Acts and Omissions (8 page)

Chapter 14

Jane's boiler is kaput. She is sitting in her kitchen in a fetching beret and sleeping bag combo with the gas oven on, swearing and googling plumbers. Should have gone to New Zealand for Easter, silly cow. Both Danny and Mickey begged her to. Why didn't she? Because she doesn't want to stomp all over Danny's Big Adventure, that's why. A gap year is not a gap year if your mum comes too. Well done, Jane. That's very selfless of you.

And now the real reason: she doesn't trust herself not to end up in bed with Mickey. Which is stupid. Mickey is married(ish) to Sal, and Sal will be there too. But Sal is worryingly laid back and unpossessive; might simply say, ‘No worries, hose him down when you're done.' Hell, Jane is more possessive about Mickey than Sal seems to be. And all Jane can lay claim to is a fling with a horny young Kiwi barman back in 1993. (And oops, there was Danny.) Given that Jane does not believe in marriage, what is her problem? Why is Sal's putative broad-mindedness a reason not to go? A proper grown-up civilized open relationship where everyone is cool about everything – what's not to like?

Here's what's not to like: Dr Jane Rossiter is what not to like. Jane knows all about the ogress dozing in a chair. It wouldn't take much to wake her, and then it would be all, ‘Fee fi fo fum, he's fucking mine, take your fucking hands off my man.' Et cetera. No, Dr Jane Rossiter cannot do proper grown-up civilized relationships. She wants exclusive shagging rights to her bloke. That, or nothing at all. Which is what she's got. Good. So stop grumbling, you silly mare. She dials a plumber. She's betting it won't turn out like it does in porn films. Unless the plumber brings a sleeping bag of his own and they zip them together.

Happy Holy Week, Jane.

Freddie May is also cursing himself. He's left it too late to get his passport renewed, like he knew he would, so he's not going away over Easter either, not going to be riding his stepfather's horses on the
estancia
, not singing his heart out under vast skies. There will be no Andes on the edge of his vision, no smell of leather, no rude gaucho sex in tack rooms, no forgetting himself, losing himself, blanking all this shit out.

Happy Holy Week, Freddie.

Susanna is not swearing at herself, of course, because she is an Evangelical; but she does say ‘Oh, rats!' rather crossly when she realizes she forgot to buy marzipan for the simnel cake. Now she'll have to make another trip, because Easter wouldn't be Easter if the simnel cake did not have a layer of marzipan and eleven marzipan balls on, one for each apostle minus Judas.

Susanna and Paul are going away after Easter. They are going to their cottage in the Peak District, along with two of their daughters and their families. It will be a squeeze! So no, they really can't take Freddie, she can see that. Even though he's clearly in a bad way at the moment and in need of a holiday and she hates to abandon him all by himself in this big house. In the past the Hendersons have gladly scooped up any waifs and strays and included them in their holidays, but ‘
No!
Sorry, I'm in need of a holiday, too – from Freddie May,' is what Paul had said. So that was that. Oh dear, who'd be around on the Close next week? Miss Blatherwick is going to Jersey, unfortunately. Will Giles and Ulrika be here? She'd never forgive herself if . . . No, that's silly. The self-harming was in his early teens. Done with. She's being very silly. But perhaps she could ask Jane to keep an eye on him? Or Marion? The dean has told Susanna she's not going on holiday next week. Fret fret. Buzz buzz.

Happy Holy Week, Susanna.

The dean did indeed tell Susanna she is not going on holiday, but the dean is wrong about that. She will be whisked away to Prague by Gene for five days, business class, and screw you, environment. He's been planning this surprise for weeks now. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd drape her in sable and conflict diamonds as well, and feed her veal stuffed with foie gras and powdered rhino horn. Off an ivory spoon. While castrati serenaded them. Why are people so pissy and judgemental about harmless fun these days, he'd like to know?

Happy Holy Week, Gene.

