TT 19 - Hubert Rowan is stimulated.

"It's filled with lacunae." says Professor James, tersely tapping the end of her fountain pen on the doctoral thesis opened before her on the desk.
"Lacunae?" says Michael Glebe, avoiding Professor James' eye and looking instead to Hubert Rowan for support.
Professor Rowan is slumped silently in his leather chair, an imploded package of tweed and stale pipe-slag. "Ye-es" he says thoughtfully, "I felt it was..." he clears his throat and cants untidily sideways to engage more intimately with his colleague, "...quite thoroughly riddled with lacunae."
"Huge lacunae." qualifies Professor James helpfully, and as she says this a fleck of spit falls from her mouth and onto the sleeve of her plum wool suit. "I found it.." she pauses to find the right phrase, "...oddly unconvicining."

Michael is horrified yet strangely compelled by the fizzy droplet that quivers but refuses to be dislodged from Professor James' sleeve.
"Yes! Curiously unconvincing" continues Hubert Rowan, picking up. "I was almost quite intrigued by the ultimate lack of coherence." He swivels his chair round to face his colleague more comfortably. "Indeed..." a sardonic smile ripens his voice, "I found it quite...stimulating...in a funny sort of way."
"Yes. Yes." Says Professor James, nodding her serious grey head in vigorous assent. "I must admit , I rather had fun indentifying, in more precise terms, how it managed to fail to convice at any point."

There is a pause as they reflect pleasurably on their own intellectual rigour. Professor James replaces her glasses, miraculously leaving the dob of spittle unmoved. She flips through her notes. You cite my Divine Judgement in the Middle Ages in your introduction.
"Yes." Michael opens his copy of 'Justice and the (Un)just in Dante's Divine Comedy.' and suppresses a sigh.
"I strongly recommend that you go back and re-read the section on Aquinas more attentively. I think it will help you untangle some of the conceptual difficulties you had in Chapter 5.
"Right.."
"And you should read the exchange of opinions that took place between myself and Mandylion Trahobe in The Medieval Journal." She looks at Michael over her glasses. "This should help bring you up to speed with more recent debate."
"Yes of course." Says Michael, earnestly, but inside he is folding his last ditch hopes into little boat shapes and letting them slip away on the ebb tide of his self-esteem.
"I'm afraid we don't feel able to recommend a pass as your thesis stands. "Professor James announces. "We're going to suggest a six month referral."
"Right" says Michael, staring folornly at the last little dot of fronthy irridescence on his examiner's sleeve. "Right."

TT 18 - Alison Carduggan Writes...

St Margaret's Newsletter

ALISON CARDUGGAN WRITES - WHAT IS THE TRIUNE GODHEAD WHEN IT'S AT HOME ANYWAY?

I'm sitting at the kitchen table trying to stuff a pheasant with a pigeon that's been stuffed with a quail. Or is it the other way around? Oh dear - perhaps that's why there's a dreadful mess on the plate in front of me and not the sophisticated dish promised by the photograph in the recipe book. If you detect a note of panic in my writing you'd be right. Our dinner guests will be arriving in less than an hour and here I am still trying to thread a pheasant through the eye of a pigeon!

This is how we sometimes feel about God. A small boy I happened across in the church recently asked me "How can God be the father, the son and the holy spirit when that makes him his own Dad who sent himself to earth?!" How indeed?! We might equally well ask "How can God be a kind of ghost even though he is not only very much alive and kicking but quite literally the fons et origo of all creation?" It's enough to make your head spin, isn't it?

Or is it? Well I suppose for those people who constantly seek a rational explanation for everything - you know the type, forever popping the back off the computer to prod around with a screwdriver - it all sounds highly improbable. Well, I'm afraid I have a confession to make - I don't even try to understand. You see, I'm one of those strange people who are prepared to have FAITH in things they can't understand, yes, even something as barmy sounding as the Holy Trinity.

God isn't like a computer. God is so awesome and mega-powerful he's like all the computers in the world put together and a bit more. How can the likes of you and me be expected to understand that?

WE'RE NOT EXPECTED TO - THAT'S THE POINT!

And this is where faith comes in: faith that when there is only one set of footprints behind me in the sand it is because my father is carrying me. Faith that when I call out into the darkness and hear no reply it is because He is considering my prayer carefully. Faith that when things, or people suddenly crop up in your life that you weren't expecting, and who aren't always welcome, they have been sent by the Lord to test and thus strengthen this Faith.

And so I return to my pheasant. Somehow, with a soothing glass of wine, the calming strains of Allegri's Miserere, and a few words of encouragement from The Man in Black, I've meanaged to squeeze the quail into the pigeon and most of the pigeon into the pheasant and what's still peeping out I've secured with string. It might not look very elegant but it will be nice and sustaining and that's what being a good Christian is all about.

TT 17 - A Thump on the Ceiling

It is almost midnight, and apart from the sound of the odd car all is quiet in Tendringhoe High Street. A faint light can be seen at a first floor window of the vicarage. Alison Carduggan is sitting at the ancient computer in her husband's study, listening to her 'Classic FM's Top 100 Really Nice Things' CD and drafting her weekly page for St Maggie's Newsletter. Only the chutter of the 'a' drive and the shufflings of Len Magma above her in the loft cut across the mellifluous strains of The Sixteen singing Barber's Agnus Dei. Alison is about to type in her closing sentence when there is a heavy thump on the ceiling. She jumps slightly then tuts crossly. She guesses, correctly, that Len, recently returned from The Railway Tavern, has fallen over trying to remove his trousers.

Alison has tried to reflect objectively and charitably on her lodger's increasingly disturbing behaviour but she can't help feeling rather angry. Len might play the hapless victim but really the whole incident in the barn had been carefully staged. She's been taken for a fool. Well no more. In any case, it wouldn't help him. That wasn't what was meant by Christian charity: to encourage weakness. Alison saves her draft of 'What is The Triune Godhead When it's at Home, Anyway?' and sits back in her chair, her lips pressed tightly together. And then there is the way that he watches her, silent and lingering, furtively in her space without properly inhabiting his own. No, she is sorry, but there is something deeply devious about the man. Alison leans forward and shuts down the computer with an irritated series of taps on the mouse button. At the end of the day, this is her family home, the home of her nine year old daughter, and my goodness the work that she has put into making it a clean and happy environment she is blowed if that mucky little man is going to spoil it all.

This might seem uncharacteristically harsh, but in Alison's imagination Len's character has begun to coalesce disastrously with his physical appearance. His seeping libido is his moist, pursey mouth. His neediness is the splash of bird's mess on the back of his brown anorak. His manipulative nature is the knot of elastoplast holding together his glasses on one side. No matter how deeply she considers his loneliness, his awkwardness, his general incompetence at life, any empathetic movement towards him is instantly confounded by an equal and opposite repulsion. So it is that although she can see that he is a case to be pitied, tolerated, helped even, she cannot love him.

TT 16 - Someone Makes Eleanor Jump

The day is green and mossy and soft. Apples and pears dangle plumply over Tendringhoe's time-worn garden walls, and omeone is burning leaves in their garden. Eleanor Briding is in her Victorian greenhouse. The green algae-like film on the glass panels of the roof casts a slightly aqeous light over her as she layers up in wooden crates the pears that were blown from the tree in last night's storm. She stops to stare in sarcastic disbelief at the radio.
"What? 1995? I wouldn't call that recent research!" She is so busy bollocking Melvyn Bragg that she doesn't see the tall, dark-haired man who stands in the doorway. She turns with a jump when he lets out a loud laugh.
"Oh my God, you made me jump!"
He laughs again.
"Gabriel Lamb!" Now she laughs. "Long time no see."
He comes into the greenhouse and gives her a hug. "Still taking on the world then Elly?"
"Oh, I always shout at the radio." She tucks her hair behind her ears and wipes her hands on her jeans. "But how are you?"
"Oh I don't know. How does one know, really?" He shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets. He still has that slightly nocturnal pallour, Eleanor notices, as though he's been up all night smoking roll-ups and reading Camus.

Eleanor wrinkles her brow. "Well, are you OK, healthwise?"
"Yup."
"Plenty of work?"
"Yup."
"Still enjoying acting, on the whole?"
"Yup."
"Well I think that counts as 'fine' in most people's books."
"You're right - I'm fine. You see, you always sort me out." He smiles and brushes his thick floppy fringe back from his forehead.
"So, how long are you here for?" Eleanor looks away and fusses with the crate of fruit.
"Three months."
"Three months!" She looks back in surprise. "How come!"
"I'm taking Oyster Cottage for the winter. I've decided to take a break. Do some writing."
"Oh. Well. It'll be nice to have you around." Eleanor says, although she's slightly taken aback. Three months is a long time to have Gabriel Lamb just around the corner.

TT 15 - Gordon!

There is something rather terrifying about Glandice Morgan. She is not overweight, exactly, and yet she is somehow in excess. Perhaps it is the mass of flame red curls that fly in a frenzy around her fleshy face. Or perhaps it is just the way her breasts look as though they might break free at any moment. Either way, Cleanth Morgan is not the only man in the village who is quite noticeably reduced in her presence.
"Oh Gordon. Just the man." Glandice calls to her neighbour over the low brick wall that seperates their front gardens.
"Ah, Glandice, G'Morning."
"Jeez, this damn wind. Its blown my trellis right down. Look at that!"
Gordon tuts sympathetically.
"Do you have a hammer? I can't find ours anywhere."
"Oh yuh, sure, absolutely." Gordon pops back inside and soon reappears with a hammer. He doesn't hand it over the wall but goes round into Glandice's garden and starts throwing himself at the errant trellis, trying to push it back into its place beside the Morgan's front door. This proves far harder than he expected. The trellis is being pushed away from the wall by the thick vines of the old rose which are now far stronger than the fragile support beneath.
"Perhaps if you could just hold it in place," he says to Glandice, "I could pop a couple of nails in at the top."
Glandice leans forward and pushes the mesh of pale pink roses back against the wall with one hand. Gordon can smell her under-arm deoderant.

