Transgressions (26 page)

She pushed the door open quietly and walked in. They were so busy at their job they didn’t notice her.

“This is impossible, Catherine.” The angel was gasping for breath. “I can’t even reach them properly. It’ll take me hours.”

From the ground the reverend glanced up. “I’m not canceling the school service, Jim. And that’s that. If necessary we’ll go ahead with it still up there.”

“Why don’t you paint it over?” Elizabeth said as her footsteps on the wooden floor gave her presence away.

Up the ladder the angel flapped his wings frantically. “Hey, what are you doing here?” You don’t get to fly that way, she thought. “The church is closed. Didn’t you read the sign?”

“No. Some vandals must have ripped it up. Hello, Reverend Baker.”

“Hello, Elizabeth. How are you?”

The voice was good, but as she straightened up it was clear that the serene Catherine was no longer quite so at peace. There were tufts of that lively, crinkly hair sticking out at all angles, as if more than one morning service had been overlooked that day. Had she noticed? Maybe, among its many blessings, belief precluded vanity. She thought of her own face in the front hall mirror. It could be they had something in common after all. She shrugged. “I was just passing.”

The woman gave her a little smile as if to acknowledge the lie but let it go anyway. She looked up.

“What do you think, Jim? Would paint do the trick? It would certainly be a lot faster.”

“Hmmn. I still don’t think I could reach it all from here. How on earth did they get up this high?”

“How would it be if you used a roller? Or we could tie a brush to the end of a broom handle? There’s a couple in the vestry.”

“Hmmn,” he said again begrudgingly. “That might do it.”

Elizabeth bent down to help pick up some of the debris, now revealed as bright ceramic fragments of shepherds and wise kings lying amid scattered straw and ferns. “What time is the service?”

“One o’clock,” the reverend said quietly, and this time her voice definitely sounded a little tired.

She handed her the bottom half of the infant Jesus, plump little flesh-colored legs in a tasteful white diaper. “What will you do without the crib?”

She made a face. “I expect I’ll have to do something with the power of words.” It seemed for a moment that she might give in to self-pity, but instead she took a deep breath and straightened up, rubbing her hands down her skirt. “This is a waste of time. We’ll never be able to repair it by one. Listen, Jim, why don’t we try the paint? Go out and buy a can and a roller. There’s money in the petty-cash box.”

“You hope there is,” he said as he came thumping down the ladder. “What if they’ve taken that, too?”

“Oh, dear, I didn’t think of that.”

“Oh, it’s all right. I don’t think there was much there anyway. Not after we paid for the Christmas flowers. I’ve got enough on me.”

He stomped out of the church, flat feet echoing on parquet flooring. They both watched him go.

“So, Elizabeth,” she said, brushing back the unruly hair from her eyes. “What can I do for you?”

“Look, I’ll . . . come back another time. You’re obviously busy.”

“No. Not at all. They’ve already done enough damage to my day. I’m not going to let them wreck my parishioners’ time, too—” Parishioner. It sounded so comforting. Or stifling. It was hard to know which. “Only perhaps if you wouldn’t mind we could talk here in the church. I don’t feel entirely comfortable about leaving it empty right at the moment.”

“D’you think they’ll come back?”

“No. I just don’t like to feel the place uncared for,” she said, then gave an almost apologetic smile as if she realized how precious the remark must have sounded. But it was not the time to worry about other people’s embarrassment. They sat themselves in the second row of the pews, the reverend facing the Nativity damage. She sighed. “Apparently this kind of thing often happens at Christmas.”

“Vandalism?”

“Yes.”

“You mean it’s like suicide? More people feel alienated then?” she said, thinking of herself.

She shrugged. “Well, I suppose celebrating the birth of a child is so much about family and belonging. If you feel you don’t, the temptation must be to try to destroy it all.”

“That’s very charitable of you,” she said.

“You should have been here half an hour ago. I wasn’t quite so charitable then.”

“What did people do before religion?”

She glanced at her. “How big a question is that?”

“I mean, at Christmas.”

“They celebrated the winter solstice in the hope that spring would come again. Darkness and light. It’s not so dissimilar really. You should come to our Christmas Eve service. The whole church is lit by candles. It looks wonderful.”

“Is that a sop to paganism?”

The vicar laughed. “Probably. Though it wouldn’t be wise to admit to it. Anyway, what can I do for you? How is your particular vandal behaving these days?”

She looked at her and gave another little shrug. When it came to it, just as outside the police station, she somehow didn’t have the words. “At least mine only uses ketchup,” she said quietly. “Easier to wipe off.”

“Ketchup.” Catherine frowned. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“Because I’m not sure I know what to say.”

“Try it.”

She sighed. Where to start? “Do you believe in forgiveness?” The woman studied her for a moment. “Yes, I do.”

“Isn’t that the party line?”

She smiled. “Absolutely. But that’s not why I believe in it.”

“What about redemption?”

“Um . . . I would say the same answer. Only I think that’s less to do with me and more to do with God.”

“You mean sinners have to find it out for themselves?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Elizabeth looked down at her hands and realized she was still holding a piece of the Nativity, a half-torso of a king carrying a golden box. Was it gold or myrrh? It was all so long ago she couldn’t remember. She looked up. “What did you do before you were a priest?”

“Me? I was a schoolteacher. In a tough school in East London.”

“Was it rough?”

“It was . . . a challenge, yes.”

“So you’ve met these kinds of kids before?” she said, gesturing at the wall.

“Maybe. I’d like to think not.”

