Acts and Omissions (10 page)

Chapter 18

St George's Day. His cross flies from the cathedral flagpole. The fields and roadsides of the diocese of Lindchester are bright with dandelions. In years gone by, this was the auspicious day to go out collecting to make your dandelion wine. Now the shaggy golden heads are simply mown into oblivion as weeds.

The bursar of the Cathedral Choristers' School is making the most of the patchy sunshine and mowing the sports field. Like the vergers, he's overworked, but he has a long memory. Need any help, Mr Hoban? No, thank you, Mr May. Because I remember when you broke into the shed and wrote in fertilizer on the school lawn. Spring of 2003. No amount of mowing that summer got rid of it. But Mr Hoban is grinning as he drives the tractor up and down the field (keeping it nice and straight). Word's got out, of course. Ha! What Mr Hoban wouldn't give to see my lord's face if he'd woken to find SUCK MY COCK mown into his lawn, instead. Got off rather lightly, had the bishop, in Mr Hoban's humble opinion.

But that's quite enough about the scapegrace Freddie May – who, even as I write, is experimentally stapling his thumb, then dripping blood all over this morning's post and being cuffed by an exasperated Penelope. I know you will be far more interested in the archdeacon of Lindchester. You have been very patient. I had contemplated describing Voldemort in his office in William House brooding over this month's Lee List; or enumerating his duties and the endless meetings and interviews and installations he must attend; or even detailing the Quinquennial Inspections for which he is responsible (the latter being an Anglican pursuit so recondite that Word has no spelling suggestions to offer). But come with me instead, on the viewless wings of fiction, to a newly vacant vicarage in the centre of Lindford, where I will introduce you to the Venerable (for thus we style our archdeacons) Matt Tyler.

‘Has he trashed the place?'

‘Well, it's a bit of a mess, I'm afraid, archdeacon.' Geoff unlocked the front door with the new keys.

‘All righty. Let's see the damage. Bloody hell.' The archdeacon stuck his porkpie hat on the stairpost knob and surveyed the hall. He opened the door to his right, put his head in. Laughed. ‘Yep. This qualifies as a bit of a mess. They kept pets, I take it? OK, get a cleaning firm in. The diocese will pay.'

Geoff looked at Pauline.

‘You can have that in writing,' said the archdeacon. He opened his iPad. ‘I'll just get a record of this little lot.'

He went through the whole vicarage taking pictures of dangling light fittings, kitchen unit doors wrenched from hinges, filthy carpets, gouged plaster, ripped wallpaper, cracked sinks. The two churchwardens followed in tense silence. They can't believe he's really gone, thought Matt. They're scared he's going to burst out of the airing cupboard screaming threats. The archdeacon's Doc Martens crunched on broken glass. You bet your ass you'll see me in court, matey, he thought. He closed his iPad and tucked it behind his braces.

‘Okey-dokey. That's me done.' He stuck his hat back on his shaved head and beamed at them. ‘He's gone, folks. He's really and truly gone. Bishop Paul will be writing to you, but he wanted me to thank you today for all you've done. It's been hell, we know, and you two have borne the brunt of it. Once the dust's settled we can start thinking about the future. Promise you won't have a long interregnum. But in the meantime, you have official permission to par-tay!'

Geoff and Pauline exchanged glances again.

‘Afraid the diocese can't foot the drinks bill, though,' said the archdeacon.

Well, I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. I think I'm going to like the Venerable Matt Tyler. He gets into his car. It's a sporty black Mini, and he's rather a large man for such a small car. He's wearing black jeans, and a black and white checked clerical shirt made out of the kind of fabric used for chefs' trousers. If I wasn't already warming to him, I'd say this makes him look like a complete plonker – which is certainly the view of many in the diocese. He's forty-eight, and one of Bishop Paul's ‘bold appointments'. He's not really like Voldemort. The bishop of Barcup's wife only calls him that because of his shaved head. You'll be cheered to learn that, unlike Voldemort, the archdeacon has a nose. It's a classic busted-up rugby-player's nose, but he definitely has one. It's only Janet Hooty who calls him Voldemort. Everyone else calls him Matt the Knife.

