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counsel or a member of the Spanish Inquisition; I merely want to shine a torch, as it were, into various obscure areas to try to widen your perspective on what I suspect is a very difficult and complex reality. Then I’ll send you back to Grantchester for further reflection.’
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    ‘After a month of further reflection,’ said Francis, soothed by my immaculate docility and steadily gaining in confidence, ‘if you still feel called to leave the Order, you must return here so that I can wheel on the rack, take you apart and poke around among the pieces. It’ll be very unpleasant but I’ve no choice; I’m responsible as your superior for the care of your soul, and I can’t possibly release you from your vows until I’m absolutely certain that this call comes from God and not from – but no, we won’t talk of the Devil. Father Darcy would, but I’m not Father Darcy, and to be honest I think he was a great deal too obsessed with demonic infiltration and very much too fond of exorcism.’
    This confession intrigued me. It was the first time I had ever heard Francis disagree with our mentor or hint at his own private spiritual attitudes. Cautiously I said: ‘Father Darcy wasa psychic and it’s easier for psychics, I think, to talk symbolically of forces which they can perceive so clearly but which normal people find opaque.’
    ‘Oh, don’t misunderstand!’ said Francis at once. ‘I’m not one of those liberal theologians who cheerfully write off the Devil as passé! Obviously demonic infiltration exists – look at Hitler. But you’re not Hitler, Jonathan, and I think that any corruption of your call is going to come from the dark side of your personality within you, not from the dark forces of the Devil without.’
    ‘Father Darcy would say –’
    ‘Father Darcy would say the Devil could be at work in your psyche, but that would just be his old-fashioned Victorian shorthand for what you and I know to be the disruptive force of the subconscious mind.’ Francis, who had discarded his theatrical mannerisms as his confidence increased, now leant forward across the desk to hammer his point home. ‘So let me repeat: it’s not the Devil we have to fear here but a dislocation of your personality, possibly brought on by emotional strain or overwork or some cause which is at present hidden from us.’
    There was a pause while I debated whether it would be wiser to make no comment but finally I was unable to resist saying: ‘A dislocation of the personality is by no means always incompatible with a genuine call. Indeed in some cases a call can’t be heard until some dislocation occurs to open the spiritual ears.’
    Francis immediately felt intimidated. ‘I trust you’re not intending to carp and snipe at everything I say.’
    ‘No, Father, I’m sorry.’
    ‘It may indeed be the case that God is calling you by putting you under psychological pressure,’ said Francis irritably, ‘but how can we tell that until we uncover the exact state of your psyche and see whether the pattern reveals the hand of God or the self-centred desires of your disturbed ego?’
    ‘Quite.’ As I assumed my meekest expression, Francis suddenly realized that if he persisted in his ill-temper I could outflank him by taking a saintly stance which would make himlook both petulant and foolish. His innate cunning triumphed over his insecurity; at once he altered course.
    ‘Once I believe your vision is a gift from God,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’ll be the first to shake your hand and give you my blessing. But meanwhile …’ He gave a theatrical sigh ‘… meanwhile I have a duty to be sceptical.’ Effortlessly he began to exude an aura of benign concern. ‘Now Jonathan, I’m not going to give you orders about how you should spend your time in between our daily interviews, but I do urge you to relax as much as possible. Ambrose thought a little holiday would do you no harm at all –’ This was the first