The High Flyer

by Susan Howatch

  “And talking of manipulation, I must confess that I still have my doubts about this breakdown of his. It’s a subject we’ve never touched on in our conversations, so I’m still free to voice an opinion, and my opinion, frankly, is that the breakdown couldn’t have been more convenient. It allowed him to avoid the police while they were establishing there was no forensic evidence to prove either that Sophie was murdered or that he was the murderer, and when they were finally allowed to tiptoe into the hospital to talk to him in the presence of a doctor, it ensured the questioning was low-key. Also, the breakdown virtually guaranteed that any charge relating to Eric’s injury would be dropped, and when you eventually discuss that final scene in your flat it will enable Kim to say to you: ‘I’m sorry, but I was out of my mind and not responsible for my actions.’

  “I can see you’re trying to calculate how likely it is that he’s fooled all the doctors, but the first thing to remember is that he might not have done; when a group takes some time to reach a verdict, this usually means there’s at least one dissenting voice. The second thing to remember is that Kim’s a clever man with exceptional lying skills. It would be difficult for him to deceive the doctors, but not, I think, impossible.

  “Well, my dear—well, Carter, I have to end by saying I could be wrong to be so suspicious. I do get things wrong, of course. The first thing I said to Nicholas years ago when I was training him to use his psychic gifts properly was: ‘Look in the mirror and say to yourself: “I CAN BE WRONG!” ’ So I must now say ‘I CAN BE WRONG,’ but one thing at least I can add with confidence: Kim desperately wants to be reconciled to you. This desire, I’m convinced, is genuine, and perhaps it steers us closer to the unvarnished truth of the situation than all these unpleasant suspicions I’ve been voicing . . .”

  XVIII

  After a tormented night I went to see Val in her office at the Healing Centre to request stronger sleeping pills, and in less than a minute I found myself confessing that Lewis’s suspicions had given me insomnia.

  “Listen,” said Val kindly when I ground to a halt, “dear old Lewis is a great priest in many ways, and I’m sure we’re all grateful to him for his past influence on Nick, who’s truly exceptional, but Lewis has no medical training; he just thinks that his stint as a chaplain at that mental hospital thirty years ago gives him the expertise to diagnose the mentally ill and issue all kinds of dubious comments. He should never have said what he did to you! I must have a word with Nick and get him to rein the old boy in.

  “Yes, I know Lewis did stress to you that he could be wrong, but that’s exactly why he’s so naughty! He seems to think that if he repeats the words ‘I CAN BE WRONG’ often enough, this will make it all right for him to adopt his favourite role—the maverick—and spout all kinds of wacky theories. You should hear him holding forth on the causes of homosexuality! But as I’m gay I’m naturally going to be seething.

  “The trouble is that when people get old they tend to become exaggerated versions of themselves—well, I don’t want to biff Lewis too hard; I’m sure I’ll be exaggerated as hell by the time I’m nearly seventy, but in Lewis’s case the exaggeration is having the effect of converting him from an eccentric maverick into a loose cannon. Look at the way he blew the end of that scene in your flat when Eric got stabbed! All right, I know Nick’s determined to take responsibility—‘the buck stops here’ and all that—but let’s face it, what actually happened? Lewis blasts along, gives Mayfield an earful that no woman in her right mind would stand, least of all a lethal old vixen addicted to mayhem, and wham! The whole scene explodes with disastrous results. Gil Tucker was absolutely incandescent when I met him later at the hospital—I’ve never seen him so angry, but of course he and Lewis have been at daggers drawn for years over the gay issue.

  “But I’m digressing. Or am I? No, I’m not—I think you should understand all that about Lewis so that you can put his evaluation of Kim in the right context. The common-sense, down-to-earth truth is that the doctors at the Maudsley jolly well know which end is up. They’ve been working with Kim now for some time and he’s made excellent progress—so excellent that he’ll be discharged soon, although I’m sure the doctors will want him to continue as an out-patient for a few months to guard against a relapse. Certainly my instinct is to trust their judgement. But I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’m a doctor.

  “Okay, let me put the old professional blinkers aside for a moment and admit it is possible to fake illness successfully. Any doctor who’s read up Münchhausen’s syndrome knows that, but if I were faking mental illness I wouldn’t try to do it at the Maudsley, which is stuffed with experts on mental health. Yes, the doctors were divided for a time about the diagnosis—but that’s not uncommon, particularly in this sort of case. Kim seemed genuinely ill to me after the stabbing, and in fact I thought he was showing signs of schizophrenia, but I’m not a psychiatrist and I hope my ego isn’t so big that I can’t acknowledge my limitations. When the Maudsley doctors finally reached agreement I for one had no trouble accepting their expert diagnosis—and Lewis shouldn’t have had trouble either.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said—could you . . . oh yes, you think it’s unlikely that a tough-guy like Kim would crack, but try this scenario; it’s the one Nick and I favour as it’s consistent with both our disciplines.

  “As we see it, Kim had a difficult upbringing which left deep fissures in his personality, but thanks to the benign British stepfather he was able to paper over the cracks and move on to function well in adult life. This meant one could meet Kim and get to know him well without realising that his personality was actually quite fragile.

