I thought of going to kindergarten for the first time and taking Bear with me for company. Nothing weird about that. I was four years old. Four-year-old kids did that kind of thing. I took Bear everywhere because he made me feel secure. On my first day at kindergarten the other children, nasty brutes, tried to grab him but I shouted: “No one plays with my bear except me!” and fought them off. I didn’t like other children. I was the only surviving child of my parents’ marriage and all the adults I knew treated me as if I was immensely special. My parents weren’t around much but I was able to console myself for their absence by savouring the fact that I was unquestionably wonderful. Then came kindergarten which confirmed my worst fears, acquired previously at various children’s parties to which I’d been dragged by Nanny: I wasn’t so special after all. There were a lot of other people my size in the world. Worse still, they didn’t think I was unquestionably wonderful. Innocence was over. Real life had begun.
It was easy now to look back with a smile at the bruising of my very inflated infant’s ego, but at the time it had been far from funny. My whole sense of self had been undermined and I’d been convinced that some huge hostile force was trying to annihilate me by destroying my identity. As soon as I returned home from kindergarten after that first day I’d had a psychic attack, seen all the other children as hobgoblins, and screamed until I was blue in the face. Nanny thought I’d gone mad, but my father had soon sorted me out. He had made the hobgoblins vanish; he had rolled back The Dark; he had enabled me to feel safe again. But nevertheless I had refused to go back to school.
Then after a couple of days this little girl was produced for me to play with. I’d seen her around at the tea-parties and I knew she had been at kindergarten too although she’d kept in the background. She was very shy and seldom spoke. I liked that. She also understood about Bear and never touched him unless I gave her permission to do so. I liked that too. Eventually it was suggested to me that I might like to go back to school because Rosalind had no special friend there and was longing for someone to look after her. I agreed to go back, the Prince rescuing Goldilocks. I walked into the playground with Bear under my arm and as I let go of my father’s hand I announced: “No one plays with my bear except me and Rosalind Maitland!” Rosalind went pink with pleasure, overwhelmed by the honour I’d done her. I took her hand and felt strong, safe, normal. I now had a friend, just as all the best children did. I was also protected from the hobgoblins because she made our classmates see me not as a hostile thug but as an ordinary kid capable of joining in the playground games. Rosalind was my passport to normality. After a while I became so normal that I even left Bear behind in the nursery when I went to school. But I didn’t need Bear to make me feel safe and secure any more, did I? I had Rosalind.
I sat in my study, a man of almost forty-six, and stared for a long time down the tunnel of memory to the muddled, frightened, lonely little boy who stood facing me at the far end.
Finally I thought: so Bear made me feel safe and secure and Rosalind made me feel safe and secure. But what’s the big deal about that? It’s just one of the many reasons why Rosalind is the most important person in my life and I love her and come hell or high water I’m never going to let her go.
I shivered suddenly. Didn’t know why. It was as if something had frightened me. Didn’t know what. Maybe it was the idea of letting Rosalind go—except that I wasn’t going to let her go, couldn’t, we were too deeply connected. I knew we had little in common, but so long as I knew she was safe at Butterfold, tucked up in her box … But of course that was Bear, not Rosalind. Rosalind had a sociable life in her own form of community, the Surrey village, and she wasn’t in a box at all. So why had she said … And why had Clare signalled …
Another part of my brain cut in, terminating this irrational nonsense by making me aware that I wanted to go to the lavatory. What a relief to think of a simple task like urination! Almost gasping with pleasure I tramped across the hall to Lewis’s bathroom, formerly the cloakroom, and relieved myself. But afterwards I was afraid I might start thinking irrational nonsense again and trying to kid myself I was on some sort of trail to the truth, so I went to the kitchen in search of Alice.
No luck. She had cleared up and retired to the hell-hole. I wanted to go down and knock on her door, but that was impossible. Distances had to be kept. Boundaries had to be observed. Alice was very important to me. I didn’t want to crash around like a wonder worker again in a new bout of destructive self-centredness.
