----------------------

Thanks for coming.

I like to think I'm helping someone somewhere to see better. It makes the day pass, and makes me almost glad I'm here, on this side of the wall. Which is funny really because I'm paying Mark Smith Associates enough to get me to the other side.

And it's funny really, me asking for a visitor, when I've got Ishmail.

Last night again, calling out. I listen to it most nights; sometimes I wake him with a cuppa and let him talk himself back to sleep. Twenty… still a tender age. Hardly say boo to a goose. Anyway, Muslim and 'vulnerable' and so… he's in here with us.

Just tempted by the wrong Alpha Romeo. Tried the door  and Mr Geoff Sharp, heavy right wing local parish councillor, demolition expert and ex-body builder, jumps out and grabs him. Ishmael gets the shock of his life, as he finds himself in Geoff's favourite citizen's arrest arm lock. But he still notices that Mr Sharp's supposed babe magnet seems to have worked for him, because sitting in the back seat, apparently not discouraged by the glint of Geoff's gaudy fat gold wedding ring, is, says Ishmael, a young woman.

Now for twenty year-old Ishmael, "young" is likely to be younger than the age of any girl that we might prefer to imagine Geoff's heavy body lumbering over.

By the tired look of her, she's of a professional nature, and therefore likely to need more incentive than a blatantly over-priced status object to entice her to spend any more time with Explosive Geoff (as we've come to call him) than she has to. She certainly looked unlikely to be able to accept his Gold Card.

Whilst the police made their unhurried way to the scene, our heroine (and I use the word advisedly) apparently made her excuses and left the scene on foot. Ishmael says she first demanded payment but Geoff refused on the grounds that he had been interrupted, and told her to get lost. She'd made some uncomplimentary remarks about his penis, and when Ishmael and she started giggling together, Old Explosive went off, and broke Ishmael's wrist.

Anyway, Ishmael had been on a suspended, so he was in straight away. I told him he should have used his knowledge of Mr Sharp's night-time habits to exert some influence but he said that being inside suited him for a while, until he got his head together and his direction straight. It saved a lot of daily bother, he said. Which it does. Not having to think too much in here if you don't want to is certainly alluring, and I indulged myself a lot when I first came in. Took it easy for a while, and just tried to adjust. Accept my lot.

But then I got to feeling like I needed to talk to someone… independent.

 --------------------------

Two people are sitting at a dining-table. A  man in his 30's/40's, and a woman who is his mother. He is marking a pile of school books, and she is eating a fried egg on toast. There is also some haddock on her plate but it is untouched. There's a cup of coffee next to her.

Augustus:  
(To the audience) A large number of people find themselves asking me questions about my mental health. I say to them, 'Do I look ill?' They say, 'Well no, it's just that you've got such a funny way with you, haven't you.' I say, 'Well I'm not here to confirm your point of view. I feel perfectly fine thank you, except after each time someone like you say something like that. Then I feel awful.'

Jean: (pushing her plate away, and without looking up.)
'Have you seen someone?'

Augustus: That was my own Mother! After her poached egg last Tuesday. I said, 'Seen someone? No! I've been too busy poaching your eggs. At least since Ralph died. It's not as if I haven't got enough fish to fry, thank you.

(pushes plate back in front of her)

Augustus:    Now eat your haddock. I've got books to mark.'

(Notices the book and pen Jean has and tries to take the book from her. She resists and this creates a brief tug of war, until he finally wrests it from her.)

Augustus:    (To audience) I caught her flicking through one last week, marking it herself. (looks at it) Covered in red pen, it was.

Jean:      (Waving her pen at him)'You're not supposed to aggravate me. I've had a heart attack.'

Augustus:  (Snatching pen back) 'Yes well, you're not supposed to cover Timothy Brent's book with your frustration, but you have. I'll have to Tippex that lot; or say I've lost it.'

Jean:      Don't you teach them spelling these days? That boy's writing's atrocious. In my day…

Augustus   In your day? In your day you would have beaten him. In your day…let's face it mother. In your day violence was always the answer, whatever the question. Now drink your coffee.'

Jean:      Doctor Aistrop said I was to avoid caffeine.'

