The Black Seraphim by Michael Gilbert Page A

Penny’s wave, hesitated for a moment by Canon Lister, then came over and joined him. She said, “Peter told me you knew about music. So you can explain what’s being played and whether it’s good or not. I’m hopeless at things like that.”
    “If you’d come in at the right time, you’d have got a programme.” He gave her his. “It’s a feast of seventeenth-century chamber music. Purcell, Mattheson, Christopher Sympson and William Brade. And ‘Beauty Retire’ by Samuel Pepys.”
    “You mean the man who wrote the diary?”
    “He did other things, too.”
    The players took their seats. Paul Wren had a tuning fork, and the three recorder players each sounded a trial note.
    “Like birds starting up the dawn chorus,” said Amanda.
    James remembered very little of the performance. It was a ritual which depended for most of its charm on the setting and the sense of history which it imposed. Just so a group of peruked and periwigged clerics and their womenfolk must have sat three centuries ago; some enjoying the music, some pretending to enjoy it, some frankly bored. Henry Brookes was smoking cigarette after cigarette, putting the stub carefully in the lid of his cigarette case. Penny Consett was flirting with Peter. Mrs Henn-Christie was keeping an anxious eye out for mosquitoes. Canon Lister seemed to be asleep. The Archdeacon was motionless, but he was not asleep. His black eyes were open. Penny was right: he really was rather like a bear. Big, deceptively clumsy and slow, but capable of a lightning pounce when the occasion called for it.
    The last piece was Purcell’s Golden Sonata. The September dusk had closed in, and the faces of the listeners were indistinguishable, but they were all sitting still now, gripped by the liquid simplicity of the playing. As the last notes of the viol died away into silence, they gave a sort of communal sigh of pleasure before breaking into a round of applause. James drifted out into the Close with Amanda beside him.
    As they were passing the school cottage, he saw that there was a light in the sitting room window. He said, “Come into our bachelor retreat and have a cup of coffee.”
    Amanda said, “Good idea. I’d love a hot drink. We got colder than we realised, sitting out there. It’s September, not June.”
    They found Peter and Bill Williams drinking beer. Both seemed pleased to see Amanda and gave her the only comfortable chair while Peter made coffee for them.
    “Instant coffee and powdered milk,” he said. “Not what you’re accustomed to, I expect.”
    “I’m not a coffee snob myself,” said Amanda, “but a lot of people round here are. Last year, after the Friends of the Cathedral lunch, there were so many snide remarks about our coffee that we’ve bought a huge machine and this time we’re going to dish out the real stuff. It’ll cost us the earth.”
    She was wearing a pair of jeans faded almost to white and a blue roll-necked sweater and fitted easily into the all-male company. “When we were in Ethiopia, we got our supplies up about once every two months. Daddy used to put all the coffee into one of his socks. When we wanted a drink, we used to boil up a saucepan of milk and dip the sock into it and give it a little squeeze. That way we made it last. I must admit it did taste a bit peculiar toward the end.”
    “What sort of sock?” said Bill Williams.
    “Actually, it was an old white cricket sock. Why?”
    “If it had been a coloured sock, the coffee would have tasted even more peculiar.”
    They drank for a few moments in silence. Bill said, “I’m told that Fletcher’s Piece is rearing its ugly head again.”
    “Please instruct me,” said James. “Who is Fletcher and what is his Piece?”
    Amanda said, “It’s the field on the other side of the river, opposite where we were sitting just now. Inhabited, at this moment, by cows.”
    “But if the developers have their wicked way,” said Bill, “the cows will be evicted and it will