Absolute Truths (35 page)

‘How very kind,’ I said, rigid with horror, ‘but please don’t feel
obliged —’

‘
My dear, it’s not a question of obligation, it’s a question of
doing one’s Christian best, and although Stephen and I have left
you alone till now, we only did so because we didn’t want to intrude on your grief. As I said in my sympathy letter — and
although it’s so terribly hard to write a sincere sympathy letter I
do hope it was obvious that I wrote straight from the heart — for
after all, I’m famed for my candour — well, as I said in my sympathy
letter, Stephen and I were devastated by Lyle’s death and Stephen was especially shocked because he knew how he would feel if he
lost me.’

By this
time
I was beyond speech.

‘
And anyway, Charles my dear, do come and dine tomorrow
night — I’m having a little dinner-party for sixteen and it’ll all be
very quiet, just the family and nice people like Lady Markhampton
— who has a brilliantly clever woman staying with her, I don’t
quite know who she is and I can’t remember her name, but Lady
Markhampton said she’d been doing research in Cambridge — her friend, I mean, not Lady Markhampton — and it suddenly occurred
to me how delightful it would be for you to talk to an intellectual
woman who knows Cambridge — although please don’t think I’m
trying to marry you off because obviously you won’t remarry for
at least a year. However — oh, here’s Stephen, back from the South
Canonry! I do hope you enjoyed your sherry together — Stephen!
Stephen, I’ve got Charles on the phone and I’ve asked him to come
to dinner tomorrow!’

‘
Just a moment, Dido,’ I said
as
I pictured Aysgarth’s appalled
expression. ‘I’ve got Charley coming down tomorrow evening,
and —’

‘Lovely — bring him too!’

Now it was Charley’s appalled expression which flashed before
my eyes. I seemed to be floundering deeper and deeper into the
most lethal of social quicksands. ‘I rather doubt if his train will
arrive early enough to ensure —’

‘
What a pity but never mind, he can wait for you at home, we
won’t keep you late. Oh, hang on, here’s Stephen, simply bursting
to have a word with you!’

At this stage I felt so pulverised that I wondered why I was not
spreadeagled unconscious over my desk.

‘
Charles,’ said Aysgarth as I marvelled that I was still upright in
my chair, ‘I do apologise — I know Darrow would say I’d let my
fighting streak get the better of me. Come and dine tomorrow —
please! — and let’s bury the hatchet.’

The unreserved apology, the reference to Jon, the knowledge
that I would look intolerably churlish if I now refused the invi
tation — all combined to make me realise I had no choice but to
accept. ‘Very well, Stephen. Thank you,’ I said, trying not to sound
too enfeebled, and I heard Dido screech: ‘Seven-thirty for dinner
at eight!’ before Aysgarth exclaimed: ‘Splendid!’ and ended the
call.

I remained sitting at my desk
as
I thought of Aysgarth, and the
more I thought of him the more convinced I became that he had
issued his winning apology because he knew I would be toying
with the idea of a visitation. Visitations are usually friendly; arch
deacons make them all the time when they inspect churches to
ensure that all is in the proper ecclesiastical order, and in the vast
majority of cases no hard feelings are generated. In theory there
is no reason why an episcopal visitation should not be equally
benign, but in practice the word ‘visitation’ too often has a sinister
ring because it signifies the one occasion on which an autonomous
dean can be compelled to answer directly to the bishop about the affairs of the cathedral, and no bishop embarks lightly on such a
potentially explosive procedure.

In the secular world potentially explosive procedures can be
described in the language of power-politics and regarded as normal
within a corporate structure; that is to say, the situation can be
acknowledged without embarrassment and guilt. In the Church,
on the other hand, it is not ‘the done thing’ to talk of personality
clashes and power struggles and boardroom battles. This does not
mean that these unpleasant events never happen; it simply means
that they are described in different language and dressed up in a
variety of disguises. And this in turn does not necessarily mean
that the churchmen are being hypocritical. The purpose of the
different language and the multiple disguises is to enable the pro
tagonists, who are mere fallible men beneath their cassocks, to
have as much chance as possible to behave like Christians instead
of like cut-throat corporate monsters.

