A Blessing In Disguise (30 page)

‘Monday afternoon?' Jean Close suggested. ‘About four o'clock. She'll have had her afternoon nap by then. By the way, she's not a churchgoer.'

‘That's OK,' I said. ‘You don't have to be a fully-paid-up member to get a visit from the Vicar!'

So that's where I shall be this afternoon. She lives in one of the small cottages behind the High Street. It is possible, and it's not unusual, that she has no friends because she never took the trouble to make them when she was younger. It's also possible that she's a cranky old woman. I shall find out. It seems that there's no sort of mechanism in St Mary's for visiting the sick or housebound, or for taking them for hospital appointments or to the hairdresser's or whatever. It's hit-and-miss. We had a scheme at Holy Trinity and it worked well, so it's one of the things I shall put on my thinking list, though bearing in mind that possibly it's already being done in informal ways I don't know about and which work quite well. If it isn't broken don't mend it! And I mustn't assume, when I list my bright ideas, that nobody has had them before.

Jean Close picks me up at the Vicarage just before four and we walk down to Miss Jowett's cottage and ring the bell. We wait a while and I lift my hand to ring again, thinking that at her age she's probably hard of hearing, but Jean says, ‘No! She can't move very fast. It takes her time to stand up and walk to the door and she hates it if someone rings again when she's halfway there.'

I get my first surprise when Miss Jowett opens the door. For no reason at all I'd expected someone tallish, and thin, and there she is, small and round, dressed in a long grey skirt and a bright red, shapeless top with a floral scarf tied around her neck. In her mop of frizzy, yellowy-white hair, which needs the attention of a brush and comb, perches a multi-coloured butterfly clip. She leans heavily on a silver-topped stick. Then when she speaks I get my second surprise.

‘Ah! Vicar!' she says. ‘How kind of you! Do come in! Quite a pleasant day is it not, or at least it looks that way from my window.'

Her voice is far from musical, not in the same street as Rose Barker's, but it is sharp and clear, not at all the voice of an octogenarian, and her accent is impeccable, and undeniably upper class; every vowel pure, every consonant sounded. Moreover, in spite of her smallness and her untidy appearance, she has an air of total confidence and assurance which speak to me of years of being in command. I see her as being something high up in an Oxford college. Another of my flights of fancy, of course!

We follow her slow progress into her living room; small, square, with a deep windowsill, and a low ceiling, which presumably was once white, and is now a dingy shade of yellowy beige, which I take to be from cigarette smoke, as could be the unusual shade of her hair. The whole place smells of cigarettes, and indeed there is one just burning itself out on an ashtray. But the most striking thing about the room is its clutter. Every shelf, every surface, magazine racks, most of the chairs and a fair amount of the floor is crammed. But it is not everyday clutter. If clutter can be called intellectual, then this is. Books galore (some of them open), dictionaries, sheaves of typed papers, art magazines. The walls are crowded with drawings, etchings, paintings – most, to my eyes and at a quick glance, originals.

‘Jean,' Miss Jowett says, ‘be a dear and clear a chair for the Vicar!' True to type, she makes no apology for the mess. Jean clears a rather beautiful armchair by piling the things from it on to another chair, and then perches herself on a small vacant corner of the sofa.

‘It's so good of you to come,' Miss Jowett says. ‘Jean has told me about you. I can't say I've never met a Vicar before. When I was young they were in and out of the house all the time because my family was High Church – the whole works; High Mass, incense, confession, gorgeous vestments for every occasion. Not me though. I am a firm unbeliever. But, you see, I've not met a woman priest until now.'

This is when I realize this is not a ‘sick' visit in the strict sense of the word. Miss Jowett is not ailing. She's a woman who's elderly, not mobile, and therefore housebound – but ill she is not. I think she simply wanted a change of company and thought a meeting with a species she hadn't yet met with would provide that.

‘My father must be spinning in his grave at the thought of me having one in my house! He wouldn't have approved at all. Dear me, no!' She says this with a wicked little laugh. She has got the better of us all, Father included.

