Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch Read Free Book Online Page B

took much time and kept me very busy. I appointed a suffragan bishop to manage Starrnouth, the large port on the south coast, and I streamlined the diocesan office in Starbridge by prun ing the bureaucracy which had mushroomed during the days of Bishop Flack. In addition to all this high-powered executive activity, I had to find the time to visit parish after parish in the diocese in order to preach, confirm and tend the flock in my role as spiritual leader. And as if all this activity were not enough to fell even St Athanasius himself, I was soon serving on committees at Church House, the Church of England’s London headquarters, and toiling at sessions of the Church Assembly. The last straw was when my turn came to read the prayers every day for a short spell in the House of Lords.
    Dashing up to London, dashing around the diocese, dashing from committee to committee and from parish to parish, I began to wonder how I could possibly survive, but propped up by a first-class wife, a first-class spiritual director, two first-class arch deacons, a first-class suffragan bishop and a first-class secretary, I finally learnt how to pace myself, how to delegate, how to spend most effectively the time I allotted to private prayer and, in short, how to avoid dropping dead with exhaustion. After a while, when I began to reap the benefits of a more efficient diocese, life became less frenetic. But not much. No wonder ‘ time seemed to pass so quickly. Sometimes the days would whip by so fast that I felt as if I could barely see them for dust.
    This arduous professional life, which became increasingly grati fying as I earned a reputation for being a strong, efficient, no- nonsense bishop, was punctuated by various awkward incidents in my private life, but fortunately Lyle and I, now closer than we had ever been before, managed to weather them tolerably well. Charley was no longer a problem. He recovered sufficiently from the agony of his eighteenth birthday to do well in his A-level examinations and I did not even have to pull a string to ensure his admittance to my old Cambridge college. He then decided to defer his entry until he had completed his two years of National Service. At first he loathed the army, finding it ‘disgustingly God less’, but soon he was saved by his ability to speak fluent German, and he wound up working as a translator in pleasant quarters near Bonn. Having survived this compulsory diversion, he at last began to read divinity at Cambridge. Here he was ecstatically happy. Glowing reports reached me, and after winning a first he proceeded to theological college – but not to the one in Starbridge; I was anxious that he should have the chance to train for the priesthood far from the long shadow I cast as a bishop. To my relief his desire to be a priest never wavered, his call was judged by the appropriate authorities to be genuine and eventually he was ordained. It was a moment of enormous satisfaction for me and more than made up for the fact that I continually found Michael a disappointment.
    Michael had not wanted to move to Starbridge. He thought it was the last word in provincial boredom, and we were obliged to endure sulks, moans and tart remarks. Later he developed an inter est in popular music, already a symbol of rebellion among the young, and began to attend church only mutinously, complaining how ‘square’ it all was. Recognising the conventional symptoms o f adolescent dislocation I kept calm, said little, endured much and waited for the storms to pass, but to my dismay the storms became hurricanes. Michael discovered girls. This was no surprise, particularly since he was a good-looking young man, and all sen sible fathers are glad when their sons discover that girls arc more fun than cricket, but I was concerned by the girls in whom he chose to be interested and even more concerned when he showed no interest in drinking in moderation.
    He managed to do well enough at school to begin the training