THE Friends of St Andrew's meet by the
river. The Stour fingers its way through the secret reeds. The day
has been hot, and now the evening is Mediterranean, with a cobalt
sky in which a Chagall moon lies on its back. Unbeknown to most of
us, we sit on a purpose-built Saxon mound that keeps the winter
floods away.
Some of us have been to the City, and
one would have thought that the Friends' finances would be
elementary, but what church money has ever been this? And so we put
on our thinking caps, as mother would say: other than I, who,
financially illiterate, sit in the Patron's chair. And so the
evening passes, pleasantly interrupted by salad and wine.
The great debate is, of course, about
lavatories and Early English windows. The Vicar, Henry, will not be
here to see what happens either way. The comings and goings of
incumbents in a rural parish are dramatic, and we will miss him.
Unlike artists and writers, he will retire. Our Friends are both
retired and still toiling, friends in both senses, beloved
neighbours and faraway commuters, and thus the summer night passes.
We sit in Essex, Tom's cows munch in Suffolk, and the river passes
to make a dividing line.
You can have some yearly fund-raising
in a country parish, but not too much fund-raising, which breeds
alarm. Not to say exhaustion. A conglomeration of Stone Age and
Roman materials, which is also in a kind of everlasting debate on a
slight rise, will see us all out, whatever we do or don't do.
But neither we nor the diocesan
architects will stand for laissez-faire. We are like little boys
with coins in our pockets, who are torn between spending and
keeping them there. And thus the gentle argument goes on. And thus
my, if I may say so, deep knowledge of village things knows that
this will always be so.
The ancient garden is scented. It is
where the brass-rubbing knights and ladies in the ringing chamber
walked, smelling the same warm air, listening to the late birds,
and maybe discussing whether their riches would run to a
clerestory. Anything to get them into heaven. Spare no expense!
A Swiss lady has sent me, as she does
year after year, a packet of Alpine seeds. They are all in flower,
and, although obviously hollyhocks, marigolds, cornflowers, etc.,
they are smaller and far greater-hued than their English relations.
The white cat hides from the sun in their shade. A distant,
unrecognisable figure is getting in a bit of hay. The horses stand
in profile, flicking off flies. Strangers come and go, and are
given a cup of tea.
Peter-Paul the composer arrives to
have a talk. We bake against the nettles. How impossible, now, to
think of the rain, the washed-away lane, the coldness of only last
week. Even of the slugs that devoured my runner beans. At the top,
a hare walks, not runs. In church, we sang "Christ is made the sure
foundation", which was rather going it for 17 people. Such a
sumptuous hymn; such a glory to match the glory of summer. It rose
and fell like the wind-stirred wheat. I preach on the Lord - and
the sea.
Later, much mowing, much tying-up of
top-heavy tomatoes, much flipping with a book. Angularis
fundamentum goes on singing in my head.