Augustus:  Doctor Aistrop said you were to avoid interfering in other people's lives, but you don't. Now why don't we put Countdown on and let me get back to earning a living?

Jean:      It's not the same since Richard Branson died. That whatsisname is laughable. Should have stuck to the football.

Augustus:  Well look at Carol Vorderman instead, but please, will you let me get on!? Lesley'll be here soon.

(pause)

Jean:      He'll not turn out right with a name like that.

Augustus:  (with a big sigh) Look. It's a good name mum.

Jean:      It's a girls name.

Augustus:  It was your father's name.

Jean:      Like I said, a bloody girls name. Why do you have to call him that?

Augustus:  Well I didn't know you'd end up living with us back then did I. And anyway, Chris liked it?

Jean:      And where's Chris?

Augustus:  Not here.

Jean:      Exactly. So?

Augustus:  So what?

Jean:      So now's your chance, Augustus. To put your foot down.

Augustus:  Your foot, you mean.

Jean:      To change his name.

Augustus:  He like's his name. He's eleven.

Jean:      Yes well, it's a girl's name. Apricot.

Augustus:  What?

Jean:      Apricot, seven letters. Tropical. Eight. Pass me that dictionary. That Desmond Tutu won't have got it.

Augustus:  Why don't you write in?

Jean:      I would if I thought they'd read it.

Augustus:  They read everything, mum.

Jean:      They read what they want to hear, pass that dictionary.

Augustus:  Like someone else I know.

Jean:      What was that?'

Augustus:  I said you're coffee's getting cold.
    (To audience)
            It's days like this I feel like packing it all in, putting her in a home, taking my flute and flying off to Japan or somewhere, disappear into the bush.

Jean:     Well at least they keep you busy. Keep you off that tin whistle of yours.

Augustus:    A flute mum. You know that.

Jean:      What does it matter? You can't play it, anyhow.

Augustus:   I can play it mum. I just never get a chance to, what with Timothy Brent, your poached eggs, and Tippex. Here. (Picks up sugar bowl and spoon, trying to put more sugar in coffee) Let me put a little more sugar in your coffee. You like it sweet.

Jean:          Doctor Aistrop said I was to keep off the sweeties.

Augustus:  Oh mum. Come on, a little bit of fun does you  good.

Jean:      You've changed your tune. You were always lecturing me about my health.

Augustus:     (To himself) That was before you moved in here.

Jean:      What was that?

Augustus:    I said you're such a funny old dear. I just want you to enjoy your food. I mean life is also about pleasure, isn't it?

Jean:      But I'm diabetic.

Augustus:    I read an article the other day. Said that Diabetes is a state of mind.

Jean:      Are you joking!? You try screaming that at me next time I'm writhing around on the floor, me eyes rolling about. See how far it gets you.

Augustus:    You're so melodramatic, Mum. (pause) Your eyes never roll about. They just… bulge.

Jean:      Well that's bad enough isn't it. I'm not going to be reading any of your articles with those eyes am I?

Augustus:    I'll read it to you before they bulge. Before bed.

Jean:      I'll never sleep. You've overstimulated me.

Augustus:    I'll play you some flute.

Jean:      Now you are trying to kill me!

Augustus:    Don't be silly mum. It's relaxing.

Jean:      Not when your mother used to beat you while listening to James Galway it isn't. Pass me that bowl.

Augustus:    Well I didn't know that when I took it up, did I? I was in Japan, living with Chris. Remember.

Jean:     (Spooning quite a bit of sugar into coffee.) I'd sooner forget, thankyou.

Augustus:     (Under breath) Soon enough mum.

Jean:      What was that?

Augustus:    I said one spoon's enough, mum.

Jean:      (Nodding toward tv) There you go. Apricot. Tropical. (pause) Trick!? Trap! Croak! Ha! Why do they bother with him. He'll not have got those if it weren't for his girly-friend in the dictionary.

Augustus:    He's supposed to be dashing. Suave.

Jean:    Well why doesn't he get on with it and dash off somewhere. (Drinking from coffee) He's not got my eyes on stalks. And "suave!?" I like a man with a brain.
(pause)

Augustus:    Like Uncle Pete, you mean.

