Mystical Paths (26 page)

‘Are you sure? Your silence is beginning to seem distinctly creepy!’

‘I’ll recite some poetry. "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright —’”‘

We were still rocking with laughter — and still rocking in the act of intercourse — when the door of the room opened without warning and her husband stood revealed on the threshold.

III

He said at once: ‘I’m sorry,’ and walked out.

I was so paralysed with horror that there was only one part of my body that moved. No erection ever met a more sudden death.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Venetia. ‘I thought he’d be out all morning.’

‘My God, if he tells Uncle Charles — Dr Ashworth — the Bishop —’

‘Oh, that’s out of the question. Don’t worry, we’ve got an arrangement: no divorce, but I do what I like and he keeps his mouth shut. Since a divorce would ruin him I’ve got the whip hand ... Don’t you want to finish?’ she added in surprise as I replaced my glasses and began to grope on the floor for my clothes.

I treated this question with the revolted silence it deserved and eventually she turned aside with a shrug. It was only when I was dressed that I managed to say: ‘Forgive me. I’ve done you a very great wrong.’

‘What nonsense — it was fun! Oh darling, don’t go all dreary and religious again —’

‘You wanted to be helped — you said as much earlier. And I’ve been put into your life to help you. So what happens? I find this beaten-up body in the gutter, but do I treat it with compassion and make some attempt, no matter how inadequate, to bandage the wounds? No, I don’t! I jump into the gutter and beat up the victim all over again!’

‘Oh darling, do calm down! And do for God’s sake stop treating me as if I were sick!’

‘Only someone sick could treat that pathetic husband of yours with such cruelty.’

‘Oh, for the love of Christ, SHUT UP!’ she shouted at once.

‘What do you know about my marriage, what do you know about my life, what do you know about all the hell I’ve been through –’

‘I know you’re unhappy and I know I care about you and I know I hate myself for making such a
bloody
mess of everything –’

‘But you didn’t. Look at me – I’m radiant!’

‘Venetia –’

‘No, don’t let’s quarrel any more,’ she said rapidly, ‘I couldn’t bear it, you’re too special to me – what would I do without my Talisman weaving in and out of my life while treading his mystical paths? And darling, talking of your mystical paths, promise me –
promise me –
you’ll keep me informed about the Christian mystery. I’m convinced he went mad and killed himself, but what I want to know is
why
he went mad. So many of my friends are now either dead or hopelessly damaged and I feel that if only I could understand how it all happened, I wouldn’t feel so ... oh, this is a terrible time to be alive! All these years of peace – yet it’s as if we’ve been brutalised by some invisible war.’ And at last she started to weep again, unhealed, unhappy, wrecked, racked and wasted.

I have no memory of saying goodbye to her. The guilt and horror produced amnesia. Stumbling west towards Queensgate I found a phone-box and somehow managed to put through a call to Marina.

IV Marina gave me Dinkie’s telephone number and tried to question me but I fended her off and hung up. Putting through the next call I found Dinkie at home.

‘Hi,’ I said, ‘it’s Nick Darrow.’

Who?’

‘Nicky, Marina’s soothsayer.’

Wow. That’s wonderful, like that’s wonderful, like that’s wonderful.’’Can I come and see you?’

‘That’s over the top and out of this world and way, way out along the Milky Way.’

‘I’ll be with you in quarter of an hour,’ I said, and replaced the receiver.

Dinkie lived east of Tavistock Square in a forlorn area occupied by London University students and council tenants. It was not a slum but it looked as if it could become one with the minimum of effort. The streets were dirty. Shabby people wandered around looking either bored or nuts. Stray dogs investigated dustbins overflowing with rubbish. Graffiti on a wall by a parade of shops included the slogan: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, but the paint was flaking from the letters. I decided that now was hardly the time to dwell upon the optimism which had once characterised the decade, but as I reached the door of the tall house where Dinkie had her room, the music of 1966 drifted out of a window in the form of one of the most powerful songs those years ever produced, a record which soared far above the trite and the trivial as it expressed the timeless human yearning for a love which was ‘River Deep – Mountain High’.

The front door swung inwards when I pushed it. I moved through a hall which needed decorating and began to climb the stairs. In one of the rooms on the second floor the record was reaching its climax, Tina Turner belting away, all the musicians lashed into a frenzy over their instruments, the A & R man throwing in everything except angels with harps, and suddenly I saw that song as a commemoration of the 1960s’ dream before the nightmare began; it recalled for me all the joyous excitement of
communitas,
the group-spirit, and all the heady exaltation generated by those who had so longingly proclaimed the primacy of love.

The record ended as I reached the top of the stairs and saw the number on the last door. In the silence that followed I took a deep breath of fetid air and knocked on the panel.

The next moment I was facing a thin, middle-aged woman who looked as if she were dying of cancer.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ve got the wrong room. I’m looking for Dinkie Kauffman.’

