More Tea, Jesus?

by James Lark

  It wasn’t as if she had stolen the harpsichord, was it?

  Biddle, tired of the increasingly strained (and uncharacteristic) silences on the end of the phone, decided to get to the point. ‘Harriet,’ he said, ‘I wanted to give you a quick call – um, I hope I’m not interrupting anything important, but I … er …’ He smiled reassuringly, an action that was naturally lost on Harriet altogether. ‘It’s just that Ted … Sloper, that is …’

  At the mention of the name, Harriet’s heart shuddered. The little fantasy in her mind which had been playing out, of the church applauding her hard work, of modestly smiling and looking at the floor and all the admiring people complimenting her muffins and asking if they might have the recipe – and of happily explaining that it was a secret family recipe that she couldn’t really give out – evaporated instantly to be replaced by Faustian images of demons and hell. She was shaking again and she couldn’t speak.

  ‘… he’s terribly upset about his harpsichord going missing, and I wondered if maybe it would be best if you put it back.’ He asked her as gently as possible, but to Harriet his voice thundered accusingly from the telephone.

  There was no response. Had she heard him?

  ‘Harriet? Ted’s harpsichord … could you just …?’

  ‘Yes,’ she struggled to say, rapidly cancelling all plans involving the parish entertainment, muffins, Flanders and Swann, and indeed going to church at all in the future.

  ‘Thank you, that’s great,’ beamed Biddle, his cheerful response sounding to Harriet like the condemning judgement of a dark messenger from hell. She was already making plans to move house. ‘And I’ll see you later?’

  ‘Yes,’ lied Harriet, wondering how many weeks it would take to complete the transaction and actually move out – if they weren’t too picky about what property they moved to.

  When she heard the click of Biddle putting his receiver down, she held on to the telephone and wept a few self-pitying tears. It was all too terrible – to be so publically shamed, to be made to look so stupid in front of the vicar and goodness knows how many other people Jesus had told …

  Then she slammed the phone down and stormed up to her husband’s study, ignoring his inevitable fury and bursting in through his door.

  He looked up, furiously. He was still livid about the recent turn of events – everything had been going so well, so well, before Harriet had gone and got it into her head that she’d found God. Literally, found God.

  ‘I want it gone!’ she screamed, hysterically. ‘I want that harpsichord back in Ted Sloper’s house!’

  ‘Move it yourself, then!’ he shouted back. ‘You ungrateful bitch!’

  She stepped back, shocked. Bernard had never called her a bitch before.

  ‘I put all that work into doing something for you, and this is all the thanks I get!’ he raged. ‘Well, I’m not going to waste any more energy, you understand?’

  ‘It has to go,’ she sobbed. ‘And we have to go, we’re going to have to move house.’

  ‘What?’ he said, aghast. ‘You want me to put the harpsichord back and move house? Good God, woman, what have I done to deserve this?’

  ‘Jesus knows,’ she hissed, ‘don’t you see?’

  ‘So you want to move house? Isn’t the idea that Jesus is everywhere? Oh no,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I forgot. He’s here, isn’t he? Visiting Little Collyweston. Yes, that’s right, the Messiah has decided to move into our village, of course we’ll have to escape immediately.’

  ‘It’s not just Jesus – he’s told the vicar! Everyone knows about it, everyone!’ This was something of an exaggeration of what she knew to be the truth, but it seemed wise to assume the worst.

  ‘Right,’ said Bernard, slamming his fist on his desk. He was fed up with this nonsense about Jesus and he was bloody well going to do something about it. ‘You want me to move the harpsichord back? Fine. I’ll do it now.’

  ‘Not now!’ hissed Harriet. ‘Wait until it’s dark, at least! Do it in the evening, you can put it back without him noticing – he’ll be at the parish entertainment.’

  ‘Will he now?’ asked Bernard. A plan was beginning to form in his mind.

  ‘Yes. He plays the piano for people who are singing songs.’

  ‘Jesus plays the piano?’ Bernard repeated, incredulously.

