Glittering Images, page 23
‘Oh, so you found out about that! Yes, I did go a little farther with her than I admitted to you –’
‘In every sense of the phrase!’
Jardine looked at me carefully. Then he fetched the port decanter from the sideboard and said, ‘I’m not going to offer you this because you’ve had quite enough to drink already, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t take a glass to fortify myself against your fantasies. Now about this sad little incident in the field –’
‘“Sad little incident”? My God, what a way to describe adultery!’
‘Adultery?’
‘Don’t you try and deny it!’ I shouted. ‘I had her myself in the same corner of that spinney where she had you!’
Jardine stared at me. Then he walked to the door, glanced out into the hall to make sure no one was listening and closed the door again. ‘Charles,’ he said in his gentlest voice as he returned to the table, ‘I want you to recall Loretta’s words with great care because although people can change very much during the course of two decades I can’t believe she would have changed enough to lie to you on this point. Did she actually say that I’d committed adultery?’
I tried to think. My mind was in chaos, but I had a sickening memory of Loretta saying, ‘You’re going in’, and suddenly I knew she had been neither apprehensive nor dubious but surprised.
‘Of course,’ said Jardine in the voice of one who states the obvious, ‘I never penetrated her. The adultery exists only in your mind, Charles.’
VII
‘I admit some embraces took place,’ said Jardine. ‘I admit my behaviour was thoroughly reprehensible for a clergyman. But there was no consummation. How could there have been? How could I have gone on as a clergyman if adultery had taken place?’
All I managed to say was, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But I did.
‘I wonder how I can make you see that it’s the truth. Perhaps I can make my abstinence more credible if I admit it was due not so much to virtue as to fear, the fear which reflected my horror of waywardness, my horror of ending up like my father. Can’t you see? I was incapable of consummating an adulterous union, Charles, psychologically incapable of it.’
I covered my face with my hands.
At last Jardine said, again using his gentlest voice: ‘And now let me talk about Lyle. I admit that when she entered my house at Radbury ten years ago I was attracted to her – in that tiresome inconvenient manner which is so common among middle-aged men whose marriages have entered an awkward phase. Naturally I told my wife that Lyle would have to go, but Carrie’s nerves were so bad at that time that when she objected I gave way – and not only because I shrank from any course which might have tilted her into a full-scale nervous breakdown; I gave way because I felt Carrie’s objection reinforced my own opinion that Lyle was the heaven-sent solution to our troubles. The situation was desperate. I was spending so much time trying to cope with my wife that I could barely cope with my duties as Dean, but when Lyle came I was set free to serve God properly at last.’
He paused. I had uncovered my eyes but could only stare at the red stain on the table-cloth.
‘I’m sure you see how inevitable my next decision was,’ said Jardine. ‘I realized that if Lyle were to remain in my house I could on no account permit even the faintest trace of impropriety in my manner to her. Impropriety wouldn’t merely have been stupid; it would have been ungrateful to God, who had sent Lyle to us to ease so much of our sadness and difficulty. You may be thinking that this attitude of extreme propriety towards Lyle was hard for me to adopt, and you’d be right; it was. But curiously enough once the attitude had been adopted it was easy to maintain because my marriage became so much more tolerable. Carrie greatly improved, thanks to Lyle’s care, and the result was that we were able to resume our marital relationship after a long interval. That disposed of my last doubts. I knew then it was right that Lyle should stay.’
Again he paused, and as I raised my eyes from the table-cloth to the empty claret decanter I was aware of him sipping his port. ‘However,’ he said, ‘you mustn’t think I haven’t spent a lot of time worrying about Lyle’s welfare. Our triangle would hardly be morally acceptable, would it, if Lyle were unhappy and unfulfilled. But Charles, the point here is that if Lyle really were unhappy and unfulfilled she wouldn’t stay. It’s impossible for me to explain her aversion to matrimony without breaching her confidence so all I can say is that a psychological aversion, rooted in her past, does exist, but nevertheless Carrie and I have both made great efforts to help her overcome this difficulty – for instance, we’ve always encouraged her to go out with young men, and I’m sure you’ll remember that it was I who urged her to dine with you at the Staro Arms. Of course Lyle’s sometimes tempted to indulge in a romantic flutter or two, but the rock-bottom truth is that she likes her life exactly as it is, and if she wishes to remain single she has a perfect right to do so. I quite see that this must be highly frustrating for you, but –’
‘I’m going to marry her!’ I was struggling to overcome the terrifying conviction that every word he said was true. ‘You’re telling me all these lies because you’re jealous, possessive and deeply in love with her yourself!’
