This week’s truly exciting episode of my unexplainably unproduced screenplay is the most British thing ever — we have a high speed pursuit featuring characters named after leads in PERFORMANCE and THE WICKER MAN, and an exciting rooftop chase, without which no British thriller, be it THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE or HELL IS A CITY, can be considered complete.
And I was pleased to morph a reference from MARY POPPINS into a William Blake quote. Apart from the Disney JUNGLE BOOK bit I think it’s all as Brit as can be.
This was also the point where I discovered Howie’s true comedic function, which is not as romantic interest during the “boring, sub-Bill Forsyth bits,” but as someone to annoy Inspector Turner. And, thematically, as a sort of Everyman for Mr. If to oppose.
But what impresses me, if I do say so myself, is just how damned gripping it all is!
Now read on…
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Sheena watches TV news with Edward Woodward in her lap.
NEWSCASTER (O.S.)
The headlines today. A wild west-style schoolmarm has been tormented by scallops in Muirhouse. A nun has been fired out of a toilet. And Scotland’s oldest fireman has given birth to a stone desk.
Sheena boggles. The work of Mr. If is everywhere.
There is an innocent-sounding knock at the door.
INT. SHEENA’S HALL – NIGHT
Sheena comes through and approaches the door.
NEWSCASTER (OS)
Doctors are baffled by a giant leg found on a small man.
Sheena looks through the spy hole. Howie.
NEWSCASTER (OS)
And scientists at NASA have discovered what they are calling a “joke planet”.
Sheena considers.
Starts to walk away.
Then changes her mind and undoes the latch.
INT. SHEENA’S STAIRWELL – DAY
The man outside is not Howie. A black-gloved hand holds a photo of Howie up to the spy hole.
The door opens…
INT. HOSPITAL RECEPTION – NIGHT
Swing doors BASH open.
Doctor lectures Nurse while pushing Howie on a gurney.
DR. SPAIN
Brain damage, as medical science pretends to understand it, is simply injury to the meat radio entrusted with receiving the consciousness signal. A mechanical brain, correctly tuned to the ineffable transmission, would serve just as well as our fleshy transponders.
Howie looks somewhat mauled. In the gurney behind him, a stunned fox.
Turner runs alongside Howie.
HOWIE
A fox, inspector, can you believe it? In the reptile house. The last thing I would have expected in a reptile house. It’s a bloody mammal. A rodent or something. They don’t even keep them in the zoo. They’re too boring. Anyway, this one wasn’t, it was positively frisky. It was going for my throat when I managed to knock it unconscious with this…
He holds up his tattered and bloodstained hardback.
HOWIE
The Unbearable Lightness of Being. An ironic title for a hefty hardback.
They pass a smoke-blackened NUN in a tattered habit, walking with the aid of crutches.
HOWIE
Anyway, it’s not me you should be worried about, it’s your own people. There’s been some pretty weird shit going down at Sheena’s place.
They pass an incubator being wheeled by MEN in surgical scrubs. WAILING BABY sound. Inside the incubator – a trout.
TURNER
You mean Miss McQueen?
HOWIE
A lot of this nonsense seems to be focussed on her. Like she’s the epicentre or something.
They pass an OLD TESTAMENT PROPHET carrying a stone slab.
PROPHET
Epicentre! Epicentre!
He turns the slab to face them. The word COCK is carved on it. Then he raises his robe and shows them his wrinkly arse before scampering away, tittering like a big jerk.
HOWIE
Did she tell you she took the If File?
Turner’s face darkens ominously.
TURNER
Stay here and heal. I’m going to check on Miss McQueen.
He hurries off.
Howie cranes his neck after the departing cop.
HOWIE
Sheena…
He tries to dismount the moving gurney. The doctor shoving it won’t slow down and Howie’s bandages hamper him.
He falls.
The doctor disappears around a corner, ignoring him.
In a nearby room, dogs bark.
A tramp with flowers for hair shuffles past sadly.
DR.SPAIN (O.S.)
…and so, Nurse Sheep, what you call telepathy is merely a crossed wire, a case of one brain receiving a signal intended for another. We are all hooked up to the great universal mind, but some of us have bigger satellite dishes.
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Sheena flees into her flat and throws a dirty plate at the caped, top-hatted man pursuing her.
MR. IF
I am If! If I am! Am I if?
She grabs her gun and shoots If’s hat off.
The next two bullets hit him in the chest.
