I’ll be okay in church, I’m sure of it, but Susanne’s going to be in the congregation with me in case anything goes wrong. I did ask her if she’d mind coming to the service but she just said: “Why should I?” and looked aggressive, as if I was implying she wasn’t good enough to attend.
I take some tranx because I can’t risk freaking out before the service can even begin. Am I showing a lack of faith in The Bloke’s power to heal? No, I’m just blocking off the chance that I’ll go nuts before he arrives. I’m lacking faith in me, that’s the problem. I’ve come a long way but I’m not healed yet and I’m only human. Of course I’m going to be stressed.
Susanne drives us to St. Benet’s and pops the car in the space we’ve been promised on the Rectory forecourt. She then fetches Alice, who’s volunteered to be my other female bodyguard, making sure no man sits next to me. More role reversal! Tough women everywhere and a single terrified wuss who needs cocooning. My God, once I get through all this breakdown crap I’m going to open a bar for the macho and call it the Testosterone Club.
We sneak into the church well ahead of the main crowd and sit in the front so that no one has to push past us to get to the central aisle. Val arrives to say she’ll be standing within reach when I receive the healing, but I’m not made to feel more of a wuss than ever because I know it’s standard practice to have insiders nearby to help catch anyone who passes out. I’m not anticipating passing out. If I go nuts in a big way I’ll be fully conscious—why waste the chance for a good primal scream?
When I’m seated I close my eyes, take deep breaths and listen to Mozart in my head. The famous lady’s singing the Laudate Dominum and once more I’m sailing down the Solent towards the Needles.
“Dad?” I say in my head, but as always, there’s no reply.
Susanne grabs my hand and I realise I’m trembling. I get a grip on myself as the organ starts to play, and when I glance at Alice she smiles back encouragingly. I can feel the warmth of her personality soothing me and helping me keep my breathing even.
There are plenty of people present. No shortage of people during the working week in the Square Mile of London’s financial district when the City’s population of a few thousand swells to over a quarter of a million daily. Conversations are humming behind me but at last everything starts. The healers appear. There’s no procession, no drama. They just walk on. Carta’s wearing a blue suit with a white blouse and looks paler than usual.
Needless to say, she’s gone the whole intellectual hog. She’s read the classic books on healing, she’s made notes, she’s memorised outstanding passages, she’s drafted prayers which she’s submitted to Lewis for approval, and she’s even drafted alternative prayers in case she decides the first ones aren’t appropriate after all. How do I know about this whirl of dedicated activity? Because she’s told me on the phone, and I’ve thanked her for going to so much trouble. I’m sincere too, I’m not laughing at her. That’s because the real message here is that she cares. For her it’s the intellectual machinations that are important, but for me the important thing is the love that drives them.
I think of how Carta was there in the beginning when Richard had his coronary, and now she’s with me at the end when I either get healed and found the Testosterone Club or get certified and submit to neuron reassignment. Lewis and I talked again yesterday about the journey, and he pointed out how beneficial it had been not just for me but for her. He said: “She was compelled to undertake the painful but necessary task of reassessing her relationship with Eric which, when you entered her life, was going nowhere. She succeeded in raising the money for St. Benet’s even though fundraising’s not her true métier. She saw Mrs. Mayfield sentenced, an experience which enabled her to move out of the shadow of the past and marry again. And now she’s taking a healer’s role in this service—a very big step for her, and one which she would never have considered a short time ago. If she hadn’t met you, how much of all that would have happened?”
I think now, after recalling this conversation, of all Carta’s done for me. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t met her. She was my bridge to St. Benet’s, a bridge thrown together by The Bloke in a brilliant move which converted my routine sexual harassment into the kind of life-giving, life-saving relationship which I could never, in my dumb ignorance, have imagined. All I need to do now to kickstart the new life that’s been opened up for me is to get reconciled with Dad and healed of my phobia, and instead of saying to myself in panic: “How do Carta and I bear it if this trip today’s a bust?” I should be fixing my eyes on the way ahead in the belief that the last two of my roadblocks are about to be blown aside.
