Glittering Images (42 page)

I finally voiced the conclusion I had drawn years earlier after great pain and difficulty. ‘I’m certain,’ I said, ‘because I believe that if he wasn’t my real father the truth would have surfaced when I decided to go into the Church. I can’t begin to describe the awfulness of the rows we had, but the one thing he never did was disown me.’

Darrow was silent.

‘I realize that illegitimacy is the obvious explanation of the mystery,’ I said, ‘but it can’t be the right one.’

Darrow remained silent for a moment before saying: ‘Very well, where have we got to? We’ve already established that your father’s attitude to you doesn’t arise from the fact that you’re profoundly unfit and unworthy. We’ve now established that it doesn’t arise from the fact that he’s not your natural father. What, then, is your final explanation of the mystery?’

‘Well, I suppose all one can say is that sometimes, even in the best of families, a parent has an antipathy towards one of his children and this creates tensions within the family.’

‘I agree such cases do happen,’ said Darrow, ‘but unless the parent is either mentally ill or sunk deep in poverty, there’s always a reason for the antipathy. For example sometimes the child reminds the parent of someone unpleasant – Great-Uncle Cuthbert who beat him when he was little, perhaps, or Great-Aunt Matilda who deprived him of chocolate in childhood. Do you perhaps remind your father of any such disagreeable antecedents in the family tree?’

‘I don’t see how I can. I’m not like anyone in our family. That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m such a stranger.’

‘How curious,’ said Darrow, ‘because your father seems to look at you, Charles, and see someone he knows.’

I was astonished. ‘Does he?’

‘It’s all there in your narrative. Take a moment to think about it.’

I reviewed my story with meticulous care. Then I said cautiously: ‘It’s as if he’s not seeing me – my true self – but a glittering image. Yet it’s not
my
glittering image. It’s a far more sinister glittering image than mine.’

‘Exactly. Your father’s big aim in life – as he’s always telling you – is to bring you up to be a good straight decent man, but his very insistence on this seems to suggest he’s terrified he’ll fail. He looks at you and can hardly believe you’ve turned out so well – in fact he daren’t believe it, he behaves as if he’s scared to death something could still go wrong. He thunders to you on the subject of drink. He exhorts you not to get in a mess with women. There you stand before him, a good straight decent man in a clerical collar – in fact you’ve been called to a profession which ensures that you’re just about as good and straight and decent as you can get – but your father doesn’t see the clerical collar, Charles, and he doesn’t see you either. He looks beyond you in his memory and he sees a wastrel, someone who drinks too much, someone who gets in a mess with women, someone who ruins himself, someone whom perhaps your father once resented and feared … And who do you think that is, Charles? If the description doesn’t tally with any member of your family, whom do you think it fits?’

‘My real father,’ I said, and saw a new world shudder loose from the chrysalis of the old.

‘He impressed me as wise, patient, discerning, experienced and unquestionably sincere, a genuine pastor. His counsels were worth having and I have never forgotten them. I could not doubt that, if all clergymen were as well qualified as he, there would be few who would not benefit by “opening their grief in private confession”.’

HERBERT HENSLEY HENSON
Bishop of Durham 1920–1939
Retrospect of an Unimportant Life

‘We could be entirely wrong,’ said Darrow. ‘The deduction seems obvious enough from the evidence but any evidence can be subject to misinterpretation.’

My mind was so absorbed by the thought of the stranger who had been conjured up out of the most opaque corners of my narrative that I could only say, ‘I know we’re right.’

Darrow at once anchored me to reality. ‘You know no such thing. What you do know, on the other hand, is that you can go to your parents to demand the truth and the odds are that one of them’s bound to reveal it. At this stage of your life they can’t claim they’re justified in lying to protect you.’

‘Do you suppose that was why my father lied to me when I was fifteen? But why should he have wanted to protect me? It would have been more in character if he’d leapt at the chance to tell me the truth once I’d voiced my suspicions!’

