More Tea, Jesus?

by James Lark

  Milne thought of the time he had spent as a priest, sustained only by God and his work. Would it have been possible to do the job he did at the moment and still somehow fit in a wife? A family, even?

  As he had so many times before, he dismissed the thought as irrelevant. It was too late to change his mind now, too late to decide he had made the wrong decision. But if he had …

  ‘Why … how … why did you become a priest at all, if that’s what it was going to make you do to people?’ Gerard spluttered. Milne forced himself to look at the boy’s pale, angry face and meet his eyes again. He took his arm from Gerard’s shoulder and folded his arms.

  ‘Right, it’s like this. About a year and a half before I started training to be a priest, I went to a … a thing called a vicars-and-tarts party.’ Something told Milne that Gerard might not have ever been to a party like the one he was remembering. ‘Basically, it’s a type of fancy-dress party where you can either go as a vicar, or as a tart.’

  ‘I know what a vicars-and-tarts party is,’ Gerard said, annoyed that he hadn’t worked out the concept from the title and avoided the patronising description altogether.

  ‘Okay, good,’ Milne said apologetically. ‘Well, luckily a friend of mine at the time was the daughter of a vicar in the area, so I borrowed a real clerical shirt and dog collar from him. He had a similar build to me, even for quite an old man, so it all fitted me quite well, and …’ Milne leaned forward, and without realising it Gerard moved closer, intrigued by the story, ‘… you know, it actually looked really good on me. This guy, the vicar, had some really good clerical shirts, and he’d given me one with a – it’s called a tonsure collar, it means that the white bit, um …’ Milne gestured towards his dog collar, ‘… this is slightly taller than the collar so the white bit pokes out a bit all the way around.’ He frowned. ‘I wonder why I don’t order more of those shirts, they look unbelievably good. Anyway, this party was much the same as any vicars-and-tarts party, there was lots to drink and girls wearing next to nothing and games involving whipped cream and various items of fruit …’ He broke off, noticing Gerard’s open mouth and shocked expression. ‘As you’ll know, having been to such parties,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘Yes,’ gulped Gerard.

  ‘In short, I got quite drunk. And I recall going to the toilet at about two in the morning, and the toilet in the house the party was at had this full-length mirror … and I remember I looked into the mirror, and I thought, I make a better vicar than I do a human being …’

  There was a long silence before Gerard squeaked, ‘You became – a vicar – because you looked good …?’

  Milne shrugged. ‘I was a very vain person.’ He scratched his chin, thoughtfully. ‘I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d gone to that party as a tart.’

  ‘But …’ Gerard was searching for words again, so Milne interrupted him quickly.

  ‘That wasn’t the only reason. But that was the moment I started to think about it. At the time, in my inebriated state, I thought that the fact that I looked so good must be God calling me to get ordained. In the morning, I saw things more rationally, but … but the idea was there. And yes, it kind of took over. Without realising it, I somehow let that idea become more important to me than the relationship that I was in.’

  Gerard was bewildered. ‘It must … quite a party … it must have been.’ Milne nodded.

  ‘Yup.’ He sighed, wondering why he never got invited to vicars-and-tarts parties any more. Probably a combination of him being a vicar and all of his former friends being lawyers. ‘The thing is, I think I was right at that party – I do make a better vicar than a human being. I never found a way to manage being both. And because I knew that, and I knew the hurt that would cause the person I was with, I decided that the best thing to do, even though I loved her – because I loved her – was to end our relationship.’ He thought of Annalie, their few meetings after he had broken her heart – her eyes dulled, her smile forced. ‘I don’t think she ever understood.’

  ‘You should tell her now,’ Gerard said urgently. He suddenly felt as though this priest, or more specifically this unknown woman he was talking about, deserved better, and that he might have the power to do something about it. ‘You could still make up. Unless she’s …’

  ‘Married?’ finished Milne, smiling. ‘No, I don’t think she is. But it isn’t that simple … I couldn’t go back to her, not any more. It’s too late for that. And before it became too late, I thought it was too soon.’

