Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3)

by Catherine Fox

  Our good friend the archdeacon of Lindchester has also been keeping tabs of the ACC, of course. And apart from the odd rumour – fake letters and umbrage – he is reassured by what he sees.

  It’s 10 p.m. This, I understand, is when you should contact your archdeacon, because that’s when he or she will be at their desk and your email is most likely to get immediate attention. At other times, your plea will be deep-sixed under 300 competing demands. Right now, though, Matt is in the middle of a DM exchange with his fellow archdeacon. He doesn’t tweet, he just lurks on Twitter in a monitoring capacity, checking the clergy aren’t making nobs of themselves on social media. Bea tweets cheerily about church things and knitting, adhering to your mum’s golden rule: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

  But all bets are off when it comes to direct messages.

  BEA

  Parish review at Our Lady and St Michael’s tomorrow.

  MATT

  Our Lady and Mike the Spike. Enjoy!

  BEA

  WT Flip is a maniple?

  MATT

  Part of a motorbike engine?

  BEA

  HA HA HA HA! Seriously tho?

  MATT

  Hang on . . . ‘a subdivision of a Roman legion, containing either 120 or 60 men.’

  BEA

  Ooh. Will line them up and inspect them closely.

  Lord, have mercy. But the advert has now gone out for two more archdeacons in the diocese of Lindchester. If you know what a maniple is, do apply. Then at least someone might be able to brandish it valiantly on the diocesan shore, against the incoming tide of the talent pool Strategic Leadership Development Programme Learning Community.

  But enough! Away with sin and sorrow. Grab your wings and join me. We will revel in Lindfordshire in the spring. All the old brown bramble tangles are tasselled with green. Daffodils wither to crepe paper and cherries blossom instead. Water spangles in tractor ruts. It’s all shining, everything is shining – the broken glass underfoot, the tossed plastic bottles and bags, the scrap metal in the yards, every windscreen. Even things you didn’t know could shine are shining today: the yellow handrails at the station, the black railings of the arboretum, shrink-wrapped bales in fields, each twig, each metal roof. Every ivy leaf reflects the sky.

  Jane is trapped in a departmental meeting, answering emails while the head of department talks about UCAS tariffs. A BBC alert flips onto her iPad. No! She glances up, and sees the same shock bloom on colleagues’ faces all around the stuffy room: Not Victoria Wood.

  2016 is dismantling our youth, thinks Jane, as she jogs round the arboretum the next day. And now Prince! Dear God. Death is taking down the posters from our teen walls one by one. Rolling them up. ‘Golden lads and girls all must,/As chimney sweepers, come to dust.’

  And yet the sun still shines. The Queen turns ninety. A full peal is rung in Lindchester Cathedral. May is out along the hedgerows already. Pedro has cast his tartan clout. Today he is walking beside the Linden with Virginia. Father Wendy has gone on a mercy dash to look after the grandchildren, because her son is working abroad and her daughter-in-law is poorly. Virginia is chirpy. She’s mentally pulling together her personal statement, ready for the Social Justice Officer post to be advertised. She sees that it’s a lovely day, but the detail escapes her.

  The detail, ah! God is in the detail, in the quirks, in the qualia, down the cracks, in the corners. Notice it all; let nothing be lost. Count your blessings, Virginia! Name them one by one, the way Father Wendy does:

  Dandelions sprouting along wall tops among the jagged glass.

  Tart pink of flowering currant.

  A buzzard, patient on a post.

  All the dog-walkers of Lindfordshire are out today. Two men stroll with a labradoodle beside the river. Don’t panic: the puppy has been borrowed, not bought. They are just going for a walk. They are not getting married.

  ‘Why’ve we stopped?’

  ‘It’s a kissing gate.’

  ‘Ha ha ha, sure it is.’

  ‘Seriously. I’m a country boy.’

  ‘Dude, you’re full of shit. But whatev—? Uh. Hnn. Cool.’ Well, that went well. Why not just headbutt the guy? Moving on.

  The metal gate clangs behind them. They walk in silence. Ah, c’mon! There’s birds, there’s sunshine, ducklings. Life’s good, no? Be happy! Why can’t he be happy?

  ‘Gimme the lead? My turn.’

  ‘OK.’ Ambrose hands it over. ‘Don’t let him go, though.’

