Lewis wants to touch me but he knows he can’t. He wants to put his arm around my shoulders and comfort me, but he knows he has to keep his distance. I can feel all this compassion but I’m blocked off from it behind the glass walls that my sickness has built to separate me from normality. But he takes off his pectoral cross and he slides it to the middle of the table.
When he withdraws his hand I pick up the cross and wrap my fingers around the Bloke-image. Can’t see it. Too many tears. But I stop sobbing and shuddering. I feel as if I’ve been trampled into the mud by a herd of elephants, but at least I’m quiet and still.
Lewis says: “You were very courageous, offering Hugo hope no matter what the cost to yourself, and as I made clear earlier, it certainly wasn’t your fault that your way of helping him could never have worked out. Nor was it your fault, let me now add, that your parents were so overwhelmed by the tragedy that they couldn’t love you as you deserved.”
I want to break down all over again but I don’t. I keep myself together somehow, and after a long pause I manage to whisper: “But if it’s not my fault . . . are Mum and Dad to blame for everything that went wrong?”
Lewis’s voice stays firm. “Obviously they made some very big mistakes, but before we unload our blame we need to ask ourselves if we know the whole story. For instance, were there any mitigating factors? I always wish,” he adds, “that I’d had the chance to ask my mother if there were any mitigating circumstances which explained why she rejected me when I was young.”
I digest this. More seconds slip by but finally I say: “Can I just shovel all the blame on God for allowing this to happen?”
“You’ve certainly got cause to complain to him, but make sure you listen afterwards for his answer. Every mess has to be redeemed and put right—that’s just as much a part of the creative process as the waste and mess. So in his answer you’ll see the path to redemption, and then you can work out how you can best give him a helping hand.”
I bin the idea of skiving off or collapsing in a useless heap. Obviously my first task in giving God a helping hand has to be to keep on keeping on, clearing the roadblocks from my mind no matter how painful that process is.
So where have I got to? The area around Hugo’s now been fully excavated. He’s ready. I’m ready. No more delays.
Taking a deep breath I say: “I think it’s time for Hugo to go home.” The anniversary of Hugo’s death falls this month, and I tell Lewis on his next visit that I want to lay flowers on the grave and say goodbye.
Lewis asks how I feel about leaving the house, but I’m confident I can do it. “I’ve got a mission,” I tell him. “I really want to get to that grave.” But I don’t explain just why the visit to the grave’s so vital.
I’m very aware of Hugo at the moment. He’s now calm, silent, waiting, no longer hanging around my neck like a lead weight but lying peacefully on my chest like a heavy gold medallion—something valuable but not something you want to lug around twenty-four hours a day. How light I’ll feel when he’s gone! But he may not want to let go. We’ve been sharing a body for so long that we’re like Siamese twins.
I feel clearer now about the tragedy. I’m seeing us all as victims who got mown down in one of God’s messier creative splurges and mangled by the splurge’s dark vile bits, the bits which haven’t yet come right. But I know now that God’s not just out there lolling idly in front of his canvas. He’s in a muck sweat, painting away to save the picture, and although my family was blasted apart by the thwack of the creative process, the creator himself can’t rest until he’s brought us back into the right pattern.
Mum, Dad, Hugo and I are all waiting to be reintegrated in the design—we’re all waiting to come home to our allotted places—and as I realise this, I find the other members of my family are crowding into my head as if hoping for a big reunion. Grandfather, Grandad and Other Granny all died before I left home, but death doesn’t matter in this context, the important thing is that they’re alive in my head—in psychic reality, as Lewis puts it—and right now they’re busy milling around with all my memories of the living. God, whatever happened to arch-bitch Aunt Pansy in Los Angeles and rich-bitch Aunt Marigold in St. George’s Hill? What happened to snotty cousins Arabella, Charlotte and Jeremy in England and weird cousins Rick, Mary-Elizabeth and Ham (short for Hamilton) in America? All those lost people . . . But they helped create the pattern of my childhood, the pattern which now has to be retrieved so that my old life can be integrated at last with the new.
