The High Flyer

by Susan Howatch

  “Do you suppose you came because he prayed you would, Kitty? But no, that’s not possible, is it? You must have decided to see me well before Old Bloodhound flapped his chops.”

  I said: “Yes, but last night I wanted to chicken out.”

  “But you didn’t chicken out!” he exclaimed shining-eyed. “You came!”

  “There are things I have to try to understand, things I—”

  “Kitty, I’m sorry it was all such a mess. I’m sorry I made you lose your toys. I’m sorry I lost that wee cat you loved so much. And above all I’m sorry I lost you—but it wasn’t because I didn’t love you, Kitty, it wasn’t because I didn’t care—”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t believe me, but Kitty, if only you knew what it’s like to be hooked into something which makes you destroy all that’s good! It’s like—well, it’s like being drafted into an army led by someone like Hitler or Stalin, and the people in command—the Powers-That-Be—keep forcing you to destroy things. I know that sounds as if I’m refusing to accept responsibility as usual, but Kitty, I fight and fight against those Powers, I really do, it’s not as if I don’t try—”

  “Dad—”

  “It’s the Powers, you see, it’s the Powers! They’re so strong, so—well, never mind all that, I don’t look for understanding or forgiveness anyway, not after being such a fucking awful father to you, but I’m sorry, I swear I am, for losing your toys and Wee Hamish, and meanwhile—”

  “Oh Dad, Dad, Dad—”

  “—meanwhile I just want to say this: I LOVE YOU, sweetheart, you’re still the most important thing in my life, and once I’m out of here I’m going to make amends to you, I promise.”

  He stopped. With an enormous effort I drew breath to respond, but when I finally looked straight into his bloodshot blue eyes words failed me because all I saw was Kim, looking back.

  SIXTEEN

  The issue at stake is the whole shape of living. To attend to that when we are being overwhelmed is no easy matter. But it is hard to imagine any adequate way of coping that does not try to answer the big questions about life, death, purpose, good and evil.

  DAVID F. FORD

  The Shape of Living

  I

  “Hey, Ms. G! I’m seriously concerned about your mammoth excavation of the past. This is tough stuff. Why take it on now when you’ve got so much else on your plate? I’m sorry about your father but I appreciate your honesty with me. I’ve lit a candle for you in the local church. (RC, but when the chips are down the Pope doesn’t count, as Henry VIII said long ago.) No news here. To my amazement I find that boredom’s not a terminal condition. E. T. PS: I’d come home but my parents would both have apoplexy and I couldn’t stand the guilt.”

  II

  “So?” said Robin, in his office at the Healing Centre.

  “I can’t begin to describe the emotional depths I’ve plumbed. I feel pie-eyed, zonked and banjaxed.”

  “I suspect that describes the situation rather well.”

  We paused, snug in our counselling bubble, and considered my journey into chaos.

  “However,” I said at last, “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  “Very much so.”

  I breathed deeply, savouring my survival, before I admitted: “It was a useful trip to make.”

  “You’ve found a firm patch of ground where you can take your stand?”

  “I’ve found a little piece of scorched earth where I can rest with my life-support machine, yes.”

  “Progress can come in all shapes and sizes.”

  “Apparently it can.” I had to breathe deeply again before I was able to add: “I’d got it wrong. The problem wasn’t that my parents didn’t love me. It was just that they were stupid about showing it and I was stupid about understanding them. So the great act of revenge which has consumed my adult life was misconceived.”

  “Well,” said Robin vaguely, “it’s an ill wind that blows no one no good. At least you got a good education and had a lot of fun with that Porsche.”

  “Yes, but—” I broke off, scrabbling for the right words, but only wound up saying: “I feel I’ve crucified myself for years for nothing.”

  “Profound insights can often leave one feeling devastated but remember: when one’s devastated one’s unlikely to view the situation with detachment.”

  “Well, I can see there were genuine benefits from all that hard work, but I still feel like a sweater unlucky enough to have been washed on the all-white cotton cycle, and now that my motivation’s been exposed as a grand illusion, where does that leave me?”

  “In a position to work out a more authentic existence, a life more in touch with your real self.”

  “Oh, spare me the psychobabble! Do you seriously think I can cope with the future while I’m being disembowelled by the present? Now, listen to me. I think I’ve got a better grip on the mother-problem because I can see she’s essentially benign—which means I’ll no longer want to bite her head off whenever I see her. But tell me what the hell I’m going to do about . . .” I tried and failed to stop my voice trailing away.

  “Isn’t he benign too?”

  “Oh, he’s much worse than that. He’s doting. Adoring. A total nightmare. I can’t cope.”

  Another silence ensued as we breathed quietly in our counselling bubble, insulated from all the chaos.

  At last I said: “I always vowed I’d never marry a man like my father. So why in God’s name did I marry Kim?”

  “We’re all more in the grip of unconscious forces than we realise, but perhaps when we talk about this further—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it further,” I said, and beat the rapidest of retreats from his consulting-room.

