Mystical Paths (51 page)

I could only say: ‘I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll never forget.’

‘Neither of us will forget.’ He paused to inhale from his cigarette. Then he said: ‘I want to take Rachel up to the house now. When we talk to the police we’ll say we took her back sothat she could listen to your records while we talked to your father; she wasn’t included in the invitation to meet your father, of course, because he sees so few visitors and certainly never meets more than one new person at a time.’

‘And why are we really taking Rachel back to the house?’ We’ve got more work to do here — the exorcism — but now that the mess has been cleared up and the immediate danger has passed I’d rather she got right away from the chapel and waited for me in a comfortable place within calling distance of other people ... Is there brandy at the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we could all do with some.’

We went outside. Rachel stood up, hesitated, then hurtled into Lewis’s arms again. Stroking her hair he said: ‘It’s going to be all right. You never saw him, and now that you and I have finished our sightseeing tour of the chapel, I’m taking you back to the house so that you can relax with Nicholas’s record collection while I meet Father Darrow as planned.’

All she said was: ‘I don’t want to listen to Nicholas’s records.’ ‘Then you can just wait quietly for us.’

‘I can lend you a book, if you like,’ I said, speaking directly to her for the first time since the catastrophe, but she just said: ‘No thanks,’ and turned away.

We set off up the path which led out of the dell. None of us spoke. Beyond the edge of the woods the back lawn stretched to the house, but I made a detour around it because I had no wish for the members of the Community to see us from the windows of the dining-room and interrupt their lunch in order to _sleet Lewis. I felt unable to cope with the Community at that moment.

‘I’ll meet them later,’ said Lewis as I explained my reason for the detour. ‘But let’s get Rachel settled first.’

Why do you need to meet them at all?’

‘It would be useful to have people who could confirm that we brought Rachel back to the house. Any corroboration of our story would be helpful at this stage.’

But in the end we didn’t need the Community to bear witness to our return. Because of the detour we wound up in the drive at the front of the house, and just as we were crossing the gravel sweep towards the front door, a white Ford turned through the main gates.

‘Who’s that?’ said Lewis sharply to me.

‘No idea.’ I was just as alarmed as he was, and we all halted to stare at the approaching car.

Suddenly Rachel said: ‘It’s Charley.’

‘Charley who?’ I said, but even as I spoke I was recognising the driver.

It was Charley Ashworth.

‘Okay,’ said Lewis to us quickly. ‘I’ll do the talking.’

But he never got the chance. The car halted and out bounced Charley, bursting with energy. ‘I was just making a flying visit to Starbridge in order to see Dad during Holy Week,’ he announced, ‘and I suddenly thought: Nick Darrow! What a splendid opportunity for a lightning pastoral call! So here I am, cantering up your drive on my white horse, and lo and behold, what do I find? Rachel — wonderful to see you! And Father Hall — terrific! What a splendid surprise to bump into you both here — Raye, why didn’t you tell me you were a friend of Nick’s?’

‘I’m not,’ said Rachel. ‘We barely know each other.’ She gave a muffled sob.

‘Hey!’ exclaimed Charley, instantly concerned. ‘Are you all right? I must say, you look a bit —’

‘Spring’s a bad time for allergies,’ said Lewis. ‘All that pollen.’ What a nuisance. Never mind, Raye, you still look gorgeous — I love those psychedelic trousers!’

Rachel suddenly said in a high voice: ‘Oh Charley, it’s so wonderful to see you!’ and the next moment she was stumbling into his arms which, I saw with shock, were only too ready to receive her.

Realising he had to abandon all talk of pollen Lewis said: ‘Life’s rather tricky for Rachel at the moment. Various unexpected problems,’ and Charley cried: ‘Poor little thing!’ as if outraged by the malevolence of a fate which could saddle Rachelwith even the smallest difficulty. ‘Never mind,’ he added swiftly to her, let me carry you off instantly for a good stiff drink and a delicious lunch — you don’t mind, do you, Nick, if I bear Rachel away on my white horse? Or — wait a minute, are the Halls arriving or leaving? I assumed that as you were all grouped around Nick’s car he was about to give you a lift to the station, but perhaps —’

‘Thank you very much, Charley,’ said Rachel. ‘Daddy’s not ready to leave yet but I am. Goodbye, Daddy. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right now.’

