A Blessing In Disguise (54 page)

The Blessed Henry has been here for ages, with his lovely Molly and their grandchildren. He, and a posse of helpers, are handing out service sheets and finding places for people to sit – the church is already two-thirds full and there will be the usual rush at the last minute, which will include Ann, my parents and Becky. Vicarage families countrywide, possibly worldwide, are known for being amongst the last to arrive, as are most people who live closest to the church. Richard Proctor is not here since he is spending Christmas with his lady love in Kingston-upon-Thames. And alas for me, nor is Nigel as he has gone to Ireland to be with his mother for Christmas, though even if he were in Thurston he would be at St Patrick's, where I suppose they are likewise streaming in through the door.

Here is Sonia coming up the path.

‘I suppose with Nigel being away you're on duty all over Christmas?' I say.

‘Afraid so,' she says. ‘We take it in turns at holiday times, and it was mine to be on. You must excuse me if my mobile goes off in church, though I hope it won't!'

‘I hope so for your sake,' I tell her.

She'd been so pleased to hear about Nigel and me – ‘Though I saw it coming, right from the first,' she said. ‘You're so right for each other.'

I've been touched, since we've let it be known we were to marry, by how many people were pleased for us. There were so many good wishes, from both St Mary's and St Patrick's, and if there are those whom the news doesn't please at least they've kept quiet about it. When the time comes for the wedding I think we'll have a packed church. I just wish I knew when that would be, but I'm trying to be patient. I had a nice Christmas card from the Bishop, as indeed I did from so many of my parishioners; far more than I expected.

Carla Brown comes in with Walter. ‘Happy Christmas, Venus,' she says, giving me a hug. ‘Don't the Christmas trees look wonderful!'

They do indeed, which is because a small group of men have been toiling all afternoon, setting up the ten-foot trees, one on each side of the door, climbing up ladders, draping lights, and dashing down to the shops for replacement bulbs which should have been noticed as being spent when the trees were taken down last year, but never are in my experience.

‘They certainly do!' I agree with Carla. ‘And just wait until you see the flowers in the church. Eric and his band of ladies have been hard at it for ages. They're so clever!'

I went to see Bertha Jowett this afternoon. The Beeches was all trimmed up too, with a Christmas tree in the hall and paper chains all over the place. It's the second time I've been this week and today I thought she looked a little more settled. The wary, apprehensive look had left her eyes, as if nothing had turned out quite as badly as she'd expected.

‘It all looks very festive,' I said to her.

‘Oh it is!' she agreed. ‘They've got quite a few things planned. Carol singers coming in this evening, though I don't have to be present if I don't want to be. And of course a real Christmas dinner tomorrow. Turkey and all that. I never had a turkey. It would have lasted me until Easter. When I wanted to celebrate I would have a nice fillet steak and a bottle of claret.'

‘I shall see you tomorrow,' I told her, ‘though only for a minute and I don't know at what time. In between services I shall be bringing communion to those who can't get out. Not just here, all over the village.'

‘Include me out!' she said. ‘I want none of that!'

‘Oh, don't worry!' I told her. ‘I'll include you out all right. I shall just put my head around the door, say “Merry Christmas!” and vanish!' I shall, though she doesn't know it, give her a small present, a book of quotations I found which I thought would suit her.

I'm looking at my watch. Seven minutes to twelve. Time my family were here. Becky is a very happy bunny at the moment; delighted about Nigel and me – though at one point, when I was saying good-night to her, she said, ‘But we won't forget Daddy, will we?' I promised her that we wouldn't, not ever. She's also been pleased this week because she was chosen to be Mary in the school's nativity play. I don't know who was responsible for that but it was a wonderful boost to Becky, even though a couple of girls did tell her it was only because she was the Vicar's daughter, which I flatly contradicted. ‘The Vicar's children are just who they
don't
normally choose!' I said. Anyway, she did it well, as did all the children. I sat with the other mums and dads. We sang ‘Away in a Manger' – not my favourite carol. Whoever said of a baby ‘no crying he makes' was way off the mark. All the mums shed a few tears, as we do at nativity plays, while the dads blew their noses hard.

