Hapgood: A Play Read online

  WATES: (To radio) Wates - I need the sweeps.

  (He nods at BLAIR) Paul.

  BLAIR: (Greets him back) Ben.

  RADIO: Sweeps coming up.

  WATES: (To radio) Thank you.

  (He puts the radio in his pocket and, in leaving, speaks to BLAIR without reproof, just information.)

  She blew it.

  (He goes out through the lobby doors. BLAIR takes a radio from his pocket. The scene begins to change.)

  BLAIR: (To radio) Ridley.

  RIDLEY: (On radio) Ridley.

  BLAIR: (To radio) I want Kerner in Regent's Park, twelve o'clock sharp.

  (He puts the radio away and looks at his wrist-watch. The next time he moves, it is twelve o'clock and he is at the Zoo.)

  SCENE 2

  KERNER has been brought by RIDLEY to the Zoo. BLAIR, having checked the time on his watch, nods at RIDLEY to dismiss him. RIDLEY moves out.

  Perhaps we are looking at BLAIR and KERNER through the bars of a cage. There could be a bench, there could be paper cups of coffee...

  The bars make hard-edged shadows. We need one particular and distinct demarcation of light and shadow on the floor, perhaps thrown by the edge of a wall.

  KERNER speaks with a Russian accent, which is not too heavy; in fact, attractive.

  BLAIR: You're blown, Joseph.

  KERNER: I love it. You blew it and I'm blown: well, I'll be blowed. Nobody teaches that, you know. They teach you so you can almost read David Copperfield and then you find out David talks like a language student, he must have been put in as a sleeper.

  BLAIR: Well... you're blowed, Joseph. Your career is over.

  KERNER: Except as a scientist, you mean.

  BLAIR: Yes, that's what I mean.

  KERNER: My career as your man at the Pool.

  BLAIR: Or theirs. Just an observation. The meet at the pool came unstuck this morning. We have to consider you blown as our joe. The Russians must consider you blown as their sleeper. Either way your career is over. Which way, is perhaps an academic question.

  KERNER: And yet, here you are.

  BLAIR: One likes to know what's what.

  KERNER: Oh, you think there's a what's-what? Your joe. Their sleeper. Paul, what's-what is for zoologists: 'Oh yes - definitely a giraffe.' But a double agent is not what's-what like a giraffe, a double agent is more like a trick of the light.

  BLAIR: Joseph -

  KERNER: Look. (He points.) Look at the edge of the shadow. It is straight like the edge of the wall that makes it. This means light is particles: little bullets. Bullets go straight. They cannot bend round the wall and hit you. If light was waves it would bend round the wall a little, like water bends round a stone in the river.

  BLAIR: (Irritated) Yes. Absolutely.

  KERNER: So that's what. When you shine light through a gap in the wall, it's particles. Unfortunately, when you shine the light through two little gaps, side by side, you don't get particle pattern like for bullets, you get wave pattern like for water. The two beams of light mix together and -

  BLAIR: Joseph. I want to know if you're ours or theirs, that's all.

  KERNER: I'm telling you but you're not listening. Now we come to the exciting part. We will watch the bullets to see how they make waves. This is not difficult, the apparatus is simple. So we look carefully and we see the bullets, one at a time. Some go through one gap and some go through the other gap. No problem. Now we come to my favourite bit. The wave pattern has disappeared. It has become particle pattern again.

  BLAIR: (Obliging) All right - why? KERNER: Because we looked. Every time we don't look, we get wave pattern. Every time we look to see how we get wave pattern we get particle pattern. The act of observing determines what's what.

  BLAIR: How?

  KERNER: Nobody knows. Somehow light is continuous and also discontinuous. The experimenter makes the choice. You get what you interrogate for. And you want to know if I'm a wave or a particle. Every month at the pool, I and my friend Georgi exchange material. When the experiment is over, you have a result. I am your joe. But they also have a result: because you have put in my briefcase enough information to keep me credible as a Russian sleeper activated by my KGB control; which is what Georgi thinks he is. So naturally he gives me enough information to keep me credible as a British joe. Frankly, I can't remember which side I'm supposed to be working for, and it is not in fact necessary for me to know. (Pause.)

  BLAIR: It wasn't Georgi today. KERNER: No?

