Absolute Truths

I emerged from my stupefied silence. ‘Sunbeam?’

‘Leslie Sunderland, the new bishop of Radbury. Surely you know that his clergy call him Sunbeam! It’s a tribute to his radiant liberal optimism.’

Recognising my obligation to be loyal to a brother-bishop, even a radically liberal brother-bishop, I suppressed my amusement and said austerely: ‘I did notice that you enclosed no reference from Bishop Sunderland with your letter.’

‘I confess I never wasted time asking for one, but the Fordites will speak up for me. You know the Abbot-General, don’t you?’

‘Well enough to be surprised that he hasn’t told you my policy on the licensing of divorced priests.’

‘He did tell me, but of course I knew that an exceptional bishop like you would always know when to be flexible about applying those sort of rules. After all, why should you wish to penalise me for the fact that my wife ran off with another man? With your happy marriage you’d be much more likely to offer me sympathy.’

‘I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to be sympathetic, but –’

‘And of course you’ll have grasped that as an extremely conventional Anglo-Catholic I don’t believe remarriage is an option for a divorced priest. In fact I shall never embarrass you either by remarriage while my wife’s still alive or by any other unsuitable behaviour,’ said Hall firmly, and added, looking me straight in the eyes: ‘I consider myself called to celibacy.’

After a pause I said in my most neutral voice: ‘Really.’ But before I could say more we were interrupted – to my relief – by the buzzer of the intercom.

‘You must leave for the station in twenty minutes, Bishop,’ intoned Miss Peabody, ‘and don’t forget that you still have to talk to Roger about the government’s education graphs.’

‘Thank you.’ I replaced the receiver. Well, Mr Hall,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘I confess this has been an interesting interview – and certainly, despite your marital status, I wouldn’t object to engaging you on a temporary basis as a locum, but –’

‘Thank you so much, Bishop, I knew I could rely on you to be flexible. Now, I’d only need about twenty minutes to explain my. plans for the healing centre, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a slot for me in your diary, particularly since I can come back here at any hour of the day or night –’

There was a tap on the door and Lyle peeped in. ‘Excuse me, Charles, but Michael’s here again. Could you have a quick word with him before you rush off to London?’

I immediately wanted Hall to expound for twenty minutes on his healing centre.

Meanwhile Hall himself was saying rapidly: ‘I’ll see Miss Peabody, shall I, to fix a time when I can come back?’

As I heard myself consenting docilely to this suggestion, it occurred to me to wonder if I had been hypnotised.

III

‘Who was that extraordinarily sexy priest?’ muttered Lyle, reappearing after I had parted from Hall at the front door.

‘Today’s English version of Elmer Gantry. He tells me the clergy in the Radbury diocese call Derek’s appalling successor Sunbeam.’

Lyle was still laughing when my lay-chaplain sped out of the office to waylay me. ‘Bishop, about those graphs –’

‘He’ll be with you in a moment, Roger,’ said Lyle, instantly becoming ruthless. ‘He has to have a word with Michael.’ And as I found myself being propelled towards the drawing-room door she added to me sotto voce: ‘Dinkie broke off the engagement this morning, thank God, and poor Michael felt so wretchedly upset that he came straight here for consolation after putting her on the train to London.’

‘You mean he really did want to marry her after all?’

‘No, no, no, of course he didn’t! Deep down he’s sick with relief that it’s all over, but just think for a moment how you’d feel if you’d taken endless trouble to try and “save” someone only to have her kick you in the teeth at the end of it! He’s absolutely mortified that he could have been so idiotic as to practise his idealism on a money-grubbing tart – apparently in the end she just said straight out that he wasn’t rich enough for her. Imagine that! I suppose she was simply too stupid to find a tactful excuse – oh, and talking of stupidity, don’t mention the phantom pregnancy. It turned out he colluded with that lie because it was the only reason he felt would justify me marriage.’

‘But if he didn’t want to marry her anyway –’

‘Well, of course for his pride’s sake he had to pretend that he did! Otherwise he’d have had to admit he’d been a perfect fool and allowed his idealism to lead him up the creek!’

‘But isn’t he having to admit that now? Surely he’s too humiliated to want to face me!’

