Wendy arrived on Friday afternoon, a wet and grey day on which everything felt damp, even inside. The cottage, though lovely enough, was quiet and sad. Until she walked in, that is. Then within half an hour she’d found the scrabble and persuaded Ruth to play, and now at long last there was noise coming from the living room as Tom buttoned his coat.
The Bishop met him in Penrith, where he would later be visiting a youth club for a slightly early Christmas party. They had a short conversation, mostly about the churches Tom would help with and only a brief exchange regarding Ruth.
“It’s a shame, and bad luck. She doesn’t deserve it, if anything she’s proved herself a better Archbishop for it. As she reminded us, we have a higher law.”
“But unsurprising, given the precedent that's been set recently,” Tom replied. “It’s not permanent, and at least she’s getting a break.”
The Bishop nodded sympathy. “Well, shall we do this, then? There’ll be a bible here somewhere…” he found it quickly enough, and took it to the front of the borrowed church. “Um, are you comfortable standing?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, with the rather peculiar nature of your presence and role here, we’ll get on with it, if you’re happy.” He sat down in the president’s seat and waved Tom in front of him, before fiddling about with his tablet. “I’m one of those modern priests who uses this for everything.” Showing your age, thought Tom, if you see that as modern.
They passed it backwards and forwards between them so that Tom could make the affirmation and oaths. All necessary documents were signed, and they were done in ten minutes.
“I’m sorry to rush it, but you know as well as anyone that these are busy times. We’re lucky here, not too short-staffed, but helping out in other dioceses, especially while cover gets sorted for York.”
Tom dipped his head. “This is the fourth diocese I’ve been licensed in, and I know what a bishop’s diary looks like. I’m not missing out through not having all the trappings, especially since this is only temporary. I'm actually surprised you're even seeing me yourself. Anyway, we talked about the extraordinary provisions for Ruth?”
“Yes, that’s all fine as we agreed. Anything you or she needs, let me know. Otherwise I’ll stay out of it, I won’t be any help. Thanks for helping out when you’re here.”
“It’s no trouble. Justifies me coming over, and the fact we’ve gone through all this licensing fuss. I’ve rather missed normal parishes, Bishopthorpe chapel is something special but not the same.”
“I’m sure.” He shook Tom’s hand. “All the best. I’d better go and find this party.”
Tom had four services on Sunday morning, from eight until around half past twelve, the vicar having leapt at his rather naïve offer to do whatever would be useful and apparently taken the day off. He, Ruth, and Wendy were early risers anyway, so they set out just before seven, a short way up the hill behind the cottage.
A convenient rock made an altar. His home communion set, which had sat unused in a case for at least four years, came out. He had his own purple stole, though no chasuble. They stood on the frost-covered grass, and balancing by force of will he lifted up his hands to intone the prayer to the accompaniment of the dawn chorus. Early sunlight shone around him to light the faces of the two women before them, and he imagined it glowing around the edges of the consecrated Host as he raised it high. Ruth knelt down on the frosted grass, and after a hesitation Wendy did the same.
He managed to walk around the rock with only one crutch, in spite of the uneven ground. Wendy was nearer, so he administered to her first, then stood in front of Ruth, only now seeing the drenched cheeks and trembling shoulders. When she didn’t move to hold out her hands, he placed his hand on her bowed head, feeling just how matted she'd allowed her curls to become. If only he knew words that might reach her and bring back the life, the brightness that she’d lost. But words couldn’t do it, so he prayed silently instead.
He traced the sign of the cross in the air above her and whispered a blessing, then waited, the consecrated wafer in his hand. He wouldn’t force it on her, but she needed it. She raised her eyes, slowly, and that was all the sign he needed.
“The Body of Christ,” he murmured, “keep you in eternal life.”
She half raised her hands, and he could see them trembling. She dropped them and opened her mouth instead, so that he could place it on her tongue. Another tear rolled down her cheek, and he moved away.
Wendy helped him to pack up at the end, and then led the way down staying a sensitive distance ahead. Tom glanced at his watch, to make sure he didn’t have to hurry. He still had ten minutes before he needed to go, fifteen if he were willing to rush.
“Thank you,” Ruth said softly, in the end. “I just felt so... useless, like... I’ve betrayed everything I’ve been entrusted with. And… you made me feel I was still precious.”
“You are precious,” he told her. “You are still, and will always be, a child of God. A precious, beloved child. You are loved.”
She dug a tissue out of her pocket to blow her nose. “That wasn’t a conventional distribution, you know.”
“Don’t be picky. If we can’t be a little flexible in the face of hurt, it’s become a ritual and not a gift, right?”
She laughed, and then stopped to gaze out across the water. “I suppose I needed to be taken out of it. The Church has become an end in itself and not a vessel. It’s not how I’d have chosen to end my incumbency, but at least it’s shaken things up.”
