Zen there was Murder Read online

  She was sitting with Honor, Jim Henderson and Alasdair. Mr Utamaro bowed and went to sit at his table a little apart from them. He put down a small bundle of papers and began sorting through them. A small frown of perplexity.

  ‘Domestics are certainly a terrible problem,’ Alasdair said. ‘My housekeeper at the school is nearly driven mad by it.’

  ‘Then you are not married, Mr Stuart?’ Miss Rohan said.

  ‘No such luck,’ said Alasdair.

  Miss Rohan sighed.

  There was a short silence.

  Jim Henderson looked round at the others, grimly. And went back to his book An Approach Towards Sociology for Some Polynesian Islands, Minnesota University Press, 75s.

  ‘I came down for this course largely because of my niece,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘She is an art student, you know. At the Slade. I’m sure you’d like her – only, of course, you’re unlikely to meet her – she’s such a nice girl. It’s just that the other students are often, I think, a little wild. It’s the scholarship system. They don’t know who they’re getting.’

  A pause.

  ‘You say you came here because of her?’ said Alasdair.

  ‘Yes, yes. When she came to stay after Christmas – and she seems to come so seldom these days – she talked a lot about Zen. She said it was the key to what is called, I believe, action painting. I try to follow her interests, but I tell her that some of this modern painting goes too far. Too far.’

  ‘Oh, I think one should be pretty tolerant,’ said Alasdair. ‘I try to keep up with things. I may be a schoolmaster, I say. But I’m not an old fogey.’

  Jim Henderson scowled behind the pages of his book.

  ‘I must admit,’ said Miss Rohan, ‘I had expected it to be a lot more abstruse. I think you make it wonderfully clear, Mr Utamaro.’

  Mr Utamaro looked up at the sound of his name.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t hear you. I seem to have mislaid a piece of paper Major Francis gave me, a return for the county authority. It has to be filled in. What was it you said?’

  ‘I was remarking how clear you make Zen,’ Miss Rohan said.

  ‘How is it,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘that a man of great bodily strength cannot lift up his legs?’

  Miss Rohan smiled.

  ‘It’s the poetry I like,’ she said. ‘It’s all so unexpectedly normal.’

  Gerry stood in the doorway.

  ‘Unexpectedly normal,’ he said. ‘Come and see what I’ve found.’

  Chapter 3

  Mr Utamaro jumped easily to his feet.

  ‘Normality,’ he said, ‘is what we want to happen. If everything was always normal the world would freeze to death. Where do we go?’

  ‘This way, if you please,’ said Gerry.

  They followed him into the hall – Major Francis, Warden, will be on annual leave ..., the irritated tick of the grandfather clock – and out through the wide front door, across the rutted gravel of the drive, round the corner of the house to the big lawn dominated by the gnarled and sprawling cedar of Lebanon.

  The springy turf of the lawn, matted and dense with two hundred years’ growing. The towering tree, its leaves black against the fading blue of the sky. The flower beds raggedly stocked with little cared for perennials. A line of irises against the house wall just coming out, their purple flowers glowing in the evening light.

  On a stone bench at the far edge of the lawn where a pergola cut off the rest of the garden Flaveen was sitting. Languid in the evening air.

  Honor stopped and looked at her. The others followed Gerry. Tongue in his cheek.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit chilly out here?’ Honor said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Flaveen.

  She made no move.

  Honor turned and went after the others.

  ‘Look,’ said Gerry.

  From nearly under the immense tree he pointed suddenly upwards into its wide horizontal lower branches.

  With their eyes shaded against the still light-filled sky, they peered up.

  Standing abstractedly some fifteen feet above the ground, lost to the world, the Rev. Cyprian Applecheek. The evening breeze moved his long straggly white hair, otherwise he stood motionless. A dreamy contented smile was on his lips.

  ‘He’s been like that for ten minutes at least,’ Gerry said. ‘I hoped he’d stick while I went to fetch an audience. Otherwise I’d have never been believed. It’s always a bit dicey for a born liar when he gets stuck with something true.’

  ‘Surely he’s in rather a dangerous position,’ said Miss Rohan.

