Soroyan and Thoreau, both Americans. No doubt as to where the book had come from, nor its appropriateness, and the binoculars had proved a life-line, an inspiration. But how could a complete stranger have known that?
‘Weren’t nothing in-spirational about it.’ The man’s laughter filled the room. ‘Gave tha game away yerself. Same as tha abbot I heard about. Had his wicked way wi tha nuns. Left tha toilet seat left up fer all ta see. Yours, the chair lifted up on tha table. “Committing suicide” thinks part of me. “Never” says tha other, “His mind a-searching for different ways to escape, no more!” Right on tha button, too. Could be, son, you an’ me’s tha only sane ones as left in this here asylum.’
Soroyan executed a neat three-point turn and, signalling Derek to follow, wheeled his way vigorously down the corridor, out into the courtyard, past the meeting hall towards the opposite end of the college. He expected they’d be apprehended at any moment, but the brothers they encountered passed by without a word, even wishing the two of them a respectful ‘Goodnight’. Finally they reached what must once have been the stables. These adjoined the main building but were completely separate from it and regarded as out of bounds to all but the most senior members of the establishment. Soroyan handed him the key to a side door, which opened silently on well-oiled hinges, leading them along several broad passages into what he came to know as ‘The Sanctum’.
This, he learnt, was the American’s sole preserve, a low-ceilinged room, softly carpeted and furnished at one end with an enormous knee-hole desk raised still further above the floor by bricks placed one at each corner. Above the desk hung a painting he’d come across frequently, at the convent, or in books that he’d read: The Light of the World, life-sized, in an elaborate gold frame; by the Victorian artist Holman Hunt, if he remembered correctly. Facing it at the other end of the room was a well-polished mahogany table surrounded by a number of ornate, richly tapestried chairs. Three of the walls had been lined, floor to ceiling, with books, their shelves interspersed with other paintings that seemed vaguely familiar – Italian, so he’d been told – the ‘old masters’. The fourth side of the room consisted mainly of a recess dominated by a large silver crucifix. All this taken in within a few minutes, before Soroyan, wheeling adroitly about, instructed him to return to his room. Not a word was to be said to the brothers, but he was to report back to ‘The Sanctum’ in the morning.
Here a young man was clearing away the breakfast things. Not a word was said as he went about his domestic chores – moving the table back into the alcove, rearranging papers on the desk and replenishing the jug of water that stood there – communicating with Soroyan in a form of sign language. Finally, having received what could only have been his instructions for the day, the valet was dismissed, after which there was a crunch of gravel as he cycled off on his errands.
‘Ronnie says tell ya “Hi!”’ Soroyan swung round to face him. ‘Wishes could do so his-self, ‘cept he got no tongue. Might take a leaf from his book there, son, as far as them out thars concerned. We’s prisoners, tha both of us. Knew it tha moment I saw that chair on tha table; caught you a-staring outta window day after day. So now’s yer chance ta help along the both of us. Be-come ma Fra Lippo.’
Derek had no idea what this meant and was too timid to ask but, over the next few weeks, settled into a daily routine: transcribing passages from reference books kept on the shelves or looking out others in preparation for Soroyan’s research, collecting parcels newly arrived from publishers; reading through the papers, fetched by Ronnie each morning, and extracting anything he considered to be of local interest. Best of all, permission was granted for him to make trips out into the countryside viewed previously only through binoculars, exploring each and every aspect, carrying a sketchpad and pencil at all times, and returning several hours later with a minute report on everything he’d seen. Evidence of the world into which the American could not, or would not, venture.
It was not till some time later, asked to check up on an obscure line from Robert Browning, he came upon the poem ‘Fra Lippo Lippi.’ There was not much of it Derek understood, but the plot had been tersely summarised in a series of footnotes. Lippo Lippi, a supreme artist of the Medici period, breathing life into everything he painted, had been obliged to spend his days in a monastery producing characterless saints and angels to order. His inspiration, though, had come not from contemplation of the Almighty but everyday life spotted beyond the monastic walls. Unable to resist the temptation, he’d clambered through a window, out into the streets, following a carnival into the heart of Florence, where he’d been apprehended by the night watchman, returned to the monastery and ‘encelled’ once more. ‘Fra Lippo’: the nick-name was as obvious as it was appropriate.
