Ultimate Prizes (27 page)

“Very.”

“But I mean, what else could I have done? If a doctor turns up and says: ‘Your wife will die unless such-and-such is done,’ one’s moral duty is to save one’s wife and sanction such-and-such. I know I made the right decision, because no other decision could possibly have been made. But all the same, I can’t help wishing that I hadn’t been put in a situation where that kind of decision was required.”

“A great ordeal.”

“Yes. I suppose so. Yes, that was what it was. An ordeal.” I seized on the word with relief. Now that the mess had been placed in a definitive category it could be filed away safely behind the curtain. “Well,” I said, taking a deep breath and preparing to turn to other matters, “so much for all that. Now—”

“I’m so very sorry, Aysgarth.”

“What? Oh, thanks. Nice of
you
. Well, I really mustn’t waste any more of your time by dwelling on—”

“In the circumstances it’s fortunate you don’t consider yourself bereaved. If you had to deal with grief as well as all the horror and anger, the situation would be well-nigh unendurable.”

“Anger?”

“You said you wished you hadn’t been put in a position where that terrible decision was required.”

“Oh, I see. Well, it’s no good agonising about it now, is it? What’s done’s done. Now if you don’t mind, we’ll put all that aside and turn to the reason why I’ve come to see you. I—”

“Ah, I’ve got it!” Darrow exclaimed suddenly. “You’re trying to ring down the curtain! I remember you telling me last year in the Crusader how devoted you were to your curtains, but Aysgarth, has it never occurred to you that occasionally a curtain really ought to be allowed to stay up?”

“If I want to ring down the bloody curtain I’ll bloody well ring it down!” I yelled, suddenly overpowered by the urge to ease my mounting tension by channelling it into verbal violence, but immediately the words were uttered I realised—too late—that in giving way to aggression I had swung fatally out of control. I began to panic. Clutching the edge of the table I tried to dredge up a manner which could pass for normal. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Bad language. Disgraceful behaviour. Not quite myself at the moment. Got a small problem—very minor—quite apart from all this business, and that in fact is why I’m here. Can we stop discussing irrelevant matters now and finally get down to business?”

“Of course,” said Darrow. “I’m so sorry I diverted you.”

The apology steadied me. I felt calm enough to adopt a casual offhand manner. “I won’t bore you with the details of this little problem,” I said. “It’s not particularly important, but it occurred to me that it might be useful if I had a short talk—about half an hour would do—with one of the Starwater Fordites. Is it possible for you to arrange such a meeting for me? I’d do it myself, but some of those monks know who I am, and … well, I know it sounds absurd, but—”

“You want to be anonymous. That’s not absurd. That’s natural—and sensible too. If you’re looking for detachment, the last person you want is someone who exclaims: ‘Ah, good morning, Archdeacon!’ as soon as you enter the room.”

I was greatly reassured. Speaking with renewed confidence I said: “That’s why I thought I’d ask for your help. If you can tell me the names of the best men at Starwater I can tell you the ones I don’t know, and then—”

“Can you get to London for a few hours?”

“London! You mean the Fordite headquarters?”

“It would solve the anonymity problem and it would save you a trip to Yorkshire. Do you remember me talking to you in the Crusader of Aidan Lucas?”

“Are you saying—”

“I’m saying you’re in luck. He’s in London, convalescing after an eye operation.”

And that was the moment when I glimpsed, far away across the wasteland, the faint outline of the signpost inscribed
SALVATION
.

3

“Is he seeing visitors?”

“He saw me last weekend. I think he’d see you. He can’t read much at present and he finds visitors a welcome diversion.”

The outline of the signpost to Salvation faded as I suffered another bout of panic. “The trouble is I don’t think I could spare the time at the moment to go to London. I’ve got a lot of work on hand, and—”

Darrow, who had somehow managed to maintain a mild, tranquil manner from the start of the interview, suddenly decided that a radically new approach was required. Without warning he blasted into the attack. “My dear Aysgarth,” he said, “shall we abandon this soothing fiction that your problem is just another little awkwardness which can be glossed over with half an hour’s tea and sympathy at Starwater Abbey? I know exactly how you feel about the Fordites! You wouldn’t even consider seeking help from them unless you’d hit rock-bottom hard enough to crack cement. Now stop flaunting that lethal Yorkshire pride, stop flourishing those idiotic Yorkshire understatements and stop falling over yourself to prove to me that you’re the toughest archdeacon in Christendom!”