  BLAIR: No, it was different today. KERNER: Today you decided to look. Why was that? BLAIR: Some of your research has turned up in Moscow. Real secrets, not briefcase stuff. KERNER: Tsk, tsk, tsk.

  BLAIR: That's what the Americans said, roughly. KERNER: The one shaving. BLAIR: Mm. Ben Wates, CIA. You'd appreciate him, he makes waves with a Smith and Wesson. KERNER: I'm sorry, Paul.

  BLAIR: (Shrugs) Cousin-trouble is nothing new. This thing with you is trouble, though. Oh yes. If the Evil Empire has a tap into you, that's quite another ballroom as Wates put it -

  KERNER: Ballgame. I think.

  BLAIR: I assure you it wasn't. Ballpark. Anyway, Wates flies in and says, 'I have come from Washington to help you. How about Kerner for a start? Do we know anything about Joseph Kerner?' Well, we do as a matter of fact. He's Russian from Kaliningrad. The Russians put him in as a sleeper years ago but we turned him round and now he's really working for us, they only think he's working for them.

  KERNER: What did he say?

  BLAIR: He said: you guys.

  KERNER: Poor Paul. What happened at the Pool?

  BLAIR: Wates wanted us to abort the meet and put you through the mangle. But Mrs Hapgood insisted you were straight. And she wanted to keep the channel open. She made Wates an offer. She duplicated the contents of your briefcase. So now we had everything twice, in two briefcases. Ridley showed up before you at the Pool -

  KERNER: What is a mangle?

  BLAIR: I'm trying to tell you what happened at the Pool.

  KERNER: You already did. Your Mr Ridley delivered to my Russian control and I delivered where Ridley put his towel. Quite nice. If I'm putting something extra in my briefcase, you get it all back.

  BLAIR: That sort of thing.

  KERNER: And was there something extra in my briefcase?

  BLAIR: No. There was something missing. The computer disc was there but the films were gone.

  KERNER: A puzzle.

  BLAIR: Now we come to the exciting part. Wates had booby-trapped your briefcase. He sprayed the inside with an aerosol can, like radioactive deodorant - did you ever hear of such a thing?

  KERNER: An isotope solution. If I open the briefcase I give a Geiger reading.

  BLAIR: Yes, Wates shakes your hand and he has a counter which goes on the wrist and looks like a Rolex. We're working with people who tried to kill Castro with an exploding cigar. It's a joke shop.

  KERNER: So, did I give a Geiger reading?

  BLAIR: No.

  KERNER: (Pleased) Oh, good.

  BLAIR: We also had a bleep in your briefcase.

  KERNER: A bleep?

  BLAIR: A radio transmitter.

  KERNER: Oh - a bug.

  (BLAIR gives him a look.)

  Sorry. A bleep in my briefcase. Go on.

  BLAIR: Wates tracked the signal all the way to the meet. There the signal died. And the transmitter went missing from the briefcase, which nobody opened. The job was done by Mr Nobody.

  KERNER: Well I'm blown. Blow me for a monkey's uncle. Can I say that?

  BLAIR: I would avoid it. Any thoughts, Joseph?

  KERNER: Mr Nobody put something extra in my briefcase. Then he found out my delivery was going to be intercepted. So he had to take it out again.

  BLAIR: But why remove our rolls of film? He'd only have to takeout what he put in, and we'd be none the wiser.

  KERNER: Obviously because he put in a roll of film and they all look the same; he had to take them all.

  BLAIR: (Pause) Obviously
. By the way do you know anything about twins?

  KERNER: Twins?

  BLAIR: That was the other thing. It wasn't Georgi today, it was twins.

  (KERNER laughs.)

  Yes, that's my favourite bit too. Give it some thought. Will you?

  KERNER: Oh, yes. But excuse me, now it is time for the feeding of the seals.

  (KERNER strolls away, jerking his head at the unseen RIDLEY to follow him. RIDLEY re-enters and follows KERNER out at a comfortable distance.BLAIR stands looking out front. The next time he moves he is on the touch-line of a rugger pitch.)

