Death's Jest-Book Read Online Free PDF

labelled 'Imagined Scenes'. These, as he explains in a draft
preface, made no claim to be detailed accounts of actual incidents.
Though some were based on known facts, others were simply imaginative
projections, devised in order to give the reader a sense of the
living reality of Beddoes' existence. Many would, I believe, have
been much modified in or totally expunged from the finished book.
    How would I feel, I was asked,
about cutting out most of the hard-core lit. crit. stuff, working up
a few more of these 'Imagined Scenes', well spiced with a sprinkling
of sex and violence, and producing one of those pop-biogs which had
done so well in recent years?
    I didn't need the time offered to
think about it.
    I told them to get stuffed. I owe
Sam a lot more than that.
    But while I was still reeling
from the injustice of it all came this invitation for me to take up
Sam's place at the conference.
    I'd taken it on face value as the
programmers paying a posthumous tribute to a valued colleague and at
the same time saving themselves the bother of rejigging their
programme. But this was no explanation of why, instead of being stuck
in a student's pad like the commonalty of lecturers, I was queening
it in the Q's lodging alongside Dwight Duerden. There had to be
another motive and, since seeing Albacore's name, I've been
suspecting he might have hopes of sweet-talking Sam's Beddoes
research database out of me.
    Maybe I'm being paranoid. But the
groves of academe are crowded with raptors, so Sam always assured me.
Anyway, I'll be in a better position to judge once I've actually met
the conference organizers, which will be at the Welcome Reception and
Introductory Session in fifteen minutes' time.
    Now where was I? Oh yes, the new
female psych. Her name, believe it or not, was Amaryllis Haseen!
    Sporting with
Amaryllis in the shade was, you will recall, one of the alternatives
to writing poetry which Milton's most un-Puritanical imagination
suggested to him. My only acquaintance with the flower is the
garishly fleshy specimens that sometimes turn up at Christmas. Well,
by those standards, Ms Haseen lived up to her name and was generally
regarded by most of the sex-starved cons as an early Christmas
prezzie. As one of Polchard's top lads said dreamily, ‘Tart
like that you can tell all your sexual fancies to, it's better than
pulling your plonker over Women on Top.'
    Everyone
developed psychological problems. Ms Haseen was no fool, however. Her
purpose in taking on the Chapel Syke consultancy was to garner
material for a book on the psychology of incarceration, which she
hoped would put more letters after her name and more money in her
bank. (It came out last year, called Dark Cells, lots of nice
reviews. I'm Prisoner XR pp. 193-207, by the way.) She quickly sorted
out the wankers from the bankers. When Polchard's lieutenant
complained that he'd been dumped while I'd got a twice-weekly
session, I smiled and said, 'You've got to make 'em feel they can
help you, and that doesn't mean flashing your bone and asking her to
give it the once over like you did!' That made even Polchard smile
and thereafter whenever I came back from a session I had to face a
barrage of obscene questions as to the progress I was making towards
getting into her underwear.
    To tell the truth, I think I
might have managed it, but I didn't even try. Even if successful,
what would I have got out of it?
    A few top-C's of mindless delight
(no chance in the circumstances for more than a quick knee-trembler)
and a coda of post-coital sadness that might stretch for years!
    For I had to be a realist. Even
if Amaryllis could be seduced into enjoying a bit of sport in the
shade, when she walked out into the bright sunshine beyond the Syke's
main gates and thought of her promising career and her happy
marriage, she was going to shudder with shame and fear and pre-empt
any future accusations I might make by marking me down as a dangerous
fantasist. (You think I'm being too