by Lis Howell
The kitten started to wriggle. I must do as I offered and ring George Pattinson straight away, she thought. He might be waiting for Phyllis to call. She fumbled with the phone.
The former priest of All Saints sounded a hundred and ten when she spoke to him and a hundred and twenty after he had heard of Phyllis’s death. In a shaky voice he thanked her, and then he surprised her by saying, ‘You’re the new woman, aren’t you, the one with the two children? From Tarn Acres?’
‘Yes, that’s me, Mr Pattinson. I’m glad you remember me. I only joined the church about two years ago. Mrs Clark brought me in.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said George Pattinson at the other end of what was a very bad connection. Robert was looking straight ahead; the kitten had woken up fully and was trying to claw its way inside Suzy’s jacket.
‘I wonder,’ said the tinny voice at the other end of the line, ‘would you be kind enough to keep in touch with me this week over the funeral arrangements? I don’t tend to be in much contact with All Saints. Don’t want to tread on Nick’s toes, things like that. I’d appreciate it if you let me know.’
‘Of course,’ said Suzy, surprised.
‘Thank you so much,’ said Mr Pattinson in a tired, formal voice, and hung up.
‘Funny that,’ Suzy said as she clicked the phone off. ‘He doesn’t seem to be in touch with anyone much from All Saints now. He sounded terrible. When I came to Tarnfield he was really looked up to, by everyone.’
Robert concentrated on parking.
‘I mean, he was such a big name locally, the Reverend George Pattinson.’ Suzy stopped. ‘Oh . . .’ What had Monica Bell said? Any man would have to be efficient who lived with Mary Pattinson. Not Mary Clark. Mary Pattinson.
‘Hey, were your Mary and the old vicar related too?’ she asked. ‘Like Yvonne and Phyllis? I mean, everyone’s related to everyone round here, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’ Robert was straining to look over his shoulder. He’s making a meal out of getting into this parking space, Suzy thought. He said, ‘They were related. Distantly. The Pattinsons are a big family.’ At that moment Flowerbabe chose to make a bid for freedom and leapt on to Suzy’s shoulder. By the time she had untangled cat and sleeve, Robert was opening the door for her.
‘Thanks, I’ll keep in touch,’ she said, struggling out of the car. ‘We’ve still got that broken fence to sort out.’
‘Oh, there’s no rush on that.’
‘That’s good. Thanks.’ She levered herself out of the car, but couldn’t wave to him because her arms were full of the kitten and its accessories, so she flapped her elbows up and down, grinned, and turned up her path. He couldn’t help laughing back with her, but he knew they had ended on a strained note again.
Robert got into the car and sat for a minute, both angry and surprised at himself. He had handled that badly because the call to George Pattinson had shaken him. He had been thinking of asking Suzy if she wanted to use his washing machine, seeing hers had broken down. His machine was empty most of the time, and she had a lot to do. He had genuinely wanted to help her. But the moment had passed. And now the evening stretched ahead of him, bleaker than ever after all the activity of the day.
Oh Mary, he thought, why was life with you always so complicated? I loved you so much, but sometimes I think I never really knew what made you tick.
For a second he rested his head on the steering wheel. Then, resolutely, he sat up, restarted the engine and turned towards The Briars.
9
Easter Sunday evening
Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops and Curates, that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively Word.
From the Prayer for the Church Militant, Holy Communion
Nick Melling looked at the two staring, expectant faces opposite him and felt cornered. It really wasn’t fair, he thought. How could anyone cope with Kevin Jones and Daisy Arthur at the same time in the same room? There were times when too much support was burdensome.
‘I know any death is sad, Nick,’ Kevin was saying forcefully, sitting on the edge of the overstuffed armchair in what had been the Pattinsons’ elegant front room. When Nick moved in after George disappeared on sick leave, he had planned to use it as a quiet sitting room where he could help souls in need, coming to him for words of wisdom and spiritual insight that would change their lives. Instead he’d found that what most people wanted was to sit there and talk about church politics, or slag off their fellow men.
