The Buddha of Brewer Street (17 page)

‘Hoped I’d find you here, Tom.’

‘Paddy, what a surprise. Didn’t think they’d whip in the heavy cavalry for a little light skirmishing over drains.’

‘No, I’m paired, Tom. Not voting. I hurried over from the Foreign Office. Needed to see you urgently.’

They sat down in the corner of the Chamber, well away from the few stragglers who remained.

‘Your visa case. The man Gompo,’ Baader began. He looked agitated. ‘You haven’t heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘He’s dead, Tom. Killed in St Petersburg.’

‘The balls of Buddha!’

‘No details. Of how he died. Whether it was an accident or …’ He trailed off, seemed ashen with shock. ‘I had to see you as soon as I heard, Tom. I feel almost … responsible in a way. I am sorry.’

It took Goodfellowe several moments to take in the news. ‘Not your fault, Paddy, couldn’t be. Don’t blame yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘But what the hell is going on?’

‘I asked Consular & Visa to consider the application in principle without telling them of his whereabouts. I did what you asked, kept it in the strictest confidence. It couldn’t have leaked from our end.’

‘I’m grateful for that.’

‘Must have been an accident.’

‘He’d only been in St Petersburg a few days. How could they have found out?’

‘Must have been an accident,’ Baader repeated.

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘I want to believe that. Look, the Chinese Government doesn’t go round knocking off political opponents all over the place.’

‘They do in China.’

‘But not on the other side of the world. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.’

The business of the House had now finished and they were sitting alone in the Chamber, silent, all but lost against the great expanse of green Gilbert Scott leather. Eventually Goodfellowe stirred.

‘Thanks for telling me, Paddy.’

‘It’s rotten luck, Tom. But probably nothing more than a terrible coincidence.’

‘Of course,’ Goodfellowe replied softly. ‘Trouble is, I’m a sceptical bastard. I don’t believe in coincidence.’

Even deserts can bloom. And so had Goodfellowe. He’d grown accustomed to – but never accepted – life on his own. Breakfast with no companionship other than a transistor radio. A half-filled pot of tea, for one. Tubs of stale butter lurking at the back of the fridge. The sink he was going to clean, tomorrow. His domestic habits had grown increasingly lethargic.

But since Elizabeth, so much had changed. He now talked with her over breakfast, even though she wasn’t there. A little obsessional, perhaps, but lonely people often grow obsessive. He shared smiles with strangers on the street. He could see colours again.

But he still had no money. How the hell was he to finance a love affair when he could barely afford to live? You had to come out from between the sheets at some point and eat, and a Marks & Spencer tandoori dinner for two had considerable social limitations, particularly when your dinner guest was the proprietor of one of the smartest restaurants in Westminster. The Kremlin had come to be an icon to which half of Westminster seemed to gravitate – the half, that is, with expense accounts, where a single meal surrounded by the glittering memorabilia of Marxism could wipe away Goodfellowe’s entire food allowance for a week. He was going to have to make what little he had go a long way.

Salvation, at least for their second date, came in the form of a request dropped by hand through his letter box in Gerrard Street asking him to visit the owner of The Himalaya Restaurant, just off Leicester Square, less than five minutes’ walk away. The letterhead announced that it was the only Tibetan restaurant in the entire country, but the letter itself didn’t explain clearly the purpose of the request. Still, Tibetan food might be fun and if he turned up in the evening there had to be some free hospitality thrown in. He’d take Elizabeth.

The Himalaya, located on the first floor up a narrow set of stairs, was, as with all things Tibetan, simple and unpretentious. It was like being invited into someone’s front room, with hand-painted walls – the usual glaring Tibetan colour scheme – covered in old photographs and images of the homeland. And, again like all things Tibetan, in pride of place hung a portrait of the late Dalai Lama, smiling quizzically as though he were just about to burst into laughter. Which, knowing him, he probably was. As Goodfellowe walked through the single small room of the restaurant he could feel the eyes of the portrait following him. Wretched man! The Lama seemed to be pursuing him not simply through the restaurant but through most aspects of his life. Suddenly Goodfellowe chuckled. He’d almost said lives. Buddhist-speak. A mental slip. There couldn’t be such things as previous lives and reincarnation, could there? From his place on the wall, the Lama stared indulgently.

