The Manticore

"We had a blazing row. Things were said that had poor Beesty white with misery, and he kept mumbling, 'Oh come on, Denyse, come on, Davey; let's try to get along' – which was idiotic, but poor Beesty has no vocabulary suitable to large situations. Denyse dropped any pretence of liking me and let it rip. I was a cheap mouthpiece for crooks of the worst kind, I was a known drunk, I had always resented my father's superiority and tried to thwart him whenever I could, I had said inexcusable things about her and spied on her, but on this one occasion, by the living God, I would toe the line or she would expose me to unimaginable humiliations and disgraces. I said she had made a fool of my father since first she met him, reduced his stature before the public with her ridiculous, ignorant pretensions and stupidities, and wanted to turn his funeral into a circus in which she would ride the biggest elephant. It was plain speaking for a while, I can tell you. It was only when Beesty was near to tears – and I don't mean that metaphorically; he was sucking air noisily and mopping his eyes – and when Caroline turned up that we became a little quieter. Caroline has a scornful manner that exacts good behaviour from the humbler creation, even Denyse.

"So in the end Beesty and I were given our orders to go to the undertaker and choose a splendid coffin. Bronze would be the thing, she thought, because it would be possible to engrave directly upon it.

"'Engrave what?' I asked. I will say for her that she had the grace to colour a little under her skilful make-up. 'The Staunton arms,' she said. 'But there aren't any -' I began, when Beesty pulled me away. 'Let her have it,' he whispered. 'But it's crooked,' I shouted. 'It's pretentious and absurd and crooked.' Caroline helped him to bustle me out of the room. 'Davey, you do it and shut up,' she said, and when I protested, 'Carol, you know as well as I do that it's illegal,' she said, 'Oh, legal!' with terrible feminine scorn."

5

At my next appointment, feeling rather like Scheherazade unfolding one of her never-ending, telescopic tales to King Schahriar, I took up where I had left off. Dr. von Haller had said nothing during my account of my father's death and what followed, except to check a point here and there, and she made no notes, which surprised me. Did she truly hold all the varied stories told by her patients in her head, and change from one to another every hour? Well, I did no less with the tales my clients told me.

We exchanged a few words of greeting, and I continued.

"After we had finished with the undertaker, Beesty and I had a great many details to attend to, some of them legal and some arising from the arrangement of funeral detail. I had to get in touch with Bishop Woodiwiss, who had known my father for over forty years, and listen to his well-meant condolences and go over the whole funeral routine. I went to the Diocesan House, and was a little surprised, I can't really say why, that it was so businesslike, with secretaries drinking coffee, and air-conditioning and all the atmosphere of business premises. I think I had expected crucifixes on the walls and heavy carpets. There was one door that said 'Diocesan Chancellery: Mortgages' that really astonished me. But the Bishop knew how to do funerals, and there wasn't really much to it. There were technicalities: our parish church was St. Simon's, but Denyse wanted a cathedral ceremony, as more in keeping with her notions of grandeur, and as well as the Bishop's, the Dean's consent had to be sought. Woodiwiss said he would take care of that. I still don't know why I was so touchy about the good man's words of comfort; after all, he had known my father before I was born, and had christened and confirmed me, and he had his rights both as a friend and a priest. But I felt very personally about the whole matter -"

"Possessively, would you say?"

"I suppose so. Certainly I was angry that Denyse was determined to take over and have everything her own way, especially when it was such a foolish, showy way. I was still furious about that matter of engraving the coffin with heraldic doodads that weren't ours, and couldn't ever be so, and which my father had rejected himself, after a lot of heart-searching. I want that to be perfectly clear to you; I have no quarrel with heraldry, and people who legitimately posess it can use it as they like, but the Staunton arms weren't ours. Do you want to know why?"

"Later, I think. We'll come to it. Go on now about the funeral."