The Wonder Worker (25 page)

Is it my imagination or is Alice thinner? I notice she didn’t bother to have any rum raisin ice cream.

Monday, 14th November, 1988
: The soreness has eased and the freedom from arthritic pain still seems miraculous, but the bad news is that my specialist’s muttered prophecy has come true, I’m obliged to use crutches whenever I leave my bed, and despite all my determination to believe otherwise I know I shall be unable to chuck them aside the moment I go home; so for a while I’ll be sidling along like a drunken crab. To make matters worse—and this is why I won’t be thrown out of here just yet—the physiotherapist has explained to me that I have to relearn my walking; because I didn’t take action on the hip earlier I learned to walk in the wrong way and this is now handicapping my recovery. Triple-hell! How can I present myself to Veneria when I’m in such a patently decayed condition?

I’m so upset that I have a row with one of the junior doctors when he says shouldn’t I be showing more Christian patience. Impudent young whippersnapper! I bare my teeth and growl. He flees.

Nicholas arrives. Trying to divert myself from my furious disappointment I badger him to tell me all the news, even the worst items, and eventually he abandons his high-minded decision not to bother me with our current cliff-hanger at St. Benet’s. It turns out that Fran
cie left her husband (again) but returned (again) after the usual forty-eight hours with her mother; the husband’s promised (again) to reform and Francie refuses (again) to get any kind of help.

“So what else is new?” I say dryly to Nicholas, but apparently the answer isn’t quite: “Nothing.” Nicholas has suggested to Francie that she might like to talk to our tame psychiatrist up in Hampstead to try to examine the “destructive dynamic” in the marriage, but this very reasonable proposal has also been rejected by Francie, and Nicholas is now more willing to believe she could be fantasising. Our psychiatrist—a friendly, sympathetic female—has helped us before with battered women, and Nicholas feels that if Francie’s problem really is a violent husband she would by this time welcome the chance of first-class medical help from someone who specialises in the field of abusive relationships.

“On the other hand,” I comment cautiously, “maybe she feels that to see a psychiatrist is to admit she’s nuts.”

“She surely wouldn’t be that naive, not after working for years at St. Benet’s! Besides, I was careful to take the line that it was primarily Harry who needed the psychiatric help; I suggested Francie’s interview with Jane would be more of a conference than a consultation as they worked out how to deal with him.”

“So what did Francie say when she finally turned you down?”

“The usual. Harry would reform. No outside help was necessary. Her love would see them through.”

“If Harry’s the sadist she says he is, that’s a grand illusion. If he’s not the sadist she says he is, that’s just the fantasy continuing. Either way she’s up the creek.”

There’s a pause while we meditate gloomily on this verdict. Then Nicholas says: “I wonder if the reality’s quite as clear-cut as that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Francie could be telling the truth when she says Harry’s a sadist, but she could be lying about the nature of the abuse.”

I stare at him. “You mean the abuse may not be half as bad as she says?”

“No, I mean it could be much worse than she says. Maybe she’s so traumatised that she can neither put into words what’s going on nor make any attempt to do more than let us know she’s in trouble. That would at least explain why she’s turned down the therapist, the self-help groups and the psychiatrist; she’d feel she was way beyond being able to articulate the problem to strangers.”

I’m interested but sceptical. “What sort of problem do you have in mind?”

“A sexual deviation by the husband.”

We mull this over and I find that running through a choice list of sexual deviations certainly takes my mind off my post-operative difficulty. I even begin to feel in the mood which that Victorian, Great-Uncle Cuthbert, would have described as “bobbish.”

“So what’s the next step?” I demand.

“I think all we can do at the moment is keep the lines of communication open, so I’ve asked Francie to come to see me twice a week for a ten-minute update on the situation.”

“That means she’s got your special attention!” I exclaimed. “You mark my words, Nicholas, those little ten-minute chats will soon expand into fifty-minute sessions!”

“I think she’ll trip up and be forced to come clean long before that happens—if she’s a fraud. And if she’s not a fraud, then she deserves some special attention.”