  ‘But if she loved you that much …’

  ‘It’s not her that I’m worried about,’ Milne explained, ‘it’s me. I couldn’t do it, simply because I’d be terrified of hurting her that much again.’ He felt drained by his unexpected confession, and hoped that it might lead to some relief in the long run. The boy was no longer looking at him accusingly, but was staring ahead at nothing – or was it at the picture of Noah’s ark? – and Milne hoped that he understood, even slightly. He added softly, to give Annalie her due, ‘I feel quite sure that she would still do anything for me. Quite sure.’ He stopped, wondering if this was still true, but instantly remembering what they’d once had and Annalie’s almost obsessive ability to forgive and forget.

  ‘I don’t think – he didn’t – Pender – didn’t love me like that,’ Gerard commented. ‘I don’t think. Not really.’

  ‘But you don’t know what he’s thinking, do you? What problems he has, why he may not be able to love you back.’ Milne patted Gerard’s shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard, but don’t beat yourself up about it, because it’s not your fault.’ Gerard didn’t answer. ‘Love can be crap, too,’ Milne finally suggested. Gerard nodded.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again,’ he said, and waited for Milne to reassure him.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Milne replied. Gerard listened to his own tiny breaths, thinking to himself that this wasn’t the reassurance he’d hoped for. ‘I think that’s unlikely, but I can’t guarantee you happiness. However –’ Milne looked at Gerard face-on. ‘I think it’s worth the struggle.’

  Gerard thought about this and wordlessly decided that it wasn’t worth the struggle. It was too much work for too little.

  ‘Have you thought about getting angry?’ asked Milne.

  ‘That’s bad … isn’t it?’ faltered Gerard.

  ‘No,’ replied Milne. ‘You’ve every right to be angry. Life isn’t fair, and you’ve been badly treated.’

  ‘I don’t – can’t – not with Pender …’ Gerard hesitated.

  ‘Then get angry with God.’

  ‘God?’ Gerard shivered – this was dangerous territory. ‘I don’t want to go to hell.’

  ‘You don’t go to hell for getting angry with God. What do you think the Psalms are all about?’ Gerard wasn’t sure about this – he thought that the Psalms were all about flowers and things, but Milne was a priest and ought to know what he was talking about. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Milne, an idea suddenly popping into his head, ‘you can paint the vestry while you’re doing it.’

  Gerard stood in the vestry, surrounded by cassocks, religious silverware and white sheets. And God.

  He cautiously dipped his paintbrush into the tin of lavender blue Milne had left him with, then made a few experimental dabs on the wall. The vicar had told him to ‘have a good shout at God’ and try to get a coat of paint onto every wall. Gerard wasn’t sure which was going to take longer.

  ‘Okay,’ he said out loud, with a vague feeling of fear but also the feeling that he might be doing something a bit ridiculous. Certainly he felt ridiculous. He dipped his brush in the paint again and for fun he tried painting the lonely parrot on the wall, an attempt to delay the actual shouting – but the brush was too thick to paint pictures with and Gerard suddenly worried that he was going to run out of time and the vicar would come back to find that none of the painting was done and he wouldn’t have got anything off his chest either. He quickly painted over the aborted parrot i
n thick brushstrokes and decided to try again with the talking.

  ‘Okay, God, what – please? – what does it mean?’ he asked. He waited for an answer, and heard none. He dipped his brush in the paint again and swiped it aggressively down the wall. ‘It’s all crap,’ he continued, feeling fairly safe with the word ‘crap’ because he’d heard a priest use it. ‘I’ve had enough,’ he continued. ‘I fucking have!’ he added, loudly and bitterly.

  He stood rooted to the spot with terror, waiting for something to happen. A thunderbolt, or something along those lines.

  No thunderbolt came.

  So he went on, adding more thick strokes of paint to the wall with every sentence. ‘Why did you make me gay?’ he shouted. Swoosh – another angry streak of lavender blue. ‘Why couldn’t I have met somebody who actually – fucking – cared for me? Not a bastard who just – who took advantage of me? Was that your plan?’

