More Tea, Jesus?

‘Well now,’ Biddle said, hurriedly changing the subject, ‘there is a reason why I wanted you to – er – I hope I didn’t interrupt anything else?’

Yes, thought Ted, a pint in the Green Baron.

‘No,’ he said. ‘So what’s it you wanted to see me about?’

‘Well, ah …’ Biddle laughed, awkwardly. Ted wasn’t sure whether it was an awkwardness about the subject being broached, or teeth problems again. ‘Mrs Petty-Saphon wrote me a letter this week. She seems quite unhappy about certain … um … aspects of the church services, at the moment.’

Ted rolled his eyes and groaned. ‘There’s a surprise,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’s ever been a single service in that church which she hasn’t complained about.’

‘Ah, now, I’m not sure that’s entirely – ah …’ Biddle smiled, waving his arms to indicate the vague meaning of his sentence before moving away from it. ‘Anyway, one of the – er – many concerns she voiced was the problem of – ah – sexism in the hymns.’

Ted blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

‘Some of the hymns have words which she feels are out of place in a society where men and women are more or less considered equals. The expression she used was, er, “outdated patriarchal gender discrimination”.’

‘Was it, indeed?’ grunted Ted.

‘And as you’re in charge of choosing the hymns, I wonder if you could make whatever – er – changes … might be necessary to render hymns with such – er – references in them … er … useable.’

‘They’re useable as they are,’ Ted replied bluntly.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Biddle hurriedly agreed, ‘but a little bit of rewriting would avoid unnecessary offence being caused …’

‘Which hymn in particular caused this “offence”, may I ask?’ Ted interjected.

‘Right … ah …’ Biddle crossed to his desk and picked up Petty-Saphon’s letter. ‘She felt that the offertory hymn …’

‘“Of the glorious body telling”,’ Ted clarified.

‘That’s right.’

‘The words are by Thomas Aquinas!’ Ted exploded. ‘You’re saying I’ve got to rewrite words that Saint Thomas Aquinas presumably thought were adequate?’

‘No!’ protested Biddle. ‘Well, yes …’ he added, apologetically. ‘Aquinas did write them in Latin, so in a way they’ve already been rewritten.’

‘By respected English poets.’

‘It was only one line,’ Biddle hurriedly reassured him, ‘in the second verse, er … “Man with man in converse dwelling …”’

‘It’s poetry,’ Ted insisted. ‘What would you change it to?’

‘Mrs Petty-Saphon suggested … er …’ Biddle coughed, uncomfortably. ‘She suggested “Folk in church in converse dwelling …”’ He trailed off. The look on Ted’s face suggested that he was far from impressed by the poetry of Sathan Petty-Saphon.

Before the tense pause could grow into a fully drawn-out awkward silence, he tried a different tack. ‘Why don’t you go on a recruitment drive?’ he suggested, brightly.

‘A what?’

‘For singers! Encourage some of the newcomers in the church to join the choir.’ One of the slight concerns Biddle had about St Barnabas was the potential for established churchgoers, the Sathan Petty-Saphons in the congregation, to marginalise those who had just walked in from outside. There had been a fellow at the back of the church for some weeks now who Biddle had vaguely noticed didn’t really seem to want to be there. Well, was it any wonder if nobody knew who he was? Biddle also suspected that the fleeting reference to ‘scruffy outsiders’ in Sathan Petty-Saphon’s letter specifically pointed towards this man; to involve him in the choir would curtail any attempt of hers to act on her disapproval.

‘I mean, it would be great to encourage newcomers to become part of the congregation,’ he explained to Ted, ‘especially if they’re a bit undecided about whether to keep coming along …’

‘You think that people uncertain about staying in the church should be moved closer to the choir?’ asked Ted, an eyebrow raised.

‘Ah,’ Biddle smiled wryly, with an obligatory wince. ‘Yes, well … have a think about talking to some of them, anyway. They might turn out to be good singers, after all.’

‘Right,’ sighed Ted, reluctantly. The idea of anyone at St Barnabas turning out to be a good anything seemed pretty unlikely to him and the additional humiliation of approaching strangers on a ‘recruitment drive’ was yet another cross to bear that he could bloody well do without.

‘And … er … the problems raised in Mrs Petty-Saphon’s letter …?’ Biddle continued, hopefully.

Ted stood up. ‘One thing you need to learn,’ he said, sternly pointing at the vicar, ‘is not to listen to everything that woman tells you.’ Biddle sat, momentarily speechless at the sight of Ted’s accusing finger. ‘In fact, don’t listen to anything the bloody woman tells you. It’s part of the job, you just don’t … don’t do it, okay?’ Biddle chuckled unhappily and again let out an involuntary gasp of pain. Ted observed him with a sadistic interest, finding the spectacle of a man unable to stop chuckling in spite of intense physical pain curiously entertaining.

‘Right. Well … it’s in your hands, at the end of the day,’ Biddle said, ‘and I take your point about rewriting poetry.’ The perfect Anglican compromise popped into his head. ‘Maybe it would be best to leave out those hymns altogether?’ he suggested.

Ted said nothing.

As Ted hurried away from the vicarage in the hope that he might be in time for last orders in the Green Baron, Biddle looked at his half-finished mug of tea with a heavy feeling of foreboding. The meeting had not been a success, and Biddle had a horrible suspicion that Sathan Petty-Saphon’s letter was the prelude to an actual visit. It would have been nice to have something positive to tell her about the hymns issue, since the other part of her letter mostly concerned the omelette and there was very little he could say to defend himself on that subject.