He caught the shadows in her words, but deliberately ignored them. “Keep shaking. We’re not there yet.”
The remainder of the morning’s services were more conventional, in different stone-walled country churches, with purple-clad altars and robed servers. At the end of each he had to bat away the inevitable questions about what had brought him here. An “extended visit” for “complicated reasons” was the agreed explanation, and he was an old hand at fielding unwanted queries anyway.
Wendy and Ruth were in the kitchen when he returned, leaning against countertops in near silence. He wandered in and sat on a stool, prompting Ruth to turn her back and check the contents of a pan. He smiled tiredly at Wendy.
“I hope you two have been having a decent morning?”
“We went up the next mountain along and sang revolutionary songs on the peak,” Wendy told him, after a glance at Ruth. “And made bets on how many times you’ve had to sing ‘on Jordan’s Bank’ today.” Her voice didn't match the levity of her words.
He didn't press. “I’ll let you know when we get to the end, but it’s twice so far.”
“That all? Damn.” Wendy shook her head.
Ruth ignored them, her back still turned as she pretended to focus on the hob.
“They’re all nice congregations, anyway,” Tom told Wendy. “A couple of the wardens said there was a resurgence in numbers. Not sure how much is improving attitudes towards the Church of England and how much is my pretty face.”
“Oh, they all want to be associated with our wild revolutionary.”
Ruth glanced round to glare, before looking away again. Tom watched her for a second, before leaving the room. There wasn't anything he could do to help right now, just give her time.
The snow began to fall again while they were eating. They briefly discussed going out in it, but in the end settled for an afternoon in the cottage, Ruth curled up by the window with a sketchpad. Wendy peeked over her shoulder to see what she was drawing, but Tom stayed back, leaving her to it. He was happy to leave, in the middle of that afternoon, for an evensong, and Ruth and Wendy seemed pleased enough that he was going. Regardless of Wendy's forced jollity, there was a sadness underneath, and that was the whole reason Ruth had asked her to visit. Wendy understood, in a way he didn't.
By evening, when he’d finally made it back along the icy roads, they both looked calmer, and Ruth's hair was tamed again. Wendy would leave in the morning, to get back to her charities. He was going tonight, provided the roads were clear enough.
Automation was a wonderful thing. The car was a good one, programmed to handle ice well, although progress was still slow, the falling snow interfering with the distance sensors. He sat back and let it creep out of the hills, onto the open roads where they could achieve a semblance of speed. It had been a long day, since the communion on the hillside, and was going to be longer, with the time it would take to return to York.
The feeling in the office the next day was strange, and tense. Things were too up-in-the-air to make any clear plans, so for now the national side of Ruth's job was being split mostly between the Bishops of Durham and Leeds, Julia Niman and Nicholas Matlock. However who was to do what, nobody was quite sure, and Tom quickly found himself sitting at a table with several other members of the Bishopthorpe staff, all sifting through the appointments in the Archbishop’s diary. Which would be cancelled, which postponed, and which passed on to someone else?
Then on to the correspondence, to the hundreds of unread emails mounting up in his account, and the two sacks of letters. Two of the admin staff were already trying to go through the letters, but were rather overwhelmed. He joined them opening letters, sorting them into stacks: “personal”, “well-wisher”, “official”, “hate-mail”. There wasn’t much hate-mail, just a few things about “irresponsible” and “I knew women bishops were a mistake” quickly redirected to the shredder.
But mostly it was notes and cards from well-wishers, people thanking Ruth for speaking up, expressing sympathy with what had happened. Promises that they were writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury to complain. The most touching of them, they put into a stack for Ruth. The rest went into boxes. When he returned to Cumbria, he’d take the nicest ones for her to read and check what she wanted done about the rest – normally the Bishopthorpe staff would pick the most appropriate from their stack of pre-written letters and sign on Ruth’s behalf, but with everything going on right now they didn’t have time, and nor were they sure if it was appropriate. The Church was currently supposed to be dissociating from Ruth, at least officially.
He eventually got to his own letters, of which there were considerably fewer. One from his insurer, one from his hospital. He set them aside unopened for the moment, and flicked through the rest. Diocesan bulletin, the Church Times, a stock letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to all clergy… Richard hadn’t changed his tack, there was no mention of the right or wrong in Ruth’s case but only the facts about what would happen now, and an exhortation to pull together in these difficult times.
And a personal letter, the address written by hand. A rare thing.
Dear Reverend Tom,
I hope you do not see it as forward for me to be writing to you. We met last week in the hospital waiting room, and I just wanted to say again how much I admire the Archbishop. I’m sure she has a great many letters, which is why I did not write to her directly.
