The Night Has Eyes Page #5

Oh listen, Stephen. Use me as your cure.

I'm flaying myself to

behave with you like this.

All I know is .. that I love you.

Before I go, at least I must

try and do this for you.

I see.

So you think a brief interlude with you,

would send me back to the world, cured?

If you'd like to put it like that.

I'll be anything you want

for these next few days.

If only it will make you

well and happy again.

After that ..

Unless you've asked me to stay, I'll ..

I'd go away for good.

You are going now.

You're getting no unctuous

glow out of saving me.

You fool! You think I'd turn my back

on real women, lovely women?

To change it all for a

sentimental little schoolmarm?

Stephen!

What have you got?

No beauty, no brains.

Just a l of half-digested

ideas about life ..

Picked up in a teachers' common room.

Now, will you go?

Marian.

We're back where we started.

Let's not think about that now.

Let us not think about anything

beyond the next few days.

And hours.

I've brought your tablets.

I don't want any tablets.

It is the full moon.

Switch off the light.

Stephen, what's the matter?

Your tablets.

Can I trust you take two

before you go to bed?

Will two be enough?

They weren't last time.

They will be tonight.

Alright then.

For God's sake,

don't stare at me like that.

You mustn't be late.

Don't worry. Miss Ives is going up now.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

Come on.

Take them now.

Miss Marian, I've got

something to say to you.

I'll make it short,

but it won't be sweet.

You must leave this house. At once.

Oh Mrs Ranger, please. We've

been over this so often before.

I'm sure you mean well, but I know

what I'm doing, and I'm staying.

But you don't know the

risks you're running.

You've told me often enough.

I may hurt Stephen and

break my own heart.

But there is more than that.

Haven't you felt there is something ..

Wrong about this house?

Alright, I'll put it another way.

Are there things about this place,

about us, that have puzzled you?

This is a bad house.

Surely, you've felt that, too?

Someone educated, like you?

Why do you suppose we three live here?

Cut off from the world.

You told me why.

He told me why.

That's not the half of it, my dear.

I .. can't tell you .. all.

I'm like a dog that's whistled two ways.

I can't say why you should go.

I can only tell you that you must.

But why? At least give me some hint.

For my conscience's sake,

I've said too much already.

Please go!

Get out of here tomorrow.

Before he wakes up.

No.

Whatever it is, I'm staying.

Alright .. I've done all I can.

Said all I dare.

Will you promise me one thing?

What?

If you feel or hear anything

strange that frightens you ..

Will you come straight to me.

Yes. I promise you that.

Always lock this door.

That's what Stephen said.

Lock it now .. as soon as I've gone.

Goodnight, dear.

Try to sleep.

Stephen.

Stephen!

[ Scream! ]

He's killed him.

He's just killed Cain.

His neck is broke.

Poor little love.

Poor little Cain.

If you'd done your duty and kept me in

sight, you could have spared her this.

And saved the monkey.

He isn't a monkey .. he's a Capuchin.

Take it away.

Do you think it's safe?

To leave me?

Yes, Sturrock.

I've made my kill for tonight.

After the war, when I was

released from that prison camp.

They shipped me to a hospital at home.

Mrs Ranger was my special nurse.

There was a brain specialist there who

told me a shock like mine might result ..

In something hidden and permanent

recurring at certain intervals.

A full moon?

Yes .. that's right. The full moon.

However the authorities were

satisfied that I was cured.

And sent me to the sea with Mrs Ranger to

look after me and give me my medication.

The landlady had a

little dog, a Pekingese ..

That took a great fancy to me.

And I was very happy there.

Then, suddenly.

Everything stopped.

I woke up one night in

the middle of the floor.

With the Pekingese in my hands.

Dead.

And my right hand was twisting its neck.

That was the first of those blackouts

that the doctor had warned me about.

I had killed a dog.

The next time it might be a man.

Then Mrs Ranger came in.

She knew at once what had happened.

I think she'd known

it was going to happen.

She took the dog and

got me back to my bed.

The next day we moved

on to a cottage in Dorset.

Well, three months went by.

I was beginning to feel my confidence

creep back when it happened again.

So then I decided to

hide myself away here.

I knew what they'd do to me,

if once they found out.

Take me and lock me up in a private

home with tame cat doctors.

Purring over me like

a collector's piece.

Can you bear to think

of one of those places?

The bright pretence of being

one, big, happy family.

And all the time everyone watching each

other with furtive looks and loose mouths.

The nightmare parody of a Hydro.

I couldn't have stood it, Marian.

I'd have been in a straight-jacket

before a month was out.

So I came here and fooled the world.

Sometimes after a longer spell than

usual, I dared to believe I was sane.

Then it would happen

again to jerk me back.

Don't pity me, Marian.

I've won, in my way.

I ought to be locked up,

put away. But I'm free.

My own land and my own house.

I draw cheques and they honour them.

I've cheated the world alright.

Each day, for almost five years,

I've mused a little about that.

Stephen, this may not be incurable. You've

no idea what can be done to your mind.

Do you think I'd risk that?

Oh, it's such a pitiful waste.

There is to be no talking

from you when you go.

It's all so wrong.

I'll decide that.

I ought to have turned you

out of this house at once.

Now you know why I have to send you

away. Why you have to lock your door.

I love you. You forced that out of me.

Don't use it to betray me.

You've got to promise me that.

But Stephen, you know ..

Now go to bed.

I want to be by myself.

Good morning.

Morning.

I'd have given anything for it

not to have happened like that.

I've tried to tell you so many

times, but I just couldn't.

The fool Sturrock should have kept by him.

Or failing that, stopped you seeing him.

I should have found out in time anyway.

It would never have altered anything.

I wish you'd gone when I begged you to.

At least I know now it's not

because he doesn't love me.

Besides .. I'm coming back.

You can't do that. It's not safe for you.

No, I've thought of all that.

Think of him!

He wouldn't be able to bear seeing you

watch him knowing you know about him.

Mrs Ranger. I believe this

thing of Stephen's is curable.

It is not organic and

it's not hereditary.

It's the result of an old shock.

A darkness that comes and goes.

If we could get a brain specialist ..

Mr Stephen would never allow that.

I know the man.

One of the finest in the world.

Of course, Stephen mustn't know. He must

come here casually, on some excuse.

I see, but tell me something.

Mind you, I don't want to cram all this.

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