Читать книгу The Buddha of Brewer Street - Michael Dobbs - Страница 7

Defunct Ministers generate surprising attributes. Such as becoming invisible. The female lobbyist who only a few weeks before had pestered him to the point of exhaustion now passed him in the crush of Parliament Street without even a fleeting sign of recognition, let alone remorse. Goodfellowe had also developed what appeared to be a case of infectious incontinence. Although he noticed no change in his own personal habits, he had become aware of the large number of people who in his presence seemed suddenly to find the need to rush away. This was particularly so in the case of the Whip who informed him that, as he was no longer a Minister, he would have to hand over possession of his large office in the House of Commons and move immediately to less salubrious surroundings. At least the Whip had the decency to appear embarrassed before rushing off. Well, perhaps it was his prostate, thought Goodfellowe kindly. But there were no kind thoughts for Maurice who, to the end, to the very end, remained the complete uncivil servant. As a final gesture Maurice had taken great delight in handing him a small plastic bag that contained all the mementoes Goodfellowe would never have wished to see again. The name card from his Ministerial door. An ashtray from some banana republic engraved with the image of its fat-jowelled president-for-life. Even a half-eaten tube of mints wrapped in a packet of tissues that had been found hiding down the back seat of his Ministerial car. Or rather, his ex-Ministerial car.

Yet perhaps the most distressing circumstance was that concerning his House of Commons secretary, Veronica, a single lady in her early forties who had been a model of efficiency, ambition and detachment. In this instance it was the second quality of ambition that led to the third, detachment, for she basked in the reflected glory of her employers and had no time for lingering in shadows. Within a month of his resignation Veronica had followed suit and thrown in her Tippex. But her prime quality of efficiency was never to be doubted; she had already found alternative employment with a Cabinet Minister.

So it had fallen to Goodfellowe to find a replacement secretary, not the easiest of tasks in the middle of a parliamentary session. They told him he would have to look outside the system and indeed he had, interviewing a succession of spinsters and matrons whom he had found to be ‘just right for the job’ – like Veronica. Yet he was still getting used to the role of the Invisible Man; he was lonely, at times despondent, in need of … well, doing something different for a change. Something unexpected. Unpredictable. Then in walked Mickey Ross. Quite literally.

He had been in the Central Lobby one afternoon chatting to Gladstone. Gladstone was a tramp. He slept in the doorway of a gentleman’s tailor in the Strand and frequently came to the Central Lobby to exercise his democratic right to comfort and a little companionship. He’d become something of a celebrity fixture. Although he was homeless he managed to dress himself in an orderly fashion and possessed a wit as polished as his shoes were scuffed. No one knew his real name but he held court at the foot of the statue of the great nineteenth-century Prime Minister and night stalker, after whom he was affectionately known. One ‘senior backbencher’ – the parliamentary term usually reserved for someone who had achieved very little and had stretched it over a great period of time – had once indulged in the folly of seeking Gladstone’s removal from his place of comfort. A waspish article in that day’s Evening Standard had ensured the request was hastily withdrawn and Gladstone informally offered tenure of the end of his leather bench. And Goodfellowe rather enjoyed his company, for the tramp was a great observer of people and life. It was while they were chatting away contrasting the qualities of Bulgarian Riesling and surgical spirit that he felt a hand on his sleeve.

‘Excuse me. Do you work here?’ It was a young woman, handsome and earnest.

‘I suppose I do.’

‘It’s just that I’m looking for a job. Don’t know if there’s any going, do you?’

He stared hard. She had a raw energy and an almost combative presence that he found immensely appealing. And a touch of East End in her elocution. No nonsense.

‘What sort of job?’

‘Secretary, I guess. Or personal assistant. I’ve got GCSEs.’

‘Happens I might know someone. Care to talk about it over a drink?’

‘Champagne?’

‘No, only tea, I’m afraid.’

‘Then you’re on. My mother told me never to drink champagne with a man until you know his name.’

‘Tom Goodfellowe,’ he offered.

‘I’m sure you are,’ she replied, holding out her hand. ‘Mickey Ross.’

And he had taken her down to the Terrace of the House of Commons, which overlooks the Thames. There was a gentle breeze and the sun played on the bow waves of the tugs and pleasure cruisers that plied back and forth. It also shone on her hair, auburn, which had been brushed to perfection. She was meticulous about her appearance. Women with large breasts such as hers could sometimes look so untidy, but every part of Mickey Ross looked as though it knew what it was about.

‘As it happens, I’m looking for a secretary.’

‘Who are you then, Tom?’

‘The Member of Parliament for Marshwood.’

‘Whoops. Never figured it, not with you talking to that tramp.’

‘That is not a tramp, that is Gladstone.’

‘Gladstone was a randy old sod who spent his days making great moral statements while he spent his evenings wandering around the streets of London picking up women of doubtful virtue. I’ve always wondered if that’s why he didn’t manage to get the relief column to Khartoum in time to rescue General Gordon. You know: too many distractions.’

