The Philosopher's Pupil (29 page)

‘They've
spoilt
them!'

‘There was a lot of argument,' said the priest.

‘They've taken off all the moss and those yellow rings.'

‘They cleaned them with electric wire brushes. It shows the grain of the stone, but of course all that spotty lichen has gone.'

‘They
cleaned
them, they
scratched
them with vile brushes, they dared to
touch
them, these, the nearest things to
gods
that our contemptible citizens will ever
see.
' Rozanov stood there, his coat blowing, his mouth open, his face crinkled up with pain.

The priest watched him, then ventured to pull at his sleeve so as to urge him back in the direction of the town. Then as they started down the hill it began a little to rain, while they saw before them the sunlight momentarily touching the gilded cupola of the Hall and the golden weathercock of St Olaf's Church.

‘What do you regret most in your life?' said the philosopher.

‘What kind of regret? Not to have established unselfish habits. Not to be destined to be alone. Well, no, not that. And you?'

‘Lies. The sin of silence. What do you fear most?'

‘Death.'

‘Death is nothing, you will not know it, you mean pain, you see you still confuse the two.'

‘Oh all right - and you?'

‘To find out that morality is unreal.'

‘But isn't that just what you think - that it is a phenomenon?'

‘A phenomenon is something. Duty is something, a barrier. But to find out that it is not just an ambiguity with which one lives - but that it is nothing, a fake, absolutely unreal.'

‘To find that there are no barriers?'

‘That there could come a place, a point, where morality simply gave way, did not exist.'

‘There can be no such place.'

‘God would be needed to guarantee that, and any existent God is a demon. If even one thing is permitted it is enough. A prison with one way out is not a prison.'

Father Bernard thought for a moment.

‘Aren't you just doing what you wouldn't let me do? I wanted to draw all good out of one good. You want to discredit all good because there is one evil which good can't get at.'

‘A good image. If in the pilgrimage of life there is any place beyond good and evil, it is our duty to go there.'

‘Our duty?'

‘That is the final paradox. When one reaches a certain point, morality becomes a riddle to which one
must
find the answer. The holy inevitably moves toward the demonic. Fra Angelico loved Signorelli.'

‘Perhaps he did. But then didn't Signorelli love Fra Angelico? The demonic moves toward the holy.'

‘No. That is my point. If the holy even knows of the demonic it is lost. The flow is in that direction, the tide runs that way, water flows down hill. That is what “no God” means, which is still a secret even from those who babble it. Everything in the cosmos is reversed, as in some theories in physics. Philosophy teaches us that, in the event, all the greatest minds of our race were not only in error, but childishly so. The holy must try to know the demonic, must at some point frame the riddle and thirst for the answer, and that longing is the perfect contradiction of the love of God.'

‘This sounds like - that awful - doctrine — '

‘No, not your puerile heresy.'

‘I don't follow you. Nothing in heaven or earth can alter my duty to my neighbour.'

‘It can put it ever so little out of focus. Have you not felt just that, you who are tainted by the holy?'

The priest considered silently. He said, ‘It's nonsense. But what is the way out of what you call the prison? Do you mean suicide?'

‘The proof. It could be. There are many gates. But for one man perhaps one gate.'

‘One thing he is tempted to do which would make everything else permissible? Why not murder then?'

‘Why not?'

‘And you become the demon who is God.'

‘We are being carried away by a metaphor, it is my fault, I have lived too long with images. One thinks one is on a high place, at an edge, where the air is purer and clearer.'

‘You had better stop thinking,' said Father Bernard.

‘I can't. But don't worry — '

‘You're not tempted to commit suicide or murder?'

‘Certainly not.'

‘But you are - tempted - to do something awful - the - as you said - the proof?'

‘No,' said Rozanov, ‘no, no.'

They were descending a grassy slope into the abandoned railway cutting, sometimes known as Lovers' Lane, a place of leafy resort for courting couples, which served as a path from the Common into Burkestown. The cutting ended, on the Common side, in the abrupt bricked-up mouth of a tunnel, and became gradually shallower on the Ennistone side where it ended at a level crossing near to the station. A few drops of rain still fell, and Father Bernard noticed shining drops poised upon the primroses and pendant grasses and raggedy hawthorns, and celandine and fretty chervil and brambles and briar bushes which now rose up above their heads. Suddenly there was a rushing tearing sound as if a ghostly train had emerged from the tunnel, or one of John Robert's demons were charging in the form of a large animal through the foliage. Something big and heavy and extremely agitated came rolling and bundling down the bank and out on to the level grass in front of the walkers' feet. This, a moment later, turned out to be Tom McCaffrey and Emmanuel Scarlett-Taylor still engaged in a scuffle which had started at the top of the slope. They sat up laughing still clutching each other, then became aware of witnesses and leapt up, making way.