The secular world too is better equipped to deal with the fall-out
of a corporate explosion; the chairman has the power to fire the
crooked and the incompetent as the result of a boardroom investi
gation, and so although violence takes place in the form of sackings
there is more scope for healing after the victims have gone. But I,
as the bishop, had no such powers when I made a visitation. No
matter what iniquity I uncovered I could not sack the Dean or
any member of the Chapter; I could make recommendations in
my report, but the Dean and Chapter were not obliged to accept
them. I could not imagine Aysgarth resigning even if I were to
recommend that he should do so. That meant the only result of
the visitation would have been the laundering of a lot of dirty
church linen in public. And how long would the shattered
Cathedral community take to heal afterwards? There might be
years of further division and strife.

I had just finished thinking along these depressing lines when
it occurred to me that I was going to great lengths to persuade
myself not to make a visitation. In fact the picture in this particular
case was not as black as I was trying to paint it because if the worst
came to the worst and some profound iniquity was uncovered, I
was sure I could enlist the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury
to extort Aysgarth’s resignation. I could not seriously imagine even
Aysgarth having the nerve to defy Dr Ramsey, and once a new
dean had been installed the Cathedral would be on the road to
recovery.

Why then was I so determined to view the prospect of a visita
tion with reluctance? I began to suspect that it was because I did
not want to confront Aysgarth either in the Chapter House during
a visitation or anywhere else, and in a flash I saw that Aysgarth
had become one of those topics which could only be explored with
Jon.
It
seemed the journal had converted my old enemy into a
taboo subject even before my quarrel with him that evening.

The thought of Jon reminded me that I wanted to go to
Starrington but was pinned to the South Canonry by my desire
to hear from Michael. I put in yet another call to the BBC but
was told he had left for the day. I telephoned his flat but no
one answered. In frustration I took a sheet of writing-paper and
scribbled: ‘My dear Michael, I have come to realise I have not in
the past been as helpful
as
I should have been in our attempts to
resolve our difficulties. I’m very sorry about this and hope I can
be more constructive in future. Perhaps you and –’ I had a moment
of amnesia during which I was unable to remember the name of
the new girlfriend, the one Charley had grudgingly admitted
was
‘rather nice’, but fortunately the moment passed ‘– Holly can have
dinner with me when I’m next up in town. I should so much like
to see you. Blood really
is
thicker than water, and –’

1 stopped writing. Such a sentence was absolutely
verboten
and
I had been unhinged to write it. Supposing Michael showed the
letter in triumph to Charley? Tearing the letter up I prepared to
begin again but found I had ru
n out of energy.

I went to the kitchen and ate the scotch egg which I had tried
to eat at lunch and which someone (Miss Peabody, no doubt) had returned on its plate to the larder. By this time I had realised that
the letter to Michael was in reality a letter to myself, my first
faltering attempt to rebut, negate, neutralise or merely assimilate
some of the more distressing statements Lyle had made. But I
knew I could not start thinking about the journal until I was with
Jon.

Instead I ate another scotch egg and tried to read the latest issue
of the
Church Gazette
which had arrived that morning. The Church
Assembly was in progress; I had earlier sent my apologies that I
was unable to attend, and now as I glanced at the speeches about
suffragan appointments I felt guiltily relieved that I had been spared hours of boredom. Turning the page I read that some
woman professor had allegedly found the bones of St Peter. I
spared some sympathy for the Pope, required to comment.

Shoving the paper aside in a spasm of irritation I returned to
the drawing-room to watch the television news but I switched
channels as soon
as
I heard the syllables ‘Vietnam’. Nothing on
ITA appealed so I turned off the set, and when I glanced at my
watch I saw it was too late to go to Starrington. I poured myself
a double-whisky. Then I retrieved the
Church Gazette
and again
settled down to wait for the call which I felt sure now would never
come.

