Synopsis
Book by Howatch Susan
Extrait
Life is a pilgrimage. It is a pilgrimage to health. It is also a
pilgrimage of health. We have it on our journey, always
partially, always imperfectly, always with an admixture of that
illness which is its opposite or the mark of its imperfections. CHRISTOPHER HAMEL COOKE
"Health and Illness, Pastoral Aspects,"
an entry in A Dictionary of Pastoral Care
We all have our favourite addictions to which we turn when
we are under stress. For you it is food, while for others it can
range from chemical substances to spending money or
constant contact with others in order to avoid alone-ness. GARETH TUCKWELL AND DAVID FLAGG
A Question of Healing
I
I can remember exactly when the miracles began. It was when I first met Nicholas Darrow and fell in love with him. Can I write that and avoid sounding like a romantic schoolgirl? No, so I must start again. I'm not a schoolgirl and being romantic is pointless. What had romance ever done for me, I often asked myself, and the answer was always the same: zilch.
So let me reject any statement which reeks of romance and write instead: I can remember exactly when my life began to change out of all recognition. It was when I first saw Nicholas Darrow and glimpsed a life-style I had never encountered before.
That's better. That's more truthful, and truth matters. I suppose in the end it's all a question of integrity.
The meeting with Nicholas was quite unplanned. No doubt religious people would speak of divine providence, but I wasn't religious--not after slogging my guts out to look after Aunt. What had God ever done for me, I might have asked myself, and the answer would always have been the same: zilch.
It was the March of 1988. I was trying to get a permanent job because I needed extra money to pay for more nursing, but I'd messed around with temporary work for so many months that all the shine had been stripped from my curriculum vitae, and when I explained about Aunt I could see my would-be employers thinking: family problems, unreliable, forget her. However, if Aunt was to stay out of the geriatric ward she had to be cared for by a rota of nurses from a private agency, and I had to earn the largest possible salary to--no, not to make ends meet; that was impossible, since the nursing care was so expensive, but at least I could postpone the evil day when Aunt's savings finally ran out and I had no choice but to consign her to one of the National Health dumping-grounds.
On that particular morning in March I had unsuccessfully tried to flim-flam my way through an interview with a personnel officer who had behaved like a sadist. Trudging away from the hideous office block which housed her, I felt in a mood to jump off Tower Bridge.
I was in the City, that square mile of London's financial district which always seems a world away from what I call Tourist London: the grand West End streets crammed with monuments of our Imperial past, and the grand department stores crammed with frenzied shoppers. On London Wall, that wide, bleak highway just south of the Barbican, I paused to work out which was my nearest tube station but by that time I was so overpowered by the desire to binge on a high-calorie lunch (mushroom quiche, chocolate-chip cookies, rum raisin ice cream) that I was incapable of coherent thought. To make matters worse the heavens then opened, the rain bucketed down and I realised I'd left my umbrella in the office of the sadist. In disgust I looked around for shelter, but there were no shops to be seen, only office blocks, and no buses, only taxis which I couldn't afford. I hurried towards the nearest side-street but when I turned the corner I found no sandwich-bar where I might have sheltered but only older, grimier office build
ings. The street was narrow and soon became cobbled. I started to slither in the vile high heels I'd worn for the interview, and the next moment I wrenched my ankle. It was then, as I leaned against the nearest wall to take the weight off my throbbing foot, that I glanced further down the street and saw the church.
It was washed, shining, serene, an oasis in the midst of a desert. Automatically I limped on over the cobbles towards it.
I knew I had never seen the building before but I guessed it was one of the City's many Wren churches. As I drew nearer, the roar of the traffic on London Wall receded. I heard the birds singing in the churchyard and saw the daffodils blooming among the ancient graves.
Suddenly I forgot the misery of the morning. I forgot the sadistic personnel officer, and I forgot my dread that all the well-paid boardroom cooking jobs in the City would nowadays be awarded to girls called Caroline or Sophie who looked like the Princess of Wales, possessed Porsche-driving merchant-banker boyfriends and lived in the fabled streets around golden Sloane Square. I even ceased to be aware of the slapping, slashing rain. I was remembering the day long ago when Aunt had taken me on a tour of some of the City churches. They had strange names such as St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, St. Botolph Aldgate and St. Lawrence Jewry--and this church, I had just discovered, was called St. Benet's-by-the-Wall; I glimpsed the name as I stumbled past the painted board outside. On reaching the outer door, which stood open, I plunged into the shelter of the porch. The relief of escaping from the downpour was considerable. Breathing hard I smoothed my wet hair, gave my spectacles a quick polish and prepared to take ref
uge in what I assumed would be a quiet, deserted interior.