‘Nicky — darling — honey — you’re beautiful! Come on in!’ Of course. It was the walking corpse I had foreknown in 1963. I should have recognised her.

‘Hi Dinkie,’ I said, somehow suppressing my horror, and forced myself to cross the threshold.

V She had failed to register my lack of recognition. She was wearing a long-sleeved man’s shirt which covered her bottom by about two inches, and black tights. An ornamental belt sagged around her waist. She wore no jewellery and no watch. I assumed that by this time all her valuable possessions would have been sold to pay for the habit. Her hair was unkempt. Her neck was dirty. She had slapped on some make-up in an attempt to hide the sick complexion and the effect was grotesque, thick black eyeliner over her haunted eyes, thick powder caked on her hollow cheeks, pale lipstick on her bloodless mouth.

I glanced around. The bed was Unmade, the carpet unswept, the posters on the wall had faded. A smell reached me from the nearby kitchenette.

‘Sit down,’ she said agreeably, indicating the bed. ‘Drink?’ ‘No thanks.’ I took one of the two chairs by the table.

‘So how are you?’ she said, pouring herself a slug of bourbon.

‘What’s new? Long time no see.’

‘I’m okay. How are things with you, Dinkie?’

‘Just wonderful.’ She began to drink the bourbon neat. ‘I’ve been living in the Bahamas. My fiancé’s a property millionaire with five homes and a private plane. He’ll be coming back to collect me soon but meanwhile I’ve got to lie low because he’s negotiating a real tough divorce, and if the bitch found out he was still in touch with me she’d sue the pants off him. But when I eventually get to sashaying down the aisle I’ll be richwith five homes and a private plane and all the Coterie will come and visit me — and you’ll come too, won’t you, Nicky? In the old days I thought you were so cute, you were so young, as if you’d just hatched out of an egg, and so clean, your shirts were always so well-ironed, and you even had ironed handkerchiefs — Marina said: "Look — no, Kleenex!’” — and now you’ve grown up you’re beautiful, I just love that long-limbed look and those wonderful cheekbones and those groovy glasses which signal you’re so smart and serious. I really go for smart, serious men, I mean, sex isn’t everything, right, there’s got to be a meeting of the minds.’

‘Right. Dinkie —’

What I’m saying is that a man that’s just a hunk of meat is boring, right? A man’s got to have a brain, right? Brains are sexy, right? So I go for clever men.’

‘Great. Dinkie, talking of clever men —’

Wanna fuck?’

‘What? Oh, no thanks.’

Why not, what’s wrong with you?’

‘Clap.’ I doubted if any other excuse would satisfy her.

‘Gee, that’s tough! When I last had clap the doctor gave me such a big shot that I passed out and when I came to he had his hand up my —’

‘I bet. Dinkie, talking of clever men, what did you think of Christian Aysgarth?’

Who? Oh, him. I thought he was real dumb,’ said Dinkie with a yawn.

VI

She altered her position, swinging her legs up on to the bed and lounging back against the pillows. ‘He didn’t know anything,’ she said. ‘Okay, so he knew a lot about philosophy and all that crap, but he didn’t know the A-to-Zee of L-I-F-E. No wonder poor old Katie looked like a spaniel left out in the rain.’

‘Sounds as if you knew him pretty well.’

‘Hey man, you can say that again! But like a lot of high-class Englishmen he had no idea where it was at. Single-sex education. Cricket. Weird.’

‘Are you saying —’

‘Listen, there he was, right — good looks, charm, brains, you name it, he had it, but he never got it all together. Katie was the only girl he’d ever been with before he got together with me.’

‘No kidding.’

‘So he said. And he’d just woken up to the fact that half his life had gone and he was still a baby in diapers. "I want to live!’” he kept saying. "I’m dead and I want to live!’” I felt sorry for him.’

‘How long did you and he —’

‘A couple of months, maybe longer, I don’t recall. But he was never much good, too old by that time and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks — well, you can try, I guess I taught him a thing or two, but you hardly ever meet a man over thirty who can go on all night ... How old are you now, Nicky?’

‘Twenty-five. Was Christian upset when the affair ended?’

‘It didn’t end, he was crazy about me. Of course I always took care to tell him he was wonderful. You always have to tell men they’re wonderful even when they’re not. Fact of life.’ She yawned again.

‘You’re saying the affair was still going strong right up to the time he died?’

‘Sure. Okay, I admit we couldn’t meet so often at the end as we did in the beginning — when we first got together Oxford was on vacation — but after the new semester had begun he used to go sailing every weekend with Perry Palmer, so I still saw him regularly. He’d leave Oxford around noon on Friday, spend the afternoon with me and turn up at Perry’s for dinner. Then the next morning they’d hit the trail early for Bosham and the boat.’

‘What’s the story about Perry Palmer?’

‘Balls cut off at birth. The knife slipped during circumcision.’ ‘Seriously?’

