Acts and Omissions

by Catherine Fox

  ‘Thank goodness for Virginia, eh, girl?’ Lulu thumps her tail once in agreement. ‘We’ll just have to love those prickles off her,’ Wendy says. Then she frowns at herself. Perhaps Virginia is only prickly with Wendy? Maybe Wendy is the problem? Oh dear. And besides, maybe people should be allowed to be prickly; perhaps they should be loved, prickles and all? Like Mrs Tiggywinkle?

  ‘Oh bother. I shouldn’t have thought that, should I, Lulu?’ From now on she will never quite be able to banish the image of that bustling little Beatrix Potter hedgehog from her mind when she thinks of Virginia.

  Meanwhile, Dr Rossiter has found somewhere to park. The archdeacon’s drive. Arse and feck. She really does not want to presume upon him, not right now. With things being, as the young people say, complicated. She texts him as she walks: ‘Parking hell. Left my car on your drive. Hope that’s OK. Jx’. She’s now fifteen minutes late for her lecture and still five minutes’ brisk walk away. Plus she’s got to lug all her crap uphill to the sweet FA building. Stream of consciousness narrative has much to commend it, but I believe we can dispense with Jane’s inner monologue at this point.

  It’s Thursday. The Hendersons are back on the Close. Susanna bakes. Paul picks up the reins of the diocese. We will pay a visit to the office and listen in.

  Martin, the bishop’s chaplain, talked him through the weeks ahead. Filled him in on what he’d missed. Was there an elephant in the room? No. They had conspired Englishly to banish the elephant. But it was there, just outside the office window, its large grey flank blocking out the light.

  ‘Looking ahead to late November now,’ said Martin, ‘we have the . . .’

  Paul stared at the episcopal diary on the screen while Martin talked. I’ll have resigned by then. We’ll have to start emptying the house. Getting rid of stuff. So much stuff.

  He came to. Martin had just asked him something. ‘Sorry?’

  Martin repeated his bullet-pointed question, but by the time he reached the end, the beginning had eluded Paul.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Martin.’

  There was a long silence. Paul saw him thinking: how can you not know the answer to a straightforward question?

  ‘Is . . . everything all right, Paul?’

  There at the window the huge head bowed. A wise sad eye peered in at them. ‘Yes, sorry, yes. A bit distracted. I’m . . . I find myself having to adjust to a new set of expectations, of course.’

  ‘Of course. I see.’

  ‘But there we are!’ Paul clapped his hands on his knees. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘The employment tribunal,’ repeated Martin. ‘I was asking you which of the following four considerations—’

  But here they were interrupted by Penelope, the bishop’s PA, who came in bearing a plate of millionaire shortbread from Susanna.

  ‘Oh, I do miss Freddie! These were always his favourites!’ Penelope burst out, as if Freddie were dead, rather than just down the way in Barchester. ‘I worry about that boy, I really do. What’s he been up to now?’

  A pause. ‘How do you mean?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Well, with that horrible journalist looking for him. He came snooping round at evensong on Saturday apparently. You know the one, him, oh, what’s his name?’

  ‘Roderick Fallon?’ suggested Martin.

  ‘That’s him!’ said Penelope. ‘Oh, I hope Freddie hasn’t done anything stupid!’

  ‘I’m sorry if this sounds callous, Penelope,’ said Martin, ‘but I’m sure Paul will bear me out when I say that Freddie May is no longer our problem.’

  Chapter 42

  Martin was wrong. Freddie May was still Paul’s problem. He would always be Paul’s problem. If Paul took the wings of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of South Africa, even there would the thought of Freddie May pursue him. Or so it seemed to Paul, as Penelope stood with the plate of millionaire shortbread fretting over that boy.

  ‘Excuse me a moment.’ Paul stepped out of the office on to the gravel drive of the palace. He rang the archdeacon to see if he’d heard this rumour about Roderick Fallon. Of course the archdeacon had heard the rumour. He had also heard the first whispers linking Paul’s name with Freddie’s in all this.

  ‘I’ll be honest, bishop. This still has the potential to go tits up on us. How are you doing? Coping?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  The car was right there. He could drive to Barchester now. Find him. Say, ‘Get in, we’re leaving. Come with me to France. To Timbuktu. To the moon.’ Help me, God, help me, help me, God.

