Abi smiled uncomfortably. ‘All right, I think. It’s hard work.’
‘You’ve lost weight.’
Abi nodded. ‘I often don’t have time for meals. So this is a special treat. Thank you.’
‘I suppose he’s making you chase around all the hopeless cases?’
Abi frowned. ‘No-one is hopeless,’ she said uncertainly.
‘You knew he had a curate before, didn’t you?’
Abi nodded again. ‘Curates move on.’
‘Luke had a nervous breakdown. Overwork.’
That had explained the atmosphere in the flat. Abi eyed Sandra thoughtfully.
‘He’s a bit of a control freak, Kieran,’ Sandra went on. ‘Things have to be done his way. But I expect you’ve discovered that. I suspect you are a tougher cookie than poor old Luke.’
Abi sighed. She had prayed for the young man and blessed him, filled the rooms with flowers and the sad echoes had gone. He had gone on to a parish the other end of the country and she had heard through the grapevine that he was happier now that he was no longer working with Kier. She had been told only that they had not been compatible; not why. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I expect I am a lot tougher cookie than him.’
‘I didn’t mean that in a bad way.’ Glancing up, Sandra smiled apologetically. ‘I just thought I should drop a hint.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I heard you’d been to visit Molly Cathcart.’
Abi nodded. The coffee arrived and there was a pause as they each took a sip.
‘She’s much better than she was,’ Sandra went on.
Abi nodded. ‘I felt so sorry for her. She’s in so much pain with her rheumatism, and she’s all alone in that small flat.’
‘You prayed with her, I hear.’
Abi nodded. ‘That’s part of the job.’ She helped herself to a toasted teacake and reached for the butter.
‘And you gave her healing.’
Something in Sandra’s tone made Abi look up. Sandra shrugged. ‘Be careful, Abi. There are people round here who pretty much equate healing with witchcraft. Kier is one of them.’
Abi stared at her in astonishment. ‘But the ministry of healing is part of the job,’ she protested.
‘Not in Kier’s book.’
Of course. She should have guessed. Besides the heavy workload dumped fairly and squarely on her shoulders, the reality of confronting, time after time, parishioners who felt that a female vicar was something between the short end of the wedge, a witch and Satan’s little helper had hit her hard. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Kier might be one of them.
The voice of one of her lecturers at college echoed in her head for a moment. ‘Abi, remember, although more than half of all the clergy being ordained today are women, there are still a lot of people out there who are suspicious of them, not least a good proportion of the other clergy!’ How right he had been! She thought back over the first months of her curacy here and she sighed. It was all so much harder than she had ever imagined it would be.
She confronted Kier that evening. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you disapproved of healing?’
He glanced up at her. She had cornered him this time, walking into the study where he was seated before his desk. The room was warm, lit by the last of the sun and its light was catching his hair, turning it a deep coppery red. He looked up at her and laid down his pen, carefully aligning it with his blotter. The computer was on a side table on the far side of the room. Beside it piles of letters and papers were arranged in neat sequences, graded by size. ‘It did not occur to me that it would be something you would attempt,’ he said carefully. ‘When I began to receive reports, I didn’t believe it at first. I assumed that people were misinterpreting your zeal for prayer.’
‘Has someone complained?’
He nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. It has reinforced the natural aversion some parishioners still feel towards a female priest. I’m sorry, Abi. I should have mentioned it. I just hoped you would realise that it was not appropriate.’
‘But it is appropriate! It is what Jesus taught us to do. It is what I learned at college. I was encouraged to do it!’ She was furious.
‘People round here don’t like it, Abi.’
‘Ethel liked it. So does Molly Cathcart. It has helped her. She was healed. She has been outside for the first time in months.’
‘And you take credit for that healing, do you?’
‘Yes I do. I’m the only one who has even bothered to go and see her apart from her carer!’ Abi paused. ‘I mean, no. Of course I don’t take credit for it. That was God. But I was the one who made it happen.’
