Chapter Fourteen

‘WELL, that wasn’t too awful, was it?’ says David brightly, slamming the front door. From the far end of the church cul-de-sac, Pamela’s

car can still be heard straining in first gear. Dylan’s vicar-cage is a modest Victorian cottage near ‘Colombia Common’, rechristened for its popularity with drug pushers. The more narcotically desirable the area, the greater the number of car-chase-repellent road bumps. Soon Pamela’s car can be heard in the distance attacking one at speed.

We return to the kitchen to wash up. Or, rather, David washes, Matt and I dry, and Dylan smokes and tells us where to put things. Dylan has never seen the need to acquire a dishwasher. That’s what parishioners are for.

‘I thought she was choking on a roast potato,’ remarks David, as yet unused to Pamela’s repertoire of voices and facial expressions. Dylan’s mother lives by her wit. Unskilled, as were so many women of her class and generation in anything but marital mergers and acquisitions, she was raised to believe that her passport in life was not so much to entertain as to be entertaining. Her parents having disapproved of a career on the stage, the woman has reacted by turning every encounter into a vaudeville act, every conversation a chance for a soliloquy. Years of practice have proved constructive, for now she has a regular spot on Tuesday nights as a cable television quiz-show panellist.

‘I wish she had,’ mutters Dylan, in between cigarettes.

‘Darling, she wants to make sure you’re happy. That we’re doing the right thing,’ says David, depositing a baby meringue of soap suds on Dylan’s nose. I want to vomit.

Dylan laughs. ‘I know, I know. But even I was appalled by her outburst, and I’ve seen some in my time. She’ll be off now on one of her Michael Douglas Falling Down rampages. Anyone would think we’re planning to adopt a Siberian throat monkey. I hoped a mother whose son is gay would be more, well, tolerant.’

‘She’ll be fine in a day or two,’ says Matt. He makes it sound as though Pamela is one of his patients. Perhaps she is!

‘And it’s not as though the adoption’s definitely happening,’ I say, attempting to sound casual. ‘Is it?’

‘No,’ groans Dylan, hand to forehead. ‘The whole plan’s a nightmare. Tell them about the video, darling.’ So, David describes how at one of the agency meetings they’d watched footage of a supposedly authentic story depicting a family destroyed by the arrival of a disturbed adolescent. ‘They certainly do their best to put you off.’

‘I think it’s good they make you reflect,’ says Matt, reaching for cups. A rare personal opinion, I observe, from my husband. I married the epitome of nonchalance, after a childhood of critical judgement. I smile, as he continues. ‘It’s a pity more people don’t consider the effect kids will have on a relationship before they conceive.’

‘You wouldn’t be thinking of the lovely Louisa and Ed, would you?’ smirks Dylan.

‘Not especially,’ Matt replies, arranging the cups on a tray. ‘There are lots of unhappy children out there. Most of them are grown up, now, of course.’

I can feel my cheeks reddening, and make a point of rummaging in the fridge for the milk.

‘So, isn’t it up to people like us to offer a fresh start?’ says David, above the rolling boil and click of the kettle. But you’ve got children already, I think.

‘David, you might be right,’ says Matt, lifting the tray and making for the lounge. ‘But if you carry on saving broken spirits at this rate, I’ll be out of a job!’

*

After evensong, Dylan and I return to the vicar-cage; Matt cries off to dictate case notes, David, to attend to lingering post-divorce matters. Around Dylan’s kitchen table, he and I sip black coffee and prise apart pistachios; Dylan thinks two-syllable snacks are common.

‘How are you feeling about your dad?’ asks Dylan.

I manage a nod and a sort of grimace.

‘It takes time,’ says Dylan, crossing to a cupboard under the sink to retrieve his baise-en-ville from behind a tub of household cleaning products.

‘This kind of thing helps,’ I say.

‘What? Shelling nuts with a sad homosexual? Ooh – Will & Grace, eat your heart out.’

‘It is helping.’ I manage to laugh. ‘Don’t knock it. And anyway, what’s with the “sad”?’ I put my mug down on the pine. ‘You and David aren’t splitting—?’

Dylan shakes his head.

‘What, then?’

‘Nothing.’ He gestures at his snap-lock packet of weed. And for the first time, I seriously consider it; instead, I pull at strands of hair near my crown. I watch him roll his joint, as he explains how he lives in dread of a call from the Bishop, ‘demanding a little chat, setting one of his little traps—’

‘That’s unlikely, surely. What sort of traps?’

‘The “we’ve noticed you’re not married yet” ones.’

‘But why now? You’ve been in this parish, what, five years? Who’d tell tales?’