  Martin was watching through the office window. He saw Paul walk up and down under the huge copper beech, head bowed, talking on the phone. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. Penelope was still chattering on about the little shite. Up and down, up and down the drive. Then he saw Paul finish his conversation and put his phone away. Rest a hand on the car roof, the other on his heart. He hunched over suddenly, as if—

  ‘I’m sorry, excuse me, Penelope.’ Martin raced outside and crunched over the gravel to Paul.

  He wasn’t moving.

  ‘Bishop? Are you ill?’

  Paul shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but a moan, a whoop of pain escaped.

  ‘Come on, you need to sit.’ He steered him to the wooden seat near the beech. Martin was first-aid trained. Shortness of breath, cold sweat: coronary?

  Paul had already slipped his dog collar out and was fumbling his top button undone.

  ‘How are you feeling, Paul? Any tightness in your chest? Tingling?’

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘Are you feeling faint?’

  ‘Not my heart,’ he gasped.

  ‘Good, good,’ said Martin, ‘but let’s get you checked all the same. Let me drive you up to—’

  ‘I’m gay.’

  ‘Casualty—’

  In the silence that followed a squirrel rippled over the gravel with a beechnut in its mouth. They watched it dig a little hole in the lawn, bury the nut, then pat the earth back into place. Then it whisked past them and up the great grey bole of the beech.

  No first aid for this. Say something. Quickly. Thank you for telling me.

  The cathedral clock chimed the half hour. Martin’s hand crept out and found the bishop’s. It was not grasped, but nor was it flung off. He let it rest there on top of Paul’s. There was an eye in the beech trunk, where a branch had once been. This must be hard. If there’s anything I can do.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a fool of myself. I’m resigning . . .’

  ‘No!’ Freddie May. I knew it.

  ‘. . . from my role here. It will be announced in due course.’

  A handful of leaves rolled over and over across the lawn. ‘Paul, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’ve been invited to take up the post of principal. New theological college. South Africa.’ He gave another horrible whoop. Tried to disguise it with a cough. ‘I’ve accepted.’

  Martin gripped his hand. The pain was catching. It clenched his own heart.

  Paul cleared his throat. ‘So if I can count on your discretion over the coming weeks. Trying desperately to contain this, this— consequences of my— stupidity! For the wider Church. My family. And of course, the— Protect the other person involved. Susanna and I would greatly appreciate it.’

  ‘Of course.’ He should strategize. Prioritize. But Martin was numb.

  ‘This will turn out for my deliverance,’ whispered Paul at last. ‘That’s what I’ve come to believe. In the end, this will be for my deliverance.’

  Martin had won Scripture Knowledge prizes as a boy: ‘Philippians 1.19.’

  ‘Yes.’ Paul’s hand writhed under his. ‘It will be for my deliverance. It just doesn’t . . .’

  It just doesn’t feel that way now.

  Martin knew. The gravel drive and the beech trunk swam. The hardest thing is to love someone, and know you can never be with them, ever again. Shortness of breath. Chest cramped like a vice. Dear God! I’m going to die!
r />   ‘I’ll do everything I can to support you in this, Paul.’

  ‘Pray for me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And him. Pray for him, too.’

  ‘Yes. I will.’

  The archdeacon put the phone down and prayed as well. Then he acted. Choral half term. They did not want the devil finding work for idle hands in Barchester, so he got young tarty-pants out of there, pronto, before Fallon rocked up and schmoozed him into telling everything. Freddie was devastated. ‘Omigod! You still think I’d do that?!’ Well, call him a cynical bastard, but the archdeacon could not entirely rule that possibility out. Which is why Freddie spent half term mooching about the archdeacon’s house in his underpants hitting on him now and then out of sheer boredom. (Yeah, no, and coz Matt was hot, he would totally do him in a heartbeat?)

  ‘Hey! What are you doing here, Janey?’

  ‘Parking my car. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Aw. Y’know?’ Freddie panted, getting his breath back from his run. ‘It’s like half term, and yeah, Matt invited me?’

