Ultimate Prizes (46 page)

“Neatly put,” said Lord Flaxton with a thin smile. “I particularly enjoyed the swipe at agnosticism.”

“I—”

“No, don’t start apologising again, Archdeacon, or I shall get cross. I invited you to stand up to me, didn’t I? Have you forgotten that at the start of this conversation I expressed approval of clergymen who had balls?”

“I assure you, my lord, I’ve forgotten nothing that you’ve said.” I paused, and as I did so I saw clearly that my next move could prove fatal. For a moment I hesitated, paralysed by my old familiar cowardice, but then I thought of George Bell rising to his feet time after time in the House of Lords to make the courageous speeches which would cost him Canterbury.

“Lord Flaxton,” I said evenly at last, “you’ve been very kind and paid me far more compliments than I deserve, but I’m afraid that if you knew me better you wouldn’t approve of me at all. You’d think me soft on Germans. I’m a supporter of Bishop Bell.”

The hooded dark eyes widened. We stood there, both of us quite motionless in that vast room, and the silence was broken only by the ticking of clocks. Then Flaxton said: “Now I
know
you’ve got the guts to take on the rich. May I congratulate you, Archdeacon, on your outstanding integrity and moral courage? I’d like to see a man like you go all the way to the House of Lords.”

6

Down the long room with me he walked, and across the oval hall to the front door. He was talking about the Church but I was in such a state of stupefaction that I was unable to concentrate on his words. It was only when he opened the front door that I found I could reconnect my ears with my brain.

“… and the Church never seems to consider how its appointments look to those outside it,” he was remarking. “I suppose the senior churchmen don’t care, but the Church belongs to all of us, doesn’t it, to anyone who can call himself an Englishman—it’s our great legacy from the past, a legacy which should be cherished even by incorrigible agnostics, and personally, as a man who has the intelligence to see the vital importance of history, I consider it my moral duty to assist such a unique institution to survive and flourish. There should be more favour shown to self-made men and more emphasis on brains and guts. We want a return to Muscular Christianity—a return to the glorious days of the nineteenth century!”

I forebore to remind him of the raging controversies over Darwin, the internecine feuds between the Broad Church Liberals and the Evangelicals, and the violent disruption caused by the Oxford Movement. All I could say was a meek: “I congratulate you on your robust views, my lord.” I was sounding like a sycophant. Without doubt it was time to go.

All the way down the steps of the porch he walked with me, and all the way across the forecourt to my car.

“Well,” he said as I at last succeeded in taking my leave of him, “rest assured that I shall never see the Virgin Birth in quite the same light again! I wish you luck, Archdeacon—or as Virgil put it: ‘
Macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra
’!”

This meant something like: “Good luck, young chap—keep going and you’ll scale the stars!” With a mighty effort my trusty memory produced the tag about Fortune favouring the brave. “And as Virgil also said,” I responded valiantly, “ ‘
Audentes Fortuna iuvat’!
”

Lord Flaxton gave another bark of laughter and stood back to allow me to collapse into my car. I was no longer capable of rational thought, but like a robot I switched on the engine, and like a robot I guided my machine away down the drive.

As far as I could gather, God and the Devil were now both busy fighting for the possession of my soul. Could a good Modernist, who shunned all mention of the Devil, seriously resort to such old-fashioned symbolism? Apparently. But perhaps I was more deranged than I realised.

Abandoning all hope of exercising the charism of discernment, I stopped wondering what on earth God wanted me to do and drove down to the village to confront the unfortunate clergyman who, like me, was quite obviously on the brink of a breakdown.

7

The church in Flaxton Pauncefoot had a youthful look; I judged it to be no more than three hundred years old and I wondered what had happened to the medieval church which must have stood on the site. Inside by the alms-box I found a pamphlet which gave the explanation: Cromwell’s soldiers, judging the church to be a peculiarly revolting example of idolatry, had been unable to resist the urge to commit arson. Having been brought up to regard Cromwell as a hero who had rescued England from the Papist influence of a foreign queen, I never failed to be shocked by evidence of his followers’ hooliganism.

