Unseen Things Above

by Catherine Fox

  The bishop checks his mirrors and starts off again in the right direction.

  ‘Tell me a bit about your uni chaplain,’ Dominic says to Jane on the phone.

  ‘Veronica da Silva! Hah!’ It’s Monday, and she’s eating a doughnut at her desk. ‘Can’t stand her. She’s like a keen drama student honing her trendy chaplain role by staying in character twenty-four seven. Why?’

  ‘I met her in the shopping mall last Friday,’ says Dominic. ‘Are you eating something?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Good. Well, she was wearing a chaplain hoodie and handing out leaflets!’

  There’s a pause. ‘OK. Which part am I meant to be indignant about?’

  ‘All of it. I am chaplain to the Abernathy centre!’

  ‘Oh, I see! And did we come over a tiny bit territorial?’ Jane takes another bite.

  ‘I fear we did. Possibly because— would you stop chomping in my ear? It’s disgusting. Possibly because I feel guilty for not making more of the chaplain role. Be that as it may, there she was. In her hoodie.’

  ‘Never mind, sweetums, I’ll buy you a chaplain hoodie of your very own.’ She finishes the doughnut and wipes her fingers on her jeans. ‘Did you publicly denounce her?’

  ‘I went over and introduced myself.’

  ‘In all your queenly splendour.’

  ‘Flouncing may have occurred, yes. But we soon cleared up the silly misunderstanding. Uni chaplain, not mall chaplain! “Oh, Father Todd, I’ve heard all about you!” Eurgh! She’s one of those women who adores gay men. Because we’re endlessly available to listen to their man troubles and help them choose curtains.’

  ‘A fag hag like me!’ Jane stands up and brushes sugar off her front.

  ‘You? You’re a rubbish fag hag! And she prefers the term “ally”. She told me she’s an LGBTQIA ally.’

  ‘Did you say you self-identify as a big ponce, and it’s LGBTQIABP these days?’

  ‘See? You’re rubbish. Why can’t you adore me properly, you cisgendered old trout?’

  ‘Adore, adore, adore. There. So what were these leaflets about, poncykins?’

  ‘Oh, the food bank. She’s on the staff of St James’, which I’d forgotten. Is she American, by the way?’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘She sounds vaguely transatlantic. Apparently she trained at some American seminary or bible college I’d never heard of. Slight sense the goalposts kept shifting when I tried to home in on the facts, though.’

  ‘Ooh, interesting! PhD from the University of Narnia, you think? Internet ordination?’

  ‘We-e-ll. The thought hovers.’

  ‘Poundstretcher will have chased up her references and asked to see her degree certificates,’ says Jane. ‘So she’s unlikely to be bogus.’

  ‘True. But I’m telling the vice chancellor you call it Poundstretcher.’

  Jane laughs. ‘Bring it.’

  ‘My, aren’t you chirpy today!’

  ‘Ha ha! That’s because I’m getting some hot archidiaconal action.’

  ‘Ew!’ cries Dominic. ‘I’m very happy for you, darling, but ew. I take it you have birthday plans, then? You won’t want to come with me to this engagement party on Saturday, after all?’

  ‘Sorry, no. It’s the solstice. We’ll be frolicking naked in the woods, wearing antlers . . .’

  But Dominic has already hung up.

  Late that afternoon, Dean Marion stands with Gene in the deanery garden by the high sunny wall. A clump of bees droops there. Thousands, tens of thousands of honey bees, a mass of seething amber, like an enchanted velvet pouch. Earlier the air was peppered with them, as though the deanery had been struck by a freak black blizzard; but they’ve clotted round their queen now. Marion watches. The world is dizzy with their thrumming.

  A local beekeeper has been summoned.

  ‘Tell him he owes you a silver spoon,’ says Gene. ‘That’s the traditional worth of a June swarm, I believe.’

  ‘I wish there was a way we could keep them. Lindchester ought to have its own hives,’ says Marion. ‘Why not? Other cathedrals do. Even Southwark has bees. If they can keep them in central London, we can keep them here.’

  ‘Ooh! We could sell Lindchester Cathedral honey! And beeswax candles!’

  ‘We could!’

  ‘What a shame you slaughtered all those poor innocent masonry bees,’ mourns Gene.

  ‘Thank you for the reminder.’

