A Blessing In Disguise (7 page)

‘If my mother died,' Ann once said to me (her mother, aged ninety-seven, is still going strong, driving the nurses mad, in a rest home), ‘that would be normal and people would have no inhibitions in speaking to me about it. As it is . . .' I knew exactly what she meant.

‘There were a number of reasons I left Clipton,' I tell Sonia. ‘I think, even if Philip hadn't been taken ill, we'd have done so fairly soon. As it was, everything seemed to come together at once. And here I am.'

‘And here you are!' Sonia echoes. ‘And I hope you're going to be happy in Thurston.'

‘I would be happier if my daughter were,' I tell her. ‘At the moment Becky hates every stick and stone of it! Do you have children?' I had noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring.

‘No,' she says. ‘And I'm divorced.' From the way she says it I know that's the beginning and end of the subject. No questions to be asked, no information to be given.

‘The situation for Becky isn't simple,' Sonia says, though gently. ‘Moving to another area is often difficult for a child. You're leaving your life behind, possibly the only life you know. I remember my parents moved, only to the other side of the city, when I was twelve years old. It was three years after Gran had died, and I hadn't stopped missing her. It felt like the end of the world to me. I cried for weeks. And then I made a friend and, although I never forgot Gran, I recovered. I was as happy as a lark from then on. And for Becky it's a double whammy. Her father's death must have hurt her deeply.'

‘Oh, it did!' I agree. ‘She adored him. They adored each other.'

‘Children sometimes feel partly responsible when a parent dies,' Sonia said. ‘They wonder if it was something they did, especially if they've been naughty. But why am I telling you this? I don't have a child. You do. Presumptuous of me. You know more about parenting than I do. Mine's all theory.'

‘Not at all,' I tell her. ‘Having one child doesn't make me an expert. I knew the theory too. I read all the books, I thought I was going to be a model mother. Well let me tell you, the theory doesn't always work. It's mostly trial and error. You just have to meet everything as it comes. And I don't mean I haven't been happy with Becky. Of course I have! I love her very much.'

‘Go on giving her that, and time. It'll do more for her than doctor's medicine. But I don't have to tell you that either.'

She gives me her lovely, lopsided smile again, which cheers me up, then she says, ‘I reckon Nigel will have finished with Mrs Thwaites's legs by now. I'll give him a call.'

She picks up the phone, says ‘Are you clear? Good! Then come in and meet the new Vicar.'

He is tall and thin. For a second or two, he stands in the doorway before coming into the room. His hair, strangely, is also red, but golden-red, two or three shades lighter than Sonia's, and would be curly if it weren't so close-cropped. He has the bright blue eyes which often go with red hair. He is a Viking, I decide. Or his forebears were. Or perhaps he's Irish.

‘Venus Stanton,' Sonia says. ‘Nigel Baines.'

He holds out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,' he says. Baines isn't an Irish name, at least as far as I know it isn't, but his accent is as Irish as the shamrock. His voice is deeper than I expect it to be, and musical, I think he might be good at singing. His accent must come from his mother's side and I guess it means he won't be one of my particular congregation, a fact which he immediately confirms.

‘I go to St Patrick's,' he says. ‘Though we get on quite well with your lot. I think there's a group at St Pat's which does things together with St Mary's. Not that I'm part of it.'

St Patrick's is the Roman Catholic church at the far end of Thurston. It's new as churches go, not more than fifty years old, and comparatively small, though I've been told it has a good congregation because it draws from two nearby villages – well, not so much villages as large private housing estates which have sprung up in recent years, neither with a Catholic church of its own let alone a priest to run it. They are worse off than we are.

He takes the only other empty chair, a low one, and leans back in it, his legs stretched out in front of him.

‘So! Are you going to settle down all right in Thurston?' he enquires amiably.

‘Oh, I think so!' I tell him. ‘It's early days yet, but I don't see why not. I reckon there's quite a bit to be done, and I look forward to that, but I won't push it. People have to get used to me.'

