The Chymical Wedding

by Lindsay Clarke

  But what did you do with it when the woman who’d opened those doors disappeared through them? When you recalled how primitive your response had been? And what did you do with feelings that yearned and recoiled and ducked their heads in shame? I could have bitten off my tongue to remember some of the crass things I’d said. They made me sweat with remorse, as the sight of Edward made me sweat with guilt. He was my teacher and my friend, my magister and my fool. He was Mercurius shifting shape around me, not to be pinned down. I knew that for all his faults he was grander than I was. He had a larger sense of life. He was like an old Lagonda hogging a byway, monumental and ridiculous and huge of heart. He was richer than me and I’d stolen from him. I could sit here pretending that nothing had happened, or I could cross the floor, confess, and take the consequences. At least then I’d feel clean.

  But mine weren’t the only feelings at stake. It would be Laura who took the real aftermath. By the time Edward got back to the Lodge, the first shock would have passed, and I knew what happened next. So, I guessed, did she, which was why she’d insisted he be told on her own terms, in her own time. She was mistress of the situation now. I saw she had always been so, quietly manipulating both of us onto her own ground, for all the significant events had happened outside this library where Edward and I burrowed vainly for the key. And whether it was done for her own ends or – as I was quite certain she would protest – in service of some higher principle, remained unclear. I admired, desired and distrusted her, aware that if everything felt unreal, it was because she made it so. I could be no more confident of the reality around me now than Edward could and, at the moment, my feelings for him were clearer than my feelings for her.

  Then he was standing over me. “Do you think I should trust Laura?” he asked. And, as I swallowed, added, “About this business I mean.”

  “Edward, I don’t know.”

  “I’ve been thinking it over. She’s been right before. But this…”

  I would have liked to be honest. Failing that, I wanted to be helpful. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to find out more. About Frere, I mean.” He frowned down at me in some consternation. “Unless you really are on to something else.”

  He shrugged, sighed impatiently. “I thought I was, but… God damn it, I don’t know.” In what seemed a reluctant adherence to the truth he added, “There is an old Kabbalist tradition that the sexual act can do something to heal the wound in the heart of God, but only if it’s performed in full spiritual awareness. Louisa would have known about that. But she chose the other way – the way of denial. Abnegation. Spiritual ascesis. Otherwise she would have married, right?” He looked for confirmation. I shrugged. “It won’t wash,” he said, and started to walk away. Then stopped. “I suppose there must be parish records… though I still don’t see how they could help.”

  “Didn’t you say that Louisa mentioned Frere in her last journal entry?”

  “Not Frere. His wife. He was married and he was the parson. It’s preposterous.”

  Then another fact surfaced in my memory. “I seem to remember that Frere wasn’t in Munding long. It struck me when I was looking at the list of Rectors in the church. I suppose something could have happened?”

  Edward saw where my thoughts were going and scowled. “A village this size? Victorian England? Anyway, what possible bearing could it have on the Agnews’ work?”

  “I don’t know. But if Laura’s right…”

  He turned away, appeared to be studying his own reflection in the glass of a bookcase.

  “These things do happen, Edward.”

  “Now they do. Anything can happen in this contemporary madhouse. But we’re not talking about now.”

  “Human nature…”

  “…is a pretext for all manner of irresponsibility. That was precisely the ground of the Agnews’ work – deep self-knowledge; not some scatter-brained acting on romantic impulse. These were serious people.”

  I retreated to safer ground. “If there are records, Neville Sallis might have access.”

  “That dunderhead! He won’t have anything to do with me. Not after last time. His grasp of theology could be resumed on the back of a Sunday-school text. The imbecile had the gall to ask me if I’d read my verses at some damned concert party he’s organizing.”

  “Me too.”

  “I trust you told him what to do with it.”

  “Not as colourfully as you. I could ask him if you like.”

  “I doubt it’s worth the trouble. Anyway, God knows when the next service is. They seem to be organized like a sort of spiritual meals-on-wheels these days.”

