Death's Jest-Book (9 page)

But when the lecture and
subsequent discussions were over and we were all dispersing to our
rooms, my new friend Justin was at my side again, his hand on my
elbow as he guided me out into the quad and away from the general
drift of delegates.

'And what did you think of our
transatlantic friend?' he said.

'It was a real honour to hear
him,' I gushed. 'I thought he put things so well, though I've got to
admit, a lot of it was well over my head.'

I'd decided to have a bit of fun
with this idiot by playing the eager and enthusiastic but not too
bright student and seeing where that led. I didn't expect my
performance to provoke cynical laughter.

'Oh, I don't think so, young
Franny,' he said, still chuckling. 'I think an idea would have to be
very deep indeed to be over your head.'

This didn't sound like simple
flannel any more.

'Sorry?' I said. 'Don't quite
follow,'

'No? I'm simply letting you know
what a great respect I've got for your mental capacities, dear boy.'

I said, 'That's very flattering,
but you hardly know me.'

'On the contrary. You and I are
long acquainted and I know all your ways.'

He looked down at me from his
height, eyes twinkling like distant stars.

And suddenly I was there.

J.C. to his readers. Justinian to
his acquaintance. Justin to his friends.

And to his wife, Jay.

I said, 'You're Amaryllis
Haseen's husband.'

It seems so obvious now. Probably
you with your fine detective mind got there long before me. But you
can see how the revelation bowled me over, especially as I'd spent so
much time earlier today raking up that bit of my past for your
benefit. Nothing is for nothing in this life, so Frere Jacques
preaches. The past isn't another country. It's just a different part
of the maze we travel through, and we shouldn't be surprised to find
ourselves re-entering the same stretch from a different angle.

Albacore was spelling things out.

'My wife developed a very high
opinion of your potential, Franny. She says that in terms of simple
academic cleverness you are bright enough to hold your own in most
company. But she also detected in you another kind of cleverness. How
did she put it? A mind fit for stratagems, an eye for the main
chance, nimble of thought, sharp in judgment, ruthless in execution.
Oh yes, you made a big impression on her.'

I said, 'And on you too, from the
sound of it.'

'Hardly’ he said, smiling.
'I was amused when she told me how you neatly got her in a neck lock.
But at the time I was on my way from the ghastly wasteland of South
Yorkshire back to God's own college, and apart from a little chortle
at the idea of dear Sam Johnson being landed with a cunning convict
as a PhD student, I never gave you another thought. Not of course
till I heard about poor Sam's sad demise. Couldn't make the obsequies
myself, but a friend described the dramatic part you played in them,
and I thought, hello, could that be that chappie whatsisname? Then I
heard that Loopy Linda had appointed you as Sam's literary heir or
executor or some such thing, which was when I asked Amaryllis to dig
out all her old case notes.'

'I'm surprised you didn't just
read her book,' I said.

He shuddered and said, 'Can't
stand the way she writes, dear boy. Subject matter is generally
tedious and her style is what I call psycho-barbarous. In any case,
it's the marginalia of her case notes that make the most interesting
reading. Unless she is wrong, which she rarely is, you are someone I
can do business with.'

'The business being the
redistribution of Sam Johnson's Beddoes research,' I said.

‘There. I knew I was right.
No need to soft soap a supple mind.'

'No? Then why do I feel so well
oiled?' I wondered. 'The Q's Lodging, all these flattering
introductions.'

'Samples,' he said. 'Simply
samples. When you're getting down to a trade-off, you have to give
the man you're trading with a taste of your wares. You see, I'm very
aware that while I know what you have to offer, you may have doubts
about what's in my poke. It's little enough unless it's what you
want, and then it's the world. It is this -'

He made a ring master's gesture
which comprehended the quad, and all the buildings around it, and
much much more.