He bowed his head in deference. ‘You are remarkably well informed.’

‘As I said, I’ve got my GCSEs.’

He chuckled in admiration. Several Members who passed by took note, staring just a little too long. A Whip frowned and raised an eyebrow, rather like a warning flag on a beach. Treacherous Bathing. Do Not Enter These Waters. He was right, of course. She was far too young, lacking in the long years of experience that would allow her to dominate the job. And she was also far, far too obviously feminine for Goodfellowe’s comfort. And Jewish. He had made a mistake.

‘This can be rather a dull job at times,’ Goodfellowe suggested, deciding he should let her down gently.

‘It would be different. I might be willing to give it a go.’

‘A lot of dusty procedure.’

‘That’s no problem. I work extremely hard.’ She smiled, two large dimples appearing on her cheeks. ‘And I pick things up easily.’

Her eyes held a glint of dark mischief which Goodfellowe decided could so easily turn to mayhem. He concentrated on his tea.

‘But why do you want to work in Westminster?’

She paused, considering her reply. ‘I could tell you of my fascination with politics, my respect for the great institutions of state. Or do you want the truth?’

‘This is the House of Commons. But let’s start with the truth.’

‘A bet. I did it for a bet.’

‘You what?’

‘I was bored with my old job in the City. And my boss and I fell out. We had very different ideas about holiday entitlement. He seemed to think he was entitled to take me on his holidays, or at least his weekends away.’

‘You disapprove of such goings-on?’ Goodfellowe nodded in rather avuncular fashion, then despised himself. He knew he’d like nothing better.

‘To Grimsby, sure I do. If he wants the seaside, what’s wrong with Venice? Anyway, it was time for a change. I was at a hen night. A girlfriend bet me I couldn’t get a job in the Palace. I think she meant Buckingham Palace, but I couldn’t work in a place filled with all that museum furniture. And far too many divorced men. So I decided to try the Palace of Westminster.’

‘Doesn’t sound like high motivation, Miss Ross.’ He found himself sounding pompous.

She retaliated. ‘I thought of joining the Army. You know, all that foreign travel. But have you seen the footwear?’ She studied her hands. ‘And what would it do to my manicure?’

‘Sorry. I get the message.’

‘Seriously, I’m twenty-two. I’m not sure what I want to do. Whatever I do is going to be a leap into the unknown. What matters to me is the people I take that leap with. Whether we’re right for each other.’

‘A fair point. You ought to know that my personal circumstances aren’t easy. I’m not flavour of the month. I’ve just resigned from the Government. My family life is difficult, intrusive.’ He sighed. He really must dissuade her. What the hell, he knew he was trying to dissuade himself. She couldn’t possibly work out. This isn’t the most glamorous post in Parliament.’

‘Now I remember. You’re that Goodfellowe. The one who resigned because of his family. I read about you. I admire what you’ve done. Is it all right to say that?’

This was impossible, he decided. Ankles and admiration. He was hiding in his tea again; she resolved to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Anyway, I’m not certain I want the job yet. I need more information about the perks and conditions. Do I get Jewish holidays and my mother’s birthday off? Is there a Face Lift Fund?’

‘A what?’

‘A Face Lift Fund. Insurance. Like a pension plan. A girl’s got to look ahead, Mr Goodfellowe.’

Goodfellowe began wriggling, trying to suppress the laughter, and failed. The Whip turned to stare from his nearby table, the flag hoisted and warning of storms, damn him. It had been such a long time since Goodfellowe had laughed.

He wiped an eye. ‘I needed that. Cheering up.’

‘Hey, then I’m your girl.’

He took a deep breath, felt a touch of vertigo, then dived in. ‘You know, Miss Ross, I think perhaps you are.’

* * *

The mouth of the cave was well concealed. Although the boy thought he knew every boulder and crevice on this side of the mountain, he hadn’t discovered this cave before, and wouldn’t have discovered it now had it not been for the curious old monk. Every day at dawn for almost two weeks Lobsang had watched the monk make his solitary way up the path to the point beyond the shrivelled fir, disappearing behind the great temple-sized slab of granite, from where he didn’t return until last light. Lobsang was rather afraid of this monk with the strange, twisted hands and sad face, who seemed to know more about Lobsang’s playground than the boy did himself, but he was of an age when in the end curiosity inevitably overcame caution. Today Lobsang had followed.

Behind the temple-boulder he discovered a narrow fissure that formed a path of loose rock and slippery lichens. Step by uncertain step, the pathway led him up to a point overlooking the Kangra Valley, from where he could see out to the endless plains of India, a view of mists and soaring snow eagles. Even for young eyes accustomed to such sights, this was special. Beneath him, nestling in forests of sugar pine and oak, was McLeod Ganj and beyond, on top of a ridge, stood the low roofs of Namgyal Monastery. Lobsang had unsound views about the monastery. It was said that when he finished his next year at school he might join his brother there as a novice monk. A great blessing, his grandmother had said, but to Lobsang it seemed a blessing of a particularly well-hidden kind. It would mean rising at four thirty every morning to sit on the cold floor of the memorizing class in order to drum into his brain the texts and scriptures that bound together a monk’s world. And the food, although plentiful, was dull. He had decided – though he hadn’t yet told his grandmother – that he’d rather go to Switzerland and become a banker, like his cousin Trijang. There he could earn enough money to support a hundred monks. Or maybe he would go to America and become an astronaut.

