"Damn, damn, damn!" "Damn!" "Surely the facts are not in dispute?" "This man... a harmless enough old creature by all accounts was running away from an army patrol." "He was sick, terrified." "You're hurt..." "Please!" "And you killed him, did you not?" "He was mortally wounded when I found him." "And you Kevin Woodford took it upon yourself to put him out of his pain." "He said he was dying, he begged me to finish him off." "A sick old man... frightened... doubted himself out of his wits." "No doctor present?" "No medical orderlies?" "We hope not many such fall into your hand." "It wasn't just his bullet wounds from the patrol." "Really?" "His illness... he had... he was... turning into an animal." "Are you being metaphorical Woodford?" "Or are you suggesting some kind of actual metamorphosis?" "A werewolf." "A werewolf perhaps?" "Well, well, well." "Changing..." "It seemed to me into some kind of animal." "How extraordinary!" "Well..." "That obviously justified you finishing him off, didn't it?" "I'm not saying that." "We shall not try to penetrate the odd recesses of your imagination Woodford." "We shall ask you exactly what you are trying to saying about his death." "Did you feel you personally have the right to arbitrate on a matter of life and death?" "Please!" "I was confused." "As indeed I'm sure we all are in this court today." " But it wasn't murder." " But you did shoot him?" "Yes." "And you seriously plea that this was an act of mercy?" "Yes." "Well as in the eyes of the law it was plain homicide." "I was confused." "As indeed I'm sure we all are in this court today." " But it wasn't murder." " But you did shoot him?" "Yes." "And you seriously plea that this was an act of mercy?" "Yes." "Well as in the eyes of the law it was plain homicide." "I think maybe... people should be allowed to die the way they choose." "Ah, I see." "An expose of some higher moral law to which you have privileged access." "I wouldn't say that exactly." "No, but some moral argument which exonerates you from the charge of murder." " I'd say that." "Yes, I would." " Hmm, I see." "So you feel that your action lies outside the inadequate and pathetic assumption of this court... that wilful slaughter is murder?" "Why are you so contemptuous?" "The idiosyncratic notions of moral law which exist within the accused's head are not our concern." "However innocent he is within his own eyes, he is guilty before the laws of the state." "We are here to decide not whether his action was justifiable, nor even comprehensible, only if it is criminal." "We have the medical evidence here of Dr. Mark Eddington." "We have the accused's own word." "And we have the unequivocal nature of the law of the state." "I'm assure the ladies and gentlemen of the jury..." "I'm sure that your conclusions must be... inevitable." "Oh, Sonia!" "Why did you marry that petrified lawyer, the son of mine." "I tried to warn you..." "It'll have to be rewritten in so little time." "And..." "Oh shit!" "It's Mark Eddington." "Damn it, I'll make you a friend of Claude's." "I haven't seen you for ages." "What did you make of that, then?" "Well, you've seen Claude prosecuting before." "He was hateful today, I'm furious!" "I wouldn't say that..." "Fury in Claude isn't like most people, comes out ice-cold, logical." "The jury was obviously sympathetic to that boy." "And it's not Claude's way to let that confuse the issue." "What a strange young man." "Funny sort of crank to find in the army." "Crank?" "I thought what he did was brave." " Well I..." " Mark." "You're going to have lunch with Claude and me." "Come on, join us at Luigi's in about half an hour." " Yes, fine, I'd love to." " Ya, alright." "But dear I'd..." "Oh." "Sonia!" "Wait a minute!" "But what are you in my scheme of things Eddington?" "The Jolly old, bloody old doctor character?" "God forbid..." "Here he is again!" "Never liked you Eddington, never understood what Claude saw in you." "I'm getting rid of you at once." "Sonia!" "Here now..." "What she..." "Of course, she's intrigued." "She wants to meet that Kevin Woodford." "I get it." "He wants to cut me up." "Shall we let him try?" "Wait a minute though... right hospital, wrong pathologist." "Wasn't Eddington going to lunch with Sonia and Claude?" "Oh, get out of my mind!" "I regret nothing!" "Damn and blast you!" "My love and respect for the human body... the hard muscle, fine skin." "At Cap Ferrat, those days salty and strong out of the sea." "Not a vain man, well..." ""Ugly", Molly used to say." "Green, but handsome in your own fashion Clive Langham." "I loved the sun, loved the cold wine..." "Christ, I can taste it now!" "God, what a tailor's dummy he is." "Your mother..." "Ah, Molly where are you?" "She always had the wine chilled to exactly the right temperature." "And prawns red in their shells." "Yes, I see her laughing there on the terrace in the sun." "We..." "Can't you take a hint?" "Didn't I say bugger off!" "You think this horrifies me?" "All the pain before I care about." "Well, there's the morphine I suppose..." "Verdict: "Not guilty"" "There wasn't a jury in there." "There was a twelve man law reform commission." "I wonder why Sonia asked me to lunch." "Well, why shouldn't she?" "She's always seeking allies these days." "What's the matter with you?" "We've know each other for thirty years and trusted each other for nearly ten." "It was a command really." "Are you and she in some sort of crisis?" "Oh, for Christ's sake Mark, really!" "She always