Heartbreaker (63 page)

Round the mulberry bush I go for the umpteenth time. I’m such a dreamer, Susanne says, and there’s always such a gap between my dreams and reality. But what
is
the reality here, and what
have
I been designed to do at this particular stage of my life?

“Well, I can think of one thing you already do very successfully,” says Lewis without hesitation.

I’m sunk in gloom. “Yeah. Prostitution.”

“Raise your sights a little higher.”

“You mean . . .” God, I’m beginning to be seriously worried about my brain. How could the idea of fundraising never occur to me? Because I associated it with the Life, that’s why, but if I now uncouple it . . .

“I can’t imagine fundraising in a non-prostitution setting,” I say, going defeatist out of sheer nervous fright that there might actually be a job out there I could do. (How do I get an interview when I’ve no CV? How do I explain that my big experience in raising money is to screw for it?) In panic I retreat into fantasy. “Maybe I could be a mentor like you, Lewis,” I say, picturing myself rescuing some pint-sized shitlet who thinks turning tricks at Piccadilly Circus is the last word in sophistication.

“You’d have a lot to offer as a mentor,” says Lewis, stunning me. “You’ve been around, learning about life the hard way, and there are plenty of people out there who could benefit from your wisdom and experience.”

Maybe the image of the shitlet wasn’t such a fantasy after all. “Runaways, you mean?” I say. “Kids who wind up penniless in London, like I did, and get involved in drugs and prostitution?” I think about this but can’t visualise the route to getting involved. Would I need to become a social worker? A policeman? A—no, scrub the word “priest.” I’d never be good enough for that.

“There are organisations which help these young people, of course,” says Lewis, “and a good fundraiser is always in demand. I realise the problem of having no CV, but Nicholas would give you a reference.”

I’m stunned all over again as the word “fundraising” uncouples itself from the word “prostitution” and floats alluringly before my eyes. I’ve glimpsed the future and I like it. And most important of all, it’s do-able— it’s not just a dream which could never come true.

Telling myself exuberantly that all I have to do now is get healed, I decide to fix a date when I can attend the healing service.

Bloody hell, I’ve backed away from fixing a date again, but I can’t help it, I’m in a flat spin.

My brand-new anxiety creeps up on me unawares and is innocently triggered by Nicholas, who drops in for a chat. He thinks the fundraising-for-runaways plan is brilliant and he says of course he’ll give me a reference. He makes me feel very happy, but when Lewis next visits I’m horrified to hear that Nicholas is thinking of leaving St. Benet’s.

“But he can’t!” I protest. “It’s not possible!”

Lewis smiles and says: “He thinks it’s time he went home.”

“Home” is home in a literal sense this time. Lewis is referring to that old manor house where Nicholas grew up. But surely he’s much too young to retire?

Lewis starts to explain. Nicholas has now been at St. Benet’s for twelve years, and once the expansion of the Healing Centre’s completed it could well be the right time for him to change direction, depending on what God has in mind. No one’s indispensable, Lewis points out briskly, and even the most successful healing teams can become fossilised and lose their cutting edge. Better to make the change before this happens and leave on a high note. The Holy Spirit blows in all kinds of directions, says Lewis, and the trick is to recognise which way the wind’s gusting so that one can go with the flow.

The flow is currently making Nicholas take a hard look at this country house he inherited from his mother. It’s been let for years to an Order of Anglican Benedictines—Great-Uncle Cuthbert’s Order—but the monks are getting old now, and the retreat-house they established must come to an end.

“Nicholas has been thinking of starting a different kind of healing centre there,” says Lewis. “It would be modelled on Burrswood in Kent and would be like a small hospital with convalescent facilities where doctors and priests could work together, just as they do at St. Benet’s. There’s a very beautiful chapel in the grounds, rather like the chapel at Little Gidding . . .”

I stop listening. The panic’s slugged me. If Nicholas is going home not to retire but to found St. Benet’s Mark Two, surely he’ll need the help of the greatest oldie of all time, the mentor I can’t possibly afford to lose?

“What about you?” I say, nearly passing out with the effort to sound casual. “He’ll want you to go with him, won’t he?”

“Nicholas and Alice have indeed invited me to continue living with them,” agrees Lewis, “and that’s most kind of them, but I’ve cluttered up their home quite long enough and besides, living in the country wouldn’t suit me. I’d miss the concerts and the art exhibitions.”

The relief’s cosmic. “You’ll stay on at St. Benet’s?”

“That wouldn’t be fair on the new rector. And besides, without Nicholas . . . no, I must move on. I’m not sure yet where I should move to, but I’m sure God will make his wishes clear in due course.”

Panic slugs me again. Supposing God decides to send him to his family? His daughter’s married to one of the northern bishops, and their vibrant city has both a concert hall and an art gallery . . . But I don’t like to ask him any more questions. I’d look such a wimp if he realised I was freaking out at the thought of him being a long-distance mentor.

The result of all this panic is that I look at my future plans much more nervously. And this may be no bad thing, because in my nervousness I sense I’m becoming more realistic. Even when I’m well I don’t think I’ll have the confidence to plunge straight away into a high-powered fundraising job (always assuming I’m offered one). I need something to bridge the gap, some modest job which will allow me to get office experience and build up my confidence. But how do I go about it? And what the hell would I be capable of doing in an office anyway?

I’m in such a state that I phone Carta to pour out these new employment problems, and she promises she’ll help me solve them.

She’s the best sister a man never had. I still think she’s megashaggable, but so what? A man can have a megashaggable sister and realise shagging’s a total non-starter—that’s what the incest taboo’s all about. There’s a sort of plastic side to the brain, as I worked out long ago when I was meditating on sexual orientation, and that’s why the brain can adapt to all kinds of peculiar circumstances. My brain’s now been moulded by the journey to think of Carta as the best kind of older sister, the kind who escorts you to kindergarten and holds your hand so tightly you can’t wriggle free to run under a bus, the kind who doesn’t just dump you when you reach the school playground, the kind who takes you to your classroom and tells the local bully that if you’re beaten up there’ll be hell to pay.

I think Carta and Susanne are both aware now that they’re like sisters-in-law, and that’s why they can finally get on. Their relationships with me don’t impinge on each other, they dovetail.

Weird. But then maybe miracles always are . . .

The very next weekend Carta visits me, and with her comes Eric Tucker who used to be Mr. Over-the-Hill but who’s now Mr. Prime-of-Life, bursting with health and vitality after the success of his last book. Instantly I decide I don’t want to see him, but Carta goes off to the kitchen area to waffle with Susanne while coffee’s being made so I wind up alone with this bloke who’s got a golden career. I hate him and feel a mega-failure. Major relapse.

“Carta says you’re worried about how to ease your way into the job market,” he says, “and I wanted to give you a tip: get the basic office skills. It won’t take too long and it won’t cost too much. Then you can always earn money temping as a secretary.”

I’m just thinking I hate him worse than ever for underlining what an unqualified mess I am, when I realise he’s dangled a good idea in front of me. Even a modest proper-job would build my CV and boost my morale—and maybe I could even have fun hanging around the water cooler with all those gorgeous . . . no, I couldn’t. Gavin Blake Office Shag-Star isn’t a role I want to audition for. Susanne would castrate me and walk out.

My thoughts skitter on but Eric interrupts them. To my amazement he says: “I was a mess in my twenties. I lived off women so that I could write my books, and I wound up ploughed under. But my brother Gilbert made me get office skills and eventually I got my life back on track.” He stops, clears his throat. “Well, that’s it,” he says airily as if he’s been talking about nothing instead of doing something cool and brave. “That’s all I came to say. Thanks for listening.” And he joins Susanne and Carta who are still chatting about the stock market.

That evening I write him a letter. It reads: “Hey, thanks for the tip. Thanks for giving a shit. Thanks for telling me how you got sorted. GAVIN.” I chew the end of my pen for five whole minutes before adding: “PS. I hope you and Carta will be very happy.”

The funny thing is it’s much easier to accept that marriage now I know he was a bit like me once but busted a gut to put himself right. He’s earned her, he’s worthy of her. Okay, good luck, mate, I think as I seal the envelope, and the next moment I realise I’m feeling less anxious about my future employment. If he can turn his life around with the aid of a modest proper-job, then I can too.

