The Avignon Quintet (151 page)

“Wow!”

“Thank you so much!”

“Tell me about love. I have been forbidden it since I have been here and I am beginning to miss it. This nun’s life is bad for my book. I fear that if too long out of use one surely atrophies, no?”

“I don’t think so – ask your doctor.”

“I have and he says not. Actually I am less worried for myself than for my baby, my book. Ah, Rob, what a strange obsession it is, this writing game! I desire the sovereign form exposed by exact method-open-cast mining, or better, heart surgery. But in order to achieve it you must first get mental pruritus, the desire to
know
, and then quietly scratch yourself to death, the paper to death with your pen. And all to what end?”

“Well, if you can’t love it’s your only alibi.”

The thought was displeasing to Blanford, so in order to cheer him up Sutcliffe recited:

Another lovely morning in the history of Our Saviour,

I pray you children one and all, be on your best behaviour.

Put all these problems out to grass

And watch the generations pass.

I’ve lived my life, I’ve had my say,

A lucky dog, I’ve had my day.

Rise early, darlings, catch the dew

And may you join the Happy Few.

“What is really ailing you is a theological nagging which has little to do with your book, since it is neither a
plaidoyer
nor does it preach anything. But if you go mucking about with the discrete ego you must be careful not to make a mistake and release a whole lot of indiscreet ids. Remember that a conjuror must be worthy of his balls!”

“Well said! Nobly said!”

“And now, Aubrey, to my main theme. It is nothing less than the Crucifixion of Lord Galen at the hands of Mrs Gilchrist and her girls, a sight of great dramatic and symbolic significance. It is amazing with what modesty and good nature he went to his doom; indeed, he chose his own doom, but it was very late in the night, towards the third hour when different realities begin to sift into each other and the Chinese distinguish finely between the day particle and the night particle, between the definite and indefinite article. There came a young lady to the door of the apartment clad in nothing but a sort of drunken dignity who raised her voice and said, ‘There is a Jewish gentleman below who wishes to be crucified and has asked me if you will all oblige.’ There was an immediate rush of willingness to please, everyone felt warm and generously disposed, but how to proceed? There were no nails to be found anywhere, lucky for Galen. Meanwhile, where was he actually? For some time past he had not been in evidence and one presumed him to have left or fallen asleep in some nook. But instead he had been undressed and locked into a cupboard full of brooms and slop-pails and here, after announcing his determination to expiate the sins of Jewry by getting himself crucified, he waited with smiling patience. The girl in question having prepared her audience now released him and led him unprotestingly from room to room – he smiling bashfully and somewhat roguishly the while: but he was drunk beyond deadness, beyond coma, beyond the seventh sphere of incomprehension. He was hazed in, worn out and living in a world of his own. He was nude and his Old Etonian tie had been attached to his principal member, and it was with this that he was led, just as Gandhi led his goat through the market-place where he received a resounding ovation. It was as if a Turkish butcher might lead a succulent fat-tailed sheep across the market place in order to beat up his clients’ saliva by the spectacle. Our own saliva flowed copiously enough, but where was the impedimenta – the cross, for example? We did not know that it was not the first time that Mrs Gilchrist had organised a little crucifixion to please an exacting client – but that we supposed would be perverse, perhaps, catering to special inclinations. Galen looked too naively happy to be a pervert, lusting after red-hot pincers or beds of nails. He turned his head from side to side as he walked through the rooms in harmless beatitude and one could not help being charmed and wishing him well in his little adventure.

