Ultimate Prizes (28 page)

“You’re coming with me?”

“Of course. Did you really think I’d leave you to face this nightmare alone?”

“But your work—your classes—your appointments—”

“I’ll deal with them. No need for you to worry.”

“But I really can’t disrupt your life like this just because I’m currently a little under the weather—”

“Aysgarth, will you kindly stop pretending this dire emergency is a mere passing inconvenience?”

He left. Locking the door obediently, I shed my shoes and collar, lay down on the bed and prepared myself for three hours of tormented solitude.

But I slept.

5

I slept, and into my dreams walked Uncle Willoughby, shouting: “This is a dire emergency—and this is where you start to pay!” I knew he wanted to kill me with the bloodstained axe he held in his hand, but I ran away from him, I ran all the way home, I ran upstairs to the nursery, where I picked up the sledgehammer which was lying beside a cradle filled with dead babies, and as the door of the room burst open I smashed his skull to pulp. I smashed and I smashed and I smashed but suddenly I realised with horror that my victim wasn’t Uncle Willoughby. It was my mother. In terror I knew I had to cover up my mistake, I knew I had to pound the corpse to pieces so that I could sweep it under the rug and ring down the curtain, but the body refused to disintegrate and the moment I stopped wielding my sledgehammer it began to come back to life. In panic I tried to raise the sledgehammer again but now it was too heavy for me to lift, and as I wrestled futilely with that leaden weight I suddenly became aware of Uncle Willoughby creeping up behind me and swinging back his axe and—

I sat bolt upright, gasping and sweating, to find myself in the little bedroom beneath the eaves of the Theological College. Beyond the window the sun was still shining on the Cathedral from a radiant cloudless sky.

After a while it occurred to me to glance at my watch and to my relief I saw it was almost time for Darrow to arrive. I felt ready for action. No more idle dozes and ridiculous nightmares. The moment had come to face the next stage of my ordeal.

In despair I tried to imagine how I could survive my visit to the hospital.

6

“Let’s try to decide what approach you’re going to take with your wife,” said Darrow, offering me a Marmite sandwich and a tall glass of water. “The key to surviving a difficult interview is to be well prepared. Are you capable of saying something as mundane as: ‘Darling, I’m so sorry you’ve been through this terrible experience but thank God you’re still alive,’ or would even that be too much for you?”

“No, I think I could manage that. But I don’t think I could manage it for very long.”

“Could you last five minutes?”

“I might. It depends on her. If she’s well enough there’ll be no difficulty because she’ll quickly take over the conversation.”

“If she’s not well enough to talk much there’s still no difficulty, because the nurses won’t let you stay long. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll see that whatever happens you’re hauled out after five minutes. If you feel you can’t last that long, say that you have to go to the lavatory and I’ll make sure a nurse will be waiting to terminate the visit when you get back.”

I said in despair: “How in heaven’s name am I going to get through the next thirty years of married life?”

“Don’t think of the next thirty years. Just concentrate on getting through today.”

“I simply don’t understand how I could have wound up like this—”

“Don’t think of that either—all speculation can wait till later … When did you first realise your marriage was a mistake?”

“Some time ago, but I thought I could make it come right so long as I had a prize to chase. So long as she was capable of being converted into a prize, I was fine.”

“You mean you finally gave up trying to convert her?”

“No, I mean I finally won her completely.”

“And then you didn’t want her any more?”

“Well, there was nothing left to chase, you see, and there’s not much you can do with a prize after you’ve won it except keep it on the mantelshelf—and sometimes that’s fine, of course, sometimes one gets great pleasure and satisfaction from keeping a prize on the mantelshelf to remind one of one’s luck in possessing such a perfect object, but the trouble with Dido is—”

“She’s very far from being a perfect object. Yes, I do see. A most baffling dilemma … And how long have you been chasing the prizes?”

“Oh, forever. It’s the way to get on, isn’t it? It’s the way to stay out of the pit.”

“What pit?”

“The failure pit. The one where the coffin is.”

“Failure equals death? Winning the prizes equals life?”

“Yes. But—” I broke off. My memory was regurgitating the famous declaration of Jesus according to St. Matthew: “He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Covering my face with my hands I said in horror: “I’ve won everything I’ve ever wanted—but I’ve lost all the way along the line.”

“Not quite.”

“But I’ve wound up in the pit—I’m alongside the coffin—”

“But not in it.”

“Yes, but—”

“You’re going to fight your way out of that pit, Aysgarth. You’re going to escape from that coffin.”

“I don’t see how I can ever—”

“Put on your collar and shoes, dust yourself down and fix your eyes resolutely on survival. Survival’s your new prize. Start chasing.”

Reaching for my collar without another word, I began to drag myself painfully to the starting-line for my next race.

  10  

“
It might be impossible to make sense of life: life was not worth living until the attempt to do so had been made.
”

C
HARLES
E. R
AVEN
A WANDERER’S WAY

1

“
DARLING STEPHEN—
”

“Dido—my poor little love—”

“Oh Stephen, I feel so useless, such a failure, not even able to produce a proper baby—”

“All that matters is that you’re going to be all right.”

