The noble Henry Willis organ is sighing and murmuring, its reverberant notes floating out into the great space of the chapel; rising past the rose window of trumpeting angels to the high carved roof. A student at the keyboard, perhaps. Someone too respectful to unleash the mighty roar that so offended the preacher Charles Spurgeon. ‘The only sound of praise God cares to hear is the human voice,’ Spurgeon thundered in his much-admired human voice, and was hissed by the congregation for his pains. That must have been a famous day.
Roddy Dalgliesh sits at the end of a pew at the back of the Union Chapel, which is just a few streets from his home. He’s taken to dropping in here, not for the services or the concerts, but for the quietness. He needs space to think, and the Union Chapel is a grand space.
For prayer too, perhaps. Roddy is reluctant to call what passes through his mind by the name of prayer because he has no clear notion of a recipient of his prayer. He has left unbelief behind, but has not yet arrived at belief. This is what is so hard to explain to others. He is embarked on a great adventure.
Keep thyself as a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth.
Roddy finds these words profoundly moving. They move him emotionally, but also physically, too. They make him want to move. They make him want to disburden himself and pass as lightly as a bird or a cloud over the landscape. He wants to cut all ties, to shed all responsibilities, to float free. Impossible, of course. But when the longing struck him, when he stopped, literally, in his tracks – he was walking down Ludgate Hill at the time, heading for the tube station – he knew that something he had been resisting for most of his life could be resisted no more. This life is not all there is. This world is not all there is.
Not an intellectual capitulation. There’s no theory to it. Just a sudden acceptance. His response, standing there on Ludgate Hill as the home-going crowds brushed past his motionless figure, was to say to himself: Of course. Once he had let go of his petty insistence that there be answers, which is after all no more than one of the many forms of vanity – for why should he, or anyone, understand such immense mysteries? – once he had humbled himself, it became easy to surrender. The act of surrender an act of trust, like falling into water. Like falling in love.
Just stop fighting. Just release the controls. Just let go.
From that moment on, everything changed for Roddy. Everything is still changing. Here in the Union Chapel where Dr Henry Allon preached to Gladstone and Asquith, in this great octagonal space designed so that ‘every person could see and hear the preacher without conscious effort’, as Dr Allon demanded of the architect, here Roddy can let his eager mind roam free, chasing the chords of the mighty organ.
So much now looks so different. The injustices of the world, great and small; the apparent futility of human activity; the anxieties that grate on us and make us fretful even in the midst of security and plenty; all can now take their place in an utterly changed landscape. Down in the valley the mist seems to have no end, but from the mountaintop it’s no more than a puddle in the land. There is more, more, so much more. Maybe heaven. Maybe eternity. Maybe God.
These are all human approximations, attempts with the limited tools at our command to name and categorize what can’t be named and categorized. So why argue about it? Every culture finds its own forms, its own rituals, with which to grasp what is beyond our grasp and imagine what is beyond our imagining. All that matters in the end is humility of the intellect. Do not presume to know.
Once you know that you don’t know, everything changes. The absurdity of so much of our lives ceases to be a puzzle. Of course we’re ridiculous. Of course we make fools of ourselves. Why wouldn’t we? We are fools. We know so little. But not any the less loveable for all that.
Roddy is filled with a joyful compassion. Once this would have been called the milk of human kindness; now only a term used for comic effect. How can he speak of this to Diana? She’ll think he’s turned into a simpleton. The tone of speech of the modern educated person is narrow in its range: critical, ironical, not to be deceived. No room for wonder. Little room for joy. All the thoughts that are now sweeping through him have a low status in Diana’s world. They’re fables for peasants and children. The opium of the masses. She has no language with which to take seriously the presence of God.
Soon now he will have to leave this place and return home, where Diana waits for his much-delayed explanation. She supposes he is currently out for a reflective walk. He has not told her of his habit of dropping in to the Union Chapel.
One of the stained-glass windows features Dr Henry Allon himself, who was minister here for forty-eight years, to the day of his death. Did Dr Henry Allon ever come to a stop on Ludgate Hill and feel himself lifted up as if by the wings of angels?
Angels, now. I have gone simple-minded.
By two wings a man is lifted up from things earthly, namely by Simplicity and Purity.
That’s Thomas à Kempis, one of the devotional writers Roddy has begun to read. But he keeps the book hidden at home.
‘We’re going to have this out now, Roddy,’ says Diana. ‘It’s gone on long enough. If you’re having a breakdown I need to know.’
They’re sitting facing each other in the kitchen of their Islington house, later that evening. Roddy reaches across and takes her hand in his. This is how he’s resolved to proceed. First, make true contact.
Diana, not understanding this, is merely irritated.
‘Stop pawing me. What did you say to Laura? She says you’re having a philosophical crisis. I’ve no idea what that means.’
Roddy has planned his next step, too. He won’t tell Diana the way he told Laura, inching his way bit by bit towards the awkward truth. He’s not been talking to Diana because he knows talking will be no use. He still thinks so. Therefore his task is not to explain but to inform. No lead-in is possible, no softening up. Just tell it as it is.
‘I’m looking for God,’ he says.
She stares at him.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Roddy.’
‘I’m looking for God.’
He’s ready to go on saying it as often as necessary, until she hears him.
‘You can’t be.’
‘I’m looking for God.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve said that already. But it doesn’t mean anything, Roddy. How can you look for God? Where do you think he is? In a cave in Palestine?’
‘No. I don’t think God’s in a cave in Palestine. Though it’s possible, I suppose. I won’t rule it out.’
‘You’re having a breakdown, aren’t you? Is it because of work?’
‘No.’
‘Is it me?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I’m not having a breakdown, Diana. I’m looking for God.’
Diana pulls a face Roddy knows well: impatient, disappointed, a little hurt. ‘I think that is so unfair of you. What am I supposed to do while you’re looking for God? Stay home and cook your dinner?’
‘You can come too.’
‘I will not! You may be off your rocker, but I’m not. How many people know about this?’
‘Laura. That’s all.’
‘She’ll have told Henry. Oh, Lord. Look here, Roddy. You’re to keep quiet about this. You’re to start talking again, like a normal human being, and you’re not to let it get in the way of your work. Do you understand me? I’m serious about this. If you must go looking for God, then do it somewhere where no one can see. Why are you grinning at me like an ape?’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not a joke, Roddy. I think I’m being amazingly reasonable under the circumstances. Most other wives would have you straight off to the funny farm.’
‘Thank you. I’m grateful for your forbearance.’
She stares at him suspiciously. A new thought has struck her. ‘What happens if you find God?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You’re not going to become a vicar, are you? Because if you are, I want a divorce. I will not be a vicar’s wife.’
‘No. I’m not going to become a vicar.’
‘Well, then. Just try to keep it under control.’
After this Roddy does his best to talk in the old way, but it’s not the same. It’s as if both of them are playing a part. He knows Diana feels betrayed, but what can he do? Things have changed.
He thinks from time to time of Laura, and the way she looked at him the other evening, just before she had to hurry away to catch her train. He’s sure that Laura understands, in a way that Diana never will. Diana has always said he has a soft spot for Laura.
If I was married to Laura, how different it would all be. She might even come with me on my journey. That would be true companionship. But it’s not to be.
Keep thyself as a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth.