Authors: Susan Howatch
But at least she’s diverted me from all thought of Venetia.
COMMENT
: I must apologise to Val and explain that when I said homosexuality was an affliction I didn’t mean it was something like leprosy or syphilis. I meant it was more like dyslexia or tennis elbow—nothing noxious but just a condition which means certain rewarding experiences have to be ruled out. After all, marriage and parenthood do represent rewarding dimensions of being human. Not to be able to experience them must be—no, all right, perhaps “affliction”
is
the wrong word. Perhaps “deprivation” would convey the truth better—or would that needle Val to new heights of wrath? I’m sure she’d never concede she was in any way deprived. People embrace relativism when the truth is too tough and painful for them to face, I see that clearly now. So the answer is not to bang away to them about truth but to try to meet them where they are, and—
Dear God, how difficult it all is! But please grant this irascible old servant of yours tolerance, patience, insight and wisdom when dealing with homosexuals.
And don’t let me get in a heterosexual mess with Venetia the moment I start gasping for light relief after these turgid conversations with Val. Amen.
Friday, 16th September, 1988
: It’s Venetia Day. She comes to the Centre for her first real session (as opposed to last week’s trial session) with Robin.
By a most carefully engineered manoeuvre I’m lurking by the coffee machine in the reception area when she emerges from consulting room three. I offer her a cup of coffee. She says sourly that this is “sweet” of me but she has to rush off to lunch at Claridge’s.
So much for that. Serves me right. I don’t know what I thought I was doing anyway, lurking around like a raincoated flasher on the prowl.
I go back to the Rectory for lunch and find Stacy chasing a mouse around the kitchen with a frying-pan. Bad news. The mouse escapes but Stacy breaks the frying-pan. More bad news. He then says can I persuade Nicholas to take him along on the next exorcism. I say: “You’re not ready yet, Stacy,” and he starts to whine why not. Impudent young whippersnapper! I growl: “Take it up with Nicholas,” and retreat to my bedsit with a cheese sandwich and a bottle of Perrier water.
Rosalind may think her husband’s soft on lame ducks, but Nicholas is very tough indeed when it comes to questions of spiritual fitness. He won’t let Stacy participate in an exorcism unless he has much more evidence that Stacy’s taking his daily spiritual exercises seriously. But Stacy’s not interested in the essential groundwork. He just wants to be out and about playing Laurence Olivier at the altar, “relating” to people at the Centre and jousting glitzily with the Devil every now and then, but he’s got to be made to understand that without the underpinning of a devout life he’ll merely become—at best—yet another ineffectual “carer” in a cassock or—at worst—a wonder worker, boosting his ego by playing God.
I feel more convinced than ever that Stacy’s going to be one of our failures, and I don’t think Nicholas has taken the right line at all on the clouded subject of Stacy’s sexual orientation.
COMMENT
: I should worry about my own sex-life instead of worrying about Stacy’s. After much prayer and endless cogitation (utterly unhelped, of course, by my spiritual director’s alarmed whinnyings) I still feel I’m called to celibacy. I really can’t go marrying again at my age. Rachel would be horrified. Charley would think it indecent. The grandchildren would be embarrassed.
The Venetia fixation is just a piece of senile soppiness.
I shall now forget her.
Friday, 23rd September, 1988
: As soon as I open my eyes I think: Venetia Day. But that fact is now of no interest to me whatsoever.
However
, by chance—and I really do mean
by chance
—I emerge from helping Megan with the music therapy session and I’m just heading for the coffee machine when Venetia staggers out of Robin’s
room and exclaims: “Thank God—coffee! Have you got a needle so that I can inject it straight into the vein?” And it turns out she’s had an exhausting fifty minutes. I give her some coffee but before I can invite her into my own room she says: “Thanks,” and zips off, complete with steaming Styrofoam cup, and I’m left feeling like an untipped waiter.
Nevertheless it seems that at last the awkward hostility has faded away and we’ve established some sort of
entente cordiale.
Naturally the relationship won’t develop further, but I’m glad I’m no longer treated as a form of low-life normally resident under a stone.
Focusing with determination on other matters I manage to talk to Nicholas about Stacy, but Nicholas refuses to share my pessimism.
