‘You eat the crusts first?’ I asked.
‘Christ!’
As Father Arthur pushed his chair backwards in surprise, some of the nonsequential sandwich crust caught in his throat.
‘Lenni!’ He wheezed, his face swelling red.
He coughed and lowered his head between his legs.
‘I’ll get New Nurse!’ I shouted.
I was almost at the door to his office when he weakly said, ‘No, I’m all right.’ He wheezed again, unscrewed the lid of his red thermos flask, and poured out some tea.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and he waved me back into the office as though it were all fine.
As he sipped more tea and wiped tears from under his eyes, I inspected his office. He had two dark wood shelves with Bibles and songbooks and files. A picture of Jesus looking exhausted on the cross, in a frame with the remnants of a price sticker stuck to the corner of the glass. A photograph of a black and white dog, and a photograph of Arthur with other people, in which he is wearing an inordinately colourful jumper.
Arthur’s office window was tiny and there was a grey layer of dust on the slats of the half-open blinds. When I pulled one back, I could see the car park. But that didn’t seem right. How could the car park be outside the window of the chapel office and also outside the Rose Room and also outside the window in Margot’s room? When I first came here, the car park was only on one side of the building.
‘The other day I read,’ Arthur said, as he noticed me staring out at the car park, ‘that there are more cars in the world than people.’
‘You need to dust your blinds.’
I drew an L in the dust.
Arthur took a tentative bite of his sandwich and I compelled myself not to try to make him jump a second time.
I drew an E beside the L.
‘Do you think if Jesus had had a car, he’d have driven it around?’
Arthur frowned and smiled almost simultaneously.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘it would have saved him the work of appearing everywhere.’
‘I don’t—’
‘It’s odd that he didn’t tell the folk in Jerusalem about cars – you know, give them a heads up of what’s to come. Give them a clue that would lead to the invention of the motor car. Help them get there quicker.’
‘How do you know he didn’t?’
I gave Arthur a smile to let him know that was a good response.
I waited for Arthur to speak again, but now that he had the chance to not be interrupted, he didn’t say anything. I drew two Ns in the dust on the blind.
‘To tell you the truth, Lenni,’ he said, ‘I can’t imagine Jesus behind the wheel of a car. It just seems odd.’
‘But when he comes back, if he comes back, won’t he want to drive anywhere?’
‘I—’
‘I suppose he can just ask for lifts. Nobody would turn Jesus down.’
I drew the I on the blind and then turned.
‘But then, what if they don’t know he’s Jesus because he’s dressed up like an old beggar woman, and then nobody helps him because nobody picks up hitch-hikers any more and he’s just stuck on the M1 for hours? And then the more bedraggled he looks with that beard and everything, the more he resembles a homeless man. And then he just starts walking and the police pick him up because they think he’s a drug addict. Then when they try to put him in rehab, he’s telling them, you know, “I’m the Son of God.” But nobody believes him, because why would they? And he gets put in a detention centre with a load of other people all claiming to be Jesus and nobody can tell who the real one is.’
A small crumb of bread had got stuck in the corner of Father Arthur’s mouth. He wiped it off. ‘Why would Jesus be dressed up like an old beggar woman?’
‘To see if people are really kind or if they’re just being nice to him because he’s Jesus.’
‘And he’d need to be dressed up as an old woman to find that out?’
‘Yes, and then he gives them a rose if they’re good.’
‘Isn’t that the plot from Beauty and the Beast?’
‘Hey, you’re the priest, you tell me.’
The First Winter
Church Street, Glasgow, December 1952
Margot Docherty is Twenty-One Years Old
JONATHAN EDWARD DOCHERTY and I were married at 12.30 p.m. on the first day of September 1951 on shaking knees and with a borrowed ring. My mother had cried for all the wrong reasons. And then we’d moved into a tiny tenement off Church Street.