  ‘Aw, why not? He’ll come back, won’t you, guy?’ Cosmo tugs.

  ‘No. Chloe tried it last week, and it took her the best part of three hours to catch him. He thinks it’s all a game. Heel, Cosmo!’

  ‘Puppies just wanna have fun, I guess.’ Cosmo tugs, like ‘heel’ is for sissies?

  ‘Maybe. But puppies need boundaries to feel safe.’

  Silence. ‘Uh, did shit just get metaphorical there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Did it?’

  ‘Coz if it did, you should probably know, this here is one baaad dog? He’ll give you the runaround? Y’know? Steal your shit, fuck with your head, hump your friends? You’re totally gonna end up hating him.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Dude, I know.’

  Ambrose smiles. ‘Oh. OK.’

  ‘OK. So. Cool.’ Cosmo tugs on the lead till he half-chokes, going after something in the grass. The sun breaks up on the water like flashbulbs going off. Man, this is so weirdly hurty? Why does it hurt? I can’t do this. Can’t we just fuck, get it over with? I don’t know how to like . . . be with him?

  ‘Don’t worry, Freddie. He’ll run out of tricks before I run out of patience.’

  ‘You’re a patient guy, huh?’

  ‘Trust me, I’m an ox. Damn! Sorry, did he just eat something? Here, boy. Cosmo, drop it. Come on, spit it out.’

  Freddie watches as Ambrose kneels and prises a manky tennis ball out of the dog’s jaws. Cosmo laps his face. Ambrose laughs and rumples his ears, his fur. ‘Good boy. Yeah. Good boy.’

  Oh man, now I’m filling up? ‘Probably he doesn’t deserve you?’

  Ambrose stands. He shies the ball across the river into the rushes. Then he smiles at Freddie again. ‘Well, it’s not about deserving, is it?’

  #Shakespeare400. Across the diocese of Lindchester we go bard mad with fun activities (free to download!) and quizzes in every school. Friday is non-uniform day! Yay! Well, provided you bring in a pound for the school fund and dress up as a Shakespeare ­character.

  Leah Rogers went as Sir Toby Belch, and got sent to the head’s office for belching in literacy, which was blatantly not fair. All the boys were burping too, it’s just that Leah was WAY better than the boys; she could say, ‘To be or not to be’ in one single belch and the furthest they could get was ‘To be or’. Plus in her humble opinion it was both big and funny.

  The celebrations in the cathedral on Saturday afternoon did not showcase any virtuoso belching displays; although I feel sure the choristers would have acquitted themselves well had they been called upon. Nor did Freddie May appear as Bottom. (Don’t ask.) The Mighty Dorian (as a favour to his old friend, the precentor) delivered a brilliant public lecture on Shakespeare’s sonnets in the afternoon, much as he used to when he was an English don (only without stumbling drunk off the podium and passing out, still quoting).

  The concert in the evening featured all the pieces you would expect, and the party afterwards at the precentor’s went on long into the night. Miss Blatherwick heard them still going strong at 2 a.m. She’d not been sleeping too well again recently. Her window was open. She was an old-school believer in fresh air. Honkytonk piano riffs tinkled across the Close. Rowdy singing. Not a song she was familiar with.

  An owl called. ‘The staring owl . . . Tu-whit, tu-who – a merry note . . .’

  The dean heard the song too, and she recognized it from her granny’s chapel.

  Count your many blessings, name them on
e by one,

  And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

  Count them, name them. The calling owl, the chiming bell, the piano riff, the ACC, good friends, all songs and sonnets and labradoodles. All the blessings of this life. ‘Golden lads and girls all must,/As chimney sweepers, come to dust.’

  It’s not about deserving. It never is.

  Chapter 17

  ire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word!’

  The showers sweet sputter into spite. They usher April out again, clattering on roofs and patios across Lindfordshire. Snow! Snow in April, for heaven’s sake! It powders the green baize of the landscape like tailor’s chalk, outlining lost earthworks for the circling buzzards to see. Even when the sun blazes again, drifts linger on the high tops in the rock clefts, among sheep and gorse. Turbine blades flash like Saxon swords on a distant hill, and crows creak homeward to roost as the sun goes down in fire.

