Absurdity

It was just another routine day – eating porridge oats alone at his small breakfast table, cup of strong coffee to wash it down, leaving the house at 7.30 am – until Officer John Stiles got the call from Sarge to report to Lower City Heights to talk the suicidal man into not splattering his old body onto the dirty grey sidewalk of South East London. He’d dealt with hundreds before, most of which he’d saved, but there was the odd exception – the odd exception like Mr Beckett.

            He woke up at half six, his mouth reeking of the bitter taste of whiskey, as if the blood of a Glaswegian had been strained and siphoned directly into his veins, and showered immediately. He got the call at 7.15: ‘The guy’s name is Samuel, apparently,’ said Sarge, ‘but he told us to call him Mr Beckett – doesn’t like informality. A Ms Rover, on the twentieth storey, called in just after 7 am saying she could hear someone on the roof ranting and raving, and when she opened her sliding doors all she could make out was blah, blah, absurdity, blah, blah, blah, the bleakness of it all, the absurdity, the laughability blah, blah.’ Sarge paused. ‘Get there ASAP, John. We already have two squadrons down there to secure the area. Rendezvous with DS Sturridge. Good luck, John.’

            He left his house as soon as he’d grabbed his coat off the hook and checked the boiler. He drove off at speed in his beige Beamer from his house in Islington, putting his single blue siren on the top of his car to inform the public that he wasn’t some angry scrap metal dealer hurling himself around London on some mob reprisal but was in fact a respectable off-duty member of the London Metropolitan Police Force.

            The sky outside was like lead, like the inside of a rusted kettle, and the ugly grey clouds pocked the heavens as if it were the scabbed over face of some fat greasy teenager. No sun penetrated the clouds, and the iron scaffolding looked like it would last all winter. As he approached the series of high-rises, which rose up like the legs of giant birds dominating a desecrated wasteland of rubble and irregular sprays of greenery, he looked up at the top storeys of the buildings. Hanging from one of the three he could see dangling a pair of legs, indistinct way up there, but he could see they hung limply like the legs of a straw man.

            As he pulled in to park he was met by Detective Superintendent Paul Sturridge, Detective Inspectors Mike Turrington and Michelle Evans, and Detective Constables Peter Wood and Steven Mitchell. ‘Morning, Superintendent,’ said John, locking the car and approaching his colleagues, who were cloaked like death in long black jackets. Two officers stood by a patrol car, staring up at the top floor, one of whom was talking into a two-way radio. ‘Morning, DI Turrington, DI Evans.’ He turned to the DCs. ‘Morning, fellers.’

            ‘John,’ said DI Evans, her thick lips, like full segments of tangerine, mouthing his name, forbidden fruits with erotic connotations, ‘the man’s been up there God knows how long; Ms Rover went to bed at 1 am, so it could’ve been any time after that.’ She paused, giving John just enough time to admire her supple neck, her long blonde hair, her eyes like shimmering horse chestnuts. It had been three years since Karen left him, and it had been two years since he’d had a piece of ass: his last was DI Evans two Christmases previous, but she’d not given him any indication since that she felt anything more for him than the entertaining of a quick drunken grope and a pity shag in the back of the Dog and Duck pub.

            ‘John,’ she continued, summoning his distant gaze, him seeming to stare through her, or into her, ‘Ms Rover is a recent widow: her husband died seven months ago from a heart attack. We sent her round her daughter’s to give her a bit of peace from all this.’

            ‘John,’ DS Sturridge broke in, ‘we’re counting on you to get this feller down. Some hot shot world-famous writer, we’ve been told. We’ve had his literary agents on the blower bellowing commands at us, telling us how much the fucker’s worth and what they’ll do to us if we don’t fix this. They tried to send someone down to talk to him, but the nutter said he wouldn’t talk to anyone from Faber and Faber. He wanted to be left alone to think things over and enjoy the view, he said. Hence why we’ve called you.’

            DS Sturridge stared at Inspector Stiles. ‘Okay,’ said John, ‘I’m ready for this one. Samuel Beckett, you say? The playwright? This must be a dream.’

