Scandalous Risks (41 page)

XIII

‘Darling Neville,’ I wrote, ‘Thanks so much for your marvellous letter — I can’t tell you how much better I feel now that you’ve explained everything, all I can say is that I feel as if a vast load as big as six elephants has finally rolled off my mind. To be quite honest, I’ve been absolutely
torturing
myself about D. However, if nothing of crucial importance ever happens between you and her, then my torment is at an end and I can simply feel sorry for her. I’m sure you’re right and she’s pathetic. It must be awful to yearn to be a social success and yet wind up loathed by so many people. As you say, she’s had a tragic life.

‘I do think you overreacted a bit to your first wife’s death — after all, it was hardly your fault that the heavens opened and she got soaked! However I quite understand that in the aftermath of such a catastrophe you would have been obsessed by the thought of women being destroyed and longed to do your share of conscientious preservation. I must be quite honest and say I don’t think your behaviour was exactly
rational —
in fact if this were a book I’d find your explanation somewhat implausible — but real life is full of oddities and of course great tragedy does make people behave irrationally and succumb to various
idées fixes.

‘
I promise not to speak a word about Arthur, George andAidan unless you mention them, but I must write, even if 1 can’t say, that in my opinion you’re quite entitled to your "shining dreams" and I don’t think you’re being morbid at all. I think it’s admirable (not quite the right word, but I can’t think of a better one) that you feel so deeply connected to them; it makes you seem so loving and compassionate, and in some strange way
wise —
you clearly know how to value and cherish things which other, lesser men might pass off as unimportant, and by loving those lost children you bring them to life. I feel I can picture Arthur exactly, looking just like you but elongated!

‘Of course I understand completely now about your different "personae". "Persona" is the word for mask, isn’t it, the mask an actor used to wear in a Greek play. Your identities are not really identities at all but different masks and underneath is the real you — whom I know as Neville Four. Being a self-made man, constantly obliged to remake your mask in order to keep up with your changing circumstances, must be very exhausting. But perhaps we’re all self-made to some extent, all engaged periodically in "shifting gears" and remaking our masks. I know I remade Venetia’s mask when I went to stay with Marina at the Chantry, and I believe I’ve remade it yet again with you — although in your company the mask is the real me, just as Neville Four is the real you. What an odd thing personality is. Was it you who told me that the Greeks and Romans had no word for "personality" in its modern sense? Or was it my father? I can’t remember. I get confused between the two of you sometimes.

‘Can’t wait for Wednesday, darling — shall we chance the Crusader’s car-park again? Lots and lots of love, V.’

XIV

‘My darling,’ wrote Aysgarth in reply, ‘I fell upon your letter this morning like a starving man pouncing on a crust of bread, and devoured every crumb with a sensuous delight! I was also much touched by your kind, sensitive, understanding paragraph about Arthur, George and Aidan. It’s such a psychological luxury to be able to share them with someone at last.

‘Yes, you’re quite right about "personality" being a modern concept. That’s why people get in such a tangle with the creeds when they read that God is three persons in one — they fall into the heresy of tritheism (where are you, Bishop Ashworth!) and think that God is three separate individuals, whereas in fact the word person in that context means "persona", the mask. There’s one person with three masks: the Idea (God), the manifestation of the Idea in a form comprehensible to man (Jesus) and the continuing influence of that Idea throughout the world (the Holy Spirit). But I must set aside theology and say how glad I am that you now understand about Stephen and the Nevilles — and about Dido too, of course. I do desperately want to be open and frank with you in every way.

‘How I wish you could have travelled back to Starbridge with me on Sunday morning! Your presence would have given me some much needed extra strength to cope with the Bone-Pelham crisis, now billowing wildly out of control. No sooner had I finished presiding at matins when Eddie buttonholed me in the vestry with the truly appalling news that Lady B-P has produced a letter from Dean Carter acknowledging the receipt of the £3,000! But I
cannot
believe it of Carter. Neither can Fitzgerald, who says there must be an explanation and he’ll interrogate Carter’s widow in Budleigh Salterton. Meanwhile the undertakers are getting restless, Lady B-P is still hot against a burial in the cemetery, and her doctor (milked for information by Fitzgerald during a lavish lunch at the Quill Pen) says she’s eccentric but not, in his opinion, certifiable. As I so often sigh to you: what a life! My darling, I long with an almost unbearable intensity to see you — yes, let’s meet again at the Crusader. All my love, always and forever, N.’

XV

I browsed pleasurably among the sentences of this letter for some time. Then it dimly occurred to me that apart from the paragraph on the babies and the lines responding to my enquiry about the word ‘personality’ he had made no attempt to answer my letter in depth at all. I had thought he might respond to my very bald remarks about Dido and the distinctly critical note I had struck when commenting on the source of his
idée fixe,
but it seemed these were matters he preferred to gloss over. And why not? Surely there was no need for him to expand on the explanations which he kept saying he found so difficult.

