The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  “Well, since you ask, I didn’t like the way the Communion wine salesman was eyeing him the other day.”

  “That’s the salesman’s problem but it needn’t be Stacy’s. Was there any sign that Stacy wasn’t just being his normal warm-hearted self?”

  “No. All right, you’ve proved I’m being a sex-obsessed old fool! Let’s forget it.”

  “No, no, we won’t do that,” says Nicholas at once, anxious to show me that he’s still capable of keeping his mind prised open an inch on this particular subject. “Obviously we must continue to monitor the situation in case you’re right, Stacy’s deluding himself and I’m up the creek. But I don’t feel I have sufficient grounds to reopen the subject with him at the present time.”

  This sounds reasonable enough, but the trouble is I suspect this show of reasonableness is just that: a show. There’s no way that Nicholas, in his heart of hearts, feels he’s up the creek on this one. He’s going through the motions of being open-minded, but his mind’s wedged shut while he surfs along blithely on the big wave called ARROGANCE.

  I’ll have to return to the fray later and make sure I bring him down a peg or two, but in the meantime it seems there’s nothing I can do about Stacy except learn to live with my anxiety.

  COMMENT: It would certainly be convenient if Stacy were a heterosexual. It would mean we could all sidestep an area which is notoriously strewn with problems. But if he is indeed a homosexual, this wouldn’t be a disaster. I’ve lost count over the years of the number of excellent homosexual priests I’ve met, particularly in the London diocese, but if Stacy’s gay he must develop a strong spiritual framework which will sustain him throughout all the inevitable difficulties, or else he’ll wind up a disaster for the Church.

  To be fair, this dictum also applies to heterosexuals. I of all people should bear in mind that a poorly integrated heterosexuality can also cause havoc for the Church. But even Val wouldn’t deny that society makes life more difficult for gays, and that’s why they need all the spiritual sustenance they can get.

  The truth—the truth which lies beyond all this business of sexual orientation—is that Stacy’s got to grow up before he can be an effective priest. Whether he’s gay or straight isn’t the primary problem at the moment; the problem is his chronic immaturity. He’s got to find out who he is and accept himself, warts and all, or how is he going to be of use to those who come to him for pastoral care? A healer must achieve a high degree of integration and self-knowledge before trying to work among divided, damaged souls; if he doesn’t, he’ll unwittingly project all the unassimilated aspects of his personality onto those vulnerable people with disastrous results.

  I must pray hard that Stacy be led into the truth, no matter how difficult that truth may be to accept, and be given the grace, to face it, own it and integrate it into his personality; I must pray that somehow Nicholas and I can help him reach this long-delayed but absolutely essential maturity, and go on to serve God as well as he possibly can …

  Saturday, 24th September, 1988: Cynthia gets married, quietly but smartly, at St. Peter’s Eaton Square. What a refreshing change it is to attend the wedding of a middle-aged couple where neither party is divorced! (Woodbridge’s wife died at around the same time as Cynthia’s husband.) Afterwards there’s a reception at Venetia’s favourite haunt, Claridge’s, but although there’s a multitude of silver buckets oozing ice and Veuve Clicquot, Venetia’s not there. She hasn’t been invited. Fortunately. She’s just joined AA and the last thing she needs to see is a phalanx of champagne bottles.

  Little Alice is now on the brink of arriving in Wonderland. Because of the extraordinary state of the property market the sale of the house in Eaton Terrace was agreed with lightning speed and a most inflated price achieved. Alice is moving out on Monday, and Cynthia, generous to the last, is paying for the removal of Alice’s worldly goods to the hell-hole at the Rectory. Nicholas tells me the word “hell-hole” is a misnomer now that the flat’s been repainted, recarpeted, replumbed, rewired and de-moused. I’d like to see this miraculous transformation, but I still can’t face those steep stairs.

  I’ve really got to face up to having my hip done soon … when I’ve found a spiritual director who can discuss sex adequately and thus help me solve my current problem … and of course all that may take some time …

  COMMENT: Great-Uncle Cuthbert would have been livid if he’d read that last sentence; he’d have known straight away that I was prevaricating. All right, all right, it’s time to face the unvarnished truth again! The truth is I don’t want a new spiritual director. Apart from the subject of sex, Simon’s good. He’s not perfect, but he’s good.