"Gordon!" Val Green has appeared on their doorstep in her dressing gown and slippers. "How long are you going to be?"
Gordon pretends not to hear her.
"Gordon! You need to make that phone call!"
Gordon keeps his eyes on the nail he is about to bang into Glandice's brickwork and says nothing.
"Morning Val." Glandice says.
"Tell Gordon he has to make a phone call." Val replies.
"Val says you need to make a phone call." Glandice repeats, although they all know that Gordon has heard the first time.
"No, I don't." Gordon starts hammering.
"Sorry honey." Glandice calls across to Val. "It's my fault. I'm keeping your husband."
Val folds her arms and says nothing.
"It's not a problem." Gordon says.

"Gordon!" Val comes out into the front garden. "If you don't call now you'll miss him."
Gordon finally turns to look at his wife. "It doesn't matter, Valerie. I'll see him later. It doesn't matter."
"How long are you going to be?"
"I don't know!"
Valerie disappears back inside.
Glandice puts her hand on Gordon's shoulder. "Hey, Gordy, don't worry about this right now. It'll probably blow down again, anyhow."
"No, no!" Gordon insists. "I won't be beaten." And he leans all his weight against the trellis and hammers in the nail as far as it will go.

TT 14 - Mrs Green is Funny

Ever since Basil came into Mrs Green's class at the beginning of September she has resented his presence. She resents that whatever topic she plans to teach in class that day, it is quite possible that Basil has already read around the subject quite extensively. She resents that she has to use a dictionary to check her own spelling before she returns his work book. But most of all, she resents Basil's 'Bohemian' appearance which does not comply with school regulations.

It is not unusual for pupils at Tendringhoe JMI to transgress the school dress code, whether it's Kiel with his earing or Kayleigh with her Fimbles socks, but the opportunity to gently remonstrate with these offender's parents tends, if anything, to improve Mrs Green's mood. She particularly looks forward to impersonating their response to her husband, Gordon, when she gets home: "But Kiel likes 'is earins, dontcha Kiel?" Basil Timothy Pryse Briding does not provide her with such happy opportunities. She is particularly disgusted by the theatrical purple velvet cape and matching cap that Basil has taken to wearing to school lately and she makes sure that they go straight onto the peg in the cloakroom in the morning and are not put on again until home time.

Mrs Green has developed all sorts of democratic pedagogical strategies for keeping Basil in his place in order to give the other children a chance. Usually, this takes the form of suffixing general questions to the class with the words "not you Basil." Often she'll simply pretend she hasn't heard his answer, or 'mishear' it as incorrect. Today, though, she has a special plan. During art class she comes over to Basil and stands behind his chair. Basil thinks that she will makes some comment on his painting of the two horses that live in the field behind Geoffrey Lamb's house. Instead, she takes hold of a handful of his shoulder length chestnut curls, the curls that Eleanor can't quite bring herself to cut off. Taking from her pocket a pink hair-band with a sparkly bow on the top, she puts his hair in a high little bunch on one side then does the same with the other side.
"Look what a pretty little girl Basil makes." she says to the class, and thinks to herself that perhaps now he will go home and tell 'Mummy darling' to cut his hair into a more appropriate style.

The class giggle but not entirely comfortably. Even they sense a deeper political purpose to Mrs Green's actions. Basil just sits rock still. He doesn't look up or down or to either side. He waits for Mrs Green to go back her desk, then he gently pulls the pink bows out of his hair and lays them on the corner of his desk. He is pleased to have the sunny meadow and his horses to go back to.

TT 13 - 'Warning'

Eric leafs through St Maggie's Newsletter. "Ah." He stops at page 22. "They've put it in." He supresses a smile of pride, and reads his poem again.


WARNING

Tilted necks -
Suddenly the eyes see
like old cans strung across waste ground
glistening fish thumping as the gills bite
suddenly on air.
The sewers gush detritus
shaking up
the mermaid plunges
and comes up gasping for breath.

Eric Briding


He is only annoyed slightly to see that it has been relegated to the corner of a full-page feature introducing two new members of staff at Ellison and Copp, the local estate agents.

TT 12 - My Lovely Wife!

Gordon Green hurriedly pulls down his trousers. “I’ve waited so long for this moment!” He says, breathless with passion.
“Oh darling!” Sighs Alison Carduggan with equal enthusiasm. They embrace and he kisses her firmly, but rather stiffly, on the lips.
“Really look like you’re going for it!” Calls Meg Marrow from the back of the Parish Hall, and the cast members of My Lovely Wife! giggle delightedly. Gordon swings Alison over in a hollywood style embrace. Alison ruffles Gordon’s hair frantically. Actually, she finds this part all rather embarassing and never knows quite what to do with her hands. Finally, Meg stamps her foot on the ground to indicate the sound of a door slamming.
Alison breaks off the embrace with relief. “My husband!”
“Good God!”
“Hide!”
“Where?!”
“In the wardrobe, quickly!”
Gordon makes the most of the comic effect of having to waddle frantically to the wardrobe with his trousers still round his ankles. There are appreciative laughs from the rest of the cast . There is no actual wardrobe, so Gordon crouches behind an orange plastic chair. He is able to watch the rest of the scene through the port-hole in its moulded back.

“Who were you talking to?!” Demands Eric Briding, striding onto the stage as Perry, the cuckolded husband. He has the habit of leaning forward stiffly from the waist when he’s acting, and squeezing his fists just in front of his trouser pockets.
“Oh, no-one.” Says Alison, and primps nervously at her hair as she imagines Felicity well might at such a moment.
Eric simply stares in disbelief at the floor. “Bugger it!" "Sorry! Forgotten my bloody line!” Eric looks out to Meg.
“ ‘I’m sure I heard a man’s voice…’” Meg prompts.
“I’m sorry Meg! I knew this off by heart last night! Sorry Alison! Sorry everyone!”
“Don’t worry Eric.”
Eric screws his face up and huffs irritatedly at himself. “’I’m sure I heard a man’s voice…’ - of course. I know that line! Damn it!”
Meg claps her hands together. "OK, why don't we take a break there. It's almost quarter past, anyway."

Alison and Eric find themselves reaching into the biscuit tin at the same time. You first, says Eric.
“Sorry about Basil, the other day." He says, "I hope Suzie’s alright.”
“Oh she’s fine. I’m sure she was instrumental in the whole thing, anyway.”
“It makes you wonder what on earth’s going on inside their heads.” Eric says, snapping off the corner of his biscuit with his front teeth.
“It certainly does.” Alison smiles.
“So. The Tendringhoe Festival - all sounds quite exciting doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes...Douglas mentioned something about that.” Alison says, vaguely. “I haven’t seen Glandice lately, though, so I haven’t really had a chance to catch up.”
“She hasn’t mentioned anything to Douglas about it then? About whose organising what?”
”Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well, I certainly hope she gives Douglas a key role. I mean the church, it’s the linch-pin of the village, and it's not as though Douglas doesn't have experience with major events…It's not as though any of us don't. No, it would be very short-sighted of her not to include locals - I mean real locals, not just the London part-timers.”
“I’m not really sure what the plan is.” Alison confesses.

Meg claps her hands loudly. “OK, I need felicity and Hugh back on stage, and Perry in the wings." By the time Alison and Eric have climbed up the wooden steps onto the stage Gordon is already getting ready to pull down his burgundy cords.

TT 11 - Basil's Astrolabe

"Ah, you're back already. I thought you were staying to tea at the Carduggans." Eric says over the top of his newpaper as Basil is ushered into the kitchen by his mother.
"Basil is officially in disgrace." Eleanor says, taking off her coat.
"Oh dear. What have you been up to?" Eric asks.
Basil looks nervously at his father's face as Eleanor recounts his plan to electrocute Toffee.
"We weren't trying to kill him, we were trying to heal him." Basil explains, hurt that his motives have been misrepresented.
"By electrocuting him?" Eric asks, skeptically.
"It said in the book, electrification can help in the treatment of mental disorders."
"Hmmm," His father pauses, thoughtfully. "And what method of electrification did you use?"
"I wired up two spoons to a lamp base." Basil says. "They had non-conductive plastic handles and we put on wellies."
"And what was the voltage?"
"British mains voltage is 240 volts."
"And what is a safe and appropriate voltage for the treatment of canine mental disorders?"
Basil thinks, then looks sheepish. "I don't know."
"Ah, well there's the flaw in your project!" Eric puts his hand on his son's shoulder. "Your proceedures were reckless old lad. Don't attempt anything like that again, hmmm?"
"No Dad."

Eric senses that given Basil's present state of disgrace, Eleanor will disaprove so he waits until she goes upstairs before producing the gift from Geoffrey Lamb.
"Close your eyes." Eric says. He lifts the astrolabe out from behind the armchair and places it on the walnut bureau that stands in the bay window. A shaft of late afternoon sunlight catches in its metal spheres.
"Open them."
"For me?" Basil asks, his eyes huge with wonderment.
"It's from your friend Geoffrey Lamb."
"Geoffrey? For Me?"
"You're a lucky boy aren't you?"
Basil simply nods. He is already lost in the astrolabe's magic. He approaches it, mesmerised, and gently feels the engraved surfaces with reverent finger-tips. He might as well be touching the centre of the universe, spinning its power and mystery outwards from his own two small hands.
"You can measure how high the stars are with this." He whispers.
"You can indeed." Says Eric. The beauty and the antiquity of the astrolabe has touched him too, and he allows just a little bit of magic to gather around the scientific instrument. "And you can measure your own position on the earth's surface. We'll have to try and get some old charts."
"Oh, yes!"
"And no electricity involved." Eric chuckles and slaps Basil on the back.

