DEATH TURNS THE DIAL: An Audio Drama By David Erdos
DEATH TURNS THE
DIAL
An Audio Drama
By David Erdos
CHARACTERS:
JOHN, 50
ELLA, 40s – John’s partner
JO, 50 – John’s sister
JIM/JAN – Jo’s partner (to be by
Director/Technician)
VOICE (Distorted and played by Technician/Director)
1. INT. LOUNGE. NIGHT.
FADE IN: FOLEY/FX 1: BACKGROUND MUSIC AND CHATTER
(JOHN is joined by his partner ELLA and sister, Jo.)
JOHN. Is this what I think it is?
JO. That depends on whether or not you unwrap
it..
JOHN. Dad's old -
JO. It could be..
JOHN. Was it in your loft?
JO. I'd say lost.
ELLA. Unwrap it.
JOHN. So where did you find it?
FFX 2: HE STARTS CAREFULLY TEARING THE PAPER
JOHN. Did you have it fixed?
JO. Wasn't broken. Or, not that I could see
anyway. I just gave it a rub down..
ELLA. Like a lamp!
JO. Anyway, I thought I'd give you the honours..
JOHN. Smells a bit..
ELLA. That's what happens when
something is lost or unloved.
FFX 3: MORE UNWRAPPING
JO. It wasn't in my loft, or Mum's, or even Dad's
for that matter.
ELLA. Oh...
JO. No, it was in someone else's entirely.
JOHN. Whose?
JO. Our Godfather..
JOHN. Who; Robert..
JO. Richard.
JOHN. I can't even remember his
name!!
JO. Richard Greene.
ELLA. That's the curse of Godfathers
I think. It often is in name only. Some close family
friend you lose track of.
JO. Except of course when it matters. And I suppose
this year mattered and that he came up
trumps, so to speak.
ELLA. Let's not go there..
JOHN. I'm surprised he's alive.
JO. Oh he's alive. And living in Greece of all
places. He'd heard Dad died. Got in contact. He
actually remembered your birthday. And
that this was a big one, too.
JOHN. Strikealight! Look at that! Look
at it! It's as big as our old picnic hamper! Do you
remember, Jo?
JO. A blast from the past.
JOHN. We could ride it. Or mow the
bloody lawn with it! Look!
FADE:
FFX 4: A BLAST OF STATIC NOW JARS: A SHARP POP AND CRACKLE.
2. INT. LOUNGE. NIGHT.
(John's frustrated.)
FFX 5: THE DIAL MOVES BETWEEN STATIONS BUT NO VOICES
COME.
FADE:
3. INT. KITCHEN. NIGHT.
FFX 6: A KETTLE CLICKS AS THE WATER BOILS (SENSED STEAM RISES)
(ELLA is in the
kitchen while JOHN talks to her from a further room.)
JOHN(OR) Is that tea, Ella?
ELLA. Not yet.
JOHN (OR) Sounds like Niagra
Falls!
ELLA. That's my present. I found it
online. There's a speaker, so you can hear it from another
room.
JOHN (OR) That's insane.
ELLA. It's just like a modern
teasmade that's all..
JOHN (OR) So what else can we get
on it; Netflix?
ELLA. Probably.
JOHN (OR) That kitchen has become
Moreau's island. The digital world's full of monsters.
ELLA. You say that, I say wonders.
JOHN. With the analogue world like a
wasteland....
FFX 7: THE POURING OF WATER INTO TWO MUGS FROM THE KETTLE.
JOHN (OR) Now that sounds like
coffee.
ELLA. Well, that shows what you know:
this is tea.
FADE:
4. INT. JO'S BEDROOM.
NIGHT.
(JO is in bed with JIM/JAN, her partner.)
FFX 8: JIM SNORING, LIGHTLY.
FFX 9: JO WAKES UP; RUFFLED SHEETS.
JO. Jim!/Jan!
JIM/JAN. Hmm?
JO. What's that?
JIM/JAN. Me.
JO. I heard something..!
JIM/JAN. Gothsleep...
(Pause)
JO. Did you hear it?
