He waves a hand dismissively. ‘We were chatting. Your name came up. He mentioned the vacancy. Serendipity.’
And Durkin can pull more strings than frigging Geppetto.
‘Try and look on the bright side,’ he says. ‘It’s a beautiful part of the country. Fresh air, fields. A small, safe community. It could be good for you and Flo.’
‘I think I know what’s best for me and my daughter. The answer is no.’
‘Then let me be blunt, Jack.’ His eyes meet mine. ‘This is not a fucking request.’
There’s a reason why Durkin is the youngest bishop to preside over the diocese and it has nothing to do with his benevolence.
I clench my fists in my lap. ‘Understood.’
‘Excellent. You start next week. Pack your wellies.’
TWO
‘Christ!’
‘Blaspheming again.’
‘I know, but –’ Flo shakes her head. ‘What a shithole.’
She’s not wrong. I pull the car to a halt and stare up at our new home. Well, our spiritual home. Our actual home is next door: a small cottage that would be quite pretty if not for its alarming off-kilter bearing, which makes it look like it’s trying to slope away, quietly, brick by brick.
The chapel itself is small, square and a dirty off-white. It doesn’t look much like a place of worship. There’s no high-pitched roof, cross or stained glass. Four plain windows face the front: two up, two down. Between the two upper windows is a clock. Florid writing around it proclaims:
‘Redeem the Time, for the Days are Evil.’
Nice. Unfortunately, the ‘e’ has worn off the end of ‘time’, so it actually reads, ‘Redeem the Tim’, whoever he is.
I climb out of the car. The muggy air immediately shrink-wraps my clothes to my skin. All around us, there’s nothing but fields. The village itself consists of about two dozen houses, a pub, general shop and village hall. The only sounds are birdsong and the occasional buzzing bee. It sets me on edge.
‘Okay,’ I say, trying to sound positive, and not full of dread, like I feel. ‘Let’s go and take a look inside.’
‘Aren’t we going to look at where we’re going to live?’ Flo asks.
‘First the house of God. Then the house of his children.’
She rolls her eyes. Communicating that I’m impossibly stupid and tiresome. Teenagers can communicate a lot with eye rolls. Which is just as well, seeing as oral communication hits something of a brick wall once they turn fifteen.
‘Besides,’ I say, ‘our furniture is still stuck in traffic on the M25. At least the chapel has pews.’
She slams the car door and slouches along grumpily behind me. I glance at her: dark hair cropped into a ragged bob, nose ring (hard fought for and taken out for school), and a hefty Nikon camera slung almost permanently around her neck. I often think my daughter would be a dead cert for Winona Ryder’s role in a remake of Beetlejuice.
A long path leads up to the chapel from the road. A battered metal postbox stands just outside the gate. I’ve been told, if no one is here when we arrive, that this is where I will find the keys. I flip up the lid, stick my hand inside and … bingo. I pull out two worn silver keys, which must be for the cottage, and a heavy iron thing that looks like it should open something from a Tolkien fantasy. I presume this is the key to the chapel.
‘Well, at least we can get in,’ I say.
‘Yay,’ Flo deadpans.
I ignore her and push open the gate. The path is steep and uneven. Either side, tilting headstones rise up from the overgrown grass. A taller monument stands to the left. A bleak grey obelisk. What look like bunches of dead flowers have been left at its base. On closer inspection, they’re not dead flowers. They’re tiny twig dolls.
‘What are those?’ Flo asks, peering at them and reaching for her camera.
Automatically, I reply, ‘Burning Girls.’
She crouches down to snap some shots with her Nikon.
‘They’re something of a village tradition,’ I say. ‘I read about it online. People make them to commemorate the Sussex Martyrs.’
‘The who?’
‘Villagers who were burnt to death during Queen Mary’s purge of the Protestants. Two young girls were killed outside this chapel.’
She stands, pulling a face. ‘And people make creepy twig dolls to remember them?’
‘And on the anniversary of the purge, they burn them.’
‘That is way too Blair Witch.’
‘That’s the countryside for you.’ I give the twig dolls a final contemptuous glance as I walk past. ‘Full of “quaint” traditions.’
Flo pulls out her phone and takes a couple more pictures, presumably to share with her friends back in Nottingham – Look at what the crazy yokels do – and then follows me.
We reach the chapel door and I stick the iron key into the lock. It’s a bit stiff and I have to push down hard to get it to turn. The door creaks open. Properly creaks, like a sound effect in a horror movie. I shove it open wider.
In contrast to the August sunshine, it’s dark inside the chapel. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. Sunlight peters in through the grimy windows, illuminating a cloud of dust motes floating thickly in the air.
It’s an unusual layout: a small nave; barely enough room for half a dozen rows of pews facing a central altar. Either side, a set of narrow wooden stairs leads up to a balcony where more pews look down upon proceedings, like a tiny theatre, or gladiator’s pit. I wonder how the hell it ever passed a fire inspection.
The whole place smells stale and unused, which is odd, considering it was used regularly until a few weeks ago. It also manages, like all chapels and churches, to feel both stuffy and cold at the same time.
At the bottom of the nave, I notice that a small area has been cordoned off with a couple of yellow safety barriers. A makeshift sign is hung on one of them:
‘Danger. Uneven flooring. Loose flagstones.’
‘I take it back,’ Flo says. ‘Total and utter shithole.’
‘It could be worse.’
‘How?’
‘Woodworm, damp, beetle infestation?’
‘I’ll be outside.’ She turns and stomps from the building.
I don’t follow. Best to just let it lie. There’s little I can say to console her. I’ve uprooted her from the city she loves, the school where she felt settled, and brought her to a place with nothing to offer except fields and the aroma of cow shit. It’s going to take some work to win her over.
I stare up at the wooden altar.
‘What am I doing here, Lord?’
‘Can I help you?’
I swivel round.
A man stands behind me. Slight and very pale, his chalky pallor accentuated by oily black hair, slicked back from a high widow’s peak. Despite the warm weather, he wears a dark suit over a collarless grey shirt. He looks like a vampire on his way to a jazz club.
‘Sorry, never had a direct reply before.’ I smile and hold out a hand. ‘I’m Jack.’
He continues to stare at me suspiciously. ‘I’m the warden of this church. How did you get in here?’
And I realize. I’m not wearing my collar and he’s probably only been told that ‘Reverend Brooks’ is arriving today. Of course, he could have looked me up online, but then, he also looks like he still uses an ink and quill.