Next to the monastery, almost hidden behind a screen of fruit trees and rhododendron bushes, he could see the low, single-storey residence where the Dalai Lama lived. Every year since he had been born, Lobsang had been taken by his parents to the courtyard outside the monastery to line up with the thousands of others who crammed into the tiny space in order to receive the Lama’s blessing. As the Lama passed by his parents always cried; Lobsang didn’t understand why. But afterwards there would always be a special meal with honey sweets and puppet dancing and stories about life in old Tibet. Lobsang always looked forward to the sweets.

As the boy climbed he could see the monk sitting outside the mouth of the cave, staring into its depths and mouthing silent mantras. Between the crooked fingers of his hands was stretched a string of beads which he manipulated with difficulty, counting off his prayers one by one. Lobsang crept closer. Flat stones had been placed at the entrance to the cave on which flickered butter candles; beside them was an offering of fruit. A holy place, evidently. The air was still, like fresh crystals of ice, and silent. No birds here, no rustling of breeze and leaves. It was as though Nature itself was waiting. But waiting for what?

Lobsang drew closer still, anxious, intruding. He could see something in the dark recesses, but what type of thing he couldn’t quite make out – some figure, some form, almost like a … As he stretched to see his foot found loose scree and he slipped, sending a cascade of stones quarrelling down the mountainside. The monk turned.

His face was almost completely round, wrinkled and carved with time like a bodhi seed. The skull was scraped to the point of being hairless. Lobsang’s first impression was that the monk was as old as Life itself, yet the ears were large and pointed, giving him the appearance of a mischievous sprite. And the eyes brimmed with curiosity. Perhaps he wasn’t as ancient as Lobsang had first thought; the body, like the hands, seemed bowed by adversity as much as by age. The hands were now clasped uneasily together for support and were beckoning.

‘Come, my little friend. Share some fruit. I’m sure the spirits can spare a few mouthfuls.’

Kunga Tashi held out a pomegranate from the offering bowl and Lobsang, more than a little nervous, stepped forward.

‘So you have found my secret place,’ the old monk offered in congratulation, and Lobsang nodded, biting greedily into the sweet-sour flesh of the fruit. The juice dribbled down his chin which he wiped with the back of his hand. Then he froze. He could see it now, in the shadow at the back of the cave. A man, bare-chested, sitting in the lotus position in the manner of a meditating monk. The eyes were closed. Not the smallest sign of movement, not the flicker of an eyelid, not even the shallowest of breaths. It was as though the figure had become part of the rock itself.

‘It is His Holiness,’ Kunga said. ‘The Dalai Lama.’

‘He’s lost his glasses.’

Kunga smiled sadly. ‘He doesn’t need them any more.’

‘Is he meditating?’ Lobsang whispered.

‘No. He is preparing to die.’

Everything was impermanence, of course. Particularly here, in this place, McLeod Ganj, in the mountains just above Dharamsala. The last time Kunga had been here was more than twenty years ago, when it had been little more than a tiny frontier post, a remnant of the British Raj squeezed into that mountainous part of northern India that lay between Kashmir and Tibet. In those days it had been almost unwanted, a sleepy collection of tin huts and a few crumbling masonry buildings that had somehow survived the great earthquake; now it seemed to him that the old village had disappeared beneath a flood of refugees that had turned every piece of pavement into a private emporium. The narrow, muddy streets bustled and sang. Here it seemed you could buy or sell almost anything.

Its crowded central square was awash with the colours of Pathan, of Tibetan, Hindu, holy men and hippie, Kashmiri and Sikh. And, of course, the claret-robed Buddhist monks. A confusion of cultures – which made it an excellent place for him to hide. For when they had summoned him they had told Kunga that he must hide. There was danger here, great danger, and not just for the monk.

They had brought him from his monastery in Tibet in the greatest secrecy. In normal circumstances such trips out of Tibet were difficult and frequently dangerous, the Chinese authorities suspicious of the activities of all monks and particularly those who held senior positions, as Kunga once had. But there was an advantage in being crippled, an anonymity that blinded officialdom and had eased his way through checkpoints and border crossings. He had only to stretch out his withered hands, like the claws of the Devil, and they would retreat in revulsion and confusion, never meeting his eyes. So he had arrived in McLeod Ganj, as he had been instructed, unseen and unannounced.

And he had waited.

