Mindgame

by Anthony Horowitz

  STYLER: You’re disgusting.

  FARQUHAR: (Threatening.) Tell me…

  STYLER: There is nothing to tell you.

  FARQUHAR: What?

  STYLER: Alright. You want the truth? Well there were no ‘sexual relations’. That’s why we split up.

  FARQUHAR: Was she ugly?

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: But she didn’t turn you on.

  STYLER: It wasn’t my fault.

  FARQUHAR: ‘Blaming Jane’ are we?

  STYLER: I’m not blaming anyone.

  FARQUHAR: Why didn’t you have sex?

  STYLER: We did, but…

  FARQUHAR: Go on.

  STYLER: No.

  A pause.

  FARQUHAR: Are you queer?

  STYLER: That’s a horrible word. Nobody uses that word any more.

  FARQUHAR: Well maybe I’m thirty years out of date. (Pause.) Why does it bother you? From what I’m told, nobody cares anymore anyway so what’s the big deal? (Pause.) Gay. Is that any better? That’s what you were going to call me, Mark. That was the theory you were going to put in your book. But maybe it’s Mr Pot and Mrs Kettle. Maybe the boot’s on the other foot.

  STYLER: You’re wrong…

  FARQUHAR: You couldn’t get it up! That’s why your wife left you.

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: And you wanted to kill her because she knew you for the impotent, the impotent little mother’s boy that you were. But you didn’t dare do it in real life. You didn’t have the guts so you fantasized. You wrote a book…

  STYLER: No, no, no.

  FARQUHAR: Yes. I’ve read it. I’ve read Blaming Jane. Dr Farquhar had it here in his desk and I picked it up and I read it.

  STYLER: You’re lying.

  FARQUHAR: It’s the truth.

  STYLER: Then where is it? Show it to me.

  FARQUHAR: I lent it to Borson. (Pause.) He’s enjoying it too. You see, it takes one to know one and we can recognise something in it. You don’t want to admit it. Of course you don’t want to admit it. But deep down inside you, don’t you think that perhaps you’re just a tiny little bit like us?

  STYLER: No!

  FARQUHAR: Then maybe not a tiny bit. Maybe a lot.

  STYLER: No!

  FARQUHAR: And maybe you’re not alone.

  A pause.

  Mark… Consider your situation… Here you are, completely in the power of the most dangerous man in the country — and here I’m quoting the Sun and they should know. I told you before that I was thinking of leaving the asylum. We all are. Midnight tonight and the whole lot of us are going to disappear. We were just getting ready, making the last preparations over in B-wing, when you arrived. It’s all been a bit like the Colditz Story really, though without the bonhomie.

  STYLER: When you go…what will happen to me?

  FARQUHAR: Well, it seems to me that there are two possibilities. The first is that I kill you. Cut open an artery and leave you to bleed to death. But there is another possibility. And that’s that I set you free.

  STYLER: Easterman, please…

  FARQUHAR: (Interrupting.) But by setting you free, I don’t just mean taking off the strait-jacket. I’m talking about liberating you. This is the moment. It’s got to be now. There’ll never be another time.

  STYLER: Liberate me?

  FARQUHAR: Right now you can tell me anything and everything. Nobody will ever know except you and me. We have that wonderful intimacy, Mark. The intimacy of the writer and his subject, of the killer and the killed. Right now you can say things and do things that you may have dreamed of all your life but have never dared to say or do because now, here, there are only the two of us and we can’t even be sure which one of us is actually mad.

  A pause.

  STYLER: I have nothing to hide.

  FARQUHAR: Every man has something to hide. He couldn’t be a man if he hadn’t.

  STYLER: I haven’t…

  FARQUHAR: I’ll help you.

  FARQUHAR approaches STYLER again.

  When you thought I was Dr Farquhar, you didn’t want to say that we’d been neighbours. And what was your first question? What did you want to know? What did Easterman look like? How had he changed?

  STYLER: I…

  FARQUHAR: Because you had seen me, hadn’t you. Over the garden fence. Over the wisteria that mattered more to your mother than you ever did. You’d seen me as a boy.

  STYLER: Once…

  FARQUHAR: Many times. ‘Slim. Fair hair. Blue eyes. Dressed all in white. A very beautiful boy. The face of an angel.’ You said that.

