The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  “I thought that would grab you. So what have we got? According to Alice—”

  “Alice! Triple-hell! I suppose she—”

  “According to Alice, Francie arrived here on Monday night looking like a half-dressed hooker. Deduction: the erotomania’s taken over—or, as our Charismatic friends would put it so robustly, the spirit of lust. You then somehow managed to defuse her—you put the spirit on ice, as it were, so that it can be dealt with properly later. In fact you handle her so skilfully that you keep the lines of communication open and pave the way for her to be coaxed into therapy. Great. Well done. But maybe, if she’s rocketing around between euphoria and gloom, she’s far more ill than you think.”

  “I doubt it. In typical cases of manic depression the move from one extreme form of behaviour to another is more gradual and each acute phase lasts longer.”

  “Maybe she’s atypical. And even if she’s not a manic depressive she’s obviously unstable, so can we now, please, without breaching the confidentiality you owe her, have a discussion about this very dangerous situation?”

  Lewis recovered his poise. “No.”

  “Why not? I’m not asking you to reveal any details of the conversation you had with her! I just want to discuss the possible diagnoses of her mental disturbance!”

  “Nicholas, you’re merely creating a huge diversion for yourself in order to take your mind off the problem with Rosalind. Stop playing this game at once and start focusing on your coming retreat!”

  “But supposing—”

  “I really can’t see why you’re getting in such a state just because Francie moved from depression to euphoria during what was no doubt a delicious lunch at Fortnum’s! If she was starving to start with, a perfectly cooked meal alone would account for the euphoria at the end!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “All right, I concede it’s bizarre that Francie should be lunching with your wife at the present time, but Francie obviously felt she had no choice but to show up. She’s not so nuts that she wants to declare her passion to all and sundry by offering Rosalind a hemlock cocktail!”

  “Even so—”

  “Listen, here’s the rational, sober explanation of the euphoria: Francie arrives at Fortnum’s sunk in gloom; however, as soon as she hears that Rosalind has marital problems—”

  “But Rosalind says she kept quiet about all that!”

  “Oh, come on, Nicholas, you know what women are like when they get together! I’m not suggesting Rosalind told Francie all about the hypnosis—of course she’d never betray you by repeating such a story to anyone except a doctor or a priest—but if she didn’t say a single word about how troubled your marriage is at present, I’ll eat my cassock. So what’s the result? Francie instantly jumps to the conclusion that the marriage is on the rocks—”

  “—and starts to get euphoric,” I said, beginning to accept the scenario. “In her head she hears Tammy Wynette singing ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’—”

  “Tammy who?”

  “Never mind. The point you’re making is that Francie’s euphoric not because she’s experiencing a manic-depressive mood-swing and acting irrationally but because she thinks I’ll soon be completely free to respond to her grand passion.”

  “Exactly. And I’d just like to stress that although Francie’s unbalanced at present she’s only unbalanced in the area of her life which relates to you. This may look like erotomania, but true erotomaniacs are usually far more abnormal.”

  “So there’s no psychosis here.”

  “There’s no psychosis and there’s certainly no possession. Francie’s basically sane but suffering from a neurotic obsession which, God willing, Robin can treat and defuse before she has a breakdown and becomes more seriously ill.”

  I felt better. Lewis had more practical experience of mental illness than many doctors because he had worked in a mental hospital for ten years. He was certainly the first to admit he had received no medical training, but in this area of medicine, where diagnosis is often far from simple and understanding can be hazy, hands-on experience of working with the mentally ill counts for a great deal. I was tempted to let go of the problem, but some indefinable uneasiness made me continue to hesitate. “I’m getting a psychic twinge,” I said at last. “I’m glad you’re confident that you know what’s going on here. But are you sure you’re not overconfident?”