And it was on a Sunday, during one of his expeditions that Derek traced the bells first heard during his earlier Lippo-like incarceration. He’d arrived at St Asalph’s, a small stone-built church with an unusually large belfry, just as they’d been ringing, summoning the last of the congregation in for Matins. The service had been in Welsh, but the Rev. Eli Jenkins – tall, craggy as the surrounding hills, seemingly not much younger himself – had a rhythmic command of English and, once acquainted, Derek made regular visits, taking rubbings from the tombs and churchyard memorials, receiving his first stumbling lessons in bell-ringing, but chiefly to hear Eli’s lilting rendition of the Mabinogion. Tales of Prince Pwyll and Branwen, her suitors, Math and Gwydion, their deeds passed down from generation to generation by word-of-mouth. Fantasies maybe, the old man told him, heathen even, pre-dating the written word. Intended for the telling, yet holding truths beyond the power of speech. Pity the nation that had no such legends, yet beware of those who make them their master.
The American agreed. Just as the Old Testament stories through which he, Derek, had made his reputation.
‘It’s th’ et-ernal choppin’ up an’ di-secting of tha Scriptures as got our friends out thar all fired up.’ Soroyan nodded in the direction of the brethren’s quarters. ‘No mor’ an’ hackin’ down them trees – the ones ya bin a-sketchin’ – ter count tha rings. Get ta know their age that way. Tha condition, too: dis-eased or healthy. But then what’s there left ta look at? One God-damned empty space, that’s all. So, onto tha next tree. An’ the next. Till, before ya knows it, ain’t no more trees left. No forest. Jest one damn desert. Findin’ it cost me ma legs. Got Him cut down completely.’ He’d swung round, silhouetted now against the gold-framed image of Christ, lantern in hand, addressing the painting almost. ‘Even then they could have em-braced th’ empti-ness; listened fer His voice beyond tha silence. But no. What they go an’ do? Gathers up tha timber an’ fashens themselves a new church.’
Which stood in direct contradiction to everything he’d been told about the man. ‘But it’s you that supported them all this time,’ he protested. ‘Without your help the brotherhood couldn’t exist; there’d be no Pendarrell House.’
But Soroyan refused to be drawn any further and it fell to the valet to explain, using the sign-language he and Soroyan had developed and which Derek had been eager to learn. This had grown in complexity through practice, as did their friendship.
‘Not told you about the “guest ant”?’ Ronnie signed.
He hadn’t. ‘“Shiny guest ant”, Formicoxenus nitidulus.’ Ronnie struggled with the terminology, scribbling it down on the back of an envelope. ‘Makes its home among other colonies; lives there undetected, but if discovered exudes a bitter off-putting secretion. Just his way, the name-calling; he’s done it as long as I can remember. How else do you think the brothers got their names? The “Fra Lippo” tag? Take it as a compliment,’ he added. ‘It’s not till he really knows someone that he comes up with something suitable.’
An American millionaire seeking refuge from fortune hunters; Pendarrell House the perfect hideaway. But financing a whole community whose ideas he himself questioned sounded more like crazi
ness as far as Derek was concerned. ‘And now these hints that somehow it was this that crippled him!’
‘As it was!’ An instant response, instantly regretted. ‘But that’s not for me to say.’
Nothing could persuade Ronnie to take the matter further, neither then, nor in the days that followed. Avoiding his company whenever possible and sullen when they met, it seemed to Derek that his curiosity had brought their friendship to an end. Till some two weeks later when he volunteered to accompany Derek to the post office.
‘Can’t think how he allowed matters to develop this far and still stay silent,’ he signed, once the gates were passed. ‘Putting you in harm’s way with never a word of warning. Lost sleep thinking about it.’
A practical joke? Not Ronnie’s style. Nor had the man been drinking. Soroyan’s evasiveness tipping him over the edge?
‘The brothers finally got to you?’ he ribbed.
