Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3)

by Catherine Fox

  Sonya, whose turn it is to sit with her, draws back the sitting-room curtain and opens the French windows a crack. Miss Blatherwick sees the torch-lit faces.

  ‘Here is the little door.’ Ah now, her favourite!

  A little door, a tiny hinge. But to think what turned on it.

  *

  ‘We need not wander more . . .’ Freddie jogs home by himself in the rain to the treasurer’s. Don’t hold back. Give it everything. Coz you never know.

  His heart is going mental. Seriously. Allegro, presto. Gah, prestissimo! Any second his phone’s gonna buzz? Coz in a second Brose is gonna find it. Post-it over the keyhole. OWL. Arrow pointing.

  Freddie leans his forehead on the treasurer’s door. Hands shaking wa-a-ay too much to get the key in. Oh God oh God oh God. Right about now Brose will see it perched there on the wreath, little tennis ball Scops owl? He’ll be laughing. Then he’ll see the tiny scroll tied to its leg? Maybe now he’s unrolling it? Reading the message:

  Marry me?

  Chapter 50

  omehow, Freddie got the door open. He sat on the stairs, knees jittering. Hours passed. Every minute was full of hours. Yes or no? Text me! Text me! The treasurer’s house was silent. Only the radiators ticking. The cathedral clock chimed. Quarter to. Brose had to be home by now, surely?

  Shit. Had he called it wrong? Maybe Brose wanted to propose to him, maybe he couldn’t handle Freddie taking the initiative? Oh God, bet he had a plan of his own! That would be so like him. And now Freddie had managed to fuck it up.

  Unless Brose was all, wow, um, let’s try living together first, Freddie, see how that goes. We can’t even decide what breed of dog to get. Way too soon to be talking about getting married.

  What if the answer was no? Oh God, what if that was why he’d never raised the whole moving in together thang again? He’d decided Freddie wasn’t a keeper, too high maintenance, too much kink going on – only now with Miss B and everything, he was gonna let him down gently?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait up a minute here. Maybe it’s none of these scenarios? Maybe it’s all fine and there’s some totally normal explanation, like Brose went for a walk, or swang by someone’s house for a drink? Freddie took a deep breath. Rolled his shoulders. Looked at his phone. 7.50. If he hasn’t texted by 8 p.m., I’ll go over there, see what’s going on. Better to know the truth, yeah? He hugged himself and shivered. This is why we went with tonight, remember, not Plan A, Christmas Day? Miss B’s suggestion. Her point was, so Christmas won’t be ruined?

  Ah, fuck this. Need a beer. Freddie grabbed the bannister, hauled himself to his feet and headed to the kitchen.

  He saw it immediately. Playing card stuck to the fridge. Ba-doom! went his heart. How the—? When did—? He raced across. Please, please be the two of hearts? He peeled it off, turned it over. Ace of diamonds. And the words: Check your back pocket.

  NO! Omigod, omigod! He shoved a hand in his jeans pocket. Pulled out a ring! Only an actual diamond solitaire? Tap at the kitchen window. He looked up. There was Brose, laughing. Holding the little owl. And nodding. Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Ambrose had found the little owl before setting off to sing carols for Miss B. He’d had it in his coat pocket all the time they stood in her garden. Totty was in on the plan. She’d let him in so he could stick the card on the fridge, and stow the champagne. Then she and Philip tactfully went out for the evening. It was far too good a plan to waste – although Ambrose was burning to say yes. Patient as an ox, he held his tongue, stalked Freddie home, and then had rather a long cold wait outside the treasurer’s kitchen window, while Freddie sat on the stairs catastrophizing. But it was worth the wait, I think.

  Afterwards (as we say in the trade) Ambrose lay in bed admiring his fiancé, who lay admiring his ring. Neither of them could stop smiling.

  ‘So tell me about this bad boy?’

  ‘Well, it’s vintage, obviously.’ Ambrose poured more champagne. ‘Russian, early twentieth century.’

  ‘Aw, man, you didn’t spend a fortune here, did you?’

  ‘Um, you probably don’t want to know, Freddie.’

  ‘I so want to know!’

  He sighed. ‘Fine then. I won it in a card game.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘In St Petersburg, 2011. A young Russian aristocrat staked it, and lost. Apparently, it was a family heirloom.’ Ambrose covered his face with a hand. ‘I found out later he shot himself.’

  ‘Omigod! Seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pause. He removed his hand. Grinned. ‘Nah, I bought it online.’

