Conversation

"The most frightening experience I ever had", said Nigel, "was when I was a student, living in lodgings in a scruffy part of town. I woke up in the middle of the night and found a man sitting on the end of my bed. It was too dark to see clearly, but it looked like he had a knife. He asked me, "Where's the drugs then?" I was terrified"
"Did you think he was a burglar or a policeman?" asked Martin. "Because if you thought it was the police, you should have demanded to see his search-warrant".
"I don't know what I thought. I was trembling all over and I couldn't even think straight, let alone talk coherently".
Martin said, "If I was sure it was a burglar, I'd have said the drugs were hidden in the kitchen, and I've have taken him there. Then I'd have grabbed the big kitchen knife, and I've had said, "I'm a trained fencer, so now I've got the advantage over you!", though I suppose that legally I should have told him to clear out rather than just go for him".
"It's all very well for you to talk! You weren't there! I bet you'd have been every bit as scared as I was! In the end he went away, but by that time I was a gibbering wreck! I couldn't sleep the rest of that night, and I couldn't face staying in those lodgings any longer. I went and dossed down with a friend until I found somewhere else to live. I still have nightmares about it".
"So this intruder: he didn't find the drugs, then?" But Martin hardly bothered to listen to Nigel's reply. He was running through in his own mind how he would have seen off the intruder, or, if the man did after all prove to be a policeman, the sensation he would create in court with his brilliant orations in his own defence.

The Abbot

The Abbot walked moodily down the path that led from the west door of his chapel, kicking at the pebbles as he went. Everything was highly unsatisfactory, and he could see no obvious means to bring about improvement. For a start, he was suffering from acute indigestion. He silently pronounced anathema on whatever miscreant might have ruled that barnacle geese were a permitted food during Lent. His stomach could never cope with goose, but, for God’s sake, he had a position to keep up; he had important guests to entertain; what was he supposed to give them: bread and water? At least the pains in his guts had the effect of temporarily taking his mind off the far greater problem.

     The map! Buying it for the monastery had seemed such a good idea at the time! That man who called himself Vladimir, who spoke his Latin with the funny accent, had been so plausible! He described how he had guided the last crusade across the Bulgar lands to Constantinople, and how he had found an map in a church wrecked by Turkish raiders; and then, with the most reverent air possible, had uncovered the amazing parchment. The Abbot could not read the writing on it, which he understood was in Hebrew, but Vladimir had translated it for him. It was a map on which Saint Paul’s journeys were marked by the hand of the Apostle himself, miraculously preserved over the centuries. He had demanded a very high price for the map, but the Abbot’s head was filled with visions of the countless pilgrims who would flock to the abbey, and he had scarcely bothered to bargain. Indeed, since he lacked the available money to meet the price, he had pledged the monastery’s land as security that the balance would be produced by Michaelmas. The fame of the map had quickly spread, and now the King himself was soon to arrive to admire the amazing relic. How jealous the Bishop was! All he had to boast about in his cathedral was a fragment of a knucklebone of Saint Hilarius, patron saint of professional fools and clowns, and even that was of the most dubious provenance!
All had been going so well until that miserable travelling scholar Brother Cedric had paid a visit. He had examined the map and immediately pronounced it a clumsy forgery. “Not so much a Mappa Mundi and Mappa Tuesday!” he had snorted scornfully. “I verily believe it was drawn not much earlier than last Tuesday; and as for the writing; it is not Hebrew, it is gibberish!” How fortunate it was that the aforesaid Brother Cedric had shortly afterwards been caught in a compromising situation with a milkmaid from the village, and been ordered to walk all the way to Santiago di Compostella as a penance! That should keep him out of the way for a couple of years at least; but rumours were bound to spread.
     The more the Abbot reflected on it, the more he was haunted by the uneasy feeling that the wretched Brother Cedric might perhaps have been right. In which case, what in heaven’s name was he going to do now? He had no authority to pledge monastic land as security for a purchase without consulting the head of his Order. Not only that; he had summoned the famous goldsmith Master Thomas from Paris, and commissioned him to make the most gorgeous frame for the map. More money: unimaginably vast sums of money!

