Mystical Paths (53 page)

IV

My father’s eyes filled instantly with tears.

‘Right — the conversation’s now closed,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘It’s too much for him, he’s too old, he can’t cope.’

‘
You
’
re
the one who can’t cope!’ cried my father. ‘You cut me off whenever I try to speak of her!’

‘That’s because you get so upset.’

‘No,
you
’
re
the one who gets so upset, Nicholas!’

‘I only get upset because you get upset. After she died you said: "It hurts even to mention her name."‘

‘Yes, but —’

‘I had to stop you getting upset.’

‘If you mention that word "upset" one more time,’ said my father in a frenzy, ‘I swear I’ll grab that vase of daffodils on the mantelshelf and smash it against the wall!’

‘Well done!’ said Lewis admiringly. ‘Excellent! That’s a tremendous step forward!’

‘Shut up!’ I yelled.

‘What I just can’t understand,’ said my father, much encouraged, to Lewis, ‘is why he’s got this malignant
idée fixe
that I must never be upset.’

Immediately Lewis turned to me. ‘Are you ready, Nicholas? Now it’s your turn to shout the truth from the rooftops, your turn to —’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ demanded my father.

‘He thinks you’ll get too U-P-S-E-T,’ said Lewis, ‘and what’ll happen, Nicholas, if your father gets too U-P-S-E-T?’’He’ll die.’

‘Nonsense,’ said my father. ‘Why should I?’

‘You nearly did after Mum died. You wanted to. If you’d got any more upset you would have done.’

‘But I gave you my word I’d never take my own life!’

‘Yes, but you were so upset you could have died without meaning to. You were terrible when you were upset. Terrible.’

‘You were frightened when he got upset, weren’t you, Nicholas?’ said Lewis. ‘He frightened you very, very much, didn’t he?’

‘No, no,’ said my father aghast, ‘that can’t be right —’

‘Of course it’s not right,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ And then before I could stop myself I said: ‘It was hers.’
‘
Hers?
Your mother’s? But —’

My voice said: ‘She wrecked everything, dying like that. She wrecked our home, she wrecked our family life, she changed you into a recluse. And once you wanted to be a recluse you rejected me.’

‘
Rejected you?
Oh but Nicholas, that’s not true! You know it’s not true!’

‘OH YES IT IS!’ I yelled. By this time I was almost gasping with emotion, but I managed to say: ‘You rejected me, you went off on your own, you withdrew here to this cottage and abandoned me with that bloody Community —’

‘But Nicholas, I was so bereaved, so upset —’

‘Yes,’ I shouted, ‘YOU WERE UPSET! And if there was one lesson I learnt from that terrible time it was that I had to make sure you were never, never upset again!’

‘But I got better — I did get better —’

‘I made you get better,’ I said. ‘I willed it. I couldn’t have let you die. Mum’s death destroyed my home, but your death would have destroyed
me.
I
knew that, I knew it as surely as I saw you being eaten away by the Dark. But I rolled the Dark back, I gave you hope again, I gave you something to look forward to, I made you believe your most cherished dream could come true —’

‘Dear God!’ whispered my father, and covered his face with his hands.

‘It was no good being
me
any more,’ I said.
‘
Me
just reminded you of
her,
and that made you upset. We had to cut her right out. No more
her.
And no more
me.
Just you and the replica. Just you and the dream that was going to keep you alive. And it did keep you alive, didn’t it? The replica won. So long as I was the replica we could live happily ever after — although, of course, I always had to take great care never to let you get upset.’

My father let his shaking hands fall. ‘Father, help us,’ he begged Lewis. ‘Tell him — explain — make everything come right —’

‘But you can do that,’ said Lewis. ‘No need for me to interfere. Just tell him about his mother.’

‘I don’t want her name mentioned,’ I said. ‘I blame her entirely for this mess.’

‘Blame me,’ said my father, ‘but don’t blame Anne. She was so proud of you, Nicholas — she loved you so much —’ ‘I can’t blame you because you’ll get upset.’

‘Help us!’ my father begged Lewis again. ‘Please — we’re locked up in this terrible prison and we’ve got to have someone to rescue us —’

‘Nicholas is going to rescue you both,’ said Lewis. ‘He’s going to proclaim the password which will open the prison gates.’

‘What password?’ said my father, but he knew.

‘There’s no password,’ I said, but there was.

Silence fell.

‘She needs to come back, you see,’ said Lewis, addressing my father but talking principally, as I well knew, to me. ‘When she died everything went out of alignment. It wasn’t your fault. Her death devastated you to such an extent that you became temporarily disabled, unable to focus on your son. His solution was to heal you by evicting her from that space which she occupied between the two of you, but of course he was very young and he didn’t know how to heal properly. What we haveto do now is to clear that space, the psychic space she occupied during her life-time, and welcome back her memory into it.’

‘But if Nicholas insists on blaming her for everything, how can he ever welcome her back?’

