Absolute Truths (78 page)

‘
I think you should go and pass out too,’ said Charley, who was
still pushing some baked beans around his plate. ‘I’ll clear up here.’

‘
Before I pass out I’d like your assurance that you’re not still
thinking of giving up the priesthood.’

‘God knows what I’m thinking.’

‘
Charley, just because you’ve made one very bad mistake —’

‘
If that was the only problem I could cope, but it’s not, is it?
The real trouble goes much deeper than that. After all, here I am,
having slaved for years to model myself on you, and all that’s
happened is that I’ve wound up in this disgusting mess. Doesn’t
that prove beyond dispute that there’s something radically wrong
with me?’

‘
No, what it really proves is —’ I broke off. My mind had gone
blank again. Obviously my diagnosis of delayed shock had been
correct and I now had to go to bed without delay. ‘I’m sorry,’ I
said. ‘I’ve got to rest.’

‘
Of course. Don’t worry about me, I want to be alone for a
while. I’ve got to think.’

I picked up
the
knife again and took it to the sink where I
carefully washed the blade until it was clean.

Then I went to bed and dreamed of disembowelment.

In my dream I was facing the unmarred west front of the Cathedral
and exclaiming: ‘Radiant, ravishing Starbridge!’ But as I stepped
forward I stumbled over the disembowelled corpse of my doomed
predecessor, Alex Jardine, and when I looked at the Cathedral
again I saw not only that the west front was in ruins but that
Sheila was walking towards me with a knife shining in her hand.

I awoke in a cold sweat. The room was still dark but the birds
had begun to sing in the garden, and knowing that any further
attempt to sleep would be futile, I left the bed and drew back the curtains. The Cathedral, dark, dense and devoid of all embellish
ments in the dim pre-dawn light, seemed as if waiting to crush
me, but of course that was a fancy generated by my nightmare. I turned away to concentrate on the task of getting dressed.

But when I had finished shaving I found I had to go and look
at the Cathedral again. The sky was now lighter but this only made
the Cathedral
seem
more opaque. I could not stop looking at it.
I did move to the dressing-room but still I had to return to the
window. I felt
as
if the building were trying to hypnotise me, but
I knew that was nonsense; one could not be hypnotised by an
inanimate object, a black lump of stone and
glass.
Nor could one
tell oneself that it was waking up, as I had done, with the advent
of dawn. Nor could one stare at it
as
one might stare at some
strange and savage animal encountered at the zoo.

Willing myself back to sanity I finished dressing, went down
stairs and brewed myself some tea. An impulse to pray was filtering
through my mind. Taking the tea back upstairs to my dressing-
room I set the tray aside and sank to my knees, but I found I had to take yet another look at the Cathedral; I knew the compulsion
was irrational, but that made no difference. Back I went to the
bedroom. Beyond the window the Cathedral was now not merely
black but pitch-black against the lightening sky, and the spire
reminded me of the tapering blade of that kitchen knife which had
featured so prominently in my nightmare.

The impulse to pray was by this time pot merely filtering but
srreaming through my mind. I thought of Lyle wondering if she
should pray for the Cathedral, and as I remembered those lines in
her journal I suddenly knew what I had to do. I had to pray not in my dressing-room but in the Cathedral itself, before my episcopal
throne.

I felt almost as if I had been lassoed, like an animal in a Holly
wood western, and was now being hauled from the house towards
the churchyard.

I said aloud to the Cathedral: ‘I’m on my way. I’ve found my
excuse.’ But of course these words made no sense at all; I was
talking as if the powerful urge to pray in the most hallowed place
available to me was some sort of bizarre smokescreen, covering up
unjustifiable behaviour, whereas I knew very well that after all the
traumas of the past hours, a desire to make an extravagant spiritual
gesture was not only understandable but necessary to restore my
equilibrium.

Yet I felt embarrassed that I had talked to the Cathedral as if it
were a person. What a lapse for a former professor of divinity to
make! But perhaps it had not been the Cathedral I was addressing.

Telling myself that I deserved to wind up in a straitjacket if I
continued to indulge in this form of irrational speculation, I went
downstairs to my study and retrieved from my desk the key of the
Dean’s door, the clergy’s private entrance on the north side of the
Cathedral. In the hall a moment later I put on my heaviest overcoat
to ward off the chill but the cold air still made me gasp as I opened
the front door.

I hesitated for a moment on the threshold.

Then the Cathedral seemed to pull again on the invisible rope,
and I found myself moving down the drive like an automaton.

The Cathedral, still pitch-black against the dawn sky, rose from its
p
ale lawn like a monstrous tidal wave frozen in ice. I stopped for
a moment once I had passed through the gates of the South
Canonry, and as I stared at that pattern of dark serrated lines
ahead, the sun pierced the horizon to shine right through the
transept from the east, and the glass began to glitter
as
if the tidal
wave was on the move.