“I could still die of post-partum complications—”

“But you won’t. I absolutely forbid it,” I said, and smiled at her as I gripped her hand.

“Oh Stephen, I love you so much—I wrote you a letter—”

“I’ve read it. Darling, I thought it was the most beautiful letter any husband could ever receive.”

“You were only supposed to read it if I died!”

“Yes, but isn’t it nice that you’re still alive to hear me tell you how wonderful it was?”

We laughed. The interview was zipping along with the quick-fire verve of an
I
.
T.M.A
. script, each character trotting out the type of lines which the audience had come to expect, but I felt as if the script was shaking in my hands, and in my memory I heard Alex saying again and again: “How we all lie to one another!”

“Darling Stephen!” Dido was saying passionately. “If only we could pretend this whole disaster had never happened! You won’t believe this, but just before you arrived they tried to show it to me.
It
. The dead body. My dear! Can you
imagine
anyone being quite so insensitive? I started screaming straight away. Merry was right—I should have had the baby in London and not in this provincial medical dustbin—well, I
would
have had it in London if I hadn’t been so worried that people would say I was an awful wife, leaving you on your own all over again. I’m sure that if I’d been in a nice smart London clinic they wouldn’t have tried to push a corpse under my nose when all I wanted was to pretend my dreadful failure never happened …” And she began to cry.

At once I seized the opportunity to ring the bell for the nurse. The ward-sister appeared, took one look at her patient, who was now sobbing uncontrollably, and said to me: “We’re as well as can be expected but it’s only natural that we should still be very upset.”

Dido shrieked: “That’s the one who tried to rub my nose in the corpse!” and began to scream.

The sister advised me without expression to cut short my visit. Giving Dido a quick kiss I declared I adored her and fled.

Darrow was outside in the corridor. He was talking to a large woman of the type who can always be relied upon to arrange the flowers in church each week.

“Aysgarth, this is the almoner, Mrs. Collins.” He gave her the smile he kept specially for women. Mrs. Collins simpered. Darrow, my personal tank, was once more carrying all before him. “Mrs. Collins has offered to take you to see the baby before we sort out the paperwork.”

“Ah yes.” After the scene with Dido I felt that even seeing a dead baby could be ranked as a pleasure. “Thank you, Mrs. Collins.”

The woman expressed the usual words of sympathy before leading the way downstairs. Outside the main building we crossed a lawn which unexpectedly sloped to the banks of the river. In Starbridge the river was forever turning up in unexpected places; it not only looped around the town but also, with the aid of a tributary, twisted through it so that one was never far from the water. One was never far from the Cathedral either. Beyond the flowering cherry trees which flanked the river-bank, beyond the chimney-pots of the distant buildings, I could see the spire shimmering against that dazzlingly cloudless sky.

On the other side of the lawn the almoner took us into an unnamed named modern building and opened the first door on the left of the hall.

“I’ll wait here,” said Darrow, planting himself by the nearest wall.

I followed the almoner into a room where a little lump lay under a blanket on a table.

“I’ll wait with Father Darrow outside,” said the woman in the hushed voice people reserve for churches, and to my relief I found myself abandoned.

The door closed. I eyed the blanket. No one was watching. I didn’t have to look underneath. I made up my mind not to look, but then I remembered Darrow. If I failed to look, he would know. I had no belief in telepathy, of course, but I knew he would ask a prying question, gauge my reaction and put two and two together before I could even say “white magic.” The thought that he now knew exactly how I felt about Dido was enough to make my blood run cold. He would tell no one, I was sure of that, but the very fact that he knew suddenly seemed unbearable. I suffered a violent urge to escape from him before he could uncover my lack of paternal feeling towards the corpse, but I knew very well that I needed my personal tank, flattening every obstacle in my path, if I was to survive.

Thinking of survival reminded me of the little lump to whom survival had been denied. Gritting my teeth, I raised the blanket and took a quick look. The baby was very small, very ugly and very dead. I dropped the blanket but then realised I still had no idea of the child’s sex. I had to find out. Supposing the almoner were to uncover my ignorance as we wrestled with the paperwork? What would she think of such crass indifference to my own flesh and blood? I shuddered from head to toe.

Reluctantly I raised the blanket again, but the baby was encased in a cloth which I could not bring myself to unwrap. By this time I was feeling so nauseated that I noticed the corner basin with relief. What
was
this room? Why hadn’t the baby been left in a side ward until I had been through the farce of viewing the body? And why, after Dido’s bout of hysterics which had preceded my arrival, had the baby been whipped out of her room and dispatched straight to the mortuary? Was an autopsy to be performed? Or was the removal merely in accordance with regulations about dead bodies in hospitals? I had no idea. No doubt Mrs. Collins would enlighten me later, but meanwhile here I was, standing in a building which must be a mortuary and staring around at a room which seemed to be specifically for viewing corpses. But if the room had really been set aside specifically for the viewing of corpses, who was the fool who had painted the walls such a repulsive shade of yellow?

