He knew that everything he saw and felt was going on in his head, but that did not make it any less true. After all, every experience ‘went on in the head’, but now he knew that he could choose which one. He chose to look out on his wild landscape and, through its rearing mountains and shaggy forests which he was now viewing from a great height, as if he were a god, he saw the snake. It was a giant creature: its long tail was coiled in a valley and, when it paused to drink, it drained a river. It wound through the landscape and where it went the power of its life caused cities and temples to spring up. Every scale on its body was a shining thought and a mirror of vision into which Pinson could see if he chose, and that vision would transport him to another world, and another, and yet another, because the snake was eternal, it circled the universe and devoured its own tail. At that moment Pinson had all knowledge and all power at his command.
He knew this was a supreme moment from which he could only descend, but the descent was slow and gentle. Gradually the little incidents and sensations of the ‘real’ world began to impinge upon him again. He saw Jean cringing at his feet, the bruises on her arms and face blackening as she stared up at him abjectly and without reproach. He smiled gently down upon her and helped her to her feet.
In the body of the chapel Canon Doker and his train had disappeared while the congregation was busy packing up to go home. Only the bearded man in the grey underpants who had injected himself was lying flat on his back, motionless. Perhaps he was dead: who knows? No-one paid him any attention.
Jean drove Pinson back to Spyhole Cottage in silence. When they reached Spyhole she stopped the car and said to him: ‘You’re one of us now. You will have to be initiated.’
Pinson nodded and got out of the car which instantly drove off. The sky was greying at the edges in preparation for dawn. The cold morning air was like a knife.
**
Jean did not come to him for several days, and Pinson was quite alone. He did not mind this at all: thoughts and memories were far more engrossing companions. The experience of that night took a long time to fade. It lingered like a strong taste and he could from time to time relive its ecstasies to some extent. But he longed to recapture it whole and unadulterated. For that he supposed he would have to be ‘initiated’, whatever that meant.
He did not write anything; that might come later. For the moment, he was content simply to be and to wait. He went for long walks, each time intending to reach Dodman’s Point, but he never did. On the fourth day after the Gnostic Mass in the Ebenezer Chapel he was out for a walk when he thought he saw a figure standing between the two stones on Dodman’s Point. The figure waved to him as it had before, though whether the gesture was warning, threat or greeting he could not say. On his return Pinson found Jean lying naked on his bed. They spoke no word until they had finished coupling, a fierce affair in which each drew blood from the other.
‘It’s tonight,’ she said as she climbed off him.
‘The initiation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where? Not that ghastly Ebenezer Chapel.’
‘No. That’s out of bounds now. They found someone dead in there. Hell of a stink.’
‘Literally and metaphorically, I should imagine. Where then?’
‘Dodman’s Point. You will have to pass between the hands.’
‘What if someone sees us?’
‘They won’t. No-one goes out to Dodman’s at night. I’ll pick you up at eleven.’
**
It wanted a few minutes to midnight when they reached Dodman’s Point. Pinson was relieved to find that the galère was not present, only Canon Doker and Greg. Greg dressed in a white track suit with the hood up carried a flaming lighted torch, Doker was in his usual black clerical garb except that he wore a purple silk stole embroidered with pentagrams surrounded by a snake devouring its own tail. When he saw them Pinson came to his senses a little and was afraid. The wind was whipping around the stones and whispering as it did so. The sky was clear but for a few moonlit veils of cloud. Doker smiled and winked at him. In a voice that was meant to convey reassurance he said: ‘We knew you were one of us.’
Jean said: ‘It’s only a short ceremony, but you’ll need to take your clothes off.’
Pinson obeyed, telling himself that it was too late to change his mind. Naked, he was made to stand within two concentric circles painted in white on the grass. Various sigils and names had been painted in the circle, but Pinson could not make them out. Outside the circle Canon Doker sprinkled him with a pungent liquid from an aspergillum while intoning a Latin formula:
Coniuro vos decem demones Oreoth, Pinem, Ocel, Tryboy, Noryoth, Belferith, Camoy, Astoroth, Sobronoy, Sismael, ut sicut in hoc circulo figurati, ita vere et efficaciter et existenter personam eius circuatis, et sensus eius taliter affligatis quod ignorans, demens, stultus et mente captus efficiatur . . .
