The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (19 page)

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Authors: Tom Stoppard

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MADDIE
: … ationalism.

WITHENSHAW
: That’s it. You see you’re improving all the time.

ALL
: Oh yes … getting the hang of it …

MCTEAZLE
: Amendment, Mr. Chairman. (
He scribbles on a piece of paper
.)

WITHENSHAW
: Yes, Mr. McTeazle.

MCTEAZLE
: After ‘sensationalism’ insert ‘through a degrading obsession with dirty linen among the Pecksniffs of Fleet Street’. (
He hands paper to
MADDIE
.)

WITHENSHAW
: I don’t think these unnatural practices are very …

MCTEAZLE
: He’s a character in
Dombey and Son

WITHENSHAW
(
lying):
I am well aware he’s a character in
Dombey and Son
.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Chuzzlewit.

WITHENSHAW
(
with spirit):
Chuzzlewit yourself, Cockie.
Amendment put. Favour?

ALL
(
except
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
): Aye.

WITHENSHAW
: Against.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: No.

WITHENSHAW
: Amendment stands. Paragraph now reads——

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Amendment, Mr. Chairman.

WITHENSHAW
: Yes, Mr. Cocklebury-Smythe.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Before the words ‘and a cynical pursuit
etcetera’ insert the words ‘in some cases, possibly’.

WITHENSHAW
: Amendment put. All in favour?

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Aye.

WITHENSHAW
: Against?

ALL
(
except
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
): No.

WITHENSHAW
: Amendment fails. (
To
MADDIE
.) Paragraph now reads …

MADDIE
(
reading from the draft):
‘Paragraph 4. Your Committee also had before them a large assortment of press cuttings on this and related matters (appendix C). Your Committee did not feel that any purpose would be served by calling all the authors of these articles, which were in any case frequently anonymous or pseudonymous, and invariably uncorroborated (
reads from her notebook
) and actuated by malice and a cynical pursuit of cheap sensationalism (
reads from paper passed to her by
MCTEAZLE)
through a degrading obsession with dirty linen among the Pecksniffs of Fleet Street. I’m sitting on your slip. (
To
MCTEAZLE.)
Sorry.

MCTEAZLE
(
looking at the others):
A slip—just a slip.

WITHENSHAW
: The question is put that the paragraph stand as
part of the report.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Division, Mr. Chairman.

WITHENSHAW
: Division, Committee divided.
Mr. Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAIN
: Aye.
(
MADDIE’
s
hand has gone up
.)

WITHENSHAW
(
to
MADDIE)
: The Com-mit-tee div-id-ed.

MADDIE
: … divided. Then what do I do?

WITHENSHAW
: Then you draw a line down the middle. (
The
CHAIRMAN
goes to the blackboard and draws a line down the middle and generally demonstrates on the blackboard. But he spells ‘noes’ as ‘Nose’
.) You write ‘ayes’ up there on the left and ‘noes’ up there on the other side and when I call out their names you write them down on one side or the other, according to what they say.
Mr. Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAIN
: Aye.

WITHENSHAW
: Mrs. Ebury.

MRS. EBURY
: Aye.

WITHENSHAW
: Mr. McTeazle.

MCTEAZLE
: Aye.

WITHENSHAW
: Mr. Cocklebury-Smythe—National Union of Journalists.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: No—I have to make a living in my spare
time too, you know.

WITHENSHAW
: Three—one.

MADDIE
: Just like the football results.

WITHENSHAW
(
warmly):
Just like the football results. Isn’t it?

ALL
: Oh yes … so it is … what a good thought ….

WITHENSHAW
: Paragraph 4, read and agreed to. Mr. Cocklebury-Smythe, M.P., N.U.J.; dissenting.
Paragraph 5.

MADDIE
: You don’t need all these paragraphs, you know …

WITHENSHAW
: ‘Your Committee …’

MADDIE
: You’re just playing into their hands.
(
WITHENSHAW
glares at her
.) It’s just my opinion.

WITHENSHAW
: Paragraph 5. ‘Your Committee …’

MCTEAZLE
(
to
MADDIE)
: Whose hands?

