Absolute Truths (56 page)

I
selected a Médoc, and by the
time
the wine had been allowed
to breathe, the duckling was ready, Martin was dishing up the
vegetables and Harriet was lighting the candles on the dining-mom
table. When Martin asked me to say grace Harriet objected: ‘But
he’s off-duty!’ and I had to point out that I was still wearing my
pectoral cross.
It
seemed wise to underline to myself that even an
off-duty bishop has certain standards to maintain, but the further the meal progressed the harder it became not to relax as fully
as
I
would have done with my old friend Jack Ryder. After the duckling had disappeared and the bottle of claret was empty, Harriet helped
herself to some ice-cream from the deep-freeze and Martin and I
decided to sample the remains of a tub of Stilton. Harriet had
already returned to the dining-room when in the larder I came across a bottle of vintage port which for some reason had failed
to find its way down to the cellar.

‘I must have port with my Stilton,’ I declared at once.

‘
I bet Harriett say she has to have port with her ice-cream.’
That girl drinks like a fish.’

‘
You’re flexing your gills pretty energetically yourself, old chap!
Would you like me to tell you when you’re tight?’

It finally occurred to me how thoughtless I was being. ‘I m
sorry,’ I said, upset. ‘Are you finding it difficult to abstain? Because
if you are –’

‘
Charles, I’m enjoying myself so much that I wouldn’t be
tempted by a bottle of vodka even if it grew legs and danced on
the table.’

We returned to the dining-room.

‘
You’ll be relieved to hear I loathe port,’ said Harriet as I revealed
the bottle. ‘Should I now retire to leave you two gentlemen on
your own? I can’t quite remember which decade I’m supposed to
be in.’

‘
Stay and enhance the pleasure of our Stilton, darling,’ said
Martin, who although sober was talking as if he had consumed a
bottle of champagne. ‘And with that glorious hair of yours and
that heavenly Mary Quant dress you couldn’t be in any decade but
the sexy ‘sixties. Isn’t she gorgeous, Charles?’

‘
Gorgeous,’ I said, pouring out the port.

‘
Lucky old Stephen Aysgarth,’ added Martin, ‘having such a
breathtaking creature to sculpt his private parts!’

‘
Silence!’ I thundered, equally frivolous. ‘I must defend my Dean
from all charges of indecent exposure!’

‘
Well, you can try,’ said Harriet, ‘but as his enemies would say:
"Will you succeed?"‘

‘
Excuse me while I just ring up the
News of the World,’
said
Martin. ‘Keep talking, darling.’

The
News of the World
would find Stephen a great disappoint
ment,’ I said. ‘He merely enjoys talking to attractive young women.
It’s his hobby.’

‘
Today that’s not a hobby, that’s a hang-up,’ said Harriet.
‘That’s not a hang-up, that’s down-to-earth, common-sense mor
ality,’ I retorted, deciding I had a duty to the Church to leave
them in no doubt about the propriety of Aysgarth’s private life.
‘Stephen’s a married man and a distinguished clergyman. Of course
he’s going to be all talk and no action with his ladyfriends. What
other option does he have?’

‘
But is there really no action?’ persisted Martin mystified. ‘Abso
lutely, utterly
none?’

‘
Surely there’s always an option,’ said Harriet to me, ‘but I agree
with you that Stephen would never take it. He’s much too devoted
to his wife.’

That’s so unlikely that I suppose it just has to be true,’ said
Martin, ‘but Harriet darling, you seem to know our friend the
Dean quite amazingly well! Are you sure he’s never even held your
h
and?’

‘
Well, of course he’s held my hand — don’t be idiotic! He likes me. But if you think he’s ever done more than that you couldn’t
be further from the truth — and by the way, I don’t like you
treating him as a figure of fun. He may not be a smartly-dressed
glamour-boy like you but he’s bright and brave and kind, he’s
passionate about art, he’s devoted to his family, he’s a very amusing
friend and I’ll defend him to the last ditch.’

We stared at her. She stared back defiantly. Finally Martin mur
mured: ‘Fancy!’ and looked astonished.

‘In other words,’ I said,
’you see him as a hero.’

‘
Of course I do! Only a hero could be married to Dido for
twenty years and still be dedicated to her welfare at the end
of it.’

‘I thought you liked Dido,’ Martin said at once.

‘I do. But if she was my wife I’d murder her.’

Martin turned to me. ‘What do you think, Charles? Do you see
the Dean being every bit as devoted to Dido as she obviously is
to him?’

After a pause I said: ‘I’ve never pretended to understand that marriage, but Lyle always thought there was far more to it than
ever
met
the eye.’

There was another silence as the mention of Lyle reminded
us of my bereavement, and suddenly I felt as if my profound
unhappiness, penned up behind the dam created by the frivolous
dinner-party, was about to burst free. When Martin enquired at
last: ‘Coffee, anyone?’ I could only shake my head, and Harriet
too declined.

‘
I must be going,’ she said. ‘What time does the constable lock
the gates of the Close?’

I roused myself sufficiently to glance at my watch. ‘You’ve got
fifteen minutes.’

