Truth: A Modern Fantasy

CHAPTER ONE

THE BROAD WALK

It happened on the first Monday in August. Henry was in the habit of going for a lunchtime walk. He had not been working in London for a long time, having only started that month. This was the day he discovered Regent’s Park, which until today he had not known existed. He purchased his sandwiches at the café in Great Portland Street station then crossed the busy main road and turned left to walk along the Euston Road. He discovered the park by accident and, after a bit of wandering around, found himself on the Broad Walk.

The Broad Walk is a long picturesque walk, the borders of which have been planted in a creative manner with all sorts of vegetation. There are fountains. It was busy, but not so busy as to be annoying. Henry carefully chose an empty bench to sit on. It was one of those lovely long old-fashioned wooden constructions with cast-iron ends. He eyed it with satisfaction, appreciating that it had been there for a long time. He sat alone for a moment with the sandwiches on his lap. He gazed out ahead of him. The frustration of the morning started to lift. People were passing backwards and forwards in front of him. He couldn’t help noticing some of the women but tried not to make it obvious. Every now and then his eyes would track one particular person until he lost interest.

He was lost in his thoughts and now interested in watching an Italian-looking younger woman.

“May I sit here?”

His head turned to see an old man with silver hair. The man was smiling at him and was waiting for a response. Henry wanted to be alone, but he was too polite to refuse the request.

“Go for it,” he muttered, and he deliberately didn’t make eye contact and carried on looking ahead. He was aware of the old man all the time, but he was eager not to engage. He noted with relief that his neighbour got out some headphones and put them in his ears, appearing to listen to something. About twenty minutes passed. Henry gradually forgot that he was there and enjoyed the silence.

Suddenly the old man pulled the headphones out and impatiently stuffed them back in his pocket.

“That is quite enough of that. I don’t know why I listen to the one o’clock news. It annoys me so much. There is so much stuff and nonsense these days, it really irritates me,” he said, and then looked at Henry as if he expected a response.

Henry tried not to nod or give any indication that he had heard what had been said. Of course he had looked at the man as he spoke, but then he turned back and looked ahead.

“I like to try to guess where people are from. You get so many tourists around here. A lot of them are staying in hotels and come for a little wander or are on their way to the zoo.”

“Really.” Henry tried to give the impression that he wasn’t interested. He had been watching a young girl of about four who had been eating ice cream out of a cone but had dropped it on the floor. Her parents were telling her off. She started to cry and was moving the ice cream around with her foot. Her mother slapped her leg and dragged her away impatiently. Both of them were now watching.

“Some people shouldn’t have children.” The opinion was offered as they both watched. The mother was working herself up into a lather and the child was crying even more. A man who might have been the father intervened and tried to make peace between the two of them. The little drama continued to play out. Henry became annoyed with the injustice of it and how poorly the little girl was being treated by the adults. It was still possible to see the handprint in red on the girl’s left leg. He was beginning to feel that he should intervene, although he knew how foolish that would be.

“Crazy!” The word escaped Henry’s mouth before he had a chance to check it. He felt it was a mistake and that it was dangerous to engage verbally; it would lead to things. He did not want that. He knew that. He was very clear on that matter.

The man was now beginning to succeed in calming the woman and child. The woman was looking sulky but he was patient. He led the girl a short distance away from her mother and cleaned her up. The mother was not watching. They moved away, then Henry could see the man and girl queuing for another ice cream. The scene faded from their interest, although Henry still felt annoyance. 

The trouble was that the old man now seemed to think that he had permission to speak as much as he wanted.

“Have you ever been to Keats House?” he enquired. “It is up in Hampstead. Do you know it? It is where the poet John Keats lived.”

“I have never heard of him.”

“Oh wow, you really should find out about him. He was really something in his time. You should read some of his poems. I wonder what I could tell you about him.”

“There is no need.”

“Oh, you can’t be in London without visiting his house at least once! His contribution to poetry was extraordinary. But I think his life was quite short. I am wondering how I can interest you in him.”

