Scandalous Risks (21 page)

IV

The Bishop declared he wanted to start work as soon as possible but was then reminded gently by his wife of his numerous engagements for the coming week. Finally we agreed that I would present myself at the South Canonry on the following Monday at nine o’clock; since he took his day off on Mondays he would have the leisure to make an early start, but on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays he would be obliged to postpone me until five and might even be obliged to cancel me altogether if he had a long afternoon engagement. At these set times he would dictate for an hour and afterwards I could type up my notes whenever I wished. What kind of a typewriter would I like? He would hire any machine I fancied. He quite realised that a smart London secretary would expect only the best equipment.

‘I’d like an IBM Electric,’ I said, deciding to play up to this glamorous image he was imposing on me. In 1963 only the most favoured super-secretaries in London were blessed with this great dream-machine. ‘But I don’t know whether you’d be able to hire one in Starbridge.’

The Bishop said he was sure the biggest office equipment firm would be delighted to track down an IBM Electric especially for him. What a treat it would be to have a secretary who was young and up to date! He would have to take care that Miss Peabody didn’t become jealous; he foresaw he was going to wind up delectably pampered.

‘Yes, darling,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘but before you get carried away by your luscious masculine pipe-dream, try pampering Venetia by offering her another drink.’

I surrendered my glass with relief. I had in fact been feeling thirsty for some time.

‘You must order all the stationery you need from Paige’s in Chasuble Lane,’ said the Bishop to me as he flashed the gin bottle at my glass and again drowned the result ruthlessly with tonic. ‘Miss Peabody will give you a letter of authorisation. Incidentally, thinking of Miss Peabody, I hope I don’t dictate too fast for you. She sometimes has trouble keeping up with me.’

‘I have a certificate for a hundred and forty words a minute,’ I said reassuringly, playing the super-secretary for all I was worth, but in fact God only knew what my shorthand speed was by that time. It was some years since I had sweated blood scribbling hieroglyphics at a breakneck pace in the classroom, and I had never bothered to sweat much blood since.

‘A hundred and forty words a minute!’ marvelled the Bishop. ‘A real Rolls-Royce of a secretary! I doubt if Miss Peabody can even reach ninety.’

‘Well, darling,’ said Mrs Ashworth, rising to her feet, ‘if you’ll excuse me I’ll leave you for a moment with your Rolls-Royce while I toss off a few miracles in the kitchen.’

Immediately the Bishop began to ask me about my past jobs. His sympathetic interest was very appealing and I had no doubt he was sincere, in the sense that he genuinely wanted to find out more about me, but nevertheless I found it quite impossible to tell whether this desire sprang from a detached curiosity or a Christian concern or a mixture of the two. I came to the conclusion that he was fundamentally unreadable. His professional persona was so strong that he resembled a book cast in bronze.

However, no sooner had I reached this sinister conclusion than his elder son telephoned from Cambridge and at once the Bishop’s manner changed. The professional charm and well-oiled pastoral skills were discarded. The suave prelate vanished. In his place appeared a friendly father, relaxed, affable and unaffected. Evidently with Charley the Bishop could be himself.

‘Can’t wait to see you again, old chap,’ he said at the end of the conversation. ‘There’ll be so much to talk about.’

I tried to imagine either of my parents saying such words to me but my imagination was unequal to the challenge. I could only comment lamely after the Bishop had replaced the receiver: ‘I suppose that since Charley’s going into the Church you have a lot in common with him.’

‘That’s true,’ said Dr Ashworth with unexpected simplicity. ‘I’m so lucky to have Charley. He’s a very great blessing to me.’ And then as he looked past me I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mrs Ashworth was standing in the doorway.

‘So that was Charley,’ she said, moving back into the room to join us. ‘I was hoping it was Michael.’ She smiled at me. ‘Michael’s like you,’ she said. ‘Saddled with elderly parents whom he finds incurably "square".’

‘My dear Lyle!’ exclaimed the Bishop, effortlessly concealing himself again behind the mask of his formidable charm. ‘I’m sure Michael would remain devoted to us even if we were hexagonal! How are the miracles going in the kitchen?’

‘All performed. "Dinner, my Lord," as the butlers used to say to bishops in the old days, "is served."‘

I knocked back my gin-flavoured tonic and wondered anxiously if there would be wine to accompany the meal.

V

To my relief the Bishop offered me a decent claret to accompany the delicious boeuf bourguignon which, so Mrs Ashworth told me without shame, had been produced earlier by the cook-housekeeper. There were fresh vegetables and some crusty French bread. I had been indifferent to food since the onset of my grand passion, but landing a job with the Bishop had made me hungry and I now settled down to indulge in the sin of gluttony with the necessary civilised restraint.