  Lewis didn’t make some flip remark to dismiss the subject. Nor did he get irritated by my irrational anxiety. He simply said in his calmest, most reasonable voice: “I’m sorry if I’m giving an impression of overconfidence. All I’m really suggesting is that you should leave the problem to me at the present time when you’re not capable of dealing with it yourself. I respect the fact that you’re having a psychic twinge which is driving you to stay involved in the case, but don’t you think you might be experiencing anxiety because you’re projecting your own crisis—your own problems which require an urgent solution—onto Francie? Nicholas, you’re overstrained at the moment. You’re all over the place dabbling in other people’s problems because your concentration’s in tatters and you lack the power to focus on yourself, so just try and let go now of the matters that don’t directly concern you; try to channel all your energy into withdrawing, resting, praying and renewing your spiritual strength.”

  I promised I would.

  Then I trailed back to the kitchen to tell Alice that Rosalind wouldn’t be coming down to dinner.

  V

  We dined. Stacy was so pale and tense that I asked him if he felt unwell but he insisted he was fine. I wondered if he felt uncomfortable in Lewis’s presence after the tongue-lashing episode earlier. Lewis had no hesitation about reprimanding subordinates fiercely when they slipped up. It was a policy Great-Uncle Cuthbert had followed vigorously in his days as Abbot-General of the Fordite monks, but Victorian authoritarianism can be of questionable value in the late twentieth century, and on this occasion it seemed that even Lewis himself was wondering if he had been too severe. He said kindly enough to Stacy: “I hope you’re not still upset about forgetting to turn up at the church. We all make mistakes and that one’s been forgiven now.”

  But Stacy could only mumble something incoherent and shovel food into his mouth. He then proceeded to eat so fast that Lewis lost his temper again and growled as Stacy failed to muffle a belch: “Disgusting! And now, I suppose, you’re all set to vomit like a yob!”

  Stacy fled.

  As the kitchen door banged shut Alice said astonished: “What on earth’s the matter with him?”

  “I neither know nor care,” said Lewis acidly. “My patience is exhausted.” But he added very benignly to her: “My dear, could you please give me another slice of that celestial pie?”

  Delighted with this compliment Alice obediently doled out a second helping and turned to me. “Nicholas? More?”

  I woke up. “No thanks.” I was busy worrying about Stacy. Something was obviously amiss and I ought to talk to him without delay. But since I was currently so debilitated—since Lewis thought I was so debilitated—and since even I had to admit that I was currently not at my best … Muddled thoughts about my spiritual fitness scooted around my brain and whipped my anxiety to new heights. I was just opening my mouth to speculate further about Stacy’s behaviour when Lewis exclaimed: “What the deuce is he up to now?” and I heard Stacy clattering rapidly downstairs again. I guessed that having collected his coat from the curate’s flat he was on his way out. A moment later, as the front door slammed, my suspicions were confirmed.

  “Perhaps he’s just realised he’s madly in love with Tara,” said Alice, trying to strike a lighter note, “and is rushing off to the Isle of Dogs to propose.”

  “It’s more likely that he’s rushing off to the vicarage of St. Eadred’s Fleetside,” snapped Lewis, “to have a drink with Gilbert Tucker.”

  Glancing up startled I was just in time to see him look annoyed with himself before he wiped the expression from his face. I knew then the remark
had been an indiscretion, committed when he was too irritable to censor himself efficiently.

  “Gilbert Tucker?” Alice was saying. “He’s the nice, good-looking clergyman, isn’t he, who helped Nicholas organise the AIDS seminar.”

  “That’s the one,” said Lewis, and in an effort to smooth over the implications of his earlier remark he declared benignly: “A very charming fellow. Not quite my kind of priest but I concede he does sound work at St. Eadred’s.”

  “I didn’t know Stacy was a friend of his,” said Alice.

  “Neither did I,” I said, and added, looking straight at Lewis: “When did you see Stacy in the company of Gil Tucker?”

  “I expect it was last Monday evening, wasn’t it, Lewis?” said Alice obligingly. “I thought you were dining at the Athenaeum and Stacy was going to be out with Tara, but you both changed your minds without telling each other and went to that lecture given by the Benedictine monk.” She turned to me. “When Lewis arrived home afterwards he said to me: ‘No, don’t bother to get me a meal—after hobnobbing with Gilbert Tucker I just need a stiff drink.’ But later when I checked the fridge I found he’d polished off the mushroom quiche and a whole pot of coleslaw.”

