Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation

by James Runcie

  ‘Have you always known?’

  ‘I have not thought about your life in that way at all. You are just my friend Leonard to me. And your friends love you for your Leonard-ness, whatever that might entail.’

  ‘People used to be more private about things.’

  ‘That did not always help matters. Secrecy can bring forth its own terrors.’

  Leonard looked for a distraction – a piece of teacake, another cup from the pot, but there was nothing left. ‘I think a man’s private life is his own business.’

  ‘We talked about this when you first became my curate. Our vocation makes it more complicated.’

  ‘And sometimes more simple if only God is privy to our thoughts.’

  ‘That does not make life any the less true.’

  Leonard thought for a moment. ‘Do you think the Church will ever accept people like me?’

  ‘You are here, Leonard, working in the Church.’

  ‘But you are different, Sidney. You turn a blind eye.’

  ‘You do not force me to look.’

  ‘And so a man’s feelings should remain hidden, you think?’

  Sidney tried to balance friendship with duty. ‘There is the question of tact: offending others, drawing unnecessary attention. You know the reasons given. The Church doesn’t like these things out in the open. Nowadays people are all too keen to declare their emotions; just because you feel something deeply doesn’t mean that you have to tell everyone about it. There’s a lot to be said for discretion.’

  ‘Some would call that hypocrisy.’

  ‘As I say, not everything has to be transparent. It is perhaps less painful to keep these matters to oneself.’

  ‘But what if one is so in love that you want to declare it to the world?’

  ‘Then tell me, Leonard.’

  ‘It’s Simon. Is that a shock?’

  ‘I know it’s Simon. I saw him yesterday.’

  ‘Has he told you anything? I mean about . . .’

  ‘He has not. You tell me.’

  ‘It’s quite a long story. He came for the Feast of St Alban in June, when we decorate the shrine with roses. It’s in memory of the legend that roses grew from the ground where his blood was shed. You remember, Sidney?’

  ‘“So among the roses brightly shines St Alban.”’

  ‘Simon brought a little bouquet he had picked from his mother’s garden. It was odd because they were a creamy yellow, and I told him that I had never liked the colour and he told me that he had gathered them specially because the crest of the city is yellow and blue and he wanted to bring something appropriate. He was amused because one of the varieties he had chosen was called “Rambling Rector”. I hadn’t ever discovered that he knew about roses but then there was so much about him that I didn’t know, and I realised then that I wanted to know.

  ‘We had lunch in the White Hart and then we went for a walk round the lake and across to the Roman theatre. He’d never seen it. We talked about drama, and that production of Julius Caesar during which his old friend Lord Teversham was killed. He said it all seemed a lifetime ago and that he had felt alone ever since his death. I think we talked a little about the nature of friendship and he came back for tea. I’d made one of Mrs Maguire’s walnut specials. She gave me the recipe when I left Grantchester. It was her little farewell. She told me that she’d never given it to anyone else and it would have to remain “our secret”. Simon and I sat together and I can’t really remember what we talked about because my head was filled with the delightful terror of what might happen next. When the time came for him to leave and get his train I knew that I didn’t want him to go. It was silly really. He got up and went into the hall and I opened the door and a handshake was insufficient and a hug embarrassing, and then he just kissed me and everything changed.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, Leonard.’

  ‘It’s quite all right. I understand it now. In the past, I didn’t know that I was a homosexual. I didn’t think I was anything. It didn’t bother me very much. But then there was someone. Simon. And I fell in love. It didn’t feel “unnatural” or “abnormal” at the time. It felt right. Do you know the poem by Southey that has the words “Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live”?’

  ‘I do.’ Sidney had once said those same words to Hildegard, and he thought about her now, as Leonard talked about falling in love and how right it felt.

  ‘When you and I first met, Sidney, I noticed how tactful you were when I didn’t know who I was. I think we had a conversation about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s position on the matter. Then there was the death of Lord Teversham and Ben Blackwood and the Wolfenden Report. Before then they thought that a love of another man was something that could be cured; that such feelings were temptations that should be resisted. But I don’t believe that a Christian should ever renounce the possibility of true love, even if it is earthly, flawed, and doomed by mortality. We have to acknowledge the possibility of becoming better people, of being made more than we ever could be on our own, of having the capacity to love. Surely to deny that would be to commit the greater sin?’

  ‘You don’t have to deny it; but in your position you have to be careful. It can damage your chances . . .’

  ‘Of being a bishop, you mean? I’m not worried about that.’

  ‘But you are worried about the blackmail, I presume?’

  ‘It has unsettled me, I have to admit. It’s come just when I’ve found happiness. We’d even bought a double bed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t tell me that, Leonard.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I know you will be discreet.’

  ‘I will, but these things can get out. Perhaps the arsonist knew . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what he knows. That’s the terrible thing. I don’t even know who is doing all this.’

  ‘The threats are not signed at all?’

  ‘He is using what I take to be an assumed name: Christian Grace; although his is neither very Christian, nor very gracious. He has told me to leave the money in a pigeonhole in the abbey next Wednesday.’

