Crusaders (11 page)

‘What do we have here?’ So asked Canon Burn, babyishly fair of hair if sadly scant of same. The question was rhetorical. ‘A
document
dating from 1563. Eight years later it’s appended to the Prayer Book. Today it’s commended to us by section five of the Worship and Doctrine Measure …’

Gore sat in the Grey College seminar room, sucking a pencil, contemplating the morning light across a classmate’s broad dark back. Before him, as before all ten of them, a facsimile of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church.
All these years
, he thought,
and I’m still at school, behind a desk, scribbling
.

‘These Articles, then, are a statement of our belief. But they don’t govern us. They are parameters. We just agree that what they say is broadly compatible with scripture.’

‘What a load of mush.’

Barlow, of course, rocking in his chair, arms folded like a full stop. Gore thought the barrow-boy manner an affectation, no less irksome than the jeering hazel-eyed gaze or the convict’s
starkness
of cropped hair and beard.

‘If they’ve not got
authority
, why do we bother with them?’

Burn’s smile was thin. ‘For the purpose of study, Simon. A value in itself. At the same time I should say I know clergy who’ve never read them.’

‘Oh, I bet you do.’

Burn lifted his nose clear of the taunt. ‘If we just consider Article Twenty-Eight …’

Gore glanced to the page.
Transubstantiation, or the change in the substance of bread and wine, is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture
.

Barlow stirred first. ‘Yeah, right. Exactly.’

‘Yes, and yet,’ purred Burn, ‘as we know, there are some in our communion who take just this view. Believing in the real bodily presence in the Eucharist.’

Barlow rubbed at his face. ‘Why can’t we just take one line and stick to it? Eh? Look there, see, number six? “Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation.” Nothing half-baked about that, is there? Can’t quarrel with it, can you? Anyone?’

Gore knew what had to follow, sure as the earth turned. It seemed a hollow laugh now, yet in their first term Barlow, son of a salesman of cleaning products, had seized on him as a kindred spirit – perhaps the one other ordinand who had not come from the home counties via Oxford or Cambridge. ‘You and me are the hardcore men here,’ Barlow had bashed at his ear. ‘Let’s get
hammered
some night, thrash out a few things.’ This as if they were affable fans of the same football team. Over time it had grown clear that they took rival sides.

‘Simon,’ Gore now weighed in, ‘the Bible forbids usury, doesn’t it? When you go into Barclays to discuss your overdraft, do you kick over their tables? Come on, this is a pre-Enlightenment
document
. It would be backward to endorse all of it.’

‘Who are you to tell me that?’ Barlow spat, then sharply
directed
his shorn scalp at Burn. ‘And you, you stand there nodding your head? Call yourself an instructor?’

Burn seemed to flinch – the room merely to roll its collective eyes, as ever when Messrs Gore and Barlow got into one of their little furies, for hours had been lost to the same bitter end over the last twelve months.

‘Simon, the fact is there aren’t two of us in this room who’d agree on every one of these Articles. Never mind
outside
of it. But the argument, the
complexity
of it – that’s what we’re about.’

Barlow’s gaze was baleful. ‘What planet are you from, son? You are
dead
wrong, it is
exactly
what we’re
not
about. I mean, what about when you’ve gotta actually stand up in a pulpit, John? Are you gonna say the cross is the way to salvation? Or are you gonna say to people, “Oh, mercy, I tell you, this ‘believing’ lark, it ain’t
half
complex
…”? How’s your ordinary churchgoer supposed to make sense of that?’

Gore took his pause, let Barlow’s fine spittle settle. ‘I won’t have any problem telling people that the faith can mean something quite different to any one of them.’

‘Oh will you?
Nice
, John. But you know what? You’ll be
preaching
to an empty church.
Empty
, mate. You know why? Because people who like that sort of guff, they don’t
go
to church. They don’t read the Bible. They go to the
theatre
. And they read the
Guardian
. People who go to
church
on a Sunday want to hear a sound man. Someone who believes what he’s saying when he baptises their kids.’

‘I think,’ said Burn distantly, ‘we’ve strayed far enough –’

‘No, look, John, just tell me straight. No one’s listening anyway. Do you believe Christ was born of a virgin? Do you believe His tomb was empty? I know it only
says
so, in all the gospels, but I just want your personal view.’