TT 10 - Science versus Disease.

"Biscuit?"
"Thanks." Eleanor Briding takes an all-butter shortbread from the barrel.
"And how is the lovely Len these days?"
"Oh, don't ask!"
"Why? What's happened?"
"We've had another 'incident'."
"Really?" Eleanor leans forward with interest.
"Well, it was rather extaordinary, really." Alison is blushing.
"He didn't make a pass, did he?" Eleanor says in a gossipy whisper.
"Not exactly."
"Not exactly?"
"Well, you know we've been encouraging him to use the barn as a little workshop, give him a nice little hobby."
"Right."
"Well, I was sitting here the other day, and he appears at the kitchen door. Would I go and look at something he's made? And so of course, I say yes. Well, when I get into the barn he's made this large...cage...well, more of a coop really, only it's huge, the size of a small greenhouse."
"Oh dear!" says Eleanor, sensing where the story is going.
"Well, it was all a bit embarrassing, I mean it was so awful, not practical at all. So as a little joke, I got inside and pretended to be locked in."
"Oh Alison, you didn't!"
"Why, what was wrong with that?"
Eleanor shakes her head, "Nothing, really, go on, what happened?"
"He got a little...excited."
"Oh no!." Eleanor covers her face with her hands, enjoyably scandalised. "You got in Len's gimp cage."
"His what?"
"His gimp cage. You know. Some people get a pervy kick from being locked in cages."
"Honestly Ellie, where on earth do you get these things from?"
"I'm a doctor."
"Your patients tell you about things like that?!"
"Not the patients, the nurses." Eleanor takes a sip of tea. "What happened then?"
"He asked me for a hug."
"Oh no!"
"I walked out. I said, No, I'm sorry, that isn't going to happen."
"Where is he now?" Eleanor asks.
"I don't know and I don't care. Out in his 'gint cage' I expect!"

Eleanor holds her mug up to her mouth to conceal her smile. She doesn't mean to but she can't help it. She keeps picturing Alison Carduggan, with her round innocent face and neat silver bob, locking herself into Len Magma's cage. She decides to change the subject. In fact, the reason for her visit is to fish around and see if she can find out why Glandice went decidedly frosty at the mention of the Carduggans in the post office the other day. She is about to ask Alison if she's seen Glandice lately when they hear an appalling scream.
"Suzie!"

They run out into garden, faces frozen with repressed fear. They are relieved to see that Suzie is standing up, although she's clutching her hand and is as white as a sheet. Basil looks at them with huge, terrified, guilty eyes.
"What happened!" Alison demands. She takes Suzie by the shoulders. "Are you OK?"
"It's Nothing. I'm fine. Basil found a worm that's all."
"You're shaking." Says Eleanor. "Basil, what have you been doing?"
"What's this?" Alison has spotted a small table-lamp plugged into an extension lead. Wires are coming out from the socket where the bulb should be. At the end of the wires are two spoons with plastic handles.
"Good lord - did you get an electric shock!" Alison pushes her hair up from her forehead with both hands.
"No!" Suzie says, frightened and embarrassed in equal measures.
"Thank God they were wearing their wellies." Eleanor says, unplugging the lamp from the extension reel. She takes Suzie's hand and examines it. "She seems fine." She glares at her son. "Basil?!"
"It's nothing, is it Basil?" Suzie says hastily. "We needed a light, to look at insects. Basil found a worm and I touched it. It made me scream"
Eleanor can see from Basil's face that Suzie is lying. She raises her eyebrows.
"I told her not to touch the spoons on the metal bit." Basil crumbles.

"What on earth did you think you were doing?" Eleanor demands.
"Toffee has Dementia Praecox." Basil explains sheepishly. "We were going to cure him."
"Wha...? Where on earth...you were going to...?" She wipes her hand across her mouth, she is so exactly on the border between laughing and crying she can't do either.
"And 'Dementia Praecox'! Where on earth did you get that term?"
Suzie, hoping the authority of the source might absolve them in some way, hands Basil's Mum the copy of 'Enquire Within: the book that every household needs.' It is opened at 'Science versus Disease: electrification.'

"OK." Eleanor sighs, and hands the book to Alison to see. She puts her hands together, rests her finger-tips against her lips and takes a deep breath. You must not, you WILL not, ever, ever, EVER, play around with anything electrical again. Ever! Do you hear me?!'
"Yes Mum." Basil lowers his eyes to the ground.
"Suzie?!" Alison looks at her daughter sternly from under her eye-brows.
"Yes Mum. Sorry Mum. We just thought..."
"I don't care what you thought. You do not play with electrical things. You know that - I'm surprised at both of you!"
"Sorry."

A thought occurs to Alison. "Where's Toffee?!"
"Don't know, we couldn't find him anyway. Stupid dog." Suzie says, sulkily.
"Well that's just as well" Alison snaps, fear giving way to anger, "because you would have killed him!"
Suzie bites her lip and looks properly repentant for the first time.
"What makes you think Toffee' has Dem..., Toffee's scizophrenic?" Eleanor can't help asking.
"She barks at nothing!" Says Suzie, still looking at her feet as she kicks at the lawn.
"And she has unpredictable mood swings." Basil adds optimistically, hoping this might clinch it.
"I'll have an unpredictable blooming mood swing you ever do anything like that again." Eleanor says. "Now back inside the house, both of you." She catches Alison's eye and they both giggle silently, part shock, part disbelief, and perhaps even part pride in the terrifying imaginations of their own offspring.

TT9 - Eric visits Geoffrey Lamb

To adquately describe Geoffrey Lamb's bathroom would require a lexicon of filth not yet provided by the English language. There are any number of words that might give a general account of its neglect, but to distinguish more precisely between the dermal slurry cotaing the inside of the soap dish, the jacket of dust insulating the out-pipe of the lavatory, and the quarter of an inch of brown liquid lurking in the bottom of the cracked toilet brush holder would require the kind of finely nuanced vocabulary normally associated with Eskimos and snow. "Oh dear" Eric thinks. "Geoffrey is such a lovely man, but he really does live in the most appalling squalor."

Geoffrey Lamb is indeed a lovely man. With his wavey white hair, his plump, almost feminine body, and his gentle, quizzical face he resembles a rather lovely old sheep.
"It's so lovely to see you, Eric." Geoffrey says in his slow, deliberate voice when his guest returns from the bathroom. "Now, would you like a cup of tea?"
Eric, who has seen Geoffrey's kitchen, says. "Not for me, Geoffrey, thanks, I had one before I left."
"Biscuit?"
"Better not." Eric pats his non-existent belly and perches on the tattered armchair on the other side of the fireplace.
"Now then, my friend. Tell me how you are!" The sincerity of the questions throws Eric for a moment.
"Oh...I'm fine. And you?
Geoffrey leans his head on one side and stares gently into Eric's eyes. "Im really not at all bad, Eric. And thank you for asking." He holds his gaze with his clear, pale blue eyes.
"Good, good!"
"And how is Eleanor?"
"She's fine, she's fine. Busy, as usual."
"Of course, yes." He says compassionately. "And Rabbit, and young Basil?"
"They're fine. Yes. Growing up!"
"Aah!" He raises his finger and his eyes brighten. "That reminds me." He pulls himself up out of his chair and shuffles over to a mound of old books and boxes in the corner. He rummages for a bit. "Yes - there it is!" He pulls something from the corner, splaying a pile of books across the floor.

He returns to his armchair and hands Eric a beatiful little bronze and brass astrolabe. It is clearly an antique.
"Now, the last time I saw Basil, we had a very nice chat about astronomy, and when I got home, I remembered I had this. Do you think he'd like it?"
"I'm sure he'd love it. Are you sure?"
"Absolutely"
"He'll be delighted, Geoffrey. Really. It's very generous.."
Geoffrey waves the fuss away with a soft, pink hand.
"Aah!" He's remembered something else. "Did I tell you, Gabriel is going to take Oyster Cottage for the winter."
"Oh that's right, Anne's off to Australia soon."
"Yes, it's all worked out rather perfectly. Gabriel has been thinking of taking a short break. Or a 'rest' as these actors call it. He's been absolutely flat out for the last three years, poor love. He's done terribly well, you know."
"Yes. We saw him the other night, as a matter of fact, BBC1 I think it was, playing a doctor who murders his wife."
"Ah yes" Geoffrey's eyes twinkle. "That was rather fun wasn't it. He wants to have a go at writing, actually - plays. I imagine he'll be rather good at it. So, anyway, when I told him Oyster Cottage was available for a few months he jumped at the chance to get out of London for a bit."
"Well, that'll be nice, to have your son so near."
"Yes it will, won't it?"

Eric drums the threadbare arms of his chair with his fingertips. Geoffrey's two Parson's Russell's have come into the room and are sniffing at his trouser legs. "Have you heard?" He tries to nudge them away discretely. "Glandice is thinking of starting an annual arts festival, here in Tendringhoe."
"Yes, isn't it a super idea? She's asked me to take over the literary side of things. Which is very sweet of her."
"Ah." This stops Eric in his tracks slightly. "Well...very good. Very good."
"I've mentioned it around to a few of my writer pals in London and they've all been most supportive. Even dear old Michael Mead has agreed to come and do some readings from his latest collection - it's marvellous, by the way, have you read it? - and you know how busy he is these days. Bless his soul."
"Well, if there's anything I can do to help. I've been dabbling with the muse a bit myself, lately..." Eric squeezes back a smile and lowers his eyelids modestly.
"Splendid!"
"So, if you need any assistance."
"Well it really is most kind of you to offer Eric. Bless you."

