‘At that point the madman pretended to be puzzled. “Funny!” he said. “If your father was so happy, why should he have wanted a replica? I don’t think your theory can be correct. There must be some other reason. Is your father perhaps very proud and arrogant, the sort of man who desires a replica of himself to fuel his self-esteem?” That made me laugh. “You couldn’t be more wrong!” I told him. “My father has very simple modest tastes, he’s devoted his whole life to helping others and he couldn’t possibly be described as proud and arrogant!” And do you know what the madman said next? He said: “Well, if he doesn’t want a replica because he’s miserable and he doesn’t want a replica because he’s proud, why on earth should he want one at all? I’m beginning to think that he’s both miserable
and
proud but you’ve never realized it. How well do you really know your father? Is it possible that you’ve never really known him at all?”
‘“Of course I bloody well know my father!” I shouted, finally losing patience. “He’s the war-hero, the crusader, the brilliant priest, the devoted husband and parent!” “Now isn’t that interesting!” said the madman. “I’d formed the impression from you earlier that he was an actor, a religious fanatic and the very opposite of a family man – in fact I was reminded of Kipling’s cat that always preferred to walk by himself.”
‘Well, of course he was deliberately twisting what I’d said earlier in order to make me think more deeply about you, and although I was so exasperated that I stormed out of his office I did in fact begin to ponder later on your resemblance to Kipling’s cat …
‘You really do prefer to walk by yourself, don’t you? Or are times changing now that you’re again stalking along with the
right companion at last? I wonder. I can’t forget that Kipling also wrote about the leopard who couldn’t change his spots, and I suppose you’ll always tend to be aloof, but I shan’t mind that so long as you stop this interminable purring at all the wrong moments and hiss occasionally like any normal feline … Funny the way you always had with cats. I’ll never forget that tigerish masterpiece you introduced me to up in Yorkshire, the one who almost talked to you – and think of Pussy-Boots long ago in Starmouth! He used to shiver in ecstasy whenever you entered the room. I remember Mother saying how spooky that was … Incidentally, talking of Mother … Dad, I know you were devoted to her, but did she ever drive you crazy occasionally? I mean, I can see how luscious she was, brimming with vitality and S.A., and of course I adored her, but somehow every time Ruth drives me mad with her tempestuous stupidity I look at her and remember Mother and wonder if your devotion ever got a little frayed at the edges …’
Very slowly, often faltering in my quest for the right words, I embarked on the task of introducing myself to the son who had known me only as a stranger.
That evening after Martin had gone I opened the album and took out the photograph of my parents on their wedding day. My father no longer looked dignified, decent and dull. He looked dignified, decent and dedicated. I could see the dedication clearly now, the dedication to a son who baffled him, the dedication to a wife whose spirit had eluded him, the dedication to the career which had gone in the wrong direction, the dedication to the present which meant that no word of regret could ever be uttered about the past. I felt I knew at last how much all that dedication must have cost him, and suddenly in the light of my new knowledge I saw his refusal to complain not as hypocrisy but as heroism. I realized how lonely he must have been, isolated by his marriage, struggling to come to terms
with his broken dreams, eking out whatever happiness he could find with his mysterious wife and son while all the time he poured his whole soul into his teaching, the one part of his life where he could escape from his troubles and express his true self.
Propping the photograph on the mantelshelf alongside the photograph of my mother I continued to stare at both my parents as they stood so close together without touching each other at any point. I felt as if I were inspecting their marriage from a perspective which I had never dreamed could exist, and I realized then that although they had loved each other enough to try hard to make the marriage a success they had remained fundamentally mismatched. No doubt my mother’s death had been a release to my father, just as Betty’s death had been a release to me, and no doubt he too had had to wrestle with the complex aftermath of guilt and grief which had followed his bereavement. As this insight dawned on me I remembered again how I had felt in the chapel when Martin had opened my eyes and unstopped my ears; I felt I was seeing my father not as the alien stranger but as my mirror-image, my other self.
I knew now why Francis had become so angry with me by the lake at Starwater. What right had I to judge my father when I had not only never known him but had committed all the same errors, cutting myself off from my own son in my unhappiness and laying upon him a psychological burden which had crushed his spirit? Martin had been more vulnerable than I had been in childhood and adolescence; the damage had been greater there. Yet I had had the insufferable arrogance to judge my father a failure! I wondered how I could have been so blind for so long, and it was then that I realized how profoundly my mother’s death had dislocated our relationship. If she had lived she would have acted as a bridge between us, but her death had sealed us off for ever in our private worlds. In my need to blame someone for the disaster I had tried to exorcize my grief by projecting the unbearable anger on to my father, yet despite my efforts the exorcism had failed; the anger had been projected but the wound had remained unhealed until the day of Gerald’s
birth and death when Francis had exposed the sore to begin the process of healing.
I could now see how the healing was evolving. Having accepted my mother’s death at last, having come to believe myself secure with Anne, I had been ready to hear what Martin had had to say and the last piece of the jig-saw had finally fallen into place in my psyche. The light from the north had been the light of revelation but the revelation had not, as I had always blithely supposed, been of my new call. The revelation had been of myself, of the dark corners of my soul, and now that this psychological landscape had been illuminated I was at last able to perceive the call which had always existed but which I had always been too maimed to hear.
Instinctively I wished my father were alive so that I could beg his forgiveness for my part of the estrangement, for the eyes which had failed to see and the ears which had failed to hear, but I knew I was already forgiven. The light in the chapel had bleached my psyche clean and now, as I remembered that intersection of eternity with finite time, I knew that my father had returned to my life not as a malign memory but as a benign presence. In that world of values which represented the eternal reality, the quality which I had recognized as his dedication was reflected back at me as love, and in the light of that love I could see the way ahead fully revealed.
