Death and Mr. Pickwick (131 page)

‘
Pickwick
surprises you in the way that a person does. It is an enchanted book which seemingly changes its own contents; a book which, when you put it back on the shelf, has altered by the time you pick it up again. Then you sit back, you smoke your pipe, and you contemplate the new discovery you have made about its magical contents.

‘Were I a prisoner in a lonely cell, or Robinson Crusoe on his island, and I had but one book to read, then this would be the book! I would never grow tired of it.
Pickwick
would give me the variety of life I craved.

‘What brought this book into the world? We may say it emerged from its times, and if we never see such times again, perhaps there will never be another
Pickwick
. The world grows less eccentric, less Pickwickian by the day. That is what I feel whenever I pass a school's gates, and I see the children in their uniforms, stamped out in the same design.

‘Now, I have heard it said in some quarters that
Pickwick
is not as popular as it was. And I have also heard it said in other quarters that
Pickwick
is not the very greatest literature. I remember once I expressed the view to an old university friend of mine – Mr Gregg, there he is over there – yes, I did say Gregg, not grog – that there was something deep and profound in
Pickwick.
“Nonsense,” he said. “It is about men of a certain age going out and getting drunk. If
that
is deep then I would like to suggest that, at certain stages in my life, I have indeed been profound myself.”

‘But I say to you, that whatever
is
the place of
Pickwick
in literature – and I, like many, see it as the most remarkable piece of prose fiction in the English language – but I say to you that whatever
is
the place of
Pickwick
in the pantheon of literature, nothing holds such a place of affection in the heart of the people. For it is read by all, by the high and by the low: by the duke in his castle – by the labourer in his cottage – by the scholar in his ivory tower. This extraordinary appeal – this universal affection – could surely only be achieved by a work that lives close to the common heart of man. Oh and of woman too. Although, it must be said, I have heard great Pickwickians remark that
Pickwick
is not capable of being understood by the fair sex.' (A cry of: ‘It is!') ‘I tease, I tease. What I will say is this: few things bond us together as Britons like
Pickwick
. You laugh and see yourself in your fellow man.

‘In our troubles, we as a nation laugh. Even on the battlefield, in scenes of the greatest woe, with bursting shells falling all around, there is still humour. In the pursuit of the noble cause, when adversity is great, we still laugh. In the minor awfulness of the tax demand – we laugh even then.

‘And for that reason,
Pickwick
is the most beloved book in our language. It is part of us. Part of our minds. It is no mere novel.

‘There is so much more I could say, but I shall not, for I could continue for ever. Those of you who attended the
Pickwick
memorial service at the abbey on Sunday would have heard the Canon of Westminster say that
Pickwick
is not a novel, but a universe. He was right!' (‘Hear hear!')

‘And so as we gather here today to celebrate the first appearance of
The Pickwick Papers
, one hundred years after the event, I say to you, in all honesty, that the arrival on earth of Mr Pickwick is an event of such importance, an event of such greatness in human history, that, if anything, we dishonour him with just a single day's celebration. I have come to believe that we should dedicate the whole
year
of 1936 to him. My lords, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to stand, and raise your glasses – Mr Pickwick!'

There was the thumping of tables, and enthusiastic cheering and the toast was drunk. Several hundred people began to sing, spontaneously, ‘For he's a jolly good fellow.'

10 May 1941

Luftwaffe bombs have already destroyed many Pickwickian sites. Camberwell, where Mr Pickwick carried out unwearied researches, has been one of the worst-hit parts of London. Huggin Lane has been demolished. Today, the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons sustained terrible damage: thousands of anatomical specimens, human and animal, are no more. The skeleton of Chunee the elephant was reduced to splinters.

January 1944

This month, I was the guest of a fraternal organisation, the Manchester Pickwick Club. A member rose to his feet, and said that he had been pondering the section of the immortal work which dealt with the matter of temperance. (‘Boo, boo!') He said he had been considering the scientific mystery of that person in the pages of
Pickwick
, the one-legged Thomas Burton, who found that his wooden legs wore out quickly when he drank gin and water, but then found they lasted twice as long, a difference he attributed to having given up gin. ‘I believe,' said the speaker, ‘that the correlation has not been properly explained between fewer purchases of wooden legs and being a temperance advocate. After much deliberation, the explanation for this mystery is plain to me. It is that wood does not rot so quickly when the leg's owner does not have to piss so often in back alleyways.'

He was immediately fined for ungentlemanly language. The chairman called for a peroration and was fined himself for using long words.

July 1975

I heard an anecdote, which once could not possibly be true, but nowadays may be, that a woman who asked for
The Pickwick Papers
at Heathrow airport was told to look in the magazine section.

8 December 1980

One cannot escape ‘Imagine' on public-house jukeboxes. John Lennon, one fourth of the only cultural phenomenon that rivals
Pickwick
, has been shot. Now his song ‘Working Class Hero' plays on the radio. I am perhaps one of the few who thinks of Sam Weller as the song plays. Sam: the original working-class hero. Good and loyal Sam. A man who distrusted all that was established and pompous, but would never be part of the vicious mob, because he was content with being what he was, Mr Pickwick's servant.

And Sam would never be a phoney.

 

*

WHEN I HAD FINISHED READING
Mr Inbelicate's narrative, he was asleep.

Over the next few weeks, his condition deteriorated. There were far fewer raps with the Dr Syntax cane. Often, he asked me to sit at his bedside as I worked. Once, in a gentle voice he said: ‘It would please me if you did the section about the events at Widcombe Hill. I would like to know that part has been done.'

 

*

AT THE END OF THE
parade of shops at the foot of the Widcombe Hill district of Bath is a smart, square-built public house, whose hospitality has attracted customers for three centuries. Above its entrance stands a statue, a creature in lime, oak and mahogany: a white deer. It is the very statue that once belonged to Moses Pickwick. It is the last surviving relic of the old White Hart, of Bath.

