by James Lark
‘I only need you for the anthem, you could just come up to the choir stalls for that – the girls will be in Sunday school by then, won’t they?’
‘Yes but … I … I was never really a tenor, if I’m honest …’
‘Look, it’s only for today, if you can read the music, that’s fine.’
‘Well – alright, but I …’
‘Great. Great Robert, thanks, that’s great.’
‘Oh, you, er … you don’t have a safety pin, do you?’
But Ted had already gone.
Andy Biddle smilingly greeted people as they entered the church. ‘Good morning, Noreen,’ he said.
‘I wanted to thank you for your advice last week, vicar,’ Noreen Ponty said, ‘you know, my omelettes have always stuck to the frying pan, but I tried doing it the way you suggested and it worked perfectly.’
‘Oh, really?’ Biddle smiled graciously.
‘Now, I wonder, have you tried putting a few herbs into the mixture before you whisk it together, I find it adds a bit of …’
‘Oh, morning, Anne – yes, thank you, Noreen, I’ll certainly – oh, yes, how are you Mrs Feehan?’
Underneath the cheery smile, though, Biddle had started to feel distinctly uncomfortable. In his late-night fervour, he had pulled out a sermon that, in the cold, wet light of day, looked like an incredibly unwise selection. It was definitely challenging, possibly controversial, maybe even offensive. On top of that, there was no way it could possibly be tied in to the omelette. He wondered if he was about to turn the whole church against him – as they pottered in, nodding in greeting and shaking his hand, little suspecting what they were shortly going to be exposed to, Biddle found his nerve deserting him. He had barely arrived in the parish and now he was risking a church-wide loss of trust.
It would not be difficult to make up a different sermon on the spot. He could ad-lib a few words about love, or happiness or something … For that matter, he might as well show them how to make another culinary treat. Why not, if it was going to be another meaningless reiteration of how lovely everything was?
No. Not today. Wearing a fixed smile, he continued to greet his congregation with renewed determination to tell them something worth hearing for once.
Sathan Petty-Saphon moved through the congregation as they arrived, smiling benefactorially at people she knew and keeping a sharp eye open for newcomers. She had already clocked the disreputable Jewish-looking man – sitting near the back again, she noted, disapprovingly – and it was suspicious that he had arrived early this week, when he normally crept in late. Lateness was another Jewish trait, Petty-Saphon thought to herself. Well, not Jewish, that was unfair and a bit racist – but certainly foreign. Sathan Petty-Saphon was not against foreigners living in England – absolutely not – but she did feel very strongly that they should try to adopt its standards, punctuality being one of them, once they had arrived. Otherwise they might as well have stayed where they were.
A small child ran into her. ‘Whoops-a-daisy,’ she sternly announced.
‘Esther, come here – sorry about that,’ apologised Robert Phair.
‘No Lindsay today?’ enquired Sathan Petty-Saphon.
‘Oh, no, no, she has – er – other things, she’s very busy at the moment. Work. And things, so … this week, she thought …’ Sathan Petty-Saphon nodded sympathetically. It was very telling indeed, after Lindsay’s little demonstration last Sunday. No wonder their children were running riot.
‘Good morning, Sathan,’ said Harriet, beaming importantly.
‘Oh, good morning, Harriet,’ said Sathan, beaming back with a competitive level of importance.
‘Sorry to interrupt, I need to talk with Robert.’
‘Not at all, we’d finished talking, in fact.’ Sathan smiled. ‘Do give my love to Lindsay, won’t you. We’re all thinking about her a lot.’
‘Oh, thank you, yes,’ said Robert with an awkward smile, certain that he most certainly wouldn’t pass this information on to Lindsay as it would confirm all her worst suspicions. Sathan Petty-Saphon gave him one last tight smile, nodded politely to Harriet and moved away purposefully – she had spotted another unfamiliar face.
Harriet collared Robert before he had a chance to move. ‘I gather that you’re singing tenor for us this morning.’
