Authors: Susan Howatch
I had no interest in watching a church service of any kind, least of
all something so peculiar as a healing service, but since she was being friendly I didn’t like to be impolite. I followed her as she eased her way through the throng to the side of the church, and when I stood at last behind one of the wheelchairs I took care to whisper my thanks, but she was already on her way to attend to the other late arrivals. Turning back towards the altar I began to absorb the sight which met my eyes.
The interior of the church was so unlike the usual Wren design in which the stalls face each other across a wide central aisle that I was sure the space had recently been rearranged. The wide central aisle now dissected a semi-circle of chairs, set in curving rows and catering for a much larger congregation than Wren would have envisaged. The distant altar looked as if it might date from a previous century, but both pulpit and lectern were modern, carved in the same pale wood as the chairs. The windows were clear; I supposed that the Blitz had blown out the old stained glass. The walls were a creamy white, nonclinical, almost luminous, and the panelling which rose some twelve feet from the floor was sumptuously dark in contrast. All the brass memorial tablets gleamed. Despite the greyness of the day there was an overwhelming impression of light, and despite the presence of so many people there remained also an overwhelming impression of space. With extreme reluctance I had to admit to myself that I was intrigued.
Beyond the lectern and seated facing the congregation were two clergymen, one silver-haired, one red-headed, but my glance travelled over them without stopping because I had finally become aware that someone was saying, in a pleasant, casual voice devoid of histrionics, exactly what that utterly silent, utterly fascinated audience wanted to hear.
I looked into the pulpit and saw Nicholas Darrow.
II
Anyone
who thinks I’m now about to describe some rip-roaring 1980s version of testosterone on two legs is going to be disappointed. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks the clergymen of the Church of England are all wet wimps in frocks is now going to be very surprised indeed. I myself was amazed. I had no time for clergymen (what had the clergy ever done for me? Zilch!) and had long
since decided they were all damp-palmed hypocrites, so I was hardly expecting the pulpit to house an ecclesiastical version of a film star, but nonetheless the moment I saw Nicholas Darrow I felt my stomach churn in a way which reminded me of everything I’d always wanted but never come within a million miles of having.
As he stood in the pulpit it was hard to judge his height, but he was certainly no dwarf. The cut of his cassock was hidden by a surplice so it was also hard to judge his build, but I sensed he was well proportioned, slim without being slender. I was too far away to see the age-lines on his face, but I guessed him to be somewhere in his forties; he had an air of confidence, an aura of natural authority which people usually only acquire in mid-life. His unremarkable brown hair was short, straight and neat. His pale eyes I assumed were either blue or green. His skin was stretched tautly over his prominent cheekbones and the tough line of his jaw. There was no way he could have been described as classically handsome—and yet no way he could have been written off as unattractive. As he continued to talk with such low-key, easy grace, I found I was particularly noticing his elegant hands as they rested lightly on the curving edge of the carved wood.
There was a crucifix on the wall behind him and he was talking about Jesus Christ—well, he would, wouldn’t he?—but I couldn’t focus on what he was saying because I didn’t really want to hear it. I had no time for all that Bible rubbish, couldn’t understand it, didn’t need it. What I needed was money, loads of it, enough to pay for masses of nurses for Aunt and masses of sessions at a health-farm for me (or could one lose four stone instantly by just having liposuction at an upmarket clinic?), and once I was slim I’d want a stunning house in Chelsea with a beautiful kitchen and a lavish bedroom with yards of wardrobes which contained oodles of designer outfits in size ten—well, twelve, one had to be realistic—and I’d want a gorgeous Mercedes in the garage and a handsome husband who loved me and four stunning children—not necessarily in that order, of course—and oh yes, an elegant cat, very furry, who would travel with us in a custom-made basket from our home in Chelsea to our country house in Gloucestershire which, inevitably, would be just a stone’s throw from the rural retreats of the Royals …
I had just realised with self-loathing that I was knee-deep in the most pathetic romantic dream, quite unsuitable for any woman of thirty-two who had no choice but to be a hard-bitten realist, when
the sermon—homily—chat—whatever it was—ended and I became aware that Francie, the welcomer, was once more by my side. I whispered to her: “Who was that clergyman?” and she whispered back with pride: “That’s our Rector, Nicholas Darrow.”