He nods agreement. ‘Well, let's face it, you are quite a bit different from your predecessor – including being the wrong sex.'

‘The
wrong
sex?'

He throws up his hands. ‘Sorry! I didn't mean it like that. I just meant . . . anyway, we're always hearing there'll be women priests in my church within the next five years, though they've been saying that for the last ten years.'

‘I hear it too,' I tell him. I don't want to rub it in that we're well ahead; we've taken the plunge, even if the water does sometimes turn out to be icy cold.

He rises to his feet, the lowness of the chair meaning that he has to sort of unfold himself.

‘Sorry I have to rush. I've got visits. Nice meeting you. I'm sure I'll see you around. Thurston's a small place.' He waves a hand and leaves.

‘You must come to supper,' Sonia says. ‘I'll arrange something. Probably not church people, but you'll get to know them anyway.'

There are four people at the Tuesday evening service, three women and one old man, thin as a rake, with rounded shoulders and a permanently bowed head. I notice he sits in his pew, doesn't kneel at all. I understand completely why he doesn't, and I sympathize. The pews are hard, narrow, the backs at a ninety degree angle to the seats, no chance of leaning. They are uncomfortable enough even to sit in, but when it comes to kneeling there is insufficient room to accommodate anyone's legs from knee to ankle, except those of a child or a dwarf. I know this because I knelt in a pew on one occasion before I became the Vicar. I only just fitted in and, as you know, I am not tall. I came to the conclusion that previous generations of worshippers at St Mary's were tiny little people. Seventeenth-century elves and goblins (I
think
that's when the pews were put in).

I decide he cannot be one of those who has rushed from his workplace in Brampton, jumped on the number twenty-two bus, jumped off again and hurried up the High Street to be on time for his weekly communion. Much more likely he is one of those, and they are not uncommon, who likes to practise his religion quietly, in the presence of as few of his fellow Christians as possible. Privacy is his thing. If so, this service is perfect for him. He would find the ten o'clock Sunday Eucharist, with its mixture of ages and types, quite unacceptable. As for the Peace celebration, everybody shaking hands, some (
quelle horreur!
) actually embracing or even kissing. It would finish him off. Of course he has every right to his views, to his own almost solitary way of worshipping, and, though I might not agree with him, I must respect them. I shall speak to him on his way out, though my guess is that he might prefer me not to. I've discovered that there are churchgoing Christians who do not like priests, who would just as soon not have one, except that there are things he or she can do that cannot be done by the laity. Those are the things priests should stick to. I shall not make the mistake I made in my early days, of welcoming this man to his own church, because it's as much his as mine. He could very well turn around and tell me he's been coming here for fifty years.

I shall also try to speak with the three women, especially the two I haven't seen before. The third one is Miss Frazer and I would be happy to avoid her.

I go through the Mass (and I really must remember not to use that word out loud). The four of them make their responses, though almost inaudibly so that at times I wonder if I'm talking to myself. ‘Holy, holy, holy,' they mutter. ‘Heaven and earth are full of your glory.'

I stretch out my hands over the bread and wine as I consecrate them.

‘Take, eat . . .' I hold the host high before them. Then I take the chalice. ‘Drink this, all of you . . .'

The familiar words are to me newly minted every time I say them. Every time as if it was the first time. I am never other than awestruck by what I'm saying, doing. It is always a new wonder.

I hold the paten and the chalice in an invitation to the communicants to approach and partake. Perhaps above everything else this sharing of the bread and wine is for me the high point of the whole Mass. At this moment I hold everyone in the congregation up to God, as well as those in my heart who I know have need of him. The fact that there are only four people in this congregation makes no difference at all. I hold up each one of them separately, and all four of them together as if they were one, as I would if they were a hundred or a thousand. Don't ask me how this is possible in the seconds it takes. I don't know. I only know it is. It is a mystery.

