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FIVE

‘Passion may be dangerous, but for all that it is the driving-force of life …’

CHARLES E. RAVEN

Regius Professor of Divinity,

Cambridge, 1932–1950

A Wanderer’s Way

I

Instinctively I knew that my best chance of maintaining an immaculate self-control was to organize the chaotic aftermath of the tragedy with the efficiency of the born administrator. I dealt with the hospital personnel. I made the necessary urgent telephone calls. I drew up a list of the other essential matters which required my attention. I prepared a short speech to deliver to my children and memorized it; I even bought extra handkerchiefs to mop up all the tears.

After dealing with the children I dealt with the local vicar who called in performance of his Christian duty, and I dealt with Winifred who by this time was well-nigh prostrated by her shock and grief. Having drafted the notices for The Times and the Daily Telegraph I wrote the innumerable necessary letters and decided which of Grace’s favourite hymns should be included in the funeral service. I was ceaselessly active. Sleep was shunned as far as possible because I was afraid of what might happen when I could no longer control my thoughts. From past experience I knew that if one wanted to preserve one’s sanity in adverse circumstances one had to ring down the metaphorical curtain in one’s mind in order to hide the horrors which had taken place onstage, and how could one be sure of keeping the curtain down once sleep had impaired one’s ability to play the stage manager?

After a while I realized that the curtain was trying to rise even when I was fully conscious, and I became engaged in a deadly struggle to keep it in place. It tried to rise when Christian stammered: ‘How could God have allowed such a dreadful thing to happen?’ and although I embarked on an answer I found I was unable to complete it as I would have wished. I did manage to say: ‘In a world where nothing bad ever happened we’d be mere puppets smiling at the end of manipulated strings,’ but then the curtain began to rise in earnest and I could not speak of the great freedom to be, to love and, inevitably, to suffer which made us not unfeeling puppets but human beings forever vulnerable to tragedy. Instead all I could say was: ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ as I struggled to nail my curtain to the ground.

But no sooner was the curtain back in place than Winifred was exclaiming in a burst of detestable feminine emotion: ‘Neville, you don’t deserve this – you were such a devoted husband, and everyone always said what a wonderful example you and Grace were of a truly Christian marriage!’

Once more the curtain started to rise and once more I managed to grab the hem before it could sail out of reach. I said woodenly: ‘Tragedy’s so difficult to discuss, isn’t it? Better not to try,’ and with a mighty effort of will I heaved the curtain down, but I was to have no respite. The curtain was developing a sinister life of its own.

‘Are you sure Mummy’s happy with Jesus?’ said Primrose. ‘No matter how nice Jesus is, I think she’d be happier with us,’ and a second later my nurse Tabitha was saying in 1909: ‘Your Pa’s gone to heaven to be with Jesus.’ Then in my memory I heard Willy cry outraged: ‘How dare he!’ while Emily asked: ‘When will Jesus let us have him back?’ A world had ended then and a world had ended now, the new tragedy eliding with all my most terrible memories as the curtain began to go up and up and up … But I hung on to the hem with my last ounce of strength and doggedly refused to let go.

The funeral service was held at St Martin’s-in-Cripplegate before the private interment at the cemetery, and when the Bishop himself offered to help I was spared the task of finding another clergyman to take the service I would have been unable to conduct. The ancient church, originally founded for the benefit of the workmen who were building the Cathedral, was packed with mourners, and the small graveyard too overflowed with those wishing to pay their respects.

The Bishop was superb. Dr Ottershaw had his episcopal shortcomings; as his Archdeacon I knew them better than anyone, but he was a good, decent man, and in his goodness and his decency his Christian message of hope lightened the darkness which must always surround the mystery of suffering. There were no sentimental clichés from Dr Ottershaw, only profound religious truths expressed with exquisite simplicity, and I felt not only relieved but grateful that my children were at last able to hear the message which my fear of emotional breakdown had prevented me from giving them.

It occurred to me that my disciple would have soaked at least one handkerchief as she listened to the Bishop, but of course I could not allow myself to think of Dido.

