A Speech of Elucidating Mystification, Spoken in The Scholars Pub -For The English Literature & Creative Writing Society-

Ladies & Gentlemen,

                                    Being the vice-president of this illustrious society you must be wondering who I am.  It is true it must seem like I do not get up too much, so indulge me in this action of making a speech.  I have a list of things to present to you:  Two Questions, A Statement in Two Parts, A Declaration, An Advertisement, A Hypothesis of Calculation, A Request & An Apology.

TWO QUESTIONS:

1)    How many of you read the books our lecturers write?

2)    Out of those who read those books, how many of you find them relevant?

A STATEMENT IN TWO PARTS:

a) As a collective we are going through many cuts.  As an individual I have had my cuts.  In my last year at College in Bridgewater I cut my wrists, you can still see the scars & I invite you to do so; ever since then I have asked myself why?

b) A couple of years before coming to Aberystwyth I was in Aberystwyth.  I stayed a month studying English Literature before running away & being took in by the police in Worchester.  Ever since then I have asked myself why?

A DECLAIRATION

Soon the English department will ask me to re-sit my Medieval & Renaissance exam, & possibly also my 19^th Century exam.  I will refuse to re-take it.

AN ADVERTISEMENT:

I have created a blog called ‘What I get up to?: A Life Uploaded’, there I have put up all the work I have done in the last year or so.  There is an anthology called Doppelganger that I invite you to read.

A HYPOTHOSIS OF CALCULATION:

For each lecture & seminar you attend how much would you individually pay for?

A REQUEST

The request I make is a friend request, to be exact.  I request of you to add as many friends as you can.

AN APOLOGY

I am sorry that this speech does not contain much poetry.

                                                                                                Thank you for your time.   

Doppelgänger

Doppelgäng

er

And then later on in the ancient and deep story

Of all our nights, we contemplated,

Contemplated not the completion of our age,

But the continuance of the universe,

The traveling, not the progress,

But the humility of our being here.

Caught now, in the mist of wars

Agaisnt foreign disease, missionaries,

Canned food, Dick & Jane textbooks, IBM cards,

Western philosophies, General Electric,

I am talking about how we have been able

To survive insignificance. (Simon Ortiz, Woven Stone, University of Arizona Press, 1992, p.108)

Despite the focus on fiction in the ensuing discussion of Native American literature, I begin by quoting Ortiz’s poetry because it encapsulates the foremost concerns of many contemporary Indian writers.  The term ‘veteran’ calls to mind the experiences of Indians who fought for the United States in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, while the phrase ‘I am a veteran for 30,000 years’ from an earlier stanza conveys the Acomas’ great longevity.  The narrator articulates the connection between the people and the land through writing which derives from and continues the oral tradition.  The word ‘insignificant’, though, refers to the ways in which Acomas, and Indians thoughout the United States, have grown socially, economically and politically marginalised.  Only too aware of how his people have become ‘caught’ between competing world-views and socio-economic orders, the narrator, contrasts the symbiotic relationship between land and cultural identity in Acoma society with Western culture’s faith in the ideal of progress, technological development and, in the eyes of the narrator, superfluous production and consumption of modern commodity goods.  Although the narrator points to the process which have rendered Indians ‘insignificant’ in a mass consumer society, the poem also imparts a history of endurance  and continuance through which Indians have outlasted the impact of epidemic dieases, colonisation and assimilation campaigns, and characterize a present in which they continue to negotiate government bureaucracy, formal education, and the ideology and products of corporate America.[1]

Barnie’s point in ‘The City and Nature’ is that modern conditions have very much eroded any absolute distinction between country and city.  But his emphasis is different from that of Barrell and Bull, for his is a moral anixety.  ‘Since 1851, he reminds us, over half of the British population has lived in cities, and most of us cannot trace our families back to a pre-urban past, but ‘the grat problem is how t live with the fact of cities and the urban mentality…without it leading to a civilisation so divorced from the reality that it destroys the environment of the earth, on which we and all life depend’.  For this important poet and contemporary thinker, the idea of the city still represents the a threat to the speices, even though Barnie is very far from any simplistic identification of ‘nature’ with rural goodness and integrity.  It is a stance which is at base ethical and ecological, veiwing cities with anixety and suspcion, registering their tendacy to coarsen our response and induce superficiality and philistinism.[2]   

Only a very prejudiced reader could fail to be persuaded that Langland does not consistently- nor, I beileve, fundamentally- feel the need to communicate as a poet; the pressure of the need to be understood comes through most urgently, but it is as a man of spirituality, with truths and experiences of truths to commit to others that he wishes to become fully articulate.[3]

‘I could put you on the ground,’ he whispered, the stink of ale coming off his breath, as easy as I could put out that lamp.’  And then, after a tense pause, viciosly, gratuitously: ‘You’ve hands like a girl’s, Mr Redbourne.  I hate that in a man.’

‘You can’t threaten me like that, Blaney.  The law doesn’t allow it.  And no one, let me remind you, is beyond reach of the law.’

‘Just so, Mr Redbourne.  No one.  That’s a lesson you’ve still to learn.  A lesson’- his gaze flickered briefly outward- ‘we’re here to teach you.  Because there are those who won’t learn until they’re taught.  And you’- he released my wrist and, before I had time to step back or even to register his intention, struck me across the cheek- ‘you need teaching.’[4]  

Lights are going on

Out there a million kitchens’ busy

knives  the endless declensions of

households  The oedipal types

the satellite types  the serial

lawns of the suburbs  Down

in the street she wants to know whose

jacket’s on the back seat  And somewhere

in a pub perhaps   or Seico’s tin-can

caravan  your man is raking back his hair

and leaning in to catch what someone’s really

Saying

                 Jesus is that

                 Only birdsong  flung out

                 Like a pocketful of kryptonite

                 The rooftops quiver through it  Open

                windows  It is all your Business

               This connection  This[5]

After the ridge, another ridge.  After the kingdom,

another valley kingdom for you to climb down to,

a mizmae of farms, a villiage under its damp smoke.

You have seen the market, stood in the way of the rain

while gutturals were hawked in your ear.  You have gestured:

Where am I?  Which is the way…?  Hae I been here before?

At least you can climb out.  I have heard of a valley

so wedged in behind its escarpments and overhangs

that no one can enter or leave.  The lost tribe live there,

scratching the tally of days on the rock till at last

a fox will find them, burrowing in from the outside.

They will follow its red through the darknes and be free.

You stand on another ridge.  The far-off green dissolves

into a glare of white.  You hate the worlds Inland Sea-

it is a distance that goes nowhere, like a mirror.

You have no wish to drown without leaving the mountains.

