The Tiger Who Came to Tea - Daddy's Version of Events

The man in the brown hat sat down at the end of the bar, held a solitary finger up to the barman then let his head drop with all the weight of the world's problems, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.  At the other end of the room, a small group of men in similar suits in varying shades of brown and grey sat around a small table, nursing whiskey sours and half-pints of beer.
“Should we ask him to join us?”
The oldest one (although at 36, he would object to being referred to as ‘old'), Frank, shook his head. “No, Marcus, let’s not.  I think we should leave him for a while, he’s had a rough few weeks.”  The other men murmured in agreement.  Frank always knew the right thing to do, the right thing to say, and they all looked to him for guidance from time to time the way they used to look at Bill, who now preferred to sit alone at the end of the bar getting steadily drunk by himself.  Frank took a length sip of his beer, licked the froth from his lips and placed the glass down on the table, his paw-like hands leaving prints in the condensation.  He and Bill had known one another since childhood, learned how to ride their bikes together, made girls cry in the playground by breaking their toys then made them cry in the dance halls by breaking their hearts.  Hell, they’d even had their first beers together.  They were like brothers, but recently Bill had started to act differently and seemed to spend more time drinking after work than he had before. 
“Rough few weeks?” Jack piped up. “I’ll say.  He’s behind on his work, even though he gets in earlier than everyone else and stays until after the cleaners have left - his desk is a mess, they won’t go near it.”  The only one of the group to work on the same floor as Bill, Jack was a quiet man with a stern demeanour, but his eyes softened sadly at the thought of his colleague.  The men sat in silence for a few moments, staring at their drinks.  How were they supposed to deal with this change in their friend?  These were men for whom an emotional outburst meant a firm handshake or a slap on the back.  None of them felt emotionally equipped to advise or sympathise with a man whose world was falling apart.
Frank loosened his tie.  As much as he wanted to go over and lay a hand on Bill’s shoulder, he knew that it was best to leave him alone; Bill had always been the calm one, the wise one, the one they turned to for advice, and in his absence Frank had become their stalwart.  But who could be there for Bill?  He had always played his cards close to his chest, even with Frank.  “It’s Nora.” He paused, and rubbed his neck.  “She’s sick again.”

They all knew what he meant.  Since the birth of their daughter Sophie, Nora and Bill’s relationship had been under strain both financially and emotionally, and while Bill had stepped up his performance at work and earned a promotion with a hefty pay increase, Nora’s emotional state had worsened.  At Frank’s birthday party a few weeks after Sophie was born, Bill ended up driving his wife home early after he found her sitting on the bathroom floor in tears, surrounded by every bottle and jar from the cabinets.  Their doctor suspected that it was post-natal depression, but Bill had seen Nora with Sophie and knew that it couldn’t be that; she was imaginative, creative and joyful with Sophie - most of the time.  No, he knew that it must be something more.  He’d seen glimpses of it before they were married, flashes of the dark lows she went to alone in her head, and though he’d never admit it to anyone, it scared him. 
“What was it this time?” Jack asked.  He had seen Nora at her not-quite-worst, but what he’d seen was bad enough.  There were times he’d been round to Bill’s to drop off some papers and had to carefully step over the mess in the hall where she ‘hadn’t found the time’ for the housework; or just for an impromptu drink after work, only for Bill to put his key in the door and have it slammed shut in his face by a wailing Nora.  Without knowing specifics about her condition he was sure of one thing - her erratic behaviour was one day going to take its toll on Bill, or worse still Sophie.  Jack and Frank had both been approached on separate occasions to look after Sophie while Bill drove Nora to stay at her mother’s house in Kent for a few days, and though she had been too young to remember anything at that time, she was five years old now and impressionable.
Frank removed his glasses and set them down next to his drink.  Bill had called him in the early hours of the morning, wearily and drunkenly explaining what had happened that evening and although he mostly kept people in the dark about Nora’s behaviour, Frank knew that if the phone rang in the middle of the night it would more than likely be Bill calling to get something off his chest.  The only safe time to talk was at night, when she had worn herself out after an outburst and her medication was in full soporific effect. 

