The Wonder Worker

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The Wonder Worker Page 23

by Susan Howatch


  On the way home from the eight o’clock mass Stacy tells me he’s going out with Tara again tonight, and he’s so bouncy that I begin to wonder if I’m completely wrong about his sexual problems. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that Nicholas has been right and I’ve been up the creek. I decide to waste no more time worrying about Stacy at present.

  So far so good. No kicks yet from the cloven hoof.

  The morning passes uneventfully, and so does the lunch-time Eucharist. Another average day, I think as I heave myself home for lunch. Nothing to get excited about.

  At the Rectory Alice serves a mushroom quiche, a big salad, plenty of cheese and warm brown bread. I see now I overreacted about Alice when I realised she had a psychic gift. I don’t seriously believe, do I, that Nicholas would ever fall for her? He’d have to be completely destabilised for such a thing to happen, and I can’t think of anything which would send Nicholas clean off his rocker. Any priest, of course, can suffer a breakdown if he gets the spiritual balance of his life wrong, but I’d kidnap Nicholas and see he got the best help long before his wobble on the high wire became fatal.

  After lunch I take my usual short snooze in the bedsit before returning to the Healing Centre for a conference with Stacy; I’m currently training him in the delicate art of making pastoral visits to a mental hospital. Regularly we go to see our clients who have needed to be hospitalised, but because of my operation I’ve been unable to pay visits for a while and I need to find out how Stacy’s been getting on.

  He seems to have been avoiding a pastoral disaster but his notes are scruffy and inadequate. I drill into him how important it is to keep proper records but I’m careful to be encouraging as well and anyway he’s too bouncy to be downcast. “Enjoy your evening with Tara!” I call after him as he bounds out of my consulting room, and he turns to give me a radiant smile. That Tara must be really turning him on. I’m astonished.

  “And what are you doing tonight, you old villain?” he asks me so fondly that I don’t even think of growling: “Insolent young puppy!” I say I’m going to the West End to buy a tape of Vera Lynn songs and then I’m going to be very “Establishment” and treat myself to a dinner at the Athenaeum.

  “Who’s Vera Lynn?” says Stacy, teasing me, and skips off with a laugh when he sees the expression on my face.

  Yet again, so far so good.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon chairing a finance committee meeting. Nicholas said I wasn’t to do this, as I’m supposed to be convalescing, but anything as dull as a finance committee meeting is bound to be restful. Bernard, as office manager, makes a long speech about the new facsimile machine while I mentally switch off and pray for Venetia. I hate technology.

  Back in my consulting room at five o’clock I’m just sorting through the pile of rubbish on my desk when I uncover a flyer for a special lecture tonight at Sion College. Some monk’s talking about Benedictine spirituality in the modern world, and I particularly want to hear him because I’ve read several of his books; the special lecture is to celebrate the fact that he’s just published another. Am I too tired to go? Certainly not! (I refuse to let this new hip get the better of me.) Leaving the Centre I hurtle down to the Embankment in a taxi and arrive at my destination ten minutes before the lecture’s due to begin.

  I’d forgotten the staircase that has to be climbed. Triple-hell! I scrabble away, trying to work out how to combine the crutches with the handrail, and various kind, well-meaning people offer to help but I brush them aside. There’s nothing wrong with my arms and nothing wrong with the handrail. I can haul myself up, and if the hip doesn’t like it, that’s too bad.

  Huffing and puffing I finally reach the top of the stairs, adjust my crutches and move forward into the beautiful library where all the Sion College lectures take place. A fair number of people are already assembled: clergy, theology undergraduates from King’s and an assortment of the retired ranging from elderly gentlemen in shabby raincoats to little old ladies with hats like tea-cosies. They’re all gossiping away in the semi-circle of seats. Moving forward into the room I spot a knot of militant homosexual clergy heaving ahead of me and automatically I veer away towards the front row. Then I stop dead. I’ve briefly registered the presence of a familiar thatch of red hair. Taking another look at these homosexuals, at least two of whom, so I’ve heard, spend their Saturday nights haunting gay bars and worse, I spy in their midst none other than the curate of St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall, the Reverend Eustace McGovern. Moreover he’s bursting with vitality and obviously having the whale of a time. No sign, of course, of Miss Tara Hopkirk from the Isle of Dogs.

