Unseen Things Above (5 page)

Compared with Trollope's day, this is – as Wikipedia notes – ‘a somewhat convoluted process'. The first meeting of the CNC for Lindchester will happen in Bishopsthorpe (home of the Archbishop of York) on 11 June.

This information conveys little of what it
feels
like in a diocese when a vacancy occurs. You are probably already skimming ahead to find the next interesting bit. As the interesting bits generally involve people not processes, I will tell you instead who some of the members of the CNC are.

Dean Marion is one. This means (paragraph 5b: ‘not more than one of the members elected shall be a member of the bishop's senior staff') that the archdeacon is
not
a member of the CNC. Matt, therefore, has no finger in the biggest pie currently on the church table. He's not happy, I can tell you, but he bowed to the inevitable.

If we do the ecclesiastical maths (‘not less than half of the members elected shall be lay members of the Committee') this leaves only two places for clergy of the diocese. As Father Ed pointed out, if only Dominic hadn't just moved from the parish of Renfold, he would doubtless have been on the CNC as the longest-serving area dean in the diocese. He would have been able to influence the choice of new bishop. He might even have formed a little alliance with the dean, and tried to ensure Guilden Hargreaves was appointed.

This is sad indeed, but I hope my readers will be cheered to know that one of the other clergy members is our good friend Father Wendy.

Right now Father Wendy has more pressing things to think about than the CNC. She's at Cardingforth primary school.

‘Gooood
mooor
ning, Mist-er Crowth-er. Gooood
mooor
ning, teach-uz. Gooood
mooor
ning, Revrun-Dwendy.'

‘Good morning, boys and girls. It's lovely to be here with you again. I've brought a friend along with me today. His name's Pedro. Here, boy! That's right. Come and say hello. This is Pedro.'

‘It's a dog!'

‘Cool! It's a dog!'

‘Miss, Miss! Revrun Dwendy, why's he only got three legs?'

‘Why's he got that cage over his face?'

‘He's soooo-oo cute!'

‘Why's he shivering like that? What's wrong with him?'

‘Miss, Revrun Dwendy, Miss! Can I stroke him? Oh, pleeeee-ease?'

Mr Crowther stands up. ‘All right, simmer down, children. Jack, sit down, please. I'm sure Reverend Wendy is going to tell you all about him. QUIET!' Pedro flinches. ‘Now then. I want to hear a pin drop.'

Somebody says, ‘Boing!' Mr Crowther eyeballs the individual concerned, but lets it go. When the hall is approximately silent, he sits down again.

Wendy tells the children all about Pedro. Poor Pedro, he used to be a champion racer, he could run like the wind. Who here likes running races? Good! Pedro loved racing too, but he got cancer on his leg, and they were going to put him down. Does everyone know what that means? That's right, he was going to have an injection that would put him to sleep, so he would die peacefully without suffering. But he was rescued by a greyhound charity. He had to have an operation, and sadly his leg could not be saved. But he's learned to run on three legs, haven't you, boy? For a while nobody wanted to adopt him, but then Wendy came along.

Two hundred and eighty-eight children stare, rapt, devouring every word. Or rather, two hundred and eighty-seven. One child rolls her eyes. She provides a little commentary of her own, which is just audible to those sitting nearby:

‘But in
Jeee
-zuz' race you don't have to be fast,
everyone
can take part.
Jeee
-zuz wants to rescue
everybody
, because
everybody's
special!
Everyone
can be a winner, even if they've got no legs!'

I'm afraid this rather pre-empts Father Wendy's moral.

Mrs Fry, seated at the piano, sees a bout of giggling taking a grip in the Year 5 section. She leans forward and hisses: ‘Leah Rogers, go and stand outside Mr Crowther's office.'

Leah is still standing outside Mr Crowther's office when the school scrambles to its feet to sing ‘One more step along the world I go'. Mr Crowther will come any minute and tell her he is Very Disappointed. Apologize to Revrun Dwendy for being silly and rude. Sorreeee, Revrun Dwendeeee.

