Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon: A Novel (14 page)

Moon watched. He was not involved, he was a spectator. It was a private view.

The Risen Christ said nothing.

‘I don’t get it,’ Slaughter said. ‘What’s he selling? A Jesus movie?’

‘Carpets,’ said the Risen Christ. ‘I don’t speak English, I’m an American.’ He had managed to raise a certain hauteur but it collapsed at Slaughter’s stare.

‘All night?’

‘Yes, yer honour.’

Slaughter’s face was working around an emotion that it could not express in words. His hand moved fast as a rattle
snake and his gun hit the floor and bounced. He bent and picked it up in one fluid movement, straightening up with the gun pointed at the Risen Christ’s chest.

‘Don’t shoot!’ the Risen Christ screamed.

Slaughter grated out: ‘You been rolling my gal on your carpet?’

‘I never saw her before,’ shrieked the Risen Christ. ‘Yer honour I had a drop o’ the hard stuff and I don’ remember a thing at all.’

Slaughter lost control of his face. He lowered the gun.

‘For
you.’
He started to cry. ‘For a dirty little runt of a carpet salesman. I’ll kill that bitch.’

In tears he let go the halter and ran shouting and crying up the stairs and disappeared along the landing. Moon kicked the donkey on the hind legs and it lurched out of the door and down the steps. The Risen Christ nearly fell off but the donkey levelled out just in time. Moon watched them sway down the street.

He could hear doors being opened and slammed and Slaughter shouting, ‘Fertility!’

When the cowboy came back into view Moon said, ‘She’s not here.’

Slaughter sat down on the top step and wept into his shirt. Moon went up and sat down next to him. Slaughter made room for him. Moon waited till he stopped crying. They sat on the top step.

Slaughter sniffed and rubbed his eyes on his sleeve and scratched his head with the gun-barrel. He put the gun back into his holster.

‘Well, that’s women,’ he said. ‘You can never tell, can you? Just imagine-that dirty dwarf in a nightshirt. Was he genuine?’

‘A genuine what?’ asked Moon.

‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

That’s what I’d like to know. Who’s a genuine what?

‘I’ll tell you quite frankly, old boy,’ Slaughter said, and Moon’s brain registered an inconsistency moments before he caught up on it, ‘that girl has treated me abominably, I really cared for her I don’t mind admitting but she’s been toying with me, you know – toying with me, playing games – oh, I’ve had a frightful time …

Moon said, ‘You really took me in. You’re not really a cowboy, then?’

‘Good lord no,’ Slaughter replied. ‘Mind you – I
like
being a cowboy.’

‘And – Mr Jones?’

‘He likes it too.’ He looked at Moon searchingly – ‘You don’t think she cares for him, do you?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

They sat silent for a few moments. Moon tried to make a reassessment but it eluded him.

Slaughter sighed.

‘That girl, you know … She has been tormenting me in a way that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst – well, I’d wish it upon Jasper.’

‘How did you meet her?’

‘Well, it was our area, you see. We ride in pairs. Oh, she took us in, she was delightful. Gay, you know…’ He reflected. ‘As soon as I saw her I didn’t want to know about anyone else,’ and sniffed tearfully, ‘I’ve gone through absolute hell – I haven’t slept, I can’t keep away.’

‘If I were you I should drop her,’ Moon said. ‘She’s not worth it.’

‘Do you work here?’

‘No. Well, I
do,
yes, but I’m in a different position, being married to her, you know.’

‘Married to who?’

‘Jane.’

‘Fertility?’
Long John stared at him. ‘She told me her husband was killed in a duel.’

‘It’s all right,’ Moon said, grateful for Slaughter’s embarrassment. ‘She’s like that.’

‘All the time?’

Moon gave that his serious consideration.

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you put up with it – I’d kill her.’

‘I love her,’ said Moon keening inside with his desperate love.

‘I know what you mean,’ said Slaughter.

Moon said, ‘There was nothing between her and that fellow on the donkey, you know.’

‘Wasn’t there?’

‘No, really,’ Moon comforted him. ‘He was confused. He thought you were talking about something else.’ He remembered then. ‘Marie’s dead. You killed Marie.’

Slaughter turned to him. ‘What do you mean? I haven’t seen Marie since yesterday.’

‘You shot her through the window.’

‘Marie?’

‘Hit her in the chest.’

