The vicar was black. Perhaps this was why Katherine had brought me. He was tall and spare, and welcomed us in an accent that I could not place. All that was priestly was the white collar that glinted in the open V of his fleece. Two boys and a girl got on stage, the girl with a guitar, the boys with their hands empty. They led us in song. The lyrics appeared on a screen, a few lines at a time, karaoke-style. There was a man working the projector at the back, clicking to the next slide a second before we needed it.
Jesus is alive, amen,
Jesus is alive.
Yesterday, today, forever,
Jesus is alive.
Around me eyes began to close. An old lady, the most proper in the bunch, was the first to raise her hands. I thought she was signaling someone. Then slowly it spread through the room. A man bent till his torso lay parallel to the floor. A woman twirled once. Her skirts rose and settled. Katherine neither raised her hands nor danced. She was not the only one standing still but I wondered if my presence was inhibiting. I closed my eyes too, but the music had taken them to a place I could not follow. I could sneer at it all, their suspension of rationality, their gullible thirst for the supernatural, but Katherine had been kind to me and her kindness came from this place.
There was a segment for prayer. They prayed for nations at war, for the Amazon rain forest, for children in the inner city, and then a tiny window to pray for ourselves. I, too, decided to suspend disbelief.
“Please let my mother’s flat sell so I won’t have to ask Robert for money to go to Bamana.”
It was a selfish prayer. Its chances of success were therefore limited. When it was over the vicar returned to the stage. This was more familiar. There was no lectern nor was he using notes, but it was a sermon, this much I recognized. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not boast. The mic was clipped on, barely visible as he moved from one side of the stage to the other, pacing and stopping. His manner was engaging, funny even, when he told a story about the first time he changed a nappy. We moved from this bouncing sermon to the solemnity of Communion. The chalice was raised to the light. Violence was done to the host. It was snapped in two—the sound of breaking, the wafer brittle as bone. It was theater, as all religion was theater, but it was well done. When the velvet collection bag was passed around, I placed a five-pound note inside.
“You don’t have to,” Katherine whispered to me.
“I know.”
Katherine was in charge of the refreshment table afterwards. There were tea, coffee, hot chocolate, biscuits, and store-bought muffins. Perhaps this was why she was so popular. I stood by the table with my coffee and biscuits, watching as she spooned sugar with one hand and wiped spills with another. I could imagine her trotting up and down a banking floor, efficient but distant. The children were back from their Sunday school. They ran in between the legs of the adults.
“Hello, there.” It was the vicar, descended from the stage and walking now, amid his flock. He put out his hand to shake me.
“Carl Offor.”
I motioned that my hands were full.
“Anna Graham.”
“Pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s my first time.” I felt the need to offer some confession. “I haven’t been in a while.”
“You are welcome.”
“Thank you.”
I expected him to turn away, but he remained by my side.
“I hope you enjoyed the service.”
“It was lovely, really. Short and sweet. Things used to go on a bit when I was a child.”
“There’s been reform in the Church of England.”
“I can see.”
He snorted, and I glimpsed the gap in his teeth.
“Well, I hope you come again, Anna. This is your home.”
“Thank you.”
It was trite, but in a sense true. The Church doesn’t pay tax.
He moved on. A woman who must be his wife came up to him. She touched his arm and said something into his ear. She had dreadlocks that fell down her back in thin ropes. The ends had been dipped in honey dye. Of course he was married. The pool dwindled with age.
Later, I helped Katherine clear the refreshment table and fold its stiff metal legs. We were among the last to leave.
“So, what did you think?”
“The vicar asked as well.”
“He’s new. Only been here about a year.”
“It was a good sermon,” I said. “He seems nice and his wife is pretty.”
“Yes, very pretty. So, same time next week?”
“A lot of it was familiar.”
“Except the biscuits, surely? We never had such good biscuits at mine.”