NEW RECTOR FOR FOXFORD
The new Rector of Foxford is to be the Rev. Otis Joy, the diocese announced this week. The Rev. Joy has been vicar of Old Mordern, near Chippenham, since 1998. He is 28, and a widower. After training at St. Cyriac's Theological College, Brighton, he was ordained in 1994, and served as curate at Old Mordern until the retirement of the incumbent, when he became the youngest vicar in the diocese.
"I am delighted to be coming to Foxford," the Rev. Joy said this week. "St. Bartholomew's is a church rich in history in a beautiful village. I look forward eagerly to carrying on the excellent ministry of my predecessor, Henry Sandford."
"And milking the funds," Burton said aloud and got an anxious glance from a woman at an adjacent table.
The mention of a theological college was a setback to his latest theory, unless Joy had made it up. Unfortunately there was something about Brighton that sounded possible. A man like Joy would choose a college in a popular seaside resort.
He looked up St. Cyriac's in the phone book, went to a payphone and called them. The term had finished and the students had gone down, he was told by someone who didn't sound very important in the college set-up. He explained that he just wanted a word with the archivist, or whoever looked after the records of former students. The young woman on the phone was cagy. The college wouldn't let anyone look at personal records, she said. Burton explained in the most convincing tone he could manage that he wasn't interested in personal details. It was only a matter of confirming things that were in the public domain, dates, and so on. Politely she said she didn't have a copy of the college registers. However, the librarian would be there on Saturday morning doing the annual stocktake and might be willing to help.
St. Cyriac's wasn't really in Brighton. It was a Victorian mock gothic building sited high on the South Downs north of the town, right on the edge of the Devil's Dyke (Burton noted with grim satisfaction).
On the long drive from Foxford, he'd decided on his strategy. Evidently St. Cyriac's were hot on data protection, so he needed a compelling story.
The librarian was a canny, silver-haired Scottish lady, and Burton's confidence dipped when she began by saying, "I was advised that you were coming, and I'm afraid you've wasted your time. I'm not at liberty to divulge information about former students."
Burton said truthfully, "I've driven a hundred miles," and untruthfully, "and nobody told me this."
"That is unfortunate," she admitted, without actually giving an inch.
"I don't want to know anything confidential."
"Everything in student records is confidential."
"It's for a surprise party for our rector," he said with fine conviction for a man who usually told the truth. "You must have seen that television programme This is Your Life. Well, we're planning something like that for his thirtieth birthday."
Unmoved, she said, "I can't help."
"He's such a popular priest," said Burton, at the limit of his imagination to keep this going. "He preaches a fine sermon. So different in style from our last rector. Should have been an entertainer, really. He has a great fund of jokes, always in good taste and to the point."
Curiosity got the better of her. "What's his name?"
"Joy. Otis Joy."
Her expression miraculously softened. "I remember Otis Joy."
"You do?"
"He was a saucy birkie, as we say north of the border, very popular. We all had a soft spot for Otis."
"So you were here when he was?"
"Yes, indeed. And is he really coming up to thirty soon?"
"Next year, if we've got it right."
She slid out a computer keyboard from a recess under her desktop. By a strange twist, Joy's charming ways had come to Burton's aid. "You're right," she said, staring at her monitor. "I think of him as no more than a lad. He was younger than the average when he entered college. Most of our entrants have had work experience in other careers, but Otis had more confidence than any of his year."
"Hadn't he been in work?"
"Apparently not. He came to us from Canada, and he'd done some training for the ministry over there, according to this. He knew his Bible better than any student of his year. But I don't think he's Canadian by birth. He didn't have any accent that I recall, though it wouldn't surprise me if he was Irish. He had a touch of the blarney, for sure. No, it says here he was born in Norwich."
"When?"
"You know that," she told him sharply. "The seventeenth of March, nineteen seventy."
"Of course."
"I wonder what took him to Canada," she mused aloud, forgetting all about confidentiality. "He was at Milton Davidson Memorial College, Toronto, until ninety-three. Was he only with us a year, then? I can picture him more clearly than some who stayed for three."
"When was he ordained?" Burton asked.
"Nineteen ninety-four."
"That's certain, is it? The ordination?"
"Absolutely certain. I was there, praying for them all." She frowned at the question and another of Button's theories went out of the window.
Christmas crept up quickly, ambushing everyone, and Rachel found herself at midnight mass, the service nobody wanted to miss, in her usual pew, shoehorned between young men with beer on their breath. All the extra chairs from the parish hall were brought in, and still some people stood at the back. The youngest choirboy, singing "Away in a manger," was impossible to see as he threaded his way up the narrow aisle between chairs at the ends of the pews. Behind the choristers, Otis sported the glittering hand-worked cope that always came out on this holy night.
The carol ended and he started speaking the time-honoured words of the liturgy without any amplification. His voice resonating through the church made Rachel feel very emotional. When her favourite carol, "O little town of Bethlehem" was sung, and she reached that line about the hopes and fears of all the years, her eyes moistened and there was a lump in her throat. She knew far too much about hopes and fears.
After everyone filed out at the end, Otis stood in the porch as usual shaking hands, making a point of not missing anyone. Short of sneaking out through the vestry there was no escape, and when Rachel's turn came he clasped her right hand between both of his and said, "Ah, Rachel, shall I see you at Morning Service tomorrow?"
She hadn't intended going, because it was a family service and she would feel conspicuous. He must have seen the hesitation in her eyes when he added, "Wearing your treasurer's hat."
She took a moment to fathom what he meant. She was thinking of hats, literally. "If you want."
"Please."
She moved on, still without fully understanding. Surely he didn't want to hand over the offertories from the spate of Christmas collections. The money would be more secure in the church safe until the banks reopened.
Outside under a starry sky, the beginnings of a frost glistened on the headstones. People lingered on the path, wishing each other Christmases happy, merry, peaceful, great and wonderful. But what can you wish someone who has recently buried her husband? Rachel slipped past them all and went home. She was dreaming of a Joyful Christmas and she didn't think it was likely.
She was in church as requested on Christmas morning and heard Otis give a short and surprising sermon pitched mainly at the children. "Some of you are asking if there really is a Father Christmas, and 1 don't have to tell you boys and girls, today of all days, that of course there is. Of course! And can anyone tell me his real name?"