‘Let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘Is it right at all that Zen has a politico-sociological content which allows the needy to appropriate goods according to their need?’
‘With Zen conventions do not exist,’ said Mr Utamaro.
A concession.
He had picked up the tweeter and was rolling it lovingly in his fingers.
‘Now, why hasn’t this aspect of Zen been utilized in the economic field? ‘said Jim.
‘For heaven’s sake, Jim boy,’ said Gerry. ‘This is meant to be a party.’
‘What this particular party wants is a bit of sociological content,’ said Jim.
The tight Ulster vowels.
‘Whoops, whoops. Socio— what’s that?’
‘I think he’s quite right.’
Flaveen. An unexpected voice.
She jumped up and picked up her chair.
‘I’m going to come and sit next to you,’ she said to Jim. ‘I don’t know what you mean by half of what you say, but you’re keen about it and that’s for me.’
She put her chair down beside Jim’s.
‘It looks as though your party’s dying a natural death, darling,’ said Honor.
‘Listen,’ said Gerry.
A glint of anger.
The door opened and Mr Applecheek came in.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he said.
Walking towards them. The narrow aisle between the rows of tables.
‘To tell you the truth I do not find myself in the mood for contemplation. A trace of excitement. Wholly unaccountable, wholly unaccountable, of course.’
He smiled to himself.
‘But I feel I must really join in the revels. Harmless fun, harmless fun. At least to begin with.’
‘Come on in, padre,’ said Gerry. ‘Come on in. The party will take on a new lease of life. Which was your glass? Let me fill it up.’
‘Well, I will, thank you,’ Mr Applecheek said. ‘I owe myself a drink to be perfectly frank. Perfectly frank.’
Gerry poured some beer into his glass.
‘Not his first if you ask me,’ he said quietly.
Mr Applecheek approached the table.
‘No, not my first,’ he said, ‘but only my second. A dreadful disability in a clergyman, a good sense of hearing, but we must carry our burdens as best we may.’
‘A gentleman never counts anyway,’ said Gerry.
Unabashed. Unabashable.
‘Here’s how.’
The glasses met, clinked.
‘Fill ‘em up,’ said Gerry. ‘Jimmy, yours is empty. Pass it over.’
‘I can’t afford to go drinking all night,’ said Jim.
‘Never mind,’ Gerry said. ‘They’re on the house.’
‘Yes,’ said Honor, ‘my house.’
‘What’s thine is mine,’ Gerry said. ‘Lovely.’
‘And what’s mine is mine,’ said Honor.
She took the lapels of Gerry’s jacket one in either hand and pulled him slightly towards her.
‘You’re welcome,’ Gerry said.
‘I’d better be.’
‘Now, Jimmy, you ought to be dry after all that socio-oh-so-so. Glass forward.’
Jim took hold of his glass and held it fiercely where it was. A solid fist.
‘Go on, Jim, he means to be friendly,’ Flaveen said. ‘It’s just that he doesn’t understand. Have a drink with me.’
She put her fingers on the rim of the glass. Plump, white fingers, cherry pink nails.
The glass came easily out of Jim’s hand.
‘You want to relax a bit,’ said Flaveen. ‘You want to forget that old book stuff sometimes.’
‘I can when I want to,’ Jim said.
‘You need a little sweetening up, that’s all,’ said Flaveen. ‘Like this.’
She reached for the big aluminium sugar caster in the middle of the table and raised it above Jim’s head.
A few grains fell into his wiry hair.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘And a bit more,’ said Flaveen.
A thin stream of white crystals.
‘Stop it, won’t you,’ said Jim.
He jumped up.
Flaveen scrambled on to her chair. A glimpse of a plump rounded knee.
Sugar from the caster scattered on the floor and table. Jim ran out of range. Flaveen jumped off the chair and ran after him, the caster poised.
Jim reached the door, left it swinging on its hinges. Flaveen close behind him. The sound of their voices outside in the corridor, receding and getting louder again outside the windows. Feet running in the darkened garden. The sound dying away.