He zooms off like a cab driver in his little car round the back streets of Lindchester, nipping through gaps in the traffic. He does a quick scan for traffic wardens, then takes his usual cheeky little dink up a one-way street to cut off a loop. Just twenty yards, nothing's com—

Shit!

OK. She's fine. Didn't hit her. The archdeacon pulls up, heart booming. He whips his dog collar out and stuffs it in the glove compartment. He's getting out of the car when – uh-oh! – he clocks the look on the pedestrian's face. He scrambles back in and locks the doors.

She bangs on the window. ‘You fucking moron! Are you drunk? What the fuck are you doing? This is a fucking one-way street! Get out of your car!'

The archdeacon shakes his head.

The woman looms close and terrifying. ‘Get out
now
!'

The archdeacon cracks the window an inch. ‘No. You'll hit me.'

She tries the handle. Snarls. ‘You could've fucking killed me! What's your name? I'm reporting this!' She snaps the door handle a few more times. ‘I've got your number plate. I'll find you.' She glares at him through the crack. ‘What are you, some kind of chef?'

‘A chef,' repeats the archdeacon, neither confirming nor denying it. He reads the ID card swinging on the scary woman's lanyard. ‘I'm sorry I nearly killed you.'

‘You will be! I'm going to find out where you work. I'm going to hunt you down, arsehole. The police will be on your doorstep. I'll . . .' She runs out of threats. ‘Yeah, so watch out, you overgrown nob-head boy racer.'

And now the archdeacon makes a mistake: he blows her a kiss.

Oooo-kaaay.

He watches in the rear-view mirror till she's safely gone, then gets out to check the damage. Yep. Good call, staying in the car. He can get the ding in the panel popped back out at the body shop, no probs. Which would not have been true of his crown jewels. He starts the engine and drives very sedately to Lindchester Cathedral Close, and parks outside William House. When he's at his desk he googles ‘Linden University, Dr Jane Rossiter'. A wise archdeacon knows his enemies.

The Season of Easter nurdles gently along. This Sunday will be the Fifth Sunday of Easter (that's the Fourth Sunday After Easter in old money). The daffodils are past their best now, and at last the loveliest of trees is hung with white along the bough. In every park and field and garden in the diocese blackbirds sing joyously (like the first bird):
Piss off, this is my tree, tirra lirra!
Willow buds are bursting all along the Linden. The newly hatched leaves cling like green dragonflies to the fronds. Lulu plods faithfully along with Father Wendy. Yes, Lulu's still with us. The giant cloud factory toils apocalyptically on. In Renfold the food bank continues to dispense food and debt counselling. In Lindford the homeless with their paper cups beg outside coffee shops. They don't expect much, barely the change from your flat white, the difference between a regular and a large latte. But they are invisible. Anyone sitting on a pavement is invisible. Anyway, they'd probably only spend it on drugs. We'd love to help, but what can we do? Donate to Shelter, maybe? Yes, we'll do that. Must remember to do that. Oh dear, it's all so sad! And we nip into M&S and cheer ourselves up with some of those pastel-coloured mini macaroons.

Today, as everyone in the parish of St John's Renfold acknowledges when they ring him on Friday, is Father Dominic's day off. He's standing on his bombsite of a patio with a mug of coffee. It's not raining, so he ought to mow his lawn. But then he'd have to shift that bloody ladder which is still lying there under the laurels with nettles growing through the rungs. As far as he knows, the lead thieves never came looking for it. Maybe his psychotic priest act was a deterrent after all. Dominic knows he probably can't stop the thieves if they are really determined; but he can make it easier for them to target someone else's church. Yeah, go and nick the Methodists' lead! thinks Father Dominic, ecumenically. He stares at the lawn a bit longer. No. It really isn't going to mow itself. He finishes his coffee and lugs the ladder back next door to the churchyard, clipping gates and walls with the end he's not watching, tripping, getting wedged, like an impromptu homage to Charlie Chaplin. After another comic interlude – during which he amusingly extracts the Flymo from a garage so hilariously small that if he drives into it, he cannot then open the car door – he is happily mowing. He mows nice wavy lines, because he's the vicar, it's his day off, and he can do what he bloody likes.

