Brothers of the Head by Brian Aldiss Page A

everyone said, so on. Then—
    N.S.: Yeah, well you know some people just can’t keep their mouths shut. We could have managed everything fine—
    J.J.L.: I was saying, Laura begins frankly, then suddenly there’s a point she sort of closes down. Suddenly there’s a funny sentence, like ‘Following this conversation, I proceeded to the studio to see the damage.’ Something of the sort. Conveys the impression she suddenly went impersonal and doesn’t wish to commit herself to what really went on.
    N.S.: Why should she? You’ve got to stick together, people will lie themselves blind. Look, I’ve got no kicks against Laura Ashworth—
    J.J.L.: Excuse me but you do sound prejudiced.
    N.S.: I’m not against anyone in this world. I’ve managed football teams in my time, live and let live I say. She was a good girl and nice-looking too, even if she did kind of stir things up. She kept them occupied, the Bang-Bang I mean. But the things she did, I’m no toffee-nose, right, but she wouldn’t want to tell it, spell it all out, couldn’t expect her to. We knew what was going on, but you wouldn’t want me to say it either, not over TV, a family show, we all knew about it, I know the way things are. Everyone says they were musical geniuses, so what if they were kooky as well, let’s leave it at that. It’s all over now, isn’t it?
    J.J.L.: Then perhaps we might talk about the drugs aspect, and the Japanese stun gun.
    N.S.: Okay, we had a violence problem. Barry was the dangerous one. Tom was quiet enough. You know what I mean. So we had to calm him down, Barry. The stun gun’s harmless. There isn’t a strait-jacket made that would fit Siamese twins, so we gave him sweet dreams instead.
    J.J.L.: My understanding is that the stun gun is a development of the EEG, the electro-encephalograph, capable of switching the brain’s activity from about ten cycles to one cycle per second, thus thrusting the victim into deep sleep. It’s an illegal instrument in the West.
    N.S.: About that … It never hurt him. See, if you injected Barry with something to lay him out, they’d both be out cold because their blood circulation circulated between them, see what I mean. We had to do something before he bust up the joint, what do you expect us to do? You know what Laura called me? An uncouth something. But I was the guy who got in close. Twice I had a black eye. He laid me out cold. He was possessed when he took off that Barry, real bonkers. He laid me out cold. She got some sort of a hold over them, okay, I let her borrow the gun occasionally – she put him out cold with it when it suited her purpose.
    J.J.L.: An emotional hold over them?
    N.S.: You know what I mean. Sex. That was all she was after. Put Barry out cold, have it off with Tom.
    J.J.L.: And on the occasion when Barry regained consciousness while that was happening, there was presumably another row until she accommodated him as well?
    N.S.: Look, I don’t want to stir things up. Let sleeping dogs lie. Your guess is as good as mine.
    J.J.L.: But you are making certain imputations against Laura Ashworth. It couldn’t be, Nick, that this is prejudice speaking and that she was not guilty of such behaviour? There are rumours that in Dervish’s day Laura was the victim of a mass-rape in which your name was involved. She hardly sounds the Lady Dracula type to me.
    N.S.: Look, I don’t want to … Look, who’s stirring things … I said she was a sweet girl, din’ I? What’s past’s past, that’s my motto, and I s’pose that Paul Day’s been shooting off his mouth again, Jesus. It doesn’t matter now, does it? We’re talking about history. It wasn’t my job to stand outside their bedroom door like a bloody sentry, was it? I didn’t want to know. I was their manager, not a wet nurse, don’t forget.
    J.J.L.: You had your orders from