Slaughter whistled softly.

‘God, that’s awful. Poor girl.’

‘Yes,’ Moon said.

‘Where is she?’

‘He took her away on the donkey. In the carpet.’ He decided not to say anything about the General.

‘Old Marie,’ Slaughter said. ‘You know, I never killed anyone before.’

‘Well, you killed her,’ Moon said.

This was ridiculous.

‘Marie’s dead. You killed her,’ he said evenly though his whole being tensed with hate for the cold-eyed killer.

‘No,’ whined Slaughter. ‘I haven’t seen Marie since yesterday.’

‘You shot her through the window.’

He reached out with an iron grip round the snivelling fellow’s throat. ‘You dirty rat!’ he spat and with one twist—

But he could only watch. He was a spectator.

And though there may be words you can spit, dirty rat isn’t two of them.

‘Your horse outside?’

‘Mare,’ said Slaughter. ‘It’s a mare.’

‘I didn’t see her outside.’

‘No, I just climbed off her in the end and she just went on walking. As if she had been wound up. I don’t think it was a real horse, or mare. I think it was a wind-up one. God knows where the damn thing is now. Probably walked into the sea.’

Moon asked, ‘Are you making a film?’

‘Wish I was. Now that’s something I could do.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.’

‘L. J. Slaughter. I should be in films all right.’

‘You wouldn’t have real bullets in a film,’ Moon said.

‘In a film you wouldn’t need them,’ said Slaughter.

Moon felt as if the conversation was a weight he had to drag along on the end of a rope. He got up stiffly and went down the stairs leading with his good foot down one step at a time.

‘You hurt your leg?’ asked Slaughter kindly.

‘No,’ Moon said. ‘Ain’t got used to my new spurs yet.’ He smiled the smile of an innocent lunatic, the one who is given little jobs to do around the asylum. ‘Cut my foot.’

‘Let’s see it.’

Moon reached the bottom of the stairs and sat down and took his shoe off and unwrapped the handkerchief.

‘That’s a bit nasty,’ Slaughter said. ‘Did you clean it with antiseptic?’

‘No,’ said Moon. ‘I don’t think we’ve got any.’

‘Haven’t you ever heard of tetanus? Come into the kitchen.’

They went into the kitchen and Slaughter turned on the cold tap.

‘Let’s have the hanky.’ Slaughter dipped it into the stream and bathed the wound.

Moon leaned on the sink and turned his head sadly to the window.

Aye, it is mortal! Nay, do not weep, mistress … happy is the man who goes to his rest e’en as the sun rises before him over his garden … Oh, Petfinch, Pet finch, my home and my garden of the soul, where this arrow falls there let me rest under your greensward.

‘How’s that?’

‘Lovely, thank you.’

The cold water eased the soreness, froze and compressed it. Slaughter re-tied the handkerchief.

‘Must keep it clean, you see.’

‘You’re very kind, Mr Slaughter. How very inconsistent of you.’ He giggled foolishly. ‘May I offer you something? Have you breakfasted?’

‘What’s this?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘This. What is it?’

‘Oh. It’s a bomb as a matter of fact.’

Slaughter held it up and placed it against his ear.

‘Ticking,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

Slaughter put the bomb down carefully and looked at it.

‘Is it yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘A bomb. A real bomb?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Slaughter nodded slowly.

‘Ticking,’ he said.

He walked across to Moon and stood in front of him.

‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that it’s going to blow up?’

‘Not for some while, but yes. It’s on the maximum timefuse but on the other hand I could, if I wanted to, press the cutout key in which case it would blow up in ten seconds. My wife’s Uncle Jackson knew a thing or two about bombs, he knew that it is often necessary to throw them without notice.’

‘Throw?’

‘As opposed to plant.’

‘Where?’

‘Under his bed, for instance.’

‘Whose?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Moon. ‘I’ve got a list.’

Slaughter looked at him carefully.

‘You’ve got a grudge against someone?’

‘No,’ said Moon. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Then why do you need a bomb?’

‘Because, my dear J.B., we require an explosion. It is not simply a matter of retribution, it is a matter of shocking people into a moment of recognition –
bang
! – so that they might make a total re-assessment, recognise that life has gone badly wrong somewhere, the proportions have been distorted, I hope I make myself clear?’

Slaughter pulled reflectively at his lower lip.