‘Whatever I say I believe, Simon, it yields no proof anyway.’

Barlow snatched up the Articles, waved them aloft. ‘I mean, what’s sacred, eh? What’s left? Next you’ll be saying we don’t have to believe in
God
, not
really
…’

There was a silence of mere moments, yet sufficient for Barlow to scan the room, before – with a timing that Gore thought risible, theatrical – raising his palms aloft, as if beset by enemies on all sides. ‘Oh, come on. Don’t be scaring me now.
Somebody
say they believe in God.’

Lunch hour in the common room, a dozen ordinands
congregated
. The humbly worn seating area projected out to a generous
terrace
, ideal in summer, but today was colder and the French windows were closed. Scattered side tables offered newspapers and makings for tea, and Gore had got himself nicely settled for both when he sensed a presence over him.

‘Hullo, Gavin.’

‘John. Mind if I sit? I wondered if we might chat about the Augustine essay?’

‘Sure.’ Gore nodded and made room for Gavin Knott – slight, of nondescript height, his dark curls cut close, a hangdog aspect to his gaze. His ‘casual’ wardrobe was yet fastidious, black jeans ironed, grey chambray shirt buttoned to his throat. He appeared self-contained, sufficient unto himself, if not hugely cheered by the fact. He and Gore were partners in a weekly visit to the local hospital, where Knott was rather enviably effective in consoling elderly patients on the wards. Gore, at best, had achieved a
shallow
rapport with a Nigerian cleaning woman.

No sooner was Knott sat, though, than they had more company – Charlie Gummer, round in the middle, thin on top, bearing a furled broadsheet and a supermarket carrier bag. ‘Hello Gloria, Judy,’ he sang.

When first greeted in this fashion Gore had felt some hackles rise, before realising it was simply an irredeemable trait in Gummer, and part of the tolerant atmosphere of Grey, fostered from on high by Lockhart.

‘Look, quail’s eggs. Sainbury’s had them discounted.’

Gore tried to look impressed. Gavin too was being asked to coo, but he was not comfortable. And yet Gummer was allegedly his pal, another of a High Church disposition, hence their Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee alliance.

Gummer settled himself on the banquette between them with a modicum of squirming. ‘So, you and Essex Man at each other’s throats again, John,’ he tutted. ‘You know, I don’t agree with Simon, not on much. Sometimes I think he’s a bit touched? Few pages stuck together, upstairs.’

Gore nodded.

‘Though I will say, he’s got nice eyes.’ Gummer was beating his
Telegraph
against his leg. Now he thrust the paper at Gore. ‘More grief for the Windsors, you see? Charlie’s been at it too.’

Gore glanced at the front page, given over to some new
revelations
about the marital strife of the Prince of Wales and his wife. ‘Does it really bother you?’ he murmured, returning the paper.

‘“Bother” me? Our future king? Excuse me, Judy, in case you didn’t notice, the monarch is the head of our Church.’

‘But this is the front page? When we were just chucked out of the ERM?’

‘Oh that’s just …
money
. And bloody Europe.’

‘A recession, Charles, and all because a few rich men with more money than the government start –’

Gummer clapped hands over ears in the manner of the
prudently
deaf monkey. ‘La-la-la-la-la! Boring!’

Fine
, thought Gore,
live in your own little cloister
.

‘Judy,
this
is a constitutional matter. Does he plan on being a divorced king? Marrying his divorced mistress? Or does he just think he’ll keep her on as his bit? No, we
have
to deplore this. The public demands it of us. To be properly reverent about things. It’s like the opening of parliament. That’s where we’re at our best, Judy. In purple.’

‘In pantomime, you mean,’ Gore murmured.

‘John,’ said Knott, nearly smiling, ‘I seem to recall you saying that vicars ought to be a bit like actors.’

Gummer was rubbing his hands toward a trestle table piled with shrink-wrapped sandwiches. ‘Right, then, I’ve got my
victuals
but what’ll you girls have?’