WITHENSHAW
(
to
MCTEAZLE)
: For God’s sake——

MADDIE
: The press. The more you accuse them of malice and inaccuracy, the more you’re admitting that they’ve got a right to poke their noses into your private life. All this fuss! The whole report can go straight in the waste-paper basket. All you need is one paragraph saying that M.P.s have got just as much right to enjoy themselves in their own way as anyone else, and Fleet Street can take a running jump.

WITHENSHAW
: Miss Gotobed, you may not be aware that the clerk traditionally refrains from drafting the report of a Select Committee.

MADDIE
: And anyway, there’s no malice in it. You’ve got that
wrong, too.

WITHENSHAW
: Paragraph 5!

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: She’s quite right, of course. It’s simplistic
to speak of malice.

WITHENSHAW
: Smart alec-paragraphs about innocent tripe-and-onions with titian voluptuaries?—if that’s not malice I don’t know what is.

MADDIE
: They only write it up because of each other writing it up. Then they try to write it up
more
than each other—it’s like a competition, you see.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
(
puzzled):
A free press is competitive naturally …

MADDIE
: No, the
writers
. They’re not writing it for the people, they’re writing it for the writers writing it on the other papers. ‘Look what I’ve got that you haven’t got.’ There don’t have to be any
people
reading it at all so long as there’s a few journalists around to say, ‘Old Bill got a good one there!’ That’s what they’re doing it for. I thought you’d have worked that out by now.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE (I
taken aback)-
: Not really.

MADDIE
: You see, you don’t know the first thing about journalism.
(
ALL
laugh at
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE. MADDIE
stands up—unfolds one of the newspapers on her desk and holds it in front of her, between her and the Committee so that it obscures her skinless, slipless state of undress from the Committee but not from the audience. She walks to the front of the committee table. The Committee react to the photograph on the paper facing them
.)
The
pictures
are for the people.

ALL
: Strewth!
(
The door opens to admit
MR. FRENCH,
who enters and hangs up his coat. As the Committee look at him
,
MADDIE
turns and returns to her desk, folding the newspaper
.)

CHAMBERLAIN
: Hello, French.

FRENCH
(
to
CHAIRMAN,
without seeing
MADDIE
): Mea maxima culpa.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Merde.

WITHENSHAW
: All present and correct. (
To
MADDIE
.) Amend list of members present.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
(
to
MADDIE
): French …

MADDIE
(
to
FRENCH
): Enchantée …

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: No … no … Mr. French, Miss Gotobed.

FRENCH
: How do you do, so sorry to interrupt. (
Looking at the blackboard
.) What’s that? (
He sits down. He has a white silk handkerchief showing in his breast pocket and he uses this to wipe his brow. He does this once or twice during the scene
.)

WITHENSHAW
: A blackboard. No … No … I was just…
(
He looks round for something to wipe the board but there’s nothing to hand so he takes the underpants out of the brief case and uses them
.)… our clerk, Miss Gotobed, has been assigned to this Committee on the recommendation of I think you-know-who——

FRENCH
: Who?

MADDIE
: Fanshawe.

WITHENSHAW
:—need I say more? Her experience of committee work is not extensive and I was just explaining one or two of the finer points.

FRENCH
: Of course.

WITHENSHAW
: Well, as I was saying on that last Division
Cocklebury-Smythe is under the ‘noes’.

MCTEAZLB
: Pecksniff. Chuzzlewit.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Yes——

MCTEAZLE
: Sorry.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Not at all.
(
The
CHAIRMAN
has hurriedly wiped the board clean and is putting his underpants back into his brief case
.)

FRENCH
: What is
that?

WITHENSHAW
: Pair of briefs.

FRENCH
: What are they doing in there?

WITHENSHAW
: It’s a briefcase. Paragraph 5.

FRENCH
: What stage are we at, Mr. Chairman?

WITHENSHAW
: Second reading of the draft report, Mr. French.

FRENCH
: When was the first reading?

WITHENSHAW
: Haven’t you gone through it?

FRENCH
: Yes. Last night.

WITHENSHAW
: That’s when it was. Do you really want me to go through the whole thing again? It’s pure formality.

FRENCH
: That may be so, but there is a way of doing things, and if we’re not going to do them in that way let it be shown in the proceedings of this Select Committee that the Committee voted on that point.