My Kind Of Town

By 

David Fell

Contact:

Kirkfield End
Colvend
Dalbeattie
Scotland
UK

Telephone: 
01556 630305

mobile: 07775747593

email: scotdav_1@yahoo.com

Cast of characters

Alex
Janie
Mike
Billy
Dave
Pauline
Stacey
Paul
Fiona/Vampira
Heedcase
Stella
Heather
Gloria
Janice

My Kind of Town

1 INT AIRPORT DAY

Two people, ALEX and JANIE, are locked in an embrace in the departure lounge of a large international airport. They are mid-thirties, backpacker types, perhaps a little older and slightly more sophisticated than the average beach bum, ALEX is Scottish, average build, dark complexion with a relaxed, confident expression. JANIE is American, bright-eyed and pretty, languid-limbed, sun-tanned, blonde hair tangled up around her head.  They break and stand looking at each other, JANIE is a little tearful.

                           ALEX
I have to go back. I’ve already missed one funeral.

JANIE
I know, I know, it’s just all a bit quick, somehow. What are we going to do?

ALEX
(holding her close to him)
We’ll manage. You can come to Scotland, or I can come to the States, we’ll manage. There’s nothing wonderful about where I’m going anyway, why d’you think I came here?

									                             CUT TO:

2 EXT STREET DAY

Three men, BILLY, MIKE and DAVE, stand on the main street of a small town in rural Scotland. They, too, are mid-thirties, BILLY is wearing a suit and tie, MIKE is dressed casually, DAVE, very casually. They stand in front of a notice board in the centre of a town. It bears the heading ‘Fothcoming Local Events and Attractions’. It is completely blank.

DAVE
Quiet eh?

MIKE
(as if issuing a death sentence)
Fuckin’ deadly.

BILLY
I’m going to work

MIKE
I’m surprised that’s not on the noticeboard.

BILLY walks away, leaving the other two still staring at the empty noticeboard.

DAVE
Alex is comin’ home.

MIKE
Alex’s been coming home for the last five years.

They walk off.

								                 CUT TO:

3 INT JOBCENTRE DAY

DAVE and MIKE follow a smartly dressed young man into the Jobcentre, he hangs up his coat by the door where it is almost immediately stolen by a rather less well-dressed young man on his way out.
Inside, the office is quite large and very busy. There are a number of middle-aged men, a couple of skinheads, a sad-looking family, a Buddhist monk, of sorts, in orange robes, a few young women and countless assorted young men. DAVE and MIKE join a long queue. They are immediately behind a skinhead who is repeatedly flicking the ear of a weedy frightened-looking young man in front of him.

SKINHEAD
(brutally)
Did you like that?

The young man barely looks round.

MIKE
You have to admit, if nothing else this place is at least cosmopolitan.

The monk, of sorts, and an assistant face each other across a desk.

 ASSISTANT
Good morning.

MONK
Gouranga.

An assistant and MIKE face each other across a desk.

ASSISTANT
You’re late.

MIKE
What are you going to do? Sack me?

ASSISTANT
Have you done any work since you last signed on?

MIKE
No, have you?

ASSISTANT
		There’s no need to be facetious.

MIKE
You haven’t seen this from my side, have you?

										                 CUT TO:

4 EXT WALKWAY DAY

ALEX is walking across a footbridge over a motorway which leads to a housing scheme beyond. He has a rucksack on his back and is dressed pretty much as we left him at the airport. Somehow, here, his attire is a little incongruous. He is, nonetheless, still the carefree individual we saw at the airport, he has an easy smile and a happy-go-lucky disposition and could easily have just strolled off a Thai beach. He gives the impression that there is nothing here that could worry him unduly. He approaches a young man in his early twenties, PAUL, who is ambling along with a reluctant dog. He stops and smiles. PAUL is his younger brother.
If ALEX was younger, thinner, paler and worried this is probably what he would look like.

ALEX
Hello.

PAUL
You’re home then?

ALEX
Aye.

There is an uncomfortable silence. PAUL seems unsure how to react. He is a thoughtful, intelligent-looking young man, perhaps a bit shy. Alex takes the initiative and gives him a hug. They break and look at each other, for a moment it appears they are both about to cry but straighten up and begin to walk.

ALEX
Five years eh? (looking at the dog) I see you have yourself a dog.
     
PAUL
Aye, I’ve got a dog now. Uncle Harry left it to me. Stacey got a parrot.

ALEX
A parrot? 

They turn and begin to walk towards the scheme, their home.

PAUL
It says, ‘show us yer knickers’
 
										                 CUT TO:

5 INT HOUSE DAY

ALEX and PAUL look at each other and smile as they enter their home. It is a pretty average council house. There is a parrot in a cage by the window, three ducks on the wall and some pretty awful landscapes in addition to any number of photographs of relatives. In the living room ALEX drops his bags and his mother PAULINE rushes towards him weeping. His sister, STACEY who is about seventeen, stands diffidently by. PAULINE is mid-fifties, blonde hair turning grey, world-weary but retaining somehow a sense of innocence. She is an honest, open-hearted woman, STACEY is rather like a younger version of her mother, wide-eyed and sweet, still very girlish.

PAULINE
(still hugging and kissing him)
Oh son, oh son I’m so glad you’re back, I’m so glad.
Honest to God there was times I thought you’d never come back alive, I really did.

PAULINE stands back and STACEY, now, gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, if only because it appears to be the right thing to do. ALEX looks fondly at STACEY as if he’d forgotten he had a little sister and someone just gave him one, a nice one.

PAULINE
I’ll make a cup of tea.

ALEX
Thanks Mum.

They all sit down as PAULINE busies herself in the kitchen. No one seems to know what to say.

STACEY
Maureen Pearson quite fancies you. I showed her that picture you sent when you were in King Kong. (pause) Hong Kong. She thinks you look a bit like a film star. (pause) I can’t remember which one.

ALEX
(smiling)
A film star?

Another pause.

PAUL
What was it like? 

ALEX
Well, there’s a lot to tell, really. I survived, I suppose and there were some good times and some, well, difficult times. (pause) The weather was better.

STACEY
(warming to the subject a little)
Was there nightclubs and stuff? Did you eat Chinese every night?

ALEX
Every night in life. Except when we went out for a British. And yes there were any number of nightclubs. You’d have loved it. 

STACEY is impressed. PAULINE enters with a tray of tea and biscuits. The parrot says, ‘show us yer knickers’.

STACEY
Oh Mum, it’s started again.

PAULINE
(smiling politely)
Well why don’t you just show it yer knickers for once, maybe it’ll shut it up.

STACEY
(outraged)
Mum!

PAUL and ALEX laugh. A little ice has been broken. There is a pause as if they have all just remembered why ALEX has come home.

					     ALEX
		When’s the funeral?

					   PAULINE
The day after tomorrow. (breaking down into tears) Oh God, oh God.

STACEY goes to her side and tries to comfort her. PAUL leaves the room. ALEX doesn’t seem to know what to do. Eventually she calms down to a sniff or two.

ALEX
Is there anything you need me to do?

PAULINE
No son. No’ the now. Just don’t leave again.

										                 CUT TO:

6 EXT PARK DAY

ALEX is walking through a park and sees DAVE with an animal on a lead. They acknowledge each other fondly with a handshake. There is an air of pathos about DAVE, which is apparent even before he speaks, he is scruffy, not terribly good-looking and always looks as though he has lost something. ALEX already knows all this, they have known each other all their lives and slip easily back into roles established probably when they were about five years old. DAVE, wide-eyed and never sure of himself or his place in the world, ALEX, confident, at least around DAVE.

				     ALEX
I see you have a tapir there. Everybody’s got an animal. 

				     DAVE
	You know you’re the first person that knew that.

                          ALEX
		I’ve travelled the world. I know all about these things. 
		How come you’ve got a tapir.

DAVE
Well…  d’you fancy a pint?

										                 CUT TO:

7 EXT OUTSIDE PUB DAY

DAVE
	Janice isn’t too keen on Bruce, but we can give it a go.

They, along with BRUCE, enter the pub. The landlady, JANICE, takes no time to reach a decision on the BRUCE situation.

JANICE
			(emphatically)
No. Absolutely not.

DAVE
			(appealing)
Och Janice.

JANICE
No. If you think I’ve nothing better to do with my time than to run about cleaning up tapir shite all afternoon you can think again. (slight pause as DAVE gives her a pathetic look) No.

                     DAVE
	He was nervous; it was his first time in a pub.

                      JANICE
	I was nervous the first time I went into a pub but I didn’t shit on the carpet. The only thing that makes me nervous now is a tapir. Out.

DAVE retreats with BRUCE.

JANICE
(smiling, to ALEX)
Have you come back to take me away from all this.

ALEX
That I have Janice, my love, where’ll we go? (talking in a stage whisper as a barman, Janice’s husband walks into the bar)  Oh wheesht, look, it’s your husband.

BARMAN
Ah’ll phone you a taxi if you want, when’re you leaving? (leaning over the bar, extending a warm handshake to ALEX) Nice tae see you again Alex.

ALEX
Nice to be back Barry, refreshing to see some things never change.

Same scene a little later. DAVE and ALEX sit by a window where they can see BRUCE, tied to lamppost outside.

DAVE
…So I bought him and I charge seventy-five pence for five minutes and one pound fifty if you want to clap him, but you must be supervised. They mostly want to touch him.

ALEX
So you’re a sort of pimp, really.

DAVE
No, it’s just (as he is speaking two little boys appear and touch BRUCE, DAVE becomes quite animated) That’s one pound fifty, you, aye I can see you, right, that’s another one pound fifty right there.

ALEX
Calm down for God’s sake.

DAVE 
			(getting up)
That tapir’s my livelihood.

ALEX
			(to himself)
Day one. Emotional distress and a tapir.

								                 CUT TO:

8 INT LIVING ROOM NIGHT

ALEX is sitting in BILLY’s house. BILLY is a very attractive man, confident in the knowledge that, if all else fails, he can fall back on his looks. His shoes cost more than DAVE’s house. They are drinking wine. It is a fairly well appointed place, tastefully decorated, full of electrical appliances. ALEX and BILLY are more or less equals, the dynamics are clearly different here, the friendship is no less profound but there is a slight edge now, they are not quite beyond the age where they challenge, even compete with each other.

BILLY
Mike’s okay, he needs a kick up the arse every now and again but he generally gets by and Dave of course has a tapir. 

ALEX
I don’t know how you survive, quite honestly, it’s driving me daft and I’ve only been back a day. 

BILLY
You get sucked in. You get married because you get to a point where you have to, somehow, because it’s expected. You have kids, you get a mortgage and suddenly within the space of five or six years your life is no longer your own.

ALEX
So then you start shagging your customers and your wife runs away with the milkman and you get it back.

BILLY
Aye, I’ve been lucky, she even took the kids.

ALEX
I have to say I thought you and Heather were the golden couple. I could see the arguments but I thought yous would be alright.

BILLY
(taking a drink)
Aye well, there you go. Serves me right I suppose. (pause) It’s hard coming in from work to an empty house and knowing that that bastard’s hearing my kids voices when he comes home. (pause) fucker.

ALEX
No chance of reconciliation?

BILLY
You remember Heather? Don’t you? She’s a fucking headcase. D’you remember what she did in primary school, the letter.

ALEX
Oh aye, the letter.

BILLY
She was only nine years old. Christ they had the secretary of state for education involved.

ALEX
So how did she deal with finding you in bed with… who was it?

BILLY
I’d rather not talk about it, suffice to say the neighbours phoned the police.

ALEX
So now she’s with the milkman and you can shag all the customers you want.

MIKE enters the room and sits down. He has a care-worn appearance, intelligent but cynical, a bit down on his luck and very much aware of the fact that he should be doing a great deal better than he is. He is, however, not unattractive but in a rather more sophisticated and intense way than BILLY. He is dark whereas BILLY is blond. He has to work at it a bit while for BILLY it all just comes naturally. MIKE is something of a fatalist, he has become a victim, of sorts, accepting that he will somehow always be a satellite to the stars that are BILLY and ALEX. There is, also, a practised cynicism that seems to elevate him to position from which he doesn’t have to care about it.

	BILLY
	So?

MIKE
He thinks Bruce is pining for something and do I know a dodgy vet who won’t ask awkward questions. (pause) He’s out of his fucking box.

                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

9 INT FUNERAL PARLOUR DAY

We focus first on the coffin on top of which is a wreath which says, ‘Uncle Harry’ ALEX and his family sit in the front row. MIKE, DAVE and BILLY sit behind. The chapel is full.

MINISTER
We are gathered here today to say goodbye to our good friend Harold Kerr. Known to most simply as ‘Uncle Harry’.

BILLY
(aside to MIKE)
And to many others as ‘my Ma’s boyfriend’.

MIKE
You’re hardly in a position to criticise here.

PAULINE begins to weep uncontrollably.

										                 CUT TO:

10 EXT GRAVESIDE DAY

The family and friends are assembled at the graveside, PAULINE is still crying vigourously, STACEY looks bored, PAUL looks stunned. ALEX is now standing with his friends.

										                 CUT TO:

12 INT PUB DAY

They are all sitting at the bar in the pub. JANICE is serving.

JANICE
Well, well, just like old times. I haven’t seen the four of you sitting here like this for years. In fact I can remember you all coming in together for the first time  and I knew full well that you were seventeen, and I remember thinking, ‘they seem a nice bunch of lads, I’ll let them have a drink.’ 

DAVE
And we’ve never let you down, Janice.

JANICE
That night, two of you threw up in the bog and that one (BILLY) tried to get me to go home with him.

BILLY
We were young and daft, Janice.

JANICE 
(walking away)
You’re not so young now.

BILLY
So what are you planning to do?

ALEX
I don’t know. Get a job, I suppose.

MIKE
Do you know something we don’t?

ALEX
I thought everything was going alright here?

MIKE
Well, that’s what they tell everybody but people seem to keep losing their jobs and factories seem to keep closing down and the unemployment figures just keep getting better. It’s a mystery.

ALEX
How do you mean?

MIKE
They put people on training schemes, they take them off the unemployment register, if you’re under eighteen you’re not unemployed, if you’re self-employed but not working, if you’re a single-parent…

BILLY
It’s amazing. It’s actually quite difficult to qualify for the unemployment register now.

DAVE
I’m not unemployed.

ALEX
Why not?

DAVE
I’m not all that sure.

MIKE
You see what I mean?

BILLY
There’s work in London, I think.

ALEX
There’s always work in London.

MIKE
Half these fucking schemes, and let’s face it that’s three quarters of any town, half of them revolve around drugs, drink and the black market.

ALEX
It can’t be that bad.

A young man, DOGKILLER, walks in. He is wearing a suit splashed with blood and is carrying a pair of skis, one of which is broken. Not surprisingly he attracts much attention as he approaches the bar.

DOGKILLER
Pint of lager, Janice.

JANICE
Please…

DOGKILLER
Fuckin’ please.

JANICE
That’s better.

BILLY
Alright Dogkiller…

DOGKILLER
Aright boys…

BILLY
…so what’s with the skis?

DOGKILLER
Well, ah was watchin’ tele the other night, some fuckin’ thing aboot celebrities on skates or some shite an’ they cut tae this holiday resort in the alps an’ they were sayin’ that a’ they supermodels gan there for their holidays an’ that, ken? 

MIKE
We’re aware of the existence of these places Dogkiller but they might as well be on the moon as far as we’re concerned.

DOGKILLER
Well ah was thinkin’ the same thing, two o’ these fuckin’ supermodels were there, that wee skinny one, Stirling Moss, is it?

ALEX
Aye that’s her.

DOGKILLER
An’ that blond wi’ the tits…

BILLY
Moira Anderson? The one in Baywatch?

MIKE
Na, she’s in the Sopranos…

DOGKILLER
Na, she’s one ay these one name ones, like Madonna, Cochise, is it? Something like that anyway.

DAVE
Is Cochise not…

ALEX
Aye, Cochise, right enough…

DOGKILLER
Well, they’re sayin’ on the tele that there’s jobs in these resorts, for English speakers…

MIKE
What about you?

DOGKILLER
Ah can speak fuckin’ English, ya cheeky cunt. Anyway ah was thinkin’ ah might just apply for one ay these jobs ‘cause ah’m fuckin’ sick ay sittin’ on the couch, watchin’ tele an’ smokin’ dope a’ day. An’ well, ye never ken, ye might end up ridin’ Stirling Moss or Cochise, if ye got them drunk enough.

BILLY
Absolutely brilliant idea, Dogkiller, so where do the skis come in?

DOGKILLER
(warming to the task)
Well ma Dad’s got, well, had, a pair ay skis. He nicked them oot the back ay some punter’s car - ye never ken when a pair ay skis’ll come in handy – so ah thought ah’ll go doon tae the travel agents, wi’ ma skis, just so’s they ken ah’m serious like an’ see if they’ve any jobs in the ski resort where Cochise an’ Stirling Moss gans. So ah gets doon there an’ ah says tae them have they any jobs in the Swiss alps an’ this smart cunt says no they havnae but they might have a vacancy in Barbados, well, they a’ start laughing an’ ah’m just standin’ there like a total cunt, so ah lose ma temper a wee bit an, well, things got oot ay hand…

ALEX
And there was me thinking that was the blood of an Airedale on your shirt…

DOGKILLER
No the judge told me no’ tae hurt any more dogs, (pause) he never said anything aboot travel agents though. (Pause) Smashed a fuckin’ ski over the cunt’s heed. Wasnae fuckin’ laughin’ after that.

DAVE
Will you no’ be in trouble?

DOGKILLER
(finishing his pint)
Na, ma Dad’ll never notice it’s gone, he’s never been skiin’ in his life.

DOGKILLER leaves the bar.

