Authors: Susan Howatch
Nicholas halts at the foot of the steps leading up to the Rectory’s front door and looks at me as if I ought to return to Barwick—as a patient. “Your trouble,” he says, “is that where women are concerned you can’t tell a diamond from cut-glass! This is Alice we’re talking about—
Alice!
Isn’t it patently obvious by now that she’s quite different from all the groupies we have to deal with?”
“I’m fully prepared to admit she’s a nice, well-behaved child with a talent for cooking, but—”
“She’s thirty-two!”
“All right, she’s not a child, she’s a woman, but how mature is she? Isn’t she in fact exactly the kind of emotionally needy girl, starved of affection and in consequence living on romantic dreams, who would fall in the biggest possible way for a charismatic, cassock-clad—”
“Look, forget all that for a moment and just try to look beyond your preconceived notions to the unusual pattern she’s woven during the last few months. Alice has been put across our path. She keeps recurring in our lives, even though she’s always been most reluctant to ask for help, and our meetings with her have established that (a) she’s a woman of the greatest integrity, (b) she’s sensible and level-headed in a crisis and (c) she’s a first-class cook. Adding all these facts together, isn’t it obvious that she’s (a) the ideal woman to have a live-in job at the Rectory, (b) the only woman we know whom we’d trust to have a live-in job at the Rectory, and therefore (c) the perfect candidate for the position of cook-housekeeper?”
“Could you kindly stop a-ing and b-ing and c-ing me and get a move on into the house? I want my breakfast before I faint from lack of nourishment!”
“But seriously, Lewis—”
“You’re deliberately foisting this nutty idea on me when I’m too peckish to think clearly!”
“—seriously, I’m sure this is right—and I’m not just thinking of ourselves now; I’m thinking of Alice. She’s got enormous potential but her development’s been stunted by the rejecting parents, the aunt who couldn’t handle emotion and the weight problem which has made her socially isolated. What Alice needs now in order to realise her potential is a place in a community where she can feel valued and respected. Then she’d soon make progress, build a fulfilling new life for herself, conquer her eating disorder—”
“I’m all for Alice doing those things,” I say, hauling myself up the six steps to the front door and wishing human beings had evolved with rubber hips impervious to arthritis, “but I don’t think she should do them while living under your roof at the Rectory.”
But Nicholas is as unstoppable as a tank. He gets this way occasionally when he kids himself his psychic gifts have served up some kind of special knowledge amounting to divine revelation. Although I taught him long ago to be humble when trying to discern God’s will he’s still capable of going over the top into sham-guru-land if he falls in love with a peculiarly dubious idea. That’s yet another reason why I’m so valuable to him. I don’t merely tell him when the ideas are unworkable; I also take him down a peg or two when he gets inflated. My function is always to present the unvarnished truth. But I’m having a hard time scraping off the varnish this morning.
“I know I’m right!” he says grandly. “You’re being sex-obsessed as usual!” And sweeping past me into the house he surges towards the kitchen without a backwards glance.
I reach the top step, puff a bit to get a grip on the pain and then limp along after him to resume the battle.
When I reach the kitchen I find that Stacy, who’s hurried on ahead of us to cook the breakfast, is making a diabolical mess scrambling eggs and frying bacon. Smoke’s rising from the toaster and the coffee percolator’s behaving as if it wants to lay an egg. If ever three men needed an efficient housekeeper, it’s us.
“If you could forget about sex for a moment,” says Nicholas, going on the offensive again as he switches off the toaster, cuffs the percolator and takes control of the eggs and bacon, “you’d see straight away that Alice is ideal.”
I reply in my clearest voice: “It’s no good. Within twenty-four hours she’d be worshipping you as a hero.”
“ ‘No man’s a hero to his valet!’ ” quotes Nicholas amused, and he even has the nerve to add: “I can think of no better way to prevent Alice hero-worshipping me than to invite her to live at the Rectory and see just how ordinary I really am.”
“You? Ordinary?” remarks Stacy, pausing in his efforts to dig charred cinders from the toaster. “Don’t make me laugh! But what’s all this about Alice coming to live here? Sounds like a brilliant idea—she makes the best chocolate-chip cookies in the world!”
Hopeless.
