The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  The only real coincidence here is Asherton knowing Gil, but no, even that’s not such a surprise when you think about it. Asherton’s in vice, a world where AIDS is a big risk, and there can’t be many clergymen in London who specialise in AIDS sufferers. Yes, we’re all connecting, we’re all starting to form some kind of horrifying pattern, but does this mean there’s a malign designer who’s trying to hijack the canvas belonging to the old man with the paintbrush in the sky? Not necessarily. The old man could have just made a balls-up, the way painters do sometimes—but for God’s sake, mate, have another lager and bust a brush to put the bloody thing right PDQ . . .

  Fat chance. And I’m going mental, imagining anyone’s in control of this scene. Shit, what am I going to say to Elizabeth about Gil? Just what the fuck am I going to say?

  “I know it sounds crazy,” I say, “but he was such a nice bloke and I didn’t think he needed all the aggro of being mixed up with me. Besides, it was obvious he had no money and I just couldn’t believe you’d want to take him on, even for video sales, when his credit was going to run dry in double-quick time.”

  Elizabeth decides to keep calm. Austerely she says: “I make the decision, not you, about whether or not someone gets taken on as a client.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry I’ve been so off the wall—maybe I was knocked off balance by that funeral.”

  “That reminds me, why was Tucker there? What was his connection with Slaney?”

  I sweat to be both creative and plausible. “He gave me the impression he was more connected with Moira than with Richard. He talked about being involved with one of her charity projects, and when he said he was a social worker, it seemed natural that he should be helping her.”

  “Why didn’t he tell you he was a clergyman?”

  “Oh, that’s easy to figure! He’d seen my pics, as I told you, and he fancied me enough to make an approach. Of course he wasn’t going to admit to being a clergyman!”

  Elizabeth has no trouble believing this but she’s still bothered by the thought of Gil’s job. “I remember you saying it was Mrs. Slaney rather than her husband who was involved with St. Benet’s,” she says. “Is there a chance, do you think, that she met Tucker through Nicholas Darrow?”

  “Maybe she met Darrow through Tucker. I just don’t know. All I do know is that Tucker never mentioned either Darrow or St. Benet’s and there’s nothing to indicate the two blokes are more than just professional acquaintances.”

  Elizabeth sighs, relaxing a fraction. “Well, I’d still prefer you not to see Tucker again, but for the moment I’ve got to play along with Asherton. I don’t want him guessing at this stage that I want to wash my hands of GOLD, but I think he’s a fool to mess with someone who must know Darrow—and an even bigger fool to think he can get any mileage out of a bent clergyman! That kind of stuff’s so dated now, but he was always fixated on the writings of—” She mentions a name which sounds like Alice Tecroli “—and I can see there’s no hope he’ll change . . . Is Tucker really such a dreamboat, pet?”

  “Maybe he’s got some kind of gay allure that I missed.”

  “I suppose he must have, or Asherton wouldn’t be in such a bloody stupid flutter. All right, dear, let’s just get this deal sewn up. You’ll see Tucker on Tuesday as arranged, but tell him you can go on seeing him— say you can get him a big discount. Film every session, of course, to keep Asherton drooling.”

  “But what’s going to happen to Gil when—”

  “No need for you to worry about that, pet. You won’t be there. Just concentrate on building the sex relationship so that a top-notch duet gets taped. If I give him big discounts on his sessions I want to be sure I get the money back in video sales.”

  “I just hate the thought of—”

  “Now Gavin, I hope you’re not going to get as sentimental about Mr. Tucker as you were about Mr. Slaney! No more nonsense, please, about him being too nice to be involved with you, and most important of all, no more lies. I shall be very angry indeed if you start lying to me again, but you’re not going to disappoint me as Jason and Tony did, are you, pet? I really can rely on you, can’t I, to be honest with me in future?”

  In a rush I say: “Of course you can, darling, I swear it, no need for you to worry at all.”

  She gives my hair a quick stroke and leaves me in a room which suddenly seems coffin-cold.

