Glamorous Powers

‘No, but I’ve written and I know that eventually he’ll write back. Martin’s always been so good at keeping in touch and sharing his world with me.’ But of course he had not shared it. Grief threatened to overwhelm me again.

‘How old was he when his mother died?’

‘Seven. Poor Betty … After the scene with Martin I thought how upset she would have been about him, and I kept thinking of her, thinking and remembering –’ I broke off. Then I added abruptly: ‘Forgive me, I’m digressing. My marriage has nothing to do with my present crisis.’

But Francis only said: ‘Hasn’t it? Yet you’ve just confessed that it was most vividly resurrected in your mind shortly before you had your vision,’ and as we stared at each other in silence we were interrupted by the rapid clanging of the chapel bell proclaiming an emergency.

IX

‘Air-raid drill,’ said Francis casually. ‘We’d better set a good example by retiring speedily to the crypt. I must say, Jonathan, you’ve picked the most tiresome time in the history of the world to embark on a spiritual crisis.’

After the drill had unfolded in a tolerably well-ordered manner there was no time to resume our interview before Vespers and I found I was greatly relieved by the postponement. I was beginning to be alarmed for the future. If Francis’ preliminary talks could so effortlessly destroy my equilibrium, how would I fare when his inquiry became an inquisition? Fear and dread ravaged my psyche, and touring my room I put away all small objects in the chest of drawers. I was afraid that I might be on the brink of generating that activity popularly attributed to poltergeists, an activity caused by bursts of energy from a powerful but poorly disciplined psyche under stress; at such times this energy can move objects, often with considerable force, and if the psyche cannot control itself sufficiently much damage can occur. During my troubled early months in the Order, it had been the poltergeist activity, breaking out in the Grantchester community with alarming violence, which had driven Abbot James to seek help in bringing my disturbed psyche under control.

Memories sprang to life in my mind; I saw myself as a forty-three-year-old postulant summoned to the Abbot’s office for an interrogation. I had planned exactly what to say to James to win his soft-hearted sympathy, but when I entered his room I found my plans had gone astray because James was absent and behind his desk sat a stranger, a man in his early sixties, hard-eyed, thin-lipped, ice-cold. The coldness was so extreme that it seemed to burn with heat, and as I at once recognized the powerful psychic aura I experienced a curious mixture of fright and relief. The fear was because I knew this was the one man I could never manipulate and I felt powerless; the relief was because I knew he would heal my disorder. In fact so great was my relief that I forgot to wait for permission to speak but said rapidly: ‘I’m causing the trouble but I can’t help it because my meditation techniques don’t work.’

He sat in his chair and looked me up and down. Then he said: ‘Do you know who I am?’ and without hesitation I replied: ‘You’re the Abbot-General.’

‘I’m not just the Abbot-General,’ he said. ‘I’m the one man who can get you out of this spiritual cesspit of yours. Now answer me this: do you want to be a monk or don’t you?’

When I immediately answered: ‘I don’t just want to be a monk – I want to be the best monk in the Order,’ he smiled.

‘What ambition!’ he exclaimed. ‘But of course your pride would hardly let you settle for less.’ Then the smile vanished, the aura of ice intensified and he said: ‘Stand up straight, fold your hands properly, keep your mouth shut until you’ve been given permission to speak and wipe that arrogant smirk off your face. You’ve been three months in the Order – are you so unreachable that you haven’t yet learnt how to behave? No doubt you think you’re such a wise mature priest with your Cambridge degree and your twenty years in Holy Orders, but I’m here to tell you now that psychically you’re no better than an ignorant spoilt child and that as a monk you’re at present only capable of play-acting.’

He waited in case I dared to argue with him but I was speechless. This interview was far removed indeed from my cosy chats with Abbot James.

‘Shall I explain to you,’ said the brutal stranger, ‘what’s really going on here? Like many people whose psychic powers are freakishly well developed you’re used to manipulating people whenever you want your own way. What you want here is to be petted and pampered so you’ve entranced your Abbot, you’ve tied your poor Novice-Master into a humiliating knot, and now, just like a spoilt child, you’re calling attention to yourself by being disruptive in the hope that by causing chaos you’ll make everyone realize how special you are!’

