Reverend McKenzie nodded again, his gaze fixed upon the lacklustre painting of Christ, haggling over the price of timber by one of the Cathedral benefactors, as the Bishop made another dig about the state the parish of Saint Jude was in.
“What happened to the girl who vanished from her own baptism last year?” he asked, looking up to the rafters as if God Himself was demanding the answer. “I didn’t hear the last of that for months. I had to write to the cardinal to intervene.”
“She panicked, that’s all.” Purvis risked a glance up at his immediate boss. The last thing he needed was to be re-assigned to some God-forsaken hole. Birmingham say, or Coventry. “She ducked down behind the font and scooted out through the vestry.”
“What’s this I hear about the police breaking down your doors?”
Purvis shrugged. “Someone told them I had a burglar. It was a malicious call.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” The bishop sat down and wrapped a meaty hand around his coffee cup. Purvis recalled he’d been the Inter-Seminary boxing champion four years running. “You don’t catch Reverend Dodgson getting calls like that.”
“With respect, your eminence, Reverend Dodgson rarely stirs from his bed except to teach his Religious Education class at the girl’s school. The only way you can tell he’s giving a sermon is because he’s upright.”
“He doesn’t get malicious phone calls though, does he?” The bishop wagged his finger at Purvis. “However, I won’t keep you any longer. I heard that one of your flock suffered organ failure yesterday.” He referred to his diary. “A Mrs. Lowry?”
“Thank you Bishop.” Purvis stood and bent to kiss the bishop’s ring. “I do need to get back.”
“Remember. I want no more complaints about your ward, Purvis.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, your Grace.” Purvis closed the door to the study and wiped a hand across his brow. He had no clue who was feeding the information to the bishop, but for the first time he was glad Betty Lowry had bashed the organ keys so hard at every service. The cost of a new bellows was worth every penny if it got him out from under His Grace’s bad graces.
* * * *
The train journey back was uneventful but for the thirty minute wait at Oxford. He spent the time enjoying the sunshine on a bench tucked out of the wind, nursing a coffee which he subsequently gave to a woman looking after a child. The boy, whom Purvis guessed to be about five, stared at him for several minutes after he’d sat down again, finally plucking up the courage to come over.
“’’Ere Mister.” The boy’s accent was Midlands-thick. Sticky toffee with a core of Sheffield steel. “What you wearin’ a dress for?”
Reverend Mackenzie leaned forward and ran his finger and thumb over his closed eyelids. Tempted as he was to snap at the lad, he counted to five and reminded himself his stress was from the bishop, not from a young boy. He made an effort to smile. “It’s called a cassock,” he said. “It’s a sort of uniform. It shows that I’ve devoted my life to serving God.”
“My da says God don’t exist,” said the boy. “My da says that God’s a tosser ‘cause he took my mam away too soon.”
“He can’t say both things, surely?” Purvis really didn’t want to debate the point, especially not with someone with a line of mucus swinging from one nostril. “He either believes in God or he doesn’t.” He glanced across at the woman who must be the child’s stepmother or guardian. She at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Come away, Connor.” She beckoned to the lad, holding her coffee in one hand and a biscuit in the other. “Leave the gentleman alone.”
Purvis nodded his thanks and, spotting the train approaching, stood to move closer to the platform. Behind him he could hear the woman gather her bags together and scold the child about his runny nose. He made certain to sit in a different carriage on the way back to Laverstone.
Meinwen met him at the station. It wasn’t that they were friends, nor were they enemies as such, though his faith denied that hers existed. They held each other in mutual disregard although they would concede, if pressed, that the other had made some valid points in their endless debates.
He didn’t even manage a greeting before she launched into him. “What were you doing, keeping that girl out until all hours?” she said. “Did you know she was fresh out of a convent? Anything could have happened to her.”
“I presume you mean Valerie,” said Purvis, clutching his worn briefcase to his chest as if it would ward him from her faithless gods. “She needed a job and I got her one. I thought it would suit her, actually, being on the evening shift. A gentler way to integrate into society, I thought.”
“You should have got her an office job,” said Meinwen. “She came in stinking of meat last night. Not exactly my idea of a relaxing atmosphere.”
“What?” Purvis stopped and looked at her his brow creased in puzzlement. His face cleared. “Oh! You’re vegetarian. I forgot.”
“You did. Congratulations on the screwing up of the energies in my home. It’s not that I object to her eating meat but dealing with such large amounts, I might as well keep wolves in the garden.”
“Ha! That’d tick off the Catholics.” Purvis chuckled to himself all the way through the ticket barrier. “What do you expect me to do? It was a surprise to me when she told me where she was staying. I’d have her at my place but the bishop would have seven fits.”
“Not if she was a housekeeper,” said Meinwen. “That would be proper, wouldn’t it?”
“The church couldn’t afford it.” Purvis reached the station’s outer doors and paused, to catch sight of Saint Jude’s tower through the trees. It always made him smile to see it. “I couldn’t afford it either,” he said.
