by Tom Stoppard
‘Wasn’t there?’
‘No, really,’ Moon comforted him. ‘He was confused. He thought you were talking about something else.’ He remembered then. ‘Marie’s dead. You killed Marie.’
Slaughter turned to him. ‘What do you mean? I haven’t seen Marie since yesterday.’
‘You shot her through the window.’
‘Marie?’
‘Hit her in the chest.’
Slaughter whistled softly.
‘God, that’s awful. Poor girl.’
‘Yes,’ Moon said.
‘Where is she?’
‘He took her away on the donkey. In the carpet.’ He decided not to say anything about the General.
‘Old Marie,’ Slaughter said. ‘You know, I never killed anyone before.’
‘Well, you killed her,’ Moon said.
This was ridiculous.
‘Marie’s dead. You killed her,’ he said evenly though his whole being tensed with hate for the cold-eyed killer.
‘No,’ whined Slaughter. ‘I haven’t seen Marie since yesterday.’
‘You shot her through the window.’
He reached out with an iron grip round the snivelling fellow’s throat. ‘You dirty rat!’ he spat and with one twist—
But he could only watch. He was a spectator.
And though there may be words you can spit, dirty rat isn’t two of them.
‘Your horse outside?’
‘Mare,’ said Slaughter. ‘It’s a mare.’
‘I didn’t see her outside.’
‘No, I just climbed off her in the end and she just went on walking. As if she had been wound up. I don’t think it was a real horse, or mare. I think it was a wind-up one. God knows where the damn thing is now. Probably walked into the sea.’
Moon asked, ‘Are you making a film?’
‘Wish I was. Now that’s something I could do.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.’
‘L. J. Slaughter. I should be in films all right.’
‘You wouldn’t have real bullets in a film,’ Moon said.
‘In a film you wouldn’t need them,’ said Slaughter.
Moon felt as if the conversation was a weight he had to drag along on the end of a rope. He got up stiffly and went down the stairs leading with his good foot down one step at a time.
‘You hurt your leg?’ asked Slaughter kindly.
‘No,’ Moon said. ‘Ain’t got used to my new spurs yet.’ He smiled the smile of an innocent lunatic, the one who is given little jobs to do around the asylum. ‘Cut my foot.’
‘Let’s see it.’
Moon reached the bottom of the stairs and sat down and took his shoe off and unwrapped the handkerchief.
‘That’s a bit nasty,’ Slaughter said. ‘Did you clean it with antiseptic?’
‘No,’ said Moon. ‘I don’t think we’ve got any.’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of tetanus? Come into the kitchen.’
They went into the kitchen and Slaughter turned on the cold tap.
‘Let’s have the hanky.’ Slaughter dipped it into the stream and bathed the wound.
Moon leaned on the sink and turned his head sadly to the window.
Aye, it is mortal! Nay, do not weep, mistress … happy is the man who goes to his rest e’en as the sun rises before him over his garden … Oh, Petfinch, Pet finch, my home and my garden of the soul, where this arrow falls there let me rest under your greensward.
‘How’s that?’
‘Lovely, thank you.’
The cold water eased the soreness, froze and compressed it. Slaughter re-tied the handkerchief.
‘Must keep it clean, you see.’
‘You’re very kind, Mr Slaughter. How very inconsistent of you.’ He giggled foolishly. ‘May I offer you something? Have you breakfasted?’
‘What’s this?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘This. What is it?’
‘Oh. It’s a bomb as a matter of fact.’
Slaughter held it up and placed it against his ear.
‘Ticking,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
Slaughter put the bomb down carefully and looked at it.
‘Is it yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘A bomb. A real bomb?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Slaughter nodded slowly.
‘Ticking,’ he said.
He walked across to Moon and stood in front of him.
‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that it’s going to blow up?’
‘Not for some while, but yes. It’s on the maximum timefuse but on the other hand I could, if I wanted to, press the cutout key in which case it would blow up in ten seconds. My wife’s Uncle Jackson knew a thing or two about bombs, he knew that it is often necessary to throw them without notice.’