‘Hello,' said the priest raising his hand, as he and Rozanov now continued their journey, passing between the two boys who had stood back, one on each side.

‘Hello, Father.'

The walkers heard behind them an outbreak of giggles and
fou rire.

‘There's a happy man,' said Father Bernard. ‘Happy because innocent, innocent because happy.'

‘Who?'

‘Tom McCaffrey, the one with the long hair, didn't you recognize him? I don't know who the other boy is.'

They walked on in silence. The level crossing was in sight. Father Bernard felt a strange pang, a contraction of the heart like an onset of disease. He felt there was something he ought to do while there was still time. He wondered if he would ever talk to the philosopher again. He said, ‘I wish you would do something to help George McCaffrey.'

‘I want to ask you one thing,' said Rozanov. ‘I will make it a condition of our having any further conversations that you do not mention the name of that young man.'

‘Oh, as you will.'

As they walked on into the town Father Bernard wondered to himself, do I like him, do I love him, do I hate him,
is he mad?

It was Sunday morning again. In St Paul's Church Father Bernard was leading the faithful in telling God that they had erred and strayed from His ways like lost sheep, had followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts, had offended against His holy laws, had left undone those things which they ought to have done, and done those things which they ought not to have done, and generally had no health in them.

In the Quaker Meeting House a profound silence reigned. Gabriel McCaffrey loved that silence, whose healing waves lapped in a slow solemn rhythm against her scratched and smarting soul. The sun was shining through wind-handled trees outside, making a shifting decoration of yellow spear-heads upon the white wall. The room was otherwise bare of adornment, a big handsome highceilinged eighteenth-century room, with tall round-headed windows. The benches were arranged in three tiers, forming three sides of a square, of which a plain oak table occupied the fourth side. The party who wanted flowers on the table were regularly defeated by those who felt that God's spirit was embarrassed by corporeal charms.

Present were Brian, Gabriel and Adam, William Eastcote and Anthea, Mr and Mrs Robin Osmore, Mrs Percy Bowcock, Nesta Wiggins, Peter Blackett, Mrs Roach the doctor's wife, Nicky Roach the doctor's son, now studying at Guy's Hospital, Rita Chalmers, wife of the Institute Director, Miss Landon who was a teacher at Adam's school, Mr and Mrs Romage who kept a grocer's shop in Burkestown, and a Mrs Bradstreet, a visiting friend who was staying at the Ennistone Royal Hotel and taking the cure for a condition in her back. The attendance varied, being today rather sparse. A week ago Milton Eastcote the philanthropist, William's cousin, had been present and had given an address about his work in London. Dr Roach was often kept away by professional duties, too often said those who thought that the doctor was more attached to the natural light of science than to the illumination from above. Nesta Wiggins was a recruit of several years standing, having abandoned the paternal Catholic fold for the douce blank Quaker rites. She esteemed the Friends, who were active in good works in Ennistone, and was particularly attached to William Eastcote. Peter Blackett, whose parents were ‘humanists', came out of curiosity and admiration for Nesta. Nesta was sorry she could never persuade her friend Valerie Cossom to come along, but Valerie regarded all religious observances as superstitious opiates. Percy Bowcock, who had used often to accompany his wife, now came no more, and Gabriel had heard someone say that he had become a
Freemason.
Gabriel knew little of Freemasonry, and whether it was compatible with the ideals of the Society of Friends, but she was sorry not to see her cousin (to whose house she was rarely invited). She was fond of him and admired him very much and only coveted his wealth a little, and could not help feeling a bit censorious about the Freemasons, since they were secretive, and Friends did not approve of secrets.

