Do you remember how Mr Creakle summoned David Copperfield to his study to tell him that his mother was very ill, then that she was dangerously ill, before finally telling him that she was dead; all in one sentence, in a ham-fisted, uncaring, attempt at breaking the news to him gently? Well, Chew-Chew has been very poorly.
We haven’t buried him, mainly because he was full of disease, but Friend John consented to put on some Marigolds and drag him out to what is referred to as the garden, to lay him out, as it were. The body is not hidden, but it would be difficult to see if you were a casual visitor to the house. Friend beckoned me to the back door earlier today, then led me onwards, round the briar patch, then stopped, indicating downwards with his head, where just a pair of buckled slip-ons were visible from under the brambles. ‘It’s as if he took a fall,’ he said, then added, ‘I hereby invite you to observe the process of decomposition.’
We had both tended to Chew conscientiously over the preceding six days, and it’s really only in the last forty-eight hours or so, that we even considered the possibility that we had perhaps poisoned him. Whatever. Friend John says this of our predicament, that like God, we worked hard for six days, and should now take a day of rest to reflect. Your honour, I humbly beseech you to grant me leave to appeal.
Ground one: God did not work for six days then rest. It’s not as if She went back to work on Monday, is it? She didn’t come back to tweak Her flawed creation. No! She worked for six days, then stopped. The whole notion of a seven-day week was made up afterwards by Her promoters when preaching about it on, err the Sabbath – the day set aside by them for such things after six days of work. Convenient that, wasn’t it?
She no more promotes the idea of resting on the Sabbath in an otherwise purposeful life, I tell him, than do the long term unemployed, who put their names down for a council flat and a mobility scooter the day after they leave school.
He tries to distract and digress, pretending to take offence at the notion of a female God.
I tell him that the attributes he ascribes to his notion of God, could only belong to a woman.
He nods a conceding nod. It’s a fair point.
Ground two. She may well have gone back to work on Monday. But not here. Who knows – She probably spent Sunday on Her sofa eating crisps, watching the tele, and reflecting about Her ill-thought through project. But the only reasonable conclusion to draw from that, is that She then either shrugged Her shoulders and did nothing; or decided that our project was Her prototype, had another go at it, then abandoned us, taking all her prophets with her to the new version, where they could tell everyone about her majesty, just as they’d once done here.
It’s the Christian way, I tell him – to make a big deal out of everything, then lose interest and leave. When did you ever hear of the Wise Men again after the birth? They were no better than the shiny suited godfathers of today, who turn up for the christening, promise a lifetime of moral and spiritual guidance to the new baby, then bugger of to the pub, never to be seen again.
He won’t have it, accusing me of framing all my arguments within a premise that accepts Christianity as a precondition. Which is a pity, because I have a whole raft of biblical figures, who suddenly lose interest in their cause to throw at him, not least Jesus himself, who was perfectly happy hanging with his Chief Ho #1, and his Side Bro’s # 2-12, until he ran out of gold. And, I mean, who among us doesn’t hold a very low opinion of all livestock farmers? But, you’re summoned to the birth of the Messiah by the Angel Gabriel, then you don’t even bother with his Bar Mitzvah?
But he’s right. I am give too much credence to a belief I don’t share, to make my lesser point. So, instead, I reply that we must look for what we think is God, not in Heaven, but in the details.
He screws up his face, not in confusion so much as disdain for my argument, and I commend myself for having almost mastered Keith’s technique for winning arguments by deploying the near non-sequitur to confound your opponent, just like little Borry Johnson. Emboldened, I proceed to tell him about the time, around the corner from me, in Balham, when I’d just started working, of the story reported in the local newspaper. It concerned the death of an 80-year-old man. He had been found dead, naked, under his son who weighed twenty stones, and who had suffered a heart attack whilst making love to his father.
What’s that got to do with the price of cheese? He says (I was pleased with this, because I taught him this expression a couple of weeks ago).
It’s what we call the 80/20 rule, I tell him.
He’s heard of it – eighty percent of outcomes, from twenty percent of cases.
Yes, yes, Pareto optimality. Eighty percent of investigators would assume that the res ipsa pointed to us being the twenty stone man.
He shakes his head slowly, deliberately, as if he’s truly confounded. Am I stupid, or am I making a point that he hasn’t yet grasped?
So now, I say, we must do as God did, but the best of Christians failed to heed: we work for six days, then run away. Forever.
You should have seen his face. If I’m not mistaken, I think the Atheist Anabaptists have won over another proselyte.
We glug a few mouthfuls of locally made hooch into Chew’s mean, thin-lipped mouth, to add to the illusion of a desperate, helpless, diseased man, who’d given up; then we pack up all the portable property we can find into a couple of hankies, and set out in search of something better. Just like little David Copperfield.
Dickie White's Diary 