The Iron Rainbow : Part Four

(Enter Susan and Jonathan)

SUSAN : Still here, Kenneth, and all on your own.

KENNETH : Yes, I’m still here.

JONATHAN : I wish none of us were. They will be reaching a decision on my case soon. I feel like a pregnant husband.

SUSAN : I can understand your anxiety but try not to worry.

JONATHAN : The more that I think about it the more I think that I need a miracle.

SUSAN : Not necessarily.

JONATHAN : I’m sure that it’s going to be bad news soon.............You don’t have to wait long for the outcome of your case, do you, Kenneth?

KENNETH : No, but I feel less depressed now, not more.

JONATHAN : That’s probably because you realize you are not the only one that has come unstuck. All the inmates have attitudes that are in conflict with other people’s. You know that now. People think I am a snob but I know that it’s the working class lads that are the worst ones. Yeh, none of us are perfect but I didn’t make anything of the fact that our family was better off until they did. They just didn’t like me; they didn’t like my choice of clothes, but they turned up wearing the coat they had nicked from me at the first available opportunity. I knew it was mine by the blue biro mark on the left cuff. I wished that I’d covered it in ink then because I never got it back. How they wriggled out of that is another story, so I won’t bore you with it. But anyway, what I dislike is the type of criminality. I can understand the crime that arises out of necessity. If you have nothing to wear you take something but you don’t have to hate the person who’s worn it before you just to stick the boot in. Having said that I would like to feel I can still tolerate people, and see them as either victims of the society we live in or just people who possess a human weakness. For harmony to come back to society and for people to enjoy themselves in the way that they want to they are going to have to use their intelligence.

KENNETH : You’re getting very intelligent yourself, aren’t you, working all that out?

JONATHAN : It must be having a GCSE in sociology.

KENNETH : You are not an education snob as well, surely?

JONATHAN : No, I left school at sixteen, and I was being sarcastic anyway.

SUSAN : If you had valued your education, Jonathan, I don’t think that you would have ended up in here. You will say that you are unlucky.............. I think you have made the wrong choices, and as a result, you have got into the wrong social set. Half of your friends like to make fun of those with a bit of education. There is nothing wrong with having something upstairs.

JONATHAN : No, as long as it’s a bit of skirt.

SUSAN : You know what I mean. Not to have a clutch of GCSEs these days really limits your choices or chances. If peer pessure means you end up on the scrap heap straightaway there is something seriously wrong with the company you keep.

KENNETH : I’ve got five GCSEs but then I didn’t have to sit in class with lads from Henry Morgan.

JONATHAN : And you called me a snob.

KENNETH : Okay, there is snobbery in everybody. It’s just a case of whether it’s straight....... or inverted.

SUSAN : That’s very true, Kenneth. I admit to being a snob to fit in but I’m not that much of a snob that I have to go one better and say that I’m not a snob at all.

KENNETH : Yes, that really is a snob.

SUSAN : Yes, but just an ordinary inverted snob.

KENNETH : I suppose.

SUSAN : Some would say Norman is snobbish about the meals he presents. And in a way it’s probably true. It doesn’t do you any harm though, does it? (Enter Mole) Tonight’s menu is creme de concombre soup, saumon fumee witha tarragon and mint sauce, and then to finish off, a passion fruit compote with fresh cream.

MOLE : Mmm, that sounds delicious. You can’t beat his passion fruit compote. Let’s hope he does a repeat of his kiwi coulis too.

SUSAN : Yes, George. It’s different to the meals we used to get at school....... an improvement possibly.

MOLE : It’s the egalitarianism and fairness of British justice, Susan. The fact that the meal sounds french is irrelevant.

SUSAN : I am sure you will all get your just desserts.

JONATHAN : Passion fruit sounds to me like a bad omen.

MOLE : Why? Has somebody committed a crime of passion? We don’t have that sort of verdict in England because basically I don’t think that we have any romantics, let alone passionate lovers that would kill because of jealousy.

JONATHAN : Why don’t you shut up? Your idiotic rambling is getting on my nerves. I’m starting to feel depressed.

SUSAN : We all sag in the middle at some point in our lives, Jonathan, but with any luck we go on to better things eventually, perhaps even fall in love.............. Don’t give up.

(Exit Susan)

MOLE : Well, I think we are all stuck in here and it can only get worse. All she is pushing is false hope. The only thing I’ve got to look forward to now is another breakdown. I can feel it coming on.

JONATHAN : Go and lie down then. It’s what Annie Walker used to do.

KENNETH : Wasn’t that for ‘one of her heads’?

JONATHAN : Do you have to be so precise? He’s just an hysterical pansy. You miss the point of everything.

MOLE : I’m going, there is not one of you turned out decent.