‘But I swear I’m not doing this deliberately –’

‘Of course that’s what you swear! You’ve hypnotized yourself into believing in your own innocence, hypnotized yourself into believing you can’t control these ridiculous outbursts of energy! But this is where the hypnosis ends if you want to survive as a monk. We’ve no room in the Order for confidence tricksters who perform psychic parlour-tricks! What you’ve got to understand is that there’ll be no spiritual progress unless you learn humility and obedience, no hope of acquiring true charismatic power unless you starve that crude psychic force of yours of the pride which makes it so destructive. How can you expect God to use you as a channel for the Holy Spirit when you not only invite but welcome the Devil into the driving-seat of your soul?’

I attempted a defence. I said I was not wicked, merely disappointed and unhappy. I told him the community was lax, that Abbot James was weak and that the Novice-Master was a fool.

Then the stranger rose to his feet. He was not a tall man but at that moment he seemed twice as tall as I was. I flinched. I believe I even took a step backwards. But he never raised his voice. He simply said: ‘And who are you to pass judgement on this community? Obviously you’re in an even worse state than I’d feared and radical measures will have to be taken. You must be taught a lesson in humility, a lesson you’ll never forget, and afterwards you must begin your life as a monk all over again elsewhere.’

Then he had taken me to London and after a night spent in the punishment cell where I had been taught the lesson I would never forget, I had been dispatched to Ruydale to make my fresh start.

The memory terminated. I returned to the June of 1940, but I continued to think of Father Darcy and after a while I closed my eyes so that I might imprint his image more accurately on the retina of my psyche. To attempt to call up his spirit was out of the question; such practices are dangerous as well as arrogant and in my opinion the Church is entirely right to discourage them. It is not for us to interfere in our hamfisted way with the great reality of eternal freedom which lies beyond our brief existence in the prison of time and space, and such discarnate shreds of former personalities which linger within the prison walls are usually either trivial or demonic.

So I made no attempt to summon Father Darcy but when I had constructed his memory as accurately as possible I tried to imagine his response to my current dread that stress would seriously impair my psychic control, and at once the word DISCIPLINE was firmly imprinted on my mind. Finding my timetable I stood looking at it. Then sitting down at the table I opened my bible, made an intense new effort to concentrate and began to read St Paul’s mighty epistle to the Romans.

X

‘Further to our conversation which was so rudely interrupted,’ said Francis the next day, ‘I’d just like to clarify a couple of points about this unfortunate interview with your son. Presumably you were very distressed after he left. What did you do?’

‘I dashed off a letter of apology to him. Then I forced myself to make my usual appearances in the chapel and in the refectory, but after Compline I retired to my cell again and read Romans. That always calms me. I think of St Augustine and Luther reading it and going on to change the course of history; it makes me feel I’m close enough to draw strength from people of great spiritual power. I didn’t sleep before the night office but by the time I went downstairs to the chapel I knew I was in control of myself again.’

‘And after the office?’

‘Then I admit I had difficulties.’ I paused to drum up the courage to be honest. ‘Once I was faced with the task of sleeping all the symptoms of stress returned. I felt isolated, unhappy … If I’d been a married man I’d have turned to my wife for consolation.’

‘But as you weren’t a married man –’

‘I behaved like an ill-disciplined novice and consoled myself, as I implied earlier, with my wife’s memory.’

‘You mean –’

‘I gave way to temptation, obtained the relief I needed and fell asleep around three. How Father Darcy would have despised such a failure of the will! I shall always remember him saying that the body should be an obedient servant, not a tyrant balking at the most rudimentary discipline.’

‘Personally I always found Father Darcy’s lectures on the power of the will deeply depressing. After his hypnotic persuasiveness had worn off I was left contemplating my weaknesses in despair.’

‘I was certainly depressed when I awoke the next morning at five-thirty – and not just because of the failure of my will. I was depressed because I’d allowed myself to get into such a state that a failure of the will was inevitable, and I was still sitting on the edge of my bed, still well-nigh immobilized by my depression, when the vision began.’

