Kitabı oku: «The Buddha of Brewer Street»
THE BUDDHA OF BREWER STREET
MICHAEL DOBBS
To Naljorma ’ö-Sel Nyima Chèdröl Khandro.
May we never forget how to laugh and to love.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
POSTSCRIPT
About the Author
Also by the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
Tibet, 1959
Death arrived in the hour before dawn, but if it counted on an element of surprise it had reckoned without Kunga Tashi. And the geese.
Kunga Tashi was attending to the first daily duty of many young monks. He was helping prepare a churn of butter tea for his elders. It wasn’t yet sunrise and spring had still to find its way through the thick monastery walls, yet Kunga was happy. The kitchen was welcoming and warm, heated by the constant fires and filled with encouraging aromas. Far better than being told to fetch the water, which was usually hiding beneath a thick layer of ice at the bottom of the well, or being sent directly to the draughty memorizing class where he would have to squat for endless hours reciting scripture and fighting the temptation to fall back to sleep. Anyway, kitchen duties meant he got his tea first.
He dropped into the steaming churn another scoop of the pungent butter that gave the tea its characteristic kick, enough to spark the enthusiasm of the drowsiest of monks, and threw a pat of yak dung on the fire. These moments were special for Kunga. Barely fourteen and with a sense of mischief as unbalanced as that of any boy of his age, nevertheless he had an anticipation of life that stretched considerably beyond his years and dawn was the most precious moment of his day. As the early light began to burn across the mountain peaks he ran to the unglazed window from where he could look down upon the Lake of Four Winds. The lake was the colour of deepest lapis, its water still and brooding. Mystical spirits were supposed to live in its depths, although Kunga had never seen them. He never lost hope that some day he might catch one by surprise, hiding in the mists or creeping back through the shadows of early morning. But all he could see was a scattered flock of sheep grazing stubbornly on its banks and the reflection of the mighty Himalayas, covered in perpetual snow that steamed and caught fire in the early sun.
It was because he had his head stuck out of the window that Kunga was the first to hear the approach of Death and its workmen. Sound carries great distances in the emaciated air of Tibet and they were still three miles down the valley, just entering the village. The startled cries of old Wangmo’s geese gave the alarm. At first Kunga could see only dust, a cloud that rose above the low rooftops, but it was drawing closer. Shouts echoed through the bazaar. Followed by a single shot. Then silence, except for dogs and geese. And the tramp of boots. Not Tibetans, these. Not in metal-tipped boots.
Chinese.
They had come the previous week. A bomb had gone off in the provincial capital, Nagormo, and they suspected the monks. They always suspected the monks. If the sun didn’t shine, if the barley ran short, if the roads turned to mud, it was always the fault of the monks. Superstitious lot, these Communists. And sickly, too. They couldn’t take the altitude; many of them got sick, frothed pink at the mouth and fell over. Some died. Those that didn’t blamed the monks. For everything, particularly the bombs.
A week ago they had gathered all the monks in the monastery’s main courtyard and issued a warning. Any more trouble ‘from splittists and insurrectionists’, as they called them, and retribution would be swift. While the officer threatened, the troops had trashed the living quarters and dormitories. But, strangely enough, not the temple or the burial chortens. Yes, superstitious lot, these Communists. Kunga had made up a song about them, about how all Chinese soldiers fell over, defeated by the effects of heavy Tibetan alcohol and thin Tibetan air. The other boy monks had laughed. Now, as he saw the column approaching, he wished it were true.
More shots. Kunga jumped in alarm and ran through the corridors shouting at the top of his voice. Soon others were joining in and their cries cascaded down the long stone passages, the noise dragging the abbot from his bed. The head of the monastery was elderly, rheumy-eyed and still dishevelled with sleep, his wits dulled by declining years, and he danced in anxiety as he sought to discover the reason for the disturbance. When he was told, he danced some more while he tried to decide what he should do about it. All around him monks were gesticulating and offering him every sort of advice. This served only to confuse him further, and it was several minutes before he was able to come to a decision. He gave one hop, then another, like a crane balancing on one foot, then ordered the gates to be shut.
The only entrance to the monastery was by way of a narrow bridge across a precipitous ravine. Security, of sorts. Particularly with the gates locked. But although he had given his orders, the abbot continued his inelegant dance, wary of the Chinese and fearful of the consequences of defying them. They could be so short of temper. A fresh hop. A wail of indecision. A line of mantra seeking protection. Then he turned a full circle, his monk’s shawl streaming out behind him, and changed his mind. The gates should be left open after all.
More confusion. Raised voices. Even the ancient hinges joined in with screeches of complaint. It took the combined efforts of several senior monks to turn the abbot yet again, by which time the Chinese had drawn much closer, but at last he was persuaded. The heavy wooden gates were barred tight.
While his elders argued, Kunga climbed the outer wall of the monastery. From here he could see the Chinese troops clearly, ragged in dress but tight in formation, their faces and uniforms smeared in the eternal dust blown up from the dry Tibetan plains. The officer rode a mule, the rest were on foot. No vehicles, none of the great grinding tanks Kunga had heard about. And no way through the gates. The monastery was safe, for a while. The monks had food for weeks, and they had the well. A few old rifles, too. Kunga desperately hoped the weapons would be used. To a Buddhist all life is sacrosanct – flies, worms, even Chinese – but there is a bit of cowboy in every fourteen-year-old. It would be like hitting a mad dog. Why, it was almost a public duty, he told himself.