  “Our theory is that when he became mega-successful and began moving in an exceptionally high-powered world, his personality, always fragile, began to crumble under stress and he resorted to various ways of keeping it glued together. But unfortunately using sex as a cure for deep-seated emotional problems is no more a long-term solution than drink or drugs are—the sufferer just comes to need a bigger and bigger fix.

  “Nick would say Kim was worshipping the wrong gods when he went down this self-destructive route and that he needed a different world-view in order to repair the damage. Now, there are many ways of looking at Christianity, but from a medical point of view I feel it’s about integration, about developing and ordering the personality in such a way that you live the richest possible life. (I’m talking about real Christianity now, of course, not the genteel, bloodless Christianity which the media love to slag off.) It’s interesting to me as a scientist to see how—okay, I can sense you’re thinking this is irrelevant, but I promise you it’s not. I’m chugging back in a straight line to Kim.

  “The Christian process looks like this: you centre yourself on the concept of a loving, creative God, and if you’re centred correctly, this alignment somehow produces visible beneficial results—it enables you to turn outwards to help other people while at the same time it balances you inwardly so that you can fulfil your human potential. It’s a very healing process, particularly for those who aren’t well integrated.

  “Our theory is that Kim picked the wrong form of healing for his emotional problems, and that Mayfield finally shattered his fragile personality. However, with the right medical help there’s no reason why the personality shouldn’t be reassembled, and with the right spiritual help alongside the right medical help Kim could well be on his way to a new life and a much healthier existence.

  “Oh, and talking of mental health, can I just state firmly that Kim’s not a psychopath? The sociopath (to use the modern term) can’t relate to people properly, but Kim seems to relate to you—yes, I know he did a lot wrong, but his emotions seem to be normal here, they’re the sort of emotions which husbands who love their wives do display. Frankly I think Lewis’s nightmare that Kim could be a super-cunning villain is way over the top and doesn’t fit the clinical picture of Kim at all.

  “Does the marriage have a future? Well, I think you should take a l
ook at Kim in a controlled environment with other people present—at least dear old Lewis got that right! At the moment all your fears and anxieties are clubbing together to promote a horrific image which probably doesn’t have much connection with reality, and if you were to see him again you might well be pleasantly surprised and enormously relieved. Whether the marriage is ultimately viable remains to be seen, but I do hope the two of you can make it back together again because personally I think marriage is a great institution. I just wish the Church sanctioned it for gays . . .”

  XIX

  “Right,” said Robin when I kept my appointment with him that morning at eleven o’clock. “I can see you’re now strong enough to grapple with the reality of Kim’s approaching discharge from hospital. But unfortunately I can’t answer these questions you’re posing about his true nature and the future of the marriage because they require from me some kind of psychological evaluation, and as Kim and I have never met, any opinion I might put forward about his psychology is professionally worthless. But what I can do, if you like, is to highlight some areas which you might find helpful to consider.

  “Okay? Fine. The first area I’d like to focus on is Kim’s early life. You said he seemed to hate his parents, but this is fairly unusual. Even if one’s parents drive one to drink there’s usually, in normal people, a deep connectedness which justifies the old saying ‘blood is thicker than water.’ In fact a person can feel this deep connectedness even with the most frightful parents, so if Kim shows no sign of connectedness, this could be a marker of abnormality.

  “The second area I’d like to focus on is his sex life. There seems to be a discrepancy here—and I’m not talking about the impotence which led him to seek Mrs. Mayfield’s help many years ago; I find it plausible that although his guilt about Sophie reduced him to impotence he eventually recovered. I’m talking about the discrepancy between the sex life he must have been leading directly before he met you and the sex life you and he have shared together. In Mrs. Mayfield’s group he would probably have participated in a wide range of activities on both sides of the traditional line which marks the perverted from the normal, yet you’ve told me that apart from the last time he made love to you he was very straightforward in bed; you said what a relief that was to you, and of course I quite understood because in this era of no-holds-barred sex-romps the most degrading behaviour is passed off as normal, particularly on the singles scene. I do a lot of counselling with casualties in that area.

  “But what was the real explanation behind Kim’s restraint with you? I find it odd that he’s been so unadventurous. Maybe stress did affect his sex-drive, just as he says, but macho men love to show off their macho skills. Which reminds me: what exactly was it about that final bedroom scene which enabled macho man to show off his skills at last?

  “And this leads me to the third area I’d like to focus on: how does Kim see you? What do you represent to him? We know he loves you, but is this a realistic or a romantic love? I must say at once that romantic love is commonly found among all types of extremely normal people, but from a psychological point of view it does involve a distortion, a projection on the beloved of qualities which may not be there at all. Is Kim seeing a projection or is he seeing the real you? He may be sincere in saying he loves you and it may be the real you that he loves, but if he’s in love with a projection, that could cast a dubious light on the situation, particularly when one remembers that the dark side of romantic love is neurotic obsession.

