Scandalous Risks (29 page)

XII

‘And now,’ said the Bishop, gorgeous in the yellow sports-shirt and snow-white slacks which he had elected to wear for his morning’s round of golf, ‘having demonstrated that Dr Robinson is ill-advised to ignore all the great mystics of the Church who throughout the centuries have withdrawn from the world in order to pray — having demonstrated, in other words, that prayer is
not
solely a matter of engaging with the world and exuding love from every pore — we will
turn
to assess what Dr Robinson is pleased to call the New Morality. We’re going to examine the spectacle of a well-meaning, fatally idealistic middle-aged cleric who proposes to grapple with the increasing problem of sexual licence by tearing up all the old rules and merely urging people to love one another. What sort of a world, I ask myself, does the good Bishop think he’s living in?’

Dr Ashworth paused, reaching upwards to stroke that domestic pet, his pectoral cross, but encountered instead only the glossy grey hairs which were exposed by the open neck of his sports-shirt; he had forgotten that the cross had been discarded for his round of golf. ‘I’ll have to rephrase all that later, of course,’ he said to me. ‘The tone is much too withering for publication, but while I’m getting my ideas down on paper I shan’t bother to apply a coating of sugar. Now let me think. Ethics has many aspects and I’m not sure which one I should tackle first.’ So absorbed was he in his thoughts that he was unaware of his wife opening the door of the morning-room. ‘Shall we have sex straight away?’ he mused to me as she peeped in. ‘Or shall we save it for later?’

The point of my pencil snapped.

‘Darling,’ said Mrs Ashworth serenely from the threshold, ‘that remark deserves to go straight into the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
’

The Bishop gave a galvanic start and then, to his great credit, laughed with genuine amusement. I promptly giggled in sympathy and Mrs Ashworth produced her sphinx-like smile.

‘Dear me!’ exclaimed Dr Ashworth. ‘What an extraordinary clanger! I really didn’t think I was capable of such a performance —’

‘"— as the bishop said to the actress," droned Mrs Ashworth, successfully giving the famous old joke another whirl.

This time no one made any attempt not to laugh, and it was some seconds before Mrs Ashworth managed to say: ‘Charles, I came to tell you that your brother’s on the phone. Can you possibly tear yourself away from Venetia to speak to him?’

‘I’m sure Venetia would welcome a break from my inanities!’ gasped Dr Ashworth, and disappeared, still laughing, to his study.

‘If he’s going to dictate about sex,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘you’d better have a drink. Gin-and-tonic?’

‘I’d love one, but no — it might have a fatal effect on my shorthand.’

‘In that case stay and have a drink afterwards. Since he switched you today from nine to five in order to trek over that awful golf course, I think the least I can do is provide a gin-and-tonic in compensation.’

I agreed to a drink at six. Dr Ashworth returned from his study but was soon recalled by another phone call which was promptly succeeded by a third.

‘Sorry, Venetia,’ he said afterwards, ‘but I’m going to have to call off this session. The Archdeacon’s coming round to discuss an emergency.’

Was I disappointed or was I relieved that the Bishop had been obliged to postpone his demolition of the New Morality? I had no idea. Then I realised that this was because I wanted to have no idea. For one long moment I saw myself marooned amidst an array of mirrors which tilted up and down so rapidly that I could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion in their shifting reflections, but then I pushed this unnerving image from my mind, pulled myself together and prepared to enjoy a drink with my heroine.

SIX

The chapter on "The New-Morality", for example, is particularly disquieting. One feels that a careful study of the troubles that befell St. Paul
in
Corinth ... would be profitable to the Bishop. It is likely that the Apostle would prove a far better guide than D. H. Lawrence, that devotee of a religion far older than Christianity and still one of its principal rivals.’

GLYN SIMON

The Honest to God Debate

ed. DAVID L. EDWARDS

I

‘How’s the love-life?’ said Mrs Ashworth after we had been chatting for a while in her sitting-room.

‘Promising. I may be going sailing soon with Perry Palmer. He keeps a boat at Bosham.’

‘That’s Christian’s friend, isn’t it — the young man you mentioned to me the other day?’

‘Yes, that’s the one.’ I suddenly wondered if she had heard the rumour that Perry was a eunuch, but since the Aysgarths and the Ashworths had never lived in each other’s pockets I felt there was a good chance the story had failed to reach the South Canonry.