As Darrow left the pulpit one of the other clergymen, not the young redhead but the silver-haired veteran, limped to the lectern and began to read, but I mentally disconnected myself again. I was thinking how beautifully the Rector moved, as beautifully as the actors I had seen on the West End stage in the old days when I was a schoolgirl and Aunt had taken me to see a couple of the Shakespeare plays. But perhaps that wasn’t a flattering comparison. No respectable clergyman would relish being compared with an actor, but nevertheless … I was still meditating on Nicholas Darrow’s mesmerising stagecraft when the reading ended and Francie murmured: “Do you want to go up?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you want to receive the laying-on of hands?”
“Whose hands? You mean … are you saying he touches people?”
“All three priests do. It’s all right, it’s absolutely above board, there’s a long Christian tradition of—”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m not sick. I’m fine.”
To my relief she made no attempt to argue but instead gave me her warm smile and turned her attention to the occupants of the wheelchairs nearby. I was still savouring my relief when someone muttered: “Excuse me,” and I found myself being propelled sideways as people edged past me. Having wound up wedged against the wall I found myself next to a notice-board covered with requests for prayer. “Please pray for Dad who has cancer …” “Please pray for Jim who has AIDS …” “Please pray for Sharon, last seen two months ago …” “Please pray for the family of Jill who died last week …”
A voice in my head suddenly said: “Please pray for Aunt who’s dying by inches,” but I blotted out the sentence in shame. I didn’t believe in prayer (what had prayer ever done for me? Zilch!) and I hated all that sort of thing and I particularly hated what was now going on in this church—I didn’t know why I hated it so violently but I did hate it, I hated everyone and everything—in fact such was my uncovered rage, the rage I always repressed so efficiently that I had hardly been aware of it, that I wanted to grab a machine-gun and mow down everyone in sight—except that attractive man, of course—but no, why should I spare him? I hated all attractive men;
in fact at that moment I felt I hated all men, attractive or otherwise, because none of them had ever displayed the remotest interest in me. So why shouldn’t I want to mow them all down? And after I’d done the mowing I’d shoot myself too because life was so vile, so awful, so hellish, and even when Aunt died I’d still have no hope of happiness because there’d be no money and no one would want to employ me and—
Somebody asked me if I was all right.
“Absolutely fine,” I said. “No problems whatsoever.”
The organ began to play quietly, and through my tears I saw for the first time how diverse the congregation was. In addition to the men in city suits there were young mothers with children, wrinkled old ladies, smart girls from the offices, women in fashionable clothes from some expensive patch of the West End. I also noted several camera-toting tourists, far off the beaten track, and even a yuppie with a bottle of champagne tucked under his arm as if he, like me, had been diverted on the way to lunch. The majority of these people remained onlookers, some obviously admiring, some more reticent, but all unable to tear themselves away as the minority made their way slowly up towards the altar. The woman in the second wheelchair was a stroke-victim like Aunt, and one side of her face was paralysed. I watched her with a growing incredulity. What did she think was going to happen? Did she imagine she was going to jump out of her chair and walk? I felt outraged. I also decided that this was the most embarrassing scene I had ever witnessed and that I wanted above all to leave.
Yet I stayed. I found I had to go on watching Nicholas Darrow, so calm, so grave, so dignified as he went about his mysterious work. He was placing his slim, long-fingered hands on the heads of those who knelt at the altar-rail, his face tense with concentration, his whole body exuding an integrity which I instantly recognised and which somehow, by some mysterious force, pinned me in position. I could always have walked out on a charlatan. But I couldn’t turn my back with contempt on someone honest.
My eyes filled with tears again and this time I started to weep. Immediately I was horrified by my lack of self-control. What would Aunt have said in the days when she could still speak? She had taught me that to show emotion in public was disgraceful.
