Archbishop

by Michele Guinness

Genres: General Fiction; Christian Fiction; Futuristic Christian

Synopsis

Five years from now, the Church of England is on its knees. Yet one woman is making a difference, and when she is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, anything could happen. Vicky Burnham-Woods is a master of diplomacy, and deeply committed to bringing the church back into the heart of community and cultural life - but not everyone wants a woman at the top, and behind the scenes dark forces are moving. Can the first ever female Archbishop of Canterbury last long enough to achieve her mission?

Release date: February 13, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

Acknowledgements

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This book has been a long time in the making. I first had the idea of creating a female Archbishop of Canterbury over twenty years ago, before women were even able to be vicars in the Church of England, and I am immensely grateful to all those who encouraged me to run with it, even though, overwhelmed by the work involved, I put it and them off for so long.

Finally, though, Vicky has taken on flesh and blood, and truly insinuated herself into my life, largely thanks to the many wonderful women ministers who have shared their joys and frustrations with me over the years. Pieces of what each of you has told me have metamorphosed into the composite whole that is Vicky. I even had some notes in my possession that I had made way back in the mid-1980s during a conversation with the late Revd Mo Witcombe, whose untimely death robbed the church of one of its best and brightest.

Never in the history of acknowledgments, however, have so many wished to remain anonymous. They know who they are, and I know where they live, and am hugely indebted to them for their insights and for their so generously helping me find my way through the complex machinery of the Church of England. And in this I include the church press officer who threw me out of the punters’ tearoom at Church House for being a journalist, when I went to General Synod many years ago as part of my research.

Amongst the folk I can thank by name are Ian Metcalfe at Hodder & Stoughton, for his guidance, perceptiveness, and finesse with the editorial pen (or should I say cursor?); my daughter, Abby, who critiqued the manuscript in her usual forthright, invaluable manner; Sarah Guinness and Agi Gilbert who read the manuscript and gave vital encouragement; Bernie Wilkins, David Lewis, Richard Farnell, Jane Banner-Martin and Sandra Pedder for some original ideas, and particularly, Judith Rose Gwyer, former Archdeacon of Tonbridge, and first archdeacon in the church, for her time and hospitality.

I am overawed by the work of XLP and The Message Trust and the entrepreneurial skills that led their founders to put their vision into such effective action to enable young people to fulfil their great potential. I hope they, and the hundreds of other remarkable faith-based charities that seek the best for the people they serve will find a much-deserved (but very inadequate), tribute here to all they do. Thank you too to the folk at St Mark’s, Gillingham who have put up with my angst and my moaning, not to mention my near invisibility over the past two years. They released me to write, and cheered me on from the sidelines – and I want them to know how much that has meant to me.

My husband always says, ‘Don’t bother acknowledging me,’ and that says everything about him. He has put up with my endless questions and doubts, and my reading of excerpts at breakfast, lunch, dinner and last thing at night – all with very little complaint, considering. If he hadn’t got ordained there would have been no book.

The novel was all but written before Rowan Williams announced his resignation. Any resemblance of the characters in it to persons living or dead, or to their views is purely coincidental. They are all figments of my imagination. Not so, many of the situations in which they find themselves. But truth is always stranger than fiction.

 

For Sarah, ordained 2014.

Become whatever you are called to be.

Eight

-

I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.        

C. S. Lewis

 

 

April 2020

The months leading up to her enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral were a head-spinning whirl of preparations and decisions – the hymns, the anthems, the readings, the robes, the guest list, food for the select dinner afterwards. It was like a wedding on a grand scale, enacted on a huge public stage but with no groom to share her limelight.

A pot of anti-wrinkle cream for men had suddenly appeared on the bathroom shelf.

‘What’s with the face cream, Tom?’ Vicky asked, as she got into bed next to him.

‘Oh, that?’

‘It looks more expensive than anything I use.’

Tom continued reading, but finally gave in to her persistence.

‘What you think are laughter lines, she thinks are premature wrinkles,’ he quoted. ‘I was taken in.’

She peered into his face.

‘I don’t think they’re wrinkles. I think they are great lines. Each one chiselled out by life’s experiences. That’s what makes men their most attractive.’

‘I don’t want the world to see me as the wizened old boy in the background – like Denis Thatcher.’