Boys are creatures of wild imagination, and suddenly Kunga wondered if the troops had come to look for him, to punish him for his ribald song. He felt sure that somehow they had found out. He grew afraid, and the butter tea turned to stone in his stomach. Cautiously he peered over the parapet of the monastery wall as the Chinese assembled on the other side of the bridge. There were more than two hundred, he reckoned, many more than had come last week. He wasn’t to know that another bomb had gone off, inside the town hall at Nagormo, killing the Chinese administrator who had recently taken up residence. After that there weren’t going to be any more warnings.
The officer sat on his mule on the far side of the bridge and through an interpreter demanded to speak to the abbot. In the name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, open the gates! Hesitantly, the abbot raised his head above the parapet. Who was this Central Committee of the Communist Party of whatever it was? he responded. He’d never heard of such a thing. The officer shouted back that the abbot was speaking like an agent of imperialism. Even through an interpreter there was no hiding the anger. I owe allegiance to no one other than His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the abbot answered, growing emboldened, his head held higher – he always enjoyed a good debate. Your Lama, the monk-king, is gone, the Chinese replied. Impossible! His Holiness’s position is guaranteed under the Seventeen Point Agreement between Tibet and China along with many other … You’re wasting your breath, old monk. He’s gone. Deserted you. Crawled away to India. Exile. So open your stinking gates.
Kunga had never seen a weapon bigger than a rifle, and most of those he’d seen were ancient, single-shot affairs left behind by Younghusband and the British. Nothing like that could break down the great gates to the monastery, and there was no chance the officer’s scraggy mule could kick them down. It seemed simple, the Chinese could sit outside and stew until the next Losar holiday. So the argument continued with the abbot disputing the point, much as he was accustomed to do in the formalized debates that were held within the courtyard. But the officer appeared to be taking little further interest. Perhaps, thought Kunga, he had accepted that he’d lost the argument and was looking for a means of withdrawing from his position. The officer was gesticulating, but not in the proper manner of courtyard debates. The Chinaman didn’t seem to know the rules, Kunga thought contemptuously.
But in Tibet, the Chinese made up their own rules.
As the boy watched, a soldier knelt on the far side of the bridge and put something to his shoulder that was considerably larger than any rifle. He raised it, seemed to take aim. Then, with a single grenade, the soldier reduced the abbot’s arguments and the great monastery gates to matchwood.
With a ferocious cry the troops threw themselves across the narrow bridge, their boots pounding upon the wooden boards like the clatter of machine guns. They swarmed into the central courtyard, forcing the monks back with rifle butts and impatient boots. But there was no resistance.
High on the monastery wall, Kunga Tashi discovered that his youthful bravado had been left in pieces along with the gates. He found he couldn’t move. His senses had been dragged away in terror while his body was left frozen and far behind. Below him in the courtyard, events were unfolding in what appeared to be a new and altogether different world. It was a world unknown to Kunga, of disharmonies and great dangers, but it was a world through which he would have to pass. He had risen that morning a mere boy, not fully formed, inexperienced. Come the night he would have changed, grown. If he still lived. The great Wheel of Life was turning.
Once the courtyard had been secured the officer, now dismounted, strode into its middle. Behind him was dragged the abbot – quite literally dragged, his arms tied in traditional Chinese style, diagonally behind his back, which made standing very difficult. It required only the lightest prod of the officer’s riding crop to force him to his knees upon the time-sanded stone. A growl of objection rose from the monks, quickly extinguished by a few well-directed rifle butts. The abbot began to recite a mantra, trying to focus his mind elsewhere, but before he could utter more than a few syllables the leather riding crop was under his chin, forcing his head back and exposing his throat like a whipped dog. The officer said not a word, simply allowing the abbot time to contemplate his own extreme vulnerability. For many painful moments the abbot was held there, neck stretched, shuddering, until the whip was removed and his head fell forward in submission.
A rough-hewn wooden bowl was produced, one of the bowls from which the monks normally ate their staple diet of ground barley tsampa, and was placed on the flagstones directly in front of the kneeling abbot. Then, with almost comic arrogance considering his short stature and the action he was taking, the officer unbuttoned his trousers and proceeded to piss into it, allowing the stream of water to rise and fall but never to miss its target, until the bowl bubbled and steamed in the ice air and eventually overflowed.
Two soldiers picked up the bowl and put it to the abbot’s lips.
Kunga wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, to scream his outrage at the wickedness of the Chinese invaders, and he took a deep breath, so sudden that the back of his throat burned. But no sound came. He noticed he was trembling, and not from the cold.
The abbot shook his head in disgust, trying to spill the bowl and its contents, but both the bowl and its contents came back. A second time he wriggled, trying to thrust the foulness away from him, but once more it was brought back to his lips and this time the crop was beneath his chin, forcing his head back again, stretching the vulnerable neck, until his eyes stared directly to the heavens with his lips prised apart.
And they poured until the liquid spilled down his chin and stained his robes.
Still the officer said nothing. He was bored with debate, with words. He didn’t need words to put a Tibetan in his place, only a mule crop and a bowlful of Chinese piss.
The abbot slumped forward, retching. The officer strode around behind him. He had not been long in this uncomfortable world of Tibet and he didn’t care for it, this frozen, relentless land, full of strange disease. And a very long way from his family in Chungking. He had no particular dislike for the ordinary Tibetans, even though they were stubborn, with their strange superstitions and miserable food. But their monks were worthless. They contributed nothing, parasites who lived off the labour of others. And now far, far worse. They had started killing Chinese. They had left the administrator in Nagormo in so many pieces that his wife wouldn’t be able to bury anything other than scraps. So it must be brought to an end, all this bloodshed, before it spread like rats through a harvest. Otherwise he and his troops would never get back to Chungking.