Darrow said nothing.

‘And why did he marry my mother in such terrible circumstances?’ I demanded, my incredulity mounting. ‘What a fantastic thing to do! And then to bring up the child as his own – and never to betray the secret despite considerable provocation … Why, I can’t imagine how or why any man could do such a thing!’

‘That’s exactly the sort of remark people often make to a man who becomes a monk,’ said Darrow. ‘They entirely overlook the fact that where a call from God exists any other course of action becomes unthinkable. Your father may have felt called to perform this unusual and difficult action – he may have believed, for reasons which seemed to him to be incontrovertible, that he had no choice but to marry your mother and assume responsibility for you.’

‘But my father’s an atheist! He wouldn’t even hear a call from God, let alone believe in one!’

‘What a heretical statement! Are you saying an atheist can limit God’s power to call men to do his will?’

‘No, of course not, but –’

‘What sort of an atheist is your father anyway? It sounds to me as if he’s a man who’s too proud to admit there could be more to the world than he can discern with the aid of his senses yet too honest to be entirely comfortable with his arrogance; his attacks on Christianity and the Church suggest he’s trying to convince himself as well as others that religion has nothing to offer.’

‘I’d agree with that, but despite his secret ambivalence I still can’t imagine him responding to a call from God. After all, a call can’t take root and endure unless there are fertile conditions prevailing in the psyche, and I find myself quite unable to conceive what his motive was here.’

‘The answer’s patently obvious. If you can somehow manage to discard your preconceived notions you’ll find the facts permit only one conclusion.’

I stared at him. ‘I can see he might have made the original decision because he loved my mother – although what an amazing gesture of love that would have been! – but why didn’t he tell me the truth when I was fifteen? I can’t see why on earth he should want me to go on believing he was my father if he didn’t care about me.’

‘Precisely,’ said Darrow, rising to his feet. ‘Good. Well, we’ll call a halt to the conversation there, and this evening we’ll –’

I grabbed his sleeve. He sat down again. ‘But my father doesn’t care about me,’ I said. ‘That’s the point. He doesn’t care.’

‘What evidence can you provide to support that statement?’

‘Well, I told you … I explained …’

‘You told me things which made me suspect he could be obstinate, pig-headed, misguided and rude, but I can’t think of a single thing you said which made me think he was indifferent to you. Uncaring fathers don’t lash themselves into a frenzy of anxiety every time they imagine their sons are going to the dogs.’ He stood up once more. ‘Think about it,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘and we’ll talk again this evening.’

‘Of course,’ I said when we met later in my room, ‘no matter what the solution of the mystery is, he
is
my father. Fatherhood is much more than initiating a process of reproduction.’

‘That sounds like a promising approach to a very difficult dilemma. But let’s assume our theory’s right and that somewhere in the world there’s a man who could claim to have begotten you. How would you feel about him?’

‘Hostile. He nearly ruined my mother and must have caused her enormous pain.’

‘True. Go on.’

‘He walked out on me when I was an embryo and has never made any attempt – so far as I know – to show the slightest interest in me.’

‘True again.’

‘However …’ I hesitated before concluding carefully, ‘If he’s alive I’d like to meet him, just once, for a quick look. Then I can put him aside and get on with my life, but if there’s no meeting I suspect I’ll always wonder what he was like and I might wind up being obsessed by him.’

Darrow said neutrally, ‘Adopted children usually do have a psychological need to meet their natural parents. Very well, what do you think your next step should be?’

‘I want to leave here as soon as possible in order to visit my parents and find out if our theory’s true. But when do you think I’ll be ready to make my formal confession and receive the sacrament again?’

‘I’m already impressed by the realistic approach you’re displaying to this new dilemma. Has the moment finally come, I wonder, when you can give me a realistic assessment of your relationships with Lyle, Loretta and Jardine? If you can accomplish that to my satisfaction, then I promise I’ll hear your formal confession without delay …’

‘Let’s start with Lyle,’ said Darrow after I had assured him I now understood my errors well enough to profess a valid repentance. ‘Tell me what you think was actually going on beneath the storybook romance.’