  He sees me a second after I see him and his face turns as red as his hair.

  Altering direction I edge up the half-empty row in front of him and stop opposite his chair. “Good evening, Stacy,” I say, and allow my glance to flick sardonically over his companions.

  “Oh hi!” he says, trying to be casual but now crimson with embarrassment. “I thought you were going to the Athenaeum!”

  “I changed my mind. I see you did too.”

  Stacy hangs his head and looks the picture of guilt. I feel humiliated for him.

  Meanwhile the militants, all of whom are London-based and known to me, have realised exactly what’s going on and are trying to work out how to protect their new chum. One of them makes the wrong move and drawls: “Lewis my love, I can’t tell you how intimidating you look! Are you psyching yourself up to wallop us with those crutches?” But the ringleader of the bunch, a man I detest, shuts him up by saying crisply: “John, do you really have to play Dame Edna this evening?” and to me he adds in the friendliest of voices: “How are you, Lewis? I was sorry to hear you’d been in hospital.”

  “That’s past history now,” I say, “and I’m recovering fast.”

  To my surprise he asks a couple of other friendly questions, just the kind of questions a good priest should ask, and in the end he says with perfect sincerity: “It’s good to see you again—won’t you sit with us?” That’s when I realise I’ve been outmanoeuvred. If I refuse, I’ll look the most unchristian of swines.

  “Move over, Dame Edna,” he says to the silly one next to him, “and give up your seat to Father Lewis.”

  Meanwhile a couple of heterosexual priests have spotted my plight and are trying to rescue me. “Lewis!” calls one, and: “Over here!” calls the other, patting the seat next to him, but I suddenly see the funny side of the situation. “No thanks!” I call back. “I’m making a pastoral call on the gay community!”

  All the queers cheer. Dame Edna vacates his seat, lifts away the chair in front of me and enables me to step forward into the right row. The very charming, very able ringleader—of course it’s Gilbert Tucker—laughs as I plonk myself down next to him, and when he offers me his right hand I find myself trying to recall why I’ve always disliked this delightful priest so much—but the moment we shake hands I remember. Oh yes! He turns a blind eye to gay priests who kick chastity in the teeth, and says Jesus would understand and approve of their conduct. Wonderful! These priests have an unintegrated sex-life in which their sexual energy’s not channelled into their work but split off from it into episodes quite contrary to their calling, yet Tucker has the nerve to claim his support for these creatures is backed by the most integrated human being of all time. Our Lord would certainly have been compassionate in considering such conduct. But approving? As the tennis star Mr. McEnroe would snarl: “You can’t be serious!”

  I spend the lecture seething that such behaviour should be tolerated in the London diocese, and I wonder what the great homosexual priests of the nineteenth century, all of whom rated chastity and obedience so highly, would have thought of such a debasement of their Christian standards.

  When the lecture finishes, Stacy says a rapid goodbye to the gay set and mutters that he’ll come home with me. In the taxi he starts to stammer something but I growl: “Later!” and shut him up. On our arrival home Alice, having been instructed earlier t
hat neither Stacy nor I would require dinner, emerges from the hell-hole to offer us a meal, but I shoo her back to her television.

  “We’ll talk in Nicholas’s study,” I say abruptly to Stacy, and he creeps along behind me like a puppy that’s already been whipped.

  Dumping myself in the swivel-chair at Nicholas’s desk I watch as Stacy crumples into the chair nearby. He’s now looking so miserable that I know this would be quite the wrong moment to take a tough line, so I say in my kindest voice: “My dear Stacy, this isn’t first-century Rome. You’re not about to be thrown to the lions. I assure you you’re going to survive this conversation.”

  But my dry humour, which is supposed to lighten the atmosphere, has the reverse effect and the boy bursts into tears.

