The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  It always makes me very nervous when people talk like that. Reminds me of the patients at Barwick, the ones with all manner of inflated delusions. What a long time ago it seems since I was at Barwick! But working as a chaplain in a big mental hospital certainly teaches one a thing or two about unstable behaviour.

  “A call from God? Tell me about it,” I say, fearing the worst, but to my relief her response is at least rooted in reality. Apparently she remembered me telling her—at that lunch-party in early July when Venetia went on the rampage—that life at the Rectory was chaotic because we never had time to cook decent meals, pick up cassocks from the cleaner’s, buy food and so on. She also remembered me saying we longed for a cook-housekeeper but couldn’t afford one. “My gift will set you free to devote yourselves to the Healing Centre without any petty distractions!” she says shining-eyed. Bless her, she’s so happy. And bless her, she’s right. It would. But should she be making such an offer when she’s in love and not responsible for her actions? We don’t want the Yank turning up on our doorstep with a six-shooter in his hand and accusing us of conning a vulnerable woman out of a fortune …

  COMMENT: Let’s face it: the above entry shows me at what Val would call my sexist worst. On the excuse that I’m crusading for truth I’ve implied all women are as good as lunatics and made insulting remarks about the Lambeth Conference bishops into the bargain. I’ve also been vaguely anti-American, writing about that courteous and civilised citizen of the United States as if he’s a gangster. So what’s going on?

  Obviously I’m ruffled about something. But what?

  Okay, let’s try and figure this out. Whenever I get a bout of being anti-women it’s a sign that a little crack has appeared on the smooth surface of my (nowadays) successful celibate life. So what’s caused this current crack and how long has it been going on? The strange thing is that although it’s only today that I’ve become sufficiently aware of it to record the malaise here in my journal, I’ve got a feeling it’s been around for at least a couple of weeks. Maybe longer. But I’ve been repressing it.

  Nasty. All the worst things get repressed. Damn it, what can be going on? Do I deep down want to seduce Cynthia and kill Wood-bridge? No. Cynthia’s not my type, not bitchy enough. Well, not bitchy at all. But she is, after all, looking ravishing at the moment, and she is, after all, female … Ye gods, I’m right, this is a sex problem, ****** hell! (Mustn’t compound the problem by sinking into blasphemy, even though nearly everyone’s forgotten nowadays that “bloody” means “by Our Lady”—but I remember, so … Stop, I’m rambling—which is possibly a sign of premature senility—but on second thoughts the senility wouldn’t be premature. Hell! I hate old age. Incidentally, should I revise my current practice and classify “hell” as a blasphemy? No. Not in 1988. I shall go on allowing myself to write “hell” here when under stress.)

  Now, where have I got to? I’ve worked out that I have a sex problem of some description, which is bad news as, for starters, my spiritual director’s no good on sex questions. Maybe I should sack him. Maybe I should book myself into the London Clinic and order a castration. Maybe I should simply drop dead. But I’m never going to remarry, never, never, never. I’ve always said I’d never remarry while Diana’s still alive—and what a great excuse that’s given me to avoid a new commitment, but I really do believe, as an Anglo-Catholic, that a divorced priest shouldn’t remarry.

  Or do I?

  Oh, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell …

  Tuesday, 16th August, 1988: Cynthia phoned to say she’d told Wood-bridge about her call to give us the house. He replied that she was the most wonderful woman in the world and she could give all Belgravia to the Healing Centre as far as he was concerned—he’d love her whatever she did. So he’s off his rocker too. Folie à deux. Amazing.

  Cynthia gives me permission to tell Nicholas, and Nicholas, of course, thinks I’m the one who’s off his rocker while Cynthia and Woodbridge are sanity personified. “What’s the problem?” he says. “We need a cook-housekeeper. Cynthia knows we need a cook-housekeeper. She wants to give us some money so that we can get a cook-housekeeper. It all seems very straightforward to me, so why the gloom?”

