Dialogues of the Dead

“Probably not,” said Dee. “Be glad of your professional opinion though, Charley.”

Penn moved round the table so that he was looking down at Rye and showed uneven teeth in what she called his smarl, assuming he intended it as a smile and couldn’t help that it came out like a snarl. “Not unless you’ve got a sudden budget surplus.”

When it came to professional opinions, or indeed any activity connected with his profession, Charley Penn’s insistence that time equalled money made lawyers seem open-handed.

“So how can I help you?” said Dee.

“Those articles you were tracking down for me, any sign yet?”

Penn had no difficulty squaring his assertion that the labourer was worthy his hire with using Dee as his unpaid research assistant, but the librarian never complained.

“I’ll just check to see if there’s anything in today’s post,” he said.

He rose and went into the office behind the desk.

Penn remained, his gaze fixed on Rye.

She looked back unblinkingly and said, “Yes?”

From time to time she’d caught the old Viking looking at her like he was once more feeling the call of the sea, though so far he’d stopped short of rapine and pillage. In fact his preferred model seemed to be that guy in the play (what the hell was his name?) who went around the Forest of Arden, pinning poems to trees. From time to time scraps of Penn’s Heine translations would be put in her way. She’d open a file or pick up a book and there would be a few lines about a despairing lover staring down at himself staring up at his beloved’s window or a lonely northern fir-tree pining for the hand of an unattainably distant palm. Their presence was explained, if explanation were demanded, by inadvertence, accompanied by a knowing version of the smarl which was what she got now as Penn said, “Enjoy,” and went after Dee.

Now Rye gave her full attention to the First Dialogue, skimming through it rapidly, then reading it again more slowly.

By the time she’d finished, Dee had returned and Penn was back in his usual seat in one of the study alcoves from which he had been known to bellow abuse at young students whose ideas of silence did not accord with his own.

“What do you think?” said Dee.

“Why the hell am I reading this? is what I think,” said Rye. “OK, the writer’s trying to be clever, using a single episode to hint at a whole epic to come, but it doesn’t really work, does it? I mean, what’s it about? Some kind of metaphor of life or what? And what the hell’s that funny illustration all about? I hope you’re not showing me this as the best thing you’ve come across. If so, I don’t want to look at any of the other stuff in your possibles pile.”

He shook his head, smiling. No smarl this. He had a rather nice smile. One of the rather nice things about it was that he used it alike to greet compliment or insult, triumph or disaster. A couple of days earlier for instance a lesser man might have flapped when a badly plugged shelf had collapsed under the weight of the twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary, scattering a party of civic dignitaries on a tour of the borough’s newly refurbished Heritage, Arts and Library Centre. Only one of the visitors had been hit, receiving the full weight of Volume II on his toe. This was Councillor Cyril Steel, a virulent opponent of the Centre whose voice had frequently been raised in the council against “wasting good public money on a load of airy nowt.” Percy Follows had run around like a panicked poodle, fearing a PR disaster, but Dee had merely smiled into the TV camera recording the event for BBC Mid-Yorks and said, “Now even Councillor Steel will have to admit that a little learning can be a dangerous thing and not all our nowts are completely airy,” and continued with his explanatory address.

Now he said, “No, I’m not suggesting this as a contender for the prize, though it’s not badly written. As for the drawing, it’s part illustration and part illumination, I think. But what’s really interesting is the way it chimes with something I read in today’s Gazette.”

He picked up a copy of the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette from the newspaper rack. The Gazette came out twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. This was the midweek edition. He opened it at the second page, set it before her and indicated a column with his thumb.

AA MAN DIES IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT

The body of Mr. Andrew Ainstable (34), a patrol officer with the Automobile Association, was found apparently drowned in a shallow stream running under the Little Bruton road on Tuesday morning. Thomas Killiwick (27) a local farmer who made the discovery theorized that Mr. Ainstable, who it emerged was on his way to a Home Start call at Little Bruton, may have stopped for a call of nature, slipped, and banged his head, but the police are unable to confirm or to deny this theory at this juncture. Mr. Ainstable is survived by his wife, Agnes, and a widowed mother. An inquest is expected to be called in the next few days.