“Okay, I’ll tell you it how Bill told me.  So he gets home last night - he stayed a little late, as ever.  I think he must have left here a little earlier than we did last night, because I remember him coming in but I don’t remember him being here when we left.  Anyway, I guess he gets home, steps in the door and the house is a tip.” Around the table, the men murmured in agreement.  “He tells me he calls out to her, ‘Nora!’ he says, but she doesn’t answer.  He gets to thinking the worse, you know?  You would too, if your wife was a kook like her.  So he calls out again and this time Sophie comes running up to him.  He told me, ‘Frank’, he said, ‘Frank, would you believe it’s 10 o’clock at night and the girl hasn’t been bathed?  She’s running down the hall to me when she’s supposed to be sleeping!’ I told him I understood - I mean once in a while it’s okay to let them stay up a little later, but you know with Nora that this ain't the first time.  Then he tells me the next part.  Oh boy.”
Frank took a long sip of his drink, guiltily relishing the attention of the men hanging on his every word as he relaid the humiliating events of his best friend’s previous evening.
“Come on, Frank, what’s the next part?”
“Yeah, quit playing with us!”
“Alright, calm down, I’m getting to it,” he said, glancing over at Bill who was still sitting forlornly at the bar, and wondering whether he could hear him.  “So he hugs her and starts to ask her about her day, she says ‘Daddy, we had a tiger here this afternoon, it had tea with us!’ Well, fellas, may I drop down dead now if he didn’t start to well up at that part.  More of her mother’s bullshit, as he called it.  So he asks her what she meant, and she starts rattling off some nonsense about a tiger knocking on the door, coming in the house and staying for tea.  That’s when Nora comes into the hallway, looking a state.  How’d he describe her? That’s right - he said she had that dead look in her eye, like she’s slipped down into the depths where she can’t be reached, like she’s in shock but the trauma’s all made up. Anyway, she’s there, vacant as ever while Sophie’s talking about a tiger eating all the food and drinking all the water from the taps - I mean, would you believe the stuff this kid is coming out with?  Then little Sophie says ‘Mummy said he can come back any time!’ He said to me, ‘Frank,’ he said, ‘Frank, the kid’s been home all day and she hasn’t had a damn thing to eat.  She’s hungry, she’s grubby, she’s tired.  She’s five years old.’ So he tells her to go put on her clothes, shoes and coat and wait in her room, he’ll take them all out to get something to eat.

"With her upstairs for the time being he starts it with up Nora, but she’s still got that distant look in her eye. So he just goes past her, goes into the kitchen and sees the cupboards just obliterated - I’m tell you, empty boxes, plastic bags and containers all over the floor, crockery and cutlery tipped onto the table and the teapot just lying there on the floor.  Looks like a bomb hit it.  He hit the roof. ‘What the hell happened here?  I thought you were taking care of the food shopping, I gave you the cash to go to the supermarket, why didn’t you go? Why is everything out of the cupboards?  What did you do to Sophie?’ Boy, she got really mad at him when he said that last one, raised her hand like she was gonna slap him hard in the face but she was too slow, he grabbed her wrist and pushed him away from her.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him rough-handle Nora, but I tell you, it certainly shook him, because I know Bill and I know when he regrets something.  She wasn’t hurt, he says she just sort of stumbled back and tripped onto the floor, but she was fine.  She’s sitting there among the boxes and the crockery, and he keeps asking her, ‘Why didn’t you feed my girl?  What’s gotten into you?  Where is your mind, Nora?’ She starts crying, I guess, and he’s less harsh with her, but losing his patience quickly.  So he says he held her shoulders and looked in her eyes, real focussed this time, and asked her to explain what happened.  She stops crying, gets this sort of child-like smile on her face, and this is what she told him: ‘Sophie and I were just sitting here playing tea-parties’ - what a thing, to play tea-parties with a child when you can’t even feed her for real! - ‘and the doorbell rang, Bill.  Oh, would you believe, the most beautiful tiger, just standing there, asked to come in for tea.  So Sophie and I, we invited him in and oh he ate so much!  All the cupboards and the water and beer and oh but not Sophie, no he was lovely to her.’ Can you imagine it?  So Bill’s sitting there, listening to his wife’s nonsense, and tries again, says to her he wants an explanation.  She starts saying the same story and this time Bill’s had it, he shakes her and tells her firmly that if he doesn’t get a straight answer, he’s taking Sophie away for good.  That’s when she starts crying again but it’s differently, like kind of silent, deep sobs.  He said they hardly made a sound but she looked like she was in real, proper pain.  She says, ‘I can’t, Bill, I - sometimes it just - I can’t…’ So he holds her for a few seconds, and then he notices on the window sill outside there’s a ginger tomcat, just walking back and forth on the sill.  He says to me, ‘Frank,’ he says, ‘Frank, I’d never noticed it till that moment, but she doesn’t look like the same woman anymore.  I took a good look at her face when she closed her eyes, and she’s aged more in the last five years than any of us have put together.  It’s like the things that other women consider to be simple household chores, well, it’s like there’s some big, emotional decision behind each movement, as if just functioning day-to-day is a complex manoeuvre that she can’t deal with.’ Remember how care-free and beautiful and happy she was at their wedding?  Well I think that Nora is slipping further and further away.”

