It was Martin.
He was drunk, of course, but to my surprise I found this was a challenge I could meet without flinching. Women like Ruth might baffle me, but I was thoroughly experienced in dealing with men afflicted by Martin’s problems, and no doubt the fact that I at last felt on familiar ground gave me additional strength. Having allowed myself three seconds to pray for the required pastoral skill I said with a smile: ‘What a splendid surprise – I couldn’t be more pleased to see you!’ and firmly shook his hand.
This was evidently the right approach; as we sat down
together on the garden-seat he offered me his hip-flask and said benignly: ‘Have a swig.’
I recognized the olive-branch, and as I went through the motions of accepting the whisky I was careful to swallow to create the illusion that I had consumed a large mouthful. It was a technique I had perfected in the Navy.
‘Sorry I didn’t write,’ he said in between gulping several large swigs of his own, ‘but I couldn’t face it.’
‘The only thing that matters now is that you’re here. When did you arrive?’
‘An hour ago. Then Ruth and I had a screaming match and I was put out like a bloody cat that’s made a mess, but at least Janet smuggled the whisky decanter to me so that I was able to refill my flask … No, don’t ask me how I am! I know damn well you’ll have guessed why I’m so conspicuously drowning my sorrows! So much for my dramatic declaration that I’d settled down and was as good as married – he walked out a week after I saw you and the last thing I heard of him was that he was living with a French chef.
A French chef!
Christ, how low can you get! I hate all those bloody pretentious messes which the Frogs push around their plates. Give me bangers-and-mash any day … Have another swig.’
‘No, obviously you need the swig more than I do. I’m sorry you’ve been through such a rough time –’
‘Balls! You’re secretly cheering with relief, but if you think I’m going to react to this disaster by taking up with some frightful female –’
‘Martin, I’ve spent many years of my life praying that you wouldn’t take up with a female who was frightful.’
‘Well, if you really want to know how I’m going to react to this disaster I’ll tell you: I’m going to kick pacifism in the arse, bugger my way into the Army and bloody well get killed. That would solve all my problems nicely.’
I realized that this extravagant statement was an appeal for love and attention but nevertheless it is exceedingly upsetting when one’s child expresses the wish to be killed. I felt my professional poise begin to slip. ‘Martin –’
‘I didn’t really believe in all that pacifist rubbish anyway, not after Munich. I just put on an act because Bob was so keen on pacifism and I didn’t want to be separated from him if we were called up.’
‘But will you be accepted for the Army?’
‘Don’t be naïve, Dad! If they excluded from the Army all the men who’d ever committed buggery England would be entirely defenceless!’
‘I was actually thinking of your age –’
‘No, you bloody weren’t! But perhaps you’re hoping I’ll change my mind yet again and become a monk – which reminds me, why on earth have you chucked it all up?’
‘I told you in my last letter. I’ve had a call from God to serve him in the world again.’
‘Yes, but for Christ’s sake, what does that
mean
? What are you going to do? Oh God, I can’t stand it when you do your Holy Mystic act –’
‘I don’t know yet what I’m going to do.’
‘Then you must be crazy. You had that nice little nook at Grantchester, you were well-fed and well-housed with nothing to do all day except play the Holy Mystic, your favourite role, and yet you decide to chuck it all up in order to bugger around in this bloody awful old world again! It must be sex. There’s no other explanation, but all I can say is that you’d better watch out. Don’t turn into one of those nasty old men who get sentimental about girls of Janet’s age –’
I stood up, crossed the lawn and began to contemplate the nearest flower-bed. No matter how healthy it was for him to vent his rage and misery, it was important that I controlled the conversation by demonstrating exactly how much offensive talk I would tolerate.
He came after me and tugged at my sleeve like a child begging for attention, the little boy who had never grown up. ‘Dad – wait a minute –
Dad –
oh damn you, don’t go all cold and silent –’
I swung round. When I want to look in a sewer, Martin, I’ll pull up the cover of the nearest manhole. I’ve no intention of
listening to such filthy conversation, and moreover I’m under absolutely no obligation to do so.’