You are going to India.  You will find some fox,

And work back to the Great Sea Ocean, where you can breathe.[6]    

No matter how impressive your ideas are, or how pretty your essay looks when it arrive in the print tray, bad grammar and poor spelling will instantly prejudice your tutor agaisnt you- and with good reason.  The days of splurging your ideas out onto the page and lettering the reader work out what you mean, are over.  If all that mattered was the quality of your ideas, you need to be able to show that you can communicate them precisely and economically (one of the so-called ‘transferable’ skills you when you leave university or college).[7]

By allowing readers to see counter-arguments, you win their trust.  Besides, you may find that your standpoint remains valid, or is even strengthened by comparison with others.  Equally important, show your tutor that you’ve done the legwork and researched your topic thoroughly.  A one-sided argument impresses no one.  From the reader’s point of view it is much more exciting to see evidence for and agaisnt something.  In fact, this is the only way anyone can judge how persuasive your argument really is.[8]

The gods are gone, fled

To their chamber who raised

the earth.  I have pressed beyond

the perfumed lands to furthest

islands, returned with gifts

of cassia and cypress; wrangled

with tyrants, hunted the sand-

dweller.  I have rested on the props

of heaven.  Not even a king can sway

the days of being born or dying.[9]

Europe’s talk-

Machines to do the work

of men.  Now this.

A thousand moving parts:

bone for bone, rubber tube

intestines, concealed

glob of plop

the sphincter’s fraud.

Vacanson’s androids march

on the world: flute player,

tambourine man-

clockwork harbingers of punch

cards and sightless factories.

And the duck, lifeless

and immortal, not born

for foie gras.[10]

1.

Sir,

I write from less than

ideal times to you in less than

ideal times about your plans

for the ideal city.  Let me

introduce myself.  Like you,

I look for the right place to break

a plane and make my lines

a habitable space.  Less than

flush, these columns are

my elevation and cross-

section.

2.

I bought six bound sheets.

Fine; atlas-quarto with pull-

Outs; calf; slight rubbing to the

Spine; brown ink and pink

Wash on squared-off paper.

Very rare. You know the sellers’

speak.  He didn’t if there

were more than six; were there

ideal suburbs, too?

3.

I understand July 14

Put paid to these plans.

Here’s your city, un-

furled under my light,

its two-tone vibrant,

its levelling lines amaz-

ing.  These squares could

never breed unrest-

your streets wide and

shared, conduits fanning

out to cool, factories with

fronts like a grand houses.

I think nothing would ever be broken here

4.

your concaves: each unfilled niche

in the loggias, each un-

fussy arch

and

the bow

of the campo-space are

lungs and I can hear this city breathe.

5.

In this dream I was walking through fouled

Streets chainstores abutting templar churches

down cul-de-sacs Blake’s blessed twenty-

minute walk from South Molton Street

out unbelievably into fields bringing me up

short then ordinary unhurried men in suits

of light walking in and out of the ideal city.

6.

What would you have called

It, if they’d let you build?  Time

ridicules promised cities

with drabness, conurbation,

violence, the vernacular- see

Radiant City, Garden City,

New Harmony, Urbs.

7.

Let me talk free-

Ly.  I admire your brothel,

shockingly municipal, laid

out in that erection only

you and I can see,

shades of pink

adding to the mis-

chief.[11]  

Saints and Stones!  An imaginative title for an imaginative conept- the (re)creation of a pilgrimage trail linking ancient churches and emohasising the spiritual inheritance of north Pembrokeshire.  This is very much the country of Dewi, Teilo and Brynach and of lesserknown saints who brought Christian Faith to a pagan people and established to llannau around which communities would settle and grow.[12]

Yet if there is one note which dominates all these descriptions of postmodernist fiction, it is exhaustion.  One of the founding definitions of the term ‘postmodernism’ in relation to literature occurs in the essays of Barth, a seminal writer in the 1960s development of new modes of fiction.  Using the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges as archetypes, Barth’s ‘Literature of Exhaustion’ ((in Federman, Surfiction, pp. 19-33) emphasised how literature had ‘used up’ the conventions of fictional realism.  The dominant characteristic of these novels is the pretence that it is impossible to write an orginal work, and their paradoxical theme is writing about the ‘end’ of writing.  Out of this yearning for silence emerges a fiction obsessively concerned with its own status as fiction.  Consequently, art rathers than nature became the object of imitation, and a self-concious reflexivity emerged.  Susan Sontag also argued that the fiction was concerned with silence (see Agaisnt Interpretation, and Other Essays (New York, Farrar, Straus and Girou, 1966)), while Ihab Hassan reinforced this perspective with his books The Literature of Silence (New York, Knopf, 1968) and The Dismemberment of Orpheus (New York, Oxford University Press, 1971) defining silence as the disruption of all links between language and reality.  Arguing that these novelists seek silence by abandoning the traditional elements of fiction such as character, plot, metaphor and meaning.  Hassan proposes that there is an inexorable movement towards silence.[13]

The postmodern purgatory of Groundhog Day, however, has none of the ominous grandeur that Nietzshe ascribes to Eternal Return, even if Phil Connors does have to endure long hours of teeth-gnashing exsistential tedium before he can accede to the ‘joyful wisdom’ that eventually allows him to form a couple with Andie MacDowell’s Rita, as the film relaxes into the reassurance of a stock Hollywood ending.  And it goes without saying that the cinematic game devised by Ramis and co-writer Danny Rubin is ‘philosophical’ only in a strictly irresponsible sense, just as all of Phil’s acts on Groundhog Day are only ‘acts’, his every deed or utterance robbed by psychological depth and authenticity by being a mere citation, an empty iteration.  The film thus plays fast and loose- but therein is precisely its philosophical subtlety- with a philosophical problem that, as we have already glimpsed, was the gravest signficance for Nietzche.  Writing in 1888 (shortly before his terminal mental collapse), the philosophical described eternal recurrence as the ‘fundamental idea of Zarathustra’ and as indeed ‘the highest formula of affirmation that can be possible attained’.  In Maurice Blanchot’s view, the  affirmation of eternal recurrence corresponds to a ‘limit experience’ where thought itself becomes untenable, as the impossible affirmation of affirmation ‘itself’ sends Nietzschean thought spinning into fatal self-deconstructive turbulence.  By contrast, in Grandhog Day’s cartoon topology (designed by Escher, one could almost imagine), Phil discovers that precisely nothing  can be affirmed; whatever he ‘experiences’ is immediately struck out, nullified, by the iterative non-temporality in which he is trapped (and this might even, in some allegorical reading of the film, point to an implicit critique of the media industry itself, with its passive customers trapped in pointless cycles of consumption, and so on).[14]

Seen in this light, The Singing Detective’s conception of the self is perhaps more linked to elements of Romanticism than modernism or postmodernism.  Romanticism can partly be seen as a reaction against the rationalisation of nature by the Enlightenment.  William Blake’s illustation of Sir Isaac Newton reducing the world to a mathematical formula with his compass and map is perhaps the most famous illustration of this philosophy; science and reason tending to diminish the power of creativity and imagination.  In contrast, Romantism believed in the possibility of the human spirit to break free of the confines of rationalism, and experience ‘sublimity’ through a connection with nature.  As in William Wordsworth’s poem ‘Tintern Abbey’, the Romantics longed to experienced that moment when ‘We see into the life of things’, when we feel ‘…a sense of sublime/Of something far more deeply infused’ (1974: 206-7)[15]  

I know why this fire.  God is showing us Iraq.  It is wrong to

kill and refuse to look at what we’ve done.

