Acts and Omissions (11 page)

Chapter 20

O freakish bank holiday weather! No good will come of you! All across the diocese of Lindchester people haul out their lawnmowers and barbecues; they wrestle with deckchairs and loungers. A day of sunshine is all it takes to germinate the seeds of optimism. Hoorah! It's going to be a gorgeous summer after all! Aren't we owed one? Don't we deserve one? Above the water meadows of Cardingforth (all sweet with lambs and Shakespeare's flowers), the cooling towers spell out the answer:
mene, mene . . .

Where are all our friends on this fair bank holiday morn? Dominic opens his sunroof, puts on an Ella CD and drives off on a sentimental journey. Gonna set his heart at ease. He drives far beyond the reach of this narrative, to the Chiltern bluebell woods of old me-e-m-o-ries. He will visit that open-air swimming pool, and find it derelict. I happen to know that the yellow and blue cubicle doors hang crooked now on broken hinges. A filing cabinet lies in the airy deep end, ragwort sprouts between poolside paving slabs. Dominic will gaze up at the turquoise skeleton of the high board and murmur, ‘Oh my God, oh my God!' Now there's a sermon illustration if ever he saw one. Sentimental jo-o-urney home.

And where is our lovely dean today? I'm happy to report that Marion is flying high. Quite literally. She's having a gliding lesson. This is the bank holiday treat the ingenious Gene has cooked up for his beloved, to help her put Lindchester Cathedral into perspective.

Martin the bishop's chaplain is driving. Driving, driving, driving. Yes! Not epilepsy, after all. See? He knew all along it wasn't. He told everyone it was just that virus, on top of the stress of marital problems. His life took a decided turn for the better the day he was able to say to the little git, ‘I'll have the bishop's spare car keys back now, if you don't mind.' The little git kept claiming he'd ‘lost' the keys, until Paul blew his top and barked, ‘Then find them, and get out of my sight!' Martin genuinely tried not to gloat.

But Martin has made a rod for his own back today, I'm afraid. This journey is too long. His girls were wild with excitement – ‘The seaside, the seaside! Yay!' – but now they're moaning in the back. ‘No, sorry, we're not nearly there yet. Listen to Harry Potter, please.' After an hour, Jessica wears him down with her whining and he hands over his iPhone so she can play Angry Birds. Within fifteen minutes she's sick all over herself, the seat, the car floor and her pink backpack, just like Daddy said.

Sometimes it is scant consolation to be proved right about something, Martin.

And what of Paul and Susanna? Well, they nipped off on Sunday evening to their little bolt-hole in the Peak District.
No! Of course they're not taking Freddie May with them!
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Susanna was just being silly when she raised that possibility. Freddie will be fine. Miss Blatherwick has taken him in hand, bless her. And Giles says they'll be falling over themselves to have a tenor of his calibre in Barchester. So she's trying not to fret. Anyway, Paul needs a complete break, poor darling. All this Crown Nominations Commission stuff, it's just so unsettling.

They wake to blue sky and the burbling call of curlews. Just the two of them. In bed. With the day stretching ahead of them. Susanna leaps up at once to bake special marmalade breakfast muffins, to atone for her insensitivity.

The bishop eats the muffin he doesn't want, and walks out over the moor with his book of verse, dusting off that New Year's resolution to read more poetry. He hasn't managed to leave his troubles behind. But God willing, by September – barring wilful self-sabotage – Freddie bloody May should be someone else's headache. If they can only nurse him through the last few months without major scandals or disasters. Damage limitation, that's all this year's been. Paul knows that he and Susanna haven't managed to help Freddie in any meaningful sense. Maybe no one can? Not until Freddie decides he wants and needs to change.

Well, this is one mistake Paul won't be making again. Leaving it to Susanna to choose tenants, and being too busy to interview a new employee and delegating it to the diocesan secretary. Couldn't either of them hear the warning klaxons, or see those whopping great letters flashing ‘Trouble!' over that golden head? Extraordinary. And yet Paul was to blame as well. A craven impulse, and the moment for bailing out slipped away. Or was it compassion? Once again Paul sees Freddie standing there in the palace hallway, shivering with misery.