            ‘It ain’t no dream, son,’ said DS Sturridge. ‘Now when you’re ready head up. We’ll all be waiting down here for the two of you when you come down. You’ve got till 9 am. If you’re not down by then we’ll be changing plans. We don't want to create a scene or alert this to the press. Here, take this,’ he said, as he handed him a radio. ‘Do not stay out of radio contact, okay? Give us any important updates as and when they arise.’

            ‘Sir,’ said John, as he pocketed the radio. He gave a quick salute to them as he headed towards the entrance. ‘Boys,’ he said to the two officers guarding the entrance to the flats. He entered the lobby and paused briefly to decide which of the two elevators to take. He pressed the right buzzer and waited for it to descend to the ground floor.

*****

The elevator climbed the shaft slowly until it reached the terminus of the twentieth storey, crunching to a mechanical silence with a start. The doors shuttered open and John stepped out from the dimly lit space out into a dimly lit, grimy hall, a large bay window to his right overlooking the sordid grey sweep of South-East London brick-top and tarmac. Next to the lift there was a door with a lock broken off its hinge, and on this door was printed the phrase MAINTENANCE ENTRANCE – DANGER: ROOF ACCESS! STAFF ONLY!

            John forced the door open slightly and climbed the ladder up to a small hatch that opened onto the roof terrace. The wind howled its low tones quietly about him, sweeping up his hair. John held his jacket to himself to stop it billowing up, and he fastened it tight for fear of being blown off of the roof, down to ground level with the rest of the grey scum and detritus.

            He could see the back of the man. He walked over to him slowly, his feet gently crunching the gravel. The man turned around and John recognised him immediately: slattern long face and dark serious eyes, his hair a shock of white; he was cloaked in a trench coat, a brown suede suit underneath, and clasping a rosewood pipe in the corner of his mouth, his head topped off with a black hat. There was no mistaking that this man was Samuel Beckett.

            ‘Hello, there,’ said Beckett. ‘You must be the man who’s come to save my poor little soul, I presume?’

            ‘Mr Beckett?’ said John. ‘What a pleasure this is.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he said.

            ‘Oh, go for it,’ said Beckett, rolling up his eyes. ‘It can’t do any harm, can it?’

            ‘That’s my philosophy exactly,’ said John. ‘Care for one?’

            ‘Oh, go on then,’ said Beckett, plucking a Camel from the pack. He tapped the ash from his pipe and put the pipe into his jacket pocket, then searched his pockets for a light.

            ‘Here,’ said John, extending out his Zippo.

            ‘Ah, thanks!’ said Beckett, inhaling a lungful of thick sweet smoke down into his grey and famished body. He held it for a few seconds before releasing the ream of smoke like a blast of fly ash from a chimney.

            John stood there, puffing on the cigarette, pleasurably watching Beckett as he smoked, the routine of his little habit one obviously cultivated since his youth. ‘So tell me, Mr Beckett,’ said John, ‘why are you half hanging over the ledge of a twenty-storey municipal building?’

            Beckett took one last puff before stubbing out the cigarette and flicking it over into the swirling abyss, watching it twirl downwards, little embers sparking off of it. ‘Very astutely observed, Mr?’

            ‘Detective Inspector Stiles,’ he interrupted, ‘but, please, call me John.’

            ‘Ah, John? A real man’s name, wouldn’t you say?’

            John looked humoured by this little non-sequitur.

            ‘Got any kids, John?’ said Beckett.

            ‘Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. Why don’t you answer my question first?’

            Beckett looked taken aback. ‘Why, John, that’s no way to speak to a man on the edge! Haven’t you got any idea of how to comport yourself in such matters? Why, I thought this was your job!’ He smiled up at him wryly. ‘Well, if you must know, John, I just wanted to observe this lovely view.’ He paused, a whimsical look passing over his face. ‘I bet Paris is lovely this time of year. The patisseries, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the various still waterways, the artists chatting deconstruction and Sartre, strong coffee, carefree women. Ever been to Paris?’ he said, nostalgically.

            ‘No, never,’ said John. ‘How long were you there?’

            ‘Oh, just in my youth. The golden days, the good days, the salad days – the whiskey and cigarette smoke days,’ he said, smiling. ‘Everything in France is done to excess!’ he beamed, ‘Unlike here, in this miserable hole of a country.’

