The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  All I wanted was for life to go on as before. I knew I couldn’t expect more than that, but I felt that so long as I was living at the Rectory and looking after Nicholas as well as I possibly could for five days out of seven each week, I’d be content. More or less. Of course in my lonelier moments I’d have liked more, but that wasn’t possible and one always had to recognise what was possible and what wasn’t. The fact was that Nicholas was never going to desire me sexually. I was quite clear about that and was even glad my ugliness gave me no chance to deceive myself. If I’d been as attractive as Francie, I might have succumbed to all sorts of pathetic illusions and wound up just as nuts as she was.

  But I wasn’t nuts. I did love Nicholas but I didn’t deceive myself about the situation. Of course before I’d come to the Rectory I’d been like Stacy, an elderly adolescent in the grip of hero-worship; I’d been infatuated, nurturing a big romantic dream—not a delusion, as Francie now seemed to be experiencing, but a fantasy which I knew at heart was unreal. Francie, I was sure, had lost sight of the fact that her infatuation was unreal, but then Francie was very unhappy and I wasn’t, not now. I had my three men who all cared about me, and I had the respect of the people who worked at the Centre. I did a useful job well and derived immense satisfaction from it. In short, reality was so stimulating nowadays that romantic dreams took a back seat. I didn’t exactly discard the dreams, but as I was able to see how unreal they were, I was able to keep them in their correct place. So although I occasionally still found myself day-dreaming of marrying Nicholas I never for one moment kidded myself that this was ever going to happen. Nicholas adored Rosalind and would stay married to her for ever. I accepted those two facts completely. But I accepted too that I loved him. I couldn’t not accept it. It was the most real thing in the world for me, a gift from God (the real, living God, not Aunt’s fossilised, useless old relic) and no one, not even horrible Rosalind, could ever snuff it out.

  The love I felt for Nicholas enriched me. It made the world seem inexhaustibly rewarding and worthwhile. In fact sometimes I felt the gift wasn’t love but life itself, but then I knew that love was life—or rather, love was the driving force of life, the energy which powered not only the world but the whole universe—or so it seemed to me whenever Nicholas sought my company, whenever he sat at the kitchen table in silence and watched me work.

  Yes, I loved Nicholas. But by this time I loved not a perfect hero who didn’t exist but a man who was as flawed as any other human being. I saw him in the light of reality. I saw all his faults: the way he worked too hard, leaving too little time for his family; the detachment which kept people at arm’s length all the time he was caring for them; the solitary nature which would make true intimacy difficult; the arrogance which lurked always in the shadow of his genuine humility. I saw him as akin to Kipling’s “cat which walked by himself,” a splendid cat, powerful and arresting—but as dangerous as a tiger on the prowl. The staff at the Healing Centre had plenty of stories of women who had fallen for Nicholas and writhed in humiliating enslavement beneath the weight of his meticulous, professional caring which never once strayed into impropriety. He did do great good in his ministry, but the big state secret of the Healing Centre was that he also, without meaning to and while acting with the very highest motives, did much harm. It’s degrading to wallow in a mire of unrequited love which can so easily slip over the edge into a pathetic infatuation. Francie wasn’t the only one who had drifted onto the emotional rocks surrounding Nicholas. The shipwrecks in those chaotic waters were legion.

  I kept asking myself why Nicholas didn’t see what was happening to Francie. Then I realised that he probably did see but was waiting for the right opportunity to get her into treatment—and wash his hands of her. That was no doubt sensible, professional behaviour, but at the same time it implied that whenever broken people displayed too many jagged edges he disappeared behind bullet-proof glass and left others to clear up the mess. Perhaps he thought that so long as he himself behaved according to the rules, attending Communion daily and treating his clients with his morally correct but psychologically bruising detachment, his God would sort out all the boring women who fell for him and made fools of themselves. But I wondered sometimes what his God really thought of this very streetwise retreat from the damaged people who looked to him for healing.