Wangyal, the proprietor, a small man with a face as round as the sun and a full set of sparkling teeth, appeared agitated. ‘Mr Goodfellowe. Thank you, thank you for coming. This is so important.’ But for a while there seemed nothing more important to the proprietor than to ensure that Goodfellowe was taken through the menu in considerable detail. In truth, the pleasures of Tibetan cuisine were simple. Spicy soups. Meat and vegetable
momo
dumplings. Dishes of meat and egg noodle that were related much more closely to China than India. And butter tea, the staple of all Tibetan living. Goodfellowe took the cup in both hands and sipped. Elizabeth copied his example, and immediately spat out the tea.

‘Disgusting!’ she complained.

‘Mine’s all right.’ He took her cup and tasted. ‘Yours is fine, too.’

‘Then take it with my best wishes.’

‘An acquired taste,’ the proprietor explained.

‘And you seem to have acquired it,’ she said to Goodfellowe.

‘I’m enjoying it. It’s like …’ He searched for the comparison, but couldn’t find it. Bells within his memory were ringing as though across a great expanse of time. ‘I’ve tasted something like this before. But what, or when …’ He shrugged. ‘Bit like mother’s milk, I suppose.’

So they sat and took pleasure in their meal and in each other’s company. Her marmalade eyes reflected the low lights and her lips, full and unusually expressive, grew animated as they spoke and smiled for him. Her clothes were immaculate, although he had a mind only for what lay beneath.

The pursuit of women, he reflected, was very similar to the pursuit of politics. Both were indulgent, intrusive, often utterly irrational. Men would squander without restraint until their lives and reputations were left in ruins, then pick themselves up and do it all over again. The mistakes they made were eternal, yet somehow the lessons were never learned. But, oh! The joys of success, they drove a man onwards, never flinching, heedless of the fact that failure would devastate him utterly. Goodfellowe had a lot of experience of both the joys and failures of politics; it was time for a practice run with a woman, he thought. With this woman. And soon she would be in his bed. Idly he speculated about what his dying wish would be – to receive one final standing ovation from a political audience, or to lie one last time with Elizabeth? Hell, even for an Englishman there was no contest. An Italian or a Frenchman would have thought him mad simply for posing the question.

As they lost themselves in each other, Goodfellowe and Elizabeth scarcely noticed the passage of time or that the restaurant was now all but empty. Wangyal, who throughout the meal had kept disappearing into the kitchen, was standing beside their table.

‘He is here,’ the proprietor announced simply.

‘Who?’

Wangyal glanced anxiously as the only other couple still in the restaurant prepared to leave. ‘Wait,’ he instructed Goodfellowe, until he had bid the other customers farewell, the door was locked behind them and the blinds drawn. He also turned off the lights, it was only candlelight now. And conspiratorial. From behind the decorative curtain that led to the kitchen emerged a gnarled, stooped man, dressed in jeans and a casual shirt too large for him, who raised his withered hands together in traditional Buddhist greeting.

‘My name is Kunga Tashi. I have waited a long time to meet you …’ – he stumbled over the name – ‘Tummo Godfella.’

Up on the wall, the portrait of the Dalai Lama was laughing at him.

‘I am happy to meet you, Kunga Tashi,’ he responded. Goodfellowe discovered Elizabeth looking at him curiously. To his own surprise he had raised his hands in imitation of the Tibetan’s greeting. He wasn’t usually so open to suggestion, but he found everything about these people disarmingly easy to copy.

‘No, Tummo Godfella. You should not be happy to meet me. For I am on a venture of great danger. Of death. But hopefully, if we prosper, of new life also.’

‘If we prosper? If
we
prosper?’ Goodfellowe enquired suspiciously.

‘I have much to explain.’

And Kunga had sat down and told him about the circumstances surrounding the death of the Dalai Lama. About his instructions concerning the reincarnation, and the Search Group. ‘Three of us set out. One was murdered in India …’

‘And the other in St Petersburg.’

Kunga smiled grimly. ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’

‘No. Not in coincidence.’

‘Then the pursuit of eternal peace has become a surprisingly dangerous occupation, my friend,’ the monk offered.

‘You are the last one?’