It was at this point that Mrs Ashworth telephoned.

‘Charles tells me you’re coming in this afternoon at five,’ she said after we had exchanged pleasantries, ‘and I’m just phoning to say do stay on for a drink if you can. I’ve got a tea-party but with luck everyone will be gone by six.’

I accepted the invitation with alacrity.

‘How are you?’ she added in her kindest voice. ‘It seems ages since we last met for a gossip.’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Absolutely fine.’

But was I?

Unlocking my writing-case I retrieved the long letter Aysgarth had written earlier on Sunday morning before his departure from Flaxton Hall. Again I noted the reference to Dido’s sterilisation, a fact which exploded my theory that he was abstaining from marital sex because he was afraid of destroying her with another pregnancy. Then I reached the part where he was mixing up his current ‘personae’ in such a way that he implied nothing ever happened with Dido. I read that passage over and over again until it no longer seemed a model of honest clarity but a convoluted masterpiece which was capable of more than one interpretation.

The glass shuddered again in my hall of mirrors.

I began to wonder if I was going mad.

THREE

‘Having disposed of God as a separate Being or Person, Dr. Robinson is in difficulties over many Christian activities, including prayer. How does one pray to "ultimate reality"?’

ANONYMOUS

The Honest to God Debate

ed. DAVID L. EDWARDS

I

‘Divert me,’ said Mrs Ashworth, as we began to sip our gin-and-tonics, ‘by telling me all about your glorious love-life. Mrs Lindsay said you were away last weekend — were you sailing at Bosham with your young man?’

‘No, just checking up on my parents at Flaxton Pauncefoot. As a matter of fact the Perry romance has cooled — he seems to be more interested in boats than in girls.’

‘Too bad! But I’m sure someone else will soon turn up now that you’re looking so glamorous. By the way, how I envy you that thick, wavy hair! I’d have to spend half my life at the hairdresser’s to get that effect.’

We talked about hair for a time. Mrs Ashworth revealed that she had her hair ‘coloured’ by the smartest salon in Starbridge. ‘Clergymen’s wives, of course, never have their hair "dyed",’ she said with her deadpan humour. I expressed deep interest in the ‘colouring’ and said I was sure the Bishop had never guessed. Mrs Ashworth commented indulgently that men were so innocent sometimes. Sipping our gins we became steadily cosier.

‘ .. and talking of men,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘what happened to the man who lured your poor friend Dinkie into that most unfortunate romance?’

‘Oh, he’s still dead keen on her,’ I said, ‘but I think she’s recently come to realise it’s a dead-end street.’

‘Good. That must represent progress.’

‘Does it? She still can’t imagine ever giving him up.’

‘Tell her to take a holiday — go back to America for a while, perhaps — so that she can see the situation from a fresh perspective.’

‘That would be quite difficult. He depends on hearing from her every day, and —’

‘How appalling! This sounds like a really dangerous situation — an emotional dependency which is fast swinging out of control. Has he opened his heart to Dinkie yet about his marriage?’

‘Yes, but ... to be quite frank, Mrs Ashworth, I don’t think he’s levelling with her. Dinkie believes every word he says, of course, but the more he writes to her that he wants to be absolutely honest —’

‘If he’s running two women at once I’d think he was lying to the back teeth. Living in two different worlds necessarily involves considerable verbal juggling.’

‘I don’t think he’s living in two different worlds,’ I said slowly. ‘The three of them are all in the same world. But he’s living as two separate people.’

‘That’s the most terrifying thing you’ve said yet,’ said Mrs Ashworth at once. ‘Tell Dinkie that a split personality leading a split-level life is big, big trouble.’

‘You think he’s mad?’

‘Well, obviously Dinkie would realise if he was raving, so the short answer to that question must be no, but I do think he sounds spiritually, if not mentally, unbalanced. One has to be whole, not divided, in order to be spiritually healthy ... Did Jon Darrow say that to me once? I can’t remember. Maybe it was Charles.’

Automatically I said: ‘I met Father Darrow the other evening at the Starbridge Playhouse.’

‘Oh yes,
Present Laughter.
Amusing, wasn’t it?’

‘Tremendously ... Mrs Ashworth, Father Darrow’s rather weird, isn’t he?’

‘I don’t think I’d use the word "weird". Unusual, perhaps. But he’s very wise and good. Charles thinks the world of him.’ My voice said woodenly: ‘He does?’

‘Jon’s been his spiritual director for over twenty-five years.’ After a pause I managed to say: ‘So he’s not a crank – not a charlatan?’

‘Good heavens, no! He’s a most distinguished man. Who’s been telling you he’s a charlatan?’

Far away in the hall the front door opened and the Bishop, true to his long-established custom, shouted: ‘Darling!’ as he returned to the house. After our session of dictation he had departed to visit his chaplain, who lived in a cottage nearby.

