLINSON
: Oh yes, that’s it.

JILL
: “What . . . I want for . . . Christmas . . .”

COLLINSON
: A kid’s writing.

His manner has changed—tight and nervous.

Brock suddenly attacks the wall, kicking out a great piece of panelling. Rot and dead wood and dust go flying. He kicks at it again, hacking more away with his foot.

BROCK
: Even the stone’s got it!

COLLINSON
: It’s just—very old.

BROCK
: 1880?

COLLINSON
: Ah, that’s when they panelled it in. These walls are a lot older than the rest of the house. They’ve just been—built onto. In fact, they must have been knocked down and rebuilt and generally messed about a lot in the last thousand years.
(Brock stares at him)
Oh, yes. The foundations might be Saxon.

BROCK
: Saxon!

COLLINSON
: Just an amateur opinion.

BROCK
: My God—!

COLLINSON
: Informed amateur.

BROCK
: If you’re right, you see what it means?
(in despair)
They’ll be in here—the environment boys, the conservationists—nailing their little notices on the door and writs and—they could stop everything! If they get on to it—
(Thinking furiously)
—what about the architect?

COLLINSON
(with contempt)
:
That
architect!

BROCK
: Didn’t he spot it?

COLLINSON
: Not till the day he quit.

BROCK
(a tight smile)
: Right! If we go ahead fast—get everything concreted over and the machines in—while we can! Where are the men now?

COLLINSON
: Working on the back.

BROCK
: Come on!
(In the doorway he turns)
Don’t worry, love, you’ll get your storage room!

They hurry off along the passage. Jill shivers. It is cold here, the chill suddenly striking. She follows.

As the men’s footsteps fade they seem to echo inside the room. Curiously changed, though—this is a rapid pattering.

The effect is so startling that Jill spins round expecting to see another person. And finds nobody. She forces calm on herself and makes for the door. As she reaches it the sense of another presence behind her is overwhelming. She halts and steadies herself against the doorpost. Quite deliberately, she turns to look.