‘Escape?’ he sneered. ‘That lot couldn’t catch VD in Port Said.’
‘Please, Jock. I wish to enjoy my luncheon.’
‘Yeah. Well, cook’s just turned the chops over so you got about four minutes to get downstairs, I reckon.’
I made it. I remember the chops vividly, they were delicious; so were them little French beans.
The afternoon hummed with telephone calls; I felt like W. B. Yeats in his bee-loud glade. First George, who upbraided me sternly, saying that Sonia had been quite frantic at being left alone all night. (‘Pooh’ is what I mentally said to that.) He was full of plans to import the flower of the English Bar to cow the Royal Court of Jersey.
‘Don’t be so damn silly,’ I said; ‘for one thing, they’d probably have no standing here; for another it would take them years to learn the quirks and quiddities of Jersey law. Leave it alone. Trust your Uncle Charlie.’
‘Now, look here, Mortdecai,’ he began. I explained courteously that I never listened to sentences beginning with those words. He started again, and again I had to interrupt him to explain that, although no great churchgoer, I found blasphemy distasteful. He breathed heavily into the instrument for perhaps half a minute. I felt that I should help him.
‘The weather, I believe, is fine for the time of the year, is it not?’
He hung up. I started the Times crossword.
Sam was the next to telephone.
‘Charlie, are you quite insane or do you really know what you’re about? George says you’re talking like a lunatic.’
‘Have I ever let you down?’ I asked simply.
‘Have I ever given you the chance before?’
‘How is Violet?’
‘In complete withdrawal. Diagnosis: not sure. Prognosis: can’t say. Being fed intravenously. Change the subject.’
‘All right. We had chops for luncheon. Come to dinner: Jock is making Aloo Ghosht Bangalore with his own hands.’
‘Charlie, I suppose you realize that if you haven’t got this thing right I may have to disembowel you with my own hands?’
‘Of course. But if I haven’t got it right you may not need to, you see. Come to dinner?’
‘Oh, all right. Eight o’clock?’
‘Come earlier. Let’s get sloshed.’
‘All right.’
Johanna, who had wandered in, said, ‘How nice to have one’s friends in so often.’
‘Tell Jock to put some more potatoes in the curry,’ I said. ‘Dear.’
The next call was the one I was dreading: it was from Jolly Solly my Wonder Solicitor.
‘Ho ho ho!’ he cried happily, rubbing his hands. (He has one of those loudspeaker telephones which leave both hands free – indispensable for confirmed hand-rubbers.) ‘Ho ho! Such an interesting mess as you’re in I never hoped to live to see. Legal history we shall make!’
‘Less chortling and more news,’ I demanded sourly.
‘Ah, yes, well, you’re naturally anxious. By the way, you’ve no aged parents whose grey hairs you might bring down in sorrow to the grave? No? Well, that’s good news, I suppose. The rest is mostly bad. They’re not yet sure how many charges they’ll bring against you, half the clerks in the Attorney-General’s office are working day and night on it, smacking their lips over the dripping roast. The preliminary list of choices is as follows:
‘Breaking and Entering.
‘Acting in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace.
‘Foul and disgusting language.
‘Obstructing a Police Officer in the execution of his duty.
‘Sacrilege under Section 24 of the Larceny Act of 1914: that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, bet you didn’t know that, ha ha.
‘Sedition, well, yes, arguable.
‘Art. I de la Loi pour Empêcher le Mauvais Traitement des Animaux – that only carries three months. Oh yes, and a £200 fine.
‘Art. I de la Loi Modifiant le Droit Criminel (Sodomie & Bestialité) confirmée par Ordre de Sa Majesté en Conseil, I really do hope they don’t fix you up for that one: the maximum is life but the minimum is three years. Last chap was only deported, but he was potty.
‘Theft of one rooster or cockerel – no, the farmer swears Jock didn’t pay him for it. You might get that reduced to “Taking and Driving Away without Owner’s Permission”, ha ha.
‘Vagrancy. You didn’t have any cash on you, you see.
‘Failure to sign a driving licence.
‘Breach of the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) (Jersey) Law of 1964 – that depends on what the stuff Fr Tichborne was burning turns out to be.