  ‘He is a member of the congregation then?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be. Anyone can use them. No one checks. I am supposed to leave it under the letter “G”. And there’s no way of knowing when he will pick it up, so there’s no point anyone lying in wait.’

  ‘A verger could keep an eye.’

  ‘I doubt that’s possible. I can’t confide in them.’

  ‘But, Leonard, it must be someone who knows the workings of the abbey?’

  ‘A fellow priest, you mean? Surely not.’

  ‘No, but someone who has sufficient familiarity with the building to know that the scheme will work. I say “he” because I doubt it’s a woman.’

  ‘Perhaps not. Although you have had experience of threatening letters before; with Henry Richmond’s ex-wife, I seem to remember.’

  ‘This is very different, Leonard.’

  ‘I suppose it’s always unlike any other time. Whoever it is, they can certainly quote the Bible to their own ends.’

  ‘Will you show me the letters?’

  ‘I can recite them for you. They are burned into my mind.’

  ‘And you haven’t told the police?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Geordie is already involved with the arson attack on Simon’s shop. The two crimes must be related.’

  ‘No one knows both Simon and me. We don’t have any friends or acquaintances in common; apart from you, of course.’

  ‘People might have seen you together; on one of your walks, perhaps.’

  ‘We have done nothing wrong. You can walk alongside someone in your work.’

  ‘Has there been anything controversial recently; anything that you might have done to annoy someone?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘I can’t think. I suppose I want everyone to like me, just as you do. Is that such a sin? I want to be a good priest, kind to my parishioners, faithful in the work of the Lord. I
do not know what I have done to make someone hate me.’

  ‘It is almost certainly nothing personal. It is the idea that seems to provoke people to irrational anger. You must try not to take it to heart.’

  ‘It certainly feels personal. I hate it, Sidney. It is so vindictive, so filled with the lack of any charity or understanding. How can it be Christian? It makes me lose all my faith in humanity. I’ll have to stop. I can’t go on like this.’

  Leonard was on the verge of tears. Sidney reached out his arm in comfort. He couldn’t bear it. ‘Don’t be reckless, Leonard. We can sort this out, I promise. It’s early days. Be patient, that’s all I ask.’

  ‘But, Sidney, you are aware that a bishop cannot knowingly ordain a homosexual; and much less can a homosexual become a bishop.’

  ‘You are already ordained.’

  ‘But in my next job, whatever it is, wherever I am installed, I will have to submit to an examination in the articles of faith.’

  ‘As you do every day of your life.’

  ‘And people will be there, judging me, I know it will never end. What if the man goes on tormenting me? What if this never stops?’

  Sidney held on to his friend’s arm. ‘Don’t cry, Leonard.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’m sorry.’

  The waitress came over and asked if she could bring the bill. The manager had sent her. She clearly didn’t want a scene.

  ‘Remember the prayer?’ Sidney asked:

  ‘Anoint and cheer our soiled face

  With the abundance of Thy grace.

  Keep far our foes, give peace at home;

  Where Thou art guide, no ill can come.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Leonard replied, letting go of Sidney’s arm and reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief. ‘I will either have to give up being the man I have become or resign as a priest. I cannot be both.’

  * * *

  Geordie Keating was unsurprised when his friend visited him with the inevitable theory that the arson in Cambridge had to be connected to the threats Leonard had been receiving.

  ‘Hackford may want silence, but I am afraid he’s not going to get it. Blackmail’s always nasty and you can’t hide arson. The Evening News is on to the story and Helena Randall’s found out, so I expect we’ll be getting a visit from London’s finest soon enough.’

  ‘Small beer for her, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Actually she was quite interested. Perhaps she’s got something up her sleeve.’

  ‘She’s always been fond of Leonard, as has Malcolm.’

  ‘Do you think they are aware that he and Simon are more than friends?’

  ‘Now, Geordie, you don’t know that for certain.’

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘I haven’t told you anything specific.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I know you well enough. Still, I thought it was supposed to be easier for people like that now the law has changed and we’re expected to tolerate everything they do.’

  ‘You are referring to the Sexual Offences Act?’

  ‘The “charter for queers”, we call it. Not that it makes much difference to me. Homosexual acts committed in public conveniences are still illegal, and the act’s provisions do not apply to members of the Armed Forces. It does make them vulnerable to blackmail.’

  ‘I remember the Christine Keeler case and the Russian spy . . .’

  ‘Stephen Ward definitely swung it both ways. But what I want to know about the act is why doesn’t it exclude priests? I know it’s legal, but presumably you boys still take a dim view of this kind of thing. It’s a sin, isn’t it? And please don’t tell me “it’s a bit more complicated”.’

  ‘Do you want the full theological explanation?’

  ‘Is there a quick version?’

  ‘There’s my version.’

  ‘You mean you’re all allowed to think different things?’

  ‘The Church is governed by Canon and Measure. Canon is the law and Measure is the interpretation of that law. Are you with me?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound so very different to my world. But I think I’ll need another pint before you go on.’

