Scandalous Risks (36 page)

‘Extraordinary,’ said Father Darrow without expression.

VI

At that point I noticed that my handkerchief was stained black with my mined eye make-up and I asked his permission to retire to the bathroom for repairs. Glancing in the mirror again I had a fleeting vision of myself as a hag past fifty.

‘Sorry I waffled on like that,’ I said as I returned to the table and collapsed once more in my chair. ‘I’m afraid I digressed from the main problem. If we can get back to Aysgarth –’

‘I can well imagine him enjoying
Honest to God.
’

‘
Yes, he adores it, but on the other hand Bishop Ashworth thinks it’s absolutely the bottom – which is so confusing, because they can’t both be right, can they?’

Father Darrow merely smiled and said: ‘They’re creating a paradox but the real truth lies beyond.’

‘And what’s the real truth?’

‘
Honest to God
is more than one book. It’s one book for the Bishop, another for the Dean – and no doubt it’s yet another for someone else. This has happened because the work is written with the most passionate emotion, and it’s this emotion which is striking all the different chords in people’s hearts as they watch a bishop, who is supposed to be all-knowing in spiritual matters, grappling with the faith like an ordinary pilgrim. Some people admire him for his honesty and humility but others cannot forgive him for it. Some commend his attempt to frame original opinions, but others merely despise him for his lack of scholarship. Poor Dr Robinson is a beleaguered man at present and deserves, if nothing else, our prayers.’

‘But you, Father Darrow – where do
you
stand in the
Honest
to God
debate?’

‘Beyond it. I think that beyond all the words lies the Word which dwarfs them all. "In the beginning was the word ..." How well do you know St John’s Gospel? It’s the greatest mystical tract ever written and deals, as mysticism always does, with matters which can’t in truth be translated accurately into ordinary language at all. God is very much greater than a little book like
Honest to God,
Miss Flaxton, and
Honest to God
in fact reflects not God at all but twentieth-century man, bewildered and alienated, freed from witchcraft but enslaved by the dogmas of science, liberated by the Enlightenment but imprisoned by rationality, blessed with the power of improving his material world but knowing too that one push of a button could bring it all to an end. Dr Robinson is wrestling with the tragedy of modem man, and as a modem man himself he conducts his fight within the wrestling-ring of modern times, but the whole truth, of course, can never be confined to a mere wrestling-ring. Our bodies may be obliged to exist in such a confined environment, but our real selves,’ said Father Darrow, regarding me with his clear grey eyes, ‘are not confined by the prison of space and time.’

I suddenly realised, as I had a split-second vision of the vast mysteries which enfolded mankind, that he had folded up the Church of England into the size of a handkerchief and tucked it neatly away in his pocket. I said, groping for words: ‘You’re beyond all formal religious structures, aren’t you, as well as being beyond all fashions in religious thought,’ but he answered at once: ‘Mysticism is certainly beyond fashions in religious thought, but all mystics need a formal religious framework in order to achieve a proper balance in their spiritual life.’

‘And you’ve chosen Christianity.’

‘No, Christ chose me. Are you too a Christian, Miss Flaxton, or are you merely an interested observer?’

‘I’m a Christian, but no one did any choosing. It was simply dished out to me, like a British passport, because I was born in a certain time and a certain place.’

‘Perhaps the choosing’s now about to begin. Have you thought much about your faith?’

‘Well, off and on, I suppose, the way one does occasionally ... I mean, yes, I have, of course I have.’ I hesitated but then said impulsively: ‘It’s all true, isn’t it? It must be. St Paul talked to the eyewitnesses. You can’t get around that. And then there’s the transformed behaviour of the Apostles. You can’t get around that either. Something happened, although we’ll never know for sure what it was, and now we’re sitting here talking together and the whole great circus of the Christian church is lumbering merrily on its way because two thousand years ago in an obscure Roman province a carpenter conducted an itinerant ministry, wrote nothing and was executed. That’s so unlikely that one couldn’t possibly believe it except that it happens to be true.’

Father Darrow smiled and commented: ‘Tertullian said: "It must be believed, because it is absurd!’

