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Outside, the sun had risen. One by one, the other inhabitants of Little Collyweston were getting out of bed and drawing their curtains. Bleary-eyed people stumbled into their kitchens in need of coffee, barely able to appreciate the beauty of the golden rays shining ingratiatingly over their houses. The sun obligingly continued to light up the darkest shadows anyway, spreading its unappreciated happiness over the quiet village.
It didn’t trouble the congregation of St Barnabas church, however. The architect of the building had (presumably unintentionally) constructed it in such a way that actual daylight only rarely made it inside. In the age of electricity, this was not the problem it might once have been, but it did mean that an eternal midwinter stagnated within the church, even on a bright spring morning such as this one.
Perhaps that was the reason why so few people ever seemed to be happy at the Sunday-morning services.
Everything had gone according to plan – the omelette had been as fine a specimen of an omelette as Biddle ever expected to see, and according to the four or five children who had consumed it in a matter of seconds, it also tasted jolly good. But Reverend Biddle couldn’t quite rid himself of a feeling of unease following his sermon. He thought it had been well-received, but there was a definite atmosphere amongst the congregation which suggested that it might not have been understood as well as he had hoped. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but there was a definite anxiety in his own heart that he couldn’t put aside.
He continued with the service, smiling as much as possible so as not to give away his discomfort. It was halfway through the intercessions that the reason for his unease dawned on him: brilliant though the omelette had been in a culinary sense, in the excitement of his achievement he had completely forgotten to tell the congregation what it meant. He had left out the explanation. In short, he had delivered a perfect sermon about how to make an omelette.
No wonder they looked so baffled.
Hastily, he inserted a long intercession in which he thanked God for his ‘binding love, which binds and unifies our broken lives to make us a single unified body, just as broken eggs are bound together in an omelette …’ But he felt fairly certain that this was lost on the congregation. Too little, too late.
Sheepishly, he announced the final hymn. As the organ piped up with an almost completely different set of notes to those the composer had written, Biddle began to formulate plans for a series of sermons in which he could unpack and expound upon the significance of his perfect, family-oriented and utterly irrelevant omelette.
Chapter 2
Sunday lunch in the Phair household was tense as usual. Something about spending the morning at St Barnabas church always cast a nasty atmosphere over the rest of the day; in particular, it put Lindsay in a miserable mood. Today her mood had taken a rather extreme turn for the worse.
They had driven home in silence (apart from the chattering of the girls in the back of the car, who had eventually been told to shut up by Lindsay, which had made Rebekah cry). Lindsay had prepared lunch without speaking, but made her disposition clear by banging the cooking utensils as loudly as possible, as Robert had tried to sound interested and not jealous at the girls’ description of what the omelette had tasted like, whilst acting as though their mother’s behaviour was completely rational and only to be expected on a Sunday afternoon. Lunch was served in plate-banging silence.
‘Shall I say grace?’ Robert mildly enquired.
‘Say what you like,’ Lindsay muttered, and started eating. Evidently she was sulking.
Robert paused. Really, this was very childish. He let out a long sigh. The girls had looked at him, expectantly. ‘Oh dear,’ he said quietly. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Will you stop saying “oh dear,”’ Lindsay angrily told him, ‘and say grace, if you’re going to say it.’
Another pause. Another sigh. ‘Oh dear,’ Robert softly added. Then he drew in a new breath, deciding it was time to pull things together at least. ‘Let’s hold hands – Esther, Rebekah?’
‘Mummy isn’t joining in,’ lisped Rebekah.
‘Well, Mummy doesn’t have to join in, if she’s eating. You can hold Esther’s hand.’ A slight pause, a disappointed look at his wife, then: ‘Dear Lord, we thank you for, er, for looking after us and keeping us safe, and we thank you for this time we have together, and er … er for this lovely day, and we thank you especially for this lovely dinner and for Mummy who made it. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ the girls obediently chorused, then immediately started eating. Robert didn’t start so quickly, but gave another sad look at his wife and patted her on the arm, reassuringly.
