A Disturbing Influence (16 page)

‘They still die gladly for their country,’ said Henderson, pointing at the tablet listing the dead of two world wars.

‘How do you know they died gladly? Who ever died gladly? They died because they were called up and a bullet happened to hit them. They don’t die because it’s noble to die for your country, they don’t believe in any of that any more. They don’t even build themselves great monuments to impress the living. They snuff out quietly, and have tasteful little slabs over their graves. Who’d think of swindling and cheating and pulling strings to save a monument these days?’

‘Well,’ said Henderson with a trace of smugness, ‘that’s the welfare state. There’d be a committee to save it from destruction nowadays.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said David, ‘it’s nothing to do with the welfare state. What have you got against people getting free medical care, as a Christian? That shouldn’t make the slightest difference,’ he went on, not waiting for an answer, ‘it doesn’t explain why the sap dried up. But it did. Somewhere between the Phellipses and the Gilchrists the sap dried up. Can you imagine Teddy or Jane fighting to defend their father’s tomb?’

‘Well,’ said Henderson, and stopped.

‘People don’t believe in anything at all, of course, that’s part of it. They muffle themselves up in platitudes, and feel nothing at all, never test their clichés against life. They don’t even have that tenacious family spirit, nothing.’ He pointed at a solemn bald man apparently addressing a crowd from a marble pillar in a niche of the nave. He had a beard, and while one hand gestured ineffably at the choir, the other rested on an open book. ‘Who’s that one?’

‘It’s Sir Reginald Thompson-Crowley. After the last Phellips disappeared the Brunswicks lived at Mendleton, but they died out in the early nineteenth century, and this man’s father bought it. Sir Reginald was a great reformer, an intimate of Shaftesbury’s. He’s said to have helped draft the first Factory Act.’

‘You can see how little there was left, then,’ said David. He observed the statue musingly. ‘You can almost see the sap drying before your eyes as you move forward in time. This one’s lost touch
with reality; he’s persuaded himself by his own verbosity and rhetoric that he’s a great man and everyone’s agreed with him. Now Phellips, there, he knew what he was doing. This one didn’t, he only thought he knew. But he’d gone deaf from listening to himself for so long, and blind from admiring his own cleverness.’

‘You talk complete nonsense,’ said Henderson testily. ‘He was a very great man, one of the foremost humanitarians of his day. There’s a statue to him somewhere in London.’

‘I’m sure there is. He probably put it there,’ said David, leaving Sir Reginald his oratorical victory over the empty pews.

‘Look at these,’ said Henderson, hopefully raising a seat in the choir. ‘People come from all over the place to look at these
misericords
. Late fifteenth century, they say.’

Hiding beneath each seat were crouched snarling figures, crudely carved in heavy wood. A fat devil with a lewd smile was swallowing a slim woman, her mouth open vacuously in astonishment: a carpenter was holding another devil down as he sawed off his head: a blacksmith held another in a pair of tongs. The carving had no subtlety, no finesse, but a rude peasant strength and humour. David dropped to his knees to see them.

‘Now, Raymond, don’t you understand what I’m saying? Look at these, they’re alive, they’re kicking and snarling and hating and loving.’ He stood up, his eyes bright with discovery. ‘It was there, you see, and that Phellips, he had it, too, he had plenty of it, it was still there then. But when you come to that pompous do-gooder, it’s almost disappeared. And now people don’t put up statues to themselves, as though they knew there was nothing left to find. It’s dried up, or dribbled away.’

‘But
what’s
dried up and dribbled away, David?’

‘The sap, the spunk. Now you only see it in the crafty ones, the ones in the Army who dodge all the fatigues, the ones who dine at the best restaurants on expense accounts, the ones at school who couldn’t help themselves, they had to do the things they knew would get them expelled in the end. It’s still there, turning up in odd places,
but never in the places you really need it. The place is run by the deaf and blind.’

‘I simply don’t understand you,’ said Henderson. ‘I know Britain isn’t the great power she used to be, but no country can stay on top all the time.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said David, impatiently. Then he thought for a moment. ‘Or perhaps it’s one of the points. I suppose the ones who couldn’t stand being choked here went out and built the Empire and started breathing. Till the women followed them and tamed them and turned the colonies into a sort of perpetual Surbiton. Before that it must have been possible to breathe, a man’s world. Now it’s no one’s. The men are all trapped and the women can’t think of anything to do but feed them regularly so they won’t try and escape.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Henderson.

