Acts and Omissions

by Catherine Fox

‘Was literally a hate crime, man. They fucking . . . Yeah. Hey, faggot – bam! They fucking did that.’

  ‘I know, Freddie.’

  ‘Telling you, hate crime. You’re not mad at me?’

  ‘Of course I’m not mad at you.’

  ‘I love you, man. Fucking love you.’

  ‘Yes, we established that. Are you sure we shouldn’t go to A and E?’

  ‘Nah, ’sjust a broken nose.’

  ‘I’m more worried about concussion.’

  ‘No, look, listen, it’s— Listen. Thing is, I’m kinda wasted?’

  I’ll say, thought the bishop.

  ‘Ow. My fucking nose really hurts.’

  Pause.

  ‘So they’re like, hey, faggot. And I’m like— Hunh. Can’t re’mber the, the, ah nuts.’

  Pause.

  ‘So yeah. Wossname. Busted his knee. Other guy, he goes to hit me, and I’m, block, turn, boom! With, with, with, yeah. Only, jodan, na mean?’

  ‘What? Sorry, are you talking about karate?’

  ‘Fucking hate crime. Hey, faggot – bam!’

  ‘Yes, but are you telling me you retaliated? Freddie?’

  ‘Fucking love you, Paul. Seriously. Do anything for you.’

  The bishop pulled the car over and turned on the light. ‘That was not in your statement, Frederick. You said one of them punched you, then you managed to run off! Come on, this is serious. Look at me.’

  But Freddie’s eyes were tracking an invisible tennis lob in ultra-slow motion. ‘Wha-a-a’?’

  ‘Tell me what you just said. About this guy, whose knee you “busted”.’

  ‘I busted his knee? Awesome!’ Pause. ‘Why’ve we stopped? You wanna fuck? Whoa. Prolly we shouldn’t do that, Paul? Seriously, whoa.’

  Give me strength! The bishop snapped off the light and wrenched the car into first.

  ‘What I do? Hey! Do not lay your passive-aggressive shit on me, Paul! I do not enjoy that shit.’

  Trust me – you’d enjoy my aggressive-aggressive shit even less, thought the bishop.

  Normal bank holiday weather has been resumed. A glorious Trinity Sunday, true, but as half term commences we are back to our customary misery. The cathedral choir is on holiday. The Choristers’ School is closed. It will be evensaid, not evensong this week. Dean and Chapter have taken advantage of the traffic lull on the Close: scaffolding will be going up on the south side of the cathedral on Wednesday. Where is the money coming from for the restoration work? I’m glad you asked that question. Just to set it in its context, we have been working very hard with our various partners on a wide-ranging ambitious five-year development plan, which includes education and missional projects, the redevelopment of our visitors’ centre, investment in the choral foundation, urgent fabric repairs, along with a range of exciting new enterprise and outreach initiatives, with various funding bodies coming together, including we hope HLF, to—

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Deanissima,’ says Gene, ‘the money’s coming out of the endowment funds.’

  ‘Only in the short term,’ says Marion. ‘It’s all above board. We’ve got permission from the Church Commissioners.’

  ‘Because the bastard thing’s about to fall down.’

  ‘Not on my watch, it’s not.’

  ‘You go, girl! But – just to clarify, if I may – the bastard thing could now go bankrupt on your watch instead.’

  ‘Thanks for that cheery thought, Gene.’

  ‘Well, let’s not worry about it. You’ll have a few years’ leeway before it goes tits up, and who knows? You could even be bishop of somewhere by then, so it’ll be the next dean’s problem.’

  ‘I’m glad I have you in my life. You are always such a support.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I also dance exceptionally well. Would you like me to show you my dance moves?’

  ‘I’ve not heard it called that before,’ says the dean.

  June, it’s nearly June. Danny’s nearly halfway through his gap year, thinks Jane, and I still haven’t cleared the bugger’s room. Probably teeming with rats and roaches by now. This time last year I was on his case about revision. And then it was the Jubilee, whoopee-doo, pissing with rain, and we—

  Jane calls herself to order. You can Skype him tonight and gloat about the cricket. This is not getting these suckers marked. (Marking! What a way to spend your bank holiday.) She picks up the first script: ‘There were many causes for the Enlightenment, such as the influence of philosophers and cultural and intellectual influences as well as the political environment.’ Should she read to the end? Or just drink bleach now?

