The Wonder Worker (21 page)

As little Alice nearly faints at the thought of cat-shopping with Nicholas, I wonder if this is really the most sensible of decisions.

COMMENT
: Worry about your own sex-life, Lewis Hall, and leave other people to worry about theirs. Or, in less emotive language: trust Nicholas to manage Alice’s hero-worship as skilfully as he manages everyone else’s.

But “everyone else” doesn’t live at the Rectory.

Oh, pull yourself together, you stupid old fool, and stop seeing women as nothing but trouble …

Tuesday, 27th September, 1988
: I’ve just had the best breakfast in years, cooked by our new in-house serf, Alice. Even Nicholas, who’s not interested in food, ate twice as much as usual. Stacy kept saying: “I can’t believe I’m eating all this.” For a blissful half hour the sin of gluttony reigned supreme at the Rectory, and the Devil did a tap-dance in our stomachs.

We’re giving Alice a week to settle in before we implement Nicholas’s new and excellent plan to hold a communal breakfast for the Healing Centre’s leading personnel after the eight o’clock mass, but she’s off to a flying start on day one. Nice, good, clever child. If only she didn’t have a crush on Nicholas! But she conceals it beautifully, and no one except a dirty old psychic like me would ever know.

Rosalind turns up to interview hopeful cleaners; she’s already dispatched Mrs. Mudd, who will no doubt find some other all-male household to terrorise. Rosalind is togged out in chic earth-brown, shoulders very boxy, and looks as if she’s just about to join a shooting party with a Kalashnikov.

In that blissful Rosalind-free zone, the Healing Centre, I’m collared
by Francie who tells me her husband’s beaten her up again and that this time she’s decided to leave him. I’ve heard that one before. It’s difficult to appear credulous when one knows that if the pattern runs true to form she’ll soon change her mind and resolve to stay with the villain. However, to my relief Francie isn’t seeking my opinion of the situation; she just wants to open her heart to me when she’s so upset. Fair enough. I’m a priest. I can take a heart being opened. But someone really should try to lead Francie out of this sado-masochistic relationship which is causing her so much pain.

I must talk to Nicholas about her again. Luckily I don’t have to worry about the confidentiality rules here because she confides in both of us and makes sure we each know the other is
au fait
with the latest news. This is unusual. It’s not unusual for members of staff to have problems, but they tend to share them either with Nicholas or with me and not with both of us. On the other hand, no one has a problem as serious as Francie’s, so maybe she feels she needs both of us to provide sufficient spiritual support.

Thinking of women needing spiritual support reminds me of Venetia, whom I may just possibly glimpse flitting through the Healing Centre in less than seventy-two hours’ time—although of course if I do see her it’ll be the purest of coincidences.

COMMENT
: Stop drooling over the thought of Venetia at the Healing Centre, you old fool, and just pray for her recovery.

(Dear God, help me to be a
priest
here, not a sex-obsessed pensioner! Amen.)

Friday, 30th September, 1988
: Venetia Day.

Venetia turns up in a black trouser-suit, complete with waistcoat, and looks like a 1980s version of Vita Sackville-West. Maybe she’s a lesbian. A lot of promiscuous women are. All that nymphomania is their way of kicking men in the teeth.

By the impurest of coincidences I’m just in the reception area telling Bernard that as office manager he should do something about the copier, which is chewing up paper again, when Venetia surfaces from consulting room three. She’s been crying and she’s trying to put on an enormous pair of wraparound dark glasses. Behind her Robin’s hovering and fluttering, sending out caring signals but managing to look like a strung-out stick-insect. I make a short sharp gesture which
implies: “I’ll cope. Scram,” and he vanishes. Robin’s always empathy personified. No wonder he’s stick-thin. Nothing like constant deep empathy for burning up the calories.

Meanwhile Bernard’s declaring stuffily that we can’t get a new copier because after the recent postal strike the new facsimile machine has to have priority; he refers to it as a “fax,” which, with his northern vowels, sounds as if he’s reading straight from
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Abandoning him and his technological pidgin-English, I march over to the dark glasses and say without preamble: “Coffee?”

“Yep.” She’s not mincing her words either.

“Go and sit in consulting room two.”

She does. Fortunately I’ve got no more appointments that morning as I’m supposed to be on duty at the church prior to the lunch-time Eucharist. Grabbing two mugs of coffee I prepare to apply first aid.

