Evensong

“Yes, the New Anglicans are a political movement. We’ve had to be, because established politics has too often chosen to appease fundamentalism rather than challenge it. Yes, the New Anglicans are a corporation. We’ve had to be, because having a better way than the Dark Ages isn’t enough unless you have the wealth and organisation to put it out there and make it work. And yes, the New Anglicans are a Church! More than ever. So we’ll reach out to the bullied and disenfranchised and marginalised and brainwashed, and bring them into the light where they can question anything and everything, including us, because we aren’t infallible. We don’t promise to make everything good. But we do promise to make some things better.

“I may not always be out here, in front of you, but God is always out there. And you know what our God wants from you. Not worship, but ambition. Remake youselves! TakeHim into you!” 

2

After the service she left quickly, going through a small door behind the altar. Gaetano stood there to prevent anyone following. People and press remained in the Cathedral for some time, milling around and discussing her sermon—the parts they understood, and the parts they didn’t.

One by one, wristcoms were flipped open and journalists started calling in their reports. A few went outside to call, hunching their shoulders against the cold—the wind from the sea had become more biting as evening turned into night—but most preferred to stay in the relative warmth of the Cathedral. Anwar, wandering dazedly among them, thought they were speaking in tongues.

Their reaction to her sermon was mixed. They didn’t know if her tone was optimism or despair. And they were puzzled about some of her references: relationships, for example, and people putting things in their mouths.

Along with the puzzlement Anwar heard annoyance and even scorn. Her sermon had been pitched as her most significant public statement since the Reith Lecture, and most reporters thought that, well, frankly it was nothing of the sort. The Outreach Foundation was significant, but hardly on a par with the huge policy and strategic initiatives she’d taken with Room For God. And many New Anglicans, below Olivia’s level, were already doing similar things, albeit informally and piecemeal.

Some of them were doubly annoyed because they’d expected her to say more about the summit, in view of everything that had happened in the last few days—her sudden cancelled meetings, rumours of rows with Zaitsev over the Signing Room, and the strange occupation of Rochester Cathedral with the failed ultimatum. More than once he heard the phrase “the Troubled Summit.”

And then, there was the Companion. That prompted a feeding frenzy. Who was it? Had she got one of The Dead, maybe there ahead of the summit to protect Zaitsev? He even heard someone likening the Companion to Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, but perhaps with the roles reversed. It was only a passing remark, and wasn’t picked up by anyone else. It didn’t even make it to that journalist’s channel. Some fat subeditor, between uncomprehending mouthfuls of burger, took it out.

And finally, her closing remark about not always being here. Some of them took it to be just an expression, but others wondered if it hinted at an attempt on her life. Most of them, however, tied it in with her suddenly-cancelled meetings, and wondered what was going on. Was she planning to leave the New Anglicans?

All these elements were enough to make the sermon a good story, but it didn’t get automatic top ranking. It was upstaged on most channels by the brief but breaking news about the discovery of Parvin Marek’s remains—which, by now, had been rushed back to Kuala Lumpur and definitively identified. It was an old story, but now it had returned strangely, and prompted speculation about the effect it might have on the families of Marek’s victims. And on Laurens Rafiq. 

3

When he’d heard enough, Anwar walked up to the door behind the altar. Gaetano was still there.

“What did you make of that?” Anwar asked him.

“It sounded like Goodbye.”

“Where is she?”

“She went into the Garden.”

Anwar passed through the door and out of the Cathedral. He found her standing under a spreading laburnum tree. The Garden was darkening, and wind rushed through the shrubbery. Noises from the Brighton foreshore across two miles of ocean—music, people, traffic, laughter—made an unsuitable counterpoint to the weather, and to his mood.

A couple of Gaetano’s people were standing nearby, but when she saw him she waved them away. He took off his jacket and offered it. She draped it over her shoulders.

He began “I think I was wrong—”

“Didn’t you hear me in there? You’ve won. You can have your comfort zone, I won’t violate it. And I won’t try to trick you, or suck you in. So that’s my part of the deal, and your part, which you’ve already told me you’ll honour, is to stay for the summit. For the whole of the summit.”

“Why are you talking like this?”