Death's Jest-Book (53 page)

It was an interesting trip. I got
the feeling that something has changed for him. Perhaps Frere
Dierick's death has something to do with it. I'm sure the man and the
monk in Jacques must always have been in delicate balance, and with
the removal of that death's head reminder of his commitment to the
life celibate, the man is very much in the ascendancy. He talked of
Emerald, and I have a strong suspicion that in the very near future
he might be contemplating the huge step of changing his vows monastic
for vows marital! (I must confess, shame-faced, that I also for a
moment entertained a very faint suspicion that perhaps Jacques knew
more about the circumstances of Dierick's death than he should do ...
But I soon thrust this aside. Ungrounded suspicions are a mental
cancer. We should trust our friends absolutely, don't you agree, Mr
Pascoe?)

What Linda will make of it, I
don't know. We shall see.

My stay in M-Y was brief, all too
brief, alas, for me to make contact with you. How good it would have
been to see you face to face and get direct assurance of the rapport
I am psychically convinced my letters are building between us. But I
had news of you from one or two common acquaintance, and it was
generally good, though dear old Charley Penn, who'd glimpsed you in
town, thought you were looking just a little bit peaky. Do take care
of yourself, my friend. I know your job necessarily involves
irregular hours and takes you out in all weathers, but you're not
getting any younger and you mustn't let the indestructible Dalziel
overstretch you.

Back to my Great Adventure. At
last I left these clouded hills behind and, after an interminable
passage through fog and filthy air followed by an even longer passage
through the morass of US Immigration, I was greeted by a young god
and goddess wearing baseball caps and beaming smiles (literally
beaming; dear old Apollonia clearly knows how to honour her
devotees!) and waving a banner bearing my name. They turned out to be
Dwight's teenage twins, whom he'd sent to meet me, and all my
troubles seemed to drop away as they led me, blinking, out into the
bright sunshine, and drove me to their lovely home which stands on
stilts rising out of a beach of golden sand running down to the deep
deep blue of the Pacific ocean. Stout Cortez, I get the message, man!

I spent the first couple of days
relaxing and acclimatizing in the bosom of Dwight's family -not
literally; this was strictly hands-off territory, though the kids'
fondness for skinny-dipping with their friends kept temptation before
my eyes. Happily, despite a pleasant air temperature when the sun
shines, the ocean is still pretty cold at this time of year and that
kept my interest from becoming embarrassing, though maybe Dwight's
sharp eye detected something, for once I'd got over my jet lag and
was ready to strut my stuff before his publishing friends, he
suggested that, now that term was beginning (bit of an earlier start
out here than you were probably used to at Oxford - or was it
Cambridge? I can't recall), it might be more convenient if I had a
room on campus. Nice to think even a modern West Coast liberal
academic dad keeps an eye on his kids' virtue.

Being on campus is great,
especially as I'm occupying one of the faculty guest suites - not
quite as impressive historically as the Quaestor's Lodging at God's,
but a lot more user-friendly -and I've been introduced around as a
distinguished academic visitor. Dwight got me to sit in on a couple
of his classes, then persuaded me to do a seminar on Beddoes' poetry
with a specially selected group of students and a few faculty
members. It went really well and the students seemed to take to
Beddoes in a big way and soon I was getting invitations to talk to
all kinds of groups. Dwight was delighted, so long as they didn't get
in the way of his own programme, whose purpose I quickly gathered was
to do such a good PR job on me that when I finally made my pitch to
the top men at the St Poll University Press, I would make my entrance
on a wave of golden opinion.

