PLANTER’S ISLAND by Roland Reynolds
Woman – I’m ready to hear your dreams now.
IT IS NIGHT IT HAS BEEN NIGHT FOR MANY HOURS THIS NIGHT IS COLD
YELLOW EDIBLE EVAPORATING
THIS HAS BEEN A LONG NIGHT AND A SHORT DAY WILL FOLLOW IT
PLOTTER AT LAST HAS FALLEN ASLEEP HE HAS CROSSED HIS BODY AND
SPREAD HIMSELF OVER THE FOREST FLOOR OF LABOUR STRETCHED OUT
ACROSS THE FLOOR FROM UNDER HIS FORM HE BREATHES IN THE
DARKNESS ASLEEP AND DREAMING
LIGHT ENTERS THE HOUSE LIKE A PIG’S HEAD AND BEGINS TO SETTLE ON
THE SHADOWS
PLUMPING THE CUSHIONS
FOLDING SHIRTS
POLISHING LAKE ISLAND MIASMA
PLOTTER’S BED STANDS ACROSS THE ROOM. AS LIGHT SNUFFLES AND
TRIPS CURSING
A FIGURE STIRS RISES
IT IS A WHORE SHE STEPS OUT OF THE BEDCLOTHES AND NIGHT
CLOTHES AND DRESSES
DRESSED SHE APPROACHES THE FIGURE OF PLOTTER
1
She wants money which is fair so she prods him. He eventually wakes
startled changed
OUT OF BREATH
BREATHLESS
= HE’S BEEN
BURSTING
RUNNING
[FOR TOILET?]
He tries to slap away this new night terror but soon knows what she wants. He
finds what she wants, gives her what she wants, lets her loose on the ham-pink
world.
He drinks himself awake.
His mouth hangs open
[V/O:
Woman – What have you eaten today?
Plotter – 4 cafetieres of coffee, a bottle of whisky, half a bottle of sleeping
pills, 2 lagers and 2 paracetamol.
Woman – What have you eaten?
Plotter – Some prawns?]
Awake Plotter returns to his work. The papers the photos the maps the charts the
memos the accounts the facts the facts the facts
He is breathless
2
This puzzle is every superlative to solve – longest, hardest, largest,
heaviest, slowest, toughest
= it grinds him for an ibrik
It is now that he realises the phone has been ringing since before he woke. It is
muffled by clothes. Which clothes?? He goes searching as the phone has begun
ringing again.
He finds it. Stares. It stops as he stares. He waits but soon returns to work again. It
rings.
He picks up the receiver and places the heary bit to his ear, the speaky bit some
inches away from contact with his lips. He hears VOICE – Plotter.
The voice sends Plotter floating on his back through black water currents
He hangs up
Stares down
Phone rings. He’s forgotten he answered before. Picks up. Waits.
VOICE – We’ve been trying to get you. You’re coming in today. There’s a
crisis. We need you. Too much paper not enough hands. They said you were
breaking through with your work. But there’s no evidence. No evidence son.
You’re a good copper Plotter, we all know, but you’re no animal. You think
you’ll find those kids? You don’t have the nose. Don’t rely on your instincts.
That case has been taken on by the bureau and filed according to correct
3
procedure. We have a team on this investigation. It is not at this time your
responsibility. I’ll expect you in one hour. If you want to carry on, get a license.
I’ll be seeing you.
Click
Silence
} bare teeth
He puts the receiver back in its cradle
Plotter at a loss.
The images at his feet merge. The maps become trees branches. The words
indecipherable symbols of indeterminate origin. He tries to teach himself Sanskrit as
he runs his hands through the foliage. Fails.
He fixes a drink to clear his head. Looks again. His head is not clearer. Is it his head
that needs clearing or what is beyond his head?
It, whichever, is not clearer.
He goes to the bath, strips.
The phone rings. He ignores her.
He is old. His muscles ache. His bones are sore. He has slept little and with no
comfort. The clothes slip off his limbs like chains. They leave him unprepared for
freedom.
He puts a foot in the bath. The phone rings. He picks up the phone and brings it
beside the bath. While it rings he returns for a bottle and a glass and places them
beside the phone. He gets in pours a drink drinks.
4
He sinks. He washes in blue strips of rag and silks
The phone rings. He answers.
P – Cohen.
VOICE – I have eaten your children. I’ll be seeing you.