  “Whisky’s a great reviver,” said Lewis blandly, gaze fixed on his plate, and went on devouring his second helping of steak-and-kidney pie.

  “Where was the lecture?” I said, taking care to keep my voice casual.

  “Sion College.”

  “And Gil was there?”

  “With his chums, yes.”

  “And Stacy?”

  Lewis made the pragmatic decision that any further attempt to conceal this fact would be futile. “He was sitting next to Tucker and having a whale of a time.”

  “Good!” I said cheerfully. “I’m always telling him he should socialise more with the London clergy! I’m delighted that he finally took me at my word.”

  Lewis drank deeply from his glass of claret and made no reply.

  But by this time I didn’t need one because I’d worked out what had happened at Sion College on Monday night. Stacy knew I was keen on Benedictine spirituality, but he’d probably decided to attend the lecture not just to impress me but to follow my advice about socialising. A fair number of priests always attended the Sion College lectures. I could picture Stacy arriving on his own, shy, a little hesitant; I could also picture Gil, who had become better acquainted with Stacy as the result of the AIDS seminar, catching sight of him and waving, just to be friendly. And finally I could all too easily picture Stacy relaxing at the sight of a familiar face and plonking himself down without a gay thought in his head among Gil and his friends.

  Well, why shouldn’t he sit among the gays if he felt like it? Weren’t we all followers of Jesus Christ, and shouldn’t we all be concentrating on what united us rather than what divided us? Gil was kind, generous, compassionate. In my opinion he had a well-integrated personality. It was true that in his support for the gay community he sometimes displayed a fanatical streak, but most people are fanatical about something or other—football, the Green Party, the Royal Family, the ministry of healing, flowers, the entire work of J. S. Bach—and a fanatical streak isn’t necessarily incompatible with being a good Christian. I was quite certain Gil would have had no sinister purpose in befriending Stacy that night. But Lewis, of course, would have seen them sitting side by side and instantly imagined them conspiring to hit every gay bar in town.

  After dinner I retired with him to the bedsit and said: “Lewis, I know this is hard for you, but do try and see Gil Tucker as a real person instead of a stereotype labelled GAY ACTIVIST. I assume your confidential conversation with Stacy on Monday night stemmed directly from the fact that you caught him sitting with the gays, but all I can say is that if you seriously think Gil’s now going to start preaching to Stacy about the wonders of gay sex—”

  “Activists always proselytise. They can’t help themselves.”

  “Look, is it really helpful to make these sweeping generalisations? If you could only discard those blinkers of yours and see Gil Tucker in more than one dimension—”

  “It’s you who’s in blinkers, Nicholas! The truth is liberals like you can never bear to see anyone in the round—it destroys too many of your cosy, soft-hearted ideas about human nature!”

  “I work at the cutting edge of reality. I don’t deal in fey ideas about the human condition. Nor do I consider myself a liberal in the pejorative sense you’ve just defined—”

  “I know you don’t. That’s the problem.”

  “There’s no problem! Like you I’m dedicated to pursuing the truth. Like you I believe that all truth is from God and that we must therefore pursue it to the best of our ability—and that’s exactly why I don’t believe in making sweeping generalisations about any group of people, particularly a group as diverse as homosexuals! Sweeping generalisations distort the truth!”

  “But the truth’s still there beneath the distortion, isn’t it? For example, the British are a very diverse race. But it’s perfectly possible, as foreigners never tire of showing us, to make some generalisations about the British which are both sweeping and accurate. They may not be very kind but they hit the mark because they contain a core of truth. I’m sorry, I know you think I’m just a tiresome reactionary, but—”

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s stop right there. This isn’t a profitable conversation. We’ve wandered off course. Now if we can get back to the subject of Stacy—”

  “No, Nicholas. You’re creating another huge diversion for yourself because your own problems are so painful that you can’t bear to concentrate on them. Let me repeat what I said earlier after our discussion of Francie: withdraw, rest, pray, recover your spiritual strength.”

  I gave up and wandered away.

