One way or the other, it would be over tonight.
Fifty
We met. The Triumvirate decided what to do. We decided not to wait. We waited long enough. We decided to do it. We decided to do it now.
I talked to Benny. I talked to him for a long time. Benny listened for a long time. I knew Benny was listening with the attention Benny listened to things when he was being told the things he must do. I was getting to know Benny. I liked Benny. I liked the bits I was getting to know. I was still frightened by the bits I didn’t.
I didn’t tell Benny how to do the things I wanted him to do. I didn’t want to cramp his style. I didn’t want to cramp his artistic flare and, when it came to the things Benny was good at doing, Benny had flare and style.
When it came to doing the things Benny was good at doing, he was an artist. A fine artist and the things I was asking him to do were the things he was good at doing, and artistic in the act of doing them. We talked about what ‘things’ he should take. I didn’t say ‘guns’. Benny didn’t call them ‘guns’, he called them ‘weapons’. Benny wanted to take his favourite weapon, the one he could use to put a bullet through a man’s left eye, from a mile away, and blow off the back of his head. That was Benny’s favourite weapon. But we didn’t want him to take that weapon. I asked him to take the pea-shooter, the big one called a ‘blow-pipe’. Benny understood why I asked him to do that, understood in the end. So, Benny went and practised with the blow-pipe. Benny was a good Marine.
Then we dressed him up as seaweed.
Fifty-One
I’m not sure who started it, or if either of them started it, or if it just grew. I think it probably just grew, from the smouldering disaffection of Peggy’s misinformation, to the blaze of yelling that ended out on the terrace with the Major calling Peter a ‘cunt’. I knew Peter wouldn’t like being called a ‘cunt’.
I wondered if Peter had ever been called a ‘cunt’ before. If he had been, it wouldn’t have been for a long time. Perhaps at school, and I wondered if boys from the School By The River called one another ‘cunts’. I didn’t know, but I suspected not.
Well, the blaze on the terrace didn’t end with the Major calling Peter a ‘cunt’, it started with that. It didn’t end when Peter pulled the gun from his pocket and threatened to shoot the Major. Or when the Major took his gun out and threatened to shoot Peter too. Or even when Peter took aim at the Major and shot him.
Peter wasn’t a good shot, because he never practised and even if he did and even if he was a good shot, the anger and the yelling would have made him a bad shot. So when he shot the Major, he only shot him in the shoulder.
Being shot in the shoulder was enough to bring the Major down, and that’s why, when the Major shot Peter, he only shot him in the leg.
That was how it all came unstuck. The Major was meant to kill Peter. That was the plan. That was what all the preparation had been for. That was what we had all been hoping for.
The Major was a good shot. He was a good shot because he practised, but being shot himself, and in falling to the floor, from the shot in his shoulder, he only shot Peter in the leg. Being shot in the leg was enough to bring Peter down too. So, they rolled around on the floor and said ‘fuck’ a lot. They started yelling and they yelled about a lot of things. That was when they realised what had happened. What had happened to them. When they realised that what had happened to them, had happened for a reason, and that the reason was me. Then they said ‘fuck’ a lot more. It was then that they realised what Peggy had done. Had done to them, by telling them those things and by showing them those things that weren’t true. It was then that the Major called Peggy a ‘fucking cunt’. It was then that they realised I was a part of it too. It was then that the Major called me a ‘fucking cunt’ too.
It was time for Peggy and me to leave, to decamp, to depart and to head off across the lawn, to leave them to get on with killing one another. We weren’t much worried whether Peter killed the Major, even though it would have been nice if he had. Our need was for the Major to kill Peter. The law could handle the rest.
But now we knew it wasn’t going to happen. Bugger!
If it had worked, and if the Major had killed Peter, and if they had killed one another, murdered one another, and done it so that we wouldn’t have to do it, then it would have been a wonderful plan and a well thought out plan. But because it didn’t work, and because they hadn’t killed one another, to save us the job of having to kill Peter, then it had been a lousy plan and a poorly thought out plan. Not a plan anyone could really believe might work.
So our plan hadn’t worked. Now they knew they were tricked and they knew it was Peggy who tricked them. That was why they shot Peggy. They shot her as she crossed the terrace, to head off across the lawn. When I say ‘they shot Peggy’ I mean ‘the Major shot Peggy’ and it was the last thing the Major would do that day. That was because something dart-like attached itself to the Major’s neck and the Major went to sleep. Peter said ‘fuck’ again, took aim at me and fired.
It hit me in the chest, the right side of my chest, just above the breast, just where the knife went in, that day they crucified me, etc. and left me for dead. What is it about men and my right breast?
He took aim again, but didn’t fire. That was because something dart-like attached itself to his neck and he went to sleep.
I crawled over to Peggy. She was lying on the terrace steps. There wasn’t a lot of blood and she was still breathing. Then she coughed, and suddenly there was a lot of blood and she stopped breathing.
If I hadn’t been concentrating on Peggy, I might have seen what looked like a clump of seaweed rise up out of the flower bed with its blow-pipe still in its mouth.
Peggy was dead. The seaweed said she was dead. The way the seaweed said she was dead, left no doubt that she was dead. Peggy was dead.
Then guards arrived and shot the seaweed.
Fifty-Two
Oh, my sweet wee Jesus. What a mess. What would the Guv’nor think?
Fifty-Three
What a fucking cockamamie cockup. Where the fuck was Benny?
Fifty-Four
What a balls-up. I don’t usually use bad language. Not often. Sometimes. Just a bit.
Fifty-Five
The phone was ringing when I got home. I recognised the voice. It was Mr Munroe’s voice. That wasn’t possible. Mr Munroe was dead. The voice said it was Mr Munroe. That wasn’t possible. Mr Munroe was dead. But after we talked, I knew it was possible. Mr Munroe wasn’t dead.
A Judgement on a Life Page 25