Authors: Richard T. Kelly
‘For Christ’s
sake
. Are you
mad
?’ Gore shouted, struggling to his feet, rubbing at his mouth. But Barlow was grinning, standing
proud, wagging a teacherly finger at Gore as if the disgrace were not his own.
‘Must do better, John. Must do better.’
‘Get out. Get out of my
room
.’
Unbowed, Barlow plucked his foul bottle of Bulgarian red from the table, swaggered to the door, slammed it jarringly behind him.
*
‘I know how you feel. I’m the same, really. It’s hard.’ Lockhart bridged his fingers, staring directly ahead. Gore, sat in the wooden pew behind the master, followed his gaze down the length of the college chapel – deserted at this early hour – toward the altar that was set through a proscenium arch, bathed in the pale first light seeping through high windows, the back wall bare but for a text from Matthew in mounted letters.
I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, YET UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD
.
‘It would be nice sometimes, just to be left alone with the faith.’ Lockhart sighed. ‘
But
– that’s not the job, is it? Unless you want a post with the divinity faculty over the wall.’
‘It’s just … some of the people I’m here with, we have nothing whatever in common.’
‘I see that, yes.’
‘Well, doesn’t it bother you?’
‘I’ve lived long enough. What we
do
is disagree. Almost by
definition
. Ever since the Greeks and Latins. The Great Schism of the West. Martin Luther. It’s just split after split, isn’t it? We talk about holding the centre together, it’s a lovely notion. But a pipe dream, really. It defies our history. What would it take? Fiat after fiat. Endless Acts of Supremacy … No, the more we try to unite, the sharper our differences seem. We’re a bit like your Labour Party, I suppose. I don’t think the public will swallow it.’ Lockhart
chuckled
softly into his chest. ‘And here I’m supposed to help you.’
True, thought Gore, it was a fool’s predicament. ‘It wouldn’t matter. If I really felt certain I’ll be effective. Out in the field.’
‘Oh, I thoroughly expect you will, John. Really. I’m sure you’ll make a good fist of whatever comes your way. Right now you’re a bit low. Well, part of the job is absorbing that. Coming to terms
with it. Just how low a person can feel. The sadness in life. It doesn’t go away. The thing is knowing you can help others with it.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the greatest lot of use …’
‘You’d be surprised. People don’t generally give as much of themselves. Not as a priest has to. It’s really a stern test, you know. Shouldering the sorrows of others … rarely a chore that works to one’s own advantage. Quite the opposite. That’s why it’s so Christian. Why are you smiling?’
‘You make it sound like martyrdom.’
‘Oh no, not
martyrdom
. No, that’s a concept I can’t stand. That’s a million miles away from the purpose of the faith.’
‘Which is?’
An indulgent smile. ‘Oh I thought you knew … Fellow-feeling, John. To foster our best attributes, none of which we understand well enough or practise sufficiently. You could have fifty million God-fearers and not a kind soul among them. No, God’s kingdom on earth will be here when we’re all just a bit kinder to each other.’
Gore touched the raw spot on his lower lip and nodded without cheer.
His father was peering at him patiently, clad in his old V-neck and slippers, a mild smile tugging his lips above a mug of instant
coffee
. Gore stole glances in turn, scrutinising Bill for signs of the creeping decrepitude to which Susannah had condemned him. But then Bill had always been anxious. Time could be as readily blamed for his sunken eyes and slowed reactions, just as it had thinned his silver hair and consigned him to a partial deafness.
The spinning carriage clock tossed light around the living-room walls. Audrey’s Doulton ornaments were powdered with dust. The arm-cloths on the settee were sadly frayed, there were crumbs in the carpet, the kitchen linoleum loosening from its tacks. The want of a woman’s presence was palpable. More doleful for Gore was the evidence of odd jobs ignored or started then abandoned. The coffee table was stacked with pamphlets of technical reading matter, and the dining-room table suggested some new fixation. Laid out upon an old bleached-out bath towel were stray bits of lighting equipment familiar to Gore from his days as a college thespian – a lantern and a Fresnel spotlight, a console of sliding switches, strewn yokes, clamps and safety chains, and a clutch of coloured filters.
