Acts and Omissions (22 page)

Chapter 42

Martin was wrong. Freddie May was still Paul's problem. He would always be Paul's problem. If Paul took the wings of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of South Africa, even there would the thought of Freddie May pursue him. Or so it seemed to Paul, as Penelope stood with the plate of millionaire shortbread fretting over that boy.

‘Excuse me a moment.' Paul stepped out of the office on to the gravel drive of the palace. He rang the archdeacon to see if he'd heard this rumour about Roderick Fallon. Of course the archdeacon had heard the rumour. He had also heard the first whispers linking Paul's name with Freddie's in all this.

‘I'll be honest, bishop. This still has the potential to go tits up on us. How are you doing? Coping?'

‘I'm fine.'

The car was right there. He could drive to Barchester now. Find him. Say, ‘Get in, we're leaving. Come with me to France. To Timbuktu. To the moon.' Help me, God, help me, help me, God.

Martin was watching through the office window. He saw Paul walk up and down under the huge copper beech, head bowed, talking on the phone. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. Penelope was still chattering on about the little shite. Up and down, up and down the drive. Then he saw Paul finish his conversation and put his phone away. Rest a hand on the car roof, the other on his heart. He hunched over suddenly, as if—

‘I'm sorry, excuse me, Penelope.' Martin raced outside and crunched over the gravel to Paul.

He wasn't moving.

‘Bishop? Are you ill?'

Paul shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but a moan, a whoop of pain escaped.

‘Come on, you need to sit.' He steered him to the wooden seat near the beech. Martin was first-aid trained. Shortness of breath, cold sweat: coronary?

Paul had already slipped his dog collar out and was fumbling his top button undone.

‘How are you feeling, Paul? Any tightness in your chest? Tingling?'

Paul shook his head.

‘Are you feeling faint?'

‘Not my heart,' he gasped.

‘Good, good,' said Martin, ‘but let's get you checked all the same. Let me drive you up to—'

‘I'm gay.'

‘Casualty—'

In the silence that followed a squirrel rippled over the gravel with a beechnut in its mouth. They watched it dig a little hole in the lawn, bury the nut, then pat the earth back into place. Then it whisked past them and up the great grey bole of the beech.

No first aid for this. Say something. Quickly.
Thank you for telling me.

The cathedral clock chimed the half hour. Martin's hand crept out and found the bishop's. It was not grasped, but nor was it flung off. He let it rest there on top of Paul's. There was an eye in the beech trunk, where a branch had once been.
This must be hard. If there's anything I can do.

‘I'm afraid I've made a fool of myself. I'm resigning . . .'

‘No!' Freddie May. I
knew
it.

‘. . . from my role here. It will be announced in due course.'

A handful of leaves rolled over and over across the lawn. ‘Paul, I'm so sorry.'

‘I've been invited to take up the post of principal. New theological college. South Africa.' He gave another horrible whoop. Tried to disguise it with a cough. ‘I've accepted.'

Martin gripped his hand. The pain was catching. It clenched his own heart.

Paul cleared his throat. ‘So if I can count on your discretion over the coming weeks. Trying desperately to contain this, this— consequences of my— stupidity! For the wider Church. My family. And of course, the— Protect the other person involved. Susanna and I would greatly appreciate it.'

‘Of course.' He should strategize. Prioritize. But Martin was numb.

‘This will turn out for my deliverance,' whispered Paul at last. ‘That's what I've come to believe. In the end, this will be for my deliverance.'

Martin had won Scripture Knowledge prizes as a boy: ‘Philippians 1.19.'

‘Yes.' Paul's hand writhed under his. ‘It
will
be for my deliverance. It just doesn't . . .'

It just doesn't feel that way now.

Martin knew. The gravel drive and the beech trunk swam. The hardest thing is to love someone, and know you can never be with them, ever again. Shortness of breath. Chest cramped like a vice. Dear God! I'm going to die!

‘I'll do everything I can to support you in this, Paul.'

‘Pray for me.'

‘Of course.'

‘And him. Pray for him, too.'

‘Yes. I will.'