I sat down to write to Francis.
When Francis received my letter he telephoned me. My first reaction was to be shocked that I should be offered spiritual direction through the medium of such an unpleasant modern instrument. Then I realized I was glad to have the chance to talk to him.
‘I shall put all this in writing so that you have the chance to meditate on it properly,’ he said, displaying a reassuring self-consciousness about his latest effort to bring the Order
into the twentieth century, ‘but I thought I should warn you immediately not to rush into any impulsive action while you’re still in a euphoric state following this extraordinary catharsis. Remember your position. You’re a curate subject to the authority of your bishop who has wisely advised you to take six months off work so that you can rebuild your spiritual strength. Your duty to God at the moment is to get fit, not to rush off to the nearest educational institution and say: “Here I am!”’
‘But I feel so much stronger now! I’m sure I don’t need six months to –’
‘You need it. And remember that patience is the most difficult of all virtues but one which it would undoubtedly pay you to –’
What an unsatisfactory instrument the telephone is!’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you smiling or have you become genuinely pompous?’
Francis laughed, said neatly: ‘Of course I assumed you could see me as well as hear me,’ and hung up the receiver before he could hear my exasperated laugh in reply.
Cyril had offered me the weekly guidance of his best counsellor, a younger man than myself but one who I soon realized was greatly gifted as a director of souls, and helped not only by this new acquaintance but also by Francis’ regular letters I worked hard to regain my spiritual health. Later I made a week’s retreat in London. I was saddened to see that a bomb had damaged the chapel, but the monks were already busy with the repairs. Meanwhile the war had entered a new phase. Hitler had attacked Russia, that graveyard of European dictatorial dreams, and I thought the tide would now turn for England, just as the tide had now turned in my own personal battle to find peace in a hazardous world.
In November as I studied the war news I suddenly said to Anne: ‘The Japanese are going to sink a lot of American ships
in the Pacific and the United States will enter the war.’ But after Pearl Harbor I said to her: ‘For heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone I prophesied the attack or I’ll be tempted to start a new career as a miracle-man!’ I was very mindful of the danger in which I stood as I struggled to recover my spiritual health, but I had already made much progress and when at Christmas Anne lapsed into a depression at last I was able to use my new strength to help her overcome her grief. I was so sure I didn’t feel angry,’ she said in the new year. I didn’t want to be angry at all.’ But bereavement can take many unwelcome forms and often, as I knew all too well, cannot be mastered by a simple act of the will.
When Anne was better I then nerved myself to make a long-postponed visit to Ruth. I fully expected emotional scenes to erupt as usual as soon as I set foot in her house, but to my astonishment the atmosphere remained tranquil; it was as if some vital ingredient had disappeared from our explosive relationship, and when Ruth said marvelling: ‘You’re different. Everything seems much calmer now,’ I realized what havoc had been wrought by my disturbed psyche, writhing beneath the burden of my guilt. Ruth even said: ‘I’m glad you married if it’s made you happier. People get difficult when they’re unhappy – I know that better than anyone,’ and the next moment she was telling me that Roger had recently ended a long affair with his secretary.
‘… and she treated him so badly that he was shattered enough to suggest we should make a fresh start. At first I was proud and said no, but then I started thinking about what I really wanted –’
I expressed admiration by telling her she was being exceptionally courageous, and at once the warmth of my sincerity had a radical effect: Ruth was at last able to relax in my presence.
‘I’m sorry I was so awful when I visited the Manor,’ she said in a rush. ‘I expect you thought it was because I minded Anne being young, but it wasn’t. It was because I minded her being a lady. I thought your choice of someone upper-class was an indirect criticism of me for not being quite … although I’ve
tried so hard to better myself, truly I have – I even took elocution lessons once and I’ve read dozens of books on etiquette and I always try so hard to dress in the very best of taste –’
‘My dearest Ruth!’ I felt so shattered by this further evidence of my past blindness that I was at first unable to respond to her pathetic confession, but when she even whispered: ‘I always thought you might love me better if I was a lady,’ sheer horror enabled me to find my tongue. ‘Ruth,’ I said, ‘I married Anne not because of her class but in spite of it. I was the son of one working-class woman and the husband of another. The only question here is not whether you’re a good enough daughter for me but whether I’m a good enough father for you, and I can only conclude, when I review my gross insensitivity towards you over the years, that I’m not. I seem to have been a quite unforgivably stupid and useless parent.’
I might have wallowed in guilt for much longer but Ruth – fortunately, perhaps, for our emotional equilibrium – decided I was joking. I was called a silly-billy, given a kiss and patted on the head as if I were a naughty old duffer for whom allowances had to be perpetually made. Then she manifested her forgiveness in a more acceptable fashion by suggesting that she should visit the Manor again, this time with the children, during the Easter holidays.
I felt like a guilty man pardoned after a magnificent display of clemency, and feeling greatly chastened I travelled back to Starrington.
It was on the day after my return home that I journeyed to Starbridge in response to a summons from the Bishop. Dr Ottershaw, welcoming me with his customary courtesy, soon said how delighted he was to see me looking so well after my six months’ recuperation, and at once, somehow contriving to conceal my excitement, I declared myself ready to undertake whatever work he saw fit to assign to me.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking and praying about this, of course,’ said Dr Ottershaw, ‘and I’ve finally decided – after considerable deliberation – because of course there are many pros and cons – and indeed one can easily get into a state where one can’t see
the woods from the trees – or sift the wheat from the chaff – but I’ve finally decided,’ said Dr Ottershaw, rescuing himself from this labyrinthine sentence, ‘that it would be best if you resumed your duties as curate.’
There was a silence. This was not what I had expected. I was aware of my heart sinking.