Gore spoke up, as best and fully as he could, about his mission in Hoxheath. He wished to sound practical, purposeful, not like the feckless caretaker of some cowboy operation. His father only continued to smile and nod, but asked no questions, and seemed to make no assumptions. After a while it became clear to Gore that Bill was not truly interested, but had retained the civility to hear a man out.
He left the lounge to urinate, and found himself absorbed in the slow-peeling paper on the cloakroom ceiling. On his return, Bill rose, crossed the floor with a shuffling gait, unsettled a glossy brochure from the pile on the coffee table and tossed it onto Gore’s lap. On its cover was an unnerving close-up of a chameleon.
‘I found out what’s been wrong with us at long last. Just from a read of that there. Have
you
heard of the British Disease? Your owld dad’s got it.’
Nonplussed, Gore began to turn the page leaves.
‘All of ’em at BT got sent one of these, every bloody employee. My old mate Don Cox sent it on to us. Now can you tell me, but, what the hell they’re on about?’
Gore peered at the spare layout, reams of text trailing across whiteness, punctured by bold headlines and pull-out quotes. ‘“The Customer is King”. Sounds like you, dad.’
‘No, that bit I understand. Where’s me favourite? Where’s that bugger? There.’ His finger alighted on
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG. ADAPT OR DIE
.
Gore shrugged. ‘Who’s responsible for this then?’
‘Management consultants. We were behind the times,
apparently
. It’s to do with communication, don’t you know? Funny, that.’ He took the brochure back out of Gore’s hands and threw it on the table. ‘Bloody nonsense.
That’s
why I took early retirement, right there. You know as well as I, John, it was never owt to do with could I handle the work. It’s the
discourtesy
of it, man. I won’t be
spoken
to like that. It’s like owld Tommy Cooper said. It’s not the principle I object to, it’s the
money
.’
Gore was pleased to laugh, for a gag from Bill was a rare grace.
‘Y’knaa what I’m saying, but, don’t you?’
‘Wasn’t that the idea?’ Gore felt old reflexes stir. ‘When it was privatised. Wasn’t that the way it was headed from then?’
‘Aw, it wasn’t ever meant to gan this far. Naw, John. And before that, y’knaa, we were second class, we were. Fodder, man. We were taken for granted.’
The sentiment struck Gore as so wilfully blind he lost his savour for pursuing the point. Bill in any case was looking distant. Gore
clapped his knees. ‘Well, anyhow. You’ve time for more in your life now. Interests. Maybe you should get involved with town council.’
Bill made a sour face. ‘Oh, I’m not stopping work, no fear. I’m barely sixty, son. Don’t you worry, I’ll not be asking you to look after me. You will get a proper job, but? One of these days?’
Gore ducked the jibe, a little riled, and jerked a thumb toward the junkheap of the dining-room table. ‘So what’s all that then, Dad? What are you up to?’
‘Aw, this fella I know at the cricket club, he got laid off from Thorn over in Spennymoor. Bit younger than us. Anyhow, he’s all into this lighting. “Design”, he calls it. Sort of decoration, like, for places what get visitors? He got us interested.’
‘Sounds a bit – arty.’
Bill sniffed. ‘Nah, just common sense, really. This fella, he’s done the odd thing at Beamish Museum. The other week we did the rig for a little concert they had up by the old priory at Finchale. He showed us the ropes. It’s not hard.’
‘A concert. How was that?’
‘Brass band. Wasn’t poison. We might do something at the Cathedral. An exhibition they’ve got, some lad does wood
carvings
…’
‘You sure you want the hassle?’
‘John, son, I’m not going to be one of them buggers sat in the pub at three o’clock on a working day. I’ll not be taking up
bowls
neither.’
‘You’re entitled to have it a bit easier.’
