A Blessing In Disguise (4 page)

I long to tell her that there are those, one or two of them known to me, who like to think that God
is
woman, but that would be too provoking. All the same, I can't stand by and let her insult Carla, who has tried to come to my rescue. What she's just said to Carla
is
personal, meant to put her down.

‘I'm interested in your views, Miss Frazer,' I say, exceedingly pleasantly (though not truthfully), ‘and also in Carla's' (I give her a real smile), ‘and of course you both have a perfect right to express them.'

‘I don't need you to tell me that,' Miss Frazer says. ‘And express them I shall!'

‘Again your choice . . .' I begin, but she interrupts me.

‘But
you
will never drive
me
out of St Mary's. It is after all my parish church. My forebears were instrumental in building it and my family have worshipped here for generations, so
I
am not the one to be driven out. You might well find, I am sure you will, that there are others who hold the same opinions as I do. It is quite possible that they will be driven away, but you will find I am made of sterner stuff. And now, having said what I came into this hall to say, I shall leave.' Which she does. Her departure is followed by a few moments of complete silence, which is then broken by Carla Brown.

‘Stupid old bat!' she says furiously. ‘But don't let her upset you!'

Of course she hasn't upset me. These, to her, are intended to be stab wounds, rapier wounds, but to me they are little more than pinpricks. I've heard it all before. The woman who left us (I
must
ask her name) returns, looking decidedly pale.

‘Where is Miss Frazer?' she asks.

‘She had to leave,' Carla says, lying fluently. ‘She remembered an urgent appointment.'

‘How strange,' the lady says, ‘she never said anything to me.'

Nothing is said of the short scene she has missed and she asks nothing more. I think at the moment she has her own physical difficulties. Something she ate.

It's possible some people will leave St Mary's. It's not unusual when a woman priest takes over. I've heard all the horror stories. I shall face it as it comes. I don't expect members of the congregation to leave in droves, but even the loss of one would be sad. Of course it would! Even Miss Frazer's departure would, though it would make life easier for me. But she won't leave, will she? She will stay if only to torment me, and to win others to her cause.

People do leave churches, and for a wide variety of reasons. They don't like the new hymns, the sermons are too long or too short, the church is too cold or too hot, the services time badly with a favourite television programme, or they are church tasters who enjoy trying new places. Sometimes they come back, sometimes not. Every parish priest knows this.

‘By the way,' Carla says, ‘what
do
we call you? Some used to call the last Vicar Father John. Not me though. That's for the Romans.'

The others look at me expectantly. I rather think they're glad to have the subject changed.

‘You can take your choice,' I tell them. ‘You can call me Vicar, or you can call me Mrs Stanton, or you can call me by my first name, which is Venus. Whatever!'

‘So is Venus OK?'

‘Absolutely!'

For the thousandth time I wish my mother had been besotted by someone with a more usual name. There must have been several such in the Uffizi. Mary, Elizabeth, Anne. Probably all of them saints. Cecilia would have been nice.

‘One thing is certain,' Carla Brown says. ‘No-one's going to call you Mother Venus!'

‘Too right!' I agree. That's certainly one of the differences between men and women priests. Father Humphrey but not Mother Venus.

Walter Brown returns with the wine. I sip it gratefully then say, ‘Well, it's been lovely meeting you all. I'm really looking forward to getting to know you better.' Then I move away, as usual leaving my wine glass behind.

I'm debating now whether or not I'll take a minute to have a word with my family, especially with Becky, when a woman walking towards me comes to a dead stop in front of me.

‘Good-morning!' she says.

She is a few inches taller than I am, dressed in a well-cut grey suit with a mauve silk scarf draped immaculately around her neck – something I can never do. I spend ages getting every last fold exactly right and ten minutes later it's all over the place again. She has tawny-red hair, so well cut that I know that whatever she went through it would fall back into exactly the right place, green glass dangly earrings and an interesting face. Not exactly pretty, but attractive. High cheekbones, broad brow. I guess she's about the same age as me, somewhere in her mid-thirties.

‘Good-morning,' I reply. ‘And you . . . ?'

