Glittering Images (45 page)

‘I’m sure that once you’re at peace with your father a great many difficulties are going to be resolved. But I’m equally sure, I’m afraid, that this peace isn’t going to be easily attained.’

In an effort to overcome my embarrassment by changing the subject I said rapidly, ‘Is this where we start drawing up the battle-plan for my return to the world?’

‘Perhaps it is,’ said Darrow, who had of course gauged the exact depth of my distress and wanted to support my effort to counter it. ‘Very well, let’s visualize your approaching visit to your parents in Epsom …’

‘Your task here,’ said Darrow, ‘is to put your relationship with both your parents on a new basis. Establishing the facts about your paternity isn’t just going to satisfy your very pardonable curiosity; it’s going to provide an atmosphere of truth in which a new relationship with your parents can be created.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘No, Charles, don’t just sit back and say: “Yes, Father” like an obedient novice! Work hard, think hard, be constructive –’

‘How do I approach this task of creating a new relationship?’

‘That’s better. Your task is to approach them as a good Christian, and that reminds me of something you said during your narration of the Starbridge story. Didn’t you confess that you felt guilty about your lack of parish experience? Well, here’s your chance to take over from the local vicar and minister to your parents’ spiritual health.’

‘But my dear Father –’

He gave me a steely look. ‘You think your parents aren’t worth ministering to? You think that just because they don’t go to church they’re unworthy of your rarefied spiritual attention?’

‘No, of course not, but –’

‘Is being a priest just a matter of letting off the occasional homiletic firework and writing books on the Early Church?’

‘No, Father. One preaches the Gospel by living one’s calling.’

‘Precisely. Go down to Epsom and live your Christian message. You need never mention God. You needn’t even wear your clerical collar. Just turn up on your parents’ doorstep and show them by your actions what you believe in.’

‘Yes, but Father, whenever I visit them I do always try so hard –’

‘To do what? To be the perfect son, doing his duty to those two cardboard figures labelled “Father” and “Mother”? Put aside that glittering image, Charles – and put aside their glittering images too! Look beyond the cardboard façade and discover those two strangers who have kept themselves hidden from you even as you’ve kept yourself hidden from them. What’s really going on in your parents’ lives? How’s your father coping with retirement – always a great hurdle for any successful man? How is he, the atheist, facing the prospect of imminent extinction? And your mother – how’s she facing old age and the prospect of a declining appearance? How’s
she
coping with your father’s retirement – always a disturbing change for any wife? How lonely is she? How much does she miss you and how much does she long to confide in you? Charles, you have this challenging pastoral situation on your hands; are you going to spend your summer at Laud’s, comfortably insulating yourself from your twentieth-century problems by seeking exile once more in the remote academic past, or are you going to come down from your ivory tower at last and serve God in a place where you may well be needed more than you’ve ever been needed in your life?’

I felt as if God had called me not with a whisper but by a blast on the trumpet, and I hung my head in shame to think that I could have been so deaf for so long.

‘The marks of Jesus are silently impressed on His true disciples in the normal procedure of life in society as well as in the crises of suffering and martyrdom.’

HERBERT HENSLEY HENSON
Bishop of Durham 1920–1939
Retrospect of an Unimportant Life

‘It won’t be easy,’ said Darrow. ‘Your father will no doubt be objectionable as usual and your mother will probably make you cringe, just as she always does, but keep calling on them, Charles. Devote your summer to it. Then in the end caring may generate understanding, understanding may generate forgiveness and once you’ve forgiven them you’ll be at peace with them both at last.’

I said abruptly, ‘That reminds me of Jardine. When he was talking about his father he said, “With understanding forgiveness becomes possible”.’

Darrow relaxed his professional neutrality far enough to say: ‘My rock-bottom opinion of the Bishop’s spiritual perception goes up a notch,’ but at once he looked as though he regretted his frankness and before I could comment he was adding swiftly, ‘And now, no doubt, you’re anxious to extend the battle-plan from Epsom to Starbridge.’