  “I know where he’ll be tonight. At a CND meeting in Saxburgh. Bob Crossley goaded him into going.”

  Edward eyed me dubiously. “Will you be there?”

  “I hadn’t planned to but…”

  “Then don’t bother. I’m sure there’s no point. I still think she’s got it wrong. Even in everyday experience it’s difficult enough to tell when you’re connected to something real and when you’re just projecting. For Laura it’s an even more delicate balance between what’s real and what’s a sort of static, I suppose.”

  “You mean she gets confused?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “It’s happened before?”

  “In a way.” But his voice lacked conviction. He sniffed, said, “Anyway, the whole point is there aren’t any short circuits to the truth,” and walked away.

  His back was towards me, my wince invisible.

  Bob was surprised when I turned up for the lift, but gratified as well. I told him that his last remark about my kids had hit home, and I wasn’t lying – but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

  I’m not proud to admit it now but my reasons for attending the meeting were narrower than anxiety over thermonuclear catastrophe, about which – I was resigned to this – nothing I could do would make much difference. I had no appetite for brooding alone in The Pightle that night. Any company was better than none, and if Edward had no interest in pursuing Laura’s intuition about Edwin Frere, I needed to know whether or not it had any substance. I could see no other means of establishing some objective reference on her behaviour that day. I had questions, and Neville Sallis might, just possibly, supply the answers, and so – despite Edward’s caveat – I was looking for short circuits.

  Around twenty people had gathered in the upper room of the Black Boys Hotel in Saxburgh. For a small market town in Tory heartland this was, I supposed, a reasonable attendance. There were a number of young faces, though most were middle-aged and ordinary – friends, professional people, well-known to one another – and two older women in their sixties looked prepared, when occasion demanded, to be dignified and difficult with embarrassed policemen. There were perhaps a few more women than men, one of them well-advanced in pregnancy. The faces were cheerful and indomitable – the kind of decency that violence betrays. Otherwise, apart from the fact that they were there at all, there was nothing distinctive about them.

  When Bob and I arrived, Neville Sallis was chatting with the old ladies. He was at pains to explain that he was not a member of CND but felt it his responsibility to stay in touch with all sections of opinion in his parishes. “Also,” I heard him say, “it’s not impossible that I might be able to play a conciliatory role in future demonstrations at the Thrandeston base. I’d like to think so.”

  One of the old ladies smiled and said, “I do hope you’re not still sitting on the fence when we cut through it.” Sallis laughed, looked away and spotted Bob. He excused himself, came across to join us, but Bob had already been button-holed by another member of the committee, and Sallis and I were left alone in each other’s company.

  He ran a finger round his glass, aspiring to invisibility, then wondered aloud whether he’d been right to come.

  “I’m glad you did. There’s something I wanted to ask you.” It wasn’t hard to persuade him of my interest in local history, as he shared it. Did I know, he asked, that he and a few oth
er people were talking of forming a society? No, I didn’t know that, and had to listen to his enthusiasm until he gave me the opportunity to say that my own interest had been aroused by the church – Munding St Mary’s.

  “Gypsy May and all that?”

  “Right, but I think I’ve come across the name of one of the previous rectors before, as a minor poet. I wonder if you know how I could find out more about him?”

  “A poet? That’s interesting. Who are we talking about? I don’t remember turning up any poets.”

  “Frere. Edwin Lucas Frere. 1848 to ’50, I think.”

  I saw his expression change before his eyes shifted away.

  “I was wondering if there are any records that might help.”

  “Of course. The Diocesan Archivist has charge of them. However it’s unlikely you’ll be allowed access.” I saw that his relief at finding himself on uncontroversial ground had quite evaporated.

  “Have you looked at them?”

  Clearly he had. He looked severely now at me. “What precisely is the nature of your interest?”

  “I told you. I seem to remember coming across a poet of that name. I wondered if it was the same man.”

  “Is that true?”

  I was not prepared for this. “I might be mistaken, of course.”

  “I think you are.”

