Adam and Zed vanished.
‘It’s your supper time,’ said Father Bernard, ‘I won’t trouble you, I’m just calling for a little minute, I won’t stay — ’
There could be no question of his being asked to supper. Gabriel, avoiding Brian’s look, said, ‘Have a quick sherry.’
The priest accepted the sherry. Turning politely to Brian he said by way of greeting, ‘Christ is risen.’ It was the week after Easter.
Brian said, ‘I know, he rose last Sunday, I suppose he is still risen.’
‘Good news is never stale,’ said Father Bernard.
Brian thought, he’s come to talk to Gabriel about George. This thought, together with the postponement of his supper, caused him extreme irritation. He could not decide whether to stay and spoil the tête-à-tête which no doubt they both wanted, or go and leave them to it. He decided to go. Gabriel would feel guilty and he would get his supper sooner. He marched into the sitting-room and turned on the television. He despised television but still craved to see the misfortunes of others.
Gabriel and the priest sat down at the kitchen table. Gabriel took some sherry and a cigarette. She touched his sleeve (Gabriel was a ‘toucher’). Of course, being a Quaker, she did not officially belong to his flock, but he took a liberal view of his responsibilities.
Father Bernard Jacoby, a convert of Jewish origin, was the parish priest. He was an Anglican, but so ‘high’ that it did not occur to anyone to call him ‘the Rector’ or address him as ‘Rector’. He was addressed as ‘Father’ by those who approved of him. Many viewed him with suspicion, not least his bishop, who had been heard to remark that Jacoby was ‘not a priest, but a shaman’. Some opined darkly that the time would come when he would celebrate one Latin Mass too many. His Church reeked of incense. He was a comparative newcomer of whose past not much was known, except that he had been a chemistry student at Birmingham and a champion wrestler (or perhaps boxer). He was thought to be homosexual, and lived permanently under various small clouds.
‘Well, Father — ’ Gabriel knew that he had come to talk about George and some excitement stirred within her.
‘Well and well and well indeed. I was refreshed to see Alpha and Omega so happy. We should welcome such glimpses of pure joy and feed upon them like manna.’
‘Not everyone is glad to see others happy,’ said Gabriel. In talking to Father Bernard she adopted a solemn mode of speech which was not her usual manner.
‘True.’ The priest did not pursue this evident but pregnant idea. He gazed amiably at Gabriel with an air of cunning attention.
Father Bernard was fairly tall, a handsome man though odd-looking. He wore his dark straight sleek hair parted in the middle and falling in fine order to the level of his chin. He had a large nose with prominent nostrils, and rather shiny or luminous brown eyes whose penetrating directness expressed (perhaps) loving care or (perhaps) bland impertinence. He was thin, with thin mobile hands. He always wore a black cassock, clean, and of material suited to the season, and somehow managed to make his dog-collar look like old lace.
‘How is Stella?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Gabriel.
‘Of course, but how is she?’
Gabriel, who had seen her that morning, reflected. ‘She only says accurate things. I don’t know what she feels, but whatever it is she’s making some enormous effort to get it right. She cares about her dignity; in her it’s a kind of virtue.’ She added, ‘Why don’t you go and see her?’
‘I have. I wondered what you thought.’
Stella was not to be numbered among Father Bernard’s fans. It was somehow typical of the man to have fans. She did not dislike him, as Brian did, but she was suspicious. She did not believe in God. But then neither did many of the fans.
‘What did she say?’ said Gabriel. This question was prompted by senseless jealousy. She was full of senseless jealousies.
‘We spoke. She said little. I said little. I sat. I went.’
‘I’m sure she was glad.’
‘I don’t know.’
Gabriel wondered if Father Bernard had been disappointed at not having ‘got something out of’ Stella. Brian said he was always scurrying about trying to charm afflicted people.
Gabriel said, ‘About George - if you want me to tell you what really happened I can’t, I mean I only know — ’
‘Oh what really happened - who ever knows what really happened - God knows.’
George was not a fan either, but he was, to Gabriel’s mind, a more promising subject for the priestly charm than Stella was. At any rate, she liked the idea of some finally desperate and broken-down George being mastered by Father Bernard.
‘What do you think happened?’ he said.
‘It was an accident, of course.’
It was remarkable how readily people, including Gabriel, thought ill of George. In fact Gabriel thought George had done it on purpose, and kept in fascinated suspense the idea that he had half intended to kill Stella. She had once only, for a moment, seen George in one of his rages, shouting at his wife ‘I’ll kill you!’ It was a terrifying sight, Gabriel had never seen anything like it. Gabriel knew that Stella would never forgive her for having had that glimpse behind the scenes. Stella tried to conceal George’s undoubted domestic violence, just as she tried (vainly) to conceal his sexual infidelities. He had also attacked people who annoyed him, a gipsy, a bus conductor, a student, perhaps others: ‘losing his temper when drunk’ was one way of putting it. A charge of ‘grievous bodily harm’ was once in view, it was said, only clever Robin Osmore kept George out of court. Alex’s professed view that George was just a random forgivable drunk was not generally held. The absence from his life of ordinary norms of politeness was taken as a sign of deeper moral anarchy. It seemed that there were barriers instinctively erected by civilized citizens, which just did not exist for George. People were afraid of him, and Brian was not alone in thinking that George ‘might do anything’. People sensed a monster, no doubt they wanted a monster. Yet what did the evidence amount to?
Gabriel said, ‘Everyone speaks ill of him.’
‘They like a scapegoat, to have someone at hand who is officially more sinful than they are.’
‘Exactly. Perhaps he’s made worse by our opinions. But I’m sure he is terrible to Stella.’
‘You said it was an accident.’
‘Of course - but I mean - I think she ought to get away from him.’
‘Because he might kill her?’
‘No, to be alone and have another life, she’s obsessed by George, she’s wasting herself, her love doesn’t do him good, it just enrages him. Her love is like duty, like something sublime, made of idealism and awful self-confidence. She thinks she’ll elevate him. She ought to kneel down beside him.’
‘Do you tell her this?’
‘Of course not! She’s too proud, she’s the proudest person I know. I wish you’d talk to George.’
‘And do what to him?’
‘Batter him, break him down, make him weep.’
‘Tears of repentance and relief?’
‘You could save him, George could be changed by love, not Stella’s, another kind. His awfulness is an appeal for love.’
The priest laughed, heartily and too long, then snapped his fingers, a habitual gesture when he wanted the discussion to change course. He stood up. ‘Do you know when Professor Rozanov is coming?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Gabriel, rising too, annoyed at this brusque treatment of her moving appeal.
‘Did you ever meet him?’ Father Bernard knew of our distinguished citizen only by hearsay.