You Owe Me Five Farthings

by Jane Anstey

  “Even if I asked Mr Hellyer over,” she managed at last, fighting a rear-guard action. “I don’t think he’d want to come.”

  “Why not? Mummy, he likes you very much—anyone can see that. Why wouldn’t he want to come and have tea with us? Doesn’t he like me––is that what it is? But then, why would he save my life?” Robert sounded more than bewildered by these proofs of adults’ irrational decision making.

  “That’s enough questions for one evening,” said Rose firmly, before he became too distressed. “I’m not inviting Mr Hellyer to tea, either when Daddy’s at home or when he’s away, and it’s no use asking me again because I’m not changing my mind.”

  Robert said no more, but Rose had the uncomfortable feeling that he had not given up on his purpose, merely paused to regroup and formulate an attack on another front. For a shy boy who lacked confidence, he could be extraordinarily persistent.

  Fourteen

  Clive had no intention of talking to anyone about his visits to Whitehill Abbey, even though he spent two more weekends there in January—hardly spending time at home with Rose and Robert, in spite of Jan’s encouragement to build new relationships with his family. Whitehill and Jan Petrowski were too precious, too new and bewildering, to share with anyone else. He was uncommunicative at the office, too, and made no attempt to build any kind of relationship, professional or personal, with the secretary engaged by the company to replace Olivia. Not surprisingly, his work suffered from this mental neglect, but the new PA was a good one and to a large extent was able to hide his inadequacies from clients and colleagues alike, at least temporarily. For the moment, his disengagement with most aspects of his working life remained oblique to those around him, though at home it was less easy to disguise his inner preoccupation. It surprised him that Rose didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual. But as she continued to be cool and distant with him, it didn’t matter.

  His first guided retreat had been very lightly supervised by Jan, a matter of gentle suggestions about how to pray, how to approach God when one really wanted to get to know Him, rather than paying him lip service on a Sunday morning and then getting on with everyday life. They had talked little of Clive’s past life or his many sins, which in the light of his new interest in the religious life, loomed large and dark.

  “Next time,” Jan had said in his quiet voice, with the slight East European inflection underlying his patrician accent that to Clive seemed as much a part of his attractiveness as the sudden smile that could illuminate his face, or the sense of spiritual power that exuded from him. “Next time, we will talk of these things. For now, you need to connect with God, to feel His love. Whatever you have done in the past can be forgiven. Your failings can be corrected, your scars healed. I cannot make that happen, but He can. With His help, you can leave that past behind.”

  Jan’s deep faith in the goodness and all-embracing love of God was one of the things, Clive thought, that set him apart from anyone else he had ever met. Jan spoke of God as an intimate friend in whose capacity to put wrongs right and bring wandering souls home he had absolute confidence. While Jeremy Swanson certainly believed in God, and Clive had always respected him and what he stood for as a parish priest, nevertheless with a family of his own he had always seemed to have one foot in the world. By contrast, Jan inhabited the spiritual life exclusively, even though his mind and heart still connected with those outside the pale.

  “The cloistered life helps one to do that,” he explained, the third weekend, when Clive asked how Jan had been able to embrace spirituality so completely. “God is the centre of my life here, and I need nothing outside. But that is not to say I wish to be turned inwards, or to pray only in contemplation, without reference to the world’s troubles. Those are God’s concern, too. We intercede nightly for those in spiritual darkness and for those whose lives are maimed by the sins of others. I could not do that if I lived outside in the world and had a wife or a family to care for.”

  “But you wouldn’t anyway, would you?” said Clive impulsively. “Have a wife and family, I mean. Because you’re gay.” It came out like an accusation, not the desperate reaching out for a response to his own chaotic feelings that Clive had meant it to be.

  Jan had looked at him then in a different way, the dark eyes penetrating his new ardour as though pinning his soul to the wall. “I am celibate,” he said quietly. “Sexual orientation means nothing to me now, either way. That is part of the point of monastic life, and of the priesthood.”

  “That’s what the Catholic Church teaches, isn’t it?” gabbled Clive. “If you can’t be straight and marry, then you can’t have any sexual relationships at all. Is that fair, Father? Is it honest?” He was surprised at his own vehemence, for in the past he had been homophobic, so completely had he identified with heterosexuality, and so little had he understood himself.

  “The world today is obsessed with sex,” replied Jan calmly. “We in the Church do not have to follow suit. Sex is important in marriage, to bind a couple together for their own solace, to procreate children and to provide a stable home for them. That is not just the Church’s opinion; it has been shown in many sociological studies. But once you take sex out of the situation it was designed for and use it for pleasure and casual gratification, it becomes warped and a force for evil.” He smiled wryly at Clive. “But you know this in your own life, Clive, don’t you?”

  Clive’s eyes fell. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Father,” he said.

  Jan nodded. “Confession and absolution,” he suggested in the same quiet voice.

  So Clive started to tell Jan about Olivia, about Maddie, about the others, many of them with names now forgotten, whose bodies he had made use of for his own gratification without ever connecting with them as women to be loved. He told him how badly he had treated Rose, how he had let Robert down. Jan listened in silence until the spring of confession wound down. Then he said: “We will pray for forgiveness.”

