The Buddha of Brewer Street (3 page)

His eyes widened. They caught Goodfellowe’s only briefly before returning to Lucretia. ‘A crushing issue, where I come from,’ he admitted. His tone implied it was all but a matter of mass starvation. Her fingers made their way from the sleeve to his hand in sympathy. They were very large hands, she noticed, powerful, but soft for a man of his age. Educated hands, she hoped, with just the necessary touch of native roughness.

‘And tell me, where is it that you come from? No, let me guess, do,’ she insisted. ‘But you must give me a clue. Does your country play cricket?’

‘Candidly, not as well as it might. The world does not truly regard us as a great cricketing nation,’ he acknowledged with remorse, as though she was ripping his conscience bare. ‘Although personally I have always taken the sport very seriously.’

‘Then it is definitely not Caribbean,’ she declared in triumph. Her first instincts were right. African. And she was a woman of exceedingly strong instincts. ‘So tell me, you are the High Commissioner for which country? Nigeria? Ghana?’

‘No, Cricklewood.’

‘Where?’

‘I come from Cricklewood, madam. In North London.’

‘But Cricklewood doesn’t have a … You’re not a High Commissioner?’

‘No.’

‘Then you are …?’ She was unable to find the social courage to finish the sentence.

‘Matthew O’Reilly, madam. A government driver. I drive Mr Goodfellowe here. Have done for years.’ Matthew beamed and Lucretia, on the brink of devastation, turned.

‘Mr … Goodfellowe?’ At last, he existed. She withdrew her hand rapidly from Matthew’s and considered offering it to Goodfellowe, but could find no appropriate words and instead waved it in the general direction of the throng. ‘Such interesting people,’ she declaimed, and without a further word launched herself into their midst.

‘I do hope the bloody cricket improves.’ Matthew smiled in her wake.

‘You could have kept up the pretence. She is obviously a serious collector of …’

‘Colonial conquests?’

‘High Commissioners. Men of elevated position.’

‘Then both of us are safe.’ Matthew chuckled. He examined Goodfellowe more critically. ‘You ought to go mix.’

‘Do I look as if I want to mix?’

Matthew shook his head.

‘Then you’ll have to do, O’Reilly.’

‘Sure thing, bwana,’ Matthew joked, but it fell on stone. ‘So, how is it on the western front?’ he enquired, picking up the threads of their conversation.

Goodfellowe considered the point. ‘Splendid,’ he suggested, but the eyes remained cold and untouched.

‘Bad as that, eh?’

The drowning of Goodfellowe’s teenage son Stevie in a holiday accident seven months earlier had been the cause of genuine sympathy in Westminster. Colleagues could see the loneliness in Goodfellowe’s features; those who knew him better could also detect the flecks of guilt. And it had got no better.

‘How’s the family?’ Matthew enquired quietly.

Matthew had driven Goodfellowe and his wife, Elinor, and their daughter Sam to the church, not just as a close work colleague but also as a friend. He had seen the bewilderment in young Sam’s eyes and noted with concern the vacant, almost detached look in Elinor’s, as though the funeral was merely another tedious official obligation that got in the way of all the private joys she would once again share with Stevie as soon as she returned home. When her longest day was over and at last she had walked back through her front door, past his new jacket that still hung on the rack and the polished boots that still waited for the new school term, she had taken herself to bed and hadn’t appeared for a week. Waiting.

‘I thought Elinor was getting a little better, but …’ Goodfellowe shrugged his shoulders. That’s what men do. Shrug. Never admit to pain. ‘And it’s tough on Samantha.’

‘It would be on any twelve-year-old. I’m very sorry, Tom.’

‘Thanks. But we’ll survive.’ Sure they would. At least, that’s what he’d thought. Though now he wasn’t quite so confident. Nor were Elinor’s doctors. There was talk of a nursing home.

Matthew could sense the loneliness. ‘You fancy coming round for a curry one evening? Flo-Jo would love to see you.’ Matthew and Goodfellowe had shared many snatched meals during their time on the Ministerial tour together and Goodfellowe had taken a particular fancy to the food that Matthew’s wife always seemed able to produce at a moment’s notice. Green chicken curry was his favourite. With extra chilli and plenty of plump, sweet sultanas.

Mind-blowing. Flo-Jo wasn’t her real name, but a pet name insisted on by Matthew. ‘From the first night I met her she’s never hung around,’ he once explained; ‘the fastest woman I’ve ever known.’ And Goodfellowe assumed he wasn’t referring simply to her cooking.