  ‘Safe as a house,’ said Gerry. ‘Take my word for it. I’m a member of the Tree Climbers Club, as a matter of fact, so I know what’s what.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Miss Rohan, ‘the Tree Climbers Club, I didn’t know there was such a thing.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Gerry said.

  ‘Oh, good gracious, no,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘It was simply that I merely...’

  ‘Well, take it from me. There is a Tree Climbers Club. Of course, we don’t like it to be spread about too much. We’re a pretty retiring mob. But there isn’t a tree in Great Britain worth climbing that one of the boys hasn’t been up at one time or another.’

  ‘That’s most interesting. I had no idea,’ said Miss Rohan.

  A murmur.

  ‘Mr Applecheek.’

  Mr Utamaro’s voice – the just noticeable weakness over the l in ‘Applecheek’ – loudly and clearly in the evening quiet.

  Silence. The reverberations of the call dying away.

  Mr Applecheek moved. Looked round him. Looked down.

  ‘Good evening, my dear fellow. A splendid evening. The English spring, the English spring.’

  ‘Mr Applecheek,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘have you been up there long?’

  ‘Up here?’

  The old clergyman looked round again.

  ‘Ah, this tree. No, no. Not long. I just stepped up a few minutes ago.’

  Ganglingly he began to come down. The branches an irregular flight of steps. He stooped to get under the one he had been standing on, halted with his feet level with their heads to dust a loose leaf from his arm, came on down.

  Alasdair held out a hand to him. He took it and jumped the last two feet, shamblingly.

  ‘Thank you, my dear fellow.’

  He began to walk away. A gesture. Half salute, half benediction.

  ‘Oy, oy,’ said Gerry.

  Mr Applecheek turned. A glance of mild inquiry.

  ‘Excuse me poking my nose in,’ said Gerry, ‘but what the hell were you doing up there?’

  Mr Applecheek looked at him. He raised his eyebrows a little.

  ‘My dear Manvers, are you not a Christian? Surely one cannot go for long in this world to-day without at least a thought for St Simon Stylites?’

  Slow steps across the springy turf of the lawn. Purposeless, unhurrying, progressing. Mr Applecheek’s rounded shoulders disappeared behind the corner of the house.

  *

  Stacking plates in the big neglected kitchen the two German girls. The dark one with a rosy blush on her plump cheeks.

  ‘But I do not like it,’ she said. ‘I tell you on my hip he smacked me.’

  ‘Colloquially it is “bottom” not “hip”,’ said the blonde one.

  The blue eyes beneath the flaxen plaits bright with excitement.

  ‘I do not care. It is what he did.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Gerry. He willmake it a week of events.’

  *

  In the dining room – the trestle tables, the neat hard chairs, the solidity of the dark panelling on the walls – Gerry tipped a boxful of paper hats and carnival novelties on to the table the group were sitting at.

  ‘Got them in the village shop when I went along to rustle up some drink,’ he said. ‘You may be surprised to hear we’re going to have a party. ‘Alf a mo’.’

  He jumped up, opened the door to the kitchens and dragged through it a large crate of bot
tles.

  ‘You all thought it was going to be a week of studious studification,’ he said. ‘But you reckoned without little Gerry. It’d take more than Zen Buddhism to damp him down.’

  ‘Look here, old man,’ Alasdair said, ‘isn’t this going a bit far? I don’t object to a decent drink, but paper hats for an occasion like this seem to me to be rather much. You may not have come here with any serious intentions, but the rest of us have.’

  He sat back and put his glasses on. The heavy tortoise-shell against the thickening flesh of his nose.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘is it an English custom to put on a paper hat on an occasion of rejoicing?’

  A mild inquiry.

  ‘I’ll say it is,’ said Gerry, ‘and believe you me, this is going to be an occasion of rejoicing or they’ve left the hops out of the beer.’

  ‘Then give me a hat,’ Mr Utamaro said.

  ‘Well,’ said Gerry, ‘you certainly find it easy to drop the old Zen at the sniff of a party. That’s my boy.’

  ‘For one who has cultivated Zen,’ said Mr Utamaro, ‘there is always a party.’

