Ian Sansom - Death in Devon

And then the sun suddenly cast a blaze of light across the scene, further illuminating the brilliant damp green, and Morley’s dazzling white underclothes, and his glaring white moustache, and his pale white skin, and this was one of those moments, I think, when I began to understand the true paradoxes of Morley, and of my strange relationship with him. During our time together I think I tended to think of him as a kind of mechanism, rather like an electric appliance – an animation of a man, unnatural, Karloffian almost, like Dr Frankenstein’s monster, twitching with life, a creature of unnatural habits and abnormal brain. And yet there was simultaneously this other very marked aspect of his personality, which one might describe as botanical and germinal, organic perhaps, his thoughts and ideas growing slowly and gently within him and from him as a tree might throw forth branches, or a flower blossom. This combination of the natural and the mechanical, the extraordinary and the everyday, the practical and the poetic, the physical and the metaphysical, always made him seem larger than life, macrocosmic almost – and, it has to be said, utterly bizarre.

After some moments of inactivity, he started rocking his head backward and forward, breathing in on the upswing, and out on the downswing. He did this for about a minute, and then began to prepare for a series of exercises that seemed to require the removal of his underwear. I coughed, involuntarily, and he opened his eyes and spied me on the path.

‘Ah, Sefton. Don’t be shy. Come on over.’ He glanced down. ‘Almost an inch, I’d say. What do you think?’

I walked rather shyly across the damp lawn towards him.

‘Right,’ I said. I didn’t know what to reply.

‘Of rain, man. Last night.’

‘Ah.’

‘Refreshing, isn’t it? A good old autumn storm. We had hailstones last year in September that shattered the glasshouses. Tore the plants from their pots. Beware nature, eh, Sefton? Just communing myself, here. Connecting to the old vital forces. Care to join me?’

‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’ I took out another cigarette and lit it.

‘Still smoking?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Won’t do you any good, you know. Chains of bondage. Nil tam difficile est quod non solertia vincat .’ He began swinging his arms in contrary motion. ‘We need you in peak condition, man, if you’re going to stay the course with the County Guides . It’s no holiday.’

‘No,’ I agreed.

‘An endurance test really. Test of strength. Of mettle. Of one’s inner resources, eh?’

‘Indeed.’

His arm-swinging had by now become alarmingly vigorous.

‘You want to try this, Sefton. You’re familiar with pranic breathing, I take it?’

‘Pranic breathing?’

‘Taught to me by a man in Paris, many years ago – respiration pranique . Haddo. Funny sort of fellow. Your sort.’

‘My sort?’

‘You know, bohemian. Bit of a fraud, actually. Claimed he could live without food or water and that he existed merely on the energy of the sun.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘Obviously not. Met him in a restaurant one night, tucking into a fricandeau à l’oseille and a bottle of German hock. Anyway. Most people don’t breathe at all properly, Sefton, as you know. Essential, breathing.’

‘Yes. I suppose it is.’

‘I found the technique very useful, after my wife …’ Morley rarely spoke of his wife, and when he did he was often overcome with such emotion, such an intense turmoil, such a storm, that he was simply unable to speak, as if he were momentarily gripped by a pain beyond words. He would literally stall and stop, like one of his cars, and then he would blink, and clear his throat, and continue on again, as now. ‘The breath, you see, gets interrupted all the time.’ I thought I saw a tear in his eye. ‘Shallow breathing – curse of our age. I might write a little pamphlet, actually. In fact, make a note could you, Sefton? I don’t seem to have my notebook or cards with me.’ He patted at his underpants, as if fully expecting to find a notebook tucked away there.

I felt in my own pockets for a notebook, but found none. Not that it mattered. The storm had passed. Morley moved on.

‘Girdling,’ he said. ‘Medieval monastic practice. Prevents a man being caught short. I’ve spoken to you about it before?’

‘You have, Mr Morley, yes.’

‘Good. Anyway. Fear, anxiety, anger – all stored in the breath, you know. If people were given basic lessons in good consistent, circular breathing I think everyone would be much happier. Don’t you think so? Moves energy from the body, proper breathing. Energy in motion. Here.’ He reached out towards me and placed his hands on my belly. ‘Breathe in.’ I breathed in. ‘And breathe out.’ I breathed out. ‘Yes, as I thought. You should be breathing from the diaphragm, Sefton. When you take a breath, you’re inhaling from the chest. You need to take a proper breath.’ He kept his hands on my belly. ‘Go on. Try again. From the diaphragm. Here. Not here.’ He tapped my chest.

The more I thought about diaphragm breathing, the less I seemed able to do it.

‘You’re constricting on your exhale, man. You’re not letting go. How did you sleep?’

‘Not well, I’m afraid.’

‘Hardly surprising. Poor breathing robs us of energy and doesn’t allow us to rest properly.’

‘I think it was more because of the thunder,’ I was about to say, and also perhaps because of the half-bottle of brandy, and the pills and the dreams, but he had taken his thumb and index finger and pressed my left nostril with his thumb, making speech difficult.

‘There we are. Breathe in. Hold for three.’

And then he pinched the bridge of my nose, before pressing my right nostril with his index finger.

‘And now exhale through the left for a count of six. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Good. And again.’ More nostril-pinching.

I had only recently been in a Soho club where—

‘Hold for three. Good. And exhale for six. Etcetera. Don’t worry. We’ll get there, Sefton. We’ll get there.’

He began walking back towards the house. I followed: what else could I do?

‘I am not – as you know – entirely ecumenical in my outlook, Sefton, but I do think there are some things we could profitably learn from our Hindu brothers and sisters. And Confucians. Buddhists. Taoists. Do you know the Waley book on the Tao Te Ching?’

‘Erm …’

‘Worth looking up. Jainism also. Ever come across any Jains?’

‘I think I may have come across one or two Janes in my time, yes, Mr Morley.’ I grinned.

‘Are you being facetious, Sefton?’

‘No.’

‘Good, too early in the morning to be facetious, Sefton. And too late in the day, I fear. The Jains, man. Jains . There’s a beautiful white granite statue of Bahubali, on a hill near Sravanabelagola I think it is – visited it once. Long time ago. Astonishing piece of work. Sixty foot tall, and they have this quite extraordinary ceremony where they anoint it with milk and saffron and what have you. Marvellous. Quite extraordinary. Anyway, as I was saying, prana , Sefton – the life force. Powerful thing. Very popular notion in all Asiatic religions: qi among the Chinese, of course. Odic forces I think are probably the closest we come in the West. Personally, I am trying to develop my apana , the long down breath, which reaches down all the way to the root chakra .’

Frankly, I found it a little early to be discussing Jainism, qi and chakras , but fortunately, in characteristic style, Morley soon switched subject matter again as we entered his study through the French windows, and several of his many dogs came bounding towards us. One of his particular favourites – an Irish terrier named Fionn mac Cumhaill (‘pronounced MacCool, Sefton, please, in the Celtic fashion’) – never seemed to warm to me and stood protectively now at Morley’s side, with the clear intention first of growling at me, and then very possibly barking, chasing, biting and savaging.