MIKE
You know the irony of it all is, there’s Dogkiller sitting at home in front of the tele fantasising about supermodels and an increasingly unlikely career as a professional footballer because of the glamour and the money and he and millions like him around the world are paying their wages. They watch satellite tele, they buy the merchandising, the replica shirts, the glossy magazines, they make these people rich and then get frustrated because they can’t be one of them.

ALEX
You’d think people would catch on and say fuck it, this year I’ll spend my time reading books or hillwalking or something and the Sky television can wait.

MIKE
What? And deprive David Beckham of a new Mercedes, I think not. And supermodels need holidays in the Alps, they’d fade away and die otherwise. And they’re so important to society, I mean they save lives, don’t they? Most celebrities are brain surgeons or biochemists or engineers constructing irrigation systems in third world countries. Aren’t they? Surely they don’t get paid millions just for being in shampoo adverts and playing football. Do they?

BILLY
You watch it.

MIKE
(with resignation)
I know, I know, I’m just a less violent version of Dogkiller really, worse I suppose since I know it goes on and I still buy into the crap.

DAVE
Come on, let’s go home.

										                 CUT TO:

13 EXT BILLY’S BACK GARDEN DAY

The four friends sit in BILLY’s garden drinking whisky out of a bottle. ALEX and MIKE sit in old armchairs, DAVE sits in a wheelbarrow, BILLY is walking around poking at things.

ALEX
So this is what you boys’ve been doing for five years.

MIKE
It’s okay some of the time. It’s nice you know, countryside and that but…

BILLY
There’s not a lot of work really, it’s a problem. I mean there is work but you really have to look for it and well, look at us we’ve got three honours degrees and (looking at DAVE) an O’grade in woodwork between us and only one of us has a job.

MIKE
Actually I got offered a job yesterday.

ALEX
Really?

MIKE
You don’t have to sound so surprised. (pause) It’s only driving a taxi.

BILLY
You should go and do your PhD somewhere.

MIKE
I’m not going back to university now, (pause) fuck me, I mean I’ve a first class honours degree in classics and I’m driving a taxi. I feel like crying.

ALEX
Don’t you start, every time I walk into a room these days somebody starts crying. I’m beginning to see why my Dad left all these years ago.

DAVE gets up and starts wandering about, he picks up an axe and starts hacking wildly at an old fence which bisects the garden.

MIKE
Christ, will you stop that.

DAVE
I’m the most bored person in Scotland, I want something to do. Can we start a fire?

ALEX
I’m going back to the pub, I can’t bear the thought of going home, anybody want to come?

MIKE
Aye I’ll come. Want to go down the town?

CUT TO:

14 INT PUB NIGHT

ALEX and MIKE are sitting in a town centre pub. It is quite a young place but not too upmarket. There are pool tables, a large bright bar and pictures of Scottish football players on the walls. There are two young women sitting adjacent to them.

ALEX
So what are you going to do with your life?

MIKE
Frankly I don’t know. Start a business, take a course in tree surgery.

ALEX
Tree surgery, is there a lot of work in that?

MIKE
Dunno, just fancied climbing trees, wandering about in forests and that. Or I could be a taxi driver, that would be nice.

ALEX
There must be better options than that.

MIKE
We could get tapirs.

MIKE leans over to the girls, who it should be said are younger than them.

MIKE
Excuse me girls, we’re conducting a survey here, would you be more or less likely to go home with someone if they owned a tapir.       

GIRL ONE
A what?

ALEX
It’s sort of like a large grey pig, they’re very fashionable.

GIRL TWO
A pig?

MIKE
Well it’s just a hypothetical question. Do you live round here, by the way?

GIRL ONE
A what?

MIKE
I see that you do. Never mind about the tapir. Would you like a drink?

The girls look at each other. As they are doing so a young man approaches their table.

YOUNG MAN
Fancy a game of pool girls?

GIRL ONE
(excitedly)
Yeah, yeah, come on Senga.

Girls one and two go off to play pool. MIKE slumps back down in his seat and sighs.

ALEX
That went well.

MIKE
You know I followed that guy down the street in the car this morning, one of the signs in his back window said ‘honk if you bonk’. (sarcastically) Honk if you bonk.

ALEX
You didn’t honk then?

										                 CUT TO:

15 EXT GARDEN NIGHT

BILLY and DAVE are in the garden sitting over a roaring bonfire. MIKE’s armchair is providing most of the heat.

DAVE
A roaring fire’s great isn’t it?

BILLY
We should do this more often.

MIKE and ALEX return and join the other two at the fireside. 

ALEX
(crouching down by the fire to warm his hands)
Ah, this is what we want, a roaring fire, it’s good to be back, I used to think about times like this, just the four of us, us against the world.

DAVE
All for one and one for all…

MIKE
Aye… wait a minute that’s my fucking armchair in there. You bastards. What am I going to sit on now?

DAVE
We ran out of things to burn.

MIKE
So you start burning furniture, Jesus Christ.

BILLY
I think the word furniture’s overstating it a bit, isn’t it?

MIKE
Depends how much furniture you’ve got, pal. Anyway what about that fir tree in the corner there I thought you hated it?

ALEX
So much for tree surgery.

DAVE
We were going to but it’s green, it’s well known that green things don’t burn.

There is a pause as they all gaze thoughtfully into the flames.

MIKE
My armchair was green.

		        CUT TO:

16 INT ALEX’S HOUSE DAY

ALEX, PAULINE and STACEY are in the living room staring at the parrot.

ALEX
Can’t we teach it something else. It might take it’s mind off it.

PAULINE
He said ‘show us your knickers’ to it at least twice a day for seven years.

STACEY
I hate it. It’s always saying it. Paul’s girlfriend was here and it said it to her.

ALEX
What did she say?

PAULINE
Nothing, she never says anything, we’re not sure if she can speak. But she sat in an indignant way for a minute or two.

ALEX
I didn’t know Paul had a girlfriend.

PAULINE
Vampira, they call her. Still, Paul seems to like her. As much as he likes anybody. Anyway don’t you be changing the subject my lad you’ll have to go round and see your Uncle Walter before he dies. He’s 93 years old.

ALEX
(irritably)
I know, you told me, I’ll go.

PAULINE
Well, go now, at that age he could die any minute. And you sitting here worrying about a parrot.

ALEX gets up and goes to the door.

ALEX
Right, I’m going now, ok?

                                                                                                                 CUT TO:

17 EXT STREET DAY

ALEX is walking down the street, PAULINE leans out the front door and shouts after him.

PAULINE
And don’t forget your Auntie Mary’s completely mad.

                                                                                                                 CUT TO:

18 INT LIVING ROOM DAY

ALEX is ushered into a living room by a very old woman. The room seems to reflect the age of the inhabitants; there are brass ornaments, sepia photographs of men wearing dark suits and Edwardian ladies sitting demurely on swings. Most of the fittings and furniture appears to come from the sixties at the latest. AUNTIE MARY stands, small and inscrutable, before ALEX with her hands on her hips.

AUNTIE MARY
(angrily)
Hong Kong is it?

ALEX
(uncomfortably)
Aye well some of the time. I’m back now though.

AUNTIE MARY
We were lucky if we got to Glasgow once in our lives. You’ve nae business in Hong Kong I’m sure.

ALEX
Er, is Uncle Walter in?

AUNTIE MARY
(pointedly)
He is upstairs in bed with a 21 year old barmaid.

ALEX
(completely thrown)
What?

AUNTIE MARY
So that’s it. You can go and see him if you want but that’s him. At it wi’ barmaids day and night.

ALEX
(moving towards the door)
I might just go up and take my chances.

AUNTIE MARY
Breasts on her like barrage balloons.

ALEX backs out of the door.

                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

19 EXT BILLY’S FRONT GARDEN DAY

BILLY is reclining in a deckchair sipping lazily at a glass of wine. A car pulls up behind the hedge from which an angry woman deposits two children, a boy of about nine and a girl of about three or four. From BILLY’s perspective he sees a boy’s head, a little sprout of hair and the angry woman. It is HEATHER, his estranged wife.

HEATHER
(angrily)
Monday.

BILLY
Aye, fine… how are you, love of my life?

HEATHER
(getting back into the car)
Angry.

 The car drives off. BILLY takes a sip of wine.

LITTLE BOY
Dad, can we go to the pictures?

BILLY
And who are you again?

LITTLE BOY
We’re your kids.

BILLY
I’m not sure about that, you look a bit dirty, that one’s got chocolate on it’s mouth, (looking around him) no, my kids are cleaner than this.

LITTLE GIRL
(jumping on him)
We are your kids. I’m your little girl.

BILLY
(responding with a kiss)
Oh well then I’ll just have to settle for you then.

	CUT TO:

20 INT BEDROOM DAY

WALTER, a frail old man of 93, appears to be in no condition to tackle a 21-year-old barmaid with breasts like barrage balloons, and sits quietly on the edge of the bed. ALEX sits on a chair. The room is immaculate, as is UNCLE WALTER.

WALTER
Sixty-two years of marriage and now she decides to become obsessed with sex.

                                                                                                                 CUT TO:

21 INT PUB DAY

WALTER and ALEX sit at the bar in the local pub. JANICE is behind the bar busying herself with a sponge. ALEX’s attire has changed somewhat, along with his demeanour. He is wearing the obligatory jeans and sweatshirt, he seems less fresh now, more like all the rest of them. Just another unemployed bloke sitting in a bar as if he was born to it.

WALTER
I’m glad you’ve travelled, son, it does you good. You can get things out of your system. We had World War II of course and it wasn’t the best way to see the world but I suppose it got me out of the house.

ALEX
Aye, (pause) weren’t you at Monte Casino?

WALTER
(suddenly becoming more animated)
Oh Christ, son, excuse my language, aye we were there. It was a terrible business, son, a terrible business. A boy, I say boy because that’s all we were at the time, a boy that lived two doors down from where your mother stays now was standing twenty yards away from me, I was running towards him and he was blown to bits. All into pieces. Nothing left of him, no last words, no heroism. Just standing there smoking a cigarette thinking the worst was over. He was my best friend, you know. And that was his life. Twenty-one years old.

ALEX
We don’t know we’re born sometimes.

WALTER
Well I know you do Alex, but I’m no convinced of the rest of your generation. They seem to think that life isn’t worth living if they can’t be rich and famous. Well let me tell you, that boy got a few shillings a week for risking his life and, in the end, losing his life. And I hear on the news that a man gets paid seventy thousand pounds a week for playing football. And apparently he isn’t even ashamed of it.

ALEX
Aye I know what you mean, Uncle Walter. 

WALTER
And greedy politicians starting wars to get their hands on oil. Well I can assure you they wouldn’t have been in such a big hurry to start a war if they’d ever been in one.

JANICE
Quite right Walter.

ALEX
(sarcastically)
Thank you Janice.

WALTER
Aye she looks after me though, Alex.

JANICE
If I was forty years older Walter…

ALEX
A bit ironic that really, eh?

WALTER
She’s been getting worse for a while now, son. Your Auntie Mary I mean, Janice is about the same. (pause) How is your mother bearing up?

ALEX
Well she seems very upset, to be honest more than when my Dad died but then none of us had seen him for about fifteen years.

WALTER
Your Dad wasn’t such a bad bloke you know Alex. You remind me of him in many ways.

ALEX
He walked out on us Walter it’s hard to forgive.

WALTER
It’s not my place to talk about this Alex but remember there are two sides to every story.

ALEX
What do you mean?

WALTER
Ask your mother why he left. He was a decent man, Alex, but things just didn’t go his way.

ALEX
Jesus, Walter, what are you talking about?

WALTER
I’m saying no more. Ask your mother.

		CUT TO:

22 INT ALEX’S LIVING ROOM

PAULINE is in floods of tears as ALEX walks in. STACEY is looking glum. PAUL is staring out of the window.

ALEX
What’s going on?

STACEY
The minister came round and the parrot said ‘show us your knickers’.

ALEX
Hardly grounds for hysterics is it?

PAUL
I’m going to Fiona’s, I’ll be back on Monday.

ALEX
Wait, wait, hold on, what’s going on?

The discussion becomes a little heated now and continues to become more so as it develops. There is a suspicion of desperation creeping into ALEX’s arguments as if he is just beginning to realise that there is more to being the prodigal son than just turning up

PAULINE
(between sobs)
Your Uncle Harry was a father to these kids, he looked after us, Alex. He took responsibility for this family. Which is more than I can say for you.

ALEX
Wait a minute there. What did I do? (pause) Did I ever ask you for anything? Was I ever any kind of a burden? I went abroad to try and find something better, something more than I could ever have got here. I don’t see the crime in that.

PAULINE
Well some people stayed and shouldered their responsibilities. Some people, like your Uncle Harry, knew where his real responsibilities lay and didn’t go swanning off to the other side of the world without a thought for his family. (bitterly) And what good has it done you anyway? Are you a millionaire? Have you a brilliant job. Are you even married?

ALEX
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? 

PAUL leaves the room. No one seems to notice.

PAULINE
Don’t you use that kind of language in this house young man.

ALEX
Young man? Christ I’m thirty-six years old.

PAULINE
(dismissively)
And what have you got to show for your thirty-six years? 

ALEX
(exasperated)
I’ve lived in Asia for five years, I’ve worked, I’ve studied. I’ve done all the things I was supposed to do. Is it my fault I’m not a scientist or a tradesman or an engineer? This is me. Good at English, good at history, crap at science. They don’t give us jobs when we leave university they show us where the teacher training college is and tell us to get on with it.

PAULINE
Well you’ll have to get on with it now won’t you?

ALEX
(angrily)
No I fucking won’t. I wanted more than that, that’s why I went abroad. I mean, Jesus Christ, what is there here, what’s there ever been here?

PAULINE
(furiously)
Get out. Get out, you ungrateful little sod. Do you know what we all had to go through to get you and your brother through university? Who bought your books? Eh? Who helped and encouraged you? Who sent you money? And what do we get in return? Thanks, now I’m running away to Hong Kong and to hell with the rest of you. Jesus Christ you didn’t even come back for your Dad’s funeral.

ALEX
I thought you did it so your children could have a better life than you did. That’s what I tried to do. That’s why I went. Things weren’t exactly working out here

PAULINE
Well now you’re back, how’re things working out? How have things ever worked out for you?

ALEX
(walking out)
I don’t need this fucking crap. I don’t know why in God’s name I ever came back.

							                             CUT TO:

23 EXT WALKWAY NIGHT

ALEX is walking purposefully along the walkway where he first encountered PAUL. He sees him again. This time PAUL is crouching down next to the railings crying. ALEX crouches down next to him. They talk quietly.

ALEX
Have I been such a selfish bastard?

PAUL
No, I don’t know. I used to dream about meeting you in some exotic place, you know, Kuala Lumpur or Kathmandu or somewhere. Not on this bridge.

ALEX
Well this bridge doesn’t mean very much to anyone here I don’t suppose but believe it or not when I was in Hong Kong I used to dream of meeting you on this bridge.

PAUL
I think I’d rather be miserable in Hong Kong than here.

ALEX
Hong Kong is not for the fainted-hearted Paul. Believe me, that city swallows people whole and spits the bones into the sea.

PAUL
It’s not that…

ALEX
I know…

PAUL
It’s just that… I feel so bad. Every day I wake up and he’s (starting to cry again) still dead. They don’t tell you about the fear. We know it’s going to be sad but it’s frightening. (pause) I’m scared. I keep telling myself I’ll be ok, there’s nothing to be afraid of but there is, there really is. There really is.

ALEX puts his arms around him and they just sit there in the dark.

										                 CUT TO:

24 EXT STREET NIGHT

ALEX, BILLY, DAVE and MIKE stand on a street corner late at night. There is a buzz. There are a lot of people around. It is Friday night, they are watching a fight. It is a fairly brutal affair. One of the combatants, HEEDCASE, is clearly in the ascendancy and asserts this as he kicks the unconscious body of his opponent.

HEEDCASE
(aiming a final kick at his opposite number)
And take that you duplicitous fuck. Your Machiavellian intrigues are unwelcome and thus exposed. Cunt.

HEEDCASE, turns away seemingly happy with his evening’s work. He sees the spectators standing on the corner.

HEEDCASE
Evening gentlemen. 

TOGETHER
Alright Heedcase.

HEEDCASE
Actually I prefer Torquil these days.

TOGETHER
Alright Torquil.

HEEDCASE
Fucking cunt was cheating on my wee sister.

ALEX
Bit heavy, though Hee… Torquil.

HEEDCASE
These cunts have to understand that life is a system of checks and balances. Choice is not a simple matter of arbitrary whim. It is a moral question that must be regarded as intrinsic to society from a subjective and gestalt perspective. These cunts never think about reading Rousseau’s theories on accountability before they act in haste.

BILLY
Interesting theory Heedcase but an existentialist would just say ‘fuck it, what the hell’, wouldn’t they? Have you read Albert Camus’ ‘The Stranger’ for example?

HEEDCASE
No I fucking have not. And it ‘s not on the fucking list so I won’t be reading it.

                          BILLY
Sartre?

HEEDCASE
That cunt. Aye. Nice to see you again Alex, by the way, we must discuss Confucianism, if you’re of a mind. (walking away) that cunt knew what he was talking about.

ALEX
What was that?

MIKE
Well there’s a story behind that. Heedcase as you know is a heedcase, however, his granny dies. Sensing that Heedcase is not as stupid as he looks and having a hundred grand to leave him…

ALEX
A hundred grand?

MIKE
Aye this is where it gets interesting. She decides he can only have the money if he gets an education and so she makes out a list of a hundred books upon which there are tests. Books which are unfilmed and very long. 

DAVE
I asked him if there was any Harry Potter and he nearly battered me.

