Absolute Truths (83 page)

After a while I washed my face and tried to refocus my mind on
the present. I thought of Loretta in her pink trouser-suit, but
although I felt cheered for a moment, despondency reclaimed me
when I remembered she would be on her way to the airport.

Then I thought of Sheila and felt not merely despondent
but despairing. I knew that despite Hall’s advice I had to see her; I dared not do otherwise, but no matter how hard I tried I found myself unable to frame a speech which was remotely
utterable.

Minute after agonising minute crawled by. Then at last, having
prayed feverishly for help, grace, salvation — anything which could
possibly be on offer from God — I forced myself to set out for the
Staro Arms.

SIX

‘
I suppose that ... I felt the need to expel from myself cer
tain evils by condemning them in him ...’

AUSTIN FARRER

Warden of Keble College, Oxford,

1960-1968

The Brink o
f Mystery

On my arrival at the Staro Arms I dealt with the inevitable
enquiries about my health from the proprietor and quickly toured
the public rooms. There was no sign of Sheila, but since I had
given her no notice that I intended to call I hardly expected her to be waiting for me downstairs. I observed that although there
were several people in the main reception room, the little writing-room beyond was empty. Taking a sheet of hotel stationery from the drawer of one of the desks I wrote: ‘Any chance of seeing you
for a moment? C.A.’ This seemed a suitably neutral communi
cation. Having sealed the envelope I gave it to the hall porter
to deliver to Sheila’s room and waited, pretending to study the
notice-board which displayed information for visitors to Star
bridge. I was still staring at the brochure on the Cathedral when
Sheila came downstairs.

She was wearing a brown tweed suit with a mustard-coloured jumper and a row of pearls. As usual she was perfectly made up, perfectly groomed, perfectly composed. Trying not to quail at the
sight of her and acutely aware that the receptionist would be listen
ing to every word I uttered I said: ‘I’m so glad you’re here — I was
afraid you might be out. Shall we go and sit down?’

This suggestion allowed us to escape to the seclusion of the little
writing-room. Sheila settled herself on the window-seat, her back
to the cobbled courtyard, while I pulled up a chair so that I could
sit facing her. The door was closed. The window was shut. I now no longer had to worry about eavesdroppers but instead I had to
fight the feeling that I was locked up in a prison cell with this
woman whom I so fervently wished never to see again.

‘
I apologise for calling on you without warning,’ I said, ‘but
after making such a hash of our meeting last night I felt too embar
rassed to phone. I felt it was best to come here in person to say
how sorry I am that I upset you.’

Sheila looked bemused by this onslaught of contrition but not,
so far as I could tell, annoyed. I ploughed on.

‘
I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation,’ I said, ‘and it
occurred to me that I was being altogether too unimaginative in
considering your plans for the future. I shouldn’t have dismissed
them so abruptly.’

Another pause ensued but again, so far as I could judge,
it
contained no element of hostility. It seemed that Sheila merely
could not make up her mind how to respond.

‘
Perhaps this
is
all very offensive to you,’ I said in desperation.
‘If you’d prefer to forget our conversation last night –’
Not at all. I actually found our talk helpful.’

‘
You did?’

‘
Yes, I was struck by your suggestion that although God might
now be coming to my rescue he might not be doing so in quite
the way I’d supposed. I even went to Communion this morning
at the Cathedral – I hadn’t been for months, but I thought I must
try and make a new start.’

This sounded promising but I did not dare allow myself to hope
for too much. Tentatively I said: ‘The Cathedral didn’t remind
you too painfully of all you’d lost?’ -

‘
It certainly reminded me of all I’d lost. But it also made me feel
I’d come home.’

My heart sank but I managed to maintain a sympathetic
expression.

‘
So I think I’ll definitely go ahead and take a flat here for a few
months,’ she said tranquilly, ‘but I assure you
t
here’s
no need for
you to be involved with my new life.’

I remained silent, not knowing what to say. I could not help
but think the last person I wanted in Starbridge was
Sheila,
reminding
me of my appalling lapse, but on the other hand if the
only penalty I now had to pay was to see a benign Sheila occasion
ally, I supposed I could consider myself lucky. However, I did not
believe she had abandoned her marriage plans; she had merely
shelved them and nothing had been solved.

‘
Well, of course if you come to Starbridge I’ll do everything I
can to help,’ I heard myself say, speaking as warmly as possible to
gloss over the negative impression given by the pause, but Sheila
had apparently been using the pause to come to some decision
and she took no notice of my belated response.

‘
Charles –’ she hesitated but only for a moment ‘– let’s be honest
because we’re getting nowhere by being exquisitely polite. First
of all, I know exactly how you’re feeling so there’s no need to
pretend. I’ve lived with a clergyman who made that sort of mistake
occasionally.’

I stared at her. First of all I thought I had misheard. Then I
thought I had misunderstood. ‘You’re surely not saying —’ I began,
but stopped. I had realised that I had neither misunderstood nor misheard.

‘
I know you won’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I know Derek’s views
on sexual licence were
as
strict as your own and that was one of
the reasons why you got on so well, but he had his problems and
I not only learnt how to live with them – I learnt how to be a
sympathetic friend whom he could trust. So please – don’t think
of me as a harpy on the make! If you could only trust me as Derek
did, then this situation wouldn’t be such a nightmare for you.’