They had set aside for him a small hut on the outskirts of the town normally used by monks on solitary retreat. Some of the monks stayed for three years – and what did three years matter in a whole succession of lifetimes? Kunga had waited only three days when, towards dusk, two guides had appeared and taken him onward, down the mountain a little. They hurried past groups of men haggling outside the taxi rank and tea shops. There were bright cafés full of tourists, and video huts where bootleg films were shown. The films were sent up from Delhi, some copied with hand-held cameras from the back of the cinema. You could see the picture shake, even see the audience leaving over the credits. This was McLeod Ganj as Kunga had never known it. He recognised little until they came to the holy way, where aged women walked at last light, wrapped in faded blankets, spinning their prayer wheels as they chanted mantras whose words hadn’t changed in a hundred lifetimes. But the guides lowered their eyes and scurried by. They were nervous and Kunga found their anxiety infectious. What did they have to fear? From old women at prayer?

It was now dark. A rock-strewn track led through the woods, the silence of night broken only by the cracking of pine twigs underfoot and the cry of a startled owl. A difficult passage by moonlight. He stumbled, fell badly, grazed his shin, but found willing hands to help him to his feet. Then at last they came upon a high stone wall, inset with a heavy wooden gate. Not the front way, with its guards and prying eyes, but a rear entrance that Kunga hadn’t known existed, even though once he had known this place well, almost as well as his own home.

And as the gate creaked and swung open, Kunga couldn’t restrain a soft cry of joy. For he was there. Waiting for him. The Dalai Lama. His Dalai Lama. Whom he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.

Kunga began to prostrate himself on the rocky ground but the Lama reached out for him, ordered him to rise, and with unrestrained emotion they fell into each other’s arms. The Dalai Lama’s hands brushed over Kunga’s head and they touched foreheads, a greeting which did great honour to the monk. His senses were ablaze, Kunga felt as if he had been touched by the sun.

Only when the Lama’s fingers continued to brush around Kunga’s head, as though inspecting it for damage, did the truth dawn upon Kunga.

‘You … are blind?’

‘And you, my old friend, are bald!’ The Lama chuckled, although the customary humour sounded strangely forced. His hands fell to the monk’s lean frame. ‘Tell me, don’t they feed you in that monastery of yours?’

‘Enough. And more than many.’ A note of sorrow chilled their spirits.

‘How is my homeland, Kunga?’

‘Suffering.’

‘That will not last.’

‘Nothing lasts for ever.’

‘No, not for ever. Which is why I have summoned you. And the others – Gompo, and Yeshe. The three I trust most in this world.’ Gompo was the Dalai Lama’s representative in Geneva, and Yeshe his former private secretary who had only recently completed a lengthy solitary retreat at a monastery in the south.

‘These are times of many lies, Kunga. And many enemies,’ the Dalai Lama continued. ‘I am blind and can no longer see into men’s eyes, or tell what is in their hearts. I must be certain of those around me if we are to succeed in the task ahead.’

‘And what task is that?’ Kunga had asked.

‘To help me die …’

Outside the cave, Lobsang grew frightened. ‘Are you sure? That he’s dying?’

‘Oh, yes.’

Lobsang let forth an involuntary sob.

‘Don’t despair, little friend. It was his will. He told me himself. He decided the time had come.’

‘You … knew him?’ Lobsang enquired, embarrassed to use the past tense.

‘Long before you were born. For many years I was his translator and adviser. And also his friend.’

‘But he looks so … alive,’ Lobsang exclaimed. He knew that death was corruption, rotten flesh, decay. Yet the Dalai Lama looked as if he were simply asleep.

‘Great Lamas don’t die like the rest. They pass on. Their spirit leaves their body so gently that the body barely notices. So it doesn’t decay, not for a long time.’

Lobsang was gripping the monk’s hand for comfort, too distressed to notice that it was little more than a formless mass of bone and skin.

‘Remember that in death there is always new life. And new hope. The spirit is reborn in a new body,’ Kunga encouraged – just as the Dalai Lama had encouraged them, the three he had gathered together. He had explained his purpose the following day as they sat in his garden, a garden that he himself had planned and planted, a place where they could be overheard only by the birds and the Lama’s favourite cats.

‘My task is simple, my friends. To die. There is nothing simpler. But your task will be far more hazardous. Your task is to live. If you can. To ensure that my rebirth is safeguarded, to seek out and protect my incarnation.’ His voice tightened in sadness, as though a screw were being turned within. ‘In that search you will encounter many dangers. And great pain. You may come to envy the peace with which I shall pass from this life.’

The Searchers had argued with him, passionately, and with more than a little fear.

‘We want to serve you alive, not dead.’

‘Without you – we’re lost.’

‘And without you Tibet is lost!’

‘More than ever we need you …’

Until at last he had grown exasperated. ‘No more! Enough!’ The Lama raised his voice, a rare event, his passion more than a match for theirs. The cats scattered in alarm.

‘Listen to me. For a thousand years in Tibet we hid behind the great walls of the Himalayas. Untouched – but also untouching.