thinks I'm prosecuting her when she sees me in court." "Do you resent the boy getting off free?" "Well, I have no things about him whatsoever." "What about losing the case?" "Oh, I think my reputation will stand up." "Where the hell is she?" "Look, I'm going to have a pee and then I'm going to order." "Oh, I got another of those telegrams this morning from my father." "He's still dying, of course." "I've never known anyone take quite so long about it." "And do it in such good health." "Claude." "I thought you might like to meet Kevin Woodford." "I have met him." "To apologize for your aggressiveness in court, I thought." "I was just going for a pee." " Why did you whether bring you here?" " I don't mind where I go." "I never mind where I am." "Oh dear!" "I think he's fey." "It's always tiresome." "You are fey aren't you?" "Oh, I know that you have inner peace." "That usually implies no powers of rational thinking." "Whatsoever..." "I don't feel like lunch today... suddenly." "Oh Hell!" "These places are almost becoming de rigueur as fear symbols." "Jolly well, bloody old de rigueur, eh." "Well, if one's had a fatuous life one might as well have fatuous nightmares." "But I am frightened." "You will not get me, you fucking bastards!" "That's right children, go in, go in." "Why not in Claude's house?" "Let battle commence!" "Yes." "In here." "Bang on Clive Langham!" "Get it down!" "No." "No, stop... it could seem vulgar." "And must not!" "Now, that's fascinating." "Yes, I approve of that." "Do get on with it children." "My god, he doesn't look as if it's urgent though..." "Not angry when rejected... but wistful." "Good, good." "But what about the tyrannical lawyer himself?" "Where would he be?" "OK, so in his office then." "And furthermore father since there is no point in telephoning you, far less in visiting you, which would only be exposing ourselves to our now familiar mutual recriminations." "Damn it all father, you're a rich man!" "If you must do your dying with such a... disgusting lack of dignity." "Why don't you do it in a nursing home?" "Or some such place..." "Where they can stand in... amazed, well paid tolerance, while you shout and drink and protest your way to death's dark door." "The silence when you reach the other side will be our only reassurance that you're actually gone." "And I could add..." "I could add..." "When you find yourself potentially alone." "You sod!" "You odious, sanctimonious, stiff-necked little crumb." "I'm not having this, by god!" "Watch it Langham." "The blood pressure..." "I mean to say..." "If I don't know how to die, at least I knew how to live." "But what about that mistress of yours, my son?" "What did I do with her?" "Don't tell me I mislaid her." "I-diddle-i-de a drunken life for me." "Damned it I'm giving you to the dreaded Claude." "I could do with you myself... if I could just get off this bed, out of this coffin of a room." "Yes, you'll do for the moment." "You can be Claude's mistress." "Quick, quick, quick, first name into the mind..." "Helen..." "Wiener" "Ya." "Intellectual journalist." "Goes to conferences on every bloody thing, that's you Helen Wiener." "Just another wee drinkie whilst they get you onto terra firma." "Did you know..." "Did you know, those astronauts who've been to the moon" "It's had a peculiar effect on some of them." "Lurching about on a lump of frozen rock hanging in space." "Claude's due back." "I think of God's eyes watching them." "A pair of huge brilliant eyes somewhere out there beyond the sun, brighter then the sun." "Kevin, I'm not overawed by the universe." "It's a very peaceful place you have here, you and Claude should like it quite a lot I should imagine." "And you also imagine that we should get out before he arrives?" "I've never done this before." "I always thought if I did it would be somewhere else and in the sweat of guilt." "On his account..." "I'm quite easy in most situations." "You see there's every indication that some of the astronauts have been profoundly disturbed by going out there." " Kevin." " Yes?" "Why are you so bloody obsessed by the fucking astronauts?" "Why do you go on about the astronauts?" "Well I think it all has its poetic side." "Clomping about under the stars and so on." "Sod the moon." "No poetry there anymore." "Another of those stabbing pains right up the arse!" "Then another stinger coming right down the spine." "Meet the one from the backside." "Out there... in the icy universe... there's nothing." "Physiological disaster... there'll be some reddish brown stains on the underpants yesterday." "No more doctors!" "I suppose he'd meet his mistress in a motel." "No..." "Here, Claude, here." "You can't, not now." "Mustn't go home." "It's inconvenient." "Or is it..." "Now..." "Am I springing Claude on them?" "It will give me no end of fun." "With me it was almost the other way round, husbands catching me with their wifes." "Bang, thump, wallop." "Down you go Langham." "Always the bungler..." "Never caught anyone with my wife." "I don't actually smell sex." "Hasn't there been any?" "You should meet my brother." "He'd take it just like you, he's a famous footballer." "The telephone..." "Why not?" "What would you say was interesting about him?" "I mean, what exactly is the point about him, his attraction?" "Any clues about yourself, Woodford?" "Any ideas..." "If your wife's attracted to me, I think that's your problem not mine." "I don't I've ever been a problem have I, Claude?" "Problems have a way