by James Runcie
‘Let us pray first,’ said Sidney.
‘It’s too late for that. There is no God. His only defence is that he does not exist. And without God, everything is permissible.’
‘Without God there is only the terror of absence; a chasm without love.’
‘And I am in that chasm.’
‘Then let me help you out of it.’
‘There is nothing you can do, Canon Chambers.’
‘You won’t even let me pray for you?’
Patrick Harland stopped. ‘You would still do that? After all that I have done?’
‘I pray for everyone.’ Sidney knelt down. ‘Come. Kneel. You too, Miss Randall.’
‘What?’ Helena asked.
‘Please. Kneel down.’
Helena did so.
‘Mr Harland, put your knife aside. Please. Kneel. Close your eyes.’
It was not a request but an order.
‘Let us pray.’
Sidney began the Lord’s Prayer, buying time, hoping for an act of God, anything to stop the evil that lay before them. The important thing, he had been taught, was to lead. This was no time for public doubt. He spoke clearly and loudly, already planning which of the familiar prayers he would say next, asking for mercy, hoping for understanding.
A sparrow flew through the open windows of the hall. Harland looked up, surprised by the interruption, as Sidney kept praying. ‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.’
Then Simon Opie, revived by the words and rescued from death, began to pray from the cross. ‘Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.’
Harland opened his eyes and looked back at the dying man, praying confidently in the hope of mercy, and began to weep.
Sidney let the tears fall into the silence. Then he walked over to Harland, knelt down beside him, and held him in his arms. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s over now.’
A few days later, two couples spent a sunny Saturday together, lunching in the gardens of a local restaurant. Geordie was reflecting on Patrick Harland’s eventual arrest, Simon Opie’s miraculous recovery, and Helena Randall’s quick thinking. She was quite a girl, he continued, and Sidney had to agree, as Cathy and Hildegard smiled indulgently.
On tackling his second pint, the Inspector then began to muse on the trouble caused by religion and asked how a loving God could allow such evil.
‘That is complicated,’ Sidney answered. ‘However, instead of trying to justify the ways of God to man we should perhaps think more of justifying man’s ways to God.’
‘That would take for ever.’
‘An eternity, I suppose.’
‘And so evil people like Harland will still be forgiven in the end?’ Keating asked.
‘Possibly,’ Sidney continued. ‘I’ve been reading a text from the early Middle Ages, the Vision of Saint Paul, which is an account of the apostle’s journey into the underworld. There he meets a man engulfed in the fires of purgatory. But the man is not in pain. Instead he is smiling. Why? Because he knows that three thousand years later one of his descendants will become a priest and, at his first Mass, that same priest will pray for him and release him from his suffering. St Paul realises that three thousand years in purgatory is nothing in comparison with eternity. The sinner has taught him the meaning of patience.’
‘I’m not sure I’d be prepared to spend three thousand years in pain. It would be simpler not to sin in the first place.’
‘That is rather the idea,’ Sidney assured his friend.
Keating fetched them all more beer and wondered whether, as he put it, God could ever be happy. ‘He must be a miserable old bugger, really, when you think of the wickedness human beings get up to; all that sin.’
‘That may be true,’ Sidney replied. ‘If God is aware of the human condition then how can he be content? But perhaps we have to think about the divine presence in a different way; not as what he is, but what he is not. In other words, not human, and not liable to emotion. The concept of happiness perhaps has no subject. It exists outside ourselves, unrelated to any specific human being.’
‘Then why do we all want to have it?’
‘Because we are human.’
‘And therefore we suffer.’
‘Yes, Geordie.’
‘So what you are saying is that God does not know happiness; even though he is supposed to be omniscient? I don’t understand how that works.’
‘John Stuart Mill argued that happiness is not something that can be achieved by striving for it. You have to pursue some other goal and “if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe.”’
‘So happiness is an accident?’
‘Possibly. Schopenhauer defined it as the temporary absence of pain.’
‘And that is the best we can hope for?’
‘Perhaps, but not necessarily.’
‘Oh, Sidney, this is all too deep for me.’
‘And me. Life still has many pleasures; not least the company of our delightful wives. Let us enjoy that while we may.’
Hildegard leant forward and whispered to Cathy Keating. ‘How do you put up with it all?’ she asked.
‘To tell you the truth, Mrs Chambers, most of the time it’s best to ignore what they get up to. It gives you time to yourself. They’re out of the house and don’t get in the way. That’s the consolation. You’ve no need to be jealous of any of it. They’d be lost without us. They always know what’s best for them in the end.’
As Cathy Keating finished speaking, Helena Randall walked past. She was wearing a diaphanous green summer dress, her arms were bare and she had just washed her hair. It hung, still damp, in soft waves almost to her waist, small stray tendrils framing her face. She had not noticed the party at the table and the four friends did not ask her to join them. Cathy Keating remarked that even though it was a warm day Helena would catch her death of cold dressed like that and that her uncombed hair would lose its shape if she didn’t watch out. It was a pity, she observed. Miss Randall could be quite a pretty girl if she just made more of an effort.
