The Furnished Room (9 page)

‘I'll tell him, certainly, but I doubt if he'll come. He never leaves his room.'

‘As I said, I was only a schoolboy at the time of his visits. But nevertheless he and I used to discuss religion, as at one time he was considering becoming a Catholic. It's a pity he didn't, instead of joining a crank sect.'

Beckett looked at his tea. In its delicate white cup it was transparent, so that he could almost see the sugar through it. He said: ‘You are an intelligent man, Father. I once stood on the steps of a church and watched the congregation come out. They were also intelligent men and women, possessed of reason. If the lights went out they knew it was a fuse, not black magic. If they fell ill it was of a classified disease, not witchcraft. Only in religion did they suspend their reason; for every one of those people firmly believed that a couple of characters named Adam and Eve were persuaded, by a talking snake, to eat an apple, which incident condemned the whole of subsequent humanity to damnation. If I had claimed to converse with a cobra they would have given me psychiatric treatment. So why were they so uncritical of the Bible? It seemed absurd.'

‘Belief in Adam and Eve may be absurd. But do you consider Adam and Eve themselves to be absurd?'

‘Taking them as fictional characters, no. They acted correctly. They were offered two things: the knowledge of good and evil and the power to become gods. I admire them for accepting that offer. They would have been despicable dullards if they had been contented to remain like cabbages in Eden. The Church's condemnation of them always irritates me.'

‘You are a seeker after truth, Mr Beckett. It's a pity you despise psychological truth: the externalization, into myth or symbol, of the paradoxes, experiences and aspirations of human nature.'

‘I don't despise psychological truth. But what I mean is, I can say with impunity that a thing is relatively true. A scientist or mathematician can also say that a thing is relatively true. But the whole groundwork of the Church is her claim to absolute truth. Destroy that groundwork, and you destroy the whole Church.'

‘That would be a pity, for the Church also has practical truth, truth which works for a large number of people. She accommodates the mystic, the intellectual, the respectable householder, the artist, the superstitious peasant. Her doctrines satisfy all these diverse people. Isn't it good, therefore, that her doctrines should persist?'

Beckett said: ‘To ensure that they persist the Church has organized inquisitions, slaughtered honest heretics, and terrorized people into submission by threatening them with hell-fire. Is that good?'

‘No. It is necessary. The Church cannot exist on a soil of anarchy. Order is necessary to her. Throughout the ages men of willpower have sought to impose order on chaos. And those who believe that order is preferable to chaos will agree that the Church was justified, even at the cost of human lives.' Father Dominic stood up, like the figure of death, with his austere features profiled against the window. ‘But I'm afraid I've taken up too much of your time. You wanted to see Father Hogan, and I've interrupted. However, it's been an interesting discussion, and I hope we shall have the opportunity to continue it. If you can persuade Gash to visit us perhaps you will come with him?'

Beckett also rose, clumsily, to say goodbye.

When Father Dominic had gone the other two relaxed, sat back and passed cigarettes. Father Hogan, who had a boisterous manner, told jokes and stories about their mutual acquaintances. Finally he sobered up, wiped his forehead with his large fist, and advised Beckett to mend his ways. He insisted that Mrs Beckett was rightly worried, and that Beckett should try to lead a good Catholic life. ‘You have too much conceit in your reason; you lack humility. It is the sin of Satan,
non serviam
, the sin of pride. Renounce your reason and pray instead for faith. Naturally you lose your faith if you stay away from Mass and the sacraments. The sacraments give grace which is the food of the soul. So I want you to make a firm resolution to go regularly to Mass and the sacraments. Will you do that now? Of course you will. Otherwise you see now, Joe, the city is full of dangers, bad companions, who may at first seem adventurous and exciting. Young women, some of them with no moral upbringing, of easy virtue, temptations...' The priest's voice had become low, impersonal, like the monotone from behind the confessional grid.

Beckett left the Presbytery and walked back past the dolls' houses. Clipped trees were spaced at regular intervals along the pavement.

