The Celibate

by Michael Arditti

Genres: City Life

Synopsis

After a nervous collapse while serving at the altar, his college principal sends him on a placement to London where he enters an unfamiliar world of outcasts, down-and-outs, rent boys, religious fundamentalists and people with AIDS. In increasing despair, he embarks on a journey through the world of Jack the Ripper, the devastation of the Great Plague and the mysteries of his own family. As the past and present come full-circle, he finally understands the true meaning of Passion. This is an intelligent and emotive novel, potent with atmosphere and rich in ideas and insights. It employs a unique fictional structure which integrates the contemporary and the historical, the personal and the theological, the comic and the polemic in a revelatory way. On its initial publication, it was hailed as the debut of a major literary talent.

Release date: April 22, 2009

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 181

Sample

 

‘It takes courage to write about faith in this faithless world, particularly from a homosexual viewpoint. But in The Celibate, Michael Arditti’s first novel, the author’s anger, conviction and sharp observation hold the reader’s attention throughout. An exciting debut’ The Times


 

‘This deeply spiritual novel … a carefully crafted, intensely analytical and deeply honest theological quest where the storyline becomes consumed in a broader faith journey’ Catholic Herald


 

‘A fine political novel. Michael Arditti’s eloquently beautiful style burns with passion and commitment. My mind and emotions were engaged for all of its pages. A brave, unique book, this deserves the widest possible readership’ Rouge


 

‘This pilgrim’s progress for the nineties … the intimacy of the narrative and the clever juxtaposition of modern morality tale with a Victorian murder mystery make for an unusually absorbing read’ Daily Mail


 

‘I found Arditti’s heartfelt, even desperate, plea for tolerance and acceptance moving and honourable, not to mention timely’ Literary Review


 

‘Arditti’s ingeniously constructed narrative … A thoughtful, intelligent book. I trust that the publishers are preparing to send a copy to every member of the General Synod of the Church of England’ Sunday Telegraph


 

‘The novel is written with great flair and stylishly explores a conflict of ideas and identity. Undoubtedly one of the most serious and ingenious novels published in recent years’ The Pink Paper





 

‘The Celibate is quintessentially a novel of our time … funny, witty, and at times hilarious. The narrative takes on an almost Dickensian sweep, though Dickens would surely have found it hard to embrace the diversity of sexual experience and emotions Arditti describes so vividly’ Capital Gay


 

‘Startling prose that never puts a foot wrong. An evocative and tightly written book marking a brilliant debut’ Oxford Times


 

‘The novel effectively tackles today’s bitter church conflicts between spirituality and sexuality. And the sordid stench of contemporary London is provokingly mirrored in the insatiable desires of body and soul’ The Big Issue


 

‘The novel has just about everything: ideas, feeling, moral integrity and an inventive plot. An impressive debut’ Yorkshire Post


 

‘A fascinating book with real religious insight, and what’s more, it’s got style’ Rabbi Lionel Blu




One


I’d like to start, ladies and gentlemen, by taking you somewhere sordid… This foul and foul-smelling alleyway hasn’t changed much over the past hundred years. In 1888 Whitechapel would have been full of little passageways such as these, the absence of street lighting making them especially convenient for prostitutes who needed somewhere to service their clients. And I regret to say that many of them are still used for much the same purpose even today… Incidentally, I know it’s dark but I would advise you to be on your guard where you put your feet, or alternatively to take off your shoes as soon as you return home.


Tonight we shall be following in the footsteps and commemorating the centenary of the most notorious mass murderer in British criminal history. And yet by more recent standards his tally was comparatively small; he killed only five prostitutes. So why does he continue to exert such a strong fascination over us now? Partly of course it’s because his crimes remain – at least officially – unsolved, but also because he exerted an equally strong fascination over his contemporaries, many of whom perused each gruesome detail as intently as we shall pursue them today.