Ethel Leigh is here in church. She did wonders with the cottage in the short time she had before my mother and father moved in, and she was no end of help to them on the day itself, so much so that Mum has asked her if she'll come regularly, a half-day a week, which Ethel was very glad to do. ‘It's not just the money,' she said. ‘I've got Ron's pension and the Widows, and the mortgage is paid. It just gives me something to do, and company. I don't have to talk to the walls!'

And here they are, the last of the stragglers, including my family. Missie, whom Becky would dearly have liked to have brought with her, has been left in sole charge of the Vicarage!

I say ‘hello' to them, then go quickly into the vestry and put on my chasuble and stole, the beautiful white ones embroidered with gold, worn especially for the festivals of Easter and Christmas; worn to the glory of God. Before I leave the vestry I say my short prayer and then I walk slowly up the aisle, behind the servers. Everything is so beautiful. The whole church is lit by white candles: candles on the altar, candles in the sconces on the end of the pews, candles on the lectern, on the windowsills, everywhere! The flowers are another of Eric's miracles. We are singing ‘Once in Royal David's City' and it is as beautiful in my ears, sung by this hotchpotch of a congregation, which we are, old and young, good singers and terrible ones, and Mr Blatchford, belting it out on the organ, as anything which comes out of King's College, Cambridge every Christmas Eve. Yes, the church is well and truly crowded. There are people standing at the back. And when, at the point in the service when I face the congregation and, holding up my arms, say, ‘The Lord be with you!' the response ‘And also with you!' comes over about as loud and as heartily as anything you will ever hear in the Church of England.

I pause for a matter of seconds, and look at them. How I love them! And then what flashes into my mind are the ones who are not here. I don't mean Nigel or Philip, but Miss Frazer, Miss Carson, Mrs Blamires, little Mrs Bateman – and a few others – and I am truly, truly sad and I miss them. And, without in the slightest way wishing to put myself up higher, because that's the very last thing on my mind, I wonder how God feels when we turn away from him. And all that takes no more than a second or two and we are back on course again.

When it's all over – though there'll be a Eucharist at ten in the morning – I hand over to Henry who will see that everything's put away properly, that the beautiful silver chalice, which was given by a worshipper in this church in the seventeenth century and has been in use here ever since, is locked in the safe, and that the church door is securely locked, and I walk home with my family. My mother and father are staying at the Vicarage over Christmas. The cottage isn't yet organized enough to be comfortable, and in any case I think they are both due for a rest.

It's a fine, dry night, with a high, starry sky. It's cold, and I suspect there'll be a frost before morning. Back at the Vicarage, greeted as ecstatically by Missie as if we had been away for a week, Ann elects to make sandwiches while my mother brews a pot of tea. ‘I doubt you've had a proper meal all day, Venus,' my mother reproves me. ‘I know you!'

She is right about one thing and wrong about the other. I have a hearty appetite and eat well and regularly (including the wrong things) but today is one of those exceptions when I literally haven't had time. And there's another thing: this has been an emotional evening, and for me the aftermath of emotion is that I'm extra hungry, so I'm standing beside Ann and I'm wolfing down the sandwiches as fast as she can make them.

Becky, who is more or less falling asleep on her feet, decides she'll go to bed and have hers brought up to her. She would like Missie to go upstairs with her but Missie is not to be parted from this unexpected influx of company at this strange hour, not to mention the smell of ham sandwiches, so she refuses to go. My father decides, Christmas now officially having begun, that he will celebrate with a glass of whisky as a chaser to his cup of tea and the rest of us think that's a good idea and choose our various tipples, brandy for Ann and me and sweet sherry for my mother. In the end, I am too tired to finish mine and, after wishing everyone a happy Christmas yet again, I take myself off to bed.

I am dropping off to sleep when the telephone rings. I pick it up, wondering how anyone could be so unkind as to call me out in the early hours of Christmas morning.

It's Nigel!

‘I thought I wouldn't ring earlier,' he says, ‘in case you'd all gone on to some wild party after church! How are you, my love? How did everything go?'

