Every Good Boy Deserves Favor and Professional Foul (12 page)

STONE:
Hell's bells. Don't you understand English? When I say to you, ‘Tell me what you mean,' you can only reply, ‘I would wish to say so and so.' ‘Never mind what you would wish to say,' I reply. ‘Tell me what you
mean
'.

FRENCHMAN:
Mais oui, but if you ask me in French, you must say, ‘Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire?'—‘What is that which you wish to say?' Naturellement, it is in order for me to reply, ‘Je veux dire etcetera.'

STONE:
(
Excitedly
) But you are making
my
point—don't you see?

MCKENDRICK:
What do you think the chances are of meeting a free and easy woman in a place like this?

STONE:
I
can't
ask you in French.

MCKENDRICK:
I don't mean free, necessarily.

FRENCHMAN:
Pourquoi non? Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire? Voila!—now I have asked you.

CHETWYN:
You don't often see goose on an English menu.
(
CHETWYN
is the last to finish his main course. They have all eaten the main course. There are drinks and cups of coffee on the table
.)

STONE:
The French have no verb meaning ‘I mean'.

CHETWYN:
Why's that I wonder.

STONE:
They just don't.

CHETWYN:
People are always eating goose in Dickens.

MCKENDRICK:
Do you think it will be safe?

FRENCHMAN:
Par exemple. Je vous dis, ‘Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire?'

MCKENDRICK:
I mean one wouldn't want to be photographed through a two-way mirror.

STONE:
I don't want to ask you what you would wish to say. I want to ask you what you
mean
. Let's assume there is a difference.

ANDERSON:
We do have goose liver. What do they do with the rest of the goose?

STONE:
Now assume that you say one but mean the other.

FRENCHMAN:
Je dis quelque chose, mais je veux dire—

STONE:
Right.

MCKENDRICK:
(
To
STONE
) Excuse me, Brad.

STONE:
Yes?

MCKENDRICK:
You eat well but you're a lousy eater.
(
This is a fair comment
.
STONE
has spoken with his mouth full of bread, cake, coffee, etc., and he is generally messy about it
.
STONE
smiles forgivingly but hardly pauses
.)

STONE:
Excuse us.

FRENCHMAN:
A bientôt.
(
STONE
and the
FRENCHMAN
get up to leave
.)

STONE:
(
Leaving
) You see, what you've got is an incorrect statement which when corrected looks like itself.
(
There is a pause
.)

MCKENDRICK:
Did you have a chance to read my paper?

ANDERSON:
I only had time to glance at it. I look forward to reading it carefully.

CHETWYN:
I read it.

ANDERSON:
Weren't you there for it?

MCKENDRICK:
No, he sloped off for the afternoon.

ANDERSON:
Well, you sly devil, Chetwyn. I bet you had a depressing afternoon. It makes the heart sick, doesn't it.

CHETWYN:
Yes, it does rather. We don't know we've been born.

MCKENDRICK:
He wasn't at the football match.

CHETWYN:
Oh—is that where you were?

ANDERSON:
No, I got distracted.

MCKENDRICK:
He's being mysterious. I think it's a woman.

ANDERSON:
(
To
CHETWYN
) What were you doing?

CHETWYN:
I was meeting some friends.

MCKENDRICK:
He's being mysterious. I don't think it's a woman.

CHETWYN:
I have friends here, that's all.

ANDERSON:
(
To
MCKENDRICK
) Was your paper well received?

MCKENDRICK:
No. They didn't get it. I could tell from the questions that there'd been some kind of communications failure.

ANDERSON:
The translation phones?

MCKENDRICK:
No, no—they simply didn't understand the line of argument. Most of them had never heard of catastrophe theory, so they weren't ready for what is admittedly an audacious application of it.

ANDERSON:
I must admit I'm not absolutely clear about it.

MCKENDRICK:
It's like a reverse gear—no—it's like a breaking point. The mistake that people make is, they think a moral principle is indefinitely extendible, that it holds good for any
situation, a straight line cutting across the graph of our actual situation—here you are, you see— (
He uses a knife to score a line in front of him straight across the table cloth, left to right in front of him
.) ‘Morality' down there; running parallel to ‘Immorality' up here— (
He scores a parallel line
.) —and never the twain shall meet. They think that is what a principle means.

ANDERSON:
And isn't it?

MCKENDRICK:
No. The two lines are on the same plane. (
He holds out his flat hand, palm down, above the scored lines
.) They're the edges of the same plane—it's in three dimensions, you see—and if you twist the plane in a certain way, into what we call the catastrophe curve, you get a model of the sort of behaviour we find in the real world. There's a point—the catastrophe point—where your progress along one line of behaviour jumps you into the opposite line; the principle reverses itself at the point where a rational man would abandon it.

CHETWYN:
Then it's not a principle.

MCKENDRICK:
There aren't any principles in your sense. There are only a lot of principled people trying to behave as if there were.

ANDERSON:
That's the same thing, surely.

MCKENDRICK:
You're a worse case than Chetwyn and his primitive Greeks. At least he has the excuse of
believing
in goodness and beauty. You know they're fictions but you're so hung up on them you want to treat them as if they were God-given absolutes.

