Glittering Images (64 page)

‘But as soon as I got back to my room I was crucified by my guilt again. I felt I’d betrayed Alex, betrayed myself – and the next morning I knew I couldn’t face Communion. Of course Alex smelt a rat. We had no opportunity for private conversation before you left, but later he demanded a meeting and it was frightful. He’d guessed what had happened and he was beside himself with jealousy and rage … But we ended up making love and afterwards he said: “You’re my wife before God. Never forget that.” And I didn’t see how I ever could …

‘Well, we were just recovering from your visit when the real ghastliness happened and you reappeared. I don’t have to tell you how horrific that dinner was. It was bad enough that you’d guessed the truth, but what was worse was that you were obviously very drunk and very disturbed and might have bellowed your suspicions from the rooftops. I was also horrified to discover that Alex had been right in deducing you had problems, because it was now obvious that you were in a very bad way indeed.

‘After you’d left Alex said, ‘We deny everything. The man’s quite clearly unbalanced. It’ll be his word against ours and we’re the ones who’ll be believed.” But then the bizarre element surfaced again – what a lot of bizarre elements there are in this story – or is life itself simply more bizarre than anyone’s prepared to admit? – and he began to worry himself into a state about you. He was frantic in case you’d killed yourself driving while drunk. He couldn’t stop worrying. He kept saying it was all his fault and that his charism had been taken over by the Devil – oh God, it was frightful! I packed Carrie off to bed and sat up with him while he crucified himself with guilt – and
all over you.
He even said you were just the sort of son he’d always wanted – and this was only a couple of days after he’d said he hated you for trying to steal me! Honestly, Charles, there was only one person who was more mixed up about you than I was at that moment, and that was Alex Jardine.

‘Well, finally I got fed up with all this self-flagellation – I was worn out by that time – and I suppose I betrayed impatience. Immediately he changed course; he remembered again that you were a rival and he said: “Oh by the way, here’s something that’ll interest you – Ashworth admitted he slept with Loretta yesterday – are you sure he didn’t sleep with you last weekend?”’

‘Oh, my dearest Lyle –’

‘We had a huge row. I thought he was lying. Then I realized it was true. And I felt so horribly upset and muddled and hurt –’

‘Darling, I –’

‘It’s all right, I don’t care now whether you slept with her or not – well, I do care, but I don’t think it’s important. Obviously you were in some very peculiar emotional state, and if you did sleep with her I’m sure it was a moral lapse you’d never normally have. But when Alex told me I felt absolutely slaughtered – and of course I was livid with him too for accusing me of infidelity when I’d tried so hard to be faithful to him.

‘The next thing that happened was that Alex discovered you were with the Fordites and he nearly expired with relief. But he was still terrified you might run to Lang with your suspicions when you’d recovered, and of course he
hated
the thought of Father Darrow knowing everything. Alex worried and worried … How he kept going with his work I’ve no idea. I turned up at the services as usual but that was just to keep up appearances. I was so confused, so unhappy … I didn’t see how I could go on much longer, and one afternoon I went to the Cathedral to beg God to help me, but I couldn’t pray, I was so cut off. I just knelt there in the chapel and said God, God, God, over and over in my mind … It was as if I’d dialled a number and was listening to the bell ringing – and I didn’t really expect an answer, but then the miracle happened because someone picked up the receiver at the other end of the line.

‘You came in. Do you remember me saying it was like a sign? I knew at once I had to leave Alex, but the only trouble was I couldn’t see how I was ever going to do it.

‘I told Alex I’d seen you. I didn’t think we’d been seen by anyone I knew, but the last thing I wanted was for him to hear of the meeting from someone else. I also thought he’d appreciate my honesty, but he didn’t and there was an awful scene because he couldn’t believe the meeting had been accidental. I tried to tell him the marriage was over, but I couldn’t … He had such power over me, I can’t describe it, maybe no words could ever describe it, all I can say is that I had to give in to him,
had to
… And so it went on.