I’m so cross by this time that I pile my plate high, grab a mug of coffee and march off to eat in my room. Sitting under the crucifix I gloomily picture the Devil, coasting around, sensing the possibility of an interesting
divertissement
and moving in for a closer look …
COMMENT
: I overreacted. Certainly I deserved Nicholas’s affectionate reproof: “You silly, cantankerous old bugger!” when he came to make peace ten minutes later, but although I do give up and consent to his scheme to employ Alice, I still feel I’m right about the danger she represents. (Or am I? Is it possible that in my own way I’m being just as arrogant as Nicholas? Worse still, could I be projecting my arrogance onto Nicholas because I can’t bear to acknowledge it in myself? Triple-hell!)
But no, once I calm down and start thinking rationally I still believe, in all honesty, that employing Alice is a risk which shouldn’t be taken. Can I perhaps rely on Rosalind to side with me and tell Nicholas that a heterosexual virgin isn’t the best type of housekeeper to choose for a man who regularly induces pie-eyed adoration in vulnerable females? No. All Rosalind’s going to care about is that Alice, who’s at least three stone overweight and in consequence looks like the back end of a bus, is going to be of no sexual interest to Nicholas whatsoever. Or at least I assume that’s the only angle which would interest Rosalind, but who knows what goes on in that particular lady’s head? I hate that sort of bland blonde who behaves all the time as if she’s auditioning for the role of ice-queen at the panto. It wouldn’t surprise me if beneath all that permafrost she—
No, stop right there. I’m at it again, being anti-women and thinking of sex. What is going on in the cesspit of my unconscious mind? Well, I certainly don’t want to go to bed with Rosalind.
It’s time to thrash out this problem with my spiritual director.
Friday, 19th August, 1988
: I’m going to have to sack my spiritual director. Simon’s very good on prayer and he certainly helped me through that dry spell last autumn; he likes all the devotional classics I like; he understands how hard I work to master my hang-ups and he’s even tolerant when I get turgid and ramble on about Great-Uncle Cuthbert. But he’s no good on sex. Damn it, he thinks I subconsciously want to go to bed with
Alice
and that this is why I’m lathering myself into such a sweat about employing her! I say coolly (can’t afford to be furious or he’ll think he’s hit the mark): “Thanks, but middle-class virgins have never been up my street.” He then sinks to levels of unprecedented idiocy by commenting: “Maybe they should have been.”
Hopeless! I want to hit him. Great-Uncle Cuthbert probably would have done—he always liked biffing people, but of course he lived in a more robust age when biffed people didn’t automatically scream: “Sadist!” and run to the nearest social worker. What would Great-Uncle Cuthbert have thought of this latest spiritual direction fiasco of mine? In a way it’s all his fault; I’m forever sacking spiritual directors because they never understand me as well as he did. Funny, cantankerous old bastard! I wonder what
he
really thought about sex beneath all his standard preaching on the subject …
Damn it, there I go, harping on sex again! Why can’t I get my act together?
Having slouched home in deep gloom I confide in Nicholas. He give me one of those limpid, thoughtful looks of his and says: “Maybe the time’s finally come when you should consider seeing a woman spiritual director.”
I shout: “I’m not talking about my sex-life to any damned woman!” but as soon as the words are out of my mouth I know I’m up to my neck in hang-ups and I’m so furious that I bawl out: “Fucking hell!” and bucket back to my room at top speed. Disgusting! What
am
I going to do with myself? I’m in despair.
Nicholas arrives. He puts his arm around me for a second, then sits down at my side and waits. This is where Nicholas is so gifted. He can communicate an immense amount just by being there—concern, support, empathy, fellowship, fraternal solidarity—everything. I’m so lucky to have Nicholas in my life. I don’t care any more about not having a son. I probably wouldn’t have got on with a son anyway, and he couldn’t possibly have done more for me than Nicholas has.
Nicholas stands by me when I’m in a mess, looks after me when I’m lost, forgives me whenever I’ve been thoroughly stupid. I’m luckier than any grumpy old codger has a right to be.
“It’s my hip,” I say at last. “It’s bad today.”
He doesn’t tell me to get it replaced. He just nods and waits.
