Death in Disguise Read online

  If only she had been able to learn the sex of the person the Master was addressing. She would then simply have confided in someone of the opposite gender.

  She jumped to her feet almost growling with crossness, for May could not bear to think there was something wrong that couldn’t be fixed. She started to pace up and down, calling silently but with great force on Kwan-Yin, the pale peach lady master, under whose guidance and sublime patronage she had been placed during a charming ceremony involving a basket of fruit, some folds of clean white linen and an extremely substantial cheque. But although from then on Kwan-Yin had never stinted when it came to giving advice and firing off mother-of-pearl rays to refresh and comfort, today she remained absolutely unforthcoming.

  Arno was hoeing the broad beans and struggling with his koan. It was a very difficult koan, having been set originally by the Zen master Bac An. ‘What is the sound,’ the great sage had inquired, ‘of one hand clapping?’

  Step by rational-thinking step would, Arno knew, avail him naught. Illumination according to the Teach Yourself Satori shelves of the library (Theo/Psych/Myth: Oriental Sub-Section 4:17), though sudden and blinding, would be vouchsafed only after months—perhaps years—of gruelling meditation and reflection. And that wasn’t the half of it. The disciple must closely attend to every moment of every day, living always with full awareness and one hundred per cent physical, mental and spiritual involvement in any undertaking no matter how humble. Arno had many little ploys to trick him back into the present when attention strayed which it did all the time. Now he pinched his arm to banish daydreaming and concentrated once more on the weeds. He grasped the handle, wholly experiencing the satiny warm wood, stared intently at the rusty blade and scrutinised the minute white flowers of the chickweed. Even the dark-tipped stamens were assiduously noted.

  Arno did all this with no feelings of pleasure. Descartes’ notion of man as master and proprietor of nature struck no answering chord in his breast. He did not enjoy or understand the garden at all. It seemed to plot ensnarement, being full of grasping brambles and secret squishy places cunningly concealed beneath firm-looking grass. It was full of insects too: leather-jackets and chafer grubs; pea thrips and eelworm. All strongly motivated and growing fat on Arno’s vegetables which, truth to tell, were not much cop to start with. Having no idea of soil husbandry he planted carrots in clay, beans in soggy ground and potatoes over and over in the same plot.

  He was aware of course that such agricultural ignorance could be remedied and had at one point bought a book for the purpose. It was very thick and crammed with black and white drawings, many of them illustrating to perfection Arno’s scabbed, forked and furry emblements. Boredom smothered his mind the moment he first glanced upon the closely packed hectoring paragraphs and the volume quickly got lost behind balls of twine and old seed packets at the back of the potting shed.

  Naturally he had remonstrated when given the position of gardener, assuring the nominations committee that he had no talent at all in such a direction. But that, it was patiently explained, was the whole reason behind the allocation. His own wishes must not be secondary, not even last, but of no account whatsoever. No pandering to the ego (that slavering, ravenous beast). No picking and choosing. To grow in grace was to shrink in self-interest and there were no short cuts. Arno sighed and winkled out a bit more groundsel.

  But then all irritation vanished for, humming across the lawns and pond and the rhododendron walk, came a mellifluent flow of sound. Arno put aside his hoe so as to give the music played by the darling of his heart his full and rapt attention. One of Arno’s deepest fears was that if by some miracle his ego, constantly starved of accedence to its desires, withered away entirely, his love for May would disappear as well—taking with it all cause for future joy.

  It had been borne upon him gradually that he would never speak of his magnificent obsession. This wasn’t always the case. When he had first arrived, not having grasped the full splendour of May’s bountiful personality and remarkable musical gifts, and possessed by a wistful lust for attention, he had presumed to press his artless suit. This had consisted of a series of overtures so quiet, subtle and introspective that no one noticed them, least of all May. And this despite her penchant for divination.

  But realising quite quickly that his ambition had wildly overleapt itself and that his beloved was one of those extraordinary beings put upon this earth not for the comfort of one solitary soul but of all mankind, Arno withdrew to settle, almost content, for a lifetime of devoted service.

