The Triple Goddess (100 page)

The elixir fired his belligerence ‘I don’t understand how...’ he fulminated, ‘…Not in a million years would I have thought...’

‘Wheels within wheels, Fletcher. Yours not to reason why, as friend Tennyson wrote, yours but to do and die...this is
Charge of the Light Brigade
stuff, Fletcher, emphasis on light, but not to worry, you’ll have a lot of help. With my assistance and support you shall discredit Ophelia after she goes corporate. A smear campaign is what I have it mind. Once she is in charge of a diocese as the present Archbishop’s appointee, and toeing the party line, you shall go head to head and toe to toe with her and match her punch for punch.

‘So! my darling Dark, my darkling dear, this is your big opportunity. I am placing a great deal of faith, my kind of faith, in you, and you must understand how deadly serious I am in giving you this responsibility. This calculated move of the Archbishop’s, this ploy to bleach the Church’s underwear and whitewash its walls must not be allowed to succeed. We must visit ruination upon what’s left of the institution, and all the Sunday nincompoops who adhere to its practices not its preachings, by introducing into Canon Law that delightful re-rendering of the Ten Commandments you produced in what has come to be regarded in certain Circles—all nine of them, actually—as an exemplary sermon.

‘Then when we are victorious, Fletcher, and you are my Primate of All England instead of the ape or monkey kind of primate, I will reward you by gathering you unto my bosom. How’s that sound? As Cervantes says in
Don Quixote
, “Remember the old saying! ‘Faint heart ne’er won fair lady!”’

The reverend blinked thrice. It sounded good to him. No tilter at windmills he.

Chapter Thirty-Three

At Lambeth Palace Ophelia was met at Cardinal Morton’s Tudor brick gatehouse by the Archbishop’s assistant, and escorted inside, past the garden with its ancient fig trees. Entering the neo-Gothic residence they went upstairs to the top floor, and along several corridors lined with offices.

As they got closer to His Grace’s inner sanctum the air became progressively more still and solemn, as the sound of ringing telephones, keyboards, copiers, fax machines and secular-sounding conversation faded. Parquet floors gave way to deep-pile carpeting and, in the theological silence, antique time-pieces ticked off the seconds remaining until the Day of Reckoning.

The Archbishop’s aide was a severe-looking woman of about sixty, prim of mouth and manner, with wire-rimmed spectacles and a spinsterish bun. She had not given her name upon meeting Ophelia at the security desk. One of her shoes squeaked as she led the way, and her stockings brushed together with a swishing sound, an effect that she tried to minimize by walking slightly bow-legged.

Finally they went down a short passage, through the aide’s office, and into a heavily decorated room that bespoke the importance of its occupant. There was a desk the size of an aircraft carrier, very cluttered with papers and a winking telephone console. The furniture mostly comprised two winged leather armchairs and a tufted sectional sofa. A gas fire turned down low was flickering in the fireplace.

The Archbishop was conspicuous by his absence; his assistant seemed surprised at this, and hovered, unwilling to leave her charge unattended in case she might have designs on something of value that was small enough to secrete about her person, or a nose and eye for confidential documents. As they waited she maintained her silence and Kingsley Amis’s Edith Sitwell or lemon-sucking face of disapproval at being obliged to conduct a good-looking woman into a private meeting with her employer, as if Ophelia were responsible for arranging it.

To fill the time Ophelia went over in her mind the details of dinner the night before, when, in addition to being treated to a splendid meal, she and Effie had been entertained by observing the Archbishop getting mildly polluted and hearing a couple of risqué jokes that Effie said were new to her.

The women had been given a small flat for the night in a Church property that was reserved for the use of visiting dignitaries. When they arrived, in the late afternoon at London Bridge train station, a driver holding a sign was waiting for them in the forecourt, to save them having to change platforms and re-embark on the slow soul-tormented overground connection to Waterloo. The driver took them directly to their overnight accommodation in order that they might settle in, freshen up and prepare for that evening.