“What happened? Did you lose your faith in education?”

She laughed. “I’d put it another way. I’d see it more as having greater faith in something else.” She paused. “You know, I used to say to myself that if God ever let women priests be ordained I would make him a promise that in return I would never sound self-righteous. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

Sweet, thought Elizabeth, but something of an occupational hazard. “I wouldn’t worry. From what I remember you’re better than most.”

Their voices echoed up into the cold chasm of air above the altar. She looked around her. It was not an impressive church: too young to have much atmosphere and not enough secluded places for the spirit to linger. But it felt okay, considering. Maybe it wasn’t so much the place as the people who made the difference, generations of spirituality layering down through the ages, seeping into the brickwork, coloring the air. How many disturbed souls had sat here before her, seeking comfort and truth?

“Have you ever had to forgive someone who didn’t deserve it? Someone who had done something serious?”

“Elizabeth, I—”

“I mean in the confessional sense. Somebody comes and tells you something, something you really ought to tell the police about, but you can’t divulge it because it’s confidential.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Montgomery Clift,” she answered firmly.

“What?”

“Montgomery Clift. In
I Confess.
It’s a Hitchcock film. Clift plays a Catholic priest whom a murderer confesses to. I used to watch it all the time as a young girl. I think I had something of a schoolgirl crush on him.”

“But he was gay, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. Though I didn’t know that at the time. But I grant you it does give it a bit of a subtext, doesn’t it?”

This time when the silence came the woman decided not to break it. She sat patiently watching, waiting, giving her the space, making it as comfortable as she could.

“I called you, but you were away,” Elizabeth said at last. “It isn’t a poltergeist.”

“So what is it?”

She sighed. “It’s a bit like this.”

“You mean some kind of burglar or vandal?”

But when she opened her mouth to say more she found the intake of breath was needed more to control the tears—not the jagged, pushy sobs from the night with Malcolm, but a softer, more insistent rain. It continued for a while. She wondered if it might somehow wash it all away.

The woman put a hand over hers and held it there. Eventually she said, with great gentleness, “You know, Elizabeth, you only have to ask for help and it will be given.”

“Yours or God’s?”

“Both. I promise you.”

She sniffed fiercely. “I’m not anybody’s victim.”

“No. I doubt very much that you are.”

“And I think if somebody sets out to hurt you, you have a right to protect yourself.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Catherine.” A man’s voice cut in loudly across the church. She turned and looked up. “Catherine, I’m sorry, but the police are here.”

She let out an impatient sigh. “Thanks, John, tell them I’ll be five minutes.”

He hesitated. “I told them that you were with someone. But they said it was important. That they need to see you straightaway.”

“Five minutes, John,” she said, and in those few words you could feel the schoolteacher rising up inside her. She turned back, immediately engaged again, but the moment had passed. At the mention of the police Elizabeth was already on her feet. “No, please, don’t go.”

“I have to. I . . . I’ve got work to do.”

“Listen, if something has happened to you, or you’ve done something you’re frightened about, you have to tell someone. It won’t just go away.” And the voice was tougher this time.

Sensible, Elizabeth thought. She’s so good and sensible. What would she have done? Understood his distress and talked him into the Church rather than her own vagina? Giving faith instead of taking sperm? No. You couldn’t understand it unless you’d been there. And even then . . .

“Elizabeth?”

“So what did Montgomery Clift do? In the film.”

The woman stared at her for a moment, then said evenly, “He persuaded the man to go to the police.”

She gave a little snorting laugh. “I think that’s what you call a cop-out. You’d better go. They’re waiting for you.”

At the other side of the church the man was still standing, trying to look as if he wasn’t there. The reverend shot him what could only be described as an uncharitable look. She turned back. “I’ll be ten minutes. Will you promise me that you’ll stay till I get back?”

There was a small silence.

“Promise.”

She nodded.

“Good. Do you want to come to the vicarage or stay here?”

“Here.”

“Thank you. Maybe you could give John some advice when he gets back with the paint. He isn’t the world’s handiest handyman.”

She watched her walk across the altar to the door at the other side. The man opened it for her, and they went out together. Silence returned. She sat staring at the graffiti on the wall. It struck her that if God had wanted to, he could have done something about this. Made sure the door was harder to force, or sent a crack of lightning through the nave the instant the spray paint hit the wall. They were just boys. With a little imagination they could easily have been terrorized back into line.

And what could he have done for her? Made her thin man impotent? Even given him a good hobby to keep him out of other people’s garbage cans? But of course it didn’t work like that. Because when push came to shove, he didn’t give a damn. If you read the small print you realized it had all been given up to you anyway. Free will. No doubt Catherine Baker would have another spin on that one. But to accept her comfort you also had to accept his. And he had already proved negligent. “Where were you in the still of the night when I was ripe for conversion?” she said into the empty air.

The front door of the church opened, and the soiled angel tramped back in, heaving a can of paint and a plastic bag over a broom handle. He scowled at her as he passed. She waited until his back was turned, then got up and walked out.

eighteen

T
he street was Montague Crescent. That much was obvious. It met the end of her road and curled around in a graceful semicircle till it intersected with another equally resi-dential avenue. It was a rhythmic flow of terraced houses, late Victorian, three stories high, like everything else around. Also like everything else they had gone through incarnations of living fashions: family homes turned into apartments, then into more salubrious first-time buyers’ flats, and now (when they could manage to sell) back into family homes again. She could almost imagine them inside, layers of linoleum like a mille-feuille cake baked up from a century of tenancy.