  It’s strange how Nicholas, who’s a clever, able and extremely gifted man in some ways, can sometimes be as blind as a bat and as dumb as a donkey. “Wake up!” I snap. “I’ve been that woman’s spiritual director for three years and you’ve been her friend for far longer. If things don’t work out for her in future she could turn around, accuse us of undue influence and say we’ve swindled her out of half a million pounds!”

  Nicholas just scoffs: “Don’t be so ridiculous! If you weren’t so hung up on women you’d never imagine that Cynthia would do such a thing!”—at which point I tramp out, banging the door. Ten minutes later I trudge back to say sorry. “That’s okay,” says Nicholas, barely looking up from the letter he’s writing. “I suppose your hip’s bad again today.”

  “Sod the hip!” I yell, and tramp out again. This time he follows me. We sit in my room. I again apologise. He says: “What’s really bugging you here?” And I answer: “Don’t know. Mystery.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. Eventually he asks: “It’s not Cynthia, is it?” and we discuss this possibility, but he winds up agreeing with me that I’m not scratchy because I’m subconsciously jealous of Woodbridge. “You’d never have made a success of counselling her,” says Nicholas, “unless you’d faced up to any questionable feelings right at the outset.” That’s true. I still feel that because of my hang-ups I’m not the best priest to counsel women, but sometimes people are put across one’s path and it turns out that one can, after all, be of use. I could always empathise with Cynthia strongly because she had an alcoholic spouse, and the empathy enabled me to give her the help she needed.

  Once Nicholas concedes that I’ve no desire to bed Cynthia and kill her fiancé he says: “Of course I realise we have to be on our guard when rich women give us money, but I honestly don’t think we’re running a risk in accepting this particular donation.”

  I say: “All right, maybe the worldly risk is zero, but there’s still the spiritual risk. We’ve got to be sure that this gift is acceptable in the eyes of God and compatible with Cynthia’s spiritual journey.”

  Nicholas says: “Sure. Uh-huh. We must pray about that.” Nicholas sounds much too glib sometimes. I know he’s already made up his mind that the gift is God’s will and should be accepted PDQ.

  Well, maybe he’s right. But what I want to know is: if my relationship with Cynthia is everything it should be (and it is), why should (a) her marriage and (b) her donation be stirring up the mud at the bottom of my unconscious mind and making me write about a crack appearing in my (nowadays) successful celibate life?

  COMMENT: The simplest explanation, which is apparent in the above entry, is that Cynthia and Woodbridge are triggering memories of my sex-life with Diana. But then how do I explain my hunch that this new outbreak of anti-women fever seems to have been contracted well before Cynthia announced her engagement? The engagement may well have brought the malaise to consciousness by making me think about sex, but I’d bet heavy money the malaise didn’t originate there.

  Another explanation: could this be the veiled expression of a psychic twinge, an ESP-type feeling that danger’s lurking ahead? (I might be projecting the unknown danger onto women by demonising them.) No, the only thing twingeing is my damn hip, and anyway in the ministry of healing, danger’s always lurking ahead, that’s normal. One false step and then the Devil whooshes everything down the drain in double-quick time—and that’s exactly why one has to know oneself through and through and why one has to keep facing the unvarnished truth in order to understand what’s going on; the more you know, the less likely you are to make a mistake and get whooshed.

  I still enjoy the danger of this ministry, of course, still thrive on it. I’ll never forget how I nearly died of boredom when I was married and working in an ordinary parish … Hell, t
here I go again, thinking about Diana, thinking about marriage, thinking about sex! How ironic it is now to reflect that when I was young I believed a man past sixty would have no interest in copulation whatsoever …

  Wednesday, 17th August, 1988: Nicholas says after the morning mass as we return to the Rectory: “I’ve had a brilliant idea.” This could be true, so I look interested. Nicholas does indeed have some brilliant ideas—alongside all the ideas that are as nutty as a fruitcake. It’s always my job to help him discern which is which.

  He says brightly: “I spoke to Cynthia last night. She said she was going public with the news of her engagement today, starting with Alice and the cleaner, and as soon as she mentioned Alice I saw a really spectacular opportunity for us. I’ve thought about it again this morning and I’ve prayed about it, and I’m now one hundred per cent convinced—”

  He wants to hire Alice Fletcher as the cook-housekeeper. It’s one of his nutty-as-a-fruitcake ideas. Any female employed in this capacity has to be not merely an old crone but also a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian.