She ran her hands down his chest.

‘You? Wizened? That’ll be the day. I’ll be fighting off the admirers.’

They laughed. That didn’t happen enough, Vicky thought to herself.

The ultimate responsibility for the enthronement service lay with the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. And the new Dean was none other than her old bête noire from her archdeaconing days, ‘two-chevrons-apart’ Julian Riley. The former Dean of Westbury was a thin-faced, rather pompous cleric, who reminded her of the television vicars she watched as a child, with his over-large teeth in his rather prissy mouth. With no bishopric in sight he had accepted this role, Canterbury’s importance making up for the theoretically sideways move. But she suspected he would rather be sitting where she was now. She couldn’t imagine he’d taken kindly to her promotion. As an archdeacon she had crossed swords with him on several occasions.

Vicky had waited impatiently to be lined up in his Employment Sunday procession, for a service at which she was designated to preach. The pecking order had to be right. In Roman times processions were a display of power and status. Manifestly, little had changed in the church in two thousand years.

They were to appear in reverse order of seniority – choir members leading the way, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and the city’s major industries in the middle, the Dean and Bishop at the very back. The Dean, whose obsession for detail was legendary, insisted they allow exactly two paces between themselves and those they followed, and walk in a dignified, upright manner, with expressions befitting the solemnity of the occasion. It was only when he had finished moving his chess players into place that he turned and saw Vicky standing a little apart.

‘Archdeacon,’ he complained, as if she were a tiresome child, ‘why didn’t you attract my attention? I’ve just got it right.’

The truth was that it had been such fun watching him that she couldn’t forgo a little mischief.

‘Sorry to spoil your symmetry, Dean, but I don’t mind where you put me.’

‘Nonsense,’ he snapped, grabbing her arm and thrusting her unceremoniously into line in front of him.

It was unfortunate to have him so close, because just as they moved from the aisle into the nave she heard a loud stage whisper behind her.

‘Two chevrons apart, Archdeacon.’

What bloody chevrons? she wondered. This isn’t a motorway. And then she looked down, and saw the series of inverted V-shaped markings chalked upon the flagstones. After that, she couldn’t resist standing purposefully on each of them all the way to her pew in the front.

Her own feeling about her enthronement was limited to the desire that people should have an occasion to take their minds off the fears spread by the cyber-attack on the tube, and the joyless, grinding austerity that had pursued the country for the past ten years; that they should reflect instead on a higher, more glorious and certain reality. But how to make the service joyous, alive and contemporary while maintaining the solemnity, dignity and formality of the occasion? How to placate, if not please, traditional old Julian? After all, he would be her Dean in Canterbury, with unrivalled access to her. She would do well to have him on her side, if she could.

There seemed to be all kinds of reasons why her suggestions were respectively impractical, improper or impossible, or all three. ‘The first Archbishop to break with tradition by introducing a small orchestra was lambasted for lowering the tone,’ the Dean reminded her.

‘But he did pave the way for more imaginative, cultural inclusions, Welsh poems, African dancers and even bongos.’

The Dean turned up his nose. But Vicky was determined that being English, middle-class and Caucasian shouldn’t mean the sacrifice of merriment in the name of buttoned-up spiritual sophistication. She and Tom had enjoyed the Bar Mitzvah of Mandy’s son, the way the thirteen-year-old sang a portion of the Jewish law to demonstrate his fitness for adult status, and was showered with sweets from every side of the synagogue. Should she supply the congregation with Harrogate toffees to throw? Culturally relevant perhaps, but better the event didn’t end in concussion and tears. Or, given the rebirth of the people’s love of ballroom, how about a quick cha cha down the aisle with the Dean? Or a congregational conga? Just let go of your zimmer, Ma’am, and hang on to me.

And then it came to her. The Edenbury Arts Project. Home-grown in the Larchester diocese by clergy wife Chantal Pitcher, robbed of her professional dancing career on the London stage by a drunken driver who careered into her car and smashed up both her legs. Determined to see some good emerge from such a meaningless tragedy, she read in the local Edenbury paper that over fifty per cent of children raised in care ended up in police custody or were trafficked for sexual purposes, and offered the local care home dance and theatre classes. They were so successful that social services began to refer children with emotional difficulties, and the project expanded to incorporate a rock orchestra. To her astonishment, Chantal found herself with a large team of demanding adolescents, some of whom turned out to be outstanding young dancers and musicians, receiving several awards for their performances.