‘What does he do for a living?’

No one knows for sure but he’s reputed to be a spy.’

‘How fashionable!’

‘Oh, he’s hardly the James Bond type —’

‘Just as well, perhaps. Michael adores the James Bond novels,’ added Mrs Ashworth as an afterthought, ‘and Charles gets so cross, says they’re decadent. Of course he’s read them all.’ Casually she flicked ash from her cigarette into the nearest tray.

‘Well, congratulations on landing an old Wykehamist who lives in Albany and keeps a boat at Bosham! But why aren’t you living up in London so that you can see him more often?’

‘Oh, that wouldn’t do at all, Mrs Ashworth!’ I said glibly at once. ‘He might think he was being chased. I’ve made up my mind to play this very cool.’

‘How sensible,’ said Mrs Ashworth, blowing some smoke languidly towards the ceiling.

I realised it was time I displayed some passion. ‘Of course we do write a lot –’

Write! I thought your generation only used the phone!’ Well, naturally we phone each other as well –’

‘It sounds as if you’ve got yourself very well organised,’ said my heroine kindly. ‘I’m so glad.’

Without warning I heard myself blurt out: ‘Yes, I’m very lucky compared with Dinkie – that’s Dinkie Kauffman, an American friend of Marina’s. She’s got herself mixed up with a married man, and it all sounds desperately frustrating because they can only meet once a week and since he won’t go to her flat the meetings always have to take place in his car.’

‘How intriguing. I’ve never before heard of a married man who wouldn’t snap up the chance to go to his mistress’s flat.’

‘Oh, she’s not his mistress, Mrs Ashworth! It’s all rather peculiar. You see, he keeps insisting that he doesn’t want an affair but he also swears he’s madly in love with her – which is all so confusing to poor Dinkie who can’t figure out what’s really going on – and I couldn’t figure it out either when she asked my advice.’

‘Maybe he wants to do the right thing and marry her first. Is there a divorce in the offing?’

‘Oh, there’s no question of a divorce! And the wife could live for ever, according to Dinkie.’

‘It sounds to me,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘as if Dinkie’s wasting her time.’

‘But Mrs Ashworth, surely an affair is always a strong possibility when two people are madly in love? I mean, I know, of course, that an affair would be morally wrong, but poor Dinkie– who’s not religious – is in such a state over her grand passion that she’s nearly being driven mad by all this high-minded abstaining. She feels that if only she could have a little bit of bed now and then –’

The trouble with grand passions is that the lovers are never content with just a little bit of bed now and then.’

‘But half a loaf’s better than none, surely? And she does absolutely accept that she can’t marry him –’

That’s purely a temporary phenomenon, the result of lack of experience and wishful thinking. Once she was his mistress she’d soon start to wonder how long the wife was going to go on.’

Dinkie already wishes the wife was dead, I know – and oh, Mrs Ashworth, the most ghastly part of the whole situation, the part that’s driving Dinkie up the wall, is that she thinks he may still be sleeping with his wife. He says he’s not – or rather, he implies he’s not – I mean, he’s never actually said to Dinkie: "I DO NOT SLEEP WITH MY WIFE", but he obviously wants to give the impression that he –’

‘Of course. No married man in his right mind is going to say cheerfully to his potential mistress: "Oh, by the way, I’m still sleeping with the old girl, but you don’t mind, do you?"‘

‘You mean ... You think the likelihood is –’

‘Oh yes. Have another gin.’

I accepted another gin. I had to concentrate very hard to make sure that my hand was steady when she returned my glass. Then I said evenly: ‘I don’t know how you can be so certain, Mrs Ashworth. Surely it’s fairly common for couples who have been married for years not to sleep together? In fact I thought this was always the main reason why husbands strayed.’

‘A straying husband would certainly indicate that the marriage has its difficulties, but those difficulties needn’t necessarily be sexual. If this man’s content to breathe passion over Dinkie but take the affair no further, I’d guess the marriage has its private compensations which aren’t apparent to the outsider.’

‘But surely there must be another explanation! If the man’s a romantic – or an eccentric –’

‘Oh, anything’s possible, certainly. I suppose the next most likely explanation for his abstinence is that he’s impotent: he’d get his thrills out of passionate kisses and he’d make some excuse – a moral objection to adultery would do nicely – to ensure he stayed out of the bedroom.’

