Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon: A Novel (20 page)

—
send her vic-toor-rious, ha-ppy and gloor
—

Incredulous, he pulled the bomb out of his pocket. It sat on his palm tinkling away with lunatic imperturbability, while from its nozzle protruded a red rubbery bubble that began to expand with a sigh of decompressing air. Before his eyes it grew as big as an egg, an apple, a football—

He dropped it and took a few steps back. Long John Slaughter ran past him, his face pulled apart by horror.

‘Mr Slaughter,’ Moon wept.

There was a third shot and he saw the back of Slaughter’s head turn inside out; and beyond, the pair of pigeon-coloured horses rocked the coach through the crowds and across the Square, kicking dun-coloured pigeons into the air over the purple-and-white barricades put up for the great funeral—

—and Moon, grasping at the edges of some recollection, experienced himself passing among people who had lined the streets for him, and a fat lady going under the wheels with her face unbelieving, betrayed—

—and saw Jane staring through the coach window while the ninth earl in elegant profile touched the silver knob of his cane against his hat-brim, and the coach rocked up the side of the square clockwise round the far corner, with O’Hara leaning back on the reins like a jockey taking a jump.

‘Jane!’ Moon wept.

The Square had emptied to its edges, its central plaza bare as a stage, on which Jasper Jones lay face down and his horse drank placidly from one of the fountains. The coach slowed as it came round the third corner, coming down quite gently towards its point of entrance, towards the donkey and the Risen Christ and Long John Slaughter, towards Moon
who was staring fascinated at his bomb: it sat in the road still tinkling (
reign oh va-russ
) and steadily filling its balloon which was as big as a bubble-car, a baby elephant, a church dome – translucent pink and approaching transparency as it swelled – with, printed across its girth in black letters which expanded with it, a two-word message – familiar, unequivocal and obscene.

Moon turned and saw that the coach had slowed to a walk, bearing down on the Risen Christ. He ran towards it and with a sob tore open the door.

‘My husband!’ cried Jane, her fingers flying to her lips.

Go-od save
– he realised that he had been keeping track of the anthem in his mind. When he got to
Queen
the balloon burst with an explosion that drove the air out of his body.

Pieces of red rubber flapped down over the Square. A few people, obscurely moved, began to applaud.

An Honourable Death

‘
BUT MY DEAR
boy,’ said the ninth earl, ‘what a
pathetic
gesture!’

‘You ought to be ashamed,’ said Jane crossly.

‘T’was a class of a lion,’ said the Risen Christ.

‘I sympathise with your feelings, dear boy, but what did you hope to achieve merely by advertising your disrespect? – you certainly wouldn’t convert anyone, they’ll simply put you down as a cynic – O’Hara! – can’t you go any faster than that?’

‘You made yourself look quite, quite ridiculous,’ said Jane. ‘What were you thinking of?’

I don’t know.

‘Sure an’ it never knew what hit it,’ said the Risen Christ bitterly. ‘Bloody murderin’ pagan brute of a heathen country—’

‘I must ask you to restrain your language, Mr Christ. My credence in your divinity is not what it was.’

‘Ha! An’ where’m I after getting meself a donkey now?’

‘That is not my concern.’

‘Please God an’ Holy Fathers but was it yer lion.’

‘The donkey must have provoked Rollo in some way, possibly by its asinine expression.’

‘And for goodness sake stop crying,’ said Jane. ‘What
do
you think you look like?’

I don’t know.

‘You see, Mr Moon, you just upset yourself. These gestures of protest are quite without point – an expense of spirit without power to alter anything, least of all the entrenched absurdities of public reputation.’

‘You were just drawing attention to yourself, weren’t you,’ Jane accused him.

‘I share your distrust at the way of the world, it is unequal,
inadequate and quite without discrimination. But you must learn that the flaw is not an aberration of society but runs right through the structure. Why, this very street is its monument.’

‘Faith, he was a lovely little moke.’

‘Absolutely childish.’

Water off a duck’s back.

‘… The Admiralty on one side, the War Office on the other, ever-expanding monoliths disposing an ever-diminishing force, at enormous cost and with motives so obscured by time and expedience that the suffering incurred at the further ends can only be ascribed to the tides of history.’

‘I didn’t know
where
to put myself.’

‘And lo! – Earl Marshal Haig, a man who could have saved countless lives by choosing an alternative career in which to indulge his vanity and incompetence – now horsed in bronze and gazing without a glimmer of self-doubt at a Cenotaph inscribed
To the Glorious Dead.
On our right, Downing Street and the Foreign Office and the Home Office—’

‘The loveliest little moke I ever—’

‘Filth – written up there for everyone to see—’

‘—making the same discovery over and over again with undiminished surprise, that moral duty and practical necessity run counter to one another, hence an exercise in mass-deception conducted in a spirit of righteous cant.’

‘I just hope it will be a lesson to you –
look
at your clothes.’

‘On our right, the Ministry of Defence, last bastion against Communism from without, and on our left, New Scotland Yard, last bastion against anarchy from within. Are you ever disturbed by the thought that good and evil are not so neatly divided? – Of course you are! – what a hackneyed profundity—’

‘Where’s the blood coming from?-really, darling, you’re such a
fool
– Have you got a hanky?’

You can’t touch me, I’m untouchable.

