Glamorous Powers (57 page)

‘The hospital doctor said that after a rest I’d be as good as new,’ said Higgins placidly, ‘and I am.’

‘Why did he say you needed a rest from work?’

‘Not from work, sir. From Her.’

I wondered confused if the presence had changed sex. ‘Her?’

‘Mrs Higgins, sir. My wife.’

‘Ah.’ I remained puzzled. ‘You didn’t tell me there was a difficulty with your wife.’

‘No more there is, sir. She nags a bit, but I’m used to that. Her nagging’s just water off a duck’s back to me.’

‘Then why did the doctor think –’

‘He was mad, sir, like all the poor souls in that place. He said that though I
think
I don’t care about the nagging, deep down inside me I do, and when I want to kill the cows what I really want is to kill my wife.’

‘Ah.’

‘I did right not to tell Doctor what I thought of his idea, didn’t I, sir? It wouldn’t have been polite. But of course the truth is it’s not
me
that wants to kill any living creature. It’s Him.’

‘Did he visit you in hospital?’

‘No, sir, not once. Maybe he’s gone for good now.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ I talked to him for a little longer but he did indeed seem the picture of bucolic health and his placid sensible manner was very reassuring.

When I next saw Anne I said as casually as possible: ‘It seems Higgins had a mild nervous breakdown brought on by a marital difficulty.’

‘Marital difficulty?’ said Anne astonished. ‘But they always seem so tranquil and well suited!’ However before I could attempt a comment she added: “Well, I suppose a lot of couples manage to cover up their troubles – thank goodness there’s an explanation for his peculiar behaviour.’

I thought no more of Higgins. I was too busy organizing the service of healing, and as the appointed hour in July drew closer I became entirely absorbed in my preparations. Then on the very day of the service disaster struck. At ten o’clock that morning Anne’s land-agent telephoned from the Home Farm to say that Higgins had butchered a cow, barricaded himself in the barn with a scythe and was bellowing that I alone had the power to deliver him from his nightmare.

‘(Christ) unquestionably taught that unclean spirits, no less than the Holy Spirit, may make their abode within us.’

W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Christian Ethics and Modern Problems

Luckily Anne was out, paying one of her regular visits to Dr Romaine, so I did not have to endure another emotional outburst on the subject of exorcism. Responding at once to the urgency of the call I mounted my bicycle and arrived five minutes later at the Home Farm to find that a large crowd had gathered outside the barn. The land-agent greeted me with the news that the village constable had already telephoned for reinforcements. Meanwhile the crowd of yokels, eyeing me with excitement, were all agog at the possibility of a supernatural intervention.

I dealt with this unedifying aura by telling them to keep well back. Then moving confidently in order to conceal my considerable trepidation I announced myself at the door of the barn and promised Higgins that I would perform the laying-on of hands, just as he had originally requested, if he would abandon his scythe and come out.

The door creaked open an inch. When he saw I was alone the inch widened to a foot. He was still holding the scythe and his clothes were covered with blood. He looked frightened but sane.

‘I’m not coming out,’ he said. ‘They’ll overpower me. You must come in.’

‘Very well, but you must put the scythe outside the door – and I can’t come in alone. I must have three people with me to pray while I perform the laying-on of hands.’

‘You promise they won’t overpower me and tie me up?’

‘Once you’re delivered from this spirit who’s tormenting you there’ll be no need to tie you up.’

He considered the situation. I still saw no signs of possession. Finally he opened the door wider, dropped the scythe in the yard and said: ‘Come in.’

A gasp rippled through the crowd as the scythe flashed in the light. Beckoning three of the burliest labourers I said to Dawson the land-agent: ‘Keep everyone out, even the police.’ Then after instructing my bodyguards I led the way into the building.

