Holy Disorders Page 4

  He sat back again; it was evident that he regarded this statement as in some sense a personal triumph.

  ‘The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that in fact it didn’t exist. We know, after all, nothing at all about the conscious mind, so why postulate, quite arbitrarily, an unconscious, to explain anything we can’t understand? It’s as if,’ he added with some vague recollection of wartime cooking, ‘a man were to say he was eating a mixture of butter and margarine when he had never in his life tasted either.’

  Geoffrey regarded Peace with a jaundiced eye. ‘Interesting,’ he muttered. ‘Very interesting,’ he repeated beneath his breath, like a physician who has diagnosed some obscure and offensive complaint. ‘One accepted it, of course, as a thing no longer requiring any investigation, like the movement of the earth round the sun. But I don’t quite see…’

  ‘But you must see!’ Peace interrupted excitedly. ‘It strikes at the root of my profession, my occupation, my income, my life.’ His voice rose to a squeak. ‘I can’t go on being a psychoanalyst when I don’t believe in the unconscious any longer. It’s as impossible as a vegetarian butcher.’

  Geoffrey sighed; his look conveyed that he, at least, could see no way out of the impasse. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘the matter isn’t as serious as all that.’

  Peace shook his head. ‘It is, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘And when you come to think of it, isn’t psycho-analysis silly? Anything can mean anything, you know. It’s like that series of sums in which whatever number you start with the answer is always twenty-one.’

  ‘Well,’ said Geoffrey, ‘couldn’t you start a system of psychoanalysis based only on the conscious mind?’

  The other brightened; then his face fell again. ‘I suppose one might,’ he said, ‘but I don’t quite see how it’s possible. Still, I’ll think about it. Thank you for the suggestion.’ He became very despondent; Geoffrey hastened to change the subject.

  ‘Have you ever been to Tolnbridge before?’

  ‘Never,’ Peace replied; he seemed to regard this admission of deficiency as the very acme of his troubles. ‘It’s very beautiful, I believe. Are you proposing to stay long?’

  Geoffrey, for no very sound reason, became suddenly suspicious. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

  ‘My brother-in-law,’ said Peace didactically, ‘is Precentor at the cathedral there, and I’m going to see my sister – the first time in several years. I confess I’m not looking forward to it. I don’t get on with the clergy’ – he lowered his voice, glancing furtively at its representative in the far corner. ‘I find they regard one as a sort of modern witch-doctor – quite rightly, I suppose,’ he concluded miserably, remembering his doubts.

  Geoffrey’s interest was aroused. ‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘I’m going to stay at the clergy-house myself, so we shall probably be seeing something of one another. I shall be playing the services, for a while at all events.’

  Peace nodded. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘that organist fellow was knocked out, of course. My sister told me over the phone this morning. Said she wasn’t surprised – fellow drinks like a fish, apparently. I suppose it would have been my brother-in-law who asked you to come down?’

  ‘It should have been, by rights. Actually it was a friend of mine, Gervase Fen, who’s staying at the clergy-house at the moment. Presumably he was authorized.’ Knowing Fen, Geoffrey was suddenly seized by a horrible doubt. But plainly the Enemy considered him to be authorized, or they wouldn’t be wasting their time on him.

  ‘Gervase Fen,’ said Peace meditatively. ‘I seem to know the name.’

  ‘A detective of sorts.’

  ‘I see – investigating the attack on this fellow Brooks, I suppose. And it was he who sent for you to act as deputy? Extraordinary the things the police take on themselves nowadays.’

  ‘Not an official detective – amateur.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So you’re really just holidaying, then?’

  ‘Not entirely. I have to see my brother-in-law about…’ Peace suddenly checked himself. ‘A matter of business. Nothing important.’ Geoffrey did not fail to notice the alteration in his tone; and he seemed to think he had said too much in any case, for he leaned back and automatically took up the Daily Mirror again. Geoffrey felt he had been dismissed. There was one more question he wanted to ask, however.

  ‘Did you by any chance happen to see me pick up a letter from my seat shortly after I came into the compartment?’ he said.