‘They’ve nothing to do with it. Innocent bystanders; kept in the dark, just as you’ve been.’ Ronnie seemed to have taken him seriously. ‘Not me. I came into it with my eyes open. Known all along; willing to take the consequences. But you, devoted to the man, involved as either of us but with no notion as to what’s really going on. No, just hear me out.’ Ronnie pulled him to one side, and they settled on a low platform alongside the milk-churns. ‘And promise me one thing. You’ll be wanting to leave us after you’ve heard what I tell you, but he must never know why. Give whatever reason you want. Loss of faith; impatience with his manner; distrust of the brothers; a falling-out between us – anything. But never that you know his secret. Nor how you discovered it.’
He reached into his pocket and handed over a book: Old Testament Mythology: Synthesis, Assimilation and Accretion. Nondescript, its cover faded from black to grey, with dense pages of close-knit text, time-charts, the occasional line drawing or diagram. Self-published in Delaware, USA, 1924, by one Raymond K. Lansdale III. But it was the author’s sepia photograph accompanying the introduction that caught Derek’s attention. Middle-aged, bespectacled, standing before a map of the Holy Land, his dark hair neatly parted: a younger, smarter version, of the man he knew as Soroyan.
Chapter Sevemteen
The Night Watch
An anti-climax, unexpected, but hardly world-shattering; Soroyan was not the only author to write under a pseudonym. Nor did there seem anything unusual about the content; nothing more, and certainly nothing less than what they’d been studying these last six months.
‘Nothing unusual?’ Ronnie’s concern couldn’t have been more evident had he spoken the words. ‘Not here, perhaps, given your background. Guided by an expert, permitted to make your own way to the truth. Think back just a few months, though. To the way the brothers treated you, just for disagreeing with what they said. Multiply that a hundred, no a thousand times, and you get some idea of the reaction to the book. Printed privately – no publisher would touch it – not in the southern States. You’ll have heard of the Scopes trial?’ Derek shook his head.
‘Monkeyville?’
Now he had it. ‘The American schoolteacher charged with propagating Darwin’s view of creation?’
‘That’s the one. Well, this was a few months earlier, a curtain-raiser you might call it. Giving a non-literal slant not only to Genesis but the Old Testament as a whole. Got him dismissed from the University where he taught; denounced by the faculty, together with churches right across the south. Accompanied by ceremonial burnings of the book, along with effigies of Lansdale. Same fate as awaited the printers, their premises fire-bombed. Divine intervention, according to God’s Intent that is, the most diehard of all the fundamentalist sects, with “Praise the Lord” Malone – yes, that’s what they christened him, Praise the Lord – leading his followers in prayers of thanksgiving. There’s a photograph of him in one of the papers brandishing a shotgun from the pulpit: “Always keep one of these by me for the elimination of vermin”, he’s quoted as saying. Whilst behind him, just in case there were those who misunderstood the message, Lansdale’s picture, with a target superimposed over the heart.’
‘Hence the pseudonym?’
‘That’s the part I’m coming to now.’ Ronnie was not to be rushed. ‘Three days later a hooded man was seen entering the Lansdale household. Shots were fired and he was left for dead. As he would have been, had it not been for two hours on the operating table, which saved his life, but not the legs; they caught the full blast, hence the wheelchair. Meanwhile a shotgun was unearthed from Praise the Lord ’s back garden, a perfect match for the one used in the assault. An open-and-shut case, you’d have thought – when they dared to bring it. Hundreds of spectators had poured into town, queuing for hours to get admission to the courtroom; the proceedings continuously interrupted, and state troopers called in to restrain those waiting outside. But nothing compared to the pandemonium that erupted when the “Guilty” verdict was announced: insults hurled at the defending lawyers, windows smashed, the courtroom having to be cleared, the terrified jury led out under police protection.’
