‘Yeah, no, no, but you gotta say, he’s a class act?’
‘OK. So maybe he’s a Philippe Starck power tool.’
‘Ha ha ha! So gonna tell him that!’
They stop outside the house. Wahey! Awkward goodbye klaxon!
All around the Close Freddie can hear singing. Like, bird arias? On the rooftops. In the trees. And here’s this actual golden laburnum, dripping down golden flowers over their heads, and maybe it’s gonna rain, and maybe not?
‘So, uh, Totty’s expecting me for dinner? Catch you later?’
‘See you, Freddie.’
Freddie lets himself in. He runs up the stairs, heart hammering as if this is a karate contest about to happen. He pauses on the landing and looks across the Close. Aw. There he goes. Freddie rests his forehead on the pane and laughs. Philippe Starck power tool! Guy totally kills me? Plus he’s got that big-but-gentle vibe going on? I mean, not normally my thang, obviously – coz hey, why fall for sweet guys, when there’s emotionally unavailable bastards out there happy to fuck with your head? But?
And now, randomly he’s remembering his frog, Trevor, his pet, back in the day? How you had to hold him, gently, under the armpits. You had to not squeeze him, but still hold him firmly, so he didn’t keep jumping out of your hand?
Ambrose passes the broderers’ room. Freddie sees him run his hand along the lavender hedge in front of the canon chancellor’s house.
Not thought about it for like ever, but weirdly, Freddie can almost feel that frog? His skin? How his little heart pulsed under your fingertips? How you could crush him, but you never would? Man, loved that little dude so much. But then he died? And Dad was all, well, you didn’t look after it properly, son. I warned you. You didn’t clean the tank, did you, like I told you? No point crying like a girl. It was your responsibility. No, you’re not getting a puppy now. You can’t be trusted.
Freddie stays watching till Ambrose has vanished through the archway into Vicars’ Court. And he’s crying like a girl again. Yeah, thanks for that, Dad. You were all, prove to me you can be trusted, son, then we’ll talk. I was seven years old! And you totally stood by and let it happen, let that frog die, just to teach me I can’t be trusted? Guess I got that lesson down, didn’t I?
The birds sing. The golden blossom hangs. Freddie leans his forehead on the glass and weeps. And somewhere else entirely in the diocese of Lindchester there are canal boats gliding at field height through corduroy ridge and furrow meadows. There are little tributary rivers – the Marton, Whistle Brook, the Carding – winding through fields fuzzed with rushes. Somewhere there’s a pair of peacock butterflies flirting round the gorse. There are crows following the harrowing tractor, and a bank of cowslips.
And maybe it’s going to rain, and maybe not.
On Thursday morning, a sporty black Mini pulls up in a car park in Martonbury. Hold onto your zucchettos, everyone! True to my prediction, Downing Street has just issued the following:
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Matthew Tyler as Suffragan Bishop of Barcup.
The bishop-designate arrives at the Martonbury foodbank, to help serve guests. He goes on to visit St Eadburh’s School in Barcup, to dedicate the new Mindfulness Garden and Labyrinth. His wife is not present. She has a full-time job. She attended the welcome meal the night before, and that is quite enough stuffed-shirtery for anyone.
If you check the diocesan website, you’ll see that the Bishop of Lindchester, the Rt Revd Steve Pennington, is delighted that Matt has been appointed. He states how much the diocese will benefit from Matt’s many gifts as a pastor and strategist.
STRATEGIST!
Cue sinister chords on the Father Willis! Let all who have hands commence to wring them liberally.
We do not favour this love affair with strategy. We have serious reservations about the way things are going in the diocese of Lindchester. It is symptomatic of the entire Church of England – Lindchester as microcosm, if you will.
For who would have dreamt when Dr ‘Safe-pair-of-hands’ Palgrove was appointed as archbishop of Canterbury, that he would suddenly display such urgency for renewal and reform? Was he not put in as a nightwatchman? He has no business trying to reverse-sweep sixes all over the ground. He and Rupert of York (may he give battle in vain!) seem hell-bent on bypassing existing synodical structures (worrying precedent!) to push through their top–down agenda. Top–down! Since when was salvation top–down? And when did our Lord ever have a strategic plan for evangelization, pray? Well, apart from when he appointed the seventy, and sent them out in pairs ahead of him to all the places he was planning to visit, and gave them detailed instructions about what to say and do. Apart from that, when did he?
