Chapter 34

What Graham Didn’t Hear

 

 

‘Well, Cassandra, how can I be of assistance?’

Bishop Ken’s lofty tones echoed down the phone line, it sounded as if he was standing in the centre of lofty Ormsborough Cathedral. Perhaps he was.

‘Bishop, I need to talk to you.’

‘God has seen fit to restore your faith?’ he asked hopefully. Cass, who had been pacing the church office, sat down at her desk.

‘It’s not that I’m afraid, Bishop, I need to tell you; I am guilty of a sin. There is a man -’

‘It’s about time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She nearly dropped the phone in shock.

Had the bishop really just said that?

‘You have always been very dedicated. Very moral. Very strong. I admire that about you, Cassandra, but you have also been somewhat aloof – and alone. When you met James, I thought maybe you would become a little less rigid. But James became part of the armour of righteousness with which you surrounded yourself. To be human we must love, and suffer, and yes, sometimes we fall into sin. We are human after all. But God forgives all who are truly penitent.’

‘You WANT me to sin?’ she stood up again, knocking one of her more precarious heaps of paper to the floor.

‘No. Of course not, but I don’t want you to see one sin as the end of everything. No one is perfect, Cassandra. You need to see beyond the strictures of what is right, and feel what is to be human. To love. You will be stronger for it in the end.’

‘But I … It isn’t … He shouldn’t … He’s divorced. Twice. He doesn’t believe in God. He’s been with a lot of women. And he’s got tattoos, Bishop!’

She had to make him see how unsuitable this whole thing was, as she scrabbled on the floor, picking up papers with her free hand.

‘Then perhaps you have been sent to redeem him. You will find your way back, Cassandra, I know you will. Look, I’d like to discuss this with you face-to-face. I’m going to visit the Bishop of Scarborough tomorrow and I’d like to call in and see you on the way, to talk to you in person about this. We can find a way through this, together.’

‘I …’ She was speechless. This wasn’t what she was expecting at all, why was he being so understanding?

‘About coffee time, if that suits you?’

‘It’s … I … oh, well, yes. I didn’t expect you to be like this. I didn’t think you’d understand.’ She placed the pile of papers back on her desk again, now in completely the wrong order, but it didn’t seem important right now.

‘When I was young, before I took the ministry, your father showed me the way. He gave me a second chance when I was less deserving of it than you can possibly imagine. It has never been straightforward, my journey of belief. I have constantly believed myself to be unworthy, I have doubted myself at every turn.’

‘You have?’

‘Of course. Any priest who is without doubt or sin is also without the humanity necessary to serve with true humility.’

‘James never doubted. My father never doubted.’ She placed a stone from the beach that she had used as a paperweight securely on top of the pile of papers to stop them moving again.

‘James proves my point exactly, Cassandra. Hopefully his work in Kenya will bring him to a deeper understanding of both Our Lord – and his fellow man and woman. And as for your father … well, Cassandra, I think the time has come when I need to talk to you about your father. I shall speak to you tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Bishop,’ Cass said, not entirely sure that she meant it.

‘You must trust, hope and pray, Cassandra and I will help you to find a way through this. And please, call me Ken.’

There was nothing else that she could do except acquiesce gracefully.

‘I will try. Thank you, Ken.’

 

‘How are you?’

It was later that afternoon, and for the first time in her months living in Rawscar, Cass had made it beyond the doorstep of Charles Dawnay’s home, the Old Vicarage.

‘I’m better, thank you,’ Anna said, ushering her into the comfortably worn living room, filled with a squashy floral suite that had seen better days. The room was toasty warm thanks to a coal fire that glowed in the carved stone fireplace. Anna sat down at one side of the fireplace, Cass at the other.

‘You look better,’ Cass said, and indeed she did; pale and thinner than ever after her dip in the icy North Sea, but happier, more content. Her dress today was slightly less austere than the tightly laced black corseted numbers she usually wore, the fluffy blue cardigan she was wearing over the top helped.

