A tall, thin man, with sparse hair combed back from his brow, Marcus greeted her at the door with impeccable courtesy. A vague, indefinable abstraction hung in the air about him like the dust around an old easy chair that has had its cushions too roughly handled. His glasses provided a dual function—they focused the acute observation of his very intelligent gaze; they also served as a form of screen or hide for moments when he preferred to make himself absent. Esme thought he looked both perceptive and kind, which reinforced the impression she had received at their first meeting.
He stood aside to allow her to enter his living room ahead of him. Drawn to the view of the garden through the French windows framed in heavy linen floral curtains at the far end of the room, Esme walked across to look out at the profusion of late-summer flowers in the herbaceous borders, at the stone fountain in the lilied pond, and at the grouped shrubs, stone urns, and statuary that stood here and there, dwarfed by mature and graceful trees.
“Goodness me!” she exclaimed. “Your garden’s massive!” adding quickly, “and so beautiful!”
Marcus wandered across the room to stand beside her.
“A little overblown, perhaps, at this time of year. I enjoy it at all times, but I prefer the sculptural qualities of a winter garden. So many flowers can be a little cloying at times. Rather an excess of pink, wouldn’t you say? Wine?”
As he traveled across the room to fill with a generous helping of wine one of the heavy crystal glasses on the sideboard, Marcus bellowed, “Hilda!” in the direction of the door, and this was rewarded by a sense of energetic bustling that heralded his wife’s arrival.
Stout and well made, a handsome woman conventionally and expensively dressed, wearing no makeup but with immaculately dressed hair, Hilda had bold, dark eyes and a determined chin that gave notice of a forceful character.
“Marcus, how remiss! I had no idea! Welcome, my dear, welcome! Won’t you sit down? I didn’t hear you come in—are you parked outside? It’s not like me to overlook a car drawing up. I’m so glad you could come! Have you been offered—ah, yes, good—let me find a little mat for that glass. You do eat meat, my dear? I was most annoyed with Marcus—‘What if she’s vegetarian?’ I said to him. ‘You must check; you must always check, times have changed, these young idealistic types live on the most extraordinary things, lentils and wild rice,’ but he wouldn’t call you back to check, he would not! Not that we eat so much meat ourselves nowadays, a little savory pâté, a rasher of bacon, the odd chop. When the family was here with us, it was different; of course, it was all different then! My goodness! My brood could divulge a whole bird at one sitting!”
Marcus’s eyes flickered momentarily as Esme registered the strangeness of this last remark, but he said merely, “Do you eat meat, Esme? If not, I’ve no doubt we can find something else.”
Esme reassured them that she did eat meat, though like most people, less now than once; and when later they sat down to dine (at an exquisite beech-wood dining suite, the table laid with Georgian silver and damask napkins), the selection of vegetables grown in the garden accompanying tender cuts of locally raised meat with delicious gravy made her glad she had accepted this invitation to supper.
Inevitably, their conversation drifted to matters connected with the chapel, and Esme discovered that in addition to Marcus’s responsibility as senior steward, he and Hilda both were key members of the finance and property committee.
“It’s been a difficult year for decisions. My dear, your wine is low—Marcus! Esme’s wine is low! Driving? Then some tonic water? Marcus! Very difficult. It seems not five minutes since we were raising funds for the replacing of the windows—I won’t say ‘replacement windows’ because in a conservation area that’s hardly what they are; and besides as Marcus says, it’s such a quaint idea—I mean they are actually windows; but you know what I mean. But the thing is now that having made good and decorated, the awkward place with the damp has caused the emotion paint to the west corner of the chapel to lift, and I really think—more gravy? More carrots? More potato? Nonetheless, when Marcus comes to present the draft of the accounts—still to be audited of course, still to be audited, but he’s rarely out—in the autumn, I think you may satisfy yourself that our heads are still above the parapet.”
Marcus laid down his fork and waved his hand in vague demur. “Water,” he said.
“Water? My dear, you have a full glass—Esme, too. I think sometimes you really should have your eyes checked again—try the other man this time, I’m not convinced Mr. Robinson isn’t becoming questionably visionary himself!”
Marcus glanced at his wife with a kind of wondering incredulity.
“Mr. Robinson is a practical man, who could never have been described as visionary, questionably or otherwise. I am adequately supplied with beverages, and at Brockhyrst Chapel we may be considered still to have our heads above water, though, as you say, the year ahead presents its challenges.”
Hilda gazed at him, baffled. “Marcus, whatever are you talking about? You’re simply repeating everything I’ve said and adding nothing to the conversation at all—and why on earth were you asking for water if you know perfectly well you’ve already got some? Really, you could try the patience of a saint at times—you can see my point, Esme, I’m sure! Heavens! Are we ready to move on to pudding, or is anyone still waiting for secs?”
“Seconds, Esme?” asked Marcus, with utter gravity, but a certain sardonic gleam behind the glasses and under the eyebrows lifted in inquiry. “I’d like you to be clear as to what you were being offered. Potato, maybe? Or meat? No? Pudding then, Hilda, I think.”
