“Yes, but we’ll have to cancel. Could you call him to fix another date?”
I saw Alice sigh and I sensed her exasperation. Wondering when workaholic Nicholas would be able to fit another date into his overcrowded schedule, I decided it was lucky Gil was in no need of urgent pastoral care.
IV
“I’ve been dynamic and planned a surprise for tomorrow!” said Eric, who was waiting for me when I arrived home. “I thought it would be fun to see some country things like woods and hills and fields, so I’ve made a reservation for lunch at—what’s the matter?”
“I hate to say this, but Nicholas is arranging a big meeting at the Rectory and I have to be there.”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“I know, I know, but an unexpected dimension’s surfaced in relation to the fundraising, and—”
“What kind of dimension?”
“I can’t say. It’s confidential.”
“Are you seeing someone else?”
“What?”
“Well, I’m taking such a back seat in your life at the moment that you can’t blame me for imagining the worst! What’s Gavin Blake doing these days?”
“Still screwing, no doubt, but he’s not screwing me.”
The phone rang. With relief I pounced on the receiver. “Hullo?”
“Carta, it’s Moira Slaney. Listen, I think I’m going mad and you’re the one person who might keep me sane. Can I drop in and see you tomorrow at around ten?”
“Sure. I’ve got a lunch-time meeting, but—”
“I’ll be gone long before lunch.” She thanked me and rang off.
“Who was that?” demanded Eric.
“Moira, wanting to see me, God knows why, forget her. Look, why are you depressed enough to fantasise about being two-timed? How’s the book?”
Eric abruptly subsided on the sofa beside me. “Beached like a dead whale. I’ve even been thinking of going back to Norway—if I was there, where my characters were messing around in 1940, the book might relaunch.”
“So why don’t you go? Are your cards maxed out?”
“No, but I don’t want to build up a big debt.”
“I could give you a loan—”
“No thanks! Why are you so keen to get rid of me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“You’ve been seeing that hustler again, haven’t you?”
Rejecting the impulse to lie yet exasperated by this paranoid badgering, I said shortly: “Yes, but it was on business. There’s a St. Benet’s connection.”
“Tell me the whole story.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t trust me to keep my mouth shut? Well, thanks for the overwhelming vote of confidence!”
“Eric, wait—”
“No, I’m not sitting around here watching you being fixated on Gavin Blake! Give me a call sometime when he’s finished trashing you, and maybe—maybe—if I’m not too busy with the book, I’ll stop by and sweep up the pieces!”
“Eric!” I shouted, but the door slammed and although I nearly ran after him I thought: no.
The truth was that my view of Gavin had undergone a profound shift and I wasn’t willing to put up with Eric’s uncharacteristically neurotic behaviour any longer. I did feel deeply upset, but most of all I felt angry with him for not giving me support when I needed it.
I started thinking again about Gavin . . .
V
“I decided I just couldn’t talk to Nick about this,” said Moira the next morning as we sat looking out through the huge window of my living-room to the church of St. Giles Cripplegate. I had poured the coffee and set out some biscuits, but I was feeling very uneasy, not just because she was almost vibrating with tension but because I was sure the subject of Gavin was going to surface—although why she should want to confide in me, when we knew each other so imperfectly, I couldn’t imagine.
“. . . and then I realised the person I had to see was you,” she was saying rapidly, well on her way to confirming my worst fears. “After all, you’re the one who knows him.”
Moira was wearing a very smart navy-blue suit and her hair looked as if she had just stepped out of a Knightsbridge salon, but her eyes were bloodshot, hinting at a recent bout of tears or alcohol abuse or both. I noticed that her neck was beginning to assume the crepe-like texture of middle age.
“I’m talking about Gavin Blake,” she added as I kept my face neutral to conceal my knowledge of their affair, and before I could comment she burst out: “I’m mad about him. We’ve been seeing each other, but now I think he’s trying to ditch me and I can’t bear it . . .” She dissolved into tears.
