The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  In fact the older I get the more clearly I see that Christ must come first, first and first again with all those who practise his ministry of healing. It’s not just that he reveals God’s presence in a suffering world which cries out for redemption. It’s because by following his example we kill the self-centred emotions such as pride and arrogance which can pervert the healing process, and by struggling always for humility—not the fake-humility made famous by Uriah Heep but the genuine humility which consists of facing the unvarnished truth and owning it—we remain honest, useful healers instead of dangerous, razzle-dazzle wonder workers consumed with the lust for power and self-aggrandisement.

  My sessions end at eleven. I’m very tired but my mood is good and when I potter over to the church for the next segment of my day it doesn’t take me long to revive. Unfortunately the drunk’s back again at the lunch-time Eucharist, and Stacy, who’s the celebrant, gets put off and becomes more like Laurence Olivier playing Henry V than ever. Nicholas, I note with relief, has a quiet word with him afterwards. I must tell Nicholas how worried I am about Stacy, but after the Eucharist I let my chance slip by because I’m too keen to find out what happened when he saw Venetia.

  “Everything went well,” says Nicholas pleased. “By the time we parted she was willing to agree that the Healing Centre was user-friendly and down-to-earth, not some airy-fairy outpost of the nutty fringe.”

  “So she’s coming back?”

  “She’s agreed to have a trial session with Robin.”

  “Well done!” I say heartily, keen to give praise where praise is due, and I should end the conversation there but I don’t. I find I just can’t leave the subject alone. “Don’t you think she’ll need more,” I hear myself say, “than Robin’s brand of person-centred therapy?”

  “Maybe, but I think regular doses of empathy for, say, three months would be more palatable to her at this stage than a dive into psychoanalysis. We want to ease her in gently, not frighten her off.”

  We discuss this further. I concede that person-centred therapy is an immensely useful counselling process, but I still feel Venetia’s problems are so deep-seated that she needs a therapy which centres more on peering into the unconscious mind to detect the damage caused by the past. However, Nicholas disagrees and I have to remind myself he’s more likely than I am to be right; he knows Venetia better than I do.

  “The past has certainly damaged her,” he says, “but in ways that are so obvious that I don’t think any great peering into the unconscious is necessary. As I see it, the prime task is to restore her self-esteem because only then will she have the courage to believe she can triumph over the past disasters. Of course I could be wrong, but let’s see what Robin has to say.”

  I’m so addled by the thought of Venetia that I’m stupid enough to ask: “Did my name come up at all?”

  “No,” says Nicholas, giving me one of his limpid looks. “Should it have done?”

  Damn! He’s realised I’ve put two and two together where Venetia’s concerned and want to pant in some addled fashion over the result. It was bad enough him guessing long before I did that the trigger for my unbalanced behaviour was Cynthia’s lunch-party, and that neither Cynthia nor Mrs. Robert Welbeck nor Lady Todd-Marshall was the woman who did the triggering. Should I now discuss the matter frankly with him?

  No, I can’t. I haven’t got my act together yet. I’ll just play it cool for a while …

  COMMENT: A cowardly conclusion. The truth is that I’m so aghast at this lunatic lurch of mine towards sexual idiocy that I don’t want to talk about it. That’s pride; I hate to admit I could be quite such a fool. The subject must certainly be discussed with my spiritual director when I make my confession, but I’m under no obligation to discuss it with Nicholas and Nicholas has had to put up with enough rubbish from me recently. The least I can do is spare him any further senile babblings.

  I just wish I had a spiritual director who knew something about sex. This is the sort of problem that exposes all Simon’s weaknesses and makes him seem like a virgin of twelve. He’s bound to say I should review my call to celibacy, but that would be a complete waste of time since I’m still totally unfit for marriage.

  Or am I?

  Dear God, supposing … No, no, no, no, no. I’m not getting married again. It would be a disaster.

  But isn’t it rather a coincidence that this eccentric and fascinating woman has glided into my life at almost the exact moment that I became a widower, free to remarry? Yes. It’s a coincidence. And like most coincidences it means absolutely nothing. Nothing.