JIM/JAN. Nonlymynervessuffering...
(He turns over, sighs. She listens intently. We should get a sense of
this. Silence.)
FFX 10: A SMALL CREAK.
JO. JIM!/JAN!
JIM/JAN. Suedivorce!
FADE:
5. INT. LOUNGE. LATER STILL.
FFX 11: MORE STATIC COMES BUT THIS TIME NOT AS JARRING.
(JOHN is up again with the radio, turning the dial. ELLA approaches.)
ELLA. You're like a boy with his toy
oblivious to the rest of Christmas. You woke me up.
JOHN. Sorry, sweetheart.
ELLA. It isn't the noise.
JOHN. Kept it low. I used to love
this thing as a kid. I remember it seemed so important.
Because of it's age. It was
special. It was like some sort of lesson in care on its own. It
was the only thing my Dad had when
he first came to this country. It was all that was
left.
ELLA. It's so heavy.
JOHN. He was 18. He'd have coped. He
walked around London for months learning the
streets and the language and then
I suppose at night he'd have used it to listen and
get to know all the shows. The Goons.
Round the Horne and all the
stuff that came
later. From the Hungarian news of
the Nazis to Eccles and Crun. That's insane. A
machine of the past, or with the past kept
inside it. Like a magic lamp.
ELLA. Who's the Genie?
JOHN. Take your nightie off, I'll rub
you.
ELLA. You're too old.
JOHN. Too true.
ELLA. You should still come to bed,
though. For pity.
JOHN. Listen, pity is perfect. I'll
take all I can get at my age.
FADE:
6. INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.
FFX 12: THE SOUNDS OF THEIR SLEEPING.
FFX 13: A MOBILE RINGING.
(John wakes, answers it.)
(FX 14: As JO is
speaking, we only hear her through John's phone.)
JO (OP) I'm sorry if I woke you..
ELLA (MOANS) What'sshat..
JOHN. I couldn't sleep. I was
thinking.
JO (OP) I've had the strangest thought..
JOHN. Oh..
ELLA. Johhhnnn...
JO (OP)
An odd feeling. Are you feeling it too?
JOHN. No. Just age.
JO (OP) John!
JOHN. Sorry..
JO (OP) Twins do. All that's true. Can't you
feel it? Did the radio work? I dreamt, or felt
something.
JOHN. Are you sure it wasn't Jim?/Jan?
JO (OP) Go and see.
JOHN. What?
JO (OP) Go and see..
JOHN. What, because you’ve had a
feeling?
JO (OP) John..
JOHN. I'm not bloody Aladdin, Jo..
JO (OP) Go. Maybe it was a dream. At least
try it.
JOHN. So, I suppose you mean sleep
when I'm dead.
JO (OP) Life's a broadcast. So perhaps we
should try to keep what’s left of ourselves on the
air.
FFX 15: JOHN'S SOUND AS HE WILLS HIMSELF TO GET UP.
FADE:
7. INT. LOUNGE. NIGHT.
JOHN (mutters) Come on..!
FFX 16: STATIC PLAYS AS JOHN CARRIES ON TUNING. THE SHARP POP AND
CRACKLE AS HE CONCENTRATES. HE REPEATEDLY
TURNS THE DIAL.
THE STATIC RISES
THEN SETTLES. THEN IT SPARKS.
JOHN. Christ!
FFX 17: AMIDST IT, A SOUND THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE
SAYING 'JOHN..'
CAN BE HEARD.
(John makes a small gasp. He stops.)
FFX 18: THE STATIC CRACKLES.
FFX 19: WE HEAR THE WORD ‘JOHN’ ONCE MORE: IT IS STRETCHED AND
DISTORTED BUT
DISCERNIBLE THROUGH THE NOISE.
FADE:
8. INT. KITCHEN. DAY.
FFX 20: THE CLICK OF THE KETTLE.
FFX 21: THE POURED WATER AND SOUND OF THE SPOONS.
JOHN. Yet more tea.
ELLA. Its better for you. Tea
soothes. And you don't need the chaos of coffee. Did you sleep
at all?