So where did that fascination lie? To answer that, we’ll need to consider the spirit, or more strictly the psychology, of the age. We must bear in mind that the murders took place against a background of late Victorian prurience and prudery, and that despite blanket references to the Victorian age as if the entire sixty years were essentially homogeneous, such attitudes were comparatively new. In 1860 it was quite acceptable for men and women to bathe together in the nude; twenty-five years later no respectable woman could expose a table leg, let alone her own.


But human desires can’t be kept under wraps as easily as furniture; and in response to such repression Victorian society was obsessed by the idea of prostitution. The women themselves, dubbed ‘daughters of joy’ and judged insatiable nymphomaniacs, represented what our great-grandparents found at once most alluring and most abhorrent: a highly potent combination, which underlay their mixed reaction as these particular five unfortunates received what many considered their hideously just deserts. Moreover, although they could hardly approve the violence of his methods, almost all their favoured Ripper suspects came from the respectable middle class: doctors, solicitors and even clergymen, as though it were their better selves keeping their worse selves in check.

For those of you who may take issue with that hypothesis, it’s worth remembering that just as in the late 1880s in this country criminologists were beginning to lay the foundations of a far more scientific approach to criminal investigation, so in Vienna a young doctor was taking the first tentative steps towards establishing what in time would prove an even further-reaching human science.


And it was in this very alleyway, ladies and gentlemen, pitch black then as now, that according to eye-witnesses Jack the Ripper encountered the first of his victims. So who was he? And was he indeed just one man? Nobody knows. That is, nobody except me. And who’s to say but, if you stay the course – that is the tour – with me, I may not even share the secret with you… So let’s go through here to find out where he took her, and what he did.


  

I’m here under protest; I should like you to take note. Do you take notes? Or do you have a photographic memory – or whatever might be the aural equivalent? I merely ask. Aren’t you going to warn me that anything I say may be taken down and used in evidence, or is all this an empty formality? In which case I may as well save my breath.

You hold my life in your hands. I’ve been a captive audience, but never before a captive speaker. All I’ve ever wanted is to be a priest; without that I’m nothing. It’s my heart’s – no, it’s my soul’s desire. But they wouldn’t even promise to keep my place open, unless I agreed to come here. So you hold my priesthood in your hands; so you hold my life.


Last term at college I wrote a dissertation on free will or predestination, but the arguments now seem as academic as the experience seems remote. For what choice have I? Like Martin Luther: here I stand, I can do no other – would you like me to sit down? Anyone who knows me would appreciate the irony: that so devout a Catholic should be forced to resort to so Protestant a precedent. But the Church of England has broad shoulders; it can find room for just about everyone: except, it would seem, for me.


I don’t like this room; I don’t mean to be personal, but I don’t feel at my ease. Would you like me to sit here? I usually kneel to confession. Surely you don’t expect me to lie down? I thought that only happened in films. Not that I’m any sort of expert. I think the only film I’ve seen all year is The Last Temptation of Christ and then I walked out when Our Lord was in the brothel. But I don’t believe in censorship; I believe we should censor ourselves.


Did you realise the arm of this chair was frayed? I only ask in case you’d like to have it recovered. Has it been worn away over the years like St Peter’s toe in the Vatican by the fingertips of the faithful? Only it would hardly be fingertips here but the torn nails of souls in torment. Well, not mine. I put my trust in Christ; he’s both my strength and my salvation. I’m perfectly calm.

But I promised to keep an open mind; although I advise you not to try to press your advantage. I’m told you’ve helped a number of ordinands in the past, including, however hard it may be to credit, several from St Dunstan’s. They seemed to think I’d find that some consolation; they were wrong. But I’d like to make one thing clear right from the start: I am not ill. I simply needed rest, not rustication – do I look ill to you? And yet from the speed with which they made to throw me out, you’d have thought that they’d just been waiting for their first opportunity… My chemistry master once chastened me by explaining how little my body would fetch if boiled down to its basic minerals and salts. I warn you now: I refuse to be reduced to psychological loose change.


