A Blessing In Disguise (8 page)

‘I could say –' the reply comes back from her as swift as an arrow – ‘that he has sent a woman masquerading as a priest into our midst, I could say that if it were not that I believe it was the devil who sent you!'

I shall get nowhere with her. The arguments will go round and round.

‘So,' I ask, ‘if that's how you feel why don't you go to St Saviour's in Brampton where the priest is a man? And why do what you are doing so publicly?'

‘I have no wish to attend St Saviour's,' Miss Frazer says. ‘As I have told you before I have worshipped at St Mary's all my life. And I did what I did publicly because I believe it to be my duty. St Mary's has temporarily lost its way. But it will find it again. I am, so far, only one voice – or at least the only one to be heard out loud – but I shall do my small part to guide it back.'

‘You will not drive me out,' I tell her. ‘You'll never do that.'

‘We shall see,' she says – then turns and walks away. Two or three yards down the path she turns round. No doubt she has one parting shot.

‘By the way,' she says as if nothing the least bit untoward has happened in the last few minutes, ‘I hope you're going to do something about the state of the churchyard. It's been disgracefully neglected over the last few months. In my father's day he would have sent his own gardener down rather than see the grass in its present state, but alas, I no longer have a full-time gardener. Just a man for two hours a week.'

I can hardly believe her! Is she off her head? And if that's the case will it make her easier or more difficult to deal with?

‘I understood there was someone who looked after the grass in the churchyard?' I make a great effort to speak in as normal a voice as I can produce, though I want to scream.

‘There is,' she says, ‘but he's only part time, they say they can't afford any more, and no-one seems to know
what
time or when. In my opinion he needs closer supervision. We must always respect the dead. I'm sure you agree?'

‘Respect the dead!' I cry. ‘What about the living? What about you respecting me? Whether you like it or not I'm your parish priest. But you – you don't even have respect for God!'

‘I don't acknowledge you!' she says. ‘And I never will!'

‘Then I shall manage without your acknowledgement!' I tell her.

She gives me a venomous look. ‘And you have not heard the last of this, Mrs Stanton – and I refuse to call you Vicar. Oh no! You have not heard the last of it!'

She walks a few more yards and then turns round again. Now she has to shout because of the distance.

‘And don't dismiss the matter of the graveyard!' she says. ‘A church is judged by its graveyard!'

This time the words, the forbidden words, do rise to my lips, but I draw them back just in time. I realize in the same second that if I don't she'll have good cause to report me to the Bishop. Or more likely higher. She strikes me as a woman who would never hesitate to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I watch until she is out of sight. I notice she limps a little. Then I go back into the church.

I kneel at the altar rail in the side chapel where the light is permanently lit in front of the reserved sacrament, and say my night prayers. For a few moments I shall try to put Miss Frazer out of my mind. There are so many people to pray for: Becky, my parents, Ann, Philip – though I've been taught, but sometimes when I'm low I find it difficult to believe, that those we've known in life and who are now in heaven are praying for us. When I can believe it, but even sometimes when I can't, it brings Philip closer. Next I pray, as I always would, for the people who've been at this evening's service, which has to include Miss Frazer by name. Always pray for those one finds difficult, I was once told,
not
, I hasten to add, asking that they will necessarily be converted to one's own point of view but that one might learn to understand them. I reckon that either of those options will be a real challenge for God. And then I turn my thoughts and I pray for those who have no shelter on this chilly autumn night and I pray for the deeply troubled world we live in. Lastly I pray for myself. I give God my love and I ask him to give me courage and patience.

After a few more minutes I get to my feet, go into the vestry and turn out all the lights except the one which is never turned out, and I leave. The main door to the church is made of oak, a faithful replica of the one which stood for centuries until it had to be replaced, and is so massive that I find it hard to manoeuvre, and the key is so large that carrying it around will eventually wear a hole in my pocket.