The two men looked at each other and knew that it was safest to say nothing.
A gathering of swallows flew above them, away and then into the distance, twittering in the skies. The sun had begun its decline. Sufficient unto the day, Sidney thought to himself, was the evil thereof.
Female, Nude
It was midday in October and Sidney was waiting for his good friend, the art historian Amanda Kendall, in the upper galleries of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. They had arranged to view the new acquisition of a painting by Matisse, The Studio Under the Eaves, before enjoying a leisurely lunch at Le Bleu Blanc Rouge. That afternoon, Amanda had an appointment to see the director of the museum in order to confirm that the collection’s portrait of William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton was painted ‘after’ Hans Holbein the Younger and was therefore of considerably less valuable than the museum had hoped. Such a possibility might diminish the reputation of the collection but at least it would save on the insurance.
It was a long time since Sidney had spent any time in the galleries and he had forgotten that the Fitzwilliam contained works of art that were far more impressive than many people imagined. There were paintings by Italian Renaissance artists, particularly Venetian, a superb collection of landscapes of all schools, a distinguished group of portrait miniatures by British artists and a remarkable range of French Impressionist paintings which were like old friends: a lilac-washed Monet scene of springtime, a simple plate of Cézanne’s apples, and a Matisse portrait of a woman, La Blouse Bulgare, that always made him think of Amanda. He was reminded of the fact that the greatest paintings could always sustain repeated viewings. Like a classic book or a Shakespearean play, they were open
to multiple interpretations. What mattered in art was not impact but resonance.
That autumn, there was a special exhibition on the female nude with works by Rodin, Whistler, Burne-Jones and Augustus John. Sidney passed the time waiting for his friend by imagining what it might be like to take a life drawing class. It would have much to teach him about patience, the art of looking, and the nature of human anatomy. He wondered how closely the eye of the artist should mirror that of the clergyman or the detective. Perhaps he could try to be, in Henry James’s famous phrase, ‘one on whom nothing is lost’.
He had just stopped to look more closely at two studies of a female nude by Eric Gill when he heard someone singing. It was a female voice; both high and delicate.
‘Mon amant me délaisse
O gai! Vive la rose!
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
Vive la rose et le lilas!’
He turned round. As he did so, a young blonde girl undid her fur coat to reveal that she was naked underneath. She draped the coat over her right shoulder and walked slowly round the room, still singing.
‘Il va-t-en voir une autre,
O gai! Vive la rose!
Qu’est plus riche que moi
Vive la rose et le lilas!’
A guard called out. ‘Stop that. Put your clothes back on, Madam.’
The girl continued:
‘On dit qu’elle est plus belle,
O gai vive la rose!
Je n’en disconviens pas . . .
On dit qu’elle est malade
O gai! Vive la rose!’
The guard shouted for help. ‘Omari! Come quick!’
Bemused visitors from the surrounding galleries were summoned by the girl’s voice.
‘Peut-être elle en mourra . . .
Mais si elle meurt dimanche
O gai! Vive la rose!
Lundi on l’enterrera . . .
She circled the room twice.
‘Mardi il r’viendra m’voir
O gai! Vive la rose!
Mais je n’en voudrai pas
Vive la rose et le lilas!’
Then she walked out, her fur coat still over her shoulder, and disappeared.
Sidney was just beginning to compose himself when Amanda arrived. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘She was more beautiful than any ghost; a spirit from another world . . .’
‘Who?’
‘Was it a vision or a waking dream, I wonder?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Fled is that music – do I wake or sleep?’
Amanda was exasperated by her friend’s distraction. ‘Pull yourself together, Sidney.’
He was unable to do so. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just seen the most extraordinary thing. A beautiful woman gliding, yes gliding . . .’
‘Stop it. It’s quite insulting to get all soppy about one woman whilst in the presence of another. Besides, you’re a married man. Are you going to take me out to lunch or not?’
It was only after the waitress in Le Bleu Blanc Rouge had taken their order of pork cutlets with mushrooms that Sidney recovered sufficiently to explain why he had been so unsettled. Amanda listened with as much interest as she could muster but admitted that she could not concentrate because she was bursting to tell him that she had recently had dinner with Gerald Gardiner QC, the defender of Lady Chatterley’s Lover at the notorious trial.
‘Such a clever man,’ she began. ‘I wish I’d discovered him earlier.’
‘Isn’t he in his sixties?’
‘I think I prefer the more mature generation. They’re more stable, more charming, and generally I can be sure that they’re not after my money.’
Sidney tried to get back on to the subject of the girl in the art gallery. Could it be some kind of contemporary ‘happening’, he wondered, or was it something more sinister?
‘Honestly, Sidney, I don’t know why you are preoccupied. Some girls are just show-offs.’
‘I think she must have been French.’
‘There you are then.’
‘Not all Frenchwomen are exhibitionists.’