This particular barn was used for housing farm vehicles and when I entered I saw that Higgins had retreated to a position behind the wheel of a tractor. However he made no attempt to retreat further, and I was just concluding in relief that I had once more encountered the sufferer during a lucid interval when the nape of my neck prickled. I stopped dead, and suddenly I saw all the signs Father Darcy had described, the hidden look in the eyes, the tightening of the muscles at the side of the jaw and the abrupt unnecessary movements which were now manifested as the man sat down, drew up his knees in a foetal position, uncoiled himself again and finally leant back against the tractor. Sane stolid simple Higgins had vanished. Another presence occupied the shattered psyche. Automatically my hand reached for my pectoral cross.

Until that moment I had merely felt nervous but now I felt very frightened indeed. In preparation for the afternoon’s service I had been spending hours in fasting and prayer, and my psyche, honed by this rigorous discipline, was at its most receptive with the result that my confrontation with this demonic force formed the spiritual equivalent of being struck in the stomach with a battering ram. I had taken care to bring a small crucifix with me. Still holding my pectoral cross with my left hand I produced the crucifix from my pocket. The man
flinched. Holding out the crucifix I ordered: ‘Repeat after me: Jesus Christ is Lord.’

He tried to obey. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Then the fiend grabbed him again and as his fingers curled into his hands like claws – another symptom – he rushed forward shouting that he would tear my eyes out. Immediately my three bodyguards leapt to the rescue, but with the abnormal strength of the possessed he tossed them aside and rushed at me again. I shall never know how I stood my ground but I shoved the crucifix at the maniac and shouted: ‘In the name of JESUS CHRIST, depart from this man, you demon of violence, and trouble him no more!’ Just in time I remembered that the spirit not only had to be named but directed elsewhere to avoid all risk of it merely moving from one body in the barn to another. ‘In the name of JESUS CHRIST,’ I shouted again, ‘depart and possess the body of a cow fifty miles away!’ My choice of a cow indicated my extreme fright; as I confronted the shell of the cowman it was the only animal I could remember, and it is a curious, even astonishing fact that this bizarre command, far from sounding a note of bathos as any sane civilized person would expect, rang out with the lethal power of a bullet from a shotgun. Higgins had stopped dead in his tracks as soon as I had invoked the name of Christ, but now he was blasted backwards and the next moment he had slumped unconscious to the ground.

The evil miasma vanished from the atmosphere as abruptly as if someone had heaved it from the barn. For a second I thought I too would lose consciousness, but as the atmosphere lightened the dizziness ebbed. My three companions were shivering as if they were shell-shocked. At last I managed to say to them: ‘Thank you. You can leave now. Tell everyone to remain outside.’

I prayed by the inert body until Higgins awoke ten minutes later. His first words were: ‘He’s gone.’ Tears of relief sprang to his eyes. ‘He won’t come back now, will he?’ he said. ‘He’ll never come back again.’

I asked him to say: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord,’ and when he uttered
the words without difficulty I offered him the crucifix which he now had no trouble clasping. Before I laid my hands on him we prayed together, thanking God for the deliverance. Higgins cried soundlessly all the time and afterwards when I gave him my handkerchief he could only sob pathetically: ‘What’s to become of me?’ but unfortunately there was no easy answer to that question; I foresaw another visit to the mental hospital as the authorities went through the motions of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, but at least I could promise that my wife would bring no charges against him for the slaughter of the cow.

‘Poor Buttercup,’ said Higgins, shedding fresh tears. ‘She had such a lovely nature. Oh God, oh God, how terrible to think I killed her!’

I thought of my responsibility for Whitby’s murder, and somehow found the strength to comfort him.

When I returned home it was noon and I had exactly three hours to rebuild my strength before the service. The hours of fasting now combined with a delayed shock to render me disordered, even panic-stricken, as I realized how far I was from being prepared for the arduous afternoon ahead, and when Anne waylaid me in the hall I wanted only to escape from her.

‘I’ve just got back and heard the news,’ she said distressed. ‘Dawson phoned. Jon, how
could
you have been so utterly reckless and foolish! If you’d been killed by that maniac –’

‘But I wasn’t.’

