Death's Jest-Book (18 page)

I had travelled to Cambridge via
London, spending the night at Linda's flat in Westminster, and,
rather than risk the purgatory of a Sunday train journey, I decided
to take advantage of her kindness again, so that's where I told the
driver to go. The flat is a hangover from the days when Linda was an
MP before she spread her wings and flew to Europe. It's quite small -
a tiny bedroom and a tinier sitting room plus a shower - but
comfortable enough and conveniently placed. So, having a longish
lease, she decided to keep it on as a pied-a-terre. A crone who lives
a troglodyte existence in the basement has charge of the spare key
and, if you're on the list of favoured friends, it provides a nice
central location to lay your head on a visit to town.

On my first visit, the scowling
crone had required three proofs of identity before she would hand
over the key. This time I got a friendlier welcome, but I soon
realized this was down to the pleasure of telling me I was too late,
the flat was already occupied.

That's the trouble with generous
people, they can be so indiscriminate.

I was turning away when she tried
to rub salt in my wounds by making it clear it was no use me dossing
down on a park bench and coming back in the morning.

'It's Miss Lupin's foreign
clerical friend,' she said. 'He'll be staying several days.'

'Not Frere Jacques?' I said. 'Is
he in? I must say hello.'

And I ran up the stairs before
she could reply.

I had to knock twice before
Jacques opened the door. He was clad in slacks and a string vest and
looked a bit ruffled. But he smiled broadly to see me and I stepped
inside without waiting for an invitation. And stopped dead when I saw
he wasn't alone.

There was a young woman sitting
on the solitary armchair.

Now Jacques is a man of
indisputable holiness but also a man, if I am any judge, in whom the
testosterone runs free, and it wouldn't have surprised me to find
that his love of things English included our gorgeous girls.

But the easy way he introduced me
was so guilt-free that I reproved myself for my suspicions, and even
more so when I realized what he was saying.

This lovely young woman regarding
me with an indifference worse than hostility was Emerald Lupin,
Linda's daughter. Even if innate holiness and religious vows weren't
enough to keep the old Adam at bay, surely, being a man of
considerable good sense, Jacques wasn't going to take the slightest
risk of getting up the nose of one of his movement's most influential
patrons!

It occurs to me that I am
assuming in you an at least passing familiarity with the Third
Thought Movement, but in case I'm wrong, let me give you the briefest
of outlines.

To begin at the beginning, which
in this case is the movement's founder, Frere Jacques. He is a
brother of the Cornelians, an Order little known outside the region
of Belgium which contains its sole monastery, L'Abbaye du Saint
Graal. From various sources I gather that Jacques led an active life
as a soldier till he was invalided out of the army seriously wounded
during service in a UN peace-keeping unit. Happily for him, and for
all of us, his birthplace was close by the Cornelian Abbaye and a
relapse necessitated a move to their Infirmary, followed by a long
convalescence in their Stranger House. During this time he
experienced that sense of peace and acceptance of whatever must come
which later he was to formulate into the Third Thought philosophy,
and eventually he presented himself to the monks as a candidate for
admission to their order.

Their vote was unanimous. I say
vote because the Cornelians are peculiar in that all major decisions
are taken by the full brotherhood, one monk, one vote. Indeed they
are a very liberal and democratic Order, which perhaps explains why
Rome not too secretly hopes they will wither on the vine. Their
founder, Pope Cornelius, you will recall, was banished and beheaded
after a bitter doctrinal dispute in which he argued the Church's
capacity to forgive apostates and other mortal sinners. Not much sign
that he'd win the argument today, is there?

Jacques, not unnaturally, had
found himself much preoccupied by death, particularly death
unexpected, which it is, he assures me, even in battle. You always
think it will be the next guy! He himself had grown up in the heart
of the great Flanders killing grounds where it's still not possible
to spend an hour digging in your garden without turning up a button
or a bullet or a piece of bone, and none of this had put him off
joining the army.

But his own close encounter had
been something of an epiphany, and as he worked in the hospice
section of the abbey infirmary, it occurred to him that while the
patients there all knew that the end was in sight and were
preconditioned to try and come to terms with it, for the vast
majority of people, it was a bolt from the blue.