‘Leave her entirely to me,’ said Charley masterfully to Lewis. ‘I’ll look after her. Nick — sorry my lightning pastoral visit turned out to be no more than a quick flash, but of course one must always rescue a maiden in distress whenever she’s thrust across one’s path! I’ll be in touch later. Come along, Raye.’ And having eased her into the passenger seat, he bounded back behind the wheel and drove off.

Rachel didn’t look back.

She didn’t even look back once.

I’d been traded in.

XI

I felt as if an entire universe, blazing with light, had folded itself up and vanished down a black hole. I forgot Perry and the horror of the morning, shut it right out. I even forgot L..wis, motionless by my side. The present had been obliterated by that lost future. Sinking down on the step by the front door I covered my face with my hands.

I found myself trying to take refuge in incredulity. I thought of Charley-the-Prig, that pathetic creature who had never made it with the girls, but that image, as I well knew from my visit to his vicarage, belonged to another era and now Charley-thePrig had been succeeded by Charley-the-Superpriest. I remembered that band of attractive girls all eager to help him with his parish work, and suddenly as I remembered him radiat- ing happiness in his vicarage I saw that I was the pathetic creature, not Charley; I, Nicholas Darrow, that ignorant twenty-five-year-old child who had thought he was making it with the girls but who had never once got beyond first base. No wonder I had stalked around flaunting my shoddy, shady, shabby ‘glamorous powers’! I had been disguising from myself just how immature and inadequate I really was.

I let my hands fall from my face and found that Lewis was sitting beside me on the step. All the bright colours of the garden looked incongruous. I felt I should be seeing a landscape of ice and ashes.

All I said in the end was: ‘How long’s that been going on?’

‘Not long. They met soon after I came to the diocese in 1965 when the Bishop very kindly invited us both to dinner, but Charley was shy with girls then and of course Rachel was very young. However last Christmas they met again, and since then they’ve been seeing something of each other. Charley’s parish is less than an hour by train from London.’

No wonder Charley had been able to describe the girl of his dreams to me so graphically. I should have realised the portrait had been more than a mere fantasy.

‘I rather like him,’ Lewis was saying idly. ‘He’s a little volatile, perhaps, but he’s certainly got all those gregarious, outgoing qualities which Rachel admires so much. I’m sure he’ll do very well in the Church.’

After a moment I managed to say: ‘He’s okay.’ Then I said: ‘Not quite my sort, but he’s okay.’ And finally, ashamed by this lack of graciousness to a lifelong acquaintance who had always been kind to me, I succeeded in saying: ‘He’s a good man, much better than I am, and he’ll never see black blood gushing from a dead demon.’

‘No,’ said Lewis, ‘she’ll feel quite safe there.’

We sat and thought of Rachel feeling safe. Then Lewis §aid casually: ‘What would Rosalind say if you told her about the demon?’

‘Nothing. But she’d hold my hand.’

Lewis allowed several seconds to elapse before commentingin a neutral voice: ‘My wife hated and feared my psychic gift. I could never share it with her.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s have that brandy I suggested earlier.’

Having retrieved the brandy bottle from its home beneath the kitchen sink I led Lewis upstairs to my sitting-room where he poured out two hefty measures. We had met no one. The members of the Community were still at lunch.

The thought of lunch prompted me to say worried to Lewis: ‘You must want something to eat.’

‘No, food can wait,’ said Lewis, acting out of character, and suddenly I sensed how keyed up he was, as if he stood on the brink of some very great occasion.

I said: ‘You want to meet my father.’

‘Yes.’

‘And it’s not just because of me and my problems, is it? You want to see him because you’ve heard so much about him and because he was the only one of all those senior Fordite monks whom you never met back in the 1930s.’

‘Never mind what I want. The most important thing now is what you want, but do you know yet what it is? You could still be feeling too shocked and confused by the catastrophe to know your own mind.’