Yet at that moment I longed for Alice. Nothing to do with bed. I just wanted to sit with her and feel enfolded by that most beautiful, most elegant psyche. Rosalind and Lewis would never have understood. Rosalind, reflecting the spirit of the age, thought all love between an unrelated man and woman was accompanied by torrid sexual urges, and Lewis, reflecting his hang-ups, thought that fornication was always just around the next corner, but Alice and I knew better. Alice quite understood she would never go to bed with me. She quite understood how devoted I was to Rosalind. She quite understood that distances had to be kept and boundaries had to be observed. Alice understood. That was the point. And because she entirely accepted that our relationship could only be conducted along certain lines, she wasn’t living in a hell of jealousy and frustration. I would have known if she was secretly seething with misery. But she wasn’t. She was radiant, glowing, serene. No wonder I sought her company! On the level where our minds met, her love, non-possessive and utterly unselfish, lit up the landscape where I had lived so long in isolation and banished the shadows I’d begun to fear.
Reluctantly withdrawing again to my study I found myself contrasting Alice’s love with Francie’s neurotic fixation. At the Centre we had a standard procedure for dealing with people who became obsessed with me. First Robin would begin to sit in with me on the counselling sessions. Then Val would join him and I’d drop out. But that procedure only applied if the fixated woman—or man—was a client. What made Francie horrifically different from the usual case was that she was a member of staff.
We had never before had a member of staff who had gone over the top in this particular way, and neither Lewis nor I had needed to spell out to each other just what a killer-threat this was. Unlike our pathetically fixated clients, her mental and emotional record was good. Her stability was judged to be considerable. Her credibility rating stood high. So if we now failed to defuse this illness of hers—if either Lewis or Robin or Val or I made a false move—she could blow her stack with lethal results. Supposing she announced to the world that I was rejecting her after a passionate love-affair? Then I’d really be in trouble. I’d fall victim to the no-smoke-without-a-fire syndrome where people believe any fable while kidding themselves that the worst is always true. Riding on the back of her mental illness, the demons of doubt, suspicion and fear would infiltrate St. Benet’s in no time and destroy my ministry.
This was such an unpleasant thought that I stopped brooding on Francie and spent a moment praying to God for protection. Then just as I was wondering if I could finally face going upstairs to the flat I received yet another diversion.
Stacy returned from his expedition.
Without stopping to think I leapt up from my chair and hurried into the hall.
VII
As soon as he saw me Stacy looked as if he wanted to run all the way to Liverpool.
“Come in here for a moment, would you?” I said abruptly, giving him no choice, and led the way back into my study. As I spoke I wondered if Lewis would hear us, but when there was no interruption I assumed with relief that he was asleep.
Stacy dragged himself after me, and once the study door was closed he shrank back against the panels as if he longed to disappear into the woodwork.
Speaking briskly but kindly I said: “Stacy, I can’t pretend I haven’t noticed that you’re behaving as if you’ve received a one-way ticket to hell. So let’s tear up the ticket and take a look at this problem. What’s going on?” This was certainly a direct
approach but he was in such a state that a more oblique line would only have confused him. By this time I was convinced he had acquired a problem far more overwhelming than a failure to sustain a friendship with Tara Hopkirk or a dread of remaining in Lewis’s bad books. Rigid with tension he stared fearfully at the carpet.
When he proved unable to reply I said gently: “I’m sorry you feel you can’t confide in me. That must be my fault, since I’m responsible for keeping the lines of communication open between us.”
He shook his head, apparently disputing that the fault was mine, but still he offered no information. I was baffled. He had always talked to me willingly enough before, even when the difficult matter of his sexual past had been under discussion. The obvious explanation for his tongue-tied state was that he felt he had let me down so badly that I would find it hard to forgive him, but what could he have done which was so unforgivable? Inevitably my thoughts returned to the subject of homosexuality. A homosexual incident wouldn’t be unforgivable, but Stacy might think that it was. Taking a deep breath I made a new effort to reach him.
