Fabulous Walk - Teign Village
.
1. As the audience gather outside the Social Club at Teign Village, Devon, the Tiger pads around the edge of the village, only seen in glimpses, the Daughter delivers vegetables to certain doors, the Bird is studying the landscape from various viewing points around the village and the Father is straining up and down the slope of the road carrying silvery white stones in one hand on the way down and reclaimed motorway aggregate in one hand on the way up.
2. At a sign Bird, Daughter and Father converge on the audience. The Tiger walks on the edge of the village.
Nicola: Hello, thank you for coming. My name’s Nicola Singh and today we’re going to take you on a fabulous walk in Teign Village. Phil Smith and I have been working here to create this walk and we’re performing it with the help of Katie Etheridge and Fumiaki Tanaka.
(Gestures towards Katie, and to Fumiaki in the distance.)
We’ve had a lovely few days walking to here from Teignmouth, then spending time here, chatting to people, looking at places, learning just a little about the place and its history – but we’re not experts. This won’t be a guided tour – instead, we’re going to tell a story. Which never happened here, but it could have…
Phil: Our story may take a very long time… it starts 280 million years ago… when Dartmoor over there was a seething volcanic mass of liquid rock, bubbling away at 1000 degrees centigrade, hitting the rocks that had already been laid down round here ... shales from the bottom of seas, limestones made from the skeletons of billions of sea creatures, sands from deserts… the hot magma completely transformed them – as minerals from the bubbling granite came rushing into the cracks of rocks here – making seams of micaceous haematite, lead ore, silver, arsenic, manganese…
(Becoming the Father. Bird and Daughter begin to drift away. The following scene takes place on the road.)
3.
Phil: Of course, it’s all quiet now… nothing changes here - everything’s very stable and historical. Calm, I’d say. Very quiet. Off the beaten track. Just the right setting for a fairy tale. About a father who loved his daughter, and about a tiger who plagued that father and daughter. And about a bird who saw it all.
Of course the problem with stories is too often they’re just copies of what’s real – imitations of real life – holding the mirror up to nature, as the poet says – now, I don’t know much about art, but I know this - art should show something different from ordinary life: it should be calm, quiet, more like a map, gridded, better than real life, a place to escape to from the madness of this terrible world…
So – please, just because there is a tiger in our story, it has nothing to do with whatever it was that was seen in January of this year - a number of people in the Teign Valley reported seeing it: five foot long, tawny colour, shaped like a big cat…. This apparition might have been real, might have been a product of people’s imagination – but it has no part in this story…
Nor has my land… the land that I lost – (pauses) – I didn’t intend that. Did I? I didn’t deserve that, did I? Did I?
(Pauses. Takes out a pack of cards which he shuffles.)
And so the Father begins to force his story upon us – he tells us about the fabulous wealth that he squandered and of the bad luck that dogged him, of the horse he backed that pulled up lame just when it was about to win back all his losses, of how a final card fell the wrong way, of investments he made in railways when the demand was for roads – and how he ended up building those costly railways to supply cheap dolerite for the roads that put those very railways out of business. About how he had to mortgage all his own land in order to fund those failed investments, and when his lands were gone, how he could not get them back. Even the land betrayed him! The land that had borne his name - for god’s sake, even its public houses were named after him! – but the men inside them, when he was down, they bought his land and were happy to see him suffer – and when he dug into that same land to make his tramways to transport the rock he’d dug, that same rock would hold him up, refusing to move.
(Strikes the road surface.)
These were my fields!! Under the houses!
(Looks to the land.)
Sometimes you would think that it was still 280 million years ago and all this was burning magma once more.
(Pauses.)
I don’t want any more to do with this world!!! I have only one thing left and she will not be part of this world!!! I will not permit it!! Let me take you to see her! She is too good for this planet of bubbling uncertainties! Let me show you to her. We must cross the road. I’m sure that I can….
(Pauses. Bends down and touches the street.)
This is the road where roads begin. A road for road-makers. Cross it carefully – for here it is not the vehicles, but the street itself that can knock you down.
(They cross the road and walk between the houses to the edge of the allotments. In the allotments the Daughter is standing in an enamel bowl full of earth.)
Look at it. A world completely disconnected from this one. Without violence or death or betrayal or unpleasantness. Without dispute or argument – perfectly ordered – a grid system in which nothing can interfere with anything else – immaculately un-policed. Unreal. A dream. Simply growing. I wish I could go in – but it’s not a place I can go. I would fall apart. Legs, arms – they’d fall off – without a reason, there would be no me… but my daughter, thank god, she needs no reason!!! She only dreams!! I must leave you, in case I spoil it here – it would dismantle me… my darling will look after you, you have nothing to fear here… nothing to fear… she is completely innocent of roads, of the price of land, of… of… no matter about that!! Everything is forgotten in the garden!!
