The Mortdecai Trilogy (50 page)

I caught an excellent dinner and a splendid bottle of Chateau Léoville Poyferré ’61.

Sam caught a strayed Jersey cow in the udders with the unchoked barrel of his shotgun.

George caught a nasty cold from crouching under a hydrangea.

I hate to think what Jock caught but I’m sure it was worth it.

When I collected Johanna from the card-party at George’s house she wasn’t speaking to anyone, least of all to me. I told her about George’s ordeal under the dripping hydrangea and all she said was ‘lucky George’.

‘Good night,’ I said as we parted in the hall.

‘Good night, Clausewitz,’ she replied.

Jock was already abed, sure of a good night’s sleep, bless him, so I had to make my own sandwich.

As I stole upstairs with it I felt a sort of strange feeling about Johanna. Had I been twenty – or even fifteen – years younger I would probably have mistaken it for being in love. Perhaps it was a trace of regret for having, so long ago and so rightly, decided that emotion was not for me, that I was better without it. As I hesitated on the landing, the half-gnawed sandwich in my treacherous hand, I had an absurd compulsion to go into her room, to see her honey-coloured hair spread over the pillows and to say soppy, apologetic,
affectionate
things. Make her smile, perhaps. She might have been crying, you see; even women cry sometimes. But I have a fixed rule: whenever you feel like holding someone’s hand, have a drink instead – it’s better for all concerned in the long run.

I compromised by finishing the sandwich and shuffled off to my lonely bed in a miasma of spring-onions and self-pity: who could ask for more? Borges remarks that there is no more skilful consolation than that we have chosen our own misfortunes. ‘Thus,’ he explains, ‘every negligence is deliberate … every humiliation a penitence … every death a suicide.’

I brushed my teeth with especial care in case Johanna should take it into her head to come and say good night to me but she didn’t of course; they never do.

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown gray from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.

 

Hymn to Proserpine

 

Kicking and screaming, then whining and sulking, I was wrenched out of bed and sent off to meet the Weymouth packet-boat and Father Tichborne, the practitioner recommended by John Dryden. I call him
Father
Tichborne, unfrocked though he had been, on the same reasoning that my grandmama would have called a ‘£50 cook’, however virginal, ‘Mrs’ out of courtesy. (Mind you, that was £50 a year
and all found
, which meant four or five gross meals a day washed down with ale and stout; bones-and-dripping money, backhanders from all the tradesmen, the privilege of offering hot mutton sandwiches to Police Constables; the right to persecute everyone below the rank of butler or governess: licence to get hopelessly pissed every six weeks (except in Methodist households of course); at least one kitchen-maid to do all the real work (£50 cooks
never
peeled potatoes) and often as much as seven days holiday a year if you could prove that at least one of your parents was dying. Today, no doubt, they would expect the use of a wireless set, too. You know, those people were
happier
before we started spoiling them.)

Yes, well, there I was on Albert Quay, awaiting the M. V.
Falaise
and Father Tichborne. (
Albert
Quay, imagine! Did you know that both Edward VII and George VI were really called Albert but the
Family wouldn’t let them use it on the throne out of reverence for Queen Victoria’s Consort and the Privy Council wouldn’t, either, because it sounded so common. ‘Albert’ I mean, not the Privy Council. Both right, of course.) (‘This is the last and greatest treason: To do the wrong thing for the right reason’ sings Alfred Prufrock, if that’s the right way round. And if it matters.)

Yes, well, there on Albert Quay I stood, snuffing the sea breezes until the smell of used beer and vomit and package-tour operators presaged the advent of the
Falaise
.

I spotted him at once, a great rangy buck-priest in a silk soutane. Evil eyes burned from an ascetic face oddly marred by soft and sensual lips, which were just then snarling at the Customs man.

‘Hello,’ I said, offering a hand, ‘my name’s Mortdecai.’

He gave me a slow leer, disclosing an assortment of teeth which, had they been cleaner, would have done credit to an alligator.

‘And I suppose your friends call you “cheeky”,’ he retorted, sweeping past me to where a group of saucy-looking lads awaited him. He whispered to them and they all eyed me.

‘Isn’t he
bold
?’ one of them tittered.

Sweating with shame I moved off in quest of the true Fr Tichborne, who proved, when I found him, to be a well-washed, shiny little chap with a face just like that of a Volkswagen. He was sitting on a bench leafing through the latest copy of
Playgirl
with an air of studious detachment and wearing a snappy, dark-green mohair suit which he shouldn’t have been able to afford on a prep-school master’s salary. Exchanging humdrum civilities, we entered my Mini, where I noticed that he exuded a faint but agreeable smell of seed-cake, which I supposed was really the Pastis escaping from his well-opened pores. As we moved off, he let out a shrill cry of dismay. I clapped the brakes on.

