did us proud.
There were a couple of speeches in Latin, I think, and of course we kicked off with an interminable grace which, among other things, called down the Lord’s fury on the college’s enemies.
That one was in English, just in case the Lord didn’t get the point. This brought lots of enthusiastic amens, and I realised that these people must be feeling the pressure a bit, what with all this talk of relevance and inclusiveness and all those things.
And I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for them, you know, Matthew. Imagine if you had fixed yourself up with a number like that and then suddenly the winds of change start blowing and people want to stop you having feasts and eating Stilton. It can’t be easy.
“Of course, it’s foolishness of a high order to destroy these things. The Americans would sell their souls just to get something vaguely approximating to All Souls – they really would.
It’s such a pity, because they would have such fun in places like that. The Canadians, of course, have got something like it. I know somebody who visited it once – a place called Massey College in Toronto. It was presided over by Robertson Davies, you know – that wonderful novelist. He was the Master. Now they’ve got somebody of the same great stripe, an agreeable character called John Fraser, who has a highly developed talent for hospitality, as it happens. Thank God for the Canadians.
“Well, at the feast, I ended up sitting next to none other than Professor Sykes, the genetics man, and he told me the most extraordinary story. I know it has nothing to do with anything, Matthew, but I must tell you. You may remember that he was the person who did the DNA tests on the Ice Man, that poor fellow they dug out of a glacier in France. He’d kicked the bucket five thousand years ago, but was in pretty good condition and so they were able to conduct a postmortem and look at the DNA 108
“But then, Matthew, it gets even more peculiar. When this woman from Dorset or wherever it was got wind of the fact that she was related to the Ice Man, do you know what she started to do? She began to behave like a relative, and started to ask for a decent burial for the Ice Man!
“Which just goes to show, Matthew, that when expectations are created, people rise to the occasion. They always do. Always.”
Angus paused. “What do you think of that, Matthew?”
“I think she did the right thing,” said Matthew.
Matthew thought for a moment. He had answered the question impulsively, and he wondered if he was right. But now, on reflection, even if brief, he decided that he was.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “I think that this was probably the right thing. Look, Angus, would you like to be put on display in a museum or wherever, even if you were not around to object? If you went tomorrow, what would you think if I put you on display in, say, a glass case in Big Lou’s cafe? You’d not want that, I assume. And nor, I imagine, would the Ice Man have wanted to
be displayed. He might have had beliefs about spirits not getting released until burial, or something of that sort. We just don’t know what his beliefs were. But we can imagine that he probably would not like to be stared at.”
Angus frowned. “No, maybe not. But then, even if we presume that he wouldn’t want that, do we really have to respect the wishes of people who lived that long ago – five thousand years?
Do we owe them anything at all? And, come to think of it, can you actually harm the dead? Can you do them a wrong?”
Matthew thought that you could. “Yes,” he said. “Why not?
Let’s say I name you executor in my will. I ask you to do something or other, and you don’t do it. Don’t you think that people would say that you’ve done me a wrong, even though I’m not around to protest?”
Matthew was warming to the theme. The argument, he thought, was a strong one. Yes, it was wrong to ignore the wishes of the dead. “And what about this?” he continued. “What if you snuffed it tomorrow, Angus, and I told people things about you that damaged your reputation – that you were a plagiarist, for instance? That your paintings were copies of somebody else’s. Wouldn’t you say that I had harmed you? Wouldn’t people be entitled to say: ‘He’s done Angus Lordie a great wrong’?”
Angus looked doubtful. “Not really,” he said. “There’ll be no more Lordie. I’ll be beyond harm. Nothing can harm me then.
That’s the great thing about being dead. You don’t mind the weather at all.”
“But you could say: ‘He’s harmed his reputation’? You could say that, couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Angus. “You could say that, because I shall still have a reputation – I hope – for a short time after I go. But the Ice Man’s another matter altogether. As is Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte. You can say whatever you like about them because . . . because they’re no longer part of the human community.” Angus looked pleased with the phrase. “Yes, that’s it –
that’s the distinction. Those who have recently left us are still 110
Something was bothering Matthew. “What about these posthumous pardons? What about the men who were shot for cowardice in the First World War? Aren’t they being pardoned now? What do you think of that, Angus? With your argument, surely they would be too long dead to have any claim to this?”
Angus took a sip of his beer. “I’m not sure about that,” he said. “They still have relatives – descendants
