A Blessing In Disguise (28 page)

‘Well, I don't like to leave you,' Henry says, ‘but if you insist. But promise you'll phone if you're the least bit uneasy. I'll be round at once. You know, Venus, what you need is a dog! No burglar would get past my Sukey!'

Sukey is an over-friendly golden retriever who enjoys company. She would be likely to lick the burglar's face as he climbed in through the window.

When Henry has gone I know that what I should do is go into my bedroom and tidy up the mess, check what's been taken. I can't do it. Not yet, not tonight! Nor can I sleep in my bedroom where my precious bits and pieces, or the boxes they should be in, are scattered on the carpet. The bed in the guest room is not made up and I'm too tired to bother with it, so I shall sleep in Becky's bed. I won't feel so alone in her bed. I'm so glad she wasn't here. I shall have to decide how to tell her without making her nervous.

I haven't been in bed more than ten minutes before the phone rings.

‘It's me!' my mother says. ‘I just wanted to know if you'd reached home all right. You usually ring.'

I am not going to tell my mother about the burglary; not now, and possibly not ever. I shall have to think about it.

‘I'm sorry,' I tell her. ‘Henry Nugent came soon after I arrived. He's only just left.'

‘So you're all right?'

‘I'm fine!' I say from the comfort of Becky's bed. ‘Is Becky OK?'

‘She's fine! She's just gone to bed. She was tired, so she's having an early night. Well, goodnight, love. Sleep well!'

Ten minutes later the phone rings again. It's my friend Esmé Bickler, the woman with whom I was at theological college and who now has a living at the far end of the diocese. We keep in touch, though I don't see her often. I've resisted the temptation over the last week or two to ring her and have a good old moan.

‘I thought I'd just ask how you were getting on,' she says now. ‘Are you settling down? And what about Becky?'

‘Teething troubles with Becky,' I admit, ‘but I think she's going to be OK. She's with my mother right now, for half-term.'

‘And the parish?' she asks.

‘Interesting,' I say. ‘A nice mixture of people.' I am not going to mention Miss Frazer nor, at the moment, am I going to mention the burglary. The truth is, fatigue has set in, or delayed shock or something, and I'm desperately tired. ‘How about you? Is everything going well with you?'

‘Mostly,' she says. ‘I have one or two awkward customers. Well, one I'm especially worried about.'

I know she's going to tell me about it and Esmé is not the briefest of raconteurs, so I rearrange my pillows and lie back.

‘It's sad, really,' she says after the preliminaries. ‘This man is eighty, he's been receiving his communion every week, almost all his life, and now he won't because I'm a woman. “I'll no' tak' the Lord's Supper from a lassie!”' She gives a fair imitation of his Scottish accent.

‘Oh dear! He sounds awful!' I commiserate.

‘That's the trouble,' Esmé says, ‘he's not. He's a very nice man, a sweetie, but he can't change and he won't discuss it. What makes it worse is that his wife's a regular communicant and she hasn't the least objection to me, so she comes every Sunday and he stays at home. I feel really bad about that. They've been coming to church together forever, or so I understand. Have you met with that sort of thing yet?'

‘A little,' I say vaguely. I'm far too tired to want to mention Miss Frazer, nor do I want to remember that in a few hours from now I shall have to face her again.

‘. . . Anyway,' Esmé says, and I realize she's been talking away and I've missed some of it, ‘. . . I won't keep you. We both have an early start in the morning, don't we?'

When I open my eyes this morning the light is filtering through the curtains, but the curtains themselves are all wrong. They have blue and yellow flowers, with green leaves, on a cream background and I know they should be a pale turquoise colour, and not patterned at all. And then I realize that the dressing-table is not in its rightful place, and the painting of chrysanthemums in a vase, which should be on the wall facing me as I lie in bed, is missing. For years, wherever I've lived, that painting has been the first thing I've seen every morning. So where is it? Has it been stolen in the night?