In the vestry I checked the cupboards for empty bottles but found only Communion wine. The key to the wine cupboard was placed trustfully on top of the door-frame but this was not unusual; many country parishes were still living in blissful ignorance of the post-war crime wave.

Leaving the church I crossed the graveyard to the large dilapidated house which sprawled beyond an uncut hedge. Weeds were thriving in the drive. The garden was a wilderness. Faded lettering on the broken gate proclaimed that this run-down dwelling was the vicarage. Walking up to the shabby front door, I tried ringing the bell but it was broken. I resorted to the knocker. No one came but the door was on the latch and creaked inwards. Warily I stepped into a dark dirty hall.

“Hullo?” I called. “Anyone at home?” And to my surprise a man’s surly voice replied reluctantly from a room nearby: “Just a minute.”

I heard the clink of a glass knocking some metal object and then the click of a closing cupboard door as the evidence of the afternoon drink was concealed. A moment later a man emerged into the hall. I judged him to be about my age. He had some hair like steel wool growing in a fringe around his bald pate, pale eyes behind thick spectacles, and a damp unhealthy look. His lips were moist, hinting that he had just licked them nervously. When he saw my uniform he was appalled.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said, very civil. “My name’s Aysgarth. If you’re not too busy, I’d like to have a word with you.”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” he said, looking wretched, and led the way into a dishevelled study where the dust lay over the furniture like a pall of brown frost. “Do sit down,” he added, removing a pile of junk from a worn chair.

“Thanks.” I waited till he too was seated before I said: “I’m here on behalf of the Archdeacon of Starmouth, who’s engaged elsewhere at present.”

“That’s welcome news. I can’t stand that man Babbington-French.” With an unexpected flash of humour he added: “And now I suppose you’ll say he’s a personal friend.”

“My acquaintance with Mr. Babbington-French is purely professional.”

“Heavens, that’s cagey! I can see you’re one of the Church’s diplomatists, effortlessly gliding up the ladder of preferment to the palace at the end of the rainbow. I’ve heard of you, of course. You’ve got a house in the Close and a society wife. Well, good luck to you, I say—good luck! I’m glad there’s at least one clergyman of my age who’s not buried alive in a rural tomb on a salary which would make a dustman laugh—and you can tell that to the Bishop. And talking of the Bishop, why am I being visited by his henchman? Has someone been complaining about the drink again?”

“No, but if you regularly throw sobriety to the winds at four o’clock in the afternoon, it can only be a matter of time before someone does.”

“I never drink before a service.
Never.
”

“Congratulations. What do you do with the bottles?”

“Bury ’em in the garden. If you think I’m too far gone to keep up appearances, I assure you—”

“Where do you buy them?”

“Starmouth. You don’t think I have a standing order at the local off-license, do you?”

“Whisky, is it? Gin?”

“At twenty-two-and-six a bottle? How could I afford it?”

“It’s amazing how many tight-fisted bank managers become sentimental at the sight of an impoverished parson.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, as a matter of fact—”

“Name of the bank?” I said, taking out my notebook. “The Westminster at Flaxfield. But the loan’s only a hundred pounds!”

“That’s too much for someone in your circumstances. It’ll have to be mopped up.” I wrote down: “Debt: £100 (£200?) WB @ Flax.” and added aloud neutrally: “Once a loan gets into three figures it’s best if the diocese pays off the bank in order to avoid the risk of scandal; three-figure loans have a fatal habit of rapid expansion. Then once the bank’s out of the way we work out how the incumbent can pay back the diocese and still live within his income. Have you been borrowing from church funds?”

“Are you accusing me of embezzlement?”

“No, I’d assume there was no criminal intent to defraud.”

“Well, actually I do borrow the odd fiver from the organ fund every now and then, but I
always pay it back in the end—
”

“How much is currently outstanding?”

“Twelve pounds five-and-six.”

“You’re quite sure of that figure?”

“Are you accusing me of—”

“I’m not making accusations, I’m ascertaining facts. All right, let’s get down to the fundamental cause of this situation; so far we’ve only been discussing symptoms. What do you see as your real problem, the problem that’s driving you to drink, debt and despair? Bereavement? Loneliness? Intellectual isolation? The depressing atmosphere of this obsolete hulk of a house? Middle age? Women? Choirboys?”

