“Right, sir.”
“We lived together quietly, with dignity, and never spoke of our friendship in detail to anyone. These bloody activists today with their revolting lack of taste—”
“Yes, beyond the pale, sir, frightful. What was Edward like?”
“Well, he was the best of men in all kinds of ways but his real talent was for horticulture. The garden of my country house is his memorial, and every time I look out of the window I think of him.”
We pause. More tears are shed so I get another clump of Kleenex from the bathroom. When I’m kneeling beside him again I say: “May I ask, sir, what you and Edward liked to do when he was with you as I’m with you now? I’m not saying I could in any way take his place—that would clearly be impossible—but maybe I can ease the pain by helping you recall happier times.”
The thick hand, mottled with age spots, closes gratefully on mine again, but Sir Colin can’t quite bring himself to “call a bloody spade a bloody spade” when describing his sex life, and it takes me a while to realise that he and his Edward never got past the schoolboy stage. Apparently these two men met up at Cambridge and that was it. No infidelity but no development either. It was all just like an old-fashioned heterosexual romance, ripe to be turned into a costume drama by the BBC.
In fact Sir Colin’s not too interested in sex. We fish around for a bit and I push the right buttons but after a brief grunt he’s happy to forget this interlude and become sociable. This is a bore because he wants me to talk about myself.
“I’m sorry, Sir Colin,” I say, making sure my voice vibrates with rueful charm, “but I never discuss my private life with clients.”
“But how does a boy like you become involved in a game like this?”
“I was always fond of games, sir.”
He laughs. “Where were you educated?”
“The University of Life, sir.”
More laughter. This is good. He’s feeling much better, but I wish he’d take the hint that I’m not to be grilled about the past.
“There’s no need to keep calling me ‘sir’!” he’s exclaiming impatiently. “You can call me Colin. What are your interests? Do you like music?”
“I like opera.”
He’s enchanted. “Why?”
“Because it’s lush, lavish and utterly divorced from real life.”
Unfortunately he’s more enchanted than ever by this off-putting reply. “How original!” he exclaims. “I like a young man who knows his mind and isn’t afraid to speak it. As it happens I’m an opera fan too—you must let me take you to Covent Garden!”
“Colin, I’m sorry but I don’t do escort work.”
He’s undeterred. “I’m sure I can come to an arrangement with Mrs. Delamere,” he says, and I can hear all those millions thrumming in the background as he speaks, “but we must meet again soon anyway. I understand you have a flat in Austin Friars.”
I’ve hooked Mr. Moneybags. But I’m not sure I’m happy about that. He’s no trouble—I could keep him on the line just by holding his hand— but he’s led such a sheltered sexual life that I don’t like to think of him falling into the hands of predators. On the other hand, he would hardly have got to be chairman of RCPP if he was a wilting daisy, unable to look after himself. Ironic to think he’s such a simple little soul in the bedroom.
We part with a warm handshake and I head home to Lambeth to report my conquest.
Asherton’s there waiting, obviously revved up by the thought of all the thrumming millions. If he can recruit Sir Colin for GOLD he’ll be in clover, and I find myself wishing, not for the first time, that I knew more about this secret fake-religion society which some of my most affluent clients wind up joining.
Asherton’s looking more like a government official than ever, so ordinary that you could pass him in the street without looking at him twice. It’s his personality that’s not ordinary. It weaves around in his body like a thick worm in a diseased apple.
When I’ve finished my report he says to me in honeyed tones: “I must congratulate you, my dear. You’ve done very well,” and I smile dutifully as my stomach churns.
I really hate that horror-merchant Asherton.
At last I reach Wednesday and my date with Richard’s coffin at the church in Compton Beeches. I do the early shift as usual but Elizabeth’s cancelled the other two. She’s told me that four of the wealthier clients must be fitted in between shifts on Thursday and Friday, but I was prepared for this even though she’d said earlier that she didn’t want to risk me getting overstrained. (Obviously I can’t be allowed to escape scot-free after my pig-headed plea to attend the funeral.) However Elizabeth softens the overtime blow by telling me she’s terminated the Kraut. It’s my reward for doing so well with Sir Colin.
