Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (41 page)

Mr Maccabi felt moved to protest. ‘But you .....’

Disvan was remorseless and determined that not an iota of doubt about Maccabi’s tormentors should remain in our minds.

‘They are, in fact,’ he interrupted, ‘the very worst sort of ghost—unspecified, undirected and unresolved. They’ve no memories, no role and no story. They’re completely free agents who go where and do what they want. Unfortunately for you, what they seem to want is revenge for their non-existence.’

‘Revenge on me?’ asked Maccabi, with commendable firmness.

‘Seems that way,’ Disvan agreed lightly. ‘Not only that, but Death doesn’t appear to accept your change of its plans. It wants to have a word with you and make you stick to the script—as you will observe.’

Mr Disvan gestured towards the window and, for the split second before I averted my gaze, I saw that a reddish eye was peering in through a chink in the curtains. It might just have been a rather nosey (and strange) person outside but I was inclined to doubt that. Disvan leaned over and pulled the curtains fully to. Overcome by powerful emotions, Mr Maccabi lit another cigarette, unaware that he already had one in his mouth.

‘Well, I’ll tell you something else,’ he said, his voice shaking a bit at first but then painfully regaining its composure, ‘Death is also getting a touch impatient. It’s calling in accomplices.’

Mr Disvan somehow gave the impression that that was only to be expected.

‘I got up very early this morning,’ Maccabi went on, ‘because I couldn’t sleep. I thought I might as well have a bath. There I was, lolling back in the water, half dozing, when I happened to look up at the opaque panel in the door. A white shape suddenly sort of slid up and pressed itself to the glass. It was a face, trying to see in. The image was all broken up and angular, of course, because of the type of glass, but I recognised my Amy, all the same. My wife’s been gone nearly a year, Mr Disvan, but now she’s been made to come back!’

Mr Maccabi staggered on haphazardly, almost but not quite breaking down.

‘We didn’t say anything, but the way she looked at me was... different. She hadn’t returned to see me, that much was clear. I think she’s come to get the children to be with her—wherever that is. There was no love in the look she gave me, I can tell you. Something must happen to people’s feelings beyond the grave...’

We stayed decently silent. Poor Mr Maccabi had now lost his wife, not once but twice.

‘And then she floated away,’ he said softly. ‘I felt like putting my head under the water and going to her, whether she wanted me or not. But would I then be like her and have no heart?’

Mr Disvan tried to sound comforting, but with so little experience of the technique, it was an uphill struggle for him.

‘Who can say, Mr Maccabi? Perhaps it was only a facsimile of her, or perhaps she was just obeying orders...’

I prayed that the landlord hadn’t heard this, or at least wouldn’t intervene with his favourite argument that orders were no defence, as proved at Nuremberg in 1945. Fortunately, my faithless prayers were answered.

‘No, it was her,’ said Maccabi with great finality. ‘So now I don’t even have her memory to live for.’

Quite abruptly, his tone became almost aggressive. ‘Tell me, Disvan, why didn’t you warn me about all this?’

‘To what cause?’ answered Mr Disvan, entirely unperturbed. ‘It might not have turned out this way. Death can sometimes be diverted or have its plans changed. In the event, and sad to say, Death has decided in your case to be stubborn. Similarly, not all “potential ghosts” make so little use of their freedom as your set, haunting their creator. You’ve just been a bit unlucky, that’s all.’

I thought that this might be moment when Mr Maccabi chose to tear someone’s head off but, contrary to expectation, he calmed down. Strangest of all, he seemed to have accepted Mr Disvan’s Binscombe logic.

‘After all,’ Disvan continued, as reasonably as before, ‘if I’d told you there were risks associated with the advice I gave, would you have dutifully turned up with your family to be run over? Wouldn’t you still have taken the chance?’

Maccabi pondered this point for some while and then drained his glass of brandy to the dregs.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘So what’s the solution?’

Mr Disvan smiled. ‘Well, that’s the very bad news I mentioned. There isn’t a solution.’

‘Ah...’ said Mr Maccabi slowly.

Disvan pressed on regardless.

‘As your commonsense should tell you, Death can be postponed—but not avoided. It’s the same as if you eat moderately, do a bit of exercise, practise “safe sex” and so on. You might live a bit longer, but not for ever. Like all the others who eat, drink and indulge their fleshly inclinations to excess, you’ll die eventually. You see the principle?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Maccabi in a very world-weary voice.

