Absolute Truths. Susan Howatch
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– but of course you’re trying to be Christian, aren’t you, which is always so terribly difficult, just as Browning says in the poem. Well, as I was saying –’
‘Do sit down, Dido.’
‘No, I won’t stay, Charles, I mustn’t interrupt your family gathering for more than a minute, but I felt I simply had to tell you, as soon as I heard the news about poor dear Desmond, that I have it on the best authority from a very good friend in London that she saw Desmond at Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night last month, and of course you know what that means, don’t you, because no respectable person would normally be seen dead in Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night.’
‘In that case what was your friend doing there?’
‘She’d just left a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.’
‘Maybe Desmond was also emerging from an evening at the theatre.’
‘Not with a young man in black leather, my dear. And my friend, who only wears glasses for reading and who met Desmond years ago when she did charity work for his East End mission – my friend tells me they were less than fifty yards from the public lavatories.’
‘My dear Dido!’
‘I’m only speaking with the welfare of the Church in mind, Charles, and of course we all know Desmond was thrown out of the London diocese after being convicted of soliciting in a public lavatory –’
‘He was not convicted. He was arrested along with the drunk who took a swipe at him, but he wasn’t charged and the incident isn’t generally known. I don’t know who could have told you about it, but –’
‘Oh my dear, we all know, I can’t think how you convinced yourself that you could ever keep that kind of fact a secret, and to be absolutely candid, Charles, I can’t imagine how you ever dared take him on, particularly since you’re so rabid on the subject of homosexuals –’
I tried to repudiate this slander but there was no chance. Dido had merely paused to draw a quick breath and had no intention of being interrupted.
‘– but of course I do realise how soft you are on clergymen who have had nervous breakdowns, and the softness is your way of compensating, isn’t it, for that utterly ruthless line you take on immorality – no, no, don’t think I’m criticising you, my dear, quite the reverse, thank God at least one bishop takes a strong stand against immorality, that’s what I say! I’ve no time for all this silly permissiveness, and I said right from the beginning that Bishop John Robinson was up the creek when he spouted all that rubbish about a New Morality and gave silly young girls the scope to wreck their lives and go down the drain – and talking of going down the drain, I do hope poor dear Desmond can be eased into retirement as soon as possible, because choirboys will be the next step, won’t it, and then you’ll wish you’d acted as soon as you knew he’d been seen in Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday night with a young man dressed in black leather. And talking of black leather –’
The door of the study opened and in walked Lyle.
‘Dido!’ she exclaimed. ‘I heard your voice as I came out of the kitchen – how sweet of you to call, but you must excuse Charles now because Michael’s paid us a surprise visit and they’re dying to talk to each other.’
Almost panting with relief I escaped into the hall only to realise that the last person I wanted to face at that moment was Michael. I was still inwardly shuddering as the result of Dido’s reference to a ‘foreign drug-addict’, for I had long lived in fear that Michael, moving in Marina Markhampton’s fast London set, would dabble in drugs and wreck his respectable future with the BBC. I wondered what evidence Dido had for labelling Dinkie a drug-addict, but unfortunately I could not reassure myself with the thought that this was another remark generated by Dido’s taste for exaggeration. Dido could well know more about Dinkie than I did. Her two eldest stepsons – the sons of Aysgarth’s first marriage – also belonged to Marina Markhampton’s set, and although they were both now married they often visited their father’s home and could well have talked frankly about Marina’s less presentable friends.
I was still trying to convince myself that Michael was no more likely than Christian or Norman Aysgarth to dabble in drugs, when the doorbell rang yet again. Hardly daring to respond I eased the door open six inches and peered out to identify my next visitor.
It was Malcolm.
‘Thank God!’ I said sincerely, and scooped him across the threshold.
X
‘What happened with the police?’
‘It’s all right, everything’s under control. Heavens, Charles, you look shattered! What’s going on here?’
‘Oh, nothing special, just all hell breaking loose. Quick, come into the kitchen before you get buttonholed by Dido Aysgarth – she’s just told me that Desmond’s been seen near the Piccadilly Circus public lavatories on a Saturday night in the company of a young man dressed in black leather.’
‘That woman’s round the bend!’
‘I only wish I could be as certain of that as you are. Drink?’
‘Make it a double.’
We withdrew rapidly to the kitchen where I took a new bottle of scotch from the crate on the larder floor and extracted two glasses from a cupboard.
‘Charles, you don’t believe this ridiculous story of Dido’s, do you?’
‘I’m trying my hardest not to, but you know what a nose she has for scandal. She even told me everyone knew about the disaster which ended Desmond’s career in the London diocese.’
‘Who’s “everyone”?’
‘I dread to think. The Dean and Chapter?’
‘At most, I’d say. No one knows in that parish, Charles – if they did, I’d have had people coming to me to express their anxiety. And how on earth could the story have reached the Dean and Chapter? Do you think some gossipy monk at the Fordite HQ spilled the beans to Tommy Fitzgerald during one of his retreats?’
‘I’m sure no Forditc would ever have been so indiscreet. Much more likely that someone in the Bishop of London’s office talked and the word got back to Aysgarth through his former colleagues at Westminster Abbey and Church House. After all, apart from the Fordite monks only the Bishop’s office knew – the Bishop nipped the scandal in the bud.’
‘It was a brilliant piece of nipping. If he hadn’t been sitting next to the Police Commissioner at that Mansion House dinner –’
‘Talking of the police, how did you tame Parker and Locke?’
‘Oh, that was no problem at all! I became very earnest and confidential, swore Desmond was a most devout Anglo-Catholic and assured them that I’d be among the first to know if he hadn’t always lived a blameless life. (Well, I was, wasn’t I?) Of course Parker and Locke believed me – the great advantage of telling the truth is that one’s so much more likely to sound convincing.’
‘But did the police then decide it was a motiveless crime?’
‘Yes, they started speculating that the attacker was a Langley Bottom lout stoned on LSD.’
‘Surely LSD hasn’t reached Starbridge!’
‘Oh, nothing’s sacred nowadays! Anyway I fed that theory to the hack from the Starbridge Evening News who turned up at the hospital just as I was leaving and he was thrilled, said he’d do an exposé on the Starbridge drug scene –’
‘But there is no Starbridge drug scene!’
‘There will be tomorrow. Anyway, I’d just finished making the hack’s day when the chaplain turned up – apparently he’d been collared on one of the wards by some bereaved relatives