Timothy, the director of music, is not cursing himself. He is not even cursing the choristers. Or not out loud, anyway. The sixteen boys are working hard on their Holy Week and Easter repertoire, but concentration is an issue; and Thomas Greatrix, the head chorister, is struggling with the tail end of a cold. O Lord, let it only be that. But that very richness developing in his voice (which they've all been relishing) probably signals the lengthening of his vocal cords and the beginning of the end. Who else have they got capable of the treble solo in the
Sparrow Mass
? Josh Wilder, solid workhorse, nothing special? Or Harry Bianchi, tendency to sing sharp under pressure? Let Thomas last another week, just one more week. The Freddie May voice-breaking catastrophe of eleven years ago still hasn't faded from Lindchester choral memory, when an adult soprano had to be parachuted in at the last minute to sing his part in the new, specially commissioned
Lindchester Mass
. (And great was the
Schadenfreude
in other cathedrals.)

You'd better believe Timothy is going away after Easter. Straight after choral evensong. The car will be packed and ready. He's going to his parents, where he'll sleep for five days solid.

Happy Holy Week, Timothy.

Oh, it's cold, it's so cold! There is snow again on Wednesday. But Maundy Thursday dawns sunny. All over the diocese of Lindchester, clergy scrape their windscreens, get in their cars and head to the cathedral. Bishop Paul has issued a three-line whip: be at the Chrism Eucharist, or feel the full force of my wrath – that is, he will be Very Disappointed. Being Very Disappointed is about as wrathful as Anglican bishops are allowed to get nowadays, anathematization and thumbscrews being frowned upon. But most of the clergy will be there, apart from the ones unable to accept the authority of a woman dean, for gynophobic reasons. I'm sorry – theological reasons. The rest come, the bishop preaches, the oils are blessed – for baptism, for confirmation, for anointing the sick – the dean celebrates, then they go. Tonight some will hold Christianized Seder meals, others will have Lord's Suppers and foot-washings.

Foot-washing! Seriously? Ew. Corns, bunions, rough skin, chipped nail polish, hairy toes – who wants to handle cheesy, pongy, sweaty feet? Or worse: let someone else handle your cheesy, pongy, hideously embarrassing feet! This ritual belongs in a hot country, where dusty roads and sandals and reclining at table make it a routine necessity, not in wintry England in the twenty-first century! Yet Christians feel obliged to give it a go, because Jesus washed his disciples' feet. It's a symbol of leadership through service. The first shall be last; the greatest, least. That's why it's the clergy, the bishops, deans and popes who do the washing. Generally, in Anglican cathedrals only one foot per person is washed. (The
via media
, let's not get carried away, please.) The symbolic twelve sit, a trouser leg rolled up, a foot bared, waiting, while the choir sings Duruflé's
Ubi Caritas
. Some foot-washees will have cheated and had a sneaky pedicure. I hope the water's warm. I hope nobody's wearing tights. I hope nobody's ticklish. Or a fetishist. An air of awkward silliness hangs over everything, as if some ceremony of Masonic toe-curling is under way.

Odd, then, that it should still be so moving.

Let's go to Lindchester Cathedral and snoop. Marion the dean has instigated another of her changes: instead of a representative twelve, anyone who wants to can have a foot washed. Giles the precentor is not keen on this innovation (it is, after all, an innovation), but Marion is the dean. She wants to try it. If there is no take-up, they can go back to the old way next year. There are four foot-washing chairs waiting empty. There are four foot-washers: Marion, Paul Henderson, Giles, and the leader of the Triduum, Charles De la Haye, a retired bishop who cuts rather a saintly monkish figure, and is not in the least an Evangelical bumpkin. All four have stripped off their outer vestments and are waiting on their knees with white towels. Water is poured into four basins.

The choir begins to sing.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
. Ah, that haunting alto line, those unsettling harmonies. The sound rises to the great vaulted ceiling, fills the whole dark cavern of Lindchester Cathedral. Where charity and love are, God is there. And one by one, people come forward. They actually do! They dump their pride, they fling away the embarrassment, they sit and peel off a sock, and get a foot washed.
Deus ibi est. Deus ibi est
.

