The Wonder Worker (44 page)

Both my old pals tried to cheer me up by giving me delicious snippets of information about their current difficulties. Susie said Nigel was making so much money that he had started drinking champagne for breakfast, and Tiggy confided that Bam-Bam was so stressed at work that he spent all weekend at the golf club trying to unwind. I diagnosed alcoholism and adultery respectively and envied them their well-known marital problems. Part of the trouble with being married to a charismatic clergyman was that the marital problems were so peculiar. I had said to Susie once that I refused to sleep with Nicky directly after an exorcism because he smelt so odd, but Susie had just thought I was joking.

Having revitalised myself by tuning in to what the feminists are pleased to call “the sisterhood,” I then drew up a list of food to restock the flat’s empty kitchen for twenty-four hours and drove to the supermarket on Whitecross Street. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to coax Nicky to face reality, but I thought it would be sensible to be well nourished as I prepared for battle. The battle itself I planned to conduct in a civilised manner which would ensure there were no further ghastly scenes, and to set the tone for the initial discussion that evening I decided to cook an elegant dinner. I would take infinite trouble over it—just as much trouble as that girl had taken yesterday—and my carrots weren’t going to be underdone either. In fact I planned to omit carrots, such a boring vegetable, and serve madly fashionable mange-tout.

The supermarket contained some extraordinary people but since it was surrounded by working-class housing I could hardly expect to
meet the inhabitants of middle-class Surrey. Some of the food was strange too, but I didn’t mind that. Encountering exotic ingredients for recipes can be fun, but nevertheless I began to find my expedition unusually exhausting. Once I was past the check-out I was tempted to go straight back to the Rectory but I felt I couldn’t face the flat without flowers. Having circled around to Aldersgate I spent some time in the florist there, and when I emerged I was only just in time to avoid getting a parking ticket for dumping the car on a single yellow line. Deciding London was impossible I retreated at last to the Rectory, placed the flowers in water, ate some soup and passed out on the bed. The entire afternoon was wasted in sleep. I hadn’t realised how worn out I was by all the to-ing and fro-ing from Devon in a state of extreme nervous tension.

When I awoke groggily at four I found there was no sign of Nicky, but he seldom came back to the flat during the day. Having drunk some tea I soothed myself by arranging the flowers. The shop had been stuffed with chrysanthemums, the traditional November fodder, but I’m not necessarily snooty about chrysanthemums and can well spare the time to admire the Korean types, particularly the pink Venus and the pale Ceres. They do well in perennial borders because they’re so hardy. I’m also very fond of the pink and crimson Emperor of China, always so striking and with the additional virtue of being frost-proof in a cold spell.

The chrysanthemums I had purchased weren’t quite in this league, but they made a warm splash of colour, particularly when set against a daring pattern of foliage, and I felt pleased with the results. I took some time over the arrangement because it stopped me thinking about the scene destined to take place when I announced my latest conclusions to Nicky, but as soon as the last flower was in place I knew I wasn’t just nervous; I was frightened.

I told myself that this was irrational. I was certain that after the scenes at the cottage Nicky would be ashamed enough to want to avoid any further violent outbursts, but there was no doubt I was still feeling very jittery. To calm myself down I opened a bottle of plonk which I’d bought at the supermarket and had a quick slurp. Then it occurred to me that a well-controlled, non-violent Nicky playing the wonder worker was a much more spine-chilling prospect than a poorly controlled, very physical Nicky playing the caveman. A caveman might just about manage some crude brainwashing whenever he wasn’t bucketing around trying to break down the nearest door, but
he wasn’t going to be organised enough to employ the most lethal tricks of the wonder worker’s stock-in-trade.

In a flash I remembered that horrible party up at Cambridge when Nicky had been an undergraduate, and naked fear rippled through me as I recalled the hypnosis.

