‘Hi, Freddie. Got a moment?’
‘Oh God.’ Freddie was in his Vespas Breton shirt. ‘What is it?’
‘What’s what?’
‘Dude, you tell me. I literally just this minute get a tweet off Roderick Fallon? Plus this unknown number keeps calling from London?’
Dang. Matt shouldered himself in. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Bullshit. If everything’s fine, why are you here?’ Freddie was white. ‘Ah nuts. I know what this is. Shit. Just when my life’s on track—’
‘Hold on. Cool your jets,’ said Matt. ‘Can we go somewhere private?’
They went through to the treasurer’s sitting room. Freddie was shaking.
‘It’s Paul, isn’t it? It is! Shit! How? Fuck! Matt, I swear, I told literally no one, not my mentor, not even Brose? Oh God oh God oh God. I do not need this right now? I mean, Miss B’s in hospital? Messiah, little dude’s christening, girls’ choir, plus work—’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ Matt put a hand on his arm. ‘Can we sit?’
They sat. Freddie sucked in air. Hugged himself. ‘Sorry, man. Go ahead.’
So Matt explained about Paul’s letter. ‘Don’t worry, absolutely no specifics. He just describes his personal journey. In the abstract, if you like.’ Matt paused. Taking it OK so far. ‘But it sounds like someone’s leaked it to Fallon. Relax. He’s just putting out feelers.’
‘’K. So if I lay low?’
‘Yep, my best guess is it’ll blow over.’
Freddie slumped and began to tug at his hair. ‘Gah. Hate this. Is it never gonna go away?’
‘I wish I knew, Freddie,’ said Matt. ‘The bishops will be bombarded with letters from all sides ahead of next General Synod. I wish Paul hadn’t waded in, but he has. Didn’t want you to be blindsided.’
‘Cheers.’
For a second, Matt was tempted to leave it there, sidestep the potential meltdown. But what if Freddie got sight of the letter from some other quarter? Deep breath. ‘So, Paul’s basically adding his voice to the debate by coming out as same-sex attracted, but choosing to be in a heterosexual marriage.’
‘Say what?’ Freddie reared up. ‘Same-sex attracted? Paul Henderson is fucking capital letters G.A.Y. He needs to add his voice by coming out as a full-on ass hunter!’
Matt raised his hands. ‘Would it help to read the letter?’
‘NO! Do not try and make me empathize here, Matt!’
‘OK.’
‘Get him to empathize! Didn’t he even think how this would make me feel? My sexuality is deviant, it’s not valid, it doesn’t even exist. I’m nothing. What we had was nothing. Just one big sinful mistake. So rub me out, go ahead! Make like it never happened!’
‘I hear you, Freddie,’ said Matt. ‘But come on, this is Paul. We both know you’ll never be nothing to him. He thinks he’s protecting you.’
‘Ah, nuts. No fair, Matt, I said don’t make me empathize. Oh God, now I’m crying.’ Freddie wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Yeah but no, if he cares, Matt, if he’s so big on protecting me, then maybe don’t fuck me when my head’s all over the place, and all I need is for him to – gah, hate this cliché shit – be like a father to me? Part of me thinks that.’
Matt stared. ‘Only part of you thinks that? Freddie, one hundred per cent of you should think it.’
‘Yeah, no, I know I’m a total whore – well, I was, now not so much? But still. Don’t you think he was of out of order?’
‘Yes! Total dereliction of duty and betrayal of pastoral trust. It’s a no-brainer. And he’d be the first to admit it.’ Matt gripped Freddie’s shoulders. ‘Look at me. Freddie, I’ve said it all along: you were not to blame.’
You were not to blame. Thinking back, it was like, that was the hinge? Something kind of small, only everything turned on it?
Couple of years ago – hell, a couple of months even – the Paul thang would’ve put him in a total tailspin? Right now he’d be flaking on Messiah, giving Brose the run-around, trashing everything? Because for his entire whole life up till now, he’d believed it was always all his fault? But suddenly, he can step back? He can be all, you are not the centre of the fucking universe, Freddie May. Get over yourself, already. Or maybe, stop beating up on your poor self?
Weirdly? It felt like spring-cleaning. Like he was cleaning his head out. Kind of seasonal, no?