I realize I am being used for – well, for entertainment! I'm a novelty! For two seconds I bridle at that, I resent it. I am not in my job to be used! But as fast as I think the words in my mind, I realize I'm wrong. Of course I'm in my job to be used! That's what it's about, isn't it? Nor should I expect to choose exactly how I'll be used. I must take it as it comes. I don't mind being a novelty for God. Also, I think, with Miss Jowett involved it could be fun for me as well as for her.

Poor Jean! She's looking quite uncomfortable. Without saying it in so many words – except to throw in that Miss Jowett wasn't a churchgoer – she'd given me the impression that here was an old lady, lonely, disabled, waiting for someone of my ilk to cheer her up, perhaps even to set her feet on the right path while there's still time. Nonsense! Apart from spending it in one place, this lady has a full life. Books, newspapers, journals, pens and paper – and in the corner of the room there is a state-of-the-art music centre. No, as a female priest, qualities unknown, I am simply a diversion. What she doesn't realize is that she will be a diversion for me. I do spend a great deal of my time with Christians, or those who apologize for
not
being Christians. Miss Jowett is not going to apologize. No Siree! So it will be a change for me and I give Jean a reassuring smile.

After that, without many preliminaries, I mainly answer Miss Jowett's questions. ‘Do you like the job?' ‘What made you do it?' ‘Do they give you a hard time?' ‘How much do you get paid?' ‘Do you
really
believe in the resurrection?' and ‘Would you agree with me that, since the grave clothes were found neatly folded in the tomb, when Jesus spoke to Mary in the garden he must have been stark naked? Not even a fig leaf, let alone a loin cloth!'

This is a point of view which has never been put to me before. Like many unbelievers, Miss Jowett has studied her Bible. Jean has gone bright pink. ‘And Christians don't like nakedness, do they?' Miss Jowett continues. ‘They're not at all keen on the body, are they? One wonders why?'

She says these things not at all offensively, in no way prurient. I reckon she would enjoy a real discussion, like ‘What about the naked body in art?' or how many angels could one get on the head of a pin, and really, her original premise about Jesus in the Garden is most interesting, but out of deference to poor Jean I deflect it and answer ‘What made you do it?' and ‘How much do you get paid?' Much easier.

‘Shall I make a cup of tea?' Jean asks brightly, seeing an escape.

Miss Jowett looks at the clock on the mantelpiece, and it strikes in a silvery tone as if answering her look.

‘Five o'clock,' she says, ‘a bit early really, but at this time of day I prefer a gin-and-tonic. What about it, Vicar? Will you join me? It would be pleasant to have company.'

So I do, though it's early for me. Jean has a glass of water. After which, it's time to leave. ‘I don't want to tire you!' I say.

‘I am a bit weary,' Miss Jowett confesses, ‘but only in the body. The body lets one down. So tiresome! In the head I feel as fresh as a daisy! Will you see yourselves to the door? I hope you'll come again!'

‘Oh, I will!' I tell her. And I mean it. ‘I've enjoyed myself.' But what I can't understand, I'm thinking as we leave, is how Jean came to be friendly with Miss Jowett. They are as different as chalk and cheese. ‘How did you?' I ask as we walk back.

‘She fell one day, in the village,' Jean tells me. ‘Tripped over a broken paving stone just outside the butcher's. That was in the days when she could walk down the High Street. I took her home and it went from there. I hope she didn't shock you, Vicar!'

What Jean doesn't understand is that very little shocks a priest. A priest has heard it all before. In any case, such a thing was never in Miss Jowett's mind.

Jean and I part company when we reach the Vicarage. ‘Thank you,' I say. ‘It was a most interesting visit.'

Somehow, I am a little less apprehensive as I let myself into the empty house, partly, I think, because my head is full of thoughts, one of which is – why am I affronted by Miss Frazer's denial of my validity and not the least bit so by Miss Jowett's complete repudiation of my entire faith? I know – or almost certainly I know – that I will never change Miss Jowett's views, nor will she shake mine. That doesn't matter. We have respect for each other. I know when she describes herself as a firm unbeliever she's not attacking either God or me, and when I accept her unbelief I'm not criticizing her. This could be a firm friendship based on two entirely different points of view. I might, however, not always choose to have Jean accompany me.