Many of us agree that she is what gives us hope in the Church, and I would like her to know that we are fighting to get her back. Next weekend a number of us in London are going to march to Lambeth and bang on the doors with our walking sticks and tell them that we want our Archbishop back - it might do nothing, but there's no harm in making our feelings known.
I hope that she is not suffering too much. It must be a great shock. I see that she has disappeared, and we do not blame her, but do hope that she is okay. She is in my prayers, and those of a great many others.
I hope that your appointment at the hospital was worthwhile.
Yours sincerely,
Sandy Tillerman
She’d added her email as well as her postal address. Very practical. He decided to dash off a quick reply.
Dear Sandy,
Thank you for your letter. As you can imagine, we are currently very busy, so my message will be short. I will show Ruth your letter next time I see her, and I’m sure she will be gratified by the support. Please do not worry about her - she is well, but is spending some time away from the public eye as she processes the change.
With prayers and best wishes,
The Rev'd Tom Carter
Chaplain to the Archbishop of York
As for banging on doors with walking sticks, he laughed and made no comment. After the way Richard had handled the whole thing, Tom wasn't going to defend him - he could at least have told Ruth first, before the rest of the country. He remembered for a moment the crisis meeting, when Richard's press release had been spotted, seemingly before he'd even bothered to tell anyone in the diocese. Someone needed to make their feelings known.
Finally, he opened the letter from the hospital, started reading and then froze. Slowly, he picked up his phone and dialled the archdeacon’s number.
“Morning Tom. What can I do for you?”
“Hi Janice.” He picked at the edge of his desk. “Sorry to bother you, but do you have any time? I’ve just got a letter from the hospital. The assessment says I’m a severe case, and they’ve had a cancellation at the end of January, they’re offering it to me… I’m not sure what to do. What if this thing with Ruth is still going on?”
“What if you’re booked in for six months’ time and something comes on then, or this legal stuff drags on? You're not indispensable. Anyway if you leave it, you’ll be in so much pain you can’t think straight. What’s the recovery period?”
“It’s about a week in hospital, then they recommend two weeks in a convalescent home, though it’s also possible to go home. Given the number of ads in here, that’s just a money-spinner…”
“But you can’t travel all the way from London to York as soon as you’re discharged.”
“I guess.”
“So that’s three weeks.”
“Another three or four to stop needing walking aids.”
“You use crutches anyway. You can always work part time, especially at first, and someone else can do the physical parts of your job, if you really can't face taking the time off. You’ll be able to talk to Ruth, I know that’s your main concern.”
“I suppose so…” he was silent a moment. “I didn’t expect it this soon. Waiting lists can be up to two years, they said.”
“I assume that’s for people who can still walk. Not people who should have had it done ten years ago but decided to hide.”
He sighed. “Ever sympathetic, Janice.”
“I’m busy, especially right now. Book it and put it in your diary. The sooner it’s done, the less time you’ll have for worrying.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise, just do it.”
“Yes, Madam Archdeacon…”
He put the phone down and buried his head in his hands. Their faces swam in front of his eyes, Mick and mum. No, this time was different. It wouldn’t harm anyone. It would be okay. The only person who’d really be bothered was Ruth, and she was tough, she had other people, people with whom her connection was personal and not professional. Anyway, it would be fine.
He signed the form before he could worry any more, filled in the details and rummaged through a drawer for an envelope. Everything inside, check the address. Add the date to his diary and email Kath to let her know. Then he shoved the envelope in his jacket pocket and got to his feet, managing it on the third try. Down the stairs, wondering when he wobbled halfway down whether avoiding the lift was just irresponsible at this point.
“Hi Holly. Could you post this for me, please?”
“Sure thing.” The receptionist franked it and dropped it into a tray.
He got on very well with Holly, and often took the opportunity to check in with her. Couldn't face it right now, though. He climbed the stairs, pausing on each step, glad that the Palace was quiet. On his desk, his diary was still lying open, the dates blocked in. Only two things to rearrange, assuming Ruth hadn’t been reinstated by that point.
“Hi Tom, it’s Michael, I’m here with your mum…”
“Michael? What is it? Is she okay?”
“It’s Mick, Tom. I’m so sorry. The police called, they’ve found him, he’s dead. They haven’t confirmed the cause yet, but he was under the influence of drugs. I’m with your mother, you should get here as soon as possible. You should call your bishop and tell him what’s happened, as much as you can bring yourself to say. Tell me when you’re coming up and I’ll meet you at the station. I’m so, so sorry.”
Mick, further down the road, staring. Staring at Tom, staring at the wheelchair.
He shook his head and opened his emails, filtering out the bulletins and junk mail that poured in. There wasn’t much else, somehow. And he didn’t have anything else to do for Ruth, because she wasn’t working. Everyone else was working overtime, and here he was, drifting around. He’d be better off back in the Lakes, helping with those nineteen churches.
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