Glamorous Powers (23 page)

‘Now I’ll take you to the kitchen,’ Ruth was saying. ‘I’ve been saving it up till the last because I’m so proud of it. I’m longing to show you my new fridge!’

It was clear that the refrigerator interested her greatly and as she talked about it with animation I noticed that she finally became relaxed. I stood listening in courteous silence and thought how baffling the scene was. If she had said to me: ‘I have this serious difficulty which is disrupting my spiritual life,’ I would have known exactly what questions to ask. But to be told the virtues of a refrigerator and to be expected to make an intelligent comment was a trial indeed. I found the dialogue quite impossible to sustain.

I eventually contrived to escape from the kitchen by asking to see the garden, but when Ruth continued to chatter interminably about trivialities I began to feel very tired. However my spirits revived when my grand-daughter appeared at the back door and skipped down the path into my arms. We had not met for some months and I was disappointed to see that she
was going through a plain stage. Her pale hair was scraped back from her face into pigtails and she wore a brace on her teeth, but her grey eyes sparkled and I thought for a moment that I had caught a glimpse of my mother although it was impossible to be sure.

We had just retired indoors when the telephone bell started to ring. At once I wondered if the call came from Martin but in the hall Ruth exclaimed: ‘Pam, how lovely to hear you!’ and began to talk about a forthcoming whist-drive in aid of the Red Cross. Hiding my disappointment I sat down at the kitchen table.

‘Mummy’s in an awful flap about your visit,’ confided Janet impulsively as she sat down at my side. ‘So’s Daddy. They can’t understand why you’ve left the Order when you were such a success in it.’

‘But I could hardly have made it plainer in my letter that I’ve been called by God to work in the world again!’

‘Have you really? Gosh, how interesting! Neither of them told me that. Did God speak to you from a cloud like in the Bible?’

‘No, he entered my mind and arranged it in certain patterns.’ It occurred to me that this was the first conversation I had ever had with my grand-daughter on her own and I hastened to make the most of Ruth’s absence. ‘Do you really enjoy your scripture lessons at school?’ I said. ‘When you told me at our last meeting about that ex-missionary teacher of yours I thought she sounded a bit of a bore. And what about your local vicar? I didn’t ask you about him. Does he take a special interest in helping children of your age to take part in the life of the Church?’

The child became wary. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Think? Don’t you know?’

She was immediately intimidated, and cursing myself for becoming too inquisitorial in my eagerness to discover more about her spiritual life I added swiftly: ‘Of course I know your mother doesn’t take you to church every Sunday but surely when you do go –’ I stopped. A bitter enlightenment had
dawned. ‘Don’t you go to church at all nowadays?’ I demanded. ‘Not even at Christmas and Easter?’

The child was now tongue-tied with a guilty shame which, I knew, would later make her feel resentful and cross. I had made a mess of my first real conversation with a grandchild. In distress I groped for the words which would put matters right but before I could speak Ruth exclaimed angrily behind me: ‘Really, Daddy, can’t you talk about
anything
except religion? Can’t you ask Janet about her friends and her hobbies instead of cross-questioning her about whether I’m being a good mother and taking her to church every Sunday?’

‘My dear Ruth, I’m well aware that there are plenty of good mothers who have some difficulty which makes church-going impossible, and of course I quite understand how hard it is when a husband can’t share his wife’s spiritual life –’

‘And now I suppose you’re going to criticize me for marrying a man who isn’t religious!’

‘Ruth, is this really the wisest of conversations to conduct in your daughter’s presence?’

The child saw an opportunity to channel all her confused resentment into an aggressive question. ‘Mummy, why didn’t you tell me that Grandad had had a call from God to leave the Order?’

‘Oh, that’s what he always says when he wants his own way!’ cried Ruth, her insecurity rendering her quite unable to endure even the mildest disapproval from me, and in a storm of emotion which reminded me sickeningly of Betty she rushed out of the kitchen into the scullery and slammed the door violently behind her.

