The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (31 page)

INSPECTOR
: I know, and you weren’t marvellous either, but when in Rome
parlezvous
as the natives do. Actually, I thought you were better on the radio.

‘LADY MACBETH
’: I haven’t been on radio.

INSPECTOR
: You’ve been on mine.
(
To the general audience the
INSPECTOR
says.
) Please don’t leave the building. You may use the lavatory but leave the door open.
(
To
MACBETH.)
Stunning! Incredible! Absolutely fair to middling.

‘MACBETH
’: You were rubbish!

INSPECTOR
: Look, just because I didn’t laugh out loud it doesn’t
mean I
wasn’t enjoying it
. (
To
HOSTESS
.) Which one were you?

HOSTESS
: I’m not in it.

INSPECTOR
: You’re in it, up to here. It’s pretty clear to me that this flat is being used for entertaining men. There is a law about that, you know.

HOSTESS
: I don’t think
Macbeth
is what was meant.

INSPECTOR
: Who’s to say what was meant? Words can be your friend or your enemy, depending on who’s throwing the book, so watch your language. (
He passes a finger over the furniture
.) Look at this! Filthy! If this isn’t a disorderly house I’ve never seen one, and I have seen one. I’ve had this place watched you know.

HOSTESS
: I know.

INSPECTOR
: Gave themselves away, did they?

HOSTESS
: It was the uniforms mainly, and standing each side of the door.

INSPECTOR
: My little team. Boris and Maurice.

HOSTESS
: One of them examined everyone’s papers and the other one took down the names.

INSPECTOR
: Yes, one of them can read and the other one can write. That’s why we go around in threes—I have to keep an eye on those bloody intellectuals.

‘MACDUFF
’: Look, what the hell do you want?
INSPECTOR
: I want to know who’s in tonight.
(
He looks at a list of names in his notebook and glances over the audience.
)

HOSTESS
: They are all personal friends of mine.

INSPECTOR
: Now let’s see who we’ve got here. (
Looking at the list.
) Three stokers, two labourers, a van-driver’s mate, janitors, street cleaners, a jobbing gardener, painter and decorator, chambermaid, two waiters, farmhand…. You seem to have cracked the problem of the working-class audience. If there isn’t a catch I’ll put you up as a heroine of the revolution. I mean, the counter-revolution. No, I tell a lie, I mean the normalization—Yes, I know. Who is that horny-handed son of the soil?
(
The
INSPECTOR
points his torch at different people in the audience.
)

HOSTESS
: (
Looking into the audience.
) Medieval historian …
professor of philosophy … painter …

INSPECTOR
: And decorator?

HOSTESS
: No … lecturer … student… student… defence lawyer… Minister of Health in the caretaker government…

INSPECTOR
: What’s he doing now?

HOSTESS
: He’s a caretaker.

INSPECTOR
: Yes, well, I must say a column of tanks is a great leveller. How about the defence lawyer?

HOSTESS
: He’s sweeping the streets now.

INSPECTOR
: You see, some went down, but some went up. Fair do’s. Well, I’ll tell you what. I don’t want to spend all day taking statements. It’s frankly not worth the candle for three years’ maximum and I know you’ve been having a run of bad luck all round—jobs lost, children failing exams, letters undelivered, driving licences withdrawn, passports indefinitely postponed—and nothing on paper. It’s as if the system had a mind of its own; so why don’t you give it a chance, and I’ll give you one. I’m really glad I caught you before you closed. If I can make just one tiny criticism … Shakespeare—or the Old Bill, as we call him in the force—is not a popular choice with my chief, owing to his popularity with the public, or, as we call it in the force, the filth. The fact is, when you get a universal and timeless writer like Shakespeare, there’s a strong feeling that he could be spitting in the eyes of the beholder when he should be keeping his mind on Verona—hanging around the ‘gents’. You know what I mean? Unwittingly, of course. He didn’t know he was doing it, at least you couldn’t prove he did, which is what makes the chief so prejudiced against him. The chief says he’d rather you stood up and said, ‘There is no freedom in this country’, then there’s nothing underhand and we all know where we stand. You get your lads together and we get our lads together and when it’s all over, one of us is in power and you’re in gaol. That’s freedom in action. But what we don’t like is a lot of people being cheeky and saying they are only Julius Caesar or Coriolanus or Macbeth.
Otherwise we are going to start treating them the same as the ones who say they are Napoleon. Got it?