Francis said with great delicacy as if he feared one careless word might shatter this miraculous frankness: ‘When you said just now that you obtained the relief you needed, am I to understand …’ His delicacy was so extreme that he left the sentence unfinished.

I thought I could understand his difficulty. ‘You doubt that a sixty-year-old man who was emotionally worn out and sexually spent at three o’clock in the morning could manifest the symptoms of sexual excitement during a vision less than three hours later.’

‘Not at all,’ said Francis with an urbanity I could not help but admire. ‘It’s a fact that psychics may command unusual reserves of energy, and anyway where sex is concerned anything’s possible, even for sixty-year-old men who ought to be decently exhausted. If I hesitated it wasn’t because I was boggling at your energy reserves but because I was thinking that if you did achieve a complete release earlier it does support your belief that the vision wasn’t triggered by a purely physical frustration … You’re sure you’re not slipping in a little inexactitude to help me along?’

‘I hope I’m now beyond the stage of deliberately misleading you.’

‘Then I shall merely conclude the interview by asking you to reflect further on the fact that Martin plunged you into a severe emotional disturbance. The question you should ask yourself, I think, is not: “Was this emotional disturbance the direct cause of my vision?” Of course you’re determined to believe that question can only be answered in the negative. So perhaps it would be more profitable if you asked yourself instead: “Exactly why was I so disturbed by Martin’s disclosure? What did it mean to me on the profoundest psychological level?” You might also ask yourself if there was any hidden significance in the fact that you later began to dwell with a great intensity on the memories of your marriage. For example, when you were manipulating those memories in a certain way were you merely seeking a release from tension, or were you perhaps expressing a desire to recapture a time when you were leading such an active sexual life that your wife was annually pregnant?’

I stared at him. ‘Are you implying that subconsciously I felt so disappointed in Martin that I was smitten with the urge to go out into the world and beget a son to replace him?’

‘You find that an unlikely explanation of your vision?’

‘I find it ludicrous!’

Francis twirled his glasses. I was reminded of an angry cat swishing his tail.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said at once. ‘That was disrespectful. But I must insist that Martin’s still my much-loved son and I’ve never – never – felt so dissatisfied with him that I’ve longed for a replacement.’

Francis twirled his glasses again and swept open my file. It took him some seconds to reach the passage he had in mind but eventually he found it and paused to look at me. ‘I’d like to read you an extract from Father Darcy’s report on the Whitby affair,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s remarkably pertinent to our present conversation.’ And clearing his throat he read in a studiedly neutral tone: ‘“Jonathan then became very distressed. He said: ‘I suddenly saw myself as a layman would see me – a pathetic middle-aged monk, starved of women, deprived of a normal masculine life, who was crying, actually crying over a cat.’ Then Jonathan said: ‘Suddenly I hated my life as a monk, hated it – I wanted to chuck it all up and fuck every woman in sight. I thought: here I am, still only fifty years old and feeling no more than forty; I could be out in the world with a young second wife; I could have another daughter, a daughter who wasn’t forever reminding me of Betty – and best of all I could have another son, a son who wasn’t an actor, a son I could talk to, a son who wouldn’t constantly torment me with anxiety. What am I doing here?’ said Jonathan. ‘Why am I living this impossibly difficult life?’ And I said: ‘You’re here because you’re called to be here. You’re here because God requires you to serve him in this hard difficult way. You’re here because if you weren’t here your personality would disintegrate beneath the burden of your weaknesses. You’re here because it’s the only way you can survive.’ Then he broke down and cried: ‘But how do I bear it?’ and I answered: ‘Think of the novices who have so recently been entrusted to your care. Think of others, not yourself, and you’ll find not only liberation from the dark side of your soul but fulfilment of your ability to do great good and live in harmony with your true self.’ After that I made him kneel down and I laid my hands on his head and at last the demonic spirit of doubt departed and he was healed.”’