Yes, it’s going to be okay this time, Hugo, I promise . . . It’s as if we’re in one of those old-world dances where you have to go through a whole chain of set moves before you finally come home down the finishing strait. Our dance was ripped up in our youth because an earthquake struck the ballroom, but I’ve cleared away the fallen debris, the band’s come back and now we can return to the floor to pick up the dance where we left off—we’re going back to the point where we danced the wrong steps because we were too young to know the right ones. It wasn’t our fault we danced the wrong steps, Hugo, and in this scenario it wasn’t your fault either, Mum and Dad. And although the four of us wound up wasted we don’t have to stay that way, we’re being given a second chance, we’re being led back to the ballroom floor. What makes me so certain? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because we’re being led back by The Bloke himself—yes, we are, Hugo, yes, we are! He wants us back and he’ll go to any lengths to get us there because he’s the Healer, he’s the Leader, he’s LORD OF THE DANCE, and this time we’re all coming home . . .
When Lewis and I plan the graveside visit, I express my deepest fear: I tell him Hugo might not want to leave, but this time for the best of motives—he might want to stay to look after me just as he did when we were young. Worse still he might be hurt if he’s asked to go.
Lewis is pretty sure Hugo will be keen to go once all’s finally straight between us. Am I, perhaps, the one who feels ambivalent about Hugo’s departure? I have to admit I’m scared of the vacuum Hugo’s departure will create in my mind, but Lewis says that as Hugo will always be with me now as a cherished memory, there can’t be a vacuum in my mind when his after-death self departs. And suddenly I see it all: the good memories will pour into the vacuum, the light will triumph over the dark, and Hugo will ride the light like a surfer, creaming away across the bluest of seas to his new life—not the life he would have had if he’d lived but a redeemed life in a healed creation, the creation which exists in God’s head as he tries to bring his messy canvas into line with the shimmering dream which drives him.
I’m more frightened than I thought I would be at the prospect of leaving home, but Susanne and I experiment successfully with driving round and round the block until I’m relaxed. I know now I can do the trip to Surrey. I know I can.
I tell Susanne to buy white carnations, one for each of the birthdays Hugo never had, and she’s made the florist arrange them in a spray. She’s also made sure there’s a card but I don’t show her what I write on it. I’ve got a plan for that card, but I’m not telling anyone yet what it is.
Finally Lewis drives me down into Surrey in his beat-up Volksie which looks as if it should have been MOT’d off the road a long time ago. It roars and bounces and screams down the A3. Lewis is quite a driver. Other drivers stare at him in disbelief as they swerve to let us pass.
I’m in the back seat so there’s no risk of us touching. I don’t want to ruin everything by freaking out as the result of a collision. I don’t even want to think about it so I focus instead on fighting the agoraphobia. But I’m okay. Eventually I’m even able to notice that the countryside’s looking beautiful in the autumn sunshine. We’ve made an early start, although I haven’t told Lewis why this is so important. It’s part of the secret plan I have, and I’ll only disclose it later if it bears fruit.
To my huge relief I find I’m still okay once we’re parked at the church and I have to leave the car. No panic attacks. I’m totally focused on getting t
o that grave, and when I reach it I’m so overcome that Lewis suggests we sit down for a moment. But I don’t want that. I stand by the grave and read the headstone and say Hugo Hugo Hugo over and over again to myself as I think of him.
Eventually I nod to Lewis, and standing six feet apart we quietly say the Lord’s Prayer. I can’t finish it—too much emotion—but Lewis is there to finish it for me. Then I talk to Hugo. I say I’m sorry for not being able to fulfil the promise I made to let him live my life, but it was a promise I shouldn’t have made because it was wrong. He had a better life waiting for him instead of this second-rate existence locked up in my head, and I say I’m sorry I didn’t understand this at the time but thanks to Lewis I understand it now.
