Felburgh

by Ivan B

  And so it was with all the council.

  Peter relaxed.

  “Thanks, but I will assure the council that before I baptize any child, except for emergency baptism, I will ensure that the parent or parents involved understand what baptism means.”

  There were nods all round. ‘This is too easy’ Peter thought.

  So it proved, the next item was the Church Missionary Giving. Following Peter’s introduction on why he felt the church should share it’s bounty with others the council fell into deep discussion. But they could not reach a decision; after half an hour Peter reckoned there were three camps. Firstly those who did not want to give at all; secondly those who wanted to give away a large number of small amounts; thirdly those who wanted to give a large amount to a small number of charities.

  Peter had the meeting pause for tea and coffee; the break proved illuminating as the council almost immediately split into two groups: the mafia and the rest. Once reconvened Peter tried to talk about the use of the warehouse, but it was useless there were just too many opinions and not enough reasoned discussion. In the end Peter called a halt to that item as well. That just left Any Other Business. The Major indicated he had something to say. Peter looked at him.

  “Is this urgent? I believe that it is normal practice to inform me of items for Any Other Business prior to the meeting.”

  “It is very urgent.”

  “Very well.”

  The Major came out to the front and read from a pre-prepared script.

  “I have been Churchwarden of this parish for over twenty years and in all my time here I have never had to do what I am having to do today. That is to propose that we inform the Bishop that this Council has no confidence in our vicar and wish to ask to Bishop to request his resignation.”

  Following the Major’s short statement there was absolute silence.

  “Do we have a second for that motion?” asked Peter caught off-guard and trying to gain some time to think.

  “Yes,” said Cameron.

  “Would the Council care to discuss this?” said Peter.

  But there was absolute silence.

  “Well then we’ll put it to the vote.”

  Albert put up his hand.

  “Secret vote please, Vicar.”

  So Marjorie handed out some little pieces of paper, telling people to just put a yes or a no or a cross for an abstention. Peter’s heart began to thump. After some passing of pens the papers were gathered up and Marjorie counted them. No one seemed to move; no one spoke. Finally Marjorie looked up.

  “Five for the motion and eleven against, one abstention.”

  Peter’s heart rate subsided and the Major looked like he’d just been hit with a pole axe.

  “We’ll close the meeting there I think,” said Peter, “but I will be writing to you all to call a special meeting just to discuss missionary giving and the warehouse. May God bless you all, please pray for me and for each other.”

  The meeting broke up with several members coming to see Peter and assure him of their support; they had been as surprised by the motion as Peter. Roger turned out to be one of them. He alllso glanced round and asked if he and Muriel could see him tomorrow. Peter nodded and Roger gave the thumbs up and slipped away.

  The Major was still sitting in his chair when most of the people left, but he stirred himself and came over to Peter after gathering his papers together.

  “I shall put my resignation in the post tomorrow morning,” he said still looking shell-shocked.

  “I won’t accept it,” said Peter.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you are the church’s choice for churchwarden and you do an excellent job. We have just got to work on our working relationship that’s all.”

  The Major replied somewhat stiffly, “I think you and I may have dichotomous views.”

  “But is that all bad?” said Peter, “it would be a terrible thing if the council were filled with all yes-men.”

  “I think I may still want to resign.”

  “George please go home and pray about it; I would hate the church to lose a valuable warden only one week into a new Church Council.”

  The Major nodded, and for a second Peter thought he was going to salute, but he walked straight out of the room.

  Tuesday morning Peter had his usual cup of coffee with Jo and they talked about Mothers and Toddlers.

  Peter mentioned in passing that he’d already picked up two baptisms and mentioned Carol. Jo went suddenly quiet. Finally she stirred.

  “Will you visit her at home?”

  “Does it make a difference?” replied Peter.

  Jo looked into her coffee cup for a time, and obviously came to a decision.

  “Peter I am not a gossip, but I don’t want you to put your foot in it.”

  “You mean you don’t want me to put my foot in it again,” Peter chuckled.

  “Something like that.”

  She licked her coloured lips.

  “But I won’t tell you anything that is not already in the public domain.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Jenny, Carol’s friend used to be called Jennifer Thornley before she was married.”

  Jo looked at Peter, he shook his head.

  “I’m sorry the name means nothing to me.”

  Jo sighed.

  “Jennifer Thornley the long distance runner.”

  Peter shook his head.

  “Oh Peter where have you been all your life! Jennifer Thornley was one of Britain’s most successful long-distance runners and won a gold medal in the Commonwealth games a few years ago.”

  Peter shrugged his shoulders.

  “Sorry I don’t follow athletics, does she still run?”

  Jo put her head in her hands and made an agrrh noise.

