The Furnished Room (17 page)

He said: ‘Accident.'

‘Looks like it.'

They pushed through the spectators. A man was sitting on the pavement, propped against the wall, with his legs thrust out stiffly. A piece of wire was twisted into his flesh from forehead to jaw.

Dyce said: ‘Christ!'

Beckett realized that it was not wire, but blood. More blood, bright like Technicolor-film blood, was splashed on the road. Something in the quality of the victim's skin made him know without doubt that the man was dead.

The police arrived and started to disperse the crowd, detaining those who had witnessed the accident.

Beckett and Dyce moved off with the others. They said nothing because there was nothing to say.

They got into the car, but Dyce did not start it. Instead he asked: ‘You haven't got much of a moral code, have you?'

Beckett was still thinking of the accident, and had to adjust his thoughts. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Just what I say. You have no morals.'

‘If you want a serious answer; most Westerners are conditioned to the Christian habit of classifying actions into good and bad, right and wrong. It is possible to throw off this conditioning and to conclude that a life without meaning is a life without morality. One then becomes an amoralist. However, to practise amorality (as apart from holding it in theory) one needs a naturally hedonistic personality, which I myself lack.

‘In fact I find that far from wanting pleasure, I generally have to use my will to force myself to indulge in it. Does that answer satisfy you?'

Dyce started the car. ‘Shall we drive round for a bit? I'd like to put her through her paces for you.'

‘By all means.'

‘Can't get up much speed in London, I'm afraid. This car was made for the M1. However, I'll do my best.'

‘Right.'

‘The reason why I questioned your morality was that I was talking to your friend Wainwright yesterday,' Dyce said. ‘Surprised that I know him? I know many ill-assorted people. He told me that you admired the politically expedient rather than the politically moral.'

‘Yes, I take it for granted that politicians have necessarily to be crooks. It rather shocked Wainwright.'

‘It would.' Dyce had his foot jammed down on the accelerator. The car was now doing an alarming speed. The hood roof was down, and their ensuing conversation was conducted in shouts against the wind. Dyce shouted: ‘There was also your conversation with Georgia. When you told her that this is the age of disbelief, which breeds motiveless crimes, you also said that for a man without belief, any action would be preferable to his present condition.'

Beckett shouted: ‘How do you know about my conversation with Georgia? You haven't seen her since.'

‘I may have got your exact words wrong, but that was the gist of your remark.'

‘How did you know about that conversation?'

‘She's a beaut, this car. Makes me think of all the other things I'd like to have if —'

‘That conversation?'

‘— if my rich aunt kicks the bucket and leaves her favourite blue-eyed nephew some money.' Dyce gave a blast on the horn, and a pedestrian, who had started to cross a Zebra, leapt back to the kerb and angrily shook his fist. Dyce had avoided hitting him by inches.

Beckett shouted furiously: ‘
Will
you answer me?!'

‘Sure ... nearly got that pedestrian ... what are you asking?'

‘I'm asking you how you knew about my private conversation with Georgia.'

‘Oh, that. Jacko told me.'

‘Jacko?'

‘Yes, I got him to follow you,' Dyce said with a delighted grin. He pressed his foot harder on the accelerator, and the car shot through a cross-roads.

Beckett turned on him. ‘Stop laughing. I want an explanation.'

‘Don't threaten me, you idiot, with the car going at this speed. Do you want to crash and kill us both?'

‘Then slow down.'

Dyce decreased the car's speed gradually.

Beckett said with irritation: ‘If you weren't such a damn' fool, you'd know better than to risk getting pinched for speeding in a stolen car.'

They drew up in Tewkesbury Road. Dyce switched off the engine. There was sweat on his forehead. He folded limp arms on the steering-wheel. ‘It's you who's the fool. You nearly crashed us. I didn't realize you had such a bad temper.'

‘On the contrary, I have an easy-going disposition. If people insult me, nothing happens except that some time later I realize I should have been angry. The only thing that enrages me is interference; people trespassing on my privacy. And you have trespassed, by setting that whining little down-and-out to follow me around.'

‘Oh, Jacko. He's lonely. He just wants to serve anyone who will give him a chance. Like a stray dog, licking your hand if you pat him.'

