by Jane Langton
CHAPTER 35
We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age.
Charles Darwin, on the death of his daughter Annie
“It’s St. Mary the Beneficent on the Abingdon Road,” said A Mary, coming into the sitting room where Homer was working at a table littered with papers and books. “Oliver was the rector there. It’s in a council estate called Nightingale Court. They’re planning a memorial service for him a week from today. The woman on the phone sounded all broken up. Well, of course they would be.”
“We’ll be there,” said Homer, slamming one book shut and picking up another. “Memorial services are always brimming over with fact and fiction about the dear departed.”
The next Sunday afternoon they walked to Cornmarket Street and waited for a bus. The sidewalk was thronged with children heading for a Disney film. When the Abingdon bus wheezed to a stop and unfolded its door, Mary looked up at the driver and asked, “Is this the right bus for Nightingale Court?”
He glanced at her as though surprised. “That’s right. That’ll be eighty pence.”
They climbed on, paid their fare, and sat down. The other seats were filled with people of all races—Indian, African, Chinese, Japanese, Caribbean. An elderly couple in the seat behind them conversed in German. The bus chugged along Cornmarket to the High, then slowed down behind a double-decker tour bus and stopped cold at the tortured crossing of Carfax, where Roman legions had once, perhaps, herded oxen to the ford across the river.
“Oh, look, Homer,” said Mary, “something’s happening.” She pointed at the Carfax tower, and Homer leaned across her to take a look. Everyone on the street was gazing up at a man standing on the parapet at the top. He was wearing a crash helmet and fiddling with a rope.
“My God,” said Homer, “what’s he going to do?”
“It’s a charity of some sort,” said a learned-looking Indian gentleman, turning around in the seat in front of them. “He’ll be coming down the side pretty soon. They’re raising money for something.”
“Do you think,” said Mary doubtfully, “he really knows what he’s doing?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Homer. “He’s probably a rock climber in his spare time. They’re insane, those people, but they’re pretty careful.”
The bus was stuck in gridlock with three small Park and Ride buses, an Oxford Citylink bus, and half a dozen cars. Pedestrians streamed in all directions, further scrambling the tangle.
The bus passengers had an unobstructed view of the action at the top of the tower. Homer and Mary watched as the man in the crash helmet climbed over the parapet and began rappelling down the stony vertical wall with the rope hooked to his belt. Another rope was paid out by a colleague at the top. Halfway down, the climber took courage and made a brave jump, flinging himself away from the wall and bouncing back. By the time the bus began moving forward into St. Aldate’s, he was at the bottom of the tower, standing upright on the pavement, unhooking the rope while the onlookers clapped.
It was not a long ride to Nightingale Court, but there were a number of stops. One by one the white people on the bus got off, until only people of color remained. At last the bus driver called out, “Nightingale,” and stepped down for a smoke. It was the last stop.
“There’s the church,” said Mary. “See? It says St. Mary the Beneficent.”
It was a small modern building, its triangular lines recalling the architectural stereotypes of the nineteen-fifties. Behind it rose the towers of the council estate. Nightingale Court was a city unto itself at the end of the bus line. Mary thought of communities like this at home, Columbia Point in Boston, Cabrini Green in Chicago. In the United States they were warehouses for the poor, and as communities they were not very successful. Was this one any better? And how on earth had Oliver Clare fitted in, that blond and blue-eyed scion of the upper class? His fair-skinned beauty could not have been what was needed, and his inexperience must have been a joke.
The entrance to the church was draped in black. Mary and Homer followed the Indian professor across the street. While they waited in the crowd gathered around the door, a car pulled up at the curb. “Homer, look,” murmured Mary, “Oliver’s mother and father.”
“How do you know it’s Oliver’s mother and father?”
“We saw them on television, remember?”
“Oh, of course.”
They tried not to stare. The tragedy was beyond expression. The faces of Oliver’s parents were drawn and pale. As they walked to the door, stumbling a little, someone came out to greet them, a burly black man in a dark suit. He murmured a welcome, they murmured in reply, and he ushered them into the church ahead of everyone else.
