LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER

FADE IN:

1 INT. HOUSE – NIGHT

A computer sits on a perfectly tidy desk.

An internet chat room is on the screen.

The most recent messages read:

‘FAST EDDIE: Wazzup! Not so fast these days but still ROCKIN!’

‘ANNETTE G: Does anybody know the whereabouts of Stacey Pickersgill?’

Fingers type ‘Hi guys’ in the text box.

Deleted and replaced with ‘Hello…’

Deleted and replaced with ‘Yo!’

Deleted and replaced again with ‘Hi guys’. Moments
later ‘DAZZLER: Hi guys’ appears on the screen.

The cursor flashes for a few of seconds before three
replies ping onto the screen in quick succession.

‘FAST EDDIE: THE DAZZLE-MEISTER LIVES!!!’

‘DENISE: Hello Robert. You didn’t send your form back’.

The fingers type: ‘I can’t make it’ then delete it,
remain poised.

‘DENISE: It helps if we have a rough idea of numbers’.

‘FAST EDDIE: SHE’S coming!!!’

The fingers type immediately – ‘She?’ is typed and sent.

Instant reply – ‘FAST EDDIE: The DREAM!!!’

BOBBY (O.S.)

(UNDER BREATH) Shit!

The cursor continues to flicker as we hear the sound of frantic scrabbling amongst papers:

‘ANNETTE G: Stacey? Are you out there?’

‘FAST EDDIE: I heard she’d croaked’.

A school yearbook is plonked down on the desk to the left of the computer.

A hand flicks eagerly through the pages.

There is a loud knocking sound. The hand snaps the yearbook shut and then clicks the computer screen blank.
The camera swivels around to reveal:

Bobby’s wife JAYNE, mid 30s, somewhat staid and out of fashion, peering around the door in a dressing gown.

JAYNE

Are you coming up?

BOBBY (O.S.)

In a moment. I’m just… catching up.

JAYNE
(beat) You’re disconnected.

BOBBY (O.S.)

What?

JAYNE

Your screen. It’s blanked again.

THE CAMERA SWIVELS BACK ROUND TO THE BLANK SCREEN.

BOBBY (O.S.)

Oh. (beat) Er, damn thing. Loose connection.

JAYNE (O.S.)

You really ought to get that fixed. You’ll lose something important one of these days. Night then.

BOBBY (O.S.)

Night then.

The sound of a door shutting. A hand reaches for the computer switch. The sound of a door reopening.

The camera swivels back round to Jayne, poking her head
around the door again.

JAYNE

If I don’t see you in the morning, I’ll…

BOBBY (O.S.)

Be late home tomorrow.

JAYNE

Yeah…

BOBBY (O.S.)

Important meeting.

JAYNE

There’s some…

The camera swivels back to the screen.

BOBBY (O.S.)

Moussaka in the fridge. I know. Thankyou darling.

Focus on the blank screen and hear the door shut. There is a pause then the hand reaches for the yearbook.

We flick through the pages until we reach one titled ‘Robert Farnham’. Underneath is scribbled, ‘Bobby Dazzler’.

The picture is of a young, grinning, raggedly handsome
guy, 16-ish.

A pink heart has been scribbled around the picture and there is also a lipsticked kiss and the message: ‘All my love, Suze xxx’.

We loiter awhile, then flick over one page to ‘Suzanne French’.

The picture is of a gorgeous, happy, carefree girl beaming at the camera. In the same pink pen is scribbled: ‘Never forget! XXX’

The camera turns slightly and focuses on a telephone next to the computer, then veers back to the yearbook. The page is flicked back to Robert Farnham.

BOBBY (O.S.)

(UNDER BREATH) Bobby Dazzler…

CUT TO:

Bobby’s face, gazing down wistfully. Not what we expected – middle-aged, impeccably groomed and dressed in an untrendy, stuck-in-the-eighties way. Nothing ‘Dazzler’ about him at all.

BOBBY (O.S.)

…Yeah, right.

Bobby smiles sadly, sighs, shuts the yearbook, neatly places it under some other papers on his desk, gets up and walks out of the room, clicking off the light.

CUT TO:

2 INT. BATHROOM – NIGHT

The tinny, low volume strains of ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ by the Rolling Stones.