It is the word ‘stolen', not uttered, but sharp in my mind, which jerks me fully awake, and I realize I'm in Becky's bed, not in my own, and I remember why that's so, and that it's Sunday and I have a service at eight o'clock and the Mickey Mouse clock on the night table says it's already seven.

By now I'm fully conscious and I remember that I'd wakened a couple of times in the night and been horribly nervous, afraid of getting out of bed and going to the bathroom, which on the second occasion I badly needed to do, so badly needed that all the burglars in Christendom wouldn't have deterred me. I knew at the time that this was silly, there was no way the burglar was still lurking. Somewhere he would be fast asleep, probably dreaming of what he would do with my belongings once he'd translated them into money.

I have personified the burglar. When I closed my eyes last night, before I went to sleep, I could see him quite plainly, standing there in front of me. I still can. He is medium-tall, say five feet ten, with thick, dark hair, slightly curly, badly cut. Shifty eyes. He has a swarthy skin and is in need of a shave. He wears blue jeans, a black polo-necked sweater and dirty white trainers. He's in his mid-twenties, and I could pick him out in an identity parade.

What rubbish, I tell myself now as I get out of bed! I have never – thank heaven – set eyes on him, nor has anyone I know. He could be a skinny sixteen-year-old blond dwarf – easier to shin up a drainpipe – in black trousers and a green anorak. Take your pick! But when I close my eyes again – just testing – it's the dark-haired one I see. He's possibly called Melvin, or maybe Fred.

Though dead tired from a broken night I shower, dress, eat a bowl of cornflakes and am in good time for the eight o'clock service. There are ten people present, everything goes normally and most of them say ‘Good-morning' as they leave. They have no idea they are speaking to a woman who has been burgled and I have no intention of telling them.

When I return to the Vicarage to have my breakfast it feels strange, rather uncomfortable, letting myself in. I'm unsure. I stand still in the hall, and listen, but all I hear is silence. I had no idea that being burgled affected one like this. It's this horrid feeling of someone being in your space, touching your belongings, rifling through your drawers, and perhaps especially, I think, being in your bedroom, your private place. I still have to do something about the mess in the bedroom but that will have to wait until I get back from the ten o'clock. I can't face it yet. So I have toast and marmalade and make a cup of coffee. I'm missing Becky but I'm so very thankful she didn't come back with me yesterday.

It's spotting with rain as I walk back to church for the ten o'clock Eucharist, the crown of my week. This would normally be a time when I'd be looking forward to the next hour or two, but not today. It isn't the burglary, it's the thought that I shall come face to face with Miss Frazer and I don't know what she'll do. She won't have had the Bishop's letter yet, he can't have posted it before Saturday at the earliest and I can't kid myself that it's the most important thing in his itinerary. So what will she have in store for me? And how will I deal with it? I tell myself that in the world's view it's trivial, something to be brushed aside, but it's not so in mine and I don't think it would be for anyone else in my position. The Bishop didn't think it was trivial, did he? He didn't brush it aside. However, whatever she does I shall find the strength to meet it. I'm confident of that.

I am the first to arrive at the church but Henry and his wife follow soon after, and with them are Mrs Blamires and Miss Carson who are their near neighbours. It is clear to me from the word go that the burglary has been discussed. But then, why not? It's not a secret, nor has it any hope of remaining one. I can already see the headline in tomorrow's
Brampton Echo.
‘New Woman Vicar of Thurston Robbed!'

‘Are you all right?' Henry asks. ‘I phoned you earlier but you must have set off for the eight o'clock.'

‘I'm fine!' I tell him.

‘I told Henry he should have
insisted
that you came home with him, stayed the night with us!' Molly says. ‘You shouldn't have been on your own!'

‘You're very kind,' I tell her, ‘but really I was OK.'

‘You're very brave,' Mrs Blamires says.

‘I couldn't have done it!' Miss Carson says. ‘I'd have been scared to death!'