I clamp down on my anxiety as I realise everyone’s standing up to sing a hymn. Alice sings away confidently on my left but I can’t even manage one note, my vocal cords have gone on strike. I glance at Susanne. She’s not singing either but she’s fascinated, beady black eyes taking everything in, big mouth slightly open in amazement. Nothing like this has ever happened to her before. She’s like an astronaut taking his first steps on the moon and I know she’s thinking: weird, maybe pervy but maybe not, sort of creepy but sort of interesting, not exactly a barrel of laughs but they mean well, no one’s getting hurt or ripped off, yes, it’s okay, I’ll go along with it, I don’t mind.
I tighten my clasp on her hand. I love Susanne. And no, I’m not going to outgrow her when I’m better. And no, it doesn’t matter that she’s not religious. Lewis says religious people have a horrible tendency to write off people who aren’t “religious,” but what does “religious” in this narrow, judgemental sense mean anyway? You can be very “religious” and yet miss the whole point of religion. The Bloke came for everyone, that’s the truth of it. He didn’t just come for “the religious.” He came for me, a prostitute, someone who thought he had no religion at all. In the New Testament The Bloke’s on record as being really kind to a prostitute. In fact the incident where The Bloke showed her she counted, she mattered, is so important that it’s recorded in all four Gospels. All you “religious” people out there who have been looking down your noses at me and wincing at my filthy language and filthy lifestyle should remember that The Bloke himself never flinched or turned away.
Oh my God, I must be psychic. Lewis is reading the first lesson, and—
Yes, here it comes. The woman sneaks in to a social gathering, she washes The Bloke’s feet with some ultra-luxury stuff which has obviously cost her a bundle—and at once all the snotty onlookers are saying she should have given the money to the poor instead. But The Bloke puts them in their place just as Nicholas put Carta in her place when I gave him Richard’s cuff links, the most beautiful and the most expensive present I could produce at that moment.
I think of that poor slag two thousand years ago. I think: I know how you felt, sister. You saw truth and goodness, such truth and such goodness that you wanted to offer up the most valuable thing you had as a token of your gratitude for being given such a vision—but the vision wasn’t just a vision, and it wasn’t taking place in some never-never land either. The truth and the goodness came out to meet you in reality right here on earth. It didn’t matter that you were the lowest of the low. The truth and goodness encircled you, they made you feel you counted, you mattered, because beyond the truth and the goodness was love, and love is the great reality, the greatest reality any of us can ever know.
I suddenly realise that Lewis has stopped reading, and in the silence that follows, the hairs stand bolt upright on the nape of my neck.
The Bloke’s arrived. He’s sauntered through the closed doors, and now he’s moving among the crowd.
Nicholas says some prayers but I can’t hear a word because I’m so busy willing The Bloke to move in my direction. Then comes another hymn. The Bloke’s moved up to the altar to join the healers, I think, but I’m not sure. I just know he’s in the church.
Robin reads the second extract from the New Testament. St. Paul’s talking about how The Bloke appeared after his de
ath to five hundred people at once. Mass hysteria? Mass hypnosis? No, just a psychic aspect of reality, the aspect that’s normally difficult to access. I bet I’m not the only person right now in this church who knows The Bloke’s here—and no, don’t tell me this is all wishful thinking! I can’t see him, I can’t hear him, I can’t touch him, I can’t smell him, but reality is far, far wider and deeper and more mysterious than the stuff that’s available to our senses, and I know he’s with us now. That doesn’t mean I’m not gobsmacked, though. When Lewis said The Bloke was always at the healing services, I thought he was indulging in clergy-speak. I never dreamed The Bloke would actually—
The healers are getting ready.
But I’m not nervous now because I’m so focused on this extraordinary presence. I wait, breathing deeply, until it’s time for me to make my move.