‘Any death is sad,’ Kevin said again in his slow, uncompromising Yorkshire voice, ‘but we’ve got a great chance to shake this place up a bit. I mean all that traditionalist rubbish must go now! Phyllis Drysdale kept that lot going. We should act quickly. No time to lose.’
Daisy Arthur looked at Nick with huge bovine eyes. She was undoubtedly very pretty, but the fact that her mouth was always slightly open and her jaw moving spoiled the effect. There was something feverish about Daisy these days, Nick thought. She’d seemed bright and enthusiastic when he’d first met her. But over the last year she’d become more volatile and even Nick was aware that it had something to do with him. He hadn’t encouraged her. But there weren’t many young graduates in Tarnfield, and he was slightly uncomfortable about the way he’d given her so much eye contact in the early days. Of course I was rather lonely, he told himself, and she was so enthusiastic, whereas so many other people in Tarnfield had an undermining tendency to question things. He remembered Suzy Spencer clasping his hand at the church door after his searching Ascension Day sermon and whispering worriedly, ‘You don’t believe all that, do you?’ Awful woman. At least Daisy showed some respect. Too much perhaps, but that was better.
‘Oh Nick,’ she said, breathing heavily, ‘do you think Kevin’s right? Could this be your chance to get things changed here?’
Nick looked back at her, trying not to engage those big brown eyes. After one Harvest Festival, he’d talked to her about updating her thinking. She had organized the little children to make up a flower arrangement based on a schmaltzy Victorian hymn and it really wasn’t modern enough. She’d hung on his every word, and then gone to Newcastle to some of the more evangelical bookshops and churches. At Christmas, she had run a cartoon characters’ nativity service, with Scooby Doo in the stable. It had been chaotic, and perhaps rather hard to relate to a Christian message. Not to mention the mess. He sighed.
It was very difficult, Nick thought. He wanted a church full of attractive young families, a sort of breakfast TV-targeted religion, and he didn’t know how to deal with the elderly or the difficult. But his trendy new congregation had to include genuine spirituality. And that had to emanate from him. He was in charge now, and he was just what the church needed: young, intelligent, committed, good-looking. Everyone thought so. Especially the Bishop: Nick had a lot to live up to.
‘Of course we can’t say that Phyllis’s death was a blessing exactly,’ Kevin continued, though he sounded doubtful. ‘But it does mean we can sweep clean.’
Oh dear, Nick thought. Kevin’s enthusiasm was sometimes a little inept. The day had been so stressful. Though he was grateful to Monica for lunch, he could have done with some space. And then he’d needed a lift home, which Daisy provided, and Kevin had turned up. So he was stuck with them. At least they were his fans, but that had a downside too.
Not for the first time, Nick wondered what God was doing, testing him with Tarnfield.
The responsibility of a full pastoral role had come too soon, he felt. George Pattinson had been a larger-than-life vicar, blooming with the confidence of late middle age, a local star. Nick had been his curate for a year when George had suffered his breakdown. Nick hadn’t been told what it was all about, but within weeks of his illness George had been reduced to an old man. The Bishop of Norbridge had breezed in and out, there had been high-level talks behind closed doors in the study, and George had disappeared on extended sick leave which looked like being permanent.
Now G
eorge Pattinson and his wife Joan had gone from the Tarnfield scene, to live in a bungalow belonging to his family on farmland miles away. And Nick was suddenly in charge, with instructions from the Bishop to leave George alone to recover.
Nick had stayed on at the vicarage. He’d been promised support from the Rural Dean and the Archdeacon, both of whom had been to visit. But they made no secret of the fact that they thought this was an amazing opportunity for a vaunted young curate like Nick to make his mark. An Oxford graduate just turned thirty, who’d done a couple of years in public relations before responding to the call, Nick had been hailed, literally, as the answer to the Bishop’s prayers. Perhaps now, he rather regretted being labelled as the coming man. He suspected it made other clergymen less supportive. So he found it impossible to tell anyone that he might be out of his depth. After all, the Bishop had told everyone that he was a gifted young priest!
