The Avignon Quintet (11 page)

Inside the hall of the house a good fire had been stoked up, while the pyre outside was slowly being put out by the drizzle. It offered some warmth and cheer on such a gloomy evening. The priest and the notary (those two infamous figures of French life) settled down at a table at the far end of the room and addressed themselves to a sheaf of papers which Bechet extracted from a battered suitcase: attestations of death, burial or whatnot I supposed; or perhaps the last will and testament. At any rate they seemed much preoccupied with the business whatever it was. I betook myself to the far corner by the fire where old Jan brought me a jug of mulled red wine and sat down beside me in the chimney corner which we shared with Elfa the favourite gun-dog of the house. For a while now we sat, saying nothing. From time to time Jan gazed sideways at my face as if about to speak, and then renounced the idea – as if he could find no words to do justice to his feelings. The familiar silence of the house settled about us, except for the scratch of pens and shuffle of paper in the far corner. On a sudden impulse I said: “Jan, tell me why they did not let me look upon Piers in his coffin – or for that matter any of you? Eh?” In a sense the question was rhetorical, as I did not expect an easy answer from old Jan; I was simply airing a grievance, that was all. But he looked at me with a new incredulous expression, as if I was asking a silly question to which everyone must know the answer. I stared at him in a puzzled way and repeated “Why?” And he continued to stare at me with the same expression; then he said: “You know very well there was nothing to see. The body had no head. The men from the morgue said so. Surely you knew that – and Monsieur the lawyer? Surely he knew?”

The information was like a thunderclap. The words fell upon my ear like a deafening report. No head! “That is why they restrained you,” the old man continued. “They thought you had forgotten about it.” He gazed at my dumbfounded expression with sympathetic concern. It took a moment or two to get back my self-possession and accustom myself to the thought that we had been burying a headless man. But
why
? But what on earth could such a charade mean – if both Bechet and the priest were in the know why had they not told me? On the other hand perhaps it was all rubbish – perhaps old Jan had got hold of the wrong end of the stick, misunderstood a chance remark, muddled up a conversation in that old head of his?

An idea struck me; and I asked: “Did you see it with your own eyes?” He looked at me sadly and nodded. “So you are quite sure.” He nodded again in a surprised way. I drank a long draught of wine and reflected. “Then how do we know for certain that the body was that of Piers?” I asked. It was his turn to look astonished; clearly the doubt had never crossed his mind. Then his face cleared, the explanation had come to him. “By the right arm,” he said, “the wound.”

I knew then what he meant. He made the gesture of drawing back his sleeve as he said: “They exposed the arm for all to see.” Not many years ago Piers had had a very serious skating accident in Davos which resulted in a gash along the length of his right arm – it severed tendons and created a permanent disability, enfeebling his grasp with that hand. The cicatrice of this old wound was quite unmistakable. Obviously when they came to lay out the headless body they had drawn back the sleeve to expose this irrefutable mark of identity. Old Jan, in describing the fact, used a Provençal expression which is used by poulterers in describing the procedure by which rabbits are skinned in such a way as to leave their ears as a form of identification. The use of this word gave me gooseflesh.

I suppose that at this point I should have turned savagely on Bechet and demanded some sort of explanation. After all, the truth could have been quite ordinary, quite banal, and easily explicable. I should have asked but I was seized by a singular sort of constraint, almost a
pudeur
. Instead I went to the lavatory and was violently sick; while the two muttering men pursued their long conversation at the far end of the hall.

It did not last very long, for presently Bechet stood up and signalled to me his readiness to depart. I went up to them to bid the priest goodbye; he wore a haggard and sorrowful expression, and gazed at me curiously. Bechet flapped and flurried about snow on the pass and mist along the foothills. Why did I not tackle him directly there and then about the burial? I do not really know. I followed him tamely out into the darkness, having first embraced old Jan and other members of the clan, promising them that I would return soon to stay in the chateau. They made all sorts of extravagant promises about the place, but I knew it would never regain its solvency; and it was inexpressibly painful to think of coming back here all alone. We regained the car, and a moist fog swirled about the headlights, but this was a good sign for it smelt of a thaw, while here and there one felt a small push of wind from the northern sector. The merest puff of mistral along the Rhône valley and everything would become cold but clear as glass, with a blue sky to crown it.

