Ian Sansom - Death in Devon

‘Yes.’

‘One doesn’t have to be Viennese, I think, to have a guess, does one?’

‘No, Mr Morley.’ Or rather, What, Mr Morley? (Which is of course the title of his famous series of books of notes and queries, published annually, containing answers to questions posed in the form of the book’s title, thus, ‘What, Mr Morley, is the meaning of the term mah nishtana , which I have heard some of my Jewish neighbours exclaim, and which I believe may be either Hebrew or the Jewish language of Yiddish?’, or ‘What, Mr Morley, is the best way to remove coal dust from my antimacassar?’)

‘Not quite top rank though, is it?’ continued Morley. ‘In all honesty? I think we’ll grant him an accessit , shall we?’

‘A—’

‘Second prize medal. Forgotten all your Latin?’

‘Ahem. Well. That sounds about …’

‘The great untaught, you see, Sefton. All that power and originality combined with sometimes shocking naivety. The child’s perspective, one might say. The sublime cheek by jowl with the ridiculous. One of life’s great mysteries, wouldn’t you say?’

I couldn’t have agreed more.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Good.’

‘And who’s the article for, Mr Morley?’

‘ Sunday Graphic . Just a little jeu d’esprit , as Mr Rousseau himself might say.’

He poured himself a fresh glass of barley water, and stared at me inquisitively.

‘So, my young fellow, how was London?’

‘It was fine, thank you, sir.’ I never spoke to Morley about my other life. It did not seem appropriate.

‘Good. Good. You’ll be delighted to know that in your absence I’ve finished Norfolk .’

‘Finished it?’

‘That’s correct. Aquila non capit muscas and what have you.’

We had only returned from our first adventure around the English counties on Sunday. This was a week later. Which meant that he had written a book … in a week?

It took me a moment to gather my powers of speech.

‘But I thought we were going to …’

‘We have a strict schedule to stick to, Sefton, remember. If we’re going to cover everything by 1940. Uphill all the way, I’m afraid. No time for slacking.’

‘No, of course.’

‘Or shilly-shallying.’

‘No.’

‘Or funking.’

‘No, absolutely. No slacking. No shilly-shallying. No funking.’

‘Precisely! So I took the liberty of writing up most of my notes myself – to save you time. You’ll be copy-editing and proofing this week. We want to have it more or less ready for the presses within two weeks. Photographs and what have you. Excellent photographs, by the way, Sefton – though a little bit more artistic, next time, eh?’

‘More artistic, Mr Morley?’

‘Well, you know. Something a bit more … Man Ray perhaps?’

‘Really? Man Ray?’

‘Yes, you’ve come across him?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Or … I don’t know, maybe not Man Ray, Sefton. But something. We need to capture the public’s imagination, man. Give them something new. Something fresh. Something … unexpected.’

‘I’ll do my best, Mr Morley.’

‘Good! Bit of experimentation, man. But not too much.’

‘Very good, Mr Morley.’

‘And then as I say, we should have everything ready for publication by the end of October. The County Guides – book number one.’

‘That’s … good.’

‘And in the meantime we shall move on swiftly to book number two.’

‘Right. I’ll be staying here then, to do the copy-editing and proofing on book one?’

‘Here?’

‘St George’s? Norfolk?’ I could imagine myself curled up by the fire in the library, leisurely correcting Morley’s proofs, cigarettes and coffee to hand.

‘Not at all, not at all, not at all, Sefton. Not. At. All. No, no, no. We’re all packed and ready to go again, my friend, first thing in the morning. You’re going to have to get accustomed to the pace of life here, old chap. You’ll be editing en route to our next county.’

‘I see.’ I was tired already. ‘Will Miriam be joining us?’

‘She will, indeed. For better and for worse. Until you’ve got the hang of things.’

‘I think I’ve probably—’

‘Also, she needs to … get away for a while. I have spoken to you about Miriam before, Sefton, you will recall.’ He narrowed his eyes rather as he spoke.

‘Yes.’

‘And you have clearly understood my concerns?’

A bit of experimentation

‘Yes, yes, of course, Mr Morley.’

‘Wild.’ He shook his head. ‘Untameable.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say—’

‘And it’ll take a better man than you to tame her, Sefton. With all due respect. There’s talk of another engagement …’

‘I see.’

He gazed up at the window above the desk. It was a clear night sky.

‘There’s a storm coming.’

It wasn’t immediately clear to me whether he was speaking literally or metaphorically; he spoke often of gathering storms. It wasn’t always clear whether he meant rain, or Miriam’s doomed engagements, or the imminent collapse of human civilisation. Or all three.

‘Do you ever think about the future, Sefton?’

‘Occasionally, Mr Morley. Yes, I do.’

‘And when you think about the future, what do you think?’

‘Erm …’ An answer, obviously, was not required.

‘When I think about the future, Sefton, I think that what we are doing now will be seen largely as an irrelevance, alas. The book will become a decorative art object, and as for newspapers …’ He shook his head. ‘There will be endless wars. Famines. And the England that we know and love will have entirely disappeared. We will achieve a classless society, not because we have all been raised to new heights, but rather because we have all been dragged down to the same depths.’ When speaking of heights and depths, Morley illustrated the point with his usual gestures.

‘I see.’ This was a version of a speech I had already heard him utter on numerous occasions.

‘People’s bodies will seize up, Sefton, due to their unthinking reliance on machines. Men and women will balloon in size, like vast blimps, and go bouncing around our towns and cities, crushing one another in their hurry to acquire more and more of less and less that is truly good. Don’t you think it’s possible, Sefton?’

‘It’s certainly not im—’

‘But one day, I believe, man will overcome himself. He will rise from his slumber. He will slip the bounds and trammels of this earth. He will transcend his small concerns and reach for the stars! He will travel … to the moon! Do you think it’s possible, Sefton?’

‘Again, it’s entirely—’

‘Not in my lifetime, perhaps. But in yours. It will be wonderful: an opportunity to start all over again, eh? Not granted to every man, Sefton, is it?’

‘No, Mr Morley.’

‘But in this brave new world I believe there will be so much going on that no one will care to remember what we have lost.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Which is our task, of course, Sefton! To act as recording angels, if you like. No more. No less. Quite a calling though, eh?’ His rambling speech seemed to have cheered him – as his rambling speeches so often did. I wondered sometimes if he spoke merely for the sole purpose of his own encouragement.

‘Yes. Indeed.’

He stared at me again. ‘You seem rather liverish this evening, Sefton, if you don’t mind my saying.’

‘Yes, well, I …’

‘Time for your beauty sleep, perhaps.’

‘Well, I am rather tired, Mr Morley.’

‘ Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forum , Sefton.’

‘Quite. So … unless there’s anything I can do for you here …’