As the sun rose above the monastery walls, the officer’s shadow scythed across the bowed figure of the abbot. The Tibetan was an old man, shaven headed with skin like the husk of a walnut. Harmless, in his own way, the soldier thought, and perhaps even innocent. But what did innocence matter? It was his very existence that posed the threat. No, all this had to stop, right here.
The officer cleared his throat. It was the only sound he had made since entering the monastery. His mind was made up. For the peace of the community, the good of the many. The Chinaman raised his arm, which he stretched out stiff before him, pointing. Then he put a bullet through the back of the abbot’s head.
The two worlds between which Kunga had floated, the one inside him and the one that was laid out before him in the courtyard, suddenly collided and broke into a million fragments. All around him there were screams, cries of pain and fear, the sounds of destruction. And shots. The narrow stone alleyways of the monastery filled with the frantic slipping and scraping of the monks’ soft leather sandals as they tried to flee, pursued by the pounding of steel-tipped boots. Wherever there was resistance, and particularly the pernicious resistance of prayer, a single monk was set upon by three, four, sometimes six soldiers, breaking him with boots and blows from their rifles. Then they moved on to the next.
Nothing was to remain. Brocade-mounted thanka paintings were ripped from walls they had adorned for generations, precious buddha images were broken, every one of the monastery’s effigies of compassion was crushed underfoot. This was not simply punishment, it was to be persecution.
Behind one door the soldiers discovered a hall filled with endless shelves laden with leather-bound books and parchment scrolls and ancient wooden printing blocks. The library. It contained nearly a thousand years of learning and memories. It was destroyed in as many seconds.
As the library was put to the torch a spiral of glowing ashes and smoke rose from the flames and spread across the sun. Beneath its wrathful shadow the soldiers began herding the monks who could still walk across the narrow bridge. An ancient librarian-monk, a rifle butt at his back, cried in anguish and fell to his knees, his toothless mouth praying for strength. The guards swore at him. They were about to set upon him when he rose unsteadily to his feet and with stubborn care began brushing the dust from his robes. They shouted at him to move on, but he shook his head. ‘Everything is impermanence,’ he said, uttering the last words of the Great Buddha himself. For one lingering moment he looked back to the monastery that had been his world for a lifetime, perhaps several lifetimes. His old eyes brimmed with gratitude. Then he walked to the side of the bridge and stepped off into eternity.
He fell for what seemed like forever, and as he plunged, the buttercup and claret of the monk’s robes opened and fluttered like the wings of a gentle butterfly. Until, in the darkness that clung to the very bottom of the ravine, the wings broke and lay still.
The soldiers shouted in anger, sensing they had been cheated. Older monks chanted in sorrow, while the younger ones hustled forward with a renewed sense of urgency.
Kunga watched all this from his vantage point. He was too insignificant to be a prime target for the soldiers, too frozen with fear to move. And high on that wall, surrounded by death and the destruction of so much that he loved, Kunga passed into manhood. He began to hate. He knew it was a passion he should not feel, but there it was, undeniable, embracing, and empowering.
Hate!
He’d have to deal with its karmic consequences later, but later could take care of itself. For now it warmed his blood, unfroze him, drove him on, running. Amidst the ruination that was spreading around him, he knew there was one thing he must save, one treasure that must be kept from the hateful Chinese even at the risk of his life.
His route to the great prayer hall was blocked by many soldiers, but he was small and too deft for them, ducking beneath their outstretched arms and rifles. Up close they looked so much less fearsome, their uniforms ragged and patched, their faces all but obliterated by crustings of dirt that gave them the appearance of lizards. Many seemed only a few years older than Kunga. Some seemed almost as scared. At the head of the broad stone steps that led to the prayer hall a group of monks had gathered to try to block the way of the troops, but they had nothing with which to resist other than their own bodies. Resistance became sacrifice as the Army of Liberation fell greedily upon its prey. Mao was right. The power of the human spirit was no match for the butt end of a gun. In every corner claret robes flapped and fell. More broken butterfly wings.
Kunga was quick, but not quick enough. As he rushed through the midst of the clubbing and systematic dislocation of bones, a single blow struck him on the shoulder. It sent him sprawling through the entrance to the prayer hall, where he lay stunned on the floor, defenceless. But the soldiers were like foxes in the chicken pen, distracted by too much choice. The boy could wait, until later.
The great hall at first seemed dark. Most of the butter lamps had not been lit that morning. But from all around came the sounds of the Chinese troops at their work, tearing at the magnificent hangings of satin and silk, smashing every piece of glass. Delicate wood carvings were reduced to splinters, tall stucco statues as old as the monastery itself were toppled and turned to dust beneath their boots. Along one wall ran shelves on which were set out sacred images of the Buddha, fashioned by monks from wood and bronze and plaster and even pressed butter. These were works of devotion and skill. Of many different sizes. Numbering in all more than a thousand. The work of countless lifetimes. A laughing soldier ran along the shelves with the barrel of his rifle and swept away every trace.
Spreadeagled on the cold stone floor, Kunga slowly revived, his wits restored by the heavy aroma of incense which stung his nostrils and irritated his deadened senses. He could smell something else, too, something new. His own fear. He crawled forward. He could see more clearly now, for they had started a fire at the foot of one of the great carved wooden columns that soared towards the timber roof, and onto the flames they were piling anything that might burn. The flickering light fell upon the statue of Padmasambhava, the ancient who had first brought Buddhist teachings to Tibet from the sweltering plains of India, a figure almost fifteen feet tall that filled the far end of the prayer hall. Padmasambhava appeared awesome, red eyed, his gilded skin afire, the dancing shadows lending him an expression of the most intense wrath. He held a trident in his hand, decorated with a skull and other fearsome symbols that Kunga didn’t yet fully understand, and for a moment Kunga prayed that the great Buddha himself might materialize to overwhelm the enemy and add a few more skulls to his tally.
