Chapter 14

(Phil is driving the vehicle, they’re on their way back from getting chickens to take into Hell. Ellie, Phil, and Amy are in the vehicle. Ellie picks up a bible, closes her eyes, and opens it to a random spot.)

Ellie: Through my psychic finger I will find a sentence that applies to us. (She points to a spot and opens her eyes.) “I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.

Amy: Wow, I thought the Bible was meant to be full of love and forgiveness and all that stuff.

Ellie: Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men, who plan evil things in their heart, and stir up wars continually.

(everyone is impressed.)

Ellie: See? I told you. I do have a psychic finger.

Phil: Try another one.

Ellie: No, you’ve heard the words of wisdom, that’s all for today.

(Amy grabs the bible and tries the same thing. The first time she gets a blank page. The second time, she reads: )

Amy: Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

Ellie: It’s no good. You’ve got to have the psychic finger.

Phil: (to Ellie) maybe the one you read would make Robyn feel better about gunning soldiers down.

Ellie: Mmm. I’ve marked the page. I’ll show her when they get back.

(Later. They’re walking into Hell. Ellie sees that Lee is on the other side of the clearing to where they left him. He is breathless sweating.)

Ellie: Lee! You’ve risen from the dead!

Lee: I should have chosen a cooler morning, but I got sick of sitting there. Thought it was time for some exercise, now that I’ve recovered from that truck ride.

(Ellie rinses a towel in the creek and wipes his face.)

Ellie: Are you sure you should be doing this?

Lee: (shrugging) it felt right.

Ellie: The day you can sprint from one end of this clearing to the other, we’ll chop of a chicken’s head and have chicken dinner.

Lee: Robyn can cut the stitches out when she gets back from Wirrawee. They’ve been in long enough.

(Ellie helps Lee to a shady place near the creek and sits down by him.)

Lee: Ellie, (he clears his throat nervously) there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. That day back at your place, in the haystack, when you came over to where I was lying, and you laid down and we…

Ellie: All right, all right, I know what we did.

Lee: I thought you might have forgotten.

Ellie: What, do you think I do that kind of stuff so often I can’t remember? It wasn’t exactly an everyday event for me you know.

Lee: Well, you haven’t looked at me since. You’ve hardly even spoken to me.

Ellie: I was pretty out of it for a few days. I just slept and slept.

Lee: Yes, but since then.

Ellie: Since then? (sighs) Since then I’ve been confused. I don’t know what to think.

Lee: Will you ever know what to think?

Ellie: If I could answer that I’d probably know everything.

Lee: Have I said something to upset you? Or done something?

Ellie: No, no. It’s just me. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, so I do things and I don’t always mean what I think I mean. Do you know what I mean?

Lee: So you’re saying it didn’t mean anything?

Ellie: I don’t know. It meant something, at the time, and it means something now, but I don’t know if it means what you seem to want it to mean. Why don’t we just say I was being a slut, and leave it at that.

(Lee looks hurt, Ellie is sorry for what she said.)

Lee: It’s a bit difficult sitting down here. If you want to get rid of me, you’re the one who’ll have to go.

Ellie: Oh Lee, I don’t want to get rid of you. I don’t want to get rid of anyone. We all have to get along, living in this place the way we are, for God knows how long.

Lee: Yes. This place, Hell. It seems like Hell sometimes. Now, for instance.

(there is a silence.)

Lee: Do you still think about Steve a lot?

Ellie: No, not Steve. Oh I mean I think about him in the same way I think about a lot of people, wondering if they’re all right and hoping they are, but I don’t think about him in the way you mean.

Lee: (exasperated) Well if I haven’t offended you and you’re not with Steve any more, then were does that leave me? Do you just dislike me as a person?

Ellie: No! Look, sorry I can’t give you a list of my feelings about you, in point form and alphabetical order. But I just can’t. I’m all confused. That day in the haystack was no accident. It meant something. I’m still trying to figure out what.

Lee: (slowly) you say you don’t dislike me…so that does mean you like me?

Ellie: Yes Lee, I like you very much. But right now you’re driving me crazy.

Lee: I’ve noticed you looking at Phil kind of…special since we’ve been up here. Have you got a thing for him?

Ellie: It’d be my business if I did.

Lee: ‘cause I don’t think he’s right for you.

Ellie: Oh Lee, you’re so annoying today! Maybe you shouldn’t have tried walking on that leg. I honestly think it’s weakened your brain. Let’s blame it on that, or the weather or something, because you don’t own me and you don’t have any right to decide who’s right or wrong for me, and don’t you forget it.

(she storms off. She goes to the creek and starts walking in it. Show her walking in the creek in different places. Voiceover: )

Ellie: I don’t know why I was talking the way I was. It was all happening too unexpectedly. It was a conversation I wasn’t ready for. I guess I like to be in control of things, and Lee had forced this on me at a time and a place that he’d chosen. I wished Carrie were there, so I could go and talk to her about it. Lee was so intense he scared me, but at the same time I felt something strong when he was around – I just didn’t know what it was. I was always very conscious when I was near him. My skin felt hotter, I’d be watching him out of the corner of my eye, directing my comments at him, noticing his reactions, listening more for his words than for anyone else’s. If he expressed an opinion I’d think about it more carefully, give it more weight than I would, say, Kevin’s or Chris’s. I used to think about him a lot in my sleeping bag at nights, and because I’d be thinking about him as I drifted into sleep I tended to dream about him. It got so that – this sounds stupid but it’s true – I associated him with my sleeping bag. When I looked at one I’d think of the other. That doesn’t necessarily mean I wanted in my sleeping bag, but they had started to go together in my mind.

(she stops short, seeing the hermit’s hut. Outside there are several attempts at growing flowers: roses, an apple tree, white daisy, patch of mint. She goes forward to it, slowly on tiptoe. She goes in. It is very old, there is a bed, a table, and a chair. There are some shelves, a fireplace. There is a small metal trunk. Ellie hits her head on a meat safe. Ellie opens the chest. It takes some work since it’s old. She sees some tattered odds, bits of paper. She pulls everything out. There is a belt made of plaited leather, a broken knife, a fork and a few chess pieces. The papers are mainly old newspaper. There is a book – Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Ellie puts everything back except the book and belt. She goes back to the clearing.)

Phil: (angry) Where have you been? We’ve been getting worried.

Ellie: I’ve been having a close encounter with the Hermit from Hell. A guided tour will leave soon; well, as soon as I find the Ho-Hos. I’m starving.