Click
Silence
} bare teeth
He holds the receiver to his ear
He is truly sinking. He reaches for gestures and expressions of grief and rage. He
wishes to demonstrate his responses he wishes to tear with his claws the blue flesh
from the sky’s ribs and to smash the moon with hammers and to swallow the sun
and burn memory from his throat in space gases.
But he drinks and sinks.
He releases the receiver and closes
Schiller is in his apartment. Nervy. Plotter dozes dazed in the bath.
S – You’re Plotter right? The private investigator.
P – I don’t know about so private if you come barging in here, what’s the big
idea?
S – I hear about you all over, about your record, about
P – Cut it.
S – The even failures
5
P – Everybody got a few, I’m no different
S – Right.
P – I’m a one unit agency and a one case unit. I got my case already. Sorry
not to be of use to you.
S – Now look here a minute
P – No you look. I’m busy son, you hear? So scram.
Schiller sees the piles of work. The film. Goes into the kids’ photos. Grubby hands.
S –This the work huh
P – Those are my children.
S – They can’t all be yours.
I see you, I see what kinda work you do but a collection like this could quite
easily be misinterpreted. If you know what I mean.
P – I didn’t catch your name first time out.
S – Schiller. Hampton Schiller.
P – What you after Schiller? Lay it straight.
S – Alright Plotter, I’ll lay it straight with you. Two years ago I met a woman
P – It always starts with a woman.
S – a top-draw investigative journalist. We were both recently divorced so we
hooked up for a while.
6
P – Dame got a name?
S – Sophie Tusk.
P – Sophie
S – You know her?
P – Know the name.
S – You should do. Her work is world famous. She’d got wind of some bad
business going down on an island to the east. Hearsay. The entire population
had been bumped off to lay the ground for converting the place into a huge
tourist holiday resort. Around 50 people poisoned. Allegedly.
P – How?
S – Through the fresh water supply. Sophie went over there 18 months ago to
investigate. We never heard from her again. Her father followed when it
seemed suspicious. I haven’t heard from him in over a year.
P – This is a vague story
S – Now wait a minute
P – but we can let that slide. So you’re getting active 18 months after your girl
disappears and a year after the old man sticks his neck out to get it broke.
You never contacted the police
S – I didn’t think anything of it
7
P – You’re lying. Or not saying something. Bring it out straight or I’ll it beat
out.
S – It’s too delicate to take to the police. I work for the tourist agency. A
prospect scout.
I manage potential properties of clients, with a team of researchers. The
island was a prospect I was working on at the time.
P – So that’s your angle.
S – I want the truth.
P – Working on at what time?
S – The time before the alleged activity. As I say, I want the truth
P – Who for?
S – My interest in this could be misrepresented
P – You don’t say.
S – so I came to you. As you might be more discrete.
P – Where is your interest?
S – With Sophie.
P – But as I see it you’ve come to me to see if it’s still a legitimate enterprise
for your company. 18 months is a nice latency period.
S – Hey now what are you suggesting?
8
P – I have two rules in this business. I won’t work a crooked piece of line. If
I’m going to this island it’s for what happened and not corporation benefit.
There’s somewhere between 2 and 50 bodies to be found by your count, all
with their own story.
Where is this place anyhow?
S – It’s called Planter’s. Planter’s Island. I got your ticket, the 4 o’clock train,
just in time for the last evening boat at half six. Don’t be late; there’s only one
boat.
P – I haven’t said I’m going yet.
S – Bring her back to me Plotter. There’s a lot in it for you.
P – And for you Schiller.
Schiller is gone. Plotter sinks in the warm swamp
A woman enters his room. His home. She carries a mop and bucket of water.
Begins to tidy Plotter’s work, arranging in piles the photos, documents, facts
and files. Eventually she may be able to mop the floor.
A man follows into her home, to interview her for the radio.
Interviewer – As we know, it’s a rare occurrence that Sophie Tusk would welcome
into her home a member of her own fraternity to discuss her work, her life, her
thoughts, findings, maybe even feelings. How do you explain to our listeners this
sudden change of heart Sophie?
9
Sophie – Well, first of all I’d like to take issue with your suggestion of a journalism
fraternity. I’m sure it’s not a purposeful damning of women who take on this
profession but it demonstrates to me the hangover of careless chauvinism that
pervades too much of our culture. That aside, I’m taking on quite a risky assignment
in the near future and since there has always been pressure put on me to make
some revelations about my life and methods I thought there could be no better time
than now.