But at once I said: ‘This morning’s demonic mess nearly destroyed me. The next demonic mess will destroy me. I can’t go on being this fake-person who’s powerless before the Dark. I’ve got to —’ I hesitated but then remembered a phrase he himself had used — I’ve got to give birth to myself by achieving a ps
_y
chic separation from my father, but I still don’t see how it can ever be done.’

‘Does a surgeon explain every single detail of an operating procedure to the patient beforehand?’

‘No, but —’

‘The big question isn’t: how can it be done? But: do you have faith that you and your father can be healed?’

Only one answer was now possible. I thought of Lewis not only saving me from breakdown at Grantchester but saving me from ruin that morning in the chapel, and I knew then he could save me from annihilation when my father finally died.

‘I won’t be the one who heals you, of course,’ said Lewis, watching me. ‘I’ll just be the channel.’

But I believed now that he could be the channel. I believed now that he was being offered to me as a channel. I believed now that I was being called to life, the richest possible life, the life that would be uniquely my own.

I drank the remainder of my brandy. Then I set down my glass, stood up and said: ‘I’ll take you to my father.’

XII

As we retraced our steps to the dell I said: ‘I’m worried in case my father doesn’t trust you as I do and rejects the possibility of healing.’

‘Oh, I think you’ll find he’ll trust me,’ said Lewis.

‘But you’re so much younger than he is and he might not approve of you wearing casual clothes. He’s very old-fashioned and thinks priests should always be in uniform unless they’re on holiday.’

‘I think you’ll find he won’t even notice my clothes,’ said Lewis.

But I continued to worry. ‘Supposing he simply refuses to discuss me with a stranger?’

‘What makes you think he isn’t longing to talk about you with someone who understands?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t know you understand, and —’ I stopped. We had reached the point on the path where we could look down on the chapel, and suddenly I found I could go no farther. The memories which I had wiped from my mind in order to dwell on my lost future with Rachel and my possible future with my father now surged back in a tidal wave of horror, and when I looked at the chapel I saw sacrilege instead of holiness and obscenity instead of beauty. Filth oozed from every clean pure architectural line.

I said: ‘He’s killed my chapel.’ Then I wept. I wasn’t even crying decently, privately, under an eiderdown, but I was so stricken that I no longer cared. Sinking to the ground I tucked myself close to the nearest tree-trunk and whispered: ‘Sorry, Lewis, sorry, got to stop, can’t go on.’

‘It’s the delayed shock.’ He knelt beside me. ‘But listen, Nicholas. I shall heal your chapel, and you’ll be with me when I do it. We’ll open wide the doors and we’ll cast out the Dark and then every stone will be bathed in light again.’

Some time passed. Lewis sat down cross-legged on the ground and lit a cigarette. Eventually I was able to say: ‘I’d like to base my ministry at the chapel one day. But how am I to hang on to this estate? Rising prices ... taxation ... the burden of a big house ... the truth is it would be nothing but a millstone round my neck. Perhaps God polluted the chapel to signal that I’m to let go of it.’

‘It was the Devil who polluted the chapel, Nicholas, not God, and ours is a gospel of hope, not a creed of despair. Dream the impossible! Why shouldn’t you? And stand by your chapel! Why not? I promise you we’ll heave out the demon’s carcase and mop up his black blood as efficiently as we wiped out all the evidence of Perry’s murder.’

A longing for rational analysis flickered in my mind and I realised I was getting better. Having wiped my eyes with my cuff I said tentatively: ‘About that demon ...’ But I was unsure how to go on.

‘Yes, I was waiting for you to want to work that one out.’

‘And my father’s appearance ... Don’t tell me I didn’t see him because I know very well that I did. He was present. He was there.’

‘Of course he was. So was the demon. And so, luxuriating in all the murder and mayhem, was the Devil. Or whatever you choose to call it in 1968.’

‘But according to Rachel —’

‘You and Rachel told different stories,’ said Lewis, ‘but in fact you each told the truth. You each described a different facet of one underlying reality.’

‘You mean I saw with my psychic eye and Rachel saw with her physical eyes?’