  But is he good enough? No. Not if he’s useless about sex.

  I can almost hear Great-Uncle Cuthbert snarling what Nicholas is probably thinking: “If you lack confidence in Simon, you’ll wind up believing you know better than he does—which means you’ll get an inflated opinion of your strengths and severe amnesia on the subject of your weaknesses and the entire relationship will soon be worse than useless. Sack him.”

  Yes, Simon will have to go, no question about it.

  I must have a blitz on finding a new spiritual director.

  The only trouble is I’m very busy at the moment and there are so many distractions …

  Monday, 26th September, 1988: Little Alice arrives, wide-eyed, almost speechless with nerves, but professes herself thrilled with the reformed hell-hole. Alice has nice eyes, I notice for the first time, dark and velvety like the eyes of a golden retriever. I notice because she takes off her glasses for a polish, either because they’ve misted up as the result of her emotion or because she just can’t believe the squalor of the old-fashioned kitchen, looking at its worst after Stacy finally broke the percolator and coffee went all over the wall.

  Nicholas tops off his welcome by confessing that although the pest control van has recently called with satisfactory results, a new generation of our little furry friends (as St. Francis would no doubt have called them) will inevitably make future assaults on the Rectory. This is an ongoing struggle for supremacy we’re engaged in here, not just a bunch of humans playing pat-a-cake with the occasional stray rodent.

  Nicholas is just turning away after telling her which exterminators we use when Alice enquires shyly: “Isn’t there a cat?”

  Nicholas stops. Slowly he revolves, pivoting on the balls of his feet. Then he looks at Alice as he’s never quite looked at her before and says flatly: “Rosalind doesn’t like cats.” He begins to turn away again but before he can complete the pivoting Alice exclaims, trying so hard to be helpful: “Oh, but I’d see that it never went into your flat and I’d keep it out of sight whenever Mrs. Darrow came to visit—and cats are so good at solving mice problems!”

  Nicholas swivels back to face her. The balls of his feet are getting plenty of wear and tear today as he tries unsuccessfully to tear himself away from this conversation. The next moment he’s saying respectfully: “Of course you’re remembering Orlando.”

  A memory drifts into my mind of a very young Rachel reading a large, illustrated story-book. “Named after the famous marmalade cat, I presume,” I say, deciding to flaunt my skimpy knowledge of children’s literature.

  “He was more a gold cat than a marmalade cat,” says Alice, “but he was very beautiful and very bad news for mice. I just loved Orlando.”

  Nicholas sighs, and I know he’s thinking of all the cats he loved before Rosalind decided animals were a bore, leaving hairs all over furniture and planting colonies of fleas on fitted carpets. “We always had tabby-cats,” he says nostalgically, “when I was growing up.”

  “How lovely!” exclaims Alice enrapt. “Several at once or one at a time?”

  “One at a time.”

  The two cat-lovers smile, united by their common passion. Then Nicholas announces with the air of someone making an executive decision: “We’ll have a cat. You must come with me to help choose it.” And with that knock-out exit l
ine he departs for his study.

  As little Alice nearly faints at the thought of cat-shopping with Nicholas, I wonder if this is really the most sensible of decisions.

  COMMENT: Worry about your own sex-life, Lewis Hall, and leave other people to worry about theirs. Or, in less emotive language: trust Nicholas to manage Alice’s hero-worship as skilfully as he manages everyone else’s.

  But “everyone else” doesn’t live at the Rectory.

  Oh, pull yourself together, you stupid old fool, and stop seeing women as nothing but trouble …

  Tuesday, 27th September, 1988: I’ve just had the best breakfast in years, cooked by our new in-house serf, Alice. Even Nicholas, who’s not interested in food, ate twice as much as usual. Stacy kept saying: “I can’t believe I’m eating all this.” For a blissful half hour the sin of gluttony reigned supreme at the Rectory, and the Devil did a tap-dance in our stomachs.

