Mystical Paths - Susan Howatch

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healing those deep fissures which I had been so sure existed in Christian’s personality, and finally enfolding his soul? It seemed a reasonable assumption to make in the circumstances.

      From that reasonable assumption it followed that the chances of making contact with Christian were nil. What was much more likely to happen in the séance was that Katie’s acute emotional distress would be projected from her psyche and cause havoc. That was why I planned not a séance but a pseudo-séance, a rite which might appear designed to contact Christian but which was in fact merely designed to help Katie. I thought that provided I kept my mind closed against any discarnate shreds of former personalities that happened to be floating around, I would be dealing not with the dead but with the living because what was really required of me in this situation was to be not a medium but a healer.

      This attracted me, and was almost certainly why I had agreed against my better judgement to take part in Marina’s plan. Even now, when my head was stuffed so full of theology that I could have written a thesis about the transformation of the historical Jesus into the Eternal Christ of the Church, I felt irresistibly compelled to look straight past that multi-symbol image to the charismatic Galilean wonder-worker who had healed the sick and raised the dead.

      ‘I want to be a healer-priest when I grow up,’ I had announced at the age of eight after an enthralling game in which I had resurrected my tin soldiers, but my father had replied firmly that if I wanted to heal the sick I should train to be a doctor.

      ‘It’s true all priests are involved in the healing of souls,’ he had said, ‘but a ministry which centres on healing the physically and mentally sick is so extremely difficult and so fraught with danger that only priests with the strongest possible call to heal should attempt it.’

      It was not until later that I found out about his brief, unsuccessful attempt to be a healer. Naturally he had assumed, since I was so like him, that if I tried to be a healer I would fail too.

      But the fascination with healing had persisted, and now, years later, I found myself seduced by the challenge of restoring Katie Aysgarth to full mental health. The result was that I planned the pseudo-séance in a haze of euphoria.

      Disgusting. No wonder my father prayed daily for another religious thug like Cuthbert Darcy to knock the hell out of me. I was like one of those typhoid carriers who bounce through kitchen after kitchen and leave a trail of disaster in their wake.

      God knows how anyone I met ever survived.

      II

      The girls came down from Oxford the next morning. It was a showery April day, cool and fresh. Marina was wearing a white coat which matched the Jaguar, and a scarlet mini-dress. Katie, seven years her senior, was dressed more conventionally in a mustard-coloured suit. She looked pale, drawn, fragile.

      Starrington Manor was a large house, but since I shared it with the Community I had been obliged to take measures to ensure my privacy: I had designated certain areas for my use only and I had devised stringent rules to restrict intrusion to a minimum. The library, a long room lined with unreadable books and cases of stuffed fish, was part of my territory, although Rowena and Agnes were allowed in to clean it. Here I received visitors. I liked the library better than the drawing-room, which always reminded me too painfully of my mother.

      The entire area upstairs in the main section of the house was also my domain. I slept in the room which had once been my father’s study – his ‘cell’ he had called it in memory of his monastic years – and I spent my leisure hours nearby in the room which had once been my parents’ bedroom. Curiously, this area didn’t remind me of my mother; my father had imprinted his personality too strongly there. Rowena and Agnes were never allowed to clean in this upstairs domain. Once a week I changed the sheets on my bed and showed the Hoover to the carpet. I seldom dusted, but the bathroom fittings received my regular attention. I rather liked muscling around with the Vim. That was a masculine art. Dusting’s just for women.

      Meanwhile, as I kept my domain utterly private and tolerably clean, the Community milled around on the ground floor (excluding the library) and slept in the wing which had been converted for the Theological College ordinands after the war. My father sometimes came up to the house for meals but usually he stayed in his cottage. In the chapel the Community said matins and evensong each day and my father celebrated mass. I always went to mass when I was at home, but except on Sundays I tended to avoid matins and evensong. I found that a little of the Community went a very long way.

      When Marina and Katie arrived that morning I showed them into the library and brought them coffee to revive them after their journey. I could have held the pseudo-séance there, but I thought Rowena and Agnes might be tempted to listen at the door, so as soon as the coffee had disappeared I took the visitors to my sitting-room. None of the Community would have dared trespass on my upstairs domain without a valid reason. My father, who supported my quest for privacy, would have been too angry.

      ‘I feel it ought to be night-time,’ said Marina as she sat down at the round table which I had pulled to the centre of the room. ‘Doesn’t one get better results in the dark?’

      ‘One gets better fakes. People can be more gullible and the mediums more fraudulent.’ I moved around the room at a measured pace in order to exude the right air of authority; in any ritual it’s important to create a calm, dignified atmosphere which will not only impress the participants but put them at ease. I felt vaguely priest-like, pleasingly powerful. Having flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the table, I placed a heavy dictionary on top of the stack of Private Eye magazines by the bookcase, put away a couple of stray pencils in the top drawer of my desk and readjusted the engraving of Starbridge Cathedral which hung over the mantelshelf. Everything had to be securely in place. Although I was avoiding a traditional séance there was still the danger that Katie’s psyche could create a disturbance, and I didn’t want the magazines whooshing across the floor or the picture plunging off its hook. Such manifestations of kinetic energy can provoke hysteria.

      Finally I drew the curtains. There was still plenty of light in the room afterwards and we could see one another clearly, but the fractional dimming was another device aimed at helping the girls relax.

      ‘Okay,’ I said, sitting down with them at the table, ‘let me explain what I intend to do. Forget all the junk you may have read in books. I’m not going to grunt and groan and speak in a strange voice and say I’m the spirit of Tutankhamen, specially sent with a message from the astral plane. Nor am I going to conjure up mysterious tappings which spell out the letters of the alphabet. We’re going to keep this very straight, very orthodox – no frills, no fancy touches, no Mumbo Jumbo.’

      I paused. They were enrapt. So far so good.

      ‘First of all,’ I resumed, ‘we’ll all hold hands while I say a prayer. After that we’ll keep holding hands as we remember Christian in silence; we’ll picture him as clearly as possible and pray that we may share with him the peace which he now experiences as a departed soul enfolded by the love of God. We’ll be silent for approximately five minutes. That’ll probably seem a long time to you, but keep picturing and keep praying. Then I’ll end the silence with another spoken prayer which will reinforce our silent prayers by asking for God’s love to flow into us so that we may be at one with Christian’s spirit. You’ll know then,’ I said directly to Katie as I put the full force of my personality into my eyes, ‘that you’re with Christian and he’s with you because you’ll feel this great peace and love … peace and love … peace and love.’

      I saw her eyes film over as her will knuckled under to mine. Easy. Emotional, romantic, very feminine women are never a problem to hypnotise. They like to be dominated by men. I glanced at Marina. Her blue eyes were round as saucers. I wondered whether to put her under too but decided against it. No need. Katie was the one who required healing. Marina, a far tougher personality, had survived her bereavement with her psyche scarred but unsplit.

      ‘Are we ready?’ I said. We were. I took Katie’s right hand in my left and Marina’s left hand in my right while the girls’ spare hands touched and clasped. Then I said in my

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