The Corpse in the Cellar (19 page)

‘Well, think for a moment. If I talked about sports such as dog fighting and cock fighting; if I talked about brutal bare-knuckle boxing; if I talked about the totally unnecessary risks and dangers that people expose themselves to in some sports—I could start to build up a case that whatever this thing called “sport” is, it must be something evil. I could talk about how the supporters of different football teams so easily seem to fall from jeering at each other to fighting each other. I could talk about international competition as evidence that sports divide nations and divide communities. I could cite examples of cheating in sport to show that sport brings out the worst in people. It would be an unfair and unbalanced catalogue, of course, but it wouldn't be hard to make some sort of case against this whole vague category of “sport”. And that's exactly what you've done in the case of your very large, vague category of “religion”.'

I was still thinking about how to reply to this when Jack went on, ‘Instead of making a case against a category as vague as “religion”, you'd be much more persuasive if you made your case against Buddhism, and against Hinduism, and then against Islam, and then against Christianity . . . and so on. And I think you'd find that your case would be quite different in each example.'

‘Such as?' I challenged.

‘Well, I doubt that you could make a case that Buddhism was war-like, for instance. As far as I know, and I admit my knowledge is limited, Buddhism is an almost entirely pacific belief system. However, on the other side of the ledger you could argue that the Buddhist belief in reincarnation has had the effect of discouraging the foundation of charities for the disabled. Apparently Buddhists believe that if you're born with a disability you're being punished for the sins—the “bad karma”, I think they'd call it—of a previous life. Given that belief, you can readily see why there were few charities in most Buddhist countries until the arrival of Christian missionaries.'

‘But—' I began. However, Jack had up a head of steam and kept going.

‘The Hindu practice of
sati
, the burning of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, was stopped by the arrival of Christianity in India.'

‘Let's see if I've got this right—you're arguing that every time I use the word “religion”, I'm pointing at such a wide range of things I'm not hitting my target, and what I should be doing is investigating, and criticising, specific religions for their specific faults.'

‘Exactly. Picking out the worst examples and claiming that you've wiped out the whole category of “religion” is like quoting the worst greeting card verse and using that to attack the whole category of “poetry”, or focusing on frankly awful popular tunes and claiming this shows that “music” is all awful.'

‘Actually, you're beginning to make sense,' I admitted as I poured another glass of brandy. ‘All this talk about “religion” is now looking intellectually lazy. The thing to do would be to focus on a particular, specific religion.'

‘That would certainly be the intelligent and well-informed thing to do. But I think I'd go even further than that, since your real target is not “religion” at all, but Christianity. I got the impression when you were rattling off your charges against what you called “religion” it was really Christianity that you were taking aim at. If that's so, it's better to say so. Don't disguise your attack on Christianity by woolly thinking about “religion”. Be specific, and try to land some knock-out blows on the reasonableness of Christianity.'

‘Then let's agree that our debate is not about “religion” but about the reasonableness of Christianity. That said, it's still the case that the catalogue of evils I rattled off can be laid at the door of Christianity.'

‘I'm not sure it can,' said Jack. ‘Even you must admit that your list is highly selective and carefully omits the rest of the story.'

‘In what sense?'

‘Well, Christianity invented the concept of the hospital. It was Christianity that invented the university. Christianity both provided and encouraged education. It's simply a fact of history that it was Christianity—the ideas contained in the Bible—that gave rise to charities. And your argument about science, it seems to me, is simply wrong as a matter of history. The people who argued against Galileo didn't do so because they were Christians but because they were, philosophically, Aristotelians, and Galileo's science disproved Aristotle. The relationship between science and Christianity is the exact opposite of what you claimed. In reality, it was Christianity that gave rise to modern science. The founders of modern science, Newton, Boyle, Copernicus, Galileo himself and countless others, were devout Christian believers. They pursued their science
because
they believed the world to be intelligently designed; hence there was a design to be discovered.'

‘I'll need to look into the history of that,' I muttered over the top my brandy glass. ‘But—but—can Christianity be reasonable if wars have been fought in its name?'

‘It depends what you mean by Christianity.'

‘I don't follow.'

‘If a medieval prince wants to expand his territory and declares war on a neighbour claiming that he is doing so in the name of Christianity, would such an action be consistent with the Christian faith that he claims to be waging war in the name of, or wouldn't it?'

‘That . . . I think . . . would depend on what counts as genuine Christian faith.'

‘And surely the way to establish that would be to go back to the teachings of Jesus. If you're trying to weigh up whether genuine Christian belief is reasonable or not you need to look at the founder of the faith, and not at some medieval prince—who may, or may not, have been well taught in Christian things, and who may, or may not, have been abiding by what he was taught.'

‘But surely if the Church, or one of the major denominations, acts in a certain way . . . '

‘Don't try that argument on me because I won't respond to it. I'm not interested in defending, or attacking, any of the major denominations or churches. It's the core, the common faith, the historical faith taught by the Founder that I believe can be shown to be entirely reasonable.'

‘And in the case of wars and torture?'

‘Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, and he told Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Let's examine critically, and intelligently, the reasonableness of the Christianity of Jesus. Surely that gets us to the heart of the matter.'