Solemnly Homer and Mary shuffled in after them. The interior of the church was like the outside, dramatic and trapezoidal, with a ceiling swooping from low to high. Families occupied the pews. Children sat beside their parents, swinging their feet, bobbing up and down. Maternal hands cautioned them, pulled at skirts, adjusted neckties, arranged hair ribbons. Homer and Mary sat down beside a black woman nearly as tall as Homer. As everyone rose to sing she smiled at them and proffered her hymnbook. Children squealed, a baby cried. Nobody seemed to mind. With a pang, Homer remembered seeing Oliver in the courtyard of the museum with a band of little dark-skinned children. It should have dawned on him at once that they belonged to his own parish.
The eulogist was kind. Oliver’s memory was well served by the big black man who had welcomed Oliver’s parents. “His faith was a beacon to those of us in doubt, his youth was a blessing to the elders within our congregation, his athletic program was an inspiration to the young. We trust in the mercy of God, in the resurrection of the dead, in the glory of heaven for our brother, the Reverend Oliver Clare, so tragically taken from his loving mother and father and from his parish. Let us pray.”
Mary couldn’t help watching Mr. and Mrs. Clare as they knelt together, conspicuous in the front row. Their heads were bowed. Mrs. Clare’s plump shoulders shook. Her husband put his arm around her, and the shaking stopped.
After the service there was a reception in the parish hall. Children ran around among the folding chairs. Teenagers passed trays of cakes. Oliver’s mother and father stood bravely beside the man who had conducted the service and shook hands and nodded gratefully as their son’s parishioners came forward to say how sorry they were. Tears flowed.
When their turn came, Homer and Mary murmured their sympathy, and explained that they were friends of William Dubchick and his daughter Freddy.
Mrs. Clare looked vaguely around the room. “Where is Freddy? I expected to see her here. Why didn’t she come?”
“I think her father took her away,” explained Mary uncomfortably. “She was terribly upset.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Clare, tight-lipped.
Someone else pressed forward to say polite things to the bereaved parents. Mary and Homer moved aside, and were promptly offered cups of coffee by the tall woman who had sat next to them during the service. They introduced themselves, and Mary said the first thing that came into her head. “He was so young.”
“It was what we loved about him,” said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Marilyn Kinshi. Her skin was very dark, her hair a work of art, braided in a thousand strands and threaded with beads. Her speech had the precise articulation of East Africa. “It is true that he could not spend much time with us, we are so far out of the city, and of course he had many duties in the cathedral, but he did his best. He was very good with the children.”
“The cathedral?”
“Don’t you know the cathedral?” Mrs. Kinshi laughed, delighted to educate these poor outsiders from the United States. “The Oxford Cathedral is for everyone, it is where the bishop belongs, the Bishop of Oxford. It is also the chapel of the college of Christ Church. You see how learned I am! Our Oliver was very important in the cathedral. Oftentimes he had duties there that kept him away.” Mrs. Kinshi leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Th
e cathedral! You know, there has been something of a scandal about the cathedral.”
“A scandal?” said Mary.
Mrs. Kinshi nodded in the direction of the man who had read the eulogy. “Mr. Benshara was convinced that Oliver would have preferred the cathedral. You know, with the bishop presiding and all the music? But when he inquired, the bishop refused! He was very stuffy!” Mrs. Kinshi threw back her head and laughed. Then she grew solemn again. “And anyway, Oliver’s parents insisted that the service should take place in his own parish. Wasn’t that good of them? We are so happy!”
“Tell me, Mrs. Kinshi,” said Homer boldly, “was Oliver a good preacher?”
Again Mrs. Kinshi laughed heartily. “No, no, he was a terrible preacher. But he was a nice boy. All the women felt like his auntie. It is dreadful that anyone should kill such a nice boy.”
Homer turned confidential, following Mrs. Kinshi’s example. “Do you think he might have killed himself, Mrs. Kinshi?”