    (pause)

Jean:    Are we to bring that up every tea time?

Augustus:    Well, it was you who was telling me the sort of men you like. (beat) Apart from Dad.
(pause)

Jean:    Your father forgave.

Augustus:    How can you tell? He had a stroke when he heard. He couldn't move, or speak.

Jean:    I told you, he squeezed my hand, just before… he went off.

Augustus:    Dashed off? (Beat) Anyway, the doctor said it was just… "a final spasm".

Jean:    The doctor was a homeosexual Pakistani. Am I to be usurped by a homeosexual Pakistani? In this day and age? I tell you, he squeezed.

Augustus:     If you say so mum.

Jean:     I do say so.

(Pause)

Jean:     (Quieter) I do say so.

(pause)

Augustus:     The welding talk was it?

Jean:    What?

Augustus:    You said you like a man with a brain. Was it the welding conversation, then? With Uncle Pete?

Jean:    Look…

Augustus:    Enjoy a bit of welding do you?

Jean:    Look I don't have to sit here and…

Augustus:    No you don't.

Jean:    To sit here and be squeezed by my own son.

Augustus:    Quizzed. Well. There's nobody left to do it is there? Uncle Pete didn't hang around long after did he? Tyne and Wear suddenly looked very attractive, apparently.

Jean:    It was a golden opportunity. He said.

Augustus:    Oh yes. Not to be missed. Chance in a life-time.
Jean:    At least he's still in the country. At least I stuck by my boy.

Augustus:    Clung to him, you mean.

Jean:    At least… at least I… know. That… that he forgave me.

(pause)

Augustus: That's nice. (Pause) Drink your coffee.

Jean:    Oh, it's the numbers. I can't stand the numbers. Get off. (Uses remote to turn off tv)

(Long Pause)

Augustus: (almost to himself) I hear James Galway's at the Barbican this week.

Jean:    He was always on the drink that man.

Augustus:    (Louder) No. The Barbi-can. It's a… concert hall. He's very popular. They made him a knight of the realm you know.

Jean:    Gave me some bloody nights to remember.

Augustus:    What about forgiveness, mum? You seem happy enough to receive it. Isn't it time, to forgive and forget?

Jean:    Forget? I shall never forget. Why should I forget? How can I forget when my own son turns traitor on me, torments me with that, that blasted musical bludgeon he keeps blowing on.

Augustus:    I wasn't to know. I wasn't to know you were to move in. I wasn't to know…the past. I'm not giving it up now mother. I'm good at it. At last I'm good at something, and I thought, at last, you'd be pleased. You'll just have to… You'll just have to… forgive. Like others have. Like dad did. (pause) Apparently.

Jean:    He did!

Augustus:    Then you can.

Jean:    It's not the same!

Augustus:    It is the same. Trust me!

Jean:    (Mounting anger) It's not. You don't know. Your own mother!? (pause) First her, then you. I've taken enough beating in my time, and am I not allowed any peace. Any respite, from this… torment?

(long Pause)

Augustus: Drink your coffee mother. (pause) And put Countdown back on. (turns on tv with remote) The numbers'll be finished by now.

Jean:    (Looking away from tv) It's not the same… without… Richard. (Long pause. Looks up at tv).

Jean:    Murderer.

Augustus:    What?

Jean:     Murderer! Eight letters! Drummer. Seven. (pause) Pass me that dictionary.

---------------------------

The funny thing with Billy is that he doesn't seem to mind at all. Well we haven't actually talked about it yet, but he must have guessed.
Whether he has or no, he's up there like a rabbit up a hole sometimes, but everything seems to be standing up to the test. That's what I see him as. A test drive. Just to make sure the equipments all running smoothly. And then, when we've passed the MOT, I'll take it for a real test drive, really open her up.
Mind you, Mike did a good job. At that price he should have. Sold it to me straight away with that catalogue of his. Like choosing oysters in a restaurant.
I said to him, 'But Mike, will I be self-lubricating?' He says, 'Will you heck, Jenny. It's a lifetime of KY for you, but you'll have a nice time if you stay off the stallions.'
Well that's all right then. Billy's more of a goat.
I said to him, 'Are you digging for gold or something, James?' He said, 'There's something about you Moneypenny. I just can't get enough.'
I'd been reading "From Russia with Love" to him, and we'd started using pet names by now. Turns out later he'd never had a father of his own. Never met him anyway.
I think it was then I realised that he hadn't. Realised I mean, about my op.      

