Read The Laying on of Hands: Stories Online
Authors: Alan Bennett
Tags: #Humorous, #Short Stories (Single Author), #Fiction, #Literary, #Great Britain, #General
The Laying on of Hands: Stories (8 page)
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‘Did you see a lot of each other? In Peru?’
Geoffrey was anxious to turn the page and get away from those incriminating initials.
‘Yes. We had meals together quite often. I could never figure out what he was doing there.’
‘What did you eat?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Eggs?’
‘Beans, mostly. He said he was travelling round. Seeing the world.’
As casually as he could Geoffrey turned the page.
‘These figures,’ said Hopkins, turning it back. ‘What do you think they mean?’
‘They’re on this page, too,’ said Geoffrey turning the page again. ‘And here,’ turning another.
Hopkins blew his nose, wiped it carefully and put the handkerchief away. ‘Is it sex, do you think?’
‘Sex?’ said Geoffrey with apparent surprise. ‘Why should it be sex?’ He looked at Hopkins as if the insinuation were his and almost felt sorry for him when the young geologist blushed.
‘Clive was a masseur. They may be payments on account—if they’re payments at all. I think when he was hard up at one period he used to provide home help, carpentry and so on. It could be that.’
‘Yes? You say he was a masseur. He told me he was a writer.’
Geoffrey smiled and shook his head.
‘My guess is that it’s a sort of diary and I don’t feel,’ Geoffrey said pompously, ‘that one ought to read other people’s diaries, do you?’
Hopkins shrank still further and Geoffrey hated himself. He went on leafing through. Against some of the names were small hieroglyphics that seemed to denote a sexual preference or practice, an indication of a client’s predilections possibly, of which one or two were obvious. Lips with a line through, for instance, must mean the person with the initials didn’t like being kissed; lips with a tick the reverse. But what did a drawing of a foot indicate? Or an ear? Or (in one case) two ears?
None of the drawings was in any sense obscene and were so small and symbolic as to be uninteresting in themselves, but what they stood for—with sometimes a line-up of three or four symbols in a row—was both puzzling and intriguing.
It was a shock, therefore, for Geoffrey to turn the page and come across a note
en clair
that was both direct and naive:
en clair
that was both direct and naive:
Palaces I have done it in:
Westminster
Lambeth
Blenheim
Buckingham (2)
Windsor
Except Windsor was crossed out with a note, ‘Not a palace’ and an arrow led from Westminster to a bubble saying ‘Lost count’. Written down baldly like this it seemed so childish and unsophisticated as not to be like Clive at all, though as notes for a book, Geoffrey could see it made some sort of sense.
‘It’s rather sad, really,’ Geoffrey went on, still in his pompous mode. ‘Why bother to write it down? Who’d be interested?’
‘Oh, I keep notes myself,’ said Hopkins. Then, as the priest looked up, startled, ‘Oh, not about that. Just on rocks and stuff. He told me he was writing a book, but people do say that, don’t they? Particularly in South America.’
It’s true Clive had spoken of writing a book, or at least of being able to write a book, ‘I could write a book,’ often how he ended an account of some outrageous escapade. Geoffrey may even have said, ‘Why don’t you?’ though without ever dreaming he would.
Like many who hankered after art, though, Clive was saving it up, if not quite for a rainy day at least until the right opportunity presented itself—prison perhaps, a long illness or a spell in the back of beyond. Which, of course, Peru was and which was why, Geoffrey presumed, he had taken along the book.
Still, he wasn’t sure. Clive was always so discreet and even when telling some sexual tale he seldom mentioned names and certainly not the kind of names represented at the memorial service. This iron discretion was, Clive knew, one of his selling points and part of his credit, so not an asset he was likely to squander. Or not yet anyway.
Hopkins seemed to be taking less interest in the diary and when Geoffrey closed the book and put it on the pew between them the young man did not pick it up but just sat staring into space.
Then: ‘Of course, if it is sex and those are initials and you could identify them it would be dynamite.’
