Freddie is here too. Does that surprise you? Perhaps he has struck you so far as utterly irreligious. By no means. He was a chorister, remember: cut them and they bleed Psalms. He is staring up at the altarpiece the way he stared at another by the same artist, in a different chapel, in unhappier times. He’s remembering how he vowed that when he got out he would do two things: go up onto the moors, lie on his back and see nothing, nothing but sky, literally, and hear the larks? And second, he’d find the guy (he wrongly assumes) who painted this and thank him. He has done the first, borrowing the car without permission, and earning himself a right reverend bollocking when he got back (Paul rather leapt to conclusions, I’m afraid: Lindford Common, police car on the drive). Freddie has not yet fulfilled his second vow. This is what he is thinking about as he stares up at the canvas. He should totally do it? Yeah, he should really get on to that? But this triggers a cascade of dread: so much he should do! He should get his act together, look for work, apply for stuff? He shoves his hands up his hoodie sleeves. His fingers play the guitar fret scars on his upper arms. Time is running out. Should have applied for the Winchester job. Shit, why does he keep missing the closing dates? He’s got to check out the Church Times ads again, bound to be something somewhere. Please let there be. But what if there’s not? Oh, shit. Oh, Jesus. Help me? He hugs himself and shivers under the glass gaze of Burne-Jones’s angels, looking, with his ragged hair and fading black eyes, not unlike a trashy angel himself.
I don’t want my readers to think that the bishop is unaware of Freddie’s distress. He is not a brute. Even now as the matins bell picks up speed and Mr Chancellor comes clattering in, Paul is praying for Freddie. How to handle this? He knows from experience that any attempt to force Freddie to face reality will provoke panic and a knee-jerk barrage of bad behaviour, which must then be confronted, punished and forgiven. And frankly, he just does not have the time for another spin on that pointless merry-go-round. Yet having agreed to this arrangement, he is in some sense responsible. So he prays. For wisdom, and for Freddie, who he can see on the other side of the chapel there, shivering. The way he had that first evening. Standing in the palace hallway, ashen-faced, shaking with misery. Paul had known at a glance he was trouble, yet he couldn’t find it in his heart to turn him away.
O Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
We will tiptoe out now and leave them to their prayers, while I take you to the shrine. As you may know, Lindchester has its very own saint, William of Lindchester. He was demoted at the Reformation when his shrine was broken up, but I believe we are still entitled to think of him as a good and godly bishop, even if we no longer look to him to cure us of scrofula. His cult rested on a miracle: he waded, crosier in hand, into the Linden, and by prayer alone diverted the course of the river, thereby saving the Lower Town from catastrophic flood. Here’s the shrine, in this space behind the High Altar, right under the famous rose window. Look down. Just a simple grey stone with his name and dates; and a place where you may light a candle and leave a prayer request.
If you are feeling nosy you can step closer and read some of the prayer cards pinned to the board. Please help my Nan. Be with those serving overseas. Pray for baby Josh, desperately ill in Special Care. Already a little group of candles flickers in the gloom. The organ begins to play. Some twentieth-century French voluntary? I see why you think that, but no, merely the organ tuner. At the top of the prayer board is a verse from the hymn often associated with William of Lindchester:
Lord Jesus, think on me,
That, when the flood is past,
I may the eternal brightness see
And share thy joy at last.
Oh, that January were over. The first snowdrops tremble under trees, and look! – the daffodils are up. Not long, not long now. I dream of crocuses, their Cadbury’s Creme Egg hues rioting on every municipal roundabout! Sunday will be Septuagesima, three Sundays before Lent. It is also Holocaust Memorial Sunday. (The precentor fires off an email to the director of music: ‘Abbot’s Leigh not Austria!’, to head off any risk of singing ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’ to Deutschland über Alles.)