I stood up and at once the child said desperately: ‘Please don’t be cross with us because we don’t go to church.’

I sat down again. Ruth could wallow in her tiresome tantrum; Ruth could wait. I saw clearly that to reassure the child was my
first task, and taking her hand in mine I said: ‘I certainly shan’t love you less just because at present you’re not a churchgoer. However …’ I hesitated but was unable to resist adding: ‘Churchgoing can be useful in helping one to approach the task of worshipping God. It provides a structure which makes the task easier – just as your teacher made the task of learning to write easier years ago when she gave you specially lined paper to help you form your letters.’

The child stared at me wide-eyed. Possibly no one had ever talked to her about worship before. In a home where a refrigerator was treated with reverence no doubt all the occupants would be seriously out of touch with reality, but although I enfolded her with my sympathy she remained unaware of it. To my acute disappointment she withdrew her hand and said in a voice which told me her earlier guilt had turned to anger, just as I had foreseen: ‘Mummy’s very upset and you don’t care.’

‘Of course I care,’ I said, but my voice sounded much too austere and suddenly I saw myself as I must appear to her, a tall intimidating stranger, cool, aloof and baffling, the very reverse of the cosy old grandfathers who inhabited the best storybooks for children. I knew I had to project warmth in order to win her confidence, but I felt chilled by a sense of inadequacy. I could only add in a stiff voice: ‘I’ll talk to your mother. Don’t be upset. I’ll soon calm her down.’

‘Mummy’s very difficult to calm down when she’s in a state. Daddy just gives up and goes off to play golf.’

‘I don’t play golf and I’m used to dealing with people who are upset.’ I managed to smile at her. ‘Sometimes I used to feel that being an abbot was like being the captain of a ship. I was forever steering my passengers and crew through troubled waters.’

I could see this description interested her and although she remained grave I sensed her resentment ebb. However she retorted severely: ‘You wouldn’t have been an ordinary captain – you’d have been a pirate, swinging a cutlass and shaking up everyone in sight.’ And having described with a startling
accuracy my mysterious talent for disruption, she slipped away out of the room before I could attempt a reply.

I could postpone the moment no longer. Nerving myself to enter the scullery I found Ruth crying and took her in my arms.

‘Oh Daddy, I didn’t mean to be so rude but you made me feel so guilty that we don’t go to church –’

I was acutely aware of her alien femininity, the lush loosely-corseted flesh, the pervasive odour of cosmetics, the unnaturally curled hair, the high voice and – most unnerving of all – the undisciplined emotion. How did one deal with such a creature? If she had been a disturbed relation of one of my monks I would have been kind but implacably austere, allowing no physical contact whatsoever; I knew exactly how an abbot should behave in such circumstances, but how a father should behave towards such a mysterious version of his own flesh and blood was a problem which quite defeated me. I suddenly found myself wishing the old useless wish that Ruth could have resembled my mother, and the next moment in my memory I could see my mother, serene, silent and self-possessed, never making any exhausting emotional demands which could only fill me with a resentment born of guilty despair.

Carefully putting the precious memory aside I said to my daughter with all the kindness I could muster: ‘Poor Ruth, I’m so sorry.’ I was just wondering what I could possibly say next when I was saved by the ringing of the telephone bell, but although I again hoped the caller was Martin I again hoped in vain. Ruth began another conversation about the forthcoming whist-drive, and slipping past her I padded upstairs to my room.

I could not remember when I had last felt so overpowered by the need to be alone.

The next hurdle to be surmounted was the reunion with my son-in-law who had always abstained from visiting me in my cloister not, as he would have had me believe, because he could never manage to take sufficient time off from his work, but because he had a horror of an enclosed religious life; I suspected that even if he had found me the most delightful of fathers-in-law he would still have fought shy of visiting a monastery in order to pay his respects.

