Fisher of Men Read online

  Like a sigh, he felt a sweep of cold air brush past him – and at that exact moment, caught by the same sudden draught, the heavy church door slammed shut, shattering the peace and shaking the rafters as it echoed round the old building.

  Frank picked up the phone almost immediately it rang.

  “Oh, Frank dear, I’m glad I caught you!” Margaret didn’t bother to wait for any greeting from her husband before she continued:

  “This budgie thing is proving to be a bit more complicated than I thought. Violet lives in sheltered housing run by the council, as you know, and because she wants this ceremony to take place as the body is buried, some ‘jobsworth’ is saying we need written permission before the budgie can be interred anywhere on council land! Can you believe it? Well, of course you can! Anyway, Violet is bereft, her daughter is threatening to call the local newspaper – and I need to be here for a while to pour oil on troubled waters.”

  “And perhaps even pour holy water on council land sometime this afternoon!” chuckled Frank. “Oh, you poor old thing. Still, if anyone can get things sorted out, you can.”

  “It’s just Neil, that new curate – well, hopefully our new curate, if I can persuade him to join us – must think I’m dreadful to be so tied up when he’s come all this way…”

  “Well, he’ll be getting a measure of how busy it is here, and how much he’s needed, won’t he!” replied Frank.

  “Can you explain and ask him to bear with me? Do you think he’d mind holding on for a bit? Tell him to have a look at the minutes of the last few parish council meetings. Give Peter a ring and see if he’ll pop round to talk to him about how involved the churchwardens are at St Stephen’s…”

  “But he’s not here! He went over to the church, as you instructed, around twelve o’clock, and although I know I was out for a while, I really don’t think he came back. Just to be sure, I did pop down to the church about two to check if he was there. I stuck my head round the door and called out a few times, but there was no sign of him, so I suppose he must have taken himself off home again.”

  “How strange! From his letter, it sounded as if he was more interested than that. Oh well, he must have taken one look at the church – and us – and decided it wasn’t for him, then!”

  “His loss.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Odd, though.”

  “Certainly is.”

  “Right, I must get on. Good luck with the budgie, dear.”

  “Oh, I can handle the budgie. It’s the council officials who need to be handled with care.”

  “They’ve not met you yet, have they? You’ll knock them into shape.”

  Frank could almost hear her smiling at the other end of the line.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Bye, dear!”

  And the line went dead.

  The main relief was that he’d found the loo. It was now three hours since the door had slammed shut on him, and in spite of shouting, thumping, kicking – and a lot of praying – the door refused to budge, and he was well and truly stuck. Worst of all was the moment about five minutes after the door slammed when he first realized that his briefcase was still stashed behind the stool where he’d been cornered by Archie in Margaret’s kitchen earlier that day. In that briefcase was his mobile. Without his mobile, he was lost.

  For one hopeful moment about an hour before, he thought he’d heard someone trying the door. He’d been closeted in the vestry at the time, idly looking through papers on the desk and books on the shelves, for lack of anything else to do. He was just opening a hymn-book, thinking that perhaps a verse of “How Great Thou Art” might make him feel better, when he heard something. The sound of footsteps, perhaps – and was it a voice calling his name? He rushed out into the main body of the church and ran back down the aisle, yelling at the top of his voice, then banged his fists for all he was worth on the unmoving old door which had imprisoned him – but there was nothing. No voice from outside filled with relief to have found him. No sound of a key turning in the lock or a shoulder thumping against the door. No sound at all. Zilch.

  Exhausted with frustration, Neil staggered back to lean against the old stone font. How come they hadn’t missed him? Why weren’t they searching for him? Where was Margaret? Hadn’t Frank wondered about him not calling back to the house?

