Authors: Susan Howatch
Of course I knew the main healing power came from God—or Christ—or the Holy Spirit—or whatever one wanted to call it, so I didn’t succumb to delusions of grandeur about my ability to heal. Nevertheless it did occur to me that by loving Nicholas as I did, by wanting the best for him and by shutting out all self-centred possessiveness, I was the ideal channel, not polluted, not clogged up, my own minuscule healing power aligned accurately with its source. Perhaps by loving Nicholas in this way, I thought, I might somehow help God to keep him safe not only from the dark side of his ministry but from the dark side of his personality—the arrogance, the obstinacy and that glamorous detachment which guaranteed that he stayed secretly uncommitted in a career where commitment was developed to a fine art.
I suddenly realised Nicholas was talking again. Switching off the meditation I began to tune in to what he was saying.
He was confiding in me obliquely, signalling that he was worried about Stacy and Francie. It was a relief to know for certain that he had realised Francie was a problem, but at the same time I was worried that the full extent of her nuttiness might be unknown to him. On Monday night she had arrived, overwrought and underdressed, at the Rectory in pursuit of her adored one. As Nicholas was away Lewis had dealt with her but I was unsure how much he would have been able to say about the interview afterwards, particularly if Francie had turned the interview into a confession. Casually I now mentioned to Nicholas how Francie had been wild-eyed, her breasts almost popping out of her low-cut nightdress, and at once my suspicions were confirmed. Nicholas was staggered by the information; I had the clear impression that although he knew of her visit he knew no details. Lewis, it seemed, had been superbly discreet, but I wasn’t a clergyman and nothing had been confessed to me so I felt no obligation to match his discretion. Choosing my words with care and using a studiedly neutral voice I described Francie’s appearance in a way which left Nicholas in no doubt she was round the twist.
I would have said more but at that point we were interrupted—which was a pity, but at least he now knew Francie was in a different league from the usual adoring groupies who haunted St. Benet’s. These women—and I had met a couple of them—were still capable of dressing appropriately and keeping up appearances. Francie wasn’t. After all, you don’t turn up in your porn-shop nightwear at the house of your employer unless you’ve either received some hefty encouragement or else are totally freaked out, and I was prepared to bet my jumbo steak-and-kidney pie that Nicholas had done no encouraging.
Meanwhile, as these thoughts were zipping across my mind, Lewis was storming into the kitchen in a filthy temper and demanding to know where Stacy was. Apparently Stacy was supposed to be on duty at the church, but no doubt the chance meeting with Tara followed by the glimpse of Rosalind waving from the window had induced amnesia. This was all very typical of Stacy, well known for his scattiness, so I didn’t think twice about it. Instead I concentrated on trying to calm Lewis down, but while he was still seething, that awful Venetia Hoffenberg rang up and instantly he was tamed.
Lewis was being very silly about Venetia. He ought to have been old enough to know better. I felt sad about this silliness because he
had been such a splendid clergyman when he had coped with her at Lady Cynthia’s lunch-party. Of course he was still a splendid clergyman, I knew that, but that was exactly why I hated to see evidence of the fact that even the best clerics can occasionally be absolute ninnies, just like the rest of us. Stacy, innocent as ever, had no idea what was going on and neither had anyone who didn’t live at the Rectory, but Nicholas and I were in agony, praying that this weird bout of senile passion would rapidly burn itself out. Naturally Nicholas and I had never exchanged a single word on the subject, but we didn’t have to. We each knew what the other was thinking, and that was why, when Lewis bolted to the bedsit to take the call, Nicholas and I merely exchanged looks and remained tight-lipped.
I sighed as I returned to the potatoes. It was just so obvious to me that Lewis needed a nice, kind, youngish widow devoted to Anglo-Catholicism, not this non-churchgoing old bag with a drink problem who probably couldn’t even boil an egg.
Even before Venetia’s call it had dawned on me that Stacy had probably taken Rosalind up to the curate’s flat for her long-delayed treat: a private viewing of Aisling’s wedding photographs, and when Nicholas finally buzzed the curate’s flat on the intercom and found Stacy at home, I realised I had been right. Nicholas ordered him to go at once to the church. There was a nasty moment shortly afterwards when Stacy, rushing downstairs, was pounced on by Lewis, who had finished talking to Venetia, but I heard Nicholas sort them out in the hall and send Stacy on his way. I didn’t actually see Stacy at that point, as I’d remained in the kitchen, but if he’d been looking upset I would have assumed he was distressed by his bout of amnesia.
