Limbo Again

The diocese would quite like me to go to the parish of Swanvale Halt. I would quite like to go to Swanvale Halt. All that remains is to persuade the people of Swanvale Halt that they would like me in the same manner, so that we can avoid the tedious business of advertising the job and having competitive interviews, which is so ungentlemanly.
During the Clergy Conference I was determined to find out what was happening after my visit to the parish to meet the curate, only formally-instituted churchwarden, and a layperson who acts as 'unwarden'. The first words anyone spoke to me at the conference were those of the Archdeacon: 'I don't know anything'. It turned out that, although the curate felt she could work with me, the Archdeacon thought the Rural Dean was going to ask the laypeople what they thought, while the Rural Dean thought the Archdeacon was going to. It never occurred to the laypeople that they should volunteer an opinion. So nobody knew anything at all.
Yesterday I called the Archdeacons' secretary, who is the only person in the entire diocese who seems capable of pulling a finger out of wherever the fingers of preternaturally inactive yet chronically busy people normally are. Apparently the laypeople did like me, and want me to come for an interview. However it isn't clear whether this means on my own, or as part of a group, which naturally I would prefer to avoid as while I may be the best available candidate for Swanvale Halt in the diocese, I doubt I am the best in the entire Church of England. I refrained from asking why this wasn't ascertained in the first place. So we continue to wait.