I – Is there danger involved in your latest project then?
S – Yes.
I – Can you give us some insight?
S – No.
I – I’m sure our listeners will understand.
You fought your way into investigative reporting in an age where the job was a
masculine one, a role for the hard of heart and quick to draw, where the iron fist in
the silk glove was the only qualification required. How do you reflect on your
struggles?
S – Your summing up is reductive and inaccurate. I was met with challenges and
difficulties inherent to the job but never experienced direct conflict with a colleague.
I – Never?
S – Apart from the well publicised, no other instance.
I – Can you shed any light on that time?
10
S – No more than the press made available then. The details are still in the public
domain for anyone interested enough to find them.
I – If the darkness tells us to go to sleep and the light tells us to wake, why do you sit
up chatting to the darkness in those hours? Why do you stopper your ears to the
light?
S – How many times have you seen something that really made you wish you would
never see again?
I – There was a time when you took a break from your work
S – Soon after the problems at the paper.
I – That’s right.
S – I considered never coming back. It’s when I wrote my novel.
I – You just hung up the journo boots and popped out a novel?
S – Something like that. No, I’d been sitting on it for a while, working things out and
then the time was just right.
I – I found it quite autobiographical.
S – That’s a judgement I can’t really comment on.
I – You returned within a year
S – I took 14 months away.
I – What was it that got you going again? It must have been tough to find the
motivation.
11
S – True. It was my father.
I – Can you tell us a little of what he was like?
S – He’s still living, though less involved in radical academia than he was.
I – He’s a philosopher
S – Again, reductive. He’s a lot of things. He does think a great deal.
I – And write.
S – He’s a great man. Have you read any of his stuff?
I – No. Are you ever haunted by visions of your dead wife?
Sophie has been working between the interviewer’s line of sight and Plotter’s
head. She moves with the questions and the question is directed at Plotter.
P – I didn’t know she was dead before.
I – What about your children?
S – My children? Ha, they’re great too!
I – We can understand you may not wish to discuss what happened.
S – It feels like so long ago but it’s not clear in my head yet. Sorry
I – Don’t apologise. What about your husband?
S – Any marriage that could have survived that would have to be founded on
dishonesty.
I – What was it that made you finally leave him?
12
S – Didn’t he leave me?
We both spent all our time investigating, interrogating, looking into problems.
Eventually we realised we had just stopped looking at each other.
I – Too much of other people’s problems?
S – Yeah.
I – So you called it a day.
S – Yeah
I – He called it a day
S – Sure
I – It must have been a great burden on your work.
S – That’s not a surprising conclusion to come to, I can understand, but it wasn’t
really like that at all.
I – You fought through the pain?
S – Quite the opposite, I flourished naturally.
I – You felt the pressure taken off without the burden of responsibility?
S – Something like that. But my job is to see things that others don’t want to see, to
look into things that others refuse to look into. To confront problems. Sometimes you
need to have substantial problems of your own in order to release you or unleash the
hunter inside every reporter. I’m not sure.
I – You needed to avoid your problems?
13
S – I needed some problems to avoid.
I – These events must have affected you deeply, emotionally.
S – As I say, I can’t really comment on that.
I – Not even a yes or a no?
S – To what? If you’re seeking an admission that I felt something I can’t deny to you
that there were feelings inside me at the time. What those feelings were is different.
As she finishes working in this room she tips the bucket of water into the bath
where Plotter lies and they leave.
PLOTTER IS AWAKE.
He is wet. He washes He scrubs He rubs He douses himself his body in sodden rags
to rinse away the fog. He rises dries his body and dresses.
P – I’m rising I’m rising I’m rising
All his papers are neatly stacked and tucked away. He packs them in as many
suitcases as necessary – or packs as much as will fit into max. 2 suitcases – and is
ready to leave.
He stands by the sea. Waits
The ship captain finds him.
Captain – You’re here for the crossing.
Plotter – To Planter’s Island
Captain – ‘s the only crossing. You’re late.
14
Plotter – I’ve been here half an hour
Captain – It’s a late crossing tonight. These yours?
P – Yes.
C – Lug ‘em up then.
Captain hops unsteady into the boat.
P – This tin pot’s coming too?
C – Only boat’s gonna get you there tonight. Or any other.
Plotter loads himself up. They set sail. They rock in this sea
P – It’s rough no
C – Calm as I’ve seen it this season.
They sail. They rock.