They fall silent. Eric decides to make a bit of a fuss of the dogs to pass the time but they appear to have some sort of flotsam hanging from their chops and he only manages a couple of half-hearted pats.
"Well, I suppose I should be pushing off." Eric says after a while.
"Ah yes, of course."
Eric gets up from the chair. He knows his back is covered in white dog hairs. "It's been lovely to see you Geoffrey." He extends a hand and Geoffrey shakes it warmly with both of his.
"Likewise, Eric, likewise."

TT 8 - A Surprise in the Barn.

To everyone’s surprise, Len has responded with enthusiasm to Alison’s suggestion that he might make use of Douglas’s little workshop. And it is to the barn that he is heading now, a purposeful set to his shoulders, a box full of materials clutched to his chest. Alison watches him as he passes by the kitchen window and she feels a sense of enormous satisfaction. She is sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee, listening to classic FM. She holds her mug between both hands and blows ripples across the surface to cool it slightly. As Len draws level with the back door he stops, but he doesn’t turn and knock. His head turns slightly towards the house but he seems to be hesitating. The light is catching his glasses and Alison can’t be sure whether he is looking in at her or not. She opens the door.

“Hello Mrs Carduggan.” He says.
“Afternoon Len.”
Len says nothing.
“How are you finding the barn? Is it warm enough for you?
“Oh yes thank you, I’ve been very busy.” He puts his hand inside his large quilted brown anorak and scratches his armpit. He pushes his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose but says nothing more.
“Well, yes. We’ve heard you banging away out there.” Alison perseveres.
Len’s shoulders hunch into a spasm of amusement. “Oh well, I don’t know about banging", he sniggers, and a strap of mucus drops down from one nostril. He wipes it away with the cuff of his anorak.
“Well, tapping at least", says Alison, Jauntily.
"I’ve made something. Would you like to come and see it?”

Alison follows Len to the barn. The September sun is low and she can feel a chill in the air as they walk in the shade of the old beech trees. Here and there small clusters of leaves have escaped the shadows and shine a vivid lime-green. Len opens the door to the barn and Alsion follows him inside. Some of the late summer enchantment has slipped in though the windows, setting free the prismatic lights of a spiders web. The walls are dappled with dusty, moth-eaten shadows that gently elongate and contract as the branches of the trees outside lift and drop in the breeze.

Alison looks around. There are tools on the bench, and a mug and a pencil, and everywhere the smell of fresh wood chippings. She finds Len’s progress very satisfying. At one end of the barn a partition has been made by hanging up an old tarpaulin. Clearly the masterpiece is concealed on the other side. Len scurries over to it and shifts his weight nervously from side to side.
“You ready?” He asks.
“Ready as I’ll ever be” Alison answers, cheerfully entering into the spirit of things.

Len pulls down the tarpaulin and reveals a large cage. The frame is made of timber, but the bars have been constructed from various lengths of copper and plastic piping knotted at irregular intervals with an assortment of plumbing joints. In the centre of the cage is an old chrome kitchen stool that looks as though it has been pulled from a skip. A large split in the black vinyl seat reveals the yellow dust of its perished foam rubber interior. Len’s lips part in a furtive grin.
“What do you thin of that, then?”
“Gosh, it’s quite elaborate.”
“Do you like the bars?”
“They’re certainly sturdy” Her guess is that is is a chicken coop. A very, very bad, wholly impractical chicken coop. She can see no merit in it whatsoever and it inspires only unpleasant feelings of pity and embarassment.

“Goodness, you could keep a person in here.” Alison jokes, and to diffuse the awkwardness of the situation she decides to step inside the cage, pull the door closed and hold onto the bars - a caricature of a sad prisoner.
“Let me out” she says, hammily drawing down the corners of her mouth and letting her head drop pitiably to one side.
“Oh well, I don’t know about that.” Len’s breathing is suddenly laboured. “It depends”, he comes up to the side of the cage and presses his body against the bars. His tongue flits between his lips. “Have you been…” he begins to gyrate his pelvis slowly and almost imperceptibly against one of the copper pipes ‘A naughty girl.’
‘Oh well, probably’ the forced jollity pushes Alison’s voice up half an octave. She rapily lets herself out of the coop.

Len meanwhile has come round to the front of the cage forcing her to retreat into the darkened corner of the barn. Len ducks inside the cage and climbs up onto the stool. He wriggles from side to side so that his backside is embedded deep into the dead foam rubber.
“Why don’t you lock me in?’ he suggests.
‘Better not. Might not be able to get you out again.’ Alison has committed herself to a light, bantering tone.
‘That’s OK’ he squirms in his stool, ‘I probably deserve it.’ In the half light it is difficult to see what his hands are doing beneath his anorak but from the sound of his breathing Alison has a pretty good idea.
‘Oh well, I’m sure that’s not true.’ She chirps, pinned into the barn by a force-field of social conditioning that demands that she maintains the fiction of normality at all costs.

‘You’re going to leave, aren’t you?’ Len says, sensing her discomfort.
‘Well, I do have a lot to be getting…’
‘I hate that. You know, when you’re talking to someone and then when you turn round they’ve gone.’
‘It’s not…it’s just that I am rather busy.’
Len hunches down inside his anorak and tilts his head to one side in an attitude of vulnerability. ‘Can I have a hug please?’
There is a long puase and for a time the shadows of the barn weigh infinitely between them.
‘No. No, actually, Len, I don’t feel that would be appropriate.’ Alison turns to go. ‘Thank you for showing me your…construction, but I really must be pressing on.’ She pulls the door behind her leaving Len perched forlornly in his cage like a tattered thrush.

TT 7 - A Black Cat that Doesn't Exist

Michael arrives at the Vicarage at seven prompt, a £7.99 bottle of red in his hand. Douglas answers the door. He is chewing and seems surprised. "Hullo", he says, a slight question in the greeting. Then he spots the wine and his expression changes. "Ah, yes, yes, of course...", he opens the door wider and steps back "...come on in."
As Michael enters the hallway he can see into the dining room. The Carduggan family are clearly in the middle of their evening meal.
"Come in, come in." Douglas ushers him into the dining room, and pulls out a chair. "Do sit down."
"Oh, hello Michael, how nice to see to you." Alison says brightly.
Sian smiles briefly. Suzie Carduggan, who is only ten, is less successful at concealing her surprise and simply stares. Douglas whispers something to his wife and she disappears into the kitchen.
"Just fetching another plate." Reverend Carduggan beams at him.
Michael puts the wine on the table. "I brought this. Just some plonk from the Co-op, I'm afraid." Douglas glances at the label. "Ah, that's very kind of you." He puts it on the dresser behind him.

Micheal is utterly confused. He was sure Douglas said Friday at seven. The truth is, the Reverend has been so preoccupied with Cleanth Morgan's oddly crisp rejection of his invitation to dinner he has forgotten to tell Michael. Alison returns from the kitchen with a plate. She has also rustled up some french bread and a bowl of salad to supplement the half portion of lamb stew left in the casserole dish on the table. Suzie whispers something to Sian.
"Don't whisper at the table please." Alison says, then smiles sweetly at Michael.
"So - how is the opus coming along?
"Oh, pretty well, thank you. I hope to submit...hand it in...by the end of the month."
"What happens then?" Alison profers the salad bowl.
"Well, then I have to wait for the viva."
"What's a 'viva'?" Sian asks, hanging her elbow over the back of her chair and running her finger distractedly around the rim of her empty water glass.
"Well, it's like an interview,really. You have two examiners, one from the University and one from outside, and, well, you have to defend your thesis, basically. And if everything goes well, um..." He raises his eyebrows "well...you get your PhD." He tips his head from side to side as though it's not much odds to him either way.
"Oh." Sian begins to swivel the glass between her fingers.
"Ah, so they let you know their decision right away then?" Douglas says, his cheek resting in the palm of his hand.
Michael suspends his forkful of lamb in mid air "Um, yes, that's right, Douglas."
"And then you'll be 'Doctor Glebe'. Alison says, cheerfully.
"Well..." Michael taps the table and suppresses a smile, "touch wood!" He puts the barely warm lump of meat into his mouth and starts to chew. The others, he notices, have already finished.

Alison keeps up a string of polite questions but Suzie slides down in her chair and begins to swing her legs under the table. After a while, Alison says, "Perhaps you ought to go and feed the rabbit before it gets dark, sweetie."
Suzie is about to say something but Alison raises her eyebrows meaningfully. "Oh yes" says Suzie, "the rabbit...I'll just go and feed it."
"Actually...", Sian, who has been sneaking anxious glances at her watch, spots her chance, "I was thinking I ought to take Toffee for a walk before it gets dark."
"Oh, don't worry, Dad can take him later." Alison says, sensing an exodus.
"Oh, it's OK, I'll do it. I could do with some fresh air." Sian says, and suddenly energetic, she calls 'walkies' in the direction of the kitchen before Alison can object, and is up from the table with such speed she even beats their panting, tail-wagging Golden retriever to the front door.

Michael has finally finished. Alison gathers the plates.
"Thank you very much, Alison, that was delicious." Michael smiles up at her.
"Oh, you're most welcome." It suddenly strikes Alison that Michael Glebe really is a very good looking young man.
"Really, delicious." Michael nods his head and narrows his eyes in an expression of satisfied approval and it's almost a wink.
"Well, I'll leave you two gentlemen to the port and cigars'. Alison says, her voice rising by a third, and she leaves the room humming the allegro from Mozart's clarinet concerto. "Ill put some coffee on" She trills back from the kitchen.
Douglas clears his throat. "Cleanth Morgan, my publisher friend, he wasn't able to make it I'm afraid."
"That's a shame."
"Well, some other time. Some other time."
Michael folds his hands in his lap and smiles, "Yes, of course".
"Let's open this chap?" Douglas grabs the bottle of wine from the dresser.