On Saturday Jane wakes with a lurch. It's a moment before she works out she hasn't overslept, there is no cricket training to pack her great lump of a son off to; in fact, there is no lump of a son. He's been gone nearly four months now. Four months! How has she stood it? But that's a third of his gap year done. Maybe she should tackle his room? She opens his door on the way to the shower. The museum of adolescence is unchanged. There is still a dent in the pillow. The last mug of tea she brought him on Boxing Day is by the bed, sealed with a disk of mould. She can still smell him. Her boy cub. She shuts the door. Let the bugger tidy it himself when he gets home.

Jane sits with her toast and coffee. Her boiler has been fixed. Radio 3 is playing, because Radio 4 is too shouty. She's checking her diary for the week ahead and not really listening, but then an a cappella song starts. I know this, thinks Jane. An old hymn, from the dusty old chapel of memory. ‘What can wash away my stain?' Nothing, she tells the radio. ‘Nothing but the blood of Jesus,' the voices reply. ‘What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.' The arrangement is out of kilter, somehow. Jane is not musical, but she can hear the harmony not quite coming back home, but yearning, yearning for resolution. It twangs at her heartstrings and tears start in her eyes. ‘No other fount I know.'
Because there is none!
Jane wants to shout. There's nothing. Nothing. Nothing. ‘Nothing but the blood of Jesus?' The music trails away, still asking, teetering on the brink of hope.

‘That was the Dorian Singers, from their latest CD,
Nothing but the Blood
,' murmurs the presenter.

Ah, dammit. Jane wipes her eyes. She's going to be singing that all bloody week now.

MAY

Chapter 19

Coloured placards bloom on tree and lamppost across the diocese of Lindchester. Local elections this Thursday. Oh gawd, is it really? Again? Did I get a polling card? Damn, I suppose that means the school's closed and I'll have to make childcare arrangements. Yes, yes! Local elections, when the nation traditionally punishes the government by voting for nutcases! If we can be arsed to go to the polling station, that is. Our great-grandmothers chained themselves to railings for the right to vote for nutcases, but we aren't sure we can be arsed.

The weather has turned lovely. Of course it has – it's the revision period. The baby lime leaves tremble on their twigs. Wild garlic sprouts long and lovely and lush, and dread begins to shadow every heart, even the hearts of those who sat their last exam half a century ago.

Jane and Spider are having lunch in Diggers, the vegan restaurant a stone's throw from the Fergus Abernathy building. The coffee is excellent there, and they deserve a treat. They are recovering from an exam invigilation training session. Despite years of sustained and systematic incompetence, they've yet again found themselves on the rota. This time Jane is only down as reserve chief invigilator. This ought by rights to mean that she can sit in her office for the duration of the exam, on standby. But the chief invigilator is Dr Elspeth Quisling, who is in an advanced state of ill-humour with Jane. Jane is betting that Elspeth will schedule a revenge migraine of her own that afternoon; and Jane means to deprive the Quisling of her fun by calmly stepping up and making no fuss. Hence her attendance at the refresher course – during which it has emerged that, contrary to Spider's suggestions during the brainstorming session, the qualities looked for in an ideal chief invigilator do not include suave good looks, a background in the Special Forces and the ability to see through walls.

Spider stared at his flat white as though the fern pattern were a Rorschach test. ‘Fuck, Jane. Invigilation. Why? Why?'

‘Because we're bad people being punished, comrade. We must hang on to the thought that it's better than
sitting
exams.'

‘Except we were mostly stoned in exams.'

‘I wasn't. I was a good girl back then. I used to underline my titles with a ruler.'

‘And ask for extra answer books? I would've hated you.'

‘And I would've tried to convert you.'

‘Really? To what?'

