Becky should have told Laurie to take a hike. Had she learnt nothing three years ago? Yes, yes, but she was lonely. She went back in, telling herself it was just friendship, that she wasn’t hoping for more. Friendship was what she needed, anyway. But I’ll tell you something – the vicar of Risley Hill wanted more. Not hanky-panky, it may surprise you to learn. Too obvious, in a tabloidy vicar-rhymes-with-knicker kind of way. We will not bother with that weary trope. What Laurie wanted was adoration. Adoration was what fuelled the hungry engine of his ego. He even wheeled out the old classic ‘My Wife Doesn’t Understand Me’. As the reader knows, this is generally a synonym for – how to phrase this for a god-fearing audience? – grazing your goats on Mount Gilead among the lilies. Be that as it may, this is not what Laurie meant. His complaint was really, ‘My wife doesn’t believe my hype any more.’
After a couple of meetings, and heart-to-hearts, it dawned on Becky that she wasn’t just lonely, she was ravenous. Lead me to Mount Gilead! Bring me your lilies! I will graze the heck out of them! She wanted this man as much as ever. More than ever. They both knew Julie was an alcoholic – though only Becky was prepared to name it. They both knew she was never going to change, and that he should leave her for Becky! He had suffered enough. Surely! In desperation she tried to force his hand: her, or me. And for the second time, Laurie withdrew, and stopped answering her texts.
This was the tale that Becky sobbed out to Bea. It was not quite the tale that Laurie told later in the week – sincerity dial cranked right up to Tony Blair levels – when the archdeacon of Martonbury scheduled a conversation.
Look, yes, it was a pastoral misjudgement on his part to respond to Becky’s request to meet. Yes, Bea, he ought to have remembered that poor Becky was a needy lady, with a lot of issues. Look, Bea, as far as he recalled, it had all been at her instigation. And he believed that their God was a God of abundant grace, who might still bring his healing touch into that situation. But sadly, it was not to be. Or not yet. He had gently retreated as soon as it became clear things were still tricky. He was praying for the Holy Spirit to invade Becky’s life, and make her truly the woman God in his wisdom planned for her to be, and—
‘So you’d be quite confident your text messages back you up here, Laurie?’ Bea cut in. ‘If it came to that.’
She watched to see if the dreaded phrase Clergy Discipline Measure would flash through his mind. If it did, it went too fast for her to see.
‘Of course.’ Laurie spread his hands. ‘If I still have them on my phone.’
‘Not to worry,’ replied Bea. ‘Becky’s probably still got them on hers. How’s Julie?’
‘Look, Bea, as you probably know, Julie has her struggles. But God’s working through that situation, and bringing a blessing to our family.’
‘Am I right in thinking she has an alcohol problem?’
‘No, not any more, praise God. She just suffers from low mood, sometimes. But she’s a brave lady, and I really honour the way she deals with that.’
Hmm. ‘Well, you know there’s support available, Laurie.’
‘Of course, Bea. The diocese has been a real blessing to us over the years.’
He was repelling her at every turn with his light-sabre of sincerity. The smell of rat rose heavenward like a burnt offering. A little chat with the bishop elect of Barcup was in order. When he got back from his break in Portugal.
Talking of rats, I know the reader has been on tenterhooks about the rodent infestation in the house of the canon chancellor. Fear not! The pest control people have been in and put down those special plastic box traps that conceal all evidence of rodent slaughter, and can be passed off as tiny rat caravans to small children. Before long the house will be pest-free again.
Next door, in the precentor’s house, Boris II is guarded from cat-attacks 24/7.
Forget the rats, you say? What about poor Freddie?
He thinks now, that he will look back on that break with Ambrose as a perfect golden time, like the last week of the summer holidays; or the end of childhood, almost, before you find out the bad stuff? Everything, all the bazillion things he’d done with a bazillion guys – every single thing was like a first again? And then, all the regular things of just being with someone? Cooking. Singing. Watching the Olympics in bed. Laughing till he seriously thought he’d tear his intercostals? And out on the heath, you could hear broom pods splitting in the sun, like twigs snapping? Drone and buzz of insects. And this stillness over everything. Smell of hot bracken – that was always gonna break his heart for ever afterwards, make him think of that time?