MIKE
Well, pleasant though Harry Potter is…

DAVE
I like Harry Potter, I could’ve helped.

MIKE
…it isn’t Marcel Proust. And therein lies the problem. If it had been Harry Potter he could’ve watched the films or read the books, I suppose, but Granny wasn’t that stupid.

BILLY
Or was she? Because now we have a bigger problem than anyone could ever have foreseen.

MIKE
Because Heedcase, having been indiscriminately brutal and thuggish is now educated. 

BILLY
Enlightened? Yes. Educated? Yes. Violent? Yes. Does he hate and brutalise National Front members? Well yes he does but only because they won’t accept the fundamental flaws in their philosophy.

ALEX
Is he still with Stella?

BILLY
Stella struggles along with it. Stella has never read a book in her life. Before he started to read Santayana they were inseparable. Now he kicks people’s heads in for creating poorly constructed sentences. He went to the tourist board, got into an argument and dragged a bloke onto the street by the tie because one of their brochures had a load of spelling mistakes.

DAVE
He was up in court for that.

MIKE
Granny has created a monster.

ALEX
How far has he got to go?

BILLY
Mike?

MIKE
Eleven books. But one of them’s Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

ALEX
Jesus.

MIKE
He’s a militant in every sense of the word.

 								                 CUT TO:

Same scene a little later. The four are walking home by the side of a river. Police sirens seem to echo everywhere across the town as they walk. 

ALEX
Is it like this every weekend?

MIKE
Mostly; drink, drugs and violence are the order of the day.

BILLY
There are a lot of unhappy people out there.

ALEX
We’ve only got ourselves to blame, I mean if you create a society where to be a celebrity is the absolute pinnacle of human ambition the chances are a lot of people are going to be pissed off. We can’t all be celebrities.

MIKE
I can’t understand why we would want to be. Most of them are arseholes.

ALEX
That I have noticed. Stacey watches Sky television twenty-four hours a day. But then, the money, the attention, the adulation. It’s a heady formula.

DAVE
Anybody want to get some chips?

										                 CUT TO:

25 EXT TERRACE NIGHT

JANIE is standing on a terrace at the back of a bar/night club in New York. She is gazing wistfully into the distance and looks pretty much as we left her, the contrast between this, the ALEX she thinks about and that which he is becoming in the old hometown is quite marked. A friend joins her. It is a hot, dreamy sort of a night.

FRIEND
So what’s his name?

JANIE
Alex. He’s Scottish. Oh God I didn’t think I’d miss him so much.

FRIEND
So is it over?

JANIE
No, but I’m here and he’s there and I don’t know what to do.

FRIEND
Go, go and see what happens. Throw yourself at him and if you’re humiliated at least it didn’t happen here so you can come back and add Scotland to your list.

JANIE
I might go, I really love him. I thought he was maybe a phase but, you know, sometimes you just know, deep down. (pause, laughing) You should see him. He’s gorgeous.

										                 CUT TO:

26 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

ALEX opens one eye. It is Monday morning. He has been at BILLY’s place all weekend. He doesn’t look gorgeous. He is on the settee, DAVE is on a chair. BILLY walks in. He is dressed in suit and tie.

ALEX
Long day, Bill?

BILLY
No rather a short day, I’ve handed in my notice.

ALEX
You’re joking?

BILLY
Yes, of course I’m joking. I hate Mondays. You know I’m sitting here talking to you but I’m already at work, talking to customers, looking at my watch and feeling my guts churn every time I think about a policy I haven’t sold or a customer who’s having a problem with a claim.(pause) I’ve got one this morning; she had a kitchen fire so she puts in a claim for redecorating, new cooker, new curtains, a frying pan, two slices of bacon and an egg. A fucking egg? Who does that? And the company’s, if anything, worse because (becoming exasperated) they’re not paying out on the egg because of course she didn’t have a new for old policy and the egg’s value subject to depreciation is negligible and so the assessors are unwilling to commit themselves to an egg at this point… (pause) it goes on. I don’t know which of them’s worse. I would buy her an egg myself if I thought it would make things any better but I don’t suppose she’d swallow it, so to speak. I feel like having a drink you know that?

ALEX
Have a drink, phone in sick and sit down and have an  eggnog.

BILLY
That’s the thing though, if you do it once you’d do it again and then lose your job and have all the time in the world to sit about drinking and never do it because you couldn’t afford it because you’d lost your job.

ALEX
I don’t feel like drinking.

BILLY
Quite apart from anything else you don’t have to do my job, luckily for you, but you’d have one if I did, wouldn’t you?

ALEX
I wouldn’t if I had to do your job.

BILLY
I bloody wish you did.

MIKE wanders into the room as BILLY leaves.

ALEX
Do you live here?

MIKE
Most of the time. I usually go to my sister’s when he has the kids.

DAVE
I’ll need to get back, Bruce’ll be worried

MIKE
(irately)
He, it won’t be worried, it’ll be hungry at best.

ALEX
Relax, he’ll understand. Make some coffee. For us I mean, not the tapir.

DAVE
He’s got a name you know. (pause as ALEX and MIKE exchange a raised eyebrow) Well, what are we going to do today?

ALEX
Nothing, nobody does anything on Monday.

DAVE stands at the window, looking out onto the street.

DAVE
There’s that girl from across the road, she’s got a mean look to her that girl, I think she poisons cats and pushes old ladies down the stairs when nobody’s looking.

MIKE
She’s a social worker that girl. Billy tried to chat her up once and she told him to get a life.

DAVE
Billy’s got a life.

MIKE
I think she meant a life that wasn’t a shallow, gratuitous pursuit of sexual pleasure.

DAVE
There’s that bloke that looks like Steven Spielberg. It could even be him.

ALEX
Steven Spielberg wouldn’t come here, what would he do here?

DAVE
He’d make a film, about us, about me, maybe.

ALEX
Borassic Park?

MIKE
Well, I suppose I better go and drive a taxi.

DAVE
Aye I’ve got to go and do my back to work course.

MIKE
That’s a contradiction in terms if I ever heard one, unemployment’s growth industry in this town. Half the workforce is employed to cater for the unemployed.

										                 CUT TO:

27 INT TRAINING SCHOOL DAY

DAVE sits with a group of men in a conference room. They look at a TRAINING PROVIDER who is manipulating slides on an overhead projector. The place has a scruffy run-down appearance. The words ‘skills, experience, focus, motivation’ appear on the screen.

TRAINING PROVIDER
(rather perfunctorily)
Alright you use your skills and experience to focus on opportunities and you motivate yourself to make the most of them, understand.

STUDENT ONE
Doesn’t that just mean ‘go out and look for a job.’

TRAINING PROVIDER
It isn’t just as simple as that, smart arse. If it was that easy why are you here?

STUDENT ONE
There’s not a lot of work out there. I mean why are you here? I mean if we weren’t unemployed you would be, wouldn’t you?

TRAINING PROVIDER
Alright listen Big Ears, none of us really wants to be here…

STUDENT ONE
Did you just call me ‘Big Ears’?

TRAINING PROVIDER
Did I? I am sorry. It’s just that you’ve got big ears and I can’t be bothered to learn any of your names. So, Big Ears, unless there’s anything else…

STUDENT ONE
My name’s Brian, not Big Ears, ok?

TRAINING PROVIDER
Fine, got that, Brian, so any questions before we move on here, anyone? Big Ears?

STUDENT ONE gets up and punches the TRAINING PROVIDER, laying him out cold.

STUDENT ONE
Class dismissed.

                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

28 INT TAXI NIGHT

MIKE is waiting outside a block of flats in his cab. HEEDCASE and STELLA get in. STELLA is a pretty, petite, blonde, nicely dressed.

STELLA
(as she gets into the cab, talking quickly)
…so anyway apparently he was Scotland’s most violent man. The most violent man in Scotland, absolute fucking heedcase, sorry darlin’, the most violent man in Scotland, that’s what it says in the Daily Record, and he was in the Sun he was fucking crazy d’you ken what he did, well, he sawed a man’s foot off, a foot, with a saw, you canny imagine that can you? Sawed some poor cunt’s foot off, it’s no funny that though is it, sawin’ a person’s foot off. Well he got the jail, and my wee brother was in jail at the time and he came up to him, Scotland’s most violent man and he says, ‘I’m gonnay fucking ride you ye wee cunt, I’m gonnay bend you over and fucking take you up the arse’. Well, luckily my other wee brother was in jail an’ all…

MIKE
That was a stroke of luck.

STELLA
Aye it was, and he says tae Scotland’s most violent man, ‘you can ride him if you want but you’ll have tae ride me first’. Anyway Scotland’s most violent man says that naebody’s ever stood up tae him before and he says…

The taxi pulls up outside an off licence and STELLA gets out still talking, slamming the door leaving MIKE and HEEDCASE in silence. Eventually HEEDCASE speaks.

HEEDCASE
The Nobel Prize nominations were announced this week. Stella has failed to trouble the judges.

The silence continues for a few seconds until STELLA re-enters the cab, barely pausing for breath.

STELLA
…yous are the first cunts that ever stood up tae me so I’ll take you under my wing because I can see yous are no’ bad boys, this was Scotland’s most violent man. Anyway, remember that cunt that stole Auntie Joan’s fridge…

	CUT TO:

Same scene a littler later.

STELLA
…remember, he was walking along the corridor in the block carrying a fridge and I says tae him, ‘Aye it is, I’d ken that fridge anywhere’ and he tries tae keep on walking but he’s carrying a fridge so he’s no’ too difficult to keep a track of, ken? Anyway I opened the fridge an’ sure enough, seventeen bottles of cider and a pair of stilettos, I kent they were my Auntie Joan’s because she’d painted them purple and you could still see the white bits sticking through where she’d missed a bit…

MIKE pulls up at a pub.

MIKE
Right folks, three-fifty please.

STELLA continues to talk as she gets out of the cab. MIKE and HEEDCASE talk over her.

STELLA
Aw fuck we’re no’ gan in here are we? That fucking Carry McGuire comes here, well if she comes near me she’ll fucking ken aboot it. That wee cow used to gan wi’ my wee brother, mind her? She was a right cow, tried tae steal my Auntie Maureen’s false teeth, what kind of a person tries tae steal another person’s teeth…

HEEDCASE
(handing MIKE a fiver)
There you go Mike, just keep it. You boys earn yer fucking money that’s fer sure.

                                                                                                                CUT TO:

29 INT ALEX’S HOUSE NIGHT

ALEX and his mother, PAULINE sit in the living room. ALEX is a bit on edge, pacing about the room, scratching his head, eventually he sits down.

ALEX
Uncle Walter said something a bit strange when I was with him the other day.

PAULINE
(suspiciously)
Oh, what was that then?

ALEX
He said I should ask you about why my Dad left.

Silence.

ALEX
(a tad reluctantly, fearing the worst)
So? Is there anything I should know?

PAULINE
(hesitantly)
Well, son… is Stacey at home?

ALEX
No she went out with a lot of giggling girls.

PAULINE
Good, well, the thing is, yer Dad and me never really hit it off, son, don’t get me wrong, Alex, I loved your Dad but not maybe as much as I could have done…

ALEX
Why do I suddenly feel very uneasy about what you’re going to say next?

PAULINE
It was the same for yer Dad, Alex don’t start taking the moral high ground. This was not a one sided affair.

ALEX
(grimly)
Mm, alright go on.

PAULINE
The thing is, well, Paul and Stacey are your Uncle Harry’s.

ALEX
(stunned)
Jesus Christ. (pause) Do they know?

PAULINE
Paul knows, I haven’t told Stacey

ALEX
I don’t know what to say. (pause) Did Dad know about this?

PAULINE
Not when Paul was born, I just arranged things so that he wouldn’t know.

ALEX
(outraged)
Arranged things? Christ I don’t think I want to hear any more. 

PAULINE
I loved your Uncle Harry, Alex, he was my husband in all but name. After a while people stopped questioning it and just left us alone, your Dad left after Stacey was born because by that time there was no marriage left to speak of, he stayed until she was born for the sake of appearances. And then he went. I think he’d found somebody else by then anyway, it was only natural.

ALEX
(outraged)
So my brother and sister are also my cousins? Christ it’s like a fucking soap opera.

PAULINE
(calmly)
No son, it’s life, there’s no ‘normal’ families, not really, anyway if it was a soap opera I’d tell you in the pub in front all your friends and there would be a fight. (pause) There’s not going to be a fight is there?

ALEX
No I suppose not. (pause) I feel shell-shocked. I just don’t know what to say. I feel; I don’t know what I feel; would you have told me, I mean if Walter hadn’t said anything? Wasn’t there any sense of guilt? (pause) I mean how do you think I feel? I’m the child from the sad relationship, I feel like shit, Jesus, Mum…

PAULINE goes and sits next to him and puts her arm round his shoulder.

PAULINE
Nobody loves anybody any less, and they’re still your family. That wee lassie thinks you’re a hero. And Paul… well Paul looks up to you aswell, in a different way of course, but he admires you, we all do, you’re a strong, capable, intelligent man.

ALEX
(his voice breaking up a bit)
I just don’t know what to think of it all.

PAULINE
It’s not as bad as it seems. We were a happy family in the end and that excuses a lot. You’ll find that out as you get older. (pause) Now go off and see your pals and have a drink or something, but don’t dwell on it. It’s done now, and there’s nothing anybody can do to change it. And just for the record we were all very proud of you for going away to all these exotic places. We were practically dining out on it all (pause as they exchange a smile) it’s a pity you’re back, in a way.

ALEX looks at her, somewhat disconcerted by the final remark.

                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

30 EXT BRIDGE NIGHT

ALEX and MIKE are standing on the footbridge watching the traffic whistling past beneath them. ALEX’s consternation is clear now, the carefree, happy traveller is all but gone and he looks just like everyone else in the scheme, only a phone call away from the Jerry Springer show.

MIKE
To be honest Alex, it doesn’t come as any great surprise to me. 

ALEX
Bloody hell. So everybody knew about this except me? And poor wee Stacey? Poor wee bugger.

MIKE
Well, I don’t think anybody knew the exact details but it’s, well, it’s not that much of a surprise.

ALEX
Fuck me. I should’ve stayed in Hong Kong. I’m no nearer to finding a decent job, I’m running out of money, all this crap suddenly materialises and, and… I haven’t heard from Janie for about two weeks, she’ll be shagging some bloke in New York. Look at me. (shouting out at the traffic, more hystrionically than anything else, the genuine outrage having diminished a little) Look at me, I’m home. I’m home (with extra drama leaning over the handrail) I’m one of you now and I’m loving it.

There is a pause as they stare down at the headlights expanding to a blinding brightness and then disappearing below them.

MIKE
I met a woman, you know. Her name’s Gloria, great name, eh?

ALEX
Gloria? Aye well I dare say you’d be happy with a Gloria, I bet Janie’s with some rich, sophisticated bloke who’s never even seen a shell suit…

MIKE
Now you know how we all felt when you were in China. (pause) Gloria’s only twenty-two. Apparently a lot of young women like older men.

ALEX
Janie doesn’t… does Gloria stay in Auchentor Avenue?

MIKE
Aye, so?

ALEX
Is she a wee brown-haired lassie with a bit of an attitude?

MIKE
Aye I suppose she is, why? What do you know?

ALEX
I think we went to school with her brother.

MIKE
Really? Who was that then?

                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

31 INT FLAT DAY

MIKE is standing in a council flat looking at a young woman who, it transpires, is GLORIA. GLORIA is demure, attractive and has the air of a woman who knows her own mind, she also has a body that could stop traffic. She seems fairly happy despite MIKE’s apparent outrage.

MIKE
(outraged)
Heedcase! Fucking Heedcase? No wonder you kept that quiet. He kicked the fucking shit out of a tourist board bloke for making spelling mistakes. Fuck alone knows what he’ll do to me.

GLORIA
(behaving in a sexy way)
D’you think he’ll kill you?

MIKE
This is not funny, Gloria, not at all funny.

GLORIA
(enjoying herself)
Wait till he finds out what we’ve been doing in bed. Imagine if he found out that you’d fucked his wee sister up the arse…

MIKE
Stop it Gloria, this is serious…

GLORIA
(sidling up to him)
And how much I’d enjoyed it…

MIKE
Gloria, we can’t do this just now…

GLORIA
Of course, you know that I got my hundred grand up front. Granny thought the sun shone out of my arse. (pause) A bit like you do, come to think of it.

MIKE
We’ll need a hundred grand just to pay for the security guards and the Rottweilers.

GLORIA
(sexily, going down on her knees)
Oh come on it isn’t that bad…(pause) Is it? Mm, is it?

MIKE
(weakly)
In the name of God, Gloria…
                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                     CUT TO:

32 INT SUPERMARKET DAY

The four friends are meandering through a budget supermarket. It is quiet, down-market and miserable, most of the shoppers look as though they have come straight from the dole office. A single mother pushes a trolley wearily along as her daughter of three or four trails along behind her. The little girl spots DAVE and rushes to him.

SINGLE MUM
Kylie come away fae that man wi’ yer new jumper on.

KYLIE
It’s the funny pig man.

SINGLE MUM
Well, never you mind him, the now.

KYLIE reluctantly trudges back to her mother.

DAVE
(more to himself than anyone else)
It’s a tapir.

ALEX
You’re a celebrity. 

BILLY
Everbody’s a celebrity round here, or wants to be. (pause) Look at this place, half of them are shoplifting and the other half are thinking about it. (he looks round in dismay) An organic food stall, Jesus who are they trying to kid? You ask anybody in here what organic food is and they think it’s something you eat while listening to the keyboard player in the pub.

MIKE
Here’s Nostril and Radio.

Two very dodgy looking young men wander round the corner of an aisle. There is a chorus of, ‘alright boys’ when they meet.

