Then we’re doing the impossible. It has to be infinite for everything to stop. It’s a deduction. Everything’s stopped. We’ve stopped: no sound—except this—nothing. Is it Sunday! We are off the main road.
I don’t do it. My unconscious will, spirit, man—I call him my man—does. He’s also a deduction, though a deduction who told me what to deduce. This isn’t interesting.
It’s interesting, for me; and I don’t think that it is makes me stupid. You’d have to be very stupid not to find this interesting. I don’t mean you! If you didn’t find £2000 interesting,
I did a bit.
And this is much more interesting than that.
That’s interesting, if not the amount so much.
Why isn’t this interesting?
I’ve been through it all before: the time-stopping bit, trying to prove it. It can be proved but not by us now.
It is interesting, in itself, proving it, everything about it, but it’s not making an interesting story. We’re in it for an infinity talking about it. Think about it, but not too long.
Somebody’s reading this! I felt something. I’m a character in a story. Am I being read now?
Yes, once I’ve remembered, written it—that now, of the reader’s reading.
But not... this now, as we speak, think, communicate? nobody’s reading this.
Nobody is, my man is. You can’t be a character in a story if it’s not written.
I feel like a character.
You’re forgetting what.
You might not remember, not write, not be read.
You’re not interested in proving what’s most interesting if you’re read as the character you are, though you’d also be instrumental in proving telepathy from being that character.
I’ll go on: He could’ve—the £2000; he could’ve.
He didn’t.
He could’ve.
How?
“What does it matter how!” Or why. The money’s gone.
Gone? It matters in establishing guilt, if the money’s as you said—you didn’t say; you implied—stolen. You did say who you implied stole it. If it’s as you say gone,...
Oh it’s stolen; take my word for it.
You can take my word for that, but not for who stole it? Why can’t you take my word for that?
He’s not asking me. I don’t have to answer that; but, just in case—and it isn’t really a rhetorical question—it’s because something in his manner was making me infer it wasn’t who he was implying stole the money—£2000!—stole it. And, if it wasn’t who he was implying, who did.
That’s funny isn’t it? because usually what’s being implied is what’s inferred, as the person doing the implying wants, but not in this case. In this case, what’s being inferred is—the opposite?—the alternative to what’s being deliberately implied.
I did it.
Yes! Oh he heard.
Wasn’t I meant to?
Did I say anything I wouldn’t want him to have heard?
But it was remiss of me not to take his word. A friend would take the word of a friend on trust—even if practising to deceive others by first practising to deceive the friend? (I’m seeing myself inexplicably in the neighbourhood of a public records office, on the street, with a railed-in garden to my right, hoping he doesn’t find out my betrayal of trust, looking for a justification in his.) Would a friend do that to a friend?
I’d no choice. I had choice. It seemed the best choice to make.
Where betraying a friend’s trust seems a friend’s best choice, then a friend would take a friend’s word; but having succeeded or not in his deception he has betrayed trust (I make clear, unsure I’m not the first betrayer).
I take his word: the money was stolen and Kenneth Roy stole it. How? What made him think it was Kenneth Roy? That’d be my next question. Why did he think it was? Same thing. Does either imply not taking his word? No; they follow from taking his word.
“And if you can’t, the police won’t.”
! It’s not working.
I have taken his word. I haven’t; I’m postulating I have. What’s the... Isn’t he following what I’m doing?
He expected the police to take his word—he is following, I think—Kenneth Roy has run off with £2000 of theatre company money; arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, sentence, imprison, all on his word! He couldn’t have expected that. He didn’t; he was trying it out on me to confirm—to see if maybe it could run, hoping against hope—it was a non-starter. “You can’t expect that, Robert.” It’s different.
“I don’t. What am I going to do, John?”
“Go to the police?” is my lame suggestion, no better than what he’s come up with.
“I’ve thought of that: admit everything; take what’s coming to me.”
‘Admit’? He means ‘tell’.
He means ‘admit’, my man pushes in; stop him!
That’s an order. I don’t take orders; this isn’t an emergency. He knows I don’t, yet ordered me and is waiting to see what I’ll do. Do I take it? Refuse to. It did sound urgent, yet he’s waiting; it’s not that urgent.
If I take it, I’m submitting; I’m admitting he’s dominant. Oh I don’t want to, but he does know more than me, in this situation—in all; I admit it—but he could’ve put it better, asked, pretended I’m his equal when I’m not. I’m inferior, to my own will. How inferior does that make me?
