Mystical Paths (15 page)

VII

‘
...
and I realised,’ I said, ‘when Katie fainted at the prayer-session, that she was in a very bad way, but it wasn’t until I saw Marina this afternoon that I understood exactly what the trouble is: Katie’s crucified by guilt because she thinks Christian committed suicide.’

‘Oh, my God!’ said Perry. ‘I thought I’d laid that idiotic theory to rest! I told Marina –’

‘I know. And she still agrees with you that the death was an accident. But Perry, this is a real
idée fixe
of Katie’s and she needs help overcoming it – help that I’m very anxious to provide. I hate the thought that my prayer-session failed, and I feel I’m being ... well, called, to put things right. Hope that doesn’t sound too priggish.’

‘Not in the least. Very appropriate behaviour for an embryo-clergyman. But I think you’ve set yourself a hard task.’

‘Have I? But surely if I can prove conclusively that Christian didn’t commit suicide –’

‘My dear Nick, that’s not just a hard task; it’s an impossible one because conclusive proof doesn’t exist. I’m useless as a witness because I didn’t see Christian go overboard and I was concussed for several minutes after the wave hit us.’

‘I realise that, but –’

‘All I can offer you is my firm belief that he wasn’t suicidal.’ Abandoning his food Perry rose from his chair and retrieved an opened bottle of wine from the refrigerator. ‘Sorry,’ he said,’I didn’t offer you wine because I thought you’d refuse, but you’re not a teetotaller, are you?’

‘No, but I’ll stick to lime juice now, thanks. So Christian was in good spirits, was he, on the morning he died?’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean much; suicides often put up a front to their friends. When I said he wasn’t suicidal I meant there was nothing going on in his life which would have driven him to drown himself on the spur of the moment during a freak accident at sea.’ He was pouring out the wine as he spoke. I noticed that he filled his glass almost to the brim.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘let’s stand the question on its head. You and Marina both say he had no powerful motive for killing himself. But did he have some powerful motive for staying alive?’ ‘Of course. His wife, his children, his career.’

‘But Katie obviously thinks they don’t count. I was wondering if he had some secret motive – a motive which only you, as his best friend, would know about.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well ... was he having an affair?’

‘No, he needed all his energy to cope with Katie and Marina.’ Perry was still making no effort to eat but he was paying considerable attention to the wine.

‘But supposing – just for the sake of argument – he’d reached the point where he was bored stiff with both of them. Mightn’t he have wanted to take on someone new?’

‘When Christian got bored with women his solution was to retreat into masculine company which didn’t make demands on him.’

‘Uh-huh. Would it be fair to say he had some kind of a problem with women?’

‘Most men have some kind of a problem with women.’ ‘Yes, but –’

‘I wouldn’t call it a problem. A slight irritation perhaps. He always found no woman ever measured up to his mother, so he wound up being consistently disappointed.’

Did you know the first Mrs Aysgarth?’

‘Yes, Christian and I had been friends for two years when she died in 1942.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Very special, very feminine, very ... but it’s difficult to find the right adjectives. "Sweet" sounds common and "gay" sounds banal. Perhaps nouns are more effective: she had intelligence and charm and sympathy; she was the heartbeat of the family, the source of their happiness. Her husband and children all adored her.’ He poured himself a second glass of wine.

‘If all women failed to live up to this exceptional mother of his,’ I said, ‘doesn’t that imply there was a continuous turnover of women in his life as he tried to find someone who could equal her?’

The turnover wasn’t sexual. I told you: Katie and Marina took all his time and energy. Katie in particular was like a leech,’ said Perry, betraying his first hint of animosity, and I knew at once he was annoyed by the indiscretion. I saw his fingers tighten for a second around the stem of his glass.

‘So you’re convinced,’ I persisted, ‘that this isn’t a case of
cherchez la femme?
’

‘
It’s not a "case" of anything. The death was an accident, one of those random horrors which make one wonder how people can believe in a loving God.’

‘Jung says there’s a dark side to God,’ I said, ‘just as there’s a shadow side to humans.’

‘I didn’t think Jung was a Christian.’

‘Jung played his cards close to his chest.’

‘My God, don’t we all ... What are you really after here, Nick?’

‘The facts. Was Christian a homosexual?’

‘No. Homosexuals were often attracted to him, but he found their advances a big bore.’ He paused, and in the silence that followed I could hear only the hum of the new refrigerator. Then he said: ‘That’s why Christian liked me. Sheets of blotting-paper don’t make sexual demands. He knew he could always relax in my company.’