‘L.J.,’ he said. ‘Long John Slaughter.’

Moon bowed and giggled.

‘Are you some kind of a writer?’ Slaughter indicated the typewriter and the sheets of paper around the table.

‘Oh, that’s just my journal, you know. Actually I’m a historian.’

‘Is that so.’

‘Yes, it damned well is so,’ snapped Moon.

‘Well, mind you spell my name right,’ said Slaughter easily. ‘When are you expecting Jane back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Has she been out long?’

‘All night.’

Slaughter’s face crumpled. ‘Jasper,’ he spat (Moon noted one of the words you could spit). ‘That bastard, I’ll kill him.’ He slammed his fist into the table. ‘Where’d they go?’

‘It wasn’t Jasper,’ Moon said but L.J. seemed not to hear him. He was standing bowed with an expression of deep grief. He pulled himself together.

‘I don’t care,’ Slaughter said. ‘I simply don’t care.’ He turned.

Moon touched his arm full of troubled concern.

‘You don’t have to go.’

‘Good-bye,’ Slaughter said.

‘Where are you going?’

‘The crowd – I’ve got to mix with the crowd.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Moon, though it made a certain kind of sense to him. ‘Listen, have some tea, some breakfast. Have some pork ‘n’ beans.’

Slaughter said, ‘I never want to see another tin of pork ‘n’ beans as long as I live. That horse, I swear it was a wind-up walking horse. It just kept walking and it was walking when I slipped off it’s arse.’

Moon said, ‘You brought these beans?’

‘Compliments,’ Slaughter said. ‘Love tokens, Western style. Tell her to stuff them. Tell her I’ll always love her.’ He started to snuffle again, and walked out of the kitchen and along the hall and through the front door, and Moon watched him go with an enormous compassion. The morning had paled outside. He did not have much time left.

He turned into the drawing-room and got out his private file from the desk. He sorted through it until he found his list, which he extracted, and replaced everything else. He read down the list carefully, with growing doubt. When he got to the end he started again but gave up. He threw the list into the wastepaper-basket. He didn’t know what to do. The
names which at one time or another he had singled out with scientific dispassion were now fleshed and innocent, meaningless. His conviction was intact but he had lost the point on which it converged.

Don’t panic.

Moon decided to shave while he worked it out. When he had finished shaving he realised that his mind had wandered away.

It’s all right.

He would tidy the drawing-room. Manual activity left his mind free to work. He went downstairs – his foot was hurting again-and he pushed all the furniture back into position and gathered up the debris, cutting his left hand on a piece of bottle. He licked at the cut and pressed it with the thumb of his other hand which was healing quite well. He swept the glass and the bits of sheepdog into a corner and looked round quite satisfied with the room’s appearance. There was no carpet but the floor was in good condition. At least there was no blood, it had all been on the carpet. He remembered that he had forgotten to think about his problem.

Don’t worry.

Moon limped to the kitchen and washed his new cut (alerted now to the danger of tetanus) and glanced through the pages of his journal.
Hardly a quote in it, he won’t like that.
He had an idea, hobbled off and returned with Lord Malquist’s letter.

The fifth page of his journal ended conveniently with a paragraph, allowing him to insert a page without re-typing. He rolled a clean sheet into the typewriter.

As we jogged up Whitehall,
he typed,
Lord Malquist remarked, ‘I sense that the extravagant mourning exacted from and imposed upon a sentimental people is the last flourish of an age whose criteria of greatness are no longer applicable.’

‘Indeed? I responded. ‘I’m most interested.’

‘Well, Mr Moon,’ he went on, ‘surely his was an age that saw history as a drama directed by great men. Accordingly he was celebrated as a man of action, a leader who raised involvement to the level of sacred duty, and he inspired his people to roll up their sleeves and take a militant part in the affairs of the world.’

‘That’s true,’ I conceded, ‘And you think that such a stance is no longer inspiring or equal to events?’

‘In my view,’ said Lord Malquist, ‘its philosophy is now questionable and its consequences can no longer be put down to the destiny of an individual.’

I was much interested and begged him to continue. It was certainly a grand experience to be riding in such fine style with such a conversationalist.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘the funeral might well mark a change in the heroic posture – to that of the Stylist, the spectator as hero, the man of inaction who would not dare roll up his sleeves for fear of creasing the cuffs.’