The Triple Goddess

by Ashly Graham

  Although no business was discussed, after the table had been cleared and coffee was served, Effie, who was miffed at being excluded from the following morning’s meeting, broached the subject of why Ophelia had been summoned.

  The Archbishop, being well practised in the art of diverting things in the direction that he wanted them to take, dismissed the question by wagging his little finger over his demitasse and suggesting that Effie might like a glass of port. She did not demur, and when Oliver passed the decanter that Beddoes brought him, clockwise in accordance with tradition via Ophelia who did not take any, Effie filled her liqueur glass to the brim. Downing it, she poured another, and likely would have continued had the Archbishop not asked her to pass the decanter.

  ‘It’s a nineteen-seventy Taylor’s and quite good,’ said Oliver, sniffing it. ‘Cherry, plum and dark chocolate, a soupçon of licorice and hint of cough syrup. Still a little young, perhaps, and the tannin content…’

  ‘I like cherry brandy,’ said Effie. ‘Hate licorice. Don’t have a cough. I want some milk chocolate.’

  ‘I was referring to the port’s “nose”, my dear, it is another vinous term such as I was using to describe the wine we had with our meal. Beddoes, find…Effie some chocolate, would you? She may find the tannins in it more to her taste, heavily disguised by sugar as they are.’

  Effie pulled a compact out of her reticule, opened it and dabbed some powder on her nose with the aid of the puff and mirror inside. When a salver of Belgian confectionery was set beside her, she ate three pieces, wrapped the remainder in a Man-Size Kleenex and put it in her bag.

  With a conjuror’s flourish, His Grace chose a Short Churchill cigar from a box of humidor selections that the ever more harassed-looking Beddoes held for him. After the waiter had clipped and lit it for him Beddoes hesitated, wearily awaiting direction as to whether he should also offer the box to the women; whereupon Oliver gave an ironic smile and waved the glowing point to indicate that he should. Ophelia shook her head with a smile; but Effie, after sticking her nose in the box and sniffing, picked out a Corona and stuck it behind her ear; commenting that she would smoke it before bed instead of her usual pipe, which she had forgotten to bring with her.

  Fearing that Effie would keep the port batting to and fro until midnight between her and Oliver, who gave no indication that he wanted the party to break up, Ophelia made time-we-were-leaving-noises, thanked their host for a memorable dinner, and asked if they might draw the evening to a close and be permitted to return to the flat where they were overnighting. Their driver, she said, had told them that he would be waiting for them downstairs whenever they were ready.

  The curate’s recollection of the night before was interrupted by the soft gonging of the clock in the Archbishop’s study as it marked the hour. No sooner had it concluded its routine than the quiet was broken by the flush of a toilet. An interior door opened and Oliver emerged from his private bathroom, in which a not very efficient-sounding extractor fan was loudly whirring. Closing the door, His Grace was halfway across the floor, shrugging on his jacket and squirting his mouth with breath spray, before he noticed the two women before him.

  A farmyard odour from the toilet mingled with the peppermint of the aerosol breath spray, and the fan in the bathroom turned itself off, too soon.

  His Grace halted abruptly, shot an accusatory glance looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and another one at his assistant, grunted, verified the time against that on the half-hunter watch, attached to a chain with seals, which he withdrew from the fob of his lappeted crimson velvet waistcoat, and grunted again disgruntledly. His haggard look betrayed a disturbed night’s rest and a hang-over.

  ‘So you’re here already. Good morning, Ophelia, I hope you slept well. You must have been up early. Skimped a bit on breakfast perhaps, there was no need to rush. Really, Shirley, you ought to have buzzed me first. Right. Would you care for coffee, Ophelia? Yes? No? Good. Bring us coffee, Shirley, a lot of coffee and my largest cup, the one with the O for Oliver on it that Archbishop Makarios of Greece gave me.’

  Rallying his good humour as an offence to Shirley, His Grace winked at Ophelia. ‘It’s a moustache cup, to facilitate drinking by those with “soup-strainers”, as they’re called. Makarios, who has a bushy black beard, is trying to persuade me to give up shaving to increase my gravitas. He says I need to cultivate a more patriarchal image. I told him I want to look like Cary Grant, not Moses.’