I tried to choose the words which would show him I understood my position. ‘I do realize,’ I said, ‘that my parents must come first; I must sort out Epsom in order to gain the equilibrium which will enable me to sort out Starbridge. However –’ I hesitated but could only confess, ‘I hate the thought of putting Lyle in abeyance.’

‘I agree this is a most difficult point,’ said Darrow at once, and encouraged by his sympathy I made a new effort to express my feelings.

‘I think I’d find it easier to put Lyle in abeyance if there was a limit set to the time I had to wait,’ I said. ‘Assuming I do well with my parents –’

‘They’ll probably still need the lion’s share of the remainder of the Long Vacation. Why don’t you pick a date at the end of September for your reinspection of Lyle?’

Six weeks seemed a long time to wait but I said without hesitation, ‘Very well, but meanwhile could I write to her to re-establish contact?’

‘That’s a fair question but I don’t see why you should assume I can answer it better than you can. Let me ask you some further questions to help you make up your mind. For instance, what would a letter achieve beyond re-establishing contact? How would you feel if she failed to respond? Would you feel more frustrated than ever? Might this anxiety deflect you from your parents who should now be your first consideration? Might you be tempted to rush off to Starbridge for another bruising encounter with the Bishop?’

I was obliged to admit these were all disturbing questions. ‘Perhaps I should do nothing for the moment,’ I said with reluctance.

‘We’ll keep the matter open and discuss it regularly. Then I’m sure a satisfactory solution will evolve … And talking of evolution, Charles, I think you’re fit enough now to hear some information I’ve been keeping from you about the evolving situation at Starbridge. On the morning after your arrival here Jardine telephoned me.’

I was shocked by the nervousness of my reaction. ‘Did he tell you I was mad?’

‘He was much more anxious that I should tell him you were safe. Of course he was frightened in case you’d smashed yourself up in your motor; if you had, part of the responsibility would undoubtedly have been his.’

‘Did he phone again?’

‘Three days later, yes. He wanted to know how you were getting on. I said, “How kind of you to enquire, Bishop – Charles is in better health and benefiting from a quiet time with us.” I was curious to see if he’d press me for further information.’

‘And did he?’

‘He certainly went fishing. He said, “Charles was in a very distressed state when he left us. I was most concerned because he seemed to be dabbling in some incredible fantasies.” I then made some mild noise such as “Hm” and inflected it so that it could mean almost anything – whereupon he lost his nerve, changed course and asked me how I was settling down in Cambridgeshire.’

‘So he did try to convince you I was mad!’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Darrow with that serenity which never failed to reassure me. ‘If that had been his aim I think he’d have tried a direct approach by insisting you’d been raving, but he was clearly more concerned to get information than to make slanderous accusations.’

‘But of course he’s scared you’ll believe me!’

‘Of course, but that would apply whether he was guilty or innocent, wouldn’t it? Even the holiest of bishops would blanch at the thought of a canon spreading a story of episcopal adultery through the hallowed cloisters of the Fordite monks!’

Gradually I felt myself relax. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m behaving stupidly.’

‘Not at all. It’s just as natural for you to worry about Jardine convincing me that you’re mad as it’s natural for Jardine to worry about whether you’re convincing me he’s an adulterer. But Charles, my purpose in relaying this news of Jardine was not to make you anxious; I was trying to make the important point that time hasn’t stood still at Starbridge since you rushed away from the Bishop’s dinner table. I think you’re tending to see Lyle and Jardine and their relationship – whatever that may be – as frozen in time, but the situation at the palace will be constantly evolving, just as your situation here has been evolving, and that’s another reason why I think you should wait a little longer before you make your final circuit of the Starbridge mulberry bush. You flung a big stone into that particular pond, Charles; stand back now until the ripples reach the edge of the pond and you can see what’s been washed up at your feet. I think you may well find that the wait will pay significant dividends later …’

