hannah: Don't call me darling.
Bernard: Dickhead, then, is it likely that the man Chater calls his friend Septimus Hodge is the same man who screwed his wife and kicked the shit out of his last book?
hannah: Put it like that, almost certain.
chlo?: (Earnestly) You've been deeply wounded in the past, haven't you, Hannah?
hannah: Nothing compared to listening to this. Why is there nothing in Byron's letters about the Piccadilly reviews?
Bernard: Exactly. Because he killed the author.
hannah: But the first one, The Maid of Turkey', was the year before. Was he clairvoyant?
chloE: Letters get lost.
Bernard: Thank you! Exactly! There is a platonic letter which confirms everything - lost but ineradicable, like radio voices rippling through the universe for all eternity. 'My dear Hodge - here I am in Albania and you're the only person in the whole world who knows why. Poor C! I never wished him any harm - except in the Piccadilly, of course - it was the woman who bade me eat, dear Hodge! - what a tragic business, but thank God it ended well for poetry. Yours ever, B.-PS. Burn this.'
valentine: How did Chater find out the reviewer was Byron?
Bernard: (Irritated) I don't know, I wasn't there, was I? (Pause. To hannah) You wish to say something?
hannah: Moi?
chloE: I know. Byron told Mrs Chater in bed. Next day he dumped her so she grassed on him, and pleaded date rape.
Bernard: (Fastidiously) Date rape? What do you mean, date rape?
hannah: April the tenth.
57
(BERNARD cracks. Everything becomes loud and overlapped as BERNARD threatens to walk out and is cajoled into continuing.)
Bernard: Right! - forget it!
hannah: Sorry-
Bernard: No - I've had nothing but sarcasm and childish interruptions -
valentine: What did I do?
Bernard: No credit for probably the most sensational literary discovery of the century -
chloE: I think you're jolly unfair - they're jealous, Bernard -
hannah: I won't say another word -
valentine: Yes, go on, Bernard - we promise.
BERNARD: {Finally) Well, only if you stop feeding tortoisesl
valentine: Well, it's his lunch time.
Bernard: And on condition that I am afforded the common courtesy of a scholar among scholars -
hannah: Absolutely mum till you're finished -
BERNARD: After which, any comments are to be couched in terms of accepted academic -
hannah: Dignity - you're right, Bernard.
Bernard: - respect.
hannah: Respect. Absolutely. The language of scholars. Count on it.
(Having made a great show of putting his pages away, BERNARD reassembles them and finds his place, glancing suspiciously at the other three for signs of levity.)
Bernard: Last paragraph. 'Without question, Ezra Chater issued a challenge to somebody. If a duel was fought in the dawn mist of Sidley Park in April 1809, his opponent, on the evidence, was a critic with a gift for ridicule and a taste for seduction. Do we need to look far? Without question, Mrs Chater was a widow by 1810. If we seek the occasion of Ezra Chater's early and unrecorded death, do we need to look far? Without question, Lord Byron, in the very season of his emergence as a literary figure, quit the country in a cloud of panic and mystery, and stayed abroad for two years at a time when Continental travel was unusual and dangerous. If we seek his reason - do we need to look far?
58
(No mean performer, he is pleased with the effect of his peroration. There is a significant silence.)
hannah: Bollocks.
chlo?: Well, I think it's true.
hannah: You've left out everything which doesn't fit. Byron had been banging on for months about leaving England - there's a letter in February -
BERNARD: But he didn't go, did he?
hannah: And then he didn't sail until the beginning of July!
Bernard: Everything moved more slowly then. Time was
different. He was two weeks in Falmouth waiting for wind or something -
hannah: Bernard, I don't know why I'm bothering - you're arrogant, greedy and reckless. You've gone from a glint in your eye to a sure thing in a hop, skip and a jump. You deserve what you get and I think you're mad. But I can't help myself, you're like some exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff, and I have to do something. So listen to me. If Byron killed Chater in a duel I'm Marie of Romania. You'll end up with so much fame you won't leave the house without a paper bag over your head.
valentine: Actually, Bernard, as a scientist, your theory is incomplete.
Bernard: But I'm not a scientist.
valentine: (Patiently) No, as a scientist-
BERNARD: (Beginning to shout) I have yet to hear a proper argument.
hannah: Nobody would kill a man and then pan his book. I
mean, not in that order. So he must have borrowed the book, written the review, posted it, seduced Mrs Chater, fought a duel and departed, all in the space of two or three days. Who would do that?
BERNARD: Byron.
hannah: It's hopeless.
Bernard: You've never understood him, as you've shown in your novelette.
hannah: In my what?
BERNARD: Oh, sorry - did you think it was a work of historical
59
revisionism? Byron the spoilt child promoted beyond his
gifts by the spirit of the age! And Caroline the closet
intellectual shafted by a male society! valentine: I read that somewhere -hannah: It's his review. Bernard: And bloody well said, too!
(Things are turning a little ugly and Bernard seems in a mood
to push them that way.)
You got them backwards, darling. Caroline was Romantic
waffle on wheels with no talent, and Byron was an
eighteenth-century Rationalist touched by genius. And he
killed Chater. hannah: (Pause) If it's not too late to change my mind, I'd like
you to go ahead. Bernard: I intend to. Look to the mote in your own eye! - you
even had the wrong bloke on the dust-jacket! hannah: Dust-jacket? valentine: What about my computer model? Aren't you going
to mention it? Bernard: It's inconclusive. valentine: (To hannah) The Piccadilly reviews aren't a very
good fit with Byron's other reviews, you see. hannah: (To Bernard) What do you mean, the wrong bloke? Bernard: (Ignoring her) The other reviews aren't a very good fit
for each other, are they? valentine: No, but differently. The parameters -Bernard: (Jeering) Parameters! You can't stick Byron's head in
your laptop! Genius isn't like your average grouse. valentine: (Casually) Well, it's all trivial anyway. Bernard: What is? valentine: Who wrote what when ... Bernard: Trivial? valentine: Personalities. Bernard: I'm sorry - did you