I knew I hadn’t been hypnotised down in Devon. I had certainly been manipulated but I had remained in control of my mind—by which I mean that although Nicky had persuaded me to do the opposite of what I wanted, I myself had still been the one making the decision that I should go on with the marriage. Nicky knew I’d never stand for hypnosis. Long before he had performed the parlour-tricks for his smart set, he hypnotised me into believing that he had stopped my watch just by looking at it. He said: “The second-hand’s halted, hasn’t it?” and I could see that it had. Then he said: “But when I snap my fingers you’ll see that it’s moving again.” And when he snapped his fingers I could indeed see that the second-hand was moving on. Enthralled I begged him to tell me how he had done it, and he admitted the hypnosis.

So appalled was I by the knowledge that my mind had been temporarily removed from my control in this vilely sly way, that I rushed out of his house and would have run sobbing all the way home if I hadn’t bumped into his father in the drive. Old Mr. Darrow had become a recluse after Nicky’s mother died, but Nicky and I were only thirteen then and she was still alive. Mr. Darrow saw I was upset and as soon as I told him what had happened he said that the hypnosis was very wrong and that he would speak to Nicky immediately. I loved old Mr. Darrow. He was such a very wise, kind clergyman and always so nice to me.

Nicky arrived at my house on his bicycle half an hour later and apologised. “I’ll never do that to you again, I promise,” he said. “
Never.
” And I knew then his father had made him understand how wrong it was. No wonder I was so horrified when I saw him using hypnosis six years later up at Cambridge! “Your father would have hated that,” I said stonily to Nicky afterwards, and at once he said in a panic: “You’re not to tell him—I forbid it! You’re not to make him upset!”—as if
I
would have been responsible for old Mr. Darrow’s inevitable distress! That was Nicky trying to manipulate me again, and I did indeed promise him I’d keep quiet, but I made it clear that I’d found his tricks so repulsive that I never wanted to see any of them again.

Much later, during our engagement, he said to me: “You’re the one girl I can trust to support me to the hilt now that I’ve rejected all that stuff,” and I remember feeling faint with relief that he had reformed.

But although he no longer abused his gift for hypnosis, he didn’t abandon it. He explained to me that he had offered the gift to God and now hoped to use it in the service of others. He took a course in the medical use of hypnosis and was very scrupulous in using it as a treatment in accordance with medical ethics. I knew he never hypnotised any of his clients unless Val the doctor was present, but needless to say I was still revolted by the fact that he continued to dabble in hypnosis and I made it clear I never wanted to discuss the subject again.

He did try to reassure me by insisting that people couldn’t be hypnotised against their wills, but I was never entirely sure I believed this. I certainly hadn’t wanted to be hypnotised when he had stopped my watch. How had he done it? I put this question to him but he just said vaguely that I’d been a child at the time and incapable of raising the right mental defences. What were the right mental defences? Nicky, vaguer than ever, said it was just a question of recognising the hypnotist’s will and refusing to submit to it. But when I thought back to the watch-stopping episode I couldn’t remember any attempt to subjugate me. I could only remember Nicky laughing and being very chummy as we drank Tizer after a game of Ping-Pong; I could only remember feeling relaxed and utterly unsuspicious. But of course, as he had pointed out, I’d just been a child at the time.

I took another slurp of plonk and pulled myself together. Nicky, regretting the caveman performance in Devon, would be on his best behaviour. Of course he’d have another go at trying to change my mind and no matter how good his intentions were he probably wouldn’t be able to avoid some form of manipulative behaviour—people with powerful personalities are hardly likely to turn into soft-as-butter yes-men when they’re under stress—but this time reason would triumph, ethics would prevail and he would stop well short of brainwashing, crude or sophisticated. In other words, I could stop gibbering with fright and instead steel myself for a difficult but not dangerous evening during which the painful truth could be bravely faced and honestly discussed.

Pouring myself another glass of plonk to help keep this reassuring vision nailed to the forefront of my mind, I embarked on the task of cooking a supremely civilised dinner.

III

As it
turned out I only had a sip or two from that second glass of wine because I became too busy trying to remember my recipes and producing the necessary improvisation when my memory failed. For the first course I had decided to do deep-fried radicchio with goat’s cheese, a very tasty starter which apart from the final frying can be prepared ahead of time. My original intention was to make a fish soup but I didn’t have a sieve or a liquidiser in the sparsely equipped kitchen of the flat. For the main course I had chosen roast guinea fowl and for the pudding I was keen to produce Grand Marnier crème brûlée, always rich, sophisticated and delicious. I toiled and muttered and sweated and cursed over my hot stove for some time before I had everything under control and could retire once more with my wine to the drawing-room.

