(MARCHING FOOTSTEPS, MAN SHOUTS, SIREN WAILS)
(WIND BLOWS)
(BIRDS CRY)
(BAGPIPES AND DRUMS ECHO)
Oh...
(ALL EXCLAIM)
(MUTTERS INDISTINCTLY)
LOUISE: If music be the foods of love,
the Scots will starve to bleeding death.
That's what my dad reckons.
My dad says the bagpipes sound like two alley cats on heat,
yowling their flipping heads off.
NINO: Hey, why you wear dress, huh?
Why you wear dress?
(LAUGHS)
Whoo!
Very nice! (LAUGHS)
What's Nino up to?
Here, I swap your hat for mine, huh? Eh?
Hey, hey, where are your stockings, signorina?
(GRUNTS)
(EXCLAIMS IN ITALIAN)
LOUISE: I asked Mihaly why cats sound like they're in pain
when they're supposed to be in love.
(APPLAUSE)
But he said not to bother him with riddles.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
If anyone should've opened this new amenities block today,
it should've been our last administrator.
(WHISPERS INDISTINCTLY)
Colonel Forsythe knew as well as anyone
how important facilities like this...
..facility...can be...
(CLEARS THROAT)
..can be in providing dignified living conditions for people
during a time of upheaval in their lives.
Darned evil.
Funding for the new facility,
as I'm sure the new administrator would be better able to explain,
was made available through a special grant
from the Departments of Land and Immigration.
A local chapter of the Caledonian Friendship Society
has sponsored a facility beautification project.
Uh...
How many times is she going to use the flipping word "facility'?
(CHUCKLES)
I'm sorry there isn't a more dignified personage here today
but, um, until the new administrator arrives,
I'm afraid you'll have to make do with me.
You'll do!
(ALL APPLAUD)
(ALL CHEER)
So, by the power temporarily invested in me,
I hereby declare this facility open!
(ALL APPLAUD)
God save the King!
Uh...the Queen.
(ALL APPLAUD)
(BAND PLAYS "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN')
LOUISE: I asked my dad about love and pain,
and he said, "One and the same, dear heart.
"They're one and the same. "
(ALL CHATTER EXCITEDLY)
(MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
(ALL LAUGH AND CHATTER)
(ALL EXCLAIM)
Bravo! (CHUCKLES) (ALL LAUGH)
Oh, I think I'm gonna be ill.
(ALL SCREAM)
This is much more civilised.
Amenities. Amenities! Not facility!
Um...let's go outside.
(LAUGHTER)
It was a very nice speech.
Do you really think so? I was afraid I was boring the pants off everyone.
No, no, no. (LAUGHS)
I mean, maybe you use word "facility'
one time or two time too many,
but altogether, it was a very nice speech.
Molto bene.
You know, here, in the new facility,
I not see where was bath.
Sometimes, the people, they like more to have bath than shower.
Showers only, I'm afraid.
The luxury of a bath's the last remaining perk
of the administrator or his deputy, meaning me.
If you've got any complaints...
Complaint? (LAUGHS) No. Come on.
This is exactly how it should be. (CHUCKLES)
"Dear Professor..." Oh, groan. Dante.
(IMITATES ITALIAN ACCENT) "Can we revise a pronoun, please?
"I'm getting confused."
I think, dear heart,
I might just abolish this suggestions box altogether.
But, well... But, well, what?
But doesn't it help people get involved?
Help? People?
I don't want people getting involved with what I do?
Good English is a science, it's an art.
Whereas people...
What about them? They're idiots.
(SIGHS) Eat your toast before it gets cold.
(MUTTERS) Oh, God.
(SIGHS)
What's wrong?
Listen.
(READS) "I'm very bored.
"What's this drivel got to do with" -- capital "L' -- "Life?"
Well, do you recognise the writing?
No, the coward's printed it.
Forget it.
Yeah. Yes, I will.
Lady Bev come, you call me.
(KNOCKS)
You happy? Si.
Good.
(WATER SPLASHES)
(SIGHS)
(DOOR OPENS)
Oh! Ow! Oh...
(CHUCKLES IN PAIN) I'm sorry.
Oh. That's alright. Your mind must be on higher things.
What? Oh, yeah. "Much have I travelled in the realms of gold."
"And many goodly states and...something."
Uh, "kingdoms'. Ah, "kingdoms'.
Well, goodness me,
it's very nice to know someone else in this camp's got past third grade.
(CHUCKLES) (GASPS)
Giuseppe, uh... Uh...
