A Blessing In Disguise (51 page)

I phoned the Henfield and the Bulmer families and made arrangements to pay bereavement visits, the Henfields this evening and the Bulmers tomorrow morning. Then I set off for the hospital.

I supposed if I'd stopped to think I'd have realized that Emily Carson was likely to be there, and she was, but I would have gone anyway. Emily was sitting at the bedside. She looked surprised to see me, but nothing more than that. Mrs Carson lay as still as if she was already dead, eyes closed, face a yellowy, waxen colour. There was a purple bruise on her temple. Her breathing was almost imperceptible, not moving the bedcovers.

‘I'm so sorry,' I said to Emily Carson. ‘This must be very sad for you. I came as soon as I heard, but if you'd rather I didn't stay, rather I left you alone with your mother, then of course I'll leave right away.'

She shook her head.

‘No,' she said. ‘Please stay! I know Mummy's going to die and . . .' she hesitated, then forced the words out, ‘I'm frightened! I don't know what I'll do. You see, there's only ever been Mummy and me. My father left us when I was very small.'

‘I'll stay with you as long as you want me to, Emily,' I said, using her first name deliberately. ‘I won't leave you.'

To me, it was all there in the way she said ‘Mummy'. Like a little child. I wondered if she had ever been allowed to grow up, to be herself, or had she taken her father's place? ‘There's only ever been Mummy and me.' I've seen it happen. It's cruelty of the worst sort because it's disguised as love. See how devoted I am to my child! On the other hand, is it cruelty if the perpetrator doesn't recognize it as such? I don't know. But how could anyone not know it was deeply selfish?

I sat there a long time. We didn't talk much, and when we did it was about Mummy, how attentive she had been, how they had done everything together. ‘We neither of us ever wanted anyone else,' Emily said. I could have said that want and need are two different things, but it was neither the time nor the place and it was too late anyway. I did wonder how Emily had managed to form a friendship with Mrs Blamires and if that would stand her in good stead when her mother died.

Nothing was said about Mrs Blamires, or what had led them to decide to leave St Mary's. I suspected that Mrs Blamires had been the leader in this and that Emily had meekly followed after. Nevertheless, it was going to have to come up at some time in the near future. Mrs Carson was going to die very soon, she would probably have expected to be buried in St Mary's churchyard, or to be cremated and her ashes buried there. What would Emily's attitude be towards me as a woman priest doing either of these things? Were burial, and perhaps baptism, seen as minor rites with which I could be entrusted, whereas preaching and teaching, and celebrating the Eucharist, were not? Of course Mrs Carson could be buried at St Mary's with another priest officiating, and I was sure I could find a suitable male to do it. This, I decided, was what I would offer Emily when the time came, but not now.

The time wasn't long in coming. Mrs Carson died an hour later – I was still there, in the middle of saying some quiet prayers – without ever opening her eyes again, or giving any sign that she knew Emily was present. I finished the prayers, and then the surprise came. I had expected Emily to fall to pieces on the spot, to be a soggy mass of tears, or near hysteria, but she didn't, she wasn't. She was silent for a minute, then she stood up and, looking down at her mother, she took a very deep breath. It seemed as if she had breathed new life into herself. The nurse took her away to the office. I followed behind and waited in the corridor, and then I took Emily home.

‘Can I ask someone, perhaps a neighbour, to come and stay with you, at least for the rest of today and for the night?' I asked. She said no, she'd be all right, she'd make a few calls, including one to Mrs Blamires. She was quite calm and seemed as though she had gained strength from who-knew-where? Death can have a strange effect on people and I've seen this kind of thing happen before. It was as if Emily took on a new persona. Perhaps it wasn't new; perhaps it had been waiting. She was very grateful to me, she said, and she'd get in touch later. She did so the next day. Her mother, she said, had wanted to be buried at St Mary's. I interrupted her. ‘I know your difficulty about women priests,' I said. ‘It will be quite easy for me to find someone else who will do the funeral in St Mary's.'

‘Thank you, but no,' she said. ‘My mother was never a churchgoer but she had nothing whatever against women priests. I'm sure you'd be the one she'd want. She had a low opinion of men.'

It was lunchtime when I got back to the Vicarage. After my sandwich I phoned the Blessed Henry to bring him up to date with my news and to see if he had any for me.

