The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [24]
‘Did you see a lot of each other? In Peru?’
Geoffrey was anxious to turn the page and get away from those incriminating initials.
‘Yes. We had meals together quite often. I could never figure out what he was doing there.’
‘What did you eat?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Eggs?’
‘Beans, mostly. He said he was travelling round. Seeing the world.’
As casually as he could Geoffrey turned the page.
‘These figures,’ said Hopkins, turning it back. ‘What do you think they mean?’
‘They’re on this page, too,’ said Geoffrey turning the page again. ‘And here,’ turning another.
Hopkins blew his nose, wiped it carefully and put the handkerchief away. ‘Is it sex, do you think?’
‘Sex?’ said Geoffrey with apparent surprise. ‘Why should it be sex?’ He looked at Hopkins as if the insinuation were his and almost felt sorry for him when the young geologist blushed.
‘Clive was a masseur. They may be payments on account—if they’re payments at all. I think when he was hard up at one period he used to provide home help, carpentry and so on. It could be that.’
‘Yes? You say he was a masseur. He told me he was a writer.’
Geoffrey smiled and shook his head.
‘My guess is that it’s a sort of diary and I don’t feel,’ Geoffrey said pompously, ‘that one ought to read other people’s diaries, do you?’
Hopkins shrank still further and Geoffrey hated himself. He went on leafing through. Against some of the names were small hieroglyphics that seemed to denote a sexual preference or practice, an indication of a client’s predilections possibly, of which one or two were obvious. Lips with a line through, for instance, must mean the person with the initials didn’t like being kissed; lips with a tick the reverse. But what did a drawing of a foot indicate? Or an ear? Or (in one case) two ears?
None of the drawings was in any sense obscene and were so small and symbolic as to be uninteresting in themselves, but what they stood for—with sometimes a line-up of three or four symbols in a row—was both puzzling and intriguing.
It was a shock, therefore, for Geoffrey to turn the page and come across a note en clair that was both direct and naive:
Palaces I have done it in:
Westminster
Lambeth
Blenheim
Buckingham (2)
Windsor
Except Windsor was crossed out with a note, ‘Not a palace’ and an arrow led from Westminster to a bubble saying ‘Lost count’. Written down baldly like this it seemed so childish and unsophisticated as not to be like Clive at all, though as notes for a book, Geoffrey could see it made some sort of sense.
‘It’s rather sad, really,’ Geoffrey went on, still in his pompous mode. ‘Why bother to write it down? Who’d be interested?’
‘Oh, I keep notes myself,’ said Hopkins. Then, as the priest looked up, startled, ‘Oh, not about that. Just on rocks and stuff. He told me he was writing a book, but people do say that, don’t they? Particularly in South America.’
It’s true Clive had spoken of writing a book, or at least of being able to write a book, ‘I could write a book,’ often how he ended an account of some outrageous escapade. Geoffrey may even have said, ‘Why don’t you?’ though without ever dreaming he would.
Like many who hankered after art, though, Clive was saving it up, if not quite for a rainy day at least until the right opportunity presented itself—prison perhaps, a long illness or a spell in the back of beyond. Which, of course, Peru was and which was why, Geoffrey presumed, he had taken along the book.
Still, he wasn’t sure. Clive was always so discreet and even when telling some sexual tale he seldom mentioned names and certainly not the kind of names represented at the memorial service. This iron discretion was, Clive knew, one of his selling points and part of his credit, so not an asset he was likely to squander.