Two double-whiskies later I returned to my study, took another
sheet of paper and wrote rapidly: ‘My dear Michael, I know you
think I don’t understand about sex, but I do, and believe me, I’m
not jealous because you lead the kind of life I couldn’t lead
as a
young man, I couldn’t be, because in truth for a short time when
I was up at Cambridge in the days before my ordination, I did
live a little fast on the quiet, and even later when I was a clergyman
I wasn’t quite as chaste as I should have been but that was because
I was mixed up, and in fact during my spiritual breakdown in 1937 before I married your mother I
met
an American woman
called Loretta who was just as sexy as your Dinkie, and –’

It suddenly dawned on me that I was writing like a lunatic. In
horror I burnt the letter in the ashtray.

Having realised that I was no longer capable of writing sense I
went to bed, but there more horrors awaited me because writing
about sex had made me think about sex, and having thought about
sex I wanted to make love to Lyle.

At two o’clock in the morning I went downstairs and drank as
much scotch
as
I needed to pass out.

It was the worst night I had so far experienced as a widower.

Someone was saying quietly: ‘Charles?’ and as I plummeted pain-
fully back to consciousness I was aware of a hand pressing on my
wrist. Someone was feeling my pulse. Evidently I looked like a
corpse. Opening my eyes I found the suffragan bishop of Starm
outh stooping over me.

‘
Sony, Charles,’ said Nigel, removing his hand from my wrist at
once, ‘but when you didn’t appear downstairs we were concerned.’

‘
Give me ten minutes.’

‘
If you’d rather stay in bed —’

Ten minutes.’

Nigel fled.

I took a quick look around the room, but I had done my noctur
nal drinking downstairs and afterwards hidden my dirty glass in
the case of the grandfather clock alongside the empty bottle of
claret, so there was no evidence of disorder to betray me. To my horror I saw the time was ten past eleven. Trying not to feel as if
I were trapped in a downward moral spiral, I went through
the usual anti-hangover routine and managed to shave without
cutting myself. Shortly afterwards, washed, brushed and dressed,
I descended to the office to prove to my staff that I was still alive.
Ignoring their anxious expressions I asked the typist
to
bring me
coffee, told Miss Peabody that I wanted to see Lewis Hall’s refer
ence and invited Nigel to accompany me to the study.

‘
Where’s Malcolm?’ I said, trying not to look exhausted after
this performance.

‘
He’s not here this morning — he had a visitation to make in the
north. Charles, is there anything I can do? I’m worried that I’m
not doing enough for you at the moment.’

‘But you’re running the entire diocese!’

‘
I’m not talking about professional help. ‘I’m talking about help
on a personal level. And please don’t think I’m just producing a
pastoral manner out of a sense of duty. I’m genuinely concerned
for you as a friend.’

I began to panic because I found his sincerity moving and I did
not want to be moved; it was vital that I kept my emotions on a
tight leash.

‘
How very good of you,’ I said, somehow managing to speak
evenly, ‘but I’ve got Charley coming down this evening for the
weekend, and I shall also be visiting Jon Darrow. I’ll be all right.’

There was a pause while Nigel tried to decide whether to press the matter further and I watched, with a detached interest, to sec
how he would handle t
he situation. Nigel was tall and a trifle stout,
with some scanty greyish hair, every strand combed smoothly into
place, and he possessed glasses which he continually put on and
took off during his well-prepared, smoothly delivered public
speeches. He had pale eyes, a sensitive mouth, a pleasant smile,
an
admit social manner and smooth, pale, well-kept hands which had
never attempted to hold a golf club. Although I greatly respected his ability and found him agreeable company, we had nothing in common except the Church and rarely saw each other except on
business. That was why I admired him all the more for making an effort to address me on a personal level. He was several years my
junior, and although he always appeared at ease with me I sus
pected there were times when he found me intimidating.

