The Wonder Worker

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by Susan Howatch


  I reined myself in, smiling at this droll fantasy but recognising with excitement the alluring reality which underpinned it. I had no doubt whatsoever that such a new career would make me happy, and once I was happy I knew I’d be stable and well behaved again. There would be no more pathetic batting around with young men. I’d find someone of my own age—–well, perhaps five to ten years younger, that would be quite acceptable—more or less—and it would be someone who shared my interests, some elegant widower from the National Trust perhaps, who loved beautiful houses and beautiful gardens and who believed in the great tradition of English Country Life and who voted for Mrs. Thatcher, scintillating Mrs. Thatcher, who proclaimed that every English family should have its own home—and that was such a wonderful goal, wasn’t it, because deep down every normal person wanted their own home—and their own garden—and I was no exception to this very human desire.

  I wasn’t peculiar like Nicky. I was a normal English person in 1988, just one of the countless millions who had voted for Mrs. Thatcher because she alone understood what all we normal English people wanted: homes and gardens, law and order, pleasure and leisure, health and wealth—with a full orchestra playing “Land of Hope and Glory” in the background and a forest of Union Jacks stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Well, was it such a crime to be normal?

  No. But Nicky had behaved as if it were a crime for me to vote Conservative, just as he was now behaving as if it were a crime for me to want to lead the life that was right for me. Down in Devon he had obviously decided that I was no better than a loony criminal who needed to be radically rehabilitated, so he had brainwashed me by playing the wonder worker. The honest Christian clergyman had disappeared and I had been manipulated, browbeaten and catastrophically outmanoeuvred by this charismatic horror who had mixed power-plays with sex to such devastating effect that I had wound up conceding everything while he had wound up conceding nothing. As a Christian healer he should have tried to set aside his own wants while he explored as sympathetically as possible the reasons why I was so unhappy, yet instead he had decided, without once pausing to consult me, that my entire life-style should be destroyed. All that talk of “restructuring” our marriage! The restructuring was to be undertaken solely by me as I was compelled to slot into his London life! I was supposed to live in a horrible house with a horrible garden while he simply carried on regardless and made no changes to his own life-style whatsoever. Of course he’d still have no time for me during the week, but with luck he might come to life as usual at weekends. Big deal! In other words we’d be exactly as we were before—marriage on weekends—but I would have lost my home, my garden and my entire cherished way of life.

  I saw then that Lewis, cunning old villain, had probably deduced all this from the start but had realised it would be easier to wake me from my browbeaten, brain-dead state than to tackle Nicky with the truth when Nicky himself was too shell-shocked to think clearly. Lewis would have grasped that to talk positively and encouragingly about converting the Rectory into a family home was the best way to make me realise not only how much I hated the idea but how far Nicky had lost touch with reality. The truth was Nicky hadn’t even begun to face up to this crisis. He had merely made the snap decision that if he could keep me at the Rectory like some sort of mindless lucky mascot, we would live happily ever after. What an absurdly childish dream! But he showed no sign of abandoning it. How could I get him to wake up, grow up and relinquish me? Queasily I remembered the little boy who had declared to his class at kindergarten: “This is my bear and no one plays with my bear but me.”

  He still had that bear. It was wrapped in tissue paper and kept in his old school tuck-box in the farmhouse attic. Before we were married he had said he was keeping the bear for our future children, but when the boys came it had never been exhumed.

  I thought: I’m not going to be shut up in a box like that bear. And amending little Nicky’s declaration to the kindergarten class I added to myself: this is my life and no one controls my life but me.

  I set aside my coffee-cup. No more procrastination. Procrastination was for wimps. Leaving the cafe I marched back over Gilbert Bridge and headed south out of the Barbican to St. Benet’s.

  II

  On returning to the Rectory, however, I found I had no choice but to procrastinate as Nicky was out, slaving away as usual at the task of being wonderful to everyone in sight. In the flat I turned on the drawing-room’s gas fire and crouched in front of it for five minutes to combat my incipient hypothermia. After that I realised I was yearning for a dose of sympathetic female companionship so I phoned the Healing Centre and asked for Francie. I was very put out to be told she was still off sick. Grabbing my Filofax I tracked down her home number and started to dial.

  “Francie, it’s Rosalind,” I said after she had uttered a dreary “hullo” into the receiver. “I hear you haven’t been befriending lately—what’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing serious! At least … well, actually that’s a complete lie, I’m so depressed that I feel it could be terminal, but never mind, it’s not important. How’s Devon?”

  “I’m not in Devon, I’m at the Rectory. I’ve been depressed too, but it’s bloody well not going to be terminal! Let’s meet. Lunch at Fortnum’s?”

  “God, I don’t think I could make it as far as Piccadilly.”

  “Oh, don’t be so feeble, Francie! Why the hell are you so depressed?”

  “Perhaps it’s the menopause.”

  “Oh, fuck the menopause! You’re not secretly pining for Harry, are you?”

  “No, I want to murder him.”

  “Super—I want to murder Nicky. Maybe we should do a swap, like those two men in Strangers on a Train, and kill each other’s husbands so that we can each stage a cast-iron alibi for the appropriate murder.”