  Her phone buzzes. Well, well. A text from ‘wazzock chef’. (Which reminds her: she still hasn’t tracked down where he works.) The text contains a picture of two foaming beer glasses, and it’s followed by a question mark. I’m afraid Jane then wastes rather a lot of valuable marking time on Google images, searching for a riposte.

  ‘In this essay I will show that the impact of the scientific revolution also impacted on the Age of Enlightenment as well, when many new discoveries challenged traditional concepts of nature and man, such as for example deism.’ Jane’s forehead makes contact with her desk. That beer is starting to seem very tempting indeed.

  The archdeacon of Lindchester – sitting in Costa in Lindford – snorts coffee all over his iPad. He’ll take that as a no, then. He wipes down Lara Croft with his sleeve as she flips him the bird.

  Susanna is optimistic about getting the bloodstains out of Freddie’s clothes. The trick is a long soak in cold water first, followed by a forty-degree wash with Vanish. She secretly prides herself on her stain-removal skills. She even got that red wine stain out of the oatmeal carpet, though she’d despaired at one stage, thinking Jane had actually managed to set it in her desperate efforts at removal. Blot, not scrub. Never scrub. She hasn’t told Jane that, of course. But Freddie’s shirt and jeans won’t be a problem. She still can’t believe that Paul didn’t wake her last night! Poor, poor Freddie! Oh dear, oh dear! Oh, let the police catch the brutes who did this!

  ‘Do you think CCTV footage would show anything?’ she asks Freddie. ‘Have the police checked? Did they say anything about CCTV? Maybe they’ll be able to identify them.’

  ‘Could be, Suze, could be.’ Fuck, his head hurts. He swigs down the painkillers she is handing him. Ow, fuck, his nose hurts. Fuck.

  ‘Well, let’s hope so.’

  Or not, thinks Freddie.

  Because there’s this blurry line? Where self-defence stops being self-defence and starts being, yeah, kind of more stomping the shit out of your attackers? No-o-o-oh. What has he done? It happened so quick! Ah c’mon, it was totally self-defence – there were two of them, they started on him for no reason. It was a hate crime. He’s got the right to defend himself against homophobes, no? It’s not like he set out to injure them. It was pure reflex. Muscle memory? Except when you’re that blitzed, there’s no control, is there, no knowing how hard you’re going in. What if—? Ah shit. But no. Police would be after him by now if it was serious.

  Wouldn’t they?

  ‘Can I make you some breakfast, Freddie?’

  ‘No. Really, no.’

  The bishop is not a happy bishop. Freddie May is devouring ten times his fair share of the episcopal emotional energy right now. It’s nearly lunchtime on bank holiday Monday, and Paul has promised to take Suze to hell’s amusement arcade, the Outlet Village, to browse the bargain Le Creuset. He’s offered this because he knows he’s been too busy. He’s been grumpy and neglecting her, his poor old endlessly forgiving Suze. He is trying to have his Quiet Time first, so he won’t ‘lay his passive-aggressive shit’ on her for the duration of her retailing treat.

  He reads his Bible. He prays. He tries to hold his soul still under the patient searchlight of grace. Why is nothing ever straightforward with Freddie May? Paul re-experiences that visceral shock from last night, when he saw him covered in blood. Then the rage, the rage that seized him. How dare they do this to
my— My what? My employee? Friend? House guest? My something-not-covered-by-any-of-those-categories. Paul has no word for what Freddie May is to him. My boy? The word trembles. He tests an unacceptable idea: that Freddie is the son he and Suze didn’t manage to have? He has never let himself articulate the thought that his daughters are not enough. Is this it? He wants a son. Even now his heart flinches from it. Could this be why he stonewalls Freddie’s desperate need to be fathered? Because it’s inadmissible?

  Next, he climbs back on the anxiety treadmill that kept him awake last night. He prays for wisdom. He can hear himself saying, ‘I want this flagged as a hate crime. And I’d value your reassurance that you’ll do everything you can to bring his attackers to justice.’ Standing on the dignity of his office, for once.