Michael suddenly sits forward and puts both his hands flat on the table. "What's the difference between a philosopher, a metaphysician and a theologian?" he says, as his host rummages through the dresser drawer for a corkscrew.
"Ah-hah - go on, I don't know this one!"
"A philosopher believes he can go into a completely dark room and find a black cat that doesn't exist. A metaphysician goes into a dark room and looks for a black cat even though he knows it doesn't exist. A theologian goes into the dark room, looks for the black cat that doesn't exist, and after a while he calls out...'Ah, I've found it!'"
Douglas pops the cork. "Oh very good, very good." He puts two glass on the table and fills them with red wine. Both men grasp the slender glass stems, sit back in their chairs, and happily blow down two oboes that don't exist.

TT 6 - A Festival Afoot

It is a cold and overcast Sunday afternoon and the quay is empty. The Anchor Inn, conversely, is packed out. Almost hidden amongst the broil of ruddy jowelled, middle-aged ale drinkers at the bar is Eric Briding. His nose is in the air for confirmation of a rumour he’s heard recently that Glandice Morgan, the Village’s very own opera singer, is planning to start an arts festival in Tendringhoe. Having spent half a lifetime toiling in the sciences, Professor Briding is looking forward to relaxing into the arts when he retires. He’s always fancied having a bit of a daub with some paints, or scribbling down a few poems. As a result, the Biologist has found himself gravitating more and more towards Tendringhoe’s thriving local arts scene: fable-weaving evenings at The Fat Cat Vegetarian Cafe, local art exhibitions in The Old Boat Shed, and even a physical theatre workshop in the Reginald Spurgeon Hall. This last was, in fact, ‘humiliating’, which is all Eric will say about his experience under the tutelage of Meg Marrow, even to his wife. Still, his general enthusiasm remains high, and if his own village is about to become the location for a prestigious new cultural event he wants to be in on it.

It is the Rev.Carduggan who finally obliges. The adreneline still pumping from that morning's ‘gig’ in the pulpit, he’s on fine form. “Oh, it has to work, I think. It’s not as though Tendringhoe doesn’t have the personnel. We might not be ‘Hampstead-on-Sea’,” he makes a pair of air-quotes, ‘but we have a nationally recognised poet, an opera-singer, a sculptor of some note...’ he counts them off on his fingers, ‘who certainly wouldn’t look out of place in ‘the garden suburb’ .” More air-quotes.
“Well, if anyone can pull it off, Glandice can.” This is Gordon Green the local solicitor and pantomime dame.
“Well, she has the right connections, that’s the thing.’ Explains Carduggan.
“But it’s not just music, I gather.’ Eric fishes a little deeper .
“Classical music, poetry, theatre, dance…” Douglas drains his tankard and plops it down on the bar. "It's exactly what this country needs."
"Ah Glandice- she’s something though, isn’t she." Gordon rubs his thumbs along the sides of his index fingers. His warm, beery brain has filled with an image of La Morgan, all eyeliner and upper-arms in one of her tight, sleeveless dresses.
‘She certainly is’, agrees Eric, ‘She certainly is.’

Another round is ordered and each man thinks of how The Tendringhoe Festival might whip the bushel from his own, particular artistic light. Gordon certainly hopes the Tendringhoe Amateur Dramatic Society will have a part to play. Carduggan is more ambitious. He is thinking of his provocative modern-day mystery play. It will upset a few people round the village, sure, it’s bound to, but he’d certainly be prepared to premier it in the village if the event is likely to attract a more cosmopolitan crowd. Eric is already thinking of popping over to see his old friend, Geoffrey Lamb, a professor in the literature department and a published poet, to see if he'd be interested in co-organising a series of poetry readings and related literary events.

‘How’s that lovely daughter of yours?’ Gordon asks Douglas after they've drained off an inch or so of Adnams. ‘Haven’t seen her at TADS for a while.’
‘Sian? Oh, busy with A Levels, at the moment, Gordon. And ‘S’ level Maths. They're doing Macbeth at the school this year. She's taken the lead, of course.'
'Oh, wonderful.'
'Not sure she’s really got the teeth for it, mind you, but we'll see.”
‘Rabbit says she’s quite brilliant at the flute.’ Eric chips in.
‘Yes, not bad at all. Orchestral rather than soloist, I suspect, but she’s certainly the potential to go pro. I’m trying to persuade her to apply to the Northern but she’s got her heart set on Maths at Cambridge - Cambridge!" He draws down the corners of his mouth in mock horror. He's an Oxford man, himself. "Still, I suppose all offspring have to find a way to rebel against their parents.”

TT 5 - Sian and Dezzy

It’s a good song. Guitars strum in a bouncing, stadium-friendly rhythm. Vocals rise and fall in a glamorously pained minor key. It sounds both familiar and new. For three minutes and seventeen seconds Sian Carduggan is content; she is supremely alive, lying back in the half-reclined passanger seat, feet on the dashboard, the late afternoon sun warming the toes of her socked feet as they flex in time to the music. She watches the people streaming over the footbridge. The London train has just come in with the first batch of commuters. She ought to be getting home. She takes one last cigarette from the packet, puts it into her mouth, then lights it with Dezzy’s gold lighter. When not puffing she lets it hang out of the window so the cab doesn't stink too much of tobacco.

Dezzy is standing out on the rank talking distractedly in Turkish on his mobile phone. He constantly shifts his weight. If he’s not jangling his keys, he’s fussing over the paintwork on the bonnet, or kicking at the front tyre with the toe of his white trainers. He’s talking to his wife, Sian thinks. The track has come to an end. She jabs at the CD consol and waits for the song to emerge again from the quadraphonic door speakers. A couple of scraggy looking old men stumble out of The Railway Tavern. Sian recognises one of them as their lodger, Len. She slides down a little lower in the seat and watches him ambling out into the road. He really does have an unusually small head, she thinks. Where is his brain? It must be the size of a cat’s.

‘What you laughing at?’ Dezzy swings himself back into the driver's seat as though he’s just robbed a bank.
‘Nothing.’ Sian offers him a drag.
‘What you want to smoke for, eh?’ He asks her, taking it between his thumb and forefinger as though it’s a joint.
‘I dunno - what you want to smoke for?’ She imitates his accent.
‘Yeah, but I's a lost case? But you, young and healthy. What your parents think if they know?’
Sian shrugs. ‘Do you want to go out for a drive later?’
‘I dunno’ Dezzy looks uneasy.
‘Oh go on. I’ll say I’m taking the dog for a walk. We can go up to the woods.’ She puts her hand on his thigh.
‘That dog gonna die from lack of exercise it keep taking a cab everywhere’
Sian laughs. Dezzy's quite funny sometimes. ‘Shall I see you on the corner at ten?’
‘Not tonight, Babe.’
‘Why?’
‘You too fat and ugly.’ He pauses, deadpan, then turns to her. ‘Look at your face!’ He cracks up.

‘Hey, baby, I only joking. No seriously, I got other things I have to do tonight. I pick you up after school tommorow, though, yeah?’
‘I can’t’
‘Aw come on’ he puts his stubbly cheek against her neck, ‘we go to the beach. I got some good resin, really mellow, very nice quality.' He kisses her finger tips. 'Come on baby, I miss you lately.’
‘I really can’t. I’m...’ she turns away, embarrassed. ‘I’m in this school play thing. It’s bollocks really, but I can’t get out of it.’
‘You in a play? What part you play?’ He seems impressed.
‘Lady Macbeth.’
‘You! A Lady! That’s a laugh innit?’ .
‘Hilarious’ Sian says. ‘Well, I'd better go.' She takes one last draw on the cigarette and flicks the butt out through the open window. She slips her feet back into her flat black school shoes and gets out of the car. ‘Text me.’She says, leaning back in through the open door.
‘I might.’
‘You’re such a shit, sometimes.’
‘Yeah, but you love me anyway.’ He shows her his white teeth.
Sian puts her bag over her shoulder, rolls her eyes and starts to walk up the road, swaying her hips just slightly. Dezzy jabs at the car horn and leans out of the window. ‘Hey!’
Sian turns, her face stand-offish.
‘You forgot this, you noddle!’ He’s holding her flute case out of the window.

TT 4 - The Bridings

“No! No! Not here!”
The voice, high and donnish, is strung to breaking point across its sharply enunciated consonants.
Elizabeth Dryden looks up from her newspaper. What small, embarrassing fracas has her brother-in-law embroiled himself in now? She goes to the window and slides up the sash sending a rather dirty looking pigeon fluttering into the air. Eric Briding, his face turned upward like a dish, stands below her on the quay. “I don’t bloody care. Take it down!”
She hears the creak of a metal ladder and spots to her right a young man in a dark green polo shirt descending the rungs rhythmically, the bunting that swoops gently into his hand from the gable of the sailing club dropping into an ever more dejected angle.
“It’s a bloody joke!” Eric says, indignation coursing through his white, sinewy body so that he seems to flutter like the coloured pennants that now decorate the eastern end of the quayside.
“Sorry mate - I was told it would be OK.”
“Well, it’s not bloody ‘Oh Kay’! This is a private residence and I should have been asked!”
The council worker apologises with an unconcerned shrug, picks up his ladder and moves away, leaving Eric with a surfeit of righteous irascibility.

