kinds of groups. Dwight was delighted, so long as they didn't get in the way of his own programme, whose purpose I quickly gathered was to do such a good PR job on me that when I finally made my pitch to the top men at the St Poll University Press, I would make my entrance on a wave of golden opinion.
I went along with this, did the parties, pressed the flesh, talked the talk and walked the walk, but I really got a lot more enjoyment out of being with the students. How reluctantly do we all admit that we are taking leave of our youth! With what slow steps and fondly lingering backward glances do we move onward! When at last you begin to understand the truth of Byron's lines There's not a joy the world can give ‘ Like that it takes away' then you know you've started the long goodbye. Being with these kids reminded me of the way I felt in those few days at Fichtenburg when I skated and tobogganed and drank sweet coffee and ate cream cakes with Zazie, Hildi and Mouse, pleasure without responsibility, time without definition, world without end. Perhaps the cruel suddenness with which my own student days hit the rocks (yes, yes, my own fault, no resentment, no reproach!) makes me all the more desperate to clutch at these straws floating round the wreckage. Did you ever feel like this Mr Pascoe? You will be well past such immaturities, I know, but was there ever a time, even after your marriage perhaps, with your lovely daughter still little more than a voice and an appetite in swaddling clothes, when you felt a yearning to be as you had been age eighteen, nineteen, twenty, when nothing you had now seemed worth the loss of those boundless horizons, that unfathomable joy? Or even later, when your little girl lay desperately ill, or when your beloved wife was under threat, did it ever flash across your mind that if you had known it was going to be like this, you'd never have given such hostages to fortune?
Probably not. You're not like me, weak and worldly, though I like to think that in some ways we are very close. And will be closer, I hope and pray.
Anyway, like I said, I met with young people and in their company I felt young again. It is, I think, a canard that American students age for age know less than European students; but it's certainly true that they are much more eager to know more! They lapped up what I told them about Beddoes, and when (because it was easy to move from his obsession with death to my chosen way of dealing with it) I went on to tell them about Third Thought, they lapped that up too. They know nothing of the movement here, it seems, and Frere Jacques' book has not yet found a publisher in the States. I suspect that America in general and California in particular is so awash with home-grown mystic, metaphysical, quasi-religious trends and sects and disciplines that they don't feel much need to import them! But this one really appealed, perhaps because I was able to present it in truly American terms such as, How to live with death and be happy ever after! Soon we were having regular meetings which always began (my idea!) with a chorus of 'Happy We!' from Ads and Galatea. (The lyric is, of course, amatory, but this only underlines the relationship with death that Third Thought aims at. And if my suspicions about Jacques are right, how apt!) Then I'd read a passage from my copy of Jacques' book, and soon photocopied extracts were being passed around like samizdat literature in the Soviet Union. It made me realize that, do what we will with technology, there is no substitute for direct human contact. Soon the word spread around the campus, aided by the new in-greeting between initiates – Have a nice death! (One of mine too. Though I confess it owes not a little to Beddoes' jest of leaving champagne to drink his death in'.)
A spin-off of this was, by the time I was finally summoned to make my pitch to the Uni Press people, rumours of Third Thought had reached their ears too and they seemed as interested in Jacques' book as they were in mine (or rather Sam's, though the way Dwight had sold it, my part loomed disproportionately large, because, as Dwight put it when I made some mild protest, 'You're hot, breathing, and here!')
Anyway, they were very interested in both books, and by the time we'd finished talking, they'd made an offer on Beddoes and wanted to get in touch with Jacques. I got straight on the phone to Linda, who was delighted, and she got Jacques to ring me, and the upshot is I have been given full authority to act as I see best on both their behalves.
So there it is. Triumph. I came, saw, overcame. But I don't feel I can take any credit. Recently I seem to be on a roll. Question is, who's loading the dice? Initially I approached Third Thought in a pretty sceptical frame of mind. It was interesting, but no more interesting than a whole lot of weird metaphysical stuff I'd been into in my teens, with the disincentive it didn't throw in sex or drugs as part of the deal! Linda's involvement gave me a reason for sticking with it, but the more I've had to do with Frere Jacques, the more I've come to believe that there really might be something here for me.
