‘Once upon a time you’d have been burned for being a Catholic,’ Slocombe gloated.
‘Once upon a time you would have been burned for being a Protestant,’ Milne calmly replied.
Biddle felt he had rather excluded himself from the conversation thanks to his Victorian hostess trolley, bargain though it might have been. ‘I suppose,’ he said, edging his way back into the discussion, ‘we get the best of both worlds, don’t we? Being Anglican, I mean. We take the best parts of the Catholic liturgy, the best music from the Anglican tradition …’
‘Some of us use the best music from the Anglican tradition,’ Bishop Slocombe interrupted, staring pointedly at Milne. Milne frostily returned Slocombe’s stare, mentally preparing to defend the modern mass settings he favoured, musically simplistic though they were, for their congregational advantages.
‘If you do want to elevate music to a point at which the congregation cease to be involved in it …’
‘If I wanted to involve my congregation in the music, then I’d rather sing evangelical worship songs than your modern Roman crap,’ Bishop Slocombe barked. Milne recoiled as if he had been slapped; Biddle winced. ‘As Anglicans, we have the finest choral tradition in the history of music behind us, and don’t you forget it.’
‘Um … of course, technically, that wouldn’t be the Anglican tradition so much as the Lutheran tradition,’ Biddle argued, trying to divert the conversation in a direction that would take it well away from the topic of evangelical worship songs.
‘What? The Lutherans never had a Dyson. They never had a Stanford! And don’t you dare invoke the name of Bach, it’s all overrated anyway. Now have some wine and shut up.’ He poured a large glass of wine for each of them. ‘Better not have too much of this myself,’ he added, ‘I’ve given it up for Lent.’
Like the mass, there was no sense of time in Bishop Slocombe’s dinners, which were more of a liquid nature than solid. Mary’s beef casserole, which turned out to be uncharacteristically tasty, was clearly only a side-dish to Slocombe’s regular and overzealous measures of Chianti. Yet how ironic it was, thought Biddle, that he had ended up eating a beef casserole almost exactly the same as the one that he had been microwaving earlier on. Of course, the homemade version was considerably more real than the two-for-the-price-of-one microwavable dish he’d initially expected, something he thought might form the basis for a sermon. Perhaps another cookery sermon involving a microwave meal and a genuine casserole.
‘I was wondering,’ the Bishop slurred, turning again to the newspaper on the table as Mary glowered into the room to collect their dirty plates, ‘if I was getting off a plane, would I want to be the Pope?’ He paused, dramatically. ‘Or would I want to be Cher?’
‘I really ought to be going soon,’ mused Biddle, who was distracted a second time by the hostess trolley that Mary had pushed into the room with her, not least because it was loaded with cakes this time.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Milne told Bishop Slocombe. ‘It would have to be Cher.’
‘I wouldn’t be happy kissing the tarmac whenever I got off a plane,’ Slocombe declared. ‘You don’t catch Cher kissing tarmac.’
‘Do you think they clean the tarmac for him before he gets off the plane?’ Milne wondered. ‘In the name of hygiene, I mean.’
Biddle turned the newspaper towards him and studied the photograph. ‘He looks quite happy there,’ he observed. ‘But I bet he’s wondering if they’ve cleaned the tarmac for him.’
‘He’s probably also wondering whether he’d prefer to be Cher,’ Slocombe added.
‘Cher sins a lot, of course,’ Milne said thoughtfully.
‘But she can get away with that. Being Cher,’ Biddle pointed out.
‘Indeed!’ Slocombe agreed, enthusiastically. ‘I’d absolve her, any day.’
‘I bet you would.’
‘I suppose the Pope would be more likely to be able to get away with sinning if he was Cher,’ Biddle continued. ‘But as it is, he’s the Pope. So he can’t, really.’
‘And he is a very good man,’ said Milne, reverently.
‘He’s just not Cher,’ Slocombe insisted.
‘Equally,’ Biddle added, ‘Cher is not the Pope.’
‘Which I think accounts for many of the problems in the Catholic church today,’ Slocombe told Milne. ‘More wine?’
‘I haven’t started this one yet, thanks.’
Suddenly Slocombe shot out of his seat. ‘This bit’s superb,’ he said, hurrying out of the room. A few seconds later, the volume of the opera currently being forced upon them grew noticeably louder and Slocombe re-entered, his background music now more in the nature of foreground music. ‘Do you know this recording?’ he asked.
‘What is it?’ Milne asked.
‘Cavaleira Rusticana,’ Slocombe answered. Biddle nodded.
‘Cavaleira Rusticana,’ he agreed. ‘Yes, it is good, isn’t it?’ They sat in silent appreciation of the music for a few seconds, the Bishop’s eyes half-closed in rapt attentiveness, Milne looking at the table with a frown of concentration, as if not quite hearing what it was that he was supposed to be hearing, and Biddle nodding to show his approval.
Mamma Lucia, vi supplico piangendo, fate come il Signore a Maddalena …
Milne wasn’t particularly keen on opera and the music in this one seemed to him overly mawkish, almost vulgar, but there was something in the plaintive singing that connected with his own inner turmoil.
Non posso entrare in case vostra, sono scomunicata!
Again, he saw the boy’s lonely ink-black eyes – he had seen the same look in Annalie’s face, the sparkle gone but demanding to know (why was he thinking about Annalie now, for God’s sake?) – police shouting down walkie-talkies, the smell of disinfectant – it was because I loved her – Quale spina ho in core! – crowds of curious spectators – the only way – My heart is breaking! – was to end it –
Pull yourself together! he thought to himself. This was no way to carry on. Forget Annalie, that’s a different issue altogether and hardly as important – though what good was thinking about any of it now? He’d be better off thinking about painting the vestry, at least he could do something about that.
In fact he had been about to paint the vestry at the time of the first phone call – the first time the boy – Nathan – Nathan on a fifth-floor window ledge. He could still hear the young, not-quite-settled adolescent voice, defiantly declaring that he will jump. ‘Give me a single reason why I would want to live!’ Well I gave him a reason, didn’t I, God? I stood there, heart thumping, I looked him in the eyes and I gave him a reason. So why …
The music snapped off. ‘Sorry,’ said Slocombe, re-entering the room. ‘Just remembered, we can’t have that.’
‘What?’
‘The
