No.42

    In ‘Checkmate’ a painter is busy painting a wall when he is approached by Number 6 and Number 53.

   Number 6 “What do you think?” he asks the Rook.

   Upon seeing the two men 42 asks “Something wrong sir”

   “You paint this?” Number 6 asks him.

   “Well yes. If it’s not satisfactory…”
   “Yes?”
   “……..I’ll do it again!” 42 tells Number 6, such is his subservience!
    Well that was a stupid damned question “you paint this?” seeing as the painter is still actually painting the wall! In fact when Number 6 goes back to find the painter later in the episode he’s still painting that same wall. So perhaps there was something wrong with the work after all, that someone was unsatisfied with it, and the painter did have to paint the wall again. Unless of course he was just drawing the job out, making the job last longer than it should!

   The painter number is 42, and you will recall that in the previous episode, ‘Dance of the Dead,’ Roland Walter Dutton’s number was 42. The last we see of Dutton is during the Prisoner’s trial at the Ball. But seeing as the number 42 has been re-assigned to another villager, it appears that Dutton no longer exits! So in that respect it makes perfect sense to re-assign the number, otherwise 42 becomes an inactive number. However it might be thought that the number 42 had been re-assigned perhaps too soon, that the painter doesn’t appear to have the air of a new or recent arrival about him. Yet 42 was one of Number 6’s “reliable men” during that daring escape attempt. However the painter 42 doesn’t appear to have been put back on the chessboard like Number 6, as the Number 42 is once again re-assigned to a young woman with emotional problems. She appears to be in a permanent state of depression, always in tears! But one session with the Social Group soon washes the depression away, and it’s not long before 42 is standing up for herself. She shouts at Number 6, accusing him of trying to disrupt her social progress, which is strange talk for a poet! Well 42’s progress is swift, and is soon co-opted onto the ladies Sub-Appeal Committee, and sees the Citizens who are against Number 6, as being socially conscious citizens who are provoked by the loathsome presence of an unmutual! It could be imagined that this 42 would “get on” in The Village, and so joined the rest of the sheep!

Be seeing you