  “No she doesn’t run now. She was the darling of the athletics set, but a drug test proved positive for cannabis and she lost her gold medal. She appealed, but lost the appeal primarily because at the same time her boyfriend, a would-be pop star, proclaimed that there was no harm in pot and all people should smoke it. The tabloids tore her apart. She was then cited by a Hollywood actress as the reason why she had broken up from her boyfriend. The tabloids had a further field day and one by one Jenny’s so called friends sold their story to the papers adding more and more gore. In the end, Jenny sued a Sunday tabloid for liable. Carol was by her side the whole time; I remember the photographs. Carol had just come out of hospital after another back operation and must have been feeling considerably under the weather, but she stuck by Jenny throughout it all.”

  “Did Jenny win?”

  “Out of court settlements and a short apology in the bottom corner of an obscure page. But she didn’t win the major battle; although there was considerable doubt over the drug test as the laboratory admitted that it occasionally got athletes samples muddled with others from the police, she never ran again in any competition.”

  Jo paused, and then completed the story.

  “But one good thing came out of it all.”

  Jo smiled at Peter.

  “Jenny met Joe; he was her solicitor’s research assistant,”

  Peter smiled at Jo; he’d just realized that there was something different about her today. It took him a minute or two to figure it out, but in the end he realized that she was not wearing her usual garish make-up. It was still reasonable gaudy but the colors were not as deep as usual: the lipstick was cerulean with a red tint and the eye-make up was a pastel vivid blue. On a scale from grotesque to normal she had moved to the merely hideous; he wondered whether she had acquired a boyfriend.

  “Peter are you listening?”

  “Sorry.”

  “They all moved back here when Jenny and Joe married. There was no point in living in London anymore as Jenny didn’t need to train and Carol had been told by the hospital that they could do no more for her and that her nerves would never heal.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Jo
rolled her eyes.

  “Because there was a TV documentary on the effect of the mass media on individual’s lives and Jenny was one of the spotlighted cases. Don’t you ever watch TV or read the papers!”

  “Every day, but not the tabloids.”

  Just then the doorbell rang and Peter looked at his watch.

  Peter grabbed and squeezed Jo’s hand.

  “Thanks for telling me, I probably would have put my foot in it. Now I must see this couple.”

  When he had left the kitchen Jo smiled to herself. Samantha had been right, Peter did notice the make-up. As they had been talking she had noticed that he had stared at her face for a good two minutes whereas normally he looked anywhere but at her. Was this progress?

  Peter showed Muriel and Roger into the sitting room and Roger introduced Peter to Muriel. Peter noticed that he was introduced as Father Peter.

  “Just call me Peter.”

  “I couldn’t do that Father.” Was her immediate reply.

  Peter smiled.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Muriel looked at Roger, then at Peter.

  “Roger has told you of our relationship.”

  “Somewhat.”

  Muriel gave a another glance towards Roger.

  “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, we are just good friends. Roger would like to take it further and in my heart so would I, but there is a problem.”

  “Your husband?”

  Muriel nodded.

  “I don’t want you to get the idea that I am a flibbertigibbet or that I go around looking for men; Roger and I have just grown together as Jim has moved away from me. I didn’t go looking for it, it just happened.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Peter.

  Muriel sat in the armchair clutching her handbag on her knees and gazed out of the window.

  “I married Jim when I was seventeen and was very much in love. Jim was in the Army and was very handsome. We spent twenty years in army life and I loved it. Many of the wives hate it because of the constant upheaval and the fact that your life is totally governed by outside factors; but I loved it. When Jim left the army we came here and he set up as a locksmith: the army had offered him re-training before he left; there’s not much call for bombardiesr in civvy life. We never had children, but we enjoyed life together. Jim’s business was a success from the start; the timing was just right. He started the business as a local locksmith retired and Jim got several contracts almost at once. Times were good and we managed to have several very enjoyable holidays abroad. Then six years ago Jim fell down stairs. I heard him fall and I heard him swearing at the bottom of the stairs. He had hit his head on the hall wall but would not go to hospital, but he did look OK. Four hours later I was told that he had collapsed in the shop and been taken to hospital. He was in a coma; apparently a portion of bone from inside his skull had broken off and penetrated his brain. Blood had gradually oozed through the brain membrane into the skull cavity and eventually he passed out. They operated, but warned me there may be some slight brain damage.”

  Muriel looked at Peter with sorrow in her eyes.

  “But the Jim I knew died that day.”

  She gazed out of the window again;

  “He was in a coma for three and a half weeks and heavily sedated for two more. He was declared fit for work a month later. He may have been fit for work, but he wasn’t fit for life. He’d developed savage mood swings; one moment he would be a gentle as a lamb, and the next in a violent temper. He didn’t seem able to control it; to be honest I don’t know if he did want to control it. He lost job after job. Customers stopped coming back a second time. The business deteriorated as his mood swings increased. I tried to get him to see a doctor, but it was no use. Then one day he was arrested by the police for beating up a man on a petrol forecourt. The magistrate gave him a community service order as it was his first offence. A week later he clobbered his probation officer and was sent down for a month. He hadn’t been violent to me, but I could see the writing on the wall; so I left him.”