  He had so nearly missed knowing her at all having arrived at the Golden Windhorse by a very chancey and roundabout route. He was quite alone in the world, his mother with whom he had lived since his father ran away thirty years before, having recently died. The protracted and undeservedly cruel manner of her death, for she was the gentlest soul alive, had left him bitter, lonely and in despair. After the funeral he had shut himself away in the little terraced house in Eltham like a wounded animal. He practised only the minimum grooming and feeding necessary to stay alive and look reasonably presentable when going out for food. Apart from shop assistants he saw no one for weeks at a time for he had given up his job at the Water Board Authority to nurse his mother in the last stages of her illness.

  Most days he would lie curled up in bed, a ball of dark steely pain, his cheeks slobbered with tears. Salt water ran into his ears, his nose clogged and his throat was sore. His mother’s friends, and she’d had many, would tap on the window and occasionally, meeting him abroad, ask him around for meals. Sometimes he found little cardboard boxes containing tins of soup and instant whip on his doorstep. Weeks went by when he hardly got up. The blinds were permanently drawn and day ran into night ran into day with merely a rim of brightness round the window frame to indicate which was which. Once he had found himself frying bacon at what he thought was breakfast time only to discover it was three in the morning.

  Then, one afternoon, he started to read again. He had made some coffee but instead of slumping back on to the bed as usual to drink it, he had sat up at the kitchen table, opened some Bourbon biscuits from one of the gift boxes and picked up Little Dorrit. He and his mother had both loved the Victorian novelists although she had preferred Trollope.

  Later that day, having finished shopping he’d called in at the second-hand bookshop and spent some time browsing in the philosophical section. He supposed now, looking back, that he had been hoping to obtain some insight into the reason for his mother’s prolonged agony. He didn’t of course. He took half a dozen volumes home but they were either so abstruse he could not make head nor tail of them or so glib and silly that they would have made him laugh had he been capable.

  Shortly after this he attended several spiritual meetings where although his mother did not ‘come through,’ he had obtained a degree of comfort, paradoxically by observing the suffering of others. Several people present had lost young children and the sight of their anguish and the small toys they sometimes brought along to encourage the shades of their dear infants to draw nigh helped Arno put his own bereavement in perspective. His mother had, after all, been nearly eighty and by her own admission tired of life.

  And so, gradually, the sharper edge of Arno’s misery was transformed into a dull bearable ache. But his loneliness remained, unassuaged by the shallow day-to-day exchanges that were his lot. He yearned timidly for a wider, more intimate acquaintance whilst being unsure quite how to bring this state of affairs about. His only hobby was reading so he could hardly follow the ubiquitous advice to join a club whose members shared his interests. Even so he felt the vague cautious friendliness he was starting to feel vis-à-vis the wider world should be encouraged, so he signed up for a Literary Appreciation course at the nearest technical college.

  But then, walking home from the enrolment evening, he had called into Nutty Notions for some honey and seen a card on the noticeboard advertising a psychic weekend ‘Hearing From Your Loved One’. Whether it was the
nursery comfort of the words ‘loved one’ or simply the idea of a weekend away from the cheerless shell that his home had now become, Arno decided to go. It was rather expensive (he noted from the travel agent’s window that he could have had a week in Spain for the same amount), but he felt it might well be worth it for the chance of getting to know new people.

  As things turned out the ‘high-grade channeller’ (a Hopi Indian) promised on the card came down with a low-grade bout of flu but ‘Man—the Cosmic Onion!’ proved a not uninteresting alternative theme to occupy the serious inquirer’s mind.

  The opening address was given by Ian Craigie, Founder Emeritus of the community. Arno was impressed and mildly entertained at the idea of himself as multi-layered with the ‘god self’ at the very heart of things. He enjoyed the company of the other guests and was intrigued by the variety of remedial courses: Colour Therapy, Harmonic Tuning, Tear Up Your Negative Script, The Care and Cleansing of Your Astral Body. An initial consultation was included in the cost of the weekend and he had almost decided on a harmonic tune when the door of what he now knew to be the Solar opened and, with a thrilling rustle of iridescent taffeta, Miss May Cuttle swept in.