P – You’re wondering why I’m here.
C – Know who you are. Know why you’re here. Though it’s none of mine to
know. Not many strangers pass this way. Not many regulars neither.
P – Get many ladies passing this way then?
C – I didn’t see no ladies
P – Or with their dads?
C – I didn’t kill no lady.
P – Pardon me?
15
C – I didn’t see a lady.
P – You must think this is an invasion.
C – Invasion of what
P – Of your privacy
C – Don’t bring your notions where they’re not needed. I sail. I don’t kill no
ladies.
P – That’s killing, again
C – Never sailed her here neither.
P – Her?
C – Never sailed none here. It’s beyond me how she got here dry.
P – You never saw her?
C – I seen the body, my own eyes, but I never seen that woman before. This
is the only route in and mine’s the only boat.
P – Maybe she flew
C – You getting wise with me?
P – easy sailor
C – I got eyes in front and ears on side and I know nothing of it. Beside, you
don’t got a sense of the island’s...facilities
P – You don’t believe she could have got there?
16
C – Not saying she couldn’t’ve but she didn’t. This is my part of the world and
a little and empty part. You can take my word or not. Never known a woman
to be here.
P – There’s fact against you
C – Ay there’s fact. There is fact
Silence
P – So what kind of town are we talking over here? Forty, fifty? Parson doctor
postman and publican? Teachers? Children?
C – Just the three of us these times.
P – Oh yeah? What kind of three?
C – You’ll see.
P – What happened to everyone else?
C – Else?
I don’t need conversation made. I live among breathing and calling creatures.
Not all of them have hearts. I’m happy with quiet.
Silence.
C – I’m happy with quiet.
We’ll be there soon. Planter’s is closer to the world than some of us’d like.
I’ll be glad when it’s quiet again.
17
Silence. Soon they land. Disembark. Rain.
C – You’ll be wanting the Chief. He’s at the station this time of night.
Turns to leave. Ropes.
P – Where’s the station?
C – Up this hill. When you reach the lamppost turn left.
Turns to have left.
P – Which lamppost?
C – Only the one. Turn left and straight on.
P – So who did you kill?
C – There was never no-one to kill.
Leaves to sleep.
Plotter turns to the hill into the wind and rain. Walks. He walks into the darkness. His
footsteps fall crisp on the steaming tarmac. Cold. Rain, wind, feet.
Walks.
A yellow dot appears on the horizon. As he ascends its dimensions increase. It forms
into a spot of light forming a pool in the dark. It transforms into a lamppost. He
makes for it. Warmed. As he approaches he sees a figure. It is a woman, dressed in
skirt, boots, holding an umbrella. The light obscures her upper half and face. Plotter
stops in front of her. Breathless he holds his breath.
Silence.
18
P – Aren’t you going to speak?
W – Ask me a question
P – You drunk the water round here?
W – You feel water on your face?
P – My face
W – If you drink this water you will thirst again. If you drink the water I have drunk
you’ll never thirst.
P – I’m looking for the police station
W – You’re meant to be looking for me.
P – Did you murder a woman named Sophie Tusk?
W – It’s to the left, straight down the slope.
P – Why am I looking for you?
W – This island is one hill up, one hill down no matter which direction you go.
P – Why?
W – Geography. They don’t believe I’m here.
P – Tell me about it. Why don’t you come where I can see you
W – You’ve seen this before.
P – Oh yeah? Feels like I’m getting somewhere
W – They’ve got you looking around me already
19
P – Don’t be like that
W – but they won’t drop you to me.
P – I’m getting there
W – What are you looking for?
P – For the result
W – No. What are you looking for? When you lie in your bath and cup the sodden
ashes of your life in your red raw hands, what are you looking for?
P – This is all immaterial. I heard a story about breeze blocks, and another about the
water in these parts. Something about a village wiped out with infection. We
speaking eye to eye sister?
W – Without facing the right direction you’ll see anything in mirrors
P – That work is an ongoing professional matter. This is unrelated. A once off
W – You shouldn’t drink so much
P – It helps me think straight.
W – It screws your mind
P – It also screws my mind. But it helps me think straight.
W – Does it help, does it bring you closer to them?
P – What do you know about it? Were there ever people here?
W – Were there any children to find?
20
P – Immaterial
W – Are they any less real? Your son?
P – I have plenty to follow
W – Which is how they can twist you
P – What do you know about it?