Something happens, we turn out to
be the next guy, and which of us is ready?

What was
needed, he decided, was a kind of hospice of the mind, a state of
life like his own during his stay in the Infirmary and Stranger
House, which admitted rather than ignored death, a condition of mind
like Prospero's when he returned to Milan where, he says,
every
third thought shall be my grave.

Thus was born Third Thought
Therapy, whose aim, simply stated, is to give Death his proper
standing in our lives, even when youth, health, happiness and
prosperity seem to make him an irrelevance. Then whenever he comes,
he will not find us unprepared.

But even Jacques would find it
hard to spare a thought for death in the presence of Emerald Lupin!

I knew Linda had a couple of
daughters, but I suppose I'd pictured them as young clones of Linda
herself. Don't misunderstand me. Though far from conventionally
beautiful, Linda is not unattractive in a formidable way, like one of
those pele towers in the Border country which age and weathering have
given a Romantic cast. In her youth, however, I would guess that
Linda, like a tower newly built, was just plain daunting!

But Emerald . . . How shall I
convey her to you? Think summer, think sunshine, think golden
roses filling the bowers with rich perfume, think soft white doves
tumbling through clear blue air - oh, think whatever you judge
loveliest and liveliest and most desirable in the worlds of flesh and
spirit, and you may get a glimpse of this fair jewel.

Do I sound as if I'm in love?
Perhaps I am. There's a first for everything!

It was explained to me (in too
much detail?) that Emerald too had turned up unexpectedly and found
Jacques in occupation. Being family she did not require the
intermediacy of the crone but had her own key. She had burst in upon
him in mid-toilette, but her natural spontaneity and his Continental
sang-froid had lifted them high above embarrassment and they'd
settled to a debate as to who should vacate the field.

I doubt if Emerald would have had
any qualms about dispossessing me if I'd got there first. But she was
bent on assuring Jacques that London was full of friends gagging to
offer her hospitality. I believed it. Who in their right mind would
turn her away?

Another factor in giving Jacques
possession now appeared in the form of his personal ghost, Frere
Dierick, who was going to bed down in the sitting-room chair. He'd
been out viewing the sights and seemed as unimpressed by them as he
clearly was by sight of me. But the notebook came out of his robe
straightaway to record even the most monosyllabic utterance of his
great guru.

Jacques had come to London to
help promote the English version of his new book propounding the
Third Thought philosophy. He presented me with a copy complete with a
nattering inscription, which I let Emerald see in the hope that she'd
dilute her bad opinion, but she didn't seem impressed. Can't say I
blame her. Authors give away their books like drug barons give free
snorts, hoping to start an expensive addiction.

So it was
settled. Jacques would remain
in situ
while Emerald went off
to a friend's.

'But what about you, Franny?'
said Jacques. 'Perhaps we can squeeze you in here?'

The thought of a night spent in
close proximity to Dierick didn't appeal, so I said that if I hurried
I could execute Plan B, which was catching the last train back to
Mid-Yorkshire from King's Cross.

'I'm heading up to Islington,'
said Emerald. 'I can give you a lift.'

She's warming to me! I thought.
Or she just wants to make sure I catch my train!

I accepted, Jacques said he'd
come along for the ride, Dierick was told firmly by Emerald there
wouldn't be room for him in her small car, and the three of us set
off. On the stairs, I excused myself, saying I'd meant to use the loo
and now it was urgent.

The tiny loo was off the bedroom.
I really did want to use it, believe me, but I couldn't help noticing
as I passed the bed that the coverlet was pretty crumpled. OK, so
Jacques had had a lie-down. I did what I had to do and came out.
Perhaps there is a bit of the detective in me too, Mr Pascoe, which
is why I feel such an affinity with you, but I found myself crouching
to look under the bed. And there I found - I know this sounds squalid
- a used condom! I felt no shock or surprise, only a little envy.

'What are you doing?' asked a
cold voice. I looked up to see Frere Dierick standing over me.