  “You know about Frere then?”

  Sallis nodded uncertainly. “A little.”

  “Can you tell me about him?”

  “I’m afraid not.” He nodded at an acquaintance across the room.

  I swallowed, said, “Why not?” as lightly as I could.

  “Frere was…” He changed his mind. “I’m afraid it’s a question of confidentiality.”

  “But the man’s been dead for a century or more.”

  “Where matters of confidence are concerned that makes no difference,” he answered sternly. “Now if you will excuse me, I must have a word with…”

  At that moment a young woman called the meeting to order. Uncomfortably Sallis sat down next to me.

  There was a certain amount of branch business to get through before the main purpose of the evening. It passed over me as I sat wondering what Sallis knew, watching him fidget beside me. If the church had closed ranks, it looked, distressingly, as though Laura might be right. Only then did I realize that I’d hoped to prove her wrong. If I could show that Frere had been a respectable man of the cloth who’d slumbered away a quiet life in mildewed vestments, or that he’d been elevated to a bishopric and thence to heaven without a blemish on his record, then Edward would at least have the consolation of knowing he was right, and Laura… Laura would have to come to terms with the here and now. Things might still work out that way, of course, but I had an uneasy feeling that they wouldn’t.

  I forgot Frere, forgot my surroundings and was back in the confusions of the Lodge. For a few apocalyptic seconds the power of our meeting had estranged me from myself. I’d entered a magnetic zone where all the compasses were crazy, and to think about it filled me with a queer mix of desire and dread. The mind wandered gingerly around the experience, and the way my hidden shallows had been exposed. Then, from somewhere in my reading, it came up with the story of a European in India who, in service of no other deity than his own desire, had cynically taken advantage of a temple prostitute. The woman was very beautiful and very intelligent. Aware of what the man was doing, she had exhausted him with all her incendiary skills, and then – by the simple act of refusing to give herself again – left him distraught. He’d wandered the world afterwards, endlessly haunted by her memory, a sexual cripple.

  It was the kind of story that Edward might tell. In other circumstances he would have chortled at me: “You’ve made your bed, sweet pie, so die on it; you might reincarnate as something more sensible – something harmlessly green; a cucumber perhaps!” But there was little enough for him to laugh at here. Whether he knew it yet or not, his tower was down, and it stopped my heart to think of it.

  I was brought back by the introduction of the principal speaker. Bob had told me about George Hodgkiss on the way into Saxburgh: he was a local character, a bearded former teacher with a nice line in irreverence, who now ran an organic market garden on the edge of the town, using alternative technology wherever he could. He was famous for the opening words of a talk he’d given to the Women’s Institute: “Some people feel that a shit heap is the unacceptable face of country life. I say that the future is in shit.” Evidently he was aware of the ambiguity.

  Drily he now explained the process by which he’d been selected as one of the team of community controllers. “I didn’t make any secret of my membership of CND. In fact, I positively flashed my badge at the interview. But there wasn’t much competition for the job and, on this occasion at least, dear old England didn’t seem to mind. Major Alsop seemed to think I’d be a handy chap to have around after the event. That’s what he calls it, by the way. An event. Like the World Cup, you understand. He thought I’d be useful till normal services were resumed – building windmills, things like that. Also I’ll be put in charge of food. So if you’re feeling peckish after the event, you’ll have to come to me. Just don’t expect my spuds to be additive-free.”

  The laughter quickly faded as he went on to explain the finer points of a community controller’s duties. They were the executive arm of the Regional Seat of Government which would be kept busy in the blast-proof vaults under County Hall doing the thinking for the rest of us. “The thing is,” he said, “we’re working on the assumption that we’ll be given fair notice of the event. Forget that old four minutes chestnut: this fixture will be advertised a week to ten days in advance. After all, it took seven days to make the world and we don’t have God’s advantages, so we need at least that long to organize its dissolution. I’m afraid it can’t be done without some inconvenience. Most of our troops will already be in Europe but we’ll have to find room for about half a million American servicemen who’ll all have to be fed, housed and moved about. The Immigration Authorities aren’t expected to raise any difficulties and those of us who do – or might – will be interned in camps. Of course, as CND members that means you.”