(The Father leaves and moves back to the Social Club.)
4.
(The audience approaches the Daughter who is standing in earth in a large enamel bowl. The Bird, who has been visible beyond the Daughter, using her binoculars to scour both the skies and the far horizon towards Haldon Hills and checking her observations on an OS map of the area, now walks over to the daughter and picks up a watering can by the side of the bowl and waters the earth. The Bird withdraws and then watches for the Tiger through her binoculars.
The Daughter sings.)
5.
(When the Daughter’s song is over.)
Bird: While the daughter had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird opens the box she carries and takes out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
It’s about the land. Come with me – I’ll show you.
6.
(The Bird leads the audience back to the road, holding the letter up above her head. She leads the audience across the road – the Father is walking up the street with bits of motorway aggregate in his hands. The Bird leads the audience down the side of number12 to where there is a view of the fields beyond. Then, with her back to the fields, she reads from the letter.)
Bird: “Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
“What’s the matter with these people? Don’t they realise that they’ll never be happy as long as they don’t have precise territories? If only they could see the land from above then they would realise the importance of boundaries. How we have to fight for our fields. They will never be happy while land changes hands, from one human to another, they will always be as scared as us. There are field mice in the shade of the barn. A dragonfly, striped like a tiger, flies between the mountains of arsenic. Have you seen the beast? Of course, I have. Soon the humans will realise they have forgotten to protect their territories. The beast has come from afar. But how will he take back what is his, when it is stitched into every jacket, when it is the sauce on every meal, when it lines the stomach every time they drink? With a claw, with a claw, with a claw.”
(The Daughter has come up behind the audience and now sings – she holds out her arm showing the wound.
(fade out as move away)
(At the end of the song, the daughter walks backwards out of the alley, beckoning the audience to follow her. She turns into the road, walking up it, just as the Father is walking backwards up the road and turns into the entry, not seeing the Daughter.)
7.
Father: What was that? Was it what I’ve always feared? Ever since we had to give up the land… you show weakness to this world and it will rip you apart like a blast in a quarry … (To the Bird:) what do the birds say?
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
Can you ….”
Father: I don’t understand any of that.
(The Father takes the Bird’s map in his hand and studies it for a moment.)
Father: If only we could see the land like this, we would never let it go. Haaah!
(The Father gasps and freezes. Behind him the Tiger passes up the street carrying a red flag. Tiger goes to the car park – first tree. The Father drops the map and the Bird retrieves it and disappears along the path behind numbers 12 to 2, then waiting at the gate to the Sports Field.
Nervously, the Father takes out his cards and shuffles them, as a comforting action.)
Father: (not daring to look round, then out of character, slowly able to turn around:) When I was a child one of my favourite TV programmes was a puppet show called ‘Fireball XL5’ – it was a forerunner of Thunderbirds, with Americanised heroes called Steve and Venus and they would fly around the universe in their spaceship having adventures. There was one episode that truly terrified me – it was all about an insane scientist, a botanist, who had somehow crossed a human being with a plant.
It was a really strange shape – not like the usual monsters that are either some kind of distorted human or a scary animal like a dinosaur. No – this wasn’t like any shape I’d ever seen on any animal – it was the cold, alien, utterly impassive and incomprehensible form of a flower, but it could think.
(The Father steps out into the road – acting out the next scene, miming the movements of the puppets.)
Steve Zodiac finally confronts this thing in a greenhouse and the thing tries to take Steve’s blood using a syringe. I recently bought the whole of the Fireball XL5 series on dvd – and I watched this episode again, and after 45 years – it terrified me every bit as much as the first time.
8.
(The Daughter appears walking down the road, holding her arm – the exposed flesh now carries a dark red wound, along which there are tiny houses. The father rushes over to the Daughter and examines the wound. Then addresses the audience:)
Father: The Father knew straight away when he saw the wound that it must be washed immediately. Who could know what dreadful infections might already be snaking their way through his daughter’s blood. Just as a beast might pass unseen through the countryside, so close as to be sensed, and yet invisible to the eye, so also could a beast pad through the feelings and experiences of a child, causing uproars and upsets, no smaller in their own way than the effect of hot magma and boiling minerals upon the carboniferous shales and limestones here 280 million years ago. He told the Daughter that she must wash her wound in the village’s own water. And he took her to the top of the village where she could use the very first of the water from the village’s own springs – springs that had never failed - as it emerged from the first tap.
(The Father walks the Daughter up to the top of village, holding her as if she was ill. Here the Bird is waiting for them, looking with her binoculars out across the Sports Field. She turns to the audience.)