  He began smoothing out the little pink paper bundle Gerry had given him.

  ‘Mr Utamaro,’ said Miss Rohan, ‘I don’t think you ought to be allowed to believe that this sort of thing is customary at all levels of English society.’

  ‘Miss Rohan,’ said Gerry, ‘permit me to offer you a snifter.’

  ‘I don’t think so, thank you,’ Miss Rohan said.

  The smile of duty.

  Gerry filled every other glass in sight without asking for permission. A barman’s deftness.

  ‘Hey, come on,’ said Flaveen, leaning over towards Alasdair, ‘you’re not wearing your hat. You’ve got to wear a hat. Everyone has a hat when it’s a party.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ said Gerry. ‘We’ll have a party for two if no one else’ll play ball.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Honor. ‘There’s no party. I dragged you here because I couldn’t trust you at home. And I don’t care who knows that. But you needn’t think you’re going to wreck the whole thing out of spite. If this is to be a week of serious study it’s going to be a week of serious study. And you’ll keep out, unless you can behave.’

  ‘You go up to bed with a good book,’ Gerry said. ‘There’s a smasher in my case if you want it. Brought it along as my contribution to the good cause. Very appropriate. Gerry knows what’s what. Little opus called Hindu Erotic Sculptures. Very tasty.’

  ‘I’m staying down and you’re behaving,’ Honor said.

  ‘You getting worried or something?’ said Gerry. ‘You brought me here to be out of harm’s way, you know.’

  Honor looked at him.

  ‘I told you before,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether I’m worried or not.’

  Gerry picked up a false nose from the pile of novelties on the table and slipped it on. The grotesque cardboard proboscis, the neat rim of moustache under it.

  ‘Hey,’ said Flaveen again, ‘you still haven’t got that hat on, Alasdair.’

  Alasdair sitting staring at the plain boards of the table in front of him.

  ‘I should have thought a week was all too short a time to get to understand Zen without a lot of fooling around,’ he said.

  ‘Go on,’ said Flaveen, ‘we can’t have lectures and that all the time. Stick the hat on and liven up a bit. Be a sport.’

  ‘My dear girl, I should hope I am a sport.’

  Alasdair stuck the hat on his head at a defiant angle.

  ‘I turned out for my college once a week in term,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t particularly good at games, but I played them for the sake of playing. I always say the only success I had in the sporting field was a half-blue for chess.’

  He laughed.

  Flaveen leant across the table – a few remaining dishes, the glasses, a little beer already spilt – and smiled warmly at Alasdair.

  ‘College,’ she said. ‘How lovely. Were you Oxford or Cambridge?’

  ‘Oxford, actually.’

  ‘Oh goody, I love dark blue.’

  Alasdair took a swig from his glass.

  ‘Come on,’ said Gerry. ‘We’ve got to make the party go.’

  He picked up a blow-out tweeter from the table, put it to his lips and hooted through it. The rolled paper shot out to its full length. On the tip a bright green scrap of feather.

  ‘Charming,’ said Mr Applecheek.

  Sitting quietly a little back from the table, sipping his glass of beer.

  ‘Charming, though vulgar.’

  ‘What are these things?’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘I have never seen them before.’

  He peered down at the pile with passionate curiosity. A scientist.

  ‘I call ‘em tweeters,’ said Gerry. ‘Fine old British custom.’

  He blew another long note. A dying fall.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, ‘take one. Have a go. See if you can hit Jimmy boy down there. He hasn’t said a word for hours. Wants livening up.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve any contribution to make to this,’ Jim said. ‘It’s not what I came here for.’

  Between clenched teeth.

  Flaveen scrabbled at the pile of tweeters.

  ‘I’ve got to have a dark blue one,’ she said. ‘I’m going to tweet for Oxford.’

  ‘Here,’ said Gerry. ‘Here’s a nice green one. I’d taken it for my very own, but you can have it. Suit your hair.’

  ‘No, I want a dark blue.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have one. There isn’t one.’

  ‘Yes, there is. There. You were trying to hide it.’

  Gerry handed her the dark blue tweeter with an exaggerated bow. Flaveen snatched it from him. Gerry picked up his own green one and blew it fiercely at Alasdair. The unrolled paper tapped him on the cheek.

