The Wonder Worker

by Susan Howatch

  GARETH TUCKWELL AND DAVID FLAGG

  A Question of Healing

  I

  The invasion of the emergency services seemed to last for ages. The police spent ages at the top of the house; the Archdeacon, representing the Bishop, arrived in response to a phone call from Lewis and spent ages with Nicholas in the study; Lewis and I retreated to the kitchen (where he finally remembered to phone the Fordite monks to say Nicholas had abandoned his retreat) and spent ages drinking tea. Every incident resembled a nightmare in slow motion.

  Eventually the mortuary van came and I wept again as Stacy’s body left the house. I had barely finished mopping myself up when Nicholas and the Archdeacon entered the kitchen with two policemen and I knew my ordeal was about to begin.

  The policemen were polite in their professional way and not unkind. In response to their prompting we all pieced together Stacy’s movements that day and I was able to produce his note in which he had told me that he didn’t want to be disturbed. The note, of course, referred to our final conversation, and soon afterwards the police asked to see me on my own.

  I was surprised how calm I felt. “I believe one should keep faith with the dead,” I had said earlier, and now I was keeping faith with Stacy, protecting his family and Nicholas, just as he would have wanted—and just as any one of those sisters would have done if they had been standing in my shoes. I might have failed him at the end of his life but at least now I could redeem the mistakes I had made in that last agonising conversation, and care, on his behalf, for all those people he should never have left behind.

  As I wondered if Stacy’s family would ever fully recover from the tragedy I felt very angry with him. The moment of anger passed almost instantly but I felt in that brief second that I had shared something of the rage which had driven him to lash out against the world as well as against himself when he had made his terrible act of rejection.

  “… and how did the deceased seem to you last night, Miss Fletcher?”

  “Very down. I hate to say it but I got angry with him and we had a row—as the note implies. (The do-not-disturb note, I mean, not the suicide note.) But I shouldn’t have got angry. Poor Stacy, he had so many problems.”

  “What would you say his basic problems were?”

  I listed the homesickness, the alienation, the concern about his job, the worry that he might be letting Nicholas down, the difficulty about finding a steady girlfriend.

  “And this final conversation you had with him, Miss Fletcher—can you tell us a bit more about that?”

  “Well, it really focused on relationships,” I said steadily. “We talked about someone he knew who had died a few months ago. We talked about Mr. and Mrs. Darrow—Stacy had always admired them both immensely. We talked about his sister Aisling, the one who recently married. Stacy did miss his sisters so much.” I hesitated before adding: “That was the problem. No girl ever measured up to them.” Immediately I wondered in fear if I had said too much, but the elder policeman was nodding his head as if recognising a problem he had encountered before.

  “And there were problems getting a steady girlfriend, you said? What about this girl he was taking out?”

  “Tara? I doubt if the relationship would have gone anywhere. He liked girls but he couldn’t seem to get his act together with any of them.”

  The younger policeman said suddenly: “Preferred his mates, did he? Did he go off to the pub with them when he wasn’t wearing his dog-collar?”

  “No, Stacy wasn’t keen on pubs and he only drank very moderately. That was because his father had been a heavy drinker who had died in a barroom brawl.”

  “But he did have his male friends?”

  “He did in Liverpool,” I said, “but down here he found it hard to make friends—that was yet another of his problems. Mr. Darrow wanted him to make more effort to get to know the other clergy in this part of London, but Stacy couldn’t really connect with southerners.”

  “So what do you think the final trigger was, Miss Fletcher? The one that drove him over the edge?”

  “I suppose we’ll never know that for sure if he didn’t explain it properly in the suicide note, but as I’ve already said, I do know he was chronically worried about his relationships with the opposite sex and terrified of letting Mr. Darrow down by botching his opportunities here. I’m afraid he wasn’t exactly a grade-A curate.”

  “Is it possible that the girlfriend had broken off the relationship?”

  “You’d have to ask her. I think not, though, because he didn’t mention it.”