  Peace looked at him curiously for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘As it happens, I did. Nothing alarming, I hope.’

  ‘No, nothing alarming. You didn’t notice how it got there, I suppose?’

  The other paused for some moments before replying. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said at last. ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t notice at all.’

  Geoffrey found himself being pursued with a butterfly-net across the Devon moors. The persons of his pursuers were vague, but they moved with great rapidity. He was not surprised to find Peace running beside him. ‘It is necessary,’ he said to Peace, ‘that we should run the unconscious to ground wherever it may be. We can hide there, and besides, I strongly suspect that Gervase Fen will be somewhere in that neighbourhood too.’ His companion made no reply – he was too much occupied with the baby he was carrying. When they reached the cathedral, the pursuers were a good deal closer, and they ran at full speed to the altar, shouting: ‘Sanctuary! We demand sanctuary!’ They were stopped beneath the rood-screen by a young clergyman. ‘We can’t go on failing indefinitely,’ he said. ‘It is impossible for us to go on failing indefinitely.’ The pursuers were by now very near. Peace dropped the baby. It screamed, and then began to whistle shrilly, like a railway engine. The noise grew in volume, like the swift approach of a tornado…

  The engine of a train passing in the opposite direction swept past the compartment, its whistle at full blast, as Geoffrey struggled back to consciousness. Without moving, he opened his eyes and looked about him. Peace slumbered in the opposite comer, the paper dropped from his hands; the intruder still snored; the mother was whispering softly to the baby, which moaned and struggled spasmodically. Fielding sat reading a book – he seemed curiously isolated and strange. Geoffrey felt that if he spoke to him he would turn without recognition in his face, a stranger merely. The clergyman and the woman with the rug were talking together in low tones, their words inaudible above the incessant, monotonous beating of the wheels. Geoffrey sat and stared, first at a disagreeable photograph of Salisbury Cathedral, and then at the ‘Instructions to Passengers in the Event of an Air Raid’, which had been annotated by some passenger with overmuch time on his hands:

  DRAW ALL BLINDS AS A PRECAUTION AGAINST – nosey bastards.

  DO NOT LEAVE THE CARRIAGE UNLESS REQUESTED BY A – hot bit.

  He blinked sleepily about him, and tried to stop thinking about the heat.

  The sirens wailed as the train began braking on the stretch into Taunton. All along the coast, the fierce merciless battle against the invading bombers began. The intruder awoke from his long sleep and gazed blearily out of the window. His hasty movements of departure came as a welcome diversion. He got to his feet, scowled round him, and reached up to the rack above Geoffrey’s head, where his heavy portmanteau lay. It was, of course, not entirely surprising, in view of its weight, that he should have let it slip, and if it had fallen directly on to Geoffrey’s head as he leaned forward to talk to Fielding, the consequences would have been serious. Fortunately, Fielding saw it coming, and pushed Geoffrey against the back of the seat with all his force. The portmanteau landed with a sickening thud on his knees.

  A confused clamour arose. The agent of this disturbance did not, however, wait to make his apologies, but was out of the compartment and on to Taunton platform before the train had come to a stop. Geoffrey sat doubled up with agony, nursing his thighs; but happily the human thigh-bone is a solid object, and Peace showed himself a fairly expert doctor. As to a p
ursuit, that was out of the question. By the time order was restored, the train was in any case on the move again.

  ‘He might have broken your neck!’ said the woman with the baby indignantly.

  ‘So he might,’ said Geoffrey painfully. Feeling very sick, he turned to Fielding. ‘Thanks – for the second time today.’

  Peace had unlocked the case, and was gazing with bewilderment at the medley of old iron it contained. ‘No wonder it was so heavy,’ he said. ‘But what on earth…?’ Abruptly he decided that this was not the time for investigation. ‘You’d better do some walking before stiffness sets in,’ he told Geoffrey. ‘You’ll find it’ll hurt, of course, but it’s really the best thing.’

  Geoffrey crawled to his feet, banged his head against the butterfly-net, and cursed noisily; this, he felt, was the last straw.