'If it is something you're not
interested in, then we must look for other incentives,' he went on.
'But if, as from my brief observation of you in person I begin to
hope, this cloistered life of ours, in which the intellect and the
senses are so deliriously catered for, and the inhibiting morals kept
firmly in their place, has some strong attraction, then we can get
down to business straight off. I have influence, I have contacts, I
know where many bodies are buried, I can put you on a fast-track
academic career, get you on the cultural chat shows, if that is your
desire, I can put you in the way of editors and publishers. In short,
I can be thy protector and thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy
side. So, do I judge right? Can we do business?'

This was straight talking with a
vengeance. This was complete no-holds-barred honesty, which is always
a cause for grave suspicion.

Time to test him out with some of
the same.

'If I want these things you
offer,' I said, 'what is to stop me getting them for myself? I am, as
you acknowledge, bright. I may be, as your wife alleges, ruthlessly
manipulative. Your book, I presume, is mainly a reworking of the few
known facts of Beddoes' Continental life, embellished, no doubt, by
whatever you were able to lift from Sam before he became aware of
your perfidy.'

That hit home, just a flicker of
reaction, but I got used to reading flickers in the Syke when not to
read them could mean losing a game of chess. Or an eye.

I pressed on.

'Sam, however, as your interest
confirms you know, had tracked down a substantial body of new
material in various forms. Wherever your book stood in relation to
his, coming before or after, it was always going to stand in the
shade.'

I paused again.

He said, 'And your point is . . .
?'

I said, 'And my point is, why
should I bargain for what is already within my grasp?'

He smiled and said, 'You mean,
complete Sam's book yourself, bathe in what would be mainly a
reflected glory, then make your own way onward and upward? Perhaps
you could do it. But it's a hard road, and other men's flowers
quickly wilt. I naturally cannot be expected to agree with what you
say about my book being in the shade, though what I am certain of is
that it will be in the way. But if you can find someone willing to
take a punt on a total unknown, then perhaps you should go ahead,
dear Franny’

He knew, the bastard knew, that
Sam's pusillanimous publishers had developed feet so cold they were
walking on chilblains.

He saw my reaction and pressed
his advantage.

'How's your thesis going, by the
way? Have you found a new supervisor? Now there's a thought. Perhaps
I could offer my own services? It would mean moving to Cambridge, but
if you're heading high, no harm starting on the upper slopes, is
there?'

Perhaps I should have said, get
thee behind me, Satan! But any belief I might have had in my own
divine indestructibility vanished back at Holm Coultram College when,
despite my very best efforts, you managed to finger my collar.

So, please don't despise me, I
said I'd think about it.

I thought about it all evening,
paying little attention to the conference sessions I attended and barely picking at the buffet
supper that was laid on for us. (There's a big formal dinner in the
college hall tomorrow night, but meanwhile, sherry apart, it's the
appetites of the intellect that are being catered for.)

And I'm still thinking about it
now even as I write. Please forgive me if I seem to be going on at
unconscionable length, but in all the world there is no one I can
talk to so fully and frankly as I can to you.

Time for bed. Will I sleep? I
thought I had learned in prison how to sleep anywhere in any
conditions, but tonight I think I may find it hard to close my eyes.
Thoughts wriggle round my head like little snakes nesting in a skull.
What do I owe to dear Sam? What do I owe to myself? And whose
patronage was the more precious, Linda Lupin's or Justin Albacore's?
Which would a wise man put his trust in?

Goodnight, dear Mr Pascoe. At
least I hope it will be for you. For me I see long white hours lying
awake pondering these matters, and above all the problem of how I'm
going to reply to Albacore's offer.

‘I
was wrong!

I slept like a log and woke to a
glorious morning, bright winter sunshine, no wind, a nip in the air
but only such as turned each breath I took into a glass of champagne.
I was up early, had a hearty breakfast, and then went out for a walk
to clear my head and still my nerves before I read Sam's paper at the
nine o'clock session. I left the college by its rear gate and
strolled along beside the Cam, admiring what they call the Backs. The
Backs! Only utter certainty of beauty allows one to be so throwaway
about it. Oh, it's a glorious spot this Cambridge, Mr Pascoe. I'm
sure you know it well, though I can't recall whether you're light or
dark blue. This is a place for youth to expand its soul in, and
despite everything, I still feel young.

