Arthur & George

heard him out about Jean. Strange to realize that his little sister is now nearer forty than thirty. But her age suits her. She is not quite as decorative as she once was, she is large, healthy and good-humoured. Jerome was not wrong to have called her a Brünnhilde when they were in Norway. It is as if, with the years, she has grown more robust in an attempt to counterbalance Hornung’s ill-health.
    ‘Connie,’ he begins gently, ‘Do you ever find yourself wondering what happens after we die?’
    She looks at him sharply. Is there bad news about Touie? Is the Mam not well?
    ‘It is a general enquiry,’ he adds, sensing her alarm.
    ‘No,’ she replies. ‘At least, very little. I worry about others dying. Not about myself. I did once, but it changes when you are a mother. I believe in the teachings of the Church. My Church. Our Church. The one you and the Mam left. I haven’t the time to believe anything else.’
    ‘Do you fear death?’
    Connie reflects on this. She fears Willie’s death – she knew the severity of his asthma when she married him, knew he would always be delicate – but that is fearing his absence, and the loss of his companionship. ‘I can hardly like the idea,’ she replies. ‘But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. You are sure you are not leading up to something?’
    Arthur gives a brief shake of the head. ‘So your position could be summed up as Wait and See?’
    ‘I suppose so. Why?’
    ‘Dear Connie – your attitude to the eternal is so English.’
    ‘What a strange thought.’
    Connie is smiling, and seems unlikely to shy away. Even so, Arthur doesn’t know quite how to begin.
    ‘When I was a lad at Stonyhurst, I had a friend called Partridge. He was a little younger than me. A fine catcher in the slips. He liked to bamboozle me with theological argument. He would choose examples of the Church’s most illogical doctrines and ask me to justify them.’
    ‘So he was an atheist?’
    ‘Not at all. He was a stronger Catholic than I ever was. But he was trying to convince me of the truths of the Church by arguing against them. It turned out to be a misconceived tactic.’
    ‘I wonder what has become of Partridge.’
    Arthur smiles. ‘As it happens, he is second cartoonist at
Punch
.’
    He pauses. No, he must go directly at things. That is his way, after all.
    ‘Many people – most people – are terrified of death, Connie. They’re not like you in that respect. But they’re like you in that they have English attitudes. Wait and see, cross that bridge when they come to it. But why should that reduce the fear? Why should uncertainty not increase it? And what is the point of life unless you know what happens afterwards? How can you make sense of the beginning if you don’t know what the ending is?’
    Connie wonders where Arthur is heading. She loves her large, generous, rumbustious brother. She thinks of him as Scottish practicality streaked with sudden fire.
    ‘As I say, I believe what my Church teaches,’ she replies. ‘I see no alternative. Apart from atheism, which is mere emptiness and too depressing for words, and leads to socialism.’
    ‘What do you think of spiritism?’
    She knows that Arthur has been dabbling in psychic matters for years now. It is mentioned and half-mentioned behind his back.
    ‘I suppose I mistrust it, Arthur.’
    ‘Why?’ He hopes Connie is not also going to prove a snob.
    ‘Because I think it fraudulent.’
    ‘You’re right,’ he answers, to her surprise. ‘Much of it is. True prophets are always outnumbered by false – as Jesus Christ himself was. There is fraud, and trickery, even active criminal behaviour. There are some very dubious fellows muddying the water. Women too, I’m sorry to say.’
    ‘Then that’s what I think.’
    ‘And it is not well explained at all. I sometimes think the world is divided into those who have psychic experiences but can’t write, and those who can write but have no psychic experiences.’
    Connie does not answer; she does not like the logical consequence of this sentence, which is sitting across from her, letting its tea go cold.
    ‘But I said “much of it”, Connie. Only “much of it” is fraudulent. If you visit a gold mine, do you find it filled with gold? No. Much of it – most of it – is base metal embedded in rock. You have to search for the gold.’
    ‘I distrust metaphors, Arthur.’
    ‘So do I. So do I. That is why I mistrust faith, which is the biggest