Absolute Truths (54 page)

The Cathedral was lying limply amidst the lawn of the churchyard
like a shark dozing in a green lagoon. The spire, razor-sharp despite
the fading light, seemed to be swaying faintly, an optical illusion
caused by the fast-moving bank of cloud behind it. Above the hard
angles of the octagonal chapter house, the tower eyed our approach
with black, blank, oblong windows.

‘
Stunning, isn’t it?’ Martin remarked
as
we began to cross the
Choir School’s playing-field.

‘
Unique.’ I was reminding myself that although a building could
be hallowed by prayer, it was not alive. To treat it
as a
living entity
– as if the stones had beating hearts – was to be guilty of animism.

‘
Funny what strong personalities the old cathedrals have,’ said
Martin. ‘Just like people. It’s as if they have memories which exude
all kinds of odd emanations. I remember visiting Canterbury once
and getting the most extraordinary frisson on the spot where Becket
was killed.’

I said abruptly: ‘Memories projected on to a building can create a powerful atmosphere, I’ll concede that, but the memories belong
to the visitors, not to the buildings.’ Fearing I had been brusque
to the point of discourtesy I then added hastily: ‘I’m not denying
the reality of your
frisson.
All I’m saying is –’

‘
My dear Charles, I understand perfectly, and after a day spent
largely in the company of two psychic loonies, I can’t tell you how
refreshing it is to hear a bishop being robust about the para
normal!’

I murmured: ‘One really does have a duty to avoid superstition,’
but I found I could not continue to look at the Cathedral. The
blank black windows of the tower had begun to glitter
as
the sun
sank to a new angle, and enhanced the absurd illusion that the
building was alive.

Minutes later we reached the north porch, and after instructing
the verger to find Martin a good seat in the choir I made my
way to the vestry. Here I encountered sixteen choirboys, twelve
vicars-choral, the choirmaster, one minor canon, two of the resi
dentiary Canons and – my heart sank – the Dean. Everyone looked startled to see me. The little boys became hushed; the vicars-choral
assumed serious expressions; Tommy Fitzgerald, the Canon in
residence, asked me in a reverent voice if I wished to read one of
the lessons but I declined, saying I was happy to take a back seat.
At that point Aysgarth, whose presence was spiced with a faint
aroma of claret, remarked that he had never heard an episcopal
throne described as a back seat before.

We all laughed dutifully.

‘
How arc you, Charles?’ enquired Paul Dalton, and everyone
looked at him as if he had said something immensely daring.
I told him I was better, but wondered what would have hap
pened if I had said: ‘Well, actually I’m just recovering from a bout
of fornication.’ I had a fleeting vision of shocked faces
as
everyone
decided I was in the middle of a breakdown and fantasising uncon
trollably.

It was only when I had to struggle to beat back the desire to
laugh that I realised I could be nearer that breakdown than I had
dared imagine, and
as
soon as this fearful truth dawned on me I
found myself becoming disorientated. What was I doing in church?
I wondered how I could have summoned the nerve to cross the
threshold. The betrayal of my consecration and ordination vows
now seemed the grossest of crimes.

‘
Are you sure you’re all right, Charles?’ said Paul, speaking in a
low voice as he moved closer to me, but I insisted that I was well.
By this
time
one of the vergers had arrived and everyone was
filtering out of the vestry to form the procession. Grabbing my
pectoral cross I tried to re-establish my mental balance by focusing
on the memory of Lewis Hall telling me that I was spiritually
strong. I also reminded myself that since I so profoundly regretted
my disastrous behaviour and wanted so much to be forgiven, there
was no reason why I should not seek God in church to tell him
so. Sanity edged back;
confidence
returned; the hideous moment
passed. As the head verger led me into the Cathedral I summoned
my remaining strength to concentrate on the service.

I had another bad moment when I reached the episcopal throne
which I was currently so unfit to occupy, but I recovered by
opening my prayer-book and staring at the first psalm I saw. I
was beginning to feel as if I were being subjected to repeated
demonic attacks, but of course this was nonsense. What was really
happening was that the Cathedral was arousing in me intense feel
ings of guilt. Achingly beautiful, overpoweringly holy, radiantly
numinous, it was oppressing me to such an extent that I hardly
knew how to withstand the knowledge of all my recent errors.

