Charles Morrison or is it Northwood (I keep finding both names) was a lifelong friend of James Irving and was Voirrey’s godfather. He was one of those vouching for James Irving’s integrity and also heard Gef speak.
***
CHARLES: When I read in the paper about all this fuss, Jim, well… I came as fast as I could.
JAMES: You always were curious, Charles. What would you have me do?
CHARLES: well, reassure me that you haven’t taken leave of your senses. Buying this farm was bad enough. Goats and chickens in the arse end of Man.
JAMES: It was nice of you to come this far to pass compliments.
CHARLES: It gets worse. Voirrey looks a mess. Is she going to school?
GEF growls from nearby.
CHARLES: Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What was that?
JAMES: That is our guest. Gef meet Charles, Charles meet Gef.
Silence.
GEF: Charlie-Boy, I don’t like you. You smell different. Like a city threw up on you.
JAMES: Gef, he is a guest in my house.
GEF: So? He has come to do you harm. He is casting aspersions. He sneaks in, a doubting Thomas, and tries to get you to question yourself.
CHARLES: That isn’t true.
GEF: Is it not? “Voirrey looks sick. The farm looks sick. Are you sure you’re well Jimbo?”
CHARLES: Voirrey is my goddaughter. Jim and Margaret have charged her protection to me.
GEF: Voirrey doesn’t need your protection. She has me! I will bite you if you touch her. My fangs carry disease and my claws filth. I will mark your face if you even look funny at her.
CHARLES: Seriously, Jim. How is the farm doing?
GEF: None of your business. We’re doing fine without you.
JAMES: To be honest, the sightseers have caused more harm than good. I’ve had to fix the main gate a half dozen times since this all began.
GEF: I will see them off.
JAMES: Gef, why don’t you sod off. I can’t think with your shrieking like a washerwoman.
GEF: What! Why, the nerve… fine. Vanish.
Silence
JAMES: We’ll have a night of his singing and thumping, I’m sure. Little bastard can be vindictive.
CHARLES: How can you live like this?
CHARLES: My god, I was speaking to a spook, wasn’t I?
JAMES: We don’t know what he is. Spook? Talking animal? All I know is that he a royal pain in the arse.
Pause.
JAMES: Did I make the right decision?
***
The trap I want to avoid, is to make this a drama about abuse. There is a tonne of circumstantial evidence pointing to some kind of emotional abuse as beautifully distilled by Anna 'Asbo' Hinton in this discussion here:
(it's in the bottom half of the page).
It would be incredibly easy to make James a total control freak, if not worse and at the end of the day this may be what will happen when the blueprint, the script, is interpreted by actors and director.
I'm still finding my way into all of this. Exploring it by writing. What I like about doing this kind of scripting is that different ideas come up all the time. It is hideously shallow- I'm not digging all too far into the research material- though depth comes as I read more.
Tomorrow: Gef. Though, for the purposes of the challenge I do wish the mongoose was named Zach. It'd be more fitting.
I like that line about smelling like "the city threw up on you." Interesting bit of dialog here.
ReplyDeleteI have become follower #10.
Lee
Tossing It Out
Thank you Lee. I'm not sure if Gef is using that as an actual reason or an excuse for disliking Charles :0)
ReplyDeleteI'm new at this blogging game, and it's kind of exciting as well as scary to think that I have people, other than family and friends, reading. So, thank you for following (and also for hosting the challenge- it's been a fantastic motivator).