Freddie May holds it together until the moment when the treble line comes in.
Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur
. Ah, cock. He remembers this, maybe the last thing he sang as a treble. Struggling to hit the notes. Not high, even. Let us rejoice and be pleased in him. He's crying. Can't stop himself. Shit. There's no holding it back. So he kicks off his flip-flops and pads barefoot to the front, to the only empty chair: Marion's. He sits and sobs. He's like the apostle Peter: not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Wash me, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. So Marion, kneeling, washes his feet and dries them with the white towel. But he's still sobbing, face hidden in his hands. She takes him in her arms and holds him. Just holds him.

From where he is kneeling washing another foot, Paul sees. Ah, Marion's got him safe. She can do what Paul longs to, but can't, because it's too complicated.

The altar is stripped. The clergy and people depart in silence. On the hillsides under the snow, ewes lie frozen with their newborn lambs dead beside them.

Good Friday.
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
Tesco's in Lindford is heaving. Great mountains of three-for-a-tenner Easter eggs are tumbled into bins. The air is full of the spice of hot cross buns. Frazzled mums shout, ‘Right! That's
it
! You're getting
nothing
!'

Holy Saturday. In Lindchester Cathedral the flower guild are surrounded by boxes of white carnations, yellow tulips, lilies. Gavin the deputy verger is constructing the Easter bonfire in the brazier. He smiles. Tomorrow at 5 a.m. this thing'll go off like an incendiary device. Tinder-dry twigs and kindling from the 2011 Christmas tree. Shredded paper. He shakes his bottle of lighter fluid, shoosh-shoosh. Yeah!

In his mind's eye he sees the flames streaming in the wind, the Paschal candle lit, and carried into the dark cathedral. One tiny point of light. And the dawn coming.

APRIL

Chapter 15

The cherries are not wearing white for Eastertide. Father Wendy reflects on this as she and Lulu plod along beside the Linden. It's Easter Monday, a bank holiday, but she's on her own. Her husband Doug is off on the NUT conference, which was scheduled for Easter weekend. It's the first of April already, and the hawthorn leaves are barely out in the hedges. There's dog's mercury in the undergrowth, though. And the first feathers of cow parsley are coming up. Dandelions, coltsfoot, a clump of primroses. And ‘the stars of lesser celandine'. Wendy knows her wild flowers pretty well, mostly from Cicely Mary Barker's
Flower Fairies
books, which she used to read to Laura at bedtime. To this day she cannot see a daisy without hearing Barker's little rhyme jingling about ‘closing my petals tight, you know, sleeping till the daytime'.

This morning it's all right, surprisingly. You can never tell in advance. You can never spot the wonky paving slab that will cast you headlong again. Wendy, who can't sing for toffee, hums an Easter hymn as she plods: ‘My flesh in hope shall rest, and for a season slumber. Till trump from east to west shall wake the dead in number.' Sleep tight, my darling girl. Close your petals. See you on that morning. As ever, she prays for Lucy too, the harassed mother who thirteen years ago turned to yell at her squabbling children in the back seat and ploughed into Laura on the zebra crossing.

Here's their bench. On the opposite bank the young man in black running skins passes. Wendy has seen him several times before. Maybe he's training for a marathon? She calls down blessings on his blond head as he dwindles towards the distant bridge. Behind her, a lark begins to climb. Up, up, above the cooling towers, bubbling down his beads of bright music on the righteous and the unrighteous.

