Jumpers (10 page)

ARCHIE
: It's always been a mystery to me why religious faith and atheism should be thought of as opposing attitudes.

GEORGE
: Always?

ARCHIE
: It just occurred to me.

GEORGE
: It occurred to you that belief in God and the conviction that God doesn't exist amount to much the same thing?

ARCHIE
: It gains from careful phrasing. Religious faith and atheism differ mainly about God; about Man they are in accord: Man is the highest form of life, he has duties he has rights, etcetera, and it is usually better to be kind than cruel. Even if there is some inscrutable divinity behind it all, our condition for good or ill is apparently determined by our choice of actions, and choosing seems to be a genuine human possibility. Indeed, it is surely religious zeal rather than atheism which is historically notorious in the fortunes of mankind.

GEORGE
: I'm not at all sure that the God of religious observance is the object of my faith. Do you suppose it would be presumptuous to coin a deity?

ARCHIE
: I don't see the point. If he caught on, you'd kill for him, too. (
Suddenly remembering
.) Ah!—I knew there was something!—McFee's dead.

GEORGE
: What?!!

ARCHIE
: Shot himself this morning, in the park, in a plastic bag.

GEORGE
: My God! Why?

ARCHIE
: It's hard to say. He was always tidy.

GEORGE
: But to shoot himself…

ARCHIE
: Oh, he could be very violent, you know… In fact we had a furious row last night—perhaps the Inspector had asked you about that…?

GEORGE
: No…

ARCHIE
: It was a purely trivial matter. He took offence at my description of Edinburgh as the Reykjavik of the South.
(
GEORGE
is not listening
.)

GEORGE
:… Where did he find the despair…? I thought the whole
point
of denying the Absolute was to reduce the scale, instantly, to the inconsequential behaviour of inconsequential animals; that nothing could ever be that important…

ARCHIE
: Including, I suppose, death…. It's an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of
crutch
for those who can't bear the reality of God…

GEORGE
(
still away
): I wonder if McFee was afraid of death?
And if he was, what was it that he would have been afraid of: surely not the chemical change in the material that was his body. I suppose he would have said, as so many do, that it is only the dying he feared, yes, the physical process of giving out. But it's not the dying with me—one knows about pain. It's
death
that I'm afraid of. (
Pause
.)

ARCHIE
: Incidentally, since his paper has of course been circulated to everyone, it must remain the basis of the symposium.

GEORGE
: Yes, indeed, I have spent weeks preparing my commentary on it.

ARCHIE
: We shall begin with a two-minute silence. That will give me a chance to prepare mine.

GEORGE
: You will be replying, Vice-Chancellor?

ARCHIE
: At such short notice I don't see who else could stand in. I'll relinquish the chair, of course, and we'll get a new chairman, someone of good standing; he won't have to know much philosophy. Just enough for a tribute to Duncan.

GEORGE
: Poor Duncan… I like to think he'll be there in spirit.

ARCHIE
: If only to make sure the materialistic argument is properly represented.

DOTTY
(
off
): Darling!
(
Both men respond automatically, and both halt and look at each other
.)

GEORGE
: How do I know? You're the doctor.

ARCHIE
: That's true.
(
ARCHIE
moves out of the Study
,
GEORGE
with him; into the Hall
.)
I naturally try to get her to open up, but one can't assume she tells me everything, or even that it's the truth.

GEORGE
: Well, I don't know what's the matter with her. She's like a cat on hot bricks, and doesn't emerge from her room. All she says is, she's all right in bed.

ARCHIE
: Yes, well there's something in that.

GEORGE
(
restraining his going; edgily
): What exactly do you do in there?

ARCHIE
: Therapy takes many forms.

GEORGE
: I had no idea you were still practising.

ARCHIE
: Oh yes… a bit of law, a bit of philosophy, a bit of medicine, a bit of gym…. A bit of one and then a bit of the other.

GEORGE
: You examine her?

ARCHIE
: Oh yes, I like to keep my hand in. You must understand, my dear Moore, that when I'm examining Dorothy I'm not a lawyer or a philosopher. Or a gymnast, of course. Oh, I know, my dear fellow—you think that when I'm examining Dorothy I see her eyes as cornflowers, her lips as rubies, her skin as soft and warm as velvet—you think that when I run my hands over her back I am carried away by the delicate contours that flow like a sea-shore from shoulder to heel—oh yes, you think my mind turns to ripe pears as soon as I press——

GEORGE
(
viciously
): No, I don't!

ARCHIE
: But to us medical men, the human body is just an imperfect machine. As it is to most of us philosophers. And to us gymnasts, of course.

DOTTY
(
off; urgently
): Rape! (
Pause.) Ra
——!
(
ARCHIE
smiles at
GEORGE
,
and quickly lets himself into the Bedroom, closing the door behind him.
The
BEDROOM
lights up. The dermatograph and the lights have
been put away. The bed is revealed as before
,
DOTTY
is sobbing
across the bed
.
BONES
standing by as though paralysed. A wild slow smile spreads over his face as he turns to
ARCHIE
,
the smile of a man
pleading
, ‘It's not what you think.'
ARCHIE
moves in slowly
.)

