Ultimate Prizes (30 page)

“That’s quite unnecessary, thank you. If you think I need to abstain at present, then I’ll abstain.”

“I’m relieved to hear that abstention’s so easy for you, but nevertheless I’d feel happier if the bottle was in my care.”

I could keep my temper no longer. “How dare you imply I can’t control my drinking!”

Darrow walked to the nearest wall of books, plucked out a Bible in the manner of a magician producing a white rabbit from a hat, and dumped the book on the writing table in front of me. “Put your hand on that and swear you haven’t been drinking far too much lately.”

I grabbed the Bible, stuffed it back on the shelf and blazed into the hall with my bottle. There was a cloakroom under the stairs. Striding to the basin, I poured the whisky down the drain while Darrow watched. “There!” I said, thrusting the bottle into his hands. “So much for your theory that I’m incapable of abstaining whenever I choose!”

Darrow rinsed the bottle thoroughly, sniffed it to make sure no whiff of whisky remained and finally dumped it in the wastepaper basket below the basin. All he said was: “Ready for lunch?”

Rigid with rage and shame, I followed him in silence to the dining-room.

5

Darrow pronounced a brisk grace, poured me a glass of water and said: “We won’t talk while we eat. A conversation would encourage you to pretend this is a mere social occasion, and I think we need to cut down ruthlessly on your opportunities to act as if nothing’s amiss. The incident with the bottle shows that your inclination to deceive yourself remains strong.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake let’s forget the wretched bottle!” I said, and felt pleased that I had managed to avoid an obscenity. Regaining control over my language meant that I was stronger. I hoped Darrow had noticed. As I attacked the shepherd’s pie on the plate before me I savoured the pungent aroma of minced lamb and admired the crisp thatch of mashed potatoes. To my surprise I found that I was hungry.

Eventually an elderly maid tottered into the room with a bowl of stewed apples and a jug of real custard; the Darrows’ cook had access to the eggs hatched on the Manor’s home farm. When I had scooped up every morsel on my plate I eyed Darrow speculatively and tried to decide if he would seethe at the sight of a cigarette. I was beginning to feel as if I had been consigned to the care of a formidably strait-laced nanny.

At last I demanded: “Are you going to get upset if I smoke?”

“You can smoke so long as you don’t drink.”

“How can I drink when I’ve poured away my whisky?”

“Well, we do keep wine and spirits in the house.”

I stared at him. “You think I’m an alcoholic, don’t you?”

“The word ‘alcoholic’ is like the phrase ‘nervous breakdown,’ ” said Darrow. “It arouses all sorts of emotional reactions, none of which are very helpful. No, of course I don’t think you’re the sort of drinker who reaches for the brandy bottle every morning when he wakes up! If you were, you’d have got into trouble long ago. But I do think you might be the kind of drinker who would find it useful to know that I’ve noted the levels in the decanters on the sideboard and that I’ll know at once if you filch a tot when my back’s turned.”

I lit a cigarette. Then I said in my pleasantest voice: “Why is it that I keep wanting to punch you on the nose? It’s such an embarrassing urge for a clergyman!”

To my astonishment Darrow at once said with great seriousness: “That’s a very interesting question—in fact I wonder if you realise just how interesting it is. The obvious answer, of course, is that we’ve always been incompatible and the stress of the present circumstances is exacerbating that incompatibility, but I have a hunch there’s a great deal more going on than that. Naturally we must allow for the fact that you feel humiliated because someone you dislike is seeing you when you’re vulnerable, and naturally we must allow for the fact that you’re so horrified by what’s happening to you that you’re trying to cover up your horror with a display of pugnacious behaviour. That’s all obvious. But why is it that when you have your back to the wall you only seem capable of hearing advice when it’s couched in aggressive terms? You may find this hard to believe, but I don’t usually behave like a sergeant major with men who are in distress. Yet although I adopted my customary serene manner at our first conversation earlier today, you were never fully at ease until I was telling you brutally in my toughest voice that you’d hit rock-bottom hard enough to crack cement. You liked that. You responded with gusto. For the first time I felt I was really getting through to you. Tough talk is obviously the only language you can understand when you’re frightened, but why? Was there perhaps someone long ago who taught you to survive by giving you a series of verbal batterings which called forth an aggressive but life-saving response?”