  “But good heavens, why on earth do you want to murder Nicky?”

  “Because he’s being totally impossible and I’m fed up to the back teeth,” I said recklessly. “For God’s sake let’s meet before I start invading the Healing Centre and giving primal screams!”

  “Well, maybe I could make it to Piccadilly after all,” said Francie, reviving at a brisk pace. There’s nothing like the prospect of a riveting gossip for dispelling the blues. “But I can’t make it today. Harrods rang up this morning and said they were going to deliver Harry’s new desk at one-thirty.”

  “Okay, let’s make it tomorrow. Twelve-thirty upstairs at Fortnum’s, and if you OD on tranx before we can let our hair down I’ll never forgive you,” I said, looking up Fortnum’s number in my Filofax even before I had replaced the receiver.

  Having reserved the table I realised I was feeling better. Thank God for devoted and loyal girlfriends! To boost my morale still further I called Susie in Tetbury and Tiggy in Winchester. I was meticulous in keeping up a front for my more recent girlfriends in Surrey, but Susie and Tiggy, orbiting in different areas of the Conservative heartlands, could remember me in a gym-slip so I felt I could indulge in a modified whinge without letting the side down. (“Nicky wants to revamp our marriage—my dear, the challenge! I’m so stimulated that I feel ripe for a strait-jacket …”) This veiled breast-beating let off some steam, but I was aware as I spoke that I could only be utterly frank to Francie. She was the only one of my friends who had firsthand experience of the ministry of healing; she was the only one who would understand how thin the line could sometimes be between the honest Christian healer, committed to serving God, and the shady, manipulative wonder worker, committed to serving his own interests.

  Both my old pals tried to cheer me up by giving me delicious snippets of information about their current difficulties. Susie said Nigel was making so much money that he had started drinking champagne for breakfast, and Tiggy confided that Bam-Bam was so stressed at work that he spent all weekend at the golf club trying to unwind. I diagnosed alcoholism and adultery respectively and envied them their well-known marital problems. Part of the trouble with b
eing married to a charismatic clergyman was that the marital problems were so peculiar. I had said to Susie once that I refused to sleep with Nicky directly after an exorcism because he smelt so odd, but Susie had just thought I was joking.

  Having revitalised myself by tuning in to what the feminists are pleased to call “the sisterhood,” I then drew up a list of food to restock the flat’s empty kitchen for twenty-four hours and drove to the supermarket on Whitecross Street. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to coax Nicky to face reality, but I thought it would be sensible to be well nourished as I prepared for battle. The battle itself I planned to conduct in a civilised manner which would ensure there were no further ghastly scenes, and to set the tone for the initial discussion that evening I decided to cook an elegant dinner. I would take infinite trouble over it—just as much trouble as that girl had taken yesterday—and my carrots weren’t going to be underdone either. In fact I planned to omit carrots, such a boring vegetable, and serve madly fashionable mange-tout.

  The supermarket contained some extraordinary people but since it was surrounded by working-class housing I could hardly expect to meet the inhabitants of middle-class Surrey. Some of the food was strange too, but I didn’t mind that. Encountering exotic ingredients for recipes can be fun, but nevertheless I began to find my expedition unusually exhausting. Once I was past the check-out I was tempted to go straight back to the Rectory but I felt I couldn’t face the flat without flowers. Having circled around to Aldersgate I spent some time in the florist there, and when I emerged I was only just in time to avoid getting a parking ticket for dumping the car on a single yellow line. Deciding London was impossible I retreated at last to the Rectory, placed the flowers in water, ate some soup and passed out on the bed. The entire afternoon was wasted in sleep. I hadn’t realised how worn out I was by all the to-ing and fro-ing from Devon in a state of extreme nervous tension.

  When I awoke groggily at four I found there was no sign of Nicky, but he seldom came back to the flat during the day. Having drunk some tea I soothed myself by arranging the flowers. The shop had been stuffed with chrysanthemums, the traditional November fodder, but I’m not necessarily snooty about chrysanthemums and can well spare the time to admire the Korean types, particularly the pink Venus and the pale Ceres. They do well in perennial borders because they’re so hardy. I’m also very fond of the pink and crimson Emperor of China, always so striking and with the additional virtue of being frost-proof in a cold spell.

  The chrysanthemums I had purchased weren’t quite in this league, but they made a warm splash of colour, particularly when set against a daring pattern of foliage, and I felt pleased with the results. I took some time over the arrangement because it stopped me thinking about the scene destined to take place when I announced my latest conclusions to Nicky, but as soon as the last flower was in place I knew I wasn’t just nervous; I was frightened.

  I told myself that this was irrational. I was certain that after the scenes at the cottage Nicky would be ashamed enough to want to avoid any further violent outbursts, but there was no doubt I was still feeling very jittery. To calm myself down I opened a bottle of plonk which I’d bought at the supermarket and had a quick slurp. Then it occurred to me that a well-controlled, non-violent Nicky playing the wonder worker was a much more spine-chilling prospect than a poorly controlled, very physical Nicky playing the caveman. A caveman might just about manage some crude brainwashing whenever he wasn’t bucketing around trying to break down the nearest door, but he wasn’t going to be organised enough to employ the most lethal tricks of the wonder worker’s stock-in-trade.