of acquiring status in a relationship you see." "Hello." "Helen." "Where?" "No, I'm having a drink in the bedroom with my wife, and the young man she seems keen on." "Now?" "Yes." "Right away." "Who's Helen?" "I despise you Woodford." "I'm sorry about that." "He's frightfully unattractive." "I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're good enough for my wife... but are you good enough for me?" "I really don't think so." "Who is Helen?" "I don't remember." "I think he'd better get off and meet old Helen." "Oh, there goes another thing." "Slip the suppository into position." "No such luck for me, a sudden coronary." "No, it has to be... slow, squalid and messy things." "Live by the guts and die by the guts." "Now let science soothe the troubled rectum." "And back to business..." "I-diddle-i-de-ti-tum-ti-tum-ti-tum." "Who does not know the mixture of fear and excitement of going to meet an old flame." "Carrying one's thundering prick..." "Already composing the get out clauses, just in case she's cooked up an actual demand, or the erstwhile reliable member should fail in it's exquisite duties." "And what's more if the new encounter should turn out disastrous from the word "Go"." "Will one be able to get rid of her with a dash of style?" "A little panache?" "Not you Woodford, damn and bugger you!" "Christ he's intractable this one." "I'll never get the hang of him." "Out!" "Out!" "She looks like his mother." "Clearly the boy must have an unconscious mind, just like everybody else." "Oh, Molly..." "You look well." "I'm dying." "Have you ever heard of an allegedly... famous footballer... called Woodford?" "How's your wife?" "I'm thinking of killing this footballer's brother." "It's one of those rare, slow, deadly diseases you can have without knowing." "Then it suddenly accelerates and nothing can stop it, or reverse it." "Suddenly you are not just ageing, you are irrevocably dying." "How's your father?" "He's still dying." "Well, he's an old man." "There is no necessary connection between one's age and the length of time taken to die." "I am told I have about six months." "Maybe a year..." "We must make the most of it." "What a bastard!" "Great!" "Smashing!" "Of course it's been said about my work that the search for style has often resulted in a want of feeling." "My goodness, does he find this erotic?" "However but I'd put it another way I'd say that, style is feeling," "Its most elegant and economic expression." "Ten out of ten, Clive Langham." "Christ, it's the bloody footballer, the dreaded younger Woodford!" "He can't just, just trundle in here and take a shower." "Can he?" "So what to do?" "I suppose we could start up again in another hotel." "We could live together." "And leave Sonia?" "To watch me die?" "Shouldn't everyone live as if they're about to die, not next week, nor next month but now?" "Anyway... it's impossible." "So how do you and Sonia live?" "In a state of unacknowledged mutual exhaustion behind which we scream silently." "Sounds binding." "I learnt self control as a reaction against my father, it started as a habit then became a trap." "We squirmed..." "How did you get out?" "Maybe you really scream..." "No, I never have..." "No, you have to have a big passion, a compelling reason." "I've had neither of those... neither, I think, has she." "How glad I am" "I chose to live alone, right from the beginning." "Are you?" "I feel nothing at all." "He can say that again." "Damn!" "He'll be bloody well blind anyway." "Poor Claude!" "What a thin owlish little sod you were at school." "Prig from the word "Go."" "Ought we not always to live as if one's going to die." "Eyes like marbles." ""Why haven't you got the Nobel Prize daddy?"" ""Our English master says you aren't nearly as good as Graham Greene."" "Beset the bugger, say I." "Some of us, fuckface, wonder why Graham Greene hasn't got the Nobel Prize either." "He once offered to teach me how to masturbate." "Your father?" "I was deeply shocked." "He'll have to go into a nursing home, of course." "Eight housekeepers in five months." "Nobody tries still... he tries to screw them." "You are not going to put that extraordinary old man in a nursing home." "That purely incontinent, ageing infant!" "You just resent his independence, just as you'd resent mine, if I had any." "You're not a husband or a son, you're a goddamn jailer." "How's Kevin?" "And being a goddamn jailer is the nearest thing you've got to an instinct." "You must want him very much." "Well I don't want you very much." "Not anymore..." "You must be forcefully attracted to him." "I want..." "I want..." "I suppose you fancy he's got the poetic spirit, or something like that." "I want..." "I would like..." "I..." "I..." "I!" "First person singular!" "Do I have to oppose you to reassure myself that I exist?" "Let's just say there's something in Kevin that intrigues me." "In him?" "You mean inside him?" "A kind of visionary?" "Funny pictures, in his head?" "Chubby little people with wings?" "Get out." "Get out!" "Get out!" "Now look I do insist..." "We must do something about father." "When will you pull yourself together?" "You're always sniveling." "Shall we never be free of you?" "Well, yes father I..." "I admire your books very much." "I think you're a very fine writer indeed." "And I hope that you die with every nerve end in your body shrieking." "When will you pull yourself together?" "You're always sniveling." "Shall we never be free of you?" "Yes, father I... well, yes I