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  ‘Well, yes, thank you for coming out tonight to be a part of what, if you’ll, uh, forgive my borrowing the language of Tony Blair, I would like to call my focus group.’

  He had hoped for chuckles. He heard only Albert sucking those plates.

  ‘Or – a steering group, if you like. A working party.’

  He was, he decided, on the wrong horse. Back to the stalls, then.

  ‘These are early days and we’ve a road ahead, but my hope for this project, once we have it up and running, is that it be a resource, a real resource, for the community. And a platform for the community’s concerns. A way to bring us all together. So I thought tonight, rather than me standing up here lecturing at you, we might just throw it open from the start, and you could tell me a little of how you feel about Hoxheath. The community. What you think are its problems. Strengths too, of course. I’m here to listen.’

  Gore was careful to finish with a gesture of open palms toward the seated, as if to extend the talking stick authorising the speaker at a gathering of the tribes. But there was only silence. Faces were impassive, or perplexed.

  ‘Sorry?’ Sharon Price, a rotund woman in a tent-like blouse, her face florid under a dark bob, spoke up. ‘Sorry, but I thought we were here to hear about a church.’

  Gore nodded keenly. ‘Of course. I just want to be saying from the outset, the church I have in mind here is a social church. I want us to help. So I need to hear from you what you think people need help with.’

  Kully Gates was smiling. Sharon Price was not. ‘Aw but this isn’t one of them schemes, is it? There’ll be an actual church, right? A service, on a Sunday? With hymns and that?’

  ‘Yes, yes –’

  ‘Cos I don’t know about anyone else but I’m sick of people coming round talking schemes – communal programmes and that. Sick to the back teeth.’

  Kully Gates had raised her hand, thoughtful, and Gore seized on her. ‘Please,’ said Gore. ‘It’s Kully, yes?’

  ‘Yes. Reverend, I think we’re maybe all a bit confused, because you’re sounding just a bit like a social worker. Which is my area, you see. And I suppose we had come here to hear about – worship?’

  ‘Right, got you. Let me start again from the top. This is a new church, a new kind of church. Any new start offers new opportunities. So on top of all the things we normally do in church, I’m looking for new ways for this church to serve the community. I suppose you could say – not just to regenerate people in God but to regenerate Hoxheath itself.’

  ‘Aw blimey, here we go,’ groaned Sharon Price. ‘That word.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘“Regeneration”.’ How many times we heard that?’ She looked around for support. ‘All the talk, them do-gooders coming round. We’ve had the – what all have we had? City Challenge. Hoxheath Initiative. Drive for Jobs …’

  Gore suddenly wished he had a notebook. ‘These would be government schemes?’

  ‘Aye. People come to your door to interview you. They’re all the same, they ask you, do you wanna have “regeneration” in Hoxheath? And you say yes, don’t you? It doesn’t sound like owt to quarrel with. If they said, “Would you like dog shite on your doorstep?” you’d say no, wouldn’t you? ’Scuse my language, sorry.’ A few hollow chuckles. ‘Aye, so you tell ’em what you’re bothered with and they nod and drink your tea then off they gan and write it up and do whatever they were minded to do in the first place.’

  Sean Goddard, sour-faced behind a Zapata moustache, was nodding. ‘Right. You’re promised new this and new that, but you never get it. The things we’ve got, they’re not kept up. So how are we going to get new? There’s never money. Have you got money, Reverend? I doubt it, not if you’re asking us to pay for biscuits.’

  Gore felt his neck prickling. Sharon Price leaned forward in her chair. ‘Aye. Now I come here to hear about a church service, thank you very much.’

  ‘Seconded,’ echoed Goddard.

  Kully Gates spoke up. ‘Be fair, I don’t think the Reverend’s trying to rip anybody off.’

  Sharon Price rounded on her. ‘Aye well, you would say that, you’re one of them do-gooders.’

  ‘Leave her be, man.’ This was Lindy Clark.

  In the fraught silence that followed, Kully Gates got to her feet. ‘I should explain, John. I work for a community project in Hoxheath. So I have sat on some of those schemes the lady mentions, committees and so on. I don’t know why – no one elects me, but I do get asked. Because I’m involved. Now, we run a credit union, a crèche, we do a scheme for school leavers. All this. But people are … suspicious. They’ve been let down before.’

