Ah, Carl. My favourite godson... Have we ever met?
Young Carl I don't think so.
Good. There was a lost decade in there somewhere. I always have to check. [fusses around the room] So... expelled?
Young Carl That's right.
Young Carl I suppose smoking was the clincher.
Young Carl Well, both.
Well done! Proud of you. So your mum sent you here in the hope that a little bracing sea air would sort you out?
Young Carl Something like that.
It's type of bird, but it's wearing a hat. Not so much a hat. Something that's at the top of a coat and attached to the coat and covers the head, but is not a hat.
Young Carl A hood?
Yes, and now the first name, type of bird. It's a something hood.
Young Carl Robin Hood! Why didn't you just say he lived in Sherwood Forest and has a bow and an arrow?
Yeah? What? Who are you talking about?
Young Carl Robin Hood.
Young Carl I think I might have had a little too much to drink last night.
Actually, I find alcohol rather sharpens my mind.
Young Carl [amused]
Really?
Yes, and I was thinking...
Young Carl Dangerous.
...that it's a bit weird for your mum to send you here to get you on the straight and narrow when this is obviously the worst possible place in the world to do that. There's sex and drugs and alcohol.
Young Carl Without the sex.
And so I think you're here because it's exactly the right time for a young man, like you, to get to know his dad.
Young Carl [pause]
And?
I therefore think your dad is somewhere on this boat. And since it's definitely not me, I think it's probably Quentin. Sometimes, just sometimes, I think I should have been called Clever Kevin. What do you think about that? [rolls over and rolls off the bed]
Your mother is dropping by to pay us a visit before Christmas.
Young Carl You're kidding? When does she arrive?
Tomorrow. She was always very impromptu.
Young Carl Really?
Oh yes. Anyway, I thought you might like to know, in case you want to brush your hair or hide the large stack of pornography you keep on that shelf.
Young Carl Oh, by the way, our late night DJ Bob? He just wanted to tell you, "Muddy Waters rocks".
Charlotte Oh my God, he didn't... He didn't tell you, did he?
Young Carl Tell me what?
Charlotte What?
Young Carl Oh no, you didn't... You didn't sleep with him, did you?
Charlotte Well, of course I slept with him. Everyone did. He was absolutely gorgeous.
Young Carl [confused]
You're talking about Bob? Bearded, beasty Bob?
Charlotte Well, I can't speak to the beast part but I can tell you that back then, he was clean shaven.
Young Carl When?
Charlotte Oh I don't know. Quit badgering me. [pause] How old are you?
Young Carl Eighteen and a half.
Charlotte Well, I guess it would have been nineteen and a quarter years ago. Give or take. [Carl is silent as he realises Bob is his father] There's my boat. That poor man must have been waiting for ages. I'm so glad we got that sorted out, aren't you? [gets on the boat to shore] And tell Mark... you know... that it was a lovely, lovely night.
Young Carl [appalled]
No! No!
The day has come. Tonight pirate radio dies. From midnight, we are a ghost ship floating without hope on cold and dark waters. You have done almighty work here. Thank you. But your work is done.
Not mine, sir. I'm an American citizen and I don't give a hootenanny God damn about your nitpicking limey laws. I intend to broadcast from this ship 24 hours a day until the day I die. And then for a couple days after that.
Not wanting to sound rude or anything, but don't you think that might be an ever so slightly monotonous experience for the listener? What do you say to 12 hours each, noble sir?
The way I look at it, the world couldn't survive without my comedy, and who's going to have the moral backbone to play the Seekers when the mood is right?
I intend to celebrate the back catalogue.
I intend to stop you doing so.
Mark [silently stands up and lights a cigarette]
As some of you know, my wife left me after 17 hours of marriage, but I survived that because I live for music. And now, with nothing else to live for, I'm willing to die for it as well.
John I've always lived for news and weather. Happy to die for them, too. Especially the weather.
Bob Silver I've got nowhere else to go.
H Harold
I have somewhere else to go, but it's Peckham. So I think I'll stick around.
Felicity Can't let everyone starve. And I'm slightly worried where my increasingly powerful sexuality will take me when I return to normal life.
I've got a very strong suspicion that Felicity fancies me. Not about to go anywhere, just when I'm in with a chance.
Young Carl Obviously, I'm in. You're the only people in the world who like me.
So tell us Mark, now at the very end - what was your secret? How did you get all them girls?
Mark Simple. Don't say anything at all.
Young Carl Nothing?
Mark Nothing. Then, when the tension becomes too much to bear, you finally, finally, you just say: "How about it, then?"