‘Exactly. Your extreme stress once more gave you access to a level of reality not normally accessible to the conscious mind, and that means what you saw was much harder to describe. It was easy for Rachel; she only had to use everyday language, but you were driven to use an archaic and largely discredited vocabulary to describe events which can’t accurately be represented in words at all.’ He paused to let me digest this before adding: ‘Rachel was right, I think, to label Christian’s murder a
crime passionnel.
It’s interesting that she was able to pick out Perry’s grief — the grief which, combined with guilt, had driven him mad. You only saw the madness itself — which you identified as possession. You see how the two of you picked out different aspects of the truth? He
was
grieving and he
was
mad. It’s not a question of "either/or". It’s a question of "and".’

‘But if Perry and Christian were never lovers, how could it have been a
c
ri
me
passionnel?
Or do you think Perry was lying when he said —’

‘Why should he lie at that stage? And why should you think a
crime passionnel
can only arise from a consummated passion? In fact if they were never actually lovers then the murder becomes much easier to understand.’

‘Does it?’

‘Well, consider the background for a moment. I suspect that the heavy emotional side-effects of the affair with Martin made Christian feel bisexuality was not a way of life he wanted to pursue and reinforced his conviction that the last thing he ever wanted from Perry was sex. Meanwhile Perry was thinking just the opposite: he was thinking that the Martin affair would lead Christian to rewrite the rules of their friendship. Since Christian was no fool and since no one knew Perry better than he did, I’m sure he realised what was going on in Perry’s mind, just as I’m equally sure his instinct was then to back away — but he couldn’t back away because he needed Perry for those escapist weekends. So as the weeks passed a very tense situation built up and eventually reached dangerous proportions.’’So you think that on that last Friday evening at Albany —’

— there was an emotional explosion. My guess is that Perry’s patience snapped and he declared his feelings, but of course Christian, when he finally had his back to the wall, was quite determined to turn him down.’

Making an effort to recall the horrific dialogue in the chapel I said: ‘Perry did talk of a rejection.’

‘So you said earlier when you were telling me what happened. He thought, didn’t he, that Christian had told Dinkie he was planning to reject Perry just as he’d rejected Martin.’ ‘And once Perry had been rejected —’

‘Murder was on the cards. If I read Perry correctly, it was the huge frustration in addition to the agony of rejection which finally drove him right out of his mind. Someone as self-controlled as he was wouldn’t go over the edge unless he was experiencing provocation on a grand scale.’

What surprises me,’ I said, ‘is that Christian did reject Perry as brutally as he’d rejected Martin. You’d think that as they were such old friends Christian would have tried to let him down lightly.’

‘Maybe he did. Remember, we’ve only heard Perry’s side of the story. Christian may well have tried to reject him as kindly as possible, but unfortunately by that time there was no kind way of handing out the rejection.’

‘But if Christian was mad, why should he have bothered to be kind?’

‘We don’t actually know he was mad.’

‘But what about Christian saying at the end: "Kill me so that I can escape into you — the ultimate identity switch!" Surely that was the demon talking — and surely that implies Christian was raving?’

Well, yes,’ said Lewis. ‘Possibly. But if you make a big effort to imagine this scene in a way that allows Christian to act in character, don’t you think it’s more likely that he was trying to laugh the whole thing off as a joke? There’s Perry saying: "I’m going to kill you," but naturally Christian doesn’t believe him. Dear old Perry, his friend for over twenty years! At the same time he can see Perry’s in a most embarrassing emotional state and needs to be calmed down, so instinctively Christian resorts to humour to defuse the situation. "Kill me so I can escape into you!" he jokes. "The ultimate identity switch!" But unfortunately by that time Perry’s lost his sense of humour and interprets the joke as the mockery of a lunatic.’

This explanation struck me as being impressively plausible but I felt more confused than ever by the issue of Christian’s sanity. ‘Even if you write off that final raving as an exercise in misguided wit,’ I said, ‘do you really believe Christian could still have been sane?’

‘Certainly – although I agree he was profoundly disturbed. I also concede he was probably on the road to a complete mental collapse, but it seems clear that this particular journey was uncompleted when he died. After all, he was still functioning, still going out and about, still bedding Dinkie and enjoying his sailing.’