Shortly after eleven o'clock that night I crept out of my room, carrying my boots in my hand, and began my slow and silent departure. As I tiptoed down the darkened corridor, a narrow finger of light appeared beside me as the door to Warnie's room was opened an inch. An eye appeared in the gap. Seeing me, Warnie pushed the door wider and put his finger to his lips to signal silence. Did he really think I was about to slap him on the back and shout, ‘Warnie, what are you doing up at this time of night?'

But Warnie was clearly enjoying his plunge into this cloak and dagger stuff, and, fuelled by his endless reading of thrillers, he was playing his role with all the relish of an old ham actor in a juicy melodrama.

Warnie stepped out into the corridor, taking the lead and beckoning me to follow. He had also removed his boots and was treading carefully down the stairs in his woollen socks. About six steps from the bottom he put his weight on one step that creaked loudly. In that silent pub it sounded like the explosion of Krakatoa. We both froze, waiting to hear if anyone had been roused. After a lengthy silence Warnie resumed his cat-like tread to the foot of the stairs. I followed, being careful to step over, and not on, the sixth step from the bottom.

Warnie then led the way behind the bar and through the door into the kitchen. Here he struck a match, and it's a good thing he did: around us were kitchen benches stacked high with pots and pans. If we had bumped those over we would have had a crash to wake the dead, the entire pub, most of the town and all the closer farms. Then, of course, we would have had a lot of inventive explaining to do, and my overnight adventure would have been cancelled.

As it was, we negotiated our way between the benches and the piles of cookware, then down a shorter hallway. This was clearly used as storage space by the publican, with boxes piled upon boxes. We had to turn sideways and inch past these. Then we were at the solid wooden door at the back of the pub.

Warnie slowly eased back the latch and bolt and slid the door open. I squatted down on the floor to pull on my boots and lace them up. As I was doing this the flickering match burned down to Warnie's fingers. He blew it out and lit another.

I stepped outside. Warnie shook my hand, wished me luck in a whisper, and gave me the thumbs up sign as a gesture of encouragement. Then he gently closed the door behind me. I heard him slowly ease the latch and then the lock securely into place. A second later I heard the bolt on the door slide home.

Now I had no way back.

A crescent moon came out briefly from behind a cloud and cast a pale blue light over my surroundings. I was standing in a narrow alley that ran behind the back wall of the pub. Treading as lightly as I could on the old cobblestones of Market Plumpton, I made my way to the corner of the building and peered around. I was looking down another alleyway that ran between the pub and the building next door, past the side windows of the pub. The moonlight clearly revealed the rubbish bins that lined this passage. I carefully squeezed past these potential hazards. My aim was to get to the front of the pub because that was a street I had come to know well, and I thought from there I could easily find my way to the railway station.

At the end of the second alley I cautiously peered around the corner. The street in front of the pub was a river of darkness dotted with small splashes of dim, yellow light beneath the street lamps. I looked up and down the street. It appeared to be completely deserted.

I was about to step out from behind the corner of the pub when I heard a sound from the opposite side of the street. Quickly I stepped back, quietened my breathing and tried to peer into the deep shadows opposite the front door of the pub. The sound came again—the scraping of a boot on the footpath. This was followed by the striking of a match, and a moment later I saw a young uniformed policeman lighting a cigarette. The flame of the match died and all I could see was the dull red glow of the end of the cigarette.

He didn't move. I waited and waited, and still he didn't move on. I decided he was not a bobby on his beat but was stationed in front of the pub to make sure we didn't do a midnight flit. But flitting was what I had in mind. Making a midnight flit was essential to our plans. So I retreated down the alleyway, past the rubbish bins and along the first alley that followed the back wall of the pub.

I passed the now-locked back door and kept going. Once again the clouds broke long enough to give me a few moments of dim, silvery moonlight. By this I found another narrow laneway leading off to my left. On one side were the back walls of terrace houses and shops, each with its back door opening into the lane, and on the other a long, high, unbroken brick wall. I guided myself by running my fingers lightly along this wall, moving forward slowly and cautiously. I didn't want to kick over a rubbish bin and attract attention.

The lane widened out as it led downhill. Downhill, I knew, was the general direction in which the railway station lay, so I pushed on. Eventually the lane opened into a slightly wider street. This sloped up to my left and down to my right. I turned right.

A few minutes later I stepped into a small square, and from here I could see down to the railway station itself—the platform dimly lit with a warm, buttery-yellow light. I hurried through the darkened town towards my destination. I quickly lost sight of the station behind the buildings, but I was now confident that I was heading in the right direction.

I walked down the middle of this wider street to avoid colliding with rubbish bins or stray cats. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A congregation of dogs in nearby backyards yapped their liturgical responses. The street reminded me of some lines by Alfred Noyes I had learned as a child: ‘The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight . . . ' And so it was, as the clouds broke into feathery traces and a crescent moon appeared, painting the street in pale light alternating with solid, black shadows—looking rather like an old woodblock print.

The street I was hurrying down ended in a yard behind the railway station. At this time of night the area was empty, except for a single truck parked next to the back wall of the station. Two men were struggling to slide large, heavy milk cans off the back of the truck onto the ground.

I skirted around the edge of this goods yard, keeping away from the lights and sticking to the pools of inky black shadow, until I reached the back wall of the station building. At this point I had no choice but to step out into the light. A steady nerve was what was needed here, I decided, so I squared my shoulders and with a confident swagger walked the length of the building to the ticket office.