Absolute Truths (66 page)

‘So there you are!’ exclaimed Aysgarth to him irritably. ‘About rime! What a histrionic way to behave!’

I was becoming increasingly annoyed by his rudeness to my distinguished spiritual director, but Jon, still unflurried, even
smiled at him before saying equably: ‘I came back to tell you how
well you’re doing, Neville.’

‘
I can’t imagine how you reached that conclusion,’ said Aysgarth,
sounding more irritated than ever.

‘How do you think I reached that conclusion, Charles?’

‘
No idea.’ I was still struggling to regain my equilibrium after the devastating insight I had just received.

‘
No idea at all?’

Pulling myself together I made a big effort. ‘Stephen,’ I said, ‘admitted he got it wrong about Mrs March.’

‘Not only that. Before I left the kitchen I heard him utter the words "I’m extremely sorry".’

Quickly I replied: ‘Yes, that was admirable.’ It would never do
to sulk just because Aysgarth had put himself in Jon’s good books.
Meanwhile Aysgarth himself was blossoming as the result of Jon’s approval and was now positively wallowing in the waters
of repentance. ‘I’m extremely sorry for that whole quarrel at the
Deanery, Charles,’ he was saying. ‘I know you had the Cathedral’s best interests at heart. I withdraw my suggestion that your demand
to see some accounts was all part of a long-standing vendetta arising from that scene with Lyle.’

I found myself unable to reply.

‘
And while on the subject of Lyle,’ said Aysgarth, speaking much
faster, ‘I’d just like to say that I grossly exaggerated that scene in
order to hit back at you. I did manage to swipe a kiss but only because she’d hit the gin so hard that it took her a moment to realise what was happening. As soon
as
she realised, she fought me off and was utterly loyal to you.’

‘Quite.’ A vast relief made it difficult for me to say more, but after a moment I managed to produce the sentence: ‘I apologise
too for that scene at the Deanery.’ I even willed myself to add: ‘I
should never have referred to your troubles in 1963.’

But Aysgarth was still deep in his memories of 1945. ‘If you
only knew how much I regretted that incident with Lyle —’

‘
No need to say any more.’

‘
— especially when it really did seem as if you’d never forgiven
me —’

‘All an illusion, I assure you.’

‘
— and I couldn’t stop thinking how stupid it was that I should
have got into such a mess when Lyle and I didn’t even like each other —’

‘
There’s really no need for you to continue to speak of this incident, Stephen, although of course I greatly admire the way you’ve now been so scrupulously honest about it.’

‘This is such an edifying dialogue that I hesitate to interrupt,’ said Jon, not unkindly, ‘but I must tell you that in my opinion
you’re both now playing to the gallery. What I suggest is that you
stop trying to impress me with all rhis fancy spiritual footwork
and focus instead not on a past nightmare but on a present one.
How are you going to resolve your conflict over the West Front
Appeal?’

Silence again fell on the room.

‘
You go first,’ said Aysgarth to me at last.

‘No, no — after you.’

‘But you’re the bishop —
it’s
your privilege.’

‘But I went first last time — ifs your turn.’

Jon said briskly: ‘Instead of behaving like a couple of cowards,
why doesn’t one of you do the brave thing and volunteer?’

‘
Very well,’ I said at once. ‘My position’s very simple: all I’m
asking for is some sort of evidence that the Appeal’s on course.’

‘
I give you my word that it’s on course, and if I’d been educated
at your public school you’d accept my word without hesitation
and take the matter no further!’

I said to Jon: ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush again.’

‘
But I resent the fact that you won’t take my word! You’re being
deeply unfair!’

‘
Well, that’s certainly an accusation spoken from the heart,’ said
Jon, ‘but is it true? Have you in fact interpreted the situation correctly? You’re accusing Charles of playing
a class
game, but
now look into your heart, continue to be honest and answer me
this: are you sure you’re not playing a class game yourself ?’

Aysgarth said cagily: ‘I don’t understand.’

‘
It occurs to me that you’re actually using Charles’s public-school
code of honour against him. Is it really fair in these circumstances
to try to lever yourself out of this tight corner by saying: ‘Trust
me, I’m a gentleman"? Of course Charles. would like to trust you
— what a lot of trouble that would save him! — but he has his suffragan and his archdeacon breathing down his neck and the
diocese vibrating with rumour. How would
you
feel
if
you were
the bishop? Take a moment to
use
your imagination.’

I wanted to stand up and cheer.

Aysgarth, obviously feeling threatened, became mutinous.
‘Whose side are you on?’

‘
You’d do better to ask yourself whom I’m trying to represent,
but do I really have to invoke Our Lord’s name again to pull you
to your senses? Now stop talking mindlessly of "sides" and ask
yourself what the appropriate response to Charles should be.’