9.
Bird: While the Father had been remembering a dream in which he owned the universe, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
“The field mice behind the barn have been eaten. A child walks up the street of Teign Village with a wounded arm. Two children on bikes race across the bridge and onto the main road. Nothing grows on the heaps of arsenic saturated rocks at Frank Mills Mine. A shrew lies on the grass near the play area, its body quivers from shock. A yellow and black shadow passes over the roofs of the village. A beast makes its way behind Oakdene Farm and then the Ladywell Springs. At Lidwell Chapel, on Haldon Hills, as if in sympathetic communication, a ghost emerges from a well and begins to count silver. In the reservoir of water from the springs of the Lady Well of Teign Village, the beast is washing himself – he licks up the water with his great tongue, and scratches his itches against the sides of the pool. He shakes off the dust and dirt of Trusham Quarry. An owl winks from the top of Haldon Tower – he sees where the beast is resting now.
Father: When the Father heard the report of the birds he was not dismayed. He had become familiar with the constant instability of the world. Though he longed for its end. He reassured his daughter that whatever impurities had been released into the waters by the Tiger’s bathing in the reservoir, the village’s own purification equipment would draw it off, filter it out, remove and destroy it. “I will fetch Dave Bellamy,” said the Father, “he has the key. Then you will see how safe we are. If only everything were as pure and indivisible as our water.”
10.
(The Father moves to Dave Bellamy’s house and knocks on the door. The Bird leads the Daughter by the hand and gestures for everyone to follow her, holding her finger to her lips. She leads them into the car park, by the small path. By the first tree the Tiger is lying asleep, stripped to the waist, a towel around his shoulders. His other clothes in his lap.
The Daughter moves towards the Tiger, the Bird tries to restrain her, but after a fight the Daughter breaks free and goes to the sleeping Tiger. The Bird furiously gestures for everyone else to leave, beckoning and leading them back across the road to the Sports Field gate, where the Father is waiting, holding filters from the purification unit for the village’s water supply.)
11.
Father: Look at these! Look at them! These are the filters that clean the village’s water from the three everlasting springs up there. I got them from Dave Bellamy! Look at what the Tiger has left in them – nothing! Nothing at all! There’s no poison in the water, there’s no infection in the reservoir. Look. (He bangs one of the filters on the ground.) See – that’s minerals, sand – that’s all!! The tiger isn’t real – he’s an idea – a fantasy… an abstraction, a philosophy…
(The Tiger appears leading the daughter. He leaves the Daughter on the allotment side of the road and crosses to the Father. He chalks on the Sports Field noticeboard – “Tiger vs Father”. The Father has no choice.)
Father: Very well… very well… but I choose the game, I shuffle the deck…
(The Tiger turns and walks up the road out of the village towards the Ladywell springs, the Father following waving his pack of cards.)
Father: And I decide the rules… no cheating… no cards up the sleeve… aces high… hearts are trumps….
(They walk up the road together. The Daughter places a pack of cards in her mouth and turns towards the allotment. The Bird shepherds the audience across the road.)
12.
The Daughter takes the audience to the allotments, following the path around the back of the allotments, offering different vegetables or fruit from her basket to the audience to eat at different points. Radishes at the site of a bonfire, apples at a broken sofa, raspberries at tin baths, mint at a collection of blue plastic bins. Finally, she arrives at a viewpoint to Canonteign House and the mine slagheaps. The Daughter takes a fondant fancy from her basket and eats it, while looking out over the view.
13.
The Father reappears – he has lost the game, he appears in the guise of a servant to the Beast, carrying a tray with a card and a letter. He moves through the crowd to face the Daughter.
Father: Mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter. (Holding the tray with the card out to the daughter.) His card. (She does not take it.) Then at least read his letter. (She does not read his letter.) Then listen to his words. (The Father opens the envelope and reads:)
“Grrrrr… grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. Grrrr grrrrr grrrrr grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… grrr .. grrrr… grrrrrrr…. Rooooooooaaaaarrrrrr…. Grrr… grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr gr gr gr grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!“
I think what he’s trying to say… is that you should take notice of what you’re looking for – what you want… up till now you’ve always been happy with looking down at the ground… planting, digging, sowing… now, look at you!! Standing there, gazing out of the village… do you understand what you see? Look, a castle like one of your fondant fancies! Is that where you’ll end up… or on one of those heaps of arsenic-saturated waste!! I urge you to accept his… my … his offer… if we cannot have this land back… at least we can take back some part of the idea of it… heritage… our history … something noble… savage, yes, but noble… what do you say?
(The Daughter does not respond.)
