The Newcomer

Robert looked at her with a nod. ‘Perfect.’

‘My heart is hammering.’

‘I should hope so!’ he laughed.

‘You know what I mean. I’m so nervous.’

‘The bloody bells are enough to make anyone nervous. Do they have to be so loud?’

‘The ringers are doing a special “welcome” peal. Isn’t that nice of them?’

‘Lovely.’ Robert looked at his watch. ‘Right. I’d better find my seat. Faith and Mamie are keeping it warm for me.’ He kissed her lips tenderly. ‘Love you. Good luck.’

Not long after, standing at the back of the church, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The ringing bells in the tower behind her finished on three deep gongs. The vibration shook the ancient stones under her feet and she took a moment to offer a silent prayer of thanks and support.

The organist started the opening notes of ‘Lord of all hopefulness’ and Angela began her walk down the aisle. Heads turned as the parishioners stood to catch sight of her and offer friendly smiles.

She got through the welcome, grateful that she had decided not to make any major changes to Simon’s traditional service. Two more hymns and readings, and now the time had come for her to climb into the pulpit and deliver her first sermon.

In the front pew, Mamie’s shaking fingers found Robert’s hand. She squeezed it with a nervous smile.

Robert looked up at Angela and winked.

Angela swallowed hard and began.

‘Good morning, everyone.’

A few voices returned her greeting. ‘Morning.’

‘I must say I am a bit nervous to be standing in front of you this morning.’

The congregation smiled back, giving her some confidence.

‘I am very new to this as I was ordained only at the end of last year, but I feel so lucky to have landed here in Pendruggan. My first proper job as a vicar. And the first woman to preach here. You may have had some misgivings about me coming here and want to know something about me. So here goes. Robert, my husband, and I have been married for almost twenty years. We met when we were both working for a paper called the Manchester Evening News. Fresh out of university, I thought I’d found my career. The cut and thrust of the newsroom excited me. There wasn’t a cat up a tree or a lost dog that didn’t get my full attention. My sympathetic interviews with devastated pet owners and my incisive writing skills led me to have none of my stories ever printed. All spiked by the editor, a seasoned hack with a bottle of Scotch in his desk drawer and a tongue as sharp as vinegar.

‘One afternoon, following my regular daily routine of chasing a story, typing it up, having it rejected and spending half an hour in the ladies weeping, I bumped into an impossibly handsome man, who was heading to the Gents’ as I came out of the Ladies’. By the time I got back to my desk, the office gossip machine was red hot. All the women were discreetly powdering their noses and applying lipstick, but I had no such tricks to employ. There was nothing in my bag that would camouflage my swollen red eyelids. My friend Tess, sitting opposite me, whispered a name. Robert Whitehorn. The new political correspondent.

‘From that day on he became the office pin-up. Funny. Talented. Handsome, and mysterious. He politely declined all offers from the office vamps of a drink after work and skirted any questions about his private life. This made him one hundred per cent more attractive. I kept out of the way. Why would he be interested in me? The only contact I had with him was the occasional shared ride in the lift or in the canteen coffee queue. He didn’t look at me once. But one day, I was rewriting a late story for the editor, who had loudly berated me across a packed newsroom for being a useless idiot, when a cup of coffee was placed on my desk. I looked up to thank whoever it was and nearly choked. Robert was standing there. “I thought you might like one of these,” he said. I was so surprised, I jumped up and knocked the desk, which tipped the piping hot coffee all down his trousers. And that is how our romance blossomed.’

‘Aahh,’ said all the women in the congregation, and a couple of men too.

‘We got married six months later and, almost immediately, Robert landed a job on the London Evening Standard so we moved south. I managed to wangle a job in the BBC newsroom as a copy taster, reading through the stories as they came in and passing the more interesting ones on to the news editor. At the newsroom Christmas party I introduced Robert to the head of news and the rest is history. If I hadn’t been called to this job, I would have made a great showbiz agent.’

The congregation laughed loudly.

‘I dearly wanted to start a family but Faith, our daughter, didn’t come easily. After a couple of years we were referred to an IVF, test-tube baby, specialist and on the third attempt, and after many prayers, Faith was born to us.’