The conversation soon began to bounce along at a brisk pace. I found myself engaged in discussing John Freeman’s television programme
Face to Face,
speculating about the play based on C. P. Snow’s
The Masters
(due to open in London at the end of the month), debating how far
Lord of the Flies
reflected the truth about British schoolboys, damning the architecture of the new Guildford Cathedral, analysing the brand of existentialism currently being purveyed by Jean-Paul Sartre and reflecting on Dr Ashworth’s assertion that theologians should fight the impulse to hitch their wagons to the philosophy which was currently in favour among the intelligentsia.

‘If I may repeat the immortal opinion held by Dean Inge,’ concluded Dr Ashworth, ‘he who marries the spirit of the age will quickly find himself a widower.’

‘So you don’t approve of Dr Robinson embracing Tillich’s existentialism?’ I enquired boldly, remembering a comment made by Eddie in the Hebrides. By this time I had downed two glasses of claret and staged a fighting recovery from my ethereal gin-and-tonics.

‘A bishop who is apparently ignorant of various basic theological concepts — who misuses, for instance, the word "supernatural" — is most unlikely to grasp the complexities of a theologian like Tillich. What Robinson has done is to pluck some quotations from the Tillich canon and declare them to be in some way magically relevant to the 1960s. But that’s not serious scholarship. That’s journalism.’

‘But I thought Dr Robinson
was
a serious scholar!’

‘He’s done some sound work on the New Testament,’ conceded Dr Ashworth graciously, ‘but in writing
Honest to God
he’s moved right out of his depth.’

‘The moral of the whole story,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘is never read avant-garde theology when you’re confined to bed, as Robinson was, with a slipped disc; it can produce a fatal craving to write a scandalous book. More vegetables, Venetia?’

‘No, thanks. But Bishop, surely Robinson’s right to try to restate Christianity for modem man?’

‘Who is this modern man Robinson keeps talking about?’ said the Bishop. ‘And more interesting still, why is Robinson so obsessed with him? In my opinion he feels obliged to make amends for his privileged clerical background by being sentimental about the unchurched masses, but if he’d actually grown up among the unchurched masses — as I did, coming not from the Cathedral Close at Canterbury but from Surrey’s outstandingly secular "Stockbrokers’ Belt" — he’d regard them far more realistically, I assure you.’

‘But are you saying modem man doesn’t exist?’ I pursued, determined not to be diverted by speculation about Dr Robinson’s psychology. By this time my tongue was almost hanging out for a third glass of claret.

‘Modern times exist,’ said the Bishop, replacing the stopper in the claret decanter, ‘but modern man, I fear, remains his ancient, sinful self. Darling, is there pudding or do we graduate straight to cheese?’

‘There’s a rather extraordinary syllabub. Are you brave enough to sample it, Venetia?’

I said I was feeling brave enough for anything, and for a while the con
^v
ersation veered towards cookery, but eventually as I dug into some Stilton and pined – fruitlessly – for a glass of port, I was able to return to the Bishop’s subtle attempt to undermine Robinson’s credibility.

‘Dr Ashworth, is it really your thesis that the driving force behind the writing of
Honest to God
was Robinson’s inverted ecclesiastical snobbery?’

‘Not entirely, of course,’ the Bishop had to admit, ‘but I think I’m making a valid comment on the origins of his compulsion to slate the Church, pander to atheists and attempt to redesign God to suit some mythical variety of
homo sapiens
which he’s pleased to describe as "modern man". I’m afraid his current antics only remind me of those young people who rebel against their conventional middle-class families by becoming rabid Marxists.’

‘Heavens, I hope Michael doesn’t go red!’ said Mrs Ashworth, much struck by this parallel. °That really would be the last straw.’

‘My dear,’ said the Bishop, ‘this family may be middle-class, but I don’t think I’d call it conventional.’

‘Surely no one who’s entitled to be addressed as "my Lord Bishop" can seriously continue to consider himself middle-class,’ I said, reluctantly abandoning all hope of a glass of port.

‘Oh, that’s just window-dressing,’ said the Bishop airily. ‘Just part of my current worldly trappings. It doesn’t alter my basic ingredients at all.’

‘Darling, you sound like a recipe in need of a good cook,’ said Mrs Ashworth, ‘but I’m going to leave you to simmer on the stove while I whisk Venetia away to my sitting-room. Give me a shout if you need stirring.’

We withdrew first to the kitchen, where coffee had percolated for us. Apparently the Bishop never drank coffee in the evening, but Mrs Ashworth produced two large mugs, each adorned with a painting of the Cathedral, and we prepared to overdose on caffeine. I liked the idea of drinking post-prandial coffee out of mugs; the rejection of the conventional demitasse struck me as being both pragmatic and adventurous.