‘That’s not the point. The point is that because he’s at such a dreadfully low ebb you have the golden opportunity to forge a new relationship by being kind and sympathetic and understanding, and if you dare slink off to London now without seeing him –’

‘All right, all right, all right?’

Terminating this feverish conversation, which had been conducted almost entirely in whispers, I resigned myself to my fate and ventured reluctantly into the drawing-room.

Sprawled on the sofa Michael was drinking black coffee and looking hungover. I noted that his long hair was uncombed, his face was unshaven and he wore no tie. My own father, presented with such a challenge to his standards, would have exclaimed: ‘What a debauched, decadent and downright disgraceful sight! Disgusting!’ but I thought my old friend Alan Romaine would have said gently: ‘You look a trifle wrecked, old chap. Anything I can do to help?’ I tried to keep Alan’s memory in the forefront of my mind as I faced Michael, but it had been Eric Ashworth, not Alan Romaine, who had brought me up and I found it very hard at that moment not to react like a strict Victorian father.

I cleared my throat. ‘You look a trifle wrecked, old chap,’ I said, carefully uttering the right words, but as I spoke I realised with horror that every syllabie vibrated with insincerity. The worst part of this débâcle was that I was genuinely desperate to show kindness, sympathy and understanding. It was just that I was quite incapable of articulating it.

‘Oh, you needn’t pretend you’re not thrilled to bits!’ said Michael exasperated. ‘God, how I detest the hypocrisy of the older generation!’

I struggled to repair my error. ‘Sorry,’ I said, finally managing to sound sincere. ‘I didn’t mean to hit such a false note. And yes – it’s true I’m glad the engagement’s off, but I’m genuinely sorry you’re upset.’

‘Balls! You’re delighted that I’ve got my comeuppance after months of fornication!’

‘I’m much more worried about the mess she may have left you in. Are you in debt?’

‘Well, I had to spend a bit of money on her, didn’t I? She always said money was the only thing that made her feel secure, money never let her down like people did. You see, when her parents’ marriage broke up she blamed herself and –’

‘How much do you owe?’

‘– and she’s been in a mess ever since really, okay, I know she was as dumb as a lobotomised kitten but I was prepared to overlook that because I thought she was really rather sweet underneath all her bloody awful hang-ups, and I thought that if only I could show her there was at least someone who cared, someone who was prepared to stand by her, she’d stop being so money-fixated but –’

‘I don’t want you getting bogged down in debt. If things are really bad –’

‘– but it turned out she’d only shacked up with me because she thought we were millionaires – she saw you as an aristocrat with a big house and a seat in the House of Lords and it never occurred to her that you were just an ordinary middle-class chap who lived rent-free in a Church house and only got the seat in the Lords as a perk which went with the job! Why do the Americans never understand the English class-system?’

‘Look, Michael, I think you’d better tell me how much you owe and then –’

‘You’re not listening to me, damn it! You never listen, do you? You never listen!’

‘I do listen, but all I hear is a lot of romantic adolescent drivel about how you made a fool of yourself in the worst possible way with a girl who was quite unworthy of you! Now answer my question: how deeply are you in debt?’

‘Your problem,’ said Michael furiously, ‘is that you can’t forgive me for having sex with her! Just because you haven’t had sex for years and have never in your life been lucky enough to make love to a steamy American sexpot –’

Lyle walked back into the room.

‘Darling,’ she said to Michael, ‘I’m so sorry your father keeps saying the wrong thing, but I assure you he does understand how horribly upset you feel now that Dinkie’s rejected all your heroic efforts to care for her. You do understand that, don’t you, Charles?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What your father really means, Michael – although he’s too worried about you to make himself clear – is that he hates to think you may be in debt as the result of all your praiseworthy idealism, and he wants to do all he can to help. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Charles?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘But Mum –’

‘Hold on, darling, I must get your father launched on the journey to London. Charles, you must have a word with Roger about those graphs – thank you so much for insisting on seeing Michael before you left.’

Battered and baffled I retreated to the hall.

Instantly I was waylaid by my lay-chaplain with a sheaf of papers. ‘Bishop, I really am worried by these graphs I got from the Education minister – I can’t make sense of them at all, and although I’ve had them xeroxed for the committee, I honestly think it might be better to leave them out. On the other hand, if you leave them out paragraph 19(b) of the report becomes incomprehensible, so –’

‘I’ll sort everything out on the train,’ I said, relieving him of the papers as Miss Peabody appeared at my elbow.