I'd just persuaded him to read just one paragraph or two - page 212 - where Rosa Klebb tries to stab James with her switchblade shoe, and as I stroked his bald head and listened to him stumble over Ian's award-winning adrenalin-hit prose, I had visions of those books I may never read to Tim. All those swimming pools we'll not go to.

Scene 5  of The Well (working title)

Jack:            (To audience) When you're down somewhere cold and dark, there ain't nothing better than to have someone with you… who's warm.

That's the only word I can fink of for Mark. Warm. Warm hearted. A voice that was warm, like slow pouring honey.

Like having your own personal sun down there with you. Although in truth I was more a son to him, the way he treated me. Led me, showed me. What he knew, what he'd seen, and how to make a holy place, holier, just by listening to it, and giving it back some of what it gave off.

Well**:                        (breathing, voice, whispers) Jack.

Mark:              You don't have to see 'em to believe in 'em, Jack. But it helps.

Jack:            (To audience) He would listen. He'd take me down, and we'd sit there, for hours sometimes, just listening… to the drips,  the frogs, or the sounds of the wind above creaking the tree roots.

Well**:            (very faint breathing, voice, whispers, effects). Be grateful, Jack, for the roof over your head…

Mark:            (To audience) And we'd just lean, put out the candle, close the top lid…if there was one, and lean, on the ladder, and listen, in the dark.  (pause)

Jack:            Ain;t gonna see nothing this way, Mark.

Mark:            Hearing's best, Jack (pause) and what's real the eye often don't see anyway. (pause) It's a good way, to hear the voice, of the water.

Of the earth. The best way, to get sensitive, and feel… what she really wants.

Well**:            breathing, voice, whispers, effects: drips, frogs, or the sounds of the wind above creaking the tree roots).

Jack:            (To audience) All I ever heard was those drips, the creak of them roots,  the croaks of them frogs. But in the night, as time went on, my dreams… sometimes they'd show me things. A shape here, or a symbol there. Next day I'd take a sketch to him….

Mark:            (looking at "sketch") That's it. Come on Jack. This one's yours.

Jack:            (To audience) And we'd go back down whatever sacred well we'd been working that week, and make it, in the wall, in some deep forgotten place that no other living human would ever see, probably.

Well**:            (breathing, voice, whispers, relief).

Mark:            Course, we must do the other work n'all. The repairs, the stuff webeen asked to do…

Jack:            Or haven't. (To audience) I wasn't just apprentice to a…crazy man. He knew his work, and he was respected for it, or hated…

PassingKeeper:    (welcoming) Mark! And who's this then?

Jack;            All the Holy well keepers knew him, by sight…  Those that had keepers, (pause…long enough for Mark to find a sleep) And somehow, each day, he just knew where to show up.

Mark:            (waking from sleep) Come on Jack. It's Madron for us.

Jack:            And we'd begin the 5 day tramp, down into the west country, to Tredinnick. (pause, light shift, arrival)  And sure enough…

Well**:            (breathing, whispers, pain)

Mark:            Oh. (long pause) She's in a right mess…

Jack:            Vandalised again.

Mark:            Poisoned, Jack. Like they do? And look here, Bricked up again,

Jack:            Look. Up against the back of the church. A pile o' bricks, same colour… I … those bloody…

(Silence)

Mark:            They don't care, who knows. Come on, let's get at it.

Jack:            And after a while, and a bit of Mark's touch…

Well**:            (breathing, voice, whispers) Open again. Clear and flowing. Ready to drink from.

Jack:            And inside, deep inside, we'd have… healed her, a little…

Well**:            Worked on my insides.

Jack:            Written soothing words…In symbols old Mark would teach me, or things one of us would dream up. Pictures, runes. Sometimes, we'd even sing a little song, down there. And they always sounded good, down there.

7 years I was with him.

Well**:                        Short years.

Mark:              Short years..