Father: I’ve lost you, haven’t I?
(The Father walks away through the allotments towards the field beyond the play area and up the Hill.)
Pond near Teign Village
© Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
14.
Bird: While the Father had been inventing his own Beast, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
“The Tiger is in the orchard. The apples are trembling on the branches. The hawks above Hennock are holding their breaths. For the first time a small insect feels hope and is eaten in mid air by a dragonfly. A sparrow is taken by a hawk. The valley is full of curves. And whispers. Handed down from crow to crow, there are tales of well-to-do women performing aerobatics over Haldon Aerodrome, ten generations ago. They all want you to dive. Why does she wait? What else does she want? Is she scared? Of course, she is!! Only a fool wouldn’t be! A rat gazes from an abandoned control tower. A spider weaves in a chimney stack. Everything, in the end, will fly.
15.
(The Daughter turns and heads off towards the Orchard.
The Bird waits and then gestures for the audience to follow her, but quietly. She moves towards the Orchard tentatively. And as the audience passes the Orchard they view the scene from a distance.
In the Orchard the Tiger is symbolically bathing the wound on the daughter’s arm, the Daughter has removed her gardening clothes.)
16.
(The Bird leads the audience to the field and then up the Hill to the Father at the top, who is looking at Haldon Belvedere through a frame. He holds it for the audience to look through.)
Father: Can you see the Tower? Have a look through the frame – the white tower there - It seems so far away and yet it watches us all the time. It is a watchtower, a sentinel. It looks so small – but if you look through the frame you get a better idea of its significance, of the scale of its importance.
My ancestor built it – he came up from nothing… his mother and father were from Ashburton… they carried materials to market – how much does that earn a man?
So my ancestor went away, to another land, where he became a negotiator, a voice, an advisor – soon he was starting wars and ending wars, he was writing contracts and tearing them up – and all the time – war or peace, business or failure – he got richer and richer from the land – as they say in the story, the simple Indian fisherman throws back the pearl – they did not understand the prices available on this side of the world… at first my ancestor was governor there, but when he came home he did something that was terrible… he did not bring the land back with him, but rather he traded his power for abstractions, principles, promises – in the form of notes and bills and contracts and papers – and when he got home he exchanged those bills and notes for all the land you can see around you…
And when I lost this land – it set free the principles and abstractions and ideas – and that’s what has taken my daughter.
Bird: While the Father was lamenting his losses, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
The beast and the girl have finished in the orchard. The fruit is bruised, but shining. A worm has been dried out by the sun on the road to Franklands Farm. An adder winds across the allotment path. A vole is crushed by a roller. Have you seen the Tiger and the Girl? Of course I have! What do you think? An owl circles the white tower. A water-boatman skates across the surface of greenish water in a tin bath. A man carries a bag full of eyes. The Father understands nothing. His daughter has always been lost to him. There is magic everywhere, but the human looks for it in hidden places and misses it when in plain view. The Tiger and the Girl are climbing the Hill and they both have claws.
(The Tiger and Daughter process up the hill, both in Tiger/Quarry garb. They serve Teign Village water to all of the audience, the glasses provided by the Father, in his valet role. As the audience drink, the characters sing.)
– repeated spoken rhythm by Father, Bird and Tiger.
(Overlapped, refrain and improvisation by the Daughter.
The song over, the performers thank the audience and chat with them, all sipping Teign Village water.)
Nicola Singh and Phil Smith (2008)
1. As the audience gather outside the Social Club at Teign Village, Devon, the Tiger pads around the edge of the village, only seen in glimpses, the Daughter delivers vegetables to certain doors, the Bird is studying the landscape from various viewing points around the village and the Father is straining up and down the slope of the road carrying silvery white stones in one hand on the way down and reclaimed motorway aggregate in one hand on the way up.
2. At a sign Bird, Daughter and Father converge on the audience. The Tiger walks on the edge of the village.
Nicola: Hello, thank you for coming. My name’s Nicola Singh and today we’re going to take you on a fabulous walk in Teign Village. Phil Smith and I have been working here to create this walk and we’re performing it with the help of Katie Etheridge and Fumiaki Tanaka.
(Gestures towards Katie, and to Fumiaki in the distance.)
We’ve had a lovely few days walking to here from Teignmouth, then spending time here, chatting to people, looking at places, learning just a little about the place and its history – but we’re not experts. This won’t be a guided tour – instead, we’re going to tell a story. Which never happened here, but it could have…
Phil: Our story may take a very long time… it starts 280 million years ago… when Dartmoor over there was a seething volcanic mass of liquid rock, bubbling away at 1000 degrees centigrade, hitting the rocks that had already been laid down round here ... shales from the bottom of seas, limestones made from the skeletons of billions of sea creatures, sands from deserts… the hot magma completely transformed them – as minerals from the bubbling granite came rushing into the cracks of rocks here – making seams of micaceous haematite, lead ore, silver, arsenic, manganese… (Becoming the Father. Bird and Daughter begin to drift away. The following scene takes place on the road.)