JOHN. Doesn't matter. No-one's
working now.
ELLA. That's not true. Everyone's
settling back. Or haven't you noticed.
JOHN. Not since last night.
ELLA. It was shocking. You were like
a child with a toy that just broke.
JOHN. I don't think it's broken. It's
old.
ELLA. So what do you think it needs,
John; a biscuit?
JOHN. Time.
ELLA (Sighs) Eggs and bacon?
JOHN. No, I don't fancy much. Just
some toast.
ELLA. Oh.
JOHN. I'm nearly the same age as my
Dad. I mean, when he died. Did you know that? As
well as fatter.
ELLA. Then you shouldn't have toast. Just have fruit.
JOHN. I don't smoke like he did but
maybe all that sausage will kill me..
ELLA. Sausage?
JOHN. Or bacon.
ELLA. Or chocolate and crisps.
JOHN. Or that cheese.
ELLA. Cheese. Yes.
JOHN. He used to love cheese, my Dad.
We used to eat it late at night with raw onions.
Watching the late film on Friday.
Horror, mostly. or Bunuel. World Cinema night on
BBC2 every Friday. He'd make
sandwiches with the onion and have a good strong
cheese on the side. Saturday nights were
all about fish and chips from the place on
Whitby Road, which I'd run to.
We'd go together or sometimes they'd send me out
to get it all on my own.
ELLA. And what about Jo?
JOHN. Jo never came. She liked to
think of me as her servant. She stayed with mum. But I
liked that. It was a mission I ran
on my own. Food was what was magical then as
opposed to all of them now who
just cook it. It was like a link. It felt special. When
we were growing up in the
seventies it was always the what, not the how.
ELLA. That sounds overly nostalgic..
JOHN. I'm allowed. Now that I'm officially
old and my parents are dead. I'm an orphan.
ELLA. Can you really be orphans at
fifty?
JOHN. Of course you bloody can!
ELLA (sighs).
White or brown?
(Pause)
JOHN. Cornflakes.
ELLA. Cornflakes? Are you being a
pain now on purpose?
JOHN. Ella, I thought they'd be
simpler!!
ELLA. Not at this moment! I don't
think anything is anymore..
FFX 22: DRAWER OPENS. A BOWL IS TAKEN OUT AND PLACED ON A TABLE.
FFX 23: A CEREAL PACKET IS OPENED.
FFX 24: THE FLAKES RAIN DOWN INTO THE BOWL.
CROSS FADE:
9. INT. LOUNGE. DAY.
FFX 25: RAIN CLATTERING OUTSIDE THE WINDOW.
FFX 26: THE STATIC IS PLAYING
(JOHN is by the window, contemplating the rain.)
VOICE. Turn..
(John makes a small gasp and turns.)
FFX 27: THE STATIC SEEMS MORE MUSICAL NOW; THE SENSE OF (SOUND)
WAVES RISING AND
SETTLING. THE VOICE COMES FROM THE STATIC
AND IS STRETCHED AND DISTORTED AND DOES NOT
HAVE TO BE
CLEAR.
VOICE. This is the place...this is the
place you're receiving..
JOHN. Dad..??
VOICE. Not..No traces..
JOHN. Who..
VOICE. No faces now.. And no names...
FFX 28: THE STATIC RISES, DISTORTS
(John gasps, unsettled.)
JOHN. DAD..??? JO..
(He goes for his phone.)
FFX 29: THE PHONE DIALLING.
THE STATIC CUTS.
FADE:
10 INT. KITCHEN. DAY.
(JO sits with ELLA.)
FFX 30: A RADIO PLAYS IN THE ROOM BEYOND - IN THE BACKGROUND.
FFX 31: AND THEN ANOTHER, PLACED NEXT TO IT IN THE ROOM. THE
TWO
DIFFERENT STATIONS
AT ONCE.
FFX 32: NOW A THIRD RADIO PLAYING.
FFX 33: AND NOW A FOURTH..
FFX 34: THE KITCHEN DOOR CLOSES, MUFFLING THE NOISE.
ELLA. You can hear what he’s doing?
