Susan Howatch - Absolute Truths

Having changed swiftly back into my Savile Row suit, I left Church House and took a taxi to Fortnum’s to meet Charley.

I was late when I reached the restaurant but there was no sign of him waiting to greet me. Wondering what had delayed him, I sat down at a table.

Charley’s church, St Mary’s Mayfair, had been the centre of a rich, plush parish before the war, but now it stood in an area where many of the grand houses had been converted to commercial use with the result that the vicar’s ministry was mainly to the tourists, hotel staff and office-workers who swarmed daily through the neighbourhood. Charley was the curate. He had tried working in the East End of London but had disliked it, so when my friend the Earl of Starmouth mentioned to me one day in the House of Lords that there was a vacancy for a curate in his local parish I had encouraged Charley to apply for the job. After all, one can hardly get further from the East End than Mayfair.

Charley had quickly settled down. His aptitude for languages had proved useful with the tourists and hotel staff. His youth and energy had attracted the office-workers. His theologically conservative outlook had proved popular with the vicar and the few remaining aristocratic parishioners. Soon I had told myself that I no longer needed to worry about his career – and yet I had continued to worry, and I worried still. This was because although it was obvious to me that Charley had great gifts as a priest, he showed no sign of developing a mature personality which would enable him to use those gifts to the full.

He was now heading for his twenty-seventh birthday, but his lack of control over his volatile temperament still suggested an adolescent secretly ill-at-ease with himself. All too often he was high-handed, didactic and tactless. Strong on oratorical fireworks and teaching the faith, he was weak on empathising with others and far too rigid in his theological views – but of course the ability to empathise with others and to be a flexible thinker without compromising one’s integrity are the fruits of maturity. Too often Charley seemed to me more like sixteen than twenty-six.

When I had expressed my worry to Jon he had pointed out that some men take longer to mature than others, but I had begun to think that in Charley’s case the delay was abnormal. After all, I reminded myself, he had done two years of National Service and spent three years as an undergraduate; he had been out and about in the world for some time, so what was now holding him back? But although I often asked myself this question I found I never arrived at a satisfactory answer.

For a moment I recalled this mystery when Charley erupted into Fortnum’s that afternoon and hurried over to the table where I was waiting for him; slim and small, he looked so much younger than his years. I cheered myself with the reflection that at least he was mature enough to dress properly and avoid looking a mess. His short dark hair was combed and smoothed. His pale brown eyes blazed with energy. He was breathless, an indication of how hard he had tried to arrive on time, but he was smiling, delighted to see me.

‘Dad! So sorry I’m late, but …’ After he had produced his very acceptable excuse for keeping me waiting we shook hands, sat down and ordered tea. I then asked him about his work, and when he began to talk about the Lent sermons he was planning I became so interested that I quite forgot about my arduous meeting at Church House. I even forgot to enquire why he was so anxious to see me, but eventually, after the waitress had deposited our tea on the table and promised to return with the hot buttered crumpets, I remembered to ask what was troubling him.

‘Well, the first thing I want to talk to you about is Michael’s behaviour,’ said Charley, grabbing a sugar-cube to stave off his hunger-pangs. ‘But please don’t accuse me of telling tales behind his back. I’m acting solely with his welfare in mind, and the truth is his ghastly girlfriend hasn’t been faithful to him. So if he’s crazy enough to marry her –’

‘He isn’t. The engagement’s off.’

‘Oh, thank goodness! Actually I didn’t think he could possibly be serious since I hear on good authority that he hasn’t been faithful to her either. He’s been secretly plunging around with yet another girl from that awful Marina Markhampton’s dreadful set –’

‘Charley, repeating gossip really isn’t a suitable occupation for a priest.’

‘I know, but Michael’s such a chump about girls that I can’t help feeling concerned – and it’s Christian to be concerned, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘And if I tell you everything you can pray for him too, and that must be better than just me praying alone. Anyway, this new girl he fancies is called Holly Carr, and as a matter of fact she’s rather nice – I met her at that party Venetia gave last November – so maybe Michael will marry her, who knows, but he shouldn’t sleep with her first. It’s quite wrong to treat a nice girl with such absolutely unbridled contempt.’

I said nothing.

‘Well, aren’t you going to condemn Michael for carrying on with two girls at once?’

‘Since you know my views on such behaviour I hardly think it’s necessary for me to repeat them.’ Telling myself that Charley’s unedifying behaviour sprang from his insecurity as an adopted son and that any attempt to reprove him for being a priggish sneak would only make that insecurity worse, I made a big effort to change the subject.

‘Talking of Venetia,’ I said, ‘have you seen her since she was kind enough to invite you to that party in November?’

‘It was her husband who invited me – Venetia herself always behaves as if she finds me repulsive, and every other girl I meet reacts in the same way. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall in sheer despair.’

With dismay I realised that I had given him yet another opportunity to dramatise his insecurity. Charley had never had what was nowadays described as ‘a steady girlfriend’. I regarded it as another symptom of his immaturity. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’ I said, trying to sound robust. ‘You may not be classically handsome, but –’

‘Actually my utter failure with women brings me to the second thing I want to talk to you about. I think I’m being called to be a monk.’

The waitress chose that moment to arrive with our plate of hot buttered crumpets.

Few bishops could have claimed to be a more loyal supporter of the monks and nuns in Anglican orders than I was, but it is a fact of life that parents want their children to marry and procreate. This is obviously such a deep-rooted human desire that one might call it a biological absolute truth, and it explains the surge of disappointment felt by parents when for whatever reasons their children abstain from marriage. I know there are Roman Catholic cultures where parents consider it an honour if their child chooses a celibate life, but I have noticed that the child is usually one of a large family and can be spared without too great a sense of loss. I did not have a large family of children. I had two sons and I wanted neither of them to be cut off from the complex dimensions of human fulfilment which I had experienced as a husband and father.

Indeed the fact that Charley was my adopted son only made me more anxious that he should wind up a married man with two-point-three children – or whatever current statistics rated the norm for a middle-class Englishman in the mid-twentieth century. If he deviated from this norm I knew I would feel that despite all my efforts I had failed to bring him up properly – and I did not want to think I had failed in any way with Charley. I needed Charley to be a success. It justified all the hardship I had endured in the early years of my marriage. Like his hero-worship of me, his success was part of my reward.