Kingston concludes that she must learn to rationalise her personal loss- of book, home and possessions- as a kind of ‘shadow experience’ of the war.  This opening ‘burnscape sequence’ then propels us- and Kingston- into the main project, which is three fold: to reconstruct her novel, to rebuild her life and home, and to help the veterans of war, past and present, locate peace.  Each strand of Kingston’s endeavour, then, which was to preoccupy her for the entire 1990s (as To Be the Poet attests), braids together to form an all-consuming, multi-faceted, search and struggle for peace.[16]

…the industrious bee

Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours

Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

                                           (‘The Garden’, II, 69-72)

the equivocal ‘but’ in the concluding line of ‘The Garden’, carrying with it the sense of ‘only’ and ‘except’, is addressed and clarified by Cornwell, who replies: ‘it is not …sweet herbs and flowers alone’ (my emphasis).  The significance of this final word for Cornwell is that it is not only flora which is, or should be, awakened by spring, but also the visionary consciousness of the radical mind.[17]

In an echoing of Virginia Woolf’s plea for a ‘room of one’s own’ she also refuses to acknowledge her father’s house as her home, but searches instead for her own house and space, ‘Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own…a space for myself to go, clean as paperbefore the poem’ (Cisneros 1991: 108). With the displacement of the father as patriarch, Cisneros finally disrupts the Oedipal family romance promoted by movement discourse. Whereas Rivera’s depictions of female subjectivity and the myth of the Chicano family reflect movement ideology in a number of ways, Cisneros on the other hand portrays a dysfunctional unit dominated by the macho male who subjugates his wife and children. Recent statistical evidence supports this view. Alongside factors such as urbanisation and discriminatrion, machismo continues to rank as one of the major causes of family problems within the Mexican American community (Gonzales 2000: 239). Opinion over familia ideology, however, is deeply divided and an idealised view of the Chicano family continues to coexist alongside studies that view it less favourably (Gonzales 2000: 237-8)[18]

‘Is there life after theory?’ a major UK conference wanted to know in 2003.  The book of the conference was called Life After Theory (ed. Michael Payne and John Schad, Continuum, 2003) and it contains interviews with the major participants- Jacques Derrida, Frank Kermode, Toril Moi, and Christopher Norris.  Interestingly, the title of the conference itself was a question- it had been advertised as ‘Is there life after theory?’whereas the title of the book might be taken as a profession of faith in the view that there indeed is life after theory.  In the introduction to the first edition of Beginning Theory in 1995 I mentioned the common feeling even then that the real business of literary theory was already over, citing Thomas Docherty’s 1990 book After Theory.  Terry Eagleton re-used the title After Theory for his own book of 2003, implying that theory was still over, so to speak, and Eagleton’s book was itself ‘post’ Valentine Cunningham’s Reading After Theory (Blackwell, 2001), which it doesn’t mention.  Cunningham was thankful, on the whole, that theory had run its course, and he saw himself as beginning the process of repairing aspects of criticism which theory had damaged, and restoring them to their proper places within literary studies, rather like someone starting to tidy up after a flood or a hurricane.  There have been other ‘restorative’ books, some with a more localised brief, such as David Scott Kastan’s Shakespare After Theory (Routledge, 1999).  In this book ‘after theory’ is understood to mean, not the period after the passing away of theory, but the period during which theory has ceased to be news. Theory is no longer news-worthy, it might be claimed, because there has been a general acceptance of many of its key ideas, so that its impact and charisma have been ‘routinised’ (to use the terms of the sociologist Max Weber). So it has ceased to have to assert its uniqueness, and has passed into the general stream of ideas.  This air of ‘non-assertiveness’, indeed, may be taken as typical of the general character of theory after ‘Theory’, that is, theory in the period when the ‘preaching’ phase is over, precisely because so many of its ideas have become the common currency of the intellectual climate we now live in.[19]

The Book Spy

---

[1] Padget, Martin ‘2 Native American fiction’ from Beginning Ethnic American Literatures

[2] Barry, Peter ‘Moral anxieties and the urban dissolve’ in ‘2 ‘The roads to hell’ from Contemporary British Poetry and the City

[3] Salter, Elizabeth ‘The Art of “Piers Plowman”’ from Piers Plowman: An introduction

[4] Poster, Jem Rifling Paradise

[5] Atkinson, Tiffany Kink and Particle

[6] Francis, Matthew, Mandeville

[7] Turely, Richard Marggraf, Writing Essays: a guide for students in English and the humanities

[8] ibid

[9] Turely, Richard Marggraf, ‘3. Captain’s Lament’ from The Fossile-Box

[10] Turely, Richard Marggraf & Davies, Damian Walford, Whiteout

[11] Davies, Damian Walford, Suit of Lights

[12] Rees, Ivor, ‘Foreword’ from Saints and Stones by Damian Walford Davies

[13] Woods, Tim, Beginning Postmodernism

[14] Thurston, Luke, James Joyce and the Problem of Psychoanalysis

[15] Creeber, Glen The Singing Detective

[16] Grice, Helena, Maxine Hong Kingston

[17] Turely, Marggraf Richard, Keat’s Boyish Imagination

[18] Jacobs, Elizabeth, Mexican American Literature

[19] Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory

Exam & Friendship

We walk on a tightrope with little hollowed out circles hang above our heads.  It may not be noticed during lectures & forgotten about during socials but they hang as an ominous canopy in quiet judgment.

They demand from us a jump, a jump high enough to get through, to get on, to higher more prestigious hoops.  Not to jump is to be condemned to the first step onto the path of death.

