The Girls' Book of Priesthood

by Louise Rowland

  The Angel Gabriel from heaven came

  His wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame

  Margot has never seen the church this full, the aisles, the west end and east end all humming. Anyone who’s anyone is here, plus what Jeremy calls the post-pub ‘one in 365’ lot and passers-by who just fancied a little ooh-aah festive flavour. They’ve had to bring in extra seating from the Kool Gang’s club. Tommy had to arm-twist a few loyal regulars, otherwise several important posteriors would have had to squeeze onto plastic chairs designed for five-year-olds.

  She watches Jeremy stride to the lectern, Tudor-resplendent in his gold brocade, his face split in a grin.

  ‘Family. That’s what Christmas is all about. The Holy Family, of course, as we all picture the arrival of baby Jesus in that humble manger, with his proud new mum and dad gazing on. But also our own families. All of us coming together, arguments and petty differences put aside to drink deep of the miracle of love.’

  Margot’s suddenly glad she isn’t in his sight line on hearing this. She’s revisited that conversation with her father in her head repeatedly over the past few days. Part of her arguing that the right – Christian – thing would have been to have somehow trekked over to be with them tomorrow and given him their happy families scenario. The major part of her insisting she should avoid that kind of emotional assault course.

  She looks back over at the congregation. Kath catches her eye and smiles. Her invitation to Christmas lunch demonstrating once again the generosity of so many people here. Several other people are also smiling up at her. This is her family, isn’t it? The people she sees, talks to, cares for, even disagrees with, week in, week out, with whose lives her own is now woven. Even that woman who never comes to Margot’s side of the altar is looking at her warmly. All these people with their messy, complicated, normal lives, just like hers; their dreams and fears, their insecurities, their imperfections, their constant striving to do better next time. She’s been privileged over the last few months to be a part, however small, of helping to share God’s love with them.

  All these people drawn here tonight by something, by some, possibly, indefinable force. All seeking in their own way a sense of celebration, community or peace.

  ‘In the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  Jeremy walks back from the lectern, giving a tiny nod towards his watch. She glances at her wrist. People in the congregation start nudging each other, a ripple running through the pews.

  The pealing begins above them, clear and confident in the star-studded night.

  He is here. The Christ Child has come.

  Chapter 8

  Early January 2017

  It feels like icy splinters are filling every corner of the draughty barn on Aberdeen Avenue. Sometimes when she’s forcing herself out of bed for early communion, this place makes Mildmay Grove seem like the Elizabeth Taylor Suite at the Savoy.

  Still, what the plummeting temperatures and the dull January light – and the fact that they’re now back in Ordinary Time after Christmas – tell her is that she’s almost halfway through. Just over six months to hold her course steady and retain her sanity.

  New Year’s Resolution Number One: keep trying with Roderick. He can’t help having the sourness of ten-day-old milk. She’ll be a priest on the cusp of retirement herself one day. God willing.

  Two: avoid that spa outing with Gwen at all costs. Be gracious and grateful but, above all, be unavailable. Maybe she could donate the voucher at Jeremy’s next fundraising raffle? Although who’s going to buy tickets to spend five hours with Gwen in a swimsuit? She stops, appalled at hearing herself think that.

  Kindness. Compassion. The harder it is, the more it’s needed.

  Three: avoid any Soulmates outings at all costs.

  Four: Cyd. She sighs and sketches in a row of question marks.

  Five. She walks over to her window and leans her forehead against the freezing pane. Delete all thoughts of that insanity on the ice rink. The very last thing she needs in her life right now.

  She opens her eyes, walks back to the mirror and clips her collar in place.

  Six. Don’t screw up her first solo baptism on Sunday afternoon.

  Normally it’d just be funerals in this first year, but as Jeremy’s going away for a couple of days, he seems happy to bend the rules a little. She didn’t probe more about his trip because she sensed the cordon. One thing she has noticed: he’s reduced his biscuit intake by a third.

