Absolute Truths (60 page)

‘
I’m going to chair this meeting this morning,’ I said briskly to
Nigel. ‘I’m feeling much better.’

‘
Ah,’ said Nigel, taking care to assume a delighted expression,
but I knew then that during the cat’s absence Malcolm had not
been the only mouse enjoying a happy play-time.

I led the way back to my study where we all sat down and
indulged in small-talk until Miss Peabody had brought us coffee.
‘How’s the Lower Quay housing project?’ I said to Nigel as
soon as she had withdrawn. ‘Have you had that report yet from
the social workers about the West Indians?’

‘
Not yet, no. As a matter of fact I’m getting rather worried
about the funding,’ said Nigel, unwittingly playing into my hands.
The conversion of the warehouse
is
going to work out at con
siderably more than the legacy because the lifts will be so expensive.’

‘
If I’d been in your shoes,’ said Malcolm, unable to resist med
dling in the conversation, ‘I’d have demolished that warehouse and
built low-rise housing which wouldn’t require lifts at all.’

The trend now is entirely to high-rise,’ said Nigel, unable to
resist the urge to slap down this impertinent comment, ‘and you’re
quite forgetting that the cost of demolition would have been very
considerable.’

‘
Talking of cost,’ I said as I began to manipulate the conver
sation, ‘I’ve been thinking that I ought to try and do more to help
you on that project – in fact I believe the time could now be ripe for me to try pulling a string or two at Westminster to get some
extra money.’

Nigel immediately became both excited and grateful. ‘That
would be wonderful, Charles! Now, make sure you stress to those
politicians how important this project is from a sociological point
of view – we’re not just building a ghetto for coloured immigrants.
This is true integrated housing, part of a vision which will
ultimately transform our slums into soaring multi-racial towers -
villages in the sky -’

‘
I wouldn’t want to live in a village in the sky,’ said Malcolm.

‘
I’d want a nice home down on earth with no more than a staircase
between me and the ground, and when we demolish St Paul’s I
think we should insist on low-rise housing and tell the sociologists
to get lost.’

This seems an appropriate moment to start talking about Lang
ley Bottom,’ I said swiftly before Nigel could make some furious
riposte. ‘But before I begin I’d like to thank you both for all
your hard work and unstinting support during these past days. I
consider myself extremely fortunate that at
such a
difficult time I
was able to delegate my work to you with complete confidence.’
And having buttered both of them up so lavishly, I added in my
most austere voice: ‘Now ... shall we take a moment to pray?’

Here I have the advantage over a layman in a similar managerial
position who cannot begin a meeting by reminding his subordi
nates of their ideals, their beliefs and their Maker. I framed a short,
crisp prayer, asking God to grant us patience, respect for each
other’s views and discernment, and at the end we all said a firm

‘
Amen’. So far so good. I then prepared to venture into the ecclesi
astical jungle.

‘
It seems to me that Langley Bottom presents throe questions,’
I said. ‘One, what happens to Desmond; two, what happens to
Hall; and three, what happens to St Paul’s. Let’s take the last question first. Nigel, Pd be glad to have your views, please, on
closure.’

‘
As I’ve already said, Charles,’ said Malcolm before Nigel could
open his mouth, it’s impossible for Nigel to have an
in
depth
view
of this particular subject as he doesn’t know the background. On
the other hand, I,
as
the Archdeacon -’

‘
Of course no one could know the situation in your archdeaconry
better than you do,’ interrupted Nigel with the most formidable
smoothness, ‘but no doubt Charles will take that into account
when I offer him my opinion, which is this: St Paul’s offers a form
of worship which
is
simply not available elsewhere in this area, and if it closes, the congregation will be caused a substantial amount of
distress which will be bad for their spiritual welfare. Surely the
best solution is to keep the church open but bring in a dynamic
priest - preferably someone not long out of St Stephen’s House
or Mirfield - to beef up the numbers so that the place becomes
less of a financial drain on the diocese.’

That’s no solution!’ exclaimed Malcolm. That’s a pipe-dream!
And anyway, how can you justify spending money and manpower
on keeping alive such a fatally old-fashioned ritualism?’

‘
Well, of course I know it’s hard for an Evangelical like you to
identify in a positive way with any form of Anglo-Catholicism,
but -’

‘
May I,’ I interposed,
‘as a
representative of the Church’s Middle
Way, call you both to order? We’re not here to stage a boxing
match between the Evangelical and Catholic wings. Nigel, thank
you for your views. Malcolm, I shan’t ask you to repeat your
opinion on closure, since you’ve already made your position very
clear, but let me support you in your desire to face the facts realisti
cally.’ As Malcolm looked triumphant I immediately added to
Nigel: ‘And let me also support you in your belief that this particu
lar church should stay open - let me attempt, in other words, some
sort of synthesis here. One of the facts we must face is that there’s
a shortage of clergy today, and that means we’re most unlikely to
get a dynamic young Anglo-Catholic priest who wants to fulfil a mission to the poor by working in Starbridge; that kind of priest
heads nowadays for the big cities and large-scale deprivation. So
having faced that fact, let’s by all means be realistic and consider
the one dynamic Anglo-Catholic priest we do have on offer - the
one who against all the odds has appeared out of the blue with
the claim that he’s called to work in Starbridge. If the church stays
open, I think there’s a case for keeping Lewis Hall.’