The words were impressive and soothing; it was as if his mind had been made up for him. Pinson began to feel strong.
‘Now, brother, you must pass between the hands,’ said Canon Doker. In the torch light Pinson saw that Doker’s face was set in a rictus of malign pleasure. Pinson stepped out of the circle towards the hands. Between them he could faintly see the grass extending towards the end of Dodman’s Point and the sea fitfully shining under a slice of moon.
Then from beyond the hands he heard a heavy rasping breath and the shadow of a man came out from behind the stones to bar his way through them. Greg swung round his torch to show up the huge, blotched, swag-bellied, naked shape of Alec Crowden. Pinson thought he heard Jean’s laugh behind him.
‘You must pass between the hands,’ said Canon Doker.
Pinson advanced, thinking that, as in some Masonic ritual he had heard of, his adversary would retreat before him, but he did not. He stood his ground, like a sentinel between the stones. Pinson came on until Alec’s great belly almost touched his. The thought of it filled him with nausea. He put out his hands and gave Alec a light push on the chest to thrust him back between the stones. The man’s flesh was slick and icy, like a fish from the freezer. Alec roared and flung himself on him so that Pinson was thrown back by his weight and almost fell over. Alec threw his arms round Pinson in an attempt to squeeze the life out of him, his breathing stertorous and his open mouth spraying foul air and spittle. Alec was out of condition but he had the element of surprise, as it took some moments for Pinson to realise that he was fighting for his life. He called out for help, almost sure by now that it would not be forthcoming, so he summoned his strength and began to push Alec back between the stones. Alec tried to lift Pinson off his feet but failed in the attempt, toppled over and struck his head against the right Hand. Pinson falling on top of him plunged his fist into Alec’s horribly yielding belly and winded him, while Alec tried to reach up and claw off his face. Pinson thrust Alec’s arm aside and struck him on the point of the jaw. The back of his enemy’s head struck the stone again and his body went limp. Pinson, barely knowing who he was or what he was doing, rose up from Alec’s carcass and threw his hands in the air with a yell of triumph; then, seeing his way clear at last, he leaped over the body and ran between the Hands.
But when he reached the other side of the Hands, still shouting and exulting for a reason he never knew, something struck him on the back of the head and he fell unconscious.
When he came to he was lying on his bed in Spyhole Cottage. He was naked and, as consciousness slowly returned to his aching, anxious body, he became aware that another naked body was sharing the bed with him. But it was not Jean’s body, it was the body of her husband Alec. The flesh was utterly cold; the man was dead.
It was not long after the full implications of this fact had been absorbed that he heard a car draw up outside the cottage. Through his thin bedroom curtains he saw the regular flash, flash of a blue light.
**
At the police station he stuck to his story through many interrogations, but nobody believed him, not even the solicitor he ha
d requested. The idea of the Bidmouth Players being a coven of Satanists was a ludicrous idea, and it became quite obvious that Pinson was unhinged when they heard him singing alone in his cell.
‘She’s just a Devil Woman . . .’ he sang.
THE BABE OF THE ABYSS
I
One morning after breakfast, towards the end of the Trinity Term, I entered the Senior Common Room to be met by a familiar scene. Claverhouse and Wintle were standing by the window that overlooks the Fellow’s Garden, as usual earnestly discussing recent world events, on this occasion Hitler’s démarche in the Czech Sudetenland. Hoveton was sitting at a table, correcting the proofs of his latest book on Sumerian epigraphy; while young Simpson was, as always, hogging the best chair and reading the Oxford Times.
‘Says here,’ said Simpson, a biochemist whose use of the English language is notoriously demotic, ‘that a chap’s died who was a fellow of this College.’