‘My dear Charles –’
‘If your wife died you’d marry Lyle tomorrow!’
‘Let’s try and keep this conversation rational, shall we? I admit,’ said Jardine, ‘that when I first met Lyle I told myself I’d marry her if ever I became a widower, but I soon realized one can hardly spend one’s life waiting for one’s wife to die! That way insanity lies. The truth was – and still is – that I’m a married man, I’m a clergyman and I’m stuck with the status quo, but at least it’s a status quo that enables me to serve God to the best of my ability with the support of a loving dutiful wife of whom I’m extremely fond. As I remind myself daily I’m very lucky to have any workable status quo at all, and need I stress that it would be quite unworkable if I hadn’t so far recovered from my initial attraction that I can now regard Lyle with a healthy affection and respect? I think not. The facts speak for themselves. Be reasonable, Charles! I know you’re far from being in a rational frame of mind, but isn’t it patently obvious that there’s nothing improper going on here?’
It was. Yet I found myself quite unable to admit it. I began stubbornly. ‘I think –’ but he interrupted me.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this is where we get to you and what you think – and this is where we meet two intractable problems. The first is that you’re at present too drunk even to face your difficulties, let alone grapple with them, and the second is that although you urgently need counselling I’m quite the wrong person to give it to you, I’m part of the crisis, aren’t I?’
I was so incensed that he should call me drunk merely because I had had a little extra claret that I shouted, ‘I don’t want your damned counselling!’ I tried to grab the port decanter but he whipped it away.
‘No,’ he said severely. ‘No more.’
I waited till he had replaced it on the table and then I lunged forward, swiped the decanter from under his nose and began to pour the port into my empty glass.
‘You’re being very foolish,’ said Jardine, ‘but you want attention, don’t you? You’re like a little child who misbehaves in order to get noticed. You say you don’t want my counselling but in fact I suspect that’s exactly what you’re angling for. You’re deep in some private fantasy, and –’
‘You’re the one who’s deep in some private fantasy if you think you’re deceiving me!’ I was now so enraged that I hardly knew what I said. ‘Do you think I can’t see exactly what’s going on? You’re just fighting tooth and nail to stop your glittering image coming apart at the seams!’
‘No,’ said Jardine, ‘you’re the one who’s fighting that particular battle, and the glittering image is falling apart before my eyes.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Let me call my chauffeur and ask him to drive us over to the monks at Starwater.’
‘I’m not leaving this bloody room,’ I said, ‘until you bloody well admit you’ve been sleeping with Lyle!’
‘Charles, you need help. I can’t give it to you and you absolutely must let me take you to someone who –’
‘You’re not washing your hands of me!’ I shouted. ‘I’m not going to be brushed off, I’m not going to be kicked out, I’m not going to be treated as if –’
‘All right! All right, all right, all right …’ Jardine cast a quick glance at the door to reassure himself it was still closed. ‘You want me to be the one who helps you. Very well. I’ll do what you want, but I do it greatly against my better judgement and only because you’re giving me no choice. Now –’ He drew up his chair in order to sit down at my side ‘– let me try to bring you closer to what I fear will be a very unpalatable reality …’
VIII
‘For some reason,’ said Jardine, ‘you’ve picked me to be the central figure in your life at present. We won’t call this a fantasy because you evidently find that word hurtful, so we’ll just say that you were experiencing certain difficulties in your private life and when you met me I seemed in some mysterious way to provide you with a solution. Obviously you liked the idea – which that old fool Lang had put into your head – that I was an eminent churchman who led a double life. No, that’s an understatement. You didn’t just like the idea – you were enrapt by it.
‘So you arrive in Starbridge and soon you’ve far exceeded your brief from Lang – after all, it must have quickly become very clear to you that I’m not the sort of man who compromises himself by dabbling in foolish love-letters or keeping an uncensored journal. However you’re not interested in Lang’s brief, not any more. What you’re now interested in is the possibility that behind the glittering image of my ecclesiastical success lies a life steeped in the kind of error which would make even Lang’s senile speculations look pale. You embrace this theory with such zest that it becomes necessary for you to prove it, but the interesting part is that the more obsessed you become with proving my guilt the more fervently you swear you’re on my side. By this time, of course, you’ve parted company with reality altogether. By this time you’re acting out the most elaborate and fantastic of delusions –’
I had levered myself to my feet. My voice said trembling, ‘I refuse to listen to this.’