But what about her own secrets? She stole a glance at Brian (she was sitting as always between her husband and her son) and saw the usual look of strained brooding anxiety. She looked across at the calm pale face of William Eastcote who was sitting opposite to her. Eastcote smiled. The silence breathed with long slow soundless exhalations, with slower deeper rhythms, seeming ever more unbreakable and profound, as if everyone in the room would soon come to some absolute stop, perhaps quickly peacefully serenely die. Sometimes during the whole meeting no one spoke. Gabriel liked that best. Human speech sounded so petty, so unforgivably stupid, after that great void. Some people spoke with piercing exalted voices. Today, however, her own trivial thoughts were bubbling in her ear. She was thinking about a cracked jug which she had seen in a junk shop in Biggins. She had said to Adam, who was with her, ‘What a pretty jug, but it's cracked.' Adam had immediately taken the side of the jug. ‘He wants someone to love him and look after him, we'll love him and look after him, we'll take him home and wash him and dry him and find him a place to sit.' Sometimes Adam's determination to personify his surroundings upset Gabriel to the point of wild annoyance. Adam seemed to be deliberately playing upon her tortured sensibilities. ‘That jug, he's saying to himself, will that nice lady buy me.' Gabriel said, ‘Don't be silly, it's all cracked, it's no use,' and hustled him on. Now it had become clear to her that nothing in the world was more important than going back to that shop and buying that jug. She would go early tomorrow morning. But, oh, suppose it had gone! Tears rose up behind Gabriel's eyes. All these things were somehow images of death. Adam had such awful dreams sometimes. She encouraged him to tell his dreams. Gabriel had once heard Ivor Sefton lecture at the Ennistone Hall. He said that children should tell their dreams and join the symbolic dream material to their waking life. But Adam's dreams frightened Adam and Gabriel, and surely telling them would make him remember them. Adam dreamed so much about drowning. I am a silly woman, thought Gabriel, and Brian blames me for losing Stella, as if I had made a
mistake,
as if I had opened the door and let her run out! I couldn't comfort Stella, she is so hard and silent and superior. She is an
opposite
woman to me. But I should have done better, I didn't look after her properly; and where is she now, has she killed herself? Is she with George? Brian had telephoned and called round but got no answer. At the thought of Stella comforting George, forgiving him, holding him in her saving arms, Gabriel felt nothing but pain, and she knew that it was a wicked pain. Her feelings about George were part of her silliness, part of the stupid feeble sensibility which made her encourage Adam's funny soft porous attitude to the world, and be hurt by it at the same time. Brian thought she was making Adam weak and dreamy. But it was all to do with feeling so sorry for everything. Her feeling for George was like that, feeling very very sorry for him, feeling oh so much protective possessive pity-love, a sort of desperate sorry-for affection. It's so private, she thought. But then all my love is private, as if it were a secret.

Adam was conscious of a ball of slightly mobile blazing warmth up against his side which was Zed curled up in the pocket of his duffle coat. Zed was not allowed in the Institute but he was allowed to come to Meeting. Why should not dogs be present, since the waves and particles of the Inner Light flowed through them too? Besides, there were precedents. Mrs Bowcock's mother's corgi had attended for years. Zed's little delicate head with its black-and-white domed brow peered from the top of the pocket. After looking about for some time with an alert critical air, he had fixed upon Robin Osmore, staring intently at the legal man with an expression of amazed quizzical curiosity. Osmore, aware of the scrutiny, became uneasy, disconcerted, fidgeted, looked elsewhere, then looked back to find the little beast still staring, its clever humorous gaze giving an extraordinary impression of a judging intelligence, a strange little spirit, not really a dog at all. Adam touched the silky fringy end of Zed's long ear with his finger tips. He was thinking about Rufus. When he thought about Rufus it was as if a kind of lurid gap appeared in the world through which something red and black kept flashing out at him. He knew instinctively that these thoughts were dangerous, perhaps bad. He never told his mother the very strange weird things he dreamed about Rufus, and about Zed. Sometimes in dreams he
was
Rufus. Adam never mentioned Rufus, and his parents imagined that Adam had forgotten that Rufus ever existed. Sometimes Adam wondered whether he himself were not really George's son, and had been exchanged for Rufus when he was in the cradle. They were almost exactly the same age. It was as if Rufus by dying had laid a kind of debt upon him. He had to grow up for Rufus, to carry him along like an invisible twin. Yes, he thought, I'm growing up for Rufus, in a way I am Rufus. And this thought led him back to George and to the way George had winked, and the way George had stared at him when they saw each other that day at the Institute, when Adam had sat down among the potted plants.