The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [16]
There is a hush, with Treacher relieved that Father Jolliffe has at last got a grip on the service and is now going to bring these unseemly proceedings to a fitting conclusion.
‘Vicar.’
It was the young man in the anorak. His voice was very clear in the silence and those of the congregation who had knelt or just put their heads down now raised them to look and Treacher, who had felt this service could hold no more surprises, said ‘Oh God’ and would have put his head in his hands had it not been there already.
Even the easy-going Father Jolliffe was taken aback at this unheard-of interruption. ‘I was praying,’ he said reproachfully.
He thought the young man blushed but he was looking so worked up it was hard to tell. A long-wristed, narrow-faced, straight-shouldered young man now looking sheepish. ‘I did have my hand up before,’ he said. ‘And besides, it’s probably relevant to the prayer.’
Had it not come at such an inopportune moment the notion that a prayer needed to be up to the minute and take account of all relevant information would have merited some thought and indeed might have provided a useful subject for ‘Faith and Time’, the series of discussion groups Father Jolliffe was currently running after Evensong on Sundays; the topicality of intercession in the light of the omniscience of God, for instance, or prayers taking place in time and God not. As it was the priest found himself staring at the young man, all pastoral feeling suspended, and saying rather crossly, ‘Well?’
‘My name is Hopkins,’ said the young man. ‘I’m on my year out. I’m going to do geology. I was in South America looking at rocks.’
Some of this he said loudly enough for the congregation to hear, but other less relevant remarks he gave almost as an aside to the nearby pews, so that somebody out of range said: ‘What?’
‘On his year out, doing geology,’ somebody else called back.
‘And?’ said somebody else under their breath.
‘I got sponsorship from Tilcon,’ the young man added redundantly.
Somebody sighed heavily and said: ‘Do we need to know this?’
‘That was why I was in Peru. The rocks are very good there.’
‘Can’t hear,’ said a well-known commentator on the arts. ‘I know about Peru and even I can’t hear.’
A woman nearby smiled kindly at the boy, and indicated he should speak up.
‘The thing is’—and the speaking up made him sound defiant—‘I was staying in the same hotel as Mr Dunlop when he died, and he didn’t die of Aids.’
Finding him so unprepossessing and with no air of authority whatever (and, it has to be said, younger than most of their children) the congregation were disinclined to give him much attention. What had seemed just another tedious reminiscence is at first listlessly received and it’s only when the glad message ‘Not Aids’ begins to be passed round and its significance realised that people begin to take notice, some at the back even standing up to get a better view of this unlikely herald.
It takes a little time and to begin with there is some shaking of heads but soon smiles begin to break out, people perk up and this nondescript young man suddenly finds himself addressing an audience that hangs on his every word. ‘I know there is nothing to be ashamed of whatever it was he died of, but with all due respect to the person who spoke, who obviously knew him much better than I did, all the same I was there when he died and I’m sure his aunt, at least, would like to know it was not Aids.’
‘HIV-related,’ corrected a man with a ponytail.
‘Yes, whatever,’ says the student.
‘It wasn’t Aids,’ Miss Wishart’s helpful neighbour shouts in her ear. ‘Not Aids.’
Meeting an uncomprehending smile from the old lady, she thinks to mime the condition by pointing to her bottom and shaking her head, thereby causing much offence to Carl and his glabrous colleagues and bringing Miss Wishart no nearer enlightenment. The only aids she has come across are deaf aids and hers plainly isn’t working.
Hopkins, having given his welcome news, offers no evidence to back it up and now seems disposed