  SCENE 3

  BLAIR is standing in an open exterior against a grey sky on a cold October afternoon. He is watching thirty eleven-year-old boys playing rugby. This, alas, is not as rich in sound effects as one might think: There is the referee's whistle, there are occasional piping exhortations to 'Heel', 'Drive', 'Shove', and so on, and the occasional sound of the ball being kicked, but much of all this is happening at a distance, and so the general effect is sporadic anyway. Nevertheless it would be nice to work out where BLAIR is before the next thing happens - which is that HAPGOOD comes hurtling crabwise and in full cry along the touch-line. She is shod and dressed for the conditions and is carrying a boy's two-piece tracksuit, the top half of which is perhaps tied round her neck. Her momentum takes her a good way along the front of the stage, passing in front of BLAIR.

  HAPGOOD: Come on, big shove now, St Christopher's! Heel! - break!... well tackled, darling! - I mean, Hapgood - oh, sugar...

  (The match recedes but she always gives it as much attention as she can spare or as she is allowed.)

  Look at their little knees. Don't you love little boys?

  BLAIR: It's never been encouraged in the Service. Which one is he?

  HAPGOOD: The handsome one.

  BLAIR: Oh, yes.

  HAPGOOD: Don't wave.

  BLAIR: I wasn't going to.

  HAPGOOD: I used to wave. He told everyone he was adopted. You are nice wearing the scarf, you don't have to.

  BLAIR: I like the scarf. I wanted to see you -

  HAPGOOD: - wanted to see you -

  BLAIR: - before you see Wates. Washington wants -

  HAPGOOD: Kick! - kick for touch! - oh, sugar! - Tackle!-tackle low...

  (Referee's whistle. Bad news for HAPGOOD.)

  Oh... Bad luck, St Christopher's! Little darlings, they look so cold. Sixteen love.

  BLAIR: Nil. Washington wants us to take Kerner off everything.

  HAPGOOD: What have the Americans got against Kerner?

  BLAIR: Well, this is just an educated guess but I suppose if they're going to spend a hundred million dollars over here on Kerner's SDI research they'd rather he didn't continue swapping briefcases with the high dive champion of the Russian Embassy.

  HAPGOOD: Paul, Kerner is my star.

  BLAIR: Means nothing.

  HAPGOOD: Do you want me to tell you or not? I had six months' work in Kerner's delivery, long-term reflectors on countdown.

  BLAIR: Do talk English.

  HAPGOOD: Disinformation that had to be launched, I couldn't afford to abort the meet just because Washington got into a flap about Kerner.

  BLAIR: You can't blame Washington. Kerner's pure gold, the man with the anti-particle trap, and if he's leaking his own stuff to Moscow we're making it awfully easy for him.

  HAPGOOD: Kerner's all right - I run him and he's just doing what I tell him.

  BLAIR: Wates made the same point. Don't take it personally.

  HAPGOOD: Why would I? It isn't personal.

  (The referee's whistle - the conversion of the try.) Eighteen. Come on, St Christopher's! Lets get one back! This is personal. Everything else is technical. You're personal sometimes; but not this minute which is all right, so what can I tell you? - it isn't Kerner.

  BLAIR: So what happened at the pool? It's a technical question, it almost looks as if you could solve it with pencil and paper: cubicles A, B, C, D, briefcases P, Q, R, find X when the angles are Kerner and the Russian twins, which is a question in itself- are these the famous KGB twins? Now that's what I call a double agent. Who's in charge and is he sane?

  HAPGOOD: I hate it, Paul.

  BLAIR: Yes, why aren't we pleased?

  HAPGOOD: It reeks. The KGB twins are like an old joke that keeps coming back, we've been hearing it for years and I never believed it. And suddenly here they are, identical and large as life. I hate it. (Pause.) But it's about the twins. The answer. I nearly got it, then I lost it.

  BLAIR: Do you want to keep them for a while?

  HAPGOOD: No - chuck 'em out. They're stooges, Paul. The meet this morning went exactly as the Russians planned it, including the arrests. The twins were expendable, they were meant to be seen, they were a success - 'Now he's here, now he's there, oh my God, there's two of them!' Wates nearly cut himself shaving he was so fascinated. He's doing a diagram, on pink paper, showing who was where when, all the coming and going.

  BLAIR: He showed me. Guess who was holding the briefcase when the transmitter went off the air.

  HAPGOOD: Who was?

  BLAIR: You were.

  (Referee's whistle -a try is scored.) Our side isn't doing too well. Well, if it's you I don't care which side traps its particles. Anti-particles. Do you know what they are? They were never mentioned by Democritus who was the pro-particle chap when I was at school.