  We’re giving Alice a week to settle in before we implement Nicholas’s new and excellent plan to hold a communal breakfast for the Healing Centre’s leading personnel after the eight o’clock mass, but she’s off to a flying start on day one. Nice, good, clever child. If only she didn’t have a crush on Nicholas! But she conceals it beautifully, and no one except a dirty old psychic like me would ever know.

  Rosalind turns up to interview hopeful cleaners; she’s already dispatched Mrs. Mudd, who will no doubt find some other all-male household to terrorise. Rosalind is togged out in chic earth-brown, shoulders very boxy, and looks as if she’s just about to join a shooting party with a Kalashnikov.

  In that blissful Rosalind-free zone, the Healing Centre, I’m collared by Francie who tells me her husband’s beaten her up again and that this time she’s decided to leave him. I’ve heard that one before. It’s difficult to appear credulous when one knows that if the pattern runs true to form she’ll soon change her mind and resolve to stay with the villain. However, to my relief Francie isn’t seeking my opinion of the situation; she just wants to open her heart to me when she’s so upset. Fair enough. I’m a priest. I can take a heart being opened. But someone really should try to lead Francie out of this sado-masochistic relationship which is causing her so much pain.

  I must talk to Nicholas about her again. Luckily I don’t have to worry about the confidentiality rules here because she confides in both of us and makes sure we each know the other is au fait with the latest news. This is unusual. It’s not unusual for members of staff to have problems, but they tend to share them either with Nicholas or with me and not with both of us. On the other hand, no one has a problem as serious as Francie’s, so maybe she feels she needs both of us to provide sufficient spiritual support.

  Thinking of women needing spiritual support reminds me of Venetia, whom I may just possibly glimpse flitting through the Healing Centre in less than seventy-two hours’ time—although of course if I do see her it’ll be the purest of coincidences.

  COMMENT: Stop drooling over the thought of Venetia at the Healing Centre, you old fool, and just pray for her recovery.

  (Dear God, help me to be a priest here, not a sex-obsessed pensioner! Amen.)

  Friday, 30th September, 1988: Venetia Day.

  Venetia turns up in a black trouser-suit, complete with waistcoat, and looks like a 1980s version of Vita Sackville-West. Maybe she’s a lesbian. A lot of promiscuous women are. All that nymphomania is their way of kicking men in the teeth.

  By the impurest of coincidences I’m just in the reception area telling Bernard that as office manager he should do something about the copier, which is chewing up paper again, when Venetia surfaces from consulting room three. She’s been crying and she’s trying to put on an enormous pair of wraparound dark glasses. Behind her Robin’s hovering and fluttering, sending out caring signals but managing to look like a strung-out stick-insect. I make a short sharp gesture which implies: “I’ll cope. Scram,” and he vanishes. Robin’s always empathy personified. No wonder he’s stick-thin. Nothing like constant deep empathy for burning up the calories.

  Meanwhile Bernard’s declaring stuffily that we can’t get a new copier because after the recent postal strike the new facsimile machine has to have priority; he refers to it as a “fax,” which, with his northern vowels, sounds as if he’s reading straight from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Abandoning him and his technological pidgin-English, I march over to the dark glasses and say without preamble: “Coffee?”

  “Yep.” She’s not mincing her words either.

  “Go and sit in consulting room two.”

  She does. Fortunately I’ve got no more appointments that morning as I’m supposed to be on duty at the church prior to the lunch-time Eucharist. Grabbing two mugs of coffee I prepare to apply first aid.

  Venetia’s slumped in the chair by my desk. Sitting down opposite her I hand over one of the Centre’s regulation boxes of Kleenex and during the next five minutes I wait in silence as she soaks up the tissues one by one. At last she drags on the wraparounds again and says drearily: “Okay, I’ll go now.”

  “Feel like a drink?”

  She perks up. “Lead me to it!”

  “All right, I’ll take you to the Savoy for a pussyfoot.”

  “A pussyfoot?” she echoes appalled in the manner of Lady Bracknell.

  “Don’t let the lack of alcohol put you off. I’m a great one for pussyfoots whenever my liver needs resting.”

  We stare at each other while she decides whether or not to spit with contempt. But in the end there’s no spitting. Instead she laughs, and at once I laugh too.