Without hesitation I said, ‘When I arrived in Starbridge I was in despair about my inability to lead a successful celibate life, and I was intent on discovering not just a woman I could marry but a woman who could cope with the worthless person I believed myself to be. I thought myself to be worthless in this context not merely because my father had a low opinion of me but because I’d made Jane unhappy; however I couldn’t think of Jane because that was too painful, so I told myself that everything would come right so long as I found a problemsolving miracle woman. Naturally I was indulging in fantasy – how obvious that seems now! – but I was so desperate to marry and put an end to my bouts of fornication that I had to believe I could make my fantasy come true.’

‘That’s an excellent beginning,’ said Darrow. ‘Go on.’

Much encouraged I said, ‘The odds were heavily against the possibility that Lyle was Jardine’s mistress but nevertheless I suspect that in my subconscious mind I’d pictured them in bed together and thought: a girl who could maintain a clandestine love-affair with an eminent churchman is just about the only kind of woman who would have a hope of coping with me. Probably I thought this before I ever met Lyle, but when I saw her this wild deduction about her suitability was reinforced because I did find her exceedingly attractive. And to cap it all – to make the psychological situation perfect – she was in a mysterious way unavailable and for years I’d only been attracted to unavailable women.’

‘You can see clearly now, no doubt, why you chased the unavailable women despite your genuine desire to remarry?’

‘I had an equally genuine desire not to remarry because I was terrified I might drive another woman to suicide. I hadn’t come to terms with Jane’s death at all, and the tragedy acted as a block in my mind.’

‘Good. Very well, so you fell for Lyle –’

‘I fell for her hook, line and sinker, and whether or not this was all a huge illusion I still don’t know. I’d like to believe my feelings are in some way rooted in reality, but I do concede now that I’ll have to see her again when I’m in a much more stable frame of mind before I can finally decide whether she’s right for me.’

‘That’s most impressive, Charles – what an improvement on your earlier extravagant declarations! Now can you approach Loretta with a similar realism?’

I knew this would be harder. After a pause I said: ‘What a good friend she was to me at the end! I shall always remember that rescue of hers with gratitude, but apart from that …’ My voice trailed away but Darrow made no attempt to intervene and after another pause I was able to confess: ‘My afternoon with Loretta was a disaster – although I must be honest, mustn’t I, and admit the sex was magnificent. However that’s just judging the incident from a physical point of view. Emotionally it was a disaster for me because it ploughed up my feelings for Lyle and put me in the biggest possible muddle. Mentally it was a disaster for me because the new muddle pushed me nearer the brink of breakdown and made me sink myself more obsessively than ever in the Starbridge mystery in order to divert myself from my problems. Spiritually it was a disaster for me because it cut me off from God and magnified my guilt as a clergyman to such an extent that I was unable to respond to your initial attempt to help me. And pastorally it was a disaster for me because I exploited a woman who was lonely and ignored a soul’s unmistakable need for care. How can I do other than regret an incident which was an emotional, mental, spiritual and pastoral disaster? All physical gratification becomes sour and futile when isolated in such a wasteland.’

Darrow said, ‘Can you put into words, do you think, why you were tempted to make love to her? Or are you implying this was solely an act of physical gratification?’

‘That was the most obvious motive, but I can see now that I was driven by other forces too. For instance I was in a state of extreme spiritual weakness brought on by my private troubles; I’d been working harder to preserve my glittering image than to serve God. Then I was also in a state of profound emotional turmoil and I used Loretta to anaesthetize myself from my problems. And finally … well, this is the crux of the matter, isn’t it. Father? I thought she’d had full sexual intercourse with Jardine, and my identification with him at that point was so strong that I just thought: if he had her I’ll have her; if he can do it, then why on earth shouldn’t I?’