‘Oh Bishop, I do apologise for Father Hall’s invasion, but he was so persuasive and so obviously a gentleman –’

‘I thought he looked like an assassin,’ said Roger, unable to resist taking a swipe at Miss Peabody’s cast-iron snobbery.

‘I thought he looked like Heathcliff,’ said the typist, passing by with a mug of coffee.

Edward my priest-chaplain erupted from the office. ‘Bishop, I’ve got Lord Flaxton on the phone – he says he’s discovered that the new vicar of Flaxton Pauncefoot is a member of CND, and he wants to know how you could have licensed a pacifist to work in the diocese. He says the man’s probably a KGB agent.’

‘Don’t get diverted, Charles,’ said Lyle, emerging from the cloakroom with my hat and coat.

Edward, who was new to his job, demanded wildly: ‘Is Lord Flaxton nuts?’

‘Eccentric,’ said Lyle, stuffing me into my coat.

‘But what shall I say to him, Bishop? He’s absolutely livid – breathing fire –’

‘Suggest he has a drink with me at the House of Lords next week.’

‘Here, Bishop,’ said Roger, taking the papers back from me, shoving them into my briefcase and thrusting the briefcase into my arms all within the space of five seconds.

‘Togs for Church House,’ said Lyle, passing me the bag containing my formal episcopal uniform. ‘Darling, I’ll drive you to the station – you don’t have time to search for a parking space.’

‘I’ve got a feeling there was something else I had to say to Edward …’

‘He’s gone back to be beaten up by Lord Flaxton,’ said Roger before I could digest that Edward had vanished from the hall. ‘Do you want him to visit Father Wilton in hospital?’

‘Ah – Desmond, yes, that was it – tell Edward to get hold of the hospital chaplain and explain that Desmond likes to receive the sacrament daily –’

‘Bishop, you’ve run out of time,’ said Miss Peabody, and for one bizarre moment I felt I had been sentenced to a most unpleasant eternity. ‘You must leave at once.’

But another thought had occurred to me. ‘– and tell him to phone Malcolm Lindsay to say we may not need to trouble Bishop Farr about a locum for St Paul’s –’

‘Come on, Charles!’ Lyle was chafing by the front door.

But still I hesitated, my mind refastening on Desmond as it belatedly occurred to me that he might be in no fit spiritual state to receive the sacrament. I told myself firmly that he would always repent of his sins and pray for the grace to do better, but still I was gnawed by doubt. A repentance which did not include confessing his renewed taste for pornography could hardly be construed as acceptable … I started to worry that in my desire to be a compassionate pastor I had been inexcusably sentimental and slack as a father-in-God.

‘Do you have a locum in mind, Bishop?’

‘That man Hall who was here earlier. Tell the Archdeacon – no, on second thoughts I’d better tell him myself –’

‘Charles,’ said Lyle, ‘do you really want to miss both your train and your lunch with Jack at the Athenaeum?’

She finally managed to detach me from the South Canonry.

IV

Reaching Waterloo station at half-past twelve I took a taxi to the Athenaeum and retired to the cloakroom in order to change into my uniform. By 1965 senior churchmen were abandoning this traditional ensemble of frock-coat, apron and gaiters, and I was certainly willing to travel in a plain black suit which guaranteed that the other occupants of the train did not waste time staring at me, but I was meticulous in wearing my uniform at any ecclesiastical gathering. I felt that in an age which was marked by declining standards and rampant iconoclasm, bishops should be resolute in respecting the symbols which pointed to traditional values.

The thought of declining standards and rampant iconoclasm depressed me, but I cheered up when I found the editor of the Church Gazette hunched cosily over a pink gin.

Lyle had once said that Jack Ryder reminded her of Babar the Elephant, and although I had pointed out at once that he was much more fun than the serious, innocent Babar, I had had to concede that Jack was indeed very large with small, narrow eyes and unusual ears. We had been up at Cambridge together. He too had taken a degree in divinity but had decided not to be ordained, and for a time it had seemed that our careers would take us in different directions. Then shortly after he had obtained his first job as an ecclesiastical journalist, I had become one of Archbishop Lang’s chaplains.