The weather’s perfect: clear September skies, a warm sun and luxuriously fresh air all combine to raise my spirits once I leave the suburbs behind and head south for Hampshire. Compton Beeches is a picture-book village, the kind you see in commercials for dairy products. In the pub I order a lager and a roast beef sandwich and think how great it is to be out of London.
The barmaid’s remembered me. “You were a friend of Mr. Slaney’s, weren’t you?” she says when I arrive, even though I only appeared here with Richard once, and when I smile and say yes, I was a friend of his, she says how sad it is to think he’s gone, he was such a nice man and so well-liked.
After the meal I wander away from the pub past the thatched cottages and head across the green to the church. I like ecclesiastical buildings. Architecture interests me. I thought of being an architect once but Dad said I’d never make a success of it.
I move closer to the church. Richard told me he went to church to set an example and show commitment to the village community. Nothing to do with belief in God. It was all to do with tradition. Richard’s family had owned the big house in the village for two hundred years so he had certain standards to keep up. Dad would have admired this. Dad was heavily into the keeping-up-appearances syndrome, the England-expects-every-man-to-do-his-duty syndrome, the pillar-of-the-community syndrome, the support-the-Church-of-England-even-if-you-don’t-believe-in-God syndrome, the sailing’s-the-only-time-I-feel-happy syndrome—although naturally Dad never said: “Sailing’s the only time I feel happy.” But Hugo and I knew that was how he felt because that was when he relaxed and stopped being such a perfectionist, slaving away in a futile attempt to ensure all his patients lived for ever. Yes, different though Dad and Richard were, they did have a certain mindset in common, and I think Dad would have liked Richard—up to a point. Of course he would have despised him for being gay.
The church isn’t open yet, but I walk around the outside and admire the dressed flint of the walls and the square, squat Norman tower which ought to be ugly but isn’t. Then I start to read the gravestones, always an interesting way of passing time, but Hugo tries to crawl out of the crevice in my mind and I have to stop. To divert myself I think of Carta. The real problem for me here won’t be the clerical underling the Rector of St. Benet’s sends to the service—the problem’s going to be Sad Eric. After last Saturday’s scene he’s bound to tag along to protect Carta from me. He won’t trust the St. Benet’s limp-wrist to beat me off.
I haven’t made up my mind yet which personality I can pull on for Carta, but obviously it must be a serious one, not just because this is a funeral we’re attending but because I’ve got to wipe the memory of my gay monster act. Why don’t I pull out all the stops and play the Surrey doctor’s son? I’ll be so sociably acceptable that she’ll realise the Wallside scene was just a temporary blip—and Sad Eric won’t be able to do a damn thing except glower with rage.
I suddenly become aware that I’m staring at the north side of the church. The sunshine, hitting the other side of the building, is flooding the nave, and the stained glass above me has caught my attention. I’m in deep shadow but the glass is pulsating with multicoloured light.
But despite the favourable con
ditions it’s still hard for me to make out the picture when I’m on the outside looking in. I can see some white patches and green blobs at the bottom plus a slew of deep blue at the top but the middle’s just a densely worked jumble—apart from a curious little slip of white on one side. All at once I’m overcome with the urge to see this picture properly, and as I move around the church towards the porch I see the clergyman’s unlocking the door for the undertakers.
I forget the window as I realise that mourners are starting to arrive. Should I stay outside and wait to display myself to Carta? No, too obvious. Keep her guessing. I still hesitate but at last I walk quickly into the church, take a service sheet and sit down at one end of the next-to-last pew. When Carta arrives I shall see her but the odds are she won’t see me. Not at first anyway.
Hordes of people are now streaming in. All Richard’s friends are gathering in this little village to say goodbye to him, and I’m with them, I’m not an outsider any more, I belong in this group, I matter. And suddenly I’m thinking: the last word about Richard isn’t that he was homosexual. The last word is that he was a great bloke who cared about people in ways which made them care about him.