I was surprised, as I am the Dean and expect to be the first to know of such events. Thinking there must be some mistake, I asked the name of the ‘chap’.
‘It says here Ray. A Dr Simeon Ray. Never heard of him myself. What about you fellows?’ Simpson by this time was looking round at the rest of us in some astonishment, for we were all staring at him in silence.
Finally Hoveton said: ‘Good God! Panter Ray! It must be nearly twenty years.’
‘How did he die?’ I asked.
‘Says here—’ began Simpson. Then he handed me the newspaper, obviously disconcerted by the sudden change of atmosphere. ‘Here, read it for yourself,’ he said. ‘By the way, why “Panter”?’
‘A joke,’ said Hoveton, ‘merely a scholarly joke. You see, Dr Ray had a rather breathy, hurried way of speaking, so of course we called him Panter Ray, after the famous saying of Heraclitus.’
Simpson looked blank.
‘Heraclitus, the Pre-Socratic Philosopher, whose great dictum was Panta Rhei, meaning “Everything is in Flux”.’ Hoveton turned to me and asked: ‘How did the poor fellow die, Cordery?’
I gave them a précis of the Oxford Times’s rather formulaic prose on the subject. Unknown to us, Dr Ray had been living in Oxford for the last fifteen years, occupying a couple of rooms in a house on the Iffley Road. His landlady, accustomed to his reclusive habits, had not disturbed him until he was behind with the rent, by which time he had been dead for almost a week. His rooms had been bare of personal possessions, even books. The coroner’s verdict on the cause of death was ‘heart failure’, but one curious fact was noted. Ray had died in bed, but he had covered the floor of his bedroom with salt. He had evidently done this immediately before getting into bed as a tin of ‘Cerebos’ salt was found on his bedside table and his foot marks were not to be found on the salted floor. It was not stated whether any foot marks other than his own had been discovered.
‘So what happened to this Ray chap?’ said Simpson. ‘Why did he leave the College?’
‘He left under a cloud,’ said Hoveton abruptly as he returned with deliberation to his proofs.
I think that Simpson was just about to inquire into the nature of that cloud when the Senior Common Room Steward entered with a message from the Master. I was to see him immediately.
Lord Arlington’s appointment to the Mastership of St Matthew’s College has been political rather than academic. He had taken a good degree, and had been a tutor in economics for a brief while before leaving Oxford to become a Treasury official. Upon his elevation to the peerage he retired from the Treasury and condescended to become Master of his old College. He is no doubt an excellent Master in many ways, but I have never warmed to him, and always feel a certain anxiety when summoned to his presence. Even at the best of times, there is something chilly about his hospitality: Lord Arlington is a widower of long standing.
He met me in the library of the Lodgings with his familiar greeting: ‘Ah, Dean!’ Having waved me to a chair he walked to the window and stared abstractedly at the old mulberry tree in the garden. Tall, stooped and grey, he brings to mind one of those wading birds who spear fish in the shallows of wintry mountain lakes.
‘You’ve heard about Ray, I suppose?’
‘This very morning,’ I said. Arlington sniffed, as though tardiness in receiving this information was an offence.
‘You will represent the College at his funeral,’ he said. I nodded. ‘There is a reason for your doing so,’ he added.
‘I do not require a reason,’ I said. ‘I would have done so anyway.’ My intervention did not please Arlington, and his method of dealing with it was characteristic: he went on as if I had not spoken.
‘I have received a communication from his solicitor today. Dr Ray has left his entire fortune to the College. A very considerable sum.’
‘But I thought—’
‘You no doubt thought,’ he interrupted, ‘that having died in rented accommodation and apparently reduced circumstances he was in fact destitute. This was not the case. Dr Ray possessed a considerable inherited fortune. He became prone towards the end of his life to a mental condition which made him irrationally fearful of dying penniless. The tragic irony was that he died as if he actually were in abject poverty.’
As he said this, I thought I detected a whisper of human sympathy in Arlington’s manner. More brusquely he added: ‘And we are the beneficiaries.’