JO. I can.
ELLA. I just want to know why you
called him..
JO. I don’t know what to tell you. I suppose I
just sensed or felt something...but then he
called me!
ELLA. After that. Jo, I’ve had this
for a week! He hasn’t chased work. He’s just sat there.
JO. Well, what do you think it is, then; a
breakdown?
ELLA. God, I hope not.
JO. He’ll be fine.
(Pause)
ELLA. He says he’s hearing voices..
JO. Well, that’s good. I mean, it is a radio,
Ella..
ELLA. Is that supposed to be funny? Because
listening to all this, its like its become..I don’t
know: an obsession..
JO. Radio as
religion.,
ELLA. What?
JO. Well, isn’t that what people with faith do: tune
in? You know, to some high frequency
from which they get either static, or
silence. This is the same.
ELLA. You’re not helping.
JO. I’m trying to help.
ELLA. You’re the same.
JO. Twins.
ELLA. That’s no help.
JO. I’m trying to see both sides, Ella. Yes, I
had this feeling but I wasn’t about to say what
John did. I suppose you could say that
the radio set is a key, or like a drop of oil placed
in water. Once it spreads, it soils,
ruins and then probably affects everything..
FX 35: THE STATIC IS HEARD TO
RISE AND DISTORT AS JOHN CONTINUES
ELLA. Christ..
JO. There was a lot of guilt when Dad died about
who could have helped him. John was at
College and I had started work. No-one
knew. Dad had lost everything and when he
turned up at John’s, both were shaken.
His job had gone. His house also. All he seemed
to have left was his car. He’d driven
from London to Leeds to give Richard the radio to
look after. It was like he knew..
ELLA. Well, now he’s in it and John
is in there, tracking him!
JO. Ella..
ELLA. Seriously, Jo! Certainly, if
that’s what you’re saying!
JO. Perhaps the radio is just a reminder: its grief.
ELLA. It's been years..so, what if
you -
JO. You haven’t lost anyone, have you?
ELLA. So?
JO. Then you don’t really know what it feels
like. Because it isn’t even death. It’s the absence.
That’s what really gets you. It speaks.
ELLA. The absence..
JO. Its always surprising to me that even people
my age haven’t felt this. But of course they
don’t. In your late sixties or older you can
still have Mum and Dad. Perhaps we’re lead to
believe there’s a route: by such and such
a time we’ll be married. And then we’ll have
children, the house, patio and the dog.
But then things happen of course and the dial
that tunes you in just gets shifted. Suddenly
its all static. As that’s what happened to
Dad, after all. And then Mum, later on,
and of a heart attack, too. Still connected.
And that’s why I called him. I just had this
feeling, as I was sat there ‘tuning in’ to the
night. Dreams are like concerts to me. And
those of course are a broadcast. But coming
from where; other places, or just
further inside your own head? I don't think Grief goes
at all. I don’t think it can. It just alters.
For us at least. Men are different. Although twins
of course have a bind. We’re not
identical, but, we still have that connection.
What
would you say it was like? Human
whiskers. Like you have on a cat. Our sixth sense.
We’ve all had a lot of time on our hands which
has given us a chance to both indulge
and consider. When Mum and Dad split
they had ten years not talking. I don’t know,
maybe what John’s doing in there is a
good thing. He’s trying to find a connection: to us
as kids and maybe, to any, or all of those
we have lost.
(Pause)
ELLA. Do you really believe that?
JO. I think so. Perhaps this was just my way of
coping..
ELLA. So the radio was given on
purpose?
JO. I’m not sure what you mean...
ELLA. To upset him. Or us. Because it
isn’t my fault that I have two healthy parents...
JO. Ella, that’s not what I’m saying!
ELLA. Then what are you saying?
Because that’s what’s upset me; John needs to find work
and move on! This year has been
such a shift. The world is waking itself from a
nightmare! But you seem to want him
back dreaming..
JO. Ella..
ELLA. Can’t you see, its not helping?
