The Alteration

by Kingsley Amis

  'Sei ruhig, Wolfgang!'

  Tobias, with Hubert's hand in his, was making for the door, but Viaventosa, waddling to and fro, impeded him. 'No altering, please, for your son.' His voice slid further up the scale. 'See me like this. Hear me speak, like a woman, like a child. No wife, no friend but another altered one. They see me and they hear me and they think, "Not a man, not a man." All, all, all. Always. Cberall.' He went on, louder, weeping freely, as Mirabilis tried to pull him away. 'See my face. No hair.' He made a contemptuous wiping gesture across his fuzzy upper lip. 'They laugh. I don't see them but I know. They laugh or they...' He imitated the act of vomiting. 'Think you, master, your son will be like me. Not a man. Hubert must not be altered, for the love of God.'

  The green-leather door slammed. Hubert saw that there was more in his father's expression than embarrassment or revulsion. He was about to ask him not to hold his hand so tightly when something amazing happened: in a yard outside a house in Rome, while hundreds of the people passed by and others in ones and twos stopped to watch, Master Tobias Anvil of the London Chamber of Merchandry knelt down on the cobbles in his thirty-shilling breeches and clasped his son in his arms.

  'What is it, papa?'

  'God aid me, God send my soul tranquillity. Pray for me, Hubert. Pray to Christ to take from my memory what I have seen and heard.'

  'Yes, papa. It was rather displeasing.'

  Tobias's embrace grew tighter. 'Oh Christ, I pray Thee to take away from this child, Thy child, that sight and those words. Oh Hubert, how should I bear it that you should become such a creature as that?'

  'He's old, papa, and he's silly, and he was piling it up—surely you could see—, and he'd most likely have looked the same whether he'd been altered or not, or much the same. The other was very different, not only in his looks.'

  Releasing his son, Tobias sat back on his heels. He made no move to stand up, heedless or even unaware of the small talkative crowd that had gathered a few yards off. He seemed calmer when he said, 'What can ever make me able to drive that voice from my ears? I must find a priest tonight to pray with me. Oh God, where am I now to find the strength to endure what will be done to this child of mine?'

  'Will be done?'

  'Because endure it I must.'

  Hubert looked down at the top of his father's bowed head.

  After supper that night, as arranged earlier, Sebastian Morley and Father Dilke attended Abbot Thynne in his parlour. He offered them brown sherry, which Morley accepted and Dilke declined, then picked up a strip of newspaper from the marble top of his writing-table. His face was grave.

  'This comes to me from my old friend Ayer at New College. As Professor of Dogmatic Theology he must see the Observator Romanus daily: it reaches him every afternoon. My New Latin is not of the best, I admit to you, but the core of the matter is clear. His Holiness will receive—will by now have received—Hubert and his father on purpose to confer on Hubert's future.'

  'And tomorrow we'll read that Hubert, with his father's, more than willing sanction, is shortly to take up a high post in one of the choirs there, probably that of St Peter's.' Morley sounded unconcerned, almost bored. 'The Vicar of Christ is a diplomatist. This is his means of countering the complaint that he considers too little the wishes of those he calls to Rome. Nobody will be deceived, but the form's important.'

  Dilke stood gazing towards the tapestry, his hands clasped in front of him. He said heavily, 'So Hubert is lost to us.'

  'I'm sorry for you, Father,' said Morley in the same tone as before. 'But Hubert has been lost to us for some time.'

  'Why must His Holiness do this?' The Abbot seemed not to have heard the last remark: he was as near anger as the other two had ever seen him. 'It's acknowledged that he has no ear for music, no...'

  'He has an excellent ear for what folk tell him of the best performers in any craft. Anvil's going to the Vatican was inevitable as soon as the Pope heard of him. I knew it was only a question of time, and when you told me, my lord, that Mirabilis and Viaventosa were to attend our late King's funeral, I knew the time was here. Why does an opera singer come from Rome to attend a requiem mass in England? Why does an elderly chapelmaster make his first visit to our country on the same occasion? And how is it that two such men, even though foremost in their function, gain entry to St George's among princes and spiritual lords? Because they do the Pope the same service as they do you, my lord.'

