One
Viv sits alone in a windowless room, empty except for a crumpled blanket. She sits with her back to the wall staring expressionlessly at a post. She makes a calming gesture with an outstretched arm.
There is a knock. She doesn't respond. Nelson is at the door. Carefully Viv gets up and staying close to the wall edges to the door which she unlocks and opens to let him in. She relocks the door.
Nelson steps into the room. Viv signals for him to go to the blanket. Nelson has brought a bag of goodies, including her favourite 'cheesebiks'. He unpacks the food and tells her to get stuck in. Viv refuses.
Nelson wants to know how long this, her being alone in the room, is going to go on. He gives her can of pop, she drinks from the can.
Nelson tries to get Viv to explain why she is in the room but Viv won't. He tells her he's been to see her Mum. Viv is angry with him because she told him not to. Nelson asks if she is in trouble. If she's in trouble she should go to the police, "they'll sort it out." Viv tells Nelson repeatedly that he wouldn't understand. Nelson retorts that he'll go to the police because he's implicated in her being missing now. Again Viv will not relent. Nelson loses his temper and begins to sort out the food telling her to eat.
Nelson catches Viv making the calming gesture behind his back. He wants to know what it's for. Reluctantly she explains that it's because of the spot she been staring at. Nelson gets up to look. Viv panics gesturing frantically at the spot trying to calm it while screaming at him to get away from it. He grabs her. They tussle. Viv breaks away and starts to throw the food at him telling him to go away. She calms herself and begins to explain, because what she has to tell is better shared with the one person she trusts enough to do it.
Gradually Viv begins to explain that the world in unbalanced. "Too much traffic. Accidents. Crowds too big. Messages flying through the air. It's never quiet. Even at night. Wars . Bombs. Rockets. It's all unbalanced."
She explains it another way:
"I've dreams to explain it. A huge ship is on the flat sea, stretches forever. The ship goes through the water n' crunches it like bones. The passengers don't 'ear it. They're dancing t' the orchestra. High up in the sky there's a grain of sand. It falls on the ship. The ship sinks. Straight off. Goes straight to the bottom. The people go on movin' - the water pushes them. They think they're still dancing. They don’t know they're dead."
The spot Viv is safeguarding is the only remaining spot that keeps the world in balance, the slightest movement could upset it and the whole world will explode. Viv spills a packet of crisps onto the floor.
"They'd [people] go like that. Dead n' silent like the crisps."
Nelson tries to reason with this, but Viv has an explanation for every objection to her theory he can raise. He is very concerned for her well being, "What yer do if they pull the 'ouses down?"
"Lie on it - 'old it against me s'if it was a kid in me body. Be like covering the whole world. What else could I do?"
Nelson decides that Viv is potty and he is going to jump on the spot. Viv retreats under the blanket howling, and then remerges throwing it open exhorting all the weak and vulnerable to come to her. She then calms herself deciding that if it’s the end so be it, if it isn't then she's got the wrong spot, that's all.
Nelson gathers the food back into the bag. He scrapes up the crisps back into the back and carefully puts the packet on the spot. Viv calms it.
Nelson tells her "Yer get away with this lark cos I feed yer. Ain no more". He leaves her. Viv calms the room, edges to the door, locks it and carefully returns to watch the spot. She is exhausted. She strokes her blanket as if they were chains.
Two
Viv is still in the room. The crisp packet is still on the spot. She is under the blanket. She has made a hole in it for one eye to look through.
Nelson returns. The door is locked. He rattles it. She calms the spot.
Nelson is very anxious as it has been three days now since he left her. He's brought her cheesebiks again. The men have come to knock the house down. Nelson desperately tries to persuade Viv to open the door, and he has asked the Foreman to come to speak to her to prove it.
While Nelson begins to plead with her, Viv quietly gets up and edges her way once more towards the door along the back wall. She catches the blanket on a nail and has to tug until she comes loose with a jerk, nearly collapsing in fear at what it might have done to the spot. Viv reaches the door and quietly removes the key. She slowly takes off her blanket and neatly folds it before placing it on the floor.
