The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  I strode off rapidly into the park.

  As I walked I wondered how close I was to a nervous breakdown, that nebulous condition which can cover such a wide variety of mental problems. Although I had experienced claustrophobia there had been no panic, no hyperventilation. It was also reassuring to observe, as I moved through the great open space of the park, that I felt no twinge of agoraphobia. Nor did I feel any twinge of the apathy which would signal the onset of depression. I was walking at a brisk five miles an hour. That was good. I was also walking in silence. That was even better; at this stage of the game the fact that I wasn’t sobbing or shouting uncontrollably was a big plus. Best of all I wasn’t heading for the nearest pub to wait for opening time or hunting for a prostitute or rushing to expose myself to the nearest middle-aged matron or racing to Soho in pursuit of pornography. All these facts meant I hadn’t broken down. Yet. I was just reeling punch-drunk on the spiritual ropes and floundering all over the paranormal rubbish-heap, but neither of these two humiliating conditions was necessarily fatal.

  I had a sudden longing to be sitting companionably with Lewis in his bedsit. Lewis knew all about the hell of reeling punch-drunk on the spiritual ropes and floundering over the paranormal rubbish-heap. It would have been such a comfort to sit with him. Or we could have sat in the kitchen while Alice cooked and the cat lay on my lap in a beautiful shape and purred beneath my fingertips …

  Quashing the urge to walk east towards the Rectory, I paused to take note of my surroundings. I seemed to be in the middle of the park. The grass was frosty, the bare trees clean-limbed and stark against the clear sky. The air was crisper than usual for November, but at least there was no sign of snow or rain. I tried to work out the quickest route to Fulham, but having done so I decided it didn’t appeal to me. I disliked the thought of the noise and smell which would assail me as soon as I left the park.

  In the end I decided that since it was so pleasant in the park I would go on walking in green spaces for as long as I could and then take a cab to Clare when the grass ran out. I began to veer east towards Park Lane and within ten minutes I’d wound up on the brink of Hyde Park Corner. How did I cross this heaving hell without getting smashed to bits by the traffic? With relief I reflected that I had no desire to commit suicide.

  Plunging into the nearest subway I padded along through the network of underground streets until I found the exit to the south side of Piccadilly. Seconds later I was stepping into my next large open space, Green Park.

  I decided I liked this park very much. I sat there for a while and thought how pleasant it was to wander around London like a tourist. I was sure this was excellent therapy for me in my overstrained state. All I had to do now was avoid getting mugged. I looked around warily but found myself on my own, yards from anyone else; the nearest person was slumped on a distant bench. I drifted on downhill to Buckingham Palace.

  Once I hit the top of the Mall I crossed into my third big open space, St. James’s Park, which was the park I liked best. I prowled along by the lake to the bridge and spent a long time gazing across the water at the towers and minarets beyond Horse Guards. There was still no sign of a would-be mugger, but various out-of-season tourists were wandering around as if torn between Buckingham Palace on the one hand and the Palace of Westminster on the other.

  Soon I was asked to take a photograph of two smiling Japanese visitors. This so exhausted me that I had to sit down to recover, but just as I was preparing for the next phase of my walk an American couple seated themselves next to me, spotted my clerical collar and began to ask questions about what kind of future God had in store for AIDS, promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, pornography and the Soviet Union. I said: “Sex will survive. A false ideology won’t,” and tried to escape by saying I had an appointment at Westminster Abbey, but they replied with joy that the Abbey was the next place on their schedule and that they’d be honoured to accompany me there. They were so polite and charming that I felt I could forgive them a great deal, even for interrogating me about the future plans of my boss, the founder and president of Universe Inc.

  After a seemingly interminable interval we reached the Abbey and I escaped into St. Faith’s Chapel. As I remembered my lie to the Americans and tried to justify it, I told myself one could always have an appointment with God.

  Unfortunately the chapel struck me as having an odd atmosphere. I waited, fearful of some psychic eruption, but when none came I calmed down. At least the chapel was quiet. A verger wandered in and out, but the hardy groups of off-season tourists were being shepherded around the main part of the Abbey, and the chapel set aside for the private prayers of visitors was St. George’s by the west front. Possibly only my clerical collar had won me unquestioned access to St. Faith’s.

  At last I decided I felt sufficiently rested to take a cab to Clare’s house in Fulham. Leaving the chapel by the other entrance, a door which opened into the passage by the Chapter House, I wandered into the cloisters. I was just pausing to look at yet another green space—the grassy quadrangle—when I glanced across to the west cloister and saw a familiar figure hurrying through the colonnade.

  It was Francie.

  VIII

  Automatically I started to run. I raced around the corner into the south cloister, and by haring all the way down it I managed to catch Francie in the passage which connected the cloisters with Dean’s Yard. But when I touched her arm and she turned to face me I saw I’d made a mistake. This woman was unknown to me. With an apology I dropped back and she moved on.