‘Anything more about Richard?' I enquired.

‘Only that he'll almost certainly be leaving Thurston,' Henry said. ‘It makes sense, really.'

After that I did some paper work, including taking a good look at my diary. Enquiries and bookings for next spring and summer are coming in fast and furious. I have a wedding at three o'clock next Saturday and although Mr Blatchford knows he is playing the organ for that I must give him a reminder because he's a wee bit forgetful. Well, that's my excuse for being neurotic about wedding details, worrying beforehand that something might go wrong or be overlooked. Once it starts, once the bride walks down the aisle to Mr Blatchford giving his all at the organ, I'm OK. I've heard nothing more from the bride-to-be about the doggy bridesmaid and I'm lying low, hoping that some friend or relative will talk sense into her.

Then the phone rings and it's Esmé Bickler.

‘Hi!' she said. ‘How's everything?'

‘Fine! Busy, but OK.'

‘I wondered if you'd seen a letter in
The Times
yesterday, about women priests?'

‘No. I was in London yesterday. In any case, I don't get a newspaper every day,' I told her. ‘So what did it say? Who was it from?'

‘Well, that's the thing,' Esmé said. ‘It was from nine men, as far as I know most of them priests and three of them bishops!'

‘So tell me the worst,' I said. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

‘That's just it, none of it was the worst. They were on our side and they were calling attention to the way we've been treated in the last ten years, but particularly how we've almost entirely been ignored for promotion, with very few women, however well-qualified, in senior jobs, right through the country. They pointed out that women priests are about the only female workers in the country who have no redress in law against discrimination. It wouldn't be tolerated, they said, if it were a racial matter.'

‘Too right it wouldn't!' I agreed.

‘There's a lot more,' Esmé said. ‘It's a long letter. I'll tell you what, I'll get a photocopy and send it to you, shall I?'

‘Please,' I said. ‘It's interesting, though what good it will do, who knows. Especially in this diocese!'

‘It points that out also,' Esmé said. ‘I mean about the wide differences according to where you serve. Oh well, we soldier on! Any trouble at your end?'

‘Nothing much. Not everyone is nice, but most are. I've had a few depart because they couldn't cope with me. On the other hand I've gained one or two. I try to take it in my stride.'

‘Me too,' Esmé said. ‘Well, nice to talk to you and I'll send you a copy of the letter.'

The really big blow-up will come, I thought as I put down the phone, when – if ever – we get the first woman bishop. It's already about to be debated and voted upon in the Scottish Episcopal Church. There's no reason why women priests can't be bishops, it's the natural progression, exactly as it is for the men. There are men in high positions in the Church who believe the time has come for this to happen, but once again the opposition is lining up. They have said that they will not accept a woman bishop and that whoever she ordains to the priesthood or whoever she confirms, this will never be valid in their eyes.

Don't think from all this that I've set my eyes on becoming a bishop. I would never be suitable. I don't have those gifts. What I love is parish life, all the minutiae of it, even when it frustrates me. I love the daily contact with the people. But there are women who would be eminently suitable to be bishops. They see the larger picture.

Oh boy! What fun and games it will be when the time comes!

An hour or so later Sally Brent arrived with the girls and Missie. I invited Sally and Anna to stay for tea with us but Sally said no, they couldn't because Anna had a ballet class. Becky hasn't yet requested ballet lessons and she's not a child who's always asking for things but I'm sure this one will come and how will I say ‘No', even though I can't afford it? I want her, within reason, to have everything her friends have. On the other hand, right now she did have another request.

‘You know I'm going to the pantomime after Christmas?' she began.

‘Yes!' I agreed. The fundraising for the pantomime has gone well. We booked the seats and the coach in the faith that it would, and it went even better than we expected. I'm told there'll be enough money for ice cream in the interval. ‘So?' I asked Becky. I knew there was more to come.

‘Well, can Anna come?'

‘That's difficult,' I said. ‘The outing is for the children who go to Sunday School. Anna doesn't. She doesn't go to church.'

‘I don't go to Sunday School,' Becky pointed out.

‘No, you don't – though I think you should. You might even enjoy it. But you're coming to the pantomime because I'm the Vicar and I'm going, and you're my daughter. I wouldn't leave you at home, would I?'