do..." "He's improving, improving." "So now..." "How about a half of cold champagne." "Petite truffles." "Damn footballer, must've got lost in that hotel somewhere." "Molly..." "If you're out there in the cosmic dark somewhere, don't wait for me." "I'm not coming." "There we go... the tremors, the warnings." "Once death seemed like a gentlest earthquake of the system, but now... gathering force, after the years." "What I really mean to say Molly is, of course," "I'd prefer not to come." "I think we'll try this one again." "How's Helen?" "He killed her." "Father killed her really." "Those holidays of ours at Cap Ferrat." "He tortured her." "He was always randy when he had a hangover." "There's a chap in football gear... jogging along the street." "I haven't been... no, I wouldn't say bored with you." "Self eliminating, yes." "Clever of you to catch me at seventeen." "Well I've been dreaming you'd wake up." "You became my authority." "There's a deep sadness..." "You remain my only authority..." "As if dreaming is my only real level of existence." "And so I passed from childhood, more or less... to wifehood?" "Without the tiresome intervention of a.... developing personality in between." "I'm not a person..." "I'm a fucking construction." "Yours..." "Was..." "After certain dreams nothing in waking life can have such intensity." "Even if it's a common fiction, it's still poignant." "One thinks... ho-hum." "You might as well drink my drink too." "Not Molly!" "You can't have my wife!" "Do I resemble your mother?" "There's something..." "Mugged!" "Yes, mugged!" "This city is definitely falling to pieces." "All hell out there sometimes." "My last conscious words were..." "On the question of subatomic particles, gentlemen..." "One gets confused by what is infinitely small, and what is infinitely large." "The mind buckles... the head aches..." "Much more violently than the impact of your fists." "gentlemen." "So this is how it was?" "This is how it was." "Nothing can compare with the memories of childhood." "And yours and mine of each others..." "I think I began to love you because I knew straight away you wouldn't... invade me, colonize me." "Not some kind of moral achievement on your part, it's just that I... suppose you simply exhausted your prejudices on your wife." "How penetrating." "Truly, I wouldn't have lived as I have if I'd met you first." "I now look back on all those years with bitter scepticism." "I'm ready to defect." "It's a little late." "Aren't you rather letting yourself down by saying that?" "I thought you were bored and disgusted by the idea of living with someone continuously." "How you and father would have fought." "There's a terrific fire across the city, the sky's red for miles." "Are you still here?" "What are your opinions on adultery?" "Do you care about the nature of things?" "Have you got a philosophical bent?" "Do you worry?" "What do you think of my wife's body?" "It isn't the point." "I beg your pardon?" "Let me put it this way..." "It isn't the point." "Did you hear that old boy?" "She has a concise way of putting things." "Well what do you make of it?" "What do you make of love?" "How'd you like to run away with her?" "There's no need to run anywhere." "I've already left you, so why run?" "We can manage perfectly well just as we are." "See if you can cope, I'd be fascinated." "You will continue to exert self-control I'm sure." "The chap's an enigma, he really is." "She is an enterprising fuck though, isn't she?" "I'm always content where I am." "My husband you see Kevin, Claude, is committed to self control." "He exaggerates of course, it's a performance." "If you knew him you'd realize he has no emotions to control." "My wife has turned your head." "Oh yes she has..." "I can tell the signs." "Woodford!" "Don't go to sleep!" "I know you have inner peace..." "And you have inner stagnation." "Childhood is shattering." "I can see that you must have got off to a bad start." "But you've got more than your fair share of inner peace, old boy." "You'll have to be put down." ""Like a mad dog" as they say." "Sonia!" "Put him down at once." " Where's the lady?" " Going for a swim." " Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" " I get around." "Aren't you the famous footballer?" "Or is it cricket?" "Steady." "I believe I'm the affronted party." "After all it is your brother who's screwing my wife, isn't it." "He's not screwing anybody, isn't Kevin." "Do you spend very much time jogging about town dressed like that?" "Oh, training are we?" "Big match coming on." "I'm very famous indeed, see." "And an equally serious occupation of mine is taking care of our Kevin." "He needs it, he needs it..." "Our childhood Mr. Langham... we was brought up like pigs." "My goodness!" "You do seem to be a very serious sort of chap." "It's a fine game, football, beautiful to watch." "Well, you know..." "I mean as a general activity it seems meaningless, but the form, pattern, is elegant." "If it is football..." "Choreographically there's plenty of poetry there." "Plenty, plenty..." "Oh, when one gets hold of the ball, and... tickles it along..." "Can I do anything for you famous footballer?" "Ah, this'll never do." "Won't do at all!" "Can't have people thumping our poor old bloody Claude." "Can we..." "Oh, for Christ's sake." "The pains are banging in my neck like sodding tom-toms." "Oh, is it the arteries?" "Or the jugular..." "Going to burst?" "Then spew out, living, red juice." "Helen?" "Molly?" "The