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Yeah, he was totally gonna ace that sucker. With a bit of luck and Miss B would be out of hospital to hear him? He jogged across to the Song School in the dark to rehearse.
Up in Lindford General Hospital a copy of Adam Bede lies on a bedside locker, with a bookmark three-quarters of the way through.
Chapter 49
hildren count the number of sleeps till He comes, the all-seeing all-knowing one, with his inventory of acts and omissions. He will come like a thief in the night into all the bedrooms of Christendom to judge everyone according to their deeds.
A grey Monday dawns. Cold drizzle falls across the diocese of Lindchester. Heads down and hurry through the streets, people. Less than two weeks, and so much still to be got through! The cards still to send, the presents to buy and wrap. God, let this horrible year end!
Here and there, in garden or park or hedgerow, nature decks itself. Bright, bright leaves, like gold to crown him again. The holly and the ivy. White as milk, black as coal, red as blood. The shortest day approaches. The year’s hinge. Something small, but everything turns on it. Gulls gather at the landfill. A lone magpie blurs past. Moles turn up inky earth along the road edge. Every single moment could be a hinge. It is not yet too late. It could still all go either way. If only we could stay awake, if only we knew the things that make for peace.
All that remains now is gratitude, thinks Miss Blatherwick. She is home, and this is where she plans to stay – if that proves practicable.
Ah, so much to be grateful for. It will soon be light. She lies in her bed, propped up on many cushions. It reminds her of the war, sleeping downstairs. (Dear Freddie! Manhandling her bed down that awkward staircase with Ambrose. Arranging a rota of friends to pop in during the day.) Childhood nights, lying under the big oak table, pillow, eiderdown, listening to the bombers droning over Kent to London. Death passing by overhead.
Time to get up, Barbara. It’s her father’s voice again.
Gratitude. Yes. The privilege of still having time. Time for amendment of life. Pondering one’s last words. And to die in peace. How blessed we are. Miss Blatherwick’s prayers have been poured out again for the trapped souls in Aleppo. Those last anguished farewell messages. Burning buses.
Time to get up, Barbara. She rouses herself, folds back the covers, then manoeuvres her legs over the edge of the bed and looks about her little world. Beside her are all life’s special treats: her wireless, Lucozade, chocolate Bath Olivers, a bowl of satsumas. And a good novel. Adam Bede. There might yet be time to finish that.
She gets to her feet. Creation, preservation, all the blessings of this life. Not least, she thinks with a smile, the inconvenience of a downstairs bathroom suddenly becoming a boon! She draws back the sitting-room curtains. Later she might open the French windows too, and sit in her armchair – or perhaps lie in bed if she is tired – and read, or watch the birds at the feeder. It will be like an old-fashioned sanatorium. Fresh air.
Slowly, slowly. No rush any more. She reaches the bathroom. Sliver of lily of the valley soap. This bar should see her out. The pain is manageable. And when it proves unmanageable, there will be pain relief. A nurse will come towards the end. A few months, the consultant said – but she rather doubts it will be that long. It makes her smile, remembering how she cast her eyes down and thanked him for the diagnosis – as though he were announcing that she’d passed an important examination with flying colours! But perhaps she has? Eighty-one years of being herself, to the very best of her ab
ility. Not a Nobel achievement, to be sure, but nobody else could have gained a qualification in being Barbara Blatherwick. One had sensed that behind those superficial symptoms something else had been waiting all along. To be told its name – pancreatic cancer – felt akin to learning who that stranger was, whom one glimpsed everywhere, but couldn’t quite place. Ah, so it’s you, is it? I am not so afraid of you, after all.
Slowly, slowly. Back to the sitting room. She puts on her ankle-length housecoat. I’m glad I kept you all these years, she thinks. Dove grey wool, navy blue piping. Handmade on Mother’s Singer sewing machine. Perfect for those draughty Cambridge corridors. Bright young undergraduates. (Am I really the last of the gang?)
She lowers herself into the chair and arranges the grey folds. Someone will call soon and make her a cup of English breakfast tea. Someone from Freddie’s rota. In a moment, she will reach for Adam Bede. She closes her eyes. The cathedral clock chimes. Not long now. Not many more sleeps.