‘But you will. You will, Charles, you will.’ The lambent eyes were suddenly so bright that I could not look away. ‘Sit down, Charles,’ said Jardine and at once I sank back in my chair. ‘Charles, listen to me – listen to me, Charles, because I say you can’t afford to go on with this fantasy any longer, you must try to face reality, and the reality is that you’re ill, mentally ill –’
‘No – no –’
‘Yes, Charles, yes – how could any normal man have misinterpreted my situation in such an extraordinary and bizarre manner? The truth is that the man I am has nothing to do with the man you think I am. You’ve invented me. I exist only in your imagination. You think you know me so well that you can see numerous resemblances between us, but every one of them’s an illusion, an illusion which is necessary to support your longing to believe we’re identical. And why do you want to believe that we’re identical? Because you think you can justify your own unfortunate behaviour by saying you’re only following my example – you feel you can escape from your problems by projecting them on to me. So you place me in front of you as if I were a blank screen and your mind the magic-lantern projector, but in fact it’s your image, not mine, which you’re seeing reflected. The real mystery here, Charles, is not what’s going on at Starbridge – that’s just a drama you’ve invented to divert yourself from your problems. The real mystery is what’s going on in your soul. Why does an extremely able and successful young clergyman with a brilliant future and an unclouded past suddenly, for no apparent reason, start mentally falling apart?’
I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and as he too sprang to his feet I said, ‘You can’t talk to me like that, you can’t.’ I was so dizzy that I had to grab the edge of the table.
‘I’m sorry – I’ve taken a risk in speaking so plainly but I could see no other way of convincing you that you simply must have help. I myself can now do no more but I’m sure the monks at Starwater –’
‘You’re rejecting me!’ I shouted. ‘You keep rejecting me! You’ve rejected me over and over again!’
‘My God,’ said Jardine, suddenly ashen, ‘this is what happened with your father, isn’t it? You poor boy, I didn’t realize – oh, what a hash I’ve made of this, I’m so damnably sorry –’
I shoved him aside and rushed from the room.
IX
I have no clear recollection of my journey back to the Staro Arms. All I remember is the hotel receptionist’s disapproving stare as she gave me the change for the telephone call. Then I shut myself in the hall kiosk again and asked the operator to connect the line to Starmouth Court.
By the time Loretta came to the telephone I was almost beyond speech but I managed to say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He didn’t do it, did he? He didn’t go in.’
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wait. I understand what you’re saying and I’m willing to talk, but not on the phone. Where are you?’
‘Starbridge.’
‘Okay, obviously I can’t see you tonight, but tomorrow –’
‘I’m coming tonight.’
‘But Charles –’
‘I’ve got to see you. If he lied about you I’ll know he lied about everything,’ I said, and rang off before she could reply.
X
In my room I changed back into my grey trousers, sports jacket and open-necked shirt. I also drank two glasses of water in pursuit of sobriety. Then I packed my bag, paid my bill and left the hotel.
The drive took less time than I had anticipated for there was little traffic at that time of night. Beyond the Surrey border on the ridge called the Hog’s Back I felt tired but I cured that by stopping the car and drinking from my bottle of whisky. Staring at the lights which stretched north to London in the valley below me, I thought of Starbridge, its radiance masking unutterable horrors, but that memory was too painful to bear and taking another shot from the bottle I drove on into the dark.
It was after midnight when I reached Starmouth Court but a light was shining in the little morning-room where Loretta and I had first met. I glimpsed her figure silhouetted against the window, and a moment later I was stumbling into her arms.
‘Everyone’s gone to bed,’ she said. ‘Come and have a drink. You look shot to pieces.’
In the morning-room she passed me a glass of brandy and I drank half of it straight off. Then I said, ‘Just what the devil did go on in that bloody spinney nineteen years ago?’
‘We made love.’
‘Completely?’
‘No.’
‘But why the hell didn’t you make that clear?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Charles, give me credit for at least the minimum of good manners! You were panting to make love to me. How could I say, “Wait a minute!” and regale you with a blow by blow description of what had happened with Alex?’