Julian was more than a little dubious. He balked at the idea of a rock version of ‘Be Thou My Vision’, and at a dramatised reading of Scripture, not to mention dancing in the nave; but he finally gave in to Vicky’s persistence on at least some points.

‘Anything else, Bishop?’ he asked wearily.

‘Oh yes. Since the Canterbury Cathedral choir is all-male, I wondered whether, on this particular occasion, they could be joined by some of the girls from the Salisbury Cathedral choir?’

‘You’re trying to make a point?’

‘Mmm,’ she said, non-committally.

The Dean sat in silence, pushing his fingertips together. When he eventually looked up at her, his eyes had turned to ice.

‘Will you allow me to advise you?’

Vicky nodded reluctantly.

‘I’d be very careful with this, if I were you. Competition between cathedral choirs is extremely fierce. Jealousies run deep. The Canterbury choir is and will be your own, whatever you think of their policies, so this might not be the best time to make a feminist point. If you are intent on it, so be it, but I have to warn you, collateral damage would be inevitable and potentially irreparable.’

‘Whatever I do, I’m going to upset someone.’

‘True, but when you do decide to tread on toes, be sure it’s worth the pain it inflicts.’

‘Thank you, Julian. That’s helpful. As a compromise, could we ask Salisbury to send us one female soloist, perhaps for a single item?’

He sighed and conceded with a slight nod of the head.

It made no difference: the headlines read ‘Archbishop Kicks her Choir in the Teeth’. The choirmaster had taken offence at the idea of a female Salisbury import. Vicky was manifestly a bra-burning feminist gone mad on political correctness, and the people could expect to hear God referred to as ‘she’. What was more, the inclusion of contemporary dance and music was tasteless and improper. The Director of the Royal School of Church Music was ‘incandescent’ that the high quality they set out to maintain was to be publicly undermined by such so-called art – performed by amateurs, half of them probably inspired only by a drug-induced euphoria.

Vicky was incandescent on behalf of the Edenbury Project and apologised profusely to Chantal.

‘Don’t worry, Vicky,’ she said. ‘None of these youngsters reads the papers. And if they do find out, it’ll make them all the more determined to prove the blighters wrong.’

Chantal’s face had barely vanished from the screen when Marissa popped up to tell her that a number of African archbishops had announced they wouldn’t be attending the enthronement of a woman. She issued an immediate statement assuring the African archbishops of her biblical views on sexual mores. Then, since the stumbling block appeared to be the one New Testament verse that forbade a woman to have authority over a man, she contacted each one personally to say, ‘I see my role as one amongst equals, a friend, as Phoebe, Priscilla, Euodia and Syntyche were to the Apostle Paul, women he referred to as his “co-workers” in his letter to the Romans.’ And though it hurt her theology, she added, ‘Within your jurisdiction, I would always be under your episcopal, and therefore male, authority.’ She sighed. Needs must. And it was true in a way. She could never successfully impose any decision upon the Anglican Alliance.

To her utter amazement and joy, all but one or two relented. Round one to her in the fight for global unity. She couldn’t believe it was all going to be that easy.

Meanwhile, like any woman, and yet not like any other woman, she had her outfit to consider. The clerical shirt, of course. The rochet, the white cotton garment with the frilly cuffs that acted as a long-sleeved petticoat. But then? It was traditional for an archbishop to have his cloak, hat and scarf, otherwise known as cope, mitre, and stole, specially designed for the occasion. In bed, she trawled through pages of embroidered designs.

‘What do you think, Tom? Gold has been popular, the colour of glory, but it makes me look jaundiced.’

Submerged in a crossword, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, he gave an uninterested snort, then muttered that it was a pity he couldn’t choose the colour of his surgical scrubs, since green made him look sicker than the patients.

‘And as for the mitre, I loathe wearing hats. They make me look ridiculous and flatten my hair.’

‘Wear a couple of rollers underneath?’

‘Thanks Tom.’

But then, she reflected, unlike some clergy, she certainly hadn’t gone into the church for the uniform. In fact, from the very first day she had worn it, she had intensely disliked the separation from the laity it created and the stereotype it fulfilled, that the clergy were out of touch and irrelevant.