  It was only then that I realised how stupid I’d been. There was no reason why Francie should have been visiting Westminster Abbey that morning. Moreover at close quarters the woman had borne little resemblance to her. How had I come to make such a strange mistake? Rubbing my eyes as if this would somehow sort my brain out, I made a big effort to think straight. Obviously I had been worrying about Francie on an unconscious level, and when I had seen in the distance a woman of her build and colouring the false recognition had allowed me to bring to the forefront of my mind the problem which she represented.

  I felt glad I hadn’t seen her double. To see a double was a harbinger of death. But I’d acted as if I’d seen her double. I’d genuinely thought the woman was Francie. So …

  I cut off that thought, since it led straight to the subject of paranormal phenomena and I had to steer clear of that particular web. Making a fierce resolution to pull myself together immediately I walked to the far end of Dean’s Yard around yet another green space—the Choir School’s playground—and sat down on the steps of Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England. Here I took more deep breaths and tried not to think of Francie. One or two people walked past but no one seemed to think I was behaving strangely. Perhaps priests often sat on the steps of Church House, like pigeons who had come home to roost. I sat staring at the Abbey’s twin towers, currently shrouded in the scaffolding which was enabling their restoration, and after a while I realised I couldn’t face taking a cab to Fulham. After an even longer while I thought: that’s a very disturbing conclusion and I must think of something else straight away before I get upset—and unsurprisingly the “something else” turned out to be Francie, her image dragged into the forefront of my mind by the doppelgänger.

  Suddenly I had a revelation. It occurred to me—and why on earth hadn’t I realised this before?—that I was the only one who could fix Francie because I was the only one who could convince her that I wasn’t going to wind up in the divorce court. Rosalind and I were going to stay together. The marriage was going to work out.

  At once I realised I had to see Francie without delay. I had to put her back in touch with reality, no matter how unwelcome that reality was, and provided I handled her skilfully I could steer her onto the road to health and healing. Was I capable of handling her skilfully? Of course. Admittedly I wasn’t quite functioning at my best, but my basic skills were still intact and I was an old hand at the tricky interview with a disturbed clie
nt. I’d pull it off. I’d fix her. One less problem to solve. A welcome success after all the failure.

  I paused carefully, professionally, to review Lewis’s diagnosis. Essentially this was just a case involving a normally sensible woman who had been temporarily overwhelmed by some common mid-life problems—children growing up, absent husband, menopausal symptoms—with the result that her unhappiness had taken a neurotic form in one specific area of her life: her relationship with me. There was no possession, no psychosis. She wasn’t imagining that everyone at St. Benet’s was conspiring against her in order to keep us apart. She didn’t think her husband was trying to kill her. She hadn’t sent her children away to school because she was afraid she would murder them. She wasn’t hearing voices from Venusians who ordered her to kill Rosalind and liberate me. Violence wasn’t on her agenda at all. Her only problem was that she was obsessed with me, obsessed enough to turn up at my house in her nightdress, and this was certainly a problem, but once she heard from my own lips that I intended to stay married to Rosalind I was sure I could delicately manipulate her into an emotionally neutral space where the fantasy could be recognised as misguided—of course there’d be no crude shattering of the delusion—and then with the appropriate help from Robin, Val and Lewis … Yes, with the right treatment she’d soon recover, but there was no time to lose. If the obsession worsened and the public declarations of passion started … if the demons rode into St. Benet’s on the back of that mental disturbance … if the no-smoke-without-a-fire syndrome ignited …

  But what was I doing, idling away my time by dwelling on these nightmares? I had to act. This was an emergency. I had to act now.

  Feeling immensely better at the prospect of returning to action again as a healer I set off in search of a public phone. After enquiring at the Church House bookshop I eventually found a booth nearby in Great Peter Street, and a minute later I was asking my secretary if Francie had come to work that day.

  She had, and in response to the summons from Joyce she came gasping to the phone.

  “Nick!”

  “Yes, it’s me. Look, I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh, my God!” Francie sounded as if she was reeling with surprise, delight and something which came across as shock, the pleasurable kind common among bystanders viewing an exceptionally interesting disaster. Breathlessly she demanded: “Is it about Stacy?”

  “Stacy!” I was so confused by this question that it took me at least five seconds to reply: “No, of course not.” What was going on? In my mind Stacy and Francie represented two separate problems with no common ground. Then it occurred to me that something might have happened to Stacy that morning while I’d been loafing around the open spaces. Instantly I saw Lewis accusing him of cottaging—Stacy rushing out of the house in a panic, losing his footing on the steps and smashing his skull on the cobbles—the ambulance howling along London Wall—Mrs. McGovern sobbing up in Liverpool—

  I reined in my imagination. “Has Stacy had an accident?”

  “Oh no!” said Francie glibly. “No, nothing like that, but he didn’t feel well this morning so he went home. I wondered if you were calling to ask me to check on him. Lewis said just now you’d gone on a retreat, but I know how difficult it must be for you to switch off from St. Benet’s, and if you’d like me to go and see Stacy—”

  “No, I want you to come and see me. I think we should talk as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, how super, yes, do let’s! I’m only working till twelve-fifteen because funny old Lewis asked me to take a break from befriending today and help him out with the music therapy patients, but the session’s almost over and then I’ll be free as air. Why don’t I pick you up at the Fordite HQ and whisk you off to Islington? I’ve got white wine in the fridge and one of those yummy quiches from M and S—”

  “That’s good of you, Francie, but I’ve other plans for the next few hours and I’m not with the Fordites, I’m somewhere near Parliament Square. Can you meet me at Westminster Abbey for Evensong?”