‘Aye, and you’re a long time dead.’ Bill was toying with a
slender
remote control for the television. ‘Shall we watch a bit of the cricket?’
‘Who’ve Durham got the day?’
‘Leicester. Getting trounced, last I looked. They’re poor, man. Beat Yorkshire, mind you. That Brown’s got wickets in him. Wants to cut his hair, but. Shall I put it on?’
‘I’m not so bothered. Don’t follow it much.’
‘Whey, come on then. Shall we’s walk?’
Gore gathered his things and they left the house. Susannah, he
concluded, was quite wrong. Bill was more or less fine, about his business as usual. He had expected the needle of political
difference
to rub raw between them, but all that discord just seemed to have died a natural death. How had he come to think of his father as such an irritable man? He wondered now if his memory hadn’t betrayed him, or whether he had simply failed to pay attention. Was that possible?
On they trudged, up Finchale Road, past Carrgate School and down a narrow lane to the Carrs, obscured from passing traffic behind houses and industrial works, twenty acres of dry acid heath and marshland, with trails for biking and dog-walking scored out in criss-cross between clumps of bracken and
yellow-flowering
gorse. At last they took a pause, turned, surveyed the distance they had come.
‘You’ll have seen your sister, then?’
‘No, actually. Not since I got here. We’ve talked. But she’s full of busy.’
‘You ought to talk more, you and her. There’ll come a time, y’knaa? When you’ll just have each other.’
Gore frowned. ‘That’s a bit of a bleak way to look at it, Dad.’
‘Well, it’s not like the pair of you’s are looking like settling. Families of your own.’
‘I don’t know about that necessarily.’
‘Whey, you say yourself, she works all hours. You think she’ll ever settle?’
‘She gives most of her life to the member for Tyneside West.’
‘Well, there’s a dead loss for starters.’
‘I know, but – Dad, I’ve not
given up
myself. I’m not a monk, you know.’
‘Aw right. Do you still keep up with that woman in Dorset? The divorcee?’
‘No, we lost touch. Didn’t have the best of goodbyes.’
‘Funny old life you have. Funny old job.’
Presently they walked on, in silence awhile.
‘And when do you start then, John? Proper, like, this church of yours?’
‘The first service is meant to be in a fortnight. Sunday October twelve. If we’re ready for it. Not that I’ve got any choice.’
‘Well now, listen, I’d a thought. I could maybe be of help to you? With your – y’knaa, your service? Maybe put a few lights up in that school hall?’
‘Thanks, Dad, but … I think maybe that might look a bit flash. Put people off.’
‘Whey never, it’d bring ’em in, I’d have thought. Just summat simple. It wants to look professional, doesn’t it?’
‘Honestly, thanks, Dad. Maybe just let me see how we get on first.’
‘Okay, well. Just so you know. I know you mightn’t think of us as … I don’t know, considerate and that. But I’m here. You know that, right? I’d not ever see you wrong.’
‘No, thanks, Dad, I appreciate it. I do. Should we maybe head back?’
‘What, are you looking to get off?’
‘It’s only I fancy making the midday train.’
Bill shrugged. ‘Aw well, I’m for walking on a bit me’sel, John.’
‘How far?’
‘Maybe on up to Spy Hill.’
‘Bit of a hike, Dad.’
‘Nee bother. Do us good. Anyhow.’ He thrust out a hand. ‘Thanks for your company, our John.’
They shook and then Bill was off and away, down the narrow lane, slow but steady, his own man as always. Gore was
momentarily
nagged, unsure – should he have said something more, something better? Ought he to put on a step, catch up? Would Bill care one way or the other? Arising wind whistled and whipped at his trouser legs. It was pointless, he knew, for he had made his choice and would stick to it. At last he turned and set to retracing his tread, visible yet across the flattened acid grass.
6 September 1995
Dear Gordon,
I trust this finds you well. For my part I am sufficiently settled into bucolic Rodley (!) as to set down some impressions. The scale of the task is already apparent. Your advice will be taken to heart.