At the flat a housekeeper let them in. A welcome bouquet of flowers and a bowl of fruit were on the table in the living room, still wrapped in plastic. The housekeeper showed the pair the two small bedrooms and the tiny kitchen; and drew their attention to the fresh cartons of orange juice and milk in the fridge, and the bread and butter, and jams and marmalade, and the cupboard where the cereals and porridge were kept, so that they might make their own breakfast.

The housekeeper then departed, and the driver returned at six-thirty that evening to take them to Lambeth Palace, where dinner, he said, was to be served for His Grace and his two guests in an upstairs private dining room overlooking the river.

The waiter attending them, whose name was Beddoes, was disconcerted when both women declined the standard offer of sherry. Instead Ophelia asked for a White Lady, and Effie a Perfect Rob Roy, up, with a cherry. The gin and Scotch whisky were to hand; but the man had to spend some time on his knees with his head in the back of the drinks cabinet before emerging with dusty bottles of Cointreau, sweet and dry vermouth, orange bitters and a jar of maraschino cherries. He then went to the kitchen with a resigned expression to hunt for ice, egg-white, and lemon juice and peel.

When the waiter returned and as they watched him fumbling with a pamphlet on mixology, His Grace said good-humouredly, ‘I don’t think anyone has had either of those drinks since the last North American contingent was over. I’m surprised there’s anything left the way they were going at it.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘You know, we bishops take an oath that we aren’t wine-drinkers, which I have always interpreted as meaning not to excess…whatever that means. In the
Service of Ordination and Consecration
it says, “A Bishop then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous...” That’s a lot for any mortal to live up to, witness the…. Well, I’m not married, and I haven’t been in any brawls recently. But perhaps I ought to switch to drinking cocktails myself...not enough to get anointed, of course, any more than I already am.

‘Dash it, Beddoes, forget my usual sherry, this is a special occasion: I’ll keep Ophelia, and her friend of course, company by having a White Lady also. No, make it a Pink Lady. You’ve already got the egg-white, and I’m sure there must be some grenadine somewhere in your box of tricks. Pink but not scarlet, eh?’

Beddoes, who already looked on the verge of exhaustion, referred again to his booklet, went to the kitchen for double cream, and when he came back started fussing about with the percussive paraphernalia of measuring cups, ice, tongs, shaker, and strainer. About the only thing that he did not use was the soda siphon. Once the trio had their aperitifs, and Beddoes was mopping his brow with a napkin and looking longingly at the whisky bottle, they stood and watched the sun setting over the Thames.

Dinner began with an hors d’oeuvre of thinly sliced smoked wild salmon, with wedges of lemon and triangles of buttered brown bread, and optional sprinkles of capers, chopped egg, and diced red onion, accompanied by a nice Chablis; followed by Bœuf Bourguignon, an assortment of fresh vegetables and a mixed salad.

The red wine was delicious and in plentiful supply. His Grace announced, unnecessarily because neither woman cared, that it was a Gevrey-Chambertain Côte de Nuits pinot noir Grand Cru Burgundy, from the section of the vineyard as far away as possible away from Route N74, which was considered closer to Premier Cru status. It was also reckoned by those in the know as ‘seductive, soft, succulent, voluptuous, full of body and sex appeal, with good backbone and grip.’
The bottle had, he went on, ‘what oenologists call “good legs”: a quality that is as attractive in wine as it is in a…’.

Effie approved so much of the dessert, a Grand Marnier soufflé, that she asked for the recipe; it was brought to the table at the peak of its condition, which Oliver—as he insisted that they call him—described as ‘a moment as fleeting as a mayfly’s life on a chalk-stream’. That he could attest to, he said, because he had an old school chum, now a residentiary canon at Winchester Cathedral, who had introduced him to fly-fishing on the River Itchen courtesy of a worshipful local landowner.

Although no business was discussed, after the table had been cleared and coffee was served, Effie, who was miffed at being excluded from the following morning’s meeting, broached the subject of why Ophelia had been summoned.