‘Well, it’s no different from the way you’ve tried to evade Death’s call. It was a brave try, but all the ducking and weaving hasn’t done any good. Death, so to speak, has its eye on you.’

Mr Maccabi and I looked, involuntarily, towards the window.

‘To put it in a nutshell, Mr Maccabi,’ said Disvan, leaning forward conspiratorially, ‘Death will have its way. I shouldn’t be too upset. You’re only going on a bit earlier than the rest of us, that’s all.’

‘Fine,’ commented Maccabi bitterly, ‘and to think that I was worrying about it!’

‘However,’ said Disvan, pausing for dramatic effect, ‘Death is also sometimes merciful—when repentance is sincere.’

Mr Maccabi clearly saw a tiny light of hope amidst the all encompassing gloom.

‘What do you mean exactly?’

‘Well, what if you were to say you were sorry to have tried to flaunt Death’s wishes? What if you were to agree to go along with them? Assuming the Grim Reaper intends that accident to happen, come what may, what if you were willing to be there to meet it?’

‘And be run over?’ I said incredulously.

‘And be run over,’ Disvan confirmed.

‘Are you saying,’ said Maccabi, a note of enthusiasm in his voice, ‘that if I face the accident, Death might spare Bridget and Joseph?’

Apparently, Disvan was saying this. ‘Precisely. Assuming you join a queue and a few other people die with you, those “gaps” you’ve seen would be filled as planned, so there’d be no more hauntings. The shortfall in Death’s quota would be made up, save for a school-girl and a baby—which is to say, as near as makes no difference. Death would be happy, you’d be happy—albeit dead. In the circumstances, it sounds a reasonable compromise.’

Mr Maccabi nodded gravely.

‘It’s a good deal,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it.’

I was about to express my liberal humanist horror at the bargain that was being struck. My intentions were, however, changed by Maccabi crossing to the window and drawing the curtains. We then saw that the Angel of Death was indeed, all eyes.

‘I accept,’ said Mr Maccabi. ‘Are we in business?’

The eyes winked. Maccabi then mercifully shut out the view.

‘Mr Disvan, will you look after the children?’ he asked without turning back from the window to face us.

‘Of course,’ Disvan replied instantly.

‘As soon as she’s old enough, Bridget wants to join the Israeli Army.’

‘I’ll arrange it,’ said Disvan. ‘I have a good friend at the embassy.’

‘What about Joseph?’

‘Don’t worry. Mr Bretwalda has adopted several orphans; he’ll more than welcome another, believe me. Not only that, but I’ll watch over the boy all the days of his life.’

Once again, Mr Maccabi nodded his approval. He coughed nervously and checked his watch.

‘Good. Well, then, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I think I’ll be off. I have a bus to catch.’

NO TRUCE WITH KINGS!

‘It’s an excellent likeness,’ said Mr Disvan.

‘Really?’ I replied, more out of politeness than interest.

‘Certainly. It could almost be the great man himself.’

We both looked up at the statue of Oliver Cromwell which had been unveiled the week before. Sword and (I presume) Bible in hand, he now stared sternly from his plinth out over the expanse of Binscombe village.

For some reason, his metallic presence made me feel guilty and furtive. I doubted that the Lord Protector of England would have much approved of me.

Mr Disvan tore his gaze away and turned to address me.

‘Well, Mr Oakley,’ he said cheerfully, ‘what do you think?’

I searched the depths of my indifference for something to say.

‘Er... well, he wasn’t very attractive, was he?’

Disvan looked back to the statue towering above us. He seemed disappointed. ‘Attractive? No, I suppose not, now you come to mention it. But is that all you’ve got to say on the subject?’

I pondered the question and told him that, yes, it was.

‘But he’s a figure from history, Mr Oakley, not a male model. What have his looks got to do with anything?’

Not wishing to upset Disvan any more than I already had, I added that the statue was ‘very imposing’. That much was entirely true, although perhaps not in the sense Mr Disvan would have wished. Even so, the answer appeared to please him.

‘Oh good. I was a bit worried about that aspect of the design. You see, the sculptor offered us alternatives with Cromwell standing on a recumbent Royalist or holding the King’s head aloft. I was outvoted by the commissioning committee and so this pose was chosen instead. It’s a bit less forceful but if what you’ve said is true, it serves its purpose.’