She didn't seem entirely happy about this explanation. I could see she was thinking hard about it. In the end she said, ‘Well, if me and Anna both came to Sunday School between now and Christmas, could we both go?'

‘Becky!' I said, ‘you really don't go to Sunday School just to qualify for the treats!' But even while I was saying it I knew that wasn't true. It's common practice and every Sunday School knows it – and puts up with it.

‘Well, Nigel is going, and he doesn't go to St Mary's!' she said it with an air of ‘get out of that if you can'.

I had invited Nigel a week or two ago to be my guest, partly because he had invited me to go to a performance of the Messiah in Brampton, actually next Wednesday evening, with a group from St Patrick's. I'm all for the two churches doing things together. (It means Becky going to the Brents again, but Sally seems happy enough about that and it's good for Becky.) Also, for the pantomime, there was no restriction on adults going because they all paid for themselves. I explained that to Becky but it didn't wash. ‘You could pay for Anna,' she said. ‘I'll put something towards it from my pocket money.'

I gave in. ‘Very well,' I said. ‘I'll give Trudy Santer a ring and ask if she can possibly get us another ticket. And of course,' I said, seizing my chance, ‘you and Anna might like to start going to Sunday School together, though we'd have to ask Anna's parents whether they agreed.'

‘I didn't mean I didn't want Nigel to be going to the pantomime,' Becky said. ‘He's nice. But I wanted Anna as well.'

In the evening my mother phoned, absolutely over the moon. ‘Everything seems to be OK,' she said, ‘in fact we've provisionally booked the removal for the week before Christmas! Friday December the twentieth. There now, what do you think of that?'

‘Marvellous!' I said – and it is marvellous. The only thing is, and I shan't mention it to my parents, it will be all hands aloft in the church, every day something happening: the school carol service, a Christmas concert by a visiting choir, the church to decorate, etc. – and I will be involved in all of them. There's a deanery meeting, also, and without a doubt one or more funerals will come up in that very week. Sod's law! Nevertheless, I repeated that it was marvellous, wonderful, and I was delighted.

‘Will you tell Miss Jowett as soon as you can?' Mum said. ‘Oh dear, I do hope there won't be any hitch about her moving into the home!'

‘That bit's OK,' I said. ‘By now she can't wait to be off, and the place is waiting for her. Getting her stuff out of the cottage will be the difficulty, but Ethel Leigh has done a wonderful job in helping her to sort things. Between them they've got rid of a mountain of stuff already, so I'm sure the rest will be dealt with. Don't worry about it!'

I went to see Bertha Jowett the next morning, quite early, but Ethel Leigh was already there, beavering away. Bertha was delighted.

‘You'll have to have the cottage totally cleared,' I warned her.

‘Oh, I will,' she said firmly. ‘I'll just need help to get some of my bits and pieces to the Beeches; and as for the rest, it can go on the council tip for all I care!'

She's full of bravado, but it's a big step and I wonder how she'll feel when the time comes? Anyway, busy or not busy, I shall make it my priority on the day she moves to spend as much time as possible with her.

‘And if there's one clear day before your parents move in,' Ethel Leigh said to me, ‘I'll manage to clean right through the cottage.'

‘That would be great,' I said. ‘And perhaps you'd be able to give them some time afterwards, help them to settle in? I expect there'll be a lot to do.'

‘I'd be glad to,' she said.

The Christmas season is never quite complete to me without hearing, and preferably being present at, a performance of the Messiah somewhere or other, though it seems to me that it's not done as often as it used to be. Certainly my parents say that when they were younger you couldn't get away from it at this time of the year – every venue, from the local chapel to the grandest concert hall, gave it. ‘And very varying standards they were!' Mum said. ‘Though all in their own way enjoyable.' It was my parents who once took me to a memorable performance in the Albert Hall, but my favourite remained the one I went to at university, when the audience could join in and sing along as they wished. I say ‘remained' because it has now been surpassed by the one I went to in Brampton last Wednesday with Nigel and the group from St Patrick's. I couldn't say that it was the best ever, musically. Possibly not, though the soprano soloist and the chorus were exceptionally good and the words came over as if I was hearing them for the first time. But it wasn't just the performance, there was something about the atmosphere of the whole evening. As if the whole world was right and everything was in its proper place, and it wasn't until Nigel took me home afterwards that I realized fully why that was.