That was enough to set her off. ‘Why do we even go?’ she exploded, putting down her knife and fork with a clatter. ‘I have work to do at weekends, I could be getting work together for the five history lessons I have to look forward to tomorrow, but no, we have to go to church and waste our time with – what, I mean, what is it, what is it we go for?’
‘Well—’ Robert began. He laughed, quietly. ‘It’s always difficult to see what, what … er … what goes on, in a church, beneath the surface. You know, I’m sure …’
‘Nothing goes on beneath the surface,’ Lindsay spat. ‘They’re the most superficial bunch of people I’ve ever seen. I hate them.’
‘That’s not true, you know that, we’ve got lots of good friends at church …’
‘You’ve got lots of friends,’ Lindsay complained, self-pityingly. ‘I’m sure that they all feel sorry for you because you’ve got such a dreadful wife.’
‘Of course they don’t,’ he said, unconvincingly.
‘We sat at the front and me and Kirsty were right at the front so we took the biggest pieces of omelette, only Kirsty got some on her dress …’
‘Not now, Rebekah,’ said Robert.
‘Oh, and as for Reverend smiley self-righteous Biddle, what on earth was he doing making an omelette? I’m sorry, but that was the last straw. I’m not going to church and giving up my Sunday morning to watch somebody make an omelette!’
‘Well …’ Robert laughed, quietly and nervously, ‘different people have different styles of – it was a family service, after all.’
‘What was the point, though? Why did he do it?’
‘Well, I think he – he did it to make, er, to illustrate his point.’
‘What point? Did he make a point?’
‘Well – no,’ admitted Robert.
‘I think my tooth is coming out.’
‘Well, stop playing with it, Esther, or it will definitely come out.’
‘Isabel says that she gets fifty pence from the tooth fairy.’
‘Does she really? They must have a different tooth fairy working in that area, then, mustn’t they.’
‘We’ll have to find another church,’ Lindsay said.
‘Well …’
‘I’d stop going to church altogether, but I’m thinking about the children. I’ve given up hope for myself, I just want them to be okay.’
‘Well …’ Robert laughed nervously again, ‘if everybody took that attitude, I mean nobody would go to heaven, would they?’
‘… Kirsty got some on her dress, she did, it was a clean dress and …’
‘Isabel said that maybe the tooth fairy might give me more money the older I get.’
‘Yes, Esther, I don’t think …’
‘Was he trying to make some point about Easter?’ Lindsay postulated, loudly. ‘Was that it?’
‘Possibly,’ Robert said. ‘No Esther, I can’t talk about this now …’
‘But it’s not Easter yet! Why was he doing something with eggs before …it’s Lent! You’re meant to use up all your eggs before Lent! It wasn’t even liturgically correct!’
‘Well, yes,’ Robert agreed, ‘that’s true, but in a family service – I mean, I don’t think it’s wrong to make an omelette in Lent, is it? Not scripturally.’
‘I suppose you’ll be wanting me to make an omelette now?’
‘Well …’ Robert laughed, anxious but slightly hopeful. ‘Now that you mention it …’
‘… but can’t I have just a little bit more …’
‘Kirsty wiped it off but it left a mark …’
‘Whatever it was meant to mean, it was meaningless.’
‘It left a mark, Mummy, right here in the …’
‘Will you shut up Rebekah. What’s the point in going, though? Is there a point? Am I missing something?’
‘Pleeeeease, Daddy …’
‘I’m not discussing it now, Esther. Come here, Rebekah, don’t cry …’
‘Everyone’s just there thinking about themselves,’ Lindsay finished, ‘in their own little worlds and making omelettes and singing nice songs to Jesus – well, in case you didn’t notice, Jesus didn’t even bother turning up.’ She got up from the table, her stool clattering behind her as she stamped her way into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Robert was left trying to comfort his youngest daughter, knowing that he was about to be pressured into giving his other daughter fifty pence for the tooth that would inevitably come out that afternoon.
In fact, Lindsay Phair was wrong. Jesus had turned up, for the third week running, and had sat through the whole service in a pew towards the back. Since nobody had spoken to him, however, nobody had realised who he was.
