by James Lark
In many ways he was not a bad vicar at all, and he would soon settle in.
She shifted in her seat. She was itching to look behind her to see if Jesus had arrived, but she could wait until they shared the peace. It seemed silly of Jesus, not to mention a little rude, to continue creeping into services late, now that he’d revealed his presence. But then, his whole attitude over the last week had been a little bit discourteous. He had consistently refused her invitations to dinner, instead telling people about how he planned to leave and asking them to plan around that, as if he was completely unaware of what a busy time it was.
He was within his rights, of course, being the Son of God – but there was such a thing as manners, even if you were in a hurry.
She wondered if Jesus had left already – it did seem odd that he hadn’t arrived for the beginning of the Easter service. And in a way, she thought, that wouldn’t be altogether a bad thing. It had been exciting to have him here, undoubtedly – but it had been quite a distraction and Jesus had brought all sorts of new things with him that just weren’t helpful for the church, as new things so rarely were. They all needed a bit of space for things to settle back down to how they used to be.
There was enough to think about in the running of a church without Jesus coming along and complicating things even more.
‘Allelujah, allelujah,’ responded the congregation for a final time, and there was an audible sigh, indicating a momentary relief that this bit of enforced praise was over.
‘And now,’ said Biddle, wondering why he was finding it more difficult than usual to beam so consistently. ‘We’re going to begin by singing hymn number three-one-oh, We hail thy presence glorious’.
The organ burst into life with a sequence of chords bearing no resemblance at all to hymn number three-one-oh and the congregation stood up to sing. And so the service proceeded, in the same way as it always did.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Big thanks to Scott Pack for making people read this and to Clare Christian for making him read it first. Both offered advice and encouragement and I am immensely grateful for their paving the way for its eventual publication. Thanks to Rachel Faulkner and Will Atkins for their work on the text and to Lorna Read for her input earlier on.
Thanks to Jon Lee and Marcia Armbrüster for their generous advice on various drafts and constant encouragement. Andrew Holloway also helped me and distracted me in fairly equal measure and moreover believed in me for which I remain always grateful. Luke Staiano did nothing at all but mock me, but that was character building so thanks to him. Also thanks to the wise friends on Facebook who contributed to the debate over how best to word a toilet immersion joke and whether or not to include the word ‘benefactorially’.
The community at Authonomy.com – those who told me they found it funny, those who offered encouragement and advice, those who doubted my very existence – thanks to all for giving me plenty to think about and making the final redraft much easier to dive into.
Grateful thanks to the various clergy who have been so generous with their friendship over the years and without whom there wouldn’t be a novel. If I were to name them all I might cause some kind of schism, but I am particularly grateful to Jamie, Abi and Jim, not only for being inspiring people but also for the wealth of anecdotes they have supplied, many of which fuelled my feverish imagination and some of which meant that no imagination was needed.
Finally, thanks to the choir and congregation of St Mark’s Church, Newnham, with whom I spent a joyous four years and who I would assure that the first draft of this book was finished before I had any involvement with them. So any resemblance of characters in this book to actual living people is … unfortunate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Lark has worked extensively as a writer and musician, combining both in his work for theatre which includes Io Theatre Company’s adaptation of ‘The Snow Spider’ and original musicals ‘Miracles at Short Notice’ (‘a sophisticated treat’ – Musical Talk) and award-winning Fringe sell-out ‘Tony Blair – the Musical’. He has co-written and directed internet dramas ‘Degrees of Separation’ and ‘The Sitcom’ (‘if you haven’t already watched it you absolutely must’ – The Guardian) and several short films, as well as a couple of features which are now gathering dust pending a generous offer from anyone who cares to fund them. In 2006 he toured with his one-man musical comedy ‘The Rise and Fall of Deon Vonniget’ and has written and performed character monologues for BBC Radio, one of which won a Jerusalem Radio Award in 2004. His other writing ranges from prose to sketches, including contributions to Newsrevue, Ealing Live!, Focus Theatre Company and The Friday Thing. He co-wrote ‘Fringe’, a complete guide to the Edinburgh Fringe, published by Friday Books.
More information about his work can be found at www.jameslark.co.uk
ABOUT AUTHONOMY
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COPYRIGHT
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This edition published by authonomy 2012
James Lark asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
MORE TEA JESUS. Copyright © James Lark. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007476244
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