The Archbishop, being well practised in the art of diverting things in the direction that he wanted them to take, dismissed the question by wagging his little finger over his demitasse and suggesting that Effie might like a glass of port. She did not demur, and when Oliver passed the decanter that Beddoes brought him, clockwise in accordance with tradition via Ophelia who did not take any, Effie filled her liqueur glass to the brim. Downing it, she poured another, and likely would have continued had the Archbishop not asked her to pass the decanter.

‘It’s a nineteen-seventy Taylor’s and quite good,’ said Oliver, sniffing it. ‘Cherry, plum and dark chocolate, a soupçon of licorice and hint of cough syrup. Still a little young, perhaps, and the tannin content…’

‘I like cherry brandy,’ said Effie. ‘Hate licorice. Don’t have a cough. I want some milk chocolate.’

‘I was referring to the port’s “nose”, my dear, it is another vinous term such as I was using to describe the wine we had with our meal. Beddoes, find…Effie some chocolate, would you? She may find the tannins in it more to her taste, heavily disguised by sugar as they are.’

Effie pulled a compact out of her reticule, opened it and dabbed some powder on her nose with the aid of the puff and mirror inside. When a salver of Belgian confectionery was set beside her, she ate three pieces, wrapped the remainder in a Man-Size Kleenex and put it in her bag.

With a conjuror’s flourish, His Grace chose a Short Churchill cigar from a box of humidor selections that the ever more harassed-looking Beddoes held for him. After the waiter had clipped and lit it for him Beddoes hesitated, wearily awaiting direction as to whether he should also offer the box to the women; whereupon Oliver gave an ironic smile and waved the glowing point to indicate that he should. Ophelia shook her head with a smile; but Effie, after sticking her nose in the box and sniffing, picked out a Corona and stuck it behind her ear; commenting that she would smoke it before bed instead of her usual pipe, which she had forgotten to bring with her.

Fearing that Effie would keep the port batting to and fro until midnight between her and Oliver, who gave no indication that he wanted the party to break up, Ophelia made time-we-were-leaving-noises, thanked their host for a memorable dinner, and asked if they might draw the evening to a close and be permitted to return to the flat where they were overnighting. Their driver, she said, had told them that he would be waiting for them downstairs whenever they were ready.

The curate’s recollection of the night before was interrupted by the soft gonging of the clock in the Archbishop’s study as it marked the hour. No sooner had it concluded its routine than the quiet was broken by the flush of a toilet. An interior door opened and Oliver emerged from his private bathroom, in which a not very efficient-sounding extractor fan was loudly whirring. Closing the door, His Grace was halfway across the floor, shrugging on his jacket and squirting his mouth with breath spray, before he noticed the two women before him.

A farmyard odour from the toilet mingled with the peppermint of the aerosol breath spray, and the fan in the bathroom turned itself off, too soon.

His Grace halted abruptly, shot an accusatory glance looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and another one at his assistant, grunted, verified the time against that on the half-hunter watch, attached to a chain with seals, which he withdrew from the fob of his lappeted crimson velvet waistcoat, and grunted again disgruntledly. His haggard look betrayed a disturbed night’s rest and a hang-over.

‘So you’re here already. Good morning, Ophelia, I hope you slept well. You must have been up early. Skimped a bit on breakfast perhaps, there was no need to rush. Really, Shirley, you ought to have buzzed me first. Right. Would you care for coffee, Ophelia? Yes? No? Good. Bring us coffee, Shirley, a lot of coffee and my largest cup, the one with the
O
for Oliver on it that Archbishop Makarios of Greece gave me.’

Rallying his good humour as an offence to Shirley, His Grace winked at Ophelia. ‘It’s a moustache cup, to facilitate drinking by those with “soup-strainers”, as they’re called. Makarios, who has a bushy black beard, is trying to persuade me to give up shaving to increase my gravitas. He says I need to cultivate a more patriarchal image. I told him I want to look like Cary Grant, not Moses.’

Oliver jutted his jaw in profile, to no reaction from either woman. Instead, Shirley, as her name was now known to be, frowned. ‘Actually, O, your largest cup is the one with the nymphs and satyrs on it that a member of the household staff, recently discharged, gave you at your ten-years-on-the-job Roast last year.’