It's quite dark when I leave the church, and raining, a nasty penetrating drizzle. I must learn to leave a spare umbrella in the vestry, something I always did at Holy Trinity. I pass the pub, the Ewe Lamb, which lies between the Vicarage and the church on the other side of the road. It's brightly lit and there is the sound of music, someone playing the piano rather well. It really looks inviting; I am half inclined to plunge in and drown my sorrows in a large gin-and-tonic, but at present my sorrows are too deep for that. One of these evenings – or maybe, thinking of Becky, it will have to be a lunchtime – I will pop in, just to say ‘hello' and perhaps, who knows, meet a few more of my parishioners. Sometimes the people inside the pub are friendlier than those who would never darken its doors.

Nearing the Vicarage I note that the light is on in my study, which is at the front of the house. This is surprising because my mother doesn't go into my study except perhaps to run the vacuum around or flick a duster, and then only after asking me if she may. I think she believes it to be consecrated ground. I walk into the house, shake the rain off my coat, and call out, ‘Hello! I'm home!' In the best of worlds my daughter would appear from wherever she was with a smile on her face and cheerful words on her lips. ‘Hello, Mummy!' There is, of course, no sign of Becky – knowing my return was imminent she has probably retreated again – but my mother appears at once, and from the study. She takes my arm and propels me into the dining room, speaking urgently but quietly.

‘You've got a visitor!' she says. ‘“The Vicar's not at home at the moment,” I told her. I said she must come back some other time, or phone you. I wasn't for letting her into the house at all but she pushed straight past me, so I took her into the study and stayed with her. I didn't fancy leaving her there on her own.'

‘Right,' I say. ‘I'll go and see what she wants.'

‘The other thing is . . .' my mother begins . . . but before she can tell me what the other thing is the sound of a baby's cry comes from my study. A young baby, I can tell that, but nothing wrong with its lungs.

I look at my mother.

‘I couldn't keep her out,' she repeats. ‘But in any case it's raining. What else could I do?'

‘Don't worry, you did the right thing,' I assure her. ‘I'll sort it out!'

Those were brave words, I was to think not many minutes later.

‘Good-evening!' I say as I walk in. The woman is sitting on the edge of the sofa, holding the baby which continues to cry. I raise my voice above it. ‘I'm the Vicar! And you are?' She is quite young, twentyish. Pretty, with long dark curly hair, red lips and a tanned skin.

I can tell at once by the look she gives me that I am not what she'd expected, that I'm a disappointment. I daresay she'd expected some saintly-looking, compassionate man and here am I, a small woman with windblown hair, dressed in a long black cassock and no doubt looking suspiciously at her. My mother has used the words ‘the Vicar' instead of ‘my daughter'.

‘What's your name?' I ask, I hope gently. The baby has momentarily stopped crying and I don't want to frighten it, do I?

She is reluctant to tell me.

‘Emmeline,' she says in the end.

‘What a pretty name!' I remark. ‘And your baby's name? How old is she?' (He?)

‘Gloria. Three months.'

I'm not sure why, but I smell something not quite right about this, and I don't only mean the baby, which is a malodorous addition. Little Gloria is in urgent need of a change of nappy.

‘So what can I do for you, Emmeline?' I ask. ‘What do you want?'

The answer comes with the speed of light, no hanging about. ‘Money! Me and the baby have nowhere to sleep and we haven't eaten all day and I need the money to get a bed for the night. So please . . . ?'

‘First things first!' I tell her. ‘I think before we do anything else Gloria needs changing. She'd be more comfortable. And after that you can feed her while I get you something to eat.' One good thing, at three months Gloria will still be breast-fed, or is she already on to meat and two veg from a little jar? ‘Do you have a spare nappy?' I ask. ‘I expect you always carry one. I know I did when my little girl was a baby.'

Emmeline looks at me as if I'm speaking Chinese. ‘If you'll just give me the money, ten pounds would do it,' she says. ‘I'll be off and out of your way. I don't want to bother you.'

‘No bother!' I say, moving to the door, opening it, calling out to my mother, who immediately comes running, no doubt she's been hovering close by on tenterhooks with curiosity.

