Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3)

by Catherine Fox

  ‘Lydia. Of course! Thanks.’ Martin snatched up his phone.

  Thirty minutes later, he had searched everywhere and rung everyone he could think of. His nerves groaned and twankled like a piano being shifted. He rang Leah’s phone again. Answer! Answer! Nothing. Texted: Where are you? Darling, ring me, I’m not angry.

  Jess was on the sofa, watching Fantasia, still in her anorak and her pink flowery wellies. He watched her staring at the screen as if she daren’t take her eyes off it, daren’t blink. As if this would magic Leah back. Outside, fireworks. Jess twitched at every explosion, but her eyes never wavered from the dancing mushrooms.

  I can’t just do nothing! thought Martin. He gnawed his fingernails. Where could she be? Think. Think! The seconds crawled past. He googled ‘Reporting a missing person’. If she’s not back in another thirty minutes, I’ll ring 101. He searched the house again, top to bottom, in case the open window was a decoy. All the time his brain bubbled with terrified prayer. He tried not to think of that photo. First day of big school. Tried not to see it in the papers, or on Twitter. Missing Girl.

  He stared at his phone. Do it.

  Ring her. Ring the girls’ mother. You can’t not ring her!

  Of course, Becky snatched up the welcome back cake, got in the car and drove straight there. For a moment she was on the doorstep, like a vampire that must be invited over the threshold. But then she was in.

  Jess clamped on like a koala to a tree. ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’

  Becky reached out to Martin. They locked hands.

  ‘Please can we make cinder toffee and a Second World War den under the table?’ asked Jess. ‘Like always?’

  ‘Of course, darling. If your daddy . . . ?’

  ‘Of course!’ Martin blew his nose. ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘Yay! I’ll get the pillows and duvets!’ Jess scampered upstairs.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Martin barked out a sob. He cleared his throat. ‘The police are coming. It may be a while though. Here’s the note.’

  She read it. ‘Shit.’

  ‘I’ve looked everywhere! What are we going to do?’

  ‘Ssh.’ Becky gripped his hand again and shook him. ‘We’re going to make cinder toffee. And just . . . hold it together. Until she gets fed up and comes home. Which she will.’ She bit her lips. ‘Oh, what have we done, Martin? Oh God, sorry, sorry, I’ve been so rubbish.’

  ‘No, no, this is my fault, not yours. I shouldn’t have—’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Martin. We’ve both been rubbish.’

  Fireworks crackled outside. They gripped hands tighter.

  ‘Most missing persons turn up within twenty-four hours,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘I know.’

  Boom! Boom!

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘She’ll come back.’

  ‘Yes. She will.’ But a groan, like a shout almost, broke out of her. She doubled over. ‘Ah God, my baby!’

  They could hear Jess coming down the stairs.

  Becky straightened, blotted her eyes. Looked round her. ‘Well. You’ve got it looking nice.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Right. I’ll start the toffee, then.’

  Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.

  Across the diocese of Lindchester some sleep, some wake. It sounds like war out there. Let it be over. Let it pass.

  Virginia lies awake and thinks of the asylum seekers for whom this night must be terrifying.

  Miss Blatherwick sleeps, shallow, fitful, fluttering at the edge of waking, like a moth at a window.

  The homeless wake or sleep, cocooned in old duvets in doorways and graveyards, in Lindford and Lindchester and Renfold, in every town across the whole of the UK.

  The dean lies awake and thinks of the restructure, and the finance officer who will not go quietly.

  Dominic’s mother sleeps in her new room, with her old things about her.

  Miriam wakes with a lurch when baby Noah cries. She fumbles wildly for him in the bed. Where is he? Where am I? Then she remembers: he’s in his cot. She staggers away, bouncing off furniture and doorframes. Oh God, let this stage pass. I have nothing left. She lifts him and slumps down in the chair to feed him. ‘Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.’ Noah breaks off his guzzling and stares at her. She smiles. He smiles back. A gummy milky beam. And for one moment everything, every single thing, is swallowed up in bliss.

