‘Your tea’s getting cold,’ she said. Sandy took her coat from her and helped her into it. She thanked him. ‘Quite the gentleman this morning,’ she said, smiling, though he did it every time she went to church. ‘Not that you’re keen to see me go or anything.’ She checked in her clutch-purse. ‘Right.’ She looked around her. ‘I’ve got my key, so if you’re going Out, lock the door. And please wash the dishes, all right?’ He nodded. ‘See you later.’ She bent down and he offered his cheek to her kiss. Perfume surrounded him, embraced him with its curious strengths. He was smiling all the time. She looked so different when dressed up: so cultured, so otherworldly. She might be beautiful. Sandy had a guilty peek at her legs as she walked to the front door. The boys at school had said that she was a bit of a ride, so she might well be beautiful too.
Iain Darroch stood in his puffed vestments and welcomed his congregation one by one at the porch. Some of the older ones looked him over obtrusively, as if they were planning to buy him like beef at market. Many, indeed, had come solely to inspect the new minister. Some of the younger women stood together gossiping in the kirkyard. They looked at him occasionally, and straightened their backs when doing so. It was a curious sign, and Darroch, though he had some knowledge of human behaviour behind him, was at a loss as to its meaning. He thought perhaps that they were admiring his stature. He was a good inch over six feet, and his chest and shoulders seemed broader than usual due to the unwieldy amount of cloth over them. His stomach sagged only slightly — unnoticed under the robes in any case.
The little old women in their little old hats had trouble climbing the few steep stone steps to the doorway. They puffed and croaked then extended greetings to him, smiling with rows of stained false teeth. He smiled back. His teeth were, excepting two crown fillings, exclusively his own. He was as afraid of dentists as he was of damnation, sometimes believing them to be one and the same thing. He checked himself, raised his eyes briefly and, he hoped, piously to heaven, and begged forgiveness for the flippancy.
A breeze was blowing cold enough to chill his handshake. The men who shook his hand were members, almost to a man, of the Masonic Lodge. He returned their greetings cordially. The church was filling. He had spent the morning going over his notes one last time. Today he knew that he might have the sympathy vote behind him. The real test would be sustaining the momentum over the next few Sundays. Ideally, he should start off strongly, yet get stronger in the weeks that followed. The butterflies in his whole trunk danced a fandango. It was like being at the dentist’s.
The single bell was pealing, activated by an ingenious electric system. No need for a bell-puller in this day and age, unfortunately. A tall well-dressed woman was now treading carefully over the gravel of the kirkyard in her highish heels. Some of the gossiping parties looked at her and then spoke quietly among themselves. He was struck by her dark features, her air of distance from all around her, her white hair blowing out behind her as she moved into the breeze. She climbed the steps and took his hand.
‘Mary Miller,’ she said. ‘How do you do. We live down by where the colliery used to be, at the foot of Cardell.’
He looked into her eyes. They were hazel, but could almost have been black, hidden as they were under a canopy of darkest eyelash and eyebrow.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs Miller. My name’s Iain Darroch, newly arrived from Edinburgh.’ He knew that she had a son. The resemblance between her and the boy of whom he had asked directions was stunning: the same dark aloofness, the same bearing of isolation.
‘It’s actually Miss Miller, though I don’t much go in for titles,’ she said, smiling. He blinked. Surely he could not be wrong. Discretion was needed here. He bowed his head slightly, but kept silent, smiling also. The striking woman moved into the church, her heels resounding until they reached the carpeted aisle. Having met with most of the congregation, Iain Darroch slipped around to the back of the church quietly, opened a little door there, and prepared himself for the service. Climbing a few wooden steps, he would come to a small door which would take him into the church proper and only a few steps away from his pulpit. He would walk solemnly to the base of the pulpit, climb the stairs to its small, paunch-high door, push it open, and enter the lap of the Lord God to preach His words. Prior to this, the session clerk would have placed the large, heavy Bible open on the rim of the pulpit. He was waiting now for the clerk to come and collect the Bible. God, please be with me this day as I face my trial by jury. Please don’t let me bungle anything or seize up. Please, dear Lord, don’t let it be like the dentist’s.
‘We will now sing hymn number three-nine-six. Hymn three hundred and ninety-six. For those of you with the Revised Hymnary, this can be found in the little pamphlets on the pews. Hymn three-nine-six,
Hymn three-nine-six then. The organist played the tune while the congregation coughed and turned over the pages of their hymnbooks and pamphlets. Now the organ ceased, and the congregation quietly rose. The young minister’s hearty voice drowned out, to his own ears, much of the muted singing from the pews a dizzy depth beneath him. At the singing of the hymn’s second line he saw a few eyes wander from their books towards the dark woman, so erect and contented in her pew. She stood to Darroch’s right, alone in one of the side pews. The eyes of some of the women strayed often towards her, and now more than before. The heart of sin. Iain Darroch thought that he knew something now of her son. He knew, moreover, of her isolation, this woman with the eyes of a wounded but indomitable soul. He nearly lost his place in the hymn, but recovered with a quick glance at the next line. The poor woman, and so beautiful. He had wandered into a town of enmity and spitefulness, into a town of age-long memories and the slowest forgiveness. How could he remedy things? And dear Lord, should he even try?’
‘To dwell with thee above.’
The organ ground its way to a stop. The organist, a Mr Bogie, had a painful style and was of limited resources. His face was ruddy with piety, and his hands gleamed as though soaped to perfection. The small choir sat down, followed by the rest of the congregation. Iain Darroch began the intimations. It was a long list. This was the social side of the Church of Scotland, the side most people relished so far as he could tell. The Church was for coffee mornings and bazaars and Young Mothers’ groups and whist drives and the like. The Church was for a society of coffee-swilling whist-players, no different from those portrayed so keenly in The Rape of the Lock, one of Darroch’s favourite poems. This was a society, moreover, which held hatred at its core, hate and bitter hypocrisy. There would be some strong sermonising in the next few weeks. Pity welled up in the young man. Who could he ask about Mary Miller? Perhaps he had one ally: the Reverend Walker of Cardell Parish Church. He would invite himself to the older man’s manse. He finished the intimations.