GEORGE   Three steps. One. Two. Three. You’ll be all right now? (He closes the door and bolts it.) Sorry about that. Blind.

RUFUS   Blind? And venturing through the streets?

GEORGE   Yes. He’s been a policeman.

BETTY   (as it were beginning the ceremony of welcome afresh) Well! You got here.

GEORGE   No problems?
Rufus takes out a large truncheon-like torch.

RUFUS   No problems at all.

BETTY   Oh my goodness.

RUFUS   It’s perfectly simple. You just have to walk as though you’ve got somewhere to go to. Somewhere you’ll be missed if you don’t turn up. Walk as if you mean business.

GEORGE   March.

RUFUS   Exactly.
Betty kisses Rufus and is about to kiss Pauline.

PAULINE   Are you all right?

BETTY   All right?

PAULINE   You haven’t been in contact with the virus?

BETTY   What virus?

RUFUS   Where have you been, you two?

BETTY   We’re a bit out of touch, I’m afraid.

GEORGE   We haven’t been reading the papers.

PAULINE   It’s supposed to be Syrian but they’re not sure. Apparently you just feel vaguely ill, slight fever, sweating. Like ordinary flu. Two hours later it’s all over.

GEORGE   Better?

PAULINE   No. Dead.

BETTY   How frightful!

RUFUS   It’s everywhere, though of course they’re playing it down. Plymouth is a ghost city.

PAULINE   Manchester is at a standstill.

GEORGE   What are they doing about it?

RUFUS   What can they do about it?
Glyn approaches for their coats.

RUFUS   Ah, he has the look of a man wanting to take my coat. Well, there it is. Plus the coat belonging to my good lady. Camouflage.

INT. CLOAKROOM. NIGHT.

An empty room off the hall. Glyn brings Rufus’s and Pauline’s coats in, goes through their pockets and abstracts Rufus’s heavy torch. He throws the coats on the floor and practises cosh-blows with the torch. Pauline’s voice continues, off.

PAULINE   … they say the vaccination’s worse than the disease.

RUFUS   Bang through the stomach lining.

BETTY   How awful!

PAULINE   Naturally one thinks antibiotics, but it thrives on antibiotics. They’re its breeding ground. So of course the first places to be hit are hospitals. Don’t go to hospital whatever you do.

INT. HALL. NIGHT.

The group are continuing to talk.

RUFUS   Typical of this cockeyed world. The experts bring out a cure-all, and before you know where you are it’s killing everybody off.

BETTY   How ghastly!
Pauline now embraces Betty.

PAULINE   Betty!
They kiss and Pauline hands over a present she has brought: a large plant.

BETTY   Is this for me? Look, George! Oh, Pauline.
They kiss again.

PAULINE   (looking around) What a super house! Whee! The space. No things, no clutter. Lovely.

RUFUS   I give you full marks for courage, Betty.

GEORGE   Thank you, only the truth is: our furniture just hasn’t arrived.