So what do I have to do to convince you that I’m as sane as any priest; or is that the very last thing you want? Do you intend to ask me the name of the country or the Prime Minister? Are you English by the way? Or are you going to hold up your hand and tell me to count the fingers, and then rule against me if I fail to include the thumbs? I can’t win. Though the one thing I refuse to take seriously is any more ink-blots. Or would you prefer me just to chatter on? And if so, what about? My childhood? My sexuality? My dreams? I’m afraid you’ll be in for a big disappointment. I’ve a very poor memory; I’m a virgin; and I never dream. So that takes care of all that. Now is there anything else? Or do we just sit here and try to outface one another for the rest of the hour?

If you’d like, I’ll tell you my joke. I was always led to believe that a sense of humour indicated a sense of proportion; so maybe it’s a fair test of sanity too. I’m afraid it’s the only one I know, but it always went down a treat at St Dunstan’s: When is a parson not a person? All right then, when is a parson not a person…? When he’s a priest.

I’m sorry; I put it across badly. But then under the circumstances it’s hardly surprising. Was it Glasgow that used to be known as the comedians’ graveyard? For a fate worse than death they should try you… Are you never going to tell me what you want from me? What is it about me? Why will no one ever give me a straight answer? I was accused without a charge; I was condemned without a hearing. All I ask is a simple explanation. But the silence rings like tinnitus in my ears.


It’s no use feigning ignorance. I’m well aware they’ll already have given you their version of what happened, and I’m equally well aware that you’ll take their word every time. But just for the record you may as well have mine. There’s no mystery; you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure it out. I’d been under a lot of strain; I admit I’d been overdoing things: what with my academic work and my placement at Heathrow, not to mention preparations for the college pilgrimage to Walsingham, which I’d taken entirely on myself. I ought to have known better. Even when I was a boy, Nanny always seemed to be reminding me that I had a body as well as a mind. Well, on 25 January it hit back.


Although we said our basic daily offices in the college chapel, on high days and holidays we also worshipped in the parish church. And it should literally have been a red-letter day for me, since not only was it my turn to serve at the altar, but it was to be a full High Mass to celebrate the conversion of St Paul. I don’t know how much you know about Anglo-Catholic ritual: I suspect very little, and that you care still less. But the one thing you need to remember is that we would be six in the sanctuary. I was to carry the thurible and Jonathan to administer the chalice.

But first he had to deliver his sermon, which he proceeded to do with an obscene lack of reverence for both the time and the place. In my view there are only three subjects suitable for sermons: Our Lord, Our Lady and the Blessed Sacraments. Needless to say he’d chosen none of them, nor despite the occasion had he touched more than fleetingly on St Paul. But I refuse to dwell on it – and I refused to dwell on it. I was preparing for a Eucharist, not settling old scores. And the moment of incensation was soon upon me. I censed the priest. I censed the congregation. I moved to cense the Host at the Elevation, when I caught a glimpse of Jonathan lying in wait at the altar steps. He was staring at me very strangely. I wish I could say he looked contrite, but in truth he seemed to look challenging. It was a challenge to which I did not intend to respond.

It was then that I began to feel faint. My stomach started to heave and my legs to buckle. I was terrified that I was about to throw up all over the altar steps. I steeled myself – I steadied myself as the altar continued to swell. I tried to shout, but my mouth was too dry. I started to stagger. I felt sure I was on my knees even though I was still on my feet. I made one last desperate attempt to right myself and I threw my hand out in front of me. But it was the same hand that was swinging the thurible and it hit Jonathan square in the chest, sending him tumbling and the chalice sweeping to the floor… No! I can’t bear… What devil can have been in me? I’d knocked the blood – Christ’s precious blood, Christ’s holy blood – all over the sanctuary. I was kneeling in the blood; I was a sacrilege. I was red with the blood. I blacked out.


Is it any wonder I collapsed? It was the consecrated blood of Christ seeping into the stone. I was present at the crucifixion but not as one of the mourners alongside Our Lady and St John; I was one of the soldiers who’d pierced his side and spilt his blood. What did they expect me to do? Calmly fetch a cloth and mop it up? Now that would have been perverse; in that case I admit I’d have needed help – if I hadn’t already been way beyond it. And it’s quite monstrous for anyone to suggest that I was taking a swing at Jonathan. It was the sanctuary, not the school playground. We were two grown men.