     The Abbot kicked moodily at the path. One small stone flew up in the air and landed painfully on his toes. Muttering an anathema under his breath, he bent down to examine in offending object. It was an unusual stone, perfectly round, and of a peculiar colour and texture. Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He had long been irritated by the custom of the local people to pray to a certain local saint when they suffered from internal disorders. According to legend, the saint was a hermit who in the dim and distant past had miraculously cured one Queen Bertha of a longstanding digestive affliction. Personally, the Abbot believed this so-called saint lacked any canonical justification, but was merely a deplorable peasant superstition; and it was a matter of deep regret that the unauthorised cult was even becoming widespread amongst the nobility. But now …..
     For the first time for many days, the Abbot laughed, as new and exciting vistas opened up before him. This little oddment that he held in his hand was none other than the gallstone of Queen Bertha, which a saint - shall we call him Saint Gastric? the nobles would be vaguely aware that they'd heard the name somewhere before, and the peasants could easily transfer their worship once it won official approval - had miraculously extracted from her body by the power of prayer alone, without need of surgery! A holy relic indeed! The Abbot was suddenly feeling much better, and it occurred to him that he could now swear, with perfect truth, that holding the sacred gallstone in his hand had instantly relieved his indigestion! In his mind he saw a procession of pilgrims, clutching their bellies, noisily burping and breaking wind, flocking to his abbey to seek relief from the saint. Why, even the King was said to be a sufferer, which was hardly surprising, given the prevalence of highly-spiced food at his court.
     How to account for the sudden appearance of this new holy relic? Not a problem: he would say he had bought it from Vladimir, alongside that accursed map. Two treasures for the price of one would seem a reasonable bargain to anyone; and he was sure that Vladimir would co-operate in the plan, once it was explained to him that this new development would greatly increase his chances of actually getting his money. Then he could tell Master Thomas the goldsmith that the terms of his employment had been changed, and what was now required was a reliquary for a much smaller object.

Humming a Te Deum, the Abbot turned around and strode towards his chapter-house, rehearsing in his mind the account he would shortly be giving to his amazed brethren.  

The Troubadour

An exotic figure walked fastidiously across the straw-strewn floor of the great hall of the castle. His clothes were of scarlet and blue silk; he wore a black velvet cap and boots of the finest soft leather. On his back he bore a lute. His face was unnaturally pallid and his lips bright and shiny, and a close inspection suggested that both had been achieved by the application of makeup. Such an apparition had never been seen in the kingdom before. Some of the men-at-arms gawped; others sniggered or passed crude comments amongst themselves. The stranger ignored the vulgar noises, and addressed the guard at the door to the private rooms.
“Now then, my man, pray inform the King that the troubadour Joscelyn de Melun has arrived from Provence and craves audience with his majesty!”
“Indeed! And is his majesty expecting you?” It was not the most promising response, but when the stranger fingered his purse in a meaningful fashion, the guard passed through to make further enquiries. He felt puzzled. It was part of his job to remember faces, and despite the outlandish garb and the affected accent, he felt certain he had come across this specimen somewhere before. Shortly afterwards he returned to usher Joscelyn into the royal presence, then resumed his post outside the door, still puzzled as he searched his memory.