I was amazed. Then to my extreme annoyance I also realised I was impressed. But of course I didn’t want Darrow knowing he had impressed and amazed me. Summoning up my most irritated manner I retorted rudely: “Oh, go and set up a fortuneteller’s tent in the Cathedral churchyard! I’m sorry, Darrow, I know you’re a very able man in many ways, but I can’t stand it when you play the magician and try to mind-read. It always makes me want to—”

“Punch me on the nose. Quite. Was it your father who applied these verbal batterings?”

“Certainly not! My father was the gentlest, kindest, mildest—”

“Then perhaps it was your mother.”

“Don’t be absurd! No woman gives
me
verbal batterings. My mother was a highly intelligent and exceptional woman who doted on me.”

“And did you enjoy being doted on?”

“Well, of course I did!”

“Why ‘of course’? It doesn’t necessarily follow at all. Some people find it oppressive to be doted on.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Darrow, but you seem to be completely off course. I wasn’t able to see my mother often, but over the years we conducted a most entertaining correspondence which we both enjoyed enormously—and if you want to make some sort of Freudian capital out of that, I’ll—”

“—punch me on the nose, yes. This conversation’s beginning to resemble one of those old-fashioned ballads with a recurring chorus. I hesitate to prolong it, but there’s one discrepancy which puzzles me. I remember hearing that you’d had a tough childhood, yet this delightful father and this doting mother would suggest a family paradise. Was the talk of a tough childhood exaggerated?”

“No, my father died bankrupt when I was seven and the home was broken up. My brother and I were sent away to be educated, given a series of miserly hand-outs and told we could either Get On or Go Under.”

“That’s tough talk indeed,” said Darrow, “and may I ask who it was who did the talking?”

“No, you may not! I’m sick of you behaving like Sherlock Holmes in a dog-collar. It makes me want to—”

“Yes, yes, yes—full chorus followed by the final chord.” Darrow tossed his napkin aside and stood up. “I’ll show you to a bedroom where you can rest while I see the architect.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, making a Herculean effort to be civil, “I’d prefer to go for a stroll in the grounds. After all, I did spend a large part of the morning in bed.”

“So you did. Very well, perhaps I’ll step outside with you for a moment. That sunshine looks inviting.”

Leaving the house by a side door we strolled across the lawn towards the shrubbery which bordered the woods. The air was warm, the garden peaceful. Aware of my irritation declining, I found myself recalling with reluctance the extraordinary deductive skill Darrow had shown earlier.

Finally, after a period of prolonged hesitation, I was unable to resist saying fascinated: “Darrow, how far do you follow Freud? For example, if a man confessed to you that he’d dreamt he’d bashed his mother to pulp, how would you interpret such a dream?”

“That would depend on the mother—and it would depend on the man. I wouldn’t follow Freud slavishly—in fact I might well not follow him at all.”

“Is there any chance, would you say, that the dream could be entirely meaningless?”

“If dreams are part of the brain’s way of sorting itself out before the next bout of consciousness, then one can argue that even the most absurd dream has its purpose and is therefore not without meaning. However, perhaps the question you’re really asking is: When does a dream, absurd or otherwise, become significant in any study of a disturbed psyche? I confess that not being a psychiatrist, I wouldn’t bother about dreams much unless they either recurred or caused particular distress—or both.”

“But if the man were to tell you that he had indeed been caused particular distress by this dream about his mother—”

“I think I’d ask if he still felt distressed. You know what happens even with the worst nightmares: you wake up in a sweat but within sixty seconds you’re laughing at the absurdity.”

“And if the man said he did still feel distressed—”

“Then I should probably conclude that the dream was significant. But that wouldn’t mean the significance was necessarily of crucial importance.”

“But wouldn’t it inevitably mean that he wanted to murder his mother?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Darrow vaguely. “He might be harbouring a death-wish against someone else and be using his mother as a substitute—perhaps the mother’s already dead, a situation which would allow him to discharge his violent feelings in the knowledge that they could do her no harm.”