I’ve no recollection of what happened next. I can only go by what they told me, and I take that with a very large pinch of salt. Do they seriously expect me to believe I would ever have rolled about on the floor moaning and groaning, with my thumb in my mouth like an insecure child? It’d be a joke if it weren’t such an insult. They were simply indulging their taste for the sensational. St Dunstan’s had never known anything like it, and there were some people determined to milk it for all it was worth: never mind that my entire future was at stake.


But even as I was being carried out of church, that had already been determined. They’d decided to send me away. It seemed I needed some time to find myself… They talked more like hippies than priests… I always thought the whole point of training for the priesthood was to find ourselves in Christ. But I was allowed no right of reply.

And they were at pains to point out that it was no reflection on my vocation; it was simply a question of my extreme youth. I was by far the youngest in college. Although you might have expected them to have thought of that before. And anyway, since when has age been any criterion? What about all the saints who were martyred in their teens? No, it was quite simply a convenient, but utterly unconvincing, excuse.

At Balliol I had a friend who was just half an inch too short for the Guards. At least so they’d told him. But he remained persuaded that it was his background and not his height that had failed to make the grade. Well, I hardly have the conventional background for the priesthood. Do you think that that may be what they hold against me?


I used to wish that I’d had a monastic vocation. It would certainly have been far simpler. And I feel I might have been well suited to the cloistered calm of a contemplative life. But I wouldn’t have been true to myself. So I had no choice but to accept their conditions; and here I am: a hostage to new experience. But why must everyone imply that I’ve had it cushy all my life? Cushioned maybe, but that isn’t the same thing at all. In fact the first time I’ve ever felt fully at peace, and I mean the true inner peace of belonging, was last year when I entered St Dunstan’s. So what do they do about it? They send me away…


Critics may talk of the Old Boys’ network, but it’s nothing compared to the Old Clerics’. Father Leicester appears to have a finger in every religious pie in the country – or less frivolously, a friend in every religious house. So he’s arranged for me to stay at St Bede’s; whilst Brother Martin, the friend in question, has agreed to act as my spiritual director. Although after all that’s happened, it’s as much as I can do to say grace. But never mind, for as their final trick, I’m tempted to say their coup de grâce, they’ve arranged for me to bare my soul to you.


Another of Nanny’s best-loved maxims was that I thought too much; as you can see she was basically consistent, if rarely profound. At least she’d heartily approve of the timetable Father Leicester’s drawn up for me, which seems to leave me little enough time for prayer, let alone thought. One of his oldest friends is Father Nicholas Redfield, rector of St Winifred’s, the social-work church, and as it’s only a stone’s throw away from St Bede’s, and they even undertake certain pastoral duties in common, what could have been more natural than that he should conscript me on to their programme as a volunteer?

Have you ever had any dealings with St Winifred’s in either your private or professional capacity? It’s the large redundant-looking building at the far end of Bethnal Green Road. At first glance I felt sure that it must have been designed by Hawksmoor, but on closer inspection it turned out to have been by no one of any distinction at all: which pretty much sums up what I feel about the whole set-up. Please don’t misunderstand; I intend no slur on their dedication, simply its direction. Besides, the social work operation is essentially autonomous, and I’m quite sure the Church authorities can have no inkling of everything that’s being done in their name, or at least in their crypt. Most of the care-workers don’t even believe in God. To them he’s simply the landlord of the building, and the archetypal racketeering absentee.


But then to have any property at all appears a heinous crime in their book: not just theft, but exploitation. And what irks me most of all is their closed minds. They may be anti everything establishment, but they must accept that the Church of England is the established Church. And so apart from anything else, they’re displaying the most appallingly bad manners: accepting its hospitality and then insulting the host.