  ‘Did you know that during her mating flight, the queen is serviced by seven to ten drones?’

  ‘Strange to say, I didn’t know that, Gene.’

  ‘It’s true. After ejaculation, the drone pulls away from her and his tiny bee member is r-r-ripped from his body. He dies, his function fulfilled. Sometimes you can even hear the little pop! on a quiet sunny day.’ Gene sighs a wistful sigh, as if of golden summers remembered.

  ‘Well, that sounds like a sensible system to me,’ remarks Marion.

  He bows. ‘Just a little thought to cherish at General Synod next month, during the debate about women bishops.’

  It’s Wednesday. Martin is nervous. He shouldn’t feel nervous. Paul isn’t his line manager any more. They are just going to have a pub lunch together. Martin had tried suggesting that Penelope joined them, so it wouldn’t feel like a PDR. But it turned out that Paul had already arranged to meet up with his former PA for afternoon tea.

  If only the employment tribunal was still going ahead! Then Paul wouldn’t have all this spare time on his hands to catch up with old colleagues. But the ex-vicar of Lindford (not wishing to judge, but a truly horrible human being, in Martin’s humble opinion) withdrew his case on the very morning the tribunal was due to start. Hadn’t Martin been saying all along this would happen? But nobody listened. The diocese has wasted thousands on legal costs. Martin rather questions the archdeacon’s judgement here. On the other hand, there is a principle at stake.

  He enters the village and makes for the canal-side pub. His heart does a little panicky flip. Paul’s bound to make friendly enquiries. How are you doing? How’s the job hunt going? And Martin’s going to have to find a positive way of dressing up the bleak truth: I keep applying for incumbents’ jobs and being rejected. I was even interviewed for one post, but then I didn’t get it.

  Horrible though this topic is, Martin would rather discuss his failure than stray into other more awkward avenues of conversation. The ghastliness of last summer will hover all the time, he knows it will. He won’t be able to banish the thought of Paul’s wrecked career. Worse, Paul might confide toe-curling things about his newly discovered orientation. His boyfriend . . . Not that Martin’s homophobic. It’s just that nobody wants to have to imagine other people’s relationships.

  Here’s the pub. Martin pulls into the car park. Obviously it would be inappropriate to discuss the CNC and Paul’s successor. But Martin can ask about theological formation in South Africa and how Susanna is faring, can’t he? He can enquire after Paul’s daughters and grandchildren. Yes, so long as they steer clear of Freddie May, everything will be fine.

  It’s now mid-afternoon. Jane is back in her office trying to sort out next year’s units and she’s thinking about coffee and cake. There’s a knock at her office door. Oh, good, she thinks. That will be Spider, coming to rescue me from MOODLE hell.

  It is not Jane’s poet friend. It is the uni chaplain. I regret to say, we are about to witness Jane at her worst. Or possibly her best? I leave it for the reader to determine. Part of me thrills with admiration, I confess. Jane violates the first rule of being English, which states we must suck up any amount of inconvenience, pain and insult rather than be rude to someone we neither know nor care about.

  ‘Come in.’ Well, if it wasn’t the fag hag. In her half done-up dungarees (bib and one strap dangling) and rainbow clerical shirt. How old? Thirties? No, early forties, but dressed too young.

  ‘Hi!!! Janey!? I’m Veronica Da Silva!? A colleague of Father Dominic!? He’s a friend of yours, right!?
Hi!’

  Good grief. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Am I innerrupting?’

  ‘You are, actually.’ Jane gestured at her desk.

  ‘No worries. I can come back. When’s a good time?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I was thinking we should grab a coffee and chat? Being as we both work here and we have a friend in common and all? Dom said to look you up. So, coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Dominic Todd, I’m going to kill you.

  The woman blinked. ‘Cool. That’s cool. Work/life balance. I get it. You’ve set your personal boundaries. I totally respect that.’

  Jane tilted her head.

  ‘Well, it’s so GREAT to meet you at last!!! I’ve heard so much about you from Dom! And I’ve seen you round the campus? I was always, who is that striking woman with the awesome haircut? She looks so awesome, who is she?’

  Jane tilted her head awesomely.

  ‘Hey, and I’ve just been reading some of your work on gender and the Victorians?’ Another head tilt. ‘I am in awe of your scholarship and publications?’ The chaplain’s awe unfurled into several paragraphs.

