The Wonder Worker (15 page)

I suddenly felt quite sure—in fact there was no doubt in my mind whatsoever—that once I started living at the Rectory I would be cured of all past pain, saved from all my present anxieties and set free to live happily ever after in a blissfully untroubled future.

I thought I was being so realistic but of course it’s obvious to me now, as I look back, that I was still wallowing in the most dangerous of romantic dreams.

Part Two

LEWIS
The Unvarnished Truth

The counsellor has the temporal welfare of his client as his first consideration. He seeks to enable the client to return to his environment and then to live with a sufficient degree of usefulness and contentment. The Christian counsellor has that end in view too; but he asks a more ultimate question. To what purpose is this temporal welfare? Is not this life a journey? How can a man be fit if he does not know what he is fit for?… A man who has no sense of his ultimate purpose and destiny is not, in a Christian sense, well at all.

CHRISTOPHER HAMEL COOKE

Healing Is for God

Monday, 15th August, 1988
: Cynthia’s gone off her rocker. Love’s finally unhinged her. Amazing! Sometimes I think the nineteenth century legal classification of women with lunatics really is justifiable, but nowadays, when everyone, even Mrs. Thatcher, is jumping on the ordination-of-women bandwagon, and the nutty clerics at the nutty Lambeth Conference have even been waffling about women bishops (whatever next, I ask myself!) it’s not the done thing to make any remark even in jest which knocks any segment of the human race except white Anglo-Saxon males. I don’t like this—and not just because I’m a white Anglo-Saxon male. I don’t like it because what it’s actually doing is taking a swipe at truth and introducing censorship under the guise of being nice to the downtrodden. Thank God that at least in this journal I can say what I damn well like so long as it’s spoken in the quest for TRUTH with a capital T.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Cynthia. She comes to see me today for an extra session and tells me she’s definitely going to marry the Yank. Well, that’s no surprise; I could see it coming a mile off, and I think this time marriage is right for her. There’ll still be problems: guilt over Billy, yearning for Richard and so on, but I think that with the Yank’s help she’ll be able to cope, merging her old life with the fresh start she needs and deserves. So far so good. But then she goes clean off her rocker and tells me she’s going to give her house to us. My jaw sags. The house is one of the few freehold houses in Eaton Terrace and it has to be worth at least half a million at today’s inflated prices.

Heaving my jaw back into place I manage to say to her: “Are you really sure you want to burn this particular boat? Money’s so useful when one starts a new life.” But that cuts no ice. It turns out the Yank has a cool sixty million dollars and he’s going to settle several million on her as a wedding present. Why should she need the proceeds
of the sale of a chic little hovel in Belgravia? I tell her she should take more time to think over this magnificently generous decision, but she says she’s got no doubts because she’s sure it’s God’s will.

It always makes me very nervous when people talk like that. Reminds me of the patients at Barwick, the ones with all manner of inflated delusions. What a long time ago it seems since I was at Barwick! But working as a chaplain in a big mental hospital certainly teaches one a thing or two about unstable behaviour.

“A call from God? Tell me about it,” I say, fearing the worst, but to my relief her response is at least rooted in reality. Apparently she remembered me telling her—at that lunch-party in early July when Venetia went on the rampage—that life at the Rectory was chaotic because we never had time to cook decent meals, pick up cassocks from the cleaner’s, buy food and so on. She also remembered me saying we longed for a cook-housekeeper but couldn’t afford one. “My gift will set you free to devote yourselves to the Healing Centre without any petty distractions!” she says shining-eyed. Bless her, she’s so happy. And bless her, she’s right. It would. But should she be making such an offer when she’s in love and not responsible for her actions? We don’t want the Yank turning up on our doorstep with a six-shooter in his hand and accusing us of conning a vulnerable woman out of a fortune …

COMMENT
: Let’s face it: the above entry shows me at what Val would call my sexist worst. On the excuse that I’m crusading for truth I’ve implied all women are as good as lunatics and made insulting remarks about the Lambeth Conference bishops into the bargain. I’ve also been vaguely anti-American, writing about that courteous and civilised citizen of the United States as if he’s a gangster. So what’s going on?