He had made the visit because of guilt feelings towards his mother. By fulfilling one of her requests he could hold off his conscience for a bit. But if she hoped for his reconversion she would be disappointed. He had once been an ardent Catholic. When his belief and his vocation had been destroyed he had hated the religion as much as he had previously loved it. He had read books; and every disproof of the Church's doctrines, every condemnation of her past villainies, had pleased him. They were like personal knife-thrusts against the Church.

Although in practice he was an individualist, he could share Father Dominic's sympathy for the tyrant with vision, the totalitarian who enforced a social blueprint at the cost of morality and lives. Therefore he could admire the Church which had played power politics as the priest had played chess. His admiration was, however, of a cynical nature. He saw too far behind the scenes to have faith.

He had ceased to believe. He might no longer hate the Church, but he had irretrievably lost belief in the Church or in anything.

His way back to the Tube passed the local common. A fair was in progress, and he walked over to have a look round.

The fairground smelled of trodden grass, bottled beer, and sickly petrol-fumes. Mouths scented with candyfloss screamed against the mechanical music. Steel octopi revolved, their tentacles studded with lights. A huckster in a cowboy hat yelled: ‘… skill, ladies and gents, try your skill….'

Beckett liked the fair and the crowd. Seeing the people, he felt enjoyment by proxy. Walking alone through a crowded fairground was his nearest approach to feeling a member of humanity. He turned the coins in his pockets with pleasure.

He strolled past the mosque frontage of the Ghost Train; then past the Hall of Mirrors, outside which LAUGH! LAUGH! LAUGH! flashed in coloured bulbs. Girls in bright dresses slid down the Helter Skelter. He watched them, trying to see their stocking-tops and knickers. The lifted skirts roused the state of desire, but not desire for a specific object. It was a hunger, not really for sex but for something indefinable.

The summer evening, the fair, the lifted skirts, evoked bygone summer evenings, bygone fairs, other skirts. He was melancholy, filled by half desires without names.

As it grew darker, arc lights were switched on and shone on lips and eyes and cheekbones. The first dew blackened the grass. Blue sparks screamed along the wires of the Dodgem Cars and a carriage hurtled down the Scenic Railway, followed by a dying trail of shrieks.

At the rifle range he set down his money for six shots. He selected a rifle and frowned down its barrel. Although it was only an inferior discard he felt for it an approval that almost amounted to love. When he took aim the fairground receded and there was only him, the rifle, and the cardboard target. He squinted down the sights. He did not fire until his hand was completely steady.

Five shots went into the bull; the sixth was in the inner ring.

‘You're a crack shot, sir,' the attendant said, giving him the cardboard target with the hole eaten in the centre.

Beckett took his prize of cigarettes. He was still locked tightly in the world of rifle and target and triumph so that, on leaving the stall, he stumbled against a man who had been standing directly behind him. He apologized to the man without looking at him.

He walked back across the damp grass of the common towards the main road. Ahead of him a couple strolled arm in arm. He heard the bubbles of their soft, relaxed laughter. They did not reach the road, but turned aside into the darkness of the common. Returning home on the Tube, the mechanical music was still with him, in his stomach like loneliness. He felt in his pocket for the target, but it was not there. He must have dropped it. He still had the cigarettes, though. He lit one.

He got off the Tube at Notting Hill Gate, and paused to look at a poster advertising a horror film. A scaly monster was threatening a girl in a torn dress who crouched behind a tottering skyscraper.

When he looked up he met the eyes of a man who was staring at him intently. The man wore a seedy pinstripe suit. He was pale, and privation had planed away his face until his features had set in a numb, wolfish expression. His pale eyes, with pinpoints of light, were those of a fanatic with a hysterical grudge against himself.

When he met Beckett's gaze, he turned away and rattled the drawer of the chocolate machine, but he had not put a coin in.

Momentarily, the incident disconcerted Beckett. The man seemed vaguely familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen him before.

Beckett had a long stride and reached home quickly. He was inserting his key in the front door when he again saw the man, who was rounding the street corner. The man hurried in hurting shoes, as if he had corns. He had evidently followed Beckett and been forced to trot in order to keep pace.