An interval followed during which I was on my own, preparing the vegetables. Nicholas was in his study for a short time. When I heard him go upstairs I presumed he was going to talk to Rosalind, but soon afterwards he returned downstairs and I heard the bedsit door open and close as he slipped in to see Lewis. It was during their conversation, which lasted some time, that Stacy crept back into the house after closing the church. This was the first obvious instance of him acting out of character, because he never crept anywhere; he bounded and bounced. Unable to believe he could ever enter the house without banging the front door I looked out into the hall for fear some down-and-out had picked the lock, and as soon as I saw Stacy’s face I knew that something had gone very wrong.
IV
“
Stacy
—” I tried to detain him to find out what had happened, but he rushed on without stopping. Although I heard him mutter: “Sorry—got to—” he never completed the sentence before disappearing at top speed in the direction of the backstairs.
I made no attempt to follow him, partly because the meal was now at a crucial stage but mostly because at this point Nicholas left the bedsit and drifted tensely back into the kitchen. Rosalind, he informed me, wouldn’t be dining with us after all (wretched woman, messing me around again!) because she wasn’t hungry; she’d had a large lunch at Fortnum’s with Francie.
I was astonished. I could think of no reason why Francie, now totally bananas about Nicholas, should wish to have lunch with his wife. It was hard to believe that the fiction of bosom friendship could still be sustained.
Tentatively I enquired: “How did Francie seem to Rosalind?” At the very least she had to be tanked up on gin to avoid appearing bogged down with gloom. She had already been off sick that week with depression, and the thought of seeing her arch-rival would have made her feel more depressed than ever—or so I assumed. But I was wrong.
“She took a little time to get going,” said Nicholas without expression, “but by the end of the meal she was in fine fettle. The word Rosalind used to describe her was ‘radiant.’ ”
“Gosh!” This made no sense at all. In the silence that followed I tried to remember what I’d read in the medical column of
The Times
about that illness which drives people to be suicidal at one moment and high as a kite the next. Maybe Francie was even nuttier than I’d imagined.
Before I could dwell further on this thought, Nicholas decided to feed the cat. We kept tinned catfood for James but I cooked fish for him regularly and on that day there was cold boiled cod on the menu, disgusting for humans but James loved it. As Nicholas put the plate on the floor, James arched his back in ecstasy before thrusting his nose towards the food.
I was just about to tell Nicholas about the new vitamin-enriched cat-snack which I’d seen advertised on TV, when Lewis arrived for dinner. There was no sign of Stacy and after removing from the oven the glowing pie I went to the intercom to summon him.
Eventually I heard him whisper: “Yes?”
“Dinner,” I said. “Are you okay?” But the connection had been severed before I could complete the question.
I served up the vegetables and adorned the bowl of potatoes with a sprig of parsley. By this time Lewis was making the usual greedy sighs and saying how wonderful I was. I loved his enthusiasm for my cooking, and nowadays I hardly ever cooked French recipes because both Lewis and Stacy so enjoyed the English classics. Nicholas was always polite enough to say how much he enjoyed them too, but he had no
passion
for food as Lewis and I had—although that night I wasn’t feeling hungry; I was too aware of being needled by a pervasive, steadily expanding anxiety. I helped myself to only one potato, a mere spoonful of cabbage and a slimmish slice of pie.
Finally Stacy arrived, slipping into the room as silently as a ghost. Nicholas said grace. We began to eat. Stacy said nothing but bolted his food and vanished. A few minutes later the front door banged shut as he rushed out.
