The Wonder Worker (59 page)

Reluctantly withdrawing again to my study I found myself contrasting Alice’s love with Francie’s neurotic fixation. At the Centre we had a standard procedure for dealing with people who became obsessed with me. First Robin would begin to sit in with me on the counselling sessions. Then Val would join him and I’d drop out. But that procedure only applied if the fixated woman—or man—was a client. What made Francie horrifically different from the usual case was that she was a member of staff.

We had never before had a member of staff who had gone over the top in this particular way, and neither Lewis nor I had needed to spell out to each other just what a killer-threat this was. Unlike our pathetically fixated clients, her mental and emotional record was good. Her stability was judged to be considerable. Her credibility rating stood high. So if we now failed to defuse this illness of hers—if either Lewis or Robin or Val or I made a false move—she could blow
her stack with lethal results. Supposing she announced to the world that I was rejecting her after a passionate love-affair? Then I’d really be in trouble. I’d fall victim to the no-smoke-without-a-fire syndrome where people believe any fable while kidding themselves that the worst is always true. Riding on the back of her mental illness, the demons of doubt, suspicion and fear would infiltrate St. Benet’s in no time and destroy my ministry.

This was such an unpleasant thought that I stopped brooding on Francie and spent a moment praying to God for protection. Then just as I was wondering if I could finally face going upstairs to the flat I received yet another diversion.

Stacy returned from his expedition.

Without stopping to think I leapt up from my chair and hurried into the hall.

VII

As soon as
he saw me Stacy looked as if he wanted to run all the way to Liverpool.

“Come in here for a moment, would you?” I said abruptly, giving him no choice, and led the way back into my study. As I spoke I wondered if Lewis would hear us, but when there was no interruption I assumed with relief that he was asleep.

Stacy dragged himself after me, and once the study door was closed he shrank back against the panels as if he longed to disappear into the woodwork.

Speaking briskly but kindly I said: “Stacy, I can’t pretend I haven’t noticed that you’re behaving as if you’ve received a one-way ticket to hell. So let’s tear up the ticket and take a look at this problem. What’s going on?” This was certainly a direct approach but he was in such a state that a more oblique line would only have confused him. By this time I was convinced he had acquired a problem far more overwhelming than a failure to sustain a friendship with Tara Hopkirk or a dread of remaining in Lewis’s bad books. Rigid with tension he stared fearfully at the carpet.

When he proved unable to reply I said gently: “I’m sorry you feel you can’t confide in me. That must be my fault, since I’m responsible for keeping the lines of communication open between us.”

He shook his head, apparently disputing that the fault was mine,
but still he offered no information. I was baffled. He had always talked to me willingly enough before, even when the difficult matter of his sexual past had been under discussion. The obvious explanation for his tongue-tied state was that he felt he had let me down so badly that I would find it hard to forgive him, but what could he have done which was so unforgivable? Inevitably my thoughts returned to the subject of homosexuality. A homosexual incident wouldn’t be unforgivable, but Stacy might think that it was. Taking a deep breath I made a new effort to reach him.

“Well, if you don’t wish to talk to me,” I said evenly, “I must respect your decision, but you should see your spiritual director at once to tell him what’s wrong.”

“I can’t!” He was panicking. “But it’s okay, I’ve just been and talked to another priest—it’s okay, it’s okay—”

“Which priest?”

“Gil Tucker.”

I was deeply confused. On the one hand I was glad Stacy had picked a priest I respected. On the other hand I was dismayed that Stacy apparently had a non-relationship with his spiritual director and upset that my curate could no longer confide in me. What was going on? The obvious answer was that Lewis had been right all along, I’d been just a wet, woolly liberal blinding himself with trendy talk of sexual spectrums and Stacy had turned to the gays for the strength to come out of the closet. But was the obvious answer the correct one? Injured pride made me long to answer the question in the negative, but I could think of no other explanation which made sense. Then it belatedly occurred to me that if Gil had been counselling Stacy he had hardly been a success. Here Stacy was, still tormented and still behaving as if he were on the brink of breakdown.