‘And He started it,’ said David, pointing at the small figure of Christ on the cross which stood in the centre of the altar. ‘Look at Him, passive and accepting,
glad
to die, proud of being hung up there. But if you don’t fight you get absorbed into the grey sponge of men like that party-pooper up there, the humanitarian one.’

Henderson was extremely upset. His face was white and shocked, and he stared at his nephew with a cross between outrage and astonished innocence. At last he managed to say: ‘
What
did you call him?’

‘A party-pooper—a spoil-sport. He was all for drabness, for greyness. Mucking about with Factory Acts when he should have been … What is a Factory Act?’

Henderson rallied a little and said: ‘It was a very necessary measure to improve the working conditions of——’

‘Just what I thought. Nothing about playing conditions.’ David’s eye swept down the church, past the various plaques and monuments, then back to the figure of Christ. ‘He did it,’ he said. ‘He may not have meant to, but He did it. He kissed the traitor instead of knifing him. One shouldn’t go gladly, ever. He took a
long time to win, but He did in the end, that’s why no one bothers with Him any more. His triumph is too obvious. We are supposed to love each other, everyone says so. When we don’t even know if there’s a person inside our neighbour’s skin, we’re supposed to love him. But luckily, somewhere around, here and there, there are some who won’t give up their sins, who cling to them jealously, who refuse to let Him shoulder the burden. He came to take away the sins of the world, didn’t He? But there are always a few who refuse to surrender them. Thank God,’ he added, smiling to himself.

Henderson was shaking, his face the colour of Sir Giles. ‘You have no idea what you’re saying, David. I think we’d better go. You simply can’t mean …’ His voice trailed off. He went to a pew and began to pray.

After a while David came up to him and touched him on the shoulder. His face was bland and slightly mocking, slightly indolent, though nothing as definite as mockery or indolence showed. ‘I’m sorry, Raymond, I didn’t mean to shock you. It’s an idea I’ve had—for some time. It suddenly seemed to me to be true. Perhaps it isn’t. Christian love is something I don’t really understand.’

Henderson did not move, his lips set, his mind saying: Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us. At last he rose, and looked at his nephew and said: ‘You certainly do
not
understand Christian love, David. I should have thought you would have learned something about Christianity somewhere during the course of your twenty years, but apparently you haven’t. I ought to try and make up for that lack myself, but I don’t feel able to. It will make me much happier if you don’t raise the matter of religion again.’

‘I’m sorry, Raymond, really I am. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

The eyes looked contrite in the smooth pallid face, but
Henderson
said: ‘I think we should go now. I have things to do.’

They went to the door and out into the sun, blinking in the brightness of noon. Brigadier Hobson jumped up from a tombstone
shaped like a Roman stone coffin and seemed embarrassed, as though caught in some minor act of sacrilege.

‘’Morning,’ he said. ‘Lovely day. Mrs Crawley told me you were down here, Padre. Thought I’d enjoy the sun a bit till you were through.’

David watched him for a moment with the familiar blank indolence back on his face. Hobson seemed uneasy.

‘May I borrow the car, Raymond?’ said David. ‘I thought I’d have a swim before lunch.’

Hobson’s mouth opened, his white moustache quivering a little, then he thought better of speech and shut his mouth with a clack. Henderson and his nephew looked at him with surprise.

‘My teeth,’ he explained, embarrassed again. ‘Don’t fit too well. Awful nuisance.’ He tried a smile, and they both watched intently as though the teeth might suddenly shoot out at them. ‘Difficult sometimes.’ He looked up at the cloudless noon, a blue absence of birds. ‘Another beautiful day.’

‘Yes,’ said Henderson, pulling himself together. ‘By all means, David. I expect Brigadier Hobson wants to have a word with me. Have a nice swim.’

David excused himself politely to Hobson, but without any attempt at sincerity, then took the path towards the gate. The two older men watched him go, then Hobson said: ‘If you can spare me a moment, Padre, I’d like a word with you.’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘That nephew of yours hasn’t put on much weight, has he?’ said Hobson musingly. Then he clacked his teeth again and said: ‘I hate to bother you with anything so stupid.’

