What do you want, Susanna?
I want to die, she thinks. Not to kill myself, but to be dead. I want it to be over. I want to be at peace.
The branches of the ancient cedar churn in anguish.
I just want to be at peace.
Our good friend the archdeacon is also housebound by the storm. Bloody weather. Means he won’t get a glimpse of Dr R today, parking on his drive. He feels an urge to be a total bastard. Wants to throw his archidiaconal weight about, close a bunch of churches. Whack some useless nobs into disciplinary measures. (Don’t worry: he’s got it reined in.)
Young tarty-pants tried his patience to the limits last week, pestering him to help sort out Dr R’s garden for her. As if, given an ounce of encouragement, Matt wouldn’t cram her garden with red roses! Dig her a pond, stock it with koi carp. Lay York stone slabs, plant apple trees, strawberry beds, build her a henhouse, fill it with broody chooks. What would Matt not do for his lady?
‘G’wan, g’wan, g’wan, Matt. You know you want to. Let’s do it while she’s at work. Surprise her? C’mo-o-on, why not? Dude, she’s totally into you, I can tell.’ In the end Matt snapped, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll spank you.’ Face-palm. Memo to self: think your threats through.
The rain pounds on his study window. So, three possible solutions: (a) Dr R relaxes her position on marriage; (b) Matt relaxes his position on extra-marital relations; (c) Matt resigns from active ministry.
He can’t ask (a) of her. He can’t ask (b) or (c) of himself. Not looking too good, really, is it? No wonder she’s backed off. Sensible woman. He’s always been Captain Sensible himself. Blue Peter badge. Deputy head boy. D of E Gold. Police Bravery Award. But right now he’d rather be round the back of the bike-sheds, being a bad lad. Doing seventeen kinds of rude thing.
He could list them.
Fifteen . . . Sixteen . . . Seventeen. Yup.
But anyway. Work to be done. He opens his inbox and slogs through his work emails. He keeps at it for forty-five minutes, then he cracks. He fires off an email to Jane: ‘Darling, I can’t stand this. Can we meet for a drink ASAP so I can tell you how deeply, madly, hopelessly, etc. I love you? We can work this out. Matt xx’.
He goes off to make a mug of coffee, comes back. She hasn’t replied. There you are: she’s a sensible woman. Just an email from the bishop of Barcup’s wife: ‘Immensely flattered to be addressed so passionately by the archdeacon of Lindchester, but something tells me that this is meant for someone else. Janet Hooty’.
Damn you, auto-fill.
The storm passes, as storms will. Then there is the aftermath to face. We must save what can be saved, tie up our broken plants, mend our fences and roofs. Then we must say farewell to what is beyond repair. Let it go. Tree surgeons come and fell what is left of the canon chancellor’s poplar. They leave a huge ragged hole behind in the sky above the garden. A stunned absence of tree. But the eye will accustom itself. The squirrels and stock doves and wood pigeons, the owls, all the young magpies and jackdaws, the long-tailed tits, the green woodpeckers, the hawk moths, grubs, beetles – they will find another home. It’s not the end of the world. It really isn’t. It just feels – My aspens dear! All felled, felled, are all felled! – that way right now.
Susanna was correct in her surmise: there is another bishop somewhere who already knows he will be the next archbishop of York. The number two candidate was hastily tapped up. And yes, his wife has made a little trip to John Lewis for a new frock and shoes. The announcement will be next week. We must be patient a little longer.
It’s Thursday. Hallowe’en gurns in at us through the windows. The police will be kept busy tonight. Trick or treat, smell my feet! Father Wendy (who can’t be doing with the celebration of darkness) and her curate Virginia (who can’t be doing with lawlessness) host a Super-Hero Party in Cardington church hall, inviting all the kids who came to the holiday club in the summer. Father Dominic (who can’t be doing with party-poopers) doles out sweeties to the callers at the vicarage, along with flyers for his bonfire party. Undergraduates test the boundaries of good taste with their fancy dress outfits, get bladdered in the bars of Lindford, and jeopardize future careers by immortalizing it all on Facebook.