  “What about you, George?” someone called.

  “Ha – well, I’m what you might call an anomaly. Major Alsop and the parish clerk were a bit at sea on that one, and it seemed impertinent to make suggestions. They finally decided we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. No doubt some accommodation will be reached. Now where was I? Ah yes. Living as close to Thrandeston as we do we’re in a GDA. I bet you didn’t know that, but you are. A GDA is a Ground Defence Area, so we must expect our patch to be put under military control, and that’ll mean rather more than having a hard time fighting your way to the bar in the Thrandeston Arms. For instance, if your house happens to stand in the line of fire from the base – well, I’m sorry, but we’ll have to pull it down. A nuisance, I know, but do put up with it because otherwise we might have to use what’s called ‘deadly force’. All right? Now, when things get really sticky, we’re also going to have to accept that the other team are going to take a jaundiced view of this region. There are an awful lot of installations hereabouts so it might save a lot of heartache if you start off from the assumption that once our missiles are launched this area will be written off. We’ll have to learn to look after ourselves, because all the doctors, for example, will already have been packed off elsewhere!”

  “What if they refuse to go?” someone asked.

  “Oh, we can’t have that. More defensible locations will have a use for them, and – it would be a waste, but if we have to shoot one or two pour encourager les autres, well… you can’t mess about with martial law. Of course, other people might catch on that’s it’s a good idea to get out of the region, but you know what the roads are like round here. Think what a muddle it would be if the A47 was jammed with traffic while the military were trying to sort themselves out. No, the roads will be blocked. If you live here, you st
ay here and you take your chances. We’ll do all we can to make your stay as comfortable as we can and, chances are, it will be brief. There are bound to be some annoying little hitches, but as you can’t go anywhere, the fact that all the fuel will have been requisitioned shouldn’t cause too many problems. As for food – there won’t be a lot of it about. You can’t expect GIs to defend you on empty stomachs. The supermarkets will be empty or under guard, but the rationing system will be entirely fair. Major Alsop and I will see to that. In any case, even before the event, there should be fewer mouths to feed. One of our first jobs – we’ll get down to it this week – is deciding which field will be most suitable for a mass grave. It’s the old and sick, you see. No point wasting food on them; so, among our other sensible precautions, the hospital and the old folk’s home will be emptied and the contents planted in the field of our choice.”

  One of the old ladies stood up. “Would you care to explain that?”

  “Certainly, madam. They’ll be shot. The old and sick will be shot.”

  “I see. Before the bomb has dropped?”

  “Well, we’ll hold off as long as we can, but we’ll all be far too busy afterwards – probably wishing that we’d been shot too.”

  “Suppose it doesn’t happen,” someone said. “I mean, what if they shoot all these people and then the politicians back down?”

  “That would be embarrassing,” Hodgkiss conceded, “but we’ll do our best to see it doesn’t happen.”

  “The shooting or the war?”

  “The backing-down, of course.”

  Gallows humour, but without it the presentation would have been insupportable. It was barely so anyway. There was question, counter-question, argument, and even the gallows humour dried. A kind of black alert fell over the room. Everyone was numbed by the ghastly pragmatism of it all. If I wasn’t among those who sat in silence wondering whether they should stockpile food and fuel, it was only because I was wondering how I’d get back across the country. I imagined myself stuck in Munding while Marcus and Lily cried 200 miles away and I not knowing whether they were blind or burnt. Neville Sallis sat, white-faced, beside me. I saw Bob glowering grimly at the floor. Even those who gallantly began to suggest ways of publishing this dreadful news, of dramatizing it to stir the township from its acquiescent sleep – even they must have had the feeling that they were scratching at iron doors. Power was always with the others, with the death-dealers and those who had obediently evolved the tunnel vision it takes to organize atrocity. The room was already iced in nuclear winter.