Henry was now feeling a touch of despair. He really didn’t want to hear some random stranger’s thoughts. But it looked like politeness would prevent him from actually saying this. He looked at his uninvited companion and could see that he was undeterred or oblivious. The old man was looking up at the sky now, as if he was consulting it for something. 

“It will come back to me in a minute or two.”

“What will?” Henry felt obliged to ask.

“The words of one of the best poems. I don’t think I can get all of it.” He continued to consult the sky. “But I think I can summon a stanza or two.”

Henry almost laughed. He looked at the man a bit more closely now, and curiosity began to tingle within him. He wondered about the man. 

“Here it comes! I have got it! Listen to this. This is one of the famous bits of one of his poems.” The man reached out involuntarily and gripped Henry’s arm as if to be sure that he had his full attention. He launched into Keats’ words now.

“With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”

He paused. Henry could sense the old man’s excitement. He wondered: was he happy because it pleased him he had dredged something out of his memory? Or was the man excited by the words? As it so happened, Henry was about to find out.

“Isn’t that so beautiful? Savour those words, lad! Take them to your heart.” He had turned to face Henry and was very engaged now. 

Henry did not know how to respond. It was a while since he had encountered anyone so enthusiastic about anything. Since arriving in London, he had become quite insular, and it seemed to him that Londoners could not be trusted. 

“Just think on that phrase, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ It is extraordinary, isn’t it? It is from ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’. I am not sure that you would hear any such thing these days. Can you imagine a poet eulogising a vase now?”

“What do you think he means, when he says that stuff about truth?” Henry asked. 

“I think there has been a lot of discussion of that over the years. They study his poems at all the posh universities. I never went to university myself, so I can’t tell you the fancy answers. But in my head, I think I imagine Keats is trying to say that there is something inescapably lovely about the truth. Let me think about that.” He went silent for a few moments. It was the kind of silence that went on a bit longer than Henry considered right. The thing was, to begin with Henry was indeed pleased that the man had quietened down. But then in a contradictory way, he wanted him to speak. He took a sneaky look at his new companion and noted that he had his eyes shut now. He wondered if he had drifted off to sleep while contemplating truth. However, suddenly there was a stirring. He started speaking again. 

“Here is what I think! Keats is saying two things. It is almost like a riddle. A puzzle. People who study him are so used to the fact that he said it they have stopped listening to it. We can see beauty anywhere. Even in the ordinary things. If we look at them with new eyes they can strike us again in a different way. Remember that this is all about a vase. Not that many people think a Grecian urn is a beautiful thing. But I think Keats is saying something about you can find beauty in something commonplace or unexpected.”

Henry was looking at him and, again, trying not to laugh. So solemn was this conversation. So unexpected.

The man was not to be deterred. “When we find beauty in the ordinary it is truthful because it is not filled with artifice. It is not manufactured and has crept up on us, so to speak. Jumped out at us!” He became almost embarrassed for a few moments and then continued.

“But I can assure you that there is something beautiful about knowing the truth about something. I suppose it might be painful sometimes, admittedly. But it is better to know the truth than to be a fool. When we know the truth, we are better able to adapt.” Now he was openly laughing at himself. 

Henry was not sure what response he should give. He was sure that there was more to truth than what the man was saying. But he did not want to burst his bubble, and besides, he would not know right now what it was that he wanted to say. He started to look at his watch. 

“Listen, I must be going, you know. I am only on my lunch break, not footloose and fancy free like all these tourists that we can see around us. My name is Henry,” he said, as he offered his hand.

The older man grasped the hand and shook it firmly. “My name is Bernard. Here is my card. I am sure we shall stumble across each other again, somewhere in London. If you need me before then, just call the number on the card.”

At this, Henry stood up. He looked down at the man and smiled, then walked back towards Great Portland Street. When he was about 100 yards down the Broad Walk, he turned back to see if the man was still there. He had already gone. He had his hand in his pocket and was holding the card. As he felt the card, he could feel that it had been printed with the kind of ink that stands out from the surface. He took the card out and looked at it. It merely had the word ‘Bernard’ on it, then the title ‘Agent of the Truth’ and a telephone number. He smiled now. Maybe the man was happy with this self-description. Maybe each day he found a new person on the benches and had the same conversation. Then Henry shook his head. Maybe he was being unfair. 

