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‘Ok, but only if you can catch it in your mouth.’
‘Oh, c’mon, you did this last time.’
‘No catch, no fag.’
‘Alright, alright, but throw it underhand this time, don’t just chuck it right at my face like you’re trying to take one of my eyes out.’
‘Ok,’ she said, ‘you ready?’
‘You’ve got to stand up.’
Bob stood up and pushed his lips out like he was trying to do a crude Mick Jagger.
‘Ok,’ she said, ‘you ready?’ She wound her arm up and tossed the cigarette into the air in a large arc, but it fell short and Bob had to run at it as it descended towards the carpet.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ said Martha as he lifted it up, rolled over, and took a zippo lighter with the words BURN, BABY, BURN on it from his back pocket. ‘You’re not allowed - you’ve got to catch one first. Hey!’ she flung another cigarette in his general direction, but by now the first projectile was already lit. He arranged himself in a cross-legged position on the floor once again, took a long drag from the cigarette and then flicked the ash into the neck of an empty beer bottle that just seemed to be lying there.
‘I’ve been thinking…’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ Bob, no. Stop right now. Go ye no further.’
‘I was thinking about all those people who go on killing sprees and then commit suicide. Do you think that they were going to commit suicide anyway, and figured that while they’re at it they may as well take out as many other people as possible, or do you reckon they decided to kill the other people first and then realised that once they’d done it the only way out was to commit suicide?’
Martha sighed and sank deeper into the sofa. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘either way it amounts to the same thing.’
‘Yeah, but it’s interesting to know who they wanted to kill most, themselves or other people. It’s interesting to know who’s life was more important to them.’
‘Well, who do you want to kill most then, yourself or someone else?’
‘I don’t particularly want to kill anyone. It’s not the Queen as a person I want to kill, it’s what she stands for. It’s more symbolic than anything else.’
‘But you’re not talking about killing a symbol, you’re talking about killing an actual real, live person. A real live person with a big hat and silly glasses.’
Bob took another drag and blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘The Queen’s not a real person,’ he said, ‘she’s a caricature, an invention, she doesn’t go to the toilet, she doesn’t have periods…’
‘She’s too old to have periods…’ Martha broke in.
‘Yeah, but she never did have periods, she just didn’t. She somehow forced herself not to, it would have been unregal to have all that mess and bother a few days every month. She’s not a real person, she’s a robot.’
‘She is not a robot,’ Martha said, for some reason incensed, ‘she’s just some sweet old lady.’
‘Ok, for starters, she’s not just some sweet old lady, but even if she was, there are thousands of sweet old ladies who die every day and no-one gives a shit about them, why should the Queen be any different?’
‘Because she’s the Queen.’
‘Exactly, and that’s why I want to kill her, because she’s the Queen. I don’t want to kill her because she’s some old lady I want to kill her because she’s the Queen, because she’s important and famous and useless. It’s quite impersonal really.’
‘Well, I don’t believe for one second you’re going to go through with it anyway.’
‘Yes I will, I will go through with it and then you can say you knew me first, you knew me before I was famous and you always knew I was going to be a psychopathic killer.’
Martha got up and walked across to the window, staring out at the swarm of people buzzing out of the underground station on the street below.
‘So are we going clubbing tonight or what?’ she said.
‘No, I told you already.’
‘Well fine then, I’ll just go without you and pick up some sleazy guy while I’m there.’
‘You do what you want girl, I ain’t a-gonna stop ya.’
Martha pressed her forehead up against the glass and sighed again. ‘God, I’m bored. Well let’s at least do something. Jesus, you should do something else on a Friday night other than sit around plotting ways to commit regicide. It’s just not healthy.’
‘We could watch TV.’
‘Watch TV?’ She said, spinning round accusingly.
‘This is Scotland. We’re poor. Apart from getting drunk or watching TV what else are we supposed to do to entertain ourselves?’
‘I don’t know - something.’
Bob frowned, as if in deep concentration. ‘We could go to the cinema I suppose, there’s a good film about child abuse I was wanting to see.’
‘A good film about child abuse?’
‘Yeah, I read a review in the paper, it’s supposed to be really poignant and thought-provoking and all that sort of stuff.’ He finished the cigarette and slipped the filter into the beer bottle, where it slid slowly down the side, before getting stuck halfway. He jiggled the bottle until it came loose and slid the rest of the way to the bottom of the bottle, coming to rest in a brown sludge made up of the ash and a couple of mouthfuls of stale beer.
‘Well, I don’t think a movie about child abuse is really going to be very entertaining.’
‘You didn’t listen to me, it’s not supposed to be entertaining, it’s supposed to be poignant and thought provoking. I think they may even have used the word compelling. Or maybe it was challenging, I forget. Anyway, I’m not going to see some corny Hollywood crap, that much is for sure.’