‘Well, yes.’ He laughed awkwardly, yet again. ‘I haven’t done any singing for some time, it may not turn out to be all that … that …’
‘Oh, fine,’ Harriet said hurriedly. ‘There was one thing I wanted to mention about the anthem on a matter of pronunciation …’
Sathan Petty-Saphon was pleased to see that the second newcomer she had spied was a smart, respectable-looking young man. How lovely it was to see at least one person of a younger generation so well turned out.
She drifted towards him, making an effort to make her movement look completely random and facing slightly away from him as she stepped up the intensity of her smiles and greetings. As she reached the newcomer, she turned.
‘Oh!’ she said in surprise. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘It’s my first time here,’ the newcomer explained. He was well-spoken, she noted with approval, and he had a light, gentle voice.
‘In that case it’s a great pleasure to welcome you to St Barnabas,’ she told him, with a warm smile of welcome.
‘Thank you.’ His politeness proved again that her initial judgements had been correct.
‘I’m Sathan Petty-Saphon,’ she explained, ‘though you must call me Sathan.’
‘Thank you. I’m Mick Breen,’ replied Pender Gannit.
Pender Gannit had not been in a church since the age of eight, and he found that it had not improved. Having escaped from the overbearingly welcoming woman, he had taken his place in an uncomfortable wooden pew which had filled up with dull-looking people. There was a rather pathetic procession at the start of the service, during which they sang ‘O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing’, which seemed to Pender to have about a thousand verses to sing as well. He mumbled along but was too hung over to make an effort. He didn’t know the tune, in any case (and, from the sound of things, neither did the organist).
The vicar greeted them all with the same happy authority with which he had excelled whilst leading the search for a contact lens at Different. Then followed endless readings broken up by endless singing, all of which seemed to be boring the dull-looking people around him as much as himself.
Pender had strategically placed himself in a position where he had a fairly good view of the guy who had also been a party in the contact-lens incident. Nervous and slightly pasty-looking, he sat next to a stony-faced woman, presumably a relative. There was something decidedly appealing in the rather worried expression set on his face; it brought out the boyish, pretty aspects of his features. Definitely my type, thought Pender.
There was a sudden stir of interest in the congregation. ‘Now,’ announced the vicar with a joyous expression, ‘it’s time for our notices. Er …’ He referred to a sheet of paper and started to read out the week’s notices – to Pender, they seemed as long and dull as what had preceded them, but it was clear that to the congregation this was a high point in the service. There were occasional rustlings of enjoyment as the vicar made little jokes, not so much genuine amusement as relief that, during this part of the service at least, they were allowed to have a little bit of fun.
‘Oh, and the annual parish entertainment is coming up next week,’ Biddle announced, precipitating a particularly sizeable rustle of excitement. ‘I think that Sathan is going to tell us about that?’
Now the overbearing woman was on her feet and addressing them. ‘I’m sure we can all remember how much fun we had at the parish entertainment last year,’ she began, receiving another rustle of agreement, ‘and I’m sure we’re all going to come along and make sure that this year’s is even better!’ she finished, producing more assenting mumbles.
Harriet Lomas watched from the choir stalls, mumblin
g her assent with everybody else, but feeling a little displeased that it was Sathan Petty-Saphon who was getting all the attention. One might almost think that it had been entirely her work which had made the parish entertainment so much fun last year, when in actual fact Harriet had put in just as much effort behind the scenes, especially on the food front. It wouldn’t have been a proper church event without her homemade muffins.
‘Now, there’s plenty for everyone to do,’ continued Petty-Saphon, ‘so if you haven’t already signed up on one of the rotas at the back of the church –’ Every head turned to look in the direction she was pointing, then turned back on realising that the only thing to look at was a notice-board with three pieces of paper pinned to it, which scarcely merited attention – ‘then please do so by the end of today’s service. We need people to help serve food and help wash up. And, of course, we need people to make food – even if you don’t think you can cook, everyone knows how to make a sandwich, don’t they!’ There was a polite ripple of amusement, and wives prodded their husbands meaningfully. ‘And …’ Everyone held their breath expectantly, ‘… there is the entertainment itself!’ Sathan Petty-Saphon allowed herself a little smile. ‘Now, everybody here can do something – we can all play an instrument, or recite a poem, or tell a joke – so if you’d like to be involved, please come and see me, as there’s plenty of time to fill.’
