The Wonder Worker (5 page)

“Yes, but there was no reaction. Mr. Darrow”—I drew a deep
breath—“if all goes well, what do you think might happen? I mean, what are the possibilities?”

“Well, there’s always a chance she’ll astound us by sitting up in bed and announcing that she’s cured—I’ve seen some extraordinary things happen during my ministry—but as I implied earlier, although a cure’s possible I don’t think it’s likely. What I always hope for, when I’m treating terminal patients, is that there’ll be a chance to clear up the unfinished business which is oppressing not only the dying but those closest to them. If your aunt can no longer speak that makes my task more difficult, but sometimes important messages can be conveyed without using words at all.”

“I’m just so terrified you’ll get no reaction.”

“If that happens I’d propose trying again next week. From what you say I think there’s still a chance I can make contact.”

“But I could be wrong in thinking she’s still there sometimes—”

“You could be, yes, but I’m going to assume you’re right. I’m also going to assume she can hear, since hearing is often the last sense to go, and finally I’m going to assume that she’s
compos mentis
whenever she slips back into consciousness.”

I said in despair, “That’s a lot of assuming.”

“But it’s by no means an impossible scenario. Think of a pianist locked up in a room with a vandalised grand piano. He can clearly remember how to play the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ but the right noises are no longer available.”

“But if the piano’s beyond repair—”

“There could be one or two notes which still ring true. But the pianist has to be encouraged to search for them.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Leave that to me. All you’ve got to do is to provide support. Don’t worry if you can’t believe in something code-named God. If you feel you can’t in honesty pray, try instead to summon up the love you feel for your aunt and wrap it around her as if it were a very expensive coat and she were suffering from hypothermia.”

“Okay, but—”

“If your aunt’s surrounded by love then God will be present—no, never mind if you can’t share that belief! The important thing is that you should believe that
I
believe it, and back me every inch of the way. So long as you’re a positive presence there’ll be no danger of things going wrong.”

“How could things go wrong?”

“There’s always a dark side to every situation. I believe you love your aunt, but I can see your relationship with her has its unhappy aspects. If that unhappiness is allowed to surface, the love will be obscured and the channel of healing will get clogged up by the wrong emotions.”

“But you’re the channel, not me!”

“No, this is a joint venture. Remember what I said earlier about the built-in human desire to be well? That desire seems to exist on the level of consciousness where all human beings connect, and we’ll be operating at that level when we try to help your aunt. It’s the level at which we’re all potentially healers, all capable of bringing our special energy to the healing process and linking up—if only the channel can be kept clear—with the overall energy of our Creator.”

“But you’re the professional healer and I could only be just an ignorant amateur!”

“In a worldly sense, yes, but we’re both human beings so the access to God is the same—and since we’re equal before God it’s pointless to quibble about status. The big challenge is not to become what the world describes as a professional but to harness one’s energy properly and keep the channel unclogged.”

“And are there techniques for doing that?”

“All healers, religious and secular, have their techniques. My technique is to try to follow the example of Jesus Christ, the greatest healer who ever lived. I’ll always fall short, of course, but if I stopped trying I’d be done for.”

“Why?”

“Ah well … I suppose it’s all really a question of integrity.”

Such was the strength of his personality that I suddenly felt I was capable of believing anything he believed in—God, Christ, the Holy Spirit—the whole Trinitarian caboosh. And despite his warnings not to expect a miracle-cure I was now convinced he could solve my problems merely by tapping Aunt with his index finger.

It embarrasses me now to think how naive I was.

What happened was far more extraordinary than that.

IX

“Aunt
, this is Mr. Nicholas Darrow,” I said too loudly when I returned to her bedside. “I told you about him earlier. He’s the clergyman from St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall.”

Nicholas took Aunt’s claw and held it as he murmured the conventional words of introduction. Then he sat down on the chair which Val had vacated and motioned me to take the chair on the other side of Aunt’s inert body. Val herself had withdrawn to stand at the foot of the bed.