  ‘I’ll go and get a wash,’ he said. ‘One gets so filthy on these journeys.’ Actually he was afraid he was going to be sick.

  ‘Better let me come with you,’ said Fielding, but Geoffrey brushed him impatiently aside; he was consumed by a hatred of all mankind. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he mumbled.

  He swayed down the corridor like a drunk on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. The lavatory, when he reached it, was occupied, but just as he was passing on to the next a young man came out, grinned apologetically, and stood aside to let him in. Geoffrey was contemplating his features gloomily in the mirror preparatory to turning round and locking the door when he realized that the young man had followed him in and was doing this for him.

  The young man smiled. ‘Now we’re shut in together,’ he said.

  ‘Third time lucky,’ said Fielding cheerfully.

  Geoffrey groaned, and again shook himself free of a nightmare. He was back in the compartment, whose occupants were regarding him with some concern; even the baby gaped inquiringly at him, as though demanding an explanation.

  ‘What happened?’ Geoffrey asked conventionally.

  ‘I got the wind up when you didn’t come back,’ said Fielding, ‘and set out to find you. Fortunately, it wasn’t very difficult, and we were able to lug you back here. How do you feel?’

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Peace. ‘The blow must have upset you.

  ‘I should damn well think it did,’ said Geoffrey indignantly. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Just coming into Tolnbridge now.’

  Geoffrey groaned again. ‘Past Exeter? He must have got off the train there.’

  ‘My dear fellow, are you all right? He got off the train at Taunton.’

  Geoffrey gazed confusedly about him. ‘No, no – the other. Oh, Lord!’ His head was swimming too much to think clearly. He rubbed it ruefully, feeling it all over. ‘Where’s the bruise?’ he asked. ‘There must be a bruise.’

  Peace, who was collecting his things from the rack, looked round in surprise.

  ‘Where he hit me,’ explained Geoffrey peevishly.

  ‘My dear chap, nobody hit you,’ said Peace amicably. ‘You must be dreaming. You fainted, that’s all. Fainted.’

  3

  Gibbering Corse

  And then the furiously gibbering corse

  Shakes, panglessly convulsed, and sightless stares.

  PATMORE

  Tolnbridge stands on the river after which it is named about four miles above the sandy, treacherous estuary which flows into the English Channel. Up to Hanoverian times it was a port of some significance; but the growth in the size of shipping, together with the progressive silting-up of the river mouth, which is now penetrated only by a fairly narrow channel, pretty rapidly took from it that eminence, and it has fallen back into its pristine status of a small and rather inconvenient market-town for the farm products of that area of South Devon. There is still a fishing industry and (before the war at least) some holidaying, but the bulk of its prosperity has been transferred to Tolnmouth, a little to the east of the estuary, which as a summer resort is second only to Torquay on the Devon coast. Nor is Tolnbridge of much value from the military or naval point of view; it had received a certain amount of sporadic and spiteful attention from the bombers, but the main part of the attack was concentrated further up the coast, and it suffered little damage.

  The cathedral was built during the reign of Edward II, when Tolnbridge was enjoying an unexampled prosperity as the staple port for the wines of Bordeaux and Spain; in style it comes, historically, somewhere about the time of the transition from Early English to Decorated; but few traces of the later method are to be found in it, and it is one of the last, as well as one of the finest, examples of that superb artistry which produced Salisbury Cathedral and many lovely parish churches. Comparatively, it is a small building; but it stands in the centre of the town in a position of such eminence that it appears larger than is really the case. The river bank rises to a natural plateau, about a quarter of a mile back, on which the older part of the town is built. Behind this again there is a long and steeply-sloping hill, at the very summit of which the cathedral stands – the hill itself devoid of buildings, except for the clergy-house at the south-western end. So, from the town, there is a magnificent vista up this long slope, planted with cypress, mountain-ash, and larches, to the grey buttresses and slender, tapering spire which overhang the river. The effect would be overpowering were it not for the two smaller churches in the town below, whose spires, lifted in noble, unsuccessful emulation of their greater companion above, a little restore the balance and relieve the eye. Behind the cathedral, the hill slopes more gently down again to the newer part of the town, with the railway station and the paint factory, whose houses stream down on the northern side to join the old town and peter out to the south in a series of expensive and widely-spaced villas overlooking the estuary.