‘Be great. Love to.’ And meant it. But not tonight. He wasn’t in the mood to do justice to either the cooking or the company. Lucretia, bloody Lucretia, had offended his manhood, ignored him, and after painful months being denied proper female companionship such insults were especially wounding. He had to leave, before he began to find Lucretia – or someone like her – almost desirable and made a fool of himself. He glanced at his watch. ‘Got places to go.’

Matthew knew this was a lie. He had his own copy of the Ministerial diary. ‘Then I’ll take you.’

‘No, old friend. I need some time on my own.’

‘Then as an old friend I’ve got to tell you that’s the last thing you need.’

‘It’s a big day tomorrow. I’ll see you then.’ And with that Goodfellowe left one of the few reliable friends he had ever found in politics.

Goodfellowe decided to slip out quietly. He hadn’t met the guest of honour, and to leave without exchanging some form of greeting would unquestionably be regarded as rude. But the guest was besieged by admirers and Goodfellowe had had enough of crowds and impatient elbows for one evening. Anyway, an audience was included in Goodfellowe’s diary of official duties towards the end of the week – although by that time it would scarcely matter. Nothing seemed to matter very much any more.

He edged his way around the mass of people to the point where he was passing directly beneath the Second Earl of Cholmondeley (or at least his portrait) when his way was abruptly barred by a man clad in a wine-red shawl, right arm bare to the shoulder and holding his hands together and upright in the traditional Buddhist form of greeting.

It was the Dalai Lama.

Suddenly the room no longer seemed so crowded, so claustrophobic. Others had drawn back a pace, leaving Goodfellowe to effect his own introduction. ‘Thomas Goodfellowe,’ the politician offered.

The Lama laughed, a resonant noise like drums being beaten deep within his breast, and behind his glasses the eyes puckered in humour. ‘Of course you are. Goodfellowe. Goodfellowe!’ The name seemed to cause him considerable mirth and he swiped at the name like a benevolent cat might play with a mouse. The Dalai Lama, exiled leader of the distant Buddhist kingdom of Tibet, advanced and took both of the Minister’s hands eagerly in his own, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend. He continued to chuckle and smile, nodding a head that was scraped almost hairless in monastic style. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Thomas Goodfellowe.’ The mouth and ears were small, the brown skin weathered by exposure to elements and adversity, the glasses prominent; all the features led Goodfellowe’s attention to the Lama’s eyes, which sparkled and danced, like small crescents of the moon. Some aspect of those eyes, some attribute hidden deep away, seemed somehow familiar, like an elusive memory.

‘I am a considerable admirer of your country,’ Goodfellowe offered, since the Lama showed no indication of wanting to lead the conversation. ‘At home I have a beautiful bronze Buddha’s head.’ He’d picked it up on impulse one Saturday morning a few years ago, from Ormonde’s in the Portobello Road, a piece whose serenity had captivated him. ‘Sadly, I suspect, torn from one of your temples.’

‘Everything of value has been torn from our temples, Thomas Goodfellowe.’

‘I am sorry,’ Goodfellowe offered, taking the Lama’s comment as a rebuke.

But the deep bass drums within the Lama’s chest began to resound with laughter once again. ‘Better you have it and appreciate it, than it lie unnoticed beneath the boots of the Chinese Army. Indeed, perhaps that is the true task of the People’s Liberation Army. To make sure that the message and beauty of Tibetan Buddhism will be spread throughout the world.’ His arm waved expansively. ‘Like bees spreading pollen.’

‘I suppose so,’ Goodfellowe responded cautiously, finding the analogy uncomfortable.

The Lama laid a hand upon Goodfellowe’s shoulder. The gesture brought them still closer together but Goodfellowe felt none of the typical English diffidence at the unexpected intimacy; somehow it felt entirely natural. ‘At last our paths cross. In this life,’ the Lama offered.

At least, that’s what Goodfellowe thought he heard him say. Our paths cross. In this life. With the punctuation between the two thoughts definitive and deliberate. As though their paths might have crossed before.

‘“In this life”?’ Goodfellowe enquired.

‘We Buddhists believe in many lives.’ The voice was remarkably resonant; it seemed to spend an exceptionally long time travelling through the passages of the skull, giving it an unusual and deep timbre.

‘And you believe … we may have met before?’ Goodfellowe asked incredulously. ‘In a previous life?’

‘Who is to know?’ the Lama responded. ‘But the past is no more than a signpost on our way. It is the future that must concern us, Thomas Goodfellowe. You will be important to our future, I think.’

‘Me?’

Someone was at the Lama’s elbow now, trying to guide him on.