Obviously I’m ruffled about something. But what?

Okay, let’s try and figure this out. Whenever I get a bout of being anti-women it’s a sign that a little crack has appeared on the smooth surface of my (nowadays) successful celibate life. So what’s caused this current crack and how long has it been going on? The strange thing is that although it’s only today that I’ve become sufficiently aware of it to record the malaise here in my journal, I’ve got a feeling it’s been around for at least a couple of weeks. Maybe longer. But I’ve been repressing it.

Nasty. All the worst things get repressed. Damn it, what can be going on? Do I deep down want to seduce Cynthia and kill Wood-bridge? No. Cynthia’s not my type, not bitchy enough. Well, not bitchy at all. But she is, after all, looking ravishing at the moment, and she is, after all, female … Ye gods, I’m right, this is a sex problem, ****** hell! (Mustn’t compound the problem by sinking into blasphemy, even though nearly everyone’s forgotten nowadays that “bloody” means “by Our Lady”—but I remember, so … Stop, I’m rambling—which is possibly a sign of premature senility—but on second thoughts the senility wouldn’t be premature.
Hell!
I hate old age. Incidentally, should I revise my current practice and classify “hell” as a blasphemy? No. Not in 1988. I shall go on allowing myself to write “hell” here when under stress.)

Now, where have I got to? I’ve worked out that I have a sex problem of some description, which is bad news as, for starters, my spiritual director’s no good on sex questions. Maybe I should sack him. Maybe I should book myself into the London Clinic and order a castration. Maybe I should simply drop dead. But I’m never going to remarry, never, never, never. I’ve always said I’d never remarry while Diana’s still alive—and what a great excuse that’s given me to avoid a new commitment, but I really do believe, as an Anglo-Catholic, that a divorced priest shouldn’t remarry.

Or do I?

Oh, hell, hell, hell, hell,
hell
 …

Tuesday, 16th August, 1988
: Cynthia phoned to say she’d told Wood-bridge about her call to give us the house. He replied that she was the most wonderful woman in the world and she could give all Belgravia to the Healing Centre as far as he was concerned—he’d love her whatever she did. So he’s off his rocker too.
Folie à deux.
Amazing.

Cynthia gives me permission to tell Nicholas, and Nicholas, of course, thinks I’m the one who’s off his rocker while Cynthia and Woodbridge are sanity personified. “What’s the problem?” he says. “We need a cook-housekeeper. Cynthia knows we need a cook-housekeeper. She wants to give us some money so that we can get a cook-housekeeper. It all seems very straightforward to me, so why the gloom?”

It’s strange how Nicholas, who’s a clever, able and extremely gifted man in some ways, can sometimes be as blind as a bat and as dumb
as a donkey. “Wake up!” I snap. “I’ve been that woman’s spiritual director for three years and you’ve been her friend for far longer. If things don’t work out for her in future she could turn around, accuse us of undue influence and say we’ve swindled her out of half a million pounds!”

Nicholas just scoffs: “Don’t be so ridiculous! If you weren’t so hung up on women you’d never imagine that Cynthia would do such a thing!”—at which point I tramp out, banging the door. Ten minutes later I trudge back to say sorry. “That’s okay,” says Nicholas, barely looking up from the letter he’s writing. “I suppose your hip’s bad again today.”

“Sod the hip!” I yell, and tramp out again. This time he follows me. We sit in my room. I again apologise. He says: “What’s really bugging you here?” And I answer: “Don’t know. Mystery.”