A break in the narrative as a tractor with hay-stacked trailer rumbled past, Ronnie greeting the driver with a cheery wave before continuing. ‘The judge himself was clearly nervous, but there was nothing for it: the death sentence had to be passed. Nor did Malone go quietly, threatening Lansdale from the electric chair itself, vowing God’s Intent would be avenged. No matter how long they had to wait, wherever the man hid, he’d never be at peace. No more would those protecting him, “even if we have to claw our way down to Hell to reach them” – his own words, just a few minutes before he died. By which time Raymond K. Lansdale had become Soroyan and disappeared, apparently, from the face of the earth. But not before he’d promised a sequel, doing for the New Testament what Mythology had done for the Old.’
‘Bringing him to Wales: the “the ant in the ants’ nest”?’
‘With a fortune to spend on renovating Pendarrell House.’ The tractor had pulled into a field down the lane, birds wheeling above it as the unloading commenced. ‘He’d inherited the family estate, which was enormous, together with a lifetime’s collection of Renaissance art. Which is how I came to meet him. Americans love English butlers, particularly if “art-wise and savvy”. Especially so if they can’t answer back.’
‘Explaining why I’ve been on the look-out for strangers; the paper-chase each morning?’
‘The Thoreau book and the binoculars, put there for a purpose. Same as everything he does. Don’t think you found out about the ‘Fra Lippo’ by chance, do you? With Browning being his favourite poet, knowing the man’s work backwards. And Adoration in the Forest, up there on the wall in the study from the moment you started pestering him over the nickname.’
Ronnie paused, some response obviously expected. ‘Fra Lippo’s masterpiece?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘No point, then, in mentioning the picture he chose specially for you. The one he had me put up in your bedroom.’
‘Rembrandt’s Night Watch.’ Derek had lived with the picture, night and day, for several months now. ‘Amsterdam, 1642. City worthies setting off on evening patrol.’ He rattled off the caption.
‘Headed up by the local aristocracy, on the look-out for vagrants and ne’er-do-wells. Seventeenth rather than fifteenth century; not Florence, Amsterdam this time, but same sort of group that arrested Fra Lippo. And here the both of us are today, on the alert in the same kind of fashion.’
Had this been Soroyan’s sole interest in him, then, as an unknowing accomplice, to act as an early warning beacon should danger appear on the horizon? Not trusted to share in the secret. A big one, of course; the man’s life depended upon it.
Ronnie seemed to have read his thoughts: ‘Wondered so myself, why he never shared this with you. Different for me, knowing the dangers, experiencing them first-hand; how nothing will stop them. Made him promise time and again he’d come clean; tell you everything.
Never seemed fair, putting you at risk yet not daring to tell you the truth.’
‘In case I absconded?’
‘Got to see it his way, I suppose.’ Ronnie had picked up on the indignation in Derek’s voice. ‘Robbed of his livelihood, made out to be a figure of hate across half the States; blown almost into kingdom-come, then chased from his homeland by those eager to finish the job. His life’s work at an end when suddenly the organisation he’s created to mask his activities throws up someone with real talent. No, hear me out.’ Derek had half risen in protest. ‘No mere novice, a kindred spirit rather. Providing him with a possible means of escape; vicariously through eyes that see things the way he does, ears that pick up what others have missed.’
‘So, if he thought that much of me, why not come straight out with it? Questions rather than answers. Hints, suggestions, pointers. Anything but a straightforward explanation.’
‘Had to be sure of you, I guess. Get to know you better before he came clean, but the closer you got the more difficult it became. Used the clues – nicknames, the paintings, that poem, those quotes from Thoreau – to salve his conscience. Kidding himself you’d catch on, save him the embarrassment of telling it straight. Self-inflicted wounds, if you ask me. And a victory of sorts for God’s Intent.’
‘“Self-inflicted wounds”, “victory of sorts”? You’re beginning to sound like the man himself.’
Ronnie seemed not to have heard him. ‘Forced forever to hide under a cloak of deception. Never knowing when or how they might strike, or who to trust. Driven to communicate through clues in case he let something slip and they got wind of his hiding-place. Until it became second-nature; a way of life. A victory for God’s Intent, like I say, achieved without raising a finger. Not that he’d see it that way. Just as, hopefully, those following in Praise the Lord’s footsteps are never going to learn of their success.’
Chorus Endings Page 14