In the small audience-chamber, the King was seated on a richly-carved chair beneath a brocade canopy. As Joscelyn knelt to kiss the royal hand, he thought; he’s impressive enough when he’s sitting down, and I’m told he looks even better on a horse: it’s only when he’s on his feet that you notice his short bow legs. I’d advise him to keep motionless, like a statue, whenever possible. And he really shouldn’t keep scratching himself: it completely spoils the effect.
“So, Joscelyn!” said the King, “You have come to me from Provence; and I suppose you seek employment at my court.”
“Yes, your majesty. Your kingdom, though very grand, is a little remote, perhaps, from the centres of fashion. The Kings in other parts have lately been employing troubadours like your humble servant here to compose poems that tell of their mighty deeds. I understand that, as yet, no-one has undertaken such a service for your majesty.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s quite true. The peasants sing songs about me, or so I’m told.”
Indeed they do, thought Joscelyn: mostly highly disrespectful songs; sometimes very rude indeed! But what he said was, “I‘m sure that is the case, your majesty; but sadly that kind of traditional verse is now completely out of favour in the most cultivated kingdoms. In Provence nowadays everyone is writing in heroic couplets . And this is what I have come to offer your majesty: a great epic, in the very latest style and the best possible taste, which will cause your name to live forever, not only here in Britain, but throughout Europe!”
“Well, it’s a thought!” said the King. “you will, of course, be well rewarded if it’s good enough. Explain to me how you intend to proceed.”
“The poem would begin, as is usual in these cases, with your majesty’s childhood and early adventures. As yet, unfortunately, I know little about the subject. Could your majesty, perhaps, tell me something concerning your noble father?”
The King looked unhappy. “I remember that he was drunk most of the time. He was a very violent man.”
“I see. And your mother?”
“I don’t remember anything about her. I think he kicked her out when I was a baby.”
This won’t do at all, thought Joscelyn. Oh well, we can always fall back on the traditional biography for a hero.
“Ah, but of course there were rumours that he wasn’t really your father!” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “We all know the story of how, when the Emperor visited this kingdom, he was so smitten by the great beauty of your lady mother that …. Well, need I say more?”
I don’t remember any such story, thought the King. Is this fellow hinting that I’m a bastard? But that would explain all the hostility, wouldn’t it? And then, if I’m really the son of the Emperor himself… now there’s a thought!
All he said was, “Did the Emperor really come here?”
“Of course he did! In disguise, naturally. He always travelled in disguise: he said it was the only way he could really find out what was going on in his domains.”
That’s a clever idea, thought the King: I might try it myself some time. He continued, “I left home when I was still quite young.”
“Of course: heroes always do. No doubt you narrowly escaped some plot to murder you: that’s pretty standard as well. We’ll flesh out some details later. Next, you must have had a famous sword: how did you acquire it? Did you have to undergo some kind of ordeal?”
“You mean my first sword? I pinched it from my father’s armoury when I left home. I’ve still got it somewhere. I didn’t know it was famous.”
“But it surely had a name? Heroes’ swords always have to have names!”
“Oh, you mean like the Vikings? Something like “Skullsplitter” or “Blood-drinker”?”
“No, your majesty! That Viking stuff is hopelessly out-of-date: no longer fit for the best courts! Let’s move with the times! Your sword must have some ringing, poetic name, and there should be a romantic story about how you gained it. Never mind: we’ll work on that as well. Then I suppose you fought a great many battles before you gained your kingdom?”
“Yes, there was a lot of fighting. But it was a long time ago, and it’s all got a bit blurred by now.”
“But I expect you killed the odd dragon. No: that won’t do; no-one around here believes in dragons any more. How about a giant: that sounds more realistic. Did you ever kill any giants?”
“Well…. There was Kevin. He was an Irishman. He was pretty big, as I recall. But I don’t remember any details.”
This job is going to require a great deal of embroidery on my part, thought Joscelyn. “Next,” he said, “how did you win the hand of your true love, the Queen?”
The King winced, “Do you have to bring Agatha into it?” he asked plaintively.
Joscelyn suppressed a smile. He’d heard how Queen Agatha ruled her husband with a rod of iron: wouldn’t let the royal household spend a single groat without her express permission. There was no getting round Queen Aggie, the courtiers said - or at least, it was a very long walk!
The King continued. “She was the daughter of the Lord of Salopia. They sent me a picture of her, but when I met her, I found she didn’t look anything like it. But her father insisted that we go ahead and get married anyway. And then her father died and I inherited all his lands, so really I shouldn’t complain.
“Is that enough to be going on with for the moment? You’ll have to leave now, because I’ve called a conference of all my knights. I’ll see you some time and you can tell me how you’re getting on with the poem.”
Joscelyn knelt to kiss the royal hand again. As he backed respectfully out of the presence-chamber he thought, if I can make a proper epic poem out of this drivel, then I’ll really have earned every penny he pays me! As the guard opened the door for him he took a small foreign coin in his hand, but before he could bestow it, the guard suddenly exclaimed, “I know where I’ve seen you before! You were a local lad, weren’t you? Hogg the baker’s boy, that’s right! Then you disappeared. So you went down to Provence and became a troubadour, and now you’ve come back here, all togged up! Well, good luck to you, I say! But where did you get the Joscelyn?
The troubadour said nothing. He gave the man a long, cold stare and returned the coin back to his purse.    

