Dark Night of the Soul

Chapter 3

Dave Joyce sits forlornly in his gloomy bedsit cradling a very large glass of Chivas Regal. 'They said my payday is coming. I've waited 13 years for this. 100 episodes in that stupid furry blue suit, sweating. Bouncing around. I lost two stone doing that gig,' he ruminates, looking at his ever-expanding belly. 'And now what, no-one offers jobs to 'the actor who played Igglepiggle'. Three years at Drama School and then.... Unemployable. But now, 13 years later. They said they would call. How much longer do I have to wait?' He gazes up at the red light in the corner of his room. Constantly blinking... slowly... on... slowly... off. Dave seemed to spend most of his days looking at that light. Tormenting him. Waiting for the signal. It must come soon.

Anna Walker gazes out of her window, her beauty fading like the evening twilight. She used to be so youthful and happy, or at least that's how her character was forced to appear, but now... She had always battled a dark side to her personality but fought hard to lock it away, all for the sake of Upsy Daisy. She had done some terrible things in the past, in the bleak years after drama school. She tried to forget but the deeds haunted her dreams. 'Was I always so easily led?' she wonders. She shakes herself and tries to focus on the blinking light in the corner of the room. Soon it will all be over and she can escape to her very own wilderness, far from intruding eyes. A hut in the woods, with a trout stream. That's all she needs. All she deserves.

Seamus Finnegan sits darning his socks by the wood-burning stove, drying off from the cloying damp of an August afternoon on the west coast of Ireland. A simple man with simple needs, his two-room bothy overlooking the strand is spartan but cosy. In his thirties, Seamus had finally found some form of contentment after so many troubled and troublesome years. An orphan, he found solace in his imagination, and then in the imagination of others as a rising star in the Young Beckett's theatre group in North Dublin. That was where the casting director of In The Night Garden had discovered him. Barely 20 years of age but with a gift for portraying self-containment and pathos, he was the ideal choice to play Makka Pakka. Sceptical at first, Seamus was seduced by the prospect of living in London for the filming, and a promise of a big payday at the end of the contract. If only he'd read the small-print.

Something catches his eye. Up beside the painting on the wall: the blinking red light, his constant companion for the past 13 years, suddenly shines a bright and steady green. 'Jeez,' he mutters to himself, 'it's really happening'. He walks over to retrieve the device he had hidden behind the painting a week before. It had arrived in the post in a nondescript Jiffy bag. Shiny-black with a stubby antenna and a single push-button, it came with a note that simply read: 'To Makka Pakka, your contract is due for completion. Press button on signal.'

As this happens, Anna Walker finishes making her mug of chamomile tea in the kitchen and returns to the front room, ersatz country-cottage decor in her 1970s bungalow, and switches on the television. Her daily routine: Pointless and tea. As the TV flickers into life she notices the light behind it has changed to green. Blankly, she puts down her tea and puts her bony hand down to the bottom of the pot pourri bowl beside her favourite chair. She fishes out the strange black object that had arrived previously with the note: 'To Upsy Daisy...'

Simultaneously, the flickering red light in Dave Joyce's room turns a bright green. His whisky glass falls to the floor as he leaps out of his sagging chair. His heart pumping, he has to steady himself, leaning on the door frame. He punches the air but suddenly the reality of what is happening hits and he sinks to his knees. Just one more job and he would be free from the tyranny of his contract. Just one more job, but, what WAS it? Just one more job, and then finally I get my hands on that money they owe me. He grins and ferrets behind the ratty cushion of his chair for the black device that was delivered to his door earlier that week: 'To Igglepiggle...'

With trepidation and excitement, Seamus, Anna and Dave each press the thumb-sized button on their new black devices. Immediately a sonorous, authoritative voice booms out: 'As per the terms of your contract, there is just one more task for you to perform. In two days a car will collect you. Bring three changes of clothes. On completion of your duties we will settle the monetary terms of our contract forthwith.'