A GODLESS CHRISTIAN

 Alan Dent

            As there was no Methodist church nearby, Mrs Kirby took her children to the Congregational. The three of them were scrubbed, dressed in their best and dragged to the pews for ten every Sunday. The two girls accepted the ritual like they did Sunday lunch and remained conventional if irregular worshippers into adulthood, but the boy, the youngest, became at fourteen fervently religious, took confirmation classes very seriously, handed out hymn books to the arriving faithful, and never missed a service. Five years later, having started to read literature and philosophy with the same fervour, he began to detach from orthodoxy and quite quickly found himself adrift. The idea of god began to seem absurd. He read Darwin and found the mental contortions necessary to reconcile divine creation with evolution preposterous. Atheism was a liberation, but he went on attending, singing, seeming to pray and handing out the blue-backed books with a smile, a nod and a kind word.

            It was at a Sunday evening service he met Heather. It was his wont to sit on the back row in the left-hand corner, content to be inconspicuous. When Jack Hothersall, one of the elders, invited him to join the choir, he politely declined. He didn’t read music and though he could hold a tune like the next person, didn’t think himself a singer. The approach was a little shock. He assumed he’d been barely noticed. The same was true of Heather sitting next to him.

                                    “Hello,” she said.

                                    “Hello.”

He turned his head to look at her and saw a pretty, pale face, blue eyes, small pink lips and light auburn hair cut to end at her jaw.

                                    “I was hoping you’d be here.”

His heart gave a little kick.

                                    “Were you?”

                                    “Yes. I notice you always sit here, in the corner.”

                                    “Near the pipes,” he said, laying his left hand on the bulky, cast-iron radiator. “Nice and cosy.”

She gave a short laugh and shifted slightly so her shoulder met his. When they left, she lingered at the foot of the steps.

                                    “Dark already. When the clocks go back it really feels like winter, doesn’t it?”

                                    “It does,” he said, lifting the collar of his navy-blue overcoat. “Which way are you going? I’ll walk with you if you like?”

            They were married in the church three and a half years later. To save money, because neither earned well and their parents weren’t flush, the reception was held in her mother’s three-bed semi. She provided the catering herself, being one of those calm, domestically competent women who can make delicious food appear from nowhere and clear up an unholy mess in thirty minutes. They honeymooned in Llandudno and came back to their two-bedroom flat over Parkinson’s hardware store.

            It was on their second night at home Terry dreamt he was in the pulpit. The little church was filled to capacity, people standing in the aisles. Someone called to him, “If there is no god, who made the universe?” “The universe?” he replied, “Now there’s a question. What do we mean when we say the universe? Because we can name something doesn’t mean we know what it is.” He tried to take off his jacket so he could roll up his sleeves and get down to business, but the wings were held by an internal button and as he tugged hopelessly, the congregation began to laugh. Then he was pushing at the loft access which was firmly bolted. “Weltschmertz!” he called.

            Heather shook him.

                        “Terry. Terry. What’s the matter?”

                        “What?”

                        “You were shouting in your sleep. Something German.”

                        “German?”

                        “Yes. Are you all right, my love.”

                        “Yes, some odd dream. Sorry for waking you.”

                        “That’s all right,” and she wrapped her arms around his trim waist and curled close.

            On leaving school at sixteen, Terry found a job as a sales assistant in John Collier’s. The idea attracted him because he liked to dress smartly and the discount allowed him a wardrobeful of suits, shirts and ties. The work was easy, his colleagues friendly and chatting to customers passed the time on pleasantly. Being in the town centre, he could make the best of his lunch break, read the paper in a good café, have a stroll in the park. He had no ambition. Heather had a basic clerical job in the tax office and between them they earned enough to get by. Neither hankered for the consumerist life, finding in one another what sustained them. Others may be flying off to Ibiza or Majorca, but they were content with a week in Ambleside or, extravagantly, a fortnight in a tent in Cornwall. But the company insisted on promotion.

                        “They’re sending me on another course.”

                        “Oh no, where’s that?”

                        “Birmingham.”

                        “What’s it about.”

                        “Shop management.”

                        “But you don’t want to manage a shop.”

                        “I keep telling them, but they say I’ve got potential.”

            What irked Heather most was his absence for a week. It was only a week, but it was a week of her life. What right did they have to deprive her?

            Terry was given the job of manager two months before their first child was born.

                        “The money’ll be handy.”

                        “It will,” she said.