  What was it Margaret had said about that door? A tight fit? Something about it being the devil to open? Neil slumped down into the back pew, exasperated and exhausted by another bout of trying to pull, prise, cajole, punch or even kick the door open. It simply wouldn’t budge.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and sat for a while with his head cupped in his hands. He just couldn’t understand why no one had come looking for him. Could that have been Margaret or Frank he thought he’d heard earlier? Did they just think he’d taken himself off again without even saying goodbye? Surely they’d see his briefcase? An image slipped into his mind of the Vicarage kitchen piled high with bits and pieces on every available surface. He’d tucked his briefcase behind the stool he was perching on. Would they see it there? Surely they’d find it! He frowned as he wondered if they ever found anything in that muddle. But then there was his car! He groaned out loud when he realized how he’d parked it up the road a bit so that it didn’t block their driveway. Margaret and Frank didn’t even know that car was his, so why would they take any notice of it?

  When might the church be opened again? Perhaps for evening prayers? What time would Margaret think about doing that? Mind you, in a small parish like this one, with only one incumbent, evening prayers were often missed because the vicar was just not available to say the office at the right time. Margaret was tied up this afternoon at the budgie’s funeral service. How long would that take? Would she find time to fit in evening prayers tonight?

  Neil became aware of a deep rumbling noise, then realized it came from his stomach. He was not a man to miss meals without noticing. He remembered longingly his boiled egg and toast soldiers eaten at eight that morning, and glanced at his watch. He’d been imprisoned in the church for nearly four hours. No wonder his tummy was complaining. He needed food – now! Like a fox out on a night raid, he decided to search every possible nook and cranny for something to munch. There must be some biscuits here, surely. All churches ran on tea and biscuits!

  He set off towards the vestry, a man on a mission.

  It was gone six o’clock before Frank heard Margaret’s key in the door.

  “Mission accomplished,” she grinned. “Poppet had a very good send-off quietly after five o’clock, when the council official had knocked off for the day. We sang the hymn and said a few words in Violet’s flat, then nipped down and did the deed when he wasn’t there to see us.”

  “Oh, well done, dear. I knew you’d think of something.”

  “No sign of Neil, then?”

  “None at all.”

  “Odd.”

  “Very.”

  “Can I smell those chops in the oven?”

  “With baked apple, just the way you like them.”

  “And roast potatoes?”

  “What else?”

  “I’m starving! Give me five minutes to sort myself out, and I’ll come and set the table.”

  “How about, as a special treat, having it on our knees in the living room?” suggested Frank. “We can watch the news as we eat.”

  “Perfect,” agreed Margaret, heading upstairs.

  Minutes later, when she joined Frank in the kitchen, her nose twitched at the aroma of apples as he dished up the chops and gave the gravy a final stir. Margaret reached down beside the dresser to grab the padded knee-trays which they could balance on their laps as they ate. Suddenly, she stopped.

  “Frank, look!”

  Following her gaze, his eyes opened with horror.

  “His briefcase! Neil left it here!”

  “But why didn’t he come back to collect it?” asked Margaret.

  “Perhaps he just forgot.”

&
nbsp; The two of them stared at each other for several seconds, obviously registering the same thought.

  “Or perhaps,” said Margaret slowly, “perhaps he didn’t leave.”

  “He couldn’t still be in the church… I went there. I shouted. There was no reply.”

  “Did you look in the vestry?”

  “Why would he be in there?”

  “Why not? He might have got cold. Or bored. Or needed the loo. Oh, Frank, he can’t still be in there, can he?”

  “That blasted door!”

  The two of them moved as one, out of the kitchen and down the garden path. It was as they were running through the graveyard towards the church that Frank spotted the light.

  “I didn’t leave that on!” wailed Margaret. “It must be him!”

  Within seconds they ran into the porch, and Frank grabbed hold of the iron ring which turned the latch on the ancient door. Funnily enough, it worked very easily from the outside. Making it work from the inside, however, was a quite different story. It took practice, a lot of practice, to get the knack just right. Why on earth hadn’t they made that clearer to Neil?

