Jumpers (11 page)

ARCHIE
: That is why I take a serious view of the mistake.

GEORGE
(
pause
): I see. (
Moves towards door
.) Incidentally, what do you psychiatrists call
this
form of therapy?

ARCHIE
: Lunch. I don't wish to make a fetish of denying you chairs, but you will appreciate that I can't ask you to sit
down—a psychiatrist is akin to a priest taking confession.

DOTTY
: Well, it wasn't
me
.

ARCHIE
: Absolute privacy, absolute trust.

DOTTY
:
I
didn't do it. I thought
you
did it.

GEORGE
: What is she talking about? Where's the Inspector?

DOTTY
: He's gone. Dishonour is even. (
Giggles
.)

GEORGE
: Without taking his record?

DOTTY
: Oh yes, we must send it on. I signed it with a most moving dedication, I thought. I forgot what it was, but it was most moving.
(
GEORGE
can't put his finger on it, but something is bothering him. He starts to wander towards the Bathroom
.)

GEORGE
: I'm surprised he just… went… like that.
(
GEORGE
enters the Bathroom
.)

DOTTY
: Oh yes!——‘To Evelyn Bones, the Sweetheart of the Force!'

GEORGE
(
off; horrified
): My
God!
(
GEORGE
enters from the Bathroom, white, shaking with rage
.) You murderous
bitchl
… You might have put some water in the bath!
(
He is holding a dead goldfish
.)

DOTTY
: Oh dear… I am sorry. I forgot about it.

GEORGE
: Poor little Arch——(
Catches himself
.)
(
ARCHIE
raises his head a fraction
.)

GEORGE
: Murdered for a charade!

DOTTY
(
angrily
): Murdered? Don't you dare splash
me
with your sentimental rhetoric! It's a bloody goldfish! Do you think every
sole meunière
comes to you untouched by suffering?

GEORGE
: The monk who won't walk in the garden for fear of treading on an ant does not have to be a vegetarian…. There is an irrational difference which has a rational value.

DOTTY
: Brilliant! You must publish your findings in some suitable place like the
Good Food Guide
.

GEORGE
: No doubt your rebuttal would look well in the
Meccano Magazine
.

DOTTY
: You bloody humbug!—the last of the metaphysical egocentrics! You're probably still shaking from the four-hundred-year-old news that the sun doesn't go round
you!

GEORGE
: We are
all
still shaking. Copernicus cracked our confidence, and Einstein smashed it: for if one can no longer believe that a twelve-inch ruler is always a foot long, how can one be sure of relatively less certain propositions, such as that God made the Heaven and the Earth….

DOTTY
(
dry, drained
): Well, it's all over now. Not only are we no longer the still centre of God's universe, we're not even uniquely graced by his footprint in man's image…. Man is on the Moon, his feet on solid ground, and he has seen us whole, all in one go,
little
—
local
… and all our absolutes, the thou-shalts and the thou-shalt-nots that seemed to be the very condition of our existence, how did
they
look to two moonmen with a single neck to save between them? Like the local customs of another place. When that thought drips through to the bottom, people won't just carry on. There is going to be such… breakage, such gnashing of unclean meats, such covetting of neighbours' oxen and knowing of neighbours' wives, such dishonourings of mothers and fathers, and bowings and scrapings to images graven and incarnate, such killing of goldfish and maybe more——(
Looks up, tear-stained
.) Because the truths that have been taken on trust, they've never had edges before, there was no vantage point to stand on and see where they stopped. (
And weeps
.)

ARCHIE
(
pause
): When did you first become aware of these feelings?

DOTTY
: Georgie….
(
But
GEORGE
won't or can't
….)

GEORGE
(
facing away, out front, emotionless
): Meeting a friend in a corridor, Wittgenstein said: ‘Tell me, why do people always say it was
natural
for men to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?' His friend said, ‘Well, obviously, because it just
looks
as if the sun is going round the earth.' To which the philosopher replied, ‘Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?'

ARCHIE
: I really can't conduct a consultation under these conditions! You might as well join us.

GEORGE
(
moving
): No, thank you.

ARCHIE
: Do… This, whatever it is, makes a very good casserole.
DOTTY
(
dry-eyed revenge
): It's not casseroled. It's jugged.
(
GEORGE
freezes. Pause.
Doorbell
.)

GEORGE
: Dorothy….

DOTTY
: Somebody at the door.
(
It's
CROUCH
,
who rings the bell out of formality and let's himself in with his master key, pausing in the door so as not to intrude on anything, announcing himself:
‘Crouch!')

GEORGE
: Dorothy You
didn't
…?

CROUCH
: Hello!
(
He closes the Front Door behind him
.
GEORGE
turns abruptly and walks swiftly out, to his Study. In the Hall he passes by
CROUCH
.)

CROUCH
: Excuse me, sir….

GEORGE
(
shouts viciously
): You seem to be taking out the rubbish at any time that suits you!!
(
CROUCH
is dumbfounded
.
GEORGE
walks into the Study, leaving the door open, and slumps into his chair.
The
SECRETARY
is patient and discreet
.
CROUCH
timidly enters the Study
.)

CROUCH
: I haven't come for the rubbish, sir.

GEORGE
: I'm sorry, Mr. Crouch… I'm very sorry. I was upset.
It's just been the most awful day. (
He comforts himself with the tortoise
.)