“I am not sure what I think.” Mrs. Kinshi’s good humor turned sober. “He suffered from self-doubt, I know that. He worried about his preaching, because he knew it was not good. And his girlfriend, we heard that she—” Mrs. Kinshi’s hand spread wide. “Where is she? We have not met her. She is not here.”
Once again there was no good answer to the question. Impulsively, Mary asked, “Do you think he believed in God?” Homer looked at his wife, amazed.
Mrs. Kinshi didn’t seem to find it strange. “Oh, yes! He was a believer. He gave a sermon about God. When was it? Oh, my Lord”—a tear ran down her cheek—“it was just two weeks ago. It was really a very good sermon.” She mopped at her face with a tissue.
They thanked her, and smiled at the children, and shook the hand of Mr. Benshara, and said goodbye.
Outdoors they crossed the street to the bus stop, where the Oxford bus was about to pull out. It was full of passengers. The door was shut. Homer knocked on it, and the door unfolded. He climbed in and put coins in the driver’s tray. But. then Mary said, “Oh, Homer, wait a sec,” and raced back across the street to the straggling lawn in front of the church.
“Mary,” shouted Homer, jumping down from the bus, “hurry up, what’s the matter with you?”
She gave him an odd look as she crossed the street again, walking slowly. The bus driver stared at her, his hand on the brake release.
Homer urged her up the step in front of him, and they reeled down the aisle as the bus whirled around in a U-turn. “What were you doing?” said Homer. “I thought he wasn’t going to wait.”
Mary looked at him. “I was reading the notice board. Oliver’s last sermon was still posted, although it was two weeks ago. Do you know what it was called, the sermon about God that Mrs. Kinshi was talking about?”
“I can’t guess.”
“‘The Answer Is Yes.’”
“What? You don’t mean it! ‘The Answer Is—’”
“Yes. That’s what Oliver called it—’The Answer Is Yes.’”
CHAPTER 36
“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice.
“Nothing,” said Alice.
“Nothing whatever?” persisted the King.
“Nothing whatever,” said Alice.
“That’s very important,” the King said.
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Next day Homer took a cab from Parks Road to St. Aldate’s to tell Gopal Mukerji about the service for Oliver Clare in the church of St. Mary the Beneficent. He also described the strange tension between the message on the wall of Oliver’s room and the title of his sermon on the notice board in front of his church.
“Ah,” said Mukerji, “that is interesting. Optimism—The answer is yes. Followed by pessimism—The answer is no. What does it mean?”
“Perhaps,” said Homer, “it means that his death had less to do with his sexual frustration over Professor Dubchick’s daughter than we thought. I understand the sermon was about God.”
“God!” Mukerji laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, naturally, what else would an Anglican clergyman preach about? Although what you Christians think about God is to me a mystery. I am a Hindu. To me your God is an underprivileged second cousin of my God. He is deprived of divine company. He is without avatars for all human and earthly qualities.”
“But I’m not exactly a Christian either,” protested Homer. “Not anymore. I’m a transcendentalist. Did you know that Henry Thoreau had a great interest in the Hindu sacred books?”
Mukerji raised his eyebrows to show his ignorance. “Who is Henry Thoreau?” Then he got back to brass tacks. “Look here, we know all about Oliver Clare’s church. We were out there this morning. It is a high-crime area. Most of the residents are good folk, really, but there are also a lot of young thugs whose weapon of choice is a knife. There was a murder in Nightingale Court only a month ago. Someone else got his throat cut. We’ve been looking into it. And this morning a computer was stolen from the church office.”
Homer gasped. “Did you say another murder? You mean there was another murder with a knife?”
“Part of a burglary, probably. A stereo was taken, and a handful of lottery tickets. We’re wondering if the clergyman’s death was also part of a botched burglary. The woman downstairs, Mrs. Jarvis, she said Oliver Clare’s telly was stolen last week. Someone broke through a window when the house was empty. She was angry because she had to pay for the repair. She shook her finger at me and wanted to know why the police didn’t do a better job.” Mukerji laughed. “I was frightened. She is a formidable lady.”
