Absolute Truths

‘Come into the study, Dido. Can I offer you a drink?’

‘No, no, quite unnecessary, thank you – was that Michael’s car I saw parked in the drive?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact –’

‘I can’t imagine why young men like sports cars, so draughty in winter, but Michael’s only twenty-four, isn’t he – or is it twenty-five? – and still has quite a lot of growing up to do, I daresay, particularly in regard to women – and quite frankly, Charles, if I may be absolutely candid – and as you know, I’m famed for my candour – if one of my stepsons was mixed up with a foreign drug-addict I’d put my foot down in the firmest possible way – but of course you’re trying to be Christian, aren’t you, which is always so terribly difficult, just as Browning says in the poem. Well, as I was saying –’

‘Do sit down, Dido.’

‘No, I won’t stay, Charles, I mustn’t interrupt your family gathering for more than a minute, but I felt I simply had to tell you, as soon as I heard the news about poor dear Desmond, that I have it on the best authority from a very good friend in London that she saw Desmond at Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night last month, and of course you know what that means, don’t you, because no respectable person would normally be seen dead in Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night.’

‘In that case what was your friend doing there?’

‘She’d just left a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.’

‘Maybe Desmond was also emerging from an evening at the theatre.’

‘Not with a young man in black leather, my dear. And my friend, who only wears glasses for reading and who met Desmond years ago when she did charity work for his East End mission – my friend tells me they were less than fifty yards from the public lavatories.’

‘My dear Dido!’

‘I’m only speaking with the welfare of the Church in mind, Charles, and of course we all know Desmond was thrown out of the London diocese after being convicted of soliciting in a public lavatory –’

‘He was not convicted. He was arrested along with the drunk who took a swipe at him, but he wasn’t charged and the incident isn’t generally known. I don’t know who could have told you about it, but –’

‘Oh my dear, we all know, I can’t think how you convinced yourself that you could ever keep that kind of fact a secret, and to be absolutely candid, Charles, I can’t imagine how you ever dared take him on, particularly since you’re so rabid on the subject of homosexuals –’

I tried to repudiate this slander but there was no chance. Dido had merely paused to draw a quick breath and had no intention of being interrupted.

‘– but of course I do realise how soft you are on clergymen who have had nervous breakdowns, and the softness is your way of compensating, isn’t it, for that utterly ruthless line you take on immorality – no, no, don’t think I’m criticising you, my dear, quite the reverse, thank God at least one bishop takes a strong stand against immorality, that’s what I say! I’ve no time for all this silly permissiveness, and I said right from the beginning that Bishop John Robinson was up the creek when he spouted all that rubbish about a New Morality and gave silly young girls the scope to wreck their lives and go down the drain – and talking of going down the drain, I do hope poor dear Desmond can be eased into retirement as soon as possible, because choirboys will be the next step, won’t it, and then you’ll wish you’d acted as soon as you knew he’d been seen in Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night with a young man dressed in black leather. And talking of black leather –’

The door of the study opened and in walked Lyle.

‘Dido!’ she exclaimed. ‘I heard your voice as I came out of the kitchen – how sweet of you to call, but you must excuse Charles now because Michael’s paid us a surprise visit and they’re dying to talk to each other.’

Almost panting with relief I escaped into the hall only to realise that the last person I wanted to face at that moment was Michael. I was still inwardly shuddering as the result of Dido’s reference to a ‘foreign drug-addict’, for I had long lived in fear that Michael, moving in Marina Markhampton’s fast London set, would dabble in drugs and wreck his respectable future with the BBC. I wondered what evidence Dido had for labelling Dinkie a drug-addict, but unfortunately I could not reassure myself with the thought that this was another remark generated by Dido’s taste for exaggeration. Dido could well know more about Dinkie than I did. Her two eldest stepsons – the sons of Aysgarth’s first marriage – also belonged to Marina Markhampton’s set, and although they were both now married they often visited their father’s home and could well have talked frankly about Marina’s less presentable friends.

I was still trying to convince myself that Michael was no more likely than Christian or Norman Aysgarth to dabble in drugs, when the doorbell rang yet again. Hardly daring to respond I eased the door open six inches and peered out to identify my next visitor.