We tell each other “Good luck!  Hope you do well!” as we walk the tightrope & jump through hoops.  What we mean is “Hope you survive!  Hope you get through this with all your senses intact & unimpaired!”  We know how sharply these exams define us.  We joke with each other about them to hide the worry of failure that we put so much time avoiding.  Our companionship is briefly stronger during these times- perhaps that is the reason of them for what strength would it be without these shared trials?  What is, in the end, more important that to do well in life in which ‘doing well’ is understood in the easiest terms possible?  Perhaps I wish to do not quite so well, but to do good; then what is it I should do?  Less exams as a beginning I would think.

Within the set up of education we do try to make friends.  We joke & talk with each other within our seminars but afterwards we separate quickly busy with the establishment of our own lives.  Little time is spent together.  Often we work alone.  Is it not like that in an exam?  We each face the same task but we each face it alone & are discouraged from helping each other.  Is it not like that in life?  A constant competition…does the organised life have to be so artificial & disingenuous?

The hoops lie because to jump through them is not to escape death because that path is everywhere & the hoops are not really there.  What we jump through are assurances, confidences, threats that undermine, undermine, undermine, the genuine being of humans.  The hoops have no care for friendship or love; they hold contempt for the organic reality & for living.

The hoops judge me but I find their judgment invalid since they are not human & do not have to suffer the confusion of life.

The way we judge each other is very different from the way exams are marked.

Doris Lessing left school at the age of fourteen.  ‘There was a time I was sorry about this’ she writes in the preface of The Golden Notebook ‘now I am grateful for a lucky escape…I looked at innumerable examination papers- and couldn’t believe my eyes; sat in on classes for teaching literature, and couldn’t believe my ears…why are they so parochial, so personal, so small-minded?  Why do they always atomize, and belittle, why are they so fascinated by detail, and uninterested in the whole?’

Talking about his surprise of scientific literature regarding the nature of life in Gaia

James Lovelock writes: ‘This seeming conspiracy of silence may have been due in part to the division of science into separate disciplines, with each specialist assuming that someone else has done the job.’

Allan Bloom describes ‘The humanities are like the great old Paris Flea Market where, amidst masses of junk, people with a good eye found castaway treasures that made them rich’ in his book The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.

George Monbiot advises that ‘People who sell their souls for the promise of a secure job and a secure salary are spat out as soon as they become dispensable. The more loyal to an institution you are, the more exploitable, and ultimately expendable, you become.’

Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons declares: ‘it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world…But for Wales-!’

Fernando Arrabal asks at last year’s Prague Writers’ Festival, “Who will defend poetry?”

Fires are started to burn tar on the road by the constructing concrete carpark.

G. K. Chesterton states: ‘Those who bare it do not grin.’

The President of the English Literature Society is thinking of changing his English Literature course to Physics.

Will Slocome is resigning at the end of this year.

I have taken exams & have been examined for most of my educated life & I do not believe they have made me a better person.  For most of my life I have attained middle Cs in terms of grades.  This I think offers some hope for me.  If I had achieved straight As I would not know I should be in utter despair.  Exams separate people into classes.  In secondary public school the top set are not only people who can do but also will.  They tend to be introspective perfectionists.  The people at the bottom set are the people who cannot do & won’t do.  They tend to be emotional uncivilized.  The reasons for why this happens is clear; the people attending to their studies cannot be disturbed by the people who are not.  The top set cannot help the bottom, even if they want to, because it is not in their interest to set themselves back for the sake of those who cannot conduct themselves.

The exams do not mark emotion, they take no notice of morality, they overlook whole areas of human life & deem them unimportant.  For people who wish to use both their head & their heart, for those who can do but won’t or those who can’t do but will, the emotional & critical, are put into a difficult position.  Between two sets forced to decide between the two.  Hesitant about being separated.

Another set of protestors is heading for London this weekend.  Do I join them & be part of the kitsch?  Their sentiments are strong & although I would like to take some action is there not anything more mature than walking with the crowd?  Michael Sandel calls for a return to the idea of civic duty & who, when watching the members of the Houses of Commons stir themselves up into a attitude of desperate exasperation, could disagree? 

“A young policeman leaves the Force saying he doesn’t like what he has to do.  A young teacher leaves teaching, her idealism snubbed.”  Am I to also leave?

The Pier, part 1

The Pier

A Film for Faces and Voices.

1.  EXT.  PIER ENTRANCE.  DAY. 

The entrance of a pier.  The words ‘Grand Pier’ are on top.  The image is held for a few seconds.  Jolly organ music begins to fade in.  The camera starts walking towards the entrance and walks up a slope, that has food stalls and a few amusements, which leads up to the promenade.  The camera walks along the promenade and towards the main building.  On the promenade there are people walking, sitting on benches, seagulls, a land train, people eating.  Semi- transparent images of objections fade in and out on part of the screen, the objects include a candy floss machine and coins falling out a bag, a hand holding a plastic puck, a ring among pennies, a spinning roulette table, a slot machine handle being pushed down by a hand, a yellow token in hand, a letter being put in a back pocket, a wheel of a wheelchair,  a hand crushing a paper cup, a camera taking photos, an 8-ball passing hands, buttons on an arcade machine being pressed, the metal hand of a crane, a crumpled photograph.  Each object is displaced one by one.  The camera reaches the main building and it goes to the main doors and enters into it.  There is a slow flash of white light.  There are several shots overlooking the inside of the main building at different perspectives.  Alongside the organ music the sound of rides and games are now present and the sound of people’s laughter raises up starting with only a few voices, then more and more voices.  The sound of laughter gets louder and louder and reaches to a happy climax.  Cut to black and silence.

2.  EXT.  OUTSIDE MAIN BULIDING.  DAY.           

Cut to the face of an elderly man, FIRST VOICE, who is over sixty and laughing.  The old man is sitting on a bench next to a teenage girl, SECOND VOICE.    

FIRST VOICE:  To begin at the beginning.  The pier.  A very good place for beginnings.  Let me start by telling you that I have told stories, thousands of stories, countless, but I have never started one in this way before.  I have never shared this opportunity with anyone.  Every story I have started I have always started alone.  It is traditionally a job for one person and for only one.  One for each story.  That is how it is.  Two people together cannot tell the same story together because each one has his own version, their own slight variation of particular details and therefore they are not telling the same story but telling two different stories.  Also, the audience will find it difficult to understand and follow two people who are interrupting each other and prompting each other.  It is much easier for the audience to concentrate their energies onto a singular story teller.  That is how it is.  For you, however, it is different.  You are an exception.  You are an exception because you will be under my guidance and you shall not confuse the people who are listening and following my voice.  You are the only exception I will ever allow.  I have only allowed it because you are my granddaughter.  No stranger shall ever be part of this.  I shall guide you and teach you.  You shall become a skilled story teller, like your grandfather.  With my guidance you will become a far greater story teller then I ever could be.  The first of my teaching starts here. 