Feeling most comfortably replete after an excellent meal, Esme settled herself into the cushions of an armchair as the three of them returned to the sitting room to enjoy their coffee. In their absence, the dog had moved off the sofa and now slumbered peacefully on the hearth rug, snoring slightly.
For a short while, as Hilda set off purposefully to the kitchen to fetch the tray of cups, Marcus and Esme lapsed into silence, and she wondered if she should take some conversational initiative.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a bike,” she said, searching for something to talk about. “I spend so much time in the car, and the roads are so busy. Can you recommend a good place to go for a bike?”
Marcus considered. “How much of a cyclist are you?” he asked, at length.
“Oh well—I mean, I can manage hills and I don’t fall off, but I shan’t be going in for races. Just for a bit of exercise really.”
“I see. Then I think Jabez Ferrall might answer your purpose. He sometimes has something to sell, and he’s in any case a useful man to know. I never met anyone so resourceful. He’s in Wiles Green—not far from here, fifty yards past The Bull as you come into Wiles Green from Brockhyrst Priory. Back of the Old Police House, where Pam Coleman lives, you’ll find him. He could certainly advise you and maintain for you, regardless of what he may or may not have in.”
Esme fished in her bag for her diary, which experience had taught her to take with her everywhere, and in the memoranda pages at the back she wrote down what Marcus had said: “Jabez Ferrall” (Peculiar, old-fashioned name, she thought), “Wiles Green, behind the Old Police House, fifty yards beyond the pub.” “BIKES” she wrote above this memo, underlined.
Over coffee they chatted about Esme’s parsonage. “Have you got all you need?” asked Marcus. “Is everything as it should be?”
“It’s all in very good order.” Esme hesitated. What she wanted to say sounded a little unappreciative. “Will you understand if I say that for me a difficult thing to come to terms with in ministry is that I realize a parsonage can never quite be a home? Please don’t misunderstand me—the circuit stewards have worked so hard to make it lovely, the kitchen has just been completely redone, and I have not a single grumble. It’s just—well—looking round at your sitting room I c
an see you are people who love your home, and part of what makes it home I think is that it’s either the place you grew up, or the place you chose because you fell in love with it. And part of what makes it lovable is its idiosyncrasies—like a person, really. But of course the whole point about acquiring and maintaining a parsonage is to find a neutral kind of place—a sensible purchase—with as few idiosyncrasies as possible, and iron out what ones there are before ever anybody moves in. Little things, oddities, I don’t know.…” She was beginning to feel a bit silly and wondered if she would have been better never to begin this. Marcus and Hilda were both listening to her thoughtfully, and she could feel herself getting embarrassed and hot.
“Please don’t think I’m complaining. The parsonage is really nice. There’s nothing wrong with it as a parsonage, but—well, for example, here you have your fireplace, and it must be lovely in the winter to sit down by an open fire in the evening. But in Southarbour of course it’s a smoke-free zone, and naturally the parsonage will be there because it’s the biggest place in the section, the most convenient, and anyway parsonages never have open fires. But I do love a fire. D’you see what I mean? I can see why they don’t have one—not everyone likes a fire, chimneys have to be swept, fires are hazardous, then as well they make dust and ash and so on. I can see why parsonages only have central heating.…”
Marcus just watched her (and Esme wished he wouldn’t), but Hilda nodded sympathetically. “I know just what you mean, dear!” she said, warmly. “It’s a blessing! Central heating is a blessing. Having the circuit stewards to sort things out leaves you free to do your wonderful work. I envy you your spanking new kitchen—ours leaves a lot to be desired—the parsonage is very convenient, everything done, all mod cons—but everything has a backside.”
In silence, Esme and Marcus pondered this judgment. Marcus put his coffee cup back on the tray. “Downside,” he murmured, absently. Then he looked very hard at Esme.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “You are talking about home being somewhere that somehow recognizes one; a place where one truly belongs. Somewhere one can in the fullest and deepest sense call one’s own. Well, please make this a second home. Investigate the junk shops. Find yourself a toasting fork and keep it here. You will always be welcome.”
He nodded slightly to give this emphasis, and Esme felt a sudden deep gratitude for the kindness of this couple.
“Thank you,” she said. “And thank you so much for a lovely evening. I won’t make myself a nuisance, but certainly I’d love to come again.”
Before she knew it, the remainder of August slipped away. Esme met some other members of her congregations. One or two dropped in with flowers or cards—one with an apple pie—to welcome her, and she was introduced to more people than she could remember when she stayed for coffee after worship at Portland Street and Brockhyrst Priory chapels on her remaining free Sundays. Then September came, the beginning of the Methodist year, with its flurry of committee meetings, special services, the round of preaching and visiting and leadership responsibilities, and so many things to plan and do.
Esme’s diary filled up until it was back to its usual level of dense notes on every page, scarcely thinning out until two months ahead. Her day off she guarded jealously; the rest of the time was like a juggling act in a circus of bureaucracy.