He staggers. Then rights himself.
He steps in front of the window. Daylight shines through the little round holes in his body.
MR. IF
Gosh durn it, I likes a wumman with spirit.
If holds out his hand to her.
MR. IF
Join me, and rule at my side in the domain of nothingness.
Sheena shoots him again.
MR. IF
You sadden me.
He produces a banana and begins to peel it.
Sheena backs away in alarm.
INT. TURNER’S CAR – DAY
Turner’s car SKIDS round a bend.
HOWIE (O.S.)
Step on it, man! You drive like a lemur. If lemurs could drive.
Howie sits up in the back of the car. Turner is startled, then irate.
TURNER
You’re supposed to be convalescing. Go and convalesce. I’m a policeman. You’re just some nob-end from the zoo.
HOWIE
I’m an interested party and you still drive like a twat. Where’s your blue flashing light?
TURNER
Some bastard’s nicked it and left me this egg timer instead.
They SCREECH round another bend and Howie falls over.
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
Sheena wakes up tied to a rocking chair by what looks like hair. She’s clad only in a grass skirt and a pair of coconut shells.
A rope hangman’s noose hangs from the ceiling above her.
If strides into view. Under his cape he wears Sheena’s clothes. He strokes Edward Woodward in a sinister, master-criminal-type way.
MR. IF
Is it safe?
Sheena struggles with her bonds.
SHEENA
What the f-?
MR. IF
Wigs, Miss McQueen, wigs! Nature’s baldness defamed, and now – a young minx restrained in their silky fronds! Ironic, is it not?
SHEENA
Let me go and give me back my cat, you mad bastard. And take my clothes off!
MR. IF
(gesturing at her near nudity)
I already have. And now, you will tell me where I can find what I seek, Miss McQueen – or should I say – HECTOR BABENCO?
He waves at her with Edward Woodward’s paw.
SHEENA
What the hell do you want, you great weirdo?
MR. IF
A touching display of innocence and nudity, but it will avail you nothing. I shall have my druthers or die trying, and so I reiterate: where? Answer swiftly or pay with your pussy!
He waves the cat at her.
INT. TURNER’S CAR – DAY
The car speeds on. Sand cascades through the egg-timer.
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
If moves gracefully towards the noose in the room’s centre, carrying Sheena’s cat.
SHEENA
Maybe if you’d tell me what it is you’re looking for -
If stuffs Edward Woodward through the noose and secures the rope around the animal’s waist. Then he picks up a carpet beater.
MR. IF
Where? Where? WHERE?
WHACK! He wallops the cat’s arse and sends it arcing round the room on its rope, yowling.
EXT. SHEENA’S FLAT – DAY
Turner and Howie arrive. Respectively bounding and hobbling from the car they find the Nurse from the hospital wearing a blindfold and an usherette’s tray full of oranges standing with her feet in a basin of water by the door.
TURNER
This is a bad sign.
He barges on.
Howie stares at the immobile Nurse.
HOWIE
Boo.
She gives a little theatrical jump. Howie hurries on.
INT. STAIRWELL – DAY
Turner dashes upstairs only to be faced with Sheena’s neighbour, Miss Hing. What she lacks in depth she makes up for in width.
Turner steps aside to let her by. She side-steps in the same direction to let him by. He steps the other way. She does too.
Howie appears behind Turner, snarls savagely, Miss Hing collapses against the railing in terror, and the two men hurry past.
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
Edward Woodward continues to orbit the room.
SHEENA
NO!
She frees an arm, and a coconut falls off, exposing a breast. She shrieks and covers herself. If prepares to wallop Edward Woodward again.
MR. IF
Your womanliness cannot save you now, Mr. Babenco. The file, please.
He swats Edward Woodward’s backside again.
SHEENA
The file? It was on the back of the sofa -
A hammering at the door.
MR. IF
(smarmy)
I like you, you’re a nice lady.
He looks at the sofa. Bare-backed. If is indignant.
MR. IF
Trifle with me and you’ll get your desserts!
INT. SHEENA’S HALLWAY – DAY
Turner shoulders the door open. They burst in.
A BLINDING FLASH
- and then the two men are staggering, dazed. Something has happened, but what?
The only sound is the TV news:
NEWSCASTER (OS)
A dentist in Queensferry has become a small sun. Spokesmen said they didn’t like it, it was a bad colour.
INT. SHEENA’S LIVING ROOM – DAY
Too late. Sheena and If are gone.