  ‘There have been some very good lectures on the subject by Norman Pittenger at King’s. We could have gone together, Geordie. That would have created a bit of a stir. We could have held hands in the back row.’

  ‘Are you joking? I wouldn’t want people thinking . . .’

  ‘I am teasing. Although some people probably think . . .’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Still teasing, Geordie. You really do have to work on your sense of humour.’

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter.’

  ‘Sin,’ Sidney resumed after he had bought the second pints, ‘is generally regarded in Christian thought as a state or condition; it is the separation or alienation from God.’

  Geordie took a swig of his beer. ‘Adam and Eve and the tricky business with the serpent.’

  ‘The opposite of sin is the “state of grace” in which the separation or alienation or deprivation has been overcome by God’s act in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.’

  ‘And therefore we are redeemed.’

  ‘Very good. Pittenger argues that we must distinguish between sin, in the singular, and sins in the plural.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Geordie replied, lighting up a cigarette. ‘I knew there’d be some hair-splitting.’

  ‘Human sin is when we seek to live in the denial of our dependence upon God and upon others. It is when we live like animals, turning, and here I think Pittenger is rather apt, “our human existence into something more suited for the barnyard than for the community of men”.’

  ‘Rutting and such like . . .’

  ‘Sex, if you would like me to go on, is not, in itself, a sin.’

  ‘Depends who it is with.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Steady, Geordie. The idea is,’ Sidney continued, determined to get this lesson out of the way, ‘that sex is God-given. It is promiscuity, exploitation and abuse that is sinful.’

  ‘So where does degeneracy come in?’

  ‘Do you mean sex between men?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘The irony is, as I am sure you will know, that most of the sexual practices between men also form part of heterosexual intimacy. What makes the same private actions, performed by consenting individuals, “disgusting”? You might as well argue that sexual activity between ugly people is not to be countenanced.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘Would you like me to be specific about the actions involved?’

  ‘No thank you, Sidney. We’re in a public place and it’s quite disconcerting to hear a clergyman talk like this.’

  ‘Then let me put you at your ease, Geordie. There are, I think, two things that determine the sinfulness of the act. First there is the inner spirit with which it is performed; and second there is the intentionality, in which both parties to the act understand the nature of what they are doing. The two persons must be committed one to the other, in such a fashion that neither is using the other. They must give and receive in tenderness, so that there is no element of coercion, undue pressure, or imposed constraint.’

  ‘So you are saying that this is the same as in normal relationships?’

  ‘Heterosexual relationships, not “normal”.’

  ‘You think homosexuality is normal?’

  ‘I think homosexual acts between persons who intend a permanent union in love are not sinful nor should the Church consider them as such.’

  ‘Blimey, Sidney.’

  ‘I cannot see what is wrong when two men engage in physical acts which will both express their love and deepen it.’

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it like that.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s time you did. Would you like another pint, Geordie? Or something stronger, perhaps: a little whisky? I’ll tell the barmaid that you’re feeling a bit delicate,
a little faint. It’s your feminine side . . .’

  ‘Don’t you bloody dare . . .’

  ‘What was I saying about your sense of humour?’

  The next morning, unable to concentrate and just before lunch, Sidney put a new LP on the turntable. It was Ummagumma, the Pink Floyd album. Roger Waters had sent it to him, and two tracks stood out: ‘Astronomy Domine’, which seemed to be some kind of lilting electronic mystic trance, and ‘Grantchester Meadows’, which included natural sounds he had seen the great bass player record on location.

  There was something transcendental about it all. Sidney wondered whether he could buy some coloured light bulbs and turn his study into something more meditative. If he closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, then perhaps . . .

  ‘Daddy?’

  Anna shook at his arm, told him the noise was too loud and then announced that she had lost Dizzy, her imaginary friend.

  Sidney lifted the needle from the record player and gave his daughter his full attention. This was going to be a difficult conversation. How could one find an imaginary friend? When had Anna last seen him?

  ‘I don’t know. I think he’s gone away.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll come back.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me he was going.’

  ‘Sometimes I don’t tell Mummy when I’m going somewhere.’

  ‘And she gets cross.’

  ‘Are you cross now, Anna?’

  ‘Very. Do you lose your friends, Daddy?’

  ‘I try not to.’

  ‘Is God your friend?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Sally at school says I’m making Dizzy up but I’m not. You don’t make God up, do you, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But I’ve never seen God. Like you haven’t seen Dizzy.’

  Sidney was flummoxed by this epistemological immediacy, but if he could not explain the concept of God to his own daughter, what chance did he have with anyone else? He would have to start with the character of Jesus Christ and work up from there.

  Anna lost interest almost as soon as he began. ‘I know all about that,’ she said. ‘I’m going to find another friend.’

  As she turned to leave, Sidney realised that he had failed to notice Amanda standing in the doorway. She had come for lunch. ‘It’s just as well you’ve got another friend too,’ she said. ‘Otherwise you would have been quite alone with your thoughts and, Hildegard has been telling me, that dreadful music.’