  'Sebastian: you said nothing of this.'

  'I feared I might have said too much when the two came here to sup, and had to plead melancholia. Oh, I was bitter then. But no more. I said nothing later because I could see no purpose in speaking.'

  'Did you make the same surmise, Father?'

  Dilke hesitated, blinking rapidly and avoiding Morley's eye. 'I was perplexed for a little, my lord, but then my attention was diverted to matters of more immediacy.'

  'I suppose I must believe it,' said the Abbot after a pause. 'I thought... Hearing that Mirabilis was in Coverley, I thought to renew an old friendship and at the same time grasp what appeared a heaven-sent opportunity to hear two such competent advisers. It grieves me that Fritz played such a part before me, before us all.'

  Morley gave a short laugh. 'What would you have had him do, my lord? Tell us of his commission from the Pope, or refuse to answer your inquiry?'

  'It might have been more honourable in him to decline my invitation.'

  'And disappoint you, sir, and deny himself an evening in your company and at your table? For what good? Nothing would be changed. No, Mirabilis is no worse than most of us, and he has more wit than many. He sees that in our world a man does what he's told, goes where he's sent, answers what he's asked. And, after seeing that, one is free.'

  There was a longer pause. A bell pealed; further off, a cow lowed; in the courtyard, three or four voices, excited and yet under restraint, moved into hearing and died away in a distant corner. Morley refilled his sherry-glass and remained standing. As gently as he could, he said, 'At any rate, my lord, this removes one difficulty. Anvil's alteration is no longer any concern of yours.'

  'How not so?'

  'It attaches to the Pope now. Since he must have Anvil, let him have too the task of rendering him fit to carry out his duties. It would be a remarkable obstacle that His Holiness couldn't surmount.'

  'He shall not have Anvil. I'll take steps to prevent him.'

  'Steps? What steps, my lord?'

  'I'll form a design. More of that later. However it may fall out, at least Hubert is not to be altered in Rome. It's not to be thought of.'

  Morley said with some pity and more exasperation, 'My lord, the foremost surgeons alive are in Rome.'

  'I don't doubt it, Sebastian; this isn't a question of surgeons but of Hubert's feeling. Consider that alteration is a...'

  'My lord Abbot means,' said Father Dilke, stepping forward, his hands still clasped, 'that Hubert's a child, and in some proportion our child too. For him to be altered in a foreign land, among foreigners, however deft and considerate, would be intolerable. Both before and after the action he'll need his family round him, his friends and fellow-clerks, and all of us. It must take place here in England, in the name of God's mercy.'

  'Anvil's feeling was never mentioned before,' said Morley.

  'Before, there was no occasion,' answered Dilke. 'Before, everything was to follow in due course.'

  Morley nodded briefly, as one acknowledging a point of minor interest. There came a gentle tap at the door and the grey-clad figure of Lawrence entered the room. With the un-obtrusiveness of a well-trained servant, he made up the fire and replaced a guttering candle while his betters continued to talk.

  'Then that difficulty of yours remains, my lord,' said Morley. 'This chaplain to Master Anvil—this Father Lyall, who refused to put his name to the document permitting the boy's alteration. The last I heard, he still refuses.'

  'Indeed he does, out of nothing more admirable than obstinacy and the enjoyment of some brief
influence over matters beyond his proper scope.' The Abbot was close to anger again, though he spoke with all his usual deliberation. 'Father Lyall is puffed up with pride of the most dangerous sort; I mean the sort that works in heretics and apostates, and in mutineers too. It confounds me—I might go so far as to say it outrages my sense of the fitness of things that, for all I know, he's never yet run foul of those in authority; it confounds me hardly less that so zealous a Christian as Master Anvil should hold him in his employ. I've no power to command his obedience, but if I had I should remind him of his duty in the most forcible terms.'

  'Forgive me, my lord,' said Lawrence, who had finished his tasks—'do you require anything more of me?'

  'No thank you, Lawrence. You may go to bed.'