  As far as I can see there’s no way I can warn Gil and emerge in one piece. If he now backs off it’ll be obvious that I’ve grassed. At least he’s not being recruited as a chicken for that S&M group, but I wish I knew more about what Asherton’s planning.

  At this point I suddenly realise that in her annoyance with Asherton Elizabeth’s let slip a clue. She mentioned a name which sounded like Alice Tecroli and talked of “using a bent clergyman.”

  My brain finally wakes up. The name’s actually Aleister Crowley, he lived most of his life in the early twentieth century and he specialised in creepy religion. I know this because Elizabeth’s got one of his books on the shelves in her bedroom where she keeps what she calls her “literary erotica.” I looked at the book once and found it neither literary nor erotic, but it’s probably unputdownable if you’re into pseud’s-corner twaddle.

  I now realise that when Elizabeth was talking of Crowley and a “bent clergyman” she was almost certainly referring to Satanism and the black mass. I want to laugh out loud but I don’t. That’s because I know that if Asherton’s involved in this kind of guff, the black mass wouldn’t be played for laughs.

  However, the good news here is that I can now stop worrying about Gil because I’m sure the worst thing that’s going to happen to him is that he’ll be pressured into celebrating this braindead Satanic rite. That’s humiliating for a clergyman, of course, but it’s not physically painful, and afterwards Asherton’ll shut him up by using the same pressure which he’ll use to get him to perform: he’ll threaten to send Tommy’s edited version of the Tucker tapes to the Bishop of London or whoever’s responsible for Gil. Okay, that’s not exactly a dream scenario, but at least it’s survivable.

  Having reached this conclusion I find I’m free to worry about someone else, and my thoughts turn automatically to Colin. I’m not worried about Colin himself. He’s a heavyweight hitter and if he doesn’t like GOLD he’ll slug his way out, but I’m worried about me. Now that Elizabeth knows I’ve been through a bout of economy with the truth—and now that her St. Benet’s paranoia’s in full flow—I’d be dumb to continue to soak clients for the Appeal. Thank God Colin’s donation is the only one in the pipeline at the moment! Maybe I should even turn that off, but no, how can I backtrack on Mr. Moneybags now that I’ve boasted to Carta about the vast amount of cash to come? I’ve just succeeded in proving to her that I’m a man she has to take seriously. I can’t mess everything up by getting cold feet!

  But if Elizabeth finds out I’ll not only wind up multiple-fucked, cattle-prodded and pulped at the Pain-Palace but I’ll lose her, she’ll ditch me just as she ditched Jason and Tony, and how would I ever survive if I didn’t have Elizabeth to love me? I’d start doing drugs again, I’d slide right back into the gutter, I’d get AIDS, I’d—

  Shit, all this stress is driving me mental.

  I decide I need some music to calm me down, but just as I’m reaching for a CD the stress kicks in again as I remember that I’ve got to take Serena out tonight.

  I think: if I was living in Carta’s world I could cancel this date with Serena.

  But I live in a world where I can’t even choose my girlfriends any more, a world where I’m getting increasingly stressed out and scared shitless, a world where the woman I need to love me now suggests I should stave off retirement in order to make porn movies. How could Elizabeth believe I’d ever want to do that? I want to retire from all this crap as soon as I can! Bloody hell, I’m not in the leisure business because I can’t bear to give it up—I’m just in it so that I can make enough money to be free . . .

  But m
eanwhile I’m not only locked up but Elizabeth’s talking of increasing my jail sentence.

  Well, we all get down now and then. That’s natural, isn’t it? But the successes of this world recover from any bout of minor depression pretty damn quickly, which is why by lunch-time I’m pouring out a glass of wine and reminding myself how lucky I am with my six-figure income and my expensive car and my valet and my Armani suits and all my fans who want to crown me Stunner-Stud of the year.

  Life’s terrific! I’m fine. One or two problems, sure, but I’ll take care of them, and I’ll soon succeed in talking Elizabeth out of all that pornmovie nonsense.

