Gay Before God: An Awakening Love Forbidden by the Church

Author:Bruce, William [Bruce, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“Hello, Rachel, my dear,” spoke the bishop as he reached forward to kiss her on the cheek. “How are you?” His concern seemed genuine enough.

The bishop’s wife had set up the meeting, and Rachel had been asked to come on her own, while the children were at school. This bishop had assumed she didn’t work and it was lucky he had chosen a time that kept him in the illusion.

“Tea or coffee?” He knew the words would summon his wife hovering beyond the study door.

“How are the children?” He had met them at one of the clergy events, and impressed Rachel with his memory of their names.

This was something the bishop had carefully checked in the filling system devised by his wife for all the clergy and their families in the diocese. In his first years as a bishop he thought the task so important he sat up in bed at night trying to remember names. His wife would test him with the photo shots. He grew so confident in this skill that when he got a name wrong, which now happened more often on account of his age, he would use it again and again, until the person concerned might even think they should be re-Christened.

“Has James left home?” asked the bishop, hesitant to clarify the facts, his face looking seriously pastoral.

“Well, I don’t really know, I suppose.” It was the first opportunity for Rachel to speak. “He has taken a few things with him, but comes back to look after the children.”

“How very bizarre,” mused the bishop, who had no concept of the hands-on father. His vocation as a career clergyman, working hard for God and his church, morning, noon and night, meant he had little to do with the upbringing of his own children. His wife, eager to fulfil the role of clergy wife, and adored by the congregations for doing it, always stayed at home. “So when he is not with you he is staying with his new friend?” His vocabulary failed him and he didn’t want to name the one whom he saw as the villain.

“Terry, you mean?” completed Rachel. “I have met him, you know, and actually we get on quite well.” She wanted to add, ‘after all we share the same tastes in men’ but thought the bishop would not appreciate the comment.

“How very bizarre,” repeated the bishop, taken aback by the reasonableness of what she said. “This is all very modern!” It was an adjective the bishop rarely used in a positive sense. He knew his power lay in the outrageousness of the situation and he didn’t want it normalized. “I think you are taking this all very calmingly, if I might say so.”

“I have known James for a long time, and much of this is not a surprise to me,” Rachel explained.

“You mean you knew he had these propensities?” asked the bishop somewhat puzzled.

“I supposed it was something I thought I could control.”

A time a silence, while the bishop took in what he had just heard.

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