  “You’re sure he wasn’t gay?” said the younger policeman, finally ditching the euphemisms.

  “Quite sure. He was just hung up and horribly depressed. I’m sorry, I wish I could provide a cut-and-dried answer to the question about what finally drove him over the edge—I wish I could round off my account of the scene neatly—but I can’t because the reality wasn’t neat at all, it was messy and upsetting. You must know how it is when people are vilely depressed—you reach the point where you feel fed up with them and can’t take the misery any more, and that’s the point I reached all too soon during that last conversation with Stacy. I cut him off, I went away, and now …” The tears which began to flow at that point were all too genuine, and my interrogators, deciding I had nothing further to offer them but evidence of remorse and grief, terminated the interview.

  Retreating to the basement I collapsed exhausted on my bed and thanked God the police had probed no further, but of course, as I reminded myself, once they were satisfied that Stacy had committed suicide there was nothing further for them to investigate. The result of the brief enquiry into motive would supplement the pathologist’s report and then it would be the coroner’s responsibility to ask any questions which hadn’t been asked in order to wind up the case. But I wasn’t afraid of the coroner. I knew now I could stage a rerun of my truthful statements. And I wasn’t afraid of the press either. After all, nobody could compel me to talk to them. The only person who still terrified me was Francie, the time-bomb ticking less than a mile away in Islington.

  Shuddering with fear at the thought of the havoc she could wreak I mopped myself up yet again and toiled back upstairs to the kitchen.

  II

  The police were just leaving, and Lewis, leaning heavily on his crutches as he watched the front door close, was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Come and have a drink,” he said when he saw me.

  “Where are Nicholas and the Archdeacon?”

  “The Archdeacon’s gone to see the Bishop. Nicholas is trying to get in touch with Stacy’s mother. He tried earlier but there was no reply.”

  Sinking down in a chair at the kitchen table I tried to imagine the horrific conversation which was waiting for Nicholas and Mrs. McGovern, but all I could do was shudder. Meanwhile the brandy decanter was already on the table and Lewis, balancing himself precariously, was reaching into the cupboard for a glass.

  “I’ll get it,” I said hastily.

  We settled ourselves at the table, and after the first sip of brandy I found I was able to say: “Were the police satisfied?”

  “Thanks to you, yes … By the way, if any journalist phones just say ‘no comment’ and hang up. On no account be drawn into conversation.”

  Nicholas chose that moment to emerge from his study. “I still can’t get hold of Mrs. McGovern,” he said worried. “Either she’s out very late or else she’s away somewhere. I can’t decide whether to wait and try yet again or whether I should get Stacy’s address book and call the eldest sister.”

  “Why not enlist the help of the parish priest? Look up his number in Crockford’s.”

  “That’s an idea. But right now I need a short break.” He turned to look at me. “Are you all right, Alice?”

  “Holding up,” I said, indicating the brandy, and found myself adding in a rush: “I didn’t let him down. In the end I didn’t let him down.” My voice shook. Finishing the brandy I squeezed my eyes shut
, and when I opened them again I saw that every muscle in Nicholas’s face was taut with sympathy.

  “You’d better have a shot of brandy yourself, Nicholas,” said Lewis abruptly, interrupting us, but Nicholas took no notice.

  “We need to inform the senior staff,” he said, roaming around the room before pausing at the sink. “I can tell the prayer-group at mass tomorrow, but the senior staff need to be told now in case the press start asking questions.”

  “It’s just as well tomorrow’s Saturday,” said Lewis. “I hardly think we’re fit for work at present. In fact—” He broke off.

  Nicholas froze. “What is it?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing—I’ve just remembered I’m supposed to be having lunch with Venetia, but of course I’ll cancel it.”

  At once Nicholas said: “But it may be important for her that you should turn up.”

  “True.” Lewis dithered for a moment. This was unusual. He wasn’t normally a ditherer but in this case his desire to stay alongside Nicholas and his desire to see Venetia were locked in a fierce battle for supremacy. Finally he said: “Of course I’d like to see her, but I couldn’t possibly leave you to cope with Mrs. McGovern on your own.”