(SIGHS)
(DOOR OPENS)
Eh! Eh! Lady Bev is coming now to wash her body!
You put clothes back on!
Uh, Ni, pull plug. Oh.
(CLANG!)
(GRUNTS)
(GLUG!)
(GROANS)
Nino...quick.
(WATER GURGLES)
(FLICKS SWITCH)
(GROANS) (MUTTERS)
(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
(SIGHS)
Dad? Mmm.
Dad?
How did you meet my mum?
What on earth do you wanna know that for?
Well, did you both fall for one another straightaway?
Or did it take a while?
(SIGHS) It was in the, uh,
Calypso Ballroom, in Birmingham,
as if happens.
Your mother drew herself to my attention
by stepping backwards
and driving her stiletto halfway through my instep.
I was a cripple for days.
And is that when you knew it was the real thing?
Dunno that I ever did,
until it was too late.
Anyway, the man never decides these things.
All we do is duck and weave until that fatal day
when some woman gets us in her sights
and, more in disappointment than in ardour,
decides, "Mmm, you'll do."
"You'll do?"
After that, no man stands...
Stands a what?
A chance.
Well, does it work both ways?
Like, if a man decides "You'll do" about a woman?
Who knows?
I can't see a man saying it
with the same solemn air of defeat.
No, he didn't.
Who didn't?
No-one.
LOUISE: The "G's are different.
Oh, heavens, surely!
You don't think I'm the least bit interested?
Never the least bit, no.
(GASPS, SIGHS)
(MOANS)
(FAINT RATTLE)
(GASPS) (CHUCKLES)
(IMITATES ITALIAN ACCENT) Giuseppe!
You know, some people, they prefer the bath to the shower.
Arrivederci.
Signora! Signora! Look, I...I can explain.
There's a good reason why me and Nino in the cupboard.
Oh, really? Yeah.
You ask me, and I think of it.
Hey. Come on. (CHUCKLES)
Alright.
(SIGHS) I know perfectly well what you've been up to --
renting out the administrator's bath to all-comers
and pocketing the money.
Quite why that should involve taking off your trousers
and hiding in a cupboard's beyond me.
I show to you. No, thanks.
Don't want the milk to curdle.
You know what I think?
Surprise me.
I think you need to relax more.
You've got dark circle here and here.
In the shoulder, you are very tense.
Eh, look, come here.
Come on. Come.
Oh. See, that's very tense. It's hard.
It goes with the job.
Come on, relax. You fight me.
(SIGHS)
See, you must let Administrator Bev
to go on holiday.
And then you let Lady Bev come out.
See, Lady Bev, she just dying for her turn.
She just dying for it, no?
That's not quite the phrase I would've used.
Mmm.
Yeah, Lady Bev...
Lady Bev...
Her eye is heavy.
Her head, oh, is so heavy.
And then...
Arm is heavy.
(BEV SIGHS)
Leg is heavy too.
Each part is so heavy.
Let it come away from her body.
Lady Bev's bones all come apart
and go floating up into the corner of the room.
Then, inside her head,
Lady Bev is light.
She float.
And from inside her heart
come many, many, many, many dandelion seeds.
And they float.
And they look.
The porcupine of opportunity,
with a million light of possibility
that shine from them.
(GASPS)
That'll do.
Perhaps you'd better drink your tea.
Where's your fire now?. Huh?
(SCOFFS) Look, I've got work to do.
Yeah, but you have some time for dinner,
a walk, something.
(CHUCKLES)
Yeah, alright, alright.
Yeah.
Just a little bit further. Yeah.
And stop. (CHUCKLES)
Wait.
Open.
And remember, they built all this because of you.
Am I in heaven?
(CHUCKLES) All you need now is this.
Shakespeare.
The Baringa Opportunity Shop had not heard of Van den Vondel.
You went into town in the heat? Please, you didn't walk?!
I enjoyed it.
I will make it up to you.
After leaving behind your whole library to give us a new beginning?
In, before I'm caught in here.
(CHUCKLES)
Don't read it all at once.
(CHUCKLES)
Eh, I think you was not come back tonight. (CHUCKLES)
Yeah. Me too.
Eh, I, uh...I do for you.
Don't worry. Eh, I help us get money.
How much?
Five...five guinea each per day, eh.
Cash only, no cards. (LAUGHS)
Five found, five shilling each?
Si, si, si. Big, big chef from canteen.
Chef! (LAUGHS) Listen to me.
He say he have work for three mens from, uh, migrant camp.
Uh, easy work, with sheeps. Yeah. And five guinea each.