  Martin and Becky lie in the wartime den under the kitchen table with Jess asleep between them. They listen to her soft breathing. Let Leah be safe. Let my baby be safe. Let this be over. At 1 a.m. they hear her key in the door.

  Later, all four of them lie in the den as the last stray fireworks rattle the night. And for now, this little refuge is everything.

  It is so cold. The first snow falls on the high places where Lindchester edges the Peaks. White water lies in dark ploughed fields. Tear-shaped leaves weep down from the silver birches.

  I have built a world where the tracks are set to converge on a happy ending. A little refuge where people fall, but not to their death; where strokes and heart attacks melt into nothing; where children vanish, but then come home. I cannot even kill a hamster. Becky will move to a rented house in Lindford. They will work something out. The girls will divide their time between Mum and Dad. It will not be perfect, but it will be all right. Fear not, little flock.

  But I can hear it, the gnash of slipping gears, the centre not holding. Mind the gap between the story and reality.

  *

  Dawn breaks on Tuesday 8 November. We are awake before America. We have gone on ahead, to see what will happen when the people choose.

  Jane knows in her bones what will happen. She waits for her train, head full of cotton wool, as if the stunning blow has already landed and she is standing already in catastrophe’s aftermath. It makes her think of guillotined heads in the basket, still seeing sky, lips still moving. Part of her just wants it to be over, wants that almost more than she wants Trump to lose. She is numb with having cared too much for too long. Maybe she’s protecting herself? At least this time I saw it coming. Hah, as if believing the worst somehow second-guesses fate, and makes it not happen.

  In the cathedral, the old saints totter to Morning Prayer. The retired clergy, Miss Blatherwick. The chancellor reads the Old Testament lesson: Belshazzar’s Feast. The writing on the wall. All the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing.

  The sun sets. Keep watch, dear Lord.

  It won’t happen. Because it can’t happen, so it won’t. Probably won’t (please don’t let it). The polls, the predictive websites, the early voting tallies – they all tell us it should be OK. It will be close – which will be bad enough. We will have a lot of soul-searching, a lot of work to do. There will be a nasty backlash, not doubt.

  The rain falls. Tapping at every window in the diocese of Lindchester. Like something we cannot understand wanting to get in.

  Dawn breaks on Wednesday 9 November. The dean of Lindchester looks out of her window. She is almost surprised to see the cathedral still standing there, among the fallen leaves. She listens. The pinging of rope on flagpole. A thin thread of wren song. Gene stands beside her, silent.

  ‘Dover Beach,’ she says. ‘It feels like Dover Beach.’

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  The tolerant liberal sea of democracy she has taken for granted – can they really be hearing its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar?

  How uncannily the lectionary readings have fallen out this week. Yesterday the writing on the wall, today the interpretation: ‘You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ The message that the wise in all their wisdom could not read. Project Liberalism has failed. Project Tolerance and Inclusion has failed.

  ‘I want to hide away,’ she says. ‘This feels like 9/11.’

  He puts his arms round her and kisses her
forehead. ‘“Ah, love, let us be true to one another.’”

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes.’ And later, the Eucharist. The table where we cannot unfriend, unfollow, block or mute our brothers and sisters. Eat. Drink. Love. We are all one body. We have to hang on to one another now. At all costs.

  And the days pass, as days will. Maybe it will settle down, like a shaken snowglobe of the Statue of Liberty. Like it did after the EU referendum. Sort of. In a rubbish way. Life goes on – as if nothing has changed, when everything has changed. There are people in shops and on trains talking about other things. Andy Murray’s the world number one! Have you seen the John Lewis Christmas ad? They trace some continuity between before and after, as if there were no intervening catastrophe. So perhaps we are wrong?

  What if half America just sent a goodbye note? You say you want what’s best for us, but you never listen. We have taken matters into our own hands.

  Is it the best of times, is it the worst of times?

  Is it the season of Light, is it the season of Darkness?

  Is it the spring of hope, is it the winter of despair?

  Are we all going direct to Heaven, are we all going direct the other way?

