Scandalous Risks (37 page)

‘... and there was Charles,’ wrote Aysgarth, ‘dressed to kill in full episcopal uniform and playing the Boss with a capital B. "Sit down, please, Stephen," he says in the creamy voice prosecuting counsel use when they aim to destroy a leading witness for the defence. "Malcolm Lindsay’s told me you’re a trifle worried about the potential cost of your application for a faculty, and it occurred to me that both the diocese and the Cathedral could save money on legal bills if you and I got together for a little chat." Which, translated from Ashworth-speak, meant: "The Archdeacon’s run screaming to me about your threat to bankrupt the diocese but I’m here to tell you that I’m not standing any nonsense over that blank-blank sculpture and you’d better pull yourself together pretty blank quick."

‘Well, I sit myself down, very cool, calm and collected, and I cross one leg over the other so that I look wholly relaxed — these little gestures are very important in any power-struggle — and then Charles idly starts fingering his pectoral cross, underlining the fact that he’s the Bishop — a cunning counter-play — and he even has the nerve to angle it so that it flashes in the sunlight. First round to him. Then he says: "I must be quite frank and tell you that the most extraordinary rumours have reached me about this sculpture. According to Tommy Fitzgerald it may well be a fine work of art, suitable for display in a museum, but in his opinion it’s quite unsuitable for display in a churchyard. He says it’ll cry out to be vandalised by the hooligan element in Starbridge’s teenage population." ‘This was certainly a new approach from the traitor Fitzgerald. I said, mild as milk: "Why does Tommy think it’ll attract vandals?" and Charles answered: "He says part of the sculpture looks like a bunch of used condoms." To which I instantly replied: "I rather doubt if Tommy would know an unused condom if he saw one, let alone a used one." That hit the target all right. Second round to me. Charles said: "The fact that Tommy’s been called to lead a celibate life doesn’t automatically mean he has no knowledge of contraceptives." At once I riposted: "Well, if it doesn’t mean that it certainly ought to." Third round to me. Charles said: "I can’t help thinking that Tommy’s sexual history is entirely irrelevant to this discussion, but while we’re on the subject of sex perhaps this might be the moment to inform you of the rumour that you know Harriet March rather better than would be prudent for a man in your situation."

‘That really jolted me. I managed to say: "That’s a slander!" and Charles, I think, realised that I was speaking the truth. He said: "Yes, I was sure it was, but people have noted the fact that you’ve commissioned this work from a youthful and attractive woman, and they wonder what prompted you to select her." I answered reasonably enough: "The Cathedral can’t afford Henry Moore. Mrs March was recommended to me by a friend at the Tate." Charles at once backed down on that subject (another round to me) but then plunged back into the attack. He said: "Very well, I accept that she’s a reputable artist, but the fact remains that we can’t have anything which can be mistaken for either condoms or male genitalia — or both — lying around in the Cathedral churchyard. Think of the inevitable blown-up photographs in the gutter press!"

‘Sometimes I really do wonder about Charles. I’m very keen on sex, but it’s never occurred to me to imagine blown-up photographs of those cigars — what a pornographic imagination he must have! However I refrained from any barbed remark and said politely: "I think it would set your mind at rest if you visited Mrs March’s studio and saw the work as a whole instead of relying solely for information on photographs of isolated details." (I should explain that after I had the idea of commissioning Harriet, she produced some rough sketches so that the matter could be discussed by the Chapter, and everyone, even Fitzgerald, backed me in approving the commission. It was only when Harriet very kindly sent along some photos of the work in progress that Fitzgerald started getting hysterical.)

‘Charles said coolly: "The photographs I was shown were very explicit," but of course he knew I was right in principle so he’s agreed to visit Harriet’s studio. The most ironic part about the whole brouhaha is that I honestly believe the sculpture will be a brilliant work of modem art. It’s not as if I’m deliberately trying to be outrageous.

‘Well, I won that particular skirmish but I can see there’s an almighty battle approaching because Charles is obviously dead set against the sculpture and I don’t think for one moment that this visit to the studio will change his mind. He’ll try and strong-arm me into backing down — and if I were him I’d do it before my application for a faculty reaches the Consistory Court. He won’t want the whole diocese twittering over the fact that the Bishop and the Dean are locked in mortal combat over a bunch of phallic cigars.