The archdeacon put the phone down and prayed as well. Then he acted. Choral half term. They did
not
want the devil finding work for idle hands in Barchester, so he got young tarty-pants out of there, pronto, before Fallon rocked up and schmoozed him into telling everything. Freddie was devastated. ‘Omigod! You
still
think I'd do that?!' Well, call him a cynical bastard, but the archdeacon could not entirely rule that possibility out. Which is why Freddie spent half term mooching about the archdeacon's house in his underpants hitting on him now and then out of sheer boredom. (Yeah, no, and coz Matt was hot, he would totally do him in a heartbeat?)

‘Hey! What are you doing here, Janey?'

‘Parking my car. What are
you
doing here?'

‘Aw. Y'know?' Freddie panted, getting his breath back from his run. ‘It's like half term, and yeah, Matt invited me?'

‘Oh.'

Tum-te-tum. Neither was entirely keen to launch into lengthier explanations here.

‘Well, hey, girl. Can I get a hug?'

‘No fear. I don't want your boy sweat. Argh! Get off me!'

He smeared his cheek against hers. ‘Yeah! Testosterone for ya.'

‘Eurgh!'

‘C'mon. Kiss kiss. Makes the ladies less cranky. Been scientifically proven.'

‘God! Now I need a slag jab.' Jane peeled him off and wiped her face with her sleeve. ‘Listen, I'm late. Management's bollocksed up the staff parking, and Matt lets me park here, so um.'

‘Yeah?' He grinned at her, rattled his stud round his teeth. ‘Ha ha ha, you're blushing. You so are. Are you two getting it on?'

‘No. Are you two getting it on?'

‘I wish. Hey, we should maybe get a drink after work one night this week, and you can tell me everything?'

‘Huh. You should maybe come and finish my garden, sunshine. It looks like the Somme.'

‘Cool. I can do that. Gimme your car keys?'

‘Are you insured?'

‘Dude, I was the bishop's chauffeur. I've got insurance coming out of my ass.'

Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘You're not covered to drive
my
car, though, are you, you lying tart. Oh, hi, Matt.' Dammit, she was definitely blushing now. ‘Sorry, got to fly, guys. Late for a lecture. Mwa mwa.'

Jane stomped up the hill to the Fergus Abernathy building swearing at herself, at Freddie, at the archdeacon, and for good measure, at God. No point travelling any further down this road. Dead end ahead. Turn around where possible! Make a U-turn! Your destination does not even exist. Oh, for fuck's sake, Rossiter, get over it. An institution that treats women like chattels! Who
gives
this woman? Excuse me? How can any thinking person buy into this cornerstone of female oppression?

It's true. One of the hardest things of all is loving someone you can't be with.

I'm afraid that Jane will not even be cheered by thoughts of the royal christening this week. Or, more properly, the royal baptism. Up and down the diocese of Lindchester clergy and churchgoers are seeking to explain the difference, or the lack of difference. Perhaps I can be of some assistance here? Generally speaking, if the post-ceremony party venue is booked first, and the church service second, then it is called a christening. If the prospective godparents candidly tell the vicar, ‘Oh, I don't believe any of that, but I'm happy to say it!' it is a christening. A baptism is simply a christening whose significance has been properly understood.

Poor old Virginia, Father Wendy's curate, is making heavy weather of explaining the significance to the young couple who want their second child ‘done'. There is a clear process. Three sessions of baptism preparation are required before the baptism can take place. The couple are pointing out that they did all that when the first child was christened. Well, it clearly didn't sink in, thinks Virginia, as you've not darkened the doorway of the church since. They also insist they want a private ceremony. ‘I'm afraid we don't do that,' says Virginia. All baptisms take place during the main act of worship. The couple say that this is not true in other churches. ‘Well, it's our policy here,' says Virginia.

I don't want you to think that Virginia is implementing a policy just for the sheer jobsworth joy of it. (Though she has that streak in her, I will admit.) She can feel the nasty crunching of gears between policy and pastoral need. On a sudden impulse she says, ‘Tell me about your little boy.' And it all comes out. The string of miscarriages, the complicated pregnancy, premature birth, the harrowing weeks in the Special Care Baby Unit. The mum is crying. Virginia just sits and listens.