He's very good one, huh?
I no interest in money for work. Work is for sissy, for weak ones.
Work is for peasants.
Any time I want work, Lady Bev up there,
she got a two-year contract to Woop Woop.
It just wait for me.
So you go tell the chef of dog food up there,
you tell him, "No-go, mate."
"No-go, mate. No-go, mate!"
Mmm.
But we have to go b-because it's official.
I...I put our names down on list. I...
Um...and chef say he make trouble for us
with Department of Immigration
if we even one minute late!
"Bound in contract, boy," he said to me.
Stupido!
You finished with that?
If you want, I got some for you too.
Oh, I no mind, Signor Mihaly. (CHUCKLES)
See?
Eh?
ADRIANNA: The book I bought for you, Pieter, might make you happy.
But will you still smile if you know why?
I did it, Peter,
so you will have something you can love better than me.
Something that deserves your love.
Something to let you, let me,
let us off the heart's hook.
If I ever find the nerve to leave.
(WOMAN SHRIEKS, BO Y LAUGHS)
Morning, Mr Ashbolt. Hello, Lou.
Have you seen Nino? No, I haven't.
Get in the truck.
You're cutting it a bit fine.
Where's number three?
You seen Willinski, Lou? Yeah, he's in the infirmary.
Oh, bugger it.
You, stick insect -- you wanna make a quick quid?
Come, come, we just have to mind sheeps.
This may be opportune, as it happens.
Never mind, opportune. Hop in.
I'll mind your book.
And tell Anna... I will.
(ENGINE STARTS)
(LAUGHS)
(CATTLE MOO)
Right. Here's the deal.
We can have as many sheep as we can remove in two days
for the kitchens at the camp.
Where are you going to keep them?
In the cool store. Where else?
They not run around, make big mess? (LAUGHS)
Not when you've finished with them.
(SIGHS) You're, uh, gonna...
(IMITATES SLITTING SOUND) ..the whole lot of them,
with that nice fresh tin there for drainage.
Then you skin them, and this arvo I'll be back in the truck
to pick up the day's worth.
You got the idea? What idea?
Giuseppe, what mean...? (IMITATES SLITTING SOUND)
I show you later.
(SHEEP BLEAT)
(SPEAKS ITALIAN)
Paola!
Katerina!
Shut up, Nino.
Agnese!
Ciao, Agnese! (SHOUTS IN ITALIAN) Nino!
Get outta there!
(LAUGHS) Whoo!
(GIGGLES)
Eh, Giuseppe! (SPEAKS ITALIAN)
Put my hat on! (LAUGHS)
Hey! Hey, Giuseppe!
Remind you of somebody? (LAUGHS)
Joe! Joe!
It's Lady Beverly, huh? (LAUGHS)
Stupido.
(LAUGHS HEARTILY)
Nino, the gate!
(MURMURS) Nino!
(CLICKS TONGUE) Come on.
(SHEEP BLEATS)
(SQUELCHING SOUNDS)
Ahhh! Ahh! (NINO SHOUTS IN ITALIAN)
Stupido! Stupido! Stupido!
Stop it! Stop it!
(SOBS)
How long since you've had your poor wee tootsies done, then?
BEV: I don't think I've ever had them done.
Oh. No wonder they look so sad.
BEV: Sad?!
Well, you know what they say -- feet are the windows of the soul.
Oh, yeah?
And what are mine saying?
Oh...I see deep anxiety.
(LAUGHS)
Secret tension.
A troubled love match, perhaps.
Is there something we don't know about?
Well, if there is, I don't know about it either.
(GASPS) Ooh...
Unless it's my marriage.
Are you married? I was.
Oh.
What went wrong?
Well, I got married during the war. We didn't have much money.
We were mostly on deferred pay back then.
Wasn't gonna be a big wedding.
Few friends, chaplain -- nothing fancy.
And then I saw a dress --
a stupid long, white dress.
And I thought, "Oh, bugger Tojo, that's mine!"
So I made inquiries.
(CHUCKLES)
I scrounged the ration books of everyone I knew.
I still needed 20 quid.
You didn't?!
Yep. I went to him and, like a fool, I begged.
And, like a fool, he gave me the money
because he thought it'd make me happy.
(SCOFFS) Which, like a fool, it did.
Until...?
Until our first fight.
And all the other ones that followed.
What? Just over a few pounds?
Well, that's not what we fought over.
We fought over all the usual things --
my attitude to his friends,
his attitude to my friends.
(SIGHS) The way I chewed my food
and the way I tucked in the sheets.