He explained. He owned one of the disused gravel-pits which people used for bathing. ‘Glad to let them use it. Used to swim myself when I was younger. Damn’ good for you.’ But last night someone, or probably several people, had behaved really very badly. ‘There’s a couple of old shacks down there, you know, for people to change in. They must have a place to change in. I don’t
expect people to ask me to use them—they’re there to be used. They’re not locked. Nothing in them but a few hooks. But
someone’s
been using them for—for the wrong purposes.’ He paused and clacked. ‘I don’t know how to put this, Padre, but the place looks as though someone has been throwing an orgy. Bottles all over the place. Broken glass. Might cut people’s feet. Very
dangerous
and thoughtless. I was really shocked when I went to look. Ponting told me he’d seen a fire down there last night, he thought, so I went down. The place is a shambles. They pulled the roof off one of the huts to use as firewood. Then they had an orgy. At least, that’s what it looks like.’

‘I say,’ said Henderson. ‘That’s awfully bad.’

‘Yes, it is. It’s damned bad. In fact I’m very disappointed. People have been using that place for ten years or more and nothing like this has ever happened. It’s a damned shame.’ Hobson’s
moustache
quivered.

‘I expect it’s Teddy boys.’

‘Well, it may be. But there aren’t any in Cartersfield that I know of. I couldn’t tell if they’d come in cars or not—too many tracks down there already.’

‘They could be Teddy boys from somewhere else.’

‘I hope they are. I hope very much that they’re not from
Cartersfield
. I hope that very much. Because I’m going to make it pretty hot for them if I catch them. And I’ve informed the police.’

‘I doubt if that’ll do much good,’ said Henderson. ‘They’re so short-staffed.’

‘Well,’ said Hobson, reasonably, ‘I’m not going to sit up all night to get them at my age. I’m sixty-eight. Ten years ago—five years ago—it would have been a different matter. I wouldn’t have thought twice about giving them a dose of lead in their breeches. But I like my sleep now. And Evangeline wouldn’t hear of it. But if this happens again I shall wire the place up and put a padlock on the gate.’

‘I think you have a perfect right to do so. It’s really very
disturbing
. I’m very sorry to hear about it indeed. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Not that I can think of,’ said Hobson. ‘I thought you ought to know, that’s all. Tell your Boy Scouts about it. Tell them that if I catch one of them down there behaving like a vandal I’ll beat his bottom raw for him and then I’ll hand him over to the police. I mean it.’

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be the Scouts,’ said Henderson, thinking of the twenty or thirty adolescents who mooned damply about the Brunswick Memorial Hall on Tuesday evenings, trying to tie knots. There should be a proper scoutmaster, really.

‘It may not be your Scouts, Padre,’ said Hobson, ‘and I’m not accusing them. But you can’t trust Scouts. It’s always been a rule of mine never to trust a man who admits to having been a Boy Scout.’

‘Really! That seems a little unfair. But I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. And thank you for telling me about it. I’m most disturbed about it. I do hope we don’t have an outbreak of juvenile delinquency. It must be Teddy boys.’

‘I thought you should know,’ said Hobson. ‘You’re padre, after all.’ He looked around the churchyard. ‘Well, I expect you have things to do. Sorry to have bothered you.’

‘Not at all’

Hobson took an ash-plant from beside the tombstone he had been sitting on and set off up the path as though climbing a mountain.

Henderson turned back to the church and went in. It was cool after the sunlight which showed itself here only in bright splotches of colour, red and purple and green and blue, where it streamed through the stained glass at a narrow angle.

What can the boy have meant? Before Christ the earth had no concept of peace, of Christian peace. They slaughtered each other and tortured and maimed. But they still do. What was there in all antiquity that could match the weapons of today? The guns and
mud and barbed wire and piled corpses of the Somme. We certainly haven’t learned to love. And the cold, icy sin of the blitz. The colder, icier sin of Hiroshima? But that was our side. We need desperately to love one another as Christ commanded. David couldn’t have understood what he was saying. Love was a flowing out, a sharing. What did he mean that Christ had taken the sap—what did he mean by the sap?