But it was only a statue. Two soldiers began attacking it with bayonets, hacking away at the riches of precious stones and inlays that decorated its base. They were too busy with their ransacking to notice Kunga as he stole past in the shadows.
At last he was there, before a glazed shrine cabinet on the wall behind the statue. A single butter lamp flickered at the foot of a small clay Buddha, a cracked and age-brushed figure that had been made by Lama Chogyal Lumpo himself, the teacher who had founded this monastery more than a thousand years before. Kunga had always felt a special tie to Lama Chogyal. Perhaps in a previous life Kunga had been a close friend or assistant, maybe even the Lama himself. And perhaps one day Kunga would be recognized as the Lama’s reincarnation. He didn’t fully comprehend these things, but of one thing he had no doubt – he, Kunga Tashi, had a special role to play in protecting the memory of the Lama, and in particular in protecting this clay figure, the only relic of the master to survive all the accidents and indignities of time and to have passed unscathed through the ages.
It was as he stretched to his full height to open the glass-fronted cabinet that the rifle butt smashed through it. He had been caught unawares. One of the soldiers was upon him. Shards of flying glass cut across Kunga’s face and hands. Blood flowed into one eye. But hope! The figure was still intact. It wasn’t too late.
Desperately Kunga snatched it from its place, even as the soldier pushed him aside. He fell heavily, cracking an elbow, but still he clutched the statue. As he looked up, the soldier was standing above him, rifle raised. Kunga knew he was going to die. But ifhis death could help preserve the memory of the Lama, it would be a sacrifice willingly given …
The rifle butt smashed down. Not on his head, but on the clay statue. He could feel it break, yet still he refused to release it. His crippled fingers struggled to cover the fragments on the stone floor. Again and again the rifle came down, shattering both bone and clay until there was nothing of any form left. Only pain. Savage pain. Excruciating pain. Unlike anything Kunga had ever known. Once more he felt his consciousness leave his body, drifting away as he watched the soldier bring down the rifle butt time after time. Still Kunga would not let go of the statue. He would not, until both his consciousness and the pain had drifted away into darkness.
ONE
Westminster, some forty years later
Perhaps it had something to do with the ley lines, Goodfellowe wondered. Two main sets of them were supposed to converge at Westminster, directly beneath the altar of the Abbey, in fact, where once had stood a Druid temple. The Michael Ley and the Mary Ley, male and female, all options covered and chaos guaranteed. Avenues of prehistoric energy that gave this place its unusual intensity – and that edge of insanity.
He was standing barely a hundred yards from the supposed confluence of the ley lines, in the Cholmondeley Room (pronounced Chumley, sometimes through the nose), which stood at the back of the House of Lords. He’d never had much liking for diplomatic receptions even though they were an inescapable part of the duties required of Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Sod the lot of ’em. Sod ’em all! Being nice to foreigners didn’t figure prominently on his Christmas shopping list but perhaps that’s why the Prime Minister regarded him so highly. At least until tomorrow afternoon. (He’d have arranged the announcement for the morning, except the Evening Standard had recently done him a disservice and he didn’t fancy giving them an exclusive. A tiny spite, not much of a revenge, but the best he could run to at a time like this.) The letter was already signed and sealed, waiting only to be taken by messenger the few yards that separated the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from the source of power at 10 Downing Street. It would take the messenger less than three minutes in the morning. And that would be that. Close of innings. The end. Like some desperate Indian academic qualification. Thomas Goodfellowe. MP, BA University of Marshwood (Failed).
His feelings of distaste, at first generalized and unfocused, now took on physical form. Lucretia – he didn’t know her real name and didn’t care to know, but the name fitted like a corset – Lucretia had managed to get her elbow into his stomach and was using it like a jemmy to force herself between him and his companion, a fine-featured man in his early forties who possessed the glossiest of ebony faces. Lucretia was of a similar age but the gloss was evidently applied.
‘I am delighted to meet you,’ she offered in a narrow voice that matched her artificially pinched waist, addressing the black man. Dig. She slid in the jemmy a few more inches. ‘I do so enjoy such occasions. The opportunity to meet interesting new people?’
She now had her back fully towards Goodfellowe. He wasn’t used to being ignored, usually he was a centre of attention, but maybe his reclusive body language betrayed him tonight. Anyway, he’d better get used to it. Dig. Her buttock was now brushing against him, forcing him back; he could almost feel what was left of her ovaries rattling. Yes, definitely the ley lines, he concluded.
Her hand was clamped firmly onto the black man’s sleeve in a manner that implied – no, screamed – it would take either a court injunction or unrestrained coitus to effect his release. There was no doubting Lucretia’s preference. ‘And tell me, is it hot back home?’
‘Mild. For the time of year,’ he replied, attempting a noncommittal smile. His words bore only the slightest trace of an accent. Probably an educated African, she decided.
‘I have such a fascination for the Third World.’ Dig. Dig. The parting of the ways between Goodfellowe and his companion was clearly intended to be permanent. ‘And of course for its people. Such fascinating cultures, such tremendous challenges. Tell me, Your Excellency, is there much poverty in your country?’
His eyes widened. They caught Goodfellowe’s only briefly before returning to Lucretia. ‘A crushing issue, where I come from,’ he admitted. His tone implied it was all but a matter of mass starvation. Her fingers made their way from the sleeve to his hand in sympathy. They were very large hands, she noticed, powerful, but soft for a man of his age. Educated hands, she hoped, with just the necessary touch of native roughness.
