84

ACT IV: Drifting


• Scene [The first dream (Tuesday night 8/12)]

Angus is dreaming. He’s still lying in the boat, but now he hears a scraping under the keel. He looks down; the water has turned glistening blue, and he can see golden sand gleaming through it, with little white shells. Looking up, he sees a beach lying before him. It’s wide and white, and fringed with a dark green belt of palm-trees and tropical luxuriance.

He looks over. The other two survivors, Tiny and Diana, are still asleep. Springing over the side of the boat, he begins to wade his way in towards shore. When he reaches it he casts himself face down upon it and begins to clutch at the dry hot sand convulsively with his cupped fingers. Parrots and raucous birds sing in the background.

Angus is walking along the beach, still in his stained uniform, but with his socks and shoes in one hand and his trousers rolled up past his calves. The beach ends in a little promontory of rock, which he begins to edge out along. Coming round it, he sees a little beach nestled in between the cliffs. There is someone sitting in the middle of the white sands. It’s a young woman, wearing a knee-length dark dress and a white blouse.

She does not look up as he approaches, but when he reaches her and says “Ellie,” she replies “Angus,” still looking down.

“What are you doing here, Ellie? I thought you’d left me.”

“I’m sorry, Angus, but that’s how it had to be.”

“I needed you, Ellie, you were all I had.”

“Don’t put it all off on me. I was lonely. You weren’t there – you were always at sea. I needed someone there.”

“But … Ellie… you know you …”

“And now you’ve got them. Your little crew. Your girl.”

“She’s not my girl. You were my girl, Ellie, you know that.”

“I know that I hardly had a laugh or a smile out of you all the time we were together. He makes me laugh.”

“He …!”

As Angus starts to shout angrily, the sky darkens above their heads. He looks up anxiously. There’s a tropical storm coming on.