Authors: Susan Howatch
I was just about to follow her advice when Stacy at last responded to the intercom. He sounded subdued, almost groggy. I wondered if I’d woken him from a nap, but this seemed unlikely. Stacy always had a surfeit of energy.
“Are you all right?” I said sharply.
“Um.”
“Good, but you appear to be suffering from amnesia. Get over to
the church right away and make sure you offer Lewis a grovelling apology later.” Leaving him gasping with dismay I finally tore myself away from Alice’s company and returned to my study where I tried to summon the will to organise my retreat. I got as far as picking up the receiver of my private line to call the headquarters of the Fordite monks, but then apathy overcame me and I couldn’t summon the energy to punch the numbers.
I was still slumped in my swivel-chair, still clutching the receiver, when Lewis, that battle-scarred old torn, sidled in on his crutches to announce that Venetia had returned to London after a reconnaissance trip to Cambridge and wanted to show him her Polaroid pictures of the flat which she was tempted to acquire. He had agreed to meet her for lunch on Saturday at the Dorchester Grill.
“But don’t worry!” he added hastily. “I promise I shall behave
impeccably
!”
I assumed my most courteous expression but offered no comment.
“Booked your retreat yet?”
“I was just about to make the call.”
“Then don’t let me stop you. I assume you’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning and returning on Sunday night?”
“If you’re seeing Venetia on Saturday maybe I should stick around.”
“No, no, no—quite unnecessary! I’ve got myself well in control now, and I’m just glad that I have this opportunity to part from her in a calm civilised way. It was such an upsetting mess when we parted at the Hilton.”
“Uh-huh. Do you plan to rerun this final farewell often?”
“Oh, of course Venetia will eventually find out how impossible I am, but meanwhile … Hold it, I hear that red-headed nitwit thudding downstairs like a stray elephant—” He plunged out of the study to start venting his fury.
I allowed the diatribe to last twenty seconds. Then I followed him into the hall, sent a white-faced, silent Stacy on his way and reminded Lewis that he was supposed to be resting. On my own again I finally summoned the energy to call the Fordites, and having reserved a room in their guest-wing I realised with a sinking heart that I could no longer postpone my next meeting with Rosalind.
I trudged upstairs to the flat.
II
Rosalind
was having a bath. That was a bad sign, indicating she still felt polluted by my behaviour, but I was relieved to have the excuse to postpone the ordeal of facing her. I wandered around trying to decide what to do next and finally concluded it was time to check in again with Venetia, currently my prize client, the horse who had not only consented to approach the water but had been willing to slake her thirst.
“Hi,” I said as she picked up the receiver at her house in Chelsea. “It’s your Talisman.” Venetia often called me that. Accepting the prediction I had made long ago that we were destined to weave in and out of each other’s lives, she claimed that whenever I crossed her path something unusual happened, not necessarily pleasant. The current crossing of our paths, which had lasted since our accidental meeting that summer, had for the first time been truly beneficial, as if all the years I had spent praying for her had finally borne fruit. I’d always known that my task was to pray for her. Since I was several years her junior there’d been no question of romance when I was twenty years old and meeting her for the first time, and I’d known at once that I was merely to be a sign, a marker, a friend of the spirit, a representative of a reality which continued to exist even though she refused to acknowledge it. The call to serve her in this way had been a thankless task over the years as her life had gone from bad to worse, but I’d never given up and now it seemed the big pay-off was at hand.
My relief and joy, mingling with my terror that something might still go wrong, were so acute that I realised how much I’d come to love her. I also realised that the depth and quality of my feelings could explain why the healing was finally happening. Non-possessive, non-demanding and totally focused on her welfare, the love provided an unclogged channel for the creative and redeeming power of the Holy Spirit. All human beings have power to heal one another; it’s part of the mystery of consciousness and personality. But my power to heal Venetia was being jacked up and magnified by the force which was the source of all power, all love and all creativity. In this particular case I’d finally got the alignment with God right—yet still I had to remember that I was utterly dependent on God’s grace; I had to kill any desire to pat myself on the back, because if I fell into that particular trap, the alignment would be lost, the channel would be
clogged and the Devil would slither in at the last moment to block the healing. God Almighty, let nothing block it now! I sweated again at the thought of me or Lewis or both of us making a balls-up, I through pride and he through lust fuelled by his hang-ups. “Keep Venetia safe,” I said feverishly to God, “keep her safe, safe, safe from your all-too-human and pathetically fallible servants …” I suddenly realised Venetia was talking. With an effort I focused on the conversation.