The space itself I find claustrophobic. The ceilings are painfully low, and even now the vaults seem to exude an atmosphere of darkness, death and decay, which is hardly helped by the drab decoration: a complex of sludge-grey, olive-green walls, relieved only by several crudely drawn copies of Old Masters, my pet aversion being a Mona Lisa who grimaces where she should smile. But as they were painted by one of the clients, we’re supposed to applaud his good intentions – which is pure pussyfooting to me.


‘Client’, by the way, is the name they give to the people who use the crypt; I can’t think why it’s the same word you use for me. And they present a pathetic picture: some are homeless, some alcoholic, some completely inadequate; and many a combination of all three. We’re surrounded on all sides by the most acute psychiatric problems; and if you were doing your job properly, it’d be them you’d be listening to, not me. Fiona, another volunteer, said that everything had grown far worse since the move to reintegrate them into the community: it might have helped if there’d been any sort of a community there. I said what about the church; surely we were standing right at the heart of it? She just smiled cryptically… and walked away.

To a man – and a woman: I’ve already been picked up on that point – the rest of the staff seem to have taken against me. They single me out quite openly for the most routine and disagreeable jobs. But I never object; I intend to shame them by my humility. Patrick, the project leader, complained about my body language… Body language…! He claimed I kept the clients too much at arm’s length, and suggested I should try to hug them more often. Well, that’s all very easy to say, but I even used to find the kiss of peace in the village church hard to stomach. And the congregation there was considerably more fragrant than the clients in the crypt.


Yesterday evening I was asked to wash and dress an old man who had only one leg. He’d been offered a place in an old people’s home, but until he’d been ‘freshened up a little’, they weren’t even prepared to let him past the door. So it was left to us to do the dirty work – in other words it was left to me. I have to admit I panicked. I’ve never had to undress anyone else before, let alone someone with a disability; I wasn’t at all sure what to do about the stump. Besides which, he seemed to sense my discomfort and deliberately played on it. I hate to think how many pairs of trousers I must have pulled off him – each one more revolting than the one before; it was like some grotesque parody of the dance of the seven veils. And I can’t begin to describe dismantling, or I suppose I should say dismembering, his artificial leg. I finally had to admit defeat and call on Roy, one of the staff, to help me. I told him I’d done as much as was humanly possible. He replied smugly that Christ had washed the disciples’ feet, and even the Queen still did so symbolically. So I said that symbolically was another matter entirely; and besides, as far as we knew, none of the disciples had been incontinent. And then I felt deeply ashamed of my impiety, and the ease with which I’d allowed myself to be provoked.


My particular bête noire is Vange: short for Evangeline and, to my mind at least, no improvement. She used to be a nun, but she dropped the rest of her name when she dropped her religious convictions and converted to radical feminism. She spent ten years in an enclosed order, and I’m afraid that it’s given her a rather one-sided view of men in general and Christ in particular. She now seems to spend most of her free time outside Whitechapel tube station, picketing walks around the sites of Jack the Ripper. And from her response when in all innocence I asked why she found them so offensive, you’d have thought that I’d committed the crimes myself or at least that I was his spiritual heir.


And her values appear as confused as her thinking is woolly. She complains very loudly about social injustice; but if anybody believes in one law for the rich and another for the poor, it’s her. She’d just like to redistribute the laws. The crypt is supposed to be a charitable organisation, but she displays a marked lack of charity towards the financiers and industrialists who fund it. At last week’s support group she launched a bitter attack on a proposal for a sponsors’ service. It seems that they’re good enough to pay for us but not pray with us. And I’d have thought that as even an ex-nun she would have shown a little more reserve. As I reminded her, Christ didn’t say blessed are the poor, but rather the poor in spirit. But she said that that was just what she’d have expected from a member of my family. And Roy added that the Bible was nothing but scrawls on scrolls.


They refuse to accept that it’s not their politics I object to but their inconsistency. Jonathan was exactly the same: constantly insisting that the Bible had been culturally determined and could only be understood in its historical context, and yet at the same time seizing on statements he particularly admired such as Christ’s advice to the rich young man to sell up all he had, as though it were a political manifesto which had been launched at a press conference only last week.


