Mystical Paths - Susan Howatch

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serious matters,’ he said lightly. ‘Now let’s turn back to the very pleasant subject of your engagement – you must bring your fiancée to dinner soon! I’ll ask my wife to get in touch with you about a date.’

      ‘Thanks – that would be very nice,’ I said, immaculately well-behaved, and parted from him in amity with all my problems quite unsolved.

      The next day Marina Markhampton came to see me and the Christian Aysgarth affair began.

      ‘Mysticism in the proper sense is an intense realization of God within the self and the self embraced within God in vivid nearness. It is a phenomenon known in a number of religions, and in those religions very similar language is used in describing the experience … Now through the centuries Christian teaching has emphasised that the significant thing is not just the mystic experience but its place and its context within the whole life of a Christian.’

      MICHAEL RAMSEY

      Archbishop of Canterbury 1961–1074 Canterbury Pilgrim

      I

      I now come to the third path which led me to the crisis of 1968. Running parallel to my increasingly convoluted relationship with my father and my increasingly chaotic career as a psychic was my friendship with Marina Markhampton.

      Since Marina was the fiancee of the Bishop’s younger son it was hardly surprising that I knew her; what was surprising was that I had become friends with her well before her engagement to Michael. She was a year my senior, one of those flashy debutantes who are forever having their photographs plastered all over the society magazines, and while still a teenager she had won herself the title of the biggest cock-tease in town. This was not the sort of woman who normally interested me and so there was no obvious reason why we should have continued to wander in and out of each other’s lives, but ever since Marina had decided I should be a member of her famous Coterie I had never quite managed to disentangle myself from her.

      Since my mother had come from an old county family I had been automatically granted access to the debutantes’ social events in the diocese of Starbridge, but I had quickly fought my way out of this boring maelstrom and rejected all invitations to similar parties in London. This early antipathy of mine towards conventional socialising explains why I never met Marina until she turned up at my Cambridge College’s May ball in the summer of 1962, six years before my unprofitable interview with Bishop Ashworth and the onset of the Christian Aysgarth affair.

      The May ball was one of those rare events which I condescended to attend; as everyone acquainted with Cambridge knows, the May balls are a very big deal indeed and not even an oddball loner dares to miss them. In 1962 I invited Rosalind to accompany me, but unfortunately she was struck down by appendicitis so I wound up going on my own. The ball marked the end of my first year up at Cambridge. I was nineteen. Apart from Rosalind – who in those days was no more than my former childhood playmate – I had no girlfriend of any kind. Naturally, since I was nineteen, I was obsessed with sex, but naturally, given my background, I hadn’t yet succeeded in working out what I could do about it. Alone and innocent I drifted along with mixed emotions (distaste ploughed under by an overpowering sexual curiosity) to the event which all my contemporaries considered to be the last word in undergraduate chic.

      By the time I met Marina the evening was far advanced. I had been whiling away the hours by watching and listening and occasionally summoning the nerve to dance with girls who looked nice enough not to reject a very plain teenager who felt like a goldfish marooned a long way from his bowl. These girls all bored me very much. Eventually I confined myself to observing the sultry sirens and wishing I had the guts to whip them away from their preening partners. While all this was going on I drank much more than usual out of sheer absent-mindedness; I was fantasising so hard about the sirens that I forgot to notice what I was pouring down my throat. Finally, unable to stand the frustration any longer, I staggered outside to sample the moonlight, and as soon as I began to cross the lawn to the river I saw Marina lying semi-naked in a punt.

      The sight stopped me dead in my tracks. Then it dawned on me that two would-be gondolieri were fighting on the jetty for the honour of wielding the pole which would propel the punt downstream.

      Drunk but by no means dead drunk I said to myself: ‘He who dares wins,’ and circumventing the brawling gondolieri I said politely to Marina: ‘May I help you?’

      ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ and stepping into the punt I picked up the pole.

      The gondolieri shouted: ‘I say, hang on!’ and ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ but Marina and I were already gliding away from the jetty. At that moment more opposition appeared: a small wiry figure raced down to the bank and began to bounce up and down in an ecstasy of disapproval. ‘Marina, nudity is not allowed – pull up your dress this instant!’ it thundered, and as I heard that familiar voice I realised this curious creature was none other than the Bishop’s son, not Michael but the older one, Charley. He was at a theological college in Cambridge, but as a graduate of Laud’s he would have had no trouble obtaining a ticket for the May ball.

      ‘Do you know this girl, Charley?’ I called with interest, sinking the pole much too deep in the mud. My lack of interest in the debutante world and my lack of acquaintance with glossy society magazines had ensured my failure to recognise her.

      ‘Of course I know her! She’s the grand-daughter of Lady Markhampton who lives in the Close at Starbridge. Marina, for God’s sake –’

      Take not the name of the Lord thy God in vain!’ trilled Marina richly. ‘Remember your manners, Charley darling, and introduce me to this divine mystery-man!’

      At that moment the divine mystery-man was trying to pull the pole out of the mud. For one agonising second I thought I was about to be dragged into the water, but the pole parted from the river-bed in the nick of time and I regained my balance. Meanwhile the gondolieri had stripped off their clothes and with cries of ‘Whoopee, Marina – we’re coming!’ they plunged into the river.

      This is disgraceful!’ shouted Charley, outraged at the sight of more nudity. ‘Absolutely disgraceful!’

      ‘Oh, buzz off before I order them to drown you!’ exclaimed Marina crossly, and purred to the oncoming swimmers: ‘Darlings, you’re terribly sweet but you’ve missed – quite literally – the boat. Punt on, mystery-man.’

      I shot the boat forward. Charley and the swimmers were left behind as I furiously propelled the punt towards the moonlit silhouette of Clare bridge.

      ‘Stop!’ commanded Marina as we sped beneath the arch. ‘I want to feast my eyes on King’s College Chapel.’

      I braked as dexterously as I could and tried to concentrate on drawing alongside the bank without a bump, but I was distracted by the sight of Marina’s unsuccessful attempts to pull up her dress. Something had broken at the low neckline and her breasts kept falling out.

      ‘I can’t get my bosom to behave itself,’ she said, ‘but you don’t mind, do you?’

      ‘Not in the least.’

      Introduce yourself. You fascinate me.’

      ‘Nick Darrow.’

      ‘What’s your connection with that ghastly prig Charley Ashworth?’

      ‘Our fathers are pals.’

      ‘Oh God, how awkward for you – I inevitably loathe all the offspring of my parents’ friends. Where do you come from?’

      ‘A village near Starbridge.’

      ‘Good heavens – in that case why haven’t we met? I thought I knew absolutely everyone in the Starbridge area as the result of my visits to Granny in the Cathedral Close. Darrow, Darrow, Darrow

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