  He would never forget that first sight of her. So tall, with gleaming auburn hair flowing down her back. Her features were assembled with a rare degree of spatial symmetry. The end of her large gently hooked nose was displayed cleanly against a powdered expanse of olive skin adorned by a very fine silky moustache. Her cheek bones were flat and broad and her eyes, which had translucent glowing pupils like circles of amber, had a Magyaresque tilt.

  After supper she played her cello. Entranced by the nimble fluidity of her bow and the floridly emotional music soaring to the high beams, Arno knew not only that he loved her but also that in some mysterious, impossible way he always had. He discovered her subject (Colour Healing), put himself down for a workshop and revelled in the warmth of her enthusiastically humane and generous nature. She sorted out his aura, wardrobe, sleeping habits, diet and attitude to the cosmos in a twinkling. Arno attended three more retreats then sold his house and moved to the Manor for good.

  All this had been eighteen months ago and the happiness he had felt on first arriving had proved accumulative. Gradually he had shed his loneliness like an old skin, carrying it half-heartedly for a while—a rough barbed little parcel—and then one day just putting it down for good.

  Of the members present when he had entered the commune, only May and the Master remained. The others, as is the way of communicants, had joined other groups or reverted to the nuclear. But replacements had arrived and now The Lodge was thriving. Indeed so satisfactory was the balance sheet that it was able to offer bursary help to the impecunious. Most months there was even a small surplus to send to Eritrea or wherever was the greatest need.

  Arno gave an irritated ‘uurgh’ and pinched his arm hard. He had done it again. He had drifted off. He wondered not for the first time if he had made a mistake in choosing Zen as his discipline. He had been so attracted by its concrete day-today practicality—so resolutely non airy-fairy—but it was jolly difficult. Even without the koan. Clenching his teeth, applying himself determinedly to the task in hand, he tried the Master’s suggestion of verbalising the moment positively and loudly.

  ‘How wonderful, how miraculous!’ he cried, rootling away with the metal blade. ‘I am hoeing the radishes and now the broad beans. What joy!’

  But it was useless. In no time at all he was picturing May and longing to be in her presence. Serving, adoring. Turning the pages of her music, making lemon tea on her little spirit stove. Or just blissfully basking in the charm of her company under the shining bright protection of her radiant eye.

  Every day around mid-morning Ken, in his role as Zadkiel, planetary light worker, got down to some serious channelling. Sitting upright in the way of the Lotus, nostrils fluting with extrasensory verve, eyes humbly crossed, he and his supra-conscious mind would attempt to penetrate the Outer Screen of Life and plug into the Inner Matrix of Reality. To assist him in these endeavours Zadkiel wore his nuclear receptor. This was a small gold-plated medallion covered in tiny pyramids which trapped all toxic energies (from microwaves, acid rain, carcinogenic radiation, Janet’s negativity etc.) then manipulated the body’s DNA vibrations until all toxicity was defused and harmonised.

  Heather (or Tethys as she was astrally known) sat beside her husband breathing noisily and nasally, off about her own cosmic business which might run from a basic recharging of her energies through the great Devas of the Crystal Grid to a full-blown trip to Venus renewing friendships with other ascendant souls who, like herself, had escaped the drowning of Atlantis.

  Sometimes Hilarion, Ken’s contact on the other side, would come straight through (a single abracadabra), other times he would go in for quite lengthy teasing, wispily hovering about and hinting portentously in capital letters of revelations to come. Today he spoke almost before Ken had taken one pure breath from the Ascended Master Realms.

  ‘I am here Earthling. Do you accept the Concentrated Flame of the Presence of the Sacred Fire?’

  ‘Greetings beloved Hilarion. I accept the Authority of the flame and promise to perfect, protect and beautify the Cosmic Cause and work only to establish the Spirit of Love in all Mankind.’

  ‘It is well. Know that they in the High Realm, the Shining and Invincible Ones, desirous of assisting in the precipitation of God’s Perfection in the World of Form, Bless thy Sincere Endeavours.’

  ‘Please convey my heartfelt gratitude to these all-powerful supreme authorities, great Hilarion.’