  ‘Not Jesus! Ted! Ted plays the piano!’

  ‘And will Jesus be there?’ asked Bernard, thinking quickly.

  ‘How should I know?’ seethed his wife, ‘I don’t know everything Jesus is doing, do I?’

  ‘Alright,’ said Bernard, with a humourless, vengeful smile, ‘I’ll move the harpsichord back tonight. Don’t you worry.’

  Harriet Lomas, exhausted and upset, left the study and decided to spend the rest of the day in bed with a headache.

  Reverend Biddle replaced the telephone with the feeling of an afternoon’s good work well done. The matter of Ted’s harpsichord was sorted out and hopefully, after a word with Jesus, young Gerard would be altogether happier. Gerard’s phone call from Cogspool troubled him a little – evidently the whole Feehan problem had got rather out of hand without his even realizing – but it would all be fine now that Jesus was involved. There was just an hour or so to brush up on the words to Thy Way, get changed and head over to the church hall. Biddle was now rather looking forward to the parish entertainment, especially knowing what Jesus had in store for them.

  He was heading back into the sitting room when the telephone rang. He hurried back to it with a smile, enjoying the feeling of being a busy parish priest. He was a busy parish priest, so there was no particular reason why he should need to feel like one as well. But it gave him a sense of satisfaction, as if he was doing a proper job.

  Which he was, naturally.

  He picked up the telephone and a voice immediately barked, ‘Biddle? What the bloody hell have you been up to and why haven’t you returned my phone call?’

  ‘Bishop Slocombe!’ Biddle, still caught up in the week’s excitement and the jollity of feeling like a busy parish priest possibly sounded unwisely cheerful. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, things here have been so hectic that …’

  ‘So hectic that you couldn’t telephone me to explain exactly what the hell you’ve been doing?’ shouted Slocombe. ‘What are you playing at, Andy? I always suspected you were a poof, but I thought you’d have the common sense to be discreet about it – this isn’t Camden, you know.’

  Biddle remembered the newspaper report with a shock – so much had happened since then that he’d forgotten all about it. ‘Ah, you see, that’s all a bit …’

  ‘And preaching on it! Have you gone out of your mind?’

  ‘I didn’t preach on it,’ insisted Biddle. Then he realised there was something else he needed to object to, and added: ‘I’m not a poof.’

  ‘So why haven’t you got in touch with me, Biddle? Don’t you realise there are consequences? This has kicked up a right fuss – I’ve been getting letters from your parishioners …’

  ‘Who?’ asked Biddle, curiously.

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that, and you probably know the answers already.’ That was true, Biddle thought.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,’ he quickly explained, ‘but things have been extremely busy here – you see, Jesus has arrived.’

  There was a long, tense silence.

  ‘That’s not going to wash with the General Synod,’ Slocombe finally replied. ‘They’re not that interested in Jesus.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the General Synod,’ Biddle said excitedly. ‘Who cares what’s been written about me in the paper? Jesus Christ has been coming to my church, don’t you see how important it is?’

  Bishop Slocombe made a noise down the phone involving his throat – Biddle thought that it was either an expression of disapproval or that Slocombe was slurping from a glass of wine. ‘Perhaps you need to take a holiday,’ Slocombe remarked.

  ‘I know it’s hard to believe,’ B
iddle insisted, ‘but it’s true.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ Slocombe angrily retorted. ‘Don’t be so …’ he paused, ‘gullible,’ he concluded. ‘You’ve obviously been reading the Bible too much.’

  ‘Too much?’ exclaimed Biddle. ‘What do you—’

  ‘Oh, it’s a very nice book, Andy – but it’s not real. You can’t believe all that garbage about Jesus coming again, a new heaven and a new earth – that’s not how the world works. The Bible is meant to be an encouragement, not an instruction manual. Start believing all that stuff about God and you’re headed for disappointment.’

  Biddle was shocked to hear this from a man he had, on the whole, respected for many years. ‘Surely you don’t mean that?’ he said. ‘I don’t take the Bible literally,’ he hurriedly clarified, ‘but the Bible is the Bible.’