3.
Phil: Of course, it’s all quiet now… nothing changes here - everything’s very stable and historical. Calm, I’d say. Very quiet. Off the beaten track. Just the right setting for a fairy tale. About a father who loved his daughter, and about a tiger who plagued that father and daughter. And about a bird who saw it all.Of course the problem with stories is too often they’re just copies of what’s real – imitations of real life – holding the mirror up to nature, as the poet says – now, I don’t know much about art, but I know this - art should show something different from ordinary life: it should be calm, quiet, more like a map, gridded, better than real life, a place to escape to from the madness of this terrible world…
So – please, just because there is a tiger in our story, it has nothing to do with whatever it was that was seen in January of this year - a number of people in the Teign Valley reported seeing it: five foot long, tawny colour, shaped like a big cat…. This apparition might have been real, might have been a product of people’s imagination – but it has no part in this story…
Nor has my land… the land that I lost – (pauses) – I didn’t intend that. Did I? I didn’t deserve that, did I? Did I?
(Pauses. Takes out a pack of cards which he shuffles.)
And so the Father begins to force his story upon us – he tells us about the fabulous wealth that he squandered and of the bad luck that dogged him, of the horse he backed that pulled up lame just when it was about to win back all his losses, of how a final card fell the wrong way, of investments he made in railways when the demand was for roads – and how he ended up building those costly railways to supply cheap dolerite for the roads that put those very railways out of business. About how he had to mortgage all his own land in order to fund those failed investments, and when his lands were gone, how he could not get them back. Even the land betrayed him! The land that had borne his name - for god’s sake, even its public houses were named after him! – but the men inside them, when he was down, they bought his land and were happy to see him suffer – and when he dug into that same land to make his tramways to transport the rock he’d dug, that same rock would hold him up, refusing to move.
(Strikes the road surface.)These were my fields!! Under the houses!
(Looks to the land.)
Sometimes you would think that it was still 280 million years ago and all this was burning magma once more.
(Pauses.)
I don’t want any more to do with this world!!! I have only one thing left and she will not be part of this world!!! I will not permit it!! Let me take you to see her! She is too good for this planet of bubbling uncertainties! Let me show you to her. We must cross the road. I’m sure that I can….
(Pauses. Bends down and touches the street.)
This is the road where roads begin. A road for road-makers. Cross it carefully – for here it is not the vehicles, but the street itself that can knock you down.
(They cross the road and walk between the houses to the edge of the allotments. In the allotments the Daughter is standing in an enamel bowl full of earth.)Look at it. A world completely disconnected from this one. Without violence or death or betrayal or unpleasantness. Without dispute or argument – perfectly ordered – a grid system in which nothing can interfere with anything else – immaculately un-policed. Unreal. A dream. Simply growing. I wish I could go in – but it’s not a place I can go. I would fall apart. Legs, arms – they’d fall off – without a reason, there would be no me… but my daughter, thank god, she needs no reason!!! She only dreams!! I must leave you, in case I spoil it here – it would dismantle me… my darling will look after you, you have nothing to fear here… nothing to fear… she is completely innocent of roads, of the price of land, of… of… no matter about that!! Everything is forgotten in the garden!!
(The Father leaves and moves back to the Social Club.)
4.
(The audience approaches the Daughter who is standing in earth in a large enamel bowl. The Bird, who has been visible beyond the Daughter, using her binoculars to scour both the skies and the far horizon towards Haldon Hills and checking her observations on an OS map of the area, now walks over to the daughter and picks up a watering can by the side of the bowl and waters the earth. The Bird withdraws and then watches for the Tiger through her binoculars.
The Daughter sings.)
Vegetable Song
My darling allotment(The Tiger walks across the back of the allotments in view of the audience – then goes to the Social Club.)
Made with love, love and pliers
Uh uh uh uh…
My darling allotment
Ruin, ruin and some pliers
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
My lion lies down with my lamb
Curious as to the fleshy nature of women
I am the rose and I am unwell
A muted sickness of extraction
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
Peach pear plum (uh)
If you don’t eat your boiled beetroot the Beast man will come
And my blushing vegetables he’ll gobble you up
The earthy things that he did crave, held by my hands
I read the right books lead by desire
Apples,
Blackberries,
Purple sprouting broccoli,
Peach, pear and plum
Strawberries,
Mint,
Rhubarb,
Peach, pear and plum
(slower pace)
Uh uh uh uh uh
My darling allotment
Made with love, love and pliers
My darling allotment
Ruin, ruin and some pliers
Uh uh uh uh u
5.