‘You bloody old prig!’ yelled Martin and retreated to the garden-seat to seek solace in his hip-flask.
I waited till we were both calmer. Then I too returned to the garden-seat and said quietly: ‘How can I help you?’
‘You can’t help me. You despise me.’
‘How could I despise someone who’s brave? You were brave to be an actor, brave to live your life as you felt you ought to live it, and above all you were brave to tell me about Bob –’
‘I only did it to hurt you. I thought if I hurt you I’d make some-sort of contact, get some sort of genuine reaction instead of this ghastly saintliness you project whenever you’re playing the role of Father with a capital F –’
‘Martin, this behaviour is unconstructive and it’s induced by a surfeit of alcohol. Come into the house and I’ll make you a sandwich.’
‘I don’t want a bloody sandwich!’
‘Then what do you want, Martin?’
Without warning his bravado crumbled and his eyes filled with tears. ‘I want you to tell me you don’t mind me being the way I am. I want you to tell me it doesn’t matter.’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ I said, ‘because it would be a lie. I do mind and it does matter, but that doesn’t mean I no longer care about you – indeed it’s because I care for you as much as ever that I want to do all I can to help. Look, I can see how much you’ve suffered, but suffering needn’t be destructive. If you could only use it as a spur to begin a new life –’
‘Oh my God, we’re knee-deep in crucifixion and resurrection!’ He struggled to his feet. ‘
I don’t want your bloody religion!
All your bloody religion ever did for me was to give me a man who was more interested in being a bloody clergyman than a bloody father!’ And as Ruth finally gave way to the temptation to erupt from the house in fury he blundered away through the tradesmen’s gate without looking back.
‘Religion, so far from being a disease, is essential to mental health, and if we may trust those who in other fields would be called experts in their subject, there is one thing of which they feel increasingly certain, and that is that in prayer and meditation they are actually in contact with a spiritual reality which is not a projection of their own thought and will.’
W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Lay Thoughts of a Dean
During the last part of my conversation with Martin I had been aware that Ruth was listening at the open scullery window so I was far from surprised when she decided to intervene. Nevertheless I was angry. I found her bright-eyed excitement unedifying and I was reminded of nursery scenes long ago when she had rejoiced at Martin’s transgressions in the hope that she might consequently win extra favour.
‘Poor darling Daddy – oh, how could he have said such horrible things to you, how could he!’
‘He’s intolerably unhappy.’
My response disappointed her; at once she became angry. ‘I should have known you’d always stand up for him – even now he’s a drunken pervert you’re still busy pretending he’s wonderful!’
So overwhelmed was I by my misery that I was unable to order her to be quiet. Retreating to my room I tried to pray, but I felt cut off from God and memories of my marriage, all
hellish, screamed through my consciousness until my entire psyche was a dense ball of pain.
Half an hour later I was still groping for the will which would enable me to perform the simple task of changing for dinner when there was a mouselike tap on the door.
It was the child, her small face pale and grave. ‘I’m sorry, Grandad. It was all my fault. I gave Uncle Martin the whisky and the whisky made him beastly.’
With unutterable relief I recognized a familiar situation: someone in distress had come to me for help and I had the opportunity to rise above my own pain by thinking of someone other than myself. Scooping her across the threshold I sat down with her on the edge of the bed. ‘Uncle Martin had already decided to share his unhappiness with me,’ I said, ‘and the extra whisky merely made it easier for him to do so. You mustn’t blame yourself. I know you wanted only to be kind.’
I was aware of her gratitude. She said confidentially: ‘Mummy’s livid with me because she says I made Uncle Martin drunk and Daddy’s livid with me because he’s just arrived home and found there’s no whisky.’
‘Both your parents are upset and not thinking clearly. It’s only natural that you should feel hurt and cross, but in fact you’re not the real source of their anger. They’re angry with Martin for behaving badly, and although they may not realize it they’re angry with me for being the pirate who boards their orderly ship and causes chaos.’