It wants at least a couple of hours before I need think about supper, there's no reason to eat early when Becky's not here, so I really will get around to putting my thoughts on paper. I sit at my desk to do this. My thoughts are less likely to stray, or my intentions weaken, than they would if I got too comfortable in an armchair. So I take a new A4 pad and put a new cartridge in my pen, and in bold capitals at the top of the page I write ‘THINGS TO CONSIDER'. I shall write down the ideas as they come to me, not bothering about whether they're in the right order. It will be a sort of one-woman brainstorming session!

And then, wouldn't you know, I, whose mind has been teeming with things which need to be done, should be done, might possibly be done, could no way be done (though what if . . . ?), am staring at a blank sheet as if both my brain and my right hand were paralysed. So I get up, go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea, take a ginger biscuit out of the tin, dunk it in the tea, and say to myself, ‘Come on, girl! Snap out of it!' – and return to my desk and do so.

‘New form of baptism.'

‘Care for the sick – sick visiting.'

‘Cleaning the church.'

‘Music in church – new Music Group.'

‘Redecorating Parish Hall.'

‘Closer relationship with school.'

‘Re-vamp parish magazine.'

‘Closer participation with congregation on everything.'

‘Sunday School – integration into church.'

‘Financial repercussions (if Miss F. withdraws support).'

So there we are! Ten things to think about. That's a start. But not one of them I can instigate without having discussed them with the PCC. So my first point of call is obviously with the Blessed Henry and with Richard, though the latter will not be easy to pin down because he works such long hours out of the parish.

So I ring Henry.

‘I've got one or two ideas I'd like to discuss with you and Richard,' I tell him, not mentioning that one or two is actually ten, and doubtless more will arise. ‘I know you have a busy week – Molly told me – but do you think we could find a time?'

Friday appears to be the only time and he says he will consult Richard about this and let me know.

‘Could you give me an inkling of what this is about?' he asks. ‘Just tell me some of them?'

‘Well yes, I can,' I say. ‘I've made a list. But before I go into that, what it's really about is getting
everyone
together to do these things. I don't want the usual scenario – which might not be the usual one at St Mary's but certainly was at Holy Trinity – of a few people doing everything. I'm looking for a situation where almost everyone in the congregation is involved in one way or another.'

‘My goodness, you're ambitious!' Henry says. ‘That
would
be unusual! In all my experience . . .'

‘I know!' I interrupt. ‘But what's wrong with trying for something unusual?'

‘So tell me what you've got on the list,' he suggests.

When I read them out – quickly, so as to make them seem fewer – he lets out a long whistle.

‘Oh, Venus!' he says. ‘Aren't you trying to bite off more than you can chew?'

‘I don't think so. I'm not thinking we can do everything at once,' I assure him. ‘And some things are more urgent than others. For instance, I do have the feeling that Miss Frazer will withdraw her financial support . . .'

‘Oh, so do I!' he breaks in. ‘And it's no use pretending it won't make a difference.'

‘I know!' I agree. ‘So we have to allow for it, make plans to make good the shortfall, somehow.'

He reminds me that most of these ideas will have to go to the PCC – which I'm aware of. And I tell him I don't want things to drag on, I want to make a start. ‘And I don't want it to stay with the PCC. It's particularly important it doesn't. I want everyone possible to be involved, so as soon as the PCC have given it the go-ahead . . .'

‘If they do!' Henry says.

I ignore that. I'm not starting this off by being negative.

‘I want a meeting of everyone, and I mean everyone,' I tell him.

‘We'll have to see!' he says, soothingly.

I don't want to be soothed, I want to be backed up, encouraged, but I daresay, I think after he's rung off, I'll have to pace myself, if only because I won't be able to move too quickly. Sooner or later someone is going to remark about a new broom sweeping clean, and this remark is usually a complaint, but I've never found anything wrong in the idea of a new broom sweeping clean. What else is a new broom for? And I've no intention of doing everything at a crawl. The next PCC meeting isn't due for another six weeks and I certainly don't want to wait that long to start discussions, so when I see Henry and Richard on Friday I shall ask why we can't have a special meeting as soon as possible – next week, for instance.