‘
Well, I’ve no wish to be intrusive, Charles,’ he said at last, ‘but
I thought you should know how deep my concern is and how
willing I am to do something to help. Please feel you can call on
me at any
time.’

It was a smooth little speech but again, it was not insincere and
I was able to thank him without hesitation. It was only when I
said: ‘And now if we may turn to other matters ...’ that I sensed
how relieved he was to be spared any further attempt to be
personal.

The typist delivered my coffee and after her departure I summar
ised my conversation with Aysgarth.

‘Very spivvish behaviour,’ was Nigel’s terse comment.
Reminding me that he normally had nothing to do with the
Cathedral’s hidden problems, he asked: ‘How much do you know
for certain about the progress of the Appeal?’

‘
I know only what I’m told by the Dean and Chapter. The
Appeal’s entirely in their hands.’

‘
Isn’t the diocesan
office
sent the accounts
as a
courtesy?’

‘
Good heavens, no! Relations between the Cathedral and the
diocesan
office
have been strained for years.’

‘
Isn’t there even a cosy relationship between the two sets of
accountants to
ease
things along?’

‘
I’m afraid not. The Cathedral’s accountant, Bob Carey, is terri
fied of Aysgarth and Aysgarth wouldn’t approve of such a cosy
relationship at all.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘What do you advise?’

‘
Extreme caution. The innocent explanation is that Aysgarth’s
_j
ust trying to save face. Having bragged to you about how well
the Appeal was going he was embarrassed to discover reality wasn’t
measuring up to his expectations, so he planned the Christie’s coup
to boost not only the coffers but his self-esteem.’

I was so struck by the plausibility of this theory that it took me several seconds to pose the next question. ‘So you think I should
do nothing?’ I felt limp with relief.

‘
Well, not quite
nothing,’
said Nigel warily. ‘I think you should
continue to demand that he withdraws all the books from Chris-
tie’s, not merely the St Anselm manuscript. After all, you’d be
setting a dangerous precedent if you turned a blind eye while he
pilfered the library.’

‘
True.’ My relief ebbed. Reluctantly I asked: ‘Do you see a case
for a visitation?’

‘
Oh, there’s certainly a case for it! When a dean starts behaving
in a spivvish way, a bishop’s got the right to give him a good
fright, but since Aysgarth’s such a formidable opponent you don’t
want him to wriggle off the hook for lack of evidence. Much better
to wait until you have a watertight case ... What does Malcolm
say?’

‘
He favours an immediate assault on the Cathedral with all our
six-shooters blazing.’

Nigel allowed himself the thinnest of smiles and said in the
driest of voices: ‘Malcolm can be a trifle headstrong sometimes.’

I kept quiet and prayed that this deadly little comment was not the harbinger of further criticism. Meanwhile Nigel was adjusting his pectoral cross and smoothing a small crease from his stock. I
was just daring to hope that I was to be spared further evidence
of friction between my suffragan and my archdeacon when he said
in an indulgent tone, rather as if he were discussing the wayward
antics of a bunch of children: ‘Of course archdeacons do tend to
have an inflated sense of their own importance which can feed the
temptation to behave like a secular executive ... I hear Malcolm
has quite a reputation in the rural deaneries.’

I inwardly cringed but managed to remain outwardly calm. ‘I
suspect,’ I said, ‘that we all suffer sometimes from the temptation
to behave like a secular executive.’

‘True. But we don’t all give in to it.’

To my immense relief I was then saved by the sound of a car
in the drive. ‘Who’s that?’ I demanded at once, trying not to sound
too thankful. ‘I’m not in the mood for visitors.’

Nigel stood up and glanced out of the. window. ‘You’ll be in
the mood for this one,’ he said. ‘It’s your son Charley.’

That was the moment when I realised that the day had started
badly and was going to get worse. Moving to the window so that
I could see Charley’s unexpectedly early arrival with my own eyes,
I felt
as if I were lurching from one ordeal to the next with no
hope of rescue.

I could only wish I felt less exhausted and hung over.