But somehow his parishioners hadn’t noticed. In fact, Nick would go as far as to say they seemed ungrateful. In the trendy urban parish where he’d done most of his training, his role had commanded a respect that was missing in Tarnfield. People here might be bucolic and conventional but they were somehow sophisticated when it came to getting their own way. They seemed to want to outwit his initiatives rather than defer to him. He deplored the fact that so much of the Anglicanism in Tarnfield was based on habit and tradition and family pressure. And comfort. Nick didn’t do comfort, though at this moment he felt bizarrely in need of it himself.
‘Of course, Phyllis’s death is a tragedy, Kevin,’ he said severely. ‘And yes, of course it means things will change. But we should move slowly, this week at least. There will be the funeral to organize, to start with.’
A nightmare, Nick thought. I can’t stand funerals. I have real difficulty dealing with the distress of the bereaved. At least Phyllis hasn’t left a husband. Nick shuddered, remembering how hard he had found it to talk to Robert Clark when his wife had died. Everything he had said had seemed trite and juvenile. Mind you, he consoled himself, that event had derailed even the much-respected George Pattinson. He’d been at his peak then, but Mary’s death had been one of the few times when he hadn’t seemed able to cope. Odd, Nick thought.
‘I guess they’ll cancel the Bible study group now,’ Kevin laughed brusquely. ‘I can’t stand those sorts of things. I don’t reckon we want an Alpha course either. We need a home prayer group.’ He looked at Daisy with fierce intensity. ‘Don’t you agree, Daisy?’
‘Oh, Kevin, I’m not sure. I think we should study the Bible, I really do. But it should be all about what Nick wants.’ She stared at Nick again. And then, with the intelligence Nick had sensed in her when they’d first met, she said, ‘Phyllis wasn’t the problem. She was just keeping things going because that was what Mary did. The problem really is the fellow travellers.’
‘What d’you mean, Phyllis wasn’t the problem? Without her, all that stuff will fall apart.’ Kevin sounded more aggressive than ever. It was as if Phyllis’s death solved everything.
‘Will it? I doubt it.’ Daisy was looking down at her hands now, and was slightly pink. ‘Phyllis wasn’t just a silly old biddy, you know. Oh no. She was quite shrewd. She . . .’
Daisy stopped and looked up again into Nick’s eyes. I wonder what she was going to say, Nick thought, and yet again he was surprised. Then Daisy’s lips parted and her breath came noisily. ‘Sorry, Nick. But I’ve known Phyllis all my life, ever since Mum sent me to Sunday School just to get me out of the house! It will be strange without her.’
‘Of course.’ Nick tried to sound soothing and smiled at her. Daisy beamed back, all sadness dispelled by his smile, then resumed chewing the cud.
‘Well, I still say we make plans now.’ Kevin wasn’t giving up. He wanted them to move quickly, to have a plan of action. In a few more minutes he would have to go home and report all this to Janice. Her mother had threatened to call round that afternoon, and by coming to see Nick, Kevin had hoped to miss her. Nobody could complain if he was at the vicarage for an hour or two, but he couldn’t push his luck and avoid the kids’ tea as well.
He glanced sideways at Daisy. She was so beautiful, he thought. It was obvious to him that the Holy Spirit was acting through her. Sometimes he felt Janice’s faith was watered down now she was back, living so near her mum. And she’d gone really plump over the last year, too.
‘Maybe you’re right, Kevin,’ Nick Melling said. ‘Perhaps this is the cue for more change.’
Kevin sat back, satisfied. ‘I’m not saying we should ride roughshod over everyone, Nick. But we need to put out the right signals pretty quickly. You’re not going to let them go ahead with the Bible study group next week, are you?’
‘Well . . .’ Nick paused. ‘As I said, Kevin, I don’t want to do anything drastic before the funeral.’
‘OK, if that’s how you feel.’ Kevin shook his big bullet head as if more in sorrow than in anger. ‘I hope this will be the last one, though. Those Bible study evenings just give people like Robert Clark a chance to show off.’
That was true, Nick Melling thought. When it came to Bible study, Robert Clark sometimes talked with as much authority as a vicar, which was very irritating.
‘On reflection, I think you’re absolutely right there, Kevin. The group should be stopped. Perhaps it should be cancelled after the next meeting.’ And that would have the added benefit of ousting the infuriating Yvonne Wait who, for some strange reason of her own, had offered to organize the group.