‘Well, a mild sort of dynamite,’ said Geoffrey, ‘and only if a person,’ Geoffrey smiled at the young man, ‘only if a person was planning to reveal information …’ He left the sentence unfinished. ‘And that would, of course, be …’ and he left this sentence unfinished too, except at that moment a police car blared past outside. Geoffrey sighed. God could be so unsubtle sometimes. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘if this is entirely about sex, and I’m not sure it is, it’s not against the law is it?’ He wondered how long he could get away with reckoning to be so stupid.
Having found someone, as he thought, more ingenuous than himself the young man was determined to instruct him in the ways of the world. ‘No,’ he said patiently, ‘but it would make a story. Several stories probably. Stories for which newspapers would pay a lot of money.’
‘You wouldn’t do that, surely?’
‘I wouldn’t, but someone might.’ Hopkins picked up the book. ‘I wondered about handing it over to the police.’
‘The police?’ Geoffrey found himself suddenly angry at the boy’s foolishness. ‘What for?’
‘For safe-keeping?’
‘Safe-keeping,’ shouted Geoffrey, all pretence of naivety gone. ‘Safe-keeping? In which case why bother with the police at all. Just cut out the middleman and give it to the
News of the World?’
News of the World?’
Taken aback by this unexpected outburst Hopkins looked even more unhappy. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, nuzzling his chin on top of his pack. ‘I just want to do the right thing.’
The right thing to do was nothing but Geoffrey did not say so. Instead he thought of all the people behind the initials, the troubled novelists, the tearful gardeners and stone-faced soap-stars, Clive’s celebrity clientele dragged one by one into the sneering, pitiless light. Something had to be done.
He put his hand on the young man’s knee.
He felt Hopkins flinch but kept his hand where he had put it, or not where he had put it, he decided subsequently, but where God had put it. Because tame and timid though such a move might seem (and to someone of Clive’s sophistication, for instance, nonchalant and almost instinctive), for Geoffrey it was momentous, fraught with risk and the dread of embarrassment. He had never made such a bold gesture in his life and now he had done it without thinking and almost without feeling.
The young man was unprepossessing and altogether too awkward and angular; in the street he would not have looked at him twice. But there was his hand on the boy’s knee. ‘What is your name?’ he said.
‘Greg,’ Hopkins said faintly. ‘It’s Greg.’
Geoffrey had no thought that the presence of his hand on the young man’s knee would be the slightest bit welcome nor, judging by the look of panic on his face, was it. Greg was transfixed.
‘I am wondering, Greg,’ said Geoffrey, ‘if we are getting this right. We are talking about what to do with this notebook when strictly speaking,
legally
speaking’—he squeezed the knee slightly—‘it has got nothing to do with us anyway.’
legally
speaking’—he squeezed the knee slightly—‘it has got nothing to do with us anyway.’
‘No?’
‘No. The notebook belongs after all, to Clive. And now to his estate. And whom does his estate belong to … or will do eventually?’
Hopkins shook his head.
‘His only surviving relative. Miss Wishart!’
The priest loosened his grip on the knee, though lingering there for a moment as it might be preparatory to travelling further up the young man’s leg. This galvanised Hopkins and he got up suddenly. Except that the priest got up too, both crammed together in the close confinement of the pew, the priest seemingly unperturbed and never leaving his face his kind, professional, priestly smile.
Hopkins was now unwise enough to put his hand on the edge of the pew. Geoffrey promptly put his hand on top of it.
‘No, no,’ said Hopkins.
‘No what?’ said Geoffrey kindly.
‘No, she should keep the book.’ Hopkins pulled his hand away in order to retrieve the book still lying on the seat. ‘Where can I find her?’
‘She comes to church. I can give it to her.’ Geoffrey reached for the book and fearful that he was reaching for him too, Hopkins relinquished it without a struggle.