  Albert Robinson cleared his throat. ‘Aye. Now, you take our esteemed Member of Parliament. Mr Martin Pallister. Disciple of your Mr Anthony Blair. How much hot air did that one blow off? And what’s he done?’

  This seemed to Gore a fruitful digression. Albert continued, calmly, hands folded in his lap. ‘He was a big regeneration man, Pallister. That’s how he got hisself known hereabouts. With the TREC lot, Tyneside Regeneration.’

  ‘He’s alright, man, Pallister.’ Sharon Price was riled again. ‘He’s done some canny things – what new housing we’ve had round here was all cos of him. He’s local an’ all, used to live right next door to us – I can tell you he’s alright.’

  ‘Well, say as you like, madam. I’ll tell you, he come and interviewed us once. Must have been 1989. Seemed canny. Said he wanted all this new building, all down the river. I said, “We heard that off T. Dan Smith and we’re still paying.” And what did we get off him? Apartments selling for a hundred thousand pound. And a business park wi’ no business. Not for the likes of us. I tell you what I think. You watch. In time, they’ll want us all out. Ethnic cleansing.’

  Gore blinked. ‘What, like in Bosnia?’

  ‘Aye. We’ve got all them lot here now – Bosnians. How about that? But aye, ethnic cleansing, just you watch. You’ve got land here, nowt much to look at but canny views of the river. All that’s in the way is the people. They’d love to turf us out and tear them all down, start again.’

  ‘So what are we supposed to do?’ Sharon Price sounded upset.

  ‘Move out of Hoxheath,’ rasped Sean Goddard.

  ‘When? After you win the lottery?’

  Susan Carrow, who had twisted in her seat and listened to the foregoing exchanges in mounting agitation, now faced Gore. ‘See? All your talk about “community” this and that. There is no community.’

  Moncur nodded glumly. ‘True, people aren’t neighbours to each other. Not like when I was a bairn.’

  Gore stood flummoxed. This was as poor an impasse as he could have imagined. His sole hope was that the wave of suppressed resentment had broken and was now receding. Consensus was badly needed.

  ‘Okay, let me ask you this. What would you like from my church? Just take it as read we’ll have a service on Sunday, with prayer and hymns and a sermon. That’s Sunday taken care of. What else? Anything?’

  Rod Moncur thrust a fist in the air. ‘Does it have to be Sunday?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your service, does it have to be Sunday? Could you not maybe do it one night in the week?’

  Albert cut in, waspish. ‘Sunday is the Sabbath day, my friend.’

  ‘Aye, you say that, but Sunday’s a hangover in my house, more often than not.’ Moncur chuckled, then seemed peeved that others didn’t join in. ‘Not just my house. You know how it is, the weekend, you’ve got a lot on.’

  Mrs Carrow was nodding. ‘It’s true, but. You’ve got the family coming round, the lunch to do. Bairns want to get out …’

  Moncur nodded. ‘And there’s the match on Sky. Aye, there’s a lot wants done on Sunday.’

  Christ alive, thought Gore. Am I supposed to hire a van and call door-to-door by appointment? ‘Well, Mrs Bruce and I have a particular arrangement. Monica?’

  ‘If you’re asking for a midweek service,’ she declared, tartness to her voice, ‘I’m telli
ng you now, Wednesday is my parents’ evening and that’s sacred.’

  Gore faced outward again. ‘Let’s agree to talk again. Maybe we have a month of Sundays, then try a change.’

  Heads nodded. To his right Gore detected the stirring of Lizzie Spence, a slight bespectacled young woman in monochrome office uniform of coat, blouse and skirt. ‘Will there be a crèche?’ she asked.

  ‘For children?’

  ‘No, for grown-ups,’ Lizzie scoffed. ‘Of course for children. You don’t have kids then? If you had kids you’d be wanting a crèche.’

  ‘Right. It’s an idea. Though, Kully, you say you run a crèche …? So I’m not so sure we should double up services.’

  Sharon Price thumped her palm. ‘They want doubling, man. They want to be times-ten what they are.’