“The girl having trailed her cape, so to speak, throughout the various salons, made her way, followed by a considerable crowd of enthusiasts, to the high walled-in verandah which Mrs Gilchrist called the Quarterdeck. The only furniture was a huge double bed with massive medieval baldaquin, which stood in the middle of what seemed a sort of nuptial chamber. Perhaps it was here in this mammoth bed that a youthful Mrs Gilchrist had yielded to the charms of the now phantom Major, whom she was wont to invoke as her late husband? At all events this was to be the site of Galen’s crucifixion, for the two thick bedposts served admirably as struts upon which they could string him – better, indeed, than a cross, though a trifle less symmetrical as to the feet. However the concourse of maidens with cries and songs and expressions of goodwill now started to lash his outspread arms to the posts while in a Christ-like enfeeblement but with good humour Galen’s head lolled and he expatiated upon himself: ‘I wanted only to be good, pious and obedient,’ he confessed modestly, ‘I was prepared to wait for God to make me original. My dears, it worked. It worked and here I am!’ He tried to spread his arms in triumph but was impeded by his fastenings. But he was not discountenanced, for he continued: ‘The Ambassador to Bangalore appeared before me dressed in the robes of a
khitmagar
or majordomo. He said: “Why don’t you refuse the whole bloodstained Christian package, eh? Doff the butcher’s apron so to speak, refuse the self-righteous futility of it all, stop being a martyr to respectability, dissociate yourself from blood-gulpers and wafer-chewers with their smithereens complex. Zonk! Bonkers! Pliouc! Be yourself even in strip cartoons! My dear Galen, relinquish your ghastly monotheism which has led to man’s separation from nature and released the primal devastator in him. Pierce to the heart of helplessness, of harmlessness, which is Buddhism. Let meditation be the mould of feeling and breath the engine of thought!”’

“In the midst of all the horseplay and noise Galen did succeed in looking something like a Mantegna Christ Crucified – all except for the foolish good humour with which he submitted to an occasional tickle in the ribs. Or else a passing girl might seize his Old Etonian tie and give a tug, crying out ‘Ding-Ding!’ in the accents of a passing tram. Or yet another might cry out, ‘They say he has dimples in his bottom like a French novelist!’ But in the intervals the noble lord went on reciting the interminable Buddhist creed – for that is what it sounded like to the onlookers. ‘Guilelessly, harmlessly, heedlessly, noiselessly, needlessly, haplessly, hopelessly, toplessly, shapelessly, soundlessly, stainlessly …’

“At this very moment who should come upon the scene but Mrs Gilchrist herself, wrapped in a whorl of pink silk and white fur, and winnowing her way across the floor like a wild bird dragging its claws across the surface of a lake: she skidded into view exuding majesty and a certain reproachfulness. Clapping her hands loudly she was exclaiming, ‘My children! My children! What is going on? Why aren’t things being hurried up? What about the
extermination
of the Jewish gentleman?’And with this she chucked Galen familiarly under the chin, causing him to giggle once more – though his expression was ever so slightly tinged with alarm – for he clearly did not know what the word might connote in the mind of Mrs Gilchrist. But for the girls it contained no secret. At once from behind their backs there appeared lipsticks of various types and hues – lipsticks like the little red sex of a thousand lapdogs lusting for love. And now the girls swarmed all over Lord Galen, decorating him with intense concentration, covering every available nook of his august person with flowers, mottoes, cobwebs, hearts, arrows, as well as other less familiar
graffiti
, like the genitalia of other members of the animal kingdom famed for their lubricity. It was a veritable fertility rite which was accomplished with almost no bickering, while the subject stayed rapturously still with arms outspread, feeling for the first time in his life thoroughly appreciated, thoroughly loved and understood. But from time to time fatigue overwhelmed him and he sagged briefly in his lashings. Then came catastrophe.

“In order to draw on his back and his bottom, not to mention his legs, the young ladies of Mrs Gilchrist climbed upon the bed in force, and it would seem that this was responsible for what followed. The heavy baldaquin, worked out of true by their wrigglings, suddenly broke away from the frame and crashed down, carrying one upright with it—fortunately Lord Galen was propelled sideways out of reach of the falling pieces and thus avoided an extremely nasty knock on the head. But he still remained tied by one arm, feebly draped across the floor. There was not an inch of his person that had escaped the artistic enthusiasm of the girls and he really looked like a tattooed Maori warrior prepared for a battle, or some obscure African chief prepared to preside at a witch cult. There was, of course, a delicious panic now, with bumps and bruises and squeaks all round, and when it was clear that for the moment the rest of the bed held firm, the girls who had drawn back now closed in once more upon Lord Galen and helped him down from the cross with strokings and mewings and consoling cries lest he had been frightened by the accident. He had, of course, but in a vague way, his whole sensibility deadened by drink. So now they carried the crucified and exterminated one to a nearby sofa and laid him out in vaguely ceremonial fashion, piling cushion upon cushion on him, and leaving only his grotesquely decorated head to stick out – it was like burying a Red Indian totem pole. But it was lovely and warm with the weight of the cushions upon him and he snuggled down in great good humour, confident that he would rise again on the third day because Mrs Gilchrist informed him that he would. ‘Have a little kip, dear,’ she suggested. But it was not to be.

