Scene 14

A montage.

Joe is waiting in the light rain with a little turquoise and navy polka dot umbrella. Lisa appears some distance away, shielding herself with a yellow folder. He takes down his umbrella, puts up his waterproof hood, ties his umbrella up. She comes close. They start to walk together. A shot from behind; he offers her his umbrella, she takes it and puts it up. She tries to hold it over him but it’s too small. She continues to try.

Joe lies in bed. He picks his nose. The result is dry and malleable. He molds it between his fingertips into a tiny heart. He considers it, rolls it up, throws it accurately in the dustbin.

Joe and Lisa meet on the bridge again.

Lisa is working in a library. She looks up two books in a catalogue; both have been taken out. Any music that may have been running through the montage stops. The cozy awkwardness of long silence. There are a number of people working here. We see a furtive man, trying to work, but preoccupied.

FURTIVE MAN: Does anyone here find libraries arousing?

They look up. They return to their work.

Ten minute shot.

A student is in her room playing the violin. Everything beautiful. Her face focused. Lisa is carrying books past her staircase. She puts down the books, and sits on them, and listens. The girl playing the violin. She stops. Lisa has walked up the stairs and been standing outside the room. She runs down the stairs, afraid and embarrassed. The girl goes to her mirror, squeezes a spot.

Joe reads one of the books Lisa had been looking up. The other lies bookmarked by his breast. There are other books around too.

It’s raining. Joe in the rain. A couple under Clare Bridge, which crosses the River Cam.

Wind moves through the grass and water, near the King’s Chapel.

JOE’S VOICE OVER: Invisible mice.

More.

JOE’S VOICE OVER: Where would you keep an invisible elephant?

Frame moves slowly, as if by an ever-more-likely hunch, to the empty alley.

The scaffolding sways in the wind, rubbed by an invisible elephant.

Joe and Lisa meet on the bridge.

Joe and Lisa press the ‘wait’ button. They wait. They speak. The cars all explode. They cross.

Joe and Lisa meet on the bridge.

Joe and Lisa leave each other.