But he didn’t want the burden or the extra hours and she didn’t want a frazzled husband.

            Being easy-going, treating the staff, who he never thought of as other than his equals, with gentleness and humour, he made his role congenial. When he discovered one of the young assistants was stealing from the till, he took him aside and suggested he might like to move on.

                        “Shouldn’t you tell the police?” said Heather.

                        “I don’t want to get the lad a criminal record. He’s seventeen and daft. He’ll grow up.”

                        “Or he won’t,” she said.

                        “Or he won’t.”

            They had two more children, all girls, got a twenty-five year mortgage on a little three-bed semi in a pleasant suburb and settled into the adventure of bringing up a family. All the while, they attended the Methodist church each Sunday. At length, Terry stopped singing the hymns and saying the prayers. For a while, Heather didn’t mention it but walking home, arm in arm, Terry holding Stella’s hand and the other two at Heather’s side, she said, gently:

                        “Why don’t you sing and pray anymore?”

                        “Dunno,” he said, unable to simply offer the truth because he thought it would shock her.

            There were hymn tunes he liked and some of the lyrics were unobjectionable. Even “The day thou gavest, Lord, has ended” he was comfortable with, though he thought the day had nothing to do with any deity. But the prayers and the sermons seemed more and more empty. Alone, he could reason with himself: he’d been brought up to believe, but had worked out a new way of thinking and feeling. God meant nothing to him. He read about genetics and atomic theory, and though he was no scientist, it appealed to him more powerfully than religious accounts of existence. Yet he couldn’t walk away from the church. It had been good to him. It was the one institution which accepted him as he was, demanded no qualifications nor any obedience. He was free to leave. He knew everyone. It would disappoint them if he no longer attended. On occasions, he toyed with the idea of moving to a different part of the town, or even further, to give him an excuse; but it seemed cheap and dishonest.

            What he wanted to do was tell people: “Look, I don’t believe in God now. I accept your faith, though I don’t share it. But I want to stay part of the church. I like it as a social institution. I’m at home here. Most of my friends are here.” He knew it wouldn’t work; people wouldn’t accept him sitting in the corner on the back row, knowing he was a non-believer.

            The children attended Sunday school because Heather wanted them to. It troubled him because he thought they were bringing them up to believe what wasn’t true, but he rationalised through his acceptance of Christian morality, or his view of it. Treating others as you expected to be treated was a high moral demand he thoroughly agreed with.

            All went well enough. They walked to church, he chatted with friends, the kids enjoyed their bible stories, drawing colouring, singing and it all pleased Heather which made him happy; but one Sunday, as they were leaving, Jack Hothersall took him to one side.

                                    “You know, Terry, it’s part of our tradition to have lay preachers. Well, we thought you might like to offer the sermon next Sunday. You’re a bright young man and well-respected, we’d be honoured.”

                                    “Next Sunday?”

            Heather, who had lingered near and overheard, intervened.

                                    “What a good idea, Terry. I think you’d be marvellous.”

                                    “I don’t know about that.”

            Hothersall laughed and laying his big, workman’s hand on Terry’s shoulder said:

                                    “Well, think it over. Give me a ring before Wednesday. I’m in the book.”

            His wife’s arm linked through his, the gentle tug as they walked, and her sweet enthusiasm pushed him into an uncomfortable space.

                                    “I’ll be so proud,” she said. “I’ll get my mum and dad to come.”

            On Wednesday evening she trilled:

                                    “Have you rung Jack yet?”

                                    “No, I didn’t get round to it.”

                                    “Do it now. I’ve already told mum and dad.”

            He’d mulled over what he might say since Sunday morning. At work, the sentences  formed in his head, only to drift away again, so he had to make an effort to retrieve and hold them. On Tuesday lunchtime, he sat on a bench watching people pass, inwardly rehearsing.

                                    “Hello, Jack, Terry. I’m just ringing to say I’ll deliver the sermon.”

            Dread overcame him as he set down the receiver. He went up to the bedroom and looked out at the darkened avenue. He was a fraud, an impostor. He was going to stand in the pulpit, as in his dream, as if he believed, and at no point would he mention god. People would shake his hand as they left, and even if he pulled it off and no one suspected, he would know. All these people he liked and respected; he was cheating every one of them. And Heather. Oh, Heather.

            At the kitchen table he sat with a pad and pen writing the sentences he’d worked over again and again. Heather touched him gently on the shoulder as she passed.