Jane turns off the lights and doesn’t answer her door. Why hasn’t she heard from Matt? Because you told him nothing doing, silly mare. Yes, but why haven’t I heard from him? He could at least argue with me! Try and talk me round. Fuck off and stop ringing my doorbell, you little shites! Come morning she’ll find her porch and car have been egged and floured. Next year she must enter into the festive spirit, and hand out muffins laced with broken razors.
For all the saints . . . We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.
On All Saints’ afternoon, Bishop Paul drives off for his rescheduled appointment with his counsellor. He knows – who better? – that he is feebly struggling. We will not intrude into their session. For a start, it takes place in a small village just over the diocesan border, where this narrative has vowed not to stray. As he drives back in the late afternoon past empty pumpkin shells on gateposts, he thinks about the anarchy of Hallowe’en, the rising up of the unholy dead in gruesome carnival. Cheek by jowl with All Saints. His counsellor has invited him to reflect on Jungian shadows. To ask whether Freddie burst into his life as an incarnation of everything in himself that he had believed was dead and buried. To ponder that recurring dream of his, in which he finds he’s wandering in a house he knows well from childhood, but there is another room, and then a whole other wing, that he didn’t know existed. And when he looks out through an attic window he sees in the sky huge combine harvesters, gigantic cranes, earth-movers, all floating past overhead, silent and serene.
With God nothing shall be impossible.
The bishop does not need his chaplain here to tell him that this is Luke 1.37. The angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. But why has it popped into his head now? What does it mean? That he will be overshadowed by the power of the Highest? That this new thing being born in him in so much agony and bitter shame will be called Holy? Son of God? How can this be?
With God nothing shall be impossible.
The sky is charged with sudden light. The road ahead blazes silver. Sheep graze transfigured in eerie emerald meadows beside the burnished Linden. Nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible.
Is it even possible that the heart of the bishop’s chaplain might gradually relent towards Freddie May? I wonder. You will remember that Martin promised Paul he would pray for Freddie. He goes into the cathedral, to the chapel of St Michael and All Angels, to fulfil his promise. An odd choice for Martin, but I suspect he doesn’t want the little shite invading his personal Quiet Time in his study at home.
‘Dear Lord, please bless Freddie May.’
This is uttered as though ‘bless’ were some kind of synonym for ‘visit hideous plagues upon’. But there. He has done it. He has prayed for his enemy.
Up in the quire they are rehearsing Duruflé’s Requiem for tomorrow. Martin has no truck with all that pre-Reformation All Souls nonsense. All God’s people are saints.
He tries again. ‘Dear Lord, I pray that you will be close to . . . be with . . .’
I warned Paul! I told him he had a blind spot! But he just slapped me down.
‘Help him to . . .’
It all made sense now, the blatant favouritism, his constant refusal to confront Freddie’s bad behaviour. I will never be able to think well of Paul again. The thought makes him panic. Ridiculous! Surely he knows that all God’s people are sinners, too, as well as saints? Why can’t he accommodate Paul’s lapse? It’s not about works. He knows we can’t earn God’s love.
So why does it feel the whole time as if he has to? Why does he spend his whole life trying to stay on the right side of God?
In the distance the choir begins the Agnus Dei. Martin glares at the macho bronze Michael. He loathes it. Legs splayed, fists raised like a triumphant athlete, the distinctly unangelic crotch bulge.
That thing should never have been allowed in here.
‘Please let Freddie—’
It’s pointless. I’m sorry, Lord. I hate him. What can I pray, when I hate him so much?
In the distance the choir answers: Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world: grant them eternal rest.
NOVEMBER
Chapter 44
‘I just want to get my best dressmaking shears and snip it to ribbons!’
‘Do it.’
Susanna gasps. ‘Paul! I couldn’t possibly! It’s a brand new dress.’
‘If it’ll make you feel better, snip it up.’
‘But it was really expensive!’
‘So?’
‘No, no, I couldn’t. I was just being silly. I’ll give it to a charity shop.’
They fall silent.