The Old Man's Choice

Paul sat in his chair as rigid and motionless as a statue, but inside his head thoughts spiralled endlessly around without reaching any conclusion. In the past he had always had confidence in his judgements; it had been one of his strengths; but not so now. Was he doing the right thing? Was it too late to change? How was he to know? He had always done his duty, and had never once doubted that his role was to lead, but he had never pretended to great intelligence. Throughout his long career, others had always done the detailed and difficult work for him: his function was to provide dignity and stability, and to calm down those brainy chaps when they got over-excited, as they often did. And he had been respected, and generally successful. But now here he was, alone. The brainy chaps had gone. He should have gone too: he realised that. More than once he had retired, and then allowed himself to be called back. He should have resisted that last call; in his heart he had known it all along: the only time in his life that he had ever acted weakly. Surely at more than eighty years of age he should have been allowed to live in peace! It had brought him nothing but uncertainty, when every course of action seemed distasteful.
Now there was this man he had to meet: a man young enough to be his grandson. Not that he would have wished any grandson of his to turn out like that! He had already met him more than once, and had disliked him intensely. The fellow was common beyond belief; obviously risen from the gutter; ill-mannered, disrespectful, dishonest and consumed with violent ambition. Paul’s oldest friends had warned him against having anything to do with this person. Where were his friends now, when he needed them most? Gone; all gone. He was alone, and what was he to do? For the first time in his life, Paul felt helpless; a mere cork, drifting in the tide of events. It was so unfair! 
The door opened to admit the unwanted visitor. Paul rose ponderously to his feet, and maintaining dignity till the last, stood as ramrod-straight as if still on the parade-ground. The other man was plainly ill-at-ease. He had taken the trouble to dress formally for the occasion, which served only to make him look ridiculous. The two exchanged stilted and unmeaning compliments, scarcely bothering to disguise the contempt they felt for each other. But the formalities had to be gone through. So the older man and the younger shook hands, and Field-Marshal-President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

The Master of the Angels

When Lorenzo di Prato heard the rumour that his only daughter considered herself betrothed to the young painter Tancredi, he was not pleased. He considered it entirely unfitting that he, a prosperous and respected cloth-merchant, should have his family linked by common gossip to a struggling, penniless artist. This was not the future he intended for his child. So when he confronted Gianetta, and she could not deny her friendship with the young man, he had the girl shut away in a convent until she should come to her senses.
Tancredi was saddened, and also insulted. Admittedly he was as yet unknown, but he was sure his prospects were good. Had he not been commissioned to work on the altarpiece at the new church? It would depict the Adoration of the Virgin, and he was to paint one of the side panels. He was certain that this would establish his reputation as a painter, and quickly lead to fame and wealth. But also he truly loved Gianetta, and now he missed her greatly. As the days and the weeks passed by without her, he became more and more depressed. He began to neglect his work. Increasingly he became aware that it was dull and uninspired, and yet he was unable to do anything to improve it. He took to hanging around the gates of the convent for hours at a time, hoping for just a glimpse of his beloved; but the walls were high and windowless, and no man could enter without permission.
Gianetta was also very lonely and unhappy. To ease her grief, she took to praying in quiet places away from the nuns. Especially she liked to climb to the top of the campanile, where there was a small platform: the only place in the convent from which it was possible to catch any glimpse of the city outside. Here she would pray fervently for help and deliverance. And here one day her prayer were answered; as two Beings descended in majesty from the skies and took her hands; and then in an overwhelming miracle glittering wings grew from her own shoulders, and together the three of them rose beyond the prosaic earth and soared upwards into the cloudless blue.
The only person who saw them was Tancredi, from his lonely vigil outside the nunnery gates. As soon as they had risen beyond his sight, he rushed back to his church and seized his brushes; and he painted his panel before the vision could fade from his memory. It showed three angels in brilliant colours. It was much the best part of the altarpiece, and its fame spread far and wide, so that his reputation was established and he was known ever after as the Master of the Angels. But he never married Gianetta, for the poor girl was now incurably insane, and was never again able to leave the shelter of her convent. Most of the time she was quiet, but occasionally she would escape the vigilance of the nuns, and then she would climb the tower of the campanile, and would be found there, wildly invoking the heavens with tears in her eyes.
"Fly!" she would call, "Oh, fly! Please, fly!"