  Muriel looked at Peter again.

  “That was when I started working at the golf club.”

  Once again she resumed her window gaze.

  “Two months later my conscience got the better of me and I went back to try again. He said he would try to control his temper and even started seeing a doctor. It was like living with an active volcano; he would control his temper, but it was just as if the pressure kept building up inside, eventually there was bound to be an explosion. After one particularly violent row I left him again; he hadn’t touched me, but he had smashed up all my crockery.”

  Muriel returned her gaze to Peter who by now was getting used to this looking here and there.

  “I’d always liked Spode crockery, but it is very expensive. However some designs never change and I had collected a full dinner and tea service piece by piece over twenty or more years. He smashed it all up with an iron bar. He didn’t just smash it: he pulverized it. I saved just one sugar basin; twenty years of collecting for one sugar basin.”

  Then the shift of gaze and the story resumed.

  “I stayed away three months that time, but went back in the end, but I needn’t have bothered I didn’t last a week. I cooked a roast beef lunch on the Sunday, but I didn’t have it ready for exactly one o’ clock. That time he hit me – just once – and broke my jaw. I’ve not been back since.”

  Muriel stopped talking, but continued her window gaze. After a while Peter stirred.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Norwich jail. Apparently he went to a do-it-yourself store and could not find the screws he wanted so he had a rant at some poor store assistant. She called the manager who called the police. Somehow it all escalated and he set about the policeman with a pickaxe handle. He put four policemen in hospital; one had to leave active duty afterwards. He was sent down for twelve years, it was his sixteenth appearance before the court on one charge or another. He’ll serve the full term; there’s no good behavior, he’s already assaulted two prison guards.”

  Muriel finally looked at Peter.

  “But that’s not the point is it? I made a promise before God. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. We had the health, wealth and happiness bit, but now it’s the ‘worse’ bit . I meant those vows and just because I can’t stick by them it does not mean that I’m entitled to throw them away.”

  “Do you feel you’ve failed?” Peter asked gently.

  Muriel nodded as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “He was my man and I walked away from him in his time of need. What sort of wife does that make me?”

  “One who tried her best, but one whom circumstances conspired against.” Peter paused, “and you might consider that Jim has broken his ‘cherish’ part of the bargain and thereby has relieved you of any further obligation to keep your side of the bargain.”

  Muriel wiped her tears with Roger’s handkerchief, but kept crying.

  “Do you still love him?” Peter asked.

  Muriel shook her head.

  “I tried to, believe me I tried to, but it’s gone.”

  “And Roger?”

  Muriel nodded.

  “With all my heart.”

  She got up and walked to the window, turned round and faced Peter.

  “But my vows were to Jim and I cannot break those vows, they were made before God and with God.”

  She waved her hands around.

  “Father what do I do? I love one man, but have vowed to support another.”

  “Sometimes in marriages love dies.”

  “But that does not invalidate the vows. Especially ‘‘Till death do us part’.”

  “Do you think that Jim will ever let you in his life again?”

  Muriel sat down.

  “I used to hope so; I used to pray so. But I don’t think so now.”

  “Have you considered that there are many sorts of death?”

  “Ye
s Father, but that is playing with words, we all know the vow is referring to the death of life not the death of love or the death of a relationship.”

  Peter knew that they were starting to go round in circles and that he had to break the orbit.

  “Have you thought about a legal separation?”

  “What’s the advantage of that?” Muriel and Roger replied almost in unison.

  “It would acknowledge that you are no longer living with Jim as his partner and removes from Jim any obligations towards you as his wife. It would also place a monetary divide between you so that you could not be morally held responsible for each other’s debts.”

  They looked doubtful.

  “It would also mean that you could go out with Roger without it praying on your conscience.”

  Roger interjected.

  “But we still could not get married.”

  “No, but why not take one step at a time, with each step taken the next step may become clearer.”

  They talked for about another ten minutes, but did not cover any new ground. Peter then prayed with them before the session ended.

  Later that morning Jo went to leave and as usual say goodbye to Peter, but his study door was shut. This was highly unusual; in fact Jo could not remember it happening before. Jo let herself out and as she walked away glanced backwards through the outside window into the study. Peter was sitting in his old armchair with his tatty brown Bible on his lap. His eyes were shut and tears were rolling down his face. As she walked away she muttered to herself, ‘what sort of man takes a job where you have to bear other people’s pain and get little encouragement from those who are meant to support you?’ What Jo did not realize is that Peter was indeed crying for Muriel and Jim, but he was also crying for himself.

  The following morning Peter got a phone call from Mark; as usual he sounded cheery. His opening words were “Hi Peter, fancy taking a risk?” The risk Mark was referring to was going to The Fisherman’s Friend in the evening to meet Damian; apparently he wanted to apologize. After the previous week Peter should have hesitated, but as usual he let his heart rule his head and agreed. As soon as he put the phone down it rang again; this time it was Jane.