It’s not that I don’t care about social injustice; I care about it passionately. It’s just that it’s not my prime concern, nor should it be. Whatever else Christ may have said, he quite unequivocally stated that we’d have the poor always with us; but we don’t always have him: except, that is, in the person of his priests. Which is why I believe our essential role has to be sacramental: to stand before him at the altar, to stand for him at the altar, and to celebrate his body and his blood.


But do you think they had the good grace to acknowledge it? Not on your life. Instead they set out as usual to wrong-foot me. Vange wanted to know whether, as the Eucharist was clearly so fundamental to both my faith and my practice, I could ever conceive of a circumstance in which I might feel forced to turn someone back at the rail. I was appalled. It was the Anglican communion we were talking about, not some private members’ club. So I didn’t hesitate for an instant. Never, I said, not under any circumstances at all.


What? Now Roy thought he had me in a corner. Not even the Prime Minister? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I might disagree with her politics, although as I just said, politics has never been my strong suit, but to try to exclude her from the communion would be to take my cue from that same doctrinaire authoritarianism which is what they claim she represents. And I tried to point out that if I disliked someone, I was under no obligation to invite him to my house for a meal, but I was obliged to welcome him to church. Whatever our differences, the Eucharist is the one meal we can all share. It was Jonathan who always used to assert, for reasons which now escape me, that eating bacon was a political act. Well, eating the Eucharist is not.


I thought that I’d made out a pretty good case for myself; but Vange said that as usual I was talking through my arse… I’m sure she speaks like that to prove she’s no longer a nun… And I know for a fact that she subsequently tried to get Patrick to sack me; because Roy took the first opportunity to tell me, with all the malicious glee of a schoolboy sneak. But Patrick was determined to keep me on; and yet from the way he talked, you’d have imagined he was doing me a favour rather than the other way round. Although he felt it only fair to add that he did intend to monitor me… So long as I had no objections. None at all, I said; I have nothing to hide.

I suppose I ought to revel in all the attention: what with his beady eyes and your flapping ears. But I simply feel confused. And as I’m sure you must have realised, it really isn’t my sort of place at all. So won’t you suggest to Father Leicester that he let me leave? And then if he still insists on my finding myself or whatever, he could at least find me somewhere more congenial: an old people’s home say, but one where the residents are courteous, considerate and clean – and preferably still have both legs. So is it a bargain? You’re my last hope. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable… do you?




Two


You may be interested to know that you – yes, you, madam – are standing on the very spot where Jack the Ripper disembowelled his first victim… No, don’t be alarmed. This tour aims to provide a description, not a re-enactment. And although I’ve promised you surprises, I hope there won’t be any quite like that.


First a little social background: in 1860 there were estimated to be 80,000 prostitutes in London. That’s one woman in every sixteen; which on a quick head count would mean at least two of you ladies here tonight. It makes you think… Indeed there were thought to be 1,200 in Whitechapel alone. Though these, as you would expect, were very much the lowest end of the market, many of them being drunkards, and most of them diseased. And what led so many women to become prostitutes? Well, it must be obvious even to the most naive of us – amongst whom until quite recently I would have counted myself – that it was far removed from that conventional picture of the daughters of joy. It’s hard to imagine any woman coming out to this joyless street to be fingered and mauled and finally spluttered into because she enjoyed sex. But then it’s hard to imagine any man visiting a prostitute because he enjoyed sex. In my opinion it could only be either despair or perversity…


No, these women often became prostitutes very young, as their sole means of escape from their stifling families and unbearable living conditions; not to mention sleeping conditions, as whole families were compelled to share the same bed, together with the constant threat of incest to which this gave rise. But any respite proved short-lived, as they were thrown on to their own resources, which in effect meant on to the streets, where they looked for any likely man who might provide them with the fourpence they needed as the price of a bed for the night. And that was precisely what Polly Nichols, the first of the Ripper’s victims, was doing before she was murdered here.


Polly was a woman of forty-two, although she looked a good twenty years older: her way of life had taken such a toll. She’d informed a friend whom she’d met a little earlier that she’d already had three customers that evening, but that she’d spent her pi