Glamorous Powers (63 page)

This was very encouraging but I still had trouble regarding the future with unvarnished optimism. ‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘I can’t help worrying about Anne. If I get really old –’

‘But she’ll keep you young! Regular practice and moderate habits – that’s the secret once you’re past sixty.’

‘Even so I suppose one can’t expect to go on for ever.’

‘Why not?’ said Romaine. ‘I certainly intend to! I plan to die in bed after a glass of champagne in a haze of post-coital bliss.’

It was impossible not to laugh and impossible too that my
next words should be other than: ‘I’m glad we finally met.’ I felt infinitely cheered.

‘You must come and see me,’ said Romaine, ‘and I don’t mean merely for a physical examination, although I’d be happy to look you over if that would set your mind at rest. Drop in for a social visit one day soon and I’ll dig out another glass like that thimble you’ve got in your hand and pour you the required soupçon of dry sherry.’

That’s most kind of you,’ I said, not sure how far he spoke out of compassion and how far out of a genuine desire to be friendly, ‘but I know doctors always lead such busy lives.’

‘Not when they get to sixty-nine. I’ve got a new young partner who can hardly wait to put me out to grass so I have to take a lot of time off in order to keep him happy. Wonderful! I just see the patients I like and leave all the tiresome ones to him.’

‘Well, I suppose that must be rather pleasant –’

‘Pleasant? It’s sheer bliss! In fact I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying life now that I’m within gasping distance of seventy – how absurd to think I spent my sixtieth birthday wallowing in depression! The truth is I’m back in the mainstream of life now that I have a family to look after. I teach Charley card-tricks, I read stories to Michael, I hold Lyle’s hand when she tells me how awful life is without Charles – oh, it’s all such fun, I feel positively reborn! So the message is never despair, you see, no matter how old you are, because you never know what delights may be waiting for you around the next corner – but of course that’s a message you must have preached a thousand times over, isn’t it? Silly of me – and how impertinent too to lecture a clergyman on the Christian message of hope! Do forgive me for being so thoroughly “louche”!’

But I looked at him, that battered old doctor with his nicotine-stained fingers, and knew I was hearing the voice of the Spirit. A psychic impression formed of the intricate patterns we all made as we wove in and out of each other’s lives, but all I said was: ‘It was the message I needed to hear,’ and I thanked him.

‘You will visit me, won’t you?’ said Romaine as we parted,
and I knew now he spoke out of friendship. ‘Perhaps we could even play chess together. My wife keeps a strict eye on all my friends and past-times, but I’m sure she’d be tickled pink if I started playing chess with a clergyman.’

It occurred to me that this was the first friend I had made since leaving the Order, and I began to wonder if a more comfortable phase in my long difficult adjustment to the world was finally about to begin.

‘How is your wife adjusting to the idea that you might want – even need – to accept some responsibility for this death?’ said Francis that evening when I had returned to Starwater.

‘So far I’ve only skirted that aspect of the tragedy with her because at first it was clear she wasn’t ready to face it. Her initial reaction was to avoid blaming me by blaming God.’

‘Railing against the mystery of suffering?’

‘Precisely. It’s a very common response to bereavement, of course.’

Francis sighed. This is one of those times when I’m very conscious of the fact that I’ve never worked as a priest in the world. What on earth does one say to a bereaved mother who rails against the mystery of suffering?’

‘Well, of course each bereaved mother is different, and provided that the priest is emanating a genuine sympathy some women may prefer the sentimental approach, but I’m always reluctant to respond to the death of a child with some banality such as: “Don’t worry, he’s safe with Jesus.” The mother doesn’t want the child to be safe with Jesus; she wants him to be safe with her. In my opinion it’s best to confront the mystery of suffering as just that – a mystery – and then try to illuminate it by the use of mystical symbols. The sufferer may only understand one word in ten, but at least she knows the priest is talking about matters which he’s studied deeply and at least she knows he’s treating her suffering with the utmost seriousness. If the
priest can then set the suffering in the context of the absolute values and somehow relate it to the redemptive and creative power of love –’

‘This is obviously the voice of a pastoral miracle-worker. I’d still be stammering: “Don’t worry, he’s safe with Jesus.’”