  Practically falling through the door, their calls were greeted by absolute silence. Neil was nowhere to be seen. One small light was on, but the church was quiet and empty.

  “Maybe he’s in the vestry?” suggested Frank. “I’ll go and check.”

  “Frank.” Margaret’s voice was practically a whisper. “What’s that noise?”

  He stopped in his tracks, his head tilted to one side as he listened.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coming from in here,” gestured Frank, looking around the main body of the church. “Down the front there, I think.”

  “Be careful, dear. It may not be him.”

  Frank hushed her by putting his finger to his lips, then he began to tiptoe down the aisle, stopping suddenly as he drew level with the row of seating second from the front. Moving silently along the pew, he slowly leaned over to peer down on the seat in front of him.

  “Come and take a look at this!” He turned to her with a smile.

  What she saw when she joined him made her smile too. They looked down on a peacefully slumbering Neil, snoring loudly, his mouth wide open, his legs curled up along the seat, and his head resting comfortably on a hassock. On the floor below him was an open box of Communion wafers – or at least, what was left of them. He’d apparently found the Communion wine too, because the silver goblet they used in Sunday services stood beside his dangling arm with just a mouthful of red liquid still in the bottom.

  “He didn’t starve, then,” said Frank. “That’s a relief.”

  At the sound of their voices, Neil’s eyes shot open, and for a second it was plain he was struggling to remember just where he was.

  “Right, then,” said Margaret in that no-nonsense tone he would later come to know so well. “It’s pork chops for tea. Coming?”

  CHAPTER 2

  “I’m your mother, Neil. I know.”

  Iris Fisher’s voice lost some of its impact through the Bluetooth earpiece Neil had attached to his ear while he was driving. He was tempted to turn the volume down, but years of experience had taught him that if he missed one seemingly unimportant fact in her daily monologues, his mother would pounce on his lack of knowledge and blame him for it for months to come.

  “Hasty, that’s what you are.” She was in full flow now. “You never take time to consider your options – and look where it’s got you this time! Dumbridge! Whoever heard of Dumbridge?”

  “It’s Dunbridge, Mum, and it’s hardly in the back of beyond. It’s only a mile from the A1, so it’s well signposted.”

  “On the road to nowhere, just like you. Honestly, Neil, when are you ever going to grow up? A curate in a town no one has ever heard of…?”

  “You may not know it, but lots of people do – the six thousand people who live here, for a start.”

  “And what sort of church can it be in a deadbeat place like that? How are you ever going to get noticed there? What about your career? Aren’t you interested in your future? If you start off in the backwaters, that’s where you’ll stay, you mark my words!”

  Neil’s knuckles glowed white as he gripped the steering wheel and took in a deep, slow breath. Iris, on the other hand, didn’t draw breath at all.

  “And another thing. Is this what your father would have wanted for you? Have you thought of that? He was a man of calibre and position – a senior partner at Hewitt, Manley and Fisher by the time he retired. Whatever would he think of his only son throwing away his prospects to become a vicar, of all things?”

  “Actually, I think he’d quite like the idea…”

  “Like! Like? I’d give him ‘like’! He certainly wouldn’t like the idea of his son being anything less than he could be, and you could have chosen so many other more impressive careers, Neil – careers that would have been worthy of you, and your father – and me!”

  “Mum, I am twenty-five years old. I have a mind of my own…”

  “Then use it, Neil! For once in your life, recognize that this idea of yours to go into the church is all very nice, but misguided – and the thought of you rotting away in an insignificant place with a silly name like Dumbridge is just ridiculous.”

  “It’s Dunbridge – and the decision is made now. I have the car all packed up and I’m nearly there. In fact, I’ll be arriving at my new house in a few minutes.”

  “Then stop, Neil, stop right now! Turn round, come home and let me sort out a nice accountancy position for you. It’s what your father would have wanted.”