  But now – because this is Freddie bloody May – everything’s got complicated! Should he march Freddie back to the station to emend his statement, or leave well alone? Is it his business? It’s not! Yet he can’t do nothing and hope it goes away. But the Le Creuset! Come on, think. Why can’t he think clearly? Right now he simply does not have the time or the mental space to deal with this. His diary for the coming month is a nightmare. There’s the Lords’ debate coming up, not to mention the York thing hanging over him. So he does what he probably should have done last night: he rings the archdeacon. He feels a fool, but Matt has the knack he’s never mastered – of dealing with Freddie.

  Then he resumes his Quiet Time. Oh dear. He is still making heavy weather of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, I’m afraid.

  What’s new to speak, what now to register,

  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

  Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

  I must each day say o’er the very same . . .

  No. This really isn’t helping, is it, bishop? But it will be over soon. Freddie’s off to Barchester, and there are only another forty-six sonnets to go.

  Hmm, thinks the archdeacon. He rings off and asks himself the obvious question (which the reader has doubtless been asking for a while): is Paul gay? The archdeacon does not know. He’s inclined to think not. But for whatever reason, Paul’s got a pretty big bee in his mitre about the lovely Mr May. So, looks like a little trip to the police station is in order. See what he can glean about last night, and how much trouble the Close tart’s in this time. Probably none. Sounds to Matt like reasonable force in response to an assault-query-hate crime. And they’re talking ABH, if he’s had his nose bust. But good to check it out all the same, because if the bishop ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. And then he should probably track down young tarty-pants and get his version. See how he’s coping.

  The archdeacon orders another flat white. He mulls the conversation over again. Hmm.

  May draws to a close. Lilacs drip in suburban gardens. Insomniacs hear blackbirds belting out their repertoire at 2.30 a.m. Half term flits by, too fast, too fast!

  Unless you are a single mum at your wits’ end, that is, and trying to be civilized to ‘the children’s father’. Especially when the children’s father is being as difficult as he possibly can be without ceding the moral high ground. Poor Becky Rogers! And poor Martin, too. Theirs was one of those marriages where both partners are secretly convinced that they are the only one who ever empties the bin. Habits of resentment take some unlearning.

  Thursday is Corpus Christi. Father Dominic burns his thumb on the thurible because he’s not concentrating. He’s thinking: This could be my last Corpus Christi in Renfold . . .

  JUNE

  Chapter 24

  This time the bishop is relieved it’s his chaplain driving him to the station. He’s off to the House of Lords for the Same Sex Marriage Bill debate, and he can do without getting into a futile argument now, there’ll be enough of that later. He has a short speech prepared, but it won’t be needed. Others will make the point that the bill is a bodged job, it’s too rushed, it fudges questions of adultery and consummation. ‘Equal marriage’ is a snow-plough being driven at full throttle by monomaniacs, thinks the bishop. It’s shoving everything out of its path, brooking no questions or qualification, no nuance.

  Martin drives in silence. He would like to know what the bishop plans to say in the Lords, but prefers not to be snubbed with ‘Stuff, as usual,’ thank you very much. He knows perfectly well that Paul would rather be driven by the little git, but he’s afraid that’s just unfortunate, isn’t it.

  Martin pulls into the drop-off zone unaware that the little git’s popularity has this very second taken another nosedive. The bishop, puzzled, has just felt around behind him on the front seat to see what he’s sitting on. Liquid Gold? One of Suze’s aromatherapy thingies? Then realization erupts. That little—! If he’s been stealing my car again—!

  Paul pops the vial in his suit pocket before Martin sees, and gets out, dropping – argh! – his iPad. In the ensuing fluster – is it broken? Is it? It looks fine – the other matter slips his mind.

  It’s now June. Can it get any greener, any lusher? Each day proves it can. The sweetness of an English June morning! (Have, get, before it cloy!) Mountain ranges of horse chestnut rear against the sky, white candles, pink candles. The palace garden has a laburnum walk, a secret tunnel of swoony gold poison. Susanna won’t let the grandchildren anywhere near it: forbidden bliss, thrice forbidden! And lilac, and roses fill parks and gardens; while red campion, stitchwort, ragged robin, plantain, dog daisies, cow parsley, buttercups (of yellow hue) do paint the meadows around Cardingforth power station with delight.

