The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (15 page)

Brock indicates a chair. Crawshaw sits—sinking down and down almost to floor level.

CRAWSHAW
(cannily)
: The interview chair.

BROCK
: Do the tests yourself?

CRAWSHAW
: All of them.

BROCK
: Is that so?

CRAWSHAW
(proudly)
: I make it a rule.

BROCK
: Never delegate?

CRAWSHAW
: Responsibility? Never.

BROCK
: No.

CRAWSHAW
: I’m a plain nuts-and-bolts man.

BROCK
: A what?

CRAWSHAW
: My own hands.

BROCK
(thoughtfully)
: He’d like that.

CRAWSHAW
: Who?

BROCK
: Old Patrick. He was a . . . nuts-and-bolts man himself once. Started with electric irons.

CRAWSHAW
: I know.

BROCK
: Of course you do. A good ploy.

CRAWSHAW
: I don’t like that word.

BROCK
: Gambit, then.

CRAWSHAW
(guardedly)
: He said we should have a talk.

BROCK
: We’re having it.

CRAWSHAW
: Meaningful.

BROCK
: No.

CRAWSHAW
: Eh?

BROCK
: Not meaningful. Since we’re being fussy about words, that’s not one he uses.

A tiny unstated bluff is being called. It has to do with who knows Ryan better. It is resolved by Crawshaw suddenly looking humbler.

CRAWSHAW
: Brock—I need more working space. This place is enormous. Now if I could just look round it—

BROCK
(stiffening)
: I’m sorry.

CRAWSHAW
: Some rooms you’re not using—

BROCK
: Not a chance.

CRAWSHAW
: Look—let me tell you about my project, then you’ll see—

BROCK
: I know. The world’s first all-electronic washing machine.

CRAWSHAW
: Domestic—

BROCK
: Domestic. The first to sort its own wash and program itself. The first to sniff out items with nonfast dye and reject ’em. Etcetera, etcetera.

CRAWSHAW
(red hands raised)
: It’ll do all that!

BROCK
: When it works.

CRAWSHAW
: It will!

BROCK
: When it does . . . that triumph of over-sophistication will cost nine hundred nicker per machine! Just to make!

CRAWSHAW
: That’s a lie!

BROCK
: I’ve seen the costings.

CRAWSHAW
: Where? Who showed them to you?

BROCK
: Guess.
(Brogue)
Ah, we’ll not beat ould Nippon with the like of this, at all, at all!

CRAWSHAW
(choking)
: He wouldn’t say that.

BROCK
: He did. He saw the point. This place is for fundamental research, not for patching duds.

CRAWSHAW
: He—he wouldn’t have sent me down here—

BROCK
: For me to tell you. Yes, he would. He’s got a kind heart. I haven’t. Right—chat over.

He goes to the door.

CRAWSHAW
: No, listen to me—

BROCK
: No more time.

CRAWSHAW
: Please—

He follows Brock out.

THE ENTRANCE HALL

Crawshaw follows Brock down the stairs.

CRAWSHAW
: You can’t possibly use all this—

BROCK
: I can. I need every inch.

CRAWSHAW
: It’s like Buckingham Palace—

BROCK
: For a top-class research team. You see, I’ll delegate everything to them. They’ll carry out all tests. That’s the right way.
(He glances down the passage. The door of the storage room is shut and Eddie is on guard outside it, ostensibly unpacking something)
Now, you’ll excuse me if I don’t show you to your car. Sergeant, will you please—

As if under escort, the glowering Crawshaw makes for the front door with the sergeant. Brock turns to the lab. Eddie joins him.

THE LABORATORY

An expectant group is already gathered round the computer, where Jill is completing her first model of the new program.

JILL
: The nature of observed reality. That’s what this program takes in.

MAUDSLEY
: Old philosophy stuff.

JILL
: It might apply to her.

BROCK
: How does that rhyme go . . . ?

“There once was a man who said, God
Must think it exceedingly odd
That the sycamore tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the Quad.”

EDDIE
: Does she walk when there’s nobody there?

BROCK
: That’s it.

EDDIE
: Makes a hell of a difference to the number of times. All those years when the house was empty.

Jill flips the switch of the line printer. It spills out its high-speed report.

STEW
: Version with added Stewart.

Brock and Jill study it. Almost immediately something strikes him. He points it out to her, then relates it to a second item.

JILL
: Oh no—!
(Brock rips the roll off to study it on his own)
—I didn’t spot that. I should have done. I just didn’t spot the connection.

EDDIE
: Let’s have it.

BROCK
(excitedly)
: If this means anything—

JILL
: Let’s start again.

BROCK
: Why?

JILL
: It’s wrong.

BROCK
: Why?

JILL
: It must be.

BROCK
: No. I like this. It’s got the makings. It has.
(To Jill)
It’s what you really wanted. You shaped it this way.

JILL
: I didn’t—

BROCK
: You couldn’t help it, love. The old intuition—right on the button.

EDDIE
: For pity’s sake—

BROCK
: Beautifully simple.

JILL
: I’ll run it again.

EDDIE
: Peter!

BROCK
: It’s the room.

EDDIE
: What?

BROCK
: Just the room itself, nothing else. Yes, this is better, it has to be right.

EDDIE
: Peter, d’you mind telling—

BROCK
: There is no . . . ghost.