I didn't see Albacore until I
arrived in the lecture theatre a few minutes before nine and saw his
cunicular nose twitch with relief. He must have been worrying that
his 'straight talk' last evening had been too much for my weak
stomach and I'd done a runner!

He'd arranged for me to have a
plenary session and every chair was taken. He didn't hang about -
perhaps recognizing more than I did at that moment just how nervous I
was - but introduced me briefly with, mercifully, only a short formal
reference to Sam's tragic death, while I sat there staring down at
the opening page of my lost friend's paper.

Its title was,
'Looking for the Laughs in
Death's Jest-Book'.

I read the
first sentence -
In his letters Beddoes refers to his play
Death's
Jest-Book
as a satire: but on what?
- and tried to turn the
printed words into sounds coming from my mouth, and couldn't.

There was a loud cough. It came
from Albacore, who had taken his place in the front row. And next to
him, looking up at me with those big violet eyes I recalled from our
sessions in the Syke, was his wife, Amaryllis Haseen.

Perhaps the sight of her was the
last straw that broke what remained of my nerve.

Rising from my chair was the
hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. I must have looked like a
drunk as I walked the few steps to the lectern. Fortunately it was a
solid old-fashioned piece of furniture, otherwise it would have
shaken with me as I hung on to it with both hands to control my
trembling. As for my audience, it was as if they were all sitting at
the 'bottom of a swimming pool and I was trying to see them through a
surface broken by ripples and sparkling with sun-starts. The effort
made me quite nauseous and I raised my eyes to the back of the
lecture theatre and stared at the big clock hanging on the wall
there. Slowly its hands swam into focus. Nine o'clock precisely. The
distant sound of bells drifted into the room. I lowered my eyes. The
swimming-pool effect was still evident, except in the case of one
figure sitting in the middle of the back row. Him I could see pretty
clearly with no more distortion than might have come if I'd been
looking through glass. And yet I knew that this must be completely
delusional.

For it was you, Mr Pascoe. There
you were, looking straight at me. For a few seconds our gazes locked.
Then you smiled encouragingly and nodded. And in that moment everyone
else came into perfect focus, I stopped trembling, and you vanished.

Wasn't that weird? This letter
I'm writing must have created such a strong subconscious image of you
that my mind, desperately seeking stability, externalized it in my
time of need.

Whatever the truth of it, all
nerves vanished and I was able to put on a decent show.

I even managed
to say a few words about Sam, nothing too heavy. Then I read his
paper on
Death's Jest-Book.
Do you know the play? Beddoes
conceived it at Oxford when he was still only twenty-one. 'I am
thinking of a very Gothic-styled tragedy for which I have a jewel of
a name - DEATH'S JESTBOOK - of course no one will ever read it.' He
was almost right, but as he worked on it for the rest of his short
life, it has to be pretty central to any attempt to analyse his
genius.

Briefly, it's about two brothers,
Isbrand and Wolfram, whose birthright has been stolen, sister
wronged, and father slain by Duke Melveric of Munsterberg. Passionate
for revenge, they take up residence at the ducal court, Isbrand in
the. role of Fool, Wolfram as a knight. But Wolfram finds himself so
attracted to the Duke that, much to Isbrand's horror and disgust,
they become best buddies.

Sam's theory
is that the whole eccentric course of Beddoes' odd life was dictated
by his sense of being left adrift when his own dearly beloved father
died at a tragically early age. One aspect of the poet's search for
ways to fill the gap left by this very powerful personality is
symbolized, according to Sam, by Wolfram finding solace not in
killing his father's killer but rather in turning him into a
substitute father. Unfortunately, for the integrity of the play that
is, this search had many other often conflicting aspects, all of
which dominate from time to time, leading to considerable confusion
of plot and tone. As for Death, he is by turns a jester and a jest, a
bitter enemy and a seductive friend. Keats, you will recall, claimed
sometimes to be
half in love with easeful death.
No such
pussy-footing about for our Tom. His was a totally committed
all-consuming passion!