“At that moment, with the air of avenging angels, two forms appeared as if by magic, stilling the tumult with a gesture of doom. One was the transfigured form of Felix Chatto, white with shock and resentment and outrage. In his hand he waved – an appropriate symbol of disapprobation – his London gamp meticulously rolled. He carried it high, just as Zeus might carry his trident or a saint his sceptre. And he shouted in a slightly daft voice which broke under the stress of his emotion, ‘
This has got to stop once and for all
!’ The message was meant in particular for Galen but it was propelled with sufficient force to include the whole of the company. The second figure, who looked abashed and out of place, was, of all people, Schwarz who stood about disconsolately waving a stomach pump – he had been misled about Galen’s condition which continued to register a mild euphoria despite the rather terrifying nature of his decorations. Felix was almost dancing with rage, his sense of
que dira-t-on
had been increasingly exacerbated as day followed day and rumour rumour about Galen’s cultural researches. ‘The whole of Geneva is laughing at you!’ he cried and with his gamp struck at the recumbent figure, but hitting him through the cushions which gave out a satisfactory thwack. Galen’s painted face worked – writhed, one might say – within its decorative scheme. He vaguely sensed that he was in a position of inferiority and just as vaguely thought to redress the situation with a reproof. ‘I never expected to see you in a place like this, Felix,’ he said in hollow tones, and the exacerbated young man hissed back, ‘And you? I came here to find
you
, and I have brought a doctor and an ambulance. This time you will be disintoxicated once and for all in the best clinic of Geneva!’ Lord Galen shrugged and threw up his hands; his underlip wobbled, and for a moment he looked as if he were on the edge of tears. ‘You are judging me very harshly,’ he said, with a shake of the head, ‘After all I have been through, you are judging me
very
harshly.’

“Felix, still brandishing his umbrella, said, ‘Someone had to do something. This last month has been a nightmare. At every turn I ran into one of your subcommittees asking for news of you, or worse still
giving
me news of your behaviour – highly unpalatable news, if I may so.’

“Felix, it is at their prompting that I undertook this path. If you knew what I have been through – dear boy, simply the American novel, nothing else! God! what a feast of violence and vulgarity and slime. I could hardly believe my eyes. And every one a cornerstone! No, Felix, there is a Communist Index and a Catholic Index and so far so good. Now I am going to establish Galen’s graduated scale of acceptability and see if the United Nations will bite. God, but I am tired!’ And now he had begun to look it. It was as if for the first time he realised fully that he was completely tattooed with lipstick. He gazed down at himself and gave the ghost of a whinny – the very last shadow of an exhausted chuckle. ‘Well, if I must I must!’ he said and held out his arms.

“For a moment there was some hesitation as to how he should be clothed for his departure from Mrs Gilchrist’s establishment; but two interns appeared bearing a stretcher and having carefully wrapped him in sheets he was lowered into it, and covered with a blanket. The girls made a good deal of petting him and Mrs G. took her farewell with a light and airy kiss. And so Galen’s search for culture ended.”

A pause now ensued and all eyes were once more focused on the sleeping man who had not turned a hair throughout the hushed disquisition of Sutcliffe. It was rather the silence which woke him now, and very quietly. He raised his head and said, “You were talking about me? Yes, I felt it.”

He yawned luxuriously and went on: “For the first time I feel really rested, completely cured. It’s been wonderfully therapeutic just lying on your feet and resting – I hope I didn’t crush? No? Good!” Indeed he looked once more his old expansive, convivial self as he rose and put his clothes to rights and combed his hair. “This afternoon and evening,” he said, “I must face the Central Committee with my recommendations, and we will know all!” He took up his bag full of cultural “cornerstones” and took his leave. A tight-lipped and unforgiving Felix awaited him in the car outside the clinic, ready to drive him to his office, and to make sure that he did not escape again.