‘I don't want my hand licked.'

‘Who does? But I wanted to find out what sort of man you are. And what I found out, I approve. How would you like to work with me?'

‘Doing what?'

Dyce took a cigarette from his case, and flicked the lighter. ‘Taking a risk. To make some money.'

‘Money?'

‘People think of money as materialism. It isn't. It's a religion. You said life has no meaning. Well, sure, I agree. But we need a meaning, don't we? So we make one for ourselves. You know, dedicate ourselves to a career, or the arts, or a political party. Or to making money. Money's nothing without making it.'

Beckett said: ‘You mean, just as a football trophy is nothing in itself, but only meaningful because it's gained by winning matches?'

‘That's it. The money addict sees life in terms of finance. You like analogies, don't you? Well, it's like a Christian seeing life in terms of a battle between God and Satan; and the Communist lot seeing it in terms of the class struggle. Get me? I look at life through money-coloured spectacles. I see the money like the ether, permeating everything. Collecting in pockets here, banks there, financing industry, changing into power like matter changing into energy. And obtained by wits, work, or violence. There are plenty of mugs who work fixed hours for a wage. They're ignorant of the financial game. They haven't felt its excitement in their veins. Funny thing is, my aunt felt it coursing through her veins. She was born into a poor family... you know that, don't you? We're working-class, the Dyce family… but she was ambitious and unscrupulous. She knew what she wanted and she made sure she got it. Married for money, and when she'd hooked the man, she pushed him by fair means or foul to the top. She was the driving power behind his career. Then when she'd got her money, she hung on to it. Used all sorts of pious maxims as reasons for not sharing the pickings with the rest of the family. Only one she's got a soft spot for is me, because she realizes that I'm another addict who is as unscrupulous as she is.

‘She's a pathetic figure now, poor old bag. One of these widows who put all their money in investments and live meanly on the interest. She's too stingy to repair her house or live decently. She eats scraps, and she's a kleptomaniac. Always pinching worthless trinkets from the local stores.'

Beckett said: ‘I understand your obsession, both with making money and money itself. But to me, money only represents freedom from work. I don't need much money. My tastes are simple and I only want enough to live modestly without having a job.'

‘You're not a money addict, then?'

‘No.'

‘You should be. Everyone should centre their lives on some interest or another. It's a form of self-discipline. Good for you.'

Beckett's curiosity was aroused, so he invited Dyce up to his room. On the stairs Dyce suddenly gripped his wrist, saying: ‘Try and get away from this!' Beckett tried to jerk free, whereat Dyce retaliated by trying to twist his arm.

Finally Beckett broke free of the steel grip. He was rather irritated by Dyce's he-man act and compulsion to engage in duels of strength or willpower. In his room a shaft of sunlight fell across bed, worn carpet, to the blue-and-orange flowers of the wallpaper.

Dyce sprawled in the armchair, his head resting on the damp bath-towel which hung over the chair-back like an antimacassar. ‘I happen to have discovered that my aunt has left her money to me. The trouble is, that she refuses to die. Now her house, occupied only by herself and a deaf female companion, must be quite a good proposition for a burglar. Suppose a burglar did break in and accidentally made a noise which woke my aunt. She might start to scream, and the burglar might, in a panic, kill her.'

Beckett stared at him.

Dyce said: ‘It's a dangerous occupation, being a rich woman.'

‘Is that your proposition? Are you suggesting that I should be that burglar?'

‘The burglar would take a few things of value from the house. But this would only be for form's sake. He would really collect when the will was read, when I, as heir, would share the proceeds with him.'

‘But it's murder,' Beckett said.

Dyce said lightly: ‘Everyone has to die sooner or later.'

Looking at Dyce's face, for a moment he saw it as Ilsa's. The two laughing faces, greedy for excitement and with a childishly undeveloped sense of moral responsibility. He said: ‘You must be crazy.'

Behind the laughter, Dyce's eyes were narrowed, calculating the risk. ‘Sure. And you are, too.' Then he asked: ‘You haven't got any whisky on the premises have you?'

Beckett was silent for a while. Then he returned his attention to Dyce and said: ‘No. There's some beer.' He opened the wardrobe and took out a full bottle from among the empties.