  Oliver jutted his jaw in profile, to no reaction from either woman. Instead, Shirley, as her name was now known to be, frowned. ‘Actually, O, your largest cup is the one with the nymphs and satyrs on it that a member of the household staff, recently discharged, gave you at your ten-years-on-the-job Roast last year.’

  His Grace reddened. ‘I’ll have the Makarios cup and none other, Shirley. And after we are served, hold my calls. No exceptions, not even if the Pope calls back about the merger.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Shirley. ‘If the royal palace is in touch, I’ll say you’re in the bathroom with an attack of diarrhoea brought on by too much wine and rich food at dinner last night.’ The aggrieved Shirley pivoted on her heel and exited, and after a moment of silence Oliver gave a short bark of laughter to cover his embarrassment. Ophelia surmised that Shirley must be an old retainer and privy to a lot of sensitive and confidential information, if she were to have such an informal relationship with her boss.

  The Archbishop confirmed this. ‘She’s been with me forever and means well,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t dismiss her, she knows too much and I’d have to kill her, ha!, so you might say that working for me is her life. But never mind Shirley, where are my manners? Please, Ophelia, do sit down. No, not there, let’s go over to the settee where we can be more comfortable.’

  Ophelia installed herself at one end, and Oliver, after measuring off a distance with his eye, took up position towards the middle from the other. ‘Shirley will be returning shortly with the coffee. The cups and saucers won’t match, and she’ll have forgotten the milk, but no doubt we’ll get it sorted out.

  ‘And so to business.’ His Grace looked down at his hands and twisted his fingers together. ‘I don’t suppose you recognize me, my dear, and why should you?, but we’ve met before. It was a very long time ago. You see, I was the one who had the privilege of ordaining you. Despite the many burdensome preoccupations of my position these days, and an almost continuous schedule of appointments that stretches back decades, I remember you very well. As if it were yesterday, in fact. You may find that difficult to believe, but it’s true.’

  The Archbishop gave his visitor a piercing glance from under his beetling brows, which assumed even greater prominence by extending from his forehead like the flaps on the wings of an aeroplane. It was a look that he had often deployed to great effect, in both personal exchanges, and between pulpit and seats when delivering sermons and homilies in Canterbury Cathedral. Even the King and Prime Minister retreated before the Birnam Wood of Oliver’s orbital foliage, when he used it to advance his politically religious, and religiously political, agenda towards the Dunsinane castle of any holdouts.

  Ophelia was not similarly affected. ‘Oh no, Oliver; on the contrary, I remember you too. I recall our meeting very well.’

  His Grace’s chest swelled with emotion. ‘You do? And you do?’

  ‘Yes. We had a pleasant chat.’

  ‘Chat? Pleasant?’

  ‘You did your best to put me at ease.’

  ‘Ah. And did I succeed?’

  ‘You did. You were most kind.’

  ‘Ahh.’

  ‘I was flattered that a bishop would take such interest in a mere ordinand, and a woman ordinand at that.’

  His Grace’s eyebrows, now that he was safely aloft and had reached cruising altitude, retracted. ‘And what do you think today, O-phelia?’, he said, aspirating her name. He prepared to turn off the intercom and Fasten Seatbelt sign, so that he could put the controls on autopilot, go
back to the cabin, take the empty seat beside her, boast about his skills in the cockpit, and suggest that she might like to accompany him as his only passenger aboard a Virgin Galactic orbital spaceflight.

  He edged a fraction closer to his guest. The author of Waverley had such a person in mind when he wrote: “His features might have been called good, had there not lurked under the penthouse of his eye that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the cautious voluptuary.”

  ‘Today? Why, I think that you had a crush on me. A big crush. Funny, isn’t it?’

  Not really, thought the Archbishop. And the author of Waverley intruded again with the comment that, “Nothing is perhaps more dangerous to the future happiness of men...than the entertaining of an early, long and unfortunate attachment. It frequently sinks so deep into the mind, that it becomes their dream by night and their vision by day.”

  There was a thud at the door, and Oliver jumped as if his Boeing Dreamliner had hit a bad patch of turbulence.

  ‘Come!’