CHAPTER TWO

BERNARD

After he had met Henry, Bernard walked back through the park to where he lived. He regarded any day a success if he had talked to one person. He was very old now and his stamina was variable. Technically he was retired, but he didn’t view it like that. And let’s clear this up right from the beginning. In no sense was he mad. He was one of the most grounded individuals. And he could be trusted, which nowadays was a very rare commodity. You could say that he was just a man who had a thirst for the truth. His weakness was also his strength. He rather did like talking to people and he very, very much liked listening to them. His little business card was like a private joke but was also serious in a way. He would help people in any way they needed helping, but only if they asked. He wasn’t one of those who liked to take over people’s lives.

He knew that he was very fortunate. He had experienced a lot of difficult things in his life. But he also lived in what one of his friends called the greatest city in the world. If you know London you might agree with him. Parts of it are very old and it has a lot of charm. His aunt left him a flat in her will and it was just near Baker Street station. Well, very near really, practically above it. So it didn’t take him long to get home. He walked very briskly, although now and then he would stop to look at the birds on the water. Regent’s Park has a lot of water and birds you wouldn’t expect to find in London. As the park was originally for a monarch, some ornamental birds had been introduced. Bernard’s favourite, though, was quite domestic. He loved to see the herons and could lose a good few minutes standing there watching them.

The block of flats was originally quite grand when it was built. Some of the residents liked to call their flat an apartment, but that seemed to make them sound grander than they were. Now they just looked faded but dignified. They still had a man on the desk downstairs. But his main purpose nowadays was to repel riff-raff.

Bernard let himself in on the ground floor and took the lift to the top floor. His door was the last one at the end of a long, narrow hallway. 

He got his bunch of keys out again and pushed the first into the old mortice lock then the second into the tumbler lock. He liked the fact that for this second one he was still using his aunt’s key, which even had her initials scratched deeply into the metal. That gave him a sense that his family had lived here since just after it had been built. He liked to know the history of the area.

He pushed the door open. His cat woke from her sleep and made her way towards him and gave a faint meow of greeting. He gave her a brief stroke of the head and then walked past her into the kitchen.

Bernard put the kettle on, got a teapot out and put some loose-leaf tea into it. He liked this rather than tea bags. He thought about his meeting with Henry. He knew that he would be seeing him again. He did not know how he knew that, but it just seemed inevitable. 

When the kettle boiled, he finished making the tea and put everything on a tray and went into the sitting room. He had a high-backed old armchair that he favoured. He placed the tray down on the small table next to it and sat down and began to think.

He never put the television on until after 5:00 p.m. He was very strict about that as he felt it stole time from him. He would sometimes listen to the radio; it was a long time before he could train himself to stop calling it a wireless.

He was a man who was content with his own company. He had learnt that through necessity, never having married and nearly always living on his own. But he was also very sociable, as we have already discovered. Sometimes when he came indoors from being in the park, he would just sit there in his armchair for a while, thinking about who he had met that day, about any conversation that had been had, what it had meant, and what he could learn from it. That sounds very solemn, but to him this reflective process was quite casual. A lot of the people he talked to were one-off encounters, but every now and then one would be significant.

The cat came and sat next to him. She was pretty old too. She had given up mithering him for food as she realised it didn’t make much difference. But she sat facing him and kind of squinted at him, half sentient and half sleeping.

He no longer lived with a lot of possessions. He forgot how he had learnt to be like this, but he had discovered the freedom of simplicity. He found that to live like that was very beneficial. So although he lived in a surprisingly spacious London apartment (see now I have used that word!), it was really quite modestly furnished. It had three bedrooms, one of which he used as a study. The other spare was a guest room, which was always ready, just in case. The third was his bedroom, which had a single bed and minimal furnishings. He was a long-time celibate. Although as a young man he had savoured all the delights, he had somehow lost favour with sex.