  The first fledglings are in the undergrowth now. Miss Blatherwick steps into her garden and claps at the nest-raiding magpies, favouring the humble worm-eaters above species that dine on baby blackbirds. It is sentimental nonsense, she knows; but there one is. She presses her hand to her left side. Perhaps another paracetamol. Plenty of fluid. Tiresome, this diverticulitis. But it’s not the end of the world. She needn’t pester her GP with it.

  It’s not the end of the world, Leah. Why did grown-ups always say that? I’m not STUPID. I KNOW it’s not the end of the world. But it WAS my best pencil, and Jack BLATANTLY snapped it in half!

  Leah storms off. Jess dawdles behind, singing and skipping and literally talking to snails and garden gnomes like she’s got special needs. Leah is sposed to walk her home. Well, Jess should —king well keep up then! (Leah’s eyes dart from side to side, in case God hears the F-word. Then she remembers she’s an atheist.) Jess should keep up, if she doesn’t want to get snatched by a —king stranger and murdered—

  She freezes.

  The whistle-pitch scream comes again.

  Oh God, oh Jesus! Leah belts back the way she came. Let it be OK, don’t let anything— She hurtles into the alley. There’s Jess. Alone.

  ‘What? What happened?’

  ‘It was a bee!’

  Leah grabs Jess and shakes her. ‘Idiot! You stupid, stupid IDIOT!’

  ‘It flew at my face!’ Jess tugs away. ‘It was going to sting me. Like the killer bees you told me about!’

  ‘That’s in South America, you moron!’ Leah scrubs her eyes with her sweatshirt sleeve. ‘Why do you have to be so dumb all the time?’

  Jess touches her arm. ‘Don’t cry, Leah.’

  ‘I’m not crying.’ A sob blurts out. ‘I thought—’ Leah stamps her foot. Why did her voice have to go all stupid? ‘I thought a paedo was snatching you!’ she squeaks.

  Jess’s eyes go wide. She looks round to check. There are no paedos in the alley. ‘It was just a bee.’

  ‘I was going to kill him. I mean it. I know how to kill people,’ says Leah. She sniffs. ‘Maybe you should learn.’

  ‘But you said I’m not allowed to do karate.’

  ‘Well, you could learn a different martial art. One more suited to your physical physique.’

  They start walking, side by side. Everything’s gone weird and super-real. The wooden fence knocking in the wind. Her trainers hitting the tarmac. The dog poo smell. A blackbird runs on the path ahead. Leah’s fingers are cold. They’ve gone tingly.

  ‘You mean like kickboxing?’ suggests Jess.

  ‘Well, maybe. But your legs are a bit short. You’ve got to think about your strike range.’ She feels her little sister’s hand sneak into her own. ‘Not to be rude, Jess, but the other thing is, you aren’t actually very aggressive, are you? You need to tap into your inner aggression. I won’t be here for you next year when I start at QM, remember?’

  ‘OK. I’ll try to be more aggressive.’

  ‘Hey, there’s this Brazilian martial art that’s based on dancing, though! You’d be good at that.’

  ‘Dancing! Cool!’

  ‘Yeah. It’s called caipirinha.’

  ‘Yay! I’m good at dancing. Can we ask Mum? Coz I bet I could do . . . What’s it called again?’

  ‘Um, caipirinha? Or something. But girls can do anything, Jess. You need to remember that.’

  ‘OK.’ Jess does a little skip. ‘So does it go like this?’ She does a twirl and a kick.

  ‘Yes. That’s amazing, Jess.’ Obviously it isn’t; it’s crap. But it’s a scientific fact you should never demotivate younger children. If you’re an older sibling, you have to be a positive role model literally all the time.

  Talking of role models. Let us don our time-travelling wings and swoop back to the previous Saturday, and the party that kept the poor dean awake and counting her blessings.

  You will have noted that Andrew Jacks – ex-mentor of the lovely Freddie May – was once more on the Close. Perhaps you’ve even seen that YouTube clip from that occasion? Just google: ‘The Gentlemen of Lindchester Cathedral Choir sing “Jambalaya”.’ It features Dr Andrew ‘Andy’ Jacks tap-dancing.

  ‘You’re not going to share that anywhere on the internet, are you, Mr May?’

  ‘Nu-uh, not me. Nope. I absolutely one hundred per cent am not gonna do that.’