‘Have another drink,’ Mrs Ashworth said to me as he entered the room to join us, but I excused myself, feeling far too disturbed to prolong the conversation.

Then I stumbled back to my flat.

II

I poured out the gin and sat sipping it in the twilight as the clock of St Martin’s-in-Cripplegate tolled the hour. The little flat was shadowed and still.

After a while I began to wonder if the Ground of my being was staging a conservation battle against the Great Pollutant.

No, I didn’t. I wondered if God and the Devil were fighting for the possession of my soul.

Strange how much more chilling – how much more
real –
the battle seemed when described by the old terminology. One couldn’t get very worked up about something called the Ground of one’s being, that was the trouble. And how on earth did one pray to it?

I thought: someone should tell John Robinson that. Eventually, after a lot of gin, I started to cry.

III

‘Dear Eddie,’ I wrote, ‘What’s cooking? I see you’re the canonin-residence for August, so I shall look forward to hearing you preach at matins next Sunday. Make sure you keep me awake! Yours, VENETIA.’

IV

‘I thought we might have a change from Chancton Wood,’ said Aysgarth as I slid into the passenger seat of his car the next day, ‘so in a fit of inspiration I bought an Ordnance Survey map which marks every place of interest in the diocese and found an ancient monument called Castle Brigga not far from Starwater Abbey. I think it must be one of the old hill-forts built by the Starobrigantes – shall we go and have a look?’

We drove away out of the city.

‘We’re all in such a state over this Bone-Pelham crisis,’ he was saying as the spire of the Cathedral receded into the distance behind us. ‘Fitzgerald drives to Budleigh Salterton tomorrow to talk to Dean Carter’s widow. I must say, Fitzgerald can be extraordinarily dynamic so long as the situation isn’t connected with sex.’

‘I thought everything was connected with sex.’

We laughed.

‘My darling!’ said Neville Four, who of course never slept with his wife, and reached out to put his left hand on my thigh. But what had Stephen been getting up to with Dido?

V

The hill-fort, a vast mound ringed by two broad ditches, afforded plenty of seclusion. We settled ourselves in the shade of a clump of bushes conveniently placed in a hollow far from the path, and soon the glass in the hall of mirrors no longer reflected terrifying distortions but a clear radiant reality, the only reality that had any meaning. Eventually rain drove us back to the car, but by that time I felt nothing could mar my happiness. We lit cigarettes; then he entertained me by reminiscing about his days as a canon of Westminster Abbey when he had regularly prowled the corridors of Church House.

‘... and the Archbishop came storming in saying: "If I were still a headmaster I’d cane him, I swear I would!" and of course all the time the lawyer who’d drafted the offending clause was hiding in the broom-cupboard! The secretaries, two nice old girls with grey hair and double chins, nearly had kittens on the spot. Well, someone lured Fisher away and we opened the cupboard and the lawyer keeled out like a corpse in a horror film –’

I laughed and laughed. Outside the car the world was grey with rain but I no longer noticed.

‘– and someone shrieked: "Is there a doctor in the house?" and my friend Derek gasped: "My God, he’s dead!" but the very next moment the corpse groaned: "Brandy!" and the old girls screamed: "He’s alive!" So I skipped out across Dean’s Yard, dived into my house in Little Cloister, shoved the brandy in a shopping bag, raced back to Church House – and bumped straight into the Archbishop who was about to leave for Lambeth ...’

As I started laughing again I asked myself why I had written to Eddie but I no longer knew. I tried to recall my doubts and suspicions but found they no longer existed. All I knew was that I was in ecstasy and that I wanted the afternoon to last for ever.

‘... and the net result was that we all polished off the brandy. The old girls were quite fiddly in the end ... Heavens, look at the time! We must go.’

Without warning my laughter dissolved into tears of despair.

‘Venetia – darling –’ He was at once immensely distressed.

I got a grip on myself. ‘Sorry,’ said my voice. ‘Temporary aberration. Bit of a strain, seeing you so seldom and for such a short time.’ And suddenly, as the confusion began to pour back into my mind, I heard myself say rapidly: ‘Neville, I’m beginning to think it might be a good idea if I went away for a while to London – not permanently, of course, but I’m getting so muddled here and I feel I need the chance to –’

‘For God’s sake!’ he said ashen, and as he spoke I knew – I just knew, I was wholly convinced – that he no longer had sex with his wife. ‘Don’t leave Starbridge! Please, Venetia, please – I absolutely rely on these meetings – the meetings and the letters – they keep me going, I don’t know what I’d do without them – oh my darling, I love you so much, I adore you, I can’t imagine how I ever existed without you, how could you ever think of leaving me even temporarily, I thought you loved me, I thought you understood –’

I collapsed in floods of tears again and swore I would never leave.