  Fuck this head-tilting shit. Get out of my office.

  ‘A-a-anyhoo. I was gonna ask, would it be OK if I sat in on your lectures this semester?’

  ‘That won’t be possible. For pedagogical reasons.’ Plus this is starting to feel a bit All About Eve. Jane waved at her desk again. ‘Sorry, I need to press on.’

  ‘Cool. Oh, can I get you a coffee? I’m heading to the bistro, maybe I can bring you one back up, save you going all the way down? Man, it’s a long, long way, isn’t it, especially when the elevators aren’t working. So what can I get you? You normally drink double espresso, right?’

  Jane felt a chill creep up the back of her neck. I’d like a martini, very dry . . .

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ She turned to her computer and started tackling her in-box. ‘Bye.’ Eventually the burbling ceased with a cheery ‘Anon for now!’ and her office door closed.

  Jane grabbed her phone and left an almighty bollocking on Dominic’s voicemail.

  The England football flags have vanished from the precentor’s car. Brazil flags now flutter beside the Germany ones. The precentor’s son switched allegiance once England were knocked out, to wind his mother up. ‘You’re half German!’ shouts Ulli. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything? Why don’t you support Germany? You can’t support sodding Brazil, for God’s sake!’

  Iona climbs up to the organ loft to practise for Sunday. At least she won’t have to accompany that bloody Tchaikovsky Hymn again till next Trinity. Some Vierne, to cleanse the palate. As she adjusts the stool height she finds herself thinking of Freddie May. His audition. Blowing them away with that Il Trovatore aria. Bloody hell. Like he suddenly had four extra ranks of pipes nobody knew about. Pity he was so thick, really. Actively thick. Talking to Freddie was like being smacked round the head with short planks. Bless.

  The summer solstice approaches. As good Anglicans, we have no truck with all this New Age Stonehenge druidery. There will be no church-sanctioned Fresh Expression of naked cavorting and phallus worship in the Diocese of Lindchester. We might go a bit Celtic, but in the C of E that tends to mean saying some nice circling prayers and singing Iona worship songs, rather than burning Calvinists in wicker cages. In any case, attempting to burn Calvinists is a theological nonsense. If they are meant to burn, they will.

  You will be alarmed to hear, then, that our friend the archdeacon rises stealthily on solstice morn while it is still dark, gets in his car and drives off on a secret mission. Elsewhere in the diocese, midsummer frolics will be held to celebrate the engagement of Father Ed to his partner Neil. Hmm. Now I come to think of it, I cannot put my hand on my heart and promise there will be no phallocentric pagan cavorting in the vicarage of Gayden Magna tonight. But we will retain our customary practice of averting the narrative gaze and leaving such things to the reader’s imagination. I will just confide that after a happy evening of internet research, Neil hired some scantily clad cocktail waiters. Like a good husband-to-be, he scrupulously refrained from hiring anyone he thought he recognized. (Though it’s possible he’s now following @choirslut90 on Twitter.)

  Jane wakes on her birthday to find her doorstep piled with big flat cardboard boxes. The pile is taller than she is. What the hell? The boxes contain long-stemmed red roses from Covent Garden market.

  A thousand of them.

  Chapter 11

  Oh, to be in England, now that June is there! (Pace, Robert Browning – surely June is our loveliest month of all?) Mock oranges flower in gardens across the Diocese of Lindchester. Pale pink peony bowls slump and dash themselves in smithereens on pavements. Swifts circle, young magpies churr and chase through treetops. The nights are a-murmur with insects, busy in the honeysuckle and jasmine and nicotiana. Privet hedges bloom. Plane trees scent the towns with a rakish Parisian note. At dusk you may glimpse the eerie ghost moths as they flicker over meadows; while barn owls – like larger ghosts – hunt white and silent along the margins of fields. Who knows? Between English earth and sky, in doorways and under railway arches, in steamed-up cars in abandoned places, perhaps the homeless can sleep a little less clenched these perfumed June nights? (In England – now!)

  Petertide. Frantic painting and decorating is going on. There will be eight men and women ordained deacon in Lindchester Cathedral next Sunday.

  ‘Can you believe, Pedro, a whole year has gone by since I was in such a flap about my new curate’s house?’