‘So when Perry described Christian as a mad dog –’

‘Oh, that was all projection, of course. It was actually Perry who broke down, Perry who ceased to function normally, Perry who swung so far out of control that he .committed murder. What Perry was doing in his confession this morning was projecting his own madness on to his victim.’

‘So he was the one who was possessed by the Devil – or by a demon implanted by the Devil. But if Christian was sane, a victim, and not an evil man infested by a demonic spirit ...’ I stopped, unable to articulate the problem.

‘You’re confused because if Christian was a sane victim you couldn’t have seen his demonic spirit shining behind Perry’s eyes – and yet you know that you did. But let’s give the old-fashioned picture language another rest and try a more flexible approach to this very complex truth. We can still say that Perry was possessed,’ said Lewis, ‘but we’ll now say he was possessed by his grief, his guilt, his shame and his horror that he had killed the friend he loved. And we can still say that Perry was possessed by Christian’s demon – except that we might now follow Jung and call it the shadow side of Christian. This darkside – the demonic aspect – was in fact embedded at the centre of all those destructive emotions, with the result that when the emotions took over Perry’s mind, the dark side of Christian was there at the heart of the take-over, shining in Perry’s eyes and echoing in Perry’s speech.’

‘So Christian could have been a sane victim and yet still have had his dark side –’

‘– just as we all do, yes. Again, it’s not a question of "either/ or" but a question of "and".’

‘So when I saw Christian shining behind Perry’s eyes and heard Christian in Perry’s speech, I wasn’t hallucinating?’ ‘Certainly not. What you were doing was giving yourself a psychic interpretation of reality. The shining eyes and the stutter were real events; Rachel’s our witness for the eyes, and I’m quite prepared to believe you heard the stutter. But then what happened was that your psychic eye saw much further than your physical eyes and interpreted these events as sinister markers which indicated the climax of the scene was at hand. By seeing the shadow side of Christian – the demonic presence – you knew Perry’s madness was about to erupt again and this advance warning gave you the inspiration to produce your last defence: exorcism.’

‘But it wasn’t much of an exorcism, was it?’ I said with regret. ‘I should have named the demons in order to cast them out – the demon of guilt, the demon of shame, the demon of grief, and so on. I shouldn’t just have named Christian and ordered him to rest in peace with God.’

‘My dear Nicholas, you were hardly in a position to conduct a leisurely classical exorcism! You needed one name which encapsulated the whole demonic force which was occupying Perry’s dying mind and you found it. What happened then, as you ordered Christian to be at peace with God, was that the dark side was destroyed and the bright side went home. In my opinion that was a highly successful exorcism – in fact a triumph.’

I was amazed. ‘Are you sure?’

Lewis smiled and said: ‘The acid test is whether it had a saving effect on you, and obviously it did: you’re not now walking around convinced you’re possessed by either Christian or Perry.’

‘Oh, I see. Or do I? Hang on, wait a minute, are you saying —’ I hesitated.

Lewis smiled again. ‘It was real,’ he said. ‘It happened. It worked. You called on the greatest exorcist of all time and aligned yourself with his power. On one level of reality Rachel was given the chance to strike the physical blow, and on another level of reality you were given the chance to strike the spiritual blow. Rachel saw Perry die and you saw the demon split apart in a shower of black blood, but what you both saw with your different eyes was the Dark receding before the Light.’

‘Rachel will never believe I saw what I saw.’

‘No, but try to forgive her. Remember that her blindness is God’s gift to her, just as your sight is God’s gift to you.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and carefully buried the butt. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘Better.’ As I stood up I said: ‘I’m glad I can think of Christian not as a crazy bastard but as a tormented man searching for truth. But I’m sorry he died before he could begin his journey to the centre, sorry he spent his life going round and round on the edge of the circle.’

‘I’m afraid his case is far from uncommon. So many people fail to realise that the greatest journey one can ever take is the journey to the very centre of one’s being.’

We fell silent, but in the centre of my own being the immanent God, who had designed the blueprint of my true self and who longed for me to become the man he had created me to be, began to exert a strong, ardent pressure on my psyche.

Without another word I stepped forward along the path which led to my father.