The High Flyer (50 page)

VIII

“Of course I realise I’ve got a long way to go,” I said as we sat in the self-service restaurant of the Barbican Arts Centre and ate our salads. “But I’ll keep going to the healing services and I’ll keep talking to the St. Benet’s people, so whatever happens next you can be sure I won’t fade away like some Victorian maidenette.”

“The word ‘maiden’ is sufficient,” said Tucker sternly, “although possibly if the maiden were under three feet tall, poetic licence would allow you to—”

“Can it, Tucker, I’m not a manuscript!” I barked, but we were already snuffling at the thought of a maiden midget.

We were sitting at one of the windows which looked out on the fountains playing in the artificial lake, and across the water the church of St. Giles Cripplegate, risen from the ashes of the Blitz, like so much of the City, had a bleached look as it baked beneath the sun. Some people were sitting at tables outside on the terrace, but mindful of Tucker’s red-haired gene I had suggested we stayed in the shade. At the far end of the lake, flowers and greenery trailed from the balconies of Gilbert House, the apartment block jacked up on pillars four storeys high, and the splashes of colour softened the straight lines of the Barbican’s uncompromising concrete modernism.

Because of his imminent return to office serfdom Tucker was short-haired and clean-shaven again, but to cheer himself up he was wearing not only a patterned shirt, predominantly the colour of egg yolks, but his favourite pair of white jeans, clean as a couple of whistles and bearing a fake designer label which he had sewn upside down on the back pocket. He had been undoing a button on the shirt every twenty minutes. I calculated that by four o’clock it would be open to the navel.

“If you’re determined not to play the wilting maiden,” he was saying, “it’s lucky I’m not wedded to a vision of you languishing on a chaise-longue amidst a froth of Victorian lace.”

“If you can picture me lying on a chaise-longue in a froth at Harvey Tower, your imagination’s even better than I thought it was! Incidentally, I’m going to sell that flat but only after an exorcism has allowed me to spend at least five minutes on the balcony laying a wreath for Kim and smashing the arch-cow’s hex to pieces. I don’t want to live in an ivory tower any more.”

“No more tuning in to reality via your telescope?”

“I intend to live in the thick of reality. I shan’t need my telescope then.”

“How do you get in the thick?”

“I have to keep plugged into the celestial grapevine to await instructions, but I’ll tell you this: I’m going to revolutionise my lifestyle.”

“Oh God, does this mean you’ll axe the Porsche?”

“No, I’ve decided every woman must be allowed one luxury, even if she opts for a life without megabucks.”

“I was sort of hoping
I
could be your one luxury, Ms. G.”

“You can be my
cher ami
,” I said, “but that’s not a luxury. It’s an essential.”

“I feel as if I’ve been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature! But does a
cher ami
get to drive the Porsche?”

“Only if he’s extremely
cher
.”

“How do I make the grade? Of course I’ll go to work full time—if Anthony Trollope could produce masterpieces just by writing for a few hours before breakfast while holding down a job at the Post Office, who am I to whinge about working full time in the salt-mines?”

“I don’t want you to be Anthony Trollope. I want you to be Eric Tucker.”

“Fine, but if you think I’m ever again going to put myself in the position of being kept by a rich woman—”

“How do you know I’m going to be rich? How do you know I don’t intend to give all Kim’s money to the Healing Centre?”

Tucker boggled but recovered sufficiently to say: “Okay, assuming you’re going to be penniless—”

“Not quite penniless. I think I may be able to find a little loose change to start a coin-breeding programme.”

“Well, whatever your financial status
I must get a proper job
or our
amitié
will be on the rocks in no time flat!”

“Oh, stop talking like a middle-class southerner who was raised on Victorian values!”

“I
am
a middle-class southerner who was raised on Victorian values!”

“You’re also a City slicker accustomed to hacking it in 1990s London—oh, come on, Tucker, get real! Pay your way, just as you’re doing now with Gil, and I’ll pay mine. Do you think I want to be kept any more than you do? And do you seriously think I’m no better than a bedwardlymobile fluffette who rates a man’s genitals according to the size of his bank balance?”

I had expected him to smile but he just looked at me with grave dark eyes and said soberly: “We’re talking of primitive emotions, the kind which cultural trends cover up but don’t change. You’re the one who has to get real here, Carter.”

“Well, if it’s realism you want, let me tell you that I don’t expect any future relationship to be easy and I don’t expect it to be perfect. I just want it to be right.”

Then he did smile. “Well, if you’ve got the faith and hope—”

“I must have. I’ve torn up my life-plan.”

“—and I’ve got the—”

“—skill to teach me how to live dynamically, we’ll be fine. But only if you stay Eric Tucker and don’t try to be Anthony Trollope.” I pushed aside my plate and stood up. “Is it too hot to walk to St. Paul’s?”

“Your
cher ami
would willingly escort you through a burning desert!”