‘Sure. But what turned you into a sheet of blotting-paper, Perry?’

He gave me a blank look before exclaiming: ‘How odd! No one’s ever asked me that question before.’

‘Are you going to answer it?’

‘I don’t think so. More chicken?’

‘No, thanks. Are you not answering because there’s no answer?’

‘Sorry, I don’t follow.’

‘I could be asking the wrong question.’

‘I still don’t follow.’

‘Maybe you’re not really a sheet of blotting-paper after all. Maybe that’s just a mask.’

‘Now you’re getting spooky! Is this where you switch on the ESP?’

The telephone rang upstairs in the hall.

VIII

‘Hell!’ said Perry. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’ And he hurried off, taking the stairs two ,at a time. I finished my last slice of chicken and sat listening, but when I heard Perry say: ‘Oh hullo, James ...’ I allowed my thoughts to wander. Around me the kitchen jogged my memory. I could see Christian standing by the sink, wandering past the range, gesturing towards the door of Perry’s fabled coal-cellar. But those were mere memories and psychically I ‘saw’ nothing. Meanwhile my brain was continuing to digest the mounting evidence that Christian, who should have been at peace with God, was instead haunting those closest to him; it seemed clear to me now that I was witnessing the ghost of the dead in the torment of the living.

Suicide was the obvious explanation of the phenomenon, of course. So much guilt and anguish would be milling around in the conscious and unconscious minds of the living (as the language of psychology might put it) that one could easily say (in the religious metaphor) that Christian’s disturbed spirit, alienated from God and unable to rest, was constantly manifesting itself to those most deeply involved with him. Again the two languages pointed to a single truth, and I thought how ironic it was that suicides so often killed themselves in the belief that they were being kind to those they loved. In truth the destructive act crippled the survivors by causing psychic damage on a massive scale.

Perry ran back downstairs. ‘That was James Aysgarth trying to find his brother,’ he said. ‘It seems Norman had arranged to dine with him at the "In and Out" Club. Anyway I told James the corpse was here and he said he’d come round and remove it ... Coffee?’

‘Thanks. What’s James doing nowadays?’

‘He’s got a desk-job at the Ministry of Defence and a house in one of those plush areas of Surrey where everyone’s still living in the 1950s.’

‘What paradise!’

‘You think so? What’s wrong with the present day? Everyone knows this "Swinging Sixties" rubbish is mostly a fabrication of the media.’

‘It seems true enough to me,’ I said. ‘Everyone sleeping with everyone else, getting stoned and going down the drain.’

‘Oh, people have always done that,’ said Perry comfortably. The only difference now is that more people have more money to do it when they’re young – and to the accompaniment of really frightful music. Are you a fan of today’s noises?’

‘Not particularly, although I listen now and then on the car radio. I get my kicks out of silence.’

‘You reassure me! I was afraid you’d think I was square.’

‘No, just sophisticated. Perry, why did Christian, who was every bit as sophisticated as you are, find Marina’s Coterie amusing? After all, Marina’s fifteen years your junior. Didn’t she and her friends sometimes seem very juvenile?’

‘But her friends were usually older than she was, and Marina herself was so sophisticated, even at twenty-one, that her parties always had great style.’

‘So you really did enjoy them?’

‘Certainly – and so did Christian. He used to say they compensated him for his hard-working youth when he passed up so much fun in order to slave for his first in Mods and Greats and Theology. In some ways he felt he’d wasted his twenties ... Milk and sugar?’

‘No, thanks. Does regret for wasted years mean he suffered from depression?’

‘He got a little blue now and then. But most people do, don’t they? That’s normal.’

‘There was never any abnormal depression – clinical depression?’

‘Don’t tell me you’re still flirting with that idiotic suicide theory!’

‘No, just trying to build up an in-depth picture. Remember, I didn’t know Christian well.’

‘Well, I assure you he wasn’t a depressive.’

‘But Perry, there was something dislocated about him, wasn’t there? Something not quite right?’

Perry, who had been pouring out the coffee, swung to face me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I just sensed he was out of alignment somehow. As if his life and his self weren’t properly related to each other.’

Perry remained motionless, staring at me. At last he said: ‘He was all right. There were tensions in his life, but he was coping with them. In fact by the time he died he was coping well.’

‘That’s not the impression I got from Katie. You’re implying an upswing – that things were getting better. But Katie implied a downswing – that in the final six months of his life things were getting worse.’