BILLY
So what are you boys doing in here then, I didn’t know you ate food.

NOSTRIL
We don’t, But Radio’s got an ideological problem with the breakfast cereal.

ALEX
What’s that then, Radio?

RADIO
Well, nice to see you again Alex, by the way, must’ve been a few years. (they exchange a handshake) The problem is that they’ve got a soap star endorsing the crispy loops. 

BILLY
Well, that’s ok isn’t it?

RADIO
(angrily)
D’you know how much she gets paid?

MIKE
No but you’re going to tell us aren’t you?

RADIO
In fuckin’ deed I am. This soap cunt gets paid two million quid a year, two fuckin’ million quid for having blond hair, a pretty face and big tits. Fuck me, I’m thinking about having Nostril done.

DAVE
There’s a lot of it about, Radio, is there much point in getting upset about it?

RADIO
We have to send a fuckin’ message to the world. These fucking pointless, brainless clowns get too fuckin’ much money, as my nasal friend here points out, it’s an ideological anomaly. We are a celebrity-obsessed society and we make matters worse by pandering to the fuckers by buying the products they endorse. As a result they get richer and we get poorer.

BILLY
Quite right Radio, where are the crispy loops, by the way?

RADIO
Next aisle, half way down, we’re away the now, Nostril enjoys ER of a morning.

They head off towards the exit.

NOSTRIL
(as they walk away)
You watch it aswell.

ALEX
(watching them disappear, imitating Mr Spock)
It’s ideological Captain.

MIKE
Ideological. (pause) They wouldn’t look out of place on Star Trek.

BILLY
(moving on)
Come on, I’ll need to get some crispy loops, my kids love them. And I must admit I rather enjoy the advert where the pointless, brainless soap star goes swimming after eating her loops.

They wander round to the next aisle. DAVE rests his hand on the side of a freezer compartment while BILLY searches for crispy loops. His hand is grabbed by KYLIE, who is hiding in the freezer. DAVE screams.

KYLIE
Can I see the funny pig?

SINGLE MUM comes running and hauls her out of the freezer.

SINGLE MUM
In the name of God, will you stop climbing in there? Especially wi’ yer new jumper on.

KYLIE and SINGLE MUM disappear and we turn to focus on BILLY taking crispy loops from a shelf upon which is pinned a hand-written notice reading, ‘the crispy loops are poisonous.’

ALEX
What does Bruce eat, Dave?

DAVE
Children.

	CUT TO:

33 INT/EXT DAVE’S HOUSE DAY

Two policemen confront DAVE at his front door. One is a pretty average-looking bloke the other is a thug in a uniform.

THUG
We have it on good authority that you have been showing your, er, ‘tapir’ to little boys for… (referring to his collegue) how much was it?

COLLEAGUE
One pound fifty.

THUG
(disgustedly)
One pound fifty.

DAVE
Aye, so what?

THUG pushes his way into the house and grabs DAVE by the throat. He punches him in the stomach. DAVE reels, the THUG is quite a powerful individual.

THUG
So you admit it, you dirty little fucker.

THUG lays into DAVE with a hail of fists. DAVE falls to the ground and staggers back to his feet.

DAVE
(bewildered)
It’s an animal, I’ll show you it…

THUG
(punching him again)
You fucking vile wee pervert…

DAVE
(protesting)
No, but, it’s an African animal, it’s in the shed, I’ll show you it…

THUG
(punching DAVE until he falls down)
You are a fucking sick cunt.

THUG kicks DAVE as he lies on the ground, the other officer restrains him and pulls DAVE to his feet.

POLICEMAN
Where is your shed son?

	                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

34 INT SHED DAY

The three protagonists gaze down at Bruce. There is a guilty silence. THUG, though, is unabashed.

THUG
You got a licence for that tapir?

	                                                                                                                 CUT TO:

35 INT BILLY’S HOUSE NIGHT

The four friends are sitting in BILLY’s living room. DAVE has a black eye and various cuts and bruises.

MIKE
We should get somebody to beat the bastard up.

ALEX
Aye right, and enter into a feud with the police force? How d’you see that working out?

BILLY
Aye there’s no point in that. Can’t you just register a complaint? Police brutality’s a serious crime nowadays.

MIKE
Dave, owner of an illegal tapir, an illegal car, occasionally working on the side and his only witness another policeman; against the combined forces of the police force and, of course, the masons.

ALEX
What we need is a silent assassin, an intelligent psychopath, if you will.

BILLY
(seeing where ALEX is going  with this)
Aye, exactly, now who do we know that is clever enough not to get caught, and enjoys a, shall we say, psychotic temperament? 

MIKE
(catching on)
No way. 

ALEX
Come on, Mike, he’s practically your brother-in-law.

MIKE
He practically Hannibal Lecter.

DAVE
Just leave it. What’s the point? I got a kicking, everybody knows what he did. If the shame of beating up some innocent, defenceless wee bloke doesn’t make him think about what he did, I doubt if another kicking’ll make any difference. Violence begets violence as yous are always saying when the news is on.

BILLY
Out of the mouths of babes…

ALEX
Aye you’re quite right Dave…

MIKE
I still think a good kicking would do the bastard no harm.

BILLY
And there speaks the classical scholar.

DAVE
Can I stay here for a few days by the way? I’m scared to go home.

BILLY
Aye, but you’ll need to share a room with Alex.

DAVE
How come? (to ALEX) You’re not staying here now aswell are you?

ALEX
Aye well it was a bit uncomfortable at home after all the recent revelations. And I was fed up eating mince and tatties every night at exactly half-past five. Who eats mince every day? Mince, mince, mince. Mince for breakfast, mince for dinner, mince for tea, mince on toast for supper. (pause) Chocolate mince, mince soup, mince salad, mince curry, mince…

BILLY
Aye, I think I can see where you’re going with this. How’s wee Stacey?

ALEX
Oblivious for the most part. She giggles a lot on the phone to her mates, I couldn’t sit there and not say anything, Mum and Paul seem to have forgotten about it all now although Paul is getting very withdrawn; I have to say I a bit worried about his state of mind. Anyway this is easier.

DAVE
Remember when we went down to the coast for a week in the caravan and we just sat and watched tele and played cards for a week?

MIKE
Yeah that was a great week, I’m off for a few days, we should get in a crate of beer and a load of sci fi movies, eh?

	CUT TO:

Same scene about eighteen hours later. There are beer cans everywhere, ashtrays full of joints and cigarettes, the Lord of the Rings trilogy DVD case is lying on the carpet in front of the TV. It has evidently just finished. DAVE is asleep on the couch. BILLY and ALEX are in armchairs with duvets over them. MIKE is similarly attired on the floor.

DAVE
(waking up)
What time is it?

BILLY
Time to go to the video shop young man, we’ve got five star wars movies to watch.

ALEX
I think I need a break.

BILLY
(unwrapping a Mars Bar)
Aye we’ll break for refreshments.

MIKE
Where did you get that? Give’s a bit.

BILLY
No way, no handouts here my boy, it’s compassion with a hard edge in this house.

MIKE
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? It’s a Mars Bar.

BILLY
Go into the kitchen and make me some tea… and some toast and you can have a bit.

MIKE
You had to go for toast, didn’t you? You couldn’t have just settled for tea, oh no, tea and toast, well now you get nothing.

BILLY
I’m really enjoying this Mars Bar, mm, it’s a particularly good example too, I must say.

MIKE
You can’t help yourself, can you? You always have to push things right to the limit. You could have had tea, you could have had a cup of tea right now, but no. It had to be toast aswell. This is why Heather left you, you know that don’t you?

ALEX
(intervening before things get too heated)
I’ll go to the shop, what do we need?

	CUT TO:

Same scene about twenty-four hours later. There is even more detritus lying about, a pile of beer cans and pizza boxes and leftovers is on the coffee table and so high that BILLY has moved his chair to see around it. The final scenes of ‘The Return of the Jedi’ are being played out on the TV.

ALEX
(holding a glass to his mouth, doing a remarkably good impersonation of Darth Vader)
Mike, I am going to the bathroom. Go to the fridge and get me a beer. And see what’s left of the pizzas.

MIKE
(Obi Wan Kenobi)
Go to the bathroom now Vader and I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

	CUT TO:

Same scene a further day or so on. They are slumped as before on the furniture. They are unshaven, unwashed and bleary-eyed. The television is on and the room now looks like a bombsite. A commercial is showing with an elderly lady looking worried in a bathroom.

ELDERLY LADY
(turning to the camera)
Having trouble getting in and out of the bath?

They all nod agreement at this, adding, ‘yep’, ‘certainly am’ etc.

	CUT TO:

36 EXT DOORSTEP ALEX’S HOUSE NIGHT

JANIE is standing on the doorstep, waiting. PAULINE appears.

PAULINE
(effusively)
Come in, darling, come in, Stacey didn’t know who you were. (they go into the living room) Well he’s not here, it’s just me and the wee one, that’s Stacey…

JANIE
Hi there.

STACEY
Hello.

PAULINE
Sit down, dear, would you like a wee cup of tea?

JANIE
No thanks, no, is Alex around?

PAULINE
Well, no dear, he isn’t, goodness it’s a privilege to have an American in the house, we’ve never seen anybody like you before, there was a Norwegian down the street for six months or so but he wasn’t very inspiring. We hoped he might do something, well, Norwegian, but he never did. He got a job in Tescos sweeping the floor in the warehouse. It was quite disappointing in a way. Scandanavians can be very disappointing. You’re very glamourous, though, I must say, does everybody in America look like you?

JANIE
(a little nonplussed)
Er, well, no, I don’t know really. Where is Alex?

PAULINE
Well, he moved into his pal’s place, you won’t know Billy?

JANIE
No, is it near here?

STACEY
Aye it’s only over the flyover, near Tescos.

The parrot says, ‘show us your knickers’

STACEY
(unhappily)
I knew it would do it. We’re very sorry about the parrot but we can’t kill it because my Uncle Harry left it to me.

JANIE
That’s ok, it’s not your fault.

PAULINE
Would you like a wee sandwich, you must be very hungry. I could put on a wee plate of mince and tatties for you?

JANIE
Er, no, thanks, could you maybe just show me where Alex is, it’s lovely to meet you after hearing so much about you all but I’d like to see Alex.

PAULINE
Alright dear, we quite understand, you might try the pub actually, they always go up there on a Sunday night. Stacey, take Janie round to the pub, it’s only round the corner.

		CUT TO:

37 EXT/INT PUB NIGHT

STACEY and JANIE stand outside the pub.

STACEY
I’ll just nip in and see if he’s there.

STACEY walks into the pub. It is pretty quiet but the four friends are all sitting at the bar. BILLY looks round and sees her.

BILLY
Alright Stacey, darling?

STACEY pokes her tongue out at him and retreats. She goes back to JANIE.

STACEY
Aye they’re all in there, don’t worry though. You look really gorgeous. And don’t talk to that Billy. Apparently he can take yer knickers off without you even knowing. 

JANIE walks into the bar. She has made a big effort and looks stunning, and completely out of place. She walks straight up to ALEX who, like the others, stares at her open-mouthed albeit for entirely different reasons. What ALEX was when we first saw him at the airport and what he has become is quite painfully obvious. There is a sad moment when they look at each other and an expresion bordering on pity flits across JANIE’s face. ALEX looks away sadly. 

JANIE
(sexily, regaining her composure)
Hi, I’m Janie, what’s your name?

ALEX
(feigning shyness, regaining some composure)
Alex.

BILLY
(interrupting)
And I’m Billy, you don’t have to worry about these two.

MIKE
What’s that supposed to mean? Your ego’s going blow up in your face one of these days, you know that don’t you?

JANIE
Well, I’ll just go and sit down over there and you boys can decide which one of you gets to take me home, alright? Oh, and one of you might buy me a drink. I do like this one (patting ALEX’s head) though.

JANIE sits down a few yards away. 

BILLY
Get over there and shag her. Jesus, what a doll.

ALEX 
I might just play it cool for a minute or two. Janice could I have a gin and lemonade, please.

MIKE
How d’you know what she drinks?

ALEX
Why don’t we just all buy her a drink and the one who gets it right gets to go home with her?

DAVE
I can’t afford to be buying strange women drinks, she fancies Alex anyway.

BILLY
Nonsense, she just said that to make me jealous, anyway Alex won’t sleep with her even if she wants him to. He’ll talk to her like she was a human being and eventually she’ll give in and agree to be his friend.

ALEX
You don’t talk to women do you?

BILLY
No, I shag them. Now get over there and shag her or I will.

MIKE
(miserably)
Well I certainly can’t go anywhere near her, or I’ll die.

ALEX goes over to JANIE and kisses her passionately.

MIKE
I’ve never seen him move that fast in his life.

DAVE
(looking at ALEX and JANIE as their embrace becomes even more passionate)
I think he is going to shag her, you know.

ALEX
(to JANIE as they break from their embrace)
I suppose we better go and put them out of their misery. You look gorgeous, by the way.

JANIE
You look awful.

ALEX
Yeah, I know (pause) I’ve been in prison.

	CUT TO:

38 INT BILLY’S KITCHEN DAY

All four and JANIE are in the kitchen drinking coffee. It is Sunday morning. ALEX is reading the newspaper.

DAVE
(to ALEX)
Read my horoscope.

ALEX
(flatly)
No.

DAVE
Go on, Pisces, the two fish, the noble salmon.

ALEX
Horoscopes are shite.

JANIE looks at ALEX and raises her eyebrows a little, this is a harder man than she remembers. He, ALEX, seems oblivious to the contrast in temperament that is painfully obvious to JANIE.

DAVE
Aw, go on read it.

JANIE
(brightly, happily)
Yes Alex, read Dave his horoscope.

ALEX
Jesus Christ (angrily, turning over a few pages) Pisces, today will be an interesting day, an old friend will be in touch, you will wake up late and no doubt make a cup of tea from that old teabag next to the sink that is the only thing in the world that has less will to live than you do. You will watch mind-numbing game shows where you, too, will have a chance to win. Do you want the rotisserie oven from which you can enjoy juicy prime steaks and succulent golden chicken pieces? You only have to get off the couch, dial the fucking number and that cooker could be yours. No? Well, there are better things to do later this afternoon when you will watch more television and read last week’s Daily Record just as you do day in day out, year in year out, hope dissolving with each fresh injection of TV happiness, just sitting there on the couch waiting for arthritis to set in. This evening, you will see how stunning young housewives are finding it easier and easier to wash their dishes. Each week the grease comes off more quickly than the last until, finally, she just smiles at the dishes and they are magically clean. Not like the dishes in your kitchen, Pisces, not like those tomato sauce-encrusted, mould-cultivating plastic plates that you are considering throwing out because not even Fairy Excel could get rid of the filth in your kitchen. You, Pisces would need a fucking blowtorch to get the crap off your dishes. You will go to bed, another  piece of your soul destroyed, another humiliating day over, you will masturbate while thinking about that girl from the Post Office, with whom, by the way, you have no chance. But, just as you are drifting off to sleep inspiration will come to you, Pisces, you might win the lottery, it’s only 14,753,000 to one. So don’t worry.

DAVE
It disnae say that, does it?

		CUT TO:

39 EXT STREET DAY

BILLY, MIKE and DAVE are walking down the street in a housing scheme. It is a pretty average council estate, a few kids on bikes mill around in the distance. There is a park to one side which is covered in burnt out old cars, prams, shopping trolleys, fridges and so on. A man comes towards them, he is completely naked.

BILLY
(as the man walks past)
Alright, Tommy.

NAKED MAN
Alright, boys.

MIKE
I’m beginning to think I’m the only sane person in this town.

DAVE
Tommy’s original, though, isn’t he? (pause) d’you think Alex is doing it with that girl right now?

MIKE
Probably. I’ve got more to worry about than Alex right now.

BILLY
The Gloria dilemma.

DAVE
Sounds like a spy novel, ‘the Gloria memorandum’, ‘the Gloria alternative’.

MIKE
She wants me to move in. I don’t know what to do.

BILLY
You could do worse, she’s tidy wee body on her.

MIKE
Is that all you ever think about, (sudden panic) Jesus here comes Heedcase.

HEEDCASE has just walked round a corner and is striding purposefully with STELLA trailing along behind with two small boys in tow.

HEEDCASE
Afternoon, gentlemen. Michael, a word, please.

MIKE and HEEDCASE go to one side.

HEEDCASE
I’ll keep it brief. Economy of style is something you learn when reading Voltaire. (menacingly) Take great care.

They rejoin the others. STELLA is already in the middle of another monologue. The boys, small though they are, have scrambled up onto the bonnet of a car and proceed to jump up and 0down on it. STELLA and HEEDCASE seem oblivious to their activities.

STELLA
…so I says tae this wanker, it’s no’ that unusual is it? Kids dae these things daen’t they, they set fire tae things, and he says in a fair posh voice ‘not to their teachers’ anyway it made me fair mad, I mean my kids are just normal wee wains they’re no’ that bad so I just grabbed him by his beard…

HEEDCASE
Stella for fuck sake come on.

STELLA and HEEDCASE continue to make their way down the street. The little boys clamber down from the car and tag along behind.

BILLY
Well?

MIKE
I’ve to be careful. He can make the most harmless remarks sound frighteningly sinister. He’s been reading Voltaire; has he become a philanthropist? A humanitarian? No, he’s using economy of style to deliver his threats. This is what he gets out of reading Voltaire.

BILLY
If there hadn’t been a Heedcase it wouldn’t’ve been necessary to create one.

MIKE
Very funny.

BILLY
Put it in perspective though, he told you to be careful, no violence, no actual threats, I’d say that’s practically a welcome to the family speech for Heedcase.

