Fire: Chapter Twenty

INTERMISSION

"He's late," stated Terry Gilliam baldly, checking his watch.

"He's buggered off AGAIN!" Eric Idle's shrill tones pierced the gloom of the damp castle walls. The Pythons were seated at a long Jacobean refectory table in what served as a makeshift set. Terry Jones was pacing at one end of the room, while the others variously lounged, tapped fingers, smoked, drank coffee and yawned.

"It's Jonesy's fault. He went and lost him," said John Cleese, imperiously.

"I didn't!" Terry screeched, ratbag-like, from across the room.

"Damned careless if you ask me," retorted John scornfully.

"Look, one minute he was in our trailer, and the next he'd just...vanished! It's not my fault!" continued Terry, mournfully.

"We already lost him once, and look what happened that time," whined Eric, kicking at the table leg like a pouting schoolboy. "We've got a scene to do and we're bloody behind again, this film's going to take all bloody year if we can't keep tabs on Palin! You lot might not have a life, but I've got things to date, girls to do..."

"Would you give it a rest, Idle?" John muttered. "We can't all be a career Casanova, you know..."

A soft voice from the corner of the room somehow cut through their combined petulance. "Leave Michael alone. He's in love." Graham Chapman puffed serenely on his ever-present pipe, in the absence of his beloved g&ts which he had, bafflingly, given up on the eve of filming.

"And how would you know that, smart-arse?" snapped Cleese.

"That's Mr. Smart-Arse to you," said Graham, evenly. He offered a beatific smile to John who groaned and put his head in his hands.

"Don't worry, he'll be here," said Graham, with all the confidence of a divine benefactor.

Just then, the door burst open and a rather windswept Michael Palin blundered into the room.

"You're late," said Gilliam, flatly.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?!" squawked Terry J. "They've all been blaming ME!"

"About bloody time," muttered Cleese.

"What is your PROBLEM, Palin?!" yelled Eric, hysterically.

Graham just smiled into his pipe.

"Look, I'm really REALLY sorry," Michael stammered. "I lost track of time..." he trailed off, aware that not one single person in the room believed him. "Look, I DID, I...." he continued, his voice becoming higher and slightly shrill.

"It's alright, Mike." Graham's regal, almost shakespearean tones resonated through the high-ceilinged stone chamber. "Everyone's fine, it doesn't
matter." Graham gave a stern glance around the room. The Pythons cowered.

"Yeah, nothing broken, whatever," muttered Idle.

"I s'pose," mumbled Cleese, grumpily.

"Why does everyone always blame ME?" whined Jones.

"Can we just get on with it please?" drawled Gilliam. "We're already gotten way behind schedule and over budget - not that we had much of a budget to begin with..."

Finally, the meeting got started and it was decided that this room would have to double, nay triple, as several different locations, including the
Camelot song-and-dance number which was due to be filmed later that afternoon. Michael was ordered to go and find Hazel Pethig, who would fit him out with a different tabard than his Galahad cross and also a false moustache and coif.

"Um....what's a coif again?" asked Michael, meekly.

John let out a frustrated sigh. "The chainmail bit that goes on your head," he said heavily, as though he was addressing a five-year-old. "You should know that, you're a history major for crying out loud!"

"Oh," said Michael, feebly. "Um...." he continued, unsure of how to broach the subject with his unruly friends. "Er...I have something important to
tell you all," he continued, smiling nervously.

"Well, spit it out, for God's sake!" snapped John, standing up and towering over Michael.

Michael pulled himself up to his full five feet ten inches and looked John square in the chest.

"I'm getting married," Michael announced, triumphantly.

And Graham just smiled.