Kier raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you use your magic wand?’
There was a moment of silence as Abi registered the cold sarcasm in his voice. ‘How dare you!’ For a moment she wondered how she would stop herself hitting him.
‘I dare, Abi, because it is my job to care.’ There was a carefully modified touch of sadness in the wry smile. ‘To put you back on course if you stray. You’re very new to the life. You find it glamorous and exciting. Of course you do, that’s natural. But you have to stay within the accepted parameters. You have to stay in control.’ He clenched his fists, then forced himself to relax them again. ‘We pray if people are ill. Laying on healing hands is not acceptable in my parish I’m afraid. End of!’ He stood up. There was a moment of silence as he looked at her. ‘Anger suits you, Abi, if you’ll pardon the cliché! It makes you look quite beautiful.’ He reached forward and playfully tugged at a lock of her hair. The clips that normally kept it restrained on the nape of her neck had come free and a heavy lock had fallen across her shoulder. ‘We are going to have to tame you, I can see.’ She jerked back out of his reach. ‘That hair is a bit too wild, isn’t it. Perhaps it would be better if you cut it.’
She stared at him. ‘I will do no such thing!’
‘Then keep it under control, Abi. It makes you look far too enticing.’
She thought long and hard that night up in her flat as she stood at the window looking out across the rooftops. So, healing was not acceptable and neither it seemed was her hair. She shivered. She had first discovered she had what was, for the want of a better term, the power of healing, when a fortune teller at a fairground had told her so when she was sixteen. The old gypsy in a colourful caravan had taken her hands and scrutinised them for several seconds, then she had shaken her head as though puzzled by the wonders she found there and begun to speak with, as it turned out, quite remarkable accuracy. ‘You will have a life of service, dear,’ the old woman had said. The great black gaping holes between her teeth gave her the expression of a storybook elf as did her mischievously sparkling eyes. ‘You are a sensitive and you have healing hands. I can feel their power. You must train yourself to use your powers for good. It is too easy to go to the bad! You will have the potential to do so much for people.’ Abi had been a bit miffed at the time. She bet herself that the woman said that to everyone and that was not what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear about future romance. The old woman, effortlessly reading her thoughts, had sighed. She looked again at Abi’s hand, tracing the lines with a grubby forefinger. ‘I see two men here. More than two.’ She glanced up disapprovingly. ‘But one is special. The trick will be to decide which one he is.’ She had cackled with laughter. Abi remembered wondering cynically if she had trained herself to laugh like that or if it was natural.
The remark about her healing hands had however lodged somewhere in her unconscious and years later, after yet another person had told her how good it was after she had massaged a neck or laid a cool authoritative hand on an aching head, she had enrolled for a course with the National Federation of Spiritual Healers. One of the many things she had not told her parents about. The course was fascinating. It showed people how to channel energy. To be aware. To work with the body of the sick person, to remove pain and direct healing. The spiritual side of it was non specific. It did not involve prayer, but even now as a priest Abi still found hers
elf instinctively using the skills she had learned on that course. She prefaced her actions with prayer now of course and gave thanks afterwards. She could not believe that what she did was evil.
She recalled the expression on Kier’s face as he had brought up the subject. Sandra had warned her. There was something strange going on here and she did not feel comfortable about it. Any more than she had felt comfortable with him touching her hair. She was finally beginning to wonder if she was really enjoying living that close to him. Her initial attraction to the man was waning. She could never quite put her finger on it, but there was something about him which was increasingly making her uneasy.
From then on she began to notice things; from time to time their hands touched accidentally when they were sitting at his desk, their heads together over parish reports; once or twice they brushed against one another when they were robing in the vestry of the church. She never encouraged him. He was flirting mildly, that was all. It was his manner. Perhaps it was just that she had started to notice it more. She had thought she could cope with it. She acknowledged that at the beginning she had enjoyed it, missing, she had to admit, the company of a man, flattered and rewarded by his attention. Now suddenly she realised that she had been foolish. It had been wrong to encourage him, even if only subconsciously. Quite apart from anything else, he had a girlfriend.