Aware of the mystery becoming more baffling than ever I said carefully: “I’m glad you felt you could talk to Gil. Perhaps we should ask him to mediate between us.”

But Stacy only shook his head violently and began to cry.

“Stacy,” I said, concentrating on speaking as simply as possible in order to get the vital message across, “if you can no longer talk to me our relationship has broken down. If our relationship has broken down, this is my fault, as I should have prevented such a thing happening, and I must act to put things right. Putting things right involves—”

“None of this is your fault!” shouted Stacy in despair. “None of it!
You’re the best priest in the world and I’m the bloody worst!” And before I could reply he had rushed from my study, slammed the door and bolted off again down the hall to the backstairs.

I was just asking my computer to produce Gil’s phone number when Lewis, tousled and furious, stormed into my study to demand that Stacy be sacked for crashing around late at night like a drunken hippopotamus.

I shut him up with the news that Stacy had become an emergency case.

I

“I can’t think
why you’re so baffled,” said Lewis when he heard what had happened. “The explanation’s obvious: the boy’s fallen in with a bad lot, gone on a cottaging spree and lived to regret it. Of course he can’t bear that you, his hero, should ever know the depths to which he’s sunk, so he’s just made his confession to that heterosexual-bashing bigot Tucker who would—of course!—have given him absolution on demand. Stacy knew he had to confess and be absolved before he could take the Sacrament tomorrow morning with a clear conscience, so naturally he chose to confess to a priest who thinks cottaging’s no more of a sin than a visit to the cinema. However, this abysmal travesty of a confession did nothing to allay Stacy’s guilt. That was why, when you accosted him just now, he went straight to pieces. Where’s the mystery?”

“I know that’s the obvious explanation, Lewis. The only trouble is I can’t believe it.”

Lewis kept calm. “You mean you can’t believe Stacy’s capable of such activity?”

“I suppose I can just about believe he’s capable of having another homosexual affair, although I think he would be very ill-at-ease in
such a relationship and I’m sure it would soon fail. What I can’t believe is that Stacy would ever go prowling around public lavatories in pursuit of sex.”

“Why does that seem so implausible? People who are messed up about sex often indulge in seamy promiscuity. Stacy’s messed up. Therefore Stacy could be capable of seamy promiscuity.”

“QED.”

“What?”

“Nothing. The point is—”

“Wait a minute, what’s Tucker’s name and phone number doing on that screen?”

“Well, I know it’s late but—”

“What’s the point of talking to him? He’s hardly going to reveal the secrets of the confessional!”

“I realise that, but I could alert him to the fact that I know there’s a crisis going on, and then—”

“Nicholas, leave that man Tucker alone. He’s poison! He’s just muscled in on your curate, he’s behind all this battering you’re getting from the Gay Christians to sack me, and in my opinion he’s being used by the Devil to undermine your ministry at St. Benet’s!”

“Uh-huh. Look, why don’t you go back to bed now and we’ll postpone this discussion until the morning.”

“Oh no, we won’t! Tomorrow morning you switch off and go on your retreat, and if I find you still lurking around here when I come back from mass, I’ll—”

“Okay, I get the message. Relax. Tomorrow I’ll switch off.”

But tomorrow was another day. I waited until I heard the door of the bedsit close. Then I picked up the receiver and dialed Gil Tucker.

II

“
Gil
, it’s Nick Darrow. Were you asleep?”

“No, I’ve just opened a bottle of claret. I always prefer Médoc to a sleeping pill.”

“You’re not the only one who feels sleep could be hard to get tonight. Look, Stacy’s told me he visited you just now. Obviously there’s a king-size problem, but when I pointed out that my relationship with him had clearly broken down and suggested you should act as a mediator, he behaved as if no mediator could be of any use. What
do I do next to restore his confidence in me? Since you know what’s going on, I’d really welcome your advice.”

“Of course,” said Gil without hesitation, yet in his voice I heard a note of … but I couldn’t define the emotion. Embarrassment? Anxiety? Dread? From the speed of his response I picked up the message that he wanted to be helpful yet was at a loss to know how to proceed.