It was Malcolm.

‘Thank God!’ I said sincerely, and scooped him across the threshold.

X

‘What happened with the police?’

‘It’s all right, everything’s under control. Heavens, Charles, you look shattered! What’s going on here?’

‘Oh, nothing special, just all hell breaking loose. Quick, come into the kitchen before you get buttonholed by Dido Aysgarth – she’s just told me that Desmond’s been seen near the Piccadilly Circus public lavatories on a Saturday night in the company of a young man dressed in black leather.’

‘That woman’s round the bend!’

‘I only wish I could be as certain of that as you are. Drink?’

‘Make it a double.’

We withdrew rapidly to the kitchen where I took a new bottle of scotch from the crate on the larder floor and extracted two glasses from a cupboard.

‘Charles, you don’t believe this ridiculous story of Dido’s, do you?’

‘I’m trying my hardest not to, but you know what a nose she has for scandal. She even told me everyone knew about the disaster which ended Desmond’s career in the London diocese.’

‘Who’s “everyone”?’

‘I dread to think. The Dean and Chapter?’

‘At most, I’d say. No one knows in that parish, Charles – if they did, I’d have had people coming to me to express their anxiety. And how on earth could the story have reached the Dean and Chapter? Do you think some gossipy monk at the Fordite HQ spilled the beans to Tommy Fitzgerald during one of his retreats?’

‘I’m sure no Forditc would ever have been so indiscreet. Much more likely that someone in the Bishop of London’s office talked and the word got back to Aysgarth through his former colleagues at Westminster Abbey and Church House. After all, apart from the Fordite monks only the Bishop’s office knew – the Bishop nipped the scandal in the bud.’

‘It was a brilliant piece of nipping. If he hadn’t been sitting next to the Police Commissioner at that Mansion House dinner –’

‘Talking of the police, how did you tame Parker and Locke?’

‘Oh, that was no problem at all! I became very earnest and confidential, swore Desmond was a most devout Anglo-Catholic and assured them that I’d be among the first to know if he hadn’t always lived a blameless life. (Well, I was, wasn’t I?) Of course Parker and Locke believed me – the great advantage of telling the truth is that one’s so much more likely to sound convincing.’

‘But did the police then decide it was a motiveless crime?’

‘Yes, they started speculating that the attacker was a Langley Bottom lout stoned on LSD.’

‘Surely LSD hasn’t reached Starbridge!’

‘Oh, nothing’s sacred nowadays! Anyway I fed that theory to the hack from the Starbridge Evening News who turned up at the hospital just as I was leaving and he was thrilled, said he’d do an exposé on the Starbridge drug scene –’

‘But there is no Starbridge drug scene!’

‘There will be tomorrow. Anyway, I’d just finished making the hack’s day when the chaplain turned up – apparently he’d been collared on one of the wards by some bereaved relatives and by the time he’d sorted them out –’

‘I wondered where he’d got to. Did you tell him to watch Desmond?’

‘Like a hawk, yes, and he said he’d arrange for the nurse on duty to contact him as soon as Desmond recovers consciousness, but luckily they’ve left a woman police constable at the bedside, not that thug Sergeant Locke, so at least Desmond won’t be browbeaten as soon as he opens his eyes. At that point I finally managed to tear myself away from the hospital and rush to Langley Bottom, but the housekeeper had gone home so I was unable to get into the vicarage. Did you manage to get in earlier, and if so – good heavens, Charles, what is it, what have I said?’

‘Ye gods and little fishes!’ I shouted, leaping to my feet. ‘I’ve left that unlocked box in the drawing-room with Michael and Dinkie!’

As if on cue Lyle entered the kitchen with the box itself in her hands.

XI

‘I hid it in the dining-room when you went to answer Michael’s ring at the door,’ she said, setting the box on the kitchen table as I slumped down with relief on the nearest chair.

‘Dare I ask what’s inside?’ enquired Malcolm, eyeing the box with dread.

‘Desmond’s bedtime reading,’ said Lyle, confirming his worst fears.

Malcolm went so pale that the freckles stood out starkly across his cheekbones.

