Death in Devon

‘I’m sure we will, Miss Morley.’

‘You … and me,’ she said.

‘And your father, of course.’

‘Hmm.’

She walked off then, turning only to wave goodnight and to cast the mystery of her smile before me, like a cryptic invitation, or a code I was supposed to crack.

I entered my room and lay down on my bed, exhausted.

God, it was good to be back.

CHAPTER 2

PRANIC BREATHING

AS MORLEY HAD PREDICTED, there was a storm. I stood watching it from the window of my room as the lightning at first flickered feebly in the distance and then, as it came closer, began flashing through the darkness, illuminating both sky and earth, thunder reverberating everywhere, the whole building humming in response, it seemed to me, window frames squealing, until finally, after all the tumult, the soft rain came splashing down, dripping from the eaves above my little dormer window as though the house itself were weeping.

Eventually I fell asleep, with the assistance of only a couple of pills, and topped up with no more than half the bottle of brandy I’d brought with me in case of emergency, and which I’d intended to last me for some time. And then, as usual, I woke early, tense from another terrible dream – Spain, gunfire – in Laocoon-like distress, twisted, hot and uncomfortable, the sheets tangled tight around my body. Freeing myself from the bed, I rose, splashed myself with cooling water from the washstand, threw open the heavy damask curtains and stood by the open window, allowing the morning air to calm my racing thoughts. As I gazed out across the vast north Norfolk landscape, my previous life – all my indulgences and regrets, my lies and my mistakes – suddenly seemed far away. Everything seemed invigoratingly fresh and new. All that mattered now, I tried to convince myself, were the County Guides.

All I had with me were the clothes that Morley had kindly provided me with, a wash kit, some shaving gear and a few books. My humble tout ensemble. Having given up my digs in London I no longer had a permanent home: it seemed now as if every room I stayed in was almost immediately cleansed of my presence. Before leaving London I had purchased a few books to accompany me: George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and a second-hand edition of Pound’s A Draft of XXX Cantos, published by the Hours Press in Paris, the hessian cover already worn thin. I was on another self-improvement jag. Not in the mood for either Orwell or etymology, I began flicking through the Pound, trying to find something at least half-readable, until I came to Canto XXX, and the poem beginning ‘Compleynt, compleynt I hearde upon a day’:

All things are made foul in this season, This is the reason, none may seek purity Having for foulnesse pity And things growne awry; No more do my shaftes fly To slay. Nothing is now clean slayne But rotteth away.

Both inexplicably cheered and thoroughly depressed, I shaved and dressed and went downstairs. I thought I would go outside to smoke. It was, by this time, about 5.30 a.m.

To my great surprise, as I walked quietly outside and around St George’s, along the path fringed with flowers and grasses that leads eventually under the narrow archway tangled with roses, and past the yew hedges down towards the model farm and the orchards, I came across Morley standing on the lawn outside his study. He was dressed only in a pair of pure white underpants and a white vest, without shoes or socks. His eyes were closed and his arms outstretched, as if in an enormous embrace, and the grass was thick with rain, and his breath rose from him like … I can only properly describe it as like steam rising from a dish of potatoes, though Pound would perhaps have described it as like steam from a bowl of rice, or Yeats perhaps as a grey mist, Auden as like a cigarette smouldering in a border, and Eliot – I don’t know – as a kind of god river sweat? I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever write a poem again, and indeed if I ever truly wrote one. If nothing else, my time with Morley convinced me of my own limited capacities as a writer.

The gardens and grounds of St George’s stretched out far behind Morley, in bright greens and in grey-green hollows of mist. He appeared in that moment, I thought, almost a kind of Christ figure, hanging suspended over the early morning English landscape. It was a strange and particular scene, and yet also somehow entirely everyday – and of course rather comic and banal. As Morley himself often liked to remark, the juxtapositions and non sequiturs of everyday life are often more astonishing than even the most extraordinary work of art. ‘There is no such thing as the avant-garde’ – this was one of his favourite sayings, repeated in a number of his books, including Morley’s Style Manual for Writers and Editors (1936) and Art for Art’s Sake (1939) – ‘there is only the garde-en-retarde. All artists are catch-up artists and merchants in nostalgia.’