Homer was curious. “What about the rest of his stuff? What happened to the things in his room?”
“There wasn’t much. His personal possessions, we took them away. We will keep them for a while. Do you want to see them? There was a lot of stuff in his wardrobe, sort of thrown in higgledy-piggledy.”
Higgledy-piggledy—the expression struck a familiar chord in Homer’s memory. It was what Sir John Herschel had said about Darwin’s theory, It is the law of higgledy-piggledy. For some reason the two higgledy-piggledys jiggled and giggled together. “Yes, of course I’d like to see them.”
Mukerji dispatched Detective Constable Ives, who returned a moment later with a box of Oliver Clare’s belongings, grinned at Homer, and went away again.
“You didn’t want to see the bloody shirt, did you?” said Mukerji. “We’ve got the jackknife and the clothes he was wearing in a separate collection. And that strip of paper on the wall. You know, the one that said—” Mukerji shook his head fiercely from side to side. ”The answer is no—not on your life, nothing doing. If you want to see those, I’ll—”
“No, no,” said Homer, staring into the box of Oliver’s possessions, “this is fine. Is it okay if I just reach in and take a look?”
“Certainly. We have done whatever analysis was possible. We found only two things of interest. One, this little penknife. As you can see it is quite sharp, but too small and feeble for the cutting of a throat. And two, these ropes.” Mukerji leaned over the box and pulled out a lumpy plastic bag.
“Telephone, sir.” It was Detective Constable Ives, holding up a phone.
Mukerji dumped the bundle on the desk. “Excuse me, Homer.”
Left to himself, Homer pulled out the contents of the plastic bag, two coils of yellow rope. At once he remembered the kid who had been rappelling down the side of the old tower at Carfax, raising money for charity. Hadn’t his rope been yellow like this one? The wall had been vertical, but he had come down it like a fly.
Like a fly! If you had a rope you wouldn’t have to be an anthropoid ape in order to climb the side of a wall. You wouldn’t even have to be an orangutan like the ones in the London Zoo. You could be an ordinary member of the human race and haul yourself up with a yellow cord.
Homer examined the coils of rope. They were tightly woven, but they looked too narrow to bear much weight. He stuffed them back into the bag and
groped around in the box, fishing up a black sweater, a pair of gray pants, and a black woolen jacket, the kind of inconspicuous clothing a pious young clergyman might wear. There were boxer shorts, two pairs of skimpy dark socks, and a couple of priestly collars in a plastic container.
At the bottom of the box Homer struck gold. He found a lumpy sack full of small steel objects and an aluminum pulley. It was obvious that they went with the rope. Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, Homer took out the small metal oval he had picked up on the roof of the museum on the morning after Bobby Fenwick’s death. The sack contained two others just like it.
Delighted, Homer held the three of them side by side. They were a perfect match. What did it mean? Was Oliver Clare the creature Helen Farfrae had seen climbing the glass roof? Had he been using this very rope, belaying it with the pulley and the small steel gadgets, in order to do the impossible?
“Homer,” said Detective Inspector Mukerji, bursting in the door, “it’s one damn thing after another. That was the proprietor of the little post office store on Walton Street. She says Mrs. Jarvis told her somebody came to see Oliver Clare on the night he died.”
Homer stared at him. “Mrs. Jarvis told a storekeeper something she didn’t tell you? While she was buying a stamp?”
“I called her at once.” Mukerji heaved a sigh. “She says she didn’t tell us because we didn’t ask her. Myself, I think it is some neighborhood mystique. Don’t tell the police anything. What have they ever done for you?”
Homer could think of another reason. He too had met Mrs. Jarvis. She struck him as a woman of godlike whim. Sometimes she raised her hand to bless, sometimes to curse, sometimes she neither blessed nor cursed. “Well, who was it? Did she know who the person was?”
“Only that his name was Hal. He was wearing a heavy parka with a hood. Oliver came downstairs and said, ‘Come in, Hal.’ Then both of them climbed the stairs and Oliver’s door closed behind them.”
“Hal! Could it have been Hal Shaw?”