‘My darling, I must just see you for a few minutes so that we can exchange views on
Present Laughter —
Lady Mary after Sunday evensong? (D’s attending matins and won’t turn up twice.) All my best, best love, N.’

I thought vaguely of Father Darrow talking of the Great Pollutant, but that seemed a mere fantasy from the realms of science fiction.

I began to count the hours that separated me from Lady Mary.

IX

‘... and there, sitting beside Nick in the stalls, was this ancient sage, ghost-pale and quietly vibrating in time to the music of the spheres. I thought he was a fabulous old pet.’

‘
Darrow?
’
exclaimed Aysgarth, vastly amused. ‘That ecclesiastical buccaneer?’

‘I thought he was adorable. And afterwards at the Staro Arms —’

‘— he asked to be remembered to me. Yes, Eddie told me that yesterday.’

‘Oh, that was only half the message! While Eddie and Martin were haggling over the bill the old pet said to me: "Next time you’re visiting your friends the Aysgarths, tell the Dean that Jon Darrow sends him an invitation to call at Starrington Manor at any time."‘

Aysgarth looked startled. The sinister old magician! Why did he say that to you and not to Eddie?’

‘It was only an afterthought —’

The old pirate doesn’t have afterthoughts.. He has psychic intuitions — which of course I don’t believe in.’ But he looked rattled.

After a pause I said uncertainly: Will you go?’

‘To see Darrow? Well, I suppose I might drop in around Christmas, just to be friendly.’

I suddenly started to feel confused. ‘You won’t go now?’

‘Darling, I’m a very busy man and to tell the truth I just don’t have time for him at present. Old pet indeed! However, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you were mesmerised. The naughty old charlatan was always a dab hand at hypnosis.’

My heart began to beat rapidly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, those psychics are capable of hypnotising anyone — it’s all part of the stock-in-trade! You remember I told you how he bounced around my archdeaconry trying to be Svengali, Rasputin and Our Lord Jesus Christ all rolled into one?’

‘Yes, but —’

‘He called it a ministry of healing. I called it a shameless use of hypnosis combined with an appalling psychic parlour-trick which he had the nerve to call the laying-on of hands. The whole episode ended scandalously, of course, but then that sort of sinister quackery always does.’ Glancing at his watch he sprang to his feet. ‘I must fly. Two o’clock on Wednesday in the car-park of ... shall we say the Crusader Hotel?’

‘I’ll be there.’

Turning his sexy mouth well down at the corners he gave me a smouldering look, told me he loved me and vanished.

After a while I realised the glass had tilted again in my hall of mirrors. Father Darrow was no longer a gifted sage whom Aysgarth in his guilt was trying to avoid. I had been deceived after succumbing to hypnosis, and the gifted sage was in reality a senile eccentric whom Aysgarth very sensibly wanted to forget.

Embracing this rational conclusion with profound relief, 1 was finally able to write the old pet off as a back number.

TWO

‘Bonhoeffer’s theory, much admired by the Bishop of Woolwich, that man has now "come of age" seems to me a silly and unprofitable one ... Has man, having come of age, ceased to be a sinner? Has he ceased to be limited and mortal?’

R. P. C. HANSON

The Honest to God Debate

ed. DAVID L. EDWARDS

I

‘My darling,’ wrote Aysgarth later that week after another scorching session in Chancton Wood. ‘HORRORS! jack Ryder, who’s the editor of the
Church Gazette,
rang me up this morning and said the rumour’s reached London that I’m planning to install a machine for French-letters in the Cathedral churchyard! I said: "I know I defended the publication of
Lady
Chatterley
’
s Lover
but this accusation’s ridiculous — and what’s more, you know it!" Jack brayed with laughter and said: "Okay, spill the beans and I’ll try to print a report which doesn’t teeter into pornography." So I explained that I was in the process of applying for a faculty to install a work of art in the churchyard, and then I dictated a dignified paragraph about how the Dean and Chapter had commissioned from the celebrated sculptress Harriet March a work entitled "Modern Man in Search of God". Jack then demanded baffled: "But what’s all that got to do with condoms?" and I was at last able to declare roundly: "Absolutely nothing!"