  I have dinner with Serena, and it’s no great hardship to take her along to Austin Friars afterwards for the required shag. The next day’s Sunday and she wants a rerun but I make an excuse to opt out. I say I’m going down to the country to see an old friend, and she’s too naive to realise I don’t have any old friends now. They’re all on another planet with Carta. Don’t have any new friends either, just shag-fodder I don’t want to keep in touch with. I mean, what’s the real reason why I haven’t updated my clunker of a mobile phone? I don’t use it in my work, apart from the occasional calls to the office from my car, and I don’t have a social life. At least, not the kind of social life people on Carta’s planet have.

  I think about that planet. Then I decide to take a look at my old patch there. I can’t land on it, but I can glide by in my spaceship. I do this sometimes on a Sunday. Maybe once every four months.

  So off I drive to Surrey where I roam around the woodsy lanes. I used to drive past the house where I grew up but I don’t do that any more. My parents no longer live there. My mother remarried after my father died. I saw his death notice in The Times and later the notice of her remarriage. Later still I checked the phone directory. Her new husband wasn’t listed, but even though she’d moved out of the area I knew she’d still make that pilgrimage to Hugo’s grave on the anniversary of his death. I used to have this fantasy that we’d meet in the churchyard, each carrying flowers . . . But of course I’d never go there on that day, never, because I know she wouldn’t want to see me.

  Hugo, who lives in the crevice at the back of my mind, now dances out and starts yelling that I should have been the one to die of leukaemia. He does that sometimes. I usually let him spew out the rage and exhaust himself. Then I can stuff him back in the crevice without a fight.

  Back in London I keep Hugo in the crevice by watching telly with Nigel. Nigel’s a great telly-companion, never talking too much—except when he tries to tell me his love is totally unconditional and requires no response. (What bullshit!) Anyway he shuts up when I tell him there’s no such thing as unconditional love, and we sit peacefully side by side on the sofa as we watch the drivel the channels put out. I’m in charge of the zapper. I zap and zap but Nigel never complains.

  Up I get next morning for a new working week. Off I go across London to the City, park the car—shit, I’ll have to screw for that space soon!—and trail under the arch into Austin Friars. Maybe it’s because I’ve been meeting clergymen recently, but I find myself staring at the Dutch church there as if I’m seeing it for the first time.

  Imagine the Dutch, who contrive to keep Amsterdam the sex capital of Europe, not only having time for Christianity but even keeping a church in a foreign city—and in the financial district, where Mammon rules supreme! And suddenly as I remember the stained-glass window in Richard’s church, I’m reminded that The Bloke in fancy dress with the little sheep tucked up on his shoulder doesn’t just exist in a pretty stained-glass picture in a village. He’s commemorated amidst the sex shops of Amsterdam and the money-factories of London. It’s almost as if he’s still out there hacking it amidst all the scum and the filth, but of course that’s just sentimental nonsense. He’s dead. He’s gone. He’s history.

  But I keep thinking of that stupid little sheep, prancing down the wrong path and getting hopelessly lost. If The Bloke had been a different kind of shepherd . . . But he wasn’t, was he? That’s the point. He went back. He searched till he’d found the silly animal, and he even carried the little bugger all the way home. Did shepherds still do that kind of heroic number today? No way! Given the current moral climate the shepherd would probably just say to the farmer: “Sorry, mate, I’m missing one, can you write it off as a tax loss?” and the farmer would say with a yawn: “Hell, why not?” and the little sheep would die. No one today would care about something of such minimal value, and The Bloke wasn’t around any more to do the job himself. I mean, if he was around there’d be a sign, a hint that something extraordinary was flitting about, but there’s nothing, is there? Least of all in a quiet backwater like Austin—

  My God, look who’s waiting outside my building! She’s togged out in a brown suit, very autumnal, very chic. The blonde hair’s immaculate, the legs are as dazzling as ever, the feet still make me want to tear off her tights and practise chiropody.