pains are catching up with me." "In the end I shall call for morphine." "No hero, not heroic, never was..." "Do you see Molly, they're taking some of them away." "But not you my love." "No..." "What a punctual fellow you are." "Come on." "Miss Boon." "Ah Miss Boon, how erotic you look this morning." "This is my friend Woodford." "He used to be in the army." "But now he's nothing more, nor less, than a failed astronaut." "That's his, his brother Dave." "The famous footballer." "What can I do for you Mr. Langham and... or Mr. Woodford?" "Well you see... frankly... my wife is thinking of taking him away with her." "He has to be taken otherwise he'd never go." "He's never had the urge for..." "Bangkok" "Venice" "Tokyo any of those places you and I would side for." "Woodford, sit down and explain your problem!" "Well..." "It all started after his wife had asked me out to lunch." "I'd just been acquitted of murder." "What's more..." "I think that he and Sonia should have a quiet, beautiful place where they can fuck, night and day." "A sort of backdrop of a place..." "I don't even know his wife, not really." "Nonetheless, bundle him out of the country we must before I shoot him." "Do you approve of violence Miss Boon?" "Certainly not!" "Neither do I." "It reeks of spontaneity." "Come, come, young Buddha." "Right... now..." "Yes..." "Where was I?" "In the travel agent..." "In case there's a myocardial infarction, but patient..." "No..." "Jesus!" "That was a spear of fire." "So..." "Dress the creature will you." "What was that Mr. Langham?" "Dress the creature!" "Don't bugger about." "He can't walk with my wife dressed like that." "Yes, Mr. Langham." "Dress not the humble exterior clay Mr. Jennings, but the man within." "Oh come, come, come." "I have to leave for my gunmaker by noon." "Your father rang yesterday, ordered a dozen shirts." "Shirts?" "He should be ordering shrouds." "Yes, yes into bed..." "Ah, there that's better." "A little whisky this time?" "Why not?" "Where do they say the thrombosis, the symptoms?" "Now, there's a symptom my my such a type is this?" "Now just look at that Clive Langham." "If that isn't quite something of a heart, eh?" "Marvellous to behold, stiff as a..." "Watch out!" "Watch out!" "You look very cool this morning." "Very lovely." "Those gloves..." "Molly was always fond of wearing gloves like those in the summer, at the races." " Who?" " What?" "Molly?" "I don't know anyone called Molly." " But you just said..." " I can't remember what I just said." "How curious." "You see, Molly was Claude's mother, she committed suicide." "Because well, as it turned out she was already dying and in great pain." "Claude, of course, considers her death as crucial evidence against his father." "How strange." "So is this..." "What?" "I've got an erection." "Oh, so you have." "Is it urgent?" "It isn't mine." "Then who's is it Woodford?" "I mean if it's going to break up my marriage we have the right to know the culprit." "You can't just bring your erection into my marriage Woodford and then disown it." "Your own flesh and blood." "Do you think he resembles the elder Langham?" "He was prone to random erections, that's one thing I do know." "I'm quite prepared to be civilized about the whole business." "I though to it might help keep my own pecker up, as you might say" "If I invited my mistress." "Oh, that ridiculous word." "Our dear Molly, of the long white summer gloves." "You met her, she must've had about thirty pairs." "I would say that anyone that would take you on in that role must be nothing short of heroic." "Could she be conducting some obscure form of research, I wonder?" "Dear Helen, what a crusader for women's rights she was." "In her time..." "And how nice to be able to relax when one's intellectual convictions, now and then, with the man who finds them so unconvincing." "Do you know Woodford, I even detest the way you eat." "Do you like the way he masticates?" "I'm more interested in how he fornicates." "Splendid word." "Fornicates." "Yes..." "Twilight" "Dawn" "How darkness creeps into the blood." "Darkness... the chill of obsidian fingers." "A little more venom children." "A little more violence." "Not hard to come by..." "Violence... is quite unnecessary." "Rows, scenes, exhibitions." "I myself posses nothing with such tenacity, that I cannot bear its loss." "On the other hand..." "I cannot lose with such equanimity that I will not have my say." "Do you think we should look upon this occasion as a very civilized... board meeting." "You obviously have no intention of hearing the truth from anyone." "You're the lady who's dying?" "Isn't the boy refreshingly direct." "I gather that his mind is in outer space for most of the time." "So when it returns to us it has all the uneasy candour of a cosmic scale of values." "Yes, I'm the lady who's dying." "I feel closer to someone who's dying." "I once killed a man who was already dying." "He asked me to." "I think it was a peaceful experience for both of us." "I don't think we have to go into all that again." "Do we?" "He wouldn't dare, would he." "Oh, Claude..." "Some people might say you're your own worst enemy but I'd say you're your only best friend." "I went on trial for murder." "I think in some other period of history I might've done quite well as a saint." "One of those that got burnt at the stake." "Wooders!" "What do you think about Bangkok?" "Palm trees, beaches, that kind of thing." "Maybe I should just take you out and thrash you." "You'll