  Outside, chief stewardess Shirley was bearing the tray of cafetière, cups, saucers, coffee-spoons, sugar bowl and plate of Harrods Heritage all-butter handmade biscuits with which she was preparing to rouse the first-class cabin, ignoring any occupant’s request not to be disturbed. She depressed the handle of the door with her elbow and shoved the portal open with her tweeded bottom.

  Confronted by the intimate seating arrangement with which this upstart female curate was being favoured in a one-on-one meeting with the Primate, following a highly irregular and in her opinion extremely inadvisable, given the Church’s present shameful state, dinner and overnight accommodation at diocesan expense, the Archbishop’s assistant approached and deposited the tray with a clatter on the long low coffee-table in front of the sofa.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Shirley,’ said Oliver; ‘Shirl the pearl. Let’s see: did Daisy produce any milk for us today?’ The whites of his assistant’s eyes curdled like a month-old bottle of Daisy’s lactational output as she ascertained that the milk jug was missing, and she huffed out to get it. The pair sat in silence until she returned. When Shirley had set down the milk she moved to the desk and fingered some papers. Oliver, who knew that the penthouse brow treatment was ineffectual with his secretary, twisted his neck.

  ‘That will be all, Shirley, thank you. Go, go. Again: I’m in conference and not to be disturbed. Incommunicado. Taken the dog for a walk, gone fishing. Capisce? as they say in Rome.’ Shirley snorted and departed with an armful of correspondence, the door closed and there was a sound of rattling in the lock and the turn of a key.

  His Most Reverendship raised his arms and eyes to the ceiling. ‘God give me strength.’ He leaned over the tray. ‘I’m sorry about that, Ophelia, it’s so childish, I think she must be jealous of you. Now then, shall I be mother? How d’you take it? Black—oh dear, don’t tell Shirley, I do too, the milk was unnecessary. Sugar? No, sweet enough, eh...so, where were we?’

  ‘I had just mentioned that you went gooey-eyed over me on the day of my ordination. You’re still doing that thing with your eyebrows, I notice. They weren’t as bushy then.’

  Flushed from covert, Oliver’s feathery appendages rocketed up like pheasants. ‘Dash it, Ophelia. I suppose I was…in those days, before… Aw, hell. Conduct unbecoming, I suppose you must have thought.’ He looked at her slyly. ‘Or did you?’

  ‘You couldn’t help the way you felt at the time. You were quite young.’

  Oliver mumbled, ‘Not so…nothing has…I don’t think…. I’ve always had an eye for emerging talent, I think.’

  ‘Mine or yours?’

  ‘Well, both. I mean…no, what I mean is that I sensed in you, even at that tender age, a spiritual energy more concentrated than I have since detected since in any person, either of the hieratic class or the, ah, lay. I saw you, if you’ll pardon my saying so, not so much as a paragon of virtue but as one who, when she had developed into a fully rounded woman, had it within her to...if I played my...if she...let me put it this way...who might be headed…phew, is it me or is it hot in here?’

  ‘Headed towards the bedroom? Effie and I have an early afternoon train home this afternoon.’

  ‘The location and time at least are flexible.’

  ‘Oliver, behave.’

  ‘You may be flattered to know, Ophelia, that I have followed your career very closely. Which is, why, essentially, you are here today.’

  ‘How dull for you, there’s been nothing to follow.’

  ‘Oh, little snippets here and there, enough to keep me...’

  ‘I’ve been a hobby for you, then, like collecting stamps, is that it? You want to paste me in your album.’

  Briefly distracted, His Grace said, ‘There was a typist in the pool once, her name was Penny Black. Hrrm. Start again, Oliver. My reason for asking you here, Ophelia, is to tell you that the Church is in desperate need of popular, charismatic men and a single woman...of men and women priests who are willing and able to take charge and change things for the better. Who appeal to the masses, and can restore confidence in the Church in its hour…days, months, years…of need.

  ‘You may be, I dare say, Ophelia, the last to know that there has recently been the most almighty, as it were, upheaval in the hierarchy of the Anglican Church. Our ranks have been seriously depleted by a series of most unfortunate and far-reaching scandals. Of the senior clergy about two-thirds are either in hiding or disgraced. Of the remainder many have lost all prospects of further preferment. Your diocesan bishop is one of many who have resigned. He is now residing in a boarding house in Deauville in that Catholic country across the Channel. His position is therefore open.