‘I'm Sonia Leyton,' she says before I can finish the question. ‘Your local GP. Nigel Baines is the other partner in the practice.'

‘It's good to meet you,' I tell her. ‘I was going to come along to see you in the next day or two to ask if my daughter and I could register with you. Becky is ten.'

‘Sure you can,' she says. ‘Since you live in the village and you're who you are, that's fine. Otherwise our list is completely full. We need a third doctor but we haven't the room and we've had no luck in getting new premises in Thurston.'

‘I didn't see you in church,' I tell her – and then feel awkward, as if I'm reprimanding her.

‘I was there. Hiding behind a pillar. Not that I'm usually there. I'm not sure whether I'd call myself an agnostic or just plain lazy. I'm not all that keen on institutionalized religion. But I wanted to meet you. Parish priests and local doctors should know each other, don't you think?'

We chat for a few minutes and then she looks at her watch and says, ‘I'll have to leave. Sunday or no Sunday I have a couple of hospital visits to make. And I've no doubt you're just as busy.'

‘I am at the moment. Though it's a funny thing that everyone thinks Sunday is the Vicar's busiest day and it seldom is. I have far more to do on other days of the week. On Sundays I mainly do what other parishioners do, which is go to church. And they're going on their day off.'

‘Do you take a day off?' she asks.

‘I try to. I shall see how things work out here and then if I can I'll settle on a regular day – barring emergencies, of course. If anything crops up then I'm on duty. Like you, I suppose.'

‘True. But you should try. We all should.'

I hold out my hand. ‘Good-bye for now, Doctor Leyton.'

‘Sonia,' she replies. ‘Pop in during the week. Bring Becky with you.'

I go to join my family.

‘I'm bored!' Becky says. ‘When can we go?'

‘I'll have to stay a little longer,' I tell her. ‘Why not walk around with me and meet a few people?'

‘Are you joking?' she says. ‘Definitely not!'

‘Why don't Becky and Ann and Grandpa and I go back to the Vicarage?' my mother suggests. ‘I can be getting on with the lunch.' My mother has undertaken to make all the meals this weekend. She and Dad go back to Clipton on Wednesday. I shall miss her. I shall miss my mother-in-law too.

I watch my family depart, my parents and my mother-in-law smiling at people as they pass them on the way to the door. Becky with never a sideways glance. ‘She's not really like this!' I want to say to all these people she's deliberately snubbing. ‘Please excuse her! She can be a very nice child.' But when was the last time? I want to run after her, to put my arm around her, plead with her, try to comfort her, but I must stay here just a little longer. In any case she would rebuff me, I know she would. She's got that to a fine art.

‘I won't be long!' I call after her. Not a flicker, not a sign that she has even heard me, though I know she has. I carry on and, like the Ancient Mariner, I stop the next person in my path, who looks surprised at being suddenly accosted. ‘I'm the new Vicar,' I say, as if I weren't dressed for the part, as if she hasn't seen me standing up there in the pulpit. ‘And you are . . . ?'

‘Elsie Jones,' she informs me. ‘I run the Brownies.'

‘How nice!' I say. ‘I love the Brownies.'

Wasn't my own Becky a Brownie? Keen as mustard. Never missed a meeting, took all the tests, gained all the badges. But it tailed off when her father was ill, and after he died it stopped altogether and nothing took its place.

‘I hope you'll drop in and see us,' Elsie Jones says. ‘Tuesdays, five o'clock!'

‘Oh I will!' I promise. And I will.

We chat for a few minutes – she has two children, a son and a daughter both younger than Becky. Naturally, one is a Brownie and the other a Cub Scout. Her husband is a paint salesman, his territory Sussex and Surrey. He doesn't come to church but he's quite pleased that she does, and if it's needed for the church he will always get us paint at a discount. ‘Well, I hope to meet him some time,' I tell her – and then I pass on. I speak to a few more people and they all seem friendly enough, no more Miss Frazers among them, at least not with the ones I encounter. I think they are probably curious about me, what I'm like, whether things will be different. I suppose that's natural given that the previous Vicar was here all those years and most of them won't have known anyone else. I am an unknown species. By now there's a general drifting away and I suppose I could do the same, though first of all I must let my churchwardens know. I see no sign of Henry Nugent but Richard is at the other side of the room and I make my way towards him.