(Exit Mole)

(PAUSE)

(Enter Lizard, Lee)

LIZARD : You look very cosy in here.

LEE : You make it sound as if they are tucked up in bed together, Lizard.

LIZARD : I didn’t mean to................. if I’m saying the wrong thing it’s because I can’t relax.

LEE : No, I don’t think that you will ever really feel at ease. You are considered criminal and that is enough to break anybody down. People are self-righteous, yes, but wouldn’t it be expecting too much not to get an attitude from them in any event?

LIZARD : I suppose so. To be realistic you have to give in. I have been trying to beat the system and that is always a big mistake. I will just have to accept my fate.

LEE : I think so. We are all depressed and we are all a bit anxious sometimes but we have accepted the fact that we are in trouble and we are in it together. As my aunt used to say: Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night. Truth is I think that most of us get a bit of both. It’s when we lose sight of that the despair sets in.

JONATHAN : All these f***** pep talks. I’m beginning to wonder what lies ahead. They haven’t brought back the death penalty, have they?

LEE : No, of course not. You twist everything. Life isn’t to be lived as if we are in a sarcophagus, that’s all.

JONATHAN : Sarco what?

LEE : It’s an unusual name for a coffin. Dwelling on the morbid is bad for you. The fact that Ken has a look of Bela Lugosi is beside the point. It’s not to be encouraged.

JONATHAN : Yeh, I can see what you mean. Robot, dummy, walking dead – they all sound about right.

(Enter Jason and Marti)

JONATHAN : Ah, here is more of them. We’ll soon have the full cast of ‘Revenge of the Gravediggers’.

JASON : I’m more alive than most people.

JONATHAN : Yes, but depressed more often than not. In fact I think you have been more fed up and unhappy than the rest of us put together.

JASON : When I first arrived here I saw society as evil and getting away with all sorts of crime. Well – maybe that is the case, but I know now that if you are convinced other people are involved in crime you become seduced into delinquent activities yourself that much easier, when half the time they simply are not involved in the way that you think.

LIZARD : It shows the truth of the royal motto. I don’t remember the French but it’s something like ‘evil be to him that thinks evil’.

(Enter Norman. He is carrying a vase of red tulips and places them in the window)

NORMAN : Honi soit qui mal y pense. (said affirmatively) Very apt and to the point. If you thought better of me you would have today’s button sprouts from the allotment not the week-end’s.

(Enter Len. He stays in the doorway and doesn’t come forward)

LEN : Don’t be flippant about it Norman. If that gem of wisdom would sink into today’s imagination there would be a lot less crime.

NORMAN : Maybe there would be, but as the ‘flowerman of Bellsington’ I admit to being cynical occasionally.

LEN : Is that what they call you?

(Exit Len)

NORMAN : Yes, and before anybody says anything else I have nothing to say in defence of tulips.

LIZARD : You don’t have to justify what you do here.

JASON : No, you and Mole can tiptoe through the tulips whenever you like.

JONATHAN : Take no notice of them, Norman, they don’t appreciate the diversity of the natural world, that’s all.

(Exit Norman)

(Norman leaves shaking his head in despair)

JASON : Don’t turn pansy on us please: we know you are a snob but we didn’t expect you to fly the flag for gardening.

JONATHAN : I’m not bothered about f***** gardening or anything else for that matter. I just don’t think it’s necessary to insult Norman. You don’t knock his food.

JASON : No, I suppose not. As for insulting people, well, it’s like a nervous reaction.

JONATHAN : Yes, you are worried, aren’t you?

JASON : Mmm, I’m worried. You said that I seem more depressed than anybody else; other people think I’m just mean, they don’t seem to see the relationship between that and depression, or bother sorting out the difference.

JONATHAN : No, a bad experience always gets you down. I don’t feel the same since the trouble with the police but I haven’t lost sight of the fact that we can help ourselves. Last time we had our amateur psychotherapy session you weren’t interested, were you? Why not take part in one now. We can lower the lights, put on a tape, and tap into those areas of the mind that can relieve us of all our anxieties.

JASON : Okay........... as long as it doesn’t take too long.

JONATHAN : The last psycho-visual was created by me, Kenneth and Lee. This time you give your thoughts, while you work your way into a situation that is relaxing and in which you feel comfortable and at ease. Before we start you need a partner. Will you cooperate, Marti, or you, Lizard?

LIZARD, MARTI : No.

JONATHAN : It won’t knock your masculinity to believe in psychotherapy.

MARTI : We are not mental cripples.

JONATHAN : No, but you are under stress – we all are. It helps relieve tension, and when you indulge your imagination you increase your self-confidence and benefit from the liberating effect of temporary escape. Just do it. It’s a good laugh.

MARTI : Urrr (Very reluctantly, then resigned).............. okay.

 

Concluded in Part Five