Spinning him back to the past? I know all this stuff. You
forget I know. Its what happens. Peoples’
lives. Peoples’ ‘broadcasts.’ On the surface
they’re varied, but they’re also, of
course, all the same. We all have loss Josephine.
You don’t have copyright on it. And that thing
in there’s an old object, just as the
others are he’s now bought. Antique
and useless, old radios which he’s trying to use
as ghost boxes! Because of you and
your feeling, its now so much harder for what was
there clearly living to actually
come back to life! And I don’t mean your parents, sadly:
I mean the things we’ve all been through!
JO. I understand..
ELLA. Do you!
JO. If you want to, I can go and talk to him. If
you like.
ELLA. I’m not sure I do. I feel like
I’m running a robot kindergarten..!
JO. At least you can turn those off. Unlike
children.
ELLA. Well, I’ve got a big one there,
thanks to you!
FFX 36: ELLA OPENS THE DOOR.
FFX 37: THE CHORUS OF RADIOS’
VOLUME RISES
ELLA. Are you alright?
JOHN (OR) I’m still trying..
ELLA. Anything to report?
JOHN (OR) Nothing yet..
FFX 38: ELLA SHUTS THE DOOR
FFX 39: THE RADIOS ONCE MORE ARE MUFFLED.
JO. At least you can still make a joke..
ELLA. Suddenly I’m not feeling much
laughter. What were you parents like?
JO. Complicated..
ELLA. Well, wouldn’t you know? Quel
Surprise.
FADE:
11. INT. LOUNGE. NIGHT.
FFX 40: THE STATIC CONTINUES. BUT THIS IS STATIC AS MUSIC. IT HAS A KIND
OF SHAPE NOW, OR FLOW.
(John is still sat, clearly listening to it. JO approaches and joins
him.)
JO. She’s pretty wired.
JOHN. I heard. I’m staying in here, where
its safer. Nice joke..
JO. I brought you a drink..
JOHN. Arsenic on ice?
JO. Gin or Vodka. I quite fancied both.
JOHN. Mine’s the gin.
(She sits and they drink as they listen now to the static.)
JO. You’ll have to stop this..
JOHN. I know.
JO. Though, I think I know what you’re doing..
that last conversation..you’re just trying to
have it now, aren’t you, John?
JOHN. We’d had that row. I was just so
disappointed, so angry..
JO. We both were..
JOHN. Scared for him, and then she
never really said what she felt.
JO. They were a different generation, that’s all.
It sounds trite, but its truthful.
JOHN. I just thought when you called
me..that it might be worth working out..
JO. Drink your gin.
(A silence. They do.)
JOHN. So, how did he know?
JO. I called.
JOHN. Richard Greene to me is more
absence.
JO. I’ve always been in touch with him.
JOHN. Clearly. And he with you.
JO. He was Dad’s first friend when he came here. Sleeping
with me soon felt..clumsy.
Its why he went away.
JOHN. Yes, to Greece..
JO. No, to Leeds first, actually. He played with
the Philharmonic there.
JOHN. Yes, the Cellist..
JO. Or, was. Now, he’s eighty. Or, older...
JOHN. He gets around then. Or did.
But only to places with e’s in. Leeds, Greece, etc.
Is there anywhere else?
JO. Sweden.
JOHN. Right.
JO. Dad stopped him on the street one day in
1957, and asked for directions. Richard was
going that way so he showed him and then
they kept talking and became best friends
after that.
JOHN. Sharing all things...
JO. John!
JOHN. What!
JO. Don’t you know tha girls plays with life while
boys are still on their trainsets...
JOHN. How old were you?
JO. When?
JOHN. When Richard Greene -
JO. Twenty.
It was all above board!
JOHN. Still perverted. Maybe that’s
why there’s all of these pops and crackles and why
Dad’s frizzing away, stuck in
here..
JO. But is he in there, John..?
JOHN. Isn’t he? Perhaps he’s judging
you and dear Richard..
JO. What!
JOHN. Broadcasting your trial across
static, which actually is its own station and where all of
the things we never see or know
have their say.
JO. Trial? Its my life. And Richard was always
supportive..
JOHN. Not to me.
JO. He was wary..