‘My corporal!’ he squeaked, ‘I’ve forgotten my corporal!’ I was alarmed: Johanna is broad-minded about that sort of thing but Jock is not: he would make
remarks
.

‘Do you mean,’ I asked, ‘that you have brought a, er, Non-Commissioned
friend
with you?’

‘No no no,’ he said testily, ‘it’s the special
altar
corporal for the Mass we’re going to celebrate.’

Mystified, I helped him to search and we found, in the Customs shed, a string shopping-bag containing a lot of folded cloth.

‘Do show,’ I said.

‘Well, not here, I think. The embroidery on it might seem a little, well, surprising, to the casual bystander. And that Customs officer is observing us narrowly.’

On the way home we paused at the ‘Carrefour Selous’ for refreshment, early though it was.

‘This is a very characteristic local inn,’ I explained. ‘They drink something here called Pastis, I think, and speak highly of it. Would you care to try?’

‘I have heard of it,’ he said gravely, ‘and I long to try it.’

‘What do you think?’ I asked diffidently a little later.

‘Mmm. Quite delicious. Stronger than sherry, I fancy. I say, it won’t make me
tight
, will it?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘But what is that that you are drinking, Mr Mortdecai?’

‘It is called whisky. It is a malt liquor distilled in the highlands of Scotland. I believe they sell quite a lot of it in Jersey.’

We gazed at each other with straight faces. He was the first to laugh – after that there was no embarrassment. It takes one to know one, they say; whatever that means.

Johanna took to him on sight, which was reassuring for she is never wrong about people, whilst I almost always am. She was fussing over him and telling him how tired he must be and what could she offer him to drink (ha ha) when Jock loomed in the doorway and announced luncheon in the doom-laden voice of a servant who is in the mood to give in his notice at the drop of a hat.

‘This is Fr Tichborne, Jock,’ I said brightly.

‘Reelly,’ he said.

‘Yes. His bags are in the car – perhaps you would bring them in presently.’

Jock turned on his heel and clumped towards the door.

‘Oh, and you could bring his corporal in, too?’

Jock ground to a halt and looked over his shoulder in a dangerous sort of way.

‘ ’Is
wot
?’

‘It’s in a string bag,’ I explained blandly. It made my day, it really did, although I knew I’d pay for it.

Johanna insisted on seeing the corporal and although Tichborne blushed and demurred she got her way. She usually does.

‘You see,’ said Tichborne anxiously as he unrolled the cloth, ‘one can’t use the consecrated corporal – for one thing it might put off the sort of person we’re hoping to, er, invoke, and for another it would be
rude
, simply; I mean, I always believe in extending common courtesy to what I might call the Other Side, even though one has to be a bit horrid about Them during the actual ceremony. Do you follow me?’

We made guarded noises.

‘Moreover, this sort of Mass used to be performed on the, er, person of a young
person
, so to speak, but we’ve found that using a corporal depicting such a young person in the appropriate attitude serves just as well. I mean, I do speak from some experience.’

The cloth was now unfurled and spread out on the sofa-table. I must say that even I found it a little startling: the appropriate attitude of the young person certainly seemed to speak from experience, to use Tichborne’s phrase, and the embroidress had been explicit to the last prick of her needle, if I may coin another. Both Tichborne and I cast worried glances at the gently-nurtured Johanna.

‘Wow!’ she exclaimed politely, ‘that is really out of sight!’ (She only uses Americanisms defensively.) For my part, I wished heartily that the thing
were
out of sight, lest Jock should come in. (Most brutal criminals are
prudes
, did you know? Of course you did, forgive me.)

‘You can say that again, sister,’ I growled, falling into her vernacular. She looked at me strangely, perhaps admiring my gift of tongues.

‘You mean the “Wow”,’ she asked, ‘or the other bit?’

‘Never mind.’

‘But this lovely needlework must have cost a fortune, Father Tichborne,’ she resumed, ‘wherever did you get it made?’

‘As a matter of fact I did it myself,’ he said, crimson with shame and vanity. ‘It took ages, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Working from life, evidently?’ I put in.

‘Well, no, more from memory, really.’

It seemed a good point at which to end that conversation. As we rolled the corporal up George arrived to inspect Fr Tichborne.
Introduced, he made the civilizedest noises he could muster, giving the impression that, in his view, the only good Papist was an unfrocked Papist.

Tichborne gained a little ground by asking him about his regiment but lost it all again by saying that he himself had been a chaplain with the Free French.

‘I’ll just bet you were,’ said Johanna brightly.

George’s face turned a sort of pale shade of black; he took it rather hard.

‘The French were on our side, George,’ I reminded him. ‘This last time, I mean.’

‘You will stay to lunch, won’t you, George?’ said Johanna.

