Read an Excerpt
1.
July 1974, England
There's only one remaining question, Mr. Acton."
The man who has been interrogating me leans forward with his heavy arms on his knees, big boxer's knuckles on fingers strictly interlinked. As if each hand has been detailed to keep the other out of mischief.
"Which is?"
"Whether you'll go out of your mind."
His tongue appears too large for his mouth; it lumbers from side to side as he speaks, getting in the way of, rather than forming, his words. A man trying to articulate through a mouthful of flannel. When he finishes, the tongue hangs over his bottom teeth, just inside a slack lower lip. His name is Frobisher.
"Go out of my mind? Why?"
I'm slow on the uptake, having been rather mesmerized by Frobisher, his way of speaking, the bulkiness of his limbs. It comes to me that this man, despite his somewhat distracting appearance, has had years of training in winkling out harbored information. He can probably, like a police dog at Customs, simply smell it.
"Why do you think?" Frobisher chortles. "Boredom, man! Look at you, you were an RAF pilot. A prisoner of war."
"That was thirty-odd years ago!" I can't disguise my astonishment. "It's hardly relevant now."
"I beg to disagree." He rocks back in his seat, enjoying himself. "I've seen so many like you. You're one of a whole generation, all ex-services, who signed up for the priesthood at the end of the war, and what were you doing? Arming yourselves to fight another good fight. Think of theological college-all that cold water and discipline and ardent celibacy. Certain similarities to a military training camp, no?"
He's not wrong: both places featured, in varying proportions, muddy cross-country runs and prayer. The prayers shorter and more fervent in the field of battle than in the pew.
"Actually, Archdeacon, I was ordained before the war. And by the end of 1945 I was married."
"Of course you were. Girl you met in Egypt, I believe?"
His beady little eyes track over me. He doesn't "believe": he's learned my file by heart, memorization being a tool of our trade, and so he's simply prodding me now. I can't think of anything I want to say about Yvette. Not now, not to him.
"Yes," I reply. "My late wife was from Alexandria."
There follows a tense silence while the instant coffee cools in the cups, the ginger biscuits soften in the humid late-summer air. From beyond the leaded window a pale sunbeam does what it can to make Frobisher's bald head gleam. As far as I'm aware he hasn't blinked.
"Archdeacon," I say at last, "I've got nothing to hide."
He stretches his lips into a broad grin. They have no shape, these lips, being the same thickness all the way along, and no color to distinguish them from the rest of his face. "My dear man. Nothing was further from my mind. Nevertheless here you are, all set to leave the West Country at rather short notice after, oh, it must be more than twenty years, just when all your work at your current parish is bearing fruit, and come here to Hampshire, to Upton, which for all-"
"Upton and Barrow End. I believe they're quite particular about that."
"-And Barrow End"-the grin becomes ferocious-"a community which, for all its good points, is hardly the most challenging environment. For a man of your experience, that is. And you're not yet sixty." He hunches forward, once more a pugilist. "Is it burnout? I mean, from what I've read about Fulbrook-the signs in pub doorways saying No Knives, goodness me-"
"In fact they're pictures of knives with an X over the top. For the unlettered."
"Well, there you are. I wouldn't blame you for searching out a sleepy village to have a nice quiet breakdown in."
"I assure you I'm not another Blakemore."
The Reverend Charles Blakemore, previous vicar of Upton and Barrow End, collapsed in harness four months ago, mentally unstrung. He's the reason we're all here-myself, and the other short-listed candidates waiting behind the imposing oak door. We've managed to clear the hurdles set in our way, the applications and panel interviews and parish visits. Upton-and Barrow End-was all I hoped it would be, a village and neighboring hamlet settled on the chalk hills before Domesday, the people at long last cautiously prosperous, not given to show, the handshakes friendly but conditional in a way I perfectly understood. And now it's down to this odd, unwieldy man with his clumsy tongue and his direct questions. In all honesty, I can't say it's going well.
"Please continue." Frobisher is suddenly curt. Perhaps he's already thinking about the next candidate. Or his lunch.
"In fact . . ." I clear my throat, take another run at it. "In fact, it was this very situation that attracted me. Mr. Blakemore's illness was gradual, so the parish may have been fairly rudderless for some time. I'd like to help them get back on course. Bring some cheer, comfort. Guidance. When I visited, I came away with the sense that I could win their trust."
Frobisher lifts his chin. The strengthening sunlight catches the solid black frames of his glasses. Desperation spurs me on.
"Archdeacon, I've been a widower for ten years. My son's a student now, on the other side of the country. I've spent over twenty years at Fulbrook, they need someone new. And I need a fresh start."