Knowing this extreme frankness to a mere acquaintance could only be the result of emotional agony, I struggled hard to make the right moves. “Moira . . .” I put an arm awkwardly around her shoulders as I knelt beside her chair.
“I’m sorry . . .” The tears had by this time hardened into sobs and she could barely speak.
I had an inspiration. “Let me get you some Kleenex,” I said quickly, remembering my own time of being in extremis back in 1990. The St. Benet’s team had passed me God knows how many tissues as I had grappled with the aftermath of my disastrous marriage.
Moira finally managed to mop herself up. Then came the drama of a quick glance in the mirror which revealed the cosmetics disaster, and after I had provided some make-up remover pads for the necessary repairs I asked her if she wanted to switch from coffee to tea. Many were the cups of tea I had drunk at the Rectory in 1990.
“No, for God’s sake keep pouring the coffee,” said Moira, making a brave attempt to sound tough, but the next moment she was giving a dry sob and clenching her fists to maintain her self-control. After I had refilled her coffee cup she said: “Carta, believe it or not, I didn’t come here to sob on your shoulder—I came for information. You’ve been to that flat in Austin Friars, haven’t you? Gavin said you went there to tell him about Richard’s coronary—and he also said he lives there with a woman, but I’ve been wondering if he lives there with another man. I believe him when he says he sells gym equipment to health clubs, but as far as his private life’s concerned—”
“He doesn’t live with another man.”
She sagged with relief. “Thank God. I didn’t want to doubt him, but since he’s bisexual—”
“He’s not bisexual. He’s straight.” I was beginning to feel capable of strangling Gavin with my bare hands.
Moira stared at me. “Then what was he doing with Richard?”
“Having gay sex.” I took a deep breath as I realised I could no longer avoid the big dénouement. “Look, Gavin doesn’t sell equipment to health clubs. He doesn’t live at the Austin Friars flat either. That’s just where he works. He lives in Lambeth with a woman called Elizabeth who’s his manager.”
“Manager? But what does she manage? And what does he do at Austin Friars?”
“Has sex with gays for money.”
There was a terrible pause before she stammered: “Do you mean— are you saying he’s a—” She broke off and looked away as her mouth started to tremble.
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing she would never forgive me for being the bearer of such humiliating news, “but if you came here for vital information, information which will help you make the right decision about what to do next, then I’d be doing you no favours if I lied. Please forgive me if I’ve mishandled this—”
“God, what a bloody fool you must think I am!” She began to grope her way across the room to the door.
“No, I do understand, I promise! He’s so attractive—”
“And I’m so pathetic. I despise myself.” She was moving rapidly down the stairs to the front door.
Realising there was nothing more I could do for her I waited until she had left the house. Then I immediately called Nicholas.
VI
“I’ll leave straight away,” said Nicholas.
“But how will you explain—”
“I’ll say I’ve been meaning to call on her for some time—which is true.”
“I don’t want her to think I’ve betrayed her confidence—”
“Leave that to me. You’ve done the right thing,” he said, and was gone.
I hung up feeling more furious than ever with Gavin, but beyond the fury was fear as I saw how easy it would be to be trashed by him. Of course Nicholas had been right to be sceptical when I had declared after the funeral that I no longer found Gavin attractive. I had realised as soon as I’d seen him at the yoof-boozer that the logic-defying sexual frisson was still there, still waiting for the chance to boot me disastrously off-course.
Forcing myself to set aside the memory of Moira’s agony, I began to review the cool, balanced comments I intended to make about Gavin at the Rectory meeting.
VII
The major players in the St. Benet’s team were due to discuss the case over lunch, but it was one-thirty before Nicholas surfaced at the Rectory after his visit to Moira. Alice had just taken the decision not to delay lunch any longer, and when we all heard the welcome sound of the front door opening she was removing a casserole from the oven.