‘No, you wouldn’t! You’d be unleashing that peculiarly theatrical charm of yours as you held the sufferer’s hand and offered her your best handkerchief to cry into!’

‘Ah, so your wife’s been revealing my rusty pastoral skills with the opposite sex!’

‘I thought they sounded rather well-oiled. Anyway, to return to the subject under discussion –’

‘Yes, how successful has your mystical approach been with Mrs Darrow?’

‘I think we’ve made a little progress; she’s accepted the idea that the suffering can be used creatively to strengthen our marriage, but of course the loss is very difficult for her and there’s still anger beneath the grief. It would be better if she could acknowledge the anger by directing it against me for holding the service, but she won’t and now that she’s no longer blaming God there’s a real danger that she’ll turn the anger in on herself and lapse into a profound melancholy.’

Francis looked concerned but did not immediately reply; I sensed he was pausing to consider the situation. ‘I agree it might well be better for her if you took some of the blame for the disaster,’ he said at last, ‘but do you in fact feel you’re to blame? It would be wrong to manifest a synthetic guilt.’

‘Well, of course I’m to blame!’

‘What about Romaine’s suggestion that the tragedy might have happened anyway?’

‘Romaine was right to remind me that we never know all the circumstances of a tragedy,’ I said, ‘and from there one can certainly argue that all the judgements should be left to God who alone knows exactly what happened, but personally I find it very difficult to believe the miscarriage wasn’t caused by the events in the chapel – the events for which I must assume full responsibility.’

Francis ventured no opinion of his own but merely asked: ‘You see the tragedy as a punishment?’

‘Yes, I do – I allowed my pride to cut me off from God with the result that I’m now grieving for a lost child and consumed with misery that I should have brought such suffering on my wife. That’s a punishment. But the punishment didn’t come from God. It came from my wrong actions.’

I saw Francis make the counsellor’s decision that this verdict was worth underlining. ‘In other words, you’re saying that we create our own punishments when we cut ourselves off from God, just as we create our own repentance when we try to understand our errors sufficiently to renounce them and turn back to him.’

‘Yes, but how can that best be explained to Anne? If I could only show her that guilt, like suffering, can be used constructively to redeem a tragedy and rebuild a life, then perhaps she wouldn’t fight shy of expressing her anger and the process of healing would be unimpeded … But these are difficult concepts to grasp when one’s distracted by grief.’

Francis said cautiously: ‘Mightn’t this be a case where actions speak louder than words? If you let her know you accept some degree of responsibility for the death and then go on to rebuild your life in the most positive way possible, you’ll be spelling out your message in unmistakable terms. And if that’s so –’

‘If that’s so then my most immediate task is to get on with rebuilding my life – which at present means sorting out all my private problems not only to ensure such a disaster never happens again but to ensure my ears are wide open to receive the real call from God which is still to come.’

‘Precisely.’

There was a silence while I groped my way forward through my confused emotions but at last I managed to say: ‘Thanks to our recent conversations I do feel I’ve travelled a long way towards sorting out my private problems.’

‘Hm.’

Immediately I experienced a pang of alarm. ‘You don’t agree?’

‘I think our conversations – particularly the one which included your long confession in the canteen – have certainly helped you to take a major step forward. The problems have now been identified. But have they been resolved? I think not.’

I automatically opened my mouth to argue with him but he allowed me no chance to speak. There seem to be two major problems which are closely but not inextricably linked,’ he said. The first is your mother’s death and the second is your father’s life. The first I regard with optimism; I believe that with your wife’s help you’ll finally be able to master this irrational terror that every woman you love is going to leave you. But the second problem is much more complex and intractable. It’s a question of forgiving your father, isn’t it? And to be quite frank I don’t think you’re anywhere near a genuine forgiveness at present.’