‘And tell me, where is it that you come from? No, let me guess, do,’ she insisted. ‘But you must give me a clue. Does your country play cricket?’
‘Candidly, not as well as it might. The world does not truly regard us as a great cricketing nation,’ he acknowledged with remorse, as though she was ripping his conscience bare. ‘Although personally I have always taken the sport very seriously.’
‘Then it is definitely not Caribbean,’ she declared in triumph. Her first instincts were right. African. And she was a woman of exceedingly strong instincts. ‘So tell me, you are the High Commissioner for which country? Nigeria? Ghana?’
‘No, Cricklewood.’
‘Where?’
‘I come from Cricklewood, madam. In North London.’
‘But Cricklewood doesn’t have a … You’re not a High Commissioner?’
‘No.’
‘Then you are …?’ She was unable to find the social courage to finish the sentence.
‘Matthew O’Reilly, madam. A government driver. I drive Mr Goodfellowe here. Have done for years.’ Matthew beamed and Lucretia, on the brink of devastation, turned.
‘Mr … Goodfellowe?’ At last, he existed. She withdrew her hand rapidly from Matthew’s and considered offering it to Goodfellowe, but could find no appropriate words and instead waved it in the general direction of the throng. ‘Such interesting people,’ she declaimed, and without a further word launched herself into their midst.
‘I do hope the bloody cricket improves.’ Matthew smiled in her wake.
‘You could have kept up the pretence. She is obviously a serious collector of …’
‘Colonial conquests?’
‘High Commissioners. Men of elevated position.’
‘Then both of us are safe.’ Matthew chuckled. He examined Goodfellowe more critically. ‘You ought to go mix.’
‘Do I look as if I want to mix?’
Matthew shook his head.
‘Then you’ll have to do, O’Reilly.’
‘Sure thing, bwana,’ Matthew joked, but it fell on stone. ‘So, how is it on the western front?’ he enquired, picking up the threads of their conversation.
Goodfellowe considered the point. ‘Splendid,’ he suggested, but the eyes remained cold and untouched.
‘Bad as that, eh?’
The drowning of Goodfellowe’s teenage son Stevie in a holiday accident seven months earlier had been the cause of genuine sympathy in Westminster. Colleagues could see the loneliness in Goodfellowe’s features; those who knew him better could also detect the flecks of guilt. And it had got no better.
‘How’s the family?’ Matthew enquired quietly.
Matthew had driven Goodfellowe and his wife, Elinor, and their daughter Sam to the church, not just as a close work colleague but also as a friend. He had seen the bewilderment in young Sam’s eyes and noted with concern the vacant, almost detached look in Elinor’s, as though the funeral was merely another tedious official obligation that got in the way of all the private joys she would once again share with Stevie as soon as she returned home. When her longest day was over and at last she had walked back through her front door, past his new jacket that still hung on the rack and the polished boots that still waited for the new school term, she had taken herself to bed and hadn’t appeared for a week. Waiting.
‘I thought Elinor was getting a little better, but …’ Goodfellowe shrugged his shoulders. That’s what men do. Shrug. Never admit to pain. ‘And it’s tough on Samantha.’
‘It would be on any twelve-year-old. I’m very sorry, Tom.’
‘Thanks. But we’ll survive.’ Sure they would. At least, that’s what he’d thought. Though now he wasn’t quite so confident. Nor were Elinor’s doctors. There was talk of a nursing home.
Matthew could sense the loneliness. ‘You fancy coming round for a curry one evening? Flo-Jo would love to see you.’ Matthew and Goodfellowe had shared many snatched meals during their time on the Ministerial tour together and Goodfellowe had taken a particular fancy to the food that Matthew’s wife always seemed able to produce at a moment’s notice. Green chicken curry was his favourite. With extra chilli and plenty of plump, sweet sultanas.
Mind-blowing. Flo-Jo wasn’t her real name, but a pet name insisted on by Matthew. ‘From the first night I met her she’s never hung around,’ he once explained; ‘the fastest woman I’ve ever known.’ And Goodfellowe assumed he wasn’t referring simply to her cooking.
‘Be great. Love to.’ And meant it. But not tonight. He wasn’t in the mood to do justice to either the cooking or the company. Lucretia, bloody Lucretia, had offended his manhood, ignored him, and after painful months being denied proper female companionship such insults were especially wounding. He had to leave, before he began to find Lucretia – or someone like her – almost desirable and made a fool of himself. He glanced at his watch. ‘Got places to go.’
Matthew knew this was a lie. He had his own copy of the Ministerial diary. ‘Then I’ll take you.’
‘No, old friend. I need some time on my own.’
‘Then as an old friend I’ve got to tell you that’s the last thing you need.’
‘It’s a big day tomorrow. I’ll see you then.’ And with that Goodfellowe left one of the few reliable friends he had ever found in politics.
Goodfellowe decided to slip out quietly. He hadn’t met the guest of honour, and to leave without exchanging some form of greeting would unquestionably be regarded as rude. But the guest was besieged by admirers and Goodfellowe had had enough of crowds and impatient elbows for one evening. Anyway, an audience was included in Goodfellowe’s diary of official duties towards the end of the week – although by that time it would scarcely matter. Nothing seemed to matter very much any more.
He edged his way around the mass of people to the point where he was passing directly beneath the Second Earl of Cholmondeley (or at least his portrait) when his way was abruptly barred by a man clad in a wine-red shawl, right arm bare to the shoulder and holding his hands together and upright in the traditional Buddhist form of greeting.
It was the Dalai Lama.