SECOND VOICE:  but grandfather, why a pier?  What does a pier have to do with stories?  I had expected for your first teaching to be conducted in a classroom, or, better yet, a library.  Surely a library would have been far more sufficient and suited for your teachings?

FIRST VOICE laughs.

FIRST VOICE:  do you not like the pier? 

SECOND VOICE:  it is too cold. 

FIRST VOICE:  you are far too much in love with your library.  I did not send you there because I wanted to pull you out from your normal comfort of books.  Let me tell you something.  Stories do not come from books.  Books are just a form of communication.  Just as sign language is a form of communication.  Just like my voice is a form of communication.  Stories do not come from books.  Stories come from people.  What better place for people than the pier?

SECOND VOICE:  there are no winds in a library.  I do not see how this can ever help me.

FIRST VOICE:  think.  I want you think.  Think about every single person on the entire pier.  Look around you.  There are mothers and children, grandfathers and teenagers, middle aged people and tiny babies.  All sorts of people.  I want you to think.  Why are all these people here?  What drives these different people all into the same building?  What are their reasons?  Understand their reason and a story is close at hand.  With a little observation you could learn more in an afternoon than you can with years of book study.    

SECOND VOICE:  I am not impressed.  This technique you use does not sit very comfortably with me.  However you are an old man and your experience vastly outweighs my own, and you may have an extra insight not taught by books.  Therefore I may not enjoy this experience but I am compelled to at least listen to you.

FIRST VOICE:  maybe I shall begin with some characters.  Then you will have to continue what I have started.  Giving each characters stories of their own. 

SECOND VOICE:  whatever you wish.  

FIRST VOICE looks at the people on the promenade.  There is a man walking towards the main entrance of the pier, PETER, in his late twenties, with a professional camera around his neck. 

SECOND VOICE:  for example that man over there.  What do you make of him?  I know what I think.

Fades into…

3.  BLACK SCREEN.

A one penny copper spins round and round until it slows to a stop.  The sound of the penny echoes.

4. INT.  ENTRANCE OF THE MAIN BUILDING.  DAY.

People enter through the doors of the main building and walk past.  PETER stops in the centre of the screen and looks around in amazement.  He takes some photos.

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a photographer who has never seen sea side amusements.

PETER walks off screen.  A seventeen year old teenager, JACK, walks through the centre of the screen.  He is laughing with a few friends at the same age.

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a sharp faced teenager on an outing with his friends.

JACK walks off screen.  A woman, TRACEY, in her early thirties, walks quickly to the centre of the screen and stops.  She quickly looks around obviously looking for something.

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a desperate woman who is searching for the missing part of her.

TRACEY dashes off screen.  Two business men in smart suites, PETE, in his early forties, and DUNCAN, in his mid forties, walk through the centre of the screen.  They are cheerful.  They are talking and laughing.

FIRST VOICE(VO):  two self confident business men uncovering hidden nostalgia in their lunch break.

 

PETE and DUNCAN walk off screen.  A shabby homeless man, DENNIS, in his late seventies, stops in the centre of the screen and looks objectively around.  He is wearing worn down and dirty clothes and a full white beard.

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a weary elderly man with nothing but the clothes on his back and the fingers God gave him trying to earn something.

DENNIS walks off the screen.  A woman, SUSAN, in her late thirties, pushing a pram stops in the centre of the screen.  She bends over the pram and shakes a little doll to comfort the baby sitting inside. 

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a mother who proudly shows her child the wonders of the lights and noises in the treasure chest of the sea.

SUSAN continues to push the pram and walks off screen.  Two teenagers, PATRICK, who is sixteen, and KATE, who is seventeen, walk into the centre of the screen, standing side by side and look around the main building.   

FIRST VOICE(VO):  a pair of…

PATRICK:  what do you think Kate? 

KATE:  I’m not sure Patrick.

PATRICK:  this had better be ok.  It was too much trouble to get here if it’s not ok.  From the wet and the cold of the train station to the long walk into town.

KATE:  it could be ok.

PATRICK:  it should be brilliant.  It should have everything we want.

KATE:  it looks like an arcade so they should have arcade machines here.

PATRICK:  none of the other arcades do.  We’ve trolled around this town and we found four or five arcades here and none of them have anything worth playing on. 

KATE:  so we came here in our desperation.   

PATRICK:  it’s the only place we’ve got now.  It’s the only thing to support us now. 

KATE:  have you ever been in a pier before?

PATRICK:  vaguely yes.

KATE:  I’ve never been in here before.  I’ve never played on the things they have to offer here.

PATRICK:  why would you? 

KATE:  out of interest.

PATRICK:  the only interest you have now is for arcade machines.

PATRICK and KATE walk off screen.  A man, JOHN, in his late thirties, leads his nine year old son, BEN, hand in hand to the centre of the screen and stop.  JOHN bends down to talk to BEN face to face.

JOHN:  here we are Ben.  This is the pier.  Look at all of these things to do.  This will keep you busy for a while.  What does the birthday boy want to go on first?

BEN:  I want to go home.  I want to be with mum.

JOHN:  Ben, we’ve only just got here.

BEN:  I don’t want to be here.  I want to be at home.

JOHN:  you mean my home?

BEN:  no.  Mum’s home.

JOHN:  you can’t go back home Ben.  You’re with me.  Your birthday landed on a weekend so you’re with me.  This can be fun.  We can have a fun day out.  This is your birthday.  I’ll do anything that will make you happy but you have to stay with me.       

BEN:  I don’t want to.

JOHN:  Ben I’ll promise that this will be a fun day and you’ll have a great time.  Okay?  Ben look at me.  I make a solemn promise that this will be a fun day and you will have a great time.  Alright?  Let’s shake on it.  Come on.

JOHN puts out his hand and reluctantly BEN shakes it.

JOHN:  there we go.  Let’s get something to eat.

Without letting his grip go JOHN leads BEN off screen.  A woman, WENDY, in her late forties, pushes her disabled daughter, KATIE, past the centre of the screen to an area beside the entrance with different colourful machines around.  WENDY pushes KATIE next to one of these machines.  WENDY points out the colours to KATIE.  KATIE giggles and gurgles and slaps the machine gently.   

WENDY:  look Katie, look at the pretty colours.  Look at the lights Katie.  What can you see?  There’s red, and blue.  What’s this one?  It’s green.

KATIE laughs and WENDY smiles.

WENDY:  you like that don’t you?

The sound of falling coins landing on metal and a shrill woman’s laughter is heard.  Katie looks up and sees a woman, PENNY, in her late forties, playing on a slot machine in an area that is separated by a barrier.