A small burst of surprise, even indignation.

THE OTHERS
: But it’s there! I heard it! I saw it! What’s he mean?

BROCK
: Try this for size. It holds an image—and when people go in there they pick it up. What you hear or what you see is inside your own brain!

EDDIE
(frowning)
: Oh no—

BROCK
: That’d be why the sounds don’t echo and we can’t locate them. That’d be why they don’t record. No machine hears them.

DOW
: I got them in my headphones.

BROCK
: You got them in your head.

EDDIE
: What about the hot spots?

BROCK
: Forget them, Eddie.

EDDIE
: I mean, the whole temperature thing—

BROCK
: There isn’t any.

EDDIE
: Look, I know when I’m cold—

BROCK
: The body’s reaction—like allergy, and just as quick. Your whole physiology’s affected.

HARGRAVE
: By what?

BROCK
: By what’s in there.

EDDIE
: But I thought you said—

BROCK
: Don’t you get it yet? It must work like . . . a recording. Fixed in the floor and the walls, right in the substance of them. A trace . . . of what happened in there. And we pick it up. We act as detectors—decoders—amplifiers.

EDDIE
: A recording.

BROCK
: It’d have to be in the stone.

EDDIE
: I wonder.

HARGRAVE
: Some kind of natural process?

DOW
: But freaky.

BROCK
: Perhaps it only occurs under extreme conditions. Some kind of—extreme human output. Emotion. Terror. And that prints off.

MAUDSLEY
: Like—the shadows of people from the big bomb blasts.

DOW
: Yes.

EDDIE
: And we’re—sensitive to it.

STEW
: What about me?

BROCK
: You? You’ve got no playback, that’s all. Some transistors missing. You’re the exception to prove the rule, thank God.
(His grin grows wider)
I’m waiting for the new penny to drop. If I’m right—this could be it. The Big One!

JILL
(quietly)
: A new recording medium.

BROCK
: The boot in the guts for ould Nippon!

JILL
: If it’s true—

BROCK
: If it’s true, you found it!

He kisses her. It sets off something like a goal-scoring reaction. Cowboy yippees. Cheers. Suddenly everybody is trying to kiss Jill . . .

BROCK’S SUITE – OFFICE – DAY

Hospitality glasses are clashed in a toast. Hospitality drinks are being downed. A lot of noise.

Brock pushes a glass into the hands of the bemused Collinson, who has just joined them.

BROCK
: Colly—we’re wetting the head of an idea! It could be the Big One!

COLLINSON
: My God!

Brock has had several drinks and they seem only to have increased his excitement. He grabs Jill.

BROCK
: I’m certain of it, love! The more I kick it around! Direct injection into the human brain of both sound and vision—no intervening apparatus!

JILL
: I read about some research—

BROCK
: The Japs, of course. But blind end—they got nowhere! It’s going to be ours! Television without the telly set! No box—not even a visor in front of your eyes—

HARGRAVE
: Just a sort of clip—

BROCK
: Costume jewellery—the 13-channel earring!

Stew and Maudsley loom in, gibbering Jap-English through protruding paper teeth.

STEW
: Honourable Nippon have met great defeat!

MAUDSLEY
: Go now to cut honourable belly!

STEW
: Berry!
(taking teeth out)
He couldn’t say belly—

DOW
: But when it goes wrong the repairman’d have to operate on your head.

BROCK
: Don’t mention that—not in the sales brochure! Keep it positive.
(He has his arm round Jill. He taps, an imaginary control on her temple)
Coronation Street!
(tap)
Double Your Money!
(tap)
Come Dancing!
(tap)
War and Peace!
(tap)
Porn Channel One!
(tap)
Porn Channel Two!

JILL
: I’m going mad—

BROCK
: That’s all right—
(tap)
—Channel 10, Home Doctor!
(tap)
Political Laugh-In!
(tap)
The Hard-Core Show!
(tap)
Urban Guerilla’s Do-It-Yourself—

HARGRAVE
: Hi, listen—

BROCK
: Come on, let’s have it!

HARGRAVE
: No, the phone—it’s ringing—

It is, almost drowned by their noise. Brock makes his way to the desk and answers it.

BROCK
: Hello? Who? Yes, Brock speaking! . . . Helen—just a second.
(Pressing a hold button, he turns to the others)
Shut up a bit.

He makes for the other room. They quieten. The door shuts.

He picks up the extension phone.

BROCK
: Okay, put him on . . . Hello, Patrick . . . Fine, fine. I’ve been meaning to ring you. I told Crawshaw the facts of life this morning, as I gathered you wanted me to . . . Oh, has he? . . . Give him time, it’ll sink in. Yes . . . yes . . . it’s what you’ve always said, fundamental research or nothing.
(A pause. He suddenly looks grey)
But surely . . . we settled all that. Patrick . . . But look here—
(He suddenly has no choice. He has to play the card)
Patrick, the proof of it . . . listen, though . . . Please will you listen to me! I think we’ve got it! Well—the Big One!
(Delighted exclamations at the other end. He grins, confidence coming back fast)
Yes! Yes!

THE STORAGE ROOM – LATER THAT DAY

Brock and Collinson are peering at a patch of stonework in the lower part of the wall.

COLLINSON
: It’s called Kentish rag.