But today is Friday. Generally speaking, Friday is clergy Day Off. It is certainly Dominic’s day off. He has succeeded in impressing this upon his congregation. They now preface their requests with the formula, ‘I know Friday’s your day off, but . . .’ Tonight he has finally managed to drag Jane out to see Les Mis. They are in the posh bit of the Odeon in Lindford, sitting in a little booth before the showing, drinking prosecco and absorbing popcorn by osmosis. Let’s edge close and eavesdrop.
‘Come along, Janey. You have to eat your body weight in nachos. It’s the rule.’
Dominic was at the thin phase of his three-year dieting cycle, and looking rather trim. In fact, right now he probably weighed less than Jane. Not a quality she’d ever admired in a man.
‘Yeah, right. I don’t see you eating nachos.’
‘Pig out as a tribute to Danny, then. How’s he getting on, by the way?’
‘Fine.’
‘And how are you getting on?’
‘Fine.’ There was that loop again: All Departures. ‘I hope this film has a happy ending.’
Dominic did his dowager’s shriek. ‘What?! I can’t believe you’ve never seen the musical.’
‘I vaguely read the book for A-level,’ she lied.
‘Well, then. You know what happens.’
‘She sells her teeth. That’s all I remember. Is this going to depress me? I need a happy ending.’
Dominic hesitated. ‘We-e-ll, let’s just say the eschatological hope remains.’
‘Pah!’ said Jane.
Well, you’ve seen the film, surely? Then you can imagine Jane watching the young men mown down, their blood running along the gutters. Empty chairs at empty tables. Dominic flipped up the armrest and said, ‘Come here, darling.’ He held her while she bawled and cursed herself for being a silly cow. He agreed, yes, she was a silly, silly cow, and stroked her hair. And as for that final scene— Lord have mercy on us all.
They walk through the streets of Lindford back to Dominic’s car. It is snowing again now. Dominic links his arm through Jane’s. Why was she still hoping this? That somewhere on the far side there might yet be – against all logic, against all the evidence – an Arrivals Gate, with someone there looking out for her?
Chapter 6
Jane is out running. Running? Towing a dead elephant out of the swamp with a tractor, more like. But at least she is out there. Oh, that it has come to this, the consoling mantra of the middle-aged jogger. Time was when she could crank out six, eight, even ten miles without thinking about it. It’s muddy on the river bank. Jane is not going far. Just a mile-and-a-half loop to ease herself back into it. The cooling towers rear up to her right, vast cathedrals of climate change. Yeah. Like she doesn’t use electricity. In the distance now is the old bridge, lovely as a Cotman painting. The halfway point. She will cross it and plough home along the opposite bank. Come on, old girl, old carcass, you can do it. Blue sky today. Mild. Black hedges, blond fields. Rushes sshh gently beside her and the sheep as they graze are all haloed with light. Somewhere nearby a thrush dusts off his spring repertoire. Toodle-oo, toodle-oo! he carols. Chewie-chewie-chewie! Chewie-chewie-chewie! Free kick, free kick! (Jane is fluent in turdus.) The Linden races by, full and joyous. Spring. It will come. No woe of hers can hold it back.
There’s a pounding behind her on the opposite bank. Another runner, gaining fast. They will reach the bridge at the same time. She flicks a glance. Young man. Black running skins, green beanie. Jane knows she’s invisible to young men (unless she falls and breaks a hip), but pride forces her to pick up her feet and power jauntily towards the bridge. They’ll cross in the middle. Here he comes, mirror shades, white iPod wires trailing. Tssh! Tssh! Tshh! of his music.
‘Morning!’
‘Hey, Janey!’
‘Freddie!’
The Most Revd Dr Michael Palgrove has preached his farewell sermon in York. I presume his goods and chattels have been swaddled in purple lambswool and suavely conveyed to Lambeth or Canterbury. Early next week an arcane ritual will be enacted in St Paul’s Cathedral, after which we will have a legally constituted new archbishop of Canterbury. We wish you luck in the name of the Lord, Dr Palgrove! And in His hands we must leave you, obeying our self-imposed unity of place by not venturing beyond the boundaries of the diocese of Lindchester.