We sit in silence for a moment. Eventually he asks: “It’s not Cynthia, is it?” and we discuss this possibility, but he winds up agreeing with me that I’m not scratchy because I’m subconsciously jealous of Woodbridge. “You’d never have made a success of counselling her,” says Nicholas, “unless you’d faced up to any questionable feelings right at the outset.” That’s true. I still feel that because of my hang-ups I’m not the best priest to counsel women, but sometimes people are put across one’s path and it turns out that one can, after all, be of use. I could always empathise with Cynthia strongly because she had an alcoholic spouse, and the empathy enabled me to give her the help she needed.

Once Nicholas concedes that I’ve no desire to bed Cynthia and kill her fiancé he says: “Of course I realise we have to be on our guard when rich women give us money, but I honestly don’t think we’re running a risk in accepting this particular donation.”

I say: “All right, maybe the worldly risk is zero, but there’s still the spiritual risk. We’ve got to be sure that this gift is acceptable in the eyes of God and compatible with Cynthia’s spiritual journey.”

Nicholas says: “Sure. Uh-huh. We must pray about that.” Nicholas sounds much too glib sometimes. I know he’s already made up his mind that the gift is God’s will and should be accepted PDQ.

Well, maybe he’s right. But what I want to know is: if my relationship with Cynthia is everything it should be (and it is), why should (a) her marriage and (b) her donation be stirring up the mud at the bottom of my unconscious mind and making me write about a crack appearing in my (nowadays) successful celibate life?

COMMENT
: The simplest explanation, which is apparent in the above entry, is that Cynthia and Woodbridge are triggering memories of my sex-life with Diana. But then how do I explain my hunch that this new outbreak of anti-women fever seems to have been contracted well before Cynthia announced her engagement? The engagement may well have brought the malaise to consciousness by making me think about sex, but I’d bet heavy money the malaise didn’t originate there.

Another explanation: could this be the veiled expression of a psychic twinge, an ESP-type feeling that danger’s lurking ahead? (I might be projecting the unknown danger onto women by demonising them.) No, the only thing twingeing is my damn hip, and anyway in the ministry of healing, danger’s always lurking ahead, that’s normal. One false step and then the Devil whooshes everything down the drain in double-quick time—and that’s exactly why one has to know oneself through and through and why one has to keep facing the unvarnished truth in order to understand what’s going on; the more you know, the less likely you are to make a mistake and get whooshed.

I still enjoy the danger of this ministry, of course, still thrive on it. I’ll never forget how I nearly died of boredom when I was married and working in an ordinary parish … Hell, there I go again, thinking about Diana, thinking about marriage, thinking about sex! How ironic it is now to reflect that when I was young I believed a man past sixty would have no interest in copulation whatsoever …

Wednesday, 17th August, 1988
: Nicholas says after the morning mass as we return to the Rectory: “I’ve had a brilliant idea.” This could be true, so I look interested. Nicholas does indeed have some brilliant ideas—alongside all the ideas that are as nutty as a fruitcake. It’s always my job to help him discern which is which.

He says brightly: “I spoke to Cynthia last night. She said she was going public with the news of her engagement today, starting with Alice and the cleaner, and as soon as she mentioned Alice I saw a really spectacular opportunity for us. I’ve thought about it again this morning and I’ve prayed about it, and I’m now one hundred per cent convinced—”

He wants to hire Alice Fletcher as the cook-housekeeper. It’s one of his nutty-as-a-fruitcake ideas. Any female employed in this capacity has to be not merely an old crone but also a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian.

I say calmly, reasonably, soothingly: “No, Nicholas. Not Alice. No.”

“But after Cynthia’s lunch-party you came back raving about Alice’s cooking!” He’s honestly baffled by my reaction. I’m getting worried about these moments when Nicholas is blind as a bat (with arrogance, in the mistaken belief there’s no situation he can’t handle) and dumb as a donkey (with the brains-on-ice complacency which results from overconfidence). Is it my imagination or are these moments increasing?

“Nicholas!” I bark. “Wake up! That girl’s heterosexual, a virgin and all set to become infatuated with you—if indeed she isn’t infatuated with you already! You can’t possibly share a house with her!”