  HAPGOOD: When a particle meets an anti-particle they annihilate each other, they turn into energy - bang, you understand. You can produce anti-particles in a collider and bottle them in a magnetic field but then you're stuck - the bottle is as big as a barn, and when you open the door you've got a billionth of a second so you have to be quick. If you could slow them down enough to get hold of you'd be in business, and Kerner thinks he can. Do you want me to tell you how?

  BLAIR: You know, I don't really...

  HAPGOOD: (Shouts') Break! Blind!

  BLAIR: ... I gave a chap a job with us once because he said he'd read physics and I thought he meant the book by Aristotle.

  HAPGOOD: Was that last try converted?

  BLAIR: No.

  HAPGOOD: You weren't looking.

  BLAIR: They re-started with a drop-kick.

  HAPGOOD: Joe's worried about something too, we've both got the same look.

  BLAIR: I've lost him again - you can't tell one from the other when they're all in the same get-up.

  HAPGOOD: Once when he was really little, he got unhappy about something, he was crying, he couldn't tell me what it was, he didn't know what it was, and he said, 'The thing is, Mummy, I've been unhappy for years.' He was only as big as a gumboot. (Pause. She freezes, thinking.) Oh... ssh-sugar!-Paul, you just said it.

  BLAIR: What did I?

  HAPGOOD: You can't tell one from the other when they're all in the same get-up. That was what it was. Listen. Ridley's by the pool, Ridley's Russian is getting dressed. Merryweather's Russian arrives. Merryweather follows his Russian in and he follows the other Russian out, and why not? - they're identical and he only saw them one at a time, it could happen to anybody, especially to Merryweather, he probably still doesn't know there were two of them. Now Ridley comes from the pool and the same thing happens to him. He followed one Russian in and he follows the other one out, and why not? - they're identical and he only saw them one at a time. Then he comes back inside and he says, 'You didn't tell me it was twins.'

  (Referee's whistle, a longer one indicating the end of the game.) It's true. I didn't.

  (Distantly the two rugby teams call for three cheers for each other, first for St Christopher's, secondly for St Codron's.)

  BLAIR: So how did he know?

  HAPGOOD: He was expecting twins. I think it's Ridley, Paul. I've left my own back door open. (Clapping) Well played, St Christopher's... bad luck -

  BLAIR: Oh, f-f-fiddle! (JOE enters.)

  HAPGOOD: Hello, darling.

  JOE: Hello, Mum.

  (He is very muddy and glad to see her. His boots
are a size too large.)

  HAPGOOD: Bad luck - well played anyway. Put this on.

  JOE: Thanks.

  (He takes the tracksuit and puts it on. HAPGOOD helps him a little.)

  BLAIR: Hello, Joe. I'm afraid they were rather good, weren't they?

  JOE: Yess'a.

  BLAIR: How are you otherwise?

  JOE: All rights'a, thank-yous'a. We always get beaten. I wish you wouldn't watch, Mum.

  HAPGOOD: Well, I like watching, I don't mind if you get beaten.

  JOE: But nobody watches except you.

  HAPGOOD: There's lots of people watching - look over there.

  JOE: That's the firsts - that's what I mean, nobody watches Junior Colts B-!

  HAPGOOD: I do.

  JOE: I know, Mum -

  HAPGOOD: Well, I won't, then.

  JOE: I like you coming -

  HAPGOOD: I didn't shout this time-

  JOE: You did a bit, Mum.

  HAPGOOD: Hardly at all, whose boots are those?

  JOE: Mine.

  HAPGOOD: No, they're not.

  JOE: Yes they are, I bought them.

  HAPGOOD: Where?

  JOE: From Sandilands.

  HAPGOOD: Who's Sandilands?

  JOE: He's had his kidney out so he does art.

  HAPGOOD: Oh. How much?

  JOE: A pound.

  HAPGOOD: A pound? What was wrong with yours?

  JOE: I lost one.

  HAPGOOD: You lost a rugby boot?

  JOE: Yes. Well, not exactly, I mean I haven't got any rugger boots.

  HAPGOOD: (Irked) Of course you have, what were you playing in before?

  JOE: My running shoes - it doesn't matter, nobody minds -

  HAPGOOD: You mean you never had any rugby boots?

  JOE: Only this term, Mother -