‘I feel better’ Anna said simply and softly. ‘I should never have let things get so bad.’

‘So, what happens now?’

‘Well, I’m going to stay here for a while. I’m going to have some counselling about … oh you know, my eating and everything. Dad says he’s going to look after me, though he’s so bad at cooking that I suspect I’ll be looking after him before the end of the week!’

‘And how are things with your dad?’

‘At the hospital, I saw someone. A counsellor. Then when I came home, Dad and me, we finally talked.’

‘About your mum?’

‘And the abortion,’ she said quietly, leaning forwards towards Cass in her chair, thin hands clasped in her lap. ‘The counsellor helped me realise something. All this … I’ve been punishing myself for what I did. Even coming back here, I was making myself suffer, reminding myself of what I had done, scratching at an open wound instead of letting it heal. Rob, his baby … I couldn’t let them go, I couldn’t move on because I couldn’t forgive myself. The minute I could talk to Dad about it, I knew, it wasn’t him I’d been angry at all these years – it was me.’

‘Oh Anna!’

Anna couldn’t see her father standing in the doorway behind her, but Cass could. She was going to say something, but Charles motioned her to be quiet as Anna went on:

‘I cut myself off from my parents because I didn’t think I was worthy of being loved. I had to punish myself for what I’d done and so … well, the arguments and everything … it was all my fault.’ She had twisted her hands tightly together, almost as if she was praying, Cass thought.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Charles said, as Anna swung round in her chair surprised to see him there. ‘It was mine. Your mother wanted to see you, but I was so angry. It wasn’t you I was angry with, it was myself. I thought we had failed you. You should never have felt you had no-one to turn to about the baby, and if you did feel like that it could only ever have been our fault. But I was upset that you hadn’t come to us and we didn’t find out until it was too late.’

‘You’re very alike,’ Cass said.

‘As stubborn as each other!’ Charles agreed.

‘And as good at punishing ourselves,’ Anna added. ‘But we’re going to work on it, aren’t we?’ She held out her hand and Charles came and stood behind her, taking her hand in his.

‘We are.’

And Charles did something that Cass had never thought she would see. He hugged his daughter.

‘I’m so pleased,’ Cass said, making to stand up. Charles motioned to her to stay.

‘I’m going to get on with making our tea, if you’ll excuse me, Vicar?’ Charles said formally as he left the women in the living room.

‘I just wanted to say thank you,’ Anna said, once her father had gone.

‘You don’t need to thank me!’ Cass leaned back on her chair, more at ease without Charles’ huge presence in the room.

‘I do. From the first time we met you tried to help and I wouldn’t let you; I’m not very good at letting people help me. I should have thanked you for that. Then on Boxing Day you stopped me from doing something really, really stupid. You could have died.’

‘But I didn’t and neither did you.’

‘Thanks to Hal.’

‘Yes … Hal …’ Cass was instantly uncomfortable. She knew that Hal had spent yesterday helping Cass pack up Anna’s things from Maidensbower and then he had taken them up to the Old Vicarage whilst Cass was having a rehearsal for the wedding she was conducting on New Year’s Eve. But what had he said to Anna in the end? How much did Anna know?

‘Hal came to see me yesterday,’ Anna said, as if she could read Cass’s mind. ‘He told me that you were together.’

It was hard to tell what Anna was thinking from her face even now Cass knew her a little better than when they had first met.

‘And is that OK?’ she asked, tentatively.

‘It is. I’ve always known he couldn’t replace Rob, and it was wrong of me to hold onto him – but there are other ways to let him go, other than the one I tried. No, I’ve known since that day on the quayside when the pair of you looked like a pair of embarrassed teenagers who’d got caught out. I knew you’d be good for each other. And just because you two are in love it doesn’t mean that I lose Hal as a brother – or you as a friend – does it? I’m happy for you both. Really, I am.’

Cass hugged her, Anna’s body felt fragile in her arms, but she didn’t resist.

This was awkward, but before she took things any further with Hal, there was something she needed to ask Anna, as the two of them made their way through to the hall as Cass was leaving.

