Unseen Things Above

by Catherine Fox

  Or was that just selfish? Ed feels his toes curling in his black funeral shoes at the thought of ‘a feature with Roddy’. Having to be photographed in the too-sharp bespoke wedding suit Neil would bully him into. Then afterwards, the whisky-soused night that would end in Neil and Fallon playing atheist Top Trumps (which non-existent God is viler – Catholic or Calvinist?) and Ed going to bed alone.

  God is Love. God is Love.

  Ed can still see Bishop Bob dying on the kitchen floor. And Neil fighting to save him – while I stood by wringing my hands and praying. Maybe Neil’s right? Maybe we’ve got to fight? Yes, I should stop being so squeamish. Man up and fight for our legal right to be married.

  He gets into his car and heads back home. As he turns down the lane towards Gayden Magna, he passes Neil driving the other way. He blows him a kiss. Neil gurns and sticks two fingers up. Everything is normal.

  Martin remains in the chapel of St Michael after evening prayer. He needs to make his peace with Freddie. What happened back there in the office this morning? he asks himself. We’ve been getting along fine! He’s moving out tomorrow. Please don’t let it end on a bad note like this.

  He tries to humble himself. Yes, I was snippy. Judgemental. I’ll apologize. Martin recrosses his legs, violently kicking the chair in front. A tourist jumps, then stares at him. Martin makes a deprecatory gesture, then bows his head again. A fit of giggles seizes him. Did she think I just booted the chair on purpose in a fit of rage?

  I am angry! Why am I angry?

  Because he’s doing it again! He’s like a silly little boy jumping up and down going, ‘Notice me, notice me, Dad!’ Martin feels like booting the chair again. Picking it up and hurling it through the stained-glass window, through those silly blonde Burne-Jones angels. Why?

  You’re older, Martin. You should have more self-control. His mum’s voice, when he was fighting with his sister. He flushes. Is this what’s going on? Some kind of pathetic sibling rivalry? Maybe I’m still just a little boy inside, too?

  Martin feels that clunk as an inner door unlocks. This keeps happening in family therapy! Please don’t fight over me, darlings. Martin cringes up inside like a sea anemone as the truth prods him: I behave like a jealous little boy when Freddie’s around. Yes, because he’s naughty and he blatantly gets away with it! Except he doesn’t. No. He’s lonely, and I must be kind to him.

  Martin gets up and heads back to the palace. He’s deep in thought and doesn’t see the black Porsche till the last second. Brakes squeal. He leaps back. The car reverses, window down. Martin stares into a pair of mad blue eyes.

  ‘Got a death wish, pal?’ With a rude chirp of tyres the Porsche speeds off.

  It’s dark now. Not everyone is sleeping in the Diocese of Lindchester tonight. The dean keeps her nightly vigil in front of the red N symbol. How tangled everything is. Have we made the right choice of bishop? Yes? No? How can we not think about our persecuted brothers and sisters? Our decisions affect them! Yet it can’t be right to try and placate tyrants! Evil prevails when the good do nothing, not when they act. Or does it prevail despite our good actions? Let it not prevail, let it not prevail.

  In the vicarage of Gayden Magna Ed is awake. He sits in the dark dining room among the bubble-wrapped sketches – his engagement present! – and cries. Neil is asleep upstairs. Still reeking of Le Male. I can smell him on you. He’d say it, but he can’t. Can’t. Stand it. Just cannot stand hearing Neil deny it. Lie to him. Again.

  Chapter 18

  I present you, reader, with a timeless English scene. It is the last week of August and the early morning sunshine has a smoky quality. Plums ripen. Giant puffballs bulge in dewy meadows. The countryside has harvest on its breath.

  A tall, thin figure in clerical black passes through a graveyard and out under the lichgate. Behind him the spire rises classically among copper beeches and old limes as if posing for a watercolour. He walks along the lane towards a lovely Georgian rectory. Ah, look at it! Cream painted, perfectly proportioned. Admire the sweeping drive, the neatly trimmed box hedges, the dovecote, the orangery! Covet those espaliered fruit trees hugging the venerable walls of an unseen vegetable garden! And see: borders full of hollyhocks, like embroidered tray cloths. He approaches the wrought-iron gates . . .

