Grappling with these apocalyptic thoughts, I shelter by Mr. and Mrs. Local Doctor and act as if I’m too shy to do more than speak when spoken to.
“And what’s your connection with Sir Colin?” says Mrs. Local Doctor kindly.
Lady, if only you knew. “I’m his second cousin’s son,” I murmur almost inaudibly. “I’m contemplating a career change and I’m hoping Colin will point me in the right direction.”
Asherton’s approaching. He’s slithered away from both clerics, sidestepped Carta and he could be closing in on me—but no, he’s fastened on the doctor, who turns to talk to him. That means I can go on sheltering in the lee of the doctor’s wife. The clerics are busy chatting. Carta’s looking at me as if she’s longing to find out why I’m being so self-effacing, but any conversation with her could be dangerous—it might look to Asherton as if I know her well, and besides I’m so churned up at present about Carta that I don’t want to talk to her. My glorious bed-dream’s been wiped. She used the P-word. I’m really upset. But at the same time I’m riveted because she says she likes me, the real me, not Gavin Blake Superstud, not Gavin Blake Fundraiser Supremo, not even Gavin Blake Ordinary Bloke, but Gavin Blake Me, the load of rubbish that’s no use to anyone. I wouldn’t believe this but I do because she mentioned the magic moment when our hands clasped. I was no one else then but myself, but if she liked me at that moment the liking just has to be real because the handclasp was all about a very deep reality, I know that now. But what exactly is this deep reality, and what are Carta and I supposed to do with each other if we can’t fuck?
I suddenly realise Mrs. Local Parson’s glided alongside me to ask what part of the world I come from and we go through the rigmarole of where I went to school and what my father’s profession was. But this lady’s smarter than Mrs. Local Doctor. She never asks how I know Colin.
After an interval which seems more like thirty years than thirty minutes dinner’s announced and in an effort to avoid Asherton I decide to be the last one to leave the room. Bad decision. He falls into step by my side as soon as I move into the hall and by this time the others are too far ahead to hear us.
“Did you know Darrow was going to be present?”
“No, sir.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Colin heard about St. Benet’s and thinks it might be good PR to donate to their Appeal.”
“Why didn’t you tell Elizabeth this?”
“I’ve only just found out.”
The opportunity for private conversation ceases as we enter the dining-room and wander around scanning the place cards. Colin’s put Nicholas and Asherton facing each other in the middle of the table and they’re flanked on either side by the four innocents: Asherton’s sitting between the doctor and Mrs. Local Parson, Nicholas between the parson and Mrs. Local Doctor. Both women are on either side of Colin, who’s at the head of the table. Carta and I are seated opposite each other, she next to the parson and I next to the doctor, but as there are an uneven number of guests Colin has no one facing him at our end of the table.
Dinner begins with a mush-ball on rabbit food, the kind of knickknack cuisine which one can toss off in two bites and be even hungrier afterwards than one was before. I’m still recovering from my brush with Asherton, but when I start thinking clearly I realise there’s been no announcement that Nicholas and Carta are going to do a St. Benet’s number.
“Do tell us about your ministry, Nicholas!” one of the innocents is saying warmly, and Nicholas answers: “I believe I’m going to be encouraged to do so later,” but Colin neither looks at him nor comments. What the hell’s he playing at? Meanwhile my neighbour the doctor is talking to Asherton about the rising levels of teenage drug abuse in rural areas. Asherton’s looking wonderfully shocked. I sip some wine and decide it tastes poisonous. I wish to hell someone would wheel on a trolley groaning with all the drugs anyone would need to get totally freaked out and beamed up.
“. . . and of course the young are encouraged by the absence of good role models to regard drug-taking as normal,” the doctor’s saying, and adds to me: “You must be under thirty—what do you think?”
“I’m not interested in drugs, sir. I’m into keep-fit. Minimum alcohol, regular work-outs, no junk food.”
“Splendid!” exclaims the doctor heartily. “How encouraging!”