  “It’s unlikely that she’ll arrive before the end of the afternoon. By the time she’s got over the initial shock and made the travel arrangements—”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens when you finally make contact with her.”

  I said suddenly: “Who’s going to break the news to Rosalind?” and without a second’s hesitation Nicholas said: “I am. I’ll leave for Butterfold after breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  There was a silence as Lewis and I tried and failed to think of an appropriate comment. “However,” added Nicholas when he realised that the scene he had conjured up was a nightmare which had left us speechless, “there’s a serious problem with that plan and that’s this: I don’t think Rosalind will agree to talk to me if I’m on my own.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Lewis at once.

  “No, that won’t work—Rosalind knows you always support me, and if we turn up together she’ll be doubly hostile.”

  “Take Val.”

  “No, that’s no good either. I agree I’ve got to have a woman with me, but I can’t ask Val because Rosalind despises homosexuals.”

  I suddenly realised he was looking straight at me, and a second later I saw Lewis had realised this too.

  Wordless reactions ricocheted between the three of us with such speed that although I could sense the emotions generated I was unable to react to anything except my own shock.

  Unsteadily I murmured: “If I could be of any use …” but Lewis was already saying to Nicholas: “I don’t think Alice should be involved with your marital problems. Get a woman deacon to go with you.”

  “But then he’d have to get involved in giving her an explanation!” I found myself objecting. “At least if I went he wouldn’t have to explain anything to me. And I don’t mind going—I don’t mind doing anything which would help.”

  “All you’d have to do would be to sit in the car,” said Nicholas swiftly. “Rosalind and I would talk on the doorstep. She won’t want to let me into the house, but she’ll talk to me so long as you’re there to watch what goes on.”

  I was astonished by this evidence of such extreme marital discord, but before I could reply Lewis said strongly to him: “I can’t tell you how much I disapprove of this idea of yours. And what’s more I’m sure Rosalind would disapprove of it too. She knows exactly how Alice feels about you.”

  Nicholas stood up so abruptly that I jumped. “Rosalind understands nothing whatsoever about my relationship with Alice!” he said in a level voice which still managed to sound furious. “I’m surprised, Lewis, that you should choose to make such an ill-judged remark about a matter which at present requires no comment at all.” And he stalked out of the room. The door of his study banged a moment later.

  “Triple-hell!” muttered Lewis, draining his glass of brandy.

  Numbly I said: “What should I do?”

  “Oh, you’d better go. There’s obviously no dissuading him.”

  “But I want to do what’s right—”

  “Of course. Damn it, I might have known the Devil would launch his most lethal attack on Nicholas’s ministry not through an obvious lunatic like Francie but through a woman who’s integrity personified!” And having delivered himself of this vile remark he heaved himself out of the room in a rage.

  Pressing the palms of my hands against my cheeks, I remained seated as if nailed to my chair.

  III

  After a while I started to cook. I was exhausted but I knew I would never sleep. I wasn’t in the least hungry but I craved to go through a routine which was comforting, and the most comforting routine I could imagine at that moment was to make a cake. A picture floated into my mind of a light-as-a-feather sponge with jam and butter icing in the middle of the two halves and a flaky, curly white icing on the top. I would pipe the edge in pink and design a royal blue inscription. I pictured the words ST. BENET’S: 25TH NOVEMBER, 1988 grouped around a single candle.

  I had just finished stirring the gooey mess in the mixing bowl when Nicholas returned.

  “I got hold of the parish priest,” he said. “Apparently Mrs. McGovern’s been hospitalised as the result of an angina attack, but he’s going now in person to see Stacy’s eldest sister … What on earth’s that?”

  “Cake mixture.”

  “But why—”

  “It’s sort of therapy. I feel so awful.” I bit my lip to stop it trembling and stirred the mixture harder than ever.

  “I’m sorry.”

