Glamorous Powers - Susan Howatch

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called you to do. Otherwise you’ll get depressed and fall victim to Monks’ Madness, and we both know what that means, don’t we?’

      We did. It was a notorious fact that monks who left the Order often found themselves psychologically compelled to recuperate in the most unfortunate of ways from their years of celibate seclusion.

      ‘Oh, and while you’re grappling with your possible future in the world,’ said Francis as an afterthought, ‘do ask yourself what you’d do about women. It’s a very important subject and one which must be faced realistically.’

      ‘I’d remain celibate.’

      ‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me correctly. I said: “It’s a very important subject – ”’

      ‘Marriage distracts me from serving God.’

      ‘In that case you’d better stay in the Order. Oh, go away, Jonathan, before I become really irritable with you, and for goodness’ sake take your brain out of those second-rate mystic mothballs so that you can do some constructive thinking! Nothing annoys me more than to hear a clever man talk like a fool.’

      I rose to my feet. ‘Do you wish to see me before I leave tomorrow?’

      ‘Yes, come here after breakfast so that I can give you my blessing.’

      He was so fractious that he made the blessing seem a sinister prospect. Leaving the room I began to count the hours which remained until my departure.

      XII

      France had fallen, and in England the air-raids had started. At Liverpool Street Station I bought a copy of The Illustrated London News in order to see a summary of the week’s events, and read about the night attacks on the eastern counties. So the long-awaited, inexplicably delayed battle for Britain had begun. Yet I thought the delay might prove significant. God had appeared to withdraw but as always had been eternally present and now the infusion would begin, the outpouring of grace into those facing the blast of the demonic force, the bestowal of courage and endurance which would ultimately triumph over the nightmare of militant idolatry. Our ordeal had begun. The suffering lay before us, but beyond the suffering lay the power of the Spirit, overflowing eternally, in the metaphor of Plotinus, into the muddied waters of mankind, and against that power the ship of idolatry would ultimately shatter. I could see the shattering. It was not a matter of speculation but of ‘gnosis’, of knowledge; I knew. Yet still I shuddered at the thought of the ordeal ahead of Britain, standing alone at the edge of a demoralized, demon-infested Europe, and the next moment Britain’s ordeal was again fusing with my own until it seemed not merely a struggle for survival but a great spiritual quest which could only be described in the ancient language of religious symbolism.

      I saw the powers of light withstanding the recurrent invasions of the forces of darkness, the perpetual conflict of finite existence played out amidst the Eternal Now of ultimate reality. Britain wanted peace yet was obliged to go to war to preserve its cherished values; I wanted to serve God in tranquillity yet was obliged to wage a continuous battle against the qualities which marked the opaque side of my nature, and when I saw myself as a microcosm of the conflict which permeated the very air I breathed, I was conscious of the Devil, not the charming little creature rendered so endearingly by medieval artists, but the unseen climate which periodically bruised my psyche as it sensed the vibrations and emanations of the weather-patterns which so many people were apparently unable to perceive. God too can be experienced as a climate, and part of the psychic’s ‘gnosis’ lies in being able to read the barometer which reflects not merely the ebb and flow of demonic forces but the unchanging presence of the kingdom of values, the world of ultimate reality which lies beyond the world of appearances.

      It was not until I dismounted from the train at Cambridge that I temporarily abandoned all thought of demonic infiltration. I also abandoned The Illustrated London News; I did not want my men to know I had been reading a magazine. It was a rule of the Order that the abbots should read The Times each day so that they might inform their men during the weekly recreation hour of events in the world, but this was regarded as a necessary duty whereas browsing through even the worthiest magazine could only rank as a distraction.

      Resisting the slothful urge to take a taxi I travelled by motorbus from Cambridge to Grantchester and finally, to my profound relief, walked up the drive of my home. I realized then how much I hated that luxurious house which flourished like an anachronistic weed in the heart of drab, dirty, debilitating London. My Grantchester house was neither old nor beautiful; it had been erected late in the nineteenth century by an East Anglian merchant who had shortly afterwards been obliged by his bankruptcy to sell the place to the Fordites, but in its secluded setting at one end of the village it stood in unobtrusive harmony with its surroundings. Returning to it after my enforced absence I found it refreshingly quiet, modest and serene.

      ‘I’ve kept all the copies of The Times for you, Father,’ said my admirable prior, welcoming me warmly in the hall. ‘I thought you might have been too busy in London to read the newspaper.’

      I refrained from telling him that Francis had not offered his copy for my perusal. Reading a newspaper would have constituted intolerably frivolous behaviour for a monk who was supposed to be concentrating on his spiritual problems.

      My relief that I was home expanded into pleasure. My best men were all so glad to see me and even the sulkiest drone achieved a smile of welcome. After dinner I briefly interviewed my officers, attended to the most urgent correspondence, dealt with a couple of domestic matters and toured my five-acre domain of flowers, vegetables, fruit-trees, herbs and bee-hives. In the herb-garden the cat came to meet me and I picked him up. A black cat with a white spot on his chest he had been called Hippo after St Augustine’s city, and was a dull affectionate animal like the drone who was responsible for his welfare. After stroking the fur behind the ears I set the creature down again but he was captivated; he padded after me as I completed my tour of the garden and even mewed in protest when I eventually shut the back door in his face.

      The bell began to toll in the chapel. I displayed myself in choir, but suddenly as I savoured my happiness that I should once more be worshipping God in my familiar place, I remembered my new call and shuddered. How could I bear to leave? My happiness was at once displaced by misery.

      However in my own home I found it easier to regain my equilibrium. Reminding myself that my departure was by no means certain I spent some time reading (the accumulated copies of The Times were a great solace) and later made a satisfactory attempt at meditation. When I returned to my cell after matins that night I was tired enough to feel confident that I would fall asleep without difficulty, and indeed as soon as I had closed my eyes I felt my mind drift free of the fetters which I had subconsciously imposed upon it during the difficult week I had spent in London. I began to dream.

      XIII

      I dreamt of Whitby, proud arrogant Whitby, who had stalked through the backyard at Ruydale with his tail pointed triumphantly at the sky. Prowling prancing Whitby, living in his monastery but padding off to the nearby hamlet whenever the celibate life became too uncomfortable, clever cunning Whitby, a little battered and scarred like all successful tomcats but still as striking as a racy buccaneer, tough tenacious Whitby who worked hard and deserved his pleasures, lean lithe Whitby, wonderful Whitby – what a cat! Whitby was walking through my dream towards me but suddenly he faded into a black cat, not Hippo of Grantchester but Chelsea, my mother’s favourite cat, serene elegant Chelsea who washed her paws so fastidiously on the hearth. My mother was there too, serene and elegant just like Chelsea, and she was talking to me without words, saying everything she was too reserved to say aloud and making me feel so sorry for my father who was excluded from these conversations because he was unable to hear us in our silence. ‘How lonely you must be with him!’ I said to my mother in my dream, but she answered: ‘No, I have you and Chelsea.’

      ‘My own children can’t hear me when I talk to them,’ I said to her, and in my dream time was abruptly displaced because my mother had never lived to see her grandchildren. ‘The cat can’t hear either.’ And as

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