I went along with this, did the
parties, pressed the flesh, talked the talk and walked the walk, but
I really got a lot more enjoyment out of being with the students. How
reluctantly do we all admit that we are taking leave of our youth!
With what slow steps and fondly lingering backward glances do we move
onward! When at last you begin to understand the truth of Byron's
lines There's not a joy the world can give ‘ Like that it takes
away' then you know you've started the long goodbye. Being with these
kids reminded me of the way I felt in those few days at Fichtenburg
when I skated and tobogganed and drank sweet coffee and ate cream
cakes with Zazie, Hildi and Mouse, pleasure without responsibility,
time without definition, world without end. Perhaps the cruel
suddenness with which my own student days hit the rocks (yes, yes, my
own fault, no resentment, no reproach!) makes me all the more
desperate to clutch at these straws floating round the wreckage. Did
you ever feel like this Mr Pascoe? You will be well past such
immaturities, I know, but was there ever a time, even after your
marriage perhaps, with your lovely daughter still little more than a
voice and an appetite in swaddling clothes, when you felt a yearning
to be as you had been age eighteen, nineteen, twenty, when nothing
you had now seemed worth the loss of those boundless horizons, that
unfathomable joy? Or even later, when your little girl lay
desperately ill, or when your beloved wife was under threat, did it
ever flash across your mind that if you had known it was going to be
like this, you'd never have given such hostages to fortune?

Probably not. You're not like me,
weak and worldly, though I like to think that in some ways we are
very close. And will be closer, I hope and pray.

Anyway, like I
said, I met with young people and in their company I felt young
again. It is, I think, a canard that American students age for age
know less than European students; but it's certainly true that they
are much more eager to know more! They lapped up what I told them
about Beddoes, and when (because it was easy to move from his
obsession with death to my chosen way of dealing with it) I went on
to tell them about Third Thought, they lapped that up too. They know
nothing of the movement here, it seems, and Frere Jacques' book has
not yet found a publisher in the States. I suspect that America in
general and California in particular is so awash with home-grown
mystic, metaphysical, quasi-religious trends and sects and
disciplines that they don't feel much need to import them! But this
one really appealed, perhaps because I was able to present it in
truly American terms such as, How to live with death and be happy
ever after! Soon we were having regular meetings which always began
(my idea!) with a chorus of 'Happy We!' from
Ads and Galatea.
(The
lyric is, of course, amatory, but this only underlines the
relationship with death that Third Thought aims at. And if my
suspicions about Jacques are right, how apt!) Then I'd read a passage
from my copy of Jacques' book, and soon photocopied extracts were
being passed around like
samizdat
literature in the Soviet
Union. It made me realize that, do what we will with technology,
there is no substitute for direct human contact. Soon the word spread
around the campus, aided by the new in-greeting between initiates -
Have a nice death!
(One of mine too. Though I confess it owes
not a little to Beddoes' jest of leaving champagne to drink his death
in'.)

A spin-off of this was, by the
time I was finally summoned to make my pitch to the Uni Press people,
rumours of Third Thought had reached their ears too and they seemed
as interested in Jacques' book as they were in mine (or rather Sam's,
though the way Dwight had sold it, my part loomed disproportionately
large, because, as Dwight put it when I made some mild protest,
'You're hot, breathing, and here!')

Anyway, they were very interested
in both books, and by the time we'd finished talking, they'd made an
offer on Beddoes and wanted to get in touch with Jacques. I got
straight on the phone to Linda, who was delighted, and she got
Jacques to ring me, and the upshot is I have been given full
authority to act as I see best on both their behalves.

So there it is. Triumph. I came,
saw, overcame. But I don't feel I can take any credit. Recently I
seem to be on a roll. Question is, who's loading the dice? Initially
I approached Third Thought in a pretty sceptical frame of mind. It
was interesting, but no more interesting than a whole lot of weird
metaphysical stuff I'd been into in my teens, with the disincentive
it didn't throw in sex or drugs as part of the deal! Linda's
involvement gave me a reason for sticking with it, but the more I've
had to do with Frere Jacques, the more I've come to believe that
there really might be something here for me.

I'm not certain where you stand
on religion, Mr Pascoe. Somehow I can't see your good lady . . . but
there I go, making assumptions. Bad habit. It really would be great
to talk to you about this, and so many other matters, face to face
some time. In the past our meetings have always had - how shall I put
it? - a legal agenda. But over the past few weeks as I've been
writing to you, I've had such a strong sense of us coming together
that I have to believe, or at least very much hope, that you have
felt this too.

