Part 2 (1/2)

”And then there's shame,” James continued. ”Shame is signified by the placing of the fingers over the eyes. Comme ca.”

Caroline was not surprised by the representation of shame; it might have been a Renaissance gesture, but it was also the gesture of those convicted of contemporary crimes, those unfortunates led from the court who s.h.i.+elded their eyes with their fingers in exactly the same way. Schadenfreude, she remembered; we love the shame of others nothing makes the mob happier than the sight of somebody humiliated. She had read an article somewhere about its effects: how we enjoyed our feeling of moral superiority; how readily we exploded into moral outrage over the misdeeds of public people caught out. And all the time we ignored or were unaware of the glaring fact that such people were the way they were because we were the way we were. A rotten society produces rotten public figures.

As their train rattled on to its destination, James continued with his observations on the language of gesture. ”Of course there are all sorts of sign language,” he went on. ”Auctioneers, merchants, bookies. Have you seen tic-tac being used?”

Caroline had not.

James smiled. ”It's the sign language used by bookies,” he said. ”They signal across the track. They show the odds that way.” He paused, and then reached up and put a hand on either side of his nose. ”That's odds of five to two,” he explained.

Caroline raised an eyebrow. ”Why don't they use mobile phones?”

James sighed. ”They do these days,” he said. ”It's so sad. It's another language that's biting the dust. But at least there are the monks.”

”The monks?”

”Monastic sign language,” said James. ”People like Cistercians, who discourage unnecessary talking. Do you know that they have an elaborate system of communicating without speech?”

”Why?” It struck Caroline as odd that one would eschew one form of communication only to resort to another: what did it matter how one communicated if the end result was the same the message was conveyed?

James shrugged. ”It's to do with rejecting the noise and distraction of the world,” he said. ”I think they've got a point. There's so much noise, Caroline.” He gave her an intense look as he uttered the word noise, as if to suggest, she thought, that she was the source of more than her fair share of this din.

If James had intended to blame Caroline for the shattering of the peace, he did not pursue the accusation. There was more to be said, it transpired, on monastic sign language.

”I once saw a whole book on the subject,” he said. ”It had pictures of monks making gestures with their hands. So, do you know how to do soul?” He paused, but only momentarily; of course Caroline could not be expected to know something like that, it was monks' business. ”You put your hand above your head like this and then you look upwards.”

”I think it's ridiculous,” said Caroline. ”It's all male silliness like those ridiculous signs that Masons have. The handshakes and so on.”

James narrowed his eyes. ”How do you know about that?” he asked.

Caroline glanced across the carriage as she prepared to answer. A man seated opposite her a man wearing a pinstripe suit was staring at her with interest, as if awaiting her answer. Suddenly she felt inhibited.

The man leaned forward. One did not talk to strangers in such circ.u.mstances, but he seemed indifferent to this; she sensed danger. ”Nothing ridiculous about the Masons,” he said, his voice barely raised above the clatter of the train. ”You should remember that, my dear!”

Chapter 8: Tibetan Hats.

They emerged into the light through the Charing Cross Road exit of Leicester Square Station.

”Obviously a Mason,” said James. ”Spooky.”

”They've got that big hall near here,” said Caroline. ”Freemasons' Hall. Great Queen Street. Perhaps he was on his way there.”

James smiled. ”For a ceremony of some sort, do you think?”

Caroline was not sure. ”Should we have asked him?”

James did not think this a good idea. ”You can't ask members of a secret society what they're up to,” he said. ”It spoils their fun. And it's rude, too. It's like laughing at Black Rod or the Garter King of Arms when they're all dressed up for one of those occasions of theirs.”

They made their way round the corner into Cecil Court. This was a shopping expedition of the curious variety that James and Caroline enjoyed undertaking in each other's company an expedition in search of something small and obscure. They never shopped together for the functional or the necessary, for sweaters or shoes or the like; it was hardly any fun going with somebody into a shop on Oxford Street or Regent Street. In fact, nor was it any fun going into such a shop without somebody.

James had to collect something from a book-dealer in Cecil Court, an out-of-print monograph on the sense of imminent event in the works of Nicolas Poussin not something one could readily buy on Oxford Street, given its lamentable decline. For her part, Caroline planned to pick up a Tibetan wool hat from a stall in Covent Garden Market. She had seen the hat a few weeks earlier and had vacillated, a fatal thing to do when confronted with shopping temptation. Since then, she had regretted her failure to make the purchase.

”Fifteen pounds,” she said to James. ”That's all it was. I should have bought it.”

”Fifteen pounds is not much for a hat these days. Tibetan, you say?”

”In concept,” said Caroline. ”I think they're actually made in Bermondsey.”

”By Tibetans?”

Caroline did not think so. ”The woman who sells them was knitting one when I was at her stall. She was Irish, I think. Or she certainly sounded it.”

”She might have had a bit of Tibetan in her,” said James. ”One never knows, and perhaps one should give the benefit of the doubt in such a case.”

”Does it matter?”

James shook his head. ”Of course not. Hats don't have to come from where they claim. Look at panamas. They come from Ecuador.” He slowed down to peer into the window of a secondhand bookshop. ”You know, I saw the Dalai Lama once.”

Caroline was interested. ”Where?”

”Outside Foyles,” replied James. ”He had been signing copies of a book he wrote. And he came out of the shop as I was walking along the pavement. He had some people with him who sort of ushered him into a car, and off they went up towards Tottenham Court Road. Floated off, really. It was very ...” he seemed to be searching for the right word. ”It was very spiritual.”

”How strange. In the middle of London, with all the traffic and so on.”

James agreed. ”Exactly. What struck me was the sense of peace that he radiated it was a sort of glow. You know how some people glow.”

”No.”

”Well, they do. They glow because they're full of inner peace and resolution.” He turned away from the bookshop window and looked directly at Caroline. ”Most of us don't really know what we want in this life, do we? We spend our time rus.h.i.+ng around from here to there, and then back again. We have a very strong sense of forward motion. The Dalai Lama wasn't like that or at least he wasn't when I saw him in Charing Cross Road.”

They continued to walk down Cecil Court. ”You know that they find him?” said James.

”Who?”

”The Dalai Lama,” he said. ”They find a new Dalai Lama as a child. He's the reincarnation, you see, of the last one. They look for signs.” He paused. ”We could do that with the Archbishop of Canterbury, don't you think? We could find the reincarnated Archbishop of Canterbury as a small boy and bring him up in his new role.”

Caroline laughed. ”He'd have a terrible time at school,” she said. ”Imagine how he'd be teased by the other kids. And it would be difficult for the teachers too. 'Stop talking and get on with your work, please, Archbishop of Canterbury.' It wouldn't be easy.”

”They'd call him Your Grace,” said James. ”That's what you call the Archbishop of Canterbury. Teachers would know that sort of thing.” He paused for a moment. ”Or maybe not ...”

They reached a small bookshop with a display of modern first editions in the window. ”This is the place,” James said. ”Tindley and Chapman. It's a great place. They've got all sorts of stuff.”