London Pride

(NOTE: This script is proving difficult to format here. Hope it doesn't look too bad. We're not Robert Mckee here are we)

FADE IN

INT. LONDON HEATHROW DEPARTURES – DAY

ALBIE CANNING, well into middle age, sits in a Caffè Nero at Heathrow with his younger wife JACKIE.

ALBIE

You’d better be going.

Jackie nods.

JACKIE

This isn’t right.

ALBIE

I know, but you’ll be better

off with your Mum and Dad.

Then when I know more… well…

Jackie nods again. Albie picks up her case and they walk towards Security. They embrace and then Jackie disappears.

Albie walks back into the hall and towards the exit marked Taxis and Underground.

INT. LONDON HEATHROW TAXI RANK – DAY

Albie has come to the head of the taxi queue and gets into a cab.

INT. LONDON HEATHROW TAXI – DAY

Albie settles down in his seat. The CABBIE looks ahead out of his windscreen.

ALBIE

Town of Ramsgate please mate.

CABBIE

What, all the way to Thanet?

ALBIE

No, the boozer. It’s on Wapping High Street.

CABBIE

Right you are. By the river.

ALBIE

Yeah that’s the one.

CABBIE

Me, I love the river. London is the

river for me.

They leave the airport perimeter.

EXT. A-ROAD, WEST LONDON – DAY

The Cabbie drives east away from Heathrow and towards London

ALBIE

London’s not just one river

you know. There’s scores of

them. Twenty or more all

flowing into the Thames,

coming all the way down from

Hampstead Heath, or even

Hertfordshire like the Lea.

That’s my river where I was

born.Then the Lea too has

tributaries like the Moselle…

CABBIE

You some sort of tour guide?

ALBIE

Nah. But this is my last day

in London Town and I’m going

to spend it visiting old haunts.

CABBIE

How’s that then?

(pause)

Sorry- small talk and need to

know only.

ALBIE

Right. There’s water everywhere

in London. I remember years

back being on the Isle of Dogs

with water on three sides and

not another soul in sight.And

I knew I’d never see it like

that again. That was when Thatcher

was about to start fucking up

the East End good and proper

with all her banks and Canary

Wharf nonsense.

(pause)

‘ere. Can you go through Spital-

fields on the way?

EXT. COMMERCIAL STREET, LONDON – DAY

The cab drives through the heart of Spitalfields.

ALBIE

Now this is really what London

is all about. All the migrants

and refugees that came through

here. Century by century. The

Huguenot silk weavers in the

18th. Then the Jews fleeing the

pogroms a century later. And

then the Banglas after the War

with their curryhouses. Love

a ruby me. Ruby Murray-curry.

Good luck to them all. Slow

down!

They are passing Christ Church, Spitalfields

ALBIE

I’m not a religious man but I

love that church. Hawksmoor

designed it when they were

rebuilding London after the Fire.

There was a whole string of them

but that’s the best. The stories

those stones could tell.

EXT. WAPPING HIGH STREET – DAY

Albie is outside the cab paying the cabbie. When he’s done he lightly slaps the top of the cab and the cabbie drives away.

He crosses the road to an old pub- The Town of Ramsgate- and goes inside.

INT. TOWN OF RAMSGATE – DAY

The pub is dark as Albie walks to the bar. VIC, a big fellow standing at the bar with a pint of lager and of similar age, nods in Albie’s direction.

VIC

Albie.

ALBIE

All right, Vic.

VIC

Drinking?

ALBIE

Yeah, lager top. Then let’s

go down the stairs.

EXT. WAPPING STAIRS – DAY

Albie and Vic, each carrying their drink, walk down Wapping Stairs, at the side of the pub to the river.

The lower steps are damp and strewn with slippery seaweed type vegetation.

EXT. RIVERSIDE, EAST LONDON – DAY

Albie and Vic are on a vaguely triangular strip of pebble beach with the pub above and behind them at the narrow end and the wide swollen river in front.

Albie hands Vic a package.

ALBIE

Don’t involve anyone else.

I’ll keep in touch as I can.

VIC

How’s Jackie?

ALBIE

Upset- as you’d expect. But

it’s got to be done- I can’t

be looking over my shoulder

all my life.

VIC

Good place for what’s maybe a

final meet, Albie. It’s not exactly

beautiful here but it’s sort of…

ALBIE

Appropriate.

VIC

Yeah, that’s the word. So

much history has flowed through

here. Ours and London’s.

A motor boat passes on the river. The river swells up behind it and washes on to the pebbled strip.

Albie shivers.

VIC

Shall we go back up?

ALBIE

Yeah. Can’t stay long. Need

a cab to Limehouse to meet

up with Davy Capstick and

his boat. Going up the Lea.

