Chapman's Odyssey (25 page)
— It will be my turn next.
A stranger named Randolph Breeze introduced himself, along with his fiancée of twenty years, Miss Blanche Westermere.
— I had the exceptional good fortune of occupying the bed next to Mr Chapman in the Zoffany Ward. What a fascinating person. Miss Westermere and I have come to pay our last, alas, respects.
— How thoughtful of you.
— Mr Chapman’s knowledge of T. S. Eliot was truly beyond pareil.
— Was it? He seldom talked about him. I know that he loathed Eliot’s plays. He thought they were over encumbered with what he called ‘well-bred dread’. But do excuse me, Mr – Wind, is it? –
— Breeze.
— Of course. My apologies. I must say hello to Dr Pereira and his team.
The doctor, Sister Nancy, Marybeth Myslawchuk and Maciek Nazwisko had managed to escape from their duties for an hour or so to say goodbye to Harry, the man with a thousand poems – they were sure it was at least a thousand – at his command. They didn’t make a habit of going to patients’ funerals, but this was an exception.
— I’m touched.
The ceremony was about to begin when a distraught elderly woman, whom many recognised as a famous novelist, burst into the chapel with several questions on her lips:
— Is this the right place? Is this the right time? Is this the right day? Have I come to the wrong funeral? It
is
Harry Chapman in the box, isn’t it, and not somebody I’ve never heard of? Should I have gone to Putney instead? Harry
is
dead, isn’t he? I’m not making it up, am I?
— No, Brenda, you’re not making it up. Calm down. Yes, it’s Harry in the box. Come and sit next to me.
— I’m sorry, Graham. I had a drinkie or two to settle my nerves and then I panicked. The taxi driver took me this way and that way, up hill and down dale, and all the time I was thinking I was on a fool’s mission to nowhere. Oh, Harry, my poor lamb.
— Sit down, darling.
Eleanor Duggan opened the proceedings with the story of Paolo and Francesca, as recounted in Dante’s
Inferno
. She read it in Italian and only translated the lines in which the poet has Francesca talking of the great sorrow that comes with remembered happiness. She was followed by the actor Jeremy Wilson, who read the final paragraph of Melville’s ‘Bartleby’: ‘Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!’
Pamela went to the lectern, smiled at the congregation, and spoke from memory a poem by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, that Harry ‘loved to distraction’.
—
Ancient person, for whom I
All the flattering youth defy,
Long be it ere thou grow old,
Aching, shaking, crazy, cold;
But still continue as thou art,
Ancient person of my heart.
On thy withered lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour
Shall thy youthful heat restore,
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient person of my heart.
The nobler part, which but to name
In our sex would be counted shame,
By age’s frozen grasp possessed,
From his ice shall be released,
And soothed by my reviving hand,
In former warmth and vigour stand.
All a lover’s wish can reach
For thy joy my love shall teach,
And for thy pleasure shall improve
All that art can add to love.
Yet still I love thee without art,
Ancient person of my heart.
And then Graham read ‘The Flower’, as Harry had instructed, in a steady voice. In the closing seven minutes, there was a recorded performance of Webern’s orchestration of the fugue (
ricercata
) from Bach’s
The Musical Offering
, which Harry had requested to be played in honour of the Duchess of Bombay.
There was a champagne reception, or wake, at the house in Hammersmith. The buffet had been prepared by a chef from Rome and Graham hoped that the guests would stay sober enough to appreciate Massimiliano’s subtle cooking. Brenda, who was indifferent to everything other than fried eggs and bacon, had already attained the very peak, the Everest, of drunkenness in a remarkably short time and had concealed herself beneath Harry’s desk, with her sleeping head stuck in his waste-paper basket.
There were two uninvited guests, two notable gatecrashers, in the forms of Mr Breeze and his ageing bride-to-be Blanche Westermere. They arrived with Wilf Granger, who assured Graham that they were an enchanting couple. They had listened to his tales of woe – dodgy prostate; dicky ticker; diabetes and an ingrowing toenail, not to say his inability to get Dick Turpin to stand and deliver – with the utmost, and he really meant the utmost, sympathy.