But by this time I was no longer thinking of myself. I was
thinking of my friend Derek, who had crusaded against homosexu
ality as militantly as I had crusaded against fornication. I was
remembering our shared lunches and our shared committee work,
our shared views and our shared sense of humour. I thought of our little trips to Lords to see the cricket and to Twickenham to
see the rugger and to the London theatres with our wives to see
the latest plays by Rattigan. I thought I had known Derek better
than any other bishop on the bench. I had thought I had known him almost as well as I knew my old friend Jack Ryder. It was so
very painful to realise that I had never truly known him at all.

‘
Of course he couldn’t tell you,’ said Sheila, reading my thoughts.

I said: ‘I failed him.’ And I shielded my eyes for a moment
as
if the light in the room had suddenly become too brigh
_t
to bear.

AH she said was: ‘You’ve guessed what was wrong, haven’t you?’

‘Now that I know something was wrong it all seems so obvious.
But at the time ... No, it never occurred to me. He seemed so –’
But I could not utter the word.

‘
Normal,’ said Sheila, and added equally bluntly: ‘You shouldn’t
reproach yourself, Charles. Derek wouldn’t have reproached you
– and he wouldn’t have wanted to discuss it with you either. By
the time the two of you became friends he was a bishop and his
lapses were all in the past. He just wanted to forget about them.’

‘
You’re saying that when he became a bishop –’

‘
He did a bargain with God – well, he didn’t put it as crudely
as that, but he was just so grateful that he’d been made a bishop
in spite of everything that he vowed he’d stay chaste for the rest
of his life.’

‘
But he wasn’t called to celibacy! We used to talk about it. He
always said –’

‘
I know. It was hard for him to do without sex. But believe me,
Charles, he wouldn’t have wanted you to know the truth about
him. He liked you so much. He wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass
you in any way.’

I felt
as
if this sentence were a long knife, revolving in my gut.
I could not speak.

‘
I didn’t know the truth when I married him, of course,’ said
Sheila casually, rather as if she were discussing a somewhat unsatis
factory purchase at the grocer’s, ‘and he didn’t know either, he
hadn’t faced up to it, I think he thought the problem would go
away. We did consummate the marriage, but we never slept
together after the first year, it was too awful, we both felt it
was
better to give up.’ But she spoke without bitterness, and suddenly
I had forgotten Derek. I had finally remembered that every disas
trous marriage has two victims and that this was her tragedy as
well as his.

‘
I wasn’t really a wife,’ she said. ‘I was a business partner in a
joint enterprise. That’s why I was so devastated by his death. The
career was all I had. It made up for not having a normal marriage
with children.’ And still she spoke without bitterness.

‘
I suppose nowadays we would have got divorced,’ she added,
‘but before the war ... well, you can remember how it was. I
stayed not because of my religious beliefs – they were no use to me then, they weren’t real, they were just a set of stories I’d acquired in
Sunday school – but because I couldn’t see how I’d manage if I
left him. I had no money and no qualifications and besides ... a
divorce would have ruined Derek, and I couldn’t have lived with the knowledge that I’d destroyed the life he was called to lead.’

‘
But didn’t you feel ...’ Again I could not utter the right word.
‘Bitter? Resentful? Cheated? Yes, of course. I went through all
the inevitable emotions, including a hatred of God, but in the end
they burnt themselves out and I just felt sad. He was such a good
m
an, Charles. That’s why all my misery eventually vanished. The
goodness soaked it up, like blotting-paper.’

‘
Nonetheless –’

‘
Oh, of course I’m describing a process that took years, and of
course the lapses were hard to bear, but when they began to happen
my prime emotion was fear, not anger – fear that he’d be found out. However, they didn’t happen often and he took great care to be discreet; nothing ever happened in the parish. He used to go
to London. Fortunately there was no question of boys, just con
senting adults. I couldn’t have coped with paedophilia – all those
young victims – but
as
it was I found I coped rather better than
he did – he was so slaughtered by guilt afterwards, whereas I took
a
more pragmatic line. Poor
Derek
, he was so grateful to me! No
doubt that was why we were able to become genuine friends and why he was so very happy when he became a bishop. He wasn’t
just happy for himself. He was happy for me. Perhaps that vow of
chastity was less a bargain with God and more of a thank-offering.’

‘
So his faith in God –’

– never wavered. Extraordinary, wasn’t it? "It’s men who make
the rules and decide what are disabilities," he said, "but I know
God accepts me as I am." Oh, how angry I used to get! I wanted to slap God in the face for not organising the world so that men
like Derek didn’t have to suffer so much.’

‘
If you wanted to slap God I suppose that at least means you
still believed in him.’

‘
Yes, but he didn’t seem to be of any use to me. It was only
later that I was able to look back and see that by staying
with
Derek I’d saved myself
as
well
as
him. In the end we had such a
fulfilling life that I was able to think: yes, maybe God’s been there
all along, even when it seemed he was absent ... And for the first
time in my life I became genuinely religious. But it didn’t last.
After Derek died I began to be angry with God all over again. I
resented being left with nothing, not even a child – although it
was Derek who most missed not having a family. He so much
wanted to be normal.’

‘You never thought of adoption?’

‘
We did, but I could never get keen enough. I could have made
time for a child of my own, but ... Perhaps the truth was it took so much strength to survive that marriage that I had no energy
left to hanker after motherhood.’