JOHN. I bet he bloody was!
JO. He helped me get my first sessions. You knew.
And you knew he couldn’t help you
much, as an actor...
JOHN. Well, not to worry, as I’m sure
he’ll be playing beside them both in here soon
enough!
JO. That’s a vile
thing to say!
JOHN. You’re right, Jo. I’m sorry. I
don’t know what I feel, if I’m honest. Look, I’m sorry, if –
JO. No. Its alright.
JOHN. I just -
JO. I know. Or think I do. I assume so.
JOHN. Call it what you will. Midlife
crisis.
JO. I would say fifty is actually a little too
late to start that!
FX 41: JOHN TURNS THE DIAL,
GETTING A SMALL BURST OF STATIC.
JOHN. Nothing.
JO. You know we would never have looked after
this. We wouldn’t have known how to prize
it. Dad’s hidden treasure.
JOHN. Which may have so much else in
besides!
JO. Like what?
JOHN. Grandad!
JO. John..
JOHN. Well, why not? Just imagine!
Fear’s frequency captured, and,let’s be honest, there
was a lot of fear broadcast then. Maybe Dad
thought Grandpa died for it. I mean,
Dad’s four years old, when he’s
captured. Carted off by the Nazis..
JO. It was the Hungarian collaborators, John, not
the Nazis. Its probably why he and
Grandma and Uncle Lanos too, all
survived. It wasn’t as harsh. The man was enough. We
both know this..
JOHN. So, torn from his wife and his
children perhaps a part of him still remained..!
JO. John..
JOHN. Why not, Jo? Why not? Everyones
struck or stained by what others do to them. If you
have sex with someone they’re in
you, or you’re in them, all the time. And its the
same thing with anything as
intense. Hate, as well. Or, if someone brushes past you,
or hits you. Tiny pieces stay with
you. Molecules, hairs, atoms, tears. Do you
remember Keith Haynes? I used to go round to
his house and play records. He had
the amazing collection of a hip
New York cat at sixteen. Modern jazz.
High end funk.
The frenzied avant garde. I would
tape it. One night there was this ECM record, solo
piano and bells; wonderful. The
record was on, and I remember at the time we were
laughing. You remember Keith, he
was funny, and when I took the tape home and
played it, we were on the tape at the end! Just
as the piano piece faded. You could
hear what were actually cooking
bells fading and our laughter, too, echoing. Some
sort of frequency had been
breached. And something else had been captured. I still
have the tape somewhere. I could
find and play it to you.
JO. I’m alright. John, Grandpa’s not there.
JOHN. How can you sound so certain?
JO. Dad knew we loved him. And I’m sure he understood all the anger. There’s
no need to
search for it...
JOHN. Jo, it was intensity that was
captured. So, that’s what I’m saying. Instead of laughs, its
that feeling.. Perhaps, like
Keith’s taping, its there in that old radio!
JO. John..
JOHN. And that our Granparents are in
there, as well and that they’re all finding their way
between stations. Perhaps the
static is their conversation. The music of the dead.
Frequencies.
JO. There was a lot of hidden stuff in our Dad.
Its probably why he never taught us the
language.
JOHN. You mean he wanted to cut it
off, somehow..
JO. Or he was ashamed of it.
JOHN. Or..
JO. What?
JOHN. Did he know?
JO. Did he know about what?
JOHN. You and Greene.
JO. I have no idea if he did. Shall we ask him?
FFX 42: JOHN TURNS UP THE STATIC – A WORD OR SOUND FORMS AND CRACKLES.
JOHN. Wait..
JO. What?
JOHN. There’s something..!
JO. What? What did he say?
JOHN. No, that’s Mum..
FFX 43: THE STATIC RISES UNTIL IT OVERTAKES: DEATH’S CLEAR MUSIC. IN
THEORY IT PLAYS UNTIL
WE LEARN HOW TO LISTEN AND TO HEAR
WHAT’S INSIDE IT. THE
SOUND AS LANGUAGE. THE STATIC OF SOULS.
END OF PLAY.
 |
David Erdos |
Comments
Post a Comment