  Hell, I wish I could drill it into my head that I’m sixty-seven and far too old for all this sort of thing …

  Tuesday, 6th September, 1988: I receive a welcome diversion from my chaotic thoughts about chastity, celibacy and downright sexual lunacy.

  Alice Fletcher, nice child, good girl, comes to the St. Benet’s Rectory at 6:00 p.m. on the dot to be inspected by Rosalind, a terrifying ordeal if ever there was one, and Alice is quite right to be as nervous as she looks. She’s wearing a kind of black tent which hides all the rolls of surplus flesh but makes her look enormous.

  In contrast Rosalind is trim in peacock-blue, shoulders of her jacket thickly padded, skirt at knee-length, white blouse flounced over supremely elegant bosom. The blonde hair is a shade blonder than it used to be and is cut in layers which could only have been achieved at enormous expense. Not for the first time I think that those ice-blue eyes of hers could bore a hole through a wooden plank. In short she looks like a business tycoon—which she is, in her very correct, very mannered, very English-rose way. Before she came out on the right side of that take-over bid she was running a flower-business, and you can be sure all the little petals did exactly what they were told. Rosalind is one of the success stories of the 1980s, along with the estate agents and the interior decorators; she votes for Mrs. Thatcher and welfare cuts and that vaguely fascist concept which is pronounced “lawnorder.” How Nicholas stands being married to someone like that I’ll never know.

  I don’t see Alice received by Rosalind upstairs in the Rector’s flat, but the child returns to the ground floor so white around the gills that Nicholas and I both rush to offer her a glass of sherry. She can hardly speak but manages to accept. Meanwhile Rosalind shows no sign of emerging from the flat so Nicholas takes over the rest of the interview. (This visit of Alice’s to see her future home and formally accept the job—of course the acceptance is a foregone conclusion—was originally set to take place a fortnight ago, but was delayed because of Diana’s death, my resulting incapacity and the fact that Nicholas had his hands full.)

  Sherry in hand he takes the child off to show her the basement hell-hole which will be the housekeeper’s flat. I don’t go because my hip’s blank-blank awful and I know I couldn’t cope with the stairs. I’m sitting at the table, however, when Nicholas displays our antiquated kitchen. Alice, excellent manners well to the fore, tries hard not to look appalled.

  Of course she’s in love with Nicholas. Has to be. If she wasn’t so mesmerised by him she’d turn the job down on the spot and rush back to Belgravia where one of Cynthia’s chums could offer her a flat massaged by an interior decorator and a kitchen resembling the interior of a space-ship.

  However, since Nicholas is clearly the most important person in her life at the moment she says: “It’s all great—what an exciting challenge!” and behaves as if she’s in Wonderland.

  After she leaves, all my doubts about the wisdom of employing her resurface and I have to struggle hard to keep my mouth shut. To help win this struggle I switch from sherry to whisky.

  While I’m swilling away morosely Rosalind comes tip-tapping downstairs from the Rector’s flat to pronounce her verdict. Adjusting a blonde curl with an exquisitely manicured fingernail she says in her high, measured, English-bitch voice: “How terrible it must be to be quite so unattractive! If I looked like that I’d shoot myself.”

  I immediately decide that em
ploying Alice is the most brilliant idea Nicholas has ever had and that I’m going to cure Alice of her eating disorder even if it’s the last thing I ever do.

  Nicholas says vaguely: “Darling, not all women can look as attractive as you.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” exclaims Rosalind. “Nicky, you’re always making excuses for these lame ducks you collect! One wonders sometimes who on earth you’re going to make excuses for next.” She somehow manages to avoid looking at me, but of course I know I’m lame duck number one. “All right, if the girl can cook decently I’m sure she’s worth hiring, but you’ll have to find another cleaner. Mrs. Mudd would destroy someone like that in five minutes flat. Get something ethnic and very meek from Tower Hamlets—or would you like me to do it for you?”