‘I think I must leave,' I tell him. ‘My mother-in-law's going home soon and I want to have a little time with her. Actually, I've met quite a few people. Very interesting.'

‘Good!' Richard says. ‘Don't forget, will you, there's a Eucharist at eight p.m. on Tuesday.' It has already been explained to me that this was instigated by the former Vicar, not because he himself particularly wanted it, he didn't go much on weekday services, but at the firm request of a parishioner and for the benefit of those who couldn't get to church on Sundays, who were working in Brampton, or even London, during the week and didn't get home very early in the evening. It had never gone down really well. The said parishioner had since moved away.

‘And you'll remember that the monthly finance meeting is on Wednesday evening,' Richard says. ‘We have that here.'

‘Ah!' I say. ‘Well, I'm afraid some of these things will have to change. Tuesday this week I can do because my parents will still be here, but next Wednesday I can't possibly. As you know, I have a ten-year-old daughter and even if she knew people here, which she doesn't, I'm not prepared to leave her alone in the house in the evenings. So next Wednesday you'll all have to come to the Vicarage. After that we'll have to work something out. The problem will be the same for most evening meetings. I'm sure I've mentioned this before.'

He gives me one of those looks described as impassive, though I know exactly what he's thinking. He's thinking, this is what you get with a woman Vicar. If we had a man . . . Clearly, he can't envisage a man being a single parent, and I suppose if he was, and he happened to be the Vicar, half the women in the parish would rush to his aid. They would bring shepherd's pies they'd just happened to have made that morning which he would only have to pop in the microwave. They would bring fruit cakes, pots of home-made marmalade, mango chutney. They would offer to iron his shirts, they would draw up a roster for sitting in. Probably fight to get on it.

But hold on girl, I chide myself, they might do a roster for you. Give it time. Not that they would ever bring me shepherd's pie and marmalade. Real women knock up that sort of thing themselves between making the beds and putting a wash on and before cleaning the windows.

‘I see,' Richard says. ‘Yes, I do see. Perhaps you could get someone to stay in the house with your daughter?'

I shake my head. ‘Not too often, and not yet,' I tell him. ‘Not until both of us get to know more people.'

‘Very well,' Richard says. ‘In the meantime I'll let the other members of the Finance Committee know. Wednesday at the Vicarage. Is eight o'clock convenient?' He sounds quite amiable.

‘Fine!'

I don't like committees, though naturally I'm used to them. The difference now is that I'll be expected to chair most of them, whether I know anything about the subject or not. And indisputably the one I like least is the Finance Committee. Over the last few years I have worked hard to hide the fact that I hardly know which way up to read a balance sheet, let alone make any sense of it. However, I can guess what the finance meeting at St Mary's will be about. We will discuss how deep in debt we are or, rather, how far we fall short of the money we need for the upkeep of the church, not to mention the quota we have to pay to the diocese. There will be the usual crop of grumbles about the quota because everyone hates paying it. We shall hear the large amount it will cost to repair the bits of the chancel roof where the rain is coming in again and the fact that the lighting must be overhauled or one of these days someone will get a nasty, possibly fatal, shock. We shall discuss ways of raising the money, shying away from asking for more generous direct giving as if it was an indelicate suggestion, and then go into the realms of the Christmas bazaar. Is November too soon? Is December too late? Who will do which stalls (this will turn out to be the same as whoever did them last year)? Shall we run a Grand Raffle (as opposed to just a raffle)? Who shall we ask for prizes (which will also be the same as last year)? Then a few more Bring-and-Buy Sales will be mooted and agreed, at which I am quite certain that, even though I have yet to experience one at St Mary's, many of the same articles will be given, sold, and brought back to the next one for resale. At Holy Trinity there was a vase in a particularly hideous design of a yellow spotted fish which I noticed in every sale during my time there and eventually bought at a knock-down price so that I could throw it away. Yes, I know exactly what the Finance Committee meeting will be like.