‘I wish you well tomorrow, Thomas Goodfellowe.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Goodfellowe was perplexed. How could the Lama know? But surely it was just another ambiguous turn of phrase. Like a fairground fortune teller.

‘And for all your days thereafter. We shall meet again.’

He was turning to leave but Goodfellowe placed a restraining hand on his arm, puzzled by the ambiguities, angered by the almost casual manner in which the Lama pretended to know more, much more, than he obviously could. Or should.

‘When? When shall we meet?’

The Lama took both of his hands once more and stared directly into his eyes. The wrinkles of amusement were gone.

‘Perhaps only after many troubles, Thomas Goodfellowe, my friend. But I want you to remember two things. That whatever it is you do, it is your motivation that matters above all else. Many may misunderstand you, but it matters not, so long as you understand yourself.’

The words struck him like a slap across the face. Understand himself? How could he? Goodfellowe was lost on the great ocean of life. His son drowned. Sails torn. His compass gone. The only thing he understood was that he couldn’t take much more of it. He felt angry again, as though the Lama had penetrated his soul and ransacked his emotions. The guest of honour was turning to leave.

‘What is the second thing?’ Goodfellowe shouted after him.

The Lama half turned. ‘That the future has a Chinese face.’ Then in a sweep of colourful robe he was gone.

Suddenly Goodfellowe felt flushed, bemused. What on earth did this strange-sounding Lama mean? What future? And why a Chinese face? It sounded surprisingly defeatist, coming from a man who had spent a lifetime trying to ensure that the only part of the Chinese anatomy his countrymen saw was the back. Above him George, the second Earl of Cholmondeley, stared down. Three hundred years earlier the good earl had been a groom to the bedchamber, Member of Parliament, lord-lieutenant of half a dozen counties and an excellent marshal who had rallied troops to the cause of four monarchs. That’s what the Dalai Lama was doing, Goodfellowe decided: trying to recruit him for the cause. He’d probably get a letter in a couple of days asking for a donation, or perhaps a subscription to some Himalayan hill-walking society. Well, tough. Money was tight and charity ran out at the door of Elinor’s nursing home.

As he was leaving, for the first time he noticed that he was holding a string of prayer beads, small circular pieces of old sandalwood threaded on silk. The Lama had left them with him; he hadn’t noticed.

That night, Goodfellowe dreamed, more vividly than he had ever dreamed before. He was sitting on a rock at the mouth of a cave. Alone. In the distance he could see mountains more vast than any he had ever known, great slabs of grey-green rock and shadows of deepest purple, leaping up from the land and stretching for the sky. A sky the colour of polished lapis. Before the mountains lay a great plain, filled with snow so intensely white that it must have been many feet thick and perhaps many centuries old. From somewhere nearby, but unseen, came the rushing of meltwater. Then the meltwater came into view, spreading like a stain across the snow. A deep red stain. Like the flowing of a lama’s robe.

The colour of flowing blood.

Goodfellowe woke with sweat trickling down his chest. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get back to sleep that night. And, after he had put in his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister, not for many nights to come.

‘Madame Lin!’ Goodfellowe exclaimed, almost as if in surprise. ‘What a pleasure. Please – come in.’

The expression on the face of the veteran Chinese diplomat made it evident that this was not one of those pleasures to be shared. Hers was an elegant face, not round and androgynous in the manner of many ageing Chinese but with high cheekbones and full lips that, when they smiled, were still very feminine. This morning, however, they were not smiling. The bun that held back the fine silver sixty-something hair seemed to have been tightened an extra turn and the dark-spice eyes, which so often glowed with humour, were narrowed and deliberately inscrutable. Her hand barely brushed the Minister’s palm in greeting.

The Ambassador was followed into Goodfellowe’s Ministerial office by her interpreter. Madame Lin spoke excellent English – with an American undertow picked up at Harvard – but there were rules of engagement to be followed this morning. Diplomatic violence was always to be undertaken in the mother tongue. For a moment Goodfellowe wondered whether he should have greeted her in the Ambassadors’ Waiting Room, a gesture of cordiality, a symbolic willingness to meet her half-way that might help soften the blow. But it could also have been taken as a sign of weakness, and such gestures had the propensity for being horribly misconstrued. There were tales filed away in the private office, and brought out only late at night, of an incident in the waiting room between one of Goodfellowe’s female predecessors and the diminutive Ambassador from the Dominican Republic, although who first laid a hand on whom varied according to the teller and the amount of water in the whisky. The Minister concerned had since gone off to become a cable TV agony aunt at three times her Ministerial salary, leaving a deep sense of loss around the masculine fringes of the Court of St James’s.