The puppet attic. Sounds of footsteps stomping up the stairs. Marjory awakes in the box – gaunt, weak, thin. She comes to the glass to listen as the door is tried, then kicked open, and the shadows of two men fill the room. She backs away to the rear of the box as the red men enter, slowly, singing a creepy Elizabethan roundelay. While singing, and slowly approaching the box, one picks up and plays with the spider puppet, the other takes out his gun, an old Webley …
Barry and Dirk
‘Hey ho, nobody home.
Meat nor drink nor money have we none
Still I will be merry …
‘Rose, rose, rose, rose,
Will I ever see thee wed?
I will marry at thy will, sire
At thy will.
‘Ding dong, ding dong
Wedding bells on an April morn
Carve my name on a moss-covered stone
On a moss-covered stone.
‘Ah poor bird!
Take thy flight!
Fly above the sorrows
Of this sad night.’
The song over, Dirk taps on the glass with his gun as Barry takes his gun out too. Marjory takes off the blanket she’d hidden herself in and comes to the front of the box.
Barry Hello again.
Marjory Hello again.
Dirk Fancy seeing you after all these years.
Marjory Yes. You haven’t got any food, have you? I’m fucking starved.
They stare at her a moment, then Barry takes out a bag of chips with mayonnaise and gives it to her through the hole.
Barry I have, actually, I’ve got some chips with mayonnaise.
Marjory Thanks! (She eats.) Unusual.
Dirk We came here to execute her, Barry, not to feed her chips.
Barry We can be nice about it, can’t we?
Dirk Wasted that whole creepy song now. Christ, it stinks in here.
Marjory indicates the dead, rotting Press Man with a chip.
Barry That nice newspaper man? Throat slit? Who did that?
Marjory Hans Christian Andersen.
Barry Fucking Hell! And everyone thinks he’s so nice!
Marjory Tell me about it!
Dirk Where’s your foot gone?
Marjory Andersen cut it off. Sold it to gypsies for a haunted concertina.
Barry What a fucking rotter!
Dirk I dunno. Maybe he did it so she wouldn’t miss the old country, y’know? (Smirks.)
Barry Alright, Dirk. There’s no need for that.
Dirk She stabbed my eye out with a bamboo stick!
Barry That’s all in the past, isn’t it? I mean, the future, isn’t it?
Marjory hands the remainder of the chips back.
Marjory Not sure about the mayonnaise, to be honest.
Barry It’ll catch on.
Marjory I dunno …
Dirk Alright, enough about chips, let’s just get this over with …
Dirk raises his gun to shoot her, but Barry pushes it back down …
Barry I am not shooting a pygmy in a box, Dirk. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel, but with a pygmy. We’ll let her out in the fresh air and stand her up against something. Y’know, like her husband and kids!
Barry starts undoing the glass panel as Dirk keeps his gun trained on Marjory.
Dirk Don’t try anything clever.
Marjory It’s hard for me not to.
Dirk Smartarse. Shorty smartarse.
Marjory Where’s your other brother, by the way?
Barry We don’t have another brother.
Marjory Yeah, you do. You were triplets the last time I killed you. Siamese triplets. You must’ve lost him in the time travel.
Barry is perturbed by this. He looks over the stitches that run up their arms and their sides.
Dirk Don’t listen to her, Barry. She’s just trying to mess with your head.
Barry It’s fucking working, Dirk!
Dirk That’s just what she does, isn’t it? She makes things up.
Marjory He’s right. Don’t even think about it.
But Barry is still perturbed.
Dirk Have you always written, Marjory?
Marjory Yes. Since before I was a baby.
They look confused.
I’ve a thousand and two stories at this point. But I never had any paper, so they’re all …
She taps her head.
Barry Wow. She’s not just good at writing, she’s also good at remembering!
Dirk Shame they’ll all be lost then.
Marjory The story ain’t over yet though, is it, boys?
She gives them a wink.
Barry She’s very self-assured for a midget who’s about to be executed.
Marjory It’s the mayonnaise!
Dirk Shorty smartarse. Stand over there and shut up.
Marjory Are you going to do a countdown from ten or something, like in the duels?
Barry Well, it isn’t a duel, is it?
Dirk We’re Belgian, not French!
Barry We were going to just shoot you. There wasn’t going to be any counting involved.
Marjory It would be more dramatic though, wouldn’t it, a nice countdown? And I could play a little tune of farewell to my loved ones. It’ll be a creepy tune, and slightly Chinese, but it’ll be atmospheric!
Dirk I vote no.
Barry I vote it’s the least we can do if you take the Congo into consideration.
Dirk I suppose we have come all this way.
Marjory Thank you.
She takes the concertina from the wall, and starts playing a haunted tune. They raise their guns as she does so, cock them, and aim at her …
Marjory Well, start then!
Barry and Dirk Oh! We start! I thought you started! Ten …!
The tune continues throughout.
Marjory All I ever wanted …
Both Men Nine!
Marjory Was to go asleep beside my husband and my babies …
Both Men Eight!
Marjory And let the stories inside my head …
Both Men Seven!
Marjory Rest in silence …
Both Men Six!
Marjory But then you killed my husband …
Both Men Five!
Marjory And then you killed my babies …
Both Men Four!
Marjory And my stories were all I had left to me …
Both Men Three!
Marjory And now you’ve killed them too.
Marjory And now you’ve killed them too.
Both Men One!
Marjory takes a deep breath shutting her eyes tight, the concertina is at its widest note, and just as the red men are about to shoot, we freeze this image in a Goya-like tableau …
Blackout.