‘Throw?’
‘As opposed to plant.’
‘Where?’
‘Under his bed, for instance.’
‘Whose?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Moon. ‘I’ve got a list.’
Slaughter looked at him carefully.
‘You’ve got a grudge against someone?’
‘No,’ said Moon. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Then why do you need a bomb?’
‘Because, my dear J.B., we require an explosion. It is not simply a matter of retribution, it is a matter of shocking people into a moment of recognition – bang! – so that they might make a total re-assessment, recognise that life has gone badly wrong somewhere, the proportions have been distorted, I hope I make myself clear?’
Slaughter pulled reflectively at his lower lip.
‘L.J.,’ he said. ‘Long John Slaughter.’
Moon bowed and giggled.
‘Are you some kind of a writer?’ Slaughter indicated the typewriter and the sheets of paper around the table.
‘Oh, that’s just my journal, you know. Actually I’m a historian.’
‘Is that so.’
‘Yes, it damned well is so,’ snapped Moon.
‘Well, mind you spell my name right,’ said Slaughter easily. ‘When are you expecting Jane back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Has she been out long?’
‘All night.’
Slaughter’s face crumpled. ‘Jasper,’ he spat (Moon noted one of the words you could spit). ‘That bastard, I’ll kill him.’ He slammed his fist into the table. ‘Where’d they go?’
‘It wasn’t Jasper,’ Moon said but L.J. seemed not to hear him. He was standing bowed with an expression of deep grief. He pulled himself together.
‘I don’t care,’ Slaughter said. ‘I simply don’t care.’ He turned.
Moon touched his arm full of troubled concern.
‘You don’t have to go.’
‘Good-bye,’ Slaughter said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The crowd – I’ve got to mix with the crowd.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Moon, though it made a certain kind of sense to him. ‘Listen, have some tea, some breakfast. Have some pork ‘n’ beans.’
Slaughter said, ‘I never want to see another tin of pork ‘n’ beans as long as I live. That horse, I swear it was a wind-up walking horse. It just kept walking and it was walking when I slipped off it’s arse.’
Moon said, ‘You brought these beans?’
‘Compliments,’ Slaughter said. ‘Love tokens, Western style. Tell her to stuff them. Tell her I’ll always love her.’ He started to snuffle again, and walked out of the kitchen and along the hall and through the front door, and Moon watched him go with an enormous compassion. The morning had paled outside. He did not have much time left.
He turned into the drawing-room and got out his private file from the desk. He sorted through it until he found his list, which he extracted, and replaced everything else. He read down the list carefully, with growing doubt. When he got to the end he started again but gave up. He threw the list into the wastepaper-bask
et. He didn’t know what to do. The names which at one time or another he had singled out with scientific dispassion were now fleshed and innocent, meaningless. His conviction was intact but he had lost the point on which it converged.
Don’t panic.
Moon decided to shave while he worked it out. When he had finished shaving he realised that his mind had wandered away.
It’s all right.
He would tidy the drawing-room. Manual activity left his mind free to work. He went downstairs – his foot was hurting again-and he pushed all the furniture back into position and gathered up the debris, cutting his left hand on a piece of bottle. He licked at the cut and pressed it with the thumb of his other hand which was healing quite well. He swept the glass and the bits of sheepdog into a corner and looked round quite satisfied with the room’s appearance. There was no carpet but the floor was in good condition. At least there was no blood, it had all been on the carpet. He remembered that he had forgotten to think about his problem.
Don’t worry.
Moon limped to the kitchen and washed his new cut (alerted now to the danger of tetanus) and glanced through the pages of his journal. Hardly a quote in it, he won’t like that. He had an idea, hobbled off and returned with Lord Malquist’s letter.
The fifth page of his journal ended conveniently with a paragraph, allowing him to insert a page without re-typing. He rolled a clean sheet into the typewriter.