‘Youthful high spirits, youthful high spirits,’ said Mr Applecheek.
‘Not quite my idea of a Zen student,’ said Honor.
A question.
‘A little lonely perhaps,’ suggested Mr Applecheek. ‘I believe these courses do attract people from a social as much as from an intellectual point of view.’
He paused.
‘What we find convenient to call a social point of view,’ he said.
‘The common little thing,’ said Miss Rohan.
She seemed surprised at her own words.
‘I feel that one should have some background to tackle a subject like Zen,’ she added. ‘The poetry, the fancy. It implies something stable to compare it with.’
‘The poet Yuan-Wu,’ said Mr Utamaro.
Pointedly.
‘Ah, yes, the poet Yuan-Wu,’ said Honor. ‘The one who recommends stealing the farmer’s ox. I’m almost as interested in him as Mr Henderson is. And I’ll tell you why. Because of that sword up in the room there.’
‘That dreadful sword,’ Miss Rohan said. ‘I can see you can’t keep it out of your mind either, Mrs Manvers.’
‘Well, I’m not exactly obsessed with it,’ Honor said. ‘But I can see something worth looking into there. And one point in particular rather intrigues me.’
Mr Utamaro sitting impassively at the head of the table with its litter of half-empty glasses.
‘And what is that? ‘he said.
‘Just this,’ said Honor.
She leant suddenly forward and looked at Mr Utamaro intently.
‘Just this: if you advocate the views of Yuan-Wu, why do you go to such trouble to prevent any poor man taking away the Zen master’s sword?’
‘A shrewd hit, a shrewd hit,’ said Mr Applecheek.
He patted the table in front of him in approval.
Honor still looked intently at Mr Utamaro.
‘A certain discrepancy between theory and practice, isn’t there?’ she said.
‘But surely it’s a simple duty to keep a dangerous weapon like that safely locked away,’ said Miss Rohan.
‘Well, Mr Utamaro,’ Honor said, ‘are you going to answer my question?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Zen teaches us that the poor man must never take the farmer’s ox.’
Gerry laughed.
‘I’m sorry Jimmy boy isn’t here to hear you,’ he said. ‘He’d have a blue fit.’
The sound of running feet outside. Gasping laughter.
In a moment Jim pushed the door open. His head was encrusted with a gleaming white mass of sugar. Grains fell from him with each movement.
‘She bombed me,’ he said. ‘Bombed me with the whole caster from above.’
Flaveen came in. Not running. She smiled at Jim and went back to her place. She sat still. With a puzzled look.
‘You wait,’ said Jim.
‘Poof,’ she said, ‘don’t let’s have any more running about I want to sit still for a moment and think.’
‘Think,’ said Gerry, ‘what are you going to use for that?’
‘Wait till I’ve got this muck out of my hair, that’s all,’ said Jim.
‘I’d go out and put your head under the kitchen tap,’ Gerry said. ‘You’ll find plenty of willing hands to help out there, too. What we used to call a nice bit of frat.’
‘Li
sten to him,’ Honor said. ‘To hear him talk you’d think he’d fought all the way from Normandy to Berlin. You and Monty both, I suppose. Do you know what he did in the war?’
She looked round the table.
‘I’ll tell them,’ said Gerry. ‘I was what you’d call Divisional Controller of the local black market. Doing my bit. Seeing the little doggies and little catties didn’t go without their nice chopsy-wopsies. They wanted to give me an O.B.E. but I told them I was too modest.’
‘The thing is,’ said Honor, ‘that that’s not a lie. It’s what he did do, more or less. And I married him. And I tell you what -’
She looked round the table again. A challenge.
‘I suppose you found yourself very busy in those dreadful days, Father,’ Miss Rohan said to Mr Applecheek.
Rather too loudly.
‘Busy days,’ Mr Applecheek said, ‘busy days, indeed. The bishop had to go even so far as to call on my services, although always in a temporary capacity. In some ways I was happier when I had a cure, but what is not to be is not to be.’
‘Ah, I’ll have to go up and get a wash,’ Jim said. ‘There’s a mirror in my bedroom where I can see what I’m doing.’