W – The cold slabs. The formaldehyde. The rubber gloves and overalls and boots
P – You want to get some sleep
W – Careful you don’t end up in chains. Or in the morgue
P – That’s where I’m headed anyway.
W – Mind which door you go in.
P – And you? Where you headed?
W – Dry off. There’s soap under your collar.
P – Will I see you again? I’d like to.
W – I’ll be changed
She’s gone. Breathless he breathes. He descends. He’s leaving the light
He reaches the police station in the dip. He reaches the police chief’s desk. He’s
soaking wet. The police chief drinks water and plays solitaire. A pig that bleeds from
the nose. Plotter waits. Not for ever.
Plotter – You alone?
21
Chief – It’s a game for one.
You just arrived?
P – The last boat in.
C – You’ve come a long way. We have quite a rarefied atmosphere here,
takes some getting used to.
P – I’m not hallucinating.
C – Of course. But you might rest.
P – You’re alone
C – Yes
P – on the island?
C – Ah. Almost.
P – How almost?
C – Apart from our captain – you must have met? – and myself there is a
coroner posted with us
P – To deal with dead bodies?
C – Sometimes.
P – Corpses
C – Only when there are dead people.
P – But recent times
22
C – Recently we have seen a drought of people among our sands and rain.
The only mating is of the sky and the sea and the earth,
P – That’s gotta be some threesome.
C – “Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost / with quivering continual thighs
invite / the thrilling rain the slender paramour / to toy with thy extraordinary
lust”
P – Some dead guy say that?
C – Wrote, yes
P – “(the sinuous rain which rising from thy bed / steals to his wife the sky and
hour by hour / wholly renews her pale flesh with delight)
C – What was it you said brought you here again?
P – Business.
C – We always welcome business.
P – Police business.
C – Inside my jurisdiction?
P – Perhaps a little outside your experience.
C – Careful sunshine.
P – It’s a private matter. I was hired independently of the police
C – To investigate?
23
P – Something like that
C – Us?
P – Something like that.
C – You have a licence
P – Yep
C – Can I see it?
P – Nope.
C – I hope we can co-operate
P – I’m not sure how much co-operation I’m gonna need.
C – while you’re inside my jurisdiction.
P – I certainly wouldn’t want to tread on any toes.
C – I can see you give away less than you know. Today. Why don’t you go
sleep and we’ll pick up in the morning. See the coroner then.
P – I saw her. On my way here.
C – I doubt it. Coroner looks after the bones around here.
P – You know who I mean
C – Your wife
The coroner’s a man. Who else would you mean
P – Something happened on this piece of earth
24
C – There’s a hotel nearby, halfway down the hill the other way, past the
lamppost, left.
P – Right. Lamppost, left.
C – Yes. But no-one works there anymore so leave the money with me.
P – Money?
C – For the night.
Pause. Hands him £40.
C – 20 more, discounted for you of course.
Pause. Hands him £20.
C – I’ll fetch you in the morning.
P – Anymore?
C – I’m sorry?
P – No-one works there anymore?
C – That’s right. Not anymore. Not since my father was a boy. Or before
P – Before he was a boy?
C – he was born.
Plotter is out.
25
Enters the rain. He heads uphill with his bags. The lamplight floods out of the
distance. As he approaches he sees a figure. Dressed the same as the woman,
umbrella raised. Plotter reaches the figure.
Plotter – You’re still here.
The umbrella lowers. A man appears in the light, dressed as a woman, wig, lipstick,
blue cheek paint, beauty spot.
Made-up Man – What crime you lookin’ for honey?
P – How d’you know I’m in the business?
M – You misunderstand the question babe. Goin’ somewhere warm?
P – You’re not who I expected to find
M – Lookin’ for Doris Day?
P – Not quite
M – Blondes don’t come cheap
P – Depends where you’re from.
M – Sour old cane ain’t ya?
P – I’m looking for the hotel.
M – Me too sugar, care to direct me?
P – Is that sugar cane?
M – Quit talking French.
26
P – I’m not looking for moon-faced broads under the lamplight, honey.
M – No?
P – No.
M – You looking for a couple of children under the lamplight, sailor?
P is approaching
-
Children?
M grabs him as he approaches, overpowers the paralyzed mind, smears his
rank body with the heady rain and his own sweat and stale kisses
M – Have you ever walked through the midnight streets little policeboy,
trawling for hookers like slippery fish?