Not as far as I’m concerned,’ said Malcolm. ‘I like Hall but let’s
face it, employing him involves too many risks. He’s got all the
women in Langley Bottom in a tizzy - all right, I know it’s not
the poor chap’s fault that he has that peculiar effect, but you can’t
convince me he’s ever going to make a success of living a celibate
life, and anyway ordinary church people don’t like divorced priests
in parish work - in fact some of those really Romish ritualists
don’t even like married men in parish work -’

‘
Ah, but this is different!’ I said quickly. This is a unique situation
which enables us to use Hall without actually employing him as
the parish priest.
If
he runs the healing centre he won’t be the
incumbent — yet at the same time he’ll be there to support the
incumbent and provide a dynamic influence on the parish.’

‘I utterly oppose a healing centre!’ said Malcolm strongly. ‘Char
ismatic quackery, mumbo jumbo, undesirable publicity, hysteria,
scandal, the laying-on of hands in all the wrong places —’

‘
I can’t say I share Malcolm’s colourful
view
of the ministry of
healing,’ said Nigel, ‘but I do think it would be an unusually
controversial and risky venture.’

‘
I believe we need unusually controversial and risky ventures
sometimes,’ I said. ‘We can’t always be playing safe. After all, what
about your admirable project at Lower Quay?’

‘
Ah well,’ said Nigel, suddenly very thoughtful, ‘yes, I see what
you mean.’

‘
Now look here!’ exploded Malcolm outraged. ‘If you two want to float a high-risk project in Starmouth, that’s fine, nothing to
do with
me,
good luck to you, but I’m not having an exorcist
running wild in my archde
aconry and seducing women in some
grotto which he chooses to pass off as a healing centre!’

‘
You’d still have the problem of finding a new incumbent,
Charles,’ mused Nigel exactly as if Malcolm had never spoken.

‘
With Hall around to give the necessary spiritual support, I think
there’s a case for keeping Desmond.’

‘
What!’
shouted Malcolm.

‘
Less risky to pension him off, surely,’ said Nigel, ‘but of course
I do see your point of
view.’

‘
Wait a minute,’ said Malcolm. ‘Wait a minute. I just want to
make sure I’ve got this absolutely straight. Arc you saying, Charles, that you (a) want to keep
St
Paul’s open even though it’s a financial
millstone round our necks, (b) want to keep Desmond on even
though he nearly put us all in the soup with his ghastly homosexual
pornography, (c) want to retain a divorced man permanently in a parish situation even though he’s bound to get into a sex-mess of
indescribably awful dimensions, and (d) want this divorced man to found a healing centre for which there’s not one single penny
available —’

‘
He’ll raise the money.’

‘
— and which will give him the opportunity to get into not just
a sex-mess but also a charismatic-mess — which in turn will ensure
that my archdeaconry (my
archdeaconry !
hits the headlines in the
News of the World?’

‘
I
want him
to
start a
privately-funded healing centre at St Paul’s.
I don’t subscribe to your apocalyptic
view
of his future.’

‘
But my dear Charles ... I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand.
Nigel, surely you’re
as amazed
by all this as I am?’

‘
I confess I am a trifle surprised,’ said Nigel, ‘but every now and
then a radical vision really is called for. As it was for my Lower
Q
^ua
y project in Starmouth.’

‘
Exactly,’ I said. ‘But I quite understand that you may need a
little time
to think about this, Malcolm. And to pray.’ I was gradu
ally bringing out all the weapons in my episcopal armoury. No
secular executive can give the sinister hint to his subordinate that
he should spend a little more time thinking about God and a
little
less time thinking about himself.

‘
I think we should all pray about this!’ said Malcolm at once,
losing sight in his agitation of the crucial fact that although I
wanted his consent in order to prevent the matter blighting our
working relationship, I did not ultimately require his seal of
approval. ‘What baffles
me,
Charles, is that this is so completely
contrary to your traditional thinking! All right, I know you’ve
always had a keen interest in the ministry of healing, but it’s one
thing to have a keen interest and quite another to set up an over
sexed divorced priest in a diocesan white elephant! Surely you can see a scandal’s inevitable? And who’ll have to clear up that scandal
when it happens?
Me!
And talking of scandal, how can you be so
soft on Desmond — you, who have always been so tough on sexual
transgression? I’m sorry, forgive me for being so shocked and
horrified, but I feel I must ask for some explanation of why you’ve
suddenly decided to act so completely out of character.’

I pulled out the heaviest weapon in my armoury, the one a
bishop should never use unless it is absolutely necessary — and
even then the bishop should hesitate before he drops this ecclesias
tical
atomic
bomb. I examined my thumbnail with care. Then I
looked meditatively out of the window and said in a voice devoid of emotion: ‘I feel it’s the will of God.’ The only way I can defend
this naked exercise in power is to say that at least the statement
was true.