The image of Aunt suddenly filled my mind. What had Aunt ever done for me, a stranger might have asked, and the one answer I could
never have given was: “Zilch.” Aunt had taken me in and brought me up—my great-aunt she was, the aunt of my foul mother who hadn’t wanted me—God, what a disaster my early life had been, but Aunt had intervened, spinster Aunt, once a hatchet-faced teacher in a grammar school, no one special, just another bossy old bag who could be both beastly and boring, but this particular bossy old bag had been there when she was needed and now
I
had to be there for her, just as she’d been there for me. Well, that was only fair, wasn’t it? I owed it to her. It was a matter of principle. I mean, one has to have one’s principles, doesn’t one, and even though I wasn’t bright enough to make a success of my education and even though I was so plug-ugly that I had to have baths in the dark (how I
hated
all that flab) and even though I was such a failure as a woman, unable to get married or even to lose my virginity—
even though
all these ghastly facts were true, I wasn’t entirely a write-off because I was trying, trying, trying to ensure she died with dignity in her own home. Yet I was beginning to hate her for taking so long to die. I knew I was. But that was because I was so done in through lack of sleep. Or was it? Maybe I was just afraid that in the end the money would run out and she’d wind up on the geriatric ward and then all my slogging would have been for nothing. Oh God, what a mess my life was, but there was no point in saying “oh God” like that as if calling on him would change matters. The situation could only change for the worse, and what had God ever done for me anyway?
Zilch.
I told myself I had to leave before I started to scream in despair, but before I could move a muscle I saw Nicholas Darrow touch the grey, bowed head of the stroke-victim in her wheelchair. The voice in my head instantly cried: “Oh, let her get up and walk!” But of course she didn’t and of course I’d been crazy to imagine such a thing was possible. The poor woman was quite unchanged—or so I thought, but when the wheelchair was steered back down the aisle I saw she was very, very far from being unchanged. Her dark eyes were luminous with joy and her lopsided ugly old face was radiant. With her twisted mouth she had managed to smile.
I thought: bloody hell! And the next moment tears were not merely flowing but flooding down my cheeks. Then suddenly Francie was at my side again, the unknown friend providing comfort in an alien landscape, and I felt a bunch of Kleenex tissues being stuffed into my shaking hand.
At that point I lost track of the service for a while; all I could do
was reduce the tissues to a soggy wodge and say silently to myself over and over again in despair: oh, shit! Francie asked if I wanted to sit down and I shook my head, but I knew this wasn’t the wisest response. The world had become chaotic, devastating. I felt as if something had split the outer shell of my mind and revealed unspeakable horrors lurking in the primitive darkness below.
At last I realised the service was ending. A hymn was being sung. That reminded me of my schooldays when we had sung hymns at morning assembly, and that memory in turn reminded me again of Aunt, spending her money without complaint to send me to a little private school in Kensington.
The hymn finished. Wiping away my last tear I heard the silver-haired clergyman announce that counselling was available to anyone who wanted it; those in need could approach either the “priests” (how Aunt would have hated the use of that Romish word!) or the “Befrienders,” who wore St. Benet’s badges and would refer each person to the right qualified helper. At once I glanced around for Francie but she was busy with someone else. What a relief! By that time I wanted only to slip away and lose myself in the City’s lunch-time crowds.
The silver-haired clergyman stopped speaking. Nicholas Darrow pronounced a blessing. The organ began to play again, and the next moment I realised that the clergy were processing down the central aisle to the back of the church in order to mingle with the departing congregation. I shrank back against the wall. Of course I had no intention of speaking to him; my pride absolutely forbade me to make such a pathetic exhibition of myself, and besides, I could never have drummed up enough courage. (Supposing he were to look at me and flinch with revulsion?) But at least I could stay in the background and watch.
The music from the organ was being drowned by the rising tide of conversation, and by this time Nicholas Darrow had halted by the door which led into the porch. Effortlessly he shook hands, effortlessly he smiled, effortlessly he found the right words for everyone. “Drink a toast to St. Benet’s when you uncork that bottle!” I heard him say amused to the yuppie clutching the champagne, and then a second later he was talking to a young mother about the problems of her council estate in Tower Hamlets.