The Library Van: a true story

Between leaving school and going to university, I worked for six months at the Cumberland County Library. One of the tasks there was to go round remote parts of the county on the travelling library van. For some of the tiny villages and remote farmhouses, seeing us every three weeks was one of  their few contacts with the outside world.
               One woman had an invariable procedure. “I want 5 murders, 3 romances and a western”, she would say, and leave us to choose them for her. She would then cast her eye over our selection, discarding a few because “they didn’t look very good“, or because she thought she might have read them before. Other customers had their own systems for dealing with the latter problem; such as making a pencil mark on a certain page once they’d read one of our books. In cold weather some kind ladies would bring us mugs of tea, though since they invariably stirred in large quantities of sugar, I could never drink mine.
She wasn’t the only customer who let us choose her books, and some of the choices we made must have caused some surprise. Harold the van driver once persuaded a lady at a remote farm to take home James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. “Is it a good book?” she asked. “It’s a very famous book”, said Harold. “I want something I can read in bed”, she said. “It’s probably best if you read this in bed”, Harold told her. I never found out what she made of it, since I don’t recall we ever saw her again.

Harold explained to me the perils of engaging these people in conversation. They probably never saw anyone except us and the postman for weeks at a time, and they were often desperate for a talk, but we had a tight schedule to keep, and if we let them stay on the van for too long, we’d never get round in time. Harold’s policy was to agree with everything they said. “You can’t have a proper conversation with someone who always agrees with you”, he said. I witnessed this technique in action at an isolated farmhouse up near Kershopefoot on the Scottish border; the home of an artist who was in fact a Nazi. He clambered onto the van in his paint-stained overalls. “Things is bad!” he told us, “There’s Jews in high places bleeding this country white!” “You’re right there!” said Harold. The man soon went away. But I’m afraid I forgot Harold’s advice on one occasion, when once an old farm labourer got on the van and told us, with no introduction, that all farm land should be nationalised. “You’ll be a socialist then”, I dutifully said. Oh no, he always voted Conservative. I couldn’t retrain myself from asking why, and he told me this long story about how, when he was a boy on the Earl of Lonsdale’s estate back before the First World War, he once opened a gate for the Earl’s carriage to come through, and there sitting beside the Earl was the Kaiser, who had come to spend Christmas up at the castle. The Earl had given him half-a-sovereign and said, “You look a promising young chap. If you ever want a job, come up to the hall and see me“. But then he’d gone off to the trenches, and it was only in the 1920s that he’d met the earl at a county show and the earl had said to him, “I recognise you! You’re the lad who opened the gate for me back before the war! Why didn’t you come up to the hall and take the job I offered you?” And ever since then he’d voted Conservative. Politics is a bit primitive up on the Border. I’ve often reflected that my vote could be cancelled out by someone like that.

What Remains

Judging by the family portraits they left us, they must have been well-off. The husband and wife are depicted side-by-side, wearing their best clothes. He chose to be painted holding an official-looking document with a red seal attached, suggesting something legal. His wife, more informally, is shown sucking the end of a pencil, with a quizzical expression on her face, as if she was wondering whether she might have left something off her shopping list. In a separate picture a younger woman, presumably their daughter, is also sucking a pencil and clutching a notebook in her left hand, but her expression more resembles a poet searching for the next line.
    They would have been proud of their home, with its brightly-painted walls. They had a dog, and like many home-owners since, they had put up a sign warning intruders that their dog was very fierce. They would especially have loved their neat little garden, which had a few statues amongst the flowers, and we can imagine them enjoying a drink of wine there with their friends in a summer evening. Their surviving pictures show they had good taste, and maybe they regarded the somewhat explicit artworks favoured by their neighbours as a bit vulgar. Our family preferred pictures of birds and plants. One particularly delightful painting shows a young girl gathering spring flowers, so realistic that you can see the blossom falling around her.
     But it was not blossom which fell on our family on that terrible day many years ago: it was something far more deadly. And they are gone, so we are no longer certain even of their names, but their home and their pictures still survive; pictures in which the blossom never did fall, but is frozen forever in an eternal spring.      

Note:-

I wrote this after visiting the magnificent Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum last week. I have, of course, included items which would have been found in many different houses at Pompeii as if they all came from the same house; but that is how they were set out in the exhibition.