  And walks past. Down the lane he goes, towards a grim 1970s house at the far end of what was once the Rector of Gayden Magna’s apple orchard, because this is the early twenty-first century, not the early nineteenth.

  Oh, well.

  Sometimes I wish we could turn the clock back and find a way of not selling off all the lovely old vicarages. Or at the very least, revisit the possibility of building new ones with a bit more flair. Not all the wealth and energy of an energetic wealthy designer could bully this parson-box into a House Beautiful (Welsh slate and quarry tiles notwithstanding). The Lindchester diocesan architect back in the 1970s only had one set of plans. I think the idea was that clergy could move from parish to parish happy in the knowledge that their carpets and curtains would always fit perfectly in their charmless new home.

  How easily we might improve on the current state of affairs, if we could only rewind and try again! Let’s go back and not make that stupid decision, then everything will be all right. Let’s tell ourselves that hindsight has bestowed fresh information unavailable at the time. Above all, let’s pretend we didn’t realize back then it was stupid, stupid, thrice stupid, when we went ahead and did it anyway.

  ‘Dude, probably we shouldn’t . . . ?’

  ‘Definitely we shouldn’t, you bad boy!’

  ‘Yeah. We soooo shouldn’t . . .’

  Pause.

  ‘Och, fuck it. C’mere, gorgeous.’

  ‘Whoa! Mmmmm, ahh . . . Oh, God . . . Wait. Lemme just . . . ’kinoveralls . . .’

  ‘Allow me.’

  But occasionally, when we have barely completed Phase One of Project Stupidity, something intervenes and saves us from ourselves. A phone bursting into the Jaws theme tune in a back pocket, for example:

  Duuuuun dun!

  ‘Gah!’

  ‘Ignore it.’

  Duuuuuuun dunn! Duun dun, duun dun, DUUN DUN . . .

  ‘Mmm-nngh, please? No, listen. Sorry. Listen. Dude, I should get this . . . Ah, nuts.’

  Silence.

  ‘There. As you were, soldier.’ Pause. ‘Oh, what? No, c’mon!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s just . . . I mean, dude, your fiancé? Gah. My bad. Really sorry?’

  ‘Well, fuck!’

  He is more righteous than I. Where was that from? The Good Book, probably. Must have heard it in Sunday School. He is more righteous than I.

  Nearly a week on, and it dawns on Neil that this is why he so nearly bitch-slapped him. Shamed by a wee hoor who rents himself out as topless feckin’ cocktail waiter! Dude, your fiancé? Ooh.

  Neil drums his nails on his First Class table. He scowls out of the train window. Really not liking himself this morning. Away off in the distance he glimpses the cathedral on its mount, spire like a preacher’s finger. Not liking himself. At. All. Daft wee stoner, be like kicking a puppy. Bad man. And thank God he hadn’t ran that poor bastard over on the palace drive, either! Attack of John Knox-itis on the way home, predictably. But hey, no point hurting Eds by fessing up to something that never even happened, was there? That would be selfish. Here’s your engagement present, kiss kiss, love ya, big man!

  Then somehow he managed to balls up the sneaky self-medication. Cue the night terrors. It’s coming, it’s after him, and he’s screaming for Maw, but his voice won’t work. Fighting, fighting to get out of bed, but something’s pressing him down, and Eds has gone, Eds has left him! No! Hunting for him in the dark room, the dark house, room after room, screaming for Eds, not knowing if he’s awake, or if this is still the same feckin’ nightmare.

  ‘I’m here, Neil. It’s OK. I’m here.’

  ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, Eds, please don’t leave me.’

  ‘
I won’t leave you. Ssh. I’m here. It’s all OK.’

  And because he was still off-his-tits melted, he only went and told him what he’d done. Nearly done. OK then, fine: would’ve done, but for wee choirslut90 being more righteous than him.

  Anyway.

  Neil drinks his First Class complimentary coffee. He’d come so close to wrecking everything with that confession. Of course Eds read him the riot act. ‘Forsaking all others! What’s the point, Neil, I mean, what is the point? What does marriage mean to you, if it doesn’t mean being faithful?’ The wedding’s still in the balance, but he’s going to prove to Eds he’s serious about this.

