The Piano Lesson Page #18

FLORA:

(Screaming) Mother!!

ADA stands. She looks faint, her finger is pulsing blood, she shakes

her hand then seeing the blood she puts it behind her back shocked.

She watches FLORA, concerned and confused. Uncontrollably her whole

body starts to shake and as if by reflex ADA begins to walk. FLORA

trots parallel to her.

FLORA:

Mama!

ADA keeps walking blindly like her being depends on it. Her face is

ashen, her eyes fearful as she walks unseeingly straight into a large

tree stump. She sinks into the mud.

STEWART wraps the finger in a white handkerchief and gives it to FLORA

who backs away from him terrified.

FLORA:

(quietly) Mama.

STEWART:

Take this to Baines. Tell him

if he ever tries to see her again

I'll take off another and another

and another!

The figures seem tiny amidst the rain drenched skeleton forest.

SCENE 12O DELETED*

Sc 121EXT MAORI PA DAY Sc 121

The formal farewells are over and HIRA and BAINES finishes shaking

hands and pressing noses with her people.

HIRA holds his arm, she is sad and tearful. He places his hat on her

head affectionately and slips her a much appreciated tin of tobacco.

A soft rain begins to fall. BAINES and HIRA make their way past the

Meeting House and the low sleeping houses to the Pa entrance where his

horse waits,

HIRA:

I worry for us Peini. Pakeha

cunning like wind, KNOCK you

over, yet you not see it. Some

they say, how can pakeha get

our land if we won't sell it?"

A crowd of children run beside them, dogs scurry off and pigs are

kicked out of the way, their owners protesting loudly. Some hold mats

over their heads to protect themselves from the rain, one has a

battered umbrella.

HIRA:

They wrong Peini. We need guns

to hold it.

BAINES mounts his heavily laden horse. MANA pushes forward to say his

farewell, but is abruptly shoved aside, evidently unpopular with the

others. BAINES glances over and sees the piano key the man has

fashioned into an earring.

HIRA:

(angrily)I worried Feini.

What's gonna happen you, you go

home, but where we go? We got

nowhere to go.

HIRA's voice rises as BAINES lets go of her arm and rides through the

group towards MANA. He takes the piano key in his hand, MANA pulls

back.

MANA:

(In Macit)

It is mine. I found it.

BAINES turns it over and finds the writing on it.

BAINES:

(urgently)

Homni 'ci au.

(I want this.)

SUBTITLED:

MANA:

(sulky)

Ncrr! Naaku. It’s mine. Me find

it

BAINES:

He aha to hiahia? Ask for it?

Tobacco?

(What do you want?)

SUBTITLED:

HIRA:

(still angry)

Gun, ask for his gun!

MAYA rubs his nails up and down his buttons while he considers what he

will have.

OTHERS:

- Nga rarahe

(The glasses)

- Wana Putu

-Te whitiki, gettem ehoal

(The belt)

UNSUBTITLED:

Sc 122EXT MAORI PA DAY Sc 122

Outside the Pa walls near the kumera gardens, HIRA holds BAINES'

saddle bags. It is raining hard as he rides out, hatless, shoeless and

gunless, but clutching to his chest ADA's engraved key.

HIRA:

Go Peini ... Haere atu e Peini.

BAINES:

I'll be back.

Sc 123EXT SCHOOL DAY Sc 123

BAINES crosses through the pony paddock of the one room colonial

school hall, school house. He has a piece off flax knotted around his

waist to bold up his trousers. In the paddock are five very shabby

looking rides'. one huge old wagon horse, built to carry a whole

family, down to a tiny sour looking Shetland. The girls have long,

stained, once white pinafores and everyone wears boots that seem too

big, except the little boy who has the front cut off his hoots so his

toes can hang out.

Four little girls play a sedate game of skip rope, using a bush vine.

BAINES watches, noticing in particular a little girl of about 9 with a

bock. The boys and some of the wilder girls play BullRush.

NOTE SCENE 123 REPLACES SCENES 124 AND 125

DELETE SCENES 124 AND 125

Sc 126EXT GENTLE STREKM DAY Sc 126

The girl with the book goes off sit by a little stream. BAINES follows

and sits beside her.

BAINES:

Can you read?

The little girl immediately closes the book and walks off.

The girl keeps walking, before she turns about to watch him from a

safe distance.

Another little girl drops down from a tree.

TREE GIRL:

I can.

BAINES:

You can read?

(She is very small.)

TREE GIRL:

Yes ... lots of things.

The skipping group of girls join them.

BIG SISTER:

She can't read, she's my

sister, I ought to know.

Are those sweets?

TREE GIRL:

I can read!

BIG SISTER:

She can't.

BAINES holds out the packet to the little girl.

Don't give her one.

BAINES does anyway.

BIG SISTER:

She can't read.

The little girl throws the lolly paper away, which one of the other

girls picks up and sniffs, she hands it to the others.

Mmm Caramels

BAINES:

Can you read?

He holds out the piano key BIG SISTER takes it with great authority,

her friends crowd behind her. She frowns at the writing. She turns it

over.

BIG SISTER:

Running writing, we haven't

done that yet.

READING GIRL:

Myrtle can read it, her mother

taught her.

The key is snatched from BIG SISTER and given to MYRTLE, the girl with

the book. The others crowd around.

MYRTLE:

(frowning) D e a r G e o r g e

The children look over at BAINES to see if this is right so far.

You (in unison)... have

BIG SISTER:

That's "My".

MYRTLE:

Its not an M

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