“But you’re taking a big risk, Nicholas! If she
is
seriously disturbed and unacceptably fixated on you—”

“The truth is I still find it hard to believe that Francie’s suddenly gone over the top.”

“It’s not sudden! These tales of wife-beating have been going on for some time! And besides, don’t forget that even the most stable people can go off their rockers if a chemical imbalance develops in their brains!”

“That’s true, but I see no sign of psychosis here. The most likely explanation is that she’s suffering from an abuse which she’s working herself up to articulate to me.”

“I disagree. If Francie was being subjected regularly to some disgusting perversion, I think she’d have broken down by now or at the very least shown some sign of stress in her work, but she’s still functioning normally, isn’t she? Nobody at the Centre except us has the remotest idea she’s in trouble, and in my opinion—”

Seeing I’m getting overheated Nicholas diverts me with what appears to be good news about our other major problem. “Talking of people functioning normally,” he says, making a skilful interruption, “that reminds me: I almost forgot to tell you about Stacy. He took out Tara Hopkirk at the weekend. They went to a film at the Barbican and had a very successful evening.”

Tara Hopkirk is one of the church cleaners. She lives in the Isle of
Dogs, always dresses in sweatshirts and outsize jeans, comes to the lunch-time Eucharist once a week and looks like the back end of a bus. In other words she’s a downmarket, churchgoing version of Alice.

“Not much class there,” I observe.

“So what? Stacy’s hardly blue-blooded, is he, and Tara’s a splendid girl, very good-hearted!”

I can imagine Tara feeling delighted by this surprising initiative from the curate, but what’s Stacy feeling? I decide it would be wiser not to venture a comment.

Sensing my scepticism Nicholas switches subjects again and this time he talks about the latest case-conference on Venetia. Apparently he wants to pussyfoot with her in my absence, just to check that she’s on an even keel without her regular fix of Lewis Hall. This first bout of therapy is set to end in mid-December, although she’ll almost certainly need to continue the therapy after she and Robin assess her progress at Christmas. If she then feels she needs to explore the past in detail she can elect to try psychoanalysis, but that’s a possibility which can be discussed later. In the meantime she’s attending AA meetings and keeping off the booze. So far so good.

I give him permission to pussyfoot but tell him he’s got to overcome his aversion to grand hotels in order to pussyfoot with style. Nicholas sighs. However, he’s very fond of Venetia and he’s passionately committed to her rehabilitation. He’ll grit his teeth and face Claridge’s for her sake.

“I was hoping to impress Venetia by walking like a much younger man when I next see her,” I say, unable to resist confiding my disappointment to him. “But as it turns out I’ll be looking older than ever and hobbling along on crutches. What am I going to say to her when she asks for an explanation?”

“There’s no need to give any explanation at all. Just be enigmatic and elliptical.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Say: ‘I hope that one day I’ll be able to tell you the whole story, but meanwhile—alas!—my lips are sealed.’ ”

“I like the ‘alas’! But supposing she just laughs and accuses me of talking codswallop?”

“She won’t. She’ll be fascinated but tactful. After all, she likes you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then she won’t force you to talk about a subject which you’ve clearly labelled
verboten”
.

I feel more cheerful.

He gives me the Blessed Sacrament and we pray together. Then he performs the laying-on of hands, and afterwards I feel not just more cheerful but wonderfully better, full of hope, relaxed and at peace. The nurse comes in later, looking as if she wishes she were wearing a bullet-proof vest, but all she finds is this cuddly old priest sporting a soppy, beatific expression. “Well, whatever happened to
you?
” she asks astonished, and I explain that I’ve received healing from a great priest, devout, humble and well integrated—and in consequence capable of being wholly at one with the power of the Holy Spirit.

How magnificently far removed my Nicholas is from being a power-mad, self-centred wonder worker on an ego-trip!

I feel so proud of him.

COMMENT
: I mustn’t get so sentimental about Nicholas. I must stop writing “my” Nicholas, like a doting father mooning over his idolised son. Sentimental old men are embarrassing, and I don’t want the one successful relationship in my life to get bogged down in gooeyness. Sentimentality always distorts the truth. I must never forget that Nicholas has his faults and his weaknesses, and that my job as his brother-in-Christ is not to view him through the rose-tinted spectacles of a sentimental affection but to see him through the clear lense of a genuine love. Only then can I be of
real
service, helping him if he stumbles, steering him back on course if he strays.