  Gerard was getting into his stride now. He dipped his brush into the paint and attacked a different wall, splashing paint over the white sheets but not caring, not caring about the mess, not caring who thought anything about him any more. ‘And why – why? – did you give me a mother who doesn’t know at all and doesn’t care and only wants me to fit into her perfect son who isn’t me and who stopped me from being me and why did you make me me for that matter you – you – you rotter!’

  He clenched his fists and raised his paintbrush to heaven. ‘What are you playing at, God? Look at me, look at what I’m going through – don’t you care? I’ve done what you wanted, I’ve been good, haven’t I?’

  And as he went on, his words started to come out in the right order.

  Chapter 25

  Milne gave Gerard half an hour, then knocked gently on the vestry door. Gerard opened it, looking out of breath. ‘And?’ asked Milne.

  ‘Um …’ Gerard looked doubtful. ‘It’ll need another coat, but I’ve covered all the walls.’ Milne nodded.

  ‘Well. It’s a start.’

  ‘You … you might need to get some new sheets, they’re a bit …’

  ‘That’s fine, that’s what they’re for.’

  ‘It wasn’t very …’ Gerard screwed up his face, searching for the right word. ‘What I said while I was painting – it wasn’t as pretty as the Psalms.’

  ‘Oh, that’s alright,’ Milne reassured him. ‘I’ve got a feeling that some of the Psalms are heavily paraphrased. The angry ones, at least.’ He noted with satisfaction that Gerard’s face seemed more alive than it had before. ‘Do you want some lunch? It’s the least I can offer in return for all this work. Then I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘I told you, I haven’t got a home,’ said Gerard, an edge in his voice hinting at the vitriol he’d been exorcising in the vestry.

  ‘Maybe that’s something else we can help with,’ Milne said.

  ‘How? What can you do?’ Gerard demanded.

  ‘Well, I think you need to sort things out with your mother, for a start.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Have you actually spoken to her about this? Talked things through?’

  ‘No.’ Gerard thought for a moment. ‘We don’t really … talk.’

  ‘Maybe you need to?’ Gerard considered this. The thought of talking to his mother – discussing things with her – terrified him. But then, he’d just spent half an hour shouting at the Almighty, after which perhaps his mother wouldn’t be so terrifying. ‘Are there people where you live who can support you – maybe give you somewhere to stay?’

  ‘There’s Reverend Biddle,’ Gerard said.

  ‘Andy Biddle? You live in Little Collyweston?’ asked Milne.

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

  ‘I know him very well,’ Milne told Gerard. ‘Have you talked about any of this with him?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Gerard paused. He didn’t want to be unfair to Reverend Biddle, but Biddle hadn’t exactly helped him very much. He was beginning to think that he might have read more into the omelette sermon than was ever there to begin with. ‘It’s like I say, he talks about life but doesn’t really offer solutions … he comes out with churchy stuff.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ argued Milne, ‘I think that you’ll find that Andy is actually very practical. He might do all that smiley, fluffy stuff, and maybe his liturgy is a bit …’ Milne coughed, ‘unconventional. But he’s a clever man and he’s good at dealing with difficult situations.’ Gerard looked at Milne uncertainly, wondering exactly what actual criticisms were hidden in the word ‘unconventional’. ‘Why don’t you phone him now and tell him where you are – and tell him that I’ll bring you back later today. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas about what to do.’ Gerard searched for an excuse, but in vain. ‘Come on,’ said Milne. ‘By the way, you haven’t told me your name …’

  They went back to the vestry, where Milne located the telephone underneath one of the white sheets and dialled Biddle’s number. ‘As I said,’ he told Gerard, ‘if you tell him what’s happened I’m sure he’ll have a few practical ideas. None of this churchy stuff.’ He handed Gerard the phone.

  A few moments later Biddle answered it. ‘Hello,’ began Gerard, ‘it’s Gerard. Feehan.’ When speaking to people he knew on the telephone, Gerard always felt an irrational fear after saying his first name that the person on the end of the line would ask ‘Gerard who?’, so he invariably added his surname as an afterthought.