CROUCH
: I quite understand, sir. I'm upset myself. I just came up to see if there was anything I could do, I knew you'd be upset….
(
GEORGE
looks at him
.)
I got to know him quite well, you know… made quite a friend of him.

GEORGE
: You knew about it?

CROUCH
: I was there, sir. Doing the drinks. It shocked me, I can tell you.

GEORGE
: Who killed him?

CROUCH
: Well, I wouldn't like to say for certain… I mean, I
heard a bang, and when I looked, there he was crawling on the floor…
(
GEORGE
winces
.)… and there was Miss Moore… well——

GEORGE
: Do you realize she's in there now,
eating
him?

CROUCH
(
pause
): You mean—
raw?

GEORGE
(
crossly
): No, of course not!—
cooked—
with gravy and mashed potatoes.

CROUCH
(
pause
): I thought she was on the mend, sir.

GEORGE
: Do you think I'm being too sentimental about the whole thing?

CROUCH
(
firmly
): I do not, sir. I think it's a police matter.

GEORGE
: They'd laugh at me…. There
was
a policeman here, but he's gone.

CROUCH
: Yes, sir, I saw him leave. I thought that would be him.
You were wondering, sir, who brought them round.

GEORGE
: No. I telephoned them myself.

CROUCH
: You're an honest man, sir. In the circumstances I don't mind telling you I also phoned them myself, anonymous.

GEORGE
: Did you?… Well, it's all right now, he's gone.
Lot of fuss about nothing. I know things got a bit out of hand but… I'm surprised at your puritanism, Mr. Crouch…. A little wine, women and song….

CROUCH
: Yes, sir. Of course, it was the murder of Professor
McFee that was the main thing. (
Long pause
,
GEORGE
sits perfectly still, and continues to do so, sightless, deaf, while
CROUCH
speaks
.)
By the way, sir…. (
Picking up the tortoise
.) I hope you don't mind my taking the opportunity, but as you know, no pets allowed in the flats—I don't mind turning a blind eye to this little fellow, but I've seen a rabbit around the place of a morning, and it's as much as my job's worth—I hope you don't mind, sir…. (
Pause
.) Will Miss Moore be… leaving, sir?

GEORGE
(
blinking awake
): She's in bed with the doctor. Not literally, of course.
(
Small pause. He jumps up and strides into the Bedroom
.
ARCHIE
and
DOTTY
are calmly watching the TV. The big screen
shows us what they see
—
the read-back of
DOTTY
's
naked body
.)

GEORGE
: Crouch says—(
he is momentarily taken aback by the fact that they are watching TV
)—Crouch says——
(
ARCHIE
and
DOTTY
go ‘Sssssh!' and continue to watch the screen
.)

GEORGE
(
advancing
): Crouch says——
(
Then
GEORGE
sees the TV and the naked body on it. He
pauses: the body is familiar to him, perhaps
.) What's going on?

ARCHIE
: The dermatograph, you know. All kinds of disturbances under the skin show up on the surface, if we can learn to read it, and we——

GEORGE
(
abruptly turning off the set, so that the Big Screen goes blank
): You must think I'm a bloody fool!

ARCHIE
: What do you mean?

GEORGE
: Well, everything you do makes it
look
as if you're…
(
Pause
.)

ARCHIE
: Well, what would it have
looked
like if it had
looked
as if I were making a dermatographical examination?

DOTTY
: What's the matter, Georgie?

GEORGE
: Dotty…

DOTTY
: Don't take any notice of Archie—him and his ripe pears!

GEORGE
: Crouch says McFee was shot!—here—last night—
He thinks Dorothy did it——

DOTTY
: I thought Archie did it.
You
didn't do it, did you, Georgie? (
Disappears into Bathroom
.)

GEORGE
: Crouch says—You can't hide!—Dorothy—it's not a game! Crouch says he
saw
—For God's sake—I don't know what to do——

ARCHIE
: Crouch says he saw
what
, George?

GEORGE
: Well, he didn't actually
see
…

ARCHIE
: Quite. We just don't
know
.

GEORGE
: There are many things I know which are not verifiable but nobody can tell me I don't know them, and I think that I know that something happened to poor Dotty and she somehow killed McFee, as sure as she killed my poor Thumper.
(
GEORGE
leaves the Bedroom and
ARCHIE
follows him out. The Bedroom blacks out. They both walk into the Study where
CROUCH
is seated at
GEORGE
'
s desk, reading the typescript and
chuckling!
)

CROUCH
: Saint Sebastian died of fright!—very good! (
To
SECRETARY
;
surprisingly
.) Of course, the flaw in the argument
is
that even if the first term of his infinitely regressing series is zero rather than infinitesimal, the original problem remains in identifying the
second
term of the series, which however small must be
greater
than zero—you take my point? I grant you he's answered Russell's first point, I grant you that—the smallest proper fraction is zero—
but
——
(
GEORGE
snatches the paper from behind
CROUCH
and studies it minutely, already talking
.)

GEORGE
: Yes, but you entirely miss
my
point, which is that having established that the first term—that is God—corresponds to zero, there's no need to worry about the second term—it is enough that it
is
the second——Surely you can see that?

CROUCH
(
humbly
): I expect you're right, sir. I mean, it's only a hobby with me.