have noticed, as I did early on in our marriage" "Claude is a very frightened man." "He's frightened of himself, that's all." "It's a great deal." "It haunts him." "He's tragically incomplete." "He admits no rage." "How do you find him?" "Much the same as you do Sonia, but in my case, right from the beginning," "I've used him." "Quite tenderly though..." "I shall put him in my next novel." "Before you die?" "Garrote him with words." "Its an amusing little bourgeois." "Another bomb..." "They're closing in." "I suppose in the last resort we could always blame the bourgeoisie." "Don't you blame the bourgeoisie Woodford?" "Are you political at all?" "Do you know the jargon old boy?" "My father was a great revolutionary, in his time, inside his head." "What is a bourgeois Woodford?" "What if not someone who simply has lost faith in the capacity of human nature for radical transformation." "Do we have the slightest shred of evidence to the contrary?" "Do we have the slightest shred of evidence to the contrary?" "That's not amusing at all." "Kidney walloping, his balls the size of three." "Revolutionary, inside my head." "Well, where else damn buggers." "Evolution..." "Ah, Molly..." "Your breasts, a biological triumph." "Ditto the thighs." "and the little tuft of hair so snug between." "Bless you." "Very amusing." "Listen." "If Claude every blamed me for your death he will grimly blame me for my own too." "Well, it's typical of the way in which parents and their children approach the problem of justice." "Does all this embarrass you Miss Lister?" "Yes sir." "Hard words for a dying man." "Since you mention it Mr. Langham..." "But he's not dying." "He's having what you might call a long drawn out tantrum." "In addition to which he has the bloody effrontery to draw attention to himself by withdrawing to that enormous, royalistic, expensive house." "And what is it to you after all Miss Lister?" "Why are you crying?" "I thought him a very impressive man." "He hadn't more than one." "Why shouldn't I get fucked by a genius." "Why shouldn't I be fucked by a genius." "I remember Molly... when Claude was about fifteen... he said something I've always remembered." "At dinner it was." "I was half drunk as usual." "And you were dark with misery, as usual." "Very grave and thoughtful he was." "Rather pompous, as usual." ""Don't you think father," he said" ""that one of the tasks of growing up is to discover moral language, something as absolute in its way as a logical proposition?"" " I thought you might come to see me." " I was drawn to you." "Morbidly?" "You reassure me." "Somehow you seem quiet." "One thing I can say about my... personal experience of dying it somehow removes the problem of willing things." "How's the wine?" "Nutty." "Claude always drinks white wine." "Anyone who cares for Claude should always make sure to have white wine." "When you love someone your sensitive to their tastes." "It's rarely mutual and that's because one is rarely loved." "Between the terrorist bombs and the... demolition of all those lovely old buildings there soon won't be much left." "Let me just tell you what it was like all those years." "I wish you wouldn't." "Your father behaved as if I simply did not exist." " My father..." " When you went away to school I was desolate." "One of his more childishly insulting games was to pretend that I wasn't there, that he didn't know me." "He was giving some lectures once in Vienna and he didn't introduce me to a single person in ten days." "There was this big public reception on the last evening and someone says," ""Why don't you introduce your friend."" "He just turned and stared at me in silence and I was trembling in embarrassment." "He said, "I haven't the faintest idea who she is," he said to me." "I haven't the faintest idea who she is!" "I think you noticed everything." "No wonder you became a remote little boy, and grew into a cold, hard young man." "I began to loathe you, as much as I feared him." "Will you kindly get out of my mind Molly." "Will you please stop interfering with my last feeble efforts." "Suicide..." "Surely, in your case, an act of vengeance on the living." "Oh, cross out." "And transpose the long suffering Woodford to..." "To..." "Ah, Wooders!" "Chased me down then, have you?" "I don't know how I got here..." "When in doubt attempt a little style, surprise them, keep them off balance." "Establish your unpredictability." "I needn't tell you that, need I?" "If you didn't love my mother at least you needn't to destroyed her." " What's that?" " I mean..." "Did you create hell all these years just to have something to write about." "Oh, Wooders, Wooders... do try again!" "I really saw Claude that day in court when he was prosecuting you." "I hated him." "It tipped some delicate balance in my mind." "I know that marrying him was my own choice, but at seventeen..." "That man... he saw me as I saw myself which was as a reflection of how others saw me." "I never even been unfaithful to him." "Including now." "I wish you could convince him." "My life, and Claude's has been highly organized." "I can see that." " To achieve..." " Yes." "the minimum possible friction." "How ambitious." "How do you regard suicide?" "Terminal." "They just thought me we might blow each other's brains out if we had a gun." "I thought we would make love if we had the desire." "I just thought... lying alone in bed last night that, a middle aged women's fantasies are not humiliating, and I will not reject