‘But do you really insist on blaming her, Nicholas, for the fact that your father found his bereavement so disabling?’

I said uncertainly: ‘Someone’s got to be to blame.’ But I knew no one was, not even the God who was still creating his world, still suffering with his creation, still working ceaselessly to redeem the darkness with light. And as the thought of Christ flickered through my mind — that symbol of light triumphing over darkness, of life over death, of hope over despair — I said vaguely: ‘It seemed important to blame someone,’ and I realised I was no longer using the present tense but the past. ‘I didn’t know how else to live with my anger,’ I said. ‘I was so angry that my world had been smashed up and I had to be a replica.’

‘It was a moment of great darkness,’ said Lewis, ‘and it lasted a long time. But now the darkness is under such pressure that one word — the password — will ensure its end.’

I nodded. Then I said to him: ‘The word’s "forgive", isn’t it?’

And as I spoke I saw
the prison gates swing wide.

V

Lewis said briskly to my father: ‘Bring her back,’ and at once my father said: ‘Oh Nicholas, how well Anne would have understood your difficulties! She spent a great deal of her youth tr
^y
ing to please her father and become a young woman who had little relation to her true self, and how unhappy that made her! But in the end she uncovered the person God had created her to be and she was able to live out her own truth, just as I hope you’ll now live out yours. Once she’s rejoined us she’ll always be there to remind you that you must be your true self, and every time you feel I want you to be my replica, you’ll find it easy to picture her saying: "Nonsense, Nicholas! Take no notice of him — he’s being very silly!" You remember, of course, how sensible and down-to-earth she was, how magnificently rational. Rational analysis was very much her forte.’

‘Nicholas takes after her in that respect, I think,’ said Lewis.

‘Yes, that’s why I feel Nicholas’s gifts are really very exceptional, even more so than mine. He has my psychic gift combined with a scientific detachment and curiosity — a most unusual and striking combination. In fact I never wanted him to give up science at school in order to specialise in the arts, but since he was determined to be my replica —’

‘We must accept the past, I think, and make the most of it. Perhaps God was merely ensuring that Nicholas would become a special kind of priest.’

‘Anne was interested in scientific matters,’ pursued my father, so keen on his reminiscences now that he merely nodded in response to this comment. ‘Of course circumstances demanded that she took an interest in the science of agriculture, but there’s no doubt she did have a flair for it; she always seemed to know exactly what to do at the Home Farm. But her interests were very varied. She shared my fondness for Shakespeare ... Nicholas rebelled against us when he was twelve and said he found all poetry boring, but after Anne died he studied Shakespeare hard in order to please me. Oh, how Anne would have been angered by that replica! She loved Nicholas just as he was, and he was so precious to her — her only surviving son ... How sad it was that she never had another child, but she’d had two babies in two years and she thought she should make time for me instead ... But I didn’t make time for her.’ My father’s eyes filled with tears again.

‘But you can make time now, can’t you?’ said Lewis. ‘That’s something you can still do for her. You can talk about her to Nicholas, tell him when he reminds you of her, share your memories so that she becomes someone cherished again, not just the symbol of an unbearable tragedy. And if you do all those things then I think eventually you’ll find you’ll be able to look back and wonder in amazement how you could haveimagined Nicholas to be anyone other than the unique person you and your wife created.’

‘I’m already wondering in amazement,’ said my father, ‘but I must tell you that great difficulties still remain. First of all, Nicholas will find it well-nigh impossible to let go of me so that Anne can fill the space between us. It’s because the desire to be my replica has turned him into a sort of psychic parasite — poor Nicholas, how bizarre that sounds, but I can think of no other way of expressing it! — and he needs to have his psyche constantly fortified by mine.’

‘Nicholas sees you both as Siamese twins joined at the psyche. But it’s the replica’s psyche which needs constantly fortifying, isn’t it? So once he begins to live the life God’s called him to lead, he’ll develop the capacity to be independent at last.’

‘Yes, but now we come to the second huge difficulty, Father. You know how hard it is to discern God’s will and I’m quite sure that once Nicholas feels free to go his own way he’ll jump to all the wrong conclusions about what God’s calling him to do.’

‘You think so?’

‘I’m sure of it. You see, what he really wants to do — when he’s not trying to be my replica — is to be a priest in the ministry of healing. It’s the most unfortunate obsession and I regard it as potentially disastrous. I myself had a catastrophic experience of the ministry of healing, and I’m firmly convinced —’

"I",’ said Lewis. "I, I, I!" But we’re not talking about you now! We’re talking about Nicholas, that unique person who’s not your replica!’

My father looked much taken aback. ‘I realise that,’ he said in a polite voice which only narrowly failed to mask his annoyance. ‘But the point is this: I failed in the ministry of healing because I was temperamentally unsuited for it, and since Nicholas is temperamentally exactly like me —’

‘In no respect is he exactly like you. Take that word "replica", please, and add it without any more delay to all the other rubbish in the psychic waste-paper basket.’