  He leans his head back against the white headrest, closes his eyes. Och, if only he’d kept his big gob shut . . . But no, no. This has to be better. To be out in the open at last? No more lying, no more cheating, no more covering his tracks. He’s a gritty Scot. He can do this. He can stand out here in a kilt and let the east wind of truth whistle round his baws for once. And in a totally weird way, it feels safer.

  Maybe because he knows he’s loved? In spite of everything, that good man still loves him.

  Freddie May is running, running, running. Reckons he can get a quick 10K in before work. Gah. Still hasn’t returned that call. Oh man, total mistake to come out with no music. Coz now the Jaws theme’s going round his head again. Dun dun, dun dun . . . Must ring, must get on to that before Scary Mentor calls again. Or worse, turns up in Lindchester to mentor him in person. No, he wouldn’t do that, would he? Oh, Jesus. DUUUUNNN DUNN!

  Thing is, the very thought of making that call reminds him what a total home-wrecking shite he can be sometimes. What’s with you? I thought after Paul we were gonna never do this again. No more married guys, spoken-for guys. In the same fucking house even! How bad is that? Oh God, Marty’s right, why’s he forever hitting on Harry? Wahey! Let’s have another go at trashing some nice guy’s life! Why does he have to be so needy? No, to be fair, staying by himself in a big empty house is doing his head in. Yeah, probably that’s not helping. But Philip and Philippa will be back from holiday by next week, so he’ll have company, and term will start and there’ll be like structure to his life again?

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry. There’s nobody he can say it to. I mean yeah, no, course he said it at the time, but understandably? Neil’s not impressed. For one second there he thought he was gonna get his face smacked, literally? Which would not have gone well. Oh, man. If he could only say sorry to the fiancé as well, but even he can see that’s not a super-smart idea? Dude, I’m so sorry, I nearly did your fiancé, only, yeah, then I like didn’t? And he’d be all, what? I don’t know what you’re even talking about! And what makes it like a million times worse is that he’s only just yesterday worked out who the fiancé is? Rector of Gayden Magna? Totally sweet guy.

  In the distance the fast train to London slices across the landscape. Silence closes back in. A buzzard cruises over the stubble fields. Freddie’s shoulders itch under his vest. New tatts healing up now. Sting of sweat telling him he’s alive. Yeah, that’s why he’s running till it hurts. It needs to hurt.

  The totally sweet guy arrives back at the empty vicarage. He’s just said Morning Prayer in one of his village churches. Two weddings there this Saturday. Wall-to-wall weddings all summer. He’s sick of it. No, that’s not fair. It’s what comes of being vicar of a photogenic church. He goes to the kitchen and fills the kettle. You wouldn’t have thought it possible to spend nearly £200 on a kettle, but Neil kept on going till he found a way.

  As Ed stands waiting for the world’s most perfect kettle to boil, a phrase from the canticle comes back to him: In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us. Neil’s night terrors, his phobia about being abandoned. A childhood of being passed around the extended family while his mother was ‘not so well’, or his father was ‘away on business’. Tender compassion – that’s what he feels for Neil. His heart is tender.

  Too right it bloody is! Because Neil has yet again picked up a steak mallet and tenderized it. Ed stares down at the quarry-tiled floor. He thinks of Bishop Bob. Cracked sternum, but – thanks to Neil’s ministrations – alive. Yes, Neil is something of a heart specialist. He’s fighting to rescue us now, thinks Ed; to rescue our engagement, the marriage. That same Scots terrier tenacity. But will anything really change? This new transparency, this accountability – how long will it last?

  ‘You can check my phone, my emails, any time, Eds. Go on, check my messages.’

  Ed shakes his head. ‘I’m fine, Neil. I don’t need to do that.’

  As if you’re not capable of deleting stuff, opening a new email account, buying a pay-as-you-go phone. Darling, I don’t need to check your messages, I can just check your eyes. After eighteen years Ed can read cheating there as easily as coke or Vicodin. But the sweeties have all been flushed away, Grindr deleted, naughty wee tarts unfollowed on Twitter. Everything will be different from now on.

  But I haven’t changed, thinks Ed. Tenderized? I’m flayed by the idea of you with him. I can’t look at those beautiful sketches you bought me now. I don’t even want them in the house. Jesus, I can’t stand it! Him. Moved to Lindchester, with his dirty pretty smile, his trampy clothes, his feral smell. Permanently available, twenty minutes away by Porsche. I can’t compete! How can I compete with a greedy amoral twenty-four year old?