‘I can give it to her as a relic of her nephew. The only relic really.’ He stroked the book fondly and in that instant Hopkins was out of the pew and on his way to the door. But not quickly enough to avoid the priest’s kindly hand pressing into the small of his back and carrying with it the awful possibility that it might move lower down.
‘Yes,’ Hopkins said, ‘give it to her. She’s the person.’ And stopping suddenly in order to put on his backpack he got rid of the hand, but then found it resting even more horribly on his midriff, so that he gave a hoarse involuntary cry before the priest lifted his hand with a bland smile, converting the gesture almost into a benediction.
‘Won’t she be shocked?’ Hopkins said as he settled the pack on his back. ‘She’s an old lady.’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey firmly. ‘And I say this, Greg, as her parish priest. It’s true she’s an old person but I have found the old are quite hard to shock. It’s the young one has to be careful with. They are the prudes nowadays.’
Hopkins nodded. Irony and geology obviously did not mix.
‘I wondered if you wanted a cup of tea?’ Geoffrey stroked the side of his backpack.
‘No,’ he said hurriedly. ‘No, I’ve got to be somewhere.’
Still widely smiling Geoffrey put out his hand.
They shook hands and the young man dashed out of the door and quickly across the wet gravestones, Geoffrey noting as he did so that he had that overlong and slightly bouncy stride he had always associated with flute-players, train-spotters and other such unworldly and unattractive creatures.
Something strange, though, now happened that Geoffrey would later come to see as prophetic. Or at least ominous. The boy had pulled out a knitted cap and as he stopped to put it on he saw the priest still standing there. Suddenly and unexpectedly the boy smiled and raised his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he called out, and then about to go, he stopped again. ‘But thank you all the same.’
Geoffrey sat down in the nearest pew. He was trembling. After a bit he got up and went into the vestry where he opened the safe in which was kept the parish plate, the chalice (Schofield of London, 1782) and the two patens (Forbes of Bristol, 1718), each in its velvetlined case. On the shelf below them Geoffrey put Clive’s book.
OVER THE FOLLOWING WEEKS Geoffrey would often open up the safe and take a peek at the book, trying to decipher Clive’s cryptography and gauge the extent and nature of his activities. None of it shocked him: indeed he found the exercise vaguely exciting and as near to pornography as he allowed himself to come.
Whether it was thanks to the book or to that almost involuntary pass that had allowed him to retain it Geoffrey found his life changing. Disappointed of immediate promotion he was now more … well, relaxed and though ‘Relax!’ is hardly at the core of the Christian message he did feel himself better for it.
So it might be because he was easier with himself or that his unique pass at the geology student had broken his duck and given him more nerve but one way and another he found himself having the occasional fling, in particular with the bus-driving crucifer, who, married though he was, didn’t see that as a problem. Nor did Geoffrey’s confessor who, while absolving him of what sin there was, urged him to see this and any similar experiences less as deviations from the straight and narrow and more as part of a learning curve. In fairness, this wasn’t an expression Geoffrey much cared for, though he didn’t demur. He preferred to think of it, if only to himself, as grace.
He still kept the book in the safe, though, as it represented a valorous life he would have liked to lead and still found exciting. It happened that he had been to confession the day before and just as a diabetic whose blood tests have been encouraging sneaks a forbidden pastry so he felt he deserved a treat and went along to the church meaning to take out Clive’s book. It was partly to revisit his memory but also because even though he now knew its mysterious notations by heart they still gave him a faint erotic thrill. He knew that this was pathetic and could have told it to no one, except perhaps Clive, and it was one of the ways he missed him.
Pushing open the door of the church he saw someone sitting towards the front and on the side. It was the geology student, slumped in the same pew he had sat in at the memorial service.
‘Hail,’ said the young man. ‘We meet again.’ Geoffrey shook hands.
‘I meant to come before now,’ he said, ‘only my car’s not been well.’
Geoffrey managed a smile. Seeing him again, Geoffrey thought how fortunate it was that his advance had been rejected. God had been kind. It would never have done.
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