And now look at Lindchester! The rot set in with Paul Henderson. Until Paul Henderson, Lindchester had always been a gentle middle-of-the-road catholic sort of a diocese. And after him came Slick Steve – who has gone and appointed a suffragan in his own image! At least when Bob Hooty was in post there was someone to put the other point of view, to be a voice crying out in the wilderness that this is all too hasty. But now who’s left on the senior staff to sound a note of caution about the course we are on? To complain that it’s all too theology-and consultation-light, and too management jargon-heavy? Who will speak up and say that the soul of Anglicanism is in peril, that we are selling our birthright for a mess of business pottage?
Ah, how different things might have been, had Guilden Hargreaves been appointed to the See of Lindchester instead of Stevangelical. He would have valued vocation above recruitment. He wouldn’t have imported non-biblical categories like ‘discipleship’ into our discourse, over and above traditional scriptural terms like ‘inclusive church’. Guilden would have been a shepherd to the diocese, not a CEO! True, he might not have been able to augment ‘serious reservations’ with ‘practical solutions’; but to lament and to act are such divergent charisms, it is wrong to expect any single personal statement to combine them.
#ThyKingdomCome The ‘great wave of prayer’ for Evangelism During Pentecost ripples through the still waters of the Lindchester diocese. There are some who greet the invitation to pray with joy. Others have a bit of work to do. They may not care for the stable, but in the end, they find a way of backing the prayer pony. If you follow the hashtag, you will get a flavour of what’s going on across the diocese.
Lindchester Cathedral is not hosting a Beacon Event, but there is a Lord’s Prayer trail which you may explore. In Lindford parish church, Father Dominic and his congregation have been using the Novena booklet (with a Farsi translation) and lashings of incense. It is discovered by accident that labradoodles will eat Prinknash charcoal if it’s left lying about the vestry. Father Wendy and her curate Virginia organize a prayer walk around Cardingforth and Carding-le-Willow. In Risley Hill they host a big bless-up and invite the Holy Spirit along. The worship band sings how grade is our guard. Josh, the pioneer minister on the Hollyfield estate in Martonbury, baptizes a family of five in a birthing pool; and someone pinches the collection money.
*
On Pentecost Sunday morning in Lindchester Cathedral, the choir sings Elgar’s ‘The Spirit of the Lord’, of course.
‘He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind . . .’
The people come up for communion. Light streams through stained glass and spills in rainbows on them as they pass. ‘So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.’
And all over Lindfordshire, the petals drift from apple trees. Gently. Very gently.
Chapter 20
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost . . .
ather Ed is in his study trying to say his morning office. It’s like having a Sankey and Moody jukebox in the kitchen! He reminds himself that Neil will be heading for the station shortly.
‘Count y
our many blessings, name them one by one!’
Ed should count his blessings, of course. They are manifold. Creation, preservation, all the blessings of this life . . .
‘And it will surprise you what the Lord has done!’
. . . but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world . . .
‘Are you ever burdened with a load of care?’ Neil sticks his head round the study door. Booted and suited for London. Ed gets a waft of bespoke aftershave.
‘Frequently,’ replies Ed. ‘Are you off?’
‘In a minute.’ Neil comes and sits in the other tatty Dralon armchair. His gaze scorches over the naff coffee table between them, with its box of pastoral tissues and bowl of pebbles from a Northumbrian beach. Ed’s study is the one remaining pocket of resistance to Neil’s aesthetic reign.
‘Listen, I’ve been thinking, big man.’
‘OK. What is it?’
‘I’ve been thinking I should maybe find another church to go to.’
Silence.
‘Because I’m driving you mad. Ah ah ah. Don’t argue. You know me – I can’t not interfere and tell you how to do your job. But the thing is, I need to be involved in a church that’s actually doing something.’ Neil pauses. ‘No offence.’
‘Oh, none taken.’
‘Och, you know what I mean, Eds.’
‘Yes. You mean I should run an Alpha course.’