Superstitious dread stirred in me suddenly, but I repressed it. walked up Canonry Drive towards the Deanery, but once I turned
to face the west front the scaffolding reminded me again of the
ruin in my nightmare and suggested a swathe of bandages which
concealed some gross deformity. The west front itself was in deep
shadow, a fact which rendered the maimed façade
even
more
unfathomable. Beyond the roof of the nave, the tower, foreshortened by the angle from which I was observing it, suggested primi
tive myths and threatening archetypes. The spire was as lean as
a
lance.

I began to cross the churchyard, and the Cathedral seemed to
come to meet me, its shadow billowing out from the dark, dour, dew-soaked stones. At the north porch I touched the wall and it
was icy. My fingers tingled; the muscles in my arm ffinched;
moved through the darkness which enveloped the north wall west
of the transept, and the Cathedral seemed to ripple past me as if
it were a living creature, a monster from some medieval bestiary,
a Leviathan hostile to mankind.

Reaching the Dean’s door I groped for my key. By that time I
had stopped telling myself how pathetically overwrought I was; it
seemed more sensible to acknowledge that the building would
inevitably look eerie in that particular light, and that I was wit
nessing nothing which was either sinister or unusual. To reassure
myself I glanced over my shoulder to sec the picturesque view of
the Close, but the houses on the North Walk were ghost-pale in
the unearthly light, and the Theological College, high-roofed and
multi-windowed, lay lifeless as a mausoleum by St Anne’s Gate.

I fitted my key in the lock. So conscious was I by this time of
the Cathedral’s resemblance to a monster that I almost expected it to roar with rage as I breached its outer skin, but of course there
was no noise, just the click of the lock as the key turned and the creak of a hinge which needed oil. Moving at once to the panel
which controlled the alarms I pulled the switches which guarded not only the Dean’s door itself but the choir, transepts and nave.
I hardly wanted to be interrupted in my prayers by the police and
firemen of Starbridge, all rushing to respond to my arrival.

I moved on into the Cathedral.

By this time I was wishing I had brought a torch; I had under-
estimated how dark the Cathedral remained when the sun was low
on the horizon. Huge shadows infested the nave, and the shafts
of light from the windows seemed insignificant in comparison. A
pool of blackness drowned the choirstalls, but I lit one of the
candles in the front row and even before my lighter snapped shut
I found my eyes were adjusting to the gloom. The candle, flickering in the faint draught, at once conjured up images of haunted houses.
Automatically I leant forward and blew out the flame.

Turning to face the high altar I inclined my head in respect, just
as I always did, but not before I had noticed that the cross was
barely visible in the darkness; the screen behind the altar was cut
ting off the light from the east window.

I stood motionless in the gloom, and after a while I realised I
was listening. The silence had a quality which I could not identify.
I felt as if I were being watched by someone who was holding his
breath.

But that, I told myself without hesitation, was nonsense.
Eliminating from my mind all pictures of the Devil, pitter-
pattering around in the side-chapels and pausing every so often to
peep at me, I returned to sanity by walking to my cathedra at the
east end of the choir and sitting down on the embroidered cushion
which made occupying a throne
less
uncomfortable during long
services. But I was still troubled by the deep shadows around me.
Leaning forward I found I could now see all the way down the nave, but the choir was still very dark. I wondered whether to
relight the candle but decided that this would be pandering to my
neurotic uneasiness. I also reminded myself that when my eyes
were closed in prayer it would hardly matter whether the candle
was alight or not.

Kneeling down I crossed myself, clasped my hands and resol
utely embarked on the task of arranging my thoughts in a suitable
pattern. I decided that before I prayed for my sons — certainly the
most urgent item on my agenda — it would be fitting to pray for
the Cathedral, by which I meant all those employed there. The most natural way to do this seemed to be to start at the top of
the organisational pyramid and work downwards, so I started by recalling Aysgarth and his difficult private life. I remembered that
despite all his flaws he was a devout Christian, and I resolved that
I would pray hard that he might be enabled to overcome all his
difficulties, no matter what they were.

I then recalled the three residentiary Canons and decided to pray
for the discernment which would enable me to see how I could be
more useful to them
as
they struggled with their arduous chapter meetings. After that I skimmed down to the base of the pyramid,
past the Chapter Clerk, the Clerk of the Works, the Master-Mason,
the Architect and the Accountant — past the Organist, the vicars-
choral and the choirboys, past the vergers, the guides, the cleaners
. Having wound up remembering the old man who picked up
the litter from the churchyard lawn, I mentally patted the inter
cession into a satisfying shape by resolving to pray that the entire
staff of the Cathedral might be rescued from the current discord
" and finally achieve a new harmony.

This was all very ‘edifying’, as clergymen used to say in my
young day, and having designed this splendid scheme I felt ready
to lay the pattern before God and talk to him about it.