	CUT TO:

40 INT BEDROOM DAY

ALEX and JANIE are in bed, all sweaty and dishevelled from lovemaking. There is a feeling of bliss in the room. All problems, for now, have disappeared. ALEX is looking a little more like his old carefree self, JANIE, sleepily content.

ALEX
I thought maybe you’d found another man.

JANIE
I don’t want any other man, ever.

They kiss and look at each other in a happy way for a moment.

JANIE
What can we do? 

ALEX
I’m not sure, this is not the easiest town to get ahead in, you know? 

JANIE
Well I’m here now, we’ll just have to see what we can do.

ALEX
Mike’s driving a taxi, Billy’s an insurance salesman, Dave’s… I don’t what Dave is.

JANIE
A tapir owner.

ALEX
Yes well, and that’s only the ones you know about. (pause) it’s a small town in rural Scotland. It’s not a place that has a lot going for it. Most people just leave or settle for, well, less than they maybe would if they were in a place that offered them a few opportunities.

JANIE
I don’t understand…

ALEX
(a little worked up)
It’s small. If there’s high unemployment in these places it doesn’t really get noticed especially if there’s work in the cities, the national statistics are more important than regional blips or blackspots or whatever they want to call them. And then there’s all the work they do to cover up the problems. I mean, I walk down the street here and I don’t see people in a hurry, I see people with more time on their hands than is good for most of them. This town has a heroin problem. A tiny wee town down the coast has about ten percent of the adults under twenty-five as registered smack addicts and that’s before you add up the alcoholics, the criminals, the rest of the unemployed. Half the young people in these little towns are growing up with no discernable hope of ever finding fulfilling, constructive employment. You should see the queue for lottery tickets on a Saturday afternoon. 

JANIE
It’s all very depressing I must say.

ALEX
(on his soap box)
I mean, they farm out the long-term unemployed to unscrupulous training companies who get paid a lot of money to train them for jobs that don’t exist.

JANIE
(calmingly)
So what do clever people like you do?

ALEX
(calming down)
I’m unemployed. You’re sleeping with a bum. A bum who pontificates about the social problems of small towns. D’you think I might have too many opinions? 

JANIE
(stroking his hair)
No, they’re lovely opinions. We should have them framed and invite people over.

ALEX
(affectionately)
It’s lovely of you to enjoy my opinions, I have more, we could start a society.

JANIE
No, darling, I wouldn’t want you to turn into a movement.

ALEX
You’re so right, that would be shocking, anyway I think Paul’s the family politician, and one’s enough for most families, too many, in fact, sometimes.

JANIE
What does Paul do?

ALEX
He’s unemployed, bums run in the family. But he’s politically unemployed which is by far the best way to be unemployed.

JANIE
He can’t be a politician, I thought he was going to be the family intellectual. Something impressively cerebral anyway.

ALEX
This is a worrying development. How are you categorising me? All these years I thought you thought I was an intellectual…

JANIE
Well, of course you are, you’re beautifully intellectual… how d’you categorise me?

ALEX
Sexily.

JANIE
(laughing)
Sexily?

ALEX
Janie… ah, yes she’s the one who lights my candle.

JANIE
(sitting up, exposing herself)
Like this? Am I lighting your candle now?

ALEX
(exaggeratedly)
Wow.

	CUT TO:

41 EXT STREET DAY

DAVE, MIKE and BILLY are walking back towards BILLY’s house.

DAVE
Yous can’t go to work.

BILLY
And why is that?

DAVE
‘Cause I’ll be in the house with Alex and that girl. They’re probably still doing it.

MIKE
It’s not a disease. And she’s got a name.

DAVE
I know. It’s just, well it’s not very nice.

MIKE
You obviously haven’t slept with Gloria.

DAVE
No, I haven’t.

MIKE looks meaningfully at BILLY.

BILLY
(pointedly)
No. How mad d’you think I am? Anyway I’m not going to work. Actually I gave in my notice, I’ve only got two weeks to go.

MIKE
Really?

BILLY
Aye, fuck it, I’ll find something a bit better, maybe I’ll drive taxis.

They come to BILLY’s house, DAVE and BILLY go in, MIKE jumps into his taxi and drives away. ALEX and JANIE are sitting on the couch trying not to look as though they have just put their clothes back on.

ALEX
Nice walk?

DAVE
Aye, we saw naked Tommy and Heedcase and Stella. She pulled a man’s beard ‘cause her kids set fire to a teacher.

		CUT TO:

Same scene a little later.

They are all sitting drinking wine and talking. JANIE seems more at home now. ALEX has the an animated expression of a man who has just made love to a goddess and is wearing hippy clothes and a crinkly smile. Even BILLY is in his shadow now, they exchange a knowing smile. Neither of them can get away from the fact that they have known each other since they were five years old. BILLY knows ALEX has just been having sex with a girl BILLY would happily sell his children to be with. ALEX knows that BILLY knows this. BILLY knows that ALEX knows that BILLY knows this. And so on. JANIE doesn’t, and never can, know any of this. She is in a fight. 

JANIE
So is he still driving the taxi now? When does he finish?

BILLY
He’s self-employed, so, whenever he wants really, he’ll be in soon I would think.

JANIE
Does he like it?

DAVE
Depends on the customers. He likes Gloria.

                                                                         	CUT TO:

42 INT TAXI NIGHT

MIKE is driving a customer. She is a middle-aged woman, fairly respectable and normal-looking.

MIKE
Not bad weather really is it?

CUSTOMER
No, not bad at all.

MIKE
This you off home for the night then?

CUSTOMER
Yes, a quiet night in by the television beckons.

MIKE
Yes I think I might do the same just shortly.

CUSTOMER
Are you almost finished then?

MIKE
Yes, just a few more sets of road works to contend with and then I shall be delivered safely into the arms of the BBC.

CUSTOMER
(laughing politely)
Yes, they do seem to be everywhere lately, the road works, I mean, not the BBC.

MIKE
(returning the polite laughter)
Indeed, the council have a lot to answer for.

CUSTOMER
(immediately becoming psychotic)
The council? Those thieves. Do you know that they came to my house and stole my curtains?

MIKE
(disconcerted)
Your curtains?

CUSTOMER
(reaching fever pitch)
Yes of course my curtains, how dare they, those, those, those… councillors, oh my hands are shaking, the council has made my hands shake. Do you know that the council is responsible for seventy-five illegitimate children and that they have been mutilating horses?

MIKE
I wasn’t aware of that, no. Anyway, not to worry. Here we are.

Pulling up at a house. Somewhat relieved.

CUSTOMER
It’s two pounds exactly isn’t.

MIKE
Of course it is.

CUSTOMER
And they eat voles. (handing over the money and getting out) Voles, by God, (wildly) voles on sticks. (walking away from the car) those poor voles.

	CUT TO:

Same scene a little later, MIKE pulls up outside a block of flats. GLORIA emerges and gets into the back seat. She has a big smile on her face.

GLORIA
Evening driver and how are you tonight?

MIKE
(with a sigh)
I’m very well madam, thank you and where can I take you tonight?

GLORIA
Take me to a deserted country lane and fuck me across the bonnet. How much will that be?

MIKE
Jesus, Gloria, we can’t keep doing this…

GLORIA
(undressing)
I’m taking my clothes off, driver and I’ll thank you not to keep your eyes on the road.

MIKE
(with resignation)
Certainly madam.

	CUT TO:

43 INT BILLY’S HOUSE NIGHT

MIKE walks into the living room where the assembled company still sit drinking wine and making merry.

BILLY
Good night, Mike?

MIKE
(slumping into a chair)
Just the usual.

	                                                                                                                                      CUT TO:

44 INT AUDITORIUM NIGHT

A sign above the stage reads, ‘Local Poetry Extravaganza’. ALEX, JANIE, BILLY, DAVE and MIKE sit in a row. It is fairly crowded, a shrill young woman stands on the stage, reading.

YOUNG WOMAN
(reciting the end of poem)
…My heart is screaming yet my voice is still,
Your voice echoes always the emptiness of your heart, But I, I shall give birth to the moon.

She drops her hands as if to indicate that she is finished and there is a ripple of applause as she walks off the stage.

DAVE
I didn’t understand that. What was all that about the moon?

BILLY
No idea, she was quite nice though, eh? I might get into this poetry thing.

JANIE
When is Paul on?

BILLY
(aside to MIKE)
What is Paul on?

ALEX
(nervously)
Now, I think.

JANIE
God, I hope he’s better than the rest of them.

MIKE
Mm, it’s harrowing stuff alright.

ALEX
(enthusiastically)
Here he comes.

PAUL walks onto the stage. There is a little polite applause. PAUL clears his throat and begins to speak.

PAUL
Er, this is called ‘The List.’

Toothpaste, bread,
Newspapers – pay,
Solicitor

Electricity bill,
Letters, pills, Post Office,
Flowers, whisky

Shampoo, razors,
Toothpaste, eggs,
Death certificate

BILLY
(quietly, to MIKE)
Not much of a story to it, was there?

MIKE
Wheesht, Billy, for God’s sake.

DAVE
(quietly to BILLY)
What was the last thing?

BILLY
Death certificate. Fun this isn’t it?

ALEX is engaged by his brother’s performance, trying not to take it too seriously but clearly worried. He is still in hippy mode but seems a little uncomfortable, looking at JANIE for support. She smiles and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back and they look at each other.

PAUL
(overlapping)
This is called ‘The Stolen Sun’.

Long years of welcome sunsets
And bittersweet mornings.
Feelings of lost elegance,
Dreams stolen away by grisly synthetic thieves,
Horror sleeping fitfully in my soul.

Fear in the morning drowned in the evening
Day is night and the sun
No more than glinting fool
At whom I laugh as the misery ends
And pleasure begins in a long vague twilight.

This is my heaven, this is my dreamtime
My sweet relief swirls in a halo
Over my idiotic, ironic head,
Slip your hand into mine
For safety.

You are my little wishbone
I am unsteadily yours.
The hand in mine, vice-like and gentle
Introduces a precarious happiness
On an ever narrowing path.

Soon I am lost but alive
On a wide and steady path of clouds,
I am hope’s vessel, replete with ambition and wit
But cracked and dripping inexorably away
As the clock reels in the deadly dawn.

The morning light leaks bleakly in
And shadows are cast down by the vengeful sun,
Lurid monsters, clear as day
Dancing in my mind,
Skeletons in the graveyard of reality.

There is rather a stunned silence as PAUL turns and trudges off the stage. JANIE claps her hands loudly as does VAMPIRA, who is sitting in the front row, the others join in quickly. ALEX seems unsure as to how he ought to react but is clearly moved, if only by pride in his brother’s efforts. Somehow we get the impression that if this was Vladivostok or Zanzibar ALEX would be on his feet clapping till his hands were sore. But he is here, with his friends and for the first time since he came back it looks as though he wishes he wasn’t..

BILLY
(to ALEX)
Does he get invited to a lot of parties your brother?

ALEX
Mm, it was a bit grim, wasn’t it?

MIKE
It was poetry, it’s supposed to be grim, frankly I know how he feels.

DAVE
Can we go now?

	CUT TO:

45 INT PUB NIGHT

The four friends and JANIE sit in a lively town centre pub. ALEX continues to pretend to be unaffected by his brother’s outpouring.

ALEX
Has anybody got any heroin?

JANIE
(laughing)
Oh, come on it wasn’t that bad.

BILLY
No, of course it wasn’t, it was a fun evening. I had fun anyway. That moon girl was very cute.

ALEX
I wonder where he is.

	CUT TO:

46 EXT BRIDGE NIGHT

PAUL and VAMPIRA are on the bridge over the motorway. PAUL is drunk and standing on the handrail, VAMPIRA looks on admiringly.

VAMPIRA
We should go abroad, (pause) to Zanzibar, is that a real place?

PAUL
I shall go to Eldorado. I shall go to Shangri-La. The world shall carry me there on its shoulders.

VAMPIRA
Let’s go back to my place.

PAUL
No! I need more adulation. I demand to be exalted in the highest circles. (shouting, swaying perilously close to the edge) I am a living God.

		CUT TO:

47 INT PUB NIGHT

They are still in the pub. They are all a bit drunk. DAVE is talking to JANIE.

DAVE
So do you have a sister?

JANIE
As a matter of fact I do.

DAVE
D’you think she’d fancy me?

JANIE
I can’t imagine her not fancying you. She’d be a fool to turn down an opportunity like you.

DAVE
D’you really think so?

JANIE
Yeah why not, you’re attractive, you have a strange pig thing…

DAVE
(mildly chastising)
Bruce is a tapir, I don’t think he’d like to be referred to as a mere pig.

JANIE
Well, of course he wouldn’t. He has his pride.

DAVE
That’s exactly what he’s got and most people don’t recognise that.

ALEX, MIKE and BILLY are in conference. Drunk and bending in towards each other to be heard above the music.

ALEX
You packed it in, you’re crazy, that job was the best thing that ever happened to you.

BILLY
Absolute shite, Heather was the best thing that ever happened to me…

MIKE
…oh, wait till I get my violin out…

BILLY
…well she was. Anyway, lately I was only using the job to meet bored housewives.

ALEX
That’s what I mean. Where’ll you get a better job than that?

They all laugh. Again there is that comfortable exchange of laughter that frightens outsiders, that says, ‘we know each other. No one will ever know us the way we know each other’.

MIKE
(after a slight pause)
Still leaves us with the problem of employment. We seem to be party to the unlikely scenario of me being the only one with a job.

ALEX
What about turning to crime, or drugs?

A man is bundled roughly out of the pub by two large bouncers. They all look up. Two girls appear and sit next to them. One of them is HEATHER. She, predictably, is a very attractive girl although there is a tough uncompromising look to her.

BILLY
(to HEATHER, betraying no emotion)
What was that all about?

HEATHER
Hello, nice to see you too, (to her friend) this is Billy, the father of my children. (pause) He was smoking a joint in the toilet. He should’ve punched somebody, they let you stay for that.

BILLY
(lighting a cigarette)
Do you have an ashtray there?

HEATHER
As it so happens I do.

HEATHER fishes an ashtray out of her handbag.

HEATHER
(by way of explanation)
I don’t smoke, as you know.

BILLY
You must have loads of cigarettes too.

HEATHER
(seductively)
I do, thousands.

BILLY
I like it when you say, ‘I do’.

FRIEND
(to HEATHER)
Do you want another drink?

HEATHER
I’ll have a brandy.

FRIEND
Your company doesn’t come cheaply.

HEATHER
(as she is walking away)
Yours does.

BILLY
You must be very close.

HEATHER
Single tonight, then, husband?

BILLY
How’s the milkman?

HEATHER
(sweetly)
He died in a terrible accident.

BILLY
I’m pleased to hear it, where are the kids?

HEATHER
Granny’s.

BILLY
Fancy a shag?

HEATHER
Well, how enticing, how could I possibly refuse such an offer?

BILLY
(going down on his knees)
I adore the ground beneath your feet, please come back to my house and take all your clothes off.

HEATHER
Alright, then, but you better make it worth my while.

They leave. BILLY doesn’t look back. They are laughing, arm in arm as they walk out.

MIKE
If we could somehow bottle it and sell it to a perfume manufacturer we’d be millionaires. 

ALEX
I thought she hated him.

MIKE
Well, she did but now that she’s got her own back this has been happening with increasing regularity. Now she knows that he can legitimately screw around she shags him senseless every once in a while to keep him away from other women. At least that’s what it seems like.

		CUT TO:

48 INT BEDSIT DAY

PAUL and VAMPIRA are in bed the following morning. They are hung over. It is a rather dingy affair, Gothic to a fault.

PAUL
I’m going home.

VAMPIRA
Why can’t you stay for a while?

PAUL
(irritably)
I don’t know, I just need to go.

VAMPIRA
I wish you would stay, I feel horrible when you just get up and go.

PAUL
(getting up and going)
Well, I don’t know, I just have to go… I have to go… I’ll see you later.

Having dragged on a few clothes he leaves. VAMPIRA is very upset but doesn’t seem to have the confidence to really confront him.

	CUT TO:

49 INT BILLY’S BEDROOM DAY

 BILLY and HEATHER lie in bed. It is an altogether more affectionate scene.

HEATHER
So?

BILLY
So what? More sex? Mm?

HEATHER
So what are you doing?

BILLY
Doing?

HEATHER
Yes, that is to say, what is your current condition?

BILLY
My current condition, well, I would say that with the benefit of hindsight, prevailing trends would tend to suggest a bright prognosis…

HEATHER
You know what I mean.

BILLY
I gave up my job.

HEATHER
(instantly angry)
What? Your job, Jesus, that job was the best thing you had going for you, what the fuck…

BILLY
(refusing to be drawn into an argument)
That was what the boys said…

HEATHER
(dressing hurriedly)
You fucking arsehole, you’ve got two kids to look after.

BILLY
I thought the milkman was looking after them?

HEATHER
Why d’you think I come round here? You fucking tosser. This is fucking shit, Billy, shit, do you know that. You are a fucking wanker.

	CUT TO:

50 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

ALEX bumps into HEATHER as she is storming out of the house.

HEATHER
(angrily)
I blame you for this.

	CUT TO:

51 INT ALEX’S BEDROOM DAY

ALEX rejoins JANIE in bed.

JANIE
What was all that about?

ALEX
There’s trouble at mill. (pause) What the hell am I going to do here? There just isn’t much use for people who majored in 18th Century literature.

JANIE
(leaning forward, in a tone of childlike curiosity)
...I think it's fascinating. Tell me something profound.

ALEX
(clearing his throat in mock authority)
Er, ahm, okay. Are you ready?

JANIE
(breathlessly)
I'm breathless.

ALEX
'Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains', Rousseau.

JANIE
Well isn’t Rousseau just the loveliest philosopher.