The men sat solemnly, saying nothing for a solid minute before Marcus broke their silence.
“So, Sophie just made up that tiger thing?”
“No, well, Bill said that later that night he was tucking Sophie into bed when he tried to get more out of her about the afternoon’s events.  She told him that the ‘tiger’ came to the door - I’m guessing it was that tomcat - and it just sort of ran in, and then her mother was startled by it and dropped whatever it was that she was holding, I guess the teapot or something.  Sophie asked if the cat was a tiger, and Nora just got carried away with the story - it seemed to make Sophie happy, and whenever Sophie’s happy Nora doesn’t seem to notice anything else around her, including the time, the fact there’s no food in the house, or her child’s night-time routine.  She did something like this before, don’t you remember?”  He was met with blank looks all round. “Yeah, that time there was the spider in the bath, and Bill got home and found Sophie hiding under her bed in tears, Nora nowhere to be found.  ‘Daddy, mummy said there’s a monster in the bathroom that wants to eat me!’ Where was Nora?  Well, you know her fear of spiders and all those creepy-crawlies, right?  Nora’s gone down the street, she’s sitting in the church of all places.  Totally round the bend.  It’s like she can’t see things for what they really are, like everything’s a nightmare.  It must be hell to live that way, I mean, imagine seeing a cat as a tiger!  You’d be terrified to move. I’m telling you, fellas,” Frank sipped his drink once more, “She’s really losing it, this time.  I think this whole thing with not looking after Sophie properly is gonna be the straw that breaks Bill’s back.  She’s going to ruin that little family of theirs unless they get this under control.”
More nods and murmurs of agreement followed until Peter, the youngest of the group and arguably the quietest cleared his throat.
“You know, it’s so weird that you’d tell us that story tonight.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well,” he said, “just this morning he asked me if I knew of anywhere he could buy a cat.”

The Dark Knight Rises Script - Deleted Scene 3

Alfred stands in the middle of what was once the kitchen of Wayne Manor, cellphone at his ear.  The room is now covered in dust sheets, with tins of paint and rollers in trays lying around, and ladders and workbenches set up by different walls.

ALFRED
No, no, no!  I specifically said Daybreak Blue, not Midnight Blue.  What kind of a kitchen is painted dark blue, you plonker? 

He ends the call and puts his phone down on the counter as a burly builder arrives in a hard-hart and dust-mask, carrying a rolled up blueprint and a duffel bag.  He towers over Alfred, but moves slowly and purposefully.

BUILDER
Sir, a moment of your time please?

ALFRED
My name… is Alfred Pennyworth.

BUILDER
…OK.  Well, you may refer to me as Bane.

ALFRED
Bane then.  What’s on your mind, muscle-man?

BANE (BUILDER)
While moving your piano I happened to accidentally hit a random combination of keys and came across an interesting discovery.

Bane unrolls the blueprint on the worktop, and points to an area on it.

ALFRED
Oh, the Batcave?  Not a lot of people know about that.

BANE
…Bat…cave?  I was referring to the elevator.  We have been storing building materials down there, using the elevator to transport them.

ALFRED
…Crap.

BANE
I deduce from your regretful and frustrated demeanour that I am not supposed to be privy to this information.  Perhaps there is more to the mysterious Mr Wayne than I first thought.

ALFRED
No, you see, he’s, uh… he’s keeping the Batcave here for a friend.

Bane puts his hands on his hips while Alfred fiddles with the sleeves of his jumper, avoiding Bane’s piercing gaze.  Workmen start to filter in and out of the room, moving equipment around.

BANE
A friend? 

ALFRED
Yeah, a friend.

BANE
And tell me, Mr Pennyworth, would this friend happen to be The Batman?

ALFRED
That’s correct, sir.

BANE
Batman?

ALFRED
Yeah

BANE
…is Bruce Wayne?

ALFRED
Yeah.  Wait, what?

BANE
Thank you for your help, Mr Pennyworth.

He picks up his blueprint and starts to leave, but a slip of paper inexplicably falls out of his duffel bag, and Alfred manages to pick it up before Bane has a chance.

BANE
Give that back.

ALFRED
Let me just have a quick look.

Close up on the slip of paper which is actually a business card, emblazoned with the words:

“BANE: MERCENARY/TERRORIST/PAINTER/DECORATOR”

ALFRED
Says here you do a bit of the old terrorism, Master Bate?

BANE
Bane, not Bate.

ALFRED
Either way, you’re a wanker.  Ha ha.  I’m only pulling your leg, me old mucker.

BANE
Your language… I do not understand what you are saying.

A loud crashing noise is heard from somewhere in the house, causing Alfred to look around him in shock while Bane is nonplussed.

ALFRED
What the hell was that?