We’ve decided that I should be the last one to go up because then there’ll be no risk of me bumping into anyone. There are three healers at work—Nicholas, Lewis and Carta—and so when I go up to replace whoever’s coming down at that moment, there’ll be two other people up there with me receiving healing, but even if these other two are men it won’t matter because we’ll be standing several feet apart.
The moment comes. Susanne, as arranged, remains seated but Alice stands up with me and takes me to Carta. It’s not standard practice to have an escort, but Alice is making a gesture of solidarity, and as we all draw together I’m again aware of us as the three outsiders, all originally alienated and lost, yet all led in the end to St. Benet’s and the alternative lifestyle on offer here. Alice began her journey before Carta, just as Carta began her journey before I began mine, but now all our paths are meeting as the dance moves into its final bars.
Alice takes a step back as I reach Carta.
I remove my glasses. I don’t need to hide behind them any more, and at last Carta and I are face to face. She’s standing on the chancel step, so although she’s still shorter than I am she’s more on a level with me.
She opens her mouth. Being Carta she’s rehearsed her next words as carefully as she’s researched them, and knowing approximately what they’ll be I’ve framed my response. She’s going to ask: “Any special prayer you’d like me to say?” and I’m going to answer: “Pray for you and me and our journey, and for all those who love and pray for us.”
But she doesn’t say what she’s planned to say, and I don’t say what I’ve planned to say either. In the end we say nothing at all.
That’s because in a flash we’re beyond words. The greatest, the most profound truths are beyond words anyway. We look at each other and we love each other and that’s enough. We don’t need to do any more.
I see the tears fill her eyes as she finally understands. This is where all your books get closed, Carta. This is where you unplug the computer. “Love one another,” said The Bloke all those years ago in one of the greatest of all commandments, and that’s what we’re doing, we’re totally lined up with him, and as the line-up locks into place we’re dead centre in the path of this colossal power.
I yell in my head: “HEAL HER!”—yeah, I don’t think of me, only of her—but the words are just an unnecessary reflex and it wouldn’t have mattered if the plea had never zipped through my brain. He understands, he knows, he’s here—and suddenly Carta’s calm. She’s one hundred per cent sure she’s doing the right thing in the right place at the right time— and because of this she knows, just as I do, that nothing at all, neither storms, nor earthquakes, nor typhoons, nor tornados, nor rivers, nor mountains, nor shark-infested seas—nor phobias, nor complexes, nor hang-ups, nor freak-outs, nor fear in all its many destructive forms— nothing, NOTHING can block us both now from our journey’s end and coming home.
She reaches up with confidence. She puts her hands gently on my head, and as I gasp for my next breath the colossal power scores a direct hit on my brain.
The Bloke’s standing right behind her. He’s streamed right through her and he’s taken over her hands.
I’m zapped. I stagger—lose my footing—and before either Val or Alice can reach me from behind, the man who’s just received healing on my right darts sideways to steady me.
“No!” cries Carta, grabbing me away from him as Val blocks him off, and at once the man falls back—but not before I’ve cringed as if I’m still unhealed.
With a vile jolt I realise there’s no “as if.” I’m not healed. Despite everything going dead right, I’m still dead phobic. The Bloke will have to have another go later. I feel terrible for letting everyone down. What a failure I am! How fucking bloody useless! It’s a mega-relapse. I’m shredded.
I want to run all the way home, but I owe it to my friends to act my socks off and pretend everything’s fine. And whatever happens Carta must never know. I can say the fatal cringeing was just a mindless reflex and meant nothing. So long as I pretend to be well now, I can always say in a couple of weeks’ time that I’ve had a relapse for reasons which have nothing to do with her performance today.
I make a huge effort to calm myself by breathing evenly. The service is almost over, thank God. Just one more hymn to go.
Afterwards I wait for the crowds to disperse. Mustn’t run the risk of being touched. I try to tune in to The Bloke but nothing happens so I figure he must have gone.