I have no excuse for what I did
then. I should have told a lie about dropping some money or
something. Instead I stood up with the condom between finger and
thumb, pulled open the pocket in his robe where he kept his notebook,
and dropped it in, saying, 'There you go, Dierick. Make sure you put
that in your notes.'

Then I trotted off to join the
others.

At King's Cross, Jacques said he
would see me on to my train. Emerald, illegally parked, had to stay
with the car. Not that she'd have wanted to come anyway, I thought
disconsolately. But to my surprise, as I stooped to say my thanks,
she gave me a peck on the cheek and wished me safe journey.

And as we walked to my platform,
Jacques took the chance to fill me in on Emerald.

I knew no more of Linda's family
background than that she'd once been married to Harry Lupin, the
cut-price airline entrepreneur. After the divorce, Linda got custody
of the two children, Emerald, then aged eight, and her sister
Musetta, seven. (The latter, it seems, takes after her mother. All
the gorgeous genes in the family came Emerald's way.)

Emerald after a couple of years
got fed up of coming second to politics and decided she wanted to
live with Daddy. Six months later, realizing she was now coming third
to business and bimbos, she returned to her mother, and thereafter
shuttled between both parents and the country's top boarding schools,
each of which in turn declared her uncontrollable and ineducable. Now
at twenty she is in her final year at Oxford.

Meanwhile Musetta, known to her
intimates as Mouse, lived down to her sobriquet by keeping very quiet
and only emerging from her nest for food. She's some kind of teacher
in Strasbourg, and, as Jacques put it, working on the principle that
we love most the apple that falls closest to the tree, she is the
pippin of her mother's eye.

Emerald on the other hand seems
to have bounced and rolled a long long way.

Without saying anything which
would have stood up in a court of law, Jacques conveyed a strong
warning that if I wanted to maintain my good relationship with Linda,
I should adopt a rigorous hands-off approach to either or both of her
daughters.

You old hypocrite! I thought,
recalling the condom.

But then I looked into those
bright blue eyes in that most open and attractive of faces, and I
felt ashamed. How could I condemn him for doing what I longed to do?

We embraced with real feeling.
It's been a long time since someone hugged me in that affectionate
familial way. I don't recall my father, and my mother was never a
hugger. But my thoughts as I sat on the train were all of Emerald. I
clung desperately to that final peck on the cheek she'd given me.
Wasn't there something of affection in that too? Perhaps she's
screwing Jacques merely as an act of defiance against her mother?

I needed help, I needed
reassurance. For want of anything else, I dug Jacques' book out of my
bag to see if his words could bring me any peace of mind and body.

I let fate open the pages, and
lo! the first paragraph my gaze fell upon was this.

To say that man must die alone
is a trite and fallacious cynicism. Find if you can a man or woman
-friend, guru, mentor, father-figure, mother-figure, use what term
you will - but someone you can view as the still centre of all your
turbulent thoughts -someone before whom you can pour out unstintingly
and without reserve all your hopes and fears and passions and desires
- and you will have taken a large step towards that peace of mind
which is the end of all our endeavours.

And it hit me, this is what I
have found in you, dear Mr Pascoe! This is what I am doing now,
writing another letter to you on this oh so slow train journey north.
Out there night presses on the grimy window. Lights move by -
traffic, street lamps, urban houses, isolated cottages - all
indicative of human presence, I know, but not of human community; no,
they might as well be will-o'-the-wisps flitting across some dreary
bog for all the comfort they bring. And my fellow passengers, each
cocooned in that private time capsule we enter on a long train
journey, might as well be alien beings from a distant galaxy.

But I have you, and it hardly
matters if I think of you as guru or friend or even, despite your
youth, the father-figure I never knew. What does matter is my
awareness now that whatever my initial motivation in writing, I am
using you as a Third Thought Therapy! I hope you don't mind. Perhaps
you might find it in you to reply to me, or even (dare I ask it),
call round to see me now I'm back in Mid-Yorkshire? Which is where,
incredibly, the Dalek in control of the train intercom system has
just announced that shortly we will be arriving.