‘Not for me, thanks, Charles, I’ve a lunch date.’ Gore was glad to rise and stride out into the air, free of the airless sun-bleached room, mired in matters that Barlow’s beloved Man in the Street would surely think queer if not redundant.

The designated restaurant on King Street was a brasserie, wrought-iron tables and chairs set for alfresco diners under a stiff white canvas awning. Gore the anchorite felt he had come to the outside world in some style. Within its shaded depths, a crisp young man danced across the laminate floor toward him.

‘I’m here to meet Ms Susannah Gore?’

‘Twelve-thirty? She’s not here but I’ll take you to table.’

Today was a surprise summons. Either Susannah was feeling unusually guilty for time not spent or, more likely, desirous of
displaying
her fast-moving prosperity, her irresistible rise within the firm of Hook Millard. His sole fear was that she might have a
problem she wanted to share: if so, they were liable to sit marooned in unhappiness. Their teenage jousting had fallen into disuse, but nothing more meaningful had filled its place, so markedly different were their adult worlds. For four or more years she had been in an on–off relationship with a Tory MP, one Sebastian Sellars, a suave sort of a pig – relations that John firmly if fruitlessly deplored. Now he was given to believe the affair was in a dormant phase. But she surely had to know he had no advice to give? There was, then, a more discomfiting thought. If he were her best hope for sympathy, did she have any real friends?

And here she was, slipping between tables, rather chic in a black polo-neck, a heathery-grey wool miniskirt, sheer tights and knee-length black leather boots. He rose, they embraced lightly.

‘I like your outfit.’

‘Of course you like it. It’s sort of
dull
, isn’t it?’

She set down a dinky paging device and lit a menthol cigarette. Gore inspected the menu, mentally reckoning the price of each entrée as a percentage of his current account balance. Susannah leaned across the table, hand over face in stage whisper.
‘Divvint worry, kidder. You can have the steak.’
She sat back, pleased with
herself
, and by her brother’s giggle. ‘I’ll just claim it back. Or will I? Yeah, I will. I’ll put you down as a consultant. Say you were
advising
me. On what
Jesus
would have done.’

‘Don’t let me get you in trouble.’

‘Oh, trust me, you’re small fry to what some of those buggers spend. You should have seen our summer party. Smoked salmon and champagne all night for two hundred. But – it pays for itself. So you have your steak.’

‘What do you mean, “pays for itself”?’

‘Well, there’s plenty of our clients happy to sponsor a nice little drinky. They like meeting MPs. It cuts both ways – MPs like
meeting
millionaires. Who knows what it could mean down the road? Maybe a few thousand jobs in their backyard.’

‘It sounds like – what do you call it? Insider trading?’

‘Never. It’s just like-minded people having a nice little drinky.’

‘So you like it, then? Lobbying?’

‘Well, I was fucked off with PR. Having to worry about the size of bloody
billboards
all the time. No, it’s good, lobbying. We just took a job for the Nigerian government, would you believe? French Water Board before that. I got threatened with Scottish and Newcastle Breweries, but I telt them, “Listen, I don’t drink turps.”’

‘What can you do for the Nigerian government?’

‘Just present a case. For something they’d like done. They’ve maybe got a project and they’re not certain how we do things, how our market works. Same as if it’s a foreign manufacturer, he’s maybe worried if he sets up here then he won’t get to run off his waste into the River Tees. Little does he know, eh? So, anyhow, then we might have a word with one of our MPs.’

‘
Your
MPs?’

‘We’ve got a few members we pay. Consultants. We’re only starting a conversation they’d want to be having anyway … What’s that look for?’

‘Nobody
elected
any of you lot, Su.’

‘Pet, what is an MP for? God, if people knew, all what
doesn’t
get done in their names, by whatever monkey they sent up, I tell you, they wouldn’t set much store on the whole …’ – she sighed – ‘I don’t know,
box-ticking
part of things. Anyhow, there’s no politics in what we do. Not party politics like you think. We’re not …
contaminated
by any of that. The people I work with, they’re just clever people. They might have Tory backgrounds or Labour backgrounds, none of it counts on the job.’

‘Who do you know has a
Labour
background?’

‘Oh, we’ve taken on Labour people since the election. A lad used to be in the press office, a girl from one of the think-tanks. They’re good, too.’