PENNY:  yes!

PENNY takes her winnings and puts the coins in a small plastic bag that is already half full with coins.  She places the coins on top of the slot machine.  WENDY pushes KATIE away from the machine.  PENNY puts in another coin in the slot machine.  She eagerly pulls the arm of the slot machine down and the slots spin round.  Both of her eyes are concentrated on the spinning slots.  She whispers a mantra to herself.

PENNY:  come on, come on, come on, come on, come on…

She presses a button.  A BAR slot stops.  She carefully times the next pressing.  She presses the button again.  Another BAR slot stops.  Excitement increases in PENNY’s face.  Her eyes are wide and she bites her lip.

PENNY:  come on, come on, come on, come on, come on…

She presses the button for the final time.  A lemon slot stops.  PENNY lets out a disappointing sigh.  She fishes out another coin from the small plastic bag and pops it into the slot.  A man in his late fifties, DAVIDSON, walks behind PENNY and to the opposite side of the pier.  He wears a dark blue shirt tucked into black trousers, and he also has a walkie talkie clipped onto his belt.  He looks serious and focused.  He walks out some stairs next to the entrance of the main building.  The stairs lead up to an office.  DAVIDSON takes out a large key ring with many keys around it and opens the office door.  He enters the office.  The noise of the pier is left outside, his office is quite.  The office is modest and fairy smart.  There are CCTV televisions, 3X4, on the far wall.  There is a fairly well kept desk with papers on top.  There is a few letters on the edge of the desk.  DAVIDSON picks up the letters and sits down on a black office chair.  He goes through the letters and puts some on the side.  He stops at a letter and stares at it.  His eyes grow wide with excitement.  He throws the other letters on the desk.  He fishes out a envelope opener from the top draw of the desk.  He opens the envelope a little bit.  There is a loud knock on the door.  DAVIDSON stops opening the letter and looks at the door.  There is another knock.  He sighs.  There is another knock.

DAVIDSON:  come in.

There is another knock.

DAVIDSON:  come in!  Come in I said!

The door opens.  DENNIS enters the office.  DAVIDSON stares at him perplexed.  DENNIS stands in front of his desk trying to look as smart as possible.

DAVIDSON:  yes?  Is there something you want?

DENNIS shifts his weight on the balls of his feet.

DENNIS:  I would like a word with you.

DAVIDSON stares at DENNIS.

DAVIDSON:  won’t you take a seat?

DENNIS:  thank you sir.

DENNIS sits down on the seat on the other side of the desk.  DAVIDSON stares at him.  DENNIS pulls the chair forward a bit.  DAVIDSON leans forward onto his elbow. 

DAVIDSON:  comfortable?

DENNIS:  oh yes sir.

They stare at each other.

DAVIDSON:  what is it that you want?

DENNIS:  oh…um…I’ve come here to talk to you.  To talk to you about the pr…prospect of a job.

DAVIDSON stares at him.

DAVIDSON:  you’ve come here for a job?  You want to work here?

DENNIS:  um…yes.  That’s right sir.

DAVIDSON:  I see.  Yes…well…okay.  I assume that you have filled in an application form.

DENNIS:  an application form?

DAVIDSON:  yes a form.  An application form.  Have you got one?

DENNIS:  um…no sir.

DAVIDSON:  right.  Well never mind.  Not to worry.  We can go through an application form right now.

DAVIDSON slowly opens the top draw of his desk and takes out an application form and puts it in front of him never taking his eyes off DENNIS.  He takes out a pen from his top pocket and takes the lid off.

DAVIDSON:  let’s start from the top.  What is your name?

DENNIS:  Dennis.  Dennis Whittingham.

DAVIDSON writes on the form.

DAVIDSON:  Dennis.  My name’s Davidson.  What was your last job?

DENNIS:  my last job?  I was a lollypop man.

DAVIDSON:  and how long did you have that job?

DENNIS:  about fifteen years.

DAVIDSON:  about?  You’re not certain?

DENNIS:  not exactly…

DAVIDSON:  not exactly?  You don’t remember?  You mean you don’t have that information on you?  Don’t you keep records?

DENNIS:  not as such…

DAVIDSON:  you don’t keep records.

DENNIS:  it just…

DAVIDSON:  I suppose that means you can’t tell me what grade it was, or the date you began nor the one you finished on?  You won’t be able to tell me your salary or any other benefits you might have?  You probably don’t even know what your main responsibilities were.

DENNIS:  yes.  Yes I can tell you that.  

DAVIDSON:  yes?

DENNIS:  I was… I had to go from one side of a road to the other.  I had to…help the kiddies across.

DAVIDSON looks at DENNIS.

DAVIDSON:  and what was your reason for leaving?

DENNIS:  I…um…I don’t know.

DAVIDSON:  you don’t know?  You mean that your employers fancied to fire someone from a lucky dip and that someone was you?

DENNIS:  I mean I can’t remember.

DAVIDSON:  can’t remember.  Did you leave of your own accord?  Did you have to leave?  Were you fed up of it?  Was it forced on you?  Were you made redundant?  

DENNIS:  no.  It wasn’t nothing like that.

DAVIDSON:  so you were fired?  I have to ask you what were you fired for?

DENNIS stays silent.  DAVIDSON stares at DENNIS.

DAVIDSON:  what was the reason for your employer to fire you?

DENNIS stays silent.

DAVIDSON:  why did they fire you?

DENNIS:  I…forgot to turn up a few times.

DAVIDSON:  really?

DENNIS:  it was only a few times.  I had problems back then.  Drink problems.

DAVIDSON:  drink problems? 

DENNIS:  but not anymore.  I’ve stopped all that.  I’m clean now.  Fresh as a daisy.

DAVIDSON looks at DENNIS.  DAVIDSON leans over the desk and sniffs DENNIS’ breath.  DAVIDSON leans back.

DAVIDSON:  I believe you.  What qualifications have you got?  Any GCSEs? 

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  any A-Levels?

DENNIS:  no…

DAVIDSON:  O-Levels then?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  you have never been to college?

DENNIS:  I’ve got experience.

DAVIDSON:  but no proof.  Why do you think you should get this job?

DENNIS:  I’m willingly.  I’m able.  ’cause I want to.

DAVIDSON:  is that all?

DENNIS:  I need the money.

DAVIDSON:  do you have a full driving licence?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  do you have the use of a car?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  do you have any current endorsements?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  do you require a work permit?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  do you have a disability?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  are you a member of any club, group or society not open to the public without formal membership and commitment of allegiance and which has secrecy about rules or membership or conduct?

DENNIS:  no.

DAVIDSON:  and finally;  what is your full address?