“Ah!” I felt myself relax.

“Or alternatively he might feel irritated by all females and be using his mother as a mere symbol for womanhood. Or he might feel violent towards himself and be projecting the violence onto the first person who entered his head. There are in fact numerous possible explanations, but without knowing more about the dreamer it’s impossible to come to any firm conclusion about the dream.”

“Yes, I see. Yes, of course.” Having been so impressed by his perception of Uncle Willoughby’s malign presence in my life that I had been tempted to test his skill further, I now felt so impressed by his authoritative comments on the puzzle I had posed him that I was tempted to confess the nightmare was mine. Tentatively, fearful that I might regret the admission but unable to resist the opportunity for further reassurance, I said: “I’m the dreamer. I had the nightmare this morning when I was dozing at the Theological College.”

“Oh yes?” said Darrow, assuming a tone of mild surprise, as if the idea had never occurred to him. I realised then that I had been naive in thinking I could fool him so easily. “And do you, in fact, still feel upset about the experience?”

“No, not now I understand what was going on. Obviously I was just using my mother as a substitute for Dido. So that’s all right.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes—I was only so upset because I couldn’t bear the thought of feeling violent towards my mother.”

“You mean you can bear the thought of feeling violent towards your wife?”

“No, no, no!” I said exasperated. “I don’t feel violent towards anyone! Of course I don’t want to kill Dido any more than I wanted to kill my mother; I just want her to get out of my life and be happily married to someone else, that’s all. So it seems the dream was symbolic. What I was really wishing dead was the marriage, and my violence was all tied up with my emotional distress about the baby. When I’m emotionally distressed I often want to take a swing at someone to relieve my feelings.”

“So I’ve noticed. And do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you ever take a swing at anyone?”

“Good heavens, no, of course not! Clergymen just don’t do that sort of thing!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Darrow, falling back on his vague manner again. “I don’t see why a clerical collar should have an infallible power to neutralise violent feelings, particularly when the violent feelings are usually the result of something that happened long before the man ever thought of being ordained.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’ve actually counselled violent clergymen?”

“Well, I admit I don’t run across such people every day, but I do remember a couple of wife-beaters.”

“How disgusting! Women should be put on pedestals and reverenced. How on earth did you deal with such perverts?”

“As with all distressed people,” said Darrow, “one has to locate the source of the distress in order to heal the wound in the psyche.” He glanced at his watch. “I must go back indoors to await my architect. I probably shan’t have time for tea, Aysgarth, but I’ll arrange for it to be served to you in the library at four.”

“Thanks.” I watched him walk across the lawn and disappear into the house. Then still savouring my relief that the nightmare had a plausible explanation which I found neither sinister nor upsetting, I embarked on a stroll through the woods.

6

At four o’clock I returned to the library and drank two cups of tea but found I could eat nothing. Anxiety was gaining the upper hand again. I was aware of a strong desire to sink myself in my work so that I would have no time to dwell upon my crisis. Meanwhile the thought that I would soon be on my way to London for soul-surgery (I hadn’t forgotten Darrow’s metaphor of the operating table) had become so chilling that I now wondered if I might find myself unable to step on the train. Abandoning my tea-cup, I headed outside again in a fever of agitation and prowled around the side of the house to the back lawn.

To my relief I saw that Darrow was sitting on the garden seat; I felt I needed another dose of first aid. The child was standing nearby, but at that moment his nurse called his name from the house and he ran off across the lawn. Darrow half-rose to his feet, then sank back on the bench and rubbed his eyes as if they had been dazzled.

“Has the architect left?” I said seconds later as I too sat down on the garden seat.

“What? Oh, the architect. No, I showed him around and then left him alone to make his calculations.” Plainly his thoughts were elsewhere.

It was so unlike Darrow to be
distrait
in his manner that I said sharply: “Are you all right?” but at once he pulled himself together.

“Yes, fine—I was merely experiencing one of those curious moments when one feels a scene has all been played before.”