  III

  “Kim’s very much better,” said Lewis. “He’s in group therapy now. Val says the doctors are very pleased and are sure he’ll be leaving the hospital sooner rather than later.”

  “Sorry, Lewis. Can’t cope. Pass.”

  IV

  “Ms. G, I’ve decided to risk giving my parents apoplexy and come home. I talked to Gil last night. He says he’ll fly out here to calm them down provided that I do nothing stupid as soon as I hit London. I was so grateful that I offered to pay his fare out of my anorexic bank account, but he said no, he has no problem borrowing money from his friendly gay bank manager. Sometimes I think it must be almost worth being gay for the contacts one gets. I’ll send further details of my return later. Meanwhile my forearms salute you! E.T.”

  V

  “Are you all right, Carter?” said Alice.

  “I’ve no idea. I’ve forgotten what ‘all right’ feels like.”

  “I know how traumatic it was for you up in the north. Actually I don’t think Robin should have encouraged you to go while you’re still struggling with the Kim disaster.”

  “It’s all connected.”

  “So you keep saying, but—”

  “I thought I married Kim because he fitted the right profile in my high flyer’s life-plan, but while I was up north to find out why I chose to fly high in the first place I uncovered this truly revolting Oedipal dimension which makes me want to throw up . . . Or did I uncover it? Maybe I’ve finally gone insane.”

  “Dearest Carter,” said Alice, passing me her ginger cat who had been imported from her Clerkenwell flat, “give Redford a massage while I make some soothing hot chocolate and wheel on the comfort cookies—”

  “Just wheel on the Scotch!” I barked. “Let me hit the bottle in the biggest possible way!”

  But Alice merely smiled and made the hot chocolate.

  VI

  “I know I couldn’t talk about my father when we were in Glasgow,” I said later to Alice as the ginger cat purred on my lap like a muffled high-tech drill, “but he started out very bright. He was working class but he was a scholarship boy and he got a white-collar job. Then the personality disorder kicked in and gambling took over his life.”

  “That doesn’t sound l
ike Kim,” said Alice.

  “But supposing Kim too is the victim of a personality disorder which makes him as vulnerable to Mrs. Mayfield’s sex industry as my father is to gambling?”

  Alice swirled her hot chocolate around and around in the mug. “What you’re really asking is whether Kim is a victim or a villain.”

  “What I’m really asking is whether the marriage can conceivably have a future.”

  “What do the professionals say?”

  “Damn all. Obviously they have their opinions, but equally obviously they want to avoid influencing me when I’m in a vulnerable state.”

  “I’m sure they believe they’re acting in your best interests—”

  “I’m sure of that too, but all this reticence is driving me crazy. I’ve got to figure out how to deal with Kim when he comes out of hospital, and how can I do that if everyone’s being too professionally correct to offer me an honest opinion?”

  “How do you feel about Kim right now this minute?”

  “Nauseated. And if I receive one more letter from him I’m going to climb every single wall in this flat . . .”

  VII

  “Sweetheart, This is just a line to say I’m thinking of you, I really miss you, I love you. I know you’re still too traumatised to write and I accept that I can’t see you just yet, but I wonder if you could come down here and have a chat with my psychiatrist instead? He’s keen to discuss with you the possibility that you and I could go into therapy together to try to straighten out the marriage, and—”

  I stopped reading and shredded the letter with shaking hands.

  VIII

  I was sitting at the table in the dining area of the Rectory flat on the following evening when Nicholas came up the stairs to see me. I was paying some bills. Alice went to the Harvey Tower flat twice a week to pick up the mail and check that everything was in order. I myself was still unable to face going there.

  Alice was completing her caretaking duties that evening by visiting her flat in Clerkenwell, so I was alone except for Redford, the ginger cat, who was curled up on the dining-chair next to mine. Redford confined himself to the attic flat because he was frightened of James, the Rectory tabby, who patrolled the lower floors.

  “It occurred to me that I hadn’t had the chance to speak to you for some time,” said Nicholas. “Is this a convenient moment or should I come back later?”

  I pushed away the bills. “Have a seat.” Scooping Redford onto my lap I started to massage him again. There was something very comforting about moulding all that thick fur over the curves of those elegant feline bones.

  Nicholas was wearing blue jeans and a blue clerical shirt; he looked tired and pale and not in the least sexy; the wattage of his personality was turned down low, so low that it was hard for me to remember the mesmerising star of the deliverance ministry who had told Mrs. Mayfield the party had ended. He still moved gracefully but the grace was shot through with exhaustion, and when he sank down opposite me at the table he seemed barely able to haul one long leg over the other in the effort to look relaxed.

  “I was wondering,” he said, “if there might be something you wanted to talk to me about.”

  “Not particularly,” I said, irritated by the thought that Alice might have been worried enough about me to nag him into a display of pastoral care. “God, Nicholas, you’re such a workaholic! Why should you be dealing with a client at this hour?”

  Equably he said: “It seemed like a good opportunity. And I’ve been so weighed down with the fall-out from the Mayfield fiasco that I’m afraid I haven’t been as attentive to you as I should have been.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, knowing I wasn’t but knowing too that I did not want to talk to him.

