Far, Far the Mountain Peak Page 5

  She spent that night in floods of tears.

  A Matter of Credibility

  She was sleepy and headachy all the following Friday. She made no mention of John’s expulsion in Morning Assembly. In the break, Briggs cornered her.

  ‘Isn’t it time you made a formal announcement about it? I mean it’s a serious question of discipline. Mr Fleetwood… ’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s necessary to labour the point.’

  That worried Briggs. Was she starting to go soft on Denby?

  Answer: yes. But she wasn’t going to admit it in public – ‘credibility’, you know.

  Assailed by an Ecclesiastical Gorilla and its Mate

  She’d hardly arrived home that evening before the telephone rang. It was the Bishop of Boldonbridge. Immediately she stiffened, like a private soldier when he sees a general. The Bishop was no frustrated and struggling young Cambridge graduate. He was an important member of her governing body and a considerable – if very controversial! – force in the city. At crucial moments in the past he had been one of her most stalwart supporters. She couldn’t afford to get onto her high horse with him.

  He was direct and aggressive. ‘I’ve got young Denby staying with me. It seems you’ve thrown him out. What’s going on?’

  Desperately, she tried to defend herself. ‘Well, he was sexually interfering with other boys. I simply cannot allow this sort of thing to go on in my school. I must insist on standards.’

  ‘Quite so! Quite so! But, even if the lad was abusing other pupils – and having interviewed him myself, that’s far from being proven, very far! – isn’t Beaconsfield School there to help youngsters with problems? I had thought that was its purpose.’

  ‘But homosexuality is more than a problem. When it involves abusing children it’s a perversion, a crime. It’s something for a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Oh for Heaven’s sake!’ the Bishop exploded. ‘And you call yourself a biology teacher!’

  Donald Macnab, Bishop of Boldonbridge, had never felt the need to be tactful. Indeed, he was something of a bully who enjoyed flaunting his strength, both physical and mental. He was a man of Causes. The relevance of Christianity in the modern world was the main one. But it was rather too abstract and needed a more tangible Cause to highlight it, just as William Wilberforce had had the negro slaves. The problem had been which Cause to choose. So many of them had been appropriated by others. Amnesty International had cornered the political oppression business. Whales and pandas were best left to the World Wildlife Fund. In the end he’d picked on gay rights, prompted on part by his experiences as an army officer in charge of young soldiers in Northern Ireland.

  But it was vital that a Relevant Church should do more than just talk about it. He was heavily into politics. Inspired by Len Bowman in London, he’d teamed up with Jonnie Pearson, the local Liberal Party activist, to create a similar Rainbow Coalition in Boldonbridge- ‘inclusiveness’, caring for the casualties of a callous Thatcherism; oppressed minorities fighting back. Even the ‘scientific socialists’ and professional atheists up at the university found this package hard to resist. Women priests, gay marriage? So what if the benighted Neanderthals of the Tabernacle frothed and fumed? It was just what he wanted. Donald Macnab positively relished a good fight.

  It wasn’t long before he had Dorothy reeling on the ropes. One after another the polemical bombs of a decade of campaigning exploded in her face. Didn’t she realise that in Britain alone there were ten million homosexuals? What was statistically significant could hardly be called a perversion, could it? Was she aware of the latest genetic research, which indicated that… And so on for at least ten minutes, non-stop.

  In vain she tried to defend herself. ‘Be reasonable, please! I really cannot be seen to turn a blind eye to the activities of a promiscuous homosexual who debauches my pupils. I have to consider the other boys… and the opinions of the parents.’

  ‘Debauches other boys? That’s hardly true, for a start! Get the facts right, woman! Yes, let’s stick to proven facts! All right, hate the sin – if it really is a sin! – but at least try to love the sinner. Now, when you took him on, I was impressed. Yes, deeply impressed. A sign of true Christian commitment. I strongly supported you with the governing body and the local education people. But, for heaven’s sake, woman, you can’t just drop him when he’s become a bit inconvenient. I know a lady who’s always buying puppies. It’s all lovey-dovey when they’re small and cute. But as soon as they get big and awkward she dumps them in the doggie home and buys another one. That’s you, isn’t it? Lovely when he is small and cute, not so good when he starts growing up. A puppy is not just for Christmas, it’s for life, in case you didn’t know it! I never imagined that you were a petty bourgeois sentimentalist.’ (Having done a PhD on the relationship between Communism and Catholicism in Nicaragua, Donald Macnab was well versed in Marxist jargon.)

