The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  “—but it was so boring, I couldn’t get interested, I failed all my early exams—”

  “Well, of course you did! How could you do well at something you had no aptitude for?”

  “Ah, but Hugo couldn’t accept that. I’d invited him into my head so that he could enjoy me living his life for him, but when I reneged on the deal he turned hostile, and every day since then he’s told me I’m shit. In fact sometimes I think he hates me so much that he’ll never rest till I’m as dead as he is.”

  At once I knew I could carry the conversation no further, but simultaneously Lewis commented: “I can understand Hugo’s disappointment, but he’s very wrong to vent his anger on you.”

  “But he refuses to accept he’s doing anything wrong!”

  “That’s because he’s not being approached in the right way.” Lewis leaned forward in his chair. “Maybe I can help here. I’ve come across this kind of case before, and I know that the unquiet dead can cause a lot of problems for the living.”

  “That’s what Elizabeth said.”

  There was a deep silence before Lewis asked sharply: “You’re saying she helped you in some way?”

  “She called it psychic healing,” said Gavin in a bleak voice as I shuddered from head to toe.

  VII

  “I believed in it at the time,” said Gavin, “because I was so desperate, but later I came to see it didn’t work, and after that I hated all that psychic rubbish.”

  Lewis said: “I understand, but can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  “I told Elizabeth about Hugo and said: ‘I’ve tried drink, I’ve tried drugs but nothing shuts him up for long, nothing,’ and Elizabeth just said: ‘Leave him to me.’ I think she hypnotised me then although she never used the word ‘hypnotism’ and it was all very subtle, not like the hypnotist stuff you see on TV. After we’d made love she’d massage my head and say she was smoothing away Hugo so that he wouldn’t bother me any more. And it worked for a while. But in the end the effect wore off and that approach never worked again . . . I didn’t tell Elizabeth, though. I was afraid she’d be angry and say it was all my fault that I’d failed to stay cured.”

  I shuddered again, but Lewis was saying evenly: “People who are sick should never be made to feel guilty if a cure isn’t forthcoming. A wonder-worker on an ego trip may want to preserve his self-esteem by laying the burden of failure on the patient, but a healer working to serve God shouldn’t be worrying about his self-esteem.”

  Cautiously Gavin said: “You’re saying it’s integrity that separates the good healers from the bad.”

  “Yes, but let me stress that all healing comes from God, and God can use anyone or anything to achieve his healing purposes. However, because the ministry of healing deals with exerting power over others, it’s immensely vulnerable to corruption. And if the patient puts his faith in a corrupt healer, the risk of adverse consequences is very great.”

  Gavin mulled this over before asking: “Do you think that beneath all the corruption Elizabeth had a genuine healing gift?”

  “Possibly, but there’s a sense in which any gift is neutral—it’s what you do with it that counts. For instance, take Elizabeth’s psychic gift, which she used in order to boost the healing gift she had—or which she used in order to make people think she had a healing gift. The words ‘psychic powers’ often appear in a sinister context, but in fact there’s no reason why they should be associated with evil rather than good— the powers themselves are neutral. If Elizabeth had chosen to offer her psychic gift to God so that he could use it as a force for the good, I’m sure a great many people would have been spared a great amount of unhappiness.”

  Gavin did some more mulling but finally said: “You’re a St. Benet’s healer. You do healing right. But how do I know you’ll be any more successful than Elizabeth was at fixing Hugo?”

  “You don’t. And I can’t guarantee success. But if you want me to try to help you, I’d be very willing to give it a go.”

  Gavin gave a great sigh, and when he said simply: “Where do we begin?” I knew his journey had restarted again after the crisis which had brought him to a halt.

  VIII

  “The first thing to understand,” said Lewis, “is that compulsion won’t work here. In other words, we can’t just say to Hugo: ‘Get lost!’ Instead we have to establish a situation where he can see his journey back to God as a homecoming rather than an undeserved journey into exile.”

  “But how—”

  “Let me take a little time to think and pray about this. Then I can come up with a plan of action, but meanwhile there are some questions I need to ask. First of all, did Hugo have any other ideas about life after death apart from existing as a spirit in your head?”

  “No, neither of us believed the Christian stuff about the resurrection of the body. That’s just contrary to common sense.”

  “So is much of the world revealed by modern physics! But let me merely say that St. Paul didn’t think resurrection involved the flesh. It all depends how you define ‘body’ and in this case the word ‘body’ is probably a codeword for the whole person, a pattern produced by a certain mind, spirit and body all working together. This pattern—a pattern of information, you could call it—would be capable of being lifted from its original context and replayed in another environment. Like written music which gets to be played in the concert hall.”

  I could see this intrigued Gavin but his only comment was: “Hugo says he’s more than just a pattern of information.”

  “Tell Hugo that all analogies ultimately break down but they’re useful if not pushed too far . . . Now, here’s my next question: what did your parents think about this idea that you should live Hugo’s life for him after he died?”

  “Oh, I never discussed it with them! But obviously they must have been glad to see that I was doing all I could to make amends for the fact that I was the one left alive.”