  Before I leave I get Nicholas on the intercom and excuse myself from the lunch-time healing service. I also add that I hope he doesn’t have to cope with our roving blasphemer who wants to bugger the Blessed Virgin Mary. The blasphemer was back yesterday, turned out of his mental hospital. Mrs. Thatcher’s closed it down. Typical.

  Feeling about thirty-nine years old I grab a taxi and sweep Veneria off to our nearest grand hotel. I even forget the pain in my blank-blank hip which once again has been giving me hell …

  COMMENT: Of course I took her out entirely for therapeutic reasons. I thought it vital that someone should intervene at that point to stop her bingeing on alcohol. I knew how important it was to introduce her to the pussyfoot, so useful to those on the wagon. I felt strongly that she needed a nice little visit to the Savoy as a reward for enduring that difficult but no doubt very worthwhile therapy session. In short my invitation was a gesture made only with her welfare in mind and I had no ulterior motive whatsoever.

  Hell, what balls I write in this journal sometimes!

  But I really mustn’t start thinking about balls …

  Saturday, 1st October, 1988: I receive a note which reads: “Dear Lewis, Thanks. But you remind me of someone I’ve spent half my life trying to forget. He was wonderful too. Goodbye, VENETIA.”

  Triple-hell! Quadruple-hell! Multiple-multiple-hell!

  I’m so cantankerous that Stacy tries to hide when he sees me coming, and Nicholas asks if I’ve thought of changing my pain-killers.

  Bugger everyone! Bugger everything!

  I’m furious.

  COMMENT: Well, what did you think was going to happen, you addled idiot? A whirlwind romance? Talk about losing touch with reality! Pathetic!

  This woman’s trying to get her life in order. She doesn’t want some old crock doddering along and screwing it all up.

  LEAVE HER ALONE.

  Monday, 3rd October, 1988: Another note arrives from Venetia. It reads: “Dear Lewis, Sorry. I overreacted. You’re really nothing like him at all, I can see that now. Perhaps we might pussyfoot again sometime. Have you been to Claridge’s lately? V.”

  I feel like opening a bottle of champagne but it’s only seven o’clock and I’ve got a full morning ahead. I want to leap up on the kitchen table, beat my chest and roar like a lion, but damn it, I’m sixty-seven years old and I was barely able to hobble just now from my bedsit to the front door to pick up the post.


  That blank-blank hip …

  Suddenly I go berserk. I erupt into the study, where Nicholas is doing his spiritual exercises, and give him such a fright that the Bible flies clean out of his hands. Then I thump my fist on the nearby table and shout at the top of my voice: “SOD THE FUCKING HIP! I’M REPLACING IT!”

  Nicholas’s jaw drops but he’s already realising that this wild behaviour is therapeutic, and a second later he’s giving me an encouraging smile. After all, I’ve kept a stiff upper lip about that damned hip for far too long, and the restraint’s only increased the stress.

  “Congratulations, Lewis!” he exclaims. “An excellent decision!” And the die is cast.

  A new life awaits me!

  In ecstasy I dream of rejuvenation.

  COMMENT: On reflection this was very far from being an edifying scene. Reasons:

  (1) I’m behaving exactly like an unstable adolescent over Venetia and setting myself up for all manner of possible humiliations.

  (2) Indulging in lurid Tarzan-like fantasies (vault onto table-top, beat chest, etc.) is hardly appropriate mental activity for an elderly priest. I’d have done better to visualise the dialogue with my spiritual director which must now ensue as I face up to the impending loss of my arthritic chastity belt. Am I or am I not supposed to remain a celibate? It’s no good sinking into some grisly infatuation with yet another neurotic female drunk if I can only serve God properly by remaining single. I should remember that the entire acting-out of what was originally a mere suppressed carnal reflex could well indicate that I’ve been destabilised by Diana’s death and in consequence behaving like a lunatic. I should also remember that nothing’s changed but my marital status, and even though I’m now a widower I’m still the same man who likes to flirt with aristocratic sirens but go to bed with rough trade. How can I even think of remarriage when I know very well I’ve never managed to overcome this hang-up? Of course Venetia, in a peculiar way, combines the two types: she’s an aristocratic siren and uninhibited rough trade. So maybe … No. Stop. I’m fantasising. Forget that.