  ‘Oh.’

  Tum-te-tum. Neither was entirely keen to launch into lengthier explanations here.

  ‘Well, hey, girl. Can I get a hug?’

  ‘No fear. I don’t want your boy sweat. Argh! Get off me!’

  He smeared his cheek against hers. ‘Yeah! Testosterone for ya.’

  ‘Eurgh!’

  ‘C’mon. Kiss kiss. Makes the ladies less cranky. Been scientifically proven.’

  ‘God! Now I need a slag jab.’ Jane peeled him off and wiped her face with her sleeve. ‘Listen, I’m late. Management’s bollocksed up the staff parking, and Matt lets me park here, so um.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He grinned at her, rattled his stud round his teeth. ‘Ha ha ha, you’re blushing. You so are. Are you two getting it on?’

  ‘No. Are you two getting it on?’

  ‘I wish. Hey, we should maybe get a drink after work one night this week, and you can tell me everything?’

  ‘Huh. You should maybe come and finish my garden, sunshine. It looks like the Somme.’

  ‘Cool. I can do that. Gimme your car keys?’

  ‘Are you insured?’

  ‘Dude, I was the bishop’s chauffeur. I’ve got insurance coming out of my ass.’

  Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not covered to drive my car, though, are you, you lying tart. Oh, hi, Matt.’ Dammit, she was definitely blushing now. ‘Sorry, got to fly, guys. Late for a lecture. Mwa mwa.’

  Jane stomped up the hill to the Fergus Abernathy building swearing at herself, at Freddie, at the archdeacon, and for good measure, at God. No point travelling any further down this road. Dead end ahead. Turn around where possible! Make a U-turn! Your destination does not even exist. Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rossiter, get over it. An institution that treats women like chattels! Who gives this woman? Excuse me? How can any thinking person buy into this cornerstone of female oppression?

  It’s true. One of the hardest things of all is loving someone you can’t be with.

  I’m afraid that Jane will not even be cheered by thoughts of the royal christening this week. Or, more properly, the royal baptism. Up and down the diocese of Lindchester clergy and churchgoers are seeking to explain the difference, or the lack of difference. Perhaps I can be of some assistance here? Generally speaking, if the post-ceremony party venue is booked first, and the church service second, then it is called a christening. If the prospective godparents candidly tell the vicar, ‘Oh, I don’t believe any of that, but I’m happy to say it!’ it is a christening. A baptism is simply a christening whose significance has been properly understood.

  Poor old Virginia, Father Wendy’s curate, is making heavy weather of explaining the significance to the young couple who want their second child ‘done’. There is a clear process. Three sessions of baptism preparation are required before the baptism can take place. The couple are pointing out that they did all that when the first child was christened. Well, it clearly didn’t sink in, thinks Virginia, as you’ve not darkened the doorway of the church since. They also insist they want a private ceremony. ‘I’m afraid we don’t do that,’ says Virginia. All baptisms take place during the main act of worship. The couple say that this is not true in other churches. ‘Well, it’s our policy here,’ says Virginia.

  I don’t want you to think that Virginia is implementing a policy just for the sheer jobsworth joy of it. (Though she has that streak in her, I will admit.) She can feel the nasty crunching of gears between policy and pastoral need. On a sudden impulse she says, ‘Tell me about your little boy.’ And it all comes out. The string of miscarriages, the complicated pregnancy, premature birth, the harrowing weeks in the Special Care Baby Unit. The mum is crying. Virginia just sits and listens.

  And then she says, ‘We’d love to welcome Nathan into the church and celebrate his safe arrival.’ She is about to use her discretion and boldly waive the baptism preparation sessions (and worry about precedent-setting, and explaining it to Father Wendy later) – when they agree to come along!

  So baptism, christening – same difference. But when his parents bring little Nathan to church, I suspect it will be a baptism.

  It’s late October now. The shops and pubs are fettled up with pumpkins and bats. The clocks go back. The nights reek of rotting leaves and gunpowder. Whizz bang scream. Please to remember. Or might we not, in this enlightened age, decide it’s time to forget treason and plot at last? And in a spirit of ecumenism, quietly discontinue the practice of burning Roman Catholics in effigy?

