A Canterbury Tale

[Lost in a heavily bombed Canterbury]

Passer-by:
It is an awful mess, I don't blame you for not knowing where you are. But you get a very good view of the Cathedral now.

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Well, there are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors. Follow the old road, and as you walk, think of them and of the old England. They climbed Chillingbourne Hill, just as you. They sweated and paused for breath just as you did today. And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme, and the broom and the heather, you're only seeing what their eyes saw. You ford the same rivers. The same birds are singing. When you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing, as I often do, you're so close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I've only to turn my head, to see them on the road behind me.

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Pity.

Bob Johnson:
Pity?

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Pity when you get home and people ask what you've seen in England and you say "Well I saw a movie in Salisbury. And I made a pilgrimage to Canterbury and I saw another one."

Bob Johnson:
[laughs] You've got me all wrong. I know that in Canterbury I have to look out for a cathedral.

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Yes do look out for it. It's just behind the movie theatre. You can't miss it.

Alison Smith:
Did you hear the news about last night Mr. Horton?

Jim Horton:
There wasn't nothing on the wireless.

Alison Smith:
No I didn't mean that sort of news. I meant what happened here last night.

Ned Horton:
We get all our local news at 6 o'clock, Miss.

Bob Johnson:
You got a local newspaper?

Ned Horton:
No. That's when the pub opens.

Prudence Honeywood:
That's your room. You won't get much of a view I'm afraid.

Alison Smith:
You should have seen the view from my room in London.

Prudence Honeywood:
Was it a long street with every house a different sort of sadness in it?

Alison Smith:
It was a long row of back gardens, and the tall, sad houses were all the same.

Prudence Honeywood:
Ghastly in winter.

Alison Smith:
Airless in summer. You seem to know them.

Prudence Honeywood:
The only man who ever asked me to marry him wanted me to live in a house like that. I'm still a maid.

Sergt. Roczinsky:
Hey, let's have some tea first, huh?

Bob Johnson:
That stuff?

Sergt. Roczinsky:
Sure; it's a habit, like marijuana.

Bob Johnson:
I'll take marijuana.

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
[hidden in the tall grass] Glorious, isn't it?

Alison Smith:
[startled] Is anybody there?

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
[standing] It's a real voice you heard. You're not dreaming.

Alison Smith:
You know, just now I - I heard sounds.

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
What sounds did you hear?

Alison Smith:
Horses' hooves, voices, and a lute. Or an instrument like a lute. Did you hear anything?

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Those sounds come from inside, not outside. Then only when you're concentrating, when you believe strongly in something. Just now I was concentrating on who was coming up the hill to disturb me.

Alison Smith:
Disturb you? At what?

Thomas Colpeper, JP:
Breathing the air, smelling the earth, watching the clouds. Why don't you sit down?