He walked across to the door leaving a wide trail of sugar. At the door he turned and looked back at the others round the table.
Alasdair, who had been sitting with his head plunged in his hands, suddenly got up.
He followed Jim out.
‘Good idea,’ he said, ‘need a wash.’
‘Life and soul of the party,’ said Gerry.
Just before Alasdair reached the door.
But he took no notice. He left the door open behind him and they saw him walking rapidly in the direction of the hall and the stairs.
‘Will you be back at nine o’clock?’ Mr Utamaro called. ‘At nine o’clock Major Francis always makes announcements. I must make some too. He left strict instructions.’
Alasdair walked on. Mr Utamaro looked dismayed.
‘I’ll go and tell him,’ said Flaveen.
She ran along the corridor after him. The others watched her turn the corner at the foot of the stairs.
‘He looks to me as if he was going for a long solitary walk,’ Gerry said. ‘Can’t understand him. You’d think he was canned, but he’s only had a couple of glasses. Gerry’s been counting. You’ll have to do without him for your announcements, Utey, he’ll be plunging through the night, mark my words.’
*
But Gerry was wrong. At ten minutes to nine Alasdair walked in.
‘Still sitting round drinking,’ he said. ‘I thought this was a temple of learning. Plain living and high thinking, what?’
‘Got to start with a party,’ Gerry said. ‘Not that’s it’s been much of a party this last half hour or so. What they call “just conversation”.’
‘Where’s that girl, anyway?’ Alasdair said. ‘She told me there was going to be some sort of parade for announcements, and she’s late. Doesn’t do to be late for parade, you know. Always telling my boys that. Put ‘em in detention. That’s the thing. Are you going to put that girl in detention. Mr Utamaro?’
‘If it is time I am going to fetch my list of things to say,’ answered Mr Utamaro.
As he left Flaveen came in.
‘Have I missed what you were going to tell us?’ she said.
‘It will be in just a few minutes,’ said Mr Utamaro.
‘Would you care for a peppermint?’ Alasdair said to Flaveen as she flopped down in her chair.
‘No thanks ever so.’
‘Then I think I’ll take one myself. Good for indigestion, you know. Very necessary after the appalling cooking they rise to here. Anybody else stricken?’
He passed the box round. Nobody took any.
The door opened again. Mr Utamaro came in with Jim. Jim walked down towards the others. Mr Utamaro stood at the doorway. He was not carrying a list.
‘Ah, all present and correct,’ Alasdair said.
Jim looked at him quickly.
‘Is it a parade we’re having?’ he said.
‘Just a few announcements as I understand it,’ Alasdair said. ‘I don’t think there’s any reason to display the well-known Irish passion for anarchy.’
‘You’re very aggressive all of a sudden,’ Jim said.
‘I simply happen to appreciate the difficulties of running any sort of academic show,’ said Alasdair. ‘Certain announcements always have to be made, and people ought to be present to hear them.’
‘But tonight,’ Mr Utamaro said, ‘there will be only one announcement.’
Everybody turned to look at him.
A new note. Something serious.
The two rows of deal table that had been in use at the far end of the room near the door to the kitchens.
Complete silence.
Mr Utamaro in his thin black kimono standing looking at the group of westerners. His broad face and easy stance, feet planted firmly on the ground a little apart, arms hanging relaxedly at his side. Eyes bright with force.
‘One announcement only,’ he said. ‘It is about the Muramasa sword.’
‘That sword,’ said Miss Rohan, ‘I was afraid there would be some trouble about it.’
‘Trouble?’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘Why do you think there is trouble
‘Is nothing wrong then? You looked serious.’
‘You don’t know what is wrong?’ Mr Utamaro asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Miss Rohan.
Candour.
‘Then I will tell you,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘The sword has gone.’
Chapter 4
‘But it’s -’ said Flaveen.
‘Gone?’ said Honor. ‘What do you mean? Do you mean it’s been stolen?’
