Susan Howatch - Glamorous Powers

‘But I’ve told you – I didn’t care about any of those disadvantages! All I wanted was a morally acceptable outlet for my sexual inclinations –’

The trap sprang shut.

‘How very humiliating for your wife,’ said Francis brutally, and at once I was slammed on the rack.

Francis saw his shot had hit the mark and allowed me no time to regain my equilibrium. ‘Tell me more,’ he said, ‘about how unsuited you were for matrimony. I can quite believe that an immature young man who treats his wife merely as a cheap sexual receptacle would make a far from ideal husband.’

I tried to devise a strong response but I was unable to think clearly. I began to twist my abbot’s ring round and round on my finger.

Francis said briskly: ‘The truth is, isn’t it, that you made each other very miserable. When did you first realize you’d made a mistake?’

‘You’re completely misrepresenting the situation –’

‘How can I be when you admit marriage left you cold?’

‘It didn’t leave me cold. It left me deprived of psychic space. That’s different. It wasn’t Betty’s fault. As I keep telling you, it was marriage, not Betty, that made me unhappy.’ I had stopped twisting my ring but my fingers were tightly interlocked. ‘Even before I entered the Order,’ I said, ‘I needed a great deal of time alone in order to meditate and pray, and frankly I had no idea that the daily routine of marriage would be so hostile to any attempt to sustain a rich inner life. Nothing had prepared me for such chaos. My parents were quiet people; our home was very orderly, very peaceful, very conducive to developing a talent for using solitude constructively. But as soon as I married I found myself in a different atmosphere. Betty was seldom still. She was always rushing hither and thither, continually invading my psychic space, laughing, crying, endlessly chattering … And then the children came. Of course I was pleased and proud, but the noise, the mess, the constant destruction of any interlude which encompassed peace and order –’

‘You were born into the wrong class, Jonathan. My parents cheerfully abandoned their children to nannies and governesses and enjoyed numerous delightful interludes with their lovers.’

‘My dear Francis!’

‘Will you kindly stop trying to undermine my authority by addressing me by my Christian name?’

‘I’m sorry, but I was so appalled by your light-hearted attitude to such adulterous irresponsibility –’

‘Good heavens, can’t you see I was trying to signal my sympathy to you by making a joke about my own melancholy experience of family life? No, obviously you can’t and I must apologize. I shouldn’t have forgotten how sensitive you are on the subject of class … But let’s return to your marriage. You’ve admitted you were in a situation which would have driven me, if not you, to drink. How did you make life bearable for yourself?’

The rack creaked. Once more I found myself groping unsuccessfully for a strong response.

‘Come along, Jonathan! Obviously you had to take drastic measures to preserve your sanity –’

‘I volunteered for service at sea.’

‘What a brilliant solution! But didn’t the authorities try to tell you that a married chaplain should remain ashore with his family at the Naval base?’

‘I talked them out of that. I said I’d been called to serve on board ship. I was very convincing.’

‘And how did your wife feel about being abandoned?’

‘She was no more abandoned than any other Naval wife! Anyway I made it up to her – whenever I came home our reunion was as good as a honeymoon.’

‘But how did you get on at sea? There was little privacy and peace, surely, on board ship –’

‘I had my own cabin. Once the door was closed I had the psychic space I needed and I was happy. That was when I finally faced the fact that I couldn’t serve God properly as a married man, yet on the other hand –’

‘– on the other hand you had a wife and two children and no doubt you still couldn’t imagine giving up intimacy entirely. What an exceedingly difficult spiritual position! You led this divided life, you had no adequate spiritual direction, you must have become increasingly isolated –’

‘But I’m a psychic! I was used to isolation, used to no one understanding, used to struggling unaided with my problems –’

‘Nevertheless what a relief it must have been when she died!’

Silence fell after this ultimate turn of the screw. My psyche, jarred and jolted by the rack, flashed a warning to my brain that the strain was proving too much but before I could stop myself I was saying: ‘It was terrible when she died. Terrible. If you think I was glad you couldn’t be more wrong.’

‘The dark side of bereavement lies in the guilt beneath the grief.’

‘Why should I have felt guilty? She loved me, I did everything in my power to make her happy –’

‘You’re wonderfully convincing, Jonathan, and I can almost smell the red roses and hear the Strauss waltz, but unfortunately my sceptical streak means that I have a deep-rooted resistance to romantic fantasies. However I’m always willing to listen. Come back tomorrow and spin me another romantic fantasy about your chaste life as a widower.’

I stared at him. He stared back. I was acutely aware of my file bulging on the desk between us.

‘Francis, I really can’t see what relevance such a conversation can possibly have to my present predicament –’

‘It’s my business to see the relevance, not yours – and for heaven’s sake stop calling me Francis! That’s a privilege I’ll allow you if you ever leave the Order but meanwhile I’m your superior and I don’t want either of us to forget for one moment that I’m responsible for the care of your soul …’

I dreamt about Hilda that night. In my dream she was committing suicide by hanging herself, but I was bound hand and foot, unable to save her. She was hanging herself on the gallows of the prison where I had worked as a chaplain, and as I watched the body twitching on the end of the rope I realized that I was lying in a pool of blood.

‘You look a trifle pale,’ said Francis when I returned to his room the following afternoon. ‘I was sorry to see when I passed your door at three o’clock this morning that your light was on.’

‘Why were you spying on me at three this morning?’

‘Why should you automatically assume I was spying on you? What vanity! As it happens, I was summoned to the infirmary to attend to my poor little novice who hears voices. I’m afraid his place is in a hospital, not a monastery.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was a salutary reminder that ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people who hear voices and see visions are mentally ill. Now,’ said Francis, having tested the rack and found it in good working order, ‘let’s return to the subject of your past. We’d established that your marriage was a nightmare –’

‘It was not a nightmare! It simply had difficult aspects!’

‘Were you faithful to her?’

‘Of course I was faithful to her! How could I have gone on as a priest if I’d committed adultery?’

‘Was she faithful to you?’

‘Yes, she loved me.’

‘Even after you ran away to sea? It sounds to me as if she was either mad or mesmerized. Were you abusing your psychic powers to keep her under control?’

‘Certainly not, and if you hadn’t known me during the most shameful period of my life it would never have occurred to you to ask such an obscene question! After my call to the priesthood no woman ever played Trilby to my Svengali – and anyway there was no need for me to play Svengali to ensure Betty’s devotion. She loved me almost too much as it was.’