I shake my head. I know I wasn't brave; just bloody-minded. Anyway, they move on because by now there are other people coming into church, but I notice that they pause until the latest comers have caught up with them so that they can pass on the news. After which, I reckon, it will be related by the recipients to the pews in front and behind and soon everyone will be informed or, more likely, misinformed. It will be like the party game where the message is passed on by whispering into the ear of the next person and by the time it reaches the end it bears very little resemblance to the original. By the time it gets around all the pews there will have been rape and pillage in Thurston. So I must say something myself – which I do when I go up into the pulpit.

‘Some of you,' I say, ‘will have heard that there has been a burglary at the Vicarage. It happened yesterday when I took my daughter to Clipton to stay with her grandparents, probably when I was on the way back. As you can see for yourselves, I'm perfectly all right. I'm pleased to say I wasn't in the house at the time. A number of things were stolen and as yet I'm not sure exactly what, but in a way it doesn't matter and it has already taught me, in this very short time, that even some very nice possessions are not as important as I once thought they were. So be vigilant – perhaps I wasn't vigilant enough – but don't be fearful. If we let events make us fearful, then evil wins.'

Really, I think, I am preaching to myself. I can see Miss Frazer in her pew, though I hadn't seen her come in. Then I begin my sermon, based on the Gospel for the day, the two great commandments: love God, and thy neighbour as thyself. Anything which helps me to talk about love is a bonus for me. And then I suddenly realize, looking at the people in front of me, that these commandments aren't just for them. They're also for me. And the last face I see before I speak is Miss Frazer's. ‘Thy neighbour as thyself.' It sure ain't easy, Lord!

When I step down from the pulpit the Eucharist continues as always. The great eucharistic prayer, the consecration of the bread and wine, the giving and receiving of the Peace (entered into with gritted teeth by those who like to keep themselves to themselves), the invitation to approach and partake of the communion. Miss Frazer comes out of her pew, the very front one, and stands for a second or two facing the altar. She does not bend her knee, as I expect she normally would before approaching, and I know that this is because she does not believe that what I am standing there offering these people is valid. In her eyes I am not qualified to consecrate. So what is she going to do? Almost everyone else is waiting for her to move forward, after which they will follow.

What she does – after a deliberate pause, and by no means quietly – is to turn on her heel and march – march is the exact word, but with a limp – down the aisle and out of the church. I give a small nod to the people in the front pews to start coming forward, which they do, except for one woman three or four rows back – I don't know her name – who follows Miss Frazer.

I carry on with what I have to do. One could say that I haven't been involved, as I was on the two previous occasions; but that would be wrong. I have been involved this time in front of the entire congregation. There might still be a few people here who don't know what Miss Frazer is up to, but very few indeed. Though not many have spoken to me about the previous episodes I guess that by now they are known to most. And most will see it as a personal affront to me and will have their own opinion about that – whether, for instance, in doing what I do I'm asking for it – but, as on both previous occasions, I see it as a rejection of the God I am offering, and it is no small thing, indeed it's a terrible thing, for a priest to know that she is the sole reason for a member of her congregation turning away from God.

When the service is over I stand at the door, as usual. Not much is said. I get smiles, but some people seem too embarrassed to say anything. And in the middle of all this Miss Frazer appears from around the corner of the church where she has obviously been lying in wait and lets off a torrent of abuse. The usual stuff: Whore of Babylon, an abomination unto the Lord, Traitor, Blasphemer . . . At which Henry Nugent steps in.

‘Now, Miss Frazer, this won't do at all!'

‘As for you,' she rounds on him, ‘you are one of those who brought this woman here! Shame on you! And shame on the rest of you!' she says to the small crowd which is hovering around. ‘You know not what you do!' And so on and so on, until she runs out of breath.

‘But this is not the last of it,' she cries, turning back to me. ‘I have seen to that! My voice is listened to by the powerful . . .' (I take it she means the Bishop rather than God himself) ‘. . . and you will not go unpunished!'

I look around everyone else there, they are rooted to the spot. I doubt if Sunday mornings at St Mary's are often as entertaining as this.

‘Shall we go into coffee?' I say cheerfully.

They follow me as I move towards the parish hall.