I need to reassure you about Jane, I think. The ease with which plumbers can be summoned by bored housewives has been exaggerated, but never fear, she has not perished from hypothermia. She is snug and warm in the palace. That's right: Susanna, hearing of Jane's boiler problems, immediately offered the use of one of the many episcopal guest rooms until she gets it fixed. As we have just seen, Freddie is off on one of his insane long runs. We will find Jane sitting by herself in Susanna's lovely kitchen, ranting at Susanna's floral Cath Kidston Roberts radio. If you are a Conservative voter, or easily offended, look away now:

Shut up, shut up, shut up, you vile Tory twats. I was at college with wankers like you. You know nothing,
nothing
about poverty. The taste of it in your mouth, the feel of it on your skin, in your hair. Culture of dependency, my arse. Struggling to make ends meet does not mean forgoing the skiing trip so you can pay your kids' school fees. No, tosser, you could
not
live on that much a week. You could probably lose that much down the back of your fucking antique French sofa and not notice! Fuck you and your fucking bedroom tax. God, let this be your poll tax, the thing that brings you down, you Boden arseholes. If only this were an April Fool. Ho ho ho, had me going for a minute there: but thank God, we actually all voted for Gordon and none of this ever happened.

My apologies. We will tiptoe away now. Ironically, Jane has managed to turn the air blue. Tsk. Not really in keeping with Susanna's ivory and pastel colour scheme.

Who else is around on the Close this week? Rather a lot of people, as it happens. Gene, true to his promise, has whisked the dean away to Prague, but Mr Happy the canon chancellor is still here. Mr Happy Junior, who was baptized on Easter morning at the vigil, has just got the hang of sleeping for four entire hours at a stretch – ssh, ssh, don't say that out loud, you'll break the spell! – and neither Mark nor his wife Miriam dare jeopardize this by disrupting his routine. Perhaps, just perhaps, they are through the worst? Perhaps the chancellor will no longer want to kill the nice old ladies who say, ‘Enjoy him while he's little!' (Could you enjoy him for me? For half an hour, maybe? While I sleep?) Nor will he want to kill any parent of a contented little baby who offers smug advice. Best of all, he won't want to kill Mr Happy Junior. He won't catch himself thinking at 3 a.m., I'll just smother him now, and we'll deal with it in the morning.

Because Daddy would never do that really. Would he? Would he? Woody-woody-woody? No, he wouldn't, he would not do that, because Daddy loves his little boy. Yes, he does. Oh yes, he does. Mr Happy Junior braces his little arms and legs and goes rigid with bliss. He gives Daddy a great gurgling grin and latches optimistically onto Daddy's nose. Milk? Milk?

On the opposite side of the Close the Littlechild family are all home, too. As we know, Giles and Ulli had a short half-term break in Germany on a choir tour recce, so they are staying put this week. They are taking it in turns to sit on Lukas and Felix, and force them to revise for their GCSEs and A-levels, impressing upon them that this activity is best undertaken with books and notes sitting at a desk, rather than in bed with YouTube, or up on the palace roof with Freddie May.

Philip Voysey-Scott, the canon treasurer, has gone away. He and Pippa have popped across to their house in Norfolk for a few days. Timothy, the director of music, is flat out on his parents' sofa recovering from Holy Week and Easter. I'm sorry to say that Laurence, the cathedral organist, has snuck off to be unfaithful to his lawful wedded wife, and fumble some younger floozie in Liverpool with more pipes and manuals.

A word is in order here about organists. Better still, a joke. Question: what's the difference between an organist and a terrorist? Answer: you can negotiate with a terrorist. This is unfair. It ought to be viewed as a spectrum, rather than a simple disorder, and Laurence is very high-functioning. He is another tall, gangly man. If you lined him up with Giles and Timothy I'd defy you not to laugh. Laurence is tall, but Iona (the sub-organist with the dragon tattoo) is tiny. Oh, the battles over organ bench height up in the loft! On Easter morning Laurence was a happy bunny. During Lent we have restrained use of the organ. (Smirk.) But along with flowers and alleluias, unrestrained use of the organ greets our Lord's resurrection. In the case of Lindchester Cathedral – hold on to your biretta, father! – it was a stonking great Niagara Falls of a Vierne voluntary, the kind that makes you long for a cigarette afterwards, even if you don't smoke. Not everyone is a fan of Vierne, mind you. Laurence, when he emerged from his loft, was greeted by a wild-eyed lady who accused him of being the organist. Laurence admitted it. ‘Well, fuck off. That was horrible.' Laurence, being English, merely ducked his head shyly as if receiving a compliment and said, ‘Oh, thank you very much!'

