BETSHEB, immersed in her own world, doesn’t answer. FRANCIS sits down away from her and wonders if PETER is right. BETSHEB laughs to herself. After a time she turns around and notices FRANCIS: a lonely, confused figure. She stares at him and, almost as if he has heard his name, he turns and looks at her. She smiles across the gulf that separates them.

BETSHEB: Nowt more outcastin’.

The lights fade slowly to blackout.

THE END

NOTES AND GLOSSARY

p.15 AYRE: To the greeny pallor o’ thee kingspot; o’ cunty goldy. [Welcome to this green land fit for kings, this land rich and fertile.]

[smiling] I bunter t’ the windy sheet, t’ the arsemine o’ the world. Breathe a vein, breathe a vein. [Shaking her head] Olcers an’ ’ellpain. [Tapping her chair] Starry, shiny, cunty dell o’ me world. [I sometimes feel I am fluttering in the wind, or other times I am at the bottom of the world. Have a rest, take it easy. Ulcers and hellish pain. This chair is the shining centre of my world.]

p.16 MELORNE: [thickly] Fer skilly we gobble in awe. [For this food we thank you and will eat it with the proper respect.]

AYRE: Born o’ cat ’n’ rack ’n’ goldy sow. [He was born of a past that included both prisoners who remembered the cat-o-nine-tails and the rack and fertile goldmines.]

He fed on tarse o’ dark in the black quim o’ a belle. [He was fed by a diseased penis while he was in the diseased womb of a young girl.]

Skittle. Skittle. Blackfortune. [It was chance. Chance. Misfortune.]

p.17 AYRE: In the night,

In the day,
Blue ruins, blue ruins
In Jack’s Inn Bay.
[In the night,
In the day,
Drinking blue ruin, blue ruin
Travelling towards Jackson’s Bay.]

MELORNE: Bleak street o’ fen ’n’ bellies. Dark trees ’n’ no trees betide bleak sand. [Bleak landscape of ferns and valleys. There are also dark woods and places with no trees down near the ocean.]

‘Toady o’ the holy! Bleak King o’ the dark. Thou walk on loam cooked o’ thou disease. Thou disease pox on the land in blood ’n’ pig. [Indicating the land and sky] Rye o’ the sky, rye o’ the loam. Morn ’n’ dark all topsy turvy. [Motioning to himself] King. King o’ cits. [Crying out] Trellion! Trellion!’ [‘Poisonous toad. King of Darkness. You walk on the soil that is made warm by your corruption and disease. You have diseased this country; it smells like pig and bone. The fertile sky, the fertile soil. The rich sky and soil is now diseased, everything is upside down, darkness is morning, morning is darkness. I am King. King of all citizens. Rebellion and treason! Rebellion and treason!’]

p.18 MELORNE: A-lik a-lik a-lik a-lik a-lik… [I lick I lick I lick I lick I lick…]