I glimpsed her before the service and she spoke to me afterwards, but only the briefest of conversations was possible. After the exchange of greetings she merely said: ‘I’ll write, I promise. I was too upset to write before,’ and as she disappeared I saw her eyes shone with tears. Perhaps she was merely feeling emotional in the wake of Dr Ottershaw’s address, but perhaps too she was temporarily overcome with all manner of ambiguous feelings.

After the concluding rites in the cemetery I continued to deal with everyone who required my attention until at last, much later, I found myself alone with my brother and sister in the vicarage kitchen as my curtain once more tried to rise. I was struggling fiercely with the hem but to my terror I realized it was sliding out of my grasp. I thought: I mustn’t look at the stage, can’t look, won’t look, no one can make me look. Then I suddenly realized I had spoken the words aloud. As Willy and Emily looked at me appalled I muttered: ‘Sorry. Mind wandering. Very tired,’ and covered my face with my hands.

Emily said drearily: ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

‘For God’s sake, woman!’ exploded Willy. ‘He’s already drunk enough of your tea to float Noah’s Ark! Neville, where the hell’s the bloody whisky?’

‘There isn’t any. I don’t drink spirits.’

‘Well, all I can say is it’s about time you started!’

‘Really, Will!’ said Emily scandalized. ‘What would Mother say if she were alive!’

I said: ‘I don’t want to talk about Mother.’

‘Neither do I,’ agreed Willy. ‘Let’s keep the old girl buried six feet deep or else I’m going to hit the bottle in the biggest possible way.’

‘Really, Will!’ said Emily again in her primmest voice. ‘How can you talk like that after what happened to Father!’

I said: ‘I don’t want to talk about Father.’

‘Good God, Em, you don’t believe all that bloody rubbish about Father dying of drink, do you? That was just a vile slander put out by Uncle Willoughby!’

Leaping to my feet I shouted: ‘I don’t want to talk about Uncle Willoughby!’ But then I collapsed in my chair and once more covered my face with my hands.

Willy said: ‘I’m going to the off-licence to buy some whisky.’

Emily said: ‘I’m going to make tea.’

Recognizing their desire to offer comfort I was soothed by their careful avoidance of emotion, and after a while I thought I was strong enough to drag down the curtain again. But I was wrong. I was so weak that I glanced at the stage first, and there waiting for me in 1909 was Uncle Willoughby, rich, robust and ruthless as he hitched up his coat-tails to warm his backside at the parlour fire. ‘… and I’ll not say one word against your father, poor miserable idle stupid fellow that he was, because it’s not right to speak ill of the dead, even when a weak selfish thoughtless fellow with a wife and three children has the intolerable effrontery to the in penury. So all I’ll say is this: if you two lads want to save yourselves from hell and damnation –’

‘Here’s your tea, Nev,’ said Emily in 1942.

‘– if you two lads want to save yourselves from hell and damnation,’ bawled Uncle Willoughby, outshouting her in 1909, ‘and save yourselves from the miserable fate of winding up a failure in a coffin before you’re forty, you’ll work and you’ll work and you’ll work until you’ve dug yourself out of this shameful black pit, and you’ll never forget – never as long as you live – that there’s only one road to salvation and that’s this: you’ve got to go chasing the prizes if you want to stay out of the coffin – you’ve got to go chasing the prizes if you want to be happy and safe – you’ve got to go chasing the prizes in order to Get On and Travel Far …’

‘Poor Nev,’ said Emily in 1942. ‘You can shed a tear if you like. I’ll look the other way and afterwards we can pretend it never happened.’

‘For God’s sake!’ I shouted and blundered out of the kitchen into my study. Willy arrived five minutes later with the whisky and banged on the door until I let him in.

‘Em driving you round the bend? How her husband stands all that tea I don’t know. What a mystery marriage is, but of course I’m just a bachelor schoolmaster who observes society’s mating customs from afar … Do you remember when you said to me on the beach at St Leonards all those years ago: “I’m going to marry the perfect girl and have the perfect family and live happily ever after”? I’d never even considered getting married, and yet there you were, seventeen years old, with that misty look in your eyes, the look of the dyed-in-the-wool romantic, the look Father always wore when he read us “The Charge of the Light Brigade” –’