  Personally I felt that my God—the God that wasn’t quite Nicholas’s but certainly wasn’t Aunt’s—the God who had begun to inch stealthily into my mind and stroke all my muddled thoughts into some sort of coherent shape—my God, I felt, would have wanted much more co-operation from Nicholas in sorting out the human shipwrecks. Nicholas should have seen that more was required of him here; after all, he did care about people and he was so often unusually perceptive. I realised he had to be careful in order to preserve his reputation, but I still wondered if his lethal detachment sprang purely from a desire to protect his good name and play the game by the rules. Sometimes I thought that perhaps, deep down, he feared the temptation these women represented when they revealed their rampant sexual desire—but I always dismissed this theory because I knew he adored Rosalind and so therefore no temptation to commit adultery could exist.

  I finished the pie and with Nicholas still watching me silently I decided to peel the potatoes.

  As usual, when a spell at the kitchen sink was in the offing, I then began to meditate creatively. If I really loved Nicholas, I told myself, I was safe from madness because real love had nothing to do with wanting to control the beloved and then raging around in frustration when control proved not merely elusive but impossible. Real love wasn’t possessive. Of course I was a bit jealous of Rosalind—just a bit—every now and then—but that was natural. If I’d had no twinge of jealousy I would have been inhuman. But what I wanted above all, I thought as I brainwashed myself fiercely, was the best for Nicholas, and if the best for him was Rosalind, then so be it.

  I offered this conclusion cautiously to the God who was now moseying around in my mind like some clever, elegant caterpillar, inching hither and thither, laying trails, exploring the uncultivated, disorganised environment with a peculiarly unconditional acceptance of all the mess and muddle. Then I added silently to my elegant caterpillar whom I knew I would one day see as the most beautiful butterfly: “Please help me never to stand in the way of what’s best for Nicholas, never to be possessive and selfish and never to deflect him from his job of serving you as well as he can.” And in a burst of longing I tacked on an additional request which seemed to bypass my brain altogether and come straight from the heart. Soundlessly I cried to my caterpillar: “Please use me to help Nicholas somehow—use me, use me, use me!”—and then I saw this had already happened; Nicholas had been talking of how I was the real healer at the Rectory and he was behaving as if I had made him feel better.

  Of course I knew the main healing power came from God—or Christ—or the Holy Spirit—or whatever one wanted to call it, so I didn’t succumb to delusions of grandeur about my ability to heal. Nevertheless it did occur to me that by loving Nicholas as I did, by wanting the best for him and by shutting out all self-centred possessiveness, I was the ideal channel, not polluted, not clogged up, my own minuscule healing power aligned accurately with its source. Perhaps by loving Nicholas in this way, I thought, I might somehow help God to keep him safe not only from the dark side of his ministry but from the dark side of his personality—the arrogance, the obstinacy and that glamorous detachment which guaranteed that he stayed secretly uncommitted in a career where commitment was developed to a fine art.

  I suddenly realised Nicholas was talking again. Switching off the meditation I began to tune in to what he was saying.

  He was confiding in me obliquely, signalling that he was worried about Stacy and Francie. It was a relief to know for certain that he had realised Francie was a problem, but at the same time I was worried that the full extent of her nuttiness might be unknown to him. On Monday night she had arrived, overwrought and underdr
essed, at the Rectory in pursuit of her adored one. As Nicholas was away Lewis had dealt with her but I was unsure how much he would have been able to say about the interview afterwards, particularly if Francie had turned the interview into a confession. Casually I now mentioned to Nicholas how Francie had been wild-eyed, her breasts almost popping out of her low-cut nightdress, and at once my suspicions were confirmed. Nicholas was staggered by the information; I had the clear impression that although he knew of her visit he knew no details. Lewis, it seemed, had been superbly discreet, but I wasn’t a clergyman and nothing had been confessed to me so I felt no obligation to match his discretion. Choosing my words with care and using a studiedly neutral voice I described Francie’s appearance in a way which left Nicholas in no doubt she was round the twist.

  I would have said more but at that point we were interrupted—which was a pity, but at least he now knew Francie was in a different league from the usual adoring groupies who haunted St. Benet’s. These women—and I had met a couple of them—were still capable of dressing appropriately and keeping up appearances. Francie wasn’t. After all, you don’t turn up in your porn-shop nightwear at the house of your employer unless you’ve either received some hefty encouragement or else are totally freaked out, and I was prepared to bet my jumbo steak-and-kidney pie that Nicholas had done no encouraging.

