XIV - The Little Door

A hidden tunnel at the caves on Elephanta Island

The world is full of little doors. They’re the places where you can sneak through to see, experience, be part of something special. Some are opened by money, some by connections, occasionally blind luck, and some by social status in its many forms – fame, reputation, notoriety. Some of those doors you would not want to go through. I’ve been reading Shantaram about an Australian convict’s time in Mumbai (where we’re currently staying). He writes (it is a novel, though somewhat based on fact) of being taken into the underworld in the 1980s – living in the slums, brothels, visiting a slave-market, generally things that weren’t on our city-tour, and not even acceptable in the 80s. (On slave-markets the protagonist speaks of his anger and impotence, as he’s told that without slavery the children he is observing would have died of starvation – they are described as being the lucky ones.) Our children are moved by the visible poverty and essentially pragmatic. Walking past many people sleeping on the street tonight on our way home Oberon has pledged himself to buying houses with many bedrooms so no one has to sleep outside. 

The ‘little door’ metaphor is perhaps more familiar from Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Here it refers to Charles Ryder’s entry point into the glamorous life of the aristocracy through Sebastian Flyte. Ryder is not without privilege – a public school education then Oxford, but his little door is to a social world one rung higher. On my first day as a student at Cambridge someone gave a speech about how we were the future leaders of the nation, which I thought was a bit crass and was old enough not to take seriously. Since being ordained I’ve been struck by how often I’ve been asked where I went to school (it’s a question that does not expect the answer “Olchfa Comprehensive”). School is still the foundation of a certain sphere’s understanding of society. I always think of Richard E. Grant’s “defence” of Paul McGann in Withnail – “oh, he went to the other place” – implying in this instance Eton (there being only two possible schools in England). I had a friend who was mostly very nice but he delighted sometimes in telling people he’d been to both universities (meaning Oxford and Cambridge). 

A hidden door we could not afford - the Taj Palace next to the Gate of India

If you’ve spent time in English institutions you notice they all begin to look the same. Public School staff rooms, Combination rooms, London Clubs, Officers’ Messes, Livery Company Halls, Hogwart’s Common Rooms; some are grander, but there is an underlying structure that runs through our society, and gaining access, having been outside, is like stepping through a little door. In particular, it feels like the Church of England is mesmerised by this world. It retains a fear, respect and infatuation with an idea of society and is wedded to the aesthetic. The annual complaint that some clergy feel second-class because they don’t like cheese and wine parties or multiple sets of cutlery, the obsession with correctness in dress, the real, quite definite and historic ties that link parishes, colleges, and Lord and living, all indicate the Church is accessed through a little door, which may well fit ill. One of the intriguing unexpected aspects of clerical life is how in some contexts you’re treated like royalty and in others like staff. Both are reflections of our class system and the Church of England's place in it. Both are uncomfortable. But I remember sneaking off on a clergy tour of St Paul’s Cathedral to get out a little door on top of the dome to the London night sky on my own that was magical; a friend took me out onto Southwark Cathedral’s roof to airily look down on the bustle of Borough – and the many trains criss-crossing the city. It was a little church door in my curacy that led me to my study sitting opposite Cherie Blair; an even stranger door that opened into Göring’s mess in Germany in my first post as an army chaplain. 

Part of what we’re seeking in travelling is a little door – an opening on to a different world, a different experience, some form of beauty, truth or goodness – or perhaps their opposites, like Alex Garland’s novel about finding the perfect beach. I’ve usually preferred to get lost in cities, hoping for some chance experience, for fate to align to create the unexpected moment. Our current constraints are making us take more formal routes – humankind with small children cannot bear very much reality. Having taken this Sabbatical, one challenge has been that we are with our children from morning until night, which means that although Rhiannon and I are always together we are never alone. We had always wanted this to be a time where we could reconnect and improve our communication. This has not proved as easy as assumed. If we can slow our pace, increase our space, it may be that we are able to open a different kind of door. Returning exhausted from three months travelling might after all not be the best result from a sabbatical. 

Many beaches lie ahead of us in South India.

Above is in Mumbai where it's very pretty but the sea is full of rubbish.

So we may now take a break from rapid travelling over the next few weeks and spend longer in Goa in one place – sacrificing the guidebook don’t-miss for a more encultured moment and a chance to reconnect.  The moment in my life that felt most like walking through the little door was a series of summers in my twenties working for a company based in Ghent. The company arranged European summer adventures for mostly American teenagers across Europe so we were an international group of students who liked working with young adults in the outdoors. We sat by the river each night before and after trips drinking great beer and eating the world’s best fries. Like all great things there was an edge of unreality to it – we only saw each other in Summer – someone kept track of international heartbreaks – and in the end everyone drifted away into professional lives. But while it was there, it was a beautiful time in the sun. The most magical times are defined and remembered by the quality of our relationships. If we can cut off the boys from hotel staff constantly sneaking them sugar and chocolate, and if the two of us can sit together for a conversation while they play on the perfect beaches of Goa, perhaps we’ll find ourselves a temporary paradise of our own.