Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series Read online

  I sang extra loud to drown out the eating noises I could hear coming from the crypt and directly above my head.

  Absorbed in some pretty pressing thoughts, I still tried to pay at least outward attention to the service. We came to that point where everyone has to shake hands whilst trying not to look embarrassed. It was the chance I’d been waiting for.

  The Reverend Jagger bowled down to us and muttered something about peace being with me. I felt far from at peace and held on to his proffered hand. Pointing discreetly in the direction of the crypt, I said, ‘Um... vicar, what is... er, you know...’

  ‘Oh, that,’ he replied warmly. ‘Don’t worry about it, Mr Oakley, you’re in no danger.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Most old churches and graveyards have them, Mr Oakley—unquiet and unforgiven spirits. The problem is that they get terribly...’

  ‘Hungry?’ suggested Mr Disvan.

  Jagger nodded.

  ‘…or empty as the centuries go by. The way I see it, you can either exorcise them or put ‘em to some good use!’

  A sense of humanist outrage made me open my mouth, but nothing came out.

  ‘It’s a good deal,’ Disvan whispered to me, and Jagger smiled modestly. ‘In return for no trouble at other times, on Christmas Eve we let them have a little... feast.’

  ‘I think of it as Christian charity,’ said the vicar. ‘They’ve got enough problems, poor things, without me imposing starvation as well. I mean, even the church mouse in Betjeman’s poem got a slap-up meal once a year, at harvest festival. Binscombe’s deceased black sheep have their party at Christmas, that’s the only difference. You wouldn’t begrudge them, Mr Oakley, if you knew how much they look forward to it.’

  ‘We heard their celebration before we came in’ said Disvan.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jagger bashfully. ‘They like to put on a little thank you concert for me—so sweet really. Whoops! We’re keeping everyone waiting—must be off.’

  The service went on. As it did, Mr Disvan observed that I wasn’t my usual happy self.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mr Oakley,’ he said. ‘Don’t be so po-faced. Where’s your Christmas spirit? Everything’s got to live—even if it’s not alive.’

  I fought the temptation but couldn’t resist glancing round. My gaze hit one of the shrouded figures at the rear. Before I could swivel back to safety, he or she or it noted my inattention and flashed a yellow, ravenous, smile.

  ‘Now,’ said the Reverend Jagger, ‘we’ll sing hymn number 390: “Firmly I believe and truly”!’

  I sang along and sincerely hoped I was convincing.

  CANTERBURY’S DILEMMA

  ‘Nothing is true and everything is permissible!’ announced Mr Fersen as he entered the Argyll.

  The assembled company, much to my surprise, turned, as a man, to greet this stranger like a long lost friend. A roar of mixed laughter and greetings met his odd salutation. Standing behind him in the doorway, I felt like the side dish that nobody ordered. I never got a welcome like that even after all these years of patience and hard socialising. ‘I’m fed up,’ I thought, ‘I’m going.’

  Mr Disvan must have been walkabout in my head again, because, before I could wheel round and depart, he rushed forward and caught my arm.

  ‘Don’t go, Mr Oakley,’ he said, ‘we’re pleased to see you too, and you really must met Mr Fersen.’

  I wasn’t too proud of my sulk, but at the same time reckoned I was entitled to it.

  ‘Why should I?’ I said.

  ‘Because he’s a man with connections. I don’t doubt you’ll find a great deal to talk about.’

  ‘Really? Anyway, we’ve already met.’

  This was true. Our acquaintance was several minutes old. I’d bumped into him lingering outside the door of the Argyll and he’d contrived to spoil my carefully constructed calm. That was another point against him.

  The fact was that I generally took a stroll, time permitting, on a Friday evening, just to put me in the weekend mood. It took me back and forth over the Binscombe frontier, from the narrow roadways and the council houses to the no-nonsense, profit or die, fields beyond.

  In repeating the dosage a couple of times, I could put some mental distance between me and the City of London. All around me, Binscomites were doing nice ordinary things—cooking tea, washing their hair, subsiding in front of the TV, or maybe even making new Binscomites. True, I didn’t much fancy rejoining their little world, but there was an odd appeal in peeking through its windows, metaphorically speaking, off and on.