Of course, thought Harriet, the reason Sathan usually held the limelight on these occasions was that she was a little bit too pushy, and she did like to talk about her achievements. Whereas Harriet generally got on with the job without worrying about taking the credit for it, which was a rather more humble and therefore righteous approach. It was a shame that there weren’t more people like herself in the church, she thought with a sigh, as Sathan Patty-Saphon returned to her pew, a proud smile fixed onto her face.
‘Yes, please do see Mrs P… Sathan, if you would like to be involved,’ reiterated Andy Biddle, amidst a final flurry of excited murmurs. ‘Do come along and don’t forget to bring some food, and we’ll all have, have I’m sure, lots of fun. Now, it’s time to share with one another the sign of peace.’
For some members of the congregation, this was clearly almost too much excitement to bear. ‘The peace of the Lord be always with you,’ Biddle said, beaming.
‘And also with you!’ chorused the congregation. As if a spell had been broken, the congregation burst from their pews and leapt into frenzied chatter and hand-shaking, milking every second’s worth of pleasure from their limited time of movement and talk.
Pender found himself gratifyingly surrounded by people he didn’t know, nodding and talking at him whilst shaking his hand, before they moved on and forgot all about him. God, it was like being at an orgy, only with less chance of infection. After an oddly enjoyable couple of minutes being pressed up against by old ladies, he pushed forward and made for the nervous boy, who was taking as little part in the excitement as seemed possible – the occasional nervous smile and limp-wristed handshake being the best he could manage.
Just as Pender reached his target, he found himself blocked by the stern woman who had been sitting with the boy. ‘Peace be with you,’ she declared menacingly. Pender smiled as his hand was clasped in an iron grip and shaken vigorously.
The stern woman moved away, and Pender found himself looking into the worried blue eyes of the object of his (rather transitory) interest. Pender deliberately held the gaze, then stepped up to the boy.
‘Peace be with you,’ he suggested, with a filthy grin.
‘P … p … peace …’ stuttered the boy, transfixed by Pender’s stare. Pender took the boy’s hand firmly, but instead of shaking it he continued to press it.
‘And the children will go out as we sing our next hymn,’ announced the vicar, ‘number three two nine, All Creatures of our God and King.’
Pender held the hand and the gaze for a moment longer, then, avoiding the sudden flow of children moving out of the church, returned to his seat with the feeling of a job well started.
Biddle stepped up to the pulpit feeling more nervous about preaching than he had done for many years. ‘May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be pleasing to you, Lord. Amen.’ He meant it. The words of his mouth were unlikely to be pleasing to anybody else.
‘Some people,’ he began, looking around the assembled congregation and trying to meet as many eyes as possible while he still could, ‘think that Christianity is all about obedience. All about rules. All about doing “the right thing”.’ He paused, timing the next sentence to maximise its impact.
‘It’s not.’ If he was expecting a gasp, he didn’t get one – in fact, none of the upturned faces seemed to register any shock at all. Perhaps they were weighing up his words, waiting for him to justify his statement. That was a good sign, surely?
‘We may want to make things easier for ourselves by reducing Christianity to a set of rules. It might seem simpler and more logical to run the church in that way. But Christianity has never been about making things easy. Look at Jesus – did he find things easy, when the Pharisees accused him of blasphemy? Did he find things simple, on trial for his life in the Jewish court? Was it logical for him to hang on a cross?
‘No, it was not! And, as the Pharisees could prove, Jesus was not into obeying rules, either – he was a lawbreaker, a blasphemer, a dangerous liberal!’ Another pause here, partly for effect but also to see if the word ‘liberal’ registered any major disapproval. Still no reaction. ‘But how many of us today are prepared to be dangerous liberals?’ Biddle dramatically added.