“Moira’s all right,” said Nicholas to me as I hurried out to the hall to intercept him. “Your name never came up because as soon as she saw me she broke down and told me about Gavin. Her best friend’s with her now, but I’ll phone her this evening to make sure she’s not alone . . . Is everyone here?”
“Champing at the bit.”
Switching from one crisis to the next with an ease born of long practice, he led the way into the main kitchen on the ground floor where his colleagues were already sitting around the large table. As this was to be a business meeting we were not in the Rector’s flat, and as soon as Nicholas had taken over the task of dishing out the casserole Alice slipped away upstairs.
“Lewis,” said Nicholas, sitting down in his chair at last, “would you say grace, please?”
Instantly we were immersed in the familiar, soothing routine: the grace, recalling us to the presence of God; the communal meal, emphasising the Christian tradition of hospitality; the sense of shared goals and ideals which reminded us we were working together not primarily for ourselves but for the God who had called us all, in our different ways, into the Church’s traditional ministry of healing. After the distress of the scene with Moira, I finally started to feel more centred.
“Here’s what I plan to do,” said Nicholas once Lewis had completed the grace. “I’m now going to summarise the problem we have at the moment with our fundraising. Then we’ll keep silent till the end of this main course while we all think carefully about the complex issues involved. And finally I’ll say a prayer for God’s guidance and we’ll start the discussion. Any questions? Okay, here we go . . .”
VIII
There were five of us present.
Nicholas, out of uniform and wearing the casual clothes he favoured at weekends, was sitting at the head of the table. I sat on his right, and on my right Lewis was busy enjoying one of his favourite pastimes: consuming Alice’s cooking. Unlike Nicholas, Lewis almost always wore his clerical stock and collar, even on weekends, and today he was wearing them with a tweed jacket and a pair of grey flannel trousers which looked as if they had been bought in the 1950s.
Across the table from me sat Val Fredericks, the doctor who was Nicholas’s partner under the Acorn Apostolate, the scheme that enabled a doctor and a priest to work together to heal the sick. Val belonged to a National Health practice based just outside the City, and she was in charge of the branch which operated at the Healing Centre. In a bold salute to weekend leisurewear she was sporting pink denim dungarees, a fluffy blue sweater and large round earrings, each of which supported a complicated pendant of silver and turquoise.
Next to her and opposite Lewis sat Robin, the Healing Centre’s psychologist who specialised in counselling. Older than Val though younger than Nicholas, he was in his mid-forties, married with four children. He had an eccentric taste in clothes, and today he was wearing a violet shirt beneath a lime-green sweater while his trousers were pale blue, matching his eyes which were mild yet alert behind his glasses.
Nicholas now embarked on his briefing, and later, after making coffee, he said the introductory prayer which began by stressing that we should listen to one another patiently and respect one another’s views. He then asked for God’s guidance. At that point we all said a firm “amen” and looked as if we were reluctant to gauge the temperature of the water by dipping our toes in it, but within seconds Val was exclaiming: “What a case!” and there was laughter, breaking the tension.
“Where do we begin?” said Robin as the cheeseboard and fruit bowl began to circulate, and Nicholas answered: “Let me first state the basic principle, which is this: we can’t condone prostitution. We can’t condone a lifestyle in which the body is split off from the mind and soul and systematically treated without respect—we can’t condone, in other words, a way of life which is so contrary to the integration of body, mind and spirit as exemplified by Our Lord Jesus Christ. But, on the other hand, we shouldn’t overlook the famous saying which urges us to find a way of going along with the sinner without going along with the sin—we mustn’t be so ready to reject the prostitution that the prostitute gets lost in the shuffle.”
“And the discernment issue?” said Lewis as sighs were heaved at the challenge we were being set.