			           								CUT TO:

52 EXT BEACH DAY

JANIE and ALEX are walking along a quiet beach hand in hand. A scruffy-looking man scrapes about in the distance, poking at things with a stick and a couple with two kids and a dog are walking towards them. 

JANIE
(dreamily)
It's one of those balmy days isn't it? What do people do on balmy days? Do they fly kites, or do they just sit around and eat exotic fruits and gaze enigmatically at the clouds?

ALEX
Some people apparently become so light-headed they just float up into the sky. Scientists have proved it.

JANIE
Have they? They're so clever nowadays. What do they do about getting back down?

ALEX
Oh, they just have to wait for the next shower. (pause)
Where is this going?

JANIE
I don't know. Where do you want it to go?

ALEX
I don't know really, I'm just a bit confused.

JANIE
Oh, you shouldn't be confused, no one should ever be confused, ever.

ALEX
(changing tack)
Do you think we should do something?

JANIE
About your confusion? Should we phone the fire brigade? Who deals with these things? I shall telephone the coast guard.

ALEX
No, I mean today, should we stay out, or should we go home? What do people do these days?

JANIE
All the best people are staying out. We should stay out. We should stay out and have one of those protests where you have to have a lot of sex. Only I can't think what I want to protest about. Whales, I suppose, are we for whales or against them? Oh, dear! What if we're arrested?

ALEX
I'll protect you, anyway they wouldn't arrest you, you're far too beautiful, they'd probably applaud.

JANIE
Do you think they would?

ALEX
I imagine so. (pause) What should we do? I don’t know what to do. Should we go somewhere, I hear Spain’s good.

JANIE
(more seriously)
Good for what? Bumming about on the beach?

ALEX
Mm, well, what then?

JANIE
Come back to the states with me. We can be normal people, like them (indicating the family with children and dog)

ALEX
We could stay here and be like them.

JANIE
Alex, don’t get me wrong here, it is a beautiful place, well, some of it is, but I don’t see a lot of opportunity here, everybody’s just scraping by as best they can, you know, you can do better than this.

ALEX looks at her ruefully. He knows she’s right but doesn’t want to admit it.

	CUT TO:

53 INT BILLY’S CAR NIGHT

BILLY and MIKE sit in the car outside GLORIA’S flat. 

BILLY
So what is it?

MIKE
Well, it says on the tenancy agreement, big letters, number one, no pets. So Gloria runs straight out and buys a cat.

BILLY
Naturally.

MIKE
Aye, well, anyway now it has to go to the vet, I don’t know what’s wrong with the fucker…

GLORIA enters the car with a cat.

GLORIA
(stroking the cat)
Poor wee cat…

	CUT TO:

Same scene a little later. GLORIA and the cat have departed, MIKE and BILLY sit in the car.

BILLY
So, any thoughts?

MIKE
No, and what’s worse she’s late.

BILLY
Late?

MIKE
(gravely)
Late.

	CUT TO:

54 INT VET’S SURGERY NIGHT

GLORIA has the cat on a table in the surgery. The vet is examining it.

GLORIA
His name’s Hannibal, and it’s going to be his birthday next week, (stroking the cat affectionately) isn’t it darling?

VET
It really would be best to have him neutered.

GLORIA
Really?

VET
In this case yes, I’m afraid so.

GLORIA
(tentatively)
And how much would that cost?

VET
Providing there are no complications, seventy-five pounds.

GLORIA
(furiously)
What? For fuck sake… (snapping, looking at the cat) well that’s your birthday present.

	CUT TO:

55 INT CAR NIGHT

GLORIA is sitting in the back of the car.

GLORIA
Fuck me, seventy-five quid to cut a cat’s balls off. Ma brother would’ve done it for nothin’. (pause) He hates cats.

BILLY
How’re you feeling Mike? Good? When’s your birthday again?

	CUT TO:

56 EXT STREET DAY

PAUL is walking along by the riverside. The streets are deserted, paper bags whirl around in the wind, PAUL stands and stares out over the river. KYLIE and SINGLE MOTHER walk past. KYLIE stops and picks up a stick to poke at a seagull.

SINGLE MUM
Kylie, will you come away fae that seagull wi’ yer new jumper on.

PAUL barely notices them and continues to stare at the river.

	CUT TO:

57ALEX’S HOME DAY

ALEX sits in the living room with a cup of tea in his hand. PAULINE is looking at him with thinned lips.

ALEX
I didn’t say I was definitely going, I just said I was thinking about it. Anyway you’re the one that’s always going on about how crap things are working out for me here.

PAULINE
Aye, but all that’s because you went away gallivanting in the first place, as far as I can see you’re just putting off having to settle down so that you can go and lie on a beach for another two or three years

ALEX
But Mum, it would be America, not Thailand, it’s so that I can settle down and have a normal life, I refuse to stay here and drive taxis or sell insurance when… (pause) it’s not about that is it? You just don’t want me to go, do you?

PAULINE
No, Alex, I don’t. I want Stacey and Paul to have… (pause) someone. Paul, particularly, seems to wander about like a wee lost soul. I want them just to know that somebody’s there who understands them, that can give them advice, talk to them about, well, life.

ALEX
What about you?

PAULINE
I can do so much but there’s a hole in their lives now. (pause) Alex we all feel vulnerable, you weren’t as affected by Harry’s death, (ALEX begins to speak but stops) you know what I mean. It was a great relief for us when you came back. We need you here. Just give it some time, that’s all I’m saying, if things aren’t working out in a couple of years then okay, but not now, please not now.

There is a cowed expression on ALEX’s face, he knows he can’t say anymore.

	CUT TO:

58 INT ALEX’S BEDROOM DAY

ALEX and JANIE are in bed, a few weeks have passed. 

JANIE
We can’t just sit here forever.

ALEX
I know, I just don’t know what to do. I wish to God I’d never come back to this fucking country.

JANIE
Come back to my country, it’s the sort of place where you can get away with anything as long as you’re a success. And people will give you a chance if you try. 

ALEX
Oh, for goodness sake you’ll be telling me next the streets are paved with gold.

JANIE
No I won’t. There’s just more opportunities for people like you. Here you’re an oddity because you’ve been to Asia, there you’re a pioneer.

ALEX
Davey fucking Crockett, I suppose, well let me tell you a good number of the original pioneers of your continent came from round here. We’re not just a hopeless bunch of bums that sit around drinking, fighting and watching television, we might not be kings of the wild frontier, or spend our evenings wrestling bears and fighting off Apaches (becoming a bit emotional) but we’re clever, resourceful people and one way or another I will fucking make something of myself in this town…

JANIE
Calm down, God almighty…

	CUT TO:

59 INT PUB NIGHT

They are now in the local pub. 

BILLY
So Gloria’s pregnant. You know what that means don’t you?

MIKE
(pointedly)
No, tell me what that means, I hadn’t actually thought about it.

BILLY
You will now be related to Stella. Think of the wonderful conversations you’ll have over dinner. Do they dress for dinner in the Heedcase household? I imagine they must.

MIKE
I think you’re actually enjoying this.

JANIE
Do you love her?

MIKE
I don’t know, I mean, she isn’t stupid and she’s certainly got all the right things in all the right places. Yes I suppose I do in a sort of a way. It’s just, well, it’s just I never saw myself ending up with somebody from the scheme, you know? I’m being a snob here…

ALEX
You are. There’s nothing wrong with the scheme.

JANIE winces. ALEX notices the wince but ignores her.

DAVE
I’d marry Gloria. I think I would anyway. I mean let’s face it, we’re never going to play football for Scotland, we’re never going to be pop stars or famous actors or anything but here we are, we’re still alive, is it so bad?

BILLY
Absolutely. Once again the tapir owner hits the nail on the head. We only think our lives are shite because we’re constantly being told that we should be supermodels or movie stars or, well, famous anyway.

ALEX
I can’t say I ever aspired to unemployed status.

BILLY
That’s not the point though. We’re more important than celebrities, we keep the world going round. We sell the insurance, we drive the taxis, we… we…

MIKE
Own the tapirs.

BILLY
(enthusiastically)
Exactly, how many tapir owners do you know, I bet Ben Affleck doesn’t own a tapir, or Demi Moore or any of these bland people who probably wouldn’t be anything if they weren’t good-looking.

JANIE
Aye you’re right, Billy.

ALEX
Did you just say ‘Aye’?

JANIE
I did, am I Scottish now?

DAVE
You might be, can you sing ‘Flower of Scotland’?

MIKE
She can’t sing ‘Flower of Scotland’. She can be Scottish if she eats pie and chips every night, drinks ten pints of heavy a day, has a tattoo of a thistle on her arse, spends at least a tenner a week on the lottery, reads the Daily Record, gets pregnant at seventeen and gets satellite tele just so she can watch Big Brother twenty-four hours a day.

BILLY
And presumably dies of a heart-attack due to smoking hamburgers and eating Sky television.

DAVE
That isn’t very nice, we’re not all like that.

BILLY
Sadly most of us are.

TOMMY strolls past and is naked. He breaks into a run for the door as JANICE spots him. Cheers and cries of ‘go on yourself, Tommy’ ring out.

MIKE
And we think Tommy’s insane. At least he gets plenty of exercise.

JANICE
(from behind the bar)
Tommy McLean I know that’s you, you’re barred from now on.

ALEX
You know Tommy at least has a mission in life, obscure though it may be. 

DAVE
We should have a protest.

BILLY
What would we protest about?

DAVE
I don’t know, being unemployed or something.

	CUT TO:

60 EXT ROOF DAY

ALEX, BILLY, MIKE and DAVE are on the roof of BILLY’s house. They have a banner which reads ‘we are unemployed’, BILLY and ALEX have ‘we are’, MIKE and DAVE have ‘unemployed’. BILLY and ALEX are quite comfortable but MIKE and DAVE are struggling a bit.

MIKE
(irritably)
Will you hold the bloody thing straight.

DAVE
I am holding it straight, you’re the one getting it mixed up.

All that can be seen is, ‘we are unled’.

ALEX
I think it says, ‘we are unled’.

MIKE
It’s him, he isn’t holding it properly.

DAVE
You blame me for everything. You’re holding it the wrong way round.

MIKE tries to establish where the confusion lies and becomes more entangled and more angry.

MIKE
(throwing his part off the roof)
Right that’s fucking it.

DAVE
I’m going home.

MIKE and DAVE scramble down off the roof leaving ALEX and BILLY holding a banner which reads, ‘we are’.

BILLY
(looking down at the banner)
I suppose it could be a sort of existentialist statement.

ALEX
Do you honestly imagine in your wildest dreams that there is a single person in this whole miserable fucking town that would have the slightest idea of what an existentialist is?

BILLY
No, I suppose not.

	CUT TO:

Same scene from the road where HEEDCASE drives past in car. He looks up and sees them on the roof.

HEEDCASE
Fucking existentialist cunts.

	CUT TO:	

61 EXT STREET DAY

ALEX is busking on the High Street. He is playing the guitar and singing. He isn’t much of a singer although nobody is paying much attention to him anyway. An old lady walks past and drops a small coin into his guitar case. He stops playing and leans over, looking at it in an exaggerated manner. It is a penny. JANIE approaches.

ALEX
(looking towards the old lady)
Thank you very much, thank you.

JANIE
This isn’t working Alex, is it? Come back with me, there’s nothing here for you now.

ALEX
I’ve got my friends and family, I’ll find a job soon, Mike says there’s work at the taxi office.

JANIE
Alex, it all depresses you, I know your mother says she needs you but you’re slipping away from me. At  least if you’re abroad you can see Scotland through rose-tinted spectacles like you used to. It’s better that way.

ALEX
It’s not that bad, and look I’m even making money.

His guitar case is nearly empty.

JANIE
Darling you’re terrible, I’m not even going to give you any money.

ALEX
Oh well, I might as well just shoot myself, then…

JANIE
If you don’t I will, (pause) anyway there’s been a crisis in the Dave household, the animal welfare people have come and taken Bruce away.

	CUT TO:

62 INT DAVE’S HOUSE DAY

Everyone is in DAVE’s sitting room. DAVE is distraught.

JANIE
Could you get a dog or something?

DAVE
(miserably)
It would just die.

BILLY
Ever thought about getting a girlfriend?

DAVE
Who’s going to go out with me? Bruce was the only interesting thing about me.

ALEX
Oh for fuck sake it was not. Get a grip, it was only a fucking tapir. And anyway it’s not dead, you’ll be able to go and see it. (exasperated) Jesus, Dave, you could have worse things to worry about. (pause) Anyway I’ve got to go. (to JANIE) Are you coming?

ALEX walks out, JANIE looks at the others and shrugs her shoulders.

	CUT TO:

63 EXT STREET DAY

JANIE and ALEX are walking along the street.

JANIE
You’re becoming quite hard work you know that don’t you?

ALEX
Aye well, it’s hard work being me.

JANIE
Alex, I know this isn’t easy but we’ve got to make some decisions here. My visa’s going to run out and I’ll have to go back to America. 

ALEX
So?

JANIE
So? So, we have to decide what we’re going to do, whether or not we… carry on.

	CUT TO:

64 INT MACDONALDS DAY

ALEX and JANIE stand in a queue at MacDonalds. There is a bit of an atmosphere.

JANIE
Please don’t say anything else, I couldn’t stand it.

ALEX
I wasn’t going to say anything else, actually I was just going to stand here quietly and wait patiently until it was my turn to eat a hamburger.

JANIE
Well you just do that then.

ALEX
(after a pause)
I’m being very patient amn’t I? (pause) And look, it’s almost our turn to be served with our gruel, (pause as he looks at a very fat woman and her five fat children who stand in front of them in the queue) yes just one fat person between us and the burgers, one enormous…

JANIE
(annoyed)
Alex, shut up…

ALEX
(a tad loudly)
Look at them, even MacDonalds is no match for that kind of obesity, I’m surprised she got through the door in the first place (pause) those kids probably formed a scrum and pushed her through, although thinking about it they probably have three different sizes of doors in here; regular, extra wide and elephantine…

JANIE
(with thinned lips)
Alex, shut up or I’m leaving.

The fat woman gives ALEX a dirty look before she and her kids take a mountain of food off to a table. ALEX approaches the counter.

ALEX
(weakly, to the assistant)
We’ll just take whatever’s left.

	CUT TO:

65 INT MACDONALDS DAY

JANIE and ALEX sit at a table opposite each other. JANIE is looking pensive, sipping at a coffee, ALEX is playing with a chip. The fat family are sitting adjacent to them, gorging themselves, barely pausing for breath.

JANIE
I’ve got three days left.

ALEX
Well, I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave now. She’ll have a fit. I just feel I owe it to them to try to work things out, and the boys, I like being with them again.

JANIE
Alex, you’re not responsible for your family, I know you love them but this isn’t you anymore, you don’t fit in here anymore. You’ll be a burden to them in the end. And the boys are going nowhere, just because you love them doesn’t mean you have to be them.

ALEX
I just thought there would be more somehow, Mike’s right, if it wasn’t for the lottery half the people in this town would have nothing to dream about.

JANIE
But you do have something to dream about and it’ll all go to waste if you stay here. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, I mean it’s charming and quaint in its way but there’s no growth, no progress, no optimism, more businesses are closing down than opening up and anyone with an ounce of ambition or imagination just leaves.

ALEX
Aye, well, it’s not your home though is it? 

JANIE
Shake this off Alex, think of who you are, what kind of person you really are and how you are when you’re at your best and ask yourself if you can really be that person in this town.

ALEX
I want to be, I really do and I wanted you to be here with me, enjoying it all, (pause, looking round) and here it all is, a society of addicts all trying to find something to fill the void of unemployment or escape from their miserable dead end jobs.

JANIE
(understandingly)
I know, I thought life would be easier here than it is, and maybe it is, in the south of England but every time I walk down the street, I think to myself, ‘this town is depressed and devoid of hope’ and you’re being sucked into it, you drink too much, you watch a lot of television and you sit around and moan about it all the time. Maybe when we’re old and grey we can come back here and we’ll love it but this is not the place for an ambitious intelligent young man to be looking for success. 

ALEX
I can’t just go like that, I’ll have to think about it. 

JANIE
I know Alex and I understand that, I really do but you have to know also that time’s running out for me here and I won’t spend the rest of my life in one of these council flats, slowly turning into a lottery addicted alcoholic, not for anyone, and if I stay here that’s what I could see happening, you can call it an ultimatum if you like but that’s how it is. If, in the meantime, you find us both great jobs with good money and a nice little cottage in the country, well, fine, but frankly as I see it the worst-case scenario is by far the most likely one.

ALEX
(with resignation)
I know, I know, Jesus, 5% unemployment, look at this place, I would think that just about covers the unemployed sitting in MacDonalds, maybe that’s the regular unemployment figures of course, the extra large includes everybody who’s actually unemployed rather than just the ones they can’t make disappear by manipulating the statistics. Why is it like this?

JANIE
I don’t know Alex, all I know is you have choices because you’re smart and funny and good-looking and you’ve got friends all over the world, be grateful for that.

ALEX
(with a rueful smile)
I’ll have to tell her I’m going, won’t I?

JANIE
I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t love you, you know that don’t you?

They smile at each other with some relief on both sides. 

	CUT TO:

66 INT GLORIA’S FLAT NIGHT

MIKE and GLORIA are sitting talking. They both seem ill at ease.

GLORIA
You have to do something, it’s your child too.

MIKE
I know Gloria, I’m just not too sure about the whole moving in and settling down thing.

GLORIA
Don’t you dare leave me to deal with this.

MIKE
Nobody’s leaving anybody Gloria, I’m just saying, it’s a bit quick to be making decisions that’s all, we’ll work something out.