This once—and it does not mean I necessarily will again, though once you submit, can you not hereafter? Oooh, I don’t want to; I don’t want him to have ordered me to. And I don’t want him to. I don’t, irrespective of whether I’ve been ordered to or not; it’s not taking his order if what he ordered coincides with what I decide: You can’t do that, Robert. But I glance over my shoulder for approval.
No. But what else is there? Suicide? I’ve thought of that too.
Robert! You can’t commit suicide because of that!
£2000 isn’t a lot to you, not worth committing suicide for. It seemed a lot to me, worth not committing suicide for.
I’m not understanding that, the conceit of after the £2000 being compared with before, if even it’s the same £2000. In the first instance, it’s insufficient cause of suicide; in the latter, reason enough to not-suicide. May I say that? for clear thinking. The same amount of money, in chronological order, is enough to not-suicide, not enough to suicide. Is there an amount large enough to suicide that was large enough to not-suicide for, when the size of the amount is determined by the need to not-suicide? No, because in either case he’s not going to commit suicide. The money’s irrelevant, to the suicide, which is irrelevant, in the sense of not real. The fear of it is real, but it’s the fear keeps it not real; it’s the not-suicide which is the reality.
How relevant is the money to that reality? (Why have I moved from the top of Raeburns’ close to the road by the garages at the bottom? I’ve digressed, but I’ve started, so I’ll finish:) it’s speculation only, can’t be proved, but the money, I think, feel, is irrelevant to the non-suicide; that does not mean it’s irrelevant to another reality, poverty perhaps. The Raeburns are poor, but honest. They’re poor.
I’m lost. I admit I don’t know the point I digressed from.
It seems a lot.
Who’s he? Not a Raeburn, but help to get back to whatever is the point, a straw to clutch at, any straw in the wind. There’s no wind. Time’s stopped. Now I’m clutching at no wind!
It is a lot, but not worth committing suicide for. I agree, or I wouldn’t be here. I agree with you. I can’t commit suicide. I probably can’t. I can’t go to the police and admit it’s me. Why can’t I? Are you a Catholic? No; we taught in the same school. That doesn’t mean... though why would you...? You could be. No. You’re Protestant, like me. Are you—
I’m pagan. He’s known me for years and didn’t know that. Why should he? It didn’t crop up. He knows now—and not like him!
I didn’t say ‘a pagan’. Is that a significant diffe
rence? He didn’t say ‘a Protestant’.
We’re in a classroom, or corridor, discussing religion.
And I can’t go to the police and say it’s Kenneth Roy.
No change.
Kenneth Roy’s probably a teacher—pupil?—to do with the school. No—he’s looking bemused, as if I should know. He knows what I’m thinking. He’s a telepath.
Why can’t you?
You said. You didn’t say. I’d better be careful, because you lose the place.
And you don’t. How kind, to supply my deficit.
It followed from what you did say; they wouldn’t take my word for it.
You can’t expect that.
That’s what you said. Except...? That is what you said.
But you can tell them. You should.
I should!
(We’re on the road, going from school to the police station) Yes, you should. Otherwise he’s going to get away with it. It’s bound to come out. Is it bound to come out? If it comes out, and you know about it, what’re the police going to think?
I did it.
That sounded almost as if he’d done it, more than his concluding what the police would think but as if their conclusion would be correct. They won’t think that! He’s a teacher, a respectable member of the community, Church of Scotland—I know he was going to go on to say that, back in school—but respectability is no guarantee. They also know that. He’s right; they might think he did it, or think he might have: it’s come out, not from you but you knew about it—
I might not.
You do. I’m assuming they know you do—did. They would think you did it. Not necessarily.
They’d suspect.
Oh they’re bound to suspect! Didn’t I say? It’s their job.
But if I get in first, say it’s him, they won’t take my word for it but they’ll believe me, respected lecturer—better than a teacher—well-known actor,
Better than... Mismanaging director. He isn’t director! confirming he isn’t.
They won’t believe me.
They might, they might want to; they can’t. But they will look into it, which is what you want.
Why? Why do I want that?
He’s asking me what he wants.
I’d’ve thought it the last thing I wanted. It is the last thing I want.
Why? is it the last thing you want, would want?
They might suspect me. They would.
Ah. I wasn’t going to mention it but, since you know, you’d be the first they’d suspect, for telling them; you can’t avoid that. They’ll find out you couldn’t’ve done it. You could have, you were in a position to, but didn’t; they’ll find something which indicates you didn’t.
And he did!
Not necessarily. Possibly.
Ideally. Kill two birds with one stone.
Not ideally. Better one bird killed with one stone, and another with another. How often did one stone kill two birds? Better still, two or more, but not too many.