  It depends who you ask. But beloved, let us love. Let us throw down our weapons and be kind. Now. While we can.

  ‘What is all this stuff, Mother?’ asks Father Dominic. ‘I’ve never even seen half of it before!’

  They are sorting through a fusty old trunk.

  ‘Oh, wedding presents, and whatnot,’ she replies.

  He lifts things out one by one. Napkins. A canteen of silver cutlery. Pristine Irish linen tablecloths. Box after box of embroidered pillowcases, now splotched with age.

  ‘But you haven’t even opened the packaging on these!’ he says.

  ‘Well, they’re for best, aren’t they?’ she says. ‘I was saving them.’

  ‘For when, exactly?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. For best.’ She shrugs. ‘How should I know?’

  They stare at one another. ‘You do know you’re bonkers, don’t you, Mother dear?’

  ‘I’ll give you bonkers.’ She opens a flat black box. It contains six silver coffee spoons, each with a different coloured coffee bean on the handle. ‘Ooh, I’d forgotten about these!’

  ‘Exactly! Darling, if you pop your clogs now, you’ll end up never having used any of it!’ He picks up an armful. ‘Come along. We’re having tea. Best is now.’

  Chapter 45

  ven now, in post-Christian Britain, cathedrals draw the soul. There are times when we need to head for something far bigger and older than we are, and seek out a truth not relative to us, even while we disavow that possibility. Might there yet be a consolation we don’t have to conjure up for ourselves? These ancient buildings seem to wait like vast satellite dishes, eternally tuned to some other frequency, still picking up messages from home.

  Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears us on. Already the events of last week lie behind. We are still in the canoe, shooting the next rapid, and the next, without the luxury of processing what has just happened.

  Ah, maybe we should just stay off Twitter for a bit. Time out. Is that allowed? Yes, we will switch off the scary news and retreat to the safety of Planet Earth II (discounting the racer snakes, because we are not iguana hatchlings, after all). Let’s bake cookies for one another and patch things up with kindness; until—(Until when? Until everything settles down? Until it’s over and things go back to normal?)

  Advent draws near. For a time and times and half a time the lectionary serves up its seasonal apocalyptic fare. Dragons, beasts, little horns speaking arrogantly, abomination of desolation, and the stars swept down from the sky. Over the centuries, these texts have been the frolicking ground of the nutter wing of the church. But this year the imagery reverberates round every news channel and social echo chamber. Like titanic organ pipes below our auditory range, we feel it vibrating up through our feet, turning the air into a shaken thunder sheet. ‘There is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end.’

  ‘Argh! It’s bloody relentless!’ says Giles, the precentor. ‘Christ the King next Sunday.’

  The canons are gathered for their weekly meeting, because life goes on. Today they are in the canon chancellor’s study. Mr Happy has lit his fire. It spits gloomily in the grate. Everyone keeps their coats on.

  ‘If only there were a pause button!’ says Giles.

  The treasurer strokes his chin sagely. ‘So say all who live to see such times.’

  ‘What did we ever do to you, 2016?’ cries Giles. ‘O, annus horribilis!’

  ‘O anne horribilis,’ corrects the chancellor. ‘Vocative.’

  ‘Shut up, Hermione,’ says Giles. ‘Nobody likes you.’

  ‘Swish and flick!’ says the treasurer, waving his biro like a wand. ‘Expelliarmus, Annus horribilis!’

  ‘Maybe the Queen will die?’ suggests the chancellor. ‘The plot so far seems to require it.’

  There is a chorus of outrage. The precentor beats him round the head with a vestments catalogue. ‘Unsay that, you treasonable hound!’

  ‘Gentlemen, perhaps we can make a start?’ says the dean. ‘Shall I pray?’

  They fall silent. In a far part of the house they hear little Noah wail. Shouts from the school playground next door. The cathedral clock. Marion breathes in. And out. The world steadies itself, recalibrates, as if governed by some hidden gyroscope that never falters.