So he tells me about Peter, a vicar from another diocese, who’d accepted a new job running a church mission for the homeless, but who’d recently been leant on by the Bishop to withdraw from the post because he was actively gay.

‘As if he’d want to stay in the church, if that’s how it carries on,’ I say.

‘Quite. Competence is no longer the issue. Whether you’re sleeping with someone of the same sex apparently is.’ He takes a long drag on his spliff and exhales slowly. ‘So, I’m thinking of leaving.’

I stare at him, open-mouthed. ‘Leaving the church?’ I swallow. ‘What ever happened to faith, hope and charity?’

Somewhere deep inside I have the sensation of old scabs splitting. Not that I’m so religious that his departure could weaken my virtually nonexistent faith. But something about Dylan being untethered leaves me reeling. I lunge for his parcel of dope, and make a hash of opening it. I’ve watched Dylan roll joints for years, and I can’t for the life of me begin to remember how he does it, so my spliff ends up very droopy.

‘Ah, little Bambi-bunny,’ says Dylan, offering me his lighter. ‘That’s the problem with the church. It still expects those of us who preach its gospels to live the life of saints. And Christianity, for lots of people around the world, means “no gays”.’

I inhale quickly, as if to deny the act to myself. My heart is racing. I am taking drugs! Wa-hey! I am part of an inner circle. Stick that in your Bambi-shaped pipe and smoke it! ‘I remember when there was that fuss about appointing a gay bishop—’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And in the States, they’ve got gay bishops, haven’t they? So we can, too.’

‘’Fraid not. My stipend’s paid from a national pot. If the church ordains gay bishops, wealthier, anti-gay parishes will withdraw their funding. There won’t be enough money to pay priests like me, and the church will split.’

‘It won’t,’ I scoff. ‘The church has weathered rifts for centuries. There’s a tithe barn in my home village, mentioned in the Domesday Book, regarding a dispute over the appointment of a rector—’

‘Oh, right. So, it’s OK for the church to behave as it did in the thirteenth century?’

‘Well—’

‘The problem is’, he spits, ‘that the church is confused.’ He snatches another handful of his beloved pistachios. ‘“God is love”, they say. “God will forgive you. Come to confession and be absolved of sin.” Which is all very well until you’re a man loving a man. Then they don’t want to know. You’re evil. An outcast.’ He’s striding around the kitchen now. ‘I’d say that most of my parish know I’m gay. They accept it; they’re not bothered. But there are a few, who praise my sermons and admire my fundraising abilities, who invite me to lunches to meet their eligible nieces. Now, if they suspected, they’d petition to have me thrown out. They’d write to Lambeth Palace, insist I was a bad influence; say I was undermining traditional biblical morality. I’m the same person who delivers the wonderful homilies, who consoles them in their grief. But the real me offends them.’

Even I, with my slightly doped-out brain, can hear Dylan’s bitterness. I ought to be able to relate to all this, but I can’t get a hold of it. My mind is scrambled.

‘Look,’ he continues. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m really trying to see both sides. I’ve got a great supervisor, and she and I talk about this every day. I have a responsibility to my parish, to my parishioners – even the ones whose views conflict with my own. I know that. All I’m saying is, I’m finding it difficult. Unbelievably difficult. I’ve lost sight of who I really am. And I don’t know whether to renounce my sexuality for my calling, or renounce my calling for my sexual integrity. Either way, I’m buggered. As the actress said to the bishop.’

On the table lie shrivelled nuts ripped from their shells. They look naked. I start to giggle uncontrollably.

Dylan stops pacing up and down. ‘It wasn’t that funny— Bambi, are you stoned?’

‘No,’ I snigger. ‘Am I?’ I feel fantastic!

‘Sometimes people get thirsty, especially their first time. Or hungry. Are you hungry?’

‘Don’t you get stoned?’

‘Not so much now. Look, don’t have any more, you’re not used to it.’ Dylan takes my joint and props it against the nut bowl.

I try to sulk, but my brain has mislaid the instructions. I sigh happily. ‘I feel content. Is that part of it?’

Outside it is twilight, although the oak tree in the middle of the garden makes the kitchen seem darker. I look at Dylan carefully, this surrogate family of mine. Perhaps Dylan is in some way my mother, and Matt my father; and perhaps this is why I made the choice I did, not to have children: I’m the needy child. I feel sweaty and uncomfortable.

And yet, even as the dope wraps me in its lethargy, I sense something shifting in me. And Jenny pops into my head, along with a sense of guilt that by not reaching out to her that time on the Tuscan stone patio, I have somehow aggravated her sense of loneliness.

This is what I see tonight. That Dylan is struggling to find his path in life. He is someone who needs to be stroked. It’s just that I’m unsure how to do it.