  “Well, if you can spare the time—”

  “Well, as I’ve got time on my hands at the moment and time is something you so seldom have—” But she’s killing the barbed remark with a smile and he’s smiling too, moving in for a kiss.

  “Thanks, darling,” he says gratefully before they lock themselves into a clinch.

  I pour some more whisky down my throat to settle my heaving stomach and beat a hasty retreat to my bed-sitting-room.

  COMMENT: No matter how successful I become in eliminating my unacceptable feelings about women, I know I shall always dislike Rosalind. As a priest I must still pray for her … but not just yet. I’d rather pray for Alice Fletcher.

  Poor little Alice! I know she’s very large but I think of her as little because I’m sure that on the psychic level, as opposed to the physical level, she’s a small girl longing to grow up, marry a nice, normal husband and have at least three nice, normal children.

  And why shouldn’t she long for such nice, normal things, I’d like to know? I’m sick of these damned feminists with their padded shoulders and their obsession with careers …

  Watch it. Remember that God’s creation is amazingly diverse and that every strand of it is cherished. Christianity—real Christianity, not the fake stuff which so often passes for Christianity these days—isn’t about preserving walls to keep out people you don’t like. It’s about bashing the walls down to welcome all people in.

  Alice can sense that. She knows she won’t feel excluded here, even if she chooses not to go to church. Obviously she thinks she’s going to live in Wonderland among Miracle Workers, but she’ll get over that. I just hope the inevitable disillusionment won’t be too painful …

  Friday, 9th September, 1988: Venetia returns to the Healing Centre and this time meets Robin to hear about Carl Rogers and his famous Person-Centred Therapy. I keep well out of the way.

  Val and I have another tiff about homosexuals. “It’s disgusting to call homosexuality an affliction!” she blazes.

  “Whether the statement is disgusting or not is immaterial,” I retort. “Is it true? That’s the question.”

  “You’re worse than the Pope!” she screeches and storms out of the room.

  I feel most stimulated by this bold comparison. I hold no brief whatsoever for the Papacy (which is why it would be damn difficult for me to go over to Rome if the Church of England finally goes off its rocker and permits priestesses) but I admire the way John Paul II sticks to his traditionalist guns amidst the rising tide of secular fundamentalism (which is every bit as dangerous as religious fundamentalism). Imagine Val abusing me just because I want to pursue the truth! She’s behaving like one of those secular trendies who believe everything’s true—you just trot into the philosophical supermarket and select whatever “truths” you fancy. The vastness of human arrogance takes my breath away sometimes—and to wrestle with the truth you have to be humble. Anyway, what’s Val, who’s an active Christian, doing toting around this rubbishy relativism? Stupid, emotional, overwrought woman …

  But at least she’s diverted me from all thought of Venetia.

  COMMENT: I must apologise to Val and explain that when I said homosexuality was an affliction I didn’t mean it was something like leprosy or syphilis. I meant it was more like dyslexia or tennis elbow—nothing noxious but just a condition which means certain rewarding experiences have to be ruled out. After all, marriage and parenthood do represent rewarding dimensions of being human. Not to be able to experience them must be—no, all right, perhaps “affliction” is the wrong word. Perhaps “deprivation” would convey the truth better—or would that needle Val to new heights of wrath? I’m sure she’d never concede she was in any way deprived. People embrace relativism when the truth is too tough and painful for them to face, I see that clearly now. So the answer is not to bang away to them about truth but to try to meet them where they are, and—

  Dear God, how difficult it all is! But please grant this irascible old servant of yours tolerance, patience, insight and wisdom when dealing with homosexuals.

  And don’t let me get in a heterosexual mess with Venetia the moment I start gasping for light relief after these turgid conversations with Val. Amen.

  Friday, 16th September, 1988: It’s Venetia Day. She comes to the Centre for her first real session (as opposed to last week’s trial session) with Robin.