Without any trace of tension Nicholas said clearly to Aunt: “Alice talked to me today. I daresay she’d never normally discuss her worries with a clergyman”—with relief I noticed the omission of the Romish “priest,” a word guaranteed to grate on Aunt’s nerves, especially when used by a clergyman of the Church of England—“but her circumstances now aren’t normal, are they, and she’s so anxious to do her best for you.”

He paused but there was no response.

“I’m familiar with illness,” resumed Nicholas unperturbed. “That’s because I work in the ministry of healing—I work with doctors, and my ministry’s approved both by the Church and by the British Medical Association. So you can be sure Alice hasn’t made a fool of herself and hired some shady wonder worker who has no genuine credentials. And you can be sure too that she’s talked to me not because she wanted to gossip and not because she wanted to complain about the tough hand you’ve both been dealt, but because she was seeking help for someone who’s special to her.”

He paused again. Still no response.

“As Alice talked,” said Nicholas undeterred, “I had several thoughts. The first was: what a wonderful thing you did, taking on Alice like that! But it must have been hard for you, a single woman no longer young, to cope with bringing up a child in addition to holding down a demanding job. My second thought was that you must have experienced considerable stress from time to time—you must have encountered numerous problems which hadn’t come your way before, and you had to solve them without anyone to help you. My third thought was how heroic you were to try to keep all your anxieties from Alice—but Alice sensed them, didn’t she, and thought you were disappointed in her. Well, maybe you were from time to time. Children don’t exist merely to provide their parents or guardians with an unbroken flow of satisfaction. But wasn’t the main problem the fact that you feared you might make a hash of this enormous task you’d undertaken? Weren’t you afraid above all of falling short of those very high standards of yours? It occurs to me that far from being disappointed in Alice you were terrified that Alice would wind up being disappointed in you. Perhaps you were
even afraid sometimes of breaking down and having to put Alice into care.”

He paused a third time but there was no reaction from Aunt. She merely lay motionless, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.

But
my
face, I knew, was by this time expressing the deepest possible emotion. I was aware of my lips parting in amazement as my breathing became more rapid. The implications of Nicholas’s monologue swirled through my mind, and I turned my head to stare at him.

He ignored me. “That’s why I want to tell you what a success you’ve made of bringing Alice up,” he said to Aunt. “Alice thinks that in your eyes she’s riddled with faults, but she’s got it wrong, hasn’t she? You don’t care about any run-of-the-mill shortcomings because all you’ve wanted is for Alice to be a woman of integrity, just as you are. Well, you’ve got what you wanted and now Alice has the guts to stand by you just as you always stood by her. She loves you and she wants justice for you—which is why I’m here tonight. Pain and suffering have ruled this house long enough, and now it’s time for them to be challenged.”

He stopped. There was no movement from the bed but I wasn’t expecting that now. I was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the chair with my fists clenched.

Nicholas was saying: “I’m going to ask God for help but I won’t be talking to the fake-God so many people still believe in, the one who’s just a brutal tyrant enjoying an early retirement in the sky. I’ll be talking to the working God, the one who’s still creating the world and in consequence suffering alongside us, the one who never wills pain but slaves always to redeem it. And while I talk to him, please think of Alice, loving you enough to long for justice, and picture what you’d say to her if you could speak.”

He leant forward. He’d been holding Aunt’s hand throughout this monologue, but now he used both his hands to encircle hers before saying: “I’m going to recite three short prayers. Then we’ll be silent for a while as we think our own thoughts and wish our own wishes. When I end that silence we’ll all hold hands and I’ll pray directly for help.”

He started out on the first prayer, but my thoughts were now so chaotic that I was unable to concentrate. All I could do was wipe the mist from my glasses, but the moment they were replaced I was distracted again because I could now see his face with such clarity. I
even noticed the way his cheekbones caught the light as he drew closer to Aunt, trapped as she was in the damaged body which had become so frail.