‘Well, as the days passed Alex realized you hadn’t told Lang and he began to feel better. So did Carrie. But I … oh Charles, this is where the going gets very difficult –’

I tried to put my arms around her but she pushed me away. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you don’t understand. The going can’t be made smooth by a well-meaning kiss.’ As she spoke she rose to her feet and turned her back on me; I sensed she was nerving herself to confront some profound ordeal.

‘Tell me what I can do,’ I said. ‘If you want my help in changing your situation at the palace –’

‘It’s already changed irrevocably.’ As she succeeded in summoning the nerve she needed she turned to face me again. ‘My life at the palace has ended. There’s no choice now. I have to leave.’

I knew what she was going to say a second before she said it. ‘You’re –’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, and covered her face with her hands.

In three seconds I saw it all, the inscrutability of God, the redemption of past tragedy, the backbreaking road into a barely conceivable future. Time completed some eerie circle; I was my father, Lyle was my mother and the embryo was me, waiting for the one man who had the will to give it the future God required. Yet all was subtly changed; I was not my father, Lyle was not my mother and the embryo was not and could never be me. The game was the same but the cards had been reshuffled and it was hard to perceive the dimensions of the hand I had been dealt. All I knew was that I was being called to play that hand. Of that I had no doubt whatsoever.

I touched the cross on my chest and took Lyle in my arms as she started to cry.

‘I’ll help you,’ I said.

She clung to me wordlessly. I stroked her hair, and then the shock began to bludgeon me, hammering my mind until I felt almost too battered to think. But I managed to form a prayer. I asked that I might be granted the grace to perceive the way forward, and the familiar words ‘Let thy will, not mine, be done,’ were immediately comforting.

‘Let’s be practical for a moment,’ I said at last. ‘First of all, are you quite sure about this?’

‘Yes, although it hasn’t been medically confirmed.’ She drew away from me to extract a handkerchief from her bag. ‘I’m never more than twenty-four hours late. I knew at once what had happened. I felt different too, couldn’t face coffee, it was just as if someone had thrown a spanner in the works and put everything slightly out of alignment.’ She blew her nose. ‘Today I went to the Marie Stopes Clinic and asked them if they could do a pregnancy examination, but they said it was too soon … Yet I know the baby’s there.’

I thought of false pregnancies and the power of the mind over the body. ‘When do you think it happened?’

‘The day I met you in the Cathedral.’

‘But what happened to the contraception?’

‘I didn’t use it – that’s why I know exactly when the disaster occurred. It was one of those rare occasions when he came to my room at night. Usually I always put the cap in before I go to bed so that when he arrives in the early morning I don’t have to dash off unromantically to the bathroom, but that night although I was ready for bed I hadn’t put the cap in and I was caught by surprise. Then before I could put matters right we were having our row over you, and afterwards … when he began to make love to me … oh Charles, I felt so helpless, so muddled, so absolutely
despairing,
that I didn’t care about the contraception, I was beyond caring –’

‘Have you told him about the baby?’

‘No.’ She found the packet of cigarettes in her bag and clumsily shook one free. ‘I haven’t told either of them – I felt I couldn’t cope with their reactions when I could barely cope with my own. As you’ve probably realized by now, the great characteristic about my relationship with the Jardines is that I’m always the one who has to cope. Nobody copes with me – and of course that’s why I’m here. I felt you could cope, tell me what to do –’

‘How do you feel about the child?’

‘I’m appalled. Sanity’s reasserted itself, I can see my surrender to the maternal drive as irresponsible behaviour and now I’m visualizing myself burdened not with an adorable little boy with golden eyes – that was just a sentimental dream – but a plain little female crosspatch. Unless, of course, I have an abortion –’

‘Absolutely not!’ I said inevitably, and saw time encircling us both as the past repeated itself in a series of endless permutations. ‘It would be utterly wrong!’

‘Oh, it’s so damn easy for you to stand there and say that – you’re a man!’ cried Lyle, taking a very different line from my mother. ‘I don’t think any man has the right to preach sanctimoniously about abortion!’