‘Fine,' I say.

‘What are you doing now?'

‘I'm in bed.'

‘I wish I were there,' Nigel says.

‘I wish you were!' I say. ‘I can hear a lot of noise at your end. What's happening?'

‘There's a bit of a party going on,' he says. ‘They came back here after Mass. I reckon my mother's invited half of Quilty because I'm here. I feel like the prodigal son. Goodness knows when they'll all leave. I'll ring you tomorrow when it's a bit quieter, but my mother would like a word with you now. OK?'

‘Sure!' I tell him.

‘I'll put her on.'

‘Hello, Venus!' she says. ‘I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas.' She has the loveliest, softest Irish voice imaginable. ‘I'm so looking forward to meeting you. Whatever else, I'll be over in England for the wedding – whenever that is.'

‘That's great!' I say. ‘And I wish I could tell you when it's to be. Perhaps in June if all goes well. You can be sure I'll let you know the minute I know. And if there's a friend or a relative you'd like to bring with you . . .'

‘Thank you,' she says. ‘I might well like to bring my sister, Veronica. Nigel's very fond of his Aunt Veronica and 'twould be company for me on the way. Also, she's never been to England.'

We chat a little longer, about this and that, and then she says, ‘I'll say good-night to you, and once again a happy Christmas, and now I'll put Nigel back on the line.'

‘She sounds nice, your mother,' I say to him.

‘She's a bit of all right,' he agrees. ‘The two of you will get on famously.'

We say our lengthy good-nights and then I ring off. I am so happy, but oh, how I long for him to be here! But three days from now he will be, I remind myself.

So that was Christmas, my first in my own church. It was wonderful, and now it's over, and here we are on New Year's Eve, at the theatre and in the process of taking our seats for the pantomime. They're good seats, in the circle, but at the moment there's a lot of discussion going on between the children about where they will sit and, in particular, who they will sit next to. The whole evening will be enhanced if they can sit next to their best friends and I understand that because I am going to sit next to Nigel, with Becky on my other side, and on her other side she'll have Anna. Yes, we did manage to get an extra ticket. My parents are here – Ann isn't because she had a long-standing invitation to a New Year's Eve party elsewhere. It did occur to me that I'd have liked to have invited Bertha Jowett, but by then all the seats were taken. In the event, a small party from the Beeches will be going to a matinee and Bertha, if she wishes, can join them. She might do that, she told me, though the ballet or a good murder play is more to her taste.

We are now all seated, more or less amicably I hope – at any rate there are no protests. We all came on the same coach, which dropped us at the door and will pick us up when the show's over. We arrived earlier than we expected which means that now there is time, and a good view from our seats, to watch all the other arrivals, something I've always enjoyed doing at the theatre. Becky is talking to Anna and Nigel is chatting with my parents, who are on his other side. There's a buzz all around me and I'm aware of it – and then suddenly I'm not aware because my mind has gone off at a tangent and, except that I can feel the warm comfort of Nigel and Becky on either side of me, I'm not really here. Part of me is back in the last few months I've spent at St Mary's, and at the same time part of me is in the future, with what will happen, to me, to all of us.

I know now, quite surely, that I'm in the right place. St Mary's, Thurston, is where I want to be and where I believe I'm meant to be. I haven't done everything well, I'm very aware of that. Sometimes I've been too outspoken, not tactful, or I've made changes too quickly. There are people who like me, and I thank God for them, and people who don't. I'm sure there are those who haven't yet made up their minds about me. And of course there are the ones I've lost by being who and what I am, and who, I've faced the fact, I will not regain. I remind myself that Jesus, who did everything well, who was without sin, didn't keep everyone and still doesn't. So who am I to complain? Who do I think I am that everything should go perfectly for me?

And there I draw a line over my thoughts about what has happened and think about what's to come in this new year, or what I hope is to come, because I don't know, do I? But I have faith that many of the things I dream about and plan for, things large and small, will happen. When I come to next year's pantomime, for instance, it will be with my husband!