"Ha!" His big hands release each other and each one begins to rub a meaty knee. "We got there in the end."
"Got where?"
"It's all very well saying what you can give to Upton. But what I needed to know was"-his words now emphasized by a pointing forefinger-"what Upton will give to you. And now you've told me. A fresh start. Thank you, Mr. Acton. You should expect a letter in a few days."
We both rise to our feet, Frobisher's relief evident in the stretching of his cumbersome frame. I steel myself for the clammy grapple of his handshake. As he releases me he suddenly says, "Remind me, where was your first parish? The one you served immediately after the war?"
He knows perfectly well that my first parish was Alver Shore, a battered port town on the Hampshire coast. I repeat the name to him obediently.
"Ah, yes. No great distance from Upton, is it. Half an hour's drive, hmm? I only mention this in relation to your making a fresh start. Some might suggest it might more aptly be described as going over old ground."
Alver Shore. A place of crowded brick terraces cratered by air raids, children swarming over the bomb sites. Waiflike young mothers who scrubbed and baked and carried home the coal, and fell asleep darning socks of an evening. Old men, backs bent under the sea wind, mining the black mud of the harbor for cockles and clams to add to a family diet consisting largely of bread and potatoes and fresh air.
"The Alver Shore of 1946," I say, smiling, "is a far cry from the modern-day Upton of 1974."
"A far cry. Of course." He gives a strange unnerving little chuckle. "I must say, Mr. Acton, that is very well put."
***
It began one evening in early May, less than three months ago.
The dusk was draining from the sky and I was sitting at my desk writing a sermon in candlelight, something I'd learned to do over the decade since Yvette died, so effectively did the small flame cast the world, even if only for an hour or so, into shadow. A few days previously I'd said goodbye to my son, Tom, who, having completed his first year at university, was off to fruit-pick his way across France until the autumn. I was well used by now to Yvette's absence from my bed, and I was even taking my student son's increasingly sporadic visits in my stride, but that evening the house seemed especially empty. Safe in the candle's soothing glow, pen in hand, I happened to glance at the latest issue of the Church Times which lay just within the light's perimeter; my eyes, wandering down the Positions Vacant column, came to rest upon the phrase rural parish, Hampshire. It didn't even register properly at the time.
But later that night, as I started my usual prayers before sleeping, I felt a tension inside me, a pulling-or was it a push? Was it coming from outside or was I the one seeking? I couldn't be sure. By the following morning the feeling had formed itself into a statement so urgent that it woke me up.
It's time to go.
Tom and I had been glad to stay in Fulbrook after we lost Yvette. A working Somerset town half an hour from Bristol, it was the only home Tom had ever known. He was ten when his mother died: we both needed to cling to the tossing life raft of familiar surroundings and daily routine. Now he was a tall rucksacking student with his whole life unfolding in Norwich, on the other side of the country, leaping up the steps of the National Express bus. He didn't need Fulbrook anymore. And now, suddenly, in spite of all the memories, the achievements, and the many deep friendships, neither did I. And all because of this startling, almost animal urge that had materialized on that still evening out of the candle flame. I couldn't even explain it properly to myself, let alone to my archdeacon. You see, sir, I happened to catch sight of the job ad, and, well, that same night I got this feeling . . .
That would have cut no ice with Frobisher.
A fortnight after my interview, a long white envelope with The Reverend James Acton inscribed on it in austere black capitals, arrives.
8th August 1974
Dear Mr. Acton,
I have pleasure in informing you that you have been successful in your application to the post of Vicar of the Anglican Church of St. Peter in the Parish of Upton and Barrow End within the diocese of Winchester.
You will be expected to take up your post on or before the 1st October of this year.
All pertinent documents will be sent under separate cover in the next week.
Yours sincerely,
Ronald Frobisher, ArchD.
I am, as my curate Rick puts it, "gobsmacked."
A month later, Fulbrook has found a new vicar. He's young, extremely cheery, plays the guitar during his services, and enjoys rock climbing. The people involved in this choice are all awfully pleased with themselves. I sense a certain embarrassment: now it's happened, in spite of all their kind words, they quite want me to be gone.
One day in mid-September I'm packing hand over fist when another significant piece of mail arrives. It's a postcard of the city of Cahors: the arches of a medieval bridge skimming a wide river under the sunshine of southern France. The stamp, however, is English.
Hi Dad. Back in the UK. Just moved into house in Norwich. 12 minutes from uni on bike. Vines were hard labor but got some dough plus a cool tan! And now have phone but old tenants left without paying bill >> might get cut off soon. So ring me asap!!
A phone number, and then Love, Tom.
Immediately I dial the number. I should be thinking about the Bible study group that I'm due to host in a matter of minutes, but I can't help myself.