Firmly linked again by our involvement with the Church of England, we found our friendship had continued and now after forty years I had to acknowledge, to my surprise, that Jack was my oldest and closest surviving friend. I write ‘to my surprise’ because Jack and I had little in common except the Church, a subject about which he knew even more than I did. His memory for obscure scandals was prodigious and his nose for ecclesiastical gossip unerring. At one time he had written a series of sound freelance articles on theology for the serious secular press, but since he had become the editor of the Church Gazette he merely reviewed the occasional important biography.

By 1965 he was married to his third wife, but since he had been twice a widower and never a divorcé these matrimonial ventures had been entirely respectable. It was true that his third wife had been his mistress for some years while his second wife was dying of disseminated sclerosis, but he had behaved with great discretion and never mentioned the matter to me. I had only heard about it from Lyle and Lyle had only heard about it from Dido Aysgarth, that dangerous woman who always knew the gossip before anyone else had dreamed it could exist. Sometimes I wondered if Jack’s refusal to confide in me meant that I had failed him in some way, but when his friendship never wavered I came to the conclusion that he had merely been afflicted by a typically British reticence about his private life. Englishmen, after all, would rather discuss cricket than adultery.

‘How’s the family?’ I said to him that day at the Athenaeum after we had exchanged greetings and I had ordered a Tio Pepe.

‘No idea, old chap, haven’t seen any of the offspring lately, but no news is good news … How are your boys?’

‘Oh, fine …’ Having written off our offspring, we established that our wives were well and agreed that the weather had been dismal. At that point the waiter arrived with my drink and Jack proposed a toast in the slang of the 1920s. This was all very soothing and kept my depressed thoughts about the 1960s at bay.

‘How’s the west front?’ enquired Jack, referring to the ailing section of Starbridge Cathedral. ‘Still standing?’

‘Just. But according to Aysgarth, the appeal’s coming along remarkably well.’

‘How is Aysgarth? Still swilling?’

‘No, no – he’s got all that quite under control. In fact the Cathedral seems to be running very smoothly at the moment.’

‘Think so?’

My heart automatically produced an extra beat. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh my God,’ said Jack to his pink gin. ‘He doesn’t know.’

‘What on earth –’

‘I did suspect during our brief phone conversation that you were still in a state of blissful ignorance, but I clung to the romantic hope that against all the odds you had that gangster at the Cathedral under control. You know I told you to brace yourself for a shattering piece of gossip?’

‘Yes, but I assumed that was mere journalistic hyperbole. Are you trying to tell me –’

‘I had a drink yesterday with a young antiques dealer who used to take out my younger daughter before she was so foolish as to ditch him in favour of the chap who’s now my son-in-law. You almost certainly know this young man – not only is he the grandson of one of your neighbours but he’s also the brother of your Michael’s friend Marina.’

‘Douglas Markhampton.’

‘Precisely. Now, Douglas has a new girlfriend who works at Christie’s – and when I say “works” I don’t mean she’s just a typist. She’s one of those wonderful American girls who can be tremendously high-powered while still looking radiantly sexy –’

‘I didn’t know you liked that type.’

‘Admire it from afar, old chap – too terrified to do anything else. Well, this American girl, whose name I can’t quite remember but I think it’s Marilyn or Merrilee or maybe even Mary-Lou, told Douglas that since his grandmother lived in the Close at Starbridge, she might be interested to hear that a number of rare books from the Cathedral library were coming up for auction.’

‘What?’

‘Wait, it gets worse. Douglas was sure Mary-Lou had made a mistake, so he phoned another chum of his at Christie’s who said yes, it was true but the story was top secret at present and Mary-Lou should be shot at dawn for pillow-talk. Douglas then phoned me out of sheer curiosity to ask if I’d heard anything on the ecclesiastical grapevine – with the result that I rushed hot-foot to his antique shop in St James’s, lured him to White’s and plied him with drink until finally he divulged the most top-secret top secret of the lot: according to this other chum of his at Christie’s, the star turn at the auction is going to be none other than that fabulously rare manuscript which you always get so sentimental about – the one containing the margin-painting of the cat with a mouse in its mouth.’

‘Great Scott, the St Anselm masterpiece!’ I sprang to my feet.