  Pedro makes no reply as he bobs along beside Father Wendy. He has seen something small and furry on the bank ahead. Every nerve quivers for the chase.

  ‘I don’t know how we ever got it done in time! And that naughty boy the archdeacon sent us! He just lay around smoking dope and painting rude pictures on the bedroom wall!’ Wendy laughs. ‘Poor Madge was at her wit’s end— Whoa there, Pedro! It’s just a little vole. We don’t need to chase brother vole, remember?’

  Father Wendy spares a prayer for the naughty boy, and for all the parishes across the diocese who are in a flap this week about curate accommodation.

  It’s not just the Diocese of Lindchester that is in a flap. You may be surprised to learn that there will be a thousand #NewRevs ordained priest and deacon this year. What, a thousand rats boarding a sinking ship? That’s very altruistic of them. Unless the good ship C of E is not quite ready to go down yet after all. I dare say the press will be inclined to dismiss our efforts as rearranging the deckchairs on board the Titanic. But we could always ask them how their circulation figures are holding up.

  Bishop Bob drives to the cathedral for the senior staff meeting. It’s like the beautiful Junes of childhood, he thinks; editing out the misery of exams and sports day. He rounds a bend, the one where the distant cathedral spire on its mound first becomes visible on the road from Martonbury. A shadow falls across him, like the thought of school blighting August. My word, but the diocese is a heavy burden! Each day he must draw a deep breath to steady himself, before once again shouldering the load. Still, the CNC meets to interview the shortlisted candidates in less than a month. We’ll have an announcement before the end of the year, God willing.

  His thoughts turn to his former bishop. Well, South Africa certainly seems to suit Paul! He looks comfortable in his own skin at last. Really touching that he should make time to visit like that. Quite a big detour on his way to his daughter’s. Bob’s happy he can now erase the image of Paul, broken and weeping, at his farewell service only six months before. Perhaps – is it fair to speculate? – perhaps in policing himself so fiercely, Paul had appeared to be policing everyone else as well? Is that what caused the air of taut disapproval, and earned him his ‘Mary Poppins’ nickname?

  Then again, it might simply have been the pressures of the job. Bob has gained some insight into that during the last months! He’s weary, bone weary. Janet has started nagging him to visit the GP. Yes, he rejoices for his brother
Paul in this evident new lease of life.

  Oh, but poor Paul, all the same! Bob was surprised and honoured to be confided in yesterday. They had never achieved much rapport as colleagues, after all. How hard Paul’s life must have been. Back when we were growing up, sex was in the very air. Short skirts, free love! But our parents belonged to an earlier era. How did we timid, nicely brought up boys ever find out anything? Headmaster giving a pep talk? Biology lessons? Perhaps an awkward conversation with Dad, and a Ladybird book called Your Body (too babyish, but what else was there?). And later on – oh dear! – smutty giggling over Playboy. A battered copy of Fear of Flying passed under the desk.

  Well! If it was difficult for me, what must it have been like for Paul? Where on earth would a clean living Evangelical boy turn to try and make sense of his feelings? No wonder it was a relief to be told this was just an immature phase; that he should marry and put it behind him. Because there would have been nothing else, no other source of knowledge, apart from public toilets and the Jeremy Thorpe case. Though at a private school there might have been a coterie of boys calling one another by girls’ names, and so on. Bob frowns. His grammar school imagination fails him here. But anyway, boys like that would only have revolted someone like Paul.

  Boys like that? Someone like Paul? He’s slipping into generalizations. There is nobody like Paul, he reminds himself. Nobody like me, for that matter. We are all quirky one-off originals, infinitely precious to the Creator.

  He drives up cathedral mount. A procession of 4×4s streams out through the great arch of the gateway: the school run. He pulls courteously to one side to let them past, although technically, they are supposed to make way for him. (Yet another reminder was issued last week by the head of the Choristers’ School, after complaints from angry Close residents.) But Bob waits. Hasn’t he dropped children off for school himself in years gone by? Yes, he’s probably blocked drives and been a nuisance in his time.

  He opens the car windows. It’s so warm. He finds his hanky and blots his face. The first wafts of lime blossom are in the air. Heavenly smell, but tree pollen does trigger his hay fever. Seems to be worse than ever this year. Can’t stop coughing. So long as he doesn’t splutter all through the ordinations this Sunday!