Читать книгу Glamorous Powers - Susan Howatch - Страница 40

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 I spoke I saw the stupid ginger cat, my children’s cat whom my daughter Ruth had named Goldilocks – which was a ridiculous name for a cat although I had never said so – but whom Martin, enrapt by different fairy-tales, had always called Pussy-Boots. In my dream Betty was slopping some milk into a saucer for the cat and as she stooped I could see past the open neck of her nightgown. ‘You look like a cat facing a bowl of cream!’ she said laughing, and as I took her in my arms the ginger cat watched us, a stupid cat, not trained to be clever, but unfortunately I was away too much at sea to ensure his education.

‘You’re going to talk to me about that cat,’ said Father Darcy, walking into the scriptorium at Ruydale, and suddenly there was Whitby, proud arrogant Whitby, leaping through the window with an exuberance which made the novices laugh, and Aidan was saying: ‘I’m not sure I understand; I’m not even sure I want to understand; but whatever’s going on must stop.’

Then in my dream Ruydale dissolved into London and I was searching the Fordite headquarters for Father Darcy. I searched every room, floor after floor, but he had disappeared and finally I had to confess to Aidan: ‘I can’t go on without him. It’s too difficult.’ But before Aidan could reply in walked Lyle Ashworth, small and slender in an open-necked nightgown, and as she lay down on the bed I turned to Aidan to say: ‘I lied to Francis – I did have an erection after all,’ but Aidan had vanished and when I turned back to the bed I found that Lyle had been replaced by Betty. Betty had taken off her nightgown and the next moment I was consummating my marriage, sunk deep in the folds of the most exquisite pleasure, and yet all the time I was so lonely, so isolated, so ravaged by unhappiness and despair –

I woke up sweating.

The room was filled with the dawn light. For some time I prayed for the further revelation which would validate and clarify my vision of the chapel, but no message imprinted itself on my mind and at last, rising reluctantly from my knees, I trudged to the basin to shave.