  It is perhaps surprising that Tolnbridge did not share the fate of Crediton and succumb to the See of Exeter. But Exeter’s diocese was large enough already, and Tolnbridge was suffered to remain a cathedral town. About seventy years after the erection of the cathedral, a tallow-maker of the town called Ephraim Pentyre, a miser and a notorious usurer, but a man who gave much money to the Church on the understanding that it should reserve him a front seat at the celestial entertainment, set out by the coast road on a pilgrimage to Canterbury (where he might, had he ever reached it, have encountered Chaucer’s pilgrims in person). So niggardly was he, however, that he refused to take servants for his protection, with the consequence that beyond Weymouth he was set upon, murdered, and incontinently robbed of his offering to the shrine of St Thomas. This incompetence and stinginess earned him his canonization, for his bones were returned to Tolnbridge and buried with much ceremony in the cathedral where their miracles of healing attracted pilgrims from all over the country, Edward III himself visiting the shrine in order to be cured of scurvy (his own legendary abilities in that direction having apparently failed); with what success it is not known. This was the heyday of Tolnbridge’s prosperity, none the less welcomed by the inhabitants because they remembered St Ephraim with dislike, or because worse and blacker crimes than usury had been commonly laid to his account.

  After that there was a slow but steady decline. Tolnbridge was too isolated to play any part in the great political and ecclesiastical disturbances which spasmodically racked the country up to the end of the eighteenth century, though upon occasion little symbolic wars were fought out on these issues among the townspeople, only too often with violence and atrocities. The transition from Mariolatry to Protestantism was made without fuss, the more so, as some said, because the old religion was allowed to persist and become vile in secret and abominable rituals. Some emphasis was given to these suggestions by a frenetic outburst of witch trials in the early seventeenth century, and by the equally frenetic outburst of witchcraft and devil-worship which provoked them, and in which several clergy of the diocese were disgracefully involved. It is doubtful, indeed, if there was ever such a concentrated, vehement, and (by the standards of the day) well-justified persecu
tion in the history of Europe; there were daily burnings on the cathedral hill, and, that curious feature of most witch trials, free confessions, given without torture, by some hundreds of women that they had had intercourse with the Devil and participated in the Black Mass. After a few years the commotion died down, as these things will, and left nothing behind but the blackened circle cut into the hillside and the iron post to which the women had been tied for burning. There were no further disturbances in Tolnbridge, of any kind; and by 1939 the town seemed to have settled down into a state of permanent inanition.

  So at least Geoffrey maintained, in more forcible words, on his failing to get a taxi at the station. What he is actually recorded to have said is ‘What a damned hole!’

  Now this was unjust, and Fielding, looking down past the cathedral at the roofs of the old town and the estuary beyond, felt it to be so. However, it was obviously not the time for argument. Geoffrey was smarting not only with physical pain (this had by now considerably abated), but also with a considerable mental irritation. There are limits beyond which human patience must not be tried; after a certain point, the crossword puzzle or cryptogram or riddle ceases to amuse and begins to infuriate. This point, in the present affair, Geoffrey had long since passed, and his last escape, far from leaving him pleased, maddened him with its pointlessness.

  ‘What I cannot understand,’ he said for the tenth time, ‘is why, when they had me exactly where they wanted me, without a chance to resist or cry out, they didn’t bang me on the head and shove me overboard.’

  Fielding regarded gloomily an aged porter who was prodding tentatively at a trunk in the hope, apparently, of provoking it to spontaneous movement. ‘Perhaps they were interrupted,’ was all he said.

  ‘You can’t be interrupted when you’re locked in a lavatory.’

  ‘Perhaps they found you were the wrong person and sheered off.’

  ‘The wrong person!’