  ‘Doh!’ Ambrose fended him off, laughing. ‘You are so mean to me!’ Freddie went back to admiring. ‘Oh yeah. Girl’s best friend. Want me to buy you one, too?’

  ‘Very happy with my owl.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re all about owls, I noticed that. Can’t wait to show Miss B.’

  ‘She’s seen it,’ said Ambrose. ‘Gave it her seal of approval.’

  ‘No way! You told her?’

  ‘I wanted her advice. About when would be a good time to ask you.’

  ‘And she said today? That’s what she told me too! Ha ha ha! Miss B – what a legend.’

  They fell silent.

  ‘Hey,’ said Ambrose. ‘It’s OK to be sad.’

  ‘Don’t wanna be sad tonight!’ But a sob escaped. ‘Ah, you saw how she looked? Man, didn’t think it would be so fast, you know?’

  Ambrose gathered him in. ‘I know.’

  Over on the other side of the Close, Miss Blatherwick smiled as she drifted in and out of sleep. Gratitude. Gratitude. All those prayers. That little lost six-year-old. To know he will be fine. A dear someone for him. Blessings. Yes.

  Three days to Christmas Eve. Lindfordshire is awash with lists. Present lists. Card lists. Wish lists. To Do lists. Foodbank Donation lists. Self-Care for Coping with Stress at Christmas lists. The whole of life is on a list somewhere.

  Archdeacon Kay has a list. A top-secret list of people who will be getting a puppy for Christmas. Or rather, the promise of one – the pups won’t be ready to leave mum until they are eight weeks old. Poor Lydia is already breaking her heart at the thought of saying goodbye to Butterscotch.

  Freddie is on that list – though he has no idea.

  Becky is on that list. Yay! Ssh! Lydia is not to tell Leah! (Lydia has told Leah, obvs, but that’s OK, because Leah promised not to tell Jess.)

  Father Dominic is not on that list. He is not completely mad! He has Mother, for heaven’s sake! He is not about to saddle himself with another dependent relative. Stop showing me puppy pics, Chloe!

  Father Ed is on the list. Neil thinks he doesn’t know. Ed feigns ignorance, but he smiles, because it tells him Neil really is going to sell the business, buy a disused chapel to do up, and settle here in the boonies at last.

  That leaves one puppy unaccounted for. Lydia has not begged and wept in vain. Ssh! Don’t tell her.

  And as every child knows, Santa has a list. Double-checked. Oh, he knows which you are – naughty or nice. He’s been watching you. There will be a reckoning.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  The minutes, the hours, the days pass. The To Do lists get scaled down. Let us spare a thought for single people in this frenzy of coupledom and family fun, and pop in on Father Dominic and Mother Virginia.

  They are saying Morning Prayer together in church on Christmas Adam. This is the feast that comes before Christmas Eve. Virginia – with her benighted Evangelical background, bless! – briefly falls for this. But she will shortly have her revenge.

  Just as he is about to begin the Canticle, Dominic’s tachycardia starts up. Virginia has been told the drill. The office is suspended as he performs the Valsalva manoeuvre – a glamorous matter of ‘holding your nose, closing your mouth and trying to exhale hard while straining as if you were on the toilet’. It doesn’t work. He nips to the church loo and tries dashing cold water on his face. This doesn’t work either.

  V
irginia hovers. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘It will stop by itself,’ he gasps. ‘Eventually. Like hiccups. Sorry about this.’

  They sit and wait in the vestry. Pigeon shadows sail past the window.

  ‘While we’re here,’ says Virginia, ‘You need to know we have a really serious safeguarding issue. A live one, not historic. It’s a PCC member. I’ve involved the police, obviously.’

  ‘No! Oh my God!’ says Dominic. ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, nobody. Did it work?’ she asks brightly. ‘The shock. You said it was like hiccups.’

  ‘Oh!’ Dominic clutches his heart. ‘Outrageous! Yes, it did. But that’s very naughty of you, Mother Gin!’

  Virginia laughs till she cries. Dominic remembers discussing her with Matt before she was appointed. Not a barrel of laughs, indeed! They giggle and bat one another weakly. Stop it! You stop it!

  In the end, Dominic wipes his eyes. ‘Oh dear. I need a cigarette. I feel as if we ought to get married now.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ whimpers Virginia.

  ‘Well, let’s at least do Christmas together,’ he says. ‘I know! We could have it in church. Let’s invite the guys in the graveyard. Round up all the waifs and strays.’

