Fisher of Men

by Pam Rhodes

  “Are you ready?” asked Wendy, appearing at his side.

  Neil glanced around almost guiltily. Since the unexpected kiss under the mistletoe shared with Claire earlier that evening, his mind had been in more turmoil than ever. He still couldn’t understand exactly what had happened – why that kiss, which had started out as nothing more than an innocent piece of Christmas fun, had suddenly taken on a deeper dimension that neither of them had expected. It was probably just the sentiment of the season, an expression of care and goodwill between very good friends. No doubt they would laugh about it together when they next saw each other. There was certainly nothing to be embarrassed about – and yet, he felt a blush of guilt spread up his neck and across his cheeks as he turned to look at Wendy.

  He marvelled at the calmness of his voice as he spoke. “Yes, let me just switch the vestry lights out and I’ll be with you.”

  It was as he was walking to the vestry that he felt a stirring in his back pocket. Whoever could be ringing his mobile phone at this time of the morning?

  “Neil,” said a voice he soon recognized. “It’s Jean here, from Dale Court. I’ve got some sad news for you, I’m afraid.”

  “Elsie?”

  “She passed away about an hour ago.”

  “At midnight?” asked Neil, vaguely aware that his blood had turned cold in his veins.

  “Just after. She was the only one of our residents still awake, so I was sitting with her. She’d been fine, very bright, really – but once the clock had struck twelve, she said she was tired and thought she’d go to sleep. She laid back against the pillow, and by the time I’d got across the room to tuck her in, I realized she wasn’t breathing. It was as if she’d laid down to die. A nice way to go, I suppose, when you’re ninety-six years old.”

  Neil was unable to speak as tears filled his eyes. Elsie had gone home. That’s what she’d been telling him that evening. To her, Christmas was a triumph – and her homecoming to the God she loved would be triumphant too.

  “Neil? Are you still there?”

  He took a deep breath before speaking. “Yes. Do you need me to come over?”

  “Well, I know how close you two had become.”

  “Do her family know yet?”

  “I wondered if it might be better if you told them?”

  “And that should be tonight, of course. I’ll be right there.”

  Switching off his phone, Neil stood for a second, his head lowered.

  “God bless you, dear Elsie. I hope you are reunited with your beloved Lily, and with the God you both loved so much in life, and are now with for eternity. I will miss you. I will never forget you. Never…”

  And rubbing his hand across his eyes, he switched off the lights and hurried to tell Wendy the news.

  CHAPTER 12

  The locals said they got off with a particularly mild winter. A wet, dull January gave way to a mild February when carpets of snowdrops and crocuses heralded the Spring. Neil watched the trees in Vicarage Gardens sprout bright green leaves and clouds of blossom that transformed the ordinary-looking cul-de-sac into a fragrant oasis befitting its name.

  His working life had fallen into a pattern of services, home calls, school assemblies, visits to hospitals and residential homes, Confirmation classes, staff meetings, ecumenical gatherings and services, weddings, baptisms, various committees, paperwork, study, preparing and clearing up the church and the hall after one kind of event or another – then paperwork, more study and more paperwork.

  He also went off for regular training sessions, mostly just for a day or two, but on one occasion for a whole week, with other curates from the diocese. These post-ordination training sessions were affectionately known as “potty training”, when students like Neil – who, after three years’ study, had been ordained as deacons at a moving ceremony at St Albans Abbey in the summer of the previous year – were able to prepare for the equally important and solemn occasion in July this year, during which they would become fully fledged priests, able to take on all the duties of the role.

  Neil enjoyed these ongoing training sessions at which he met up with old friends, some of whom had been his fellow ordination students. Last summer they had left college full of mission and passion, ready to save the world. Not all of the students had gone on to work as curates in local parishes, but the majority of them certainly had, and it soon became clear that the reality of ministry in modern-day communities had knocked the edges off most of them, so that their initial enthusiasm was mellowing with experience.

  As the students discussed and analysed their relative postings, Neil listened to some of the situations others had to face and thanked God for the down-to-earth approach of his own vicar, Margaret. In comparison with others, it became clear that she was doing a very good job of protecting and guiding him where he still had much to learn, but that she also allowed him the actual experience he needed in order to take on certain aspects of the role alone. Dunbridge may not be the most exciting parish in the area, but all of life was there.

  “Have you decided to give up on this priest business yet?” demanded his mother during one of her all-too-frequent phone calls. “Or have you finally seen sense and worked out that you need to get a proper job?”

  “You said you approved of my choice of career when you were here,” retorted Neil.

  “You have very conveniently forgotten, Neil, the context in which I made that comment. Have you done what I suggested and made sure that you are noticed in high places – by the Bishop, for example?”

  “Not really. I’ve not done anything wrong, which is more than likely how he’d hear of me!”

  “But nothing to make you stand out in the crowd either? Typical of you, Neil! If you’re not prepared to get yourself noticed so that you can work your way up the tree, you’ll do nothing but scrape along the bottom, perhaps for years.”

  “Sounds good to me,” agreed Neil.