  ‘Pah!’ snorted Slocombe, ‘you’re sounding all evangelical again and you can’t be one of those now that you’re gay.’

  ‘But a bit of respect for the word of God …’

  ‘How about a bit of respect for common sense?’

  ‘But faith, Bishop Slocombe, is not about common sense!’

  ‘Clearly not, if it makes intelligent people like you believe that Jesus has come back to earth and has started attending your church services.’

  ‘But he has!’

  ‘I suppose he’s helping serve tea with the old ladies afterwards, too?’

  ‘Bishop Slocombe,’ Biddle patiently explained, ‘I can assure you that Jesus is here. In the flesh.’

  ‘Actually in the flesh, Andy? Have you touched him?’

  ‘I haven’t asked to touch the wounds in his hands, no. I’ve got enough to worry about without doubting who he is.’

  ‘So you didn’t doubt who he said he was? It didn’t cross your mind for just the tiniest instant that it might not actually be Jesus?’

  ‘No. It didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t you think that might have been a mistake?’

  ‘No. There is no doubt. It’s him.’

  ‘You see?’ Slocombe snorted angrily again and this time Biddle was sure that there was some wine involved as well. ‘This is the problem with evangelicals, they mix up blind trust with faith and end up believing everything. The minute anyone comes along claiming to be Jesus, they all run after him expectantly and it all ends in tears.’

  ‘You have to believe me, Jesus really is here!’ Biddle persisted. ‘And I’m not an evangelical,’ he added.

  ‘Stop there right now, Andy.’ Slocombe’s voice was suddenly threatening. ‘You realise that I have every authority to have you suspended immediately, pending investigation of this incident reported in the newspaper. I personally wouldn’t do any such thing to a capable priest merely because he’s been dining at the downstairs restaurant with other men, but I’m beginning to doubt that you’re a capable priest.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Don’t argue, Biddle. I’m serious – drop this Jesus thing. Jesus doesn’t need to come into your work at all – a lot of priests go their whole careers without even mentioning him.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to call him when I see him at breakfast?’ demanded Biddle, losing patience.

  ‘Biddle!’ bellowed the Bishop, ‘I’m telling you, this is your last …’ Slocombe stopped mid-flow, then said, ‘Wait there, I’ve got to answer the door.’

  Biddle waited there, fuming slightly. As if it wasn’t enough being accused of being both a poof and an evangelical, without having his Bishop telling him not to believe in Jesus when Jesus was staying in his spare room!

  Biddle heard Bishop Slocombe pick the telephone again and cough awkwardly. ‘We’ll – have to continue this conversation another time,’ he abruptly told Biddle.

  ‘Oh, fine,’ said Biddle, relieved. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘No,’ Slocombe answered, shortly. He sounded agitated.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Biddle was a bit concerned – it was unlike Slocombe to drop out of an argument so quickly.

  ‘No … yes. It’s just …’ Slocombe coughed again, unhappily. ‘Jesus has arrived,’ he said very quickly, and hung up.

  Biddle heard the line to go dead and put the phone down happily. That, he thought, was divine intervention at its best.

  Mrs Feehan ascended the darkening narrow staircase. Her house was strangely empty now and she would have felt alone, but for the Lord’s hand supporting her every step. The landing creaked as she walked along it towards her bedroom, pushing the door open and clicking on the light.

  She walked around the double bed, of which only one half had been slept in for the last twenty-two years. She walked to the side of the bed that she never got into, to the chest of drawers that had remained untouched for as long – as he had left them, all those years ago.

  Captain David Feehan, who had so often left her on her own. She had read about his progress in the news, of the missions on which he was engaged, following his movements around the world: Africa, the Middle East, the Falklands … Until twenty-two years ago he had finally departed forever, leaving only remnants of himself. And a baby. In that time there had never been a reason to disturb the things he had left behind him, not since she had folded up his clothes for the last time and replaced them in his drawers, waiting for his return.