As you warned, the good Reverend Trevelyan is something of a loose cannon. Replacing him, though, would be no small feat. For one thing he is a cussed farmer, preaching to fellow cussed farmers. You thought I could expect a rivalry? Not so. True, he beheld me at first with – if not quite the basilisk stare – then an evident wariness. He would grimace at any naivety of mine, and sharply set me right. But I have begun to feel it is a sincere desire of his, to impart certain definite lessons.
He is proud of his freehold, short of respect for church
governance
. I rather wondered what kind of wild-eyed dissent he would shout from his pulpit. But really he is a ‘sound man’, his metaphors drawn largely from fruit and veg. None of your trendy ways, and the congregation seem to approve.
You are wondering, I’m sure, what size is this congregation? I will confess, it’s not uncommon that the 8 a.m. service be given for five or six. But a second sitting at 10 will sometimes muster twenty. Always a smattering of couples in good casual clothes – weekending, one suspects, from a London residence. Plus the odd pair of shifty B&B tourists, stopping off from the stroll after their ‘Full English’ breakfast.
We are a small team, our forces spread thin over the
neighbouring
villages, so I get about a fair bit daily on the bike. I will
take the odd drink in the pub with Trevelyan – he advises that I get my face known widely – and there I hear the most vigorous views about the clash between the incomers and the ‘born-here’ tendency. The tourists aren’t even rated as human. Where I am counted in the scheme of things, I wouldn’t like to hazard. Nor is Trevelyan neutral on the matter. Another of his little lessons is that we must keep our sheep close. ‘We’re not London,’ he likes to say. ‘If we hear a cry in the street, we can’t just pull the
curtains
.’ Indeed, almost any local problem he defines as one that can’t be solved by ‘zooming back up to London of a Sunday’. The scold is sometimes directed at me, as if I were a symbol of the Big Smoke rather than one who finds London as appealing as the gulag.
Funnily enough, last Sunday one of those London couples approached me, two glum twin boys in tow, and asked if they could make a donation to funds? Typical moneyed behaviour. He had the look of a grazing stockbroker – pink shirt, white collar, sleeves rolled. I tried to gauge what he was after in return. My guess was: a slightly more ‘contemporary’ mode of preaching.
For the moment I am lodging with a peppery old lady who prepares the church newsletter. She is a hard one, but the black pudding she serves is a joy. The townie way, I’m told, is to turn vegetarian as soon as one sees just how cows called Daisy and pigs called Jemima get turned into meat. But not I. My
conscience
is bad when I consider the ill use of God’s creatures. But I have to tell you, that pudding is godly stuff.
Yours in faith & friendship,
John
12 October 1995
Dear Sue,
I’m sure one letter a month from me is more than ample, so forgive me for taxing your patience. It’s just that I fear I’ll go spare here. The darkness after nightfall is unfathomable. The baying of livestock sends me up the bedroom wall. My old
landlady regards me with barely veiled contempt. I should stop before tears of merriment stain your cheeks.
There are pluses. Good fresh produce from the farmers’
markets
. Then again, this you will love, ten minutes by car gets you to a vast Tesco, its car park full of Land Rovers, Londoners after their preferred bread and cheese.
Most days I’m given to understand that the village has already gone to hell in a handcart, everything under threat or already lost, from the bus service to the sub post office. Rumour has it the train line survives only so as to serve the leader of the Lib Dems, who has a place locally. Politicians, you should know, are not much admired here. So, please, come visit, and bring your Pallister, hard as I’m sure it would be for him to wrench himself from his duties to Scotswood and Hoxheath. I hope he takes no more of your time than is necessary, since you did the hard graft and got him elected. How can he afford you? Whatever do you and he talk about? You can’t have read any of the same books. I have a list I can send you, should you ever find yourself stuck for chat in ‘Old Labour’ circles.
All piss-taking aside, you have my honest admiration for
having
started up on your own. I raise my glass to SEG Solutions Ltd. What really impresses me – I mean it – is that you are taking the lessons you have learned and moving forward. A much
bolder
thing than I am capable of.