‘Me big white chief, you Indians.’ No, it was all wrong. That was not what church community was about.

_

1992

Vicky glanced at herself in the vestry mirror and turned away quickly to make room for the queue of other ordinands behind her. The other seven, ready to take the vows that would launch them into ministry in the Church of England, all seemed anxious to take a good look at themselves in the robes they had waited and trained so long to wear, twisting and turning in front of the glass. They adjusted the white surplice with its voluminous gathered sleeves to ensure it sat correctly on the shoulders over the black cassock, or smoothed down the pleats on the hooded cassock alb, tying and re-tying the corded belt. The choice of garment depended on the churchmanship of the candidate, the historic cassock with academic hood for those with a low-church preference, the monkish alb for the more high church.

Vicky had opted for cassock and surplice, as expensive as a ball gown, her savings swallowed up by an outfit that she was convinced made her look like a penguin.

‘What am I supposed to be? A telegraph pole?’ she had joked to the fitter at the ecclesiastical outfitters, to disguise her heart-sink at the unattractive vision facing her in the mirror. The cassock hung straight from the shoulders to the ground, sack-like except for a belt at the waist. A man, especially a tall man with broad chest and strong shoulders, would probably look impressive in it. But a woman? There were no darts to emphasise any curves. Clergywomen evidently didn’t have breasts, or waists, or hips. Or even legs. She slipped the surplice over her head. Taller than most women, she carried it reasonably well, but still felt defeminised.

The fitter was on her knees altering the hem.

‘You’re the first to mention it, madam,’ the fitter replied, removing the pins from between her teeth. ‘Many other ladies see it as a badge of honour for which you have all fought jolly hard.’

‘The dog collar gives me a double chin.’

‘But wearing it brings you such respect, madam.’

The fitter at her feet remained focused on the task at hand. The sacred garments were manifestly no joking matter.

Despite the extra layers, Vicky shivered. The cathedral robing room seemed chilly. A motley group of clergymen who had come to support the prospective curates and were dressing for the procession had hung their anoraks and carry-alls on a row of pegs on the wall as if it were a school cloakroom. They haw-hawed loudly as they dressed, each in turn making their own discreet little prance in front of the full-length mirror before vanishing jovially into the crypt to wait for the signal to proceed.

‘Wonderful to wear these at last, isn’t it?’ one of the male candidates said, touching her on the arm.

‘Er, yes,’ she replied.

‘Have a look at my stole. What do you think of my embroidery?’ he asked, holding up the large gold cross stitched across one end for her to see.

Predictable, she thought.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said.

She was actually pleased with her own – a depiction of the story of God’s people crossing the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt to freedom, worked in azure, emerald, scarlet and turquoise, across both ends of the stole. If it was going to hang around her neck on a Sunday it might as well be worth seeing. An interesting visual for any children in the congregation. But she hadn’t the heart to show it to him. Today, faced with the enormity of the commitment she was making, scarves hardly seemed like a priority.

Out in the crypt she found herself, inevitably, lined up alongside the one other female ordinand – a short, rather portly woman in late middle age, with whom she had developed a nodding acquaintance over the last few, silent days. We could be Jack Spratt and his wife, she thought.

‘Beryl,’ said her fellow ordinand, extending a plump little hand, as the marching orders were given and they processed into the cathedral, choir to the front, supporting vicars, legal beagles, archdeacons, dean and bishop to the rear. She tried not to resent the fact that the six male ordinands in front of her would get to repeat this process the following year when they became fully-fledged priests, while all she and Beryl could expect was perpetual curacy.

Unless, of course, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to allow women to be vicars in the coming year. Ladbrokes weren’t taking bets on that yet.

She caught sight of Tom’s back at the end of a pew near the front, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. He turned to face her as she walked towards him, much as he had on their wedding day a couple of weeks earlier, only this time, as she came level with him, he winked lasciviously, temporarily driving out all the serenity she had been trying so hard to preserve. She threw him a swift, silent rebuke as she passed, and felt his grin follow her to the altar.

Tom, of course, had not been party to the struggle of the previous few days, had no idea how close-fought the battle had been that had almost led to her not being here, but instead back in his arms at home, a disappointed heap.