As we jogged up Whitehall, he typed, Lord Malquist remarked, ‘I sense that the extravagant mourning exacted from and imposed upon a sentimental people is the last flourish of an age whose criteria of greatness are no longer applicable.’
‘Indeed? I responded. ‘I’m most interested.’
‘Well, Mr Moon,’ he went on, ‘surely his was an age that saw history as a drama directed by great men. Accordingly he was celebrated as a man of action, a leader who raised involvement to the level of sacred duty, and he inspired his people to roll up their sleeves and take a militant part in the affairs of the world.’
‘That’s true,’ I conceded, ‘And you think that such a stance is no longer inspiring or equal to events?’
‘In my view,’ said Lord Malquist, ‘its philosophy is now questionable and its consequences can no longer be put down to the destiny of an individual.’
I was much interested and begged him to continue. It was certainly a grand experience to be riding in such fine style with such a conversationalist.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘the funeral might well mark a change in the heroic posture – to that of the Stylist, the spectator as hero, the man of inaction who would not dare roll up his sleeves for fear of creasing the cuffs.’
I laughed heartily at this.
Lord Malquist explained, ‘Style, Mr Moon, is an aesthetic, inbred and disengaged, and in such precarious times these are virtues.’ He said that ‘the battle’ had been discredited and therefore it was time to withdraw and give an example, Moon concluded, since he was getting near the bottom of the page.
He read it through with satisfaction. He put all the pages together and folded them and put them in his inside pocket, slightly smeared with blood from his fresh cut. The bomb ticked on with implacable confidence.
Hurry up please, it’s time.
Moon put on his shoe and then his overcoat which he had left upstairs. He came down with the bomb muffled in his pocket. There was a letter newly arrived on the mat. Moon snatched it up impatiently and saw that it was addressed to him. He opened it and found a cheque for five hundred guineas made out to Boswell Incorporated and signed ‘Malquist.’ For a moment he thought it was a new one, but then saw that it had been stamped ‘Refer to Drawer.’ It had come back from his bank.
He replaced the cheque in its envelope and put it in his pocket and went out of the house and began to walk quickly down the mews. It was very cold.
II
Moon walked south towards Piccadilly, his right shoulder humped against the wind that cut through between the buildings. He felt uneasy and took the trouble to examine his uneasiness: it began in the fact that he was moving in a state of urgency without any sense of destination to contain it. He walked south because at the back of the directionless impulse to move at all was an arrangement to meet Lord Malquist at his house in Queen Anne’s Gate, but this only provided the vector on which it would be least time-wasting to operate; the urgency was open-ended, it would last until he had resolved the matter of his bomb, or was resolved by it.
He therefore found himself in the odd position of trying to make himself receptive to those neuroses against which he had trained his instincts to protect him; and either because of the conscious effort or because of the cold wind that monopolised his sensations, all the old fears on which he now relied seemed to have abandoned him to his own drift. The scale today was not alarming.
He crossed Gurzon Street and hurried on, trying to think himself into a shudder at traffic which multiplied itself and buildings which were about to be struck down for their pride. But Piccadilly was inoffensive. It was not deserted but the volume of it was comfortable, a few cars and some pedestrians well spaced. The buildings seemed empty and light, imposing but proportionate. It was early yet but he knew that already cars and buses should have been squeezing each other from wall to wall (where were all the buses?), and shop girls and clerks and secretaries should have been dodging each other in phalanxes along the pavements, pouring into doorways that were now closed (It’s Sunday, no it’s not). And there was no momentum anywhere, no common impulse, no sense even of preparation. And no noise. He had been used to having to resist the echoes of the world, the crash of steel mills, screams from burning orphanages, the tramp of hunger marches, the crack of solid rock being wrenched out of the earth and upended as a building, the roaring deific pillar of fire that bursts from the oil well… Moon stood deserted on the corner. It was a conspiracy.