At once I was released from the panic-infested muddle which had been exacerbated by his sympathy and concern. Almost gasping with relief I waded straight into the attack.

“You want me to collapse in a heap on your carpet, I suppose!” I shouted. “That would give you great satisfaction, wouldn’t it—you’d be delighted to see your old enemy vanquished! But I’m not the kind of clergyman who has nervous breakdowns, I’m not the kind of clergyman who makes a mess of his life, I’m not the kind of clergyman who—”

“You appear to be the kind of clergyman who’s in urgent need of spiritual first aid, and if you’ll now give me the chance I’ll—”

“Oh, go and play the wonder-worker to all your doting disciples! My problems are no business of yours!”

“That’s exactly where you’re wrong. I have a duty to the Church—and to Dr. Ottershaw, our superior—to see you don’t crack up and create a first-class scandal. You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

“I’m not obliged to answer that! I’m answerable only to my Bishop, not to arrogant ex-abbots like you!”

“So be it,” said Darrow, rising to his feet and moving to the telephone on his desk. “I’ll ring Dr. Ottershaw.”

I gasped. Then I jumped up, grabbed the receiver from his hand, slammed the instrument back in its cradle and stood guard over it.

“Aysgarth, short of murdering me you can’t stop me speaking my mind eventually to the Bishop if I choose to do so! Now stop flailing around in panic and try to take in what I’m about to say. I’ll leave Dr. Ottershaw in ignorance of your truly appalling condition if you put yourself in my hands and do exactly as I tell you.”

“But—”

“Aysgarth, do you want to survive this crisis or don’t you?”

“What a damn silly, time-wasting, half-baked question!”

“Then sit down again in that chair and let’s try to stop you bleeding to death before you reach Aidan’s operating table in London.”

4

I had just collapsed in my chair when there was a knock on the door and Jennings, the vice-principal, looked in.

“Excuse me, Jon—oh, good morning, Archdeacon!—but I just wanted to make sure you were here. It’s almost eight o’clock.” As if on cue the bell in the chapel began to toll for Matins.

“I’d be grateful if you’d take the service for me, Frank. There’s an urgent matter I have to discuss with the Archdeacon.”

That disposed of Jennings and Matins. Darrow was now free until the service of Holy Communion—“Mass,” as he usually called it in his Anglo-Catholic fashion.

“The first thing you must do,” he said as soon as Jennings had left the room, “is list your morning’s engagements so that I can cancel them. What were you planning to do after this interview?”

“Obviously I must go home, break the news about the baby to my younger children—the older boys are away at school, of course—and embark on my day’s work. I must see my curates at nine, Dr. Ottershaw at ten—and then at eleven I have a diocesan committee meeting about—”

“When will you return to the hospital?”

“They told me not to go back before noon. So as soon as the committee meeting finishes I must go to the hospital, see my wife, see the almoner, see the baby—” I stopped. A long silence followed. Then from a long way away I heard my voice say: “I can’t face it.”

“Can’t face seeing the baby?”

“No, that’s all right. I’m not bereaved so I won’t feel anything. I can endure the baby. It’s my wife I can’t face.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“None of your damned business.”

“You feel guilty, perhaps? Guilty that she’s suffering through bearing your child?”

“Oh, stop making wild guesses and trying to pass them off as psychic insights!”

“Maybe you feel guilty because you wish the baby was alive and she was dead.”

I sprang to my feet. My chair keeled over. In a shaking voice I said: “You
sinister
magician! Go to hell—I’m walking out!”

“Aysgarth”—in a flash he was barring my path to the door—“do you really want to destroy yourself? You’ve got to face your wife this morning and I’ve got to help you do it. I can cancel the curates, the Bishop and every diocesan committee meeting on Eternity Street, but I can’t cancel your wife.”

“I tell you I can’t see her—I can’t—”

“You must. If you don’t turn up at that hospital this morning the scandal’s going to begin. Your marriage is already the most discussed partnership in the diocese. Possibly it’s the most discussed marriage in the Church of England—it’s not every day an archdeacon marries a society girl—and any adverse gossip about the two of you now is going to be picked up and magnified. Then the gutter press will rush in, and do I really have to spell out what will happen if the more unscrupulous journalists decide your marriage has run aground? Aysgarth, you’ve got to get it into your head that you’re absolutely on the brink of catastrophe and one false step could send you over the edge into the abyss!”