The St. Benet’s future’s publicly unfolding: Nicholas announces his decision to leave in six months’ time. Carta will stay on to manage the office and continue supervising the conversion of the new building, but eventually, she says, she’ll get a job as a lawyer in the voluntary sector. She’s enjoyed the fundraising but she feels it’s not quite her métier.

Val and Robin will be remaining at St. Benet’s to support the new rector, but Lewis sticks to his decision to leave. His son-in-law the bishop has just received a big promotion to a glamorous southern diocese, but just when I’m telling myself that Lewis won’t be able to resist going there to be cared for by his daughter in his old age, he tells me he’s determined not to live on his son-in-law’s doorstep. He never says so, but I reckon this son-in-law isn’t his kind of clergyman.

Seizing the chance to ask him directly about his future at last without making him think I’m obsessed with staying close to him, I blurt out: “So which city will you be living in?”

“Why, this one, of course!” says Lewis, astonished that I should be in any doubt.

“But you did mention moving—”

“Yes, but to another borough! I was asking myself whether I should move from the City to Westminster or to Kensington and Chelsea or—”

“But that’s wonderful!” I shout. Then I get a grip, can the hysteria and say with the necessary seriousness: “You mean this is okay with God? He doesn’t want you to leave London?”

“Naturally God’s aware that I’m much too old for such a radical change!” says Lewis, smiling at me, “and if I stay in London it’ll be easier for him to find a place where I can be useful.”

However it seems a short holiday in Cambridge could be on the cards. Lewis says he has a ladyfriend there and although he knows his destiny’s to be an unmarried mentor like Great-Uncle Cuthbert, he always enjoys her company. This lady, who’s also uninterested in marriage, is a theology graduate currently campaigning for cathedral reform. “She’s rather eccentric,” says Lewis fondly. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Maybe they’ll get together one day at the altar after all.

I decide I wouldn’t mind if Lewis were to produce an interesting wife, but he seems pretty sure he’ll get a flat on his own. He’s looking for one in Bayswater, where Great-Uncle Cuthbert’s Anglican–Benedictine Order still has its headquarters not far from Marble Arch. This house was where Lewis spent his adolescence after being rescued, the house which now seems closest to his idea of “home.” He couldn’t possibly be a monk, he says, but if he lives nearby he can visit often and perhaps be useful to the community in various ways.

Meanwhile everyone’s saying: “How’s poor old Lewis going to manage without Nick and Alice?” but he’ll be fine. He’s not strapped for cash, he’ll find the right flat and he’ll stuff it with all his music gear and his books and his icons. He’ll visit his monks for the daily services in their chapel. He’ll keep on working, seeing the people who come to him for spiritual direction. And best of all he’ll keep on seeing me.

I’ll look after him.

But at present he’s busy looking after me, busy being my mentor. He says I have real spiritual gifts.
Me!
Imagine that! What’s so great about Lewis is that he’s always so encouraging, so sympathetic, so approachable . . . all the things poor old Dad never was. I’m thinking of Dad a lot at the moment—no doubt because he represents unfinished business— and sometimes when Lewis speaks with that same old-fashioned accent I’m enthralled because I recognise him as a healed version of my father.

Thinking of healing resurrects the subject of the weekly healing service, and now that my fear of losing Lewis has been terminated, I find my anxiety levels are low enough to allow me to commit to a date.

It’s time to beam in on St. Benet’s.

The healers at the services vary, I’ve learned, because they’re drawn from all those who work at St. Benet’s plus anyone Nicholas chooses to invite, and as Lewis has already told me, they don’t have to be priests and they don’t have to be men. When Carta received her crucial healing, it was Val, Dr. Lush-Lips, who did the laying-on of hands. The healer puts his/her hands on your head—or slightly above your head—and says a prayer. You can even tell him/her what to pray for. The theory is that the healer’s lined up so accurately with The Bloke at that moment that The Bloke’s power just whooshes straight through to the person who needs healing. This sounds weird, even iffy, but Carta swears the whole process as practised at St. Benet’s is very low-key, very safe, totally honest. There’s no guru promising to walk on water before he drives off in his Rolls-Royce, no wonder-worker egging people on to screech and writhe before they reach for their chequebooks. There are just the healers working quietly and unobtrusively without payment, and beyond them all is The Bloke. Lewis says The Bloke’s always there.