At seven o’clock there was still no sign of Nicky and I put the oven on a low setting before buzzing Alice on the intercom to enquire if she knew when the men planned to resurface at the Rectory. I was told that an important meeting was taking place at the Healing Centre and was clearly taking longer than anyone had anticipated. Returning to the kitchen I fiddled again with the oven and then roamed around the living-room with increasing irritation until finally, at twenty-eight minutes past seven, the Rector of St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall deigned to appear. The first words he uttered were: “Why are you waiting up here? Alice is all set to dish up downstairs!”

I was flabbergasted. “But I took it for granted that we wouldn’t be eating with the others!”

“Why on earth did you take it for granted?”

“Because I’m married to you and not to them!”

“But Alice has made fish pie for five!”

“Well, I’ve made honey-roasted breast of guinea fowl with glazed shallots for two!”

“But why didn’t you tell Alice you were planning to do this?”

“Oh, the hell with Alice!” I cried, by that time feeling thoroughly exasperated as well as unpleasantly nervous, and swigging back the wine in my glass I poured myself some more plonk with a trembling hand.

Moving to the intercom Nicky buzzed the kitchen downstairs. “Lewis, I’ll be eating with Rosalind up here,” I heard him say.
“Would you apologise to Alice, please, and say we’ll work out a system to ensure such a mix-up doesn’t happen again? Thanks.”

Abandoning the intercom abruptly he opened the door of the refrigerator, ignored the plonk and extracted a can of Coke. “Okay,” he said, not looking at me. “Let’s eat.”

I stormed over to the stove to fry the radicchio.

When we eventually embarked on the meal he shovelled in his food with an undisguised lack of interest while I, having lost my appetite, pushed various fragments of my culinary masterpieces around a succession of plates and waited in vain for him to display at least a nominal politeness by complimenting me on my cooking.

“Right,” he said at last at the end of the meal after he had retrieved another can of Coke from the kitchen. “What’s your problem? Obviously you’re upset.”

“God, you’re just not in touch, are you! You’re gliding along totally disconnected with reality!”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve just finished yobbishly wolfing a meal which I spent a great deal of time and trouble preparing—”

“I’m sorry, it was good. Thank you. But what I meant was, what’s your
real
problem? I can feel your nerves screeching like a bunch of overstrung violins, and it can’t be just because I was so hungry that I hit the food without drenching you with compliments.”

“The problem’s you, Nicky.”

“Are you trying to say that just because I stuffed down that rather good fried rabbit-food and that very sexy bird which had smeared itself with honey—”

“I’m not talking about that. You know I’m not talking about that. I’m saying the problem is that you’re not facing up to the truth here.”

“What truth?”

“This reconciliation isn’t going to work, Nicky. I’m very sorry, but we made a mistake down in Devon and I’m going back to Butterfold tomorrow.”

He went white. For a moment I thought he was too shocked to reply but then he said very distinctly: “I’m not going to let you do this. You’ve got it all totally wrong.”

“No, I’m the one who’s got it right!”

“You? Got it right? You’re proposing to smash up your marriage, your family and your entire life and you’re telling me
you’ve got it right?
”

“Nicky, I know this is hard for you, but if you could only listen to me for a moment instead of—”

“You’re obviously very sick,” he said, “much sicker than I thought. But don’t worry, I’m going to put things right. I’m going to heal you.”

I was terrified.

IV

I said
panic-stricken, stumbling over my words: “If you start trying to manipulate me again I’ll never forgive you.”

“Oh, don’t be so ridiculous! There was no manipulation in Devon—I just showed you the truth, and the truth was you were trying to make a catastrophic mistake!”

“Nicky—”

“Okay, let’s calm down while I try to understand why you want to abandon the decisions you made yesterday. Are you willing to calm down and conduct this conversation sensibly?”