Mysteriously tamed yet again by this aggressive approach which
I knew was far from characteristic of Jon, Aysgarth meditated
obediently for some seconds before proffering the statement: ‘I
know I have a duty to assist my bishop but I just feel so strongly
that I’m being harassed and victimised.’

‘
I realise that. But nevertheless, if you were in Charles’s shoes —’

‘
Very well,’ said Aysgarth with extreme reluctance, ‘I’ll get hold
of some draft accounts. But Charles must in turn guarantee there’ll
be no visitation.’

In despair I said: ‘I couldn’t possibly give such an undertaking! Even if the accounts are satisfactory, there might be pressure to
make a visitation in order to lay down rules about future fund
raising, and —’

‘
But you swore at the Deanery that you didn’t want to make
a
visitation!’

‘
I don’t want to wash a lot of dirty Church linen in public. But
if your accounts arc clean as a whistle, then there’s a case for
thinking of the future and —’

This is pure malice, Charles — the truth
is
you just can’t wait
to roast me in the chapter house!’

‘That’s not the truth at all! I’m simply trying to —’

‘
May I,’ said Jon, ‘intervene? Neville
is
suffering from a failure
of the imagination again, Charles is too flustered to think clearly
and both of you are getting bogged down in the visitation issue
which, as I see it, is a red herring which should be ignored. The
truth is surely this: if the accounts are unsatisfactory, Charles won’t
want to make a visitation, and if they’re satisfactory he won’t need
to make a visitation. So the matter can be shelved. Of course it might one day be beneficial to you both if a friendly visitation is
made in order to clarify the fund-raising rules for the future,
but I don’t see why either of you should worry about that at
the moment. I suggest you focus instead on the draft accounts -
when they arrive. Now ... isn’t that the most pragmatic way
forward?’

After some cagey rumination we had to agree that it was.

‘
Excellent!’ said Jon swiftly. ‘Then we can move on.’

Aysgarth looked blank. ‘What is there to move on to?’

‘
Don’t you think it might be a good idea if you both spent a little time working out why you find it so impossible to get on
with each other? How can either of you serve God properly when
you’re expending so much energy either to avoid or survive the
sort of scene which took place at the Deanery today?’

‘
That’s between us and God,’ said Aysgarth, displaying the traditional Protestant suspicion of intermediaries, ‘although please
don’t think I’m ungrateful for your help this afternoon.’ And rising
to his feet he added: ‘I
must
go.’

‘
What a pity! I was hoping you could begin the discussion
by telling Charles why you believe he’s sex-obsessed and power-
mad.’

As Aysgarth slowly sat down again I said: ‘I don’t think I want
to hear this.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, it’s such a ludicrous judgement!’

‘
You’ve no curiosity to find out why Neville, an extremely able
and intelligent man, has formed this most unflattering opinion of
you?’

‘
I’m not interested in his biased fantasies!’

‘
No? But don’t you think your first step in achieving a better
modus vivendi
might be to listen to him?’

‘
Indeed hasn’t a bishop an absolute moral duty to listen to a
troubled member of his flock?’

I was finally silenced.

‘
Now, Neville,’ said Jon briskly, ‘it’s some time since our talks in
1963, so I don’t know how far your thoughts have progressed on
this subject, but I remember how I urged you to make more
effort to understand Charles and how you responded: "I’ve got to
understand him in order to survive him." So let’s hear, if you
please, the results of this meditation, but don’t try and score points,
don’t lapse into what Charles described earlier as "sheer dema
goguery" and don’t try and pass yourself off as a persecuted under
dog no matter how harassed and victimised you may currently
feel. Just offer your theories as if you were talking to an old friend
- by which I mean be frank but not brutal. There’s no need to
behave as if honesty and kindness are incompatible.’

‘
Bossy old magician,’ muttered Aysgarth, as if honour-bound to
make a negative response, but he was finding the opportunity
irresistible. Cautiously he said to me: ‘I don’t want to make it
sound as if I’m blaming you entirely for our inability to get on,
Charles. I’m quite prepared to admit that mistakes have been made
on both sides, but I do think that a large part of the trouble has
arisen from the fact that you’re much too keen on power. Of course
you’ll deny you’re much too keen on it - you’ll probably insist
that you’re not keen on it at all, but just consider for a moment: can it really be the purest chance that you’ve got a pushy, authoritarian
archdeacon and a smooth, shrewd operator of a suffragan who
protect your interests like a brace of tigers? And is it just an unfor
tunate coincidence that the one man in the diocese over whom
you have almost no power - me - you repeatedly regard with
suspicion and hostility? I always feel, whenever you and I have
dealings, that I’m under threat and obliged to fight to protect
myself - and why should I keep picking up that message if there
wasn’t a grain of truth in it? And having picked it up so consistently, is it really surprising that I’ve long since begun to wonder
what motives lie behind your behaviour?’

He paused
as
if waiting for me to object, but since it was obvious
that any objection would merely confirm his allegation of power-
mad hostility, I kept quiet.