‘But —’

‘Of course Nicholas appears to be temperamentally like you — he’s been slaving away to create that effect for years! But I think that talent of his for rational analysis can be trained and used to foster the spirit of humility which all healers require; he’ll master the art of seeing himself and his work without the false illusions generated by pride.’

‘In my opinion,’ said my father, perfectly polite still but now very cold and grand, ‘you’re mistaken. Of course I see the point you’re trying to make and I realise you mean well, but I myself remain quite convinced that Nicholas is not called to the ministry of healing. He must work in the ecclesiastical mainstream.’

Lewis leapt to his feet.

My father and I were so startled we nearly fell off our chairs. Certainly we both gasped. My father even clutched the edge of the table to steady himself.

‘JONATHAN DARROW!’ thundered Lewis, piling on the histrionics. ‘I can hardly believe my ears! Nearly eighty-eight years old and still blazing arrogance in all directions —
how disgraceful!
When was the last time you looked in the glass and said to yourself: "I CAN BE WRONG"?’

My father, already pale, became ashen.

I thought in panic: he’s going to die of rage — But he didn’t.

He lived. He laughed. And he looked utterly enthralled.

VI

‘How this reminds me of the old days!’ he said delighted to Lewis. ‘Never shall I forget how forcefully you used to harangue me on my need for humility! Very well, Father. You mustn’t think that I’ve reached the age of eighty-seven and learnt nothing from my past battles to overcome my greatest weakness. I accept that I could be wrong, jumping to an arrogant conclusion about Nicholas’s future ministry, and I realise that I must be humble enough to seek your guidance.’

‘And I must be humble enough to admit I’m not sure what Nicholas is being called to do,’ said Lewis, sitting down again. ‘Discerning the will of God’s never easy, but I’ll say this: if Nicholas works hard to become a devout priest and a well-trained psychic, then I believe the way will unfold before him and all our doubts about his future will be dissolved.’

My father nodded and said: ‘Yes, I can agree with that.’ And turning to me he added: ‘Very well, Nicholas, I shall keep an open mind on the subject. At least I can feel confident that you’ll thrive spiritually now that all my prayers have been answered and you’ve met Father Darcy at last.’

I cringed. ‘Father,’ I said, speaking loudly and clearly, ‘this is
Lewis Hall,
not Cuthbert Darcy. He’s a priest at St Paul’s — you remember St Paul’s, that big Victorian church in Langley Bottom —’

‘I recognised you at once, of course,’ said my father to Lewis. ‘Psychically you’re unmistakable. Most psyches are blunt and cumbersome, but yours is so supple, so flexible, and driven all the time by that tremendous power. You were the greatest exorcist I ever met, the most formidable priest I ever knew .. . How interesting it is to meet you at this stage of your life! What age are you at the moment?’

‘Nearly forty-seven.’

‘Ah yes, I never knew you then. You were in your early sixties by the time we met, but Aidan always used to say how delightful you were when you were younger. He knew you before the war — the First War, I mean. How long ago those days seem now that we’re in — no, don’t tell me! — now that we’re in 1968. Strange how easily the past and present inter-w cave nowadays, but time’s all an illusion, I know that now. Reality is beyond time. Reality is spiritual.’

I looked at Lewis to try to signal some sort of apology for this senile behaviour, but he was unaware of me. He was too busy curling his supple psyche around my father in order to bear him forward into the future along that river where the present mingled so effortlessly with the past.

‘Reality is spiritual,’ he was saying, repeating my father’s words, ‘and often we have to use symbols, don’t we, in order to express that reality when it’s beyond the power of mere words to describe. We’ve talked of creating a space so that your wife can come back to you both and realign that relationship which has become so crippled. But to create that space the two of you must begin to move apart psychically – and because we’re talking of things our physical eyes can’t see, we have to find some way of enacting this event so that it becomes real to us; we have to find some way of showing on a material plane how the parting of your joined psyches will create the space which will allow your wife to come back and play her vital part in the realignment; we have to deal now entirely in symbols because we’ve reached the point where no words can express what has to happen.’

He paused. Then he said to my father: ‘Do I have your consent?’

‘For the operation? Yes, of course. It’s vital that Nicholas should be separated from me so that he can set out at last on his own special journey.’

‘And you believe that it’s possible?’

‘I believe,’ said my father, ‘that by the grace of God all things are possible.’

‘And you, Nicholas – what do you want most at this moment?’

I said: ‘I want to live.’

Lewis stood up and indicated without words that I should sit down in his chair opposite my father. When I was seated he pulled my folding chair aside and stood beside the table. My father was now on his left and I was on his right.

There was a long silence while Lewis rested his fingertips on the table, closed his eyes and bent his head in prayer. Then he crossed himself and said without looking up: ‘In the name of Jesus Christ ...’

The operation had begun.