Candlemas approaches: the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Here we turn our backs on Christmas and set our faces towards Jerusalem. On Sunday the crib figures must go back into bubble-wrapped hibernation till December. It all feels a long time ago now: the parties, the carol services, that last-minute supermarket dash for goose fat. Here and there evicted Christmas trees still lie beside wheelie bins. MORE FURTHER REDUCTION’S says a sign in the Lower Town.
I’m about to take you on a short cut through the Luscombe Centre, Lindchester’s 1960s shopping precinct. I will require you to gaze upon vistas of bleak concrete where neat Victorian terraces once stood (themselves replacing medieval squalor). Who can say now what was in the town planners’ minds? I expect someone somewhere was making a mint. Lindford fared worse, of course, yet the blight seems more appalling here, here in Historic Lindchester, where the cathedral spire is visible over the brutal multi-storey car park; aloof, in a different world. A gull circles in the blue. Down here we must hurry past betting shops, charity shops, pound shops, amusements, a mad person muttering on a mobility scooter, a clipboarded bouncy person: ‘Can I borrow you for a minute? No? Have a nice day!’ Oh dear, vomit – don’t slip! Chip wrappings blown into corners; the massively fat, the huddled homeless; a Big Issue seller. Remember to make eye contact and smile kindly as you say, ‘No thanks.’ At least you haven’t pretended she doesn’t exist.
What a godforsaken spot this is – assuming God forsakes the poor and hopeless – but we’re out now. And here’s the river, just a few yards away, down these steps. It’s looking pretty turbulent right now. All that snow and rain, I suppose. (William of Lindchester, pray for us!) This is Gresham’s Boats we are passing. In the summer you can hire a little rowing boat or a punt and tack with hilarious incompetence from bank to bank up and down the Linden, and then picnic under the venerable willows. In a moment – if we have timed this right – Freddie will appear, mud-spattered, sweat-slicked, at the end of his eighteen-mile run. He will force himself to run up that steep flight of steps you can see on your left. Three precipitous zigzags up the wooded bank to a narrow passage: a secret back way on to the Close when the main gatehouse doors are closed and locked at 10.30 p.m.
Here he comes now. Ah, it would console Jane to see this, to hear him whooping for breath. She’d be able to keep pace with him easily now as he stumbles up the steps. He gets two-thirds of the way before he collapses. Sits, head between juddering knees. Oh, shit. Man. Like, total running whitey? He retches. Lies down. Dark closes in. Stars. Then it clears. He’s on his back looking up at trees, sky. Except he’s not looking up, he’s looking down. Stuck like a fly to the world’s ceiling, looking down on the abyss of space. Whoa, paradigm shift? What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Then it flips back to normal. That was mental! Totally – fucking – mental. He lies there a few minutes longer, laughing, then hauls himself to his feet. Slowly, slowly, fumbling the handrail, he climbs the last flight to the narrow gate at the top.
5.29 p.m. The late bell chimes. Here comes the chancellor, sprinting in a magpie flurry of cassock and surplice towards the west door. It is the last day of January and look! Are we right to say it is not wholly dark at the beginning of evensong? From inside the cathedral the windows are grey, not black, surely? Yes, the year’s corner has been turned and before long we will be cantering towards light evenings again. The choir is already assembled in the vestibule. Mr Happy pants in, just as Giles is testily consulting his watch. The lay clerks exchange smirks; the director of music presses the magic button. Upstairs in the loft the sub-organist wends her improvisation to a seemly close. The precentor says a prayer. A lay clerk strikes himself on the head with a tuning fork, listens, then begins to sing. The room fills with music. It radiates out, like the glow of a fire, until it fills the whole cathedral. The small congregation waits in the quire. Candles burn in their glass columns. Yes, the old familiar service, like sleep, always knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.