Chapter 3
Having already prepared one meal that morning, Andy Biddle decided that a microwavable beef casserole was all he could be bothered to make for his lunch. Much as he liked the romantic idea of a hearty Sunday roast, he spent his day of rest preparing the Lord’s table and it wasn’t practical to come up with complicated cuisine for his own pleasure as well.
He was about two thirds of the way towards a fully heated casserole when he spotted the reminder on his kitchen noticeboard saying ‘lunch with Bishop – Sunday’. Cursing with words that vicars are perhaps supposed to know about but probably shouldn’t use, he aborted the microwave and hurried upstairs to change back into a clerical shirt.
The problem with his kitchen noticeboard, he thought to himself, was that there was too much on it. He was hardly going to notice a tiny reminder about lunch when he had the parish newsletter staring out at him, replete this month with a poorly reproduced picture of Mrs Hall holding her prize-winning window box. As he hurried back downstairs fixing his dog collar into place, he paused briefly to glare at the offending photograph, which looked more like a leprous troll playing the accordion. How was he supposed to concentrate on important reminders with that there?
Biddle briefly considered driving to the Bishop’s house, but the consumption of large quantities of alcohol was virtually an obligation at Bishop Slocombe’s lunches so he decided it would be wiser to cycle. Not that cycling home drunk was particularly wise, but the protection of God (one of the perks of his job) counted for a lot on these occasions.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ Bishop Slocombe demanded twenty-three minutes later, glowing in all of his red splendour as he steered Biddle into his house. ‘Were you doing a special mass or something?’ The Right Reverend Findlay Slocombe was the suffragan bishop of Cogspool; this was something of a booby prize as suffragan bishoprics went, subject to the same kind of concealed snickering amongst Anglican clergy as that endured by the Bishop of Maidstone, but that didn’t stop Slocombe from acting as if he sat in one of the most esteemed positions in the hierarchy of primates.
‘Sorry, it was a family service,’ Biddle told him, adopting a weary grin designed to win him enough sympathy for his tardiness to be overlooked.
‘Dreadful things,’ tutted the Bishop. ‘Never get involved with them myself. You should put some lay-reader or trainee priest in charge.’
‘In my opinion, family services ought to be a special mass,’ a voice called from the living room. Biddle recognised both the voice and the philosophy of Reverend Alex Milne: the mass – and the Anglican devaluation of it – was one of his pet subjects, being as he was a frustrated Catholic. Since his PhD had been paid for by the Anglican Church, he had felt an obligation to be ordained an Anglican priest; as a result, he had become exceedingly bitter about almost everything in the church. In fits of pique he still threatened to go over to Rome.
‘I am aware of the importance of the mass,’ Biddle shouted back, anticipating Alex’s oft-repeated dictum that nothing could be more family than the mass. ‘I’ve instigated a family communion every two months at St Barnabas,’ he went on with a hint of pride; he was quite used to this kind of argument, having spent many hours at theological college drinking rosé with Milne and disagreeing about theology. Their friendship thus established and cemented, they had continued to provide each other, if not with constant support, then certainly with rosé. The rosé was a vital common factor in their friendship, because their approaches to ministry had continued to drift ever further apart.
Biddle entered the Bishop’s living room and was immediately submerged in an opera he couldn’t identify – Slocombe had a fairly loose understanding of the concept of background music. Milne turned round from a bookcase to frown at him. ‘How is a family communion different to an ordinary mass?’ he challenged, raising his voice further to combat the strains of whatever opera was pumping from the stereo.
‘The children stay in the service,’ Biddle explained, ‘so it’s more geared towards them. In the same way as a family service is rather … er … less structured,’ he continued, deciding not to use his recent omelette as an example of just how unstructured family services could get, ‘family communion follows a looser pattern than the usual mass. I’m sure I must have told you that I’ve written my own special version of the liturgy.’
‘No,’ responded Milne, raising his dark eyebrows suspiciously, ‘I don’t think you have mentioned that. What sort of special version?’
‘Obviously it follows the same form as the standard version, but it’s more accessible for the young people. You know, some of it’s a bit much for children – death and broken bodies, that sort of thing.’
‘You can’t remove death from the mass, Andy,’ Milne said, rolling his eyes. ‘Death is central to the mass.’
