Felburgh

by Ivan B

  “Peter”, she said earnestly. “Your robes, there filthy! Have you got a spare?”

  Peter surveyed his alb and stole; both had severe yellow stains and were emitting an obnoxious aroma. Harriet put her head on one side.

  “When is your next wedding?”

  Peter looked at his watch.

  “At four in just over two hour’s time.”

  “Give me your alb,” she commanded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Don’t worry about the stole,” replied Peter as he took them off. “I have a gold one I could use, it’s the alb I only have the one.”

  “Trust me,” said Harriet, “I’ll get it back to you in time for your next wedding.”

  Harriet then promptly set off home with a determined look in her eye and Mark appeared at Peter’s side, “Go, and take a rest Peter,” he said, “Lucy and I will clean up.”

  “Can you manage?”

  “Trust us, Lucy has phoned Jo, and the three of us should easily manage.”

  Peter did what he was told and went home for a stiff coffee.

  Peter arrived back at the church forty minutes before the final wedding was due to take place. The church had been transformed back into a place of worship, but it did smell rather heavily of air-freshener. As soon as Mark saw Peter he came over.

  “Thanks,” said Peter gratefully. “You have done marvels.”

  “That’s OK,” replied Mark, “all part of the service. But we do have a problem.”

  Peter looked at Mark as he rolled his eys.

  “Bill Grunley is the photographer; this is a sideline for him as he normally works as a press photographer.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “It’s worse than bad; Reginald said that he would never undertake another wedding with that man as photographer. Bill takes the view that he is employed by the bride and groom and therefore does not have to take any instructions from anybody else. At the wedding where Reginald was officiating Bill stood off to one side taking photographs the whole time, it was extremely off-putting. I believe that Jane advises her wedding couples that if they choose Bill as their photographer that is their choice, but he will not be allowed into the church during the service if she is officiating.”

  Peter began to wonder in the day could get any worse. Peter then wandered over to where Bill was photographing the congregation as they arrived. Like most professional photographers he had a large format camera on a tripod and a SLR digital camera around his neck.

  “Hello,” he said, offering his hand to Bill, who duly shook it. Peter held on.

  “I take it the groom passed on our instructions about photography during the service.”

  “I’ve read them,” said Bill.

  “But will you heed them?” asked Peter.

  “Depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “What my customers want. They pay the bill so they call the tune.”

  Peter realised that this was fruitless and went to seek out the groom, but he had not yet arrived. In fact he hadn’t arrived by a quarter to four, but then neither had Peter’s alb.

  At ten to four Harriet appeared with Peter’s alb, it was slightly damp, but snow white.

  “Thanks Harriet,” he said, “I owe you one.”

  She replied, “No you don’t, you’ve already put up Samantha for us.” And toddled off towards the back of the church where from somewhere Bunty had appeared.

  Peter hurried to his vestry, robed up and walked back to the church door just in time to meet the groom and Best Man. They were both looking very anxious.

  “Sorry vicar,” said the Best Man, “my car broke down, we’ve had to run from the bus station.”

  Before Peter could reply the Bride drew up in her car and the two men scurried to the front. Peter went and met the bride and escorted her to the door. He had a few words with her and as was his custom left her standing at the entrance while he went to the front of the church. Bill had planted himself, tripod, and all, at the front of the church so he could photograph the bride as she walked up the aisle. But Peter was in no mood to be intimidated; instead he made an announcement to the congregation, “Welcome. We are here to celebrate the marriage of Miriam and Lloyd, but first a few ground rules so that the wedding can be as enjoyable as possible for us all, especially Lloyd and Miriam. Firstly, please sing up during the hymns, I don’t sing particularly well and the couple will both bless you all if you can drown me out. Secondly, unless you are on call please turn off your mobile phones, we don’t particularly want harmonious ring-tones during the vows. And finally this is an act of worship, so please no photography until after the signing of the register, then you can take as many as you like.”

  Peter paused, the congregation was mainly smiling and he’d set a relaxed mood for the service. But Bill had not budged.

  “So,” Peter continued, “we will just wait for the photographer to make his way to the back and then Miriam has a clear path to Lloyd.”

  All eyes turned and looked at Bill. A standoff then ensued with Bill holding his ground, Peter remaining silent and the congregation looking at Bill. Eventually Lloyd went up to Bill and whispered in his ear. Bill gave Peter a sour look and took his gear to the back of the church.

  Then the wedding commenced and all seemed to be going well until the hymn before the vows. During the last verse Bill came forward and stood at the side of the altar clearly intending to take photographs using his SLR camera. Peter smiled at him and walked over. He reached out and pressed the lens release button and with a deft twist of his wrist uncoupled the lens from the camera. All would have been well if Bill had not tried to grab the lens back; he managed to get it from Peter’s grasp, but could not hold on to it. The lens dropped onto the stone chancel steps with a sickening thud. To his credit Peter did not break stride but was back in front of the couple as the last line of the hymn died away. From then on the wedding went without a hitch. Following the service Bill was too engaged in taking photographs to confront Peter. As the photographs were taking place Peter sidled up to Bunty, “Where’s Kimberley?” he asked.