‘I haven’t dusted in here for ages,’ she says. ‘There’s a cobweb up there.’
That strand still rises and falls above his bookshelves.
All your precious ruddy books, she thinks. ‘I suppose you’ll be taking them to South Africa?’
‘Yes.’
The work she’ll have to do. Getting rid of stuff. Thanks to you! Her gaze scorches round. ‘You need a haircut. And another thing: your eyebrows need trimming again.’
He flushes.
Freddie May! He trimmed them! I’d been offering for ten years, but no! ‘Well! Would you like me to do it?’
‘No. To be quite frank, I’m not sure I trust you with a pair of scissors at the moment.’
‘Oh!’ She tries to laugh the sob off. ‘I wouldn’t do anything really.’
‘Well, I’d rather the dress gets it than me.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ She wipes her eyes. ‘So the announcement’s this week. Do we know who it is yet?’
‘Yes. Unofficially. It’s Rupert Anderson.’
‘Oh! Rupert and Cordelia. Well, they’re lovely people. They’ll be very good,’ she wails. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Come here.’ He takes her in his arms. ‘My poor old Suze.’ He rocks her, rests his cheek on the top of her head. ‘You could always send the dress to Cordelia.’
She wants to thump him, but her arms are trapped. ‘She’s not my size! She’s actually quite fat!’
‘Have you decided about South Africa? Please come. I’ll be lonely without you. And the girls won’t understand if you stay here. Nobody will.’
‘Then why don’t you explain to everyone? Get yourself a boyfriend if you’re so lonely!’ She can’t stop these dreadful things bursting out! ‘Tell them you’re gay all of a sudden. They’ll understand that!’
‘I’m married to you. I can’t get a boyfriend any more than I could keep a mistress.’
‘What if I divorced you?’
There’s a long silence.
‘Is that what you want?’
‘I don’t know what I want!’ She weeps into his shirt.
‘Then why not come with me to South Africa? At least to start with? See how it goes?’
‘No. Oh, oh, all right.’
‘Truly? You will?’ He tries to check her face to see if she means it, but she won’t oblige. ‘Ah, they’ll be so pleased. They love Mama Bishop.’ He hugs her tight.
‘I’m sorry I was mean just now. I know you can’t help being . . . gay,’ she tells his shirt. ‘But even so, Paul, I’m sorry, but part of me can’t help feeling that you’ve behaved like a complete shit.’
(You must forgive her: she’s very new to swearing. She pronounces it in italics.)
She feels him quiver with laughter. It infects her. They laugh till they cry.
In the end she gasps, ‘Oh dear! Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, please,’ he whimpers. ‘Shall I make it?’
‘That would be lovely. There’s chocolate tiffin in the green spotty tin.’
‘Um, I don’t know how to tell you this, Suze, but I really don’t have a sweet tooth.’
‘What?’ She pulls away, astounded. ‘But I only make all that stuff for you!’
‘I know you do.’
‘All these years! Why didn’t you say something?’
‘Well, you kept on baking things, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’
‘Oh dear!’ They leave the study. ‘Cheese straws? I could make you—’
‘No! Suze, look, you don’t have to do anything for me. Just— Just love me. If you still can?’
‘Of course I can,’ she sobs. ‘Oh, must we tell the girls tonight?’
‘You know we must, darling. Before the press release.’
‘Let’s not say you’re . . . gay. Can we not say that? Oh, is that cowardly?’
‘I don’t think we need to tell anyone that yet.’
They go down the grand palace stairs, holding on to one another like strangers who have survived a shipwreck.
The press release is prepared. It is timed to coincide with the announcement at York, to be eclipsed by it. With luck it will tidy up that lingering question mark about the bishop of Lindchester. Yes, what was all that about? Oh, I see – he’s off to South Africa to head up a new theological college. The press release will talk of a strong sense of calling, Paul’s historic links with that region, a desire to serve where the need is great. Good-hearted folk will conclude that Paul has humbly renounced flight path A to church glory, and they will respect him for it. Others will think there’s something fishy going on. If they dare, they will pump the dean, the archdeacon, the suffragan, the bishop’s chaplain, anyone, for information. In far-off London Town Roderick Fallon will curl his lip. Strong sense of calling? Pah! But it looks like this is one scoop that got away. He will just have to vent his spleen by viciously contesting that parking ticket he got on Lindchester Cathedral Close.