Over an hour later, as she turned to stand and face the encouraging smiles of the congregation, Vicky knew, with a composure and certainty that wouldn’t have been possible a mere twenty-four hours ago, that she was ready to make her solemn vows – to be diligent in prayer, and reading Holy Scripture, to strive to make the love of Christ known through her word and behaviour, to be a faithful servant of Christ and an example to his people, to accept the discipline of the church and to take whatever steps necessary to grow in faith, love, holiness and grace. No easy path – but the one she knew had been marked out for her, wherever it led.

 

The dazzling sunlight was disorienting as she emerged from the dim cathedral into the hullabaloo of hundreds of family members and friends all jostling to reach their own candidate, and have their photograph taken alongside the beaming new curate.

Tom elbowed his way through the crowds, took her arm and kissed her.

‘Okay, babe?’ he asked, lifting a damp, straggling curl off her forehead.

‘I will be when I can get out of the gear. It’s so hot in here. I’m in a sweat bath.’

‘Sexy,’ he said with a grimace, reaching out to rescue her father, who had just been bulldozed into the wrong family grouping.

‘Hello Dad. No Mum, then?’ she asked as she hugged him, trying not to give in to disappointment. ‘I thought she might just change her mind.’

Her father held her gaze and shook his head.

‘No, Vicky. You know what she’s like. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, Dad.’

‘Isn’t it?’

She laid a hand on his arm.

‘How is she?’

‘Not good. Probably best that she didn’t come,’ he said with a tight smile, patting her hand.

Vicky’s heart sank. Nothing made her feel as helpless as her father’s despair. He turned away from her and stood, blankly surveying the noisy, colourful mêlée around him.

Tom was ushering Melanie and Melissa towards her.

‘You came all this way?’ she gasped.

‘The north-east isn’t exactly the back of beyond,’ Melissa retaliated, acerbic as ever. ‘Civilisation has arrived, remember? We do have trains.’

‘We didn’t know what to bring to a do like this,’ Melanie said, thrusting a huge cellophane-wrapped bouquet of flowers into Vicky’s arms. ‘I had a right job getting it here, though. And then I couldn’t see much of the service past it.’

The scent of lilies filled Vicky’s nostrils and she held them at arm’s length, for fear of yellow pollen trails down the pristine white surplice.

‘They’re beautiful, thank you.’

‘We were hardly going to miss it, were we?’ said Melissa, ‘Not after all those late nights in our room, defending your right to be here today.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Vicky said, reaching out to hug them both, but hampered by the flowers that risked being crushed in between. She handed them to Tom, who took them, reluctantly.

Behind them, she caught sight of Bev and Mandy pushing their way through the crowds. It was hard not to see Mandy. Every head turned as she passed in a dazzling white suit, with red patent stilettos and clutch bag that matched her cherry-silk blouse.

‘You look stunning,’ Vicky acknowledged, extricating herself from Melanie’s clasp.

‘Perhaps a little glitzy for a cathedral?’ Mandy asked, head on one side.

‘Have you ever been into one before?’

‘Never,’ she said, ‘and never again, if I can help it! Only for you.’

Before Vicky could reply, Bev had elbowed Tom from her side, thrust her arm through Vicky’s and posed, while Melissa juggled an old Kodak, cursed it, shook it and managed, eventually, to get it to click.

‘We’re your oldest friends, remember?’ Bev whispered, smiling seraphically for the camera, her auburn hair glinting in the sunlight. ‘We’ve been waiting for this moment since you were knee high to a grasshopper.’

‘We didn’t know each other when I was knee high to a grasshopper. We were eleven when we went to Harrogate Ladies.’

‘Stop splitting hairs, Vicky the Vicar. You always said this was what you wanted.’

Vicky was about to protest when Bev turned suddenly and grasped both of Vicky’s hands in hers.

‘I want you to know,’ she said, looking straight into Vicky’s eyes, ignoring Tom, who was standing directly behind them, semi-masked by the flowers, ‘that whatever happens I’ll always be there for you.’

Tears unexpectedly burnt Vicky’s eyes. She let Bev pull her close, and buried her head in her shoulder to hide the emotion that had caught her unawares.