“Nick, how lovely—
divine
to hear you!”
“You okay?”
“Darling, radiant!” Venetia nearly always talked like this. The fact that it was a camp, upper-class patois didn’t mean she was insincere.
“Huh!” I said agreeably but infusing this useful syllable with a faint air of scepticism designed to encourage truthfulness.
“What’s that grunt supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“No, don’t lob the question back at me, you beast!”
“What’s so beastly about it?”
Venetia and I often had these sort of dialogues. Sometimes I thought we sounded like a certain type of married couple, the bickering kind, who masked a deep connectedness by giving vent to frequent bursts of irritability.
“I suppose you’ve been talking to Lewis!”
“Yep. How come he gets to see the Polaroid snaps and I don’t?”
“You can see them later, sweetie-pie, but right now Lewis needs to see them more than you do.”
“Huh!”
“Don’t you want to ask what the hell I’m up to with him?”
“Nope. None of my business.”
“What I can’t bear about men,” said Venetia acidly, “is their high-minded attitude to gossip. It’s so inhuman—any woman would be panting to know all the details!”
“Well, since I’m not about to change sex—”
“Thank God, I can’t bear mutilation. Listen, darling, it’s okay about Lewis, it really is—he’s being absolutely perfect and I adore him.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You swine, is that all you have to say?”
“I was just reflecting how vulnerable Lewis is beneath that buccaneering exterior.”
“He and I are two of a kind,” said Venetia, for one brief moment setting aside the patois and speaking straight from the heart. “We can
be vulnerable together.” Then as my heart sank at this revelation of a shared romantic illusion, the patois was resumed. “How’s the Fair Rosalind?”
I quickly pulled myself together. “Having a bath.”
“Dear Rosalind, always so clean. Well, my pet, much as I adore listening to your cryptic comments and sexy grunts, I’m going to have to love you and leave you now or I’ll never get to the AA meeting on time. Keep praying, please.”
“Take care, Venetia. Remember that you count, you matter, you’re important. Remember that I’m with you every step of the way.”
She told me she adored me and made various kissing noises. I barely heard the stifled sob before she hung up.
I remained motionless, praying. To Christ the Healer I said: “Give Venetia the strength to FIGHT ON!” I prayed this over and over again. Then I framed another short prayer asking for help in dealing with her relationship with Lewis. Obviously she was genuinely keen on him. That was bad news. When Lewis had been in hospital and I’d met Venetia for a pastoral chat at Claridge’s, her favoured haunt, she’d been very casual, calling him “a dear old pet” as if he were some lovable pensioner whom she happened to find rather amusing. I hadn’t accepted this line of hers, but I’d thought she was merely covering up the fact that she’d flirted with him out of habit and been firmly turned down. Now I realised she had been concealing deeper feelings.
I was sunk in gloom. Supposing the admirable plan to move to Cambridge came to nothing? Supposing the two of them went mad and married on an impulse? I prayed fervently for them to be delivered from such insanity, but in the silence that followed, the silence of God, I remembered Lewis talking not of Venetia but of the most important lesson that an arrogant psychic can ever learn. Twenty years fell away. I was back in 1968, a walking disaster who had finally found the mentor capable of training him, and Lewis was commanding: “Nicholas, say to yourself very calmly, very rationally: ‘I CAN BE WRONG.’ ”
It was time to admit that I might be mistaken about the nature and potential of the relationship between Lewis and Venetia. Maybe they were destined for wedded bliss after all.
But I doubted it.
Thinking of wedded bliss reminded me of marital hell, and I was just wondering for the hundredth time what on earth I was going to
say to Rosalind when I heard the bathroom door open and knew my ordeal was about to begin.