‘I am the last of the Tibetan Searchers. And if I die, our mission is at an end, our country will be destroyed and our great faith will be wiped from the earth. The end of everything.’

The walls of the darkened restaurant suddenly seemed to draw in on them, and Goodfellowe felt a shiver of concern creep down the nape of his neck.

‘I’m sorry about Gompo. Somehow I feel responsible.’

‘It was not your fault. Our enemies are all around us, nowhere is safe. Which is why I have a small confession.’

‘You’ve sinned?’

‘In a manner. I have entered your country secretly. Illegally. That makes me a fugitive, not only from my enemies, but now also from your own Government. As I said, the search for the child is full of perils.’

Goodfellowe cleared his throat uneasily. ‘That’s one of my many problems. About the child. I’m not sure I believe in all this talk of reincarnation.’

‘But why is it so very difficult?’ The old monk smiled. ‘Even in your Christian faith there exists the concept of a life after death. We are only discussing the nature of that life.’

‘But how can you hope to identify the right child?’

‘Because we know His Holiness so well. His characteristics. His mannerisms. And have known him through many lives. We set the child tests to ensure that we have not made a mistake.’

‘But surely you might make mistakes.’

‘Tummo Godfella, for more than a thousand years your country has followed the principle of hereditary monarchy, based on the belief that the queen on that particular night slept with the king and not some courtier. Are you suggesting that in a thousand years there has never been a … an opportunity for confusion on that matter? We apply stringent tests in the process of identification. You simply take the word of the mother.’

Goodfellowe could sense Beefeaters rushing up the stairs, ready to drag them off to the Tower for sedition.

‘And some might suggest that basing a religion on the notion of a Virgin Birth is scarcely scientific. Although,’ Kunga hastened to add, ‘we regard your Jesus as one of the great enlightened teachers.’

Trouble was, that was also a problem for Goodfellowe. He was pretty doubtful about the Jesus thing, too, and about concepts such as turning wine into blood and arriving at a heaven filled with fountains and laden vines, but this was hardly the time for a tussle with philosophical principles. ‘OK, let’s start from the premise that he has been reborn. What makes you think he’s somewhere in Britain?’

‘Signs, portents. And what His Holiness told us. He said his rebirth would be dedicated to reconciliation, peace on earth, in part between East and West. It makes sense that he should be reborn in the West.’

Goodfellowe wrinkled his nose sceptically. ‘What other clues?’

‘As he died he turned to face the West. And he had laid out some stones in front of him in the form of a letter I. The name for your countrymen in Tibetan is
Inji.’

The nose puckered once more. These were merely debating points, of little substance. Thin gruel.

‘And also this.’ Kunga held up his palm with the vivid red scar.

Goodfellowe recognized it immediately. An extraordinarily accurate outline map of England. He could even place Marshwood. And there was a dark purple mark in the precise position of London. ‘Remarkable,’ he conceded. ‘But surely nothing more than …’

‘Coincidence?’

The monk had a point. ‘I was going to say, nothing more than a scar.’

‘One might say nothing more than the marks of the cross I have to bear,’ Kunga offered provocatively. But what he did not tell Goodfellowe was that, for the first time since the death of the Dalai Lama, the scar had ceased to burn. At the very moment the Eurostar shuttle on which he travelled had emerged from the Channel Tunnel. One minute the hand that held his false passport was on fire. The next minute the pain was gone. It was as though his wound had come home.

Goodfellowe was unimpressed – at least, he wanted to be unimpressed. His experience as a politician led him to be dubious of not only coincidence but also excessive conviction, and he didn’t swallow this monk’s diet of omens and oracles. Yet he warmed to him, wanted to trust this strange elf-like figure with the pointed ears whose hands told of a lifetime of suffering, whose eyes spoke of little but hope. And he couldn’t forget there were two corpses to account for.

‘Let’s just suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is something in what you say. What do you want from me?’

‘You do not know?’ The monk smiled mischievously, like a politician about to announce a tax cut.

‘How can I?’

‘You are the only Englishman I can trust. Who can help me in the search. I am a stranger in your land, but you will know where to go, what to do. You are a member of your Parliament, a former senior Minister, who knows what questions to ask and where to ask them. You must help me find the child. Without your help the task becomes impossible. The boy will be lost. And with him, Tibet.’