‘But I only went ahead because I thought he’d gone ahead too!’
‘My God, that’s a bizarre remark!’
‘But if I’d known there’d been no penetration –’
‘The way he made love that hardly mattered. Alex did tell me that without penetration there was no adultery according to the law of England – remember me saying he’d have made a good lawyer? – but when one’s busy having an orgasm the legal niceties don’t seem very important. As far as I was concerned I’d made love to him and he’d made love to me and –’
‘But he told me the truth.’ I could think of nothing else. ‘“I never penetrated her,” he said. So if he told me the truth about you then he must have told me the truth about Lyle –’
‘What did he say?’
I started drinking my brandy rapidly again. ‘He called my theory a fantasy.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Shut up!’ I shouted.
She jumped. ‘Charles – darling – take it easy –’
I tried to apologize by kissing her but she was unresponsive and the next moment she was removing the brandy bottle to the far side of the room.
‘Maybe this is where I start to dream the dream,’ she said drily. ‘You’re obviously incapable of dreaming anything at the moment so I’ll have to do the dreaming for you to help you along.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘How long would it take to get to Cambridge at this time of night?’
‘Less than three hours. Perhaps less than two and a half. Petrol will be a problem but there’s an all-night garage on the Great North Road.’ I swallowed the rest of my brandy. ‘Well, if you’re washing your hands of me I may as well go.’
‘Don’t be dumb, I’m coming with you.’
‘What!’
‘Well, someone’s got to look after you, haven’t they, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else volunteering for the job!’
‘But I wouldn’t dream of dragging you all the way to Cambridge!’
‘And I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone when you’ve obviously been hitting the bottle. I’m going to drive you home.’
‘But you’re an American! You’ll drive on the wrong side of the road!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I may have my faults but I’m not incompetent. Excuse me while I just scribble a line to Evelyn – and I’d better call a hotel to let them know I’ll be arriving in the middle of the night. Which hotel should I stay at?’
‘The Blue Boar. But Loretta –’
‘I’ll use the phone in the hall. Just a minute, Charles.’
I sank back on the couch, but as soon as I was alone the pain began to pound me and seconds later I was retrieving the brandy bottle.
XI
Somewhere north of Hatfield she said, ‘Where does that Abbot live – the one you told me about?’
‘In every sense of the phrase!’
Jardine looked at me carefully. Then he fetched the port decanter from the sideboard and said, ‘I’m not going to offer you this because you’ve had quite enough to drink already, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t take a glass to fortify myself against your fantasies. Now about this sad little incident in the field –’
‘“Sad little incident”? My God, what a way to describe adultery!’
‘Adultery?’
‘Don’t you try and deny it!’ I shouted. ‘I had her myself in the same corner of that spinney where she had you!’
Jardine stared at me. Then he walked to the door, glanced out into the hall to make sure no one was listening and closed the door again. ‘Charles,’ he said in his gentlest voice as he returned to the table, ‘I want you to recall Loretta’s words with great care because although people can change very much during the course of two decades I can’t believe she would have changed enough to lie to you on this point. Did she actually say that I’d committed adultery?’
I tried to think. My mind was in chaos, but I had a sickening memory of Loretta saying, ‘You’re going in’, and suddenly I knew she had been neither apprehensive nor dubious but surprised.
‘Of course,’ said Jardine in the voice of one who states the obvious, ‘I never penetrated her. The adultery exists only in your mind, Charles.’
VII
‘I admit some embraces took place,’ said Jardine. ‘I admit my behaviour was thoroughly reprehensible for a clergyman. But there was no consummation. How could there have been? How could I have gone on as a clergyman if adultery had taken place?’
All I managed to say was, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But I did.
‘I wonder how I can make you see that it’s the truth. Perhaps I can make my abstinence more credible if I admit it was due not so much to virtue as to fear, the fear which reflected my horror of waywardness, my horror of ending up like my father. Can’t you see? I was incapable of consummating an adulterous union, Charles, psychologically incapable of it.’
I covered my face with my hands.
At last Jardine said, again using his gentlest voice: ‘And now let me talk about Lyle. I admit that when she entered my house at Radbury ten years ago I was attracted to her – in that tiresome inconvenient manner which is so common among middle-aged men whose marriages have entered an awkward phase. Naturally I told my wife that Lyle would have to go, but Carrie’s nerves were so bad at that time that when she objected I gave way – and not only because I shrank from any course which might have tilted her into a full-scale nervous breakdown; I gave way because I felt Carrie’s objection reinforced my own opinion that Lyle was the heaven-sent solution to our troubles. The situation was desperate. I was spending so much time trying to cope with my wife that I could barely cope with my duties as Dean, but when Lyle came I was set free to serve God properly at last.’