“What if it was sponsored,” said Meinwen. “If I can get you a sponsor will you consider it?”
“My dear lady,” said Purvis. “If you can get me a sponsor I’d consider anything. Is there any chance you could arrange for my front door to be fixed while you’re at it? Or the church organ?”
Meinwen laughed. “Valerie told me what had happened. Best you get on to the Victims of Crime support scheme.”
“I’m on the committee,” said Purvis glumly. “There’s no recourse to public funds when it’s the police that did the damage, and I’m hardly in a position to claim otherwise.”
“What about your house insurance? Won’t that cover it?”
“The building is covered by the church’s insurance, which means I’d have to get the bishop to sign the paperwork. He’s looking for any excuse to be rid of me.”
“Sucks to be you.” Meinwen patted his arm. “I’ll see what I can do to get sponsorship for Valerie to get out of that job. You look for a loophole in the church regulations that allow you to employ a spinster of the parish.”
“A spinster?” Purvis looked momentarily confused. “Yes, I suppose she is. Very well, I’ll let you know how I get on. Thanks for taking her in, by the way. I know we don’t often see eye to eye about things but it was a good Christian act you did.”
“No, Reverend, it was a good humanitarian one.” Meinwen looked at her watch. “Time I went, though. I was supposed to have opened the shop ten minutes ago.”
“As you wish. I’ll be in touch.” Purvis watched her go. It was almost a relief to be in Meinwen’s company rather than Valerie’s. He didn’t fancy the Welsh woman at all. He headed into the Royal Park as a short cut to Saint Jude’s. The church was at the north end of the High Street, on a diagonal, if you looked at a map of the town, from the station. He could either follow Meinwen into town then turn right or cut across the park and left. He invariably chose the latter, the better to spend the journey in quiet contemplation of God.
Part of the way across the park stood a group of statues on plinths. They had been there, with the exception of one, for as long as he could remember although he had a document from the Village Historical Society about the opening of the Royal Victoria Park in eighteen-ninty-three and there was no mention of the statues in that or any other documents pertaining to the village and its royal park.
“Madam?” he approached an elderly lady with a shopping trolley by hurrying a few paces to catch up. She looked a little startled, but relaxed when she saw his dog collar.
“What is it Father?” she said. “You’ve not come to see me into the next world, have you?”
“Certainly not yet, though I’d be happy to assist in getting your spiritual affairs in order.” He smiled, bowed and offered her his arm. Taken aback by such gentlemanly conduct, she accepted. “I’d like to ask you, if I may, about the statue of the angel there.” He pointed across at the group where a granite tableau of an angel fighting a dragon rose from the path. “Do you know where it came from?”
“Hasn’t it always been there?” she asked.
“Not at all.” Purvis directed her attention to the other statues, each depicting an important person of the town in years gone by. “Those have been here longer,” he said. “They show signs of weathering and there are clumps of moss clinging to the plinths. The angel and the serpent is new.”
“Them’s the old mayors,” said the woman, pointing with her stick at the weathered statues. They were on the town hall originally. They were put here in nineteen-forty-six when the town hall was torn down. Jerry had put a bomb in it, see, it wasn’t safe no more. Shame really. It had a big glass roof like the one at Paddington. I remember my mam showing it to me when I was a little girl.”
“And it was bombed, was it? What a stroke of bad luck.”
“Not really. All that iron and glass. It must have looked like a giant bull’s-eye from up there. I’m surprised they only put the one through it.”
“Perhaps they missed with the rest,” said Purvis. “I hear the barns got away lightly too.”
“The barns?” Her face creased as she worked out what he meant. “Oh you,” she said, batting his arm with her hand.
“You’ve no idea about the angel though?”
“Last summer that was.” The voice belonged to an old man smoking a pipe. “Raphael fighting the dragon.”
“Where did it come from?” Purvis asked. “There’s no plaque for it.”
He thanked the woman with a pat on her hand and released her. She dashed off, thankful to survive without a sermon.
“Nobody knows.” The old man took a puff and pointed with the stem of his pipe. “It was an anonymous donation made overnight. One day you could walk the path, the next…” He mimed running into granite. “Of course, the council came and tried to shift it. You can’t have anonymous donations to the park statuary.”
“Why not?”
“It’d pave the way for all sorts of rubbish,” said the man. “Modern art and what-not. Great pieces of steel painted up to look like rusted tarts. Bricks in straight lines.”
“Like in a wall?”
“No.” The old man huffed. “You know what I mean. Bricks in the Tate and all that.”
“That was years ago,” said Purvis. “I was still in seminary school.”
“Never-the-less.”
“So what happened with the statue?”
“The council came along and put the path round it,” said the man. “If you can’t shift it, landscape it.”
“Why couldn’t they shift it? It must be portable to have appeared overnight”
The old man shrugged. “You tell me,” he said. “For all I know it’s a real angel, frozen to the spot.”