ARCHIE
: Tsk tsk… Inspector, I am shocked… deeply shocked. What a tragic end to an incorruptible career…

BONES
:… I never touched her——

ARCHIE
: Do not despair. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement….
(
GEORGE
has returned to the study
.)

GEORGE
: How the hell does one know what to believe?
(
Fade out on Bedroom, to
BLACKOUT
.
The
SECRETARY
has taken down the last sentence
.)

GEORGE
: No, no——(
Changes mind
.) Well, all right. (
Dictating
.) How does one know what it is one believes when it's so difficult to know what it is one knows. I don't claim to
know
that God exists, I only claim that he does without my knowing it, and while I claim as much I do not claim to know as much; indeed I cannot know and God knows I cannot. (
Pause
.) And yet I tell you that, now and again, not necessarily in the contemplation of polygons or new-born babes, nor in extremities of pain or joy, but more probably ambushed by some quite trivial moment—say the exchange of signals between two long-distance lorry-drivers in the black sleet of a god-awful night on the old Ai—then, in that dip-flash, dip-flash of headlights in the rain that seems to affirm some common ground that is not animal and not long-distance lorry-driving—then I tell you I
know
—I sound like a joke vicar, new paragraph.
(
The light is fading to a spot on
GEORGE
,
sufficiently to put the Hall and Front door into blackout if they are not black already
.) There is in mathematics a concept known as a limiting curve, that is the curve defined as the limit of a polygon with an infinite number of sides. For example, if I had never seen a circle and didn't know how to draw one, I could nevertheless postulate the existence of circles by thinking of them as regular polygons with numberless edges, so that an old threepennybit
would be a bumpy imperfect circle which would approach perfection if I kept doubling the number of its sides: at infinity the result would be the circle which I have never seen and do not know how to draw, and which is logically implied by the existence of polygons. And now and again, not necessarily in the contemplation of rainbows or new-born babes, nor in extremities of pain or joy, but more probably in some quite trivial moment, it seems to me that life itself is the mundane figure which argues perfection at its limiting curve. And if I doubt it, the ability to doubt, to question, to
think
seems to be the curve itself.
Cogito ergo deus est. (Pause
.) The fact that I cut a ludicrous figure in the academic world is largely due to my aptitude for traducing a complex and logical thesis to a mysticism of staggering banality. McFee never made that mistake, never put himself at risk by finding mystery in the clockwork, never looked for trouble or over his shoulder, and I'm sorry he's gone but what can be his complaint? McFee jumped, and left nothing behind but a vacancy.
(
There is a delicious unraped laugh from
DOTTY
in the dark.
The Study light comes on again; only the Bedroom is blacked as
GEORGE
strides out of the Study; then the Bedroom is lit
.
ARCHIE
and
DOTTY
are sitting at the trolley eating a very civilized lunch
.
BONES
has gone
.)

DOTTY
: I must say, I do find mashed potatoes and gravy very consoling.
(
GEORGE
enters without knocking
.)

GEORGE
: I'm sorry to interrupt your inquiries——
(
He looks round for the Inspector
.
ARCHIE
smoothly takes a silver-backed notebook from his pocket, and a silver pencil from another
.)

ARCHIE
: When did you first become aware of these feelings?

DOTTY
(
gaily
): I don't know—I've
always
found mashed potatoes and gravy very consoling.

GEORGE
: Where's the Inspector?

ARCHIE
: The inquiries have been completed. Did you want him?

GEORGE
: Well no…. As a matter of fact, I came to ask you…
Vice-Chancellor, about the Chair of Logic.
(
GEORGE
is unsettled by the lunch-party atmosphere. Nothing about
ARCHIE
or
DOTTY
suggests that there is anything unusual
about it. They continue to eat and drink
.)

ARCHIE
: Yes?

GEORGE
: You probably have had very little time to think about
McFee's successor….

ARCHIE
: The appointment to the Chair of Logic is of course a matter for the gravest consideration. We've always been a happy team and I shall be looking for someone who will fit in, someone with a bit of bounce.

GEORGE
: Yes. Well, it just seemed to me that as the senior professor——

ARCHIE
: The oldest——

GEORGE
: The longest-serving professor——

ARCHIE
: Oh yes.

GEORGE
: Well, Logic has traditionally been considered the senior Chair….

ARCHIE
(
pause
): Yes, well, there you are; you have made your request. But I'm not too happy about your Ethics.

GEORGE
: I'm not seeking any favours——

ARCHIE
: No, no, I mean Ethics has always been your department—what will happen to Ethics?

GEORGE
: There's no conflict there. My work on moral philosophy has always been based on logical principles, and it would do no harm at all if the Chair of Logic applied itself occasionally to the activities of the human race.

ARCHIE
: Yes… yes…. But you see, the Chair of Logic is considered the leading edge of philosophical inquiry here, and
your
strong point is, how shall I put it, well, many of the students are under the impression that you are the author of
Principia Ethica
.

GEORGE
: But he's dead.