III
When
Rosalind joined me in the living-room she was wearing a black skirt and jersey with a peacock-blue jacket. No jewellery. Hardly any make-up. She looked exhausted, but she still had enough energy to clasp her glass of white wine so hard that I feared the stem might snap.
I said: “Ah. There you are. Right. Oh, you’re having a drink. Good. Excuse me while I just get one for myself.”
Bolting to the kitchen I grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator and took a swig straight from the can. I’d broken out in a cold sweat. My heart was thumping at an unnatural speed. Somehow I got myself back into the living-room. I didn’t sit beside her on the sofa in case she felt threatened. Instead I dumped myself in one of the armchairs.
“Busy day?” she enquired idly, making an enormous effort to be casual.
“Uh-huh.” I did some more Coke-guzzling. “I went to see Clare. She recommended a cooling-off period for us both.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, so tomorrow I’m off to the Fordites for a three-day retreat and you can go back to Butterfold. I mean, you can go back if you want, I’m not trying to dictate to you, but I expect you’d welcome the chance to get back and I just want you to know that’s fine by me, I see now I was being very unreasonable, expecting you to leave Butterfold at the drop of a hat and come to live at the Rectory.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, so what I thought was we could stay apart, cooling off, until the boys come home for the holidays. Then we can put the problem on hold until term begins—we won’t say anything to the boys, we’ll just focus on giving them a good Christmas—and you needn’t worry about me bothering you, I’ll sleep in the dressing-room and you can lock the bedroom door every night, no problem, I accept now that the marriage has temporarily broken down.”
This time Rosalind said nothing at all, not even an “oh” or an “ah.” Had I gone wrong somewhere? I tried not to panic. “But it must all be entirely as you wish,” I said rapidly. “Believe me, I’m not try
ing to impose a decision on you. We can talk about it all later, if you’d prefer, after the cooling-off period. In fact yes, I can see now that this would be best. Further discussion at a later date. When we’re calmer. We can have a mediator—go to Relate—do whatever you want.”
“Hm,” said Rosalind.
My nerve finally failed me. I was unsure whether it failed because of her reluctance to respond positively or because the hardest part of my speech was still to come. Abandoning the Coke I marched to the kitchen, grabbed a tumbler and filled it to the brim with the white stuff. There’s no doubt alcohol does have a calming effect in a time of fear. This was definitely a time of fear. Taking a deep breath I soundlessly recited Jesus’ words “Be not afraid” three times, swigged half the wine and returned to the living-room.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Clare made me face up to exactly what I did last night. I see now that you didn’t want to have sex but I forced you to have it, I raped you, I messed around with your mind and abused you and behaved like a complete and utter shit. But now I want you to know how sorry I am—well, no words can really express the horror and shame I feel, I can hardly believe I did such a thing to the person I love best in all the world, and I don’t expect you to forgive me straight away but I’ll do anything to make the marriage come right, anything, I love you so much—”
I broke off. The speech was degenerating into a rant which might upset her. I swilled some more wine and tried to work out what to say next. “Well, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” I said. “I just wanted to make everything clear.” I paused again, waiting, praying, longing for a response which would give me a flicker of hope, but all Rosalind said in the end was: “I see. Thank you.” However, although she spoke with such formal politeness she didn’t appear to be either angry or revolted. Or was the politeness masking unprecedented depths of anger and revulsion? I nearly bolted to the kitchen for more of the white stuff, but before I could lurch into action Rosalind said abruptly: “Look, I’m sorry but I can’t face dinner with the ménage tonight after all—in fact I don’t think I can face any kind of dinner. I had the most enormous lunch at Fortnum’s today with Francie.”
I was so startled that I was jolted not only out of the fear and shame generated by my confession but also out of the confusion and panic generated by the non-event of her reply. Blankly I repeated: “You had lunch with Francie?”
“Yes, she was a bit depressed to start with but I cheered her up and by the end of the meal she was quite her old self again.”
A horrific thought overwhelmed me. “You didn’t tell her about last night!”