‘Before you, the Three Estates-the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal and the Commons… Hush! Do I hear a sermon, delivered in organ-music tones to advocate self-denial and humility? Or is that the murmur of a convocation of bishops working out why God does not strike dead the death-watch beetle?’

‘An’ I’m telling you one thing, boyo – that carpet—’

‘The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe – responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages… And the Commons, drab joyless little Socialists activated by malice and envy, and complacent arrogant Tories activated by self-preservation – Oh, Mother of Parliaments! supreme enshrinement of the myth of individual participation. Turn for home, O’Hara!’

‘—you’re not pinnin’ them on me, boyo, I got witnesses—’

‘And Westminster Abbey where monarchs are crowned, thereafter to sit like working models on the nation’s mantelpiece, with flamingos in the garden. Why am I never invited to croquet?
Why?
Ah dear boy, how I lament the passing of the divine right of kings, for it concentrated the origin of all misfortune into a human compass-how can one grasp its diffusion now?’

‘I
told
you Uncle Jackson couldn’t make a real bomb, the dirty old man. But you won’t be told, will you?’

That’s quite irrelevant, dear Jane. The point is, even if it had been a real bomb it wouldn’t have been nearly big enough to make any difference. No, Mr Moon, you’ll simply have to change your attitude, disclaim your connection. Idealism is the thin edge of madness – console yourself, dear boy, with the thought that if life is the pursuit of perfection then imperfection is the nature of life.’

Please don’t go on. I am indifferent.

‘You’ve been keeping too much to yourself, that’s what
I
think.’

‘Faith, what an enormous business.’

‘In other words, Mr Moon, there is nothing to be done, except to survive in whatever comfort one can command… Ah, thank God we’re home at last.’

Let me disappear into a South American jungle and end my days reading Dickens to whomever will listen, perfectly content, renounced.

The Risen Christ got down first, followed by the ninth earl who turned and held out a languid hand for Jane. She jumped girlishly into his arms nearly knocking him over, and clung on to him, her skirt dragged up over her thighs. He carried her wriggling to the steps.

Moon found he could not move. His left leg hung without life, sticky in his shoe, and the right was cold and cramped. Taking all his weight on his arms he let himself carefully down into the road. When he let go he fell against the wheel. His left sleeve was torn and blood was running down his arm, drying over the back of his hand. The coach heaved and O’Hara’s legs came into view.

‘Here,’ said O’Hara. ‘Here!’

‘No, it’s all right. I want to sit here for a minute.’

He sat with his back against the wheel. Along the pavement on one side the newspaper seller stared at him. On the other side, the roadsweeper, the seller of clockwork spiders and the man with the long moustache peered from separate doorways. In front of him the door of Lord Malquist’s house was being held open by Birdboot who was now dressed in street clothes and carrying a suitcase.

The ninth earl put Jane down.

‘Birdboot!’

‘Good morning, my lord.’

‘What’s this?’

‘There have been developments, my lord.’

‘Indeed?’

‘I’m afraid so, my lord. Sir Mortimer has secured a moratorium on the estate’s debts, and in the meantime the valuers have arrived.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’d better get Sir Mortimer here.’

‘I understand, my lord, he will be calling for her ladyship immediately after the funeral. Sir Mortimer and a Mr Fitch came to see you yesterday evening. Sir Mortimer left after half an hour but it seems he instructed Mr Fitch to remain until you came home. Mr Fitch is in the library, my lord.’

‘And there let him browse.’

But at that moment Fitch appeared behind Birdboot, rumpled and panting.

Enter Messenger,
thought Moon expecting Fitch to kneel down and gasp out some tale of military disaster.

But Fitch collected himself and spoke quite evenly.

‘Lord Malquist?’

‘So I am given to believe, but you catch me at a credulous moment.’

‘Fitch, my lord.’

‘How do you do? My dear, may I present Mr Fitch. Mr Fitch-Mrs Moon. And Mr Christ and (where is he? oh, there you are, old chap) Mr Moon.’

Fitch straightened his tie and nodded cautiously.

Lord Malquist said, ‘Perhaps you would call round later on, Mr Fitch. I have had a debilitating night. Come on, my dear.’

‘Carry me, Falcon,’ said Jane huskily. ‘I want to be carried to your
boudoir.’

Fitch found his tongue.

‘My lord! I have the gravest news – the situation is quite beyond reprieve. An injunction has been served and Sir Mortimer asks me to say that only liquidization of the property—’

The ninth earl went up two steps and addressed Fitch severely.

‘You may instruct Sir Mortimer that I let them have Petfinch
but I’m damned if I can be expected to exist without a house in town.’

‘I’m sorry, my lord, but if you had cut your coat to suit your cloth—’

‘You are not my tailor, Fitch, thank God.’

‘I mean your conduct—’

‘My conduct has been one of modesty and self-denial. May I refer you to Sir George Verney who went about everywhere in a coach-and-six flanked by two six-foot Negroes blowing on silver horns.’

And the ninth earl moved Fitch aside with his stick and went into the house. Jane ran after him, followed more hesitantly by the Risen Christ.

Birdboot picked up his suitcase and with an air of finality walked off up the road.

Exit Butler.

Fitch came down the steps looking worried as ever.

‘Good day, my lord,’ he said to Moon, stepping over his legs.