  I say calmly, reasonably, soothingly: “No, Nicholas. Not Alice. No.”

  “But after Cynthia’s lunch-party you came back raving about Alice’s cooking!” He’s honestly baffled by my reaction. I’m getting worried about these moments when Nicholas is blind as a bat (with arrogance, in the mistaken belief there’s no situation he can’t handle) and dumb as a donkey (with the brains-on-ice complacency which results from overconfidence). Is it my imagination or are these moments increasing?

  “Nicholas!” I bark. “Wake up! That girl’s heterosexual, a virgin and all set to become infatuated with you—if indeed she isn’t infatuated with you already! You can’t possibly share a house with her!”

  Nicholas halts at the foot of the steps leading up to the Rectory’s front door and looks at me as if I ought to return to Barwick—as a patient. “Your trouble,” he says, “is that where women are concerned you can’t tell a diamond from cut-glass! This is Alice we’re talking about—Alice! Isn’t it patently obvious by now that she’s quite different from all the groupies we have to deal with?”

  “I’m fully prepared to admit she’s a nice, well-behaved child with a talent for cooking, but—”

  “She’s thirty-two!”

  “All right, she’s not a child, she’s a woman, but how mature is she? Isn’t she in fact exactly the kind of emotionally needy girl, starved of affection and in consequence living on romantic dreams, who would fall in the biggest possible way for a charismatic, cassock-clad—”

  “Look, forget all that for a moment and just try to look beyond your preconceived notions to the unusual pattern she’s woven during the last few months. Alice has been put across our path. She keeps recurring in our lives, even though she’s always been most reluctant to ask for help, and our meetings with her have established that (a) she’s a woman of the greatest integrity, (b) she’s sensible and level-headed in a crisis and (c) she’s a first-class cook. Adding all these facts together, isn’t it obvious that she’s (a) the ideal woman to have a live-in job at the Rectory, (b) the only woman we know whom we’d trust to have a live-in job at the Rectory, and therefore (c) the perfect candidate for the position of cook-housekeeper?”

  “Could you kindly stop a-ing and b-ing and c-ing me and get a move on into the house? I want my breakfast before I faint from lack of nourishment!”

  “But seriously, Lewis—”

  “You’re deliberately foisting this nutty idea on me when I’m too peckish to think clearly!”

  “—seriously, I’m sure this is right—and I’m not just thinking of ourselves now; I’m thinking of Alice. She’s got enormous potential but her development’s been stunted by the rejecting parents, the aunt who couldn’t handle emotion and the weight problem which has made her socially isolated. What Alice needs now in order to realise her potential is a place in a community where she can feel valued and respected. Then she’d soon make progress, build a fulfilling new life for herself, conquer her eating disorder—”

  “I’m all for Alice doing those things,” I say, hauling myself up the six steps to the front door and wishing human beings had evolved with rubber hips impervious to arthritis, “but I don’t think she should do them while living under your roof at the Rectory.”

  But Nicholas is as unstoppable as a tank. He gets this way occasionally when he kids himself his psychic gifts have served up some kind of special knowledge amounting to divine revelation. Although I taught him long ago to be humble when trying to discern God’s will he’s still capable of going over the top into sham-guru-land if he falls in love with a peculiarly dubious idea. That’s yet another reason why I’m so valuable to him. I don’t merely tell him when the ideas are unworkable; I also take him down a peg or two when he gets inflated. My function is always to present the unvarnished truth. But I’m having a hard time scraping off the varnish this morning.

  “I know I’m right!” he says grandly. “You’re being sex-obsessed as usual!” And sweeping past me into the house he surges towards the kitchen without a backwards glance.

  I reach the top step, puff a bit to get a grip on the pain and then limp along after him to resume the battle.

  When I reach the kitchen I find that Stacy, who’s hurried on ahead of us to cook the breakfast, is making a diabolical mess scrambling eggs and frying bacon. Smoke’s rising from the toaster and the coffee percolator’s behaving as if it wants to lay an egg. If ever three men needed an efficient housekeeper, it’s us.