Out of professional courtesy, the bishop informs his senior staff a few days before the press release. He receives their congratulations and good wishes. Giles promises to scramble together a cracking farewell service, with all the choral bells and whistles. (Argh! when, though? When? Advent is almost upon them! The cathedral diary is already a nightmare!) The senior staff will all sing from the same hymn-sheet when the pumpers come to pump them. In private the pumpees may scratch their heads and turn the hymn-sheet over and over to see if they’ve missed some crucial explanation tucked away in a footnote. But in public they will sing in sweet unison.
The burden of running the diocese for the next year will descend upon the shoulders of our kind and gracious friend the bishop of Barcup. Does Bob Hooty not deserve to be taken into Paul’s confidence? It would never occur to him to think that. And Marion, the dean – surely Paul owes it to her to be a little more candid? How can he carry on pretending? Isn’t this hypocrisy? And what about the gay clergy in his diocese? What about Father Dominic? In fact, what about gay people the world over – he’s betraying them! Doesn’t he have some sort of responsibility to out himself, tell the truth, recant his earlier homophobia, and stand alongside the outcast? Come along, bishop, has that hilltop epiphany faded so fast?
Ah, you think Paul hasn’t been asking himself all these questions? Of course he has. These and many others. Yes, the Transfiguration on the mountain! But the exodus passes through Gethsemane and Golgotha all the same. Questions, anguished questions, but no answers. So he remains silent. Having kept the secret from himself for forty-odd years, keeping it from his daughters and close colleagues isn’t hard.
He regrets those two words he blurted out to his chaplain. ‘I’m gay.’ Isn’t that too simplistic? Do four days of homosexual activity make you gay? Why? Why don’t forty years of heterosexual activity make you straight? Who’s to say his bedrock is gay, with a thin straight topsoil, rather than the other way round? True, he does find men attractive; but in his time he has found women not unattractive, too. Hasn’t he? Until all this, was his marriage not committed, tender, genuine? Ought he not rather describe himself as bisexual?
The truth
is, he’s probably nothing at all. He’s asexual. He’s been a cold fish all his life.
Cold? Cold? When he burns like this? He burns for men, past all reason! Of course he’s gay!
Perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust.
Except, no. No no no, not true. It’s not men, it’s one man. Just one.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease . . .
Ah, he’s ill with Freddie May: demented, queer in his head, in his bones and marrow! But he cannot see that this excuses him from his marriage vows.
Even if he could excuse himself, there’s no future here. It would be a suicide pact, not a relationship. All accelerator, no brake. Crash and burn. He knows this. But if Freddie walked in now and smiled that smile, he’d probably toss him the keys anyway. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Please. Please let this pass. It will pass. It must. He’s going to a place where this self-absorbed agonizing will look like a luxury. He will cast it off like a cashmere smoking jacket, and take the form of a servant. He looks again, and again, and yet again to Jesus, the author and finisher of his faith, correcting his course every moment by that unwavering North. It will pass.
Meanwhile, Martin obediently takes his soul into the carpenter’s workshop every day and gives it another whirl on the lathe of intercession. Little by little it is becoming clear to him that he has probably not behaved entirely well. That safeguarding business? Sawdust flies. Yes, but. I mean. Oh, come on! He catalogues Freddie’s manifold sins and wickedness. And gets John 21.22b in reply: ‘What is that to you? Follow me.’
‘So, has the bishop been bumming the lovely Mr May all this time?’ asks Gene. ‘That’s the real question.’
‘No, Gene, that’s not the real question.’
‘Well, it’s a question.’
‘No, it’s idle gossip,’ says the dean. ‘The real question, regardless of what may or may not have happened, is: how can we help the Hendersons to leave well?’
Acts and Omissions Page 28
