Absolute Truths. Susan Howatch

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СКАЧАТЬ that past trauma, but I taught myself to overlook Charley’s resemblance to Samson and see instead only his resemblance to Lyle.

      The bright side of Charley’s inheritance lay in the fact that he possessed Samson’s first-class brain. This was a great delight to me, particularly when Charley became old enough to study theology, and it made us far more compatible than we had been during his childhood when his volatile temperament had persistently grated on my nerves.

      It had grated on Lyle’s nerves too. Lyle was not naturally gifted at motherhood, and although she loved the boys she found it difficult to manage them when they were young. This lack of management meant the boys became hard work for anyone determined to become a conscientious parent – but I have no wish to blame Lyle for this state of affairs; after all, life was hard for her during the war, particularly during those years when I was a prisoner, and no doubt she was not alone in finding it difficult to be the sole parent of a family. If I appear to criticise her it is only because I need to explain why, when I returned home after the war, I soon discovered that parenthood was no picnic. Probably one of the reasons why we both became so keen to celebrate the new beginning of our marriage by producing a daughter was the belief – almost certainly misguided – that a little girl would be all sweetness and light, a compensation for the barbarity of our sons.

      Another fact which exacerbated our complex family situation was that Lyle was ill-at-ease with Charley. No doubt all manner of guilty feelings were at work below the surface of her mind, but the result was that she tended to escape from this unsatisfactory relationship by idolising Michael. Charley resented this behaviour and to prevent him being hurt I found myself paying him special attention. This in turn upset Michael, who became abnormally demanding. Again, I have no wish to blame Lyle for triggering these emotional disorders; she could not help feeling guilty about Samson and muddled about Charley, but nonetheless the situation was one which even the most gifted of fathers would have found challenging.

      The final fact which aggravated our troubles was no one’s fault at all and can only be attributed to the lottery of generics. Michael resembled me physically but his intellect was dissimilar to mine, and the older he grew the more incomprehensible he became to me. It was not that he was stupid. He was just as clever as Lyle, but as he grew older we found we had nothing in common but a fondness for cricket and rugger. I minded this more than I should have done, and when he embarked on a phase, common among the sons of clergymen, of rejecting religion, I minded fiercely. Meanwhile nimble-witted, intellectually stimulating, devoutly religious Charley was ever ready to compensate me for Michael’s shortcomings. Was it surprising that I welcomed this development? No. But Michael became jealous. He began to misbehave, partly to grab my attention and partly to pay me back for favouring the cuckoo in the nest. Michael thought he should come first. I greatly regretted that he knew Charley was only his half-brother, but once Charley had been told about Samson it had proved impossible to keep Michael in ignorance.

      I knew all adoption agencies recommended that an adopted child should be told the truth at an early age, but I could never bring myself to tell Charley. I had convinced myself that the truth, an example of extreme clerical failure, was too unedifying to be divulged to a child, but I knew that eventually I would have to speak out and I knew exactly when that moment would come. Samson had left Charley his library, the gift to take effect on Charley’s eighteenth birthday. Samson’s widow was still alive, so Charley did not inherit the money until later, but the books were in storage, waiting to be claimed. Possibly I could have explained away this legacy as the generous gesture of a childless old man, but there was a letter. I knew there was a letter because Samson’s solicitor had spoken of it; he was keeping it in his firm’s safe for presentation along with the storage papers. Lyle said I had to get hold of the letter and give it to Charley myself. The solicitor hesitated, but after all, we were a clerical couple who could be trusted to behave properly. The letter arrived.

      ‘Steam it open,’ said Lyle, confounding his expectations.

      We were at Cambridge at the time. It was 1956, the year before I was offered the Starbridge bishopric, and I was still the Lyttelton Professor of Divinity. Charley was away at school but due home on a weekend exeat in order to celebrate his birthday. We were breakfasting in the kitchen when the letter arrived. I remember feeling sick at the sight of Samson’s writing on the envelope, and this reaction startled me. A communication from Edward VIII, Jack Buchanan, Harold Larwood or Shirley Temple would never have induced feelings of nausea.

      Meanwhile Lyle had refilled the kettle and was boiling some more water for the steaming operation.

      I did manage to say strongly: ‘It’s quite unthinkable that I should steam open this letter,’ but Lyle just said: ‘If you won’t I will,’ and removed the letter from my hands. I was then told that after all I had done for Charley I had a right to know the contents, and somehow I found myself unable to argue convincingly to the contrary. Nausea is not conducive to skilled debate. Neither is fear, and at that point I was very afraid that my relationship with Charley – that just reward for my past suffering – would be damaged beyond repair by this potentially devastating assault from the past.

      Lyle read the letter and wept.

      I said: ‘It’s quite unthinkable that I should read a single word of it.’ But I did. I read one word. And another. And after that I gave up trying to put the letter down. As I read I automatically moved closer to the sink in case I was overcome with the need to vomit.

      ‘It’s all about how wonderful you are,’ said Lyle, unable to find a handkerchief and snuffling into a tea-towel.

      ‘How very embarrassing.’ This traditional public-school response to any situation which flouted the British tradition of emotional understatement was utterly inadequate but no other phrase sprang to mind at such an agonising moment. The grave, simple, dignified sentences skimmed past my eyes and streamed through my defences so that in the end I was incapable of uttering a word. I could only think: this is a very great letter from a very Christian man. But I had no idea what to make of this thought. I could not cope with it. Vilely upset I reached the signature at the bottom of the last page, dropped the letter on the draining-board and waited by the sink for the vomiting to commence, but nothing happened.

      ‘Well, you don’t have to worry, do you?’ I heard Lyle say at last. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

      I suddenly realised that this was true. Weak with relief I picked up the letter and read it again. Samson had made no paternal claims. My role in Charley’s life was affirmed, not undermined. The writer assumed all responsibility for the past tragedy and said he quite accepted that he had been unfit to play any part in Charley’s upbringing, but he still hoped that Charley would accept the books and later the money as a gift. They came with no obligation to respect the donor. The writer realised he had no right to demand any benign response. He wanted above all to stress how immensely grateful and happy he was that Charley should have been brought up by …

      I stopped reading, folding the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. I did not want his praise. I did not want him offering Charley the kind of selfless love which expected nothing in return. And above all else I did not want him making my wife cry and reminding us both unbearably of the past.

      ‘Very nice,’ I said. ‘Very sporting of him not to upset the applecart.’ The dreadful middle-class banalities sounded hideously false but at least they were safe. The next moment I said: ‘He’s got no business coming back like this. He should stay locked up in the 1930s where he belongs.’ That was not safe at all. That was a most dangerous thing to say, indicative of some convoluted state which could never be allowed to see the light of day, but Lyle was coming to my rescue, Lyle was saying: ‘We’ll lock him up again. Once all this is over we’ll put him back in the 1930s where he belongs.’

      And that was that.

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