“That’s more like it! I got worried just then when you started bleating about money. Don’t you know that a
cher ami
is by definition incapable of being kept? He wouldn’t be
cher
if he sponged.”

“I get the picture. I’m to be a non-sponging, non-Trollopian, 1990s man who’s equally happy either driving a Porsche or running around in Lycra shorts with a feather duster.”

“Running around in—”

“Okay, forget the Lycra shorts.”

“Forget the feather duster! That sounds much too wimpish! Just be yourself, but remember that a
cher ami
never caterwauls about money to his widowed sizzlerina and never makes her regret being rich.”

“I’m beginning to see all this as an epistolary novel by Richardson,” mused Tucker. “Instead of
Clarissa
we’d have
Catriona
. ‘
Cher ami
,’ the beleaguered heiress would write to her lovelorn swain—”

Before he could discover I had no idea who Richardson was I said hastily: “Talking of Catriona, I’m changing the spelling of my name. I’ve decided that Carter as in President Jimmy is too masculine so I’m going to become Carta as in Magna instead.”

“Why not go for a real change and become Magna as in Carta? And while we’re on the subject of names, are you ever, ever going to call me Eric?”

“You sound like someone asking a girl if she’s ever, ever going to lose her virginity!”

“You mean we’re talking about a real life-changing commitment here?”

I laughed and clasped his hand again. All I said was: “Let’s go to St. Paul’s.”

IX

I told him I wanted to retrace the route I had taken on the night of the melt-down; I wanted to see it bathed in light. So we walked along the podium to Aldersgate Street and headed south to the junction with London Wall.

As we rounded the bend into King Edward Street, we saw the Cathedral sweltering ahead of us as it erupted from the summit of Ludgate Hill, its dome ash-grey against the steamy blue sky, its gold cross shimmering as if liquefied by the sun. We wandered past the shade of the trees in Postman’s Park, past the roses in the ruins of Christ Church Greyfriars, and all around us I seemed to hear the ancient names of the City streets vibrating in harmony as if celebrating their resurrections from the Plague, the Fire and the Blitz.

When we reached the corner of Paternoster Row I said to Tucker: “I want to send a postcard to my father, and I thought the Cathedral might have one which will say to him without words that the Powers are survivable.”

“When’s he due for release?”

“Very soon.”

Then Tucker asked me to tell him more, so we went into the gardens of the Cathedral churchyard and sat beneath one of the trees as I talked of my father’s troubled life. “I believe that with the right healing process he could be helped,” I said. “I believe now that even the worst addictions are treatable.”

“I understand. So—”

“I wouldn’t expect a cure,” I said quickly. “I’m not stupid enough to expect miracles. All I’d hope for would be for him to have a better quality of life—a way of living which would keep him out of jail and enable him to connect better with people.”

“But wouldn’t that indeed be a miracle?”

“You think it’s too much to ask?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that—I think you can ask for anything, even a cure. What I meant was that miracles come in all shapes and sizes.”

“Well, whether a miracle’s possible or not, I must act,” I said fiercely.
“I must act.”

“All that’s required for evil to triumph—”

“Exactly. I couldn’t save Kim,” I said rapidly, “but I’ve learned from that death. I’ve learned that no one’s beyond redemption. I’ve learned that if you can love someone, even someone very emotionally damaged, that can make a vital difference to them if they want to get well.” I had to pause there but after a moment I was able to add in a level voice: “I loved my father once. I disconnected myself from that relationship but I didn’t stop loving him, I know that now, because I was always looking for an idealised version of him. I thought I’d found that in Kim, but I was wrong. All I’d found was a damaged man who was just as bad at making real connections with people as my father was.”

I paused again. It was peaceful sitting there in the shadow of the Cathedral. I was no longer aware of the tourists and the roar of the distant traffic. I could only see Tucker’s hand entwined with mine. “I couldn’t save Kim,” I said again, “but I know now how I can help my father. And if my father can be helped just a fraction—just the tiniest fraction—then Kim’s tragedy will have meaning and the whole bloody mess of the last few months will begin to look a little different.”

Tucker said: “How old were you when you disconnected yourself from your father?”

“Six. That was when the bailiffs came for the last time. That was when he lost Hamish, my cat.” I revolved the memory slowly in my mind. “Sometimes,” I heard myself say, “sometimes I think I don’t want kids because I’d never want any child of mine to go through what I went through when my parents split up.”

“But they wouldn’t, would they? You’d make sure they never did.”

I pondered on this but could only say in despair: “When one thinks of all the pain and suffering in the world it’s illogical and irrational that anyone should want to bring new life into it! Why do you think people want kids, Tucker?”

“Beats me, Ms. G. But then I always hanker to do crazy things which kick reason and logic in the teeth.”

“Honestly?”

“You bet. And having kids kicks the Powers in the teeth too, doesn’t it? Since they want to wipe us out, we beat them when we reproduce.”

“True.” I suddenly felt better. “And talking of kicking the Powers in the teeth—”

“Let’s go and choose that postcard for your father.”