He crossed the road, because that was southerly, and looked through the railings into Green Park which shined wet and windswept, desolate as Arctic tundra. Then he turned to his left, easterly, and began to walk towards the Circus, but without hope, and stopped again when he reached the right-angle of Queen’s Walk which cut south down the side of the Ritz and straight across Green Park joining the parallels of Piccadilly and the Mall; which was the hypotenuse of a bent right-angled triangle whose other two sides were Birdcage Walk and the back of Whitehall.
The Square on the Mall (or let us say the area bounded by the Mall, Queen’s Walk, Piccadilly and Lower Regent Street) is equal to the sum of the squares on Birdcage Walk (or let us say the area bounded by Birdcage Walk, Buckingham Gate, Victoria Street and Storey’s Gate) and Whitehall (or let us say the area bounded by Whitehall, Northumberland Avenue, Bridge Street and the River). Including the Horse Guards’ Parade, probably. If bent, of course.
It occurred to him that the labyrinthine riddle of London’s streets might be subjected to a single mathematical formula, one of such sophistication that it would relate the whole hopeless mess into a coherent logic. He knew that nothing would be changed by this but he no longer hoped to change things, only to keep them under control. Just inside Green Park he came across a shoe.
It was a woman’s shoe, light tan and white, an elegant shoe, in good repair. It was lying on the grass just off the edge of the Walk, half-hidden and, when he picked it up, cold as rain. There was no reason to leave it lying there – it looked almost new – and no reason to take it away, without a one-legged lady (size 6) in mind. Moon considered the problem and then remembrance of his bomb shocked him away from such trivial distraction. He threw the shoe aside and hurried on with the beginnings of a panic because everything was calm and cold and sane.
He turned left again when he reached the Mall and then right, into St James’s Park (the right-angled triangle contained by the Mall, Birdcage Walk and the back of Whitehall). He took the path towards the water and on the bridge he saw a horse and rider. Moon jumped.
‘Mr Jones!’
Jasper reined up.
‘Where are you off to today?’
‘Workin’ around, see my gal.’
‘I understand,’ said Moon carefully, shoring up the ruins of his many betrayals, ‘I gather you’re not a real cowboy.’ He added, ‘You only like it.’
‘Where you been gathering?’
‘Well, Mr Slaughter dropped in and—’
‘I’ll kill that cowpoke.’
Jasper Jones dug in his spurs and the horse moved on a bit.
‘He’s not there,’ Moon called.
‘He better not be.’
‘Nor’s Jane.’
Jasper wheeled his horse and circled Moon.
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
Jasper said nothing. He kicked his horse forward, and wheeled. ‘I ought to plug you,’ he said then. ‘When did you get back?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘From Australia. You and your fancy woman.’
‘Did she tell you that?’ asked Moon. He watched him ride off in tight circles – the horse was being difficult – and called after him, ‘Mr Jones! He doesn’t want to fight any more. He told me. Don’t shoot him, Mr Jones!’
Jasper Jones looked back but didn’t call. Moon waved at him and walked away, crossing the bridge. On the far bank he looked back and saw Jasper as an equestrian statue turned his way.
Moon went on out of the park and crossed Birdcage Walk into Queen Anne’s Gate. The bomb ticked in his pocket but he had nowhere else to make for.
Surprisingly, there were several people standing around the roadway near Lord Malquist’s house, more or less implausibly engaged: there was a man selling the Evening Standard, a man selling clockwork spiders, a man sweeping the road, and a fourth man doing nothing at all.
At the bottom of the steps leading up to the door Moon looked back at them and saw that the roadsweeper had swept his way along to cut off any retreat Moon might have had in mind. The fourth man, who had a bowler hat and a moustache, sidled up.
‘Lord Malquist?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘No.’
‘I thought not. Is he inside?’
‘I don’t know,’ Moon said.
The roadsweeper said to the man in the hat, ‘Don’t jump the gun.’