‘Listen, there was no story about Perry Palmer because Christian just wasn’t into sex. He should have lived fifty years ago when England ruled the world and he could have raced around being a hero with a bunch of other men while the girls sat at home with their needlework. Christian was like something out of — who was that guy who scripted the movie called
The Thirty-Nine Steps?
’

‘
John Buchan.’

‘Right. Schoolboy yarns and high jinks. Like a kind of old-world James Bond. Fantasy stuff. Christian was into fantasy, and I mean
into
it, really deep. "River Deep — Mountain High’” ...’ She began to hum the song I had heard earlier, but soon broke off to yawn again. The yawns were coming faster now.

‘What kind of fantasy, Dinkie?’

‘He liked to disappear into France — he and Perry used to cross the Channel in that boat. "It’s like going through the looking-glass,’” he said to me once. "I leave Christian Aysgarth behind, and I’m all new, all different, I’m someone else.’” And later he said: "I’ve got this dream that one day I’ll go through the looking-glass and never come back.’” Weird, wasn’t it? Pretending to be someone else ... He even had two false passports.’

I stared at her. After a long moment I managed to ask: ‘I’m sorry, could you just say that again?’

She said it again. ‘I guess Perry fixed the passports for him,’ she added. ‘Perry’s a fixer at the Foreign Office.’ She began to scratch herself. ‘Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom and get some lotion for my heat-rash.’

‘Hang on, Dinkie. Are you saying you actually saw those passports?’

‘Sure. We’d just had a fuck and he was asleep and I wanted a cigarette but I’d run out. So I rifled through his jacket in the hope of finding a pack, and in the inside pocket I came across the passports. His photo in both but different names. Weird ... Excuse me, I have to go to the —’

I let her go to the bathroom to shoot up. My mind was in chaos. I was acutely aware that the evidence of a heroin addict should be regarded with scepticism and I was acutely aware that I had to prove beyond doubt that she was telling the truth, but I couldn’t see how to confirm her story. Minutes passed. Dinkie eventually returned starry-eyed and suggested intercourse again. I had to remind her of my mythical case of gonorrhea.

‘Dinkie, about those passports —’

‘Oh honey, don’t let’s talk of Christian any more! He’s dead, he’s gone, he’s way, way out on the astral plane —’

‘I bet you can’t remember what the false names were,’ I said. ‘Oh yes, I can!’

Now I was sure she was lying. I thought it highly unlikely that she could remember two unfamiliar names briefly glimpsed three years before.

‘I remember them because they were so wonderfully British,’ she said. ‘I sat there and smoked and looked at the passports while my high-class British lover lay out cold on the bed, and I thought: I just love England! America never worked out for me after my parents split up, but then I met this real cool British guy in New York and —’

What were the names, Dinkie?’

‘Charles Gore and Henry Scott Holland.’

Then I knew beyond all doubt that she was telling the truth.

VII

I was so stupefied that I asked the first question which entered my head. It was: Did you ask Christian about the passports when he woke up?’

What was there to ask? I knew it was all part of his fantasy life, and anyway I didn’t want him to know I’d gone through his pockets — high-class Englishmen get real uptight about that kind of thing.’

‘But didn’t you ever mention the passports to anyone?’ ‘No, because people would have wondered how I knew, and the affair with Christian was top secret, had to be, because I didn’t want to hurt Marina. Marina’s been a wonderful friend to me, best friend I ever had, I just love her ... Hey, you won’t tell Marina, will you? Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but there you were, so clean, so cool, so well-ironed —’

‘Don’t worry, Dinkie. Marina will never know.’ I stood up and began to head for the door.

‘Hey Nicky, you’ll come and visit me in the Bahamas, won’t you?’

‘Sure.’

‘And meanwhile stop by any time you like, just give me a call, you’ve got my number.’

‘Right.’ I hesitated with my hand on the latch. She swayed over to me but before she could attempt a kiss I gripped her shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes and said: ‘Kick it. Bust it. Live.’

‘Honey, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Silence. I went on gripping her and at last she said rapidly: ‘You’re so cute, Nicky, so sweet to be concerned, but don’t worry, I’m checking into the London Clinic next week. My fiancé’s paying the bill.’

I knew then there was nothing more I could do, so I left her to her drugs and her fantasies.

Another failure.

But now I could put aside the thought of failure at last because against all the odds my investigation had unfolded into a brilliant success. Driving down to the Embankment I parked the car and gazed into the glittering waters of the Thames. I was in a state of profound excitement — fists clenched, mouth dry, heart thumping at a brisk rate — because the solution to the Christian Aysgarth mystery was finally staring me in the face.

Of course he had never drowned on that sailing trip. No wonder no body had ever been found.

I shouted to the seagulls wheeling over the water: ‘He’s still alive!’ but then I calmed down and began to plan my next move. Although Charley’s theory about homosexuality had obviously been wrong, there was always the chance that someone who had chased after Christian might be able to shore up Dinkie’s information and add to my conviction that there had been an escape into another life.

Finding another phone-box I called Martin.