  Eventually even he had to pause to catch his breath. A battered Dorothy had hardly picked herself off the floor before she was bowled over by another blast.

  ‘Dorothy,’ a shrill feminine voice trilled into the phone. ‘How could you? Yes, just how could you?’

  This was Isabel, the Bishop’s wife – and also his rival – who had commandeered the second telephone in the house. She, too, was into Causes. Her’s was ‘neglected children’. To this end she spent her time gathering up the waifs and strays from the ‘deprived areas’ of the city, especially from Greenwood. But unfortunately these waifs and strays always refused to play the docile and appealing role allotted to them. They effed and blinded, ran round smoking cigarettes, and left disgusting messes in the toilet. Worse still, they stole and were not only sexually precocious, but sexually carnivorous, always ready to make advances and, even at the tender age of ten, well versed in all the arcanae of ‘child abuse’ which they exploited with all the skill and precision of a trained fighter pilot. Definitely not what an ‘oppressed minority’ should have been like.

  But John Denby was apparently completely different. ‘A wonderful boy! So polite, so considerate, such perfect manners. And so creative, too! Oh, Dorothy how could you be so unfeeling?’

  When, after five or so minutes, the bombardment finally spluttered to a finish, the Bishop started up again. ‘Anyway, I’ll be having a word with Professor Hindmarsh. He’s a big noise in matters sexual in case you didn’t know it, and he’ll put you right on a number of things!’

  Hauled up before the Beak like a schoolgirl who hadn’t done her homework? She, the Headmistress! It was so humiliating.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she gasped as she put the receiver down. ‘Thank you very much for your advice.’

  Voices from a Lost Child

  But be strong, Dorothy! Don’t let domineering men manipulate you! You’re a proper professional. Stand by your principles. After a moment’s reflection she marched resolutely into John’s room, determined to start clearing it out.

  In a previous age she would have said that she’d seen his ghost or heard his voice. As soon as she opened the door she felt his presence: the unmade bed, the scatter of clothes she’d bought for him, the book on world railways she’d given him for his birthday lying open on the carpet. Her lost child! Her only child, given her by God and then betrayed by her! She burst into tears.

  She went into the living room and sat down. There looking at her was the framed photograph of Margherita Peak. ‘I’d love to go to the Ruwenzori Range. You haven’t any more pictures have you?’ She may not have heard that voice in the material world outside herself, but she certainly heard it in her mind. The eager, high-pitched tone was there, word for word. So was the bright-eyed and fascinated face. He was around her all the time.

  So it went on all weekend. Wherever she went, he was there. Questioning her. Accusing her. On Sunday afternoon she decided that she needed a good, deep read to take her mind off him. So she picked up Jane Eyre, the book which h
ad swept her off her feet as a sixteen-year-old and which still had a powerful hold on her.

  The old magic worked and soon she became absorbed to the exclusion of everything else. Until she came to the bit where the voice of the wounded and deserted Rochester called her through the ether, ‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’ How she’d wept over this passage as a teenager! But now, did she hear John’s pleading voice in the room? ‘Miss! Miss! Miss!’ She half believed that she did.

  By Sunday evening the stately ship of her ‘Unsentimental Professionalism’ was full of holes and leaking badly. Would she ever get her wayward protégé back again? What was happening to him?

  2

  Strange Adventures

  ‘He’s Nice Really’

  The answer was: quite a lot. John had been going through a bewildering series of mutations. As Steadman had made his long and involved phone calls in the bedroom, he had sat on the settee enveloped in shame and self-disgust. One day I’ll be famous; yes, famous as a bender in jail! He couldn’t bear even to look at the books on the shelves in front of him. They simply reminded him of what he wanted to be and never could be.