“Okay,” I say, “it’s not my hip. I’m still very bothered by my new outbreak of anti-women fever, particularly as I can’t identify the incident that triggered it. It definitely wasn’t Cynthia’s engagement, and no matter what Simon may think, it’s got nothing to do with Alice either—although I do admit I’m still worried about importing her to the Rectory—”
“Okay, stop right there and let’s just take another look at this particular anxiety of yours. If Simon’s facile psychological explanation is wrong, what exactly is it about Alice that makes you so anxious?”
Encouraged by this critical comment on Simon’s diagnosis I say at once: “I’m sure she’ll quickly become much too bound up with you—and then all the pent-up emotion emanating from her will swirl around on the psychic level and infect the atmosphere. Alice is a splendid young woman, just as admirable as you say she is, but if her feelings for you aren’t dead neutral the Devil could use her as a Trojan horse to slither into St. Benet’s and destroy your ministry.”
“That’s true.” Nicholas is keen to signal that he’s taking my objection very seriously now. He doesn’t bat an eyelid at my old-fashioned religious language which I always feel expresses reality so much more effectively than that namby-pamby, mealy-mouthed psycho-babble which is so popular with liberal churchmen nowadays. He pauses for a moment to let me absorb how seriously he’s behaving. Then he says very reasonably: “But do you think I hadn’t thought of that? Look, if I find she can’t handle the situation I’ll ease her into another job—for her own good as well as ours. And we’ll know soon enough if things don’t work out.”
I start to feel better. In fact I feel so much better that I’m even able to say: “But if Alice has nothing to do with my latest outbreak of anti-women fever, what is it that’s triggered the relapse?”
“Did Simon voice any other theories?”
“No, he’s hopeless about sex, clueless, pathetic—no use at all.”
“But presumably you’ve talked to him about sex before.”
“Yes, but during the two years he’s been my spiritual director I’ve been on an even keel so I’ve never had to put him to the test.”
“In that case, are you sure you’re right that he’s inadequate? It
seems odd that an experienced spiritual director should be useless in such a very vital area—okay, I know he’s eighty and a bachelor, but—”
“Believe me, Nicholas—”
“—he’s useless. Right. I get the message.” Nicholas ponders on this. I sense he wants to take a risk and try to help me unravel myself an inch or two, but he’s on tricky ground because we both know we’re too close to counsel each other; Nicholas is well aware that he mustn’t usurp the role played by my spiritual director, but he’s still very tempted now to try a filial—or rather, fraternal—probe into my soul. Nicholas always thinks of me as a brother, not as a father. I like that. It keeps me in my place and checks any urge I may have to behave like a sentimental old man who’s never fathered a son. Great-Uncle Cuthbert got sentimental about me in the end, and it didn’t do. All those lectures about how I should follow in his footsteps and be a monk! No wonder I rushed out and married the first girl I groped in an air-raid shelter.
“Maybe we ought to approach this mystery from a completely different angle,” says Nicholas cautiously at last. “When were you last conscious of saying to yourself: ‘I refuse to get my hip replaced’?”
“You’re off your rocker!” I snarl. But I know he’s not. Feebly I bluster: “I’m not talking about my damned hip!”
“Okay. But has Simon ever asked you about it?”
“What’s there to ask?” I say, trying to calm down and present a nonchalant response. “The hip’s a nuisance, but I’m not having it replaced. Hospitals are where you pick up an infection and come out in a box.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Oh, sod off!” I say—very ungratefully, but I’m rattled. This is because my reason for keeping the hip is so pathetic for a Christian priest, so devoid of trust in God, that I’m thoroughly ashamed of it. “It’s no one’s business but mine!”
“Okay,” says Nicholas equably again, “but I don’t like to see you in pain and I don’t like to see you being distracted from your work by a curable medical condition, and I’ve got a hunch—”
“I bet. You’re a great one for hunches, some of them nutty as a fruitcake—”
“—and some of them spot on target! Can’t you even bring yourself to tell me when you last said to yourself: ‘I refuse to replace my hip’?”
“I’ve no memory of saying that to myself recently.”
“Not even five—or six—weeks ago?”
I stare at him. He gazes back blandly, disclosing nothing.
“Well, maybe I said it to myself after Cynthia’s lunch-party,” I say crossly, “but so what? That doesn’t connect up with my malaise. We’ve already established I don’t want to bed Cynthia.”
“I must be on the wrong track then, mustn’t I?” says Nicholas vaguely, and leaving me feeling more baffled than ever he slips out of my room into the hall.