(When the Daughter’s song is over.)
Bird: While the daughter had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird opens the box she carries and takes out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
It’s about the land. Come with me – I’ll show you.
6.
(The Bird leads the audience back to the road, holding the letter up above her head. She leads the audience across the road – the Father is walking up the street with bits of motorway aggregate in his hands. The Bird leads the audience down the side of number12 to where there is a view of the fields beyond. Then, with her back to the fields, she reads from the letter.)
Bird: “Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
“What’s the matter with these people? Don’t they realise that they’ll never be happy as long as they don’t have precise territories? If only they could see the land from above then they would realise the importance of boundaries. How we have to fight for our fields. They will never be happy while land changes hands, from one human to another, they will always be as scared as us. There are field mice in the shade of the barn. A dragonfly, striped like a tiger, flies between the mountains of arsenic. Have you seen the beast? Of course, I have. Soon the humans will realise they have forgotten to protect their territories. The beast has come from afar. But how will he take back what is his, when it is stitched into every jacket, when it is the sauce on every meal, when it lines the stomach every time they drink? With a claw, with a claw, with a claw.”
(The Daughter has come up behind the audience and now sings – she holds out her arm showing the wound.
Animal Song
And I shall wail and I shall roar
He has but only one desire
L.O.V.E
L.O.V.E
L.O.V.E
Love
And I shall wail and I shall roar
Beloved horses turn their heads, to watch me
L.O.V.E
L.O.V.E
L.O.V.E
Love
He began to purr
L.O.V.E
A tear, a tear
L.O.V.E
He wishes only
L.O.V.E
A marvellous wound
Mmm yes yes yes
I will yes yes yes
Mmm yes yes yes
MmmLove
And I shall wail, my golden lion, my smooth snake and dormouse
And I shall roar, my dragonfly, my badger and my natterjack toad
And I shall wail, my butterfly, my sand snake and slow worm
And I shall roar, my birds, my newts and my adders
And I shall Wail
And I shall Roar
And I shall Wail
And I shall Roar
(fade out as move away)
(At the end of the song, the daughter walks backwards out of the alley, beckoning the audience to follow her. She turns into the road, walking up it, just as the Father is walking backwards up the road and turns into the entry, not seeing the Daughter.)
7.
Father: What was that? Was it what I’ve always feared? Ever since we had to give up the land… you show weakness to this world and it will rip you apart like a blast in a quarry … (To the Bird:) what do the birds say?
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
Can you ….”
Father: I don’t understand any of that.
(The Father takes the Bird’s map in his hand and studies it for a moment.)
Father: If only we could see the land like this, we would never let it go. Haaah!
(The Father gasps and freezes. Behind him the Tiger passes up the street carrying a red flag. Tiger goes to the car park – first tree. The Father drops the map and the Bird retrieves it and disappears along the path behind numbers 12 to 2, then waiting at the gate to the Sports Field.
Nervously, the Father takes out his cards and shuffles them, as a comforting action.)
Father: (not daring to look round, then out of character, slowly able to turn around:) When I was a child one of my favourite TV programmes was a puppet show called ‘Fireball XL5’ – it was a forerunner of Thunderbirds, with Americanised heroes called Steve and Venus and they would fly around the universe in their spaceship having adventures. There was one episode that truly terrified me – it was all about an insane scientist, a botanist, who had somehow crossed a human being with a plant.
It was a really strange shape – not like the usual monsters that are either some kind of distorted human or a scary animal like a dinosaur. No – this wasn’t like any shape I’d ever seen on any animal – it was the cold, alien, utterly impassive and incomprehensible form of a flower, but it could think.
(The Father steps out into the road – acting out the next scene, miming the movements of the puppets.)Steve Zodiac finally confronts this thing in a greenhouse and the thing tries to take Steve’s blood using a syringe. I recently bought the whole of the Fireball XL5 series on dvd – and I watched this episode again, and after 45 years – it terrified me every bit as much as the first time.
8.
(The Daughter appears walking down the road, holding her arm – the exposed flesh now carries a dark red wound, along which there are tiny houses. The father rushes over to the Daughter and examines the wound. Then addresses the audience:)
Father: The Father knew straight away when he saw the wound that it must be washed immediately. Who could know what dreadful infections might already be snaking their way through his daughter’s blood. Just as a beast might pass unseen through the countryside, so close as to be sensed, and yet invisible to the eye, so also could a beast pad through the feelings and experiences of a child, causing uproars and upsets, no smaller in their own way than the effect of hot magma and boiling minerals upon the carboniferous shales and limestones here 280 million years ago. He told the Daughter that she must wash her wound in the village’s own water. And he took her to the top of the village where she could use the very first of the water from the village’s own springs – springs that had never failed - as it emerged from the first tap.
