‘An hour,’ – she smiled – ‘Reverend.’
He didn’t correct her, but instead held the door open as I rattled down the aisle. I chose a front-row seat this time, to get a better chance of God noticing me.
‘May I?’ Father Arthur asked and I nodded. He sat beside me.
‘So, Lenni, how are you this morning?’
‘Oh, not too bad, thank you. And yourself?’
‘You aren’t going to comment on how empty the chapel is?’ He gestured around the room.
‘Nope. I figure that the day when someone other than us is in here will be the day worth commenting on. I don’t want to make you feel bad about what you do.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Maybe you need someone to work on your PR?’ I asked.
‘My PR?’
‘Yeah, you know, the marketing: posters and adverts and stuff. We need to get the word out. That way the pews will fill up and you might make a profit.’
‘A profit?’
‘Yeah, right now you can’t possibly be breaking even.’
‘I don’t charge people to come to church, Lenni.’
‘I know, but think how impressed God would be if you had a nice buzzing church and started making some money for him at the same time.’
He gave me an odd smile. I took in the smell of recently blown out candles, which made me feel that a birthday cake must have been lurking somewhere.
‘Can I tell you a story?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’ He clasped his hands together.
‘When I was at school, I used to tag along with this group of girls on nights out in Glasgow. There was this really expensive night club that nobody could ever afford to go in. It never had a queue outside, but you could tell just from the black velvet ropes and the silver-painted doors that it would be special. It had two bouncers either side of the doors, despite the fact nobody ever seemed to go in and nobody seemed to come out. All we knew was that it cost seventy pounds to get in. We told ourselves it was too expensive, but any time we passed that club, we got more curious. We had to know why it was so expensive and what was on the other side. So we made a pact, saved up, and we took our fake IDs and we got in. And do you know what?’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘It was a strip club.’
Father Arthur raised his eyebrows and then self-consciously lowered them, as though he were worried I might mistake his startled look for one of intrigue, or arousal.
‘I’m not sure I understand the moral of the story,’ he said carefully.
‘What I’m saying is, it was the fact it was so expensive that made us think going inside would be worth it. If you charged a door fee, people might be intrigued. You could get bouncers too.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘I keep telling you, Lenni, the chapel is well attended. I spend a lot of time speaking with patients and relatives. People often come in to see me, it’s just that—’
‘It’s just that by coincidence I always happen to stop by when the people aren’t here?’
Father Arthur looked up at the stained glass window, and I could almost hear his internal monologue, asking God for the strength to tolerate me. ‘Did you think any further on what we talked about during your last visit?’
‘A bit.’
‘You asked me some good questions.’
‘You gave me some unhelpful answers.’
There was a pause.
‘Father Arthur, I was wondering whether you would do something for me?’
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘Can you tell me one truth, one cool, refreshing truth? No church spin, no fancy wording, just something you know to your core to be true, even if it hurts you, even if you would be fired if your bosses heard you say it to me.’
‘My bosses, as you put it, are Jesus and the Lord.’
‘Well, they certainly won’t fire you – they love truth.’
I thought he would need more time to think of something true. I assumed he would need to contact a pope or a deacon and check whether he was allowed to dole out and administer the truth without any official guidelines. But just before New Nurse arrived, he turned to me awkwardly. Like someone who’s about to give a gift when they’re not at all sure that the recipient will like it.
‘Are you going to tell me something true?’ I asked.
‘I am,’ he said. ‘Lenni, you said you wish that this could be a place of answers and … well, I wish it were a place of answers too. If I had the answers, I would give them.’
‘I already knew that.’
‘Then how about this?’ he said. ‘I really hoped you’d come back.’
When I made it back to my bed, New Nurse had left me a note: Lenni, talk to Jacky – social service’s.
I corrected her grammar with the pencil she’d left and then headed over to the nurses’ station. Jacky, the heron-haired head nurse, wasn’t there. That’s when something caught my eye.
Beside the nurses’ station desk, the recycling trolley was awaiting the return of Paul the Porter. It’s a big wheeled bin. It used to have the words ‘mean machine’ penned in permanent marker on the handle, but that’s been painted over now. Paul’s trolley is not usually something I would find interesting, but the interesting thing about it that day was the elderly lady who was hanging halfway out of the bin, rustling through its papery contents with both hands, her small purple-slippered feet barely touching the floor.
Seeming to have found whatever it was she was looking for, the old lady straightened up, her grey hair fluffy from the effort. She slipped an envelope into the pocket of her purple dressing gown.
The door to the office made a clunk as someone pulled on the handle. Jacky and Paul were coming out.
The old lady caught my eye. I got the feeling she didn’t want to be seen doing what she had just done.
As