Almighty God, please keep Nicholas safe while I’m not at home to look after him. In the name of Christ, Amen.

Wednesday, 16th November, 1988
: I’m to be allowed to go home tomorrow, but unfortunately I’m not through with hospitals as I have to have regular physiotherapy. But the physiotherapist seems confident that in three months’ time few people will guess I’ve had hip trouble.

Good news.

Meanwhile my surgeon is most displeased to hear that I’m not going off for a little holiday by the sea. With asperity he declares that I mustn’t rush back to work; I must walk a certain amount each day but avoid violent exercise of any kind; there must be no late nights, no driving cars and please could I seriously consider giving up smoking.

I’m so cross I want to shock him rigid by asking how soon I’ll be
able to have sex, but ragging a stuffed-shirt layman by implying I can’t wait to commit fornication is hardly justifiable behaviour for a priest.

Keeping my mouth clamped shut I start to dream of pussyfooting …

COMMENT
: Is my impatience with the surgeon and my longing to go home a mere normal desire to return to much-loved surroundings, or is there a psychic twinge involved? I keep praying for Nicholas as if I’m worried about his safety. So, to pose the question more bluntly: am I just being a stupid old man, playing the neurotic father with a man who’s perfectly capable of looking after himself, or am I latching on to a hidden threat which has somehow taken root in the world of the unseen and is stealthily expanding to dangerous dimensions? It’s hard to pinpoint this threat. All I know is that the Devil must be hating Nicholas’s success as a Christian healer. What I might very well be sensing is that cloven hoof twitching as it revs up for the big kick.

Sometimes only metaphorical language can convey truth.

I felt the kick of that cloven hoof back in 1983 when my previous ministry was destroyed. What would I have done if Nicholas hadn’t taken me in and rehabilitated me? I don’t like to think. God acted through Nicholas, of course, redeeming the mess, renewing me, breathing fresh life into my shattered career. But I’ll never forget the kick of that cloven hoof when I was self-satisfied, overconfident and doing so well that I no longer bothered to battle with my pride. I turned into a wonder worker, that was the truth of it. Even the best healers are subject to corruption, and perhaps the most successful are particularly likely to be booted down the drain into the sewer. Success breeds pride; pride distorts one’s vision of reality; a distorted vision means you never see the kick coming from the cloven hoof … And then the next moment you’re in the filth and smashed to pieces.

I see so clearly now that the wonder worker is the shadow side of the Christian healer. The wonder worker’s there all the time, deep in the psyche, but so long as he’s confronted and owned he can be subjugated. Once he’s neglected or ignored he’ll get restless and slide stealthily out of control. The healer’s got to be very fit spiritually to see off that particular challenge, but see it off he must. It’s a matter of life and death.

Watch out, Nicholas,
watch out!
You were the ideal healer when
ever you visited me in hospital, but back at St. Benet’s you’re self-satisfied about Stacy’s phony date with Tara and you’re overconfident in your conviction that Francie’s not deranged. If you’re not careful, that arrogance of yours will blind you to reality, particularly if I’m not there to hold the unvarnished truth constantly before your eyes, and then one day …

One day all hell will break loose.

Almighty God, please help me get fit as soon as possible so that I can be of maximum use to Nicholas in fending off any kicks from the cloven hoof. Amen.

Thursday, 17th November, 1988
: I leave hospital, AH the nurses drool over me. I try to apologise for the episodes of truly appalling behaviour but the girls say they’re always so glad to meet a patient with a fighting spirit. I seem to have established a reputation as a “character.” Extraordinary.

I arrive home. To mark the occasion Alice is dressed in her best tent, now too big for her, and the kitten has a bow around its neck. My bedsit is so clean I can hardly bear to light a cigarette in it. I potter around, puffing away at my nicotine fix, and touch all my favourite items—the crucifix, the icons, my best books, my picture of Rachel and the grandchildren.