‘No, and weren’t you lucky! It just seems so appallingly irresponsible, tackling a lunatic when you were armed only with a crucifix, and anyway you promised me, you absolutely promised you wouldn’t have anything to do with exorcisms –’

‘How could I have ignored Higgins’ cry for help when he was in such appalling torment? Look, Anne, I’m sorry but we’ll have to talk about this later – I can’t stop now.’ I spoke more
sharply than I should have done but the increasing pressure on my lacerated psyche was fast becoming intolerable. However I had made a fatal mistake. The last shreds of Anne’s patience deserted her as anger destroyed her self-control.

‘Talk later?’ she exclaimed. ‘You won’t talk later! You’ll sidestep any honest conversation as usual, but has it never occurred to you that I’m beginning to feel bloody well abandoned? I’ve tried and tried to be a good wife to you, never complaining about all the parish work even though I’m often worn out with the farm; I’ve stood by you in all your troubles, never offering one word of reproach when you alienate half the village, never uttering a word of complaint when you offend my friends by refusing to accept their invitations, never betraying a hint of what I really feel about this awful alien ritual which completely distorts all our cherished services –’

‘Anne!’ I was so dumbfounded, so wholly appalled that I could do no more than whisper her name.

‘– never criticizing you as you go charging along hell-bent on getting what you want the whole damn time, but now I’m not standing any more of this monstrously selfish behaviour – it’s time I told you how horribly unhappy you’re making me! You seem to believe that so long as you can satisfy me in bed you can treat me like a doormat, but all I can say is that if you think you can go on trampling me underfoot like this you’ve made a very big mistake. I need some respect, consideration and – yes, damn it – LOVE, and I absolutely refuse to let you get away with treating me as I can now see you must have treated Betty!’ And as I remained transfixed with horror she rushed away from me across the hall.

It took me several seconds to recover sufficiently to blunder after her. She had collapsed sobbing on the drawing-room sofa but when I tried to put my arms around her she pushed me aside. ‘Go away.’

‘But Anne, we must talk, we absolutely must – I insist –’

‘There you go again. Always what
you
want the whole time – you’re so arrogant, so self-centred –’

‘But –’

‘GO AWAY!’ shouted Anne, and dashed out of the room. I tore after her but I was slow off the mark again and this time the door was locked as she took refuge in the library. ‘We’ll talk later,’ I heard her say in a muffled voice, ‘after you’ve given your dazzling performance as the Wonder-Worker. Now just go away and leave me alone.’

I was silenced. For one long moment I stared stricken at the closed door. Then I turned aside and crept away.

Words flickered in my consciousness, useless inadequate words reflecting my agonized state of mind, and the words were: pregnant, irrational, emotional, didn’t mean it, couldn’t mean it, just an overwrought mistake, she’ll take every word back when she’s calmer.

These words sustained me until I reached my cell. Then the overpowering sincerity of Anne’s tirade blasted aside this feeble defence and annihilated my remaining strength so that for some time I could only sit numbly in a chair. Prayer was impossible, meditation quite beyond my power. All I could do was concentrate on recovering the will to move.

At length I managed to creep back downstairs. Anne had evidently recovered; I could hear her talking to someone in the drawing-room and I wondered who the visitor was but I supposed the police might have arrived to talk to her about the cow. I had already made my statement to them and as I was in no mood to make another I took refuge in the dining-room. To my surprise I saw the table was set for two. That was odd. I had given instructions that I would need no food until after the service. Dismissing the extra place as a servant’s vagary I moved to the sideboard, sniffed the decanters to identify the brandy and poured a hefty measure into a tumbler. I disliked brandy but I felt in desperate need of medicine to restore my equilibrium.

Having consumed the brandy as quickly as I could I then
found I had no idea what to do with the glass. I could hardly leave it on the sideboard. What would the servants think? I shuddered, but the brandy was giving me a new energy and moving swiftly from the room, the glass still in my hand, I escaped into the garden.