Remember Ronald Ryan Read Online Free

keys. Hop out.
    LADY : Jesus, how long since you’ve had a bath?
    RYAN : Get out of the vehicle. I’m not joking.
    LADY : I just paid this off. Why don’t you save up and buy your own vehicle?
    RYAN : I’m warning you, lady. We are committed.
    LADY : You ought to be. What’s wrong with it? Not the starter motor, is it?
    RYAN : It’s a bugger when they play up, isn’t it? Got enough oil?
    LADY : You don’t worry about oil.
    RYAN : Don’t you? Get out of the car.
    LADY : Just piss off, will you please? I can’t hear it start up. I paid a year’s salary for this Austin 1800. Now look at it. Useless! Why do we bother?
    RYAN : What’d you do with the old Salvo bloke?
    LADY : I didn’t do anything with him. What’d you do with him?
    WALKER : [ upstage, out of puff, shouting ] Chucked him over a wall near a church. I’ve tried the visitors’ carpark, Ronnie. Nothing to hot-wire. A Simca Aronde with a flat battery. A silver Jap motor scooter up on bricks.
    RYAN : [ to the LADY ] Get out or I’ll shoot you. Is that plain enough? Come on. Give us a go.
    RYAN stands over the LADY in the car and threatens her again with the rifle right on her forehead.
    LADY : I’ve just told you I just purchased this as-new vehicle. If you want to, shoot me, because you can’t obtain a decent job and save up, scrimp and save up, go without, just as I have, to boast a decent vehicle to get from Point A to Point B, then fire.
    WALKER : C’mon, Ronnie. Come on.
    LADY : I will not give you my vehicle. It’s mine. Not yours. Do you understand me?! That is the end of the matter!
    WALKER : [ screaming from upstage, apparently wounded ] Jesus, them sheilas from Preston, aren’t they stubborn?
    Sirens loudly; traffic loudly; kids playing gently in nearby school ground. School church bells gonging deliriously. Dogs yapping. Mr Whippy vans.
    Look out. Hodson. Ronnie Ronnie! Ronnie!
    HODSON : Ryan, forget it.
    HODSON shouting as he rushes toward RYAN from a distance of twenty feet. RYAN whirls around and fires in roo-shooting position. We hear a gigantic explosion. HODSON falls downstage of WALKER . Lights out on the LADY in the car. A REPORTER stands over HODSON with a small notebook. Tram bells softly. Gently gonging State School bells and teachers’ voices calling like birds for the children to come in to class.
    Light up on HODSON . Blood is gurgling out of his huge chest.
    REPORTER : Man: nothing left of him.
    HODSON : My Father; My Father; My Father. I just wanted to tell you that…
    REPORTER : Nothing.
    HODSON : Father; My Father; I just wanted to say that…
    REPORTER : Right through both lungs from twenty feet away.
    Two POLICEMEN appear.
    FIRST POLICEMAN : What’s his name, mate?
    REPORTER : He’s a prison officer. George Hudson. That’s who he is.
    SECOND POLICEMAN : Who he was. Now, look out. Rest his neck on this foam car seat thing. Prop him up on that. There, that’s better. More comfortable.
    Sirens piercingly three times.
    Who killed him?
    REPORTER : Ronald Ryan.
    FIRST POLICEMAN : You got here quick, didn’t you?
    REPORTER : Quicker than you.
    HODSON : My Father, I just wanted to tell you something. It was on my mind as I must have forgotten what My Father…
    The two POLICEMEN fill in their notebooks as the REPORTER looks on. Sirens stop. School bells slightly louder, children playing. Some birds. Blackout.
    WALKER : This one’s got two flat tyres, and there’s no battery in it.
    RYAN : What luck. Normally there’s hundreds of guards’ cars here. Perfect Irish Catholic luck. This is a comedy of errors. What can you do? Do something. How do you fire this? What have you got there?
    WALKER : An iron bar with a Hawthorn footy sock over it. Bolt. They’re onto us. Up Sydney Road. We’ll have to run for it.
    RYAN : Oh, brilliant! My gun doesn’t even go off.
    Sirens are deafening. RYAN and WALKER run onto