Then I say to Hugo what a great brother he was and what joy he gave everyone, specially Mum and Dad and me, and although he wasn’t around for long he certainly transformed our lives by being so special. I say I’ll always remember the pattern he made on my life before he got ill, it was a great pattern, a wonderful pattern, and it’ll stay with me for ever—which means he’ll always be part of my life whatever happens, but part of it in the best possible way.
“I’m sorry I kept you so long by sticking to that dumb plan and then junking it in a way that stopped you moving on,” I say finally. “What a mess! Can you ever forgive me?”
And Hugo answers: “Lighten up, chum! I was just as dumb as you were—why couldn’t I see the plan was a load of balls? No wonder everything went wrong!” and when I ask him again to forgive me he says: “No sweat, but it’s me who needs forgiveness for screwing up your head like that. In fact how can I possibly move on until I’m sure you’re all right?”
I’m glad Lewis and I prepared for this reaction. Trying not to sound anxious I answer: “My friends will see I’m all right. You don’t have to worry,” but still Hugo hates to leave me unprotected.
This is when Lewis intervenes. He tells Hugo kindly but firmly that now’s the time to go, and Hugo doesn’t argue. That’s when I know he’s secretly longing to leave.
In a rush I say to him: “ ’Bye, mate. Remember, you were special, you counted, you—” but he interrupts before I can say “mattered.” He’s laughing. “Okay, okay!” he protests. “I get the message! But make sure you get your head together soon because your new life’s going to be the best memorial I could ever have.”
Those are the last words of his I hear. My eyes are burning but I’m all right. I put the spray of carnations on the grave and tell Lewis I need a little time alone. As he retreats I stoop to make sure the florist’s card’s fully visible in the little plastic bag which will protect it from the rain. I’ve written: “In loving memory of HUGO, best of brothers. GAVIN,” and below this I’ve printed my address.
I stay a while longer. It’s very quiet in the churchyard, very peaceful. “Hugo?” I say softly at last, but there’s no reply. He’s gone, slipping away across the sea to the distant horizon, journeying at last from darkness into light. I call to The Bloke: “He’s coming home!” but The Bloke calls back: “He’s already here!” So I know the return was instant. That’s because there’s no time there and no space either—it’s all beyond time and space, Lewis says, but our brains aren’t wired to imagine such a world so it’s no use trying to visualise it.
I walk over to Lewis and say: “He’s home.” I’m aware of a huge lightness buoying me up and I know I don’t want to grieve. “I’m free to be me now.”
Lewis smiles. “Sailing off into the golden sunset?”
“No, I think that’s turning out to be a sort of metaphor, know-what-I-mean, like, kind of . . .” I get bogged down but Lewis makes no attempt to rush me. Eventually I say: “Sailing away from everything was an escape-dream created when I was unhappy. I still want to sail but I don’t want to sail away into the blue any more—if you run away you just take your problems with you.”
Lewis smiles again and exclaims encouragingly: “That’s a valuable insight—excellent! I’m very proud of you for all you’ve accomplished today!”
I feel good when he says that. And I feel good about Hugo. As we leave the churchyard I stop to look back, and I see how quiet it is, how peaceful, how absolutely as an English country churchyard should be. It always seemed so lonely and desolate before.
I resolve to come back next year with more flowers.
Hugo’ll like that.
Off Lewis and I drive back to London. By this time I’m feeling so grateful that I start thinking about how I can best reward him for all his help, and as we reach the outskirts of London I think back to his first visit to my house when he arrived with his portable Communion gear in case I wanted one of the special wafers plus a hit of the special wine. When I said I didn’t, he asked me if I’d been christened and confirmed and I said yes, christening was a must-have social occasion where I came from, and my Church-of-England-foundation school had ensured, even in the 1970s, that I got “done” when confirmation time came around. (Of course these are pathetic reasons for getting christened and confirmed, but they didn’t alter the fact that I’m now entitled to take part in the wafer-wine number in any Communion gig.) Lewis made no comment on this classic example of the English converting religious ritual into a couple of middle-class tribal rites. He just said: “I always think Communion’s about healing,” and then he changed the subject.