‘I hate to say this because it sounds so bizarre,’ said Perry, returning his attention to the coffee, ‘but I think I understood Christian rather better than she did.’

‘That may well be true, but the fact remains that she was the one who was living with him and I think she’s an intuitive woman. So if she feels he was on a downswing –’

‘Well, obviously she was talking about the marriage, which I agree was going through a rugged phase. But I’m talking about his whole life, and I think he was successfully getting his problems under control.’ He added an expletive as he accidentally slopped coffee into one of the saucers.

‘Sorry, Perry,’ I said at once. ‘I’m upsetting you, aren’t I, resurrecting a lot of tough memories. I’ll stop.’

‘No, no, I’m all right.’ He carefully wiped the saucer with a cloth. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing,’ he said, ‘for me to talk about my memories – and I’m sure it’s a good thing that you’re trying to help Katie, but Nick, let me present you with one very indiscreet comment before we close the conversation: Katie’s a deeply neurotic woman, has been for years. It’s not good to live entirely for someone else as she lived for Christian, and I wasn’t exaggerating earlier when I called her a leech. She battened on him. She drained him of vitality. She was a disaster.’

‘You never liked her?’

‘No, never. But let’s change the subject. How’s your brother Martin?’

We took our coffee upstairs to the drawing-room, but Norman was such an unattractive sight as he lay inert on the sofa that we quickly adjourned to the dining-room. Having spent some time discussing Martin’s decision to play Sir Anthony Absolute in the current production of
The Rivals,
we had just agreed that the role was a welcome break from his mindless TV comedy series, when the doorbell rang.

‘Enter James with stiff upper lip,’ muttered Perry, and headed for the hall to admit his latest guest.

I moved back through the communicating door into the drawing-room.

James Aysgarth was thirty-five, six years younger than Perry, three years younger than Norman, and had reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army. An accident during a military exercise in Germany two years earlier had resulted in the amputation of a leg, the termination of his active service as a soldier and marriage to a nurse he had met in hospital. He had never been a member of the Coterie because Marina had judged himtoo dim to be amusing, but his career cast doubt on her estimate of his intelligence; his aggressively non-intellectual manner was probably his way of rebelling against the fate which had handed him two exceptionally clever older brothers. Tall, blue-eyed, square-jawed, thin-lipped and broad-shouldered, he wore his suit like a uniform. The bluff, jolly manner was deceptive. It was a tough, forceful face. I guessed he had been a terror on the parade ground in his younger days.

‘My God, this is a bad show!’ he said when he saw his prostrate brother. ‘Perry old boy, I really am damned sorry. Letting the side down and all that. Not the done thing at all.’

It was amazing to learn that even in 1968 people still talked in this pre-war, public-school, Pidgin-English. But James would hardly be interested in modern trends. No mid-Atlantic twang would ever soften his consonants or blur his vowels. The permissive society would have passed him by. One glance at his immaculately cut suit, gold watch-chain and snow-white shirt told me I was in the presence of a traditionalist who wanted to revive the death penalty, reintroduce flogging and jail every flower-laden drop-out in sight.

‘Jolly tricky!’ said James, having tried to rouse Norman without success. ‘I don’t fancy carting him past that flunkey in the main hall. Is there a back entrance to this place?’

‘Yes, at the other end of the Rope Walk. But perhaps he’d better spend the night here, James – I didn’t realise he was incapable of even a mild revival.’

‘My dear chap, I couldn’t
conceivably
let Norman inconvenience you in that fashion! Family honour and all that, my duty to remove the corpse. Now let’s work out a master-plan ...’ James began to plot with military precision. We all had to synchronise our watches. He then asked the exact location of the back entrance, and having been told it faced up Savile Row, he proposed that he moved his car there. Perry advised him that he might have to double-park; smart restaurants nearby ensured that kerb-space was limited in the evenings.

‘All right, this is the plan,’ said James busily. ‘I now drive the car to the bottom of Savile Row. Perry, in five minutes’ time you must leave here and meet me outside the back entrance in order to sit in my car. (Can’t leave the old bus unattended if I have to ditch it in the middle of the street.) When you arrive to relieve me at my post I’ll return here to remove the corpse with Nick’s help. (Marvellous that you’re here, Nick – jolly decent of you to help out.) Then we load the corpse in the back seat and the mission will be accomplished. Any questions?’

We shook our heads and somehow managed to restrain our laughter until he had departed.