P is mumbling, he is remembering
M – Did you ever see her under the orange glare, the teenage girl in the short
skirt who you vaguely recognised from a half-forgotten nightmare of indolent
fantasy? Did you kiss her little neck while her brother, your son, rubbed his
little hands and shook his little cap for your fat change?
She-he is molesting Plotter now at full tilt, driving him down
M – Didn’t you even when we were married [P – Married?] crawl through the
gutters of despair in your hard-on rage, didn’t you seek out and smell out the
red-cheeked dead-eyed children you lost in the park? Didn’t you come home
to our marriage bed sweating with pig oil for a good night blowjob? Don’t you
feel guilty? Don’t you feel guilty!?
27
Plotter is falling fast, curled up dog against the pounding earthquake night
P – I feel guilty! I feel guilty! Guilty guilty guilty!!!!!
He’s shouting and crying out in his sleep on his hotel room floor.
Night enters with crowbars, probes with tyre iron. He battles with his skin lashing like
spiders in a pool of light while the whore enters, stands over him, laughs hysterically
at the struggling form.
And now Plotter is laughing and now the man-whore is transforming while Plotter
bellows into a new man, imprisoned, old.
Father – Did you bring them? Did you bring them? Wine? Oranges?
Sausages? Bellows? Tallow candles? Biros? Syringes? Copper pots?
Rattles? Kettles? Cork screws? Saliva? Mobility inhibitors? Thumbs? Gums?
Picks? Money? Cigarettess??
Plotter – You’ve been here years.
Father – Months. Days. Hours. I don’t know. You see, there’s an eye in the
ceiling that knocks pieces out of my brain at a rate of 48 pieces per second so
I was counting the pieces piece by piece to begin with where I should have
counted second by second and then multiply by 48 or by 48 by 60 or by 48 by
60 by 60 or 48 by 60 by 60 by 24 or 48 by 60 by 60 by 24 by 7 or 48 by 60 60
24 7 52 or otherwise 48 60 60 24 365 but then what year is it and then how
many days in this year and then how many years has it been and then how
many more years will it be so I can really just calculate how long I WILL be
here and count backwards until I reach how long I HAVE been here and then
28
I’ll know definitively that this is not an infinite extension of my incarceration at
the rate of pieces removed ever decreasing in mass to permit perpetual
removal without ever finishing off the lot but rather this is a finite process by
which they can divide my brain by no other dimension than the original.
schism I suppose.
P – You’re Sophie’s father.
F – You know my Sophie?
P – In a sense.
F – I came for Sophie. To this place. She vanished.
P – Did you find her?
F – Haven’t you been listening?
P – Don’t get hysterical!
F – I tried to dig her from the rubble of waste and destitution this island has
become. There are too many bodies here. Too many. Hers is a holy body, a
sacred compact of blood and flesh and waste
P – Did you find her?
F – Do you know how many tonnes of waste your body produces a year?
P – I don’t.
F – Neither do I. But she produced more than most. A fabulous writer
29
I found her hand. It thrust its own mouth way out of a heave of the mutilated. It
breathed. It was yellow. Green. Fat. Crusty. I tried to drag it for days but I
couldn’t touch it, I wouldn’t touch. Then they put me here. To make me a fat
green yellow body. Maybe that’s what I’ve always been.
P – Where is this pile?
F – They moved her. Pulled her out of the wreckage. Put her with a living man
who eats lives. A pervert. Find him. Find her.
Plotter wrestles the dog off him in heaving light and wrecks his clothes on the rocks
of his body. Curls up, dog, to wait. Eyes heavy he droops. He waits, drooping.
Waiting, he droops. He slips. He falls away from waiting to sleep. He sleeps.
It
is
morning.
The
police
chief
stands
over
him.
Waiting.
Plotter
is
[dreaming/sleeping]. He wakes.
Chief – How do you like your bacon?
Plotter – Good.
Chief – How are you on the facts?
P – A woman died here.
C – She was killed. This is a murder investigation. How?
P – was she killed?
C – With a breeze block. Repeated blows to the skull, face and neck.
P – There’s a suspect. Her lover.
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C – A researcher for a major landside tourist agency. We don’t think so.
P – Not a suspect?
C – We don’t like him for it.
P – Maybe he fits the profile
C – He’s not on the island.
P – He was allowed to leave?
C – He was never on the island.
P – Never?
C – So he cannot have killed her
P – Except he was here
C – He was nP – He told me so himself.