But Wendy comes along the corridor without Mr Crowther. Pedro bobs along beside her on his three legs. Leah pretends she hasn't seen them. She stares at the Year 3 ‘Healthy Eating' wall display, which is so
lame
, with lame drawings of fruit stuck on paper plates.

‘Hello, Leah! What are you doing here all by yourself?'

Yeah. Like you don't know. ‘Mrs Fry sent me out.'

Wendy laughs. ‘Oh, dear! What for?'

Leah doesn't answer.
Eat your Five a Day!

‘Oh, I was
always
getting sent to the head for talking!' says Wendy. ‘And once because someone put a plastic dog poo on Mrs Curzon's chair.'

Leah turns and stares in surprise at Father Wendy's round, beaming face. There are little tiny veins all over her cheeks. ‘Was it you?'

‘No. It was Colin Beasely. But it was my plastic dog poo, so nobody believed me.' Wendy laughs. ‘I
still
feel outraged after all these years.'

Leah spots her chance: ‘Well, life isn't fair.'

‘No,' said Wendy. ‘No, it's not, I'm afraid.'

‘But Jeee-zuz makes
everything
fair.'

‘Not in my experience.'

Leah blinks, then looks away, shocked.

‘Anyway, I'd better be off. Goodbye, Leah. Come along, Pedro.'

Leah carries on staring at the crappy lame Healthy Eating display, so she won't have to watch Pedro limping away on his three legs, or think about how they were going to throw him on the rubbish heap because he couldn't win any more races.

Now the assembly's out of the way Wendy can turn her thoughts to the CNC, and pray for the next bishop of Lindchester – whoever it turns out to be – in fact, she can surround the whole process in prayer. They'll be getting the
long
longlist soon. Who will be on it? Guilden Hargreaves! She laughs. ‘Oh dear, Pedro! I still can't believe we nicked Dame Perdy Hargreaves' parking space! It was an accident – Doug didn't realize they were waiting. Do you suppose she's forgiven us yet?'

Pedro makes no reply.

And now it's Saturday evening. We will pay a visit to the third clergy member of the CNC. We glimpsed him once before. Perhaps the tenor of this narrative seemed a little disparaging of Geoff, Vicar of St James' Lindford, when he appeared in his Noah's Ark stole? I wish to clarify that we have nothing but respect for him. He is in his study, staring at his computer screen. Please admire the painted cross on his wall. It's from South America.

Right now, the Revd Geoff Morley is questioning his fitness to be part of the CNC. His style is collaborative, he values unanimity. He instinctively plays down his own role, seeks to abstain from personal prejudice. But the ground has just shifted under his feet.

He clutches an old prayer in panic:
Be a bright flame before me, O God.

He ought to have spoken up. But there was nothing he could put his finger on. And apart from him, it was unanimous. Veronica's paperwork was stellar. Her performance at interview blew the other candidates out of the water. So he hesitated, doubted, and remained silent. After all, it was a university chaplaincy appointment, really.

What's he going to do now?

A guiding star above me.

‘We have no record of a student of this name on our files.'

If he carries on checking, what else is he going to uncover?

A smooth path beneath me.

What if she's a complete fantasist? What if everything on her CV is fake?

A kindly shepherd behind me.

Is the Revd Dr Veronica da Silva even ordained?

Chapter 5

I
n all this hoo-ha about equal marriage and the vacancy in the See of Lindchester, we have rather lost sight of another important question: what's going on in the women bishops debate?

Lindchester diocesan synod was among the first to vote in favour of the draft legislation back in early March – hoorah for Lindchester diocesan synod! It was not unanimous. But never fear; voting is by secret ballot, rather than a show of hands. There was no risk of the nays being pelted with stale rich tea biscuits by an angry Yes 2 Women Bishops mob.

Thus far, the proposal has been carried in every diocese. So unless one of the few remaining synods (who need to get a move on before the deadline at the end of the month) astounds us by voting against the measure, we will have unanimity ahead of the important vote in General Synod this July. What could possibly go wrong?

The same thing that went wrong on 20 November 2012– the measure might once again fail to reach a two-thirds majority in the House of Laity. It will be the same bunch of people voting, after all. A bemused outsider might assume that members of the House of Laity are there to carry out the clear wishes of their local synods and vote in favour of the measure. (Short pause for hollow laughter.) I'm afraid it is entirely possible that they see themselves as conscientious objectors and will vote as they jolly well see fit.