‘Well, you should. But we’ll not argue,’ says Neil. ‘So anyway, I’m asking for a recommendation. Where will I find the right kind of church for me?’
‘Hmm.’ Ed strokes his chin. ‘Which of my colleagues has pissed me off recently?’ He ducks out of the way of the cushion. ‘OK, if you want a lively charismatic church, there’s Risley Hill. Brr!’ Ed shivers. ‘Or St Mary’s, Martonbury. Oh, and St Mary’s have got a church plant, if you want something a bit more edgy.’
‘Ooh! We like edgy.’
‘We’re talking “pioneer ministry” here. This is the Wild West of Fresh Expressions. I hear they all wear WWJD Stetsons instead of vestments.’
Neil looks sternly at him. ‘These are your brothers in Christ, Eds. What?’
‘Nothing. I’ll find you the details.’
‘Cheers.’ Neil leans forward and rummages in the pebble bowl, as though they’re Quality Streets and he’s after the golden penny. ‘Ah, one more thing: what’s a reader?’
Ed considers, and rejects, a comment about vocations for frustrated women of a certain age. ‘Well, it’s a non-ordained ministry. There’s a two-year reader training course, and then the bishop licenses them to preach and lead services. Why?’
Neil tosses the pebble back and gets to his feet. ‘No reason.’
They hold one another’s eye. ‘OK,’ says Ed.
‘OK. Well, I’m away.’ Neil blows him a kiss and leaves.
The front door closes, and the Porsche roars off. Ed is safe to laugh out loud. Oh Lord! He shakes his head. Neil, a reader? Yes, it does surprise him what the Lord has done, frankly. And unless he’s mistaken, the Lord has barely started.
Ed returns to Morning Prayer. But something niggles at him. Like unwashed hands, or a half-done chore. He pauses. It’s bloody Alpha, isn’t it? It’s not that he thinks Neil is right – he’s not – but Ed struggles to articulate why he is wrong in any way that doesn’t sound like Neil’s snootiness about Dralon armchairs. Which is ridiculous. Ed objects to Alpha on theological grounds, not because it’s naff. Although it is, of course.
A church that actually does something.
It’s not about doing, it’s about being! Ed wants to shout. He leans forward and picks up the pebble Neil has just tossed back. It’s round and flat, like the golden penny. A perfect ducks-and-drakes stone. How long does it take to wear a pebble away to a grain of sand? he wonders. Centuries? Millennia? This pebble might have lain on the beach when the old Northumbrian saints walked there. And now, here it is, in the hand of Ed Bailey, clerk in Holy Orders in twenty-first-century England.
He tries to imagine them – Aidan, Cuthbert, Chad. Missionaries to the pagan Anglo-Saxon tribes. All at once, the saints leave their illuminated pages and become real men who skimmed stones on real beaches. And he glimpses something like a family tree, a thread of light zipping back through the centuries linking him to them, and beyond them, through the Fathers, to the apostles – and Christ himself. It’s true, he thinks. I literally have a spiritual ancestry. Why has he never thought this before?
The Anglican family tree has many branches. Do we trace our recent lineage back to the Oxford Movement, to Lightfoot House liberalism, or to Holy Trinity Brompton? Or, giving our leather-bound Bibles a reformed and manly thump (underpinning the faithful proclamation of God’s word, and not forgetting the unique value of women’s ministry) do we trace ourselves directly to the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus?
Why does it matter, even? We are all still Anglicans, aren’t we?
Indeed we are. But like a bereaved family at the graveside fighting over Grandma’s rabbit fur coat, we sometimes lose perspective.
But let us draw back from the big questions. Our brief is to describe one small middle-England diocese. Is it true to say that with Captain Stevangelical at the helm, and Matt the First Mate on the deck, the good ship Lindchester has well and truly left the haven of Lothlórien and set her course for Nafftown? Next week sees the interviews for the two new archdeacons. It will not have escaped your notice that the archdeaconry of Lindchester will shortly become vacant, too. Once all four posts are filled, the bishop will buy a white Persian cat to stroke, and embark on the next stage of his bid for world domination.
Ah, Susanna Henderson, how we will miss you and your stain-removing prowess! I fear there will be blood on the oatmeal palace carpets before the year is out. Because play it whichever way you choose (and believe me, the bishop has played it every possible way as he lies awake at night), the restructure means people will be managed out of posts they have held comfortably for years.