  A couple of young chancers call at Lindford vicarage on Thursday evening and ring the bell.

  ‘Penny for the guy?’

  Dominic stares in astonishment at the contents of the buggy parked on his step. ‘What? It’s not Bonfire Night yet! It’s not even Hallowe’en! And that’s not a guy! Who’s this?’

  ‘Ryan.’

  ‘Hello, Ryan!’ The toddler grins.

  The two bigger boys grin up at him too. ‘He’s our little brother.’

  ‘You’re not going to burn Ryan, are you?’ They look shocked. ‘Well, he’s not a guy then, is he? A guy’s made of old clothes and straw. You’re supposed to put your guy on the bonfire on bonfire night and burn him. Like Guy Fawkes? You know, Guy Fawkes? Who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the King? No?’

  They shake their heads.

  ‘Do your parents know you’re out collecting?’ They nod. Ooh, little fibbers. ‘Tell you what, we’re having a bonfire party here in the vicarage garden. Want to come?’ He gives them a flyer. ‘Now you go straight home before your mum and dad get worried, OK?’

  After they’ve gone, Dominic gets in his car and follows at a distance till he sees them disappear safely into a house on the Abernathy estate. Jesu mercy!

  I suspect Father Dominic has forgotten the things he got up to at the age of eight, which to this day his parents don’t know about. Raking the streets on dark evenings after the clocks went back. Knock down ginger. Dare you, dare you. We’ve probably all forgotten. We will never know how many times someone watched from a distance till we were safely home again.

  Chapter 43

  Batten down the hatches! There are storms on the way. Storms like the hurricane of 1987, which turned Sevenoaks into Oneoak overnight.

  When the St Jude’s Day storm strikes (patron of lost causes, pray for us!) southern England bears the brunt of it again. Nonetheless, across the diocese of Lindchester wheelie bins frolic, trees fall, the Linden rises. In the canon chancellor’s garden the huge poplar splits in two, and half of it crashes into the school playground next door. The high wall is demolished, but nobody is hurt, thank the Lord. (Yesss! The canon chancellor punches the air. Next year’s firewood sorted!) It will be a busy week for Ecclesiastical Insurance.

  Susanna watches. The garden she has so lovingly nurtured is lashed and threshed. She stares through the palace window as if at news footage of some distant disaster. It’s terrible. She
ought to care. Rain slashes the pane. Rainy, rainy, rattle stones, don’t rain on me.

  But they have. They have rained on her, not on John O’Groat’s house, far across the sea, where it would have been terribly sad, but not really her problem.

  Paul is upstairs in his study. The storm has prevented him driving off to see his counsellor. Why don’t you get in your bloody car and drive off to your lover? I know you want to! Susanna stops short of picturing a tree falling and squashing him flat. Because that’s not what she wants. She doesn’t really want him dead. But she wants to run Freddie May over! Then reverse back over him, and run over him again. No, no, poor Freddie! No, she doesn’t want to do that.

  What do you want, Susanna?

  Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know!

  What do you want, Susanna?

  The question has been padding round after her for weeks, like a dog. Go away! It’s no use, I don’t know the answer. She just wants it not to be like . . . this. Not to hurt so much. She wants to pour a huge tumbler of sherry and drink it down in one go. To rush up to Paul’s study and slap his face. She wants to know what they did. Where they did it. Whose bed. How many times. No, she doesn’t. She wants to walk out of her life for ever, disappear without explanation and start all over again, like the woman in that novel they did in her book club, who was it by? That would teach him.

  Oh, she can’t cope with not being the silly one, the one in the wrong. She’s always been in the wrong. Paul is never in the wrong – that is one of the rules!

  Everything is broken. The stupid announcement dress hangs in the wardrobe, unworn. Suddenly she realizes: somewhere, in some other palace, there’s another wife busy planning her outfit for the Big Day. Some other bishop already knows he’s the next archbishop of York. Any day now there will be an announcement. We will sink without trace. It was all for nothing. Apart from her girls, everything she’s ever done is pointless! The nursing training she’s never used. The homemaking. The stupid unpaid part-time job that brought Freddie May into their home. I should have done something with myself. And now it’s too late!