X

Wandering on through the churchyard we reached the massive West Front where tourists were sitting on the steps like roosting pigeons and watching the red buses toiling up Ludgate Hill. Inside the Cathedral the air was stuffy but felt cooler than the air in the sun-baked streets. For a brief moment I glanced down the nave at the vast, glowing interior. Then I moved to the postcard stands grouped near the entrance.

“Is your father religious?” enquired Tucker after we had inspected the conventional views of the dome and moved on to the close-ups of the ceiling mosaics.

“Not in the least.”

“In that case let’s rule out the shots of angels. How about a picture of Holman Hunt’s
Light of the World
?”

“Good try, but he’s not turned on by Jesus.” I revolved the stand restlessly, then heard the rasp of my breath as I saw what I wanted. The next moment I was plucking the card from its slot.

I was looking at the famous photograph of St. Paul’s taken in 1940 as the German bombers blasted the City apart. Beyond the blackened ruins in the foreground, beyond the billowing smoke, beyond all the brutal destruction wreaked by the Powers of Darkness, the dome of the Cathedral, untouched and radiant, was eerily illuminated by the fires which raged beneath that pitch-black night sky.

“
Yes!
” said Tucker at once when I showed the picture to him.

I bought the card. My fingers were trembling, and I felt so overwhelmed that I had to ask him to sort out the right coins from my change-purse. Scrabbling blindly in my bag afterwards I muttered: “I can’t find my pen.”

“Here,” said Tucker, finding it for me, and slipping an arm around my waist he steered me to the nearest row of chairs. By the time we sat down my fingers had stopped shaking but were as mobile as lumps of lead. Clumsily I wrote on the back of the card: “When you come out, I’ll be there.” Never had seven commonplace words been harder to commit to paper. I had to pause afterwards to take several deep breaths. Then I wrote: “I want you to visit London to meet my new friends.”

At that point Tucker had to take charge of the card before my tears rendered the message illegible, but five minutes later I was at last able to write: “It’s okay now about Hamish. I know you’re sorry you lost him. All my love, KITTY.”

XI

With the card safely tucked in my bag to await a stamp, we began to walk up the long nave, across the marble floor, past the rows of chairs and clusters of tourists, towards the great golden mosaics glittering high on the recessed walls by the transepts and on the vaulted roof of the choir. I had visited the Cathedral as a sightseer years ago when I had first arrived in London, but I had forgotten how enormous it was, how overpowering in its magnificence, and for a moment, as I glimpsed ahead the huge mosaic showing Christ as ruler of the world, I wondered what the carpenter from Nazareth would have thought of such lavish grandeur. But I did not wonder for long. I knew now that the Cathedral was representing the richness of life, and I knew too that in the heart of that life Christ would always be there, parting the darkness, saving the lost and healing the broken as he triumphed again and again and again over the forces of disintegration and decay.

“Hey, Tucker—”

“Yes, Ms. G?”

“Why doesn’t God just zap the Powers and get on with it?”

“You might as well ask why I don’t toss off the perfect novel in twenty-four hours! I mean, this is a big creative project we’re talking about here—cosmologically speaking it’s only just got going!”

“I still don’t see why the Powers are unzappable.”

“It’s because they’re essential to creation. You can’t create without making messes and generating chaos and blundering down blind alleys and crawling back up again—you can’t create without those efforts which end in disaster, because it’s the disasters which show you how to get things right. That’s why every disaster during creation is potentially redeemable—it’s because without the disasters the creator could never complete any worthwhile project.”

“But why can’t God create more efficiently?”

“Because creation’s not about efficiency, it’s about love. It’s about shedding blood, sweat and tears to make the thing you care about come right. It’s about enduring the shadow side of creation and using it so that in the end everything can be brought into the light . . . Why are you suddenly looking so anxious?”

“I’m finally facing up to the fact that you’re not only better educated than I am but much smarter . . . Have you ever heard of Plotinus?”

“The philosopher? The Neo-Platonist who had such a profound influence on Pseudo-Dionysius?”

“That settles it. I’m going to have an inferiority complex.”

“Well, I suppose that’s less trouble than having a baby, but I bet it’s not half as much fun.”

“Listen.” I was busy processing his information about creators. On the south side of the Cathedral the light was streaming through the long windows onto the floor of the dome ahead of us as we wandered on down the central aisle. “Listen—”

“I’m listening, Ms. G.”

“—since the God-project’s so big, what can one human being matter?”

“In the perfect novel every word matters. In the perfect painting every fleck of paint matters. In this amazing cathedral every grain of marble matters.” He smiled at me before saying: “In the creation which tops all creations,
you
matter, Carta-with-two-As.”

“And you, Eric.”

For one long moment I thought of my old isolated life when I had been incarcerated in my tower and peering through my telescope at a world which had lain beyond my reach. Then as we paused at last beneath the dome and turned to face each other, I knew that all the happiness I had ever wanted was waiting for me in a matchless reality I had barely begun to explore.