Read Online Angels and Men by Catherine Fox - Free Book Online Page B

impatient for some activity. Maybe she should have gone out with Maddy and May. Well, she decided, picking up her purse and leaving the room, I’ll go and have a drink and see if they roll up.
    She made her way down the cellar steps to the bar. It was still almost empty. The room would fill up as the evening wore on, but at that moment there was only a small group of Coverdale students sitting around a table in the corner. Mara could hear them deep in discussion about the authority of Scripture as she ordered her drink. She paid the barman and went to sit down where she could see the whole room and both entrances. Her habitual expression of disdain settled on her features. The conversation on the other side of the room went on.
    â€˜The problem with him is that he doesn’t expound the text,’ said a voice bossily. Mara glanced across, thinking for a moment that it was Rupert speaking. It was another of his kind. Coverdale seemed to be full of them, all wearing waxed jackets and springing to their brogued feet when a woman entered the room. Good families, good schools and – above all – good, sound evangelical principles. They had the Gospel sewn up: God’s Creation, Man’s Sin, God’s Remedy, Man’s Response. Women were gallantly sheltered under the generic umbrella. Mara smiled guiltily, remembering her condemnation of Maddy and her dull deaconesses. I’m no better than she is. Theological colleges obviously attracted recognizable types. And Johnny Whitaker was Coverdale’s token rebel. She had been amused the previous day to hear someone saying, ‘I’ve locked my keys in my boot. Has anyone seen Whitaker?’
    She turned her thoughts away from him with an effort, and began listening to the Coverdale students. They were now talking about parishes. Final-year students, obviously. The infamous Curacy File had appeared in the college library and she had seen several different people leafing through it and making notes in their attempt to find a suitable (or at least bearable) parish to serve their title in.
    â€˜I’m off to Leeds this weekend,’ someone was saying. ‘It sounds a bit charismatic, but I’ll have to look at it.’
    â€˜Hasn’t Simon already been there?’
    â€˜Yes, but he turned it down,’ said the bossy one. ‘His wife didn’t like the kitchen.’ Good God, thought Mara. Get your priorities sorted out. Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but Simon’s wife doesn’t like the kitchen .
    â€˜Oh, that’s not fair, Hugh!’ protested one of the others.
    â€˜I’m looking at a parish in Sunderland,’ said another gloomily. ‘But I’m not sure I want to be that far north. All my family’s in Hertfordshire and London.’ The rest murmured sympathetically. ‘Can one live without culture for three years? That’s the question.’
    â€˜That’s the cost of ministry, brother,’ replied Hugh.
    â€˜Says the man who’s going to Kensington.’
    They were treating it light-heartedly, but Mara wondered whether a real fear of the north lay behind their laughter. She had seen a map of the country on one of the Coverdale noticeboards, with little pins showing where last year’s leavers were serving. Most of them were south of Birmingham.
    â€˜Rupert’s sorted out, I hear.’ Mara grinned into her drink. An apt summing-up. Rupert was more sorted out than anyone she had ever met. His mission was to sort out everyone else, too.
    â€˜The old boy network,’ said the Sunderland man cynically.
    â€˜Nonsense!’ chorused the rest of the group, and dissolved into laughter. Clearly a recognized Anderson catch-phrase. The talk broke up into several separate conversations and Mara stopped trying to follow it. She began to conjure up her inner moorland world.
    Her attention was called back by the sound of feet coming down the steps. Johnny