‘Mother,' I say, ‘the baby needs a clean nappy. I know we don't have nappies but could you find a towel and cut it up? And some soap and water and a flannel.' Nothing in my training ever mentioned that I should keep a supply of nappies in the linen cupboard and baby food in the larder.

‘At once!' my mother says, all her skill as a one-time voluntary hospital worker coming to the fore.

I am left with Emmeline and Gloria, and I try not to go too near, but fortunately my mother is back in no time at all and applies herself to the baby, talking all the while. ‘Ooh! what a nice old mess you're in! Let's wash this dirty little botty shall we?' And so on.

Did Father Humphrey Payne ever have to go through this at Holy Trinity, I wonder? Of course not! If faced with it he would simply have lifted the phone and called for one of his parish slaves (female) and she would have been around in a trice (just as your mother was, a small voice niggles at me).

While this is going on I try to converse with Emmeline, but get nowhere. All she wants is to be off, preferably with the money; if no money, then without, and better luck somewhere else.

Eventually my mother says, ‘There! Who's a lovely clean girl, then!' and I say to Emmeline, ‘Now you can feed the baby and while you're doing that we'll get you a nice cheese sandwich . . .'

‘I don't like cheese,' Emmeline says.

‘Have we some ham left, Mother?' I ask.

‘Yes dear,' she says. ‘Do you like mustard?' she asks Emmeline politely. ‘Or perhaps not if you're breast-feeding?'

‘I'm not. She's on the bottle!' Emmeline says quickly.

‘Oh! Well I don't think . . . We don't have a feeding bottle. But not to worry,' my mother says. ‘I'll nip down to the chemist's . . .'

‘And in the meantime I'll ring Social Services and see if they can get you somewhere to sleep,' I tell Emmeline.

‘Oh, I don't want the Social!' she protests. ‘They're no good!'

‘I can't have you with nowhere to sleep,' I say firmly, picking up the phone. ‘Let alone little Gloria.'

‘I'll make do with five pounds,' she says desperately. But I am already being put through to Social Services.

‘What did you say the woman's name was?' I'm asked.

‘Emmeline. Just a minute, I'll ask her for her last name.'

‘Don't bother!' the woman at the other end says. ‘It's Fieldhouse. Emmeline Fieldhouse. Did she ask for ten pounds and then drop it to five?'

‘That's right. But there
is
the baby to think of.'

‘Is the baby Gloria or Peter?'

‘Gloria. How do you . . . ?'

‘Peter is her cousin's baby, Gloria is her sister's. She borrows them.'

‘No wonder she couldn't breast-feed her.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Nothing!'

‘Hang on to her, Vicar,' the woman says. ‘We'll send someone to collect her and deliver her back where she belongs.'

‘Which is where?' I enquire.

‘With the Travellers. They're camped this week at the top of Thurston Hill. Travellers, not gypsies. Emmeline is known the length and breadth of three counties, though I don't remember that we've ever picked her up from your Vicarage before.'

Full marks to them, they collect her pronto. I slip two pound coins in Emmeline's pocket as she leaves and my mother gives her a block of Cadbury's milk chocolate. ‘But not for the baby,' she warns. ‘It's too rich.'

When they've gone my mother and I move to the sitting room, which is otherwise empty.

‘Where's Dad?' I ask.

‘He thought he'd take a walk down to the pub as it's our last evening here. Just for an hour or so, he said.'

So I could have popped in to the Ewe Lamb and my father would have been there to greet me. It would have been a pleasant introduction. On the other hand, my mother would have been left to deal with Emmeline so it's as well I didn't.

‘And I take it Becky is in her room?'

‘Actually, she's gone to bed,' my mother says. ‘Oh, Venus love, I'm really worried about her! She's such an unhappy little girl.'

‘I know. And I'm not a deliriously happy woman,' I reply. ‘But what more can I do?'

‘She's on all the time about coming back to Clipton with me and her grandpa . . .'

‘I've already told her that's impossible,' I interrupt. ‘She has to live here, with me. You know that.'

‘Of course I do, love. But I wondered . . .' She pauses.

‘Well?'