  Then, once I’d lost full recall of that day’s FT, my feet were allowed to wend their way to the Duke of Argyll. ‘Another evening’s safari down amongst the real English,’ as Mr Disvan cynically put it.

  There was spot of rough and ready truth in that, but all the same the walk ritual served as an airlock between my two lives. It was pretty well necessary to prevent an attack of the cultural bends. The Square Mile and darkest Binscombe didn’t have many mutual points of reference.

  The significance of all this is that, as I hove into sight of the pub that evening, I could have done without encountering Mr Fersen. He reminded me that my Binscombe passport was a ‘John Bull’ forgery.

  The first sight of him was his royal blue Rolls-Royce. It purred to a halt just outside the Argyll’s door and three people effortlessly emerged, without all the contortions required by lesser autos. One was an elderly, distinguished gent, in a green suit, with a trilby set on his snowy head. The others were young, sultry, Mediterranean types of great beauty—a boy and a girl, maybe even brother and sister. I don’t remember what they were (almost) wearing.

  The old man leant forward and, without a word, kissed each companion with rare passion. Then, with many a backward glance and fleeting touch, the boy and girl retreated into the Roller and the unseen chauffeur bore them away.

  By that time I was almost at the pub door and, good manners or not, could no longer pretend that the man was invisible. Instead, I tried the next best thing and made to walk past with a token nod. Who and what he filled his leisure hours with was none of my business, I thought, so long as he left me alone.

  ‘Excuse me, young man,’ he said, ‘but would you be awfully kind and do me one small favour?’

  The time and context was all wrong for him to get a result with this but, too late, I found my face had automatically put on its helpful expression. He took this for a yes.

  ‘Thank you so much. It’s... er...’

  He hesitated, as if too polite, too appreciative of me, to trespass on my attention a second longer.

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Well...’ he smiled, ‘I wonder if you’d enquire if there are any clergy in this public house.’

  And he was so charming, so clearly devoid of ill will, that I found I was rushing to comply.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, catching myself, ‘what for?’

  He smiled winningly once again.

  ‘Well, I’d rather like to go in but I don’t want to cause any upset. Just say Mr Fersen has arrived and he craves their indulgence. Everyone will understand.’

  Actually, this wasn’t quite so strange a request as it might sound. The Argyll doubled up as Binscombe’s unofficial town hall and information exchange. The local men of the cloth often popped in to show the flag and have a social half (or two).

  So it proved that evening. Too embarrassed to physically go and search, I peered through the pub’s main window and spotted both the Reverend Jagger and Father Wiltshire propping up the bar.

  ‘Well, as it happens,’ I said to Fersen, ‘there are a couple of them inside. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Do you think you might attract their attention?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  I tapped the window. Father Wiltshire (amongst others) looked round. I beckoned to him.

  ‘There you are.’

  Mr Fersen touched the side of his nose with one finger.

  ‘I shan’t forget this young
man. You will be rewarded,’ he said.

  The pub door opened and Wiltshire stuck his head out.

  ‘What are you requiring, Oakley,’ he growled, ‘conversion at long last?’ Then he caught sight of Mr Fersen. ‘You! Are you not dead yet?’

  Fersen tipped his hat to the priest.

  ‘I do apologise for this,’ he said sincerely. ‘It’s nothing personal, I assure you.’

  Wiltshire twisted his face with scorn.

  ‘Ah, away with you, mouthpiece. Come on Jagger, we’ve got to go.’

  And they did. Father Wiltshire swept past without another word. The Reverend Jagger tried to be more conciliatory but met the same suave wall of faultless charm.

  ‘I don’t doubt there’s some truth on both sides,’ he said as he passed by, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘Absolutely, absolutely,’ agreed Fersen, without actually agreeing or committing himself to anything at all.

  The clergy departed and Mr Fersen entered in like a conquering sultan, as described above.

  I left him and his fans to it and made my way to the bar.

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked the landlord, jerking my thumb in the direction of the party. ‘What’s he got that I haven’t?’