‘MACBETH’
: We obey the law and we ask no more of you.

INSPECTOR
: The law? I’ve got the Penal Code tattooed on my whistle, Landovsky, and there’s a lot about you in it. Section 98, subversion—anyone acting out of hostility to the state … Section 100, incitement—anyone acting out of hostility to the state … I could nick you just for acting—and the sentence is double for an organized group, which I can make stick on Robinson Crusoe and his man any day of the week. So don’t tell me about the laws.

‘MACBETH’
: We’re protected by the Constitution …

INSPECTOR
: Dear God, and we call you intellectuals. Personally I can’t read that stuff. Nobody talks like that so it’s not reasonable to expect them to live like it. The way I see it, life is lived off the record. It’s altogether too human for the written word, it happens in pictures … metaphors… A few years ago you suddenly had it on toast, but when they gave you an inch you overplayed your hand and rocked the boat so they pulled the rug from under you, and now you’re in the doghouse … I mean, that is pure fact. Metaphorically speaking. It describes what happened to you in a way that anybody can understand.
(
BANQUO,
henceforth
CAHOOT,
howls like a dog, barks, falls silent on his hands and knees.
)

INSPECTOR
: Sit! Here, boy! What’s his name?

‘MACBETH’
: Cahoot.

INSPECTOR
: The social parasite and slanderer of the state?

CAHOOT
: The writer.

INSPECTOR
: That’s him. You’re a great favourite down at the nick, you know. We’re thinking of making you writer in residence for a couple of years; four if you’re a member of a recognized school, which I can make stick on a chimpanzee with a box of alphabet bricks. (
Smiles
) Would you care to make a statement?

CAHOOT
: ‘Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all As the weird sisters promised…’

INSPECTOR
: Kindly leave my wife’s family out of this.

CAHOOT
: ‘… and I fear
thou playedst most foully for’t …’

INSPECTOR
: Foul… Fair… which is which? That’s two witches: one more and we can do the show right here.

CAHOOT
: ‘… Yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity …’

INSPECTOR
: If you think you can drive a horse and cart through the law of slander by quoting blank verse at me, Cahoot, you’re going to run up against what we call poetic justice: which means we get you into line if we have to chop one of your feet off. You know as well as I do that this performance of yours goes right against the spirit of normalization. When you clean out the stables, Cahoot, the muck is supposed to go into the gutter, not find its way back into the stalls. (
To
ALL
generally.
) I blame sport and religion for all this, you know. An Olympic games here, a papal visit there, and suddenly you think you can take liberties with your freedom … amateur theatricals, organized groups, committees of all kinds—listen, I’ve arrested more committees (
to
’BANQUO’)
than you’ve had dog’s dinners. I arrested the Committee to Defend the Unjustly Persecuted for saying I unjustly persecuted the Committee for Free Expression, which I arrested for saying there wasn’t any—so if I find that this is a benefit for the Canine Defence League you’re going to feel my hand on your collar and I don’t care if Moscow Dynamo is at home to the Vatican in the European Cup.
(
‘BANQUO’
growls.
)
What is the matter with him?

‘MACBETH
’: He’s been made a non-person.

INSPECTOR
: Has he? Well, between you and me and these three walls and especially the ceiling, barking up the wrong tree comes under anti-state agitation. I’m not having him fouling the system let alone the pavements just because he’s got an identity crisis.

‘MACBETH’
: Your system could do with a few antibodies. If you’re afraid to risk the infection of an uncontrolled idea, the first time a new one gets in, it’ll run through your system like a rogue bacillus. Remember the last time.

INSPECTOR
: (
Pause.
) Yes. Well, a lot of water has passed through the Penal Code since then. Things are normalizing nicely. I expect this place will be back to normal in five minutes … Eh? Nice Dog! Well, I wonder what the weather’s like outside … (
Moves
) Please leave in an orderly manner, and don’t cheek the policeman on the way out.
(’Phone rings. He picks it up … listens, replaces it.
)
Cloudy, with a hint of rain.
(
He exits.
He leaves. The police car is heard to depart with its siren going.
)