Nelson has now been joined at the door by the Foreman. The Foreman is completely inadequate in this situation, he trivialises the crisis, patronises Viv and panics Nelson.
While the Foreman spouts forth Viv quietly lifts a floorboard - she has already prepared a hiding place. She climbs in and disappears from view as the Foreman breaks the door in. The Foreman stands on the floorboards above Viv and declares, "She's given you the slip young man. If you ask me she needs her bottom smack."
The Foreman goes leaving a stunned Nelson. He stares at the crisps on the spot. He picks up the crisps gingerly. Nelson is about to stamp on the spot but thinks better of it. He picks up the blanket and presses it to his chest and goes towards the door. Suddenly, Nelson turns, runs to the spot, jumps on it and dashes out shouting "Elp" as he goes.
Three
Nelson is in the DSS Office. He is in a state of complete shock and carries the blanket and the packet of crisps. The Officer explains that while they provide a healthy free sandwich for visitors, they do not provide crisps. Nelson puts the crisps in his pocket.
The Officer begins to talk at him. Nelson cannot answer. The Officer wants to know about the death of Viv. She knows of his movements courtesy of CCTV cameras and from some squatters in "illegal occupation" in the building opposite to which Viv "immured" herself.
The Officer knows how many times Nelson visited Viv and that he brought her "life threatening consumables." The Officer wants to know why this girl with everything to live for is dead.
A mobile phone rings. The officer answers and swiftly deals with the caller before returning to the matter in hand.
"Dante tells us that over the gateway of hell is written: abandon all hope you who enter here. He might have been quoting from the entrance to his local DSS Office….. A fair proportion of the misery of the world passes before me. But this (taps the file) is different. A novelty has turned up in my workload. I should like to understand."
The silence is broken by the mobile phone ringing. The Officer explains it’s a woman who rings up 20 times a day threatening to commit suicide. She responds, telling her client to leave a note because it will be cheaper than the phone bill, before switching the phone off.
In the ensuing silence, following the next question Nelson is unable to answer,
the Officer begins to hear something we cannot - the West Indian woman in reception with the noisy earrings. "You heard the ear-rings? She wears them to annoy me." This woman is the Officer's bete noir, a sycophant who pretends to be in "ecstatic agreement with everything I say." The officer is aware that Nelson will have discussed winding the Officer up with his mates by mentioning the ear-rings, but nevertheless she is keeping a file on her, and the Officer intends to produce it when her hour comes.
The Officer switches tack in yet another strategy to break Nelson's silence: she decides to sit in silence too. The pressure however becomes unbearable because she can still hear the ear-rings, even though they are five stories up.
Then another approach. "I hate you. Actually I hate everyone who comes through the door." The Officer launches into her innermost thoughts that seem to transport her into another space.
"I hate them all for their helplessness. They let themselves be victims. This city is a giant jigsaw where none of the pieces fit. I feel the world's spinning out of control. The chaos. Confusion. I am dizzy. If you ask me - which seems improbable - the world will end in an hour or two. Just before my long weekend break."
But she is no longer addressing her victim and Nelson is not able to hear what she is telling him about the world, neither is she able to hear herself explain why Viv is dead.
In a final sortie she rallies herself to her conclusion: Nelson is the murderer, who probably poisoned the crisps.
According to the law Nelson is innocent. But not morally. The Officer accuses him of abandoning her, trying to starve into submission. Not once did he seek help for her or in the absence of anyone to turn to like the girl's mother, the police, or indeed herself. He failed to lie down in the street or shout from the roof tops, which is after all what rooftops are for.
"You sit in silence. It doesn't matter now. You were silent then - and someone is dead. Why were you silent? Because you know nothing. Are nothing. Do nothing. The law has let you off - I have ruined your life. My good deed for the day. You will never be free of the torments of your conscience. It will pursue you day and night like the hounds of hell let loose on a greyhound race track. Remove yourself from my office."