Beckett was annoyed. He disliked being bothered. He asked nothing of people and expected that they should ask nothing of him. He used the lavatory in the house, then left again. The man was no longer in sight. Beckett walked to the Paradine Café snack-bar. The proprietor said: ‘You're late tonight.'

‘Yes.'

‘Been a hot day.'

‘Hasn't it?' He waited for his food, staring without interest at the Coca-Cola advertisements, the smeared glass tops of the tables, and the radio flanked by ketchup bottles.

The proprietor was asking a man in overalls: ‘Heard the cricket? Hudson still not out.'

Beckett took his food and coffee over to the corner table, and sat down. Then he noticed that the man was standing outside the café, peering through the greyish net curtains. A folded newspaper protruded from his jacket; Racing Results hugging the heart like hatred.

Beckett thought that, as he was being followed, he might as well come to terms with his follower. Accordingly, he beckoned the man in.

‘Well,' the man said. ‘Knew I recognized you. How're you keeping? Enjoying your food?'

‘Do you want a tea or something?'

‘Well, I'll tell you, I'd rather have a bite to eat. Honest, I haven't eaten for three days and I'm bloody starving.'

‘Have what you want. Put it on my bill.'

The man went up to the counter, and presently returned with egg-and-chips, slices of bread-and-marge, and a tea. ‘Thanks a lot. I got the cheapest...' His voice was poisoned with pride. ‘I'm not putting you to any expense.'

Beckett said: ‘Please yourself.'

‘Can't remember the last time I ate. Not my fault. Been ill.' He tapped himself on the chest. ‘Lost my job.'

‘Hard luck.'

The man shook ketchup on to his food. ‘Knew I recognized you. Funny, I was just thinking “I know that bloke” when you beckoned to me.'

‘That isn't surprising. You followed me from the Tube station to my house and then to this café.'

‘No, I mean I know you from way back. Seen you somewhere in Soho. Where do you get? The Belgian Café? Mick's? The Constantinople?'

‘I do go to those places from time to time, yes.'

‘Knew I'd seen you. Never forget a face. Sometimes I can't place it at first — and then bang! Suddenly it comes back. Know that bloke from such-and-such.' The man ate voraciously and talked through mouthfuls. ‘You know Silent?'

‘Yes.'

‘Baroness Tania?'

‘Yes.'

‘German Erik?'

‘Yes.'

‘Dutchie?'

‘Yes.'

‘All the old familiars. The Belgian and Mick's crowd. Knew I'd seen you around. Seen you in Mick's the other night, with a blonde girl. That right?'

‘Possibly, yes.' Beckett's own memory was returning. He now remembered that this was the man who had talked of an appointment outside Cinerama, and who had tried to sell Silent a camera.

‘There you are; told you I knew you. My name's Jacko, in case you didn't know. Pleased to make your acquaintance.'

Beckett said: ‘Quite probably we've seen each other round Soho. But why did you follow me tonight?'

‘I haven't been following you.'

‘Yes, you have.'

Jacko said: ‘Don't be funny.'

‘If you followed me because you wanted a meal, well, that's fair enough. I mean, I'd always feed someone who was broke. I'm broke myself often. But admit it. Don't make a mystery out of it.'

‘I said I didn't follow you and I didn't.'

His obstinacy angered Beckett. ‘Then don't trot along behind me all the time.'

‘Now, don't get narked. You been okay by me; bought me a meal and all that; but that doesn't give you the right to insult me. Does it now? I've got my pride.' Jacko finished the meal and wiped up the plate with the last slice of bread. ‘Got any fag papers?'

‘No, but have a cigarette.'

‘Ta. I generally roll my own, see, but I'm right out of papers. Comes cheaper if you roll them. It's since I've been ill and lost my job that I haven't any money. Still, not to worry. I spend the nights in the all-night caffs round Fleet Street and Covent Garden. Get a bit of kip with my head on my arms on the table. Pal of mine's got a gaff off Tottenham Court Road, and he lets me keep my gear there till I get my own place.'