  She could not have allowed herself to move them, to throw them away – because she could never quite put aside the hope that one day he might come back. Although that hope was long since dead, his things had remained in the house, a bleak monument to the man who had left his wife and his child to fend for themselves.

  Maybe, reflected Mrs Feehan, it was for a more divine reason that God had prevented her from throwing anything away. She pulled open the second drawer from the top and felt underneath the folded shirts for what she knew must still be there. Her hand grasped cold metal, and she withdrew his 9mm Browning L9A1 semi-automatic pistol. Mrs Feehan did not know that it was a 9mm Browning L9A1, nor that it was a reliable, recoil-operated, magazine-fed semi-automatic with a maximum effective range of fifty metres. All that she knew was that it was a gun. She had also for many years had an uneasy feeling that it was never really her husband’s to keep – he didn’t have a license that she was aware of, and this was Little Collyweston, not the Falklands. However, it had remained with the other remnants and after all these years she saw the reason why her husband had kept the gun. The Lord moved in mysterious ways indeed.

  The ammunition was also intact, safely wrapped up with her husband’s shirts. For a few minutes, she struggled with the problem of loading the ammunition into the revolver. She had seen enough war films in her more youthful days to have a vague idea of how it worked, she had even seen David do it once, but it was more fiddly than it looked and her hands were not as steady as they had once been.

  Once she was happy that the gun was loaded, she checked that the safety catch was on, then took it downstairs. She made one last check that the lights in the house were all switched off, then put the revolver into a plastic carrier bag along with a tuna-and-broccoli quiche and set off to the church hall.

  Chapter 27

  Ted Sloper knew that there wasn’t even the tiniest possibility of the parish entertainment being anything other than awful. Not only would the performances in it be wince-inducingly bad, but the whole thing would be interminably long.

  Ted would have avoided the whole thing, but for the fact that he was always called upon to accompany anyone attempting to sing anything at these events. When the only other accompanist available was Anne Hudson it was hardly surprising that people turned to him. So every year he sat at the piano, playing whatever music had been chosen. Usually it was something dreadful from one of those West-End musicals, but worse than that was being asked to aid and abet a singer in the destruction of a properly great piece of music. If he had to go through an experience like Noreen Ponty’s ‘Queen of the Night’ again, he thought he might slit his wrists.

  And this evening’s entertainment showed all
the signs of delivering up something as memorably dreadful as that incident. On top of the usual volley of dismal requests from the usual horde of would-be singers, Reverend Biddle had enthusiastically volunteered an item which was bound to be as indigestible as his services. Furthermore, Biddle had phoned him that afternoon with another request which, if things hadn’t been so strange recently, Sloper would have assumed was a joke.

  Was Jesus really going to sing? That in itself was extraordinary enough, but his choice of music beggared belief …

  As if all of that wasn’t difficult enough for Ted to cope with, he still didn’t have his harpsichord. This was not merely upsetting, it was intensely worrying. Biddle had been very vague on the subject when Sloper had phoned earlier, hinting that it was all being sorted out but refusing to reveal Jesus’ exact attitude towards Sloper and his blasphemy. It surely wasn’t going to be as straightforward as a simple return of his harpsichord? Wouldn’t the Only Begotten Son wish to exact some further punishment at the same time?

  Ted was still terrified of meeting Jesus, but didn’t dare miss the parish entertainment now that the Lord of Hosts had requested his skills as an accompanist.

  He only knew one way of dealing with such situations. Which was why he was in the Green Baron, finishing off his seventh pint and wondering if he would still be able to remember how to play the piano. He was so pleasantly inebriated that he didn’t really care.

  Five minutes later, he walked unsteadily into the church hall. People were milling around a table of food near the door, but he thought it would be best to push past them and make his way to where seats had been set up for the performance, because if he was seated, he would be in less danger of falling over. He nodded at the faces he recognised through the blur, muttered responses to greetings which he thought might have been directed at him, and in this way hoped that he was giving a fairly convincing impression of a man who was in complete command of his faculties.