(The Father walks the Daughter up to the top of village, holding her as if she was ill. Here the Bird is waiting for them, looking with her binoculars out across the Sports Field. She turns to the audience.)9.
Bird: While the Father had been remembering a dream in which he owned the universe, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
“The field mice behind the barn have been eaten. A child walks up the street of Teign Village with a wounded arm. Two children on bikes race across the bridge and onto the main road. Nothing grows on the heaps of arsenic saturated rocks at Frank Mills Mine. A shrew lies on the grass near the play area, its body quivers from shock. A yellow and black shadow passes over the roofs of the village. A beast makes its way behind Oakdene Farm and then the Ladywell Springs. At Lidwell Chapel, on Haldon Hills, as if in sympathetic communication, a ghost emerges from a well and begins to count silver. In the reservoir of water from the springs of the Lady Well of Teign Village, the beast is washing himself – he licks up the water with his great tongue, and scratches his itches against the sides of the pool. He shakes off the dust and dirt of Trusham Quarry. An owl winks from the top of Haldon Tower – he sees where the beast is resting now.
Father: When the Father heard the report of the birds he was not dismayed. He had become familiar with the constant instability of the world. Though he longed for its end. He reassured his daughter that whatever impurities had been released into the waters by the Tiger’s bathing in the reservoir, the village’s own purification equipment would draw it off, filter it out, remove and destroy it. “I will fetch Dave Bellamy,” said the Father, “he has the key. Then you will see how safe we are. If only everything were as pure and indivisible as our water.”
10.
(The Father moves to Dave Bellamy’s house and knocks on the door. The Bird leads the Daughter by the hand and gestures for everyone to follow her, holding her finger to her lips. She leads them into the car park, by the small path. By the first tree the Tiger is lying asleep, stripped to the waist, a towel around his shoulders. His other clothes in his lap.
The Daughter moves towards the Tiger, the Bird tries to restrain her, but after a fight the Daughter breaks free and goes to the sleeping Tiger. The Bird furiously gestures for everyone else to leave, beckoning and leading them back across the road to the Sports Field gate, where the Father is waiting, holding filters from the purification unit for the village’s water supply.)
11.
Father: Look at these! Look at them! These are the filters that clean the village’s water from the three everlasting springs up there. I got them from Dave Bellamy! Look at what the Tiger has left in them – nothing! Nothing at all! There’s no poison in the water, there’s no infection in the reservoir. Look. (He bangs one of the filters on the ground.) See – that’s minerals, sand – that’s all!! The tiger isn’t real – he’s an idea – a fantasy… an abstraction, a philosophy…
(The Tiger appears leading the daughter. He leaves the Daughter on the allotment side of the road and crosses to the Father. He chalks on the Sports Field noticeboard – “Tiger vs Father”. The Father has no choice.)
Father: Very well… very well… but I choose the game, I shuffle the deck…
(The Tiger turns and walks up the road out of the village towards the Ladywell springs, the Father following waving his pack of cards.)
Father: And I decide the rules… no cheating… no cards up the sleeve… aces high… hearts are trumps….
(They walk up the road together. The Daughter places a pack of cards in her mouth and turns towards the allotment. The Bird shepherds the audience across the road.)
12.
The Daughter takes the audience to the allotments, following the path around the back of the allotments, offering different vegetables or fruit from her basket to the audience to eat at different points. Radishes at the site of a bonfire, apples at a broken sofa, raspberries at tin baths, mint at a collection of blue plastic bins. Finally, she arrives at a viewpoint to Canonteign House and the mine slagheaps. The Daughter takes a fondant fancy from her basket and eats it, while looking out over the view.13.
The Father reappears – he has lost the game, he appears in the guise of a servant to the Beast, carrying a tray with a card and a letter. He moves through the crowd to face the Daughter.
Father: Mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter. (Holding the tray with the card out to the daughter.) His card. (She does not take it.) Then at least read his letter. (She does not read his letter.) Then listen to his words. (The Father opens the envelope and reads:)
“Grrrrr… grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. Grrrr grrrrr grrrrr grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… grrr .. grrrr… grrrrrrr…. Rooooooooaaaaarrrrrr…. Grrr… grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr gr gr gr grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!“
I think what he’s trying to say… is that you should take notice of what you’re looking for – what you want… up till now you’ve always been happy with looking down at the ground… planting, digging, sowing… now, look at you!! Standing there, gazing out of the village… do you understand what you see? Look, a castle like one of your fondant fancies! Is that where you’ll end up… or on one of those heaps of arsenic-saturated waste!! I urge you to accept his… my … his offer… if we cannot have this land back… at least we can take back some part of the idea of it… heritage… our history … something noble… savage, yes, but noble… what do you say?