Edward Woodward is wearing a sombrero, poncho and Zapata moustache. Meow.
Scrawled on the wall in red paint, the word cat.
Another moustache is pasted to the TV screen, decorating the newscaster.
A Polaroid camera sits atop the set.
NEWSCASTER (T.V.)
Two Scottish Members of Parliament have been dressed in plate armour and fellated by blacksmiths -
Turner switches off the TV, picks up the camera. An undeveloped snap depends from its undercarriage.
An image emerges. Howie and Turner, posing merrily with Sheena and If in the hall – thumbs up. Howie strumming a ukulele. Hawaiian flower garlands all round.
TURNER
Who took this? And why don’t I remember it?
Edward Woodward pads out the door, full of purpose. Howie and Turner look at each other, then follow.
INT. STAIRWELL – DAY
Edward Woodward stops and sits at the top floor landing. A ladder leads up to a hatch into the attic.
HOWIE
I don’t like heights.
Turner starts up the ladder.
TURNER
I’m not wild about them myself.
Howie follows a few steps, then freezes in fear.
EXT. ROOFTOP – DAY
Turner emerges from a skylight.
Mr. If stands on the summit of the roof, a large burlap sack slung over one shoulder.
A moan that could be Sheena’s.
INT. STAIRWELL – DAY
Howie slowly nears the top of the ladder, but finds it very difficult to transfer himself into the attic.
EXT. ROOF – DAY
Turner edges up the steep slant of the roof towards the pinnacle. If nonchalantly saunters away from him.
INT. ATTIC – DAY
Howie makes it into the attic space. A musty rocking horse in a dunce’s cap nods at him rhythmically. A cardboard sign hung round its neck advises STAND UP OR GIVE UP.
Through a skylight he sees blue sky. He closes his eyes and jumps up -
EXT. ROOF – DAY
Howie hauls himself through the hatch and immediately rolls down the roof. He opens his eyes and screams like a woman.
Turner, balancing on the tip of the roof, loses concentration and stumbles. He does the splits over the crest of the building.
If reaches the edge of infinity. Below him, the street.
Howie’s legs dangle over the drainpipe as he scrambles to get back onto a solid surface. With scrabbles back up the roof-slope.
Turner takes out a pair of handcuffs.
TURNER
Now. Now.
If turns, grins and throws his big sack over the side.
HOWIE
No!
The sack explodes on Turner’s car, caving in the roof. The sack is full of potatoes.
If strides towards Turner. A brief scuffle and Turner falls, his hands cuffed together. He rolls helplessly down the roof towards an imminent death.
TURNER
Oh bollocks.
Howie has just reached the tip of the roof and backs away fast as If bears down on him.
MR. IF
Take me home, Daddy!
Turner catches the gutter and dangles.
Howie backs into a chimney. He grabs a TV aerial and swings himself round so that the chimney is between him and If.
If points into the street.
A struggling Sheena, dressed for some reason in a decorator’s paint-stained dungarees, flippers and a giant foam stetson, is being shoved into a car by four Ballerinas.SwanLakeplays on the car stereo.
Turner manages to drag a knee up onto the gutter.
MR. IF
It’s a pleasure to take your acquaintance. You must be the human element everybody’s talking about. You know, on a bright blue day like this it almost seems a pity to be ending the world.
Howie blinks at him.
MR. IF
You’re absolutely right, Miss Streisand. It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it. Hoppla!
WOOSH!
A chimney sweep’s brush ERUPTS from the chimney pot nearest Howie. He steps back in alarm and falls, bumping into Turner who has just climbed to his feet at the roof’s brink.
They teeter together.
MR. IF
A sweep is as mucky
As mucky can be,
And so I cry,
“Weep weep! Weep weep!”
The ballet dancer car putters off erratically.
Howie and Turner fall on their faces onto the roof tiles.
They gasp like landed fish for a moment, then look up.
If is gone. Only a yellow flag gesticulates in the wind.
HOWIE
Historically, the sign of quarantine. Plague!
INT. STAIRWELL – DAY
A red X is painted on Sheena’s front door. Turner and Howie descend. Howie grips the banister and moves very slowly. They meet Miss Hing, quite recovered.
MISS HING
Hello, loves. He had a message for you. He said he would see you in Bolivia.
They look blank.
MISS HING
No, that wasn’t it. Not Bolivia — oblivion. That’s the one.
To Be Continued…