Nelson leaves.
Four
Some time later Nelson is begging in an empty street draped in the blanket. He is wretched, wretched with guilt and despair over the loss of Viv. Day turns to night. Desperate he takes out the packet of crisps, apologises to Viv for what he is about to do and goes to eat one. Nelson is stopped in his tracks by the wail of a police siren. "It was only one Viv."
A one-legged Thief using a crutch and wearing a top hat runs on. He asks Nelson to hide him. "I'm innocent. Yer can see from me imposin' head gear. 'Ide me."
The Thief gives Nelson the crutch and the hat and hides under the blanket by his side just as the police screech to halt. A polite young officer shouts over from the car that they are looking for a one-legged Thief with a top hat and a crutch. Nelson tells them he has seen him run past. The officer politely thanks Nelson before speeding off in pursuit.
When they have gone the thief explains that an old woman had accused him of snatching her handbag, "bold as brass." He points with a handbag to indicate the scene of a crime. Nelson asks him whose handbag it is. The thief tells him,
"[It's]...me mother's. She gave it to me t' 'old when she went into a shop. We were separated. I was twelve at the time. I've been looking for 'er ever since. I shant give up. I'm a man of resolution. "
The Thief asks for a crisp. Nelson tells him they belong to his girl and they aren't his to give away. They are interrupted by the return of the police. The Thief hides beneath the blanket. This time Nelson is holding the crutch wearing the hat and the handbag. He informs them that he hasn't seen the Thief pass back this way. The police drive away reassuring Nelson that they'll never give up on such a slippery customer and apologise for bothering him.
"I'm an orphan. Pity me. Give us a crisp." The Thief resumes pursuit of the crisps when the police have disappeared. The Thief learns that the crisps are liver and bacon flavour and that although Viv didn't like them, Nelson explains, "It was all they 'ad." The Thief tells Nelson that he must let go. "She's dead. Clingin' to a bag of crisps won't bring 'er back. Especiually Liver n' Bacon. Give us the crisps - I'll eat 'em for yer n' yer'll be free."
The Thief devours the crisps as Nelson weeps - an outpouring of guilt and remorse and loneliness.
Having eaten the crisps the Thief introduces himself - "I'm Bernard the one-legged dancer." He tells Nelson that he could afford to retire on his earnings to the Costa Del Sol, but that he doesn't like the sun, then offers to teach Nelson to dance. The Thief dances and in doing so he finds his other leg. Both are shocked. "I'm off me balance. Dizzy. The world's spinnin round!....Yer 'avent got another packet a crisps? To 'elp me get over the shock of finding I got two legs."
The Thief gives Nelson some loose change from the handbag and sends him to buy some crisps. He would of course have done it for himself but it could be dangerous on account of the old lady loitering on the corner. Nelson leaves, the Thief offers to look after the blanket, to buy Cheese and Chives or Provencale Olives 'n Tomato "in an emergency".
Alone, the Thief examines the blanket, but drops it because its full of holes. He picks up the handbag and hat and his crutch and hops off just as the police screech after him sirens flashing. Nelson returns with some crisps, "Liver 'n bacon. That's all they 'ad."
The police car roars up and the officer is delighted to inform him that, "We caught the one-legged thief with the top hat. He fell over his crutch and broke his neck. Goodnight sir. Keep well."
Nelson is left bewildered and alone. He bawls in the direction that the Thief has just taken. "Liver 'n bacon! 'S all they 'ad!"
Nelson leaves with the blanket and a new bag of liver and bacon flavoured crisps.
Five
The wife is setting the table for dinner. Immediately there is a tension between her setting the table and a pile of dust in the corner of the room. She goes over to the dust. Nods her head, a decision is made. She carries on setting the table.
