We have seen Tony struggling through the tunnels. Dragging Mikey with him.
He gives up and sits. An exhausted pile.
Tony Help.
HELP!
His light flickers and goes out.
I’m sorry.
Sorry for it all.
And there in the earth he imagines himself held, protected from all the world’s torment. From the last six years. The bills unpaid, from the need to wake up every day. People on the street looking at you with pity; poor Tony, he’s let himself go. He knows that’s what they’re thinking. He knows when he looks in the mirror that what they see is a strange man. Hair long and thinning, beard needs trimming, his big glasses held on one side with tape. His clothes a mess, shapeless and old. He knows. He doesn’t need to be told, but inside him is a heart. Please. He does have a heart. And his mother was the last to really see it. His mother who he cared for begrudgingly, but loved so … lovingly. A jigsaw they did, Sunflowers. Sitting in front of the TV for hours. The sound of her snoring; in, out. The days they would just drive about, not speaking much, but knowing a sort of quiet together. ‘Oh, they’ve opened a new café,’ she’d say, and he’d look too and agree.
Peacefully.
All that passes Tony by as he thinks. This is it.
Sees all around him.
A glow.
Is it a glow?
Tony Is this what it feels like to go, Mum?
It’s not so bad actually. I hope you felt like this at the end.
I hope you can forgive me.
The music of Agathus has risen now.
Agathus has appeared and unbeknownst to Tony she wakes Mikey up.
He stares at her, then tugs on Tony’s sleeve.
Tony looks at the vision before them.
Tony Yes?
She beckons, they follow her. Into the dark. Tony supporting Mikey.
Delirious maybe. Strange visions they saw.
The two explorers together.
Following, breathless, the Holy Lady of the Fens.
And then …
And then …
An opening-up. A cavern so tall it was lost in the darkness above.
And there. In the centre of the space.
Was Agathus’ last resting place.
Bones. Just lying, so simple. Small.
Almost like she’d laid down.
‘Tony …
Love.’
And the sound. That song his mum used to sing.
A beautiful thing.
Tony has tears in his eyes.
And finally. Six months since her death. He cries.
Agathus’ presence fades. But not before she has put something in Tony’s hand.
And there. A noise.
Close.
The muffled sound of people singing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.
Mikey Is that ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’?
Tony Yes.
From where?
Mikey It’s coming from the tunnel, over there.