Up the steps. In through the doors. Jesus. I can’t believe I agreed to this.
And there was Matt. New suit, charcoal grey. Red rose in his buttonhole. Accessorized by a smile wide, wide as the ocean. Don’t bloody smile at me like that, you bastard, I’m not happy. I’m not. Ha, all right then, I am. Oh, I am so happy!
Well, it all went swimmingly. In the absence of real clergy, the registrar adopted such a portentously Anglican intonation as would not have disgraced a trained actor playing the rector in a costume drama. The bride’s voice was squeaky with tears, the groom blotted his eyes, one witness sobbed happily, the other witness rolled his eyes, and Freddie May sang like an angel. ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’ (Matt’s choice) and ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, Now the White’ (Jane’s choice).
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost, be lost in me . . .
Aw, bless. Bless them one and all.
They will be coming out soon. We will mount up like feral pigeons, and perch wherever we can, wherever the town council has failed to put spikes, and watch greedily, hoping that rice will be thrown. Here they are! But no rice; red rose petals swirl in the breeze. They settle on the steps where, only a few weeks before, the poppy petals whispered down. In the distance a band oom-pahs some carols, and the world’s worst violinist scrawks out ‘Jingle Bells’.
A black Porsche pulls up and parks on double yellows. It’s the next couple arriving. Out they get. We stay aloof, up here among the hostile spikes, and watch as the tall woman hurls her bouquet. It flies as if she’s hoofed a high Garryowen, up, up, then down, like a pimped warhead trailing black streamers. The receiver stands firm in his kilt, calls his mark. Catches it, thorns and all.
‘Oh, ye-e-e-e-ah!’ He strikes a Braveheart pose, bouquet-broadsword in hand. Then he and his man mount the steps as the last handfuls of red petals swirl, laughing as they go.
And so, Jack shall have Jill, and Jack shall have Jack. I cannot promise you that naught shall go ill, dear reader. But I believe we can say that this Black Friday was not all darkness and gloom, with no brightness in it.
Dean Marion is in her garden on Saturday. She is admiring her new beehive, bought for her by her husband, tireless in his pursuit of deanissima’s happiness. She will not be the first woman bishop in the C of E. No, a whisper about this has reached her, and of course it’s a relief! She needs no consolation prizes.
O, reason not the need! He has bought her a beehive anyway.
‘But I know nothing about beekeeping, Gene!’
‘I shall be your keeper.’
‘Thank you. Do we buy bees? How does it work?’
‘Oh, we lure them in, Deanissima. With sweet aromas. Or we steal them from other hives. I see it as a paradigm of the Diocesan Growth Agenda.’
The little white wooden house stands in the lavender border. ‘Maybe they will just come. Out of the blue, one June day. Like they did this year. Maybe they will just appear, Gene.’
‘And this time we will have a home waiting for them.’
‘Yes, I hope they come. Like a gift of grace. “Drop down, ye heavens, from above”,’ she quotes.
‘“And let the skies pour down righteousness”,’ he warbles in his Peter Pears voice. ‘Did you know that in the winter the worker bees all huddle around the queen, and shiver in order to keep her warm? She will be quite safe until her hour comes.’
‘Thank you, darling.’
‘Come, let’s go and find a last-wine-before-Advent treat.’
They go back to the deanery and close out the November dusk.
Advent Sunday. Darkness into Light. The cathedral is a hive of liturgical activity. The choir rehearse. The early birds have already arrived to bag the best seats. They show their Teutonic roots by putting coats on empty seats as flagrantly as any lounger-bagging German by a hotel pool. Stewards stand on chairs and gouge old wax out of candle sockets with screwdrivers. We will look away and not ask about risk assessment. The candles are all pre-lit, then snuffed, to ensure that they will light first time and darkness proceeds into light with military precision. The tapers are ready. We still shudder in Lindchester when we recall the Bic lighter fiasco of 2007, when the nave resounded to a tattoo of frenzied clicking.
Up in the organ loft the organists practise Wachet auf and make sure they are ready to train their cockpit camera on the sleepiest person in the quire, so they can wet themselves laughing when an unexpected crescendo in one of the carols jolts some sleeper awake.
Evening services across the diocese will be sparsely attended tonight. Lo, from the north they come! From east and west and south! This is one of the highlights of the liturgical year. Here is our lovely friend Father Wendy. Ah, and our good friend Geoff. Let’s hope the service knits up the ravelled sleeve of Veronica-related care for him. Here is Dominic. Goodness, is that Jane with him? It is! She is being a clergy wife for the very first time! Golly, I hope the sign in her reserved seat doesn’t say ‘Mrs M. Tyler’!
The reliable soprano with a straight voice climbs up the stairs to the triforium, to sing the O Antiphons again. Our two lovely bishop friends, Harry and Bob, gently quarrel over who must have the place of honour at the back of the procession. See how determinedly they strive to out-defer one another, until the precentor appears, knocks their mitres together, and orders them to walk side by side. The choristers are demented with excitement. Candles! Darkness! Fingers crossed they don’t set fire to themselves. Lay clerks in their red cassocks flit about on errands.
Well, well, well. I do believe that I just spotted the great Mr Dorian himself gliding in and insinuating himself into one of the best reserved seats in the house, front row, nave, next to the Lord Lieutenant. He has come to hear his mentee sing that solo Freddie should, by rights, have performed on the Christmas CD. ‘What wondrous love is this, O my soul?’ After all, he wrote it for Freddie. With hindsight, not clever to phrase it like that just now, though: ‘I wrote it for you.’ Rather than: ‘I had your voice and its unusual timbre in mind when I arranged this piece.’ Hmm. He rather feared the subsequent clarification was lost on his smitten mentee.
The lights dim. The dean mounts the pulpit steps and makes her announcements.
Still, not a problem. Mr May would grow out of it soon enough. That said, it would be idle to pretend that a smile could not light up a lost lake in the soul. Where a thousand lilies had just unfurled without permission. Ah, well.
Silence. Darkness. In a moment a lone voice, like one crying in the wilderness, will sing. But for now, we wait.
Outside on the Close the wind shh-shhhes in the empty lime trees. A robin flutters up to the old-fashioned lamp post. Perhaps it is the same bird who built its nest behind the high altar? In the silence he starts to sing. Perhaps, poor thing, he is deluded, and mistakes the lamplight for the dawn?
Perhaps. But he will still be awake, singing – whether at midnight, or at cock crowing, or when day breaks.
Unseen Things Above Page 30