I had first met Malcolm after the war on a course designed for army chaplains who were returning to civilian life. I had been asked to give a lecture on the theology currently fashionable, and afterwards ‘Malcolm proved to be the truculent member of the audience who sat at the back and asked awkward questions. At that time he had red hair and an impudent look. Later in the canteen he apologised, explaining that he was only taking the course because he had been ordered to do so by his bishop and that he considered it a waste of time to listen to theology when he could be out and about preaching the Gospel. I liked both his honesty and his zeal. Not everyone is born to be a theologian, and certainly not everyone is born to appreciate the Neo-Orthodox theology of Karl Barth.

Word reached me by chance in the early 1950s that Malcolm had raised some market-town from the dead in the Starbridge diocese, but I never dreamed our careers would intersect. Then in 1957 I accepted the bishopric and found I had inherited an unsatisfactory archdeacon. As soon as I had freed myself from this millstone, I offered the archdeaconry to Malcolm.

The archdeaconry was attached to the city parish of St Martin’s-in-Cripplegate, but Malcolm had curates to help him run the parish while he roamed his section of the diocese on my behalf. The archdeacon is by tradition ‘the bishop’s eye’, the henchman who keeps watch on all the clergy and churches in the archdeaconry and tells the bishop everything he needs to know. The diocese was divided into two archdeaconries, but the other archdeacon lived in the port of Starmouth forty miles away so I saw less of him, particularly since I had appointed a suffragan bishop to supervise the south of the diocese for me. Meanwhile Malcolm patrolled the north. The exercise of power had made him a trifle bossy in his manner, but he remained devout, diligent and efficient. I relied on him in my professional life almost as much as I relied on Lyle in my private life, and considered him one of my most successful appointments.

‘Am I right in thinking,’ he was saying morosely, ‘that the parish of Langley Bottom has finally driven its vicar completely round the bend?’

‘I hate to intervene at this point,’ said Lyle, ‘but Charles, we’re all waiting for you to join us for a drink. If you could just leave Malcolm alone for ten minutes to browse through the box –’

‘I’ll be along in a moment.’

Lyle withdrew, trying not to look exasperated.

As soon as we were alone Malcolm heaved up the hasps, flung back the lid and demanded: ‘How bad is it?’

‘Appalling.’

‘Within the meaning of the Act?’

‘Not being a legal expert on pornography, I’m not sure. What do you think?’

Malcolm efficiently inspected the cover of each magazine and flicked through the collection of photographs. His final verdict was: ‘No children or animals. All this might set the News of the World alight, but it’s not going to raise any eyebrows among the vice-squad.’

‘I certainly don’t believe the police would have any interest in prosecuting an elderly man who has no connection with a pornography ring and no interest in corrupting minors. But could there be a connection between all this stuff and what’s just happened to Desmond?’

‘Where’s the link?’

‘Exactly. There isn’t one, so in my opinion there’s no need to turn the box over to the police, but –’

‘Good heavens, no – quite unnecessary!’

‘ – but it’s absolutely vital that in our desire to protect Desmond and the Church we don’t wind up obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. We’ve got to be very careful here.’

‘Of course, but if there’s nothing in this box which links Desmond with any particular man, the odds are that the criminal’s a lunatic and has no connection with Desmond’s sex-life whatsoever. Let’s just wait, Charles, and see where the police get to. If you ask me, we’re in the clear: we’re not withholding evidence that Desmond knew his assailant.’

This opinion certainly chimed with mine, but I found I was still worried. ‘The trouble is there’s still a possibility that he was being blackmailed. Maybe he just didn’t keep the letters in this box – maybe they’re hidden away somewhere else in the house –’

‘I doubt it. Charles, I’d be very surprised if Desmond was being blackmailed and I’ll tell you why: he’d crack up almost straight away as the result of the strain and by this time I’d have received reports from the churchwardens that Father Wilton was no longer able to celebrate mass. Desmond just doesn’t have the emotional stamina to sustain a double-life with a blackmailer.’

This assessment had the ring of truth. I finally began to relax.

‘I’ll take this stuff home,’ said Malcolm as he closed the box and stood up. ‘The sooner it’s burnt the better.’

Automatically I said: ‘No, you can’t burn it.’