‘Whoa there, Charles, calm down –’

‘But Aysgarth can’t possibly sell that! Good heavens, if he’s trying to sell off the Cathedral treasures behind my back, I’ll –’

By this time Jack had flagged down a passing waiter. ‘A brandy for the Bishop, please.’

I just managed to remember my afternoon committee meeting and amend the order to a second sherry. Jack ordered another pink gin and begged me to sit down again before I had apoplexy.

Sinking back into my chair I said: ‘I simply can’t believe Aysgarth would do this.’

‘No? But if he’s strapped for cash –’

‘If the Cathedral’s so strapped for cash that he needs to sell the St Anselm manuscript, I should have been told there was a major financial crisis. Why, it’s as if the Queen had decided to sell off the Crown Jewels in order to repair the Tower of London! What on earth can be going on?’

‘Maybe Aysgarth’s being blackmailed by some gorgeous popsy with the result that he’s embarked on a criminal career to make ends meet.’

I tried to smile but failed. I could only manage to comment: ‘I’ll say this for Aysgarth: he’s no fool. Or in other words, I don’t believe he’d ever get in a financial mess which could be described as embezzlement, and I don’t believe he’d ever cultivate a friendship with the sort of woman who’s capable of blackmail.’ I stood up again. ‘I must get hold of Malcolm.’

‘I do wish you’d have a brandy, old chap. No bishop should try to survive this sort of crisis on sherry alone,’ said Jack solicitously, but I was already rushing off in search of a telephone.

Malcolm proved to be out. I phoned Nigel Farr in Starmouth but he was out too. Finally I tried to speak to Lyle but without success. In frustration I returned to my host.

‘Maybe I should talk to Christie’s and try to arrange for the books to be held back,’ I said. ‘When’s the auction?’

‘I don’t know, but it can’t be imminent because Mary-Lou’s still working on the catalogue. Look, toss back the Tio and let’s eat before you pass out as the result of shock and lack of nourishment.’

We took our places in the dining-room. In the interval between the mulligatawny soup and the roast beef I retired to the telephone again and this time I found Malcolm at home.

‘It can’t possibly be true,’ was his reaction to the news.

‘I’m afraid Jack’s sources really do suggest this isn’t just a preposterous rumour. What do you think’s going on?’

‘A financial mess a mile high, but what beats me, Charles, is how Aysgarth imagines he can get away with this scheme! Does he really think he can sell the St Anselm manuscript on the quiet? As soon as the catalogue’s issued, all the art correspondents will be trumpeting the news in the press!’

‘Meanwhile I’m baffled by the Canons’ silence. Do you think they know nothing of this? I mean, is such ignorance by a Chapter actually possible?’

‘Must be. If they knew, they‘d have tipped us off.’

‘But how can he keep them in ignorance when under the Cathedral statutes he can’t do anything without their consent?’

‘Oh, he wouldn’t let the statutes bother him! Think of how he commissioned that pornographic sculpture single-handed in 1963 – the sculptress only had to bat her eyelashes at him over the dry martinis, and immediately all memory of the Cathedral statutes was wiped from his mind! The truth is Aysgarth’s quite capable of acting on his own and then bullying the Canons into ratifying his actions later.’

‘At least there’s no woman involved this time.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

The operator intervened to ask for more money. ‘Talk to you later,’ I said to Malcolm, and replaced the receiver.

Returning to the dining-room I found the roast beef waiting for me alongside a glass of claret. ‘Sorry,’ I said to Jack. ‘I’ll now stop wrecking our lunch.’

‘I rather think I was the one who did the wrecking. How many strokes did the Archdeacon have?’

‘He somehow managed to stay conscious. Look, Jack, can I ask you to sit on this story for a day or two while I find out exactly what’s going on? I suppose it’s always possible that there’s an innocent explanation.’

‘You mean maybe there’s no financial mess and that Aysgarth’s merely taken a dislike to priceless medieval manuscripts?’

‘I mean,’ I said severely as he shook with laughter, ‘that Douglas’s chum at Christie’s could have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Someone might have said to him: “Forget the St Anselm manuscript,” and he might have thought the sentence was: “We’ll get the St Anselm manuscript.” Maybe the Dean and Chapter are only disposing of a few books of minimal importance.’