Book Five: Chapter 3 - The End of the Affair

On the afternoon before, Henry had wavered. He had telephoned asking me to come over. It was odd how close we had become with Sarah gone. He depended on me now much as before he had depended on Sarah - I was somebody familiar about in the house. I even pretended to wonder whether he would ask me to share the house when once the funeral was over, and what answer I would give him. From the point of view of forgetting Sarah there was nothing to choose between the two houses: she had belonged to both.

He was still hazy with his drugs when I arrived, or I might have had more trouble with him. A priest sat rigidly on the edge of an armchair in the study: a man with a sour gaunt face, one of the Redemptorists probably who served up Hell on Sundays in the dark church where I had last seen Sarah. He had obviously antagonized Henry from the start and that had helped.

'This is Mr Bendrix, the author,' Henry said. 'Father Crompton. Mr Bendrix was a great friend of my wife's.' I had the impression that Father Crompton knew that already. His nose ran down his face like a buttress, and I thought, perhaps this is the very man who slammed the door of hope on Sarah.

'Good afternoon,' Father Crompton said with such ill-will that I felt the bell and the candle were not far away.

'Mr Bendrix has helped me a great deal with all the arrangements,' Henry explained.

'I would have been quite ready to take them off your hands if I had known.'

There had been a time when I hated Henry. My hatred now seemed petty. Henry was a victim as much as I was a victim, and the victor was this grim man in the silly collar. I said, 'You could hardly have done that surely. You disapprove of cremation.'

'I could have arranged a Catholic burial.'

'She wasn't a Catholic'

'She had expressed the intention of becoming one.'

'Is that enough to make her one?'

Father Crompton produced a formula. He laid it down like a bank note. 'We recognize the baptism of desire.' It lay there between us waiting to be picked up. Nobody made a move. Father Crompton said. 'There's still time to cancel your arrangements.' He repeated, 'I will take everything off your hands,' repeated it in a tone of admonition as though he were addressing Lady Macbeth and promising her some better process of sweetening her hands than the perfumes of Arabia.

Henry said suddenly, 'Does it really make much difference? Of course, I'm not a Catholic, father, but I can't see... '

'She would have been happier...'

'But why?'

'The Church offers privileges, Mr Miles, as well as responsibilities. There are special Masses for our dead. Prayers are regularly said. We remember our dead,' he added, and I thought angrily, how do you remember them? Your theories are all right. You preach the importance of the individual. Our hairs are all numbered, you say, but I can feel her hair on the back of my hand: I can remember the fine dust of hair at the base of her spine as she lay face down on my bed. We remember our dead too, in our way.

Watching Henry weaken I lied firmly, 'We've absolutely no reason to believe she would have become a Catholic'

Henry began, 'Of course the nurse did say,' but I interrupted him, 'She was delirious at the end.'

Father Crompton said, 'I would never have dreamed of intruding on you, Mr Miles, without serious reason.'

'I had a letter from Mrs Miles written less than a week before she died,' I told him. 'How long is it since you saw her?'

'About the same time. Five or six days ago.'

'It seems very odd to me that she didn't even mention the subject in her letter.'

'Perhaps Mr... Mr Bendrix, you hadn't her confidence.'

'Perhaps, father, you jump a little too quickly to conclusions. People can be interested in your faith, ask questions about it, without necessarily wishing to become Catholics.' I went quickly on to Henry, 'It would be absurd to alter everything now. Directions have been given. Friends have been invited. Sarah was never a fanatic. She would be the last to want any inconvenience caused for the sake of a whim. After all,' I drove on, fixing my eyes on Henry, 'it will be a perfectly Christian ceremony. Not that Sarah was even a Christian. We saw no signs of it anyway. But you could always give Father Crompton money for a Mass.'

'It isn't necessary. I said one this morning.' He made a movement with his hands in his lap, the first break in his rigidity: it was like watching a strong wall shift and lean after a bomb had fallen. 'I shall remember her every day in my Mass,' he said.

Henry said with relief as though that settled matters, 'Very good of you, father,' and moved a cigarette-box.

'It seems an odd and impertinent thing to say to you, Mr Miles, but I don't think you realize what a good woman your wife was.'

'She was everything to me,' Henry said.

'A great many people loved her,' I said.

Father Crompton turned his eyes on me like a headmaster who hears an interruption at the back of the class from some snotty youngster.

'Perhaps not enough,' he said.

'Well,' I said, 'to go back to what we were discussing. I don't think we can alter things now, father. It would cause a great deal of talk too. You wouldn't like talk, would you, Henry?'

'No. Oh no.'

'There's the insertion in 'The Times'. We should have to put in a correction. People notice that kind of thing. It would cause comment. After all you aren't unknown, Henry. Then telegrams would have to be sent. A lot of people will have had wreaths delivered already to the crematorium. You see what I mean, father.'

'I can't say that I do.'

'What you ask is not reasonable.'

'You seem to have a very strange set of values, Mr Bendrix.'

'But surely you don't believe cremation affects the resurrection of the body, father?'

'Of course I don't. I've told you my reasons already. If they don't seem strong enough to Mr Miles, there's no more to be said.' He got up from his chair, and what an ugly man he was. Sitting down he had at least the appearance of power, but his legs were too short for his body, and he rose, unexpectedly small. It was as if he had suddenly moved a long way off.

Henry said, 'If you'd come a little sooner, father. Please don't think... '

'I don't think anything wrong of you, Mr Miles.'

'Of me perhaps, father?' I asked with deliberate impertinence.

'Oh, don't worry, Mr Bendrix. Nothing you can do will affect her now.' I suppose the Confessional teaches a man to recognize hate. He held his hand out to Henry and turned his back on me. I wanted to say to him, You're wrong about me. It's not Sarah I hate. And you are wrong about Henry too. He is the corrupter, not me. I wanted to defend myself, 'I loved her', for surely in the Confessional they learn to recognize that emotion too.