  Lottie the landlady gazed languidly past me into the midst of the hub-bub where Fersen was shaking hands and sharing sly comments.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘sophistication for a start. And poise. And that sort of roguish charm that makes women—’

  ‘Yes, all right, all right,’ I said, butting in before the list of omissions got too personal. ‘I get the picture.’

  The landlord was a little less impressed.

  ‘Well, I reckon he’s a right ponce,’ he said, giving a pint glass an extra vigorous shine. ‘Green velvet—and a cravat—at his age!’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Mr Disvan, bobbing up from nowhere and leaning against the bar as if nothing had happened, ‘but, at his age, what is appropriate?’

  This stopped us in our tracks. It didn’t mean anything to me but clearly gave Lottie and the landlord something to think about. Disvan returned to reading his battered, personally signed, old copy of Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn.

  I could have left it at that and had an innocent night of silent sipping. At the same time, I knew full well that I could no more leave the subject alone than spend the evening chewing off my fingers. That being so, I thought I might as well get it over with.

  ‘Mr Disvan, who is that bloke?’

  Disvan looked up from his book and gave Fersen the once over, as though for the first time.

  ‘Mr Fersen, you mean?’

  ‘Who else.’

  He smiled at that damn, internal, eternal private joke before answering.

  ‘He’s a collector, of private means.’

  ‘Collecting what?’

  ‘Whatever’s on offer.’

  This was more straight info than you could normally torture out of Disvan, so I didn’t push it. It wasn’t worth the effort. I changed tack.

  ‘And what’s this “Nothing is true, everything is permissible” business? A pop song from his youth?’

  Again that smile.

  ‘Many’s the true word spoken in jest, Mr Oakley. But no, it’s not a song, it’s a quote.’

  ‘Go on, surprise me.’

  ‘I’ll try. It’s attributed to Hassan i Sabbah, a medieval Islamic heretic, the leader of the sect of the Assassins. The European crusaders called him “The Old Man of the Mountains”. They were supposedly his last words in 1090 AD, the summation of his philosophy. “Then his soul plunged straight to the depths of Hell,” according to the orthodox Muslim historian Juvaini.’

  There was a brief, pretty understandable, silence.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not a closet Moslem, Mr Disvan?’ I asked.

  He considered the question before answering.

  ‘Quite sure, Mr Oakley, thank you.’

  I shrugged that problem off and pressed on.

  ‘Anyhow, this is all very educational, but what’s it got to do with anything? Why say it on entering a pub?’

  The little group round me gave this deep thought.

  ‘Well...’ ventured Mr Disvan at last, ‘Mr Fersen is—’

  ‘A man of wealth and taste,’ sang Oliver, the landlord’s son, a committed Stones fan, who was helping out in the Argyll tonight.

  Disvan nodded his concurrence.

  ‘And he simply feels that the truth bears repetition, Mr Oakley.’

  ‘But he said nothing is true’ I protested, by now well on the way to my old home, bafflement.

  ‘Oakley,’ snarled the landlord, rough-handling some innocent bottles, ‘Fersen’s just another preacher. And, like all preachers, he’s keen to spread the word.’

  * * *

  When I was finally, formally introduced to Mr Fersen, he sized me up like a long anticipated treat.

  ‘We meet again, dear boy,’ he said, his accent cut-crystal BBC English, constructed antithesis to the Binscombe dialect spoken all around. ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Oakley. Why can’t you enter a building if there’s a priest in it?’

  Mr Disvan winced. By and large, the villagers didn’t like what they called my ‘City manners’ and I called directness, or cutting the crap.

  I might just as well have left the crap where it was, because Fersen ignored the question entirely.

  ‘Oakley...’ he mused, retaining my handshake for just a fraction too long, ‘Oakley... Probably derived from the Old Friesian for that tree. Or possibly an actual place name. Certainly pre-conquest anyway. I trust you’re suitably proud of your name, young man.’

  ‘So-so. Why can’t you enter a building if there’s a priest in it?’

  Fersen smiled indulgently.

  ‘Come and sit with me, Mr Oakley, let us have a drink together, let us talk to one another.’