‘No no no, of course I haven’t removed it,’ Biddle hastily clarified, ‘I’ve just reworded it. You know what I mean, instead of “this is my blood which has been shed for you”, I say, “this is the sign of my new covenant with mankind.” That sort of thing.’ Much as Biddle admired Milne’s seriousness and devotion to tradition, he couldn’t help feeling that his whole outlook was singularly lacking in joy. As young, eager theologians it had been all very well to affect a general dissatisfaction with everything in the church – that was a normal part of preparation for the priesthood, and the hours spent drinking rosé and conferring on factious approaches to Christianity were a necessary way of venting such frustration. But Biddle had grown out of that (the frustration, if not the rosé); Milne hadn’t. Somehow pale and distanced, he seemed to be increasingly wallowing in his own misery. Which Biddle thought was a shame.
‘Stop talking about the mass, for God’s sake,’ Bishop Slocombe interrupted, glowing pompously. ‘Who’s for sherry?’
Bishop Slocombe did, in fact, literally glow. He was undoubtedly the reddest person Biddle had ever known. His natural shade was a deep, glowing pink, which became increasingly saturated in hue when Slocombe was drinking or laughing (both of which, in any case, tended to lead to the other). There was a rumour that at an Episcopal Christmas party some years back, the Bishop had become so red as a result of imbibing that he had been convinced he was getting the stigmata.
Glowing with the merry bright red shade that indicated he had already enjoyed several glasses himself, Slocombe thrust a sherry into Biddle’s hand.
‘Why? Just … why?’ persisted Milne.
‘Come on, Alex – blood, it’s not very nice, is it?’
At this, Milne gave him a deeply withering look. ‘You need more misery in your religion,’ he scowled.
‘Blood not very nice?’ repeated Bishop Slocombe, apparently interested in discussing the mass all of a sudden. ‘What do you tell them they’re drinking, for God’s sake?’
‘Um …Ribena,’ admitted Biddle.
‘What?’ the Bishop and Milne simultaneously exploded.
‘Ribena,’ repeated Biddle, rather unnecessarily.
‘I don’t understand, you tell them the wine has turned into Ribena?’ Slocombe asked, glowing with agitation.
‘No, we use Ribena. So the children can drink it.’
‘But you can’t use Ribena,’ spluttered Milne, ‘you can’t say that Ribena is the blood of Christ!’
‘It’s more of a symbolic thing,’ Biddle explained.
‘That demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the mass,’ Milne declared.
‘Oops, you’ve got the purple whore started,’ said Bishop Slocombe, who wasn’t entirely sympathetic towards Milne’s Catholic sensibilities.
‘Look, it’s … it’s not a proper mass,’ Biddle said, ‘it’s a shortened version, just for the symbolism.
‘You’ve shortened the mass? What exactly do you think church is for?’
Biddle smiled. It was the same as any number of their previous conversations. ‘It is felt to be a bit long for some of the younger members of St Barnabas,’ he gently explained. (In actual fact it was also too long for many of the adults in St Barnabas, and over the years various cuts had been made to ensure that it didn’t overrun. Neither had Biddle been entirely averse to adopting the abridged version when Sathan Petty-Saphon had explained all about it; but he kept this to himself as he was sure it would not be well-received by the Bishop, even less so by Alex.)
‘Too long?’ the latter was expostulating. ‘There’s no sense of time in mass.’
‘There certainly wasn’t any sense of time by the end of the mass I took this morning,’ Bishop Slocombe commented. ‘They fill the chalice rather full at St John the Evangelist, I often end up drinking rather more of the Lord than is good for me.’ He puffed his cheeks out and exhaled loudly, as if trying to suggest that this was something he regretted deeply.
‘How exactly can the Lord be bad for you?’ Biddle queried.
‘Oh, be quiet, you old evangelical,’ Slocombe said, slapping him on the back, ‘drink some more sherry.’
‘Too long …’ Milne was muttering.
‘And you can shut up as well!’ Slocombe continued. ‘Dear God, why is it that the moment you two get close to each other, a fearsome debate always breaks out about some sacrament?’