BANE
Do not worry.  We sent some paints and hardware down in the elevator to that basement, that pit.  Sometimes the pit sends something back.

The room rumbles beneath their feet.

BANE
Now that I cannot explain.

The two men rush through the house to the source of the noise, the elevator shaft.  Smoke and debris rise up and as it clears, Alfred peers down into the darkness.

ALFRED
You idiots!  What are you playing at? You were only supposed to blow the blood doors off!  Oh, you have.  As you were then.

BANE
Tell me, Mr Pennyworth, just what do you do with your time now that Bruce Wayne is indisposed?  Have you ever considered that there might come a time that Gotham needs its hero once more?

ALFRED
Yeah, well, why do you reckon I’ve been doing up the Batcave, you cheeky git?

BANE
Pardon my interference, Mr Pennyworth, but I hardly think that Cath Kidston prints and IKEA Billy bookcases will be of use to Mr Wayne, should he be required to don his mantle once more…

ALFRED
You mind your own business, mate.  I know Master Wayne better than anyone else, and what he needs is a nice place to chill out and feel relaxed.  Thinking of putting a koi pond down there and all.

BANE
You are… a strange creature, Mr Pennyworth.

ALFRED
‘Ark who’s talking!

Alfred minces off toward the island counter in the kitchen, picks up a tray of tea and cakes and minces back to the elevator shaft to call down to the builders.

ALFRED
Teas on, boys, got some chocolate fingers here for ya…and a couple of biscuits too, haha!  (nudges Bane, winks)  Oooh, I’m terrible, aren’t I?

Bane stands around as Alfred sets the tray down on the side and minces back back into the kitchen, whistling “Waterloo” by ABBA as he leaves the room, leaving Bane alone by the elevator.

BANE
Did he… did he become gay over the course of our conversation?

A pink bat symbol appears on the screen and the title credits roll.

The Dark Knight Rises Script - Deleted Scene 2

Opening scene.

INT. POLICE INTERROGATION VIEWING ROOM

Commissioner Gordon and two other police officers stand in front of the two-way mirror, blocking any view of who is inside the interrogation room.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
Okay, boys.  We’ve got him here just for questioning, and then he’s back in his cell, understand?  We’re not playing games with him anymore.  Statement, then cell.

The two officers look at one another and then back to him, and nod.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
Alright then, let’s do this. 

As they file out of the room, we see that sitting at the table on the other side of the glass, handcuffed and forlorn, is the Joker.

INT. POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM

One of the officers stands by the door, the other sits down at the table opposite the Joker while Gordon remains standing.  The Joker rests his handcuffed hands on the table around a polystyrene cup of coffee, with a weary but still menacing smile.

JOKER
You could’ve at least warmed it up a little, Jim.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
(sighs) I could, but then how could I be sure you wouldn’t throw it in my face?

JOKER
Heh heh, I guess you couldn’t be sure at all.  But then, you can never really sure of anything these days, can you, Jim?

COMMISSIONER GORDON
You can refer to me as Commissioner Gordon or ‘sir’.  I am not your peer, I am not your equal, and I am certainly not your friend.  Now we’re going to talk about your little stunt with the boats.  Guess your plan didn’t work out quite as you would have liked.

JOKER
Oh, you got me there!  I guess all my hard work and effort went to waste.  What a shame, a crying shame.  Ain’t too much sadder than the tears of a clown, right?

COMMISSIONER GORDON
You can’t quote lines from a song, that’s copyrighted material and we’ll have to pay big bucks to use that; and you can’t expect to play games with the lives of the people of Gotham and get away with it.  Not anymore.

JOKER
Oh right, your little bat friend.  Say, you don’t happen to know where he is right this moment, do you?

COMMISSIONER GORDON
(hesitantly) He’s… out finding Dent. 

JOKER
Right, right.  Gee, wouldn’t it have been great if he’d been able to start looking for him straight away?  Like, if this whole situation with the boats was a test, and both of the detonators were duds?  Because if that was the case, then the illustrious Batman wouldn’t have been tied up with my shenanigans; he’d have been free to find Dent right off the bat, and your little friend Harvey wouldn’t have been able to get to your wife and kids.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
Yeah but that would be even more far-fetched than you being able to organise such large-scale destruction in the first place.  I’ll see to it that you never see the light of day, ever again.

Comm. Gordon’s phone starts to ring and he steps out of the room.  The two officers left in the room look uneasily at one another.

JOKER
Well, boys, it’s just us. Are you sure neither of you wants to go check and see if Jimbo’s okay?

OFFICER 1
No, we’re not allowed to leave you alone, I can’t take my eyes off of you.

The Joker laughs, and starts to sing the horn part of the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.

OFFICER 2
Dude, why does that give me such de ja vu?

JOKER
I’m not going to lie, I really feel like I recognise you, man.