  We will whisper this very quietly in case we jinx it: the weather has turned lovely. There are those in the diocese of Lindchester who (confusing ‘global warming’ with ‘Middle England warming’, and ‘climate’ with ‘weather’), will remark, as if coining the drollery for the very first time, ‘Well, if this is global warming, I’m all for it!’ They have read a book, perhaps, or at any rate heard someone talk about a book, and have satisfied themselves that climate change is a complete fabrication because scientists are divided. And they are quite right. It is our duty to remain open-minded and give equal weight to the dissenting two per cent. Remember how scientists were divided on the links between cancer and smoking, and on the depletion of the ozone layer, on acid rain and all the toxic hazards of leaded fuel? So you go ahead and enjoy this lovely weather with a clear conscience, people of Lindfordshire who have heard about a book that flies in the face of ninety-eight per cent of serious science.

  The scaffolding is up on the south side of the cathedral. It will be a busy week for the precentor and the rest of the choral foundation. This coming Sunday Lindchester Cathedral will host a big service to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s coronation (deferred from last Sunday, because of choral half term). Giles looks forward to the usual clash of cultures that occurs in joint shindigs with the military and the mayor’s office. He will always treasure the memory of that sergeant barking, ‘Hat off in church, cunt!’ the time the Princess Royal visited.

  There’s a tenor crisis looming. One of the lay clerks has laryngitis, and unfortunately, it looks as though the lovely Mr May is out of the picture. That broken nose makes him sound bunged up. Pity. Oh, and pity for Freddie’s sake too, of course, poor lamb. After this service is out of the way there’s the ordinations, and the Dorian Singers’ concert. But then the end of term will be in sight. ‘Nearer and nearer draws the time . . .’ warbles the precentor as he continues with his meticulous ceremonial notes. Are you curious? They read like a game of liturgical chess: Cross party and Choir from East, Bishop to throne, Dean to pulpit; Lord Mayor verged from stall to lectern.

  At this moment, the lovely Mr May (sporting two lovely black eyes) is mowing the grass on the south side of the Close. He mows moodily, smoulderingly, back and forth, back and forth, beside the cathedral. Man, is it hot today? Halfway up the scaffolding a workman leans out to watch as the flamer down there languorously peels his vest off. Eye contact occurs. Shall I pretend I haven’t n
oticed that? Oh, not to worry – the head verger has just noticed for me. He tells Freddie to cover himself up, then sends him to water the hanging baskets on the far side of the Close. That’s all right, then.

  Thursday night. It’s Day Off Eve, woo hoo! Dominic feels like celebrating. Actually, he felt like celebrating the moment the bill got through the Lords, but he had a PCC finance subcommittee that night. So now he’s sitting in Jane’s rather depressing kitchen (that gal doesn’t have a domestic bone in her body) eating strawberries and drinking Taittinger Brut Rosé. He knows he will end up blurting out his possible move to Lindford, but for all her other faults (and he could write you a comprehensive list), he knows Janey is totally a hundred per cent discreet. His secrets have been safe with her for over two decades. Right now, however, she is manifesting one of her less charming traits: pissing on his reason to celebrate.

  ‘It’s completely market-driven,’ said Jane. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been suckered! You don’t want equal-with-breeders marriage, you just want a big fat white wedding – and you only want that all of a sudden because someone pushed your buttons by shouting “Human rights! Human rights!”. Of course our consumerist society is all yay for “equality”! They’re wetting themselves about the shit-load of money they’re going to make out of you guys. Because basically, there’ll be two bridezillas, both wanting their perfect romantic colour-swatched special day!’

  Dominic considered a range of counter-arguments to this merciless analysis, before settling on: ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘You drink my champagne, you’re nice to me – that’s the rule, you tragic lonely embittered old crone sitting in your ghastly 1990s kitchen with a moustache.’ He topped up her glass. ‘Damn, I forgot fat. And fat.’

  She stroked her moustache and laughed her filthy laugh. ‘Oh yeah? I have an admirer, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘No! And? Well, go on – tell me everything! Fatty.’

  ‘Well, shrimpy, there’s not a lot to tell. He’s a chef. He nearly ran me over, I kicked his car door in, and now he finds me irresistible. We are currently conducting a drawn-out and rebarbative courtship via text message. But other than the door-kicking incident, we’ve not actually met.’