Right after that massive fight, they went for a pub lunch. That’s when Brose said, ‘Freddie, I’m going to need you to make a decision.’
And him panicking. ‘Dude, I choose you! It’s you I wanna be with, not him? Half the time I like almost hate him? But you, you make me smile – in my actual heart, like all the time, the entire whole time, it’s you?’
Turns out Brose meant, kayaking or horse riding? Doh. But hey, he’d managed to say it finally?
But then the fight over money? Dude, I can’t let you buy me stuff. And he was all, so who’s paying for the week on the cousin’s yacht? You let Jacks comp you a holiday, but I can’t buy you lunch? Gah. Then he was, would you buy me stuff, if you had money?
‘Babe, I’d buy you everything.’
‘Like what?’
‘Uh. Like, maybe an owl?’
Brose laughed. ‘You’d buy me an owl?’
‘Yeah, a Scops owl? Tiny, and super cute, you know? Like a tennis ball, only with feathers? Then I’d buy you a peach tree. ’Cept you haven’t got a garden?’
‘I’ve got a garden. I’ve got a house in Lindford.’
‘No way! I did not know that. Plus I’ll buy you yellow socks. With black stripes. Like a bee? And a hot-air balloon.’
‘To match the socks?’
‘Whoa, like a giant bee? Awesome!’
Random stuff – it keeps floating through his mind as he packs his bag. He gets the suit out of the wardrobe, the ‘I’m a loser’ suit, the ‘I’m the bishop’s chauffeur’ suit, the ‘standing in the dock getting sent to juvie’ suit.
The funeral suit.
Ah, shit. His entire whole family gathered. This was going to be like a knife slicing him open, top to toe, and everything was gonna come sprawling out.
SEPTEMBER
Chapter 34
ist lies across the diocese of Lindchester. Archipelagos of trees float in a white ocean. Cows break the surface like pods of sea mammals. We wait. For term to begin. For the new session of Parliament. For autumn. For a fresh start, for forgiveness, a clean page in a new exercise book and a sharp HB pencil.
But not quite yet.
How are our friends faring in this misty limbo? Has Sonya been busy bottling the produce of the palace garden? Alas, no. The larder shelves stand empty of Kilner jars. But she has done her best, poor thing, floundering in her predecessor’s shadow. She has gathered plums and windfall apples and put them in boxes by the gate with a sign: ‘Help Yourself!’
August edges to an end. House martins gather like crotchets along telegraph wires. The dean and the bishop have both returned from holiday and braved their work inbox. The bishop finds that his invaluable EA has already been in like a bomb disposal expert and made things safe for him. The dean – less fortunate in her PA – wades through 300 new emails. NOOO! A bit of medieval masonry has fallen in the south aisle. Argh! Nets have gone up as a precaution. Marion mops her brow, and ploughs on with her task. There. The inbox has been faced down. Nobody has died. Gene opens a Dom Pérignon 2006 to mark the fact that one tiny bit of sandstone narrowly missing a verger does not actually constitute every dean’s nightmare: CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF THE FABRIC (which is more your ‘spire crashing through roof’ scenario).
Miss Blatherwick waters her poor Lindchester pippin. The last few apples have all puckered up to the size of walnuts. But there is still sap in the twigs. It will tak
e years to recover, her metaphor tree, but recover it will. Or so one trusts, knowing one might not be around to see. She carries the empty bucket back to the house to refill it. Then she pauses, bent at the sink to catch her breath. No. One bucket would have to do. Goodness, what a nuisance this condition is. So draining. The sleeplessness, the appetite loss.
She lowers herself into a chair. Her mind wanders to her dear boy. She’d offered to drive him to his grandfather’s funeral, of course, but part of her had been relieved when he said no. Let him be all right. Miss Blatherwick has very little time for Mr May senior, frankly; though one tries to forgive (as one hopes to be forgiven).
