The Moors Last Sigh

skipper is working late on account of national happenings,’ he said furiously. ‘Wait on and I will inquire.’ And after some moments he returned and jerked an enraged thumb towards the inner lair.
    Mainduck was working by the yellow light of a single Anglepoise lamp. His large bespectacled head was half-illuminated, half in darkness; the great bulk of his body merged with the night. Was he alone? Hard to be sure. ‘Hammer, Hammer,’ he croaked. ‘And how have you come tonight? As your father’s emissary, or a traitor to his fucked-up cause?’
    ‘Messenger,’ I said. He nodded. ‘Then, deliver.’
    ‘For your ears only,’ I told him. ‘Not for microphones.’ Many years ago Fielding had spoken admiringly of the American President Nixon’s decision to bug his own office. ‘Guy had a sense of history,’ he’d said. ‘Guts, too. Everything on the record.’ I’d pointed out that these tapes had helped to terminate his presidency. Fielding pooh-poohed the objection. ‘What I say cannot undo me,’ he proclaimed. ‘My ideology is my fortune! And one day the kiddiwinks will study my statements at school.’
    Therefore: not for microphones . He grinned from ear to ear, looking, in his pool of light, more Cheshire Cat than frog. ‘You remember too damn much, Hammer,’ he chided me fondly. ‘So come, come, my dearie. Whisper sweet nothings in my ear.’
    I had grown old, I worried as I walked over to him. Maybe the old KO punch had gone. Give me the strength , I prayed to nothing in particular: to Aurora’s ghost, perhaps. One last time. Let me still have my hammer-blow . The green frog-phone stared up at me from his desk. God, I hated that phone. I bent towards Mainduck; who flung out his left hand, at high speed, caught me by the hair at the nape of my neck, and jammed my mouth into the left side of his head. Off-balance for a moment, I realised with some horror that my right hand, my only weapon, could no longer reach the target. But as I fell against the edge of the desk, my left hand – that same left hand which I had had to force myself, all my life, and against my nature, to learn how to use – collided, by chance, with the telephone.
    ‘The message is from my mother,’ I whispered, and smashed the green frog into his face. He made no sound. His fingers released my hair, but the frog-phone kept wanting to kiss him, so I kissed him with it, as hard as I could, then harder, and harder still, until the plastic splintered and the instrument began to come apart in my hand. ‘Cheap fucking gimmick item,’ I thought, and put it down.

    How Lord Ram slew the fair Sita’s abductor, Ravan, King of Lanka:
Still the dubious battle lasted, until Rama in his ire
Wielded Brahma’s deathful weapon flaming with celestial fire!
Weapon which the Saint Agastya had unto the hero given ,
Winged as lightning dart of Indra, fatal as the bolt of heaven ,
Wrapped in smoke and flaming flashes, speeding from the circled bow ,
Pierced the iron heart of Ravan, laid the lifeless hero low  …
Voice of blessing from the bright sky fell on Raghu’s valiant son ,
‘Champion of the true and righteous! now thy noble task is done!’
    How Achilles slew Hector, Patroclus’ killer:
Then answered Hector of the flashing helm ,
His strength all gone: ‘I beg thee by thy life ,
Thy knees, thy parents, leave me not for dogs
Of the Achaeans by the ships to eat …’
But scowling at him swift Achilles said:
‘Do not entreat me, dog, by knees or parents .
I only wish I had the heart and will
To hack the flesh off thee and eat it raw ,
For all that thou hast done to me! there lives
None who shall keep the dogs away from thee …
 … but dogs and birds shall eat thee utterly.’
    You see the difference. Where Ram had the use of a heavenly doomsday-machine, I had to make do with a telecommunicative frog. And, afterwards, received no heavenly words of congratulation for my deed. As for Achilles: I had neither his innard-munching savagery (so reminiscent, if I may say so, of Hind of Mecca, who gobbled the dead hero Hamza’s heart) nor his poetic turn of phrase. The Achaeans’ dogs, however, did have their local counterparts …
     … After Ram killed Ravan he chivalrously arranged a lavish funeral for his fallen foe. Achilles, much the less gallant of these high heroes, tied Hector’s corpse to his ‘chariot-tail’ and dragged him thrice round dead Patroclus’s grave. As for me: not living in heroic times, I