  “You could have a word with Wendy’s father. He may be able to give you a leg up in his accountancy firm. You can’t go wrong in a career like that. And if you’re thinking about getting married and starting a family…”

  “Which I’m not – at least, not yet.”

  “… you’re going to need a decent income and a home of your own. You must have something behind you to offer a girl. Why would she choose you otherwise?”

  “Good question,” said Neil. “Just as well I’m not considering all of that just yet.”

  “Why not? Aren’t you and Wendy getting on well?”

  “Perfectly well, thank you.”

  “You’re not stringing that poor girl along, are you, Neil? Clever girls like Wendy don’t come by often, you know. I remember both your sets of grandparents had a stern word with your father, just to make sure he didn’t let the best thing in his life slip away.”

  Neil was silent for a moment while he considered this.

  “Me!” Iris added. “Your father would have amounted to nothing without me by his side, encouraging and supporting him.”

  Remembering how, even as a young boy, it had occurred to him that his poor father seemed constantly hen-pecked, Neil thought it better to say nothing.

  “Neil! Are you still there?”

  “Sorry, Mum. I’ve got my eye on the clock because I’m needed at the church in ten minutes. I should go, really.”

  “Right, I’ll ring you tomorrow, then. Give my love to Wendy. Tell her to ring me again. I do so love her calls.”

  “I’ll tell her. Bye, Mum. Take care of yourself!” And switching off his phone, Neil heaved a sigh of relief.

  Later that evening, he was making coffee in Margaret and Frank’s muddled kitchen, in which he now felt completely at home. He’d even come to an understanding with the ill-tempered Archie. Neil acknowledged that the kitchen was Archie’s territory in which two-legged visitors were definitely not welcome – and Archie agreed to stay on the other side of the room from where he could stare threateningly at Neil without completely scaring th
e wits out of him.

  Neil took the tray through to Margaret’s equally cluttered office, where she was, as usual, searching through the mound of papers on her desk, looking for one particularly elusive letter.

  “It’s here somewhere, I know it is!”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A letter that came from the insurance company that covers St Stephen’s. I want you to read it.”

  “Why? Do we have a problem?”

  “Well, we might have – with our Boy George.”

  “How could we possibly have a problem with George? He’s a treasure!”

  “The insurance company might not think so, not when you read how they’ve worded the future requirements for our cover from now on. Oh, where is that blooming letter?”

  “How can a man who’s rung bells at this church for more than sixty years be a problem?”

  “His age. He’s eighty-four next birthday. The insurance company, in their wisdom, don’t think that anyone over the age of seventy should be in charge of heavy equipment.”

  “Over seventy? That rules out nearly half of our congregation!”

  Margaret looked at him sharply. “One of your many faults, Neil, is that you’re prone to exaggeration.”

  Neil grinned. “Correction! A third of our congregation, maybe, is over seventy – and probably three quarters of our bell ringers. But George? He’s evergreen! He’s got more energy than the rest of us put together.”

  “Well, if I can find that blasted bit of paper, you need to read what the insurers say. They’re not going to renew our cover unless we comply in every detail – and they’re sending an agent along this week… For heaven’s sake, where is it?”

  “It wasn’t an email, was it?”

  Margaret looked up immediately, then crossed to her PC. Thirty seconds of anxious searching through her inbox brought a whoop of triumph.

  “Yes, here it is. Take a look for yourself! It’s from their agent, Charlie whatever-his-name-is, who’s apparently in this area on Tuesday morning, so he plans to pop in for a visit.”

  Neil started to read over Margaret’s shoulder as she went on.

  “That’s tomorrow – my day off, of course. And as much as I’d dearly love to do battle with the insurance man, I can’t cancel my arrangements this week because Sarah will be so disappointed. This second pregnancy is really laying her low, you know. At times like that, you need your Mum!”

  “So you want me to…”

  “Meet the man and save the day!”

  “Not much, then!”

  “Consider it all as part of your training, Neil. St Stephen’s has had bells for three centuries. It’s your job to keep them ringing.”

  “Even if that means without Boy George?”

  Margaret looked at him scornfully. “Don’t be ridiculous! They can’t possibly ring without George. You won’t have to do much. Just tell that insurance jobsworth what’s what. He’s got to sort himself out and re-issue our cover.”

  “Right.” Neil sounded very doubtful.

  Margaret laughed. “And if he’s got any problem with that, I can speak to him the next day. Just remember, we are the customers, and the customer is always right!”

  It took several phone calls and a master plan to pull it all together, but by half past ten the following morning, Neil was standing in the porch of St Stephen’s, ready to greet Charlie whatever-his-name-is (it was actually Nelson), with the sun shining on the bell tower from which the best peal in St Stephen’s repertoire was ringing out across the town. He was getting a little anxious as the church clock clicked round to twenty-five to eleven before a smart, top-of-the-range saloon car purred into the churchyard. Shielding his eyes from the sun as he tried to take a look at the driver, Neil realized that his palms were clammy and his knees shaking. He thought about what was awaiting Mr Nelson inside, and willed his stomach to stop churning in such an alarming way.

