Too Many Doors

Charismata

Chapter 101: Too Many Doors

By Friday the board had stopped pretending it was a board.

It was weather.

Pins. String. Envelopes. Copied sheets with local additions in five different inks. Three new diocesan letters on cream paper so self-important the room smelled faintly of furniture polish when Naomi slit them open.

St. Anne's hall table had disappeared under addresses.

Not cases. That mattered.

Anand watched for that distinction the way other men watched pulse.

Cases made heroes. Addresses made neighbours.

Mercer came in with a sack of potatoes on one shoulder and a face that suggested the boiler had chosen further theological developments.

"We have Carlisle on line two, Derry on the side phone, Exeter trying not to sound embarrassed on the main, and somebody in Leicester has written urgent but in a local way on the envelope."

Naomi looked up from the stamp book.

"I like Leicester."

Ruthie took the Exeter page first.

"Exeter never panics at volume. Very Anglican flaw."

The copied sheet from there already had two new lines in tidy black capitals beneath the older sleep questions:

NO ONE GETS CREDIT FOR STAYING CHEERFUL PAST MIDNIGHT.

IF THE RECTORY DOG REFUSES A ROOM, TRUST THE DOG BEFORE THE CURATE.

Mercer read over her shoulder.

"Reasonable."

"The dog line is a little charismatic for Devon."

"So is survival."

The side phone rang again. Naomi answered it with all the authority of a child who had grown up around adults too busy to guard telephones from providence.

"Saint Anne's, not the center."

Pause.

"Good. If someone told you this was the center, they've already become a problem."

Ruthie closed her eyes briefly.

"Who is it."

Naomi covered the mouthpiece.

"Woman in Derry. Tired voice. Proper tired, not dramatic tired."

Anand took the phone.

"Anand speaking."

The voice on the other end said,

"I was told to ring the nearest place that would not start by admiring itself."

He sat down.

"A sensible instruction."

"I hope so."

"Names."

While she spoke, Ruthie opened Carlisle.

Typed diocesan header. Handwritten apology underneath.

Dear Hull, I have been told by a bishop to find my nearest ordinary room before I attempt anything specialist. This is humiliating and therefore possibly from God.

Ruthie snorted.

"Halloran's been evangelizing by shame again."

Mercer dropped the potatoes by the sink.

"Effective man."

"Terrible gift."

Anand kept writing as the Derry woman talked.

Terrace. Mother. One younger brother. A parish priest doing his best and therefore currently in the way. A back bedroom that felt wrong after dark. A next-door aunt who already held one key and half the family.

Already a wall.

"Where is the aunt."

"Next door."

"Does she have tea."

Silence. Then, unexpectedly, a laugh.

"Of course she has tea."

"Then before you do anything clever, you go next door. If anyone has described Hull to you as a place you must imitate, forget them."

"We're not meant to become a house."

"You are meant to become honest. The rest is stationery."

Some of the strain went with it.

When the line ended he wrote DERRY on a fresh card and did not pin it to the middle. There was no middle now.

There was only proximity.

Ezra came in from the yard shaking rain off his sleeves.

"Bristol says thank you and never again."

"For what."

"A diocesan man asked whether they had considered branding their Saturday lunch as a witness table."

Ruthie made a noise usually reserved for deep kitchen injuries.

"Dead on the spot?"

"Helen only wounded him."

Naomi held up Leicester's note.

"Listen to this one."

She read:

We have a church hall, three spare duvets, one curate with a saviour complex, and a mother who keeps apologizing for being the loudest person in the house. Do we count.

Mercer said,

"Yes."

Ruthie said,

"No."

Everybody turned.

She tapped the paper.

"Not yet. That's the point. If every frightened parish with a kettle and a rescue fantasy becomes a house by teatime, we will have built a denomination out of adrenaline."

Ezra leaned against the radiator.

"So what do they count as."

Ruthie reached for a blank card and wrote in block capitals:

ORDINARY ROOM FIRST

Pinned it beside Belfast.

Then under it:

NEAREST ADULT FIRST

And under that, after a beat:

NO NEW HEADING UNTIL THE HOUSE HAS TOLD THE TRUTH

Naomi read the three lines and nodded as if receiving civil law.

"Good."

Mercer frowned.

"Too strict?"

"No. Too alive. People will hate it."

Anand did not smile, but the room felt his approval move anyway.

Scarcity had been easier.

Attention came with frameworks, photocopiers, and women suddenly volunteering in teams of six.

He took Leicester's letter back from Naomi and wrote across the top:

WHO SHARES THE WALL.

Below it:

WHO SLEEPS LEAST.

WHOSE ROOM ALREADY HOLDS MORE TRUTH THAN THE HALL.

WHO WOULD YOU TRUST IF HULL NEVER PICKED UP.

"Send that," he said.

Mercer looked at the page.

"Not exactly pastoral."

"Exactly pastoral."

The main line rang. Exeter at last.

Ruthie answered.

"Tell me something ordinary."

She listened. Listened longer. Looked at Anand and mouthed: rectory

Then:

"No, don't send for anyone. If the room is already in the house, use the room."

Another pause.

"Who is staying cheerful."

Ruthie's face changed. Not alarm. Recognition.

"There we are."

She passed the phone to Anand.

"Beca Penhaligon. Exeter rectory. Says they don't need Hull. They only need someone to confirm the back study counts more than the parish office."

He took the receiver.

"Mrs. Penhaligon."

The woman on the other end sounded dry, intelligent, and one interrupted cup of tea from tears.

"I was told you prefer rooms to ideas."

"Usually."

"Good. We have a back study, one overtired curate who keeps smiling like a threat, one girl in the box room who won't come downstairs if anyone says ministry, and a churchwarden with the common sense of the redeemed. I only need to know whether we are allowed to be small."

He looked at the hall table. At Belfast by the door. At Derry not yet pinned. At the ugly article clipping. At Naomi folding envelopes like a government no one had voted for and everyone secretly needed.

"More than allowed," he said. "Be small immediately."

Outside, somebody's van hit the pothole by the gate with apocalyptic confidence.

Inside, the country kept trying to knock at one door. St. Anne's whole task now was teaching it to use the others.