  I’m most surprised. After all, I hardly caught him in flagrante with another man. Obviously the scene at Sion College embarrassed him, but it had its funny side and I behaved sportingly enough. So, I ask myself, what’s now triggering this melodramatic reaction? Can it really be just because he has no alternative but to admit the sexual preferences which were on open display tonight? Surely not! Nicholas has made it clear to him that facing up to one’s true nature represents an important step on the road to maturity—and to being a good priest. So why are the taps now being turned on?

  Quickly I say: “Stacy, whatever your problems, Nicholas and I will stand by you. There’s no need to behave as if you’re about to get the sack.”

  But obviously he has trouble believing this because the taps remain turned on. I spend a long moment trying to work out how they can be turned off, but in the end I just hand him the box of Kleenex nearby and say calmly but firmly: “Okay, what appears to be your primary problem here?” It seems plain that my first task is to encourage him to talk.

  Slivers of information begin to dribble out of him. He confesses he said he was going out with Tara in order to convince me he was just like any other bloke—and he’s tried so hard to get interested in girls, he really has. But no matter how much he likes them he doesn’t feel comfortable when they’re keen to “snog.” (Revolting word.) He wonders if that makes him gay, but he doesn’t want to snog men either. The gay activists say cheerfully that if he doesn’t want to snog girls he must be gay but he shouldn’t worry about snogging anything at the moment, since his prime task is to relax and grow comfortable with his true sexual orientation. But Stacy’s not happy with this advice. He says that if he’s gay it would “kill” his mother and “destroy” his three sisters, all of whom have no idea he was seduced in his teens by a much older man, and anyway he knows that what he really wants has nothing to do with gays at all. He wants to be a Nick-clone, married with two children and living happily ever after. That’s what his mother wants. That’s what his sisters want. And that’s what he wants because his family means more to him than anything else in the world. He does so miss Siobhan—sob—and Sinead—sob, sob—and most of all his darling Aisling—sob, sob, sob, sob, sob—

  Of course he’s queer as a coot (imagine behaving like a stuffed dummy when a girl’s keen for a kiss!) but I have to tread with great care here because the boy’s so pathetically immature. It’s time to play the cuddly old priest again. “I’m most extremely sorry to see you so unhappy, Stacy,” I say gently, “and I can see now that this is a situation which has been putting you under a lot of stress. I assume you’ve discussed this problem in depth with your spiritual director?”

  “Oh no!” he says surprised. “It didn’t seem to have anything to do with prayer.”

  There’s so much wrong with this statement that I’m struck dumb, but by a heroic effort I get my tongue in working order again after ten seconds. Meanwhile I note that Stacy’s dangerously unintegrated, having split off his spiritual life from his carnal problems, and that his spiritual director (chosen with enormous care by Nicholas and me) has been unbelievably incompetent. In fact the man’s got to be suffering from Alzheimer’s. I can think of no other explanation that’s plausible.

  I manage to say levelly to Stacy: “Well, never mind your spiritual director for the moment. Perhaps the best way forward might be for you to see a therapist who has no connection with St. Benet’s and who could talk all this through with you in neutral surroundings.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that! I wouldn’t want Nick to know I’m not on top of this problem! He thinks I’ve got it all sorted!”

  “Then Nicholas must be disillusioned. Otherwise there’ll be more incidents like the one tonight and you’ll make no progress at all.”

  “I know you’re a queer-basher, I know what you must be thinking, but just because I wound up sitting with the gays tonight doesn’t mean—” He dissolves into sobs again.

  “Look, Stacy,” I say, still speaking kindly but aware of my patience fraying at the seams, “brace up, there’s a good chap, and let’s just clear up two fundamental misunderstandings. First of all the real error you made tonight was not that you wound up sitting with the gays. Amazing though this may seem to you in your distraught state, that’s not a sin. The real error was that you lied to me about Tara and compromised your integrity. In a small community like this we can’t afford to lie to one another and lead double-lives, because the essential falseness of such behaviour always winds up polluting the atmosphere and undermining trust. Do you understand that?”

  He nods, snorting into a fresh Kleenex. He’s nearly exhausted the tissues in the box by this time.

