Ultimate Prizes

by Susan Howatch

  “No, I can think of specific instances. For example, Emily and Willy were convinced that my parents’ marriage was a disaster, but I don’t remember it as a disaster at all. I remember my parents being happy, joking and laughing together. So I’m sure the view of a disastrous marriage must be false. Yet at the same time I can understand why Willy and Emily take this view. All the childbearing affected my mother’s health and she was capable of being a very demanding invalid. As for Father … well, he must have been a disappointment to her in some ways. She would have wanted a successful husband like Uncle Willoughby … So you have a situation where both partners of the marriage could have wound up unhappy—and maybe they did; maybe I’ve just blotted out what I don’t want to remember.”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe both views of the marriage are correct.”

  “How can they be?”

  “Even the happiest marriage can go through a miserable time. All right, can you give me another illustration of the paradox?”

  “The most striking illustration of all lies in the way we see Mother. She seems to be the point at which all three of us peel off into radically different camps.”

  “What about your Uncle Willoughby?”

  I shook my head. “No, I can reconcile our differing views of Uncle Will. I can understand why Emily sees him as a hero, and if I make a big effort I can even understand how Willy manages to see him as Falstaff, an old rogue instead of a complete villain. But as far as Mother’s concerned …” I lapsed into silence.

  “The views are irreconcilable.”

  “Completely. Here we have the triple paradox of the victim-villainess-heroine.”

  “Emily, I remember, sees her as the victim oppressed by men.”

  “Yes, and that’s rubbish! Mother was no one’s victim—she was tough as old boots!”

  “So you’re saying Willy was right and she was absolutely frightful.”

  “No, no, no—that was rubbish too! Mother was quite wonderful—very charming, very witty and a fascinating conversationalist. Where Emily and Willy go wrong is to see her as just a plain woman, too clever for her own good, who was only saved from a life of pitiable spinsterhood by a miracle. The truth about Mother—the real truth—is that for most of her life she had at least one of three men doting on her: Uncle Willoughby, my father and I myself. My mother,” I said firmly, “was a femme fatale.”

  “So was Lady Macbeth.”

  “Yes, but Willy’s drawn quite the wrong parallel by equating her with a literary villainess! I’d equate her with a literary heroine.”

  “What sort of literary heroine?” said Darrow interested. “I realise we can rule out Little Nell, Dora Copperfield and Amelia Sedley, but what about Catherine Earnshaw—or Elizabeth Bennet?”

  “No, no, no!” I said again impatiently. “You’re in the wrong era altogether—and quite the wrong country. My mother was like Hedda Gabler.”

  “Ah yes, of course!” exclaimed Darrow as if cross with himself for being so slow. “Willy’s female monster who was also Emily’s tragic victim!”

  “No, no, no!” I exclaimed for the third time. “The alluring femme fatale who had three men mesmerised!”

  “Yes, but all those views are true, aren’t they?” said Darrow. “Hedda Gabler was a monster and a victim and a femme fatale who had three men mesmerised.”

  I stared at him. “No,” I said at last. “That’s not right. Forget Hedda Gabler—she seems to have led us astray. My mother was not a victim. I insist that she was not a victim. And she was not a monster. I insist that she was not a monster. She was a femme fatale and I adored her and she adored me and we got on wonderfully well always—except when we had that little tiff in 1938, but that didn’t count, that was nothing, and we both agreed to treat the incident afterwards as if it had never happened—”

  “What did happen exactly?” said Darrow.

  “We had the kind of row that I’m sure goes on all the time up and down the country whenever a husband and wife take in an aged parent who’s capable of being very difficult. Anyway, never mind that now—forget it. My mother’s not important at the moment.”

  “Isn’t she?”

  “No. She’s not the one I’m in a muddle about—my relationship with her was perfectly straightforward. The person I’m in a muddle about is my father. Did he or did he not commit suicide?”

  “That question, I agree, is a crucial one.”

