moment, Duncan feared that he had laid himself open to an invitation.
‘How about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land?’
‘You are joking?’ Henry said, stopping short.
‘Yes of course,’ Duncan replied, blushing.
‘Maybe what I need is a complete change? Mine’s one of the few remaining jobs for life, barring madness or scandal and, come to think of it, not always then. What I admire about you, Duncan, is that you genuinely believe in what you do. You put your heart and soul into that paper. But what about me? Do I believe in the Church or am I simply too old and scared and jaded to move on?’
‘I can see why you’d have doubts about the Church, but surely you believe in God?’
‘Do I? Or am I spouting the same cosy formulas I learntas a child? I moan about my workload but, really, I should be grateful since it keeps me from having to think. Every day we learn more about mankind and our place in the universe. Religious experience itself has been linked to some kind of brain dysfunction. And here am I, clinging to a belief system that hasn’t changed in two thousand years!’
‘Isn’t that the point, if you think its truths are eternal?’
‘I have to think they’re eternal or how else could I justify them? Yet all I see are people tailoring God to their own needs: I’m lonely, so Christ was an outcast; I’m suffering, so He heals my pain; I’m poor, so I’ll reap my reward in heaven. How is that any different from a sun- or rain- or fertility-worshipping pagan?’
Emerging from behind an overgrown hedgerow, they found themselves facing the north wall of St Edward’s, a fourteenth-century flint rubble church with a slate roof and a crenellated bell tower that might have been transplanted from the ruins of Francombe Castle. The round-arched porch was the sole vestige of an earlier Saxon structure, although its celebrated gargoyle, reputed to date from the tenth century, was now so weather-worn as to seem almost benign.
‘Maybe there’s no difference,’ Duncan replied. ‘But when I gaze up at this glorious church, there seems to be all the difference in the world.’
‘Be warned, I have as little time for guidebook Christians as for biblical literalists.’
‘No, it’s not the building itself that moves me – though I agree it’s spectacular – but the tradition. I look at it and see all the people who’ve worshipped here down the ages, dedicating the best of themselves to God.’
‘What I see is a church that’s in urgent need of repair: a church built on a rock which, after centuries of subsidence, is at risk of collapse. If I were Matthew Arnold, I could turn it into a metaphor, but I’m not, so I have to live with the inconvenient facts.’ Henry opened the lychgate and they enteredthe churchyard. ‘I’ll just pop into the vestry. I need to clean myself up and fetch my communion set before we go to your mother’s. Are you coming in?’
‘I’ll wait out here. Muddy shoes.’
Giving him a quizzical look, Henry walked up to the porch where he struggled with the high-security locks, newly installed after a spate of ecclesiastical burglaries. Brandy, showing rare disloyalty, remained with Duncan as he climbed over the gravestones, challenging himself as he had done since childhood to decipher inscriptions so eroded that they might as well have been written on sand.
Brandy’s jubilant lap of the churchyard alerted Duncan to Henry’s return. After leaving the unsuspecting dog at the vicarage, the two men drove to Ridgemount. As ever on approaching his family home, Duncan felt a pang more suited to one who made less frequent visits. From its fluted chimney stacks and pedimented gables to its mullioned windows and pillared porch, the large red-brick Victorian house exuded solidity. The distinctive fire escape slides on the three top floors had been added after the previous building, a sixteenth-century farmhouse, had been reduced to ashes, along with its occupants, when a lovelorn
‘How about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land?’
‘You are joking?’ Henry said, stopping short.
‘Yes of course,’ Duncan replied, blushing.
‘Maybe what I need is a complete change? Mine’s one of the few remaining jobs for life, barring madness or scandal and, come to think of it, not always then. What I admire about you, Duncan, is that you genuinely believe in what you do. You put your heart and soul into that paper. But what about me? Do I believe in the Church or am I simply too old and scared and jaded to move on?’
‘I can see why you’d have doubts about the Church, but surely you believe in God?’
‘Do I? Or am I spouting the same cosy formulas I learntas a child? I moan about my workload but, really, I should be grateful since it keeps me from having to think. Every day we learn more about mankind and our place in the universe. Religious experience itself has been linked to some kind of brain dysfunction. And here am I, clinging to a belief system that hasn’t changed in two thousand years!’
‘Isn’t that the point, if you think its truths are eternal?’
‘I have to think they’re eternal or how else could I justify them? Yet all I see are people tailoring God to their own needs: I’m lonely, so Christ was an outcast; I’m suffering, so He heals my pain; I’m poor, so I’ll reap my reward in heaven. How is that any different from a sun- or rain- or fertility-worshipping pagan?’
Emerging from behind an overgrown hedgerow, they found themselves facing the north wall of St Edward’s, a fourteenth-century flint rubble church with a slate roof and a crenellated bell tower that might have been transplanted from the ruins of Francombe Castle. The round-arched porch was the sole vestige of an earlier Saxon structure, although its celebrated gargoyle, reputed to date from the tenth century, was now so weather-worn as to seem almost benign.
‘Maybe there’s no difference,’ Duncan replied. ‘But when I gaze up at this glorious church, there seems to be all the difference in the world.’
‘Be warned, I have as little time for guidebook Christians as for biblical literalists.’
‘No, it’s not the building itself that moves me – though I agree it’s spectacular – but the tradition. I look at it and see all the people who’ve worshipped here down the ages, dedicating the best of themselves to God.’
‘What I see is a church that’s in urgent need of repair: a church built on a rock which, after centuries of subsidence, is at risk of collapse. If I were Matthew Arnold, I could turn it into a metaphor, but I’m not, so I have to live with the inconvenient facts.’ Henry opened the lychgate and they enteredthe churchyard. ‘I’ll just pop into the vestry. I need to clean myself up and fetch my communion set before we go to your mother’s. Are you coming in?’
‘I’ll wait out here. Muddy shoes.’
Giving him a quizzical look, Henry walked up to the porch where he struggled with the high-security locks, newly installed after a spate of ecclesiastical burglaries. Brandy, showing rare disloyalty, remained with Duncan as he climbed over the gravestones, challenging himself as he had done since childhood to decipher inscriptions so eroded that they might as well have been written on sand.
Brandy’s jubilant lap of the churchyard alerted Duncan to Henry’s return. After leaving the unsuspecting dog at the vicarage, the two men drove to Ridgemount. As ever on approaching his family home, Duncan felt a pang more suited to one who made less frequent visits. From its fluted chimney stacks and pedimented gables to its mullioned windows and pillared porch, the large red-brick Victorian house exuded solidity. The distinctive fire escape slides on the three top floors had been added after the previous building, a sixteenth-century farmhouse, had been reduced to ashes, along with its occupants, when a lovelorn
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