How has this situation come about? Well, the C of E is at least partly governed by those who turn up. May I whisper confidentially that most clergy secretly regard deanery synod as ‘a bunch of people waiting to go home'? It attracts the type of parishioner who would rather be at a great long tedious meeting than in bed with a good book. At the very least, this has what we might call a skewing effect on synod composition. No use moaning now, is there? You should have got off your backside and stood for election if you wanted to head the nutters off. We will just have to wait and see what happens in July when General Synod meets.

Hang on, though, don't we live in an enlightened twenty-first century society? asks the same bemused observer. What possible reason can you have for opposing women bishops? Are you all
mental
? Briefly, the objections are these: (a) ‘If Jesus had wanted women bishops, he would have ordained the Virgin Mary' (Anglo-Catholic, on grounds of Apostolic Succession); and (b) ‘If Jesus had wanted women bishops, St Paul would not have said, “I do not permit a woman to speak or assume authority over a man”' (Conservative Evangelical, on grounds of Male Headship).

And yes, we are a bit mental, I'm afraid.

Here might I stay and sing; but I am sure my readers are fretting about poor old Jane, so ruthlessly dumped on bank holiday Monday by the Archdeacon of Lindchester. We will pop across to Cardingforth at once.

It is the marking season. Jane is wading through final year history dissertations. She is relieving her feelings somewhat by cracking down on students who don't adhere to the MHRA referencing guide. They were warned! In among all the marking, she has to find time to wrestle with funding bids for research projects, the details of which need not trouble us here. I'll tell you what, though: if someone popped a swear box in her office or on her kitchen table (where she is sitting at this moment), her funding issues could be addressed promptly and effectively.

Fuck you, Mr Archdeacon and fuck the Mini you drove in in. Duplicitous bastard!

What if it's me, though? Is it
me
being the unreasonable one here? No, it's bloody not. It's him. Letting me believe we'd found a way through this problem, while knowing all along we hadn't! And fuck you, Church of England, with your interminable twaddly ‘how many gay women bishops can get married on the head of a pin' debates. And while we're at it, fuck your hand-wringing ‘don't ask, don't tell' hypocrisy.

Yeah, Matt, why don't you fuck all
that
, instead of trying to lay it at the door of my feminism? Arsehole. Dump me, would you? Come here NOW, so I can dump you right back! Jane glares out of the kitchen French windows. Overgrown lawn. Ground elder and brambles taking hold again in the beds. All Freddie's hard work last summer, wasted.

But
is
it me, though? Have I ended up quibbling over mere words? Is there really no way I can bring myself to say, ‘I take you to be my lawful wedded . . .
aargh!
'? No, there isn't! Oh,
why
can't we do it the New Zealand way? Yep, I'm the real Jane Rossiter. Yep, I'm entering this union freely. Yep, happy to sign here.

But no use crying over that particular carton of spilt milk, is there? Not if the House of Bishops (fuck them too, especially fuck
them
) says we'd still have to be celibate!
Celibate!
What am I – a nun? I'm not an Anglican, I'm not even a
Christian!
Don't fucking dictate to me how I conduct my sex life!

Anyway. Marking.

She makes herself open the next electronic submission on Turnitin. At least this year she's not having to cart a suitcase full of hard copies to and fro. Come on, cheer up, gal. But then her jiggered thermostat decides that now's a good moment for another heatwave. She rips off her top layer. Jesus! My own personal climate change. Please consider the environment before having a hot flush.

She tries in vain to engage with the dissertation. Not fair on the student. Go for a run, you silly bag. Sort your head out.

Quarter of an hour later she's squishing along the banks of the Linden. A grey day. Grey and green, that gobsmacking green of mid-May foliage that crowds in on all sides. The child botanist in her reels off the names of plants: cow parsley, buttercups, speedwell. It's still muggy out, despite last night's storm.

She should Skype Danny and tell him it's all off. No new stepdad. Won't be seeing you in June.