  “You do agree? Thank heavens for that! For a moment I thought you were turning Freudian and preparing to go on and on and on about my mother.”

  “I hope,” said Darrow urbanely, “I’d never go on and on and on about anybody’s mother. No, I too think that the first person you have to deal with here is your father, and I’ll tell you why: It’s because I’ve got a hunch that it’s the relationship with your father which is the straightforward one here.”

  “But how can you say that when I’ve tied myself up into such a knot over this suicide business?”

  “It’s because you’re tied up in this particular knot that I think we’re on promising ground. The knot can be easily cut by finding out how your father died.”

  “But surely—”

  “If I thought you were in a deeper muddle about your father, Aysgarth, I’d agree that cutting you free wouldn’t be so simple, but I suspect that this is the one place where you’ve got a solid grasp of reality. You’ve worked out, haven’t you, that you felt angry with your father for leaving you deliberately, and that it was this anger which prompted you to mould yourself in your uncle’s image; you know that if your father didn’t commit suicide you’ll not only be able to forgive him for leaving you in such desperate straits, but you’ll finally be able to live in harmony with his memory.”

  “Is that the point where I start living happily ever after?”

  “No, that’s the point where the real hard work will begin. As Aidan pointed out, you have to bring each one of those three people into harmony with yourself. You can’t just stop with your father. You’ll have to put yourself at ease with your mother and uncle as well.”

  “All right, there’s no difficulty about my mother, as I’ve already said, but if you think I could ever forgive Uncle Willoughby for sending me to that prison camp when I was seven years old and bullying me all through my adolescence—”

  “Let’s leave your uncle for the moment and concentrate on your father. Do you still have no doubt that he committed suicide, despite Willy’s profound disbelief?”

  “I’m very tempted to share that disbelief. But the trouble is that I’d always feel I never knew for certain, and unless I know for certain—”

  “How can you set about knowing for certain? How can you finally establish the truth here?”

  “No idea.” I tried to be constructive. “I suppose I could send a private detective up to Maltby to dig up the report of the inquest.”

  “Why not go up to Maltby yourself?”

  “Oh, I could never go back to Yorkshire.”

  “Yes,” said Darrow. “You told me that once before. I wondered then why you were so adamant and now I’m wondering again. There’s something up there that frightens you, isn’t there? Something very large and very terrifying which has to be kept nailed down under a very thick rug behind the heaviest curtain you can find.”

  I felt as if all the blood had been instantly drained from my body. Breathing was difficult, speech quite impossible.

  Darrow said idly: “He’s still alive, isn’t he? Yes, I thought he probably was. It occurred to me some time ago that he was the only one whose death you’ve never mentioned.”

  And as I stared at him in horrified fascination I realised I was face to face at last not with Darrow, that sinister magician who produced his terrible truths so effortlessly from his conjuror’s hat, but with Uncle Willoughby, eighty-two years old but apparently indestructible, outliving my father, outliving my mother, outliving all his friends, but still famous as the richest man in Maltby, still enjoying, so he had
boasted to Emily on his latest Christmas card, all the dazzling prizes he had won.

  PART THREE

  Salvation

  “The experience of the eternal with which this book is concerned … is unification by synthesis, the attainment of a new relationship by a fully integrated personality.”

  CHARLES E. RAVEN

  THE CREATOR SPIRIT

  17

  “Yet there are times in every man’s journey when he chooses his path in obedience less to the demands of his own nature than to a summons from without …”

  CHARLES E. RAVEN

  THE CROSS AND THE CRISIS

  1

  “IF YOU THINK FOR ONE MOMENT,” I SAID TO DARROW, “that I’m ever going to go within fifty miles of that man, you’re out of your mind.”

  “But didn’t Aidan establish that although you fiercely resented your uncle for many good reasons you also had a sneaking affection for the old boy? How has Willy’s Falstaff become your Count Dracula?”

  Unable to reply I sat trembling in my chair.