In his semi-clad reverie he didn’t seem to notice me, so I stood behind a large shrub, finishing my cigarette, watching him silently from a distance. A big grey-backed fox – that old type of fox that one rarely sees any more – came prancing across the lawn, came towards him, glanced up, flirtatiously almost, and then trotted on, doubtless towards its breakfast in the hen-house and the orchards. Birds called – let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they were blue tits, willow warblers and chiff-chaffs, though at the time, in all honesty, I could not have recognised any of their calls, having only in recent years taken up Morley’s frequent admonition to make myself familiar with birdsong and the sounds of nature – and a couple came and settled so close almost as to rest upon him.

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.

‘Irish dogs,’ said Morley. ‘Like Irish men. Or women, for that matter. Not to be trifled with. Cave canem, Sefton – as they said in old Pompeii.’ He stroked the dog absentmindedly. ‘You really do need to learn how to handle animals, Sefton. They can sense fear, you see. Like children. One should simply fondle them – thus – when they’re near.’ He fondled the dog, thus. ‘But without appearing to pay them much attention.’ He then duly paid the dog no attention. ‘Very much like the Irish … So. Anyway,’ he said, striding around in his underwear, as if it were the most natural way to conduct a meeting. ‘There’s Norfolk.’ He pointed to a pile of typed papers, stacked on the floor next to boxes of index cards: the work of the past week. What was impressive was not only his uncanny ability to produce copy but also his capacity for processing information of all kinds; he had a method of both overseeing and arranging material that was entirely his own, or certainly that I had never encountered before and that required the constant categorising, filing and sub-categorising and refiling of his papers and notecards. He often worked through the night, shuffling papers.

Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced in the Celtic fashion)

He pointed to another teetering pile of papers on a desk.

‘And there’s some correspondence we should probably sort before setting off, Sefton. There’s been quite a lot of talk about what happened in Norfolk, as you know. I’d like to avoid any such troubles on our next trip.’

‘Of course.’

‘Anyway, I cleared a couple of dozen letters before going to bed last night, but I’d like to get them all done before we leave.’

‘I see. It seems like rather a lot,’ I ventured. I imagined that such a pile of correspondence might take several days to work through.

‘And what is our motto here, Sefton?’

‘No slacking.’

‘Correct.’

‘No shilly-shallying.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And no funking.’

At that moment Miriam appeared at the study door. She was dressed and made up, as usual, in a fashion that suggested that she was about to arrive fashionably late at a cocktail party, probably somewhere in Kensington, thronged with wealthy and elegant suitors.

The County Guides: Norfolk, in preparation

‘Hard at it already then, boys?’

‘Ah, Miriam,’ said Morley. ‘You’re uncharacteristically bright and early.’

‘Good morning, Father. Yes. The storm kept me awake in the night. I was terribly disturbed. And what about you, Sefton? Another long and lonely night?’

‘I slept as well as could be expected, Miss Morley.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘We’ll be leaving at seven, children,’ said Morley. ‘Quick breakfast, and on the road. I want to be in Devon by nightfall.’

‘Devon?’ I said.

‘And when is your speech, Father?’

‘Tomorrow. Founder’s Day.’

‘You’re giving a speech?’ I said. ‘In Devon.’

‘Yes, I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. I’ve been asked to give the Founder’s Day address down at All Souls, Sefton. They’ve just moved into new school buildings down there somewhere. Where is it, Miriam?’

‘Rousdon, Father.’

‘Rousdon, yes, that’s it, and—’

‘Or Rouse them, Sefton,’ said Miriam coquettishly.

‘So the plan is to base ourselves there and tackle Devon. Book number two. How does that sound, Sefton?’

‘Mad,’ said Miriam. ‘Utterly, utterly mad. As usual.’

‘Super,’ I said.

‘Oh, please,’ said Miriam. ‘Soo-per. If you’d wanted someone to soft-soap you, Father, you could have employed a masseur.’ She raised a quizzical eyebrow towards me.

‘Thank you, Miriam,’ said Morley. ‘Let’s fight nicely, shall we?’

‘Sorry, gents. Must pack,’ said Miriam, leaving as abruptly as she’d arrived, glimmering as she went.

‘Untameable,’ said Morley, shaking his head. ‘Wild, Sefton. Utterly wild. Like Devon.’

The Lagonda

CHAPTER 3

GATEWAY TO THE RIVIERA

AFTER A BRIEF but exhausting breakfast – Morley expatiating on the history of sausages, the music of Wagner, the music of birdsong, the symbolic meaning of the human hand, and the decline of smithying (‘It’s the bicycles I blame, Sefton, not the cars, and of course people getting rid of the pony and trap’) – Miriam and I loaded the Lagonda and prepared to set off. The weather was sullen, and so was Miriam. After everything had been loaded – massive stationery supplies, mostly – I assisted her in lashing a couple of long planks to the side of the car.