We guarded our truths selfishly, reluctant to share them. Yet look around. Our world has more wickedness than it has ever known. The people suffer. They need us.’

‘So does Tibet,’ Gompo responded defiantly.

The Lama raised his hand and pointed beyond the mountains, his voice burning with emotion. ‘Our Tibet, that ancient homeland we loved, is no more. It is gone. Perhaps for all time.’

He challenged them to deny it, but no one spoke. What was the point? Hope might spring eternal yet it had no more strength than a summer breeze. And the People’s Liberation Army wasn’t going to be blown away by a puff of wind.

‘We can’t go back, not to the way things were. But Tibet is more than just mountains and monasteries. It is a faith, a way of life.’

‘And of death?’

‘Think of our exile as an opportunity. A chance to send down new roots, to find new strength. And think of my death as a new beginning, not just for me but for all our people.’

‘A new beginning? For that we need an army!’

‘Perhaps there is another way. A way in which Chinese and Tibetan can be brought together, not in confrontation, but in reconciliation.’

‘Reconciliation? How?’ demanded Gompo, as ever sceptical.

‘Reconciliation … through reincarnation!’

The Lama had laughed, a deep booming drum of hope. And cautiously the cats had begun to creep back …

Now, as Kunga stared into the shadows of the cave, where the Dalai Lama had taken himself to meditate and to die, he struggled hard to recapture the Lama’s optimism. Beside him Lobsang began to shiver.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Kunga encouraged, placing an arm around the boy’s shoulders.

‘It is the end.’ Lobsang’s voice was mournful.

‘It is also a beginning. The body is like a set of clothes. When it gets old, you discard it for a fresh one. That’s all he has done, decided to discard his body. But not the spirit. That lives on. And will find a new body.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

‘Where?’

Kunga gave a low sigh. ‘Ah, now that is the mystery.’

The light was fading fast, Kunga trimmed the butter lamps. The last of the gentle breeze had vanished with the light, the flames did not flicker. Everything was still.

‘It is almost over, I sense it. Time for you to go, little friend.’

‘I’d like to stay. Please? To help you.’ A quieter voice. ‘To help him.’

And so they had settled for the night, Kunga sitting before the cave, and Lobsang close before him, wrapped in the monk’s thick robe, waiting for the Dalai Lama to die.

Kunga had been determined to stay awake and vigilant, but he couldn’t help himself. He fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. It was Lobsang who woke first.

‘He’s moved,’ the boy whispered, tugging at the monk’s robe.

Kunga brushed the night from his eyes and stared. The sun was beginning to light the sky, deepening the shade within the cave, and for a moment his tired eyes struggled to adjust.

‘He has moved,’ Lobsang insisted. ‘That must mean he’s still alive, mustn’t it?’

It is given to few in the world of Buddhist mysteries to know when the spirit has finally departed; Kunga was one of the few. He shook his head. ‘No. It is over. He is gone.’

The Dalai Lama was dead.

But the boy was right, the body had moved. In death the face had turned as though looking out across the world below. Towards the west. It was a sign.

And Kunga felt a strange sensation in his hand. When his hands had been pulverized by the rifle butt of the Chinese soldier, a large fragment of the clay statue had buried itself deep into the flesh of his palm, leaving a vivid scar that had never fully healed. On the day the Lama had taken himself to his cave, the scar had begun to burn, the first sensation other than constant pain he had felt in forty years, a sensation that had grown more fierce with every passing day. Now it felt as though it was on fire. He rubbed the palm against his chest, but it burned still more fiercely. The outline of the scar had grown red, like a map drawn on the parchment of his skin. A map of what, he had no idea. But he knew it was another sign.

The book and the black eye arrived in his office together, both being carried by Mickey.

‘What the hell have you been up to?’ Goodfellowe growled, seeing the mark that not even a copious sponging of Clinique concealer had been able to hide. Then, remembering his manners: ‘You all right?’

‘Just a little accident.’

‘Accident? What accident?’

‘The truth?’

‘Of course the bloody truth.’

‘Stage diving.’

His silence betokened utter ignorance.

‘Stage diving,’ she repeated. ‘You know, when you try to get up on stage?’

‘You’ve been auditioning for Pygmalion,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘And you fell off the casting couch?’

She looked at him waspishly, the slight bump above her left eye giving her an uncharacteristic scowl. ‘Bugger off.’

‘Whoops, sorry,’ he said, not meaning it.

‘Stage diving,’ she repeated, trying again. ‘The stage in question was at the LSE. A university bash. Def Leppard were playing.’

‘Deaf who …?’

She rolled her eyes in despair. ‘They’re a band. Heavy metal. The sort of music with megatons of bass that makes your skull vibrate. The sort that needs tight leather pants just to keep you in.’

‘I wonder why I haven’t heard of them,’ he muttered, all sarcasm.

‘So the idea is that you work up a rush of blood, jump up onto the stage and try to grab a piece of them.’

‘What on earth is the point?’