“Well, if you don’t wish to talk to me,” I said evenly, “I must respect your decision, but you should see your spiritual director at once to tell him what’s wrong.”
“I can’t!” He was panicking. “But it’s okay, I’ve just been and talked to another priest—it’s okay, it’s okay—”
“Which priest?”
“Gil Tucker.”
I was deeply confused. On the one hand I was glad Stacy had picked a priest I respected. On the other hand I was dismayed that Stacy apparently had a non-relationship with his spiritual director and upset that my curate could no longer confide in me. What was going on? The obvious answer was that Lewis had been right all along, I’d been just a wet, woolly liberal blinding himself with trendy talk of sexual spectrums and Stacy had turned to the gays for the strength to come out of the closet. But was the obvious answer the correct one? Injured pride made me long to answer the question in the negative, but I could think of no other explanation which made sense. Then it belatedly occurred to me that if Gil had been counselling Stacy he had hardly been a success. Here Stacy was, still tormented and still behaving as if he were on the brink of breakdown.
Aware of the mystery becoming more baffling than ever I said carefully: “I’m glad you felt you could talk to Gil. Perhaps we should ask him to mediate between us.”
But Stacy only shook his head violently and began to cry.
“Stacy,” I said, concentrating on speaking as simply as possible in order to get the vital message across, “if you can no longer talk to me our relationship has broken down. If our relationship has broken down, this is my fault, as I should have prevented such a thing happening, and I must act to put things right. Putting things right involves—”
“None of this is your fault!” shouted Stacy in despair. “None of it! You’re the best priest in the world and I’m the bloody worst!” And before I could reply he had rushed from my study, slammed the door and bolted off again down the hall to the backstairs.
I was just asking my computer to produce Gil’s phone number when Lewis, tousled and furious, stormed into my study to demand that Stacy be sacked for crashing around late at night like a drunken hippopotamus.
I shut him up with the news that Stacy had become an emergency case.
13
Grieving is hard work, and this needs recognising by others. All kinds of physical, mental and spiritual symptoms can occur … and we may be unable to cope with the smallest of everyday demands.
GARETH TUCKWELL AND DAVID FLAGG
A Question of Healing
I
“I can’t think why you’re so baffled,” said Lewis when he heard what had happened. “The explanation’s obvious: the boy’s fallen in with a bad lot, gone on a cottaging spree and lived to regret it. Of course he can’t bear that you, his hero, should ever know the depths to which he’s sunk, so he’s just made his confession to that heterosexual-bashing bigot Tucker who would—of course!—have given him absolution on demand. Stacy knew he had to confess and be absolved before he could take the Sacrament tomorrow morning with a clear conscience, so naturally he chose to confess to a priest who thinks cottaging’s no more of a sin than a visit to the cinema. However, this abysmal travesty of a confession did nothing to allay Stacy’s guilt. That was why, when you accosted him just now, he went straight to pieces. Where’s the mystery?”
“I know that’s the obvious explanation, Lewis. The only trouble is I can’t believe it.”
Lewis kept calm. “You mean you can’t believe Stacy’s capable of such activity?”
“I suppose I can just about believe he’s capable of having another homosexual affair, although I think he would be very ill-at-ease in such a relationship and I’m sure it would soon fail. What I can’t believe is that Stacy would ever go prowling around public lavatories in pursuit of sex.”
“Why does that seem so implausible? People who are messed up about sex often indulge in seamy promiscuity. Stacy’s messed up. Therefore Stacy could be capable of seamy promiscuity.”
“QED.”
“What?”
“Nothing. The point is—”
“Wait a minute, what’s Tucker’s name and phone number doing on that screen?”
“Well, I know it’s late but—”
“What’s the point of talking to him? He’s hardly going to reveal the secrets of the confessional!”