“Obviously Stacy needs to do more work in a number of areas,” he says, “but I still think he’s got great potential. He’s warm-hearted, good-natured, capable of empathising with clients and caring conscientiously for them—”
“You’re describing a potentially gifted social worker,” I say acidly, “but social workers aren’t priests. If he can’t or won’t do the basic spadework to ensure his spiritual health, how’s he going to survive in the ministry of healing?”
“But he’s making progress! Now that he’s sorted out his sexuality-”
“
Sorted out?
”
“Okay, you think he’s gay and won’t admit it. If that were true I’d agree he had a problem, but—”
“But he
is
gay and he
has
admitted it!”
“You’re being far too influenced by that one homosexual relationship. I agree that created great confusion for him, but the seduction of a teenager by an older man doesn’t necessarily mean the boy won’t grow up heterosexual, and since Stacy assures me he hasn’t the slightest desire to be gay—”
“He seems to be very unsuccessful at finding a steady girlfriend.”
“All that proves is that like a lot of immature men he’s shy with girls. Is there the remotest hint that he likes to hang around with gays?
“Well, since you ask, I didn’t like the way the Communion wine salesman was eyeing him the other day.”
“That’s the salesman’s problem but it needn’t be Stacy’s. Was there any sign that Stacy wasn’t just being his normal warm-hearted self?”
“No. All right, you’ve proved I’m being a sex-obsessed old fool! Let’s forget it.”
“No, no, we won’t do that,” says Nicholas at once, anxious to show me that he’s still capable of keeping his mind prised open an inch on this particular subject. “Obviously we must continue to monitor the situation in case you’re right, Stacy’s deluding himself and I’m up the creek. But I don’t feel I have sufficient grounds to reopen the subject with him at the present time.”
This sounds reasonable enough, but the trouble is I suspect this show of reasonableness is just that: a show. There’s no way that Nicholas, in his heart of hearts, feels he’s up the creek on this one. He’s going through the motions of being open-minded, but his mind’s wedged shut while he surfs along blithely on the big wave called
ARROGANCE
.
I’ll have to return to the fray later and make sure I bring him down a peg or two, but in the meantime it seems there’s nothing I can do about Stacy except learn to live with my anxiety.
COMMENT
: It would certainly be convenient if Stacy were a heterosexual. It would mean we could all sidestep an area which is notoriously strewn with problems. But if he is indeed a homosexual, this wouldn’t be a disaster. I’ve lost count over the years of the number of excellent homosexual priests I’ve met, particularly in the London diocese, but if Stacy’s gay he
must
develop a strong spiritual framework which will sustain him throughout all the inevitable difficulties, or else he’ll wind up a disaster for the Church.
To be fair, this dictum also applies to heterosexuals. I of all people should bear in mind that a poorly integrated heterosexuality can also cause havoc for the Church. But even Val wouldn’t deny that society makes life more difficult for gays, and that’s why they need all the spiritual sustenance they can get.
The truth—the truth which lies beyond all this business of sexual orientation—is that Stacy’s got to grow up before he can be an effective priest. Whether he’s gay or straight isn’t the primary problem at the moment; the problem is his chronic immaturity. He’s got to find out who he is and accept himself, warts and all, or how is he going to be of use to those who come to him for pastoral care? A healer must achieve a high degree of integration and self-knowledge before trying to work among divided, damaged souls; if he doesn’t, he’ll unwittingly project all the unassimilated aspects of his personality onto those vulnerable people with disastrous results.
I must pray hard that Stacy be led into the truth, no matter how difficult that truth may be to accept, and be given the grace, to face
it, own it and integrate it into his personality; I must pray that somehow Nicholas and I can help him reach this long-delayed but absolutely essential maturity, and go on to serve God as well as he possibly can …
Saturday, 24th September, 1988
: Cynthia gets married, quietly but smartly, at St. Peter’s Eaton Square. What a refreshing change it is to attend the wedding of a middle-aged couple where neither party is divorced! (Woodbridge’s wife died at around the same time as Cynthia’s husband.) Afterwards there’s a reception at Venetia’s favourite haunt, Claridge’s, but although there’s a multitude of silver buckets oozing ice and Veuve Clicquot, Venetia’s not there. She hasn’t been invited. Fortunately. She’s just joined AA and the last thing she needs to see is a phalanx of champagne bottles.