Malcolm’s long nose quivered as if he scented trouble. ‘Why not?’

‘Because this is Desmond’s property, taken from his house without his permission, and we have no right to destroy it. What I have to do is confront him with the box, explain exactly why I felt obliged to search his bedroom, and apologise for the invasion of his privacy. Then I must make it clear I trust him to do the burning himself.’

‘But my dear Charles, I can see that’s a magnificent example of Christian behaviour, but is it really appropriate for a bishop? No, wait a minute – hang on, just let me rephrase that –’

‘Please do.’ I started to laugh. I suppose I was finally suffering a nervous reaction to the crisis.

‘Well, what I’m trying to say is this: of course you have to behave like a Christian, but do you necessarily have to behave like an English gentleman with an over-developed sense of fair play? A bishop has to show compassion for sinners, we all know that, but don’t let’s lose sight of the sin! Personally I think you should be quite tough with Desmond here and feel no obligation to treat him with kid gloves. After all, supposing the police had found this box? We’d all have been up to our necks in scandal!’

‘But they didn’t. And we’re not. And I don’t see why you should think I’m glossing over the sin by giving Desmond a soft option – it’s not a soft option at all. His punishment will lie in the fact that I know what’s been going on.’

‘Very well,’ said Malcolm with reluctance, ‘but meanwhile what are you going to do with the box? You can’t leave it lying around the South Canonry! Supposing Miss Peabody finds it?’

‘By all means let’s protect Miss Peabody from a potentially heart-stopping encounter, but isn’t there an equal risk that your wife and daughters will stumble across it at the vicarage?’

‘In my study there’s a cupboard which locks and only I have the key.’ Malcolm was always prepared for every archidiaconal emergency. ‘The most urgent question,’ he said as he tucked the box under his arm, ‘is what we’re going to do with that church while Desmond’s incapacitated. I can rustic up poor old Father Pitt to celebrate a daily mass, but he’s half-blind now and so lame that he almost has to be carried to the altar – I couldn’t ask him to substitute for Desmond for more than a week and the Sunday services might well finish him off altogether. And what are we going to do with that parish in the long run? The whole place is a nightmare.’

Before I could reply Lyle returned to the room again. ‘Charles, I really don’t think you can postpone Michael any longer but at least you don’t have to face Dinkie at the moment – she’s upstairs waiting for me to begin our tête-à-tête in my sitting-room.’

‘But what do I say to Michael?’

‘Oh, anything – ask him about the BBC. He’s working on a production of The Cherry Orchard.’

‘Is that the play where everyone goes around sighing: “Moscow! Moscow!”?’ said Malcolm, temporarily diverted from the nightmare of Langley Bottom.

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s The Three Sisters – which reminds me of the three witches in Macbeth – which in turn reminds me of Dido. Has she gone?’

‘Yes, ages ago. Awful woman! No wonder Stephen Aysgarth drinks like a fish.’

‘Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Aysgarth at the moment,’ said Malcolm. ‘All quiet on that particular front. Lyle, I do apologise for interrupting your family party, but with any luck I’ll be your last interruption tonight.’

As if to confound him the telephone began to ring again.

‘I’ll answer that,’ I said at once, seizing any excuse to postpone my conversation with Michael, and ignoring Lyle’s exasperated expression I hurried from the kitchen to my study.

XII

‘South Canonry,’ I said into the receiver as I sat down in the chair behind my desk.

‘Hullo, old boy, it’s Jack!’

I was so disorientated, both by the Desmond disaster and by Michael’s arrival, that I suffered a moment of amnesia. ‘Jack who?’

‘My God, the Bishop’s gone senile! Charles, it’s your distinguished friend of far too many years’ standing, the editor –’

‘– of the Church Gazette. Sorry, Jack – temporary aberration. I hope you’re not planning to cancel our lunch tomorrow.’

‘Far from it, old chap, calling to confirm – and to say that I’ve got the most shattering piece of gossip for you. Order a brandy in anticipation if you arrive at the Athenaeum before I do.’

‘What gossip?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly reveal it over the phone! I just wanted to make sure you rushed panting to London.’