Marion the dean draws a deep breath and exhales. At last the employment tribunal is over. A whole year it’s been hanging over her: endlessly deferred, adjourned, rescheduled. It has meandered through so many baroque twists that her clergy colleagues call it Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. Despite her best prayerful efforts it blighted Advent and Christmas for her. And today it ended. She’s been fully vindicated in court. But already the next most menacing card has risen to the top of the deck: the cathedral budget deficit. Under that lies the south side restoration appeal, and the Choristers’ School . . . She shakes her head at herself. Sufficient unto this day is the tribunal thereof. The antiphon ends, the procession begins to move. She drops into place behind the head verger and brings up the rear. This is the kingdom: the first shall be last and the last first.
Over in the deanery Gene is putting out champagne flutes. There are six bottles of something rather special in the fridge, along with something divine from his favourite smokery. Sound the trumpet: John the Bastard has been vanquished! Marion will not crow; she is far too decent a human being. By tacit agreement she outsources her venom to Gene, who is more than happy with the arrangement. John the Bastard has wasted a year of Gene’s life by proxy; so a select little surprise gathering of a celebratory nature has been convened. Mr Happy has undertaken to detain Marion with some interminable rant about the medieval library, while the others scurry on ahead to the deanery. Mary Poppins and Pollyanna have not been invited. Gene cannot abide the Hendersons. For Marion’s sake he is prepared to be courteous. His courtesy does not, however, extend to wasting his 1996 Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs on Evangelicals.
‘I took some flowers and a card round to Marion,’ Susanna told Paul that evening. ‘I hope that’s all right.’ It was unfair of Jane to describe Susanna as fretting like a busy bee. Susanna had a whole busy hive of bees fretting away. ‘It’s not too, too, oh, triumphalist, is it?’
‘Of course it’s not,’ said Paul. ‘We’re all relieved for her. I’m glad the cathedral was so fully exonerated.’ He did not add that he hoped he’d be as lucky when a serially litigious priest in the diocese finally got his day in court. Paul could do without being branded the Bullying Bishop of Lindchester, frankly. ‘So how was your day?’ (This, before Susanna’s bees scented the pollen of dread and became agitated.)
It is not the business of this novel to intrude into clerical bedrooms and delineate marital relations; but I should probably mention that the Hendersons were tucked up in bed. It was gone ten, after all. Susanna told the bishop about her day. He listened to the sleepy murmur of the hive while he processed his own day’s business and then moved on to speculate about England’s chances against Scotland on Saturday. (Women are wrong when they say men can’t multi-task.)
‘Paul? Um—’
Um! The very word was like a bell, to toll him back from line-outs to his sole self!
>
‘No. Absolutely not!’ Then he smiled. ‘I’m teasing. What is it? Go on, darling.’
‘Well. Um—’
‘Unless it’s something about Freddie May, and can we let him stay a bit longer until he’s got himself sorted out.’
‘Well—’
‘Look, I’m very happy to have a conversation about this, Susanna, but not now. I’ve had a long day, tomorrow’s my day off, and I don’t want to fall asleep thinking about work.’
‘Sorry. Of course.’ She kissed his forehead. The Hendersons had a pact not to talk about nasty worrying things after ten at night. Uneasy lies the head that wears the mitre.
I’m sorry to tell you that the bishop was woken at one in the morning by a group of revellers weaving home past the palace and caterwauling, ‘It’s a jolly holiday with Mary!’ The poor man then lay awake for over an hour, wondering how the game of musical bishoprics – triggered by the empty chair at York – would play out. In the end, to put a stop to this vanity of vanities, he went downstairs to make a cup of tea.
We will leave him there in his dressing gown in the perfect kitchen: a mug of tea, a book of verses (Shakespeare’s Sonnets – his New Year’s resolution was to read more poetry). His Thou is not beside him singing in the wilderness, admittedly. But it is paradise enow. Life is good. He is thankful.
Acts and Omissions Page 4
