Andrew Taylor - The Four Last Things

They went on to talk of other things. As he was leaving, he paused in the doorway and asked her out to dinner. The invitation surprised her as much (he later admitted) as it surprised him. She refused, but he kept on asking until she accepted, just to get rid of him.

Michael took her to a Chinese restaurant in Swiss Cottage. For most of the time he encouraged her to talk about herself, either evading or returning short answers to the questions she lobbed in return. She told him that she had left her job as a careers adviser in order to go to theological college. Now she was ordained, she had little chance of finding a curacy in the immediate future, all the more so because her father was ill and she did not want to move too far away from him.

‘Besides, a lot of dioceses have no time for women deacons.’

Michael pushed the dish of roast duck towards her. ‘If you’re a deacon – or a priest – well, that has to come first, I suppose? It has to be the most important thing in life, your first allegiance.’

‘Of course.’

‘So where do people fit in? I know you’re not married, but do you have a boyfriend? And what about children? Or would God be more important?’

‘Are you always like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘So pushy.’

‘I’m not usually like this at all.’

She bent over her plate, knowing her thick hair would curtain her face. In those days she had worn it long, and gloried in it.

‘You’re not celibate, are you?’ he asked.

‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘As it happens, no. But it’s still nothing to do with you.’

Three months later they were married.

It was ridiculous, Sally told herself, to read significance into the malicious ramblings of an unhappy woman. To see them as a portent would be pure superstition. Yet in the weeks that followed Sally’s first service at St George’s, the old woman was often in her mind. The memory of what she had said was like a spreading stain. No amount of rubbing would remove it.

May God damn you and yours.

When Sally had been offered the curacy at Kensal Vale, it had seemed almost too good to be true, an answer to prayer. Although she was not personally acquainted with Derek Cutter, the vicar of St George’s, his reputation was impressive: he was said to be a gifted and dedicated parish priest who had breathed new life into a demoralized congregation and done much good in the parish as a whole.

The timing had seemed right, too. Sally’s father had died the previous winter, bringing both sorrow and an unexpected sense of liberation. Lucy was ready to start school. Sally could at last take a full-time job with a clear conscience. And Kensal Vale was geographically convenient: she could walk from Hercules Road to St George’s Vicarage in forty minutes and drive it in much less, traffic permitting. The only drawback had been Michael’s lack of enthusiasm.

‘What about Lucy?’ he had asked in an elaborately casual voice when she mentioned the offer to him. ‘She won’t be at school all the time.’

‘We’ll find a child minder. It could actually do her good. She needs more stimulation than she gets at home.’

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Darling, we’ve discussed all this.’ Not once, Sally thought, but many times. ‘I was never going to be the sort of mother that stays at home all day to iron the sheets.’

‘Of course not. And I’m sure Lucy’ll be fine. But are you sure Kensal Vale’s a good idea?’

‘It’s just the sort of parish I want.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a challenge, I suppose. More rewarding in the end. Besides, I want to show I can do it, that a woman can do it.’ She glared at him. ‘And I need the stimulation, too. I’ve been freewheeling for far too long.’

‘But have you thought it through? I wouldn’t have said that Kensal Vale’s particularly safe these days.’ He hesitated. ‘Especially for a woman.’

‘I’ll cope,’ Sally snapped. ‘I’m not a fool.’ She watched his mouth tightening and went on in a gentler voice, ‘In any case, jobs like this don’t grow on trees. If I turn this down, I may not be offered another for years. And I need to have experience before I can be priested.’

He shrugged, failing to concede the point, and turned the discussion to the practical details of the move. He was unwilling to endorse it but at least he had not opposed it.

As summer slipped into autumn, Sally began to wonder if Michael might have been right. She was sleeping badly and her dreams were going through a patch of being uncomfortably vivid. The work wasn’t easy, and to make matters worse she seemed to have lost her resilience. In the first week, she was rejected by a dying parishioner because she was a woman, a smartly dressed middle-aged man spat on her in the street, and her handbag was stolen by a gang of small boys armed with knives. Similar episodes had happened before, but previously she had been able to digest them with relative ease and consign them to the past. Now they gave her spiritual indigestion. The images stayed with her: the white face on the pillow turning aside from the comfort she brought; the viscous spittle gleaming on her handkerchief; and, hardest of all to forget, the children, some no more than five years older than Lucy, circling her in their monstrous game with knives in their hands and excitement in their faces.

Nothing went right at home, either. Michael had retreated further into himself since the squabble on the way back from church and the subsequent discovery that Sunday lunch had turned into a burnt offering. There were no open quarrels but the silences between them grew longer. It was possible, Sally thought, that the problem had nothing to do with her – he might be having a difficult time at work.

‘Everything’s fine,’ he replied when she asked him directly, and she could almost hear the sound of the drawbridge rising and the portcullis descending.

Sally persevered. ‘Have you seen Oliver lately?’

‘No. Not since his promotion.’

‘That’s great. When did it happen?’

‘A few weeks back.’

Why hadn’t Michael told her before? Oliver Rickford had been his best man. Like Michael, he had been a high-flier at Hendon police college. They had not worked together since they had been constables, but they still kept in touch.

‘Why’s he been made up to inspector and not you?’

‘He says the right things in committee meetings.’ Michael looked at her. ‘Also he’s a good cop.’

‘We must have him and Sharon over for supper. To celebrate.’ Sally disliked Sharon. ‘Tuesdays are usually a good evening for me.’

Michael grunted, his eyes drifting back to the newspaper in front of him.

‘I suppose we should ask the Cutters sometime, too.’

‘Oh God.’ This time he looked up. ‘Must we?’

Their eyes met and for an instant they were united by their shared dislike of the Cutters. The dislike was another of Sally’s problems. As the weeks went by, she discovered that Derek Cutter preferred to keep her on the sidelines of parish work. He made her feel that wearing a deacon’s stole was the clerical equivalent of wearing L-plates. She suspected that in his heart of hearts he was no more a supporter of women clergy than Michael’s Uncle David. At least David Byfield made his opposition perfectly clear. Derek Cutter, on the other hand, kept his carefully concealed. She attributed her presence in his parish to expediency: the archdeacon was an enthusiastic advocate of the ordination of women, and Derek had everything to gain by keeping on the right side of his immediate superior. He liked to keep on the right side of almost everyone.

‘Lovely to see you,’ Derek said to people when he talked to them after a service or at a meeting or on their doorsteps. ‘You’re looking blooming.’ And if he could, he would pat them, young or old, male or female. He liked physical contact.