‘Dude, I’m just not coping.’
They are standing in the hallway of Ambrose’s house in Vicars’ Court.
‘Hey.’ Ambrose gathers him in. ‘I’ve got you.’
‘Ah, God.’ He rests his head on Ambrose’s shoulder. ‘Sorry. But it’s like she’s my real mum, you know? I owe her like everything? She literally bailed me out a couple of times? Literally literally, as in police? Plus she was there for me at the trial, came to visit me in Young Offenders, when I had nobody else? Mum was stuck in Argentina, and my dad? Having his tough-love phase. “I am not going to be an enabler, son, you’ve got to learn.” All that shite. So you get why I won’t take his money? I know he’d bankroll a Masters course in a heartbeat? But nu-uh. Always got strings attached. Always the control-freaky strings with my dad? Man. Sorry. Why’m I venting about my dad here? Ah, really don’t wanna go to work.’ He wipes his eyes. ‘Maybe call in sick? Go and sit with her?’
‘She’d just send you packing, Freddie.’
‘Yeah.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘’K. Thanks, babe.’
Ambrose picks up his bag. ‘Listen, want to come and get a Christmas tree with me after work?’
‘You bet! Awesome! What about presents?’
‘Well, I’m hoping Santa’s going to bring me an owl . . .’
‘Excuse me?’ Freddie tweaks him. ‘You’ve already had yourself a whole owlery, Mister. Plus I gave you the bee socks, remember?’
‘Yeah, you talk big, but where’s my hot-air balloon?’ asks Ambrose. ‘Where’s my peach tree?’
‘“You better not pout...”’ sings Freddie. Nuts! Forgot I said peach tree.
Ambrose laughs and shuts his door behind them. The Christmas wreath jiggles. A pause. A pause in which both of them nearly say it. We should move in together properly.
‘Hnn. Cool wreath, dude.’
‘Thanks.’
They set off across the Close. They will walk hand in hand until they reach the big archway. Beyond it lies the gauntlet of I don’t care what they do in private glares, or Aw bless! smiles, or neutral glances that note them, and slide away.
‘Just can’t believe she’s really gonna die? I mean, I know we all are, but.’
‘I know, babe.’ Ambrose squeezes his hand. ‘Still, nice that you get to look after her. Maybe?’
‘Full circle. Yeah.’
They unclasp hands and walk side by side down the hill, not a gay couple, just a couple of guys, unremarkable, invisible.
A rumbling. The whole office was shaking. Lateral movement. Crap! Not good. Top of a 1960s tower block in an earthquake. Jane leapt up and legged it down the stairs. It wasn’t the Abernathy building after all, it was home. She could hear things falling. Glass smashing.
‘Matt! Matt!’ The shaking stopped. Silence. ‘Is anything broken?’ she called. She looked out of the window. Of course. It was their dacha by the lake. She watched the quake ripples slide quietly across the water.
Jane opened her eyes. Dark. In the distance, a train. Matt was snoring again. No wonder she was dreaming of bloody earthquakes. In a moment, she’d get up. Nicking off work today to go to the airport and get her baby. Then next week – joy of joys – a trip down the rutted road of memory lane, to visit the rellies she hadn’t seen since Mum’s funeral.
The train dwindled away. Everything was calm. As if the lake was really there, just outside the window, and nothing was broken after all.
*
Oh, there is so much still to do, and so little time. We are in the home straight now. The great O’s of Advent are upon us. O Wisdom! O Lord! What will become of all my characters? I should have plotted and schemed better. Never mind. I can always renege on my promise not to go back and change things. Am I not the author? This is post-truth fiction. I can bring back Bowie and Snape, edit out Brexit. I can hack into the hackers, undo the Russian interference in the US election, appoint Hillary. I can turn back the clock, re-run the bad choices, delete every atrocity, right all wrongs, feed the hungry, wipe away every tear.
I can still undo it all. I can still fix it.
But who will fix our poor world? What if this year is the hinge on which it all turns – from best of times to worst of times? What if we are watching in hyper-real slow motion as the earth catches fire? Why are we powerless to stop it?