It seemed that I had a psychological need to make that formal confession to Jon before I could feel truly forgiven. Or was there
perhaps some other guilt which was causing the trouble, some guilt buried so deep in my mind that normally, when my mind
was not rubbed raw by stress, I was able to ignore all the symp
toms? But now was hardly the time for that sort of dangerous
soul-searching; now all that mattered was to get through the ser
vice without making some elementary blunder which would betray
how disturbed I was. Wishing – too late – that I had avoided the
Cathedral entirely that evening, I sank to my knees for the reci
tation of the General Confession.

Gradually I made a full recovery. Less concentration became
required, and by the time the anthem started I had the courage to
take my nose out of my prayer-book and dart a glance at my
Fellow-worshippers. At the other end of the choir Tommy and
Paul sat in their canons’ stalls, and nearby them was the minor
:anon who had been on duty in the Cathedral that afternoon.
Aysgarth was sitting across the aisle. Close at hand the choirboys
and the vicars-choral were tackling an anthem by Elgar with mixed
results, and above and on either side of the Choir sat the congreg
ation, a mixed bunch who on weekdays numbered about thirty. I
soon noticed Martin, occupying one of the back stalls, and a
second later I saw to my astonishment that he was sitting next to
a certain Mrs Harriet March, a woman whom I had no wish to
meet again.

Mrs March was a sculptress. Her
husband, a famous mountain
eer, had died on Mount Everest some years ago, and after his death she had retreated from London to a house in my diocese; she lived
three miles from the city in a village called Upper Starwood.
In 1963 Aysgarth had commissioned her to produce
the
now
notorious sculpture which I had succeeded in banning from the
Cathedral churchyard. I trust I am not betraying an unreasonable
prejudice against modem art when I write that some wilful urge had prompted Mrs March to create a work that was ugly as well
as obscene.

In my fight to thwart Aysgarth’s plan to litter the churchyard
with an object which resembled a gigantic box of used condoms,
I had assumed I had irrevocably alienated Mrs March, whom I had met when I had been obliged to visit her studio to confirm
that the work in progress was as pornographic as the photographs
which she had sent to the Dean and Chapter. She was a slim,
willowy woman in her late thirties, with long dark wavy hair which
cascaded over her shoulders and foamed down her back. In my
opinion all women over thirty should either wear their hair up or
have it cut short. Cultivating a pre-Raphaelite look at that age can
only convey the impression of an unedifying private life.

As I observed the presence of Mrs March with antipathy and
wondered what could have induced her to enter a church on a
weekday – or indeed on any day – the anthem ended and Tommy
prepared to lead the final prayers. I did my best to concentrate on
them but I was soon wondering if the whiff of claret which had
emanated from Aysgarth indicated the occurrence of a lavish lunch
to which Mrs March had been invited. It was the only theory I
could devise which explained her attendance at the service. In 1963
at the time of the sculpture scandal, a rumour had circulated that
he had known Mrs March rather better than he should have done,
but if a dean commissions a work which resembles contraceptives
from a young woman with pre-Raphaelite hair, being flagellated by a malign rumour is the least he deserves for his foolishness.
Perhaps in fairness I should make it clear that the seven objects in
the box were not intended to be identified
as
used condoms. They
were supposed to represent the seven deadly sins, and above them
a skeletal man, ascending a climbing frame, symbolised humanity’s
efforts to rise above an animal existence towards God. The pre
dominant colours were red, white and blue but I shall say no more.
Merely to describe the work is to damn it.

After we had all retired to the vestry sheer relief that I had
survived the service made me light-headed enough to embark on
a conversation with Aysgarth. ‘I see Mrs March was in the congre
gation,’ I remarked blandly.

‘
Yes, Dido had a meeting of her Arts Group today – Harriet
gave a talk and stayed on for tea.’

‘
Is she still sculpting French-letters?’ enquired Tommy Fitz
gerald, unable to resist the opportunity to needle the Dean about
the fiasco of 1963. By that
time
the choirboys had been marched
away through the cloisters, the vicars-choral were heading for the
pubs and the minor canon had gone home to watch the tail-end
of the six o’clock news. I was alone with the Dean and the two
residentiary Canons as the vergers toured the Cathedral before
locking up for the night. We had all disrobed. Tommy was struggling into his overcoat, Paul was retying a shoelace and Aysgarth
was moving towards th
e vestry door.

‘
As a matter of fact,’ he announced, pausing to reply to Tommy’s
gibe, ‘Harriet’s been sculpting
me.’
And having stunned us all by
this disclosure he sailed out of the vestry on a tide of satisfaction.