(Silence)

Jack:            Course, I never saw one myself, in all those years. A knucker, or a neck or a naiad or a nymph or whatever you wanna call 'em.

Mark:            (to Jack) Yes. I've seen 'em. (pause) They've even spoken with me.

Jack            (To audience) But not me.

Mark:            Course, the churches hates 'em.'

A Priest:            (from pulpit) These are demons, These are dragons. These… are evil spirits.

Mark;            Frightened of 'em, the power they have, can give a person.  Plain jealous. Wanna feel… needed.

Priest:             (Speaking to a colleague) No, no. If there's a little divinity… thing, at every spring, a goddess at every well, every drop of water…

Mark:            Too local, you see.

Priest:            Too democratic. What if everyone has their own little angel, on tap. Where would the Good Lord be then?  Mmmmm?

Colleague:            Out of a job, your worship.

Priest:             Precisely. What if everyone had their own little fairy-god, right there, in their very own…tears,

Mark:            Or for that matter, their very own…(indicates down to his own groin)? 

Priest:            But I'll say no more.

Mark:            But they did. They said plenty. Still do!

Priest:            (from pulpit) Dragon's. Wyrms. Demons. Devils! And ANYONE who consorts with them…witches! Devil worshippers. (pause) Heed you all the Good Saint George. Slayer of the dragon.

Mark:            But they ain't no dragons, an even if they were, they're a damn sight more… holy, divine … than any fat gold-covered bishop. They ain't demons. An if they are, then… well, demons is my friends, and I don care who hears it. (pause)

And they stole…the church.

Well**:             The sacred places,

Mark:             The wells, the springs, even the stories. Made them their own. Even the dates in the callenar! (pause) Plopped their own festivals, churches, their own fat stolen stories right bang on top of what was here before, and squashed 'em, Flat.

Mark and Well**:             (in unison) Twisted and broke the old myths.

Mark:            Vandalised 'em. Worse than enny merry lads on a night out. Smashed 'em. For good. (pause) Ain't many like us, Jack, knows the past. Knows what's underneath all their big showy churches. An' they're still at it today. You try and open your mouth…

Priest:              These are the devil worshippers…

Mark:            That's why I work quiet, like the fairies 'emselves. Work quiet, keep 'em 'appy, and rebuild their little houses, their worlds. (pause) When I can.'

(pause)

 Jack:                So…what are they like then, Mark, the real ones?'

Mark:            Jack, they ain't nothing like anything you've ever seen in your life. (breath) Course. It depends. Some of them are like just little people. Some are bigger than others. (pause) There was this one, came up behind me one September evening, just as the sun's bedding down for the night, and she just… whirred, whispered in my ear. Wings like… fragile.. you know, and such a quiet little voice.

 Jack:                (Pause) What's it say?

Mark & Well**:            (in unison) Make it nice for me.

Mark:            That was it.  Just "Make it nice for me", and then she flitted off, Like… a leaf on the wind, and that was that, (beat) she was gone.'

 -------------------------

2 Love poems

Understand, my love, that water flowing over you
Is as water hanging blessed on the magic wing of the angel rising through rain.
Let tears come, let jewels run over softest cheek, blazing their cool trail, and land, an explosion of watery dust.
My love shouts, it is true. I am not ashamed of that.

I open a book and the world pours over my lap and drenches me.
Soaked in life, I stumble to the door, to a knock.
The sun is so bright when I open, I am blind.
But I welcome the cool dark stranger

 It rains, and as I look across at you, I see the deep crystal pool I once inhabited, and where I made my dream of you. 

You let the window down, and into your face, oh, your face, come the lucky droplets.

Your eyes close, and mouth open, a smile of recognition imperceptibly shimmers across that landscape. Two crows lazily rise up from their dining table of wet highway, and caress the grey with lingering strokes, too sensuous to defend, and for what seems like an eternity, head west into the inconceivable night

There, you are waiting, for me. And as I approach, ridiculous in my infancy, you lead a painstaking dance through willow and oak, right up to the surprising palm.
And there, underneath, you leave your old skin lying at the root, and pull me back inside until, without breath, eyes wild, our entrance is made, singing softly to the Gods of the night, and wooing them back into being..

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More soon.