“I’m glad it’s over,” said the little faded man as he manipulated the wheel of his ancient car, “in spite of the undignified rush. I must say, I loved Piers very much but I was often mystified by him. And as for the chateau I don’t know how they will keep ahead of the tax people. Piers had no head when it came to figures, no head at all.” The association in the metaphor emboldened me to put to him the question which had been on the tip of my tongue, but without giving me a chance he went on. “And talking of heads, my dear friend, I took one liberty without consulting you – in the interest of speed, of despatch. I have ordered a
caput mortuum
to be cast. You will have it tomorrow.” So that was the explanation! “You will, I hope, pardon me for the haste. Many motives impelled me. First, I felt it was a good thing to get it over, specially for you; then, on a more selfish plane, I wanted to get the papers and certificates in order as I am going on leave tomorrow for a whole month, to Sicily. I hate unfinished business, and in my profession you know how things can drag on and on …” He puffed at his cigarette and gave me a friendly sideglance. “I hope tonight you will get some real sleep,” he added, “because now all is in order.” I suddenly felt very old, and fragile, and exhausted.

Back in Avignon the streets were wet and the rainy vistas picked out with lights trembled as if seen through gauze. I could hear the sour tang of the clock on the Hôtel de Ville as we drew to a halt under the trees in the main square. I was glad to be set down here, and to have a short walk to the hotel. I wished him a happy vacation and shook his hand. It was a relief to be alone again and I turned up my face to the sky to feel the warmish rain on it. But it was already late when at last I reached my objective and I climbed the stairs heavily, exhausted and dispirited. I had already reached the first landing when the night porter awoke and came after me with a message. A gentleman from England had asked for me; he had taken a room but at the moment he was in mine. He had ordered soda and whisky and was waiting for me. It could only be Toby, and my heart leaped up exultantly to think that at last he had managed to get here.

I hurried up the next flight and along the gloomy corridor to my room to verify this certainty and found that giant of a man spread over the foot of my bed, snoring lightly. His spectacles had been pushed up on to his forehead and were in danger of falling; his detective story bought for the journey had already slipped out of his grasp on to the floor. Ah, those spectacles! Never have glasses been so often dropped, sat upon, kicked, fractured, forgotten. They held together by a miracle, and every fracture was carefully put in splints with the help of electrician’s tape. “Toby!”

He stirred, but then plunged back deeper into his sleep, his lips moving. His huge form bore all the familiar characteristics of the bachelor don – the untidy raincoat whose belt had long since vanished, the shoes like boats, their rubber soles curled up from too hasty drying in front of gas-fires after long muddy walks. Indeed his desperate trousers had traces of yellow clay at the extremities which suggested recent walks in limestone country – as well as perhaps a reason for his silence after my telegram. He had been away on a walking tour. Since he seemed to have no luggage with him save his detective story I presumed that he had first secured a room for himself, dumped his luggage, and sat down in mine to wait for me. His sleeping likeness to Rob Sutcliffe was almost uncanny; if they were not doubles, they could at least have been taken for brothers. For us they were Gog and Magog, two huge shortsighted men with sandy unruly hair and colourless eyelashes; specialists in laughter and irremediable
gaffes
. While looking down at the sleeping Toby I was also seeing Rob Sutcliffe.

Toby smelt of spirits but there was no trace of a glass in my room; but when I examined the bathroom I found a half-empty bottle of whisky, and a toothmug still half full – which went some way towards explaining his present porcine slumber. In order to celebrate his arrival – my spirits had risen with a bound since I knew he was at my side – I drank off the measure of whisky in the glass and returned to the bedroom to wake him and claim my own bed. But his sleep was still of the deepest and I had to repeat his name twice before there was any reaction at all. “Wake up, Toby!”