Suddenly the room no longer seemed so crowded, so claustrophobic. Others had drawn back a pace, leaving Goodfellowe to effect his own introduction. ‘Thomas Goodfellowe,’ the politician offered.
The Lama laughed, a resonant noise like drums being beaten deep within his breast, and behind his glasses the eyes puckered in humour. ‘Of course you are. Goodfellowe. Goodfellowe!’ The name seemed to cause him considerable mirth and he swiped at the name like a benevolent cat might play with a mouse. The Dalai Lama, exiled leader of the distant Buddhist kingdom of Tibet, advanced and took both of the Minister’s hands eagerly in his own, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend. He continued to chuckle and smile, nodding a head that was scraped almost hairless in monastic style. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Thomas Goodfellowe.’ The mouth and ears were small, the brown skin weathered by exposure to elements and adversity, the glasses prominent; all the features led Goodfellowe’s attention to the Lama’s eyes, which sparkled and danced, like small crescents of the moon. Some aspect of those eyes, some attribute hidden deep away, seemed somehow familiar, like an elusive memory.
‘I am a considerable admirer of your country,’ Goodfellowe offered, since the Lama showed no indication of wanting to lead the conversation. ‘At home I have a beautiful bronze Buddha’s head.’ He’d picked it up on impulse one Saturday morning a few years ago, from Ormonde’s in the Portobello Road, a piece whose serenity had captivated him. ‘Sadly, I suspect, torn from one of your temples.’
‘Everything of value has been torn from our temples, Thomas Goodfellowe.’
‘I am sorry,’ Goodfellowe offered, taking the Lama’s comment as a rebuke.
But the deep bass drums within the Lama’s chest began to resound with laughter once again. ‘Better you have it and appreciate it, than it lie unnoticed beneath the boots of the Chinese Army. Indeed, perhaps that is the true task of the People’s Liberation Army. To make sure that the message and beauty of Tibetan Buddhism will be spread throughout the world.’ His arm waved expansively. ‘Like bees spreading pollen.’
‘I suppose so,’ Goodfellowe responded cautiously, finding the analogy uncomfortable.
The Lama laid a hand upon Goodfellowe’s shoulder. The gesture brought them still closer together but Goodfellowe felt none of the typical English diffidence at the unexpected intimacy; somehow it felt entirely natural. ‘At last our paths cross. In this life,’ the Lama offered.
At least, that’s what Goodfellowe thought he heard him say. Our paths cross. In this life. With the punctuation between the two thoughts definitive and deliberate. As though their paths might have crossed before.
‘“In this life”?’ Goodfellowe enquired.
‘We Buddhists believe in many lives.’ The voice was remarkably resonant; it seemed to spend an exceptionally long time travelling through the passages of the skull, giving it an unusual and deep timbre.
‘And you believe … we may have met before?’ Goodfellowe asked incredulously. ‘In a previous life?’
‘Who is to know?’ the Lama responded. ‘But the past is no more than a signpost on our way. It is the future that must concern us, Thomas Goodfellowe. You will be important to our future, I think.’
‘Me?’
Someone was at the Lama’s elbow now, trying to guide him on.
‘I wish you well tomorrow, Thomas Goodfellowe.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Goodfellowe was perplexed. How could the Lama know? But surely it was just another ambiguous turn of phrase. Like a fairground fortune teller.
‘And for all your days thereafter. We shall meet again.’
He was turning to leave but Goodfellowe placed a restraining hand on his arm, puzzled by the ambiguities, angered by the almost casual manner in which the Lama pretended to know more, much more, than he obviously could. Or should.
‘When? When shall we meet?’
The Lama took both of his hands once more and stared directly into his eyes. The wrinkles of amusement were gone.
‘Perhaps only after many troubles, Thomas Goodfellowe, my friend. But I want you to remember two things. That whatever it is you do, it is your motivation that matters above all else. Many may misunderstand you, but it matters not, so long as you understand yourself.’
The words struck him like a slap across the face. Understand himself? How could he? Goodfellowe was lost on the great ocean of life. His son drowned. Sails torn. His compass gone. The only thing he understood was that he couldn’t take much more of it. He felt angry again, as though the Lama had penetrated his soul and ransacked his emotions. The guest of honour was turning to leave.
‘What is the second thing?’ Goodfellowe shouted after him.
The Lama half turned. ‘That the future has a Chinese face.’ Then in a sweep of colourful robe he was gone.
Suddenly Goodfellowe felt flushed, bemused. What on earth did this strange-sounding Lama mean? What future? And why a Chinese face? It sounded surprisingly defeatist, coming from a man who had spent a lifetime trying to ensure that the only part of the Chinese anatomy his countrymen saw was the back. Above him George, the second Earl of Cholmondeley, stared down. Three hundred years earlier the good earl had been a groom to the bedchamber, Member of Parliament, lord-lieutenant of half a dozen counties and an excellent marshal who had rallied troops to the cause of four monarchs. That’s what the Dalai Lama was doing, Goodfellowe decided: trying to recruit him for the cause. He’d probably get a letter in a couple of days asking for a donation, or perhaps a subscription to some Himalayan hill-walking society. Well, tough. Money was tight and charity ran out at the door of Elinor’s nursing home.
As he was leaving, for the first time he noticed that he was holding a string of prayer beads, small circular pieces of old sandalwood threaded on silk. The Lama had left them with him; he hadn’t noticed.
