Postscript
Coincidences
P.J. Kavanagh A few weeks ago I mentioned here that I 11..met the Mad Pole in a church. He did not know me but I knew him because ten
years before, driving the school bus like a Polish Cavalry charge, he had driven it into me and shouted from his window that I should send him the bill. I don't know how often this happened, or what his collision expenses amounted to, 'but the abandon with which he drove was likely to make them considerable. What I did not mention was that, when I walked four miles across the town from the church to my car, he was striding past it. Not a sighting in ten years and then two in one morning seemed wor- thy of note, so I addressed him and asked if it was indeed he who used to drive the school bus. He admitted it, clearly did not remember me, stated firmly that he now did something else, and marched away in shoes so large they looked like boxes without topses. It is probable that other people's coin- cidences are as boring as other people's dreams, but my mind has been running on coincidence this week, for reasons I hope soon to make clear, and I feel like mention- ing one or two by way of preamble. There was the time I dialled a wrong number and found myself talking to an old and rascally friend of mine (whose number I did not know). He took the opportunity to touch me for a loan.
There was the time I encountered the head of the Clan Kavanagh (from the south) on the loneliest beach in the west of Ireland. That needs a little explanation. Of course, I think I am the head of the Clan • Kavanagh; most of us do. I don't know about Julie Kavanagh (no relation) who writes for this paper and whom I have not met; nor do I know about Pat Kavanagh the literary agent; she is too good-looking, and business-like (thank goodness) quite to fit the bill. I had corresponded with An- drew Kavanagh; I had even camped in his grounds in lush Co. Carlow. He was living in the stables at the time, his house being rented, if I remember, to Mike Todd Jnr. He is an excellent fellow, Andrew Kavanagh, long and dark and thin as a whippet, an ex-National Hunt rider. Anyway, years later, I was with my family in the west of Ireland, hundreds of miles from his patch and even further away in metaphysical distance. We walked along a lane, and down a lane, past ruined, deserted cabins, till we came to the sea and a beach not much bigger than a dining-table. A melancholy and beautiful spot, at the edge of the world. The young boys played in the sand as the sun set and I stared across at two islands, also with abandoned cabins on them. All the sadness and beauty of that part of Ireland was there, and not a soul for miles. Then a thin shadow fell across the strip of sand and, enhaloed by the setting sun behind him, like a figure in some Chestertonian phantasmagoria, there stood 'Andrew. The real chief and the dream chief saluted each other gravely, amid the desola- tions of an Ireland that was equally foreign to both of them.
I now remember that Arthur Koestler asked people to send him accounts of coin- cidences and when he published them they sounded extraordinarily boring. However, I now come to the point of all this, which is something that happened the other day. I was in a small seaside village in Kent and had a conversation with the vicar, an in- telligent and surprisingly religious man. Somehow the conversation turned to the subject of All Saints' Day and I remembered that I had made some remarks on that subject in the current Spectator. I resolved to present him with a copy, if I could find one. The local newsagent did not look a likely place in which to find a Spec- tator, but then, let's face it, nor do most places. To my surprise they had one, buried in a box, ordered by someone else. They felt they could get another so they rubbed out their customer's name and sold it to me. The girl was solicitous, apologised that the name was still indented on my copy, and I glanced at it. It was Cluff. 'Good Godl' I said. 'Isn't he —?' They said yes, indeed he was the proprietor of the magazine, which is why they thought he wouldn't mind.
Of course, I had no idea he lived there. I have noticed a fatter, glossier look about the Spectator of late, as though its circula- tion is going up. In the unlikely event of this being the case it is because I parted with good money for the proprietor's copy.
Previous page