Knowing that Stacy’s behaviour was highly abnormal but wanting to defend him from Lewis’s inevitable acid comments, I pretended all was well by declaring Stacy must have been dashing off to see Tara. Lewis disagreed, saying it was more likely that Stacy had a date with Gilbert Tucker, the friendly gay clergyman who had helped Nicholas organise the AIDS seminar. I couldn’t think why Lewis was implying Stacy was gay when it was so obvious he wasn’t, but Lewis was very fractious that evening, overtired and fit only for a nursing home for convalescents. If ever I have to have a hip replaced (which God forbid) I’d take convalescence very seriously indeed instead of pretending it wasn’t necessary. Why do men so often put the need to be macho before the need to use their common sense? I was getting cross with Lewis for being so dumb, but perhaps by that time I was as overstrained as he was.
After the meal Lewis went to bed early (common sense finally triumphed) and Nicholas withdrew to his study. I stacked the dishwasher, cleaned up, made myself an extra cup of decaf, sat around thinking of nothing in particular. After a while I realised I was waiting for Stacy to come back, but he didn’t return and eventually James and I padded down the backstairs to my flat. I thought I might watch television but I found I couldn’t be bothered to switch on the set. I looked in the fridge but there was nothing I wanted to eat.
At last I had a bath, put on my dressing-gown and started to read
Good Housekeeping
but none of the recipes interested me. I was just yawning my way through the last pages when I heard the front door slam shut. Speeding up the backstairs I saw from the end of the passage that Stacy had returned and Nicholas had waylaid him in the hall; as I watched, the two of them disappeared into the study. Neither of them saw me. Returning to the basement I stripped off my nightdress and dressing-gown, pulled on a bra, sweater, briefs and stretchpants, and beetled all the way up the backstairs to the curate’s flat.
V
Stacy
arrived a minute later. He was breathing hard, having raced upstairs, and he was obviously on the verge of tears. As soon as he saw me I said: “Look, I don’t want to butt in where I’m not wanted, but please, please tell me if there’s anything I can do to help because I hate to see you so upset.”
Stacy’s defences immediately crumbled. At first I thought he’d expended so much energy on holding himself together during his conversation with Nicholas that he’d run out of the strength needed to suppress his tears, but then I realised he was merely touched by what I’d done. I’d stayed up late; I’d hauled myself all the way up to his flat to wait for him; I obviously cared. Stacy, distraught and tormented, was almost speechless with gratitude.
“Oh Alice!” he managed to say. “I do love you—you’re as good as a sister to me!” Then he collapsed in a heap on the sofa and sobbed. That was the moment when suddenly, in a blinding flash of insight, I understood him through and through. His central problem was that he always wanted a sister, never a girlfriend or a wife. If only he could have grown up sufficiently to let go of those three ravishing sirens, Siobhan, Sinead and Aisling! Then he could have married jolly Tara and lived happily ever after, but that was never going to happen because Stacy had got lost somewhere along the road to adult life and now he was perpetually in thrall to the desire for loving relationships where sex was utterly forbidden.
“Dearest Stacy …” I put my arm around him comfortingly and held his hand in mine.
Eventually he found he wanted to blow his nose but neither of us had a handkerchief. There ought to have been some Kleenex some
where—that staple soft furnishing at the Rectory—but he couldn’t remember where the box was and the flat was such a mess that I could have searched for half an hour without success, so I went to the bathroom and grabbed the entire roll of toilet paper.
At last when he was too exhausted to cry any more he whispered: “Alice, do you know much about AIDS?”
“Well, I’m not living in a glass bubble down there in the hell-hole,” I said startled. “I’m not about to ask you what the word AIDS means.” My first thought was that a friend of his had been diagnosed as HIV-positive.
“You know you can’t get it by holding hands with an infected person or by breathing his breath?”
“Yes, I know all that,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. Then I realised I was holding his hand and breathing his breath. Horror gripped me. “My God, Stacy, are you trying to tell me—”
“I think I may have HIV,” he said, and started sobbing again.
I never slackened my grip on his hand and I never altered my position on the sofa beside him. I had to concentrate in order to achieve this immobility, but nevertheless I was aware of upsetting thoughts bolting around my brain, incredulous thoughts, questioning thoughts, all of which were hard to focus on. In the end I could only say: “Is that very likely?” I was trying to remember what I’d read about AIDS being contracted from a contaminated blood transfusion. I couldn’t recall Stacy telling me of a time when he had been so seriously ill that a blood transfusion had been required, but perhaps the illness had been a long time ago.