‘
Of course one can explain our failure to get on merely by saying
we’re incompatible,’ Aysgarth continued, carefully maintaining a mild tone of voice, ‘but in fact all the evidence suggests we ought to get on well. Jon said once — how did you put it, Jon?’

‘I said you were both well-educated men in the same line of business who liked good food, good
wine
and attractive women. You may remember that I made a similar remark recently to you, Charles.’

‘But if we decide the facile explanation of incompatibility won’t
do,’ pursued Aysgarth without waiting for me to reply, ‘we have to dig deeper, and once we take a closer look at what’s going on
in our professional lives, two very obvious facts emerge. First, I’m
not the kind of executive who can be pushed around, and second, you’re the kind of executive who takes a very tough line. Laying aside my own shortcomings for a moment, I ask myself what’s going on with you. Why are you like this? I can’t help but think you’ve got the bishop’s role seriously out of alignment and that
you’re obsessed with appearing strong and powerful because you’re subconsciously afraid of weakness — your own weakness, which
is
so threatening to you that you can’t acknowledge it. All you can
do to reassure yourself
is
stalk around like a dictator — and of course I, being the kind of man that I am, don’t take that lying down. All right, obviously I’m at fault too, but it really does seem to me that the main problem here
is
this compulsion of yours to take a tough line.’

He paused again. This time I did speak. I said to Jon: ‘I can’t
believe you approve of this fantastic exercise in character-
assassination.’

‘I approve of Neville’s genuine attempt to engage in the quest
for truth. How far he succeeds in his quest
is
open to debate, but
1 feel the quest itself deserves encouragement.’

‘Let’s leave the question of power,’ said Aysgarth not unkindly
to me, ‘and put another part of our lives under the microscope.
I’ll pass over what I call "the Lyle factor". You’ve said this has never been an element in your hostility to me, and although I’d
still query that, I won’t argue further now, But let’s stay with the
subject of sex. For some reason (God alone knows why) attractive
young women
seem
to like me, and you can’t stand that, can you, Charles, it arouses in you very deep feelings of hostility. All right,
I concede that in 1963 I did behave very foolishly, but apart from
that one instance involving a lady I never now see, all my friendships with women have been harmless and my wife has been con
tent to let me enjoy them. But you’re not content, are you, Charles?
And why? I think it’s because you yourself are very attracted to young women in a way that’s quite inappropriate for an elderly
clergyman, and your disapproval of me is your way of disapproving
of yourself. Now perhaps you’ll understand why I found it all too
easy to believe you’d gone to bed with Harriet. I thought that
your bereavement had so dislocated you that all the iron control
you usually exercise over your behaviour had broken down
with the result that your sexual weakness had been allowed free rein.’

At once I said to Jon:
‘Must
we really continue to listen to this deeply offensive speculation?’ I was twisting my episcopal ring round and round on my finger.

Unexpectedly Jon used his gentlest voice. He said: ‘The fact that Neville’s taken time to work out these unpalatable theories doesn’t
mean he wants to hurt you. It means he’s very troubled by the difficulties you experience with each other, and he’s trying hard to
see you in the light of truth so that he may understand, forgive
and accept you as you are.’ Setting down the cat who had been slumbering on his lap, he absent-mindedly brushed the animal’s hairs from the skirt of his cassock and added: ‘The real difficulty
here, it seems to me — the underlying difficulty which distorts your
relationship — is that you don’t know the truth about each other.
Neville’s attempt to sketch what Jung would call the "shadow"
side of Charles is certainly not without interest, but at best it can o
nly be described
as a
partial portrait. You’re strangers to each
other, that’s the truth of it. It’s lack of knowledge that’s blighting this landscape.’

Aysgarth said shortly: ‘I feel I know Charles almost
as
well as I
know my own brother,’ and I said with equal confidence: ‘After
an acquaintance of twenty-five years I hardly feel I suffer from a lack of knowledge where Stephen’s concerned.’

Jon sighed. Then he remarked: ‘Sometimes I despair of you
both,’ and rose to his feet. ‘I must go and prepare Whitby’s evening
fish.’

‘
Wait!’ thundered Aysgarth. ‘Never mind that tiresome animal
– stay exactly where you arc!’

‘
Whitby is not a tiresome animal,’ said Jon coldly. ‘He leads a
sensible, disciplined life for a member of his species, and is never
pig-headed or proud or wilfully stupid. I can think of at least two
human beings who would do well to emulate him.’

Aysgarth turned to me. ‘How do we stop him walking out
again?’

‘
Jon,’ I said, ‘please don’t think we’re not willing to listen to
you. If you could allow for the fact that we’re under considerable
strain – ‘

‘
Very well,’ said Jon, relenting but still sounding chilly. If you’re
willing to work hard instead of lazily presenting me with closed
minds, Whitby shall wait for his fish. Let us pray.’