Death’s Jest-Book

‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘Don’t quite follow.’

‘No? I’m simply letting you know what a great respect I’ve got for your mental capacities, dear boy.’

I said, ‘That’s very flattering, but you hardly know me.’

‘On the contrary. You and I are long acquainted and I know all your ways.’

He looked down at me from his height, eyes twinkling like distant stars.

And suddenly I was there.

J.C. to his readers. Justinian to his acquaintance. Justin to his friends.

And to his wife, Jay.

I said, ‘You’re Amaryllis Haseen’s husband.’

It seems so obvious now. Probably you with your fine detective mind got there long before me. But you can see how the revelation bowled me over, especially as I’d spent so much time earlier today raking up that bit of my past for your benefit. Nothing is for nothing in this life, so Frère Jacques preaches. The past isn’t another country. It’s just a different part of the maze we travel through, and we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves re-entering the same stretch from a different angle.

Albacore was spelling things out.

‘My wife developed a very high opinion of your potential, Franny. She says that in terms of simple academic cleverness you are bright enough to hold your own in most company. But she also detected in you another kind of cleverness. How did she put it? A mind fit for stratagems, an eye for the main chance, nimble of thought, sharp in judgment, ruthless in execution. Oh yes, you made a big impression on her.’

I said, ‘And on you too, from the sound of it.’

‘Hardly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was amused when she told me how you neatly got her in a neck lock. But at the time I was on my way from the ghastly wasteland of South Yorkshire back to God’s own college, and apart from a little chortle at the idea of dear Sam Johnson being landed with a cunning convict as a PhD student, I never gave you another thought. Not of course till I heard about poor Sam’s sad demise. Couldn’t make the obsequies myself, but a friend described the dramatic part you played in them, and I thought, hello, could that be that chappie whatsisname? Then I heard that Loopy Linda had appointed you as Sam’s literary heir or executor or some such thing, which was when I asked Amaryllis to dig out all her old case notes.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t just read her book,’ I said.

He shuddered and said, ‘Can’t stand the way she writes, dear boy. Subject matter is generally tedious and her style is what I call psycho-barbarous. In any case, it’s the marginalia of her case notes that make the most interesting reading. Unless she is wrong, which she rarely is, you are someone I can do business with.’

‘The business being the redistribution of Sam Johnson’s Beddoes research,’ I said.

‘There. I knew I was right. No need to soft soap a supple mind.’

‘No? Then why do I feel so well oiled?’ I wondered. ‘The Q’s Lodging, all these flattering introductions.’

‘Samples,’ he said. ‘Simply samples. When you’re getting down to a trade-off, you have to give the man you’re trading with a taste of your wares. You see, I’m very aware that while I know what you have to offer, you may have doubts about what’s in my poke. It’s little enough unless it’s what you want, and then it’s the world. It is this –’

He made a ring master’s gesture which comprehended the quad, and all the buildings around it, and much much more.

‘If it is something you’re not interested in, then we must look for other incentives,’ he went on. ‘But if, as from my brief observation of you in person I begin to hope, this cloistered life of ours, in which the intellect and the senses are so deliciously catered for, and the inhibiting morals kept firmly in their place, has some strong attraction, then we can get down to business straight off. I have influence, I have contacts, I know where many bodies are buried, I can put you on a fast-track academic career, get you on the cultural chat shows, if that is your desire, I can put you in the way of editors and publishers. In short, I can be thy protector and thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side. So, do I judge right? Can we do business?’

This was straight talking with a vengeance. This was complete no-holds-barred honesty, which is always a cause for grave suspicion.

Time to test him out with some of the same.

‘If I want these things you offer,’ I said, ‘what is to stop me getting them for myself? I am, as you acknowledge, bright. I may be, as your wife alleges, ruthlessly manipulative. Your book, I presume, is mainly a reworking of the few known facts of Beddoes’ Continental life, embellished, no doubt, by whatever you were able to lift from Sam before he became aware of your perfidy.’

That hit home, just a flicker of reaction, but I got used to reading flickers in the Syke when not to read them could mean losing a game of chess. Or an eye.

I pressed on.

‘Sam, however, as your interest confirms you know, had tracked down a substantial body of new material in various forms. Wherever your book stood in relation to his, coming before or after, it was always going to stand in the shade.’

I paused again.

He said, ‘And your point is … ?’

I said, ‘And my point is, why should I bargain for what is already within my grasp?’