Sue Green was a teacher at a girl’s prep school on the far side of the city. She and Kier had been together in an offhand sort of way for three or four years, living apart most if not all the time. Abi wasn’t sure how frequently she stayed overnight, but it couldn’t be very often, that was for sure. Abi met her very seldom – usually when they passed in the hallway or on the stairs, but the knowledge that she existed was somehow comforting. Another female presence in the house. That was important, because there were never any other women there. She seldom saw Sandra, and although she frequently saw Kier talking to women, and watched their reaction as they melted beneath his smile be they in church or on the street, or when she accompanied him to visit parishioners or sit in on their visits to the Rectory, none actually came and stayed for more than a few minutes save the two cleaning ladies who came together once a week and worked together and left together. Once or twice she found herself wondering if it was because he didn’t trust himself with women.
From now on she would keep Kier at arm’s length and since he made such a big deal about it she would make sure she kept her irrepressible hair tightly restrained in its clips and pins. Any healing she did she would keep carefully low key. There was no point in antagonising him. But there was no way she was going to stop, either. It was what she did. More and more she began to distance herself from his attentions. More and more often she found herself creeping in at the end of the day, and, almost ludicrously, tiptoeing up the stairs to try and avoid him.
It all came to a head on a hot July evening. She was writing notes for her sermon in her upstairs eyrie. The evening sun was shining on the spires and grey stone roofs in the distance, the roofs of the other Cambridge, the idyllic Cambridge of the tourist brochures and the luckiest students on earth, did they but know it, and she was staring thoughtfully out, thinking how the sight never failed to enchant her. Lost in those thoughts, she almost missed the sound of footsteps running up the stairs to her front door. Standing up, she went to open it. ‘You seem to be in a hurry, Kier – She broke off abruptly. It was Sue.
‘Sorry to disappoint you! Were you expecting him?’ Sue pushed past her and turned to face Abi in the middle of the room. She was a small, intense woman in her mid-thirties, attractive, neat and self-contained. Her hair was usually pinned back into a tidy pleat at the back of her head. This time it was down, swinging shoulder length and newly blonde. It made her look younger and somehow more vulnerable. ‘Have you no shame? You’re supposed to be a vicar! I hope you rot in hell!’ Sue dissolved into angry sobs.
‘Sue?’ Abi was appalled. ‘What’s happened? What are you talking about?’
‘As if you didn’t know!’ Her tears dashed away, Sue’s large blue eyes were cold. ‘I trusted you. It never crossed my mind you were having an affair.’
‘I’m not! I’m not having an affair with anyone! Who?’ She paused. ‘Not Kier? You don’t think Kier and I…?’ She was suddenly furious.
‘Of course Kier and you. Do you think I am naïve? But of course I am. I never suspected. I liked you. I trusted you!’ For a moment she stood staring at Abi, her face twisted with misery and hatred, then she turned back to the door. ‘Well, you can have him. I don’t want the two-timing, loony bastard. But don’t think you will get away with this. The whole parish is talking and I’m going to report you. I’m going to make sure you are sacked. You are not fit to enter a church!’
Abi stood completely still in shock as Sue ran back down the stairs. Moments later the sound of the slamming front door echoed up to her.
Kier had been standing below in the front hall. He walked slowly up towards her as she appeared in the doorway and looked down. ‘I’m so sorry, Abi.’ He looked exhausted. ‘I suppose it was inevitable.’
‘Why? Why was it inevitable?’ She stared at him furiously. ‘What on earth gave that poor woman the idea that you and I are having an affair?’
He shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen her much lately. You and I’ve been so busy with the parish. I talk about you a lot, I suppose.’ He looked away uncomfortably and lapsed into silence. ‘She just got the wrong end of the stick.’