GLORIA
(unhappily)
I love you.

	CUT TO:

67 EXT STREET NIGHT

DAVE is walking along the street eating a bag of chips. It is dark and quiet. An ugly face appears in the gloom.

FACE
(holding a knife to DAVE’s throat)
Gie’s yer fuckin’ chips.

DAVE
(terrified, handing over his chips)
Ok, ok here.

FACE
(walking away)
Thanks, cunt.

DAVE is understandably stunned, walks on for a few seconds, checks his pockets for money, of which it appears there isn’t very much. He sits down on the kerb and starts to cry.

	CUT TO:

68 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

BILLY is on the phone. DAVE sits looking morose.

DAVE
I mean, a poke of chips, honest to God, I mean what’s next? Armed robberies in the bakers, terrorist attacks on the ice cream van…

BILLY
(paying no attention)
Yes, that would be fine, so, one month from today? (pause) Yes, absolutely no problem I’ll get that off to you right away. (pause, laughing) yes indeed…

DAVE
Sometimes I think I might as well just kill myself.

BILLY
…I’ll look forward to that (pause) and thank you again, (pause) bye, bye. (putting the phone down) You fucking beauty. New York here we come.

He picks up the phone and starts to dial.

BILLY
Aye it’s me, guess what? I’ve got a new job (pause) aye, well it’s in New York (holds the phone away from his ear) aye well you’ll just have to deal with it.

	CUT TO:

69 INT LOCAL PUB DAY

BILLY is sitting at a table drinking a pint and looking pretty pleased with himself, JANICE is behind the bar and a few worthies are dotted about. BILLY goes to the jukebox, puts something on and returns to his seat just as HEATHER enters. She is perhaps even angrier than usual. She goes to BILLY but doesn’t sit down.

HEATHER
(furiously)
I might have kent I would find you in here. So?

BILLY
So ?

HEATHER
You’re not going to New York.

BILLY
I am, aren’t you happy for me my love?

HEATHER
Bastard. Don’t you even think of going to New York. I’ll kill you, I swear it. You have got commitments.

BILLY
Ah, you forget, my sweet, you took the commitments when you moved in with the milkman.

The song, ‘New York, New York’ is playing on the jukebox. BILLY starts to sing along, further infuriating HEATHER. 

HEATHER
Did you put that on? You bastard, you’re not going anywhere.

BILLY stands up on his seat, continuing to sing along with great gusto, throwing his arms in the air as the song reaches its climax. HEATHER responds by throwing his pint over him and storming out.

BILLY
(blithely, to JANICE who is watching with great interest)
Another pint please, Janice.

		CUT TO:

70 INT RAILWAY STATION DAY 

ALEX and JANIE embrace and break. They seem happy again.

ALEX
Shouldn’t be long, a few weeks hopefully, I haven’t told them yet mind you.

	CUT TO:

71 INT HOUSE DAY

PAUL sits in the living room still with a faraway look in his eyes. PAULINE comes through from the kitchen.

PAULINE
Want a cup of tea, son?

PAUL
No thanks, I think I’ll just go up to my room.

										CUT TO:

72 INT PAUL’S ROOM DAY

PAUL is securing a noose from the ceiling of his room. He does so successfully. He takes a look around the room and sighs a little, standing staring at the wall for a second. He puts his head through the noose and lets himself fall. He is dead.

	CUT TO:

73 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

The boys are sitting drinking coffee talking happily. There is a knock at the door, it is STACEY, she is hysterical. ALEX is summoned, his face falls as all she seems able to say is,  ‘Paul’s dead’ through deep, frightening sobs. ALEX is stunned and closes the door behind him as they go off, clinging together.

	CUT TO:

74 EXT GRAVESIDE DAY

It is a particularly grim funeral. People are standing still and blank. PAULINE is crying bitterly, STACEY is trying not to but can’t stop herself. ALEX is staring into space.

	CUT TO:

75 INT ALEX’S HOUSE DAY

All is quiet. The guests have left, ALEX, PAULINE and STACEY sit in the living room, staring blankly at each other and the remains of the wake. There are a few plates of sandwiches and half-empty cups of tea scattered around the room.

PAULINE
(sadly)
I keep thinking I should put some of this food in the fridge in case Paul wants something to eat when he comes in.

ALEX
I might just go.

PAULINE
(with an edge on her voice)
You do that, then.

ALEX
(irately)
What? What’ve I done now?

PAULINE
You can’t wait to get out of the house, can you? To go back to that den of iniquity, and, and, well, forget it ever happened.

STACEY starts to cry.

ALEX
How the fuck could I ever forget what happened, he was my brother, well, half brother, anyway.

STACEY
(horrified)
What?

PAULINE
Don’t you bring that up, don’t you dare bring that up. You were hardly the perfect role model, were you…

ALEX
Oh Christ not this again…

PAULINE
Oh, yes this again, how d’you think he felt, his heroic, prodigal brother, returned from his crusade and back sleeping on his mate’s couch and signing on the dole.

ALEX
(shouting)
Jesus fucking Christ, you’re not actually blaming me after all you’ve done…

STACEY
(screaming)
Stop it, stop it, I can’t stand any more of this.

PAULINE goes and hugs her. ALEX looks on for a second moves towards them then turns and walks out.

										CUT TO:

76 EXT GRAVESIDE DAY

VAMPIRA stands beside PAUL’s grave crying, she throws a red rose into the grave and walks away.

	CUT TO:

77 INT BILLY’S HOUSE NIGHT

BILLY, DAVE and MIKE are sitting in the living room talking. It is a day or two after the funeral.

MIKE
Can you imagine dying like that, Jesus.

BILLY
He always looked depressed.

MIKE
Aye but, Jesus, hanging yourself. I mean, I get depressed but Christ Almighty that’s hellish.

DAVE
I suppose he was just sad. Really, really sad. Devoid of all hope.

Silence. After a moment or two ALEX enters. He sits down and they all look at him.

ALEX
Well, say something, you all stare at me every time I walk into the room. I’m still me, I still function in the same way. I still eat, go to the toilet, drink beer.

BILLY 
D’you want a beer?

ALEX
(angrily)
For fuck sake. (shouting) I haven’t suddenly become a fucking baby. Treat me normally, I’m still the same as I was a week ago.

DAVE
We don’t know what to say.

ALEX
(exasperated)
Well, I don’t know, Christ we’ve known each other since we were five years old, (shouting again) guess.

ALEX storms out.

	CUT TO:

78 EXT RIVERSIDE NIGHT

ALEX stands by the river smoking a cigarette. He is joined by MIKE. They hug each other. ALEX begins to cry.

ALEX
(leaning against the handrail, staring down at the river)
Fucking hell. Fucking hell. How does all this happen to one person?

MIKE
I don’t know. Have you phoned Janie?

ALEX
I’m frightened to, she’s probably dead, knowing my luck. (pause) I need her so much. I love her, you know, I really love her.

MIKE
Why don’t you just go over there?

ALEX
Aye, well, there’s another problem. The one place I want to be in the whole world is the one place I just promised my distraught mother I wouldn’t go to.

MIKE
She might understand you know. She knows what it’s like to be in love and for people not to understand. Talk to her.

ALEX
This town kills people. It’s not so funny when you look at it like that. This unemployment, this unrequited ambition, this conventional stereotype that we have to conform to, the happy lottery winners, the movie stars, the footballers, the comfortable, content breakfast cereal family. Where are these people? Where do they live? Who are they? They don’t exist here. We have the black market, heroin, alcohol and lottery tickets. When I really think about it I’m actually not surprised Paul killed himself. We all should.

MIKE
At least you didn’t get Gloria pregnant.

ALEX
Are you sure? Cause right now it wouldn’t surprise me.

MIKE
No, it was definitely me. I’m driving a taxi for a living and I got Heedcase’s wee sister pregnant, you see, you don’t have a monopoly on worry.

ALEX
I need a drink. Fancy a pint?

MIKE
If you can’t beat them join them.

	                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

79 INT BILLY’S HOUSE NIGHT

ALEX is alone in the living room. He says, ‘Goodbye’, puts the phone down, picks up a drink and turns away toward the window. 

	                                                                                                                                         CUT TO:

80 INT JANIE’S APARTMENT NIGHT

JANIE puts the phone down and turns to her friend. She has a somewhat pensive expression.

FRIEND
So?

JANIE
His brother died.

FRIEND
Fuck! How?

JANIE
Suicide. God I feel awful. I wanted to hold him, you know, but he’s on the phone telling me he can’t come over for a while and underneath it all I’m starting to get impatient. I love him and I want to be with him but I’m being selfish aswell because I don’t just want to console him, I want my lover back, I want my laid back beautiful celtic boyfriend to be with me. (pause) I didn’t know his brother, I don’t know what to feel.

FRIEND
Take my advice and start dating.

JANIE
For God’s sake.

FRIEND
It may sound callous but to me this has all been a mess and this guy, nice though he sounds, is all over the place and probably will be for a long time. Do yourself a favour, dump him and get on with your life, you don’t owe him anything and you can’t put your life on hold forever in the hope that he gets his shit together.

	CUT TO:

81 INT ALEX’S HOUSE NIGHT

A few weeks have passed, ALEX is sitting on the settee staring into space, he has bags under his eyes and has the appearance of a man who has been drinking a great deal. PAULINE is sitting in her armchair smoking a cigarette. They both look utterly defeated.

ALEX
Where’s Stacey?

PAULINE
She went to see wee Fiona, you know, Paul’s girlfriend.

ALEX
(absent-mindedly)
Mm.

PAULINE
(getting up)
I’ll make a cup of tea.

	CUT TO:

82 INT FIONA’S FLAT NIGHT

FIONA (VAMPIRA) and STACEY sit in front of a mirror putting on make-up. STACEY is carefully applying black lipstick to a ghostly white face.

	CUT TO:

83 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

They are all gathered together in the living room.

MIKE
I’m going to Edinburgh. I’ll spend the weekend with my brother.

ALEX
You won’t be safe in Edinburgh, he’ll track you down.

DAVE
Any more thoughts on the Gloria situation?

MIKE
I’ll tell you on Sunday, I need to think about it, I just feel a bit scared.

BILLY
Shouldn’t you be happy?

MIKE
You’d think so wouldn’t you?

	CUT TO:
			
84 INT PUB NIGHT 

ALEX, BILLY and DAVE are sitting in a quiet pub in the town. They sit at the bar, a large wild-eyed man stands next to them. He speaks very loudly as though he is addressing an audience.

MAN
Ever been to Wolverhampton boys?

BILLY
(brightly)
No, I don’t think we have.

MAN
Don’t go there, that’s my advice.

ALEX
(quietly to DAVE and BILLY)
Can we go?

DAVE
I’ve still got half a pint here.

MAN
I went down there once to work on the roads and I got totally pissed one night and ended up sleeping on the couch in this guy’s flat and I woke up in the middle of the night and the television was on and d’you ken what he was doing?

ALEX
(to the others)
I think we should go.

DAVE
What was he doing?

MAN
I’m glad you asked that son, well, he was crouching on the coffee table, smearing himself with his own vomit.

ALEX
(under his breath)
Jesus wept.

MAN
And d’you ken what else he was doing?

ALEX
No, but you’re going to tell us aren’t you?

MAN
That man was masturbating to Coronation Street.

	CUT TO:

85 INT PUB NIGHT

ALEX, DAVE and BILLY are in another town centre pub, a little more lively this time, the clientele a little younger. Two men approach, NOSTRIL and RADIO.

ALEX
Aw, Jesus it’s Nostril and Radio, that’s all we fucking need.

NOSTRIL and RADIO sit down next to them. They exchange a chorus of ‘alright boys’

RADIO
See that wee tart at the bar? Buy her a drink and you’re on a ride no kiddin’ like, ah was goin’ tae give her the line ken what a mean but discretion bein’ the better part of valour, well, ah wouldnae touch her wi’ Nostril’s, ken what ah mean.

BILLY
The line being…

NOSTRIL
How’re you doin’ ma name’s Radio how would like to turn me on?

DAVE
Are you alright, Nostril?

NOSTRIL
Aye tip top condition, wasnae feelin too great earlier on but makin’ a fairly speedy recovery. (tapping his nose)

ALEX
So what’s happening boys I haven’t seen you for a while?

RADIO
Same old shit, still waiting for ma lottery tickets to come up.

ALEX
No luck so far then?

RADIO
Just have tae enter more competitions ah suppose, only winners read the Daily Record, get more winners with Ladbrokes, win a holiday in Barbados with this packet of Crunchy Nut fucking Cornflakes, shop at Woolworths and win a frying pan, switch on the tele; dial this number and win a grand, watch the snooker and win a fish supper, win a mountain bike, win a CD, win a fucking life, it’s the only way anybody here’ll get one.

BILLY
Are we to assume that the bookmaker’s has not been a great source of remuneration this afternoon?

RADIO
You’re not fuckin’ kiddin’ this country’s a fuckin’ disgrace, the rich keep getting richer and the poor get a lottery (getting louder) Yer Glasgow fuckin’ Rangers that yous all worship every fuckin’ Saturday, yer fuckin’ replica shirts are paying for a man tae earn thirty thousand pounds a week (ranting loudly, attracting the attention of a group of Rangers supporters standing at the bar) you might as well worship the fuckin’ devil.

ALEX
(quietly to BILLY and DAVE)
That’s it, I’m away.

DAVE
It’s ok he does this all the time, they won’t touch us.

ALEX
(getting up)
I know I’m just not in the mood for this tonight.

ALEX walks out, the sound of breaking glass and general mayhem erupts behind him.

	CUT TO:

86 EXT RIVERSIDE NIGHT

ALEX stands gazing down at the river. The first phase of his grief has passed, the tears have given way to a long sadness. He seems lost in it all.

	CUT TO:

87 INT HOUSE NIGHT

STACEY and HEATHER sit in HEATHER’s living room talking over a glass of wine.

HEATHER
Leave it to me, that bastard’s going nowhere.

STACEY
Are you sure? It might be brilliant, I mean, New York!

HEATHER
Maybe, but he could have more here if he wanted, he’s got himself into a good position in that he’s very good at his job and in pole position to manage an office if he wanted to. This New York thing would be no better than that and he would be away from the kids.

STACEY
And you, obviously.

HEATHER
And me, of course, I wanted him to know that he couldn’t fuck me about and I suppose he’s just about got the message so it’s make your mind up time for Billy boy, New York or me and happy families. And I’ll make it very clear to him that he’ll choose me or that’s it forever.

STACEY
Will he go for that?

HEATHER
He’s quite weak in some ways, he basically does what he’s told.

	CUT TO:

88 INT BAR NEW YORK NIGHT

JANIE is standing at a bar in a trendy New York bar. She, too looks a little lost. Her friend approaches dragging two men with her. JANIE looks up and provides them with a half-hearted smile.

	CUT TO:

89 INT PUB NIGHT

BILLY and DAVE are still in the same pub, NOSTRIL and RADIO are now at the bar, drinking with the Rangers supporters. Two girls come and sit down next to DAVE and BILLY. They are VERONICA and CHARLENE.

VERONICA
How’re you doing?

DAVE
Me?

CHARLENE
(laughing)
Who else?

BILLY
Who are you then? I haven’t seen you in here before.

CHARLENE
I’m a girl, and as you have no doubt guessed my friend here is also a girl. We’re two girls, buy us a drink and there’s a chance of a fuck.

DAVE
(amazed)
Really?

BILLY
(taking over)
I will buy you both a drink but I will take you at your word assuming that it will lead to a frenzy of sexual activity at some point later this evening. I’m Billy by the way, and this is Dave.

DAVE
(wide-eyed)
Hello.

	CUT TO:

Same scene a little later, BILLY is at the bar buying drinks.

DAVE
(nervously)
So, do you like it here?

VERONICA
Mmm, it’s delicious don’t you think?

DAVE
Aye it’s nice, see that guy at the bar, that’s Radio, he thinks if you support Rangers you worship the devil and you probably have sex with animals.

CHARLENE
Good grief, so what do you like? Sexually, you see we’re swingers.

DAVE
Definitely humans, female humans… and yourself?

CHARLENE
(nonchalantly)
I like bondage, being spanked, I like to be treated as a slave and thrashed gently with branches from trees…

DAVE
(astonished)
Whoa…

CHARLENE
I also like my dildos, black ones are best, fucking in public places…

DAVE
(still incredulous, half laughing)
Wow…

CHARLENE
Nothing too extreme.

BILLY returns with a tray of drinks.

BILLY
(passing out drinks)
I hope Dave kept you entertained, ladies.

VERONICA
He’s been charming, we’re thinking of keeping him.

	CUT TO:

90 INT HOUSE NIGHT

BILLY and DAVE are at a party. VERONICA and CHARLENE are there. There are a few other people, it isn’t the busiest of places, though rather wild. There is music playing and they are all dancing. CHARLENE takes BILLY through to a kitchen where they take some white powder. They look up and smile at each other and kiss. DAVE, meanwhile is dancing conservatively while VERONICA slides up and down his body. He does seem to be coming round though.

	CUT TO:

91 INT PARTY HOUSE NIGHT

DAVE is sitting in bed with VERONICA. She is snorting coke from his chest. DAVE seems to be quite pleased with himself.

VERONICA
(nestling in to him)
So Bruce was a tapir and you used to take him for walks. Did you love your tapir?

DAVE
Well love’s a strong word and tapirs are known for their impassiveness but there was a bond between us. When they took him away he looked up at me one last time and he said, well obviously he didn’t actually say it but he thought, ‘we had some fun didn’t we?’

VERONICA
You’re weird. I like you.

	CUT TO:

92 INT PARTY HOUSE BEDROOM NIGHT

BILLY has crashed out naked on a bed. CHARLENE rummages through his clothes to find his car keys. She responds to a soft knock at the door. She opens it quietly and sees a man standing there to whom she gives the keys. They exchange a smile.

