CHAPTER 4

Beautiful Chaos

 

 

Cass’s parish office was housed in the large church of St. Peter up in New Rawscar, built at the same time as the neat little streets of villas and of the same red brick. Cass had the care of four churches, the parish church of St. Peter’s in New Rawscar, the ancient little church of St. Stephen on the cliff top of Old Rawscar, St. Mary’s in Langbarnby, just over the brow of the moor road, as well as a chapel in the neighbouring village of Strensholm.

Most of her regular parishioners lived in New Rawscar, which had been built when the coastal railway line was constructed – it was now long since disused and turned into a cycle path. New Rawscar was everything that the village of Old Rawscar was not; ordered and sensible with wide roads and tidy little front gardens in front of every property. The picturesque village of Old Rawscar was almost entirely given over to holiday homes and so St. Peter’s Church in New Rawscar was much busier than the little old church of St. Stephen’s down in Old Rawscar. St. Peter’s Church was high and spacious and had an attached parish room built between the wars, which was the location for most of the social activities of the parish of Rawscar. Her parish office was set in the corner of that extension. It had many things that the little old church of St. Stephen in Old Rawscar did not: cushioned pews, central heating, electricity, a toilet and a kitchen, yet somehow Cass had never felt as comfortable standing before the altar here in the big church as she did at the little church by the sea.

She opened the office door, and with a sigh of relief found everything exactly as she had left it – beautiful, riotous, unmitigated chaos. Piles of paper on the desk and the floor, empty coffee cups on the bookshelves and a notice board overflowing with pinned details of services from weeks ago. All her parish work was here and never in her entire life had she felt such gratitude to see her own clutter, even the lopsided pile of health and safety documents that she had been meaning to read for weeks now. It occurred to her that with the kitchen in the Parish Room she could probably spend most of her time up here until the diocese could find her alternative accommodation; that would stop her messing up June’s pristine house. For a moment she wondered if there would be room for a camp bed in the vestry – or a regulation governing whether she could sleep in her church.

Right. Time to get on with it. She was going to have to ring the Bishop of Ormsborough and tell him what had happened. He wasn’t going to like it.

It was the latest in a string of mishaps for Cass. Her first church, in the south of the diocese when she was a curate, had been left a smouldering ruin after an arson attack. Then came the move up to inner-city Ormsborough and the fiasco of James and all the extra work that had caused the bishop – though technically, she hadn’t been responsible for the destruction of any church property that time. The bishop had suggested that she leave her parish in Ormsborough city centre after the vicarage had been broken into three times in one year. The final time the entire house had been ransacked, with much of the furniture and fittings left ruined. Perhaps the bishop thought that enough was enough, and had suggested that she go to Rawscar to try and keep her out of trouble – only now she had lost an entire vicarage over the cliff into the sea. None of it was really her fault, but at times she felt that misfortune followed her like a hungry cat.

She could already imagine the tone of exaggerated patience in the bishop’s voice. Forbearance and tolerance were his watchwords, but while his words said one thing, Bishop Ken’s tone of voice always managed to convey something else – particularly to his women priests. That tone of Oh dear, what has she done now! was always lurking beneath “Ah, Cassandra, how good to hear from you,” when he answered her calls. Maybe it wasn’t all his women priests – maybe it was just her. If she hadn’t been a vicar and he hadn’t been a bishop she would have said that she disliked Bishop “Call-Me-Ken”. That’s what he said to everyone, when he first met them, “So pleased to meet you, please call me Ken!” And yet no-one did. And it wasn’t Christian to dislike your bishop.

She picked up the phone and dialled the bishop’s office.

‘Good afternoon, Bishop,’ she began when he answered. He recognised her voice at once.

‘Ah, Cassandra Fordyce. How good to hear from you!’ The bishop was one of the few people who ever called her by her full name. She had known him since she was a little girl; he had been a friend of her father’s, before her father’s death. It was part of the reason he felt so compelled to protect her, she thought, out of respect for her father who had been such a great mentor to him in his early days. Her father had been a wonderful man, a wonderful vicar, a wonderful spiritual role model, everyone said so. He had given his life, quite literally, in the service of his flock, killed one Christmas Eve on the way home from midnight mass by a drunken driver.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got something I need to talk to you about,’ Cass said matter-of-factly. There was no point in making polite conversation right now.

‘What is it this time? Your churches are still standing I trust?’ He was teasing, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier.

‘It’s the vicarage this time, Bishop.’

‘And what have you done with the vicarage, Cassandra?’

‘It fell off the cliff last night.’

‘It fell off the cliff?’ He said it as if it was the kind of problem he had to deal with every day but the teasing note to his voice had gone.

‘Well, there was a massive cliff fall and the vicarage was on top of it.’

‘I see, I see ... You’re safe though, and nobody was hurt?’

‘Nobody was hurt.’

‘Well, that is good news. Vicarages can be replaced you know Cassandra, vicars not so easily. I’ll put you through to the Diocesan Property Office so we can begin to sort out what to do for you. And I shall pray, of course, I shall pray for you.’

As he was transferring her call to the Property Office she listened to the Choir of Ormsborough Cathedral singing Away in a Manger over the phone line. Would the property office be able to find her anywhere to stay this Christmas, or would she be looking for a stable with some nice warm hay like Mary and Joseph?

 

The property office told her that they would look into it, and suggested that she enlist the help of her Parochial Church Council in the meantime. After that, Cass worked through lunch and into the middle of the afternoon, catching up on the flood of emails that had arrived yesterday and since the cliff fall, fielding calls from concerned parishioners, “You could come and stay with us, except …” and calls from clergy in neighbouring parishes and the Rural Dean who all quoted different Bible verses to her. Plus, six calls from the company dealing with her contents insurance, who, it seemed, were not used to dealing with vicarages falling off cliffs - much like Cass herself.