I vomited neatly into the corner basin. That made me feel better, and as I sluiced away the mess I made a new resolution to behave in an orderly Christian fashion. Returning to the corpse I noticed there was a little label attached to the cloth. The inscription read:
AYSGARTH (MALE
). I was looking at my son.

Folding my hands I closed my eyes and tried to pray. As a Protestant I disapproved of prayers for the dead, but I thought I should pray for forgiveness for my part in his death. Unfortunately I seemed quite incapable of an
ex tempore
prayer. I decided to embark on the Lord’s Prayer instead, but seconds later I realised I was reciting the General Confession. Obviously I was on the point of climbing the repulsive yellow walls. How could any clergyman in his right mind decide to recite the Lord’s Prayer and wind up halfway through the General Confession? Perhaps in my guilt I had subconsciously decided that the plea “forgive us our trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer was inadequate. Or perhaps the aberration was merely further proof that I was thoroughly worn out.

In despair I wished I could sense the presence of Christ. Then I would be in command, infused by the power of the Spirit, and all would be well. It occurred to me then that if Jesus had been physically present he would have picked up the corpse, and the baby, transformed by love, would have been beautiful. Nerving myself to clasp the bundle I held it in my arms, but the child remained ugly.

As my despair deepened I said aloud to my unnamed flesh and blood: “Sorry. Awful mess. Better off where you are.” But as I spoke these idiotic words I thought of him being “with Christ,” as the symbolic saying goes, in some dimension of ultimate reality which lay far beyond the scope of the human imagination to conceive, and suddenly I saw Jesus clearly in my mind, not the effeminate romantic of those sentimental Victorian paintings and not the magnetic leader I usually pictured, but an idealised version of my father, who had loved children and who had transformed the bleak hills above Maltby into a paradise when he had taken us for walks on those summer afternoons long ago. And when I glanced down again at the corpse I saw it was no longer just a dead body but a person—and not just any person but someone special, as special as all the other grandchildren whom my father would have loved if only he could have lived to see them, and as I remembered my father’s love the vile repulsive room became suffused with light, my despair was smoothed away and for a single moment my wasteland was transformed, just as the Yorkshire countryside had been transformed long ago when my father had been alive and I had walked with him in paradise.

I said aloud: “You’ll be all right now,” and when I spoke I heard not the idiotic utterance of a demented man but a symbolic communication with my father’s grandson, a unique individual whose memory would be valued and cherished. Putting the baby back in his resting-place, I stood motionless for a long moment as I grieved for all that had been lost. Then drawing the blanket for the last time across that unforgettable face, I walked abruptly from the room.

2

In the hall I said to Darrow before he could speak: “I don’t want to talk about it.” Then I noticed the almoner’s absence. “Where’s Mrs. Collins?”

“Gone on ahead to her office.”

We went outside. The sun felt hot after the chill of the morgue. The grass was a radiant green.

“I can deal with Mrs. Collins once you’ve signed the forms,” said Darrow. “You can wait in the car.”

“Thanks.” Keeping my gaze firmly on the main block of the hospital ahead of us, I said: “There’s to be no anonymous disposal. He’s not to be swept under the rug.”

“I’ll make that clear to her.”

“And he’s to have a proper birth certificate. He’s not to be passed off without a name just because he was born dead.”

“What name should I give?”

“Arthur. And if there’s no space on that piece of paper they allocate to stillborns, the name must be written in the margin or on the back. He’s to have a proper name and a proper funeral and a proper grave and a proper headstone with ‘Arthur’ on it.”

“I’ll organise the undertakers. Don’t worry, Aysgarth, everything will be arranged exactly as you wish. Just you leave it all to me.”

3

As we drove away from the hospital Darrow said: “Congratulations. You appear to have survived that ordeal surprisingly well.”

“Curiously enough, seeing Dido wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared. That was just another exercise in fantasy. It was seeing Arthur that nearly finished me off. That was reality.”

“It was important that he should have become real to you. One can’t surmount a painful experience unless one first faces it directly.”

I considered this statement with care. Then I said: “I daresay I shall always feel some degree of guilt, but it’ll be a guilt I can live with because I know now he’s all right. And the very fact that I know this means I’m forgiven.” This obscure assertion sounded oddly familiar, and again I experienced the
déjà vu
phenomenon which had been haunting me for so long. In an effort both to clarify my feelings to Darrow and to grope in my memory for the prior image which had made the words so eerily familiar, I said slowly: “When I saw him he became special and the alienation caused by guilt dissolved. It was like the automatic working of a law of science.”

“Ah, you Modernists!” said Darrow. “Always so ready to worship at science’s altar! Why can’t you just say that love has the power to cast out misery and generate forgiveness? Or if that’s too direct for you, why not merely say: ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’? Why drag in science?”