But that lies in the future. For now, May dawdles across an un-suspecting landscape. Unmown rugby pitches are golden with buttercups. The first fiddle tops of new bracken uncurl, fuzzy with bristles like coiled caterpillars. It rains. Oh, the crowding-in grey and green of a wet English May, when puddles look trout-ringed, and roads are ghost-ribboned with tyre marks. Breathe in. What is that smell? Cow parsley and rowan blossom in the rain, nothing more. But to anyone who has ever sat an exam in England, this is the fetid stench of revision and dread.
Well, well, well. Here we are at last. Jane hangs her coat and bag on the stair-post acorn. Silence. Her morning was silent too. Exam invigilation. She looks round. Oak panelled hallway, woodblock floor. She opens a door with a big clacky wooden latch. The lounge. Stone fireplace. Cream walls. Beige carpet. Dents from furniture feet.
Jane goes all round the downstairs. She has no instinct for this, not a Pinterest bone in her body. She isn’t making notes for the decorator. Why bother? Magnolia throughout. She’ll tell everyone it’s Farrow & Ball Georgian Putty. She can live without those sunflower kitchen tiles; but other than that, she has no views at all.
She goes upstairs, clacks more latches and sticks her head into the empty rooms. Six bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Jane is meant to be choosing a study. Matt has a big downstairs study with separate access from outside, plus loo and mini-kitchen, so Jane won’t have to negotiate boundaries, or lock horns with his PA over kettle access.
The choice of study is this: front-facing, so she can see who’s coming and going; or rear-facing, with a view over the garden. She goes into one of the back bedrooms and looks out. Nice big lawn. Perfect for holding disgraceful champagne-and-shagging garden parties and scandalizing the neighbours.
She flicks a dead bluebottle along the sill. Dammit. This is meant to be fun. It has to be fun. Or she’s going to end up killing people.
I would love to steer Jane in Gene’s direction, so that he can mentor her in her new
role. Sadly, nobody else has thought of this. Bishop Steve has wondered whether Sonya might offer moral support? Matt headed this idea off. Ideally, the two bishops should swap houses. Sonya would be near to the kind of church she prefers. And Jane would enjoy the high-camp soap opera which is the Close.
Talking of which, how is Freddie doing? It’s Thursday afternoon. He finishes work at Vespas and heads up the hill. He’s halfway home when the heavens open. He has no coat, so he shelters in a doorway. Choice: late for rehearsal, or get soaked.
But wait, here comes a man with a big golf umbrella!
It should be Ambrose. That would be perfect. But it’s not Ambrose. It’s Bishop Steve. Too late to pretend he’s not seen Freddie. After a tiny hesitation, he gestures.
‘Nah,’ says Freddie. ‘I’m good.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
So Freddie ducks under the umbrella. Or kind of half under? Coz personal space? The rain drums down like on a tent. They set off like a bad three-legged race. Well, this isn’t at all awkward. Freddie does what he always does – blurts out a bunch of random crap?
‘Oh God, that plane going down?’
‘I know. Desperately sad,’ says the bishop.
‘Can’t get it out of my head? Like, they would’ve been still strapped in their seats?’
‘Probably, yes.’
‘And they’d be all, oh my God, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die? And they’d be in the brace position, with the plane falling, knowing they were all gonna die? Then BOOM!’
‘Er. Yes.’
Ah nuts, he’s coming across like some kinky disaster junkie, or something? ‘I’m only saying, coz that happened to me, when I was coming back from Argentina last time? Only not the actually dying, obviously?’ Stop now. Just stop.
‘That must’ve been completely terrifying, Freddie.’
The rain drums. It comes rushing down the cobbles like this is a river they’re wading up?
‘Yeah, only weirdly? No. It was like . . . In my head, even when everyone was screaming, right at the end, I was all, it’s OK, it’s OK. Gonna hit the ground running. And he’ll be running to get me? Like when you’re small, and you’re scared, and then you see your dad running to get you? Anyways, so we landed. Everything was fine?’ He laughs. Or tries to. ‘Yeah.’
Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3) Page 13