Leave off. Leave it alone, he tells himself. He wills his soul to unclench. But into the vacuum rush thoughts of York. They also serve who only stand and wait. Each passing day sears that deeper onto his spirit. The secrecy, the hints, the manoeuvrings. But above all, this intolerable passive waiting. It's finding him out. He knows he's being short with people. He's close to throttling his chaplain, he explodes at Freddie, he even snaps at poor old Suze, who is only ever doing her best. All these years she's put up with him, loved his unloveliness, gone wherever his job has taken them, never once berated him. She deserves better, God knows. He reminds himself that his first calling is to be a husband. He takes a deep breath. Juniper, heather, bracken. Come on, Henderson, relax. A curlew call goes lassoing up into the blue. Paul sits on a rock and opens his book.

Hmm. I'm not sure Shakespeare's Sonnets are your best bet for banishing a beautiful golden young man from your mind, bishop. But I appreciate you are a completer finisher, and you started this volume back in January.

        . . . O, what a mansion have those vices got,

        Which for their habitation chose out thee,

        Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,

        And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!

        Take heed (dear heart!) of this large privilege:

        The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

Hang on in there, bishop. Only fifty-nine sonnets to go and you can flee to the grumpy cloister of R. S. Thomas's collected poems.

We must press on. Today is Thursday. Here on Planet Church we mark a festival that slips past unremarked elsewhere: Ascension Day, when we celebrate our Lord's return to heaven after forty days of resurrection appearances. Early in the morning the choristers of Lindchester (bursting with excitement) are shepherded up on to the cathedral roof to sing from the base of the spire. At evensong tonight the anthem will be Finzi's ‘God is Gone Up' (oh, those heart-cramping melodies!). But for now, let's pop across to Lindford, where Jane (oblivious to Ascension Day) is at her desk in the Fergus Abernathy building, opening her post.

What the hell? A Mars bar? She looked inside the padded envelope and pulled out a plain postcard: ‘I was going to send flowers, but I spent all my money getting my car door fixed. Matt xx'. And a mobile number.

Matt? That chef! Jane laughed. Then she went cold. How the hell had he got her name and address? Whoa, not liking this. Unless . . . oh! he must be employed by Poundstretcher, in one of the various student eateries! Obviously he knew her by sight and asked someone. She studied the postcard. Well, it was funny, rather than stalker-ish, she had to concede. But he seriously thought she was going to phone him? She tried to picture what he looked like. Shaved head. Late forties? Big. Hiding in his stupid Mini. Not interested, mister.

She made a cafetière of coffee. The Mars bar would hit the spot, actually. She unwrapped it. Wait. Did he think she was a greedy pig? Was that what this gift implied? Pah. Jane seized a paperknife (embellished with Lindford County Council crest, God knew why she had it) and stabbed the poor chocolate through its innocent heart. She got out her phone, took a picture of the dead Mars bar, and texted it to the number on the postcard.

The archdeacon was in William House. He did a spectacular nose trick with his coffee. The bishop stared. The dean stared. The entire committee stared. The archdeacon mopped his agenda and apologized. Memo to self: no more cheeky text-checking during finance meetings.

Meanwhile, over in the bishop's office, Freddie was juggling balls of screwed-up paper.

‘Do you mind?' snapped Martin, as one bounced off his head.

‘Yes, stop it, Freddie,' said the bishop's PA.

Freddie started fiddling with the stapler instead.

‘Tell me more about this audition,' said Penelope.

‘So there's like, sight-reading?' He stapled his T-shirt hem to her desk.

Penelope removed the stapler from him. ‘Well, you can sight-read, can't you?'

‘You betcha. I can sight-read the ass off a thing.' He prised his T-shirt free. ‘And then, I'm thinking I could maybe sing the “Queen of the Night” aria?'

‘What, from
The Magic Flute
? But isn't that a soprano role?'

‘Yeah, no, yeah, but if I practise I reckon I can ace it?'

‘He's just winding you up,' muttered Martin.

‘The fuck I am!' Freddie tore screamingly into
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen!

‘Shut up!' shouted Penelope. ‘That can't be good for your voice!'

‘It'sh a work in progresh, Mish Moneypenny,' admitted Freddie. ‘But when I was a chorister, hey, I was all
over
that fucker. Literally. I was that good? Back in the day, I'd totally have ended up a castrato. Lucky escape, yeah, Martin? Still got my boys. Here, wanna check?'

‘Oh, stop that.' Penelope belted him with
Alpha News
. ‘You'll go blind.'