  ‘Bit of an emergency baptism,’ he says, when they’re sitting in the vestry later that day.

  ‘I spent an hour on the phone with the mother a few weeks back explaining that it wasn’t possible do a christening on Christmas Day morning, no matter how much she was prepared to contribute to the heating fund.’ He wipes his forehead with a rueful smile.

  ‘She wasn’t happy. Said the baby had been down for Rugby since the first scan, so how could it be so hard to fit in a little baptism at her local church? I was worried she might get on the phone to Lambeth Palace, but I managed to convince her that the third Sunday after Epiphany would be even better, as it’s the season focusing on the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ – and that Eastern celebrations celebrate His baptism in the Jordan River. She seemed to like the exotic twist.’

  ‘So that makes the friends and family the Magi bearing gifts?’

  ‘Coming from all over the shop, apparently. St Mark’s might find itself on the pages of Hello! yet.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ snarls Roderick, eyeballing Margot.

  ‘What’s that buzzing sound?’ asked Jeremy.

  ‘Oh sorry, mine.’ She pulls her phone out of her bag. ‘Hi, sorry I’m just––’

  ‘It’s raining men, hallelujah!’

  ‘Not now, Clarissa.’

  ‘There’s been a Noah’s flood of interest. It was my brilliant profile-writing wot did it. Maybe the fact that you’re in a “caring profession”. Men love to be coddled. Listen to this. “Hi there Mary, from one old soul to another.” So we need to draw up a top five.’

  ‘Gotta go, Clariss. Just pick one for me,’ Margot whispers, aware of the interest around her.

  ‘Someone doing your shopping for you?’ Jeremy asks.

  ‘Kind of.’

  Just sometimes, Clarissa makes her feel like a ball of play dough in the hands of a furious child.

  She gets home much later usual, because the PCC meeting ran on so long. Amazing how much time fourteen people can spend debating the right volume for clock chimes. Even more amazing that someone would complain in the first place. Yet she knows, of course, that for some of them, these meetings are a date in their diaries to look forward to, a free evening’s entertainment. By the time they got to the subcommittee reports and Vicar’s Matters, Margot’s stomach was performing Tubular Bells. She’d started playing PCC bingo, one point for every time started a response with ‘yes, but’, but stopped when she caught Gwen looking down at the page. The evening was topped off by the fact that she was hassled yet again by that homeless guy outside Boots. Look at her in her collar; she’ll be good for at least a fiver.

  All she wants is egg on toast and an early night. But when she walks into the kitchen, Nathan is sitting at the table, running his finger around the rim of a whisky tumbler. There’s a tangle of football socks and name tags next to him.

  ‘You’re late, Margot. Can I tempt you?’ he asks pointing at the bottle.

  It’s a plea rather than an invitation. How can she say no?

  ‘Sure.’ She pulls out the stool opposite him.

  ‘Could I ask you a small favour?’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s, well, a little bit unusual.’

  Frantic rustling breaks out from the hamsters’ cage in the corner. What does he have in mind? Bagging up any possessions Elspeth may have left and taking them to Oxfam? Begging her to return to the bosom of family? Rating his attractiveness in the north London new-divorcé stakes?
/>   She waits. Nathan downs some more whisky.

  ‘It’s the boys.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They’ve got head lice.’

  Margot laughs. She can’t cure leprosy either.

  ‘Elspeth used to deal with all that. They came home with some alarmist note from school and then I saw Josh’s head was crawling. I just thought you might have some idea how to deal with it because, well…’

  She’s female?

  ‘I can Google it.’ He looks sheepish.

  ‘It’s just one of those things you realise you know nothing about.’

  This is Margot’s cue. Her early night recedes into the distance. She reaches for the bottle.

  ‘Jeremy didn’t say too much about what happened with Elspeth,’ she says carefully.

  ‘I’m pretty thin on detail myself.’ He picks up a needle with a stubby thread attached and runs his finger over the point. ‘Wife bored/miserable/premenopausal/deranged. Tick as appropriate.’