So perhaps when I get back to
Mid-Yorkshire we can meet and by the fire help waste a sullen day, or
something? Please.

By the way, Dwight has told me to
make full use of the mail services open to senior faculty members, so
I'll send this off Express Delivery, otherwise I could get home
first!

See you soon!

Yours ever, Franny

P.S.
I really do like St Poll. Much more my kind of place than plashy old
Cambridge! I've taken the chance whenever possible of drifting off by
myself and strolling the streets - yes, it's that rarity in American
towns, a place where you can actually walk for miles without exacting
the interest of the local constabulary! So much to see. It's got big
modern shopping malls, of course, but away from these, lots of small,
very individual outlets survive, delis with delicious food, antique
shops where you can still unearth a bargain, and bookshops ranging
from the uni store where you can enjoy a coffee and a bagel as you
read, to lovely atmospheric second-hand and antiquarian dealers.

By one of
those coincidences which make life such fun, I was peering in the
window of one of these when it dawned on me the name was familiar. I
searched my memory and drifted back to that evening at God's when
Dwight assured poor Dean Albacore that he knew a book dealer in St
Poll who could put a price on anything, even something as priceless
as a copy of Reginald of Durham's
Vita S. Godrici.
His name
was Fachmann. Trick Fachmann. And that was the name I was looking at!

On a whim I went inside and
introduced myself.

What a
fascinating man he is. Transparently thin with piercing bright eyes,
he comes across as so erudite, so scholarly, and at the same time so
worldly wise. Only in America do I think you could find such a
combination. I know the UK academia is full of would-be Machiavels
-Albacore was such a one - but Mr Fachmann could at the same time
have been a medieval ascetic and the modern
consigliore
to
some great Mafia godfather.

I told him how
come I'd heard his name, and I made enquiry, just to amuse myself,
whether he could justify Dwight's boast and put a price on an
original copy of Reg of Durham's
Vita S. Godrici.
Without
hesitation he said, 'No problem.' I said, 'So what might it be?' He
said, 'That depends whether I'm selling or buying.' I laughed, but he
said, ‘I’m not joking. There's a market for everything.
There's two kinds of possession. The common one is the conspicuous.
When you've got it, baby, flaunt it! The other is private, when you
both possess and are possessed by an object. You don't need the world
to know as long as you know you've got it.'

I said, 'And
you know the market?' to which he replied with a smile, 'Know
of
it.
To use it would of course be illegal. It's like any other
market, full of bustle and stallholders shouting their wares. That
amuses you? Listen, any movement of antiquities of any kind anywhere
and ears prick. It's like the stock exchange. Movement means
availability. I know antique dealers round here who get a dozen
enquiries every time the Getty down at Malibu makes a purchase.
There's some big deal just gone down for some Brit collection. Once
it's in the Getty, forget it. But to get here it's got to be on the
move, so the market stirs.'

I presume he meant the Elsecar
Horde, which us who live in Yorkshire know all about. He sounded
serious too, so perhaps you'd better keep your eyes skinned, Mr
Pascoe! (Teaching my grandmother - sorry!)

Anyway, Trick
and I talked at length and I told him all about myself. When I
mentioned Beddoes, he went to his shelves and came back with a copy
of the 1850 Pickering edition of
Death's Jest-Book.
Very few
were produced, even fewer survive. I took it from him and held it,
which was fatal. I felt that burning lust for possession whatever the
cost, which I'm sure a man of culture like yourself must understand.
I did not dare ask the price, but my eyes must have spoken the
question for he said as if we'd been bargaining, 'OK, here's my final
offer. You keep hold of this and send me a signed first edition of
your Beddoes book and of every other book you subsequently produce.
Deal?'

What could I do but stammer my
thanks? I am beginning to discover, as you have always known, that
even in these most wicked and selfish times, there are still to be
found huge reserves of unselfish goodness and loving kindness. Talk
again soon.