  Meanwhile, as these thoughts were zipping across my mind, Lewis was storming into the kitchen in a filthy temper and demanding to know where Stacy was. Apparently Stacy was supposed to be on duty at the church, but no doubt the chance meeting with Tara followed by the glimpse of Rosalind waving from the window had induced amnesia. This was all very typical of Stacy, well known for his scattiness, so I didn’t think twice about it. Instead I concentrated on trying to calm Lewis down, but while he was still seething, that awful Venetia Hoffenberg rang up and instantly he was tamed.

  Lewis was being very silly about Venetia. He ought to have been old enough to know better. I felt sad about this silliness because he had been such a splendid clergyman when he had coped with her at Lady Cynthia’s lunch-party. Of course he was still a splendid clergyman, I knew that, but that was exactly why I hated to see evidence of the fact that even the best clerics can occasionally be absolute ninnies, just like the rest of us. Stacy, innocent as ever, had no idea what was going on and neither had anyone who didn’t live at the Rectory, but Nicholas and I were in agony, praying that this weird bout of senile passion would rapidly burn itself out. Naturally Nicholas and I had never exchanged a single word on the subject, but we didn’t have to. We each knew what the other was thinking, and that was why, when Lewis bolted to the bedsit to take the call, Nicholas and I merely exchanged looks and remained tight-lipped.

  I sighed as I returned to the potatoes. It was just so obvious to me that Lewis needed a nice, kind, youngish widow devoted to Anglo-Catholicism, not this non-churchgoing old bag with a drink problem who probably couldn’t even boil an egg.

  Even before Venetia’s call it had dawned on me that Stacy had probably taken Rosalind up to the curate’s flat for her long-delayed treat: a private viewing of Aisling’s wedding photographs, and when Nicholas finally buzzed the curate’s flat on the intercom and found Stacy at home, I realised I had been right. Nicholas ordered him to go at once to the church. There was a nasty moment shortly afterwards when Stacy, rushing downstairs, was pounced on by Lewis, who had finished talking to Venetia, but I heard Nicholas sort them out in the hall and send Stacy on his way. I didn’t actually see Stacy at that point, as I’d remained in the kitchen, but if he’d been looking upset I would have assumed he was distressed by his bout of amnesia.

  An interval followed during which I was on my own, preparing the vegetables. Nicholas was in his study for a short time. When I heard him go upstairs I presumed he was going to talk to Rosalind, but soon afterwards he returned downstairs and I heard the bedsit door open and close as he slipped in to see Lewis. It was during their conversation, which lasted some time, that Stacy crept back into the house after closing the church. This was the first obvious instance of him acting out of character, because he never crept anywhere; he bounded and bounced. Unable to believe he could ever enter the house without banging the front door I looked out into the hall for fear some down-and-out had picked the lock, and as soon as I saw Stacy’s face I knew that something had gone very wrong.

  IV

  “Stacy—” I tried to detain him to find out what had happened, but he rushed on without stopping. Although I heard him mutter: “Sorry—got to—” he never completed the sentence before disappearing at top speed in the direction of the backstairs.

  I made no attempt to follow him, partly because the meal was now at a crucial stage but mostly because at this point Nicholas left the bedsit and drifted tensely back into the kitchen. Rosalind, he informed me, wouldn’t be dining with us after all (wretched woman, messing me around again!) because she wasn’t hungry; she’d had a large lunch at Fortnum’s with Francie.

  I was astonished. I could think of no reason why Francie, now totally bananas about Nicholas, should wish to have lunch with his wife. It was hard to believe that the fiction of bosom friendship could still be sustained.

  Tentatively I enquired: “How did Francie seem to Rosalind?” At the very least she had to be tanked up on gin to avoid appearing bogged down with gloom. She had already been off sick that week with depression, and the thought of seeing her arch-rival would have made her feel more depressed than ever—or so I assumed. But I was wrong.