But now I think I see how I can reward him for all the help he’s been giving me. I say: “I’d like to take Communion again one day soon.”
I think I’ve pitched this just right—I sound winningly respectful and serious—but he gives me a sharp, streetwise look in the driving-mirror. “Gavin,” he says, “there’s no need to take Communion just out of a desire to please me. It’s very important that you wait until the time’s right, and there must be no outside pressure hurrying you along.”
After a pause I say: “I just wanted to give you a present to say thank you.”
“That’s not necessary but it’s a very kind thought and I’d be most ungracious if I were to pour cold water on it. How about a bottle of wine from your local supermarket?”
I immediately decide to call up Fortnum’s and order an insanely expensive claret, but within minutes I’ve figured out he really doesn’t want me spending a lot of money. And what am I trying to buy here anyway? The trouble is that the more Lewis praises me the more nervous I feel that I may wind up disappointing him, and if I disappoint him he might reject me just as my father did.
“It’s all a question of trust, isn’t it?” he says to me gently when I confess these thoughts to him. “You find it hard to trust people not to reject you, and you’re willing to live a lie to please them, just as you lived a lie in order to please Elizabeth, but as you should know by now, you don’t have to live a lie to please me. Quite the reverse. I want you to live in the truth.”
I at once decide I can trust him enough to cancel my plan to blow three hundred quid on a bottle of claret from Fortnum’s.
But I’ll tell Susanne to buy the very best of the Australian reds when she next goes to the supermarket.
Because Lewis refuses to pressure me, I think some more about taking Communion. I’ve stopped considering it as a way of repaying him and now I’m speculating that it might help to line me up better with The Bloke.
But after a while I know deep down I can’t face Communion. Not yet anyway.
“Is it because of the risk of physical contact with the priest?” says Lewis when I broach the subject with him later.
“It’s more than that. It’s the whole business of kneeling down before a man and—”
“Ah, I see.”
“Sorry. Don’t mean to be blasphemous.”
“I know.” Of course Lewis understands. He always does. “It won’t make any difference, will it,” he says, “if I tell you that you don’t have to kneel down.”
“It’d make some difference but not enough. The idea of being that close to a man while he offers something that represents a body—”
>
“Yes.” He thinks for a moment and comes up with a bright idea. “Nicholas could arrange for a woman to bring you the sacrament at home. How would you feel about that?”
“One of those new women priests, you mean?”
“I was thinking of a deaconess I know. Once the elements have been consecrated by a priest, a deaconess is allowed to—”
I say flatly: “I don’t want a man anywhere near that sacrament. He’d pollute it. The priest’s got to be a woman.”
For the first time I see Lewis at a loss for words. He clears his throat. He scratches his head. He’s stunned.
“So what’s the big deal?” I demand. “Do you really think The Bloke would give a shit whether it’s a man or a woman doing the priest-stuff when somebody’s ill and needs help?”
Lewis stages an overdue recovery. “Quite so,” he says soothingly. “Quite so. We must see what Nicholas can do—he knows most of the first batch of women priests, and meanwhile maybe one of our non-Communion healing services might be more suitable anyway.”
I’m interested in the idea of a healing service. Carta’s told me there’s one every week at Friday lunch-time. Apparently a healing service did wonders for her when she went through her crisis in 1990.
“Maybe a bit later,” I say, “when I’m more used to going out. And no Communion, not yet, not till I’ve done a healing service.”
“That’s fine, but let me just make it clear that you don’t have to come to St. Benet’s to receive the laying-on of hands, and the laying-on of hands doesn’t require a priest. This deaconess I mentioned would make a house call.”
But the home option doesn’t feel right. The idea of some strange revvy-totty cavorting around laying on hands in my own home rings no bells for me at all. In fact Susanne would probably be cross and call it pervy.
“I’ll have to think about this,” I say to Lewis, and he nods willingly, keen to make amends for dropping the ball earlier.
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