One warm evening in 1999, two young men stood at the bar, cocksure grins on their faces, enclosed within a conspiratorial cloud of cigarette smoke. They had discussed the early music of Blur; they had spoken of how dull a certain lecturer was; with those subjects exhausted, one young man contributed to the cloud and then said: ‘Do you know what would be a laugh?'

Whatever it was, a quantity of sniggers resulted in his companion.

The young men returned, in the middle of the night, accompanied by two other young men. They looked in the windows. No sign of life. They stood at the entrance and looked up and down the moonlit street. Deserted. A man climbed upon another man's shoulders. A leather bag was handed up, and there was the clink of metal. The feet of the white hart statue were unscrewed from the plinth. The statue, with some effort, was passed down to the fellows below.

What japes the foursome played when they ran off to the woods! Riding the hart, pretending to bugger it, holding a can of beer up to its mouth, making it speak like a ventriloquist's dummy. Then one took a saw from the leather bag.

‘No, don't
spoil
it,' said another.

‘We can't take it all.' The blade was drawn across the neck of the hart, and the antlered head hewn off. The men ran with it for a while, holding it aloft like a championship cup. Then a well-placed kick sent the head spinning like a rugby ball, splitting the wood, sending it over a low tree. Another man picked the head up from the ground, and ran with it, into the night.

*   *   *

Some months later, the white hart's headless torso was found in the stream in Prior Park, among plastic sandwich containers, discarded sweet wrappers and used condoms.

A new head was duly made, with real antlers, supplied by a venison farm. In 2003, the restored white hart was unveiled. For the first time in the statue's history it was given a name: Knobby, whose significance could be discerned by standing at the entrance of the White Hart public house of Widcombe Hill, directly underneath the statue, and by casting one's eyes upwards, between its hind legs.

 

*

‘HOW SAD,' SAID MR INBELICATE,
from his pillow, ‘that the White Hart's statue was treated with no respect by the thieves. But,' he added, ‘the statue lived again. There is hope. If you will be so good, Scripty, as to turn off the light, I must sleep.' As I was about to close his bedroom door he said: ‘Poor Moses Pickwick. What would he have thought? But who remembers Moses these days? Good night, Scripty. I am so tired.'

In the morning, there was no answer when I knocked on his door. It took me several minutes to gather the courage to enter. When I did so, I was accompanied by Mary. Mr Inbelicate had died that night.

*   *   *

Under the provisions of Mr Inbelicate's will, I knew that I would be able to continue the work, and had an obligation to do so. He had already mentioned that the will was in a deed box in his office, and I realised that I would have to open this box simply to find out Mr Inbelicate's real name, to register the death. For he had been assiduous in keeping up the pseudonym Mr Inbelicate, and I had never seen any indication of his real name.

Within the box, and on the will itself, his name was at last revealed to me. He was Robert Barton. Barton is a name we have met before.

My supposition is that Mr Inbelicate was Wonk's descendant, the last in the family, and Wonk's association with Seymour had provided the impetus for investigating the true story of
The Pickwick Papers
. I may say I am inclined to believe that Wonk was himself the incarnation of Mr Inbelicate who entered Westminster Abbey in 1870 to inspect the coffin of Dickens. Wonk must have vowed that the untruths of Dickens, Chapman and Forster could not be allowed to stand. Even the termination of his own life would not halt the work. Even death would not sever the love of one man for another.

*

IT IS THE LIE OF
novels to pretend that life has a plot. The truth of life is in
Pickwick
: that one thing just follows another. We may strive to find pattern and meaning in
The Pickwick Papers
, and sometimes we find it, but never do we succeed to our complete satisfaction; thus, we read the book again from the first page to the last, in our search for the meaningful whole.

In breaks from my work, I have watched
Big Brother
on television, a rambling, plotless series, in which alcohol fuels many an episode. Often have I thought that, if the age of
Pickwick
is over, there is still something of its spirit in that show. I have watched the Food Network too – and seen the enormous portions consumed on
Man v. Food
and the gobbling roadtrips of
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
: two series which promise, like
Pickwick
, the abundance we have craved since Eden.

Though being fat, in the modern world, is not what it was.

And we live in the e-age now; the age of Alan Turing, whose favourite novel, I have heard, was
Pickwick
. There may come a time when even the work's title, the very ‘
Papers
' of
The Pickwick Papers
, requires explanation.

I am now packing up Mr Inbelicate's library, documents, pictures and general Pickwickiana in tea chests, for everything has been sold to a collector, prior to the house itself being sold. There are scores of drawings of Mr Pickwick, for many artists illustrated
The Pickwick Papers
after the original trio of Seymour, Buss and Browne.
Pickwick
is, I would imagine, the most illustrated work in the entire history of English literature. And when I consider the whole of Dickens's work – has any great writer ever been in such debt to artists? Even if Dickens had cut out every single picture, he could not change the images in readers' heads. Mr Pickwick will always look like Robert Seymour's Mr Pickwick.

There is, however, still a piece of unfinished business. It has been unfinished for over 175 years. It is my duty to bring it to a conclusion.

*   *   *

The morning after telling the story of the dying clown, when Dismal Jemmy stood with Mr Pickwick on Rochester Bridge, Jemmy promised a second story, which he would send to Mr Pickwick. One can imagine Robert Seymour's despair when he read that Dickens wasn't finished with Dismal Jemmy yet. After the horrors of the dying clown – after believing that
Pickwick
would be back on course – Seymour discovered that the future promised more of the same.

Dismal Jemmy's second story never arrived, but that is not to say it was never conceived. It falls to me to deliver Dismal Jemmy's lost tale.