OFFICER 2
Right?! Same here!  What’s your name?  Like, your real name, not this ‘Joker’ business.

JOKER
(seriously) I can’t tell you that.

OFFICER 2
Fair enough.  I’ve changed my name a few times too. 

JOKER
I don’t care.

OFFICER 2
Dude, seriously, you’re so goddamn familiar. 

OFFICER 1
Shut up, man, he’s supposed to be going back to his cell, we can’t finish this session without the Commissioner.

OFFICER 2
You shut up. (to The Joker) Oh my god, I’ve got it.  Padua Stadium High School.

The Joker visibly lightens up.

 JOKER
What?  It isn’t… it can’t be… Cam?

OFFICER 2
Patrick Verona, you old fuckin’ dog!

The two men shake hands, laughing.

JOKER
Well, you’ve certainly grown, Cam.  An officer of the law, no less.

OFFICER 2
Yep, oh and it’s not Cameron anymore.  When I left Gotham the first time, when I met you and Bianca and everyone else, I took the name Cameron to kind of escape my past.  When things didn’t work out with B, I came back here and sort of reassumed my old persona.  I’m back to being John Blake.

JOKER
John Blake, eh?  I kind of prefer Cameron.

OFFICER 2
You always did like to be different, Pat.  And you always liked to put on a spectacle - I remember a certain someone arranging for the school band to accompany him as he sang an Andy Williams song to try to win over Kat Stratford.

The Joker looks bashfully down at his hands

OFFICER 2
Whatever happened with her, Pat?
 

JOKER
Well, you see, it’s like this.  I lose my job, we start to have money problems. She tells me I worry too much, tells me I ought to smile more.  Then she starts to gamble, gets in deep with the sharks. One day, they carve her face. And we have no money for surgeries. She can't take it. I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars.*

OFFICER 2
Whoa.  That’s pretty deep.

JOKER
But eventually I got sick of her whining and killed her.  I tried to play husband. I tried to taste the life of a simple man. It didn't work out, so I took a souvenir... her pretty head.*

OFFICER 2
That’s… that’s the wrong film, dude.

JOKER
What?

OFFICER 2
That’s Se7en, bro.  Save that bit for when you meet Fox, that’s his film.

JOKER
Shit, you’re right man.  My bad!

The two men laugh again, and Officer 1 looks on, baffled.

OFFICER 2
Well, I guess we’re done here.  There’s nothing left for us to do.

JOKER
So I’m free to go?

OFFICER 2
Looks that way to me.

OFFICER 1
Uh, Blake?

OFFICER 2
Did you not hear me tell you to shut up?

Blake punches the other officer in the stomach, who doubles over in pain and curls up on the floor.  Blake un-cuffs the Joker and leads him out of the room. We hear them laughing and joking down the corridor and a moment later Comm. Gordon re-enters the interrogation room and does a double take when he notices that Blake and the Joker are gone.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
What the hell happened here?  Where are they?

OFFICER 1
Commissioner, they started reminiscing about going to high school together and then the next thing I know, Blake’s punched me in the gut and he's un-cuffing his old friend and they’re heading out the door.

COMMISSIONER GORDON
What the - okay, well for starters you’re fired, and so is he.  That fucking idiot.  That’s one more thing to add to my list of ‘Things I Hate About Blake’.  I’m up to 10.

FADE OUT WITH GLITTERY GRAPHICS AND LETTERS TO CLEO SOUNDTRACK



* quotes taken from imdb.com ...and mashed up a little.

The Dark Knight Rises Script - Deleted Scene 1

EXT. DESERT, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - DUSK

Wayne, carrying a raggedy shoulder bag, staggers across the sand and barren wasteland toward a dusty road, the sky dark to show the hours that have passed since escaping from the pit.  Close up on his feet, blistered and dirty.  Wide shot of Wayne approaching the road then back to a close up on his feet as his toe strikes a rock and he stumbles, falling to the ground.

WAYNE
Baaaaallllllssssss

He nurses his foot, sits up and opens his bag.  He takes out a picture of Rachel, looking longingly at it and running his finger across her face.  He rests the picture under the rock which he tripped over.

WAYNE
Fucking rock.

He reaches back into his bag and pulls out a piece of paper, unfolds it and reads.

V.O. PRISONER
I never doubted that you would escape, Bruce.  I could tell from the moment you came in here with a severed spine that you would be the one who could accomplish such a physically demanding feat as climbing the wall and make the impossible jump that was somehow accomplished by a child with much shorter arms and legs and inferior physical strength.  Now that you are free and on your way, make sure you stay hydrated. 

Wayne looks into the bag and starts pulling out items  and examining them as they are mentioned by the voiceover.