Alice says anxiously: “Are you all right?” and that’s when I realise I can’t lie. I can’t let my friends know what’s happened, not yet, but I can’t say one word that isn’t true. So I answer her by saying: “I’m pretty overwhelmed,” but I smile at her to signal she’s not to worry.
Someone else appears. Carta. My heart sinks but then I see what I have to do. I have to forget me and focus on her, just as I did before. That way I can be totally happy and totally truthful.
I leap to my feet and hug her. “You were great!” I exclaim. “Great!” Well, that’s no lie, is it? She was so brave to agree to take part in the service. She was so magnificent to love me enough to be there. The word “great” hardly does her justice.
She hugs me too but she’s waiting for me to say how I am and when I say nothing she looks up at me anxiously. “How do you feel?”
“Shattered.”
“That man—”
“What man? Oh, him! Sorry, my brain’s in pieces, I haven’t reassembled it yet—”
“It’s okay, don’t worry!” she says at once. “I’ve read all about this. Sometimes the healing doesn’t kick in immediately. Sometimes—”
“Good to know all that research wasn’t entirely wasted! Hey, shouldn’t you be on the door with Nicholas and Lewis to say goodbye to all your new fans?”
We promise to talk later and away she skims with Alice, both convinced that the healing couldn’t possibly have failed. Well, at least Carta got healed today even if I didn’t.
I sink down in my seat again. Susanne and I are all alone now at the front of the church. She doesn’t ask how I am. She knows. Well, I could never fool Susanne, could I? She always sees straight through me with those sharp black eyes of hers. But they’re not sharp now. They’re full of her special brand of no-bullshit love. Holding my hand again she waits as I dredge up the strength to leave.
And then something truly phenomenal happens, even more extraordinary than The Bloke taking over Carta’s hands and scoring a direct hit on my brain.
I’m just slumped there, awash with misery and utter humiliation, when the colossal power streams back like a bomb smashing through the roof, and the next moment psychic reality’s exploding all over everywhere.
“Well done, Gavin!” my father exclaims, and his voice is so loud and so clear that I almost jump out of my skin. “Well done! You’ve shown tremendous courage today—I’m so proud of you!”
At once I think: he’s forgiven me. He still loves me. We’re sailing once more past the Needles, we’re together again at last.
I leap to my feet. I know it’s my father who’s there, and when I swing around and see only Lewis, I’m nei
ther surprised nor disappointed. Lewis uttered the words but my father was speaking through him. The Bloke picked someone with an identical voice because he wanted to make quite sure I got the message, and the message is that Dad and I are finally reconciled.
Another bomb hits the scene as I realise what this means. The dance has ended—the dance has come right. The relationships are healed. Love’s won out. The colossal power’s not just zapped me and moved on—it’s wheeled around and zoomed in to complete the job, it’s encircled me, it’s infused me, it’s liberated me, and I know now beyond any shadow of doubt that this is the moment when my new life finally begins.
“I’m home,” I say stunned to Lewis. “This is it. I’ve come home to my true self.” Then the wonder of it hits me between the eyes. “JESUS CHRIST!” I shout, and at once the glass walls of my phobia shatter into a million pieces. “I’M HOME, I’M HOME, I’M HOME!”
And simultaneously I’m hurtling forward into Lewis’s outstretched arms.
Author’s Note
The Heartbreaker is the third in a trilogy of novels about healing in modern London. Each book is designed to be read independently of the others, but the more books are read, the wider will be the perspective on the multi-sided reality which is being presented. The first book, The Wonder Worker (first published in the UK as A Question of Integrity), is set in 1988 when Alice Fletcher meets Nicholas Darrow at a time when his marriage is under strain. The second book, The High Flyer, is set in 1990 when Carter Graham (before she became Carta) seeks help from Nicholas and his colleagues as the result of her marriage to Kim Betz and her encounters with Mrs. Mayfield.
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