  From the distant back row Lindy Clark gave out. ‘Aye, a crèche would be a canny idea. Could be a mothers’ group too. Like a parent-toddler thing, y’knaa? So all the mothers could get together, help each other out.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ muttered Susan Carrow, abruptly waspish. ‘Then see all the liberties taken …’

  ‘Liberties like what?’ Lindy shot back.

  ‘Like girls dumping their kids off on others so’s they can gallivant.’

  ‘Well that’s not what I’m talking about –’

  Gore felt the barbs biting and chose to intervene. ‘Well, it’s certainly worth a note, I’m going to look into it.’ Childcare had not been of any previous interest to him, but as of now, clearly, it would have to be.

  Rod Moncur was animated. ‘I tell you what would be great, really great, would be stuff for older kids to do. Could you sort out some of that?’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, in my day, the best thing was a Scout troop. I’d love it for my lad to have that. Great for keeping lads out of bother.’

  ‘It’s an idea. Do you think we’d get young people to come?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Sean Goddard intervened, as if he had rarely heard such folly. ‘What, you want to gan to the park where they all hang about smoking tack, ask if they fancy learning reef knots? Wearing a bloody woggle?’

  Moncur was defensive. ‘Bet you’d get some.’

  ‘Oakwell maybe. Scoular. Round Crossman you’d not.’

  ‘Ah, you live on Crossman?’ asked Gore.

  ‘Not bloody likely. I’m near enough to smell it.’

  More gruff chuckles. The unanimity Gore found worrisome. ‘That’s a little hard on the place, isn’t it? On Crossman?’

  Moncur shook his head. ‘You can’t be soft about it. There’s people are just wrong uns, and Crossman’s full of ’em.’

  Sean Goddard too had fixed Gore with a jaded eye. ‘It’s a hovel, man. You’ve got cars burned out, bloody syringes on the grass what a bairn could pick up … You can’t get people brought up decent there.’

  Monica was looking sidelong at Gore as to say that such was the bed he had made for himself. He bridged his fingers and chose his words carefully. ‘I should say, my remit, my pastoral care, is meant to extend to five local estates – to Oakwell, Scoular, Blake, Milburn and Crossman. All of them are equally important to me, but the poorest maybe more so. Now, I know Crossman is rough, I’ve been there –’

  ‘Oh you’ve been there, have you?’ Sharon Price cut in, not kindly. ‘Where are you at, Reverend, is it Oakwell? You wouldn’t be so cheery if you’d been burgled three times in a year.’

  ‘I’ve been burgled. It’s rotten but it’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘Did they take your mother’s heirlooms? Smash your wedding photos, do their business on your settee?’

  Gore had no answer to these charges.

  ‘No, I didn’t think so, but that’s how they’re raised round Crossman.’

  Kully Gates had raised a hand, frowning, and was twitching her fingers. Gore gladly gave her the floor. ‘Come, please, you must remember, you have some people out of work for years. Their children don’t know what a proper job is.’

  Sharon Price wore an outraged face. ‘Get away, dirty bitches sitting happy on thirty grand a year, just for having spawned some litter of thugs.’

  ‘Oh well now, if you think that’s how the system works –’

  ‘Aye, I do, I know it.’

  Sean Goddard cut in again. ‘Look, I work at the General, right? I see ’em all come in. Little girls wi’ big bellies. Lads drugged to the eyeballs, and this un’s gone and stabbed another for looking wrong at him. I’ve seen ’em hit paramedics have tried to help ’em. That’s your Crossman. There’s only one cure for it.’

  Love? Gore feared not.

  ‘You send the wrong uns down a lot longer. Zero tolerance, like they call it in America.’

  ‘Right enough,’ seconded Rod Moncur.

  ‘It’s a bit drastic, though, isn’t it?’ Gore ventured. ‘Criminalising a young person at that age?’

  ‘It’s not a bother to me, man, not if the kid’s a bloody criminal. There’s lads round here have killed old ladies for money for drugs. What do you do with buggers like that? They’ve got to be punished, they’ve got to know they’ve been punished, it’s got to hurt.’

  A female voice intruded, violently bored. ‘If you think lockin’ up bairns for years is how to stop your tellies gettin’ twocked you’re crackers.’

  Shoulders and eyes all shifted en masse to peer at Lindy Clark.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you should hear yourselves. You go on about the good old days like we were all so bloody kind to each other, then you’re talkin’ about locking up bairns and throwing away the key.’