  VI

  I couldn’t face going upstairs to the flat. I couldn’t face the possibility of finding that Rosalind had retired early to bed in Benedict’s room and again locked the door to protect herself from me. I felt now that she hadn’t believed I had been sincere in apologising to her, and that this was why she had made such an unsatisfactory response. Or could she have accepted my sincerity but for some reason found the apology meaningless? I replayed the scene again in my memory but found myself unable to imagine what the reason could have been.

  By this time I was back in my study. Slumped in the chair at my desk I forced myself to continue focusing on my problems; perhaps I was driven by some obstinate desire to confound Lewis, who had said I was too debilitated to concentrate on them. I tried to recall the questions Clare had posed, and the next moment I heard her say: “What is the significance of Bear?”

  Rosalind had talked of Bear in the scene prior to the hypnosis. “You were peculiar about him …” I could clearly remember her saying that, but what had she meant? I hadn’t been peculiar about Bear at all. A lot of small children are seriously attached to their teddy-bears. My devotion to Bear had been normal. Besides, he’d been the most beautiful bear, golden-fleeced and supple-jointed, his glass eyes very knowing, his black-thread mouth turned down in a subtle expression of melancholy wisdom. How I’d loved him! Even when I’d outgrown my toys I’d never been able to face giving him away. He still lived in comfort in the attic at Butterfold Farm, dressed in his best pullover knitted long ago by Nanny, and kept safe in my old school tuck-box from the ravages of moths.

  “You want to shut me up in a box like Bear!” Rosalind had screamed. I was even sure she had made not one but two references to being shut up in a box. What was going on? Without doubt she’d been furious at the time and probably not thinking too clearly, but why had she linked herself with Bear like that? It was true that Bear was shut up in a box. But a lot of people kept stuff from the past shut up in boxes. It wasn’t unusual. Families hoarded the most extraordinary things in attics. That wasn’t unusual either. So why was Rosalind implying Bear was a symbol of kinkiness and why was Clare endowing him with a weird significance?

  It occurred to m
e that in my distraught state I might have failed to explain to Clare that the mention of Bear in those circumstances wasn’t so weird as it might seem. Of course two adults in their mid-forties didn’t normally waste time chatting about teddy-bears, but Rosalind and I had been discussing our shared past, and in the shared past of our kindergarten days Bear had loomed large. It was natural to talk about him in that context. Nothing weird about it at all.

  I was just heaving a sigh of relief that I had reached such a satisfactory conclusion when a very disturbing thought struck me. I was almost sure that when Rosalind had first introduced Bear into the conversation we hadn’t been talking about the past. But perhaps my memory was playing tricks. I tried to rerun the scene more accurately but the harder I tried the hazier my memory became. Could my subconscious mind be at work, trying to blot out this fact which destroyed my comfortable theory that the mention of Bear had been wholly natural? I decided I was being melodramatic. The most likely explanation was that my middle-aged memory wasn’t as sharp as it should have been, and the subject of Bear had arisen, just as reason and logic suggested, from our nostalgic conversation about the past.

  To distract myself I turned to my computer and allowed my fingers to do a short tap-dance on the keys. I typed BEAR, and then remembering how Clare had switched from talking about Bear to asking after James I typed CAT. I sat there, gazing at the screen and thinking of animals. The next moment my fingers were tapping out: “One may lead a HORSE to water, Twenty cannot make him drink.”

  Not quite automatic writing. But something was bubbling purposefully down there in the unconscious mind. I wiped the screen, abandoned the computer. Now there was just me and that other computer, my brain. I suddenly realised it was saying: Clare led you to the water. Now for God’s sake do yourself a favour and drink.

  Couldn’t shut down this particular computer, that was the trouble. Very inconvenient.

  Aloud I said briskly: “Right!” and allowed my memory to go into free-fall in the hope that it would trigger some crucial knowledge that I’d repressed. Had to show Lewis I wasn’t quite such a basket-case as he thought. Had to show Clare I was the horse that was willing to drink. Had to show myself I wasn’t some spaced-out weirdo fixated on a soft toy.