  “If you did see him again,” said Darrow at last in his calmest voice, “what do you think he’d do?”

  “Kill me.”

  “Oh yes? What a splendid story for the popular press! ‘Archdeacon Slain by Old-Age Pensioner—Ex-Mayor Exacts Revenge!’ ”

  “Darrow, this is a serious matter!”

  “That’s exactly why I’m trying to expose the absurdity of your statement. Of course the old boy’s not going to kill you! How old is he? Seventy-five? Eighty? Old boys of that age are delighted when someone unexpected turns up to reminisce about the past!”

  “Not this old boy. Not after what happened between us when I told him I was going into the Church.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood you, but I was under the impression he adjusted splendidly to the fact that you weren’t going to be Prime Minister after all. Didn’t he immediately picture you as Archbishop of York and start planning his first visit to Bishopthorpe?”

  “Yes, it was intolerable. I couldn’t bear the way he converted my call into just another race for the prizes. All I wanted to do was reject him and his whole way of life.”

  “But you’d slaved for years to win his love and approval—”

  “Exactly. I’d at last worked myself into a position where I could pay him back for all the suffering he’d caused me.”

  “Ah yes,” said Darrow, “of course. I think I understand now. The real prize was revenge, wasn’t it?”

  This statement, spoken in a manner which was devoid of criticism, came as an extraordinary relief. I felt the burden of explanation had been lifted from my shoulders; I felt I had been saved the horror of having to speak the unspeakable.

  “So the moment finally arrived when you could tear up his love and approval and fling them in his face,” mused Darrow. “And something tells me he wasn’t the sort of man who’d meekly turn the other cheek when faced with that kind of behaviour.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He hit me.”

  “I’m not surprised. I don’t suppose you were surprised either, were you?”

  “No. I’d deliberately provoked him into hitting me so that I could hit him back.”

  “It must have been quite a fight. And did you feel better afterwards?”

  “Better!” I stopped staring down at my writhing hands and gazed at him incredulously. “I was a young man who’d decided to be a clergyman. I’d had too much to drink—but not just to steady my nerves. I’d wanted to rev myself up. But all I succeeded in doing was letting my demon burst out of his strait-jacket and take control of me. I said cruel things, things no Christian should even think, let alone utter, and once I started hitting him—”

  “You enjoyed it.”

  “My demon enjoyed it. But once I’d got him back in his strait-jacket I was appalled by what had happened. It wasn’t just that I felt sickened and polluted by the demon—I felt frightened of him, frightened of what he might do in the future. I did feel safer once I was able to wear a clerical uniform—it was like a suit of armour protecting me—but periodically I used to relive that fight with Uncle Willoughby in my dreams and then he’d be killing me or I’d be killing him—”

  “No wonder you never dared go near him again.”

  “Oh, another meeting would have been quite impossible. I was so afraid that if we met again—”

  “—the demon would burst out of his straitjacket and reclaim you. Yes, this demon will have to be exorcised, there’s no doubt about that, and the way to exorcise him is not, I’m afraid, to continue saying: ‘I can never go back to Yorkshire.’ You’ve got to give yourself a chance to set down this massive burden of fear.”

  “But I can’t see my uncle again, I can’t! You don’t understand—such a meeting’s quite unimaginable!”

  “Oh, I think one could imagine a safe little scene without too much trouble. Why not turn up on his doorstep and say something harmless, such as ‘Hullo’?”

  “But what would I say next? What makes you think my demon wouldn’t take over?”

  “What makes you think he would? It seems far more probable to me that the demonic force was in fact expended in that fight all those years ago. If it hadn’t been expended I think that you’d have felt driven to seek him out and beat him up all over again.”

  After a pause I said: “I hadn’t thought of that.” There was another pause while I thought about it gingerly, doubtfully, fearfully, but was unable to reach any conclusion.

