Affirmative Action

I won't say that my time this morning under Isaac's keen eye and keener razor was not well spent. A good trim and shave does wonders after all for lifting the spirits and ennobling the soul. Had though there been any suspicion that I taken steps to impress our guest this evening - Miss Shanklin - with the handsomest visage one could muster for the occasion, I can merely record that any such effort would, in any truly libidinous sense, have been so much to waste.

One has learnt over the years that when a woman, of no obvious attachment, makes more than a couple of generalised references to her 'friend', with no further details as to gender, age or any other identifiable facet of the 'friend's' character, personality or disposition - in such circumstances the woman is inevitably choosing subtly to refer to her female lover/partner.

This social courtesy is intended to let frisky rectors and others off any hook on which - or down any hole in which - they might otherwise find themselves. A dampener no doubt, generally a somewhat deflationary moment - we all have our vanity, howsoever misplaced - but nothing a third glass of decent Chablis can't cure. (One could spot H noting the whole familiar narrative with a faint but discernible smirk, mixed mercifully with a certain silent sympathy for the gentle demise of the male ego once again.)

Leaving though that silent comedy of manners to one side, went on the whole the evening well. Cook had indeed achieved something quite tasty and appetising from the vegetative ingredients to hand. Won't be quitting meat this side of Lent myself, but the dishes were both novel and interesting. Cathy's compliments to Cook sounded perfectly genuine and, of course, received with a purr of pleasure.

The discourse was wide-ranging and generally sympathetic ground was established on most topics. Miss Shanklin's view on the war in Iraq proved sound, which thankfully minimised opportunity for any great falling out. Not of course that I would have dreamt of airing, let alone imposing, my take on the whole thing. We had merely been touching on some of the local difficulties observable in the modern health service, when Cathy let slip the stinging rebuke: "Well what do you expect from such a pile of sh1tes?" - referring of course to T Blair and his cronies.

This unloosed opinion naturally was met with empathetic murmurings on our parts and we were soon all ripping into the whole sorry mess dumped on our land by the current - and no doubt in too soon a future time by his hapless, dour successor - occupant of Number 10.

One cannot, on the whole, afford in one's parochial position to be seen to be too partisan - pro or contra - a national political party or even movement. (We in the Wolds do not by and large do 'worker priests' or any such.) This evening though there was an instinctive trust in the air that inflammatory words spoken across the dinner table would not be repeated beyond the rectory front door.

At what point in the proceedings H began to weave her magic on the subject of the forthcoming Parish Council elections and the place of her rival Mrs J. in the matter I cannot say. I had been focused on a particularly fine soft-fruit sorbet - our Cook does sorbet even! - served for pudding, when I caught up with H's happening to mention that Mrs J. had some peculiar - idiosyncratic I believe was H's word - opinions regarding the place of Third-world debt in the God-given scheme of things.

Personally I had no idea that Mrs J. had such views, or indeed any thoughts on a subject so far from the proximity of the Wolds. (I have only ever heard her hold forth on matters affecting no further than ten miles from the village pump.) One did begin to suspect that H was winging the whole thing, which was at the very least a bit naughty and making me once more ever glad that I am not her confessor.

Be that as it may, the shot, howsoever random or fanciful, hit home at once. One could see Miss Shanklin's face twitch with ire at the thought that her erstwhile guide to and mentor in the ways and means of our village life could be anything other than a 'Fairtrader' through and through. Deeply painful though it was - nay nearly nauseating - to hear 'Sir' Robert Geldorf praised to the height of the dining room ceiling by the pair of them, in what was little less than a love-fest for the man and his self-adopted mission, I could but only marvel at H's perspicacity in sensing rightly that Miss Shanklin could and would be thus so easily turned.

Seeing my discomfort and fearing an interjection on my part that might spoil the whole show, H peremptorily dispatched me to the library to search for a book on local life that she felt sure Miss Shanklin would positively love to see and perchance to borrow. Naturally not rushing to fulfil this command I was able to delay my return sufficiently for the whole business of 'conversion' to be completed.

H's quite naked beam of delight as I re-entered the dining room was sufficient to inform me that from henceforth Cathy was now 'one of us' - meaning Mildred and her - and no longer 'one of them' - Mrs J. and her cohort.

I am not convinced that what - from my perspective - was such a facile if not actually fraudulently based conversion would necessarily last. It might even rebound, should Cathy later discover that Mrs J. was but a Mother Teresa in waiting. She probably won't however from what little one does actually know of Mrs J. and her version of Christian charity - beginning but also ending as it does at home. (So sad that misunderstanding of fundamental precepts of the faith and all too common one finds.)

H was in too chipper a mood after our guest had departed for any remonstration on my part to be wise. Action has been taken and the consequences must wait for the morrow.