Elated by the fact that the congregation were still listening attentively, Biddle started to hit his stride. ‘I wonder if perhaps we would prefer to be like the God of the Old Testament; we want to heap condemnation and judgment upon those we believe have done wrong, the people who have broken our easy, simple, logical rules.’ Biddle paused again, taking the opportunity to look around the congregation accusingly. He could almost sense people repenting inwardly. ‘Let us think about Sodom.’
Pender Gannit leaned forward in his pew attentively.
‘We read in the Bible that God rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah; he destroyed those cities and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. And maybe that’s what we want for our society today – we think we’re living in a modern Sodom and Gomorrah, so we make judgments and accusations about the morality of other people’s ways of life. We rain down burning sulphur upon them, in our words at least, and those who we mistrust we turn into salt by excluding them. Yet, by doing so, we become guilty of the actual sin represented by Sodom and Gomorrah – inhospitality!
‘Instead of casting out those people we would rather have nothing to do with, it is time for the church to embrace that which so long it has been trying to ignore, or even condemn. I mean the things that define our humanity – we need to accept that human beings have bodies, messy and fleshy bodies with eyes and mouths and hair, with hormones and bodily fluids! And furthermore with attractions, with hungers, with passions! Jesus accepted all of these things when he himself took them on – that is the very meaning of Christ being made flesh! He, too, had a messy, fleshy body with hormones and bodily fluids, he too had the same passions and desires as us!’
Pender Gannit surreptitiously removed a notepad from his jacket pocket and began making notes, summarising Biddle’s argument thus far with the sentence, ‘Jesus had a penis.’
‘But I wonder if the church has ever forgiven God for becoming human? It continues to condemn those things that Christ said yes to two thousand years ago, it makes outcasts of those it would want to believe are sexual deviants, purely because they are different – but did Christ say no to those passions that so many human beings have?’ Biddle looked around challengingly. ‘No, he did not!’ he concluded emphatically. ‘Buggery is OK,’ jotted Pender, with a feeling of satisfaction. It was almost too perfect.
After the unqualified success of his sermon, Bi
ddle was tempted to use the full unabridged liturgy for the mass. However, he decided that he’d already challenged people enough with his sermon, so used the shorter St Barnabas version.
Pender Gannit found the whole thing interminably dull. He amused himself by watching Gerard Feehan. He stared across at the fine blond hair, the pouting lips, willing the boy to turn and look at him, but to his disappointment Gerard remained looking straight ahead, devoutly responding to the prayers being uttered at the front of the church.
Pender decided not to take communion. He wasn’t superstitious, but thought it was as well not to risk it. Just in case Jesus was watching.
As indeed he was.
There was a small commotion when Ted Sloper frantically indicated to Robert Phair that he was needed shortly for the anthem – Phair hurried out of his pew to the choir stalls at the front of the church, much to Sathan Petty-Saphon’s annoyance (she felt that the Phair family had caused quite enough disturbance in church of late).
After the choir had been given communion, the organ started up with something vaguely resembling the Cantique de Jean Racine and Ted Sloper solemnly conducted the choir’s entry. Their rendition was not an unqualified success.
Sloper was never going to be anything other than dissatisfied with the performance, but he did at least feel as though he was relatively in control of the proceedings when they started. Anne had clearly found a little time in between pages of her romantic novel to practise, so what she played followed roughly the same shape as what was written, if not the actual notes themselves. The choir at least came in together, and it turned out that, for all his protests, Robert Phair could actually make quite a decent (if nervous) sound.
Then they reached the word paisible. Harriet Lomas had very efficiently managed to speak to every member of the choir to ensure they were aware of the correct pronunciation, but Ted Sloper’s instructions also remained very clear in the minds of many. As Harley Farmer reached the word, he suddenly had doubts as to which pronunciation had been favoured by Sloper and which one Harriet had told him to sing. As he tried to recall which was which, he also realised he’d forgotten whether he was going to sing Harriet’s version and risk recriminations from their director, or whether he had decided to sing Sloper’s version and risk upsetting Harriet. Finding he was unable to remember either of the pronunciations, and wondering whether the pronunciation he had in his head was one of them or if it was a third, completely incorrect version, he forgot to sing the word altogether.