‘No, thanks, old boy. I don't share your plebeian tastes.'

Beckett stood with the bottle in one hand, a cup in the other. It occurred to him, factually and without emotion, that life would never be the same again.

Dyce said: ‘Well, are you interested in my proposition?'

‘Are you seriously arranging the murder of your aunt? Or are you joking?'

‘I'm completely serious.' Dyce guyed: ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.' Then he asked: ‘So what are you going to do about it? Rush round to the police station?'

‘No.'

‘But don't you condemn me as an utter scoundrel?'

‘No, that's meaningless. I never condemn people.'

Leaning forward, Dyce said: ‘Then will you help me? Listen, if she is killed, I, as the heir, may well be suspected. But I will be away at the time, with a genuine alibi. And who will suspect you? Suspicion may fall on known criminals or teenage hoodlums, but not on a quiet young man who spends most of his time shut in his room, bothering nobody. There will be nothing to connect the crime with you.'

‘Apart from the question of risk, I couldn't do it.'

‘There are twenty thousand pounds at stake. Ten thousand each. I always split fifty-fifty, otherwise an exciting adventure degenerates into a sordid squabble, don't you think?'

‘Twenty thousand,' Beckett said. ‘Is that a lot of money?'

‘It's a fair amount, old boy.'

‘I can't conceive an amount larger than a hundred pounds. Up to a hundred I can more or less translate it into goods. But over a hundred is meaningless to me. I don't even know the difference between twenty thousand and two thousand; both sums are too large for me to visualize in terms of buying-power.'

‘You'll soon get the hang of it once you've got the money.'

‘Is it enough to free me from working?'

‘Plenty. You could live on it for the rest of your life. Stay in London with your books, or pack up and wander round the world, living on a comfortable weekly sum.'

‘It's the life I've always dreamed of.'

‘Sure. And why shouldn't you have it? You see through conventional morals. You've said you're an amoralist and an unbeliever. Listen, I don't pretend to be one of these brainy types. As long as I've got enough wits to deal with life, I'm satisfied. But even I can see that unbelief is a blank cheque for action. Whereas you've been living as if it produced paralysis instead of action.'

‘It does. If there is no absolute, there is no meaning. Everything is pointless. And if things are pointless, you don't do them.'

‘All right, you know best. But you aren't going to lie down and give up, are you? Show a bit of fight! Remember that drunken session at the party? You told me that murder would be a violent dynamite to blast the bars of the prison. Well, then, blast the bars! Don't just find excuses for inaction; cure it!'

‘That's just in the field of talk.'

‘Then what do you want to do with your ideas, for Christ's sake? Spout them, so that everyone can admire the mastermind? Look, ideas are useless unless you act on them. But you refuse to act on them. You stick them on a pedestal, and then cover them with a glass case to protect them from the realities of life.'

‘And what do you want to do with them? Twist them to your own advantage, by getting me to murder your aunt so that you can collect her money.'

‘My dear chap, you're quite right. Naturally I'm concerned with my own advantage. If I'm not, who else would be? But in this case, my advantage coincides with your passion for liberation. Besides, you must admit that a share in the money would be useful to you.'

‘Very. It would free me from wasting my time at some boring job.'

‘I'm a scoundrel,' Dyce said. ‘But I have my own sense of honour. I want to work with a man who is above the rabble of common criminals, a man who sees farther than his own grubby hands snatching the pickings. There are any number of miserable little scavengers like Jacko, whining and grovelling for the price of a tea, or five minutes of one's time, or the loan of two bob. Stub out your cigarette and they'll rush for the fag-end to put in their tins. Well, I've lived at that level of poverty before now, but by Christ I did it like a man. I lived as a bum but I didn't become one. And I knew that at any minute I could stop living like a bum if I wanted to, whereas these scavengers have no control, they're bums and they'll always be bums. I can live rich and live skint and it doesn't touch me. But they are just weaklings; they drifted into petty crime and then couldn't get out. I'm an experimenter, I'll choose crime and then when I've learnt all that's necessary from it, I'll experiment with something else, and choose some other way of life. And you would choose as well, you would deliberately choose crime. Not for the same motives as mine, but the point is that we would both be choosers, not drifters.'