  STYLER: But that was a photograph.

  FARQUHAR: There was no photograph.

  A pause.

  STYLER: I saw you…sometimes.

  FARQUHAR: You were in love with me.

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: You were.

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: You still are.

  A long pause. The two of them are very close. Then FARQUHAR moves away.

  I will tell you what you wanted to know about me, Mark. I will tell you everything you wanted to know, everything you wanted to write about. And then, maybe you’ll find the courage to open yourself to me. You’re the writer but I’m your book. How can we have secrets from each other?

  A pause.

  I only ever killed one person in this world for anything as petty as a reason and that was my father. He was a loathsome, boorish man who when I got a place at art school sneered at me and refused to pay. So when I was sixteen, on holiday at the Chateau Mavillion in France in 1966, I ran over him in the car and killed him.

  FARQUHAR suddenly undoes one of the straps of the strait-jacket. STYLER reacts in surprise.

  Anyway, the years passed — I went to art school. I persuaded my mother despite all her misgivings to send me there and do you know what happened? I worked. I developed my technique. I started to produce portraits, animal portraits and I thought they had a certain power, an inner strength…and I reached my final year, my exams. And I failed! They told me, you see, the art school told me that in their opinion, I wasn’t actually very good. That was what they said. It’s very difficult to describe to you now, after thirty years, quite how that felt to me. I was a young man, twenty…twenty-one and I was convinced. Convinced of my own ability. So I got second opinions. I went to other art schools. I went to galleries. And they all told me the same thing. ‘Your work is crap.’ It was as if they were seeing something completely different to me. As if I had painted a snarling wolf and they were seeing a cuddly labrador pup. It was as if I was the only sane person in an insane world. I was right and they were all wrong but it doesn’t matter because like I told you at the end of the day it’s the majority that counts and if the majority thinks ‘carpet, envelope, wallpaper, cigarette, jelly’ makes sense then I’m sorry but ‘carpet, envelope, wallpaper, cigarette, jelly’ it is.

  FARQUHAR releases a second strap.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. Because, you see, with the passing of time, I was forced into the realisation that actually they were right. That even my father had been right. And that I was wrong. My painting was crap.

  STYLER: It wasn’t. That’s not true. I saw your work…

  FARQUHAR: And you thought it was great but I’m not sure I trust the way you see things, Mark. And anyway, it’s too late. (Pause.) Thirty years ago I came to the realisation that I was never going to be famous. I was going to spend the rest of my life in a little wine shop in a backstreet near Bootham Gate selling cheap French wine to people who’d choose it because of the picture on the label. And that should have been the end of it. I should have just disappeared. But I didn’t.

  A pause.

  It seems to me, Mark, that the great majority of people live between two bands. I’m talking about people who are born, who go to school, who work at a job they don’t even particularly like and who get old. Who live, simply, until they die. I’m talking about almost everyone in the world. But there are the few
who manage to break through the bands. The film stars. The novelists. The football players. The prime ministers. The generals. The industrialists. Whatever. You know who I mean. The chosen few and oh what a life they lead, what company they keep in their own golden circle.

  FARQUHAR gestures, indicating a narrow band above his head. Then he releases another strap.

  What I realised was, that even though the upper band was excluded to me, there was still the pit, or the band that existed below. Maybe the company there might not be quite so golden — Jack the Ripper, Chikatilo — but even so, they had done it. Immortality was theirs. And do you know the strange thing? I believe that the impulse, the ambition that drives some towards the upper band and that which sends some, like me, to the lower, may not in fact be that different. Think of the architects of the pyramids who crushed and trampled on thousands of lives in creating their memorials to themselves. Think of the great leaders who inspired and master-minded the great wars. Saints or sinners? I wonder what’s the difference. Remember, when Hitler started out, all he wanted to do was paint.

  FARQUHAR undoes another strap. The strait-jacket falls free.

  So I became Easterman. I made a quite conscious decision and proved Socrates wrong. I tortured people and I killed them because I wanted, because I was determined…to have…the immortality I had set out for. You were talking about Jack the Ripper. Well that’s what I’ve achieved. That’s who I am.

  STYLER removes the strait-jacket. A pause. Then he runs for the nearest door and tries it. But the door is locked.

