Death’s Jest-Book

Then I picked up my towel and retreated.

You see how I’m putting myself in your hands, my dear Mr Pascoe. A confession to assault and grievous bodily harm occasioning death. For it turned out that Brillo had a surprisingly thin skull for so thick a man, and there was damage which led to a tardily diagnosed meningeal problem which led to his demise. You could probably get an investigation going even after all this time. Not that I think the authorities at the Syke would applaud you. They went through the motions at the time, but brother Dendo who couldn’t bring himself to co-operate with the Law even in circumstances like these, lost it when one of the screws dissed his dead brother and broke his jaw.

That got him out of the way for which I was mightily relieved. Of course all the cons knew what had happened, but in the Syke no one grassed without Polchard’s say-so, and as there was a touch of negligence in Brillo’s death, the screws were glad to bury him and the affair, very few questions were asked.

That was stage one. Polchard too probably wasn’t sorry to see the back of the Brights, but there were plenty of people around who would be happy to do Dendo a favour, so I still needed the top man’s protection.

So to stage two.

At the next period in the parlour, I approached his table and stood at what I’d worked out was the appropriate petitioning distance.

He ignored me completely, not even glancing up under his bushy eyebrows. Conversation and activity went on elsewhere in the room but it had that hushed unreal quality you get when people are simply going through the motions.

I studied the chessboard as he worked out his next move. He’d obviously started with an orthodox Queen’s Pawn opening and countered it with a variation on the Slav defence. Playing yourself is a form of exercise by which the top-flight chess-player can keep his basic skills honed, but the only real test, of course, lies in pitting them against the unpredictability of an equal or superior player.

Finally after what must have been twenty minutes and with only another five of the association period left, he made his move.

Then, still without looking up, he said, ‘What?’

I stepped forward, picked up the black bishop and took his knight.

The room went completely silent.

Leaving the knight open to the bishop was a trap, of course. One which he’d laid for himself and would therefore not have fallen into. But I had. What he needed to know now was, had I done it out of sheer incompetence, or did I have an agenda of my own?

At least that’s what I hoped he needed to know.

After a long minute, still without looking up, he said, ‘Chair.’

A chair was thrust against the back of my legs and I sat down.

He spent the remaining period of association studying the board.

When the bell went to summon us back to our cells he looked me in the face for the first time and said, ‘Tomorrow.’

And thus I moved out of the first, which is the most dangerous, stage of my prison career, Mr Pascoe. If I’d just sat around rehearsing revenge on yourself, I would by this point probably have been raped, possibly mutilated, certainly established as everyone’s yellow dog, to be kicked and humiliated at will. No, I had to be pragmatic, deal with the existing situation as best I could. Which is what I’m doing now. I make no bones about it. I no longer want to be constantly glancing back over my shoulder, fearful that you are out there, driven to pursue me by your own fears.

Perhaps one day we may both come to recognize that flying from a thing we dread is not so very different from pursuing a thing we love. If and when that day comes, then I hope, dear Mr Pascoe, that I may see your face and take your outstretched hand and hear you say,

Jesus bloody Christ!’ said Peter Pascoe.

‘Yes, I know it’s that time of year,’ said Ellie Pascoe who was sitting at the other side of the breakfast table looking without enthusiasm at a scatter of envelopes clearly containing Christmas cards. ‘But is it fair to blame a radical Jewish agitator for the way western capitalism has chosen to make a fast buck from his alleged birthday?’

‘The cheeky sod!’ exclaimed Pascoe.

‘Ah, it’s a guessing game,’ said Ellie. ‘OK. It’s from the palace saying the Queen is minded to make you a duchess in the New Year’s Honours list. No? OK, I give up.’

‘It’s from bloody Roote. He’s in Cambridge, for God’s sake!’

‘Bloody Roote? You mean Franny Roote? The student? The short story writer?’

‘No, I mean Roote the ex-con. The psycho criminal.’

‘Oh, that Roote. So what’s he say?’

‘I’m not sure. I think the bastard’s forgiving me.’