  ‘What’s your idea then, missus?’ retorted Sean Goddard.

  ‘Summat more like what he’s talking, eh?’ She waved a hand at Gore. ‘That’s your religion, right? Supposed to be, any road. Being kind to people, giving ’em a chance. Or are you’s all so righteous already?’

  There was no reply, but the glowers persisted.

  ‘Oh, I see. So righteous you’s don’t want to listen to me, do you?’

  Lindy got to her feet, sealed up a small bag and strode purposefully down the aisle, rolling her eyes at Gore as she passed.

  ‘Please, don’t go …’ he offered.

  She did not reply but pressed onward and out.

  All eyes were on Gore. He understood that one of their scant number had elected to expel herself from the group. Clearly the group had not, in any event, deemed her one of them. He had sympathy with her. And yet the group was all he had to work with. The circle would have to be closed up and soldered – for the moment, at least. He raised his hands.

  ‘You know, I wonder – if perhaps we might pray?’

  He pressed his palms together and, to his relief, saw all assembled do likewise. He set to reciting the familiar panacea of the Lord’s Prayer, supported by a low mumbling echo. This unanimity at least he found manageable. After the Amen he looked from face to face and smiled.

  ‘Right then. Who’s for a nice milky brew?’

  *

  In the informal huddle round the tea urn Gore found Monica was at his side, fastening a brocade scarf at her throat.

  ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get your Sunday right first. Don’t run before you can walk.’

  ‘I found it interesting, though. The anger in people. It’s useful to hear it.’

  ‘What you’ll find, if you’re not careful, John, is you’ll just be a punch-bag. For what’s bothering them. They’ll just come to you to have a pop. You’ll get bruised for it but you’ll be none the wiser. You can’t please everyone.’

  ‘Well, if I can’t please thirteen people …’

  ‘Thirteen wasn’t so bad, in the end.’

  ‘Oh no, of course not. I’m only sorry we had a walkout.’

  ‘Oh! I’m only sorry she showed up. Miss Clark. She’s only funny, that one.’

  Gore looked quizzical.

  ‘All funny n
otions about herself. She was a bit more covered than usual tonight, mind. Her mam’s dead of the drink. I don’t think neither of ’em knew who her dad was. And now she’s a kiddie of her own, and she’s not got the foggiest how to manage far as I can see.’

  ‘She has a child?’

  ‘Does she have a child? You remember that little terror what tried to geld you the other day?’

  Recall came sharply to Gore. It was all a little bit too interesting.

  ‘You saw, though. She fancied that crèche. Oh aye, offer her a perk and she was in like Flynn. Thinking everyone else can look after her kid. She wasn’t born yesterday. Nor was I.’

  ‘What about the father? Of her child?’

  Monica narrowed her grey-green eyes at him, a look Gore read clearly as saying: don’t be silly, vicar.

  ‘Dare I ask where he is?’ he persisted.

  Monica’s mouth set primly. ‘He could be any number of places.’

  *

  As he crossed the darkened threshold of number seventy-three Gore immediately saw the red light of his answerphone blinking through the gloom. Shrugging off his coat, he rewound the tape and heard a message from Bob Spikings.

  ‘Oh, hello, John. One of these days you must get yourself a mobile. Anyhow, Jack may have mentioned my idea, about, uh, keeping your hand in? I wondered if you’d consider taking a turn in the pulpit for me at St Mark’s? I’m afraid it’s not the, uh, happiest of all occasions …’

  Funeral, thought Gore. He rewound and listened again, carefully took down Spikings’s number and dialled it. Spikings quickly confirmed his suspicion. There was a young man to bury, the circumstances violent. The deceased, one Michael Ash, had been stabbed to death in the seat of his car, in a car park near the city centre.

  ‘Dreadful,’ said Gore, after some moments.

  ‘Horrible, yes, I know, I know. Only thirty years old. From an alright home too. But, uh … I think there’s grounds for suspicion he was possibly the, uh, architect of his own misfortune. Wasn’t robbed of anything, you see. The understanding is he was, oh, mixed up in drugs – you know? You consider the nasty way he went, and there’s really no other explanation. Anyhow, I can’t say I know the parents all that well. So this might be an opportunity for you to, uh, preside …’