Chapter 42
Fleabag was the worst thing that ever happened to the church.
Gerald Thomas puts his fingers up to his dog collar and caresses it gently as he waits in the witness room to be called to give evidence.
He’s sick of being called a hot vicar, sick of the raised eyebrows, the smothered laughs when he tells people that he’s a school chaplain.
Watch out for the naughty schoolgirls, that’s what some of his more outspoken friends said when he took the job at St Jude’s. They’ll eat you for breakfast.
He’s grown into the job, though. Five years and not a hint of a rumour that he’s anything other than strictly professional.
Primarily because he isn’t. He’s done his best, anyway.
He can’t help his cheekbones, chiselled jaw, does his best to soften them with pies and pints with some of the more amenable teachers – the geography department generally the best bet for a night out in Stockbridge – but he can’t help how he looks.
The jury will hold it against him, though, he’s sure of it.
When he gets up there to tell the court what he knows about Christian’s sufferings, they won’t see that, they’ll see Andrew Scott telling Phoebe Waller-Bridge to kneel.
Or if they’re from a generation above, they’ll see Richard Chamberlain smouldering in The Thorn Birds.
Gerald hopes they can rise above themselves, leave their basic instincts behind. He prayed for it last night, prayed for guidance about how best to judge it, telling the story straight without showing favour to any of the girls he once knew so well.
That was the upside of the cheekbones, at least – he got good attendance at his Bible Studies classes.
He never kidded himself that any of the pupils who came were drawn initially by his inspirational take on scripture, but by the time they’d finished a session, more were tempted to come back by the lively discussions that happened than they might have predicted.
‘Christian first came to Bible Studies class in November of that term,’ he says to the court.
‘I hadn’t noticed her particularly before, though there was a couple of them who dressed in that alternative way.
I saw them in the back of the chapel. They’d pretend to be reluctant, but if it was a well-known hymn they always joined in the singing by the end.
Especially at Christmas.’ Gerald laughs.
Chokes it back. He knows it’s not funny, but now he’s up here, he’s found his voice less under his control than he would like, a tremor setting in through his hands.
‘Anyway, she came to the first class I held after half-term. I’d chosen Hallowe’en as the topic.
I mean, given it had just passed, it seemed appropriate.
I wasn’t wanting to be overly serious about the subject, but at the same time, I felt that there was something worth saying.
All this talk of magic and witchcraft, but it can be dark, dark stuff.
The way it’s been commercialised by this whole Trick or Treating . . .’
The advocate depute coughs, loudly. Gerald catches on to himself. He’s rambling. So nervous that he’s lost all grip on what he is there to say. This is important, though. He needs to set the scene.
‘I was pleasantly surprised by how many pupils attended the session. Christian was there, with some of her friends, though I never found out their names. One of them looked like Christian, I mean with the hair and the make-up.’
He can see them now, sitting as far back as they could, heads huddled together. They burst into giggles throughout his talk, refused to ask any questions.
‘Do you recognise any of those girls in the courtroom today?’
‘Yes.’ He points towards the dock. Isobel has her head averted from him, but Eliza is gazing at him, the same adoration on her face that there always was. He wants to smile at her, to reassure her that it will be all right, but he knows that he can’t. Knows that he doesn’t even know if it’s true.
‘I ran through a quick history of the celebration, how the Celts had celebrated the time of year known as Samhain, in a similar fashion to the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead. I was light-hearted. But I also made the point that the Bible is quite clear. We must abstain from all appearance of evil. One Thessalonians 5:22.’
‘Thank you, Reverend Thomas. Now if we can return to Christian?’
He’s got to stop talking. Or rather, he’s got to stop waffling. One more piece of scripture though. It is relevant after all.
‘My point was that all this might seem like a joke, but it wasn’t. Anyway, my talk went down well enough. I finished off with a cracking verse from Deuteronomy. Do you mind?’
Mr Alexander shakes his head, as if he’s resigned to his fate now, the vicar on the loose. Gerald straightens his sleeves, stands up tall.
‘It’s 18:10–12. “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practises witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.”’
Gerald’s confidence grows as the words pour from him, his voice ringing.
As it did when he said them for the first time in that school room all those months ago.
The girls at the back had twitched when he said the word witchcraft, he’d noted it particularly, their laughter starting to fade.
At the end of the talk they’d filed out, no questions asked, the mood decidedly more sombre than at the start of the hour.
Only Christian had stayed behind.
‘She helped pile up the chairs, put them back at the side of the room. After we’d finished I thanked her, said there wasn’t anything else to do, but she didn’t leave. She just stood there.’
He can see her now, shifting from foot to foot. She was white as a sheet, clearly deeply agitated. He remembers noticing how badly bitten her fingernails were, how chapped her lips. She could have been a pretty girl – she was a pretty girl – but he didn’t think that she looked well.
‘She said that she had something to ask me. I was struck by how scared she seemed. It didn’t really make sense to me. But what she said explained it. She asked me if I believed that the Devil was real.’
Someone else might have laughed at that question, but not Gerald.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said that I believed that evil existed, and that people were capable of many evil deeds, but that if it came down to cloven hooves and a tail, I didn’t believe that the Devil was real.’
‘Did she ask anything else?’
‘Yes. She asked me if I believed that it was possible to speak to the dead, or to predict the future. I answered very firmly to those questions. I said absolutely not, but that it could be very dangerous to try. She asked if I meant dangerous because it might disturb evil spirits, but I said absolutely not to that, as well.’
‘Did you explain why you thought it was dangerous?’
‘Yes. I said that some subjects, some activities were best left well alone because of the dark direction in which they could take your thoughts. Even though rationally speaking, of course, communication with the dead or with evil spirits isn’t possible, it’s still unwise.’
The girl started to look calmer, he remembers that. The more he said it wasn’t real, that it was impossible, the more colour returned to her cheeks.
‘She was about to leave – she’d nearly got to the door.
Then she came back. Like she’d saved the question she really wanted to ask until nearly the end.
She stood right in front of me, sheer terror on her face.
Then she asked me this.’ He pauses. Even now, he can’t actually believe how it’s all turned out. That it’s real.
‘What did she ask you?’ the advocate depute says. The courtroom is completely silent.
‘She said that the Devil had told her that she’d be dead within six months. She wanted to know if that was true.’ Gerald looks down at his hands, now twisted in front of him. ‘I told her no. Of course not.’
That conversation happened at the beginning of November. The Devil might not be real. It might have been a day or two longer than the prediction said. But one thing was true. Christian died on the first of May the following year.
Six months later.