Mick Brown

Was Chris for real?

I still don’t know whether I’ve been had

issue 07 April 2012

I still don’t know whether I’ve been had

I have been wondering what to do about Chris…. Well, I call him Chris, but the truth is that I’ve only met him once and I’d hardly say our brief acquaintance qualifies as friendship. How does one get oneself into these quandaries?

Four weeks ago, I was walking along Buckingham Palace Road, towards the coach station, when I noticed Chris. He was a couple of steps ahead of me, talking on the telephone, and in a state of agitation. He was talking to a friend. His father had died that afternoon, and he needed to borrow the fare — 30 quid — for the coach to Leeds. Could his friend help? I was alongside with him by then, and glanced over. A tall man in his early forties, untidy hair, a well-worn overcoat, a shambling air. Not smart, but not disreputable. What sort of person needs to phone a friend to borrow £30 for coach fare? Someone with a cash-flow problem. A perpetual student? A penurious social worker? ‘I can give it back to you on Friday, when I’m paid,’ he said. But he had drawn a blank. He pocketed his telephone and trudged on, lost in his misery. He looked distraught — more distraught than I’ve seen anyone look on Buckingham Palace Road.

We had reached the junction opposite the coach station. He waited to cross the road.

I had spent the afternoon around the corner, in the library of the Buddhist Society, reading the autobiography of Christmas Humphreys, the society’s founder. The Buddhist Society is one of the secret pleasures of London. An oasis of tranquillity and kindness, where moral conundrums submit to a higher form of reasoning and float blissfully away, and the mind may find peace.

The wonderfully named Humphreys, who died in 1983 at the age of 82, was the son of a High Court judge and was himself a QC. A singular kind of Buddhist, he showed no inclination towards a life of asceticism or renunciation. He sported a silk top hat, lived in commodious surroundings in Belgravia, enjoyed dining at the Garrick Club and carried on in a manner befitting his caste and calling. But he was also a singular kind of QC. He concentrated on the prosecution of murder cases. In 1955, he was prosecuting counsel in the case of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. When she took the stand, Humphreys asked just one question: ‘When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?’ Ellis’s reply, ‘It’s obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him’, guaranteed her conviction.

In his autobiography, Humphreys writes that he was often asked how he reconciled his beliefs with prosecuting murder trials. ‘If it was my karma to prosecute, it was the karma of the prisoner not only to be prosecuted by me, but also to have committed that crime. The result would be within the ambit of his thinking-feeling-association in lives gone by. And his death, if he were hanged, would be the result of his causing, and might, as it were, wipe out the causing in the infinitely complex, infinitely subtle weaving of this cosmic web.’

The infinitely complex, infinitely subtle weaving of this cosmic web…

I tapped the man on the shoulder. I couldn’t help overhearing his conversation, I said, and I’d be happy to loan him his fare. He looked startled, then overwhelmed. That was awfully kind. Of course, he’d get the money back to me immediately. We entered the coach station — at which point I realised I was a bit short myself. I tried to buy a ticket from the machine. It was broken. I withdrew £30 from a cashpoint machine and gave it to him. We exchanged details. Chris from Islington. I left him, wiping his eyes, on a plastic bench.

After ten days, I began to wonder when I might expect a cheque, or at least an email. I emailed him my condolences and hopes that all was well. No reply. Another week went by. I emailed again, suggesting that he might care to repay the loan. Still no reply. By now, uneasiness was setting in. This was not about the money. It was his insistence that he would pay it back — and his silence — that complicated things. Was he still so distraught over his father’s death that he had been unable to even acknowledge his emails? So poor — and so embarrassed — that he could not face getting in contact with me? Had some other calamity befallen him? I began to experience feelings of guilt at pursuing a bereaved man, and for so meagre an amount. But wait a minute. How did that happen? Shouldn’t he be the one feeling guilty?

I worked on developing feelings of resentment. He’s a jerk, right?

Now, a month later, I’m wondering about his karma, and mine. What caused us to meet, for me to offer him money, and him to accept it? What has caused him to fail to repay it? And what course of action will wipe out the causing in the infinitely complex, infinitely subtle weaving of this cosmic web?

Christmas Humphreys would doubtless have risen above it. I, on the other hand, am minded to give Chris a call, and a piece of my mind. But then again…

Comments