            John didn’t know whether he was supposed to take offence at this comment, but he remained neutral. ‘I have two sons and a daughter,’ he said. ‘My youngest lives with his mother,’ the other two are out there in the big wide world doing their own thing. One lives up in Manchester, the other is studying Economics at University College.’

            ‘Oh, yes?’ said Beckett. ‘Sounds great. I’ve heard Manchester is quite the up and coming place.’ He looked back down over the precipice at the little black and white ants and their patrol cars.

            ‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’ said John. ‘If you’ll permit me to be so blunt. It seems a man like you has everything he wants – could ever want for in fact.’

            ‘Kill myself?’ said Beckett. ‘Who said anything about that? If I do it or not, it’s not a conscious choice. I just think the good things have run their course, and now all I can see is absurdity. A wide blank empty absurdity, its cold eyes winking at me wherever I look. But you’re right, I am a lucky man in many ways.’

            ‘Absurdity?’ said John. ‘I’ve heard about your theories on life. Sounds quite depressing, really. Why do you believe everything’s so vacant? Are you a pessimist, Mr Beckett?’

‘A Pessimist? Oh, no! I’ve far too much to do than to couch my thoughts down in such pointless low sentiments! Why dwell in such a mire when there is work to be done?’ He cleared his throat slightly. ‘You see, I believe that absurdity is the sole force operating in this universe that we call the, er –

            ‘Universe?’ interjected the officer.

            ‘Precisely,’ said  Beckett, ‘but to kill oneself would be an admission to it – to absurdity. Do you follow?’

            ‘I think so,’ said the officer, ‘but, pray, please continue.’ John was acutely aware that he was sounding more and more like a caricature of a Shakespearean character, and as they conversed he could sense that Beckett was tiding off any feelings of suicide he’d been entertaining as he was permitted to ramble on, so John permitted him to continue, and as Beckett did so he inched himself closer and closer to him, until he was eventually sitting beside him. He offered him another cigarette, and they both lit up.

            ‘You see, whilst the universe is a pointless mass of stars, the superheated inanimate husks of which emit heat and light until they die pointlessly, are re-birthed pointlessly and so cycle on in such a pointless fashion until the universe winks out its last in a bleak infinite final moment of total death, one has to look on the bright side of things occasionally.’

            ‘As the Pythons said?’ said John, quite disbelieving the fact that he was entertaining the milieu of this man, whom most certainly was either a manic depressive or entirely sideways out-of-his-rocker mad.

            ‘No, snakes can’t talk – don’t be absurd,’ Beckett said bluntly, smiling, his Irish lilt coming through ever so gently with the last word.

            ‘No, the Monty Pythons – you know: Eric Idle, Michael Palin, John Cleese, etc.’

            ‘Oh, I know those fools. Inspired by my work, no doubt! Tell me,’ said Beckett, taking off his hat and looking into it, ‘have you read any of my works?’

            The officer paused to wrack his brains. ‘Well, I once saw a production of Waiting for Godot. I know you’ve written other stuff, but I’ve never really picked any of it up – I don’t get the time now, you see.’

            ‘Oh, Godot, eh?’ said Beckett. ‘There’s something that’s always been a bit of an albatross to me. What did you think of it?’

            ‘Me? Well, I thought it was quite funny, really. Painful in places,' he said, Beckett staring at him unconvinced. 'My wife used to love the arts. She dragged me along to it, if I’m honest with you. If I’m completely blunt, though, I thought it was a load of self-indulgent bullshit. But that’s my attitude to most of the arts. It’s hard to dream big when your day job is to stop the psychologically compromised from messing up council property with their flesh, blood and faeces.’

            Beckett looked amused. ‘Not exactly a patron of the arts then? C'est la fin des haricots! Well, the arts have been going down the toilet in this country for years: nobody cares about them. But without them where would we be? All in the gutter, with no stars to aspire towards.’

            ‘Well, I see your point,’ said John. ‘But if I may change the subject,’ he said, ‘why did you really come up here?’