I had been unprepared for this feminist shaft. It made me realize how imperfectly I still knew her. ‘No man has the right to preach sanctimoniously about anything,’ I said, ‘but I’m not preaching and I’m not being sanctimonious. I’m trying to give you realistic advice. This is the child of a man you loved and it’s a child that in the past you’ve very much wanted. Wouldn’t an abortion be a psychological as well as a moral disaster here?’

Her defiance crumbled; she broke down utterly. ‘Oh God, I’ll never survive this, never – I thought I could but now I don’t see how I ever can – I can’t cope, Charles, I just can’t cope –’

‘But I can,’ I said. ‘I’ve been preparing for this for a long time, perhaps all my life. I can cope with you and I can cope with that child. You’re going to marry me, Lyle.’

I told her briefly about my parentage. She was amazed, stunned and finally appalled as she saw the situation from my own perspective.

‘But, Charles … Oh God, I don’t know what to think! Obviously I’ve never understood the first thing about you – a man who could make such an offer without being coerced must be so utterly different from the sort of man I imagined you to be – oh no, I can’t let you do it, I can’t – your offer’s the most wonderful piece of idealism, but –’

‘What’s wrong with idealism?’ I said, holding her close as she broke down again. ‘If there were no idealism we’d all be grovelling around in the mud with the animals. And anyway the best sort of idealism, the workable kind, is always firmly grounded in reality. I think I’m being exceedingly practical. I know you’re the woman I want. You come to me with this huge handicap but as far as I can see I’m in a unique position to cope with it successfully. Of course the marriage will be plagued by the most unusual difficulties, particularly at first, but I think that with strength and will and by the grace of God the difficulties can be overcome. Why not? I’m supposed to be a Christian. Clearly I’m now being called to live out the Christian message of love and forgiveness in a very special way and besides … loving you as I do, how could I conceivably walk away?’

She could not answer. She merely clung to me again with a new intensity, and I knew how my father had felt long ago when he had witnessed my mother’s overpowering gratitude and relief.

But I steered a different course from my father. I said: ‘We need help and we need it now. I want you to come with me to see Father Darrow.’

Darrow was still out when I telephoned so I took Lyle first to the Blue Boar where I confirmed her reservation and ordered some sandwiches.

‘I couldn’t eat,’ she said.

‘Well, I can and you certainly should. Make an effort,’ I said firmly, remembering how ruthless Darrow had been with me on the subject of nourishment, so we sat in the lounge and ate chicken sandwiches. Lyle managed half a round and I consumed the rest; we divided the tea more equally between us.

‘I’ve changed my mind about being keen to meet this man,’ said Lyle at last. ‘I quite understand why you need to talk to your spiritual director about the future, and obviously I have to be there too because I’m now part of that future but to be frank I don’t like the idea of him at all.’

‘I assure you there’s no need to be nervous.’

‘I’m not nervous. I just feel that any woman can’t help but regard a monk as a personal insult. What happened to his wife? Alex dug up the fact that he’d once been married.’

‘I’ve no idea what happened to her – Darrow’s told me very little about himself, but that’s in accordance with all the rules for good counselling. And talking of counselling …’ I mentioned that Darrow had been looking for a sympathetic nun but Lyle again displayed antipathy.

‘I couldn’t talk about this to any woman,’ she said. ‘I don’t even like women – apart from darling Carrie, and I don’t like her particularly, I just love her.’

This statement was so convoluted, so indicative of mental distress and psychological difficulty, that I thought it wiser to say nothing. I wondered how Darrow would approach the problem.

We drove to Grantchester, and as I turned the car into the Fordites’ drive Lyle shuddered.

‘Darling …’ Halting the car I leant over to give her a kiss. ‘Try not to regard this particular monk as a personal insult! I’m sure he’s not a misogynist.’

‘Then what’s he doing shut up in this place? How I hate the thought of people being incarcerated in closed orders! It’s so damned eerie and unnatural.’