them." "I would just like the idea of my freedom to be more than a patronizing smear on Claude's face." "Finally one loses control of everything... body, memory..." "They keep me here in this frightening place.." "waiting... watching the tragic fate of theirs." "Have they got you Molly?" "Fragments of the remote past, become vivid." "I do remember... a green branch waving against the blue sky, over my head." "Rustling leaves..." "Claude." "I thought you might like to meet Kevin Woodford." "How do you do?" "Not very well." "I think something must have gone wrong at some early stage." "It could be childhood." "But then I don't suppose we could spend the rest of our lives attributing it to that." "What I'm searching for..." "Mr. Langham is a moral language." "If I don't leave you," "I'll probably make you suffer for it." "Do you understand?" "I blame you for nothing," "I don't even blame myself." "So what then is this huge, huge sense of spiritual emptiness." "Commonplace." "Yours is the misery of triviality." "And yours?" "I don't suffer." "Who could possibly ever forgive you for that?" "I thought you might come to see me." "I wanted you to know that I don't intend to change my life in any way." "I propose, as it were, to let you down." "I simply wondered... whether my arrival might provoke some sort of crisis in your life." "Do you think a crisis would be good for me?" "Your father thought so." "I cabled him." "This is his reply." ""Death no problem"" "Stop." ""My son, an emotional cripple"" "Stop." ""By all means descend on him"" ""if it will amuse you"" "Stop." "Set and game... to father." "Set... and game... to father." "Woodys!" "Wooders!" "Woodford." "You don't look quite yourself." "Not at all the same person." "I think I should put you out of your misery." "Or should I say my misery?" "Get on with it then." "How you must have driven my mother." "Did it amuse you to pretend that you didn't recognize her in public?" "I'm her witness." "And I propose to kill you." "Such hatred..." "Not hatred." "Justice." "In my own curious fashion..." "I think..." "I've always loved you." "Children not here yet?" "They rang on their way down, about half an hour ago sir." "They won't be long." "Yes, did you find me out here this morning?" "No sir, on the bathroom floor." "Pissed?" "I took the liberty of bathing and dressing you sir then bring you down here." "I thought perhaps the sun..." "Another bloody awful night." "Kept on waking up and trying to jot a few things down." "Then needless to say, more boozes and more nightmares." "I'm sorry Mr. Langham." "Karen I want everything to be especially wonderful today." "We don't often get the chance to see them do we." "It shall be the very best week in due Mr. Langham." "Your old age has got to be so bloody awful." "I think we have the right to indulge them in a few compensatory foibles, don't you." "I think I hear Mr. Claude's car now sir." "Alright then, raise me up a bit, will you." "Yes sir." " Here we are sir." " Thank you." "Sonia, Claude!" "Children, come quickly." "Take a paw each." "Happy birthday Clive." "Happy birthday father." "Come my dears, sit down." "Lots of boozes on the way, damn good lunch too." "What's the talk, eh?" "Don't you want to see your presents?" "My dear girl at my age one either lives just long enough to make presents useless or not long enough to make the question relevant." "Where are they, where are they!" "Nils, Nils, Nils!" "Wine, wine, wine!" "If you please..." "And what the fuck's this?" "Well this is my contribution, it belonged to Ernest Hemingway, or so they told me" "I bet they bloody well did..." "What a brilliant inspiration, thank you Sonia." "Of course you know he wasn't anything like such a damned innovator as they all make out." "What's this, what's this?" "Oh, not old bum peter's latest dribble." "Ah, Claude dear boy always so maladroit when it comes to presents." ""The Scales of Time"" "That sounds provocatively obscure." "I might just ask old bum face you know if I can use it as the title for my new novel." "Very flattered he'd be." "Delighted my dear Langham!" "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera..." "Just can't wait to see his sycophantic expression." "Father!" "Is that Kevin?" "Is that my favourite bastard?" "Don't you think to have only one bastard after sixty years of action is almost tantamount to self denial." "And all the way from bloody old Geneva..." "The only one you admitted to." "That's right." "I signed a piece of paper, like a dog license." "Happy birthday!" " Hello Claude, have we just made it." " Good" "Sonia." " How are things?" " Good." " I thought you were in Geneva?" " Well I was in Geneva..." "Come to have the last glimpse before I pop off, eh?" "Oh, now that is functional!" "Especially as I'm half sodding blind these days." "I thought you'd like the workmanship." "Those Victorians." "I once knew a Victorian..." "How are the physical sciences?" "Astrophysics, father." "Same damn thing, bound to turn out that way." "I once knew a woman with tits like a spiralled nebula." "Karen tells me you haven't been well." "How are the dreaded law courts, my son?" "I do wish you'd let us know when you're not feeling well Clive." "Oh, you know how it is..." "The heart pumps as if it was trying to push a tonne of shit through a concrete wall." "The lungs don't so much breath as squeak ineffectually for mercy." "One continues to smoke and drink too much..." "If only they let me get my hands on a