Acts and Omissions by Catherine Fox

Author:Catherine Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SPCK

JULY

Chapter 28

If the diocese of Lindchester were a dog, it would be panting in the shade with its tongue lolled out. Tarmac melts on the roads. Everywhere, the scent of lime blossom. The Close is woozy with it. Oh, the bees, the fainting bees! All the livelong day. And at night honeyed breath creeps through open windows, where naked bodies sprawl under thin sheets, un-Englishly. Come slowly – Eden! Lips unused to thee – The songbirds have fallen silent. No dawn chorus. Just the sleepy wheeze of the greenfinch, the scream of swifts, the ke-wick! ke-wick! and answering hoo-hoo-hooo! of owls in the dark.

This is the second week of the heatwave. Friday will be end of term for schools in the region. Too hot for those Leavers hoodies, but not too hot for egg and flour fights, or scrawling your name all over your classmates’ white school shirt, or getting shit-faced behind the gym on vodka disguised in Pepsi bottles, mentioning no names but watch my eyes, Felix Littlechild. Or for jumping fully clad into the school pool and breaking your ankle: yes, you, don’t look at your friend, Lukas Littlechild. (Why are clergy children always the worst?)

The ordination of deacons has taken place. Virginia is now curate of the parishes of All Saints, Carding-le-Willow, St Martin’s, Cardingforth, St Mary’s, Holy Trinity, and the King’s Café Church, Lingmorton. That should keep her out of mischief. Father Dominic is busy preparing a ten-minute presentation for his upcoming interview, and getting weepy at the thought of having to break the news to St John’s that he’s leaving – if he gets the Lindford job, that is.

Choral term has ended. The cathedral choir is on holiday until their tour to Germany in two weeks’ time. Visiting choirs, ranging from ‘rather good’ through to ‘execrable’, will hold the fort over the summer. The visitors traditionally offer two things: they sing the weekend services, and – by their lack of volume, or their hubristic choice of repertoire – remind everyone how excellent the cathedral choir actually is. Unfortunately (fortunately?), the choir scheduled for this coming weekend had to cancel. Giles has scrambled to arrange cover: Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices will be sung by his loyal wife, a bass lay clerk, willing to sing for free(!), and the lovely Freddie May, basically a tart, willing to do anything.

At least it’s cool in the cathedral. Dr Jane Rossiter, in her doctoral gown (that is what it is called; it is not called a Scarlet Whore of Babylon gown), is very glad that this is the venue for Poundstretcher University’s graduation ceremonies. It is Wednesday morning. She sits with her colleagues and tries to keep the ‘oh, for fuck’s sake!’ look off her face, in case the camera strays in her direction as the Dean of Faculty stumbles through the obstacle course of names. Böröcz, Knyazev, Zhōu.

Earlier the Close sounded like a film set for a Regency coaching epic, with the clopping of stilettos on cobbles. The chancellor looks each graduand earnestly in the eye, always the eye, as he shakes their hand.

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