‘If you saw him on the stage,’ said Perry, ‘you’d say he was overacting.’

‘What goes on under the act?’

‘Nothing, it’s no act. That’s just the way he is. James is the straightforward Aysgarth, the one with no problems.’ ‘Losing a leg must have been a problem.’

‘He coped well with that. And he’s got a good job now at the MOD. I warn you, don’t be tempted to write him off as a fool.’

‘What’s his wife like?’

‘A thoroughly nice middle-class girl, quite different from the neurotic aristocrats Christian and Norman picked up. Let me repeat: he’s no fool.’

We waited. Perry eventually left to guard the car, and soon afterwards James returned to the flat.

‘Now we come to the dodgy part,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t ask Perry to help cart out the corpse, but my gammy leg makes things awkward. Question of balance.’

‘James, I’m sure Perry would be very willing to –’

‘No, Norman’s violated his hospitality and I can’t ask more of Perry now than to keep an eye on the car. But can I ask you, as a clergyman-to-be, to exercise your Christian charity and take Norman’s heaviest end?’

Off we staggered down the Rope Walk with Norman’s corpse sagging between us. The long courtyard was eerily quiet. I felt like an ant scuttling along the bottom of an empty coffin.

Breathing hard we reached the back entrance and manoeuvred Norman into the waiting black Rover. James wiped the sweat from his brow, and suddenly I realised that the exertion had been not only difficult for him but painful.

‘Many apologies again, Perry,’ he said. ‘I expect your neighbours are now phoning the police to report a murder, but at least they won’t connect the corpse with you.’

‘I’m sure Norman’s made their day. But don’t start saying goodbye, James, because I’m coming with you you’ll need help at the other end.’

‘No, if Nick’s willing to come I can manage,’ said James firmly. ‘No need for you to do any more, thank you. No need at all.’

Perry turned to me for confirmation. ‘Nick?’

‘Go back home and put your feet up,’ I said. ‘You need to recover from your guests.’

He laughed. ‘It was good to see you again!’

‘Thanks for the meal.’

‘Come back and have a better one soon.’

‘In you get, Nick,’ said James, still issuing orders.

I planted myself smartly in the car. In the back seat Norman began to snore. Tight-lipped and silent, James slid behind the wheel, slammed the door and drove swiftly away.

IX

‘Poor old Norman,’ said James, edging the car through the streets of Mayfair. ‘Having a tough time at the moment. Not quite himself. Sorry you should have seen him at his worst.’

‘That’s okay, James. Priests often see people at their worst. All part of the job.’

‘Funny how Norman’s got so chummy with Perry,’ said James sufficiently reassured by my phlegmatic manner to become confidential. ‘Almost as if he were trying to take Christian’s place ... What do you make of Perry Palmer?’

‘I’m not sure. What’s your opinion?’

‘Always seems a decent sort. One of Those, of course, but obviously doesn’t practise. Couldn’t hold down that job at the FO if he did.’

‘True.’

‘I hear you’ve just got engaged to Rosalind Maitland,’ said James, signalling to me that he knew I was officer material, even though he’d caught me hobnobbing with ‘One of Those’. ‘I took out her older sister a few times. Nice girls. Nice family. Well done.’

I was learning fast that there’s really no such thing as an ‘unofficial engagement’. ‘How did you hear the news?’

‘My stepmother told me. She rang us last night to deliver her weekly monologue and after five minutes she happened to mention –’

‘But how did she know?’

‘Oh, Dido knows everything – she may be living in Surrey now, but she’s still plugged in to the Starbridge grapevine. After her phone call last night I was trying to explain to my wife who you were – in relation to the Aysgarths, I mean – and I remembered Dido saying once to someone: "Nicholas Darrow’s father was the Bishop’s
bête blanche
and the Dean’s
bête noire."
But that’s not quite accurate, is it? I know our fathers were daggers drawn back in the 1940s when Father was still the Archdeacon, but by the time Father retired from the Deanery in 1965 he spoke very highly of Mr Darrow. Father Darrow, I should say. He’s one of those Anglo-Catholics, isn’t he?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Never understood the point of Anglo-Catholicism. Why not just go over to Rome and be done with it?’

‘Because Anglo-Catholics aren’t Roman Catholics. They’re loyal members of the Church of England, they admit no allegiance to the Pope –’

‘I should think not! No Popery, no Romish Mumbojumboism and thank God for the Reformation is what I say, but of course I’m just talking as a patriotic Englishman. I’m not a religious man.’