(The Daughter does not respond.)
Father: I’ve lost you, haven’t I?
(The Father walks away through the allotments towards the field beyond the play area and up the Hill.)
Pond near Teign Village
© Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
14.
Bird: While the Father had been inventing his own Beast, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
“The Tiger is in the orchard. The apples are trembling on the branches. The hawks above Hennock are holding their breaths. For the first time a small insect feels hope and is eaten in mid air by a dragonfly. A sparrow is taken by a hawk. The valley is full of curves. And whispers. Handed down from crow to crow, there are tales of well-to-do women performing aerobatics over Haldon Aerodrome, ten generations ago. They all want you to dive. Why does she wait? What else does she want? Is she scared? Of course, she is!! Only a fool wouldn’t be! A rat gazes from an abandoned control tower. A spider weaves in a chimney stack. Everything, in the end, will fly.
15.
(The Daughter turns and heads off towards the Orchard.The Bird waits and then gestures for the audience to follow her, but quietly. She moves towards the Orchard tentatively. And as the audience passes the Orchard they view the scene from a distance.
In the Orchard the Tiger is symbolically bathing the wound on the daughter’s arm, the Daughter has removed her gardening clothes.)
16.
(The Bird leads the audience to the field and then up the Hill to the Father at the top, who is looking at Haldon Belvedere through a frame. He holds it for the audience to look through.)
Father: Can you see the Tower? Have a look through the frame – the white tower there - It seems so far away and yet it watches us all the time. It is a watchtower, a sentinel. It looks so small – but if you look through the frame you get a better idea of its significance, of the scale of its importance.
My ancestor built it – he came up from nothing… his mother and father were from Ashburton… they carried materials to market – how much does that earn a man?
So my ancestor went away, to another land, where he became a negotiator, a voice, an advisor – soon he was starting wars and ending wars, he was writing contracts and tearing them up – and all the time – war or peace, business or failure – he got richer and richer from the land – as they say in the story, the simple Indian fisherman throws back the pearl – they did not understand the prices available on this side of the world… at first my ancestor was governor there, but when he came home he did something that was terrible… he did not bring the land back with him, but rather he traded his power for abstractions, principles, promises – in the form of notes and bills and contracts and papers – and when he got home he exchanged those bills and notes for all the land you can see around you…
And when I lost this land – it set free the principles and abstractions and ideas – and that’s what has taken my daughter.
Bird: While the Father was lamenting his losses, the blackbird had been singing in the allotments, the crow was flying high above the village, the kestrel was scanning the disused mines, the pigeon crossed the newly rented fields and the jay spotted the leaking reservoir. And each of them submitted their report:
(The Bird open the box she carries and take out an envelope and opens it and reads the letter inside.)
Bird: “Tea-cher, tea-cher.
A-little-bit-of- bread-and-no-cheeeeeese.
Zeep, Zipp, Cep - take two, do, take two
'Can you coooo?
Cuc-koo, cuckoo, cherry-tree, cherry-tree, cherry-tree.
Hurry-up, hurry-up, go-it, go-it, chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff.
Tuk.
Chirr.
Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? Chack. Pipe. Chuckerring, gronk.”
“Let me translate,” said the bird, who had been observing humans long enough to speak their language fluently, and began to translate from Bird to Human:
(Reading from letter.)
The beast and the girl have finished in the orchard. The fruit is bruised, but shining. A worm has been dried out by the sun on the road to Franklands Farm. An adder winds across the allotment path. A vole is crushed by a roller. Have you seen the Tiger and the Girl? Of course I have! What do you think? An owl circles the white tower. A water-boatman skates across the surface of greenish water in a tin bath. A man carries a bag full of eyes. The Father understands nothing. His daughter has always been lost to him. There is magic everywhere, but the human looks for it in hidden places and misses it when in plain view. The Tiger and the Girl are climbing the Hill and they both have claws.
(The Tiger and Daughter process up the hill, both in Tiger/Quarry garb. They serve Teign Village water to all of the audience, the glasses provided by the Father, in his valet role. As the audience drink, the characters sing.)
Mineral Song
“Animal vegetable mineral”
– repeated spoken rhythm by Father, Bird and Tiger.
(Overlapped, refrain and improvisation by the Daughter.
The song over, the performers thank the audience and chat with them, all sipping Teign Village water.)