While I wondered what this purpose might be (and decided not to ask), Mr Disvan returned to contemplating the graven image before him.

‘Long overdue,’ he muttered, ‘long overdue...’

I was a trifle peeved by the irrational unease I continued to feel. Who was this lump of metal to stand in judgement on my lifestyle?

‘Don’t some people object to it?’ I asked, nodding at the statue.

The unshockable Mr Disvan was almost shocked.

‘On what grounds?’ he gasped. ‘It doesn’t slow the cars down, they always had to go round that traffic island.’

‘No, no. I mean don’t some people object to Cromwell being stuck up here?’

Disvan went back to his normal mode of quiet confidence.

‘Certainly not, Mr Oakley. He’s a much revered figure hereabouts. Binscombe was staunchly Parliamentarian during the Civil War. There were even Binscomites in Cromwell’s own regiment of Ironsides. That’s happy memories. In those days our class and people had a sword in our hands. Glorious days! We were casting off the Norman yoke and undoing Hastings!’

‘Doing what?’ He’d seized upon the one bit of history my generation were still taught about and so I seized on it.  ‘I thought that was 1066?’

‘It was, that’s right, well done, and it took a fair old time in overturning. However, in the words of the great and good historian, Brailsford—who incidentally died the day you were born, Mr Oakley—“Cromwell’s Ironsides felt that on Marston Moor and Naseby fields they recovered what was lost at Hastings.” Very simple really. Do you see now?’

I did and I didn’t . Was I just imagining the spectral hint of blame that the historian chap left the world the same time as I joined it? How could I be faulted there? There was surely room enough for both of us. Or was it because I’d never heard of him?  Mr Disvan had firm views on what each full grown Englishman should have read. I graciously decided to let it ride—like a trooper at Hastings II.

‘Er, sort of. But how does that drag us in?’

Disvan beamed. He’d got the feed line he wished for.

‘Well, naturally, we were part of the process. We revere the notion. You would have found us at Edgehill, Marston Moor, Naseby, Preston, Dunbar, Worcester... You name it, we were there.’

‘On both sides?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Oakley.’

The rebuke wasn’t necessary. I regretted my quip even as I was saying it. Clearly the three hundred year old topic was still no laughing matter.

‘I’d go so far to say,’ said Mr Disvan, proudly, ‘that many of the locals here would tell you Oliver Cromwell was the greatest Englishman who ever lived.’

As I was framing words to tactfully express my scepticism about this, a group of local youths—the shaggy, heavy-metal sub-tribe variety—ambled by. Perfectly timed to prove Disvan’s statement and confound my doubts, those of them that had hats, doffed them to the statue. The rest respectfully dipped their heads. Mr Disvan appeared not to notice.

Despite realising how childish my reaction was, the incident annoyed me. It fuelled my dark, illogical fears that Mr Disvan was writing scripts for God.

‘But what about planning permission?’ I said, irritably. ‘Who on earth let your committee get away with it?’

Disvan remained the soul of reasonableness—to my further annoyance.

‘Well, most of the councillors were with us on the project,’ he said. ‘And as for the rest,’ here he smiled, ‘I suppose it would be an unwise politician who’d cast his vote against it. I suspect that person’s political career would survive only as long as the next election. That’s democracy for you, Mr Oakley.’

I tried another tack. ‘There’s plenty of Irish and Scots and Catholics and Royalists who live here, Mr Disvan. I don’t imagine they were too keen on the idea.’

‘Oh, I don’t know so much, Mr Oakley. People are capable of broader sympathies than you give them credit for. Father Wiltshire, for instance, was a leading light in the campaign to erect the statue, and he comes into two of those categories you mentioned. When all’s said and done, Mr Oakley, it was over three hundred years ago!’

I fumed silently and then Mr Disvan played what I suppose was his trump card. He smiled playfully—always a danger sign—and I tensed for the blow.

‘Your eleven times great-grandfather didn’t have such doubts. He fought for Parliament right from the start. Not only that, but he died at the fall of Basing House in 1645—whilst serving under Cromwell.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s just information I picked up somewhere, Mr Oakley. I thought you’d be interested.’

I was, in a way. So now I was being disloyal to my family in addition to all my other failings.

I recognised that, just like Basing House (wherever that was), my defences had been successfully stormed. Nevertheless, I tried one last Parthian shot at the victor.