  “Carta!” I shout—or I try to shout but I’m so amazed I only achieve a croak.

  She glides towards me. “I’m here to deliver a message from my boss,” she says smoothly with an austere little smile. “Could you come to a meeting later today at St. Benet’s? We want to talk to you about all this fantastic fundraising you’ve been doing for us, and Nicholas said he did so hope you’d allow him to say thanks in person . . .”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Carta

  Clergy and laity may find themselves caught between conflicting ethical principles, which could involve issues of public interest or private conscience . . . Even after conscientious and prayerful consideration of the ethical issues involved, some dilemmas cannot be resolved easily or wholly satisfactorily.

  A Time to Heal

  A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS

  ON THE HEALING MINISTRY

  I

  As soon as I left Gavin at that dreary yoof-boozer on Friday night I hefted my mobile phone out of my briefcase and called Nicholas. “Here’s some news to make your hair stand on end,” I said. “Gavin Blake’s screwing for St. Benet’s. Prostitution’s boosting the Appeal.”

  Nicholas said dryly without a second’s hesitation: “Nice to know you’ve already got the headlines written for the tabloids. How soon can you get here?”

  “Give me ten minutes,” I told him, and began to hurry west from the bar in Angel Court.

  II

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” said Nicholas as soon as I was seated in his study on the ground floor of the Rectory. Lewis had joined us from his bedsit across the hall, and upstairs in the Rector’s flat Alice was probably turning the oven down low, praying dinner wouldn’t be ruined and wondering why she hadn’t married someone who had a normal nine-tofive job.

  “But the knock-out news,” I said, bringing my report to a climax, “is that the money so far’s just an appetiser and there’s a huge donation in the pipeline.”

  There was an appalled silence before Nicholas said: “A tall story designed to impress you?”

  “It impressed me all right, but I don’t think he was storytelling. There’s nothing fictitious about the three donations we’ve already had— or about Moira making good on Richard’s promise.”

  “Nicholas,” said Lewis, “we can’t possibly take money derived from prostitution.”

  I heard myself say: “I don’t think the situation’s that simple,” and Nicholas added: “Neither do I. Obviously we’re going to have a big problem with the discernment issue.”

  I had been around clergymen long enough now to be familiar with their professional language. Nicholas and Lewis, working in the ministry of healing and deliverance, often referred to “discernment,” which was an abbreviation of the phrase “the charism of the discernment of spirits.” What this meant, in everyday language, was the gift of weighing up the evidence correctly when deciding whether a situation was pregnant with good possibilities or weighted with bad ones—or, to call a religious spade a religious spade, whether the sit
uation was from God or not from God. (I was shy of using the word “Devil” even though I knew the word was a valid symbol for the worst kind of evil, something which was very real indeed.)

  If a situation was from God the result would be peace, joy, healing, renewal and any number of other life-enhancing benefits. If the situation was not from God, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. This sounds simple but unfortunately the situations requiring “the exercise of the charism of discernment” were usually so complex that trying to work out whether they were inherently good or bad was immensely difficult, capable of flooring even those with long experience in perceiving “the work of the Spirit” (religious shorthand for God’s current activity in the world). I had already figured that “the discernment issue” in Gavin’s case was likely to drive us all nuts, and Nicholas, seemingly in agreement with me, now sidestepped the temptation to debate the matter at that moment. Instead he said: “We have to discuss this with Robin and Val— I’ll set up a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.”

  I opened my mouth to state the obvious but Lewis beat me to it. “Nicholas, tomorrow’s Saturday and Saturday’s your day off. Take Alice out somewhere, for heaven’s sake, and try to relax for a few hours!”

  “But this is an emergency! I’ll make it up to Alice on Sunday, but we’ve got to have this meeting tomorrow.”

  Lewis and I looked at each other but realised an argument would be futile.

  III

  “But I’ve invited Gil Tucker to lunch tomorrow!” Alice exclaimed when she heard the news. “You did say you wanted to see him!”