Absolute Truths. Susan Howatch
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I was waylaid by my lay-chaplain with a sheaf of papers. ‘Bishop, I really am worried by these graphs I got from the Education minister – I can’t make sense of them at all, and although I’ve had them xeroxed for the committee, I honestly think it might be better to leave them out. On the other hand, if you leave them out paragraph 19(b) of the report becomes incomprehensible, so –’
‘I’ll sort everything out on the train,’ I said, relieving him of the papers as Miss Peabody appeared at my elbow.
‘Oh Bishop, I do apologise for Father Hall’s invasion, but he was so persuasive and so obviously a gentleman –’
‘I thought he looked like an assassin,’ said Roger, unable to resist taking a swipe at Miss Peabody’s cast-iron snobbery.
‘I thought he looked like Heathcliff,’ said the typist, passing by with a mug of coffee.
Edward my priest-chaplain erupted from the office. ‘Bishop, I’ve got Lord Flaxton on the phone – he says he’s discovered that the new vicar of Flaxton Pauncefoot is a member of CND, and he wants to know how you could have licensed a pacifist to work in the diocese. He says the man’s probably a KGB agent.’
‘Don’t get diverted, Charles,’ said Lyle, emerging from the cloakroom with my hat and coat.
Edward, who was new to his job, demanded wildly: ‘Is Lord Flaxton nuts?’
‘Eccentric,’ said Lyle, stuffing me into my coat.
‘But what shall I say to him, Bishop? He’s absolutely livid – breathing fire –’
‘Suggest he has a drink with me at the House of Lords next week.’
‘Here, Bishop,’ said Roger, taking the papers back from me, shoving them into my briefcase and thrusting the briefcase into my arms all within the space of five seconds.
‘Togs for Church House,’ said Lyle, passing me the bag containing my formal episcopal uniform. ‘Darling, I’ll drive you to the station – you don’t have time to search for a parking space.’
‘I’ve got a feeling there was something else I had to say to Edward …’
‘He’s gone back to be beaten up by Lord Flaxton,’ said Roger before I could digest that Edward had vanished from the hall. ‘Do you want him to visit Father Wilton in hospital?’
‘Ah – Desmond, yes, that was it – tell Edward to get hold of the hospital chaplain and explain that Desmond likes to receive the sacrament daily –’
‘Bishop, you’ve run out of time,’ said Miss Peabody, and for one bizarre moment I felt I had been sentenced to a most unpleasant eternity. ‘You must leave at once.’
But another thought had occurred to me. ‘– and tell him to phone Malcolm Lindsay to say we may not need to trouble Bishop Farr about a locum for St Paul’s –’
‘Come on, Charles!’ Lyle was chafing by the front door.
But still I hesitated, my mind refastening on Desmond as it belatedly occurred to me that he might be in no fit spiritual state to receive the sacrament. I told myself firmly that he would always repent of his sins and pray for the grace to do better, but still I was gnawed by doubt. A repentance which did not include confessing his renewed taste for pornography could hardly be construed as acceptable … I started to worry that in my desire to be a compassionate pastor I had been inexcusably sentimental and slack as a father-in-God.
‘Do you have a locum in mind, Bishop?’
‘That man Hall who was here earlier. Tell the Archdeacon – no, on second thoughts I’d better tell him myself –’
‘Charles,’ said Lyle, ‘do you really want to miss both your train and your lunch with Jack at the Athenaeum?’
She finally managed to detach me from the South Canonry.
IV
Reaching Waterloo station at half-past twelve I took a taxi to the Athenaeum and retired to the cloakroom in order to change into my uniform. By 1965 senior churchmen were abandoning this traditional ensemble of frock-coat, apron and gaiters, and I was certainly willing to travel in a plain black suit which guaranteed that the other occupants of the train did not waste time staring at me, but I was meticulous in wearing my uniform at any ecclesiastical gathering. I felt that in an age which was marked by declining standards and rampant iconoclasm, bishops should be resolute in respecting the symbols which pointed to traditional values.
The thought of declining standards and rampant iconoclasm depressed me, but I cheered up when I found the editor of the Church Gazette hunched cosily over a pink gin.
Lyle had once said that Jack Ryder reminded her of Babar the Elephant, and although I had pointed out at once that he was much more fun than the serious, innocent Babar, I had had to concede that Jack was indeed very large with small, narrow eyes and unusual ears. We had been up at Cambridge together. He too had taken a degree in divinity but had decided not to be ordained, and for a time it had seemed that our careers would take us in different directions. Then shortly after he had obtained his first job as an ecclesiastical journalist, I had become one of Archbishop Lang’s chaplains.
Firmly linked again by our involvement with the Church of England, we found our friendship had continued and now after forty years I had to acknowledge, to my surprise, that Jack was my oldest and closest surviving friend. I write ‘to my surprise’ because Jack and I had little in common except the Church, a subject about which he knew even more than I did. His memory for obscure scandals was prodigious and his nose for ecclesiastical gossip unerring. At one time he had written a series of sound freelance articles on theology for the serious secular press, but since he had become the editor of the Church Gazette he merely reviewed the occasional important biography.
By 1965 he was married to his third wife, but since he had been twice a widower and never a divorcé these matrimonial ventures had been entirely respectable. It was true that his third wife had been his mistress for some years while his second wife was dying of disseminated sclerosis, but he had behaved with great discretion and never mentioned the matter to me. I had only heard about it from Lyle and Lyle had only heard about it from Dido Aysgarth, that dangerous woman who always knew the gossip before anyone else had dreamed it could exist. Sometimes I wondered if Jack’s refusal to confide in me meant that I had failed him in some way, but when his friendship never wavered I came to the conclusion that he had merely been afflicted by a typically British reticence about his private life. Englishmen, after all, would rather discuss cricket than adultery.
‘How’s the family?’ I said to him that day at the Athenaeum after we had exchanged greetings and I had ordered a Tio Pepe.
‘No idea, old chap, haven’t seen any of the offspring lately, but no news is good news … How are your boys?’
‘Oh, fine …’ Having written off our offspring, we established that our wives were well and agreed that the weather had been dismal. At that point the waiter arrived with my drink and Jack proposed a toast in the slang of the 1920s. This was all very soothing and kept my depressed thoughts about the 1960s at bay.
‘How’s the west front?’ enquired Jack, referring to the ailing section of Starbridge Cathedral. ‘Still standing?’
‘Just. But according to Aysgarth, the appeal’s coming along remarkably well.’
‘How is Aysgarth? Still swilling?’
‘No, no – he’s got all that quite under control. In fact the Cathedral seems to be running very smoothly at the moment.’
‘Think so?’
My heart automatically produced an extra beat. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh my God,’ said Jack to his pink gin. ‘He doesn’t know.’
‘What