‘My father says Tertullian was a fool. My father’s got a psychological block about Christianity – he can’t discuss it rationally at all.’

Father Darrow said: ‘Go home and see your father. Talk to your mother. Perhaps she can act as a bridge between the two of you.’

‘Why do you keep going on about my parents?’

‘There’s something there that needs healing, and once the healing’s been achieved you may see your present situation in a different light.’

‘But my father’s not a problem at present! My real problem –’

‘Tell Aysgarth,’ said Father Darrow, ‘that last night at the Staro Arms Jon Darrow sent his compliments to him and invited him to call any time at Starrington Manor. Now kneel down, please, and we’ll pray that the power of the Holy Spirit may heal you of your sickness and grant you the strength to survive the times which lie ahead.’

I was a little startled by this suggestion and more than a little appalled by the implication that I was ill, but I told myself strength was well worth praying for and that I really did have a moral obligation to be polite to the old pet. Trying not to feel too self-conscious I knelt down, clasped my hands together and closed my eyes. He was silent for so long that I glanced up but when I saw his lips were moving I shut my eyes again and waited. Eventually he said a prayer aloud. I recognised it. It was one of the Collects which were recited at evensong.

‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord ...’

I thought of the Great Pollutant, spreading through my life like a lethal poison, and I was just beginning to pray very earnestly indeed for an antidote when Father Darrow, quite without warning, laid his hands on my head and pressed down so strongly that I nearly collapsed. My mind went blank. I felt as if I had been given an electric shock, although of course that must have been an illusion created by the power of his personality. But the most shattering part of all was that I felt sexually excited. In fact I thought I was going to have an orgasm. For a moment I was transfixed, too appalled and repulsed to move, but as he himself faltered, knowing something had gone wrong, I ducked away from his hands, grabbed the rim of the table and hauled myself to my feet. I was shuddering from head to toe.

He said in great distress: ‘My dear child, I —’ but he was interrupted by a thunderous knocking at the door.

‘It’s all right, I’m okay, don’t -worry ...’ But I hardly knew what I was saying. The whole incident was so unspeakably sinister that I could only batten down my horror by pretending I was unscathed, but he barely heard my reassurance. He said stricken: ‘Forgive me — I should have realised the state you’d be in as the result of your association with that man — I shouldn’t have tried any healing which involved physical contact —’ But again he was interrupted by a thunderous knocking on the door and this time Nick burst in without waiting for an invitation to enter.

His father was livid. ‘Nicholas, go outside this instant!’

‘But I only came back because —’

‘OUT!’ shouted the old man, now very distressed.

‘No, wait!’ I cried, seizing the chance to escape, and to Father Darrow I added at high speed: ‘I’ve got to go now, thanks for seeing me, please don’t worry, I’m all right, everything’s fine, it doesn’t matter.’ I grabbed my bag and stumbled to the door.

‘I only came back,’ Nick said soothingly to his father, ‘because I was sure you’d be getting tired and needing to be rescued.’

‘Ah, Nicholas, Nicholas ...’ But the old man’s anger was spent, and as I glanced back from the doorway I saw him sink down exhausted upon the nearest chair. ‘Very well, take Miss Flaxton away.’

Nick promptly hustled me past the threshold and closed the front door. Since I was too shattered to speak and he was too furious, we walked in silence out of the dell, but when we finally emerged from the woods he said, still outraged: ‘You shouldn’t have seen him. His psychic judgement’s not as sound as it used to be, that’s the trouble. A year ago he’d never have dreamed of seeing a woman alone for a consultation which involved healing.’

‘How did you know he —’

‘I looked through the window. Of course I could see it had gone wrong. Imagine chucking up his golden rule like that at the age of eighty-three — what an absolutely idiotic risk for a clever old priest to take!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Nick, why shouldn’t the fabulous old pet have some fun while there’s still time?’

‘You’ve simply no idea what I’m talking about.’

We stalked on without speaking across the daisy-studded lawn but when we at last reached my car he did manage to mutter apologetically: ‘I’m sorry you’re so upset.’