I was both astonished and appalled. ‘But I told you in my confession – or at least I implied – surely you didn’t think I was entirely without the understanding necessary to generate forgiveness?’

‘“Why can’t I forgive him?” you said in the canteen –’

‘That was really a rhetorical question. I then went on to analyse the situation and I made it clear that I could at last regard him sympathetically. Don’t you remember me saying how difficult it must have been for him to be married to a woman who was so detached?’

‘Yes, but I suggest to you that this sympathy is purely intellectual. At an emotional level you’re still angry and bitter, unable to sympathize with him at all.’

‘That’s not true!’ I was deeply upset.

‘Isn’t it?’ I saw the scepticism join forces with logic again in that combination which made Francis such a hard man to deceive. Leaning forward across the table he said abruptly: ‘Supposing I were to say to you as Father Darcy once said: “Jonathan, you must teach.”’

I recoiled.

‘You see?’ said Francis. ‘You haven’t forgiven him. You’re still paying him back for trying to make you into a replica.’ He stood up. ‘Go to bed and think about it,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘and we’ll talk again tomorrow.’

The next morning we went for a walk together by the lake in the grounds of the Abbey. The school term had recently ended and the boys had dispersed, leaving Horatio Ford’s country mansion shadowed and still. I thought of the teaching monks sinking back with relief into the enclosed section of the house and savouring the prospect of eight weeks’ peace as they renewed their spiritual strength. Teaching was hard work. I could remember not only my bouts of mental exhaustion at Ruydale but my father relaxing quietly with his books as he recuperated from his day at the grammar school.

‘Well?’ said Francis as we sat down on a seat overlooking the lake.

With extreme reluctance I forced myself to confess: ‘You were right. I’m still angry. There’s been no forgiveness.’

‘Congratulations! If you can acknowledge that, then you’ve taken another major step forward.’

‘The only trouble is that I don’t see where to go next. I feel as if I’m now confronting a brick wall.’

But for Francis the way ahead was clear. ‘You need to discover a genuine sympathy for your father in order to discard this synthetic pity you’ve created,’ he said. ‘If you could set aside the distorting effect your anger must inevitably produce and reconstruct his memory accurately, you might stumble across something which would help you to identify yourself with him.’

‘I think not. The estrangement ran too deep.’

Francis remained patient. ‘You say that because your anger’s creating a distortion as usual, but just try to suspend your anger
for a moment and cast your mind back to the days before the anger began. Surely you don’t deny love existed once between you?’

‘He killed my love for him by not loving me as I was. He was only capable of loving the replica.’

‘That reply seems to indicate you’re incapable of suspending your anger,’ said Francis, still immaculately patient. “Very well, let’s tackle the anger directly and try to explode it with logic. Now consider for a moment: aren’t you painting this picture in somewhat crude dark primary colours? And wouldn’t you come closer to reality if you stroked in a few subtle pastel shades? After all, what actually happened all those years ago? Your father had a dream: he wanted you to follow him in his profession. A lot of fathers have this dream. It’s very common. Inevitably there’s disappointment if the cherished dream fails to come true, but in most cases the dreamer picks up the pieces and goes on – as indeed your father tried to do in the only way he knew, by never complaining, by putting up a brave front. If he hadn’t loved you – loved
you,
not the replica – would he have bothered to go to all that trouble? Of course not! He’d have turned his back on you and refused to speak to you again. Obviously he loved you in his own way but for some reason he couldn’t express that love in a manner which you would have found acceptable. Perhaps you reminded him too much of your mother and his relationship with her was so convoluted that it inhibited his ability to communicate his feelings to you. Perhaps he was paralysed by guilt that he’d failed to summon you to her deathbed and this effectively prevented him from revealing his emotions. Perhaps he was terrified he’d failed you by behaving so unsympathetically about your visions. Perhaps … But there are any number of explanations. All I’m trying to point out is that his desire for a replica doesn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t also love you as you were. It’s a failure of logic to believe here that paternal love and paternal ambition can only be mutually exclusive.’