I said to him firmly, I hope you have a good excuse for failing to return the ashes.
I certainly have, sir. Theres more Cannabis than ashes in your urn.
I dont believe you. How could my mother possibly?
We can hardly suspect your mother, sir, can we? As I told you, I think the man Wordsworth took advantage of your call[58]. Luckily for your story there are some human ashes in the urn, though Wordsworth must have dumped most of them down the sink to make room. Did you hear any sound of running water?
We were drinking whisky. He certainly filled a jug of water.
That must have been the moment[59], sir.
In any case, I would like to have back the ashes that remain.
It isnt practicable, sir. Human ashes have a kind of sticky quality. They adhere very closely to any substance, which in this case is pot. I am sending you back the urn by registered post. I suggest, sir, that you place it just where you intended and forget the unfortunate circumstances.
But the urn will be empty.
Memorials are often detached from the remains of the deceised. War memorials are an example.
Well, I said, I suppose theres nothing to be done. It wont feel the same at all. I hope you dont suspect my aunt had any hand in this[60]?
An old lady like that? Oh no, sir. She was obviously deceived by her valet.
What valet?
Why, Wordsworth, sir who else? I thought it best not to enlighten him about their relationship.
My aunt thinks Wordsworth may be in Paris.
Very likely, sir.
What will you do about it?
Theres nothing we can do. He hasnt committed an extraditable offence. Of course, if he ever returns He has a British passport. There was a note of malicious longing in Detective-Sergeant Sparrows voice that made me feel, for a moment, a partisan of Wordsworth.
I said, I sincerely hope he wont.
You surprise and disappoint me, sir.
Why?
I hadnt taken you for one of that kind.
What kind?
People who talk about there being no harm in pot.
Is there?
From our experience, sir, nearly all the cases hooked on hard drugs began with pot.
And from my experience, Sparrow, all or nearly all the alcoholics I know have started with a small whisky or a glass of wine. I even had a client who was first hooked, as you call it, on mild and bitter. In the end, because of his frequent absences on a cure, he had to give his wife a power of attorney[61]. I rang off. It occurred to me with a certain pleasure that I had sowed a little confusion in Detective-Sergeant Sparrows mind not so much confusion on the subject of Cannabis but confusion about my character, the character of a retired bank manager. I discovered for the first time in myself a streak of anarchy. Had it been perhaps the result of my visit to Brighton or was it possibly my aunts influence (and yet I was not a man easily influenced), or some bacteria in the Pulling blood? I found a buried affection for my father reviving in me. He had been a very patient as well as a very sleepy man, and yet there was about his patience something unaccountable: it might well have been absence of mind rather than patience or even indifference. He might have been all the time, without our knowing it, elsewhere. I remembered the ambiguous reproaches launched against him by my mother. They seemed to confirm my aunts story, for they possessed the nagging qualities of an unsatisfied woman. Imprisoned by ambitions which she had never realized, my mother had never known freedom. Freedom, I thought, comes only to the successful, and in his trade my father was a success. If a client didnt like my fathers manner or his estimates, he could go elsewhere. My father wouldnt have cared. Perhaps it is freedom, of speech and conduct, which is really envied by the unsuccessful, not money or even power.
It was with these muddled and unaccustomed ideas in my mind that I awaited the arrival of my aunt for dinner. We had arranged the rendezvous[62] before leaving the Brighton Belle at Victoria the day before. As soon as she arrived I told her about Sergeant Sparrow, but she treated my story with surprising indifference, saying only that Wordsworth should have been more careful. Then I took her out and showed her my dahlias.
It was with these muddled and unaccustomed ideas in my mind that I awaited the arrival of my aunt for dinner. We had arranged the rendezvous[62] before leaving the Brighton Belle at Victoria the day before. As soon as she arrived I told her about Sergeant Sparrow, but she treated my story with surprising indifference, saying only that Wordsworth should have been more careful. Then I took her out and showed her my dahlias.
I have always preferred cut flowers, she said, and I had a sudden vision of strange continental gentlemen offering her bouquets of roses and maidenhair fern bound up in tissue paper.
I pointed out to her the site where I had thought to put the urn in memory of my mother.
Poor Angelica, she said, she never understood men, and that was all. It was as though she had read my thoughts and commented on them.
I had dialled CHICKEN and the dinner arrived exactly as ordered, the main course only needing to be put into the oven for a few minutes while we ate the smoked salmon. Living alone, I had been a regular customer whenever there was a client to entertain or my mother on her weekly visit. Now for months I had neglected Chicken, for there were no longer any clients and my mother, during her last illness, had been too ill to make the journey from Golders Green.