a few seconds for the meaning of this to dawn on him.
‘Oh, you mean “hallelujah”.’
‘Don’t say it!’ hissed Slocombe.
‘But it’s only …’
‘Not in Lent! You can’t say it in Lent!’
‘In the liturgy, obviously, but just saying “hallelujah” …’
‘Stop – saying – it!’ ordered the Bishop in barbed tones. ‘I’ll get another bottle. Drink up, Father Alex.’ Milne reluctantly sipped at his wine as the Bishop left the room again.
‘So …’ Biddle tried not to look too serious. ‘You don’t seem to be entirely yourself at the moment, Alex.’
‘Oh.’
‘Is everything alright?’
Milne allowed his mind to flick back to the scene for just a moment. Nathan’s mother, broken, no tears, just her empty, hollow eyes – the police sirens – no chance to give Nathan a reason to live this time, only – if he’d been a few minutes earlier – but he couldn’t think like that. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t.
Milne sighed. The bloody vestry still wasn’t painted. ‘It’s been a tough month,’ he told Biddle.
Biddle nodded. He knew exactly what Milne meant – there were so many things to be dealt with in a parish, so many challenges to be met. In the short time he had been at St Barnabas, he had already been forced to mediate in a violent and protracted argument between Frances Carpenter and Cynthia Tiplady (not to mention their respective factions) over who should do the church flower arrangements for the Easter-day service (even now, the situation was far from stable); he had been forced to contact the police following several concerned reports that Mrs Devonport wasn’t answering her telephone, accompanying them when they broke into her house (fortunately it had transpired that Mrs Devonport had simply been visiting her sister in Wales, but the accidental breakage of a decanter during the forced entry caused much heartache on her return); he had been asked to mediate in the issue of the noise from a local pub’s karaoke night; and he was persistently troubled by schoolchildren littering the church graveyard. A week ago a drunk man had turned up on his doorstep after 11 o’clock and asked to use his toilet. Worst of all, the plaque on the millennium bench had been stolen. These were the challenges that he faced on a daily basis – theirs was, indeed, a difficult profession.
‘We’ve chosen a difficult profession,’ he told Milne, with a weary smile of mutual suffering. ‘At least you’re there for people who need you. That’s what being a priest is about, after all.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Slocombe, waltzing back into the room.
‘What?’
‘What being a priest is all about?’
‘Serving,’ explained Biddle. ‘Being a priest is about serving.’
‘Is it, indeed?’ retorted Slocombe. ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to serve us some of Mary’s cakes, then, while I uncork this bottle.’ Biddle obligingly crossed to the hostess trolley, which he noted wasn’t really as nice as the one he owned himself and which had really been quite an extraordinary bargain – though he kept the thought to himself.
‘You hear a lot of bunkum about serving these days,’ Slocombe was saying as he struggled with the bottle and gradually grew redder. ‘I think it’s these wicked evangelicals who’ve got it into their heads that the priesthood is more about cleaning toilets than being in charge.’
‘It is more about cleaning toilets than being in charge,’ Milne said coldly.
‘Of course it bloody isn’t.’
‘Maybe not cleaning toilets,’ mediated Biddle, ‘but moving chairs, that kind of thing. Would anyone like a rock cake?’
‘Cleaning toilets,’ insisted Milne. ‘If there are toilets to be cleaned, as a minister of the church it is one’s duty to be available to serve.’
‘Listen, you don’t clean toilets when you’re wearing several thousand pounds’ worth of ecclesiastical clothing!’
‘But – speaking metaphorically …’ Biddle began.
‘I’m not speaking metaphorically,’ Milne angrily interrupted. ‘In my parish the toilets are the easy bit.’
‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ Biddle agreed, ‘if Jesus was here now, I’m sure he’d be the first person to help put out chairs for events in the church hall.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jesus would be perfectly aware that there were other people to do it for him,’ objected Slocombe.
‘Is that why he washed his disciples’ feet?’ Milne challenged Slocombe.
‘Have some more wine.’
‘What about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet?’ pressed Milne.
‘Does anybody else want a rock cake?’ Biddle enquired.
‘Yes, I do,’ Bishop Slocombe grumpily replied, ‘perhaps you could wash my feet and clean my toilet when you’re done serving those.’
‘It’s easy enough for you to sit there talking about being in charge,’ shouted Milne, ‘somebody is paid to clean your toilet!’
‘What a mistake,’ Slocombe muttered, ‘when I have so many priests working for me who could do it for free.’
‘In my experience,’ Milne insisted, ‘that is what being a priest is all about.’
‘And in my experience it’s all about standing at the front looking fabulous,’ Slocombe retorted. ‘Now, have some more wine and shut up. You can pour me one since you’re so eager to serve.’
Milne rose to his feet. ‘Perhaps if you spent less time drinking …’
This, Biddle knew, could only lead to territory to be averted in any way possible. ‘My word, these rock cakes are fantastic!’ he exclaimed, thrusting one into his mouth and unintentionally completing his distraction by uttering a loud scream. Slocombe and Milne stared at him in astonishment. ‘Um …’ Biddle began, apologetically removing a bloody rock cake from his mouth, ‘I think I’ve broken a tooth.’
The argument might have been curtailed earlier had any of the participants been in possession of the truth about what Jesus was doing at that very moment.
Since the end of the family service at St Barnabas, Jesus had been in no position to move any chairs at all, having hurried away to catch a bus to nearby Cogspool where he was working at a local homeless shelter that had recently started offering free Sunday lunches to those in need. He had quickly cleaned the toilets before the doors were opened, only to discover that today there was a problem.
‘Oh Jesus,’ complained Roy Hackett, who ran the shelter and had no idea how precisely his expletive was targeted. ‘I told them we needed more bacon, they’ve gone and forgotten the sodding bacon, and now there’s no bacon.’ The bacon situation now as clear as it could possibly