Because I owed him,
I...I felt I couldn't ever snap back with what I really felt.
That silence poisoned us.
(CHUCKLES)
Eventually, thank God, we got free of each other.
Well, I hope you never paid him back!
(SIGHS) Oh, no.
Stuff that.
I paid in other ways.
(LAUGHS)
(CHUCKLES)
Ha! Good lads!
What'd you do?
Stack the rest in the shade somewhere?
There.
I thought they were the rejects.
You haven't even skinned them.
We could not make the wool come off.
Don't you know anything? You just chop off their feet.
And the rest peels off like a used Frenchy.
Here. Here, 10 shillings between the lot of you.
And count yourselves lucky to get that.
You'll get the rest tomorrow,
providing you do a damn sight better than you did today!
Oh, and I wouldn't go bandying the word "professional slaughterer'
around the camp just yet, boys, if I were you.
I'll never eat mutton again.
Think you got problems?
(ROMANTIC SONG PLAYS) Dip, two, three, four.
Dip, two, three.
Dip, two, three, four.
Dip, two... You're getting good!
Pity I haven't got someone to be good for!
You've got me! Dip, two, three.
I mean a man. (CHUCKLES)
You don't want to go wasting a dance on a man.
They spend the whole blessed foxtrot trying to steal a kiss,
leaving that taste on you for the rest of the night!
(BOTH LAUGH)
What taste?
Oh, don't look at me. Hasn't happened to me for ages.
Like steel wool. (BOTH LAUGH)
Old, used steel wool!
Oh, it is not!
It's like a Capstan -- first of the morning.
(LAUGHS) Like must! Like parchment!
Like sunburn!
Like iced tea with no sugar!
Like dark, bittersweet chocolate.
It's more like a dead squid's armpit.
(LAUGHS) Well, sometimes.
There must be something good. Oh, yes.
I let you in a little secret.
You know what I can't resist?
That little hollow in the collarbone.
Like an inkwell.
The deeper, the better.
Dunno what it's called.
It's not really a thing, is it?
More like the absence of a thing.
The absence of a thing'd make me feel a whole lot happier
about the idea of a man!
Shh! The truck!
(VEHICLE APPROACHES)
Pieter!
How'd you go?
Here, look, even the money have blood on it.
BEV: Oh, you cut your hand.
One more day like this, I cut my throat.
Well, go and get cleaned up, and I'll fix it for you.
I'll be alright. No, it should be cleaned.
You make good nurse.
(CHUCKLES) Oh, well, something to fall back on.
Think I could stay?
Oh, perhaps we shouldn't rush...
(MOANS)
Just promise me one thing.
What? That I still talk to you in the morning?
That you never lend me any money.
No risk.
(INHALES AND EXHALES DEEPLY)
(MOANS)
(SIGHS)
(MOANS)
(GROANS LOUDLY)
(PANTS)
What? (PANTS)
Joe...
(GASPS) Oh, Joe...
Of course it's not your fault! I no say it's your fault!
It's just...I get shock.
Yeah, well, so did I.
Do you think I'd let you do that if I'd known?
All I ask is you understand me.
I spend all day up to my ear in blood.
Jesus Christ, it's only my period!
Yeah, maybe next time, you warn me.
What makes you think I'd be interested in a next time?
Please... Look, just...just go.
Now.
(SIGHS)
(SOBS)
(ALL SPEAK INDISTINCTLY)
You're keen! Ooooh! (LAUGHS)
Hey, hey, Corporal Bev and Giuseppe is have bloody big fight!
Yes, they all finish.
(CHUCKLES)
Come on, come on.
Right, let's go.
(SIGHS)
(SUITCASE DROPS) Joe?
(GASPS)
Oh.
Uh... Colonel Bates.
Colonel?
Yeah, very well. Colonel Bates, GH, retired.
And you are?
Uh, I'm just plain Stafford, B.
Acting administrator. Ah.
But attained the rank of, uh...
Uh, corporal. That was a long time ago.
Well, Corporal, it's my melancholy duty
to relieve you of your post of administrator.
What'd you say your name was? B?
Shall I call you B?
(CHUCKLES) Well, I'd prefer that to "Corporal'.
And, um, I should address you as GH?
No, no, a simple "Colonel' will do,
especially in front of the Balts and Balkans and, uh, what have you.
(CLEARS THROAT)
Yes, a good, clean chain of command will help run a tight ship.
(CHUCKLES) Would you rather I called you "Admiral'?
(CLEARS THROAT)
This is...?
