wife you’re describing seems to be little more than a housekeeper,’ said Francis. ‘Or is it a glorified parlourmaid?’
‘If you’re still clinging to the theory that I wanted to marry a woman just like my mother, I assure you that you couldn’t be more mistaken! Betty and my mother were utterly different.’
‘Tell me about this mother of yours. Were you the only child?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t spoil me. She trained me much as she used to train her cats – firmly and without sentimentality.’
‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Fourteen. Can we stop this digression now, please, and return to more relevant matters?’
‘Why are you becoming so flustered about your mother?’
‘I’m not flustered! It’s just that one doesn’t always welcome the opportunity to share cherished memories, particularly if one’s in the middle of an inquisition. Why are you so obsessed with the Oedipus Complex?’
‘You don’t ask the questions, Jonathan; you answer them. Why do you suppose you married a woman who was so utterly different from your mother?’
Losing patience I said with sarcasm: ‘No doubt you’d advance the theory that when I failed to find my mother’s replica among the women I met through my Cambridge acquaintances, I married my mother’s opposite in despair.’
‘Never mind the theory I’d advance. Let’s hear you advance a theory of your own.’
‘I don’t have a theory; I have knowledge. I married Betty because I loved her and although the marriage had its difficult aspects I must absolutely insist that it was happy and successful.’
‘But my dear Jonathan,’ said Francis, ‘can’t you see that you’re trying to harmonize two statements which are fundamentally incompatible? On the one hand you’re insisting that you were happily married – yet on the other you’re insisting that the marriage made you so maimed spiritually that you were unable to serve God to the best of your ability. I put it to you that either you were happily married and not spiritually maimed; or that you were spiritually maimed and unhappily married. But a priest like you can’t possibly be both spiritually maimed and happily married. That would be a psychological impossibility.’ He terminated the interview by laying down his pen. ‘Now go away and consider what I’ve said, please, and when you return tomorrow I trust you’ll be a good deal more explicit about your curious marriage than you’ve deigned to be today.’
VIII
After supper I retired to my cell to examine the new development in my ordeal. I could now perceive the dimensions of the rack, just as I could sense that Francis was steering me towards it, and I knew I had to take defensive action. I felt no guilt in admitting this because I knew Francis was on the wrong track; my duty at this point was clearly not to wave him on his way but to do my best to steer him back on to the right road.
I sat plotting how I might best deflect him and escape the rack. Of course I could not tell lies. I had to be as truthful as possible but that meant I had to calculate with precision where the boundary between the possible and the impossible lay. It would be unfortunate if I were to discover in mid-sentence that I had allowed myself to be strapped to the rack despite all my efforts to avoid it.
I saw then that the next interview would be fraught with danger, and on the following morning in the workshop I barely glanced at the doorkeeper’s daily news. The war beyond the cloister was receding in my consciousness. I was too busy fighting a desperate private war of my own.
IX
‘I’m sorry you thought I was being so paradoxical yesterday,’ I said to Francis when we next met. ‘With your permission I’d now like to explain my marriage in a more comprehensible way.’
Francis kept his expression bland and motioned me to continue.
‘What I was really trying to imply,’ I said, ‘is that I was probably as happy with Betty as I would have been with any other woman. The problem wasn’t Betty; it was marriage itself – the whole business of living in close proximity to another person. The truth was I shouldn’t have married at all, but as I was neither a eunuch nor a homosexual it never occurred to me at the tender age of twenty-three that I’d be better off as a celibate. So I married and was often very happy. It’s true that I did find my spiritual vitality was being sapped, but since I loved my wife and children I was prepared to tolerate that. All marriages involve some degree of compromise and mine was certainly no exception.’
But Francis merely said: ‘I do see the distinction you’re trying to make when you blame your discomfort on the institution of marriage rather than on your wife, but nevertheless if living in close proximity to another person was so difficult for you one can’t help but wonder if that other person might be part of the problem. Forgive me for asking, but did you in fact marry her for any reason other than the sexual and the economic?’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean the marriage was doomed. Most marriages founder over either money or intimacy. It was our modest bank balance and our intimate relationship which held the marriage together.’
‘Well, there wasn’t much else to hold it together, was there?’ said Francis bluntly. ‘She shared none of your intellectual interests; she was spiritually illiterate; she came from a different class, a fact which must have complicated your professional and social life in all kinds of difficult ways –’
‘But I’ve told you – I didn’t care about any of those disadvantages! All I wanted was a morally acceptable outlet for my sexual inclinations –’
The trap sprang shut.
‘How very humiliating for your wife,’ said Francis brutally, and at once I was slammed on the rack.
X
Francis saw his shot had hit the mark and allowed me no time to regain my equilibrium. ‘Tell me more,’ he said, ‘about how unsuited you were for matrimony. I can quite believe that an immature young man who treats his wife merely as a cheap sexual receptacle would make a far from ideal husband.’
I tried to devise a strong response but I was unable to think clearly. I began to twist my abbot’s ring round and round on my finger.
Francis said briskly: ‘The truth is, isn’t it, that you made each other very miserable. When did you first realize you’d made a mistake?’
‘You’re completely misrepresenting the situation –’
‘How can I be when you admit marriage left you cold?’
‘It didn’t leave me cold. It left me deprived of psychic space. That’s different. It wasn’t Betty’s fault. As I keep telling you, it was marriage, not Betty, that made me unhappy.’ I had stopped twisting my ring but my fingers were tightly interlocked. ‘Even before I entered the Order,’ I said, ‘I needed a great deal of time alone in order to meditate and pray, and frankly I had no idea that the daily routine of marriage would be so hostile to any attempt to sustain a rich inner life. Nothing had prepared me for such chaos. My parents were quiet people; our home was very orderly, very peaceful, very conducive