Dylan sits at the table and clasps his hands behind his head. His voice is very calm. Too calm. ‘I haven’t told David yet, but I have had The Call from the Bish. Left when I was on retreat. Wanting that chat-ette.’ He spits the final consonant. ‘I think we can guess what that’s all about. So, I’ve got the Bish, my parish and David. And I can’t say I’m handling any of them very well. Talk about a test of faith.’

I’m shouting. ‘Well, you can’t punish your parish? The people who need you most?’

‘Oh, please. I was married to the church. Don’t you get that? And every time the church hurt me, a little piece of my love for it died. Now it’s nearly all gone, dried up.’

‘Is that what this adoption is all about?’ Even as I hear my own words, I hate myself. I decide it’s the dope making me so belligerent.

‘Is it connected? I honestly don’t know. I wondered the other day whether I’m going along with it because it’s an easier decision to make than leaving the church. There – isn’t that dreadful?’

I latch on to the words going along with it. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, if we did go the whole way, and had a civil partnership, and adopted a child, I’d probably be sacked anyway, so then I wouldn’t have to make the decision myself. God, I’m such a coward,’ he adds, sinking his head into his hands.

In an odd way, it’s a relief to find that someone else is struggling; Matt, of course, being the golden child, glides through this thing called life. The rest of us are stuck on the first page of its basic equations, trying our best to live up to the ideals of the world, without losing sight of who we are. And I have a flash of memory of the summer ritual in our house, which was that my mother would bake her annual cake, a project that would always fail. It wouldn’t rise, or it burned to a cinder, or it stayed eggy in the middle. And she would completely erupt, and rip up the recipe, and hurl the tin in the bin, along with the cake. And every year – in June it was, which is strange because none of us had a birthday in June – she would try again with a new tin, a new recipe. And, whatever she did, the cake never turned out as it should. The smell of burned batter would linger in the house for days.

‘If you ask me,’ Dylan says, ‘I’ll be better off with kids. And the love I once poured into the church I can now devote to children. My children.’

‘But what do you get? After twenty years, they walk out the door, and never come back. Not to mention the fact that they’ll probably hate you by then, anyway—’

‘Hate?’ Dylan stares at me, puzzled.

I blush and blunder on. ‘Have you really thought what having children means? You’re being so selfish.’

‘I’m being selfish?’ Dylan bellows.

Oh, my God – we are arguing. I grip the edge of the table with both hands. ‘You’re right. Forgive me,’ I beg. ‘I’m the selfish one here. It must be smoking this stuff. I’m really sorry.’

Dylan reaches out for me. ‘No, it’s my fault. I should never have let you try it.’

In silence, we each draw small piles of shells across the table into a cupped palm. We could be no more awkward around each other than if we’d just slept together. I move to the sink, and turn on a tap. The water comes out so forcefully that the jet ricochets off a spoon and sprays the front of my clothes. Dylan lunges for a tea towel and begins dabbing at my groin.

‘Dylan!’ I cry in pretend disgust, and wallop him on the bottom.

‘If only one of my parishioners could walk in now, I could say I ejaculated prematurely. Who’d call me gay, then?’

*

As I let myself into the house, I’m surprised to see a strip of light trimming the study door. I assumed Matt would have taken his paperwork to bed. He pulls open the study door from where he sits at his computer. ‘Heyyy!’ he says, softly.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask, after we kiss. It’s comforting to think he’s waited up. He takes hold of my hands and I crouch down between his knees. ‘What is it?’

‘One of the cats has been run over.’ His grip tightens. Matt found it beside the kerb in our street, lying as though having passed out after a squalid night on the town. The animal is now decomposing in a carrier bag in the back garden. Trusting in the importance of correct procedure, Matt has been trawling the local council’s website about the disposal of roadkill. ‘I rang Dylan, and he said you’d just left.’ I nod. ‘I’m sorry. Your father, and now this. How do you feel?’ he adds, looking not into my eyes but at my forehead, as if captivated by the activity in my brain. All I can think of are scenes in TV dramas when parents are told their child has died. I ought to feel grief-stricken. But I don’t. I feel triumph. My rival is dead.

‘Do you think she was in pain before, um, before she—?’

‘It wasn’t Tallulah, actually. It was Tim,’ Matt interrupts, softly.

Tim. Timid Tim. Daring for once to be adventurous – to be something he wasn’t. The pain in the back of my legs intensifies, making me gasp, and for a moment I hear a dreadful rushing noise in my ears. Hot tears drip down my cheeks. How could this have happened? And all the time the thoughts in my head are wild and jumbled up with fury, fury that the wrong one has died.