‘Breach – possibly – of La Loi sur L’Exercise de la Médecine et Chirurgerie Vétérinaire.’
I had no time to seek out a looking-glass, nor did I need to: I can say without hesitation that my face was white as any sheet – probably whiter than most.
‘That all?’ I quavered manfully.
‘By no means, Charlie, by no means. I’m afraid that all those can be doubled and redoubled in spades by repeating them with the words “conspiring to” in front of them. Then a number of civil actions would probably lie:
‘Trespass to the chapel and damage thereto.
‘Trespass to the dolmen and damage thereto.
‘Trespass to the Hougue Bie site generally and failure to pay the admission charge.
‘Damages in respect of the rooster or cockerel.
‘They’ll probably think of some more, they’ve hardly started. Then I’m afraid there’s all sorts of sticky possibilities under Ecclesiastical Law – and if that lot brings charges I’d plead guilty outright if I were you: cases in their courts drag out for years and the costs would break you.
‘Just for example, if the Bishopric of Coutances hears about it you could be in bad trouble; the Bishop has something called a Right of Interference in anything concerning a priest criminally.
‘Then there’s a particularly horrid Papal Bull of 1483 which is still in force wherein Pope Sixtus IV protects Jersey churches against all sorts of things with an automatic sentence of “excommunication, anathema, eternal malediction and confiscation of property”. Shouldn’t worry too much about that unless you happen to be a Papist – the confiscation of property bit wouldn’t hold much water today.’
‘Oh good,’ I said heavily. ‘And now have you exhausted all the possibilities? I mean, I’ve heard about the man in New Orleans who’s serving 999 years, but I am no longer a young man, you know.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I’m afraid there could be quite a lot more. You see, there’s practically no codified statutory criminal law in Jersey; virtually all offences are Common Law ones. What that means, to the ordinary customer, is that the Attorney–General can prosecute you for anything deemed offensive or anti-social simply by sticking the word “unlawfully” in front of a description of whatever it was that you did and was objected to. Do you follow me?’
I whimpered assent.
‘But let me bring a little sunshine into your life. All domestic motor insurance policies are automatically invalidated when the vehicle is used for an illegal purpose, so they’ll certainly nab George Breakspear for driving uninsured. Yes, I thought that might cheer you up a bit. Oh, and by the way, you’re lucky that your nasty little ceremony didn’t actually succeed in raising up the Devil in person: there’s a foot-and-mouth restriction in force at the moment and they would have got you under the Diseases of Animals Act for transporting a cloven-footed beast without a licence, ha ha.’
‘Yes, ha ha indeed. In the meantime, what do I do?’
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘and pray.’
I hung up.
Neither waiting nor praying is a skill I can boast of. Thinking was what was required – but thinking requires Scotch whisky, as all great thinkers agree and I had, in an idle moment, made an absurd promise to Johanna. The clock stood at ten to three. I turned the hands on to five-past six and rang the bell for Jock. He brought in the life-giving drinks-tray i
n what I can only call an insubordinate manner and wordlessly corrected the clock.
‘Jock,’ I said as the decanter gurgled, ‘I rather fancy I am in the shit. It’s because of Fr Tichborne dying, you see. Difficult to control the thing now.’
‘Wasn’t his fault, was it?’ said Jock sulkily.
‘Of course not, he was an excellent chap, the soul of courtesy; wouldn’t have dreamed of embarrassing us on purpose. But the fact remains that it’s made everything very difficult. What’s to be done?’
‘Well, kissing goes by favour, dunnit? Specially in Jersey.’
‘I’ve never really known what that means. What do you take it to mean?’
‘Well, say, if the filth’ (by which he meant the CID), ‘is getting a bit too close to you, you ring up one of your mates who was at Borstal with you and he fits the copper up with a corruption rap. Doesn’t matter if it don’t stick: they have to suspend him till it’s investigated and the new bloke they put on your case hasn’t got his contacks, has he, and most of what the first bloke had he kept in his head, didn’t he, so you got a couple of munce to sort things out, see?’
‘I think I see. Goodness. But I suppose it’s the way of the world. I certainly can’t think of anything else. Thank you, Jock.’
I rang up George.
‘George,’ I said in dulcet tones, ‘I really must apologize for my incivility just now. Heat of the moment, you understand. Not myself, eh?’
