Free The Laying on of Hands: Stories by Alan Bennett

venturing into one of the last genuine cafés patronised by the porters at Smithfield where the tripe was said to be delicious.
    Most of the big stars had left pretty promptly, their cars handily waiting nearby to shield them from too much unmediated attention. The pop star’s limo dropped him first then called at the bank so that the security guard could redeposit the clasp and then took him on to a laboratory in Hounslow where, as a change from Catherine the Great, he was mounting vigil over some hamsters testing lip-gloss. Meanwhile, the autograph hunters moved among what was left of the congregation, picking up what dregs of celebrity that remained.
    ‘Are you anybody?’ a woman said to the partner of a soap-star, ‘or are you just with him?’
    ‘He was my nephew,’ said Miss Wishart to anyone who would listen.
    ‘Who, dear?’ said one of the photographers, which of course Miss Wishart didn’t hear, but she looked so forlorn he took her picture anyway, which was fortunate, as he was later able to submit it to the National Portrait Gallery where it duly featured in an exhibition alongside the stage doorman of the Haymarket and the maitre d’ of the Ivy as one of ‘The Faces of London’.
    Soon, though, it began to spit with rain and within a few minutes the churchyard was empty and after its brief bout of celebrity, back to looking as dingy and desolate as it generally did.
    ‘NO IT ISN’T A DIARY,’ said Hopkins. ‘It’s more of an account book.’
    It was divided into columns across the page, each column numbered, possibly indicating a week or a month, the broad left-hand column a list of initials, and in the other columns figures, possibly amounts. The figures were closely packed and as neat as the work of a professional accountant.
    ‘Can you make it out?’ said the young man, running his finger down the left-hand column. ‘These are people, I take it.’
    ‘They might be,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I don’t quite know.’ Having just spotted his own initials, Geoffrey knew only too well, though he noted that the spaces opposite his own name were only occasionally filled in. This was because Clive came round quite spasmodically and wasn’t often available when Geoffrey called (now, seeing the number of people on his list, he could see why). When he did come round the visit did not always involve sex (‘No funny business’ is how Clive put it). Geoffrey told himself that this was because he was a clergyman and that he thus enjoyed a relationship with Clive that was pastoral as well as physical. More often than not this meant he found himself making Clive scrambled eggs, while Clive lay on the sofa watching TV in his underpants, which was about as close to domesticity as Geoffrey ever got. Still, Geoffrey had always insisted on paying for this privilege (hence the entries in the notebook), though really in order to give credence to the fiction that sex wasn’t what their friendship was about. Though, since he was paying for it, it wasn’t about friendship either, but that managed to be overlooked.
    ‘Did you see a lot of each other? In Peru?’
    Geoffrey was anxious to turn the page and get away from those incriminating initials.
    ‘Yes. We had meals together quite often. I could never figure out what he was doing there.’
    ‘What did you eat?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Eggs?’
    ‘Beans, mostly. He said he was travelling round. Seeing the world.’
    As casually as he could Geoffrey turned the page.
    ‘These figures,’ said Hopkins, turning it back. ‘What do you think they mean?’
    ‘They’re on this page, too,’ said Geoffrey turning the page again. ‘And here,’ turning another.
    Hopkins blew his nose, wiped it carefully and put the handkerchief away. ‘Is it sex, do you think?’
    ‘Sex?’ said Geoffrey with apparent surprise. ‘Why should it be sex?’ He looked at Hopkins as if the insinuation were his and almost felt sorry for him when the young geologist blushed.
    ‘Clive was a