Father Dominic has been off on a wild goose chase this afternoon, looking for a non-existent address where one half of a marriage couple purports to live. Not many sham weddings round this way, but he had alarm bells ringing from the moment they first contacted him. Sure enough, there is no 89a Windermere Gardens in Renfold. He drops in on the food bank, to cheer on the volunteers. He just has time to swing by Waitrose on his way home, to buy a little Day Off Eve treat to crack open after the Ascension Day Eucharist tonight.

(Clergy everywhere, look away now. You will not like this next bit.)

He's back from the service. He's about to get the Chablis out of the fridge when he remembers.
Fuck!
Oh, dear God!

Dominic slides down till he's sitting on his kitchen floor. The vicarage answer phone will be molten with messages. He daren't check. Oh, let this not have happened! Rewind, rewind. He'll say he was taken ill! He was in a car crash!

No. He knows what he must do. He must go now and face the family and tell the truth: I forgot. I just forgot. She died at the age of forty-eight from breast cancer, and I forgot her funeral. He rests his head back against the fridge. He hasn't got a single rag of an excuse to cover his nakedness. He sees the coffin glide away, the curtains close. Had they found someone to step in?
Let light perpetual shine upon her, rest in peace, rise—
oh, dear God, forgive me, I'm so sorry.

Ascension Day incense lingers in the dark cave of Lindchester Cathedral. Silence. Rain patters on the roof. Freddie stands alone in the crossing. He rolls his shoulders, relaxes, fills his lungs.

Outside, Giles the precentor pauses as he walks home from the director of music's house. Good God! Can that be Mr May, actually bothering to rehearse for once?
Jephtha
. Not a bad choice. He stands and listens.

The vicarage door closes. Dominic gets in his car and sets off. Can it be mended? Even this? Oh, scoop me up, carry me, carry me.

Rain falls in the silent crematorium, on the letters spelling MUM.

        Waft her, angels, through the skies

        Far above yon azure plain, far above yon azure plain

        Glorious there like you to rise, there like you for ever reign . . .

The last note fades. Well, that's the choral scholarship in the bag, thinks Giles.

Chapter 21

Father Dominic has not been forgiven. I'm afraid the fallout was as bad as he feared. Terrible betrayed tears. Letters to the bishop. Threats of legal action. And on top of that, the lead's gone from the church roof again. The bastards used the same ladder, the one Dominic had helpfully replaced in the churchyard when he mowed the vicarage lawn. The archdeacon is not going to be very forgiving with Father Dominic, either, is he?

Nor can Dominic forgive himself. How,
how
had it happened? How could he not have checked his diary? In all his years as a priest he's never forgotten a funeral! His unpreached sermon, their accusations, the door shut in his face – round and round they go on the carousel of his conscience. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? He has had a kind letter from the retired Methodist minister who stepped in and took the service for him; he's had nice supportive messages from clergy colleagues. His congregation has been lovely.

It will pass. He knows this. But right now – Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

‘I'm bo-o-ored,' moaned Freddie on Monday morning. ‘Got a top shecret mission for me, Mish Moneypenny?'

‘You can go and put these up for Giles.' The bishop's PA handed him a pile of posters. ‘Tea shop, visitors' centre, cathedral notice boards. All the usual places.'

‘K.' Freddie glanced at them. ‘Wait, the Dorian Singers? Fuck, the
Dorian Singers
? They're coming here? Omigod, omigod! They're singing with our choir? How come I didn't know this?'

‘Well, I really couldn't say, Freddie – since it's been common knowledge for months. Honestly, you're such a dilly daydream.'

‘Yeah. Probably it's all the meth?'

‘The what? You don't!' Freddie grinned at her. ‘You're being naughty. Anyway, it's a choir fundraiser. They're coming as a special favour, because Giles was a chorister with their director.'

‘He was?' Freddie hugged the pile of posters to his heart. ‘Like. Whoa. Fuck? I'm yeah, major, major music crush here? Met him once. I'd be like, eleven? Three Choirs Festival?' He subjected Penelope to a detailed analysis of the Dorian Singers' repertoire; their technical brilliance; the awesome musicality of their director. In his excitement he lapsed into complete coherence. ‘Seriously,' he concluded. ‘I fucking
love
that guy. Wanna marry him and have his babies.'

They both glanced at the bishop's office door.

‘Well, you'll probably meet him,' whispered Penelope. ‘You'll be singing, won't you?'