  ‘Yes! Like in Rev,’ says Virginia.

  ‘Exactly!’ Only without the utter failure and church closure, preferably, thinks Dominic.

  The last two days of Advent are here. Hurry, hurry! Do those things that you ought to have done. Put a penny in the old man’s hat. Be kind. Mend fences and bridges. Make straight the way for God within.

  Jane has taken Danny to meet the long-lost rellies. Three-hour motorway journey of sweaty palms and skittering pulse – only to find the grudge they all held existed only in Jane’s head. Nobody had been judging her all these years for refusing to move back and look after her dying mother. Or for shaking the dust off her stilettos and getting out in the first place.

  ‘Maybe you were judging yourself, eh,’ suggested Danny. ‘Coz you felt guilty?’

  Jane had already worked this out, thank you very much. It was a sign of her immense maturity that she didn’t smack him round the bonce. That, and the fact that all too soon she’d be driving him to Heathrow again. Ah, Jesus! Why does life have to be one long process of saying goodbye?

  All around the diocese there are baking smells. It has always been that kind of a place. Traditional. Homely. Open fires and secret kindness. The big wheel of good taste turns and suddenly Lindchester is bang on trend. Is there a more hygge place outside Denmark on God’s green earth?

  Becky bakes star cookies. She drives back to Cardingforth and gives them to Wendy to say thank you for everything. She tells her about the new flat, the new puppy, and that Jess will audition for the cathedral girls’ choir in the New Year. Yes, Leah is OK with that. Grandma and Granddad will contribute to Jess’s school fees, and set aside the same amount for when Leah goes to university. (Plus anyway, Leah never wanted to be in some lame choir in the first place.)

  On the way back to Lindford Becky sings in the car. I won’t ever have to see this place again. Thank you, thank you. On Christmas morning, she will join the girls and their father at his place, and she will cook the dinner. And it will be all right. Not perfect – she’s done with perfect – but all right.

  After Becky has gone, Wendy creaks down onto the kitchen floor – oof! – and strokes Pedro. ‘Well, she seems much happier, doesn’t she? I’m glad she’s getting a dog. Everyone should have a dog, shouldn’t they, boy?’

  Pedro lies in the same patch where Lulu breathed her last. Sunshine falls across the floor. Could it really be three years ago? Oh, Lulu. Heaven – the place where every animal you’ve loved comes running to greet you. That’s what they said. Wendy does not know. There must be some scooping up, though. All the beloved animals, all the places, all the people. Surely nothing loved can be lost for ever – but how this can be, she cannot imagine, only trust.

  The vicarage in Risley Hill is empty this Christmas. Laurie is on sick leave. Julie is spending some time at a private rehab centre. The bishop of Barcup has a discretionary fund for these things. That is the story. In fact, the bishop of Barcup was approached by an anonymous benefactor, who had made a couple of wee (ahem) lifestyle changes this year, and found himself with extra funds as a result. The benefactor also took the opportunity to give the bishop a case of Nyetimber to apologize for hating him. And maybe in the New Year he can catch a word with him about reader training?

  ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, except for a hamster. Boris II rustles in his sawdusty bed, safe in his cage on the precentor’s kitchen table. He does not see Boris I skimming across the floor, chops bulging with stolen Stollen (Ulrika has been baking too). Does Boris I bow the knee? Folklore has all animals doing obeisance on Christmas Eve. I wish I could tell you that Amadeus, the cathedral cat, displayed such piety. Gavin, the deputy verger, has twice removed him from the manger, and replaced the evicted Christ child.

  Listen. The cathedral organ plays softly. Tonight the central white candle on the wreath will be lit. The chamber choir gathers to rehearse for the midnight.

  Out in the holy night the street pastors raise the fallen and seek the lost. Churches open their halls to the homeless. In the side aisle of Lindford parish church, Dominic and his mum lay a big table with her best wedding china and the unused silver and pristine Irish linen tablecloths.

  ‘However many are coming?’ she asks.

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ he replies. ‘Mother Gin’s been into the highways and byways and compelled them to come in.’

  ‘But what if we run out of turkey?’

  ‘Pooh! Sufficient unto the day are the turkeys thereof, Mother.’

  And so the dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more. My story is nearly done. My tortoises are assembled, and we are poised at least to nod in the direction of perfect felicity as 2016 draws to a close. Is that not what we want – for the year to end tidily like a novel? And then for a fresh volume to start, full of possibility and hope, where anything could still happen, and it might yet be all right?