Francis closed the file. Then still using his most neutral voice he said: ‘And there you have it all: the emotional disturbance, the profound difficulty with your celibacy, the desire to leave the Order and beget a second family – and finally the healing by the one man who was able to keep you on the spiritual rails, the man who’s no longer here to give you the help you so obviously need.’ He allowed a long silence to develop before adding casually: ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday and I always try to spend the hour between four and five in meditation. But come here directly after supper, Jonathan, make a new resolution to tell me no more lies and then we’ll have our last talk before you depart on Monday morning.’

XI

‘I’m worried about your weekly confession,’ he said when we met the following evening. ‘Of course you could make one of your bowdlerized confessions to Timothy, but I really feel that would be most unsatisfactory and as I’m reluctant that anyone else in the Order should know about your crisis I find I’ve no alternative but to volunteer my own services as a confessor. I needn’t remind you of your right under the Order’s constitution to decline to make confession to your superior; if you find my suggestion unacceptable I’ll ask Ambrose to hear you, but if you could somehow see your way towards waiving your constitutional right I admit I’d be greatly relieved.’

I could not help but sympathize with him in his predicament. ‘You forget that Father Darcy ordered Aidan to be my confessor after the Whitby affair,’ I said. ‘I’m well used to making my confession to my superior.’

‘Quite. But one of the vows I made to myself when I became Abbot-General was that I wouldn’t ride rough-shod over the monks’ constitutional rights as often as Father Darcy did. However if you’re willing to waive this particular right without being coerced …’

He allowed me time to prepare, and retiring to the chapel I recalled the episodes of pride, anger and falsehood which had punctuated my life that week. Then I returned to his office and the difficult exercise began. I was surprised when it proved easier than I had feared. He kept unexpectedly quiet, refraining from all the obvious comments, and gradually I began to respect his refusal to gloat over me while I was vulnerable. With a certain amusement I wondered if this compassionate behaviour arose not from his desire to be a good priest but from his instinct to act like a gentleman; I could well imagine him deciding that the waiving of my constitutional right was a sporting gesture which demanded that he should be equally sporting in return.

I was granted absolution and assigned a very moderate penance. I thought Father Darcy would have judged this much too soft and perhaps Francis too was afterwards convinced he had erred on the side of leniency, for as soon as we embarked on our final conversation he became waspish.

‘I want to end these talks where we began – with your vision,’ he said abruptly.‘There’s one glaring omission in your account, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that omission is.’

‘It wasn’t revealed to me what I’m to do when I leave the Order.’

‘If you leave the Order.’

‘If I leave the Order. I’m sorry.’

‘If this vision is from God,’ said Francis, examining a well-manicured fingernail in an elaborate charade of nonchalance, ‘wouldn’t you have expected to receive at least a hint about what you’re supposed to do next?’

Cautiously I said: ‘I believe further enlightenment will be forthcoming.’

‘How wonderfully convenient.’ Francis held his left hand at arm’s length and gave the chosen fingernail another meticulous inspection. Then suddenly he discarded the mask of nonchalance, leant forward purposefully across the desk and said: ‘Now listen to me, Jonathan. You cannot – and I mean cannot – ignore your intellectual faculties in favour of a woolly-minded mysticism when your future has to be considered; you should remember that the best mystics have all been distinguished by their sane practical attitudes to life. As soon as you return to Grantchester pull yourself together, confront the reality of this alleged call of yours and try to visualize what kind of life would be waiting for you outside the Order. You’re a sixty-year-old priest. You’ve been out of circulation for seventeen years. At first you’re inevitably going to find the world confusing, exhausting, depressing and – for the most part – uncaring. Of course we know you can always find work. We know I can always ring up the Archbishop and say: “Oh, by the way, Your Grace, my best abbot’s about to leave the nest – find him a nice little nook in some cosy Cathedral Close, would you?” We know you’re not going to be reduced to eating bread-and-dripping in a sordid lodging-house in between bouts of waiting in the dole-queue, but Jonathan, if you’re going to survive in the world with your equilibrium intact, you absolutely must feel that you’re doing what God’s called you to do. Otherwise you’ll get depressed and fall victim to Monks’ Madness, and we both know what that means, don’t we?’