  “Safe.”

  “Safe where?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Peter gave Bunty a surprised look, and she continued “if you ask me again I will tell you Peter. But I’d rather you did not ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “I believe the Americans call it plausible deniability. If the father contacts you, you can truthfully say you do not know and you will not have to lie.”

  Bunty could see that Peter was still uncertain.

  “Trust me,” she said, “all will be revealed in due course.”

  Peter relaxed; this was the third time today someone had asked him to trust them and the other two had worked out all right. In any case he had faith in Bunty and her judgement. Just then Bill came over and poked Peter on the arm.

  “I’ll be sending you the bill.”

  Peter smiled.

  “I’ll read it,” he said, “but I won’t heed it.” And walked off leaving Bill fuming.

  Easter Sunday, by contrast, went well. The services at the church were packed, the new hymns went down well, and there was not a disaster in sight. The sun-rise service on the quay had also had a fair attendance; Peter in fact was quite surprised at just how many people managed the quay service, the eight o’ clock communion, the eleven o’ clock service and the three o’ clock service on the beach. By the evening he was tired, but content.

  Peter then took Easter Monday to the Wednesday off, this meant he returned to work on Thursday; it seemed that Diocesan committee meetings do not stop for man or beast or holidays. However, when Peter arrived at Diocesan House the Fire Alarm refit was taking longer than expected and the alarms were still not working. No fire alarms meant no committee meeting could take place. Nobody on the committee seemed to mind. Peter decided to head home and stopped for some shopping on the way. Peter didn’t realise at the time that the culmination of his series of
disasters was about to befall him, and it was all a matter of perfect timing. Some of the seeds of the impending calamity were already embedded in the fact he had forgotten to tell Jo of Samantha’s presence and in the design of Peter’s downstairs walk-in shower. The shower had obviously been designed with safety in mind and the on-off pull cord was in fact outside the shower in the downstairs toilet; the controls inside only regulated temperature. Any users of the shower soon discovered that when turned on the shower ran cold for about thirty seconds and only after that did the temperature start to rise. Peter’s calamity began to unfold:

  9:50:00a.m.: Sam let herself in the back door of the vicarage and went for a shower; she finished at exactly 9:59:31a.m. And turned the shower off.

  9:59:30a.m.: Jo came in through the front door and as it was a Thursday had come prepared to bath Aquinas. She had found the best technique was to undress in the hallway and leave her cloths just outside the loo door; there was a cloth’s shelf in the shower, but this was above the height of the shower head and out of Jo’s reach when she wasn’t wearing high heels.

  10:03:00a.m.: Archdeacon Jasper arrived at the vicarage gate and proceeded up the drive. He had a curled up newspaper under his arm and a severe expression on his face.

  10:03:29a.m. Peter arrived home and as he entered his drive was surprised to see Jasper at his front door just about to ring the door-bell. Unfortunately for Peter the bell push was never pressed.

  10:03:36a.m. After taking her clothes off and having grabbed a bottle of Aquinas’ shampoo from the kitchen Jo ran round the hall and towards the loo door; Aquinas always thought that this was a great game and chased her. She threw open the loo door, yanked the pull cord as she passed and rushed into the shower closely followed by Aquinas. She slammed the shower door shut behind her.

  10:03:37a.m. Peter exited his Land Rover and walked up to the front door. As he approached Jasper glowered at him.

  “I need a word with you, and I need it now.” He said sternly.

  10:03 38a.m. Jo could not believe that someone was already in the shower and half-dressed. She was even more surprised to find out that it was a tall redheaded female. Samantha on the other hand was probably equally surprised when in the middle of drying herself she suddenly got a cold shower and was immediately joined by a short female and an exuberant sheepdog. They stared at each other for about two seconds.

  10:03:43a.m. Peter opened the front door and ushered Jasper in to the hall just as Jo exited the shower. Jasper walked in and was almost immediately nearly bowled over by a wet Aquinas on his way out. He was then greeted by the scene of a naked Jo being chased by a very skimpily dressed and very wet, Samantha. Both skidded to a halt just in front of Jasper. Jo screamed at the top of her voice “Ohhhhh Shhitt!” did an about turn, scooped up her clothes and fled into the kitchen and out of sight. Sam yelled, “Arghhh” and ran back into the loo leaving Jasper and Peter speechless in the hall. Aquinas returned and proceeded to divest himself of all his acquired moisture by shaking it all over Jasper’s immaculate trousers.

  There was then about fifteen seconds of total silence broken by Peter remarking that it might be best if they talked in his study. Jasper followed Peter into his study but did not close the door behind him.

  As Jo dressed in the kitchen she could hear the Archdeacon bawling out Peter.