He smiled and said, ‘You mean, complete Sam’s book yourself, bathe in what would be mainly a reflected glory, then make your own way onward and upward? Perhaps you could do it. But it’s a hard road, and other men’s flowers quickly wilt. I naturally cannot be expected to agree with what you say about my book being in the shade, though what I am certain of is that it will be in the way. But if you can find someone willing to take a punt on a total unknown, then perhaps you should go ahead, dear Franny.’

He knew, the bastard knew, that Sam’s pusillanimous publishers had developed feet so cold they were walking on chilblains.

He saw my reaction and pressed his advantage.

‘How’s your thesis going, by the way? Have you found a new supervisor? Now there’s a thought. Perhaps I could offer my own services? It would mean moving to Cambridge, but if you’re heading high, no harm starting on the upper slopes, is there?’

Perhaps I should have said, get thee behind me, Satan! But any belief I might have had in my own divine indestructibility vanished back at Holm Coultram College when, despite my very best efforts, you managed to finger my collar.

So, please don’t despise me, I said I’d think about it.

I thought about it all evening, paying little attention to the conference sessions I attended and barely picking at the buffet supper that was laid on for us. (There’s a big formal dinner in the college hall tomorrow night, but meanwhile, sherry apart, it’s the appetites of the intellect that are being catered for.)

And I’m still thinking about it now even as I write. Please forgive me if I seem to be going on at unconscionable length, but in all the world there is no one I can talk to so fully and frankly as I can to you.

Time for bed. Will I sleep? I thought I had learned in prison how to sleep anywhere in any conditions, but tonight I think I may find it hard to close my eyes. Thoughts wriggle round my head like little snakes nesting in a skull. What do I owe to dear Sam? What do I owe to myself? And whose patronage was the more precious, Linda Lupin’s or Justin Albacore’s? Which would a wise man put his trust in?

Goodnight, dear Mr Pascoe. At least I hope it will be for you. For me I see long white hours lying awake pondering these matters, and above all the problem of how I’m going to reply to Albacore’s offer.

I was wrong!

I slept like a log and woke to a glorious morning, bright winter sunshine, no wind, a nip in the air but only such as turned each breath I took into a glass of champagne. I was up early, had a hearty breakfast, and then went out for a walk to clear my head and still my nerves before I read Sam’s paper at the nine o’clock session. I left the college by its rear gate and strolled along beside the Cam, admiring what they call the Backs. The Backs! Only utter certainty of beauty allows one to be so throwaway about it. Oh, it’s a glorious spot this Cambridge, Mr Pascoe. I’m sure you know it well, though I can’t recall whether you’re light or dark blue. This is a place for youth to expand its soul in, and despite everything, I still feel young.

I didn’t see Albacore until I arrived in the lecture theatre a few minutes before nine and saw his cunicular nose twitch with relief. He must have been worrying that his ‘straight talk’ last evening had been too much for my weak stomach and I’d done a runner!

He’d arranged for me to have a plenary session and every chair was taken. He didn’t hang about – perhaps recognizing more than I did at that moment just how nervous I was – but introduced me briefly with, mercifully, only a short formal reference to Sam’s tragic death, while I sat there staring down at the opening page of my lost friend’s paper.

Its title was, ‘Looking for the Laughs in Death’s Jest-Book’.

I read the first sentence – In his letters Beddoes refers to his play Death’s Jest-Book as a satire: but on what? – and tried to turn the printed words into sounds coming from my mouth, and couldn’t.

There was a loud cough. It came from Albacore, who had taken his place in the front row. And next to him, looking up at me with those big violet eyes I recalled from our sessions in the Syke, was his wife, Amaryllis Haseen.

Perhaps the sight of her was the last straw that broke what remained of my nerve.

Rising from my chair was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. I must have looked like a drunk as I walked the few steps to the lectern. Fortunately it was a solid old-fashioned piece of furniture, otherwise it would have shaken with me as I hung on to it with both hands to control my trembling. As for my audience, it was as if they were all sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool and I was trying to see them through a surface broken by ripples and sparkling with sun-starts. The effort made me quite nauseous and I raised my eyes to the back of the lecture theatre and stared at the big clock hanging on the wall there. Slowly its hands swam into focus. Nine o’clock precisely. The distant sound of bells drifted into the room. I lowered my eyes. The swimming-pool effect was still evident, except in the case of one figure sitting in the middle of the back row. Him I could see pretty clearly with no more distortion than might have come if I’d been looking through glass. And yet I knew that this must be completely delusional.