‘Jesus, of course. I was in the God squad.'

‘The God squad! Hard core.' He looked at her for a long time, eyes magnified behind his blue lenses, as though some mournful giant were imprisoned inside him, watching the world through a letter box. ‘Don't you kind of miss him? God?'

‘No,' lied Jane.

‘I miss him.'

‘I suppose I miss forgiveness.' What can make me whole again? Nothing? ‘Being . . . put right.'

‘Mended.' Spider sighed. ‘Before we face the one true Chief Invigilator.'

‘
In mortis examine
,' said Jane.

‘The examination of death! Nice one. Never thought of that.'

‘Yeah, that mother of all finals.'

There was a silence. Jane saw herself turning over the paper and thinking, I'm screwed. I can't answer a single question.

‘I feel a poem coming on,' said Spider.

‘I need cake,' said Jane.

We will leave Jane and Spider to wallow in eschatological vegan doom, and turn our minds to a ticklish question: what's happening about that vacancy at York? You will remember that The Most Revd Dr Michael Palgrove's translation to Canterbury means that we currently have no archbishop of the northern province. I hope you also remember that this narrative has eschewed all dabbling in affairs outside the boundaries of the diocese of Lindchester? All the same, we must interest ourselves somewhat in this matter, as it impinges upon one of our chief characters, namely the Rt Revd Paul Henderson. All you need to know at this point is that the mills of God (otherwise known as the Vacancy in See Committee and the Crown Nominations Commission) have cranked into action and are grinding exceeding fine. Consultations have occurred, submissions have been invited, names have been mentioned, paperwork has been updated, and testosterone levels in the House of Bishops are running high. As to process, well, senior clerics will not be locked up in a chapel and starved into consensus in the Roman manner. Instead, a series of meetings will take place. These will escalate from rather tedious to very interesting indeed – not to say top secret – at which point the press will know all about it and be in a position to tell the C of E exactly what it's done wrong. And what of our friend Paul? I will simply say this: he has thought and prayed, and
he has not ruled himself out
. (Let the reader understand. And if the reader does not quite understand, I have successfully conveyed the semi-transparency of the process.)

But enough of this constitutional cobblers. Let's have some sex. Or the next best thing in Anglican circles: baking. Who is baking today? Susanna, of course. I have stated before that this narrative will not intrude into clerical bedrooms and anatomize marital relations. That said, perhaps I ought to hint that these days Susanna expends more time and energy on her culinary than her other wifely skills. By contrast, Ulrika Littlechild, the precentor's wife, is (how shall I put this?) not famed for her light touch with pastry. Nor for that matter, is Marion the dean. Goodness, my toes are curling. Quickly, back to the palace kitchen!

It's Thursday. Susanna (having dutifully voted) has a loaf of bara brith in the oven, and she's now making walnut and cherry shortbread, because the charity she works for is holding a fundraising coffee morning this Friday. She will move on to gluten-free parkin, lemon drizzle cake and flapjack, and call it a day. She'll then get up on the crack of dawn tomorrow and make a batch of triple choc chip cookies as well, because it will suddenly occur to her at 2 a.m. that five kinds of cake and biscuit is nowhere near enough.

Miss Barbara Blatherwick has been baking too. She's made a batch of Chelsea buns, because she's going to persecute poor Freddie and make him tell her how the job search is going. By now he ought to have heard if he's got interviews for those choral scholar posts she made him apply for. The buns, bursting with fruit and spice, oozing honey, will be withheld until he has given an account of himself.

Freddie was ambling back to the Palace round the Close when the text arrived: ‘Wöuld you like to come før tea © 4pm this ãfternoon¿ Chelseã buns. BB'.

Ah cock. Fuck it. Freddie tried to beat off the swarms of panic. He'd had an email last week inviting him for interview at Barchester, and he'd been meaning to get onto that. Gah. Chelsea buns. Evil woman.

He didn't notice the sporty black Mini kerb-crawling him, until a voice said, ‘Afternoon, tarty-pants.'

