Susan Howatch - Scandalous Risks

‘That’s what laymen think he’s saying.’

‘And that’s exactly why the book’s a disgrace! It’s so bad for laymen. My father says that Robinson’s being thoroughly irresponsible as well as intellectually slipshod, and I agree with him,’ said Charley, exuding outraged virtue as he heaved my bags up on to the rack. ‘My father and I always agree on everything.’ Closing the carriage door he pulled down the window and began to scan the platform.

‘Tedious for you,’ I said. ‘My father and I are in perpetual disagreement. Life’s just one long glorious row.’ But Charley, leaning out of the window, was too absorbed in some private anxiety to reply.

‘Bother the infant,’ he said at last, glancing at his watch. ‘He’s cutting it very fine.’

‘What infant’s this?’

‘I doubt if you’d know him – he’s only twenty. He’s supposed to be staying tonight with us at the South Canonry.’ Again he hung out of the window in an agony of suspense but a moment later he was bawling ‘Hey!’ in relief and wildly waving his arm.

A tall, pale youth, earnest and bespectacled, appeared at the door and was hustled into the carriage. He wore very clean jeans and a spotless blue shirt with a black leather jacket. All he was carrying was a duffle-bag. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I got lost on the underground.’ Unaware that Charley and I knew each other he wasted no time looking at me but removed his glasses and began to polish them with an exquisitely ironed white handkerchief. In the distance the guard’s whistle blew and after a preliminary jerk the train began to glide out of the station.

‘Venetia,’ Charley said, remembering his manners, ‘this is Nicholas Darrow. Nick, this is the Honourable Venetia Flaxton.’

‘I find it more comfortable these days to drop the Honourable,’ I said. ‘Hullo, Nick.’

Replacing his spectacles he looked me straight in the eyes and at once I felt as if I stood in a plunging lift. ‘Hi,’ he said politely without smiling. His eyes were an unnaturally clear shade of grey.

‘Have we met before?’ said my voice. I sounded as unnerved as I felt, but I knew that the obvious explanation for my loss of poise – sexual bewitchment – was quite wrong. He was a plain young man. Yet somehow he contrived to be compulsively watchable.

‘No, we haven’t met,’ he was answering tranquilly, opening his duffle-bag and pulling out a book. It was Honest to God.

‘Nick’s father was principal of the Starbridge Theological College back in the ’forties,’ Charley said. ‘Maybe Nick’s jogging your memory of him.’

‘No, that’s impossible. I wasn’t involved in Starbridge ecclesiastical circles until the Aysgarths moved to the Deanery in ’fifty-seven.’

Charley obviously decided to dismiss my confusion as a mere feminine vagary. ‘Nick’s reading divinity up at Cambridge just as I did,’ he said, ‘and – good heavens, Nick, so you’ve bought Honest to God ! What’s your verdict so far?’

‘Peculiar. Can it really be possible to reach the rank of bishop and know nothing about the English mystics?’

‘Maybe he can’t connect with them,’ I said. ‘I certainly can’t. I think Julian of Norwich’s description of Christ’s blood is absolutely revolting and borders on the pathological.’

The grave grey eyes were again turned in my direction and again I wondered why his mysterious magnetism should seem familiar.

‘Well, of course it’s very hard for a layman to approach these apparently morbid touches from the right angle,’ Charley was saying with such condescension that I wanted to slap him, ‘but if one takes the time to study the mystics with the necessary spiritual seriousness—’

‘You’re a church-goer,’ said Nick suddenly to me.

‘Now and then, yes.’

‘But you’re not a communicant.’

‘I watch occasionally.’ I was still trying to work out how he had made these deductions when Charley exclaimed in delight: ‘In college we debate about people like you! You’re from the fringes – the shadowy penumbra surrounding the hard core of church membership!’

‘I most certainly am not!’ I said, concealing my fury behind a voice of ice. ‘I’ve been christened and confirmed – I’m just as much a member of the Church of England as you are!’

‘But if you’re not a regular communicant –’

‘I’ve never been able to understand why chewing a bit of artificial bread and sipping some perfectly ghastly wine should confer the right to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude to one’s fellow-Christians.’

‘Shall I give you my best lecture on the sacraments?’ said Charley, allowing a sarcastic tone of voice to enhance his nauseous air of condescension.

‘No, read Honest to God and shut up. It’s narrow-minded, arrogant believers like you who give the Church a bad name.’

Charley flushed. His pale brown eyes seemed to blaze with golden sparks. His wide mouth hardened into a furious line. ‘If all so-called believers were a little more devout, we might have more chance of beating back sin!’

‘Who wants to beat back sin?’ I said. ‘I’m mad about it myself.’ And opening my bag I casually pulled out the famous unexpurgated Penguin edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

That closed the conversation.

The train thundered on towards Starbridge.

‘Sorry,’ said Charley to me an hour later. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. Since you don’t come from a religious family, it’s very praiseworthy that you go to church at all.’

‘Oh, my father’s devoted to religion,’ I said. ‘He just has trouble believing in God.’

‘So he didn’t mind you being baptised and confirmed?’

‘Mind! He insisted on it! In his opinion all loyal English people ought to go through the initiation rites of the Church of England – it’s part of our tribal heritage, like learning about King Alfred burning the cakes and memorising the patriotic speeches from Henry V and singing “Land of Hope and Glory” at the last night of The Proms.’

‘This is most interesting, isn’t it, Nick?’ said Charley. ‘When one comes from a religious home one doesn’t realise what extraordinary attitudes flourish elsewhere.’

‘What’s so extraordinary about them?’ I said. ‘Isn’t the main purpose of our glorious Church to reassure us all that God is without doubt an Englishman?’

‘You’re teasing me!’ said Charley. But he sounded uncertain.

I suddenly became aware that Nick was gazing at me. I had intercepted his gaze more than once during our hour of silence, and as I caught him in the act yet again I demanded: ‘Why do you keep staring at me as if I’m an animal at the zoo?’

He lowered his gaze and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Sorry.’ His voice was almost inaudible. ‘It’s the aura.’

‘Nick’s a psychic,’ said Charley serenely as my jaw sagged. ‘That’s how he knew you were a church-goer but not a communicant.’

‘No, it wasn’t!’ said Nick angrily. ‘Her knowledge of Dame Julian suggested she was interested enough in Christianity to be a church-goer, and her repulsion towards the description of Christ’s blood suggested she was unlikely to take part in any symbolic ritual involving it. The deduction I made was completely rational and involved no psychic powers whatsoever!’

‘Okay, but you can’t deny you’re a psychic – think what a whizz you were at Pelmanism!’

‘Shut up, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I always thought it was such a shame when your father stopped you telling fortunes –’

‘Shut up , Charley!’ Jumping to his feet the youth heaved open the door into the corridor and stalked out in a rage.