I heaved open the inner door and stopped dead. The church was packed. I gazed open-mouthed, jaw sagging. What was all this? What could possibly be going on? I'd thought nothing happened in the City churches any more. I'd thought they were mere clerical museums maintained for their architectural interest. During all the times I'd done temporary work in the City I'd never realised the churches were still active ... But of course my work as a cook meant that I was never around in the lunch-hour to witness such a phenomenon.
This particular church was obviously very active indeed. The whole building seemed to be pulsating. Automatically I stood on tiptoe to try to glimpse what was going on, but I was too short to see past the forest of suits. Surely men didn't go to church any more? Maybe the building had been hired for some sort of yuppie rally ... I pictured an American guru holding forth on the wonders of capitalism before hosting a buffet lunch in the crypt. (Californian wine, barbecued nibbles, chicken-with-everything, coleslaw in tubs.)
I had just realised I'd forgotten I was hungry when more people came in behind me and I was propelled towards a dark, pretty woman of about forty who was wearing a badge inscribed: ST. BENET'S: FRANCIE. I muttered an apology as I bumped into her, but she merely whispered with a smile: "Welcome!", a reaction which astonished me so much that I found I had the courage to ask what was going on.
She said: "It's our Friday healing service. It's just started. Stick close and I'll get you behind the wheelchairs so that you can see."
I had no interest in watching a church service of any kind, least of all something so peculiar as a healing service, but since she was being friendly I didn't like to be impolite. I followed her as she eased her way through the throng to the side of the church, and when I stood at last behind one of the wheelchairs I took care to whisper my thanks, but she was already on her way to attend to the other late arrivals. Turning back towards the altar I began to absorb the sight which met my eyes.
The interior of the church was so unlike the usual Wren design in which the stalls face each other across a wide central aisle that I was sure the space had recently been rearranged. The wide central aisle now dissected a semi-circle of chairs, set in curving rows and catering for a much larger congregation than Wren would have envisaged. The distant altar looked as if it might date from a previous century, but both pulpit and lectern were modern, carved in the same pale wood as the chairs. The windows were clear; I supposed that the Blitz had blown out the old stained glass. The walls were a creamy white, nonclinical, almost luminous, and the panelling which rose some twelve feet from the floor was sumptuously dark in contrast. All the brass memorial tablets gleamed. Despite the greyness of the day there was an overwhelming impression of light, and despite the presence of so many people there remained also an overwhelming impression of space. With extreme reluctance I had to admit to myself that I was intrig
ued.
Beyond the lectern and seated facing the congregation were two clergymen, one silver-haired, one red-headed, but my glance travelled over them without stopping because I had finally become aware that someone was saying, in a pleasant, casual voice devoid of histrionics, exactly what that utterly silent, utterly fascinated audience wanted to hear.
I had just realised with self-loathing that I was knee-deep in the most pathetic romantic dream, quite unsuitable for any woman of thirty-two who had no choice but to be a hard-bitten realist, when the sermon--homily--chat--whatever it was--ended and I became aware that Francie, the welcomer, was once more by my side. I whispered to her: "Who was that clergyman?" and she whispered back with pride: "That's our Rector, Nicholas Darrow."
As Darrow left the pulpit one of the other clergymen, not the young redhead but the silver-haired veteran, limped to the lectern and began to read, but I mentally disconnected myself again. I was thinking how beautifully the Rector moved, as beautifully as the actors I had seen on the West End stage in the old days when I was a schoolgirl and Aunt had taken me to see a couple of the Shakespeare plays. But perhaps that wasn't a flattering comparison. No respectable clergyman would relish being compared with an actor, but nevertheless ... I was still meditating on Nicholas Darrow's mesmerising stagecraft when the reading ended and Francie murmured: "Do you want to go up?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do you want to receive the laying-on of hands?"