  “Your lie this evening stemmed directly from the problems you’re having about your sexual identity,” I pursue, ploughing on doggedly, “and this is why it’s urgent that you have help in finding a solution. It’s also vital that you keep nothing back from Nicholas, who as your Rector is responsible for your welfare. Now, the second fundamental misunderstanding”—I pause to come up for air—“which is minor in comparison with the first but which needs to be corrected in the interests of truth, is that I’m not a queer-basher. I object to no human being on account of his or her taste in snogging. What I object to are the lies, the self-deception and the double-life which all arise from a poorly integrated sexuality. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He nods again drearily and snorts into the last Kleenex.

  I grab another deep breath and slog on. “Nobody’s perfect,” I say. “We all have our flaws, but our job is to recognise them, face up to them and take the appropriate action so that they can be transformed into creative, not destructive, forces within our personalities. Take me, for example. I’ve got a very flawed sexuality. I made a complete balls-up of my marriage and I’ve never been able to sustain a successful relationship with a woman. That’s my infirmity, my handicap, my cross—call it what you like—and in a sense this puts me in the same league as the homosexuals, but I absolutely believe that the answer to a poorly integrated sexuality is not to lead a double-life and not to bob around low bars in order to pick up rough trade. During the course of my life I’ve proved that I’m at my most integrated—and happiest—when I’m celibate. Of course celibacy can be tough and I’m not pretending I’ve always lived up to the ideal, but by sublimating—not repressing but sublimating—my sex-drive I’ve managed to live a full, rewarding life in which I’ve been of service to others. And on the occasions when I did fall by the wayside, I’ve never deluded myself by saying my lapses were right, I’ve never demanded special consideration because of my handicap, and I’ve never been stupid enough to whine: ‘Oh, Jesus would approve of my occasional nights on the tiles because that’s the way I’ve been designed by God!’ God didn’t design me to be damaged. I got this way in the school of hard knocks and now I’ve got to work hard cooperating with God to redeem the mess … Are you listening?”

  He nods but he’s not. He’s weeping silently again and there are no more tissues left in the box.

  “What I’m trying to say,” I resume, searching without success for a handkerchief, “is that there’s no flaw or handicap so grisly that it can’t be redeemed and translated into a positive
force for the good. But first of all we have to acknowledge our flaws—we have to ‘name the demons,’ as the old-fashioned religious language puts it, so that they can be brought under control. That’s why I’m suggesting you seek help from a therapist who specialises in your type of problem. You need to ‘name the demons’ so that you can conquer them and become a mature, well-integrated priest.”

  Stacy whispers pathetically: “I don’t want a therapist. I don’t have demons. I just don’t want to snog with anyone at present, that’s all. I’m sorry I got mixed up with the gays tonight, but I promise I won’t go near them again.”

  Dear God, he’s understood nothing! “Stacy—”

  “All I want,” says Stacy desperately, “is to go on living here with Nick and slogging my guts out to be the kind of priest he wants. Nick’s the most wonderful guy in the world, and if I let him down and have to leave St. Benet’s my life wouldn’t be worth living, but I’m not going to let him down. I’m going to keep taking out Tara and eventually I’ll snog her and then everything will be okay.”

  Once again my tongue ceases to function.

  I’m appalled.

  ***************

  (Had to put the asterisks in—no words seemed adequate to describe the quality of the hiatus which then took place in the conversation.)

  Ye gods and little fishes! The boy’s in love with Nicholas—and this is no harmless hero-worship; this is homoerotic lunacy which will obstruct Stacy’s journey to homosexual maturity and eventually bog Nicholas down with a pastoral problem the size of an elephant. Moreover—and this is the real killer-threat to St. Benet’s—Stacy shows no desire to face up to his problems and no ability even to understand why he should do so. We just can’t afford this sort of immature, unaware, unperceptive person on the team at the Healing Centre. In our kind of ministry we need to rely one hundred per cent on our colleagues, and how could one ever have sufficient confidence in a priest who’s incapable of spiritual growth and psychologically as dumb as an ox?

 

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