And then she says, ‘We'd love to welcome Nathan into the church and celebrate his safe arrival.' She is about to use her discretion and boldly waive the baptism preparation sessions (and worry about precedent-setting, and explaining it to Father Wendy later) – when they agree to come along!

So baptism, christening – same difference. But when his parents bring little Nathan to church, I suspect it will be a baptism.

It's late October now. The shops and pubs are fettled up with pumpkins and bats. The clocks go back. The nights reek of rotting leaves and gunpowder. Whizz bang scream. Please to remember. Or might we not, in this enlightened age, decide it's time to forget treason and plot at last? And in a spirit of ecumenism, quietly discontinue the practice of burning Roman Catholics in effigy?

A couple of young chancers call at Lindford vicarage on Thursday evening and ring the bell.

‘Penny for the guy?'

Dominic stares in astonishment at the contents of the buggy parked on his step. ‘What? It's not Bonfire Night yet! It's not even Hallowe'en! And that's not a guy! Who's this?'

‘Ryan.'

‘Hello, Ryan!' The toddler grins.

The two bigger boys grin up at him too. ‘He's our little brother.'

‘You're not going to burn Ryan, are you?' They look shocked. ‘Well, he's not a guy then, is he? A guy's made of old clothes and straw. You're supposed to put your guy on the bonfire on bonfire night and burn him. Like Guy Fawkes? You know, Guy Fawkes? Who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the King? No?'

They shake their heads.

‘Do your parents know you're out collecting?' They nod. Ooh, little fibbers. ‘Tell you what, we're having a bonfire party here in the vicarage garden. Want to come?' He gives them a flyer. ‘Now you go straight home before your mum and dad get worried, OK?'

After they've gone, Dominic gets in his car and follows at a distance till he sees them disappear safely into a house on the Abernathy estate. Jesu mercy!

I suspect Father Dominic has forgotten the things he got up to at the age of eight, which to this day his parents don't know about. Raking the streets on dark evenings after the clocks went back. Knock down ginger. Dare you, dare you. We've probably all forgotten. We will never know how many times someone watched from a distance till we were safely home again.

Chapter 43

Batten down the hatches! There are storms on the way. Storms like the hurricane of 1987, which turned Sevenoaks into Oneoak overnight.

When the St Jude's Day storm strikes (patron of lost causes, pray for us!) southern England bears the brunt of it again. Nonetheless, across the diocese of Lindchester wheelie bins frolic, trees fall, the Linden rises. In the canon chancellor's garden the huge poplar splits in two, and half of it crashes into the school playground next door. The high wall is demolished, but nobody is hurt, thank the Lord. (Yesss! The canon chancellor punches the air. Next year's firewood sorted!) It will be a busy week for Ecclesiastical Insurance.

Susanna watches. The garden she has so lovingly nurtured is lashed and threshed. She stares through the palace window as if at news footage of some distant disaster. It's terrible. She ought to care. Rain slashes the pane. Rainy, rainy, rattle stones, don't rain on me.

But they have. They
have
rained on her, not on John O'Groat's house, far across the sea, where it would have been terribly sad, but not really her problem.

Paul is upstairs in his study. The storm has prevented him driving off to see his counsellor. Why don't you get in your bloody car and drive off to your
lover
? I know you want to! Susanna stops short of picturing a tree falling and squashing him flat. Because that's not what she wants. She doesn't really want him dead. But she wants to run Freddie May over! Then reverse back over him, and run over him again. No, no, poor Freddie! No, she doesn't want to do that.

What do you want, Susanna?

Oh, I don't know, I don't know!

What do you want, Susanna?

The question has been padding round after her for weeks, like a dog. Go away! It's no use, I don't know the answer. She just wants it not to be like . . . this. Not to hurt so much. She wants to pour a huge tumbler of sherry and drink it down in one go. To rush up to Paul's study and slap his face. She wants to know what they did. Where they did it. Whose bed. How many times. No, she doesn't. She wants to walk out of her life for ever, disappear without explanation and start all over again, like the woman in that novel they did in her book club, who was it by? That would teach him.