The Foreman enters in his work clothes to which he has added the bow-tie. He carries a parcel. His voice has changed - it is an affected changed. He puts the parcel down and goes to look at the dust before announcing his arrival.
The first exchange between him and the Wife is fraught with antagonism bubbling beneath the surface. The Wife tells him her mother is coming. This unnerves him. The Foreman says an involuntary "Ole".
"Stop saying that," the Wife replies.
We then learn that the mother is not staying long because they live in a pigsty - a reference to the patch of dust which is messing an otherwise spotless dinette. She also explains that her mother never did understand why she married him; his feet smell and he was never a high flyer. The Foreman defends himself - he is more than a high flyer, he lays buildings low, he is a demolition man.
While the wife is out of the room he cleans the cutlery - he is fastidious about hygiene. The dust he has allowed to gather on one spot of the dinette is part of the burden he bears, along with a Wife who does not provide clean cutlery.
They battle over the cutlery. He claims his table knife has egg on it. She replaces it with a large bread knife. He is faced down and settles for cleaning the bread knife on the tablecloth when she goes back into the kitchen. She remerges with a large meat knife. He is about to point out a speck dirt on a glass tumbler but changes his mind as the Wife reappears once more in a dust mask. The foreman is very edgy. He twiddles thumbs and another involuntary "Ole" escapes him. For the Wife it is a declaration of war.
She goes out and returns with the dustpan and brush to go with the mask, she is now fully armed.
She declares victory is hers. They will come to blows. She says she has put up with the inconvenience of the dust when others don't, she knows because she has asked around the estate. She demands an explanation for the dust. He will not give it. The Wife tells him he will have to explain to her mother, thus persuading the Foreman to tell her the truth. The dust he explains is the balancing point of the world. He tells the Wife about Viv and how she had picked the wrong spot, this is world spot.
Formally clearing his throat he outlines a world imbalanced - the horrors trivialised. There is disease but also there is youth. There is blood on knives - sneaky reference to the meat knife - and deforestation and dried egg on knifes. In short anarchy. The spot is now sacred - a hair could trigger it - he has appropriated Viv's vision of destruction but it is trivialised, reduced to an impending disaster on the estate and a threat to the Wife's dinette, "Ole".
To underline his point he unwraps the parcel he has brought in. It is a rope barrier he got from a monastery that is closing down. "But why my dinette" she asks to which he replies that it is he, the demolition expert, who "is the chosen one."
He asks for his tea. She rebuts him.
He refuses to move aside as she brandishes the dust pan and brush. She threatens to starve him of his tea. But his suffering knows no bounds, the world deserve it, and he is prepared to forgo his tea. He will bear it stoically but he asks her if she could provide a few chocolate biscuits instead.
He puts on his shoes and as he speaks - the lace snaps. "See anarchy everywhere." A grotesque moment of final confrontation has arrived. He knew this would happen. He has contemplated it while lying awake at night snoring, while tolerating the wagging of workmates over his bow tie his one concession to his status as world saviour. He has struggled with destiny but now she will witness his apotheosis.
"Stand back. Ole!" Grabbing the cutlery he performs his tremendous flamenco in a futile show of virility. His fanaticism is expressed through complete fantasy, his face in dancing mode is a complete mask. The dance climaxes in a gloriously vulgar display of his powers, stamping round the dust while not disturbing it. He is reckless.
She warns him that his stamping will bring a complaint from Mr Pringle downstairs who has already complained about his snoring.
He tells her from now on her life will be hard. He threatens her with the butter knife. She says will not give way to a terrorist. Destiny has arrived. She goes to clear the spot. He stabs her. This bends the butter knife. He picks up the bread and the meat knife weighing them up in his hands. He deliberates, "Choices, choices." He chooses the largest knife and kills her. Mercifully her hard life was short.
He tidies up the mess. Buries his Wife under the floorboards and wipes the knife on the tablecloth.