That night, Goodfellowe dreamed, more vividly than he had ever dreamed before. He was sitting on a rock at the mouth of a cave. Alone. In the distance he could see mountains more vast than any he had ever known, great slabs of grey-green rock and shadows of deepest purple, leaping up from the land and stretching for the sky. A sky the colour of polished lapis. Before the mountains lay a great plain, filled with snow so intensely white that it must have been many feet thick and perhaps many centuries old. From somewhere nearby, but unseen, came the rushing of meltwater. Then the meltwater came into view, spreading like a stain across the snow. A deep red stain. Like the flowing of a lama’s robe.
The colour of flowing blood.
Goodfellowe woke with sweat trickling down his chest. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get back to sleep that night. And, after he had put in his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister, not for many nights to come.
‘Madame Lin!’ Goodfellowe exclaimed, almost as if in surprise. ‘What a pleasure. Please – come in.’
The expression on the face of the veteran Chinese diplomat made it evident that this was not one of those pleasures to be shared. Hers was an elegant face, not round and androgynous in the manner of many ageing Chinese but with high cheekbones and full lips that, when they smiled, were still very feminine. This morning, however, they were not smiling. The bun that held back the fine silver sixty-something hair seemed to have been tightened an extra turn and the dark-spice eyes, which so often glowed with humour, were narrowed and deliberately inscrutable. Her hand barely brushed the Minister’s palm in greeting.
The Ambassador was followed into Goodfellowe’s Ministerial office by her interpreter. Madame Lin spoke excellent English – with an American undertow picked up at Harvard – but there were rules of engagement to be followed this morning. Diplomatic violence was always to be undertaken in the mother tongue. For a moment Goodfellowe wondered whether he should have greeted her in the Ambassadors’ Waiting Room, a gesture of cordiality, a symbolic willingness to meet her half-way that might help soften the blow. But it could also have been taken as a sign of weakness, and such gestures had the propensity for being horribly misconstrued. There were tales filed away in the private office, and brought out only late at night, of an incident in the waiting room between one of Goodfellowe’s female predecessors and the diminutive Ambassador from the Dominican Republic, although who first laid a hand on whom varied according to the teller and the amount of water in the whisky. The Minister concerned had since gone off to become a cable TV agony aunt at three times her Ministerial salary, leaving a deep sense of loss around the masculine fringes of the Court of St James’s.
Would he be missed? Goodfellowe wondered. The Prime Minister had suggested as much when he had handed in his resignation two days before, and indeed had spent a few minutes trying to argue him out of it. But he’d soon given up. Goodfellowe was adamant, his family truly needed more of his time. Anyway, perhaps Goodfellowe’s talents were just a little too apparent for his leader’s comfort; they all but demanded his inclusion in the Cabinet at the next reshuffle. Prime Ministers like to feel they have a measure of choice in the disposition of favours, which is why they are constantly in search of abilities less evident than their own.
‘You’ll be back,’ the Prime Minister had said, not meaning it.
‘Sure,’ Goodfellowe had replied, not believing it.
But at the Prime Minister’s request Goodfellowe had agreed to stay on until the weekend to allow a decision on his replacement to be taken with deliberation, so for now Goodfellowe was going through the motions. A diplomatic game of charades. One word. Nonentity. And after the news had leaked the whole world knew it. What was still more relevant at this moment, Madame Lin knew it, too.
She refused to make herself comfortable on the sofa, insisting on perching on its edge as though ready to walk out at a moment’s notice. He sat in the easy chair beside her.
‘I have been instructed by the Government of the People’s Republic of China to protest in the strongest possible terms,’ she intoned, reading from a formal statement. The voice was husky from tobacco.
Tonelessly the interpreter translated while Goodfellowe’s private secretary scribbled hurried notes. So what else was new? Complaints from Beijing nowadays fell like apples in autumn and were normally left to rot on the ground. Particularly after Hong Kong. In Goodfellowe’s view, handing over the colony had been a great mistake, but for the Chinese it had proved to be a time of great deception, the euphoria soon draining away into what Goodfellowe described as China’s ‘duckpond of despairs’. The great tiger economy had developed ingrowing toenails. Corruption. Food riots. Then had come the failure of the absurd military adventure to retake a small outlying island off Taiwan. As the world had watched through CNN, America had coughed and the Chinese had caught a very public cold. It was all unravelling in Beijing. So they complained, endlessly and usually without merit.
‘The Dalai Lama is a splittist and a renegade and a tool of imperialism,’ Madame Lin continued, her brow furrowed. Frowning didn’t suit her, thought Goodfellowe; she had remarkably smooth skin for her age, and in her earlier years must have been something of a beauty. Is that how she had prospered? It was an ungallant thought, but Maoism was a peculiarly ungallant creed.
‘The People’s Republic of China has objected most strenuously to his presence in this country,’ she continued, ‘but we were assured that this was an informal visit, with no political overtones. Yet Ministers of the British Government have already met with the Dalai Lama and tonight he is to be a guest at the Foreign Secretary’s official residence in Carlton Gardens.’
A rather frumpy residence, in Goodfellowe’s view, but with some fine Ming blue-and-white expropriated by British troops for safekeeping while they and the French were ransacking the Summer Palace. Not the British Empire’s most laudable episode, just another in a long line of imperial punishments handed out during the last century, which was perhaps why no one had ever bothered to tell the Chinese of the porcelain’s ancestry. Although inevitably, in this brave new and abominably correct world, suggestions had been floated that the porcelain might be handed back, as a gesture of goodwill, an opportunity to creep a little closer to a market of more than a billion wallets. Goodfellowe had dug in his heels so deep he thought there was a chance he might emerge in the Yellow River. He was fed up with apologizing for the past, and with giving things back. So long as he had any say in the matter, they weren’t getting the bloody vases. As he had scrawled on the relevant memo, ‘No. They’ll just have to make do with Hong Kong.’