  ‘You little shit.’ Andrew laughed. ‘Well? How’s it all going, friend? Come. Sit and talk to me. I hear good things about your perform­ance on Easter Day.’

  They sat on the third step of the precentor’s grand staircase and Freddie poured out his heart. So yeah, that bastard Laird? His job at Vespas? Oh, and he’d finally finally got an accountant, and . . . um, so yeah?

  ‘Interesting! Do I note a certain bashfulness here? Enlighten me: has accountancy become a euphemism since my philandering days?’

  Freddie squirmed. ‘Naw! Guy did my tax return, is all.’

  Andrew leant close. ‘Don’t look, but is that tall dark brooding alto over there your accountant? The one who is currently amusing himself by visualizing the earth dropping from the sexton’s spade onto my poor coffin?’

  ‘Wha’?’ Freddie craned round. ‘No, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, that’s uh, Ambrose. So we’re like – we’re friends, OK? He’s a sweet guy? I mean, he sings on dec, obviously?’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Oh, obviously.’

  ‘Gah!’ Freddie wrapped his arms round his head.

  Andrew laughed. ‘Would you like the benefit of my advice?’

  Freddie bumped his head against his shoulder. ‘Dunno. Yeah. Kinda?’

  ‘Very well. Once upon a time, when I was a couple of years older than you are now, there was a very lovely man in my life.’ He broke off.

  The whole party slowed down round Freddie. Noise, slow. Pulse slow in his ears: doom, doom, doom. He watched the bubbles rise in his cava. Little beads of gold. Up . . . and gone. Up . . . and gone.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He died.’

  Freddie put his hand on Andrew’s knee. ‘That sucks.’

  ‘Indeed it does. And while I don’t regret getting my heart broken . . .’

  Freddie saw him tilt his head, like he was checking this?

  ‘Anyway, I do regret the time I wasted not believing my good fortune.’

  ‘Hnn. Can totally relate to that,’ said Freddie.

  ‘I suspected you would.’

  ‘So that’s your advice, yeah? Like, carpe diem?’

  ‘God, no!’ A fey shudder. ‘How hackneyed. I just wanted to mention this: please entertain the possibility that despite your manifold sins and wickedness, someone might find you altogether lovely.’ He patted Freddie’s knee and got to his feet. ‘That’s my advice. Ciao, bello. The Lord grant you a quiet night and a perfect end. All yours, Lanky,’ he said to Ambrose as he wafted past.

  A quiet night and a perfect end. That would be nice. When did Jane last get a full night’s sleep? Not since she climbed aboard the menopause cakewalk. Still, she uses the time profitably when she wak
es with a hot flush in the wee small hours of Saturday. First, she lies there trouble-shooting imaginary work scenarios that will never happen. Then she broods over past conversations with colleagues. These night-time sessions provide a welcome opportunity to hone and edit her ripostes to levels of unanswerable brilliance, in a way that’s simply not possible under the ad hoc arrangements of real life. This done, she moves on to the Four Last Things. Matt snores beside her. Perhaps she should suffocate him with a pillow? On the whole, no – sheer short-termism. Because who would bring her a cup of tea in the morning?

  Heaven, hell, death and judgement. Of these four, the only one she believes in is death. And yet, does she really believe in it? Even though parents and grandparents, great-aunts, even school friends and colleagues, have died – doesn’t it still seem ludicrous? As if they might reappear one ordinary day and laugh at you for falling for it.

  Yes. Despite all the evidence, there’s a defiant streak in Jane that won’t accept that it has to be this way; that our lights will just dwindle out, or get snuffed, and that will be that. Rage, rage, and so on. She is not one of those who will go gentle into any kind of night, good or bad. It makes her want to fold her arms the way she did as a small girl, when grown-ups hilariously claimed to have pinched her nose off. ‘Look! Here’s your nose, Jackie!’ ‘That’s your thumb.’ ‘No, it’s your nose! I’ve got Jackie’s nose!’ Did they think she was thick, or something?

  She can see that this stubbornness might map rather well onto a belief in the resurrection, of death being swallowed up in victory and so forth. The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. But she doesn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, either.

  Nor does she believe in heaven and hell as eternal destinies. As the man said, hell is other people. (Or more specifically – judging by what she’s seen of Matt’s job – hell is other people’s parishioners.) That said, heaven is also other people. Probably. If human love is the greatest good we can know.