  At first he saw a pair of shapely legs in very high heels unfold from the car, then he gasped as he saw a tall, blonde woman ease herself elegantly from the seat and look at the church with interest. As her eyes panned the scene, she at last caught sight of Neil, and picking up her leather clipboard from the back seat, she clicked the remote control to lock the car and moved gracefully towards the totally mesmerized Neil.

  “Charlotte Nelson.” Her voice was attractively husky as she stretched out to offer Neil her hand. “And you don’t look like the Reverend Margaret Prowse!” she smiled.

  “No,” he stuttered in reply. “I’m the curate here at St Stephen’s, Neil Fisher. I’m terribly sorry that the Vicar can’t be with us this morning, but I’m sure I can help with anything you need.”

  “I’m sure you can, Neil,” she said, her vibrantly blue eyes looking him up and down between long shiny lashes. “Shall we begin?”

  Neil felt a bit like a puppy bouncing along behind her as she strode away into the church. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, her clipboard at the ready and her gold pen poised for action.

  “Let me start with your details. What’s your full name?”

  “The Reverend Neil Fisher.”

  “No middle name?”

  “Anthony.”

  Her lips twitched slightly at the corners.

  “So your initials are…?”

  “NAF. I know! I don’t think that word had any meaning when my parents named me.”

  “I should hope not!” And turning on her elegant heels, she closed the clipboard and marched into the porch.

  “Nice,” she commented, her head on one side as she waited for him to catch up and open the church door. “The bells. Nice.”

  “St Stephen’s is known to have one of the best bell-ringing teams in the county.”

  “Really?” she replied with no more expression in her face than a slightly raised eyebrow.

  This isn’t going well, thought Neil frantically. Three hundred years of bells and I’ll go down in history as the man who lost them!

  “In fact,” he started again, “you happen to have arrived just in time for bell practice. Let me introduce you to the team.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I just need to go through a few forms with you, make sure all the details and conditions are correct, take a look around to see if there are any undeclared hazards – and I’ll be on my way!”

  “Oh no, you won’t, dear!” The homely voice of Beryl, winner of the annual county WI cake baking competition for the past nineteen years, greeted Ms Nelson the moment she stepped into the church. “You’ve had a long journey. Hospitality to the stranger has been the ethos of St Stephen’s for centuries. You just pull up a chair and have a cuppa and a cake or two before you even think about work!”

  Neil suppressed a smile as Ms Nelson took in the scene before her. Stretched out in front of them along the back of the pews was a neatly laid table covered in a crisp white linen cloth which formed a backdrop for the most mouth-watering selection of cakes and pastries he had ever seen. Bone china teacups and saucers stood beside fluted-edge plates topped with embroidered napkins. Beryl stood beaming at them from beside the table, whilst a small efficient army of “ladies of the parish” bustled about cutting dainty triangle sandwiches and spooning whipped cream and fresh strawberries into cut-glass dishes beside platters heaped with freshly baked scones.

  The insurance agent was so astonished that she gave no resistance as Beryl gently but firmly frogmarched her to a seat.

  “And you, Neil!” Beryl ordered. “George and the team will be down presently – so tuck in, do!”

  Putting up no objection whatsoever, Ms Nelson plainly forgot any diet she might have been on. Faced with such an array, she was spoilt for choice, selecting first a scone with cream and strawberries, followed by a delicate lemon slice and a fluffy coffee-and-walnut cupcake and two refills of her china teacup. By the time the bell-ringers came down from the tower ten minutes later, she was already chatting animatedly to the circle of ladies who sat ar
ound her discussing recipes, memories of teatime favourites from childhood and the scandalous prices in shops today!

  Room was made at the table for the six bell-ringers, three men and three women with a combined age of nearly four centuries – and it was the most dapper and articulate of them who immediately took the seat right next to Charlie. Boy George had pulled out all the stops. He was dressed smartly in grey trousers with a razor-sharp crease down the front, a starched white shirt and his British Legion blazer. Neil guessed he’d even put an extra dollop of wax on his neatly curled moustache. His eyes twinkled dangerously as he planted a reverential kiss on Charlie’s hand. He hadn’t got to his eighties without knowing how to win over a lady!

  “George Sanderson at your service, dear lady. How kind of you to come!”

  He’s good, thought Neil with relief. He must have been as surprised as any of them that Charlie Nelson had actually turned out to be a woman – but for an old charmer like George, that only made the challenge more of a delight.

  “Neil tells me that you’d like to know something about bell-ringing?”

  “Well,” started Charlie, looking uncertainly in Neil’s direction, “I only need to know the bare facts, just for the paperwork…”

  “The bare facts, dear madam, are that when English bells ring, angels sing – but I don’t suppose your paperwork has a box for that. No, there’s only one thing for it! You must come up to the bell-tower with me and I can show you how beautiful the whole experience is.”

  “Oh, thank you, but I really haven’t got time for all that. I just want to…”

  “Have you ever been in a bell-tower – or tried ringing a bell?”

  “Well, no, I haven’t, but…”

  “And Neil also tells me that you are concerned that bell-ringing might be too much of a health hazard at my age for insurance cover?”

  “That’s a distinct possibility, yes…”