  “Sorry, Mum, the line is crackling. I think I’m going to lose you. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

  One little white lie, one quick prayer for forgiveness, and Neil decisively switched off his mobile with a sigh of exasperation. The conversation, if you could call it that, he’d just had with his mother was like a long-playing record which she’d played relentlessly from the moment four years earlier when he’d first told her about his decision to follow his heart and his calling. In the face of forceful, tearful, sometimes spiteful and often heart-rending opposition from his mother, he had gone ahead with his application to join the ordination process. Still she had argued, ranted, pleaded, sobbed – and in the end, willed herself into physical decline during which she assured Neil that when she died (which was definitely imminent), it would be all his fault. He had stood firm – and she lived. He went off to interview after interview, meeting after meeting until that wonderful day when news came that he had been accepted for ordination training. He was thrilled, overcome with emotion and a sense of destiny. His mother was at first inconsolable, then decided on the silent treatment for a whole three days, which honestly felt like a godsend for Neil. He knew he had to do this, and all the opposition she threw at him could never stop him.

  And now, here he was, his faithful Ford estate packed full to brimming, with St Stephen’s peering down towards him from the top of the market square in Dunbridge. As his mood lifted, he pulled up for a while to take in the scene. In many ways, he thought, the essence of this square probably hadn’t changed in centuries. True, there were modern shops with signs which were familiar in high streets up and down the country, but those businesses nestled alongside other, traditional, stores which looked as if they’d been trading for many years. There was a horse-trough to one side and a coaching inn on the other, which spoke of days when people arrived on horse and cart rather than in the Vauxhalls and Nissans which lined the streets now. Today, with the street market in full swing, and people sitting out drinking coffee around tables in the middle of the square, he was struck by how settled and charming it all seemed. He instinctively felt he would be at home here and, with that in mind, he restarted the car and headed up beyond St Stephen’s Church, peeling off to the right to find the property which was destined to be his home for the foreseeable future. 96 Vicarage Gardens, that was the address. Very appropriate for the new curate of the parish.

 
He’d been told about the house during the pleasant evening he had eventually shared with Margaret and Frank over pork chops and roast potatoes after the embarrassing “church door incident”. A week later, he and Margaret had spent the day together, during which they had discussed a whole range of details about exactly where he’d live, what sort of timetable he’d have each week, what duties would be his responsibility and how his training would be organized. His mind had been whirring with facts, names, dates, times and places, so much so that even the notes he’d hurriedly scribbled at the time had later become worryingly blurred and confusing. There was just so much to learn, think about and remember. Anyway, first things first! He reached into his pocket to check for the umpteenth time that the key was there. It had arrived in a letter a few days earlier along with a compliments slip signed by “Peter Fellowes, Churchwarden”. So far, so good!

  As he turned the corner into Vicarage Gardens, his first impression of Number 96 was a pleasant surprise. It was a newish detached house – probably built in the eighties, he guessed, as it had weathered in well and was surrounded by a mature garden laid to lawn bordered by flowering shrubs. Above the large bay window were two other windows, presumably bedrooms, which looked out over the quiet, orderly, tree-lined avenue. Neil smiled suddenly as he noticed the front door was painted dark purple, the exact shade of a bishop’s robe. His mother would approve! She’d see it as a sign of things to come for her precious son.

  The road was quite narrow, so knowing he had a lot to unload, Neil pulled the car up on the grass verge right outside the house. Not stopping to unpack anything, he jumped out of the car and started down the garden path towards the front door, the key jangling in his hand.

  I need to savour this moment, he thought. This is a momentous occasion…

  “Oy, you! Is that your car?”

  Neil turned to see an elderly man in bedroom slippers glaring at him angrily from next door’s front garden. Surprised and shaken by the man’s animosity, Neil quickly reminded himself about the commandment to “love thy neighbour” before he pinned on his sweetest smile, stretching his hand out in greeting as he moved towards the dividing fence.