V.O PRISONER
I have packed you a lunch, just some simple salmon and cucumber sandwiches and a packet of Skips, and a few apples and 2 bottles of water.  If you should have a showdown with Bane at any point, can you do me a favour?  Eat one of these apples in front of him.  Eat it right in his fucking face.  That guy loves apples but he can’t eat a damn thing, with that messed up face of his.  When you reach the road, you will find that not much traffic comes by this way, but once every six hours there is a bus that operates specifically for anyone who manages to escape from the pit, and it runs from here all the way to Gotham, which should be sufficient explanation for people wondering how you got back with no money and no cell phone.  But also, I have packed you a cell phone.

Wayne takes the mobile phone out of the bag excitedly.

V.O PRISONER
If you need to make a call, then go ahead, but there isn’t much credit on there and I don’t even know if you’ll get reception out there.  Once you’ve used it, could you top it up and then drop it back into the pit.  To be honest, as I write this I’m wondering why I didn’t use that phone when I had it to contact anyone for help.  I think you’re better off without my company, actually.

Wayne screws the letter up and throws it down beside him, where the evening sun sets it alight.  He drinks half the bottle of water in one gulp and then looks down at the ashes left by the paper - the shape of a bat.  He takes out the phone and starts to dial a number.

INT. SCARECROW’S COURT

Fox and Gordon are being escorted out of the building while Tate is being taken to Bane.  Fox’s phone starts to vibrate in his pocket, and one of Bane’s henchmen who is standing very close to him also feels it.  He smiles suggestively at Fox.

HENCHMAN
(huskily) You gonna get that?

FOX
(shudders) May I?

HENCHMAN
(giggles) Sure, sugar.  I like you.  Your head looks like a pint of Guinness.

Fox stares at him in disbelief for a few seconds and then hurriedly answers the phone.

FOX
Hello? 

EXT. DESERT

WAYNE
Lucius, listen to me.  I need you to charter a flight for me, I’ll send you my co-ordinates.  I’ll need a change of clothes, too.  And... maybe hook me up with some big booty bitches for the plane journey.  I’ve been in that pit a long time, man.

INT. COURTROOM

FOX
I can’t do that right now, and no-one can get in or out of Gotham, Mr W-

He notices the creepy henchman listening intently to the phone conversation. 

FOX
Sir. 

EXT.  DESERT.
The bus approaches in the distance and Wayne sticks his hand out, hailing it to stop.

WAYNE
Make it happen, Fox.

The doors of the bus, which is old and battered, creaks open.  As the bus stops, the exhaust bangs and steams and the bus looks like a smashed up tin can on wheels.  Wayne ends the call and steps onto the bus.

INT. COURTROOM

Fox holds the phone out to look at the display, the dialling tone audible.

FOX
Prick.

He is led out with Commissioner Gordon and the others to their fate.

INT. A DILAPIDATED DINING ROOM

Bane sits at a long wooden dining table on a large chair, leaning forward on his forearms and twirling a silver butter knife in his right hand.  A henchman approaches him.

HENCHMAN 1
Bane?  We have, uh, we’ve got Ms Tate waiting for you in the other room.  Is there anything else I can do?

Bane sighs and closes his eyes.

BANE
Bring me…an apple.

HENCHMAN 1
Sir?

BANE
An apple...that I may smell it. 

 
HENCHMAN 1
I...uh...

Another henchman in the room looks at him and shakes his head furiously, signally at him not to pull at that thread.

HENCHMAN 1
Sure, I’ll get you, uh, I can get you an apple.

He exits the room, and Bane places the knife on the table.

BANE
Now that the Batman is out of the way, there is no-one who is even close to capable of standing up to me.  The fear that the bomb could be detonated is enough to keep the people of Gotham under my thumb.  We have created a society that is free from the shackles of the Dent legislation, where chaos is second in command to me.  Perhaps, then, I should disarm the bomb.

HENCHMAN 2
But, Bane, you killed the only man who could do that.  With all due respect sir -

Bane raises his eyes to look at the henchman.

HENCHMAN 2
- Uh, well, you aren’t a nuclear physicist, and you cut off all the roads into and out of Gotham, so we couldn’t even get someone here to do it.

BANE
I cut off the roads, not all the connections.  I’ll just Google that shit, how hard can it be?

The first henchman arrives back in the room carrying a bag of green and red apples.

HENCHMAN 1
I got a mix for you. 

He places the bag on the table in front of Bane.

HENCHMAN 1
Hey, Bane, hey.

BANE
What?

HENCHMAN 1
Hey, listen to this, haha, hey.

BANE
What - is - it?

HENCHMAN 1
(pauses then points to apples)
How’d you like THEM apples?