I accepted his grunt as an acceptance of my apology.
‘It seems to me,’ I went on, ‘that our watchword must be “kissing goes by favour” – we must use our influence, bring gentle pressure to bear, don’t you think? For instance, how well do you know the more august chaps in Jersey; were you at Borst … I mean Harrow with any of them? I mean chaps like the chap you rang up from the Police Station yesterday?’
‘Very well indeed, some of them.’
‘Well, there you are then. Ask them to tea, fill them up with tuck – hot buttered crumpets, little meat pies, cherry brandy – all the nice things they won’t be allowed to have at home – then remind them of your schooldays together, all those innocent pranks, you know the sort of thing.’
‘I am doing precisely that at this moment. Is there anything else?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Good-bye, then.’
‘Good-bye, George.’
The thought of hot buttered crumpets took me by the throat like a tigress: I was racked with desire for them. I strolled into the kitchen, where I found Jock sticking photographs of Shirley Temple into his scrap-book.
‘Jock,’ I said casually, ‘do you suppose there are any hot buttered crumpets in the house?’ He glowered at me.
‘You know perfickly well what Mrs Mortdecai said about hot buttered crumpets, Mr Charlie. “Better without them” is what she said you was.’
‘But this is a special case,’ I whined. ‘I need those crumpets, can’t you see that?’
His face remained stony.
‘Tell you what, Jock; you forget to mention hot buttered crumpets to Mrs Mortdecai and I’ll forget to mention about you pinching her caviare. Kissing goes by favour, you know.’ He sighed.
‘You catch on quick, Mr Charlie.’
I drew up a chair, rubbing my hands like any lawyer.
For some arcane reason the crumpets they sell in Jersey tend to come in packets of seven, which means that when two crumpet-eaters are gathered together there is a rather sordid gobbling-race for he who finishes his third crumpet before his contender has a natural right to the fourth. We were both well into our third – it looked like being a photo-finish – when the door-bell rang and Jock arose, glumly wiping the melted butter off his chin. It is at times like these that breeding shows. After a rapid mental battle I divided the remaining crumpet into two almost equal halves.
Jock returned, flashed a glance at the muffineer, and announced that some gentlemen from the Press were in the lobby and should he show them into the drawing-room.
The gentlemen of the Press proved to be one personable young woman from the Jersey Evening Post, clearly bursting with intelligence, one world-weary young photographer and one large, sad, well-bred chap representing wireless and television. I dealt out glasses of ardent spirits with the deftness of a Mississippi steamboat gambler, then made a deal with them.
‘Keep the national press off our backs,’ was the burden of my song, ‘and you shall have, exclusively, all the information and photographs you can reasonably expect. Fail me in this and I shall close my doors upon you and Tell All to the Sunday People.’
Three shudders followed this, then three fervent nods.
In carefully rehearsed words I told them quite a lot of the truth, bearing down heavily on the fact that the offender was clearly a witchmaster and that it was well known that the Messe de S. Sécaire could not fail to draw his teeth and rob him of his mystic powers if he were a true witch and that, if he persisted in his evil-doing, certain of his physical powers would also be grievously afflicted.
Then I darted over to the other half of the house and borrowed from my landlord a large, smelly pipe and a small, smelly poodle. With the one clenched between my teeth (yes, the pipe) and the other snuggled in my arms, I allowed them to take photographs of benign old Mortdecai in his favourite armchair and benigner old Mortdecai pottering about in the garden. They went away quite satisfied. I fled to the bathroom and got rid of the taste of the pipe with mouthwash, changed my clothes and told Jock to send the poodle-polluted suit to the cleaners or, if beyond redemption, to the poor.
Nothing else of any note happened that day except the exquisite curry, thoughout which I played records of Wagner: he goes beautifully with curry, the only use I’ve ever found for him. Sam left early and I too was ready for my bed, as I always am after a night in the cells. I heard Johanna come in from her bridge-party but she went straight to her room, so I suppose she had lost. I lay awake for a long time, thinking of poor little Eric Tichborne and feeling like a pagan suckled in a creed outworn. I dare say you know the feeling, especially if your wife sometimes goes to bed without saying good night.
13
Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.