He spun round and bent to look in the car window, bestowing taut vistas of
Men's Health
perfection on the lucky occupant. ‘Well, hel-lo-o-o, Daddy!'

‘Nice tits,' said the archdeacon. ‘Hop in and I'll drive you round to the palace.'

‘Oh, man. Are you gonna be strict with me again?'

‘Would you like me to be?'

‘Fuck, yeah.' Freddie got in.

But the archdeacon drove in silence. He pulled up on the palace drive, killed the engine. Then he turned and looked at Freddie.

Freddie looked back over the top of his orange mirror Aviator Ray-Bans.

The archdeacon shook his head. ‘Why are you still here? It was meant to be for a year. Martin's got his licence back now. What's going on?'

‘So yeah, about that. I've been applying for stuff? Got an interview coming up?'

‘Congratulations. When?'

‘I'm like, you know? Still firming up the dates?'

‘Need any help? I know you're allergic to admin.'

Freddie retreated behind his shades. ‘I'm good.'

‘Well, give a shout if I can do anything,' said the archdeacon. ‘Seriously. This isn't doing you any good, Freddie, hanging round playing errand boy. You're bored, you're getting into trouble—'

‘I know, I
know
, OK? Man, you're so mean to me. Wanna blowjob?'

‘Always,' said the archdeacon. ‘But not off you.'

The archdeacon prefers girls. Sad, because he might have been rather good for Freddie. But there it is: writers don't always wield as much power as they'd like. Heck, even archdeacons don't wield as much power as they'd like. The Venerable Matt Tyler is not a bit happy about the Freddie May situation, let me tell you. There are those in the diocese who refer to Freddie as the bishop's catamite. When Matt flagged this up with Bishop Paul after Christmas, he got a
ve-e-ry
chilly reception indeed. Like an industrial-sized fridge had opened in his face. Hmm. Looks like Matt needs to man up, don his thermals and tackle the bishop again. Because why the hell is it being allowed to drag on like this? Susanna's doing, maybe? It's not like Matt suspects anything inappropriate is going on, but there's something . . . off. Something just a tad out of key.

Then again, if Freddie really has got an interview, it will sort itself out without any need for confrontation. So the archdeacon goes and talks strategy and growth with the bishop instead this Thursday afternoon.

Across the diocese people go and vote, or not. In church halls, parish rooms, primary schools, they go and stand in plywood booths and put their cross in boxes for nutcases, or serious candidates, or not. Outside a blackbird sings in the horse chestnut tree, or kids in hoodies skid bikes in the gravel. An ice cream van jangles by. Tomorrow we will hear that the Conservatives retain overall control. But you won't be too surprised to hear that UKIP will have some modest success round here as well. The diocesan communications officer will be briefing the bishop, in case his opinion is sought.

Polling closes. Father Dominic gets his church hall back at last. Blossom from the cherries in the churchyard confettis down on him. He walks home along a pathway of pink, and catches himself singing: ‘Why am I always the bridesmaid?' Day off tomorrow. Where will he go? Bluebells, he thinks. I'd like to see bluebell woods, glorious, glorious bluebell woods, like the kind I remember from childhood. From the coach window on the way to swimming.

He lets himself into the vicarage, and he's back at the open-air pool, aged about ten, seeing the yellow and blue cubicle doors. He's climbing to the top of the high diving board, skinny legs, big baggy navy trunks, not Speedos like the other boys, all wrong. ‘Hur hur, Todd's got his dad's trunks on!' High as the trees. He flinches as house martins zoom at him, screaming. Now it's his turn. Too high! ‘Jump, jump, Todd, you spaz!' No! No, he daren't. Tries to retreat. But a hand shoves him in the back, and he's over the edge, arms, legs windmilling, down into the brutal spank of water.

Dominic hopes, really hopes, it's a bit easier growing up gay nowadays. That there's someone there to scoop up the poor spaz in the wrong trunks. Scoop him up and say, ‘I've got you. Don't cry. It's going to be fine. I've got you, darling.' Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Isn't that, thinks Dominic, what the Church should be saying?