Elizabeth pads downstairs and out into the small front garden where she finds Professor Briding in the Hollyhocks, his body alert with suspicion as he watches the men re-route the bunting.”
“I’m just making some tea, Eric.” She says, hoping to lure him back inside the house.
“It’s a joke!” Eric says again, then, predictably “Where’s Eleanor?”
“She’s in the bath” Elizabeth says, and adds pointedly ‘Chilling out.’
‘Chilling? Out?’ Eric repeats, as though nonplussed by the phrase.
‘Relaxing, Eric.’
He holds her eye for a moment. ‘I see.’ He bustles past her into the house. Elizabeth hears his Birkenstocks slap officiously across the tiled floor of the hallway and then up the stairs towards the bathroom.

She wanders out onto the quay with her mug of tea and looks back with pleasure at the jumble of elegant fan-lights, bay windows and little wooden balconies. The other houses are painted Suffolk pink or cream or white, only Anchor House is black: its sobriety emphasised now by the bunting that terminates on the weathervane of the house to the left, and takes off again from the house to the right. She doesn’t understand Eric’s objections to the bunting. Wasn’t it Tendringhoe’s old fashioned gaiety and sense of community that made him buy a house right in the middle of the picturesque waterfront in the first place? Perhaps it was the sloppy confidence of the young man from the council that brought out the wire-haired terrier in Eric. Still, such calamitous affronts to his manhood didn’t tend to lay him low for long, and a couple of soothing hours guiding his wife around by the shoulders or organising his children into some obligatory project would soon have him back in his usual high spirits.

Elizabeth sits on the edge of the quay and swings her legs over the edge where they dangle a couple of feet above the estuary mud. The cloud is moving rapidly inland, drawing ever larger patches of clear, deep blue sky behind it. She leans back on her hands, closes her eyes, and feels the fresh sea breeze on her Londoner’s skin. She loves coming to her sister’s house. It reminds her of the holiday houses they stayed in as children: high ceilings, sloping floor-boards and unpredictable stair treads. She even loves hanging her clothes in the huge, dark wardrobe, listening to its brass handles rattling against the doors and the coat hangers tingling efficiently inside. She imagines that it communes silently with all the holiday wardrobes of her childhood; a sonorous cupboard song of keyless keyholes and teak veneers and a single forgotten marble rolling from a corner.

Elizabeth watches the rust-red sail of a smack gliding down the estuary. She thinks that perhaps today she will take Basil and Rabbit to the beach to look for sea-anenomes in the rock pools; and dig with them beneath the little worms of wet sand for crabs. Rabbit will want to make her specimens perform, or at the very least, die interestingly. Basil will want to classify them. Dear, strange, earnest Basil. Elizabeth pulls her knees up under her chin. The illicit bunting strims frantically behind her in the breeze, but behind the salt-blown freshness she can already feel the warmth of the morning sun as it burns through the thinning cloud. She inhales the fresh but slightly dirty mineral smell of the estuary.

‘Aunty Lizzy!’ She turns to see her nephew coming across the quay towards her. He is clutching a bucket in one hand and dragging a long, wooden-handled spade in the other. He has a huge pair of bird-watching binoculars around his neck. She holds out her arms and Basil trots towards her and hugs her clumsily, still clutching his bucket and almost taking her eye out with the corner of his metal spade.
‘Hello sweet boy’ she kisses his thick brown curls.
‘Have you seen any guillemots, Aunty?’ Basil’s eyes are round and brown and grave.
‘I’m not sure, darling. I’m not very good on sea birds.’ She hugs him to her. He is small for his age, like a little frog still, his skinny legs terminating in soft, splaying brown sandals. She wants to fold him up and squeeze him to her. “You were in bed when I arrived last night.’ She kisses him again.
‘What time did you get here?’ He asks.
‘Oh, it was gone midnight’
He gazes at her, his mouth slightly open. Is he reassessing her in light of this exciting piece of information or is he too old at ten to be impressed by the witching hour?
‘Did you take the A12?’
She tries not to smile. “Yes, I did.”
‘The road works are a real nuisance.’
‘They certainly are, darling. Now, tell me about Guillemots.’
‘I’ve been reading about them in Birds of the British Isles by G de Witt Talmage.’

Basil’s prodigious and somewhat indiscriminate appetite for the printed word is well served by the library at Anchor House. The main stock comes from the several trunks of exquisitely illustrated books on natural science left to Eric by his grandfather whose amateur passion for the subject has come good in his grandson, now an eminent Professor of Biology. Eric's mother, feeling she should add to the collection for future generations, searched around in second-hand book shops for any decently bound volume with pretty patterning on the spine. Thus Basil has at his disposal a vast array of quite wonderfully portentous looking tomes, albeit of variable quality in terms of content, and sitting cross-legged in some quiet and forgotten corner of the house can lose himself for entire blissful afternoons in such anachronistic treats as The British Fleet, by Commander Chas. N. Robinson, R.N, The Social Life of Insects by J.H. Farbre, or Enquire Within; The book that every household needs.

Basil lifts the binoculars to his eyes and gazes patiently through them, rotating his whole upper body slowly from side to side in order to scan the horizon. Elizabeth wants to ask him how he is getting on at school, but she remembers the anxiety or, at best, plain indifference that this question induced in her when she was a child. School was just school, you went and you got on with it, and sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was OK, sometimes you got bullied. Elizabeth suspects that Basil, a bright, eccentric child, is a bit of an outsider. She wants to tell him that he is beautiful and clever and extraordinary and that his time will come. Instead she says ‘What do you see?’
‘I see…’but whatever it is he sees she will never know. Eleanor is calling them from the house.
‘Ba-sil, Lizzy. Breakfast.’ Elizabeth turns and sees her sister framed in the front doorway, natural and sweetly competent in cropped linen trousers and a loose white shirt, her plait of auburn hair over one shoulder.
‘Come on then, Basilica, let’s go and eat.’ she says, picking up his bucket and spade and allowing him to walk backwards at her side so that he can continue staring across the estuary through the huge binoculars for as long as possible.

Eric is cheerfully frying bacon in a huge, black skillet, a tea-towel tucked into the waist-band of his trousers. ‘Come and look at this, Liz.’ He knows there was a moment of tetchiness between them earlier and he wants them to be friends again.
Elizabeth looks over his shoulder into the pan of sizzling bacon. ‘I love that smell.’ she says.
‘Look at that lovely fat coming out, no water, like the rubbish you get at the supermarket.’
‘Is it suffolk bacon?’
‘Of course. Ah, look at that crispy rind. Now that’s real food!’
This is Eric at his best. Providing. Making rituals from small things.

‘Butter some bread for us, would you Lizzy.’ Eleanor is spreading a blue check cloth over the ugly formica top of the kitchen table. Basil sits on one of the chairs scanning a row of cans on the high shelf above the cooker with his binoculars.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Basil, put those away now please’ Eleanor says.
‘Properly. In their case.’ Eric calls after him, as he disappears into the library.
‘Bacon ready!’ Eric calls, as though in a professional kitchen.
Elizabeth hands him the bread she’s already buttered and he begins making a pile of butties. Eleanor pours three mugs of tea and two glasses of milk and puts them on the table. ‘Rabbit, Basil’ she calls, ‘sit up now please.’
‘Where is Rabbit?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘In bed, reading’ Basil has come into the kitchen.
‘Go and get her up would you Bazzy.’ Eleanor asks, and adds quickly ‘Nicely.’

But before Basil can slide back off his chair, Rabbit, as Rachael Briding has been called since she was a toddler, shuffles in barefoot and still in her pyjamas. ‘Hello Aunty’ she gives Elizabeth a kiss but it is quick and self-conscious. She is nearly thirteen. She slumps onto a chair and puts her open book face down on the table.
‘Not on the breakfast table, please.’ Eric says.
‘Why is it that you can have the newspaper but I can’t have my book?’
Elizabeth thinks this is a fair question.
‘Because I say so.’
Rabbit sighs and pushes her book onto the dresser behind her. She takes hold of her glass of milk and tips it slightly towards her and peers through the liquid as though there might be something unimaginable lurking in the bottom of the glass. She glances quickly up at Elizabeth. ‘It’s nice to see you, Aunty Lizzy.’ She says quietly and with a sweet smile, but still no hug. Elizabeth leans over and puts her arms round her niece’s shoulder. ‘It’s nice to see you too, darling.’ She wants to fold her in a long rocking hug but she has to keep up with the changes.

TT 3 - A Len in the Loft

Alison Carduggan leans across the rose bed to scatter some bird seed onto the kitchen window sill. She looks on with satisfaction as the pigeon that has been watching her from the top of the hen coop flutters down to peck at the morsels. When she returns to the vicarage kitchen she finds the back end of Len Magma protruding from the cupboard under the sink.
“Can I help you Len?” Alison asks.
“I’m looking for a long piece of wire Mrs Carduggan” Len replies, his head still inside the cupboard.
“Well there’s nothing like that under there.”
“Are you sure?” Len withdraws his head and looks up at her, his big, gold-framed glasses magnifying his eyes alarmingly.
“I’m absolutely sure.” Alison replies. “Will a wire coat-hanger do?”
“Ah, a coat-hanger. Maybe, yes, maybe I could do something with that.”

When Alison returns with the coat-hanger her face is organised for genial banter but the room is empty. "Oh!" She spots an old envelope propped up against the tea-pot. There is a message pencilled on it in capital letters.

Thank you for the coat-hanger Mrs Carduggan, please leave it outside my bedroom door. PTO.

She turns the note over.

I would prefer it being if you do not go into my room. I’m sure you understand this because you are a very kind lady. LM

It has never occurred to Alison to go up into Len’s room in the loft. In fact, up until now, she has felt no curiosity about Len Magma at all. He is just ‘the lodger’, as inevitable and insignificant a part of their daily existence as ‘the milkman’ or ‘the hens’. She takes the coat hanger and makes her way up to the top of the house. She places the hanger on the top step outside Len’s room and is about to go back down the stairs when the thought occurs to her that perhaps she should just take a quick look – it is her house after all and goodness only knows what he might be getting up to in there. She knows that Len has left the house but she still puts her ear to the door and listens carefully, just to make sure. Silence. She taps gently but there is no response. Holding her breath, she turns the handle and slowly pushes open the door.