We last saw Freddie disconsolately pondering the hated suit, and dreading the nightmare family reunion that lay ahead. Brose was going to run him to the station the following morning. The only silver lining was getting out of that week on the yacht without pissing Andrew off. Hey, you can’t argue with a funeral? Except he had to go and blurt it all out anyway, how he should never have accepted in the first place, because Ambrose? And then Andrew was really sweet about it, like bless you, you could have brought him along too?
He tossed the suit on the bed and sat down. Looked round at Ground Zero. Gah! Totty had told Mrs Thing months back not to clean his room till he tidied it. Man, it was rank in here. He should get onto it. Mugs, skanky running kit, junk food cartons. What are you – fourteen? What if Brose ever wants to stay over? Get onto it, yeah?
But he just sat there.
Silver lining? Not so much. Right now, given the choice? he’d be on that yacht. Yeah, he would. He’d be off his face, getting it on with some older guy, like a total cheating whore, fighting with Andrew, blocking it all out, coz anything would be easier to deal with than his family. Older half-brothers still calling him Polly, his dad insisting he sang ‘O for the wings’, and not listening, not getting that it was a treble part, even if it was Granddad’s favourite. Like hello? Have we forgotten the history here? The tiny matter of the camming thang and getting kicked out of school? Not to mention the whole escort era, the— ah, let’s not even go there? But according to you, Dad, I’m meant to stand there and sing, like I’m still Gramps’s little angel chorister, who didn’t get cut out of the will and told never to show his face again?
Ah, cock. Freddie knew how it was going to go down. He was going to flake. Brose would drop him at the station, and Freddie would get on the London train instead, disappear on a three-day crash- and-burn. And everyone would be gathered at the crem, all, where’s Freddie? I thought Freddie was coming? And then the coffin would arrive, and his dad would shrug and they’d start without him. Same old. I gave you a chance, son, and you blew it. You’ll never change.
Yeah. That was totally how it would go down.
Freddie was wrong about this. He went to the funeral, in a new suit (an early birthday present from guess who), acquitted himself honourably, and sang that treble aria in his man voice – even though it was all wrong – like an angel. Let us speed back on the time-travelling wings of fiction and find out why.
The reader may picture Freddie’s panic when he heard Brose’s footsteps coming up the stairs. No-o-o-o! Not good, not good! He tried to keep him out, but nu-uh. Guy was an ox. Just picked him up, carried him into the middle of the mess and stood him there. Had himself a good long look round?
‘Impressive. Five months’ work, Totty says.’
‘Ah, Jesus, Brose! Don’t do this. I’m dying here?’
But he just laughed. ‘You still think there’s something I can find out that will stop me loving you? Go and grab the hoover and some bin liners and let’s get this sucker sorted.’
And afterwards, when finally it was turned round – clean sheets, windows open, carpet vacuumed, smell of polish in the air – they sat together on the edge of the bed. Freddie leant his head on his shoulder. And Brose was all, ‘See? I’m still here, Freddie. Still love you. So now let’s talk about me coming with you to the funeral.’ And Freddie was, ‘No way! Dude, you think this was a mess, you ain’t seen nothing.’
But he was all, ‘Bring it.’
BACK TO SCHOOL! Hush, hush, whisper it not!
Leah has been taken by Dad – at last! – to the official school outfitters of QM. This historic emporium is called – completely brilliantly – Thrashers. The official bottle-green blazer with the red Tudor rose on the pocket has been purchased, along with the official black trousers (Leah would rather gouge her eyes out than wear a skirt). She has the pale green shirts (which must be tucked in); and the green striped tie, which Dad has taught her how to tie properly.
The train season ticket has not been bought. For now, the Rogers girls are living with Dad in Lindford. Leah will be able to walk to school. Dad will drive Jess to Cardingforth in the morning, and then Madge will drive her to Lindford at home time. Mum is staying with Grandma and Granddad until she feels better again.
Everything will be OK. Leah rubs her hand over her head, and feels the thrill of her new short crop. Boy hair, she has boy hair now, like Arya pretending to be a boy to save her life! She listens to the strange night noises of Lindford, and tells herself: It’s all OK. You’ve coped really well, Leah. I’m really proud of you. You don’t need to worry any more. You’re only eleven. You don’t have to be responsible for everything. That’s what Dad said. She hugs his praise to her chest like the blanky she doesn’t have any more, because she’s too old to need it.