He paused. I had uncovered my eyes but could only stare at the red stain on the table-cloth.
‘I’m sure you see how inevitable my next decision was,’ said Jardine. ‘I realized that if Lyle were to remain in my house I could on no account permit even the faintest trace of impropriety in my manner to her. Impropriety wouldn’t merely have been stupid; it would have been ungrateful to God, who had sent Lyle to us to ease so much of our sadness and difficulty. You may be thinking that this attitude of extreme propriety towards Lyle was hard for me to adopt, and you’d be right; it was. But curiously enough once the attitude had been adopted it was easy to maintain because my marriage became so much more tolerable. Carrie greatly improved, thanks to Lyle’s care, and the result was that we were able to resume our marital relationship after a long interval. That disposed of my last doubts. I knew then it was right that Lyle should stay.’
Again he paused, and as I raised my eyes from the table-cloth to the empty claret decanter I was aware of him sipping his port. ‘However,’ he said, ‘you mustn’t think I haven’t spent a lot of time worrying about Lyle’s welfare. Our triangle would hardly be morally acceptable, would it, if Lyle were unhappy and unfulfilled. But Charles, the point here is that if Lyle really were unhappy and unfulfilled she wouldn’t stay. It’s impossible for me to explain her aversion to matrimony without breaching her confidence so all I can say is that a psychological aversion, rooted in her past, does exist, but nevertheless Carrie and I have both made great efforts to help her overcome this difficulty – for instance, we’ve always encouraged her to go out with young men, and I’m sure you’ll remember that it was I who urged her to dine with you at the Staro Arms. Of course Lyle’s sometimes tempted to indulge in a romantic flutter or two, but the rock-bottom truth is that she likes her life exactly as it is, and if she wishes to remain single she has a perfect right to do so. I quite see that this must be highly frustrating for you, but –’
‘I’m going to marry her!’ I was struggling to overcome the terrifying conviction that every word he said was true. ‘You’re telling me all these lies because you’re jealous, possessive and deeply in love with her yourself!’
‘My dear Charles –’
‘If your wife died you’d marry Lyle tomorrow!’
‘Let’s try and keep this conversation rational, shall we? I admit,’ said Jardine, ‘that when I first met Lyle I told myself I’d marry her if ever I became a widower, but I soon realized one can hardly spend one’s life waiting for one’s wife to die! That way insanity lies. The truth was – and still is – that I’m a married man, I’m a clergyman and I’m stuck with the status quo, but at least it’s a status quo that enables me to serve God to the best of my ability with the support of a loving dutiful wife of whom I’m extremely fond. As I remind myself daily I’m very lucky to have any workable status quo at all, and need I stress that it would be quite unworkable if I hadn’t so far recovered from my initial attraction that I can now regard Lyle with a healthy affection and respect? I think not. The facts speak for themselves. Be reasonable, Charles! I know you’re far from being in a rational frame of mind, but isn’t it patently obvious that there’s nothing improper going on here?’
It was. Yet I found myself quite unable to admit it. I began stubbornly. ‘I think –’ but he interrupted me.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this is where we get to you and what you think – and this is where we meet two intractable problems. The first is that you’re at present too drunk even to face your difficulties, let alone grapple with them, and the second is that although you urgently need counselling I’m quite the wrong person to give it to you, I’m part of the crisis, aren’t I?’
I was so incensed that he should call me drunk merely because I had had a little extra claret that I shouted, ‘I don’t want your damned counselling!’ I tried to grab the port decanter but he whipped it away.
‘No,’ he said severely. ‘No more.’
I waited till he had replaced it on the table and then I lunged forward, swiped the decanter from under his nose and began to pour the port into my empty glass.
‘You’re being very foolish,’ said Jardine, ‘but you want attention, don’t you? You’re like a little child who misbehaves in order to get noticed. You say you don’t want my counselling but in fact I suspect that’s exactly what you’re angling for. You’re deep in some private fantasy, and –’
‘You’re the one who’s deep in some private fantasy if you think you’re deceiving me!’ I was now so enraged that I hardly knew what I said. ‘Do you think I can’t see exactly what’s going on? You’re just fighting tooth and nail to stop your glittering image coming apart at the seams!’