There is a knock at the door. He opens it. Nelson appears with the blanket and crisps the Thief has given him ... he enters. Nothing is now as it seems, we have descended into complete chaos - the Foreman inhabits another reality. The Foreman remembers Nelson and offers to feed him. The Foreman returns from the kitchen with a smoking frying pan and a burnt offering. There aren't even any chocolate biscuits.
The Foreman cleans his nails with the butter knife as Nelson tries to explain why Viv shut herself in the room and believed in the spot. If only he could make one person - a normal working man - understand. The Foreman does not hear him, he stares at the butter knife.
Nelson has a map of the world. It is a newspaper. This is how he knows Viv was right. On every page there is a catastrophe. What does our society do with this knowledge - uses it to wrap chips in? What drove Viv mad were the people who turn away. You can't change the world on your own. The spots are everywhere…..in every house…in every street.
The Wife crawls out from under the floorboards. The Foreman tells Nelson to ignore her. She is crawling towards the spot sweeping with the dust and brush as she goes.
Nelson calls for a doctor. Foreman warns him that Mr Pringle will be listening. Nelson goes to the door. The Foreman knocks Nelson out with the frying pan, spilling the charred food across the room. Foreman blames Nelson for this. Wife continues to struggle over to the barrier.
The Foreman ties Nelson up in a chair with the blanket and gags him with a napkin. He hurries over to the wife and snatches the dust pan and brush from her just in time. She dies. The Foreman tidies up again. He puts the wife in the other chair. Picks up the food and offers it to the unconscious Nelson.
The Foreman addresses Nelson. He has saved the world twice today and the butter knife is bent. What is the pattern in that? Life and history are now beyond comprehension even to a demolition expert. He uses Viv's image of the cliff edge. He can take no responsibility. Unappreciated and under threat from the looming presence of Mr Pringle he now has nowhere to sit and nothing to eat. "Has the time come to end it?" He is too tired to make a decision about the fate of the world and decides to toss a coin. Tails. The world must end.
Nelson comes round to the terrifying spectacle of the Foreman's second fantastic flamenco. His grand vainglorious finale performed largely on the table without disturbing the cutlery….The climax comes as the Foreman pauses, his foot raised in the air above the spot ready to crash down when there is another knock at the door. "Destiny always comes. It’s the second time it's tried today." Another quick tidy round the room as he worries whether it is destiny or Mr Pringle coming to complain about the noise. There is no food, not even a biscuit, to offer, he is in a sweat, but at least destiny will know he lived life to the full.
Mr Pringle arrives. He is in fact a she, the DSS Officer.
"Don't your colleagues notice?"
"Certainly not. They are civil servants. They notice nothing."
She wears a short blonde Hitler moustache for formal occasions which she puts on now.
Nelson recognises her instantly and tries to speak to her through his gag.
She recognises the blanket - rather than Nelson. And his crisps. Pringle says he once insulted her with silence and that she can see he is at it again. She says she heard everything from downstairs, the attack on the Wife was frenzied. "Is he not the perpetrator of the notorious Bent Butter knife Murder?"
Mr Pringle explains that she has comes to compliment him on his virile flamenco.
"Since I was a slip of a girl I have dreamed of marrying a demolition engineer who wore a bow tie. They are few. That is why I have remained spinster all these years - for no other reason. Now you have made a literary reference. That was another of my girlhood dreams. That the demolition engineer in the bow tie must make literary references. And we meet on the day when your late Wife has created a gap in your life. It is the hand of destiny!"
"Ole!"
"Ah! Ecstasy! - you speak Spanish!"
Nelson makes a sound of despair.
Mr Pringle tells her client on mobile phone to kill herself. Pringle proposes to the Foreman and hands him the crisps as a wedding present. She is transformed and throws away her phone as it rings. A union of bureaucracy with demolition. They dance a furious Tango. The third and final climatic dance of death, the world is cast aside for their insane pleasure.
As they crash through the barrier Pringle falls onto the dust patch and the world ends.