He appeared to stir in coils like a python – various parts of that large anatomy changed disposition, unrolled themselves, without the sleeper himself being aware; he then scratched his thigh, groaned, half sat up, only to relax again and deflate like a punctured balloon. The eyes opened at last and examined the blurred ceiling with its scrolls and cherubs with unfocused attention, seeing everything and nothing.

It was clear that he was puzzled, that he did not know where he was. I was charitably inclined to suppose that fatigue as much as alcohol played a part in this state of utter bemusement. “Toby. It’s Bruce.” He now woke up with such an exaggerated energy that it seemed he might levitate and go right through the ceiling. He struggled to his feet, grasped my hand in both of his, and said in rapid telegraphese: “I suppose I am very late? Telegram was at college – been walking in Germany – was completely bowled over – and yet somehow expected something like it – didn’t exactly know what – but this is it – now recognise the whole thing – the suicide – typical – damn it all.”

“It’s a bad dream,” I said.

He nodded and went into the bathroom where he threw some cold water on his face to wake himself up. He then re-emerged vigorously towelling himself and, snorting like a carthorse, sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at me. “Suicide,” he said at last, as if that were something he had never properly thought about. Then he wagged a thick finger and went on. “Bruce, you never really took all that stuff seriously, did you? I mean Akkad and all those wretched tenets he was always stuffing down our throats. You never took them at their face value – but I always did and I was always full of misgiving to see Piers go overboard for them.”

I felt it necessary to apply a brake to this kind of free speculation, if only in the interests of poor dear Akkad. I said: “Toby, even if we haven’t got a precise reason for this act of Piers I don’t feel we have the right to jump to the conclusion that the Egyptians have anything to do with it – and I mean most particularly Akkad. They were dead against self-destruction, and Akkad never ceased to emphasise the point.”

“But you didn’t go as far as Piers – you were always on the fringes of the thing, Bruce. So how to know?”

“And you didn’t go anywhere at all – so how dare to speculate?” I felt angry, aggrieved. It solved nothing to have idle theories spun about something so cardinal and definitive as Piers’ death. “Sorry,” said Toby like a sad elephant, and bit the end of his thumb as he sank into a deep reflection. “I was only trying to think of a reason, but of course there doesn’t have to be a reason. Just depression or illness could account for it.”

“Of course.”

“He had a medical check in the autumn – I mean, suppose the sawbones found something slow but fatal like a cancer or like Hodgkin’s? It could easily … But I am making you impatient.”

It was true. It was also a little unjust on my part. I realised that I was simply trying to work off a little of my shock and hysteria on him. I apologised and he grinned affectionately and said he quite understood. It paved the way for me to bring him up to date, to tell him all that I knew, and to describe my visits to Sylvie and to the funeral at Verfeuille. He listened to all this heavily, and with an occasional sigh. But he still shook a doubtful head. “Rob used to say something like: ‘There is always a philosophy behind the misadventures of men, even if they are unaware of it.’ And that’s what I feel about this. Don’t be angry with me. It smells purposeful.”

Hence the smile on Piers’ face, I thought to myself; but I was heartily glad that Toby had arrived too late to inflame the police mind with his theories. I fished out the photographic dossier I had been lent with the police enlargements. He spread them slowly over the bed and bent over them, obviously touched to the heart for he solemnly blew his nose in a grubby red handkerchief. But there was nothing more of significance to be drawn from these things now. The enigma of the welcoming gaze towards the door perhaps. I don’t know. One tended to think up mysteries where none existed. I thought of the gold-tipped cigarette ends, and I thought of Sylvie and her distress on the evening of the act. Presumably these factors too would be explained when Sylvie recovered her reason again, if ever she did.

I finished my drink at last. Then I drew the curtains to watch the dawn come creeping up over the wrinkled river and over the muddled rooftops of the town where already the lacklustre pigeons were beginning to flap. Sour bells clattered the hour. “We must get some sleep,” and Toby rose yawning and stretched. I felt as if I were making my first steps in a new world, a world where all the dispositions had been changed abruptly, all the proportions altered.