“A perfect role model for the young!” agrees Asherton creamily, and the sound of that sugar-and-cyanide voice makes me toss back the rest of my dud wine.
After the starter comes the fish course, a sliver of lemon sole in a slimy sauce with a shrimp stuck on top. Another bottle of wine appears but I turn up my glass because I can’t afford to get seriously trolleyed, particularly since the doctor zeroes in on me again during the next course (beef Wellington, duchesse potatoes, mixed veg) and I’m kept busy explaining my fictitious job as a gym equipment salesman. By the time we’ve all finished pudding I’m knackered, but there’s no respite because after the cheese and fruit have circulated Colin drops his H-bomb.
“Now we come to the climax of the party!” he declares, beaming at us. “We’re going to have a debate. On the one hand—” He gestures to Nicholas “—we have a representative of the Church of England who is at present engaged in a fundraising drive for his ministry of healing at St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall in the City of London. And on the other—” He gestures to Asherton “—we have a representative of a religious society, the Guild of Light and Darkness, which is a form of the ancient Gnostic tradition, and he too clearly has hopes that I might contribute to his cause. Two religious men—and both after my money! Whom should I favour? Well, gentlemen, let’s see how well you perform before a jury of your peers who will decide the winner of the debate! Do you want me to toss a coin to decide who goes first?”
Everyone gapes, gobsmacked.
I’ve never seen Asherton look so rattled.
“My dear Colin,” he says rapidly, “I’m afraid you entirely misunderstand the nature of my metaphysical interests! My society is, as I thought I’d made clear to you, entirely private and can’t possibly be the subject of a dinner-party discussion!”
“What a pity!” says Nicholas at once, staging a speed-of-light recovery from the H-bomb’s blast. “But never mind—my metaphysical interests are open to all, not merely to a privileged few, and I’m more than happy to discuss them with anyone anywhere!”
“Surely it’s not quite comme il faut to discuss religion at dinner parties?” says Mrs. Local Doctor, too nervous to realise she’s shafting her host by implying he doesn’t know how to behave.
“Quite right!” exclaims Asherton, more than willing to slam a backhander at his host after Colin’s not only ignored the fact that GOLD’s top secret but has even blasted its full name around the table. “Religion is essentially a private matter, far from the reality of public affairs and normal social engagements.”
“Do you really think so?” says Nicholas politely, subtly conveying an impression of amused astonishment—as if Asherton’s opinion was almost too quaint to be taken seriously. “Surely the idea that religion should be locked away from everyday existence implies, if you’ll forgive me saying so, a failure to understand what religion is all about. A great religion’s a world-view and a way of life, and if it doesn’t address itself to the realities of day-to-day living then it’s of no use to those seeking meaning and value in their daily lives.”
“Oh come, come, Mr. Darrow!” oozes Asherton. “Isn’t Christianity really only about ‘pie in the sky when you die’?”
“If that were true everyone would be queueing up to commit suicide, but as we all know, that kind of mass exit is confined to phoney cults and perverted religion.”
(I think: nice one, mate. Cheers.)
“But nevertheless,” persists Asherton, still slimeballing away, “think of the Sermon on the Mount! Aren’t so many Christian concepts just an escape from reality?”
“How strange you should believe that!” says Nicho
las, wide-eyed as if with innocent wonder. “I always understood that it was the Gnostics who sought to evade reality with their themes of escaping into other worlds! Surely it’s Christianity, in the person of its crucified leader, which confronts the blood, sweat and tears of reality head on?”
(I think: another nice one, mate! Let no one say you haven’t gone down fighting.)
Asherton says sardonically, easing up on the charm: “Ah, but such an exaltation of death and suffering surely risks being seen as an exercise in sado-masochism!”
“Confronting the reality of death and suffering isn’t the same as exalting it. You’re forgetting that Christ preached life in abundance and the primacy of love, not multiple destruction and the triumph of hate.”