On the sofa, Madame Lin took a deep breath, trying to draw up her diminutive figure to its full height. The clichés of diplomatic protest were laid before him. ‘Gross interference in China’s internal affairs … my Government’s serious concerns … Britain has turned a deaf ear … Dalai’s lies and slanders … in complete disregard of the major progress on human rights made in Tibet.’
One day, just one day, Goodfellowe promised himself, he’d get to ask a Chinese why, since they claimed to have delivered Tibet from serfdom, so many of these newly liberated serfs still risked their lives trying to escape from this Maoist paradise. They walked for weeks through the Himalayas, across the highest mountains in the world, equipped with nothing more than hope and prayer. Some made it, some didn’t. Many froze. Others starved. Vulture pickings. But still they came, thousands every year. Fleeing from paradise. Yes, one day he’d ask why. But not today.
He raised his eyes. The bookcase behind Madame Lin was laden with the doodles of diplomacy – the boxes of inscribed mementoes, the paperweights and pen sets and other assorted knick-knacks that Foreign Ministers seemed compelled to exchange with each other. Most of it was engraved, over-embellished, and crap. Before every meeting one of his private secretaries would scour the room, ensuring that the gift from the visitor’s country was on prominent display. Rather like pulling the photograph of mother-in-law out of the drawer. In their own turn the Chinese were rather more subtle. Visitors to Beijing were invited to the Pearl Room where a table would be laden with strings of raw pearls, all carefully sized. They were for purchase, but at very generous prices. Yet inevitably in the diplomatic marketplace there was a careful order of things. Goodfellowe had been shown which sizes of pearl had been selected by his French counterpart, and then he had been shown those chosen by his Whitehall superior, and with great Oriental deftness had been encouraged to go a little bit better than the first while not daring to go as far as the second.
Characteristically, Goodfellowe had screwed up the system and bought nothing. Couldn’t afford it, not at any price, not nowadays. Anyway, Elinor no longer had an appreciation of such things. Of anything, come to that, in those weeks when she climbed into her pit of depression and pulled the roof in on herself. It affected Goodfellowe, too. Despair would snap at his heels like a Black Dog, determined to pursue him. He called them Black Dog days – Churchill’s expression, and so apt; the initial effect was like hearing a dog growl, from very close behind on a stormy night. And recently there had been more of them. That’s why he’d had to get out. Before he was pulled down in the same way as Elinor.
He dragged his attention back into the room. Madame Lin was nearing the end of her homily. Something about her Government’s desire to ensure that the contents of this protest be communicated directly to the highest levels of the British Government. A matter of the most considerable significance. Her sadness that the Secretary of State himself was abroad, unavailable. The strong implication that she was deeply dissatisfied at being able to see only Goodfellowe. A mere Minister. Here today, a has-been tomorrow. She didn’t use those words, but the sense hung heavily in her tone.
That hurt. Of course the snub of offering up only him to hear the complaint was deliberate, the British Government getting its retaliation in first, but it served to emphasize that already he was a man of overwhelming unimportance. Thomas Goodfellowe. A sensation when at the Home Office. The rising star of the FCO. A man who with fortune might eventually have gone all the way. But not any more. Politicians never came back. There were too many colleagues to trample on the fallen. It was over. He was nothing. She knew it and was making it part of her official complaint. And he had to sit there and take it.
Then it was over and he was handed a formal copy of the complaint, like an irresponsible driver receiving a speeding ticket. A pity, he thought. She was new in her post and, on the couple of occasions they had met, Goodfellowe had warmed to Madame Lin. Sad to end on such a sour note.
He didn’t waste much time with his official response; they both knew the script by heart; indeed the details had been discussed beforehand by their underlings and advisers. The Dalai Lama was visiting Britain privately, not in any official capacity. Any contact he had with Ministers was in his role as a religious leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, not as a political figure. And platitudes about there being no intention of Her Majesty’s Government to interfere in China’s internal affairs. After all, thought Goodfellowe, they were making enough of a mess of it on their own; they scarcely needed Britain’s help to add to the chaos.
And then it was over. Madame Lin rose, bowed and made for the door. His last formal visitor as Minister of State was leaving. He thought the occasion should have been marked in some way. A little ceremony, a short speech, a small dedication, even a bottle or two. But already his private office was preparing for a new master. The contents of his red boxes for the last two days had dwindled to nothing but personal matters, letters from colleagues, an invoice from the office for expenses that couldn’t be claimed. He’d get that drink eventually, but on his own. He was drinking too much on his own.
It was as Goodfellowe’s private secretary was showing out the visitors that she turned. Both the private secretary and the interpreter hesitated, wanting to stay, but Madame Lin ushered them onward. The private secretary stood his ground, reluctant to leave his Minister alone with the diplomat, fearful of the damage that might result from an unguided discussion. Yet Goodfellowe didn’t care for his private secretary, Maurice, nor the bureaucratic games he played. Like handing him speaking notes so late that Goodfellowe had no chance of considering them, let alone altering them. Or hiding all the important papers that Maurice didn’t want the Minister to study too carefully in the middle of the pile. And stuffing Goodfellowe’s diary so full he didn’t even have time to break wind. Should have got rid of this wretched man months ago. Now was his very last chance.
‘Don’t you have some papers to shuffle? Or spies to catch, Maurice?’
Maurice smiled, lips parting like the drawer of a well-oiled filing cabinet. ‘Did all that last week, Minister.’
‘Do it again, will you? Can’t be too careful. Not about paper.’
Maurice hesitated. ‘Yes. I’m sure we have a few last items of yours to clear, Minister. Wouldn’t want to miss any.’
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