‘
Ye gods!’ muttered Tommy. ‘What on earth will that woman
sculpt next?’

I offered the pacific comment: ‘Sculpting Stephen must surely
be an improvement on sculpting French-letters.’

‘
Not necessarily,’ said Paul. ‘Supposing she’s doing him in the nude?’
We all blanched.

‘
Impossible!’ I said hastily, dismissing the idea as a joke, and
escaped from the vestry into the side-aisle.

The first person I saw was Martin, waiting for me, and the
second person I saw was Harriet March. She was standing beside
him, and it occurred to me then that it was not unlikely that they
should know each other. Mrs March exhibited in London and was
well known in her branch of the arts; Martin lived in London and
was well known in his; I could imagine them meeting in various
Bohemian drawing-moms.

‘
Ah, there you are, Charles!’ Martin was exclaiming. ‘You
remember Harriet, don’t you?’

‘
How could he ever forget?’ said Mrs March dryly, but she
smiled, showing no trace of hostility. To Martin she added: ‘I
showed him my studio in 1963.’

‘
Well, so long as that was all you showed him, darling–’

‘
Oh Martin, do ease up on the brittle one-liners! I’m so exhaus
ted by my five-hour sojourn at the Deanery that I don’t have the
strength to stand them!’

‘
I intercepted her
as
she reeled into the Cathedral,’ explained
Martin to me, ‘and virtually had to carry her to her stall.’

‘
I didn’t realise you two knew each other,’ I said, feeling it was
time I contributed to the conversation.

‘
We met at Perry Palmer’s flat in Albany,’ said Mrs March in
her low, hypnotic monotone. ‘I met Perry through Christian Ays
garth, and I met Christian through his father – whom I met at
one of Dido’s arty evenings soon after I moved to Upper Star-
wood. That was when the Dean gave me his celebrated com
mission,’ she added to Martin, ‘and I started work on what the
Bishop later judged to be hard-core porn.’

‘Soft-core, surely!’ said Martin gallantly.

‘
It looked pretty hard to the Bishop,’ said Mrs March poker
faced, ‘in more ways than one.’

Taking care not to bat an eyelid at this most questionable remark
I said courteously: ‘Am I permitted to offer you the olive branch
of peace, Mrs March, and invite you to join us for a drink at the
South Canonry?’ I could not imagine at the time why I felt driven
to make this offer, but I can now see it stemmed from my annoy
ance that she should have implied, no matter how obliquely, that
I was a pathological old prude who could not tolerate sexual
behaviour of any kind. I can forgive young people who nickname
me ‘Anti-Sex Ashworth’; they at least have the excuse that they
a
re too immature to know the difference between sex (which I
was for) and the abuse of sex (which I was against). But when a
member of the liberal intelligentsia starts smirking at me on
account of views which I have never held, I confess I become very
irritated indeed. I felt extremely irritated at that moment by Mrs
M
arch. Her pre-Raphaelite hair irritated me, her low hypnotic
monotone irritated me, her dry deadpan humour (bizarrely like Lyle’s) irritated me and her attitude to conservative bishops irri
tated
me.
Adopting my most charming manner and inviting her
home for a drink was my way of saying that even though I was a
bishop I was no mean-spirited puritan but a sophisticated man of
the world.

Few things could have indicated more clearly than this almost
adolescent reaction, preoccupied entirely with my self-image, that
I was still in a very disturbed state of mind.

‘
What a splendid idea!’ Martin was exclaiming, delighted by my
invitation. ‘Do say yes, Harriet!’

‘
If I hesitate, it’s only because I’m dazed by the thought of being
entertained by a dean and a bishop in rapid succession.’

‘
But I’m quite different from the Dean,’ I said rashly before I
could censor myself, ‘and isn’t variety supposed to be the spice of
life?’

‘
My dears!’ said Martin aside to an imaginary audience. The
Bishop’s moving downstage coruscating like a Christmas tree!’

‘More like a diamond,’ said Mrs March, languidly flicking back
her long hair as she allowed her glance to travel over me. The
smooth, highly-polished, enormously expensive kind.’

‘
And diamonds, as we all know,’ said Martin inevitably, ‘are a
girl’s best friend.’

Even before Mrs March gave a throaty laugh I was asking myself
if I had bitten off rather more than I could chew.