“Of course I don’t expect you to breach his confidence,” I said swiftly, “but if there’s any help you can give me in finding a way out of this impasse—”

“Nick, all I can advise you to do is let the matter rest for two weeks.”

I could make no sense of this at all. “Two weeks,” I repeated blankly.

“Yes, then I hope the current situation will be clarified and I’ll be in a position to give you the proper support.”

“Support?” I had asked for advice. This could certainly be classified as asking for help, but “support” implied a degree of assistance which I hadn’t sought. “If only I had some idea,” I exclaimed in despair, “what I’ve done wrong! Okay, maybe I misread the sexuality issue—maybe Stacy really would be better off as a gay—”

“No, don’t wear out your shoes walking down that particular street, Nick. Wasted journey.”

I sat bolt upright on the edge of my chair. “You mean—”

“I mean you can tell that old grizzly-bear you keep at your Rectory that no, I haven’t taken Stacy on a cruising expedition, and no, I don’t go around trying to convert muddled young curates to the joys of gay sex, and no, I’m not some addled relic of the 1960s who believes in free love among the flowers in Nepal. I suppose Lewis has been saying—”

“Never mind Lewis,” I said curtly, but I was conscious of a massive relief. I managed to add: “Thanks, Gil. But are you really sure Stacy can be left alone for two weeks? On his present showing I’m reluctant even to leave him for three days. I’m supposed to be going on retreat from tomorrow morning until Sunday evening, but—”

“Fine. Go on retreat. I’ll keep checking on Stacy by phone and try to get him over here for a meal, but I think that by tomorrow he’ll have recovered his equilibrium. He’ll be at mass anyway, I can promise you that.”

This was the signal that Stacy had made his confession, received
absolution and was now in a position to make a fresh start in the knowledge that whatever errors he had made had been forgiven. But what worried me was that Stacy could have gone through the correct ritual without connecting with it in any meaningful way. His guilt-ridden, panic-stricken behaviour suggested that the forgiveness wasn’t reflected in his conscience; I found myself again facing the conundrum in which the ritual of forgiveness had no psychological reality for the penitent.

Reluctantly I heard myself say: “He seemed on the verge of breakdown just now.”

“Don’t pay too much attention to that. There are reasons why he might not have wanted to face you, but by the time you return from the retreat I’m sure he’ll have got his act together—or if he hasn’t, I’ll know about it and take care of him … Will Rosalind be at the Rectory over the weekend? I understand she’s in town for a while.”

“The plan’s changed. She’s going back to Butterfold tomorrow.”

“Good, the fewer people Stacy has to face at the Rectory the better. Alice won’t bother him, of course, and if you could give strict instructions to the old grizzly-bear that he’s on no account to bite or scratch at the wrong moment—”

“Lay off Lewis, would you, Gil? Surely you of all people can recognise a good priest who has the guts to stand up for what he believes to be right!”

Gil laughed and apologised but added: “I just don’t think he’s the right person to be around Stacy at this particular time. However, leave Stacy to me and make sure you have a profitable retreat. I’ll pray for you.”

The conversation ended but after I’d replaced the receiver I went on staring at the phone. “I’ll pray for you …” It was almost as if he’d known—but no, he couldn’t possibly have known that I was currently worried about a great deal more than my curate. “I’ll pray for you …” That was a natural enough promise for one priest to give to another, but Gil and I weren’t in the habit of exchanging that particular assurance; our friendship, although genuine enough in its own professional way, just wasn’t on that kind of spiritual footing. I did pray for him now and then. I prayed for all my colleagues who worked with me in the City, and I was sure he did the same. But I wouldn’t have said to him very seriously: “I’ll pray for you,” unless I knew that he was in deep trouble.

Maybe Gil was psychic.

But no, the most likely explanation was that my guilt about Stacy was making me paranoid.

I decided to drag myself upstairs to bed.

III

At three o’clock
in the morning I awoke and found myself sitting at the kitchen table downstairs. Horror slugged me. I hadn’t walked in my sleep for years. Gripping the edge of the table as if to glue myself to a reality which had slithered beyond my control I broke out in a cold sweat of revulsion.