‘Have you been to Saint-Tropez?’ Amanda asked.
‘No, of course I haven’t.’
‘Well, there are plenty of them there, I can tell you. Had she shaved her armpits?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sidney answered forlornly. ‘I didn’t look.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘It was embarrassing, Amanda. But also strangely brave. I wonder what makes a woman want to do such a thing?’
‘I’m sure she’d tell you if you ever had the chance to ask her. Was she dark or blonde?’
‘Blonde.’
‘Naturally?’
‘Yes, Amanda, ash blonde.’
‘That’s probably why you didn’t notice the armpits. Aren’t you going to eat those mushrooms?’
Sidney was trying to find something on which to concentrate other than the girl. ‘The choice of setting was clearly deliberate. An exhibition of nude paintings.’
‘Perhaps she was making some kind of political protest, or she was drawing attention to the conflict between art and life, the real and the imagined, the naked and the nude? Kenneth Clark was always going on about it when I was a student.’
‘I imagine that the male students must have enjoyed such a concentrated form of study?’
‘Yes, the ones that weren’t pansies, of course; sum total, three, by the way. I went to one of the lectures when Clark explained that “nakedness” is the unadorned body viewed with embarrassment, whereas “the nude” is the body re-formed as art; a refined vision, balanced, prosperous and confident. Do you think your new friend was naked or nude?’
‘Somewhere between the two, I should imagine. But she’s hardly my friend.’
They finished their cutlets and were waiting for the chocolate mousse when Inspector Keating arrived. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘I’ve been all over the place looking for you. I had to telephone Hildegard.’
Amanda was amused. ‘Normally it’s we who seek you out, Inspector.’
‘Well in this case you might be relieved that I am coming to you, Miss Kendall. I believe you have an appointment with the Director of the Fitzwilliam?’
‘At three o’clock,’ Amanda answered.
‘He may be delayed.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘On the grounds that a painting has been stolen from the museum.’
‘What?’
The Inspector turned to his friend. ‘Sidney, I believe you were there at the time?’
‘I can’t think . . .’
‘It was when some French girl was making an exhibition of herself. She was a decoy while, two rooms away, a thief was snatching a Sickert.’
‘An odd choice,’ said Amanda. ‘You’d get more for a Matisse.’
‘That’s as maybe. But it can’t be a coincidence. The girl and the thief must have been in cahoots. And you, Sidney, were a witness.’
‘Not to the theft.’
‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened. And I’d like you, Miss Kendall, to ask the Director a few questions on the side. Is he all he’s cracked up to be? Does he know more than he is letting on? I can brief you on the way over.’
‘Have you spoken to the security guards?’ Amanda asked. ‘These things are often inside jobs, you know.’
‘Only too well. We’re talking to them now; but none of them have done a runner and the painting’s vanished. It can’t have been the girl because she had nothing on; but we’ll have to find her. Sidney, I presume you can give me a description?’
‘Well . . .’
‘In considerable detail, I would have thought,’ said Amanda.
The stolen picture was called The Trapeze, a circus scene at Dieppe which the painter had visited from 1919–22. It had been bequeathed to the gallery in 1939, and was considered to be one of Sickert’s finer and freer works. The subject was a young woman, seen fr
om far below, preparing to swing across the highest part of the tent. It was a portrait of drama, risk and bravura, filled with the painter’s love of the theatre, but it was unclear why anyone would want to steal this work rather than a nearby Monet. Amanda thought perhaps that it would be easier to fence, but Sidney had begun to consider the painting’s theme. Perhaps an exhibitionist, like the girl in the gallery, would be attracted to a painting that displayed similar daring?
He recognised that, against his will, he was getting carried away by the prospect of a mystery to solve, and he told Inspector Keating firmly that he was already late for home. ‘I should get back to my parish duties now.’
‘Nonsense. You like this kind of thing.’
‘I may enjoy the intrigue and the thrill of the chase, but I am not sure that my life should be such a slave to excitement.’
‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘And Hildegard will not take kindly to the idea of my running round the country looking out for women who take their clothes off so readily.’
‘But I haven’t asked you to do that, Sidney. Don’t get your hopes up. I simply requested that you come back to the museum.’
‘Very well.’
The Director of the Fitzwilliam was a well-groomed man called Graham Anderson, with hair the colour of beach sand after rain. He had a naturally tanned face, good teeth, and a rather stylish moustache that he clearly waxed. This was a man who had perhaps been told once too many times that he looked like a matinée idol and had started to believe it; a minor vanity that had become more pronounced after he had twice been mistaken for David Niven.
He also had one of those extraordinary hard handshakes which Sidney disliked, the kind his namesake, the Victorian clergyman Sidney Smith, had once referred to as the shakus rusticus, ‘in which the recipient’s hand is seized in an iron grasp, betokening rude health, warm heart and producing a strong sense of relief when the victim finds his hand has been released and his fingers blessedly unbroken’.