  He raised his hand, and Clive knelt before him, head bowed, to receive absolution and blessing. His emotions were in turmoil, even as he said Amen to the words asking for peace. To be at Jan’s feet, both figuratively and literally, wrought in him a kind of exultation, a state of ecstasy such as he had never imagined experiencing. But at the same time he felt a deep longing for a relationship more direct and personal, more intimate than was offered or was likely to be.

  He got up, uncertain whether the interview was over.

  Jan looked at him, the dark eyes holding his implacably. “True contrition is of great value. But there is also a need for change.”

  “Yes,” agreed Clive. “I understand that.”

  He sat down again. “Rose and I agreed on a fresh start. But I don’t think she can go through with it any more than I can. She fell in love with someone else last year, and although she’s tried to give him up, I don’t think she loves me anymore. Besides, Father, I feel now that women don’t really attract me in that way. I’ve used them, but I don’t think I can truly build a loving relationship with one, not even my wife.” Maybe I’m gay, like you. The words seemed to hang in the air, but Clive couldn’t quite bring himself to speak them.

  “You are still thinking of sex,” Jan told him steadily. “A marriage is built on more than sexual attraction, especially one of long standing, like your own. Twenty-five years, is it?”

  “Twenty-three.” Clive shifted uncomfortably under Jan’s gaze. “But I don’t think I really loved Rose, even when I married her. I thought I could make her the kind of wife I wanted, and she adored me.”

  “Very flattering,” said Jan dryly. “And now you want to get rid of her. But why? You do not have to sleep with her, if that is not what you both want. Robert, your son, is young and vulnerable, is he not? He needs you to stay together, surely.”

  “That’s what Rose feels,” agreed Clive. “But I don’t know whether I can cope with that. I want... God! I don’t know what I want.”

  “Then we will wait until G
od shows you the way forward,” said Jan firmly. “Let us pray now for purity of life. With absolution, the channel to God is cleared, and you can pray in peace. He will show you what to do next. You can talk it through with me, as your confessor, of course. But not now, not this time. You need a little while to think things over.”

  “I can come next weekend,” offered Clive. “After that, I won’t be able to come for a few weeks.”

  “There is certainly more to be said,” Jan told him. “And more for you to process about yourself. But first you need a time for reflection, for private prayer. That can be your task for this week. I will see you next Saturday at the same time.”

  This time Clive was sure of his dismissal. He knelt for the abbot to bless him and then went to pack his belongings to go home.

  ~ * ~

  After he had gone, Jan sat for a while with his hands clasped, somewhere between thought and prayer. That Clive had conceived some kind of crush on him was obvious. What that meant, in terms of Clive’s personal development, he was less sure. No one who had been as sexually active with women as Clive could possibly be homosexual, it seemed to him, not only from his own inner experience but from his observations of others. Orientation of that kind did not develop suddenly in mid-life. He might, perhaps, be bisexual, but in that case why had this not emerged earlier? The liberal society, much as Jan might deplore many of its vagaries and hostile as it might be to Catholic values, at least no longer penalized the free expression of sexuality. No, there was something more complicated going on.

  Meanwhile, there were other matters requiring his attention. He left his office and walked down the passageway and across the cloisters to the library. Brother Andrew was, as usual, deep in study at his desk, but he looked up as Jan came in. One of the younger monks sat in a corner reading, but he seemed absorbed and acknowledged the abbot’s presence with no more than a brief glance and obeisance.

  “That book,” said Jan, without preamble.

  “The diary of Brother Piers?”

  “Yes. Where is it?”

  Andrew indicated the display cabinet. “Under lock and key, as you requested.”

  It had not been a request, Jan remembered, but an instruction. He looked at the old librarian closely, but could see nothing in his expression but calm acceptance of Jan’s authority. The man had never been easy to read, even when they first knew each other, long ago, before the possibility of embracing the religious life had crossed either of their minds.

  The librarian unclipped the keys from his girdle and unlocked the display cabinet. Jan lifted the book out carefully and sat at one of the reading desks to make what he could of it. His university degree, thirty-five years ago, had been in languages, but he had specialised in Russian and German and had had little to do with English. He had not needed to, having spent most of his childhood at an English school, surrounded by English voices, so that he spoke the language fluently without thought and with almost no accent. Only his protector/master, standing in loco parentis at first, and in another, quite different role later, had spoken to him in their native tongue and made him aware of his heritage, kept alive the memories of his childhood and his parents.

  “Can you read this?” he asked Brother Andrew after a few minutes’ fruitless struggle.

  “Certainly,” said the librarian, with a hint of pride. He sat beside the abbot and began to translate.

  ~ * ~

  When the abbot had gone, Brother Andrew put the leatherbound book back into its display cabinet and opened it at a different page to minimise the fading that would happen inevitably as a result of exposure to light, even the dim light that fell in the corner of the library. The young brother had left and he was all alone with the books.