The ringing stops. "Allô?" The voice is young, French, and female. "May I help you?"
"Yes," I reply, startled. "May I speak to Tom Acton?"
"One moment. I will fetch him."
A creaking, rumpling sort of sound, and a lot of gruff throat clearing. It doesn't sound as if the young woman has to go very far to find him.
"Hello?" says my son, deeper, hoarser, but recognizably him.
"Tom, dear boy!" I burst out. "You're back!"
"Dad!"
A shout of delight. My heart sings.
"Is this a convenient time?" I say, still smiling.
"That was Florence," says this husky young man of mine. "She's . . . she's with me."
"She has an excellent telephone manner."
"Yes. That was the first thing that struck me."
"Tom . . ." I can hear my front door opening, a hubbub in the hallway. Rick my curate is admitting the Bible study crowd. "While you were away, I . . . I decided to leave Fulbrook."
"Leave-Dad, is everything okay? They haven't defrocked you for stealing the silver?"
"No, I've got a new parish. A village called Upton, in Hampshire."
He whooshes a long breath of surprise into the receiver. "Hampshire, that's miles . . . that's a different whatchamacallit, isn't it?"
"Diocese, yes. I'm moving in a couple of weeks."
A pause. Behind him I hear the muffled, beseeching tones of Florence.
"Look," he says finally. "We've got to split . . . Tell you what. Term doesn't start till October. I can help you. Pick me up at Southampton and we'll go to your new place together. You helped me, after all."
He means when we drove to the University of East Anglia a year ago, at the beginning of his first term. Two hundred and fifty miles eastward with a shiny kettle and crisp new duvet in the back of the car. I was all for blankets but he insisted on a duvet. Nobody had blankets anymore, apparently.
"That's very kind, Tom . . ."
"Come on, Dad. It's the least I can do."
Suddenly magnanimous. We're two men now, I understand. Equals.
Toward the end of my time in Fulbrook I gather my friends and colleagues together, open many bottles of wine. They leave late, a little tipsy, with torrents of kind words and embraces. "You are a rotter, James," says one dear, wild-haired female friend, hitting me softly in the chest with a jingle of bracelets. "An absolute rotter, to leave us all in the lurch."
"There's no lurch about it, Maureen," I reply, laughing, because the parish is in such safe hands.
"Oh, yes there is," she says, and wanders unsteadily away down the path.
On the eve of my meeting with Tom in Southampton, I load up a hired removal lorry with the help of the curate Rick and a couple of burly parishioners. We set about our task, starting with the most cumbersome objects. It's a job and a half.
"Bloody thing," I say to Rick as we push the sofa across the floor of the van. "I don't remember it being so heavy when I moved in."
He grins. "Sofas do get heavier over the years. It's well-known."
The last to go into the van is a giant leather armchair. Rick's eyes are red behind his glasses.
"I remember how she used to have a snooze in it,’ he says. ‘Before she took to her bed, God bless her."
I close my eyes and am visited by a sudden vision of hot desert sky and a woman, very young, walking towards me over stony sand.
"God bless you, Rick," I say.
2.
Yvette
8th January, 1964
He held my hand in the dust. That was the first time he touched me.
Every time the building shook, more ceiling plaster came down. I had one hand on my sister’s shoulder and James was holding my other hand. His grip tightened with each bomb that fell.
He wasn’t meant to be there at all.
Of course, James and I had already met. But this holding of hands, in fear and darkness, has to come first. Such an impression it made! As I write, I taste the dust on my lips all this time later.
I said that James wasn’t meant to be there. But it was April 1942, and precious few people were where they should have been. Half of Alexandria had fled to the countryside, unable to bear any more bombing, to be replaced by crowds of foreigners of every conceivable stripe both military and civilian. My mother used to wring her hands. "I can put up with a lot," she was given to exclaim, ‘but this jumbling of people is quite intolerable!’ She made me laugh. As if social displacement was the worst consequence of the fighting.
My mockery didn’t bother Maman. Without the war, she asserted, my sister Célia would have settled down with a nice, familiar, French-speaking young man from a Levantine commercial family like ours, preferably in a villa in Cleopatra, the same leafy quarter of Alexandria as our parents’ house, so she – Maman – could trot round the corner and visit. Célia would call her children Maurice and Philippe and Lucette and they’d all go to hear Mass together and everything would go on for ever.
But Célia had spoiled this scenario. In 1940 she’d fallen in love, heavily and irretrievably, with Flying Officer Peter Ingram, a Hurricane pilot of 274 Squadron, RAF. Now, two years later, Peter having survived the war thus far, she was going to marry him.