Swallowing quickly to ease the ache in my throat, I suddenly identify the window I noticed outside and a second later I’m seeing the picture with knock-out clarity. The little white panels at the bottom are all sheep. They’re on a green hillside below an azure sky, and in the densely worked middle of the picture is The Bloke. He’s togged up in what an ignorant person might think is fancy dress but I know it’s the working gear of the Middle East a couple of thousand years ago, just as I know that The Bloke’s a bit older than I am and has a name everyone knows, though of course no one now believes all the fairy tales people dreamed up about him after he was dead. The nineteenth-century artist has visualised him as an English gentleman so he looks pretty odd in the Middle Eastern gear, but he’s unmistakable: of his many roles he’s playing the shepherd with his flock. No, wait, it’s more complicated than that. I’d forgotten the slip of white more than halfway up the picture. It’s a little sheep. The Bloke’s got it on his shoulder, and as I stare at the animal I see it’s bedraggled, its fleece flattened, its limbs limp with exhaustion. The little sheep’s been rescued. The Bloke couldn’t rest till he’d recovered it. The artist has represented in a miracle of coloured glass the story of the sheep which was lost and then found.
The organ begins to play, cutting across my thoughts and switching on overpowering emotions as I stare at the coffin at the head of the nave. It’s Hugo’s coffin I’m seeing now. Hugo and Richard have fused in my mind. God, why didn’t I anticipate—why didn’t I realise—
The family are arriving. Moira Slaney’s not blonde (as I told Elizabeth when she was on the psychic warpath) but a smart brunette and she still looks like the photo I saw of her during my previous visit to Compton Beeches. But the two kids look very different from the two kids with Richard in that photo which I wanted to lift from the flat in Mayfair. Philip looks as if he’s been popping too much E on wild weekends, silly little sod. I started doing drugs when I was homeless and it was the stupidest thing I ever did. All over now, though. I’m drug-free, fighting fit, a big success.
Hugo starts to say I’m still a loser, but I stuff him back in his crevice and start looking around at the other mourners. I seem to have missed Carta’s arrival—maybe she came in when I was gaping at the stained-glass window. Or maybe she’s just late. The service is starting. I look at my service sheet and see the first hymn’s “He Who Would Valiant Be.” God! That was the hymn we sang in the school chapel on the day Hugo died.
Hugo tries to blitz his way out of the crevice again but I blitz him back and nail him down. Leave me alone, Hugo, leave me alone—
Got to pull myself together. I try playing my favourite aria from Zauberflöte in my head—and suddenly I escape, I’m sailing past the Needles on a wine-dark sea worthy of Homer, and everything’s beautiful, beautiful, so absolutely right in a sense no words could ever describe.
Eventually my concentration breaks as the hymn ends and I return to my body, but before we can all sit down someone on the aisle halfway up the nave turns to look at me, as if he’s somehow aware of my chaotic emotions. He’s tall and middle-aged and for a moment I think he’s nondescript, but then I realise I’ve been misled by his drab brown hair and pale colouring. This bloke oozes charisma. His light eyes would bore a hole through concrete at fifty paces. In fact I’m just thinking that he’s boring a hole through me when the woman beside him turns to see what he’s looking at, and I suck in my breath as I recognise Carta.
At once she swivels to face the altar, and as the man turns away too but without hurrying, I’m able to take in what he’s wearing. I see his black shirt. I see his clerical collar. But this is no limp-wristed church underling I’m staring at. This has to be Carta’s boss. This has to be Elizabeth’s arch-enemy. This has to be none other than the Rector of St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall, the Reverend Nicholas Darrow.
Well, I get through the church part of the service somehow, but when everyone clusters around the grave to watch the committal my head’s so done in I can’t cope—I lean against a gravestone several yards away and concentrate on keeping sane.
