The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [26]
‘She comes to church. I can give it to her.’ Geoffrey reached for the book and fearful that he was reaching for him too, Hopkins relinquished it without a struggle.
‘I can give it to her as a relic of her nephew. The only relic really.’ He stroked the book fondly and in that instant Hopkins was out of the pew and on his way to the door. But not quickly enough to avoid the priest’s kindly hand pressing into the small of his back and carrying with it the awful possibility that it might move lower down.
‘Yes,’ Hopkins said, ‘give it to her. She’s the person.’ And stopping suddenly in order to put on his backpack he got rid of the hand, but then found it resting even more horribly on his midriff, so that he gave a hoarse involuntary cry before the priest lifted his hand with a bland smile, converting the gesture almost into a benediction.
‘Won’t she be shocked?’ Hopkins said as he settled the pack on his back. ‘She’s an old lady.’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey firmly. ‘And I say this, Greg, as her parish priest. It’s true she’s an old person but I have found the old are quite hard to shock. It’s the young one has to be careful with. They are the prudes nowadays.’
Hopkins nodded. Irony and geology obviously did not mix.
‘I wondered if you wanted a cup of tea?’ Geoffrey stroked the side of his backpack.
‘No,’ he said hurriedly. ‘No, I’ve got to be somewhere.’
Still widely smiling Geoffrey put out his hand.
They shook hands and the young man dashed out of the door and quickly across the wet gravestones, Geoffrey noting as he did so that he had that overlong and slightly bouncy stride he had always associated with flute-players, train-spotters and other such unworldly and unattractive creatures.
Something strange, though, now happened that Geoffrey would later come to see as prophetic. Or at least ominous. The boy had pulled out a knitted cap and as he stopped to put it on he saw the priest still standing there. Suddenly and unexpectedly the boy smiled and raised his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he called out, and then about to go, he stopped again. ‘But thank you all the same.’
Geoffrey sat down in the nearest pew. He was trembling. After a bit he got up and went into the vestry where he opened the safe in which was kept the parish plate, the chalice (Schofield of London, 1782) and the two patens (Forbes of Bristol, 1718), each in its velvetlined case. On the shelf below them Geoffrey put Clive’s book.
OVER THE FOLLOWING WEEKS Geoffrey would often open up the safe and take a peek at the book, trying to decipher Clive’s cryptography and gauge the extent and nature of his activities. None of it shocked him: indeed he found the exercise vaguely exciting and as near to pornography as he allowed himself to come.
Whether it was thanks to the book or to that almost involuntary pass that had allowed him to retain it Geoffrey found his life changing. Disappointed of immediate promotion he was now more … well, relaxed and though ‘Relax!’ is hardly at the core of the Christian message he did feel himself better for it.
So it might be because he was easier with himself or that his unique pass at the geology student had broken his duck and given him more nerve but one way and another he found himself having the occasional fling, in particular with the bus-driving crucifer, who, married though he was, didn’t see that as a problem. Nor did Geoffrey’s confessor who, while absolving him of what sin there was, urged him to see this and any similar experiences less as deviations from the straight and narrow and more as part of a learning curve. In fairness, this wasn’t an expression Geoffrey much cared for, though he didn’t demur. He preferred to think of it, if only to himself, as grace.
He still kept the book in the safe, though, as it represented a valorous life he would have liked to lead and still found exciting. It happened that he had been to confession the day before and just as a diabetic whose blood tests have been encouraging sneaks a forbidden