Bobby is standing in front of a mirror, topless, carefully applying after shave. Then he brylcreams his hair into a perfect side parting.

He stands back to admire his work, somewhat dissatisfied. He tweaks it a little.

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT

Bobby is standing in front of a different mirror doing up a tie over a drab fawn shirt. He pauses, poses, grimaces and starts undoing the tie.

INT. STUDY – NIGHT

Bobby is sitting in his study chair, swivelling slightly, staring at the black computer screen in deep thought.

He is wearing a different, more gaudy shirt under a tweed jacket.

He reaches for the yearbook, flicks through the pages till he reaches Suzanne.

He stares at the photo, then carefully starts tearing it out.

3 EXT. BOBBY’S HOUSE – NIGHT

It is dark and lightly drizzling.

Bobby walks out of his front gate, looking nervous, tucking Suzanne’s picture into his jacket pocket.

EXT. STREET – NIGHT

Bobby walks past a newsagents with bunches of flowers outside. He hesitates and looks at the flowers.

EXT. SHOP – NIGHT

Through the window, we see Bobby paying and receiving a bunch of red carnations.

EXT. STREET – NIGHT

Bobby walks along the pavement, looking unsure. As he passes a litter bin he hesitates, looks at the flowers, and dumps them in the bin. He walks on a few strides then hesitates again.

EXT. SHOP – NIGHT

Bobby is walking out of the same shop, this time with a bunch of yellow carnations. As he walks away the shopkeeper watches him out of the window, confused.

EXT. SCHOOL – NIGHT

Bobby stands at the school gate and gazes up. The school’s vast dark hulk towers above him. One light is on.
Bobby runs his finger slowly along the top of the school gate.

Bobby reaches into his pocket and glances at his picture
of Suzanne. He puts it back, takes a deep breath, squirts a little breath freshener into his mouth, and strides purposefully forward.

4 INT. SCHOOL CORRIDOR - NIGHT

Bobby is loitering awkwardly in a deserted, dimly lit cloakroom.

He is outside the entrance to the school hall, from which comes the blare of early eighties music. It is dark in the hall but he can make out disco lights and a handful of dancing silhouettes as they flit past the entrance.

A sign sellotaped to the door says: ‘20th reunion’

Bobby hears voices. He steps out of sight behind a coat and peers out as:

A man and woman – both mid-30s, sensibly dressed, walk
briskly past.

MAN

There’s a lot of money in haulage.

WOMAN

This place hasn’t changed a bit.

Bobby watches the man and woman disappear into the hall.

INT. TOILETS – NIGHT

Bobby sits on a closed toilet seat in a shut cubicle. The flowers are on his lap. He looks extremely nervous.

Bobby can’t help scanning the grafitti on the back of the toilet door: ‘Wayne J sucks cock’. ‘So does David Cartwright of 2P’ ‘Lee 4 Emma P’. ‘Dwaine Parker had Fleur Pitcairn on this bog’. ‘Mr James is a twat’.

As he reads it he begins to smile and relax.

Bobby looks up. There is approximately half a metre between the cubicles’ separating walls and the ceiling.

Bobby comtemplates this and checks carefully that he can hear nobody else.

He proceeds to stand on the toilet and clamber precariously and with great difficulty over the separating wall.

Eventually he hauls himself over the top and crashes down
into the next cubicle.

He is spreadeagled motionless on the cubicle floor, and begins to laugh.

INT. TOILETS – NIGHT

Bobby is walking around the toilets, purposefully urinating all over the floor.

INT. CORRIDOR – NIGHT

Bobby marches down the corridor, away from the hall entrance, into the darkness.

INT. SCHOOL LIBRARY – NIGHT

Bobby clicks on a light switch. He looks around the library. He walks slowly through it, letting his hand skim the books on the shelves.

He steps on a chair and begins walking along the middle
of a long table.

INT. SCIENCE LAB – NIGHT

We sweep the empty lab and find Bobby sitting right in the far back corner. He is gazing wistfully at the empty blackboard.

He is idly flicking a gas tap on and off.

His cut-out picture of Suzanne sits on the stool next to him.

CUT TO:

Bobby is tugging at the teacher’s draw hard enough to snap the lock. It flies open.

