JACKY: No. I’m staying. You go.

PETER: Well, do we need to stay? I mean…

JACKY: (gentle, firm)  Peter go on. Go to Leeds. I’ll see you later.

PETER: Yes, but they’ll wonder why you’re not with me.

JACKY: Peter please, just go.

He looks at HEDLEY and laughs embarrassedly.

PETER: They’ll expect you though.

She becomes more emotional but well in control.

JACKY: Let ‘em expect Peter. We all expect a lot o’ things. (Slight pause.)

Just tell them that I don’t want to go today.

PETER: Yes. Yes alright then.

He leaves.

She turns to HEDLEY who is  opening  the wooden box and  looking at the contents.

JACKY:  (quietly)   What’re you doin’?

HEDLEY: Eh?  Well, I’d better not do much more brickin’ up. Coppers’ll want to look in there won’t they.

JACKY: Yes I suppose they will.

Slight pause.

HEDLEY:  (quietly)   Ey, you know, Peter were only…

JACKY:  What?

HEDLEY: Nowt to do wi’ me. But I think ‘e were more upset than ‘e were lettin’ on.

JACKY:  (wry amusement)   Yeh?

HEDLEY:  Well. (Slight pause.)   Don’t like to see folk fallin’ out.

JACKY: (warning, patting her nose)   Hedley, just keep that out of…

He pulls an old yellowing photograph from the box.

HEDLEY: Hey!  Photo of a quarryman. Or a mason. (He looks up at the viaduct.)

Must be ‘is grandad. It’s these viadocks.

She moves to him.

JACKY:  S’ave a look.

He hands the photograph to her and sifts through the box.

HEDLEY: Silver threepenny bit. Old white fiver. (chuckles) Bugger were rich!  Some sorta foreign money…

JACKY: Wonder what was expected of Mr. Mathers. What they expected ‘im to do. Poor man.

HEDLEY: Hey. No more bloody snifflin’ Wainwright. (She smiles.)  What’s this? Picture of a tramp.  No, a clown. Some name printed on it. (He tries to decipher.)   Er…  summat the…  ‘Doodles the Clown’!

JACKY: We shouldn’t be doin’ this.

HEDLEY: I know.

He hands her the picture.

HEDLEY: (cont.) ‘Ang on. S’ave a look in ‘ere.

(He picks up a battered brown paper packet.  He peers inside.)

Would you believe it?

(He pulls out the packet of Hedex.)

Bloody ‘Hedex’

JACKY takes the Hedex from him.

He takes a grubby, ancient card from the packet.

HEDLEY: (reads)            ‘Something, for Dick Dully.  From me to you.  Love. Brinker.’

Then it says — ‘Doodles to you’.

JACKY: Brinker.

HEDLEY: S’what it says. ‘Love.  Brinker’.  Can’t imagine anybody lovin’ owd Mathers.

She looks at the shelter.

JACKY: Have you got some matches?

HEDLEY: Yeh.

She stands up and holds out her hand.

JACKY: Give ‘em ‘ere, I’m goin’ to ‘ave a look in there.

HEDLEY: Eh?

JACKY: Come on.

He fiddles in his pocket, gives her the matches.

Stooping, she steps over the bricks and disappears into the shelter. We hear the match strike.

HEDLEY reads the card from Brinker again.

HEDLEY: Love. Brinker.

He smiles, puzzled.

He picks up the picture of the clown, which JACKY replaced on the box, and studies it again. He studies the name of the clown, compares it with the card, realisation dawns. He begins to laugh quietly, mockingly.

JACKY reappears from the shelter. She stops,  watches HEDLEY.

HEDLEY looks up, holds up the card and the picture.

HEDLEY: (with some disgust)   Bloody hell! Love, Brinker. Doodles the bloody clown.

JACKY: Hedley, just go and look in there.

HEDLEY: Huh.  Mathers. Eh? Pervy owd sod!

JACKY: ‘Ere y’are, give me that stuff. (He looks at the shelter and hands the card and picture to JACKY.)   Go and look in there

She takes some matches from the box and then hands the box to HEDLEY.

He disappears into the shelter, we hear a match strike.

She quickly looks through the few items from the box, then  takes the empty brown packet, the card and the picture of the clown over to the dry stone wall.

She selects  a place on the wall  where EMMERSON was working, and puts the papers down on a little pile.

She strikes a match on the stone and sets fire to the pile.

HEDLEY: (off, from the shelter)   What did you find? (He reappears from the shelter) There’s nothing!  I can’t see anythin’. There’s nothin’ there at all.

JACKY: No.

He sees what she is doing.

HEDLEY: Ey, What’re you… why’re you doin’ that?

JACKY: (quietly)   Put the other things back in the box.

HEDLEY does so, replacing the lid when everything is back inside.

JACKY:  Right, put all ‘is stuff together.

HEDLEY does so.

JACKY makes sure that everything is burnt, then she blows the ashes into the rubble of the wall.

She looks round at HEDLEY.

HEDLEY: OK?

JACKY: Right. I’m going to look out for the ambulance.

She makes to go off stage right, pauses to look up and along the viaduct, and back.

HEDLEY watches her.

She looks at him, smiles ruefully.

JACKY: Big, useless, bloody monument

She goes.

HEDLEY watches her go and then looks round, a bit at a loss.

He looks at his bricks.

He picks up the hammer and starts to pick at the old mortar on one of the bricks.

Lights fade.

We hear the ringing sound of hammer on brick.

Lights snap down to

BLACKOUT

END.  

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