  There was quite a bit more of this, plus instructions on how to keep ‘the spiralling energy-vortice of our sweet planet earth’ consciously tuned and magnetically cleansed. Hilarion’s voice was very like Ken’s and he was inclined to giggle. When these puckered-up sniggers had first escaped from between Ken’s lips, he had been very surprised—not expecting one of the Lords of Karma to have anything as earthy as a sense of humour. The content of these sessions varied and truth to tell this A.M. it was all rather dull. Mainly about How To Throw Off Discordant Accumulations into the Interplanetary Matrix of Violet Light.

  What Ken really enjoyed were the rare occasions when the old wizard offered a really unusual suggestion for some imaginative sortie which would somehow lead Zadkiel and Tethys towards a new appreciation of the glorious Cosmic Heartbeat. For instance only last week he had vouchsafed that if they chose, in the right and proper frame of mind, to trace each abandoned railway line in England to its source, they would obtain proof positive that Jesus—the Cosmic Christ—had visited their country in the latter half of the twelfth century.

  ‘I have a prophecy, Zadkiel.’ Ken sat up and Heather, who was by now on her way back, sat up too. ‘By happenstance this night at the rise of the crescent moon the goddess Astarte will take upon herself a fleshly vestment to move amongst all denizens of the lower planes and disseminate lunar wisdom.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Heather cogently.

  ‘I suggest you bethink a circle of light around your whole being in readiness. Also call upon the countless legion of Violet Elohim for support. Visualise yourself within the electronic pattern. Keep the rhythm of invocation going at all times. And don’t offer her any refreshments.’

  ‘Of course not, great Hilarion.’ As if they would be so crass. ‘Have you any idea of the exact—’

  But he was off. Back over the aeons to the galaxy of his choice. At one once more with the burning stars and solar fire of divine alchemy. Briefly the words ‘I AM’ burned in the heavens then they too were gone and Ken gave a great sigh as he sloughed off his ethereal persona and returned to the thorny old work-a-day world. He looked across at Heather.

  ‘How was it for you?’

  ‘Ohh… Unity of Life as Light in the Sisterhood of Angels, a new core Avataric message—God Ego equals Vestal Virgin. A bit samey to tell you the truth. But Hilarion…’ Heather tried not to sound miffed. ‘Giving you a
prediction…’ Ken blushed, shrugged and regarded the sole of his upturned left foot. ‘Do you think we should tell the others?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied Ken. ‘It would be unfair not to. Imagine their surprise otherwise. And we have to consider the Master. He is old and frail. An unadvised shock of this magnitude might well be too much for him.’

  Suhami was milking Calypso, resting her cheek against the goat’s cream and chocolate flanks, gently squeezing dark wrinkled teats. The milk spurted into a plastic bucket.

  When not tethered about the place Calypso lived in an outhouse. This was clean and whitewashed with a two-part stable door. There were rows of apples on slatted shelves. Though scabby, the fruit smelt very wholesome as did Calypso’s straw which was changed every day.

  Suhami loved this place. The quietness. The golden warmth of the morning sun as it bounced off snowy walls. It reminded her of the Solar where they gathered for meditation—having the same charged, beneficent brightness. Even while noting the comparison she smiled. Nothing very spiritual about an old byre full of goat. But the Master had said that God could be present anywhere if the heart was open and humble, so why not here?

  ‘Why not Cally—hmn?’ Suhami shook off the last drips of milk and stroked the goat’s warm mottled udder. Calypso turned her head, lifted a rubbery lip and gazed at her milkmaid intently. The pupils of the goat’s eyes were yellow horizontal slits and she had a slight beard, girlish and feathery. Her expression never changed. She always looked ruminative and self-satisfied, as if guarding an important secret. A back hoof shifted slightly and Suhami moved the bucket out of harm’s way. Calypso’s bell gave a petulant honk. There was nothing she liked more than kicking the milk over.

  In a moment Christopher would be here to take her out to graze. The habit was to move her round and about the vast lawn where she would nibble away producing a nap like velvet. This idea of establishing goat browsage rights had been voted for almost unanimously after a petrol mower was judged to be environmentally unsound. Only Ken, who was allergic to the milk, abstained.