It was as the second prayer began that I remembered his request for support, and at once guilt needled me because I knew I should have remembered sooner. In an effort to make amends I cried out in my head: “Come on, Nicholas,
come on!
” for all the world as if he were battling some formidable opponent on the Centre Court at Wimbledon and I was bawling encouragement between the rallies, but when he stopped the spoken prayers to allow the silence to begin, the image of Wimbledon faded and all I could think of was Aunt, rescuing me long ago and making so many sacrifices to see that justice was done. Then I found myself shouting silently to the God Nicholas believed in: “Help her, help her—please, please, please—” and as the words rang out in my mind I knew how much I really did love her, silly, opinionated old bag, and how much I longed to prove to her that I was worth all the trouble she’d taken to bring me up. So I added to Nicholas’s God: “Make it all come right!”—and at that precise moment my chaotic thoughts were swept aside as Nicholas finally rose to his feet.

He kept Aunt’s claw in his right hand and held out his left to Val. She in turn reached out to me and I took Aunt’s other claw to complete the circle.

When all our hands were clasped Nicholas said clearly, without fuss or melodrama: “In the name of Jesus Christ …” But my concentration broke again before he finished the sentence. I was looking at Aunt and the words GET WELL were ringing in my mind, but Aunt was corpse-like still, no change there, and in a wave of despair I looked away from her towards Nicholas. Instantly the despair was wiped out. I knew why. It was because I loved him, and the love was stronger than any of the negative feelings which were trying to penetrate our circle. I found myself saying to him soundlessly over and over again: “I believe in you, I support you, I love you,” and as I directed this tidal wave of truth towards him he made one of his fluent, graceful movements, unclasping his hands and pressing them down on Aunt’s head.

For several seconds he was motionless, his eyes closed, his whole body seeming to vibrate with concentration, but at last he withdrew his hands, crossed himself and said a final prayer. “May the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and …” I lost track again.
I was trying to dredge up the courage to face the sight of Aunt, immobile and unchanged despite all our efforts.

“… Amen,” concluded Nicholas.

I managed to look at her. Nothing had happened. The entire exercise had been a complete waste of time, and now I felt not only deeply embarrassed but unspeakably angry. Releasing the claw I thought: how insane to beg God for justice! Everyone knew there was no real justice in this world, everyone. Life was always so vilely unfair.

“Alice.”

I jumped. Confused by my rage I thought at first that Val was addressing me, but I couldn’t think why she should be whispering.

I turned to her but she was silent. In fact she wasn’t even looking at me. She was staring open-mouthed down the bed at Aunt, and a second later, as the shock hit me like a bullet between the eyes, I suddenly realised what was going on.

I

Nicholas
was at my side in a flash. “She’s blind,” he said. “Take her hand again.”

I collapsed to my knees by the bed, grabbed Aunt’s claw and leant over her so that my face was inches from hers. “I’m here,” I said. “I’m here—”

She whispered my name again but could say nothing else.

“Stay where you are,” said Nicholas to me. Reaching forward he stroked Aunt’s lank, sparse hair gently with his fingers. “Take your time,” he said to her. “Alice is listening. She won’t go away.”

Aunt’s face finally changed.

The gaze was no longer vacant. Her eyes were anxious. The muscles on one side of her mouth were twitching. Her shallow breathing became rapid in her agitation.

Before I could stop myself I was gabbling: “I’m sorry for all the times I let you down by not being clever or pretty, I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted, I’m sorry you had to put up with me all those years, but I’m trying so hard to keep you out of hospital, I’m trying so hard to keep my promise—” I broke off, unable to continue, but Aunt was paying no attention. Her entire will was focused on the task of speaking, and the moment I fell silent she whispered
for the third time: “Alice.” I saw the veins stand out on her forehead as she made this enormous effort to communicate. Then as Nicholas laid a finger delicately against the twitching muscle at the corner of her mouth she uttered two words in succession. They were: “
Dear
Alice.”