As the henchman finishes the last word, Bane smashes his fist into his face causing his skull to cave in with a sickening crack.  He calmly sits down, takes an apple from the bag and holds it close to his mask.  He inhales deeply, then proceeds to peel the apple with the butter knife.

BANE
I like them.  I like them very, very much.

Short story follow-up to Harriet the Spy

She wound her waist-length hair up in a bun the top of her head and secured in with a clip, before crossing the hall from her bedroom to the bathroom and stepping into the shower.  Her bathroom was cluttered and untidy but not dirty, never dirty.  As the water ran down her body, taking her tears with it down the drain, the severity of her situation occurred to her and she wondered whether she had any alternative solutions.  But this was it - she had brought this all on herself and it was unlikely that apologising and publishing a series of retractions would help now as it had done before. 

*

Eric could hear the television all the way down the corridor before he reached the flat.
“Harry?” 
His key stuck in the lock, as it always did when he tried to unlock the door in a hurry.  He wished that she wouldn’t keep locking it from the inside, and he’d spent many evenings lecturing her about the potential danger of doing so in the event of a fire, but it always ended up with her getting angry and yelling at him about her need for privacy.   They’d argued a lot about that but Harry called herself a listener, a watcher, an observer; Eric hated that her idea of social interaction was to introduce herself and ask hundreds of questions but become sulky and indignant when the spotlight was turned on her.  It made it hard for them to meet new people and awkward for Eric to maintain the relationships he had worked so hard to forge throughout his career, and given that his recent promotion at the television station meant he was invited to a lot of parties and events with celebrities and socialites there were even more opportunities for Harry to upset people with her inappropriate questions.  As if her amateur interviews weren’t bad enough, she had developed a habit of coming home and writing up the information she’d gathered into the notebooks she kept all over the house.

The door to her apartment opened into her living room, which looked more like a sanctuary for tattered books and magazines than anything else.  Eric turned the television volume down, still calling out her name before realising he could hear the water running in the bathroom.  Boy, would he love to surprise her in the shower, but he knew she’d hate that.  He took off his jacket and threw it on the couch; Harriet had tried many times to get her shit together and stay organised but somewhere along the line she had just given up completely and embraced the chaos, so he knew that hanging his coat up on one of the hooks would make about as much sense as polishing silverware before throwing it in the bin.  Dusting crumbs from the cushions, he sat down and kicked his shoes off, feeling that there was something different about his girlfriend’s living room, something out of place perhaps.  But he shrugged it off and put his shoes up on the coffee table - if Harry came in and saw him do that she’d kick his ass, so until she emerged from the bathroom he’d relish the chance to relax properly.  That was something she would never understand, the toll that a hard day at work as an executive could take on a person; he was in and out of meetings, working through lunch breaks and sometimes putting in 18 hours a day at the office while she was sitting at home, writing her stupid gossip articles for her website and squandering her inheritance on books and expensive cameras. 

The volume on the television was uncomfortably low from where he had turned it down when he came in, so he turned it back up and leaned back on the couch, closing his eyes and listening to the news.
“‘…heavy rainfall moving broadly across from the east, with sunshine and the possibility of some light showers in the early evening tomorrow.  Back to the studio now, for the day’s headlines.’”
‘Thanks, John.  Tonight’s top story, one that has been dominating the papers and news broadcasts since it first broke this afternoon: The body of New York socialite and heiress to the Linneman fortunate, Georgina Faulkes, was found today at her Manhattan apartment along with the bodies of her three children.  It is believed that Mrs Faulkes shot Charlotte, aged 16, Alexander, aged 10, and Molly, aged 6 and then herself, all at point blank range with her husband’s handgun around noon after discovering his alleged infidelity via an internet gossip site this morning.  Witnesses who saw Mrs Faulkes this morning have claimed…’”
Eric sat up.  He reached for the remote to turn the volume up more when he noticed the newspapers under his feet on the coffee table.  Late editions of the tabloids, all dominated by the Faulkes murder-suicide. ‘Spurned Socialite Kills Children, Self - Bodies Discovered by Husband’, ‘New York Heiress in Tragic Killing Spree’, and the less sensitive ‘Crazed Millionairess Blasts Children in Jealous Rampage’.  How had he missed this?  How had he managed to go all afternoon without seeing anything about this on the news - he worked at a goddamn television studio.  That was the problem with his new role at the station, he spent most of his day in meetings or on conference calls.  He picked up a random newspaper and scanned the article, finding only the same information he had just heard on the news piece until he reached the fourth paragraph:

‘Sources say that Mrs Faulkes regularly spent hours on the internet reading showbiz and gossip sites, often specifically looking up stories about herself.  It is understood that she discovered a site which apparently had it on good authority that her husband Andrew was involved in a sexual relationship with a student in his daughter’s class, a claim that both parties have fervently denied.  In a note left for her husband, Mrs Faulkes states that she intended the death of her children and herself to “leave a deep and eternal scar in his life”.  The couple would have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at the end of this month.’