  In a flash I remembered that horrible party up at Cambridge when Nicky had been an undergraduate, and naked fear rippled through me as I recalled the hypnosis.

  I knew I hadn’t been hypnotised down in Devon. I had certainly been manipulated but I had remained in control of my mind—by which I mean that although Nicky had persuaded me to do the opposite of what I wanted, I myself had still been the one making the decision that I should go on with the marriage. Nicky knew I’d never stand for hypnosis. Long before he had performed the parlour-tricks for his smart set, he hypnotised me into believing that he had stopped my watch just by looking at it. He said: “The second-hand’s halted, hasn’t it?” and I could see that it had. Then he said: “But when I snap my fingers you’ll see that it’s moving again.” And when he snapped his fingers I could indeed see that the second-hand was moving on. Enthralled I begged him to tell me how he had done it, and he admitted the hypnosis.

  So appalled was I by the knowledge that my mind had been temporarily removed from my control in this vilely sly way, that I rushed out of his house and would have run sobbing all the way home if I hadn’t bumped into his father in the drive. Old Mr. Darrow had become a recluse after Nicky’s mother died, but Nicky and I were only thirteen then and she was still alive. Mr. Darrow saw I was upset and as soon as I told him what had happened he said that the hypnosis was very wrong and that he would speak to Nicky immediately. I loved old Mr. Darrow. He was such a very wise, kind clergyman and always so nice to me.

  Nicky arrived at my house on his bicycle half an hour later and apologised. “I’ll never do that to you again, I promise,” he said. “Never.” And I knew then his father had made him understand how wrong it was. No wonder I was so horrified when I saw him using hypnosis six years later up at Cambridge! “Your father would have hated that,” I said stonily to Nicky afterwards, and at once he said in a panic: “You’re not to tell him—I forbid it! You’re not to make him upset!”—as if I would have been responsible for old Mr. Darrow’s inevitable distress! That was Nicky trying to manipulate me again, and I did indeed promise him I’d keep quiet, but I made it clear that I’d found his tricks so repulsive that I never wanted to see any of them again.

  Much later, during our engagement, he said to me: “You’re the one girl I can trust to support me to the hilt now that I’ve rejected all that stuff,” and I remember feeling faint with relief that he had reformed.

  But although he no longer abused his gift for hypnosis, he didn’t abandon it. He explained to me that he had offered the gift to God and now hoped to use it in the service of others. He took a course in the medical use of hypnosis and was very scrupulous in using it as a treatment in accordance with medical ethics. I knew he never hypnotised any of his clients unless Val the doctor was present, but needless to say I was still revolted by the fact that he continued to dabble in hypnosis and I made it clear I never wanted to discuss the subject again.

  He did try to reassure me by insisting that people couldn’t be hypnotised against their wills, but I was never entirely sure I believed this. I certainly hadn’t wanted to be hypnotised when he had stopped my watch. How had he done it? I put this question to him but he just said vaguely that I’d been a child at the time and incapable of raising the right mental defences. What were the right mental defences? Nicky, vaguer than ever, said it was just a question of recognising the hypnotist’s will and refusing to submit to it. But when I thought back to the watch-stopping episode I couldn’t remember any attempt to subjugate me. I could only remember Nicky laughing and being very chummy as we drank Tizer after a game of Ping-Pong; I could only remember feeling relaxed and utterly unsuspicious. But of course, as he had pointed out, I’d just been a child at the time.

  I took another slurp of plonk and pulled myself together. Nicky, regretting the caveman performance in Devon, would be on his best behaviour. Of course he’d have another go at trying to change my mind and no matter how good his intentions were he probably wouldn’t be able to avoid some form of manipulative behaviour—people with powerful personalities are hardly likely to turn into soft-as-butter yes-men when they’re under stress—but this time reason would triumph, ethics would prevail and he would stop well short of brainwashing, crude or sophisticated. In other words, I could stop gibbering with fright and instead steel myself for a difficult but not dangerous evening during which the painful truth c
ould be bravely faced and honestly discussed.

  Pouring myself another glass of plonk to help keep this reassuring vision nailed to the forefront of my mind, I embarked on the task of cooking a supremely civilised dinner.

  III

  As it turned out I only had a sip or two from that second glass of wine because I became too busy trying to remember my recipes and producing the necessary improvisation when my memory failed. For the first course I had decided to do deep-fried radicchio with goat’s cheese, a very tasty starter which apart from the final frying can be prepared ahead of time. My original intention was to make a fish soup but I didn’t have a sieve or a liquidiser in the sparsely equipped kitchen of the flat. For the main course I had chosen roast guinea fowl and for the pudding I was keen to produce Grand Marnier crème brûlée, always rich, sophisticated and delicious. I toiled and muttered and sweated and cursed over my hot stove for some time before I had everything under control and could retire once more with my wine to the drawing-room.

 

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