  “If you could forget about sex for a moment,” says Nicholas, going on the offensive again as he switches off the toaster, cuffs the percolator and takes control of the eggs and bacon, “you’d see straight away that Alice is ideal.”

  I reply in my clearest voice: “It’s no good. Within twenty-four hours she’d be worshipping you as a hero.”

  “ ‘No man’s a hero to his valet!’ ” quotes Nicholas amused, and he even has the nerve to add: “I can think of no better way to prevent Alice hero-worshipping me than to invite her to live at the Rectory and see just how ordinary I really am.”

  “You? Ordinary?” remarks Stacy, pausing in his efforts to dig charred cinders from the toaster. “Don’t make me laugh! But what’s all this about Alice coming to live here? Sounds like a brilliant idea—she makes the best chocolate-chip cookies in the world!”

  Hopeless.

  I’m so cross by this time that I pile my plate high, grab a mug of coffee and march off to eat in my room. Sitting under the crucifix I gloomily picture the Devil, coasting around, sensing the possibility of an interesting divertissement and moving in for a closer look …

  COMMENT: I overreacted. Certainly I deserved Nicholas’s affectionate reproof: “You silly, cantankerous old bugger!” when he came to make peace ten minutes later, but although I do give up and consent to his scheme to employ Alice, I still feel I’m right about the danger she represents. (Or am I? Is it possible that in my own way I’m being just as arrogant as Nicholas? Worse still, could I be projecting my arrogance onto Nicholas because I can’t bear to acknowledge it in myself? Triple-hell!)

  But no, once I calm down and start thinking rationally I still believe, in all honesty, that employing Alice is a risk which shouldn’t be taken. Can I perhaps rely on Rosalind to side with me and tell Nicholas that a heterosexual virgin isn’t the best type of housekeeper to choose for a man who regularly induces pie-eyed adoration in vulnerable females? No. All Rosalind’s going to care about is that Alice, who’s at least three stone overweight and in consequence looks like the back end of a bus, is going to be of no sexual interest to Nicholas whatsoever. Or at least I assume that’s the only angle which would interest Rosalind, but who knows what goes on in that particular lady’s head? I hate that sort of bland blonde who behaves all the time as if she’s auditioning for the role of ice-queen at the panto. It wouldn’t surprise me if beneath all that permafrost she—

  No, stop right there. I’m at it again, being an
ti-women and thinking of sex. What is going on in the cesspit of my unconscious mind? Well, I certainly don’t want to go to bed with Rosalind.

  It’s time to thrash out this problem with my spiritual director.

  Friday, 19th August, 1988: I’m going to have to sack my spiritual director. Simon’s very good on prayer and he certainly helped me through that dry spell last autumn; he likes all the devotional classics I like; he understands how hard I work to master my hang-ups and he’s even tolerant when I get turgid and ramble on about Great-Uncle Cuthbert. But he’s no good on sex. Damn it, he thinks I subconsciously want to go to bed with Alice and that this is why I’m lathering myself into such a sweat about employing her! I say coolly (can’t afford to be furious or he’ll think he’s hit the mark): “Thanks, but middle-class virgins have never been up my street.” He then sinks to levels of unprecedented idiocy by commenting: “Maybe they should have been.”

  Hopeless! I want to hit him. Great-Uncle Cuthbert probably would have done—he always liked biffing people, but of course he lived in a more robust age when biffed people didn’t automatically scream: “Sadist!” and run to the nearest social worker. What would Great-Uncle Cuthbert have thought of this latest spiritual direction fiasco of mine? In a way it’s all his fault; I’m forever sacking spiritual directors because they never understand me as well as he did. Funny, cantankerous old bastard! I wonder what he really thought about sex beneath all his standard preaching on the subject …

  Damn it, there I go, harping on sex again! Why can’t I get my act together?

  Having slouched home in deep gloom I confide in Nicholas. He give me one of those limpid, thoughtful looks of his and says: “Maybe the time’s finally come when you should consider seeing a woman spiritual director.”