Oh god, Eric thought.  That was Harriet’s website.  Harriet broke that story.  He switched off the television and scooped the newspapers up into a pile.  This was big.  Her website averaged around a thousand viewers every day, which was actually unimpressive for a showbiz gossip site, and over the last few weeks Harriet had started to write more sensational articles in the hope of attracting a wider audience. 

Eric’s head felt light and heavy at the same time.  Earlier in the week, Harriet had started talking to him about the website while they lay in bed, breathless and entwined.
“I need to write more about sex,” she had said, as if she’d been wondering out loud about which ice cream flavour to choose.
“Well, I can help you with your research if you like…” He began to kiss her shoulder; he loved every inch of her, but most of all he loved these smooth areas on her body that were lightly dusted with freckles.  He’d embarked on counting them many times, but it always ended up the two of them undressing and losing sight of the initial endeavour. 
“No, honey, I mean on my website.  That’s all people really want to read about, isn’t it?  Sex scandals.”  She shifted and sat up, leaning against the headboard. “If I could just get people to view my website, I know they’d keep coming back.  Mine could be the go-to place for this kind of thing.”
“Well, do you know of any sex scandals recently that no-one else has heard of yet?”
“That’s the beauty of it, Eric.  They don’t even need to be true - I mean, it’s just a rumour, right?  There’s no harm in that kind of thing.”
“I don’t know, Harry, that’s dangerous territory if you ask me.  You’re talking about potentially libellous articles, babe.  You need to be careful.”
Harriet was normally quite serious, but on the rare occasions that she laughed, she really went for it.  “It'll be fine, honey, no-one reads my site anyway!” she said, throwing her head back and letting out an almost musical laugh.

But someone had obviously read it today.  Over in the study, the light was off but there was a glowing rectangle of light in the corner.  Eric walked over to Harriet’s laptop, which had a single browser window open on her own website.  ‘Manhattan Spyline’ had a pink and black theme which was very uncharacteristic for Harriet, but it was popular with the handful of regular readers she had.  The offending article was in the middle of the screen:

TROUBLE IN PARADISE?
RUMOUR HAS IT THAT ANDREW FAULKES HAS BEEN A NAUGHTY BOY!  SOURCES SAY THAT THE MUSIC MOGUL HAS BEEN REGULARLY MEETING WITH A STUDENT AT HIS DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL FOR STEAMY ROMPS BEHIND HIS WIFE’S BACK!

Underneath the post:

21,000 views + 1, 781 comments

He pinched the top of his nose between his eyes to quell the headache that was setting in, and rested his hand over his mouth as he considered the events of the day, and then his surroundings.  Harriet had lied, and now four people were dead, three of them innocent children caught up in the mistake.  He hadn’t fully realised it until now, but with the pile of newspapers and the television tuned into the 24 hour news channel (on a rival network, but he wasn’t bothered by that just now) Harriet must have spent the afternoon engrossed in the aftermath of her actions - but then detailed observation wasn’t really his thing; Harriet was the ‘spy’, not him.  He’d been in the apartment for about 10 minutes by now - Harry was never one to take long showers, and even if she was trying to clear her head after what must have been a stressful day, he needed to talk to her.
“Harry?” he shouted, wandering down the hall to the bathroom.  “Harriet?  Are you okay?”
The water was still running.  Steam had started to emerge from the crack in the door, which Harriet always kept slightly ajar when she showered in case of an accident.  He peeked round the corner of the door but before he could see anything, the phone in her bedroom started to ring.
“Bet that’s been ringing all day, huh baby?” he half-muttered, half-said.
He deliberated for a moment whether or not to answer the phone, and after three rings he stepped into her bedroom and stopped in his tracks.  There was a pile of paper on the middle of the bed.
“What the…”  The phone continued to ring as he approached the bed, and noticed that the paper had been shredded with scissors, not torn by hand.  Eric realised what was happening, and looked around for the scissors although by now he knew where they would be.  He crossed the hall and slowly pushed the bathroom door open.  It was halfway open when he saw the red ribbons of water running across her feet.  The phone continued to ring in the bedroom, and he closed the bathroom door.  In somewhat of a daze he walked back into the bedroom of his dead girlfriend, and picked up a piece of paper from the pile of shredded notebooks, the notebooks she had used to document her findings from all those awkward dinner party conversations.  He read it, and picked up another, then another, and then another, but they all said the same thing, over and over:

MEAN I FEEL MEAN I FEEL MEAN I FEEL MEAN I FEEL MEAN