“I realise that, but I could alert him to the fact that I know there’s a crisis going on, and then—”
“Nicholas, leave that man Tucker alone. He’s poison! He’s just muscled in on your curate, he’s behind all this battering you’re getting from the Gay Christians to sack me, and in my opinion he’s being used by the Devil to undermine your ministry at St. Benet’s!”
“Uh-huh. Look, why don’t you go back to bed now and we’ll postpone this discussion until the morning.”
“Oh no, we won’t! Tomorrow morning you switch off and go on your retreat, and if I find you still lurking around here when I come back from mass, I’ll—”
“Okay, I get the message. Relax. Tomorrow I’ll switch off.”
But tomorrow was another day. I waited until I heard the door of the bedsit close. Then I picked up the receiver and dialed Gil Tucker.
II
“Gil, it’s Nick Darrow. Were you asleep?”
“No, I’ve just opened a bottle of claret. I always prefer Médoc to a sleeping pill.”
“You’re not the only one who feels sleep could be hard to get tonight. Look, Stacy’s told me he visited you just now. Obviously there’s a king-size problem, but when I pointed out that my relationship with him had clearly broken down and suggested you should act as a mediator, he behaved as if no mediator could be of any use. What do I do next to restore his confidence in me? Since you know what’s going on, I’d really welcome your advice.”
“Of course,” said Gil without hesitation, yet in his voice I heard a note of … but I couldn’t define the emotion. Embarrassment? Anxiety? Dread? From the speed of his response I picked up the message that he wanted to be helpful yet was at a loss to know how to proceed.
“Of course I don’t expect you to breach his confidence,” I said swiftly, “but if there’s any help you can give me in finding a way out of this impasse—”
“Nick, all I can advise you to do is let the matter rest for two weeks.”
I could make no sense of this at all. “Two weeks,” I repeated blankly.
“Yes, then I hope the current situation will be clarified and I’ll be in a position to give you the proper support.”
“Support?” I had asked for advice. This could certainly be classified as asking for help, but “support” implied a degree of assistance which I hadn’t sought. “If only I had some idea,” I exclaimed in despair, “what I’ve done wrong! Okay, maybe I misread the sexuality issue—maybe Stacy really would be better off as a gay—”
/> “No, don’t wear out your shoes walking down that particular street, Nick. Wasted journey.”
I sat bolt upright on the edge of my chair. “You mean—”
“I mean you can tell that old grizzly-bear you keep at your Rectory that no, I haven’t taken Stacy on a cruising expedition, and no, I don’t go around trying to convert muddled young curates to the joys of gay sex, and no, I’m not some addled relic of the 1960s who believes in free love among the flowers in Nepal. I suppose Lewis has been saying—”
“Never mind Lewis,” I said curtly, but I was conscious of a massive relief. I managed to add: “Thanks, Gil. But are you really sure Stacy can be left alone for two weeks? On his present showing I’m reluctant even to leave him for three days. I’m supposed to be going on retreat from tomorrow morning until Sunday evening, but—”
“Fine. Go on retreat. I’ll keep checking on Stacy by phone and try to get him over here for a meal, but I think that by tomorrow he’ll have recovered his equilibrium. He’ll be at mass anyway, I can promise you that.”
This was the signal that Stacy had made his confession, received absolution and was now in a position to make a fresh start in the knowledge that whatever errors he had made had been forgiven. But what worried me was that Stacy could have gone through the correct ritual without connecting with it in any meaningful way. His guilt-ridden, panic-stricken behaviour suggested that the forgiveness wasn’t reflected in his conscience; I found myself again facing the conundrum in which the ritual of forgiveness had no psychological reality for the penitent.
Reluctantly I heard myself say: “He seemed on the verge of breakdown just now.”
“Don’t pay too much attention to that. There are reasons why he might not have wanted to face you, but by the time you return from the retreat I’m sure he’ll have got his act together—or if he hasn’t, I’ll know about it and take care of him … Will Rosalind be at the Rectory over the weekend? I understand she’s in town for a while.”
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