  “Oh, what heaven—yes, of course! And afterwards—”

  “Afterwards we’ll have a short talk in the nave. Thanks, Francie. By the way, Evensong begins at five—I’ll get seats for us in the stalls so look out for me as soon as you enter the quire.”

  “Wonderful!” breathed Francie fervently before I hung up.

  I found another coin, dialed the Fordites’ number from memory and left a message to say I’d gone to see my spiritual director and wouldn’t be back for lunch. But as soon as I had replaced the receiver I knew I still couldn’t see Clare. I needed to spend a restful afternoon so that I was in prime condition to tackle Francie. Leaving the phone booth I wandered down to the little park on the Embankment beside the Houses of Parliament and sat down on one of the elevated seats which overlooked the River. A large gull was perched on the parapet. His chest was so white that I wondered how he cleaned it. Surely there were spots his beak couldn’t reach? I wondered if his partner helped to groom him. But I didn’t want to think of partners. Didn’t have to either, now that I was so satisfyingly occupied with Francie. As the gull flew away downstream I began to review my conversation with her.

  I thought I’d been both clever and skilful. Clearly it would have been idiotic to suggest a meeting in her home or in surroundings where there would be no witnesses. To meet in a large place amidst plenty of people was the perfect solution, just as to meet for a service was the perfect prelude to our conversation; Francie would be reminded that I was a priest unavailable for fornication and adultery. It might have been awkward if we had been obliged to sit close together, but the stalls at the back of the quire would ensure that Francie had no physical contact with me, even though we were sitting side by side.

  Congratulating myself on this brilliant scheme I suddenly realised I needed to eat. I left the park. Then I walked down the Embankment to the Tate Gallery, refuelled by downing a sandwich and spent the afternoon contemplating some interesting modern pictures.

  Or at least, that was what I appeared to be doing. In another dimension of reality I was behaving like a lemming rushing at full speed towards the nearest cliff, but unfortunately at the time this insight never crossed my mind.

  14

  In a way grief is indeed a kind of madness … we seem totally unable to handle anything. Our feelings may well get put onto other things or people.

  GARETH TUCKWELL AND DAVID FLAGG

  A Question of Healing

  I

  When did I first realise I had made a catastrophic error? Perhaps it was when Francie entered the quire and turned her mad, shining eyes in my direction. I made myself believe that she was merely excited by the prospect of meeting me, but my heart continued to beat rapidly, as if my psychic eye glimpsed the reality which my physical eyes were too afraid to see. Or did the awareness finally surface when she sat down in the stall beside me and in greeting put her hand briefly on my thigh? The physical contact, unsought and unwanted, was the equivalent of an ice-pack on the genitals. It was hard not to wince, harder still not to allow a vision of disaster to flood into my mind, but somehow I convinced myself that this was a mere spontaneous gesture and that my best policy was to ignore it. It was only when Francie sank to her knees to say a prayer before the service that the truth blasted my delusions aside and I sensed not her prayers but the panting breath of the demons which yearned to destroy me.

  In a flash I not only recognized my error but understood why I’d made it. I hadn’t wanted to convince Francie that there was no possibility of divorce. I’d wanted to convince myself. My chaotic emotions had blinded me to danger and shoved me in entirely the wrong direction. Unable to face the possibility that my marriage might be beyond saving, I had seen Francie’s fervent belief in a future divorce as a threat to me which had to be eliminated so that my own fears could be kept under control. So here I was, playing the wonder worker again despite all my earlier lectures to myself on the subject, and facing the one person whom I should have avoi
ded at all costs.

  Game, set, but not quite match to the Devil.

  Was I talking the religious language of metaphor and analogy? Yes. But I was describing something that was real. Evil exists. Those who forget that fact or ignore it or reject it are at best taking a big risk and at worst conniving at their own destruction.

  All creation has its dark side. That’s inevitable; it’s built into the creative process, as I myself had discovered when I’d tried to paint water-colours. One wrong stroke of the brush and the whole picture is under threat. Then one has to sweat blood trying to make good the mess.

  But I’m more familiar with the dark side of God’s creation than with the dark side of painting water-colours. I’m more familiar with the darkness which can’t be weighed and measured in the laboratory but which is nonetheless chillingly real. Artists and poets can represent it best with symbols because it’s not easily accessible to straightforward description. The old religious code-words still bear traces of the terror they once invoked, but they’ve changed over time and lost their power. But the underlying reality doesn’t change. The underlying reality is. Lives get smashed up. People, even nations, are destroyed by what appear to be huge unseen forces far beyond the control of politicians or economists or scientists. Accidents happen. Psychopaths wander around with dead eyes. And people pushed off balance by extreme stress make bad decisions and rush lemming-like to their doom.