She had asked God for a friend, but right now she felt grateful she didn’t have any within easy reach of her—friends are a time-consuming luxury in a minister’s life.
Any thoughts of exercise, of cycling, or walking in the country were shelved for the time being. She might well get to that, but for now it would have to wait.
She knew that in due course patterns would establish, and familiarity would give space in the work; beginnings are always hectic. She worried sometimes that all her energies could be absorbed by the bigger congregation at Portland Street, leaving Brockhyrst Priory a poor second and Wiles Green to fend for themselves (which is what they were used to).
As she went to bed at night, in the brief time before she fell asleep exhausted, Esme whispered to herself, “Don’t panic, Es,” and felt guilty that she was too tired to pray.
Two
The next eighteen months went by so swiftly for Esme. The ancient seasons of the liturgical year, with its balance of fasts and feasts resting lightly on older pagan foundations, wove in with the slightly different rhythms and observances of the Methodist calendar. In her new pastoral appointment, she went softly with the inevitable changes her personality brought.
She had been asked at her first interview with the circuit stewards: “What will you do for the young people? What will you do to involve the Sunday school in worship? What will you do to improve the profile of the church in the community? What will you do about the falling numbers at Wiles Green?”
Her answer to all those questions had been, “Nothing. I will watch, and wait, and listen. Nothing for a year, at the very least. Then, when I have seen enough to understand, where change seems helpful, it can begin. But at first, nothing. Until they trust me. Let them get familiar with the sound of my voice.”
One of the strangest and most surprising things to Esme in her first probationer appointment had been the unsettling accuracy of the simile describing a congregation and their pastor as sheep and shepherd. The relationship centers in the voice of the shepherd. “My sheep know my voice,” Jesus had said once, long ago, and Esme had grown up thinking that to be a reference to spiritual call, but she had found it in practice to be simpler and more basic than that. When a faith community comes to know and trust a leader, that leader’s voice can bring them to peace. As the pastor’s voice opens the worship of the community, the trust implicit in the relationship gathers the people of God into one, so that their prayer and praise arises in one peaceful drift of incense smoke finding its way to heaven.
In her first year and a half with her new congregations, already there had been the usual trickle of domestic tragedies and small emergencies. A troubled mother had poured out to Esme her concerns about a child truanting from school and making friends on the fringes of the drug world. There had been two bereavements in Portland Street families—one SIDS—and one of her Brockhyrst Priory pastoral visitors had died after a very swift illness. At Wiles Green a much-loved member of the congregation in her nineties had been diagnosed with cancer—Gladys Taylor, a sweet and gentle white-haired lady who hosted the Bible study in her small room in the almshouses by St. Raphaels Church. Gladys, unfailingly kind and understanding, restored Esme’s faith in old ladies; it was with a pang of real sadness that she heard of the diagnosis. As Esme spent time with these and others passing through trouble and anxiety, word went around that when they needed her she came. She chaired her business meetings with competence, insisting that they close no later than half-past nine—well, twenty minutes to ten if “Any Other Business” turned out heated. Her stewards in all three chapels worked well with her, and all her pastoral visitors did their work with diligence. The usual cold wars and simmering feuds seemed temporarily dormant: After eighteen months Esme relaxed enough to consider her own life beyond the occasional visit to her mother or day off window-shopping and enjoying a cappuccino in Brockhyrst Priory.
Her minister’s diary was printed to span well beyond a year, and though she had begun her new one in September at the beginning of the Methodist year, the old one still lay on her desk, handy when required for transferring details of this year’s engagements made far in advance. She intended to trawl through noting down all engagements still forthcoming and all the valuable margin notes of addresses and telephone numbers and personal details; but so far she had not found the time, and last year’s diary had not yet outlived its usefulness.
In February, as Lent began, Esme looked in her old diary—the one that had been new when first she sat at her desk on those August days at the beginning of this appointment—to check the
memoranda pages for details of services and study courses held jointly with churches of other denominations at this season of the year.
As she flicked through the pages, she came across her long-forgotten entry:
Bikes Jabez Ferrall, Wiles Green, behind the Old Police House, 50 yards beyond the pub.
She paused and reread it and looked at it for a while. The watery sun of early spring streamed through the window onto her desk. The tree that overhung her driveway was developing sticky red buds that one day soon would unfurl in crumpled new green leaves. When she drove out to Wiles Green for Sunday worship or to lead the Wesley Guild, the dog mercury was advancing cautious early shoots on the verges of the lanes. The air smelt fresh and inviting. A bike, she thought. Why not?
Not today, but one day soon. And time went on, but the idea stayed with her, so that on the Tuesday of Holy Week, before the days erupted into the liturgical marathon of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, culminating in Easter Sunday’s multiple Eucharists, Esme made a space to investigate the possibility of buying a bike.
It must be somewhere near here, then.
Nosing through the narrow street, Esme tried to be mindful of the traffic and look out for the Old Police House at the same time. With almost nothing to boast in the way of commercial premises at Wiles Green, the pub stood out proudly, and “A bit beyond the pub, fifty yards, no more—set back a little from the road,” Marcus had said.
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