  “The fourth area I’d like to focus on is Kim’s talent as a liar. Lewis fastened on this but seems not to have considered that there are different types of liars, some normal and some abnormal. At one end of the range are the people who tell a fib every now and then, usually so as not to hurt someone or to smooth over an awkward social situation. In the middle of the range there are both people who lie because they can’t cope with some particular reality and people who lie because they can’t cope with reality in general. And at the extreme end of the range there are abnormal people for whom lying is a way of life—they lie for fun, they lie to get what they want, they lie because truth is unimportant to them. What kind of a liar is Kim?

  “We know he’s been lying to cover up certain facts, but this isn’t unusual; many normal people do this, particularly respectable people who slip up and then can’t admit to others that they’re in a jam. But Kim’s lying seems more extensive. In order to live a double life with Sophie for years he must have developed a talent for lying to the back teeth. Does this talent indicate abnormality? Maybe this still doesn’t put him in the same league as the sociopath Mrs. Mayfield, for whom lying is clearly as natural as breathing, but it could nonetheless represent a substantial problem.

  “I point all this out as an alternative to the two current explanations of Kim’s behaviour: the explanation that he’s a sociopath and the explanation that he’s normal but temporarily sick. It’s possible that he’s not a sociopath yet not normal either; the Maudsley doctors would be right to diagnose no serious mental illness, but even so the word ‘normal’ wouldn’t stretch far enough to cover him. This is where the concept of spiritual sickness would become particularly relevant, but I’m not qualified to talk about that. Suffice it to say that in the shadowy borderland between the mad and the bad, there are cases which orthodox medicine finds difficult to treat and heal.

  “And talking of shadowy borderlands, the final area I want to focus on concerns a point which the priests don’t seem to have picked up: the death of the blackmailer after falling under a train. There are cases which show it’s possible to will someone to death—the evidence is clear among tribes such as the Aborigines, and cases have also been reported in the Western world. It’s like an inverted form of prayer; instead of wishing people well, you wish them ill. It works on the power of suggestion, and human beings are very suggestible. Is it possible that Mrs. Mayfield took care of both the blackmailer and Sophie for Kim by willing them to death? Far-fetched, you say? Out of the question? But think of your own vulnerability to Mrs. Mayfield’s suggestions! In high-stress circumstances even the most balanced and sophisticated people can be brainwashed into acting out of character, and I think it’s interesting that Mrs. Mayfield should be attracted to such a malign form of mind control; it certainly makes one wonder what Kim’s been getting up to during all the years of his association with her.

  “Well, those are the areas I want to highlight, the areas which I think might repay further reflection as you sort out your thoughts. All that remains for me to say is that I do think you need to know the whole truth about Kim in order to make the right decision about the future, and you won’t uncover that truth by keeping your distance from him. How would you feel about seeing him here at the Healing Centre so that we can all give you a helping hand? It strikes me that you have nothing to lose by doing that and everything to gain—but of course the final decision must be yours and yours alone . . .”

  XX

  That evening a fax arrived at the Rectory. After giving details of his flight home that Friday Tucker added: “. . . and I’ll be arriving two hours after St. Gilbert leaves for the Algarve to pacify the apoplectic parents. Is there any chance you can meet me at the airport? I’ve long yearned to be conveyed from Heathrow to the City in a scarlet Porsche driven by a very cool blonde, but if this dream is destined to remain unfulfilled, please leave word at the information desk. Meanwhile I live in hope. By the way, just as I’m about to leave I find an American neighbour who has a fax! Why didn’t I realise earlier that a Yank would be unable to live without the right technology? The PortuPlonk must have addled my brain, but I’m sure a few Porsche fumes will quickly reverse the damage. Yours resurrected, E. T.”

  XXI

  I saw him as soon as he emerged from Customs. He was pushing a trolley stacked with suitcases and duty-free shopping bags, and his white jeans were topped by a vivid green polo shirt. It was very hot in the terminal, even hotter than it was outside. The torrid summer of 1990 w
as finally shifting into top gear.

  I was wearing a pale blue sleeveless dress, skimpy, very plain and made of some wonder-fabric which never creased, not even when the temperature made linen look like corrugated iron in less than five minutes. My small shoulder-bag was as white as my high-heeled sandals. I wore no jewellery apart from my wedding-ring; my necklace of white beads was valueless. I was made up very carefully to look as if I wasn’t made up at all.

  Tucker’s dark hair seemed much redder and I wondered if this signified an overdose of sunlight, but he was not noticeably tanned. Perhaps I was just more aware of that red-haired gene of his which would make prolonged exposure to a hot southern sun undesirable. I noticed at once that he had lost weight. The chunky look had been replaced by a streamlined physique which killed all resemblance to an overgrown cherub. As he had warned me, he was cleanshaven; Mrs. Tucker’s conservative tastes and maternal demands had resulted in the disappearance of both the lusciously hirsute Bohemian who had tended me at St. Eadred’s Vicarage and the dramatically pale Pre-Raphaelite invalid who had been languishing in the hospital bed. He looked fit, taut and tough.

  When he saw me he smiled.

  For one long moment I forgot how to breathe.

  Then I nearly passed out amidst the onslaught of an unprecedented sexual desire.

  SEVENTEEN

  We do not need to drown in what overwhelms us.