Dolores
I spend the morning and much of the afternoon in bed, moping and pretending to be poorly. Jock brought me no less than three successive cups of his delicious beef-tea, not to mention a sandwich or two from time to time. Johanna tried to take my temperature.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ I cried.
‘But we always take it like that in the States.’
I was saved by the bell of the telephone: the Attorney-General’s staff wanted to know about my citizenship status. Then it rang again: it was George, whose advocate had been terrifying him. I told him that my solicitor was a much better terrifier and a faster – he had done all his terrifying the previous day. Then it rang again and I told the Chief Superintendent’s clerk that, no I couldn’t pop down to the Station, I was suffering from a tertiary ague.
This sort of thing went on. There will, I think, be telephones in Hell.
What I was waiting for was the Jersey Evening Post, for a good press was essential to the efficacy of our scheme and might well be useful when things came to be considered in Court.
Our copy of the newspaper is delivered at six o’clock but, evidently, other people get theirs earlier, for the telephone calls started again with redoubled vigour at half-past four. Set out in rough order they comprised:
One learned Rector of my acquaintance who wished, sadly and probably sensibly, that we had tried the Church’s resources first, instead o
f imperilling our souls by flirting with the Opposition.
One Christian Scientist – I thought they had all died out – who explained that rape was all in the mind and merely a manifestation of Mortal Error. She was still talking when I hung up on her, but I don’t suppose she noticed.
Three separate and distinct Jehovah’s Witnesses who told me that Armageddon was scheduled for 1975 and that there would be no place for me among the 50,000 survivors unless I did something about the state of my soul pretty smartly. I didn’t try to explain that the thought of surviving in a world populated only by Witnesses horrified me: I just gave them each a telephone number of one boring friend or another who would, I assured them, relish a visit from one of their sect.
Two respectable acquaintances who each had found that they had invited us to dinner on the wrong day and would ring us back in due course.
Three ditto who had accepted invitations from us but now found they had previous – or more likely subsequent – engagements.
One engaging re-incarnation buff who had been the Great Beast of Revelation the last time around.
One quite frantic chap who said I had got it all wrong about the Devil: ‘She’s a coloured person,’ he explained.
Several alleged and assorted witches, some of whom sneered and some of whom offered alibis.
One drunken Irishman who asked for precise directions to my house so that he could call and bash my bloody brains in.
One chap called Smith who said that he was going to church to pray for my soul but with no very lively expectation of success.
One prominent member of the Pressure Group for the Reform of the Cruelty to Animals Law, who proposed to take the poodle away from me and find it a good home. (I told her that I, too, was keen on cruelty to animals but that the poodle was a stuffed one, alas, having died last year in a nameless fashion.)
Clearly, the Jersey Evening Post must have done me proud and, indeed, when my copy at last arrived, so it proved. Bannered and splashed across the front page was all the Mortdecai that was fit to print. The photograph sent Johanna and Jock lurching and staggering across the floor in ribald mirth: senile, scholarly old Mortdecai, be-poodled and be-piped, beamed pottily out at one in the most diverting way. Miss H. Glossop, the young lady reportress, had evidently done her homework, for her facts were clear and well-researched. Erudite, unworldly old Mortdecai, it appeared, anxious to help friends in distress, had fought fire with fire to such effect that the very celebrant of the rites had dropped dead – to everyone’s regret – at the climax of the performance. ‘What,’ the story implied, ‘would the harvest be for the guilty target, when even the innocent gunner, so to speak, couldn’t take the recoil?’ Miss Glossop went on in an exceedingly well-informed way to recount the marvellous powers attributed to the Mass of S. Sécaire, and to pity the witch who pitted his paltry powers against it. No literate diabolist could possibly have missed the point. Moreover, apart from a slight tendency to freely split infinitives, her style evidently derived from the best models: not a single ‘subsequently transpired’ marred her pellucid prose. I was well pleased. Indeed, I got up in time for dinner and made a few telephone calls myself. Sam was out – no one knew where – but George grudgingly admitted that the ploy seemed to be going well. Solly, his mouth full (solicitors dine much earlier than barristers), admitted that my image might well be a little better for the publicity, and let me know that one or two of the charges had been dropped and only four or five fresh ones had been thought of.
The Mortdecai Trilogy Page 53