EXT. LIMEHOUSE, LEA AND THAMES CONFLUENCE – DAY

Albie stands near where London’s two biggest rivers meet. He sees DAVY CAPSTICK, lean and weather-tanned, and of similar age too, on a narrowboat called “The London Pride”. He waves.

EXT. RIVER LEA – DAY

Capstick is scrambling some eggs in a pan on a ring. There is a Calor Gas cylinder in the corner.

CAPSTICK

You sure you’re doing the

right thing, Albie?

ALBIE

No. But I’ve made the decision

now.

CAPSTICK

What are you facing?

ALBIE

Maybe never seeing London

again.

EXT. RIVER LEA – DAY

Albie and Capstick sit eating scrambled egg, bread and lettuce leaves.

ALBIE

Tasty. What you put in it,

Davy. Some herb here.

CAPSTICK

Tarragon- flavours it up.

What you going to miss most

about London?

ALBIE

You’re supposed to say a

proper cup of tea and the

rain but it’s more than that.

More and less. The whole feel

of the place and the attitude

of the people.

CAPSTICK

The philosopher villain.

ALBIE

Easy, tiger. Yeah though- the

wheeling and dealing, the

ducking and diving. And the

whole sense of place, and how

you can turn a street corner

and the whole atmosphere changes.

CAPSTICK

You’re a poet too, Albie.

ALBIE

I’ve read the London writers,

Blake and De Quincey. Read

“Anne of Oxford Street” some

time, Davy. See how easy

it can be to lose touch with

people. And Conrad’s Marlow

on the river at Gravesend

remembering his heart of dark-

ness like I’m about to find

mine.

EXT. LEA RIVER – DAY

Capstick steers the narrowboat up the Lea. Albie carefully takes in the scenery.

CAPSTICK

I’m more of a song and dance

man myself. We grew up with

the London minstrels. Ian

Dury, bless his heart, Joe

Strummer, Ray Davies.

ALBIE

And don’t forget the old

music hall and Max Wall and

Noel Coward. There was a

geezer. And London Pride-

a boat, a beer, and a song

of good cheer.

Albie and Capstick sing together as they travel upriver.

ALBIE/CAPSTICK

London Pride has been handed down to us

London Pride is a flower that’s free.

London Pride means our own dear town to us

And our pride it forever will be.

Whoa, Liza,

See the coster barrows

The vegetable marrows and the fruit piled high

Oh Liza

Little London sparrows

Covent Garden market where the costers cry

EXT. LEA RIVER – DAY

The narrowboat continues upstream through a no man’s land of reeds and rough grass, solitary fishermen, and a field’s length away from the river, there is a half-completed block of flats.

CAPSTICK

You’re from round here somewhere

aren’t you?

ALBIE

Yeah. Ain’t changed much has it.

Blocks of flats where the money’s

run out. The whole area caught

between the Tottenham riots and

the Olympic Stadium.

CAPSTICK

And I reckon the second of them

destroyed more homes and little

businesses than the first ever

did.

ALBIE

You’re bang on there, Davy.

They pass a greyish-white heron on the river bank, stock still facing the water.

ALBIE

Is that real, that bird.

CAPSTICK

(laughing)

Of course it’s real.

ALBIE

You can’t tell these days.

Some of them are made of

stone. Decorative statuary

for urban dwellers.

(putting on a toff accent)

Shall we go to the garden

centre, Miles, for some urban

statuary.

CAPSTICK

I’ll show you something.

He takes some of the bread left over from the meal and breaks a chunk off.

ALBIE

You’re not going to give

our bread to the bird.

CAPSTICK

He won’t eat it. He’s cleverer

than that.

Capstick throws the bread into the water. The heron doesn’t move. Some fish swim up attracted by the splash of food.

Then the heron dives in to help himself and returns to the bank with a fish in its mouth.

CAPSTICK

Clever bird you see.

ALBIE

I’ve known a few of them

in my time.

He looks wistfully at the landscape. The sun is going down behind scrub land and marsh and shack and electricity pylon.

INT. LONDON HEATHROW DEPARTURES – NIGHT

Albie sits once more in the Caffe Nero sipping coffee. He has his own case with him this time. Two MEN approach him. He looks up at them and gives the hint of a nod.

The men show him identity cards.

ALBIE

(slightly mockingly)

Da Feds.

FIRST FBI MAN

We ought to put the cuffs on.

ALBIE

I’ve come all the way from

the Lea Bridge Road, by

prior arrangement and of

my own free will. I’m

hardly about to make a

dash for it now. Know what

I’m saying?

The two police look at each other and nod.

FIRST FBI MAN

OK.

SECOND FBI MAN

Why are you doing this? Why

now?

ALBIE

I haven’t the faintest idea.

Maybe I’m just tired. I’m

getting old.

FIRST FBI MAN

The flight for Boston leaves

in an hour. Let’s make our

way over to check-in.

Albie rises a little wearily to his feet.

ALBIE

Let the Tea Party begin.

FADE OUT