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lips.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
    We will tiptoe out now and leave them to their prayers, while I take you to the shrine. As you may know, Lindchester has its very own saint, William of Lindchester. He was demoted at the Reformation when his shrine was broken up, but I believe we are still entitled to think of him as a good and godly bishop, even if we no longer look to him to cure us of scrofula. His cult rested on a miracle: he waded, crosier in hand, into the Linden, and by prayer alone diverted the course of the river, thereby saving the Lower Town from catastrophic flood. Here’s the shrine, in this space behind the High Altar, right under the famous rose window. Look down. Just a simple grey stone with his name and dates; and a place where you may light a candle and leave a prayer request.
    If you are feeling nosy you can step closer and read some of the prayer cards pinned to the board. Please help my Nan . Be with those serving overseas . Pray for baby Josh, desperately ill in Special Care . Already a little group of candles flickers in the gloom. The organ begins to play. Some twentieth-century French voluntary? I see why you think that, but no, merely the organ tuner. At the top of the prayer board is a verse from the hymn often associated with William of Lindchester:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Lord Jesus, think on me,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â That, when the flood is past,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I may the eternal brightness see
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â And share thy joy at last.
    Oh, that January were over. The first snowdrops tremble under trees, and look! – the daffodils are up. Not long, not long now. I dream of crocuses, their Cadbury’s Creme Egg hues rioting on every municipal roundabout! Sunday will be Septuagesima, three Sundays before Lent. It is also Holocaust Memorial Sunday. (The precentor fires off an email to the director of music: ‘Abbot’s Leigh not Austria!’, to head off any risk of singing ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’ to Deutschland über Alles .)
    But today is Friday. Generally speaking, Friday is clergy Day Off. It is certainly Dominic’s day off. He has succeeded in impressing this upon his congregation. They now preface their requests with the formula, ‘I know Friday’s your day off, but . . .’ Tonight he has finally managed to drag Jane out to see Les Mis . They are in the posh bit of the Odeon in Lindford, sitting in a little booth before the showing, drinking prosecco and absorbing popcorn by osmosis. Let’s edge close and eavesdrop.
    â€˜Come along, Janey. You have to eat your body weight in nachos. It’s the rule.’
    Dominic was at the thin phase of his three-year dieting cycle, and looking rather trim. In fact, right now he probably weighed less than Jane. Not a quality she’d ever admired in a man.
    â€˜Yeah, right. I don’t see you eating nachos.’
    â€˜Pig out as a tribute to Danny, then. How’s he getting on, by the way?’
    â€˜Fine.’
    â€˜And how are you getting on?’
    â€˜Fine.’ There was that loop again: All Departures. ‘I hope this film has a happy ending.’
    Dominic did his dowager’s shriek. ‘ What?! I can’t believe you’ve never seen the musical.’
    â€˜I vaguely read the book for A-level,’ she lied.
    â€˜Well, then. You know what happens.’
    â€˜She sells her teeth. That’s all I remember. Is this going to depress me? I need a happy ending.’
    Dominic hesitated. ‘We-e-ll, let’s just say the eschatological hope remains.’
    â€˜Pah!’ said Jane.
    Well, you’ve seen the film, surely? Then you can imagine Jane watching the young men mown down, their blood running along the gutters. Empty chairs at empty tables. Dominic flipped up the armrest and said, ‘Come here, darling.’ He held her while she