  Across the diocese of Lindchester, across the nation, people come to church. They come to the crib service, the midnight, the Christmas Day Eucharist. In this dark year, they come in their hundreds, their thousands. They come to village churches, to high street churches, to cathedrals and chapels and café churches on housing estates. Because where else is there? Dear old C of E – quintessence of hygge! Maybe there is still an ancient homing device in us all. Maybe a chorus of wartime wirelesses has crackled to life in the cobwebby attics of our post-truth land: ‘O come, let us adore him.’

  Children wake while it’s still dark. He’s been! He’s been! Bulging stockings. Heaps under trees. Did a single child, however naughty, find a lump of coal? A switch? No! Santa is all-merciful. As always, there are perfect gifts (puppies, peach trees in terracotta pots, hot-air balloon vouchers). There are perfectly acceptable gifts (booze and food, cash and vouchers). And there are perfect-for-the-present-drawer gifts (remember to remove the gift tag from Aunty Brenda).

  And here we are, wine-flushed and paper crown askew, looking back on Christmas.

  St Stephen. St John. Holy Innocents. This week of in-between-ness passes swiftly. Miss Blatherwick is fading fast. She knows it. The nurse is with her now. There is a race against the clock to finish Adam Bede. One by one they come – in response to Freddie’s Facebook plea. They sit at her bedside and read a chapter to her, just as she once read to them. Former pupils, in whose thickening middle-aged bodies the piping choristers of yesteryear are concealed. Who would have thought Miss B had so many boys?

  I cannot tell you how much Miss Blatherwick absorbs of George Eliot’s plot. There’s Hester and that ne’er-do-well. Love triangles. Adam. Dinah Morris. But strands from other stories keep weaving themselves in. It’s the dratted morphine. There is to be a weddin
g. A father handing over a bequest. Something about a puppy. No, that’s the real world. How will it all end? Will she be frightened?

  All of Lindfordshire is locked down in frost. Ice feathers out across standing water. Fog lurks knee-high in fields. The sun floats up, vast as a harvest moon, gilding all the east-facing windows, ­burnishing every brick. Willows blaze like polished copper.

  Freddie is out running before dawn. Mile after mile. He presses his thumb across his ring finger. Feels the diamond. Clenches his fist. Why does it have to be this way, happy and sad all tangled up in a mess like this? It hurts so much. He makes himself think about the miracle puppy instead. Golden labradoodle! Cosmo – lad! Ha ha ha! So maybe in the New Year things will be better? Dog-walking with Brose.

  Ah, don’t be wishing it gone. Oh God, Miss B – what will I do without you? Never not gonna need your wisdom. And now his dad? Only sending a congratulations card and a ridonkulous cheque? Gah! Can’t throw it back in his face, but can’t let him think he’s won? Miss B was all, he loves you, Freddie. In his own way. Right, in his own strings-attached control-freaky way. Emotional blackmail, same old. See this cheque? I love you this much. Now prove you love me back, son. Be what I want you to be. Like I haven’t always loved you anyway, Dad. If only you’d paid attention to the fact.

  He rounds a bend, then, whoa! The sun comes floating up through the trees, like this massive Chinese lantern? Makes him think of Brose again. Him and me, floating up in a hot-air balloon next summer? Yeah. Just hanging in mid-air over it all, looking down? Like the condors kicking back on the thermals. Maybe all this will look kinda small from up there? Ah, I am so small. I am so small.

  It is New Year’s Eve once more. Softly, softly, the needles fall from Christmas trees all across the diocese. The nice Chablis has all gone again, and only the coconut ones rattle round the plastic sweet tub. Before long, the pall of back-to-work dread will descend. We will ache for a fresh start, to be made over anew, repurposed, upcycled, saved. But tonight there will be partying.

  This year in the deanery there is a three-in-one trinity of parties. Historically on the Close, the bishop and dean have held rival celebrations. However, in this year of restructuring Steve and Marion have amalgamated their unwieldy gatherings into one manageable do. This much is known to all. But tonight is also a surprise engagement party – known to all except Freddie and Ambrose. This was the brainchild of Ulrika and Iona. Whether it sprang from a vague guilt about being a bit mean to Mr May for so long, I leave to the reader to determine. They have gathered as many of the couple’s loved ones as possible. Let us sneak into the deanery behind the lay clerks and snoop.