‘It has gone,’ said Mr Utamaro. ‘I do not know where it is. Does anybody here know anything about it?’
Silence. Glances out of the corners of the eyes.
Honor looking at Gerry, puzzled. Gerry looking sharply round from face to face, a sparrow. Miss Rohan not looking from face to face, looking inwards to a world where this was not possible.
Alasdair pulled his glasses from his pocket, placed them firmly across his thick aquiline nose and inspected each face in turn. The headmaster.
Jim Henderson: a quick angry glance round and a shrug. Mr Applecheek: a slow mild gaze and a gesture of despair. Flaveen: blank.
Honor got up and walked up the room towards Mr Utamaro.
‘There’s something I want you to do,’ she said.
Words weighed.
The others looked at her. She ran the tip of her tongue along her scarlet upper lip. A calculation.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘you’re absolutely certain the sword has been stolen?’
‘Some extraordinary things happen with these Far Eastern religions,’ said Alasdair. ‘I was reading a book about Tibet the other day-’
‘No,’ said Mr Utamaro.
The bullet head on the broad shoulders shot forward. From under the bushy black eyebrows he glared at Alasdair.
‘No, you have not understood. Zen is not a religion. Zen is not trickery of that sort. Zen is using the whole consciousness. Nothing more.’
Spitting words.
‘Listen,’ said Honor, turning back to Alasdair.
A note of weary contempt.
‘Listen, that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Books about Tibet come out every other month. Publishers get someone to wish them up when they’ve nothing better to do. No, there are only two possible explanations of this business.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve read-’ Alasdair said.
‘Either it’s a publicity stunt,’ Honor said, ‘or the sword really has been stolen. In which case it’s a police matter. But, first, listen to what I propose.’
‘All the same-’ said Alasdair.
‘Look, chum,’ Gerry said, ‘pipe down. The great Honor Brentt is at work. If you’ve never seen it before, just watch.’
‘Shut up, Gerry,�
�� said Honor, ‘this is serious.’
‘It’s serious,’ said Gerry. ‘She means it’s something good for The World.’
‘All right, what if it is? If this is a stunt there’s no harm in it being handled properly. You won’t be able to pull the wool over my eyes for long.’
She looked at Mr Utamaro.
‘The sword has been stolen,’ he said, ‘but the showcase is intact.’
‘Just as I thought,’ said Honor. ‘An inside job. And I suggest that there’s no need to call the police. I’ll sort it out for you. It only needs a trained mind. You don’t go looking into phonies and culture rackets half your life without learning something. Let it ride, and when the time comes I’ll tell the story.’
Mr Utamaro standing motionless by the door looked at her.
‘But surely,’ said Alasdair, ‘if a crime has been committed the police must be told.’
‘Why did you come on this course?’ said Honor.
‘I came for a perfectly legitimate reason,’ Alasdair said.
‘All right,’ Honor said, ‘and I came to write a piece about it for the paper. I’m not ashamed of it.’
Snapping.
‘Now, besides “a perfectly legitimate reason”, why did you come here?’
‘I came because I consider Zen is one of the most important trends in world thought,’ Alasdair said.
‘All right. And you want to know more about it?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you think a lot of flat-footed policemen mooching around the place are going to help?’
‘Well, I suppose not, but -’
‘Exactly. And is anything going to be lost by waiting a few days and leaving things to me?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Good. Anybody else any objections?’
She looked round at them.
‘None in the world, dear lady, none in the world,’ said Mr Applecheek. ‘Of course, a clergyman should object. He is expected to obey the conventional moral code. But everyone knows all clergymen are weak.’
‘I’m sure there will prove to be some simple explanation,’ Miss Rohan said.
Mr Utamaro walked back to the table and sat down in his place at the head of it. Carefully he brushed aside some crumbs.
‘There is no such thing as stealing,’ he said. ‘There is no mine and thine. A sword is not a sword. We will see what happens. Tomorrow we will have sanzen. One by one you will come to see me and we will try and break out of the coils which entwine you. Who knows, at the end the sword may be seen.’
Zen there was Murder Page 4