When he arrived home that night at half-past six his first act after the ritual of handshaking was to ask me what I wanted to drink. Possibly he had no idea what else to say to me. Equally possibly he could not face the reunion without a stiff dose of alcohol. Feeling sorry for him and realizing that I had to offer more than a meticulous politeness I requested a dry sherry in order to appear convivial. I have, I confess, never been attracted to alcoholic beverages as I dislike having the sharp edge of my psyche blunted, but as a Naval chaplain I had learnt the value of nursing a glass in order to repel any accusation of priggishness, and certainly I have never thought that a priest should feel under any obligation to be a teetotaller. Our Lord, after all, is indisputably on record as enjoying his wine at social gatherings.

My son-in-law was a bald man with an unremarkable countenance and when I saw how stout he had become I thought how lucky he was to have such a pretty wife. I hoped he appreciated his good fortune. However he paid scant attention to Ruth and aided by a very dark whisky-and-soda he began to talk in a boastful manner about his blossoming career. Since he had been at a public school, albeit a minor one, I thought he should have been trained to exhibit more modesty, but I realized that this childish desire to impress me sprang from his extreme nervousness. Clearly I needed to soothe him by making a friendly gesture, but it was not until he said to me after dinner:
‘Can I offer you a glass of port, sir?’ that I saw what form the friendly gesture should take.

‘Roger,’ I said, ‘it was all very well for you to call me “sir” when you were a young man engaged to my daughter, but I feel it’s high time we dispensed with such formality. Please call me Jon in future. And yes, I will have some port, although I’d prefer the measure to be a small one.’

We were alone by this time. Ruth and Janet were washing the dishes and although I had volunteered to help my offer had been received with a horror which I had forgotten would be inevitable. As a monk I had become so used to men performing all manner of domestic work that the traditional family practice of excluding males from the kitchen now seemed like an archaic custom, droll and not without charm but creating an artificial division between the sexes which could only foster the widespread delusion that the function of women was to wait on men hand and foot. I remembered one of my novices complaining at Ruydale: ‘I want to be outdoors with the men – I don’t want to be in the kitchen doing women’s work!’ and I remembered too my severe response: ‘Men and women are of equal worth in the sight of God and all work, even the most menial task, becomes worthwhile when dedicated to his glory.’ I wondered what my son-in-law would have thought of such a philosophy, but I could no more imagine Roger agreeing that men and women were of equal worth than I could imagine him washing dishes contentedly in the kitchen.

‘… and may I ask,’ Roger was saying, still not bold enough to address me as Jon despite the large amount of alcohol he had consumed, ‘if you’re about to land some important post in the Church of England?’

It would have been useless to explain that a priest should be uninterested in obtaining a position which the world deems important. Instead I said neutrally: ‘My only plan at present is to adjust to the world as quickly as possible.’

‘But you surely must have some idea of what you’re going to do!’

‘Apart from serving God, no. None at all.’

Roger was at once disturbed by my failure to behave like a normal person, and sensing the source of his anxiety I moved swiftly to soothe him. ‘The Order has kindly granted me a loan to tide me over the next three months,’ I said, ‘so there’s no danger that I’ll starve – and certainly no danger that I’ll be a financial drain upon you.’

‘Well, of course if there’s anything I can do to help …’ His relief was almost palpable.

‘It’s extremely helpful that I’m able to spend my first week here, and I’m most grateful to you for your hospitality.’

No father-in-law could have behaved better. The last swirl of tension faded from the atmosphere as Roger was finally able to relax.

‘Tell me,’ I said before he could voice any insincere pleasure that I should be staying beneath his roof, ‘have you heard anything from Martin?’ This was a question which I had avoided asking Ruth because I had been too nervous of arousing her jealousy.

Roger’s air of relaxation was abruptly dissipated. ‘I’m afraid that’s a difficult subject –’ He nerved himself to take the plunge ‘– Jon. He turned up here two weeks ago, drank all my whisky and became pretty damned unpleasant when I refused to lend him money. I had to ask him to leave.’