We did. It was a notorious fact that monks who left the Order often found themselves psychologically compelled to recuperate in the most unfortunate of ways from their years of celibate seclusion.

‘Oh, and while you’re grappling with your possible future in the world,’ said Francis as an afterthought, ‘do ask yourself what you’d do about women. It’s a very important subject and one which must be faced realistically.’

‘I’d remain celibate.’

‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me correctly. I said: “It’s a very important subject – ”’

‘Marriage distracts me from serving God.’

‘In that case you’d better stay in the Order. Oh, go away, Jonathan, before I become really irritable with you, and for goodness’ sake take your brain out of those second-rate mystic mothballs so that you can do some constructive thinking! Nothing annoys me more than to hear a clever man talk like a fool.’

I rose to my feet. ‘Do you wish to see me before I leave tomorrow?’

‘Yes, come here after breakfast so that I can give you my blessing.’

He was so fractious that he made the blessing seem a sinister prospect. Leaving the room I began to count the hours which remained until my departure.

XII

France had fallen, and in England the air-raids had started. At Liverpool Street Station I bought a copy of The Illustrated London News in order to see a summary of the week’s events, and read about the night attacks on the eastern counties. So the long-awaited, inexplicably delayed battle for Britain had begun. Yet I thought the delay might prove significant. God had appeared to withdraw but as always had been eternally present and now the infusion would begin, the outpouring of grace into those facing the blast of the demonic force, the bestowal of courage and endurance which would ultimately triumph over the nightmare of militant idolatry. Our ordeal had begun. The suffering lay before us, but beyond the suffering lay the power of the Spirit, overflowing eternally, in the metaphor of Plotinus, into the muddied waters of mankind, and against that power the ship of idolatry would ultimately shatter. I could see the shattering. It was not a matter of speculation but of ‘gnosis’, of knowledge; I knew. Yet still I shuddered at the thought of the ordeal ahead of Britain, standing alone at the edge of a demoralized, demon-infested Europe, and the next moment Britain’s ordeal was again fusing with my own until it seemed not merely a struggle for survival but a great spiritual quest which could only be described in the ancient language of religious symbolism.

I saw the powers of light withstanding the recurrent invasions of the forces of darkness, the perpetual conflict of finite existence played out amidst the Eternal Now of ultimate reality. Britain wanted peace yet was obliged to go to war to preserve its cherished values; I wanted to serve God in tranquillity yet was obliged to wage a continuous battle against the qualities which marked the opaque side of my nature, and when I saw myself as a microcosm of the conflict which permeated the very air I breathed, I was conscious of the Devil, not the charming little creature rendered so endearingly by medieval artists, but the unseen climate which periodically bruised my psyche as it sensed the vibrations and emanations of the weather-patterns which so many people were apparently unable to perceive. God too can be experienced as a climate, and part of the psychic’s ‘gnosis’ lies in being able to read the barometer which reflects not merely the ebb and flow of demonic forces but the unchanging presence of the kingdom of values, the world of ultimate reality which lies beyond the world of appearances.

It was not until I dismounted from the train at Cambridge that I temporarily abandoned all thought of demonic infiltration. I also abandoned The Illustrated London News; I did not want my men to know I had been reading a magazine. It was a rule of the Order that the abbots should read The Times each day so that they might inform their men during the weekly recreation hour of events in the world, but this was regarded as a necessary duty whereas browsing through even the worthiest magazine could only rank as a distraction.

Resisting the slothful urge to take a taxi I travelled by motorbus from Cambridge to Grantchester and finally, to my profound relief, walked up the drive of my home. I realized then how much I hated that luxurious house which flourished like an anachronistic weed in the heart of drab, dirty, debilitating London. My Grantchester house was neither old nor beautiful; it had been erected late in the nineteenth century by an East Anglian merchant who had shortly afterwards been obliged by his bankruptcy to sell the place to the Fordites, but in its secluded setting at one end of the village it stood in unobtrusive harmony with its surroundings. Returning to it after my enforced absence I found it refreshingly quiet, modest and serene.