‘Yeah, right. Like I'll get to dep for something like this.'

The director of music, dear reader, has a bit of a dilemma here. Freddie is quietly acknowledged to be the best tenor around, but he is not a member of the cathedral choir. Timothy can't bring Freddie in and give him showy solos without the cathedral lay clerks exercising their historic medieval right to be a bunch of grumpy old men.

Freddie set off round the Close with the posters. They were all inventing jobs for him to do now that Fuckwit1 had got his driving licence back. They were like, ‘Oh, Freddie, Freddie, Freddie, what are we going to do with you? How are we going to keep you out of mischief till you're finally off our hands?' Yeah, no, that wasn't fair. They wanted the best for him, was all. Miss Blatherwick, driving him to Barchester, I mean, literally driving him there, to make sure he didn't fuck up again? Getting his suit dry-cleaned? Man, he hated that suit. His ‘ooh, look at me, I'm the defendant, I'm the bishop's chauffeur, I'm a total failure' suit. God, what if he did fail? What if he cocked up the sight-reading? What if his voice didn't measure up, or they asked him like personal stuff, and he went blank?

Freddie blu-tacked a poster to the cathedral notice board and tried to remember those careful sentences Miss Blatherwick had come up with. Unhappy phase. Behind him now. Focused on— Fuck, what was he meant to be focused on?

Yeah, but what if he didn't fail and actually got the scholarship? He'd be starting over where he didn't know anyone. Having to find part-time work. Sharing a flat with the other scholars. He'd have to always be responsible for shit. The whole time? Gah! He was meant to be an adult, he was meant to be cool with this! He could not go for the whole rest of his life letting people carry him, like he was twelve? I mean, God, it was embarrassing now, think when he was thirty, forty?

Seriously. He couldn't tell what freaked him out more: failing, or succeeding.

Janet Hooty, wife of the bishop of Barcup, is delivering Christian Aid envelopes on her four streets in Martonbury. These are in the ‘rougher' area, on a housing estate where other members of the congregation of St Mary's Martonbury are a bit reluctant to stray. Janet has no time for this kind of nonsense. She and Bob have worked in parishes that make the Hollyfield estate look like Postman Pat's Greendale. She feels a bit of a pang: this will be her last year in this patch. There's a new congregation on the estate, and they've said they will take over next year. It's a church plant from St James's, the big thriving Evangelical church in Martonbury. Much more Paul Henderson's cup of tea than Bob's, but he gave the initiative his blessing.

Oh bum, now Janet's going to have that tune going round her head. Their children have taught the grandkids to sing ‘Bob the Bishop, can he bless it?' Never a dull moment round here. Once she got £39 entirely in coppers, in empty cat food tins. And last year a bloke answered the door stark naked and said, ‘Sorry, can you come back, love? I'm in the middle of something.' Donations from these streets are generally higher than those from the nice areas (where residents have been known to say, ‘Oh, I don't do charity'). Same with church offerings, according to Bob: the poorer the parish, the bigger the per capita donation. Interesting, that. Janet bends – oof! getting old – to stick an envelope through yet another ankle-height letter box. Blimey! Nearly got her fingers. She watches through the glass as a yappy little terrier tears the envelope to shreds.

It's Pentecost this coming Sunday (the festival formerly known as Whit Sunday). Another knees-up on Planet Church that passes the secular world by. Across the diocese of Lindchester Pentecostal preparations are in train. If you wander round the Close late at night you may hear Laurence, the cathedral organist, practising Duruflé's
Choral Varié sur Veni Creator Spiritus
. The cathedral choir are busy with the Lassus
Missa Bell Amfitrit' Altera
—

Stop. Enough of this ‘ooh, father, your maniple's crumpled' poncing about! What's going on in the real world, some of you are asking. What about Renfold, what about Lindford, what about Cardingforth? Forget the cathedral. What about all those unglamorous places where the clergy just peg away, week after week? Where overstretched lay people put in long hours – helping run Alpha courses, toddler groups, food banks, after-school clubs, men's breakfasts – maybe on top of their demanding jobs? Do the fires of Pentecost not fall there too? Are they not also Anglicans? Yes! I will go further still: even the good folk gathering for café church, who egregiously sing ‘Be thou my vision' in four/four and ‘wanna see Jesus lifted high' – they too are Anglicans. And so yes, I say, yes! Let Pentecost come to the C of E: in flash paper and Prinknash incense, in vestments and WWJD wristbands, in Latin and tongues, in Fresh Expressions and eight o'clock BCP. Thy sevenfold gifts to us impart. Shine, Jesus, shine! Whatever. We'll take it.

