Mandela Gandhi Secondary Modern

[SIR HUGO FACKER (PARENT) AND MR. COX (HEADMASTER), ARE SITTING OPPOSITE EACH OTHER AT THE DESK IN THE HEADMASTER’S STUDY]

HUGO: So, Mr. Cox, you wish to discuss my son, Christian.

COX: We call him Chris, here, Sir Hugo. This is a multi-faith secondary modern school. People of other religions can get up upset by a name like that.

HUGO: Good Gordon Bollocks of Buttermere. Political correctness gone mad, eh. With a surname like Facker, you’d think Christian would be the least of his problems. Call him by his middle name. My wife always prefers Fanny.

COX: Chris is fine, Sir Hugo, but he is, er- quite sexually active for his age, do you not think?

HUGO: Course he is. Comes from a long line of rampant Fackers. I can trace my family back to the Sultana of Constantinople, you know. And there's no bigger Facker than a Sultana.

COX: That may be, Sir. However, we’re more concerned at the moment about the caretaker’s wife.

HUGO: I’ll pay for everything. When’s the baby due?

COX: Baby? No, it hasn’t quite gone that far. But apparently he’s started exposing himself to her.

HUGO: She’s a privileged woman. When a Facker exposes himself to you, it means he’s serious. You chaps not occupying his time properly here? Latin, Greek, trigonometry. That’s what we did when I was at school, and I was thirteen before I exposed myself to a fully-grown woman. You know what I always say - “It’s never too late to start” – you can learn a lot from me, you know.

COX: If you wish him to be taught Latin and Greek, I might suggest you pay for him to go to a private school.

HUGO: I might suggest the same, but I’m broke. If the stock market hadn’t crashed, I wouldn’t be pissing my offspring down your little academic chamber pot, would I? It’s not every day you get a family like mine here. I’ve only got one son in prison, but that’s what happens when a woman refuses to breast-feed. Children these days need more of the arse, Cox.

COX: The what?

HUGO: The arse. Reading, writing, rodgering …. and the other one. Logarithms.

COX: Of what use to anyone are logarithms?

HUGO: Have you ever watched a scorpion tinkering with a hamster on a lazy Susan? Or shot a verruca off a Bengal tiger up the Khyber Pass? I think if you had, you might see the value of calculus. This is what happens when people only go to Spain for their holidays. What age do you start teaching blood sports?

COX: You’re not seriously suggesting we encourage the killing of animals at Mandela Gandhi Secondary Modern, are you?

HUGO: Life skills, Cox. That’s what children need these days. My wife can fillet a coyote with a tin-opener in under nine minutes. Did a demonstration last week in the car park for the World Wildlife Fund. Raised thirty-five pounds towards a wind farm in the Galapagos. And she was wolf-whistled. As I always say - It’s never too late to start, Cox.

COX: Filleted a coyote? In Wimbledon?

HUGO: No need to be obtuse. I’m using “coyote” in the broadest sense of the term. It’s about survival of the fittest, Cox. Do like I do, go out on the streets, with both barrels blazing. I’m willing to bet you haven’t got one pupil under twelve who can fire a Winchester.

COX: This isn’t a training camp for junior assassins. We’re trying to get them through their GCSEs, not encourage them to go gun-toting down the high street taking pot shots at passers-by.

HUGO: Good God, man! I don’t suggest you use moving targets. At least, not to begin with. Start with chimney pots, washing lines, satellite dishes. We all do it. Why do you think there’s a bent cockerel on the church roof?

COX: I’m a pacifist, for Christ’s sake! We teach Peace Studies here. Reconciliation, forgiveness, respect for other people, you cretin.

HUGO: Totally inadequate. Imagine the Duke of Wellington going to a school that did Peace Studies. We’d all be living under Napoleon. The entire country reeking of garlic and scraping camembert out of their armpits. Is that what you want? I suspect what you’re lacking here is discipline. A sharp crack of the cane across the bare buttocks.

[COX STANDS UP, TURNS TO HIS RIGHT, AND BENDS OVER TO PICK UP SOMETHING IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM]: We don’t administer corporal punishment any more. It’s two thousand and fucking six. It’s illegal.

HUGO: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I always say, “it’s never too late to start”. [EXPRESSION OF SUDDEN REALISATION AS HE SEES COX BENDING OVER] Hold on a second. I’d recognise that backside anywhere. Well, I’m blowed! Everard Cox. You were my fag at Eton.

COX [TURNING ROUND TO REVEAL THAT HE HAS PICKED UP A LONG STICK, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BASEBALL BAT]: It’s been a long time, Facker.

HUGO: If I remember rightly, we used to hit you very hard.

COX [REVEALS HE HAS A LIMP. TREADS AS MENACINGLY AS HE CAN TO A POSITION BEHIND THE SEATED SIR HUGO]: Thirty years, Facker. And I still walk like a haggis on a prairie.

HUGO: Nothing wrong with hitting someone hard.

[COX IS POISED BEHIND SIR HUGO LIKE A BASEBALL BATTER WAITING TO RECEIVE FROM A PITCHER]

HUGO: I wish I’d been hit hard when I was younger.

COX [DRAWING THE STICK BACKWARDS FOR MOMENTUM]: Well, you know what they always say. It’s never to late to start.

[SIR HUGO BENDS DOWN TO PICK UP SOMETHING OFF THE FLOOR AT THE PRECISE MOMENT COX SWINGS INTO HIM. COX MISSES, FALLS FORWARD, HITS HIS HEAD ON THE SIDE OF THE DESK, AND DISAPPEARS ON TO THE FLOOR, OFF-CAMERA]

HUGO [STANDS UP, LOOKS AROUND AND SPOTS THE HALF-DAZED COX LIFTING HIMSELF UP OFF THE FLOOR]: No need to beat yourself up about it, old chap. All this namby-pamby pacifist malarkey is just giving you a guilt complex. Take the bull by the horns and show some balls, Cox.

COX: Balls, Facker?! Every day I pray they’ll skewer you by the testicles to a burning tree, rip out your freshly barbecued heart, carve it into tender slices, and serve it to me on a bed of mushrooms in a white wine sauce. That is my dream, Facker. To feed on your deceased body like an ecstatic vulture.

HUGO [DEPARTING] Splendid. No hard feelings then, eh. All bygones under the bridge. Tell you what, to make up for everything, I’ll get my wife to come down one afternoon next week and show the children what she can do with an ostrich and a chain-saw.