  She waits.

  ‘Whatever. Wife falls for big swinging dick three doors down. Wife and big dick run off into the sunset. Husband and kids cry and mope and then, well, try to rebuild their lives.’

  He swipes his hand across his forehand. There’s no sign he’s going to embroider this brutal summary. The light from the microwave glints green in her glass.

  ‘And, well, do you, the children see much of her?’

  ‘The lawyers are poring over the details. The kids see her occasionally. That’s all she seems to want.’ He looks up at her, his eyes red. ‘Big dick taking up too much of her time, apparently. Not that I’d ever tell the kids that. We’re trying to keep it civilised.’ He drains his glass. ‘My arse.’

  Jeremy said it’s been about six months, but, as she knows more than anyone, there’s an ineluctable law that says time telescopes in direct relation to pain suffered.

  The needle point threatens to draw blood from Nathan’s finger. A small vein is flickering at the side of his temple. She’s desperate for him not to cry.

  ‘I’m so sorry it’s all been so hard, Nathan.’

  She reaches across and squeezes his hand.

  ‘Why don’t I get us some coffee?’ She pushes back the stool. ‘You know what. It would be a pleasure to have a crack at those nits. A little light extermination can’t be that hard. I’ll just imagine they’re my least favourite members of the congregation.’

  He nods, swallowing hard.

  ‘I can even write a sermon about it.’ She pours some coffee into the filter. ‘I was worried you were going to ask me to sew on those name tags. My needlework teacher was some kind of psychopath. I can still smell the staircase leading up to the room.’

  ‘There was one other thing.’

  She glances back at him.

  ‘Could you keep an eye on Cyd? This whole – you know – has knocked her sideways.’

  She nods, her grip tightening on the mugs.

  ‘I can’t tell you how worried I am about her.’

  ‘It’s a tough age,’ she replies, wincing at the cliché.

  Nathan smiles up at her.

  ‘I have a feeling you’re going to heal this family of ours somehow.’

  She hands him his coffee, tongues of apprehension flickering inside her.

  She lies in bed later that night, looking at the little altar of Christmas presents still sitting in the same place on the floor by her bed a month on. Baroque earrings from Sal and Kath, scores of scented candles from Kool Gang parents, a tasselled scarf from Jeremy, anticipatory frilly knickers from Clarissa and, of course, nothing from Roderick, even though she was half expecting a cooking apron with Women’s Work emblazoned on the front.

  And hidden right at the bottom, glowing like toxic waste, the envelope from Gwen. She shudders. There’s the right thing to do and then there’s the impossible.

  She pulls her laptop onto the duvet. No one’s around for a chat, not even any of the POTTY lot. This is the loneliest time of day. Particularly tonight, after that conversation with Nathan. She turns off the light, then a few minutes later, sits up and flips open her laptop again.

  Vic-i-leaks: Scenes from Parish Life, 20 January 2017

  You’ve just staggered through Advent and Christmas and now here’s Epiphany to deal with. I don’t mind being busy, though. It’s the fiery-breathed dragons that do my head in. You just feel like saying, ‘Bugger off, Winifred, and give me a bit of peace, will you?’ Maybe I’m suffering from Parma-violet poisoning? One old trout gave me a bottle of Charlie she must have been hoarding since the Silver Jubilee. And all these comments on how I look. So what if I like to wear bright purple heels under my surplice? Some people need to bog off and Get a Life.

  She clicks again.

  Vic-i-leaks: Scenes from Parish Life, 27 January 2017

  The Spanish Inquisition were amateurs. I had to spend four hours – FOUR HOURS – next to some whiskery old dragon interrogating me about my sex life. I know most of them haven’t had a whiff of action since the Blitz, but if I hear anyone else say ‘you’d make a lovely mum’ I’ll commit geronticide.

  It’s rapidly turning into her guilty pleasure.