  Dilke turned solicitously to the Abbot. 'It'll all come right, I'm quite certain. At the worst, Master Anvil will simply eject Lyall and obtain someone less self-willed. As you say, my lord, Anvil is a zealous Christian and he knows what he's under obligation to do: he wouldn't let a wretch of that petty mark stand against him. If it goes so far. We have three clear days yet; I predict that Lyall will submit at the latest moment. And the action can after all be easily postponed. All will be well, my lord. Or rather, that much will be. Heed my forecast.'

  Lawrence had long left the parlour, and he made a point of never listening at doors, so he heard nothing of this speech of Dilke's, nor of the Abbot's thanks for the reassurance it offered. He went straight to his room, which was small but perhaps surprisingly comfortable, brought out ink-stylus and paper and wrote a letter in a hand that was, again, better formed than might have been expected. After addressing the cover to The Lord Stansgate, The Holy Office, The Broad Arrow Tower, London, he sealed the packet, put on his hat, walked over to the stables, took out the horse that went with his position as the Abbot's principal servant, and rode through the moonlight across to Coverley railtrack station, arriving there in plenty of time to put his letter on the midnight rapid.

  The next day was pleasantly mild, though thick clouds shut out the sun. Tobias Anvil returned home in the early afternoon, briefly divulged the news from Rome and, having eaten aboard the train, left again almost at once, in a hurry to reach his counting-house and set about undoing the errors that must have been made there in the day and a half of his absence. By that time, Hubert was three parts of the way back to Coverley, alone in the cabin he had shared with his father; the servant who had accompanied them to Rome sat at the rear of the baruch, ready to escort him to St Cecilia's. Anthony, at his hospital, was attending to instruction on the use of opiates in the treatment of cholera. Margaret Anvil and Father Matthew Lyall moved slowly round the garden at Tyburn Road. They were two or three yards apart, far enough to prevent them from falling into each other's arms without thought.

  Margaret looked at the flowers and shrubs, and Lyall looked at Margaret. She seemed to him more beautiful than ever before, whether because his feeling for her had induced him to see her differently, or because her happiness had made her indeed more beautiful, or the two together, he neither knew nor cared. He studied her hands and arms, her healthy skin and straight mouth, thinking he would never tire of the sight. Recent memories, intense yet vague, ran through his mind. The question of what was to become of him and her suddenly raised itself and he shut his eyes. Though he made no other movement and no sound, she turned her head in one of her quick glances.

  'Such a night it was, dearest Matthew. How many times have I said that?'

  'Perhaps a hundred. A long way short of enough.'

  'Will there ever be another?'

  'There must be. I don't know how, but there must be.'

  'When Tobias dismisses you, as he will very soon, I know it, I saw it in his eye in the few minutes he was here today—when he dismisses you, where will you go?'

  'Not far. No further than I must.'

  'I wish you could take me with you.'

  'If I did, you'd never see Hubert again.'

  'Ah, I'd forgotten poor Hubert for it must have been three minutes. What's to become of him now that he's to go to Rome? Do they mean to alter him there or...? I don't understand.'

  'Nor I, in full. But, for the moment, if you saw what you thought you saw in Tobias then, it would look as if the original design is being held to; he would have no reason to dismiss me otherwise. And the Pope must prefer the action to be in England. Our overlords enjoy the appearance of humanity, so long as their ease isn't hurt. Yes, perhaps I can hold them off a little longer.'

  'The three of us must escape together.'

  'Escape? The ends of the earth are too near for that.'

  'Nearer yet, Matthew. Only to New England.'

  'That you've said more often than enough. Fine incomers we should be there: a Romish priest and his woman and her son. Oh, their discipline isn't ours, but it's strict enough. And how should we ever gain an exeat? And to try to leave without one would be lunatic. We'd be taken and shut away for ever. At best. Now please walk on. Even the pantry-boy, seeing us like this, would know that you and I are not a lady and her spiritual counsellor. Which puts me in mind. When will you visit Father Raymond?'

  'Never, that I can think of. Why should I go? He'll call on me to repent and to cease from sinning. I can't repent and I won't cease from sinning. Finis.'

  'Finis too to your expectation of heaven, Margaret. Like mine, your soul is in mortal danger.'

  'Twaddle-I don't mean to die until the century's out. I'll repent at leisure. Of which I'm apt to have all I need. And when were you last confessed?'