‘No,’ said Jardine, ‘you’re the one who’s fighting that particular battle, and the glittering image is falling apart before my eyes.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Let me call my chauffeur and ask him to drive us over to the monks at Starwater.’
‘I’m not leaving this bloody room,’ I said, ‘until you bloody well admit you’ve been sleeping with Lyle!’
‘Charles, you need help. I can’t give it to you and you absolutely must let me take you to someone who –’
‘You’re not washing your hands of me!’ I shouted. ‘I’m not going to be brushed off, I’m not going to be kicked out, I’m not going to be treated as if –’
‘All right! All right, all right, all right …’ Jardine cast a quick glance at the door to reassure himself it was still closed. ‘You want me to be the one who helps you. Very well. I’ll do what you want, but I do it greatly against my better judgement and only because you’re giving me no choice. Now –’ He drew up his chair in order to sit down at my side ‘– let me try to bring you closer to what I fear will be a very unpalatable reality …’
VIII
‘For some reason,’ said Jardine, ‘you’ve picked me to be the central figure in your life at present. We won’t call this a fantasy because you evidently find that word hurtful, so we’ll just say that you were experiencing certain difficulties in your private life and when you met me I seemed in some mysterious way to provide you with a solution. Obviously you liked the idea – which that old fool Lang had put into your head – that I was an eminent churchman who led a double life. No, that’s an understatement. You didn’t just like the idea – you were enrapt by it.
‘So you arrive in Starbridge and soon you’ve far exceeded your brief from Lang – after all, it must have quickly become very clear to you that I’m not the sort of man who compromises himself by dabbling in foolish love-letters or keeping an uncensored journal. However you’re not interested in Lang’s brief, not any more. What you’re now interested in is the possibility that behind the glittering image of my ecclesiastical success lies a life steeped in the kind of error which would make even Lang’s senile speculations look pale. You embrace this theory with such zest that it becomes necessary for you to prove it, but the interesting part is that the more obsessed you become with proving my guilt the more fervently you swear you’re on my side. By this time, of course, you’ve parted company with reality altogether. By this time you’re acting out the most elaborate and fantastic of delusions –’
I had levered myself to my feet. My voice said trembling, ‘I refuse to listen to this.’
‘But you will. You will, Charles, you will.’ The lambent eyes were suddenly so bright that I could not look away. ‘Sit down, Charles,’ said Jardine and at once I sank back in my chair. ‘Charles, listen to me – listen to me, Charles, because I say you can’t afford to go on with this fantasy any longer, you must try to face reality, and the reality is that you’re ill, mentally ill –’
‘No – no –’
‘Yes, Charles, yes – how could any normal man have misinterpreted my situation in such an extraordinary and bizarre manner? The truth is that the man I am has nothing to do with the man you think I am. You’ve invented me. I exist only in your imagination. You think you know me so well that you can see numerous resemblances between us, but every one of them’s an illusion, an illusion which is necessary to support your longing to believe we’re identical. And why do you want to believe that we’re identical? Because you think you can justify your own unfortunate behaviour by saying you’re only following my example – you feel you can escape from your problems by projecting them on to me. So you place me in front of you as if I were a blank screen and your mind the magic-lantern projector, but in fact it’s your image, not mine, which you’re seeing reflected. The real mystery here, Charles, is not what’s going on at Starbridge – that’s just a drama you’ve invented to divert yourself from your problems. The real mystery is what’s going on in your soul. Why does an extremely able and successful young clergyman with a brilliant future and an unclouded past suddenly, for no apparent reason, start mentally falling apart?’
I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and as he too sprang to his feet I said, ‘You can’t talk to me like that, you can’t.’ I was so dizzy that I had to grab the edge of the table.
‘I’m sorry – I’ve taken a risk in speaking so plainly but I could see no other way of convincing you that you simply must have help. I myself can now do no more but I’m sure the monks at Starwater –’
‘You’re rejecting me!’ I shouted. ‘You keep rejecting me! You’ve rejected me over and over again!’
‘My God,’ said Jardine, suddenly ashen, ‘this is what happened with your father, isn’t it? You poor boy, I didn’t realize – oh, what a hash I’ve made of this, I’m so damnably sorry –’
I shoved him aside and rushed from the room.