‘Not much. They’re ancient, about your age. Most stage divers wouldn’t have a clue what to do if we actually caught them. But we don’t. The purpose of the exercise is for the roadies – their road crew – to grab hold of you and throw you back into the crowd. Or rather, onto the crowd, since everyone’s packed so tight in front of the stage that all they can do is pass you back over their heads. Which means hundreds and hundreds of deliciously sweaty hands tossing you around and passing all over your body.’

‘But why would people want to do that?’

She groaned. ‘Take a wild guess, Goodfellowe.’

The impression began to form, and he had the grace to look momentarily stunned.

‘But last night they must’ve been down on numbers.’ She shrugged. ‘They dropped me.’

He studied her, studied her body, very closely, imagining the hands. His hands. He gathered his flustered thoughts. ‘Two suggestions. First, don’t spread that around this place. Wouldn’t do you any good. Or me, for that matter. Say you ran into a filing cabinet; that’s the standard parliamentary excuse for a black eye.’

‘And second?’

‘When I say I want the truth …’ He winced. ‘I’m not sure I always mean it.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘I guess you were young once.’

‘Don’t bet on it. Anyway, enough of your off-duty diversions. What work have we got?’

She handed him a book that was floating on top of the usual pile of daily letters. ‘Came this morning. From the Dalai Lama.’

‘You’re not the only one full of surprises,’ he offered as he inspected the book. It was an elderly edition of the writings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist who had written about the art of warfare more than two thousand years before (although he lived so long ago that scholars debated endlessly about whether he truly wrote the works, or if he even existed). The thick paper was brittle and discoloured with age, the cover of cheap card and scuffed. With great care Goodfellowe opened the book, at random, concerned lest the pages should fall apart in his hands.

‘If you rely on Government to put out the fire, by the time the bucket arrives there is nothing left but ashes,’ he read.

He smiled wryly. ‘Two thousand years and nothing’s changed.’

‘At least in those days the Government could afford a bucket.’

‘But I don’t understand. Why is a Tibetan man of peace passing on the musings of a Chinese warlord?’

‘There’s a letter in the back.’

It was written in a bold hand.

‘My dear Thomas Goodfellowe, I have been interested in military strategy since I played with lead soldiers in the Potala Palace as a child. In those days I always won! We Tibetans were once a warrior race, but now we must fight our battles by other means. Sun Tzu often shows how. I thought he might interest you. Especially since the future has a Chinese face.’

That phrase again. It was dated and signed in Tibetan script that meandered like an ancient river in flood across the page.

‘Bit like the bloody Times crossword, isn’t it?’ Mickey interjected. ‘“The future has a Chinese face.” Does that mean he’s given up?’

Goodfellowe stared at the letter. ‘No, of course he hasn’t given up. Can’t have given up. This is all about continuing to fight the battle, but by other means.’

‘What other means?’

He shook his head. ‘Dunno.’ He placed the book in a desk drawer and turned to the pile of correspondence. ‘And since he’s not a constituent I don’t suppose we’re ever going to have the time to find out. His battles aren’t our battles. They weren’t when I was a Minister, and can’t be now I’ve no more influence than yesterday’s weather forecast.’

Goodfellowe was wrong, of course. He would come to realize that, as soon as he discovered the letter was probably the very last thing the Dalai Lama had written in this life.

Mo could scarcely contain his frustration. He had rushed into the Ambassador’s office, perhaps a trifle enthusiastically but only in order to pass on the good news. Yet he had been forced to stand, humiliated, before her desk while the ancient warrior prattled on about courtesy and youth. It wasn’t as if she had been busy with anything of importance, merely rearranging the clutter of family photographs that dominated her desk.

‘A private secretary should know when privacy is meant to be respected. If they want to remain a private secretary, that is.’

She was constantly changing around those photographs, a daily ritual, like some old woman throwing fortune sticks in the temple. Faded sepia prints of her mother and father, revolutionaries who had met on the Long March, six thousand miles through central China to the caves of Shaanxi. Also one grandmother. Two aunts who had died on that march. Sisters. And of course her only daughter. A sickness her family had, only producing girls. The shame of the Lins.

‘Doors are meant for knocking on, not kicking down,’ Madame Lin lectured.

Mo hung his head, less in respect than in an attempt to hide the flush on his cheek. Listen to her! Kicking down doors? But that’s what the new China was about. The Ambassador was an old woman in an outdated world who had been left behind by the changes that were gripping their country. Sure there was corruption. And chaos. Hadn’t there always been? But now there was also something new. Opportunity. Open doors. Even if occasionally those doors needed a little forcing.

He took a deep breath. ‘Ambassador, I apologize.’

She waved her hand impatiently, leaving Mo unclear as to whether she was waving away his presence or his offence. He seized the moment.

‘But there is wonderful news that I wished you to have.’ His tone grew more eager. ‘The renegade Lama is dead.’

She became thoughtful, then grew unsettled, almost concerned. He had expected her to respond to the news, but not in this manner.