‘I was just thinking that I’d successfully trounced the
Church
Gazette
when my spy there, a very nice young woman called Flora MacBain who edits the Children’s Column, rang to make sure I’d remembered that Jack Ryder was bosom friends with Charles Ashworth when they were up at Cambridge together in the ‘twenties. "If you’re not levelling with Jack he’ll find out!" warned Flora, who was clearly reluctant to stop believing in the fable of the ecclesiastical condom dispenser. My first reaction was: Charles won’t gossip about the cigars to any newshound, even if the hound’s the distinguished editor of the
Church Gazette
and even if the hound’s a Cambridge chum. Then I thought: wait a minute. Who else but Charles could have ensured that Jack Ryder was so well primed with the latest gossip from the Cathedral Close at Starbridge? And I realised that this was almost certainly the beginning of Charles’ attempt to strong-arm me – he was using Jack to drive me into a corner.

‘Five minutes later the phone rings. It’s Charles. Could he possibly drop in at the Deanery? "Certainly – come over straight away!" I exclaim, radiating Christian hospitality. Then I mop the sweat from my brow, gird my loins for battle and somehow manage to abstain from swilling a triple whisky to calm my nerves.

‘Finally in walks Charles in one of those show-off Savile Row suits that make him look like a tailor’s dummy. However, I note that he’s not in episcopal uniform (apart from the purple stock and pectoral cross) and I’ve already noted that he’s calling on me instead of summoning me to the South Canonry. Deduction: he wants to soften me up before he tries to twist my arm out of its socket.

"My dear fellow, have a sherry!" I say at once with a welcoming smile, but he declines. He’s just heard, he says mildly, from Jack Ryder that the condom rumour’s reached London and in his opinion it was imperative to act before the
News of the World
moved in for the kill. What did I propose to do?

‘I said I couldn’t see the need for immediate panic, since the
News of the World
reporters were hardly about to storm Harriet’s studio, and I suggested that the best course was for Jack to run a piece to defuse Fleet Street’s fire – a responsible article which stressed the symbolic meaning of every feature of the sculpture. Then Charles began to twist my arm. He said: "The gutter pressaren’t going to be deterred by any high-minded piece in the
Church Gazette.
As soon as this matter’s aired in the Consistory Court, we’re in for banner headlines."

‘I took a deep breath, looked him straight in the eyes and declared: "Let me disabuse you of any notion that I’ll withdraw my application for a faculty just because there’s a possibility that this superb work of art might be mocked by a gang of Fleet Street philistines. It would be against my liberal principles to submit to such censorship."

‘I thought I’d rocked him but he snapped back: "No one’s asking you to submit to censorship. I’m merely asking you to exercise your common sense. Do you really want to make a laughing-stock of our Cathedral?" "It’s my Cathedral," I said, "and in any other diocese in England it would be my churchyard. If you hadn’t hit on the idea of raking up all that rubbish about unconsecrated curtilage, we wouldn’t now be heading for the Consistory Court and banner headlines in the
News of the World."
"And if you hadn’t commissioned a wholly unsuitable sculpture from an attractive young woman you met by chance at a party," said Charles, hitting well below the belt, "I wouldn’t have been obliged to rake up the rubbish about unconsecrated curtilage in order to preserve the dignity of the Cathedral churchyard." Then before I could reply he stood up and added in his plummiest public-school voice: "I confess I find this conversation singularly unedifying so I shall now terminate it with the suggestion that we both pray for guidance." And off he stalked to the South Canonry.

‘Very tricky. The awful part is that there’s a lot of truth in what he says; Fleet Street could go to town over those cigars. I honestly didn’t think anyone would take much notice of proceedings in a Church court, but maybe I wasn’t thinking too clearly. It only needs some bright spark on the
Starbridge Weekly News
to flash the news to a London hack and then the whole tinder-box of Fleet Street will be ablaze – with the result that the Consistory Court will be turned into a circus and the sculpture will become as much a
cause célèbre
as
Lady Chatterley
’
s Lover.
But what am Ito do? As I see it, I’ve no choice; I’ve got to defend good art from the onslaught of the philistines and I’ve got to oppose any attempt at censorship by arm-twisting. To back down at this point would be a craven act of cowardice and I refuse even to consider that such an option could be open to me.

‘What maddens me most of all is to reflect that if that fatuous ass Fitzgerald hadn’t gone around Starbridge bleating about used contraceptives, this whole disaster would never have happened! Sometimes I think that widowed mother of his really does have a lot to answer for ...’