Chapter 19

Too Much Mulled Wine Is Not A Good Thing

 

 

Cass stood at the front of St. Peter’s Church up in New Rawscar, a deep sense of her own hypocrisy and shame burning in her mind and her face.

Eight o’clock service at the little church of St. Stephen down in Old Rawscar had been no problem at all as there had been a congregation of precisely zero – not even Graham had made it to church this morning, so Cass had slumped down on the altar rail, head in hands, and tried to fight the overwhelming feeling of nausea that was threatening to overwhelm her.

But ten o’clock communion at St. Peter’s was a different matter entirely. The congregation were enthusiastically singing Hills of the North and Cass’s head was throbbing with a mixture of hangover and guilt. But chiefly guilt.

What had she been thinking?

She was in her late thirties, not some stupid teenager to let a few drinks drive away all her self-control, but that’s exactly what she had done, and in the process, she had committed most of the seven deadly sins. Lust in bucket loads. Envy and Greed because she had gone after something she knew she shouldn’t have. Pride because Hal had picked her out from the crowd. Gluttony - well, she had lost track of how much she had drunk in the hot, steamy atmosphere of the pub. Only Anger and Sloth had passed her by last night, and she was feeling both of them this morning. Anger at her own behaviour, that she had let herself down so badly, and the sloth of possibly the worst hangover of her entire life.

Suddenly she was aware of a silence. The hymn had ended and she should be doing something - what should she be doing?  She had dropped her service sheet on the floor. She picked it up and stepped into the pulpit, wincing at the light from the spotlight that was meant to illuminate her text. The service was nearly over, and once it was done, she could go home and sleep, she reminded herself. Sleep and try and forget what she had done.

‘I publish the banns of marriage,’ she began. She had done all the difficult things this morning. She had distributed communion though she felt unworthy. She had pronounced intercession and blessings that she didn’t believe would have any effect at all. She had even made a joke about the power cut in her sermon, about how she had seen the light, which had come back on just as she started to deliver her sermon.

But it was entirely the opposite of seeing the light that she was experiencing right now as she stood to face her congregation. She felt as if she was looking upwards and instead of the divine revelation of truth, all she could see were the storm clouds pressing in, and a seagull about to drop something unpleasant on her from a great height. She shouldn’t be standing here; she was the wrong person, in the wrong place. She was unworthy and she couldn’t believe in what she was doing any more. It was all a huge mistake. Her vocation, her belief that she was striving after what was right and good, everything that was important to her had been swept away and then last night she had let go of the last remnants of her self-control. She had let the church down, she had let her father down, she had let herself down – but most of all, she had let Hal down. There was nothing left.

She pretended that she had the wrong piece of paper, giving herself a moment to calm down.

‘I publish the banns of marriage between Hope Nelson, spinster of this parish and of Carter Goodman, of the Parish of St. Nicolas, Saddleton.’ Her voice came out stronger now, but still when she got to the part about knowing any reason why the couple shouldn’t marry, she half expected a sign from on high to declare her unworthiness to perform the ceremony, or one of the congregation to stand up and demand that she should step aside.

No-one did, so she sighed as she shut the book and the organist started up with another festive medley to which the congregation could rise and depart – Let it snow with Frosty the Snowman. Cass didn’t have the energy to disapprove this morning.

 

‘Everything OK today Vicar?’ Graham asked when she came back into the church again, chilled through. The fresh air as she stood on the church steps had helped to clear her head a little bit.

‘I’ve been better. Too much mulled wine at the pub last night – and too much of Marian’s mulled wine is not a good thing.’

‘It’s got a bit of a reputation. A lot of brandy in it - someone should have told you, Vicar.’ She couldn’t see his face as he was sorting through the envelopes from the collection plate, but she rather thought that he was trying to conceal a smile.

‘I should have had more sense. It’s no-one’s fault but mine,’ she said, ruefully. ‘How’s June today?’ She took the empty wooden collection plates from him and put them away in the cupboard beside the back door.

‘Still in bed when I left this morning. I had a few jobs to do before church.’

‘She doesn’t ever come to church, does she? Or does she go to a different church?’ It occurred to her suddenly that perhaps June was a Methodist or a Catholic.

‘No. She’s not been religious since her poor old mam died,’ Graham said.

‘She’d be very welcome you know.’

‘Ay, well,’ he sighed, as he rummaged in the back of a drawer for a rubber band.

‘Do the two of you have any shared hobbies?’ said Cass, coming over to stand beside him.

‘I don’t have the time for hobbies, Vicar, what with the cottages and the church. June’s been on at me to start giving things up – start spending more time in the garden, go on holidays and whatnot. Things we can do together, away from Rawscar. But I’m not so sure. I don’t like to let people down – the holiday cottage folk, the village or the church.’ He looped the rubber band he had found around the collection envelopes. ‘Just going to put these in the safe for the treasurer. She’s away this weekend, said she’d collect them later in the week.’

Cass walked with him down the aisle to the vestry where the safe was kept. She could hang up her surplice at the same time as he locked away the money.