My first attempt at the spiritual exercises went entirely wrong. The opening half-hour had been allocated to reading at a normal pace passages from St Augustine’s
Confessions
and
The Imitation of Christ
by Thomas à Kempis, two famous works which naturally I had studied earlier in my career but which had for some time remained unopened in my library. This task seemed simple enough but when I finished in fifteen minutes I realized belatedly that I had been reading at the abnormal speed developed by my academic work, and to make matters worse I found on rereading the pages that some of the paragraphs were unfamiliar. I felt disconcerted by this proof of poor concentration, but it was not until I moved on to my assignment of meditative reading that my problems began in earnest. I had been given a short passage from St Mark’s Gospel to consider, not an interesting section like the Little Apocalypse which would have involved me in some challenging scholarly thoughts on Jewish eschatology, but the few verses which described the healing of Jairus’s daughter. The story was excruciatingly familiar, and after five minutes I found all my attempts at meditation had run aground on the rocks of boredom.

To pass the allotted time I translated the verses first into New Testament Greek and then into medieval Latin, but I was acutely aware that I was not supposed to be exercising my scholarship, and it was with mortification that I approached the last quarter of an hour which had been allocated to prayer. This section was easier, as I was in the habit of praying, but I was so upset by my failure to meditate competently that I found my concentration was wandering again and my prayers lacked depth.

I saw then how adrift I was unless the scholarly side of my intellect was engaged, and although I was no stranger to a broader religious awareness I realized that over the years my experience had narrowed instead of expanded. I liked my religion to take a cool, hard, analytical form and then I was capable of feeling very devout indeed, but without the prop of my intellectual power I was lost. I told myself I was not temperamentally suited to meditation; my gift was for studying and teaching, not for sitting around brooding over the spiritual resonances of one tiny section of St Mark’s Gospel.

However I knew I could never utter such unacceptable thoughts to my mentor, and after prolonged anxiety I decided that the only course I could take was to concede my failure but to stress that a vast improvement was both imminent and inevitable.

We met after his chapter meeting.

‘Someone suffering from malnutrition often has trouble taking normal food at first,’ he said mildly after I had admitted my difficulties, ‘but the important thing is that you had the desire and the will to stay at the dinner table and confront your plate for the duration of the meal. Let’s take a detailed look at what happened so that I can adjust the diet for you.’

After a post-mortem of the entire ill-fated hour he extended the time allocated to simple reading, kept the time of prayer unchanged but reduced the meditative reading to eight minutes. However the length of the material remained the same. ‘If you were in training,’ he said, ‘you could take twenty-five minutes over that passage – which is about as long as most people can profitably spend on this sort of reading – but don’t get discouraged; I don’t expect too much from you yet.’

However I found I could not bear this oblique confirmation of my failure. At once the glittering image said before I could stop him, ‘Don’t worry, Father – I’m sure I’ll soon master these little difficulties!’ and at once I knew I was making the same mistake as I had made when I had tried to reduce my relationship with Darrow to a purely personal level. I tried to find the words to retract the remark in all its false absurdity, but in the end it was Darrow who spoke first.

‘Charles,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to be a huge success in order to win my liking and approval. So long as you do your best – no matter how mediocre your best is – my liking and approval are guaranteed.’

There was a silence as the glittering image, battered but not yet dead, subsided once more into my subconscious but still I was too shaken to reply.

‘Let’s face the truth here,’ said Darrow, and again his firmness allowed him to be gentle without sounding condescending. ‘You are in many ways a very ordinary young clergyman. You have a certain modest spiritual gift which you’ve neglected, and you now have to pay it attention by developing it as far as you can, but I’m not looking for any glamorous success here, Charles – I don’t expect you to transform yourself into St Ignatius Loyola in order that I may pat you on the head and say, “Well done!” What I’m hoping is that you, the real Charles Ashworth, will struggle doggedly on at this task which is so very far from easy for you, and eventually achieve a possibly small but nevertheless solid improvement in your spiritual life.
Then
I shall say: “Well done, Charles!” but I won’t be setting the seal of approval on any glamorous playacting; I’ll be demonstrating my faith in your true self. Keep smashing that glittering image, Charles. It’s the enemy within. Keep smashing it until you can finally excavate the roots by remaking your relationship with your father.’