‘This Cromwell chap, Mr Disvan; didn’t he chop the King’s head off?’

‘No,’ came the patient reply. ‘I believe they employed a professional executioner to do that.’

‘Come on, you know what I mean.’

Disvan reconsidered.

‘Oh, I see. You meant that Cromwell was responsible for the execution. Well, you’re quite right there, Mr Oakley. The removal of Charles’s head—who was only William the Bastard’s successor, after all—meant the Norman yoke could fall. I follow you now. Yes, that’s another point in Cromwell’s favour.’

*  *  *

‘Guess what?’ announced Mr Disvan, standing in the doorway of the Argyll. ‘Mr Oakley doesn’t think Oliver Cromwell was the greatest Englishman who ever lived!’

Gales of laughter from the occupants of the bar greeted this piece of red-hot news.

‘It’s a free country,’ I said sullenly, taken aback by the general hilarity. ‘I can think what I damn well like.’

‘Course you can, Mr O,’ said the landlord, ‘course you can—however daft your thoughts might be. It is a free country.’

‘That’s right,’ I agreed.

‘Mind you,’ the landlord added impishly, ‘it were people like Cromwell who made it so.’

‘Look!’ I growled—and instantly regretted it since the landlord was twice my size. ‘Er... look, could we give Cromwell a bit of a rest, please. I’ve had enough of him for one day.’

The landlord and Mr Disvan looked at one another and seemed, by some telepathic means, to agree to accede to my eccentric request.

‘Okey-doke,’ said the landlord. ‘The customer is always right.’

‘Thank you.’

Just when I thought I’d got the seventeenth century out of my metaphorical hair, I felt a tap on my actual shoulder. Looking round, I elevated my face the large number of degrees necessary to see that Mr Bretwalda was towering above me.

‘ ‘Ere,’ he said, ‘what’s this I’m told about you not believing old Oliver’s the greatest living Englishman?’

I took heart from Disvan’s proximity and dared to challenge the wild man of Binscombe.

‘Um—well, he’s not, is he? I mean, he’s dead, so he can’t be the greatest living Englishman, er... can he? If you see what I mean...’

‘That’s all you know,’ said Bretwalda, grumpily.

Mr Disvan, the landlord and Doctor Bani-Sadr, who’d come to join us, exchanged swift glances.

‘Mr Oakley wants to give Oliver Cromwell a bit of a rest,’ said the landlord in my defence (or so I thought).

‘Oh, he does, does he?’ rumbled Mr Bretwalda. ‘Well, it’s a pity some others like Oakley here didn’t leave him in peace, isn’t it?’

Leaving me, at least, to ponder this unhelpful remark, Bretwalda stumped off back to his table.

‘He means well,’ said Mr Disvan persuasively.

I was still mentally mopping my brow, and not inclined to accept this.

‘That’s as may be, but what did he mean? Who was it that didn’t leave Cromwell in peace?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Disvan mused, ‘well, I took that to be a reference to what was done to his body. You see, when the kings returned, their Parliament had Cromwell taken out of his tomb in Westminster Abbey and they hung him at Tyburn, where modern Marble Arch is. Actually, there’s a nice RC nunnery bang on the site now—because they lost a lot of people there too, saints some of them. It’s a shrine and house of perpetual prayer—and needs to be too—but that’s another story and by the bye. Anyway, they also “drew and quartered” his remains. The torso went in the communal pit and the head on a spike on the roof of Westminster Hall. A bit petty really...’

I was perhaps not as sorry to hear this as I ought to be. From beyond the grave, Mr Cromwell had somehow spoilt my evening.

‘So,’ Disvan continued, ‘instead of resting in honour at the Abbey with all the other rulers of England, the Lord Protector’s body is somewhere in Tyburn Pit, jumbled together with martyrs and felons.’

‘And his head?’ I asked, despite myself.

‘Well, that had a more chequered history,’ said Mr Disvan slowly, considering his words. ‘Anyhow, I thought you’d had enough of Oliver Cromwell?’

‘Yeah... in some respects I have, but I’m still curious about what’s going on here. I mean, why did Mr Bretwalda call him the greatest living Englishman?  Surely that’s nonsense when...’

‘It was nonsense,’ interrupted the landlord, ‘A slip of the tongue—using present instead of past tense. I do it myself all the time.’

‘Actually, Barry,’ said Disvan, ‘I was considering telling Mr Oakley.’