‘Why don’t you try and persuade her to come to church? Even if she’s not much of a believer – well, she might enjoy the music, or the peace – or even help with the flowers! It could be something you could do together. Instead of having to give up what you love, maybe you could get her involved too; do it together.’

Cass carefully folded her purple stole into her small case, thinking of June as she put it away as neatly as she could. ‘Perhaps she could help you with the holiday cottages?’ She thought of the summery seaside decorations in Maidensbower Cottage and how wrong it seemed for the time of year she had moved in. Someone like June, with an eye for what would be just right, would be able to make a huge difference with a few little seasonal touches. ‘Perhaps she’d be able to add some homely touches to some of those holiday cottages you work for? You know, cushions, throws, ornaments and things, suitable for the seasons? Flowers too – she knows about flowers, doesn’t she?’

‘She does that.’ He was twisting the old key in the lock of the small safe that had been there since the church was built, brass coat of arms proudly gleaming against the solid gunmetal grey of the metal door.

‘It might do her good to get more involved with things in the village, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, she doesn’t need anything else! She’s so busy with her job and the house, she’s got no time for anything else, she’s been telling me for years. She’s not much fussed about village things, not after years of living in Saddleton.’ He had put the bag of money away and was busy locking the safe again.

Cass took a deep breath. The line between ministering and meddling was narrow and Cass was always worried about crossing it, but she had to do something to try and help June.

‘I know June is a very proud woman, but she needs you, Graham. She’s lonely. I don’t think she really wants to devote all her time to the house – it’s just something that she can do to fill her days. She needs to start belonging here, joining in with the community a bit more – joining in with your life, otherwise once she retires, she’ll have the house and nothing else to keep her busy. And if helping out with the holiday cottages is a place she could start, why don’t you ask her?’

‘Do you think?’ he looked at her strangely. ‘I always thought … I always thought we weren’t quite good enough for her.’

‘Rawscar is a bit … well, it’s not easy to belong, when you come in from outside, is it?’

Graham leant on the wooden shelf above the safe to help him to stand, a shiny worn patch on the wood showed where dozens of churchwardens before him had leant for the same reason. He looked at Cass oddly for a moment.

‘I never thought of that. Ay, maybe you’re right, she might like it – and it would be nice to have her around a bit more. I could have a word with Hal.’

Cass felt her face flush at the very mention of his name, and she busied herself in reaching up to hang up her surplice on the sensible pine rail which had been installed for vicars considerably taller than she was.

‘And do try and persuade her to come to church,’ Cass steered the subject back onto safer ground. ‘She doesn’t have to believe to come along … and we could use her help with the flower rota, we really could. If one more person complains I may have to start doing them myself …’

Cass stepped out into the fresh air. She didn’t want to go home quite yet; she would go for a walk on the beach, clear her head. The storm had thrown up lots of debris on the beach; branches and seaweed and plastic bottles all littered the high tide line. Cass pulled a carrier bag out of her pocket and thought that the least she could do was pick up a few bits of rubbish – it pained her to see the beautiful sweep of the bay looking so messy. It felt good to be doing something mindless and simple and she also derived some real pleasure from stamping hard on the bottles and cans to flatten them.

She was trying not to stop and think about Hal, but here on the beach he was starting to creep back into her mind again, remembering the time they had walked here together. She found her eyes drawn to the beach hut and to the rocks where his brother had been killed – the tide was so far out now that it looked almost possible to walk out to the rocks. Hal must look at them all the time, and every time he looked he must feel that guilt. Guilt was a strange and terrible thing. It was guilt that had tied Hal to this place though he didn’t want to be here and it was guilt that had made Cass a vicar: her mother’s continual lament throughout Cass’s childhood had been that God had taken her father because they hadn’t been good enough for him, that they hadn’t deserved him. He had been too good for this world, too noble, too spiritual and they had not been worthy of him. She had only a nebulous idea of a father that she barely remembered – sometimes God and her own father became confused as a concept in her mind. God spoke with her father’s voice and looked down on her with her father’s eyes. Now she began to doubt her own sense of her religious vocation. Was the calling ever hers - or was it her father’s? Had it been nothing more than guilt that had called her to the ministry? Had she ever really been chosen by God, or had she just been hoping and pretending all the time?

It was too much for a winter afternoon with an icy drizzle blown into her face by the wind. She forced her mind back to the simple task in hand – clearing up the beach. One more can, half frozen into the sand. Two more bottles in a clump of seaweed, and behind a rock, a fork. A dinner fork with a black handle. HER dinner fork. She picked it up turning it over and over in her hands. It’s weight in her hand, which had been so familiar at her own kitchen table at the vicarage felt strange in the middle of a beach in winter. It must have been washed up in the storm, and if there was one fork, might there be more? The council had cleared away what debris they could from the cliffs and the beach below but plenty had already gone under the waves by the time they could bring in their workers.

Would she find her lost possessions strewn along the high tide line?  Was it a sign? Was God giving her a sign that she should not give up hope, that all was not lost? That she should hang on in there and her faith would return? Her spirits lifted a little and she looked as long as the light lasted, but it wasn’t long before it was too dark and she found nothing else. Was that fork a sign from the Almighty?

If it was, perhaps all it had to say was “Fork you.”