Oh, she can't cope with not being the silly one, the one in the wrong. She's always been in the wrong. Paul is never in the wrong – that is one of the rules!

Everything is broken. The stupid announcement dress hangs in the wardrobe, unworn. Suddenly she realizes: somewhere, in some other palace, there's another wife busy planning her outfit for the Big Day. Some other bishop already knows he's the next archbishop of York. Any day now there will be an announcement. We will sink without trace. It was all for nothing. Apart from her girls, everything she's ever done is pointless! The nursing training she's never used. The homemaking. The stupid unpaid part-time job that brought Freddie May into their home. I should have done something with myself. And now it's too late!

What do you want, Susanna?

I want to die, she thinks. Not to kill myself, but to be dead. I want it to be over. I want to be at peace.

The branches of the ancient cedar churn in anguish.

I just want to be at peace.

Our good friend the archdeacon is also housebound by the storm. Bloody weather. Means he won't get a glimpse of Dr R today, parking on his drive. He feels an urge to be a total bastard. Wants to throw his archidiaconal weight about, close a bunch of churches. Whack some useless nobs into disciplinary measures. (Don't worry: he's got it reined in.)

Young tarty-pants tried his patience to the limits last week, pestering him to help sort out Dr R's garden for her. As if, given an ounce of encouragement, Matt wouldn't cram her garden with red roses! Dig her a pond, stock it with koi carp. Lay York stone slabs, plant apple trees, strawberry beds, build her a henhouse, fill it with broody chooks. What would Matt not do for his lady?

‘G'wan, g'wan, g'wan, Matt. You know you want to. Let's do it while she's at work. Surprise her? C'mo-o-on, why not? Dude, she's totally into you, I can tell.' In the end Matt snapped, ‘If you don't shut up, I'll spank you.' Face-palm. Memo to self: think your threats through.

The rain pounds on his study window. So, three possible solutions: (a) Dr R relaxes her position on marriage; (b) Matt relaxes his position on extra-marital relations; (c) Matt resigns from active ministry.

He can't ask (a) of her. He can't ask (b) or (c) of himself. Not looking too good, really, is it? No wonder she's backed off. Sensible woman. He's always been Captain Sensible himself. Blue Peter badge. Deputy head boy. D of E Gold. Police Bravery Award. But right now he'd rather be round the back of the bike-sheds, being a bad lad. Doing seventeen kinds of rude thing.

He could list them.

Fifteen . . . Sixteen . . . Seventeen. Yup.

But anyway. Work to be done. He opens his inbox and slogs through his work emails. He keeps at it for forty-five minutes, then he cracks. He fires off an email to Jane: ‘Darling, I can't stand this. Can we meet for a drink ASAP so I can tell you how deeply, madly, hopelessly, etc. I love you? We can work this out. Matt xx'.

He goes off to make a mug of coffee, comes back. She hasn't replied. There you are: she's a sensible woman. Just an email from the bishop of Barcup's wife: ‘Immensely flattered to be addressed so passionately by the archdeacon of Lindchester, but something tells me that this is meant for someone else. Janet Hooty'.

Damn you, auto-fill.

The storm passes, as storms will. Then there is the aftermath to face. We must save what can be saved, tie up our broken plants, mend our fences and roofs. Then we must say farewell to what is beyond repair. Let it go. Tree surgeons come and fell what is left of the canon chancellor's poplar. They leave a huge ragged hole behind in the sky above the garden. A stunned absence of tree. But the eye will accustom itself. The squirrels and stock doves and wood pigeons, the owls, all the young magpies and jackdaws, the long-tailed tits, the green woodpeckers, the hawk moths, grubs, beetles – they will find another home. It's not the end of the world. It really isn't. It just feels – My aspens dear! All felled, felled, are all felled! – that way right now.

Susanna was correct in her surmise: there is another bishop somewhere who already knows he will be the next archbishop of York. The number two candidate was hastily tapped up. And yes, his wife has made a little trip to John Lewis for a new frock and shoes. The announcement will be next week. We must be patient a little longer.