This was the farewell party Harry would have wanted, Graham thought as midnight approached. There had been some serious conversations, but the farcical spirit had finally prevailed. Brenda had left wearing the waste-paper basket like an Easter bonnet, and that was a vision Harry would have cherished. Then Wilf revealed that he had written a cheque for a thousand pounds to the delightful Mr Breeze in order to be the proud owner of T. S. Eliot’s false teeth.
— If my own fall out, as they look like doing, I can always wear his.
When he was alone at last, Graham noticed that there was a letter addressed to him on the doormat. There was no stamp on it. He read:
Dear Mr Weaver,
Please forgive me intruding on your grief. Your partner Harry was very kind to my late unhappy brother Ralph and I bless him for his kindness. May he rest in peace. I will toast his lovely memory with a glass of sherry.
Yours,
Beryl
Graham dimmed the lights and sat in Harry’s armchair and welcomed the purring cat into his arms.
I wish to express my deep and abiding gratitude to the trustees of the Royal Literary Fund for the generous support they have given me in recent years.
Mary, Sam and Roy Adams; Thomas Bailey; Arthur and Helen Maud Bailey; Joan Bailey; David and Ellen Bailey; Gabriel Bailey; Beryl Bainbridge; Vanni, Noris and Piero Bartolozzi; Carl Bonn; Mabel Burgess; Angela Carter; Kathleen Church; Elizabeth David; Noel Davis; Frank Day; Joan Deans; Tom and Peggy d’Errico; Alice and Hal Dickey; Rose Donnelly; Sadie Dunnett; Sandor Eles; Michael Elliott; Ilona Ference; Gordon Gostelow; Jane and Geoffrey Grigson; Paolo Guasconi; David Healy; Roy Herrick; Connie Highton; Reverend Stephan Hopkinson; John and Sylvia Hove; Russell Hunter; Leslie Hurry; Harald Jensen; Terence Kilmartin; Francis King; Sheila Lemon; Richard Lord; Colin Mackenzie; Ken McGregor; Penny McVitie; Robert Medley; Patrick O’Connor; Vincent Osborne; Muriel Philipson; William Plomer; Betty and J. F. Powers; Oliver Reynolds; Ian Richardson; John D. Roberts; Bryan Robertson; Alan Ross; Jeremy Round; Bernice Rubens; Lorna Sage; John Schlesinger; Alex Leo Serban; John Stocken; Elizabeth Taylor; Stephen Tumim; Dorothea Wallace; John T. Wharton; Angus Wilson; Casper Wrede.
Paul Bailey is an award-winning writer whose novels include
At The Jerusalem
, which won a Somerset Maugham Award and an Arts Council Writers’ Award;
Peter Smart’s Confessions
and
Gabriel’s Lament
, both shortlisted for the Booker Prize;
Sugar Cane
, a sequel to
Gabriel’s Lament
;
Kitty and Virgil
and most recently,
Uncle Rudolf
. He is the recipient of the E. M. Forster Award and the George Orwell Memorial Award, and has also written and presented features for radio. Paul Bailey lives in London.
At The Jerusalem
Trespasses
A Distant Likeness
Peter Smart’s Confessions
Old Soldiers
An English Madam: The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne
Gabriel’s Lament
An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from Childhood and Beyond
Sugar Cane
Kitty and Virgil
Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Naomi Jacob, Fred Barnes and Arthur Marshall
Uncle Rudolf
A Dog’s Life
Copyright © 2011 by Paul Bailey
Excerpt from ‘Acquainted with the Night’ from
The Poetry of Robert Frost
edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1928, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1956 by Robert Frost.
Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
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Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Bailey, Paul, 1937—Chapman’s odyssey / by Paul Bailey. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-1-60819-864-1
1. Hospital patients—Fiction. 2. Psychological fiction.
I. Title.
PR6052.A319C33 2012
823'.914—dc23
2011029642
This electronic edition published in November 2012
First U.S. Edition 2012