Heads down and hurry home, people. Past the bundles in doorways, the tents huddled under flyovers, as trains rumble past above us and planes fly overhead. All through the night – trains, planes, trains, planes. The sound weaves itself into our dreams as we fall asleep fretting over our To Do lists. Earthquake. Fire. Famine. The end of the world. Dickens’ tumbrils rumbling over our souls. ‘Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms.’
Term ends. The 4x4s clot the Close, collecting the Ollies and Ellies. Only the choristers remain. Don’t be sad for them. You should see the treats that will cram their young lives! The school minibus has already whisked them off to Lindford to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (rather than – as advertised – Fantastic Breasts and Where to Find Them. Always proofread carefully, Mr Director of Music!). The magic is ramped up this year by the appearance of Mr Hardman at the chorister Christmas party, to perform real magic tricks! And the appearance of Mr May to do his horrible and COMPLETELY VERBOTEN Tuvan throat singing.
The littlest choristers gaze up at these two magicians, these inhabitants of the impossibly glamorous realm of adulthood, out there beyond the voice change, where they ache to be. A place where you can do exactly what you want! Where Free Cash comes out of a hole in the wall, and nobody tells you when to go to bed. But, oh, the unimaginable number of evensongs and school terms and sports days and exams they must get through first.
Freddie looks down at the littlies and remembers. Man, seems like just a second ago. Crushing on the older boys, desperate to be loved, to be noticed, and Christmas still all magical?
Talking of magicians and crushing on the older boys, we cannot bid farewell to Lindchester without a final glimpse of Dr Prospero Jacks. This tale – this life! – is strewn with turning points. I won’t lie to you and pretend that a certain notion did not flit across Andrew’s mind when he came to sing Messiah. He saw how blissful his former protégé was with Long Lankin, and it occurred to him that it might be interesting to flex his powers . . . But no. Oh, the rose gardens we never enter.
Instead, Andrew made himself useful by brokering an introduction to the contralto – a hugely well-connected opera singer, and visiting professor of singing at an eminent institution. Andrew had called in some long-standing favours and lured her to the provinces with this very introduction in mind. How fortuitous that Freddie was now soloing. I am happy to report that there were only one or two points when the mask slipped, and Madeleine Darling’s expression betrayed her feelings about the choir behind her; just a couple of moments when she looked as Gene might, had he accidentally sipped a glass of warm white at a cathedral bash.
; And so Andrew enjoyed the chaste consolations of being kind. He was even able to offer timely counsel after the rehearsal. He could discern that La Madeleine was thinking ‘Meh’ to Freddie’s performance so far.
‘Uh. Can I ask you something, Andrew?’
‘Of course.’
‘So I’m thinking that went OK, but kind of . . . static, you know? Thing is, I’ve still got plenty in reserve, voice-wise?’
‘And you’re wondering whether to tap into it?’
‘Yeah.’ Freddie tugged his hair. ‘Only I’m worried everyone’s all, No showboating, it’s not all about you? It’s an oratorio, not Covent fucking Garden.’
‘More’s the pity,’ said Andrew. ‘What’s your instinct, as an artist?’
‘Hnn.’ Freddie thought. ‘To risk it? Never hold back. Risk everything, every time, coz you never know what’s round the corner?’
Andrew smiled. ‘O wise young judge.’
Even the unmusical sensed something was happening. The canon chancellor looked up from his hidden Bible commentary and stared. The most jaded of Messiah scorners felt a tingle.
Every valley shall be exal - - - - - -
Go, Freddie! On the front row, Jane clocked a spot of soloist interaction: the snooty bass smiled. He turned to the tall strapping Brunhilde of a contralto, and raised an eyebrow.
- - - - alted!
Bloody hell. The contralto tilted her head in acknowledgement.
I wish Miss Blatherwick could have been there to hear her boy enter his glory. But she has been to her last Messiah. She has been to her last choral evensong, too, and her last carol service. She had intended to notice them, savour them while they were happening, but they had slipped past. You never know what’s round the corner.
But if Miss Blatherwick cannot come to the carols, the carols will come to her. On Wednesday evening, a little band of singers gathers in her garden beside her poor stunted apple tree. It is the solstice. Longest darkest day. O Dayspring! True, the nights will shorten from now on, but it will not feel that way. Rain patters.
Realms of Glory: (Lindchester Chronicles 3) Page 32