  We sat for a moment in silence as I wondered for the umpteenth time whether he was sleeping with Alice. I hoped for Alice’s sake that he was, but I had my doubts. Alice had mentioned to me more than once how important it was for him to keep himself “spiritually fit” and I knew he saw his “spiritual director,” who was a nun, twice a week without fail. Would a nun approve of Nicholas having sex with Alice? No. Would Nicholas lie to the nun about it? No—unless he was desperate, a state of affairs which was by no means unimaginable, even though he was a clergyman. Could I ask Alice if she and Nicholas managed to get together occasionally in the Rector’s first-floor flat now that she was staying in the house? No. Alice was not the kind of woman who would let her hair down over champagne at the Lord Mayor’s Cat and discuss whom she had or hadn’t screwed that week. Alice cared too much about Nicholas to discuss the intimate details of her relationship with him.

  I respected this attitude and never pressed her for information, but somehow this modest, dignified, old-fashioned silence made me feel more annoyed with Nicholas than ever. His divorce was still on hold because of his elder son’s drug problem, and the family all met for therapy once a week at some ghastly counselling centre in the West End. Alice was still waiting, still being a saint. I thought that the least she deserved was some sex now and then to cheer her up, but paradoxically I was aware that I would have respected Nicholas much less if he had been game for a screw because I would have considered such behaviour to be a rampant exploitation of Alice’s patient devotion. So as far as I was concerned Nicholas was in a no-win situation. I would have damned him if he did but now I was damning him that he didn’t. The whole convoluted mess made me simmer with irritation whenever he cruised into view.

  Meanwhile Nicholas was saying: “I was wondering if you wanted to discuss Kim.”

  “No, thanks.” I was now sure that Alice had expressed her anxiety about me and galvanised him into being pastoral, but this thought merely made me feel more annoyed than ever.

  Eventually he said: “I know you prefer to talk to Lewis, but I was worried in case you felt Lewis was currently a little too close to Kim.”

  This was true but I decided straight away not to satisfy him by admitting it. “Lewis is fine,” I said. “Anyway I talk to Robin as well.”

  “Yes, but there are areas where Robin can’t go because they lie beyond his remit as a counsellor. There are questions of forgiveness which could come up. Questions of repentance. Questions of how to make sense of suffering and chaos. Ultimate questions.”

  “Uh-huh.” I stopped massaging Redford in order to look ostentatiously at my watch. “I hope Alice gets back soon,” I remarked. “There’s a TV programme she wants to see.”

  “May I just ask one more question?” said Nicholas, taking the hint and rising to his feet. “Are you angry with me for losing control over that scene with Mrs. Mayfield?”

  That startled me. Automatically I said: “But it wasn’t your fault— you were succeeding in getting her to leave without Kim. It was Lewis who blew it, not you.”

  He shook his head. “I should never have summoned him. It created that two-on-one situation which drove her into a corner.”

  “Then why—”

  “I lost my nerve. She was so very powerful psychically and when she cursed Alice—”

  “Yes, that was vile.”

  “—it finally undermined me. But Carter, although I lost that round to Mrs. Mayfield I can still work to redeem the mess she left behind— which means I have a powerful motive to help you in any way I can.”

  I nodded and murmured my thanks. But when I made no further response he said good night and went downstairs.

  IX

  “I shouldn’t have reacted to Nicholas like that,” I said fiercely when Alice returned from Clerkenwell. “I know he wants to help me. I know how able and experienced he is. I really should have made more effort to talk to him.”

  “You’re upset. Upset people can’t make efforts.”

  “Well, it’s about time this upset person did! Look, Alice, why don’t you start the ball rolling here—why don’t you help me get my head together by telling me what you’re secretly thinking about Kim?”

  “Oh, but Carter, I’m not a professional!”

&nbs
p; “That’s why I’m asking you! Obviously I haven’t quite enough nerve to face the professionals yet, and I need a dress rehearsal with a non-professional to help me along.”

  “But I don’t know where to begin!”

  “Answer just two questions: one, do you think this marriage can be saved? And two, do you see Kim as a victim or a villain? Okay, now shoot from the hip and don’t pull the punches—I’m all set for a bumpy ride . . .”

  X

  “I’d like to think that the marriage could be saved,” said Alice, “but there’s an important question which the men seem to have ignored. How do you really feel about having children, Carter? Do you just want them in order to meet the goal listed in your life-plan, or do you want them for themselves? If you really do want children and Kim really doesn’t, then the marriage may be beyond saving—but it may be beyond saving anyway, since he’s been so busy destroying your trust.

  “And talking of children, how did Sophie endure that childless marriage after Kim’s infidelity had ensured she was sterile? I suppose she loved him so much that she convinced herself her love would redeem him—and like all abused women she got so brainwashed by the situation that she came to think the abnormal was normal, something to be adjusted to, something to be accepted . . . But I’ll tell you one thing that doesn’t add up here, Carter: Kim’s story that Sophie had a love affair.