People pray in different ways and one must pray
as
one can, but
most people find it easiest to pray in words and pray
as
if talking
to a person. I prayed in words, but although I addressed God,
according to Christian convention, as ‘Father’, this was not the
easiest way for me to think of him because I was often reminded
too distractingly of the stria parent who had brought me up. However, since I was a traditionalist I was not about to start
addressing God as ‘Almighty Monad’ or ‘Almighty Ultimate Con
cern’. I addressed him as ‘Almighty Father’, the theological equiva
lent of ‘Dear Sir’, and tried to project my thoughts beyond all
anthropomorphic images to Goodness, Truth and Beauty. I usually
pictured them as three flames springing from one torch, which
was Love, but I had other images. I am not saying I did not think
of God as personal. I did. But he was ultimately beyond images,
beyond the limits of the human imagination. I could only address
him as ‘Almighty Father’, focus on those Platonic forms which
reminded me of his essence, and then lay out my prayers as simply
as
possible as I tried to align my will with his.

I must
make
it clear — if indeed it is not already obvious — that
I am not a great spiritual athlete and in no way superior to the
uneducated person who knows nothing of Platonic forms and
just gets on with the job of praying without going through any intellectual hoops. In fact I envy such a person. My busy over
educated brain is a positive hindrance to prayer, and far too often
my thoughts speed off on tangents which are intellectually fascinat
ing but quite irrelevant to the task of praying in an acceptable
manner.

I have gone to some lengths to describe how I pray because in view of what happened next I think the processes of my brain at
that moment are important. Perhaps I can draw an analogy
between them and the processes involved in tuning in to a wireless
programme. First of
all one looks in the
Radio Times
to
see what
programmes are being broadcast; that would be the equivalent of
my survey to
see
what prayers are necessary. Then one switches
on the set; that would be the equivalent of the moment when I close my eyes and begin: ‘Almighty Father ...’ Next one tunes in
to the right station; this would be the equivalent of the point
where I conjure up my image of God. And finally one sits back in
one’s armchair and concentrates on the programme; this would
correspond to the phase where I visualise the subjects of my prayer
and offer my requests to God. Sometimes the wireless crackles, blighting the broadcast, and in very bad atmospheric conditions
one has little choice but to switch off the set, but normally one
tunes in to the chosen programme without too much difficulty.

Having devised my prayer-scheme, I now clasped my hands in
the conventional position, closed my eyes and began as usual with
the words ‘Almighty Father’; I was not speaking aloud, but each
word was clearly formed in my mind. I then conjured up my
favourite image of the three flames blazing from a single torch,
superimposed on it another image, a triangle which represented
the three persons of the Trinity, and placed in that triangle the
image of Aysgarth
as
I prepared to offer up my prayers on his
behalf.

It was at that moment that the distortion began. In my analogy
of the wireless broadcast, this would have been the moment when
‘the ether began to play up’,
as
we used to say in the old days, and
I found that although I had placed the image of Aysgarth in the
triangle, it was the wrong image. I saw not the devoted husband
and father — the picture I had planned to see — but the lecherous
drunkard who had trouble controlling his weaknesses, the shady
priest who took scandalous
risks.
In revulsion I forgot my prayer-
scheme. I could only shout silently to God: get him out of my
life, crush him, destroy him, punish him — and all the while I was
shouting these violent orders in my head, my mind was ravaged
by a voice which whispered: ‘A senior churchman — degraded —
disgraced — DISGUSTING.’

I began to shiver. The air had turned intensely cold and the
temperature was still sinking. With a gasp I opened my eyes and
at once the pollution assaulted me, stifling my breathing as it
poured itself down my throat. I began to retch. Staggering to my
feet I saw that the cross was now visible on the altar and I stumbled
towards it. I knew I had to grasp that cross to restore my spiritual
balance, and
as
I thought of Jon saying: ‘No demon can withstand
the power of Christ,’ I found I was no longer the sophisticated
theologian who regarded with amusement those who used old-
fashioned images to describe huge black psychic forces which raged
beyond human control. I forgot my intellectual snobbery; I forgot
my education; I forgot that I had once been a professor famous
for his lucid thinking and his talent for rational analysis. All I knew
at that moment was that the building was infested with demons,
crawling with them, and that the Devil himself was on the point
of smashing me to pieces with a flick of his cloven hoof.

I staggered to the altar-rail but remembered just in time that I
had not switched off the alarm which protected the altar itself and the treasures which stood there. I backed away, stumbling, nearly
falling, and blundered down the choir. On reaching the steps which
led up to the pulpit I suddenly realised I could grab a cross from
one of the side-chapels nearby, and it was then, as my glance
travelled wildly from the great west window towards the south
transept, that I saw someone was watching me from the far end
of the nave.