Read Acts and Omissions for Free Online
Authors: Catherine Fox
halloo above the yammering of hounds, receding fair hair combed back in the Dracula manner, and a jumble of Scrabble tile teeth. Iâm told he skis like a James Bond stunt double. Talk to him for more than five minutes and heâll be able to impersonate you mercilessly.
So there we are: Maid Marion and her Merry Men. We will be seeing more of them, never fear.
Dusk falls. The bishopâs wife is baking a carrot cake. The Archers is on. Susanna is making cake because she cannot put the world to rights. Cake is her default mode. It was just a naughty prank, not hacking as such. Paulâs being too strict. No, no, donât be silly, Paulâs right. Freddie needs boundaries and accountability. Oh, if only heâd sort himself out and apply for uni, or something! Whatever will happen to him? No, she mustnât feel bad. Itâs not as though theyâre heartlessly chucking him out with no warning! Heâs known from the word go it was only ever for one year. Heâs still got three months to sort something out. Theyâll just have to be firm with him. She renders the top layer with a coat of cream cheese icing, plastering over the cracks.
A dark, deep winterâs night in the diocese of Lindchester. More snow is forecast. The gritters are out. Cold has settled like a grey lid over the country. How long, O Lord? When, when will the winter be over and past and the time of singing come again? Jane is crying at her computer. New Zealand is a long, long way away. There will be no singing any time soon.
Chapter 5
And still it snows. It snows, it thaws a little, it freezes. The pavements are treacherous. Shops and restaurants are quiet as art galleries. This is the glummest week of the glummest month, enlivened only by the peaty glow of Burnsâ Night and the approach of February. February is a short month. And then itâs March. Amen, even so, come quickly, Spring.
In the village of Cardingforth (that is its name, it is not called Lardingforth) dawn breaks pink behind the power station. In Sunningdale Drive (that is its name, it is not called Cooling Tower View) Jane stares at her coffee. Outside, the shouts of children sliding to school. Inside, silence. The radio is off because the Today programme got too strident. Upstairs nobody is taking their customary forty-five-minute shower, or wallowing under their duvet because theyâve got a late shift today. Then again, nor have they joined up, gone to Afghanistan and got shot in the head. She has not seen their naked body tossed into a gutter. Nice. Thanks for that one, Dreams R Us. Jane stares at her coffee and thinks: Half the time heâs living a day ahead of me. Iâm living in his yesterday. Ha. Stuck in yesterday. The plan had been not to end up like this: not to be one of those mothers so overinvested in her child that life feels pointless once heâs gone. But then, the plan had been not to have children. Furthermore, it would pass. Jane slaps her thighs. Up, and be doing, gal. But she continues to sit, staring at her cold coffee, and watching Danny, in an endlessly replaying loop, walk away from her under the big sign: âAll Departuresâ.
Reader, I have been remiss. I have taken you up onto rooftops and into kitchens but not into the cathedral. Come with me to Lindchester, and I will put that right immediately. We will fly there, rather than toiling like medieval pilgrims over landscape plotted and pieced and up the cobbled streets. A biting wind blows today. The snow choristers are two rows of sorry stumps on the lawn. The bell chimes for Morning Prayer.
One by one the retired priests totter up to the cathedral door, eyes watering, noses pink with cold. The day will come when their old bodies can no longer get them to church, but their souls will attend until their Nunc Dimittis on lifeâs last evening. The habit of faith has worn a groove in their lives. Where else would they go? I have been young and now am
So there we are: Maid Marion and her Merry Men. We will be seeing more of them, never fear.
Dusk falls. The bishopâs wife is baking a carrot cake. The Archers is on. Susanna is making cake because she cannot put the world to rights. Cake is her default mode. It was just a naughty prank, not hacking as such. Paulâs being too strict. No, no, donât be silly, Paulâs right. Freddie needs boundaries and accountability. Oh, if only heâd sort himself out and apply for uni, or something! Whatever will happen to him? No, she mustnât feel bad. Itâs not as though theyâre heartlessly chucking him out with no warning! Heâs known from the word go it was only ever for one year. Heâs still got three months to sort something out. Theyâll just have to be firm with him. She renders the top layer with a coat of cream cheese icing, plastering over the cracks.
A dark, deep winterâs night in the diocese of Lindchester. More snow is forecast. The gritters are out. Cold has settled like a grey lid over the country. How long, O Lord? When, when will the winter be over and past and the time of singing come again? Jane is crying at her computer. New Zealand is a long, long way away. There will be no singing any time soon.
Chapter 5
And still it snows. It snows, it thaws a little, it freezes. The pavements are treacherous. Shops and restaurants are quiet as art galleries. This is the glummest week of the glummest month, enlivened only by the peaty glow of Burnsâ Night and the approach of February. February is a short month. And then itâs March. Amen, even so, come quickly, Spring.
In the village of Cardingforth (that is its name, it is not called Lardingforth) dawn breaks pink behind the power station. In Sunningdale Drive (that is its name, it is not called Cooling Tower View) Jane stares at her coffee. Outside, the shouts of children sliding to school. Inside, silence. The radio is off because the Today programme got too strident. Upstairs nobody is taking their customary forty-five-minute shower, or wallowing under their duvet because theyâve got a late shift today. Then again, nor have they joined up, gone to Afghanistan and got shot in the head. She has not seen their naked body tossed into a gutter. Nice. Thanks for that one, Dreams R Us. Jane stares at her coffee and thinks: Half the time heâs living a day ahead of me. Iâm living in his yesterday. Ha. Stuck in yesterday. The plan had been not to end up like this: not to be one of those mothers so overinvested in her child that life feels pointless once heâs gone. But then, the plan had been not to have children. Furthermore, it would pass. Jane slaps her thighs. Up, and be doing, gal. But she continues to sit, staring at her cold coffee, and watching Danny, in an endlessly replaying loop, walk away from her under the big sign: âAll Departuresâ.
Reader, I have been remiss. I have taken you up onto rooftops and into kitchens but not into the cathedral. Come with me to Lindchester, and I will put that right immediately. We will fly there, rather than toiling like medieval pilgrims over landscape plotted and pieced and up the cobbled streets. A biting wind blows today. The snow choristers are two rows of sorry stumps on the lawn. The bell chimes for Morning Prayer.
One by one the retired priests totter up to the cathedral door, eyes watering, noses pink with cold. The day will come when their old bodies can no longer get them to church, but their souls will attend until their Nunc Dimittis on lifeâs last evening. The habit of faith has worn a groove in their lives. Where else would they go? I have been young and now am