pretty little nurse." "They always sends me hags, you know." "But a nice new belle girl and I might even manage to go out of this world screwing too much as well." "How's the new book coming along father?" "Who are you disembowelling this time?" "Seventy eight fucking years old today." "Molly would have been seventy one." "I know you adored her." "But for me you had nothing more profound, damn it, then disapproval." "It's your birthday father." "You know it seems only yesterday you and I were having solemn conversations about your becoming an astronaut." "It must be fifteen years ago." "And when was that first Russian thing?" "Sput-something..." "Nik, sputnik." "Whirling some poor damn dog around the planet." "I used to think I was a Bolshevik, you know." "Centuries ago..." "It wasn't the revolution which frightened him, it was the revolutionaries." "Quite..." "But..." "OK then chaps." "More, more, more of that... exquisite chilled, that lovely wine, please." "Claude easily shies away from you, he always has." "He might never admit it, but he's always disproved of me." "You know the trouble with Claude is that he's lead such an impeccable life, not one detectable vice." "I'm his detectable vice." "Never could get my teeth into him." "And then my wife committed suicide." "Oh, now must you, especially today." "Hasn't he ever had a mistress?" "Neither of us has had anyone." "Haven't you ever got bored with it all?" "Wanted to take off for Bangkok with some well hung hippie or something." "No!" "For the hundredth time, we've been very happy." "He and I could never get things cleared up." "His mother..." "I never knew..." "You will nag at it." "You baffle me Sonia." "You've always been... opaque to me." "But then, I've always liked enigmatic women." "Ah, he's watching us." "Well, why shouldn't he?" "I've always been able to sense him watching me, even when he was a boy" "God, I felt ill last night." "You look well today." "Don't deceive yourself, death creeps on." "You're afraid?" "I disapprove of death." "You begin to sniff the temptation of believing in something." "Will it be harder to die without god?" "Your turn will come." "Do you intend to die with god?" "I don't think about it." "For god's sake drink something, will you." "First dead man of the day." "Who's going to be the second I wonder?" "What about the law then?" "What is law, whose fucking law?" "But your, managing to look pretty sleek on it young Langers." "Remember those summers in Cap Ferrat?" "I'm not senile yet, you know." " When mother used to put out..." " Who?" "When mother used to put out the chilled wine and the prawns." "When we were swimming... mildly pissed by lunchtime..." "The longest time we were ever together you know..." "Parents ought to have the discretion not to impose on their children." "Beyond a certain point." "Oh, I didn't give a damn about you wandering around the world all that time." "Your boozing and your women, those absurd scandals" "No I realized that..." "The search for a moral language had to yield to the incomprehensible." "Matter of fact, I always thought you were a rather conventional old shit." "So I was, so I was..." "Sharp little bugger you must've been." "You know the point about being conventionally unconventional..." "Is that it provides a mask behind which one's true squalor can rest in peace." "Well, relative peace..." "People still get hurt though, women, family, friends, cats, dogs, mice, pigeons..." "For your mother to die was one thing... for her to cut her wrists all by herself in the middle of the night was quite another." "Rather excessive, don't you think?" "When it was terminal cancer?" "Seemed to me logical at the time, I didn't blame you." "I've never been hurt by you." "I suppose that means that you think... that I think you were." "Sometimes." "Your beginning to sound like someone... performing the last rites." "Claude." "Lunch is ready." "He said you and I are a bit unreal." "Yes, I know he thinks that." "Are we?" "That's for my benefit." "I think it's for theirs." "Karen!" "Nils!" "Splendid!" "Excellent." "Don't give a damn!" "If the stomach's fucked then fuck it some more." "If ever I saw a bloody old bourgeois!" "Your father is not an immoral man." " What?" " He is simply a..." "One many have disapproved of." "A bourgeois... is merely a man who refuses to accept the ideological muse..." "You know children this effing pain I get up the ass..." "No father, no..." "The bourgeois is only the man who understands the ideological muse as the death of his values." "I suppose I'm one of them..." "I don't know if my values are correct or incorrect they're just the moral structures by which I can live." "The only question is young Langers, what are they?" "Honesty." "Scrupulousness." "Discrimination." "Protectiveness." "Tenderness." "Aversion to violence and the conscious practise of terror." "Hardly the monopoly of the bourgeoisie." "What's more he's confusing private virtue with public justice." "Is he naive or just a hypocrite?" "To my father on his seventy eighth birthday." "Live long father." "I love you all very much." "I shall continue to refuse to die." "Besides I have a book to finish." "To all of you my dears." "To your future." "Nothing is written." "We all believe that, don't we?" "One last thing after this strange and marvellous afternoon." "Sonia," "Claude, Kevin..." "Just leave... now please." "With neither kiss, nor touch." "With my blessing." "I think there's time... for just one more."