DENNIS:  um…my address?  I don’t have a proper address now.  I’m in between houses now.

DAVIDSON:  in between houses?

DENNIS:  that’s right.  Moving in between houses.

DAVIDSON stares at DENNIS.  DAVIDSON holds up the application form and pushes the chair to the edge of the desk.  He throws down the application form into a metal bin.

DAVIDSON:  I’m sorry your application form has not been accepted.  How disappointing for you.  Oh well never mind.  These things happen.  Please try again sometime in the future.  You never know we may have something for you.  Now if you don’t mind I’m a busy man and there is a lot of paper work I need to get through.  The door is just behind you.  Goodbye and good day.

DAVIDSON takes one of the pieces of paper on is desk and begins to write on it.  DENNIS looks at DAVIDSON.  DAVIDSON is ignoring DENNIS.  DENNIS is dumbstruck.  DENNIS eventuality gets up and walks out of the office.  DENNIS shuts the door behind him.  DENNIS stands still outside the office for a moment and looks blankly around.  DENNIS walks down the stairs and walks off screen.  A black woman, MALORIE, in her mid fourties, and a black teenager, DANIEL, just gone eighteen, walk onto the screen.  MALORIE is firm and brisk, DANIEL is messy and resentful.  DANIEL drags his feet.  DANIEL looks at the different machines and amusements in the main building.  He stops walking.

DANIEL:  this is ridiculous.

MALORIE sees that DANIEL has stopped moving.  She reaches over and grabs his arm. 

MALORIE:  come on you lazy boy.

MALORIE starts walking again and drags DANIEL with her.  DANIEL reluctantly continues walking. 

DANIEL:  this is so gay.  Why can’t you just let me go?  I want to see my mates.  They’ll be wondering were I am.

MALORIE:  you won’t be going back to them if you know what’s good for you.

DANIEL:  what are you talking about?

MALORIE:  your friends are no good for you.  You nearly went to jail because of them. 

DANIEL:  but I wasn’t was I?

MALORIE:  do you want to be locked up because you were just doing what your friends were doing?  Are they really worth it? 

DANIEL:  that’s loyalty isn’t it? 

MALORIE:  and what about being loyal to me?  I told you to not to be involved with them but did you care about what I said?  Do you every care about what I say?  You care about what your friends say and they don’t even know you!

DANIEL:  course they know me.  They know who I am.

MALORIE:  they don’t know who you are.  Who you really are.  They don’t know what you looked like as a baby.  They didn’t go through the trauma of watching you grow up.  They don’t know who you are.  I know who you are and if you knew who you were you wouldn’t be so self obsessed with your image.

MALORIE and DANIEL walk past the Ferris wheel.  A teenager, KEITH, nineteen, is working on the Ferris wheel.  He wears a blue coat.  He lets people on the compartments and goes to the control box to put the wheel into motion.  He leans on the barrier where there are a small group of teenages on the other side of the barrier.

KEITH:  I never really cared too much about her.

TEENAGER1:  your such a liar.

KEITH:  I’m not lying.

TEENAGER2:  why not?

KEITH:  she just wasn’t my type. 

TEENAGER1:  didn’t think you had a type.

KEITH:  it’s not so much her type but would you go out with her?

TEENAGER2:  I wouldn’t

TEENAGER1:  no.

TEENAGER3:  I would.  There’s nothing wrong with her.

KEITH:  except that she’s got a disturbed mind. 

TEENAGER1:  a total mental case.

TEENAGER3:  I like mental cases.

TEENAGER2:  that would explain you then.

TEENAGER1:  you mental case.

TEENAGER3:  nothing wrong with a mental case.

TEENAGER2:  not a lot right about it either.

KEITH: (to teenager2)  there’s not a lot right about you.

TEENAGER3:  we’re all mental cases.

TEENAGER1:  at least I won’t have to be put in one of those homes they put retardted people in. 

At the word ’home’ KEITH’s face freezes.  He has disengaged himself from the conversation.  There is a noise of his friends voices but no words can be heard clearly.  KEITH expression suddenly changes to a sudden seriousness.  He has remembered something of vital importance. 

TEENAGER2:  Keith, you alright?

KETIH looks up at his friends.

KEITH:  I gotta go.

Without hesitating KEITH runs away from his friends and darts out of the Ferris wheel.

TEENAGER2:  where’re you going?!

As KEITH runs he goes past a roulette wheel.  It is not a real roulette wheel but in fact a plastic roulette wheel whit a clear plastic cover.  There are coin slots and colourful buttons for betting.  The roulette wheel starts to spin.  The metal ball spins is tossed and it bounces around.  A man’s voice, GARY, is heard.

GARY:  no more bets.

The wheel spins round and it begins to slow down.  The metal ball bounces on the wheel a bit before finally resting in one single space.  GARY, in his late twenties, is wearing a full tuxedo just like a croupier.  A few bemused people stand round the wheel trying to ignore him.

GARY:  winner is reds.

PETE and DUNCAN walk past him.  PETE notices that GARY is wearing a tuxedo.

PETE:  that guy’s wearing a tux.

DUNCAN:  who is?

PETE:  that guy over there.

DUNCAN looks over.

DUNCAN:  can’t blame a guy wanting to look his best. 

PETE:  reminds me of that first ever business conference we went to.  Remember?

DUNCAN:  that was our first year in the job.

PETE:  yeah.  There was that casino we went to.

DUNCAN:  wild times those were. 

PETE:  they certainly were.  We were young then.  Young men who didn’t know any better.

DUNCAN:  we’ve grown up since then.  We’ve become old and wise like our fathers.

PETE:  did we appreciatate our father’s wisdom all those years ago?  Will our sons appreciatate the things we have to offer?  Do even we appreciatate what we have now?  I’m not sure if I really care for wisdom. 

DUNCAN:  you would rather be a dunce then a clever man? 

PETE:  a clever man for sure but I was never happier then when I believed that I was a dunce.  I’ve got nothing against wisdom or knowledge but when we aqquired such things what has happened to our youth?  What happened to our simple joy in living?  What happened to our happiness?  To our dreams?

DUNCAN:  to morn far too much of what you have lost and what can be never regained.  Aren’t you happy in the world you live in now?  It’s a world of comfort.  What about the things that you have gained?  The things you could never have had you never grown up. 

PETE:  such as?

DUNCAN:  working, driving, marrying.  Don’t these things satisfie you?  Aren’t these things great pleasures?  Aren’t you glad you can do these things?

PETE:  if I was a child I would never have to worry about those things.  You can work, drive and marry as much as you like but it is only in the eye of a boy that you can see them for what they really are.

DUNCAN:  you are hard to please.  What about betting?  That was something you used to do as a teen and have you grown out of it?