All four rise to their feet and walk slowly forward, the man almost tottering. They kneel at the altar rail, the man with such difficulty. I'd like to tell him it's OK to stand but I guess he'd feel that would be less reverent, he must be on his knees. Miss Frazer is the third in the short row, her hands now cupped, ready to receive. It is not until I stand immediately in front of her, the wafer in my fingers ready to give it to her, that she lowers her hands, tucks them away by her sides and – but not before giving me a look of pure hatred – averts her face. It's all over in about five dreadful seconds. As I move on to the fourth person I try to keep calm inside me, but I am shaking. I feel sick. It is not so much me she has refused, she has rejected and has refused God himself, and in the most insulting way she could devise. She must know what she has done. She has planned this. She has spat in his face.

I think that what people who insult or reject God through one of his priests, actually making use of a priest for their purpose, do not realize is the strength of the love which priests have for God. It is real, living, passionate love. God, to his priests, comes first. He is paramount. Would people who reject God in this manner do the same to the loved ones of the priests: mothers, wives, children? Unlikely. And if they did they would expect retaliation, but they will get no retaliation, no come-back if they spit in the face of the one the priest loves above all others. They will not comprehend the hurt. Perhaps that ignorance and the lack of understanding is the only excuse there is.

All four return to their separate pews. I have no idea whether they saw what took place. I consume the wafer I had consecrated for her.

Shaken though I am – and when I raise my hand to give the final blessing it is visibly trembling – I still have every intention of being at the door first so that I can catch the others. Miss Frazer rushes away, pleased with herself. She will not wish to speak with me, nor I with her.

No! Wait a minute! Of course I want to speak with her. I am enraged. I can feel, almost physically, the bile rising in my throat. I want to let it all out, my fury, my hurt at this bloody woman, to hurl words at her which have possibly never assailed her ears before – and seldom passed my lips, either. But I can't. I'm a priest, I've just celebrated the Mass, I'm in church. God is here, present. So are others, and I won't cause a scandal by letting go in front of them.

How wrong I am – I mean in thinking that she won't wish to speak to me. I hurry to reach the door first but Miss Frazer is well ahead of the others and she has every intention of confronting me. Alas, while she stands there the other three worshippers seize their opportunities to slide past with no more than a nod, and I watch them walk down the path. Miss Frazer and I look at each other like two adversaries squaring up for a fight. She is the first to speak.

‘I hope,' she says briskly, without any preliminaries, ‘you are not going to close down this service because of the numbers. “Where two or three are gathered together . . .” as you well know. Your predecessor set great store by this small oasis in the middle of a busy week.'

Is the woman crazy? Has she no idea what she has done? Does she care in the least? As well as sick to the heart I am filled with fury, spilling over, which is definitely not the right frame of mind after celebrating Holy Communion. So I take a deep breath and determine with God's help, to keep calm.

‘Is that so?' I ask. ‘It's not at all what I have heard. But I shall think about it, Miss Frazer, as I shall about many other things. I'm not going to do anything in a hurry.'

‘Very wise,' she says. ‘It wouldn't do at all! Not at St Mary's.'

And then I can't keep it back any longer. I look her straight in the face.

‘Miss Frazer,' I ask, ‘why did you do what you did?'

She looks back at me. Her eyes are like grey steel.

‘You know why I did it. For me to take the Lord's Supper from the hands of a woman, a so-called priest, would be a blasphemy. A total blasphemy!'

‘I am not a “so-called” priest,' I say evenly. I will not allow myself even to raise my voice, nor, I know, will she. ‘I am a true priest of God. My orders are valid. I am consecrated by the Bishop to celebrate the Mass.' Even as I say it I'm sure she's aware that the former bishop of this diocese, at the time I was ordained, refused to ordain women. I had to go to another diocese.

‘Mass is not a word I care to use,' she interrupts.

‘Choose your own word,' I tell her. ‘I'm still consecrated to offer it and what you have done is not only an affront to me – that hardly matters – you have refused God himself, at the very moment he offers himself to you. What has God done to you that you do this to him?'