Absolute Truths (86 page)

I
had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of demanding an
explanation; I was extremely cross and had a strong desire to sulk.
‘You remember,’ said Hall after a pause, ‘what I did after my
tour of the nave.’

‘
You mean the moment when you held up your crucifix and
revolved like a lighthouse?’

‘
Yes, I was trying to locate the demon — or if you want me to
put that in modern language —’

‘Is such a feat possible?’

‘I was conducting an experiment to see if the disorder which
manifested itself in your earlier experience would manifest itself
again.’

This sounded more promising. I allowed myself to show a reluc
tant interest. ‘But what exactly did you think would happen when
you held up the crucifix?’

‘
If a malign force is present, the crucifix moves — just as a divining
rod does when held by someone dowsing for water. But the trouble here,’ said Hall rapidly before I could begin to look disgusted, ‘is
that in a building like this the psychic forces present are so profuse
that it’s hard to tell which powers are actually present. The psychic
forces themselves are neutral. It’s the powers they attract which
can be classified as malign and benign.’

‘
You sound like a Gnostic — and coming from a theologian
who specialises in the heresies of the Early Church, that’s not a
compliment. Why are you apparently unable to resist dressing all
this up in peculiar language?’

‘
Because to be quite honest, Bishop, I’m not at all certain you’d
like it if I were more direct.’

‘
I can stand anything except this paranormal chit-chat. Now tell
me exactly what you were doing and why you were doing it.’

‘
Well, let me start by saying that my prime task, when I walked
around the nave, was not to locate the ghost; it was to observe
you and your reactions. There’s usually a connection, I find,
between the viewer and the viewed in paranormal experiences, and
the viewer is by no means always an innocent bystander.

‘
I was particularly intrigued by the conundrum that although
the ghost had appeared as a concerned onlooker, showing no desire
to harm you in any way, you had nevertheless suffered a most disagreeable experience. This suggested that there was some other
serious problem which had to be uncovered. It seemed it was
connected with the ghost — or rather, with Jardine’s memory —
but rooted elsewhere.

‘
I thought that you might be able to tell me where to look for
this problem — I thought that by watching your reactions I might
crack the mystery, but unfortunately the Cathedral’s quite the
wrong place to attempt that sort of game because the atmosphere’s
so strong that your reactions mightn’t be reliable; for example,
you might manifest a fear that had nothing to do with the experi
ence this morning; you’re suffering from strain and you could be suggestible.’ He paused as if waiting for another angry outburst.

But I said: ‘Go on.’

‘During my walk around the nave you exhibited no abnormal
uneasiness, only a very normal curiosity when I reached the right
pillar, so I learnt nothing about your state of mind from that
experiment. I then decided to conduct the experiment with the
crucifix.’ He paused again before saying very carefully: ‘The crucifix
reminds the healer that he must be Christ-centred, not self-centred;
it protects the sufferer from possible abuse from the healer’s ego
and encourages humility in the healer. So using the crucifix makes
good sense psychologically; it’s not just a superstitious left-over
from the old days.’

‘Quite. So you held the crucifix aloft —’

— and faced north, south and west. Fine. No reaction from you
except a certain fidgeting which suggested irritation. But when I
turned to face the east —’

‘
I leapt to my feet and shouted at you like a maniac.’ I suddenly realised I was feeling sick again.

‘
Yes, but of course there’s an obvious explanation for that,’ said Hall at once. ‘You suffered an intellectual revulsion towards what
you thought was mere superstitious ritual, and your patience finally snapped.’

‘But the crucifix leapt in your hand!’

‘
There’s an obvious explanation for that too: your sudden reac
tion startled me and the crucifix slipped.’

There was a silence. In the candlelight we could see each other
clearly. Hall’s eyes, sunk deep in their shadowed sockets, seemed
hypnotic and as the seconds passed I began to feel he was willing
me to trust him. The pressure mounted. Suddenly I said, reverting
to the old-fashioned language which I had thought myself too
intellectually grand to use: ‘You found the demon, didn’t you? It’s
not Jardine who’s playing host to it and polluting the Cathedral
and it’s not Aysgarth either. It’s me.’ And as I heard myself utter
these insane statements in a calm, reasonable voice, the temperature
in the Cathedral once more started to fall.

Hall said strongly as I began to shudder: ‘You’re going to be well.’
Leaning forward he grabbed my shoulders and wrenched me to
face him. ‘Listen to me. I’m saying that you’re going to be well.
I’m saying —’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said a voice which sounded absurdly peevish. ‘I know all that. You can stop trying to hypnotise me.’ I realised that
this voice was mine but it seemed to be acting independently of my
mind where another voice was shouting that I wanted to escape. As
I clutched the cross on my chest I suddenly became aware of
nausea.

‘
Here,’ said Hall, reaching out to support me as I lurched to my feet. ‘Didn’t you mention a lavatory at the back of the sacristy?’
I just managed to reach the lavatory before I vomited.
‘How sordid!’ said my voice to Hall, and when the voice in my head exclaimed the same words I knew the split in my conscious
ness had healed.

‘
That’s better,’ said Hall satisfied. ‘You’ve stopped shivering.
Give the vomiting another go.’

‘Can’t. Nothing more to come up.’

But there was.

Anxiety prompted me to say: ‘I hope this isn’t the prelude to a
heart attack.’

‘Shouldn’t think so. Got any chest pains?’