Little Alice is now on the brink of arriving in Wonderland. Because of the extraordinary state of the property market the sale of the house in Eaton Terrace was agreed with lightning speed and a most inflated price achieved. Alice is moving out on Monday, and Cynthia, generous to the last, is paying for the removal of Alice’s worldly goods to the hell-hole at the Rectory. Nicholas tells me the word “hell-hole” is a misnomer now that the flat’s been repainted, recarpeted, replumbed, rewired and de-moused. I’d like to see this miraculous transformation, but I still can’t face those steep stairs.
I’ve really got to face up to having my hip done soon … when I’ve found a spiritual director who can discuss sex adequately and thus help me solve my current problem … and of course all that may take some time …
COMMENT
: Great-Uncle Cuthbert would have been livid if he’d read that last sentence; he’d have known straight away that I was prevaricating. All right, all right, it’s time to face the unvarnished truth again! The truth is I don’t want a new spiritual director. Apart from the subject of sex, Simon’s good. He’s not perfect, but he’s good.
But is he good enough? No. Not if he’s useless about sex.
I can almost hear Great-Uncle Cuthbert snarling what Nicholas is probably thinking: “If you lack confidence in Simon, you’ll wind up believing you know better than he does—which means you’ll get an inflated opinion of your strengths and severe amnesia on the subject of your weaknesses and the entire relationship will soon be worse than useless. Sack him.”
Yes, Simon will have to go, no question about it.
I must have a blitz on finding a new spiritual director.
The only trouble is I’m very busy at the moment and there are so many distractions …
Monday, 26th September, 1988
: Little Alice arrives, wide-eyed, almost speechless with nerves, but professes herself thrilled with the reformed hell-hole. Alice has nice eyes, I notice for the first time, dark and velvety like the eyes of a golden retriever. I notice because she takes off her glasses for a polish, either because they’ve misted up as the result of her emotion or because she just can’t believe the squalor of the old-fashioned kitchen, looking at its worst after Stacy finally broke the percolator and coffee went all over the wall.
Nicholas tops off his welcome by confessing that although the pest control van has recently called with satisfactory results, a new generation of our little furry friends (as St. Francis would no doubt have called them) will inevitably make future assaults on the Rectory. This is an ongoing struggle for supremacy we’re engaged in here, not just a bunch of humans playing pat-a-cake with the occasional stray rodent.
Nicholas is just turning away after telling her which exterminators we use when Alice enquires shyly: “Isn’t there a cat?”
Nicholas stops. Slowly he revolves, pivoting on the balls of his feet. Then he looks at Alice as he’s never quite looked at her before and says flatly: “Rosalind doesn’t like cats.” He begins to turn away again but before he can complete the pivoting Alice exclaims, trying so hard to be helpful: “Oh, but I’d see that it never went into your flat and I’d keep it out of sight whenever Mrs. Darrow came to visit—and cats are so good at solving mice problems!”
Nicholas swivels back to face her. The balls of his feet are getting plenty of wear and tear today as he tries unsuccessfully to tear himself away from this conversation. The next moment he’s saying respectfully: “Of course you’re remembering Orlando.”
A memory drifts into my mind of a very young Rachel reading a large, illustrated story-book. “Named after the famous marmalade cat, I presume,” I say, deciding to flaunt my skimpy knowledge of children’s literature.
“He was more a gold cat than a marmalade cat,” says Alice, “but he was very beautiful and very bad news for mice. I just loved Orlando.”
Nicholas sighs, and I know he’s thinking of all the cats he loved
before Rosalind decided animals were a bore, leaving hairs all over furniture and planting colonies of fleas on fitted carpets. “We always had tabby-cats,” he says nostalgically, “when I was growing up.”
“How lovely!” exclaims Alice enrapt. “Several at once or one at a time?”
“One at a time.”
The two cat-lovers smile, united by their common passion. Then Nicholas announces with the air of someone making an executive decision: “We’ll have a cat. You must come with me to help choose it.” And with that knock-out exit line he departs for his study.