  “She took a little time to get going,” said Nicholas without expression, “but by the end of the meal she was in fine fettle. The word Rosalind used to describe her was ‘radiant.’ ”

  “Gosh!” This made no sense at all. In the silence that followed I tried to remember what I’d read in the medical column of The Times about that illness which drives people to be suicidal at one moment and high as a kite the next. Maybe Francie was even nuttier than I’d imagined.

  Before I could dwell further on this thought, Nicholas decided to feed the cat. We kept tinned catfood for James but I cooked fish for him regularly and on that day there was cold boiled cod on the menu, disgusting for humans but James loved it. As Nicholas put the plate on the floor, James arched his back in ecstasy before thrusting his nose towards the food.

  I was just about to tell Nicholas about the new vitamin-enriched cat-snack which I’d seen advertised on TV, when Lewis arrived for dinner. There was no sign of Stacy and after removing from the oven the glowing pie I went to the intercom to summon him.

  Eventually I heard him whisper: “Yes?”

  “Dinner,” I said. “Are you okay?” But the connection had been severed before I could complete the question.

  I served up the vegetables and adorned the bowl of potatoes with a sprig of parsley. By this time Lewis was making the usual greedy sighs and saying how wonderful I was. I loved his enthusiasm for my cooking, and nowadays I hardly ever cooked French recipes because both Lewis and Stacy so enjoyed the English classics. Nicholas was always polite enough to say how much he enjoyed them too, but he had no passion for food as Lewis and I had—although that night I wasn’t feeling hungry; I was too aware of being needled by a pervasive, steadily expanding anxiety. I helped myself to only one potato, a mere spoonful of cabbage and a slimmish slice of pie.

  Finally Stacy arrived, slipping into the room as silently as a ghost. Nicholas said grace. We began to eat. Stacy said nothing but bolted his food and vanished. A few minutes later the front door banged shut as he rushed out.

  Knowing that Stacy’s behaviour was highly abnormal but wanting to defend him from Lewis’s inevitable acid comments, I pretended all was well by declaring Stacy must have been dashing off to see Tara. Lewis disagreed, saying it was more likely that Stacy had a date with Gilbert Tucker, the friendly gay clergyman who had helped Nicholas organise the AIDS seminar. I couldn’t think why Lewis was implying Stacy was gay when it was so obvious he wasn’t, but Lewis was very f
ractious that evening, overtired and fit only for a nursing home for convalescents. If ever I have to have a hip replaced (which God forbid) I’d take convalescence very seriously indeed instead of pretending it wasn’t necessary. Why do men so often put the need to be macho before the need to use their common sense? I was getting cross with Lewis for being so dumb, but perhaps by that time I was as overstrained as he was.

  After the meal Lewis went to bed early (common sense finally triumphed) and Nicholas withdrew to his study. I stacked the dishwasher, cleaned up, made myself an extra cup of decaf, sat around thinking of nothing in particular. After a while I realised I was waiting for Stacy to come back, but he didn’t return and eventually James and I padded down the backstairs to my flat. I thought I might watch television but I found I couldn’t be bothered to switch on the set. I looked in the fridge but there was nothing I wanted to eat.

  At last I had a bath, put on my dressing-gown and started to read Good Housekeeping but none of the recipes interested me. I was just yawning my way through the last pages when I heard the front door slam shut. Speeding up the backstairs I saw from the end of the passage that Stacy had returned and Nicholas had waylaid him in the hall; as I watched, the two of them disappeared into the study. Neither of them saw me. Returning to the basement I stripped off my nightdress and dressing-gown, pulled on a bra, sweater, briefs and stretchpants, and beetled all the way up the backstairs to the curate’s flat.

  V

  Stacy arrived a minute later. He was breathing hard, having raced upstairs, and he was obviously on the verge of tears. As soon as he saw me I said: “Look, I don’t want to butt in where I’m not wanted, but please, please tell me if there’s anything I can do to help because I hate to see you so upset.”

  Stacy’s defences immediately crumbled. At first I thought he’d expended so much energy on holding himself together during his conversation with Nicholas that he’d run out of the strength needed to suppress his tears, but then I realised he was merely touched by what I’d done. I’d stayed up late; I’d hauled myself all the way up to his flat to wait for him; I obviously cared. Stacy, distraught and tormented, was almost speechless with gratitude.