Angela glanced down at Faith who was blushing furiously, pursing her lips and frowning. She smiled down at her. ‘And now I have embarrassed her.’

Robert reached for Faith’s hand but she shook it off, muttering, ‘Get off.’

‘It was around then that my calling to the Church began to take root. My father died before I was born and my mother had very little time to take me to church, but my faith grew with me hardly noticing. It was just there. Inside me. Seven years ago I told my husband that my life lay in the Church. He reacted by pouring two large gin and tonics. But he never tried to dissuade me. So while he was standing outside Number Ten or Chequers, reporting on the state of the nation, I was at the kitchen table studying until the small hours. He has been my support and mainstay all this time.

‘My mother became ill during that time. I suspect many of you have been in a similar position. The balance of keeping a day-to-day life going while bearing the pain and responsibility of watching a loved one suffering and fading. I would be lying if I told you that my faith hadn’t been shaken at that time. What use were prayers? Where were the answers? I took six months off from my studies to nurse her. Where was God when she cried out in pain? When she died, my strength deserted me. I became depressed. From being the carer, I became the cared for. Robert and Faith were my carers. A horrible, frightening time for them. I was lost.’

She looked around at the rapt faces of her congregation. ‘I can’t tell you that I am the perfect woman, wife, mother or vicar, but my relationship with God grew again once I stopped raging at him and slowly began to see the good in our world. Walking over from the vicarage this morning, seeing the primroses in the churchyard, the birds beginning to build their nests, the number of you who have bothered to come here this morning – all these things fill me with renewed energy and a determination to give all I have to you. I stand here and make my promise to you. Whatever happens over the next twelve months, I will do my best to help you. Build an even stronger community for Simon to return to. I’m particularly interested in empowering women. Show them the opportunities within their reach. A chance to fulfil their latent potential.’

A few of the older generation looked around at friends and partners with raised eyebrows and pursed lips, sending the silent message to each other. Didn’t we tell the bishop that a female vicar, with ridiculous modern ideas about equality, would bring trouble?

Angela saw the exchanges but ignored them. ‘Do come and talk to me. I want to get to know you well. Share problems, joys, ideas, anything. I maybe the newcomer but my vicarage is open to all comers.’

A young woman sitting in the body of the church began to clap. Next to her, Helen joined in, starting a wave of applause through the majority of the congregation.

The organist wiped a dew drop from the end of his nose and struck up the opening notes of ‘Love Divine, all loves excelling’.

‘Darling, you deserve a sherry.’ Mamie shooed Angela into the big vicarage sitting room. ‘Robert, get her a sherry please, and a G and T for me.’

Robert, on the point of entering the room, made a U-turn, and went to the kitchen.

Mamie relaxed into the sofa and kicked her shoes off. She patted the cushion next to her. ‘How did you feel that went?’

Angela sat down. ‘I think it went OK. What did you think?’

‘Darling, you were wonderful! They adored you. You gave them everything.’

Robert returned with a drinks tray and Faith. Mr Worthington followed and hoisted himself next to Angela, before yawning squeakily and burying his whiskery face in her lap.

‘I was just telling Angela how wonderful she was,’ Mamie told Robert as she took the G and T from his proffered tray. ‘Thank you, darling.’

Robert passed a glass of coke to Faith, who had opened a bag of crisps and was tickling Mr Worthington’s tummy, and sat down in an armchair, opening his tin of beer.

‘She really was.’ He lifted his tin. ‘To Angela, the new vicar of Pendruggan.’

‘To Angela,’ said Mamie.

‘Mum,’ said Faith.

‘My wonderful wife,’ smiled Robert.

‘I couldn’t have done any of this without you, my family,’ Angela said, her voice soft.

‘Now now, none of that,’ Robert chided gently. ‘This is your time to shine.’

‘And I wouldn’t be able to do it if you hadn’t taken this year off, away from the job you love,’ she said.

He waved a hand airily. ‘Piffle. You have stood in my shadow too long. It’s time I stood aside.’

‘Oh, Dad.’ Faith rolled her eyes. ‘Women can make their own way now, you know. Like, they don’t need a man to “stand aside” to help them achieve things in life. We are liberated from that sort of patriarchal nonsense, you know.’