She was intrigued. ‘But Grandad, how do you manage to cause such chaos? You’re always so quiet and polite! Why is everyone reeling in all directions?’
I laughed. ‘Perhaps I should offer myself to the Army as a secret weapon!’
‘Gosh, what a ripping idea! You could knock out Hitler!’
‘Exorcism would be more effective, I think.’
‘Exorcism! I’ve read about that. But does it work?’
‘Certainly. No demon can withstand the power of Christ.’
Far away in the hall Ruth called tensely: ‘Dinner’s ready!’
‘Grandad.’
‘Yes, Janet?’
‘It’s all real, isn’t it? Religion, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘But why doesn’t everyone understand that?’
‘One of our limitations as human beings is that we find it exceedingly difficult to grasp reality – the ultimate reality which is spiritual.’
‘Daddy thinks it’s religion that’s unreal. He thinks it’s a sort of illness.’
‘It’s hard for people who operate on only five senses to perceive a reality which they can’t hear, see, touch, taste or smell. However there’s a vast mass of evidence which suggests that not only does this ultimate reality exist but that it can be perceived by man. For instance, Plato (who was a mystic) said that the fully real is fully knowable, and by that he meant –’
‘Dinner!’
shouted Ruth.
‘What’s a mystic?’ said Janet.
‘A mystic is someone who can perceive ultimate reality, the ground of our being, known variously as God or the Absolute or the One. Mysticism isn’t confined to Christianity; it’s the raw material of religion and exists independently of creeds and sects and religion in an organized form. However in my opinion a mystic should work within an organized church because he needs the discipline of a stable framework in order to remain spiritually healthy. It’s a very regrettable fact of the spiritual life that a mystical approach to God is peculiarly subject to demonic influences.’
‘I wish you taught us scripture at school,’ said Janet. ‘I know you’re old but you still look nice and you talk about such interesting things.’
It was the kindest remark I had received for some time. I gave her a kiss and somehow found the strength to face dinner.
The sixth and penultimate day of my visit dawned at Starmouth. I had still not succeeded in sleeping through the night; old habits die hard, and when I awoke I read the office of matins. Later at half-past five I rose, shaved, dressed and read the office of prime before spending two hours in prayer and devotional reading. Every day I longed to receive the sacrament, but during the week there was no mass in Starmouth beyond the walls of the Roman Catholic Church. In my desperation I was tempted to attend mass there but I knew the inevitably voluptuous interior of the church and the stream of garbled Latin would distract me so much that the exercise could only be unedifying.
Ironically it was my time as a High-Church monk, not my career as a Broad-Church Naval chaplain, which had nurtured my antipathy towards the Church of Rome. The Anglo-Catholics’ flirtation with ecumenism in the form of a reunion with Rome is a relatively recent development, and the Fordite Order, founded in the 1840s before Mr Ford’s hero John Henry Newman had seceded to Rome, had remained true to the original spirit of the Oxford Movement when it re-established Catholicism as a powerful force within the Church of England. This famous ‘ethos’ had consisted in part of an outlook which saw Anglo-Catholicism as truer to the Early Church than the Catholicism of Rome which was judged to have been corrupted over the centuries. The Oxford Movement’s later, more charitable view – that the true Catholic Church was tripartite, consisting of Anglo-Catholics, Roman Catholics and the Orthodoxy of Eastern Europe – was eventually accepted by the Fordites, but the anti-Roman bias lingered on and in fact the Fordites were still distinguished by the strong stress they laid on their separation from the Roman Orders. As a leading High-Churchman, Father Darcy had felt bound to encourage the reunion talks at Malines in the 1920s between the Anglo-Catholics and the Roman Catholics, but later in private he had
told me he considered the entire exercise not only a waste of time but thoroughly undesirable. However this deep antipathy had probably been rooted in the fact that he considered his Order to be vastly superior to any of the Roman Orders and had hated to think that in the event of reunion he would have had to be servile to some foreigner called a pope who would almost certainly have regarded him with disdain.