  By a most carefully engineered manoeuvre I’m lurking by the coffee machine in the reception area when she emerges from consulting room three. I offer her a cup of coffee. She says sourly that this is “sweet” of me but she has to rush off to lunch at Claridge’s.

  So much for that. Serves me right. I don’t know what I thought I was doing anyway, lurking around like a raincoated flasher on the prowl.

  I go back to the Rectory for lunch and find Stacy chasing a mouse around the kitchen with a frying-pan. Bad news. The mouse escapes but Stacy breaks the frying-pan. More bad news. He then says can I persuade Nicholas to take him along on the next exorcism. I say: “You’re not ready yet, Stacy,” and he starts to whine why not. Impudent young whippersnapper! I growl: “Take it up with Nicholas,” and retreat to my bedsit with a cheese sandwich and a bottle of Perrier water.

  Rosalind may think her husband’s soft on lame ducks, but Nicholas is very tough indeed when it comes to questions of spiritual fitness. He won’t let Stacy participate in an exorcism unless he has much more evidence that Stacy’s taking his daily spiritual exercises seriously. But Stacy’s not interested in the essential groundwork. He just wants to be out and about playing Laurence Olivier at the altar, “relating” to people at the Centre and jousting glitzily with the Devil every now and then, but he’s got to be made to understand that without the underpinning of a devout life he’ll merely become—at best—yet another ineffectual “carer” in a cassock or—at worst—a wonder worker, boosting his ego by playing God.

  I feel more convinced than ever that Stacy’s going to be one of our failures, and I don’t think Nicholas has taken the right line at all on the clouded subject of Stacy’s sexual orientation.

  COMMENT: I should worry about my own sex-life instead of worrying about Stacy’s. After much prayer and endless cogitation (utterly unhelped, of course, by my spiritual director’s alarmed whinnyings) I still feel I’m called to celibacy. I really can’t go marrying again at my age. Rachel would be horrified. Charley would think it indecent. The grandchildren would be embarrassed.

  The Venetia fixation is just a piece of senile soppiness.

  I shall now forget her.

  Friday, 23rd September, 1988: As soon as I open my eyes I think: Venetia Day. But that fact is now of no interest to me whatsoever.

  However, by chance—and I really do mean by chance—I emerge from helping Megan with the music therapy session and I’m just heading for the coffee machine when Venetia staggers out of Robin’s room and exclaims: “Thank God—coffee! Have you got a needle so that I can inject it straight into the vein?” And it turns out she’s had an exhausting fifty minutes. I give her some coffee but before I can invite her into my own room she says: “Thanks,” and zips off, complete with steaming Styrofoam cup, and I’m left feeling like an untipped waiter.

  Never
theless it seems that at last the awkward hostility has faded away and we’ve established some sort of entente cordiale. Naturally the relationship won’t develop further, but I’m glad I’m no longer treated as a form of low-life normally resident under a stone.

  Focusing with determination on other matters I manage to talk to Nicholas about Stacy, but Nicholas refuses to share my pessimism.

  “Obviously Stacy needs to do more work in a number of areas,” he says, “but I still think he’s got great potential. He’s warm-hearted, good-natured, capable of empathising with clients and caring conscientiously for them—”

  “You’re describing a potentially gifted social worker,” I say acidly, “but social workers aren’t priests. If he can’t or won’t do the basic spadework to ensure his spiritual health, how’s he going to survive in the ministry of healing?”

  “But he’s making progress! Now that he’s sorted out his sexuality-”

  “Sorted out?”

  “Okay, you think he’s gay and won’t admit it. If that were true I’d agree he had a problem, but—”

  “But he is gay and he has admitted it!”

  “You’re being far too influenced by that one homosexual relationship. I agree that created great confusion for him, but the seduction of a teenager by an older man doesn’t necessarily mean the boy won’t grow up heterosexual, and since Stacy assures me he hasn’t the slightest desire to be gay—”

  “He seems to be very unsuccessful at finding a steady girlfriend.”

  “All that proves is that like a lot of immature men he’s shy with girls. Is there the remotest hint that he likes to hang around with gays?