It's Thursday. Hallowe'en gurns in at us through the windows. The police will be kept busy tonight. Trick or treat, smell my feet! Father Wendy (who can't be doing with the celebration of darkness) and her curate Virginia (who can't be doing with lawlessness) host a Super-Hero Party in Cardington church hall, inviting all the kids who came to the holiday club in the summer. Father Dominic (who can't be doing with party-poopers) doles out sweeties to the callers at the vicarage, along with flyers for his bonfire party. Undergraduates test the boundaries of good taste with their fancy dress outfits, get bladdered in the bars of Lindford, and jeopardize future careers by immortalizing it all on Facebook.

Jane turns off the lights and doesn't answer her door. Why hasn't she heard from Matt? Because you told him nothing doing, silly mare. Yes, but
why
haven't I heard from him? He could at least argue with me! Try and talk me round.
Fuck off and stop ringing my doorbell, you little shites!
Come morning she'll find her porch and car have been egged and floured. Next year she must enter into the festive spirit, and hand out muffins laced with broken razors.

For all the saints . . . We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.

On All Saints' afternoon, Bishop Paul drives off for his rescheduled appointment with his counsellor. He knows – who better? – that he is feebly struggling. We will not intrude into their session. For a start, it takes place in a small village just over the diocesan border, where this narrative has vowed not to stray. As he drives back in the late afternoon past empty pumpkin shells on gateposts, he thinks about the anarchy of Hallowe'en, the rising up of the unholy dead in gruesome carnival. Cheek by jowl with All Saints. His counsellor has invited him to reflect on Jungian shadows. To ask whether Freddie burst into his life as an incarnation of everything in himself that he had believed was dead and buried. To ponder that recurring dream of his, in which he finds he's wandering in a house he knows well from childhood, but there is another room, and then a whole other wing, that he didn't know existed. And when he looks out through an attic window he sees in the sky huge combine harvesters, gigantic cranes, earth-movers, all floating past overhead, silent and serene.

With God nothing shall be impossible.

The bishop does not need his chaplain here to tell him that this is Luke 1.37. The angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. But why has it popped into his head now? What does it mean? That he will be overshadowed by the power of the Highest? That this new thing being born in him in so much agony and bitter shame will be called Holy? Son of God? How can this be?

With God nothing shall be impossible.

The sky is charged with sudden light. The road ahead blazes silver. Sheep graze transfigured in eerie emerald meadows beside the burnished Linden. Nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible.

Is it even possible that the heart of the bishop's chaplain might gradually relent towards Freddie May? I wonder. You will remember that Martin promised Paul he would pray for Freddie. He goes into the cathedral, to the chapel of St Michael and All Angels, to fulfil his promise. An odd choice for Martin, but I suspect he doesn't want the little shite invading his personal Quiet Time in his study at home.

‘Dear Lord, please bless Freddie May.'

This is uttered as though ‘bless' were some kind of synonym for ‘visit hideous plagues upon'. But there. He has done it. He has prayed for his enemy.

Up in the quire they are rehearsing Duruflé's
Requiem
for tomorrow. Martin has no truck with all that pre-Reformation All Souls nonsense. All God's people are saints.

He tries again. ‘Dear Lord, I pray that you will be close to . . . be with . . .'

I warned Paul! I told him he had a blind spot! But he just slapped me down.

‘Help him to . . .'

It all made sense now, the blatant favouritism, his constant refusal to confront Freddie's bad behaviour. I will never be able to think well of Paul again. The thought makes him panic. Ridiculous! Surely he knows that all God's people are sinners, too, as well as saints? Why can't he accommodate Paul's lapse? It's not about works. He knows we can't earn God's love.

So why does it feel the whole time as if he has to? Why does he spend his whole life trying to stay on the right side of God?

In the distance the choir begins the
Agnus Dei
. Martin glares at the macho bronze Michael. He loathes it. Legs splayed, fists raised like a triumphant athlete, the distinctly unangelic crotch bulge. That thing should never have been allowed in here.

‘Please let Freddie—'

It's pointless. I'm sorry, Lord. I hate him. What can I pray, when I hate him so much?

In the distance the choir answers:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world: grant them eternal rest.