Nothing to worry about.
Apart from Big School . . .
No, no! She feels like she’s bracing her entire self against a door. But the door is slowly opening all the same. The minutes are ticking down. Tomorrow is the last day of August. Then it’s September. There’s nothing she can do to stop it. The only good thing left is the party tomorrow. Secret surprise. His birthday. Ssh . . .
It went off like a dream. Totty kept Freddie busy with some invented garden chores until the appointed hour, then sent him across to the precentor’s, carrying a box of windfall apples. That’s when the fuckers all burst out, Surprise!
Aw! You guys! All the back row, whole music department – he gazed round, mouth open – clergy Chapter, Janey and Matt, Dom, Marty and the girls, Miss B, Kat, Ed and Neil. Chloe hanging onto Cosmo’s collar. The staff from Vespas, laughing at him. You knew, all day you knew, you bastards!
Literally everyone was here? And Ambrose, standing there with his big smile. You did this? Naw. You actually did this all for me? And here I am, still in my waiting tables gear, holding a dumb box of apples? He turned round to find somewhere to put it, and—
‘Whoa! What the actual fuck is THAT?’ Uli was bringing in like a yard-high Christmas tree cake tower, with sparklers fizzing out the number twenty-six?
‘It’s your croquembouche,’ said Ambrose. ‘I was up all night baking it.’
‘Bull. Shit. That’s off the internet.’
‘Oh, OK, then. Ha-a-appy birthday to you . . .’
And everyone joined in. Like maybe they like, liked him? even though most of the time he was a pain in the ass, and right now he could only stand there crying, still holding the box of apples like a total idiot?
And so August ends. A last handful of days before the House returns and the political music must be faced. (What have we done, what have we done?) The northern hemisphere tilts into autumn. Is this the tipping point, these last few days of perfect balance, of calm, before everything changes?
‘What on earth is fig urine?’
‘What on earth is what?’ asks Father Dominic.
‘Fig urine,’ says Mrs Todd. She is still living at the vicarage. The summer is over, and Father Dominic has not yet been saved. ‘Oh, I see! It’s figurine! The hyphen was in a funny place.’
‘Thank God for that.’ He fans himself. ‘I thought you were on Urban Dictionary again.’
‘That! I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just dirty schoolboys making stuff up.’ She jabs the screen with her finger as if squashing ants. (Why, why had he thought
an iPad was a good idea?) ‘What do you make of this gay bishop coming out business?’
Nice segue, mother. ‘I’m rather longing for the day when people are just people, and this kind of thing isn’t news.’
‘If only people would mind their own beeswax and not get their knickers in a wotsit, a thing, a twist. That’s my considered opinion.’ She deals a few more ant-killing jabs. ‘It was “a major error” to appoint him, it says here in this article.’
Dominic glances. ‘Oh, Gafcon. They probably mean, why didn’t we hear about it in time to head it off? Poor darlings, they can’t keep their face pressed to every window.’
Silence falls in the kitchen. Mrs Todd pursues a private line of thought.
Oh Lord. Here we go again.
‘That tall boy is very nice.’
‘It’s actually a dresser, but thanks.’
‘No, you daft ninnyhammer. That tall young man. You know. Accountant. Thingummy’s cousin.’
‘Ah! Ambrose, you mean.’ He shakes his head. ‘He’s got someone already.’
‘Oh. Anyway, as soon as this hip is better, I’ll be out of your hair. You can have your life back.’
You are my life now, you silly old bat. He leans over and kisses her cheek.
‘What’s that for, all of a sudden?’ she demands.
‘Nothing.’ He gets to his feet. ‘I’m off to take this wedding. Try not to set fire to anything while I’m out.’
‘Pish and tosh.’
Father Dominic walks down the vicarage path in the sunshine. September at last! One of his favourite months of all. Goody-good. And the last wedding of summer. A pigeon croons in the sycamore tree by his gate.
Is this the tipping point? he wonders. When the House of Bishops meets later this month, will there be a change of heart about marriage? Does he dare let himself hope?
Chapter 35
Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3) Page 22
