The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [21]
‘Who cares?’ said someone else.
Slowly they shuffled towards the light.
IT WAS NOW well past lunchtime and the Archdeacon had stomach ache. Anxious to get away before the crowd and unobserved by the vicar, who would surely be shaking all those famous hands, Canon Treacher had got up smartly after the blessing only to find his exit from the pew blocked by a woman doing what she (and Canon Treacher) had been brought up to do, namely, on entering or leaving a church to say a private prayer. It was all Treacher could do not to step over her, but instead waited there fuming while she placidly prayed. She took her time with God, and then, her devotions ended, more time assembling her umbrella, gloves and what she called apologetically ‘my bits and bobs’ and then when she was finally ready, had to turn back to retrieve her Order of Service, which she held up at Canon Treacher with a brave smile as if to signify that this had been a job well done. By which time, of course, the aisle was clogged with people and Treacher found himself carried slowly but inexorably towards the door where, as he had feared, Father Jolliffe was now busy shaking hands.
Even so, the priest was so deep in conversation with a leading chat-show host that Treacher thought he was going to manage to sidle by unnoticed. Except that then the priest saw him and the chat-show host, used to calling the shots with regard to when conversations began and ended, was startled to find this chat abruptly wound up as Jolliffe hastened across to shake Treacher’s cold, withdrawing hand.
‘Archdeacon. What a pleasure to see you. Did you know Clive?’
‘Who? Certainly not. How should I know him?’
‘He touched life at many points.’
It was a joke but Treacher did not smile.
‘Not at this one.’
‘And did you enjoy the service?’ Father Jolliffe’s plump face was full of pathetic hope.
Treacher smiled thinly but did not yield. ‘It was … interesting.’
With Father Jolliffe cringing under the archidiaconal disapproval it ought to have been a chilling moment and, by Treacher at least, savoured and briefly enjoyed, but it was muffed when the hostess of a rapid response TV cookery show, whom the vicar did not know, suddenly flung her arms round his neck saying, ‘Oh, pumpkin!’
Firm in the culinary grasp, Father Jolliffe gazed helplessly as the Archdeacon was borne away on the slow-moving tide and out into the chattering churchyard where, holy ground notwithstanding, Treacher noted that many of the congregation were already feverishly lighting up.
When, a few days later, Treacher delivered his report, it was not favourable, which saddened the Bishop (who had, though it’s of no relevance, been a great hurdler in his day). Rather mischievously he asked Treacher if he had nevertheless managed to enjoy the service.
‘I thought it,’ said Treacher, ‘a useful lesson in the necessity for ritual. Or at any rate, form. Ritual is a road, a path between hedges, a track along which the priest leads his congregation.’
‘Yes,’ said the Bishop, who had been here before.
‘Leave the gate open, nay tell them it’s open as this foolish young man did, and straightaway they’re through it, trampling everything underfoot.’
‘You make the congregation sound like cattle, Arthur.’
‘No, not cattle, Bishop. Sheep, a metaphor for which there is some well-known authority in scripture. It was a scrum. A free-for-all.’
‘Yes,’ said the Bishop. ‘Still,’ he smiled wistfully, ‘That gardening girl, the footballer who’s always so polite—I quite wish I’d been there.’
Treacher, feeling unwell, now passes out of this narrative, though with more sympathy and indeed regret than his acerbities might seem to warrant. Though he had disapproved of the memorial service and its altogether too heartfelt antics he is not entirely to be deplored, standing in this tale for dignity, formality and self-restraint.
Less feeling was what Treacher wanted, the services of the church, as he saw it, a refuge from the prevailing sloppiness. As opportunities multiplied for the display of sentiment in public and on television—confessing,