  Roderick seems furious, deep chevrons bracketing his mouth. He won’t look at her as they’re robing up. It’s not her fault the vicar asked her instead of him. Maybe Jeremy wanted to reduce the risk of the baby’s head bouncing off the altar step.

  She’s in the porch chatting to the tenor when the baptismal family make their entrance. Jeremy’s thumbnail was spot on, she realises. Carmen, stick-thin in expensive neutrals, and a labradoodle – which she refuses to leave outside – under her arm. Slick-haired Hugo, scrolling through his BlackBerry as they run through the order of service. She wonders whether they took her for the office secretary at first, as though everyone on the clergy team wears a dog collar, just like everyone working at Sainsbury’s wears orange and purple. It takes some nimble footwork to convince then of the unique symbolism of a woman carrying out a baptism, including referencing the Madonna and Child and the pouring on of the waters of life. There’s also an awkward moment when she takes them to the font and Carmen has clearly been expecting fifteenth-century craftsmanship, rather than a battered silver bowl perched on a scruffy wooden table.

  Nothing in her eight years of study and training have prepared her for the terror of this. The entire congregation is now watching her trying to juggle baby Oscar into a more comfortable position without dropping him or prompting him to throw up all over her surplice. He’s far heavier than she expected: a plump putto straight out of Raphael, dressed in what looks like expensive oyster silk. Two hundred pairs of eyes are clocking her every move, gasping every time the baby wriggles. All these cloths and jugs and balms to negotiate with a writhing eight kilos in your arms. She can’t even wipe her hand dry on her robes. Oscar’s tiny fat fingers are clamped tight around her collar as though even he knows he’s got the rookie. This must be how a bomb-disposal expert feels removing their first live pin. Talking of which, Roderick’s supposed to be on standby support, but he’s stayed way over by the altar rail, arms crossed, a tight smile on his face.

  At least Jeremy will be thrilled when he hears how many are here, particularly as Carmen and Hugo have not only paid for the flowers and the service sheets and the post-service canapés, but also donated a healthy cheque for ‘sundry expenses’. The vicar loves these cheques most of all.

  ‘In baptism, God calls us out of the darkness into his marvellous light. To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.’

  Margot beckons the baptismal party to form a semi-circle in front of her.

  ‘Parents and godparents, the Church receives Oscar with joy. Today, we are trusting God for his growth in faith. Will you pray for him, draw him by your example into the community of faith and walk with him in the way of Christ?’

  ‘With the help of God, we will.’

  Their voices ring out pitch-perfect, tutored no doubt by Carmen.


  Margot reaches for the jug of baptismal water, her hand on Oscar’s head. The symbolism of the moment is intense, the water heightening the touch of the priest’s hand on the baby like an electrical connection.

  She glances down at the whispering biddies in the second row, probably speculating about how that nice young curate feels to be cradling a baby and wouldn’t she secretly like one of her own, it’s not natural, is it, everything topsy-turvy. She glances over towards the French family who held their own baptism here last autumn and look like they’re comparing notes. At the elderly goateed American next to them who––

  She gasps. Fourth row back on the family’s side. Denim jacket, pink shirt, tortoiseshell glasses. Head down, reading through the service sheet.

  Baby Oscar gets so much water thrown over his head, the antique silk gown becomes drenched and one of the godfathers has to rush off for a muslin cloth. Margot mouths apologies and stumbles on with the service, mind unspooling.

  ‘Oscar James Wilson, I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ agrees the congregation.

  Oscar arches his back, jerks forward and pokes Margot in the eye, then lets out an enormous howl. Indulgent titters break out below. Roderick stares straight ahead. She runs her hands under the silky folds and plops the baby back into his father’s arms. Even as she struggles to compose herself, face flushed, she’s aware of small pops of euphoria inside her.

  She has just completed her first baptism welcoming another human being into Christ’s grace.

  And Felix is sitting a few feet from where she’s standing at the altar.