‘How do you know I’m upset?’

‘I can feel. If only I could help you ... but I don’t know how.’

‘Some day, baby,’ I said, mimicking Dinkie’s New York twang. ‘Some day. Now run off and play with your crystal ball.’ By this time I was as exhausted as Father Darrow. Slumping into the driver’s seat I drove raggedly away, but as I glanced in the mirror and saw Nick was still staring after me, I felt the nape of my neck tingle with fright again.

In horror I wondered if he had been not only spying at the window but eavesdropping at the door.

VII

I somehow succeeded in convincing myself that Nick would never have been so naughty as to eavesdrop; a quick glance through a window was pardonable, particularly since he had been worried about his father’s stamina, but listening at the keyhole would have been impossible to justify under any circumstances. However, this conclusion only made his parting expression more sinister. He had looked as if he was watching me drive to my doom, but of course that statement was mere fanciful nonsense and indicated that the closing moments of the interview with Father Darrow had put me in a thoroughly neurotic frame of mind. Obviously it was now time to make a supreme effort, face the incident with all the calmness and rationality at my disposal, and defuse the horror by working out exactly what had happened.

I shuddered but pulled myself together. I had no doubt that Father Darrow had acted in good faith and had had no salacious designs on me whatsoever; the old pet wasn’t an old monster. Yet sex had been present in that fiasco somehow and it hadn’t been a normal kind of sex. It was as if the sex, dark and distorted, had been a mere marker, an indication that another far more dangerous force had been on the loose in that room, and suddenly I heard Father Darrow saying: ‘I should have realised the state you’d be in as the result of your association with that man.’ He had spoken as if my state, whatever that was, had adversely reacted with his psychic healing in the manner of two chemicals frothing and hissing when they were mixed in the same test-tube. It was as if Father Darrow had produced a clear, unpolluted essence, and I had produced – I suddenly realised I was going to be sick. I had to stop the car so that I could vomit into the ditch which ran alongside thecountry lane, and afterwards I sat shivering for a long time in the driving-seat before I was able to light a cigarette.

But I could now put into words what had happened. Father Darrow had tried to cast out my polluted essence, but because his psychic judgement had been impaired (as Nick had put it) he had tackled the task in the wrong way. The exorcist had slipped up. Game, set and match to the – But of course we didn’t talk about the Devil, not now, not in 1963. And we didn’t talk of polluted essences either, or psychic healing, or two chemicals snarling at each other in a test-tube as if they were people. I was going off my rocker. I had to calm down. Where was my intellect, my rationality, my comforting mid-twentieth-century scepticism? The paranormal was great fun, of course, but once one started taking it seriously one wound up in a loony-bin.

Everyone knew that.

The cigarette continued to shake in my hand.

I thought: what I need’s a drink. So I stopped at the nearest pub and downed two gin-and-Frenches. That fixed me up. The world stopped looking as if it had been painted by Hieronymus Bosch and began to look like a landscape by Constable again. Very pretty country around Starbridge. Lovely part of the world.

As I drove on I thought: I just got overwrought. The old pet battered home the morality message with a hammer the size of a croquet mallet and destroyed my defences. Then I compounded my weak emotional state by drivelling on and on about my father, and finally I was so debilitated that when the old pet pressed me on the head I lit out in the craziest possible way. Not the old pet’s fault, of course. It was a mere reflex action stemming from the fact that I’d recently discovered the joys of sex. Obviously any male touch at present had the power to send me bananas. All rather amusing really.

I stopped at the Staro Arms and had another couple of gin-and-Frenches, just to make sure I stayed madly amused and the world stayed like a Constable landscape. I decided I adored the Staro Arms. So picturesque. Such fun. Super.

Guiding my car with light-hearted flair through the streets to Butchers’ Alley I reached my flat and after several attempts succeeded in fitting my latch-key in the lock. The front door swung open — and there on the mat lay a letter which had arrived in the second post.

At once all thought of the old pet was wiped from my mind. Riding high on my tidal wave of euphoria I ripped open the envelope and feverishly started to read.

VIII