‘Does it have anything to do with Piccadilly Circus?’

‘Piccadilly Circus? No, I seem to have missed that one. Hang on while I find a pencil and paper –’

‘See you tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Sorry – got to dash.’ But having replaced the receiver I found I still could not face the ordeal of confronting Michael. For some minutes I lingered, speculating about Jack’s piece of gossip and then brooding on Desmond’s disaster, but finally I remembered I had promised to call Charley back. At once I put through the call.

‘It’s me again,’ I said as he answered on the first ring. ‘Sorry about the interval. Are you all right? I hope Aysgarth didn’t upset you with all that talk of Samson.’

‘No, but I admit I’m bothered about something else. Are you by any chance going to be in London this week?’

‘I’m lunching with Jack Ryder tomorrow before chairing a committee meeting at Church House. Why don’t we meet for tea at four-thirty downstairs at Fortnum’s?’

Charley was pleased by this suggestion and seemed to think this marked the end of the telephone call, but I hung on, unable to resist the temptation to delay my interview with Michael. ‘Any other news?’ I enquired hopefully.

‘No – except that I’ve just heard the most awful piece of gossip about Michael. I bumped into Eddie Hoffenberg today and he told me that Venetia had told him that Marina had told her that Michael was actually talking of marrying that ghastly tart of his! Could he really be so fantastically unhinged?’

The door of my study crashed open and Michael stormed into the room.

FOUR

‘It is extraordinary how we betray our friends. Or (as we think in our conceited minds) it is not extraordinary at all: for we, of course, are superior persons, viewing mankind from a great height, and awarding our acquaintances praise and blame with poetic justice, if not with justice, anyhow with such charm, that even malice ought to be forgiven us.’

AUSTIN FARRER

Warden of Keble College, Oxford, 1960–1968

A Celebration of Faith

I

As the door shuddered on its hinges I said quickly into the telephone: ‘Sorry, got to go – see you tomorrow.’ Meanwhile Michael had swept to my desk and was standing in front of me with his fists clenched and his arms held rigidly at his sides as if he were barely able to restrain himself from aiming a punch at my jaw.

This was clearly a situation which demanded all my pastoral skills, but I had long since discovered that during confrontations with Michael my professional experience was of no use to me; Michael knew at once when he was being treated as a pastoral ‘case’ and became more unpleasant than ever. On the other hand all my attempts to treat him affectionately as a son fell on stony ground. It was as if Michael was never satisfied until he had needled me into losing my temper, and the more I slaved at the task of keeping calm the more he slaved at the task of provoking me.

I repressed the urge to bolt from the room and shout in despair for Lyle.

‘Have you quite finished?’ said Michael.

‘I’m sorry, it’s been chaotic here tonight –’

‘I bring my fiancée; down here to announce our engagement and you can’t even find the time to drink a glass of champagne with us!’

‘I really am very sorry –’

‘I don’t want you being sorry! I just want you to do something halfway decent such as saying: “Congratulations!” If it had been Charley who had arrived here with his fiancée, you’d have been beside yourself with excitement!’

‘Not if the fiancée were Dinkie,’ I said before I could stop myself, and as Michael showed signs of extreme rage I said very rapidly: ‘Now calm down and be sensible – you must realise that this kind of aggressive behaviour does neither of us any good. What happened to your New Year’s resolution to reform?’

‘You’ve just wiped it out by continuing to disapprove of everything I do! There’s no pleasing you, is there? I live in sin with Dinkie and you storm and rage until Mum shuts you up, but when I try to do the moral thing and marry, you sulk and skulk in corners!’

‘If I’m lukewarm about your news it’s only because I don’t think she can make you happy.’

‘If you married a pregnant woman, why shouldn’t I do the same?’

‘Are you trying to tell me –’

‘Yes. She’s pregnant.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘God, what a bloody thing to say!’

‘I’m merely trying to uncover the truth!’

‘The truth is that I’m in the process of saving Dinkie just as you saved Mum! Dinkie’s had an awful life, she’s vulnerable, she’s lonely, she needs a lot of love and security – and by living with her and looking after her, I’ve actually done her good. So if you think I’m just an immoral bastard screwing her for kicks –’