The room is dark and at first she is alone with the smell that seeps out of the shadows: gents urinal over laundry basket with perhaps just a hint of feline gingivitis. Slowly, however, a picture of loneliness and despair emerges from the gloom: a slack fawn cardigan slumped over the upturned table lamp, a cigarette stubbed out on a wedge of ham and pineapple pizza, stained Y-fronts suspended from the central light fitting. Alison crosses to the window to let in some air but as she pulls aside the mildewed curtains further horror awaits: on the window sill, in the sudden burst of light, stands a Bell’s Whiskey bottle filled with a cloudy yellow liquid. Surely not! Alison sniffs tentatively then recoils, her hand over her nose. Good Lord! It is. It’s urine. This perhaps more than anything else in the room signals to her Len Magma’s return, like an untended garden, to a rank and wild state. So finally Alison contemplates the reality of Len. What it is to be Len; to return alone each night from the pub to this. Alison flings open the window sending her friendly pigeon fluttering into the air.

The Reverand Douglas Carduggan - or, as Alison likes to refer to him in her weekly column in the parish newsletter, ‘The Man in Black’- is working in his study. She rarely disturbs him there but on this occasion she feels justified. She taps gently on the door and opens it. Her husband is leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. Behind him, the window is open and ivy leaves bob in and out of view. He holds a fountain pen in his hand and a blank notepad is positioned in front of him on the antique cherry wood desk.
“Hello” Alison says gently.
“Oh, hello” He opens his eyes and smiles. “Bit stuck for inspiration for tomorrow’s sermon.”
“How does afternoon tea sound?”
“Ah, now that’s a splendid idea.”
Alison soon returns with a tray of tea and scones and a jar of her home made plum jam. They sit for a few minutes in what Douglas likes to call ‘companionable silence’.
“It appears that Len has some difficulties with personal hygiene.” Alison says at last.
“What do you mean?” Her husband asks.
“Oh dear. Well, I probably shouldn’t have, but I popped my head round his door just now, when I was cleaning, and well, he keeps bottles of urine on the window sill!
“Goodness!” says Reverend Carduggan, “How Extraordinary!”
“He must be quite depressed’ Alison says.

Douglas puts down his cup and saucer. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. And I rather suspect he, you know’ he mimes a tipping action with his wrist, ‘likes a drop or two.’
“I wonder if he has any family.’ Alison says. ‘Someone who might help him”
“Does he want to be helped, do you think?”
“Well…” This throws Alison for a moment. “Well, surely he can’t be happy, living like that. And sometimes, just one person showing an interest…”
“Well, if anyone can do that, my dear, it’s you.” says Douglas, mopping up the last of the scone crumbs with a pudgy finger tip. He returns to his note-pad but Alison hasn’t finished.
“Perhaps if he had a nice hobby. I was thinking, we could make a little workshop for him in the barn. I’m sure all your old woodworking tools are still out there somewhere, underneath all the junk.”
“Do you think he’d be interested in that sort of thing?”
“Well, I don’t see why not. He’s nothing much else to do.”
“Well, why don’t you mention it to him. I’m sure he’ll be most grateful.” Douglas grasps his notepad and begins scribbling decisively. “And I’ve just thought of a splendid woodturning metaphor for the love of Jesus.”
Alison gets up and leaves discretely so as not to disturb the ‘MIB’ when he’s ‘online’ with ‘The Chap Upstairs’.

Alison decides to make an immediate start on the workshop for Len. When she opens the barn door it is in a far worse state than she remembers and the thought of clearing out all the old junk and restoring it to cleanliness and order suddenly fills her with an unusally deep feeling of satisfaction. She tries the switch by the door and is surprised to find that the light still works. She has brought with her a small radio which she turns on and tunes into Radio 4. A deep, warm, cultivated voice annnounces the first in a six part series on the history of the wheelbarrow.

For the next couple of hours Alison systematically goes to work on the barn, only pausing now and again to push her hair out of her eyes. She stacks all the old off-cuts of wood into one corner. She clears the top of the workbench and places all the small tools in the shelving unit Douglas has built in the corner. She sweeps the floor and tips the mounds of dust, wood-shavings and rusty nails into a bin-liner which she secures with a sturdy knot and deposits for collection at the side of the house. By the time she has fetched a bucket of warm soapy water for the window it is beginning to get dark. She wipes a clean swathe through the film of dust and uncovers on the other side of the glass the sight of Douglas ambling towards the barn, hands in pocket and whistling to himself. He opens the door.

‘My goodness - what a transformation!’
‘I think this will make a lovely little den for Len’ Alison squeezes her sponge out in the bucket.’
‘Oh, you’ve gone and cut yourself, my dear.’
Alison raises her arm and sees a nasty cut, still bleeding slightly. There are dried trails of blood that spread out towards her elbow and large patches of red-brown blood on the rolled up sleeve of her blouse.
‘Goodness - what a mess you’ve made of yourself.’ Douglas says, his words aspirated by a slightly patronising little laugh.
‘Oh yes’ Alison clutches her arm awkwardly against herself, ‘silly me’ and she feels more foolish than alarmed.

Once Alison has washed the dried blood away the injury looks much less severe but it’s a deepish cut. She sits on the lid of the lavatory and dabs at it with some antiseptic cream, then cuts off a length of elastoplast. The dark pink strip looks alien against her own pale, freckled skin. She watches a waffle of brown blood dots appear in the weave of the fabric. Alison puts the first-aid box away and opens the bathroom door but is prevented from leaving by Len who stands facing her in the doorway.
‘Oh!” she places her hand over her heart, gasping slightly. ‘Sorry Len, you made me jump.’
‘Hello Mrs Carduggan.
Alison makes a little move forward but her lodger doesn’t step back so she has to converse with him from the bathroom doorway.
‘How are you, Len?’
‘Fine’ his voice is nasal and monotone and a flat ribbon of greasy dark hair falls over one lens of his spectacles. Alison struggles to think of further comments.

‘Oh, Len, there was something I wanted to mention to you. Douglas used to have a carpentry workshop in the barn, I mean nothing special, but perfectly usable, but he doesn’t really have the time any more, and well, I know you’re quite handy with things, always looking around for bits of wood and wire and so on and so I was wondering if you could make use of it for a little ‘atelier’’ she laughs nervously - does Len knows what an atelier is? - ‘….a little workshop.’ She finally pauses for breath. ‘Well, anyway, if you’d like to, you’d be more than welcome.’
‘Ah, Mrs Carduggan, you and your family really are the most kind people..’ Len trails off and for a horrible moment Alison thinks he is trembling slightly.

As she gets ready for bed that evening, Alison notices a streak of dried blood on the side of the wash basin. At first, she is inclined to wipe it off with a spit dampened tissue but then it occurs to her that this is a bit of a ‘Len’ thing to do. When Douglas, who is in bed reading Conversations with God, comes to see what’s keeping her, he finds her in her nightdress, feverishly cleaning the entire bathroom from scratch.

TT 2- The Morgans

The pigeon leaves its peeping post at the vicarage and flies across the High Street where it settles itself on the Morgans’ Georgian window ledge. And what does it see as it squints through the narrow crack between the Laura Ashley button-pleat curtains? All is not well, it seems. Cleanth Morgan is pacing his bedroom in nothing but an ancient pair of fawn y-fronts with contrasting brown trim. This is not the cause of his unrest, however.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Exactly!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“I know!”
“Jesus H Christ Almighty!”
“Tell me about it!”

Cleanth marches to the window and peers through the curtains. He sees from the corner of his eye that the damn pigeon is back but his attention is focussed on the opposite window.
“Bastards got his curtains shut now! I’d like to see him come flash his tiny pink dick at me!”
“It’s not like he’s got anything to be proud of.” Glandice has put on a flowing floral silk dressing gown and is sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing firming gel into her thighs.
“But it was definitely…erect?.”
“Oh sure!”
“Maybe I should just go over there and punch his damn lights out.” Cleanth says, but his body language is unconvincing.
“I wouldn’t do that, honey. I mean, he’s a lot bigger than you. And what with your hyper-rotating hip-joint …"
“You’re right” Cleanth joins Glandice on the bed and takes her slippery, coconut scented hand, “violence is never the answer.” He kisses his wife on the shoulder. This isn’t a swooping romantic gesture, it’s just that she is taller than he is and he can’t be bothered to clamber up onto his knees to kiss her cheek. “Jesus Christ, though.” He shakes his head. “The dirty bastard shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Just because he’s the vicar. I still say we should report it to the police”
“Oh sweetie, I’m really not sure that’s such a good idea.” Glandice removes her hand from Cleanth’s and gets to work with the gel on her upper arms. “They might say I provoked him.”
“Provoked him?” Cleanth is already incensed by Glandice’s imaginary policeman. “How?”
“Well, I suppose I was kind of leaning out of the window naked.”

Cleanth sees her point. This resurrects his desire to march across the street and punch Douglas Carduggan squarely on the nose: a desire checked only by his pacifist beliefs and the mental image of the Vicar, a good head and shoulders above him, calmly extending one of his large hands and placing it flat across the top Cleanth’s head so that he is left flailing wildly and pointlessly in the air that separates them.
“Well, I’m not just leaving it at that. I’ll get the bastard one way or another.” And so Cleanth’s own little project seeds itself deep in the fertile soil of his outraged imagination. Glandice, meanwhile, has slipped off her robe and climbed under the duvet. “Come to bed, honey.”
“I can’t. Not now.” Cleanth jumps to his feet. “God - I’m so tense! I need like an hour of Paxman.” He goes downstairs and starts searching through his home recordings for some of Jeremy’s finest interviews .

