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‘Nonsense,’ Christine retorts. ‘I just wanted to make sure that nobody was hungry, and you always end up with more people than you think you’re going to have at these things.’
‘I’d be delighted,’ Toby says to them. ‘If you’ve been slaving away over a hot stove it would be terrible to have anything go to waste.’
John laughs. ‘The only thing she’s been slaving over is the menu! She was on the phone to the caterers as soon as the date was set.’
A hush falls over the congregation as the vicar comes out of the vestry and walks over to the desk at the front. I do a slight double take as she’s not only a woman, but appears to be barely older than me.
‘What happened to the old guy?’ I whisper to Charley.
‘He retired, thank goodness. This one is really lovely. Ed and I like her so much we’re talking about coming regularly.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, Ed’s got this whole “pillar of the community” bee in his bonnet, and also there’s a crèche for Amelia when she’s older.’
The vicar welcomes everyone warmly and makes a particular fuss of Ed, Charley and Amelia. I’m glad to discover that the hymns are all familiar to me from my school days, and I sing along lustily, drawing amused side glances from Toby. When we get to the actual baptism part, we all gather around the font and say our vows, before the vicar takes Amelia and carefully pours the water from the font over her forehead. Amelia looks surprised but doesn’t cry. We’re then sent back to our seats and the vicar takes Amelia on a sort of victory lap around the church, introducing her to various people in the congregation before returning her to Charley.
When the service is over, Toby asks the vicar if she would mind re-enacting some of the baptism so he can take pictures, and she gladly agrees. Toby also takes pictures of Amelia with her parents, grandparents and godparents. It feels a little bit like a wedding, and I worry that Amelia will get bored and start crying. Thankfully, he’s quick and efficient and the whole thing only takes a few minutes.
Charley’s parents’ house is quite close to the church, so we leave the car where it is and walk down there after the service. There are signs directing us around the house to a large marquee, which has been set up in the garden. At one end of the marquee there is a bar, and the food has been laid out at the other. John was right, there is enough here to feed an army; the tables look like they might buckle at any minute under the weight of it all. We help ourselves to a glass of champagne from the bar and circulate. Ed and Charley are happily passing Amelia round to anyone who wants a cuddle, and she still appears to be loving the attention. Every so often Toby gives me his glass to hold so he can take a picture.
‘Madison, isn’t it?’ a voice says from behind me, and I turn to find myself face to face with the vicar. ‘I’m Sharon. I didn’t get a chance to say hello properly before, so I thought I’d come and do it now.’
‘Nice to meet you, Sharon,’ I reply. ‘How long have you been here? The last time I came the vicar was an old guy.’
‘That would have been Tom,’ she tells me. ‘He retired just over a year ago, and I’ve been here for six months.’
‘Where were you before?’
‘This is my first incumbency. I was a curate in a church in Northamptonshire before I came here.’
‘I hope you’ll forgive my ignorance, but what’s the difference between a curate and a vicar?’ I ask. ‘I watched a few episodes ofGrantchester, and James Norton was a curate in that, wasn’t he?’
‘A curate is like a trainee vicar,’ she explains. ‘When you’re first ordained, you’re ordained as a deacon and you go off to work as a curate under an experienced priest and learn the ropes. For the first year you can’t do the ABCs, meaning you can’t absolve anyone from their sins, you can’t bless anything or anyone, and you can’t consecrate the bread and wine for communion. After the first year they ordain you again, as a priest this time, and then you serve another two or three years as a curate before you can apply for your own parish.’
‘So you apply? You don’t just get told where to go?’
‘No. Some churches are like that. In the Salvation Army, for instance, they give you your “marching orders” and you have to go wherever they send you, but in the Church of England you apply and go through a selection and interview process in the same way that you would for any other job. My husband—’ she indicates a man out playing with a small boy in the garden ‘—was particularly keen to move here because it’s much easier for him to get to London than it was from Northampton.’
‘OK, and when you get your own parish, that’s when you become a vicar?’
‘Not necessarily.’ She smiles. ‘It depends on the parish. It gets quite complicated, but basically you could be a vicar, a priest-in-charge or a rector, depending on the set-up.’
My mind is starting to spin. Who knew this was all so complicated? I decide to head back to safer ground.
‘Well, I have to say I was relieved it wasn’t Tom. I had visions of him dropping Amelia into the font.’
‘Yes, I heard he was quite frail towards the end. Babies can be a hazard; some of them wriggle, and you have to watch they don’t grab your glasses or the lapel mic. Amelia was good as gold though.’
‘Isn’t she supposed to cry when you baptise her? I thought that was supposed to be a sign of the devil coming out.’
‘I’m afraid that’s a bit of an old wives’ tale. Quite a few of them do cry though. Even though we make sure the water is nice and hot when we pour it into the font, the stone cools it down pretty quickly, and I think it shocks them a bit. Is this your partner?’ she asks as Toby approaches.
‘No, he’s just a friend.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that you looked so close.’
At that moment there’s a howl from the little boy, who has evidently fallen over and grazed his knee.