IX
I have no clear recollection of my journey back to the Staro Arms. All I remember is the hotel receptionist’s disapproving stare as she gave me the change for the telephone call. Then I shut myself in the hall kiosk again and asked the operator to connect the line to Starmouth Court.
By the time Loretta came to the telephone I was almost beyond speech but I managed to say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He didn’t do it, did he? He didn’t go in.’
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Wait. I understand what you’re saying and I’m willing to talk, but not on the phone. Where are you?’
‘Starbridge.’
‘Okay, obviously I can’t see you tonight, but tomorrow –’
‘I’m coming tonight.’
‘But Charles –’
‘I’ve got to see you. If he lied about you I’ll know he lied about everything,’ I said, and rang off before she could reply.
X
In my room I changed back into my grey trousers, sports jacket and open-necked shirt. I also drank two glasses of water in pursuit of sobriety. Then I packed my bag, paid my bill and left the hotel.
The drive took less time than I had anticipated for there was little traffic at that time of night. Beyond the Surrey border on the ridge called the Hog’s Back I felt tired but I cured that by stopping the car and drinking from my bottle of whisky. Staring at the lights which stretched north to London in the valley below me, I thought of Starbridge, its radiance masking unutterable horrors, but that memory was too painful to bear and taking another shot from the bottle I drove on into the dark.
It was after midnight when I reached Starmouth Court but a light was shining in the little morning-room where Loretta and I had first met. I glimpsed her figure silhouetted against the window, and a moment later I was stumbling into her arms.
‘Everyone’s gone to bed,’ she said. ‘Come and have a drink. You look shot to pieces.’
In the morning-room she passed me a glass of brandy and I drank half of it straight off. Then I said, ‘Just what the devil did go on in that bloody spinney nineteen years ago?’
‘We made love.’
‘Completely?’
‘No.’
‘But why the hell didn’t you make that clear?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Charles, give me credit for at least the minimum of good manners! You were panting to make love to me. How could I say, “Wait a minute!” and regale you with a blow by blow description of what had happened with Alex?’
‘But I only went ahead because I thought he’d gone ahead too!’
‘My God, that’s a bizarre remark!’
‘But if I’d known there’d been no penetration –’
‘The way he made love that hardly mattered. Alex did tell me that without penetration there was no adultery according to the law of England – remember me saying he’d have made a good lawyer? – but when one’s busy having an orgasm the legal niceties don’t seem very important. As far as I was concerned I’d made love to him and he’d made love to me and –’
‘But he told me the truth.’ I could think of nothing else. ‘“I never penetrated her,” he said. So if he told me the truth about you then he must have told me the truth about Lyle –’
‘What did he say?’
I started drinking my brandy rapidly again. ‘He called my theory a fantasy.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Shut up!’ I shouted.
She jumped. ‘Charles – darling – take it easy –’
I tried to apologize by kissing her but she was unresponsive and the next moment she was removing the brandy bottle to the far side of the room.
‘Maybe this is where I start to dream the dream,’ she said drily. ‘You’re obviously incapable of dreaming anything at the moment so I’ll have to do the dreaming for you to help you along.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘How long would it take to get to Cambridge at this time of night?’
‘Less than three hours. Perhaps less than two and a half. Petrol will be a problem but there’s an all-night garage on the Great North Road.’ I swallowed the rest of my brandy. ‘Well, if you’re washing your hands of me I may as well go.’
‘Don’t be dumb, I’m coming with you.’
‘What!’
‘Well, someone’s got to look after you, haven’t they, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else volunteering for the job!’
‘But I wouldn’t dream of dragging you all the way to Cambridge!’
‘And I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone when you’ve obviously been hitting the bottle. I’m going to drive you home.’
‘But you’re an American! You’ll drive on the wrong side of the road!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I may have my faults but I’m not incompetent. Excuse me while I just scribble a line to Evelyn – and I’d better call a hotel to let them know I’ll be arriving in the middle of the night. Which hotel should I stay at?’
‘The Blue Boar. But Loretta –’
‘I’ll use the phone in the hall. Just a minute, Charles.’
I sank back on the couch, but as soon as I was alone the pain began to pound me and seconds later I was retrieving the brandy bottle.
XI
Somewhere north of Hatfield she said, ‘Where does that Abbot live – the one you told me about?’