‘
Harriet angel,’ said Martin, attempting to dispel the shadow
which had fallen over the party, ‘when do I see you again? Do we really have to wait for another brief encounter at Perry Palmer’s?’

‘
Well, I’m open to offers. Make one.’

‘
How about a delicious lunch somewhere wildly fashionable
when you’re next up in town?’

They produced diaries and fruitlessly compared vacant spaces.
Can I phone you?’ said Harriet at last. ‘It’s all so confusing.’
T
he familiar line!’ sighed Martin. ‘"Don’t call us, we’ll call
you!"‘

‘I really will call, I promise —’

‘
Lovely, darling. I look forward to my long vigil by the phone.’

‘
So glad I’ve made you happy. Goodbye, Charles — thanks for
a memorable evening. Next time I see you being puritanical on
television I’ll think of you doing that strip-tease.’

‘
I’ll see you out to your car,’ said Martin, as we all moved into
the hall.

‘
My car! God, I’d quite forgotten – it’s still parked by the Deanery!’

‘
In that case let me give you a ride up the road in my chariot.
Leave the door on the latch for me, Charles ...’

I waved them goodbye from the doorstep.

Returning to the kitchen I sat down at the table and thought how odd the dinner-party had been, how far removed from any
formal clerical dinner-party which Lyle and I had given in the past.
Yet I did not think Lyle would have found the impromptu meal
with Martin and Harriet unamusing. Perhaps she had secretly
wished our evenings could have been more adventurous but for
my sake had kept quiet about her own preferences.

Thinking of Lyles secret wishes reminded me of the journal but
although I tried hard at once to turn my thoughts to a less difficult
subject, all that happened was that I wound up picturing myself
in bed with Harriet.

Then I did despair, not because I was thinking an unnatural
thought – what could be more natural than thinking about sex
after dining with a
femme fatale? –
but because I saw dearly that
despite the catastrophic incident with Sheila I was still in a frame of mind which could result in yet another disastrous mistake. Or
in other words, I was still not in control of my impulses but at
the mercy of them. And what did ‘impulses’ really mean in this
context anyway? Dimly I began to grasp that I was dealing not
merely with the sexual instinct but with the drives of the uncon
scious mind; I began to perceive that I was in the grip of a malign psychological force which was fuelling a desire for self-destructive
behaviour, but as I remained unable to identify this force I knew
the likelihood that I could master it was minimal.

Reluctance to accept this sinister theory made me try to explain
my behaviour in more facile ways, but no explanation convinced
me. It was useless, after my night with Sheila, to claim I was
sexually frustrated. It was equally useless to tell myself I was falling
irrationally in love with Harriet; I knew very well I would be
happy never to see her again. And it was useless to
tell
myself that d
rink had loosened my inhibitions. This was certainly true, but I
was nor drunk to the point of insanity. Indeed I was not drunk at
all; I had had a couple of small sherries, two glasses of claret and
a single glass of port, and normally I was quite capable of consuming this modest amount of alcohol without feeling driven to bound
around like a satyr. Moreover, I was no longer alone at the South
Canonry and isolated by my grief; I had taken the trouble to
acquire a sympathetic companion whom I knew would listen with
understanding if I needed to confide in someone. I had been sen
sible in recruiting Martin, careful in my consumption of alcohol
and rational in working out how I could best protect myself while
I waited to see Jon. So why was I still suffering from the urge to
behave like a lunatic?

I was still immersed in this bout of unsuccessful self-analysis
when Martin returned from his brief excursion up Canonry Drive.
‘A marvellous woman, isn’t she?’ he exclaimed as I moved into
the hall to
meet
him. ‘I’m mad about her.’

I said in my most casual voice: ‘She’s certainly attractive. Why
hasn’t she remarried?’

‘
Wedded to the memory of her husband the mountaineer – or so the story goes, but I hear she gets around quite a bit. Funny
about her friendship with
the
Dean, isn’t it? I think she’s genuinely
fond of him.’

‘
Did she tell you which pan of him she’s been sculpting?’

‘
No. Which do you think it was?’

‘
His head. Do have a bath if you want one, Martin – no, don’t
worry about clearing everything up. I’ll send an SOS to my house
keeper tomorrow.’ -

‘
Wonderful – but where do I go to collapse in a non-alcoholic
stupor? You haven’t assigned me a bedroom yet.’

I escorted him to the smaller and warmer of the two spare-
rooms. The bed was unmade but at his insistence I abandoned
him with the necessary linen while I went downstairs to lock up.

I switched off the porch light, attended to the front door and
retired to my study to select some tranquillising bedtime reading,
some novel which would transfer me to a masculine world of long
ago where women were kept firmly on the sidelines and nobody
ever thought about sexual intercourse.
Sapper’s
Bulldog
Drummond
caught my eye. Pulling the battered old copy from its shelf I wan
dered back into the hall.

The doorbell rang.

I gave a violent start but was at once convinced that Michael
had finally arrived. Switching on the porch light again I drew back
the bolts and flung wide the door.

Outside stood Harriet March.