It would have played out differently had the wild-eyed lady accosted Iona. Iona is further out along the organist spectrum. She plays beautifully, but you should see the hand gestures she aims at the director of music in her little CCTV screen. You should hear what she says to him and the precentor and the preacher. Iona would give Dr Rossiter a run for her money in the swearie department. All you are aware of, down there in your seat, is her sensitive improvisations, her mastery of Messiaen. She is twenty-seven, has crimson hair with bold black stripes, a dragon tattoo on her left biceps, and more piercings than Freddie May. Not your typical organist, you say? Don't worry, we solve this taxonomic puzzle by classifying her thus: family – Anglican; genus – a Character; species – organist.

Easter week drags by, a bit cold, a bit flat. Next Sunday will be Low Sunday; not the best moment for a first visit to your local church, should you be contemplating such a thing. The vicar will probably be away, and a retired priest will trundle out of hibernation. It is the day of the year when you are most likely to encounter a sermon that begins: ‘When I was a young man on military service . . .' Rookie curates, local ordained or non-stipendiary ministers will be at the helm, and sometimes they will be celebrating Weird Intonation Sunday. The Lord BE with YOU. Lift up YOUR hearts.

But let's zoom in on Friday evening and check up on Jane and Freddie. When Susanna hinted to Jane that she might ‘cherish' Freddie, Susanna probably didn't picture them sitting one at each end of the pistachio linen sofa drinking too much Malbec and rewatching series four of
True Blood
. But that's what they are doing. I'm a bit worried about that oatmeal carpet.

‘Are you allowed up on the couch, by the way?' asked Jane, between episodes.

‘Paul lets me,' said Freddie. ‘If I'm a good boy.'

‘Provided you don't jump up and lick his face, you mean?'

‘Or hump his leg? This OK?' (He was giving Jane a foot massage.)

‘Divine.'

‘So yeah, what's happening with your hair, babe?'

‘Babe? Don't oppress
me
with your patriarchal nomenclature, faggot.'

‘Oh, sorry. What's happening with your hair, skank ho'?'

‘That's better. Well, it's a work in progress. Long term, I'm aiming for the Cruella De Vil look.'

‘Seriously? Wasn't she like, really skinny?'

‘Watch it, you.' Jane shoved him in the chest with her foot. ‘You can pour me some more wine.' He rolled round and reached for the bottle. (Careful,
careful
!) His black vest rode up. ‘Hey! Tramp stamp! Is that new? C'm'ere, let's see.' She hauled him to her by his jeans waistband. It was a stylized serpent, coiled, head down, forked tongue disappearing. ‘My, that's subtle. Paul seen it yet?'

‘Nah.' He laughed, sat back up and refilled her glass, not meeting her eye.

‘Cheers.' She checked out his upper arms. Ladders of scars. Freddie, Freddie, Freddie. And Maori bracelet tattoos. Like the ones Danny was threatening to get. ‘Doesn't it hurt like hell?'

‘God, yeah.'

‘Then why do it?'

‘Coz.' The smile. ‘Hey, listen, Janey, can I cut your hair? Like really short?'

‘Do you know how to cut hair?'

‘Yeah, no yeah. Aw, c'mon, how hard can it be? Suze cuts Paul's. We'll use her clippers? G'wan. You'll totally look like Judi Dench?'

‘No! No way.' She reached for the remote. ‘Shut up. Episode three.'

‘
I wanna do real bad thangs with you!
'

‘I'm not letting you.'

‘You
so
are.'

The Hendersons arrive home the following afternoon. Paul admires Jane's new haircut.

‘Yes, I've decided to become a lesbian,' says Jane, stroking her stubble. It feels like a bus seat. ‘Freddie recruited me. It's a lifestyle choice. Golly, I hope I don't tear apart the fabric of society and undermine the institution of marriage.'

But Paul just looks at her, patiently, until she feels bad.

Ah, damn it. ‘Sorry.' And now she's got to own up to Susanna about the carpet as well.