He cuts the line so abruptly that I jump, as if I heard him bang his telephone receiver back in its cradle with his great hamlike hand.

I rake my fingers through my hair. I have provoked my archdeacon. What an incredibly silly thing to do. And quite unnecessary. I didn’t miss his letters, they didn’t slip under the doormat or get eaten by Bailey. The first inquired when he might visit. The second and third were more insistent, requesting a summary of my activities and an overview of the current situation in the parish. I ignored the lot.

I need my head examined.

Bailey, who has graduated to kibble, falls on his breakfast with appetite, strong enough now to push the metal bowl across the floor with lashes of his tongue. I steer him away from the ancient tiles Lucy Horne showed me. The pictorial hounds still leap, pale ghosts through the layers of grime. I have learned that I mustn’t scrub the tiles, for fear of damage. Beyond that, I have no idea what I’m going to do about them.

I have no idea, come to that, what I’m going to do about Bailey. Is it fair, to keep a lonely dog? I’m out so much of the time. I wasn’t lying to Frobisher: Curate Clive Perry and I have been busy. The pews are filling up for services, Sunday school has revived like grass after rain. Those more tender seedlings, prayer groups and Bible study, I’m cultivating with care. The Bible study evening has been a surprise, attracting people from all walks of life, standards of personal hygiene, and even sobriety (though I’ve instigated a rule about the latter). Clive and I bring in chairs from the kitchen, lay on refreshments, and people cram themselves into the sitting room. No less than three dauntingly thin teenage girls, sisters by the name of Chant, who come solely to gorge on custard creams and cola before stealing away into the night, bundle themselves like a family of lemurs into the rhino armchair. Only six weeks have passed since I came to Upton but it feels as if those early days, fraught as they were with Tom’s misgivings, that strange business of the scarf, were half a year ago. All that trouble long gone, drained away with the departing floodwater.

So there’s absolutely no excuse for my behavior toward my archdeacon. And, unsettlingly, I’m no nearer to guessing the reason for it than Frobisher is.

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