  Then Steadman had bounced back into the room full of beaming bonhomie. ‘No problem, John! The Bishop’s going to put you up till we’ve got this business sorted out.’

  John let out a sigh of alarm and despair. ‘Oh my God, not him!’

  The Bishop had a fearsome reputation. Mekon had mentioned a school in a remote and irredeemably savage part of Uganda, which he’d brought to heel by ‘drastic methods’: thrashing, floggings. And there was talk of a stint in the army and intelligence operations in Northern Ireland involving ‘third-degree’ interrogations. He’d glimpsed him once during a Sunday service in the cathedral, a huge, towering figure with a great booming voice, shaggy eyebrows, a bristly chin and hair coming out of his ears. Alarming. Awesome. He’d make short work of shit-stabbers. John felt like crawling under the settee and hiding there like a frightened puppy.

  ‘Oh don’t look like that about it!’ exclaimed Steadman. ‘He’s nice really. He likes you.’

  John wasn’t convinced.

  Is This Man Really a Bishop?

  After a while the doorbell buzzed.

  ‘Come on, up you get!’ said Steadman.

  ‘Please, do I have to? Can’t I just stay here?’

  ‘Oh come on!’

  That doom-laden Greenhill feeling returned as he crept downstairs; the terrified soldier hauled up before the firing squad. In the warm sunshine outside, everything changed. A vast, scruffy man in rumpled jeans, a grubby sweater and muddy trainers hailed him from beside a bright red and lovingly maintained sports car.

  ‘Ah, John, old man! Come and get in!’

  Only by looking very carefully did John recognise the frightening figure he’d seen two months ago, awesomely mitred and robed in the cathedral.

  No chidings, no recriminations, no formal floggings with a rhinoceros hide whip… at least not yet. Instead the engine revved frantically and with a roar from the exhaust the car surged off into the watery sunshine. Ducking and diving his way through the traffic, the man was obviously a skilful driver; hardly what you would have expected a vicar to be, let alone a bishop. Soon they were out onto the bypass, bowling down the open road. A bemused John noticed that they were doing nearly 100 miles an hour. Wasn’t the speed limit 70 mph? Weren’t bishops meant to obey the law? Or was this man really a bishop? He certainly didn’t look like one.

  All the while the man kept up a stream of talk. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, John Denby… dab hand at art, I’m told… quite a mountain climber… hold the rugby team together. We’ll soon sort you out. Mind, do keep your bits under control… causes no end of problems when you don’t.’

  Mutations. No longer a shit-stabber, but a big, bold lad again?

  ‘Come on, let’s go for a spin! Isabel, that’s my better half, won’t let me go fast. Dead boring driving her, always nagging on about the speed limit. But with you it’s different.’

  The car surged on through the evening sunshine, overtaking everything in sight. The Bishop’s talk relapsed into aeronautical metaphors, World War II vintage. ‘Coming on his tail now… Got him! Down he goes!… Next one, big bomber in sight.’ (A big, lumbering, articulated truck.)

  Suddenly the car slowed down. ‘Police car coming up at six o’clock on my tail! Won’t do for a bishop to get done for speeding. The Daily Mail would just love it, and so would the Guardian!’

  Exhilarated by the speed and the rush of cool air, John felt an almost physical change coming over him. It was almost like a metamorphosis in a science fiction video. A proper lad once more, he chatted away about rugby matches, Sgurr na Ciche, railways and the Ruwenzori Range. He was surprised and gratified to discover that – unlike Giles, that other terrifying ogre – the man actually seemed to be interested in what he had to say. Always, of course, he was ultra-careful to remember his manners. He was desperate to make a good impression. After today’s catastrophe he needed all the allies he could find.

  Haunted House?

  Eventually they turned off the motorway and drove through an opulent tree-lined suburb full of big, detached Edwardian houses, some brick, some stone and all set in spacious, leafy gardens. Swerving through an ornate cast iron gateway, the car swept up a drive flanked by sombre yew trees and skidded to a halt amid clouds of dust and gravel.