It was impossible to argue with him; that indeed was how I myself saw my crisis. Hardly aware of what I was doing I turned aside from the door and moved to the window. With horror I saw the outline of the Cathedral was blurred.

“All the familiar landmarks are disappearing,” I said. “How can I find my way when there are no landmarks?” I waited for an answer but Darrow was silent, and now the Cathedral was a mere haze of light and shade, as indistinct as an Impressionist painting. Fearful of showing any trace of weakness, appalled at the thought that I might betray unacceptable emotion in the presence of a man I disliked, I once more resorted to rage to keep an unbearable truth at bay.

“Why am I being tormented like this?” I shouted, and as I spoke I slammed my fist down on the surface of the table. “Why has this happened to me?”

Darrow at once threw me a lifeline by implying that the torment could be eased. “Aidan will help you discern the answer to that question,” he said, “but at present you’re quite beyond discernment Now, Aysgarth”—I was aware of him moving back to the table—“you must try to be still. In your distress you’re making so much noise that you wouldn’t hear a communication from God even if He were transformed into an anthropomorphic deity who could thunder instructions to you in impeccable BBC English. The way forward at this moment, I assure you, is not to thrash around making a noise. What you have to do is to listen—to listen to the silence and be calm.”

I blinked rapidly, pretended to rub a fleck of grit from one eye and collapsed yet again at the table. Meanwhile Darrow was moving his chair so that he could sit closer to me. The silence lengthened but eventually I felt strong enough to look at him. He stared back. He had an angular face with prominent cheekbones, a tough jaw and a high forehead. His eyes were a peculiarly clear shade of grey, and I knew, as I noted their clarity, that he was trying to will me into a calmer state. Damned witchdoctor! He thought of himself as a healer, of course, like Christ. He would. I seethed with irritation as I contemplated such arrogance, but the next moment my mind had forgotten Darrow’s shady parlour tricks. The image of Christ, having drifted so idly into my mind, was now expanding; I found I was thinking of him moving among the sick, the oppressed, the tormented; I imagined him saying: “Your faith has made you whole.”

“It’s all a unity,” I said. “It’s all one.” It took me a moment to realise I had spoken my father’s words aloud, and in confusion I tried to gloss over this apparently irrelevant quotation. “I mean
I
want to be all one,” I said, “and not torn apart by my troubles.”

“You want to be whole.”

I froze. “Why use the word ‘whole’?”

“Why not? It was a word favoured by Our Lord, wasn’t it? Whenever he moved among the sick—”

“Quite.” I wrote off the apparent synchronisation of our thoughts as a coincidence and finally managed to relax.

“Feeling better?” said Darrow.

To my surprise I realised that I was. Grunting a cautious assent I stole a furtive glance at the Cathedral and found to my profound relief that the outline was clear.

“Very well,” said Darrow, satisfied that I was no longer trying to climb every wall in the room, “let’s try and build up your strength for this crucial interview with your wife. I’ll find you a corner where you can snatch a few hours’ sleep.”

“But what on earth are you going to say to—”

“Leave everyone to me—I’ll deal with them. All you’ve got to do is deal with yourself by recuperating as far as possible from your sleepless night—and before you try to argue, may I remind you that the care of your health is a religious duty,” said Darrow austerely in the kind of voice which made it plain that no further argument was possible.

I saw no alternative but to allow him to lead me from the room. Once Darrow started dealing with people he was like a tank; I felt as if I’d been mown flat. Trudging along in his wake I was taken upstairs to a bedroom which belonged to an absent ordinand and told to lock myself in as soon as I was alone.

“You think he might come back?” I said confused.

“No, he’s attending a funeral in Birmingham. I was merely worried in case a zealous cleaning-woman chose to wander in with her duster … Well, don’t just stand there, Aysgarth! Take off your shoes and collar, adopt a horizontal position on that bed and at least make an effort to rest even if you can’t manage to sleep. I’ll come back at half-past eleven with some food, and at quarter to twelve we’ll leave for the hospital.”