‘Mascara,’ Bev commanded loudly, holding her at arm’s length. ‘Vicars don’t do tears – not in public anyway.’

Years later, Vicky would return to that moment over and over again. The promise was engraved on her heart. It meant so much to her – everything that friendship entailed. But those words would do her more damage than any knife. And she would reflect on how kind it was of God to hide the future from mere mortals, too fragile to bear it.

‘Time to go. Luncheon at the church hall for our guests,’ Tom announced. ‘Off with the clerical gear and on with the party.’ He handed Vicky the flowers, and pointed towards the vestry door.

She went several yards, then turned back to find her father. Where was he? There, standing, alone, in the shade of the cathedral wall.

‘Dad, you will come back with us, won’t you?’

He looked uncertain.

‘I’d like that. Mum will have to wait.’

She reached out a hand. He took it and smiled.

_

april 2020

Still undecided on the Archbishop’s enthronement cope, Vicky went into the City, to the secluded back-alley shop of a company of silk weavers and vestment makers. A dismal shop front displayed a mannequin vicar modelling the latest in cassock albs. Once inside, an unadorned cope was brought out for her to try. It was almost too heavy to hold and had to be manoeuvred over her shoulders by two of the staff. She loved the way the ivory satin shimmered like a wedding dress, swishing as she moved, and it fanned out behind her. It would be stunning once embroidered, dazzling with a myriad metallic threads that glittered in the cathedral lights.

‘It will be beautiful, won’t it?’ she said, standing in front of a long mirror, surveying her reflection.

The manager and his acolytes gathered around her, almost giddy with the excitement of dressing the first female Archbishop, nodding in pleasure as they pulled and tugged at the train, ensuring it hung correctly. They stood back to allow her to enjoy the full effect.

‘So lovely. But I can’t wear it. I’m so, so sorry.’

She caught a glimpse of their stricken faces in the mirror, and said quickly, ‘It’s no reflection of your work. It’s to do with my qualms about all this pomp and circumstance in an organisation that should be committed to simplicity and service.’

Tight-lipped, they lifted the cope off her back, and the manager mumbled something about being at her service should she change her mind, then nodded a curt, silent acknowledgement of her thanks and farewell as she left. She walked back to the tube feeling dreadful. Pleasing people made life so much easier. If only that were always possible.

‘What on earth am I going to do?’ she asked Marissa and Kelvin in the diocesan office the next morning. ‘I just cannot bear the thought of wearing all that paraphernalia. The cost of it alone – and for one occasion.’

‘Like a royal wedding dress,’ Marissa sighed. ‘Doesn’t it go on show somewhere afterwards?’

‘I certainly hope not. Not with my sweat stains under the arms.’

‘We’ll have them airbrushed out of the photos,’ Kelvin grinned.

‘And it’s so heavy.’

‘The Queen didn’t balk at her coronation.’

‘Thank you, Marissa. The Queen wasn’t post-menopausal and subject to hot flushes. I’ll be a grease spot by the end of the day.’

Marissa suddenly sat bolt upright, her mouth open, her eyes wide with excitement. ‘I think I might have it, Bishop. Give me a few minutes, will you?’

Half an hour later she hammered on Vicky’s study door and rushed in without waiting for a reply, waving her notepad. She put her glasses on, took them off and let them dangle on their chain between her breasts, then put them on again. Kelvin followed her in, smiling benignly.

‘Tony’s sister, Maddy, was a missionary nurse in India,’ she said breathlessly, ‘and she’s still in touch with some of the village women she used to visit. They set up a weaving and clothing co-operative, and she is their outlet in the UK. They produce a dupion silk that isn’t terribly expensive, and their embroidery is second to none. Maddy could send them a drawing of whatever design you want. The money would be a fantastic boost for the co-operative. Not to mention the publicity.’

Vicky looked from one to the other, standing in front of her desk like two schoolchildren waiting for a gold star from the head. She got up and put her arms around them both, fighting hard to hold back the tears that seemed to be so near the surface these days.

‘Marissa, you truly are a genius. You will come and work with me, won’t you? I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘Well,’ said Marissa, removing her glasses again and glancing coyly at Kelvin, ‘there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you – but not today.’

It was only later that Vicky realised she had no idea who Tony was.

 

The mass of correspondence, both electronic and hand-writ