  Alasdair sat unmoved. He had hunched up again, staring darkly at the empty plate in front of him.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ said Gerry.

  Alasdair looked up.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘good show.’

  An inner world.

  ‘You’re certainly making the party go,’ said Gerry. ‘But I’ve got just the thing for you. Half a tick.’

  He left his place and went into the kitchens. A quick scream could be heard from behind the closed door.

  Mr Utamaro blew a long tweet.

  ‘I feel I must explain,’ said Miss Rohan. ‘Mr Manvers is misleading you, Mr Utamaro. These things are rather vulgar.’

  Mr Utamaro put down his tweeter.

  ‘Two monks were quarrelling over a cat,’ he said. ‘The master seized it and held a sword over it. Then he said “If either of you can say something to save it I will let it go.” Neither monk could say what was necessary and the master killed the cat. Next day Joshu came and the master asked him what he would have said. Joshu took off his sandals, and put them on his head. “You would have saved the cat,” the master said.’

  They had all one by one paid attention to the story. They sat in silence now.

  Disconcerted.

  ‘A little lesson about the futility of quarrelling, I think,’ said Mr Applecheek. ‘But tell me, would the master have used a special sword, a wakizashi, like we have upstairs, for instance?’

  ‘Any sword,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  ‘Indeed, indeed. Well, I won’t spoil the fun by sitting among you too long. The clergy should always leave an event of this sort after grace, I believe. Though, of course, I wasn’t asked to say grace.’

  He got up, blinked at them, and went.

  Gerry came out of the kitchen, his hands thrust in his pockets. Swaggering. He was wearing a large red artificial flower in his button-hole.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Padre gone off? No harm, he wasn’t exactly helping the party. I dare say he wants a little climb in his tree. Potty as they come.’

  ‘I think he’s rather sweet,’ said Flaveen. ‘He’s been awfully nice to me.’

  ‘I think
you’re pretty sweet yourself,’ Gerry said.

  He minced round the table to Alasdair who was still looking sombrely at his plate. The smeary remains of trifle.

  ‘I think you’re sweet too,’ he said.

  He crouched down beside Alasdair who turned bleakly to look at him.

  ‘Would you like to smell my pretty flower?’ Gerry said.

  The parody of coyness.

  ‘I’m sorry, old chap,’ Alasdair said, ‘I – I was thinking. What did you say?’

  ‘Does itsums bitsums want to smell the pretty flower?’ Gerry said.

  ‘Flower?’

  Alasdair peered at it.

  A fine stream of water shot from its centre and sprayed all over his face.

  Gerry fell back on the floor shaking with laughter.

  ‘Yet another time-honoured British tradition,’ he said.

  He pulled the flower from his buttonhole exposing a thin rubber tube that ran down to a rubber bulb in his pocket.

  ‘Quite simple,’ he said, ‘You fill this bulb with a quantity of some harmless liquid – or even water – and at the requisite moment you give a sharp squeeze producing a fine jet in the required direction. Price two and six.’

  ‘When I go back to Japan I will take one,’ Mr Utamaro said. ‘And when a monk asks, “Why did the Bodhidharma come from the west?” Squirt. The Zen answer.’

  Alasdair, wiping the water from his face, looked at him gloomily.

  ‘There does seem to be an element of horseplay in Zen,’ said Miss Rohan.

  She sighed.

  ‘That’s what I don’t understand. Some of it is so poetic. But then you tell us that a thing like Mr Manvers’s squirt would be useful to you.’

  ‘The poet Yuan-Wu teaches us this,’ said Mr Utamaro. “‘If you are a real man you may certainly drive away the farmer’s ox.’”

  ‘A poor man may drive away the rich man’s ox. Now you’re talking,’ said Jim Henderson.

  He looked along the table at Mr Utamaro.

  ‘This interests me,’ he said. ‘The possibility of Zen being interpreted in terms of direct action. What did you say the name of that poet was?’

  ‘The poet Yuan-Wu,’ said Mr Utamaro.

  His hand stole out towards his tweeter.

  Jim squared his elbows on the table.