“My God!” To my relief I realised his horror was genuine. No clergyman normally uses God’s name as an expletive, least of all a clergyman in the midst of an awkward interview with an archdeacon.

“Lost your faith?” I persisted, determined to ram my advantage home while he was in shock.

However shock was now giving way to anger. “Lost my faith? Certainly not! And will you kindly stop bullying me this instant? I feel as if I’m being repeatedly hit over the head with a hammer!”

It was time to explain my technique and soften him up. “I’m sorry,” I said sympathetically, “but I find that these very difficult interviews usually run more easily if all the unspeakable possibilities are dragged out into the open right at the beginning. Otherwise one can tiptoe tastefully around for hours—with the result that by the time the truth’s exposed, the poor victim, who’s probably already under strain, is only fit for a lunatic asylum. You may scoff but I honestly feel I’m being cruel only to be kind.”

He plainly saw the logic of this argument; he looked first mollified and then relieved as it occurred to him his plight could be worse. At least there was no trouble with choirboys. “Well,” he said, spurred to honesty by the desire to convince me that he wasn’t such a bad fellow after all, “I suppose my main problem is that I’m bored.”

I kept my face expressionless. “Could you elaborate on that statement, please?” I said politely while I asked myself how a bored believer could transform himself into a raging heretic. The true raging heretic is usually the product of passionate emotions, not of an impoverished middle-class ennui.

“I’m bored with being poor,” said Mellors, “bored with having no wife and being unable to afford another, bored with all the bovine parishioners, bored with rural life, bored with knowing I’ve smashed up all hope of preferment by hitting the bottle after my wife died, bored with having no future, bored,
bored
,
BORED
. So you see, all I’m suffering from is sloth. Trust me to choose the most boring of the seven deadly sins. Boring of me, isn’t it?”

“Speaking from a practical point of view, I’d rather you were indulging in sloth than in illicit sexual activity,” I said good-humouredly, beavering away at the task of appearing friendly and sympathetic. “Sex is always so much harder to cover up. But let’s put worldly considerations aside and spare a passing thought for God. I assume you’re bored with Him too.”

“Not in the least, although I’m sure He’s very bored with me. I repeat: I haven’t lost my faith. I still believe God exists, but the trouble is I seem to be in some sort of a—how can I put it—”

“Wasteland.”

“—wasteland—thank you—which is so boring that He can’t be bothered to enter it.”

“Must make sermonising a bit tricky.”

“Well, it did for a while,” said Mellors as I fought a losing battle to preserve my detachment, “but then I found the cure. I had to go to Starbridge not long ago to see my dentist about a tooth which was making a nuisance of itself, and afterwards I visited the library of the Theological College. I suppose I felt guilty enough about my sloth to want to ginger up my sermons with a dash of current religious thought. Anyway, I was just browsing through an issue of
The Modern Churchman
when I discovered the most amazing article by Bishop Barnes of Birmingham.”

“Ah! Light begins to dawn on the horizon!”

“Exactly what I thought. An end to boredom, courtesy of Bishop Barnes! But really, that man’s a disgrace. If that’s what Modernism is all about—”

“It’s true Barnes is a trifle eccentric and often lays himself open to being misunderstood, but essentially he’s a good man.”

“Possibly, but all I can say is he makes me want to shout HERETIC! at every Modernist in sight. However at least he gave me the inspiration to do a bit of quick research into current Modernist thinking, and for the next three Sundays I sailed into the pulpit and lit a fire under all the bovine members of the congregation by preaching a lot of Modernist rot—you know the sort of thing: all a myth, no resurrection, no incarnation—”

“I hate to disillusion you, Mellors, particularly when you were obviously enjoying yourself for the first time in months, but that’s not true Modernism. True Modernism holds fast to the divinity of Christ.”

“What about the resurrection?”

“Modernists believe in that too, although of course they think the actual mode of the resurrection is open to—”

“But how can Modernists believe in the resurrection when they don’t believe in miracles?”

“They don’t class the resurrection as a straightforward old-fashioned miracle which is clearly either a fable or a metaphor. They see the resurrection as a unique event which can’t be explained by our current knowledge of the laws of physics.”