He couldn’t, he had another appointment, he’d already had luncheon, he never ate luncheon, Sonia was expecting him for luncheon, he had a train to catch. There are no trains on Jersey, of course: I think he just wanted to go and kick something. It’s all to do with a place called Dakar, for some reason.

Luncheon was rather awful at first: it was the cook’s day off and therefore Jock had the duty and you could see that he didn’t much relish waiting on Fr Tichborne. He served soup to Johanna, then, despite my coughs and glares, to me. I gave Tichborne an apologetic grimace. His plate of soup arrived quite three minutes later.

‘Dash it, Jock,’ I snapped, ‘your thumb is in Fr Tichborne’s soup!’

‘ ’S all right, Mr Charlie, it ain’t hot.’ Tichborne frowned at me and shook his head, so I let it pass.

The next thing was kidneys wrapped in bacon and stuffed into baked potatoes. Quite delicious, except for Tichborne’s, which was small, late and badly burned.

Really angry now, I opened my mouth to admonish Jock severely, but Tichborne raised his hand.

‘Jock,’ he said in a quiet, gentle voice, ‘once is happen-stance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. By that I mean that if you once more disgrace Mrs Mortdecai in this shabby way I shall take you out into the garden and punch your nose quite flat.’

An awful silence fell. Johanna’s eyes were wide open, as was my mouth. Jock started to swell like a bull-frog. Fr Tichborne poured himself a glass of water.

‘Gaw blimey!’ said Jock at last.

‘Guard your tongue!’ commanded the little priest in a voice of thunder. ‘The words you have just uttered mean “God blind me” – you have already lost the sight of one eye: be very careful Whom you invoke to pluck out its fellow.’

I glanced up: no plaster was falling from the ceiling.

The awful silence went on.

Finally Jock nodded and vanished into the kitchen. He emerged and laid a large and beautiful kidney in front of Fr Tichborne.

‘You better have mine,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

When the green baize door had closed behind him, Johanna said, ‘Golly.’

Fr Tichborne said, ‘I believe I’ve made a friend.’

I said, ‘You must come and stay
often
.’

Later, as we mumbled a little cheese – Brie, I think it was – mounted (the cheese, not us, of course – I
must
learn to be lucid) – the cheese, I say, mounted on Mr Carr’s incomparable Table Water Biscuits – goodness, what a muddle this sentence is in, as dear Judge Jeffreys said at the Bloody Assize; let me start again. During the cheese-eating period I apologized to Fr Tichborne that I had not been able to offer him any turnips with his luncheon but that I was having the market scoured and hoped to be able to make those sapid roots manifest at dinner.

‘Turnips?’ he said, faintly. ‘
Turnips
? This is uncommonly thoughtful of you but, to be frank, it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I was a
leading
turnip-eater.’

‘Not?’ I said puzzledly. ‘But Dr Dryden assured me, albeit cryptically, that turnips were of the very essence.’

He cogitated puzzledly awhile.

‘Hah!’ he cried at last. ‘Hah! Of course!’

‘Yes, yes,’ we agreed, ‘of course …?’

‘No no,’ he went on, ‘I see, I see; he knew I would need a slice or two of turnip for our ritual. You see, at the, ah,
equivalent
of the Elevation of the Host one must either use a consecrated Wafer which has been desecrated – and I’ve told you how I hate to be rude to the Other Side – or one must bake a travesty of it oneself naughty old Sir Francis Dashwood and his Hell-fire Club chums used to call it a “Holy Ghost Pye”) or, best of all, one uses what one might call a caricature of the Host: in fact, one makes it out of a slice of turnip. Stained black, you know, and cut into, well, a sort
of curious shape, if you follow me.’ He looked at us worriedly. ‘It gives less offence, you see,’ he went on, ‘and it seems to work quite as well.
Quite
as well. Really.’

‘Would you like some coffee?’ said Johanna.

That afternoon, all friends now and all full of luncheon – for I fancy Jock had scoffed a moody tin of caviare – we set off for a reconnaissance of the chapels, furnished with a capable picnic hamper in case the sun shone.

I’m sorry, but I shall have to explain about these chapels. There is a place in Grouville Parish, in the East of the Island, called La Hougue Bie. I believe no one is certain what the name means. It is a monstrous, man-made mound inside which, only excavated fifty years ago, there is a dolmen: a tomb made some five thousand years ago of great slabs of stone. To reach the main tomb-chamber you have to creep, bent double, for what seems a very long way indeed along a stone tunnel. If you are claustrophobic, or superstitious or simply a coward, then you will find it a dismal and grimly place indeed. I hate it for all three reasons and I hate, too, the thought of the brutish folk who built it; I loathe to speculate on what disgusting compulsion made them drag and raise those monstrous stones and then spade over them those countless tons of earth, all to encyst some frightful little prehistoric Hitler.

Nevertheless, I believe that we should all visit such a place from time to time, in order to remind ourselves how recently we sprang from the brutes.