Abi pre-empted the situation at once, phoning the bishop’s office the same evening in spite of Kieran’s protests that it would all blow over, explaining that it was not possible for a female curate to share a house with an unmarried priest and two days later she moved out of the Rectory to a small furnished flat in a terrace of pretty two-storeyed houses several blocks away. Her sitting room there had no view. It opened out into a small courtyard garden, thick with nettles and brambles. In its centre there was an abandoned rusty bicycle, but strangely the atmosphere was fine. It was a cheerful little place; it seemed to welcome her and as soon as the door had closed behind her she felt cherished and safe. The upstairs flat was empty. She liked it that way.
She knew the bishop had spoken to Kieran. She wasn’t sure of the outcome. Kieran never mentioned what was said. He took back more of her workload, encouraged her to take more services on her own at St Hugh’s and their regular meetings took place more often than not in St John’s. It seemed convenient. They would sit in a pew at the back, talking quietly, keeping to business. There were no more glasses of wine. She didn’t ask him if he and Sue had made up their quarrel.
3
While Abi was standing in the patch of nettles at the back of her new flat, surveying the scene and wondering if she had time to cut back some of the weeds and plant a few token flowers to give the place a bit of colour, almost exactly 203 miles away by road, in Woodley in Somerset, Cal Cavendish was standing in the gardens behind her somewhat larger, detached house, staring into space, a pair of secateurs in her hand. A basket of cut flowers lay at her feet and she hadn’t moved for several minutes, lost in thought. They were in trouble, deep trouble financially, far worse than they had thought. The only income that came in now that her husband, Mat, had retired was from his suddenly rather meagre-seeming pension and her B & B business and it had not been a good summer. She sighed. She and Mat had just come back from one of those interminable meetings with the bank and the trustees in Taunton, which always left them feeling so depressed. Her instinct had been to go into the garden to hide amongst the flowers, Mat’s to take the dogs and go out for a long walk.
As the sun set the house threw oblique shadows across the lawn. It was a beautiful place, the kind of house anyone would kill for. She had thought it a dream come true when she realised that she and Mat were going to live here. It was an ancient manor house, built of mellow local stone. Parts of it still reflected its medieval foundations, parts had been remodelled in the eighteenth century to give it, outwardly
at least, a Georgian symmetry which was to her mind utterly beautiful. A building had stood on this site for nearly two thousand years – they had Roman remains in the garden to prove it – and it wore its history like an ancient velvet cloak, confident, stately, elegant and distinctly shabby. Her thoughts went back to the bank. You weren’t called in to see local managers these days. There were no more lunches with a man who you thought of as your friend or at least as a civilised person to whom you could talk. The loan department was based in Taunton and the young man who had spoken to them had employed an edgy, slightly threatening tone which she could see had grated on Mat as much as it had on her. The house’s history, the fact that it had been in Mat’s family for hundreds of years, the efforts they were making to repay the various loans Mat’s father had cheerfully taken out over the years without bothering to inform his three sons, none of this seemed to engage him in the slightest. All he was interested in was the computer screen in front of him. The screen which he kept swinging to face them, but which never quite seemed to be legible or comprehensible to either of them. She glanced at the house. In this light you couldn’t see the crumbling cornices, the rotting wood, the splits in the mullions, the missing slates. In this light it looked like something out of a fairy tale.
A movement in the flowerbed caught her eye. It was the woman in the blue dress. Cal sighed. She watched her with only half her attention, seeing the figure drift seemingly aimlessly amongst the autumn roses. ‘I wish you could bloody well help,’ she said out loud after a moment. ‘What about bringing us some luck for a change.’ Wearily she bent to pick up her basket. When she looked again the woman had vanished.
‘Can you drive over to see me, darling? I would so love it if you could. Your father is at a conference in New York, so it would be safe to come home!’ Laura Rutherford sounded as cheerful and humorous as usual. Abi stared down at the phone thoughtfully as she replaced the receiver. But something was different. Had there been a waver in her mother’s voice? If there had it would have been unheard of. Laura was a strong and determined woman. Serenity was her middle name.