‘I thought you would wish to celebrate,’ he added, suddenly uncertain.

‘Then your presence is even less appropriate than I thought, Private Secretary.’ She always used his formal title when slapping him down. The deep frown was back, creasing her forehead.

‘I don’t understand, Ambassador.’

‘The first perceptive thing you’ve said all day.’

She was unusually brittle this morning. More bowel trouble, perhaps. Best to pacify. He bowed. ‘It would be an honour if you would explain.’

How he hated this vast office at the heart of the Embassy. They might just as well have been back in old Beijing rather than at the centre of a thriving Western capital. When the new Ambassador had arrived it had been an opportunity to bring the place to life with some of the new colour and fashions that were coming out of Shanghai and Hong Kong, but the old woman had turned it into something fit only for the scrapbook of a dowager empress – heavy rosewood chairs complete with antimacassars, dark lacquer screens, heavy rugs, oppressive potted plants. No imagination. All imported from home, even the musty smell, which seemed to have been borrowed from some dank winter’s day in central Beijing.

Madame Lin walked across the room to stand silhouetted against the window, where she lit a cigarette and took the smoke down to the bottom of her lungs.

‘So the Lama is dead,’ she repeated.

‘Gone. Wiped away,’ Mo enthused.

‘No, that’s where you are wrong. Simply because he was an enemy you underestimate him.’

‘But there is nothing left to underestimate.’ He struggled to hide his exasperation, and was not altogether successful.

‘In life he was significant. Yet in death he is a still greater uncertainty. And we have enough uncertainty in China today to satisfy even the keenest sceptic. Which is why young men like you are in such a hurry, Mo.’

Her tone was chiding and he wasn’t entirely sure what she was getting at. Time to get back to the matter in hand. ‘You are suggesting he is more of a threat to us dead?’

‘While he lived we knew where he was, what he was up to. Our eyes were always upon him. But how can we follow him now?’

‘You can’t believe in the absurdity of rebirth?’ Mo was aghast. His training at the Foreign Affairs Institute in Beijing had been most specific on the point.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what millions of Tibetans think, and they believe he will come back to lead them. A new Lama. Like a Messiah. While they are waiting they will make trouble. And when he returns, whoever he may be, they’ll make even more trouble. The wind blows cold from those mountains.’

‘Then we must remain alert, Ambassador.’

She turned on him. ‘The question, Mo, is whether you will remain at all.’

‘Ambassador?’

‘You take me for a fool. That I cannot tolerate.’

He began to protest. She cut him short.

‘You steal antiques and artefacts from the Embassy, Mo. My Embassy.’

Thick cigarette smoke hung in the air, creating an atmosphere that was suddenly clinging and intensely claustrophobic. ‘Ambassador, I can assure you …’

‘You can assure me of nothing. I know, Mo. About how you’ve been moving antiques around the Embassy. To hide them. Sending them off to your cousin in Amsterdam and having them copied. Then selling the original, and returning the fake to the Embassy.’

She was by the fireplace now, with Mo still protesting.

‘Not true. Not true …’

As though to prove her point she picked up an earthenware cocoon vase from the mantelpiece, covered in devils’ eyes and subtle whorls and the encrustations of age. She held it shoulder-high for his inspection. ‘How old would you say, Mo? One thousand? Two thousand? Han dynasty, I think. Yes, two thousand years old.’

Then with remarkable dexterity for a woman of her age she lobbed it across the room in his direction. In alarm Mo reached out and snatched it from the air, juggling desperately with it for a few tangled moments. But he couldn’t hold it. It fell. And smashed to fragments.

‘Not even two thousand days, Mo. But a very effective copy, nonetheless. Your cousin is to be congratulated.’

Across the vast space which seemed to separate them their eyes met and locked, and a change came over Mo. The cringing of previous moments was replaced by something altogether more substantial. If the game was up, he decided, there was little point in continuing to be horsewhipped by a woman. ‘Ambassador, I believe that is the first compliment you have ever paid me or my family.’

She ignored his impudence. ‘Why, Mo? Why all this dishonesty?’

He shrugged. ‘Only three pieces have gone. The first went to pay your predecessor’s gambling debts.’ His tone had an edge of disdain.

‘You never told me he gambled,’ she accused.

‘As you would not expect me to gossip to your successor about you.’

‘And the second piece? What became of that?’

‘It went to pay the outstanding bills on the refurbishment of your Residence.’

‘But why? The budget has been exceeded?’

‘No, simply not paid by the Foreign Ministry. Our budgets are months behind. I thought it wise to pay the bills and fix your leaking roof. And equally prudent not to tell you about it.’

She nodded. The Chinese economy was in chaos and Embassy expenses were beginning to fall ever farther down the list of Foreign Ministry priorities. The Residence was tired, unkempt, in need of refurbishment. What Mo said made sense. Her tone grew more emollient.

‘And the third, Mo? The third piece went for what purpose, please?’