‘I wanted to talk to you on your own anyway,’ Mrs Ashworth was saying as we settled ourselves in her plant-less, flower-less sitting-room, ‘but I also felt I had to remove you before Charles lost control and embarked on another
Honest to God
sermon. What on earth did clergymen talk about before that book appeared? I honestly find it hard to remember.’

‘Have you read it, Mrs Ashworth?’

‘Yes – in bed, so that Charles could nudge me whenever I dozed off.’

‘Thank heavens – I thought I was the only one who found it tough going!’

‘I think a lot of laymen find it tough going but nobody dares say so.’

We smiled at each other. After the effort of sustaining such an intellectual conversation at the dinner-table without benefit of a substantial infusion of alcohol, I was finding it a relief to relax with my sympathetic hostess.

‘Have a chocolate,’ said Mrs Ashworth, opening a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray, ‘and tell me everything. How are you getting on with that charming little glamour-puss Marina Markhampton?’

‘Amazingly well,’ I said, selecting an orange cream. ‘You mightn’t think it, but she’s not the usual cat-about-town at all. She puts a high value on friendship with girls and she’s not stupid.’

‘I think Michael’s wishing she could put a higher value on friendship with men!’

‘I bet he does! He’s madly attractive,’ I added generously, ‘although of course much too young for me.’

Mrs Ashworth smiled and said: ‘What did you think of the other men at the party?’

‘Oh, they were all fabulous, Mrs Ashworth – except for Katie’s brother Simon who insists on treating women as if they were horses.’

‘All whips and lumps of sugar?’

‘All slaps on the rump and hearty laughter. I reeled with relief into the orbit of Christian’s Winchester chum Perry Palmei
who lives at Albany and keeps curious Japanese prints in a room he refuses to specify.’

‘Sounds more intriguing. Is Perry the one who’s attracted you?’

I sipped my coffee and said: ‘What makes you think I’m attracted by anyone?’

‘Oh, my dear! A little while ago this interesting but dowdy girl tells me with deep gloom that she’s on the sidelines of life because no man has ever found her attractive. Tonight this same interesting girl, now transformed into a radiant young woman coruscating with charm and glamour, appears in my drawing- room and inspires my normally level-headed husband to burble about secretarial Rolls-Royces! Of course I’m just a clergyman’s wife,’ said Mrs Ashworth, as if she were the unworldly partner of an innocent curate in some country parish far from the fleshpots of Mammon, ‘but it does occur even to me, in my ancient respectability, that this particular Rolls-Royce is currently running on some very high-quality petrol indeed.

But I don’t want to pry. Would you rather talk of something else?’

Not before I’ve thanked you for all those compliments! And I really am very excited about being the Bishop’s Rolls-Royce. May I ask ... was it you who suggested the idea to him?’

‘No, he thought of it all by himself,’ said Mrs Ashworth, as if the Bishop were an exceptionally clever small child. ‘I simply egged him on. By the way, have you found a flat yet?’

No, I must have a blitz on the estate agents tomorrow.’

‘Well, before you start blitzing perhaps you’d like to consider an idea of mine. Do you know Archdeacon Lindsay?’

‘Only by reputation. Primrose is mad about him.’

‘
Then you’ll probably know that the Archdeaconry of Starbridge is attached to the benefice of St Martin’s-in Cripplegate — which means, among other things, that the Lind-says live in the centre of Starbridge at St Martin’s vicarage. At the bottom of the vicarage garden are the old stables, and on the first floor of these stables there’s currently a vacant flat.

The building has its own entrance on Butchers’ Alley, so you wouldn’t have to worry about Mr and Mrs Archdeacon spying on all your comings and goings, and on the ground floor, which Mr Lindsay uses as a garage, I’m sure there’d be room for your car. Michael was telling me that you have this snazzy little MG —’

And I was worried about finding parking once I’d left the Close! Mrs Ashworth, you’re a genius. How big is this place?’

‘Small bedroom, large living-room, kitchen and bathroom. The previous archdeacon had the flat made to house his mother-in-law, who was an awful old fusspot, so I’d imagine it’s reasonably comfortable.’

‘It’s quite obviously paradise. How do I get an appointment to view?’

‘Shall I phone Mrs Lindsay now? She’s a nice woman, I think you’ll like her — and she’s trying so hard to marry off her four daughters that I guarantee she’ll be much too busy to breathe down your neck.’

‘The ideal landlady presiding over the ideal flat where I shall live while I work at the ideal job! Do you realise, Mrs Ashworth, that you and your husband have just redesigned to perfection my entire life in Starbridge?’ I said, radiant with gratitude, and it was only when she gave her sphinx-like smile that it occurred to me to wonder why she and the Bishop had decided to take so much trouble over a young woman they hardly knew.