(I suck in my breath at this third whack in succession and think astonished: POW!)
“Life in abundance!” exclaims Asherton with a little designer-sniggle of a laugh. “But everyone knows that Christianity has a record of dealing out death and destruction second to none!”
“How about those death-dealing atheists Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot and Stalin?” enquires Nicholas instantly. “The truth, surely, Mr. Asherton, is that all religions can be corrupted—take Gnosticism, for instance. Gnosticism should be about a collection of beautiful fictions containing profound spiritual truths, but how much of that tradition is incorporated in your Guild of Light and Darkness? Just what kind of Gnosticism are you actually promoting here?”
“I read such an interesting article on Gnosticism the other day,” chips in Mr. Local Parson, trying to pour oil on the troubled waters as the temperature of the debate rises. “It referred to that splendidly readable book by—” He says a name that sounds like Inane Bagels, but I realise it’s probably Elaine Bagels—or maybe Elaine Pagels, since the “b” sound was more of a pop than a blast—but Mr. Local Doctor, not listening, says irritably: “I don’t understand this Gnostic stuff. What’s the core premiss?”
“The importance of spiritual liberation,” says Asherton, very hushed, very reverent.
Nicholas says crisply in a down-to-earth voice: “There were different strands of Gnosticism in the old days, some close to Christianity, some far removed from it—the nearest equivalent today would be the New Age Movement—but generally speaking it centred on the belief that you can attain salvation by secret knowledge, occult knowledge, given only to an elite. Christianity, on the other hand, believes that salvation—wholeness of body, mind and spirit leading to liberation and empowerment—is available to all through the example, power and grace of Jesus Christ.”
“That’s all very well,” says Asherton, barely able to hide his contempt, “but you don’t practise what you preach, do you? Christians aren’t interested in the wholeness of body, mind and spirit! How can they be, when the body is something they despise?”
“On the contrary, it would be heresy for us to despise the body when we believe God became flesh and blood in order to embrace his creation to the full. But how does your Guild of Light and Darkness treat the subject? I hope you haven’t fallen into the old Gnostic error of splitting the body off from the spirit and behaving as if the body’s of no importance! Or have you rejected the practice of satiating the body with physical excesses to keep it quiet while the spirit supposedly soars towards salvation?”
“Why how exciting you make it sound!”
“You find physical abuse exciting, Mr. Asherton?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Didn’t you? In that case are you agreeing with me that mind, body and spirit are one, and that if we downgrade any of these things we downgrade our humanity?”
“No, I’m not saying that either!” snaps Asherton, voice suddenly all cyanide and no sugar. “That’s just naive nonsense. Spiritually the body’s only an encumbrance, and that’s why an exaggerated veneration of the body’s so wrong—it’s the reason why Christianity’s so against sex—”
“Christianity’s against the abuse of sex, not sex itself. How could Christianity—genuine Christianity—be against sex when sex is such an important function of the body, the body which Christianity says should be treated with dignity and respect? But of course if your society is following a strand of Gnosticism which says the body is of so little account that sexual abuse is actually encouraged—”
“I deny that charge absolutely!” explodes Asherton, rigid with fury as he hypes up his lies. “What the Gnostics seek to do—by various ancient practices which I’m not allowed to disclose—is to work on setting the body aside so that the spirit can flourish. What can be more religiously desirable than that?”
“A religion which believes body, mind and spirit should work together instead of against one another,” said Nicholas immediately. “A religion which says body, mind and spirit shouldn’t be divided by anyone seeking the health and healing which underpin salvation.”
(Dazed by the sight of Asherton being continually walloped I can only think: game, set, match . . .)
But of course I’m fantasising. He’ll come back and win in the end, just as he always does, and meanwhile he’s saying patronisingly: “I think we should leave health and healing to the medical gentlemen—don’t you agree, Doctor?”
“Quite so,” says this dumb old git. “A terrible lot of quackery goes on outside orthodox medicine.”
