‘Anyway, that was later; after the consulate I went straight to the monastery and saw the Superior. He was a grim old Dutchman who had spent fifty years in Central Africa. He told me his part of the story; how Sebastian had turned up, just as the consul said, with his beard and a suitcase, and asked to be admitted as a lay brother. “He was very earnest,” the Superior said’ – Cordelia imitated his guttural tones; she had an aptitude for mimicry, I remembered, in the school-room – “Please do not think there is any doubt of that – he is quite sane and quite in earnest.” He wanted to go to the bush, as far away as he could get, among the simplest people, to the cannibals. The Superior said: “We have no cannibals in our missions.” He said, well, pygmies would do, or just a primitive village somewhere on a river, or lepers, lepers would do best of anything. The Superior said: “We have plenty of lepers, but they live in our settlements with doctors and nuns. It is all very orderly.” He thought again, and said perhaps lepers were not what he wanted, was there not some small church by a river – he always wanted a river you see – which he could look after when the priest was away. The Superior said: “Yes, there are such churches. Now tell me about yourself.” “Oh, I’m nothing,” he said. “We see some queer fish,” ’ Cordelia lapsed again into mimicry; ‘ “he was a queer fish but he was very earnest.” The Superior told him about the novitiate and the training and said: “You are not a young man. You do not seem strong to me.” He said: “No, I don’t want to be trained. I don’t want to do things that need training.” The Superior said: “My friend, you need a missionary for yourself,” and he said: “Yes, of course.” Then he sent him away.

‘Next day he came back again. He had been drinking. He said he had decided to become a novice and be trained. “Well,” said the Superior, “there are certain things that are impossible for a man in the bush. One of them is drinking. It is not the worst thing, but it is nevertheless quite fatal. I sent him away.” Then he kept coming two or three times a week, always drunk, until the Superior gave orders that the porter was to keep him out. I said, “Oh dear, I’m afraid he was a terrible nuisance to you,” but of course that’s a thing they don’t understand in a place like that. The Superior simply said, “I did not think there was anything I could do to help him except pray.” He was a very holy old man and recognized it in others.’

‘Holiness?’

‘Oh yes, Charles, that’s what you’ve got to understand about Sebastian.

‘Well, finally one day they found Sebastian lying outside the main gate unconscious, he had walked out – usually he took a car – and fallen down and lain there all night. At first they thought he was merely drunk again; then they realized he was very ill, so they put him in the infirmary, where he’d been ever since.