Blind Date by Frances Fyfield

erred. The tower looked as if it was simply glued onto the church, an after-thought, with no direct access from one to the other and, without working bells, no particular use.
    Lettinga helpful policewoman live in the tower bad seemed a good idea once upon a time, subject, like everything else in his worried mind, to second and third thoughts.
    Reverend Flynn was here now, all fuss and anxious smiles, dwarfed by a posse of women, standing well back from them, uncertain of the odds and taken by surprise. He was not an old man; he simply looked as if forty years of constant movement had extended themselves into baldness and a twitch.
    â€œAh! Here you are! Well, what a surprise! Dear, dear me! Are you well, my dear? Yes, you are. No, you’re not.”
    He wore an expression of acute anxiety, as if he had trodden on a nail and was trying to define the pain. Many moons since Elisabeth had helped him out with the vandals, yes. She had noticed the accommodation, yes. She had suggested herself as caretaker, yes, yes, and she paid rent, yes, but there was always a mute suspicion of anyone who wanted to live in the belfry. Although the general lack of fuss, the presence of a person about the place and a whole number of other, positive factors which whizzed in and out of mind like the parish accounts, made him pleased, all things considered, if only there were time to consider them.
    â€œHallo, vicar,” Elisabeth said. “When will you ever stop putting your foot in your mouth? How’s things?”
    â€œTerrible. I didn’t think you’d ever come back. I’ve prayed for you.”
    â€œThanks,” Elisabeth said, grinning in a way which reassured, despite the twist in her neck. “I’m sure that’s made all the difference. Can you help me upstairs?”
    He turnedtowards the others. Their look gave them away; he had seen it before. They wanted to go: they had done enough for one day. Patsy looked up at the front of the church and shivered. The church establishment, once a wonderful joke now spooked her: she could not stand the steps or the remnants of times past. And even if eccentricity in a friend was admirable, this was too much. She handed Revd Flynn a bag of groceries: Hazel put the bag of stones by the side door, equally unwilling to go further. They kissed goodbye airy kisses, not devoid of emotion. Promises to call hung on the air.
    â€œWelcome home,” said Flynn.
    There was only one way in and one way out: a thick wooden side door. A tall person would bend to go through it and then onwards and slowly upwards, through the foot of the tower via steep spiralling steps, to the next door. About thirty feet of cold, uneven steps, then another door, entering into a huge absurdly high-ceilinged room which had once been the bell ringers’ chamber. No-one had rung the bells for more than a decade. The ropes were still looped against the wall. There were elements about the place of a child’s playground. Father Flynn dropped the bag he had manouevred up the steps before him and sat with a plumph! on a futon sofa. Then he patted a cushion and looked at it curiously.
    â€œDo you know,” he said, “every time I come here, I remember it’s not so bad. Your lovely friend keeps it so clean:
so
useful. However did you get this up these steps? I always meant to ask.”
    â€œYou don’t get anything up those steps, Father. Except your own body with a small burden. Everything has to be of the kind which comes apart into small pieces. Probably makes this place highly appropriate for me, now.” There was a sheen of perspiration on her forehead; it worried him. The temperature inside was cool, even though the early evening sun slanted through the enormous leaded window of plain glass. The place had missed her, although it looked welcoming. Her friend, lovely man, had seen to that. She would surely be gone by winter, Flynn thought. She
would
have to be, and he