Stones? Stones... birds? Stones!
But—one stone’d do it, if I can think of one. If I can think of one I’ll be lucky. Two might be beyond me. Can you think...?
Think? You mean find. You’re thinking of looking into it yourself, to see what you can find, before taking what you’ve found to the police—good thinking, Robert; it’s what I was thinking you should already have done—but don’t interfere with the evidence you’re taking to the police, though if it’s you taking it, you must already have interfered with it.
If I don’t interfere with it, there won’t be any evidence to take to the police.
In the process of his finding it. As little as possible. Och, they’re perfectly capable of finding the evidence for themselves.
Not if it’s not there for them to find.
Och, there’ll be something. He won’t’ve thought of everything.
‘He’? I ask because sometimes, not so much now, by ‘he’ you mean ‘you’—you mean me.
Never you. The perpetrator.
(You mean me.)
Who you think is Kenneth Roy, the police don’t know is the perpetrator until they find evidence he is.
They’ll find evidence he’s me, because he is me. What evidence have I left? stones strewn all over the place, all pointing at me, that I did it.
What a gloomy guts. Stones don’t point, unless placed in the shape of an arrow; and if placed who placed them, if strewn who strewed them? and if thrown, because it is thrown, the somebody throwing them has to be the police, and if at you they’ll miss the mark, not one will hit. Robert, you were remiss—I thought it; I should say it: this crime, because it is a crime, should never have happened, and you are responsible for it,
I should go to the police.
And give yourself up. I know you think that, and it does you credit, but it’s taking too much upon yourself; and if I think so, so might the police: you are responsible for not preventing the crime but you didn’t do it, and that’s what all the evidence you’ve strewn around the police will throw at you will be telling them.
I didn’t do it...?
That’s better.
That is better. But some of the evidence I’ve strewn, and it is thrown about! will tell them it’s me.
Tch.
Will it? It could all look like not preventing the crime but not doing it; but none will look like he did it.
Something will. He’s not that clever he could’ve covered all his tracks and left only yours. If he’s really clever he’d leave some of his own.
He’s not that clever. Am I? He doesn’t have to be. I do. If he is that clever—not really clever—why ‘really’...? Got you! Yes, but that’s not the problem. It is, in a way; I mustn’t cover my tracks completely. Got you. You’re really clever. I’m not; I’ve lost track.
You’re on them, the lines, on the other side of the barrier from me—on Sheen Lane—at Mortlake Station, this side, the track going to Richmond, if that’s where you’re going, except you’re facing back the way, towards me, so you may be on the wrong track, depending where you’re going, but you haven’t lost it, it’s there.
Isn’t it dangerous? The road’s safer. You can see the train coming. Is the train coming! The barrier’d be open. It could be coming. I can’t turn round. I can’t move. Is the train coming?
I’m tempted to say yes, to see what you’d do. I can’t move either.
For me it’s coming, not for you. For me it’s already in the station. Maybe not.
It either is or it isn’t, and it’s not.
It’s a metaphor you take literally, you literally see; and if you don’t... but it’s my metaphor. You might not see mine.
I’m confused.
He’ll have lost some too. Some what!
Tracks. You’re not that confused. You’re not confused at all. Is that my cue?
Is this a play? Are you the psychopath? He was, will be, with me down the road a bit a moment ago or after.
You’ve done this before—will do. ‘Will do’!—of course you have. And I’m like the psychopath. He frightened? you. Do I frighten you?
He’s not that clever.
He’s not clever at all.
If he’s clever, but not that clever, not really clever—I better watch it—and the police only find my tracks
Not preventing the crime.
On track.
Not preventing the crime, but maybe one or two telling them I—
No!
I’d better make sure of that then, as sure as I can. Not preventing the crime. What then? What’ll they think then?
You did it. They’d still have to prove you did.
I do have to strew evidence he did. Why do you use that word?
I thought you did! because you did. If you didn’t,...
Maybe I did.
I thought I might get out of doing that. One, or two, if I’m able, not too many, like you said, or they’ll ask who planted it—if I’m able to plant one.
I don’t
know what he’s talking about! Plants now. First stones, then...? now plants. If it wasn’t ‘strewn’, what was it? Just in case: You mustn’t plant anything.
I’ll be careful.
There’s evidence he did it.
Oh good. What?
I don’t know yet.
If you don’t know yet, how d’you know there is?
There will be. I was anticipating.
You were anticipating there wouldn’t be, a moment or so ago, and I’m beginning to believe you were right, there mightn’t be.
Dadaoism (An Anthology) Page 29