"Whose hands? You mean ... are you saying he touches people?"
"All three priests do. It's all right, it's absolutely above board, there's a long Christian tradition of--"
"No thanks," I said. "I'm not sick. I'm fine."
To my relief she made no attempt to argue but instead gave me her warm smile and turned her attention to the occupants of the wheelchairs nearby. I was still savouring my relief when someone muttered: "Excuse me," and I found myself being propelled sideways as people edged past me. Having wound up wedged against the wall I found myself next to a notice-board covered with requests for prayer. "Please pray for Dad who has cancer ..." "Please pray for Jim who has AIDS ..." "Please pray for Sharon, last seen two months ago ..." "Please pray for the family of Jill who died last week ..."
A voice in my head suddenly said: "Please pray for Aunt who's dying by inches," but I blotted out the sentence in shame. I didn't believe in prayer (what had prayer ever done for me? Zilch!) and I hated all that sort of thing and I particularly hated what was now going on in this church--I didn't know why I hated it so violently but I did hate it, I hated everyone and everything--in fact such was my uncovered rage, the rage I always repressed so efficiently that I had hardly been aware of it, that I wanted to grab a machine-gun and mow down everyone in sight--except that attractive man, of course--but no, why should I spare him? I hated all attractive men; in fact at that moment I felt I hated all men, attractive or otherwise, because none of them had ever displayed the remotest interest in me. So why shouldn't I want to mow them all down? And after I'd done the mowing I'd shoot myself too because life was so vile, so awful, so hellish, and even when Aunt died I'd still have no hope of happiness because there
'd be no money and no one would want to employ me and--
Somebody asked me if I was all right.
"Absolutely fine," I said. "No problems whatsoever."
The organ began to play quietly, and through my tears I saw for the first time how diverse the congregation was. In addition to the men in city suits there were young mothers with children, wrinkled old ladies, smart girls from the offices, women in fashionable clothes from some expensive patch of the West End. I also noted several camera-toting tourists, far off the beaten track, and even a yuppie with a bottle of champagne tucked under his arm as if he, like me, had been diverted on the way to lunch. The majority of these people remained onlookers, some obviously admiring, some more reticent, but all unable to tear themselves away as the minority made their way slowly up towards the altar. The woman in the second wheelchair was a stroke-victim like Aunt, and one side of her face was paralysed. I watched her with a growing incredulity. What did she think was going to happen? Did she imagine she was going to jump out of her chair and walk? I felt outraged. I also decided that this was the most embarrassing sc
ene I had ever witnessed and that I wanted above all to leave.
Yet I stayed. I found I had to go on watching Nicholas Darrow, so calm, so grave, so dignified as he went about his mysterious work. He was placing his slim, long-fingered hands on the heads of those who knelt at the altar-rail, his face tense with concentration, his whole body exuding an integrity which I instantly recognised and which somehow, by some mysterious force, pinned me in position. I could always have walked out on a charlatan. But I couldn't turn my back with contempt on someone honest.
My eyes filled with tears again and this time I started to weep. Immediately I was horrified by my lack of self-control, What would Aunt have said in the days when she could still speak? She had taught me that to show emotion in public was disgraceful.
The image of Aunt suddenly filled my mind. What had Aunt ever done for me, a stranger might have asked, and the one answer I could never have given was: "Zilch." Aunt had taken me in and brought me up--my great-aunt she was, the aunt of my foul mother who hadn't wanted me--God, what a disaster my early life had been, but Aunt had intervened, spinster Aunt, once a hatchet-faced teacher in a grammar school, no one special, just another bossy old bag who could be both beastly and boring, but this particular bossy old bag had been there when she was needed and now I had to be there for her, just as she'd been there for me. Well, that was only fair, wasn't it? I owed it to her. It was a matter of principle. I mean, one has to have one's principles, doesn't one, and even though I wasn't bright enough to make a success of my education and even though I was so plug-ugly that I had to have baths in the dark (how I hated all that flab) and even though I was such a failure as a woman, unable to get married or even to lo
se my virginity--even though all these ghastly facts were true, I wasn't entirely a write-off because I was trying, trying, trying to ensure she died with dignity...
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