  He drew me through the throng to a vacant table. It was done so gently, so charmingly, that to resist would have seemed churlish or brutal. Unasked, Mr Disvan accompanied us. Before I knew it, I was seated across from Mr Fersen and thanking him for a glass of brandy, selected from the many, untouched drinks donated by his Binscombe fan club.

  Then, perversely enough, I was ignored. Fersen and Disvan started a scholarly discussion touching on the Latin poetry of someone called Ausonius, with particular reference to his Christian faith, or lack of it. It wasn’t exactly a subject to fire my soul, so I addressed myself pretty fully to the supply of free drinks spread before me. ‘Each to their own,’ I thought as the social lubricant got a grip and mellowed the edges of life.

  Sadly, Mr Fersen eventually noticed my isolation and leant forward to ask me my opinion. The simple fact was that ignorance didn’t permit me to have one. To make things worse, for some mad reason, I decided to try and bluff my way through.

  ‘I think his love poetry is quite exquisite,’ I heard myself saying. (‘Not bad,’ I commented within the privacy of my own head, ‘profound but not too committal.’)

  Mr Disvan gently pointed out that Decimus Magnus Ausonius (circa 310 to 395 AD) hadn’t actually ever tried his hand at love poetry. Then, while I spiralled to the ground in flames, there was a decent, respectful gap in conversation.

  Fersen looked vaguely disappointed and sat back in his seat. The quiet continued. Anything I might have said would only worsen matters. Mr Disvan, innocent of petty human concerns like loss of face, stared levelly at me and smiled.

  Like time spent tottering on the edge of a cliff, the silence went intolerably on until, at last, Fersen took pity on me.

  ‘What I presume you’re referring to, Mr Oakley,’ he said slowly, ascending from a deep study of the lampshade, ‘is the profound ambience of what might well be called “love” to be found in Ausonius’s poetry; the gentle affection for earthly life that suffuses his work. Is that not so?’

  It occurred to me that this might be a trap, but I had very little to lose. Mr Fersen looked as kindly as Disv
an was chillingly neutral. I took the chance.

  ‘Yes indeed, that’s precisely what I meant.’

  Fersen nodded sagely.

  ‘I thought so. Yes, now that you mention it, that sentiment is very marked in the surviving works. There is therein, I confess, a sort of agape style love towards the glory of his universe—his vineyard, his estate, his philosophical pursuits, all the brief and sunny fleshly consolations to be snatched from time.’

  He now studied me approvingly.

  ‘I’ll wager you’re the sort of man to empathise with such feelings, are you not, Mr Oakley?’

  Disvan seemed to suddenly forget all about culture and poetry. He gave Fersen a volley of a glare and waved his finger at him in admonitory fashion.

  ‘I remind you of the concordat,’ he said with a softness of voice belied by his expression. ‘You are not on duty!’

  It was all water off Fersen’s elegantly clad back.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he replied affably. ‘I wouldn’t dream of abusing your hospitality. Please forgive me if... ‘

  His voice trailed away as his attention seem to wander from our weak magnetism. Someone or something had caught his eye.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ he continued, rising from his seat, ‘perhaps you would excuse me; there is something I really must look into. I hope to see more of you tomorrow, Mr Oakley. I shall be most upset if you don’t come to my little transpositional party.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  He took no notice.

  ‘Ausonius’s vision of love... a most interesting theory,’ he mused as he sauntered away and joined a group of young Binscomites up at the bar. They seemed to welcome him and he became enveloped in their throng.

  I randomly selected another drink from the table and downed it. Mr Disvan looked at me over the white rampart of his Guinness.

  ‘I presume,’ he said, ‘that you’re going to ask who, what, and probably why.’

  I told him he presumed damn right.

  ‘Well, they are eternal questions, Mr Oakley—and eternally unanswered.’

  ‘Particularly when asked of you.’

  ‘Quite possibly. Anyhow, Mr Fersen is a unique phenomenon, a “one-off”. There are no easy terms within which to confine him. At the moment he’s out of his context. Ask me again tomorrow when things will be clearer.’