C – Since the woman in question has never been on the island either we may
not rule out his involvement. Perhaps.
P – She is here. And the body was not brought here or floated here. She died
here.
C – What does that imply?
P – It implies nothing. States as fact that she was killed here.
C – Your logic?
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P – If she died here, and she was murdered, she must have been murdered
here.
C –Not necessarily fact.
P – Got a quotation to back you up?
C – And so you posit that this lover
P – His name’s Ham Schiller.
C – this Mr. Schiller was present on the island at the time of the murder?
P – Not by his own account. But why not possible. Nobody present on the
island could be discounted entirely.
C – Do you include me in your calculations Mr. Plotter? Will you be routing
into my private activities and movements?
P – I’m not in the game of casting aspersions
C – Then wind them in.
P – but we need to focus on what’s in front of us.
C – Then perhaps we focus on what is in front of us. The evidence. Perhaps I
better brief you on what we here expect of your investigation.
P – Which is?
C – Find the evidence that backs up the result.
P – Which is?
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C – This is for you to determine. No?
P – Like who on the island knew Ham Schiller
C – Wind them in
P – who wasn’t here as we all know. Ham Schiller the godsend and
transformer of this wretched plot of land.
C – You seem unable to differentiate the point from that that is beside the
point Mr. Plotter
P – Just Plotter will do chief, let’s not get formal on each other now.
C – so I suggest that it is you who must find focus in your working method.
P – Will do chief.
C – And in your attitude.
P – Attitude’s part of the hired package.
C – A package that could have done well to remain on the mainland.
P – But all this does so intrigue me.
C – I am glad to satisfy your personal curiosities Mr. Plotter.
P – Don’t trouble yourself chief.
C – You mentioned not treading on toes Mr. Plotter
P – But you got such pretty toes chief, I couldn’t stop now
I would like to see the body.
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C – The coroner said he’d be ready at first light.
P – Perfect. What time is it now?
C – It’s nearly sundown.
P – You didn’t wake me in time
C – She’s not going anywhere.
Plotter assembles himself. By the time he’s ready the Chief has gone. He sets off for
the coroner’s. He arrives from the wind.
There’s a table covered in a white cloth. The outline of a body beneath the cloth. He
smoothes the cloth with his hand, waiting for the coroner to arrive. The cloth moves,
the figure beneath stirs beneath his hand. The cloth reveals a young woman
beneath. She is awake as she rises. She rises to him.
She is on her feet before him. She tries to touch him and he tries to stop her.
Reaching and swatting, reaching and swatting. She stops/he stops her.
Plotter – Why don’t you lie down and be quiet.
Woman – I haven’t said a word.
Coroner. Finds them. His corpse should be dead. He begins trying to make her lie
down. She tries to make him dance with her. Plotter watches the struggle. As they
dance:
Coroner – You can just see it can’t you I mean put yourself there You can just
see it It’s that black storm night and the sea howls and she’s there all on her
own and she imagines it’s only her and the sea But she’s anything but alone
34
because she’s waiting for a man She’s got a date with a breeze block And
here it comes the shadow on the harbour steps or the crunch of gravel or the
squeak of a gate and she knows She knows And he enters her nightmare of
suspicion and he takes her as maybe she reaches to defend herself or take
his picture or write his name in blood but she’s not bleeding yet Or else she
recognises him an old lover or friend or brother back from sea and war and he
comes in and bows to her and she bows and he blows her away with a rock
from heaven Concrete that inspiration of the gods because it really is pretty
useful huh And he lugs her sopping body out of the eye of night and the rain
into the cottage He locks the doors bolts the windows He lights a fire or a
cigarette or turns on the telly He’s bloody and panting and ashamed He needs
to breathe but these clothes are throttling him He tears off the bloody tatters
and tosses them into the sea and hurls after them howls and cries of fear and
shame because he can’t be heard but by birds
But I haven’t introduced myself
He slowly wins. The struggle dies down. The woman slowly dies, watching planter.
The sheet is raised to cover her chest, stopping below the neck.
Coroner – You must be the officer from the mainland.
Plotter – Ok wise guy, show me the dame.
Sheet’s pulled back.
What’s the deal?
C – The initial diagnosis is that Ms. Tusk died of severe head trauma
35
P – Say, you might make a fine neurologist in another life. If we got more than
one.
C – The subject was attacked and beaten with a breeze block, sustaining
substantial damage to the face, neck, shoulders and cranium.