‘No. But why should I vomit like that?’

‘Shock. You’d glimpsed the demon.’

‘Ah. But not the ghost.’

‘
No, not the ghost. I presume you can normally think about
Jardine without being obliged to rush to the lavatory.’

‘
Then what’s the demon?’

‘
One of the emotions his memory arouses in you. It’s obvious
his memory arouses all sorts of emotions, but this is the one you
never normally acknowledge.’

‘Contempt? Hatred? Jealousy? Resentment? Bitterness? Fear? Anxiety?’

‘
Well, you’re certainly naming the demons, Bishop, but I’ve a hunch you still haven’t hit the jackpot ... Why isn’t there a basin
in this place?’

‘
They didn’t bother to put one in. Back in the 1950s Dean
Carter was more concerned with expense than hygiene.’

‘Maybe Aysgarth can tart it up when he’s finished with the west
front. Here, have a handkerchief to mop yourself up and then sit
down while I try to find you some water.’

‘
There’s a tap next door in the flower-room.’ I wandered
unsteadily back to the candlelit choir as Hall went foraging in
the tiny chamber, little more than a large cupboard, where the flower-arrangers kept their paraphernalia. He reappeared with a
small vase, filled with water which tasted very cold, and one of the
robes from the sacristy. I was told that I needed to be kept warm;
a moment later I found myself wrapped in a cope of gold and scarlet brocade.

Eventually I managed to say: ‘Perhaps the demon’s guilt. But it
can’t be.’

‘Can’t it?’

‘Not possibly. Not now. I put everything right this morning. I
did feel guilty that I hadn’t told the truth about Jardine to a certain person but I finally did what had to be done. So why is the demon
still around?’

‘Maybe there’s more to be put right.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only you know the answer to that. All I can see is that there
was clearly very much more to your relationship with Jardine than
is generally supposed, and that there were aspects of that relationship which were demonic.’

I said more to myself than to him: ‘I think I at last see why you
keep using the old-fashioned language. By projecting the trouble
outwards on to coded symbols, you’re protecting me. Once I start
looking inwards I can’t cope.’

‘
I think you’re beginning to cope. If I were to translate that last
sentence of mine and say that there were aspects of your relationship with Jardine that were emotionally and spiritually destructive to you and to others, you could cope with that, couldn’t you?’

‘
Yes. Translate some more.’

‘Let me tell you what happens in this kind of haunting – obses
sional fixation – which takes root and flourishes over a long period
of time. First of all there’s someone who arouses in the sufferer a
complex knot of unacceptable and intolerable emotions. Then, by what seems a great stroke of luck, this someone dies. The sufferer
feels immense relief, and this illusion that the problem’s been
solved can last for some time, but after â while more complex feelings develop; it becomes clear that the relationship with the
dead man is by no means over, and that there’s still much
unfinished business remaining on the agenda.

‘
My theory about what happened to you is that you ignored the
unfinished business. You told yourself you could live happily ever
after with Jardine’s memory – and you may even have convinced yourself you’d succeeded. But you hadn’t. You remained very
troubled about Jardine. You suppressed your worst feelings about
him, you refused to discuss him in depth, you split him off in your
mind so that you could refer to him merely as your predecessor
or your wife’s former employer – maybe you even gave him a
private nickname which allowed you to distance yourself from him
– but in the end the more you tried to live in peace with him the more at war with him you became. If I describe that situation by saying the demon remained unexorcised and the haunting con
tinued, I’m no longer trying to protect you; it’s because I feel
the old language gives a much better impression of the torment
involved. The modern language doesn’t convey the same sense of
suffering.’

I thought carefully for a moment. Then I said: ‘Are you saying the ghost’s been haunting me for years because I refused to confront him?’

‘
I’m saying the ghost’s been haunting you for years because you
couldn’t
confront him. The demon sapped your will and made any confrontation impossible.’

‘The demon of guilt?’

‘That’s for you to say.’

With difficulty I said: ‘I wronged him. It was a great injustice that I put right this morning.’

‘
And was that the only injustice waiting to be put right?’ There was a long, long silence. At last I said: ‘The rest of the injustice can’t be put right. He’s dead. I can’t say to him: "I’m sorry." And he can’t say to me: "I forgive you."‘

‘
Can’t he? The demon must be distorting your vision. Think of that ghost who came to meet you here this morning – think how benign he was, how discreet, watchful and concerned! Wasn’t he the very opposite of an avenging, unforgiving spirit?’

‘Are you suggesting ... No, I’m sorry, I can’t work it out, my brain’s finally seized up –’

‘
An act of forgiveness certainly seems to be required to kill the
guilt once and for all,’ said Hall, ‘but I don’t think we’re waiting
for the act to be performed by Jardine. From the behaviour of the ghost I’d guess he forgave you long ago when he was still alive.’

‘
But then who has to perform the act of forgiveness?’

‘
You do.’

‘Me?’ I was stupefied. ‘But who do I have to forgive?’

‘Yourself.’

I looked beyond the candles to the darkness of the far side of
the choir, and it was as if I were staring straight into the black
void of my guilt. I said: ‘I destroyed that man. I showed him no
mercy, no compassion. It was as if I killed him.’ But when I
dragged those words out of my mind as painfully as if they were knives embedded deep in my flesh, I found I could grieve at last
for Jardine – who was Samson – who by his failure had become
a symbol of my darker self, the self I had no wish to know.