                                    “There’s something I should tell you,” he said, as she was getting ready for bed.

                                    “What’s that, love?”

                                    “I don’t believe in god.”

                                    “What did you say, Terry?”

                                    “Really. I’m an atheist. I have been for some time.”

                                    “But you’ve to give the sermon on Sunday.”

            He nodded. She straightened her nightie and looked at him.

                                    “I can’t take it in.”

                                    “I know.”

                                    “We go to church every week.”

                                    “I like the people. I like to see you happy.”

                                    “Oh, Terry.”

                                    “No, I don’t mean that patronisingly. It makes me happy. What does it matter that I don’t think there’s a god?”

                                    “Well, it does.”

                                    “What does it change, Heather? We’re the same. I think the same. I believe in the values. Love you neighbour. Isn’t that what matters.”

                                    “Of course. But why didn’t you tell me?”

                                    “I didn’t want to spoil it for you.”

                                    “Blimey, Terry, what are you going to say in your sermon?”

            Being the centre of attention didn’t suit him. He was happy in his corner on the back row, that was his place in life. His heart raced, his palms were damp, he didn’t dare have breakfast for fear of bringing it up. He looked down at the congregation: Mrs Duckworth in her best blue coat with the matching hat held by a long pin who  walked out in protest when the youngsters were allowed to conduct the service and one of them played and sang The Times They Are A’Changin’; Mr Waddingham, the retired Chief Constable straight-backed and intimidating; Ada Payne, his mother’s old friend whose hands shook from Parkinson’s.

                                    “I spend my working days selling people suits and shirts,” he began. “I suppose you could say there’s nothing very Christian about that. I’m there to make money for the business, but I never think about the money. I like the customers. Some of them come in often. I know their names. I like to give them good service. If they go away happy, that cheers me up. It’s not Savile Row. They aren’t getting top quality clothes; but something to put on for a Saturday night, or a wedding or a Christening. It may sound daft, but I like to think there’s love of my fellow creatures in that. Not in a soppy way. After all, it’s a transaction, isn’t it? They pay the money. I hand over the suit. But it’s a human transaction and I don’t know, maybe a bloke is going through a bad time. Perhaps his marriage is failing or his mother’s died or something, and a chat to me, a smile and a laugh and going home with something he can look smart in, well, maybe it makes him feel a bit better. And that’s often all someone needs, isn’t it? Love your neighbour as yourself. Do as you would be done unto. It’d be a better world if we all did that, wouldn’t it? It’s something to live up to. We’ll never succeed, will we? We’re too selfish. We can’t see beyond our own needs and wants. But it’s worth trying. It’s the trying that lifts us. So here you are, listening to a sermon from a bloke who sells clobber. I wish I could say to you, live a good life and great will be your reward in heaven. But I don’t think that’s why you should. It’s not a matter of ultimate reward, or getting something others will be denied. It’s about today. Every day you have a chance to make someone else’s life a little happier, and you know what, if you do, you’ll enjoy it…”

                        They were full of compliments as they left. No one scowled or complained. No one asked why god wasn’t mentioned or chapter and verse cited. Heather looked up at him as they walked the drive.

                                    “I told you you’d be marvellous.”

                                    “My legs were shaking,” said. “I couldn’t stop ‘em.”

                                    “Well,” she laughed, “no one could tell. I bet they’ll be asking you to do it again soon.”

                                    “Once is enough. You can do it.”

                                    “They never ask women.”

                                    “It’s about time they did. Anyway, Vivien Dewhurst did it once.”

                                    “She’s a brainbox, degree in theology and what not.”

                                    “I’m no brainbox. You’re cleverer than I am.”

                                    “I got my brains from god,” she said.

                                    “I got my mine from apes.”

            It wasn’t long before he was invited for a second time, but he turned it down firmly.

                                    “I’d repeat myself. There are plenty of others. I prefer my place on the back row.”

            The children were confirmed. They grew, left home, two went to university. The little semi on the avenue welcomed grandchildren. At eighty, Terry and Heather still occupied the seats on the back row, but the congregation was sparser and the sermons shorter. When Terry died in his sleep, the service was held in the church. Stella gave the eulogy.

                                    “My dad loved this place. He loved all of you and all the people he’d known here. From the days when he first started coming to the youth club to being the oldest member of the congregation, he found a home here. But you know what, he was an atheist. So am I. And god bless this place for making him so welcome.”