I'm not certain where you stand on religion, Mr Pascoe. Somehow I can't see your good lady… but there I go, making assumptions. Bad habit. It really would be great to talk to you about this, and so many other matters, face to face some time. In the past our meetings have always had – how shall I put it? – a legal agenda. But over the past few weeks as I've been writing to you, I've had such a strong sense of us coming together that I have to believe, or at least very much hope, that you have felt this too.
So perhaps when I get back to Mid-Yorkshire we can meet and by the fire help waste a sullen day, or something? Please.
By the way, Dwight has told me to make full use of the mail services open to senior faculty members, so I'll send this off Express Delivery, otherwise I could get home first!
See you soon!
Yours ever, Franny
P.S. I really do like St Poll. Much more my kind of place than plashy old Cambridge! I've taken the chance whenever possible of drifting off by myself and strolling the streets – yes, it's that rarity in American towns, a place where you can actually walk for miles without exacting the interest of the local constabulary! So much to see. It's got big modern shopping malls, of course, but away from these, lots of small, very individual outlets survive, delis with delicious food, antique shops where you can still unearth a bargain, and bookshops ranging from the uni store where you can enjoy a coffee and a bagel as you read, to lovely atmospheric second-hand and antiquarian dealers.
By one of those coincidences which make life such fun, I was peering in the window of one of these when it dawned on me the name was familiar. I searched my memory and drifted back to that evening at God's when Dwight assured poor Dean Albacore that he knew a book dealer in St Poll who could put a price on anything, even something as priceless as a copy of Reginald of Durham's Vita S. Godrici. His name was Fachmann. Trick Fachmann. And that was the name I was looking at!
On a whim I went inside and introduced myself.
What a fascinating man he is. Transparently thin with piercing bright eyes, he comes across as so erudite, so scholarly, and at the same time so worldly wise. Only in America do I think you could find such a combination. I know the UK academia is full of would-be Machiavels -Albacore was such a one – but Mr Fachmann could at the same time have been a medieval ascetic and the modern consigliore to some great Mafia godfather.
I told him how come I'd heard his name, and I made enquiry, just to amuse myself, whether he could justify Dwight's boast and put a price on an original copy of Reg of Durham's Vita S. Godrici. Without hesitation he said, 'No problem.' I said, 'So what might it be?' He said, 'That depends whether I'm selling or buying.' I laughed, but he said, ‘I’m not joking. There's a market for everything. There's two kinds of possession. The common one is the conspicuous. When you've got it, baby, flaunt it! The other is private, when you both possess and are possessed by an object. You don't need the world to know as long as you know you've got it.'
I said, 'And you know the market?' to which he replied with a smile, 'Know of it. To use it would of course be illegal. It's like any other market, full of bustle and stallholders shouting their wares. That amuses you? Listen, any movement of antiquities of any kind anywhere and ears prick. It's like the stock exchange. Movement means availability. I know antique dealers round here who get a dozen enquiries every time the Getty down at Malibu makes a purchase. There's some big deal just gone down for some Brit collection. Once it's in the Getty, forget it. But to get here it's got to be on the move, so the market stirs.'
I presume he meant the Elsecar Horde, which us who live in Yorkshire know all about. He sounded serious too, so perhaps you'd better keep your eyes skinned, Mr Pascoe! (Teaching my grandmother – sorry!)
Anyway, Trick and I talked at length and I told him all about myself. When I mentioned Beddoes, he went to his shelves and came back with a copy of the 1850 Pickering edition of Death's Jest-Book. Very few were produced, even fewer survive. I took it from him and held it, which was fatal. I felt that burning lust for possession whatever the cost, which I'm sure a man of culture like yourself must understand. I did not dare ask the price, but my eyes must have spoken the question for he said as if we'd been bargaining, 'OK, here's my final offer. You keep hold of this and send me a signed first edition of your Beddoes book and of every other book you subsequently produce. Deal?'