The draw has a number of confiscated items including: a packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, football stickers and a catapult.

Bobby looks at the contents and smiles.

CUT TO:

Bobby is exiting the science lab head-first through a window. His legs dangle in the air until he topples out to:

EXT. PLAYING FIELD – NIGHT

Bobby picks himself up and starts plodding across the muddy football field into the blackness, frequently slipping over and sliding and coating himself in mud on the way, still clutching the crushed flowers.

EXT. NETBALL COURT – NIGHT

Bobby clings to the fence surrounding the netball court, gazing through at the empty space, as if there were sixth formers playing a match.

EXT. PLAYING FIELD – NIGHT

Bobby gradually begins to pick up speed until he is running. He reaches the long jump run-up and sprints, eventually leaping into the long-jump pit and rolling in the sand.

EXT. CRICKET PAVILION – NIGHT

Bobby gropes his way through the darkness behind the pavilion.

Out of breath, he slumps down against it and lights a fag. He inhales heavily.

SERIES OF SHOTS:
A) Bobby sitting and smoking.
B) Bobby standing, head thrust in the flowers.
C) Bobby leaning against the pavilion with Suzanne’s picture, hugging it/himself.
D) Bobby sitting, frantically ruffling his hair.
E) Bobby lying on the ground and stretching an arm under the pavilion as if expecting to find something.
F) Bobby sitting back, blubbing, holding out Suzanne’s picture, looking up at the stars.

EXT. PLAYING FIELD – NIGHT

Bobby’s legs are in the air again as he re-enters the school the same unorthodox way he left it.

INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT

Bobby, completely plastered with mud, trudges vacantly past walls lined with sports teams and photos.
He walks past a door marked ‘GIRLS’ and hesitates.
He glances furtively around, slowly creaks open the door and peers in. His face lights up with schoolboy excitement.

INT. GIRLS’ CHANGING ROOM – NIGHT

Bobby stands in the middle of the girls’ changing rooms, looking around, imagining. There are empty benches and mirrors on the walls.

Bobby reaches for the showers and turns them on.

CUT TO:

INT. GIRLS’ CHANGING ROOM - LATER

Bobby is still standing in the same place but the showers are still going and the room is full of steam.

Bobby is looking at the mirrors, upon each of which he has scrawled with ‘BF 4 SF’ inside a love-heart.

Focus on the mirrors until the steam fades the messages away into blankness.

Bobby smiles ruefully, and takes one purposeful sideways step out of view, into the shower.

INT. CORRIDOR – NIGHT

We are back outside the hall. Disco music blares as before. The only difference is more dancing silhouettes.

Bobby, soaked, muddy and utterly bedraggled, still clutching his flowers, appears in shot. He hesitates for a split-second as if deciding whether to enter.
Then he carries on walking past the entrance.

EXT. SCHOOL – NIGHT

Bobby walks out of the school gates without looking back.

EXT. ROAD – NIGHT

Bobby walks back past the litter bin, where he deposits the flowers again, and past the flower shop, which is shut.

EXT. HOUSE – NIGHT

The front of Bobby’s house. He enters the screen from the right and walks up to his garden gate. He stops.

Bobby’s wife Jayne enters the screen from the left and walks up to the gate until she is virtually nose to nose with him.

Jayne is covered in mud and water and bedraggled just like Bobby.

The pair stand in silence looking at each other, showing no obvious emotions, for a few seconds.

Bobby takes his picture out of his pocket and drops it on the ground.

Jayne does the same thing with a picture of her own.
Bobby holds out his arm, Jayne takes it, and they click through the gate and walk up the path together.

A BABYSITTER opens the front door and looks at them, bewildered. Bobby pulls some sodden money out of his pocket and hands it to the babysitter.

The babysitter looks at him disdainfully and scurries away up the path.

The two paper cut-outs flit and scurry away up the deserted street in the light breeze.

INT. KID’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

Bobby stands at a bedroom door. He looks down at a boy, about 11, who sleeps peacefully, his face partially lit by a sliver of light from the landing.

A school uniform is hung ready for morning on the outside of the boy’s wardrobe.

Bobby smiles a broad, contented smile and quietly shuts the door.

THE END