  “Never in all my born years have I ever had so many complaints about one priest in so little time! Firstly I hear that you are riding roughshod over the church council and manipulating the rules to your own ends! Then I hear that you are playing host to a known group of lesbians! If that is not enough you are apparently sharing your house with at least one young female, to whom I assume you are not related! If that is not bad enough you have been observed in the early hours of the morning saying goodbye to a female colleague with whom I observed you having an intimate meal!”

  The archdeacon paused for breath and Peter said nothing. Jasper continued, getting into his stride.

  “I’ve had complaints about your conduct at communion, not only do you turn up late but you are offensive to the churchwarden afterwards! I’ve had complaints that you are drunk on communion wine in the afternoon! I’ve had complaints that you want to squander the church’s money! I’ve had enough complaint to fill a filing cabinet and then there’s this!”

  Jo by now had walked back into the hall and been joined by Samantha. They both clearly heard the slap of paper onto Peter’s desk. Jasper was now almost shouting.

  “See the headline?! Riot at a wedding! See the by-line ‘Vicar Smashes photographers equipment’, good grief what are you thinking of man! Is that how a Priest is supposed to behave! And now, and now, I come to your house to have a quiet word with you and find that there is not one female here but two! Are you intending to start a brothel? You might as well you couldn’t bring the church into any more disrepute!”

  There was silence, followed by Peter’s quiet voice saying,

  “Are you saying you want me to resign?”

  “Call it damage limitation,” replied Jasper, “You’re the damage and I want to limit it!”

  At this point Peter must have realised that the study door was open and it closed gently.

  Samantha and Jo looked at each other. Samantha spoke first.

  “I guess we haven’t helped.” She could see that Jo was close to tears and didn’t know what to do, so she said the first thing that came in her head.

  “Shall we escape and have a cup of coffee to see how we can help?”

  Jo nodded. Samantha continued.

  “I’m in the studio flat over the garage; Peter was kind enough to let me stay there.”

  She paused as there was more berating from the archdeacon, they couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was clear. Jo swallowed b ack some bile.

  “Just let me put my makeup on and I’ll be over, I don’t want to be here when Peter comes out of the study.”

  They both then went through the kitchen to the utility room. Samantha crossed to the garage and Jo stopped to complete her ablutions.

  Ten minutes later Jo joined Samantha in the studio flat, she had never seen it before. Samantha was sitting at a table; the kettle was steaming nearby.

  “I’m Samantha, Albert and Harriet’s grand-daughter, call me Sam.” She stated flately.

  “I’m Jo, I clean for Peter. Well I used to clean for Peter, whether or not he will still want me is another matter.

  “Coffee?” Said Samantha.

  “Please, black with no sugar.”

  As Samantha made the coffee they discretely observed one another. Jo reckoned that Samantha was almost the nearest she thing had ever seen to a super-model, only Caroline would have the edge over her and that was probably due to the deportment of years. Samantha reckoned that Jo was the weirdest thing she had ever seen, and that included some of her student friends; sitting at the table with her make-up on she bore little resemblance to the petite figure that had disturbed her in the shower. And if anyone needed plastic surgery she did; how on earth did she live with that nose? Samantha cleared her throat.

  “I’ve been drawing up a letter to the bishop.”

  “The bishop?”

  “Well I think the archdeacon has his mouth open and his ears closed.”

  Jo nodded.

  “I’ve never seen him before and he does look like Mr Angry. The Bishop on the other hand does look approachable. What does the letter say?”

  “I haven’t finished it yet, but I think if we say to the Bishop that we were totally to blame and that Peter was unaware of our shenanigans then we might get him off at least one hook. Is he as bad as the Archdeacon says?”

  “No,” said Jo staring into her coffee cup, “I think he is one of the loveliest men I have ever met, he’s just a little… ”

  Jo ran out of words.

  Samantha said quietly.

  “Do you fancy him?”

  Jo looked up.

  “The likes of good men like him don’t look u
pon the likes of people like me.”

  “But do you fancy him?”

  Jo looked out of the window.

  “If I did I wouldn’t know how to get alongside him.”

  Samantha, with all the certainty and honesty of youth decided on a direct approach.

  “Well, you could try and look more approachable.”

  Jo shuffled in her chair.

  “I feel comfortable as I am.” She said half-defensively.

  Samantha replied softly.

  “You might like it that way, but does he like it that way?

  Jo drank some coffee and sighed.

  “In any case this is all academic: I think he might have designs on someone else, someone more suitable. Now, what about this letter?”

  And they set about composing a grovelling letter to the Bishop.

  Meanwhile the Archdeacon had left, or rather stormed out, and Peter was sitting with Aquinas in the study trying to work out just what went wrong and when. He fondled Aquinas’ ear, “well old boy it looks like we’ll be looking for a new home sooner than expected, shame really I was beginning to like it here.”

  Then it occurred to him that he had better warn Jane. Thankfully he knew that she was not at home but antique shop crawling with her sister. He reached for the phone and dialled her mobile number; this was her private phone. She answered fairly swiftly.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello Jane its Peter.”

  “Oh.”

  “Jane I think I’d better warn you that Jasper is on the warpath.”