Barbara Erskine - Time’s Legacy

Abandoning the cases in the front hall after tucking away her car, as instructed, in a narrow cul-de-sac round the corner, Abi followed Sandra inside and stared round. The hall was large, lit by an oval skylight high above the well of a wide ornate staircase. A faded floral rug lay in the centre of the floor.

‘My goodness, Kieran didn’t tell us his new curate was such a stunner!’ Sandra said over her shoulder as she closed the front door behind Abi and led her into the spotlessly clean kitchen. She gave her no time to respond to her artless compliment. ‘Your flat as you know, is upstairs, but Kieran said to be sure and give you a cup of tea before we go up. He is so sorry not to be here to welcome you himself.’

It wasn’t obviously a bachelor’s kitchen. On the other hand, how did one know what a bachelor’s kitchen would look like? Abi pondered on how to ask Sandra how she fitted into the parish and/or Kieran’s life as she pulled up a stool and hauled herself onto it, leaning on her elbows as her hostess produced a plate, arranged biscuits and poured the tea. The woman was obviously very at home in this kitchen and she had, it seemed, been well primed as to what questions to ask. ‘We’ve been so eager to meet you and find out all about you.’ Who was ‘we’, Abi wondered. ‘This is your second curacy, I gather?’

Abi nodded. Before she had a chance to elaborate Sandra had rushed on. ‘It must be very scary, and a bit odd too, switching parishes like this, mid-term as it were. It’s a huge responsibility, isn’t it, looking after other people’s lives. Why aren’t you wearing a dog collar?’

The non sequitur almost caught Abi out. She was in fact dressed very similarly to Sandra, wearing jeans and in her own case an open-necked shirt, navy blue but with a pattern of discreet little grey and white flowers to alleviate the formality. She was rather relieved that the small gold cross she wore around her neck was probably on full view. Her hair, which she had to admit had a tendency to a life of its own, was today firmly tied back with a dark blue scarf. She grinned and shrugged. ‘I don’t very often. Especially not when I’m off duty and moving house – I prefer mufti. You don’t mind, do you?’ She met Sandra’s gaze and held it firmly.

‘Oh God, no. Of course not!’ Sandra had the grace to look a little self-conscious. ‘And nor will Kieran. He is all for informality.’ She paused and cleared her throat. ‘How well do you know Kieran?’

Abi grimaced. ‘Not at all, really.’ Her selection interview had been odd. She had felt as if she were being parachuted in from the quiet countryside to the front line. ‘We’ve met a few times, obviously,’ she went on cautiously, ‘and I’ve met most of the PCC – or I thought I had. You weren’t there, were you?’ She glanced up at the other woman. She had a good memory for faces and she thought she would have remembered this one. The wistful pallor, the large intense eyes, the slight air of something like anxiety. But anxiety about what? Was Sandra just shy or was there something else there? Resentment of another woman on her patch perhaps. It was something she must be ready to recognise and deal with.

As if reading her thoughts, Sandra smiled. ‘You must be wondering about me. I’ve been acting as a sort of parish secretary, coming in a couple of days a week to try and help Kieran keep his head above water. That was why they thought he needed another curate at once. This is a large parish.’ She was still smiling. ‘Good place for curates to launch their careers.’

Abi nodded. The bishop had warned her she would find it tough. He had warned her it was a busy parish, and had there been a hint of something else? If there had, it hadn’t been spelled out for her. She had pushed the thought aside. ‘Kieran’s not married, is he,’ she went on after a minute. ‘I suspect wives usually end up doing a lot of the stuff that curates do. Not the getting trained part, obviously, but helping with all the other duties. The vicars’ wives I know work terribly hard.’

Sandra nodded. ‘They call clergy wives unpaid curates, don’t they.’ She gave a curiously cynical laugh. ‘Well, if Kieran marries his current squeeze I think he will be unlucky in that department.’

Abi waited for a further comment. It did not come. Instead Sandra pushed back her cup and stood up. ‘Let me help you haul your cases up to the flat. It’s a bit of a climb, I’m afraid. Then I will have to leave you to settle in. I have somewhere to be and Kieran will be back soon.’

Running down the stairs a little later, Sandra let herself out of the Rectory, fished in her pocket for her car keys as she paused on the front steps and, almost without realising she had done it, turned to look up at the top window. There was no sign of Abi. She shook her head sadly. Poor woman. She was going to find it very tough here. Not only was there a hard core of the anti-women-priest brigade in the parish, but she was going to have to work closely with Kieran. She took in a deep breath and exhaled sharply. Well, presumably she had been forewarned why the last curate had left so suddenly. The poor man hadn’t been able to cope at all with Kieran’s – she hesitated, trying to think of the right word – demons, that was it. Abi certainly looked competent, if a little bit – Sandra paused as she ran down the steps and bent to insert her key into the door of the spotlessly clean black Punto parked at the kerb. Wild. That seemed to cover it. She climbed into the car and sat for a moment, staring ahead of her through the windscreen before she inserted the key into the ignition. Kieran could have cleared his diary to be here this afternoon. Instead he had chosen to go to the far side of the parish and attend a meeting which he would normally have gone to great lengths to avoid. She frowned thoughtfully. Why had he asked her to come in to welcome Abi instead of being here to do it himself? Was it to reassure his new curate in some way that everything at the Rectory was as it should be?

Turning on the engine she pulled away from the kerb, shot up the street and turned into the main road. In the course of the next day or so she would have to come back and go through all the paperwork with Abi. Now there was someone else to help with organising the parish she was going to hand it over with as much speed as possible and good riddance. She glanced in the mirror and flicked her indicator. Why had Kieran chosen someone like that to work with him? As far as she knew there had been three other candidates for the curacy. At least two, according to Bill Friar, one of the church wardens, had been far more suitable than this woman. For a start they had all been men. She pulled the car into a side street and slowly drove towards the far end, searching for a parking space. Kier knew there was going to be a lot of resistance to a female priest in the parish. He should have told the bishop. Surely he hadn’t chosen her because she looked as though she would make a good secretary?

Abi was nothing like she had expected. If she had been an older, less good-looking woman, someone with a good dollop of experience under her belt, she might have been acceptable in the parish, but she was young, modern and, Sandra sucked in her cheeks, she gave the impression that she was pretty uninhibited. She was not going to be easily intimidated. She saw a space, slammed on her brakes, put up a finger to the driver behind her who had hooted wildly having spotted the same place, and shot in backwards, parking neatly with only inches to spare either end of the car. ‘There wouldn’t have been room for you anyway,’ she muttered under her breath as the other driver yelled something rude at her, luckily muffled by his closed window as he accelerated up the street. She hoped he wouldn’t come back for revenge if he didn’t find somewhere else to park.