‘Anna, I know it’s none of my business,’ she said in hushed tones in case Charles was listening beyond the wall, ‘but are you sure that Hal isn’t a bit more to you than a brother? I mean, those tattoos you both have …’

‘The tattoos are for Rob. The anchor is on his gravestone. His parents have them too, you know, have you never looked at Jack’s arm?’

Cass shook her head.

‘You said once that he had … you know … that he had a fine screwdriver and knew how to use it? Were you …?’

‘I wish I could answer this differently, Cass. We spent a drunken night together just once, on the anniversary of Rob’s death. We were both looking for some comfort, I guess, and it was the wrong thing to do, we realised the next morning when we were sober that it had been wrong. It spoiled a lot of things between us, which were hard to put right, to get us back to being friends again. But we did, the night we saw the northern lights. It was the name of Rob’s boat, you see, Northern Light. You don’t need to feel guilty about me, Cass. I promise you I’ve got no claim on Hal’s heart … or his screwdriver!’

They shared a smile as Cass pulled on her boots.

‘So, have you … you know?’ Anna had left the question open but Cass knew exactly what she was asking.

‘You mean has Hal been hard at work with his screwdriver?’ she remarked innocently, starting Anna giggling. Girly banter, that was all!

‘Vicar!’ Anna pretended to be shocked.

‘We’ve talked about it, but it’s such a big step, he thinks we should wait a little while. It’s got to be the right time, hasn’t it?’

‘He what? Honestly? Hal Thorburn? Nine times a night Hal Thorburn wants to wait?’ 

Anna was teasing her. Serious, frowning Anna Dawnay was properly teasing her and laughing openly about it.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘We both want to wait until we know it’s right.’

‘Well, it must be true love then, that’s all I can say.’

Cass didn’t reply, because she didn’t know how to answer. Was it really love that Hal felt for her? She busied herself with the zip on the side of her boots and she changed the subject.

‘I suspect that you won’t be seeing any more ghosts now,’ she said with a rueful grin, straightening up again.

‘Oh, I know! Hal told me that it was only Skye after all that!’

‘Skye and our imaginations!’ Cass said with a smile. ‘Nothing more sinister than that.’

They said their goodbyes, and Anna turned back to the comfortable fireside as Cass went out into the cold winter evening.

 

 

It was only as she was walking away through the snowy streets and down the hill towards Old Rawscar and Maidensbower Cottage, where she hoped Hal would be waiting for her, that something occurred to her. Something that Anna had said.

‘Nine times a night Hal Thorburn?!’ she said out loud.

‘Everything all right, Vicar?’ said a voice behind her. Graham had been walking down the hill behind her the whole time. How did he do it? ‘I’m heading down to check on one of the holiday cottages. June wants to know what length the sofa is for the soft furnishings.  She’s really enjoying it, you know, helping me out. You were right; all she needed was a bit of encouragement to join in, and now look at her! She’s even giving a course of flower arranging demonstrations at the W.I. next month.’

‘I’m glad … I was just …’ how did she explain to her church warden what she had said just then? He had overheard so much recently, he must have started putting two-and-two together by now and realised that she and Hal were more to each other than just vicar and parishioner.

She took a deep breath. She owed it to him to explain all those things he must have overheard.

‘Oh, just a minute Vicar. My hearing aid’s on the blink again, can you turn your head so I can lip read?’

‘Your hearing aid?’

‘Yes, it’s been dodgy for months now. June’s always going on at me for not listening.’

‘So did you hear …?’

‘I don’t hear much at all unless you’re looking at me. Hadn’t you noticed?’

‘Oh …’

And it dawned on her why Graham seemed so good at keeping her secrets - he had never heard them in the first place.

‘But Vicar?’

‘Yes?’

‘I see plenty,’ he added with a wink, ‘and I happened to be passing St. Stephen’s early Sunday morning. You and Hal Thorburn will make a lovely couple. I always thought as much.’