  'That's of" no import. You must go to Father Raymond and try to obtain absolution. You must try to repent, at least.' Something lifeless had entered Lyall's tone. 'The pleasure you take in sinning is an index of the gravity of the sin. The more irresistible the repetition of the offence, the more certainly we know that we are doing Satan's work. The act of repentance...'

  He stopped speaking as if he could not go on. Her sudden look into his eyes held curiosity and a shade of horror.

  'Matthew: you believe in God and His Son and Our Lady and all the saints and the blessed martyrs? And the authority of the Holy Father and the—'

  'Of course. Of course I do.'

  'Will you swear?'

  Now the priest's gaze grew lifeless. 'No,' he said at length.

  'Then you don't believe after all?'

  'No. I used to, quite unquestioningly and unheedingly, until the other day.'

  'What happened the other day?'

  'I found I'd begun to love you as you love me. The Church holds without the slightest equivocation that everything you and I do together is a sin. I know that to be false. Therefore...', 'Oh, Matthew, I've taken your faith from you.'

  'I have you instead of it. It's a fair exchange. But that won't do for you, dearest Margaret. I may be in error, and although I'll face the consequences to myself I can't permit you to come within a million miles of damnation. If there's anything to be safe from, save yourself. Go to Father Raymond.'

  There was silence, apart from birdsong and the hum of bees. Whatever vehicles might have been passing along Tyburn Road, their sound did not carry to the two in the garden. Margaret reached forward and lightly grasped a red rose. Then she said, 'Love works changes, doesn't it? When they first let me know Hubert was to be altered, I was no more than a doting mother anxious to protect her child from anything that might possibly cause him the least distress. Now I mean all that I said before.'

  'I know, and I understand, and my feeling is the same as yours.'

  She looked at him, not in passing as she usually did, but steadily. Her breathing quickened. 'Matthew.'

  'No, Margaret.'

  'Yes. Nothing would bring Tobias back early from his counting-house after being away from it yesterday and this morning. Go to your room. I'll tell the steward I visit my milliner. I'll come to you in five minutes. Go now.'

  Lyall went to his room. As he stood motionless by the bed, his body was filled with an excitement tha
t was also the deepest calm he had ever known. After a minute, there was a knock at the door. He was mildly surprised.

  'Come.'

  Two strangers entered. They were men in their thirties dressed in black jacket and breeches, both garments piped in scarlet. The left sleeve of each carried the scarlet, black and white bracciata of the Secular Arm.

  'Father Lyall?' The speaker wore eyeglasses and had a cultivated accent. His tone and manner were cold without being in the least discourteous.

  'I am he, master,' said the priest, squaring his shoulders. 'How can I serve you?'

  'Officer. Officer, not master. I am Officer Foot. My colleague here is Officer Redgrave.' There were appreciable, regular pauses between the sentences. 'How can you serve us? Very simply. There's a document that requires your signature. You refuse to affix it. Tell us why.'

  'How can that be your concern? Officer.' As soon as the words were out, Lyall cursed his own foolishness. Bewilderment at this irruption, simple fright, and agitated speculation about who it could be that had informed the Tower of his recalcitrance (surely not Anvil?) had between them caused him to play for time when time was what he had least of: Margaret must arrive at any moment and he had, he realised, no idea how she would respond to unforeseen danger—for danger it was. If either of them were to let fall a hint of the terms they were on, both would be vulnerable to a charge of SU (Suspicion of Unchastity), which, having been close to attachment on such a charge more than once in the past, he knew carried a standard penalty of eight years' purification.

  With just a hint of weariness, Redgrave had said, 'Where were you hatched, Father? Surely you must know that everything is our concern. Now do as Officer Foot tells you, and if you've any craft you'll do so at once, on the spot, rather than a little later, down at the Tower.'

  The interval gave Lyall time to steady himself and to start thinking. 'Your indulgence, officers: I was surprised to see you. I expected Dame Anvil, my master's wife, whose confession I'm to hear.'

  'In this room of yours?' asked Foot flatly.

  'Of course. The luxury of the house doesn't conduce to the spirit of devotion that's needful.'