  Stop, stop tormenting yourself! Neil came to his senses in time, didn’t he? He chose to walk away from temptation. Yes, draw confidence from that. Marriage, fidelity – they mean something to Neil, they must do. Ed makes his coffee, goes through to his study and kneels. He stares up at the crucifix on the wall. This horrible storm of jealousy will pass. It’s like the weather, it will blow over. My heart will mend.

  Jesus, grant me this, I pray,

  ever in thy heart to stay;

  let me evermore abide

  hidden in thy wounded side.

  *

  It’s late afternoon. Miss Blatherwick is in the choir vestry, checking that the boys’ surplices have been laundered and ironed to her satisfaction. Why she’s doing this, when it’s none of her business, is beyond her. Chapter took the decision to employ an ironing service two years ago. This is silly. She’s behaving like an elderly busybody who can’t retire gracefully.

  She sits down rather hard on a wooden bench to give herself a good talking to. The air reeks faintly of historic BO from lay clerk cassock armpits. In her mind’s eye the vestry crowds with memories, decades of ghost choristers, flitting through, darting jerkily like a time-lapse nature film of a beehive.

  Yes, she sees what’s troubling her; what she’s trying to put right by ensuring the surplices are kept crisp and white as driven snow. Those boys we so criminally failed. The cathedral laundry! It looks very much as though she’ll be required to give testimony next month, and the whole lot will be washed in public court. And now this deeply distressing news from Rotherham. The scale of it! One wonders now if anything has changed, whether in fact things are worse than ever, if all this diligent safeguarding and chaperoning is futile. One is sometimes tempted to think that nothing will ever be learned, other than the depressing lesson that there will always be those who prey on children, and children whose story will not be believed.

  No. This won’t do. Miss Blatherwick has no time for any weak-minded counsel of despair. However bad things are, one can always do the good thing that lies to hand, however small. She takes her mobile phone from her handbag and composes a text: ‘WD YOU LIKE TO COME 4 dinner toñight¿ 7PM BB’

  A moment later her phone buzzes in reply: ‘HELL YEAH! LOVE YA MISS B Fêã¿reddie XX’

  Miss Blatherwick smiles and gets creakily to her feet. Dratted hip. But she’s on the waiting list now, mustn’t grumble. She scans the familiar room. That carpet could do with a good hoover. She gathers a couple of dirty mugs to wash and carries them carefully down the spiral stairs to her home.

  And thus Miss Blatherwick’s heart goes out t
o this Lost Boy of hers. Freddie’s heart goes out to the man he has wronged; whose heart goes out to the man he loves and despairs over. And where does Neil’s heart go? Well, I think it creeps by a strange backwoods route to Bishop Bob, not in prayer exactly, but he’s like a man pacing to and fro outside a building, nerving himself to go in. He doesn’t quite know it yet, but he wants to talk to Bob. About life and death and maybe forgiveness. And Bob – while Janet packs the car to drive them both off at last for a two-week break in the Hendersons’ bolt-hole – Bob prays for his brother and stand-in, Bishop Harry, who at this precise moment is praying for Dean Marion, who is lighting a candle at the shrine of William of Lindchester, and praying for her persecuted brothers and sisters in Iraq.

  It is gloomy here behind the high altar. As she sets her candle on the stand among the rest, Marion thinks of all the other candles lit at this moment across the globe. All the prayers, all the hearts leaning, yearning, towards some other heart. Linking us. I would like to see these threads of thought lit up across a night-time map, she thinks. A shimmering filigree linking soul to soul. She tries to picture it. Would it throb with tenderness across space and time? If I could only see that, then perhaps each frail strand of mine would not seem so futile. Saints in heaven, pray for us.

  It is Thursday morning. Jane looks down at the bathroom scales. What?! I demand a second opinion, you rude bastard! She gets off and on again. The scales stick to their guns. Right! Time for a run, Lardy Muldoon. She tiptoes back to the bedroom and tries to jiggle the drawer open without waking the large corpse that lies face down across her bed snoring. Broken his iron rule about stopping over, bless him. She can bring him breakfast in bed for once. Come on, open. The drawer jerks right out and tips a tangle of knackered sports gear on the floor.

  Bollocks!