Since Carta has an escort who’s totally taboo, I’ve given up the idea of waylaying her, and I know I ought to leave but I don’t. Richard’s pinning me in place. All I can think is that I want to wait till I’m alone in the churchyard. Then I can go to the grave and say goodbye. Couldn’t say goodbye in the church, I was too churned up, and I can’t leave without thanking him for those shining hours we spent sailing together, can’t leave without saying to him that he made me feel like a real person instead of designer filth tailor-made for the gutter. And I want to promise him I’ll sail again one day down the Solent, and when I pass the Needles I’ll throw a wreath on the water in memory of him. Okay, so he’s dead and can’t hear me, okay, so I’m being pathetically sentimental, but that service has really punched my lights out and right now I can’t be slick and smart, it’s too hard, too painful.
The ceremony around the grave ends and as the crowd begins to break up I see Carta moving away towards the path. She’s wearing a black business suit, very slinky and sleek, and I sigh, wishing she was on her own. Belatedly it occurs to me there’s no sign of Sad Eric, but of course he’d be quite content to entrust her to Mr. Charisma.
Carta catches sight of me and immediately turns her back, but before I can begin to feel upset I get a shock. Mr. Charisma’s joined Carta and he’s looking at me again. Instantly I move away, sheltering behind another tombstone. I don’t have to put up with his prurient peeping. Of course Carta’s told him I was Richard’s leisure-worker and of course he’s getting a holier-than-thou charge out of that choice piece of information, but I don’t have to lurk around pandering to his curiosity. I see now how unnecessary it was for Elizabeth to order me to keep well away from anyone in a clerical collar. This particular cleric’s not going to come near me. He wouldn’t contaminate himself by doing such a thing. I’m not just scum to him—I’m a “sinner,” and that means I don’t count, I don’t matter, I’m just shit waiting to be flushed down the pan.
Well, fuck you too, chum, I think. See if I care.
Plunging into an examination of a huge Victorian tomb, I stare and stare and stare at the stone angels above the obligatory quote from “In Memoriam.”
“Mr. Blake.”
I spin round as fast as if bloody Asherton had stroked the nape of my neck. But it’s not Asherton. It’s Mr. Charisma. His eyes are a steady grey and his face is a mass of hard, sculpted angles. In spite of the collar he doesn’t look like a clergyman. He reminds me of those big-time conjurors you see on TV: lots of pizazz mixed with a touch of hypnotism as the magic’s delivered con brio.
“My name’s Nicholas Darrow,” he’s saying casually as I’m still wondering where my next breath’s coming from. “Carta pointed you out to me and I thought I’d j
ust come over and offer my sympathy. It’s tough to lose a good friend, isn’t it? And so hard to say goodbye.”
I’m speechless. I’m immobile. And as I stand there, as gauche as the teenager I was long ago in a world I can’t bear to remember, this stranger takes another step forward and firmly holds out his hand.
PART TWO
The Journey
All of us, carers and cared for, are on a journey whose destination we understand only dimly:
We know we are searching for something yet the nature of the thing we seek eludes us. On this strange journey, in this tantalising search, we often feel lonely and bemused, in need of guidance, encouragement, companionship. Not always knowing what we are asking we reach out for the help of others.
Mud and Stars
A report of a working party
consisting mainly of doctors, nurses and clergy,
quoting from Rediscovering Pastoral Care
by A. V. Campbell
CHAPTER ONE
Carta
The healing ministry is non-judgemental: those involved in it are encouraged to consider and address their own prejudices and stereotyping to avoid projection of their personal internal codes of behaviour.
A Time to Heal
A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS
ON THE HEALING MINISTRY
I
When Richard’s coffin was transferred from the church to the grave I lost sight of Gavin, but as soon as the funeral had finished, the mourners began to disperse and I saw him loitering some yards away among the gravestones. Instantly my nerve-ends jangled, just as they had jangled when I had spotted him in church, but this time my stomach lurched as if it were about to liquefy. In panic I turned my back on him, but I remained appalled; in fact I could hardly believe I had been pathetic enough to give such a knee-jerk sexual response.
The Heartbreaker Page 13