Perhaps he should tell her he made the omelette as a response to a clear and direct word from God. Let her take it up with the Almighty – at least He was safely away from Little Collyweston. Knowing Sathan Petty-Saphon and the devastating effects such powerful and opinionated parishioners could have in a church, he felt that any actual confrontation between her and Jesus might well lead to a second crucifixion.

He frowned. Tea always tasted different in a mug. Perhaps it was related to the fact that the mug wasn’t bone china. Of course, he had also brewed the tea in the mug, not something he really approved of – but what else was he to do without his bone-china teapot, which was necessarily part of the tea set he had restricted to use for non-parishioners? And the whole experience of drinking tea was less satisfying when it wasn’t served from his Victorian hostess trolley, which he had found at an inconceivably low price some years ago. He had never been able to confirm that it was actually Victorian, but he felt sure enough of its pedigree not to need that certainty. Certainty, after all, was the opposite of faith.

He sighed slightly wistfully. It would be ever so decadent to get the hostess trolley out just to make himself a cup of tea. And quite selfish, having denied Ted Sloper the privilege. Perhaps he would need to relax his recently instated mugs-for-parishioners policy, depending on who the parishioner was.

What was a hostess trolley for, after all?

Chapter 6

Vernon Tait liked using his hands. His every comment was accompanied by a suitable gesture to illustrate his feelings about any given subject, which were usually strongly held. He made little attempt to disguise his feelings about Andy Biddle.

‘I am delighted,’ he said, expressing his delight with a flat-palmed pat of the air in front of him, ‘to make the acquaintance of another priest in this area. I’ve been looking after the teeth of the church for the best part of a decade, and it never ceases’ (another pointed caress of the air) ‘to thrill me when another priest joins my little flock,’ he put his hand on Biddle’s shoulder, then removed it quickly, as if being careful not to get too tactile too soon, ‘as I like to call it!’ He finished with a welcoming flourish in the direction of the dentist’s chair.

‘Thank you,’ said Biddle.

‘In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your teeth straight!’ quipped Vernon, one finger raised in knowing jollity. Biddle laughed politely, then winced in pain.

Vernon was sympathetic about the cause of Biddle’s problems. ‘You know,’ he said, shaking his head and briefly clasping his hands, ‘cake can cause a lot more damage than people give it credit for. And I’m not just talking about erosion or cavities; you’d be surprised how many people have had accidents like yours, you really would.’ Biddle nodded, eager that his surprise should live up to Vernon’s high expectations. ‘I had a cousin who broke two teeth on a ginger snap, hasn’t touched a biscuit since. I’ve said to him, surely, you know, you could have, like, a digestive biscuit or something, but he won’t touch them. Says it simply isn’t worth the risk. I’m nearly out of mouthwash, Sasha.’

Biddle heard movement in the next room as he reclined on the dentist’s chair – Sasha, he assumed, whoever he or she was. Vernon leaned over him and he caught a whiff of expensive-smelling aftershave. Vernon grinned. ‘Never mind, we’ll have you all fixed up in a jiffy. Let’s take a look, shall we?’ The chair slowly tilted backwards and Biddle could hear the sound of rubber gloves flexing. Vernon’s face was suddenly very close, the rich scent of his aftershave almost overpowering. ‘Say “ah”,’ requested the dentist. ‘You’ll have to leave the “men” till after I’ve finished.’ He raised his dental equipment as Biddle obliged. ‘Though I know how difficult it can be leaving the men, I can tell you.’ Vernon grinned and began to prod around in Biddle’s mouth.

Biddle being prevented from communicating in any way, it was left to Vernon to carry on the conversation, which he did with panache. ‘The problem with the church, as I see it,’ he told Biddle, ‘is that it’s too ready to tell people what they’re doing wrong. I’m not saying you’re like that,’ he hastily reassured his captive audience of one. ‘I mean, like I say, I do all the priests in the area and without exception they’re lovely people, they really know their job, but I mean, it’s when the church starts telling people what they ought to do, that’s when it annoys me. It really does.’ His hands being otherwise occupied, Vernon was forced to express his disgust by using even more exaggerated vocal nuances than before. ‘Because that’s not what church is about, is it? That would be like people coming to me and me just telling them they were eating too many sweets. Or rock cakes, in your case. Do you know what I mean? That’s not the church’s business.

‘I know you know all this, of course,’ he added hurriedly, ‘but some people, you’d think they thought the church was all about policing the world. I mean, Jesus didn’t come to earth with a truncheon and a helmet, did he?’ Biddle, his mouth still full of dental instruments, was unable to comment. His eyes being the only part of his face able to make any significant response, he could only continue helplessly watching Vernon as the monologue continued.

‘I mean, I’m gay, and obviously there’s people who think that’s wrong, and there’s people in the church who think that’s totally, like – I’m sure you don’t think that, I do all the priests in this area and they’re all lovely about it, but some people, you know, want everybody to do everything their way, and me being gay is, like, a real issue for them.’

Vernon’s proddings continued, and Biddle was unable to reassure him that homosexuality had long since stopped being an issue for him. ‘I had a terrible time when I came out to my mother. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, you see, and she kept saying, “But Vernon, the Bible says”, and I was like, “No, Mother, the Bible doesn’t say that, that’s just your way of seeing it”, but you see her church had indoctrinated her to think like that, so I didn’t blame her. Mouthwash, Sasha.’

Vernon straightened up and out of the corner of his eye Biddle saw a tall brunette glide in. ‘No, no, no, Sasha,’ Vernon objected, his hands raised in a gesture of horror, ‘it’s green mouthwash for Ordinary time, we’re into Lent now.’ He turned back to Biddle. ‘She’s a complete atheist,’ he moaned, the word ‘complete’ warranting a particularly wide and pointy gesture with his hands.