  John eyed the house with trepidation. It was about the ugliest building he’d ever seen, a grotesque gothic pile made out of harsh red brick, all spikes and spindly turrets and adorned with randomly scattered glazed white tiles of the sort that you found in public lavatories. It was the kind of place you saw in horror films about vampires.

  ‘Yes, it is a bit of an old morgue, isn’t it?’ declared the Bishop, noticing his surprise. ‘But it’s what they’ve given me to live in. It’s my palace, would you believe it? Designed by a bloke called Josiah Richmond in the eighteen-eighties. Great fan of Ruskin’s. Swallowed all he had to say hook, line and sinker. Consumptive. One of those beautiful young geniuses who die young. This is his monument. And what’s your monument going to be, young man? Not something like this, I hope!’

  John followed the Bishop up some sandstone steps and through a formal entrance consisting of a pointed white-tiled arch and a big brown door covered with weird floral and heraldic designs. He found himself in a cavernous stone hall, panelled in dark wood, with an ominously threatening hammer beam ceiling lowering down above him and dimly lit by stained glass windows in gothic arches. A big, old-fashioned wooden table stood in front of a vast, empty fireplace flanked by a couple of sinister-looking gargoyles with vicious fangs and long, sharp claws. The floor was of bare grey flagstones. The place could have been specially created as a set for a Dracula film. He half expected a vampire to emerge at any moment from one of those big wooden doors at the far end.

  Which almost did seem to happen when suddenly one of them creaked open and a tall, bony, beaky-nosed woman swept up to him. (God Almighty, what was this apparition? Had it emerged from some coffin hidden in the creepy depths of this sinister building?)

  ‘Ah, Isabel!’ boomed the Bishop. ‘This is him, John, our latest trophy, another addition to our collection!’

  The aquiline woman’s Medusa face twisted up into a ghastly grin. Help! Perhaps she really was a vampire! You never know what’s going to happen on crazy days like this!

  ‘Oh John!’ she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice as she rushed up and embraced him. ‘You’re all right now! All your troubles are over!’

  John writhed. Treated like a little kid! But remember your manners! If people are being nice to you, be nice back to them. With an immense effort he managed to smile sweetly and submitted to the knobbly and suffocating embrace. Mercifully, she didn’t grow fangs and bite his jugular vein – at least not yet, but when the sun went down, who knew what might happen?
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br />   ‘Do come in and have some tea,’ she cooed. ‘You must be awfully hungry after your terrible day!’

  He switched on his ingratiating smile. ‘Thank you very much indeed. It really is most kind of you. But, first, please can I wash my hands?’ Back into ‘good little boy’ mode – ugh! But necessary for survival.

  ‘I’ll show you to the toilet!’ an educated voice brayed out from behind him.

  He turned round to see a thin young man – almost a walking broomstick – with a long horse-like face, deathly white and crowned with a mop of straggly black hair tied up in an untidy ponytail. Draped over his skeletal frame were baggy blue jeans and a grubby black T-shirt, much the worse for wear. He seemed to have suddenly appeared from nowhere and looked uncannily like a walking corpse that a vampire had drained of its blood. Christ, was Dracula himself going to burst through one of those gothic doors to accompanying flashes of lightning and peals of thunder? Perhaps!

  Before he could reply the creature grabbed his arm and hustled him away down a long, red-carpeted, brick-walled corridor. Opening another of those big wooden doors, he ushered him into a kind of mini chapel with stained glass windows and a rib-vaulted ceiling. Inside, instead of an altar, there was a massive Victorian lavatory, a real masterpiece of nineteenth-century sanitary engineering: all white china, floral patterns and polished wood, and surmounted by a complex array of gleaming metal pipes. It was set on a little podium and you approached it as to a throne. In the eyes of its designer it was clearly an altar to the God of Sanitation, one of those seminal Victorian achievements you read about in the more boring chapters of history books.

  ‘Golly!’ he ejaculated, almost stunned by the vision. Desperate for a pee – for, with all the traumas of the day, his natural functions had been forgotten and his ‘liquids’ had accumulated to bursting point – he tried to shut the door. But the creature-vampire, zombie, or whatever it was,- prevented him by putting its foot in the way.