  Milne decided it would be best to leave him to it, and walked quietly out of the vestry. He looked around his church; it was a building which he loved, and which showed the efforts of many generations to glorify God. But sometimes he felt as the boy did, when he looked around at the stone statues, the pillars, the candles – what hope did they really contain? Were they merely cold, dead objects?

  He looked at the cross on the altar. That, at least, was real. Or it had been once. It was that which his hope was based on, which gave him the strength to carry on each day. But it was so difficult to express that to somebody in Gerard’s situation – it wasn’t something you could explain, you either understood it or you didn’t. And the minute you started mentioning Jesus, you ran the risk of sounding like an evangelical.

  Maybe, thought Milne, that was a risk worth taking.

  Gerard emerged from the vestry, confusion written all over his face. ‘Well?’ asked Milne.

  ‘He said I needed to speak to Jesus,’ Gerard told him, shortly. Milne swiftly changed his mind about mentioning Jesus. It was all very well, but it was not the kind of practical help that he had hoped Andy would offer. But then, Andy hadn’t been quite himself recently – God knows what was going through his mind following the newspaper article a few days ago. Especially if Bishop Slocombe had caught up with him.

  ‘Was that it?’ Milne enquired, hoping for something more constructive.

  ‘No.’ Gerard seemed bewildered. ‘He said that the best place to talk to Jesus would be at the church entertainment tonight, because he’ll definitely be there. Because …’ Gerard’s voice became even less certain, ‘because he’s going to be performing in it.’

  ‘Performing?’

  ‘Singing. That’s what Reverend Biddle said.’

  Milne stared back at Gerard; all the possible responses he could think of seemed inadequate.

  Chapter 26

  Harriet Lomas answered the telephone with the same air of trepidation with which she had approached the morning’s tasks of dusting and vacuum cleaning. Whatever she did, she half-expected demons to rise up from the depths of hell to claim her at any moment, like at the end of that opera Bernard had taken her to during his opera-loving phase three years ago. Or, worse still, for Jesus to knock on the front door and demand to speak to her.

  The harpsichord remained in the living room, a terrifying manifestation of her shame. She had no idea how Bernard had moved it – certainly, she had no idea how she was going to get rid of it. And it had been terribly inconvenient when it came to doing the vacuum cleaning.

  She was afraid to an
swer the phone, but Bernard was still in his study sulking and it seemed unlikely that he would do anything about it.

  ‘Ah … Harriet, it’s Andy Biddle here,’ came the voice of her vicar from the receiver. Harriet broke into a sweat.

  ‘Reverend! H … hello …’ It was about the harpsichord, she knew it was about the harpsichord. Jesus had told the vicar all about it. She would never be able to show her face in church again.

  ‘How are you?’ enquired Biddle. He felt rather awkward about making the call, and wasn’t sure how best to approach the matter in question.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ lied Harriet, her voice shaking.

  ‘Looking forward to the parish entertainment later?’

  The parish entertainment – Harriet hadn’t even thought about it. Normally, she would have been happily bustling around, preparing food, arriving at the church hall as early as possible to set everything up and generally being very important indeed. But the events of the last few days had turned her into a fugitive – she couldn’t leave the house for fear of bumping into Jesus.

  ‘I understand you have something exciting prepared for us?’ Biddle enthused. Harriet wasn’t sure if he was referring to her legendary muffins or to the trio of Flanders and Swann songs she had planned to perform. At the moment, it seemed likely that neither would materialise, not least because her songs would require an accompanist, which was traditionally a job that fell to Ted Sloper.

  As she thought about it, though, Harriet felt a yearning to be there, in the parish hall, helping put out plates of sandwiches and quiche. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that Jesus would not be turning up to something so frivolous. There was no scriptural record of Jesus attending anything like a church variety show. He probably didn’t much like that kind of thing. And she could hardly expect Sathan Petty-Saphon to do all the work. Harriet imagined the praise that would be lavished on the organisers of the event – no, this was clearly something that she needed to be involved in.