‘Careful with the paintwork, Sefton, or you’ll have to touch it up. We wouldn’t want that, would we?’

‘No, Miss Morley,’ I agreed.

‘Ah,’ said Morley, appearing fortuitously with his trusty Irish terrier. He tapped the long wooden boards with a great deal of proprietorial pleasure. ‘They arrived then?’

‘Apparently,’ said Miriam.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they, Sefton?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. My attention was elsewhere: I was attempting to fondle the dog, and simultaneously to ignore it, as Morley had advised. But the dog was not impressed – the damned thing was tugging determinedly at the turn-ups on my trousers.

‘Finn!’ said Miriam sternly, and the dog immediately stopped and trotted off. Miriam gave me a pitying smile.

‘Absolutely beautiful,’ Morley was saying to himself, about the boards, which were indeed beautiful – sleek, rounded, polished – though I had absolutely no idea what on earth they were.

‘Solid ash,’ said Morley. ‘Had them made by Grays of Cambridge – the cricket chaps. Not cheap. But worth every penny. They finish them with the shinbone of a reindeer. Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Gives a lovely finish.’

‘And they are …?’

‘Surfboards, of course,’ said Morley.

I must have looked, I suppose, rather nonplussed. It was still early in the morning.

‘Really, Sefton, have you never seen a surfboard?’ said Miriam, delighted.

‘No. Of course I’ve seen … surfboards and … surfboarding, but—’

‘Well, you’re in for a treat,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘It’s very—’

‘Liberating,’ said Miriam.

‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘Liberating is exactly the word. Like flying. Being free.’

‘It’ll be a new experience for you, Sefton,’ said Miriam.

‘Hawaiian in origin, obviously,’ said Morley, as he climbed into the back of the car, and Miriam fitted his portable desk with his typewriter stays. ‘I’ve done a little research, I think our best bets are north Devon. Saunton. Croyde. Round about there.’

‘We could camp on the beach!’ said Miriam, clapping her hands, and then carefully slotting Morley’s favourite travelling Hermes typewriter into place.

‘It sounds like it’s going to be quite an adventure,’ I said, climbing into the back next to Morley, who unceremoniously dumped the manuscript of the Norfolk book and a pile of index cards into my lap.

‘Let’s hope so!’ said Miriam, climbing into the front, and starting up the engine, which gave its customary pleasing growl. ‘Better than bloody Norfolk anyway.’

‘Language, Miriam,’ said Morley.

‘I need adventure, Father.’

‘I know, my dear – don’t we all. And Devon is of course the great county of adventurers and explorers. Scott of the Antarctic – from?’

‘Plymouth?’ said Miriam.

‘Correct. And Sir Francis Drake, the old sea dog, born near? Sefton?’

‘Erm. Plymouth?’ I said.

‘Tavistock. So we’ll have to pay respects. And we’ll also have to visit Sir Walter Raleigh’s bench ends in All Saints, East Budleigh.’

‘Great,’ I said, as Miriam raced the car down St George’s long drive.

‘And a trip to Axminster, home of the eponymous carpet. Exeter, obviously. And Ottery St Mary.’

‘Utterly St Mary!’ said Miriam.

‘Ever heard of it, Sefton?’

‘No, I—’

‘Shame on you. Church modelled on Exeter Cathedral, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born there. Ring any bells?’

‘Erm.’

‘Yawn,’ said Miriam.

‘And speaking of bells, it has a clock, I think, that’s said to date from the fourteenth century, and which is one of the only pre-Copernican clocks in the country—’

‘And there’s surfing,’ said Miriam. ‘Which way, Father?’

‘Left.’

And so the conversation and the journey continued across country and down to Devon, hour after hour after endless hour, Morley, like Pliny the Elder, continually making notes along the way – ‘Lavender! Roses! Gypsophila! Dry-stone wall!’ – while I corrected his work on the manuscript of the Norfolk book, and Miriam smoked innumerable cigarettes and offered the occasional taunt and barbed aside: she was, as usual, determined to provoke. Somewhere in Essex, for example, I think it was, we passed a woman riding a horse and this excited a typical little Miriam provocation. She often spoke like someone trying to get around the Hays Code.