I want to leap to my feet and shout furiously: “Let him have it, Mr. Charisma!” but of course I stay welded to my chair and anyway Nicholas doesn’t need me bawling out encouragement like a football hooligan. He says shortly to Dinosaur-Doc: “Are your patients simply bodies to you? Do you take no account of their individual personalities?”
“Well, of course I didn’t mean to imply—”
Nicholas doesn’t wait for him to finish. Back he swings to Asherton. “I think you’d agree with me,” he says, “that we live in a culture unhealthily obsessed by the body, a culture where the spirit is greatly neglected. But the solution, surely, is not to say the body’s so unimportant that people can trash it in any way they like. The solution’s to say that the body’s so important that it should never be trashed either by starvation or gluttony or sexual abuse or any other kind of tormented behaviour.”
“Wait a minute!” says Asherton, snaking back into the attack. “You’re being very dictatorial here! What about the freedom of the individual? Why shouldn’t people have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies?”
“For people caught up in the trap of abusing the body, there is no freedom—it’s as if they’re locked up in jail. Take prostitutes, for instance, who spend their time splitting off their bodies from their minds in order to survive the abuse and degradation—”
“Please!” cries Mrs. Local Doctor, all pink cheeks and heaving bosom. “This truly can’t be a suitable subject for a clergyman to discuss!”
“Nonsense, Dorothy!” says Mrs. Local Parson, magnificently robust. “Christians don’t have no-go areas! It’s all God’s world, isn’t it?”
“Go on, Nicholas,” orders Colin, ignoring the women.
“My point is that sometimes people are so impoverished that they have to sell themselves to survive—they’re imprisoned by material deprivation. And sometimes people are so damaged by psychological wounds that they too feel they’ve no choice but to sell themselves—they’re the ones imprisoned by emotional deprivation. But whatever the source of the deprivation, freedom of choice isn’t there.”
(I think—no, I don’t think—can’t—)
“But my dear sir!” purrs Asherton, slithering onto the warpath again. “A lot of prostitutes, especially the ones at the top of the market, enjoy what they do! How dare you want to deprive them of their pleasure as well as their livelihood!”
“I thought it was an open secret that prostitutes soon come to despise their clients. What kind of pleasure do you get from having sex with someone you despise? And what kind of pleasure do the clients get from paying for such a travesty of love?”
“A great deal of physical satisfac
tion! We’re not all after love, you know!”
“Oh, but I think we are,” says Nicholas at once. “We all need to love and be loved, and that’s why prostitution’s such a rip-off. Love is the great reality, and no substitute bought and sold in the marketplace can ever begin to equal it.”
The words hit my head like flying nails.
“Ah, you old-fashioned romantic!” mocks Asherton, beside himself with the desire to gut this lethal shit-buster once and for all. “But as every sophisticated person knows, it isn’t love that makes the world go round! It’s money and power!”
And suddenly I find I’m sitting bolt upright in my chair. I’ve just realised that Nicholas is paying out the rope so that Asherton can hang himself. By this time Asherton’s in such a lather of fury and loathing that he’s forgotten where he is and who’s listening. He’s now so totally focused on wiping Nicholas off the map that he’s been lured into insisting a deep-sleaze profession’s just a free-market lifestyle choice and love’s just a four-letter word. I can almost feel the representatives of Middle England vibrating with repulsion. Their legendary decency and honesty, their fabled kindness and humanity, are all outraged. Asherton’s losing this battle, he’s losing it—he’s not invincible—he doesn’t always have the last word—
“You puzzle me, Mr. Asherton!” says Nicholas Darrow Mega-Hero as he moves in so smoothly for the kill. “For a religious man, you seem to have a very low opinion of human beings! But I myself believe in the dignity and worth of each individual, even a prostitute, because I believe that each one of us is precious in God’s sight. Do I take it that you’d just regard this as further evidence that I’m a hopeless romantic?”
The Heartbreaker Page 33