ANDERSON:
I don't see how else they would have any practical value—

MCKENDRICK:
So you end up using a moral principle as your excuse for acting against a moral interest. It's a sort of funk—
(
ANDERSON,
under pressure, slams his cup back on to its saucer in a very uncharacteristic and surprising way. His anger is all the more alarming for that
.)

ANDERSON:
You make your points altogether too easily, McKendrick. What need have you of moral courage when your principles reverse themselves so conveniently?

MCKENDRICK:
All right! I've gone too far. As usual. Sorry. Let's talk about something else. There's quite an attractive woman hanging about outside, loitering in the vestibule.
(
The dining room door offers a view of the lobby
.)
Do you think it is a trap? My wife said to me—now, Bill, don't do anything daft, you know what you're like, if a blonde knocked on your door with the top three buttons of her police uniform undone and asked for a cup of sugar you'd convince yourself she was a bus conductress brewing up in the next room.

ANDERSON:
(
Chastened
) I'm sorry … you're right up to a point. There would be no moral dilemmas if moral principles worked in straight lines and never crossed each other. One meets test situations which have troubled much cleverer men than us.

CHETWYN:
A good rule, I find, is to try them out on men much
less
clever than us. I often ask my son what
he
thinks.

ANDERSON:
Your son?

CHETWYN:
Yes. He's eight.

MCKENDRICK:
She's definitely glancing this way—seriously, do you think one could chat her up?
(
ANDERSON
turns round to look through the door and we see now that the woman is
MRS HOLLAR.
)

ANDERSON:
Excuse me.
(
He gets up and starts to leave but then comes back immediately and takes his briefcase from under the table and then leaves. We stay with the table
.
MCKENDRICK
watches
ANDERSON
meet
MRS HOLLAR
and shake her hand and they disappear
.)

MCKENDRICK:
Bloody hell, it
was
a woman. Crafty old beggar.

9. EXT. STREET. NIGHT

ANDERSON
and
MRS HOLLAR
walking
.

A park. A park bench
.
SACHA HOLLAR
sitting on the bench
.
ANDERSON
and
MRS HOLLAR
arrive
.

MRS HOLLAR:
(
In Czech
) Here he is. (
To
ANDERSON
.) Sacha. (
In Czech
.) Thank him for coming.

SACHA:
She is saying thank you that you come.

MRS HOLLAR:
(
In Czech
) We're sorry to bother him.

SACHA:
She is saying sorry for the trouble.

ANDERSON:
No, no I am sorry about… everything. Do you learn English at school?

SACHA:
Yes. I am learning English two years. With my father also.

ANDERSON:
You are very good.

SACHA:
Not good. You are a friend of my father. Thank you.

ANDERSON:
I'm afraid I've done nothing.

SACHA:
You have his writing?

ANDERSON:
His thesis? Yes. It's in here. (
He indicates his briefcase
.)

SACHA:
(
In Czech
) It's all right, he's still got it.
(
MRS HOLLAR
nods
.)

MRS HOLLAR:
(
In Czech
) Tell him I didn't know who he was today.

SACHA:
My mother is not knowing who you are, tomorrow at the apartment.

ANDERSON:
Today.

SACHA:
Today. Pardon. So she is saying, ‘Come here! Come here! Come inside the apartment!' Because she is not knowing. My father is not telling her. He is telling me only.

ANDERSON:
I see. What did he tell you?

SACHA:
He will go see his friend the English professor. He is taking the writing.

ANDERSON:
I see. Did he return home last night?

SACHA:
No. He is arrested outside hotel. Then in the night they come to make search.

ANDERSON:
Had they been there all night?

SACHA:
At eleven o'clock they are coming. They search twenty hours.

ANDERSON:
My God.

SACHA:
In morning I go to Bartolomesskaya to be seeing him.

MRS HOLLAR:
(
Explains
) Police.

SACHA:
But I am not seeing him. They say go home. I am waiting. Then I am going home. Then I am seeing you.

ANDERSON:
What were they looking for?

SACHA:
(
Shrugs
) Western books. Also my father is writing things. Letters, politics, philosophy. They find nothing. Some English books they don't like but really nothing. But the
dollars, of course, they pretend to find.
(
MRS HOLLAR
hears the word dollars
.)

MRS HOLLAR:
(
In Czech
) Tell him the dollars were put there by the police.

SACHA:
Not my father's dollars. He is having no monies.

ANDERSON:
Yes. I know.

SACHA:
They must arrest him for dollars because he does nothing. No bad things. He is signing something. So they are making trouble.

ANDERSON:
Yes.

MRS HOLLAR:
(
In Czech
) Tell him about Jan.

SACHA:
You must give back my father's thesis. Not now. The next days. My mother cannot take it.

ANDERSON:
He asked me to take it to England.

SACHA:
Not possible now. But thank you.

ANDERSON:
He asked me to take it.

SACHA:
Not possible. Now they search you, I think. At the aeroport. Because they are seeing you coming to the apartment and you have too much contact. Maybe they are seeing us now.
(
ANDERSON
looks around him
.)
Is possible.

ANDERSON:
(
Uncomfortably
) I ought to tell you … (
Quickly
.) I came to the apartment to give the thesis back. I refused him. But he was afraid he might be stopped—I thought he just meant searched, not arrested—

SACHA:
Too quick—too quick—
(
Pause
.)

ANDERSON:
What do you want me to do?

SACHA:
My father's friend—he is coming to Philosophy Congress today.