  “It also seems probable to me,” said Darrow at last, “that what you’re most frightened of at present is actually not the demon of violence. I know he’s currently giving you hell, but nevertheless you do have him under lock and key. I think what’s really got you paralysed here is the demon of guilt.”

  I did not answer.

  “Your uncle made bad mistakes,” said Darrow, “but he also did a great deal for you.”

  Still I remained silent.

  “Guilt can be a terrible demon,” said Darrow. “It can cripple, crush and destroy. But no demon is beyond exorcism.”

  “This one is.” I shivered again. “I can’t see Uncle Willoughby, not now, not ever. Better to keep the curtain down and the rug in place and—”

  “Aysgarth,” said Darrow, “we all have our demons which have to be fought and vanquished. But the way to vanquish them is not to let them crowd you into such a tight corner that all you can do is crouch down and shudder with fear. You’ve got to straighten your back, beat your demons to pulp and march to freedom over their corpses.”

  I exclaimed startled: “That’s a violent metaphor!”

  “It’s time to stoke up that fighting spirit of yours, which is going to save you.”

  I sat shuddering with cowardice in my chair, but Darrow refused to give up. Leaning forward he said urgently: “Think of the father who loved you, Aysgarth! Don’t you owe it to him to find out exactly how he died? And think of Professor Raven talking of unity! Do you really want to spend the rest of your life as a collection of warring fragments?”

  I slid my tongue around my lips and listened to my heart thumping. At last I heard myself say: “If I turn up on his doorstep he’ll slam the door in my face.”

  “Why should he? Why shouldn’t he too want to talk honestly about the past? He’s an old man at the end of his life, and such people often have a powerful need to pass their past on to the next generation.”

  “I can’t imagine him talking to me,” I said, “and I can’t imagine myself talking to him.”

  “Well, that’s easily remedied. Let’s ring him up.”

  “Ring him up?”

  “Yes, why not? Once you’ve spoken a few words and arranged a meeting, you’ll have brought him out of the Count Dracula myth and into reality—with the result that he’ll be much easier to face. I’ll talk to the operator and find out the number for you. What’s his surname?”

  “I can remember the number. But Darrow—”

  “Let’s adjourn to the telephone
in the library.” He stood up but when I remained seated he grasped the back of my chair and leant over me. “Come on, Aysgarth! Isn’t Truth the ultimate prize here? And isn’t it at this moment the prize you want to win more than any other prize on earth?”

  Wordlessly I levered myself to my feet and staggered after him into the library.

  2

  “All the Maltby numbers now have four digits,” said the operator drearily five minutes later. “Mr. Stoke’s number has been changed to double-six-two-five.”

  “Thank you.” Unable to stand any longer I sank down in the chair behind the library table and listened to the bell ringing at the other end of the line. I had just opened my mouth to say to Darrow: “He’s probably in bed,” when the receiver was removed from the hook and a woman’s voice said peevishly: “Mr. Stoke’s residence.”

  I thought this sounded more like a housekeeper than my cousin Mercy. “I’d like to speak to him, please.”

  “He’s not here.” The Yorkshire accent was heavy and dour. “He’s gone with Miss Mercy on his holiday to Brighton.”

  “Brighton!”

  “It’s a seaside resort in the South.”

  I managed to say: “I need to see him urgently. Whereabouts in Brighton is he staying?”

  “The Metropole Hotel.”

  “Thank you,” I said, replacing the receiver, and sagged back, almost unconscious with emotion, in my chair.

  “So once again you’re saved a trip to Yorkshire!” said Darrow mildly, keeping the conversation at a calm, prosaic level. “And of course there’s a good train service to Brighton from Starmouth via Southampton and Chichester. You can stay the night here and set off early tomorrow morning.”

  All I could say was: “I can’t quite think how I’m going to tell my sister-in-law I won’t be home tonight.”

  “Leave her to me,” said Darrow.

  I left her. I was unable to take in what he said. I was almost unconscious with emotion again.