There was a long pause while this fact was given its full entitlement of respect. Arlington’s management of the College’s finances has been greatly to our advantage since he is zealous in preserving and finding out new benefactions for St Matthew’s. I could see, however, that something troubled him. He was still on his feet and was now pacing about restlessly.
Finally, he said: ‘In addition to the money, he has also left us a property which he wishes to be used, as it was used in his lifetime, for the benefit of the undergraduates.’
At last I understood Arlington’s unease: ‘The Chalet?’ I asked.
Arlington nodded. ‘The Chalet. Alas, we cannot decline that benefaction. The will clearly stipulates that if we turn down the Chalet, we will forego the financial inheritance which I understand amounts to almost £70,000. That we cannot afford to do. Dean, in a fortnight’s time the summer vacation begins. I must ask you to go out then, on behalf of the College, to inspect the Chalet, deal with the local Notaire and so on, and then see what can be . . . what can be done.’ For a man who is always precise in his language, these last words were remarkably vague. I would have liked to press him for more detailed instructions, but it was evident from the way he appeared to turn his attention back to the mulberry tree in the garden that the interview was at an end.
II
Perhaps this is the moment to explain a little about Panter Ray and the Chalet.
Simeon Ray was one of those old-fashioned, Edwardian bachelor dons, sound scholars, but not overanxious to prove themselves as men of learning. Ray’s subject was Ancient History but his contribution to it, beyond his doctoral thesis on Pericles and an early article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies on the Ionian Revolt, in which he took a fairly conventional line, was negligible. He took his task to be the education of young gentlemen in the broadest sense and, being by birth and fortune a gentleman himself, he was a popular, easygoing sort of tutor. He had a way of, as we used to say, ‘bringing men out’, of putting the shy and the gauche at their ease. One could drop into his rooms of an evening and be sure of a glass of sherry and a friendly welcome. He was well liked. There were some who said he favoured the better looking and the more aristocratic young men, but I belonged to neither of those categories and never felt slighted as a consequence.
He owned a chalet, high in the mountains of the Haute Savoie to which, in the long summer vacations, he would invite groups of undergraduates on ‘reading parties’. That is to say, the undergraduates would come with their books which during the morning they studied by themselves, either indoors or out on the lawn in front of the Chalet with its transcendent views of forest an
d mountain. In the afternoon they would go for long walks through idyllic Alpine landscapes. The food was plentiful but plain, the beds on the hard side, the only hot water available had to be boiled in kettle or copper; yet many remember their Chalet days as a little glimpse of Eden when it was bliss to be alive, and ‘to be young was very heaven’. I went once, in the year 1920, the last year that Panter held one of his Chalet reading parties. It was as a result of certain events which occurred during this reading party that Panter was forced to leave the college in ignominy.
III
There is no such thing as a good funeral, but some are worse than others, and Panter’s was one of the very worst. Because Panter had been a Catholic the service was held in an ugly, gaudy little Romish temple off the Iffley Road. Behind it was a squalid piece of scrub land which served as a burial ground, and there he was to be interred. Apart from myself, the undertakers and the priest, there was only one other person present at the service. He came in late and occupied a pew on the other side of the central aisle from me.
He was about my age, perhaps a little older, though the hair that fringed his bald cranium was still jet black. He was rather below average height and dressed in a well-tailored suit and an old-fashioned overcoat with an astrakhan collar. He had a pot-belly which stuck out grotesquely, and a prominent lower lip, red and moist, which, together with his staring eyes, gave him an air of belligerence. I did not care to look at him long in case he noticed me. He seemed faintly familiar: I thought that I might have known him once years ago, but could not place him.
During the church service something happened which disquieted me. The priest, a young Irishman, had quite evidently never known the deceased, and though he conducted the service in a respectable manner there was, inevitably, a certain perfunctoriness about his recital. I remember, however, that in a few brief impromptu words for the departed soul, he bade us pray that ‘our brother here departed’s stay in Purgatory may not be of too long duration’.
The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler Page 26