  He went to the window and checked that no one was in view. It was nearly time for vespers, and therefore not likely that he would receive any more visitors that evening, but after being surprised by one of the guests a few weeks earlier, he was taking no chances. He moved swiftly to the back of the library where it adjoined the cloister. There was a shallow cupboard there, only six or eight inches deep, with a tiled back. He unlocked the door, then looked behind him furtively and pressed one of the tiles. A disguised inner door swung smoothly open, revealing a deep cache. Carefully, he drew out a large bag and checked the contents. Then, satisfied, he returned the bag to the cache and closed the door. He was smiling as he locked the cupboard and pocketed the key. His insurance policy was intact––as he had had no doubt it would be, for he checked it at least once a week, savouring it and all that it meant to him. No one but he had the key to the outer door, and as far as he knew, no one knew how to open the inner cache even if they could gain access to the cupboard.

  Soon he would take his treasure and use it for its intended purpose. He was waiting for the right time. Perhaps it would not be long now.

  Fifteen

  When Clive went away for the third weekend running, Rose decided to remonstrate with him. For one thing, knowing that a new PA had been appointed, she could not help being suspicious about his absences. For another, such neglect of her and Robert was not, she felt, in keeping with the idea of a fresh start, even if she had her own reservations about rebuilding her marriage. Both more confident in her own attractiveness and more secure in her sense of self-worth because of Simon’s love for her, she was not about to let Clive go back to his old ways.

  “Who are you spending these weekends with?” she demanded on the Sunday evening when Clive returned. “You went off with golf clubs for the New Year weekend, but you left them behind last weekend and this one. Is it the new PA?”

  Clive blinked, and then laughed. “No, of course it isn’t,” he said. Such a suspicion was both outrageous and risible. “She’s good at her job but she’s plump and fifty-something. Not my style at all.”

  He smiled to himself at the thought of humping Annie Trescower, but the smile faded quickly. Somehow the very idea of sex with any woman now seemed part of a different life. Even his desire for Rose, which had arisen afresh at Christmas, had fallen away. His new love for Jan was passionate, but it burned purely like a flame, without desire. Where once, he felt, he had known little of love but an enormous amount about sex, now he seemed to have been reborn into a world where sex meant nothing at all but there were undreamed of vistas of love to explore. He didn’t know whether he was gay or bisexual (whatever that meant), or simply consumed with hero-worship for someone immeasurably superior––and it didn’t matter. This, and not the contrition Jan had asked him to explore, was what filled his thoughts that week.

  Looking back, he realised that the kind of casual promiscuity he had embraced as a young man had brought him little in the way of emotional fulfilment beyond the immediate transitory gratification. For a little while, Rose’s waif-like vulnerability, and her teenage hero-worship, had flattered him into thinking she was malleable, but although he had liked the concept of himself as family provider and enjoyed fatherhood to the extent he had engaged with it, especially with regard to his daughter Sarah, he knew that at a level below that, married life had brought little if any very deep satisfaction. That––together, perhaps, with a desire to escape from himself and his own emotional inadequacy––was the reason, it seemed to him, he had continually allowed other women to distract him. This realisation threw into greater relief the explosion of passionate feeling that meeting Jan had brought about, quite different from anything he had previously experienced. He was energised by it, yet terribly confused.

  “So where have you been going?”

  He hesitated. “I can’t tell you yet, Rose. I will––I promise. But give me a bit longer. It isn’t another woman, though, you can stop worrying about that. All that’s over.”

  ~ * ~

  “I, too, have been reflecting,” Jan told Clive, when they met again in his study the following Saturday. “And I think perhaps we need to delve deeper into why you have used women as you have, why you have not been able to connect properly with your w
ife, even now when you have given up having affairs with other women.”

  He looked deeply into Clive’s eyes, apparently reassuring himself that Clive really had turned back from his promiscuous lifestyle, but Clive met his eyes steadily and he continued. “Sometimes our sins are driven by the hurts of the past and by the wrongs others have done us. Do you want us to meet again tomorrow afternoon, to give you a chance to think about this?”

  There was a long silence while he waited for Clive to respond. “How has the week gone?” he probed at last. “Have you found any answers to the questions you had?”

  “I don’t know how to think about it at all,” responded Clive rather desperately. “I don’t understand it, or myself, any more. I’ve lived on such a superficial level, and now I know there’s so much more depth that I can find. But I don’t know where to start.”

  The abbot reached over to his bookshelf and pulled out a tiny paperback volume. He handed it to Clive, who turned it over and looked at the title: Enfolded in Love.

  “It is a little book of extracts from St Julian’s writings,” Jan told him. “You seemed impressed with her, I remember, the first time you came here. Go away and read it, reflect on it. Try to meditate on some of the short extracts and see where they take you. If anything comes to mind, write it down so that we can discuss it later. But you must let your mind be free to think any thoughts. Don’t try to repress anything, even if it seems ugly or frightening. Just write the ideas down, and we will talk about them when I see you again. I know you cannot come again for a few weeks after this weekend, so we will keep this meeting brief now, and I will fit in an extra session for you tomorrow. After lunch would be a good time, unless you have to go early?

  Clive shook his head.

  “That is good. We have no services then until the evening, so we can be undisturbed and take all the time we need.”