But that's not till Sunday. Today is Friday. Friday, as we know, is Father Dominic's day off. He ought to take this opportunity to get right out of the parish and regain some perspective. Better still, let his hair down with some old friends. But these things take energy, they take organizing. I'm afraid Dominic is sitting in his kitchen giving way to self-pity. He wonders why someone else doesn't organize something and invite him, for a change. Why do none of his friends seem to think, ‘I know, let's drag Dominic along too, that would be fun!'? Especially now, when he's had such a horrible week. Don't they care about him? He knows they do, but when you're single you tend to slip off people's radar. Everyone's so busy being child-friendly and family-friendly, they forget to be spinster-friendly. Is that what he is – a spinster? He tries it on for size. Spinster of the parish of St John the Evangelist, Renfold. It has a Jane Austen-y vibe. Dominic Todd, spinster. Could he inhabit this?

Just then the doorbell rings. God. If this is a bloody parishioner saying, ‘I know it's your day off, but . . .' He goes to the door to give them a piece of his mind. Some instinct prompts him to check through the spyhole first.

Shit!
Dominic recoils, heart bouncing in his chest.

Would you like to know what has caused such cardiac capering in our poor friend? Oh, go on then. I am all indulgence, am I not?

Help! It was the Prat in the Hat! Did he hear me coming down the hall? Does he know I'm in? Dominic risked another peep. The archdeacon loomed close and did a finger-waggle wave. Aargh! He has X-ray eyes! Dominic wiped his palms on his trousers as though he were about to share the Peace, and opened the door.

‘Goodness! Hello there, archdeacon!'

‘Morning, father.' He tipped his porkpie hat. ‘Busy?'

‘Well, actually, it's my day off, so, um.' The archdeacon appeared to be nursing bailiff-like intentions of shouldering his way in. ‘But I can probably spare a minute.'

‘Cheeky pint?'

Dominic waited to see if this utterance would dis-encrypt itself. ‘Sorry?'

The archdeacon mimed having a swift one. Beamed encouragingly.

‘Oh! You mean . . . now?'

‘Why not? I'll buy you lunch.'

‘Um.' Beware of archdeacons bearing gifts! ‘Is this about that funeral?'

‘Nope.'

‘Oh God, it's the lead, isn't it?'

‘Nope.' The archdeacon beamed again. ‘Do you give up?'

‘What?'

‘Never mind,' he said. ‘Grab a coat. I'll drive.'

They got into the black Mini and the archdeacon drove to a country pub overlooking the River Linden. On the way Dominic blurted explanations about the funeral and the lead. He couldn't stop himself. Why was he justifying himself to a plonker who wore checked clerical shirts? That pathetic playground dynamic was kicking in again, wasn't it? Trying to ingratiate himself with the rugger-buggers so they wouldn't chuck his schoolbag on the gym roof and call him a poof.

The archdeacon let him talk. He parked, and they headed into the pub. I bet he's a real-ale buff, thought Dominic. And sure enough, the archdeacon had a pint of Bishop's Legover, or some such, while Dominic asked for dry white wine. They ordered baguettes and found somewhere to sit. The archdeacon took a long pull of his pint and leant back. Oh shit, here it comes, whatever it is, thought Dominic.

‘How long have you been in Renfold now?'

‘Nearly eleven years,' said Dominic.

‘Happy?'

‘Yes.' The archdeacon was watching him closely. Dominic rubbed his face for stray breakfast crumbs. ‘What?'

‘Your mouth turned down when you said that. Which normally means “not happy”.'

‘I'm very happy,' said Dominic. And burst into tears.

Saturday night. Pentecost eve. A car creeps slowly past the vacant vicarage in the centre of Lindford. The trees thrash in the wind. Raindrops crack on the windscreen. Was it time for a move? Could he imagine himself here? Dominic peers through the wrought-iron gates. One of tomorrow's hymns plays in his mind:

        Ready for all thy perfect will,

        My acts of faith and love repeat,

        Till death thy endless mercies seal,

        And make my sacrifice complete.