Susan Howatch - Scandalous Risks

After lunch every day Aysgarth retired for ‘forty winks’, which usually lasted half an hour, Primrose and I read The Times and Eddie wrote letters. Then at three o’clock we departed with a picnic tea for an outing in the car. All over the long island we rambled; on two consecutive days we stopped on the road to Leverburgh at a point above the vast sands which stretched across the bay towards the distant range of blue mountains, and twice we visited the remote church at Rodel on the southernmost tip of Harris. Then I, who was so very bad at worship and so very reluctant to be ‘churchy’, found myself thinking of Jesus Christ, living thousands of miles away in another culture in another millennium, writing nothing, completing his life’s work in three years, a failure by worldly standards, dying an ignoble death – yet still alive in the little church at Rodel on the remotest edge of Europe, still alive for his millions upon millions of followers worldwide, not a despised, rejected failure any more but acknowledged even by non-Christians as one of the greatest men who had ever lived, etched deep on the consciousness of humanity and expressing his mysterious message of regeneration in that most enigmatic of all symbols, the cross.

‘What are you thinking about, Venetia?’ said that pest Eddie, ruining my rare moment of feeling religious as I stood staring at the church.

‘Elvis Presley,’ I said to shut him up. Eddie loathed pop music.

By then I was missing my daily dose of the pops on Radio Luxemburg which seemed to be unobtainable in the Hebrides; perhaps the weather conditions were unfavourable – or perhaps Luxemburg was merely too far away. The BBC in those days devoted little time to musical trivia so my deprivation was severe, but on the other hand there was little time to tune into the wireless. When we returned from our picnic the moment had arrived for a gin-and-tonic for me, whisky for the men and another glass of sherry for Primrose. During dinner we sampled a claret or a white burgundy – or possibly, depending on the menu, both; Aysgarth was taking seriously his absent host’s invitation that we should help ourselves to his well-stocked cellar. After dinner we played bridge or, if we were feeling frivolous, vingt-et-un. Conversation, spiked by all the drink, sparkled. Even Eddie shuddered with mirth occasionally.

‘Father,’ said Primrose late one evening after Eddie had scooped the pool of matchsticks at vingt-et-un and Aysgarth had suggested a nightcap of brandy, ‘isn’t this holiday turning into a distinctly Bacchanalian orgy?’

‘I hope so!’ said Aysgarth amused.

‘So do I!’ I said at once. ‘Primrose, these poor clergymen spend months on end being saintly and strait-laced – why on earth shouldn’t they let their hair down on holiday?’

That idiotic Eddie was unable to resist sighing: ‘“Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”’

‘Well, I’m not dying yet!’ declared Aysgarth robustly. ‘I’ve still got a lot of living to do!’

A chord twanged in my memory. ‘“I’ve gotta – whole lotta living to do!”’ I sang, imitating Presley. ‘“ Whole lotta loving to do – and there’s-uh no one-uh who I’d rather do it-uh with-uh than you – COME ON, BABY!”’

‘Venetia!’ exclaimed Eddie, appalled by the vulgarity, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

‘Venetia!’ cried Primrose scandalised, casting an embarrassed glance at her father.

‘What a splendid song!’ said my Mr Dean naughtily, unable to resist the urge to shock them still further. ‘Does it come from the repertoire of those young men Pip likes so much?’

‘The Beatles? No, it’s an Elvis Presley number.’

‘Ah, Mr Presley! The Bishop thinks his records ought to be banned – which inevitably means they’re first-class fun. “Charles,” I said to him after I’d supported the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover , “the real obscenity in our culture isn’t sex. It’s violence.” But of course he refused to agree. Funny how Charles takes such a dark view of sex – it’s as if he can never forget some very profound sexual sin which affected him personally in some quite unforgettable way.’

‘Isn’t the most likely explanation,’ said Eddie, who had had a good deal to drink, ‘that he had a strong sex drive in his youth and that he was constantly afraid of giving way to temptation?’

‘I don’t know why you throw in the phrase “in his youth”, Eddie!’ said Aysgarth more naughtily than ever. ‘Why shouldn’t he still have a strong sex drive even now he’s past sixty?’

Eddie went pink. Primrose stood up and said brightly: ‘Who’s for cocoa?’

‘I thought we were all going to have a nightcap of brandy,’ I said. ‘Go on, Mr Dean! Do you think the Bishop and Mrs Bishop go in for Lady-Chatterley-style high jinks at the South Canonry?’

‘VENETIA!’ chorused the horrified voices of Canon Hoffenberg and Miss P. Aysgarth, Girl Guide leader.

The Dean could barely speak for laughing but managed to gasp: ‘Eddie, why don’t you keep Primrose company while she goes in search of cocoa? Venetia and I are going to discuss D. H. Lawrence!’

‘This is all your fault, Vinnie,’ said Primrose exasperated. ‘If you hadn’t mentioned Elvis Presley –’

‘I’d very much like to hear this Mr Presley,’ said Aysgarth. ‘Could we tune into Radio Luxemburg on that radiogram in the morning-room?’

‘Not a hope, Mr Dean – unless the reception’s a great deal better tonight than it’s been so far.’

‘Eddie,’ said Primrose, ‘let’s leave them to their decadence.’

Eddie said drunkenly: ‘We draw the line at rock-’n’-roll, Stephen!’ and stalked after her.

‘Snob!’ I shouted after him before adding to Aysgarth: ‘The mystery about that radiogram is that there appear to be no records to go with it. Wouldn’t you think that the Earl’s teenage daughters would keep a supply of old favourites here to wile away the rainy days?’

‘Let’s have a search!’ exclaimed Aysgarth, leaping to his feet.

‘Tally-ho!’ I cried, leading the charge into the hall. Then I stopped. ‘But it’s no good searching the morning-room,’ I said, ‘because I’ve already done that. I’ve searched the drawing-room too. Perhaps the attics –’

‘What about that cupboard over there under the stairs?’

We bowled over to the cupboard and I dived inside.

‘There’s probably a light,’ said Aysgarth as I floundered in the darkness. Thank heavens this place has a generator and we don’t have to rely on candles … ah, well done!’

I had found the light switch and was now surveying a jungle of mackintoshes, Wellington boots and bric-à-brac which stretched far back below the stairs. Ploughing forward I nearly disembowelled myself with a fishing-rod. ‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered before I remembered the Church. ‘Whoops! Sorry, Mr Dean –’

‘Oh, did you speak? I didn’t hear a word.’

The old pet! I adored him. Heaving aside a battalion of boots I struck gold in the form of six cases, all designed to carry records. ‘Eureka!’ I shouted, ripping open the first case of twelve-inch LPs, but found only the Beethoven symphonies with a dash of ‘Swan Lake’. Attacking the second case I glimpsed the word ‘Wagner’ and slammed shut the lid with a shudder.

‘Any luck?’ called Aysgarth excited.

‘Hang on.’ I opened the third case – and there, miraculously, was Presley, glittering in gold lamé and slouched in a pose to launch a thousand screams. ‘Whoopee!’ I yelled and staggered backwards past the macks and wellies with the record-case clasped to my bosom.

‘Jiminy cricket!’ said Aysgarth awed as I showed him the picture on the sleeve.