She was having a break from her desk to make a cup of tea when she heard someone open the large outer door at the back of the church. She mentally checked her schedule – no Mums and Toddlers this afternoon, no Over 60s Afternoon Tea, no appointments that she knew of – so she took her cup of tea and went to see who it was. The November evening had fallen and the church was in darkness. She flicked the switch that lit up the central section of the nave to see a tall, thin figure closing the heavy inner door at the back. Her heart sank; she should have guessed who it would be. He must have seen the light on in the parish office from his home in the Old Vicarage and come over for his daily complaining session.

Charles Dawnay, Anna’s father, was one of the tallest men in the parish, his once plentiful dark hair now thinning on top. Because of his height and the years of pushing his wife in her wheelchair he walked with a habitual stoop. It was as if, even now his wife was dead, he was still bending to listen to what she had to say to him. It gave him an air of condescension when he spoke to anyone.

Charles was the second of her churchwardens, and where Graham spent his time fixing, repairing and helping Cass, Charles spent his time making sure Cass was doing things properly. Though Charles was now retired from running the family firm of estate agents he still dressed in a suit as if for the office every day and today was no different. He was striding purposefully down the aisle towards her, with a piece of paper in his hand.

‘Ah, Vicar, there you are. I wasn’t sure where to look for you after the events of yesterday,’ he said formally, making it sound as if “the events of yesterday” had consisted of a rather dull tea dance or a long game of dominoes.

‘I’m staying with Graham and June until some alternative accommodation can be arranged,’ she replied.

‘Excellent. Glad things are sorted,’ he said. ‘We’ll discuss it further at the next P.C.C. meeting.’

And that, it would seem, was that as far as Charles was concerned. No doubt he would have other parochial matters he considered far more important to discuss with her – the flower rota, again?

‘So, what’s the problem today, Charles?’ She waited for him at the end of the aisle with the great golden eagle of the lectern behind her shoulder.

‘I’ve been studying the arrangements for the Christmas services. No Evensong at St. Peter’s on Christmas Day!’ He said it with a large sigh, as if he was talking to a small child who had made a mistake in her essay on “When we have our services in the Church at Christmas.”

Cass was going to be conducting eight services in three days at Christmas. She had two Children’s Crib services in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, one at St. Peter’s in New Rawscar and one at All Saints, Langbarnby, followed by Midnight Mass at St. Stephen’s on the cliff top, eight o’clock Christmas morning at Strensholm, ten o’clock at the parish church of St. Peter’s, five o’clock evensong at St. Stephen’s, seven o’clock at Langbarnby and then finally the service for St. Stephen’s Day at the little old church on Boxing Day. Eight services. Eight, count them, she felt like saying, but she didn’t.

‘So, you think I should move evensong from St. Stephen’s up to St. Peter’s on Christmas Day?’

‘Of course you should! No-one wants to go all the way down to Old Rawscar on Christmas Day. St. Stephen’s doesn’t even have central heating! It’s just not practical.’ He waved the piece of paper he was carrying, the list of the Christmas services, practically in her face. Cass fought down the urge to rip it from his hand and tear it up. A big fuss about Christmas services was the last thing she wanted today. She took a breath.

‘Fine. I’ll swap it over.’ He was only trying to help, thinking of the less able, she reminded herself, after years of caring for a wheelchair-bound wife. ‘If there’s nothing else, I’ve got lots to do,’ she tried implying tactfully that he should leave but he stood his ground.

‘Yes, indeed. I’m sure,’ he said. ‘I was sorry to hear about the vicarage.’

‘I believe I have your daughter Anna to thank for saving so many of my possessions,’ Cass said, making conversation.

Instantly his face changed from its customary bland superiority to something darker.

‘I would prefer it if you didn’t mention her.’

‘I’m sorry, I -’ Cass began to say but he cut her short.

‘After what she did she’s dead to me, and that is the end of the matter. Never mention her to me again.’

Good lord, the hatred and bitterness in his voice was almost tangible, grating like metal on stone. If it wasn’t for the deadly seriousness with which it was said, she would have laughed at his melodramatic phrasing.

‘I don’t understand,’ she stuttered.

‘Indeed. You do not understand. So no more on the subject, please, Vicar.’

‘But surely, as a Christian … Jesus asks us to forgive -’

‘Oh, don’t bring Jesus into this. I doubt even he could forgive what she did. It has nothing to do with Jesus and it has nothing to do with you.’

He was her senior churchwarden – how could he possibly say that and mean it? She found her chest tightening with surprise and shock.

‘Remember, Vicar, that you are only passing through this parish. You couldn’t possibly understand; you’ve only been here five minutes.’ His voice sank to an intense growl. ‘This is only your church for a short while; we are the ones who stay. These are not your ancestors on our war memorial, not your family name written in our registers. You are not part of our past nor of our future, you are just one name on a list of vicars moving through – you won’t be buried in our churchyard and your children won’t be baptised here. You are not part of us, not one of our own. You do not understand.’

He turned on his heel and strode away from her, down the aisle to leave the church, turning as he pulled open the heavy wooden door.

‘And that girl,’ he said, voice as cold as the wind outside, ‘is no daughter of mine.’ The door banged shut behind him, leaving a silence more intense than ever in the church. As Cass struggled to regain her composure, one thought kept returning to her mind over and over again.

What had Anna Dawnay done?