  ‘Regarding your present suffragan bishop, what’s-his-name, I’m having him appointed Archbishop of York, the position of authority second only to mine. He is perfect for the job: he has been kissing my arse for years, and his archdeacon has furnished me with a little black book of his with a lot of young ladies’ telephone numbers in it.

  ‘In consequence of these two changes, I am offering you, Ophelia Blondi-Tremolo, as we sit here together on the casting couch in my office, the senior of the two positions, as Diocesan Bishop. Just so you know I have in mind also to appoint…to have appointed…a very pleasant if rather effete chap, who is due to retire in five or so years when he will make sixty-five the new ninety, as your suffragan.

  ‘Of course the government has to approve, and the General Synod, but under the current circs. that’s a formality, trust me. And although such a move is bound to set off the god-awful, or whatever, uproar amongst the traditionalists, the couple of them that are left, there’s nothing you need worry your pretty…. Bottom line: you would be recast as the Right Reverend Ophelia Blondi-Tremolo, our first woman bishop. It really is very exciting. I am excited, and I hope that you are excited, and that we will be able to share our mutual excitement.

  ‘Of course I am aware, my dear Ophelia, that over the years you’ve had some, ah, choice words for us episcopals, and have had some run-ins with the authorities. But I believe that such public airing of these as will inevitably take place can only serve to increase your appeal to the Great Unwashed. Recent events have demonstrated in spades—which reminds me, it’s bridge night tonight—that the stuff you’ve had to say about bishops, the witticisms and caustic remarks, has been right on the money. It is why, between us girls, having you as a senior member of Church, Inc. will do it a power of good. Sowatchasay?’

  ‘Oliver, I...’

  ‘More coffee?’

  ‘...don’t quite know how to put this.’

  ‘Don’t put it any way. Just say Yes and hit the road, Jill.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Oliver, but I cannot accept. I’m not interested in titles or advancement or becoming the first woman bishop. Nolo episcopari. I don’t want to be a bishop.’

  ‘Ha! It’s traditional to decline twice. Once more’ll settle it.’

  ‘Actually that’s quite untrue, but anyway, ‘Nolo episcopar
i, nolo episcopare. That’s twice more, which means I mean it.’

  ‘Actually the expression is held to be a facetiously modest refusal of that which is desired. Excellent, there we have it then.’

  ‘Oliver, I am not bishop material and I am not looking to be convinced that I am. Neither would Effie.’

  ‘Damn that woman.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. What affects me affects her. And neither would my congregation, which is quite large enough so far as I’m concerned except when the weather’s bad, want me to be a bishop. I have always regarded titles and seniority as meaningless. There are no star ratings in the Church, except for those created by the Establishment, which means by you and those like you. No, Oliver, what I already have is fulfilment enough, and I am grateful for it. So many important things are lost when one tries to do things on a bigger scale. Thank you for thinking of me, however; I mean professionally.’

  His Grace drank half a cup of cold coffee. ‘Ophelia, listen.’

  ‘I have been listening, Oliver, for quite a while now.’

  ‘Then listen some more. The country is crying out for change. Change is good, and I am proud to be in charge of effecting it. In you I see someone who can and will also change things, for the better. We will change them together. For you, Ophelia, if only you would accept the fact, are already a leader. The people in your parish see you as one, and if you can lead a parish you can lead a diocese. I’ve seen very few such attractive...very few priests...actually, none...well perhaps…who inspire the devotion that you do.’

  His Grace looked hard at his interviewee and dragged her gaze with his, slantwise to the chimney-piece. It had been a dramatic ploy of Laurence Olivier’s, the impact of which Oliver greatly admired. ‘It’s lonely at the top, Ophelia,’ he said, imitating the great actor’s clipped baritone twang, ‘and,’—switching to Burns—‘“a man’s a man for a’ that.” One can’t forever be entertaining important visitors, marrying, divorcing and remarrying royals, engaging in politics, writing theological treatises that nobody reads or is interested in, and making from-the-Burning-Bush-pronouncements about same-sex marriage and buggery. I implore you, therefore: don’t hide your light under a bushel; one day we can retire under a bushel together and turn out the light, but not now.’