Venetia’s slumped in the chair by my desk. Sitting down opposite her I hand over one of the Centre’s regulation boxes of Kleenex and during the next five minutes I wait in silence as she soaks up the tissues one by one. At last she drags on the wraparounds again and says drearily: “Okay, I’ll go now.”

“Feel like a drink?”

She perks up. “Lead me to it!”

“All right, I’ll take you to the Savoy for a pussyfoot.”

“A
pussyfoot?
” she echoes appalled in the manner of Lady Bracknell.

“Don’t let the lack of alcohol put you off. I’m a great one for pussyfoots whenever my liver needs resting.”

We stare at each other while she decides whether or not to spit with contempt. But in the end there’s no spitting. Instead she laughs, and at once I laugh too.

Before I leave I get Nicholas on the intercom and excuse myself from the lunch-time healing service. I also add that I hope he doesn’t have to cope with our roving blasphemer who wants to bugger the Blessed Virgin Mary. The blasphemer was back yesterday, turned out of his mental hospital. Mrs. Thatcher’s closed it down. Typical.

Feeling about thirty-nine years old I grab a taxi and sweep Veneria off to our nearest grand hotel. I even forget the pain in my blank-blank hip which once again has been giving me hell …

COMMENT
: Of course I took her out entirely for therapeutic reasons. I thought it vital that someone should intervene at that point to stop
her bingeing on alcohol. I knew how important it was to introduce her to the pussyfoot, so useful to those on the wagon. I felt strongly that she needed a nice little visit to the Savoy as a reward for enduring that difficult but no doubt very worthwhile therapy session. In short my invitation was a gesture made only with her welfare in mind and I had no ulterior motive whatsoever.

Hell, what balls I write in this journal sometimes!

But I really mustn’t start thinking about balls …

Saturday, 1st October, 1988
: I receive a note which reads: “Dear Lewis, Thanks. But you remind me of someone I’ve spent half my life trying to forget. He was wonderful too. Goodbye,
VENETIA
.”

Triple-hell! Quadruple-hell! Multiple-multiple-hell!

I’m so cantankerous that Stacy tries to hide when he sees me coming, and Nicholas asks if I’ve thought of changing my pain-killers.

Bugger everyone! Bugger everything!

I’m
furious.

COMMENT
: Well, what did you think was going to happen, you addled idiot? A whirlwind romance? Talk about losing touch with reality! Pathetic!

This woman’s trying to get her life in order. She doesn’t want some old crock doddering along and screwing it all up.

LEAVE HER ALONE.

Monday, 3rd October, 1988
: Another note arrives from Venetia. It reads: “Dear Lewis, Sorry. I overreacted. You’re really nothing like him at all, I can see that now. Perhaps we might pussyfoot again sometime. Have you been to Claridge’s lately? V.”

I feel like opening a bottle of champagne but it’s only seven o’clock and I’ve got a full morning ahead. I want to leap up on the kitchen table, beat my chest and roar like a lion, but damn it, I’m sixty-seven years old and I was barely able to hobble just now from my bedsit to the front door to pick up the post.

That blank-blank hip
 …

Suddenly I go berserk. I erupt into the study, where Nicholas is doing his spiritual exercises, and give him such a fright that the Bible flies clean out of his hands. Then I thump my fist on the nearby table
and shout at the top of my voice: “SOD THE FUCKING HIP! I’M REPLACING IT!”

Nicholas’s jaw drops but he’s already realising that this wild behaviour is therapeutic, and a second later he’s giving me an encouraging smile. After all, I’ve kept a stiff upper lip about that damned hip for far too long, and the restraint’s only increased the stress.

“Congratulations, Lewis!” he exclaims. “An excellent decision!” And the die is cast.

A new life awaits me!

In ecstasy I dream of rejuvenation.

COMMENT
: On reflection this was very far from being an edifying scene. Reasons:

(1) I’m behaving exactly like an unstable adolescent over Venetia and setting myself up for all manner of possible humiliations.