  The reader will see that the clergy Chapter of Lindchester Cathedral are already splicing levity and gallows humour into the unrelenting gloom. The bounce-back has come more swiftly than it did after Brexit – which is odd, considering how much higher the stakes are. They are aware of the oddness, but there it is. With the best will in the world, they have more pressing – if not more important – issues to deal with.

  Yes, the statutory ‘saddened and disappointed’ voices that accompany any major change in cathedral life have been duly raised. I am relieved to report that the restructure will not entail too much misery. Almost all the staff whose jobs are at risk have opted for voluntary redundancy or early retirement. Crucially, Terrence Hodgeson, the cathedral administrator (such a lovely man!), was due to retire anyway next year, and is gracefully stepping down. Likewise the diocesan secretary. The way is now clear for a renewed and reformed person to take control of the rudder of the diocese. (Insert shudder here.)

  But there is one major fly in the ointment. In the brave new rationalized diocese, the two current finance officers may apply for one new job. I can tell you candidly that (after a fair and transparent process) it will go to the current diocesan finance officer. Sara was one of Bishop Paul’s stellar appointments, in the old era. She is in her early forties, and comes from a financial services background (the polite way of saying ‘banker’). Many believe that she is all that stands between the diocese and ruin. There was never much hope that Duncan, the cathedral finance officer, would go without a fight. Just between you and me, Helene in HR has long wanted to shake Duncan loose. No love lost there. Like the Man from Del Monte’s dark shadow, Duncan says no at every opportunity. But Duncan has his supporters, and he will see the diocese in court.

  We will adhere to our code of narrative conduct, and not eavesdrop on the canons’ business meeting. But I happen to know that besides the restructure, they have an ongoing safeguarding issue, fabric worries, funding applications, anxiety over the shaky start made by the girls’ choir last week, and unrest among certain sections of the volunteers. The dean will dismiss the treasurer’s solution (to trigger some key resignations by obliging all welcomers and stewards to wear bright yellow ‘Here to Help’ sashes, like John Lewis staff at Christmas).

  The bishop of Barcup is in his study at home. Come the New Year, he’ll have an office in William House, once the restructure’s sorted. Right now, there are three archdeacons sharing his former office. The ad is about to go out for his old post. Bit of re-jigging of office spac
e is on the cards. He opens his Bible. Still likes an actual book to hang onto now and then, even though he’s an iPad man in general. Had this one for yonks. Since Sunday School. Good old AV, with coloured pictures. He turns to the Psalms.

  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

  Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed,

  and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

  Yep, we are deep in Psalm 46 terrain right now, thinks Matt. It’s all a tad end times-y. Wars, rumours of war, earthquakes. Thank the Lord he was in for Janey when that news broke. Only an hour between the first bulletins and Danny’s message from Wellington to say he was OK – but what an hour: 7.8 was a monster, all right. Tsunami alerts, the works. This was the psalm he’d ended up reading, when poor Janey shook him and yelled, ‘For fuck’s sake, pray he’ll be OK! Pray for me, I can’t pray!’

  Never thought of it like that before. Put praying for people in a whole new light. Maybe that’s one thing the Church has to offer right now? Set of coat-tails to hang onto, prayer-wise. Be still, and know that I am God. Be still, Tyler. You’re just a baby bishop. You’re not God. Give over. You can’t sort the world out. Just pray, and keep the old powder dry.

  Miss Blatherwick has also concluded that there is nothing one can do but pray. These days she prays best in the little chapel of St Michael and All Angels, surrounded by glory. All too easy to nod off in an armchair at home.

  But today she nods off in the chapel, her head drooping. The morning wears away. Pools of colour creep round the floor. Angels keep watch.

  ‘Time to get up, Barbara.’

  She wakes with a start. Her father’s voice! Clear as anything. Calling just as he had in childhood. Time to get up. Time to put things in order. Yes. It’s high time. She’s known that a while now, deep down.

  It’s Friday. Freddie is out running again. Mile after mile, trying to sort his head out? America. What the fuck, guys? His dad, wanting to talk money. Yeah, right. With strings. Same old. Prove-to-me-you-can-be-responsible. Gah! Fuck off fuck off fuck OFF.