            Beckett was looking down over the edge at his dangling feet. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘it wasn’t really to admire the view. I think you know that,’ he said. 'I feel this could be my last tape, as it were,' he said, whimsically. He turned his stern features towards John. ‘We are born into circumstances beyond our control, to parents out of our choosing, to a life through which we scamper like subterranean rodents down a network of blank tubes, into a godless and purposeless universe. From birth we slowly run downwards and downwards into the inevitable decay of all living creatures, into the inevitable decay of the universe. Love mistreats us, blinds us, fools us, conjures up apparitions before our eyes and then snatches them away just as we reach out to embrace them, phantoms and ghosts of the heart, and then those we love fall away into death’s arms. And passion? The good go mad, the bad get bolder, the sane fill the asylums, the mad run the stock exchange, the honest are tricked and used, the con men dress up as cherubims and wear their public smiles, the loveless go unloved and unappreciated, and the loved put maggot-ridden apples to the lips of their lovers, and ultimately we all lose the things we adore, eventually craving the grave more than the worm craves the flesh. We die before we are dead, and in dying we merely accept that life is too much of a heavy burden to behold, giving up our bodies to the loam like dandelions their seeds to the wind. We are, in essence, lost children, finding our own way in a dark world, with the cradle on one side, death on the other, and great fields of sorrow and ecstasy all about us.’

            John looked at Beckett with a heavy expression writ across his brow. ‘And you believe that?’ he said, not really bearing in mind that final sentiment.

            Beckett nodded gravely.

            A dark sentiment was throwing down roots inside John, curling them around something solid deep down there and gaining purchase. He thought about his children, most of whom didn’t care when or whether they saw him, and he thought about his ex-wife Karen, and he thought about his future, looming ahead of him like a huge grey cloak covering his eyes, and when that cloak was removed there was only a behemoth gravestone, etched in grey marble, with the word FIN printed upon it. John stood up, looked down at Samuel, and then paused. He looked over the edge of the building, down at his colleagues, teasing one foot over the edge and letting it hang out there. Then John looked back to Beckett, gave a nervous smile, and jumped.

*****

            Beckett watched, tilting his head down over the precipice, as John descended. The police officers down below craned their necks and gasped watching as the figure plummeted, his jacket billowing out like smoke behind him. Air rushed up into his face and he briefly entertained the idea that he was a bird; he could wing himself left or right, up or down - maybe even into the past. Before the terror filled him completely, he pictured his daughter when she was three, her beautiful jade eyes framed in a podgey rosy-cheeked face. The ground rushed up towards him like death's embrace.

Within a few seconds he’d hit the ground, a loud crunching sound issuing out, followed by a sucking sound, like a giant foot had left an impression in sticky mud and then wrenched it out. From up on the twentieth storey, Beckett could see the body, contorted into an inhuman shape on the road. It was mashed up like a pulped novel, bits of spongy flesh scattered like bird feed. His look of horror somehow turned into one of brief amusement, before he suddenly burst out laughing, throwing his head back in a menacing throaty howl that felt like it would wrench up his lungs from out of him.

            But then he looked again, realising that the shape down there, inconsistent with the regular form of a human being, was actually once a man, a man whom had tried to save him, a good man, conceivably. He once had taken his children out into the countryside for picnics, sitting beneath the shade of oaks and willows whilst pointing out red admirals and ladybirds, had bathed them, had offered them consolation when tears filled their eyes; he had made love to his wife, once sharing with her a carnal knowledge of her most intimate secrets and desires, promising never to let things change. And now he was just a sorry spattering of flesh down there on the blacktop.

             There had to be more to life than this, thought Beckett. He looked to the sky but the grey refused to break. Somewhere amidst all the noise and chaos of London, on the roof of a twenty-storey council flat, something absurd was happening: somewhere out there, the human heart of a moribund man was taking a hammer to his skull, trying to break into the thing which had so consumed all the life that once filled him. He gazed out onto the noise and stink of the city, and all at once colour and music seemed to jump out at him from the drab monotone as if the city were once merely a badly sketched outline of a city, printed onto tracing paper. 

He sank to his knees beneath the leaden sky like an idol, like a child ready for communion, like a damned man seeking penance, like a doomed man who'd had the light forced into the tiny black crack of his being from which he once peered out at the world like a frightened crab. And with each breath the world crashed down into him, as if into a gorge, each wave like drowning, each second an eternity of death and rebirth....