‘Well that’s nice,’ yawned Ellie. ‘At least it’s more interesting than these sodding cards. What’s he doing in Cambridge?’

‘He’s at a conference on Romantic Studies in the early nineteenth century,’ said Pascoe, looking at the programme enclosed with the letter.

‘Good for him,’ said Ellie. ‘He must be doing well.’

‘He’s only there because of Sam Johnson,’ said Pascoe dismissively. ‘Here we are. Nine o’clock this morning. Mr Francis Roote MA will read the late Dr Sam Johnson’s paper entitled Looking for the laughs in Death’s Jest-Book. That sounds a bundle of fun. What the hell does it mean?’

‘Death’s Jest-Book? You remember Samuel Lovell Beddoes, whose life Sam was working on when he died? Well, Death’s Jest-Book is this play that Beddoes worked at all his life. I’ve not read it but I gather it’s pretty Gothic. And it’s a revenge tragedy.’

‘Revenge. Aha.’

‘Don’t make connections which aren’t there, Peter. Let’s have a look at the letter.’

‘I’m not finished yet. There’s reams of the bloody thing.’

‘Well, give us the bit you’ve read. And don’t take too long reading the rest. Time and our daughter wait for no man.’

There had been a time when an off-duty Saturday meant a long lie in with the possibility of breakfast or, if he was very lucky, even tastier goodies in bed. But this was before his daughter Rosie had discovered she was musical.

Whether any competent authority was going to confirm this discovery, Pascoe didn’t know. While not having a tin ear, his musical judgment wasn’t sufficiently refined to work out whether the faltering and scrannel notes he could even now hear issuing from her clarinet were much the same as those produced by a pre-pubescent Benny Goodman, or whether this was as good as it got.

But while he was waiting to find out, Rosie had to have lessons from the best available teacher, viz. Ms Alicia Wintershine of the Mid-Yorkshire Sinfonietta, whose excellence was evidenced by the fact that the only session she had available (and that only because another budding virtuosa had discovered ponies) was nine o’clock on Saturday morning.

So goodbye to breakfast in bed, and all that.

But a man is still master in his own head if not his own house, and Pascoe buttered himself another piece of toast and settled down to the rest of Roote’s letter.

Sorry about the hiatus!

I was interrupted by the entrance of a train of porters carrying enough luggage to keep the Queen of Sheba going for a long state visit. Behind them was a small lean athletic man with a shock of blond hair which looked almost white against his deeply tanned skin, whom I recognized instantly from his dust-jacket photos as Professor Dwight S. Duerden of Santa Apollonia University, California (or St Poll Uni, CA, as he expressed it). He seemed a little put out to find himself sharing the Quaestor’s Lodging with me, even though I had modestly chosen the smaller bedroom.

(You will already, I’m sure, have worked out that I’m not the Quaestor – whatever that is – of God’s, but merely a temporary occupant of his rooms during the conference. The Quaestor himself is, I gather, conducting a party of Hellenophiles around the Aegean on a luxury cruise liner. This is a line of work that interests me strangely!)

Professor Duerden and most of his luggage have now finally disappeared into his bedroom. If he intends a complete unpacking, he may be some time, so I shall continue.

Where was I? Oh yes, in the midst of what looks dangerously like becoming a rather tedious philosophical digression, so let me get back to straight narrative.

The following day, I played Polchard to a draw. I think I could have beaten him, but I wouldn’t like to swear to it. Anyway, a draw seemed best for starters.

After that we played every day. At first he always had white but after our third draw he turned the board round and thereafter we alternated. The sixth game I won. There was a moment of cenotaph silence in the room, only more in anticipation of sacrifice than remembrance of it, and as I made my way back to my cell, men who’d become quite friendly over the past couple of weeks drew away from me. I paid no heed. They were thinking of Polchard as King Rat, I was thinking of him as Grand Master. There’s no fun playing someone not good enough to beat you, and less in playing someone who’s good enough but too scared. My long-term survival plan depended on establishing equality.