The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays Read Online Free

staring at him. Even Cobb’s complacent mask is disturbed.
    Tetsy starts after Sam. Just through the doorway she meets her father’s eye and halts.
    INSIDE THE TAVERN BAR
    Sam is walking slowly down the empty bar-room. All his concentration is directed within himself. He turns as the others come straggling after him.
    SAM : I heard men running on a great cobbled road through them woods. But there’s no road, nor ever has been.
    SIR TIMOTHY (from doorway) : That’s true. It’s always been forest land.
    A momentary silence. Then Cobb is beside him, breaking the spell.
    COBB : Come, sir, come . . . you realise what you’re doing? You’re adducing this very lack, this nothing . . . as if it supported his tale! (Sharply) Has no one else ever heard these sounds?
    BIG JEFF : Job Mousley.
    An amused murmur.
    SIR TIMOTHY : An old poacher. Three years ago. He was in the woods on what must have been the same night of the year, but that signified naught until Sam here . . .
    COBB : Where is this old man?
    SIR TIMOTHY : He died. A week or two later.
    COBB (heavily) : Of shock, no doubt?
    Some nods and mutterings.
    LANDLORD : He was took mortal strange.
    COBB : How disobliging of him. (He glances round) And there’s no other witness of this remarkable annual uproar? You must all live within a mile or two. Nobody? (As heads are shaken, he turns to Sir Timothy) Yourself, sir? Your lady . . . your servants . . . (He looks down the bar) . . . with one exception.
    Sam is at the window, peering out through the tiny panes at the darkening village street.
    SIR TIMOTHY : It seems you have to be in the woods. (He looks at his watch again, calls out) We leave in ten minutes.
    BIG JEFF : It’ll be a cool night, sir.
    SIR TIMOTHY : Very well . . . (To landlord) . . . Hot toddy for every man before we go. Small ones, though. (To Cobb) I take it, sir, you will not be with us?
    LAVINIA : Oh, he must. Who else will stand for common sense?
    COBB : Thank’ee, madam.
    LAVINIA : It was for that I invited Mr. Cobb.
    Cobb shows her back into the private room.
    COBB : And for that only?
    INSIDE THE PRIVATE ROOM
    LAVINIA : What do you mean, sir? When Sir Timothy told me he was going to investigate . . . (She suddenly breaks into a direct, disarming smile) . . . I thought you might . . . like to come . . . (He moves towards her. Conscious of Jethro’s presence, she moves away. It is a kind of unskilled coquettishness, clumsy for lack of practice. She picks up Jethro’s notes and after a glance casts him a look of mild surprise) . . . a neat hand! (She is conscious of both men, as just now she was conscious of Cobb and her husband. To Cobb) What did you think of him?
    COBB : Your rustic? A head full of fright and old wives’ tales!
    Jethro watches him with an irony that is never far below the surface. Resentment at being taken for granted has taught him subtle ways to provoke, and to use them when Cobb is ruffled, as now.
    JETHRO : He seemed . . . honest in the mind.
    COBB : Did he so!
    JETHRO (to Lavinia) : When I was a child in Jamaica, Ma’am, the generality of people believed in such things.
    COBB : His people were savages . . . slaves!
    LAVINIA : That was no fault of theirs.
    COBB : Who said it was?
    LAVINIA : Without benefit of religion, what else could . . . ?
    COBB : They had religion enough! Demons, idols, voodoo.
    JETHRO : Obeah, we called it, sir.
    COBB : Obeah, then. Every possible consolation. What they lacked was the benefit of real . . . human . . . thought. (He stabs the words out) Of philosophy! (At Jethro) Which he lacks not!
    JETHRO : I am most gratefully aware, sir . . .
    COBB (to Lavinia) : As you see, he’s had more than a flunkey’s training. He has a brain. I’ve made him use it.
    JETHRO : I use it.
    COBB : Demonstrate. Show the lady some excellence on this topic.
    JETHRO (hesitantly) : I have thought . . . (To Cobb) You may not approve of this . . . it is a matter of scale: our minds are limited, in a limitless universe.