  I wanted to cry out in protest but I knew I had to leave the response to Lewis. Calmly he said: “Did your parents ever come right out and say they wished you’d died instead of Hugo?”

  “No, of course not! But I knew that was how they felt. Hugo was so special.”

  “You never thought they might be thankful to have one son left?”

  “No, not after I failed my medical exams and it was obvious I couldn’t take Hugo’s place. I did think of killing myself,” said Gavin as an afterthought, “but I decided it would mean so much hassle for them, and as I’d caused them so much trouble already I didn’t want to cause them any more. Disappearing seemed cleaner somehow—more considerate.”

  “I understand . . . And what did Elizabeth have to say about your parents?”

  “She said I was well rid of them,” said Gavin, but I could see he was barely concentrating on what he was saying. It was obvious a terrible thought had occurred to him. “Talking of Elizabeth . . . do you think it’s likely—do you suppose—could Elizabeth have decided to join forces with Hugo now to will me into total insanity, the kind you don’t recover from? Am I ill because I’m being possessed by Hugo’s evil spirit?”

  “Absolutely not!” said Lewis robustly. “For one thing, you show none of the signs of possession, and for another, Hugo is not an evil spirit. He’s an unhappy, angry, immature spirit who’s got himself stuck in the wrong place—your head—and now needs help in going home.”

  Gavin sagged back in his chair but still looked shattered.

  “Courage!” said Lewis, smiling at him. “We have an interesting task in front of us! We have to help the dead rest in peace and we have to ensure the living move on towards the life they’re called to lead, but meanwhile I’d like to congratulate you on taking this enormous step forward and talking of these very difficult matters. Well done! I’m extremely impressed!”

  Gavin gazed at him with an expression in which hope and trust mingled with fear and dread. “You really think Hugo will forgive me in the end?”

  “We’ll work at hel
ping him understand that neither of you can be blamed here. You were both too young to know better.”

  “You mean that when Hugo and I agreed I should live his life for him—”

  “You picked the wrong form of healing. The promise to live his life was a magnificent gesture on your part, but it didn’t heal the spiritual wounds caused by the knowledge that he was dying before his time. It only anaesthetised them by promising a future that could never have worked out.”

  Gavin’s face crumpled.

  “We’ll stop there,” said Lewis, standing up. “I’ll come back on Monday with my plan of action—unless, of course, you want to cancel. Don’t forget you’re never under any obligation to see me.”

  Gavin nodded. Tears were streaming down his face, but before I could embrace him again he was gone, rushing upstairs to his room as if finally overwhelmed by all his pulverising memories.

  IX

  We waited until Susanne returned. Lewis forbade any comment on the scene while we were still in the house, but as soon as we had set off in his car I exclaimed in fury: “Those parents of his! How could they have made him feel so unloved and unwanted?”

  “That’s the big question. I suspect they got bogged down in the bereavement process, but—”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  “—but there has to be more going on than that.”

  “I blame the father, browbeating Gavin out of his career choice and then making no effort to stop Gavin doing medicine when he was obviously unsuited to it!”

  “But maybe Dr. Blake was right to think Gavin was unsuited to be an architect, and maybe he honestly believed Gavin was capable of being a doctor.”

  “But—”

  “Anyway, fathers often try to throw their weight around like that, it’s not unusual. Far more significant, I felt, was that Gavin never mentioned his mother.”

  “Obviously she was hopeless, and I still think both of those parents must have behaved monstrously!”

  “Well, if that’s true, he’s certainly made them pay.”

  “By disappearing, you mean? But that wasn’t revenge! He disappeared because he couldn’t go on!”

  “True. But a disappearance is like a suicide. There can be a lot of hidden aggression going on.”

  “Well, I think in this case the aggression was deserved! Why did they never try to trace him?”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “But they could trace him now as the result of the trial!”

  “You mean his mother could. His father’s dead.”

  “All right, forget the father, but why isn’t the mother beating a path to his door?”

  “Perhaps she needs a little time to recover from hearing what her son actually did choose to do with his life.”

  That silenced me. It took me a full minute before I was able to say: “Sorry, I’m rushing to judgement, let’s move on to something else. What did you make of all the Hugo stuff? Did you think Gavin was behaving like a nutter?”

  “On the contrary, I thought he was making an excellent attempt to describe an unusual reality which is hard to put into words.”

  I made another big effort to rein myself in. “I hear what you’re saying,” I said, “and thanks to your help in 1990 I know ghosts are a psychological phenomenon often generated by guilt and grief—I know they should be accepted as a form of reality not normally accessible to us—but you don’t seriously believe, do you, that Hugo’s ghost has now taken up residence in Gavin’s head?”

  “If Hugo’s ghost represents a psychological phenomenon, where else is it going to exist?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Carta, we have to accept Hugo’s reality here. He’s very real for Gavin and therefore he should be very real for us as we try to help. My guess, based on experience, is that he’ll also be very real when I pray with Gavin later and help Hugo relax his grip on Gavin’s psyche. It’ll be as if a real person departs and Gavin will be changed.”

  We drove on in silence as I considered this assessment but finally I asked: “How long will it take to separate them?”