PETE:  what of it?

DUNCAN:  do you not remember the things we used to bet on?  The contests we used to have?  Trying to outdo each other in every subject and in every movement?  Mind for mind and body for body. 

PETE:  skin cell for skin cell.  We were continually matching heartbeat for heartbeat I do remember. 

DUNCAN:  so what has become of this?  It has not decayed away by time.  It has only strengthened in every bet.  Our stakes becoming increasingly higher and higher.  The risks we take are on the same level as the sun in orbit around the globe.

PETE:  yes maybe it has. 

DUNCAN:  it looks as though you have forgotten the feeling.  Let us refresh your memory.  To the slot machines we shall go!  Those one arm bandits don’t frighten us!

They head off to gambling area nearby.  At the gambling area they walk past PENNY.  PENNY is still playing on the same machine.  She hasn’t moved from her spot.  She wins a small sum of money.  She laughs wildly. Behind her a bald man, STEVE, in his mid fourties, walks close up to her as she puts the money in the plastic bag.

STEVE:  still playing?

PENNY jumps at his voice.

PENNY:  what the hell are you doing?  Sneaking around behind people’s backs.

STEVE:  won anything yet?

PENNY:  yeah I have actually.

STEVE:  how much?  Six thousand pounds? 

PENNY:  don’t be absurd.  It’s all about the little wins.  Save up on your little wins and it’ll all add up.

STEVE:  look after the pennys and the pounds will look after themselves.  Is that it?  If only you didn’t take so long putting that proverb into action we wouldn’t be in this mess.

PENNY:  it’s hardly a mess.  We can save up that money and pay it off in little bits.  A little bit each month.

STEVE:  if we did that we would starve.

PENNY:  no we won’t.  paying it all off will take time.  In a couple of years everything will sort itself out.

STEVE:  we have less minuets then we do pounds.  Nothing will sort itself out.  We have to sort it out.  We have to take out a loan.  I have to get a second job.  I’ll have to work extra time and life for me will be extra hard and what are you doing?  You are trying to win your way out. 

PENNY:  that’s something isn’t it?  I’m trying hard too.  Don’t pull that one on me.  Do you think it is easy standing around all day with your eyes glued to the machine hoping for every penny?  I’m doing something.  I’ve earned at thirty pounds today already and I could win another thirty pounds today.  Altogether that’s sixty pounds per day!  That’s something!

STEVE:  you argue much better than you make decisions.  Sixty pounds today maybe but will tomorrow be just as certain?  How much of your winnings will turn into losses?  You need money to make money and when you can’t make money you lose money.

PENNY:  no!  I never lose anything!  I’ve got a technique and it can be just as certain of itself!  Why can’t you support me?  Why can’t you for once in your life accept that I am good at something! 

STEVE:  because you’re not good at it! 

PENNY:  liar!  You know I am!

STEVE:  in fact I don’t know what you are good for!

PENNY:  I can’t listen to this!  I can’t face you when your mood is like this.         

PENNY attempts to walk away.  STEVE grabs PENNY by the arm. 

STEVE:  you’re not going anywhere!  You can’t walk away from this! 

A man, IAN, in his mid twenties and wearing a smart suit, is watching the arguing STEVE and PENNY from a distance.

STEVE:  you can’t pretend that it’s not happening!  You don’t understand!  This is real!  This isn’t happening to some odd couple on the TV this is happening to us!

PENNY:  leave me alone!  Get away from me!  Let go of me!  Do’t you have any shame?!  Don’t you know how to treat a woman?!

STEVE:  you…bloody…

At his point of anger STEVE raises his hand about to slap PENNY.  Quick as lightning IAN steps in and firmly grabs hold of IAN’s hand.  STEVE looks at IAN and PENNY makes a get away and runs off.  STEVE attempts to follow her but he is prevented by IAN.

IAN:  hold it there.  Just stop.  Just stay still.  You don’t need to go after her.  Just let her go.

STEVE is bemused and overwhelmed, not by IAN but by what he was about to do.  STEVE is unsteady and giddy. 

IAN:  come on.  Let’s take a walk.

IAN holds STEVE by the arm and gently takes him off the other direction.  They walk outside the gambling area and they walk to the penny falls machines.  STEVE is numb, IAN is strong.  They lean on one of the penny falls machine.

IAN:  what is the point in arguing?  What good is ever to come from argument?  Are you married to her?

STEVE hesitates then he slowly nodds his head.

IAN:  then there marriage should be no argument.  You didn’t marry her to fight with her did you?  You married the person you loved not a boxer. 

STEVE:  how would you know I loved her?  It could be a marriage of conveinece.

IAN laughs.

IAN:  a marriage of convenience?  Since when has marrying ever been convenient?  There is no such thing.  Even if what you say is true it won’t last long before you fall in love break off your conveince for what is true in your heart. 

STEVE:  you seem to know a lot about love for a boy your age.

IAN:  that is because I have fallen in love myself. 

IAN takes out a small ring box.

IAN:  this is my engagement ring. 

STEVE gingerly takes the box and opens it.

IAN:  it is the slender piece of gold that will tie our two souls together. 

STEVE takes the ring out of the box and holds it up to the light.  The ring sparkles.  STEVE stares at it.          

 

IAN:  isn’t it beautiful?  It’s been made to specially fit my lover’s slender finger and no one else’s.  It’s like an angel’s halo.  A divine bond between two hearts.  An unbreakable bond.  Nothing can destroy a love between two people…

STEVE looks at the slot of the penny falls.  He shoves the ring into the slot.

IAN:…hey!  What are doing?!

The ring bounces down and hit’s the bottom joining the rest of the coins.

STEVE:  don’t tell me what love is.  I know what love is.  Not what you think love is.  You know what love should be like but do you know what love really is?  I know what love really is.  I’ve had the time to get acquainted with it.  I Know the reality of the ‘bond between two people’.  Don’t give me advice on things you know nothing of! 

STEVE storms off to find his wife. 

IAN:  my ring!

IAN tries to chase him put after a few steps he stops.  He looks back at the penny falls and then to STEVE who is already merging with the crowd.  IAN panics.  IAN runs back to the penny falls and puts his face to the glass.  He sees his shiny ring amongst the dirty coppers.  IAN quickly looks around for some help.  He sees something that could help him.  Reluctantly he runs away from the penny falls machine.  At a change kiosk IAN takes out a twenty pound note from his wallet and shoves it into the change machine.  There is a shower of two pence’s dropping into the metal slot.  The sound of coin against steel echoes. 

5.  BLACK SCREEN.

A two penny coin spins round on its side until it slows to a stop.  The sound of the penny echoes.