Per your last letter, understand that I am unperturbed by your jibes at the persistence of my long romantic drought. Lodging with Mrs Danvers is hardly an ideal arrangement, a cramp on the style of a gay blade such as I. But you are quite correct to assume that there is ‘no one special’, has not been for some time, and there is no prospect of that changing. Okay?
Love,
Jonno
9 November 1995
Dear Dad,
I have of late rediscovered some of my old fondness for pen and paper. It comes easier, seems to me more friendly, than the phone. I do apologise, though, for not calling so frequently. To be honest, I have so little news. Not much changes here, though the entrenched locals will tell you different. Some of them I daresay you would get on with.
The graveyard is a testament to the old families of the village, and I sometimes think most of the faithful are already interred. My pastoral duties are not extensive in the week, bar the more or less predictable incidence of birth, marriage and death (and sadly not enough of the first two). These and the visiting, from which I shrink, since my small talk is fitful. I imagine you had similar problems back when you were tootling all over Durham for the old gadgies.
One man I’ve met whom I’m sure you would have time for is a dairy-cattle farmer called Roy Jeavons. He appeared steadfastly at each service, then one day he lingered afterward and we fell to chatting. Now we will have the odd pint of bitter. He is a keen reader, recognises the citations when I preach – even those from heathen literary sources. His farm is called Long Meadow, he’s been there for twenty-five years, effectively solo since his dad’s death ten years ago. His wife died not long after, very sadly – cancer. He has a daughter just twenty, Cath, and she helps him out. It’s very evident she has stayed for him rather than strike out for college and a career, as most others seem to. He does his business on a computer that puzzles him somewhat, though Cath is a dab hand. But he is always being told to change his way of doing business. I can see the argument. It’s harder to apply, though – would be hard for anyone.
His profits have halved in the last couple of years. I gather – though it’s a sore point – that it’s much to do with the fallout of the BSE business. The worst of it is in the past now, but he clearly took a hit. I know you wax sceptical about farmers, but really his margins are tough. I was stunned to hear his milk production is
running at an actual loss!? He likes to cite a biblical reference beloved of my boss Trevelyan, ‘The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.’ It occurs within a complex passage in Paul’s epistle to Timothy. But its meaning is quite clear to some among us here.
I hope whatever you’re getting up to is giving you satisfaction, and look forward to seeing you at Christmas.
With love and best wishes,
John
7 December 1995
Dear Sue,
Okay then – I’m a Tory now. You be vice and I’ll be versa.
Not really. But still. There are Tory virtues afoot out here, I am among a conservative community. The farmers, for instance, are remarkably hostile to Europe. It seems to have a lot to do with pig crates. I find my voice fails me on the topic. In truth I feel myself going native just a bit – ‘acting it’, as is my wont – a ‘poser’ as Dad would say – fitting in, rather than preaching brave and lonely on a rock and taking a hail of stones for my pains.
As for your and my Party – I am not so sure there isn’t a Christian revival going on. The old Christian Socialism, even. One saw it somewhat during the dour Scots ascendancy, Smith and Brown. But Blair, too, was clearly God-struck at some key stage. He speaks without apology about ‘sin’, ‘right and wrong’. But it’s not a bad place for Labour to be. Especially if, as Blair seems to wish, you’re standing on a law-and-order platform. I admit he was good after the Bulger boy was killed in Liverpool. He sort of reminded people how bad it is to live on those estates where the norms have broken down. Clearly that is why you get this abysmal behaviour. I truly believe you can’t do such things if you grew up being loved, feeling safe, and indebted for the same. But there’s no point imagining everybody else is just like us.
Now: will it shock you then to learn that I have made a good friend of a real woman? Her name is Jessica Bradbeer, though
she prefers ‘Jessie’. I think it’s a stab at informality, as her origins are quite posh. She moved to Rodley with her twin boys and husband, a moody stockbroker who fancied a go at farming organic veg. It seems he soon wearied of that rubbish and
deserted
her, drove back to London, his old job, and some new blonde. Jessie has kept the house and the boys, who are, alas, the image of their moron father. I suspect persevering here is a way of
fighting
the humiliation.