Uh, um...something I borrowed, Colonel.
I intended using it to repair something on the jeep.
Hmm.
Trust a woman.
Borrowed from this, uh...Joe, was it?
Yes, sir.
His rank?
Nothing. He's, uh, not staff, if that's what you're getting at.
Without prejudice, Corporal B,
might I advise you that I take a very dim view of...
..of associations between staff and inmates?
I wouldn't... Dream of it.
..call them "inmates'.
Sir.
(SIGHS)
(GRUNTS)
Why you do this, Pieter?
To buy a present for Anna.
She doesn't expect it or want it, but I owe her one.
This is love, huh?
Who knows?
Tell me something.
From all the book you read,
is possible something make a man so angry with a woman,
and her with him --
I mean, so angry they not want to talk to each other?
Is...
I tell you something of what I think.
(GRUNTS) I think, perhaps,
love is two people with hooks so deeply into each other
that it is as terrible for them to tear apart
as it is to stay together.
Perhaps more terrible.
Do I have to be like this?
I mean, why can't we feel good like we want?
I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the shape of the hook.
And we fool ourselves if we think love is only for pleasure.
Most of the times, it involves sacrifice, compromise, overcoming.
It is why I am here today, even when my heart is somewhere else.
In a book.
(CHUCKLES)
(KNOCK AT DOOR)
(DOOR OPENS)
(CLEARS THROAT)
I come...to say sorry.
See, I...I not behave like grown-up man.
But from now, I, uh... I got to be better.
What's changed?
Well, um,
today I was baptised. (CHUCKLES)
It's too late.
It's too bloody late.
(DOOR CLOSES)
(SIGHS)
BATES: We haven't run over a cat, have we, B?
I'm not having animals in the compound.
No, sir. I'll have them all rounded up in the morning and shot, sir.
Don't be smart, Corporal. I can't bear women who are smart.
(SIGHS)
Oh, I think I found the problem, sir.
(GRUNTS)
You, uh, seem to have run over a porcupine.
I thought we went over a bit of a bump back there,
but it would've been an echidna, surely.
No, a porcupine.
And what's more, I even know his name.
He was called "opportunity'.
Difficult to find.
(CHUCKLES) And impossible to hold.
Unless you're a tyre.
You know what you need, B?
You need a holiday.
(STARTS ENGINE)
I suppose you think I'm wasting money.
No. I think they look good on you.
You'll do.
Louisa, come on.
What do you want?
Why you always hang around me?
I wanna be your friend.
I wanna help.
True?
Hmm?
Is it true?
Or you want this?
(DOOR OPENS, CLOSES)
Hay fever.
Another drawback of this nest of vipers.
You trust people, you try to do your best in every way you can,
and how do they repay you?
They stab the hand that feeds them in the back.
"I'm bored. What's this drivel got to do with Life?"
Drivel.
Least I suppose I've taught them a word
they'll never be short of a use for.
There's your answer.
What?
On the board -- the "G' with the funny tail.
Don't be ridiculous. That's my writing.
Now I remember.
Dunty was, um, telling one of his long stories
and I was sort of doodling.
And I was, um, sitting right here.
How can I have been so blind?
Why do we do this sort of thing to ourself?
But you know. You've known from the start.
People, you said...people are idiots!
(CRIES)
What is it? What's the matter?
I've made the most terrible idiot of myself!
I didn't give him long enough to get over there,
and I thought, "You'll do."
But if I'd just waited!
(SOBS)
(WAILS)
You... (SOBS)
I wanna thank you. (SOBS)
What for?
For being so blind that you never saw
what an idiot I was making of myself all along!
(MOANS)
Say it'll be alright, Dad.
Say I'll get another chance!
Say it! (CRIES)
Dear heart, of course you will.
Again and again -- that's the beauty of being an idiot.
But none of us have to manage it all at once.
(CRIES)
(GROANS)
Silk stockings.
You needn't have.
(CHUCKLES)
But thank you.
(SIGHS)
What are you writing? Nothing.
A picture.
What of?
I don't know yet.
ADRIANNA: Something to let you, let me,
let us off the heart's hook.
LOUISE: From how many lonely hearts in those lonely huts
was a shiver offered up to the heavens?
BEV: Not a mortal shiver
and not a shiver for any physical cold.
LOUISE: It came from deep down inside.
A shiver with no need for blood or hair or bone,
or even money to express itself.
It was the shiver of all the cold, bruised souls
locked out after knocking on all the wrong doors.
Or the right door at the wrong time.
Left stranded, shivering in the chill of space.