Dialogues of the Dead

. ^ Percy Follows had been (and presumably, if all had gone according to plan, still was) a devout member of the Church of England n its apogee, a step beyond which could see a man tumbling into Rome. Not for him the simple worship of a day. If it didn't invoN| incense, candles, hyssop, aspersions, processions, genuflection^ soaring choirs and gilded vestments, it didn't count. His parish priest being naturally of the same mind pulled out all the stops and did not miss the opportunity to deliver a meditation upoil death and an encomium upon the deceased in what he fondly imagined was the style of Dr Donne of St Paul's. ; Pascoe, admiring but unable to follow the example of his Great; Leader, whose head was bowed and whose lips from time to time emitted a susurration not unlike the sound of waves making toward! a pebbled shore, thumbed desperately through his prayer book iff search of distraction. The Psalms seemed the nearest thing to light relief he was likely to find there, fall of nice turns of phrase and good advice. How pleasant it might have been if the priest, for instance had taken the hint of the first of the two appointed to be read at th(^ burial service (only one was necessary but they'd got them both), the second verse of which read, "I will keep my mouth as it were; with a bridle; while the ungodly is in my sight." With Andy Dalziel snoring away before him, he could hardly have any doubt about the presence of the ungodly! Pascoe riffled through the pages, letting them open as they would, and found himself looking at words he'd read recently. The Lord is my light, and my salvation; whom then shall I fear: the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? Psalm 2 7 which the Wordman seemed so fond of, finding assurance therein (if Pottle had got it right) that his sense of acting on instruction from the Other World made him invulnerable. Not quite the same words, his excellent (though unlike Wield's, not quite eidetic) memory told him. There'd been no thens in the version he'd read in the Bible. And it had been headed by the legend A Psalm of David, while here in the Prayer Book you got the first couple of words of the Latin original Dominus illuminatio. No, not the original, of course. A Latin translation of the Hebrew, presumably in St Jerome's Vulgate. From vulgatw - made public. Odd to think of an age when things were made public by translating them into Latin! Did any of this have any bearing on the hunt for the Wordman? None whatsoever. It was like hunting the Snark. Who, as the Baker feared, would probably turn out to be a Boojum. The Baker. Funny how these things came back. There'd been a guy at university, a slight inconsequential fellow who made so little impression that some wag doing Eng. Lit. (that natural home of waggery) had christened him Baker because - how did it go? He would answer to 'Hi!' or any loud ay, Such as 'Fry me!' or 'Fritter my wig!' To ''What-you-may-call-um!' or 'What-ivashis-name?' But especially 'Thingumajig!'

In the end everyone called him Baker, even the tutors. Did he write Baker at the head of his exam papers and take his degree in the name of Baker? Was he happily settled down now as Mr Baker, the civil engineer or actuary, with a Mrs Baker and a whole trayful of little Bakers? Weird thing, names. Take Charley Penn. Christened Karl Penck. Karl the Kraut. How hurtful it must be to have your own name hurled at you in derision. Like his poetic hero, Heine. Named Harry. Mocked with donkey cries. Till he changed it and his religion, both. But you can't change the scars inside. Or Dee. Another one with problems. Orson Eric. Not names to be ignored by the little savages at their play. But at least they gave him the initials which ultimately provided an escape route. OED. Dick the Dictionary. But what baggage did he take with him along that escape route?