“In my opinion that particular problem’s unsolvable at this stage because we don’t have sufficient information; we can argue that Gavin represents a booby trap designed by the Devil to blow St. Benet’s sky-high, and we can argue that this is God moving in his famous Mysterious Way, but we’ve no way of knowing which argument is right. So let’s leave the discernment issue for the moment and focus instead on the three gifts we’ve already received—this is the first specific issue we have to discuss. Carta, in your opinion is there any way we can return these donations?”
“Not unless we breach Gavin’s confidence, send the donors into an embarrassed rage and break all the fundraising rules about not asking donors about their motives.”
“People give for a wide variety of reasons under the guise of altruism,” commented Robin helpfully, “and plenty of those reasons would look dubious if they were held up for close inspection.”
“But a line has to be drawn somewhere between what we can and can’t accept,” objected Val. “For instance, we couldn’t take money from the Mafia.”
Lewis exclaimed: “Exactly! We can’t accept tainted money, and if ever a batch of money was tainted, this batch from Gavin’s clients is! How can we be sure it’s not only the fruits of immorality but the fruits of illegality as well?”
“Homosexual acts between two consenting adults in private aren’t against the law,” I said at once. “If more than two adults are present an offence is committed but Gavin told me he never did parties.”
Lewis asked: “But surely the Austin Friars set-up’s illegal?”
“Not necessarily. He may well be in breach of the lease but the trouble would be proving it. The flat wouldn’t be a brothel within the meaning of the Act. There’s no pimp on the premises. As far as I can gather business is done by credit card over the phone by using a number unconnected with the flat, so there’d be no big sums of money lying around to indicate prostitution. For tax purposes Gavin probably claims to be a masseur, and if he receives clients (who make no complaints) for activities which aren’t illegal, nobody in authority’s going to get excited.”
“The clients are hardly going to complain, are they?” pointed out Val at once. “He could blackmail them.”
Nicholas turned to me. “How do we know Gavin’s not a blackmailer, Carta?”
“Because we know he’s a big success,” I said promptly, “and he couldn’t possibly have achieved that success if his clients believed he wasn’t to be trusted.”
“Very well,” said Lewis, “but even if there’s been no blackmail in th
e sense of extorting money, how do we know there hasn’t been blackmail in the sense of exerting psychological pressure to make these donations?”
Nicholas said swiftly: “Exerting psychological pressure to achieve a certain end can well be legal. It’s called advertising—or even fundraising. Let’s keep the focus on behaviour we know to be illegal as we try to figure out how tainted this money is.”
“I’m sure Gavin’s not engaged in illegal activity,” I said in my firmest voice. “He’s okay on the buggery and the gross indecency—”
“Dear God!” muttered Lewis.
“—and he’s okay on the prostitution so long as he doesn’t combine it with an illegal activity such as soliciting on the street.”
“The trouble is,” mused Robin to the others, “that although Carta’s probably right in saying there’s nothing illegal going on here, we can’t know that for sure. Prostitution’s so often linked to organised crime.”
Nicholas said evenly: “Carta, it’s not as if Gavin’s a lone operator. He’s apparently part of a well-organised set-up, and this manager of his, Elizabeth, may well have links with criminals.”
“But the fact remains,” I said, trying hard to be patient, “that Gavin’s not breaking the law by providing sex for these donors.”
“There might be a drugs angle,” said Val suddenly. “How do we know he’s not pushing cocaine to these City high flyers?”
“City high flyers don’t need to go to a prostitute in order to get cocaine,” I answered shortly, and Nicholas remarked: “I don’t think Gavin’s into the drugs scene at all. I saw no sign of it when I met him, and according to Carta he prides himself on worshipping regularly at his health club.”
“Well, if illegal activity isn’t tainting this money,” said Robin, “do we now debate the moral issue?”
“Not just yet—we’ll leave the general debate about morality, ethics and everything but the kitchen sink until we’ve finished taking a look at the specific issues of the case,” Nicholas said, steering us along with a firm hand. “We’re still dealing with the first issue—the money we’ve already received. Further comments, anyone?”
The Heartbreaker Page 23