She has loaned me a hand with Sunday School and coffee mornings, though these are desultory. She’s cooked for me a few times too – I sit in her cosy kitchen and she tries to teach me about wine. I know people pair off in life, and I daresay she sees something in me. The more fool her, you say. But it’s not like there’s anybody else around. If there were, she’d surely be more mindful I’m a son of the Grim North.
The trouble is that there is something particular about my
circumstance
here that forbids a response to her. I belong to the community, for better or worse. And, I suppose the truth of it is, I’m not really attracted to her.
Ministry here is not dynamic, so I’m writing a long article about metaphors of renewal for a theological journal. I will send it to you on completion, and you are, of course, welcome to
kindle
your hearth with it.
Love,
Jonno
1 February 1996
Dear Gordon,
Just a line to report some success, if you’ll forgive a short blast of euphoria. I gave a Plough Sunday service two weeks ago, very gratifying work. Star of the show, I concede, was a cherished old wooden plough borne into the church on stout backs, and there it sat throughout the service, until finally it was blessed and borne back out. It was also a fine touch of Trevelyan’s to have the
lessons
read by farmers – no natural performers, but then the words
can derive a new power from being quite flatly intoned. I gave a sermon on the metaphor of the plough – the promise of spring, new season’s light, green shoots, the shearing of the rag-tag
tatter
and overgrown darkness of winter. I tried, of course, to offer the analogy of personal transformation. The audience seemed to prefer the first part, but I felt nonetheless like I’d finally made my mark.
I was sure to have a pint in the pub and there received a few compliments, though a few more seemed adamant about telling me where I might have improved. One hilarious little fellow – not drunk, just dogged – kept insisting how important it was that Adam was a farmer. ‘It’s in your book. The first man tended the earth.’ Perhaps rashly I pointed out that it is Cain whom Genesis singles out as the tiller of the ground, Abel as the keeper of sheep. But this man was fixed. ‘Who give ’em that land, eh? Them sheep?’ Apostolic succession seems a small claim by
comparison
. It didn’t spoil my day, though, and shows all the more, perhaps, what we are up against.
Yours in faith & friendship,
John
2 April 1996
Dear Dad,
I’m sorry for my silence, things have just gotten parlous here. Really since the government came out with the stuff about BSE in humans, a kind of dread has descended. The rapidity and reach of it is quite frightening. Locally there’s some talk about bad
pesticides
, but it seems the emerging consensus is on this hideous business of ‘cannibal cows’. A ghastly notion. Maybe worse to think of the spines and heads mauled and clawed by hooks so as to make sausages and rotten old thing-burgers.
It has got especially dire in the case of my friend Roy. BSE is old news for him, and he always told me things couldn’t have gotten any worse than they were four or five years ago. But seemingly his herd is on the old side, and there is more and more
talk of a selective cull. This on top of Europe’s noises about a ban on British beef. A man from Exeter came down to inspect the herd last week, and Roy was worried about one of the cows he said was ‘shy-headed’, continually kicking for no reason.
A ‘restriction notice’ would be a bad blow to him. I am not
certain
of the extent of his debt but he’s scarcely able to pay his bills at the moment so you have to worry. I saw him subsequent to a meeting at the bank and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so morose. Cath has been looking for other work, related to the tourism, but they are just as blighted. I suggested he apply to the Benevolent Fund, but I don’t really think he appreciated the
suggestion
. There is a bitterness there, and only natural.
In the general low mood I find it hard to be effective in my duties. I am lucky to have a good friend in Jessie Bradbeer, though she has been quite strict with me too. I told her I believed I might function as a sort of ‘stress counsellor’ but she insisted the government needs to sort it out, with money, not warm words. Fair comment, perhaps, though leaving me dispiritingly short of other ideas.
With love and best wishes,
John