‘As a matter of fact, Dinkie says he
has
voiced a strong moral objection to adultery –’

‘Ah well, there you are.’

‘But Mrs Ashworth, couldn’t he be genuinely held back by his moral beliefs?’

‘My dear,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘I know it’s quite wrong for a bishop’s wife to be so cynical but at least I’m being entirely honest when I say that in my opinion a man in the grip of a grand passion can always work out a way to circumvent his moral beliefs. He’d still hold those particular beliefs, of course, but he’d decide his case wasn’t covered by the rules. There’s nothing like a grand passion for encouraging self-deception on an epic scale.’

‘So you think that eventually he’ll work his way around his moral beliefs and sleep with Dinkie after all?’

‘Goodness only knows what he’ll do, but tell Dinkie that if she paddles in the pool of adultery she could well wake up one morning and find that the waters have closed over her head. I knew a young woman once,’ said Mrs Ashworth, sipping her gin, ‘who got in a fearful mess with a married man – a very respectable married man – really most eminent – someone who had absolutely no hope of a divorce – and at first she thought she’d be satisfied with just a passionate kiss now and then but she wasn’t, she wasn’t satisfied at all, she was soon so jealous of the wife that she became bitter and miserable – even in the end unbalanced – yes, in the end she became quite mad, so mad that she was almost destroyed–
almost destroyed–
and even when by some undeserved miracle she was rescued by a good man who married her, she wasn’t right, not for years, and that was so terrible for the husband ... although I’m glad to say that in the end everything came right and they were happy. But at what cost! And after such suffering! It was an appalling case and I’ll never forget it. Never.’

After a pause I managed to say: ‘What happened to her married lover?’

‘Oh, he was ruined, of course,’ said Mrs Ashworth in the manner of a pathologist dictating a report from the morgue. ‘He resigned his job. He never worked again. He died before his time of cancer.’ And she ground out her cigarette in the ash-tray as if to symbolise the life that had been so inexorably extinguished.

There followed a silence which I was unable to break. Then she said with an effortless resumption of her relaxed, friendly manner: ‘Charley’s making a quick visit home this weekend – are you free for Sunday lunch? I’m sure he’d enjoy seeing you.’

‘I don’t think he would, Mrs Ashworth. When we met on the train before Easter we had rather a slanging match.’

‘That sounds promising! Charley loves to be combative. Do come!’

Unable to think of an excuse more compelling than sheer incompatibility I gave way and accepted the invitation. Then feeling deeply disturbed I returned home and watched television without comprehension in the dusk.

II

At three o’clock in the morning I was finally able to think: he’s undeniably healthy and so the likelihood is he’s sexually unimpaired; therefore if he’s not sleeping with his wife, the chances are that he’ll eventually work his way around his moral convictions and wind up sleeping with me. Then I was able to doze off, but when I awoke four hours later my resolution to be patient withered in seconds and I felt overpowered by the longing to see him.

Recalling his spiritual timetable I realised he would be absent that morning from the early services in St Anselm’s chapel so I made no effort to go to the Cathedral, but soon after nine I telephoned the Deanery.

Aysgarth’s secretary Miss Trotman took the call.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Could you remind the Dean, please, that Lady Mary wishes to speak to him this evening about the memorial tablet? Thank you so much.’ But as I hung up I realised I would now have to devise a new telephone message; Lady Mary could hardly go on wanting to speak to the Dean about a memorial tablet.

The difficulties of communication suddenly seemed intolerable. For a moment I sank deep into depression, but then pulling myself together I began to look forward to seeing him later in the cloisters.

III

He called back at noon. ‘Can’t talk now,’ he said. ‘Just wanted to say "message received". See you on Lady Mary after evensong,’ and he hung up.

Some hours later I was just rising to my feet at the start of the service when I noticed that Dido was present in the congregation. She appeared unaware of me, but I found myself unable to stop looking at her and eventually, inevitably, our glances met. At once she gave me a bright smile. Not to be outdone I gave her a bright smile in return, but when I stared fiercely at the high altar afterwards I could only see the cross through a haze of tears. At the end of the service Aysgarth walked past without looking at me and Dido zipped across to the vestry door to wait for him.

Abandoning all hope of a tryst on Lady Mary I went home and drank three double-gins.