(2) Indulging in lurid Tarzan-like fantasies (vault onto table-top, beat chest, etc.) is hardly appropriate mental activity for an elderly priest. I’d have done better to visualise the dialogue with my spiritual director which must now ensue as I face up to the impending loss of my arthritic chastity belt. Am I or am I not supposed to remain a celibate? It’s no good sinking into some grisly infatuation with yet another neurotic female drunk if I can only serve God properly by remaining single. I should remember that the entire acting-out of what was originally a mere suppressed carnal reflex could well indicate that I’ve been destabilised by Diana’s death and in consequence behaving like a lunatic. I should also remember that nothing’s changed but my marital status, and even though I’m now a widower I’m still the same man who likes to flirt with aristocratic sirens but go to bed with rough trade. How can I even think of remarriage when I know very well I’ve never managed to overcome this hang-up? Of course Venetia, in a peculiar way, combines the two types: she’s an aristocratic siren
and
uninhibited rough trade. So maybe … No. Stop. I’m fantasising. Forget that.

What am I supposed to be writing? Oh yes, the reasons why the above scene was unedifying. (1) I’m behaving like a testosterone-crazed adolescent, (2) my fantasies were spectacularly unhelpful in solving the celibacy question, (3)—

(3) I should have thought more coolly before committing myself to do away with my chastity belt.

And (4) even though I usually manage to avoid blasphemy I must
make more effort to avoid obscenity. “Sod the fucking hip” was hardly the best of sentences for a priest to utter, even though I was relieving an intolerable tension and even though only Nicholas was present. Language matters. Filthy language reflects a polluted consciousness, and how can God communicate with us if the channel of communication is clogged up with the psychic equivalent of mud? I must talk to Nicholas about this—I think he also has been rather too free-and-easy with the four-letter words lately, but we must now tighten up our spiritual discipline in order to keep fit. It’s no good mindlessly reflecting one of the more yobbish aspects of contemporary culture; that’s not what priests are for, and anyway, who needs more yobs? Human beings are at their most useful when they’re trying to be civilised, not when they’re rollicking around with their brains on ice.

What a splendid conclusion to reach! But there’s just one point that still worries me: will the mere avoidance of the word “fuck” stop me thinking all the wrong thoughts about Venetia?

Tuesday, 4th October, 1988
: After much thought I decide that I can’t continue to pussyfoot with Venetia. But then seconds after reaching this supremely sensible decision I see that I have an absolute moral duty to continue because if I don’t she’ll feel rejected—and this would be most undesirable while she’s in such a fragile emotional state. So I phone her and fix a date when we can go pussyfooting at Claridge’s.

Not until afterwards does it occur to me that I could now be breaching professional ethics. Should I socialise with someone who’s currently a client at the Centre? Even though I’m not conducting the counselling sessions I could still, as a member of the team, be considered involved in Venetia’s treatment.

I’m so troubled by this thought that I do what I should have done earlier and confide fully in Nicholas, but to my relief he takes a relaxed view and says he would have intervened after the interlude at the Savoy if he’d felt the pussyfooting represented a threat to Venetia’s welfare. “Robin and I both think you could play a useful part in helping her fight the drink problem,” he says. “If you can prove to her that she can sit in a bar with a man and enjoy a non-alcoholic drink, that would be important.”

But there could be two schools of thought on that one; I can imag
ine some members of Alcoholics Anonymous, for instance, saying that she shouldn’t be in a bar at all until she’s got a better grip on the addiction. However, if Nicholas and Robin are going to sanction the pussyfooting … I decide to keep quiet about the hypothetical objections of certain hypothetical members of AA.

“The one thing you mustn’t do under any circumstances,” says Nicholas, suddenly flinty-eyed, “is—”

“I know, I know—”

“In fact if you have any doubt at all about your ability to keep the physical side under control, you’d better opt out now before the friendship goes any further. I could explain the opt-out to her in such a way that she doesn’t feel rejected.”

“No need.”

Nicholas allows a pause to develop before asking in his most colourless voice: “Have you done anything further about finding a new spiritual director?”

“Well, I’ve been very busy just lately, and—”

“I wish you’d go and see my nun.”

Nicholas switched to this nun for spiritual direction when his male spiritual director died and left Nicholas a letter recommending her. Nicholas admires this woman enormously. She’s a Roman Catholic, but that doesn’t matter since nowadays we’re all so ecumenical. She’s been married in some dim and distant past. She’s probably an exceedingly good, wise, spiritual old lady. But …