  Oh don’t do that. Don’t be so facile. You can’t run out on me. We’re locked in. We have only this room.

  STYLER: But you said you’d let me go.

  FARQUHAR: I said you’d let yourself go. That’s what I want.

  STYLER: What?

  FARQUHAR: Admit to me…

  STYLER: That I admired you?

  FARQUHAR: More. That you want to be me.

  STYLER: What?

  FARQUHAR: That that was why you wrote about Chikatilo and Dahmer and all the rest of them. Because part of you wanted to be them, part of you actually envied them.

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: Yes. The two of us are so similar, you and I. We began in the same place, in Sunflower Court. We’ve followed almost the same paths. And here we are, together in this place. So admit it…not to me but to yourself. Do it, Mark. Become me.

  A pause.

  And then NURSE PLIMPTON screams and lunges out from behind the screen. Coughing and racked with pain she crawls forward. She has been horribly cut by the scalpel. There’s blood everywhere. She is barely alive. STYLER can only glance in her direction in surprise, drained by what he has been through. But FARQUHAR is delighted.

  Well, well, well. There’s a turn-up for the books. It seems that Dr Ennis has returned from the dead. (He goes over to her.) Can you hear me, Dr Ennis? Are you still there?

  PLIMPTON: (With difficulty.) You bastard…

  FARQUHAR: A disappointingly bland sort of response. Scores nought for originality. Don’t you agree, Mark?

  STYLER doesn’t react. PLIMPTON gazes at him.

  PLIMPTON: Help me.

  FARQUHAR: (To STYLER.) I think she’s talking to you.

  PLIMPTON: Please…

  But STYLER doesn’t move. He doesn’t seem able to.

  FARQUHAR: Do you want to help her?

  STYLER: (Uncertain.) Yes…

  FARQUHAR: Or do you want to have her?

  A pause.

  It all comes down to getting away with it. We keep on our masks, we conform, we follow the herd because we’re afraid. But you don’t have to be afraid anymore. There are no consequences now. When the police do arrive, what are they going to think? It could have been me. It could have been anyone. But it couldn’t possibly have been you.

  STYLER: But…

  FARQUHAR: What?

  STYLER: She tried to help me.

  FARQUHAR: She screwed up, frankly. Here…

  PLIMPTON: No…

  But FARQUHAR has scooped PLIMPTON up and dragged her over to the hard-backed chair which positions her some distance from the desk. As he holds her, he calls to STYLER…

  FARQUHAR: I think you’ll find some adhesive tape in one of the drawers.

  STYLER: What?

  FARQUHAR: Top left. Do you think you could get it?

  Almost in a trance, STYLER goes over to the desk and finds a large roll of tape, the sort used to tie up parcels.

  PLIMPTON: I’m hurting…

  FARQUHAR: Sssh! It’ll all be over soon. (To STYLER.) Here…

  FARQUHAR takes the industrial tape and binds it round and round PLIMPTON forcing her to sit upright in the chair but keeping her legs free.

  This is really just like old times. We should have met years ago, Mark. We could have been the Burke and Hare of our time.

  PLIMPTON: (To STYLER.) Stop him!

  FARQUHAR: (To PLIMPTON.) He’s not going to stop me. He’s the reason this is happening. There…

  FARQUHAR steps back. PLIMPTON is helpless.

  So.

  STYLER: What?

  FARQUHAR: What do you want to do?

  STYLER: I…

  FARQUHAR: You can do anything you want.

  STYLER: I don’t know…

  FARQUHAR: Come on! All those things you’ve always wanted to do to a woman, all those fantasies.

  STYLER: I don’t want to touch her.

  FARQUHAR: You’d prefer a boy. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Mind you, I do see your point. She does look a bit messy. My fault, I’m afraid. What do you want to do?

  STYLER: I don’t…

  FARQUHAR: Do you want to kill her? Slowly? Quickly? Or do you want to play with her first?

  STYLER: No!

  FARQUHAR: Well in that case, let’s just get it over with.

  PLIMPTON: Please… (She begins to cry.)