  “A couple of months, perhaps. It’s a question of how easily Hugo can be brought to consciousness after being a repressed memory for so long, but thanks to you I think Gavin will now feel encouraged to recall him.”

  “Thanks to me? But all I did was build a bridge which you could scramble across to begin the healing!”

  “My dear,” said Lewis, “it was you who began the healing. You enfolded him in unconditional love so that he trusted you enough to want to confide. You succeeded where Nicholas, Val, Robin and I had all been failing.”

  I stared at him. “You’re saying I was accidentally lined up just right with God so that he was able to use me even though I’m spiritually stupid?”

  “No, I’m saying that God is love and that you were able to present that fact to Gavin in a way that was crucially meaningful to him. Carta, isn’t it time to abandon your spiritual inferiority complex?”

  Not for the first time I thought how kind he was to pretend my spiritual side was other than minuscule, but I made no attempt to argue with him. After my success with Gavin—all due, of course, to the accident of my being in the right place at the right time and somehow managing to say the right thing—I didn’t want Lewis to feel his flattering words had been a mistake.

  Crossing the border into the City at last we headed for my house on Wallside.

  X

  As I opened my front door Eric emerged from the upstairs living-room to greet me. “Not working?” I said delighted, hoping that his current draft of the new novel was complete. I was much looking forward to his next lucid interval.

  “I had an important phone call,” he answered, smiling at me as he clattered down the stairs into the hall, “and I knew I had to be at home when you got back.”

  I was intrigued. “Good news?”

  “The best!” He swung me off my feet, spun me around and kissed me very smoochily on the mouth. When I came up for air I said: “Snogheaven. Mad about it,” and kissed him very smoochily back. I felt as if I were in the final reel of a Hitchcock film, the one where the cool blonde melts into the arms of the sexy hero and the train thunders into the heavily symbolic tunnel.

  “The latest trend in high-powered eroticism: Marriage is the new Cohabitation!” declared Eric, quoting imaginary headlines. “But don’t you want to hear my stunning news?”

  “I’ve guessed it!” I said, rapidly updating Hitchcock to the late twentieth-century world of potential scientific horrors. “You’re pregnant!”

  “Help! Do I have that radiant oestrogen look?”

  “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll take care of you. But seriously—”

  “Seriously, there’s terrific news and it’s waiting for you in the living-room.”

  “What form does it take?”

  “It’s six feet tall and wears a clerical collar.”

  “Nicholas? Oh my God, Alice must be pregnant! How absolutely—”

  “No, it’s better than that.”

  “It couldn’t be.” I pounded up the stairs and erupted into the living-room with such speed that Nicholas jumped. He had been standing by the window but now he drifted towards me as if determined to appear the last word in nonchalance. Only his eyes betrayed him. They were a brilliant grey-blue, signalling that he was bursting with excitement. In his hand were two slips of paper.

  “These arrived by special messenger at the Healing Centre an hour ago,” he said casually. “I thought you’d like to see them straight away.”

  I took the two slips of paper.

  One was a cheque drawn on the charities fund of RCPP, and the other was a cheque drawn on the personal account of Sir Colin Broune.

  Each one was for fifty thousand pounds.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gavin

  Some clergy have also found the study of a family tree to be a useful means of discovering broken relationships, traumatic events and family traits as well as disowned, l
ost, forgotten and unmourned relatives . . . Many have found that such prayer for the healing of the past and for the peace of [the] departed . . . can bring a sense of release from oppressive influences.

  A Time to Heal

  A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS

  ON THE HEALING MINISTRY

  A psychiatrist once suggested that healing involved a “restoration of the capacity to love.” He might have added, the capacity to receive and accept love.

  Mud and Stars

  A REPORT OF A WORKING PARTY CONSISTING

  MAINLY OF DOCTORS, NURSES AND CLERGY

  Colin’s finally coughed up. Talk about being anally retentive! What’s that kind of money to him? Small change.

  I’m not taking that job he’s offered me, and Susanne’s not surprised. “Imagine old Moneybags saying you need never meet him again!” she comments. “Once you were in RCPP he’d take a peek and once he’d taken a peek he’d want to go all the way down memory lane!”

  As it happens I’m not at all sure she’s right, but I do know that if I worked for Colin I’d always be dreading this scenario. Playing devil’s advocate I say: “It’d solve the job problem,” but she answers: “What’s the point of solving one problem only to end up with a bigger one?” and she reminds me that at present I don’t need to worry about being unemployed. Her own job means there’s money coming in to boost the income from what’s left of my savings. We can tick over if we live quietly, and at present living quietly is all I can do. “You have to wait till the nervous breakdown’s finished,” says Susanne, making it sound like an unmissable show on TV.

  The wonderful thing about Susanne is that she never doubts that I’ll get better. She did, so she figures I will. Another wonderful thing is that she never complains. When I’m first unable to go out she just says: “Thank God I had time to get a driving licence. I wouldn’t fancy doing the shopping by bus,” and when the final horror of the breakdown slugs me—impotence—she only remarks: “Well, I suppose it’s not surprising that your cock decided it needed a rest.” But the impotence crushes me. Sex is the only thing I’m good at, and now the main routine’s been taken away.