He knew she would come to that. He had carefully dragged his Ambassadors into his little game, paying some of their debts and soiling them by association. But he knew it wouldn’t hide his own activities. Mo was one of the brightest and best-qualified young diplomats of his generation. Fudan University before the Foreign Affairs Institute. Every step of his career accompanied by commendations and acclaim. That’s why many years earlier than he might have expected he’d ended up in London, one of the most prized of foreign postings. But he and the other staff might just as well have been posted to a warehouse in Ulan Bator. Of London itself they knew and saw practically nothing. They weren’t allowed to touch. They lived almost entirely within the Embassy walls. They ate in the Embassy’s canteen, worked beneath the Embassy’s harsh lights and slept in the Embassy’s unwelcoming and lonely beds. The cockroaches here were almost as big as in their old university dorms. And their greatest excitement – oh revolutionary joy! – proved to be a communal bus trip to Brighton. Windy, rain-splattered Brighton. Next year they had been promised Bognor.

Even as the secretaries fluttered at the prospect of Bognor, Mo felt sick with frustration. And his sickness grew. One day he had been permitted (after first reporting to Security) to walk to the Chinese pharmacy in Shaftesbury Avenue so that he might pick up some herbs for the Ambassador. Just down from the pharmacy he had found a young man and his dog, wrapped in a blanket in a doorway. A beggar in the midst of plenty. Proof before his eyes of the Western disease. Except that in his bowl the young man and his dog had made more money in a morning than Mo could spare in a week. A Chinese diplomat, yet he couldn’t even look an English beggar in the eye.

It could have been worse, of course. Mo was already on the ladder of privilege which, as he climbed, would eventually bring him advantage and reward. Yes, eventually. He’d just decided it would make sense to short-circuit the system a little. To grab some of the benefits before he was too old to enjoy them. Certainly before he was as old as Madame Lin. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. So he said nothing, simply returning her stare defiantly. Why should he incriminate himself? But in spite of his silence, she knew.

‘I see. You had touched forbidden fruit and decided to taste it for yourself.’

‘What do you propose to do?’

‘The rules say I should send you back to Beijing.’

He flinched. ‘Where the People’s Republic will show its gratitude by taking me to a football stadium, placing me on my knees in front of the crowd and blowing my brains out through my ears.’

‘You have broken the rules.’

‘As did your predecessor,’ he protested with vehemence. ‘But I doubt that he will be kneeling beside me. There are privileges that accompany rank, even in the People’s Republic.’

‘Perhaps particularly in the People’s Republic.’

Mo started. The prospect of being done to death permitted a measure of cynicism. But he hadn’t expected Madame Lin to reciprocate.

‘Simply because I am an Ambassador does not make me blind, Mo. And simply because I am old does not make me forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘That I too was once young. A Red Guard. We shot people too, during the terror of the Cultural Revolution. We shot people who had done much less than you. Some who had done nothing at all. We made mistakes far worse than yours.’ She paused. ‘There has been too much shooting.’

His heart stuttered in hope and disbelief. An old woman, an old revolutionary, come to repentance? ‘What do you intend to do with me?’

‘Mo, you are no older than my own daughter. You are a fool in some matters, like politics. But you are adventurous. And adaptable. Such qualities will be necessary in the difficult times ahead.’

‘So … what do you intend?’ he repeated.

She left him hanging for a few pain-filled moments, like a fish impaled on a hook. ‘I intend that you should notice the gap on my mantelpiece, Mo. Where there should be something very old.’ She reeled him in. ‘Perhaps your cousin can fill it for me.’

They came together to remember him in many corners of the globe. Particularly in Tibet, before the baton charges and electric prods of the People’s Armed Police forced them to flee. Around the world they gathered in small groups, and in vast crowds, the high and the humble, monarchs and those who were merely mortal, to give thanks for the life of Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama.

On the mountainside in McLeod Ganj, in front of the steps that led to the temple of the Naingyal Monastery, they built a great brass chorten, a tomb which they covered in gold leaf and decorated with many precious stones. And above it they built a canopy of blue, yellow, white, red and green, the symbolic colours of the sky, the earth, water, fire and air. And the body of the Dalai Lama was taken from its cave and prepared by embalmers in the ancient tradition, washing the eviscerated body in milk and rubbing it with salt. The face and hands were also covered in gold leaf and the body, wrapped in brocade robes, was placed in its position of meditation within the chorten.

A small window was left in the side of the chorten so that the body might never leave his followers’ sight.

The monks, led by the abbot of Namgyal, began to chant the protector rights, praying that his teachings might be preserved and the body might be safeguarded, and also that the reincarnation would be swift. The national flag of Tibet that in normal times flew above the monastery was hauled down and would not be raised again until many weeks of mourning were complete.

And when gifts had been bestowed upon those monks and craftsmen who had laboured to build the chorten, the ordinary people came to offer their own prayers and tears, and to make prostrations, giving thanks for his life and many works. And across his empty throne they placed a mountain of white prayer scarves.

Then they waited for his return.