‘Good thinking, Nick. Go for it! And you need to think about why we have a choir, next. All those people in fancy dress standing at the front of the church as if they were holier than everyone else. Not to mention all the flowers. Like a funeral parlour. Gives the wrong message. But I’ll leave that to you to mull over. I’m off now.’
Kevin beamed and stood up, but Nick was concerned to see that Daisy remained seated. He really did not want to find himself alone with her in the sitting room. He dreaded the thought that she might assume some level of intimacy, and he couldn’t face that.
‘I’ll see you out, Kevin. And Daisy, I think I need some time to think about all this now. I’ll see you a week on Tuesday of course, at the Bible group.’
‘Oh, yes, Nick. Perhaps we could talk then about the Whit Sunday Festival I’d like to do? With the kids?’
That was another worry, Nick thought. Tarnfield always made a big fuss of Whitsun, in that North Country way. Daisy had been talking about some sort of event, and had hinted that perhaps something more evangelical should happen, a sort of mission type of service. While Nick was keen to be seen as the man who pulled All Saints kicking and screaming into the modern world — a hero priest who turned the parish around — he balked at the thought of anything too emotional. And it would be a lot of work, too. He really shouldn’t take too much on!
The doorbell rang. It sounded as if someone was keeping a finger on it until the door was opened. Nick leapt up to answer, hoping to be rescued, and found Stevie Nesbit on his doorstep. His heart sank.
‘Ah, Stevie, do come in. Kevin and Daisy are just leaving.’
Kevin gave Stevie a contemptuous glance and the merest nod, and then watched Daisy Arthur walk lightly over the gravel sweep of the vicarage drive. She glanced back, but her look wasn’t for him. She gazed at the vicarage with an expression of pure longing; Kevin clenched his fists in frustration and prepared to go back home to toddlers’ teatime and the stress of making conversation with his mother-in-law.
Still, he thought with some satisfaction, at least one obstacle was out of the way. Before long, All Saints would be the sort of church he would be proud to belong to. It was vital that the Lord’s will was done, and he, Kevin Jones, was the man to do it. With that thought, and the sight of Daisy Arthur’s shapely bottom in her low-cut trousers as she bent over to open her car door, Kevin felt sustained.
10
The Thursday in Easter Week
. . . for I work a work in yo
ur days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe . . .
From the Epistle for Tuesday in Easter Week, Acts 13:41
On the Thursday of Easter Week, Suzy Spencer took Jake to a music workshop in Norbridge. These holiday activities were always difficult for her to organize. She’d left Molly with Sharon Strickland, Tom’s daughter, her regular babysitter and mother’s help.
It was surprising, she thought, how kids in the Tarnfield area had to be ferried everywhere. The country was supposed to be so healthy, but she reckoned many rural children were more car-bound and got less fresh air than in the towns. But to express this view would be heresy in Tarnfield of course.
There were quite a few children in the village, and a lot of them got dragged along to All Saints Sunday School. Suzy remembered her mother telling her that Sunday School attendance in years gone by had everything to do with parental need for privacy and much less to do with the promotion of religion. ‘Most babies were conceived on Sunday afternoon,’ her mum had laughed. ‘Ask your grandma!’ So much for good old-fashioned Christian values, Suzy thought. Now, the morning Sunday School was more of a social event for the village children. Molly seemed to like it, and Daisy Arthur was doing a good job, though she needed some help. But she seemed to like taking it all on her own shoulders. The Scooby Doo nativity had been hysterical, and in need of a good producer, Suzy thought.
She wondered what they were going to do for Whitsun now Phyllis was dead. They’d planned a sort of minor flower festival with swags of Viburnum opulus, whitebeam foliage, gladioli and delphiniums — if Phyllis’s Magic Moon was out early — curving down the pillars of the church. Suzy liked doing swags. They were big and bold enough not to need the attention to detail. It was detail that had made Mary and Phyllis such great flower arrangers. No chance of that now. Suzy was nothing like as knowledgeable or thorough as the older women had been.