CHAPTER 2
He could surely leave now, he thought.
He would check the precise numbers of registrations tomorrow but at a rough count Franz estimated that five courses were over-subscribed. He would persuade those course guides to run two identical courses on consecutive nights. The alternative was to put people on a waiting list but seekers were not patient people. If The Healing Place didn’t meet their needs immediately they would go elsewhere – though there were fewer alternatives now.
In the two years before the building completed its transformation from derelict South London cinema, Franz had tirelessly wooed every complementary therapist and holistic practitioner in the area. Those who had chosen to stay in independent practice had not thrived in competition with The Healing Place’s state-of-the-architecture façade and flexible-space interior.
It had been worth all Franz’s meticulous attention to detail and all his hassling for loans and sponsorships as well as investing every penny of his windfall in the enterprise, for the building, once completed, had been its own publicity. Given the choice of a back-street acupuncturist working from the spare room at home and one who – though available only on certain days and times – functioned in streamlined, pristine premises, most clients chose to receive their treatment in one of The Healing Place’s small upper rooms with integral sound system and contemporary design.
There had been in-fighting and politics, of course – there still were. Franz hoped he was on track for resolving the on-going conflicts between groups with their own priorities. This week would tell. He hadn’t yet broken the news to Ella that he had chosen to stage a forum every evening this week, to ensure separation between the guides who considered themselves destined for eternal incompatibility.
It had proved inadequate merely to ensure that Reflexology sessions were not offered on the same day as Thai Foot Massage, or that Runes and Tarot classes were held in rooms as far apart as the building would allow. (Franz, and many of the seekers, saw them as complementary and would have liked to combine the two groups into one, offering both facilities at once, along with a few other forms of divination, but Meera the Tarot guide and Ashok the Runes expert were adamant that their disciplines were worlds apart and each other’s methods were dangerously superstitious and unprofessional.)
Sharma the Clairvoyance guide, one of the mainstays of The Healing Place, had objections to Wicca, the name now used by devotees of witchcraft, as did many of the other guides. Wicca’s claim to be a genuine religion had attracted some seekers who had abandoned conventional religions (including Phil’s St Mark’s church, Franz reflected with a glint of smugness) but had alienated itself from almost all The Healing Place’s practitioners, most of whom were firmly anti religion of any kind, whatever the object of worship.
Ella, who had been one of The Healing Place’s earliest members, had left its protection and gone into outside enterprise at around the time of the Wicca group's entry, though Franz still was not sure whether the timing of her departure was a coincidence. Franz, after consultation with his team members but without obtaining their unanimous agreement, had offered a fortnightly slot for Wicca meetings. He hadn’t wooed and pursued them with offers of cut-price room rentals and use of facilities, as he had some of the others; they had applied to him for use of The Healing Place’s premises during the winter months when open-air woodland meetings were proving unpopular with all but the hardiest Wiccans.
Although Ella had been vague about her reasons for leaving The Healing Place, simply saying it wasn’t the right place for her at that time, Franz still avoided mentioning Wicca to her. At least Ella had been discreet in her leaving and had not set up as a complementary therapist independent of The Healing Place, despite her qualifications in nutrition, iridology and aromatherapy. Instead she went into partnership with Maz, her former flatmate, who owned the local health food store, Wholiest, and in gratitude Franz had arranged for the store to supply most of the ingredients used by The Healing Place’s SoulFood Cafe and all the aromatic oils used by the now four-strong team of aromatherapists.
Maz was also doing a profitable sideline in supplying crystals for the Power of Crystals seminars and the imported American DVDs used in the Visualization for Healing and the Contact Your Guardian Angel workshops. She sold these as a personal enterprise, not through the wholefood shop since Ella, unaccountably, was almost as uncomfortable with these products peddled by her business partner as she had seemed to be with Franz, her life-partner, giving space in The Healing Place’s premises to Wicca, Trance Dancing, Aura Cleansing, Past Life Regression and Primal Scream.
‘Inclusion means allowing everyone to find their own spiritual imprint,’ Franz had argued with Ella. ‘Maz agrees with me! The Healing Place’s function is not to express the team’s personal beliefs but to allow space for every seeker to search for their own inner truth in the way they choose. And that means welcoming guides of every spiritual discipline, regardless of their approach.’
‘Unless it’s actually harmful, of course,’ Maz qualified.
‘And how do you judge if things are harmful?’ Ella asked. ‘How would we know?’
‘Is it our role to be judgmental of other people’s values?’ Franz asked her, frowning in disapproval.
Ella was unmoved either by his frown or by his arguments. ‘We’re meant to be helping people to empower themselves and trust their instincts,’ she said. ‘I’m trusting my instinct. Some things don’t feel right to me. I can’t tell you why, but you can’t tell me not to think it.’
They had parted company only as business colleagues and Franz continued to consult her at home on any major decision he had to make.
Whatever arguments the various guides had with Franz, none of them ever accused him of being motivated by money. It was clear that personal financial gain was not his goal. He invested far more heavily in The Healing Place than any balance sheet showed - invested his whole self, his weekdays and nights, weekends and non-existent holidays.
The salary he drew for himself was modest, all profits being ploughed into improvement of facilities or early repayment of loans. Eighteen-hour working days were standard until Ella moved into his small one-bedroom flat with him, when he cut to twelve-hour days plus forum evenings, evening speaking engagements to groups of prospective sponsors or clients, and phone calls and messages at all hours at home.
It was his drive and undoubted commitment, as well as their own self-interest, which made many of Franz’s detractors stop short of leaving The Healing Place when they couldn’t persuade Franz to champion their own view against a rival guide’s. His insistence on respect for every person and acceptance of every person’s views was written into The Healing Place’s mission statement. Those who believed in angel visitations were as welcome at The Healing Place as those who believed in pagan forces; believers in Gaia the Earth Goddess were to be listened to as attentively as worshippers of Odin, adherents of an impersonal Life Force or fans of Yin/Yang fusion.
Franz would not be drawn into discussions about who might be right and who might be wrong; he simply dismissed those concepts. ‘Let each person believe what they believe,’ he would say. Nor would he ever be drawn into discussion of his own beliefs. When questioned, he asserted that he accepted every human being’s core beliefs.
If someone pointed out that some humans’ core beliefs were in total conflict with others’, therefore no one could possibly accept all of them, Franz simply smiled and changed the subject. His belief, as most of the guides had come to realize, was in The Healing Place. So if Sharma protested that Tarot and Runes were games for the naïve, and the hypnotherapists argued that Sharma’s clairvoyance sessions were party tricks, Franz listened with sympathy and allowed them to air their grievances. But in the end, they knew, he would smile and slide a friendly arm round their shoulders and urge them to accept each other’s idiosyncrasies.
Little by little, most of them came to emulate Franz’s image: Mr Tolerant, unbiased, inclusive and cool
.
No one was more shocked then than Franz himself when, having changed out of his white suit, locked his office, and prepared to go home, he walked out by way of the side alley into the street and was caught by an overwhelming wave of rage at the sight of young Jacqui climbing into a car, with Jan’s hand on her shoulder and Phil sitting at the wheel.