  FARQUHAR: Come on, Mark. She’s dead anyway because if you don’t do it I will. Come on! It’s like jumping into a swimming pool. The water looks cold but once you’re in there you’ll be fine. Come on in, the slaughter’s lovely! Just take a deep breath and…

  STYLER: Yes!

  A pause.

  FARQUHAR: Yes, what?

  A pause.

  STYLER: I want to.

  FARQUHAR: You want to kill her!

  STYLER: Yes.

  FARQUHAR: How do you want to kill her?

  STYLER: I don’t know.

  FARQUHAR: But you do want to kill her? You have the urge?

  STYLER: Yes.

  FARQUHAR: Well think about how you want to do it. What would you enjoy?

  STYLER is confused. He is a man who is beginning to lose his identity.

  Your mother died with a knife driven into the side of her throat.

  STYLER: (Still absorbing the truth.) I could do that.

  FARQUHAR: You could do that. You could have done that. But you can’t do that now because we don’t have a knife.

  PLIMPTON: (To STYLER.) He’s twisting you!

  FARQUHAR: (To PLIMPTON.) Shut up!

  PLIMPTON: (To STYLER.) Please…

  FARQUHAR: We do have a scalpel…

  STYLER: No.

  FARQUHAR: No. You’re right. Too messy for a first time. And the blade…too small. I’d recommend a gun for a beginner. But alas, we have no gun. What does that leave us? There are various drugs but… (Pause.) Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We have fire.

  PLIMPTON: Jesus, save me…

  FARQUHAR: Fire. What do you say to fire? It’s easy. It’s dramatic. It’s painful. Maybe that would be the way to do it. You can always close your eyes if it’s too intense. (Pause.) Mark?

  STYLER nods.

  PLIMPTON: God…

  FRQUHAR: Let me see.

  FARQUHAR goes over to the desk and rummages in the drawers.

  Here…

  FARQUHAR produces a can of lighter fuel. He hands it to STYLER.

  Go for it, Mark. (Pause.) Go on…


  STYLER hesitates, then sprays lighter fuel all over PLIMPTON. She screams and writhes in the chair.

  Listen to her. Imagine if Quentin Tarantino were here. Just imagine it. He’d love this. He wouldn’t need to option your book anymore. He could just film this, right here and now. And you know what? People would say it was a masterpiece. Just think Hannibal Lector, Mark. They’d love you.

  The stream of petrol ends. PLIMPTON is moaning, writhing. FARQUHAR goes to the desk and takes out the lighter on its chain.

  So now we come to the moment of truth.

  STYLER takes the lighter.

  You can do it. You want to do it.

  PLIMPTON: No. Don’t listen to him. He’s twisting your mind. He’s the devil, Mark. He’s the devil. He’s the devil. He’s the devil. Please. I told you. I told you — he’ll break you down. He’ll destroy you. I told you…

  STYLER: Shut the fuck up!

  A pause.

  I want to do it. (To FARQUHAR.) Because I want to be like you.

  FARQUHAR: Then do it.

  STYLER strikes the lighter and advances on PLIMPTON, with the chain stretching out.

  PLIMPTON: Please, please. Please don’t do this. You’re not like him. You can’t do this. You can’t do this.

  STYLER reaches the end of the chain. And he’s not near enough to reach PLIMPTON. He stands there, a couple of metres short, faintly ridiculous, the lighter in his hand.

  FARQUHAR: Ah.

  STYLER: It won’t reach.

  FARQUHAR: Clumsy. Slightly ludicrous, really.

  PLIMPTON sobs with a mixture of horror and relief.

  STYLER: We…

  FARQUHAR: What?

  STYLER: We can move her.

  FARQUHAR: Lift her up?

  STYLER: We can do it together.

  FARQUHAR: Together. Alright. You take that side…

  FARQUHAR and STYLER each take one side of the chair and lift up PLIMPTON. She screams and tries to bite STYLER.

  Watch her teeth!

  They put her down.

  She’s like a woman possessed, damnit. Saint Joan meeting the flames. (To STYLER.) Do you want to get it over with?

  Once again STYLER picks up the lighter and approaches. This time he can reach. PLIMPTON closes her eyes.

  This is going to be interesting.

  STYLER clicks the lighter. It doesn’t light. He clicks it again. Nothing. A pause.

  (Irritated.) What is it?

  STYLER: It’s out of fuel.