TENDRINGHOE TALES 1 - Peeping Pigeon

This window is not an eye. This window is a sightless membrane that traps the fluttering afternoon shadows in the room like exhausted moths. It is the pigeon sheltering against the shallow brick embrasure, its feathers as grey as the hard spits of rain, that sees. In fact, the mean black eye on the nearside of its profiled head peers into the study with such steadfastness that its inhabitant begins to feel not just observed but judged: as judged as if the mighty Lord himself has suddenly torn a peep-hole in the heavens and crossly demanded to know what he, The Reverend Douglas Millfoye Carduggan, thinks he’s up to, exactly.

And what does he think he’s up to, exactly, this tall, ruddy complexioned, pot-bellied man-of-the-cloth, as he billows about his book-lined study, the delicious crumbs of a recent witticism regarding the Venerable Bede still exercising the corners of his mouth? The pigeon shifts its weight backwards slightly on its brittle, scaly legs, the very picture of avian loucheness, and continues its ocular persecution. ‘Well?!’ it seems to say, and the Rev. Carduggan sweats a little more under the dog collar that is already chafing his plump, pink neck.

The Reverend has been undergoing something of a crisis of faith, lately. It is to help him make the most of this interesting phase in his life that he has courted the friendship of a bright young literature scholar from the University by the name of Michael Glebe. Michael now sits in an upholstered carved-back chair in the corner of the study. He, too, retains in his youthful cheeks sufficient flexion to indicate that the Reverend’s recent witticism regarding the Venerable Bede has been understood in all its subtle complexity. Such is the level of self-consciousness required to sustain this posture of youthful brilliance that Michael fails to notice Douglas Carduggan’s agitation and so he adds, quite uselessly but with sufficient aplomb to satisfy them both, ‘Ah yes – indeed - the Venerable Bede!’ and smiles into his tea-cup in a manner suggestive of vast reserves of unspoken knowledge. Michael uncrosses his slender legs and recrosses them in the opposite direction. He teases at a lock of his straw-blond hair, and gazes into the middle distance as he tries to remember a rather lovely piece of dialogue he’s heard on the bus that morning that he thinks will amuse Douglas.

“Biscuit?” Asks the vicar, to distract himself from the birdy eye that still x-rays his heart from behind the blood red velvet curtain. He holds the family sized tin towards Michael not noticing that it contains only two empty plastic layers. Michael can only imagine the round jammy dodgers, the slender bourbons, the squat little custard creams that once nestled in columns of three in the variously shaped niches. Clearly, Rev. Carduggan’s parishioners have been busy with the selection: their spiritually replete but carnally hungry fingers delving expertly through the plastic inlays for their favourites, leaving Michael with nothing but a socially horrible vide. After some embarrassed rummaging he finally discovers, rejected and alone beneath the lowest layer, a single pink wafer.

Under normal circumstances Michael Glebe would not look twice at a pink wafer but he takes it now to avoid awkwardness and places it carefully on his saucer. No sooner has he done so, however, than the Reverend swoops back past him with such a brisk sense of purpose that the cloud of static worked up between his nylon trouser-legs pulls the wafer clean from Michael’s saucer and attaches it to the Vicar’s fly. Reverend Carduggan, unaware of the addition of this lightest of biscuits to his crackling trouser front, proceeds to the window where he is compelled against all his better instincts to pull aside the curtain to see if the pigeon is still there. It is, of course, but worse: as the Reverend stands at the upper floor window, the wafer still pinkly Priapic at his fly, his attention is diverted by a light suddenly visible across the street in the bedroom window of Glandice Morgan.

Glandice, the village’s very own opera singer, has parted her curtains and is now leaning out through the window. She is naked, at least from the waist up, and her unrestrained Canadian breasts tumble adventurously over the frontier of the windowsill. As she pulls the two halves of the casement shut Reverend Carduggan can make out the shape of Glandice’s husband, Cleanth, moving nudely about the room behind her. Is this a post- or a pre-coital moment, he wonders, apalled. Glandice spreads her arms wide like Moses at Amalek and takes a firm hold of each curtain: it is at this moment that she spots the Vicar of St. Margaret’s. For a moment their eyes meet across the street and then the curtains are drawn sharply shut thus bringing to an end the whole unfortunate vignette for both parties.

Michael Glebe presses his pretty pink lips together, turning the corners up neatly at the edges so as to leave only a small aperture in the centre, and raises his hands slightly. Unless he plans to play some Vivaldi on the air-oboe, this suggests he is about to impart a witty anecdote. He has, in fact, remembered the amusing exchange between the two women on the bus. Douglas, however, is in no mood to listen. An unpleasantly nebulous emotional energy threatens to overwhelm him and he needs to say something, anything. He sweeps back into the centre of the room. “Now then” he begins, expelling, at last, some carbon dioxide “we must get you launched.” He hasn’t decided what this means yet but he already feels comforted by the supervisory shape of the rhetoric. “Yes” he stops and presses his fingertips together. "I have a friend in the world of academic publishing.” He pauses as though considering Michael’s suitability for the project. “And I think I’m ready to introduce you to him, now.” He peers at Michael a little longer.

Michael inclines his head to one side in an attitude of grateful interest, letting his golden fringe fall slightly across his forehead so that he looks up from under it with lazy tourmaline eyes. He won’t let Douglas have all the advantages.
“I have a red-snapper in my freezer compartment.” Douglas continues. “You must both come to supper on Friday.”
Michael presumes that ‘both’ means him and the publisher, not him and the red snapper. “Thank you.” He says with a smile sufficiently delicate so as not to disturb his embouchure.

The Vicar of St. Margaret’s can’t decide whether he wants to keep young Michael in his study a little longer or whether he’s ready to let him go so that he can storm and stress in his own thoughts for a while. It is now that he discovers the pink wafer attached to his fly. He tries to brush it to the floor with an irritated flick of his hand but it simply re-attaches itself just above his left knee. “Oh for God’s sake!” He swipes at it again “You’d think someone, somewhere, with an ounce of wit could design a simple pair of trousers that didn’t pick up every damn piece of fluff and confection within a 20 yard radius!” The biscuit parabolas onto his shoe. “And why they continue to manufacture these absurdly flimsy wafers…!” He stoops to grab the offending biscuit from his laces and tries to fling it into the bin but it catches in the updraft of the gesture and floats at its own discretion to the carpet.

“I expect you’ve a lot to be getting on with.” He says to Michael, suddenly, and pretends to busy himself at his bookshelves.
“Oh yes, of course.” Michael leaps up and places his cup and saucer on the walnut occasional table. “I really must get going. Lots to do. On the thesis. He’s about to elaborate but thinks better of it.
“Come at seven, prompt, on Friday.” Reverend Carduggan says, without turning.
“Friday, at seven, yes. Thank you.” Michael accepts the invitation, gracefully.
“Not at all! Not at all!” Douglas Carduggan sweeps him away with notably better success than the pink wafer biscuit. “Alison will see you out.”

As soon as Michael has left, Douglas Carduggan pours himself a slug of scotch, downs it in one, and slings himself onto his day couch like an old school satchel, expelling a hrumph of peat-tinged breath. “Oh that boy!” he says, in mock exasperation, as though this explains everything, since he cannot, even to himself, explain anything at all about why this boy bothers him, exactly. He calls for Alison.
“Yes, darling.” his wife appears at the door.
“If anyone else should call, tell them I can’t see them at present.”
“Not feeling well, Dougie?”
“Oh, well, not ill as such. Just…weary.”
“Can I get you a nice cup of tea?”
“Oh, yes, that would be marvellous.”

The propriety of the conjugal exchange has soothed Reverend Carduggan’s nerves somewhat and he lays his head back against the cushions. Before Alison has returned with the tea he is asleep on the couch.

Michael stands behind him in the mirror. He is naked and Douglas sees for the first time his large, white wings. But now that he takes a closer look, Michael’s feathers aren’t quite so white, they’re more of a sooty grey, and he is shifting unpleasantly from foot to foot. What’s more, his eyes are really quite small and beady and seem to fix him with an accusing stare. “Here’s you’re tea.” Michael says, but it is not tea, it is a flaming chalice that he holds towards him.

“Darling. Your tea. I’ll just put it here on the table.”
“Hmmm, what? Oh…I wasn’t asleep, dear, just resting my eyes.” Rev Carduggan sits up on his day couch and drags his palms down across his fleshy jowels. The shame of the dream still clings to him like the residue of cheap cooking oil on the tiles of a pub kitchen.

As the Vicar sips his Darjeeling he doesn’t analyse his dream too closely. He reflects that the sight of Glandice Morgan spilling out of her window is enough to take its toll on any man’s psyche and leaves it at that. Instead, Douglas lets the dream sow in his mind the seeds of a new project; more ambitious even than Rags for Africa, or St Maggie’s Annual Interfaith Olympics. He will turn The Crisis of Faith to good advantage, he resolves. What the parish of Tendrinhoe needs is a relevant spiritual ‘happening’. He paces the study, his trousers a tremulous cloud of static excitement. To hell with yet another nativity play with all those whiney little bugger’s from Tendrinhoe JMI. This year he’ll write a proper ‘Christmas themed’ play that bravely explores man’s deeper, darker desires. Wasn’t he quite the literary enfant terrible at Keeble before God called him to higher things? Michael must be the archangel Gabriel, of course. Perhaps Gabriel becomes a kind of Brechtian narrator. A nude Brechtian narrator - that would put a firework up the backsides of his parishioners! Well, wasn’t the incarnation necessary because of man’s fall, the moment when he first feels shame at his own nakedness? Ah yes, Douglas Carduggan decides, it all makes perfect theological sense.