P – Too bad. She must have been a great looker. All respect.
C – Well we should get started on the paperwork. There’s a lot to tackle.
P – Paperwork?
C – We can close the case.
P – Now wait a minute sonny, on whose authority?
The coroner feeds Plotter a pill which he takes docilely. It takes effect gradually.
C – Yours. We know who did it, you make the arrest, case closed.
P – It ain’t that simple buster, I’m calling the shots around here and I don’t say
it’s closed. Where were you the night of the murder?
C – You’re not bringing me into this!
P – Listen here you two-bit knuckle headed dime twitcher, I got a head full o’
nails I’m looking to share and I might start hammering some faces around
here, unnerstand?
C – Not quite
P – I want some answers! Where were you the night of the 15th?
C – I was here, with the patients.
36
P – Patients? Can any of them corroborate this?
C – This is a coroner’s office, how can they corroborate?
W – Give him a break.
P – You stay outta this.
W – He was here with me the whole time.
P – I highly doubt that
W – Oh, yeah...
C – I was here with the chief, alright? It was me and the chief. We had a drink
and played solitaire until the morning.
P – Solitaire’s a one man’s game
C – He played I drank.
P – And what if you two are in on this together?
C – What about the boat man, think he did her in with an oar too?
P – I’m not discounting him. He may be more connected to this than you think.
In fact I smell conspiracy in this place, a blood red one at that. It reeks louder
than the armpits of a Swedish sailor
C – You’re out of your mind
P – The opposite. Now I want you to organise a little party for me see. You get
those little boys together and we’ll have a little meet down at the scene.
37
C – Wait one minute!
P – No you wait! Be there or I’ll be coming for you. This sweet earth’s nor so
high nor so low as can hide you from me. Now beat it, scram!
The pill the coroner has given Plotter is beginning to take effect. He is in the hotel
room while the coroner and the corpse still hold him hostage in the morgue.
The coroner and the woman strip Plotter to his pants, put him in a patient’s overall
and sit him on the slab.
The woman makes him up.
The coroner forges a mountain of bodies.
P – I got the feeling these bums are trying to do the run around on me.
W – You’re so suspicious
P – That’s my work. I look where others are afraid to look and I see what
others are afraid to see.
W – You’re a suspicious nit-picking overworked child who’s so terrified to look
in the mirror he’ll stick anybody’s business on the end of his nose before his
own.
P – Fix me a drink wise guy.
W – You think the captain killed her?
P – Did he?
W – The coroner? The chief? You got some funny ideas.
38
P – Then who? Who? You’re holding all the cards missy but I ain’t doing this
for me, it’s all for you. You! So cut me some slack and give me a name.
W – Tit for tat. You tell me about your kids and I might tell you his name.
P – What is there to know?
W – Take it easy fella. Have a seat.
P – I’ll stand.
W – Have it your way.
Well?
P – Well what?
W – I’m waiting.
P – There’s not much to tell. Two little girls, my little girls, we’re out in the
park, see?, me and my girls. Taking a walk. Then all of a sudden they’re
gone. I don’t know how it happened
W – You looked away.
P – I don’t know how it happened. But they went. Just gone. I’ve been
searching for years. 10 years, 20, I dunno
W – Two years.
P – Alright, maybe two, maybe 2½, maybe 3. But they never came back.
W – Your wife?
39
P – Skipped town. Skinned my back. I left the force. Set out on my own.
W – Then...
P – What?
Then I got a call. One night in the bath. A man told me he ate my children. I
believed him he came from nowhere.
P – Why are you laughing?
W – Is that what he said?
P – Who?
W – What about your son?
P – WHO?
W – This man, is that what he said?
P – My son? What son? I
W – I have something to show you
They are in the crime scene. 47 victims of poison, acid burn and mutilation fill space.
Plotter meets his son. Struck full-force with a breeze block he falls, gravity rises up a
wave and crashes him to the rocks of the earth. Darkness upon his eyes.
Plotter speaks But the words don’t come out. His mouth has been mutated by pain – his teeth lash
the words as they fail to fall out into the world.
40
Plotter is bound in a chair. Bloody. Disfigured.
The boy turns on the radio.
The boy dances.
Dances.
The boy is many figures.
The many figures of the boy approach the confined officer
The figures set about the torture of Plotter.
Plotter shrieks as his world becomes black nothing. Laughs. Screams. Laughs.
Teeth
END
41