	CUT TO:

93 EXT COUNTRYSIDE DAY

BILLY and DAVE are standing looking at the space where once was BILLY’s car.

DAVE
Well, what do we do now?

BILLY
D’you think that whole thing was about nicking my motor?

DAVE
No, I think she really loved you.

BILLY
Very fucking funny. I didn’t even get a ride, usually I like to get them the next morning.

DAVE
And this time they got you the next morning.

BILLY
When did you suddenly become a comedian? Christ it’s the house of contradictions, I get shafted and you become Oscar Wilde. (pause) Well I suppose we better start walking.

	CUT TO:

Same scene a little later. DAVE and BILLY are walking along a deserted country road. They pass an open gate leading into a field in which sits a tractor. They stop and look at each other.

	CUT TO:

Same scene a little later. They are driving a tractor along the road. BILLY is driving, DAVE is propped up beside him. BILLY pulls in to the side of the road.

DAVE 
What’s wrong?

BILLY
I need to go to the toilet.

BILLY jumps out and runs into some bushes by the side of the road. After a few seconds he shouts to DAVE.

BILLY
Dave! Chuck us that T-shirt will you?

DAVE throws him an old T-shirt which lies in the cab. BILLY wipes his arse with it and returns to the tractor and they get on their way.

	CUT TO:

94 BILLY’S LIVING ROOM DAY

ALEX, DAVE and BILLY sit around drinking coffee. BILLY has just completed relating the tale of the night before.

ALEX
So what you’re telling me here is that you nicked some poor bloke’s tractor, had the temerity to stop for a shite on the way home and wiped your arse on his T-shirt?

BILLY
Aye well…

ALEX
You’ve outdone yourself. (pause) Well Heather’s coming round after lunch so you’d better smarten yourself up because she wants to talk.

BILLY
(suddenly very afraid)
What? Why is Heather coming here? Who allowed this to happen? She’ll know I’ve been out, she phones before she comes round, Christ this is all I need.

ALEX
(morosely)
Think yourself lucky you’ve got a woman coming round.

BILLY
(emphatically)
Go to New fucking York. Go! Nobody’s stopping you. Jesus fucking Christ Alex you love her, she loves you, I mean I know this isn’t the best time to be handing out home truths but really, you have to do this. (pause, ALEX doesn’t seem to have an argument) You’ll lose her if you don’t.

	CUT TO:

95 EXT STREET DAY

HEEDCASE is walking down the street. There is a spaghetti western feel to his walk. He looks even meaner than usual. He is about to kill. A man, DOGKILLER, approaches, oddly, he is walking a dog on a halter. On closer inspection it transpires that it is a guide dog

DOGKILLER
(passing by)
Alright Heeedcase?

HEEDCASE walks on. DOGKILLER finds a pedestrian crossing, waits for the green man to turn red and sprints across the street with the guide dog.

	CUT TO:

96 INT TRAIN DAY

MIKE sits on the train home from his weekend in Edinburgh. He is reading the newspaper.

	CUT TO:

97 EXT STREET DAY

HEEDCASE approaches the railway station and strolls through to the platform at which MIKE’s train pulls up. He stands and waits. His eyes are cold and full of menace.

	CUT TO:

98 EXT RAILWAY STATION DAY

MIKE’s train pulls in to the station. He trudges wearily off down the platform, looks up and sees HEEDCASE. There is a moment as they stare at each other, not entirely sure what the other is about to do. MIKE thinks for a second and then panics and begins to run. He just manages to evade HEEDCASE and gets out onto the street but is hotly pursued. There is a long chase through the streets at the end of which MIKE jumps on a bus, much to the frustration of HEEDCASE.

	CUT TO:

99 INT GLORIA’S HOUSE DAY

MIKE is standing breathless before GLORIA. He falls down on his knees and grabs her round the waste.

MIKE
Marry me, marry me now. We’ll have kids and live happily ever after and I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.

GLORIA
(bemused)
What brought this on? My brother didn’t put you up to this did he? Because I’m not marrying anyone on the strength of that.

MIKE
No, no, well not exactly, I mean I saw him at the station when I got back from Edinburgh, (pause) how did he know that? (pause) Well anyway, I decided when I was away that, well, I love you too, so, it’s for the best isn’t it? I mean we’re having a baby.

GLORIA
D’you want to go to bed?

MIKE
You bet. Come on.

	CUT TO:

100 INT GLORIA’S BEDROOM DAY

GLORIA and MIKE are in bed. They appear to be blissfully happy. The front door slams shut.

MIKE
(rising panic in his voice)
What was that?

GLORIA
It was the door, Torquil’s got a key, it could be him.

HEEDCASE bursts into the room, MIKE, completely naked begins to try to climb out of the window.

	CUT TO:

101 EXT STREET DAY

Two policemen are pursuing TOMMY, who is naked, along the street. One of them looks up and sees MIKE trying to climb out of the bedroom window.

1ST POLICEMAN
(still pursuing TOMMY)
Sarge, I think we’ve got another one.

	CUT TO:

102 INT BEDROOM DAY

HEEDCASE is holding on to MIKE’s leg as he tries, vainly, to escape. GLORIA is trying to restrain HEEDCASE.

GLORIA
(desperately)
It’s ok Torquil, we’re getting married, it’s ok.

HEEDCASE, now in the process of biting MIKE’s leg, finally desists. MIKE climbs back in and they all take a breath.

HEEDCASE
Put some clothes on, for fuck sake.

	CUT TO:

103 INT GLORIA’S LIVING ROOM DAY

All three are sitting drinking coffee.

HEEDCASE
I’ve decided to renounce violence in any case, I mean I would’ve made an exception for you Mike, nothing personal you understand, but it’s a family thing, you know?

MIKE
Aye, well, of course.

HEEDCASE
I mean, me and Gloria, well, we’ve only got each other since our Gran died, Mum died years ago, no’ long after Gloria was born and fuck knows where our Dad is, the cunt’ll be back when he hears we’ve come into money no doubt.

Pause.

MIKE
How’re you getting on with The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?

HEEDCASE
It’s hard work, that’s the best I can say for it. Actually that’s why I’ve become a pacifist…

GLORIA
You just tried to bite Mike on the leg…

HEEDCASE
Ah never said ah was going to be a vegetarian. No, it just occurred to me that all the pivotal moments in history seem to revolve around acts of violence; wars, battles, assassinations and I thought, the kids’ll get enough violence in history class at school without growing up with a Dad who’s a renowned brawler. The world needs us to be peaceful. Violence just begets violence.

	CUT TO:

104 INT BILLY’S BEDROOM DAY

HEATHER throws a plate at BILLY. It smashes against the wall. BILLY looks afraid.

BILLY
Now, Heather, calm down, Dave slept with somebody but I just crashed out. I was thinking of you, my sweet, I thought if we ever have a chance of getting back together I can’t sleep with other women. 

HEATHER doesn’t look convinced.

BILLY
Would I even have told you about it if I had slept with somebody, now, come on, think about it, I would just’ve said that we went out and got back late. Now you know me, don’t you? You know I would’ve lied.

HEATHER
(calming down a bit)
Alright, now, sit.

BILLY sits quietly on the edge of the bed.

HEATHER
I’ll come back. I’ve dumped the milkman but you can’t go to America. That’s it. And your ticket by the way, you give it to Alex and phone your company and arrange an interview for him…

BILLY
How the fuck am I supposed to do that?

HEATHER
Oh you can chat them up, you’re very good at that, the least they’ll do is see him. (pause) Alex loves that girl.

BILLY
What if I say no?

HEATHER
(menacingly)
I could make things very difficult for you. And anyway the commitments will cry if their Daddy leaves them. And you’ll never sleep with me again. (pause) It’ll be over, Billy.

BILLY
Do you love me Heather?

HEATHER
Yes. I still love you. Isn’t that what this is all about?

BILLY
So you’re coming back then?

HEATHER
Yes, I’m coming back.

BILLY
(lightening up a bit)
D’you have to bring the kids with you?

	CUT TO:

105 INT NEW YORK BAR NIGHT

JANIE is as she was before, sitting with her friend in a bar, the friend gets up and goes to talk to someone, an attractive young man joins JANIE. 

MAN
Hi, how are you, I saw you in here last week but you didn’t look like you wanted to be here.

JANIE
And I do tonight?

MAN
Well, maybe you’re a little further down the road.

JANIE
And what road would that be?

MAN
Look, I might as well be honest about this, I saw you and I think you’re gorgeous and I’d like to take you out, that’s it, even if you just want to talk about it that’s fine, I’ll wait if you want although I’d rather not, so what do you say? A date? Just a little one…

JANIE looks up at him and smiles.

	CUT TO:

106 INT ALEX’S HOUSE DAY

ALEX and PAULINE sit talking.

PAULINE
(with resignation)
I think you should go and see Janie. I’ve decided. You’re not happy and you should be with her if you really love her.

ALEX
(a bit surprised)
You actually want me to go?

PAULINE
Not really but I can’t see that you’ll be doing yourself any favours by staying.

ALEX
You’re not doing this to be a martyr are you? I mean I’m not going to have to pay for this one way or another? I’m glad, obviously, I thought you would hit the roof, if I went away now, (excitedly) and it’s not Hong Kong remember, New York’s only half the distance, I’ll be home more often. Stacey can come over for holidays. Where is she anyway?

PAULINE
She’s talking about giving up her job in Tescos and going to college.

ALEX
Well, that’s good isn’t it?

PAULINE
Oh, I suppose so, it’s just that, well she seems to have developed a friendship with wee Fiona, you know, Paul’s girlfriend.

ALEX
Vampira?

PAULINE
Aye, well I had to tell her about her Dad, you know, her real Dad and well, with Paul and everything she went a bit dark.

ALEX
Lots of teenagers do that sort of thing.

PAULINE
The last kid I had that did that committed suicide.

ALEX
She’s not the type. 

PAULINE
I don’t think she is, no, but you worry, obviously, I find myself constantly asking her if she’s ok, and going into her room, you know, just to make sure.

ALEX
It’s probably more to do with her finding a way to keep him around, for both of them really. It could be quite a healthy thing in a way.

A door slams shut in the background.

PAULINE
That’ll be her now, go and talk to her.

	CUT TO:

107 INT STACEY’S ROOM DAY

ALEX sits on the bed, a little stunned by the Gothic paraphernalia adorning the walls. STACEY, herself has undergone a marked change in appearance, wearing mostly black, including her make-up.

ALEX
I think Mum thinks you’re going to do it too, you know.

STACEY
I know she does but I’m not.

ALEX
No thoughts of that nature at all then?

STACEY
Paul was unstable, I’m not, I have ambitions, I want to do things, I want to go places and experience things, like you.

ALEX
You can come to New York, I suspect you’ll fit right in there. You can bring Fiona if you want. What do you think?

STACEY
I could come over when you get a place. That might be good. (pause) I never thought you would stay. (sadly) and then when she came I knew you would go away again, sooner or later. It was really Heather’s idea. She said you were in love and you had to go, is that true?

ALEX
(hugging her)
I suppose it is. It’s not so far away this time, I’ll be home as often as I can and you’re old enough to travel on your own now, it’ll be different.

STACEY
I know, I just feel sad about it.

ALEX
When you finish college, if you want you could apply to universities in the states. You can do anything you want now. We’ve probably been through the worst year of our lives and we’ve survived, so far, and this is the first step towards moving on. It’ll hurt for a long time, probably forever in one way or another but this is life, sometimes it’s tough and we just have to do what we can. But we’ll survive it, partly by caring about each other and partly by caring about ourselves.

STACEY
(quoting)
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

ALEX
The Great Gatsby.

STACEY
It was Paul’s favourite book, Fiona lent it to me.

ALEX
Mm, I think it was my favourite book too, for a while. I must say I prefer you as a Fitzgerald-reading Goth to a giggling teenager.

STACEY
So do I, knowledge is power.

ALEX
Steady on, you’ll become an intellectual at this rate.

STACEY
(smiling for the first time)
It’s ok, I still like Robbie Williams.

ALEX
(patting her on the head)
You’ll be ok.

	CUT TO:

108 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

MIKE is moving the last of his things. He dumps a box on the living room floor and looks up at BILLY. DAVE is on the settee, ALEX stands gazing out of the window.

BILLY
Janie ok?

ALEX
Don’t know. (pause) I’ll find out in two days.

DAVE
I’ll be at home if you need me.

MIKE
You could be driving a taxi.

DAVE
(sarcastically)
Brilliant.

MIKE
Well, it’s not that bad, Jesus, I’ve got to do it so I don’t see why you shouldn’t suffer aswell.

BILLY
Heather’ll be here soon. This is it. Back to normality. Letters from abroad and taxis to Glasgow airport and how would you like your insurance, madam? Hot or cold?

ALEX
It was a bit like being young again wasn’t it? The four of us here, you know?

MIKE
Well, it couldn’t go on forever could it? I’m glad I met Gloria. If it hadn’t been for her I would’ve had to marry Dave.

DAVE
I wish I was going to New York.

MIKE
Well, somebody’s got to stay here and do all the miserable dead-end jobs and queue up for places on pointless training schemes, we should be proud of ourselves, we are Scotland.

BILLY
This is true. (pause) It’ll be nice having the kids at home again. But we’ll do this again, eh?

ALEX
Yeah, we’ll do it again, Jesus, we’ll probably be doing it all again in about a month’s time.

They all laugh and agree.

	CUT TO:

109 ALEX’S FRONT DOORSTEP DAY

ALEX stands at the door giving PAULINE a hug. STACEY stands by, looking a little tearful. An old woman with a zimmer stands in the doorway of the house next door. PAULINE releases ALEX and he goes and puts his arm around STACEY.

PAULINE
(to the neighbour)
Hello Nancy, look at her, Alex, she’s a bloody marvel, standin’ there wi’ nae hips on her.

NANCY
Are ye off on yer travels again, son?

ALEX
Aye, well it was only a matter of time eh? 

NANCY
Ye don’t want tae take that man o’ mine do ye?

PAULINE
Where is he the day, Nancy?

NANCY
He’s away tae the pub wi’ that man wi’ the paralytic legs. An’ me here wi’ nae hips on me.

ALEX
(raising his eyebrows a bit)
Mm, well I think it’s time I went.

	CUT TO:

110 EXT STREET DAY

MIKE and DAVE stand looking at the notice board heralding the forthcoming events and attractions. It is, once again, completely blank. KYLIE and SINGLE MUM trail past. KYLIE has a small dog of questionable origin on the end of a piece of string.

SINGLE MUM
Kylie, will you hurry up and don’t you dare lose that dog ‘cause I’m no’ getting you another one. It’ll be like the new jumper all over again.

DAVE
I bet if this was New York it would be full of things to do.

MIKE
Aye, I suppose it would. But we’re Scottish aren’t we, what would happen if we all went to New York? There would be nobody here, the streets would be deserted, it would be a barren wasteland. 

DAVE
It’s a barren wasteland now.

MIKE
(they turn to walk away)
We’ll be ok, you know you meet a lot of attractive women driving taxis.

DAVE
Really?

We watch them trudge off down the street.

	CUT TO:

111 INT BILLY’S HOUSE DAY

BILLY is throwing his little girl up in the air, HEATHER and his son stand by, smiling.

	CUT TO:

112 INT JANIE’S APARTMENT DAY

JANIE is talking to her friend while applying the finishing touches to her make-up.

FRIEND
So what’s on tonight you’re in such a hurry?

JANIE
I’m meeting a man.

FRIEND
(delighted)
Really? You’re going on a date?

JANIE
Yes, I’m going on a date. Satisfied?

FRIEND
It’s for your own good.

JANIE
(with an air of resignation)
Oh I suppose it is.

	CUT TO:

113 EXT JANIE’S FRONT DOOR DAY

JANIE skips down the steps in front of her apartment block and walks to the edge of the pavement. She looks up and sees ALEX on the other side of the street, looking back at her. They run into each other’s arms and embrace.

JANIE
(breathlessly)
Glad to be here?

ALEX
Well, it’s not my kind of town, really, but it’ll do.

	FADE TO:

114 INT TAXI NIGHT

DAVE is driving a taxi. He pulls up outside a pub. STELLA and HEEDCASE get in. They are both very drunk. The radio is on. A DJ speaks as he pulls away.

DJ
And tonight we’re talking about love and who better than Sir Cliff Richard to tell us what he thinks…

STELLA
You stupid fuckin’ wanker, you left the fuckin’ key in the door, ah canny fuckin’ believe you, ye fuckin’ drunken arsehole…

A pause allows us to hear CLIFF.

CLIFF
I think that when we talk about love, we are of course talking about our own relationships, the love we feel for our families…

STELLA
(hitting HEEDCASE)
Ah just canny fuckin’ believe you, the fuckin’ junkies next door’ll be away wi’ all the wains’s toys, fuck me they’ve probably took the tele an’ all…

Another pause.

CLIFF
There are times, when I see my family at Christmas or on special occasions, when I feel the greatest surge of warmth and happiness. To know that I belong, that our love for each other is unconditional and that it will always be there.

STELLA
(hitting him again, even harder)
You are a fuckin’, useless cunt, readin’ all them fuckin’ books. Ye didnae read a fuckin’ book on rememberin’ tae take the fuckin’ key oot the door, did ye?

Another pause.

CLIFF
And friends, maybe friends give us the most important love of all, because as friends we choose to love each other and somewhere along life’s road we find ourselves with just a few faithful old mates who we know are always there, wherever we are.

DAVE is smiling. We pan out slowly from the taxi as he drives through the town and disappears into the streetlights and the traffic and the rain.

THE   END