  But I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to bear it, afraid I might break down and hurl myself into his arms and tell him how much I loved him, afraid of embarrassing him, alienating him and driving him to believe he’d grossly overestimated my ability to cope with what he called “the cutting edge of reality.” The last thing I wanted was to be a nuisance to Nicholas—which was why Lewis’s final remark had been so vilely unfair. I wanted to be a support, not a drag, but I saw now that the cutting edge of reality had the teeth of a chain saw, and I felt as if I were tied to the bench of some carpenter from hell as the teeth advanced inexorably towards me.

  “Where’s the old man?” said Nicholas, sensing my chaotic emotions and striking the right casual note to help me remain in control of them.

  “Gone to bed, I hope.” With an enormous effort I pulled myself together. “Did you phone the senior staff?”

  “I phoned Val. She said she’d ring the others. She offered to come over, but …” As he allowed the sentence to peter out I knew that he too was exhausted yet unable to face the ordeal of trying to sleep. Then he seemed to dredge up some fresh strength. Abruptly he said: “Don’t let Lewis upset you. The truth is he’s so worried about me that he’s seeing disaster everywhere he looks.”

  “He started talking about the Devil—”

  “Yes, I know exactly how paranoid Lewis gets when all his anxieties outweigh his common sense … Are you really willing to come to Butterfold with me tomorrow?”

  “Of course, but supposing Lewis is right and Rosalind does react badly when she sees me?”

  “My dear Alice, I know Rosalind very much better than Lewis does. Her first reaction when she sees you will be relief that I’m not on my own. Her second reaction will be relief that I’m not accompanied by Lewis, and her third reaction will be relief that I’m accompanied by a woman whom she’ll feel free to ignore. She’d feel obliged to put up a front if she was faced with a woman deacon.”

  I felt better. The thought of Lewis getting things wrong was comforting. I began to spoon the mixture into the baking pans. The goo was very smooth even though I hadn’t used the mixer. I had beaten and beaten it, pounded and pounded it, whisked and whisked it in an orgy of therapeutic frenzy.

  Nicholas moved away, putting the table between u
s before saying: “You were magnificent tonight. You saved us both as we lost our footing on the high wire.”

  I said nothing. I just kept on smoothing the cake mixture over the surface of the shallow pans. I smoothed and smoothed the mixture. I curled it, curved it, stroked it, raked it. Finally I was able to offer the comment: “I just said what I thought.”

  “Anyone can say what they think. But not everyone’s thoughts are as clear-sighted as yours.” He paused before adding abruptly: “Would you come with me to mass tomorrow?”

  I was astonished. He had never made such a request before, and indeed nowadays I never attended a service at St. Benet’s. At the time of the eight o’clock service I prepared the communal breakfast, and during the midday Eucharist I was busy setting out the informal lunch. At weekends when the church wasn’t officially open I never fancied tagging along with the prayer-group who attended the services held by Lewis, although I had taken to sampling Sunday services elsewhere.

  I had tried St. Paul’s Cathedral but it was too big and I felt lost. Eventually I had discovered St. Bride’s in Fleet Street and would drift along there for Choral Evensong on Sunday night. I felt comfortable in this church because I could hide my bulk in one of the back pews and pray without feeling self-conscious. I was always sorry the time allotted for prayer was never very long. I liked tuning in to the stream of thought and adding my voice to the silent melodies produced by the group-will. I had found that once I no longer had to endure the constant white-noise of my unhappiness I could hear the cadences and rhythms which had been hidden from me before.

  Sometimes I felt I wanted to join the St. Benet’s prayer-group, but since I wasn’t a regular communicant I was sure I couldn’t possibly be good enough for them. Occasionally I’d wondered whether to mention my secret interest in prayer to Lewis or Nicholas, but they were always so busy and I didn’t want to bother them. I also felt that I knew them so well off-duty that it was hard to approach them in their professional role. This was another reason why it seemed easier to stay away from St. Benet’s when I dabbled in worship; besides, I didn’t want to risk resembling those women who came to St. Benet’s to worship Nicholas instead of God.